by Judith Curry
A few things that caught my eye this past week.
AR5 SOD leaked
Andy Revkin comments:
A WikiLeaks-style Web dump of drafts of the 2013 report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change provides fresh evidence that the organization’s policies and procedures are a terrible fit for an era in which transparency will increasingly be enforced on organizations working on consequential energy and environmental issues.
I’ve downloaded the SPM and a few of the chapters. The extreme overconfidence of many of their conclusions is bewildering. More on this in future posts.
Bill Clinton and Richard Muller
For those of you that are Richard Muller watchers, you will find this interesting: Bill Clinton Praises His New Climate Change Hero. Excerpts from the article:
On December 7, President Bill Clinton appeared in Silicon Valley and talked at length about climate change, referring to Berkeley scientist Dr. Richard Muller as “a hero of mine.”
In a Fresh Dialogues interview, Muller agreed to share his reaction to the hero worship and answer some climate change questions.
You might be surprised to learn three things about Dr. Muller:
1. He says Hurricane Sandy cannot be attributed to climate change.
2. He suggests individually reducing our carbon footprint is pointless — we need to “think globally and act globally,” by encouraging the switch from coal to gas power in China and developing nations. He’s a fan of “clean fracking.”
3. He says climate skeptics deserve our respect, not our ridicule.
Muller said he hopes that Berkeley Earth will be able to coordinate with the Clinton Foundation on their mutual goal of mitigating global warming.
Here’s a summary of our interview: (more at Fresh Dialogues)
van Diggelen: You wrote in the New York Times that the Berkeley Earth analysis will help settle the scientific debate regarding global warming and its human causes — how so?
Muller: Science is that small realm of knowledge on which we can expect and obtain agreement. I felt that many of the skeptics had raised legitimate issues. They are deserving of respect, not the kind of ridicule they have been subjected to. We have addressed the scientific issues in the most direct and objective way, and just as I have adjusted my conclusions, I expect that many of them will too.
van Diggelen: What’s your message to climate change skeptics?
Muller: Most of your skepticism is still valid. When something extraordinary happens in weather, such as the accidental occurrence of Hurricane Sandy hitting New Jersey and New York City just at the peak of tides — many people attribute the event to “climate change.” That’s not a scientific conclusion, and it is almost certainly wrong. Hurricanes are not increasing due to human causes (actually, they have been decreasing over the past 250 years). Tornadoes are not increasing due to human causes. (They too have been decreasing.) So please continue to be skeptical about most of the exaggerations you will continue to hear! Proper skepticism is at the heart of science, and attempts to suppress such skepticism represent the true anti-science movement.
JC comment: I like Bill Clinton’s ‘climate hero’ a lot more than I like Al Gore’s climate heroes.
From Science:
Dr. Jane Lubchenco, the head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), announced on Tuesday that she plans to step down from her post in February.
In an open letter to the NOAA family , she cites the following accomplishments (presented in summary form):
1. Ending over-fishing, rebuilding depleted stocks, and returning
fishing to profitability;
2. Strengthening the Nation’s environmental satellite infrastructure
because it underpins national security, economic activity and public
safety by providing data essential to our short- and long-term weather
forecasts;
3. Delivering life-saving weather forecasts and warnings and
strengthening our ability to do so in the future
4. Helping create the first National Ocean Policy
5. Leveling the playing field for our fishermen
6. Creating a new generation of climate services to promote public
understanding, support mitigation and adaptation efforts, enable smart
planning, and promote regional climate partnerships;
7. Investing in coastal communities and their future resilience through more strategic and better integrated conservation and restoration;
8. Better serving recreational anglers and boaters
9. Strengthening science with our first Scientific Integrity Policy,
doubling the number of senior scientific positions, establishing a new
Council of Fellows, reinstating the Chief Scientist position, supporting
AAAS and Sea Grant Fellows and promoting climate, fishery, ocean
acidification, weather and ecosystem science;
10. Responding effectively as “one-NOAA” to disasters such as Deepwater
Horizon, the Japanese earthquake/tsunami/radiation/marine debris
catastrophe, Hurricanes Irene, Isaac and Sandy
11. Bringing experience, scientific and legal expertise to bear on the
federal response to the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe
12. Championing NOAA’s lean, but effective, education program
13. Creating NOAA’s first Aquaculture Policy and a National Shellfish
Initiative;
14. Setting a stronger course for endangered species conservation .
15. Streamlining regulations to save taxpayers time and money and improve
efficiency.
16. Increasing effectiveness and decreasing costs of corporate services
such as acquisitions and IT
17. Developing and implementing a “One-NOAA” Arctic Vision and Strategy
and Task Force
18. Strengthening NOAA’s fishery enforcement program by implementing
policy, oversight, personnel and procedural changes to increase
effectiveness and transparency;
19. Embracing social media, effective communications and communications training to share NOAA science, information and decisions with our diverse constituents, stakeholders and partners
20. Ensuring all our policies, regulations and statements are consistent with the law and legal best practices.
JC comment: Oh my. The nation’s weather satellite observing system is in a shambles, the weather forecasting capability has fallen far behind the Europeans, Climate Services is dead. NOAA is not in good shape.
CLOUD
Yale Environment 360 has a really nice article entitled Creating Clouds in the Lab to Better Understand Climate. The article is about the CERN cloud nucleation experiments, and consists of an interview with British particle physicist Jasper Kirby, who leads the project. The whole interview is fascinating, here are some excerpts:
e360: You were saying that aerosols and clouds are the biggest uncertainty right now in our knowledge of mankind’s influence on climate change.
Kirkby: The big warming contribution of mankind is greenhouse gases. At the same time, mankind has been increasing aerosol particle production by emitting various gases into the atmosphere, and these have been cooling the planet. But we don’t know how much they’ve been cooling the planet, because we really don’t understand the fundamental science behind how these vapors turn into particles and then grow into the cloud condensation nuclei. So CLOUD will help reduce that uncertainty and really sharpen the scientific basis and understanding of the subject.
Now, the other area where CLOUD will reduce a very big question mark in current climate change is to what extent there can be a natural contribution to the current warming. The current understanding is that natural warming is very, very small. There’s a short-term contribution from volcanoes, which only lasts a few years. There’s also thought to be a small brightening
CLOUD will help clear up to what extent there is a natural contribution to current warming.”
of the sun over the course of the twentieth century. But apart from that, there’s thought to be nothing else going on — natural contribution — to climate change. On the other hand, if you look at earlier times, you do see changes in the climate that are comparable to the warming that is going on now. But we don’t know what the mechanism is. So at the very least this is a question mark. And at the very most, there could be a contribution that is just unaccounted for at the moment. Whatever it is, we don’t know what the answer is. And we have to settle it before we can really with certainty say we understand what’s going on now.
e360: And what does settling it require?
Kirkby: It requires a lot of observations. I was at an international conference on aerosol in September and I made a comment that we’re getting to the stage with CLOUD where we will understand the processes extremely well, but we still won’t be able to reduce the errors because we don’t have good enough atmospheric observations of what the concentrations of these vapors are in the atmosphere versus altitude. So, there has to be a combined approach where the lab experiments like CLOUD improve the scientific understanding, but at the same time the observational measurements sharpen the knowledge of what’s in the atmosphere. We’ll take care of the laboratory side, I believe, but other people have to also take care of the observations in the atmosphere.
e360: Let’s assume that cosmic rays don’t have an effect on clouds. What does that mean?
Kirkby: It will settle a particular question, which to my mind can only be settled by experimental data. There’s a huge amount of opinion one way or another on the blogosphere that says “cosmic rays have no effect on the climate” to “cosmic rays do everything in the climate.” And no matter how passionately people believe this view or that view, we can’t settle it by energetic debate. We have to settle it by experimental measurements. We will settle that question, so there will be a firm scientific basis for answering that question by the end of CLOUD, as opposed to a gazillion opinions…
There have been many observations for solar climate variability, but no established mechanism. Cosmic rays are essentially one of the leading candidates — for me, the leading candidate — but if we find that there’s nothing there, we simply eliminate that as a mechanism. Who knows? We really don’t know at this stage.
For her next trick, she ends over-exaggeration …
w.
She could amuse herself with data in the NOAA’s files.
Here is one suggestion:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/NoaaD.htm
Willis,
Isn’t using the phrase over-exaggeration itself an over-exaggeration? :)
Bill — I think only the ‘over-‘ bit is over-exaggeration, the rest being common everyday exaggeration..
Isn’t using the phrase over-exaggeration itself an over-exaggeration? :)
No, it’s just an exaggeration. It could be an unnecessary tautology though. :-)
I think it was closer to ending the recreational and small indepenent charter fishing industry. Corporate and factory vessels can exchange quotas and in some cases carry forward quotas as long as their legal staff and lobbyists are on top of their game.
It is amazing how aggressive regulation leads to consolidation. Eh comrade?
Hillarycare.
Thanks for sharing these resources. I have checked them all and they are quite helpful.
Hmm, doesn’t that open a possibility for “underexaggeration?” How would you go about defining that?
If we make robust decisions, we can deal with the GHG issue, and others as well. So why don’t we put our effort into robust decision analysis (http://econ.worldbank.org/external/default/main?pagePK=64165259&theSitePK=469382&piPK=64165421&menuPK=64166093&entityID=000158349_20120906142854)?
What would a robust policy response give us?
1. ‘No regrets’ policies
2. economically beneficial (for all the world)
3. improved health (reduced toxic pollution) everywhere
4. greater energy security (for all the world)
5. fresh water supply
6. improved education for everyone (and improved communications for all)
7. reduced black carbon
8. reduced GHG emissions
If we agreed on points like this, we really don’t need to spend so much time and effort focusing on regulation, carbon pricing, emission targets and time tables and high cost mitigation policies that have low probability of achieving their aims. To achieve the 8 points listed, the policy response is pretty simple. It is to give the world more electricity. To do this we need to make electricity cheaper and cleaner. That is technically achievable. It is only blocked by ideological beliefs. So, if we do the robust analysis the conclusion will be clear. Most people reading this will know by now what it is, even if they are not yet ready to accept it!
The question then becomes: how do we re-educate those who hold ideological beliefs that are preventing progress?
The comment above was intended to be headed by this quote from the part on Bill Clinton and Richard Muller:
I’ll suggest that you would do better listening to Muller.
Steven Mosher said
Oops screwed up the formating–again. Oh well it is short and manageable.
Steve Mosher
“I’ll suggest that you would do better listening to Muller.”
His views on Chinese technological energy proficiency and the idea that someone needs to ‘give them’ technology are somewhat dated. I.E We need to give them natural gas frakking technology.
There isn’t anywhere in the world that has more ‘Energy Innovation’ going on then in China. It’s a massive market and getting funding and approval for ‘demonstration projects’ is a lot easier in China then anywhere else in the world. If they think a technology has promise they simply buy it or steal it.
I’d bet even money that before the first AP-1000’s are up and running in the US that the Westinghouse/Chinese Designed CAP-1400 derivative will be up and running in China.
This year they passed the world as the biggest hydro power producer and biggest wind producers. It’s takes them a little while longer then others to get to the roll out stage, but when they rollout it’s on a massive scale. Working out the ‘cheaper/better/faster’ details’ before full scale production seems to me to be ‘prudent policy’.
Unlike the US DOE that has had some troubles related to funding the rollout of various technologies before the ‘cheaper/better/faster’ details were worked out. I.E. Solyndra and A123 batteries.
mw grant
manacker
Hi and thanks, for read and feedback. That detail was clear after I clicked ‘Post Comment’! It was sloppiness on my part–regrettably a deeply ingrained characteristics. I remember telling myself only a few minutes before posting: “Check your tags before…” :oP
Peter,
As reads “mitigating”, better as “adapting”. Adaptation better supports “no regrets”, and would be applicable to both “warming” and “cooling”.
harry. i will suggest you read up on fracking in china.
start with the wsj artictle
Muller, the guy who KNEW in the early 80’s that CO2 would be man’s worst problem and split with the Sierra Club cause they wouldn’t support Nuclear Energy??
Muller, hmmm, did he ever get Best through Peer Review and officially published?? Maybe if he had kissed up to Phil Jones and team he would have gotten a day pass!!
Of course, all those wonderful Activist Papers in the IPCC reports never made Peer Review either, so, I guess he is in good company!!
Say Peter –
I haven’t had time to check lately. Did you ever follow-up on your conspiracy theories about WordPress shutting down Judith’s blog because of your comment?
How will we know the extent and power of the climate police if we don’t uncover all their nefarious work?
Just how deep is the conspiracy, Peter?
He admitted he was wrong nobody was listening
The last time I remember Joshua bringing this up, Peter Lang responded within ten hours acknowledging he was wrong. Apparently Joshua is so intent on getting an answer to this question he’ll ask it over and over again, but he won’t wait even half a day to see if he gets a response.
Isn’t Joshua the one who always harps on about bias?
Steven –
Here’s the thing. Simply saying that he was “wrong” doesn’t address the problem. He developed a wild conspiracy theory to provide a completely implausible explanation for an obviously random sequence of events (he posted a comment, and then Climate Etc. went down). No logical mechanism provided to explain his theorized causation. Simply offering an explanation of being “wrong” doesn’t explain what is at work to lead an apparently intelligent and logical person to go so far off the deep end.
It’s like when manacker: (1) offered a completely implausible explanation for Judith’s statement about Arctic ice melt, an explanation that lies in complete contradiction to what she has written about Arctic ice melt – even though he has, no doubt, read what she had previously written on the subject. And the, (2) said that he was “wrong” as if that explains why he would have reached such a hair-brained conclusion.
Peter regularly offers hilarious analysis based on a similar kind of thinking as his hilarious theories about the “climate police” reacting to his post. That wasn’t just a problem with his theory being wrong, it was a problem with the mindset that lead to him being so laughable inept in his analysis. And such problems are exacerbated when folks fail to be accountable for how their biases corrupt their thinking process to produce such irrational analysis. Being wrong, or even occasionally laughably wrong, is one thing; however, when someone displays an inability to be accountable for their biases, unfortunately, it suggests a more significant problem.
Oops – sorry. Not “climate police.” It is the:
My bad.
Sorry…
http://www.cfact.org/2012/12/14/500-police-bust-deutsche-bank-over-e300-million-carbon-trading-scam/
they bad, as we say.
Joshua,
You’e a complete twit. You keep asking the same stupid questions, but never contribute anything constructive. Why do you ask the questions, over and over again but are not interested enough in the answer to read them. Go back and read the answer, twit.
Or do I have to post it here?
OK, here you go:
Status Update: Regarding my postulation that a complaint may have been lodged to WordPress, by either ‘The Conversation’ or Lewandowski, about my comment that most of the top Australian climate activists are up to their neck in activism about catastrophic man-made climate change:
I was almost certainly wrong that access to Climate Etc was stopped because of a complaint about my comment.
However, the comment is correct and important and therefore worth repeating. It is reproduced below:
“The thirteen part Clearing up the climate debate written by Australia’s top climate scientists, demonstrates they are up to their necks in activism.
‘Part One’ provides links to the thirteen Parts (scroll to the end of the article). And a list of the signatories that endorsed this compendium. It’s a list of who’s who of Australia’s top climate scientists.
https://theconversation.edu.au/climate-change-is-real-an-open-letter-from-the-scientific-community-1808
It is clear from the contributions written by these top climate scientists they are activists and extremists.
I went first to ‘Part Four’ (written by Mike Sandiford) to try to find out what they say about the consequences of AGW. Why are the scientists saying it is catastrophic?
https://theconversation.edu.au/our-effect-on-the-earth-is-real-how-were-geo-engineering-the-planet-1544
It’s about the evilness of humans, the damage plastic bags are doing and the like.
Nowhere in the thirteen Parts, written by Australia’s top climate scientists, could I find any persuasive case for dangerous or catastrophic climate change.
Don’t miss ‘Part 13’ the wrap up by a well known climate activist!
https://theconversation.edu.au/the-false-the-confused-and-the-mendacious-how-the-media-gets-it-wrong-on-climate-change-1558”
Note: the thirteen parts were arranged by Lewandowski and the Editor of ‘the Conversation’. The thirteen contributors, and many many others that endorsed it, are a whose who of Australia’s top climate scientists. They are clearly alarmists, scaremongers, extremists. they are partial. They are not objective. They are activists who are little better than Greenpeace, WWF, FoE and the rest of the so called ‘environmental NGO’s’.
We should be concerned. These are examples of the sorts of people who decide what IPCC publishes in AR5. And what IPCC publish influences government to impose really bad policies – for humanity.
I realise this comment will be totally beyond Joshua’s ability to comprehend (and those of his idelogical persuasion), but some others may agree this issue is important.
Just to be clear, I repeat that I acknowledge my postulation was wrong that my comment had been the cause of a complaint to WordPress by Lewandowski or the Editor of ‘the Conversation’ resulting in Climate Etc. being suspended.
Peter – your theory associating two unrelated events exposes a very problematic approach to analysis. You cannot possibly offer a plausible causal explanation to support your theory.
There was nothing, absolutely nothing, that was unique about your comment. It was no different in basic content than any thousands (ten thousands?) of comments we have both read in the “skept-o-sphere” about such paranoid concepts as the “climate ortohodoxy’s thought police.” Your postulation of a causal relationship between your run-of-the-mill “skeptical” comment and Climate Etc. getting shut down defies the most basic principles of a “rational skepticism.”
It is a conspiracy theory that has no validity. Offering it to begin with is bad enough. Saying that it was “almost” certainly wrong is probably now worse, but certainly no better. But both of those actions are at least understandable. We all make mistakes. What isn’t understandable is your failure to be accountable for postulating a laughable conspiracy theory.
Did you ever go see a shrink about your personality disorder?
Joshua,
You are demanding that peter and others engage in the kind of self analysis that You can’t even do on yourself.
He admitted he was wrong. That is hard to do and should be rewarded.
Simple.
Later, if yu think you have some insight into why he had such a silly notion, you are free to speculate. Try to speculate on the following while you are at it.
1. What was mann thinking when he called mcintyre an oil shill
2. What was jones thinking when he violated the law
3. What was gleick thinking?
If you were more balanced in your approach to weird thought patterns people have more people might listen to you.
As for peter. peter over estimates the importance of what he says. You can tell that easily by playing the game I played with him. “nobody cares what you think peter” ‘Nobody cares about your questions peter”. Then watch the reaction. Most blog vets know that its very rare for a post to have impact much less a comment.
Sorry, steven –
I don’t think it’s enough to say that he “admitted” he was wrong and so he should be rewarded. This isn’t kindergarten. I see no reason why he would be “rewarded” for such a trivial “admission.” No brownie points or gold stars from me.
He didn’t need to “admit” he was wrong. He was obviously promoting a ridiculous conspiracy theory.- it isn’t like a math error. Hie admission, as it was, is meaningless.
What he didn’t do was face up to why he would take two events randomly related in time and cook up some hair-brained theory about how they were related in any meaningful sense. It isn’t just a matter of being “wrong.” It is a matter of being capable of a complete failure in rational analysis. Now if he faced up to that reality, and dealt with it with some measure of accountability, that might be worth noting.
What I do or what Mann does is completely irrelevant – although I do understand that you will continue to have your obsessions. I don’t expect otherwise.
Also, steven, I have to say that it is a rather sad commentary that you consider admitting being wrong about something to be hard to do.
joshua. in your case admittimg you are wrong is impossible. let us know when you gain some more insight into yourself
Steven –
Aside from your obsession, my ability to admit when I’m wrong is irrelevant w/r/t Peter’s actions; but just for the sake of addressing your obsession, you are quite wrong. I have admitted being wrong on more than one occasion on these very threads alone. Beside that, you don’t know me and have no idea whether or not I readily admit it when I’m wrong. Why do you speak to things which you know nothing about? That is a characteristic trait of a “skeptic.”
And as a matter of substance, as I said – we are no longer in kindergarten. Admitting being wrong is a basic trait of growing up, not one of much note for an adult although perhaps commendable in a child. As I said, it is said commentary that you think it is a significant trait, something hard to do, something that deserves a “reward,” etc.
If Peter took his error seriously enough to examine why he assigns some deeper (and conspiratorial) meaning to events that are only randomly associated by a matter of sequence in time – now that would be worthy of note. Sadly, that is lacking although you’d like to give him brownie points for doing what any adult should take for granted.
And steven,
No doubt, that is certainly true – but it only touches on what is revealed by Peter’s “postulation.” Think about it.
Peter’s “postulation” rests on thinking that some “orthodoxy thought police” monitors the thousands? of “skeptical” comments made in the “skept-o-sphere” on a daily basis, and from among those thousands of daily posts was so concerned about the damage that might be created from his comment remaining on line that they shut down Judith’s blog. Any “rational skeptic” would dismiss such a “postulation” from a logistical standpoint alone, let alone on the basis of his conspiracy about an “orthodoxy thought police” being obviously out of touch with reality. (It reminds me of Jeff Id’s ridiculous theory about his comments being moderated-out by some intern blog monitor at the NYTimes because they recognized his name and were so fearful of the damage done by a blog comment of his).
What kind of thinking leads one to make such “postulations” in all seriousness? I mean maybe he was drinking that night – or indeed, we all say some crazy stuff sometimes, right? Or maybe the ability to offer such a laughable “postulation,” tells us something? Perhaps it tells us how much some climate combatants allow their tribalism to influence their thinking process?
> Admitting being wrong is a basic trait of growing up
Climate blogland clearly refutes this.
Or perhaps we should revise the concept of grownup.
Maybe it’s a vocabulary thing.
Peter,
I do wish that folks would stop referring to CO2 as a pollutant. It is a “pollutant” only by Act of Congress, not scientifically. Congress was sloppy in defining the scope of the Clean Air Act. The Supreme Court allowed allowed the EPA to “declare” that CO2 was a pollutant.
Justice Stevens. “MASSACHUSETTS ET AL. V. ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY ET AL.,” April 2, 2007. http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/06pdf/05-1120.pdf
SCALIA, J. (Dissenting, page 08): “Air pollutant” is defined by the Act as “any air pollution agent or combination of such agents, including any physical, chemical, . . . substance or matter which is emitted into or otherwise enters the ambient air.” 42 U. S. C. §7602(g).
SCALIA, J. (Dissenting, Page 10 footnote 2)
Pooh Dixie,
I agree. I didn’t and I don’t. My point about pollutants was specifically about toxic pollutants, as I stated.
Surely water vapour and carbon dioxide are normal parts of the ambient air?
Thanks for the many constructive comments on policy overnight. It’s great to see interest in the policy issues and how science can be relevant to policy.
There were several comments about fracking, the newly discovered oil and gas resources and what it means for global GHG emissions.
The new resources is fantastic for the world. It will be an important component in providing a robust policy response to meet all eight points listed in my first comment on this thread @ http://judithcurry.com/2012/12/13/week-in-review-121512/#comment-276393
However, the main interest for the Climate Etc. bloggers is #8 reduced GHG emissions. We need to keep in perspective how effective gas generation can be compared with nuclear generation in cutting global GHG emissions.
If gas generation replaced coal generation globally by 2035 it would cut global emissions by about 7 Gt/a
However, if nuclear replaced coal generation globally by 2035 it would cut global emissions by about 12 Gt/a
[More if we include the avoidance of the associated fugitive emissions and if we consider electricity replacement of some gas for heating and some oil for land transport).
Clearly this timeframe is unlikely to be achieved, but the point is that nuclear is more effective than gas at cutting emissions. Gas can make early gains, but we really need to maintain focus on developing cheap, small, nuclear power plants for the whole world if we want to replace fossil fuels globally.
Another reason it’s important to focus on cheap is because if electricity is cheap it will substitute for some gas for heating and some oil for land transport. Also, the cheaper low emissions generation is the more quickly it will replace fossil fuel generation.
Therefore, we need to maintain focus on cheap electricity. It needs to be cheaper than fossil fuel electricity for everyone across the world, and the cheaper the better.
They will not allow nuclear to replace base load because of all the scary radiation that will last forever and day.
No increase in atmospheric CO2 and no nuclear power.
Some sort of giant hamster wheels is a possibility.
DocMartyn,
Thanks for the comment. I’ve had many thoughts about how to get the message across to those who are CAGW alarmists but maintain entrenched opposition to nuclear power.
One thought I had was to compare the cost of the carbon pricing approach with the cost of removing the impediments to low cost nuclear power for the world. I haven’t crunched any numbers yet, but the outline might look like something like this
1. Cost to cut GHG emissions – policy options comparison to 2100
1.1 Carbon pricing approach (e.g. Nordhaus)
1.2 Remove impediments to nuclear approach
Compare these on these bases:
1. emissions avoided to 2100
2. CO2 concentrations in 2100
3. Damage cost avoided
4. Abatement cost (from Nordhaus)
5. compliance cost for carbon price approach
6. penalty for incomplete coverage of GHG emissions sources
7. Net cost to 2100
I might plug in some rough numbers and see what comes out.
I thought that was Grandma’s Lye Soap. The universal fixer.
The tidal effects
Flap wings of a butterfly;
Besame, Cosmo.
=============
Newman said.
Most people do not believe that carbon tax and renewable energy will make the slightest difference to the climate. Most people also realise it is virtually impossible to get world agreement to penalty schemes like carbon pricing and emissions targets and timetables.
Bad policies:
• Penalty schemes
• Targets and timetables
• More regulations
• Taxes, penalties and restrictive trade policies
• Carbon pricing
• Renewable energy
• Aid/bribes
Good policies:
• Reward schemes
• No Regrets
• Less regulations
• Freer trade
• Globalisation
• Wealth creation for whole world
• Adaptation
• Remove impediments on low cost nuclear
• Developed countries develop low-cost, low-emissions alternatives to fossil fuels. Produce them commercially and compete to produce them for the world – competition to bring costs down and improve the technologies
• Adaptation is the main component – it will provide results and improved conditions immediately, whereas mitigation may have an effect in 50 years and beyond.
Developing countries need freer trade and infrastructure strengthening (e.g. improved governance), not aid. Giving developing countries aid is equivalent to giving an unemployed person the dole rather than skills development and a job. We give out aid while restricting trade. And we block development of the least cost way to reduce emissions. We have it backwards.
In short, IMO, more regulation is the wrong approach. We’ve been trying this, globally, for 20 years. It clearly is not working and, IMO, cannot work. There is a better way.
“Most people do not believe that carbon tax and renewable energy will make the slightest difference to the climate. Most people also realise it is virtually impossible to get world agreement to penalty schemes like carbon pricing and emissions targets and timetables.”
In fact, Peter, “most people” don’t think about these things at all, and would have little or no basis for an opinion on them. But that is true of many public policy issues.
Faustino, I agree. However, educating the chattering classes (bloggers like us) provides the members of the chattering classes with information to sprout in the pub and at bar-B-Qs in the few weeks leading up to the election. That is where the rest of the voters get their information they then pass on to others (very knowledgeably) the next night at the pub and at the next Bar-B-Q. That’s where most voters get their information so they are well informed on how to vote. They get the information from the chattering classes.
People like us, as members of the chattering classes, do our best to provide other members of the chattering classes with reliable, honest, impartial, objective, well researched, information so they can make economically rational decisions.
There are other members of the chattering classes, many of them, who are doing all in their power to prevent reliable, honest, impartial, objective, well researched, information that supports economically rational decisions from being propagated. These people do all they can to spread FUD.
Nordhaus (2010) Economic aspects of global warming in a post-Copenhagen environment http://nordhaus.econ.yale.edu/documents/Nordhaus_Copenhagen_2010_text.pdf says:
In other words, there isn’t a remote chance that carbon pricing is going to succeed in the real world.
Table 2 shows why. It has estimates of the costs and benefits of the Copenhagen Accord through 2055:
Abatement cost = $2,060 billion
Benefit (climate damages avoided) = $413 billion
No country can justify committing to a policy that will cost $5 for every $1 of benefit. And the compliance costs are not even included. They would be huge.
There is a much better way. The better way is the technological solution. It requires a focus on engineering. Unfortunately, Nordhaus and most other economists don’t understand this alternative approach. Their expertise and knowledge is economics, not engineering and technology. The economic solution is not practicable for the reasons he states in the quote above. But the technological solution most definitely is available.
Nuclear power could be far cheaper than fossil fuels for electricity generation if we removed the impediments. If cheaper than fossil fuels it could replace 50% of CO2 emissions from fossil fuels by around mid 21st Century.
We know that coal fired electricity generation is considered to be safe enough. That sets the benchmark for acceptability. We know that nuclear is about 700 times safer than coal http://nextbigfuture.com/2012/06/deaths-by-energy-source-in-forbes.html. Therefore, if we could get the message out, most people would act rationally. In that case, safety of nuclear power would not be a block to progress.
Bernard Cohen (1990) http://www.phyast.pitt.edu/~blc/book/chapter9.html explained that regulatory ratcheting increased the cost of nuclear power by about a factor of four by 1990. I expect regulatory ratcheting has increased the cost by at least a factor of two since 1990 for no improvement in safety. The regulatory ratcheting has given us little or no improvement in safety compared with what would have been the case if nuclear had developed like other industries. On this basis, it is conceivable that the cost of nuclear could be reduced by up to a factor of eight (over time, of course)
We also know there are at least 43 small nuclear power plant designs in various stages of development from concept through to in-production. And we know the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) licensing process takes about 5 to 10 years and they can handle only two or three designs at a time. The NRC is a massive thrombosis blocking progress on development and roll out of small modular nuclear power plants. No other industry has to get its designs approved by a government regulator.
Therefore, if we want to cut global CO2 emissions, we need to free up the development and roll-out of cheap, small nuclear power plants. We need to allow these to be developed in a commercial environment like other technologies. We need to allow the commercial sector to compete.
If we remove the impediments to nuclear, the cost of nuclear generation could be well below the cost of fossil fuel generation by 2030.
The US President could make this happen. The anti-nukes could facilitate the change in public opinion. The change in public opinion could be achieved in less than a decade if environmental NGO’s decided it was in their interest to lead the way on this.
Climate Etc. bloggers could start spreading the word. They could start informing others instead of continually repeating the anti nuclear rhetoric.
If we have to price GHG emissions and regulate compliance, the compliance cost will inevitably become a huge cost. The following points need to be recognised.
The whole world would have to implement compliance. That includes countries like Eretria, Ethiopia, Mogadishu and Somalia for example.
It will have to be applied to all GHG emissions from all sources eventually. If some are not included, there will be distortions. That situation would not be sustainable. So more an more emitters would be included over time.
To give an idea of the possible cost, the US EPA estimated their costs alone, to apply the US law as it is written, would amount to $21 billion per year. It would apply to 10,000 organisations initially. That would be extended later. The compliance cost for businesses is much more the EPA’s cost to administer and check compliance. Then there are many other organisations that would use the data. They would have to maintain and continually upgrade their systems and data each time the compliance requirements change (they have been changing every few years in the USA for the past three decades).
Quick calculation:
EPA cost = $21 billion per year
Other government organisation involved in enforcing compliance and using the data: say another $21 billion per year
10,000 organisations whose compliance cost is say 5 times the EPA’s cost = $21 billion x 5 x 10,000 = $1,000 trillion per year.
That covers only some of the emitters who would eventually have to be included.
And this is just the USA share. Say 10 times that for the whole world.
Yes. I know, the figures are ludicrously high. But they are an indication of how ludicrous is the idea of trying to implement regulations to force compliance of measuring, taxing and trading an unmeasurable substance.
To give you some insight into the practicalities have a look at the comments by engineer Graeme No3 here: http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=13578&page=0
I’ll quote one of his comments for the convenience of readers:
This gives and example of what the compliance cost to industry would be as carbon pricing is extended, bit by bit, from just the largets emitters to all emitters. In every country. Eventually we’d have to measure and report the emission from every cow, sheet and goat. From every country. This is where carbon pricing and compliance with the regulations would eventually lead.
There is a better way! It is to remove regulations that are preventing the world from having low cost, low emissions safer electricity. It can be done. USA is by far the best placed nation to make this happen. The US President is by fat the best placed person in the world to make this happen.
Heh, ‘by far’ or ‘by fiat’?
==================
It was meant to be ‘by far’.
Heh, “by fat” or by “fiat”?
By Al Gore or by Fiat?
In my rush to post early I made a mistake in the cost estimate above. The compliance cost would be nowhere near that figure, but still high. I have the estimate somewhere.
Peter Lang
Without even going into specific calculations one can conclude
– if the “costs” for non-compliance are not extremely high, there will be extensive non-compliance
– if the mitigation actions are not universally adapted, they will be meaningless
– the net losers will be:
a) the general populations of the developed nations, which will be left with the brunt of the cost
b) the inhabitants of the poorest nations, which will be derived of any chance to develop a reliable, low-cost supply of energy to lift themselves out of poverty
– the net winners (at least short term until everything collapses under its own weight) will be
a) politicians, who will have more tax revenues to hand out for favorite projects and to favored recipients
b) the big cat “favored recipients” and promoters of the “favored projects” (corporations, industrialists, political cronies)
– the net positive impact on our planet’s climate will be negligible, while
– the net negative impact on human welfare will be high
Max
Manacker,
Excellent points. I agree with all that. Thanks for making it so clear.
No one has disagreed with you yet.
It is good to see that Muller is back-pedilling which is good both for him and the world.
The small print from the Doha climate conference says that there has been no global warming since 1998. Surely this is important news and should be blazened by all channels. Some were quick to call it a pause, but is it a 14 year pause or just a sign of very low climate change? Muller apparently did not contradict it, nor did the NOAA. But it adds to my belief that classical thermodynamics is inadequate to explain climate. We have to use quantum thermodynamics
Alexander,
Our scientists have yet to calculate the planet and atmosphere in motion.
Simple measuring and simple calculation.
And you think more theory is needed?
Climate models do NOT actually use a globe to understand the planet and yet use averaging which is incorrect to the vast differences at every latitude.
Thank you, Joe, for your reply.
“Our scientists have yet to calculate the planet and atmosphere in motion.” Hansen et al did so in 1988. Unfortunately it could not replicate past climates. But full marks for trying.
Classical thermodynamics cannot explain what happened in 1940. The IPCC did not even try, but wrote it off as before 1961, their arbitrary starting date. According to classical thermodynamics the CO2 molecule would absorb infinite power, but quantum thermodynamics – only a small fixed amount. Joe, which do you think is correct?
A world body, like the IPCC, has to average temperature over the entire world (not easy), otherwise it would be dominated by regional blocks like N. America and Europe which are the main consumers of energy.
Alexander,
At any given moment every point on our planet is unique.
Be it velocity differences, sun rays differences or lack of, planetary tilting for different intensities of suns rays, land heights, atmosphere pressure(not the current adjusted for water measurements), etc.
I could generate a billion points on our planet and everyone would have some unique variable that is different and would change constantly.
Add into this the distant changes and slow down of every process…
There is NO actual oscillation that is truly repeating.
up, up,up, up.
Nov thru Dec:
N97-D98 – 59C (red, a record instrument high and equal to 1998 record)
N01-D02 – 59C (yellow, tied record)
N04-D05 – 61C (green, record)
N06-D07 – 62C (blue, record)
N09-D10 – 65C (purple, record)
Trends:
blue – 17 years
brown – since 1997.9
September, 2012 – 62C (3rd hottest in record)
October, 2012 – 68C (tied for 2nd hottest in record)
November, 2012 – 68C (2nd hottest in record)
JCH
Just goes to show you can “prove” almost anything with properly cherry-picked data.
Congrats!
Max
Feynman would say to look at all data. Interesting that you don’t give a flip when somebody present only the data that bolsters their viewpoint as long as it is also your viewpoint.
Alexander presented the flat viewpoint. I completed the picture. Then you squealed like a kicked pig.
HadCrappy3, your crutch, is going bye bye.
RSS will soon follow. Because they’re likely defective on global.
Down Down Down.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/from:2002/to/plot/gistemp/from:2002/trend
The hottest running GTA is down for 10 years.
Up up up.
“[…] CLOUD will reduce a very big question mark in current climate change is to what extent there can be a natural contribution to the current warming. […] CLOUD will help clear up to what extent there is a natural contribution to current warming.”” — Jasper Kirby
No. CLOUD cannot erase what has already been observed clearly via the laws of large numbers and conservation of angular momentum. Sensible, sober, careful parties: There’s enormous potential for widespread, enduring misinterpretation here.
typo correction: Jasper Kirkby
Paul,
A simple experiment is:
A flashlight and a globe.
This can give the representation of the sun and a good foundation to understanding the angles of rays to planetary tilting along with a rotating planet.
Ignorance of Earth’s tilt? If we have to lower the discussion to that level, we might as well walk away from the discussion…
—
Caution for sober, sensible, careful parties: What is conventionally referred to as “GCR” is being misinterpreted. It will be many years before this will be widely recognized. What has already been observed cannot and will not be changed by CERN CLOUD experiments. Beware the potential for severe obfuscation by parties who do not understand observed aggregate constraints based on the laws of large numbers and conservation of angular momentum. If I had to gamble that there might emerge one truly trustworthy North American agency on this file, I would put my money on NASA JPL. The potential for politically coerced corruption is staggering, so I suggest we keep a vigilant watch to help safeguard them from interference.
Paul – you are beginning to sound like an astrologist. I could read anything into your statements of late.
Jim: Do the calculations for yourself. It is the only way to understand first-hand.
http://i49.tinypic.com/2jg5tvr.png
http://i46.tinypic.com/303ipeo.png
Via laws of:
a) conservation of angular momentum.
b) large numbers.
Paul,
Thanks for the info.
You need rotation and planetary tilting for the circulation of gases.
But this effect is slightly different with water as it is of a different density and has different parameters to gases.
Yes Joe.
The task is to identify aggregate constraints on circulatory morphology:
1. Dickey, J.O.; Marcus, S.L.; & Chin, T.M. (2007). Thermal wind forcing & atmospheric angular momentum: Origin of the Earth’s delayed response to ENSO. Geophysical Research Letters 34, 7.
2. Dickey, J.O.; & Keppenne, C.L. (1997). Interannual length-of-day variations and the ENSO phenomenon: insights via singular spectral analysis.
http://trs-new.jpl.nasa.gov/dspace/bitstream/2014/22759/1/97-1286.pdf
3. Dickey, J.O.; Marcus, S.L.; & de Viron, O. (2003). Coherent interannual & decadal variations in the atmosphere-ocean system. Geophysical Research Letters 30(11), 1573.
http://trs-new.jpl.nasa.gov/dspace/bitstream/2014/11255/1/02-3203.pdf
4. Chao, B.F. (2006). Earth’s oblateness and its temporal variations. Comptes Rendus Geoscience 338, 1123-1129. doi:10.1016/j.crte.2006.09.014.
http://www.earth.sinica.edu.tw/~bfchao/publication/eng/2006-Earth%E2%80%99s%20oblateness%20and%20its%20temporal%20variations.pdf
If more readers here did not misinterpret/misunderstand what is meant by thermal wind, perhaps a sensible discussion would be possible.
Koutsoyiannis (2011) wrote: “Complex natural systems consisting of very many elements are impossible to describe in full detail and their future evolution cannot be predicted in detail and with precision. Here, the great scientific achievement is the materialization of macroscopic descriptions rather than modeling the details. This is essentially done using probability theory (laws of large numbers, central limit theorem, principle of maximum entropy). Here lies the essence and usefulness of the stationarity concept, which seeks invariant properties in complex systems.” (bold emphasis added)
Koutsoyiannis, D. (2011). Hurst-Kolmogorov dynamics and uncertainty. Journal of The American Water Resources Association 47(3), 481-495.
http://www.landandwaterusa.com/issues_water/2011_water/6-3JAWRA_HKDynamics.pdf
CERN CLOUD is about gaining knowledge to be used in micro-modeling. CERN CLOUD is absolutely unnecessary for macro-describing solar-terrestrial relations.
“The decadal ‘‘noise’’ involves coupled variations in the distributions of temperature, mass, and velocity (21, 22) and so is manifested in the steric sea level, moments of inertia, and the Earth’s variable rotation.” (bold emphasis added)
Munk, W. (2002). Twentieth century sea level: an enigma. PNAS.
http://www.pnas.org/content/99/10/6550.full.pdf
Wyatt, Kravtsov, & Tsonis (2011) summarize multidecadal-timescale northern hemisphere winter coupling in Figure 4:
http://www.springerlink.com/content/p1275t4383874p65/MediaObjects/382_2011_1071_Fig4_HTML.gif
Compare with:
http://i50.tinypic.com/2v2ywzb.png
(multidecadal sea level & solar cycle deceleration)
“Apart from all other reasons, the parameters of the geoid depend on the distribution of water over the planetary surface.” — Nikolay Sidorenkov
—
jim2:
The data are here:
ftp://ftp.iers.org/products/eop/long-term/c04_08/iau2000/eopc04_08_IAU2000.62-now
I suggest you either get very serious or don’t attempt to engage me further.
Let’s see if anyone around here has a clue about aggregate constraints. I already know for an absolute fact that this summary ( http://i49.tinypic.com/2jg5tvr.png ) can be further sharpened. Other knowledge may be grey, but this falls squarely into the category of black & white. I dare you or anyone else (Jasper Kirkby & Henrik Svensmark included) to make the effort necessary to eclipse my contribution with a more refined image. Anyone who actually knows how to derive aggregate constraints will discover that I’ve volunteered an easy target for minor improvement.
I quote from this article …
The court case brought by Dr. Mann against his most outspoken critic, Dr. Timothy Ball, appears to have collapsed. Mann simply failed to provide the data on which his whole hockey stick graph is supposed to rest. As a result, Mann, and potentially others like him, may be facing counter-suits and potentially substantial damage awards, possibly even punitive actions as well. PSU may not be pleased. They could be on the hook for millions. Stay tuned.
The take-home message here is simple.
Don’t fall for media hype, awards, or scientific concepts or models with claims like “the majority of scientists believe” as their justification. “Consensus” does not exist in science – but facts do. Computer models can provide great inside knowledge – or can be utterly wrong, the latter for sure if the data behind it are “cooked.”
I very much like Dr. Curry’s comment on the Doha conference (if considering it not worth mentioning can be regarded as a comment).
“Don’t mention the war!”
I almost did, but I think I got away with it ….
How can you mention a non-event? (Even such an expensive one.)
Faustino
Do I, do you, do we
know who paid the Doha “do”?
‘Deed we do
’twas me and you!
(Whoop-de-doo!)
Max
Alexej,
Ignorance in science is rampant due to many factors of traditional teaching and practices of the past to protect the current group of scientists who enjoy the career and wages that they give advice to government policies on(considering it is usually the government that gives out grants).
Theories and hypotheses are encouraged while actual evidence is not!
I’ve downloaded the SPM and a few of the chapters. The extreme overconfidence of many of their conclusions is bewildering. More on this in future posts.
If you wanted the opportunity to review and comment on the drafts of the IPCC documents you could have applied to be an expert reviewer. As you chose not to do that then surely the principled thing would be to refrain from publicly commenting on AR5 until the final version is actually published.
Exactly what principle would that be?
…the ivory tower principle
The principle of not passing judgement on something based on a draft document which may not reflect the final wording which will actually be published and has been released in direct violation of the conditions on which the person responsible was given access to it. Especially given that, as I said above, anyone who wanted to take part in the review process and give their opinion on the draft documents had the opportunity to do so by applying to become an “expert” reviewer.
You mean, giving them opportunity to ‘bury’ the sources of legitimate criticism
Adams The principle of not passing judgement on something based on a draft document which may not reflect the final wording which will actually be published and has been released in direct violation of the conditions on which the person responsible was given access to it.
Almost as bad as committing wire fraud by impersonating a board member of a 501c in order to obtain and publish, together with a forgery, it’s confidential documents, followed up by obfuscating his role in the matter, all while being Chair of a scientific community’s ethics committee…
phatboy
You mean, giving them opportunity to ‘bury’ the sources of legitimate criticism
People who signed up for the review process have been perfectly free to make legitimate criticisms. Others can do so when the report is published.
Gras Albert,
As I haven’t defended anyone who has committed either wire fraud or forgery (if indeed such things actually occurred) I’m not sure what your point is.
Andrew wrote: “People who signed up for the review process have been perfectly free to make legitimate criticisms”
——————————————————————————————–
Yes, which the IPCC can then choose to ignore. After the report is published, any criticisms effectively fall on deaf ears.
andrew,
I don’t know what world you work in, but as someone who has written contract documents and policy papers, I know that the primary purpose of providing a draft document is to invite comment.
Go read the IPCC’s official statement on the release. It is a load of self-serving crap. For an organization that touts its transparancy, it sure seems miffed that the curtain has been pulled back so people can see what is happening in their little sandbox. To dredge up a saying from my service days – tough titty.
timg56,
I don’t know what world you work in, but as someone who has written contract documents and policy papers, I know that the primary purpose of providing a draft document is to invite comment.
Indeed, which is why the IPCC invited people to sign up as “expert reviewers”, precisely to provide such comment. It is also standard practice that such documents are not made public.
andrew adams
The principled thing for IPCC would be uphold its stated policy of total transparency as strongly affirmed by the IAC. See IPCC’s Counterproductive Secrecy at WUWT. The IPCC’s present secrecy was imposed by dishonest means to enforce the power of IPCC’s alarmist authors.
David L. Hagen,
“Transparency” doesn’t mean the whole drafting process taking place in public. The drafts will be made public after AR5 is published, the IPCC allows anyone to sign up as an expert reviewer – any fool can become one and some obviously did.
andrew adams
The need for the peer review is to identify errors and especially omissions BEFORE it is published, NOT after. e.g., the “very high confidence” in major anthropogenic warming is an “argument from ignorance” due to underestimating the trends and major uncertainties regarding TSI, solar influence, and cloud trends. With trillions of dollars of our taxes at stake, we deserve an open transparent process.
Andrew: If one is to use “Post Normal Science”, one should welcome review by an “extended peer community” (Ravetz, 2004). That is what this blog is.
Pooh, Dixie
I’m skeptical about the value which this will provide but AR5 will no doubt get that after it is released.
“…the principled thing would be to refrain from publicly commenting on AR5 until the final version is actually published.”
The problem of course is that the draft has now be published, and under those circumstances those that weren’t involved are hardly being unprincipled in having their say.
The IPCC is a political process, not a scientific one, so the principle that led one not to be a expert reviewer might well be an objection to the political process you were required to participate in.
Given that that process has now changed (as the IPCC loses some control over it), it might be that those who did object on principle to the process and stayed away, now feel it is a matter of very high principle to become involved in this new (political) process as it unfolds outside the clutches of the IPCC.
Well put HAS. A lot of skeptics including me reviewed the TAR but were ignored so have dropped out. Now our criticisms will be public which is a very different process indeed.
In the past final versions have been changed from what the scientists actually said to what the political types wanted it to say. It seems good to me to be able to read the unadulterated scientific judgments before they get censored.
+1
I strongly agree!
This is only true of the SPM not the main report, which is biased by the scientists themselves. What is useful with the leak is that the SPM is usually released long before the report which may show more uncertainty but now we at least have some draft sections of the main report.
Judith Curry
(Except when it came to sexual flings) Bill Clinton’s judgment was always much better than that of Al Gore – that’s why Bill Clinton became President for two terms (and Al Gore never did).
Max
Ya’ just gotta love the logic of “rational skeptics.”
So – Obama’s judgement is obviously “always much better” than that of Romney, McCain, and every other Republican who ran for the presidency over the past two elections… as I’m sure manacker will agree!
Too funny.
Judith,
Scientists through bad teaching practices have lost one hugely important ability…The ability to focus on the why and how each process in planetary science actually works.
I believe that the the individual process are pretty well understood – those we know about. The problem is how they interact, which is the actual dispute between AGW and skeptical thinkers. Is the actual puzzle assembled properly, or are some of the piece back to front? Do we actually HAVE all the pieces? Recent papers such the report on the unexpected cooling of the stratosphere, or the apparent amplification of solar input suggest we don’t have all the pieces. That’s just the “mainstream” skeptic and AGW debate where, despite the vituperative language in use, most of the basics are actually agreed upon. Move outside that circle and there very serious people arguing that we don’t even have the right puzzle.
Duster,
Theoretically, they think they know the processes through OBSERVED science…but mechanically, they do not.
Mechanics uses measurements NOT currently recorded at every point on the planet.
Let’s take the process of a hurricane…
Scientists believe it is the energy of the ocean that produces them…pure bull crap from a mechanical and practical point of view.
The oceans supply the water through evaporation but the wind sheer is supplied by the atmosphere. The weight exerts down by the added density in the atmosphere causing more displacement through weight of the hurricane. Tornado’s do NOT form from the surface up but from the clouds down.
The shape of each is through the layering of atmospheric gases that are tighter at the surface to form a cone type shape.
Judith Curry
To the resignation of NOAA head, Jane Lubchenco:
It’s nice when you can write your own performance summary as you leave a job – it will always sound much better than one written by someone else.
Max
Looks good on a resume…don’t it?
Probably will now become head of some private sector organization at 10 times the salary.
NOAA may be in disarray, but Lubchenco rates highly on the scales of some fish.
“The extreme overconfidence of many of their conclusions is bewildering.”
Indeed. I registered as an IPCC reviewer and sent in the following few comments on the SPM in time for the Nov 30 deadline. It will be interesting to see whether they are acted on when the final version comes out.
p2 line 36-39 This statement about stronger confidence of ‘unprecedented’ changes is not supported by the evidence. In fact there is less confidence in the paleo data, see for example the paper by statisticians McShane and Wyner (“proxies do not predict temperature significantly better than random series”). See sec 5.3.5.2 on limitations and uncertainties.
p3 Some acknowledgement needs to be made here of the slowing of warming over the last 15 years or so.
p5 line 32 Misleading claim. Rutgers GSL data shows winter snow cover has not decreased.
p6 line 46 The statement of ‘high confidence’ in ‘inconsistent’ changes is scientifically meaningless and should be removed.
p7 line 22 Sec 3 and 4 are misleading because they make no mention of natural climate variation.
p20 Fig SPM1c is cherrypicked data (March April only), is misleadingly presented as an ‘anomaly’ and despite this does not even support the claim on page 5 of a significant reduction.
Paul Matthews
Here is the link to Rutgers data showing that winter snow cover has NOT decreased (but increased slightly) since 1967, as you wrote
http://climate.rutgers.edu/snowcover/chart_seasonal.php?ui_set=nhland&ui_season=1
Max
PS Isn’t this a “déjà vu all over again” experience on NH snow cover?
Max, yes, it’s exactly the same trick they used in AR4, so it was easy to spot!
“p5 line 32 Misleading claim. Rutgers GSL data shows winter snow cover has not decreased.”
Misleading complaint. p5 line 32 doesn’t claim winter snow cover decreased. It claims snow cover in general decreased. Here’s a link to Rutgers data showing that NH snow cover did indeed decrease just as AR5 stated.
http://climate.rutgers.edu/snowcover/files/Robinson_snowdata2011.pdf
I see skeptics are already playing games.
“p2 line 36-39 This statement about stronger confidence of ‘unprecedented’ changes is not supported by the evidence.”
Yes it is. For example there is this:
“There is medium confidence that the current near-global recession of glacier length is unusual in the context of the last two millennia”
Which points at chapter 5 where we find:
“Since AR4 new data have improved the accuracy of many regional Holocene glacial chronologies (e.g., Davis et al., 2009). Various techniques have been extensively applied to date moraines and have significantly improved many chronologies of glacier variations (Anderson et al., 2008; Hughes et al., 2012; Joerin et al., 2008; Jomelli et al., 2009;
57 Licciardi et al., 2009; Menounos et al., 2009; Schaefer et al., 2009; Wiles et al., 2011; Yang et al., 2008).
Studies of sediments from glacier-fed lakes and marine deposits have allowed continuous reconstructions of glacier fluctuations (Bertrand et al., 2012; Bowerman and Clark, 2011; Briner et al., 2010; Larsen et al.,
2011; Matthews and Dresser, 2008; Russell et al., 2009; Vasskog et al., 2012). New reconstructions of the history of ice-shelves and ice sheets/caps have also emerged (Antoniades et al., 2011; Hodgson, 2011;
Kirshner et al., 2012; Simms et al., 2011; Smith et al., 2011).”
and eventually the conclusion:
“The available information indicates with medium confidence that the global recession of glacier length is unusual in the context of the last 2 kyr.”
I don’t see such a statement in AR4 about glaciers. This indeed seems to support the SPM statement that:
“Confidence is stronger that many changes, that are observed consistently across components of the climate system, are significant, unusual or unprecedented on time scales of decades to many hundreds of thousands of years.”
Here are some more statements that link to chapters in the report:
“There is medium confidence that the modern sea ice loss and increase of sea surface temperatures in the Arctic are anomalous in the perspective of at least the last two millennia.”
“There is medium confidence that the rate of current global mean sea level change is unusually high in the context of the past millennium.”
Judith Curry
The Jasper Kirkby interview was very interesting. Thanks for posting it. I especially liked this quotation:
Let’s wait for the data before we “make up our minds”.
I sincerely hope that AR5 will take this work more seriously than AR4 did (which just wrote it off in two paragraphs as “controversial”).
But we’ll have to wait and see.
Maybe we won’t really know until “AR6” (if there ever is one).
Max
The CERN CLOUD experiment is being misrepresented as something much more than what it is. It does not have the power to erase recorded history. The experiment can’t answer the solar-terrestrial question. It’s not designed to do that. It can only answer a very narrow technical question. Whether the answer to that very narrow technical question comes back positive or negative, the solar-terrestrial relationship exists. There’s no need to suspend judgement on existence. The expensive experiment is about deciding details of how to micro-model. Suspension of judgement on technical details of how to micro-model is defensible, but the macro picture is already clear. Build in delays on how to micro-model if you must, but be lucidly aware that trying to conflate micro-modeling uncertainties with macro-observation certainties comes across as (whether it is or not) maliciously deceptive evasion, a sure way to immediately eliminate trust. If sensible parties don’t confront such (possibly accidental) obfuscation tactics head-on, the potential for enduring distortion is enormous since the pool of people with lucid, first-hand awareness of aggregate constraints is critically small. The bottom line is that no one can look sensible arguing against the laws of large numbers and conservation of angular momentum. No sensible person is going to consciously step into such a strictly governed pair of cross-hairs. Thus, we have at our disposal an easy means of identifying in the clearest terms dark agents of ignorance &/or deception. Please be careful.
Paul Vaughan
I do not see that Jasper Kirkby is “misrepresenting the CERN CLOUD experiment as something much more than what it is”.
His interview was quite factual.
And the press releases from CERN have also been quite factual, simply stating that the cloud nucleation mechanism by cosmic rays in the presence of certain naturally occurring aerosols has been validated, but cautioning that this does not mean that this effect in our actual climate system has yet been confirmed.
It’s all still “Work in Progress”.
Of course there have been op-eds from both sides, which have exaggerated or played down its importance, but these are meaningless.
Let’s wait for the CLOUD results when they come.
If they confirm the hypothesis of Svensmark and others, we may have a “new ball game, with all the IPCC reports consigned to the “trash heap” of scientific history”.
If the GCR cloud hypothesis turns out to be falsified by CLOUD, we at least have certainty that this is not a major driver of our climate.
Max
CERN or no CERN, this is observed:
http://i49.tinypic.com/2jg5tvr.png
It is based on 2 laws:
1. large numbers.
2. conservation of angular momentum.
CLOUD can change exactly nothing about this well-constrained observation.
And look at the rate of change of helix twist in the solar-terrestrial weave:
http://i46.tinypic.com/303ipeo.png
If you know how to interpret such plots, that’s an equator-pole heat & water wave doppler effect. (Everyone was stubbornly fixated on averages when a quick look at gradients was all that was needed.)
In sharp contrast with CERN CLOUD, these insights have been achieved on a very frugal budget.
If you want to argue against these observations, you first have to refute 2 laws. I dare you to try.
Paul, any chance of expressing in layman’s terms what relevance the laws of large numbers and angular momentum conservation have to climate CO2 sensitivity? The graphs you reference are impenetrable to the uninitiated: (1) what is solar-terrestrial-climate weave? (2) what are the units of solar cycle deceleration and how does it relate to SSTs? simon
Hello Simon,
I won’t be able to take you all the way because so much cross-disciplinary background is needed to understand at a deep level, but I can point you in the right direction to get you started. Later you are welcome to ask a question now & again as the days & weeks unfold.
First, recognize the importance of this quote:
“Complex natural systems consisting of very many elements are impossible to describe in full detail and their future evolution cannot be predicted in detail and with precision. Here, the great scientific achievement is the materialization of macroscopic descriptions rather than modeling the details. This is essentially done using probability theory (laws of large numbers, central limit theorem, principle of maximum entropy). Here lies the essence and usefulness of the stationarity concept, which seeks invariant properties in complex systems.” (bold emphasis added)
Koutsoyiannis, D. (2011). Hurst-Kolmogorov dynamics and uncertainty. Journal of The American Water Resources Association 47(3), 481-495.
http://www.landandwaterusa.com/issues_water/2011_water/6-3JAWRA_HKDynamics.pdf
Think of all of the spatiotemporally chaotic multivariate climate field trajectories imaginable. Is there some way we can rule some of them out as totally ridiculous? YES – absolutely. Earth very precisely encodes climate information in earth orientation parameters. We can rigidly constrain climate models using earth orientation data.
A taste of what it looks like thinking about climate in terms of aggregate constraints:
“The decadal ‘‘noise’’ involves coupled variations in the distributions of temperature, mass, and velocity (21, 22) and so is manifested in the steric sea level, moments of inertia, and the Earth’s variable rotation.” (bold emphasis added)
Munk, W. (2002). Twentieth century sea level: an enigma. PNAS 99(10), 6550-6555.
http://www.pnas.org/content/99/10/6550.full.pdf
Be careful to note that I have written nothing about “CO2 sensitivity” (which you mention). The laws of large numbers and conservation of angular momentum are valid NO MATTER WHAT co2 does.
You asked about the solar-terrestrial-climate weave. It’s isolated from semi-annual length of day (a measure of earth rotation rate), which informs about strong midlatitude westerly winds in the alternating winter hemispheres (north & south). These semi-annual winds are powered by the strong temperature gradient between the equator and the winter polar night. (Remember, it’s completely dark in the arctic/antarctic in winter due to Earth’s tilt.)
I build customized complex wavelet tools. I’ve built one that measures bunching of semi-annual spikes. In aggregate it sees right through ENSO-related semi-annual spikes with precision. (See the work of Jean Dickey of NASA JPL for essential background. I’ve provided links in comments elsewhere in this discussion.) Be aware: There are dozens of other ways to quantify the bunch properties. The weave’s ROBUST.
Subtracting the observed bunches from a sliding decadal gaussian climatology emphasizes the seasonal structure of solar cycle modulation of equator-pole gradients.
The changing spacing of solar-bunching matches the central limit of northern hemisphere & pacific SST to first order. This indicates a simple equator-pole heat & water pump doppler effect.
Be acutely aware of why this simplicity was not noticed before: ENSO. Jean Dickey (NASA JPL) deserves immeasurable credit for her work which should remind climate scientists of the deep, deep hazards of relying too blindly on temperature anomaly stats. Water physics is a function of absolutes. Jean Dickey has illustrated that the key is ABSOLUTE (not anomaly) equator-pole gradients. Let’s show her deep appreciation & respect. She is a brilliant woman. I suspect she may be the one who can lead us out of the degenerate discussions we see here and at WUWT every single day of the year.
Simon, I’m going to leave you one more exercise. Please spend a LOT of time carefully studying climatology maps, particularly for wind & water fields (BY MONTH – be careful not to just look at annual average fields as that misses the point):
JRA-25 Atlas:
http://ds.data.jma.go.jp/gmd/jra/atlas/eng/atlas-tope.htm
This is probably the quickest way to get an intuitive handle on the seasonal variation of the spatial structure of air-sea coupling.
Regards.
Paul
Your response to Paul was very interesting.
A) How do we see any of your follow ups in the maze of threads and comments?
B) How can we usefully tie in say part three with parts one and two? Will you provide a link?
tonyb
Paul, thank you for your response. I’m trying hard to assimilate it.
You say “Think of all of the spatiotemporally chaotic multivariate climate field trajectories imaginable. Is there some way we can rule some of them out as totally ridiculous? YES – absolutely. Earth very precisely encodes climate information in earth orientation parameters. We can rigidly constrain climate models using earth orientation data”.
Would that mean that we can rule out the idea of catastrophic tipping points or (for example) place a limit on the global temperature increase resulting from runaway GHG emissions? And if not, can you give examples of what your phrase “We can rigidly constrain climate models using earth orientation data” means in practice? Many thanks. simon
Paul
Sorry meant your reply to Simon
tonyb
OK, Judy,
Howdya get
Jean D
Onna blog?
==========
Paul (btw) “have to refute 2 laws. I dare you to try”. Well, solar system mass is concentrated in the sun but solar system angular momentum is concentrated in the planets”. Not a refutation as such but you can’t help wondering how that came about. (I’ve never been happy with a low-entropy big bang either, nor the twin paradox come to that: what if they both embarked on symmetrical mirror-image journeys?)
Mr. Paul Vaughan, You write: “Earth very precisely encodes climate information in earth orientation parameters.”
How does Earth, do this? Did you mean to say, dirt?
simon abingdon | December 16, 2012 at 9:50 am | asked: “Would that mean that we can rule out the idea of catastrophic tipping points or (for example) place a limit on the global temperature increase resulting from runaway GHG emissions? And if not, can you give examples of what your phrase “We can rigidly constrain climate models using earth orientation data” means in practice?”
Good questions that demand far more time than I’ll be able to spare during the foreseeable future (meaning years). Apologies.
—
kim | December 16, 2012 at 10:22 am |
asked:
“OK, Judy,
Howdya get
Jean D
Onna blog?”
I would suggest that Jean D is using her time productively and that she can best lead without getting tangled in blog discussion.
—
@Tom | December 16, 2012 at 10:59 am |
Here’s some background material:
Sidorenkov, N.S. (2005). Physics of the Earth’s rotation instabilities. Astronomical and Astrophysical Transactions 24(5), 425-439.
http://images.astronet.ru/pubd/2008/09/28/0001230882/425-439.pdf
Earth orientation data:
ftp://ftp.iers.org/products/eop/long-term/c04_08/iau2000/eopc04_08_IAU2000.62-now
—
@tonyb (climatereason)
You raise worthwhile questions about communications logistics. The time is not ripe for formal communication. The context is ridiculously charged politically, making a disgusting mess of what should be a joyous journey of appreciation & exploration of nature. I need local, secure, longterm funding + pension before I can do more. The constraints are hard.
Ah, but we can get her thoughts onna blog, which you have done, and I thank you for it.
==============
Judith,
The influence of television programs on society is prevalent…
But…many avenues of the programs being shown misses many vital areas that scientist seemed to neglect.
When including the past of our species, we created the current lifestyle of being able to live in cold climates that our species would have had to do much moving in the past which then has to change the hypotheses being shown. Which then is also of a different latitude and different parameters of heat and light.
Just checked this out
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/12/13/ipcc-ar5-draft-leaked-contains-game-changing-admission-of-enhanced-solar-forcing/
So, to my previous post, it looks like AR5 will give a bit more coverage to other sources of solar forcing beside only direct solar irradiance – it least in its chapter covering “radiative forcing” if not in the chapter on “understanding and attributing climate change” (which is being written by a different group).
The impact on our “understanding and attributing climate change” is major, of course: if up to 50% of past warming can be attributed to solar forcing (as many solar studies have concluded) then the whole model-predicted (2xCO2) climate sensitivity estimates are in serious question and, with these, all the projections for future climate change caused by AGW.
So this could be a “biggie”.
It looks like IPCC will not handle it that way in AR5, though.
Max
“Kirkby: It will settle a particular question, which to my mind can only be settled by experimental data. There’s a huge amount of opinion one way or another on the blogosphere that says “cosmic rays have no effect on the climate” to “cosmic rays do everything in the climate.” And no matter how passionately people believe this view or that view, we can’t settle it by energetic debate.”
It seems unlikely cosmic rays does everything or has no effect.
Though is seems as obvious that same can said about CO2 levels.
It seems that something that can have a large effect on climate are already accepted. Stuff like large volcanic eruptions and year around snow in temperate zones. These are types of things that have large effects and stuff like CO2 or cosmic rays have at best secondary effects.
But a large focus of climatic has to do with rather minor effects that have occurred in last century or so.
And the biggest effect we had in last few centuries has been the Little Ice Age. It was period significant advancement of glaciers worldwide, followed by a significant retreat of glacier worldwide. So LIA wasn’t a small effect, nor was it huge.
We know CO2 levels had little or nothing to do with causing the LIA. And we pretty certain that cosmic rays were the only or primary cause of the LIA. One can not ignore somewhat large volcanic eruptions during this time.
One could have plausible explanation of the cause of the LIA which may primarily involved volcanic eruption and cosmic rays. But it also possible that the combination of volcanic eruption and cosmic rays were only responsible for about 1/2 or less of the cooling of LIA. So only combination of volcanic eruption and cosmic rays levels plus some additional factors were the cause.
One question is that assuming we don’t some vast volcanic eruptions that equals or exceeds those which occurred during the LIA and just prior to beginning of 20th century is there any other factor which could cause cooling. And likewise if we were to modest eruption like just prior to 20th Century, 1883 eruption of Krakatoa, would anyone imagine it would not at a comparatively major effect upon global climate?
Another item to add to this week in review.
With Controls, Britain Allows Hydraulic Fracturing to Explore for Gas
By STANLEY REED
Published: December 13, 2012
LONDON — The British government gave the go-ahead Thursday for exploratory hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, to extract natural gas from shale-rock deposits. ****
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/14/business/energy-environment/britain-approves-fracking-for-shale-gas-exploration.html?_r=0.
You didn’t include this part:
“Because of the environmental concerns about the controversial technique, which include the risk of water pollution, the government called for stringent controls on fracking.”
For the New York Times and other Lefty dominated propaganda machines
this part is important.
They have to include adjectives like “stringent controls” otherwise the masses of Lefties might panic or be overly depressed. Just like when Lefties rags uses lots of adjective describing the latest crop of tyrannical thugs, as visionaries and bright hopes for humankind.
It’s not the New York times is going to describe body searches of grandma at airports as stringent controls. Or for that matter the vast majority of what governments routinely do as stringent controls. That would said to be the minimal or not enough government controls.
The leaked IPCC report has some interesting things to say about the stratosphere, very relevant to the previous post. See chapter 9 p 29 where the Solomon et al and Santer et al 2012 papers are discussed.
Oh yeah. I’m sure that’s going to happen.
Perhaps I can’t recall reading in these comments (or others around the “skept-o-sphere” anyone who “adjusted [their] conclusions” even one iota because of BEST’s work. Not one smidgeon. Not even a tad. Show me one who has, and I’ll show you a skeptic as opposed to a “skeptic.”
ahem…
Credit where credit is due.
If the issue is science and actually understanding something is your goal, then you go where the data pushes you. If you purpose is being “right” then politics, religion or academia are your likely destinations. The present state of the climate discussion might leave one with a yen to pull the wings off politics.
The potential impact of increased gas availability worldwide on emissions and CO2 is my point, not Right vs. Left. Along those lines, also this week:
Non-oil firms bid aggressively in China’s shale auction
* 83 firms bid for the tender, including 6 Sino-foreign jvs
* China to announce tender winners soon
* Energy services companies to benefit
BEIJING, Dec 4 (Reuters) – Non-oil companies may have won most of the blocks offered in China’s second shale gas auction, media and industry officials say, which may mean lucrative opportunities for service companies such as Schlumberger , Halliburton and China’s Anton Oilfield Services Group.
China, the world’s top energy user, is believed to hold the world’s largest reserves of shale gas, which is trapped in rocks and requires a technology called hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, to unleash. ****
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/12/04/china-gas-shale-idUSL4N09E2G020121204
A significant portion of Chinese rural households still heat with coal.
Their chemical industry also uses coal as a feedstock for fertilizer(ammonia) where natural gas would be better.
In addition they have 1 million+ natural gas powered vehicles.
So there is plenty of room for substitution of ‘more environmentally friendly’ gas even before you get to the electricity sector.
Go to any mid-sized Chinese industrial city (especially in the winter) and you will be breathing a light brown mixture of black carbon, hydrocarbons, sulfur oxides, heavy metals and other real air pollutants from coal. (Pictures of Pittsburgh in the 1930s or 1940s would show you the same pollution.)
If you happen to suffer from asthma or another respiratory ailment, you may end up in a hospital.
If the coal were replaced with natural gas, this pollution would disappear, as it did in Pittsburgh.
If China really does find a large supply of domestic shale gas, then this would be a logical step to clean up the current air pollution.
(Although this is probably not on anyone’s radar screen there, it would also reduce CO2 emissions.)
Max
London’s an even better example. 19th century London was a dingy place.
Really?
Will climate debate combatants ever stop building straw men?
My Magic 8 Ball says “Outlook not good.”
Joshua
Unlike you, I do not have a “Magic 8 Ball”, but I see that a considerable amount of money is being spent to do a large-scale test at CERN of the GCR cloud nucleation hypothesis suggested by Henrik Svensmark (and others) to have been a significant driver of our climate, which Svensmark et al. tested in at a small scale in the laboratory.
So far, the large-scale experiment has so far validated the basic GCR cloud nucleation mechanism in the presence of certain naturally occurring aerosols, but the scientists have cautioned that more work will need to be done to see if this effect is really confirmed in our atmosphere.
Jasper Kirkby, the team leader, has been extremely cautious and low-key in his statements to the public, as the interview above confirms.
It could be a “blooper” – or it could be a “biggie”.
And I am not taking any bets, since I don’t have a “Magic 8 Ball” that can see the future..
Max
Our hostess writes “The extreme overconfidence of many of their conclusions is bewildering.”
I suppose it would be “bewildering” if it is read as if the AR5 was a scientific report. But it is not. It is merely the restatement of a religious belief. There was always going to be a problem in writing the AR5, because, since the AR4, there have been all sorts of SCIENTIFIC facts found out, that contradict the extreme overconfidence of the IPCC. So, the IPCC had a choice. They could go with the religious doctrine as espoused in the AR4, ignore the science, and reiterate their previous conclusions. Or they could act like proper scientists, and admit that the overexuberance in previous years was just plain wrong.
Clearly, the IPCC has decided to ignore the science, and reiterate their religious beliefs.
“Clearly, the IPCC has decided to ignore the science, and reiterate their religious beliefs.”
Or, I suppose it could *just* be possible that all those scientists actually understand the system better than you do, and you might be mistaken.
No, obviously not.
Could not have put it better myself, comrade VTG. Hear! Hear!
verytallguy, you write “Or, I suppose it could *just* be possible that all those scientists actually understand the system better than you do, and you might be mistaken.”
Agreed. And what I would like to do is debate the science on which the IPCC has based their claims. Clearly, there are others, including our hostess and Alec Rawls, who would like to do the same sort of thing. Hopefully, as our hostess suggests, we will have some new threads on this subject, and I would be delighted to cross swords with you on this whole issue of how certain the IPCC ought to be with it’s various claims.
VTG
Jim Cripwell could be right here, VTG.
Until IPCC come to terms with the current “lack of warming” despite unabated human GHG emissions and concentrations reaching record levels, they are avoiding or ignoring an important “data point” in the “science” (because it doesn’t fit the “religious beliefs”?).
Max
In that case VTG you will have no trouble providing us with examples of how global warming is impacting our planet.
You know, examples of increased flooding, increased drought, increased tropical storm occurances and/or intensities, reduced snow covers, increasing rates of sea level rise, millions of refugees fleeing flooded coastal plains, thousands of species on the verge of extinction due to rapid and/or drastic changes to their environments.
Some comments
Looking at the AR5 SPM draft on warming projections (SPM-19), it appears that these have been decreased:
The projected future warming projections (for the end of this century) have been reduced a bit, starting from essentially the same base (AR5: 1986-2005 = +0.26°C versus AR4: 1980-1999 = +0.23°C):
AR5: 1.0° to 3.7°C, with maximum of range = 4.8°C
AR4: 1.8° to 4.0°C, with maximum of range = 6.4°C
Interestingly, the “level of confidence” of the longest-term projections (2081-2100) is shown as “high”, while that for shorter-term projections is shown as “n/a”.
It is not logical that a long-term projection should have a higher “level of confidence” than a shorter-term projection.
Also, I am missing a specific statement that acknowledges that the short-term warming projections of TAR (0.15° to 0.3°C per decade)and AR4 (0.2°C per decade) turned out to be wrong, i.e. there has been no warming since the end of 2000, despite unabated human GHG emissions and atmospheric concentrations reaching record levels. This should have been mentioned, at least.
With this in mind, the 2016-2035 projection of 0.7°C warming has a very high chance of being another “blooper”, since it means we would need to see around 0.45°C warming from today over the next 12-13 years.
Ouch!
Max
PS Astute fortune tellers ALWAYS keep the time frame of their predictions vague or so far out that no one will remember them when the time comes. Looks like IPCC is again falling into the trap of not doing this, even though it backfired in both TAR and AR4. Some folks never learn.
Max,
You say “It is not logical that a long-term projection should have a higher “level of confidence” than a shorter-term projection.”
Can you elaborate on why that is not logical Mr. Spock?
Seems perfectly fine to me, for a noisy system being forced in one direction.
Bob Droege
I don’t know about your “Mr. Spock”, but if you really want to know why a longer-term prediction has a lower confidence level than a shorter-term one, read Nassim Taleb’s The Black Swan.
It’s not “what we know”.
It’s not even “what we know we don’t know”.
It’s “what we don’t know we don’t know” that gets us every time.
And, as Taleb points out, its likelihood of doing so is greater the longer the time period of the prediction.
It is also the reason why “experts” are no better at making long-term predictions than “non-experts”.
Sorry ’bout that. It’s just the way it is.
Max
Bob,
Which bet would you be willing to take – having to predict the winner of this year’s Superbowl or the winner in 2050?
Timg56,
That would be like predicting the high temperature for one day in June of 2013 vs one day in June 2063.
Predicting the trend from 2012 to 2062 would likely easier than predicting the trend 2012 to 2013. The uncertaintly for the longer term would be less than for the short term, hence the short term is n/a. Not available, not applicable, not assessed, or not knowing.
Since Black Swans come in flocks just like other birds, maybe we will see another one and I should wager a sawbuck that the Rams will win the super bowl this year. I could still get great odds.
But that would be stupid because Rams aren’t Birds.
Try predicting the % of sixes in 10 rolls of a die. Then try predicting the % in 10,000 rolls.
Quite a bit of apples and pears going on here.
First it depends on the underlying process (and this is uncertain, so the uncertainty is uncertain, but that’s another story).
But second it depends on whether you are projecting a single point at some future time eg temp in 2100 – uncertainty almost inevitably increases as you go out in time because the uncertainties cumulate, or whether you are projecting a statistic about different populations eg average annual increase for the next decade vs the next century – depending on the underlying process the errors might be lower in the second estimate.
On the other hand they might not :)
In order to prove that cosmic rays can have an effect on climate, all the proponents of that theory have to do is rent a jet airplane and fly it at cloud height and measure the cosmic rays and measure the number of cloud condensing nuclei. Easy peasy and pretty cheap, all the required instrumentation is commercially available.
So, what gives, why hasn’t this research been done?
Because it’s a foregone conclusion, you can see dust from space, and if there were enough cosmic rays to affect climate there would be enough cosmic rays to be seriously detrimental to human health.
HEPA filtered air still has too many particles to be significantly affected by the amount of cosmic rays available.
Cloud seeding didn’t work very well either.
Bob Droege
Rather than trying to arm-wave an answer to the cosmic ray cloud nucleation hypothesis being tested experimentally at CERN, it would seem wiser to wait for the results.
So far, only the mechanism itself (in the presence of naturally occurring aerosols) has been validated, but the effect in our climate system has not yet been confirmed, and more work will be done.
Let’s wait for the results before we jump to any foregone conclusions.
Max
No arm waving Max.
I have looked at data and have done some calculations.
They are not doing anything Wilson didn’t do a long time ago.
I do not deny the mechanism that cosmic rays can produce charged particles, which can influence cloud formation, that is so obvious, what is going on at Cern is stupid.
The people who advance this hypothesis should be doing field work. I think it is obvious (at least to me) that field experimentation is cheaper than what is going on at CERN.
So im my opinion, it is just a delay tactic.
Cosmic rays don’t have any correlation with temperature anyway, so it’s just a waste of time, except I’m always for a little egghead welfare, you never know, the cosmec ray climate hypothesis might accidently produce some interesting science.
There just are not enough cosmic rays to affect climate and I know this because I’ve measured them myself. And I know how many particles are in air, because air cleanliness has been a concern in my line of work. There is way more of one than of the other.
“There just are not enough cosmic rays to affect climate and I know this because I’ve measured them myself. And I know how many particles are in air, because air cleanliness has been a concern in my line of work. There is way more of one than of the other.”
How many cosmic rays are there and how would you think would be enough?
G balkie
Good point. Apparently it only takes a few extra co2 molecules to bring the earth to its Knees so maybe just a few cosmic rays will have the same effect. Come on bob, tell us how many rays there are and how many would be needed to make a difference
Tonyb
Bob Droege
You say that “cosmic rays have no correlation with temperature”.
There have been several studies covering long time periods that have demonstrated just the opposite.
The common criticism of CAGW aficionados (like BBD) is that this correlation fell apart for ~15 years starting in 1985.
A counterargument would be that AGW also fell apart for ~15 years now starting the end of 1997.
If you discount the GCR cloud nucleation hypothesis on the basis of 15 years of lack of correlation, isn’t it reasonable to do the same foe AGW for another 15 years of lack of correlation?
If not, what’s the difference between the two periods of non-correlation?
Max
Bob Droege, you write “So, what gives, why hasn’t this research been done?”
Proc. Roy. Sco. A Experimental evidence for the role of ions in particle nucleation under atmospheric conditions. Svensmark et al. See
http://rspa.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/463/2078/385.full.pdf
This is an experiment which describes precisley what you are suggesting, and it has already been done. It was the predecssor to the CLOUD experiment.
SPM draft, page 3:
[Suggested addition in bold face type.]
Reply,
“no it has not”
Max
You have made far, far too much of the warming hiatus. It’s time you sharpened your thinking on this issue. Here’s John Nielsen-Gammon to show you how.
There will be a test, so please read the linked article very carefully ;-)
BBD,
What happens when John’s graph is updated to 2012? Does the actual data match up with his project over the last 3 years.
Lazy, lazy, lazy.
If you’d bothered to read the article, you would have come across this.
Just read it, eh?
BBD
Not all the posters on that site seem that impressed with the graphs. The most interesting thing to note was that Smokey popped up on October 19th. I havent heard anything from him for months
tonyb
tonyb
The commenters who were ‘unimpressed’ didn’t come up with a substantive counter-argument to J N-G’s.
But this still begs the question has “the warming trend … stopped since the end of 2000” ?
No it doesn’t. Warming has slowed, but not stopped. It’s called ‘natural variability’ and nobody said it would simply go away because of AGW.
What you need to do is RTFL instead of trying to re-insert the ‘warming has stopped’ meme as if nothing had happened.
Here it is again. Read carefully. There will be a test.
manacker wants to add “Although the warming trend has stopped since the end of 2000”, BBD posts to a link that shows the trend in temp for various periods is not inconsistent with the trend in predicted CO2 forcings.
So what? Whether the temp trends are not inconsistent with the trend in predicted CO2 forcings (or any other of the myriad of time series that have a similar trend) is neither here nor there.
The question is – “has the warming trend stopped since the end of 2000?”. This is a simple empirical question consistent with the paragraph in which it is being inserted.
HAS
Repeat:
No it hasn’t. Warming has slowed, but not stopped. This is called ‘natural variability’ and nobody said it would simply go away because of AGW.
Do please read the link. The trend (continuing, demonstrated therein) is consistent with *actual emissions*. Not ‘projections’. You have already failed the test. Badly.
In doing so you reveal yourself to be a lazy or intellectually dishonest (or both) pseudo-sceptic intent on keeping the ‘warming has stopped’ meme front and centre.
If I were you, I would take 15 minutes to read the link before posting further comment.
BBD the issue here is the difference between “what is a trend, and is there one in the temperature series” (what manacker is talking about) and “is whatever trend there is in the temp series consistent with the CO2 forcings series” (what JN-G is talking about – read his last sentence).
The first is just about the numbers, the second is attempting to investigate some aspect of causality.
You need to understand this difference in commenting on what manacker said, and in interpreting what JN-G is saying. You are mixing the two up.
I suspect that your confusion comes from the use of the word “warming”. manacker talks about a “warming trend” that I think most people would interpret as a trend of increasing temperatures, no more, no less.
You, I suspect, believe there is an ongoing warming process occurring that is manifesting itself in increasing global temperatures. Your objection isn’t to what manacker saying, but to the implication that this warming process mightn’t be continuing.
I think as I said earlier your objection is misplaced, this is simply a descriptive paragraph making no comment about attribution.
Finally I’d suggest you be a bit more circumspect about making accusations about who understands what.
You clearly don’t understand my statement “the trend in temp … is not inconsistent with the trend in predicted CO2 forcings” saying in response: “The trend … is consistent with *actual emissions*. Not ‘projections’. ”
While “projections” is your word not mine (and there is a difference) the CO2 forcings are definitely “predicted” from the CO2 concentrations using a model, and part of JN-G’s post is to make the point these forcings are different from CO2 concentrations (and different again from “emmisions” that you chatter about). Of perhaps secondary importance, “not inconsistent” and “is consistent” carries slightly different connotations important when thinking about hypothesis testing.
Ho hum
HAS
What is represented by the dashed green line in this graph?
The confusion you suggest doesn’t exist.
That’s good then, we’re agreed that the only relevance of JN-G’s post to this debate is one graph showing linear trend in low trop temp 2000-2012 that starts with the beginning of 2000, not the end, has no attempt at showing statistical significance or discussion of the model being fitted.
In other words of only peripheral relevance to the question of whether the temp warming trend had stopped since the end of 2000.
manacker over-plays the ‘warming has stopped’ card. So do you. Fiddling around with short-term trends is uninformative. Natural variability hasn’t simply stopped because of increasing GHG forcing.
Still, you were asking about whether the warming trend had stopped in 2000. Obviously it depends which data are used but it’s interesting watching Hansen and Spencer converge :-)
Confronted with the question of whether the temperature has stopped rising, a scientist would look for consilient data. Has the land temperature stopped warming? No. Has the ocean heat content stopped rising? No. Next.
Jim D, you make the same mistake as BBD. Given a temp series its trend (however defined) is a mindless calculation based on the observed numbers. You can then make statements about that trend, and argue about whether those statements are true or not, or whether statistic used to characterise the trend is appropriate or otherwise..
Whether this trend is the same as or different from other time series (whether heat content of the ocean or the Dow Jones index) is of acute interest if you are trying to ascribe causality to the trend, but if you’re just describing the trend then what the heat content of the ocean or the Dow Jones did is neither here nor there.
HAS, if you just think of it as an abstract set of numbers, fine. When you start using it as the only measure of global warming, wrong.
HAS
Jim D is right. The alternative – eschewed by rational minds, of course – is data denial.
BBD
You must be joking.
The data are pretty clear.
It has stopped warming since the end of 2000 (or since the end of 1997, depending on which record you look at).
This bit of news has been all over.
A few diehard deniers still have their head in the sand (are you one of these poor deluded individuals?), but even guys like Trenberth have recognized this “unexplained lack of warming” (his “travesty”).
I don’t make “any more of it” that there is. It’s simply a “pause” in the warming we’ve seen in fits and spurts since the record started in 1850.
This one is a little different than earlier ones, however, in that over 30% of ALL the CO2 that was EVER emitted by humans was emitted over this period of “lack of warming”, raising some serious questions regarding the magnitude of AGW.
CAGW die-hards are scrambling to find a rationalization for this “lack of warming” (it’s Chinese aerosols, the warming is hidden somewhere, maybe in the ocean, it’s being over shadowed by natural variability, etc., etc.), but these all sound pretty weak and contrived.
My conclusion on all this is that IPCC has very likely overestimated the (2xCO2) climate sensitivity by a factor of 2 to 3.
What is your conclusion?
Are you one of the “deniers” or do you have a “rationalization”?
Max
My conclusion is that you are stupid and dishonest in equal measure. You’ve had your endless errors and misrepresentations and lies pointed out to you again and again and again yet here you are, repeating the same old rubbish ad nauseam.
Are you paid to do this? I really begin to wonder.
BBD,
I did read the article. Then I asked a reasonable question. Could I have spent time searching the net for an answer? Sure. But it was your post and I figured you might already have the answer.
So why be such a dick?
Bob Droege
Pull your head out of the sand or you’ll get sand in your eyes.
The “pause” in near surface warming sine the end of 2000 is clear in the temperature record.
It has been discussed ad nauseam on this site and elsewhere.
Where have you been?
Max
Max,
Tell me when the pause is statistically significant.
What do you mean, where have I been, I have told you that the pause is not statistically significant before, or don’t you remember?
Until it is statistically significant, it is an artifact, and is just as real as the pink elephants on my lawn.
What underlying statistical process are you assuming?
Bob Droege
The “pause” is “statistically significant” because it has lasted 15 years.
Now I realize that according to Ben Santer a trend (even a flat one) only becomes “statistically significant” after 17 years.
So I suppose we’ll have to wait two years.
But, at least it appears that IPCC is acknowledging its existence in AR5.
Max
The slight decrease in the SH is now greater then the 17yr period,which in essence removes the global context.In addition the increase in sea ice in the antarctic around 1% per decade since 1970 is problematic at least,
What’s the matter Max?
Put up or shut up!
Got your answer now, Bobby?
Sorry Max, according to GISS, the trend for the last 15 years is +0.098 C per decade. The way I do math, that is positive, and + 0.2 per decade is within the uncertainty bounds.
Whether a trend is statistically significant does not depend on the number of years.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/trend.php
Sorry Max, game over, you lose.
Bob Droege I wouldn’t rely on that temp calculator to give you accurate assessments of the uncertainty or the trend. Foster and Rahmstorf (2011) have adjusted the temp series to remove estimates of other factors that could be influencing the temp series (ENSO, volcanic aerosols and solar variability). In so doing they fit a linear model without checking that the assumptions are met and they mine the data to find the best lags without adjusting the degrees of freedom to take account of this.
OK for Environ. Res. Lett. and Skeptical Science but wouldn’t pass muster in a journal with some statistical/time series analysis cred.
Bob is citing the linear trend in GISTEMP. Nothing to do with Foster and Rahmstorf 2011.
oh wait there is a FR 2011 mode to that calculator, but the one bob linked to is not in that mode.
lolwot, Bob Droege’s only citation is to Skeptical Science’s temp calculator that in term cites F&R (2011). In fact if you take a minute of two and look at Kevin C’s fuller explanation at SS you’ll see how F&R (2011) was used to do this.
Bob Droege says the most remarkable thing I’ve seen all day:
If only that were true rather than being completely ridiculous.
No.
HAS
This is a critique of the methodology F&R11. It has nothing to do with the SkS trend calculator in the sense you propose. This is a really rather surprising confusion. I’d be interested in your explanation for how it arose.
From the explanatory notes for the SkS trend calulator:
Brandon,
You are so right, it is absolutely ridiculous for me to say that the statistical significance of a trend does not depend on the number of years.
What I should have said is:
Whether a trend is statistically significant does not depend only on the number of years, it depends also on the frequency of data collection, the amount of noise in the system (and the noise in the data collection system), the size of the trend (a smaller trend will take longer to achieve significance), and the amount of autocorrelation in the data series.
But I was responding to a poster who says it takes 15 years.
As for HAS, you know that such trend calculations such as the one I linked to at Skeptical Science are only estimates, and so of course are not accurate.
And yeah, the linear models are wrong.
Try analysis on the 30 year trend from 1940 to 1970, and tell me what you get.
Bob Droege
You pick one record (GISS) and show that it is slightly warmer than flat.
Duh!
I can show you three others (HadCRUT3, HadCRUT4, RSS) that are slightly cooler than flat. UAH is slightly warmer than flat
This all does not change the fact that it has not warmed globally over the past 12 to 15 years despite unabated emissions of human GHGs.
The rationalizations of why this is so have all sounded pretty weak and contrived to me.
Max
manacker
You cannot say this. Some records show warming. Your absolutism is at variance with the evidence. It is not a fact and some records show warming. Things that follow logically from this:
– You will have to stop making factually inaccurate claims.
– You will have to acknowledge that nobody ever said natural variability would stop because of AGW.
– You will have to acknowledge that this means monotonic warming is nothing more than a contrarian strawman.
– You will have to acknowledge that the recent slow-down in warming is consistent with natural variability.
– You will have to acknowledge that it in no way ‘falsifies’ AGW.
– You will have to acknowledge that making such a claim – implicitly or explicitly – is simply denialist rhetoric, not scientific analysis.
– You will have to acknowledge that you have been using this denialist rhetoric incessantly in comments here.
BBD
Let me go through your last post
– You will have to stop making factually inaccurate claims. [i.e. that the record shows it has stopped warming]
Duh! That’s what the record shows, BBD (two records, GISS and UAH show very slight warming, two records, HadCRUT and RSS show very slight cooling = in summary, “it has stopped warming”)
– You will have to acknowledge that nobody ever said natural variability would stop because of AGW.
I never said that, either.
– You will have to acknowledge that this means monotonic warming is nothing more than a contrarian strawman.
“Contrarian strawman” sounds like polemic to me, rather than a scientific term. IPCC forecasted “0.2C per decade warming over next two decades”, which sounds pretty “monotonic” to me; so far this has not occurred.
– You will have to acknowledge that the recent slow-down in warming is consistent with natural variability.
Why not? I agree that IPCC has underestimated the impact of “natural” variability/forcing, as evidenced by the past 10-15 years.
– You will have to acknowledge that it in no way ‘falsifies’ AGW.
Not yet, at least. Santer says it takes 17 years to be statistically significant, so we still have a couple of years to go. Even then it would not falsify “AGW” as such (although it might falsify “CAGW”).
– You will have to acknowledge that making such a claim – implicitly or explicitly – is simply denialist rhetoric, not scientific analysis.
Se above comment re. polemic, but no one has made any “claim” – simply that the current lack of warming raises serious questions about the magnitude of AGW (not about the concept per se).
– You will have to acknowledge that you have been using this denialist rhetoric incessantly in comments here.
More polemic.
BBD, your post has not added anything new.
The current “lack of warming” is real, it emphasizes the possible greater importance of natural variability/forcing factors (which have consistently been estimated very low by IPCC), if it lasts much longer it will raise questions regarding the magnitude of AGW, but is still too short to tell us much and IPCC is apparently not making a big deal out of it in the AR5 draft.
Hope this covers the points you raised to your satisfaction.
Max
manacker
You cannot state, as a matter of fact, that warming has ceased. Yet you do, constantly. When this is pointed out, you do it again. This is called ‘lying’.
You constantly insinuate that the warming slow-down indicates some serious problem with the estimate of climate sensitivity. But this is simply rhetoric, not scientific analysis.
And in response to my pointing this out you do it again.
This is called ‘lying’.
Or if you prefer, sustained mendacity and misrepresentation in furtherance of a political goal. It has nothing to do with science, after all. No scientist would try to claim that natural variability invalidated the consensus estimate of CS.
Only politically motivated liars do that.
Max,
Let me try a different tactic,
Let’s say that your hypothesis is, “There is no warming trend since 1998”
Would you agree that for that hypothesis that the null hypothesis is “Warming has continues at the trend of 0.2 C per decade?”
I would rather use the null hypothesis of continued warming at the previous pace, say the trend from 1970 to the present.
Accepting that, let us look at the evidence.
I will use the trend calculator form skeptical science.
If you can provide the trend from that period with error bars we can use that.
GISSTEMP 0.074 +/- 0.147
NOAA 0.036 +/- 0.137
HADcrappy3v -0.003 +/- 0.143
New and improved HADcrut4 0.043 +/- 0.140
The BEST of alll data sources 0.144 +/- 0.276
NOAA land 0.110 +/_ 0.229
RSS -0.045 +/- 0.250
UAH 0.050 +/- 0.254
You see, three of them do reject the trend of 0.2 C per decade, but none of reject a continuation of the existing trend shown by those data series since 1970.
None reject the null hypothesis of continued warming.
BBD, wipe the foam off your mouth. One-third of all human emissions have occurred since 1998 with no real response in temperatures. Natural variation is one thing. Ignoring reality, which seems to be your specialty, is something else entirely.
Still incapable of thinking properly I see Tom.
What’s this? Why is it that shape? What does that shape tell us about the rate of increase in the fraction of atmospheric CO2? Is it roughly constant, or has it dramatically accelerated since 1998?
What is a carbon sink, Fuller?
How do carbon sinks interact? What are the relationships between them? Why does a climate scientist tell me that the problem isn’t what we see with regards to emissions since 1998 but the undue emphasis placed on emissions between 1976 and 1998 and the mistaken attribution of those emissions to the warming occurring at the time?
Maybe a doltish troll flailing around the only tool he has–the oafish club of calling opponents liars and deniers–isn’t the right person to ask to think. Certainly I don’t expect a rational response from you. But consider that the problem with gigantic levels of emissions since 1998 (with no temperature response) really tells us something interesting about the prior period. No, never mind–it would conflict with your religious beliefs.
BBD
You posted a curve of the atmospheric CO2 concentration, which has been increasing at a fairly constant exponential rate of around 0.5% per year over the past decades.
This is likely to continue, albeit possibly at a slightly slower rate as population growth rate slows down, as it is expected to do over this century.
If it continues at this rate we could reach around 600 ppmv by year 2100. IPCC estimates that this would cause warming of 1.8 to 2.2C
If fossil fuels continue to become more difficult and expensive to extract and as alternates, such as nuclear or renewable sources, become cost competitive, the rate of CO2 increase will most likely slow down.
There is an absolute asymptotic upper limit to how much CO2 can be added by the consumption of fossil fuels, and this is a level of around 1000 ppmv. According to IPCC estimates, this would cause warming of around 4C.
At current usage rates this would occur in around 300 years.
But it is almost certain that fossil fuels will have been replaced by something more economical long before this.
And, then again, IPCC’s (2xCO2) warming estimates may be on the high side.
Max
Git ’em, BBD. Smite them with your holy truth.
http://arxiv.org/pdf/1212.2766v1.pdf
A search for cosmic ray influences, posted on arxiv yesterday
“(iii) Recent work at CLOUD [5] has shown that ionizing particles do produce nu-
cleation under carefully controlled conditions, at least using the atmospherically
relevant H2SO4. However, there is a very great temperature dependence of the
rate and for most of the troposphere, and particularly the ‘boundary layer’ – at
altitudes below several km – the atmospheric temperatures are too high. Kirkby
et al. agree with this diagnosis.”
There is a lot of interesting stuff that happens at the right temperature. I don’t see how they could separate one cause from another with the short period of data available. So a coin toss is what I would expect.
DTR has increased though since 1985 with temperature. Whatever the “cause” the effect is interesting.
Erlykin state: “We find no positive evidence”.
As you know, WHT, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
Right?
Max
andrew adams | December 14, 2012 at 5:52 am | Reply
Andrew, you have the stick by the wrong end. I consciously did NOT become an expert reviewer specifically so that I would be free to publicly comment on AR5 before the final version is actually published.
So I’m sorry, but you’ll have to take some other path in order to quash views that you don’t like, you’ll have to find some alternate way to keep people from commenting on the state of the Emperors clothes.
If you are out of ideas on how to censor folks, I’d suggest reading the Climategate emails, they have lots of plans on how to keep unpleasant facts from surfacing …
w.
Willis,
It’s nothing to do with censorship or quashing views I don’t like. Your views on the early drafts are just irrelevent – such drafts have no standing, they do not represent the view of the IPCC and may differ (possibly substantially) from what is in the final version, and you will have no impact whatsoever on the drafting process.
andrew adams | December 14, 2012 at 5:30 pm | Reply
Willis,
Keep telling yourself that. I’m unwilling to believe that it is just a coincidence.
w.
What do you make of Rawls entering into an agreement to look at IPCC drafts and then breaking that agreement. Can you think of a similar case where you weighed in?
I thought the original comment by AA related to people who hadn’t signed up now commenting on the released draft.
The morality of Rawls’ behaviour is perhaps relevant but wasn’t the case AA was making.
Steven, not sure if that was aimed at me or not, but in any case, my view is that Rawls was 100% wrong to enter into an agreement to maintain secrecy and then break the agreement.
That is precisely why I didn’t sign up to be an expert reviewer. I didn’t know if I could abide by their secrecy policy, and I am of the very strong opinion that a man should honor his agreements to the letter.
Thanks,
w.
“Steven, not sure if that was aimed at me or not, but in any case, my view is that Rawls was 100% wrong to enter into an agreement to maintain secrecy and then break the agreement.”
Do you mean wrong, violated binding agreement, and therefore could face legal consequences of violating an agreement?
Or morally wrong?
gbaikie | December 15, 2012 at 2:45 am |
Depends on the exact details of the contract. For me, the issue is personal (keeping my word) rather than criminal.
w.
“- Do you mean wrong, violated binding agreement, and therefore could face legal consequences of violating an agreement?
Or morally wrong?-
Depends on the exact details of the contract. For me, the issue is personal (keeping my word) rather than criminal.
w.”
I would agree that the exact details of contract could be important in regarding the legality. And I am unaware of these details.
The personal issue depends upon who is involved and many other details I am not clear on.
For example what group Rawls belongs to, as a member of the group, this could seen to harm that group.
An example, is James Hansen getting arrested.
So there example of someone legally in the wrong.
What seems most morally wrong with Hansen getting
himself arrested is the damage he did to his organization,
NASA, in which Hansen was a director.
Hansen should apologize to members of NASA for
his conduct, and it was unbecoming as a director
to do this.
Likewise it might interesting to ask the question, who
could Rawls possible owe an apology to.
As I agree that this could be a personal issue, but
I am not aware who exactly he could have harmed.
Why Sainted FOIA hides his halo.
==============
Willis said:
“…in any case, my view is that Rawls was 100% wrong to enter into an agreement to maintain secrecy and then break the agreement…”
______
Exactly, as it is 100% wrong for blogs to use that information to increase hits to their site, with the issue of how much they might misrepresent or otherwise twist the content of this material another level of immoral behavior entirely.
There is an interesting discussion of a new paper here:
http://neven1.typepad.com/blog/2012/12/2012-greenland-records.html#more
link to the paper
http://www.the-cryosphere-discuss.net/6/4939/2012/tcd-6-4939-2012.pdf
some balance from the alarmist camp.
I mean real science what happened to Greenlands ice sheet this year.
Some more comments on the release of the IPCC draft report for those who read German
http://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/natur/klimabericht-der-uno-ipcc-report-im-netz-veroeffentlicht-a-872984.html
The present model seems to guarantee that the draft will become public while IPCC may continue to tell that they have not made it public. It’s difficult to imagine that what has happened would have surprised anyone.
The present approach fails on many fronts. It has been criticized from many sides, including naturally numerous skeptics but also climate scientists like Schellnhuber, evidently for reasons that are in some ways opposite to those of the skeptics, but may also coincide on some points.
My own view is that some new approach must be found. It appears likely that AR5 will make it again more evident that writing big reports every five years or so has already continued for too long. The new approach should take advantage of the net and be based on some new way of combining open discussion and control of quality.
+1
Pekka, what do you mean by ‘control of quality’ in this context?
I was vague by purpose as I cannot tell what exactly should be done.
Some method is needed to keep the volume of the primary information manageable and to make that finite volume reflect the most valuable contributions.
Some further ideas are in the post you can find behind the words “My own view” in the above comment and there in the section on WG1.
Quality assurance, perhaps? Thinking of formal programs as might be found in (US) NEPA, Yucca Mtn, (US) CERCLA or Superfund actions, etc. Loosely process quality that can stand up under litigation–but implemented with a strong electronic version control component. Much of this is probably alien to the much of academic world.
process quality -> process and quality
“Some method is needed to keep the volume of the primary information manageable and to make that finite volume reflect the most valuable contributions.”
I take it from this statement and ideas you present in your link you are suggesting some sort of large basic climate database accessible to the public that allows others to verify what has been reported and published in the literature?
Pekka – we discussed similar things here a while ago, and I’m still interested in them. I wrote an NSF grant 18 months ago (not funded) to build some software and run some experiments in this vein; I just gave a talk on the topic at AGU (the American Geophysical Union) and used the opportunity given by the leak to do a little self promotion on Andy Revkin’s blog (which he was kind enough to promote himself). The essay on your site is excellent and I’ll try to give it some additional exposure.
Best,
–Paul
Who plays politics with the weather? It goes back to Al Gore, VP under Bill Clinton. The motivation behind the fearmongering about deep and disastrous climate change disruption has nothing to do with what is good for the people.
Terence Corcoran (Financial Post, 29-Oct-12) gets it and correctly exposes the warp and woof of the Left’s hype machinery, busily weaving hairshirts for the rest of us to wear, as follows: As gloom descended over the warmist camps across the continent, their overheated claims flickering dimly like dying campfires, their cause lost, there suddenly rose in the East a powerful force [Hurricane Sandy]. Look! What’s that on the horizon? A mighty blast of good news! FRANKENSTORM…The Natural Resources Defence Fund tweeted the blessed arrival of Sandy. Soon the idea [i.e., linking carbon emissions with natural disasters] was in all the media where such junk science routinely finds a home: The Huffington Post, The Atlantic, blogs at The Washington Post.
Yes, incredible, some of these claims of confidence in the draft WGI report, they made me laugh a few times when comparing the statements to the actual evidence cited in the attribution chapter. And they consider it an unresolved mystery that all models hindcast the 20th century temperature reasonably well while climate sensitivities vary over a wide range. Shows a serious inability of reflection on the modelling process or they just don’t want to write it.
The thing I still miss most is a question: “What does it take to be able to say that a model is qualified to predict the response of climate to ghg emission scenarios over a century?” What kinds of tests should a model (including the assumptions on which it is based) pass to assess its fitness for this task with confidence? (and not: feeling confident). I think that if this question would be addressed seriously and systematically, we might actually get somewhere with this. All there is now is a load of mostly unconnected facts and statements about various aspects of models.
Regarding AR5 – Pielke Jr is very pleased with coverage of extreme storms – his field. Virtually all the attribution of storms to AGW from AR4 have been removed – they’ve essentially renounced the claims of the AR4 lead authors in this matter.
Cool
Yes this is an interesting point. See Pielke’s tweets today. The summary at the start of ch 2 says –
# Insufficient evidence and thus low confidence for consistent trends in the magnitude or frequency of floods on a global scale
# Recent re-assessments of tropical cyclone data do not support the AR4 conclusions of an increase in the most intense tropical cyclones or an upward trend in the potential destructiveness of all storms since the 1970s
# New results indicate that AR4 conclusions regarding global increasing trends in droughts since 1970s are no longer supported
These are important points I think (more important than that one sentence about the sun and cosmic rays!)
Yes, but will that be the case in the final draft of the Summary for policy makers? That is what gets all the press. And with the recent hoopla over Sandy, they may not want to let go of that meme.
Prof. Curry, thanks again for being a voice of science. It’s appreciated. I like this graph:
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/ipcc_fig1-4_models_obs.png
I ‘project’ we will be at ~0.0 in 2020 (~0.2 in 2015). Interesting times.
Yes. A question I haven’t seen asked/answered yet is:
“If the IPCC were to change the timetable for it’s reports-schedule, what changes do readers think would most likely be favourable for the catastrophic-consensus.”
The creditability of the IPCC is such that it does not make much difference if they say something different or not.
The UN elected Muammar Ghaddafi’s Libya to supervise human rights. Nice to know that the UN never changes.
The IPCC report leak is long overdue. If these reports were under the US not the UN the authors would be a federal advisory committee and the law for these (FACA) requires that all drafts be public.
Here’s a poll on reconnecting consensus science with experimental reality: http://omanuel.wordpress.com/about/#comment-1931
The poll consists of 10 yes/no questions concerning a one-page comment now under review at Nature.
If your time permits, send your response to omatumr2@gmail.com
Thanks,
– Oliver
Of responses received to date, the most contentious statements –
“endowed mankind with intangible qualities – like creativity, faith, hope and love – and the unalienable right [5] to self-governance to live happy, joyous and free” –
Are statements that most clearly identify the difference between:
a.) Joyful discovery to improve contact with Reality, Truth, God and
b.) Lock-step consensus science for Nobel or other financial awards
E.g., Awards for imaginary AGW, Black Holes and God-Particles:
http://www.scienceworldreport.com/articles/4299/20121211/stephen-hawking-wins-huge-3-million-physics.htm
Can scientists see a pattern in life…
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/9748977/MPs-and-Peers-launch-gay-marriage-rebellion-saying-Cameron-has-no-mandate.html
God, help us.
Steven Mosher | December 14, 2012 at 12:35 pm |
harry. i will suggest you read up on fracking in china.
start with the wsj artictle
The one interview I say with Dr Muller pontificating on energy matters he said the US should ‘GIVE’ China fracking technology.
It just seemed to me to a somewhat ‘provincial/national geographic’ lens of China. I.E. They are a poor country incapable of making ‘intelligent decisions’ for themselves.
My brother in law built a couple of coal fired power plants in China in the 1990’s….then they optimized the building plans and went out and built 2 a week all by themselves.
They ain’t stupid…they’ll buy the knowledge they think they need, throw a thousand engineers at optimization and then roll-out on a massive scale.
Harrywr2,
Could you make some comments of the efficiency of the new coal plants being built in China compared with in the developed countries.
I may have this wrong, but I understand China is building ultra super critical power plants. In Australia, we have no ultra super critical, and in fact we only have one super critical plant.
Could you expand. And what is the relevance of the efficiency of the efficiency for CO2 emissions intensity?
As of 2010 China had 30GW of Ultra Super-Critical Coal fired plants with efficiency rates in the 44% range. I haven’t seen any update on how many more they have built .China’s operational efficiency across all their plants was 37% in 2011, based on first 10 months of 2012 they’ll get that to 38% this year. US average coal fired efficiency rates are 30%.
The US has one ‘demonstration’ 600 MW Ultra-super critical coal fired plant under construction due to be complete this year.
China just connected it’s first IGCC coal fired plant to the grid.
http://www.power-eng.com/news/2012/12/13/china-s-most-environmentally-friendly-coal-fired-power-station-starts-operation.html
The US has one 618 MW IGCC demonstrator that is ‘scheduled’ to be operational by the end of the year. It’s more then $1 billion over budget.
They’ve also done carbon capture and storage demonstration.
Harrywr2,
Thank you for that information. Wow! I had no idea the Chinese already have 30 GW of ultra-super-critical coal plants operating already. US and Australia have none. In fact, although about 80% of Australia’s electricity is generated by coal, we have only one supercritical plant operating.
On those figures the average efficiency of China’s whole coal fleet is close to Australia’s best coal fired power station. It shows how far ahead of us they are.
Peter Lang
Don’t know about Australia, but China doesn’t have an EPA plus a tangled web of regulations and it doesn’t allow green lobby groups like WWF, Greenpeace, etc. to mobilize lawyers (also missing) to stop progress.
Max
Thank you for making the point that it’s racist for paleface Americans to act as if we’re the only people on earth capable of innovation. This deplorable attitude is common among the policy wonkosphere.
The technical innovation and improvements soon likely to be coming out of China give me more grounds for optimism than just about anything else I can think of.
You didnt read the WSJ I see.
Sorry harry nobody is listening to you
Steve.
I would not expect anyone who believes whether or not the global temperature has risen by 0.6C or 0.8C or 1.0C in the last century or whether or not climate sensitivity is 1X or 3X will be the basis of determining future energy policy to believe anything I say.
Natural gas frakking was a gift from the McBushChenyHaliburton cabal. They were concerned that the US would become dependent on imported natural gas. It required an exemption to the clean water act to make it happen.
As soon as the US had ‘excess supplies of coal’, the ‘Climate Concerned European’ countries sent their boats over to cart it away to Europe. There are plenty of news articles how some small fraction of US coal exports are going to China and how it’s all going to be burned in filthy inefficient Chinese coal fired plants. The reality is that most of it is going to ‘Kyoto Annex I’ countries. They’ll clean their consciences by sending a handful of solar panels to Africa, or more likely they’ll offer India a subsidy on a windmill parked in some Indian politicians back yard where the wind never blows and count that as a ‘reduction in CO2 emissions from BAU’.
US Coal Exports first half of 2012 – 34 million tons to Europe, 7 million tons to China.
http://www.eia.gov/coal/production/quarterly/pdf/t7p01p1.pdf
There’s quite a bit of skeptic spin of AR5 going on at the moment. WUWT started it with it’s ludicrous “game changer” propagandist take on the subject.
Here are the three false claims I am seeing skeptics making about this:
1) That AR4 didn’t mention (or ignored!) cosmic rays. This false [1] claim isn’t new. Many a time I have found skeptics wrongly making up what AR4 says. A buncj of them seem to believe they can just guess what the IPCC wrote in AR4 rather than needing to read the actual report.
2) That AR5 now mentions cosmic rays and because AR4 didn’t, this is some kind of admission by the IPCC of the importance of cosmic rays on climate. Well #1 shows this claim to be false because AR4 mentioned it too.
3) That AR5 admits solar influence is bigger than thought. This false claim is based on believing #1 and #2 and the further assumption that #1 and #2 means #3. I haven’t seen any factual evidence that AR5 finds solar influence is larger than thought. Quite the contrary, the AR5 text on the matter of cosmic rays [2] is far more critical than AR4 of the idea cosmic rays can seed cloud formation sufficiently to cause significant climate change. Funnily enough skeptics have avoided pointing this out. Again as if they haven’t even read the reports.
[1] AR4 Chapter 2: Changes in Atmospheric Constituents and in Radiative Forcing
2.7.1.3 Indirect Effects of Solar Variability
“Various scenarios have been proposed whereby solar-induced galactic cosmic ray fluctuations might influence climate (as surveyed by Gray et al., 2005).” …continues talking about cosmic rays for 2 long paragraphs…
[2] AR5 Chapter 8 Radiative Forcing.
8.4.1.5 The Effects of Galactic Cosmic Rays on Clouds
…lots of discussion…
“However there is high confidence (medium evidence and high agreement) that the GCR-ionization mechanism is too weak to influence global concentrations of cloud condensation nuclei or their change over the last century or during a SC in a climatically-significant way (Erlykin and Wolfendale, 2011; Harrison and Ambaum, 2010; Snow-Kropla et al., 2011). A detailed exposition is found in Section 7.4.5.” …continues…
WUWT had 0% credibility before, so it really can’t go much lower.
lolwot
You are not really telling the truth about IPCC’s handling of the GCR cloud hypothesis in AR4 versus AR5.
In AR4 they gave it a paragraph and simply wrote it off as “controversial”
In AR5 they are giving it more space (in two sections), obviously still rationalizing it away (because it does constitute a potential threat to its “CAGW” paradigm).
It would obviously be hard for IPCC to simply write it off as “controversial” when CERN is spending quite a bit of effort to test it experimentally.
So, yes, IPCC is “taking the GCR cloud hypothesis more seriously” in AR5 than it did in AR4.
But the real “proof of the pudding” will be what CERN finds out – “boom or bust”, and we’ll just have to wait and see.
Max
“In AR4 they gave it a paragraph and simply wrote it off as “controversial”.
In AR5 they are giving it more space (in two sections), obviously still rationalizing it away”
The only use of controversial was in this sentence from AR4:
“an empirical association of cloud cover variations during 1984 to 1990 and the solar cycle remains controversial because of uncertainties about the reality of the decadal signal itself, the phasing or anti-phasing with solar activity, and its separate dependence for low, middle and high clouds.”
AR5 says:
“Based on available information, no robust association between changes in cosmic rays and cloudiness have been identified. In the event that such an association exists, it is very unlikely to be due to cosmic ray-induced nucleation of new aerosol particles.”
If anything they are saying the idea is now more controversial in AR5.
“It would obviously be hard for IPCC to simply write it off as “controversial” when CERN is spending quite a bit of effort to test it experimentally.”
And yet a lot of the extra discussion about cosmic rays in AR5 is presenting evidence that the idea is weak and controversial.
You even accuse AR5 of “rationalizing it away” while you claim they no longer treat it as controversial. That’s a contradiction. They can’t be both rationalizing it away and saying it isn’t controversial at the same time.
“So, yes, IPCC is “taking the GCR cloud hypothesis more seriously” in AR5 than it did in AR4.”
I don’t know what “more seriously” means. They certainly seem to be more seriously describing the failings of the idea. eg their summary:
“there is medium evidence and high agreement that the cosmic ray-ionization mechanism is too weak to influence global concentrations of CCN or their change over the last century or during a solar cycle in any climatically significant way. The lack of trend in the cosmic ray intensity over the last 50 years (Agee et al., 2012; McCracken and Beer, 2007) provides another strong argument against the hypothesis of a major contribution of cosmic rays to ongoing climate change.”
The very first thing that WUWT posted (by the leaker, not Watts), it is true, talked about the cosmic rays “admission”. I quickly read it as being not much more than an admission that this is something that needs to be examined. And perhaps that in the current draft, the summary was, once again, more alarmist and certain. (again Rawls or whatever the leakers name is).
Anthony, to his credit, realized that this was not the most important thing, and that the admission, in the form of graphs, that all previous IPCC projections were much higher than the actual temperatures, and the admission that there is no good evidence for an increase in tornadoes, hurricanes, droughts, volcanos, earthquakes, tsunamis, car accidents, etc (sorry, just a bit of humor at the end there) were the big news from AR5. These are important because, if you pay attention, these are the things that the scientific skeptics have been saying all along. Most scientists admit these things since they are true, but there is a tendency in this highly politicized field where people have put their reputations on the line, to try to explain all this away and not admit to being mistaken in your previous statements. In normal science, this happens much more quickly and with less rancor except for among a few scientists with pet theories at stake, but the majority of the rest, explain that both theories have value, or that one is actually better than the other. Here, you have large camps and the normal scientific debate is perverted, both by the participants and my the intense involvement of the media and politicians.
This should actually, in normal science, be a chance for the two sides to come together and reach some middle ground. Hopefully this will happen to some extent.
What I want to know, lolwot, is whether you picked this topic (the cosmic rays) out of subconscious partisanship, or you just don’t know about the other WUWT posts, or if you are deliberately picking the one area where they are wrong and harping on it as a way of distracting attention away from the other more relevant issues?
Because, in a fair argument, you would admit the other issues, or say something like “they are really off-base in this one area”, which would at least imply that there are other areas in which they are not. Just my impression.
Dr Steve Sherwood said it best
“I think the most interesting aspect of how this has been blogged by the climate deniers is that it reveals how deeply in denial they are. If they can look at a short section of a report and walk away believing it says the opposite of what it actually says, and if this spin can be uncritically echoed by very influential blogs like WattsUp, imagine how wildly they are misinterpreting the scientific evidence. This should open people’s eyes as to the credibility of the alternative ‘views’ they are serving up.”
lolwot
In AR4 IPCC covered the GCR cloud hypothesis only in the scientific WG1 report, where they gave it one paragraph, declaring it “controversial”. Right?
In the AR5 draft they have not declared it “controversial”. Right?
They have given it a bit more prominence than in AR4, mentioning it at least three times: in the SPM, in section 7 and in section 8, however, rationalizing in each case that it cannot be a major factor.
Paraphrasing what Mandy Rice-Davies once said, “well, they would say that, wouldn’t they?”.
It is too early to say whether or not the GCR cloud hypothesis is significant or not.
Here’s what speaks for it
1. Long-term records show a correlation between solar activity and global climate, but changes in TSI alone are too weak to account for these climate changes, so another solar mechanism is postulated.
2. A mechanism involving GCRs and clouds has been hypothesized by Henrik Svensmark and Eigil Friis-Christensen
3. This mechanism gas been demonstrated in simple lab experiments by Henrik Svensmark et al.
4. Under more controlled conditions, the GCR cloud nucleation mechanism has been confirmed experimentally (when certain natural aerosols are present) by the CLOUD experiment at CERN
5. Studies by Palle et al. have shown that cloud albedo has decreased over the 1980s and 1990s during a warming period, but then increased again after 2000, when warming stopped or reversed.
6. Recent studies by Herman et al. show that change in cloud albedo has been a major factor in changing the amount of solar energy reaching the surface of our planet since around 1980 when satellite measurements started; the changes in incoming energy would be enough to cause the observed warming, but no mechanism for the cloud changes is suggested in the study
Here’s what speaks against it
1. there is a 15-year period from 1985 to 2000 when the correlation between GCRs and climate does not hold (IPCC refers to this)
Here’s what still needs to be done before it could be validated as a significant driver of climate
1. Confirmation at CLOUD that the GCR cloud nucleation mechanism could work as a significant cause of cloud nucleation in our climate system.
2. A rational explanation for why the GCR climate correlation did not hold between ~1985 and ~2000.
So we have a hypothesis, a fair long-term correlation between solar activity and climate (with a short term exception), some indication that clouds may be playing a more important role in our climate (but with no suggested mechanism) and a basic mechanism linking solar activity with clouds that has been shown experimentally to exist under certain conditions.
And we will know more after more work is done at CERN (possibly in time for AR6, if there ever is one).
To speculate one way or the other today would be silly. Let’s wait and see what CERN shows us.
Max
Max, What you need to realize is that lolwot cannot, and will not, accept that previous IPCC reports could have exaggerated the certainty of CAGW. So you are wasting your time presenting any sort of scieitific argument. It is obvious to me that extraterrestrial effects cannot be ruled out as some sort of climate forcings. And if that is true, then the certainty expressed by the IPCC is simply unscieitific. But the likes of lolwot will argue black is white in defence of IPCC certainty about CAGW,
Jim Cripwell
Yes. I agree with you that trying to convince lolwot that IPCC may have overstated confidence in AGW in AR4, and may be doing the same in AR5, is a basic waste of time, as he already has his mind made up that this cannot be the case.
I was simply trying to open his mind to something outside his belief system.
But, as you say, this might be an impossible task.
Max
Lolwot If you’re well versed in atmospheric physics why not “have a go at” my latest paper Planetary Surface Temperatures A Discussion of Alternative Mechanisms which is still on the PROM (Peer Review in Open Media) system. I’m happy to take you on in open debate here, but I will use standard, tested physics, not what is in IPCC reports.
Doug Cotton,
Your insistence that only 2 w/m2 of solar radiation was reaching the surface of Venus despite actual measurements showing 50 times that much from the Russian spacecraft removes you from the possibility of open honest debate.
Alberto’ Miatello’s calculations are in Section 8 of his paper which I have cited in my “discussion” paper.
You seem to think that a measure of radiation from a planet’s surface somehow indicates the energy being transferred by such radiation out of the surface. Obviously you do not understand the advanced physics of Prof Claes Johnson which I have summarised in this and my March 2012 paper.
To keep it simple: about 50% of incident solar radiation gets through to Earth’s surface. The Venus atmosphere is about 92 times thicker, filled with carbon dioxide which can certainly absorb more incident solar radiation in the 2 micron band than can nitrogen or oxygen. Now do you get a “feel” for it? Or do you still trust the Russiians?
.
“You seem to think that a measure of radiation from a planet’s surface somehow indicates the energy being transferred by such radiation out of the surface. Obviously you do not understand the advanced physics of Prof Claes Johnson which I have summarised in this and my March 2012 paper.”
It seems to me that idea that this weak amount solar energy filtering through the immense Venus atmosphere and warming a surface which over 700 K, is on par with the idea of “backradiation” warming Earth’s surface.
Rather than 50 watts or 2 watts, the amount heat transferred to the surface, seems much closer to 0 watts per square meter.
Or said this way, if the Venus surface wass radiating 2 watts per square meter due to the internal energy of Venus, this seems this would easily be enough energy to explain why Venus is so hot.
Doug Cotton,
I still trust the actual data as measured by the Russian spacecraft on the surface of Venus rather than your fanciful extrapolations.
The small amount of solar energy absorbed by the Venus atmosphere would very easily exit the surface the next night by conduction (diffusion) and radiation. Then, when this small amount of energy is back in the atmosphere there is plenty of carbon dioxide to radiate it away. There is absolutely no possible way by which such energy would be trapped in the surface and somehow add hundreds of degrees. The problem is, if you follow the “First School of Thought” (the IPCC bluff) then you are at a complete loss to explain Venus temperatures, because, if you think like the IPCC it is because you have been subjected to Ignorant Promulgation of Chaotic Consensus.” You need a paradigm shift to the “Second School of Thinking” in my paper.
Please respond to this comment on another thread..
The Skeptical Warmist | December 15, 2012 at 8:42 am
I don’t have a dog in this fight, but I do find this report from the Russian spacecraft:
Venera 8: Measurements of Solar Illumination Through the Atmosphere of Venus
Now, the average TOA total solar irradiance is about 661 W/m2 (global 24/7 average). If what hits the ground is 1.5% of that as the paper says, it’s about 10 W/m2, again as a global 24/7 average.
Just sayin …
w.
Willis says Your insistence that only 2 w/m2 of solar radiation was reaching the surface of Venus despite actual measurements showing 50 times that much from the Russian spacecraft removes you from the possibility of open honest debate.
In fact the linked paper says 10-20 W/m^2 as an average for the illuminated hemisphere. I was obviously talking about an average for the whole planet, so that would be 5 to 10 W/m^2 with error bars of 30% they say.
In any event, in my paper I quote other higher estimates such as 2.5% of incident solar radiation at TOA and “less than 10% of the insolation reaching Earth’s surface.” This is quite comparable with 5 to 10 W/m^2, so I still can’t figure out Willis’ “50 times” and even the maximum estimate of 10W/m^2 would easily be conducted and radiated away, especially at the observed temperatures over 700K.
So clearly the energy absorbed by the surface of Venus is not maintaining the temperature. The reason for the temperature is in my latest <a href="http://principia-scientific.org/PROM/COTTON%20PROM%20paper%20PSI_Planetary_Surface_Temperatures.pdf" paper for which an interesting Appendix will soon be added.
Sorry – typo. Last paragraph should read ….
So clearly the energy absorbed by the surface of Venus is not maintaining the temperature. The reason for the temperature is in my latest paper for which an interesting Appendix will soon be added.
Nice recovery, Doug. I was tempted to correct that 2W/m2 in the past but the correction didn’t change your point so I didn’t. It’s probably best to call it twighlight and leave it at that.
At any rate the surface temp on Venus is geothermal. Magma is closer to the surface because thick CO2 atmosphere blocks geothermal heat loss. It’s definitely not greenhouse because the surface is isothermal and the daylength is almost half a year. Virtually no winds at the surface to redistibute heat to make it isothermal either.
For a good insight into Dr. Muller, listen to this radio interview. Not only informative, but very entertaining. Spoiler alert, if you feel strongly in your belief in AGW and have held up Muller as a ‘skeptic turned believer’ this will be more like a train wreck ;)
http://blogsofbainbridge.typepad.com/greenfront/2012/08/dr-richerd-muller.html
It may just be a matter of bad communication, but Muller sounds like a fool in that interview:
‘Muller says skeptics “raised legitimate issues.” He then goes onto say BEST addressed them “in the most direct and objective way.” This makes it sound like he’s claiming BEST has rebutted every scientific issue skeptics have raised. That’s obviously rubbish.”
huh? he said he felt MANY ( not all ) of the issues the skeptics raised were legit. Even Bill clinton agreed with this in his speech in palo alto, which you obviously missed.. Muller said he addressed those issues ( Not all issues ) and resolved them to his satisfaction.
The issues were: Lack of transparency in the processing. UHI. station quality. Whether the sun dunnit or C02. He was quite shocked to find no role for solar variation. I witnessed that first hand
You sound like someone who cannot read
Mosher:
In no way does this contradict what I said: “Muller says skeptics ‘raised legitimate issues.'” Nothing in my sentence claims Muller said all issues skeptics raised were legitimate as you portray.
You just claimed the “legitimate issues” skeptics have raised are limited to those four things. Me? I say skeptics have raised other legitimate issues, such as any of a dozen points about GCMs. Either you’re a fool, or you’re doing the same thing Muller did: conflating subjects. The question asked about global warming not just the modern temperature record.
Nothing in your comment rebutted anything I actually said. You misrepresented what I said, offered a nonsensical defense for Muller’s comment, and you have the audacity to say I “sound like someone who cannot read”?
You aren’t making any sense. May I suggest you try actually reading what I write before responding again?
Brandon
“Muller says skeptics “raised legitimate issues.” He then goes onto say BEST addressed them “in the most direct and objective way.” This makes it sound like he’s claiming BEST has rebutted every scientific issue skeptics have raised. That’s obviously rubbish.”
NOTICE how you say EVERY.
Muller said he found many legit complaints.
he answered those.
he did not make it sound like he answered EVERY complaint.
he avoiding looking at your stupid ideas
Brandon. do you know why Muller didnt look at models?
Not because he believes in them. but because they are not important.
They dont prove anything.
Like all of us he looked at many arguments and considered many of them worthy of a second look. Your opinion doesnt matter. He did not make it sound like he addressed EVERY issue, some issues like reconstructions he doubts, but doesnt consider them important. get it.
Legal questions too it seems…
http://www.cfact.org/2012/12/14/500-police-bust-deutsche-bank-over-e300-million-carbon-trading-scam/
proof is just, around the corner.
Mosher, are you trying to be obtuse? Yes, I said “every issue.” I said it immediately after two sentences in which I made it clear I was talking about legitimate issues. You’re making an issue of the fact I explicitly referred to legitimate issues twice but failed to add “legitimate” the third time I mentioned them.
My comment wouldn’t make any sense under your interpretation. It’s only by ignoring the context of my first two sentences you could come up with that interpretation as it makes my third sentence a complete non-sequitur. You almost have to be trying to misread me to misunderstand my point.
I don’t care why he looked at what he looked at. What I care about is what he said. What he said is BEST addressed the legitimate issues skeptics have raised. The fact he doesn’t care about some issues skeptics have raised doesn’t mean those issues aren’t legitimate. Your apathy doesn’t de-legitimatize people’s concerns.
Brandon.
Here is what you wrote
“Muller says skeptics “raised legitimate issues.” He then goes onto say BEST addressed them “in the most direct and objective way.” This makes it sound like he’s claiming BEST has rebutted every scientific issue skeptics have raised. That’s obviously rubbish.
1. Muller said they raised Many issues. you left that word out.
2. Nothing he said made it sound like he rebutted EVERY issue.
You read it that way perhaps because Muller didnt address the issues you have. Tough. he never claimed to adress every issue, never claimed to resolve all issues. he said there were many issues that were legit ( in his eyes) and he addressed the ones he found legit.
You are the fool for over reading a simple statement.
You always look for an argument and a way to disagree.
Blindered from the sun.
============
The very definition of ‘contrarian’…
;-)
Mosher, your criticisms of me are pathetic::
The word “issues” is plural. There is no meaningful difference between saying people raised issues and saying they raised many issues. You’re accusing me of misrepresenting Muller because I didn’t add an extraneous word. It’s ridiculous.
Again, you accuse me of misrepresenting Muller without any basis. In fact, you flat-out ignore my rebuttal to this accusation just above. You’re misrepresenting what I said while claiming I misrepresented Muller.
Your only defense for Muller is this. You’re saying it was okay for Muller to say the only legitimate scientific issues skeptics have raised pertained to the modern surface temperature record. You say Muller isn’t a fool because… he believes an extremely foolish thing.
You’ve done nothing to show I’m over-reading anything. In fact, you’ve explicitly said my interpretation is right. You just did so while misrepresenting my interpretation. That’s right. You agreed with my interpretation but decided to disagree with me because… I can only guess it’s:
That you’re a whiny little brat.
Brandon
of course I rebutted your argument.
Your argument was this.
1. Muller made it sound like he answered every skeptical argument.
2. Muller looks foolish
My rebuttal is that YOU MISREAD, you over read. He never said he looked at all the skeptical arguments. he never said he rebutted every one.
YOU INFERRED THAT. That inference was wrong. It is wrong because
1. he never said it
2. he has commented on other skeptical arguments which he accepts.
A) attribution of extreme events
B) Mann’s paleo
Get it. he has not claimed to have rebutted every argument, And IN FACT there are some arguments he accepts.
If you read more, if you tried to understand people by reading more and commenting less, you would understand
Well, it was famously foolish of Muller to be so certain when he’d only considered the skeptical arguments he considered valid. Blindered, and faltering on the back stretch since the sun is coming at a different angle.
==============
He bet on CO2,
Attributed too.
Had he bet on ol Sol Ball,
He’d be a free man today.
==============
Mosher:
Nonsense. You are merely repeating the misrepresentation I already rebutted. After I showed you were merely misrepresenting me, you repeated that misrepresentation. I then pointed out the fact you were simply ignoring what I had to say on this issue. You now repeat yourself while still ignoring everything I said.
I explained why the supposed basis for your criticism was wrong. You didn’t address it. I pointed out you ignored my explanation. Again, you didn’t address it. So now, for the third time, I’m pointing out the fact your entire criticism is based upon a nonsensical reading of my remark. Will you ever address that?
The simple reality is you’re repeating yourself while ignoring what I say. Even if one agreed with your interpretation of my comment and thinks I was wrong, they would find it impossible to deny the fact you have failed to respond to my defense.
It’s hard to imagine a more hypocritical comment.
It may just be a matter of bad communication, but Muller sounds like a fool in that interview:
Muller says skeptics “raised legitimate issues.” He then goes onto say BEST addressed them “in the most direct and objective way.” This makes it sound like he’s claiming BEST has rebutted every scientific issue skeptics have raised. That’s obviously rubbish.
I can’t even assume it is just bad communication since he has done almost the exact same thing in the past. It may not be intentional, but he has repeatedly given exaggerated significance to his work.
(Reposted to fix the quote tags.)
Brandon Shollenberger –
Have you watched this interview? Muller seems sharp & focused. He repeatedly challenges sloppy thinking and promotes honest, intelligent action.
He may be a bit of an alarmist compared to myself. But I really can’t tell the difference between Muller and an honest, intelligent, decent-human-being/scientist.
bi2hs
Dont expect brandom to ever consider evidence and change his mind.
It takes character to do that
blueice2hotsea, I hadn’t. As I said above, this could be a communication issue. The problem I have with Muller is this exact same thing has happened time and time again. For example, BEST’s PR page, Muller’s op-ed and and now, this. Whatever Muller’s merits, he has repeatedly allowed his work’s significance to be overstated.
Mosher, what is it about me that that provokes such stupidity? Do you hate me, feel threatened by me or what? You have mistreated me every time we’ve had exchanges, generally insulting/criticizing me for stupid reasons then disappearing and never justifying anything you say.
It’s pathetic.
Bleh. One day I’ll figure out how my phone’s autofill feature works. It’s a good thing it’s not supposed to be a secret that’s my account.
Brandon I knew you had not watched it because you never do complete research before spouting off. It gets tiresome to read and respond to your nonsense. Especially your overstatements about my reactions to you.
When you wrote about mann, and you had done your research, you got praise from me. When you wrote about air conditioing, same thing.
So stop overstating your cases. Read more, comment less. I pick on you because there is some small measure of hope for you.
Brandon Shollenberger –
Yes, I thought it might be a simple communication problem. Written interviews are more easily edited than audio interviews. And a ‘good’ journalist with bad intent can easily amplify minor foolishness.
But it’s kinda hard to miss when Muller audibly calls Al Gore a science denier – as in the Climate One and On The Green Front interviews.
Muller skewers deniers on both sides of the aisle because bad science inhibits appropriate responses to potential future problems. I’m OK with that provided he allows a wide aisle.
bi2hs
Mosher, you haven’t rebutted anything I’ve said on this page. You’ve accused me of misrepresenting Muller’s comments while offering a correct interpretation” of them that is identical to the one I came up with. You misrepresented what I said, multiple times, while ignoring everything I said to clarify what I meant. At the same time, you repeatedly insulted me, suggesting (at the very least) I’m bad at reading and am a person of poor character.
Most amazingly, you offer as an example of your supposed reasonableness the fact you praised me for my remark about air conditioning, a remark I made as a joke that you subsequently misrepresented by exaggerating.
Here’s the simple reality Mosher. You have never offered a cogent rebuttal to anything I have ever said. You’ve responded negatively to me dozens of times, and not once did your response pass muster. Instead of coherent arguments, you’ve relied upon snideness, rudeness, hyperbole, misrepresentations and outright insults. It’s reached the point of being a joke.
You’re as bad as Joshua. You don’t even know what things I know or believe.
blueice2hotsea, I don’t know about Muller as a person. I don’t care either. If BEST does good work in an open manner, matters of Muller’s personality don’t matter. He can be as reasonable or loony as he wants. I’ll talk about the things he says, but I don’t think I need to worry about him as a person. You may be right; you may be wrong. I don’t see why it should matter to me.
Given that, it’s interesting to consider Mosher’s recent insult. He supposedly knew I watched the video because I don’t do proper research or some such nonsense. In reality, that video had no bearing on what I said. I saw a quote from Muller and discussed it. Mosher insults me because… I didn’t research irrelevant points.
Anyway, if Muller is as you say, great. I hope he is. I just also hope I never get so involved in matters of him as a person that I have to find out one way or the other.
Hi Brandon –
I don’t know Muller personally. So while I disagree with your comment that “Muller sounds like a fool on the interview”, I’m not upset.
OTOH, Mosher is taking your comment personally. And I don’t think Mosher can be faulted for his loyalty to Muller. No way.
bi2hs
P.S. Apologize to Mosher and you prove him wrong about character.
blueice2hotsea:
Why do you disagree? Even if we say the problem I highlighted is one of wording, a communication error, it is still a serious error. Saying “Muller sounds like a fool in the interview” doesn’t mean he is a fool. We all make mistakes that make us look foolish.
What am I supposed to apologize for? I said something and explained my reason for saying it; nobody has rebutted my explanation. As far as I can see, my comment was perfectly justified. I don’t know what I would apologize for or how it would prove Mosher wrong about my character.
Apologizing when you’ve done nothing wrong is not a sign of good character.
Brandon and Mosher.
May I observe that generally you both have interesting things to say – except when you talk to each other.
I make that comment not because your nit-picking is unedifying [that is a ‘nothing’ in the blogospheric climate world] but because the possibility of something interesting is automatically excluded.
‘Interesting’ climate thoughts are rare enough as it is.
Anteros:
I don’t find any of my exchanges with Mosher interesting, but since he insists on repeatedly abusing and misrepresenting me, I don’t see any alternative to having them. I would love to hear an alternative way of handling comments like:
Mosher criticized me for, I kid you not, saying “issues” instead of “many issues.” He’s accusing me of misrepresentation because I left off a completely extraneous adjective. If that sort of drivel is to be thrown at me to accuse me of intellectual dishonesty and incompetence, I’d like to think people will understand me defending myself.
I agree with your judgment of our exchanges, and I accept that by responding to Mosher I participate in uninteresting conversations, but I hope I won’t be faulted too much for it.
Where does anyone nowadays look to find pure objective truth—i.e., truth according to the time-honored and duty-worn universally agreed upon rules of logic that have been argued by humanity’s greatest minds during hard times over the ages? Consider for example the larger part of concern about global warming which I believe is devoted to the finding of ‘truth’ that is measured only in terms of its ‘usefulness’ to an end. The suspicion in the air is that those ends are really nothing more than to—i.e.,
• Perpetuate the global warming belief
• Create a sense of alarmism and imminent peril
• Characterize it as a calamity that results from bad behavior
• Blame capitalism for causing that bad behavior
Opposed to above ends we have those who also are driven by the notion that only an objective search for truth, wherever the facts may lead, can ever provide any real value. Only then can we arrive at ‘true’ facts not convenient facts. Those who are so driven are the skeptics of science and not mere believers of a new religion.
Wagathon said
” Blame capitalism for causing that bad behavior”
_____
WRONG ! Capitalism has never caused bad behavior.
Some of the people who practice capitalism have behaved badly but don’t blame that on capitalism. I’ll give you some examples of those people.
Andrew Carnegie
Henry Flagler
Jay Gould
J.P. Morgan
John D. Rockefeller
Cornelius Vanderbilt
John Jacob Astor
Charles Schwab
Leland Stanford
James Fisk
Me
Alec Rawls’ explanation for not keeping his word:
“As for my personal confidentiality agreement with the IPCC, I regard that as vitiated by the systematic dishonesty of the report (“omitted variable fraud” as I called it …). This is a general principle of journalistic confidentiality: bad faith on one side breaks the agreement on the other. They can’t ask reviewers to become complicit in their dishonesty by remaining silent about it.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/14/leaked-ipcc-report_n_2300558.html
______
HA HA , what a load of crap! Rawls better think twice before telling this one to a job interviewer or a loan officer.
News from Oklahoma this week
Oklahoma’s leading global warming denier, Republican Sen. James Inhofe, opposes expansion of the Clean Water Act.
http://news.yahoo.com/photos/file-aug-23-2012-file-photo-sen-james-photo-082122240–finance.html
I’m not sure why Sen. Inhofe doesn’t believe clean water is important. We drink water and bathe in water. Perhaps old age (he’s 78) has caused him to lose interest in personal hygiene. Many elderly people avoid bathing and changing into clean clothing. Because the sense of smell diminishes with age, older people may not be aware of their BO.
The Senator also may believe the dirt in dirty water is plant food.
An Oklahoman lecturing people on good hygiene.
The irony is overwhelming.
Yo momma didn’t lose interest in personal hygiene. She never had it in the first place.
I will have you know I take a bath every Saturday night, whether I need it or not. Some days I also wash my hands.
Sorry, I guess this report on Inhofe was from August, not this week. Nothing much has happened in Oklahoma this week.
Also ln the news this week
National Review is asking for money to defend itself against a libel law suit filed by Professor Michael Mann for defaming him by accusing him of academic fraud.
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/335221/we-need-your-help-jack-fowler
If you abhor Professor Mann here’s an opportunity to vent your feelings with your checkbook. Before sending money to National Review, however, you may want to consider the possibility your cash will end up in Professor Mann’s pocket. I sure hope it does.
Yes Mann needs every cent he can get. Science fraud doesn’t grow on trees, you know.
Maybe Big Bird will hold a fund-raiser for Mann.
I thought you weren’t a conspiracy theorist.
I don’t understand. Isn’t NR being funded by “big oil” like the rest of the skeptics? Please explain.
Almost all the ‘bigs’ have been funding the consensus. Some maybe as a plan B, but it’s still funding. It is not even a secret that big oil funded a lot of the AGW consensus.
Who knows who’s funding NR ? But if NR sees an opportunity to get even more money by appealing to suckers, why not? There are lots of chumps among the people who dislike Mann.
So now what happens to the warmist’s argument that the succes of the deniers is due to lavish funding by big oil/coal/Koch?
Why do they have to beg for cash? They are rolling in cash right?
Please explain…
Yes, why would a non-profit organization like NR want even more money. HA HA !
When non-profits have enough money, they always ask people to not send them money. HA HA !
John O’Sullivan picks apart the contradictions in the leaked IPCC report which can be downloaded at the end of this article.
.
IPCC Report in a nutshell:Bazinga!
Haven’t you yet worked out that association with people like O’Sullivan is corrosive to your credibility? You should shun the man. Instead you link to his material.
Hire a good PR and listen to what they tell you.
I am one of about 150 members of Principia Scientific International, of which John is our CEO and frequently in communication with me..
andrew adams | December 14, 2012 at 5:19 pm |
“Try predicting the % of sixes in 10 rolls of a die. Then try predicting the % in 10,000 rolls.”
The dice are a perfectly understood process. The climate is not. Try predicting the value of the Dow Jones Industrial Average next week and then try predicting it 100 years from now, dufus.
David,
Through observation…the dice can be manipulated also the friction would change the dice for the longer term of rolls.
(again NOT thought of or included as in MANY areas of science).
Max_OK said:
“Will future climate be affected by something not affecting it now? Something new? I hope not.”
____
Depends on what you mean by “new”, and how far in the future you want to project.
Definitely yes, at some point in the future (billions of years), something not experienced on Earth will be affecting the climate, but over the relatively shorter-term, the same physical mechanisms control the climate, just playing on variations on the combinations, timing, and intensity of those mechanisms: namely: Milankovitch cycles, GHG concentrations, ocean cycles, hydrological cycle, volcanic activity, solar cycles, biosphere interactions, location of continents, etc.
If predicting DOW up or down, I would rather predict for 100 years than for next week.
How about predicting which stocks are in the DOW? Over 100 years that will likely change in order for the DOW to continue to exist. If current climate is based on “regimes” with periods of centuries…?
That is why all those pesky “unforced variations” really have to be considered.
Max_OK
Sure you would – because no one will be around to see if your prediction was right 100 years from now.
Duh!
Max_not from OK
Buy the mystery; short the history.
The better analogy is predicting whether a day next month will be colder or warmer than today, versus six months from now. Other things are going on that override natural variation in the long term, as we already see from the historical record.
My guess is a lot of stocks currently in the DOW won’t be in it 100 years from now, but I have no idea what the new stocks in the DOW will be.
Will future climate be affected by something not affecting it now? Something new? I hope not.
OK, cheese breath, make it 20 years instead of 100 years.
Max_OK “Will future climate be affected by something not affecting it now? Something new? I hope not.”
Quite possibly. I compared a surface water reconstruction with a deep water reconstruction, Bintanji and Van de Wal 2008, The deep ocean temperature in the North Atlantic lags the surface by ~1700 years.
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-joaHMi2s-WI/UMDbWz5271I/AAAAAAAAF5E/I4Gg9M5cu3c/s925/bintanji%25205%2520ka%2520sd.png
Pretty consistent lag in the North Atlantic. That is just SD to smooth the curves.
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-V3BcTzzsesU/UL-q6KsdAXI/AAAAAAAAF4w/HyaBLOtva7o/s835/ocean%2520atmosphere%2520lags.png
That is normalized temperatures, for another look. Lots of wiggles in the North Altantic.
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-vqnDnnPA7wo/UMkkYRVtfSI/AAAAAAAAGB0/oiwhW12N1Bo/s912/time%2520lags%2520and%2520responses%2520with%2520lea.png
Not the same wiggle pattern in the Antarctic and Eastern Pacific.
So something new? Just for us, the world has been doing it a long time.
These modeler types really think that they can “predict” things 100 years in advance better than 10 years in advance (out comes the “rolls of the dice” rationalization).
In the second half of the 19th century “modelers” of the day were concerned that London (and New York) would be covered by two meters of horse manure by 1930 or so, because of the rapidly increasing number of horse carriages.
Today’s modelers should remember this and forget the “rolls of the dice” analogy.
Max
Judith,
How much ECONOMIC damage has the IPCC reports done with influencing government policies?
An awful lot of poor people will have to pay for these schemes and the subsidizing that are currently in place for weak to bad technology.
how much environmental damage and children have skeptics murdered by leveling false and spurious claims against the IPCC?
lolwot,
Skeptics ONLY bring to light of the highly damaged theories our current science is through the mindset of media manipulation.
Governments pay for education and grants and yet use the same scientists for consultation that they have bought and paid for.
Grouping the like minded for manipulation and control of science through publishing of same mindset theoretical science.
E=MC2 is highly overrated to the parameters of compression and pressure of gases on a layered atmosphere.
A dimpled car breaks the laws we have and should have poorer gas mileage.
Yet, it gets 14% better gas mileage.
Why?
The dimpling rather then generating friction, breaks up the pressure exerting over the whole car.
Pressure is layered and we ONLY measure it by what it exerts on water and NOT the actual layering of pressure.
Through measurement, the greater diameter is also the less density as you go through the atmospheric layering. It also has more velocity distance the further you measure the rotational velocity. It is VERY different on every point on the planet.
lolwot,
Yr: “How much…children have skeptics murdered with their spurious claims against the IPCC?”
You know, lolwot, you’re the kinda lefty I understand. And I’m glad to see that you’ve now dropped all your previous, phony-baloney, nicey-nicey pretenses and are now openly using on this blog the sort of language that formerly you, and your hive-bozo buddy-boys, undoubtedly employed as your normal manner of speech behind our backs. And I refer, of course, to the “Baby Killer!” level of civil, “bridge-building” discourse, contained in your last comment, lowot.
And may we expect, lolwot, that when the revolution succeeds us “skeptics” guilty of “spurious criticism” thought-crimes will answer to the hive’s green-cheka and troika tribunals for our misdeeds–our “murders” of the children? I think that’s your nasty, little, dork-with-a-grudge, lethal fantasy, right, lolwot? I mean, like, lolwot, whenever one of you greenshirts let your mask drop, your inhuman, fiendish, Holodomor, Great-Leap-Forward, Cambodian-killing-fields, death’s-head inhumanity is revealed–but, then, some tings never change. Right, again, lolwot?
But to answer your question, lolwot, there have been no kids “murdered” by “spurious criticisms” of the iPCC. Why? Because the whole IPCC deal is founded on a make-a-buck/make-a-gulag scam and hustle.
But let’s, for the moment, lolwot, play your little game on your own terms. So, lolwot, how many kids have the the mega-tons of CO2-spew “pollution”, thrown off by all your precious, non-stop, spare-no-carbon eco-confabs “murdered” over the last couple of decades? Or, to put it another way, lolwot, how many kids would have been saved, but were allowed to perish by you and your ilk, lolwot, because you “carbon-phobe” shams chose not to conduct your extravagant, freak-show enviro-conferences by means of low-carbon video-conferencing?
But then, lolwot, maybe I’m making too much of all this. I mean, like, isn’t the hive’s view of “the kids” really that while they may have their occasional usefulness as agit-prop extras–you know, like photo-shopped polar bears and baby harp-seals and Arctic sea-ice chunks, and all–they are to be regarded as pestiferous, expendable useless-eaters when they get in the way of the hive’s good-times, and are best tied to the tracks, in such instances, and left to be callously run over by the hive’s gravy-train, historical imperatives?
But let’s cut to the chase, lolwot. Your concern with “spurious criticism” of the IPCC really has nothing to do with “the kids”, but has everything to do with your concern that such criticisms might imperil your good-deal, party-time, bunga-bunga carbon-piggery and your own long-time employment prospects as a trough-sucking, goof-off, tax-payer rip-off parasite.
And, yes, lolwot, “spurious criticisms” of the IPCC have, undoubtedly, cramped your style and even left you with many a sleepless night wrestling with a personal vision of a futuristic “hell” where the only means of livelihood left open to you involve–the horror!–decent, purposeful, useful labor where the measure of a man is the honesty and good craftsmanship of his work and not the quality of his flim-flam, nature-boy hustles, and greenwashed blood-sucking. And that’s a good thing, lolwot, for everyone but you.
lolwot
Question: how much environmental damage and children have skeptics murdered by leveling false and spurious claims against the IPCC?
Answer: none
Max
A shorter comment than Mike’s. Lomborg had some ideas related to this. How best to use our limited resources to save lives and improve quality of life in the 3rd world. Eye-opening if you actually care about human suffering.
lol if i say something obviously absurd take it as a joke, don’t take it as a serious argument. There’s an obvious joke that could be made here but it’s so obvious I hope no-one will bother…
lolwot,
Leaving aside the poor timing and taste in your “murdered children” comment, would you care to provide examples where people (of any age & gender) have been harmed by global warming? Pretty low bar to get by. I’m note even asking for you to provide evidense on the more specific claim you make, that the harm is directly due to the actions of skeptics.
It may surprise you but I can point to reral examples of people being harmed or even dying as a result of policies in support of reducing carbon footprints and creating a “sustainable” world. Farmers in African nations forced off their land. Food riots in several nations due to raising prices that are at least partially directly tied to diversion of grain crops to ethanol production.
There are billions of people whose quality of living can be improved simply by providing access to low cost energy. That isn’t a number arrived at through some model projection. It represents people alive today. Don’t go spouting off about murdered children lolwot. While you certainly believe disaster is right around the corner, you also show a complete lack of concern for your fellow man alive today.
Global warming is not due to the sun, confirms leaked IPCC report
Did they include a less active sun?
How about our atmospheric loss?
A more active sun spews out far greater material and our atmosphere through rotation picks up some of that material generating a stronger atmosphere.
lolwot
The Guardian blurb you cite does not reveal anything new.
Of course, IPCC is going to deny that the sun could have anything to do with climate change. Duh!
The work at CERN has not yet progressed to the point that the GCR cloud hypothesis of Henrik Svensmark et al. can be considered validated.
So far CERN has simply validated the cosmic ray cloud nucleation mechanism when certain naturally occurring aerosols are present.
But Jasper Kirkby of CERN has cautioned that this has not yet confirmed that the GCR cloud nucleation hypothesis would work in our atmosphere, adding that more work is needed.
So if IPCC were foolhardy enough to completely write off the CGR cloud hypothesis as “controversial” in its AR5 report (as it did in AR4) this would be a silly mistake.
Ch. 7 “Clouds and aerosols”, sect. 7.4.5. “Impact of Cosmic Rays on Aerosols and Clouds” mentions the hypothesis and the CLOUD experiment at CERN, but concludes:
”Although there is some evidence that ionization from cosmic rays may enhance aerosol nucleation in the free troposphere, there is medium evidence and high agreement that the cosmic ray-ionization mechanism is too weak to influence global concentrations of CCN or their change over the last century or during a solar cycle in any climatically significant way. The lack of trend in the cosmic ray intensity over the last 50 years (Agee et al., 2012; McCracken and Beer, 2007) provides another strong argument against the hypothesis of a major contribution of cosmic rays to ongoing climate change.”
So the hypothesis is no longer simply being written off in one paragraph as “controversial”, but rather rationalized away.
Of course IPCC is going to deny that it could be a cause of a significant portion of the past warming, because this would raise serious doubts about its model-predicted 2xCO2 climate sensitivity.
Maybe AR6 (if there ever is one) will be able to provide more definitive information on the GCR cloud hypothesis.
Maybe by then it will have caused a major “paradigm shift” in climate science.
Or maybe not.
We’ll just have to wait for the CLOUD results from CERN.
Max
The realization, Max, will be in an explanatory appendix to the ‘paradigm shift’ engendered by observations.
====================
“The Guardian blurb you cite does not reveal anything new.
Of course, IPCC is going to deny that the sun could have anything to do with climate change. Duh!”
So why are your fellow skeptics like Delingpole claiming the IPCC report admits the warming is due to the Sun and WUWT claims the IPCC report is a game-changing admission of enhanced solar forcing?
In climate skeptic world the IPCC report can both admit the Sun is responsible for warming and deny it has any influence on climate change at the same time.
Your world and welcome to it, lolwot. What a mess of mishigas.
=========
lolwot
I quoted you some stuff from the AR5 draft and you respond by asking me a rather silly question about “Delingpole” (whodat, man?).
I did not quote the statement from on solar activity page 7-43, which was apparently added to the second AR5 draft, which WUWT cites:
“The forcing from changes in total solar irradiance alone does not seem to account for these observations, implying the existence of an amplifying mechanism such as the hypothesized GCR-cloud link.”
Lolwot, I do not expect IPCC to give much weight or credence to any hypothesis, which conflicts with its myopic fixation on human GHGs as the cause for all climate change – do you?
It’s just interesting that they mentioned it at all.
Max
lolwot
More on AR5 and solar impact.
IPCC AR5 Ch. 8 covers “Radiative Forcing”.
Most of the chapter is about radiative forcing from changes in human GHG concentrations, as could be expected.
The unusually high level of 20thC solar activity (“highest in several thousand years”: Solanki, 2004) is shown graphically, but solar forcing is restricted to the measurable changes in solar irradiance alone.
Strangely, the many studies, which conclude that around half of the past warming can be attributed to this unusually high level of solar activity, are not mentioned.
The GCR cloud hypothesis is mentioned on p.33:
“8.4.1.5 The Effects of Galactic Cosmic Rays on Clouds
Changing cloud amount or properties modify the Earth’s albedo and therefore affect climate. It has been hypothesized that galactic cosmic rays (GCR) create atmospheric ions which facilitates aerosol nucleation and new particle formation with a further impact on the cloud formation (Kazil et al., 2012; Pierce and Adams, 2009). High solar activity means a stronger heliospheric magnetic field and thus a more efficient screen against GCR, then under the hypothesis underlined above, the reduced GCR flux would promote less clouds amplifying the warming effect expected from high solar activity. There is evidence from laboratory, field and modeling studies that ionization from GCR may enhance aerosol nucleation in the free troposphere (Kirkby et al., 2011; Merikanto et al., 2009; Mirme et al., 2010). However there is high confidence (medium evidence and high agreement) that the GCR-ionization mechanism is too weak to influence global concentrations of cloud condensation nuclei or their change over the last century or during a SC in a climatically-significant way (Erlykin and Wolfendale, 2011; Harrison and Ambaum, 2010; Snow-Kropla et al., 2011). A detailed exposition is found in Section 7.4.5.”
The “invisible elephant” that is not mentioned is the observed lack of atmospheric warming since the end of 2000.
Max
“Strangely, the many studies, which conclude that around half of the past warming can be attributed to this unusually high level of solar activity, are not mentioned.”
Many studies? Name three.
lolwot
Solar studies, as requested:
Stockwell (2011)
http://vixra.org/pdf/1108.0020v1.pdf
Shapiro et al. (2011)
http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/1102/1102.4763v1.pdf
Scafetta (2010)
http://www.fel.duke.edu/~scafetta/pdf/scafetta-JSTP2.pdf
Stott et al. (2003)
http://climate.envsci.rutgers.edu/pdf/StottEtAl.pdf
Geerts and Linacre (1997)
http://www-das.uwyo.edu/~geerts/cwx/notes/chap02/sunspots.html
Scafetta and West (2006)
http://www.scribd.com/doc/334163/Phenomenological-solar-contribution-to-the-19002000-global-surface-warming
Solanki et al. (2004)
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/pubs/solanki2004/solanki2004.html
Shaviv and Veizer
http://www.gsajournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-static&name=i1052-5173-14-3-e4&ct=1
Happy reading!
Max
I didn’t ask for solar studies, I asked for studies you claim “around half of the past warming can be attributed to this unusually high level of solar activity”
That of course means peer reviewed studies. Has the first one on the list even been peer reviewed?
lolwot
Read the studies I cited. They all come to basically the same conclusion, as I stated, namely that around half of the past warming can be attributed to the unusually high level of 20th century solar activity.
Max
lolwot
Since you asked for “three studies”, I’ll cite the quotations from three of the studies I cited:
Stockwell 2011
“The model explains 76% of the variation in GT from the 1950s by solar heating at a rate of 0.06 ± 0.03KW-1m-2Yr-1 relative to the solar constant of 1366Wm-2.”
Shapiro et al. 2011
“Our TSI reconstructions give a value of ∼1W/m2 per decade for the period 1900–1950. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO) has a 32-year record of ground-based observations for 1920–1952. Although the SAO data are disputed in reliability (Abbot 2007) and clearly contain a non-solar signal they are the only available long-term measurements of TSI in the first half of the twentieth-century. The data show an increase of 1±0.5 (1.5±0.5) W/m2 per decade for the period 1928–1947(1920–1952).”
[1 W/m-2 per decade over two decades = 2 W/m-2; past forcing from human CO2 = 1.66 W/m-2, according to IPCC AR4]
Geerts and Linacre 1997
“Their results also suggest that the sensitivity of climate to the effects of solar irradiance is about 27% higher than its sensitivity to forcing by greenhouse gases.”
Max
Lubchenko’s “accomplishments” are underwhelming, to say the least, and few of them have anything to do with actually increasing our ability to forecast the weather and increase our knowledge and understanding of climate and weather.
She truly has left a magnificent legacy/sarc
Leaked IPCC report reaffirms dangerous climate change
lolwot
Looks like the latest “branding” being given to “CAGW” is “dangerous climate change” (or “DCC”).
Is this a reflection of the fact that there hasn’t been any “GW” (global warming) since the end of 2000?
Max
Yah, and ‘dangerous climate change’ ain’t happening and such can be shown. Warming is net beneficial, sustaining greater total life and greater diversity of life. Unless sensitivity to Anthro CO2 is far higher than is being shown, a dead horse is being flogged, flayed.
===============================
Some stuff about a farce.
““Kyoto is dead! Long live Kyoto!” The Doha Climate Gateway, described by some as a “major milestone” but by others as a “ritual farce”, includes (i) a second commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol (Kyoto II). Besides (ii) “a systematic way of addressing [climate change] loss and damage” (four pages), there was little else except (iii) another “roadmap to 2015, 2020 and beyond” (two pages); and (iv) “a qualitative but bold understanding on finance”, but with no new moolah for the UN’s 100 billion dollar annual 2020 target (two pages). The preamble for (ii) includes this clause (emphasis added):
Reaffirming the need for Parties to take precautionary measures, in accordance with the principles and provisions of the Convention, to anticipate, prevent or minimize the causes of climate change and mitigate its adverse effects, and underlining that the lack of full scientific certainty should not be used as reason for postponing action.
How developed countries such as Australia fulfil their “precautionary” obligations here, especially with regard to yet another curious UN concept – “slow-onset [climate] events” [Decision 1/CP.16, paragraph 25] – while keeping their hands in pockets, will – like the antics of a circus contortionist – be an interesting spectacle. And what, precisely, are the “important linkages between extreme weather events and slow-onset events”? (You can’t make this stuff up.)”
http://www.quadrant.org.au/blogs/doomed-planet/2012/12/doha-ha-ha-ha-ha
continuing:
“There is at least one encouraging sign. Climate “control” agreements — or the lack of them -– have acquired an intriguing counter-intuitive correlation with the surge of nasty prognostications about “high-end” climate change. Somehow, the more scientists renounce their traditional roles as objective observers of the natural world, morph into promoters of end-is-nigh speculation and assail us with French-fry scenarios a century hence, as they have done this past month, the more distant seems to become the prospect of a global agreement, which must now resemble – at least for the developing world – an elusive pot of promised green gold at the end of a fast-receding rainbow.”
What seems most important at moment, is extensive documentation of these “scientific” whores. This will have immense value in terms humor for future generations.
We can giggle a little ourselves, too, gb; there’s plenty to share with the chilluns.
========
News continues to roll in regarding the recent IPCC report leak.
Human role in climate change now virtually certain: leaked IPCC report
“A leaked draft report by the world’s top climate scientists has found that is virtually certain that humans are causing climate change but parts of it have been wildly misinterpreted by climate change deniers, experts said.
The fifth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was prematurely published on a blog called Stop Green Suicide by blogger Alec Rawls, who obtained the document as a reviewer.
The draft report, which was still undergoing a peer review process, said that “there is consistent evidence from observations of a net energy uptake of the earth system due to an imbalance in the energy budget.”
“It is virtually certain that this is caused by human activities, primarily by the increase in CO2 concentrations. There is very high confidence that natural forcing contributes only a small fraction to this imbalance.”
Rawls drew attention to another part of the report about the effect of cosmic rays on global warming, saying in a statement that “admission of strong evidence for enhanced solar forcing changes everything.”
However, this section had been taken out of context and could not be used to cast doubt on the idea that human activity is warming the globe, said Steve Sherwood, one of the authors of the report and Co-Director of the Climate Change Research Centre at the University of New South Wales.
“I think the most interesting aspect of how this has been blogged by the climate deniers is that it reveals how deeply in denial they are,” he said in an email to The Conversation.
“If they can look at a short section of a report and walk away believing it says the opposite of what it actually says, and if this spin can be uncritically echoed by very influential blogs like WattsUp, imagine how wildly they are misinterpreting the scientific evidence. This should open people’s eyes as to the credibility of the alternative ‘views’ they are serving up.””
lolwot, a human role is a given, the question is still how much over what time frame and how global. Since the warming is still mainly regional, that tends to reduce the CO2e portion of the contribution.
Compared to the IPCC ‘s !st Order Draft, the Second Order Draft,
p7, cites several papers re empirical relationships between GCR
and aspects of the climate system and notes: ‘The forcing from
changes in total solar irradiance alone does not seem to account
for these observations, implying the existence of an amplifying
mechanism such as the hypothesiz GCR-cloud link.’
This undercuts the main premise of the report as stated in Ch 8,
of ‘high confidence that natural forcing is a small fraction of the anthropogenic forcing.’
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2012/12/13/ar5-second-order-draft-leaked.html
No it doesn’t undercut the main conclusion of the report.
The report which contains statements like this:
“Although there is some evidence that ionization from cosmic rays may enhance aerosol nucleation in the free troposphere, there is medium evidence and high agreement that the cosmic ray-ionization mechanism is too weak to influence global concentrations of CCN or their change over the last century or during a solar cycle in any climatically significant way. The lack of trend in the cosmic ray intensity over the last 50 years (Agee et al., 2012; McCracken and Beer, 2007) provides another strong argument against the hypothesis of a major contribution of cosmic rays to ongoing climate change.”
“I think the most interesting aspect of how this has been blogged by the climate deniers is that it reveals how deeply in denial they are. If they can look at a short section of a report and walk away believing it says the opposite of what it actually says, and if this spin can be uncritically echoed by very influential blogs like WattsUp, imagine how wildly they are misinterpreting the scientific evidence. This should open people’s eyes as to the credibility of the alternative ‘views’ they are serving up.”
-Dr Steve Sherwood
You can add Bishophill to the list.
bishop-over-the-hill
geezers with reading disabilities
http://zeenews.india.com/news/eco-news/ipcc-report-on-global-warming-leaked-online_816841.html
“London: The draft of a major global warming report by the UN has been leaked on the Internet, which says that scientist are sure that humans are responsible for causing the planet to warm.
….
The leaked draft ‘summary for policymakers’ contains a statement that appears to contradict the climate sceptics’ interpretation, the paper said.
…
According to the paper, by “virtually certain”, the scientists say they mean they are now 99 percent sure that man’s emissions are responsible.
By comparison, in the IPCC’s last report, published in 2007, the scientists said they had a “very high confidence” – 90 percent sure – humans were principally responsible for causing the planet to warm, the paper added.
The IPCC, which confirmed the draft is genuine, said the agency ‘regrets the unauthorized posting which interferes with the process of assessment and review.’ “
Heh, double down, but keep your money up your sleeve. Quel jeu.
================
lolwot, “According to the paper, by “virtually certain”, the scientists say they mean they are now 99 percent sure that man’s emissions are responsible.”
I love it when 99% gets used. Exactly how much of warming is 99% due to emissions? Give us a solid number and the fun begins..
Since Trenberth determined that TOA imbalance was 0.9Wm-2 +/-0.18 with 95% confidence and already Stephens has it at 0.6 +/-0.4, meaning Trenberth screwed the pooch with that along with missing 20Wm-2 of heat, nice firm estimates are easily verified.
So exactly what increase in surface temperature that is only accurate to optimistically +/-1C are they 99% confident of?
“lolwot, “According to the paper, by “virtually certain”, the scientists say they mean they are now 99 percent sure that man’s emissions are responsible.”
I love it when 99% gets used. Exactly how much of warming is 99% due to emissions? Give us a solid number and the fun begins..
Since Trenberth determined that TOA imbalance was 0.9Wm-2 +/-0.18 with 95% confidence and already Stephens has it at 0.6 +/-0.4, meaning Trenberth screwed the pooch with that along with missing 20Wm-2 of heat, nice firm estimates are easily verified.
So exactly what increase in surface temperature that is only accurate to optimistically +/-1C are they 99% confident of?”
Probably about .000001 C per year at least!!!
These guys are sold on idea of immeasurable amounts
of accumulated warming.
This is their religion. This is their gospel.
And nothing can change this faith, not even 15 years
of no significant warming. After all, 15 times
.000001 C is .000015 which of course also isn’t
measurable.
Now maybe the cherished number is at least
.00001 C per year, but again .00015 C is
not measurable, and so 15 years of
non-warming again doesn’t prove anything
to these believers.
The idea that .001 per year is not important is
not in their mental toolkit.
And according to them, saying .01 C per year
due to CO2 [1 C per century] is not important
is some kind of offense against humanity-
merely thinking this is blasphemy worthy
public hanging and quartering.
If you were to say .1 C per year is insignificant, this
becomes non blasphemy because one must be some
innocent fool, which is obviously not learned in the dark
arts.
Of course, .1 C per year would not be important at least
not for a few decades. Though at this rate we would be
cooked in a 1000 years. Plus +100 C, because they do some
math, so being everyone is cooked. And such reasoning makes all kinds sense to these guys. The idea that they would be
unable to know 1000 years in the future, does not even enter
the certainty of the minds.
But the truth is even if rising CO2 were to cause .1 C per year
to average global temperature, it would not be important.
And volcanic event which caused 1 C in cooling for a few years
would be FAR more important.
And such a concept is beyond their tiny mind’s comprehension.
Leaked IPCC report reaffirms dangerous climate change: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn23005-leaked-ipcc-report-reaffirms-dangerous-climate-change.html
Cherry Pick Update: How Dumb are These People?: http://climatecrocks.com/2012/12/14/cherry-pick-update-how-dumb-are-these-people/
kim
Your analysis is right.
Rajendra Pachauri states he “deeply regrets” the leak of its AR5 draft
(wink, wink, nudge, nudge…)
The media are already hopping on it like a fly on a fresh cow pie.
One source says the new draft confirms that humans are responsible for dangerous climate change.
Another source says it concedes that solar influence may be greater, thereby weakening the postulated human cause for the warming (that ins’t occurring since the end of 2000 anyway).
Yackety-yackety-yack!
And lolwot’s lapping it up.
Max
so kim thinks the leak was deliberate by the IPCC for all these headlines?
Me, I think the skeptics have just scored an own-goal in leaking it.
“A draft of the next report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has been leaked on climate sceptic websites.
…
The leaker and other climate sceptics have isolated one section of the draft to suggest that cosmic rays such as those of the Sun may have a greater influence on warming than had been claimed.
Professor Steve Sherwood, the director of the Climate Change Research Centre at the University of NSW, was the lead author of the chapter in question.
He says the idea that the chapter he authored confirms a greater role for solar and other cosmic rays in global warming is “ridiculous”.
“I’m sure you could go and read those paragraphs yourself and the summary of it and see that we conclude exactly the opposite – that this cosmic ray effect that the paragraph is discussing appears to be negligible,” he told PM.”
link: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-12-14/ipcc-draft-climate-report-leaked/4429036
No, lolwot, I let it out so you would talk about it.
========
lolwot
Don’t be a dodo – sure that’s what Sherwood said
As Mandy Rice-Davies said long ago:
Max
It’s not a matter of opinion. As Sherwood pointed out
“I’m sure you could go and read those paragraphs yourself and the summary of it and see that we conclude exactly the opposite – that this cosmic ray effect that the paragraph is discussing appears to be negligible,”
Pretending that AR5 says the opposite to what it actually does is sheer denial.
“It’s worse than we thought. (gloss, gloss, gloss, gloss over the inconvenient truth that model predictions are outside of any reasonable confidence interval)
Bid to heap blame on sunspots for climate change has backfired
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/bid-to-heap-blame-on-sunspots-for-climate-change-has-backfired-8418195.html
“An attempt by climate sceptics to hijack the latest UN report on global warming by selectively leaking claims that it is caused by sunspots rather than man-made emissions of carbon dioxide has backfired.
Sceptics described the forthcoming report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as a “game changer” because of its apparent support for the controversial theory that solar activity, interacting with cosmic rays from deep space, can explain global warming.
Alec Rawls, a Republican blogger in the United States who signed himself up as an expert IPCC reviewer, decided to leak the panel’s Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) on the grounds that it is a taxpayer-funded document.
Mr Rawls claimed the report suggests that the IPCC has finally come round to the idea that solar activity – sunspots – is partly responsible for the observed global temperatures rise seen over the past half century.”
….
“However, climate scientists pointed out that Mr Rawls has selectively quoted from the draft report and has ignored other parts of the document stating that solar activity and cosmic rays cannot explain the increase in global temperatures seen over the past half century, as sceptics have repeatedly claimed.
The AR5 draft report states that although there is “some evidence” that solar activity combined with cosmic rays may influence the formation of clouds, and therefore temperatures, but the phenomenon is “too weak” to influence the climate in any significant way.
The other major problem with the sunspots idea is that solar activity has largely flat-lined over the past 50 years, whereas average global temperatures have continued to rise, the IPCC report says.
“The lack of trend in the cosmic ray intensity over the last 50 years provides another strong argument against the hypothesis of a major contribution of cosmic rays to on-going climate change,” the draft report says.”
…
““Alec Rawls’ interpretation of what IPCC5 says is quite simply wrong. In fact, while temperatures have been ramping up in recent decades, solar activity has been pretty subdued,” Professor McGuire said”
….
““The evidence for man-made climate change is overwhelming, and there is nothing in the draft IPCC report leaked today that suggests the contrary,” Professor Le Quere said.”
…
“Bob Ward of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change at the London School of Economics, another IPCC reviewer, said that Rawls has tried to misrepresent the IPCC by cherry picking quotes out of context to support the idea that solar activity and cosmic rays have influenced the climate. “In fact, the draft report concludes that there are strong arguments against the cosmic ray theory, while there is compelling evidence that greenhouse gas emissions are driving the unequivocal rise in global average temperature,” Mr Ward said.”
The deniers lie – big surprise.
but it has become so brazen now. So bubbled off in their little blog worlds where no-one questions their lies.
We all have lied Michael, deniers however are in for the surprise of their life.
Once must not forget that in the blogosphere, having a site that is friendly to deniers is just good business practice. Certain blogs make a pretty good coin by being a haven for those who need to be encouraged in their rather irrational and often paranoid beliefs.
R gates
Paranoid?
So you are out to get me as well…
Tonyb
Tony,
There is a secret society who are sworn to kill all climate historians and burn their books. Beware and be afraid…be very afraid.
R Gates,
You are now starting to sound like a conspiracy theorist.
I believe that Americans walked (rode and golfed) on the moon.
I believe Lee harvey Oswald shot JFK – a testimony to what a Marine rifleman can accomplish.
I believe there are no alien remains stored in some Air Force freezer.
I’m pretty sure I believe the President was born in Hawaii – not that I really care, one way or the other.
I believe Michael has yet to provide anything sunstansive to the dialog here and is still a jackass.
I believe that intelligence and accomplishment is no barrier to people here (almost all of whom I hold in respect) acting like (to borrow a line from the show Burn Notice) “bitchy little girls”.
I believe climate models have their purposes, but are no where close to accurately modeling climate and cannot be considered as useful for projection purposes until they can accurately project on a region basis over the short and medium term.
I believe the Redskins are going to make the playoffs this season – but I’m not going to bet on it.
The alarmists charge en masse through the horns of their dilemma, to be felled by the withering fire of contradictory logic, so-called friendly fire. Their’s is not to wonder why.
==============
the only contradictory logic here are the climate skeptic claims that AR5 both hides the solar influence and also admits warming is caused by the Sun.
…and others babble.
Let us be fair. As I read what Alex Rawls wrote, he was happy to see that what he had commented on was, in fact, noted in the 2nd draft of Chapter 7 of the AR5. What he complained about was that, with this change, the certainty reported in the SPM was no longer justified. It is not that sun spots have been shown to control climate. It is that there is more uncertainly as to how much of the observed changes can be attributed to CAGW. That is the crux of the issue, and that is what you have not addressed, lolwot.
Let us discuss whether the degree of certainly contained in the draft SPM of AR5 is justified.
Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme certaintite.
===========================
“What he complained about was that, with this change, the certainty reported in the SPM was no longer justified.”
And how did he make that leap of logic?
Jim Crispwell said:
“Let us discuss whether the degree of certainly contained in the draft SPM of AR5 is justified.”
__________
Let’s discuss whether any degree of certainty can be applied to an incomplete work-in-progress draft document being discussed by those who have no idea either what the final document will contain or about science behind it..
[Sound of trumpets]
“Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming” is dead!
[Global Warming stopped the end of 2000.]
Long live “Dangerous Climate Change”!
[More trumpets…(slightly off-key?)]
After all the blabbing and rationalizing dies down, one thing remains certain:
IPCC (in its new AR5 draft) no longer simply writes off other solar forcing factors as “controversial” with a single paragraph (as it did in AR4), but spends some time discussing and rationalizing away the GCR cloud hypothesis being tested at CERN.
This is progress.
Look for more progress in AR6 (if there ever is one).
Max
“IPCC (in its new AR5 draft) no longer simply writes off other solar forcing factors as “controversial” with a single paragraph (as it did in AR4), but spends some time discussing and……”
… then writes off solar.
Wishful thinkers remain thus.
Left, right left, again. Michael
Heh, if wishes were CO2 molecules, paradigms would gallop, not stumble.
===========
It’s not the sun, kim. Nor is it solar-GCR-cloud effects. How has GCR flux changed over the last three decades? What does the GCR-cloud hypothesis predict? Did temperature do the exact opposite by any chance?
It did, didn’t it, kimmie? Oh, it did.
If you won’t look at it, you can’t avoid the stumbling rock.
==============
kim
Don’t be a prat. According to the GCR-cloud hypothesis we should have been *cooling* from about 1985. Hypothesis falsified by empirical observation.
Don’t tell me I’m not looking at the evidence when you are speaking from the bottom of a pit of denial.
It’s not the sun kim. Face the facts. Stop the denial. Seek help.
The only thing I need help with is finding the mechanism, and for that you have been counter-productive.
=============
What are you talking about kim? Mechanism for what? Warming? That’s increasing GHG forcing. As all the *real scientists* agree.
It’s not the sun, kim.
Face the facts. Stop the denial.
BBD, you deny your ignorance, I admit mine.
============
It’s still not the sun, kim.
BBD
You could look a bit silly with your “GCR hypothesis stopped working in 1985” story, because it started working again around 2000 (so there was a 15-year “pause”).
The “AGW hypothesis stopped working end 1997” (so there has also been a 15-year “pause”).
See any similarity there?
(Just checking to see how objective you are, BBD.)
Max
Michael
Of course, IPCC has to rationalize away the GCR cloud hypothesis.
It would otherwise constitute a potential threat to its GAGW hypothesis.
But there is an experiment going on at CERN
And we will know much more after this work is completed and the reports are written.
Stay tuned.
Max
manacker
If GCR flux is modulated by solar magnetic variability then how do we account for the rise in OHC since around 1970? It doesn’t make sense. At least not if increased marine low cloud formation reduces DSW flux to the upper ocean layer. If so, the 0-700m layer OHC should have fallen since the mid-1980s. It increased.
And the energy isn’t emerging from the deeper ocean because if it was, OHC would be decreasing at depth and it is rising.
Colour me baffled.
Max,
Yes, the IPCC position is rational.
The hypothesis exists, the evidence for it doesn’t.
Porported ‘skeptcis’ desperately grasp at the straw.
How is that a BOMBSHELL?
Progress, one bombshell after another. Concussions have cumulative impact.
======
Draft AR5 Exec Summary, lines 50/52, acknowledge there has
been no warming since 1998. Quelle surprise! LE IPCC a perdu
son sang-froid.
1998, say, wasn’t that the year of the super el nino?
Beth
Maybe lolwot, BBD and others need to read that acknowledgement by IPCC that it hasn’t warmed since 1998.
It seems they haven’t gotten the word yet.
Max
Beth
PS I’m glad IPCC has conceded the “pause” in AGW in the summary report.
I missed it in the detailed reports.
“Draft AR5 Exec Summary, lines 50/52, acknowledge there has
been no warming since 1998.”
No it doesn’t.
Agreed. I’ve just been through the whole SPM, which starts line count afresh at (line 1) on each consecutive page. There is no such acknowledgement or anything even vaguely like it.
This claim is a lie.
Try the technical summary, page TS-24, lines 51-52, before accusing people of lying
There is no such quote in the SPM. Claiming that there is is a lie. The TS is not the SPM.
This is the quote from the TS:
I can see why you didn’t actually reproduce it here. After all, as I and others have pointed out repeatedly on this very thread, nobody said natural variability has stopped.
It’s worth considering what will happen when natural and GHG forced warming begin to re-enforce one another again. Also to what extent natural variability will be able to offset the increasing effect of GHG forcing as the century progresses.
Anybody who uses the current slow-down in warming to claim that AGW is ‘falsified’ or the estimate for climate sensitivity to 2xCO2 is much too high is indulging in rhetoric, not making a scientific argument.
I find nothing regarding the lack of recent warming in the Exec Summary. However, in Chapter 1, it says (emphasis mine):
Regardless, changes to HadCRUT4 (Morice et al., 2012), primarily as a result of incorporation of more high-latitude NH land data, mean that all products now show a warming trend since 1998 (0.055°C per decade (HadCRUT4); 0.042°C per decade (MLOST); 0.093C/decade (GISS), none of these are statistically significant).
So the AR5 does indeed say that there has been no statistically significant warming since 1998, Beth just had the wrong page reference.
w.
BBD wrote: “There is no such quote in the SPM. Claiming that there is is a lie. The TS is not the SPM.”
——————————————————————————————–
A lie is defined as a deliberate untruth – as opposed to a mistake.
What possible motive would Beth have of lying about that? Especially over something which could so easily be checked.
When you ascribe the worst of motives to people, don’t be surprised if they start responding in kind.
phatboy
Fair enough. Sloppiness isn’t lying. It does indicate a certain carelessness about the facts, but that’s not dishonesty.
Misrepresentation, on the other hand, is deliberate and intended to deceive. As are lies.
Implying or stating that the slow-down in warming is evidence that AGW is ‘refuted’ or the more nuanced version that it shows that the climate sensitivity estimate is too high is misrepresentation. Rhetoric not scientific argument, and deceptive rhetoric at that.
Science today ‘is’, what it is.
BBD wrote: “Implying or stating that the slow-down in warming is evidence that AGW is ‘refuted’ or the more nuanced version that it shows that the climate sensitivity estimate is too high is misrepresentation.”
—————————————————————————————–
Where did she say that?
phatboy
Please, let’s not be tedious with each other.
We both know why she is banging on about the warming hiatus.
BBD, if I were wanting to be tedious, I might point out that it’s actually you who is guilty of misrepresentation in this instance.
But I don’t, so I won’t.
I withdrew my potential misrepresentation of Beth’s carelessness with the facts.
I repeat my assertion that she is, like you, engaged in misrepresentation.
The still unacknowledged misrepresentation of the warming hiatus as evidence that ‘AGW is falsified’ or ‘estimated CS is too high’.
Misrepresentation is in the eye of the beholder
Another advantage of the IPCC draft leak is that dissenting reports like the NIPCC will not have to wait until the final report comes out, to then start work on their rebuttal, giving the IPCC a long head start. This is one reason why the US law on federal advisory committee reports (FACA) requires that drafts be made public, as well as correspondence. The IPCC should follow this US precedent on transparency. See http://www.gsa.gov/faca
The main advantages are it showed (1) the leaker can’t keep his word (2) the leaker doesn’t understand what he reads, and (3) a lot of saps at WUWT don’t understand the leaker doesn’t understand.
GAME CHANGER ! GAME CHANGER ! HA HA
GAME CHANGER ! GAME CHANGER !
I take it you think the US practice is too transparent. Hiding the drafts is better?
I really don’t care.
Watts is using the word “bombshell” to describe a graph which has nothing new. No AR5 projections, just things that have been plotted since AR4. I really don’t know where his bombshell is. He doesn’t explain.
there is a hidden bombshell in this, will tease it out in a forthcoming post
That much is obvious MOK. The question is then why you are wasting our time?
I like poking fun at skeptics/deniers.
I do not see the fun in wasting our time.
Jim D you write “I really don’t know where his bombshell is. ”
Obviously you have not read what Alex Rawls wrote. His comments have been incorporated into Chapter 7 of the 2nd draft of the AR5. Now what is written in Chapter 7 does not agree with the certainty written in the draft SPM.
We always knew that one of the main problems the IPCC was going to have with writing the AR5 was the certainty with which they expressed their conclusions in previous reports. Such expressions as very likely, meaning 90% probable, and the like. Over the years, there have been many scientific reports which undermine this certainty. So would the AR5 agree that past certainties were not as certain as previously expressed, or would the AR5 ignore the science that tends to show that things are not as certain as they were claimed to be? Our hostess used the word “bewildered” on this issue, which I think explains things very well.
So now the issue is, when the IPCC produces the 3rd draft, will the SPM be modified so that it conforms to the science presented in Chapter 7, or will Chapter 7 be modified so that it agrees with the SPM? That is the 64 billion dollar question.
OK, how long is the lag on the fuse? I wanna seek cover.
============
Jim C, I saw what Rawls wrote, but Watts was not referring to that in his separate “bombshell” post. The graph gives nothing away that I see.
“Now what is written in Chapter 7 does not agree with the certainty written in the draft SPM.”
Yes it does. The sentence that Alex Rawl highlights doesn’t remotely affect that uncertainty.
OK, let’s take Watts “bombshell” graph, and shift the projections down 0.1 degrees (as the absolute value has some arbitrariness about where zero is). Now the current period is well represented, while the rise in the 90’s, especially towards 1998 was faster than expected. A completely different interpretation ensues, just depending where the zero is by 0.1 degrees. The drawback of reading too much into interdecadal changes versus ensemble projections.
lolwot, you write”Yes it does. The sentence that Alex Rawl highlights doesn’t remotely affect that uncertainty.”
I will await the opinions of many others before I consider this matter settled.
@David Wojick | December 15, 2012 at 12:32 pm | asked:
The question is then why you are wasting our time?
David – is someone forcing you to visit this blog? If not, ,why are you wasting your time? Just curious.
Ooh, J2, the logician can have some fun with that comment.
=========
Judith said:
“…there is a hidden bombshell in this, will tease it out in a forthcoming post.”
______
Don’t know what you mean by the “this” as “in this”. Did you mean by the release of the draft of an incomplete report or the incomplete content of the actual draft report? By suggesting there is a hidden bombshell, as opposed to a “potential” hidden bombshell, you certainly have set a high and intriguing bar for yourself!
Are we taking bets? I guess the hidden bombshell is the Clausius-Clapeyron thing.
This hidden bombshell issue is better than vintage 1960s “Days of Our Lives”. My bets are on Judith nailing it.
Max_OK
If you are expecting IPCC to issue a GAME CHANGER!! in AR5, you’ll be disappointed.
It looks like it’s the same gobbledygook that was in AR4 with a few updates.
And you can be sure that if there are still any statements of possible doubt in the draft, they’ll be modified to suit the party line.
They are so committed to the CAGW story that they can’t back down now.
Don’t you think?
Max_not from OK
The leak is the game changer, not the contents. The IPCC’s usual game is OBE.
A quote from WUWT
“Full AR5 draft leaked here, contains game-changing admission of enhanced solar forcing.”
It’s more than a game changer.
It’s a BOMBSHELL
It’s a BLOCK BUSTER
A GAME-CHANGING BLOCKBUSTING BOMBSHELL
BOOM ! BOOM ! HOLY COW ! RUN FOR THE HILLS !
It’s
That is not what I was talking about so you simply hijacked my thread. You do that a lot, apparently when you “don’t care” for the topic. I have been quite specific in talking about the significance of the leak to the IPCC process.
david,
Then go on WUWT and defend your claim. The content is not the game changer. See what kind of reception you get.
This will blow up in people’s faces because Rawls doesnt know what he is talking about.
Mosher, I am not claiming that there is no game changer in the content, as I have not seen the content. I am claiming that the leak is a game changer, outlined in several different comments above.
Steven Mosher said:
“This will blow up in people’s faces because Rawls doesnt know what he is talking about.”
_____
Many things have blown up in deniers faces, but they march on…
But to be certain, Rawls knows not of what he speaks…
curryja said on December 15, 2012 at 12:40 pm
“there is a hidden bombshell in this, will tease it out in a forthcoming post”
______________
Webster’s definition of TEASE OUT
” to obtain by or as if by disentangling or freeing with a pointed instrument”
That sounds like cherry-picking.
Better be careful about disentangling hidden bombshells.
BOOM !
Max,
using the bomb analogy – you are the firecracker that sparks, goes phitz, and then nothing.
Kim, teaching the unwashed and unteachable is a waste of time.
NIPCC is not credible. Fred Singer should have gone fishing in his retirement years. Let’s get real here.
The sun does all the warming. Water, in all of its forms does the regulation of temperature. CO2, as a trace gas, likely kicks in a trace of influence. When the oceans are warm and liquid, it snows enough to increase albedo and earth cools. When the oceans are cold and frozen it snows not enough and albedo decreases. Water, Ice, Water Vapor, Clouds are abundant and regulate the temperature of earth. You do not do a job that huge with a trace of something. The king has no clothes on. Data shows that earth temperature is regulated around a set point. Arctic Sea Ice and Water provide that set point.
“The sun does all the warming. Water, in all of its forms does the regulation of temperature. ”
Of course this is the consensus view.
The only difference between this and a foaming mouth CAGWer [assuming they haven’t taken too many drugs], is they consider CO2 as very important addition.
More on the science, with just a splash of soda…
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/dec/16/mayan-death-rebirth-date-planet-crisis
beats neat.
AR5:
Many empirical relationships have been reported between GCR or cosmogenic isotope archives and some aspects of the climate system (e.g., Bond et al., 2001; Dengel et al., 2009; Ram and Stolz, 1999). The forcingfrom changes in total solar irradiance alone does not seem to account for these observations, implying the existence of an (unknown) amplifying mechanism.
John Bills
Slightly reduced average solar activity since the mid-1980s has led to increased GCR flux. According to the GCR-cloud hypothesis that should mean more CCNs – and so more cloud – and so reduced DSW flux to the surface. In short, the GCR-cloud hypothesis predicts cooling since around 1985.
There’s a problem here, is there not?
“There’s a problem here, is there not?”
Not if you are hell bent on denying the overwhelming evidence that the human influence on climate is far larger than the solar influence.
lolwot
You mean you don’t believe in magic?
Pay attention,
There is another unexplained forcing from the sun because, many empirical relationships have been reported between GCR or cosmogenic isotope archives and some aspects of the climate system (e.g., Bond et al., 2001; Dengel et al., 2009; Ram and Stolz, 1999). The forcing from changes in total solar irradiance alone does not seem to account for these observations, implying the existence of this unknown amplifying mechanism.The cosmic ray-ionization mechanism is too weak to influence global concentrations of CCN or their change over the last century or during a solar cycle in any climatically significant way.
THE WORKING GROUP CAN’T EXPLAIN WHAT CAUSES THE AMPLIFYING MECHANISM AND CHOOSES TO IGNORE IT.
I wanna know what keeps the amplifier from frying. What you say, negative feedback?
==========
John Bills
This statement does not mean that modern warming is being caused by mystery forcings.
Bond et al. (2001) discusses the evidence for solar influence on North Atlantic climate during the Holocene. Dengel et al. (2009) might be evidence that the Schwabe cycle shows up in tree rings – but this solar activity is weakening, so presumably more cloud should have resulted in cooling since ~1985…
Ram & Stolz (1999) proposes a solar influence on dust deposition on the GIS during the last glacial.
In the SPM, we find this (emphasis as original):
BBD
There were more clouds (and cooling) since 2000.
So there was maybe a 15-year period where the GCR cloud connection appeared not to work.
Sort of like the 15-year period that AGW hasn’t been working (since 1998) despite unabated human GHG emissions.
Right?
“In short, the AGW hypothesis predicts warming since 1998” (but it didn’t happen, did it?)
Max
manacker
No, the problem is bigger than that:
If GCR flux is modulated by solar magnetic variability then how do we account for the rise in OHC since around 1970? It doesn’t make sense. At least not if increased marine low cloud formation reduces DSW flux to the upper ocean layer.
Ha, A little while back I asked skeptics to give me a testable hypothesis with regard to Forbush events and cloudiness. Of course I found nothing, and no skeptic stepped forward with a testable hypothesis. None wanted to put their beliefs on the line.
BBD, Mosher
Adios
Curryja on this post
Gosh, how exciting! But wait, haven’t we been here before?
Curryja on Murray Salby, August 2011
Care to remind us how revolutionary that one turned out? Perhaps an update is due by now, no?
…this could revolutionize AGW science
The observed increase in CO2 concentration is due to global warming, not human emission of CO2 as shown => http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/compress:12/normalise/plot/esrl-co2/compress:12/derivative/normalise/from:1979.3/plot/rss/normalise/trend
Salby is another embarrassment for Australia. Like Girma and the other Australian crackpots who think that they can mock methodical science, Salby and his theory is easily assigned tp the dustbin of failures.
LHC H/B too? It is that thing that holds it all together? What’s up today?
The Skeptical Warmist | December 15, 2012 at 2:11 pm |
Say what? The blogs didn’t make any secrecy agreement. They are under no moral obligation to not discuss the issues revealed by the draft. I am happy to see the veil of secrecy rent, and I have no compunctions about discussing it. Remember, I’m one of the folks who consciously and specifically DIDN’T sign the secrecy agreement, specifically so I could discuss these questions in public … so no, there is no wrong at all in folks like myself discussing these questions on the blogs.
As to whether skeptics will “misrepresent or twist” the draft, some will, some won’t … just like it will be twisted in the anti-clockwise direction by some folks on the other side of the aisle. As you said, that’s a separate issue.
w.
but surely you see the importance of taking a stand on Rawls actions.
Same way one should take a stand on climategate.
Rawls claimed that he broke his agreement because the IPCC was dishonest in not discussing the “omitted variable” and THEN
he said he had to release it because of the discussion about the omitted variable. Dishonest.
I respect Stevemc and you for not downloading the report.
I did not like the secrecy, but I agreed to the contract and kept
my word. rawls, looked for the thinnest reason possible to leak.
Worst than that people are vastly overplaying the words in a draft.
it makes honest sceptics look bad in the same way that climategate tarred all scientists with the same brush.
Open is good.
==========
I’m waiting for the libertarian legal blogs like Volokh and Glenn Reynolds to chime in on this next week. This could get interesting from a legal analysis standpoint. Hinderaker at Powerline did an approving post from a political standpoint, but didn’t comment about the legal aspect.
Mosh
I agree with you . It’s unfortunate that the ipcc is not more transparent but we all signed up as expert reviewers knowing the rules. I am uncomfortable that the trust was broken
Tonyb
Tony,
I am pleased to see you are uncomfortable that the trust was broken. Honor and one’s word are very important…but as a true English gentleman, you know that.
BTW, this point of honor and trust are one of my key issues with Anthony Watts. On several occasions he has released bits of my personal information to his blogosphere faithful, which of course he was entrusted with. He has done this to others as well, and claimed he did it to me because he was “angry”. If this thin excuse is the reason he has for breaking a trust, then he certainly has a very low amount of honor in my mind. That he would hype the immorally obtained AR5 draft (in such an inaccurate way as well) simply confirms the kind of moral character he has displayed going back to his own breaking of my trust in him.
The working group can’t explain the amplifying mechanism which is shown in many empirical relationships between or cosmogenic isotope archives and some aspects of the climate system.
The working group chooses to ignore this: lying by omissom
R gates
I think this breaking of trust is rather endemic in the blogosphere. You give a good example with your own personal information but the breaking of trust is often more subtle. People send me stuff that sometimes causes me to raise my eyebrows so high they are almost crawling over my head. I would dearly like to tell other people but I assume that information sent to me privately is not for wider dissemination .
For the article I am writing on the arctic between 1920 and 1949 two climate scientists have sent me interesting-but not earth shattering-information. I have asked their permission to incorporate it in my article as that seems to me to be right and proper.
So I would put breaking of confidences into the same category as being trustworthy and keeping to a promise made, in this case Rawls as an expert reviewer.
I suspect that it is an old fashioned view and the Internet will mean nothing can be kept private
Tonyb
ya Tony
I’m pissed too. We fought pretty hard to open up the process. We won some of the things we wanted but not all. in my mind that does not mean we can just breach an agreement. I would have rather fought to release the drafts After the fact. And fight a clean fight in the courts if we had to.
Id rather have a case on FOIA to clear up the status of the IPCC.
Willis said:
“Say what? The blogs didn’t make any secrecy agreement.”
_____
Willis, quite simply, if someone comes to you with property they obtained through immoral means (yes, not illegal, but simply immoral), and you could make a few bucks by selling that property, would you? If you would, then is says a lot about your own morality.
The immoral breaking of an agreement to release information that you agreed not to release is of course much different than what happened in the Climategate affairs. In those cases, illegally obtained information was released and certain blogs made money by the hype and constant traffic surrounding the release of that illegally obtained material. In either case– it says something about the character of those who would make a few bucks by either immorally or illegally obtained information.
What do you say about the character of someone who thinks it’s about a few bucks rather that the free flow of policy critical information?
===============
See some of Willis comments to me when he thought Muller broke his agreement with Watts.
In that case there was no written agreement as in this case. Guess who got on his high horse?
Kim said:
“What do you say about the character of someone who thinks it’s about a few bucks rather that the free flow of policy critical information?”
______
How clever of you Kim to turn this around. Justifying Mr. Rawls immoral lapse by questioning my own character.
The “free flow of policy information” is important, but the release of an unfinished working draft probably does more damage than good if that is is your goal. But if your goal is to sow the seeds of doubt and confusion through release of an incomplete report, then Mr. Rawls has mildly succeeded. In any case, a dishonorable man he is.
“See some of Willis comments to me when he thought Muller broke his agreement with Watts.
In that case there was no written agreement as in this case. Guess who got on his high horse?”
A written agreement tends to be clearer, but a written agreement is not some “higher level” or superior agreement. It’s better in terms evidence
in a court.
In other words, a oral agreement can be superior, due to all kinds of messages encoded in vocal communicate, which very difficult to convey
as precisely in written agreement. Or the issue is the intent conveyed between parties.
Have to agree with Willis here. Blogs are media. Media frequently publishes illegally released information.
One example that has probably led to terrorist attacks:
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/218046/stop-leaks/editors
How convenient to justify one’s immoral behavior by saying “but they’re doing it!” Reminds me of spoiled and misbehaved children.
warmist, explaining something doesn’t mean justifying.
TSI defined: “Solar energy per unit time over a unit area perpendicular to the Sun’s rays at the top of Earth’s atmosphere.”
A graphic review of satellite coverage of EM radiation (through SDO) is here:
http://mysite.verizon.net/cache.22/SET_EM_TSI_Coverage.jpg
Discussion starts here:
http://solarcycle24com.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=gotopost&board=globalwarming&thread=468&post=18678
Pooh, Dixie-
These seem interesting.
I bookmarked the proboards for future perusal.
But would like some kind quick and easy summary re it.
The effort regarding quantifying TSI I find very interesting.
Thanks.
The Skeptical Warmist | December 15, 2012 at 3:23 pm | Reply
Thanks, Warmist. Selling it? I’m just discussing it.
I think that it is totally immoral for the IPCC to hold secret deliberations on the science. I think that anything a scientist says about the science in private should be what he/she says about the science in public. I think it is a betrayal of trust for the IPCC to constantly and consistently violate their professed “transparency”.
So as far as I am concerned, the moral shoe is on the other foot. In discussing the draft, I am discussing something that should never have been kept secret. What is there in all of that IPCC verbiage and garbage that is deserving of secrecy? I want to see the science being discussed and decided. It is totally wrong of them, in my view, to do their “science” in secret.
Not only is it wrong, but it is how they have been able to suppress dissent in the past. Finally, it is how they have covered up the things that they have done, in various episodes including Michael Mann and his friends deleting emails.
So no, Skeptical, I don’t think we should leave those IPCC folks to do their work in secret. That hasn’t worked out at all well in the past. They have used the darkness to do things that won’t stand the light. Which is why the entire process desperately needs the sunlight and transparency that they pay extensive lip service to, but won’t enforce even so far as simple “conflict-of-interest” statements.
Since I hold that it was not proper to keep the draft secret in the first place, I see no problem in discussing the draft once it is made public.
Regards,
w.
PS—Suppose someone both immorally and illegally obtained and published authentic documents proving that a US Senator was working for the North Korean government.
IF I understand you, you are saying that once that was revealed by the person who discovered it, according to you no blog should ever discuss or act on the North Korean connection, because that would be the same as receiving and reselling stolen property …
Discuss.
Heh, two wrongs equal one right. Simple enuff maths for the innumerate.
============
Willis,
When you give your word on something, you’d better have a very strong overwhelming reason to break that trust. Rawls used the weakest and thinnest of excuses,
If you disagreed with how the AR5 conducts their review process (as I do in many respects) then that is our personal opinion, and we are therefore honorable not to enter into an agreement or be involved in the process itself. But organizations have the right to enter into agreements of confidentiality, and our opinions are not relevant to their right to do so. Those who on their own accord decide to participate in that private process do so of their own accord and do so upon their own honor. Rawls broke this honor and trust, and those who would use the information that came from that immoral action (immoral if you think trust and honor are moral principles to live by), are tainted by that immoral action.
In regards to your hypothetical North Korean example, (which has no relationship or similarity to the AR5 privacy agreement BTW), you are using the common “lessor evil to prevent a greater evil” example, which is of course a common philosophical point of discussion, and often even raised in movies and literature. If I must take the lives of 100 people to save the lives of 2 million, then you do it. Those in the Air Force patrolling our skies know on any given day they could be forced to shoot down an airliner full of innocent people if they believe that airliner may be controlled by terrorists who may use it to take even more lives. Of course you break the law to turn in a traitor to the nation– going back to your N. Korean example. But to be certain, the “lessor evil to prevent a greater evil” example does not apply, in any way, to the simple immoral behavior as displayed by Mr. Rawls.
People Forget.
When Muller was asked to testify before congress, he made mention of work in progress. That work in progress used some data given to him by Anthony, with the agreement that we would not share the data prior to the publication of Anthonys paper. At the hearing, Muller didnt share the data, but he did mention our results.
Who got holier than thou and complained about breaches of agreements?
Willis, of course
“Muller had no reason at all to start a fight. He had no reason to say a word about Anthony’s data, which he had accepted in confidence. He could have said nothing about Anthony’s work. “.
So, there you go.
“I think that it is totally immoral for the IPCC to hold secret deliberations on the science. I think that anything a scientist says about the science in private should be what he/she says about the science in public. I think it is a betrayal of trust for the IPCC to constantly and consistently violate their professed “transparency”.
….
Discuss.”
One aspect of it, is the secrecy, is lost resource for children learning about how real science in done.
Think of the children!
Discuss.
:)
If this IPCC statement is to be believed, the process is fairly open in that all of the comments and responses are eventually released. I agree with others that publishing each draft and the review comments would be better for the IPCC even if it made the process longer. IMHO, early release of the drafts and comments would let the community identify the most controversial issues and allow the IPCC to create a better final product.
“The IPCC is committed to an open and transparent process that delivers a robust assessment. That is why IPCC reports go through multiple rounds of review and the Working Groups encourage reviews from as broad a range of experts as possible, based on a self-declaration of expertise. All comments submitted in the review period are considered by the authors in preparing the next draft and a response is made to every comment. After a report is finalized, all drafts submitted for formal review,
the review comments, and the responses by authors to the comments are made available on the IPCC and Working Group websites along with the final report. These procedures were decided by the
IPCC’s member governments.”
The IPCC releases must be a difficult time for skeptics. So much to deny in so many chapters all at once. Spare a thought if they appear frazzled.
Some skeptics may not be thanking Rawls. They probably thought they would have a nice quiet Christmas just complaining about a press release here or there, now this.
I don’t personally have a problem with leaking AR5. It’s not like it harms anyone or really even affects anyone. Rawls excuse was a little forced, reminds me of the kind of excuses anonymous give for hacking someone. But the act itself my morality isn’t that high I guess to find it an issue.
There doesn’t (so far) appear to be anything in AR5 that will be that groundbreaking. More confirmation of the human impact on the climate. If anything, for some, AR5 appears to be continuing down a too conservative route (Trenberth & Hansen would probably agree with this). Thus, Rawls release really won’t make much of a difference. Give deniers and skeptics something to banter about for while more than anything. On the scale of immoral acts, breaking one’s word, as Rawls did, certainly doesn’t compare to murder, and politicians do it all the time– so maybe he’s got a career ahead of him.
Lacis, who contributes here sometimes, was also disappointed at the conservative language of AR4 (mealy-mouthed, I think he called it).
Jim D
I can see that Lacis would like “stronger” language.
After all, he believes in the “CO2 control knob”.
Max
Skeptical
Would Rawls be a good candidate to replace Pachauri?
Max
Steven Mosher | December 14, 2012 at 12:35 pm |
“harry. i will suggest you read up on fracking in china.
You might want to read up on fracking in China in MIT Technology Review…quoting ‘energy’ scientists at LBNL(Isn’t Dr Muller associated with them?)
http://www.technologyreview.com/news/508146/china-has-plenty-of-shale-gas-but-it-will-be-hard-to-mine/
http://www.technologyreview.com/news/508146/china-has-plenty-of-shale-gas-but-it-will-be-hard-to-mine/
But even if such techniques prove successful, it is unlikely that producing and using shale gas will have a major impact on greenhouse gas emissions in China, as least in the next several years, Friedmann says. China lacks a pipeline infrastructure to carry natural gas from western China, where most shale gas is, to the population centers in the east to be burned in power plants instead of coal. Instead it’s likely to be used first for chemical production. Friedmann estimates that even so, emissions from coal consumption are likely to be reduced by 100 to 150 million tons a year
25 GW of nuclear will deliver the same amount of electricity as 100 million tons of coal, so will 100GW of wind, so will 60 or 70 GW of hydro.
The Chinese have 25 GW of nuclear under construction, this year they will have 60GW of wind connected to the grid with another 40 GW expected by 2015 and an additonal 100 GW by 2020. They have 230 GW of hydro with another 170 GW expected by 2020.
So that’s what…5-6 times the amount of ‘zero carbon’ energy then what frakking(1/2 carbon energy) in China is expected to produce?
China is going to need natural gas…coal is a poor substitute for making ammonia, natural gas is the second best fuel for transportation and heating a home with gas has health benefits over heating with coal.
Dr Muller’s ‘opinion piece’ in the WSJ reads like someone trying to justify US federal funding for R&D, It;s not uncommon that such pieces would appeal to the parochial views of the intended audience and ‘over egg the pudding’.
The piece in the MIT Technology review was written by someone who understands the various challenges of Energy Delivery in China.
Folks
If there are large quantities of shale gas in China, you can bet your buns that China will figure out how to exploit this (and put in the necessary infrastructure to make that possible). They don’t have to worry about all the green lobby groups, lawyers and the web of regulations that slow down progress in the USA.
And if they need some horizontal drilling or fracking know-how, they’ll get it one way or the other.
As a result, China will most likely exploit their shale gas more quickly than the USA will, for those reasons.
Max
Uh oh, then where can Canada sell its tar-sand oil? They may have to sit on it.
To clarify, I am thinking of CNG vehicles here. Tar-sand oil is a source of petroleum. Will it remain competitive with plentiful natural gas around, and possibly cheaper electricity for future electric cars.
Max,
Indeed. And while China is developing engineering expertise, USA and Australia are training lawyers, social scientists and socialists.
Harrywr2,
Thanks for another informative comment.
It is interesting to note that this comment compares the amount of generating capacity needed to provide the same amount of electricity as 100 million tones of coal.
But if we compare the amount of capacity needed to replace the emissions from 100 million tonnes of coal, the figures are not the same. The figures are the same for nuclear and hydro but not for wind and solar.
The reason is that nuclear is about 98% effective at replacing the emissions from coal. (Hydro is roughly the same).
But renewables are much less effective. They become less effective the higher the proportion of electricity generated by wind and solar.
According to Joe Wheatley (2012) Quantifying CO2 emissions from wind power: Ireland [2] wind power in the Irish grid is just 53% effective at avoiding emissions in 2011. That has a lot of new, efficient generating capacity. Purely coincidently, 53% of its electricity was generated by natural gas in 2011. 17% of the electricity was generated by wind in 2011.
The take home message from this is that, in an efficient grid with 17% of electricity generated by wind and 53% by relatively new combined cycle gas turbines, the wind generation is only 53% effective at avoiding CO2 emissions. For comparison nuclear is about 98% effective.
So, changing Harrywr2’s capacity figures to make them equivalent on the basis of emissions avoided, to replace 100 million tons of coal would require:
25 GW nuclear, or
60-70 GW of hydro, or
~190 GW of wind (100 GW / 53%)
The capital cost for these options (to achieve the same emissions reductions) would be about:
$100 billion for nuclear
$160 billion for hydro
$480 billion for wind (more than this if we add the cost of transmission)
Using A$ from Table 5.2.2. here [3]:
[1] Peter Lang (2011), CO2 avoidance cost with wind energy in Australia and carbon price implications http://bravenewclimate.com/2011/05/21/co2-avoidance-cost-wind/
[2] Joeseph Wheatley (2012) Quantifying CO2 emissions from wind power: Ireland [under review at Energy Policy (Elsevier)] (a draft version is here: http://docs.wind-watch.org/Wheatley-Ireland-CO2.pdf )
[3] Australian Energy Technology Assessment (2012) http://bree.gov.au/documents/publications/aeta/Australian_Energy_Technology_Assessment.pdf
Good point Peter. Those that are really against CO2 emissions and at the same time really against nuclear and fracking seem to have conflicting interests.
I hear the cackling of the CAGW faithful about our hostess’ remark about a “bombshell”.
Let’s wait until we hear the “bombshell” before we cackle too loudly.
Max
Good idea, that coffin is overload with nails already :)
Max
Its time to order the popcorn. If we all club together we shoud be able to get a good discount.
tonyb
She made the mistake of overselling it. Bad.
If it is a bombshell, you must peddle it as an “interesting development”
Let other’s call it a bombshell. But if you sell it as a bombshell you can ONLY disappoint people. Skeptics will be disappointed. Not because its not a bombshell, but because in their imagination it is now hiroshima.
You MUST manage expectations. Dr. Curry has not. The amplifier doesnt go to 11.
Max_not fromOK,
re IPCC Exec Summary, the leak will allow critical perusal
by the public before the IPCC final edit, (clean up.)
Though I do agree with tony b that a contract should be
honoured, a basis of democratic rule of law.
I also agree that the science should be open, that there
be a free flow of data of process. The IPCC discussion of
a policy draft, financed by the public, should never have
been a closed forum in the first place.
Pity it wasn’t the climate gate whistle blower who leaked it. :)
Beth.
Beth,
I’m glad you agree that a contract should be honored.
IMO, climate skeptic Rawls shot at the IPCC is the worst thing that’s happened to the climate contrarian community in recent memory. Here we have a skeptic making headlines who appears to be both dishonest and stupid. I don’t why the IPCC accepted his application to be an expert reviewer, but I’ll bet they are glad they did.
While making IPCC drafts public might be a good idea, I don’t think Rawls’ behavior is evidence in support of this idea. Why would input from more people like him be helpful?
More transparency. The more, the better. For science.
Edim, a clear window on climate science might be good if you could keep contrarians from fogging the glass with their hot air.
Max, I see you’re against science and for dogma. Sad.
No, Edim, I am a friend of science, but I’m not a friend of climate science contrarians, who I believe are largely ideologues whose ideologies are at odds with the science. Perhaps making the IPCC drafts public would encouraged more contrarians to discredit themselves by making idiotic public statements about the drafts, such as Rawls has done. That would be good.
Max, I kinda understand you, but I think you’re a bit misled regarding ideologies. Yes, many skeptics are ‘right wing’, especially in the USA, in Europe not so much, other places I don’t know. I’ve heard that in Japan it’s vice versa (liberals are skeptical). At the end, it’s not really relevant for the science. You said it yourself – let’s make it all public and transparent and the lies and pseudo-science will be discredited, from whichever side they come from. Yes, that would be good.
WG1 is going nowhere. Its a waste of time and enormous waste of money spending more money on playing with temperatures. Climate sensitivity is about the only useful output from WG1. In 20 years of this work the uncertainty of climate sensitivity has hardly changed. Time to move the effort elsewhere.
Beth
You’re right (again).
Max
Max,
Right …(again) lol
My father used ter tell his daughters,’Yr not often right but
yr wrong again! Looking back I’d say he wasn’t wrong (
Steven Mosher | December 15, 2012 at 4:17 pm | ……
Steven, I think that is a bit of a hand wave, surely in that instance the trust breached was of the individual who trusted a professional person with information that was subsequently divulged for professional convenience? future reward? to negate future protest? anticipate opposition? promote himself, his professional organisation ? who knows.
Much different than an individual who signs with an all powerful organisation to protect the secrecy of its internal workings, and then decides that there is an inevitable corruption of the collected workings by the powerful ellective that can write a policy document to override the consensus and misrepresent the dissent within the collective writings and the science.
It is an ethical decision of ones own concience, to choose to break ones word, but there is also a wholesale and powerful imbalance in the way the system works, and the individual can end up with no real power or ability to change something they may see as a corrupted process touted on their individual trust.
In those circumstances the individual decides to break trust to reveal an even greater breach of trust, and that takes some courage when dealing with powerful organisations who impose secrecy on individuals, while in effect using the individuals to give legitimacy to the statements of those who weild the real power and create the policy statements.
I am sure that Willis would also see and apply a commonsense construction when assessing his take on the issue of professional integrity. I also see the almost universal disquiet and concern of scientists who agreed to sign to a confidential process, when their own scientific integrity rests on the principle of scientific transparency and open discussion.
Does one sell their soul to have a say in a secret process and forfiet their personal right to speak out or blow the whistle on what they see as a corrupted process?
The case is rather simple.
Willis got all hot and bothered because he thought Muller violated his word to Anthony not to share the data. Well, he didnt share the data, but never mind.
Next, Willis regularly comes on here to complain that scientists have not
condemned the behavoir in climategate.
I see two principles
A) Willis thinks that agreements ought to be kept
B) Willis thinks people should call out and condemn bad behavior
Pretty simple.
Now, apply that to this case
A) Rawls broke an agreement
therefore
Willis should condemn him and not remain silent.
You see when somebody consistently gets on his high horse to demand that others call out or condemn the incidents of climategate, when he appoints himself the judge of others, he should not be surprised when others ask him to practice what he preaches.
Steven Mosher | December 15, 2012 at 4:00 pm |
First, if you have an issue with comments I allegedly made to you, I expect you to have the courage and the honesty and the integrity to either link to these comments or to quote my words exactly. Making ugly insinuations with no evidence, and no way to determine which of my comments you are referring to, is not a good thing.
Second, either my writing is not clear or your reading is inadequate, quite possibly the fault is mine. Let me see if I can clarify my position.
You are quite correct that I was upset and objected strongly when Mueller publicly spoke out about his analysis of Anthony’s data, in an arena where Anthony could not respond, using Anthony’s data that Mueller had agreed not to reveal. It was an intensely personal and very public attack, wherein he traduced Anthony in front of the US Congress and the assembled media. I took great exception to that at the time, and I have seen nothing since to change my mind. I still see it as a grave personal wrongdoing on Mueller’s part, and yes, I’m passionate about that … so sue me.
If you think that that is in any way parallel to this IPCC case, you are not following the story. Who got wronged in front of a Congressional committee in the IPCC instance? Nobody. So yes, the release of the IPCC draft is wrong, but not personally nastily publicly wrong like what Mueller did. I am saddened that you don’t see the difference, but I suppose that’s what makes horse races.
Finally, I’ve said that I specifically didn’t sign up to what I think is a totally improper IPCC secrecy pledge because I wanted to be free to comment on the process and the project. And I have said that I think that it was wrong to reveal the IPCC draft, and that I would consider that a dishonorable act, one that I would not consider doing myself.
You say my response is inappropriate, or inadequate, or something, I’m not sure what because you are far from clear but your disapproval is manifest …
Mosh, I’m sorry that my responses don’t meet your high personal standards. I must confess, however, I fail to see why my morals and my responses are of such morbid interest to you. It’s starting to feel like some creepy stalking deal … how about you worry about your own morals and your own responses for a while?
In friendship, albeit somewhat strained, but I was never one to give up on friends over a bit of strain …
w.
The First Rule of Friend’s Club is…..oops, can’t say.
============
Willis I did quote your words exactly.
They were on a comment in the best thread.
There are others.
Here is the deal Willis. You get all hot and bothered because Judith and others wont condemn scientists who were silent about climategate.
So, I am asking you. Do you condemn what Rawls did. He made an agreement, he broke it.
I remind you that you got all hot and bothered when you thought Muller broke his agreement with Anthony.
Now that the shoe is on the other foot.
1. In the past you got on your high horse about broken agreements
2. In the past you got on your high horse about being silent in the face of others misconduct.
I ask you whether you will be consistent in the application of your principles.
condemn what rawls did. It’s simple. Or you can engage in parsing the facts in a way that makes you look like them
Didn’t Willis just say the following, Moshie:
“And I have said that I think that it was wrong to reveal the IPCC draft, and that I would consider that a dishonorable act, one that I would not consider doing myself. ”
Since Muller took you under his wing and allowed you to think that you are part of the climate science, you have become a patsy for the warmistas. Check yourself.
The scale of the offenses here are on the 80Billion/20Million climate alarmist/skeptic funding scale. moshe, open is good. It is trumps. Can’t ya hear the whistle blowing, Alex blow your horn.
===================
Willis,
Mosher’s pointed out a double standard in your moralizing and you do look foolish because of it. This seems consistent with something a friend would do; however a better friend would have done it less publically so you could right yourself without looking so silly.
Perhaps if a skydragon was an expert reviewer they too would break the non-disclosure agreement and leak the draft, citing the IPCCs corruption over the greenhouse effect.
With regard to Alex Rawl’s “omitted variable fraud” stuff from earlier in the year he stated:
“The empirical evidence in favor of the solar explanation is overwhelming. Dozens of peer-reviewed studies have found a very high degree of correlation (.5 to .8) between solar-magnetic activity and global temperature going back many thousands of years (Bond 2001, Neff 2001, Shaviv 2003, Usoskin 2005, and many others listed below). In other words, solar activity “explains,” in the statistical sense, 50 to 80% of past temperature change.”
Would you believe it though, that Usoskin 2005 reference is to a paper that finds a .8 correlation between the Mann ’99 hockey stick and Sunspots over the last 1000 years.
So either Rawl’s is the only skeptic I know who accepts the Mann ’99 hockey stick temperature reconstruction of the last 1000 years, or he’s citing evidence for solar-temperature correlation that even he doesn’t believe.
Furthermore Usoskin 2005 even concludes by saying “Note that the most recent warming, since around 1975, has not been considered in the above correlations. During these last 30 years the total solar irradiance, solar UV irradiance and cosmic ray flux has not shown any significant secular trend, so that at least this most warming episode must have another source.”
The Skeptical Warmist | December 15, 2012 at 3:02 pm |
EIther name the blogs and tell us how you know how much they are making, or stop making vague, uncited accusations.
w.
Willis, any blog with paid advertisements on them that is hyping the content of the released AR5 draft is tainted by the same lack of morals and honor that Mr. Rawls displayed.
Skeptical
Don’t pontificate too much about “paid advertisements” and “lack of morals and honor”: one could argue that the whole AR4 report of IPCC was nothing more than just that (and AR5 will be more of the same).
An “advertisement” for the IPCC CAGW message, “paid” for by the politicians of this world with funding from the taxpayers.
Right?
Max
Max,
You mistake me for someone who is a strong supporter of the IPCC report process.
Gates,
Yr: “…lack of morals and honor.”
Morals and honor? This from you, Gates?–everyone’s favorite, Tao-spouting, I’ve-got-mine, cool-as-a-tenured-watermelon, way-of-the-rip-off illuminated-dork. Remember, guy, all those guru-act Tao-boogers of yours about how it’s all, when viewed from your lofty perch, just about rats and snakes and snakes eating rats for eternity, and all. You know, Gates, how you used to be all very philosophical and above it all and everything–remember all that, Gates?
But, now, the very first time we see you get out-snaked, Gates, and we watch as one of your pet-rats gets “eaten” by the wrong kinda snake–what do we get from you, Gates?
Well, Mr. Philosopher King wannabe, this is what we get. We see that the moment you sense a real-life threat to your pay-off trough-privileges you drop all your other-worldly snake-pretenses and morph–not into a rat, like you promised, Gates–but into a frankly gross and unattractive, frantic, beserker sow, pig-headedly hunkered-down in a fortified-sty, do-or-die, flared-snout defense of her (your) CO2-swill bucket.
And, oh by the way, Gates, isn’t all that bourgeois “morals and honor” good stuff supposed to be prime examples of the sort of peasant, peon, helot, tacky, trailer-trash values and thinking that typifies us useless eaters who you lefties so despise and that is so completely beneath the enlightened, beyond-good-and-evil, do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do schtick you and your hive-bozo, geek-ball pals, with your Platonic souls of gold, affect?
So what gives, here, with you, Gates?
mike
R Gates as ‘frantic, berserker sow’. Whoof. I will have to go back over his comments. I think I missed something ;-)
Can’t fault you for vivid prose though. Tell me this takes several drafts. If you can inhale deeply and rip this out in one go, you should be fronting a band.
Mike,
As much as we all love these little diatribes that you like to launch into with such gusto, it seems this one is more a stretch than usual– even considering how much you normally stretch things to fit your rather simplistic left v. right, capitalism-is-god view of the universe.
If you think it’s fine to give your word on something and then break that promise on some flimsy made up excuse, then so be it. That tells me loads about your moral character.
Nerp! Nerp! Nerp!
Conspiracy theory alert!
Perhaps you do bring a sense of proportion to the discussion.
Alex Rawl writes “Dozens of peer-reviewed studies have found a very high degree of correlation (.5 to .8) between solar-magnetic activity and global temperature going back many thousands of years”
Dozens of papers? Of the first four he cites (Bond 2001, Neff 2001, Shaviv 2003, Usoskin 2005, and many others listed below), Neff 2001 and Bond 2001 don’t mention solar-global temperature correlations at all. Usoskin relies on the Mann 99 hockey stick. Shaviv 2003 only reports a an explanation of 66% of variance on timescales of hundreds of millions of years.
Out of the four papers first mentioned – “the most prominent and compelling studies” – none of them support a significant solar role in the recent global warming, unless you accept the accuracy of the Mann 99 Hockey stick in which case one of them does.
70-90 years oscillations in global mean temperature are correlated with corresponding oscillations in solar activity. Whereas the solar influence is obvious in the data from the last four centuries, signatures of human activity are not yet distinguishable in the observations. Long-term Variations in Solar Activity and their Apparent Effect on the Earth’s Climate by K.Lassen
Lassen 91!!! Another study skeptics cite so frequently yet the IPCC hasn’t mentioned in AR5!!!! mustbefraud!
Confirmation bias lolwot, not fraud. Anything that dilutes the message, even a little, is ignored and laughed at.
WUWT called it the Omitted Variable Fraud, not the Omitted Variable Confirmation Bias
It’s all part of the confirmation bias. The paradigm is protected at any price. You care too much about what WUWT does and says. Think for yourself.
I’ve read what the IPCC say about the Sun’s influence on climate and what climate skeptics are saying about it and I find the IPCC are summarizing the state of the science accurately and the climate skeptics are the ones guilty of confirmation bias.
The weight of scientific literature simply doesn’t support a large role for the Sun in recent warming. It’s just as the IPCC have reported.
Climate skeptics reference tenuous papers while rejecting the mountain that doesn’t agree with them and then accuse the IPCC of corruption for not doing likewise.
The Left ignores a lot of things that are inconvenient and that is why Western culture and society are going down the toilet and why The Old Farmers Almanac has a better record of predicing climate change than the IPCC.
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/ipcc_fig1-4_models_obs.png
“Lassen 91!!! Another study skeptics cite so frequently yet the IPCC hasn’t mentioned in AR5!!!!”
IPCC hasn’t mentioned anything that’s not in harmony with the consensus. The times are changing now, after the climategates and the emerging divergence between AGW projections and observations (plateau/cooling). Almost ~1/3 of all human CO2 has been emitted since ~1998 and the temperatures plateaued. IMO, this is only the beginning of the divergence. It will grow rapidly in the next decades.
From a skeptics perspectives, the “natural” factors that drive long term climate are at least as subtle as the impact of a few PPM of CO2. Looking at the AR5 Ch5 (Paleo) figure 5.8, one would be kind to say the models gets the temperature right. Especially for the MWP. This in the face of the efforts of some paleos to “get rid of the MWP” so the shown MWP which is already substantially higher than the model reconstruction, may have been artificially flattened.
So, for me, the popular science in AR5 still does not explain past climate events. The discussion of DO events on 5-45 and 5-46 is a case in point. Good description of what happened, speculation as to attribution. Bond events are not even mentioned. The 8.2 ka (Bond) event is discussed on 5-47 and attributed to a melt water pulse. The later, weaker Bond events are not discussed.
There’s a good reason why the IPCC doesn’t cite Lassen 91.
And a bad reason why climate skeptics do.
The only good reason is to protect the paradigm from any hint of solar effect.
RobertinAZ said:
“From a skeptics perspectives, the “natural” factors that drive long term climate are at least as subtle as the impact of a few PPM of CO2.”
____
If we were talking about a few ppm of CO2, you might be right. In fact, a few ppm of CO2 would barely be noticeable if at all in terms of climate. But of course, we are not talking about a few ppm of CO2, but hundreds of ppm of CO2, some 40% increase from pre-industrial levels. Added to this of course are similar percentage rises in the other GHG’s of methane and N2O, also from anthropogenic activity. All added together these pus a significant external forcing on the climate system, turning the energy balance nob to “accumulate”, and thus, warmer we go…
Sadly enough, recent allegations that the IPCC, the lead scientific body responsible for providing information regarding global warming science and policy, has misrepresented its findings in order to support the feelings of a small majority has served to intensify the debate, compromising the panel’s integrity in the process. Climate Controversies – Perspectives on Recent Climate Science and Policy by James R. Fleming and Wesley A. Baff
Hi Brandon –
I’m not sure why, but Muller didn’t come across as a fool to me. Listening to those two other interviews may have had something to do with it. Even after you explained your POV, I still wasn’t feeling it. Perhaps you have gunny-sacked old grudges into this situation, I don’t know.
Sometimes wordsmiths can scribble a better story when it is put in the form of a written interview. That is why I put more weight into the uncut, unrehearsed, live recorded interviews where all of Muller’s own spontaneous words are available.
Yes, I agree.
To end the fight? Or are you two working on unfinished business?
Mosher has became extra prickly and busy at popping ego balloons. But I wouldn’t take it personal, if that’s the real problem. Delingpole anointed him as the Skeptics standard-bearer some two years ago and Mosher has been actively declining the honor ever since.
It’s a good thing I use an RSS reader. Otherwise I’d have probably missed this comment blueice2hotsea:
Weird. I don’t see why other interviews he has given should affect whether or not he sounds like a fool in this interview. Even if I had a grudge against Muller (I don’t), I would hope it wouldn’t influence my ability to judge how he comes across in this particular interview.
I think anyone who says or suggests they have addressed every legitimate scientific issue raised by skeptics sounds like a fool. That’s all there is to it.
Even if I wanted to apologize to Mosher, I wouldn’t know what to say in the apology. Am I supposed to say, “I’m sorry I made perfectly valid comments”? That wouldn’t work. What could I possibly say?
I’d be happy to “end the fight.” Peace is good. However, peace is not the ultimate goal in all things. Mosher basically lied to insult and criticize me. Apologizing to him would just encourage that sort of ridiculous behavior. As history shows, appeasement is a terrible strategy. The response to naked aggression should not be simply giving the aggressor what he wants.
I don’t take it personally. Mosher behaves like this all the time. The only difference I see with me is I consistently call him out on it. Well, that and he seems utterly incapable of raising any cogent arguments against the things I say. With a lot of other people, he’s not that much of a failure. I chalk that up to the fact I listen and try to be reasonable while most people he argues with don’t. In other words, when he’s confronted with someone who doesn’t give him a basis for criticisms, he makes one up.
I’d criticize anyone who behaved like Mosher does. I don’t think people should be allowed to behave like that without social consequences. I won’t follow him around and harass him, but I’ll happily highlight his pathetic behavior in the hope more people will be turned off by it.
Brandon Shollenberger –
It’s not the “other interviews he has given” that matters so much as the the interviews one has been exposed to. I recall that Judith Curry has mentioned an interview where not much of anything she said was actually printed. You must know that what you read has been pre-selected even before editor and writer bias have had a chance to work their magic on shaping your bias.
The point which I have tried and consistently failed to make in our discussion is that live recorded interviews are best for getting a fairer perspective of the interviewee. They are much less the subjective business than are written interviews (which have sometimes made a fool out of me by amplifying bias established by prior written interviews). And I’m trying to cut down.
Last words belong to you.
bi2hs
blueice2hotsea, I don’t disagree. It’s quite possible Muller’s comment was made to sound (more) foolish by things done on the journalist side. That doesn’t make Muller sound less foolish; it just assigns blame for that appearance.
In other words, I don’t think we disagree. I think you’re just looking at a broader topic (was Muller actually foolish) than I am.
Perhaps if a skydragon was an expert reviewer they too would break the non-disclosure agreement and leak the draft, citing the IPCCs corruption over the greenhouse effect.
http://principia-scientific.org/supportnews/latest-news/80-un-leak-climate-science-in-disarray-on-human-emissions-impact.html
http://principia-scientific.org/supportnews/latest-news/77-science-misconduct-skyrockets-as-governments-and-media-look-away.html
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http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/12/31991/2012/acpd-12-31991-2012.pdf
This looks like an interesting new paper under open review at ACPD about cloud + aerosol trends for the past 33 years.
They suggest an increase of 2.7 W m−2 of sun light striking the earths surface due to a 3.6% drop in reflectivity from clouds+aerosol. I’m an amateur here but that sounds like a big change and that changes in albedo are contributing a lot to the most recent warming period. Can anybody lay out the implications of this paper if its accurate?
HR,
Thanks for bringing this paper to our attention. This paper could be important and we’ll see how it holds up in the review process. It could be one more indication that the modeled cloud feedback to AGW is indeed positive, which of course will vindicate Lacis over Spencer. This bit from the paper puts this positive feedback issue in perspective:
“Many model studies showing temperature increases indicate a positive feedback for clouds reflecting energy back to space (IPCC, 2007). That is, as the average temperature in- creases cloud cover decreases so that more solar energy reaches and is absorbed by the Earth’s surface, which is partially offset by increased outgoing IR radiation. It is
15 generally agreed that there has been a statistically significant increase in global aver- age temperature since 1979. An estimate of the increase is 0.15 ◦ C decade−1 (Hansen et al., 2010) or about 0.5 ◦ C since 1979. However, in response to the temperature in- crease, the direction of cloud feedback based on observations is still an open question.”
This paper might help answer that open question. If cloud feedback is positive and clouds are decreasing as a result of GHG forced warming– people probably ought to pay a bit more attention to the warnings from Hansen.
Thanks SW,
Firstly I think Spencer’s tiff was with Andy Dessler over ENSO and clouds. I don’t think this paper does anything to attribute the cloud+aerosol changes to GHG forcing, that’s just something you’ve assumed.
What stands out for me is the magnitude of the cloud+aerosol change here. The IPCC say a 1% change in albedo would cause a 1oC change in temp and 66% of the albedo is due to clouds. If these guys are measuring a 3.6% change in clouds+aerosol then this is potentially huge. This is producing all the temp change over the period, no room for direct warming from CO2 or water vapour or anything else. If this is right then these cloud+aerosol changes can’t just be feedback from GHG warming as you seem to be suggesting.
But as I said I don’t really know how to make the calculations it’s just that the numbers look extraordinarily high.
HR,
Yes of course it was Andrew Dessler, not Andrew Lacis is who I was specifically referring to in the tif with Spencer. (Though Lacis and Spencer have had their own different disagreements as well.)
At any rate, you’ve gotten way ahead of yourself. What this paper says is that there has been an apparent decrease in cloud & aerosol cover since 1979, and fact in itself, (if their methodology and data are correct), corroborates other studies that have indicated something similar, but doesn’t tell us specifically what this might mean for that effect on tropospheric temperatures (if any), for decreasing cloud cover is a two-edged sword, as the paper you’ve referenced so accurately acknowledges:
“Clouds also block some of the longwave radiation that would be emitted back to space, so that a decrease in global cloud amount would increase the amount of solar radiation reaching the Earth’s surface (more heating), but also increase the amount radiated back to space (more cooling).”
What is probably most interesting about this paper is that it corroborates what other papers have found– that is a general decrease in overall global cloudiness. The effects of this on overall tropospheric near surface temperatures is another issue entirely for the above stated reason, and more importantly would be the relationship between a external forcing on the climate such as we are seeing from an increase in GHG concentrations, and a potential feedback mechanism of an internal response (i.e. changes in cloud cover) to that external forcing. If it turns out that the reduction in cloud cover ALSO leads to increasing tropospheric temperatures (and ocean heat content) then this would be a positive feedback to the external GHG forcing, and Hansen’s warnings should be given your full attention.
The new study by Herman et al. on change in the Lambert Equivalent Reflectivity (LER) of the Earth’s cloud plus aerosol over the period 1979-2011 shows
– That a reduction on cloud cover over this period resulted in 2.3 Wm-2 added warming of the Earth’s surface
– That most of this occurred over land, the northern hemisphere and over the North Atlantic Ocean (including Greenland).
This seems to reopen the question raised by Roy Spencer of clouds as a significant climate forcing.
N’est-ce pas?
Max
I do not know that tiff is he right word, but Spencer wrote a blog comment about the control knob.
Max said:
“That a reduction on cloud cover over this period resulted in 2.3 Wm-2 added warming of the Earth’s surface…This seems to reopen the question raised by Roy Spencer of clouds as a significant climate forcing.”
____
Not unless the paper is claiming that the change in cloudiness represents and external forcing on the climate (versus a response to some external forcing). And you also forgot to mention (but the paper did not) that the reduction in cloudiness also also more LW from the surface to escape back to space. No assumptions can be made about the net effect of this reduction in cloudiness on either near surface tropospheric temperatures or net gains to the Earth’s overall energy system. If the reduction is cloudiness is causing the Earth system to retain more energy, then we have might have a positive feedback with clouds to an external forcing, and Hansen’s warnings should be listened to.
Kim quipped:
“Warming, as has been amply demonstrated in the past, improves the total earth ecosystem, sustaining more total life and more diversity of life.
One of our tragedies as a species is that there isn’t enough fossil fuel to stave of an Ice Age. One of our triumphs will be anticipating and preparing, so as to survive.”
______
An interesting point of view. So if you accept some “AnthroCO2 warming” as a reality, then to what level do you allow CO2 to rise to? And what of the other AnthroGHG’s such as methane and N2O, which have been rising in lock step with CO2 and can also have an influence on warming the climate? If you are one of the “warmer is always better” crowd, do you place no limit on the upward bounds at which temperatures can rise, even though biologists are already seeing stress across multiple ecosystems?
And what of this “natural cooling” that you seem to believe is going to occur? There is some thought that this interglacial might be one of the longer ones (naturally), and thus many thousands of years away from the next glacial advance.
Finally of course, glacial periods are not much fun for species who inhabited the highest latitudes, but they are not necessarily a matter of survival for species as widespread as humans were. The biggest threat to human survival (besides our own nuclear and biological weapons) over the past 100,000 years or so, was not the glacial advance per se, but the particular episode during the eruption of the supervolcano Mt. Toba about 72,000 years ago. It thinned the species quite a bit– but again, that thinning was not from the glacial advance per se, which had already commenced for several thousands of years.
R gates
Methane rising in lock step with co2?
Surely it had a 10 year hiatus and only started increasing again in 2007?
Ps
I assume mike won’t be invited to our dinner and dessert?
Tonyb
A fine response TSA, with more questions than I can answer. I don’t believe we’ll burn enough fossil fuel to cause catastrophic warming before alternative energy sources make the Holy Hydrocarbon Bond more valuable as structure than for its inherent energy. I believe warming increases the life carrying capacity of the earth, sustaining more total life and more diversity of life, and I think we are far from the limits of this, never ever having tested the upper limits in all our extensive past. I believe the danger of warming has been excessively exaggerated, and the danger of cooling utterly ignored, both badly to our desperate peril.
=====================
Sorry, TSW. See I already had you as a skeptical alarmist. Soon, you may be skeptical of alarum, though I take your points about declouding as a feedback seriously.
==========
kim, we will soon have a pre-Quaternary atmosphere, so rest assured that atmosphere does not support Ice Ages as is seen from data. Nor does it support Greenland and Antarctica for long, but that is another story.
JimD, ” we will soon have a pre-Quaternary atmosphere, so rest assured that atmosphere does not support Ice Ages as is seen from data.”
Interesting and confidently stated. You must assume that CO2 is the sole cause and not a partial effect/feedback. pre-Quaternary, the continental mass was not located where it currently is and the location of the land mass, since it tends to change the internal flow of the oceans, THC, ACC and all that, is likely to have a profound effect on climate.
I have noticed different past periods tossed out as some convincing argument of the power of CO2e, but isn’t that an argument from ignorance or as we rednecks call it, BS?
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-n1IjN3CoKbw/UHCaiCn9K8I/AAAAAAAAETw/BtEc5jUjskM/s512/drake%2520passage%2520versus%2520southern%2520caribbean.png
That is a neat little comparison of the Drake Passage and the southern Caribbean. The scour pattern or erosion if you like, is somewhat similar. Currently, the estimated flow through the Drake Passage is 100 to 150 Sverdrup. That is a pretty impressive rate of flow, about 5 Gulf Stream current and might possibly have an impact on climate.
So exactly which pre-Quaternary period did you have in mind?
Jim D is a fine, bright and honest commenter, but CO2 Derangement Syndrome has seemingly caused him to believe we can banish Ice Ages.
He’ll learn.
========
capt. D., I would not call people like Professor Richard Alley ignorant, so I tend to go with their opinions on paleoclimate as opposed to people like you and kim who give a good impression of making things up as you go along.
The status of the paper is “Published: 13 Dec 2012”. Thus the alternative “has been under review” seems to apply to it.
The authors are very careful concerning conclusions about feedbacks. As far as I can see they don’t claim that the paper would provide direct answers on the strength or even direction of the cloud feedback. It’s, however, quite possible that its result will turn out as significant when used as input in further research.
My understanding of EGU papers such as this is they are “published” in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions (ACPD) as unreviewed papers. Where they go through an open review process that allows comment and discussion from reviewers and anybody else who is interested. If they clear this then they are published as fully peer-reviewed papers in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics (ACP) (discussion bit dropped),
If you go here http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/papers_in_open_discussion.html and work your way down to OCT/SEPT you’ll see that comment and reviews of the papers start to appear.
So yes they are pubished but not yet fully peer-reviewed. It seems like a very open and democratic process to me. A lot of fun for amateurs like me.
I found the full explanation of the process.
Checking the list of papers open for discussion, few have received a single comment and very any other comments than a single referee comment. Thus the openness doesn’t seem to have much influence except that the papers are probably brought publicly available much faster and based on lighter refereeing process.
Add the comments here & this article is doing fine. I expect comments may burgeon because this supports a lot of speculation about mechanisms.
It’s always all about albedo, albedo.
===========
Pekka
Yes. The authors are very careful not to describe the observed change in cloud cover as a “feedback”.
Nowhere in the paper is there a mention of a “mechanism”, which caused this change in cloud cover and reflectivity.
It could just as well have been a separate “forcing” (e.g. Roy Spencer).
Hasn’t the “Chief” also discussed the role of clouds as a separate “forcing”?
Max
The “Chief” is part of a group of Australian pranksters trying to mock any attempt at rational scientific discussion.
Max said:
“It could just as well have been a separate “forcing” (e.g. Roy Spencer)”
____
Clouds are not going to be external forcings to the climate system. Roy Spencer was wrong then and would be wrong now if he implies this Clouds respond to and provide feedbacks (positive or negative) to external forcings. The only issue with clouds and AGW is whether or not they will provide net negative or positive feedbacks to increases in GHG’s concentrations. The mere observation of a reduction in SW reflective cloudiness & aerosols over a several decades does not answer this question. If it turns out that a reduction in cloudiness adds more net energy to the Earth system (that is, more SW energy comes in than LW energy is let out), then we might indeed have a positive feedback from clouds responding to the external forcing of rapidly increasing GHG concentrations, and Jim Hansen’s warnings should be listened to with utmost attention.
.
Yes, Spencer is a fan of the idea that forcing can’t be separated into internal and external components, and that clouds have some spontaneous way of changing the forcing by themselves. This was the crux of the argument with Dessler when the connection of cloud feedback to ENSO, implied by Spencer’s logic that clouds could force ENSO. The argument stopped at that point.
Jim D. said:
“Yes, Spencer is a fan of the idea that forcing can’t be separated into internal and external components.”
____
Interesting notion if that is indeed what he believes.
Gates said, “Clouds are not going to be external forcings to the climate system. Roy Spencer was wrong then and would be wrong now if he implies this Clouds respond to and provide feedbacks (positive or negative) to external forcings. ”
When we went through that before, what is a forcing is depended on the model parameters or boundaries. Makes for great circular arguments.
If cloud changes are associated with natural internal variability which the :models generally consider “unforced variations” then I guess we can pretend that variability averages to zero over a reasonable time frame and ignore it as noise, even though we are not particularly sure what is a reasonable period of time in climate. Of course, that “noise” may be responsible for half or more of the warming of the period, but since it was assume to zero over time and not considered a factor in the models, we can assume that warming is totally out of hand and caused by CO2e. That is obvious because over the past 50 years, the oceans appear to have gained 20 something raised to the 22nd power worth of Joules +/- 14.6 something raised to the 22nd power Joules, which is also assumed to be a huge number within a short time frame though we are not particularly sure what time frame is relevant, even though the impact of that 20 something raised to the 22nd power Joules produced roughly 0.09C +/- 0.045C increase in the mean value of the upper 2000 meters of the roughly 3600 meter deep oceans over the past 50 something years based on an imbalance estimate of 0.6Wm-2 +/-0.4 which replaces the previous 0.9 +/- 0.15 Wm-2 estimate which had a 95% confidence level.
Is that about the right conversation trajectory?
Now how about that Antarctic warming? :)
Changes in clouds are certainly rather fast feedbacks on some other change but it’s not as clear that the other change must be warming of the type additional CO2 produces.
I don’t think that logic alone would suffice in concluding that they would not respond more strongly to some other changes like perhaps multidecadal internal variability.
Gates
I like your absolute statement – shot from the hips:
Be careful, Gates, that you do not shoot yourself in the foot.
Max
captdallas,
Nice to see you add your voice to this conversation. Clouds don’t just spontaneously force the climate into new modalities. They are always a response to a changing system (either short-term or long-term). The “changing system” could be internal variability of the system, which would have a zero-sum game over the longer-term (century scale), or some external forcing on the system, which could bring about very long-term changes to the climate lasting thousands or tens of thousands of years.
In being a response to either natural variability or some external forcing, clouds may provide either negative or positive feedback to that forcing. The fact that clouds may be decreasing over decadal scales does not tell us what external forcing or natural variability they may be responding to, nor does it tell us the direction or magnitude of the feedback they may be supplying. The first step however, is to see if we can figure out why cloud cover may be decreasing if that is indeed the case.
In regards to Antarctica, and the southern hemisphere in general, High Pressure has been dominating that region for many months from the troposphere up to the middle layers of the stratosphere::
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/stratosphere/strat-trop/gif_files/time_pres_HGT_ANOM_OND_SH_2012.gif
Along with that high pressure of course, we’ve seen high temperatures in the middle to upper troposphere:
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/stratosphere/strat-trop/gif_files/time_pres_TEMP_ANOM_OND_SH_2012.gif
But one of the most interesting things I’ve been watching is the wind anomaly in stratosphere over the equator:
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/stratosphere/strat-trop/gif_files/time_pres_UGRD_ANOM_ALL_EQ_2012.gif
At between 25 and 45 Km over the equator, there has been an anomalous westerly wind persistent for many months. This is definitely part of the QBO, and as such will work its way down into the lower part of the atmosphere over the next year or so. Prior to that, we have an easterly wind already set up at lower elevations. What this could mean is a mild and short-lived La Nina next spring into fall followed by one heck of an El Nino for the winter of 2013-2014. It will be interesting to see how this actually unfolds, but this long of a persistent westerly anomaly at that elevation is most unusual.
Max said: (regarding my statement about clouds not being external forcings to the climate):
“Be careful, Gates, that you do not shoot yourself in the foot.”
_______
I willing to take that risk. If somehow the laws of physics are changed and clouds become external forcings rather than a response or feedback to natural variability or external forcings, then what an exciting time it will be to live a universe with new laws of physics!
Gates said, “But one of the most interesting things I’ve been watching is the wind anomaly in stratosphere over the equator:”
The internal energy transfer is much more interesting. Just consider the energy imbalance between the NH and SH. From latitude 45 to the poles, the NH has roughly 35^6km^2 of ocean surface and the SH has roughly 60^6km^2 In the NH, roughly 11^6km^2 is typically covered with ice. In Austral winter, that SH water gets rough 40Wm-2 more solar energy than the “average” and the NH water gets about 40Wm-2 less than the “average”. That is a fairly sizable internal imbalance :)
I would think that the Stratospheric winds might be responding to a large “oscillation” than just ENSO, though ENSO would be effected.
captndallas said:
“I would think that the Stratospheric winds might be responding to a large “oscillation” than just ENSO, though ENSO would be effected.”
_____
These stratospheric winds are not responding to ENSO, but are part of the normal QBO. The interesting thing is not their direction but the length and intensity of this particular phase of the QBO. Eventually these westerly winds will work their way down through the atmosphere and bring about the westerly wind anomaly so common with El Nino. I estimate that this will occur sometime late next year (based on past rates of decent of the QBO) But just to be clear– ENSO does not cause these winds, but the other way around.
Gates, “But just to be clear– ENSO does not cause these winds, but the other way around.” My bad, it should have said larger internal oscillation.
My thoughts are that hemispherical imbalance would produce the QBO and tend to cause a longer term underlying oscillation possibly the AMO or something not yet defined. Stratospheric winds shift would be an indication of internal energy transfer. Right hand rule and all of that.
Since the “thermal equator” is not the same as the rotational equator, the oscillation would be more of a true oscillation than a pseudo-cyclic oscillation if it weren’t for sea ice/ice sheet changes.
I am kind of hung up on causes of the major oscillations/pseudo-cycles over all time frames.
Ockham would love to find one driving cause of these correlating phenomena and the oddly varying oscillations, but he may guide us only deeper into the miasma.
==========
Heh, Cap’neD, CO2 is the mouse that roared just before it ran up the clock.
==============
Kim said, “Heh, Cap’neD, CO2 is the mouse that roared just before it ran up the clock.” More like a cat with all the lives it seems to have :) 0.8 per doubling everything else is noise.
CaptDallas said:
“I am kind of hung up on causes of the major oscillations/pseudo-cycles over all time frames.”
_____
As all who study climate and weather should be and for the most part are! Certainly the QBO and ENSO are among the biggest. Here’s an interesting paper from 20 years ago on the QBO and ENSO that you might find interesting:
http://rammb.cira.colostate.edu/resources/docs/gray%20et%20al%201992.pdf
captndallas said:
” 0.8 per doubling everything else is noise.”
_______
Probably off by a factor of 4 or 5…but other than that, pretty close. :)
gates, Time will tell. Depends on that pesky “surface” Thanks for the link, I skimmed it and marked it for later.
The problem with all the oscillations is what scale you focus on. If Selvem is right, the quasi-oscillations are self-similar over larger scales like the Penrose pattern she has in every single paper. In fact, if you have read one paper on SOC in non-ergodic systems you pretty much have read them all.
So with 1470 +/- 500 Bond event pseudo-cycle, there could be a similar 62 +/- 21 year pseudo-cycle. That would be a 41 to 83 AMO range not far from Pratt’s 52 to 72 range.
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-nrXTZdEiPd4/ULJWRYyyuRI/AAAAAAAAFu8/mB60pWAqBl0/s800/giss%2520loti%2520N%2520S%2520normalized.png
That again compare the GISS LOTI regional hemispheric imbalance for lack of a better term. If you looked at Pratt’s Saw in his post, you may notice a similarity. Then, in a chaotic system you can find just about anything you look for :)
So looking from a larger scale at the larger thermal mass, ocean, I think you can hone in on a more reliable “sensitivity” estimate than taking a fraction of the period and the lowest thermal mass.
kim
Earlier, you said:
Here you say:
Far from admitting ignorance, you express certainty that the scientific consensus is wrong.
How do you square this certainty with your earlier admission of ignorance? How are you so sure that you are right and the mainstream scientific position is wrong?
BBD asks how Kim squares certainty that CO2 is not a factor in climate change.
From what I can tell, it is through the rigorous process of quips, haiku, and limericks.
Well, yes. I’d wondered about that too. Which is why I hope kim will clear up the mystery.
I’m an apprentice at this mystery of limericks, haiku, and quips, not yet rigorous sardonicus. But lemme tell you about this magic broom I found.
=================
She cut off their fat tails with a carving knife.
===================
Alas, sadly, you misrepresent my views; sad because I can’t distinguish whether you do so ignorantly or disingenuously. I’m a ‘Lukewarming Cooler’, a term which drives lucia l. to distraction. I accept the warming effect of AnthroCO2, but don’t believe it is demonstrating enough power to keep the globe from natural cooling. Warming, as has been amply demonstrated in the past, improves the total earth ecosystem, sustaining more total life and more diversity of life.
One of our tragedies as a species is that there isn’t enough fossil fuel to stave of an Ice Age. One of our triumphs will be anticipating and preparing, so as to survive.
==============
Ah, but there is a Mistress of Haiku, that lucia.
============================
kim
Ah, but this is the problem:
1/ On what basis do you not believe?
2/ And how do you square this belief with your earlier admission of ignorance?
3/ Given (1) and (2) how are you so sure that you are right and the mainstream scientific position is wrong?
BBD, belief is not knowledge, it is relatively ignorant in comparison. This is elementary stuff, my son.
=============
Get away from the one-liners and Kim becomes a run-of-the-mill crackpot. Good to know.
See why I stick to one liners? Now, is it possible for you to address the Epistle of a Lukewarming Cooler, or is your pot too cracked to cook in?
I’m with Jim Cripwell, we haven’t yet distinguished the climate effect of AnthroCO2, despite much agonizing, see VP & RM, effort, which argues for it being small. Small, as in pusillanimous against future chilling.
=========================
Gates
You do not have the monopoly on the “laws of physics” (anymore than Richard Lindzen, who does not share your opinions on CAGW).
What you (or anyone else) does NOT know about the “physics” of our climate is infinitely larger than what you DO know.
Never forget that.
Otherwise you simply sound pompous and foolish.
Max
Pekka
Interesting in the Herman et al. paper is that it’s all about cloud albedo.
All of the warming we’ve seen has apparently come from decreased cloud cover allowing more incoming solar energy to reach the surface of Earth.
Where is the increased GH effect in all this?
It seems to be all about clouds and reflected incoming energy rather than absorbed outgoing energy.
Makes one wonder what the real driver is, doesn’t it?
Max
kim
And you are taking the piss, my son!
Come on. There are questions to be answered.
Let’s see a coherent 1-2-3 response.
manacker, so your explanation is that the sun shines through the somehow thinning clouds and causes global warming. You have no more questions about this sequence of events? You should be more skeptical. GCR is going in the wrong direction, as is negative feedback, but you are not concerned with those any more, or have somehow in your mind reconciled these with the cloudiness changes.
One of my best lines over at StevieMac’s came when it was suggested to me that I had wandered into the wrong classroom, and my response was that I was just auditing the class.
================
BBD. Here are two: pro and con.
Rose, David. “Global Warming Stopped 16 Years Ago, Reveals Met Office Report Quietly Released… and Here Is the Chart to Prove It.” Mail Online, October 13, 2012. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2217286/Global-warming-stopped-16-years-ago-reveals-Met-Office-report-quietly-released–chart-prove-it.html
Watts, Anthony. “The Met Office Responds to ‘Global Warming Stopped 16 Years Ago’” Scientific. Watts Up With That?, October 15, 2012. http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/10/15/the-met-office-responds-to-global-warming-stopped-16-years-ago/
And some background:
Curry, Judith A. “‘Pause’ Discussion Thread: Part II” Scientific. Climate Etc., October 16, 2012. http://judithcurry.com/2012/10/16/pause-discussion-thread-part-ii/
________. “‘Pause’ Discussion Thread” Scientific. Climate Etc., October 14, 2012. http://judithcurry.com/2012/10/14/pause-discussion-thread/
Curry, Judith A. “‘Pause’ Discussion Thread: Part II” Scientific. Climate Etc., October 16, 2012. http://judithcurry.com/2012/10/16/pause-discussion-thread-part-ii/
Pielke, Jr, Roger A. “NOAA Explains the Global Temperature ‘Slowdown’” Scientific. Roger Pielke Jr.’s Blog, July 28, 2009. http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/2009/07/noaa-explains-global-temperature.html
So, cloud cover is decreasing over the US and increasing over China. That gives us a clue. Air pollution is decreasing in the US and increasing in China. It quite likely has zip to do with global warming – more to do with global growth. I wouldn’t bet the global warming farm on this one.
I would bet the farm on weaning ourselves off of fossil fuels at some time in the future. Pollution, greenhouse gases, and rapidly depleting supplies are the three counter-rationalizations that skeptics can’t answer in aggregate.
WHT
Agree to your concept of “weaning ourselves off of fossil fuels at some time in the future”
And I am sure it will happen as soon as another more economical and reliable source of energy is available.
Nuclear probably already fills this requirement for electrical power generation (studies show that, even without any carbon tax, nuclear competes with coal in most locations of the world).
The hurdle here in a good part of the world seems to be more political than anything else, and the result of fear mongering campaigns by environmental lobby groups, like WWF and Greenpeace.
But if the politicians really want us to “wean ourselves off of fossil fuels” this should be no long-term hurdle.
Right?
Max
The hurdle is pretty low when you consider most of the impediments take the form of an anti-science stance among we-know-who.
WHT
I don’t know if anyone here really represents an “anti-science stand”.
It’s just that everyone’s definition of “science” (when it comes to climate) may be different.
For example, I would not say that Richard Lindzen is “anti-science” any more than Kevin Trenberth.
Yet they have quite different views when it comes to “climate science”.
“Climate science” does not appear to be an absolute field.
There are too many uncertainties (as our hostess would put it).
Max
Max
Yes, this Herman et al. paper is interesting. The cloudiness distribution change confirms the way I think, which is that northern hemisphere continents are becoming less cloudy as they warm faster than anywhere else (except the Arctic) due to GHG forcing. This is reducing their RH and hence cloudiness, which is a positive feedback. The northern continent sensitivity in terms of temperature rise over GHG forcing is much higher than the global average because of this positive cloud feedback.
“They suggest an increase of 2.7 W m−2 of sun light striking the earths surface due to a 3.6% drop in reflectivity from clouds+aerosol. I’m an amateur here but that sounds like a big change and that changes in albedo are contributing a lot to the most recent warming period. Can anybody lay out the implications of this paper if its accurate?”
Yes, it seems huge compared effects of increasing CO2
Abstract:
“The 340 nm LER is highly correlated with cloud and aerosol cover becauseof the low surface reflectivity of the land and oceans (typically 2 to 6RU, where 1RU=0.01=1.0 %) relative to the much higher reflectivity of clouds plus aerosols (typically 10 to 90RU). Because of the nearly constant seasonal and long-term 340nm surface reflectivity, the 340nm LER can be used to estimate changes in cloud plus 10 aerosol amount associated with seasonal and interannual variability and decadal climate change.
The annual motion of the Intertropical Convergence Zone, episodic El
Nino Southern Oscillation ENSO, and latitude dependent seasonal cycles are apparent in the LER time series. LER trend estimates from 5 zonal average and from 2 ×5 latitude×longitude time series show that there has been a global net decrease 15 in cloud plus aerosol reflectivity. The decrease in global cos2 (latitude) weighted average LER from 60 S to 60 N is 0.79±0.03RU over 33 yr, corresponding to a 3.6±0.2% change in LER. Based on energy balance partitioning (Trenberth et al., 2009) this corresponds to an increase of 2.7Wm−2 of solar energy reaching the Earth’s surface (an increase of 1.4% or 2.3Wm−2) absorbed by the surface, which is partially offset by an 20 increase in longwave cooling to space.”
It seems to me somewhat expected, considering the lack of the increase in global temperatures. But also “good news” for those hoping for more warming to show up.
But I would this decrease in reflection to continue and still not cause much warming.
So what do climate skeptics think?
Usoskin 2005 finds a correlation between the Mann hockey stick and Sunspots over the last 1000 years.
Is this evidence that Mann’s Hockey Stick is correct?
To even pretend Mann’s Schtick is ‘correct’ is like wondering if an inkblot is correct. It is the result of a program that produces a ‘hockey stick’ when the data fed into it is no more than white noise. You can throw poodle crap against a wall and call it a Modigliani but I that’s not art to me and I wouldn’t buy it. The same goes for science–the IPCC can abandon the scientific method but we shouldn’t pay for it.
But what about the correlation Usoskin found? How do you explain that? if the hockey stick is wrong could it correlate with sunspots by chance?
lolwot
If I understood Wagathon’s comment about the “shtick”, it was so construed that it agrees with anything, so the fact that it agrees with Usoskin 2005 is nothing unusual.
But back to Usoskin 2005.
The study apparently found a reduction in solar activity starting around the end of the MWP and continuing into the LIA.
http://www.co2science.org/articles/V9/N31/EDIT.php
Max
True…the ‘hockey stick’ isn’t about the future its an admission by Michael Mann:
The suspicion is in the air nowadays that the superiority of one of our formulas to another may not consist so much in its literal ‘objectivity,’ as in subjective qualities like its usefulness, its ‘elegance,’ or its congruity with our residual beliefs . (William James)
“so the fact that it agrees with Usoskin 2005 is nothing unusual.”
So when the Usoskin 2005 abstract says:
The long-term trends in solar data and in northern hemisphere temperatures have a correlation coefficient of about 0.7-0.8 at a 94% – 98% confidence level.
You are saying this is meaningless?
Everything, nominally, is related to the Sun.
manacker
The non-response of the climate system to the Laschamp excursion demolishes the GCR-Earth magnetic field argument. Demolishes it.
BBD
You seem to have made up your mind on the validity of the GCR cloud hypothesis even before it has been fully tested at CERN.
Why don’t you call up the folks at CERN and explain it to them, so they can save all that money running the CLOUD experiment?
As a matter of fact, nothing has been proven one way or another on this hypothesis – anymore that the 15-year “pause” in warming has “disproven” AGW.
Max
manacker
I’m only going on the evidence. There is no evidence for GCR-climate effects producing or enhancing modern warming.
GCR-climate effects should have resulted in cooling since ~1985.
The massive increase in GCR flux during the Laschamp excursion didn’t trigger unusual climate change. It did leave a beryllium spike in the proxy archives, which is how we infer that it actually happened.
Beliveing in human caused global warming and demanding an end to it based on today’s guesses about what we think we know about a natural event 40,000 years ago makes as much sense as requiring companies to hire employees who live close enough to drive backwards to work.
BBD
Let’s check on that.
well, it has cooled slightly since 2000 so it appears that the GCR cloud cooling effect didn’t work for 15 years (1985-2000).
Well, it also hasn’t warmed for 15 years since the end of 1997 to today despite continuously increasing GHG concentrations.
Does this latest 15-year period of lacking correlation demonstrate lack of causation for AGW, as you claim is the case for the GCR hypothesis?
If not, what is different between the two 15-year periods of lack of correlation?
Please try to be specific, BBD.
Max
Looks like when when the ice age sets all you’re going to get from the AGW belivers is that it should have cooled much sooner and when the ice thaws, rivers are going to run boiling red. Global warming is the secular socialist version of the 10 Plagues of Egypt. What the Left will never see is that when you tear down the foundations upon which the country is built you have a different country; and, the Left is not really smart enought to build up a newer, better country in the ashes. Just the reverse: we’ve seen this all of this before in fairly recent history so in one sense, we can predict our future as a result of the Left’s fear of global warming. I think we’ve been seeing it unfold for many years: loss of values, cultural and social disintigration, helplessness. Hot World Syndrome is nothing more than a symptom.
Stupid Max
Your pet – and falsified – theory claims that reduced solar magnetic field = more GCRs = more CCNs = more low marine cloud formation = reduced DSW flux to the surface = cooling. But OHC has been rising since before 1970. Can’t you see that this drives a truck through your nonsense?
I’ve already pointed this out *repeatedly*. You just blank the inconvenient facts, don’t you? That’s a kind of mental illness called ‘denial’.
And what about the Laschamp excursion? Which utterly demolishes this nonsense btw. Don’t know why this isn’t pointed out every single time deniers start going on about Svensmark. Along with the fact that, as AR5 correctly states, there is no robust evidence whatsoever for a sun/GCR/cloud climate effect. Nothing.
Face the facts. Stop the denial.
There is no reasonalbe explanation for why anyone would deny Earth’s climate is the result of the holistic process we call nature and certainly no non-political explanation other than superstition or ignorance why and federal climatist would believe that a monophysical element like CO2 with properties as we observe on Earth could ever possible explain global warming–especially when we know that the Sun is the only independent variable that nominally explains both global warming and cooling.
lolwot
Stop trying to put words into other people’s mouths.
Usoskin shows that solar activity slowed down around the end of the MWP and remained that way through most of the LIA.
As I recall Mann’s cherry-picked tree rings showed that the current warming was unusual in 1300 years (at least, that’s how IPCC described it).
Usoskin only goes back ~1000 years. So he doesn’t really cover the MWP.
That appears to be the main difference in the time periods between the two.
Max
BBD
The massive increase in human GHG concentrations sine 1998 (over 30% of all the CO2 emitted since 1750 by humans!) despite a total lack of global warming “demolishes the CAGW argument. Demolishes it.”
Another silly statement, to go along with yours…
Max
After re-reading “Stocker’s earmark” on Climate Audit, I came to the conclusion that it does not bother me at all if somebody tells a lie, cheats or breaks a promise to that worthy gentleman.
The Skeptical Warmist | December 16, 2012 at 3:01 pm |
…….
Hi Gates,
Interesting article on QBO and 28 month cycle. There is a 14 month sunspot sub-cycle about which I did some research, but wouldn’t whish to take too much of your time with explanations. Suffice to say that it is most prominent mid solar cycle 17 (1937-1943) It is to do with geomagnetic storms, I think it has effect on the tropical storms.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/SC17.htm
(see also the NASA’s article http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/topstory/2006/space_weather_link.html
If you find it of any interest compare QBO around 1940 (regular sub-cycles) and around 1960 (poor sub-cycles) if there is correspondence I could elaborate more some other time.
Please see this comment as my response to commenst above.
Seems ter me that albedo throws a little light in the cc debate.
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2011/09/17/cloud-albedo-what-does-it-respond-to/
I think I’ve never heard so loud
The quiet message in a cloud.
=======================
Skeptical Warmist, I note that you have not answered my objection to your stance that it is immoral to discuss illegally obtained information on the blogs. Here was my objection.
Comments?
w.
PS—You position is not entirely clear. Either you object to the discussion of illegally obtained information on any blogs, or only on blogs with ads … in either case, my objection is relevant.
Willis,
I did respond to you shortly after you hypothetical was posed to me. I said:
“In regards to your hypothetical North Korean example, (which has no relationship or similarity to the AR5 privacy agreement BTW), you are using the common “lessor evil to prevent a greater evil” example, which is of course a common philosophical point of discussion, and often even raised in movies and literature. If one must take the lives of 100 people to save the lives of 2 million, then you do it. Those in the Air Force patrolling our skies know on any given day they could be forced to shoot down an airliner full of innocent people if they believe that airliner may be controlled by terrorists who may use it to take even more lives. Of course you break the law to turn in a traitor to the nation– going back to your N. Korean example. But to be certain, the “lessor evil to prevent a greater evil” example does not apply, in any way, to the simple immoral behavior as displayed by Mr. Rawls.”
____
To that earlier reply I would add:
So, in the case of exposing treason or saving a million lives (even at the cost of a hundred of innocent lives, it would be justified commit a “lessor evil to prevent a greater” and if revealing some information on a blog would further one of these aims, then by all means, it should be revealed. But Mr. Rawls breaking of his promise not to release AR5 draft information is very very far from such high causes. It’s just plain breaking a promise and going back on one’s word and shows low moral character. Mind you, I don’t hold much stock in the IPCC process anyway, but I do hold stock in sticking to one’s promises.
Science promises, nay, demands transparency. The IPCC, donning it’s falsely woven sciency schmata, insists it must hide. It thinks it’s clothed in a magical invisibility cloak, but the incantations were incorrect.
========================
Mr. Rawls could have waited to break his “big news” to the world once the report came out. As it is, he now just looks like a fool for completely mischaracterizing an incomplete work in progress and a dishonorable fool at that.
The Skeptical Warmist | December 16, 2012 at 6:27 pm
The IPCC is working to reorganize the economy of the world, and to starve the poor of energy by increasing energy prices. The short-sighted policies of the alarmists will lead to increased disease and death among the poorest of the planet. They have already led to “fuel-poverty” in once prosperous nations like the UK.
Perhaps you think that starving the poor of energy is not a greater evil. Me, I think it definitely is a very large evil, I’ve lived among the poor. So for me, what you call the “lessor [sic] evil to prevent a greater evil” most certainly applies.
I fear that you are trying to apply your own personal definition of “greater evil” to my actions. Now, I don’t mind you using your definitions for your actions, but trying to insist that I follow your own very personal set of standards?
Sorry, never gonna happen …
w.
PS—I have looked around, and I have to admit that I can’t find a single example of people refusing to discuss revealed facts because they have been revealed immorally or illegally … near as I can tell, when something is revealed, every girl and her dog discusses it, unless they are actively prevented from doing so.
Nor have you adduced a single example of someone actually following the course that you find so important, the course that you think the world should follow, the course of refusing to discuss something that was revealed improperly.
So I fear you are off on an impossible quest, trying to push “Do as I say, not as the world has always done” on an uncaring planet. You are trying to shove everyone to follow your recommendations, when you can hardly find any examples of anyone in history ever doing what you so strongly insist is the right and proper thing to do … even the ancients were smart enough to know that once you open Pandora’s box, everyone’s going to be talking about Pandora, even if the box was opened improperly. I see that you don’t like that, Warmist, but it’s human nature, so I don’t think you are going to change it.
Willis,
You can equivocate this all you want, but by my standards of morality what Mr. Rawls did was dishonorable and lacking in morality. I could care less what the world’s standards are, for as we see daily, the world is a pretty messed up place. I could also care less about the IPCC process in general– a far too controlled and too homogenized and sanitized a process to be of much interest to me.
Considering that my and our, in the US, tax money supports the UN, I don’t see why I shouldn’t have the right to see all of their documents at all stages. Why don’t I get a say in that? Who from the US approved that? Were they elected? I think the ethical elephant in the room is that I’m paying for something and some one else is keeping it secret from me. THAT is what needs to be addressed. In this ethical light, making these documents public is the right thing to do.
Steven Mosher commented on Week in review 12/15/12.
Stricken as unresponsive. Do you understand what “link to or quote my words” means? Because that ain’t it.
Be clear that I’m not playing your guessing game, trying to figure out which comment on which thread you are babbling about. Then I come back to talk about it, and you say no, that’s not the comment I meant …
That’s a mug’s game, I don’t play it. Either link to whatever you are upset about, or quit bitching.
Say what? Are you drunk-blogging or something? I have condemned what Rawls did, twice. I said above:
I also said:
Please, do try to keep up, Steven. You are accusing me of not doing what I have done twice, right here in this thread.
Finally, again I ask, why do you have this persistent fascination with my actions and my morals? I suppose I should actually be flattered, it means that you take what I say very seriously, but it’s kinda bothersome all the same
Stephen, I, like you, strive to be as consistent as possible in what I do. I have done so in this case, twice condemning what Rawls did. If I have actually fail in regard to my consistency, a cheerful notification of that fact will likely bring me to correct my oversight.
But to attack me over and over, when I have already done what you insist I do, as you have done in this thread? That’s not healthy, my friend. Truly, it’s bad for a man’s health to be that obsessed with another man’s actions, there’s no joy to be had in that path …
w.
Mosher –
Not to pile on, but see my earlier comments about your interaction with Brandon. Either you’re having a bad day, or people are getting under your skin for reasons that are opaque to the the rest of us.
My earlier reasoning is applicable here – what you say is usually interesting and worth thinking about. It’s a pity to find occasions where that no longer pertains due to fractious (and actually superficial) griping.
Out of place for me to say perhaps, but it’s already tedious enough wading through blogospheric shite looking for something thought-provoking. I feel short-changed when potential opportunities for new perspectives are squandered by personal, antipathetic friction.
Otherwise, carry on as normal…
Scott Basinger | December 16, 2012 at 4:16 pm |
Actually, Mosher has just revealed that he’s not paying attention … and so have you. I have done what Mosh claims I have not done, and I’ve done it twice. In this thread. Please try to keep up, it makes you look silly when you just jump on some random bandwagon without ascertaining the facts.
w.
Threading’s cooked so another discussion will tricycle off to the void. Justice balances the scales, and truth makes honor leap from one pan to the other. There it is.
==========
Dishonorable? That’s almost tragically naive. This is war. I applaud the act with all my heart.
Skeptics are too…uh, skeptical to go to war. Your post indicates your true Denialist colors…at least wear them with pride and don’t be ashamed.
R. Gates
You may be right in stating that a “skeptic” will be “skeptical” that “going to war” will bring more benefit than “avoiding a war”.
The “war against CAGW” is a good example.
Most “skeptics” have concluded, based on the available data, that the cost of “going to war” against CAGW (with carbon taxes, carbon rationing, top-down forced reductions in fossil fuel consumption, etc.) would be far greater than any “benefit” that might result, and would thus be “skeptical” of entering such a “war”.
Count me in that category, too, Gates.
Max
Can we dispense with the over used and completely irresponsible war analogy?
As both a student of history and someone with two family members currently in Afghanistan and another due to deploy there next March, I agree with the position that people too easily use the term far too freely.
Were arguing about CAGW really war, we would be burning and pillaging. We would be taking shots at one another – not verbal potshots, but the type that involve copper jacketed lead projectiles. Think Syria. That is war. This is simply an argument involving science, economics and politics. Oh, and a good deal of ego from time to time.
If you want to know what war looks like – ask someone who has been there. Good luck getting them to talk about it though.
Capital.
What unifies the Left is a sense of superiority that enables them to throw off the strictures and conscience of old morals to make room for the latest attack dog brand of suicide environmentalism that offers the kind of magic atheists and AGW faithful alike so obviously now crave. The alarmism of AGW believer’s religion of Warmanism has become a sermon on the need to save the planet and who better to deliver such a disingenuous sermon than Al Gore the country’s hypocritical Orwellian-in-Chief?
What unifies the Left is a sense of superiority
That’s because it’s scientifically proven that we’re smarter :-)There’s more than one study along these lines:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2095549/Right-wingers-intelligent-left-wingers-says-controversial-study–conservative-politics-lead-people-racist.html
If you don’t believe scientific studies, just head to your nearest uni. You’ll find it will be full of very smart people with mainly leftish opinions.
tempterrain
Who made the “scientific study”?
Max
You find the same thing in any prisons and communist countries — lots of smart secular socialists who know they’re smarter than everyone else look upon the rest of us like their prey.
Make no mistake ‘the stakes are high.’ This is a debate about
open versus closed society and its definitely not Willis that is
found wanting, but the non trans-parent, rule – from – the – top,
mission – advocacy good ol’ I – P – C – C .
Say, can we make that tomorrer’s ‘Thought fer Today?’
The IPCC reports thus far have made very little real difference in the overall global policies. To be sure, the poorest countries will suffer the most, and they have the least to offer in terms of making any impact on GHG emissions. The token efforts (whether needed or not) hardly amount to “high stakes”. The stakes are actually highest on the uncertainty to to upside. If Hansen and others are correct, and these years are being wasted when action could be taken, then future generations will pay, and most of the payment will be made by the poorest countries. That might be fine for those of us in developed countries, but we should be clear that risk and uncertainty cuts both ways and the poorest will suffer the most and we are deciding that now by our inaction if Hansen is correct.
R. Gates
I’d agree with you 100% that “the poorest countries will suffer the most” if they are prevented from developing a reliable, low-cost energy infrastructure based, where possible, on local basic energy resources, to lift themselves out of poverty (as we in the industrialized world did a century ago).
In some of these nations with unstable or dictatorial governments, non-proliferation concerns make the use of nuclear energy questionable. Other options such as renewables, etc. are still much too expensive over the long term for these poorer nations to consider. As a result, the source of energy will, in most cases, be based on fossil fuel resources, which many of these nations have and could develop and exploit, possibly with some help from the industrialized nations.
Let’s not punish them because of a “rich white man’s guilt-driven obsession with CO2”.
Instead, let’s help them develop their natural resources into an energy infrastructure in an environmentally clean way.
Max
Max,
I find little to disagree with about in this post…which probably surprises both of us!
+1!
Any leaking is judged according to these criteria:
If one of us leaks their secrets, that is good.
But if one of them leaks our secrets, that is bad, bad, bad.
Sorry – typo. The above post should read …
The small amount of solar energy absorbed by the Venus surface would very easily exit the surface the next night by conduction (diffusion) and radiation. Then, when this small amount of energy is back in the atmosphere there is plenty of carbon dioxide to radiate it away. There is absolutely no possible way by which such energy would be trapped in the surface and somehow add hundreds of degrees. The problem is, if you follow the “First School of Thought” (the IPCC bluff) then you are at a complete loss to explain Venus temperatures, because, if you think like the IPCC it is because you have been subjected to Ignorant Promulgation of Chaotic Consensus.” You need a paradigm shift to the “Second School of Thinking” in my paper.
Please respond to this comment on another thread..
The day length on Venus is over 100 earth days. Solar power has little to do with temperature of the rocks on Venus. It’s geothermal heat at the surface. The dense atmosphere, almost liquid CO2, simply extends the geothermal gradient. Think of its lower atmosphere like kilometers of liquid rock that simply insulates the real rocks. If you dig down several kilometers into the crust on the earth the temperature becomes like that on the surface of Venus. Hansen AND Cotton are wrong about surface temperature on Venus. The giveaway has ALWAYS been that Venus’ surface temperature is isothermal – no change from day to night and no change from pole to equator. There’s virtually no wind at the surface either. That’s not at all characteristic of solar heating you nincompoops. It’s characteristic of geothermal heating.
So David, are you suggesting that if we were to move Venus out to say– the orbit of Neptune, that Venus would have the same surface temperature? You don’t think the solar energy reaching down through that thick atmosphere has any role in heating?
Most interesting analysis, which would go quite against all known laws of physics. Why don’t you figure out what would happen to Venus if it were out where Neptune is and get back to us on that…
Despite what some would post here with their “estimates”, the measured downwelling surface SW solar radiation on Venus is about 90 + or – 12 w/m^2. With the very thick GH atmosphere, once this strikes the rocks and is converted to LW, this makes an ideal condition to really get things warmed up. Now, Venus does have active volcanic activity, and even if it is 10 times as active as the Earth, it might bring up about 1 w/m^2 of heat to add to the 90 w/m^2 of solar insolation.
Take Venus out to the orbit of Neptune, and it cools down. Simple physics.
Here’s a great presentation by JPL on Venus’ atmosphere:
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/vexag/nov_2007/presentations/crisp.pdf
There is an estimate given by Dr. Crisp of approximately 17 w/m^2 Solar flux at the surface averaged over the whole surface, with obviously more at the equator. I’ve contacted Dr. Crisp to find out the source of this estimate (or measurement?). At any rate, a very good presentation. Hope Mr. Cotton reviews it. It might change his views on a few things.
As one of those WHT evil “horstralians” I’m happy I get to read something that others wanted to keep secret and I wondered why, until I read the over warmed, over egged, summaries for pollies and dummies, then read the chapters, reached for the popcorn and watched the spinners come in to defend the elitist group who hatched their agenda in some ill chosen words they should regret. Hell will probably freeze over before that lot will concede that it isn’t warming, and hasn’t.
While they have breath and can pick cherries, they will carry on regardless until there are no cherries left on the IPCC tree anymore, but WHT willl yamal on anyway, what the heck!
be nice if we could get warm in some places, considering the bitter cold that is upon us.
And the popcorn futures are on the way up!!
Nice bunfight, but little warmth unless you “Cook” the books in a lewandowsky way.
7.4.5 Impact of Cosmic Rays on Aerosols and Clouds
High solar activity leads to variations in the strength and three-dimensional structure of the heliosphere,which reduces the flux of galactic cosmic rays (GCR) impinging upon the Earth’s atmosphere by increasing the deflection of low energy GCR. As GCR is the primary source of atmospheric ionization, it has been suggested that GCR may act to amplify relative small variations in solar activity into climatologically significant effects (Ney, 1959), via a hypothesised relationship between ionization and cloudiness (e.g.,Dickinson, 1975; Kirkby, 2007). There have been many studies aiming to test this hypothesis since AR4, which fall in two categories: i) studies that seek to establish a causal relationship between cosmic rays and aerosols/clouds by looking at correlations between the two quantities on timescales of days to decades, andii) studies that test through observations or modelling one of the physical mechanisms that have been put forward. We assess these two categories of studies in the next two sections.
7.4.5.1 Correlations Between Cosmic Rays and Properties of Aerosols and Clouds
Many empirical relationships have been reported between GCR or cosmogenic isotope 1 archives and some aspects of the climate system (e.g., Bond et al., 2001; Dengel et al., 2009; Ram and Stolz, 1999). The forcing from changes in total solar irradiance alone does not seem to account for these observations, implying the existence of an amplifying mechanism such as the hypothesized GCR-cloud link. We focus here on observed relationships between GCR and aerosol and cloud properties. Such relationships have focused on decadal variations in GCR induced by the 11-year solar cycle, shorter variations associated with the quasi-periodic oscillation in solar activity centred on 1.68 years or sudden and large variations known as Forbush decrease events. It should be noted that GCR co-vary with other solar parameters such as solar and UV irradiance, which makes any attribution of cloud changes to GCR problematic (Laken et al., 2011).
Some studies have shown co-variation between GCR and low-level cloud cover using global satellite dataover periods of typically 5–10 years (Marsh and Svensmark, 2000; Pallé Bagó and Butler, 2000). Such correlations have not proved to be robust when extending the time period under consideration (Agee et al.,2012), restricting the analysis to particular cloud types (Kernthaler et al., 1999) or locations (Udelhofen and Cess, 2001; Usoskin and Kovaltsov, 2008). The purported correlations have also been attributed to ENSO variability (Farrar, 2000; Laken et al., 2012) and artefacts of the satellite data cannot be ruled out (Pallé,2005). Statistically significant, but weak, correlations between diffuse fraction and cosmic rays have beenfound at some locations in the UK over the 1951 to 2000 period (Harrison and Stephenson, 2006). Harrison (2008) also found a unique 1.68-year periodicity in surface radiation for two different UK sites between 1978 and 1990, potentially indicative of a cosmic ray effect. Svensmark et al. (2009) found large global reductions in the aerosol Ångström exponent from AERONET, liquid water path from SSM/I, and cloud cover from MODIS and ISCCP after large Forbush decreases, but these results were not corroborated by other studies who found no statistically significant links between GCR and clouds at the global scale (Calogovic et al., 2010; Kristjánsson et al., 2008; Laken and Calogovic, 2011). Although some studies found small but significant positive correlations between GCR and high- and mid-altitude clouds (Laken et al.,2010; Rohs et al., 2010), these variations were very weak, and the results were highly sensitive to how the Forbush events were selected and composited (Laken et al., 2009).
7.4.5.2 Physical Mechanisms Linking Cosmic Rays to Cloudiness
The most widely studied mechanism proposed to explain the possible link between GCR and cloudiness isthe “ion-aerosol clear air” mechanism, in which atmospheric ions produced by GCR facilitate aerosolnucleation and growth ultimately impacting CCN concentrations and cloud properties (Carslaw et al., 2002;Usoskin and Kovaltsov, 2008). The variability of atmospheric ionization rates due to GCR changes can beconsidered relatively well quantified (Bazilevskaya et al., 2008), whereas resulting changes in aerosolnucleation rates are very poorly known (Enghoff and Svensmark, 2008; Kazil et al., 2008). The CosmicsLeaving OUtdoor Droplets (CLOUD) experiment at CERN indicates that GCR-induced ionization enhanceswater–sulphuric acid nucleation in the middle and upper troposphere, but is very unlikely to give asignificant contribution to nucleation taking place in the continental boundary layer (Kirkby et al., 2011).Field measurements qualitatively support this view but cannot provide any firm conclusion on the role ofions due to the scarcity and other limitations of free-troposphere measurements (Arnold, 2006; Mirme et al.,2010), and due to difficulties in separating GCR-induced nucleation from other nucleation pathways incontinental boundary layers (Hirsikko et al., 2011). If strong enough, the signal from GCR-inducednucleation should be detectable at the Earth’s surface because a big fraction of CCN in the global boundarylayer is expected to originate from nucleation taking place in the free troposphere (Merikanto et al., 2009).Based on surface aerosol measurements at one site, Kulmala et al. (2010) found no connection between GCRand new particle formation or any other aerosol property over a solar cycle (1996–2008). Our understandingof the “ion-aerosol clear air” mechanism as a whole relies on a few model investigations that simulate GCRchanges over a solar cycle (Kazil et al., 2012; Pierce and Adams, 2009a; Snow-Kropla et al., 2011) or duringstrong Forbush decreases (Bondo et al., 2010; Snow-Kropla et al., 2011). Although all model studies found adetectable connection between GCR variations and either CCN changes or column aerosol properties, theresponse appears to be too weak to cause a significant radiative effect because GCR are unable to effectivelyraise CCN and droplet concentrations (Kazil et al., 2012).
A second pathway linking GCR to cloudiness has been proposed through the global electric circuit (GEC). Asmall direct current is able to flow vertically between the ionosphere (maintained at approximately 250 kVby thunderstorms and electrified clouds) and the Earth’s surface over fair-weather regions because of GCRinduced atmospheric ionization. Charges can accumulate at the upper and lower cloud boundaries as a resultof the effective scavenging of ions by cloud droplets (Tinsley, 2000). This creates conductivity gradients atthe cloud edges (Nicoll and Harrison, 2010), and may influence droplet-droplet collision (Khain et al., 2004),cloud droplet-particle collisions (Tinsley, 2000), and cloud droplet formation processes (Harrison andAmbaum, 2008). These microphysical effects may potentially influence cloud properties both directly andindirectly. Although Harrison and Ambaum (2010) observed a small reduction in downward LW radiationwhich they associated with variations in surface current density, supporting observations are extremelylimited. Our current understanding of the relationship between cloud properties and the GEC remains verylow, and there is no evidence yet that associated cloud processes could be of climatic significance.
7.4.5.3 Synthesis
Although there is some evidence that ionization from cosmic rays may enhance aerosol nucleation in the free troposphere, there is medium evidence and high agreement that the cosmic ray ionization mechanism is too weak to influence global concentrations of CCN or their change over the last century or during a solar cyclein any climatically significant way. The lack of trend in the cosmic ray intensity over the last 50 years (Ageeet al., 2012; McCracken and Beer, 2007) provides another strong argument against the hypothesis of a major contribution of cosmic rays to ongoing climate change.
The bolded sentence was added in the final(?) draft of IPCC AR5. Rawls (the leaker) went ballistic in large part over it. I don’t see what the big deal is. It’s a weasel worded admission.
————————————————————————————
Many empirical relationships have been reported between GCR or cosmogenic isotope archives and some aspects of the climate system (e.g., Bond et al., 2001; Dengel et al., 2009; Ram and Stolz, 1999). The forcing from changes in total solar irradiance alone does not seem to account for these observations, implying the existence of an amplifying mechanism such as the hypothesized GCR-cloud link. We focus here on observed relationships between GCR and aerosol and cloud properties.
Two words running together is my goof in reformatting the source text for word wrap display.
The Skeptical Warmist (aka R. Gates) | December 17, 2012 at 10:54 am |
Look, you nasty little collection of pond scum, I do not hold conversations with slimeballs who accuse me of lying. From your action, it appears that the other lowlifes that you must hang out with must have no objection to being called a liar, but I and other honest folk do. I am an honest man to the very utmost of my abilities. I don’t equivocate about one god-damn thing if I can help it.
You can either retract your false accusation, or you can come up with some proof that I have lied. Where I come from, a decent man doesn’t accuse another man of lying without solid proof. That is the action of a scumbag.
Your move. I’d consider it carefully … do you want your reputation to be that of someone who carelessly makes grave false accusations without a scrap of proof?
Or would you prefer to be known as a man who went over the line, but apologized and came back?
w.
Willis
Come on Willis, R Gates might be a number of things but he is certainly not a ‘nasty little collection of pond scum’. I rarey agree wth a word he says but he expresses himself politely and with considerable attempts at science.I think your comment is rather over the top and seems to be an unwelcome extension of the current vogue of you and Mosh hurling insults at each other -mostly unfounded it seems, as the context (or a reply) is often missed in these often confusing threads.
Is this any business of mine? Well yes, because such insults set an unwecome tone to what should be a science blog-albeit there will always be lots of banter.
How about a christmas truce? R Gates signed up for it weeks ago
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_truce
tonyb
Politely? Are you insane?
Thanks for standing up for me Tony. Willis’ outburst was way out of bounds and certainly out of proportion to the situation, but whatever…time to move on from this insignificant topic of Mr. Rawl’s character flaws…
BTW, I had no idea that you “rarely agree” with any word I say. This speaks well of your overall polite English character, as I would have guessed that the percentage of things you disagree with me about was a bit greater than “rarely”. Nicely done. I shall enjoy our dinner and drink all the more when you visit…
Tony & Gates,
Hey, guys, this in-your-face, heavy-petting, mutual admiration session the two of you’ve got going at the moment on this blog is, like, a totally lewd creep-out. Show some consideration for others, will yah?
Mike
Whats wrong with showing respect to an opponent? I make no apologies for it. It is good to see people with wildly dfferent opinions debating a subject. It would be even better if they are published scientists but thats not going to happen if all they see on this blog is invective and abuse.
tonyb
tonyb
Just an aside to this topic, but what tends to push me towards irritable language most is the endless reiteration of debunked arguments, frequently by the same commenter, often only moments after the debunking. If only there was some way of putting a spoke in that endlessly turning wheel…
Bbd
It irritates me to. On the other hand I get exasperated by people who believe we are all conspiracy theorists.
Tonyb
tonyb,
Yr: “Whats wrong with showing respect to an opponent?”
An interesting question, tonyb, and, from you, I accept the question as a sincere one deserving a respectful reply. While you may be able to find some exceptions, I cannot recall, I make it a practice not to “abuse” commenters if they stick to the science–Vaughn Pratt being a good example of a science-minded commenter. Quite the contrary, with such commenters, I instantaneously go into a “lurker” mode and do my head-scratching best to get educated through their discourse.
Otherwise, I fight fire with fire and with a relish for a good, brawling food fight with my lefty-dork, greenshirt, wrecker-bot good-buddy opponents–some of whom, like Josh, I do, in fact, respect. But, give me a break, tonyb–most of the “crushers” who tag-team on this blog are appalling creep-outs who have not earned either my respect or that of any other self-respecting member of the e-salon.
Also, tonyb, I agreed to the Christmas truce conditioned on its observance by “the team”, as well. Guess what? The very next day the “crushers” rolled into this blog in full-force with their wonted, hive-bozo crapola flying every which way. Taught me a lesson not to extend a presumption of good faith to my ol’ pals on the opposite of the question and screw the frou-frou, faculty-lounge fustian when dealing with these retards.
well said Tony,
As Father dave said at Mass yesterday – wouldn’t it be something if we were known for our kindness?
Mike
Thanks for your interesting reply.
Mind you, wouldn’t it be dull if one side delivered a knockout blow to the other? What on earth would we all do with ourselves in the absence of climate talk, a subject dear to a Brits heart ever since Tacitus the roman is alleged to have said ‘ Britain? It’s not cold.’
Overwhelming proof I think, that it was warmer back then…
Tonyb
tonyb, perhaps you are perfectly fine with being called a liar. I am most definitely not.
In my world, any man who calls another man a liar without having proof of it is pond scum. I was brought up that a man’s word is his honor, and it is a mortal insult to accuse a man of being a liar. It was that way when I grew up in the American west, and it had been that way for a long, long time. Shakespeare talks of the same thing. Google “the lie direct”.
Now, I’m happy to discuss scientific stuff with R. Gates. But when he starts insulting me by calling me a liar? Sorry, that’s way beyond the pale on my planet.
I know it may not be so on your planet, tony, you may be OK with being called a liar. And if that is the case, I truly feel sorry for you.
Me, I won’t stand for it. Mr. Gates can either apologize or not as he sees fit. If he apologizes, I am more than willing to put the entire episode behind us.
w.
PS—When I said it had been that way for a long, long time, actually, it used to be stronger. I was brought up under the moral code of my great grandfather, a Louisiana riverboat captain whom even his children called “The Captain”. He famously told his 13 children:
Now, I don’t hold it that strong, I just called Gates pond scum, whereas in the Captain’s day it truly was a mortal insult … but I do hold it nonetheless. I just want you to know that as with many societies both currently and throughout history, in my world calling a man a liar is a very, very serious thing, not one that you want to do lightly or without proof.
Willis
These threads wander all over the place and comments become misinterpreted or replies are not seen. Consequently as far as I can see I don’t think r gates called you a liar and you seem to accept this with your comment later in this thread in response to his explanation. I have always found him to act in good faith.
My wider point was that name calling is non productive and affects the tenor of the blog to the detriment of scientific discussion.
Where does your surname come from, I saw a variation of it in Switzerland a few weeks ago
Tonyb
mike:
I wouldn’t mind it if it weren’t so undeserved. R. Gates is not a polite person. He often resorts to insults and ad hominem. And as far as I know, he never retracts any of it, even when it’s shown they were based upon him simply misrepresenting what other people have said. The idea that he should be praised for being polite strikes me as ridiculous.
Oh well. Maybe R. Gates will be a little more fair today. In the past, he has often criticized people for taking:
He has been harsher in other comments expressing this same view. As I’ve pointed out before, this is a fascinating thing to criticize people for when the very same conflation he criticizes is one which has been consistently adopted by his “side.” Even in the latest the IPCC (draft) Report, it is used:
Can we all please agree skeptics are not doing anything wrong by saying there hasn’t been global warming in about ~15 years?
Willis said: (to R. Gates)
“Look, you nasty little collection of pond scum…”
_____
You know Willis, this seems beneath you, but I say “seems”, not “is” beneath you, as it is now proven not to be. I apparently misjudged the kind of man you are. My apologies sir. You and Mr. Rawls would seem to have more in common than I have with either of you.
Old egg, anyone…
Luke 11:12 Or if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion?
will do.
TO WILLIS
An apology
From guru-flake
Who styles himself
An eco-snake?
Not likely since
Gate’s viper-mind
Cannot conceive
You’ve been maligned
To Gates it’s all
One big rip-off
And words just serve
To fill his trough
For Gate’s simple
Reptilian brain
Can’t think outside
His gravy-train
So Gate’s “You lie!”
And like flim-flam
Means nothing ‘cept
It serves his scam
Wow Mike, did not know that you’re such a poet…sort of an angry poet in the spirit of these:
http://deepundergroundpoetry.com/anger-poems/
But just FYI, you’ve really got me pegged quite wrong on your overall characterization. You’re inserting far too much of your own prejudice into what you assume people “like” me are all about. For more accurate poetry about me, you might want to actually know the subject material rather than rely on your prejudice and stereotypes.
Gates,
Yr: “Wow, Mike…”
Too much doth Gates
Protest my oeuvre
Which makes me think
I’ve struck a nerve!
“Struck a nerve”?
Really Mike? I find you most entertaining and amusing…though I do prefer the depth of metaphor and allegory displayed in Kim’s poetry to yours.
Gates,
Yr: “I do prefer…Kim’s poetry to yours.”
So, Gates, your, like, really, really clever, Machiavelli-wannabee, snake-booger counter-move to the versified, crushing heel I lately planted upon your serpent head is to try and stir up a jealous rivalry between Kim and me. Willis is right, you are pond-scum, Gates.
Unfortunately, for you, Gates, I also prefer Kim’s poetry to mine (And Beth’s too, for that matter). For you see, Gates, I’m not even a real poet, like Kim and Beth–just a part-time, self-acknowledged poetaster in it for the laughs (preferably at your expense).
You know, Gates, you’re, like, always reading way too much into things, and, like, always trying way too hard to be the snake-pit’s, alpha master-tactician and all. Lighten up, guy. Stop takin’ yourself and your little CAGW scam so seriously–no one else does.
Aside from your repeated mischaracterisations of one of the politest and most erudite commenters here, you have (once again) tripped the conspiracy theory alarm!
Nerp! Nerp! Nerp!
(Hint – some of the cleverer ‘sceptics’ really hate any overt demonstration of conspiracy theorising. They try very hard to conceal the fact that they are, in effect, conspiracy theorists too and it spoils the artfully constructed facade).
Mike said:
“Unfortunately, for you, Gates, I also prefer Kim’s poetry to mine…”
____
Why unfortunately? Shows you’ve got good taste. That you can appreciate that Picasso is a far better painter than you should not deter you from growing as a painter. You must realize the artistry of a master before you can ever hope to be one.
Mike, here’s a little video that nicely summarizes our little exchanges:
And there you go. R Gates links to classic old-school Jackie Chan. How can this man be a bad egg?
;-)
R. Gates, the Bad Egg:
http://i43.tinypic.com/2nlqphl.jpg
I thought you’d be taller…
;-)
Previous comment was a reply to our Skeptical Warmist friend.
mike
It’s good, but you need to expand your vocabulary. I know you can, because earlier you said ‘poetaster’.
;-)
It appears BBD is in a conspiracy to malign skeptics!
Willis,
I realize now what you may have meant by thinking that I was calling you a liar. By my use of the word “equivocate”, which has two general meanings, one stronger, hinting at deception, and the other being synonym of “beat around the bush”, which is not lying but simply not getting to the heart of the issue. It is this second meaning that I used the expression, and not once would I intend to accuse you of being a liar. My apologies if you, or anyone took the first meaning. I don’t believe that you sir are a liar. See:
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/equivocate
Especially the synonyms…i.e. “beat around the bush”
In regards to my reason for using the expression “equivocate” related to your feedback about my opinion of Mr. Rawl’s action is simply that, I have a right to my opinion as to the character of someone who would agree not to do something and then go on and do it anyway on the weakest and thinnest of excuses. I also have the right to my opinion that those blogs to go on and on discussing the content of the incomplete material that Mr. Rawl’s released are tainted by the (what I see as) immoral methodology by which it was obtained. This is the heart of the issue, and really the only point I was making. You disagreed with my opinion, which is fine. And that sir, should have been all that was needed.
Gates,
Yr: “And that, sir,…”
What a sanctimonious, pompous-ass, hive-bozo you are, Gates. And I like all that pretentious, phoney-baloney “sir” business of yours, Gates, like you’re some sort of ante-bellum, Southern gentleman duelist extra in a low-budget “Gone With the Wind” re-make. You are the complete, consummate clown-act Gates!
You know, Gates, an annoying feature of the climate wars’ blog commentary is those comments that describe a “denier” remark as “hilarious”, “makes me laugh”, “LOL” and the like when it is perfectly obvious that only a nut-ball, socially-incompetent geek-retard given to inappropriate giggling would find the relevant remark “funny.” But in your case, Gates, your blog commentary really does provoke laughter. I mean, like, you’re a ready-for-prime-time, freak-show, comedy entertainment, Gates–LOL!
Mike said:
“But in your case, Gates, your blog commentary really does provoke laughter.”
_____
And this is a problem? Here’s something for your enlightenment:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fool_(Tarot_card)
“The Fool represents the mystical cleverness bereft of reason within us, the childlike ability to tune into the inner workings of the world. The sun shining behind him represents the divine nature of the Fool’s wisdom and exuberance, holy madness or ‘crazy wisdom’. On his back are all the possessions he might need. In his hand there is a flower, showing his appreciation of beauty.”
This could be the beginning of real wisdom for you Mike. Kim also could lead the way to your metaphorical mind…and certainly better poetry!
The Skeptical Warmist (aka R. Gates) | December 17, 2012 at 1:41 pm
My friend, you are indeed a gentleman. I apologize to you for my misunderstanding regarding your words, and I take back my insults to you completely and absolutely, they were baseless, untrue, and wrong. You did not have any intention of calling me a liar, and thus the error is entirely mine.
w.
Thank for accepting my apology Willis. Now I can go on respecting you and your keen intellect as I have for years… :)
The “warming has stopped” meme refuses to account for natural variation, doesn’t it? So, on the one hand we are told to believe that natural variation explains the rise, but on the other hand we have to ignore it for the pause. Is that the idea? Help me to understand, or is it just another contradiction among the skeptical views?
I think holding the concepts of AGW + natural variation together, which is done by the scientific community, is somehow not well understood among the skeptics. The East Pacific has cooled slightly since 1980 (where the deep water upwells), but the global land has risen almost a degree C in the same period, and Arctic sea ice has been declining steadily. These facts illustrate the influence of ocean circulations in a background general positive forcing as well as anything can.
And what does it say in a certain document not quite published yet? It says this:
The problem with the majority of ‘sceptics’ is that they aren’t as clever as they imagine *and* they are in denial, although they deny this. Of course.
BBD
Count me among the CAGW “skeptics” who fully endorses the concept that natural climate forcing factors have “temporarily” overwhelmed the AGW effect from rapidly increasing GHGs.
In fact, I found it unconvincing that natural forcing only accounted for 7% of all forcing from 1750 to 2005 (AR4). Now it is deemed to be “overwhelming” the AGW impact from 30% of all the CO2 emissions since 1750!
I always was of the opinion that natural factors were grossly underestimated by IPCC, and the recent “pause” seems to confirm this.
Wouldn’t you say?
(Or are you “denying” that natural factors are overwhelming the AGW warming?)
Max
Natural variability is offsetting GHG forcing, not ‘overwhelming’ it. More rhetorical flourishes. If GHG forcing was ‘overwelmed’ then instead of a slow-down in the rate of warming there would be an unequivocal cooling trend.
Jim D
It was actually IPCC who relegated natural forcing factors (variability) to a small relative importance (7% of the total, with 93% caused by anthropogenic factors).
Now (all of a sudden) they are deemed to be strong enough to overshadow unabated human GHG emissions and concentrations, which have risen to all-time record levels.
I have always concluded that natural factors were much more important than IPCC assumed, and the recent “pause” seems to confirm this.
Max
Now you are misrepresenting the IPCC. Natural variability is largely self-cancelling on longer time-scales. The IPCC summary of the scientific estimate of the net *natural* contribution to C20th climate change shows that it was relatively small.
Nothing has changed. Take the century view.
Those percentages, of course, do not apply to decadal trends which is the subject here. I think you are trying to confuse people with that comparison. I haven’t even seen the 93% figure before, because the IPCC are not usually that precise. My attribution would put GHGs over 100% for the last half-century with only aerosols keeping it down, just based on the IPCC median sensitivity.
BBD
I am not “misrepresenting the IPCC view”
IPCC (in AR4) stated that “natural factors” only accounted for 7% of all the warming from 1750 to 2005.
Now IPCC (AR5 draft) is telling us that “natural factors” have completely overwhelmed record CO2 (and other GHG) emissions since 1998 (over 30% of ALL the CO2 EVER emitted by humans!).
So I ask: “what’s wrong with this picture?”
Max
Jim D
If you read AR4 you would have seen that CO2 forcing since 1750 was estimated by IPCC to be 1.66 Wm-2, while total anthropogenic forcing was estimated to have been 1.6 Wm-2 and natural forcing was only 0.12 Wm-2 (or 7% of the total of 1.72 wm-2).
That’s why it’s so surprising to me that IPCC now estimates in AR5 that natural factors have completely overwhelmed GHG forcing since 1998.
Max
manacker, it only takes a long weak solar cycle, a super-El Nino at the beginning, La Nina dominance at the end, and the negative PDO phase to cancel out a decadal trend, as we see. With these factors, it is more surprising that the trend isn’t downwards, isn’t it, but for some reason it remained flat at the record-high ’98 levels.
Jim D
I understand what you are saying about ENSO variations, etc., but I think there is a more basic point being questioned here.
Let me put it as simply as I can.
On one hand we are told that natural factors are next to insignificant as far as the long term warming from 1750 to today is concerned (AR4 pegged this at 7% of the total and it looks like AR5 may even be slightly lower).
Then we are told that natural factors have masked AGW over a recent short time period during which there was no observed warming yet close to one-third of all human CO2 emissions since industrialization have occurred.
These two statements appear incongruous. I know the explanation is that one is caused by short term natural factors, whereas the other is from long term natural forcing, but this explanation seems contrived. What is “short” and what is “long”? How does our climate know the difference? Ho do we know the difference?
As there are still considerable uncertainties regarding the attribution of past warming, it appears that we really cannot forecast with any precision what future AGW will look like and can, therefore, not project any potentially alarming future warming (CAGW) with any degree of certainty.
Max
manacker, you can probably appreciate that comparing one year with the next makes no sense for a trend because of the variability on that scale. I argue that comparing one decade with the next is better, and it has been steadily warming when that is done. Making trends out of yearly data leaves the noise in, and it is better to remove this to avoid confusion such as what is seen now. Just take decade averages and be done with all that. You will find it is much cleaner for trends and not so dependent on end-points.
Jim D
Your suggestion of comparing decadal average temperatures in order to see a trend simply inserts a 10-year lag in seeing a trend.
Let me explain:
We have seen warming at, let’s say, 0.15C per decade over two decades (1981-2000).
We then see slight cooling at, let’s say -0.05C per decade over one decade (2001-2010).
By definition the decade 2001-2010 will have higher “average decadal temperature” than the previous two decades, even though there is a net cooling trend.
Now let’s say that it again begins to warm next year, at a more modest rate of 0.05C per decade, giving an average warming rate for 2011-2020 of 0.04C per decade (two years of no warming 2010-2011 plus eight years warming at 0.05C per decade).
The decade 2011-2020 would then have a lower average temperature than the preceding decade, even though warming had resumed.
So I think it is always better to measure trends when we are talking about trends.
Avoids confusion.
Max
BBD and Jim D
You are both “assuming” that whatever is causing the current slight cooling is a “short-term phenomenon” and is, therefore, not comparable with past long-term solar forcing, which has been estimated by IPCC to be very low.
What if it turns out to be a longer-term phenomenon?
Would you then agree that IPCC has underestimated natural forcing factors in the past by only considering solar irradiance?
Would you then, as a result, also concede that IPCC may have overestimated the impact of anthropogenic forcing on past climate change?
How many more decades of “no warming” would it take for you to consider these possibilities? One more? Two more? Never?
Max
07% of the radiative forcing is solar irradiance.
It’s becoming harder-and-harder to perceive respect-worthy differences among the abuse-spouting cherry-pickers who call themselves climate-change skeptics … WUWT, eh?
Fan
Pleae don’t put us all in the same category . By the way do you think sceptics have a monooly on abuse? There are many fine examples of vitriol from your own side.
Its a shame that obviously intelligent people with much to say need to resort to name calling. As I say above, the end result would be to create an atmosphere that might deter scientists we might want to debate with.
tonyb
Is it time to move on from analysing temperatures, and making projections? Should we transfer our focus to robust decision analysis that can inform policy development?
Many economists advocate carbon pricing as the least cost way to reduce GHG emissions. However, the assumptions on which they base their analyses and recommendations are theoretical. They are not realistic for the real world. Twenty years of climate conferences shows the approach attempted so far (i.e. internationally agreed targets and time frames, binding legal international agreements, carbon pricing, regulations, etc.) is going nowhere. It has failed. Professor Richard Tol acknowledged carbon pricing is impracticable in the real world here: http://judithcurry.com/2012/09/12/the-costs-of-tackling-or-not-tackling-anthropogenic-global-warming/#comment-239101. William Nordhaus effectively says it’s not practicable: Nordhaus (2010) Economic aspects of global warming in a post-Copenhagen environment http://nordhaus.econ.yale.edu/documents/Nordhaus_Copenhagen_2010_text.pdf :
In other words, this approach is impracticable.
There is much evidence that carbon pricing and mandating and subsidising renewable energy is ineffective and very costly. Carbon pricing cannot work in the real world. Renewable energy can make negligible contribution to cutting global emissions.
The economists’ analyses are cost-benefit analyses. Four key inputs are needed (IMO): 1) climate sensitivity, 2) damage function, 3) decarbonisation rate function, and 4) probability that the proposed policy will achieve the expected outcomes.
1. Climate sensitivity – The draft AR5 says that climate sensitivity (most likely and likely range) have not changed since AR4. In fact, they have changed little since FAR. So, our understanding of climate sensitivity remains uncertain and is not changing much. The uncertainty is unlikely to be reduced much any time soon.
2. Damage function – We have a very poor understanding of the damage function. Our uncertainty about the damage function is greater than for climate sensitivity.
3. Decarbonisation rate function – This is given little attention by carbon tax advocates. However, if we could achieve decarbonisation of the world economy at around 5% pa, at low cost, the problems would be resolved. We would have a robust solution and no need for policies like carbon pricing and binding legal international agreements. Decarbonisation will just happen.
4. Probability that chosen solution will achieve the expected outcome – This critical issue seems to be given no attention in the published analyses by the economists advocating these policies such as William Nordhaus, Richard Tol, Martin Weitzman, Sir Nicholas Stern, Ross Garnaut, and Australian Treasury.
Since we cannot reduce the uncertainty in these four key inputs, it seems we cannot do much to reduce the uncertainty in the cost benefit analyses. We do not have the input data needed.
Is there another way? How can we get to a genuinely workable policy that can get broad support?
IMO, the effort should be transferred from discussing temperatures ad nauseam (which is only relevant to reducing the uncertainty in just one of the four key inputs to cost-benefit analyses) to working on a robust policy – i.e. a ‘no regrets’ policy (one that will cut global GHG emissions at no cost or negative cost).
IMO, a robust policy is achievable as explained in a series of comment starting here:
“1.4 ‘No Regrets’ policies are achievable and can do the job”
http://judithcurry.com/2012/12/01/open-thread-weekend-4/#comment-273009
and here: http://judithcurry.com/2012/12/13/week-in-review-121512/#comment-277165
If we make robust policy we can deal with the GHG issue and other issues as well. So why don’t we put our effort into robust decision analysis (http://econ.worldbank.org/external/default/main?pagePK=64165259&theSitePK=469382&piPK=64165421&menuPK=64166093&entityID=000158349_20120906142854)?
What would a robust policy response give us?
1. ‘No regrets’ policies
2. economically beneficial (for all the world)
3. improved health (reduced toxic pollution) everywhere
4. greater energy security (for all the world)
5. fresh water supply
6. improved education for everyone (and improved communications for all)
7. reduced black carbon
8. reduced GHG emissions
If we agreed on points like this, we really don’t need to spend so much time and effort focusing on regulation, carbon pricing, emission targets and time tables and high cost mitigation policies that have low probability of achieving their aims. To achieve the 8 points listed, the policy response is pretty simple. It is to give the world more electricity. To do this we need to make electricity cheaper and cleaner. That is technically achievable. It is only blocked by ideological beliefs. So, if we do the robust analysis the conclusion will be clear.
The question then becomes: how do we re-educate those who hold ideological beliefs that are preventing progress?
Wouldn’t one want to wait to deploy the costliest project in human history, to at least a period where the temperature trend is positive? Seems to me like that would be one aspect of a “no-regret” decision.
People should really be talking about implementing GW solutions with the same tone and manner as Geo-Enginerring – “it pains me,but it might come to that”. Instead, any step along the road to that ~$50 trillion tab is cheered. The amount of hubris it takes to deny any uncertainty in models given their departure from actual temperatures, and being willing to bet with that amount of other people’s money seems unparalleled in modern times.
SUT,
A ‘No regrets’ policy is one that is cost neutral or cost beneficial on its own without even considering the climate costs and benefits. It is justified no matter what the climate does. Adaptation is a major part. But I also argue we can cut GHG emissions at net overall benefit. This can be done by removing the impediments to nuclear power. The USA is in by far the best position to lead the way. The US President could make it happen.
Agreed on freeing up Nuclear, makes perfect sense.From what I’ve seen though, AGW policy has no track-record or plans of pursuing a rational or effective solution. The biggest tents in that camp will not be willing to trade radiation risk, no matter how well managed for the currently despised Fossil Fuels.
Peter Lang
You are trying very hard to get this thread away from incessant haranguing about temperature trends, natural forcing/variability versus AGW, possible other mechanisms for solar forcing beside just TSI, narrowing down of the 2xCO2 temperature response, etc. – and onto a discussion about “what to do now?”.
Don’t know if it will work, but I agree that this is really more interesting in the long run, so I applaud your effort.
We have one side that truly believes we are facing a major crisis, which is being promoted by IPCC and is often referred to as “CAGW”. Some have suggested that this could involve “dangerous” warming of up to 5C in the foreseeable future (in the meantime, IPCC has come down from the highest forecasts of up to 6.4C warming by 2100 in AR4 down to 4.8C in the AR5 draft, with the mid-range estimates varying between 1.0 and 3.7C.
On the other hand, we’ve seen the first 12 years of this century go by without any warming at all, despite all-time record GHG concentrations and short-term forecasts by IPCC of 0.2C per decade. We are told that this pause is due to natural factors working against AGW. There are some who are forecasting that this “pause” will last for another decade or even longer.
So the other side does not believe we are facing an existential threat over this century and it is foolish to worry about anything that far off in the future, anyway.
The likelihood of a global agreement to reduce CO2 emissions has diminished after the failure at Doha.
A global carbon tax seems out of the question and a few local ones do not make any sense whatsoever.
So it truly appears to me that we are, indeed, left with the options you have listed plus, of course, adaptation to any climate changes Nature throws at us, if and when it becomes evident that these changes could occur.
The arguments I have seen against this approach are all based on fear rather than on cool-headed logic.
But it would be interesting to have this debate.
Lots of luck in getting it started here.
Max
Max,
I agree with all that. I agree, and said so in previous comments, that adaptation will deliver the greatest benefits for decades. We can satisfy all parties by implementing no regrets policies to cut GHG emissions. The USA can be most effective in that by removing the impediments that are preventing the world from getting low cost nuclear energy.
http://www.spectator.co.uk/the-week/leading-article/8789981/glad-tidings/
Why 2012 was the best year ever
“Never in the history of the world has there been less hunger, less disease and more prosperity”
One might wonder how it’s posssible with all the pollution and climate change and whatnot, huh? /sarc
In the collision of science with politics global warming also becomes a moral issue. By the standard principles of Judeo/Christian traditions global warming alarmists who continue to indulge in doomsday predictions and fearmongering are simply immoral. For the global warming alarmist, truth is nothing more that a ‘pragmatic’ truth that serves no more utility than being a formulation that, as William James would describe it, is in congruity with the Left’s residual beliefs.
BBD has pointed out my error re IPCC leaked document citation
for which I apologise. I am often hasty, (read ‘sloppy’) but I value
honesty and don’t wittingly deceive. Don’t know where I got my
lines crossed but I herewith point out in Chapter1 figures 1.4
and 1.5, comparing near surface temperature range observed
data with projections,1990 – 2015 with its plateau of measured
data warming and large uncertainty shading. BBD you misrepresent
me when you said that i said the slow down refutes AGW. Read
my actual words and you will see that I made no such claim.
Beth
You are right – there is a bit of a screw-up in the AR5 draft on past short-term forecasts versus actual trends.
Chapter 1 addresses the recent temperature trends:
This is obviously not exactly correct, as can be seen from Fig. 1.5, which shows the high, low and mid-range projections from AR4 as well as the observed data points with a slight cooling trend since 1998.
AR4 projected warming of 0.2°C per decade where no warming occurred
The projection made in the earlier TAR was for 0.15°C to 0.3°C warming per decade, which obviously also did not occur.
So AR5 should revise its wording to indicate that earlier warming forecasts for the recent decade from TAR and AR4 did not occur, with some explanation for this discrepancy, rather than state that ”observations through 2010 generally fall well within the projections made in all of the past assessments”.
Probably just a minor point, but it makes IPCC look like they are trying to hide something.
Max
You can also shift the projection line down by just 0.1 degrees, then the conclusion would be that the 90’s warmed faster than expected, but the last decade was about where it should be. The scale has some arbitrariness, so you can’t read too much into it when it assumes 1990 was an exactly accurate year as opposed to 2000 for example.
Jim D
Yeah. I know. You can jiggle things around a bit to try to salvage the warming forecasts made in TAR and AR4, but why not just admit that the forecasts were wrong and move on?
Max
You are believing these absolute scales too much. Natural variability blurs where the zero should be to be realistic.
Jim D
No. I do not “believe the absolute scales too much”. That’s not the problem here, as you probably know.
Along with Beth, I simply noted that IPCC appears to be trying to cover up poor warming forecasts in TAR and AR4 by writing in AR5:
This is untrue.
I do not understand why IPCC cannot simply concede that its earlier warming projections (in TAR and AR4) were wrong, adding explanatory notes about natural variability, etc. to explain why the projections were wrong.
That’s all.
No big deal.
Everyone makes mistakes. And a little bit of humility often pays off when it comes to credibility.
Max
Thx Max, still, I guess I was disposed ter confirmation bias
never- the – les – tsk !
I couldn’t bring myself to read much after all the high confidences in GCMs. They know there is a high confidence level that GCMs produce oscillations that may or may not be real and to know this, and still present the results of these models as meaningful, is as fraudulent as if I were using a malfunctioning pulp tester to recommend root canals and knew I were using a malfunctioning pulp tester.
Thousands of species are behaving as if climate is changing – temperature, rainfall etc – with responses such as moving to cooler regions at higher latitudes or phenology changes (a friend of mine had a Homer ‘doh! moment – she thought I meant phrenology. No jokes about feeling her bumps, thank you!). These are like trillions of little climate stations but are ignored. Is there a blog or thread looking at this?
Science made fun;…
http://www.livescience.com/25656-pygmy-whales-living-fossils.html
as they spend two million years looking for the smaller, right whale.
Stanford expert: ‘Black swans’ and ‘perfect storms’ become lame excuses for bad risk management
Instead of reflecting on the unlikelihood of rare catastrophes after the fact, Stanford risk analysis expert Elisabeth Paté-Cornell prescribes an engineering approach to anticipate them when possible, and to manage them when not.
http://news.stanford.edu/news/2012/november/black-swan-risk-111612.html
That’s terrific advice, Tim!
Chris Monckton and Willis Eschenbach, please abandon your despicable tactics!![\scriptstyle\rule[2.25ex]{0.01pt}{0.01pt}\,\boldsymbol{\overset{\scriptstyle\circ\wedge\circ}{\smile}\,\heartsuit\,{\displaystyle\text{\bfseries!!!}}\,\heartsuit\,\overset{\scriptstyle\circ\wedge\circ}{\smile}}\ \rule[-0.25ex]{0.01pt}{0.01pt}](https://s0.wp.com/latex.php?latex=%5Cscriptstyle%5Crule%5B2.25ex%5D%7B0.01pt%7D%7B0.01pt%7D%5C%2C%5Cboldsymbol%7B%5Coverset%7B%5Cscriptstyle%5Ccirc%5Cwedge%5Ccirc%7D%7B%5Csmile%7D%5C%2C%5Cheartsuit%5C%2C%7B%5Cdisplaystyle%5Ctext%7B%5Cbfseries%21%21%21%7D%7D%5C%2C%5Cheartsuit%5C%2C%5Coverset%7B%5Cscriptstyle%5Ccirc%5Cwedge%5Ccirc%7D%7B%5Csmile%7D%7D%5C+%5Crule%5B-0.25ex%5D%7B0.01pt%7D%7B0.01pt%7D&bg=ffffcc&fg=ff0000&s=1&c=20201002)
Oh and Willis in particular in regard to Tim Ball’s advice to “address the outstanding science questions”, do you think it might help if you read more closely the articles that you criticize?
The probability that fans of abusive discourse like Willis Eschenbach will “laugh out-loud” at the above morally-sobering conclusion is estimated to be 100%.
Willis’ WUWT post illustrates plainly a statistical mistake that denialists make over-and-over again, which is to fall-back upon demagogic mockery and personal abuse, as a rhetorical trick for evading rational discussion of the confidence-level adjustments that the Bayesian priors associated to physical theory require.
WUWT, eh?![\scriptstyle\rule[2.25ex]{0.01pt}{0.01pt}\,\boldsymbol{\overset{\scriptstyle\circ\wedge\circ}{\frown}\,\heartsuit\,{\displaystyle\text{\bfseries???}}\,\heartsuit\,\overset{\scriptstyle\circ\wedge\circ}{\frown}}\ \rule[-0.25ex]{0.01pt}{0.01pt}](https://s0.wp.com/latex.php?latex=%5Cscriptstyle%5Crule%5B2.25ex%5D%7B0.01pt%7D%7B0.01pt%7D%5C%2C%5Cboldsymbol%7B%5Coverset%7B%5Cscriptstyle%5Ccirc%5Cwedge%5Ccirc%7D%7B%5Cfrown%7D%5C%2C%5Cheartsuit%5C%2C%7B%5Cdisplaystyle%5Ctext%7B%5Cbfseries%3F%3F%3F%7D%7D%5C%2C%5Cheartsuit%5C%2C%5Coverset%7B%5Cscriptstyle%5Ccirc%5Cwedge%5Ccirc%7D%7B%5Cfrown%7D%7D%5C+%5Crule%5B-0.25ex%5D%7B0.01pt%7D%7B0.01pt%7D&bg=eeeeff&fg=ff0000&s=1&c=20201002)
A fan of *MORE* discourse | December 20, 2012 at 5:21 am
Fanny, you are too predictable. Instead of commenting about my post at WUWT, you comment here. And instead of objecting to anything specific with my scientific claims, you come out against some vague unspecified “despicable tactics” I’m supposed to be using. Typical, I fear.
However, I am overjoyed that my despicable tactics, such as deconstructing bad science and investigating the climate through observations rather than models, have driven you to exclamations marks! And of course, both Monckton and I have the despicable tactic of telling the truth, that tactic is very unpopular with your set as well.
w.
… No one ever expects the Climate Inquisition! Our chief weapon is truth … truth and despicable tactics. Our two weapons are truth … and despicable tactics … Our two chief weapons are truth and despicable tactics … and ruthless efficiency … Our *three* weapons are truth, despicable tactics , and ruthless efficiency … Amongst our weaponry are such elements as … I’ll come in again.
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http://www.emmanuel.tv
Thanks.