by Judith Curry
In the past 6 months or so, we have seen numerous different plots of the CMIP5 climate model simulations versus observations.
The first such plot that I saw was produced by John Christy in his Congressional Testimony last August:
The next time I encountered a similar diagram was in the leaked IPCC AR5 SOD, chapter 1, Figure 1.4. I am not going to reproduce that figure here since I am not sure about the legal status of this situation in context of my agreement with wordpress.com, but you can find the link [here]. In short, the diagram shows, for the period 1990-2015, the spread of FAR, SAR, TAR, AR4 and AR5 climate model simulations against the three main global surface temperature analyses. The also include a gray shading that corresponds to observational uncertainty and internal variability (although I have no idea how ‘internal variability’ is taken into account).
I next encountered a version of this diagram at RealClimate, in a post dated 7 February 2013:
.
Oops, the first time I glanced at this I had assumed that this was CMIP5, looks like it is CMIP3 instead.
I then spotted a version of this diagram on a post by Roger Pielke Jr, that came from a tweet by Ed Hawkins:
This figure motivated me to head over to Ed Hawkin’s blog to see what he is up to, and I spotted this very interesting analysis that compares the CMIP simulations with observations, where the CMIP5 output is masked to eliminate regions where there is missing data from HADCRUT4:
JC comment: In his blog post discussing the data-model comparison, Gavin writes:
The conclusion is the same as in each of the past few years; the models are on the low side of some changes, and on the high side of others, but despite short-term ups and downs, global warming continues much as predicted.
The fact is that the comparison of climate model predictions with the last few decades of observations is dominating the public discussion of global warming (well, alongside the issue of global warming impact on extreme weather).
There is no simple way to interpret these comparisons. I like the approach that Ed Hawkins is taking with the masking. The range of model simulation results needs to be presented in several different ways to really understand the distribution of results: spaghetti diagrams, pdfs, and block ranges for different sets of simulations and scenarios.
In the midst of substantial public interest on this issue, there is no published analysis that I know of that compares CMIP5 simulations to observations, although it looks like Ed Hawkins’ analysis is heading towards publication. The IPCC process is actually slowing this down, since presumably those involved in producing these simulations or otherwise involved in the IPCC AR5 are holding these results until the final AR5 report so that some ‘consensus’ can be built in terms of how to interpret these results and ‘communicate’ the uncertainty to the public. The leak of the IPCC AR5 SOD gives us a glimpse into what the IPCC is thinking, but the formal academic etiquette of citing or posting leaked information precludes their use in academic publications, blog posts (the timing of my wordpress blog crash occurred around the time of the SOD leak, conspiracy theorists have at it) and raises interesting ethical considerations in personal communication of such inform with a policy maker through a briefing or testimony.
I would be most interested in any other analyses model-observation comparisons that include CMIP5 simulations, please let me know if you have spotted anything.
Here’s my analysis of the problem:
http://tinyurl.com/aynmbpv
Updated here: http://tinyurl.com/au23plw
Dr. Curry,
You have a few typos.
“The(y) also include a gray shading that corresponds….”
“leaded
None of the models I have looked at (granted superficially) does not properly evaluate natural variability, perhaps a reminder is required:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/EarthNV.htm
correction:
None of the models I have looked at (granted superficially) does
notproperly evaluate natural variabilitydoesThis issue is almost irrelevant. We know that the wamists, led by the IPCC, will twist the data to show that their previous estimates are on track and completely valid. Whether this makes scientific sense will be ignored.
Eventually, the hard measured data will tell us what is actually happening. I suspect the pause in global warming could increase from the current 17 years at a rate greater that 1 year per year. If the current trend toward lower temperatures persists, then previous years will become part of the standstill. When people make the sort of predictions that the warmists have made, then future data, over which they have limited control, acts like a Sword of Damacles; the predictors are hostage to future data.
The same is true for the predicitons based on the idea that CAGW is real. For example, if Arctic sea ice were to make a complete recovery to 1979 levels, it could be difficult for the warmists to spin this to their advantage.
One thing I have mentioned before several times. The weakness of the AR5 will not be on the question as to whether CAGW is real or not. The IPCC will ensure that the conclusions with respect to CAGW are restated in similar terms that have been used before. The weakness will be in the certainty with which the conclusions of previous SPMs were made. The data presented by our hostess will not undermine the warmists conclusion that CAGW is real. But it just might completely undermine the certainty of previous IPCC conclusions.
”
We know that the wamists, led by the IPCC, will twist the data to show that their previous estimates are on track and completely valid.
”
”
The weakness of the AR5 will not be on the question as to whether CAGW is real or not. The IPCC will ensure that the conclusions with respect to CAGW are restated in similar terms that have been used before.
”
”
The data presented by our hostess will not undermine the warmists conclusion that CAGW is real.
”
Jim Cripwell – the world’s leading expert in climate science pre-crime.
The IPCC is far more predictable than either climate or climate science. Advocacy is constant.
”
The IPCC is far more predictable than either climate or climate science. Advocacy is constant.
”
That is an completely unpredictable comment coming from David Wojick, amateur climate scientist and advocacy expert.
Wojick and Cripwell both hit by Heinrich events.
Abandon ship.
Agree Jim, I say flat linear ~30-year trend by ~2020.
”
I suspect the pause in global warming could increase from the current 17 years at a rate greater that 1 year per year.
”
That would be very impressive.
According to the current “warmist” understanding of time, backwards-propagating pauses in global warming are even more improbable than forward-propagating ones!
We could soon see the pause in global warming extending all the way back to the Cambrian era.
And you thought climate scientists could do amazing things with data!
It’s cosmic rays – Right?
heinrich, it’s global multidecadal oscillation (GMO).
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/esrl-amo/plot/esrl-amo/trend/plot/hadcrut4gl/detrend:0.76/plot/hadcrut4gl/detrend:0.76/trend
Edim –
Nice graph, to be sure.
But I’m even more impressed at your implication that the GMO can reach into the past and extend the “pause” in global warming back into recorded history, a la Cripwell.
I want some of what you and Jim are smoking.
heinrich, my implication (one of them) is that science should be consistent and logical.
“The AMO signal is usually defined from the patterns of SST variability in the North Atlantic once any linear trend has been removed. This detrending is intended to remove the influence of greenhouse gas-induced global warming from the analysis. However, if the global warming signal is significantly non-linear in time (i.e. not just a smooth linear increase), variations in the forced signal will leak into the AMO definition.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_multidecadal_oscillation
I would add that the postulated AGW got significant after ~1950. Before that basically zero.
By the same logic we can take any global/regional/land/sea… temperature index, detrend it, and call it whatever multidecadal oscillation. So I defined Global Multidecadal Oscillation.
no heinrich it would be simple math. Jim is predicting that in a year
the world will have cooled so much that the pause will go back more than 18 years. Just a consequence of math. not a time machine. Will it happen? I dunno. could it happen? sure. drop the temps enough and the pause will increase from 17 years as of now to something greater than 18 years in a year.
Its just a queer way of saying “i expect a lot of cooling”. Is that likely?
hard to say. But I would not say that cooling is impossible. would you?
”
By the same logic we can take any global/regional/land/sea… temperature index, detrend it, and call it whatever multidecadal oscillation. So I defined Global Multidecadal Oscillation.
”
Sure.
And you can define the orbits of the planets as circles and epicycles and call that astronomy.
All you would be missing is the physics.
There is a name for this curve-fitting approach: mathturbation.
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2011/02/26/mathturbation/
Not everything is an oscillation. Since, as you point out, most of the GHG forcing is post-1950 – frequency analysis is a BAD way to disentangle multiple effects – most of the relevant signal is at one end of the time series.
heinrich, ok then. That’s my point – it should be consistent and logical, now it’s not even wrong. AMO is, according to you, mathturbation.
heinrich, from your link:
“In fact it’s astounding how much known physics has to be ignored. Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, that’s no longer a matter of opinion. Sulphate aerosols cool the planet, we’ve seen it happen (from both factory emissions and volcanic eruptions), and we can model it with impressive accuracy. Solar changes have had a modest impact, and no recent trend, because solar changes have been modest, with no recent trend. And yes, Virginia, feedbacks really exist, like water-vapor feedback which is every bit as undeniable as CO2, while a notable increase in water vapor content has been observed.”
No comment.
Mosher:
”
…drop the temps enough and the pause will increase from 17 years as of now to something greater than 18 years in a year.
”
17 years? I thought 1998 was the cherry-pick start-date of choice.
Perhaps I am missing some ‘skeptical’ meme here – but how would a future drop in temperatures have any affect on the past temperature record? How much of a drop would be “enough” to do this? Would years’ worth of positive temp anomalies simply go away if we have a really cold March? Would the temporal speed of this backwards influence be limited by physics in any way?
Ref to
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs_v3/Fig.A2.gif
Lotsa interesting “pauses” superposed on a long-term trend.
See the trees – see the forest.
”
Its just a queer way of saying “i expect a lot of cooling”. Is that likely?
hard to say. But I would not say that cooling is impossible. would you?
”
Not impossible.
But – If you “expect” something usually you are referring to the future.
heinrich, if the cooling really starts, we will be able to cherry-pick earlier and earlier start-dates to get flat trends.
”
AMO is, according to you, mathturbation.
”
That is not what I said. Please read for comprehension.
My point was that parsing the temp record into oscillations is folly, unless there is a physical basis for the cyclical behavior – especially if your objective is to determine superposed secular changes – especially, especially if the secular changes occur at one end of the time-series data.
That is all.
”
heinrich, if the cooling really starts, we will be able to cherry-pick earlier and earlier start-dates to get flat trends.
”
Why wait for cooling to cherry-pick?
Since the Earth condensed out of a proto-planetary nebula about 4.5 Gy ago there has very certainly been a long-term cooling trend.
See how easy that is?
heinrich, to have longer trends with no warming.
”
to have longer trends with no warming.
”
You know what you want. That’s handy.
Now all you need is for the temperature data to cooperate with your plan.
heinrich.
You still dont get it.
1. I am not a skeptic.
2. The 17 years is a cherry pick
3. You’ve missed Jim’s prediction,
So, math test for you.
right now the “pause” is 17 years or so. It doesnt mean anything, but there you have it. It wont be long and the warming will return. That is not the point. your stuck on stupid.
Now, drop the temperature of the earth 30 C the next year.
Get that?
Now, calculate the pause. you know how.
Wow, in one year the pause goes from 17 years to bunches of years.
So, when Jim says the pause will increase by more than one year per year he is talking about that effect. its a stupid pet trick to be sure. but your inability to understand the math, is retarded.
You’ll go away now.
heinrich
“But – If you “expect” something usually you are referring to the future.”
I expect you were dropped on your head.
see easy. don’t be a tool.
heinrich
I’ve got an even sillier suggestion (one that Mosh will also like, because the models say so):
Duh!
Max
PS How ’bout we just agree we (including Mosh) don’t have any Earthly notion of what has caused the recent warming or current lack thereof? (Seems like the most logical solution.)
heinrich
Listen to what Mosh and Jim Cripwell are telling you.
If it continues not to warm, the period of “no warming” will not only extend beyond today, but will also extend into earlier years.
Let me ‘splain.
Using HadCRUT3 we have had no warming (= very slight cooling) since January 1998 or for 15 years.
The average monthly temperature anomaly over the past 5-year period (2008-2012) was 0.398C.
If the next 4 years (2013 through 2016) continue at this same anomaly, we will have had no warming since January 1997, or for 20 years.
So we would have added four years in the future and one year in the past.
Max
“Using HadCRUT3 we have had no warming (= very slight cooling) since January 1998 or for 15 years.”
HadCRUT3 is now depreciated.
I hate when guys on my side are stupidier than the lamest skeptic.
Sheesh, heinrich, hit the showers.
@Manaker:
PS How ’bout we just agree we (including Mosh) don’t have any Earthly notion of what has caused the recent warming or current lack thereof? (Seems like the most logical solution.)
##############################
I would rarely make any kind of gross skeptical claim like that.
Let’s stipulate that there has been a pause.. go figure.
What “caused” the pause. There are only a few options.
1. Changes in inputs ( solar )
2. Changes in other forcings
3. Internal unforced variation.
4. Some combination of the three.
So, we have earthly and solar ideas of what could cause it. The issue is parcelling out the blame. With 15 years or so of data, you can start by eliminating things. Like, hey there was no volcano. Changes in TSI?
hmm not so much to look at there, maybe a little. Some other solar forcing? hmm good place to speculate. Changes in other forcings.. make a list and start going down the list. #3 the catch all explanation.
Chances are one would need a few more pauses like this to start to understand how to untangle them exactly.
The “recent” warming? If you mean the warming since 1750, that is entirely consistent with known radiative physics. More GHGs = warmer not cooler. Predicted over a hundred years ago before Al Gore or Jim Hansen. Does that prove that C02 dunnit? dont be silly, science isnt proof. Science is the best explanation. And the best explanation for 250 years of warming is GHGs. That doesnt mean the natural wiggles vanish. duh. and bigger natural wiggles doesnt mean that C02 cant warm. the two are orthogonal.
Heinrich – You seem to be arguing that a non-warming period can’t be extended by more than one year each year.
Actually, it can, and the maths is quite straightforwrd. But it may be easier just to see it in practice:
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1910/to:1955/every/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1935/to:1948/trend/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1934/to:1949/trend
In 1948, there had been no warming since 1935, ie. for 13 years.
But in 1949, there had be no warming since 1934, ie. for 15 years (it actually cooled a bit).
So in just one year, two years were added to the non-warming period.
Mosher
Either forced or Internal unforced variation by chance are an inverse posed problem this also argues for a more constraining Null eg Ghil 2001.
The global temperature increase through the 1990s is certainly
rather unusual in terms of the instrumental record of the last 150 years or so. It does not correspond, however, to
a rapidly accelerating increase in greenhouse-gas emissions
or a substantial drop in aerosol emissions. How statistically
significant is, therefore, this temperature rise, if the null hypothesis
is not a random coincidence of small, stochastic excursions
of global temperatures with all, or nearly all, the
same sign?
The presence of internally arising regularities in the climate
system with periods of years and decades suggests the
need for a different null hypothesis. Essentially, one needs
to show that the behaviour of the climatic signal is distinct
from that generated by natural climate variability in the past,
when human effects were negligible, at least on the global
scale. As discussed in Sects. 2.1 and 3.3, this natural variability
includes interannual and interdecadal cycles, as well
as the broadband component. These cycles are far from being
purely periodic. Still, they include much more persistent
excursions of one sign, whether positive or negative in global
or hemispheric temperatures, say, than does red noise.
Steven Mosher
You say we “know” the current lack of warming (i.e. slight cooling) was caused by
Your logic is impeccable, Mosh.
Problem is, we are unable to figure out which of the above and to what extent.
In addition, “other forcings” might include things we haven’t even yet considered in the models, such as natural forcings by clouds with some as yet undefined solar mechanism (cosmic rays?), solar forcing of ocean current oscillations, longer-term cyclical variability, etc.. The distinction between “internal unforced variation” and “natural forcing” is a theoretical one, which doesn’t make much difference in actual fact. And the “combination” is the best of all.
Conclusion: we (think we) can name (some of) the things that (might have) caused the past slight cooling despite unabated human GHG emissions, but in actual fact, we have no Earthly notion what caused this lack of warming or how long it will last.
Right?
Max
moshe, if GHGs caused all the warming for the last 250 years, where would be without that warming?
Now I know you’re not certain that GHGs caused all that, that they are merely an ‘explanation’ among many, but think what you are saying when blaming man for the temperature rise out of the Little Ice Age. Wouldn’t you say praise instead of blame should accrue to man?
This whole debate has been backwards from the gitgo.
===========
@Mosher
Another few years like the last few years and the pause will stretch back 11,500 years to the the beginning of the interglacial. Warmists are clutching at what might well turn out to be just one little 25 year upward wiggle from about 1972 to 1998 out of many millenia. Almost literally clutching at empirical straws and broken climate models. Are we having fun yet? I sure am. LOL
Here’s moshe’s problem. If GHGs are responsible for all the warming of the last 250 years, where would we be without it? We would be just as cold as then. And if it were now as cold as then, then it would mean that the regular Holocenic alteration between climate optima and minima would have halted, at a minimum. And I don’t have to get explicit for people here to understand what that halt would suggest.
=====================
Mananker. My logic is always impeccable. Yours? not so much.
I’ll say it again. You are overstating the ratio of our ignorance to our knowledge for theatrical effect. not a good thing.
In an Oscar winning performance, the aerosol control knob plays the Deus ex Machina.
===============
moshe, what would that halt in the natural variability of the Holocene mean? Be as explicit as you wish.
===============
Mosher:
”
I hate when guys on my side are stupidier than the lamest skeptic.
Sheesh, heinrich, hit the showers.
”
“Stupidier” – heh.
Anyway – I get it now, I think.
Let’s see…
Look at a global temp versus time plot.
Pick any year (or decade or month) and note the global average temperature.
Pick another year (decade, month) when the global average temperature is roughly the same.
Connect the two data with a line – and voila! A pause.
If you want a longer pause – just look for a any pair of wiggles that go to roughly the same temperature – connect with a line.
Clearly, it doesn’t matter at all if the intervening ‘pause’ is completely comprised of positive anomalies. Or negative anomalies. You can throw away all that intervening data – doesn’t matter to the math of the ‘pause’.
It’s at 0 C today – and let’s say it will be the same temperature on October first. So – there is a ‘pause’ in warming during the summer months – even though the intervening temps are almost all higher than 0 C.
So – if for some reason, global mean temps should return – of only for an instant – to the temps of the LIA, then we can claim there has been a ‘pause’ ever since then. That about right?
No Heinrich you still dont get it. First things first. I dont agree with a single thing Cripwell says, however, I do understand what he is saying.
You on the other hand don’t understand what he is saying. It’s far more powerful to understand your opponent fairly and engage his actual point, rather than creating a false picture of what he is saying.
Attacking strawmen is their game. Up yours. game that is.
”
No Heinrich you still dont get it. First things first. I dont agree with a single thing Cripwell says, however, I do understand what he is saying.
You on the other hand don’t understand what he is saying. It’s far more powerful to understand your opponent fairly and engage his actual point, rather than creating a false picture of what he is saying.
Attacking strawmen is their game. Up yours. game that is.
”
Nice. I don’t “get it” and I’m stupid.
Look – I’m glad you understand what Cripwell is saying enough to disagree with it.
Apparently, my math skillz are not up to your level, much less Cripwell’s.
These ‘pauses’ are very complicated. But I am trying.
Indulge me.
If you would care to illuminate the stupidity in my previous post – I’d be grateful.
http://judithcurry.com/2013/02/22/spinning-the-climate-model-observation-comparison/#comment-298510
What part of “a ‘pause’ consists in any interval of time between two equal temperatures” is wrong?
What difference does any of the data between the chosen end-points make – if any?
Mosh
One can discuss how much we know about what makes our climate behave vs. how much we do not yet know.
You seem to believe that we know “most” of the answers.
I personally think we do not know “most” of the answers.
Which of us is right?
No one can really answer this question, but maybe our hostess has an opinion.
Max
Heinrich,
I’m wondering simply, in your view, is there any observational data that would make you concede that models are flawed. It seems to me you are quite certain in your assessment. How certain?
From my perspective, the only real question is whether drastic action needs to be taken immediately to prevent the threat of global warming. The only reason to do that is on account of lives and livelihood. How far are you willing to go?
Would you be willing to invade China and India to prevent it and dominate them to reduce C02? How many lives are you willing to sacrifice due to your certainty?
Is Nuclear a worse alternative to coal plants, and if so why? What number of lives/livelihood would change your viewpoint?
”
I’m wondering simply, in your view, is there any observational data that would make you concede that models are flawed. It seems to me you are quite certain in your assessment. How certain?
”
All models are flawed by some measures. Newton’s law of gravitation has been falsified – but it is still a very useful approximation. Climate models are hypothetical approximations – and in that sense they are no different from any other scientific models.
Do they work?
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/GCM.htm
”
From my perspective, the only real question is whether drastic action needs to be taken immediately to prevent the threat of global warming. The only reason to do that is on account of lives and livelihood. How far are you willing to go?
Would you be willing to invade China and India to prevent it and dominate them to reduce C02? How many lives are you willing to sacrifice due to your certainty?
”
False dilemma.
Reducing CO2 emissions doesn’t equal killing people.
On the contrary.
FYI:
China is planning to enact a carbon tax.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/china/2013-02/19/c_132178898.htm
China has already committed to never reach the per-capita emissions of the US.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15444858
India has made an even stronger commitment – their emissions will at no time exceed the average of the per capita emissions of developed, industrialized countries.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/indian-climate-treaty-negotiator-we-have-accepted-a-limit-on-our-emissions-a-590964.html
@heinrich
Newton’s law of gravitation has not been falsified. It was subsumed by general relativity. In other words it was incomplete. General relativity itself is incomplete and must be subsumed by a quantum law of gravity which has yet to be successfully formulated. That does not equate to being falsified. Both Newton and Einstein’s description of gravity remain the law within certain limits.
Springer:
”
Newton’s law of gravitation has not been falsified. It was subsumed by general relativity. In other words it was incomplete.
”
Fail. Sorry. Newton’s law of gravitation is measurably false. If you have ever used a GPS device, you have, in effect, proven that Einstein was right.
The older theory is not “fixed-up” by merely ‘adding’ something that Isaac didn’t put in. Relativity involves the introduction of space-time. The very definitions of space and time are incommensurate between the two theories, as are the operational definitions of mass and momentum.
In one theory there are ‘forces’ acting instantaneously in Euclidian space – in the other, no forces, only the geometry of space-time.
But – You can believe they are ‘both right’ if you like.
Yes Jim, I agree that future data is the Sword of Damacles.
At some point the “adjustments” to the past will become incredible – “the 1930s were the coldest decade it the last millenium”
I make the argument that the ‘stall’ in warming will last another 10-15 years here: http://thelukewarmersway.wordpress.com/2013/02/19/the-next-60-years-of-lukewarming/
Similar stalls in temperature records have occurred in the past century–why would this one be different?
because CO2
lolwot
TWF2: Similar stalls in temperature records have occurred in the past century–why would this one be different?
lolwot: because CO2
CO2 has not prevented the current “stall” from occurring.
Why would CO2 make it impossible for the current “stall” to continue for another 10-15 years as TWF2 suggests?
Logic?
Max
@Jim Cripwell:
“……….; the predictors are hostage to future data.”
Don’t forget Jim, the predictors are also the collectors, adjusters, publishers, and interpreters of the data.
In other words, no matter what the actual thermometers say, anthropogenic CO2 is causing the Earth to warm at an unprecedented rate and the consequences will be catastrophic if governments do not take control of all energy production and consumption in order to drastically reduce or eliminate it.
If, as seems likely now (see recent statements by Obama and Kerry), the government actually DOES proceed with drastic, mandatory CO2 reduction, within a year or so of the event the predictors, collectors, adjusters, publishers, and interpreters of the data will be happy to report that the efforts were successful–just in the nick of time–and that thanks to the courageous actions of the government in taking control, AGW no longer poses an existential threat to the biosphere at large or to humans specifically. And won’t as long as the government is ‘in command’.
But there will be this OTHER problem that DOES pose an existential threat, which can only be ameliorated if government assumes absolute power over every activity related to IT. Immediately.
If Arctic sea ice makes a complete recovery to 1979 levels including sea ice volume as well as extent, I’ll admit CAGW is nothing to be concerned about, I have been totally wrong and I will STFU, (after spamming that I was wrong a bit).
On the other hand, what will skeptics admit if Arctic sea Ice make new records this melt season (volume and extent)?
I think this season is the one the Beaufort Gyre really speeds up and decimates teh little remaining sea ice.
Bob, you write “On the other hand, what will skeptics admit if Arctic sea Ice make new records this melt season (volume and extent)?“
So far as I am concerned, Arctic sea ice extent is a regional effect. The global effect is total sea ice extent; Arctic plus Antarctic. This measure has decreased slightly in recent years, but is currently around the average for, I believe, 1979 to 2000. So until total sea ice extent has a substantial decrease, I dont think it tells us anything about any global effect of warming.
However, the warmists have nailed their colors to the mast of only Arctic sea ice extent. That is the difference.
Bob, I will call it normal, natural climate variation as there is ample evidence that the arctic has been free of ice before. That you would read anything from such a short period is very telling in my opinion.
Jim,
Unfortunately, the sea ice extent of the northern and southern polar regions are not linked by any mechanism. If the Arctic sea ice extent is regional, so what, it affects the global energy balance in that areas of high albedo are being replaced by areas of low albedo, which is also a positive feedback.
The “warmists” pretty much have an explanation for the trend in Antarctic sea ice, perhaps you have heard of it?
K Scott,
When again was the Arctic ice free again?
I am a bluenose, so don’t refer to any pictures of submarines, been there done that.
Last time it was ice free, about 8K years ago, give or take, sea levels were several meters higher.
There is a poor understanding of the antarctic sea ice expansion,O3 is not a get out of jail card as the models have initialization problems eg Zunz
http://www.the-cryosphere-discuss.net/6/3539/2012/tcd-6-3539-2012.html
Bob, you write“The “warmists” pretty much have an explanation for the trend in Antarctic sea ice, perhaps you have heard of it?“
Yes I have heard of it. In fact the warmists have an explanation for anything that is inconvenient. There is a pal reviewed publication in the literature that `proves` whatever the warmists want it to prove. Then they block the publishing of anything that contradicts their ideas. Look that happened to Livingston and Penn, Roy Spencer, and Anastassia Makerieva. So I take little notice of such publications.
Just saying that the Arctic and Antarctic are not linked does not make it so. There is a perfectly plausible hypothesis that they are linked by clouds. Maybe you have heard of it. It has to do with the albedo of clouds being higher than the surface for all regions of the earth, EXCEPT Antarctica.
So I will stick to my beliefs, and take notice of what is happening in the Arctic and Antarctic. I am an atheist, but in this instance, I will pray to all the Gods that there are that Arctic sea ice extent will recover very rapidly
Bob, at the NSIDC site you will find the following:
“We know for sure that at least in the distant past, the Arctic was ice-free. Fossils from the age of the dinosaurs, 65 million years ago, indicate a temperate climate with ferns and other lush vegetation.
Based on the paleoclimate record from ice and ocean cores, the last warm period in the Arctic peaked about 8,000 years ago, during the so-called
Holocene Thermal Maximum. Some studies suggest that as recent as 5,500 years ago, the Arctic had less summertime sea ice than today. However, it is not clear that the Arctic was completely free of summertime sea ice during this time.”
Translation: the Arctic has been ice free and it might have been as recently as 8,000 years ago, and had less ices than now as recently as 5,500 years ago.
When one only has DIRECT, OBSERVATIONAL data for < 40 years, it's hard to claim that an ice-free Arctic is unusual.
How could clouds in Antarctica consistently operate to increase sea ice in regions with strong winds blowing offshore, and decrease sea ice in areas that do not have strong winds blowing offshore?
Popular alarm about human CO2 provides no gauge for determining the relative importance of things in ways normal people can readily appreciate. Climate change has become a manner of communication that is not so much calculated to provide meaningful information as it is to purposefully distract attention from a sleight of hand going on somewhere else. There’s a built-in basic inner dishonesty about global warming true believers’ true motives that amazingly they also seem to believe think they are hiding.
This is what makes Joshua so amusing.
==============
The divergence will increase, the 30-year trend started decreasing in ~2004.
http://img690.imageshack.us/img690/5111/30yeartrends.jpg
This is a good point that is often unappreciated. If you are using moving window averages and data through the length of the windows is average to lower than average, then you are looking at at least a time period of half the window size before the trend will move back up again.
Some have used this to their advantage as the moving window average continued to increase through the recent plateau due to the old data inside the window (“global warming is still happening!).
Well you have to pay the piper and the averages have a built in plateau coming up that is largely unavoidable.
What to do? Well the politically motivated science discussion will the move the goal posts. A new method to show long term averages effectively weighting new data higher will be created, or we will see an attempt to standardize “corrected” temperature graphs such as the recent ENSO subtraction work over at RC.
Watching this play out is how those with less than honest science intentions will reveal themselves.
A plateau on that graph means continued warming. The y-axis is trend, not temperature. If it levels out at 0.16C/decade, that isn’t going to mean warming stops.
lolwot
ENSO’s another “slippery slope” for the CAGW aficionados.
The shift from warming El Niño to cooling La Niña is now being blamed for the lack of warming despite unabated human GHG emissions and concentrations reaching record levels.
But the fact that the 1980s/1990s had several major warming El Niños (including the one that led to the all-time warmest year, 1998) was never played up at the time – despite the fact that NASA data showed that close to 40% of the warming over those decades can be attributed directly to the strong El Niños back then.
Strange, right?
Max
lolwot
In case you’re interested, here’s the link to that NCDC (not NASA) data on ENSO
http://lwf.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/1998/enso/10elnino.html
Max
“The shift from warming El Niño to cooling La Niña is now being blamed for the lack of warming…..But the fact that the 1980s/1990s had several major warming El Niños (including the one that led to the all-time warmest year, 1998) was never played up at the time ”
This doesn’t address the argument we are making.
The first sentence is right. The second is not. Because we aren’t saying El Ninos create warming. If we had El Nino after El nino for 30 years that wouldn’t produce a warming trend. It would be as warm at the end as at the start. Flat trend. To create a warming trend you need an increase in ENSO. Eg a shift from La Nina to El Nino. Or a period of lots of La Ninas followed by lots of El Ninos. But the longer the period, the more they will average out and the trend will move towards zero.
ENSO adjusted records show little contribution from ENSO over the 1980s and 1990s. FR11 even find a slight cooling from ENSO since 1979, because MEI trends slightly negative since 1979.
However the period 2002-2007 had a number of El Ninos and then what followed were a number of La Ninas. Over such a short time period that’s enough to have a significant cooling effect compared to the expected warming over such a short period.
The bottom line is that over a long period the GHG warming grows, but the ENSO influence shrinks. That is precisely why the 80s and 90s are irrelevant in terms of ENSO but post-2002 is not.
ENSO in the top panel. Over the whole period it clearly trends very flat. Since 2002 there is a decline.
lolwot
Duh!
Of course the 30-year trend today is still positive.
It includes the past 12 years or so of slight cooling and the previous 18 years of rapid warming.
But, as you see, it is decreasing as more current years of cooling are added and older years of warming are removed from the 30-year average.
Got it?
Max
“as more current years of cooling are added and older years of warming are removed ”
It doesn’t work like that. For example, The data 30 years ago is currently above the 30 year trend-line. Which means removing that data will increase, not decrease the trend
lolwot, about a week ago we gave you an assignment. And that was to repeat to yourself a 1000 times, ” There has been no warming for the past 16 (now 17) years”. Now, do your homework I go to bed early.
lolwot, you write “It doesn’t work like that. ”
Garbage, or rather irrelevant. The 30 year data is BELOW the flat, no warming line, so it DOES work like that.
Jim, The 30 year data is not below the flat line, it’s both above and below it.
Bob, your claim that “There has been no warming for the past 16 (now 17) years” is wrong.
Here’s the positive, warming, OLS trend on woodfortrees over the last 17 years
The uncertainty is 0.09C+-0.12C/decade at 95% confidence.
That’s not “no warming”. “No warming” would have to be something where the whole 95% uncertainty range was below 0C/decade. But in this case even the midpoint is above 0C/decade!
lolwot you write “Jim, The 30 year data is not below the flat line, it’s both above and below it.”
Garbage. You have shown a graph from about 1982, from which date the temperature had not flatlined. Show the graph from 1995, when temperatures started to flatline.
Jim, you should really take a look at the data in more detail some time, you are ascribing to it properties that simply do not exist.
For example here I plot the pre-1995 warming trend you admit exists and then add a flat line you claim the data after 1995 follows.
I really fail to see how you can think temperature rose before 1995 and then flat-lined. The data is pretty clear that the warming trend continued well past 1995. It must have done because the data is much higher now.
lolwot, hadcrut4 20 years of no significant warming by 2015? what do you think?
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1980/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1993/trend/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1991/to:2011/trend/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1989/to:2009/trend/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1987/to:2007/trend/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1985/to:2005/trend
Bear in mind the 95% uncertainty range shrinks with a longer period and that claims no statistically significant warming since X are relying on wide 95% uncertainty ranges.
For example hadcrut4 shows 0.095C+-0.11C/decade warming since 1995.
With 2 more years data the +- might shrink to the point that the range is entirely above zero, irrespective of whether the mean value falls.
Eg in 2015 it might show 0.09C+-0.08C/decade.
UAH is closest to GISS, and GISS is closest to what is actually happening on a planet called earth.
So for the shorties, it’s already going the other way.
‘After reviewing evidence in both the latest global data (HadCRUT4) and the longest instrumental record, Central England Temperature, a revised picture is emerging that gives a consistent attribution for each multidecadal episode of warming and cooling in recent history, and suggests that the anthropogenic global warming trends might have been overestimated by a factor of two in the second half of the 20th century.’
By at least 2. What’s really happening is something else entirely. Including no warming for a decade or so at least.
How can anyone take Gavin seriously?
Sorry, meant to say how can anyone take Gavin seriously when the RealClimate graph has error bars which stretch to nearly a degree, and we’re talking about movements of 0.1, 0.2 degrees? It’s a shame the inventor of etch-a-sketch has left us – he and Gavin could compare notes.
Even economists now use graphs more like Hawkin’s, shading the likeliest and less probable outcomes. From his graph, reality is threatening to breach even the lowest 95% bar.
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/pip/2012JD017607.shtml
Driscoll et al (2012)
“Coupled Model Intercomparison Project 5 (CMIP5) simulations of climate following volcanic eruptions”
Says that CMIP5 models do not correctly simulate climate response to volcanic forcing.
At Berkeley we have seen that going back to 1750. They get the response and recovery wrong in the same characteristic fashion through time. The look to over estimate the cooling and underestimate the recovery, and the recovery happens too fast. hmm
The obvious analysis shows the observations are running lower than the projected trend.
Now why this is so excruciatingly difficult for a climate scientist to say out loud speaks volumes for how politicized the debate has become, even inside the ivory tower.
The response is usually is just to pretend the data doesn’t exist, or move immediately to OHC or ENSO or short term fluctuations, etc. We are now treated with ENSO “corrected” temperature trends over at RC. Where were these 20 years ago?
I totally expect AR5 to brush over this, and not even mention it in the summary for policy makers. I have low expectations at this point. Introspection is non-existent in climate science, and the political pressure to keep the alarm ringing is immense.
These projections were used to sound the alarm on global warming, and honest science says the assumptions should be revisited when observations don’t match theory.
The trends may jump back up, or they may not, but anyone versed in data processing can assess the performance so far. Nobody in climate modeling is re-assessing climate sensitivity in their models? Nobody?
You wrote: These projections were used to sound the alarm on global warming, and honest science says the assumptions should be revisited when observations don’t match theory.
I agree. We need to try a new theory. Actually this is an old theory. Ewing and Donn came up with this in the 1950’s.
Albedo of Earth is higher during cold periods and lower during warm periods. Albedo was low during the Medieval Warm period and it snowed and then ice advanced and pushed earth into the little ice age. The oceans got cold and the snowfall slowed down and ice retreated and pushed earth into the current warm period. Oceans are warm now and the snow has started that will push us into the next little cold period.
Climate scientists make earth warmer and then take away ice. Climate scientists make the earth colder and then add ice.
That is backwards. Earth adds ice and uses that to make earth colder. Earth removes ice and uses that to make earth warmer.
The data clearly shows that snow accumulation is higher when oceans are warm and is lower when oceans are cold.
This keeps the temperature of earth bounded.
Climate models need to properly use snowfall and albedo.
Tom Scarf,
Is that true? If so, two on Earth are they getting away with it? What is the orthodoxy’s argument for why they are not updating their estimates of climate sensitivity?
On a related matter, what are the climate scientist insiders, orthodoxy and IPCC lead and coordinating authors saying about any adjustments to climate sensitivity, especially given the criticisms of people like Nic Lewis? (By the way I am familiar with the the draft AR5 charts of climate sensitivity so no need to point me to that).
They are re-examing their models. They have to. But this takes a few years. Even if the old guard does not do this as completely or as quickly as some feel they should, other modelers (like younger ones making a name for themselves) will do it. And they have to pay attention to reality. They are scientists first (even if they seem to have forgotten that for a few years) and want to get it right. But the main reason they are and will continue to acknowledge the flaws in the models is that the climate is not changing as fast as predicted and if they stick to their old predictions and catastrophes, they will be ridiculed and lose all credibility. If the climate continues in the current direction or if it cools a tenth of a degree, they must change the theory and models to match reality. This is the way science works, even if it sometimes takes awhile.
Bill,
Thank you for your reply. I wonder if you can answer this question I put to Nic Lewis on Bishop Hill (his reply did not really answer my question and then comments were closed before I could ask fro clarification):
http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2013/1/12/lewis-on-schmidt-on-climate-sensitivity.html?currentPage=2
What strikes me is that all these diagrams is that they all have a start point which is very low rising till it finally starts to plateaus out some 16years ago. If you went further back into the thirties where the temperatures were higher, would you find an oscillating high low of +/- 0.5 degC every thirty years or so
I linked this on the open thread but I’ll link again since it seems to be on topic.
http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/8/1/014024/pdf/1748-9326_8_1_014024.pdf
Dr Curry – Lucia has some musings on the CMIP5 projections.
http://rankexploits.com/musings/2012/new-projections/
http://rankexploits.com/musings/2012/things-i-can-see-in-figure-9-8-of-the-ar5-sod/
However, since some aspects of the posts may depend on the AR5 leak, I dunno whether this breaks any rules.
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2012/11/28/1210514109.full.pdf
Santer et al (2012)
“Identifying human influences on atmospheric temperature”
Says that CMIP5 models overestimate warming of the troposphere.
Paul Matthews
You understate Santer’s on overestimated warming. :)
Per Fig. 3, Santer et al. observe:
As David Stockwell summarizes:
If the IPCC’s CIMP5 models so thoroughly fail, why does Obama
How do we restore the scientific method and fact based policies?
http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/8/1/014024/
Stott … and Hawkins (2013) published 3 days ago
“The upper end of climate model temperature projections is inconsistent with past warming”
Says what it says in the title!
Nice paper. thx
This illustrates what has been said before: in order for the difference between the observed and expected trends to be statistically significant at one of the conventional levels, the difference has to persist for a few more years.
If the modelers had any confidence in the mean trend, that is if they really thought of the simulations as a random sample from the true population of possibilities, then they would compute the 95% confidence limits on the mean, rather than the quantiles of the distribution. Those limits are narrower than the grey shaded areas of the fourth figure, more like the dark grey shaded area, and the observed data trend is already outside those limits. Thinking of the data as known and the simulations as a random sample, the mean simulation is statistically significantly different from the actual data at one of the conventional significance levels, i.e. 5%.
Not many people think of the data as fixed and the models as random, but Bayesians do (Kadane, Principles of Uncertainty, CRC Press, 2011; you can download the pdf from Prof. Kadane’s web page at Carnegie-Mellon University.) If you put a prior distribution on the models, say treat them as equally probable, then the posterior distribution is concentrated well below the mean of the simulations.
The models will doubtless be improved to bring them more in line with the observed measurements. Then we’ll have to compare those model outputs to subsequent data.
Matthew – “The models will doubtless be improved to bring them more in line with the observed measurements. Then we’ll have to compare those model outputs to subsequent data.”
Hmm. Doubtless. But that would mean reducing climate sensitivity, so far a no-go area for climate alarmists. The modellers would also have to explain why they keep having to ‘adjust’ their models, which would be embarrassing. I fear we’ll see little in AR5 which reflects real world observations, just the usual excuse that more decades are needed to invalidate them.
cui bono: But that would mean reducing climate sensitivity,
It looks that way now, but we must not underestimate the modelers’ creativity. They can probably create models with high CO2 sensitivity if they find something that counteracted the CO2 effect over the last 15 years: perhaps particulate pollution and aerosols from developing nations like India, China, Brazil, Sudan and many others that have grown economically.
mathew its the aerosol knob.
Aerosol epicycle.
I’ve long had a guilty feeling that welikerocks and some other joker thought up the aerosol epicycle years ago @ The Blackboard. Certainly long before it started appearing in papers.
==================
St ephen Mosher: mathew its the aerosol knob.
Excellent!
yes mathew just plot the sensitivity of the model in question against the assumed level of aerosol forcings. straight line– there abouts as I recall
Edim.
You don’t know how epicycles work. In a theory, so you should probably study the logic of them a bit more.Epicycles come from fitting math functions to observations. Kind of what Scafffeta does. Typically this is done without physical law justification. Its something added just to make the data fit better. basically an explanation that explains nothing.
You can think of skeptical appeals to “natural cycles” epistemically the same thing.
With aerosols you have a different situation. You are not fitting a function. You are changing the value of a parameter.
Lets see If I can give you a good example.
lets suppose you tell me that you weighed yourself 100 times in the last hundred days. At the begining you weighed 200 lbs and today you weigh 195. So I calculate your rate of weigh loss. so 5/100 lbs per day.
makes sense. easy. Then you tell me.
Opps. sometimes I was barefoot and sometimes I wore big hiking boots. Crap. so your shoe weigh was somewhere between 0 lbs and 4 lbs. And then, you tell me that sometime you weighed yourself naked as a jay bird and sometimes fully clothed (3lbs). so, I have another set of uncertainties. And you cant recall whether you were naked and shoeless when you first weighed yourself.
So. one case 200lbs could have actually have been 193+7lbs of crap
and in another case it could be 200 lbs naked as a jaybird. and your recent 195 could be as low as 188 + 7lbs of crap. so you might have gone from 200 to 188.. or 193 to 200.
If I wanted to use an epi cycle I might invent some crazy fuction to fit the observation and ignore the shoe and clothes issue.
Anyway, we have a range of estimates for the excess crap you might have been wearing and we can bound our estimates using that.
basically the same with aerosols. We dont have good measures, BUT we have estimates of the high and low bounds. When folks play with a parameter like this in modelling it is a sensitivity study to unknown parameter values. This is standard GOOD practice. Epicycles are different. epicycles are invoked ah hoc to explain KNOWN DATA that is in conflict with the theory. Typically they are fitting ad hoc function to data. go look at Vuk or scaffeta to get a flavor of what that looks like methodologically.
With aerosols we know the range of historical observations, not the exact amount. You get to play with that knob.
With epicycles you have exact observations that dont fit the theory, so you add more theory.
utterly different process.
Mosh
Either the aerosol knob or the tooth fairy.
Or, hey, maybe it’s one of your unicorns!
Max
Heh, a language lesson for moshe. Epicycles also mean embellishments added to a theory to keep it alive.
===================
Mosher,
AGW theory (CO2 at the center):
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0e/Cassini_apparent.jpg
No AGW theory (Sun at the center):
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/57/Heliocentric.jpg
In the example of the man who weighed himself and lost 5/100 lbs per day it could be that while many things on the list of events are unrelated, still, there may be something that unifies them. That is what the AGW theory is–it is a unifying theory.
Using the example, the man sometimes wore shoes and sometimes didn’t. Sometimes the man didn’t even take time to put on clothes. The reason is sometimes the man had to take a piss. That unifies everything. So, by analogy, CO2 is like a man having to take a piss real bad.
No kim, epicycles have a logical structure in relationship to the underlying theory. They are theory alterations employed to preserve observations.
retrograde motion was observed. To keep the model intact other theoretical entities are posited. In the case of aerosols NO additional theoretical entity is posited. There is no Unicorn created. The difference is between a fuzzy observation and a non fuzzy observation.
Put another way; An epicycle would ADD A KNOB. The aerosol knob already exists. We know they play a role. How much? turn the knob to find out. Let me put it yet another way:
Epicycles are about ontology.
Knob tuning is about epsitemology.
Epicycles make new things. ( oh maybe the sun has something we dont know about) Knob tuning adjusts the weight of things we know exist.
Huge difference.
moshe, you are mathematically correct, and I am linguistically correct.
============
Mosher, educate yourself:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epicycle
Epicycles are ‘older’ than the Ptolemaic system. Aerosol explanation is a perfect example of epicycles, but if you don’t like it, how about ad hoc hypothesis?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hoc#Ad_hoc_hypothesis
Nobody mistook Edim’s powerful allusion, except one with a technical objection.
================
Kim, JC had a post called cyclomania. I think it’s time for a post with a title Epicyclomania.
http://judithcurry.com/2011/07/27/cyclomania/#comment-90802
Edim, moshe might find the ‘Slang for Bad Science’ section in your first link instructive. I certainly did.
=====================
Roy Spencer Feb. 21, 2013 posts:
Tropical SSTs Since 1998: Latest Climate Models Warm 3X Too fast
See especially Fig Climate Models Warm the Tropics 3X Too Fast during 1998 through 2012
I agree with the natural-variation proponents who say that the solar slump and PDO have temporarily slowed global warming. Natural variations for sure have a place in this. Many “skeptics” have now implicitly decided these natural cooling factors have no part in the explanation by not mentioning them any more. We need an honest debate that weighs all these effects together.
Jim D
I’d agree with what you just wrote, but would like to add that the “temporary” slowdown in global warming might last over the next twenty years or so, giving us a full 30+ years of slight cooling despite unabated human GHG emissions and their concentrations reaching record levels.
In effect, we see that the models cited by IPCC are programmed to overestimate warming, and hence that any projections of warming based on these models are exaggerated.
This would pretty much mean the end of the CAGW scare as outlined by IPCC in AR4.
The problem is that IPCC will IMO most likely stick to its party line message from AR4 despite the facts on the ground, with the net result that they will have lost all remaining credibility.
Do you think IPCC will face up to the new realities here, or rather that it will stick with the CAGW premise as outlined in AR4?
Max
As you may not know, the models don’t account for the current solar slump or PDO phase in their long-range projections, so this alone is a major factor because between them they could account for about 0.1 degrees in a decade. Unless you know anything I don’t about the solar slump accelerating or the PDO not recovering towards a neutral state, what you wrote about the next couple of decades is not founded on facts.
Jim D
Unlike IPCC (backed by the climate models) I do not make any
predictionsprojections of future temperature.But I simply see that the projections made by the IPCC models have been exaggerated, apparently because of faulty model programming.
This appears to be the result of programming in too high a 2xCO2 climate sensitivity = too high by at least 2x.
Hansen’s model predictions of warming back in 1988 had the same problem = too high by a factor of 2x.
Most recent estimates of 2xCO2 ECS (based largely on the actual past record) also suggest that previous estimates were high by a factor of 2x.
Do you see a pattern here?
(This is NOT a trick question, and it has nothing to do with solar cycle 24, PDO, ENSO, etc. – just about lousy model projections based on lousy assumptions on 2xCO2 CS.)
This tells me that future IPCC model projections are also worthless.
The real question now is whether or not IPCC is going to stick with its hard line on CAGW (as outlined in AR4) or whether it will acknowledge that the facts on the ground suggest a 2xCO2 ECS of around half of previous estimates with corresponding reductions in projections of future GH warming.
This poses a real dilemma for IPCC with no easy choice.
I personally believe that IPCC will stick with its hard-line ECS estimates and future projections, hoping people will not notice that these have failed, in order to keep the CAGW fear mongering factor alive.
I also believe that this course of action will cost IPCC every bit of credibility it still has left today.
It appears that we are witnessing the unraveling of a superbly framed and marketed sales pitch by the facts on the ground.
Max
This is an implicit admission that natural forces are significant drivers of climate. I think many skeptics have been saying this for a long time. It was the other side saying they were insignificant during the recent run up of temperatures a few decades ago.
We are now being effectively told that they have only acted to suppress temperatures recently, and that they have not acted in the other direction to juice up temperatures prior to this.
If you want to have it both ways, you better have compelling evidence to back it up. You don’t have it.
”
This is an implicit admission that natural forces are significant drivers of climate.
”
No credible climate scientists would say otherwise. Significant natural drivers do not preclude significant anthropogenic drivers. Imagine that.
”
I think many skeptics have been saying this for a long time.
”
Maybe – but since they never seem publish the data or the code, it’s hard to know who to pat on the back.
”
We are now being effectively told that they have only acted to suppress temperatures recently, and that they have not acted in the other direction to juice up temperatures prior to this.
”
That’s probably because the real world is not “fair and balanced”.
heinrich
Tom Scharf has brought up a very valid point.
We are asked, on one hand, to swallow the IPCC claim in AR4 that from pre-industrial 1750 to 2005 natural forcing factors only represented around 7% of the total (0.12 W/m^2), with anthropogenic forcing representing 93% (1.6 W/m^2).
Yet, for the most recent 12-15 year period we are being asked to believe that these same natural forcing factors have completely overwhelmed the anthropogenic forcing, which is at its highest rate of increase ever.
This obviously does not make sense.
If natural factors are strong enough to completely overwhelm anthropogenic forcing today, then there is no reason to assume that they were insignificant over the previous 250 years.
Can you try to explain this?
Max
Heinrich,
You drop in with superficial comment indistinguishable from snark. The physical mechanism for warming and cooling is quite evident – http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=8703 – of not quite explicable.
From peer reviewed literature –
‘Using a new measure of coupling strength, this update shows that these climate modes have recently synchronized, with synchronization peaking in the year 2001/02. This synchronization has been followed by an increase in coupling. This suggests that the climate system may well have shifted again, with a consequent break in the global mean temperature trend from the post 1976/77 warming to a new period (indeterminate length) of roughly constant global mean temperature.’
Swanson and Tsonis (2009) – Has the climate recently shifted?
The climate has shifted and the mechanisms seem to include cloud – as seems reasonable given that these are large scale changes in ocean and atmospheric circulation.
‘In summary, although there is independent evidence for decadal changes in TOA radiative fluxes over the last two decades, the evidence is equivocal. Changes in the planetary and tropical TOA radiative fluxes are consistent with independent global ocean heat-storage data, and are expected to be dominated by changes in cloud radiative forcing. To the extent that they are real, they may simply reflect natural low-frequency variability of the climate system.’ IPCC s 3.4.4.1
There is of course low frequency climate variability and ‘if real’ all recent warming was quite natural.
As for the future? It is absurd to think that the 20th century pattern will be repeated endlessly.
‘Figure 12 shows 2000 years of El Nino behaviour simulated by a state-of-the-art climate model forced with present day solar irradiance and greenhouse gas concentrations. The richness of the El Nino behaviour, decade by decade and century by century, testifies to the fundamentally chaotic nature of the system that we are attempting to predict. It challenges the way in which we evaluate models and emphasizes the importance of continuing to focus on observing and understanding processes and phenomena in the climate system. It is also a classic demonstration of the need for ensemble prediction systems on all time scales in order to sample the range of possible outcomes that even the real world could produce. Nothing is certain.’
http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/369/1956/4751.full
Range of variability of the Pacific? Here’s a couple.
http://s1114.photobucket.com/albums/k538/Chief_Hydrologist/?action=view¤t=ENSO11000.gif
http://s1114.photobucket.com/albums/k538/Chief_Hydrologist/?action=view¤t=Vance2012-AntarticaLawDomeicecoresaltcontent.jpg
The world is not warming for a decade or so hence – and warming beyond that is questionable as we pass the threshod of Bond Evet Zero.
So Heinrich – I would suggest that you actually play the game and bring some science to the table or stfu.
Can you try to explain this?
Start here:
http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/ccr/publications/meehl_additivity.pdf
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2013/01/22/1212471110.abstract
Attibution is always the rub.
http://www.image.ucar.edu/idag/Papers/Wong_ERBEreanalysis.pdf
The world is not warming for a decade or so hence at least. You lose.
”
As for the future? It is absurd to think that the 20th century pattern will be repeated endlessly.
”
That’s a relief. I was a bit worried about the 1980s coming back.
”
So Heinrich – I would suggest that you actually play the game and bring some science to the table or stfu.
”
Oh dear me…
It appears I have incurred the wrath of Chief Poseur.
Tell you what – The sandbox is all yours, CP. At least until it isn’t.
Attribution, she’s a bitch;
Don’t know why just scratch that itch.
Puff the Magic CO2
Lived by its radiant tutu,
Nature turned and bit him someplace rich.
===============
Stick around heinrich; you’ve got the whole shebang, yesterday’s science, today’s snark, and tomorrow’s ignorance. Who needs Mulberry Street when you’re on parade?
=============
So – Heinrich – you revert to type without actually saying anything meaningful.
Let me conclude on the evidence that you are a cult of AGW groupthink space cadet.
The world is not warming for a decade or so hence at least. Is that how long I have possesion of the ‘sandbox’? It ain’t a game – but thanks anyway – and you lose.
“We are now being effectively told that they have only acted to suppress temperatures recently, and that they have not acted in the other direction to juice up temperatures prior to this. If you want to have it both ways, you better have compelling evidence to back it up. You don’t have it.”
Yes we do
The data’s there. Why YOU can’t run trends through the solar and ENSO data and spot the sharp decline recently isn’t countered by a sharp rise in the past I don’t know.
‘Unlike El Niño and La Niña, which may occur every 3 to 7 years and last from 6 to 18 months, the PDO can remain in the same phase for 20 to 30 years. The shift in the PDO can have significant implications for global climate, affecting Pacific and Atlantic hurricane activity, droughts and flooding around the Pacific basin, the productivity of marine ecosystems, and global land temperature patterns. This multi-year Pacific Decadal Oscillation ‘cool’ trend can intensify La Niña or diminish El Niño impacts around the Pacific basin,” said Bill Patzert, an oceanographer and climatologist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. “The persistence of this large-scale pattern [in 2008] tells us there is much more than an isolated La Niña occurring in the Pacific Ocean.”
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=8703
The ‘pause’ in global warming – now that you have at long last stopped denying it – it is no accident and is not all that mysterious. It is the result in large part of large scale ocean and atmospheric patterns in the Pacific Ocean known collectively as the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation (IPO). This consists principally of cold water rising or not in the north-east Pacific and changes in the frequency and intensity of El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) events.
The warm and cool modes of the IPO last for 20 to 40 years each. A cool mode sees cold water rising in the north-east Pacific and increased frequency and intensity of La Niña – and the planet cools. A warm mode sees warm water in the north-east Pacific and more frequent and intense El Niño – and the planet warms. The mode shifted from warm to cool after 1998 – so the planet is not warming for a decade or so hence without much doubt.
Beyond that it is not guaranteed ether that the current 1000 year peak in surface temperatures will ratchet up again from this natural variability. Perhaps it will – but the alternate natural warming and cooling we have seen for 150 years means that at most the anthropogenic component of warming is 0.08 degrees C/decade. Nothing that is that is at all alarming.
But most of the ‘recent’ warming happened in 1976/77 and 1998. These are ENSO ‘dragon-kings’ at periods of climate shifts – defined as extremes at a time of chaotic birfurcation.
I quote elsewere an article on non randomised medical studies being wrong 80% of the time. ‘Simply put, if you’re attracted to ideas that have a good chance of being wrong, and if you’re motivated to prove them right, and if you have a little wiggle room in how you assemble the evidence, you’ll probably succeed in proving wrong theories right. ‘
There is much other evidence and relying on a single study is likely to be misleading. But the bottom line is not studies or theories but the reality that the world is not warming – you lose.
heinrich
(This response to your post ended up in the wrong spot, so am re-posting)
The Meehl et al.study you cited states:
Huh? Howdat? (Looks like kind of a forced fit rationalization to me.)
And then there is the unfounded rationalization to cover the 30-year cycle of slight cooling in between with human aerosols.
Gimme a break, heinrich.
This is pretty weak stuff.
Have you got something better or is that all?
Max
As I mentioned, these long-term projections don’t include near-term natural variability like solar and ocean changes that might have an amplitude of 0.1 degrees. The ensemble averages these wiggles out. The fact that we have a PDO minimum and a solar reduction but still have had the warmest decade on record should cause the “skeptics” some pause, but no they happily assume they are right anyway. 0.1 degrees, which is the effect being discussed here, is apparently a big deal to the “skeptics” but in the long-term 2-3 C warming it will matter little.
The direct solar effect is minor and we are at the peak of the cycle again. The ‘projections’ are chaotic and meaningless but some models do have the Schwabe cycle.
The biggest ENSO events have a +/- 0.3 degree effect – but the longer term Interdecadal Pacific Oscillations (IPO)are both varying and indeterminate.
Most climate change seems to be cloud –
http://s1114.photobucket.com/albums/k538/Chief_Hydrologist/?action=view¤t=CERES_MODIS.gif
– http://s1114.photobucket.com/albums/k538/Chief_Hydrologist/?action=view¤t=tropicalcloud.png
The world is not warming for a decade or more hence – you lose.
You can argue that the solar effect is minor with your other “skeptics” who think it is the one big thing. I have an intermediate view of its effect as solar 11-year cycles are seen easily in mean surface temperatures. Also the last decade didn’t include any big El Ninos, so the “skeptics” would be 0 for 3 (solar, PDO, ENSO) in trying to find a natural variation that fits with the warmest-decade info.
I am not a sceptic – but you are a space cadet.
I did say direct solar effect. The top down effects of solar UV/stratospheric ozone interactions may be more significant.
‘The Earth’s climate is driven by the net sunlight deposited in the terrestrial atmosphere, and so, climate is critically sensitive to the solar irradiance and the Earth’s albedo. These two quantities should be linked in any proxy effort to understand the role of a varying Sun in climate change. We need to understand why studies using solar activity as a proxy for net sunlight seem to have real value, even though we know that there are terrestrial imprints of the solar cycle when the implied changes in solar irradiance seem too weak to induce an imprint. These two climate fundamentals appear somehow linked, and it would seem that knowing the relative variations and connectivity of the irradiance and terrestrial reflectance is at the heart of understanding the Sun–Earth connection.’
http://bbso.njit.edu/Research/EarthShine/literature/Goode_Palle_2007_JASTP.pdf
The data is what it is. Marginal warming last decade in SW and very little happening in IR. The increase in SW outweighed the Schwabe cycle decline even at it’s low point. Why should the world cool? Indeed the deep ocean ARGO and CERES data shows remarkable consistency. But it is all tied into these large scale changes in ocean and atmospheric circulation. It is this that is setting the agenda for the next decades.
You talk about these things but never look at the most relevant data. Again – the world is not warming for decades hence. You lose.
http://s1114.photobucket.com/albums/k538/Chief_Hydrologist/?action=view¤t=AdvancesinUnderstandingTop-of-AtmosphereRadiationVariability-Loebetal2011.png
JimD, “You can argue that the solar effect is minor with your other “skeptics” who think it is the one big thing. I have an intermediate view of its effect as solar 11-year cycles are seen easily in mean surface temperatures. Also the last decade didn’t include any big El Ninos, so the “skeptics” would be 0 for 3 (solar, PDO, ENSO) in trying to find a natural variation that fits with the warmest-decade info.”
That has been explained a number of times JimD. The oceans cover ~70% of the surface, store nearly 100% of the energy and are charged by the sun at depths greater than a 10 micron skin layer. You don’t use simple averages on a huge RC circuit with a somewhat sinusoidal power supply and you don’t consider just 2.5% of that heat capacity when looking for a 1% change in a system that receives its energy from the oceans and has only 0.01% of the heat capacity of the oceans. Thar be two greenhouses matey.
Indeed the effects explained by the captains may have mitigated climate change by a whole 0.1 degrees in the last decade, but it didn’t stop it from being the warmest decade somehow. Put this 0.1 degrees in the context of long-term climate change, people.
That’s the trouble Jim – we have. Long term is a little difficult. Obviously short term is as well. Just how much was this greenhouse gas forcing worth? Very little it seems. How much was natural variation and where does this go from a 1000 year high as we cross the threshold of Bond Event Zero? Or even perhaps an abrupt shift in the MOC and sudden cooling into the next glacial in as little as a decade. Very, very difficult to say. Your 0.1 degree C – frankly is something you pulled out of your arse. We have already explained that the whole planet warmed a little in the decade – from cloud – but is not likely to warm much at all over decades more. Data Jim data – the interplay of reflectance and irradiance that explains most climate change. 85 W/m2 change from snowball earth to blue-green planet. It dwarfs these minor changes in CO2. For God’s sake wake up and see which way the wind is blowing.
‘Figure 12 shows 2000 years of El Nino behaviour simulated by a state-of-the-art climate model forced with present day solar irradiance and greenhouse gas concentrations. The richness of the El Nino behaviour, decade by decade and century by century, testifies to the fundamentally chaotic nature of the system that we are attempting to predict. It challenges the way in which we evaluate models and emphasizes the importance of continuing to focus on observing and understanding processes and phenomena in the climate system. It is also a classic demonstration of the need for ensemble prediction systems on all time scales in order to sample the range of possible outcomes that even the real world could produce. Nothing is certain.’ http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/369/1956/4751.full
I have shown you the proxies – the real deal changes even more forcefully then the model.
But the next decade or so are surely not warming. So – again – you lose.
CK, if you think natural variations have cooled the earth by 0.2 degrees, fair enough. That only means the background global warming was even stronger to keep us from actually cooling. Are you even thinking about the numbers and how they add up to a total warming? What help is postponing a stronger warming to you? These variations don’t matter at all in the long term, but it looks like they are giving a false sense of security to those that haven’t noticed what the land and Arctic temperatures are actually doing themselves, and are myopically looking at the global mean (that they didn’t seem to believe until now).
Ready, aim,…..Hey, Don’t Fire!
==============
So we have descended into incoherence – ?????
‘After reviewing evidence in both the latest global data (HadCRUT4) and the longest instrumental record, Central England Temperature, a revised picture is emerging that gives a consistent attribution for each multidecadal episode of warming and cooling in recent history, and suggests that the anthropogenic global warming trends might have been overestimated by a factor of two in the second half of the 20th century.’
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2013/01/22/1212471110.abstract
At least by a factor of 2.
Chief, “At least a factor of two.” Yep
If I understand, they say that since 1910 anthropogenic warming has been steady at 0.07-0.08 degrees per decade, or about 0.7-0.8 degrees in the century, which is OK by itself, yet they assume it has been steady since 1910 which far exceeds what anyone said the early century effect should be. It is a far from steady 0.8 degree rise with more of it at the end. Do you believe the anthropogenic effect has been steady and large since 1910? Did it suddenly tick up to that value at 1910? Lots of questions here. Need to see the paper.
‘The observed global-warming rate has been nonuniform, and the cause of each episode of slowing in the expected warming rate is the subject of intense debate. To explain this, nonrecurrent events have commonly been invoked for each episode separately. After reviewing evidence in both the latest global data (HadCRUT4) and the longest instrumental record, Central England Temperature, a revised picture is emerging that gives a consistent attribution for each multidecadal episode of warming and cooling in recent history, and suggests that the anthropogenic global warming trends might have been overestimated by a factor of two in the second half of the 20th century.’
Yeah right Jim.
CK, so you see how they did it. They increased the AGW warming rate at the
beginning around 1910 to decrease it later, and end up with same
anthropogenic total, which is about 100% of the observed warming in
the last century. I am not sure this paper is making your case for you.
The timing of the warming and cooling episodes are quite evident and indeed mirror other variabilities in ocean and atmospheric indices. The indices are best seen as nodes in the network of processes that are the underlying dynamic climate system. The decadal variability warmed and cooled alternatiely in the 20th century. It warmed in the period of global warming between 1976 and 1998 and has cooled since. That’s the meaning of these decadal processes.There is no guarantee that the next shift wont be to cooler still as we pass through a 1000 years high point.
Here’s the AMO – http://s1114.photobucket.com/albums/k538/Chief_Hydrologist/?action=view¤t=Nigametal2011-midwesternUSdroughtandamo_zps6062d4b3.jpg
To construct such a wildly unrealistic post-hoc rationalisation based on not even reading the paper borders on insanity. Really – wtf do you imagine you are doing?
Lags, Jim, lags. The ocean is a huge heat sink/reservoir. The climate will not respond instantly to changes in the sun or ocean cycles. Next ten years will be very interesting. I have no predictions except that I won’t be surprised if the CO2 sensitivity and the projections of future warming get lowered once again, closer to 1 to 2 C per century with a smaller upper limit.
Paul Matthews
Looks like the actual temperature record and the recent studies you cited are telling us that CMIP5 model simulations overestimate warming, IOW the projected warming from the models is not occurring in real life.
IPCC apparently does not wish to address this problem head on in AR5, but rather to hold to the AR4 party line that human-caused global warming represents a serious potential threat to humanity and our environment.
As a result the CAGW debate has moved from being a politically motivated debate on the science supporting the premise of human-caused global warming to a purely political debate, no longer related to the science at all.
This is unfortunate.
Max
If trends continued we’d be wearing bell-bottoms as wide as cow paddocks. What happens, you see, is the trend just stops. Nobody knows why. It goes away. It shuffles off to Buffalo. And there’s a different trend for a bit.
Things come round again, just like you get a new version of The Locomotion every fifteen years of so. (I think we’re due now, actually.) But climate’s not like Real Estate, where the long term trend is probably up, but only if you wait.
So people need to stop drawing those silly lines to indicate stuff that hasn’t happened. Really. Just stop it. If that’s science, then I’m Kylie Minogue.
Dr. Curry, here are a couple for you.
Jiang et. al., Evaluation of clouds and water vapor simulations in CMIP5 using NASA A-train satellite observations, JGR 2011JD017237.
Cessna and Chapfer, CMIP5 and cloud structure, GRL 2012GC053153.
Still getting both wrong. Still almost all biased to overstate water vapor feedback and understate cloud cooling.
The graphs can not be compared one with another, each uses a different base period.
Christy uses 1979-1983, IPCC leaked graph uses 1961-1990, RealClimate uses 1980-1999, and Hawkins uses the 1961-1990 that the IPCC used.
(I liked bell bottoms, and they are coming back into style, amongst the fashion literati — my 30-something daughter wears them).
Kip Hansen
It’s true that the graphs are not directly comparable due to different baseline periods.
But they do have one thing in common: they all show that the climate models exaggerate projected warming.
It looks to me that, starting with Hansen’s now-famous 1988 projection, all these projections were exaggerated by around 2:1, pointing to an estimate for 2xCO2 climate sensitivity also exaggerated by a factor of 2:1.
Since latest observation-based estimates for CS are also around half of the previous AR4 estimates, it appears that this is where the problem lies.
Let’s see if IPCC corrects this in AR5.
Max
Manacker ==> We are unlikely to see any change in the Exec Summary…as you probably already realize. Catechisms don’t change readily.
I do hold out hope that the science chapters will change to come more into alignment with actuality.
CliSci has been an interesting Social Science interest of mine for 33 years now….fascinating to see it grow and change — transmogrifying into a world destroying monster, more recently beginning to fade back into a ‘once-scary myth’, and, soon I hope, to come back down to Earth as a real scientific field of study.
What a long, strange trip it’s been.
=================
One thing that people need to realise is that the warmists are stuck with everything the IPCC has written in previous Assessment Reports. Canadians may remember the Meech Lake Accords, which were described as a “seamless web”. If you unpick any of it, the whole thing unravels, and becomes worthless.
This is the situation with the AR5. If the IPCC and the warmists admit that any tiny little bit of what has previously been written is wrong, then the whole House of Cards that is CAGW will come crashing down. They have to maintain the fiction that EVERYTHING that has occurred since the AR 4 was written, 100% supports everything that was written in the AR4 amd previous reports. Once the admission is made that one tiny little thing is wrong, then the process of dismantling CAGW will not stop.
This is why I keep emphasising the certainty expressed in the SPMs. This, IMHO, is the main weakness in the warmist position.
”
Once the admission is made that one tiny little thing is wrong, then the process of dismantling CAGW will not stop.
”
There is a spelling mistake on page 117.
There you go.
Fill your boots, you climate-soldier-of-fortune.
heinrich. sarc on/ I searched page 117, but could not find the spelling mistake. What is it ? sarc off/
The tiny thing, confidence in attribution, won’t fit through the eye of Ockham’s needle. Well, you know, swords to plowshares and all.
===================
Kim – or hockey sticks into cricket bats? “To play with a straight bat” is a nice olde English phrase, implying honesty, transparency and decency. Sometimes lost in this modern age of hockey sticks. :-)
The wicked are being soaked with water.
==========
Unless AR5 addresses at least the main three issues at hand fully and up-front it will be a waste of time, trees and money.
(1) The climate sensitivity, with full reference to recent empirically-derived (not model) lower estimates.
(2) The 21st Century lack of warming, now acknowledged (sotto voce and with excuses) by Pachauri.
(3) The hotness of models.
They’re probably all related, and I wouldn’t expect the IPCC to volte-face over any of them. But let them put their arguments for the ‘consensus’ status quo in writing (ie: wrt Annan, no chummy in-house polls or lying).
Delusional. There is no one tiny fact nor one big fact that can unravel what we know about the climate: GHGs warm the planet, they do not cool it.
Steven, you write “Delusional. There is no one tiny fact nor one big fact that can unravel what we know about the climate: GHGs warm the planet, they do not cool it”
So what? I, for one, would never say that what you have stated is wrong. The question is, how much does additional the CO2 added to the atmosphere from current levels, warm the planet, and what are the characteristics of all the known and unknown natural factors which warm and cool the planet? And how do these considerations affect the certainty with which the IPCC states it’s conclusions in the SPMs of the AR4, and, potentially, the AR5?
“GHGs warm the planet”
Except when they don’t. Check the squiggly lines.
Andrew
Steven Mosher | February 22, 2013 at 9:49 pm | Reply
Delusional. There is no one tiny fact nor one big fact that can unravel what we know about the climate: GHGs warm the planet, they do not cool it.
——–
Yep, we’ve heard it over and over… all other things being equal GHGs warm the planet. Too bad for this meme that all other things are never equal.
If the feedbacks to increased GHGs are net positive, why hasn’t temperature ever runaway in the history of the earth?
“GHGs warm the planet”
I’m going to help Steven Mosher out here and suggest that in the future he would be closer to correct if he stated: “GHGs can warm the planet.”
Yes, a tradeoff from being more “effective” to more “accurate.”
But that’s what science is.
Andrew
I’ve seen an old(’60s) video of Stephen Schneider in which he was honest about his ignorance of the direction of climate. I thought he was more effective then than since, but critics, bah.
=====================
Sorry, posted this response in the wrong place: http://judithcurry.com/2013/02/19/adapting-to-climate-change-challenges-and-opportunities-for-u-s-business-community/#comment-298007
With additional first para:
Myrrh | February 23, 2013 at 2:37 pm | Reply
Steven Mosher | February 22, 2013 at 9:49 pm |Delusional. There is no one tiny fact nor one big fact that can unravel what we know about the climate: GHGs warm the planet, they do not cool it.
Water cools the Earth, by 52°C. Or are you excluding water vapour as a greenhouse gas?
Certainly the real greenhouse gases nitrogen and oxygen which make up around 98% of the atmosphere – this heavy voluminous thermal blanket keeps the Earth from going to the extremes of heat and cold, as does the Moon, and prevents the heat from the surface heated by the radiant heat direct from the Sun from escaping too quickly – without these greenhouse gases our Earth would be -18°C, with them but without water, the temps would be 67°C.
AGWScienceFiction’s giving the description of thermal blanket to a trace gas is quite frankly, idiotic. It’s the great, heavy real gas blanket of nitrogen and oxygen weighing a ton on your shoulders which reduces heat loss to 67°C, the Water Cycle cools this down to 15°C.
A clever con man has bamboozled you, by taking out the water cycle and the real gas role of nitrogen and oxygen under gravity.
You can believe in their AGWSF Greenhouse Effect manufactured science fraud illusion if you want, but you’re believing in something that is physically impossible – a world without a real gas atmosphere and without the Water Cycle for a start. You can hardly expect those that do know real basic physics to take you seriously.
However much you and your ilk bluster.
“They have to maintain the fiction that EVERYTHING that has occurred since the AR 4 was written, 100% supports everything that was written in the AR4 amd previous reports.” That’s William Connolley’s job!
Dr Curry
the climate has not yet decided if its going to be warmer or colder in the year 2100. So how do you model that?
Wait, the IPCC have the answer
“In climate research and modelling, we should recognise that we are dealing with a coupled non-linear chaotic system, and therefore that the
long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible.” IPCC
From the 3rd IPCC report, Section 14.2.2.2 “The Climate System”, page 774”
‘Lorenz was able to show that even for a simple set of nonlinear equations (1.1), the evolution of the solution could be changed by minute perturbations to the initial conditions, in other words, beyond a certain forecast lead time, there is no longer a single, deterministic solution and hence all forecasts must be treated as probabilistic. The fractionally dimensioned space occupied by the trajectories of the solutions of these nonlinear equations became known as the Lorenz attractor (figure 1), which suggests that nonlinear systems, such as the atmosphere, may exhibit regime-like structures that are, although fully deterministic, subject to abrupt and seemingly random change.’ http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/369/1956/4751.full
The members of the ‘opportunistc ensembles’ are chosen subjectively from a set of solutions whose range remains unexplored and unknown. It seems less a serious scientific endeavour than a game of pin the tail.
On the other hand – the world is not warming for a decade or so hence at least.
Exactly Captain K
so given that it is impossible, how stupid do you have to be to sign the cheques to pay those who claim to have crystal balls – no offence meant Gavin
Cheque writer: “Ok so you got the white coat and I see that you have an Apple with a bite out of it on that computer thingy that you are carrying, so you are not only clever but also cool, but before I sign the cheque, and you gotta bear in mind I never heard of Lorenz and I always thought Chaos Theory were a punk band, you do know what you’re doing here. Right?
Modeller: “Yeah, we got it down straight. It’s like physics and that. And equations and that.”
Cheque writer: “Well, that’s all very re-assuring. How much do you want?”
Modeller: ”What shall we say? How does a couple of mill sound? Yeah that’s great. Two million dollars. Great. And don’t forget to sign. Thanks. Ok I’ll be slipping off then. Probably back in a month or two so don’t lose the cheque book!”
Cheque writer (to himself): “What an awfully nice chap. And a lovely pony tail. Look forward to seeing him again soon.”
Modeller (to himself): “Hope that pillock never looks at Table 2.11 from the Fourth Assessment report of the IPCC”
Editor’s note: just to refresh everyone’s memory Table 2.11 sets out the uncertainty assessment of forcing agents. Listed below are the agents and the level of scientific understanding
LLGHGs – high
Stratospheric ozone – medium
Tropospheric ozone – medium
Stratospheric water vapour from CH4 – low
Direct aerosol – medium to low
Cloud albedo effect (all aerosols) – low
Surface albedo (land use) – medium to low
Surface albedo (BC aerosol on snow) – low
Persistent linear contrails – low
Solar irradiance – low
Volcanic aerosol – low
Stratospheric water vapour from causes other than CH4 oxidation – very low
Tropospheric water vapour from irrigation – very low
Aviation induced cirrus – very low
Cosmic rays – very low
Other surface effects – very low
Whatever the way you use to male a comparison, I find really hard to hide that while we are at the lower end of the model range of outputs, the supposed anthropogenic forcing is at its maximum. How does it fits with the current estimates of climate sensibility is a mistery.
You’ve hit the nail on the head, and my thumb. Distracted by the mister male I thought of the Obladeeblahdah Richard Windsor. Wincing at the sensitivity of my opposed digit, I saw stars and a chasm dissonant with echoes of science in it.
Good aim!
===========
Dang, mistery male. It’s still throbbing.
==============
There has to be lags in the system, possibly up to 30 years, regardless of the direction of causation, the observations as yet do not fit any of the climate models in use.
sure they do. Look at the individual realizations
I agree with PD. There are clearly decadal lags in the system, though I would say 30 years was pushing the envelope.
What caught my attention however was “the observations as yet do not fit any of the climate models in use.” Are we talking about 10, 50 , or 300 models here? And does anyone beside PD claim this, and if so for how many models?
Next the modellers will be making “CLIMATE STATEMENTS”, scary ones.
Yes, I heard it this a.m. on the shuttle ride from my mechanics garage. The good old Canadian CBC announcer stated the we should stay tuned for a “WEATHER STATEMENT”, that’s correct you heard it here first a “WEATHER STATEMENT”. That’s right you to will be hearing your MSM announcer making “WEATHER STATEMENTS” NOT “weather reports”, ooooh sounds scary. The very mature driver of the shuttle gave a hoot and stated he couldn’t believe his ears.
P.S. someone should tel Joe Bastardi to get with the latest climatology jargon.
Chickens coming home to roost.
Gonna be a real angry public if it keeps cooling. Who will pay?
I wonder if they can use Mike’s Nature trick to hide the decline/pause in surface temperatures? They can’t allow the divergence between the empirical data and the created data to distract from the revealed truth of CAGW.
Why does Climate Scientists forecast that earth is warming at a dangerous rate and why does the actual data not support this.
The climate theory that they use is flawed. It is as simple as that.
Roy Spencer yesterday
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2013/02/tropical-ssts-since-1998-latest-climate-models-warm-3x-too-fast/
Compares models to observations for tropical SST through 2012. 35 CMIP5 models forecast 0.3C warming. Adjusted SST data (ENSO subtracted) show 0.1C while unadjusted data shows 0.0C.
Interestingly Roy grudgingly includes my hypothesis as the third (of three) possible causes for why CMIP5 models got it so badly wrong.
Well “it’s possible” is progress. I’m glad to see he thinks it possible enough to mention it in the top three possibilities. Maybe more possible than he cares to admit. This is the first time I’ve seen him say it was possible. He’s just dismissed it out of hand in the past. Oops.
The very inconvenient truth is that models have predicted (and keep predicting) a warming rate of +0.2°C/decade whereas observational data show a pause over the past 16 years, while CO2 concentration has increased by 10%…
Indeed, models have never been validated and they are definitely falsified by comparison with observations.
Eric Ollivet
Yes. This is true.
CO2 end 1997 = 363 ppmv
CO2 end 2012 = 393 ppmv
increase of 30 ppmv out of total human CO2 of 113 ppmv (26.5% of total)
Theoretical warming at 2xCO2 ECS = 3.2C (IPCC AR4)
= 3.2*ln(393/363) / ln(2) = 0.37C (theo warming from CO2 at equilibrium)
Assume 0.17C (net) goes “into pipeline” = 0.2C warming from CO2 alone
(checks with IPCC projected warming of 0.2C per decade)
Question: how many more years of “no warming” will it take until everyone agrees that the model projections have been falsified?
5 years?
10 years?
Never?
Max
Trend since end of 1997:
0.068C +- 0.147C/decade
That’s not “no warming”. It fits your 0.13C/decade figure (0.2C over 14 years), plus that figure has large +- error bars too. No model would predict exactly 0.2C warming over 15 years.
Most of the recent heat is cloud changes.
http://s1114.photobucket.com/albums/k538/Chief_Hydrologist/?action=view¤t=tropicalcloud.png
http://s1114.photobucket.com/albums/k538/Chief_Hydrologist/?action=view¤t=CERES_MODIS.gif
The planet will cool futher as the cool Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation mode intensifies over another decade or more.
The coolth continues unabated.
lolwot
Get serious.
You show that “actual” warming (Skeptical Science) since January 1998 was
HadCRUT3 shows cooling of -0.008°C±0.147°C per decade
HadCRUT4 shows warming of +0.039°C±0.138°C per decade
(not +0.068°C±0.147°C per decade as you wrote).
But IPCC (TAR) projected warming of +0.225°C±0.075°C per decade
And IPCC (AR4 WGI SPM) projected:
Ouch!
The GHG emissions rose as projected, but the temperature did not rise “as expected”, because the model-simulated warming projections were obviously exaggerated.
(Pssst, lolwot, in case you missed it, that’s what this post is all about.)
Don’t be a “denier”.
Max
Max, you’ve moved the goalposts. Your original claim was that 0.2C warming over 14 years. The data is compatible with this.
You failed to apply any kind of uncertainty ranges to the data (even the climate sensitivity). If you do you’ll find they overlap.
GISTEMP shows +0.068°C±0.147°C per decade and it’s scientifically superior to HadCRUT4 (the organization behind HadCRUT being tainted by climategate remember?)
lolwot, I have a car I’d like to sell you. It’s got a big engine, 3.2 +/- 7.0 liters. You interested?
Manaker lets see if we can get the math done right.
Additional Watts = 5.35ln(393/363) = .42 Watts
Climate sensitivity from (1.5/3.7) to (4.5/3.7)
or .4 to 1.2
Expected warming at equillibrium: .16C to .5C
Expected transient warming: maybe .08C to .25C
Thats if all other forcings net to zero.
That is. If sensitivity is at the low end of the IPCC range ( near the plank figure of .37), then C02 from 363to 393 puts maybe .08C to 1.6C into
the pipe where it sits for a decade or more. Very hard to see that when it comes out. Especially if other forcing is changing.
The problem is you cant falsify a equillibrium estimate over a transient time frame.
Put another way. the claim you should focus on is NOT the claim that ECS is 3. But rather, focus on the claims about transient, Or focus on the claim that ECS can’t be lower than say 1.5 or 1.2.
The claims about “mean” sensitivity are really squishy claims. So focus on the boundary claim. Sensitivity cant be lower than X. Put another way, you dont falsify the “mean” figure for ECS, the best you can do is show the tails are wrong.
The other problem is you have to hold other forcings constant.
So, if all .08C of warming goes into the pipeline and it 15 years long, you probably have to wait 30 years or more, assuming all other forcing stays constant, before you can detect the case required to reject the boundary claim. 15 more years of cooling ( assuming all other forcings constant ) just means the distribution of sensitivity shifts to the left.. as it should.
30 more years will shift it further left.
the skeptical case is Proven when the right hand tail is below 1.5 per doubling.
errata. .08C to .16 into the pipe
Mosher, The 1.5 to 4.5 is what is in question. So the math looks better with 1C to 3C with whatever confidence interval you can dream up. 4.5 was so 90s :)
Steven Mosher
Yeah. If you start with a 2xCO2 equilibrium climate sensitivity of 1.5C to 4.5C, that’s what you get.
But I think it’s better to start with the observed data and try to work out what the 2xCO2 ECS really is (as I did).
IPCC AR4 tells us that 0.6C is still “in the magic pipeline” based on CO2 increasing from a “pre-industrial” 280 ppmv to 379 ppmv in 2005. And this is based on the 2xCO2 ECS value as assumed by the climate models cited by IPCC, or a mean value of 3.2C.
Based on latest data it appears that this 2xCO2 ECS estimate is too high (apparently by a factor of around 2).
So the “pipeline” estimate is also too high.
The whole “pipeline” argument itself is based on some rather dicey circular logic:
– our models tell us we should have seen warming of “X” since year “YYYY”.
– the record shows us we have only seen warming of “Z”
– therefore “X-Z” is still hiding “in the pipeline” waiting for “equilibrium”
Ouch!
But let’s accept the concept and simply correct the estimated amount of warming “in the pipeline” to correspond with the lower observed 2xCO2 climate sensitivity.
And the figures tempterrain cited result in a 2xCO2 ECS of around 1.5C (similar to the latest observation-based estimates out there).
Max
PS When you “correct” someone else’s arithmetic, it’s best to start with what you want to correct, pointing out the specific errors you can identify. Just starting with a brand new calculation is simply a side track, Mosh.
Steven Mosher
My bad.
Thought you had responded to another post to tempterrain where I estimated the 2xCO2 ECS based on data he had supplied on past warming.
Sorry.
Only comment I would have is the same captdallas: the 4.5C end of the ECS range appears to be a thing of the past and fat tails plus error bars that exceed the estimate itself leave me cold (might as well just say “I don’t know”).
Max
Lets say you have a pair of dice and 11 climate models.
One model predicts 2 and one predicts 3 and one predicts 4 all the way up to 12.
And when the dice rolls and it comes up 1 and 2 and 3, the dice modelers say that observed data falls within the ensemble of models even though the data is lower than almost all the individual models.
Sane people would say the models are a joke.
The models are solely experiments on the program producing them,the spread in the models is the error in the program generating them to identical forcing (of which no uniqueness theorem exists or will)
@kim: How can the models be a joke? Nobody’s laughing.
I laugh at the models, kim.
If you’re saying I’m nobody, that was my take too.
Do I hear a hollow echo? Is it screams or guffaws?
==================
Sane people would say the models are a joke.
Would you please be a little more logical here. Your reasoning would make judges of Olympic diving events a joke. The real joke is your reasoning.
How can the models be a joke? Nobody’s laughing.
=================
I used to find the faith placed in GCM projections amusing. I stopped laughing when I found out the spurious warming I had heard about and assumed was a minor problem turned out to be this
http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/~jsmerdon/papers/2012_jclim_karnauskasetal.pdf
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2013/02/01/roger-andrews-ipcc-ar5-climate-models-another-bust/
I have no credentials.I find it fascinating to compare (contrast?) what the forecast models say about the next several days with what actually happens.
As I learned along with learning to fly, long ago (no airplanes were NOT coal-fired then), what you see now has go a pretty good shot at being right, what the observer where you are going said last hour is believable, the 4-hour and 8-hour forecasts might be useful, the rest is reading tea leaves.
In Southern California, what happened yesterday in Portland was some time useful info.
The first clue we’ve all been schrooled by academia should be that the findings of the climatists can never be replicated. And, all of the discoveries of government scientists always conveniently serve their interests —i.e., consolidation of more power and more taxes to pay for more votes. Government scientists falsely claim a consensus of opinion and the mainstream media never calls them on it. Rather the media will give over its front pages to a single study and sensationalize the findings and then when the research is soon debunked and after we learn the findings were of questionable significance from the get-go, the mainstream media is never there to follow-up on the consequences of the misrepresentation they participated in and gave wings to — and, there is never a mention of the the damage that was done to truth, to the credibility of science and the undermining of critical thinking or the use of the research by government to further undermine society and the culture for political purposes.
You can forget about dodgy models. The UN climate chief, Dr Rajendra Pachauri has just acknowledged in Melbourne a 17 year pause in global temperature rise, confirmed recently by Britain’s Met Office.
Dr Pachauri also said “People have a right to quwestion these things and science only thrives as a result of questioning”
This seems to be a complete turnaround for the IPCC. We can only hope that we are now on a better path for the science
Alexander Biggs
The proof will be whether or not IPCC acknowledge this “lack of warming” (and its earlier exaggerated warming forecast, along with the recent lower observation-based estimates for 2xCO2 equilibrium climate sensitivity and the resulting lower warming projections for the future.
Although Pachauri gives lip service to the “lack of warming”, I believe IPCC is not likely to back off from its warming forecasts of several degrees C above 2000 values by 2100, rather than a bit more than 1C, based on the latest ECS estimates.
But we shall see.
Max
The IPCC will probably ask you to accept that natural variations like PDO, solar and lack of large El Ninos also have had an effect. It is kind of the other way round from usual in the previous decade where the “skeptics” promoted these things as important decadal effects.
Jim D
What you have just suggested as a rationalization for IPCC for the lack of warming despite unabated GHG emissions is a “slippery slope”.
It opens the following dilemma:
If “natural factors” were strong enough to overwhelm a very strong GH warming signal over the past 12-15 years, could it not be that the same “natural factors” (in reverse) played a much larger role in past warming than just 7% of the total forcing, as estimated by IPCC?
It seems to me that you can’t have it both ways, Jim D.
Either natural factors play a major role (equivalent to that of net anthropogenic forcing) or they do not.
Max
manacker, you are missing that everyone says the natural factors are
cyclic and can’t lead to a net change over a long period (except perhaps
if the sun goes into a long minimum that decreases temperatures by
up to 0.5 degrees below what AGW increases them by). What is down now, is up later.
These ‘natural factors’ have decadal to miilennial variability – I have shown several times millennial proxies.
Jim D
“Natural factors are cyclic”.
Sure.
But how long are these natural cycles?
The 30-year warming/cooling cycles are quite apparent in the modern temperature record, but we know (Roman Optimum, Dark Ages, MWP, LIA, CWP) that there are also longer cycles at work, for which we do not really understand the mechanisms.
These could well have played a major role in the warming experienced since pre-industrial times, although IPCC only attributed 7% of this warming to natural forcing with the rest from anthropogenic factors.
The point is simply: if one only attributes only 7% of all the warming since 1750 to natural factors it does not make sense to blame these same natural factors for completely overwhelming strong anthropogenic forcing over the past 10-15 years, does it?
You can’t have it both ways, Jim, no matter how much you try to rationalize it.
Max
I found one link to this story. Are there more?
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nothing-off-limits-in-climate-debate/story-e6frg6n6-1226583112134
No, that is it, but is no longer free on the internet. You have to be a subscriber.
To be fair the the Australian has always been critical of global warming science.
There are some ENSO model predictions and results here.
Given that the Nino3-4 anomaly range is about +- 2 degrees
most of the models are frequently wildly out in 3 or 4 months.
The best appears to be the ESSIC Intermed. Coupled model.
The site has model predictions going back to 2002 so you have to admire their perseverance if not their expert forecasting ability.
IPCC’s multi-model mean for 2012 is about 0.64 deg C.
IPCC multi-model compared to observation => http://bit.ly/SPzOHn
The observation gives only 0.4 deg C. IPCC’s value is 0.24 deg C greater than the observation. This is a difference of 2.4 sigma (standard deviation of the random GMST is about 0.1 deg C) is outside the probability of 99.18%. With IPCC’s 0.2 deg C per decade warming but no warming in the observed data in the next five years will take IPCC’s models in the impossible range, and then they must admit their 0.2 deg C per decade warming projection was wrong.
A SCIENTIST
“As he formulates his final theory, the scientist subjects it to intensive criticism. Seeking to make it as useful as possible, he asks himself: Is this proposed law universal throughout the extent of space and the passage of time? Does it lead anywhere? Does it predict one state of affairs as arising out of another? Can it be transposed from one frame of reference to another and still remain valid? And finally, because of his innate passion for orderliness, his aesthetic appreciation of things which are neat and fitting, he asks: Is this theory as elegant as possible? Could I formulate it more succinctly?
Now comes the moment of verification and truth: testing the theory back against protocol experience to establish its validity. If it is not a trivial theory, it suggests the existence of unknown facts which can be verified by further experiment. An expedition may go to Africa to watch an eclipse and find out if starlight really does bend relatively as it passes the edge of the sun. After a Maxwell and his theory of electro-magnetism come a Hertz looking for radio waves and a Marconi building a radio set. If the theoretical predictions do not fit in with observable facts, then the theorist has to forget his disappointment and start all over again. This is the stern discipline which keeps science sound and rigorously honest.
If a theory survives all tests and is accepted into the canon of scientific law, it becomes a fact in its own right and a foundation for higher spires of thought. Abstract though it may be, a theory which has been proved can suggest new hi-fl sets or hybrid cattle just as surely as do experiments with electricity or stock-breeding. It serves as a starting point for new theories just as surely as any experience on the plane of protocols. Galileo’s formula for the increasing speed at which a body falls freely near the surface of the earth became a single example of Newton’s law of gravitation. Newton’s law, in turn, became a single special case in Einstein’s theory that gravitation is a manifestation of the geometry of space and time. At this moment some child in a hamlet somewhere may be preparing himself for the work of constructing a “unified field theory” of both atom and cosmos, in which Einstein’s sweeping concepts of relativity will appear as mere details.”
The Scientist
Life Science Library
By Henry Margenau, David Bergamini
And the Editors of LIFE
1966
Girma
Interesting from your chart is that the actual temperature anomaly is below the “commitment” value (based on no further GHG emissions after 2000) – yet human GHG emissions have continued unabated since 2000 and concentrations have reached new record levels.
Looks like the much touted “CO2 control knob” has lost its oomph.
Max
When you compare the assumptions used by Dr. Ioannidis (discussed in the previous topic) to what we see in climate science, the reliability of global warming research can be expected to be far worse and so it is. The bias of Western AGW researchers isn’t a tendency it’s a given so climate researchers will come up with wrong findings all of the time not just most of the time. And, among all of the possible the motivations the climatists are actually being paid out of the limitless purse of the government and academia’s promise of lifetime tenure to make evidence and models dance to any tune they wish to play and accordingly, the climatists will always succeed in “proving wrong theories right,” whatever it takes.
Guys: It was Damocles who had the sword hanging over his head. NOT DamAcles.
Well Judy, the way these things are done in other fields is to examine the difference plot. If the plot of (real-model) is information free, then you have captured a noisy series perfectly. A slope means that you have a divergence and an oscillation means you have missed an oscillation.
it is clear that the data presented in your first figure would show a positive slop; meaning that all the models are running hot. They are running hot by about 1.4 degrees per century.
Climate modellers in cloud towers
spinning away the tenured hours,
don’t see what’s goin’ down
…outside their towers.
For the next climate spin, mesdames et messieurs, faites vos jeux.
Belinda is Beth’s sock puppet! How devious indeed!
..different as red and black…
MIchael Mann, Michael Mann, let down what’s left of your golden hair.
Lol pokerguy, no rescue by Prince Charming fer Michael Mann.
He’ll jest hav ter try an’ fly away on his hocky stick, whoosh.
Lol, Beth. I even made myself laugh.. Your hockystick witches broom brought another major guffaw. If you can’t beat ’em, then at least laugh at them -)
That’s gauranteed to make your enemies really mad!
Years ago I told my friend Peter Bocking that I hoped this whole mess would end in farce and ridicule. His answer? ‘Too many have died already.’
He’s the magnificent fellow who once said that if Al Gore’s hair caught on fire, it would provide enough heat and light for a small English village.
==================
Lol, Kim. The Al Gore image alone is priceless…and devastating.
Lol, Kim. The Al Gore image alone is priceless…and devastating.
Should we therefore conclude from this that rhetoric is the friend or the enemy of science?
It’s better(more heat and light) if you imagine Gore wicked.
================
OK, timing is everything, but I can’t wait for the set-up line, timing being dicomblogulated on the innerwaves, anyway. Shall we next make out Current TV to be a wicked oil lamp?
==================
Wicked (one syllable)
Catchy.
Say, PD, ) have no wish ter deceive, enough con-fusion already.
Was on me niece’s com-put-ah.
Jest who is the red and who is the black, CK?
…roulette…
Heinrich
The Meehl et al. study you cited states:
Huh? Howdat? (Looks like kind of a forced fit rationalization to me.)
And then there is the unfounded rationalization to cover the 30-year cycle of slight cooling in between with human aerosols.
Gimme a break, heinrich.
This is pretty weak stuff.
Have you got something better or is that all?
Max
I’m really impressed at the level of excitement on this thread. It’s easily on a par with the Anastassia Makarieva thread a month ago, despite having nowhere near as many comments thus far.
However this whole thread seems to be overlooking a basic fact about global warming that is best illustrated with these two graphs at WoodForTrees.
The first one covers the 70 years from 1870 to 1940, namely 1870-1940.
What we see here is that the odd decades (1870s, 1890s, 1910s, etc.) trend up while the even decades (1880s, 1900s, 1920s, etc.) trend down, relative to each other.
The odds of this happening for seven consecutive decades is one in 2^(7-1) = 64. (Subtract 1 from 7 because the trend of the first of the seven decades is what the remaining 6 decades are being compared with.)
Well, somewhat impressive odds but a 1/64 probability could perfectly well have happened so why is this so important?
To answer this, look at the next seven decades, from 1940 to 2010, namely the second half of the 140 years.
The next seven decades repeats this phenomenon!
(1980-1990 doesn’t sag as much as the other even decades did because (i) that was when the huge decline in the AMO reversed and (ii) CO2-induced global warming really started to pick up then.)
The odds of this perfect alternation happening are 1/8192. Those are crazy odds. This is obviously more than mere chance.
But how is this relevant to the decade 2010-2020?
Easy: if that decade follows the pattern of the preceding 14 decades, it will strongly reverse the relatively flat (if not exactly zero) trend of 2000-2010.
(By cherry-picking the exact period one can make the trend-line slope either up or down; we’ve seen endless examples of this on Climate Etc. This is why I’ve been sticking to exactly 120-month periods starting with years ending in 0, which is what you get with e.g. From: 2000, To: 2010, using WoodForTrees’ convention as to what those limits mean.)
Why is this alternation from one decade to the next happening? One suspect is the sunspot cycle, which since 1870 has been very close to a 10-year period. Each cycle the magnetic polarity of the sunspots reverses, which for reasons so far unexplained seems to impact global temperature. Svensmark has gained some notoriety for proposing cosmic rays as the catalyst, but the jury is still out on that one.
Let’s see how this all pans out on January 1, 2020. I plan to be around then.
Vaughan Pratt
Your statistical juggling comes up with a reversal of 2001-2010 cooling in the period 2011-2020.
Well, you’ve got the first two years of this period with continued slight cooling, so the next 8 years are already starting off behind the 8-ball.
(I’d guess that the Chief may be closer to right in saying that the current :lack of warming” will last another one to three decades.)
But who knows what will happen?
Max
Max
Have you seen the following relationship between CO2 and GMST?
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/mean:732/from:1958/normalise/plot/esrl-co2/compress:12/to:1983/normalise
@manacker: Your statistical juggling comes up with a reversal of 2001-2010 cooling in the period 2011-2020.
Excellent point, very observant of you.
The same thing happened for the even decade 1920-1930, and again for 1980-1990. In all three cases they were on a steep upward slope that overwhelmed the effect to the extent of making it false that every even decade cools.
But that’s not what I’m claiming. What is true is that the slope of every even decade is less than that of each of the two odd decades on either side. Even 1980-1990 has a slope of 0.0067 degrees per year while for 1970-1980 it is 0.0087, a small difference that is hard to see by eye.
(That the difference is so small can be explained by the fact that the the AMO bent the other way between those two decades.)
Well, you’ve got the first two years of this period with continued slight cooling, so the next 8 years are already starting off behind the 8-ball.
Now that the data for 2012 is in we actually have three years: the WoodForTrees definition of 2000-2013 includes 2000 but excludes 2013.
For the period 1870 to 1933 the trend for the first three years of each decade correctly predicted the whole decade 5 out of 7 times (1870-73 and 1890-93 went down instead of up). This is somewhat better than chance.
For 1940 to 2013 there were 3 wrong predictions out of 8 decades.
But you may be right that 2010-2020 will cool. If it warmed then 1940-2020 would have 4 wrong predictions out of 8 decades. That’s no better than chance. But that’s very unlikely because one would expect some correlation between the whole decade and its first three years. How’s that for a convincing proof? ;)
The other possibility is that the first three years simply aren’t a good predictor of the whole decade.
(I’d guess that the Chief may be closer to right in saying that the current :lack of warming” will last another one to three decades.)
Assuming the Keeling curve continues to curve more steeply upwards every decade, 15 more years of cooling with no obvious explanation (such as stratospheric dust kicked up by an asteroid hit) would convince me that CO2 does not have a significant impact on global temperature. (For 30 more years of cooling to convince me I’d have to live that long, which is very unlikely.)
It would then just be an extraordinary coincidence that the planet got so hot right when the Arrhenius theory predicted it should. People would be relieved that Arrhenius turned out to be wrong.
Vaughan Pratt
Re: “15 more years of cooling with no obvious explanation (such as stratospheric dust kicked up by an asteroid hit) would convince me that CO2 does not have a significant impact on global temperature. ”
“Significant impact” only means statistically significant distinguishable from the null hypothesis of natural long term warming from the Little Ice Age superimposed with oscillation such as the~60 year PDO. e.g. > 5% of total.
The major scientific dispute is much more IPCC’s claim of Dangerous Anthropogenic Globa Warming (DAGW) that claims majority impact of CO2 greater than a null hypothesis of minor anthropogenic CO2 warming on top of natural warming. e.g distinguish CO2 warming is > 50% of total warming vs CO2 warming is 5% to 50% of total warming.
This is epitomized by Roy Spencer’s Tropical SSTs Since 1998: Latest Climate Models Warm 3x Too fast February 21st, 2013
The DAGW challenge is to explain why the IPCC CIMP5 models are 3x off where the Data Spencer shows much better fits the first challenge of distinguishing minor CO2 impact on top of natural warming and variation, vs statistically indistinguishable CO2 impact in natural warming and variation.
The difference in trend slope between some consecutive decades is slim to none while in others goes from large negative to large positive. The definition of “reversal” in this context is thus so loose as to lose all meaning. It doesn’t even rise to level of interesting much less being predictive. Moreover, it appears rather broken so far with a precipitous down trend in the first three years of the current decade which, according to your odd/even hypothesis, is supposed to be an up trend decade.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1990/to:2000/trend/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:2000/to:2010/trend/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:2010/trend
What you see in those 23 years is part of a sine wave with a period of about 60 years with the peak amplitude in the mid 2000-2010 decade and well into the descending phase thereafter. I noticed the fit to a 60-year sine wave in 2005 shortly after I became interested in the global warmning narrative and predicted at the time the crest and subsequent decline should becoming along real soon. And indeed it did. I’m batting 1000 so far. You?
By the way, it smacks of intellectual dishonesty to trim the period 1850-1870 from your graph.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1850/to:1860/trend/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1860/to:1870/trend/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1870/to:1880/trend/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1880/to:1890/trend/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1890/to:1900/trend/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1900/to:1910/trend
The reason appears obvious. Your odd/even decade hypothesis doesn’t work for 1860-1800 as the two decades have identical sharply positive trends.
Can you explain why you dropped those first two decades other than intellectual dishonesty?
type correction: “1860 – 1800” above should read “1860 – 1880”
Can you explain why you dropped those first two decades other than intellectual dishonesty?
I believe you have that backwards. The calendar decadal alignment wasn’t true prior to 1870, so it would be dishonest of me to claim it was.
The most likely cause of the effect is the magnetic component of the solar cycle, which is on a cycle that is slightly longer than 20 years, about 20.6 over the past century. By coincidence it drifted into phase with the calendar decades during the 20th century. By the middle of this century it should be well out of phase, just as it was prior to 1870.
This is not the same thing as saying that this roughly-two-decade-period oscillation is dying down, only that it drifts in and out of phase with calendar decades. Also it’s only quasiperiodic, the period tends to vary. The Central England Temperature, CET, goes back to 1659 and prior to the industrial revolution the oscillation is clearly visible in the green curve in this plot. (The industrial revolution hit the Central England climate well before it hit the rest of the globe, obscuring the oscillation after about 1850, a good reason for not using CET as a proxy for 20th century global temperature. The global temperature, HadCRUT3, gives a clearer picture (orange curve) for the 20th century after detrending (i.e. subtracting) global warming and ocean oscillations.)
You’re prevaricating. I would certainly agree to the drift but drift moves the two signals (for want of a better word even/odd decades can be viewed as a square wave signal) slowly out of phase. It wasn’t a little out of phase 1850-1870 it was completely absent – two consecutive decades with very strong warming trends. The square wave skipped a beat. That’s not drift. In the rest of the decades the square wave is barely discernable in too many instances i.e. it very nearly skips a beat. Drift might account for a few of those but it’s a stretch to say all of them
because and the discontinuities are too great from one decade to the next.
At any rate it’s proven, inasmuch as the temperature record is accurate in the mid-19th century, that there can be consecutive decades with no change in trend. So out of 16 consecutive decades we find at least a few instances where two steep consecutive slopes have the same polarity and approximately the same slope. Therefore the decade we’re in now not falling outside the pattern is not very unusual.
Try to focus on the main point of this article. The pause in warming extending beyond 15 years falls outside the 95% confidence interval which is indicative of a serious flaw in the assumptions underlying the confidence. Adding insult to injury the failed prediction failed on the low side of the projected warming i.e. there’s less warming than predicted not more which makes certain skeptics such as myself the ones who made the correct predictions. Maybe we just got lucky but on the other hand maybe we’re just better analysts.
@VP: Also it’s only quasiperiodic, the period tends to vary.
@DS: I would certainly agree to the drift but drift moves the two signals (for want of a better word even/odd decades can be viewed as a square wave signal) slowly out of phase. It wasn’t a little out of phase 1850-1870 it was completely absent – two consecutive decades with very strong warming trends. The square wave skipped a beat. That’s not drift.
As I said, the period tends to vary. If one cycle has a 25-year period, which seems to be what happened in that case, that’s enough to make the effect completely vanish prior to 1870 because it corresponds to a quarter-cycle phase shift (a half-cycle shift would have kept the effect but reversed the parity). When that happens the trend in those two decades will be that of the ocean oscillations, which declined in 1850-1860 and then increased in 1860-1870.
@DS: You’re prevaricating.
We see this in the media all the time. Whenever something unexpected or incomprehensible happens fingers are pointed and cries of “Liar!” are heard.
In this case I’d guess the latter.
Vaughan, the Earth has a 23.5 degree tilt relative its orbit with more heat capacity in the SH than the NH. The “thermal equator” wrt the Sun is below the physical equator. The “thermal equator” wrt the atmosphere is above the physical equator. That causes your SAW and lag.
So if you take the GISS LOTI 24S-44S regional band as your input and 24N to equ as your output, using RMS, since it is power with a “wiggle” after all, you would find a 4 to 6 year lag in transfer of energy from the south to the north. That would be a 4 to 6 year lag amplifying a 10 to 12 year cycle in the power supply.
http://redneckphysics.blogspot.com/2013/02/battle-of-thermal-equators.html
So since solar forcing likely has some significant influence on your SAW and lag, do ya think the prospects of a longer than normal solar minimum might impact your “prediction”?
re; thermal equator
Great term but it’s already got too many different definitions.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_equator
David, That is the reason for the quote marks, the wrt and the title. The point though is that the “thermal equators” change. A neat and tidy TSI*(1-albedo)/4 compared to a “global mean” surface temperature doesn’t begin to consider the meridial energy flow required in the different possible states.
VP very interesting analysis. What you have described seems to me to be while negative feedbacks have been occurring each odd decade since 1870, positive feedbacks in the even decades have been predominating, causing an overall upward trend.
The latter two decades don’t show this phenomenon as much as the previous ones back to 1870 and the current odd decade has had a couple of flat years temperature wise so far.
My bet is that the AGW hypothesis will by then be well and truly falsified and that CO2 is not a dangerous substance in an open system such as that we have in the troposphere.
I too expect to be around in 2020 and look forward to VP and the other AGW folk shouting everyone their favourite tipple. Mine will be a glass of Australian red, preferably from a bottle in the $50-$70 range.
A comic interpretation, Peter Davies. You should be talking about natural variations rather than the actual feedback changing. Feedback is something that is relatively steady.
The whole exercise was comic JD. VP was not positing that the odd/even decadel switching was ever based on reality (apart from already known decadel solar oscilllations) because even an non scientist like me can see that time itself has no influence on climate.
I would say that natural variability can give precisely the kind of decadal behavior that VP was talking about. It is very easy for the ocean circulation to have this kind of variability that cancels on the longer term. Even some “skeptics” have in the past pointed to ocean variability, but are not doing so at the moment for some reason.
How in the world do you conclude there are even odds for which direction the next trend lean toward? That’s wrong on basic mathematical and physical grounds.
Anyway, if you want to examine something like this, why take point estimates? You’re effectively just smoothing the data and taking non-overlapping samples. Whether or not one believes this form of smoothing is appropriate/meaningful, it’s much more informative to look at the entire smoothed series than to look at less than one percent of it.
I get WoodForTrees doesn’t make that practical, but it only took me six lines of code to generate this graph. It applies the exact same smooth you used, but it shows the entire resulting series. As an added bonus, it even covers the data you excluded at either end of the series.
@BS: How in the world do you conclude there are even odds for which direction the next trend lean toward? That’s wrong on basic mathematical and physical grounds.
Agreed. One would expect the next trend to be more likely to agree with its predecessor, at least slightly.
But taking that into account makes the observed alternation even more improbable than 1/8192, not less.
Anyway, if you want to examine something like this, why take point estimates? You’re effectively just smoothing the data and taking non-overlapping samples. Whether or not one believes this form of smoothing is appropriate/meaningful, it’s much more informative to look at the entire smoothed series than to look at less than one percent of it.
Agreed again. But that’s how I noticed the effect in the first place. After subtracting the ocean oscillations and expected contribution of radiative forcing and then filtering out everything with period 11 years and shorter, what remained was the upper curve in this graph. A year after I’d done this (essentially that curve was in my 2011 AGU presentation) I noticed the excellent alignment with calendar decades and wondered whether this oscillation affected the trend of individual decades. I was pleasantly surprised to find that it did so between 1870 and now in a way that could be demonstrated easily with WoodForTrees.
Of course the calendar alignment won’t keep up, but the oscillation seems to be of long standing as it can seen even in the 17th century, starting 350 years ago, as shown in the green CET curve here. More details in my reply above to David Springer.
I get WoodForTrees doesn’t make that practical, but it only took me six lines of code to generate this graph.
There’s a lot of ENSO and TSI type noise in your graph that a few more lines of code could have removed.
It applies the exact same smooth you used
While I’m not sure what that means, I’m guessing that you fitted a trend line to every 10-year window, not just the 16 calendar decades, and plotted their slopes. That’s why you’re seeing so much noise: that’s not a great filter for extracting a 20-year oscillation from the noise.
Vaughan Pratt:
Huh? Even if we accept your claim about what we’d expect (I don’t as it depends on the autocorrelation structure), I don’t see how we would reach the conclusion you reach. Saying we expect results to be similar to each other says nothing about which side of a result the next point will land on. Any basic random walk shows that.
Unless you’re limiting yourself to particular autocorrelation structures or imposing boundary functions, your conclusions seem unsupportable. Seeing as you haven’t said you’re doing either… I can’t agree with you.
I’m not sure why you’d say that. I was showing your approach, not creating one of my own. I can’t think of a reason I’d expand your approach by adding in debatable steps in order to display the results one gets with your approach.
I don’t see how else you could have interpreted my remark, but yes, that is what I did. As for how good or bad it is, you should take that up with yourself. You’re the one who created it. I just showed it in its entirety. If the results you showed provide insight, the graph I made should provide even more.
If the graph I showed has “so much noise,” all that does is call your approach into question.
TLet me be controversial. There is of course no direct correspondence with any solar phenomenon.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_solar_cycles
http://s1114.photobucket.com/albums/k538/Chief_Hydrologist/?action=view¤t=Lockwoodtopdownmodulation_zps5bf0563e.jpg
Looking for one is a waste of time. This is because the energies of the solar signal cascade through terrestrial systems captured in terms of indices of ocean and atmosphere which in turn modulate albedo and the energy budget of the planet. Solar periodicities are considerably modifed within the climate system. The more obvious changes in surface temperature, hydrology, biology, etc, follow the ocean indices.
The current ocean conditions suggest a great deal about temperature and rainfall over the next decade or so.
@BS: Huh? Even if we accept your claim about what we’d expect (I don’t as it depends on the autocorrelation structure), I don’t see how we would reach the conclusion you reach. Saying we expect results to be similar to each other says nothing about which side of a result the next point will land on. Any basic random walk shows that.
I fully agree. What you’re pointing out (very reasonably) here would seem to strongly support the idea that tossing a coin 14 times and getting a perfect heads-tail alternation every time ought to be highly improbable. Why do you believe otherwise?
If the graph I showed has “so much noise,” all that does is call your approach into question.
That would be a fair criticism if your method of analysis bore the slightest resemblance to mine. Since it doesn’t, all that does is to call your approach into question. You made no attempt whatsoever to suppress the considerable high frequency noise in HadCRUT3.
“My approach” was to carefully filter out noise from irrelevant octaves in order to produce a reasonably smooth picture of the 20-year period oscillation.
As far as the even-odd decades are concerned, I merely caricatured this picture with the point that, by chance, during the 20th century this oscillation was well synchronized with the calendar decades. That caricature holds neither of the first half of the 19th century nor of the second half of the 21st century, due to the inevitable drift of the 10.3 year solar cycle.
You are trying to make far too much out of a simple caricature.
Vaughan Pratt:
All that excerpt said is you were (seemingly) wrong on one specific point. Specifically, I said a certain trait gives us no predictive information. This was the exact opposite of what you said about that trait. I can’t see anything in the quoted portion of comment that would “strongly support” that idea.
If I were married, I’d tell you if I had stopped beating my wife yet. Since I’m not, I’ll just point out I never said anything about how probable I think that pattern is. I’ve said your 1/8192 value is wrong because it was calculated in an inappropriate manner, but that’s it.
What in the world are you talking about? You posted a link to a couple graphs that showed non-overlapping point estimates from a smooth. I posted a graph showing all point estimates for the smooth. Not only does my “method of analysis” bear “the slightest resemblence” to yours, it is identical.
The fact you’ve used a different method elsewhere doesn’t magically make the method you used here stop being what it is.
You’ve said several different things about probabilities relating to the “simple caricature” that seem to be baseless, if not false. You shouldn’t be surprised I disputed them. You certainly should think I am “trying to make far too much” of anything when all I’ve done is try to get you to either explain or retract statements that seem wrong.
Now I’m considering what would happen if one created a series weighted toward a central value that had notable autocorrelation. I think it’d basically just be a tightly bounded Gaussian random walk. Assuming that’s right, I think it’d be a fair model for the non-deterministic portion of the temperature signal.
(If that’s the case, it’d be difficult to imagine how one could extract oscillations from the signal as such can be generated by the noise structure.)
While I (believe I) understand the points you’re making, I would venture to say you don’t understand the points I’m making against them. I could try harder to make my points clearer, but it seems to me that at the rate we’re going this won’t get us even one iota closer to a mutual understanding.
I therefore agree with you that you disagree with me, and propose to leave it at that unless you have a more constructive suggestion as to how to move forward.
Vaughan Pratt, I get what you said before our exchange started. I understand why you said what you said about the decadal trends and the apparent cycle within them.
I disagree with two things you’ve said. First:
I disagree with your stated probability. I don’t think it’s appropriate to treat the odds as a 50/50 coin flip. This isn’t a problem as you’ve acknowledged those probability calculations are inaccurate. On that much, we agree. We agree your initial comment used unrealistic assumptions for its probability calculations. Which brings us to the second point:
I don’t get this argument. I have no idea what your basis for it is. You stated it as fact with no explanation. It could be you’re right, but without any explanation, I have no idea why you would be. My instinct is that you’re wrong, but I could just be missing some reason you didn’t explain. That’s it. As far as what you said in your original comment, that’s the only point we disagree on. For the central point, we agree on everything except I don’t see how you justify that one claim.
Aside from that, our disagreements lie on points unrelated to what started this exchange. As far as I can see, there are two. 1) I’ve never expressed an opinion about the probabilities around the pattern you found, but you’ve said I “believe otherwise.” I don’t have a belief. I have questions. 2) You claimed my method doesn’t have the “slightest resemblance” to yours. I used the exact the same smoothing methodology you used, but I showed the entire smoothed series rather than just ~15 non-overlapping samples. Otherwise, our methodologies were identical. You seem to dispute this similarity by referring to a completely different methodology you’ve used in other situations. That’s a total non-sequitur.
If you want to end this exchange, you’re free to. However, our disagreements are simple. If we ignore the 1) and 2) I mentioned, the discussion boils down to me saying your 1/8192 value is inaccurate, and you’ve already agreed that is true. If we do consider 1) and 2), it seems you’ve simply misunderstood/misrepresented things I’ve said.
Separate from any disagreements we’ve had, I’d like to discuss something I’ve examined a bit. Perhaps it will even amount to a constructive suggestion. I’ve spent a bit of time today examining what happens when one has autocorrelation in a bounded series. What I’ve found is not exactly what one sees with Gaussian random walks, but there are similarities.
To explain, I started by creating a series with autocorrelation. We know climatic data is influenced by past data, hence the autocorrelation. However, we also know there are boundaries on climatic systems. Those boundaries ensure there are no “runaway” situations in the system. To model this, I introduced a parameter which decreases the probability of a value based upon its deviation from a baseline. This forces stability into the system.
The result is a series with counterbalancing forces. The autocorrelation ensures that once a trend begins, it is more likely to continue than not. The boundaries ensure no trend continues for too long. The result are series that have excursions toward boundaries than reverse direction toward the baseline.
At that point, things get hairy. My results depend largely upon the autocorrelation model I use. A simple model based solely on the value of previous data (such as AR1) gives the coin flip result mentioned above. A more complicated model based on the trend of previous data gives an entirely different result.: It gives oscillations.
To put it simply, we can have oscillations in data purely by assuming a particular structure of the noise in the data. Noise itself can create oscillations in data if the system has the appropriate characteristics. What this suggests is any pattern of oscillations we find in data could be an arbitrary construct of the noise in the system rather than a forced pattern.
Unless I’ve messed up, that’s a provable mathematical results. And it has a significant impact on interpreting any oscillations one might find in a climatic series.
@BS: To put it simply, we can have oscillations in data purely by assuming a particular structure of the noise in the data. Noise itself can create oscillations in data if the system has the appropriate characteristics. What this suggests is any pattern of oscillations we find in data could be an arbitrary construct of the noise in the system rather than a forced pattern. Unless I’ve messed up, that’s a provable mathematical results. And it has a significant impact on interpreting any oscillations one might find in a climatic series.
That’s a fair hypothesis. Much easier than trying to prove it mathematically would be simply to write a short computer program that generates random examples of the kind of phenomena you have in mind. Each example would be a time series of length 140. Fit a trend line to each block of 10 points and observe whether the 14 trend lines alternate in slope. Run the program on a million such random examples and count how many alternate perfectly.
1000000/8192 = 122. I predict you will see fewer than 122 perfect alternations. The only way I can imagine getting more than 122 would be by careful tuning of the structure to bias it by making it prefer oscillations of period 20, which I think we would agree would not be in the spirit of this test.
If you do find significantly more than 122, I will concede your claim that the presence of structure could increase the probability above 1/8192, which as I said was intended only as an upper bound. My main point was not to estimate the probability exactly but merely that such an alternation was extremely improbable even under the assumption of the sort of structure you have in mind. I expect considerably fewer than 122 (or 1220 if you do ten million examples).
Vaughan Pratt:
You want me to do a test with OLS calculations over ten points? That seems strange. I don’t even know what parameters I’d have to use to create that phenomena in such sparse data. Oh well. I guess I can do it.
I certainly don’t agree. The parameters I use are guaranteed to shape any periodicity I find. It’s like fitting a model. Why would I use random or bad parameter values rather than ones that give a good fit? If I did what you suggest, all it’d show is one noise structure can’t create the pattern you observe. It would say nothing about the multitude of other noise structures that could be used.
Anyway, I’ve built a (crude) function to test for periodicity like what you found. I’m currently just using the arima.sim function from r to generate my time series. Do you have specific parameters you think I should/should not use? I’d rather use a different approach for generating the series, but this can work as a starting point.
By the way, this examination isn’t just about increasing the odds. Unless I’m mistaken, some noise structures should make the pattern you found near-impossible to generate via noise. What would you say if I created a million series and none of them had the pattern you found?
(I need to improve my function’s efficiency before trying things with a million series. At the current rate, it would take half a day to test with that many. As I said, it’s a crude function.)
Quick update. I’ve greatly improved my code’s efficiency. If I’m willing to make one somewhat iffy choice, it can do a million series in about half an hour. That’s not too bad.
The iffy choice is using overlapping samples. Rather than create a million separate series, I create a single series long enough to have a million series within it, each beginning 10 points after the one before it.
By using overlapping segments, I decrease the amount of data used by more than 90%. I think it is fine because the series is stationary and the persistence in the data is far shorter than the segment lengths, but I’m not positive. I may be missing something, and that could affect interpretations of any results.
Brandon
Good to hear you have refined your system. Not sure that using less data is an advance but you can try to convince me.
However the question must be asked as to how reliable the data is in the first place?
tonyb
@VP: The only way I can imagine getting more than 122 would be by careful tuning of the structure to bias it by making it prefer oscillations of period 20, which I think we would agree would not be in the spirit of this test.
@BS: I certainly don’t agree.
Well, fine, but if for whatever reason your structure ends up favoring oscillations of period 20 over other periods then the odds of getting a perfect alternation could well increase above 1/8192. You would then have to argue why period 20 deserves to favored.
What would you say if I created a million series and none of them had the pattern you found?
I would say that was considerably less than 122, as I predicted. I wasn’t willing to go out on a limb and say you wouldn’t find any at all because I hadn’t calculated the odds of that happening.
@BS: Quick update. I’ve greatly improved my code’s efficiency.
I really appreciate that you’ve taken this challenge seriously. That sort of constructive response has been a rarity on this blog.
I am very pleased with the spirit of this exchange between VP and Brandon (BS does not work for me) and wish that there is more of it.
tonybclimatereason:
I’ve thought it over some, and I think it reduces the power of the test, but I’m not sure by how much. I decided to scrap the idea anyway as I found a much better solution. The amount of processing time for the calculations isn’t due to the amount of data. The amount of data only matters for creating those series. Once I split that part off, there was little benefit to using a shorter data series.
Reliable? They’re (currently) just basic ARIMA series. I don’t think reliabilit6y is an issue. They’re nothing like the “real” data, but that was never the point. They’re just noise.
Vaughan Pratt:
The point is to see what noise structures can create patterns like what you observe. The reason to favor particular periods is to find out what noise structures can create it. That’s a separate issue from whether or not such a noise structure exists in the data you looked at.
Huh? You’re predicting I’d get fewer than I should with random noise? That seems to devalue any probabilities you could provide.
By the way, I found a much better way to improve the efficiency of my testing. It occurred to me there’s no reason to test for 14 perfect alterations in a row right now. Reducing the number of alterations I test for greatly reduces the processing needed. Since I’m just doing groundwork right now, that’s ideal. I can always change the amount I test for later.
I still don’t think ten points is enough for this to be a meaningful test. There are 120 points in each period Vaughan Pratt looked at. That allows far more flexibility in noise structures. I think I’ll have to write a customized function for generating time series if I want to test what I actually have in mind. I’m starting to think proving this mathematically would be easier >.<
By the way Peter Davies, I actually prefer people not refer to me as BS.
Well, I believe I have confirmed you can get substantially fewer perfect alterations than would be expected, and that’s just testing for eight alternations, The effect becomes more discernible the more alternations. I haven’t run a test for the full million at 14 alternations yet, but the results I have gotten so far are striking..
To disrupt the pattern, all one needs to do is create an effect that impacts two/three consecutive periods. That’s relatively easy to do. Shifting the odds the other way is quite a bit more difficult. I’m pretty sure it is impossible given the current constraints. 140 points of data simply isn’t enough to create anything but the simplest of noise structures. Not only that, but being limited to 10 points per segment means the uncertainty in the OLS trends is so large it can easily overwhelm anything else.
I’m not sure how much further I should take this. I think I can satisfactorily prove noise is capable of artificially decreasing the odds of that pattern happening. Proving the opposite (if possible) would be a much larger task. If it is possible, it would require creating more sophisticated noise, and it would require using a lot more data. It might be doable, but I hesitate to even try. It seems a very big task for what is a minor point of discussion. I find it interesting, but I don’t know if it’s worth pursuing.
“He has caused the spread of more pseudo-scientific incompetence on the subject of global warming (I’m sorry – climate change) than any climate scientist could possibly have ever accomplished.” ~Roy Spencer
Who is Spencer talking about here… politician or an academic?
Academic: Mann or Hansen?
Nope– the correct answer is the politician, Al Gore.
The Revolution will be Currently televised.
=================
Vaughan, there’s almost no difference between AMO and any other global (land/sea) or even hemispheric/regional oscillation. It’s the same oscillation everywhere.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/esrl-amo/plot/esrl-amo/trend/plot/hadsst2sh/detrend:0.71/plot/hadsst2sh/detrend:0.71/trend
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/esrl-amo/plot/esrl-amo/trend/plot/hadsst2nh/detrend:0.615/plot/hadsst2nh/detrend:0.615/trend
@Edim: It’s the same oscillation everywhere.
We appear to have very different criteria for “same.” I was mocked for claiming millikelvin precision when it turned out to be only 1.5 mK precision. You on the other hand consider wildly different curves “the same” with no quantitative assessment at all. Come back when you can quantify “the same.”
@Edim: It’s the same oscillation everywhere.
We appear to have very different criteria for “same.” I was mocked for claiming millikelvin precision when it turned out to be only 1.5 mK precision. You on the other hand consider wildly different curves “the same” with no quantitative assessment at all. Come back when you can quantify “the same.”
I always cringe when I see people claim they have “found” an oscillation. Quite often, “oscillations” people find are either artificial constructs of their filters, or they are mis-attributed. There are few things easier to find in data than an oscillation.
Vaughan Pratt, did you ever examine the point I made on that post? I don’t have a working version of Excel at the moment so I couldn’t look at your work in much detail, but it seems to me showing your delay (I think it was termed AHH?) is more than an arbitrary fudge factor would be a necessary step in it. Even just an educated guess at the uncertainty in the effect of the parameter would go a long way. There’s nothing worse for an analysis than unquantified uncertainty.
@BS: it seems to me showing your delay (I think it was termed AHH?) is more than an arbitrary fudge factor would be a necessary step in it. Even just an educated guess at the uncertainty in the effect of the parameter would go a long way. There’s nothing worse for an analysis than unquantified uncertainty.
You’ve singled out an important point about my poster, Brandon. I’d naively imagined that multiple regression would nail Hansen delay but for reasons detailed here this turned out not to be the case.
It turned out that climate sensitivity and “Hansen delay” (per Hansen et al’s 1985 paper pointing out that the oceanic mixed layer would delay the impact of radiative forcing on observed surface temperature) were almost perfectly parallel (the opposite of orthogonal) coordinates in the 9-dimensional space my least-squares fit was maneuvering in.
This was easily fixed by setting the delay to zero, corresponding to a climate sensitivity of 2.1 C/doubling while reducing the dimensions to eight. A delay of 11 years then corresponded to a climate sensitivity of 2.665 C/doubling, but deciding between these two was next to impossible (because of the parallelism) other than that the former gave an R2 of 99.991% and the latter 99.997% (so they weren’t perfectly parallel). Both were so close to 1 however as to make it hard to choose.
Eliminating the 4th and 5th harmonics of my “quasisawtooth” further reduced 8 dimensions (parameters) to 5, namely three for the sawtooth (period, phase, and amplitude) and two for AGW (NatCO2 and ClimSens), with a further decrease of R2 from 99.991% to 99.97%.
These simplifications of my model slightly mess up Figure 2 of my poster by making the multidecadal residual after subtracting the sawtooth from HadCRUT3 “wobble” slightly more. But even with the wobbles introduced by neglecting the 4th and 5th harmonics there remainsl a clear rise starting in 1850 that still matches predicted global warming pretty well, see Fig2rough.jpg. Even with these wobbles, that the rise starts as soon as 1850 remains clearly visible , which is much earlier than claimed by the IPCC.
With only five parameters (sawtooth with 152.5-year period, amplitude of 0.177 C, and trigger at year 1924.6, AGW with NatCO2 = 287.4 ppmv and ClimSens = 2.1 C/doubling) it will be very hard for Mike Rossander to come up with an R2 of 99.97% using some other choice of five parameters.
Vaughan Pratt:
I’m glad to hear that. I had hoped to examine your model in some detail, but I’ve been unable to since I lack a copy of Excel. I tried to contribute as much as I could given that limitation, and it’s good to hear I hit upon an important point: A ~25% difference in climate sensitivity is huge.
For what it’s worth, I didn’t expect that large an impact. I had thought the issue I discussed would increase uncertainty by ~10-15%.
I have Excel. You didn’t miss much. Yeoman’s work with the spreadsheet as far as style and construction goes but the content not so much.
Vaughan, as they say, none are so blind as those who will not see. Of course there are minor differences (amplitude, phase…) between the various multidecadal oscillations (global, global SST, AMO, global land, NH, SH…), but they’re all VERY similar and that’s remarkable. There’s a Global Multidecadal Oscillation (GMO).
I’ll leave quantifying to those who have time and are paid to do it.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/best/from:1850/detrend:1.06/plot/best/from:1850/trend/detrend:1.06/plot/esrl-amo/plot/esrl-amo/trend
A certain blogger is fond of saying the AMO is temperature. So when you “detrend” the temperature of a significant part of the globe, you get, well, the AMO.
If he’s correct, the AMO doesn’t drive anything. It is driven.
JCH, does Tamino ever explain why the temperature oscillates? Or does he disagree with the idea that there there is an oscillation and agree with the one paper I am aware of that says the AMO doesn’t exist and therefor the multitude of papers that state there is an oscillation are all wrong?
Steven – I’m not even a dentist who used to shoot gatling-type guns.
As for the true nature of the AMO (or as I’d prefer to call it, the “AMF” for “Atlantic Multidecadal Fluctuation”), time — and nature — will tell. – Tamino
Yes, AMO doesn’t drive anything just like the other (global, global SST, global land, hemispheric…) oscillations don’t drive anything. It’s the ‘same’ oscillation everywhere.
Edim, “Yes, AMO doesn’t drive anything just like the other (global, global SST, global land, hemispheric…) oscillations don’t drive anything. It’s the ‘same’ oscillation everywhere.”
Well, with different lags and amplifications, but yep. What could cause such a “global” oscillation? We know it cannot possibly be the sun and oceans since science says so :)
Capt, IMO it’s the solar cycle frequency. Higher frequency (shorter cycles) cause warming, lower frequency (like now, long cycles) causes cooling.
Edim, “Capt, IMO it’s the solar cycle frequency. Higher frequency (shorter cycles) cause warming, lower frequency (like now, long cycles) causes cooling.”
You mean that varying the duty cycles of a pulsing AC input energy might impact the RMS value of the power applied? Fascinating!
But that would make things complicated. Simple “averaging” is so much easier :)
Edim, oops, that should be duty cycle of the pulsing DC input.
Of course for your theory to be correct, there would need to be a capacitance in the system, like say a BIG A$$ OCEAN! (sorry for shouting, that was not meant for you Edim.)
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-OKJZxn7l8sY/USt5tXUz66I/AAAAAAAAHVk/1RegK4DbpQY/s971/edim%2527s%2520duty%2520cycle.png
Oddly, using a sine wave carrier with that odd Golden Ratio frequency so common in orbital cycles, the shifting pulse width of solar would generate an “envelope” like the orange curve. Since it takes roughly 5 years for the atmosphere/ocean to distribute solar energy accumulated below the true equator to equalize with the atmospheric “thermal Equator”, that residual created by internal transfer could increased the RMS value of the effective surface energy.
Now how could Telescope Jockeys miss something so elementary to physics? Oh, that’s right, Radiant “shells” have no thermal mass!
Cappy Dick is foaming and frothing at the gills.
Skeptics here are clowns at the circus.
http://tinyurl.com/ClimateClowns
Webster, “Cappy Dick is foaming and frothing at the gills.” Naw, Cappy Dick is still just laughing at the Telescope Jockeys. Cappy Dick figure out e^-t/RC a while back and that C varies with the mixing efficiency. Dang multi-boundary layer problems. You remember that right, multiple thermodynamic boundary layers? Each with its own heat capacity and boundary transfer coefficients. Some with time scales of millennia.
Since you figured out the ocean diffusion problem, there is a paper here to check your work. ” If the change in ) 14C from North Atlantic surface water to Pacific Deep Water was due entirely to radiocarbon decay (at ca. 11 per mil / century), this would imply a total age of ca. 1700 yr since the time when this water was last at the sea surface.”
BTW, there is a 1700 year lag between North Atlantic SST and Atlantic deep ocean temperatures.
http://www.onafarawayday.com/Radiogenic/Ch14/Ch14-1.htm
That dang C14 is some useful stuff. Selvam found quite a few common frequencies in climate. She even thinks that Self Organizing Criticality might be a useful tool for climate science.
http://amselvam.webs.com/earlsel/socpp.PDF
Webby, I like your decription of me, but I’m not Italian – I’m Bosnian. Furthermore, I only take the oposing premise if that’s really my point of view. For example I agree with you that the annual cycle in atmospheric CO2 is caused by the annual SST cycle. We’re both contrarians regarding this matter.
Don’t pull that on me. In the past, you have assigned the entire increase in CO2 to a temperature rise. That assertion is so wrong, a chemistry freshman gets this assigned as a basic homework problem. The activation energy would have to be huge for a 1C change to have this effect.
Very few skeptical commenters have any expertise in basic science, I am afraid. But then again when they get paid by the Donors Trust Fund to spew FUD, it doesn’t really matter.
Webby, can you not hold more than one thought in your mind? It seems you cannot. We have one point of agreement – the annual CO2 cycle is caused by the annual SST cycle. That’s all there’s to it.
Next point: I assign ALMOST the entire increase in atmopspheric CO2 to the temperature integral over the period of change (NOT temperature rise) – it doesn’t take temperature change to change atmospheric CO2, because constant temperatures cause CO2 change. The mechanism is a kind of a CO2 pump – the annual SST cycle pumps to CO2 into the atmosphere and the flow of the ‘pump’ is temperature dependent (looks linear). So, when the cooling really kicks in, the annual change will decrease and at some point, at sufficiently low temperatures, it will reverse.
That’s even worse gibberish by Edim.
It’s impossible to put into words how completely misguided these tools are. The fantastical theories dribble out of their mouth like spew.
Edim envisions an integral in his head and claims it is some sort of pump that accumulates the CO2.
He might as well be talking about ghosts and goblins.
Webby, no I just follow the observations.
Vaughan Pratt
Your decadal trend inversions is interesting.
However, I would think a full FFT analysis for oscillatory periods would be more useful with a simple 10 year oscillation. Compare the IPCC CIMP5 models with the empirical models of The Global Warming Prediction Project and
Nicolla Scafetta
Testing an astronomically based decadal-scale empirical harmonic climate
model versus the IPCC (2007) general circulation climate models
See the bottom of Scafetta’s page for current graphed performance vs prediction of Scafetta vs IPCC since 2000. Scafetta’s model is performing remarkably better. He expects an underlying upward trend from 2010 to 2015 followed by another decline.
Scafetta, GWPP and IPCC CIMP5 are three major models against which to test your 10 year decadal oscillation prediction since 2000.
As an research engineer, I find the GWPP and Scafetta’s models to be much more reliable in predicting consequent global temperature over the periods we have observed them. Note the ability of Scafetta’s model with four oscillatory periods (with minor anthropogenic warming) to forecast/hindcast from one half the data to another. That appears much more robust than predicting exponential warming only to find that 3x too high for the last decade.
For the impact of CO2 on climate, note Scafetta’s recent paper where they find:
Quantifying the Multivariate ENSO Index (MEI) coupling to CO2 concentration and to the length of day variations
(PS the answer to your previous question is “understated” and “$30 trillion”.)
You’ve described epicycles. Epicycles work until they don’t then you add another epicycle, deferant, or equant to bring it back in line with observations. When you see something resembling that it’s a safe bet the underlying principles are wrong. You could simply come to me for predictions. I’m doing as well as Scafetta. I see a flat trend continuing for another ten years then a return to a rising trend with a net result of about 0.07C/decade background warming which I believe about half of which is anthropogenic warming and the remainder a continued rebound from the Little Ice Age. At some point the Holocene Interglacial will end. I suspect a confluence of strato-volcano eruptions and solar grand minimum will be the straw that breaks the Holocene’s back. The optimum alignment for axial and orbital precession favoring northern hemisphere glacier growth is 4000 years distant but we’re already over the hump and I don’t believe it needs to be precisely at the optimum it just needs a perfect storm to push it past the tipping point, a storm which could come along at any time now.
David Spencer
How do you distinguish epicycles from physics?
Vaughan, it is interesting and the probability of it being random chance is very small. The solar cycles do match up well. So far so good. The next question would be possible mechanisms? If you can find a mechanism and if the mechanism is such that a weaker solar cycle counters the previous results then that is the end of the pattern.
You are joking, right Vaughn? As you know, ten years is too short a time to look at. And 1920-1930 does not have a negative slope. If you look at 30 years, it looks as though 1880 to 1910 is downward and 1910 to 1940 is upward. From 1940 to 1980 it is fairly flat although you could easily find 25 years where it was negative. Then from 1980 to 2010 it is positive (but flattened out the last 10 years at least). I could see it staying relatively flat for another 20 years. The planet is warming since the 1750’s after all so I don’t necessarily expect a sharp downward slope but it did happen in the past (1880-1910). And CO2 may do some warming as well. If you add in errors to those temp.’s then many of those ten year periods could have positive or negative slopes. And the recent data from the sun may show that more than usual cooling could occur as well as the changes in the ocean cycles about now. Next 10-15 years will be very telling.
Svensmark has gained some notoriety for proposing cosmic rays as the catalyst,
The troublesome property is that it distracts from other viable CR mechanisms that have measurable properties for the interaction with climate and solar influences and indeed life on earth (chirality of amino acids)
Whilst the magnetic reversals have the same periodicity as the rotation of Jupiter ,there are also effects from the Jovian magnetosphere that are well known but poorly advertised such as electron precipitation and and NOx eg Thorne 1977
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17787812
There are a number of schools of work on this Crutzens being one
http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/6/1835/2006/acp-6-1835-2006.pdf
The Jovian magnetosphere being the primary reservoir of low energy electrons confirmed by pioneer and more recently the Pamela experiment.
http://pamela.roma2.infn.it/index.php?option=com_docman&task=doc_view&gid=7
The odd nitrogen also produce NO2 which blocks in the blue green spectrum ie in the spectrum of PAR.
Svensmark has gained some notoriety for proposing cosmic rays as the catalyst,
It’s a possibility to bear in mind. From the Wikipedia article on cosmic rays, A role of cosmic rays directly or via solar-induced modulations in climate change was suggested by Edward P. Ney in 1959 and by Robert Dickinson in 1975. In recent years, the idea has been revived most notably by Henrik Svensmark; the most recent IPCC study disputed the mechanism, while the most comprehensive review of the topic to date states: “evidence for the cosmic ray forcing is increasing as is the understanding of its physical principles.” I don’t have better theories to offer myself (usually I can think of something but not in this case).
Whilst the magnetic reversals have the same periodicity as the rotation of Jupiter
Very interesting point! 10.3 years (20th century) vs. 11.86 years. Close enough for government work (some governments anyway). ;) Thanks very much for that tip!
But 11.86 drifts out of phase with the calendar decades 6 times faster than 10.3, making Jupiter an unlikely candidate for the observed oscillation in HadCRUT3. And that’s Jupiter’s sidereal year—viewed from Earth instead of from the stars, Jupiter appears to orbit once in 11.86/(1 − 11.86) = −1.092 years. That is, the Sun moves through the 12 houses of the Zodiac 9.2% faster than Jupiter and the oppositions of Jupiter (closest approaches of Jupiter to Earth, essentially) occur every 1.092 years. Hence any impact we feel from Jupiter’s electrons should have a period of 1.092 years, not 11.86.
There is however a slightly-less-than-11 (10.86?) year period in the distance to Jupiter at each opposition, varying between 3.95 and 4.46 AU, maximized at the 2005 and 2017 oppositions and minimized in 2010, due to Jupiter’s relatively eccentric orbit. While that’s closer to 10.3 years it still drifts out of phase with calendar decades 3x faster than 10.3, so I’m still dubious.
vp ‘ Hence any impact we feel from Jupiter’s electrons should have a period of 1.092 years, not 11.86.”
Very good intuitive assumption and very close but for the wrong reason.The 13 month propagation and (modulation) of Jovian electrons into the earths radiation belts is because of the interaction on the direction of the Parker spiral.
http://pamela.roma2.infn.it/index.php?option=com_docman&task=doc_view&gid=338
The problem is the qualitative attributions to causal mechanisms such as odd nitrogen and interaction with relative species in O3 reduction etc and to separate from the solar cycle interplay,anthropogenic component etc ie the sum of the parts is greater then the whole.
@maksimovich: Very good intuitive assumption and very close but for the wrong reason.The 13 month propagation and (modulation) of Jovian electrons into the earths radiation belts is because of the interaction on the direction of the Parker spiral.
Thanks, but how do you distinguish “the interaction on the direction of the Parker spiral” from the much simpler and more obvious point that Earth’s nearest approach to Jupiter is every 13 months? Are you claiming the spiral is independent of the oppositions of Jupiter? If they’re merely the same phenomenon with different names then we would have nothing to disagree about, which would not be in the spirit of Judith’s blog.
One should not concentrate only on the recent period (> 1979) to assess climate models’ validity. One should also look at their ability to reproduce warming / cooling cycles since the beginning of temperature records.
The general trend since 1850 is +0.45°C per century.
On top of this background warming rate, one can observe that there is actually a 60 years warming / cooling cycle driven by multi-decadal oceans’ cycles, AMO and PDO mainly.
Hence the warming rate is 0.045 ± 0.125 °C/decade.
Up to +0.17°C/decade as observed during [1910 -1940] and [1970 – 2000] warming periods
Down to -0.08°C/decade as observed during [1880 – 1910] cooling period, and -0.04°C/decade over [1940 – 1970] cooling period.
None of the nice climate models has ever been able to reproduce these observed cycles. The warming rate calculated by models over [1910 – 1940] period is almost 3 times lower than observed.
The physics in the models is corrupted because only / mainly [CO2] driven. And it is hereby falsified.
@EO: None of the nice climate models has ever been able to reproduce these observed cycles.
I fully agree. Furthermore they never will until they start taking the core-mantle system of the Earth’s interior into account.
This 2000 article by Oxford’s Raymond Hide et al describes a 65-year oscillation at the core-mantle boundary inferred from geomagnetic secular variation data. The article goes beyond my theory of transfer of angular momentum between the Moon, the mantle, and the core (the basis for my reasoning), to take into account such transfers within the core itself, which I’d been completely neglecting. Taking it into account may make it easier to flesh out my rough sketch of what’s happening with surface temperature.
The physics in the models is corrupted because only / mainly [CO2] driven. And it is hereby falsified.
Wait, what?
I’m fine with “only”. Given that temperature rose very strongly between 1910 and 1940 while CO2 increased only very slightly, it should be obvious that CO2 can’t be the only driver.
But you passed from “only” to “mainly” with nothing more than than a /. How is / an argument?
The variance of AMO+PDO is certainly large, which I take to be your point. However the variance of radiatively induced global warming is several times larger. So while I buy your refutation of “only,” I don’t buy it for “mainly”.
I’ve posted three times on CE, the third being this post. Boy did that post give me grief. Certain people so hated the idea that CO2 could be the principal driver without being the only driver that they demanded I retract my entire AGU poster! Apparently I’d hit a nerve there without taking the precaution of a novocaine injection.
Global warming is nothing if not polarized.
‘Quantitatively, the recurrent multidecadal internal variability, often underestimated in attribution studies, accounts for 40% of the observed recent 50-y warming trend.’ http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2013/01/22/1212471110.abstract
I think Tung and Zhou underestimate – and you sure do.
“But you passed from “only” to “mainly” with nothing more than than a /. How is / an argument?”
genius. VP.
@CK: Quantitatively, the recurrent multidecadal internal variability, often underestimated in attribution studies, accounts for 40% of the observed recent 50-y warming trend.’
Yes, you also said that yesterday. But what does it mean? 40% of variance, of standard deviation, of what?
Unless there’s some correlation between natural and anthropogenic variability yet to be identified, one should be using variance in order that the variances of the parts sum to the variance of the whole.
When variance replaces amplitude, 40% or 0.40 becomes its square, 0.16 or 16%. This is close to what my work over the past two years has concluded. In that case I would have no problem with Tung and Zhou’s estimate.
I think Tung and Zhou underestimate – and you sure do.
Fantastic! Something to sink one’s teeth into. Please elaborate.
Vaughan Pratt,
The AMO and PDO are somewhat useful, but they are PSEUDO-CYCLIC and REGIONAL. They would likely be by-products of some larger system influence.
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-akfdjXCKVOg/UStkGk-uMTI/AAAAAAAAHUA/4FRkeYqbchY/s783/dfc%2520washington%2520state%2520versus%2520canada.png
Since you like the Hale cycle, 21 year trail averages of the Diurnal Flux Change. (DFC) DFC would be the absolute energy variation involved with diurnal temperature change. The 1910 to 1940 peak tends to get smeared, but it looks a lot like SAW anyway. OMG! it looks like an irregular ~120 plus year pseudo-cycle! What could cause such a thing?
My 40% claim comes directly from the Tung and Zhou – attribution of 40% of recent warming by regression. Simple enough?
Much of the rest is cloud change associated with these low frequency variabilities – not been listening?
“I hate when guys on my side are stupider than the lamest skeptic”
Yes it is discouraging, Steven. Your approach of calling a (stupid) spade a (stupid) spade, when that is the only available description left to you, is understandable.
However, I can’t help but observe that you often make an effort to engage with male peers who feel they are helpless to learn more.
I like your insistence on self-efficacy. :-)
Poor moshe’s point for a squad forming a circle instead of stringing along behind.
=========
Looks like Mosher’s comment you quoted got snipped and now the threading is broken again. Lovely.
Nevermind. Martha changed what Mosher wrote and put it inside quotes. Specifically Mosher spelled stupider “stupidier” so the search going off Martha’s quoted text failed. That’s one (among many) good reasons for not altering what is supposed to be a direct quote.
Sorry Martha. This is the internet. I make no assumptions about the gender of other parties who I haven’t met or don’t know. “heinrich” might be male or female and the same goes for you. For the record, “guys” and “folks” and “dude” are gender neutral in my work. get it dude? under stand sport?
And I don’t think Ive ever met anyone who felt helpless to learn. I’ve met those unwilling to learn. unable to learn, those who thought they had nothing to learn, like you perhaps, but never onyone who was helpless to learn. perhaps ypu can point one out. frgive the spelling. small phone screen big thumbs. You know what that means. err spelling mistakes.
Sorry Steven, you miss the point. It was tongue-in-cheek. The point was that you dominate many interactions with verbal abuse when you do not feel the individual is appealing to your expertise.
Interactions on the internet are often considered gender neutral. They are not. Further, climate issues and conversations are not gender neutral; and you are almost always speaking with other males, here.
Haven’t I seen you quote the late, great Michel Foucault, with approval? Maybe not. Anyway, the internet is far from inherently democratic and Foucault would never be so clueless about power and gender on the internet.
She’s only a bird in a gilded cage.
==========================
Martha:
“Sorry Steven, you miss the point. It was tongue-in-cheek. The point was that you dominate many interactions with verbal abuse when you do not feel the individual is appealing to your expertise.”
I dominate when I think domination will work tactically. I don’t think I have any particular expertise, except perhaps on climategate. The tactics of domination are varied. Sometimes, one can dominate by superior command of the argument. When your opponent is beyond reason, then ridicule is always an option. you are not a very good study of all the modes of domination that folks choose to employ. If i don’t think domination will work, I might try comprimise. or I might play possum or lay a trap. Lots of different tactics.
“Interactions on the internet are often considered gender neutral. They are not. Further, climate issues and conversations are not gender neutral; and you are almost always speaking with other males, here”
Sorry but saying it doesnt make it so. I could give a rats ass what your actual gender is. I don’t consider it for a second. That said, I have pissed off a few guys by running their text through gender genie. At lease they said they were guys when the genie said otherwise. Secondly, you are wrong. Whenever you show up and say something I interact with you.
And ask beth cooper. If she is a female, I interact with her. And Judith.
Now if 99% of the posters here are male and 1% female, and I interact with 100% of the females, how can what you say be true?
I interact with willard. is she a male? kim? is she a male? lolwot? male or female? Friend of more discourse? male or female. Your claim is either trivialy true, or wrong, or unverifiable. Choose dude.
“Haven’t I seen you quote the late, great Michel Foucault, with approval? Maybe not. Anyway, the internet is far from inherently democratic and Foucault would never be so clueless about power and gender on the internet”
dude. Im a student of derrida ( nice guy, actually ). Second, who said it was democratic. Third,
you missed my point. try again
you are almost always speaking with other males, here.
I’m torn between hee, hee, hee and ho, ho, ho. I’ll settle for chuckle.
I will add that Martha should meet my friend nicole daedone, and take a class. It’s life changing.
Vaughan I thnk Martha may be off taking those classes.
Funny. Every time she shows up I interact with her. And then we have a back and forth about how I only interact with males.. err as I interact with her.. so I kinda had to wonder maybe she is a he.
Hi Judith: You wanted CMIP5 model-data comparisons. Here ya go.
A quickie model-data comparison of satellite-era sea surface temperature anomalies for the Pacific:
http://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2012/12/06/model-data-comparison-pacific-ocean-satellite-era-sea-surface-temperature-anomalies/
Satellite-era precipitation versus CMIP5 hindcast/projections are here. Models simulate an increase in global precipitation but combined satellite- and rain gauge-based observations show a decrease:
http://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2012/12/27/model-data-precipitation-comparison-cmip5-ipcc-ar5-model-simulations-versus-satellite-era-observations/
I did an early post (not all of the CMIP5 models were submitted yet) comparing modeled versus observed polar amplification. It also includes CMIP3 models. The model mean do not present polar amplified cooling during the mid-20th Century cooling period and they miss the polar amplified warming during the early warming period of the 20th century:
http://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2012/04/24/polar-amplification-observations-versus-ipcc-climate-models/
And I did a land surface air temperature comparison for the individual continents using CMIP3 and early CMIP5 model outputs with masked GISS LOTI data here:
http://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2012/04/23/ipcc-models-vs-observations-land-surface-temperature-anomalies-for-the-last-30-years-on-a-regional-basis/
I’m finishing up a post about modeled and observed marine air temperature and sea surface temperature. (I have to add the hyperlinks.) Due to the sparseness of the MOHMAT data, I had to limit the comparison to the period of Jan 1950 to May 2007 (end at MOHMAT Data at KNMI Climate Explorer) and for the latitudes of 30S-60N. Preview: Observed SST warms faster than observed marine air temp, while the models have it backwards:
http://i48.tinypic.com/riawxk.jpg
I thought I had taken a recent look at sea surface temperatures versus CMIP5 models, but I recalled that the KNMI Climate Explorer was experiencing difficulties with their CMIP5 archives when I prepared my last post. From what I’ve seen so far, the CMIP5 models have a higher trend over the past 30 years. Reason: Not all of the CMIP3 models included volcanic aerosols so the satellite-era trend of the CMIP3 model mean is biased downward by those models—that is, the dips in 1982 and 1991 aren’t as great. On the other hand, as far as I know, all of the CMIP5 models include volcanic aerosols, so the volcano dips of the model mean are greater, creating a higher short-term trend. With that in mind, the following CMIP3 versus SST comparison will give you a ballpark idea. The following post included satellite-era sea surface temperature anomalies versus CMIP3 TOS, presented globally, by hemisphere, and broken down into individual ocean basins:
http://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2012/10/08/model-data-comparison-sea-surface-temperature-anomalies-november-1981-through-september-2012/
Regards
Compliments Bob on your post:
Another Model Fail – CMIP5 (IPCC AR5) Climate Models: Modeled Relationship between Marine Air Temperature and Sea Surface Temperature Is Wrong
This time the models are only off by a factor of 2!
This is equivalent to aiming for the Moon and thinking it was a lot hotter because you actually ended up on Venus.
Whatever happened to the objective scientific method, validation, and then building engineering quality models that withstand any amount of “kicking the tires”? Time to bring in the Red Teams for a serious dose of reality with corresponding correction.
And this says it all.
Warming did not flatline in 1995. To the contrary the best fit to the data is a continuation of the pre-1995 warming trend. The flatline since 1995 model fails hideously.
It’s pretty frickin simple. If you were sitting there in 1995, saw the warming to date, stuck a trend line through it and predicted that warming would continue, you’d be predicting an extrapolation of the trend line.
The pretty frickin simple doesn’t seem to get through the skeptics though.
lolwot: You’re focusing so hard on a strawman that you can’t look at your own graph. It’s obvious that there’s a jump in 1998 and after that the actual temps reside almost entirely above your projection and are not increasing at nearly the same rate, if at all.
You’re so obsessed with straight lines that you brought a straight line to a non-linear fight.
The skeptics claiming no warming since X are basing that on OLS trends wayne. So this is definitely a linear fight.
By all means if you want to start another thread arguing that the data is non-linear go ahead. But I would ask you make sure to slap down the skeptics claiming warming has stopped, for they do so based on an assumption of linear trend.
Right… It’s okay to use arbitrary endpoints because it’s testing a specific claim about a specific period. That’s why you referred to a continuation of “the pre-1995” trend. Because “the” really means “a.”
Seriously people, all you need to know is this. lolwot argues temperatures haven’t flatlined starting in a particular year without even looking at the temperatures of that year. He instead relies upon arbitrary values derived from regressions as the baseline temperature for that year.
If you want to have some fun, try applying his methodology to other periods. The results will be fascinatingly nonsensical.
Oops. That should have been posted one node further down.
When I used the word “the” I was referring to the trend in my specific example of 1970-1995. I wasn’t saying that’s the only period of warming you could use to represent pre-1995 warming.
“lolwot argues temperatures haven’t flatlined starting in a particular year without even looking at the temperatures of that year”
I think it’s a mistake to look at temperatures of any particular year when you are supposed to be testing trends across much longer periods!
You could take it a step further and demand we look at the last month of 1995. Or maybe I should be comparing temperatures with temperature anomaly of the last hour of 1995!
lolwot: So you ignore the substantive part of my comment in order to focus on the sentence paying homage to the famous “you brought a knife to a gunfight” quote instead?
I’ll say it again: your linear projection obviously does not fit the data because of an obvious jump in 1998. Your projection straight line is Excel-kiddy stuff and shows no sense.
On the flip side of the coin, critics use straight lines because true-believers like yourself are obsessed with them. And if you actually look at the data, there’s an obvious discontinuity in 1998 that could be fitted piecewise with two straight lines. It’s called poetic justice or something.
Anyone who fits straight lines across the 1998 boundary, or who is not disturbed by a line starting in the 70’s and awkwardly “fitting” across the gap to the present has no feel for data.
“your linear projection obviously does not fit the data because of an obvious jump in 1998”
I ignored it because it made no sense. A linear trend is an approximation. Saying it “doesn’t fit the data” is meaningless. It fits just fine. As a linear trend with the data varying above and below it at various points.
I didn’t say it was perfect, but there you go.
The departure in 1998 has an obvious cause: The super el nino, “el nino of the century” that happened in 1997/1998.
lolwot, my understanding is the response of temperature to ncrease in CO2 is a logarithmic, not linear, function. So why would one expect to see a linear function? Why do you insist that a linear trend continues?
It’s remarkable you’d say something is “pretty frickin simple” while getting a basic average wrong. The flat line you show for 1995 temperatures (.228) is about a tenth of a degree too low if it’s meant to be the average 1995 temperature (.323). In fact, the value you used is lower than 10 of the 12 months in 1995.
(And that’s assuming we should use the average of 1995. It could be argued a better choice is the maximum. After all, saying a flatline started in 1995 doesn’t specify a starting month.)
I just realized this is more remarkable than I thought. To create that flat line, lolwot added an offset value of -0.11. That’s right. He added an offset of almost the exact amount his line was wrong by!
Manually altering a figure in a way that decreases accuracy and increases visual impact…
The answer is that it isn’t meant to be the average for the year 1995. It’s meant to be where the trend has reached in 1995.
One mistake I have made though is that I haven’t included 1995 in the period of warming. The claim “No warming since 1995” includes 1995 in the period of warming, ie the period of no warming starts in 1996-onwards. The trend drawn should be to dec1995 not dec1994. I have corrected this for a good reason that may be shown later, although it makes no material difference to anything I have said
Yes, that’s better.
Oh, right. Sorry. I forgot you do utterly insane things lolwot. Specifically, I forgot when you say things like “the flatline since 1995,” you aren’t actually referring to temperatures of 1995. You’re actually referring to arbitrary values derived from regressions because they’re… better than actual values?
Brandon,
The subject is warming over the period 1970-1995 and whether that warming stopped or continued.
I have done is approximated that warming with an OLS trend over the period 1970-1995. So what I am testing is whether that line continues upwards past 1995, or goes flat.
Going flat is what I would expect of warming stopping.
I wouldn’t fix the flat line to the 12 month average of 1995 anymore than I would fix it to the 24 hour average of 31st December 1995. Neither makes any sense because what is being tested is the trend representing the warming. Particular 12 year periods can obviously fall well above or below that trend.
lowlot wrote: “It’s meant to be where the trend has reached in 1995”
——————————————————————————————–
Trends don’t ‘reach’ anything or anywhere, nor should they be expected to.
phatboy by trend I mean the trend-line.
I know what you meant
then I don’t see your point. Lines can reach values. For example a 0.2C/decade line will reach 2C warmer than today in 100 years time.
Trend lines are not temperatures. See: http://wmbriggs.com/blog/?p=5107
But they can model temperature.
Did the warming from 1970-1995 stop after 1995? Model says No.
phatboy, don’t bother. I’ve shown lolwot why his approach is nonsensical before, and he refuses to deal with it. The reality is we can change the endpoint by changing what period the regression is calculated over. Start at 1965, and it will end at one spot. Start at 1975, and it will end at another. It’s completely arbitrary, and it’s completely meaningless.
lolwot’s approach has no legitimacy, and he promotes it solely because he has no idea what he’s doing. You can’t fix people like that. You can highlight his problems for other people, but that’s it.
(And even that is probably meaningless. Nobody on his “side” will condemn him, and nobody else will listen to him.)
“The reality is we can change the endpoint by changing what period the regression is calculated over. Start at 1965, and it will end at one spot. Start at 1975, and it will end at another. It’s completely arbitrary, and it’s completely meaningless.”
That’s not meaningless. If you change the start point you are changing the hypothesis from ‘has 1970-1995 warming stopped?’ to ‘has 1965-1995 warming stopped?’
There’s nothing wrong with the values being different if you are asking a different question!
There would only be a problem if changing the endpoints slightly altered the result dramatically. The result being that the data better follows continued warming since 1995 than no warming since 1995.
lowlot wrote: “But they can model temperature”
———————————————————————-
No they don’t. They model what you assume the temperature to be doing.
If you tell a model to draw a straight line between two points, don’t be surprised if it does just that.
Which is why it’s an excellent test (and falsification) of skeptic claims that warming stopped in 1995. Because they are thinking in terms of lines too.
No. They can’t tell you anything about the data that you don’t already know – or think you know.
you are just being contrarian now
So you assert that trend lines model temperatures?
Go back to your last WFT offering then.
What was the temperature in 1970? Was it what the data says, or what the trend-line says?
What was the temperature in 1996? Was it what the data says, or what the trend-line says?
In fact, when does the trend line agree with the data except at the times when the two cross?
Bottom line: the trend-line does not model the data.
phatboy, one can actually measure how well the trend models the data. It isn’t hard, and it at least gives an idea of how accurate the trend is. Of course, if you start doing that, you should look at the residuals too. At that point the OLS part doesn’t mean much.
Not the way lowlot’s trying to do it.
An OLS trend only models the data well if the trend in the data is linear – in which case the trend is obvious, so you don’t need the OLS model to tell you.
Phatboy, take for example this graph. You complain the annual data doesn’t fit perfectly on the linear trend-line, but it doesn’t have to for the model to fit the data.
What I find remarkable about your graphs lolwot is that the warming trend you point to is derived from EXACTLY 20 years, and the endpoints are neatly space on multiples of 5, 1975 and 1995. How does the temperature know to match up so well with an even number of years and to start on a multiple of 5? Why not 1976-1995 or 1973 to 1998?
I guess climate is just so smart!!
Wow scott, it’s almost as if a human selected a period to draw a graph isn’t it? How fascinating!
Tell you what, if you want to give me a different start year for the warming that you think stopped in 1995 I’ll be happy to use that as well to show you are wrong.
You’re just not getting it lolwot. I never said warming stopped in 1995. I believe the earth is in a constant state of warming or cooling. Has been since the beginning.
Given that temperatures have never runaway, even though we’ve seen very high concentrations of CO2, much, much higher than today, logic tells me there are feedbacks that help to dampen the effect of CO2 and keep the planet’s temperature in balance within a relatively narrow range.
So, picking whatever starting, and ending, points you like, please show me when in history the planet’s temperature has runaway and why it will this time. Because if what you’ve got is a 0.03C / decade trend that isn’t statistically significant your firing blanks.
lowlot wrote: “You complain the annual data doesn’t fit perfectly on the linear trend-line, but it doesn’t have to for the model to fit the data”
——————————————————————————–
I’m not complaining about anything – you’re the one who’s trying to assert that the trend-line == data.
And then all you can produce is a graph which vaguely correlates the two.
It’s just the simplest test of continued warming to extrapolate the trend. I am not looking at the cause here, just whether it continues.
How about the 1975 to 1996 trend? 1975-1997? 1975-1998? 1975.5-1995.5?
1975-1996
Same result. The data after 1995 follows the extrapolated trend, not the “no warming” flat trend. So claims that warming stopped in 1995 are simply false.
The claim made scott is that warming stopped in 1995. So I don’t know why you are suggesting periods like “1975-1997”. To test whether the warming stopped in 1995 the trend has to be taken up to 1995, not 1997.
I’ve made no clam as to when the temperature went through an inflection. I’m just asking questions. So what about 1975-1997 and 1975-1998 or 1974-1995 or 1973-1998… You seem to believe that temperature follows a linear trend, so let’s test that assumption, shall we?
1975-1998
Again the result shows the data best follows an extrapolation of the warming trend rather than a flattening.
Have to go up to about 2002/2003 to reach an ambiguity between warming stopping and warming continuing.
Anastasios Tsonis, of the Atmospheric Sciences Group at University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, and colleagues used a mathematical network approach to analyse abrupt climate change on decadal timescales. Ocean and atmospheric indices – in this case the El Niño Southern Oscillation, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, the North Atlantic Oscillation and the North Pacific Oscillation – can be thought of as chaotic oscillators that capture the major modes of climate variability. Tsonis and colleagues calculated the ‘distance’ between the indices. It was found that they would synchronise at certain times and then shift into a new state.
It is no coincidence that shifts in ocean and atmospheric indices occur at the same time as changes in the trajectory of global surface temperature. Our ‘interest is to understand – first the natural variability of climate – and then take it from there. So we were very excited when we realized a lot of changes in the past century from warmer to cooler and then back to warmer were all natural,’ Tsonis said.
Four multi-decadal climate shifts were identified in the last century coinciding with changes in the surface temperature trajectory. Warming from 1909 to the mid 1940’s, cooling to the 1976/77, warming to 1998 and at least non warming since. These ‘climate shifts’ are accompanied by changes in the frequency and intensity of ENSO events.
‘We construct a network of observed climate indices in the period 1900–2000 and investigate their collective behavior. The results indicate that this network synchronized several times in this period. We find that in those cases where the synchronous state was followed by a steady increase in the coupling strength between the indices, the synchronous state was destroyed, after which a new climate state emerged. These shifts are associated with significant changes in global temperature trend and in ENSO variability. The latest such event is known as the great climate shift of the 1970s. We also find the evidence for such type of behavior in two climate simulations using a state-of-the-art model. This is the first time that this mechanism, which appears consistent with the theory of synchronized chaos, is discovered in a physical system of
the size and complexity of the climate system.’ https://pantherfile.uwm.edu/aatsonis/www/2007GL030288.pdf
This work shows that climate is chaotic in the sense of theoretical physics. On decadal scales the system is pushed past a threshold and dynamically adjusts to a new emergent state as a result of interactions between multiple feedbacks. It is not the case that any state is possible as a result of climate shifts – simply preferred states and these have varied in the Quaternary from glacial to interglacial.
The lessor shifts seen in ocean and atmosphere patterns last decade mark the end points of the periods we are interested in. This is around 1910, 1945, 1976/77 and1998/2001.
Ah…last century…
Here’s how they spin the models it at ‘open mind’:
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2013/02/23/once-is-not-enough/#comments
“I love this post.
I think it will be “game over” when we get the next big El Nino. At that stage the “skeptics” will shut up, and we can somewhat belatedly start fixing the problem.
[Response: I hope your optimistic expectation comes to pass.]”
optimistic?
Optimistic in that the skeptics will probably just move on to claiming “No Warming since 2010!!”
Well look for yourself – http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/enso/mei/ – La Nina dominant to 1976/77, El Nino dominant to 1998 and La Nina since. We are as likely to get a big El Nino in the next decade or so as the models are likely to be right. Cool PDO and more intense and frequent La Nina are the prevailing pattern.
The correlation between observation and prediction/Scenario is an extremely important point. The snippiness and off-topic whining is amazing for those who consider CAGW, real or not, a global concern. And Steven Mosher: what is with the juvenile nastiness? If you were a child of mine, I’d tell you to grow up and enter into the adult world: nobody likes or needs a pissy smartmouth. Be part of the solution, not a continuing part of the problem.
Jeez.
Just curious lolwot, how do you square Pachauri’s recent admission that there’s been no additional warming in 17 years with your own steadfast refusal (inability?) to make that concession? Maybe you should call him and convince him he’s indulging in voodoo science?
He’s wrong if he said that.
Not hard to square is it. If someone says something that is incorrect, they are wrong.
Heh, Pachauri’s been wrong all along, and now he says something right.
lolwot, are you one of those communicators Gore trained? How are things Currently?
=============
looks like he never even said it kim
Well, to remain consistent, he wouldn’t have said it.
====================
Audit time pokerguy,
Can you give me the actual quote from Pachauri pokerguy that backs up your claim about what he said?
So far I’ve found three interviews with Pachauri in Melbourne on February 21, one by Simon Lauder reported verbatim here, one by Auskar Surbakti reported verbatim here, and “a widely-ranging interview” reported (and conducted? he doesn’t say) by Graham Lloyd, a number of verbatim Pachauri quotes from which can be seen here. The first two interviews are available in audio but unfortunately not the third even though it would surely have been taped.
In none of these interviews, not even the one reported by Lloyd, does Pachauri say anything at all about a 17-year pause. Lloyd begins his article with “The UN’s climate change chief, Rajendra Pachauri, has acknowledged a 17-year pause in global temperature rises, confirmed recently by Britain’s Met Office.” Lloyd quotes Pachauri verbatim several times, but not when he writes “Dr Pachauri said global average temperatures had plateaued at record levels and that the halt did not disprove global warming” which is interesting: why no verbatim quote for the particular sentence headlined by the article?
No one is disputing that the rise has plateaued so far this millennium. (One could say that except for the year 1997 we’ve been in a plateau since 1960, just not always the same one.) Lloyd can say “acknowledged a 17-year pause” without lying provided Pachauri acknowledged a pause that Lloyd believed referred to a 17-year pause.
The current plateau can perfectly reasonably be called a 15-year one thanks to the remarkable spike in 1998 preventing its left end from sagging. However the average anomaly for that period is 0.411 whereas that of the preceding two years is 0.243, making it hard to justify counting those two years as part of a claimed 17-year plateau, which is what Lloyd has done here. It makes more sense to assign at least the first 18 months of those two years to the preceding plateau. (The remarkably rapid climb to the 1998 spike began in mid-1997 and peaked dramatically at 0.739 in February 1998. As a result 1997 doesn’t fit into the preceding or following plateau, it’s more like the riser in a staircase which is why I called it out as an exception in my four-plateau plot.)
Had Pachauri himself ever referred to the current pause as a 17-year one his exact words would be all over the Internet!
The other two interviews give a much more detailed idea of Pachauri’s position on many aspects of global warming. There’s nothing in those two interviews that even hints at what Lloyd implies Pachauri said in the third interview.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/7062667/Pachauri-the-real-story-behind-the-Glaciergate-scandal.html
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/02/22/ipcc-railroad-engineer-pachauri-acknowledges-no-warming-for-17-years/
Interesting that the search engines won’t show you that.
They do show some interesting things about who is getting what by whom for what.
Larry can you point me to the quote from Pachauri where he acknowledges no warming for 17 years? Where is it?
I don’t see anything in the WUWT article or in the Australian news piece to back up the claim he said that.
James Hansen and two colleagues acknowledges a 15-year pause here:
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2013/20130115_Temperature2012.pdf
Global Temperature Update Through 2012
15 January 2013
J. Hansen, M. Sato, R. Ruedy
Note a “5-year mean” requires 5 years of history to calculate it. So when he says the 5 year mean has been flat for a decade that means it was flat for that decade plus the five previous years required to calculate the mean on the first day of that decade. These are really weasel words that mislead some into thinking only the past 10 years were flat. The following two statements are equivalent, in other words:
The 5-year mean global temperature has been flat for a decade
The annual mean global temperature has been flat for 15 years
The only reason I respond to you, lolwot, is so that others may see that even James Hansen acknowledges a 15-year pause. Global non-warming denialists such as yourself and whatshisface Nucitelli @ Sketpical Science will not acknowledge what legitimate scientists are forced to acknowledge lest their peers roast them on a spit for lying.
Hansen et used to say that natural variability wasn’t capable of stopping warming, now he says it does but in combination with “a slowdown in the growth rate of the net climate forcing”. co2 growth rate hasn’t slowed, but the sun has.
Is he preparing the way for an about turn, just in case mother nature’s natural variability in the shape of the climate decides to go and make an even bigger mess of their multivariate nonsense climate models which in reality are single variate (co2) models, by entering a period of extended cooling.
“Hansen et used to say that natural variability wasn’t capable of stopping warming”
Citation needed.
Why do you skeptics find the need to fabricate what people have or haven’t said?
“The following two statements are equivalent, in other words:
The 5-year mean global temperature has been flat for a decade
The annual mean global temperature has been flat for 15 years”
Not so
Pachauri had no choice but to admit there’s been no warming for 17 years, the Met Office had finally made a statement and others like NOAA have had to admit it or look like total chumps.
http://www.cfact.org/2013/02/23/pachauri-would-not-admit-over-a-decade-without-warming-when-cfact-asked-him-in-mexico-but-admits-it-now/
But the scam goes on, the so called “scientists” perpetuating the global warming fraud first deny then move the goalposts, typical conman tactics. Pachauri now moves the goal posts to 30-40 years to show a trend, when as Eddy Aruda points out in the comments, this scam was kicked off by Hansen claiming imminent global warming apocalypse after ten years of warming. He did this at a senate committee sweltering in a room where he had earlier opened all the windows to break down the air conditioning.
Liars and cheats the lot of them. And all who aid and abet them in the face of the mountain of evidence we have of their duplicity pushing fake fisics.
http://joannenova.com.au/2013/02/pachauri-quietly-blows-goalposts-away-pretends-to-like-skeptics-its-all-pr-to-keep-the-gravy-train-running/
Jo Nova: “Can’t we just pretend the IPCC predicted decades of global flatness?
In 1990 the IPCC told global policymakers that even if they stabilized emissions, the world would warm by at least 0.2C per decade for the next few decades. That was their “low estimate”. Emissions didn’t remotely stabilize, so the warming trend “should” have been even more than that (they thought 0.3C per decade, maybe up to 0.5C per decade). Instead it warmed less.
The pause became noticeable. The goalposts started shifting as the pause got longer. Nothing disproves a climate model (that’s a tautology, by the way).
In 2008 NOAA said that pauses of 15 years or more didn’t fit with climate simulations (so if it went longer, the models would be wrong). Likewise James Hansen was caught in ClimateGate saying that ‘no upward trend’ has to continue for a total of 15 years before we get worried.’ When the pause got a bit longer still, Ben Santer said in a paper it really was 17 years we needed to see. That was 2011.
By 2013, instead of admitting failure, changing the theory and thanking the skeptics, Pachauri now says we’ll need 30 -40 years of the IPCC being wrong before we can say they are wrong. Bold, very bold.”
“They won’t make the mistake of making actual predictions again after they failed so badly in 1990. Now they predict warming, cooling, blizzards, droughts and unwarming. All roads lead to a crisis.”
“Pachauri had no choice but to admit there’s been no warming for 17 years, the Met Office had finally made a statement and others like NOAA have had to admit it or look like total chumps.”
Myhrr this is a lie. The Met Office nor the NOAA have not made any such statement to that effect.
Please stop helping to spread these falsehoods.
Oh wot lolwot? quibbling about the actual “quote” or number or years 16/17? Paraphrase as the Daily Mail has done is perfectly acceptable because conveying the same information. It appears you are being disingenuous here which makes you devious – as I’ve had experience before here of someone attacking me by taking something I said out of context. Not impressed.
I’m not the liar here, those pushing the AGW fake fisics global warming scare are the ones shown time and time again to be the liars and the manipulators of data and they have to do this because they cannot prove anything of their AGW claim, not a thing.
JoNova has written a good piece on the machinations of Pachauri and his ilk: http://joannenova.com.au/2013/02/pachauri-quietly-blows-goalposts-away-pretends-to-like-skeptics-its-all-pr-to-keep-the-gravy-train-running/
I’m sorry if you see nothing amiss with our supposedly best “science” institutions.. : http://www.sott.net/article/256309-Global-Warming-Has-the-UK-Met-Office-committed-fraud
lolwot, The Australian newspaper, 22/02/13 ‘The UN’s climate
change Rajendra Pauchauri has acknowledged a 17 year pause
in global temperature rises….’
Beth,
That’s not a quote from Pauchauri.
Let me make a stunning prediction:
We’ll find out that Pauchauri DID NOT acknowledge a 17 year pause in global temperature rise. In fact we’ll find out Pauchauri never even said the number “17” in that interview.
We’ll find out the Australian ascribed an acknowledgement to him he never made.
And climate skeptics merrily went round the internet pushing this untruth. None of them questioned or perhaps even spotted the fact there is no direct quote of him saying what he is claimed to have said.
But lolwot did. Only lolwot. Seems the real skeptic is lolwot.
WUWT?
see my post above: Myrrh | February 24, 2013 at 6:53 am |
http://judithcurry.com/2013/02/19/adapting-to-climate-change-challenges-and-opportunities-for-u-s-business-community/#comment-298007
He had no choice but to admit it, to acknowledge it, that’s when he moved the goal posts ..
..it is implicit in his response. The con man didn’t want to put it into words, perhaps so his devotees could claim he never said it..?
But, well spotted. Now you can explain why he didn’t.
‘The underlying net anthropogenic warming rate in the industrial era is found to have been steady since 1910 at 0.07–0.08 °C/decade, with superimposed AMO-related ups and downs that included the early 20th century warming, the cooling of the 1960s and 1970s, the accelerated warming of the 1980s and 1990s, and the recent slowing of the warming rates. Quantitatively, the recurrent multidecadal internal variability, often underestimated in attribution studies, accounts for 40% of the observed recent 50-y warming trend.’
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2013/01/22/1212471110.abstrac
‘Natural, large-scale climate patterns like the PDO and El Niño-La Niña are superimposed on global warming caused by increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases and landscape changes like deforestation. According to Josh Willis, JPL oceanographer and climate scientist, “These natural climate phenomena can sometimes hide global warming caused by human activities. Or they can have the opposite effect of accentuating it.”’ http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=8703
Hard to know how or why numbnut is denying this – but he obviously has little support and no credibility.
has no relevance to anything I have said.
He said it would ‘need to last 30 or 40 years at least’ to break the global warming trend. So we are in this never never world of decades of cooling but it is still warming.
We know there are decadal variations in climate – and centennial and millennial – but it is all irrelevant aye numbnut?
lolwot, some questions for you.
What proportion of the warming in the second half of 2012 was natural?
How long has the current non-warming lasted?
What happened to stop the warming that was predicted by the models?
sorry not interested in answering questions right now
It’ll keep coming up, lolwot; it’s the source of your dissonance.
===============
@SC (addressed to lolwot who declined to answer): What proportion of the warming in the second half of 2012 was natural?
In the Southern Hemisphere, presumably more than 90%. The Northern Hemisphere cooled during that period, also naturally.
How long has the current non-warming lasted?
Since 1998, a 15-year plateau. The average anomaly has been 0.411 C during that period. To make it a 17-year plateau requires including the preceding two years. However their average anomaly was 0.243 C. I don’t see any justification for calling those two years part of the plateau.
What happened to stop the warming that was predicted by the models?
To quote Mugwump, a fixture on Amazon climate blogs for some years, “It’s the Sun, stupid.” Specifically the 21-year magnetic cycle (lately more like 20 years), whose apparent impact on HadCRUT3 (orange curve) peaked in 2000. (Following Greg Goodman’s recommendation I’ve started truncating the ends of graphs produced by filtering as end effects make the ends meaningless.)
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nothing-off-limits-in-climate-debate/story-e6frg6n6-1226583112134
lolwot, not a quote but a published report of an interview with a claim
that RP acknowledged that there was a 17 yr pause in warming.. If
The Australian has mis-reported we would expect Pauchari to
demand a retraction. Doesn’t seem to be a retraction so far.
And you think because the Australian made that claim without providing an actual quote we should assume it’s true?
Not very skeptical Beth. A bit gullible in fact.
lolwot and Beth
Let’s establish the “null hypothesis” here.
Graham Lloyd, The Australian, 22 February 2013, has published an article stating that RP had acknowledged the 17 year pause in warming reported earlier by the UK Met Office, adding various comments by RP rationalizing the significance of the pause:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nothing-off-limits-in-climate-debate/story-e6frg6n6-1226583112134
The story has “gone viral” (Canada, USA, Germany, etc.)
There has been no demand for a retraction by Dr. Pachauri.
How many days do we have to wait until the “null hypothesis” becomes:
Two more days?
10 days after the first release?
Whaddaya think?
Max
Not until you can provide the quote of exactly what Pachauri said.
The Australian is simply not a reliable source.
It’s voodoo, Beth. The 17 year pause can both be and not be.
===========
voodoo!
More recent work is identifying abrupt climate changes working through the El Niño Southern Oscillation, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, the North Atlantic Oscillation, the Southern Annular Mode, the Arctic Oscillation, the Indian Ocean Dipole and other measures of ocean and atmospheric states. These are measurements of sea surface temperature and atmospheric pressure over more than 100 years which show evidence for abrupt change to new climate conditions that persist for up to a few decades before shifting again. Global rainfall and flood records likewise show evidence for abrupt shifts and regimes that persist for decades. In Australia, less frequent flooding from early last century to the mid 1940’s, more frequent flooding to the late 1970’s and again a low rainfall regime to recent times.
Anastasios Tsonis, of the Atmospheric Sciences Group at University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, and colleagues used a mathematical network approach to analyse abrupt climate change on decadal timescales. Ocean and atmospheric indices – in this case the El Niño Southern Oscillation, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, the North Atlantic Oscillation and the North Pacific Oscillation – can be thought of as chaotic oscillators that capture the major modes of climate variability. Tsonis and colleagues calculated the ‘distance’ between the indices. It was found that they would synchronise at certain times and then shift into a new state.
It is no coincidence that shifts in ocean and atmospheric indices occur at the same time as changes in the trajectory of global surface temperature. Our ‘interest is to understand – first the natural variability of climate – and then take it from there. So we were very excited when we realized a lot of changes in the past century from warmer to cooler and then back to warmer were all natural,’ Tsonis said.
Four multi-decadal climate shifts were identified in the last century coinciding with changes in the surface temperature trajectory. Warming from 1909 to the mid 1940’s, cooling to the late 1970’s, warming to 1998 and declining since. The shifts are punctuated by extreme El Niño Southern Oscillation events. Fluctuations between La Niña and El Niño peak at these times and climate then settles into a damped oscillation. Until the next critical climate threshold – due perhaps in a decade or two if the recent past is any indication.
James Hurrell and colleagues in a recent article in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society stated that the ‘global coupled atmosphere–ocean–land–cryosphere system exhibits a wide range of physical and dynamical phenomena with associated physical, biological, and chemical feedbacks that collectively result in a continuum of temporal and spatial variability. The traditional boundaries between weather and climate are, therefore, somewhat artificial.’ Somewhat artificial is somewhat of an understatement for a paradigm shift in climate science.
The fact that you don’t get it – JCH – seems more due to cognitive dissonance than anything to do with climate science.
Lol.
It is a 20 to 40 year pause. I note that you have accused me elsewhere of peddling this rubbish for nearly a decade. You lose – so sad too bad. LOL
I should add that it becomes more evident day by day to all but the most profoundly dissonant space cadets.
‘After reviewing evidence in both the latest global data (HadCRUT4) and the longest instrumental record, Central England Temperature, a revised picture is emerging that gives a consistent attribution for each multidecadal episode of warming and cooling in recent history, and suggests that the anthropogenic global warming trends might have been overestimated by a factor of two in the second half of the 20th century.’
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2013/01/22/1212471110.abstract
At least a factor of 2 and cooling for decades. Cry baby cry.
Judith: The NCADAC draft also had a few comparisons/projections in Deg F. Their figure 1 on page 23 for the U.S.:
http://i47.tinypic.com/2r4309w.jpg
And their Figure 2.3 (global) on page 35, with the observations ending in 2008:
http://i49.tinypic.com/2rp7dxd.jpg
Odd year to end the observations.
Lolwot, you will never answer my questions.
why the hell should I you are clearly a troll
E purr so muove eh lolwot ?
@BC: E purr so muove eh lolwot ?
Italian for (pick one):
Lolwot is moved by Schroedinger’s pussy.
Beth’s pussy is moved by Lolwot’s sweet nothings.
Lolwot’s pussy is joining the immense raft of Youtube cat videos.
I am sure it is nothing to do with quantum indeterminancy at all. More a matter of just the facts and less cognitive dissonance. You are entitled to your own opinion – Vaughan – but to your not to your own innuendo.
You are entitled to your own cognitive dissonance but not to your own double entendre? I thought it deserved a do over.
Always like a good line. Heard one yesterday. ‘A verb is a tragedy we can well do without.’ Someday I may discover what it means – in the meantime will enjoy the insousiance. Which I take to mean sans sous chef – which as I have just had a dinner of lean Aussie lamb and lashings of salad – I can take with equanimity.
I shall have to write a poem with no verbs – and see if it is less tragic than losing your sous chef.
I gotta take a break. The juxtaposition of Bob Tisdale and lolwot has overwhelmed me.
============
lolwot, I’m not the troll, you are.
While you never reveal your convictions it gives you the opportunity to rubbish every comment made by everyone else. As soon as you reveal your position, you become vulnerable to challenges, just like everone else.
You are the troll and you waste everyone’s time. Go away.
So you didn’t like me “rubbishing other people’s comments”, AKA cutting through the BS of your fellow skeptics.
So you set out to try and divert my attention into answering a bunch of questions instead.
Sadly for you I saw through it. Your “some questions for you” act as the innocent questioner was quite obvious.
For several people:
I am only a nebish in the flatlands with no special access to the truth, but I have been an interested observer of the world and how it seems to work for most of 7 cycles, My training in observation is derived from a combination of listening to my mother–a farmer’s daughter, taking pilot training, and engaging in a number of activities (in the mountains, on the deserts, in the air, and on the seas) where guessing the future accurately is an important skill.
As I mentioned, the search engines (Bing worse than Google, surprisingly enough) won’t show me much when I look for Dr. P and his pronouncements. I did see enough to suggest that his ethics and honesty raise the question “Why would anybody listen to him about anything?” and so we have to consider the possibility that he is lying about this matter.
I did not find any references to ‘Dr, Rajendra Pauchauri said: “……..”‘ but I did see myriad references to “Rajendra Pachauri, has acknowledged a 17-year pause in global temperature rises, confirmed recently by Britain’s Met Office…” or words nearly exactly the same as that.
It is interesting to note that among the places where I did NOT see anything interesting was the Met Office site.
This discussion has rotted, as they always do, to warmist trolls grasping at imaginary or manufactured straws, and troll farmers feeding the trolls in response.
So I am about to kill the subscription to this thread.
If you will excuse me then I’ll see if I can get to the wood pile and back so I won’t freeze while I worry about my wife out driving on the icy roads.
Spring in Nebraska is getting to be as bad as the winters.
“but I did see myriad references to “Rajendra Pachauri, has acknowledged a 17-year pause in global temperature rises, confirmed recently by Britain’s Met Office…”
Because climate skeptics have copy pasted that false sentence all over the internet?
“It is interesting to note that among the places where I did NOT see anything interesting was the Met Office site.”
Because the Met Office aren’t a bunch of lying hack climate skeptics?
When you can see their sleights of hand to hide whatever is inimical to their global warming fear mongering in their reporting and statements, you’ll be less apt to take them at face value..
Of course the Met Office isn’t going to trumpet that there’s been no warming for 17 years, their funding, and ideology, relies on keeping the scam going.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2261577/Global-warming-stopped-16-years-ago-Met-Office-report-reveals-MoS-got-right-warming–deniers-now.html
“Global warming stopped 16 years ago, Met Office report reveals: MoS got it right about warming… so who are the ‘deniers’ now?By David Rose
PUBLISHED: 01:12 GMT, 13 January 2013 | UPDATED: 01:13 GMT, 13 January 2013
..
Last year The Mail on Sunday reported a stunning fact: that global warming had ‘paused’ for 16 years. The Met Office’s own monthly figures showed there had been no statistically significant increase in the world’s temperature since 1997.
We were vilified. One Green website in the US said our report was ‘utter bilge’ that had to be ‘exposed and attacked’.
The Met Office issued a press release claiming it was misleading, before quietly admitting a few days later that it was true that the world had not got significantly warmer since 1997 after all. A Guardian columnist wondered how we could be ‘punished’.”
The Met Office first tried to downplay it, typical conman tactics of the disingenuous.
And typical “global warming devotees” response from the Grauniad – the tried and testing technique of calling for violence against those who oppose the memes of their religion.
These are not scientists lolwot, why are you with them?
The article in The Australian does NOT provide a direct quote for the “17-year” pause.
It says:
~~~start quote of article~~~
“Dr Pachauri said global average temperatures had plateaued at record levels and that the halt did not disprove global warming.
“The climate is changing because of natural factors and the impact of human actions,” Dr Pachauri said.
“If you look at temperatures going back 150 years, there are clearly fluctuations which have occurred largely as a result of natural factors: solar activity, volcanic activity and so on.
“What is quite perceptible is, in the last 50 years, the trend is upwards.
“This is not to say you won’t have ups and downs – you will – but what we should be concerned about is the trend, and that is being influenced now to a large extent by human actions.”
He said that it would be 30 to 40 years “at least” before it was possible to say that the long-term upward trend in global temperatures had been broken.
“If you look at the last century, records tell you that the increase in average surface temperature has been 0.74C,” he said.
“If you have five or 10 years when you don’t have the same trend, that doesn’t necessarily mean that you are deviating from the trend – you are still around the trend.”
~~~end article quote~~~
Without Mr. Lloyd’s interview notes or interview recording, there is no way to know what, if anything, Lloyd took to be the basis of this lead-in ==> “THE UN’s climate change chief, Rajendra Pachauri, has acknowledged a 17-year pause in global temperature rises”.
(It cost me a dollar to find this out — so now I have 27 more days of access to an Australian newspaper — what a treat! /sarc)
I am sure that Rupert appreciates the business Kip.
We have the data – http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1997 – we don’t need interview notes. Nor do we suggest it is all a right wing conspiracy. But clutching at straws is so unseemly
The ‘pause’ in global warming – now that most of them have at long last stopped denying it – is no accident and is not all that mysterious. It is the result in large part of large scale ocean and atmospheric patterns in the Pacific Ocean known collectively as the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation (IPO). This consists principally of cold water rising or not in the north-east Pacific and changes in the frequency and intensity of El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) events.
The warm and cool modes of the IPO last for 20 to 40 years each. A cool mode sees cold water rising in the north-east Pacific and increased frequency and intensity of La Niña – and the planet cools. A warm mode sees warm water in the north-east Pacific and more frequent and intense El Niño – and the planet warms. The mode shifted from warm to cool after 1998 – so the planet is not warming for a decade or so hence without much doubt.
Beyond that it is not guaranteed either that the current 1000 year peak in surface temperatures will ratchet up again from this natural variability. Are we on the threshold of Bond Event Zero and centuries of cooling? Perhaps it will warm again – but the alternate natural warming and cooling we have seen for 150 years means that at most the anthropogenic component of warming is 0.08 degrees C/decade. Nothing that is at all alarming. It is the same system – by the way – that has brought decades of flooding followed by decades of drought to Australia as seen in our instrumental record. We are in for a decade or so more of intense and frequent La Niña and very much increased summer rainfall and cyclones. It is one of the systems bringing decades long drought to the US.
I have been peddling this cr@p for nearly a decade now. It just keeps getting more obvious. But the best thing is – you lose.
@KH (quoting Pachauri): He said that it would be 30 to 40 years “at least” before it was possible to say that the long-term upward trend in global temperatures had been broken.
In the dialect of my native country (which competes solidly with India in cricket), I would say Pachauri was being a piker on this point.
Sticking my neck out here, fuggedabout 30-40 years. If the remaining 7 years of this decade (2010-2020) show a downward trend I would say the Arrhenius theory of global warming (his 1896 article) had been seriously called into question. There would be much gnashing of teeth and rending of garments in those circles that were convinced temperature was on the rise.
Yeah – I imagine that holding out for 30 or 40 years is a bit ambitous. I doubt really that you need to throw away simple radiative physics – simply accomodate oceanography and hydrology.
Captain K –> I simply wanted to settled the point as to whether or not the author at the Australian was quoting the Pach-man or not. So many commenters here were going on and on, but no one was reading the “behind a pay-wall” article itself (a whole dollar, for heaven’s sake!).
He wasn’t quoting, not in the article he wrote. So that itty-bitty point is settled….no direct quote given. Whether or not Pach-man “acknowledged” or not is not settled.
Cheers, as I learned to say in Sydney.
I read it in the newspaper over coffee. But there is nothing at all equivocal about the Met Office data.
I love it, the Nebish from Nebraska! A husky laugh for my corny joke. And listen, I swear I can leave these alarmists alone.
========
@kim: I swear I can leave these alarmists alone.
Were kim remotely like a scientist he’d be more neutral.
The lie that you’ll hear incessantly from climate deniers/skeptics/whatever is that scientists are not neutral but are in thrall to the The Machine.
Goddam liars.
Eezy, alarmists are not scientists. And so it goes.
=====
alarmists are not scientists.
My mistake, sorry. The two groups are conflated so often here that I sometimes forget not everyone does so.
Effective, though. Schneider spins.
========
Vaughan Pratt | February 24, 2013 at 3:04 am |
“Were kim remotely like a scientist he’d be more neutral.”
If Kim were remotely like a climate scientist there’d be pictures of her in handcuffs and/or news stories about who she’s currently suing for disagreeing with her.
http://nasawatch.com/archives/2013/02/jim-hansen-arre.html
http://www.popehat.com/2012/10/23/michael-mann-sues-nro-mark-steyn-the-competitive-enterprise-institute-and-rand-simberg/
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2010/04/20/climategates-mann-demands-hide-decline-video-be-removed-youtube
http://www.desmogblog.com/michael-mann-suing-tim-ball-libel
Sorry to slight Hansen. He’s been arrested many times and I only linked to the latest episode. I find it far less distasteful to get arrested fighting to defend your religious beliefs than suing people for blasphemes of same.
Vaughan Pratt | February 24, 2013 at 2:59 am |
“If the remaining 7 years of this decade (2010-2020) show a downward trend I would say the Arrhenius theory of global warming (his 1896 article) had been seriously called into question. There would be much gnashing of teeth and rending of garments in those circles that were convinced temperature was on the rise.”
Not to mention AGU posters with no better use left than wrapping fish or lining the bottom of bird cages.
Tick tock tick tock.
Still no-one has provided an actual quote by Pachauri to back up the claim that he acknowledges no-warming for 17-years.
Pay $1 for a 28 day subscription and read the article for yourself. Otherwise you are just flailing about in the dark as usual.
Let me make this easier for you captain:
There is no quote by pachauri in the article to back up the claim.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1997
As I say – read the article. I have put a quote about the pause needing to persist for 30 or 4 years. The ‘pause’ is quite obvious to Pachauri and everyone else. Including the Met Office – data above.
The question you need to ask yourself punk – is have temperatures increased by 0.2 degrees C per decade? Not even close. Furthermore -The world is not warming for a decade or so hence – because of the large scale ocean and atmospheric patterns discussed by NASA in the link you deemed irrelevant above. Get used to it.
Captain. You know there is no quote from Pachauri in the article even mentioning 17 years. I know it. You know it.
So what is your motivation for obfuscating?
‘The UN’s climate change chief Rajendra Pachauri has acknowledged a 17-year pause in global tempeature rises, confrmed by the Britain’s Met Office, but said it would need to last for ’30 to 40 years at least’ to break the long term global warming trend.’ If you have a problem with the reporting tell the Australian Press Council. I suggest, again, that you first read the artice.
Again – here is the Met Office data – http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1997
This is quite obvious to everyone but you numbnut.
You still haven’t provided an actual quote of what Pachauri said.
If you don’t think it matters, consider that the Met Office have not confirmed a 17-year pause in global temperatures as the Australian article claims.
To be short the Australian’s journalism cannot be trusted.
And the data you post do not show a pause for 17 years. Quite the contrary the trend is positive and the uncertainty range in the trend encompasses continued warming.
You continue to go around in circles insisting that the reporter lied on the front page of the Australian. I am damn sure that he could not get away with that.
I repeat;
‘The UN’s climate change chief Rajendra Pachauri has acknowledged a 17-year pause in global temperature rises, confirmed by the Britain’s Met Office, but said it would need to last for ’30 to 40 years at least’ to break the long term global warming trend.’ If you have a problem with the reporting tell the Australian Press Council.
And the data is quite evidently not warming – 0.03 degrees C/decade from 1997. Something indistiguisable from zero. And while the data itself has an error the trend is merely least squares fitting of a line to data. Still indistinguisable from zero. It is confirmed by the Met Office both by their own calculation and the data.
Why persist in your nonsense?
My curiosity is aroused. While I was willing to believe the claim that Pachauri had said something that was patently ridiculous on the face of it, my willingness has now been undermined by the inability of anyone to actually produce what he said.
Ok, so what did Pachauri actually say?
While I’m a great fan of climate skepticism to the extent that it can be demonstrated, I hate to say that if no one here can answer this question then climate skepticism is hereby rolled over by the steamroller of factual evidence.
This is what the article says verbatim – as I have already quoted.
‘The UN’s climate change chief Rajendra Pachauri has acknowledged a 17-year pause in global temperature rises, confirmed by the Britain’s Met Office, but said it would need to last for ’30 to 40 years at least’ to break the long term global warming trend.’ As it appeared on the front page of The Australian and it seems millions of blogs wordwide. Has Pachauri denied it? Unlikely it seems.
This is what the met office says.
‘Q.1 “First, please confirm that they do indeed reveal no warming trend since 1997.”
The linear trend from August 1997 (in the middle of an exceptionally strong El Nino) to August 2012 (coming at the tail end of a double-dip La Nina) is about 0.03°C/decade, amounting to a temperature increase of 0.05°C over that period…’
http://metofficenews.wordpress.com/2012/10/14/met-office-in-the-media-14-october-2012/
Yeah right – 5/100’s of a degree whch numbnut insists is warming. It seems quite evident to so many. And of course you know what CERES says about the period?
It doesn’r men much to me what any blog or newspaper says – I will go to science and data.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1997
Simple?
Are you joining the cult too Vaughan. I do enjoy the cognitive dissonance of the space cadets – but watch out for the Kool-Aid.
‘Then climate skepticism is hereby rolled over by the steamroller of factual evidence’. Giggle.
Vaughn, I’d underestimated you. That one is pretty funny, indeed.
=================
So, I have looked at the graph which went back to 1950. This shows that the temperature has increased by half a degree since then. So what? You wouldn’t notice it if it went up by half a degree in the next ten minutes. I certainly wouldn’t feel the need to take my coat off.
How can this trivial amount, which you can only detect with an accurate thermometer, which has been well maintained and calibrated over a 62 year period, be responsible for anything.
Mass extinctions, the end of polar bears, flooding, extreme weather, stuck weather systems, record rainfall, drought etc….absolutely ridiculous!
Make sure to remember that increase isn’t uniform across the globe. Some places have warmed more; some have warmed less.
You forgot to say some have cooled. You’re aware some have cooled, right? Ask Moshpit. Even he acknowledges that some sites have cooled since 1880. On average, after adjustments are applied in a valiant effort to make inadequate antique thermometers with inadequate coverage and amateur station-keepers across a small percentage of the earth’s land masses adequate to detect trends in the hundredths of a degree per decade… (whew) on average all stations consolidated into a single record together show some warming.
Brandon
We did a study on places that are cooling which consists of around one third of the globe
http://diggingintheclay.wordpress.com/2010/09/01/in-search-of-cooling-trends/
They are cooling to varying degrees over different time periods and a proper criteria needs to be laid down to understand their significance
Mosh is well aware of this from his BEST work and as he seems to be hanging around tonight thinking great thoughts he might like to expand on the theme
Tonyb
David Springer, TonyB, I am aware of stations that show cooling, but I don’t know of any areas that have shown cooling since 1950. As Tony’s link shows, many stations that show cooling only show it for part of their record. That, and the lack of any specific areal examples made me not mention cooling.
In other words, I didn’t want to say it without being able to provide specific examples.
Ya, I keep meaning to get back to that work.
The number is less than 30%. The 30% number comes from considering all long series (70 years plus)regardless of their start date.
Here is the state of what I found.
For series going back to 1900.
1. they needed 90% “coverage” or 90% of all values present.
2. unadjusted data
Findings:
15% showed cooling
A) Almost all were in the US with a smattering in australia and other places.
B. Applying test of statistical significance reduced this below 10%
C. When you change the “missing values” allowed from 10% to 5% to 0%
the amount shrinks even more. This indicates a pattern in missing values ( Carrick had a thesis I havent tested yet)
D) outside the US the stations tend to be coastal.
E. Inside the US the stations I checked were all stations that had moved from cities to outlying airports..
The bottomline is the result is basically un publishable. Nobody but netcitizens care about these interesting little quirks. I also had a few interesting cases of sites that changed because a dam was built nearby.
Its a lot of work and 99% of folks just yawn.
Very helpful, moshe. I had believed the one third figure for cooling.
========
Kim
Mosh made a good response but its somewhat more complex/confused than that as we all know.
Verity and I did a study and coincidentally the BEST work was in the throes of collection and analysis around that time so I asked Richard Mueller directly, who came up with the 30% figure . This was slightly more than the estimate we had made but ours was on much less detailed/widespread sampling.
Taking 30 years as a statistically meaningful time scale there was cooling at a wide variety of places not limited to the US or Australia for at least that timescale. UHI got in the way because many of the longer real readings (as opposed to interpolated/borrowed ones from elsewhere) were apparently affected by warming when other places nearby were cooling.
We stopped our work because we didn’t want to be accusred of cherry picking, but there is undoubtedly an interesting study to be made using the latest data with agreed parameters i.e what consititutes cooling and what consititutes warming. There are also many places that are ‘neutral’ but that is a term you don’t often hear used.
Here is CET which has shown a dramatic drop in temperatures over the last dozen years or so.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcet/
Not statistically meaningful, but in view of its longevity (and broad proxy as a global temperature) of particular interst and demonstrating that cooling as well as warming takes place on the globe at the same time. Will it continue? Don’t know.
CET has been steadily warming for 350 years so it needs something dramatic to reverse the trend. I am currently working on ‘The long slow thaw’ Part 2 and looking for the transition from the MWP to the LIA. I’m not sure Lamb had this one exactly right but its early days .
tonyb
Yes, you have both been very helpful. It looks like the problem is explicated but needs lots of work.
Meanwhile, climate science is manipulating past European records. Hmmm.
============
Is there now going to be a serious discussion on the fact that the Earth is not in “thermodynamic equilibrium?” A real discussion about there being no single temperature for the whole thing? Will the discussion be about statistical hocus pocus that can never change that fact?
Brian, ” Is there now going to be a discussion about non-equilibrium Thermodynamics?”
There always has been, the telescope jockeys just needed a face plant before it was taken seriously.
http://landshape.org/enm/solar-supersensitivity-a-worked-example/
Niche Modeling has an interesting discussion on how the gain changes with capacity limits. How accurate you want to get depends on how many boxes you want to include in your models. I have been saying the same thing, though without the math, since you will never get the accuracy required to assign attribution to small impacts like CO2, with the limited data we have.
http://redneckphysics.blogspot.com/2013/02/layers-of-complexity.html
In a bistable system, sensitivity in a transition phase is different than in control phases.
Ooh, I spy a dragon egg. What color is it? Should we eat it?
================
Mark B (number 2) | February 23, 2013 at 3:02 pm | Reply
“So, I have looked at the graph which went back to 1950. This shows that the temperature has increased by half a degree since then. So what? You wouldn’t notice it if it went up by half a degree in the next ten minutes. I certainly wouldn’t feel the need to take my coat off.
How can this trivial amount, which you can only detect with an accurate thermometer, which has been well maintained and calibrated over a 62 year period, be responsible for anything.
Mass extinctions, the end of polar bears, flooding, extreme weather, stuck weather systems, record rainfall, drought etc….absolutely ridiculous!”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPCC_Third_Assessment_Report
Restated:
Future warming will have both beneficial and adverse effects, but for lower levels of warming, beneficial effects will predominate.
That report was made in 2001. Since that time the unexpected pause in global warming has made observation agree with the lower levels of warming. By IPCC’s own assessment and the data since then showing the lower levels were what actually transpired, expect beneficial warming effects to predominate.
Now they seem at a loss as to what they should say. If they want alarmism to continue for political ends they must somehow not look like circus clowns by contradicting earlier findings saying ill-effects would only dominate at higher warming levels yet somehow still paint an alarming picture.
Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive!
The catastrophic global warming movement was literally banking on warming continuing. This pause is causing both intellectual and literal bankruptcy!
It’s so great being proven right. It must really suck to be a CAGW’er right now. It’s only going to suck worse going forward. I love it so!
lolwot, I don’t propose to spend any more time having pointless exchanges of comments with you.
I hope our brief encounter will make others realise that you will argue with them regardless of what they say, provided you perceive their comments to question the warmist beliefs.
You will never quantify your own position on these scientific questions, even if you, in fact, have such a quantified view, which I doubt.
To engage with you is therefore completely pointless and I hope that others reading these threads will come to a similar conclusion.
“lolwot, I don’t propose to spend any more time having pointless exchanges of comments with you.”
3 more paragraphs to go though? before you change your id.
I point out to other readers that the three paragraphs referred to by lolwot were for the benefit of people who read this blog and who may take his responses seriously.
The comment to which I make this reference is such a perfect example that I couldn’t pass up the opportunity. It was another unsubstantiated challenge.
My advice to all is that we ignore this troll from now on.
because you are doing such a great job of ignoring me..
logic would not be his strong suit
And manners are not yours. :-)
scott. what you think of me is none of my business.
Before I leave, to avoid a valid fault-finding I saw up-thread referring to somebody else–my position as best I understand it.
Warming is good. From what little I have been able to read of it, the history and the archeological records seem unanimous in finding that warm has been associated with wealth, prosperity, good health, and enormous progress. Cold is always associated with poverty, pestilence, famine, and dark times. Am I reaching when I observe that with gorebal warming we are seeing the religious persecutions and inquisitions of the Dark Ages?
From that then it follows that money, energy, and talent spent trying to prevent warming is beyond stupid to criminally stupid, perhaps towards suicidal.
Do I think it is warming now? On the the big scale, it looks like we were moving away from the last ice age–are we still? Don’t know–seems to have flattened out a bit, but it is way too soon to say for sure, but given the way the sun is behaving I think the young folks should be planning for a chill.
Do I think humans have had no effect on weather and climate (and for the record, spare me the lecture–it is clear as day that “climate” is a statement of “average weather” and trying to persuade me otherwise is a waste of perfectly good air)—I got distracted….. Do I think humans have had no effect on weather and climate?
Of course not, that would be a very silly thing to say, unless you have never spent much time in nor read about the Owens and San Joaquin Valleys of California, or the Great Plains.
Do I think that is all good? Hell no. But I don’t think it is all bad either, and I see no reason at all to enrichen Al Gore and his Big Oil associates in the process of taking us back to the Dark Ages.
This is very eloquent, Larry; I’m sorry I missed it before you left. I hope that’s not you galloping off with four horsemen.
=========
Warming is good.
Excellent. Everyone turn off your air conditioners, you’ll save on electric bills while enjoying the warmth.
From that then it follows that money, energy, and talent spent trying to prevent warming is beyond stupid to criminally stupid, perhaps towards suicidal.
Indeed. Who in their right mind would waste money on air conditioning?
Polar bears, silly.
===========
lolwot | February 22, 2013 at 5:42 pm |
“A plateau on that graph means continued warming. The y-axis is trend, not temperature. If it levels out at 0.16C/decade, that isn’t going to mean warming stops.”
Interesting redefinition of the word plateau. A plateau isn’t really flat but a continuation of an upward slope minus, I guess, the actual upward slope.
This is what real denial looks like folks. A plateau that’s somehow not flat.
A plateau in acceleration does not mean the car isn’t moving.
sorry I mean speed not acceleration
lowlot wrote: “A plateau in acceleration does not mean the car isn’t moving”
———————————————————————–
Except in your world, you would just draw a trend-line through the entire journey and use that to claim that the car had in fact continued to accelerate.
And before you claim that I’m misrepresenting you, if speed is analogous to temperature, then acceleration is analogous to temperature increase.
If you really think the car stopped moving in 1995 you are just deluding yourself.
A smart alarmist might try getting out of the car now.
==============
You said that, not me.
Not continuing to accelerate is not the same as stopping.
lolwot | February 23, 2013 at 8:36 pm | Reply
“A plateau in acceleration does not mean the car isn’t moving.”
Correct. The earth still has a temperature. It isn’t absolute zero which is a stoppage of all motion. A plateua in acceleration means the speed isb’t changing. In your analogy speed equals temperature.
You’re a lost cause I’m afraid if you don’t know the difference between speed and acceleration. What is the last grade you successfully completed?
Judith and others:
It really is a waste of time working with IPCC models because the underlying assumptions are so dramatically false that the models don’t have a hope of being correct in the long run. They completely disregard and ignore the entropy conditions of the Second Law of Thermodynamics. They consider only 24 hour means as if the Earth is flat, and so there is no representation of the obvious underlying supporting thermal plot in the atmosphere and sub-surface.
I have written four very detailed comments (further enlarging on the content of about 20 pages in my paper) here …
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2013/02/tropical-ssts-since-1998-latest-climate-models-warm-3x-too-fast/#comment-70221
If you read and study this you will find, like others who have read the initial version of the paper (November 2012) that you cannot fault the physics therein, simply because this is what really happens in planets in our Solar system. Take it or leave it – that’s your personal choice – but it is correct, and no one has proved otherwise.
The models have day and night and seasons. They are built on a grid using discrete solutions of the Navier-Stokes to conserve momentum and other physical properties.
Entropy is not intrinsic to the 2nd law – but is different for equilibrium and non-equilibrium systems. Non-equilbrium systems – such as Earth’s climate – have extensive properties that cause departure from the simpler conditions of equilibrium systems. Entropy production is not maximised. The 2nd law is a statement of net flow of heat from warmer to cooler. Nor does it need the invention of – what was your term – resonant scattering?
Yours physics are simplistically wrong and wrong in detail. They are too simple to mean much at all in a very complex system.
Nor do the models have athe Water Cycle, nor do they have rain in their Carbon Cycle, nor do they have any atmosphere at all (they have replaced the the heavy real gas volume subject to gravity with empty space popululated by ideal gas with no mass, volume, weight, attraction), nor do they have direct heat from the Sun (one way or the other, either by claiming a magic barrier stopping longwave direct from the Sun reaching the surface, or, even more idiotically, if that’s possible, claiming that the Sun produces insignificant radiant heat, longwave infrared), with po faces they claim that visible light from the Sun is the major heat source land and ocean, how more stupid can their fisics get after that?
All because, as Scrodinger’s Cat reminds us, they are so incompetant as scientists they couldn’t think of anything else it could be causing the warming except carbon dioixide, regardless of the irrationality in scale that CO2 is a trace gas and anyway always showing itself lagging temperature changes by hundreds of years so physically not even in the running as cause.
These are not scientists, they’re completely oblivious to the real physical properties and processes of the world around us – which real physics does understand.
They are priests of a religious belief system grounded in their own irrational imaginings which get more ludicrous every day as they try to maintain their credibility among the faithful when reality fails to conform to their predictions, and, they lie and cheat and advocate violence against unbelievers. At best they are despicable. At worst, they are ruining real physical understanding of the the world around us, hard won by real scientists in our recent past, by their infiltration of the general education system.
I am no expert, but I understand that while the poles still have ice, we are still technically within an ice age and are therefore still warming from that ice age. That is to be expected.
During the second half of 2012 the rate of warming increased significantly. This was probably a shock to our climate scientists who had been predicting a descent into another ice age up to that point.
The scientists noted the correlation with the increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration and concluded that the increase in temperature was CO2 driven. They ignored the fact that temperature leads atmospheric CO2 because CO2 is less soluble in warming oceans.
An important point is that the scientists blamed CO2 because nothing else could explain the rate of increase or magnitude of the increase in temperature. At this point I have to mention solar UV radiation, clouds, cosmic radiation and other factors. The climate models ignored these because the scientists had no idea how to deal with them. I ignore completely the relatively massive ranges in temperature in geological timescales. I also ignore the 12 times levels of CO2 in earth’s past.
So, the models were created with the main driver being CO2 and surprisingly, the global temperature according to the models, was found to be driven mainly by CO2.
Factors such as clouds didn’t figure. Pity they were left out or given minimal weighting, since about 0.5 % change in clouds could explain all temperature changes.
Now mother nature has moved on. Whatever caused the warming is sure as hell not causing it now. Is it CO2? The increase is still pretty linear, but the correlation with temperature looks like it might turn negative. We can’t possibly let it do that….
If there was nothing other than CO2 that could explain the increase in temperature (remember this was the logic behind alarmism) then what can be causing the loss of warming for 10-20 years? (Let’s not waste time debating whether it is 15 or 17).
By definition, nothing could cause such warming other than CO2 according to the models. So, the models are wrong, the assumptions are wrong. Something else is causing the cooling (or lack of warming) so something else could have caused the warming also.
This is the mess we have today. Don’t let them persuade you otherwise without good data.
Wow that’s not even close to a competent history of the science.
The crux of it is dead on, though, and unanswerable.
==================
read the history and then comment
Steven Mosher: Then go on, correct it bit by bit, but not in your usual cryptic way that is completely opaque to everyone else.
I’m very happy to set up a target for the ordinary reader to consider. If you disagree, please do so in a manner that others can evaluate. Otherwise, your contribution is of no more value than loiwot’s. Having said that, I almost feel I should apologise, but I think you will respond in a positive way. I do really welcome a constructive exchange of views. The ones stated are mine, as a starting point.
Go S. Cat. Rare to see humility on the Internet. Not for nothing, but when you do see it, it’s usually on the part of a skeptic. What are we to make of that?
ah a reference to my crypticism. That tell me a lot.
I will start with and couple and then tell you to unfool yourself. Its not my job to educate you. you can stay stuck on stupid for all I care.
here is a couple to wind you up.
“If there was nothing other than CO2 that could explain the increase in temperature (remember this was the logic behind alarmism) then what can be causing the loss of warming for 10-20 years?”
1. The science does not argue that C02 alone can explain the warming.
2. The temperature we see is the result of many factors INCLUDING
GHGs and INCLUDING unforced internal variability.
3. The slow down in the rate of warming can be a consequence of
a) strong negative trends in unforced or internal variability
b) changes in negative forcings, like aerosols.
You seem to think that the science argues that T=f(co2). The science does not. The POPULARIZATION of the science focuses on C02, but changes in C02 account for only a portion of the human caused climate change. 25% of the change may well be down to land use changes. Go figure.
Anyway. Here is a link to unfool yourself:
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch2s2-es.html
Here is a Final thought. You get the history of discovery 100% wrong.
“The scientists noted the correlation with the increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration and concluded that the increase in temperature was CO2 driven. They ignored the fact that temperature leads atmospheric CO2 because CO2 is less soluble in warming oceans”
Wrong.
1 before the temperature increased the theory was formulated.
2. You have the lead/lag wrong as well. C02 both leads and lags.
read hansen. The increase fater warming was predicted before it was discover.
unfool yourself: http://www.aip.org/history/climate/index.htm
‘Using data series on atmospheric carbon dioxide and global temperatures we investigate the phase relation (leads/lags) between these for the period January 1980 to December 2011. Ice cores show atmospheric CO2 variations to lag behind atmospheric temperature changes on a century to millennium scale, but modern temperature is expected to lag changes in atmospheric CO2, as the atmospheric temperature increase since about 1975 generally is assumed to be caused by the modern increase in CO2. In our analysis we use eight well-known datasets: 1) globally averaged well-mixed marine boundary layer CO2 data, 2) HadCRUT3 surface air temperature data, 3) GISS surface air temperature data, 4) NCDC surface air temperature data, 5) HadSST2 sea surface data, 6) UAH lower troposphere temperature data series, 7) CDIAC data on release of anthropogene CO2, and 8) GWP data on volcanic eruptions. Annual cycles are present in all datasets except 7) and 8), and to remove the influence of these we analyze 12-month averaged data. We find a high degree of co-variation between all data series except 7) and 8), but with changes in CO2 always lagging changes in temperature. The maximum positive correlation between CO2 and temperature is found for CO2 lagging 11–12 months in relation to global sea surface temperature, 9.5–10 months to global surface air temperature, and about 9 months to global lower troposphere temperature. The correlation between changes in ocean temperatures and atmospheric CO2 is high, but do not explain all observed changes.’
(Humlum et al 2013 – The phase relation between atmospheric carbon dioxide and global temperature – http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921818112001658)
Cited just for interest – we will see.
It is really just verbiage with you mosh – and wrong on all counts it seems. The video below shows the sales pitch that you deny. Although some of us understand that models are tuned – otherwise they diverge in all directions. So it seems like outright lies are used to sell a political message. And then you deny it with insults and mere verbiage. Why is that mosh? Are you a propagandist?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9ob9WdbXx0
And BS at that. The world is not warming for decades more at least from the natural causes that were overlooked. These are by the way associated with changes in planetary albedo – thus modulating the planetary energy budget. But the best thing is – you lose.
Captain. I have no patience for the propaganda put out by folks who want to oversimplify the story. I’m not responsible for the nonsense put out by some who believe in AGW anymore than you are responsible for the kooks on the skeptic side and their conspiritorial nonsense.
The science, ya the actual science, has not blamed the rise in temps soley on c02. You know that. I know that and most honest skeptics know that. we can burn strawmen all day long here.
Captain has a something of a point I think. In the video, it sure looks like models overshoot badly on the down side what I assume must be volcanic eruptions. I was unconvinced that the early 20th century warming was shown in the model, it looked pretty flat to me. But I guess for “legendary” broadcasters this level of detail is too much for them to grasp or perhaps its just that the critical faculty is atrophying from disuse.
‘In summary, although there is independent evidence for decadal changes in TOA radiative fluxes over the last two decades, the evidence is equivocal. Changes in the planetary and tropical TOA radiative fluxes are consistent with independent global ocean heat-storage data, and are expected to be dominated by changes in cloud radiative forcing. To the extent that they are real, they may simply reflect natural low-frequency variability of the climate system. ‘ AR4 3.4.4.1
This is the only reference to decadal variability in AR4 that I know of. The list of ‘forcings’ are well known and are mosly carbon dioxide. This was it seemed all of the recent warming and which would continue at 0.2 degrees C/decade.
If real indeed. The next frontier is centennial and millennial variability.
“ah a reference to my crypticism”
You’re not cryptic, Mosher, you’re incomprehensible. Describing you as “cryptic” is merely a kindness
moshe, insofar as climate science has blamed CO2 for the rise. So much for your strawman.
And, you can’t half-heartedly defend Muller’s absurd attribution of temp rise soley to GHGs and strongly argue against the crux of S Cat’s point.
=========================
here Cat.
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/Radmath.htm#L_M020
Again no Water Cycle – the temp would be 67°C without water but with the rest of the real gas atmosphere in place, which is mainly the heavy voluminous fluid real gas ocean of nitrogen and oxygen under gravity – the real greenhouse gas thermal blanket around the Earth. Not the idiotic idea that a trace gas which is mainly holes in the atmosphere could be a thermal blanket..
And just how stupid is the idea that clouds prevent “sunlight” from heating land and oceans by reflecting it away? So it can’t heat clouds which are water and particles of matter, but it is aborbed by land and ocean at the surface heating with such intensisty at the equator that it gives us our huge winds and weather systems??
Put back the Water Cycle, and get a sense of scale, the “33°C warming by AGW greenhouse gases” disappears, because it’s an illusion.
If you claim it isn’t, then damn well show how ir imbibing water vapour and trace gases which AGWScienceFiction calls “greenhouse gases” can physically raise the whole temperature of the Earth by 33°C from minus 18°C.
You claim to be a scientist, you show how.
Do not post a link irrelevant to my question.
Radiation balance models? LOL. There’s radiation balance at the Earth’s surface. Did these guys ever study (and understand) basic heat transfer?
There’s NO radiation balance at the Earth’s surface.
Lolwot, I disagree with the fellow who thinks you should be ignored. You are in your blind intransigence, a great ally of the skeptics. Has it ever occurred to you there might be something pathological in your refusal/inability to ever concede….anything. In the two years or so you’ve been commenting on “Climate Etc.” I don’t believe I’ve once since the tiniest walk back from anything you’ve previously stated. Can you really be that smart?
The current kerfuffle about the lack of a Pachauri quote really has no meaning for you ultimately, because even if you’re proven incorrect concerning your claim that he never conceded the pause…despite clear contextual evidence that he likely did…you’re still going to maintain that he’s wrong on the facts.
Hypothetically, what are you going to do if some of the climate stalwarts start walking things back a bit? Will they be wrong too? What would ultimately convince you that perhaps you’re not 100 percent right about everything. I see Trenberth is beginning to soften his stance a bit in certain areas. Is he wrong too? Will lolwot be the last true believer standing? What about an ice age? Would that convince you? Or are you like one of those old Japanese soldiers living on some deserted island convinced that world war two hasn’t ended yet?
I have an older brother with delusional disorder. He’s a bright guy like you. Likely brighter. And yet like you, he’s never, ever wrong. Evidence to the contrary is either made up, or wrong, or part of some obscure plot to undo him. You and my older bro seem to have quite a lot in common
pokerguy, I’ve seen lolwot admit he was wrong once. The last time I discussed his crazy trendology, he admitted one crazy methodology he used was nonsensical. I don’t remember exactly which it was, but it was worse than the nonsense he’s doing above (though not by a lot).
Ah, thanks for that Brandon. Credit where credit etc. Lw, I stand corrected. Fight on brave lolwot. Fight on.
“The current kerfuffle about the lack of a Pachauri quote really has no meaning for you ultimately”
wrong. It reinforces my perception that climate deniers cannot be trusted. You can’t believe a word that passes out their mouths.
lolwot
Before you get into too big a huff about “climate deniers that cannot be trusted” you should wait to see whether Pachauri asks “The Australian” to rescind that quote they attributed to him.
You don’t know whether he actually said what they claimed he said or not.
If you REALLY want to know, ask Pachauri yourself. Or ask “The Australian”.
But, until you have gotten confirmation that he never said (or said) what the article claimed, you really don’t know one way or the other.
The real difference is that “The Australian” knows for sure. And so does Pachauri.
Max
PS There are very few people who still have their heads in the sand on the recent pause. You are one. But you are part of a very small and dwindling group. A personally doubt that Pachauri, who after all is in the “climate biz”, still denies what has become obvious to one and all.
“you should wait to see whether Pachauri asks “The Australian” to rescind that quote they attributed to him.”
You should wait for the Australian to provide exactly what Pachauri said. Until then, the claim the Australian has made is baseless.
They didn’t attribute a quote to him. They merely asserted that “Rajendra Pachauri has acknowledged a 17-year pause in global tempeature rises, confirmed by the Britain’s Met Office”
Considering the last part is known to be false, ie the Met Office have not ever confirmed any such thing, then why should we believe the first part is true? The Australian article is clearly agenda driven of a climate denier bent. It even includes a stupid statement about a record accumulation of arctic sea ice this winter.
In sort it cannot be trusted.
‘Q.1 “First, please confirm that they do indeed reveal no warming trend since 1997.”
The linear trend from August 1997 (in the middle of an exceptionally strong El Nino) to August 2012 (coming at the tail end of a double-dip La Nina) is about 0.03°C/decade, amounting to a temperature increase of 0.05°C over that period…’ http://metofficenews.wordpress.com/2012/10/14/met-office-in-the-media-14-october-2012/
Damned – looks like confirmation of no warming from 1997 to me. La Nina will continue to increase in frequency and intensity for a while yet in the cool IPO. Just science – numbnut – get used to it. Or not – who really gives a rat’s arse as the whole world moves on.
Met Office: “for Mr. Rose to suggest that the latest global temperatures available show no warming in the last 15 years is entirely misleading.”
Is as true today as it was 2 years ago.
The Met Office does not agree there is a 17 year pause in global temperatures.
It’s not that I don’t believe it – it’s just that it is nonsense ad conflicts with their own calculatons which are quite simple and based on the data.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1997/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1997/trend
Quoting a few words out of this context is more than just nonsense – it is lies and deception.
I about half bet that Pachauri told them of the Met Office confirmation.
There, all tied up.
===========
Steven Mosher said : ” It wont be long and the warming will return.”
Got to admire your confidence, but you didn’t say when. 2050 perhaps ?
Temperatures from here to 2030 are more likely to go down than up.
The last 16 years standstill has been produced by a 50% reduction in sunspots and what is beginning to look like a drawn out solar cycle. co2 went up by 8% and falsified the climate models (Phil Jones). Once the solar cycle heads down-slope in a couple of years as it undoubtedly will, it seems unlikely that temperatures will start going up.
And then we enter cycle 25…
Please back up your assertion that Phil Jones agrees the climate models have been falsified.
He actually said that none of the climate models had predicted the temperature standstill.
It’s the same difference, failed prediction = falsified.
He just didn’t use the accepted form of words, and being one of the original members of ‘the team’ hardly a surprise. Bring on some cooling and we may well see him use that ‘falsified’ word.
Any future warming, in the next hundreds of years, is unlikely to reach the heights of this period we’re in after the rise post LIA, hiccups of up and downs do not make a global warming trend when the temps have decreased from the Holocene Optimum.
Some time or other, maybe sooner rather than later, we are going back into our Ice Age; for another 100,000 years of miles deep ice over most of the northern hemisphere. That is our reality check.
Mosher,
you state that 1997 or 1998 or whatever year the pause may have started is cherry picking. How so?
If the question is for how long the current pause has lasted, you start today and go back to the point where you get a ss warming. If that is 1997, then so be it.
How can that be cherry picking?
It is cherry picking in the sense you’re looking for the period that optimizes your answer. Once you do that, it messes with any tests of statistical skill.
I disagree. It is just answering a simple question in as rational a way as possible. warmists do it all the time: “it has been warming for x years..etc”
Looking at global temperatures over the last 100 years, some distinct periods of warming and non-warming can be identified. Measuring the duration of these periods can be interesting for a number of different reasons. So can measuring the period which we are currently in.
To do so, we need to find a breaking point from the last trend or mode. Going back from today to find the length of period without any ss warming is one way to find a starting point for the current period.
I am sure there are other methods, but the one I outlined does not constitute cherry picking. It is not arbitrary.
If you specifically look for results, such as failures of statistical significance at a particular confidence level, you get an incorrect amount of false positives/false negatives. That means you can’t say your test at a 95% level actually gives results at a 95% level. That’s guaranteed to be true due to simple statistical properties.
Any time you use overlapping periods is iterative tests, you have to adjust your test to account for the non-Independence of your results. If you do, fine. If you don’t, you’re cherry-picking.
Reason 3.847 why it would be insane to give the UN (or any other progressive apparatchiks) authority over the climate economy.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-21542842
All the facets of a typical government program.
Incompetence, causing wide spread death, with denial of responsibility. ending with demands for more of other people’s money to fix the tragic crisis they created.
We’re from the government, and we’re here to makes things worse, and use you to get more of your money for us to spend,
And still no-one has provided an actual quote by Pachauri to back up the claim that he acknowledges no warming for 17 years.
In the same article the Australian also falsely claims the Met Office agrees too: “a 17-year pause in global temperature rises, confirmed recently by Britain’s Met Office”
Britain’s Met Office have never confirmed any such thing. What the Australian has done is extend David Rose’s claim in the Daily Mail a year ago, to which the British Met Office replied “for Mr. Rose to suggest that the latest global temperatures available show no warming in the last 15 years is entirely misleading”
But never-mind. Climate skeptics have never let truth get in the way of their narrative. happy go on claiming the Met Office has agreed to something it has gone on record disagreeing to and even brazenly using that to try and reinforce the myth that Pachauri agrees.
Climate skeptics it seems are slowly creating their own little fantasy world and pretending people outside agree. We’ve already recently seen other bizarre claims that the IPCC AR5 admitted the Sun caused more warming, etc.
Oh and look at this in the Australian article:
“Dr Pachauri said the record accumulation of Arctic ice this northern summer – following a record melt last winter – was consistent with the current understanding of climate change.”
There is only one place this stupid argument has been made: WUWT and Steve Goddards blog. Funny. How did THAT question get into the interview?.
lolwot
Nor has anyone (including you) provided a quote where Pachauri denies making the quote attributed to him by “The Australian”.
Right?
Max
For the second time there WAS NO quote attributed to Pachauri.
Just as they never provided an actual quote from the Met Office to back up their assertion that the Met Office agreed. Because there is no such quote, the Met Office have never made any such statement.
And I bet neither has Pachauri.
This has “journalist asserting what others think without them actually saying it” written all over it.
‘Q.1 “First, please confirm that they do indeed reveal no warming trend since 1997.”
The linear trend from August 1997 (in the middle of an exceptionally strong El Nino) to August 2012 (coming at the tail end of a double-dip La Nina) is about 0.03°C/decade, amounting to a temperature increase of 0.05°C over that period…’ Not significant – and all SW in the CERES record. http://metofficenews.wordpress.com/2012/10/14/met-office-in-the-media-14-october-2012/
I am being moderated for too many links below – but this will do in the interim. The lack of warming since 1997 is in the data. This is confirmation of no warming. You want a different point? But 1997 is consistent with ‘1998/2001 great Pacific climate shift’ to coin a term. These modes last 30 to 40 years in the proxy record – so another decade or so of no warming.
What was your problem again? You should try looking at science rather than a few disconnected phases in press releases that you desperately ascribe meaning to.
My first problem Captain is that there is no lack of warming in the data since 1997. The data includes uncertainty which includes warming. Even the mid point of the uncertainty shows warming.
But my second and original problem, a much bigger problem, is that while climate skeptics wrongly insist that there’s been no warming since 1997, rather than be satisfied with believing it themselves they are pulling in people and falsely claiming they agree.
Such as the Met Office.
And probably Pachauri .
Claiming people are acknowledging things when they haven’t.
The Met Office write: “for Mr. Rose to suggest that the latest global temperatures available show no warming in the last 15 years is entirely misleading.”
This was AFTER David Rose claimed the Met Office agreed. So the Met Office were saying NO WE DONT.
But now the Australian claims: “a 17-year pause in global temperature rises, confirmed recently by Britain’s Met Office”
Hell maybe you guys will get it if it’s done against your own. It’s like if I took a few of Monckton’s slides, some of Watts surface station network data, run a few of my own calcualtions on them and from this decided that there’s a serious thermageddon problem.
And so because my calcualtions used their data I go around claiming that Monckton and Anthony Watts have confirmed there is dangerous manmade global warming.
No, I word it even more craftily. I say “Even Monckton and Watts have now confirmed there is dangerous manmade global warming!”. Even worse I use it in a headline. Just in case you were in doubt whether I was being deliberately deceptive.
And you’d be fine with me doing this right? Because I am just reporting what I think the data says. Nevermind that the individuals I am quoting would completely disagree with what I am suggesting they agree with.
And you are fine with this?
hell maybe I should start trying this little trick on a few climate etc denizens and see how they like it.
Maybe I could interpret some of your posts in a certain way and go around claiming “Captain Kangaroo confirmed there is a growing problem with rising CO2 emissions”.? Can I?
The linear trend from August 1997 (in the middle of an exceptionally strong El Nino) to August 2012 (coming at the tail end of a double-dip La Nina) is about 0.03°C/decade, amounting to a temperature increase of 0.05°C over that period…’
Not significant – and all SW in the CERES record. http://metofficenews.wordpress.com/2012/10/14/met-office-in-the-media-14-october-2012/
Which bit of 0.03°C/decade don’t you get? Calculated by the Met. Office? Why do you think this is defensible?
But we are really not interested in trend – it is problematic over such short periods. It depends on ENSO. What we are interested in is how long it’s been since the peak global teperature has been exceeded in some statistically meaningful way. It’s still been a long time between drinks.
Here’s the latest – http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1997/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1997/trend
You are just wasting everyone’s time here defending tribal allegiances on the basis some weird misapprehension.
“Which bit of 0.03°C/decade don’t you get? Calculated by the Met. Office? Why do you think this is defensible?”
That’s warming. If you are claiming exactly 0.03C/decade trend. That’s warming. That isn’t no warming.
If you want to include error bars then what’s the maximum amount of warming within 2 sigma since 1997?
Either way the claim there’s been no warming since 1997 is false.
“But we are really not interested in trend – it is problematic over such short periods. It depends on ENSO.”
“What we are interested in is how long it’s been since the peak global teperature has been exceeded in some statistically meaningful way.”
That depends on ENSO too. Timings of El Ninos, etc.
That’s really a hell of a lot of warming numbnut – a whole 0.03 degress C per decade. That’s a whole 0.3 degrees C in a hundred years. Positive it is statistically significant. You are being absurd.
Here’s the real reason – http://s1114.photobucket.com/albums/k538/Chief_Hydrologist/?action=view¤t=CERES_MODIS.gif
Causing the oceans to warm moderately – I think as the result of moderate El Nino over most of the decade. But this will change as La Nina intensifies in the coming decades.
@manacker: Nor has anyone (including you) provided a quote where Pachauri denies making the quote attributed to him by “The Australian”. Right?
Don’t expect a straight answer from lolwot.
I could be wrong, but I’d guess you’re unlikely to ever see such a denial. Pachauri has bigger fish to fry. As the chief defender of the IPCC report he has to restrict his denying to claims from the right about its content. Denying routine misinformation from the right about what he says himself would only undermine his effectiveness in his job, by conflating two kinds of (mis)information that I would expect him to want to keep separate in the public’s mind.
Pachauri is not the IPCC report, it speaks for itself.
Vaughan, Pachari and the IPCC have a rather big problem with credibility. The fact that Pachari is still there is a big problem. It now seems that a lot of their previous sensitivity work used uniform priors and is biased high. But heck, climate scientists have a good track record of using flawed statistical methods. It baffles me when there is an obvious solution, namely, involving top notch statisticians at the beginning. But this is the hallmark of corrupt organizations: continued failure results in doubling down and no change in personel.
This is all rather irrelevant to the bigger picture. Climate models are overestimating warming by a lot and that’s the big story that has lots of implications. It also looks like sensitivity has been overestimated by a lot, part of the problem due to terrible statistical methods, a common thread in climate science research. Why are climate scientists so adverse to letting professional statisticians do that part? Is this a psychiatric problem or merely stupidity?
Yer nailed yer claim on the stable door, MM, but the horse called
Warming Scare has bolted.
Nothing fer it now except ter mount yer untrusty hockey schtick
and fly away …whoosh .. Say, is it a bird, a plane, Harry Potter?.
No, its super-mann !
BC
‘Q.1 “First, please confirm that they do indeed reveal no warming trend since 1997.”
The linear trend from August 1997 (in the middle of an exceptionally strong El Nino) to August 2012 (coming at the tail end of a double-dip La Nina) is about 0.03°C/decade, amounting to a temperature increase of 0.05°C over that period, but equally we could calculate the linear trend from 1999, during the subsequent La Nina, and show a more substantial warming.’ http://metofficenews.wordpress.com/2012/10/14/met-office-in-the-media-14-october-2012/
It is just the data – since the 1998/2001 climate shift there has been no surface warming to speak of. No temperature was above the 1998 peak in a statistically significant way.
Why do I choose 1998? It is because climate shifts abruptly on multi-decadal timescales as seen in shifts of ocean and atmospheric indices and in surface temperture trajectories.
‘Unlike El Niño and La Niña, which may occur every 3 to 7 years and last from 6 to 18 months, the PDO can remain in the same phase for 20 to 30 years. The shift in the PDO can have significant implications for global climate, affecting Pacific and Atlantic hurricane activity, droughts and flooding around the Pacific basin, the productivity of marine ecosystems, and global land temperature patterns. This multi-year Pacific Decadal Oscillation ‘cool’ trend can intensify La Niña or diminish El Niño impacts around the Pacific basin,” said Bill Patzert, an oceanographer and climatologist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. “The persistence of this large-scale pattern [in 2008] tells us there is much more than an isolated La Niña occurring in the Pacific Ocean.”
Natural, large-scale climate patterns like the PDO and El Niño-La Niña are superimposed on global warming caused by increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases and landscape changes like deforestation. According to Josh Willis, JPL oceanographer and climate scientist, “These natural climate phenomena can sometimes hide global warming caused by human activities. Or they can have the opposite effect of accentuating it.”’ I have quoted this before but it is as good a summary as any. By all means go to the original science.
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/enso/mei/
http://jisao.washington.edu/pdo/
These periodicities can be found in US and Arctic temperature – fisheries – hydrology – surface temperature and clouds. Global changes that persist for decades before shifting again. How much did this augment recent warming? Quite a bit it seems. How long will the non warming persist? Decades.
There are so many factors in Arctic Ice – try the WHOI. But both ice and temperature are quasi cyclical with the familiar periodicities.
http://s1114.photobucket.com/albums/k538/Chief_Hydrologist/?action=view¤t=SeaIceInFourArcticSeas20Polyakov2003.jpg
http://s1114.photobucket.com/albums/k538/Chief_Hydrologist/?action=view¤t=chylek09.gif
Major change? http://www.climate4you.com/images/NSIDC%20GlobalArcticAntarctic%20SeaIceArea.gif Don’t think so – but at any rate expect a turn around.
The comment by Pachuari on Arctic ice is pseudo science. This beats yours numbnut – which aren’t any kind of science at all.
… the IPCC’s sensitivity estimate cannot readily be reconciled with forcing estimates and observational data. All the recent literature that approaches the question from this angle comes up with similar answers, including the papers I mentioned above. By failing to meet this problem head-on, the IPCC authors now find themselves in a bit of a pickle. I expect them to brazen it out, on the grounds that they are the experts and are quite capable of squaring the circle before breakfast if need be. But in doing so, they risk being seen as not so much summarising scientific progress, but obstructing it.
James’ Empty Blog, A sensitive matter
http://julesandjames.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/a-sensitive-matter.html
The observed global warming and sea level rise is due to the SUN:
See the 84-years running mean of the sun spot count has the same increasing trend as the sea level rise.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/sidc-ssn/mean:1008
Note also that in the last 200 years, the sun has been most active in the last 100 years.
Here is the profile of the GMST that matches the sea level rise:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/mean:732
It is the increase in GMST that causes the observed increase in CO2 concentration in the atmosphere:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/mean:732/normalise/plot/esrl-co2/compress:12/normalise/offset:0.65
When the GMST starts its cooling phase, the CO2 concentration must decrease.
Lolwot, I can’t disagree about the met office. The chart they released clearly shows no warming to this set of (admittedly nearsighted eyes), but I’ve seen nothing explicit from them wrt to conceding what seems obvious to many, if not most. Regarding Pauchari, a fair minded person would likely assume that
in the absence of some outraged demand for a retraction, the reporter likely got it right. Are you a fair minded person?
The report says:
“recent acknowledgment by peak climate-science bodies in Britain and the US of what has been a 17-year pause in global warming.”
I know for a fact there have been no such acknowledgements.
If the reporter has a problem with what acknowledgements are why should I believe what they say Pauchari acknowledged?
I know for a fact that they acknowledge a 0.03 C/decade trend since 1997. numbnut calls that warming.
Here’s the thing lolwot. Between 1980 and 2000 the CO2 n the atmosphere went up from 335 to 362 ppm. During that period the global temperature anomoly went up 0.45C. The IPCC in AR4 told us with 90-100% certainty that most of this temperature rise was caused by the increased CO2.
Between 2000 and 2012 the CO2 in the atmosphere weent up from 362 to 390ppm, so we should have expected, if the IPCC is right with the science a further rise in global temperature anomoly of 0.4-0.5C.
We haven’t experienced any statistical (that means that any rise, or fall, is within the error boundaries, an astonishing shortfall in you knowledge that you seem to share with Jullia Slingo and her colleagues at the Met Office).
Clearly something is wrong. Unknown natural variations have held the temperatures steady in the face of ever rising CO2. Mosh as speculated several causes, but they’re only speculation, the big one, of course is that the the IPCC has grossly overestimated the effects of CO2 on temperature. Funny, Mosh didn’t mention that, but I’m sure it was an oversight, because Mosh’s logic is impeccable.
Me? Well along with the 97% of brilliant climate scientists I have no idea why the increased CO2 hasn’t caused warming. But it does look to have put a hole below the waterline in the good ship IPPC’s 90-100% certainty that rises in human produced CO2 caused most of the late 20th century warming.
The PDO, sun, and taking the beginning of the trend at the last super El Nino can account for this. It is no mystery, and contrary to your assertion natural variations account for this. By the way 362 is low-balling the CO2 amount. The actual expected rise would be 0.15-0.2 in this decade. This is the problem with short-term trends. They are dominated by natural variations. Take the longer term and the trend returns while natural variations reduce in net effect, as they tend to cancel over time.
geronimo writes: “Here’s the thing lolwot. Between 1980 and 2000 the CO2 n the atmosphere went up from 335 to 362 ppm. During that period the global temperature anomoly went up 0.45C. ”
I question how you’ve calculated this. You evidently didn’t run an OLS trend from 1980 to 2000 because 0.45C isn’t the result I obtain. So how did you calculate 0.45C?
Then you write: “Between 2000 and 2012 the CO2 in the atmosphere weent up from 362 to 390ppm, so we should have expected, if the IPCC is right with the science a further rise in global temperature anomoly of 0.4-0.5C.”
So you are claiming the IPCC predicted 0.4-0.5C over a 12 year period! come on, I can’t believe you think I am going to fall for that.
Then you write: “We haven’t experienced any statistical (that means that any rise, or fall, is within the error boundaries, an astonishing shortfall in you knowledge that you seem to share with Jullia Slingo and her colleagues at the Met Office).”
It would be nice if you were to actually learn what a lack of statistical significance means. It doesn’t mean what you think it does.
As luck would have it Tamino has justed posted some graphs of temperature with the pre-2000 warming extrapolated past that data, including error boundaries.
As you can see the recent temperature data does not breach the expectation of continued warming. It is precisely because of those error boundaries you talk of that you can’t go around claiming the warming has stopped.
As for OLS trend, Since 2000 GISTEMP shows warming of 0.066C +- 0.174C/decade. That +-0.174C/decade are large error boundaries. It’s funny that you appeal to the error bounds but you don’t understand what they are.
0.066C+-0.174C/decade (2 sigma) means the error bounds do not exclude 0.23C/decade warming over that period. Which means you can’t go around claiming the data is inconsistent with continued warming.
You then write: “Clearly something is wrong.“.
Yes your comment is wrong. Very wrong. But it amply reflects just the kind of sloppy agenda driven “analysis” we’ve come to expect of climate skeptics
Jim D, you state that natural variation tends to cancel out over time. How much time? A look at the reconstructions of ocean heat transport would indicate hundreds of years. Recent studies using ARGO indicate no clear trend in OHT currently but the time period of ARGO is very short and, curiously, comes at a time when temperatures have stalled. They also indicate a correlation between OHT and SSTs. So saying there is an underlying trend doesn’t identify with certainty the origin of the trend.
http://www.nature.com/ncomms/journal/v3/n6/fig_tab/ncomms1901_F5.html
Planetary warming has little to do with tropospheric temperature – which peaked in early 1998.
The planet warmed in CERES – but it was all shortwave – that is changes in albedo.
http://s1114.photobucket.com/albums/k538/Chief_Hydrologist/?action=view¤t=AdvancesinUnderstandingTop-of-AtmosphereRadiationVariability-Loebetal2011.png
But numbnut’s statistics are incredible.
Sorry, pachauri.
Press release from “The Oracle,” on claims of climate warming
and claims of hiding the decline : ‘Adjustments have been and
will continue to be made.’ You may quote me on this.”
(I also do tarot readings. page 42)
Like the mans says, seems like a whole lot of leavin’ goin’ on …
‘heat leavin’ the planet if not not the blogosphere. )
http://www.jango.com/music/Bon+Jovi?l=0
“‘Global Warming’ refers to an obscure statistical quantity, globally averaged temperature anomaly, the small residue of far larger and mostly uncorrelated local anomalies. This quantity is highly uncertain, but may be on the order of 0.7C over the past 150 years. This quantity is always varying at this level and there have been periods of both warming and cooling on virtually all time scales. On the time scale of from 1 year to 100 years, there is no need for any externally specified forcing. The climate system is never in equilibrium because, among other things, the ocean transports heat between the surface and the depths. To be sure, however, there are other sources of internal variability as well.
“Because the quantity we are speaking of is so small, and the error bars are so large, the quantity is easy to abuse in a variety of ways.”
~R. S. Lindzen
Talking of 40 yrs cooling as a period that would merit rethinking AGW,
why then would a lesser warming period, 1975- 95, merit alarmist
political action, drastic policy responses, high taxes on energy ,
massive subsidising CAGW research et al? Let’s be consistent here.
That’s all very well, but the Myceneans did nothing about a sudden cooling in the Ionian Sea…and now it’s all Athens this, Rome that.
We have to act, Beth. After we stop the warming – GIM and Goldman Sachs can handle the money side – we then fund the cooling. With luck, GIM and Goldman Sachs will still be willing to handle the money side. In fact, I’m confident we’ll get lots of help with the money side.
BP – they’re such good sports – will sell us all the solar panels and wind turbines we want. Exxon haven’t had quite the Damascus Road experience that others have had, but they’re quick to point out that their lubricants are just what you need for whole forests of wind towers. (“Mobilgear SHC ™ XMP synthetic gear oil lubricates more than 40,000 wind turbines worldwide.”)
Can we afford it? Are you kidding? With the amount of Australian coal that gets burnt every day? Of course, we can afford it. So pay your taxes, be silent (like a good serf) and hug a turbine today. Or you’ll end up like a Mycenean, fighting with a Cretan over a hindquarter of dead cat.
The warming was predicted 30 or more years ago and occurred as expected. No climate scientist is predicting cooling now.
That’s right. The cooling was predicted 40 or more years ago. After England had its worst known heat, in 1976, right in the middle of the global cooling alarm, poor old H. H. Lamb and the CRU swivelled about so fast they made holes in the carpet. Fortunately, they only had to change one word. “Global” could stay.
That’s show biz – even with a turkey that you know will fold!
mosomoso, more scientists were predicting warming in the 70s than cooling. See:
Who sparked the global cooling myth?
lolwot, I’m not sure which bedwetting team was largest, but I’m sure which one New Scientist would nominate. Covering up the global cooling scare is chewing up precious spin resources that could be used on making warming from Northern Hemisphere coldwaves and maxed-out Antarctic sea ice. Like, the lads at Skeptical Science have to sleep some time. They’re not zombie robots, you know. (Well, actually…)
Iolwot said;
“mosomoso, more scientists were predicting warming in the 70s than cooling. See: Who sparked the global cooling myth?”
er…Lamb, Mitchell, Budyko, Ladurie etc etc sparked it. I thought that ‘study’ by Connelley had gone the same way as the hockey stick-into the forgotten cellars of history.
As Budyko himself says (who seems to have subsequently changed his mind about cooling as did Lamb-as scientists should do when new evidence comes to light) in his book “The earths climate past and future’ pages 148 ;
‘it was generally accepted that a tendancy towards climatic cooling appeared during the last few decades; since the sign of temperature fluctuations changes relatively rarely, the scientists concerned with climatic change almost UNANIMOUSLY (my capitalization) believed that the temperature would continue to decrease in the near future…Lamb 1973 mentioned that more than 20 forecasts of the early 70’s concerning climatic change predicted a cooling trend in the next few decades, but (then) indicated a lack of sufficient scientific grounds for these forecasts and two years later obtained the FIRST (my capitalization) evidence of a possible climatic change towards warming.”
(The temperature cooling can be seen in the Willett/Mitchell curves of the time)
Budyko continues;
‘in the 1940’s the warming trend was overcome by a cooling trend which intensified in the 1960’s and in the mid 60’s the mean air temperature of the Northern Hemisphere (once again) approached the level of the cold seasons of the late 1910’s .”
To summarise, here is what seems to have happened; As you know there was a very substantial warming from the 1920’s to 1940’s. This reversed itself. By 1962/3 the dropping temperature made Callendar himself doubt his greenhouse theory. Budyko, Lamb and an almost ‘unanimous’ agreement of climate scientists believed we were heading into a significant cooling phase . Lamb eventually pointed out in 1973 that the cooling was not sufficiently long lived to be a a scientifically meaningful climatic trend of at least 30 years. The widespread scare of cooling changed into a scare of warming as temperatures started to recover.
Here are a couple of additional links and a quote;
“The second important group analyzing global temperatures was the British government’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia, founded by Lamb in 1971 and now led by Tom Wigley. Help in assembling data and funding came from American scientists and agencies. The British results agreed overall with the NASA group’s findings — the world was getting warmer. In 1982, East Anglia confirmed that the Northern Hemisphere cooling that began in the 1940s had turned around by the early 1970s.
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/20ctrend.htm
Also see;
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/GISSTemperature/giss_temperature2.php
So the 20 year long (very real) cooling scare was most rife during the 1960’s and came to an end in the early 70’s. It is pointless of Connelley to cite selected later studies when the scare had ended, rather than the earlier studies when it was in full swing.
tonyb
There are plenty predicting at least no warming decadally. Beyond that – who knows.
Watch what yer say, V P, yer askin’ fer trouble ‘n likely ter git it.
Whoosh.
For an example of an observational study which shows the opposite of what greenhouse conjectures assume, see the Appendix of my paper …
http://principia-scientific.org/publications/PROM/PROM-COTTON_Planetary_Core_and_Surface_Temperatures.pdf
Means of Adjusted Daily Maximum and Daily Minimum Temperatures
Wet (01-05): 30.8°C 20.1°C
Medium (06-10): 33.0°C 21.2°C
Dry (11-15): 35.7°C 21.9°C
Plus ca change, mosomoso? Some of us here jest don’t have
what it takes ter make good serfs. ‘Hug a turbine today?’ Why,
I’d as soon hug a grizzly.
lolwot is not seriously interested in the truth of the matter. He’s nitpicking about what Pakiwhatever actually said. Like that matters. And y’all are feeding him like it matters to you too. Packincheerios is not a climate scientist. Below I point out to lolwot that James Hansen, who some might say actually is a climate scientist of some notable regard, explicitely acknowledges the pause in the best weasel words he could muster without being untruthful “The 5-year mean global temperature has been flat for a decade”. When the lord and master of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming (Hansen, not Gore) says global warming flatlined for 15 years (a decade plus the 5 preceding years needed to compute the first mean) then you can rest assured that it has indeed flatlined because that’s very contrary data to the hypothetical greenhouse warming he’s been advocating most of his adult life.
lolwot | February 23, 2013 at 1:51 pm | Reply
Larry can you point me to the quote from Pachauri where he acknowledges no warming for 17 years? Where is it?
I don’t see anything in the WUWT article or in the Australian news piece to back up the claim he said that.
David Springer | February 23, 2013 at 3:18 pm |
James Hansen and two colleagues acknowledges a 15-year pause here:
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2013/20130115_Temperature2012.pdf
Global Temperature Update Through 2012
15 January 2013
J. Hansen, M. Sato, R. Ruedy
Summary. Global surface temperature in 2012 was +0.56°C (1°F) warmer than the 1951-1980 base period average, despite much of the year being affected by a strong La Nina. Global temperature thus continues at a high level that is sufficient to cause a substantial increase in the frequency of extreme warm anomalies. The 5-year mean global temperature has been flat for a decade, which we interpret as a combination of natural variability and a slowdown in the growth rate of the net climate forcing.
Note a “5-year mean” requires 5 years of history to calculate it. So when he says the 5 year mean has been flat for a decade that means it was flat for that decade plus the five previous years required to calculate the mean on the first day of that decade. These are really weasel words that mislead some into thinking only the past 10 years were flat. The following two statements are equivalent, in other words:
The 5-year mean global temperature has been flat for a decade
The annual mean global temperature has been flat for 15 years
The only reason I respond to you, lolwot, is so that others may see that even James Hansen acknowledges a 15-year pause. Global non-warming denialists such as yourself and whatshisface Nucitelli @ Sketpical Science will not acknowledge what legitimate scientists are forced to acknowledge lest their peers roast them on a spit for lying.
Wow. Thanks David. I enjoy the sparing but not the nonesense. Hansen weasel words are a major concession. What does Steve Mosher say about the 17 year pause?
Scott.
Fusion is on the way. Hold on. It will give us a way out in 100 years but for now we can’t damage the economy too bad to allow advanced technology to go forward. Wonder how Japan is going to make it without 50% of their power supply. They lost 28000 people in the earthquake and Tsunami and can ontly think to shut down the power grid in response.
Hanson and CAGW will have to wait another ten years to move to a new issue. I say, LOOK OUT FOR ASTROIDS. We need a space program.
Scott
Think of all the energy we can harvest extraterrestrially with solar energy collectors, and microwave to earth to stave off the cooling. ::grin::
===================
Nuclear is quite a bit more costly than to coal and methane (almost double the price of natural gas) and isn’t exactly good for the environment either. I don’t see the price coming down for nuclear anytime in the next few decades minimum. Some will claim it’s regulatory burdens that make nuclear so expensive but that’s hogwash because nations such as China with wherewithal to build nuclear power plants aren’t rushing to do it.
What’s going to happen IMO long before then is artificial leaves and/or artificial organisms will be directly converting sunlight, CO2, and water into drop-in replacements for whatever liquid or gaseous hydrocarbon fuel you need for existing infrastructure. These will be in volume production at price points below that at which fossil fuels can compete. We’re talking $10/bbl equivalent which is cheaper than oil ever was.
Two well funded enterprises have already patented artificial organisms and have acheived pilot-scale production at around $50/bbl equivalent and there’s nowhere to go but less expensive as expertise in genetic engineering continues. These two enterprises (Joule Unlimited and Algenol) both use non-potable water, non-arable land, and have yields over 10,000 gallons per acre in pilot production. At that rate it only takes a sunny arid region half the size of the state of Maine to supply all the energy the US currently consumes. No agricultural land is displaced.
We’ve barely scratched the surface of opportunities engineers can exploit once they can program self-reproducing microbes to manufacture anything of any scale out of materials that living things already manipulate. Carbon compounds are life’s forte and there’s hardly anything imaginable that can’t be constructed of carbon compounds. You could build a space shuttle and fuel it too all out of carbon compounds that various forms of life already produce for their own purposes. So the basically technology is there and we just need to keep improving our cut & paste skills to harness these capabilities for our own purposes. This will all happen before you could design, test, permit, construct, and commission a next generation nuclear power plant. That plant would be unable to compete on day one. Nobody is putting serious money into a technology that, even if successful, would be obsolete before the first unit rolls off the production line.
No, again your are misrepresenting people. Hansen did not say global warming had flatlined for 15 years.
I am starting a list of examples of climate skeptics falsely attributing statements or beliefs to people in a twisted effort to bolster their own arguments. I’ll start off with just 3 recent examples.
False Attributions made by Climate “Skeptics”
False claim 1) The UK Met Office issued a report or statement saying there had been no warming for 17 years. [1] [2]
False claim 2) The NOAA issued a report or statement saying there had been no warming for 17 years. [1]
False claim 3) The IPCC predicted 0.4-0.5C warming from 2000 to 2012. [1]
False claim 4) Phil Jones says rising CO2 has falsified climate models. [1]
False claim 5) James Hansen and two collegues acknowledge a 15 year pause in warming. [1]
False claim 6) Hansen used to say that natural variability wasn’t capable of stopping warming. [1]
False claim 7) IPCC AR5 admits ‘the jig is up’ with regard to man made global warming [1]
False claim 8) The IPCC AR5 admits that the Sun is responsible for global warming [1] [2]
False claim 9) IPCC AR4 claims the only solar effect is a change in TSI. [1]
False claim 10) The IPCC is unequivocal that 20th century warming is solely due to the increase in the amounts of CO2 in the atmosphere. [1]
lolwot
Global warming and sea level rise are due to the SUN =>
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/sidc-ssn/mean:1008
I think lolwot may be going to hold his breath now until someone pays attention. Good luck with that.
lolwot, herewith, links to involvement of Schneider and Holdren in predictions of another ice age in tje 70’s. In 1971, John Holdren
edited a book on global cooling contributing an essay and a
chapter with Paul Erlich speculating on the probable likelihood
of a new ice age caused by human activity Hmm, sounds familiar.
http://www.masterresource.org/2009/09/the-global-cooling-scare-revisited/http://www.masterresource.org/2009/09/the-global-cooling-scare-revisited/
Beth, Did you know the National Academy of Sciences published a report in 1976 about the coming ice age. It was in the book the cooling and went into great detail on the study’s and models proving the future predictions. THese claims tend to do that. Same people as you say are now convinced of the new disaster. It is almost like they write for Scott Ridley in making new disaster movies.
lolwot u should be an insurance investigator !!
Beth.
lucia liljegren (@lucialiljegren) (22:47:32) :
Q.2 “Second, tell me what this says about the models used by the IPCC and others which have predicted a rise of 0.2 degrees celsius per decade for the 21st century. I accept that there will always be periods when a rising gradient may be interrupted. But this flat period has now gone on for about the same time as the 1980 – 1996 warming.”
The models exhibit large variations in the rate of warming from year to year and over a decade, owing to climate variations such as ENSO, the Atlantic Multi-Decadal Oscillation and Pacific Decadal Oscillation. So in that sense, such a period is not unexpected. It is not uncommon in the simulations for these periods to last up to 15 years, but longer periods are unlikely.
That answer is an evasion. While it is true that 2.5% of runs in simulations in the A1B scenario show periods of 0 warming, that does not mean we could expect 0.2C/dec or the multi-model mean to be correct if we observe an earth trajectory of 0C/decade over 15 years. Indeed, we would not anticipate such a high probability of observing that trend if the variability of 15 year trends for the earth is typical of the internal variability in a typical model. The difference is highlighted in this graph:
.
The trace outlined in red is shows the ±95% spread of trends around the model mean we would expect to arise if the earth shares the internal variability of a typical model from the ensemble. (To estimate this I’ve computed the variance over replicate runs from both the hindcast and forecast for each model and then averaged the variance. ) This is the spread of trend you should be using if someone asked you if the predicted rise of 0.2C/decade is on track. That is the question Rose is asking. I would suggest it’s a question that has important policy implications. It is a question that should not be ignored. (Anyway, there is no point in ignoring it because people will keep asking it.)
In contrast, the spread of all trends in all runs is shown to the right of one outlined in red. This is the sort of spread you are discussing your response to Rose’s question.
That spread is larger than the one I outlined because in addition to accounting for the spread in trends due to internal variability for a typical model, in includes the variability due to the difference in mean trends for each model. These differences arise due to the structural differences in models. That is: owing to different parameterizations, some models have higher sensitivity than others. Some have greater (or lesser) time constants for the ocea and so on. The result is the mean trend under identical forcings can differ from model A to model B. This is the spread you use if someone asked you if the earth trend falls inside the dispersion of models. That’s an interesting question for many modelers. Its answer might tell you something about models and possibly help modelers identify what they need to improve.
But the answer to “is the weather inside the full dispersion of models that disagree with each other”, is not particularly interesting to anyone who wants to know the best estimate of future warming. In contrast, “Is the model mean biased high (or low) is releavant to that question.
More to the point: since your answer is supposed to be a response to Rose’s question, you should be using the tighter spread: that spread is relevant to his question. The full dispersion of simulation results is not. As such, in Q2, your answer should be more like: If “internal variability” is estimated based on the typical value for models, difference bewteen the model mean and the HadCrut trend fall outside the range consistent with “weather”. However, the difference does fall inside the range consistent with some of the models that show slower warming trends than the average for the ensemble.
I realize climate science has been conflating these two spreads for a while now. However, it is a simple fact that sqrt(a^2+b^2)>sqrt(a^2). Likewise, the variance of n-month trends for all runs (a+b) in an ensemble of models with structural differences will always be larger than the average variance of n-month trends (a only) for replicate runs over matched periods with an individual model. The latter– smaller value– is the estimate of the spread due to internal variability. And it’s the one that is relevant to Rose’s question– which is often asked (and which people are not going to stop asking.)
http://metofficenews.wordpress.com/2012/10/14/met-office-in-the-media-14-october-2012/
The poultry farmer’s union just called. They said they don’t have enough egg to cover all the warmist faces if the pause lasts another year.
@DS: The poultry farmer’s union just called. They said they don’t have enough egg to cover all the warmist faces if the pause lasts another year.
If the trend for 2013 were to turn out to be +0.3 C per year would the egg still be needed for that year?
If so then you seem to be working with a definition of “pause” that guarantees we’re in a pause regardless of how 2013 turns out.
Vaughan Pratt | February 24, 2013 at 6:25 pm | Reply
“If the trend for 2013 were to turn out to be +0.3 C per year would the egg still be needed for that year?”
No.
It seems like that answer might disappoint you. But things aren’t always as they seem.
“If the trend turned out to be +0.3C per decade after 2013…”
Huh?
For the 1997-2013 linear trend to be +0.3C per decade, we would need 2013 to have an average monthly anomaly of ~1.9C (or 1.5C higher than that for 2012).
Bets, anyone?
Max
Oh, please, he thought he’d made a point. Bowl of pudding with a plum in it for him.
==========
Sort of like the Good Witch of the East instructed to Dorothy to return home to Kansas from Oz…
Warmists click your heels together three times and repeat after me:
It WILL start warming again.
It WILL start warming again.
It WILL start warming again.
What a nightmare you folks find yourself in, eh? Unlike Dorothy I don’t think you’re going to wake up to discover the pause was just a bad dream. I could be wrong of course but it isn’t a good idea to bet that way.
err statistically speaking there is no pause.
Steven Mosher
Define “statistically speaking”.
Max
Statistically speaking as the sun has warmed over time the temperature of the earth has cooled this is the faint sun paradox..
David, I think you are wrong about nuclear costs. But the good witch allusions are funny. We will just have to mudde through with nuclear and then fusion or your special grow in the desert and make liquids until the science tells us which way we can go and the economics tells us when.
Scott
Economics have already spoken.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics_of_new_nuclear_power_plants
The nuclear power experiment is over. It failed. If it had been a success private equity would be falling all over itself to get onboard the profit train.
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=third+generation+biofuel&hl=en&as_sdt=0&as_vis=1&oi=scholart&sa=X&ei=UIMqUbLhBISi2wWyvoCgAw&ved=0CC4QgQMwAA
Genetically engineered microorganisms are third generation biofuel. Ethanol from sugar/starch crops such as corn, beets, and cane was modestly successful despite diverting food crops. Ethanol produced from high value crops is first generation biofuel. Third generation has already emerged from the lab, been successfully in pilot plants, and two scaleable commercial plants with oodles of private equity are being constructed as we speak. This all happened in the space of a couple decades. Meanwhile nuclear power, which has been around for 60 years, hasn’t improved in 40 years. It’s moribund and without breakthrough technology in materials that better withstand the neutron fluxes that embrittle stainless steel and corrosive fluids that ruin virtually everything else, and without any real answer for proliferation concerns, terrorist threats for blowing up nuclear power plants, long term answers for disposing of radioactive wastes it won’t be going any further than where it’s at right now. Hell if it wasn’t for the production of weapons grade fissile materials at nuclear power plants there wouldn’t be ANY nuclear power plants today. That was really the overriding reason any of them at all were built if we discount nuclear powered aircraft carriers and submarines which are just other forms of nuclear weapons.
Pingback: Weekly Climate and Energy News Roundup | Watts Up With That?
Scott @ 10.07am Nandtony b @12.01pm show how widespread
was the cooling scare of the 1960’s early 70’s
Links from Tony add to the almost unanimous catalogue of
scientists claiming a future Ice age, Lamb, Mirchell. Ladurie,
as wall as Holdren and Schneider. Scott refers to the National
Academy of Sciences Report of 1976 of the coming ice age.
Connely is not looking at the period when the scare was in full
swing as Tony notes.. Hold on ter the history. )
The problem with all these plots is that they have shifted the historical base from 1995 to 2000 or after?
1) Does this mean that they have trained their models with some additional data up to 2000? If they are new models then they should’ve been run from the same base as the old ones (1995) and trained on the same data set (pre-1995).
2) Given that these models have non-deterministic components, is this not the same as changing the experiment: one would expect such a model to diverge from observation but the rate of divergence tells you how good they are. If you shift the projection date (as here) then the divergence wont seem as marked as before even if the rate is the same (post 1995).
3) The grey region does not start to fan out til after 2000 which would suggest that they have done some retrospective fitting of older code or used new models trained on additional data – see point 1 again.
4) You cannot validate model outputs, with non-deterministic components, using, even in-part, retrospective fitting.
‘The observed global-warming rate has been nonuniform, and the cause of each episode of slowing in the expected warming rate is the subject of intense debate.
This is the elephant in the room. While, as usual, 99% of the post were beating the dead horse of the temporal variability of spatial averages, only the Chief, Bob Tisdale and Brandon Shollenberg reminded that the spatial variability is huge
Just look at the data.
It has been done here for all the records (variable length of records) :
http://motls.blogspot.fr/2011/07/hadcrut3-30-of-stations-recorded.html
And it has been done here for some fixed widths of the time window : http://motls.blogspot.fr/2011/08/hadcrut3-31-of-stations-saw-cooling.html.
The results are the same : about one third of the records report cooling and 2/3 report warming.
But most importantly the spatial (and monthly !) variabilities are huge – the standard deviation is about 3 times the linear “trend” of the mean.
Clearly it is the spatial variabilities that dominate the climate and there is, obviously, nothing global about the recent (a century or so) warming.
This is no surprise to those familiar with either Navier Stokes or spatio-temporal chaos – the dynamics (temporal behaviour of the system) is dictated by spatial correlations which are a consequence of mass and energy transport by fluids.
Instead of “global” warming a much more accurate terminology should be “regional” scattering of warming and cooling trends.
Because spatial correlations and wave propagations (e.g oceanic oscillations) decide what the local dynamics will be, it is also obvious that the spatial average will behave just like a weighted average of an infinite series where the weights are function of spatial location.
That’s why comparisons to models should not be done in terms of a spatial averages (the so called “global” temperature or anything else “global”) because they have an infinite number of degrees of freedom (e.g are infinitely adjustable).
Instead what should be compared are the regional predictions in terms of humidity, cloudiness, precipitation, pressure, albedo and temperature.
The tools exist and are routinely used in fluid dynamics and numerical solutions of Navier Stokes are evaluated with the standard measure in the Hilbert space of functions (fields).
This norm is the only one relevant to accurately calculate the distance between a prediction and an observation as long as we deal with any spatio-temporal system.
This is absolutely necessary because in a strictly deterministic system there is neither a one to one correspondence nor a stochastical link between the value of local dynamical variables and their spatial averages.
Said trivially : for a given average there is an infinity of possible local dynamics which in turn lead to an infinity of possible dynamics for the average.
As long as the models are not evaluated with this metrics, we are stuck with musings about dynamically irrelevant “global” parameters and even more irrelevant considerations about “equilibriums” (which are not).”
The Chief is right to remind Tsonis over and over. The dynamics of the climate, once properly understood, will show brutal shifts and spatial oscillations which will , of course, overwhelm any infinitesimal variations of any parametre (f.ex CO2 forcing).
So while it is clear that the sign of the CO2 effect on temperature all things being equal is positive, the real difficulty is that precisely nothing is being equal and a prediction can only be made when those things not being equal are properly understood.
Thomas
Surely, the issue with the instrumental record is much more fundamental. You write of spatial variation as if we have a good handle on this as well.
As I’m sure you know because of the poor spatial coverage of the instrumental record the data needs to be gridded to get regional and global coverage. I know that at least two of the global datasets use very crude interpolation routines to do this. The BEST team used Kriging – probably the best method – but never released their Kriging variance (KV) maps (without which we cannot ascertain the confidence in the gridded data); I would suspect that this would show that the KV beyond the “spatial correlation” range (range from variogram model), for just one year, would be of a greater order than the total difference in mean global temperature over the entire 20th century. In addition there is also the issue of projection systems (Cartesian, stereographic or polar: angular or Euclidean distances) and all the sources of error therein.
In short we can’t even talk with any confidence about spatial difference we have a very poor handle on this as well.
I would like to be corrected if I’m mistaken, but it is my impression that James Hansen claimed regional skill for his climate model in the notorious, and massively destructive, Congressional hearing in 1988.
====================
Kim – Why must it always be an obsession then with this single “temperature-number-index thingy” for everything? SUPERTEMP, soon at your local YouTube, saving the world a tenth at a time!
Didn’t then and still don’t have regional skill, so the focus was on one laboratory finding, and the placing of all other things being equal. Myopically viewed, through a glass darkly.
=============================
Kim
Yeah I remember seeing a BBC documentary presented by Iain Stewart, and as far as I remember during an interview with Hansen they did discuss how well his model did by focusing on regional climate. I don’t know if did very well at all – it was hard to say since they only discussed one region the Arctic. I know that his global average projections aren’t great and I guess these are the sum of its parts.
Brian
I sort of agree with you. It’s all “how may angels can sit on the head of a pin”. I can’t see how you can realistically attempt to give a region, let alone the entire globe, an average temperature value. There are so many sources of error. If you take the BEST team again, they used a particular type of Kriging where you need to know the mean, this requires a detrending step for something with drift (or even variable drift) such as the global instrumental coverage – but course, in reality, this can superficially reduce your Kriging variance as the “hidden” confidence is taken up by your trend (but then they didn’t or couldn’t: dual kriging approach).There are many ways to skin that cat including the use of several types of Kriging algorithm. I could go on…but I wont (sigh of relief I hear). But the point I am trying make is how in the hell are you to validate models, which as far as I know are trained on a poorly constrained statistic, and verified using a poorly constrained statistic. Again, it all seems like a great big academic exercise. No doubt there will be trickle down benefits to science as a whole, but I doubt if humanity will get any direct benefit.
BTW I am sorry, but I seem unable to reply directly below your posts. I’m pretty new here.
Ah ha! I see how the reply systems works now. Quite good really.
cd,
you might want to have a look at Rhode’s memo on methods.
The concerns you raise are simply addressed by tests done with synthetic data. The concerns you guys have about the spatial difference is vastly overblown.
Tomas, very good comment. your last sentence is something I will use in something that I am writing (with a hard and near deadline). I have a draft post that addresses these spatial issues, but can’t get to it until after I have met my deadline.
Will you cite it with his fake name “Tomas Milanovich” ?
Webby
“Fake name?”
Whoddat got a fake name? (or is yours really “W.H.T.”?)
Max
Webbie
So YOUR real name is Web Hub Telescope then?
tonyb
Seems as if Max was one minute quicker than me withn his Fake name comment. Rats
tonyb
Pathetic that someone would choose a realistic sounding but ultimately fake name. You can’t prove that “Tomas Milanovic” isnt a Donors Trust Fund baby. Using the Cripwell Criteria and lacking direct evidence to the contrary, he likely does not even exist.
For skeptics, you sure do get played.
Judith and fake warmest Webbie,
Thomas makes a good point and one that remains unanswered. In the mathematically correct norm, the H1 norm, models generate very large errors quickly that persist. To speak of other “convergence” one must first define a norm. “Tracking the attractor” or other glosses have no rigorous basis andmeanlittle.
Rigor, Webbie, is a technical term and does not mean what happens to the dead or in your case the brain dead.
Tomas made this most absurd non-scientific assertion:
Look at Gerard Roe’s paleo-climate interpretation of orbital forced solar variation acting on differential ice volume over hundreds of thousands of years
http://earthweb.ess.washington.edu/roe/GerardWeb/Publications_files/Roe_Milankovitch_GRL06.pdf
This is as amazing correlation between forcing and response than one can imagine, see Figures 2 and 3.
So there is little room for doubt that a global mean orbital forcing imbalance of as small as ±0.25 W/m^2 (Hansen 2008) can cause massive climate changes when the positive-feedback circumstances are right. This is really incredible scientific detective work that Roe and Hansen other climate scientists have undertaken and it is fascinating on its own terms. And the layers of interlocking pieces of evidence continues to grow.
It is just so ridiculous that these phonies like Tomas march in here with these pronouncements and then his quivering acolytes such as David Young rush in to defend him. They have no idea what kind of trick box they have gotten themselves into.
‘The Milankovitch hypothesis is widely held to be one of the cornerstones of climate science. Surprisingly, the hypothesis remains not clearly defined despite an extensive body of research on the link between global ice volume and insolation changes arising from variations in the Earth’s
orbit. In this paper, a specific hypothesis is formulated. Basic physical arguments are used to show that, rather than focusing on the absolute global ice volume, it is much more informative to consider the time rate of change of global ice volume. This simple and dynamically-logical change in perspective is used to show that the available records support a direct, zero-lag, antiphased relationship between the rate of change of global ice volume and summertime insolation in the northern high latitudes. Furthermore, variations in atmospheric CO2 appear to lag the rate of
change of global ice volume. This implies only a secondary role for CO2 – variations in which produce a weaker radiative forcing than the orbitally-induced changes in summertime insolation – in driving changes in global ice volume. Citation: Roe, G. (2006), In defense of Milankovitch,
Geophys. Res. Lett., 33, L24703, doi:10.1029/2006GL027817.
The change in ice albedo is the biggest factor in the transition between glacials and interglacials. We all knew that. We all know as well that this is the definition of a chaotic system. A control variable and multiple feedbacks interacting in fully deterministic but unpredictable ways. The change in TOA flux from ice albedo changes far exceeds any change in CO2 forcing – which at any rate lags temperature changes. Does CO2 decrease reinforce cooling? Who cares – it is such a minor effect.
Massive and very abrupt climate changes but not by any means chaotic? You idiot.
Webby,
You are staining my patience. Forcing changes do drive climate changes. But the orbital changes cause a 100 W/m2 change in forcing at the critical latitude where ice sheets form. So its the LOCAL forcing, not the total forcing. I have explained this to you at least 3 times over the last 6 months and you seem to be not only brain dead, but incapable of seeing the details of distributions. And that is Thomas’ point too, the distribution of changes in the models are terrible, but yet that’s the key to predicting real climate change.
Local, yes, but not everyone of those cycles cause the massive global changes that occur every once in a while. It is the addition of several small global forcing functions that tip the scales and result in the extensive positive reinforcements leading to inter-glacials.
So the +/- 50 W/m^2 at high latitudes cause enough of a forcing change to allow paleo-climatologists to peer back in time and correlate differential volume changes in the region. Yes indeed, external forcing functions can change the temperature (and thus ice volume) without having to invoke chaos theory.
Yet some additional forcing function is required to affect the global energy balance and the temperature across the planet. This has to come from the mere 0.5 W/m^2 that Hansen is referring to, plus some feedback such as changing albedo or CO2. One can see that the +100 W/m^2 showing up at one part of the globe is compensated by a complementary reduction elsewhere. It is the incremental energy balance that will modify the earth’s average temperature. And contrary to what Tomas said, it can be small, as enough small forcings are obviously additive.
That said, I buy into the science that I was educated on. Others, and that includes you, try to dream up some preposterous claim that a perpetual motion machine can generate these changes internally.
I am happy learning from the climate scientists, and use that information in my work. Others flail about and accomplish nothing other then being counter-productive and impediments to science. That is apparently you as well.
Better change your underpants then.
Not only can you not read, Webby, but your memory is going. I have never said that changes can originate from nothing. Forcings matter. My only point and I think Thomas’ is that climate models cannot possibly predict these changes. If that’s true, then the IPCC attribution and predictions are probably badly wrong. You should read some of the recent real science on sensitivity from Nic Lewis and James Annon. The science is changing and you are relying on oversimplified and wrong thinking.
No, it’s the equivalent of perpetual motion machines with you guys.
An increase in radiative forcing can just as soon cool as warm according to your much-vaunted insight. It’s actually pretty funny, in that all one has to do is assume everything you say is the exact opposite of being correct.
‘The long-standing question of how the slight Milankovitch forcing could possibly force such an enormous glacial–interglacial change is then answered by concluding that it does not do so. (Huybers andWun sch (2004), show that there is a conventional weak non-linear interaction of the 100 ka and obliquity frequency bands as well as self-interactions—producing still weaker sum and difference frequencies, with no indication of any stronger coupling among them.) The appeal of explaining the glacial/interglacial cycles by way of the Milankovitch forcing is clear: it is a deterministic story. But the rather modest variance directly explained by the orbital components supports the inference that the stochastic contribution cannot be ignored solely because it is not deterministic.’ http://www.seas.harvard.edu/climate/pdf/wunsch_2004.pdf
So we pretty much know this and have for a long time. Small changes in insolation may result in a climate threshold being passed resulting in runaway feedbacks. The changes in ice, vegetation, dust, etc are completely deterministic if seemingly random and it is these feedbacks that drive the huge changes in albedo that result in abrupt and nonlinear climate changes that characterise descent into and emergence from glacials. Changes in albedo radically modulate the energy budget of the planet.
There are essentially two definitions of abrupt climate change:
In terms of physics, it is a transition of the climate system into a different mode on a time scale that is faster than the responsible forcing.
In terms of impacts, “an abrupt change is one that takes place so rapidly and unexpectedly that human or natural systems have difficulty adapting to it”.
The system is by definition chaotic. “Chaos theory,” according to Steven Strogatz, Director of the Center for Applied Mathematics at Cornell University, “is the science of how things change.” It describes the behaviour of any system whose state evolves over time and whose behaviour is sensitive to small changes in its initial conditions.’ http://www.thegreatcourses.com/tgc/courses/course_detail.aspx?cid=1333
Although getting caught up in defining chaos in climate seems to be counter productive. The benefit of putting climate into this class of systems is that behaviours common to dynamically complex systems can be then used as climate diagnostics. Slowing down and ‘dragon-kings’ especially.
Tomas
Well over two years ago I wrote this with a colleague;
http://diggingintheclay.wordpress.com/2010/09/01/in-search-of-cooling-trends/
In it we said we believed that up to one third of the world was cooling. This seemed to be a regional effect as places in the same country might be warming. So there is no such thing as global warming but rather regional warming and cooling and a neutral state
This work was subsequently confirmed by Dr Mueller, BEST and Mosh has also said the same.
Here let us add some substantial caveats else Mosh will hyperventilate, as we need to define the meaning of ‘warming’ ‘cooling’ and a ‘neutral’ state, agree time scales, strip out uhi and bad stations etc etc, before we can say definitively that the cooling is meaningful.
We stopped our work as we didn’t want to be accused of cherry picking and did not have the resources to carry out a more detailed study, but what has astounded me is that over the last few years-as far as I am aware-no top flight scientist has actiually written a peer reviewed paper on this subject of regional cooling and seem to ignore Leroux’s surely obvious observation that there are many different climate states.. .
Yet back in the early 1970’s the 20 year long cooling trend reversed itself and within a few years the global warming bandwagon had sprung into action.
Is it political/ideological? Is the evidence for regional cooling too weak to put into a paper? Are there funding issues?
tonyb
Tony B your previous work seems to be most topical given that most of us do not seriously believe that there is a global average temperature that moves in concert with forcings and feedbacks.
Weather is local and climate is regional, period.
Tomas raises some issues upthread which will obviously involve the modelling of climate at regional level, rather than at global level and that sudden shifts in climate will assuredly be experienced at the local and regional levels.
There is nothing to suggest that these changes will occur uniformly across the globe.
most interestingly I found the same characteristic pattern as you guys did before the BEST work.. almost an anti phase, very weird
Thomas Milanovic: The dynamics of the climate, once properly understood, will show brutal shifts and spatial oscillations which will , of course, overwhelm any infinitesimal variations of any parametre (f.ex CO2 forcing).
Do they overwhelm variations in solar output?
With or without an understanding of spatial heterogeneity, an increase in mean T of 3K (upper end of projections for CO2) would be important, as would a decrease in mean T of 1K.(like Little Ice Age.)
Tomas claims that infinitesimal forcing changes have no effect in comparison to internal processes.
Try to sell that as a thesis topic.
There is something seriously wrong with the contrarian mindset, in that they appear no different than a 9/11 Truther.
Properly understood direct solar variations are fairly minor over periods of interest. Clouds changes a lot more and causes changes in the radiative much more significant than greenhouse gases in the satellite era.
http://s1114.photobucket.com/albums/k538/Chief_Hydrologist/?action=view¤t=AdvancesinUnderstandingTop-of-AtmosphereRadiationVariability-Loebetal2011.png
In the much longer term the difference the diference between snowball Earth and blue-green Earth is 85W/m2 – far and away more significant than greenhouse gases and the cause of abrupt shifts into and out of glacials.
Actually Springer and TonyB both reminded Schollenberger of the disparity. I think Tisdale and Ellison must have chimed in elsewhere.
Brandon Shollenberger | February 23, 2013 at 3:08 pm | Reply
Make sure to remember that increase isn’t uniform across the globe. Some places have warmed more; some have warmed less.
David Springer | February 23, 2013 at 3:51 pm |
You forgot to say some have cooled. You’re aware some have cooled, right? Ask Moshpit. Even he acknowledges that some sites have cooled since 1880. On average, after adjustments are applied in a valiant effort to make inadequate antique thermometers with inadequate coverage and amateur station-keepers across a small percentage of the earth’s land masses adequate to detect trends in the hundredths of a degree per decade… (whew) on average all stations consolidated into a single record together show some warming.
Tonyb | February 23, 2013 at 4:46 pm |
Brandon
We did a study on places that are cooling which consists of around one third of the globe
http://diggingintheclay.wordpress.com/2010/09/01/in-search-of-cooling-trends/
They are cooling to varying degrees over different time periods and a proper criteria needs to be laid down to understand their significance
Mosh is well aware of this from his BEST work and as he seems to be hanging around tonight thinking great thoughts he might like to expand on the theme
Tonyb
Actually Springer and TonyB both reminded Schollenberger of the disparity. I think Tisdale and Ellison must have chimed in elsewhere.
Brandon Shollenberger | February 23, 2013 at 3:08 pm | Reply
Make sure to remember that increase isn’t uniform across the globe. Some places have warmed more; some have warmed less.
David Springer | February 23, 2013 at 3:51 pm |
You forgot to say some have cooled. You’re aware some have cooled, right? Ask Moshpit. Even he acknowledges that some sites have cooled since 1880. On average, after adjustments are applied in a valiant effort to make inadequate antique thermometers with inadequate coverage and amateur station-keepers across a small percentage of the earth’s land masses adequate to detect trends in the hundredths of a degree per decade… (whew) on average all stations consolidated into a single record together show some warming.
Tonyb | February 23, 2013 at 4:46 pm |
Brandon
We did a study on places that are cooling which consists of around one third of the globe
http://diggingintheclay.wordpress.com/2010/09/01/in-search-of-cooling-trends/
They are cooling to varying degrees over different time periods and a proper criteria needs to be laid down to understand their significance
Tomas Milanovic | February 25, 2013 at 7:54 am |
I’ve frequently found your posts here interesting.
Could you point to some of your published scholarly papers, journal articles or the like, that I may follow your writings more closely?
Nice try, Bart. It won’t work. Only the host of this blog knows the real identity of the cipher Tomas. If he were to point to his own writings, it will give his identity away.
Tomas said:
So while it is clear that the sign of the CO2 effect on temperature all things being equal is positive, the real difficulty is that precisely nothing is being equal and a prediction can only be made when those things not being equal are properly understood.
I think a clearer description of ‘all things being equal’ is; everything else held constant and un-changed. It’s a partial derivative.
Properly understood is based upon a conclusion that things are improperly understood to a point that no prediction is possible, which has not been demonstrated.
WebHubTelescope | March 1, 2013 at 2:13 am |
It ain’t necessarily so. Well, in the case of peer-reviewed published scholarly works, it is of course so. (More’s the pity. It’s been my experience that many such works are less honest than some anonymous ones.)
However, many people host web sites or blogs or participate in collaborative work online while separating their personal lives from their ideas.
Tomas Milanovic, the person, I am utterly disinterested in, and uninterested about. A body of writings conveying ideas with the same qualities as Tomas Milanovic sometimes posts? That would be worth exploring as ideas. As wordpress doesn’t have an alternate threading by participant across topics, the most convenient way to access this world of ideas is through their author.
And it may be leaping to a false conclusion to attribute guessed-at motives to an author for a pen name. There are other reasons than anonymity some may have.
From time to time I wonder, for example, whether Pielke Jr. would have done readers a favor of disambiguation by using a pen name to more clearly distinguish his often excellent writings from his illustrious father’s; indeed, that’s not the only family of writers advocating within the technical climate sphere, who might benefit from clarification of their relationships.
Bart, My larger point is still that you will never get anything documented by Tomas online. Somehow he has convinced himself that doing drive-by commentary on a blog is safe as far as anonymity is concerned, but that creating a free blog in which he can crystallize his thoughts would reveal too much of himself.
I believe that the entire climate skeptic blogosphere is freepered to the core. A writer at the Guardian found out that 13 of the top 17 blogs nominated for top science blog in the Bloggies were aligned with AGW skepticism:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2013/mar/01/climate-sceptics-capture-bloggies-science
Freeping is not a word that I have seen for years until this writer mentioned it at the end of the story.
Perhaps it is good that Tomas hasn’t created another blog to create even more FUD.
makisimovich | February 22, 2013 at 6:16 pm |
The global temperature increase through the 1990s is certainly
rather unusual in terms of the instrumental record of the last 150 years or so.
==========
It corresponds very well with the shutting down of thousands of weather stations in Siberia after the collapse of the former Soviet Union.
For some reason global average temperatures increased after the weather stations in Siberia were removed. When you average individual stations in rural areas there has been no increase.
AGW is man made. It was caused by averaging the massive discontinuity in the location of the recording stations.
Tomas Milanovic | February 25, 2013 at 7:54 am | Reply
It has been done here for all the records (variable length of records) :
http://motls.blogspot.fr/2011/07/hadcrut3-30-of-stations-recorded.html
========
Interesting. Standard deviation (2.36c/century) more than 3 times the mean increase (0.76c/century).
What this tells me is that simply by chance we could have a large increase or decrease in the global average temperature simply due to chance, regardless of any change in forcings.
It is a bozo mistake to concentrate on the mean and ignore the deviation when the deviation is so much greater than the mean.
Try this yourself in excel. Build a model with the same mean and deviation and run it repeatedly. You will on occasion get a graph the is a very close match with the past 150 years of temperature records without the slightest change in any of the forcings.
You will also get many more graphs that are very much different, all with no change in the forcings. Many of which will show a much greater warming or cooling than the global average temperature. All due to chance. Without any change in forcings.
Prof Curry
While not a direct answer to your question on comparing CIMP5 models, I can provide a fairly standard procedure for comparing models to experiment in an industrial setting. I am a retired chemical engineer with 35 years experience in semiconductor manufacturing. In that environment there is a continuous need to modify the manufacturing processes to improve yield or reliability and experience quickly teaches that changes must be qualified by data, not experienced personel judgement.
In the case of climate vs CO2 a controlled experiment is not possible so the modelers must guess at future CO2 levels and we must assess their guesses before comparing the model predictions to data. In the case where several CO2 growth rates have been used we can sort the model runs using Dr Hansen’s 1988 paper as a template. Group A would be CO2 growth close enough to actual to compare temperature predictions directly to data. Group C would be model runs which have temperature predictions close enough to actual so that comparisons of CO2 levels in the model could be compared to data. Group B would be those model runs with such poor guesses for future CO2 growth that comparison of model prediction to data has no value in falsifying or confirming the model.
If a set of model runs are all done for a single CO2 growth rate we can compare temperature predictions to data only if that growth rate falls in the Group A, close to actual CO2 growth. If the modelled CO2 is too far from actual then adjustmens to predicted temperatures would have to be made before comparisons to data. If the assumed CO2 levels are higher than actual then predicted temperatures should be lowered by the models sensitivity to CO2 and raised for the opposite case.
I know of two models with predictions that fall into the Group A, Dr Hansen’s 1988 paper and the first IPCC report. My quick look indicates that the temperature predictions of these models are 4 or 5X greater than actual and conclude that these models have fundemental flaws. In the semiconductor world where time is so important the next models would be adjusted to predict temperatures much closer to those measured. The obvious candidate for adjusting the climate models would be removal of the positve feedback effect. It would have the right magnitude and direction of change and it is afterall only a guess. If good models were run with the feedbacks removed, in 30 years or so we might have a good indication of what the actual feedbacks are.
I do not know enough about the climate models to know which were run with only one CO2 growth rate, but it seems likely that there are some. Making the adjustments to those models and then comparing to data would be a good home work assignment for an undergrad class that includes climate models.
Just a comment on how a process engineer would look at the climate models compared to data. To have confidence in the underlying physics or chemistry of a model the shape of the model predictions should match the actual data. So when the increase in temperatures leveled off around 2002 thru 2006 a process engineer would be confident that the models predicting a continuos rise in temperature had a basic physics problem.
All that can be learned by comparing CIMP5 predictions to data is that the modelers have not yet completed one learning cycle. They are still predicting temperatures that are too high. If an El Nino comes along it will make will make their predictions less embaressing but in no way confirm assumptions that have already been shown to fail.
It would seem that we would learn faster if the modelers focused on how well their models handle the 1990s to 2000s temperature transition as well as the 1930s to 1940s transition or how well their models can handle the temperature increases from 1910 to 1940 and 1970 to 2000.
A last obvious comment on comparing model predictions to the range of model runs. Model predictions are compared to actual data and when the model falls outside the scatter in the actual data it is time to adjust the model. Ed Hawkin’s adjustments to compare CIMP5 to particular data seems appropriate, but using a meaningless range of model runs in place of the range in the measured data is not appropriate.
Cary Halsted
when the model falls outside the scatter in the actual data it is time to adjust the model
======
you are assuming the purpose of the models is to predict future temperature. It is not. The purpose of the models is to create alarm over the role of CO2, which requires that positive feedback be maintained. Without positive feedback there is no cause for alarm and no reason to pump so much money into climate science.
Without funding the model builders need to get real jobs, which is not something they are going to do willingly. Thus, positive feedback will be the last thing they change. Much simpler to adjust the temperature record, which is why NASA GISS controls both their model and their temperature record. And why much of the funding that used to go for space exploration and medical research ended up instead going to climate science.
ferdberple
I think in any other realm of science very little time would be spent on this. As I stated above – I’m sure like everyone else you rightly decided to ignore it – there seems so little time given to getting a proper handle on the error of the global temperature record. The methodologies used to derive these values are loaded with bias and possible sources of error, and that’s before you even start to examine experimental error. And all this to calculate a trend that changes by a few tenths to one degree per century.
Then this historical data is used to train (or tune if you like) climate models and then later, using additional/new datat, test the model runs beyond their training sets – like the plots presented above. It is an exercise in madness.
I’m not saying climate science doesn’t serve a useful purpose but I do doubt whether this part of climate science does beyond its academic value.
Certainly the model builders need to thank the “skeptics” because they wouldn’t get as much funding if the warming and its regional details were beyond doubt already. It turns out that uncertainty is good for funding in science.
You joking Jim?
If it hadn’t have been for the skeptics it would’ve been “…it’s worse than we thought – give us more money so we get a better handle on it…”
Now they seem to spend most of their time squirming and moving the goal posts in order to tell us that they were right even when they were wrong.
cd, yes, I was kidding because the funders aren’t likely to be listening to the “skeptics” who look biased in their cherry-picking and attempts at science. They more likely listen to the scientific majority on where the uncertainties remain and whether CO2 causes significant warming isn’t one of them.
It’s not fixed by removing positive feedback I’m afraid. Two papers came out last year, one is Dessler 2012 and the other name escapes me but I mentioned them both here last year. Both the papers found that CIMP5 models can only reproduce 2000-2010 by removing CO2 forcing altogether. Not just removing water vapor amplification but removing anthropogenic forcing. Period.
In other words from 1980-2000 the models work with anthropogenic forcing and water vapor amplification and in 2000-2010 they work with no anthropogenic forcing.
The fix is to remove anthropogenic forcing and figure out the real cause cause.
I worked for a little while at Rockwell back in the early 1970’s cobbling up gas transfer plumbing and solenoids for semiconductor furnaces, by the way. I wasn’t there long. Just biding my time on terminal leave from the USMC until could go home and start college. That was long enough to learn you don’t make random guesses about how to fix things lest you find yourself or others dead on the floor from inhaling some toxic gas. It was so long ago I don’t remember the name but there was a green colored gas that was pretty nasty. Phosgene seems to ring a bell.
Hmm… phosgene is from USMC nuclear,biological, and chemical warfare school. Took that the same year I worked at Rockwell. I’m thinking HCl was the nasty gas and it wasn’t green itself but left a green residue on any leaky pipe joints. Memories are returning. It was the Rockwell “Collins” lab in Newport Beach, CA and the year was 1974. It was a small prototyping facility with maybe 20 ovens altogether.
Dammit. 1978 not 1974.
Cary
“I do not know enough about the climate models to know which were run with only one CO2 growth rate, but it seems likely that there are some. Making the adjustments to those models and then comparing to data would be a good home work assignment for an undergrad class that includes climate models.”
The specific experiments that have been run are documented at CMIP
sites. because we dont know what the future will hold in terms of GHS in the atmoshere the approach taken is a sensitivity approach.
In AR4 for example, thousands of scenarios were developed using a bottoms up method. Basically
1. several population scnearios
2. several economic growth scenario
3. several technology scenarios
do the factorial design. huge. These are called SRES.
From those thousands of scenarios a few are selected that bound the problem from high to low. Because it cant be predicted and because combinatoral explosion makes a full factorial design too huge, you explore what you thnk are reasonable low medium and high scenarios. Just like any engineer would do.
in Ar5 the approach is top down. There is a high scenario where we add 8.5Watts by 2100, a 6watt scenario and so forth down to 2.5Watts ( as I recall ). Here instead of building up emissions from a bottoms up approach, a top down design was used. Also an approach used everyday in engineering.
Then come the models. They vary by a factor of 2 WRT the sensitivity to C02. all models are expected to run all scenario.
Adjusting the models and re running them. That is easy to do when the run time of the models is short. Take a timing model on a chip. It doesnt take months to run. For a GCM… Months. That said, re running is a good idea. Folks do that.
ferdberple
I am aware of the political and personal biases that exist in the discussion of climate science. That was my first post and I was trying to keep it strictly technical in an area where I have a lot of experience. I follow the climate blogs for the technical discussion not to get upset over the politics or the waste of money.
Cary
Actually Springer and TonyB both reminded Schollenberger of the disparity. I think Tisdale and Ellison must have chimed in elsewhere.
Brandon Shollenberger | February 23, 2013 at 3:08 pm | Reply
Make sure to remember that increase isn’t uniform across the globe. Some places have warmed more; some have warmed less.
David Springer | February 23, 2013 at 3:51 pm |
You forgot to say some have cooled. You’re aware some have cooled, right? Ask Moshpit. Even he acknowledges that some sites have cooled since 1880. On average, after adjustments are applied in a valiant effort to make inadequate antique thermometers with inadequate coverage and amateur station-keepers across a small percentage of the earth’s land masses adequate to detect trends in the hundredths of a degree per decade… (whew) on average all stations consolidated into a single record together show some warming.
Tonyb | February 23, 2013 at 4:46 pm |
Brandon
We did a study on places that are cooling which consists of around one third of the globe
http://diggingintheclay.wordpress.com/2010/09/01/in-search-of-cooling-trends/
They are cooling to varying degrees over different time periods and a proper criteria needs to be laid down to understand their significance
Mosh is well aware of this from his BEST work and as he seems to be hanging around tonight thinking great thoughts he might like to expand on the theme
Tonyb
Here’s the problem with the premise that the models behave poorly: the criterion you name for ‘correct behavior’ is temperature level, a simply untenable comparator.
Unpredictable inputs such as volcano events, particulate levels and distribution, and tipping points in major regional climates such as ocean overturning or sea ice, make temperature level absurd to propose as a predictive metric.
What can be used? Distribution of trends within projections compared to distribution of trends within the actual, irrespective of date of start and end of trends. When you count rises and pauses and drops and other features of the model projections, most perform quite well compared to actual, an argument for the general utility of models, but also a demonstration of the weakness of models as tools of prediction.
You can’t predict actual temperature using climate models. You can, however, using the exact standard you have stated, confirm that climate models generally predict collected temperature trends over a long enough period (some multiple of multiple decades), and especially can accurately predict what trends are not likely given CO2 level. Significant decadal or multidecadal cooling is accurately shown to be so unlikely as to be deemed outside the range of future climates while CO2 levels are elevated.
A like process regarding extreme weather events can be followed, and the performance of climate models is observed to match events well, albeit the prediction of climate models is on the low side of the current actual cluster of extreme events. Time will tell if this is due natural variability, or something the models have underestimated.
Similarly, the ‘ensemble’ of model projections only adds to the problems with interpretation. If a model is flawed, adding it to an ensemble does little to remove many types of flaw. If the models are all good, the approach of averaging them all merely gives a midline for a range of uncertainty, but not itself a meaningful curve. Averaging the projections also understates dramatically the trend of extreme events. Treating the ensemble as anything more than this midline has no conceptual basis: the ensemble represents nothing else than this midline.
If you frame the measure of your model unrealistically, you will come up with an unrealistic appraisal of the model’s performance. You can do this in chemical process or IC circuit models, too, if you’re really bad at the science of metrics, or if you’re intentionally setting up successful models to fail for other reasons.
BartR, “Significant decadal or multidecadal cooling is accurately shown to be so unlikely as to be deemed outside the range of future climates while CO2 levels are elevated.”
Not really. 2XCO2 at a 240 Wm-2 reference “shell” would produce 1.12 C of temperature increase. That is not large enough to deem much of anything. That same 1.12 C at a 240 Wm-2 “shell” with annual and decadal fluctuations would more likely than not be less. Basically, all you have is that 2XCO2 should produce a 3.7Wm-2 forcing impact, but not necessarily a uniform 3.7 Wm-2 impact, which is exactly what regional responses are showing.
The upper 3 to 4.5C amplification is just about completely shot. and with a more realistic range of 0.8 to 1.6 C per doubling, the signal is now down in the natural noise.
It is do over time.
BartR, look at it this way, Solar should be based on RMS instead of 1/2 and CO2 forcing should be based on RMS instead of 100%. The theory is off by a factor of two. Simple mistake. Telescope Jockey’s do it all the time.
Captain Dallas –
interesting. and if TSI’s sunusoid & CO2’s sawtooth, then off by about 2.5. no?
bi2hs, “interesting. and if TSI’s sunusoid & CO2′s sawtooth, then off by about 2.5. no?”
Depends on the actual wave shape and combinations. Solar has a diurnal sinusoidal with a pulsing DC on annual, ~11 year and longer cycles. The DC magnitude depends on the heat capacity (oceans right now are about 334 Wm-2) and the pulsing portion may be treated as a saw tooth or pulse width modulation.
CO2 has the ocean DC component, the internal distribution component which is somewhat chaotic and the solar components. That one is more difficult, but should be less than the full 3.7 Wm-2 per doubling.
Using just the ocean, “sensitivity” is about 0.8 +/-0.2 C based on a 1980 to 2010 baseline. Sensitivity decreases as the oceans gain heat. That would mean the estimates are off by a factor of two, but it depends on what baseline you select.
Captain Dallas –
thanks for the detailed reply. my thought was simplistic and so perhaps wrong:
the ‘off by factor’ for solar (1/2 -> RMS) is sqrt(2). same as CO2 (100% -> RMS). so, sqrt(2*2) = 2.
in the CO2 sawtooth case: 100% -> RMS is sqrt(2*3) = 2.44
at any rate, i hope Bart R has a conversation with you on this despite me impulsively jumping in.
captdallas2 0.8 +/- 0.2 | February 25, 2013 at 1:18 pm |
Even if your Physics were right, or approximately right (which, at a glance, it clearly is not for manifest reasons), the “not large enough to deem much of anything,” is moot both because you’ve done nothing to establish your (otherwise still erroneous) claim, and because in principle it isn’t the trespasser who gets to say how much harm their victim has suffered, but the victim.
Take your pick: wrong, unproven or unprincipled. Which one are you trying to be?
BartR,
Nice to see you!
If you could contact me at languageisasocialart at G something dot com, that would be great.
Best,
w
While I appreciate the invitation, and it’s invariably a great treat to read your posts, my preferred policy is to communicate by collaboration tools. If you have an account at http://www.prezi.com or the like, I’d be pleased to exchange ideas through such a medium.
My prezi contact information is linked above.
Thanks. Will do.
BartR
You object to holding climate models to a reasonable engineering standard of accuaracy and I would agree that we do not understand climate well enough to expect that kind of performance from models. However, we are spending large sums of money on engineering the atmosphere to engineer climate so we should expect that quality engineering data is the basis for this effort. Instead we find that model predictions are so far off that the some of the physiscs in the models must be wrong. We find that the 5th iteration of the models still predicts temperatures way above actual.
What explanation do we have for temperatures rising at .2C per decade from 1975 thru 1997 and then going flat from 1997 thru 2012. If CO2 was the primary driver for the rise did the green house gas effect suddenly saturate in 2000 or did the positive feedbacks turn negative. It is much simpler to assume that the effect of CO2 is over stated as the exagerated predictions of the climate models suggest.
Climate models are not ready for prime time, we do not even have a solid temperature data base to build on. Without design quality data the money spent on engineering actions will be wasted and if the modelers can not get even short term predictions close to actuals on the 5th pass it seems that the research money has also been wasted.
Cary
Cary
The excellent points you make are similar to those made by Steve Mcintyre in as much proof to an engineering standard is required.
A 0.2C increase per decade is not at all unusual and its difficult to see why a long term warming trend measured in centuries should be considered such a cause for alarum.
tonyb
Roger that.
Indeed, I object to holding anything to unreasonable standards of any sort dressed up as reasonable standards. And I further do not propose that we misunderstand climate so far as you suggest.. you may misunderstand it, but we’ve met the standard you earlier proposed, and so must not downgrade our comprehension just because you don’t like what deductive reasoning from the facts concludes.
I’ve stated why the standards you propose appear to me to be untenable. You have not addressed my objections. You have instead gone on to make numerous unsubstantiated and indefensible claims unrelated to my objections.
The models are, by reasonable standards, not so wrong as you claim.
Please, play fair. I’m uninterested in chasing delusional arguments without foundation. I’ve put my case forward in good faith, and request you either address my comment or not link your remarks irrelevant to anything I’ve said to the same thread. Climate Etc. is a big place. Make those unwarranted claims somewhere else in it, if you would be so kind.
Bart R, they’re dead.
==============
kim | February 25, 2013 at 3:49 pm |
Bart R, they’re dead.
Reasonable standards? Cary H. and Tony B.? Comprehension? Fair play at Climate Etc.? Good faith? Other threads? Kindness?
Which?
It’s a kindness, Bart R.
===========
Cary
What explanation do we have for temperatures rising at .2C per decade from 1975 thru 1997 and then going flat from 1997 thru 2012.
Again, a faulty premise.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/mean:179/mean:181/plot/gistemp/mean:101/mean:103/plot/gistemp/last:204/trend
Temperature trends in climate (as defined by the meteorology profession of periods of at least 30 years, and statistically confirmed to be over 95% reliable on periods of 204 months or more, and above 99.5% on periods of 32 years) have been generally rising since the late 1940’s without significant interruption.
When observing trends, the so-called flat from 1997 is undetectable, and might not be there at all. Certainly, through 2004, the trend is not flat. There is no pause, when the question is framed in terms of climate.
If you can’t ask the right question, whether in climate or chemistry or electronics, you can’t arrive at a meaningful answer.
Why do you insist on only framing wrong questions?
Bart, here are the 30-year linear trends:
http://img690.imageshack.us/img690/5111/30yeartrends.jpg
A graph from Bart R! The day cannot get better.
Ja0Jesam0o0 | February 25, 2013 at 4:13 pm |
Yes, the derivatives of trends itself forms an interesting curve which raise many questions about acceleration of warming and whether the acceleration may be seen as meaningful or not.
The really interesting figure is the distance of the curve from the zero line. Note how the current level of the derivative is higher than any point on the curve prior to 1998, an astounding outcome. Note also that the method used must rely on trailing 30-year climates, as we just don’t have enough data to reflect any more recent climate than 1998 based on midpoint.
However, the derivative alone is fairly meaningless, as we must also consider current global levels.
Thanks for this.
The 30-year trailing trends started decreasing in ~2004. They will drop like it’s hot from now on if history repeats (or rhymes). By ~2020 they will be ~flat.
Edim | February 26, 2013 at 2:04 pm |
Let’s help you out here a bit:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/best/mean:101/mean:103/plot/best/mean:101/mean:103/derivative/normalise/mean:29/mean:31/plot/best/mean:101/mean:103/scale:0.0001/plot/gistemp/mean:101/mean:103/plot/gistemp/mean:101/mean:103/derivative/normalise/mean:29/mean:31
History doesn’t repeat. It isn’t even a real thing. It’s a convenient fiction used as a tool to simplify a hash of information into a narrative that can be manipulated for a purpose. In that way, history is like curves on a graph.
What we see when we look at the curves on the graph of global temperature trends and their derivatives is that some trends had displayed epicyclic behaviors historically, likely related to solar cycles and ocean oscillations.. and that those trends broke down by around 1960.
The breakdown is more apparent on land only records than when the sea is included, but it is clearly there for both. What’s happening in the sea that’s different? The sea is restructuring dramatically.
Arctic summer sea ice is disappearing and will by all evidence of Physics essentially be gone within a decade. The cooling influence of all that ice transitioning phase state to water will cease to moderate the northern oceans and they will begin to synchronize in temperature with the land.
The southern oceans are even more complex; the redistribution of Antarctic ice due the position of continental Antarctica is a many orders of magnitude larger prospect. While this may moderate the spiking of the temperature rise, it will also intensify the shear effects of temperature gradient and displace the current north-south circulating patterns.
You aren’t watching ice cream melt. You’re watching what once were the weather-determining structures of the globe disintegrate to be replaced by chaos.
Bart, I’m not sure this is even worth replying. All evidence of physics? Wow! Arctic summer ice gone within a decade? Physics requires multi-modal heat transfer problems to be analysed and solved properly, not simplistically and by handwaving (AGW in essence).
Let’s help you out here a bit:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/best-upper/plot/best-lower
Regarding sea ice, global is over-avearage at this point, arctic sea ice area is within 1 STD of the 1979-2006 average (norsex), antarctic is longer-term increasing…
http://wattsupwiththat.com/reference-pages/sea-ice-page/
Edim | February 27, 2013 at 10:34 am |
Argumentum ad WUWT?
Not to belittle, but I know you’re better than that.
Waving the straw man that temperature levels individually have had uncertainty and error bars of considerable size tells us next to nothing. The statistical processing of trends from the data cleans up the imprecision and doubt so powerfully (more than I expected could be done before I saw BEST’s work), that we can draw sound inferences from the data that align well with deduction from first principles based on the evidence.
Let’s practice some mental hygiene and disinfect that nasty WUWT infection with some good, clean http://neven1.typepad.com/blog/2013/02/cryosat-2-reveals-major-arctic-sea-ice-loss.html and maybe a bit of http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/ to wash the bad taste out.
Being within one SD of the winter Arctic sea ice extent in winter (albeit right on the low fringe) is meaningless, as the events of the past year revealed when the extent fell from an almost average winter level to new and profoundly exceptional Frankenstorm-causing lows.
Remember the predictions of http://climatecrocks.com/2012/09/22/the-weekend-wonk-jennifer-francis-on-arctic-sea-ice/ and how accurate they turned out to be?
Same science, same observations, same deductions using the same methods lead to this week’s conclusions: http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/Blame+stream+wacky+weather/8027903/story.html
And also to the projection that at the current rate, it is very likely the Arctic will see its first ice free summer month in millennia within the decade.
captdallas2 0.8 +/- 0.2 | February 25, 2013 at 1:28 pm |
“Solar should be based on RMS instead of 1/2”
Insolation takes the form of a half rectified sine wave. RMS for that waveform is 0.5*Vpeak so “1/2” is correct.
“CO2 forcing should be based on RMS instead of 100%.”
CO2 is analogous to DC so RMS = V. 100% is correct for that too.
“The theory is off by a factor of two. Simple mistake. Telescope Jockey’s do it all the time.”
I’m not sure what kind of jockey you are but in this case the telescope jockey’s are correct and you’re not.
David Springer, “Insolation takes the form of a half rectified sine wave. RMS for that waveform is 0.5*Vpeak so “1/2″ is correct.” Actually that depends on the capacity, but 0.5*Vpeak, where Vpeak is 1410, the real peak, is closer. Generally, Vpeak/(2)^0.5 is your best estimate. Same thing with CO2, since the forcing has to “charge” a capacity, you will not get full peak of the pulsing component, only the DC portion..
Like I said for CO2, you would get 100% for the DC component, the oceans, but not for the lower heat capacity transient components. Internal oscillations are transient. Solar day is transient. So Tave is out for determining CO2 forcing. Tmin, based on the DC component, would give you the realistic estimate.
Since the Telescope Jockeys are using Tave for CO2, a pulsing input instead of Tmin, the DC input, they are wrong.
Insolation takes the form of a half rectified sine wave.
thanks DS. i slipped on this peel
David, I appear to be in moderation, but yes, solar is a half rectified sine wave with a peak to peak range of ~1310 to 1410 Wm-2. RMS would be 1/2 peak and the DC component would be peak/pi applied to the oceans. Now you have a DC plus pulsing AC power source into the oceans because they have capacitance. What would be the true RMS input felt at the surface now that there is a DC offset?
Same with CO2, the DC component is maintained by the oceans. So you would use Tmin, effectively the DC portion not Taverage for determining CO2 impact.
That is the mistake. TSI/4 assumes zero capacitance.
Davidand BI2HS, Nope, I am pretty sure I am right on this. For solar for be considered normal half rectified sine wave, there either has to be a dc voltage or negative energy. Solar isn’t AC it is more like floating AC, no negative energy and due to rotation the signal varies from zero to P-P, not zero to peak, there is no 50% duty cycle like with a HR. Since the input is roughly a sine wave, RMS=0.707 times peak, which is actually peak to peak, since the signal is floating. So the RMS value of a floating sine wave with a DC offset is 0.707*Peak plus DC offset. Unless you want to get into negative energy.
So the “Average” solar should be TSI/(2*1.414), where the 2 is for spherical curvature and 1.414 is the RMS value. That “average” BTW is 1361/2.828=481 Wm-2 which is rather remarkable, don’t cha know.
If you want to figure out the RMS more accurately, Vrms=(a0^2+a1^2/2)^0.5, where a0 is DC and a1 is the floating sine wave.
http://masteringelectronicsdesign.com/how-to-derive-the-rms-value-of-a-sine-wave-with-a-dc-offset/
I have been wrong before, but face it, that Faint Young Sun Paradox thing is just too tempting. You know there is a mistake somewhere.
Captain Dallas –
i think apples and oranges?
CD – RMS solar cycle TSI at TOA
DS – RMS daily surface insolation, i.e. at equator & equinox
BI2HS, Apples and Oranges? Kinda.
The point I am trying to make is that “Average” TSI is more an ideal TSI instead of average. If you consider the equator versus a meridian, the meridian would be closer to receiving the climate science “average” than the equator. There will be some energy stored so there would be a need to consider the offset and RMS value. If the oceans are accumulating energy, it doesn’t matter if they are on the “surface” or not, they would impact all surfaces. If there were such a thing as an Ideal black body, then with no changes in energy supplied or energy stored, the RMS estimate would equal the “average” TSI impact at the surface. Good luck with that.
Having an atmosphere of any kind with any amount of heat capacity would produce some resistance to heat loss which would complete the RC circuits. So using the RMS impact provides a more realistic target than the “ideal” averages.
One of the major problems with all these “ideals” is you end up with negative energies and masses to contend with. The “ideal” 240 Wm-2 radiant surface has negative temperatures and energies in Austral Winter and Summer. So if you have an “ideal” CO2 forcing, those negatives will reduce impact. That is the reason there are antiphase polar responses.
Combine both of those ideal “averages” and you end up overestimating impact of CO2 and underestimating the impact of solar for a net miss by a factor of two. There is no reason to be surprised that it is a miss, it was doomed to miss.
Captain D –
yes, i know you didn’t mean over a solar cycle. i was absentl-mindedly thinking of your 11 yr. sequential std dev approx. for RMS
your idea of ocean ‘DC’ offset + sinusoidal insolation is cool. i am going to think on it some more.
Still, for the simple case of equator at equinox, the time varying component does represent a 1/2 rectified sinusoid. – it goes zero-peak-zero for 1/2 cycle (12 hrs.), remains at zero for another 1/2 cycle, then repeats. (the DC + AC RMS eq # 15 in your link would have a 4, instead of the 2 in the denom.) how you adjust to account for other factors is another matter.
BI2HS,
If the orbits were all uniform, no seasonal or longer variations, the denominator would go to 4 considering shape. But since there are variations, ~1410 TSI in winter to ~1310 in summer, you shouldn’t be able to use the simple average for the oceans which have sufficient capacity to produce a 12 month or longer offset. Basically, you have to consider the day peak for the oceans and the long term change in the ocean DC component. All the RMS consideration does is separate the “day” insolation into meridinal and equatorial components instead of assuming both are equal.
Since CO2 “forcing” is based on the “night” mode, the CO2 input energy would be the DC or ocean energy plus the diurnal decay, which is just the Tmax to Tmin modified saw tooth. That also changes with season and longer term solar cycles. In fact, nearly the full 1 Wm-2 solar constant change is felt as an internal impact on longer solar, ~50 year, cycles.
You can check that by comparing the SH and NH long term diurnal temperature trends, which shifted in 1985.
Captain Dallas –
ok i’ve thought about this some more. It had me going!
It is a really weird and unfortunate coincidence that atmospheric attenuation of solar irradiance (TOA) to direct insolation (on the ground) is nearly exactly the same factor as that for converting peak value to RMS value for a sinusoid waveform, sqrt(2).
Bizarrely, if further corrections are applied for sphericity and for computing a new RMS value for the 1/2 rectified day/night signal, one gets the correct value of 250 W/m^2 for daily average irradiance at the Earth’s surface.
It even had me looking how thermopiles were used to measure power with pyranometers.
But this is no good. Seriously. RMS power of RMS power?
While RMS has some interesting mathematical properties, so far as i know, ‘RMS power’ is at best, meaningless.
this coincidence:
peak solar irradiance / direct insolation
1410/1000 = 1.41
sqrt(2) = 1.41
BI2HS, RMS is just a method of determining a cumulative mean. It could be power, voltage, current or widgets. If you have some means of storage, like a capacitor, you would consider the RMS and Peak values as limits.
So when the Earth is in a Austral Summer orientation, you have both a higher peak solar and higher capacitance because there is more ocean area. I wouldn’t use “global” average to determine the rate of ocean heat uptake. In Austral winter, you have lower solar and also lower ocean surface area, capacitance. I wouldn’t use “average” there either. The atmosphere though has a fairly uniform capacity, average is fine, but since the Tmin energy is based on the oceans, you still need to consider the RMS and the rate of ocean energy distribution.
As far as the accidental .707 being nearly the same as albedo. The ocean surface area is also nearly the same as albedo. I suspect that accident is more related to the ocean surface area than the method. If there wasn’t enough storage available, there would be no need to consider RMS accumulation.
Once the capacity is charged, the RMS gives you a warmer surface without Greenhouse effect. The greenhouse effect is the R in the RC circuit that allows you to maintain the accumulated energy in the thermal mass ( C ), so you can better estimate the impact of the CO2 by looking at the decay curves, the diurnal temperature ranges.
So instead of guessing at the time constants for accumulation, you have a baseline that makes for a more educated guess.
Standard deviation is just RMS without the DC offset, so now you have a rough idea of the offset.
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-05ohdGQPasM/US0yu4Zo8LI/AAAAAAAAHXI/t7gCLC4JWKg/s720/oceania.png
BEST has Tmax and Tmin with absolute estimates, that plot is for Oceania and compares a 21 year trailing average of the different in diurnal flux with a 21 year standard deviation. There was a step change in roughly 1976. That is not what I would think a CO2 forcing impact would look like. Oceania is in the tropics, there really should not be much CO2 impact there anyway. There is a change though and now I should have a rough idea of the magnitude of that change. The primary scale didn’t make it through, but there was about a 0.8 Wm-2 shift due to something that has lasted about 40 years. I know it is about 0.8 WM-2 because I used absolute temperature estimates, the DC component is the approximate energy at Tmin.
CO2 forcing is 24 hours a day and only changes as much as the temperature of the surface changes. Earth emits upwelling LWIR, CO2 absorbs a portion of it and about half what it absorbs heads back downward. So DWLIR only changes in proportion to the surface temperature. SST Diurnal change in SST is zero in the first approximation which makes CO2 forcing essentially a constant over the course of a day and not much different than a constant over the course of a year for about 70% of the planet.
The elephant in the room isn’t the forcing from CO2. That’s a material property that engineers use. I usually use as an example an electronic CO2 sensor which, among other methods, splits a beam of light and shines it through a calibrated control sample of air and an ambient sample. Either before or after you put an optical filter in the way for a frequency that your target absorbs. For CO2 I think it’s 12um that nothing else occupies. Two phototransisters then compare the power that makes it through and presto that converts by a standard formula. Put a relay on it and you have what’s in a million high occupancy buildings that turn on ventilation to exchange inside air with outside air.
Anyhow another engineering property of a material comes into play. How water responds to LWIR. It evaporates in response. Water is almost perfectly opaque to it. There’s nothing else it CAN do but evaporate. DWLIR is in the hundreds of watts per square meter. It’s absorbed in the first 10 micrometers. 10 micrometers deep over a square meter. That’s 300 watts or so going into 10cc’s of water. Try putting 10cc’s of water in a 300 watt microwave and see how long it takes to evaporate. Warmer water won’t sink in colder water and (another bankable engineering property of water) water is suckass thermal conductor so the heat can’t conduct downward worth spit either.
Adding insult to injury evaporation actually removes more heat from the ocean than DWLIR puts into it. This results in what’s called the cool skin layer which is about a millimeter deep and is about 1C cooler than the bulk of the mixed layer below it. CO2 warms land not water. Rocks don’t evaporate. How much depends on how much water there is to evaporate. If you take a global temperature the added CO2 is going to raise it and there is more energy in the system and that will make its way into the ocean. Air flowing off land is a little warmer, rivers emptying into oceans are a bit warmer, ice doesn’t evaporate it will absorb latent heat of fusion and it makes it into the ocean that way. The result end result, also measured but not terribly accurate (don’t build a bridge with this information) is about 0.5W/m2 going into the ocean which is enough to raise the basin temperature a whole 0.2C in 100 years. Scare me. It’s a travesty right enough.
David Springer, “CO2 forcing is 24 hours a day and only changes as much as the temperature of the surface changes.” True, the Tmax to Tmin curve should show the change. The problem with SST diurnal change, is the top few millimeters. Using some of the more remote island temperature data, the Marine surface air temperature diurnal change in the tropics is about 6 to 7 C. That doesn’t show much CO2 related change. The CO2 impact looks to start around latitude 40 over land.
“Anyhow another engineering property of a material comes into play. How water responds to LWIR.” That is one of the main reasons I am looking for a better reference for the true surface. There is an interaction with surface water ORL and cloud condensate. That tends to split the DWLR response pretty strongly in addition to the atmospheric water vapor. That relationship between surface water and cloud condensate is one on the biggest reason I think the RMS needs to be considered. There is a transfer time. RMS estimates by latitude and heat content should help follow internal variability.
Captain Dallas
Well. you have reeled me in this far: i agree that you are entitled to use whichever statistical mean you think appropriate, including RMS.
i will think some more about your ideas. plus there’s the CO2 forcing that DS dropped off. so, i’ll be not commenting for a while.
thanks for your patience.
David Springer,
http://disc.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/oceans/science-focus/modis/MODIS_and_AIRS_SST_comp_fig2.i.jpg
When you say the sea surface temperature has no diurnal temperature change you really mean the sea subsurface temperature. The sub surface would be closer to “average” and the atmosphere above the atmospheric boundary layer would be close to “average”, the layer in between providing energy to both. would be higher considering the RMS value of the oscillation. That amounts to about 17 Wm-2 error in the input energy estimate.
So with roughly 17 Wm-2 pulsing or cyclic diurnal energy at the true surface boundary layer with the oceans and about 57 Wm-2 pulsing diurnal energy at the land/atmosphere boundary layer, you have a fairly large range of natural variably.
captdallas2 0.8 +/- 0.2 | February 26, 2013 at 7:40 pm |
“Using some of the more remote island temperature data, the Marine surface air temperature diurnal change in the tropics is about 6 to 7 C.”
Remote island data? You’re clutching at straws. Try the Pacific or Atlantic SST. In the first approximation it doesn’t change between day and night.
“http://disc.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/oceans/science-focus/modis/MODIS_and_AIRS_SST_comp_fig2.i.jpg”
This plot has no temperature scale. It only shows SST changes from day to night. I already knew it changes a little. Pay attention. I said it doesn’t change in the first approximation.
Here’s a map of the globe with average diurnal temperature plotted on it. Note for the vast, vast majority of the ocean’s surface the range is less than 0.5C and only in a few tiny areas where uber calm water prevails does the average daily variation approach 3C.
http://www.u.arizona.edu/~brunke/img/cons_dSST_web.gif
My respect for your intellect is rapidly diminishing. I shouldn’t have to belabor basics such as RMS formula for half rectified sine waves and dirurnal temperature variation of global ocean SST with anyone who isn’t scientifically illiterate and/or incapable of googling things he doesn’t know.
captdallas2 0.8 +/- 0.2 | February 26, 2013 at 7:40 pm |
You could stand to read the chapter text surrounding the diurnal skin temperature map of the global ocean I provided. Here it is:
http://www.u.arizona.edu/~brunke/research/skin.html
I have no idea why you’re being so obtuse but please just stop.
David Springer, “My respect for your intellect is rapidly diminishing. I shouldn’t have to belabor basics such as RMS formula for half rectified sine waves and dirurnal temperature variation of global ocean SST with anyone who isn’t scientifically illiterate and/or incapable of googling things he doesn’t know.”
Annually, due to the elliptical orbit you have ~1410 to 1310 Wm-2 variation. In a system or circuit with capacitance you have to consider the actual peak to peak, not an average peak-to-peak which gets averaged again. That is most of the error ~ 12.5 Wm-2. Since the frequency is not constant, there is another allowance that should be made. With a roughly 5 year lag for ocean distribution of ENSO, you get Hale cycle peak on alternate cycles. That could appear to be a ~ 15 year lag. You don’t have a true half rectified sine wave.
Second point. Surface “AIR” temperature is the reference, not SST. The island DTR provide a fair indication of the DTR of the AIR over the oceans. I didn’t pick surface AIR temperature, that is just what we have to work with. From your own link, ” The new scheme is able to create a diurnal cycle in SST in summer of greater than three Kelvin in some areas of the western Pacific warm pool (Brunke et al. 2008).” The island DTR just provide a reference that there is a dirunal temperature range over the oceans greater than 0.8 C.
Now think about TSI dropping from 1366Wm-2 to 1361 Wm-2 plus Hansen dropping his absolute surface “AIR” temperature from 15C to 14C, WTF right?. Sea level surface “AIR” temperature on average appears to be closer to 17C globally and ~21C over the oceans, per Aqua. Check it yourself, Best’s estimate for land only surface “AIR” temperature is 8.83 C for 30% of the Earth during the 1951-1980 baseline. If the Aqua data is correct the true “average” surface temperature would be nearly 3 C greater than Hansen’s estimate which would have an equivalent energy difference of about 12.5 Wm-2 more than the original 390 Wm-2 estimate. Stephen’s et al revised Earth Energy budget indicate a surface energy of 398 Wm-2 +/1 17 Wm-2.
The TSI/4 “average” is just that, not RMS since the wave is not a pure sine and the time period has to be considered.
O M G … now you’re babbling about a difference between ocean surface temperature and temperature of air over the ocean surface. The air temperature in close proximity to the ocean is, in the first approximation, the same temperature as the ocean surface.
This is the reason there is very little conductive heat transfer between air an ocean. Without little delta T there is little conduction taking place.
You need to look at the global heat budget broken down by type and region here and be able to explain why it is what it is. Currently either you cannot or will not and just off on silly nonsensical tangents i.e. babbling that would make the babbling Kangaroo proud.
From TAMU online Physical Oceanography textbook, Chapter 5, subsection 6
Geographic Distribution of Terms in the Heat Budget
Note Figure 5.10A Annual-mean sensible heat flux QS through the sea surface
This shows that sensible heat loss from the global ocean is in the single digits over about half of it and barely over 10W/m2 in most of the rest of it. In the first approximation that’s zero heat loss through conduction and the explanation as to why it’s zero is that in the first approximation there is no difference between ocean surface temperature and ocean surface air temperature. No delta T means no conductive heat transfer. In the first approximation radiative heat loss from the ocean is barely significant. It’s all about latent heat loss. Few understand this. I thought you did but your recent babbling indicates otherwise.
David Springer, “No delta T means no conductive heat transfer. In the first approximation radiative heat loss from the ocean is barely significant. ”
Well Duh! A 5 to 6 C delta T means there is heat transfer. Surface winds still blow, there is still temperature and pressure differentials causing energy flow. It is the internal heat transfer that requires the consideration of the true RMS value of the input energy. A 100 Wm-2 difference between winter and summer insolation has to be dissipated somewhere.
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-RAbSjGXzzGc/UTJfr0FWnjI/AAAAAAAAHYA/UKUWIWzEIW0/s965/aqua%2520revisited.png
That compares AQUA SST and near surface layer (ch 4) for the period both were working as energy flux instead of temperature. You only have your half rectified sine wave in spring and fall. There is about 12 to 14 Wm-2 annual difference, with the SST varying about 2.5 Wm-2 (~0.5C) and the surface air temperature varying about 10 Wm-2 (~4C) at 600mb. What the ocean surface air DTR is, depends on local surface winds. CO2 should be reducing the DTR over the oceans, but it has been increasing over land since 1985, the oceans though have a different time frame.
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-E5Xc6x3LRnc/UTJpmQFvBtI/AAAAAAAAHYg/lzXasloEo44/s997/galapagos%2520DTR.png
That is just one station, but there is a pretty noticeable change in ~1995 and the trend from 1911 is remarkably steady. Why is that? Could it be a change in meridianal heat transfer? That silly “thermal equator” thingy?
The TSI/4 “average” is fine as long as you don’t mind being off about 20 Wm-2.
How much of the global ocean resembles the frickin’ Galapogos Islands?
You’re a lost cause. This is me saying “BUH BYE”, Cap’n. Seeya. Wouldn’t wanna beeya.
@Cary Halstead
Here’s the Dessler paper but unfortunately the preprint is no longer available at the link below. I’ll look for it outside a paywall elsewhere and post link if I find it.
David Springer | September 19, 2012 at 4:07 pm |
@vtg (whoever that is)
In addition, Dessler 2012 (in press, preprint below)
http://geotest.tamu.edu/userfiles/216/dessler2012.pdf
reanalysis of the decade ending in 2010 using both control GCMs with internal variability-only and GCMs incorporating anthropogenic forcings finds the control group the more skillful. Dessler identifies lapse rate associated with cloud formation to be the source of error in the latter which is precisely what I identified before Dessler’s study was released although mine was just from a rough evaluation of the physical properties of water especially in regard to response to downwelling far infrared. Dessler goes on to make a gratuitous warning (he’s an alarmist so he must still sound the alarm however muted it may be) not to become complacent about climate change just because internal variability stabilized it from 2000-2010.
His warning would have been muted far more if he’d included 2010-2012 in the reanalysis because global average temperature took a scary-large nosedive in the past 20 months.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/wti/from:2010/plot/wti/from:2010/trend
If the above trend lasts for another 20 years we’ll be left with no more than fond wish that anthropogenic CO2 could warm the planet in any significant degree.
Bart R
I believe our discusion on standards is one of the basic miscommunications in climate discussions. I was trying to provide some insite on how engineers with semiconductor manufacturing experience would compare models to data. The standards are there to guarentee a very high probability of success. An even tighter set of standards would be used to design a bridge. I believe you were describing standards useful to gain an understanding of a difficult technical problem like climate. I have little experience in that world so my comments would have little value. The tighter standards only apply if large sums of money are being spent to engineer a result.
Your second question of why I would talk about short time frames when discussing climate is again because of my experience as a process engineer on semiconductor manufacturing lines. I am not a climate scientist and will not waste your time trying to talk like one. As a process engineer I found that changes in slope were always interesting places to study to try to gain an understanding into what controls the process. Certainly there is need for long averaging in climate studies and there may be a big El Nino next year. If 1997 to 2012 is too short a time to interest climate science then try the trasition from warming for 1910 thru 1940 and then pause from 1940 to 1975. My experience in an industry where time is critical suggests that understanding even a short pause will speed up the understanding of climate in general. But maybe not, maybe it would be better to wait until 2030 before we start. It will not make much difference to climate science that works on very long time frames, but we can waste an awful lot of money between now and then.
Cary
I noted a long time ago that with apparent phase changes every 30 years or so, then the closer the 30 year trend line starts to a phase change, the more likely the next 30 will have an opposite trend. So much for 30 years.
===================
Cary Halsted | February 25, 2013 at 5:36 pm |
By all means, go ahead and start talking like an engineer. It’s been my role in business many times to judge the competency of engineers, and I’m comfortable with the jargon, methods, terms and principles. I’d be pleased to see some evidence from you of competency with these in any form of engineering.
If an engineer used resulting sunspot numbers as a metric in the performance of a semiconductor chip with the implication that the chip affected the rate of future sunspots, they’d be incompetent. It’s a poorly framed metric. It’s nonsensical. Similarly, if an engineer filtered the outputs of their equipment by inappropriately long or short scales, they’d be wrongly framing their metrics.
Any competent engineer knows how to judge if they’ve framed their standards correctly, regardless of the field, by the properties of the metric. Why did you, despite this, carry on with a focus on temperature level inappropriate to your method?
See, ‘we’ aren’t discussing standards, however much you say we are. We’re discussing apparently intentional or at the least incompetent framing of the question.
The standard you set out initially is a good one. Do models meet the requirements you set out in the premise of Cary Halsted | February 25, 2013 at 11:25 am | when you choose the correct metric, ie patterns of trends, instead of the incorrect metric of temperature?
Yes, yes they do. Models succeed when compared to your standard, in every meaningful way, and to a high degree. It’s true patterns of trends is a weaker metric than global temperature, but it’s what is possible, not what we wish were possible.
Your insistence on framing the question to an impossible standard? I find that the main questionable issue, along with why so few skeptics call you on this obvious methodological error.
And you may find http://berkeleyearth.org/pdf/annual-with-forcing.pdf informative with regards “changes in slope” (an excellent place to study in any curve); note the downward excursions corresponding to volcanic activity, and the inevitable return to a generally increasing rise correlating to CO2E levels within a half decade. These coffin nails tell us reliably that the principle influence on global temperature trend is global CO2 baseline
You ennunciate principles of engineering and standards in trend analyses well; you simply fail to apply them in any manner persuasive of your sincerity.
We are in a cool mode – for a large part as a result of Pacific conditions – although it is linked to other modes of climate variability such as the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation – http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=8703
These conditions persist for 20 to 40 years in the proxy record.
They involve modulation of ENSO – large and frequent La Nina to 1976, large and frequent El Nino to 1998 and a La Nina resurgence since. See for yourself – http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/enso/mei/
From regression alone we can see that the ocean modes influence climate significantly on decadal scales causing alternate warming and cooling (Tung and Zhou 2013 – http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2013/01/22/1212471110.abstract) – causing the anthropogenic component of recent warming to be overestimated by at least a factor of 2.
From clouds and radiant flux at TOA – it seems likely that most recent warming is cloud variation associated with these low frequency climate variabilities.
‘In summary, although there is independent evidence for decadal changes in TOA radiative fluxes over the last two decades, the evidence is equivocal. Changes in the planetary and tropical TOA radiative fluxes are consistent with independent global ocean heat-storage data, and are expected to be dominated by changes in cloud radiative forcing. To the extent that they are real, they may simply reflect natural low-frequency variability of the climate system.’ AR4 3.4.4.1
Low frequency variability is indeed real and the current cool mode is likely to lead to no warming at least for decades hence. We are very unlikely to get a big El Nino any time soon.
> An even tighter set of standards would be used to design a bridge.
The tallest bridge is dwarfed by the atmospheric system of the Earth.
One concept of model is one a “reproduction on a smaller scale”.
In that sense, the bridge analogy functions as a model.
You might want to discuss how uncertainty in the final silicon product is handled. You might want to explain how models are used there
( psst early user of MAGMA here.. way back in the late 90s
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magma_Design_Automation)
http://nanocad.ee.ucla.edu/pub/Main/Publications/vlsidat_11.pdf
Excellent presentation by Gupta you linked there Mosh.
Analayzing spatial correlations of defects on a wafer is kriging on a microscale.
The key word in the semicon industry is characterization. That’s why I enjoy climate science as a discipline, all the processes that need to be characterized and modeled.
In the end the chips do have error-correcting circuitry to eliminate the rest of the defects. Alas, the earth does not have an intelligent design, and it is a crap shoot whether we can sustain the punishment of all the defects we are injecting.
Bart makes an assumption that is fundamentally incorrect and which taints all that follows. It is the same mistake that Edward Lorenz made in 1963 when he truncated input to his convection model from six to three decimal places. How much difference to the solution can this possibly make? The answer to this is a lot and led of course to chaos theory as we know it today – something that has been called the third great idea in 20th Century physics.
‘It has been called the third great revolution of 20th-century physics, after relativity and quantum theory. But how can something called chaos theory help you understand an orderly world? What practical things might it be good for? What, in fact, is chaos theory? “Chaos theory,” according to Steven Strogatz, Director of the Center for Applied Mathematics at Cornell University, “is the science of how things change.” It describes the behaviour of any system whose state evolves over time and whose behaviour is sensitive to small changes in its initial conditions.’ http://www.thegreatcourses.com/tgc/courses/course_detail.aspx?cid=1333
Climate models are based on the same nonlinear Navier Stokes partial differential equations that Lorenz used and the result is deterministically chaotic without a doubt. In any inputs to models there is a range of uncertainty this is inescapable. These small differences propagate in the solution as it evolves through time causing solutions to diverge exponentially. One starting point will give one answer and another will give a radically divergent solution in ways that are not predictable in these complex nonlinear models. Beyond a certain time there is no longer one single deterministic solution but in fact a large family of solutions possible with different inputs and different couplings. (Slingo and Palmer 2011 – http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/369/1956/4751.short) The range of possible solutions from individual climate models remains unexplored and therefore unknown. Weather models of course diverge from reality quite quickly – a matter of days.
So the question then arises as to how the solutions that are presented as members of these opportunistic ensembles are arrived at. If there is a range of possible solutions – what criteria is used to arrive at one solution? The simple answer to that is that it is based on the plausibility of the solution. (McWilliams 2007 – http://www.pnas.org/content/104/21/8709.long) Generally that it fits within bounds of what is expected as a solution. The question then arises as to if the solution is chosen based on external criteria just what the function of the model is in these long term projections? It seems a very long winded way to generate a graph that has as a basis ‘a posteriori solution behavior’. (McWilliams op cit)
The use of these models are as estimates of probability based on evaluation over systematically designed model families. Even then solutions of the Navier-Stokes equations in any rigorous way may prove elusive given computing limitations and the lack of mathematical insight into these 19th Century equations. – http://www.claymath.org/millennium/Navier-Stokes_Equations/ –
‘Finally, Lorenz’s theory of the atmosphere (and ocean) as a chaotic system raises fundamental, but unanswered questions about how much the uncertainties in climate-change projections can be reduced. In 1969, Lorenz [30] wrote: ‘Perhaps we can visualize the day when all of the relevant physical principles will be perfectly known. It may then still not be possible to express these principles as mathematical equations which can be solved by digital computers. We may believe, for example, that the motion of the unsaturated portion of the atmosphere is governed by the Navier–Stokes equations, but to use these equations properly we should have to describe each turbulent eddy—a task far beyond the capacity of the largest computer. We must therefore express the pertinent statistical properties of turbulent eddies as functions of the larger-scale motions. We do not yet know how to do this, nor have we proven that the desired functions exist’. Thirty years later, this problem remains unsolved, and may possibly be unsolvable.’
Perhaps we can visualise the day – but it is not yet even thirty years later today Bart.
Read harder.
It’s because of Lorenz we know Cary Halsted has applied an impossible, and thereby irrational, standard to models.
Because of Lorenz and the field of Chaos Theory we know how far we must weaken such standards before we obtain meaningful metrics rationally.
The appropriate standard is patterns of trends irrespective of starting point, not temperature level.
On the appropriate standard, models perform remarkably well.
We know that Gary has a limited understanding of the inevitable role of chaos in models. But really – that seems hardly your point which is garbed in gratuitious innuendo, snark and insult that we could well do without.
‘Atmospheric and oceanic computational simulation models often successfully depict chaotic space–time patterns, flow phenomena, dynamical balances, and equilibrium distributions that mimic nature. This success is accomplished through necessary but nonunique choices for discrete algorithms, parameterizations, and coupled contributing processes that introduce structural instability into the model. Therefore, we should expect a degree of irreducible imprecision in quantitative correspondences with nature, even with plausibly formulated models and careful calibration (tuning) to several empirical measures. Where precision is an issue (e.g., in a climate forecast), only simulation ensembles made across systematically designed model families allow an estimate of the level of relevant irreducible imprecision.’ McWilliams 2007
The formulations are being questioned on a number of grounds leading to initialised or ‘seamless’ modelling efforts. Still requireing several thousand times more computing power than is currently available. Nor do we have a complete understanding of the physics of the systems and of the coupling between components – far from it. So we may and do tune to several ’empirical measures’ but the divergence of solutions proceeds and produces an undetermined level of ‘irrecudible imprecision’ in both trends and temperatures. We know that regional and temporal variations in models in rainfall and temperature do not mimic reality at all closely. We know that there are dominant climate modes for which understanding remains elusive.
Vague patterns of trends – you will have to be a little more precise than that.
Bart R
If you define “appropriate standard” as that standard required to make the models appear to perform remarkably well, then your statement is correct.
Otherwise…
Max
PS But, hey, maybe it’s the observations that are wrong.
Climate models are based on the same nonlinear Navier Stokes partial differential equations
State of the art climate models (which are only the informative code of the NS equations) substitute the last full equation of motion with the Hydrostatic approximation (which brings the same problems as Makarieva 13)
The interesting property of the eulerian is that you can make a perpetum mobile (dependent on the sign >) Whilst not necessarily fatal it is how they constrain blowup in the dynamic core which would be of great interest ( this is the damaging property of the HADCRU model at presently in Limbo)
Chief Hydrologist | February 25, 2013 at 6:49 pm |
Vague patterns of trends – you will have to be a little more precise than that.
Indeed, I will not need to be more precise than I have been. You have access to the model outputs, and to IPCC reports and piles of commentaries on the patterns of trends in the models. I need add nothing to obtain crystal precision.
Your digression to inapplicable and incomplete Chaos Theoretical discourse, while entertaining, does nothing to illuminate your premise.
But really – that seems hardly your point which is garbed in gratuitious innuendo, snark and insult that we could well do without. What did Cary ever do to warrant such from you?
The point – and one that referenced leaders in the field of climate computing – was that the trajectories of all parameters that might represent solutions of climate models diverge unpredictably. For existing models we do not know the range of the potential divergence. Your models are chaotic without a doubt – and any parameter that is conserved in the numerical solution to the NS equations likewise diverges. We know without a doubt that neither regional or decadal projections show much resemblence to reality and that the longer the period the greater the divergence.
‘In 1963, Lorenz published his seminal paper on ‘Deterministic non-periodic flow’, which was to change the course of weather and climate prediction profoundly over the following decades and to embed the theory of chaos at the heart of meteorology. Indeed, it could be said that his view of the atmosphere (and subsequently also the oceans) as a chaotic system has coloured our thinking of the predictability of weather and subsequently climate from thereon.
Lorenz was able to show that even for a simple set of nonlinear equations (1.1), the evolution of the solution could be changed by minute perturbations to the initial conditions, in other words, beyond a certain forecast lead time, there is no longer a single, deterministic solution and hence all forecasts must be treated as probabilistic. The fractionally dimensioned space occupied by the trajectories of the solutions of these nonlinear equations became known as the Lorenz attractor (figure 1), which suggests that nonlinear systems, such as the atmosphere, may exhibit regime-like structures that are, although fully deterministic, subject to abrupt and seemingly random change.’ (Slingo and Palmer 2011 op cit)
As we do not have probabilistic forecasts assessed across systematically designed model families – the solution is one that is chosen on the basis of ‘a posteriori solution behavior’. Yes – they pull it out of their arses just like you.
manacker | February 25, 2013 at 6:56 pm |
And yet, the rush to embrace a standard that is only correct because it matches their own agenda doesn’t seem to dissuade supposed skeptics?
I judge the metric appropriate or not by whether it can be supported mathematically by deductive processes taking into account the nature of the measurements. What do you do?
‘Therefore, we should expect a degree of irreducible imprecision in quantitative correspondences with nature, even with plausibly formulated models and careful calibration (tuning) to several empirical measures. Where precision is an issue (e.g., in a climate forecast), only simulation ensembles made across systematically designed model families allow an estimate of the level of relevant irreducible imprecision.’ McWilliams 2007 op cit
The only real standard is precision – something that requires a whole lot more computing power, greater understanding of the physics and better understanding of the essential maths. Something that I have provided peer reviewed references for. All we get in return is armwaving about partial this and misapplied that.
‘Sensitive dependence and structural instability are humbling twin properties for chaotic dynamical systems, indicating limits about which kinds of questions are theoretically answerable. They echo other famous limitations on scientist’s expectations, namely the undecidability of some propositions within axiomatic mathematical systems (Gödel’s theorem) and the uncomputability of some algorithms due to excessive size of the calculation (see ref. 26).’ (McWilliams)
We have from Bart merely a self serving narrative of global warming. A version of the models are definitive but without anything in the way of either maths or science. No reference to the literature other than vague armwavings about this or that. And the first resort is to contempt for anyone who has the temerity to argue and after that to anger and abuse.
Bart R
Agree 100%. And the ultimate deciding factor is empirical evidence. The most beautiful and rational hypothesis is meaningless if it cannot be corroborated (or falsified) by empirical evidence.
Right?
Max
Bart R
I was not describing irrational or impossible standards, just the normal case for any semiconductor line around the world. As I said the standards for building a bridge are much tighter. I would agree that today we can only hold climate science to very limited standards. We are worlds apart if you think getting the trend correct is an adequate standard for spending large sums of money. If you can not get the magnitude of change close you probably have the underlying physics wrong.
Cary
Cary Halsted | February 25, 2013 at 7:41 pm |
Thank you for clarifying. However.
Economics is a woolier science by far than climatology, and spending large enough sums of money ceases to be a business choice and becomes an economic one.
Neither the sign nor the magnitude of any three economists’ projections of spending on most of the supposed ‘solutions’ to climate change are particularly compelling. We enter thereby not economics but decision-making under uncertainty.
You’re applying engineering standards, which I think is great, regardless of my criticism that you’ve done it inappropriately in some narrow sense.
You’re applying engineering standards to a piece of a non-engineering puzzle, however. This will not help, especially given that the application was framed improperly.
The underlying physics tells us we cannot get the magnitude of change close on temperature in short terms. And all evidence supports that we cannot achieve such outcomes.
In most decision making under uncertainty, getting the trend correct for major portions of the problem space is the only standard available sometimes. We call that the real world.
Bart R
The problem arises when we cannot even get the sign of the trend correct for some portions of the problem space, for example, when we have a trend of +X +/- 3X.
This leaves us with the basic dilemma of not knowing whether we really have a potential future problem or not.
In which case the obvious course of action is to first try to determine whether or not there really is a potential future problem before swinging into action on “solving” the potential future problem we don’t know whether or not we really have.
That’s the (C)AGW dilemma today, in a nutshell.
(Our hostess refers to it as “uncertainty”.)
Max
Anyone can manufacture a dilemma where there is none by reframing the question widely enough.
You’re constructing strawmen, if you’re finding a dilemma here.
But given that you’re also making unstated assumptions and unsubstantiated claims, I have a dilemma as to which reason to use to dismiss your argument.
Can you get back to me when you narrow down why I shouldn’t agree with you?
Bart R
Wrong, Bart. There is, indeed a “dilemma”.
Recent observation-based estimates of 2xCO2 climate sensitivity are averaging around half of the earlier model-based predictions cited in AR4.
If these are correct, the “C” has been removed from the CAGW premise (as outlined by IPCC in AR4).
There has been an inconvenient “pause” in global warming for 12-15 years, despite unabated human GHG emissions and concentrations reaching record levels. How long this “pause” will last and what is causing it is anyone’s guess, but it raises questions regarding the relative importance of the “CO2 climate control knob” / anthropogenic forcing.
As the lead post points out, observed temperature trends do not check with the model projections.
IPCC is scheduled to publish a new summary report in a year or so.
The “dilemma” for IPCC:
Should IPCC acknowledge this new information in its new report and revise its forecasts of future warming accordingly (thereby conceding that its earlier CAGW premise was wrong or exaggerated)?
Or should it essentially ignore this new information and “hang tough” with the old projections of potentially catastrophic AGW, thereby risking a further loss of credibility?
Bart, whether you personally can see this or not, that IS a real “dilemma”.
Max
manacker, I would like to know your basis for ruling out natural variation given the solar, PDO and ENSO effects
all go in the cooling direction, yet we had the warmest decade anyway. Kind of hard to explain that, isn’t it?
Jim
The point is that the models, upon which the attribution case is made, were heralded as having captured and determined the driver of short-term climate variability, and CO2 was determined as the primary driver.
That gives us a hypothesis to test (the models themselves). They haven’t done too well. All the squirming that it could be this, or it could be that is an admission that the models did not have a good handle on the drivers of climate to begin with.
In science you either have a testable hypothesis or you don’t. If you don’t then it isn’t science just conjecture.
cd, it is true that the “skeptics” think the case is based on models, but they are wrong in that. First came Arrhenius, and he did not need a model, just common sense with physics. Paleoclimate tends to support him, especially the last 100 million years.
manacker | February 25, 2013 at 9:32 pm |
Which recent peer-reviewed observation-based estimates do you mean, particularly, and in what sense do you mean average? As climate sensitivity appears to be highly sensitive to time scale, it matters.
And what makes you think I care about the “C” in CAGW, at all? Recognizing it’s been a few weeks since I last posted, surely you can’t have forgotten I’m about the “R” in RAGW, and more to the point I want my money. The money I’m due for being exposed to added Risk without my consent by people expropriating my rights by trespass. Why you don’t want your money, I neither know nor care.
You say there’s been a pause, but nothing in actual trendology shows this phantom in actual climate figures. Perhaps David Rose’s propaganda convinces you and the vast gullible unwashed, but I have to maintain my self respect by applying, you know, that skepticism of baseless claims that seems in such short supply nowadays.
So, no, I don’t personally see pink elephants, unicorns, leprechauns or dilemmas that just aren’t there, no matter how much fairy dust is spread around.
Mosher knows more than Lindzen, Singer, Spencer, Dyson Freeman etc? Might give you perspective of his knowledge of atmospheric physics what a joke get a life!
You’re just a program, Eliza.
Actually Lindzen, and Spencer both agree with me. Dyson, also agrees that C02 causes warming. He’s a physicist he would know.And Singer does not deny radiative physics. He calls people who do, deniers.
Dyson
“Everyone agrees that the increasing abundance of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has two important consequences, first a change in the physics of radiation transport in the atmosphere, and second a change in the biology of plants on the ground and in the ocean.”
Eliza only knows what she was programmed to say
Dyson Freeman is related to those other scientists Einstein Albert and Sagan Carl.
Seriously, Dyson probably turned around after it was explained to him by Robert May that CO2 had a longer residence/adjustment time than he thought.
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2008/oct/09/how-long-will-they-stay/
Dyson tried to wiggle out of this with a big “if”, by suggesting it would be short if there were enough carbon-eating plants around to sequester the extra CO2. Why he would recommend sequestering CO2 unless he thought it was indeed a factor is quite a mysterious stance to take for a skeptic.
Dyson:
Has anyone in a learned paper shown that climate follows the Central Limit Theorem or the Law of Large Numbers?
Has anyone in a learned paper shown that climate has a constant mean and deviation excluding AGW?
Is climate a normal distribution, such that as you expand the time scale the deviation becomes less apparent, or is the deviation scale independent?
For example, if one looks at a graph of temperature, can one tell from the smoothness the time scale involved? Be it 10 years, 100 years, or 1000 years.
What are the implications for statistical analysis of climate data?
Climate is non-stationary and non-Gaussian – as is ENSO. The two are fairly intimately related.
http://www.nonlin-processes-geophys.net/16/453/2009/npg-16-453-2009.html
‘If as suggested here, a dynamically driven climate shift has occurred, the duration of similar shifts during the 20th century suggests the new global mean temperature trend may persist for several decades. Of course, it is purely speculative to presume that the global mean temperature will remain near current levels for such an extended period of time. Moreover, we caution that the shifts described here are presumably superimposed upon a long term warming trend due to anthropogenic forcing. However, the nature of these past shifts in climate state suggests the possibility of near constant temperature lasting a decade or more into the future must at least be entertained. The apparent lack of a proximate cause behind the halt in warming post 2001/02 challenges our understanding of the climate system, specifically the physical reasoning and causal links between longer time-scale modes of internal climate variability and the impact of such modes upon global temperature. Fortunately, climate science is rapidly developing the tools to meet this challenge, as in the near future it will be possible to attribute cause and effect in decadal-scale climate variability within the context of a seamless climate forecast system [Palmer et al., 2008]. Doing so is vital, as the future evolution of the global mean temperature may hold surprises on both the warm and cold ends of the spectrum due entirely to internal variability that lie well outside the envelope of a steadily increasing global mean temperature.’ Swanson and Tsonis 2009 – Has the climate recently shifted?
The solution space may be much broader than many warministas imagine. Things may indeed be a great deal more complex and the risks at extremes of the probability density function much more serious. Nothing is certain. For the decades ahead we are in a cool planetary mode and no warming at least seems very likely.
Bart’s big isue is externalities and carbon taxes. Do we want ‘externalities’ to be included in the price of energy? Even if we knew what these externalities were and how to price them – the answer is emphatically no. Energy is a fundamental economic input and tightly coupled to global development and economic growth. Restraining energy price increases to the absolutely unavoidable is the key to maximising the opportunities for human dignity for many billions alive today and in the near future. But this seems insufficient rationale – I sometimes get the impression that they don’t want solutions but to impose a new social order on the rest of us.
The key to mitigating carbon is in the development of cheap energy technologies and in social innovation that enhances the health, education, environment and wealth of humanity. True no regrets policies – and truly sustainable development – calculated to succeed where we have seen only failure.
Solutions are proposed – see here for instance – http://thebreakthrough.org/blog/Climate_Pragmatism_web.pdf
Conservation farming is a key technology for the near future.
‘Right now, the only possibility of large-scale removal of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere is through plant photosynthesis and other land-based carbon sequestration activities. Strategies include: enriching soil carbon, farming with perennials, employing climate-friendly livestock practices, conserving natural habitat, restoring degraded watersheds and rangelands, and producing local food. Over the past decade, many of these strategies have been demonstrated to be both practical and profitable. A carbon ranch bundles them into an economic whole with the aim of creating climate-friendly landscapes that are both healthy ecologically and the source of healthy food.’
Sequester 500 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide and feed the world? Meet the next green revolution.
http://www.actionaid.org/2011/11/conservation-farming-leads-way
Chief Hydrologist | February 25, 2013 at 8:48 pm |
Energy is a fundamental economic input and tightly coupled to global development and economic growth. Restraining energy price increases to the absolutely unavoidable is the key to maximising the opportunities for human dignity for many billions alive today and in the near future.
You make a case for tight coupling of energy and development and growth, and then propose conservation and innovation.
Which is it? Is energy tightly coupled, or can conservation and innovation replace it?
Not that I disagree with your conclusion, but your own faulty premise clearly does.
Also, you want conservation and innovation, but refuse to take the necessary step of making waste and BAU costly by privatizing carbon cycle rents. Do you expect regulation to be as efficient at allocating resources as the Market? Do you so prefer nationalized resources on a philosophical level as to cut off all our noses to spite the face of capitalism?
I mentioned conservation farming which is a different thing entirely.
But energy conservation has no adverse affect on economies as long as the marginal cost of conservation does not exceed the marginal cost of supply. Reducing the cost or volume of inputs merely increases productivity – more production for the same cost. No problem at all.
Innovation and cheaper energy achieves the same thing – a lower cost of inputs and higher productivity. With me so far?
Revenue neutral carbon taxes initially change the structure of the market – some areas are advantaged and some not but overall productivity should not change all that much because you are merely shifting production between sectors. The second stage is where carbon taxes have done their work and all energy sources are replaced by low carbon alternatives. The cost of these by definition is the original cost of energy plus the carbon tax – which is no longer paid. So we have higher energy costs – plus no one has any tax revenue to pay for the extra costs and demand contracts. At any serious level of carbon tax – the second step is a doozy.
Any serious attempt to do this would not only reduce global growth but be a logistical nightmare. A bureaucrats delight. Is that what you want? Global governance with an army of carbon enforcers? Crazy stuff that you attempt to peddle with emotional but quite misguided appeals to markets. And something that has failed and failed again. As you obviously haven’t read any of the links – here’s the gist of Pragmatic Climate.
‘The old climate framework failed because it would have imposed substantial costs associated with climate mitigation policies on developed nations today in exchange for climate benefits far off in the future — benefits whose attributes, magnitude, timing, and distribution are not knowable with certainty. Since they risked slowing economic growth in many emerging economies, efforts to extend the Kyoto-style UNFCCC framework to developing nations predictably deadlocked as well.
The new framework now emerging will succeed to the degree to which it prioritizes agreements that promise near-term economic, geopolitical, and environmental benefits to political economies around the world, while simultaneously reducing climate forcings, developing clean and affordable energy technologies, and improving societal resilience to climate impacts. This new approach recognizes that continually deadlocked international negotiations and failed domestic policy proposals bring no climate benefit at all. It accepts that only sustained effort to build momentum through politically feasible forms of action will lead to accelerated decarbonization.’
We want solutions but are very tired of people like you cooking the books.
Robert I Ellison| February 25, 2013 at 9:31 pm |
To help you with the problems you’re grappling with in grasping Chaos, I recommend http://academic.research.microsoft.com/Publication/50790959/different-types-of-chaotic-behavior-for-different-space-and-time-scales-in-complex-systems
Any IEEE member should be able to get you a copy.
To help you grapple with the issues you’re having grasping revenue neutral carbon taxes, or fee and dividend systems, or privatization, I’m not sure there is a similarly simple remedy.
You’ve neglected that by privatizing the carbon cycle, you’ve grown the economy, which more than balances the imaginary higher energy costs.
What’s higher is carbon costs, but only to those who are currently free riders. Energy costs actually lower to the whole economy. Which meets the criterion of your first premise, that energy is tightly coupled to global development and economic growth.
And your claims of a bureaucrats’ delight is spurious and not based on fact. British Columbia, a tiny backwater, had no problem with the logistics of implementing broad-based revenue neutral carbon tax in the wink of an eye. It’s withstood five years in practice, and while it’s not the way I’d do it, there’s no way to argue it hasn’t been successful so far as it goes. Well, unless you ignore facts and make stuff up.
Though it is true I almost never follow your links. “Fool me once, shame on, shame on.. ain’t gonna be fooled again.” (G.W. Bush)
I would suggest to anyone that James McWilliams – of the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at the University of California – and Tim Palmer – head of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) – provide reliable opinions on the state of climate modelling. Read the links – I am happy to discuss any point and not simply armwave about gaps in your knowledge. Which seem immense btw.
Your half baked attempts to mislead are noted and ignored.
By taxing carbon you simply redistribute money. It has no effect on the size of the economy as I suggested. But adding carbon taxes results in reduced energy costs seems quite magical – I imagine they must be very pleased with themselves in BC. But we are talking about a minor province with a developed administration. The global story would be much more muddied in the unlikely event that anyone would be ever convinced.
Less than successful – it seems almost entirely irrelevant. Unless you want to ignore reality.
Palmer and McWilliams are not in question.
I know it must be grating for you that your past bad faith behaviors truncate the possible range of discourse others are now willing to engage you in, but sometimes we must live with the consequences of our choices.
So no, your links don’t get clicked, and your arguments don’t get much goodwill.
But be of good cheer. We all still like you, and you still have your remarkable personal style.
Oh Bart – it is rather that you inevitably behave in extreme bad faith. Much as you are now.
Your empty words and mean spirit are revealed but you are no more than yesterday’s man. The world is not warming for a decade or hence. The models tell us nothing of any interest – as yet at any rate. You are committed to continued impotence and failure and we must get past people like you in order to make progress on multiple fronts including those of development and the environment.
Your pattern was revealed long ago. Spurious reasoning and condescension and insults for any who enter into discussion, insults and abuse for any who would reply to your bullying and hectoring and the final descent into rage and madness as rationality fails you as it always does. Have you learnt another tactic somewhere? Herbert Marcuse perhaps – there are some ideas you don’t agree with that should not be expressed in the public space? Just pretend that I am not speaking to you but past you.
cd, as I recall, the BEST method for removing seasonality isn’t discussed anywhere, not even in the appendix.
As for removing it, we want to because we’re interested in more than annual data. When we study monthly data, seasonal trends cause problems. Months aren’t directly comparable to each other if a seasonal trend exists. That causes all sorts of problems. One I’m curious about is how correlation/covariance structures will be affected.
Brandon, the removal of seasonality isnt that critical. I can probably scrounge it up for you, a sin wave and a couple harmonics. You could do the whole process without it if you like. it does reduce your error of prediction in the temporal dimension for the temperature field.
start here, to get some notion of different approaches
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00704-011-0464-2
These people think way too much on the wrong thing.
No one is doing the science. I’ll repeat:
The error in any estimate of global mean temperature is subject to great uncertainty. The sources of error/bias included in the choice of interpolation routines, projection methods never mind the likely errors in experimental setup, are very large. No one ever tries to run the same estimates using a range of techniques and a randomly sampled control population.
I think the problem in this field is that the application of statistical methodologies and climate modelling is carried out by people who don’t fully understand the methods they are using. There is very often a disconnect between the people that actually develop the methods and write the code and those that use them. Hence all this arguing over attribution based on historical records of a “spatial statistic” derived from methods that introduce their own bias. Then there are the issues surrounding experimental error.
cd | February 26, 2013 at 5:52 am |
Except a great many people are doing the science. You’re repeating a claim that last held water before BEST made its initial report.
The error in satellite estimates of global mean temperature is subject to significant Uncertainty compared to the length of the satellite record and compared to the land record. That can be shown mathematically, and is likely both a failure of 1970’s technology unrepaired since launch, and of the minders and administrators of the data at UAH and RSI. But since they’re largely given more to interpretting Numbers from scripture than from science, who is to blame for the sorry state of satellite are the people who let the missionaries run the lab.
The error in land based estimates is not subject to so much uncertainty that over the length of the useful land record we cannot conclude to 99% that Global Warming is real, is primarily and mostly man-made, and is primarily a result of lucrative CO2 emission. This has been shown by BEST with remarkable mathematical rigor, far ahead of anything I expected could be done with the data we have. On BEST alone, without any other corroborating evidence (and there is a monumental amount of such evidence), there is less than a one percent chance AGW by CO2 emission by humans is not certain.
The land-plus-ocean estimates are at the present moment somewhat riddled with uncertainty, but not so much that we cannot draw parsimonious inferences to above 95% confidence about ocean heat balance and other relevant questions.
You’re still dancing long after the band stopped playing your song.
kim | February 26, 2013 at 2:06 pm |
Oh kim, where did you get your license to practice medicine?
Don’t you know only someone with qualifications can make a declaration of death?
Yet anyone can declare the Risk they attach to trespass by others against themselves.
If you openly invite injurious trespass and call it fun.. you may want to look into other parts of the Internet to pursue your.. tastes.
Bart R, you depend for attribution on Richard Muller’s ‘gut feeling’. If he’s correct, where would we be without the man caused warming?
And microwaves don’t believe in God, unless, perhaps, they are God. What’s the orientation of space’s microwaves?
======================
You don’t get it, Bart R. AnthroGHGs have been a boon to mankind and to Gaia. What part of ‘a warmer world sustains more total life and more diversity of life’ do you not get? Instead of being robbed, you are being given gifts.
========
The Holocene is senile, possibly kept on the respirator by AnthroGHGs. Shall we take if off the respirator?
========================
The observed global-warming rate has been nonuniform, and the cause of each episode of slowing in the expected warming rate is the subject of intense debate. To explain this, nonrecurrent events have commonly been invoked for each episode separately. After reviewing evidence in both the latest global data (HadCRUT4) and the longest instrumental record, Central England Temperature, a revised picture is emerging that gives a consistent attribution for each multidecadal episode of warming and cooling in recent history, and suggests that the anthropogenic global warming trends might have been overestimated by a factor of two in the second half of the 20th century. A recurrent multidecadal oscillation is found to extend to the preindustrial era in the 353-y Central England Temperature and is likely an internal variability related to the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO), possibly caused by the thermohaline circulation variability. The perspective of a long record helps in quantifying the contribution from internal variability, especially one with a period so long that it is often confused with secular trends in shorter records. Solar contribution is found to be minimal for the second half of the 20th century and less than 10% for the first half. The underlying net anthropogenic warming rate in the industrial era is found to have been steady since 1910 at 0.07–0.08 °C/decade, with superimposed AMO-related ups and downs that included the early 20th century warming, the cooling of the 1960s and 1970s, the accelerated warming of the 1980s and 1990s, and the recent slowing of the warming rates. Quantitatively, the recurrent multidecadal internal variability, often underestimated in attribution studies, accounts for 40% of the observed recent 50-y warming trend. http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2013/01/22/1212471110.abstract
The science of attribution is wide open – amidst concerns about the slowing of the warming rate. But the cult of AGW groupthink space cadets has transformed into a zombie army. Kim is quite right – she’s dead Jim. You can tell by the brain dead stare and the stumbling shuffle.
Bart
This has been shown by BEST with remarkable mathematical rigor, far ahead of anything I expected could be done with the data we have.
I have read the BEST paper, in terms of global coverage, I would not concur, it may be more mathematically rigourous than the other “intsrumental teams” (wouldn’t be hard) but they use a run-off-the-mill geostat technique with some peculiar methods of detrending – if I remember correctly they did some crazy thing where they accounted for it as part of the simple kriging system. Conventionally one would use the universal kriging approach rather than simple kriging, if you’re going to use simple kriging then the convention would be to detrend with a low level spline before applying the simple kriging method. So no it wasn’t very sophisticated in this regard, although listening to Muller (obviously a very bright man and an even better self-publicist in my opinion) you’d think he’d split the atom with a chisel. The question you should be asking is, if the method (which they did use) produces a measure of confidence for each gridded temperature value why not report them.
So all my points stand.
As for the satellite data I don’t know enough about this to comment. But since the models are trained on the historical, instrumental datasets it’s a moot point.
cd | February 26, 2013 at 6:07 pm |
You can’t knock down BEST with such featherweight objections to kriging, as the outcome of the method you endorse would not substantially vary from the outcome BEST obtained (thus you propose a straw man), as Richard Muller’s personal faults have no bearing on BEST’s merits technically (thus your second fallacy is ad hom), and you then propose a new straw man of ‘the question you should ask’. Why should I ask it? I can use the work as published to find the figure myself.. as any skeptic who knows what a spline is ought.
So, again, all your points fall. You have a preconceived notion you seek to shore up against a sea swell of evidence. Your case has been sunk for over a year and remains obsolete.
But you’re not wrong that satellites, the only dataset that your argument is still valid for, are irrelevant. We can take comfort in and celebrate our agreement there, and hopefully act before more hundreds of millions are wasted on UAH’s incompetence.
kim | February 26, 2013 at 3:00 pm |
..AnthroGHGs have been a boon to mankind and to Gaia. What part of ‘a warmer world sustains more total life and more diversity of life’ do you not get? Instead of being robbed, you are being given gifts.
See, I don’t like being told what I ought be grateful for, what is a gift, when it’s been rammed down my throat uninvited by strangers. Go sell this line to the parts of the Internet who share your tastes.
In the long run, a warmer world might support more total life in jellyfish and algae and bacteria, but I’m not interested in speculation without basis on that green hell. What I know is that a world rapidly making the transition from the range it has inhabited for the past 10-20 million years to a range not seen since before C4 plants existed costs me more, risks more, is more uncertain, and is happening because people are usurping my rights without my consent.
Go inhabit the parts of the Internet where oiled-up figures in black vinyl strap helpless Gaia down and warm her up unnaturally and laugh and say it’s fun in front of her children, if you really must. Just don’t tell me all about it.
Bart R
Looks like you missed Kim’s point.
Human history has shown us that slightly warmer periods in our planet’s past climate (“optima”, as they are known) have been generally beneficial for humans (Roman Optimum, MWP, Current Warm Period, etc.).
Cooler periods have been harsher and generally worse (Dark Ages, Little Ice Age, etc.).
We are back to the “Goldilocks” discussion of what the “just right” temperature, i.e. “globally and annually averaged land and sea surface temperature anomaly” would really be.
A degree or even two warmer than now would almost certainly be better for humanity in general than a degree or two colder, and very likely also better than today’s temperature.
Since AGW is constrained by the carbon content of all remaining fossil fuels on our planet to an atmospheric equivalent of somewhere around 980 ppmv CO2, and this level would theoretically result in warming of no more than 2C when the fossil fuels have been 100% exhausted (at the latest 2xCO2 ECS estimates), there is no real problem in sight.
In addition to the added agricultural land that would be opened up in northern latitudes, the added CO2 levels would be beneficial for all plants, including crops.
The not very well understood longer-term oscillations that resulted in the past warming and cooling cycles (MWP, LIA, etc.) are due to bring us another colder (i.e. harsher) cycle some day in the not too distant future.
In addition, since we are in an interglacial period, it is likely that some day in the future our climate will worsen even more for a longer period.
So kim is right.
If you (and a few others) are worried about an “overheating”, too bad (for you). I’d suggest you ponder a bit about the “Goldilocks” syndrome, rather than worry yourself into a frenzy that any change must be bad simply because it is a change.
And let the rest of us (kim and me, included) enjoy the warmth while we can.
Max
cd.
detrending. The approach taken is basically to start with a regression of the temperature against latitude and altitude. This is pretty standard for kriging temperature data with an external drift. In addition the station data has seasonality removed, also standard. the residual, or weather, is what is left for kriging. The main differences of the method, is the scalpeling of stations, the reweighting of stations for quality and the use of correlation length as opposed to the covariance. In the end you have a method that outperforms other approaches ( as one would expect). Rhode’s memo on comparsions using synthetic data is pretty clear on that. That said, there are a few things here and there that are being tweaked and improved.
The silly thing is people who object to a method that is objectively superior because:
1. well, its just krigging and nothing special
2. It could be more perfect
3. They don’t like seeing data back before 1850.
4. They have an issue with Muller.
I have no doubt there wil be improvements ( cause I’ve seen them ) and no doubt that people who dont understand it will doubt it, and those who do understand it will say “anyone could that.”
So it goes.
cd:
“Conventionally one would use the universal kriging approach rather than simple kriging, if you’re going to use simple kriging then the convention would be to detrend with a low level spline before applying the simple kriging method.”
The temperature at any given location is a expressed as a sum
of the climate and the weather. The ‘climate’ is extracted via regression ( think external drift ) so you regress against lat,lon and altitude, first. Seasonality is removed per station, I think with a fundamental and the first couple harmonics. the residual is the weather, to which krigging is applied. This gives you a continous temperature field such that the temperature at any given location is expressed as a function of
alt,lat,lon, time of year, Plus the “weather” for that location.
So, you might want to reread the appendix which is a bit more math centric.
In the version being worked on now the seasonality is being estimated as a part of the main regression. Hmm, I think Ive seen hengl do this in one of his papers. Perhaps you are familar with that.
Kriging is a form of interpolation, and so is an approximation. With approximations, we need to worry about variance and bias. Reducing the variance is one thing, but someone should explain how kriging will add a deterministic bias either high or low. A systematic bias is really what one needs to be concerned about.
If all interpolated points lie on equally convex or concave contours, the bias will tend to reduce. That seems the natural aleatory uncertainty. If someone screwed up the kriging algorithm and replaced all the splines with one that were always concave up, then obviously one would get a systemic error in the bias.
Steve McIntyre must know all about this because he was a mining executive, and those guys could lose a bundle if they got their kriging algorithm wrong.
I am on Mosh on this one, as usual.
Classic Bart R.
Just one of these throw-away lines is worth 1E+6 Kim-bot inanities.
Good old Roy-Boy and Christ-y probably realize that they can’t cloister themselves away in some castle fortress without eventually feeling the weight of the collective scientific nerd-hood coming down on them.
manacker | February 26, 2013 at 7:27 pm |
There’s a world of difference between “missing” kim’s point and knowing it to be false, flimsy, ill-conceived, ill-premised, illogical, contrived, and wrong.
This “human history” argument to pin on kim’s shoulders, can you tell me the day of the week the Dark Ages began? The week of what year the LIA started? Ended?
The world population before each of these supposed events? At the end? What caused these changes specifically, and by what mechanism they’re related to climate?
You can’t.
And we aren’t in any form of Goldilocks debate, at all.
We’re about Risk and rate of change and absence of . See, Goldilocks had definite choices in the woods. Well, Goldilocks isn’t in the woods any more. Not in the bear’s cottage. Not in anyplace anything like in any story we’ve heard before, not for over ten million years. We don’t have porridge any more. We don’t have feather beds. We have increased expenses and decreased ability to set expectations over any span of time.
So this kim you’ve constructed is wrong.
And if you, and a few others, want to go on Free Riding without paying your debt to me, my money for the harms your trespasses have inflicted, then you keep on spinning such falsehoods, and hope you keep dodging the debt collector.
I want my money.
Bart R
Your long rant tells me you appear to have a problem. Sorry ’bout that, but I can’t help you.
Kim is absolutely correct in saying that “warmer is better” for humanity, as history has shown.
If you are unable (or unwilling) to see this, too bad for you.
Now to your statement:
Huh?
As far as “wanting your money”, what the hell are you babbling about?
What money have you paid in that you want back?
And who owes this debt to you?
From whom do you feel you should get this money?
From kim?
From me?
For what?
Grow up, buddy, you are sounding like a childish ignoramus.
Nobody owes you a red cent.
Max
A 4 C warming would mean the US, Asian and European food-produces would no longer be able to function as they are, and places like the Mediterranean become more like the Red Sea due to northward-expanding dry latitudes. Sea-levels would rise a meter and continue at a steadily accelerating rate.
Shhh, Max. If you convince him he’s wrong, we’ll miss out on these entrancing and revelatory rants.
=======================
Steven Mosher
1) I never dismissed kriging as a method because it was “standard”.
2) I very much do understand the methods as someone who routinely writes and develops existing (and new) kriging methodologies.
3) I also explained how one conventionally applies simple kriging. And the method you describe Steven is not more sophisticated just cause you state so – it’s just a different approach (I admit I’m not familiar with). A low level Bspline would suffice for the purposes of removing variable drift – computing the variogram using the residuals would have confirmed this (range and sill).
In response:
1) the BEST team used what appears to be a convoluted methodology – I’ll assume for good reasons – that fails to produce the Kriging Variances(KV)? If you’re not using the covariances then you can’t map these back to the semivariances – and hence the issue with computing the KV. Is this why they weren’t reported? If YES then you lose one of the most useful aspects of the kriging “paradigm”. Ask any modeler in the oil/gas or mining industry. Why not use a number of Kriging approaches?
Surely in science it is never enough to say “well this is the best [as you have done] therefore we can stop with that…just take my word for it”.
2) Without the KVs we can’t determine the reliability of the final average for each year. If you’re putting money on it – as in exploration – these are just as important as the actual gridded variable estimates. Why? Cause you can’t run confidence analysis. It doesn’t appear that we can do this with the BEST data, therefore it isn’t such a great leap forward – and that’s my main gripe.
3) Can you explain why the method the BEST team used is superior to using:
b-spline => residuals => variography => kriging => add b-spline back
4) Finally, they never looked at the sensitivity to projection systems or how runs with different subsamples of controls effected the result. Furthermore, why did they not test the routine against knowns? Perhaps they did but where are the plots. Again in industry this is where you’d want to start in order to get the best experimental setup. Rigor? Do you think this needs to be done and to be published. Why is not enough time given to this part of the temperature estimates – surely this is where the science is not in the final maps/plots.
Bart
I’m not knocking the BEST team and certainly not objecting to kriging. They obviously went to more of an effort than the other teams – as I stated. But that’s not saying much.
My main bone of contention here, is that nobody in this field (as far as I can see) is trying to get a handle on the error and then candidly report the error. The BEST team used a methodology that lends itself to it, and was one of the reasons why it has become the gridding method of choice where one has sparse data, but then didn’t use it to do so.
Why at every step, is no-one spending time on the error (apart from a cursory glance), and publishing paper solely on the error and limitations of these types of approaches.
Steven, your second post.
I never read the appendix. So I’m at a disadvantage (of my own making) but I’ll have a read. Thanks for replying.
Lat, long, alt could have all been taken care of using a low level spline.
The temperature at any given location is a expressed as a sum
of the climate and the weather.
This shouldn’t matter to gridding on a per yearly basis as you’re interested in the composite, not a series of decomposed signals (giving you myriad of maps)? May be you are, may be this is were my understanding/knowledge lets me down.
Seasonality is removed per station, I think with a fundamental and the first couple harmonics. the residual is the weather, to which krigging is applied.
Was it automated by using an intermediate FFT step? Wow, this all seems a bit crazy to me (I’m not saying I’m right as I haven’t even read the appendix). If automated then you make an assumption about the seasonal signal and the commonality of the spectral signal from station to station – this is based on a statistical premise rather than a experimental reason and creates its own artifacts. Surely, it should have been enough to perform an arithmetic mean per station per year. Removing the spectral peaks (where w > 0) and then back transforming will give you a value that is approximate to the average any way.
For me…
I would have thought you grid the average temperature from the annual averages at each control? This gives you a global map of average temperatures (which is the subject of your study)? Although, I admit that seasonal averages will give you difference maps and that the average of these will not necessarily be the same as the first order output.
I just don’t think you’d get away with this in industry where people are putting their money on the quality of the output, and in particular, the handle on QC and error.
But again, I haven’t read the appendix. But thanks for your tim much appreciated.
cd,
They aren’t using kriging to accomplish the same goals as a prospector would. Read what Mosh says and you will realize that kriging is used simply to come up with a more robust metric, which is the best hope we have to align with other historical measurements.
Don’t get a swelled head about kriging as an algorithm that is specific to geology and the earth sciences fields. Other disciplines use the same class of algorithms routinely, yet they don’t call it kriging. If Richard Muller or Mosh said that they were applying regression on Gaussian random fields instead of kriging, it wouldn’t have made any difference except to get the people experienced with kriging (like yourself) in a huff.
No different than when geologists use Darcy’s Law instead of Fokker-Planck (or name your flavor of continuity equation according to your discipline) to describe diffusive and drift flow. It is just a name of a class of formulations to help approximate some mathematical or statistical problem.
Web
Firstly, thanks for the full and qualified response.
Read what Mosh says and you will realize that kriging is used simply to come up with a more robust metric
I did and this doesn’t explain the rather convoluted method. They seem to be imposing a narrative on the data before they even run the gridding (I’m not saying they are, but to mere mortals such as myself they do appear to be stating first what the trend is likely to be, and then in a rather deterministic fashion formulating a trend). All can be achieved by applying a simple b-spline and then kriging the residuals. This way you don’t need to worry about what may cause the trend, or where it is likely to change, as it has been dealt with – you’ll see it in the variograms as well: the process will be stationary the only real condition required for SK.
Don’t get a swelled head about kriging as an algorithm that is specific to geology and the earth sciences fields. Other disciplines use the same class of algorithms routinely, yet they don’t call it kriging.
All introductory geostats literature gives an account of spatial regression and Gaussian processes in the context of the Kriging paradigm. So what do you want me to say to this? Yes, I may be getting above my station? Fine I’m getting above my station, but then tell me WHY I am wrong? Not just that I don’t understand therefore I am wrong.
My issue is not with what they call their approach, and even what method they use, but if it is simple kriging (SK) then detrend using something simple like a spline. Keep the stats simple! In addition you get the kriging variances along with each estimate. Can you not see my point?
cd, it’s interesting you bring up BEST’s handling of seasonality. As I’ve discussed previously, BEST fails to remove significant seasonal cycles. Because of that, I find a clear seasonal cycle in their final results. I still find that shocking.
I’m working on diagnosing exactly what the problem is, but the original code dump didn’t have the code used in that step (at least, not as far as I could tell), and I’ve only recently started working through the more recent code dump. Being unfamiliar with Matlab is making it take longer than I’d like.
Especially since I haven’t been able to read the .mat files to get at the data in it yet. Switching from .txt files to .mat files saves space, but it hurts anyone who doesn’t use Matlab. Oh well. The code is (probably) more important right now.
Brandon
In all honesty I didn’t appreciate that seasonality would be an issue. It was Steven that educated me on this, or at least suggested that it would need dealing with. I don’t like the sound of what they did but then Steven did referred me to the appendix. So I guess I’d have to do a bit of homework on this.
For me, in order to build up a chronology of global average, I thought the step would be:
For each year:
1) Collate instrumental record (annual average).
2) Grid to get global coverage.
3) Compute average.
end
Can you tell me why you need to remove seasonality in this fashion. I understand that you might want to make the temperature (if I understand Steven correctly) independent of the time of year. But this seems pedantic as the result should be very similar to just getting the annual average per station.
Eek. My comment landed in the wrong spot. The basic gist of it was, we want to look at more than annual averages.
http://judithcurry.com/2013/02/22/spinning-the-climate-model-observation-comparison/#comment-299041
Brandon (and Steven Mosher for that matter)
I think the penny has eventually dropped. The seasonal trend is removed for each station for the entire time period(?). This then gives us a new set of data for each month for each station(?).
These, data are then gridded? OK? Right and I can see why you might do this. I’d still apply a b-spline to this and detrend for lat, long and alt. then apply SK. You don’t need to add the b-spline back for the purposes of constructing the climate time series – right?
I jumped two steps ahead on this…sorry Steven I see what you meant now.
In which case, Brandon, how is there still a seasonal trend? I have no idea. I guess they have an automated method for removing a presumed seasonal signal at a given frequency – I’m guessing involving a FFT. How do you determine how much of a secondary(+) peak are harmonics of the fundamental frequency of the seasonal signal and how much is actually another fundamental frequency – this might be creating the problem. If they’re using an FFT they’d be better use a cosine transform of the time series data thus removing the issue of properly identifying lone harmonics.
cd, the “normal” way it is done is by subtracting an average value. BEST does something else. I’m not exactly sure what yet as they have code for more than one method, and I haven’t found where either function gets called. One does look like the FFT method you describe though.
Whatever BEST does, it performs worse than any other temperature series I’ve seen.
That is, unless they intentionally add seasonality back in. I can’t imagine why they would, but that makes more sense to me than them failing at the most basic step of their process.
Robert I Ellison | February 25, 2013 at 11:39 pm |
Just pretend you’re speaking past? Your arguments would have to catch up with before they could pass, though you do have plentiful display of pretense in your postings.
Your claims pretend my ‘isue’ [sic] to be externalities, when you show by your writings you know my stance is opposed to the nationalization of private rights and my solution is privatization. While I lament negative externalities, I’m not one to let others make their problems his problem.
I say what I say with no meanness of spirit. That you say you discern such may be from what baggage you bring with you to, apparently, every exchange you find yourself in so far as I have seen. The common element in all such mean-spirited exchanges appears to be only your role.
My goal is not to tax carbon, nor to redistribute wealth.
Redistribution of unearned wealth is a socialist objective, a communal function, and it is the current state of economies that do not enforce fees and dividends for rents from the carbon cycle which are the patent and inalienable right of everyone who draws breath.
You understand this, must understand this, have shown you understand this, as an Australian now have a special personal understanding of this, yet you continue to spin it, pretending yourself to not be the one in favor of politburo-style committees suppressing the democracy of the Fair Market by substituting your ‘expert’ regulatory judgement for the individual choices of consumers. Quit pretending your arguments aren’t simple traps designed to deliver you power over others you do not deserve.
You may ‘suggest’ that privatization does not grow an economy, but anyone who has seen the rapid growth of cell phones since the privatization of bandwidth knows you are suggesting claptrap with no semblance of truth.
You may ‘suggest’ that you have some intellectual or academic backing for your many and multiply-repeated claims, but it takes little to penetrate the verbiage and track the sources to find you have simply spun and reversed the actual premises to fit your preconcieved notions.
If you detect patterns of condescension, insult and spurious reasoning, then you’re focused on cosmetics and illusions, blowing smoke and mirrors. Honi soit qui mal y pense. Your arguments fail to touch my clear and solid reasoning. You detect insult where incidental happenstance combines with unfortunate stylistic choices, and if there’s condescension, it is unintended and unwarranted.
Who is anyone to be condescending, to cast stones, given the state of things we all share responsibility for?
I saw a model yesterday,
As a doornail dead it lay.
I saw it yet again today,
Squalling loud catastrophay.
Bart, now that you’ve given up ‘Catastrophe’, understand that a warmer world sustains more total life and more diversity of life. Your main ‘Risk’ is that you’ll miss all the fun.
===============
‘If as suggested here, a dynamically driven climate shift has occurred, the duration of similar shifts during the 20th century suggests the new global mean temperature trend may persist for several decades. Of course, it is purely speculative to presume that the global mean temperature will remain near current levels for such an extended period of time. Moreover, we caution that the shifts described here are presumably superimposed upon a long term warming trend due to anthropogenic forcing. However, the nature of these past shifts in climate state suggests the possibility of near constant temperature lasting a decade or more into the future must at least be entertained.’ Swanson and Tsonis – Has the climate recently shifted.
There were a couple of papers I referenced on models. I do this because they are leaders in the field and express succinctly some essential concepts.
‘Irreducible imprecision in atmospheric and oceanic simulations’
James C. McWilliams – Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences and Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1565 – http://www.pnas.org/content/104/21/8709.long
‘Uncertainty in weather and climate prediction’ Julia Slingo1,* and
Tim Palmer2 – 1Met Office, Exeter, UK – 2European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasting, , Reading, Berkshire, UK
You’re quite welcome to go to the papers – and discuss points but you never do. It is all just armwaving on your part. It is obvious that your failure to provide any academic support for your frankly silly positions is because there isn’t any. It all springs from a fervid imagination. Forgive me for believing people who actually know what they are talking about rather than you.
Your usual long winded complaints about my personal failings seem fairly pointless. Responding seems likewise pointless. I can only suggest that your behaviour here and now has been typically appalling and insulting and rely on others to see this without my further effort.
Taxes are almost everywhere off the agenda. It has failed as both practical and pragmatic policy and on from theory as a way to mitigate carbon dioxide globally. There is little point in rehearsing this again with you in the same terms, same arguments and same emotional baggage. Although to claim that not doing something is tantamount to creating a socialist empire seems a long bow. We have heard it all before – you want your money. You are yesterday’s man and it is all quite pointless irrationality.
Unlike El Niño and La Niña, which may occur every 3 to 7 years and last from 6 to 18 months, the PDO can remain in the same phase for 20 to 30 years. The shift in the PDO can have significant implications for global climate, affecting Pacific and Atlantic hurricane activity, droughts and flooding around the Pacific basin, the productivity of marine ecosystems, and global land temperature patterns. This multi-year Pacific Decadal Oscillation ‘cool’ trend can intensify La Niña or diminish El Niño impacts around the Pacific basin,” said Bill Patzert, an oceanographer and climatologist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. “The persistence of this large-scale pattern [in 2008] tells us there is much more than an isolated La Niña occurring in the Pacific Ocean.”
Natural, large-scale climate patterns like the PDO and El Niño-La Niña are superimposed on global warming caused by increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases and landscape changes like deforestation. According to Josh Willis, JPL oceanographer and climate scientist, “These natural climate phenomena can sometimes hide global warming caused by human activities. Or they can have the opposite effect of accentuating it.”
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=8703
The fact remains that the world is in a cool mode for decades hence. The planet has not warmed since 1998 and will not warm for quite a while yet – but there are many including you who seem perversely incapable of understanding how the wind has shifted.
Honni. Thy Wikipedia made a mistake:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honi_soit_qui_mal_y_pense
Wikipedia has made more than one mistake.
http://xkcd.com/1167
You do it as the Academy renders; I’ll write it as the author did and the College of Arms and the Order of the Garter do. Not that I’m big on arguments from authority. It’s just less confusing this way for people who are not French.
“All religions issue bibles against him, and say the most injurious things about him, but we never hear his side. We have none but the evidence for the prosecution, and yet we have rendered the verdict. To my mind, this is irregular. It is un-English, it is un-American; it is French.” – Mark Twain
+1.
Seems that nearly 30% of English is un-English:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_words_of_French_origin
Willard
Correction:
100% of “English” is “English”
BUT
30% (probably more) of “English” is not “Anglo-Saxon”.
Vive l’anglais!
Max
MiniMax,
You’re right, A = A.
Thanks,
Chief Hydrologist | February 26, 2013 at 2:55 pm |
To be in a cool mode, the world would have to, y’know, actually cool.
Although the acceleration of warming has perceptably dropped for 30-year trends, the warming trend itself remains substantially positive.
You simply rehearse arguments that are patently false.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/mean:179/mean:181/plot/gistemp/mean:179/mean:181/derivative/normalise/plot/gistemp/mean:179/mean:181/scale:0.0001
We are in the throes of the highest warming trend we have so much detailed data about. Were the current deceleration of warming to continue at its current rate — which is a spurious and unfounded conjecture, more than 100:1 odds against based on current understanding — we’d still be 40 years before the globe entered a cooling phase.
This is not about your personal faults; this is about the faults in your arguments, methods, and claims. Undistracted by personality, we find you’re simply just wrong in your conclusions and assertions.
Your arguments are made-up stuff. They are not true. Your claims are spin from misrepresented or false premises. They are not true. Your methods are inappropriate in application or simply incorrectly used. There’s no assertion here that your volumes of untruths reflect on your personality. Merely that your assertions are bankrupt.
We ought not take tax or economic advice from bankrupts.
Three times in the last century and a half, the rate of warming has been about the same, and only in the last of these was CO2 also rising. Phil Jones heself told me so.
================
Of course it is cooling – the NASA page shows whole swaths of the Pacific Ocean cooling. This has great effects on global surface temperature, hydrology and biology. As stated on the NASA page. These cool periods last 20 to 40 years in the proxies. There is indeed no reason to think that the next shift will be to warmer again. There is no reason to think that a 1000 year high will be followed by another high. I in fact never predict beyond the next climate shift – due in perhaps a decade or three – and despite your current understanding pulling odds out of your arse does not do it for me either.
It is not clear whether what difficulties you have in simple reading tasks – but it seems that you have difficulties in processing some information. I would put that down to groupthink basically.
Here’s HADCRUT4. The Met Office calcualtes 0.03 degrees C/decade increase in surface temperature since 1997.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1997
It is indistinguishable from zero – although numbnut insists that there is a +/- 0.15 margin and therefore we are actually warming. Is that your position too?
We choose 1998 because that’s when the climate shift happened. La Niña to the ‘Great Pacific Climate Shift’ of 1976/77, El Niño dominant to 1998 and La Niña since. See for yourself.
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/enso/mei/
These large scale patterns discussed by NASA… It is just totally mad to not see it.
CERES actually shows a minor warming trend in shortwave last decade – that appears to show up in ARGO to 1500 or 2000m. But this won’t continue as La Niña intensifies over a decade plus more and did little to counteract the cloud change at the end of last century.
‘This study uses proxy climate records derived from paleoclimate data to investigate the long-term behaviour of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) and the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO). During the past 400 years, climate shifts associated with changes in the PDO are shown to have occurred with a similar frequency to those documented in the 20th Century. Importantly, phase changes in the PDO have a propensity to coincide with changes in the relative frequency of ENSO events, where the positive phase of the PDO is associated with an enhanced frequency of El Niño events, while the negative phase is shown to be more favourable for the development of La Niña events.’ http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2005GL025052/abstract
I have talked to Stewart Franks about this if that helps? And in fact have been studying this since 1990. But by all means tell me how I have got it wrong.
No science and lots of mad armwaving interlaced with ad hom. What are we to make of you Le Pétomane?
Bart R
You may want to check the temperature records out there.
There has, indeed, been a net cooling since around 2001/2002 (i.e. for the past decade or so).
It’s less than 0.1C per decade, however, and “statistically not significant” – but it’s there nevertheless.
The main thing is that the underlying warming trend since the record started in 1850 continues, with 30-year cycles of accelerated warming followed by 30-year cycles of slight cooling, so what we are witnessing now may be the start of one of these cycles of slight cooling.
Who knows?
Max
manacker | February 26, 2013 at 9:03 pm |
There you go, mistaking time scales again, and just plain getting the facts wrong.
The best predictor of future climate trends of at least 30 years is current trends of at least 17 years – which is still wrong about one time in 20, and no good about three times in twenty even when it is right, and might not work terribly well for derivatives, but it’s what we’ve got and as short a time scale as produces any meaningful or nearly meaningful predictive skill.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/mean:101/mean:103/from:1972/plot/gistemp/mean:101/mean:103/derivative/normalise/from:1972/plot/gistemp/mean:101/mean:103/scale:0.0001/from:1972
It’s not a great predictor, but let’s make due:
Acceleration of warming has fallen but warming remains strongly positive and for the longest such period on record.
This gets us to nearly the end of 2004 on the most reliable (however poor it may be) predictor with warming, not cooling.
And up to late 1997, the last time we have actual figures for 30-year running climates using the midpoint method? Warming. Not cooling.
Claims of a cooling world climate are without sound foundation. Arguments from such claims are overconfident, and play no part in sound policy.
Bart R
Nobody (except maybe you) is “mistaking time scales”.
As pointed out earlier, the world (at least the “globally and annually averaged land and sea surface temperature anomaly”, for what it’s worth) has, indeed, cooled ever so slightly over the past decade or so.
Is there something about the “time scale” of “the past decade or so”, which is difficult for you to comprehend?
Whether or not this observed slight cooling over the past decade or so is the beginning of another 30-year cycle of slight cooling, such as those we have already seen, is a matter of conjecture.
I do not know the answer to that question. Nor do you. Nor does the IPCC, as a matter of fact.
We will simply have to wait and see.
Max
That we are in a cool mode is no conjecture. The PDO is cool, La Nina is occurring with greater frequency and intensity and the AMO is strongly positive. In hydrological terms that is flooding for Australia and drought for the US.
It is also a predictor for global temperature – and the decadal signal is especially significant in the Arctic. But these systems are non-stationary and non-Gaussian – http://www.nonlin-processes-geophys.net/16/453/2009/npg-16-453-2009.html – and the pattern we have seen in the 20th century is not likely to be repeated in the 21st and beyond. The single cool period in the 20th century is no template for the future.
Here is a 1000 year ENSO proxy – http://s1114.photobucket.com/albums/k538/Chief_Hydrologist/?action=view¤t=Vance2012-AntarticaLawDomeicecoresaltcontent.jpg
It shows salt content in a Law Dome ice core – which is related the intensity of the circumpolar winds – which in turn is related to the ENSO state. More salt equals La Nina. It suggests that this is part of the Bond Event pattern, the sunspot cycle, the something that caused the medieval optimum, the little ice age and the modern maximum. Natural variation seems set to produce a cooling influence both on a decadal scale and longer. Certainly – warming seems unlikely for 10 to 30 years hence.
Bart persists in wilfully ignoring these – despite the fact that the satellite TOA flux data suggests they are the dominant factor in recent warming.
‘In summary, although there is independent evidence for decadal changes in TOA radiative fluxes over the last two decades, the evidence is equivocal. Changes in the planetary and tropical TOA radiative fluxes are consistent with independent global ocean heat-storage data, and are expected to be dominated by changes in cloud radiative forcing. To the extent that they are real, they may simply reflect natural low-frequency variability of the climate system.’ IPC 3.4.4.1
If low frequency climate variability is real?
‘In each of these model–ensemble comparison studies, there are important but difficult questions: How well selected are the models for their plausibility? How much of the ensemble spread is reducible by further model improvements? How well can the spread be explained by analysis of model differences? How much is irreducible imprecision in an AOS?
Simplistically, despite the opportunistic assemblage of the various AOS model ensembles, we can view the spreads in their results as upper bounds on their irreducible imprecision. Optimistically, we might think this upper bound is a substantial overestimate because AOS models are evolving and improving. Pessimistically, we can worry that the ensembles contain insufficient samples of possible plausible models, so the spreads may underestimate the true level of irreducible imprecision (cf., ref. 23). Realistically, we do not yet know how to make this assessment with confidence.’ McWilliams 2007
Bart first of all builds a simplistic case for models – reinforced with his usual disdain, insults and sleights for any who would dare to disagree. He then moves on to the equally simplistic notion that because it warmed for 23 years things will keep on warming – with no thought for attribution or of natural variation. It excludes too much to mean much of anything.
The reality is that the world is not warming for decade or so more at least. There is far too much science to ignore and none at all that suggests otherwise.
manacker | February 27, 2013 at 1:24 am |
A “decade or so” isn’t a climate scale. It’s barely a weather scale. It’s not meaningful in discussions of climate.
Your “decade or so” is at most nine years, as the latest date we can somewhat reliably (80% or so) make claims about global warming climate trends if we deal with temperature alone is 2004.
The few cherry-picked parts of the story so concentrated on by some that they pin this “cooling” fiction on do not amount to more than a small fraction of a percent of the many available indicators; these indicators generally agree surface warming has had a sub-decadal drop in rate, but is still net warming so far as we can tell.
So, no, I don’t buy into your “wait and see” nonsense superstitiously clinging to phantom cycles based on imagined waves.
I want my money. I want my share in resources to no longer by nationalized by the socialist likes of corporate communists who sell greasy subsidized oil perpetual motion machines to dim politically motivated shills. I want the carbon cycle privatized, and I want to be paid for the confiscation of my private share of it.
Why you side with socialism, I don’t know. Nor do I care.
I want my money.
He wants more than he can breath, more than the wind,
more than the eagle, the dove, the chicken on the wing.
Seeks something to compensate for imaginary injury,
no patience at all, no time to wait, no feeling but fury.
A doyen of science, of money, technology and comics,
fulminating on corporate shills and socioeconomics.
He wants his share of the sky is such a mad refrain.
What shall we do what shall we do with Le Pétomane?
Bart
But the period often pointed to as proof that CO2 drives short-term climate, when CO2 correlated with temperature spanned only 20 years (1975-1995). That means for 93 years of the last 113 years temperature does not correlate with CO2. Surely the hypothesis states that if CO2 drives climate then the temperature should have continued to rise at a statistically significant rate. Ah but the picture is more complex, what about natural variability I hear you say. Well if you could discern the difference twenty years ago why not now. You can’t have it both ways.
As for testing the models, we had models published in 1995. The temperature record since then showed significant divergence at or below the lower 2*stdev interval.
Moving the projection date forward to 2000 is one way of making things look better, But it sin’t terribly honest.
But hey, you’re talking about a few tenths of a degree. Only an idiot would think you could model something that fine, using models that were trained on poorly constrained datasets…oh yeah.
Bart R
Duh!
Who says it is a “climate scale”?
Who says that anything under a “century or so” is a climate scale?
Meaningless words, Bart (as you know).
The past decade (2003 through 2012) has shown cooling in three of the five mainly quoted records:
-0.072C/decade (cooling) – HadCRUT3
-0.054C/decade (cooling) – HadCRUT4
-0.036C/decade (cooling) – RSS
It has shown no change in one record:
0.00C/decade (no change) – GISS
And it has shown warming in one record:
+0.048C/decade (warming) – UAH
The average of all records is slight cooling of -0.023C/decade
Those are the recorded facts, Bart, whether you happen to like them or not.
As I have stressed repeatedly, it is too early to tell whether or not the current cooling is the beginning of a multi-decadal cooling trend, such as we saw from around 1940 to around 1970 or around 1880 to around 1910.
You do not know the answer to that. Nor do I. Nor does IPCC.
The models are useless as predictors of future temperature trends, as the IPCC projections in TAR (+0.225C+/-0.075C per decade) and AR4 (+0.2C per decade) have shown.
The models not only got the magnitude wrong, they even got the sign wrong!
And this despite unabated human GHG emissions and concentrations reaching record levels.
Ouch!
As I said before, we will just have to wait and see what will happen.
Max
Bart R
Here’s the chart that shows the temperature trends over the past decade (my earlier comment)
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss-land/from:2003/trend/plot/gistemp/from:2003/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:2003/trend/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:2003/trend/plot/uah/from:2003/trend
Max
cd | February 27, 2013 at 8:29 am |
1975-1995? That is the only period of correlation?
Really?
You’re sticking with that patently false claim as the premise your entire argument rests on, after all the discussion of time scale and all the evidence of correlation of CO2 and temperature across millennia?
Perhaps this word “only” does not mean what you think it does.
As one must include as a special form of idiocy any argument that continues to talk about temperature levels of weather and tenths of degrees of temperature levels of weather when the domain is temperature trends of climates, and on that domain, we have firm footing to deduce substantial conclusions. That’s deduction from highly certain evidence, not induction nor illogic from guesswork and making stuff up.
Deduction trumps making stuff up.
Maybe you should stop just making stuff up?
Yes that’s right 1975-1995.
“…correlation of CO2 and temperature across millennia?”
Are you talking about the Vostok ice core where it lags temperature by several hundred years – but wait someone squirmed around a bit and invented another fantastical model to explain this as well. In short it isn’t even a testable hypothesis.
As one must include as a special form of idiocy any argument that continues to talk about temperature levels of weather and tenths of degrees of temperature levels of weather when the domain is temperature trends of climates, and on that domain, we have firm footing to deduce substantial conclusions.
Well when you have nothing to say waffle will do I guess. Well done.
Oh here comes more waffle…
That’s deduction from highly certain evidence, not induction nor illogic from guesswork and making stuff up.
Bart R
Forget the blarney about a CO2 temperature correlation that spans millennia.
It’s not there.
There are pieces of the past record, which show such a correlation (the past 450,000 years), however with CO2 lagging temperature by several hundred years (so no evidence of a CO2 forcing function).
To make matters even worse for such a premise is the fact that there are multiple periods where temperature started to drop at higher than normal CO2 levels or temperature started to rise at below normal CO2 levels (again, no evidence of a CO2 forcing function).
To get back to the past 160+ year “blip” in the record, temperature has risen over this period at an underlying rate of around 0.05 to 0.06C per decade, in 30-year fits and spurts of accelerated warming and slight cooling, all with no apparent correlation with CO2, which rose gradually for the first 90 years or so and then accelerated after WWII (based first on ice core data and since 1958 on Mauna Loa measurements). The current “lack of warming”, despite unabated human GHG emissions and concentrations reaching record levels, may be the start of another ~30-year cooling cycle (or not) – we just do not know. (So, again, there is no robust correlation between CO2 and temperature).
IPCC has used the “poster period” starting in the mid 1970s to “sell” its premise of a global climate forced by human GHG emissions. This worked OK through the end of the 20thC, but also no longer holds up today.
So, whether you want to acknowledge this or not, the fact remains that the CO2 temperature correlation throughout time is extremely weak to non-existent.
Sorry to pop your little bubble on that Bart, but that’s the way it is.
Max
I think they correlate, at least lately, and are explained by outgassing happening faster and more reliably than ingassing.
====================================
Outgassing is what made Le Pétomane famous. It is a great tradition being upheld by Bart.
Induction of couse trumps deduction. Evidence rules – or at least it should according to Newton’s fourth rule of natural philosophy. Crazy kids these days are all hat and no empiricism.
Whenever temperature went up, CO2 level followed. After CO2 went up, temperature eventually went down. Whenever temperature went down, CO2 eventually followed.
Causation? Your guess is as good as mine. Mebbe.
=====================
Temporary biome capture? More guesses, please.
===============
http://tomnelson.blogspot.com.au/2013/02/graph-shows-changes-in-atmospheric.html?spref=tw
Say I think yer might be on to something Kim.
Whatever it is, I’m saddlesore and blue.
==========
Gasp! … Not the Chief’s blue pony, Kim?
97% of all climate science is made up on the spot.
With a reference to a crackpot theory, I will add Beth Cooper to the climate clown list. Good to have a fake Aussie ocker in the ranks, even though there are way too many larrikins on there already
Btw, the crackpot theory mentioned is more of a bad interpretation of physics than new physics.
Bzzt. Let’s all try again.
This time, without argument by assertion, false premises, straw men, ambiguous restatements of facts dressed up as if they were relevant where they aren’t, appeals to authority (actual or imagined), illogic, ad hom, propaganda and tricks.
Your arguments lack goodwill; this failure of sincerity becomes more glaring with every passing line. It’s clear to readers of subtext that the claims repeated from WUWT here are just a show with no real conviction behind them.
1. Temperature is not climate. Only global temperature is global. Only 30+ years of global temperature is global climate. So you can say there’s been some decadal (or longer) global cooling until you are blue in the face, you haven’t made that oft-repeated claim true of climate, hence you haven’t made it relevant to climate models.
2. Climate trends, when the impossible demands of precise temperature forecasting is removed from the topic, have fallen within the model range since the models first were run incorporating CO2 and the GHE with remarkable fidelity. This includes the ratio of falling to rising trends, which is the same in the models as in the actual climate, and which is markedly different in the post 1960 global temperature regime from pre-1960. This also includes rate of increase of extreme weather events, which only the influence of strong external forcing from an input at a new level can account for, and which correlates remarkably well with CO2E level.
3. PDO cooling trend is not global cooling phase. There used to be a correlation. Now, there’s only a correlation of PDO cooling and deceleration of global warming. How can you think to confuse the two very different things in readers’ minds? You know the joke about the difference between stoping and slowing down, right?
And can anyone point to anywhere that I’ve specifically actually insulted, demeaned, ridiculed, slighted or used invective or calumny toward any person in any undefensible way that wasn’t merely incidental and casual? Catalog all these supposed bad faith or ad hom, mean or personal, transgressions in my arguments. Let’s see if the claims of such behavior on my part stand up or are shown to be just more false assertion.
Heh, Judy zambonied your best.
=================
I dare you to repeat it.
=============
Bank error in your favor if you do.
========
FAIL
kim | February 28, 2013 at 8:55 am |
Dr. Curry is not such a heavy moderator as you seem to suggest, at least in my experience. And while I’d gladly repeat any posting I’ve made, zambonied or otherwise (correcting or updating as passage of time merits), my memory is not so sharp that I can recall this phantom best you imply was among the handful of irrelevancies that have been moderated by our kind host. So, it appears I must forego the bank error you monopolistically offer.
Perhaps you could restrict your catalog of my supposed transgressions of personal courtesy to what hasn’t been moderated? Because so far, all I see is your claims landing on my hotels and not having enough to pay the rent.
blueice2hotsea | February 28, 2013 at 9:09 am |
Perhaps there is some confusion as to what ad hom means, or what the property of goodwill attached to an argument is?
Could you explain unambiguously how noting that an intangible expression is lacking in goodness of will seems to be an argument based on the personalities of some author?
I certainly didn’t say the respondents lack goodness, nor will, nor goodwill. Only that the falsity, imprecision, illogic, cherry-picking, and intentional qualities of the case brought to answer my honest, valid and truthful claims leaves the reader dissatisfied.
cd | February 27, 2013 at 9:52 am |
manacker | February 27, 2013 at 3:41 pm |
kim | February 27, 2013 at 3:55 pm |
kim | February 28, 2013 at 9:06 am |
Correlation: for 800,000 years, we have correlation of CO2 rise within 10+/-160 years of temperature rise (not 800 years as interpretations that ignored the tendency of gases to migrate in firn):
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/339/6123/1060.abstract
“We find no significant asynchrony between them, indicating that Antarctic temperature did not begin to rise hundreds of years before the concentration of atmospheric CO2, as has been suggested by earlier studies. “
And there’s a correlation now, when we can make more precise measurements, more reliable than just the proxy record.
What’s the parsimonious, simple, universal, accurate explanation for this correlation in the data?
manacker | February 27, 2013 at 3:17 pm |
Who says what is a climate timescale?
Well, there’s what the IPCC says:
“The classical period is 30 years, as defined by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). These quantities are most often surface variables such as temperature, precipitation, and wind. Climate in a wider sense is the state, including a statistical description, of the climate system.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate
http://nsidc.org/cryosphere/arctic-meteorology/climate_vs_weather.html
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/noaa-n/climate/climate_weather.html
If you want to talk about climate models, talk about climate, not something that isn’t climate.
If you want to understand why it matters:
http://muenchow.cms.udel.edu/classes/MAST811/Santer2011.pdf
Looking at statistical data trends requires the interpreter to make choices. Such choices include how to treat endpoints, how to fit smooth curves, how to weight averages, and so forth.
It is a simple process to determine what running mean produces curves that have tangents that are generally useful predictors of overall direction and rate of change. Santer et al showed that below 17 years, global temperature running means are less than 95% meaningful. The same mathematics shows the sharpest focus, the most reliable trends, are running means at least 30 (or, more precisely, 32) years long.
Preferring shorter trendology is just a sign that cherry-picking or lack of concern for reliability and accuracy is happening in the interpretation. It’s the sign the interpretation lacks skill.
Which is what determines what a climate is, in the case of global temperature.
So if you see any claim about global temperature trends shorter than 17 years, you ought be careful to look at those claims in terms of longer trends.
Because up to one trend in three below 17 years runs counter to the climate trend, we know to discount short trendology. Similarly, endpoints are less reliable than data from closer to the middle of graphs.
So no, there is no reason to consider your argument, given the inadequacy of your premise.
Bart R
Sure IPCC and WMO have cherry-picked 30 years as the “classical climate time-scale” (since it fits in nicely with it’s “poster” late 20thC warming cycle, which started in the 1970s, which is used by IPCC to build its AGW story – and which Kevin Trenberth referred to as a “climate shift” per IPCC AR4 WG1 Ch.3, p.240).
But you will have to admit that it is just a teeny “blip” in our planet’s temperature record.
We have 160+ years of “modern global temperature” (HadCRUT3 and 4) and an extension back to the 17thC in the CET record.
The past 10-15 years are obviously even less meaningful than the preceding 30 years; and if the current trend of slight cooling extends to a total of 30 years it will only be as significant as the previous mid-century cooling trend of 30 years or the preceding early 20thC warming trend, also around 30 years, none of which correlate with GHG concentrations.
You argue that a trend of 17 years is meaningless. Ben Santer might disagree, but I have no argument with this; I’d say that a 30-year trend is also meaningless.
So (to give you a playback) “there is no reason to consider your argument, given the inadequacy of your premise”.
Got it?
Max
manacker | March 2, 2013 at 3:47 pm |
800,000 years. You may choose to cover your eyes and plug your ears and incant all the denial of the evidence you want, but all that means is we see you’ve ceased to engage in discussing what is, preferring instead to fantasize about what you wish were so.
And your allegations about the IPCC do not touch the argument of Santer; indeed, Santer et al. merely reproduced a common technique from trend analysis in other fields to establish the signal:noise ratio of global temperature. They only formalized thinking that had come to the same consensus about global temperature trends from across the spectrum.
Look through a telescope sometime. Sure, one _could_ choose to adjust the focus too long or too short, and get a fuzzy image you could interpret any of a number of ways. Or, one could find the focus that gives the clear picture.
In the case of sub-17-year global temperature trendology, your image is bound to be fuzzy and useless. Heck, even at 17 years, one trend in 20 must be attributed to noise overcoming underlying signal.
And even then, Bayesian reasoning warns us not to give too much weight to singular exceptions on longer trends.
Bart R
“Covering my eyes and plugging my ears” is not my style, Bart.
But you are jumping to conclusions.
I have NOT claimed that the 10-15 (or 17) year “pause” in global warming despite unabated human GHG emissions and CO2 concentrations reaching all-time record levels represents a falsification of AGW (or of the CAGW premise as outlined by IPCC in AR4).
Got it?
I have also NOT said that this trend will continue beyond 30 years (the length of time IPCC considers to be relevant for a climate trend).
Got it?
I have simply said that there is some point in the future, for example if it were to continue for a total of 40 to 50 years that it would represent a direct falsification of the IPCC CAGW hypothesis.
Got it?
The length of time required to falsify CAGW is not known to me, since IPCC has never quoted such a time. But, believe me, Bart, IF the current slight cooling continues for another 20+ years or so despite continued unabated human GHG emissions, there will be a lot of people thinking about whether or not the CAGW hypothesis of IPCC has been falsified by the empirical evidence at hand.
Got it?
Max
manacker | March 2, 2013 at 4:38 pm |
“Covering my eyes and plugging my ears” is not my style, Bart.
But you are jumping to conclusions.
I have NOT claimed that the 10-15 (or 17) year “pause” in global warming despite unabated human GHG emissions and CO2 concentrations reaching all-time record levels represents a falsification of AGW (or of the CAGW premise as outlined by IPCC in AR4).
Got it?
And who claimed you did? Straw man.
The issue isn’t does anything you say about sub-17-year timespans represent a claim by you invalidating or validating anything. The issue is that all such claims are themselves so weak as to be formed on an invalid premise, and given that there are valid premises close at hand, are therefore built on a false premise. You equate insufficient timespans with sufficient ones. That’s just false. So we must dismiss your arguments on that basis.
Sure, there are valid arguments and discussions that can be had about sub-17 year timespans; your case simply does not avail itself of those, instead choosing sophistic equivocation over plain truth.
I have also NOT said that this trend will continue beyond 30 years (the length of time IPCC considers to be relevant for a climate trend).
Got it?
Who cares whether you said this or not? How is this straw man even relevant?
I have simply said that there is some point in the future, for example if it were to continue for a total of 40 to 50 years that it would represent a direct falsification of the IPCC CAGW hypothesis.
Got it?
Which would still be a false conclusion, even if you were to have said it simply. Because there are so many unpredictable external factors, there is no length of time on the human scale where temperature drop in and of itself would represent direct falsification.
Let’s look at the current circumstance: We have the hottest 10 year, 20 year, 25 year, and 30 year span of global temperatures on record.
PDO during those spans ought have dropped the global temperature considerably, and yet we remain in a warming trend. Does this invalidate the case that the PDO influences global temperature? No, it does not.
AMO during those spans ought have dropped the global temperature considerably, and yet we remain in a warming trend. Invalidate the AMO’s influence? No.
The Arctic sea ice extent and volume, Greenland ice sheet, and vast majority of glaciers have substantially melted beyond their average, which ought have introduced a direct cooling influence on the oceans and surface temperatures. Does this failure invalidate the laws of Thermodynamics? No, it does not.
Despite all these (and many other, such as aerosols and solar and land use) cooling influences on climate (of 30 years or more, not the fake variety some arguments cling to), the global climate continued to warm unabated. These other influences are not falsified. They indeed further prove AGW.
The length of time required to falsify CAGW is not known to me, since IPCC has never quoted such a time. But, believe me, Bart, IF the current slight cooling continues for another 20+ years or so despite continued unabated human GHG emissions, there will be a lot of people thinking about whether or not the CAGW hypothesis of IPCC has been falsified by the empirical evidence at hand.
Got it?
Max
A lot of people thinking? Argumentum ad Populam? Didn’t Lord Monckton recently scribble a diatribe about Aristotle and the practice of attributing too much weight to arguments on the premise of numbers who subscribe to them?
There is no climatic cooling. If climatic cooling begins (as is possible) as the AGW-proving climate models predict ought happen one third of the time, then that does nothing toward falsifying AGW.
One third of the time we ought see cooling 30 year climate trends under AGW.
Get it?
The observed increase in CO2 in the atmosphere is due to the increase in global mean temperature as shown=>
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/mean:732/normalise/plot/esrl-co2/compress:12/normalise/offset:0.65
In turn, the increase in global mean surface temperature is due to the increase in solar spot counts as shown=>
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/mean:732/from:1895/to:1960/normalise/plot/sidc-ssn/mean:1056/from:1895/normalise
The ethos of Climate Etc:
There is no there there.
The Onion masquerading as a science blog.
Girma might as well make the assertion that the moon is made of cheese, and then post an image of a golf ball painted yellow to prove his point.
The man who thinks he is an orbital telescope is focused on the wrong things. I bet he thinks we are still past the peak of oil.
The AGW true believer kooks never stop providing the laughs.
With sincere thanks,
Lurker has nothing to say about the signal processing crimes that Girma is engaged in.
There are several problems with this Girma. For one humanity is releasing considerable amounts of carbon dioxide – with much more to come as eonomies grow. I suppose it just dissapears?
Another is that solar activity peaked perhaps in the 80’s – and the increase in TSI is any rate not sufficient to cause much in the way of warming. I suppose it all happens by magic?
The third problem is that there is no simple cause and effect. You should learn what this means.
Chief Proctologist said
You are such a troubled dude, Chief. With one paragraph, you completely wipe out your belief in sudden climate change, or even decadal oscillations for that matter The thing that you have been harping about for months is essentially up in smoke. Now its all magic to you!
Is Chief forever engaged in an eristic argument?
Pingback: Il Global Warming latita, ma i modelli insistono | Climatemonitor
I can’t believe that people actually debate this nonsense. There is a serious lack of proportion in these debates. You’re all talking about a few tenths of a degree.
The error in any estimate of global mean temperature is subject to great uncertainty. The sources of error/bias included in the choice of interpolation routines, projection methods never mind the likely errors in experimental setup, are very large. No one ever tries to run the same estimates using a range of techniques and a randomly sampled control population. Surely, good science starts with this – an attempt to determine sensitivity to all the aforementioned sources of error.
Even when they use a technique such as BEST did (i.e. Kriging) that gives an estimate of confidence at each girdded temperature value they don’t even use/report these estimates.
I have come to the conclusion that half of the people here are nuts and that includes people on both sides of the AGW debate.
Peter
Too much emotion, which probably goes to explain the lack of proportion when dealing with these type of data.
AFAICT, all of the skeptics here are nuts, except for MattStat.
Nobody on the other side of the debate is nuts. Mistaking Fan for a nutcase obscures his ability to fan the flames of a skeptic’s inner rage.
I occasionally make an appearance to mention peak oil and watch as everyone gets huffy.
This place is really just a beehive. You have a beekeeper that collects bits of info and occasionally gets out the bee smoker, but otherwise it is just us realists throwing rocks and getting the bees into an agitated frenzy.
“all of the skeptics here are nuts”
Maybe, but we are all sane in an infinite number of multiverses. :P
Andrew
“all of the skeptics here are nuts”
It’s a projection
Oh, I get it. A projection, like in a mirror.
So I will read it backwards then:
“all of the nuts here are skeptics”
It still makes sense.
Webby’s contributions are always so scientific and deeply thoughtful. Chief is at least interesting and has good references to the literature. Webby, your role here is like that of a mosquito. You have nothiing to offer that is not totally parasitic on people like Chief.
Regarding the fact-checking of contributions to this blog commenting area.
It’s actually more like editing a Wikipedia entry, but you can’t delete anything. So the only way to combat the crackpot theorizing is to be annoying as a gnat.
You and the chief have crackpot theories that suggest that internal fluctuations will obscure external forcing. And this is extended into , assertions that climate scientists do not know what they are doing.
Webby, I have no crackpot theories. Can you cite one instance? You are not only brain dead, but your memory is also going. My theory is that we simply don’t know with any certainty things like climate sensitivity and climate models are rather hopeless. I have a rigorous basis for these views. You think rigor is something that effects the dead or in your case the brain dead.
DY says:
Thanks for the quote, I will add it to the climate clowns page.
A radiative imbalance will heat the earth. That is a climate model which is as true as the sun coming up every day, but you say it is hopeless. You will just have to get over yourself and admit that you are wrong.
This is also a good quote. I guess you are in direct competition with Raymond Pierrehumbert or David Archer or some of the other geophysicists who write books on the subject and maintain detailed radiative transform models. And you accomplish all this rigor by commenting on a blog.
I can suggest someone that you can try to emulate. I ran across a scientist by the name of Clive Best, who has recently been working on deriving much of climate physics from first principles on his blog site:
http://clivebest.com/blog/
Web, Have you not read all my previous posts here. People who I respect seem to respect me, such as Andy Lacis and James Annan, even though we disagree. You are just someone who is a little obsessive about skeptics and is going over the edge. Try reading up on my past posts, it will help you recover from your mental issues.
Oh yea, I will search out FOO Young all over the blogosphere as he imparts his wisdom on blog comments sections.
I know, real research eludes you as your information about me is wrong, based on your never visited so-called web site. But hey, it would be the first time the mighty Webby was wrong!! Don’t get caught in moderation by being yourself. I know its a status you like to frequent. I would recommend the thread about Lindzen’s testimony to the House of Commons.
Web
You seem a little obsessed with oil. We’ve been listening to the peak oil argument for decades and the only predictable thing about it is that it keeps getting pushed back. The argument for peak oil was made with the important caveats of “given current knowledge and technology…”.
And if we’re all so nuts why bother trying to converse surely only the stupid spend time debating with the mad. So either they aren’t nuts or you’re stupid. Which do you prefer?
See what I mean?
About getting all huffy, that is.
cd
the critical issue of “peak oil” is not the “date” of the peak, but the the plateauing and maxing of oil production rate in each given region with subsequent decline in production. Then look at the cumulative global picture especially of oil imports vs exports.
See James Hamilton Oil Prices, Exhaustible Resources, and Economic Growth.
Note especially how each state or couple state region has peaked except ND-MT.
Correspondingly look at the countries that have peaked.
Web
Good, well structured arguments there.
David
Firstly, the peak oil cannot be determined by price.
Secondly, oil production does not map to reserves.
Thirdly, reserves do not map with resources: reserves/resources changes with economics and technology.
Price is determined by demand and capacity. OPEC for example will often manipulate it in order to stabilise the relationship between production and demand.
Oil production is determined by economics. When the price is low the fruit on the lowest branches are picked. When price goes up, more challenging reservoirs can be exploited at a profit. The effect of this is that innovation often occurs during such periods, thus lowering cost over time with the result that these, once marginal reservoirs, become very much economic under most economic conditions. This feeds into the third point, where reserves/resources increase during such times. You can see this with the increasing exploitation of non-conventional reservoirs.
Finally, small independent operators redevelop fields often abandoned by major operators. This will continue so fields once considered spent (often with only 40% of recovery) can still produce and do.
Last I heard, excess CO2 comes from fossil fuel.
Also it seems to me that we are dealing with systems, which encompass the earth and man’s relationship to it.
Oil production maps to reserves through the R/P ratio (reserve to production ratio), The inverse of this is the proportional extraction rate which has remained between 3% and 6% for years. As predicted by peak oil the extraction rate is going up.
This is your lucky day because the other day I put the full explanation here :
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/9854#comments_top
Peak Oil is the name given to the process where we gradually move away from fossil fuels to alternative or renewable sources of energy.
This is something that we will have to deal with, as we are finding that the remaining lower grade oil reserves, such as Bakken shale, have outrageously high decline rates. This leads to a red queen race of running as fast as we can to stay in place.
Web
Last I heard, excess CO2 comes from fossil fuel.
Also it seems to me that we are dealing with systems, which encompass the earth and man’s relationship to it.
Who cares? If you do then stop using electricity.
Oil production maps to reserves through the R/P ratio (reserve to production ratio)
As I explained to you reserves are not static they go up and down based on the price. This in turn is determined by price.
CD said,
It seems that you are getting flustered.
You are really getting flustered, starting to talk in circles I see. I understand, thinking about this stuff does drive one a bit loopy, as there are no clear-cut answers.
In any case, I think you are hinting at how elasticity and inelasticity WRT price against supply and demand comes into play. There is an interesting phenomenon called “demand destruction” that is happening right now. Human behavior is not always easy to predict.
Apparently people are concerned about the price of gasoline and heating oil, and have some interest in how much energy and money it will take to extract the residue from the bottom of the barrel. They may go to alternative or renewable sources of energy when the price gets too high.
cd,
Shhhhh!!!!!! The AGW believers are hunting rabbits.
lurker, formerly known as Hunter has a strange obsession with hunting .
Neither FOMBS and weeby have much of an abiity to discuss science. Both have such a limited range – and webby is reduced to the irrelevant.
I have yet to see something from him that is both right and non trivial.
http://judithcurry.com/2013/02/22/spinning-the-climate-model-observation-comparison/#comment-298710
The sun has never been as active as in the 20th century in the last 200 years as shown:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/sidc-ssn/mean:1056/normalise/plot/hadcrut3vgl/mean:732/from:1895/to:1960/normalise
The above data also shows the linear correlation between sun spot count and the smoothed global mean temperature.
It is the SUN that caused the observed global warming and the sea level rise.
To blame CO2 instead of the SUN is a SPIN.
The most important result is the linear relationship between the smoothed global mean surface temperature and the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere shown here:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/mean:732/normalise/plot/esrl-co2/compress:12/normalise/offset:0.65
This result gives a climate sensitivity of 1.6 deg C for doubling of CO2 by 280 ppm.
Are you terminally stupid Girma or doing this bad science intentionally? Earlier, you claimed that excess CO2 is due to temperature increase and now you show a curve relating the two.
Partial pressure calculator
A doubling of CO2 partial pressure for a 1.6 C temperature increase, puts the CO2 activation energy at a whopping 3 eV !!!! That is physically impossible for the phase change latent energy of CO2 in water !!! It’s more like 0.2 to 0.3 eV.
None of your skeptic buddies gang up on you because you are obviously too valuable as a FUD stooge, out there to clutter the radar with all the FOO you can muster.
And the ones that might, like StefTheDenier and Myrrh and Cotton are even crazier Aussie wombats than yourself.
Welcome to the circus that Climate Etc has become.
Wombles are quite fun – unlike maladjusted Minnesotans.
Chief, Girma, StefTheDenier, Myrrh, Capt. Kangaroo, Doug Cotton, Sideshow Bob Ellison,
I have to say that you are quite the grouping of Ausholes.
And I always picture Sideshow Bob as a skinhead romper-stomper sort.
Russell Crowe could play him, minus the charm.
Perhaps Sideshow Bob is copyright – other than that feel free to repeat ad nauseum your Minnestoan musings. I bet you just crack yourself up again and again. Yes we know it’s quiet in Minnesota in February. Only The wind howling and the snow blowing into drift – testicular torsion – seasonal affective disorder. Is it really -2 degrees C today? You really need some global warming. I think it is probably 29 degrees C here today. Do you think that is the reason you are so dumb? Brain freeze. Whatever. You see I don’t really give a rat’s arse about you. I think your balls will freeze off before warming starts again for a dumb Minnisotan like you. But keep going with your blog no one reads on a topic non one cares about – and we will do our bit by laughing at you.
The problem with that logic Chief, is that you have never done anything or will ever do anything for anybody to laugh at, except to comment in some tepid backwater blog where you try to bull-rush opponents using your sock-puppets as imaginary members of your romper-stomper gang. And you fail miserably even at that.
The problem with that logic webby is that it lacks any logic at all. Your the one providing all the amusement. Loser blog – check. Weird math – check. Claims that all your commenters are called ‘the professor’ and it’s not the same madman over and over again – weird but check. Wasting years on a topic that matters not at all and no one cares about – check. Lives in Minnesota – check. No it’s not me – you are in fact screamingly funny.
This is how ignorant Chief is. On my blog, commenters need to have a handle to sign in, and I chose to fill in the commenting template with an appellation before their name. So I chose professor. When somebody comments with the handle Hound Dog, its kind of cute to see Professor Hound Dog.
But Chief got very confused when he ventured over there and noticed that the Professors had all been deleted! It looked like I was stifling dissent!
But he was visiting the wrong blog!
This was my old blog:
http://mobjectivist.blogspot.com/2011/01/oil-conundrum.html#comments
And this was my new one without the professor appelation
http://theoilconundrum.blogspot.com/2013/01/field-guide-to-climate-clowns.html
The powers of motivated reasoning are very strong in the hands of an incompetent stooge such as the Chief !
Loser blog(s) – check…
WHT
“Peak oil” used to mean we were soon going to run out of (whale) oil, because the whales would be dying out.
Times change, Webby.
So does technology.
Since all fossil fuels are fully interchangeable with today’s technology, we should talk about “peak fossil fuels” instead.
It’s real, and at current usage rates and WEC 2010 estimate on remaining inferred fossil fuel resources, it will hit us in 300 years or so .
At accelerated rates (matching expected population growth plus an increase in per capita use), this could occur in 150-200 years.
Technology already exists to replace a major portion of the fossil fuel use (electrical power generation) to nuclear at no premium cost.
There is no doubt in my mind that long before we run out of fossil fuels, there will be competitive new technologies to do the same for transportation fuels.
But, hey, if you want to worry about “peak oil”, go right ahead. If this “worrying” can actually lead to an acceleration in the development of new technology to eventually replace fossil fuels, great!
But I’m not going to worry. There are too many REAL things to worry about.
Max
Maxine, So why are you here?
Switzerland has no fossil fuels to speak of.
Being in Switzerland, you have no control over USA policy nor EU policy nor OPEC policy.
Yet you claim to know that the world won’t expend enormous amounts of energy and water to gain a marginal rate of return on low-grade fossil fuels. That’s what an energy pyramid looks like. The base of the pyramid is huge and we will burn ourselves into oblivion if we ever use the bulk to bootstrap the process. You are supposedly a chemical engineer, and so obviously understand process bootstrapping and catalysis.
As far as I can tell you bring nothing to the table. It is actually the inverse of insight that you provide us. We read what you write, and imagine the opposite as the true picture.
WHT
Your last babble did not enlighten.
“Switzerland has no fossil fuels to speak of”. Duh!
Since I am in Switzerland I “have no control over USA policy nor EU policy nor OPEC policy”. Duh!
Now as far as “spending enormous amounts of energy and water to gain a marginal return on low-grade fossil fuels”, I suspect that neither you nor I know more about this than the companies that are engaged in doing so.
Those making the decisions for these companies are not blinded by political motivation or ideology – they simply want to generate profit for their shareholders.
As a result, your dire prophesies that “we will burn ourselves into oblivion if we ever use the bulk to bootstrap the process” leave me unimpressed, Webby.
We have economically viable alternates for the bulk of the fossil fuel load and plenty of time to develop alternates for the rest before they run out.
And there aren’t enough fossil fuels left to cause any serious warming of our planet, even if we really did use them all up 100%.
Rejoice, Webby!
There is no real problem.
Both “peak fossil fuels” and “CAGW” are imaginary hobgoblins.
Max
Max Factor puts the lip gloss on and pronounces the outlook as very pretty.
We are scraping the bottom of the barrel here with Bakken oil rigs that pump for barely a couple of years. That’s what you get from diffusional flow through cracks and crevices on the fractured shale.
This is our future yet the ridiculous cornucopian gits like Max Anacker put on their very pretty rose colored glasses and suggest a future all hunky-dory.
I also see hope but know enough to put the hours in to affect change in the proper direction.
It’s techno-optimists vs malthusian doomsayers. Not even a sporting contest.
=============
I used to think I was a sylvan fundamentalist – but it turns out that was just a way to get girls to take their clothes off.
I am beginning to wonder who the ‘we’ is.
I think he wants the government to make us stop using it so we don’t run out. Very commendable thrift.
WHT
Here is where your logic on the economic cost/benefit picture of shale oil/gas falls apart.
Oil and gas companies are putting their money on the line (instead of only their mouth, as you do) by investing heavily in this potential new source of energy.
I can only conclude that these guys know more about what is going on than you do, Webby.
Sorry ’bout that, but that’s the way it is.
Max
OF course they know more than I do. After all, it is a cutthroat business. That explains why you don’t find the decline curves described. But the state of NoDak puts the numbers out and anybody with a spreadsheet can chart the progress.
I know diffusion inside and out and the flow is exactly analagous to a dopant diffusion profile in a silicon chip.
Why would nature not obey the laws of physics? Flow does not
listen to economists. That much is certain.
Webby
Doomsday predictions (whether these are based on Mayan Calendar numerology, “peak oil” leading to darkness, AGW leading to disastrous warming, extreme weather and extinctions, etc.) all have one thing in common.
THEY NEVER REALLY HAPPEN
(Or we would not be here today.)
Beware the doomsday predictor that wants you to pay a tax or penance or “change your sinful lifestyle” by giving something up.
More likely than not, he is a snake oil salesman wanting to get his grubby mitts into your wallet.
If this is a politician, the alarm signals should go off double-time (Mencken).
I have shown you with actual data from reliable sources that:
– “peak fossil fuels” is not an imminent danger
– AGW from human fossil fuel combustion is constrained to a couple of degrees C maximum theoretical warming over a few hundred years time, so also nothing to get worried about.
But, hey, Webby, if you want to revel in your worries about impending disaster from whatever doomsday scenario you can conjure up, be my guest. Enjoy your misery.
Just don’t expect me to join in. I’ve got better things to do.
Max
.
webby has spent years making entries on a blog that no one reads on a subject that no one much cares about on the basis of power laws that are pure fantasy. There are many tragi-comic stories on the interweb – this is one of the funniest.
Max and Chief,
You neo-Luddites are just going to have to get over yourselves.
Nature is going to do what nature is going to do, and I enjoy characterizing the physical processes. You appear to be the ones that are going down the rabbit-hole looking for boogeymen.
Max and Chief. Max and Chief. What do you know, it’s the Get Smart imbecile twins.
“Missed it by that much”. “Sorry about that Chief”
Anyone mistake this for wit? Didn’t think so. Redefining Luddite as somone who is in favour of technological innovation is a bit odd though.
Chief,
That’s what the prefix “neo-” is intended for. Good gawd, you are really so childishly naive when it comes to politics. It is clear that you are ineptly trying to impede technological progress with your continuous gibberish, and that’s why you get the “neo-Luddite” tag.
So is this an example of Orwellian newspeak? Put a neo in front of it and it means exactly the opposite of what it once meant? Doesn’t work that way webby. And I am very much in favour of new technologies providing cheaper and more abundant energy – and even prefer low carbon sources. You are just peddling up the wrong mountain again and making a bigger idiot of yourself than you already have.
Given the fact that Sissies (which is what my android substitutes for Aussies) are not familiar with the term neocon or neo-conservative -, I will let that pass.
So a neo-con is actually a pissant progressive? You have an ongoing problem with using language with any precision at all. Try actually thinking before pushing the send button.
In American politics, a “neo-Con” is often a liberal or progressive who takes on certain conservative policies, such as acts of warmongering, in order to advance a specific agenda. It also includes Republicans who take what some people consider non-conservative stances on certain issues. The war in Iraq was engineered by mainly by neo-Cons. The neocons are so widespread that this is actually the new conservatism.
So a neo-Luddite by analogy is one who uses the cover of a technologist to wage war against any kind of green technology and to retain a BAU philosophy in times of declining natural resources. The neo-Luddites are the new Luddites.
WHT, ‘neo Luddites … using the cover of technology to wage
war against any kind of green technology,’ yer say?
Inter-mittant, in-efficient green technologies like Solar that don’t
work when the sun don’t shine?And wind technology the don’t
work when the wind:
(a) don’t blow
(b) blows too hard
(c) blows too gently,
Now that’s what I call a neo-con.
Beth – against – Orwell-ian – neo – termin – ology.
Webby
Now that we are handing out names (like “neo-luddite” for the Chief and me)…
Just trying to figure out whether you are a “neo-phobe”, but then realized you are probably more of a “paleo-phobe”, as it appears from your remarks here that you are no longer the youngest.
Your anxiety of running out of fossil fuels (petroleopenuriaphobia) but, at the same time, your phobia of thermageddon resulting from human CO2 emissions from that limited supply of remaining fossil fuels (anthropothermoapocalyptophobia) must present you with quite a dilemma.
Two mutually excusive phobias and the uncertainty of which one to fret about must be extremely frustrating.
Max
Max,
If’n i still had the franchise fer plus ones, I’d award yer one fer ‘petroleopenuriaphobia’ lol.I can however present yew with a ‘supercalifragilisticexpiailidocious’ award.
Beth
Under the linden
Way behind windin’
Arrays a glisten
Gonna need fixin’.
==========
Beth
Thanks fer yer award.
Us serfs gotta stick t’gether thru meter high droughts (of th’ wet kind) er eyeball-high drifts of an-thro-po-gen-ic warmin’ (of the cold an’ white kind).
Wher’s them corn-puter models when we needs ’em most?
Yore shiverin’, snow-shuvlin’ feller surf,
Max
Maxwell Dumb,
Ever heard of a technocrat ?
King Hubbert was one. He was the first guy to model and project a peak in oil consumption back in the 1950’s. He nailed the date for the USA and was within geological range for the world. While doing this, he believed that nations should plan for expanding nuclear energy capabilities in anticipation of this inevitability. That was the basis of the technocracy movement, which was all about planning an economy around the technical and economic value of energy.
But Max, since you have never been involved in any industrial or commercial business, you obviously have no awareness of actually having a business plan for maintaining future growth and providing for risk mitigation strategies.
You have really have to get over yourself, Max.
Max @ 2:23 just above, I hope.
There are phenomena brightly outlined, and focussed upon. He is a wonderful exemplar, shall we say ‘extreme’, of a very common type, who hold both fears without any comprehension that they have some degree of mutual exclusivity. They are ‘Fears’, and reason rolls down Sisyphus Hill.
It doesn’t matter the contradictory voices, the irrationality makes the transition to the imposition, and assumption, of guilt quite facile.
It’s all backwards, of course. Warmer sustains more total life and more diversity of life. Lilacs bloom, aspen quiver, cold soomer, humans shiver.
========================
Webby
You ask:
Well, as the story goes, back during the Depression there actually was a political party, that called itself the “technocrat” party.
So we have this scene.
A census taker has rung the doorbell and Mike answers the door.
After getting all the relevant info from Mike, also about his roommate, Sam, the census taker asks about their political party affiliation.
Mike gives him his (he’s a “technocrat”) and then hollers back to Sam, who is in the bathroom:
Mike (hollering back from the door): Sam, are you a technocrat?
Voice from inside: Naw. Just washin’ my face.
Max
Gee Web Hub. I don’t wish ter be critical of telescopes, devices
fer lookin’at the starry firmament enablin’ us little human beans
the means ter expand our horizons, But, WHT, yer seem so mean
spirited fer one who gazes at the heavens… I dunno (
These alarmists crying wolf just don’t seem to be having any fun. The villagers have arrived and are laughing at them.
=============
It seems clear to me that as a group, alarmists are sullen, humorless, and angry. Especially angry, an emotion that any armchair psychologist can tell you is very often defensive in nature. Which is to say, it’s easier to feel anger than shame (about being wrong), and easier to feel anger than fear (about being wrong), and easier to feel anger than confusion (when heretofore cherished beliefs are suddenly called into doubt.)
It’s hard for me to think of a regular alarmist poster who shows anything like the humor and warmth that often characterize skeptical commenters.
How many would enjoy having a beer with Joshua? WHT? FOMD? The list is long dreary.
*and* dreary.
pokerguy
Is this guy having fun?
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3256/3161773578_f697dc7b76_b.jpg
Max
PS Is it Joshua? Or lolwot? Probably not Webby (not grim enough).
Max, Lol. I think it’s Joshua. Can’t be easy, trying to convince idiotic skeptics like us that the end is nigh. Clearly we’re all having too much fun fiddling while the planet’s burning. (Except for the last 16 years and counting of course.)
Odd that a guy named pokerguy would not be familiar with the concept of the pokerface.
I am counting cards while pokerguy is trying to interpret facial tics.
Webby
Ah jest looked at the Queen of Hearts an she wuz smilin at me.
(Even gimme a wink!)
Max
Sing Hi!
Sing low.
What’s shy,
In his bow?
======
Web,
Pretty good joke for one belonging to the generally humorless class of people known as warmists. In fairness, it can’t be easy holding the fate of the planet in your hands. Who has time for humor under such a grim circumstance
Max this
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3256/3161773578_f697dc7b76_b.jpg
might be more accurate now if the guy was standin’ on his head
and the mouse tail droopin’- .. not that this is somethin’ ter wish fer,
as Kim says, warm is good fer the homo sapien species and
probably fer mice as well.
Beth.
I nailed all four railroads, Park Place, and Boardwalk so I have a big stash of it. Let me send you some of it.
===================
Dang, that one disappeared as I was responding to it. Probably for the best.
=============
kim
Go to Jail.
Do NOT pass “GO”.
Do NOT collect $200.
(Sorry ’bout that.)
Max
I’ve been collecting Get Out of Jail cards. Nyah, nyah, a boo boo.
=================
Averaging global temperatures, as Tony and Verity show, jest
doesn’t reveal the compluh – compluh – compluh-cated
game of weather variation and the pesky climate changin’.
Why, if temperatures are high at Kings Cross Station or
Park Lane, up north its likely freezin’ or experiencin’ heavy rain.
We got regional coolin’ here in Oz in Melbourne town today,
it may be jest as cool tomorrer here as well, no one can tell
fer sure, seems its regional variation ‘cross the board, maybe
all the way down as well, say …what’s happening in yore part
of the global – board-game to – day?
Staying on topic model-observation comparison for spatio-temporal dynamical systems and, hopefully, answering some coments following my last post above.
1) Any comparison implies a norm, a distance. That’s why talking about comparisons without mentionning the norm used is just meaningless.
2) A numerical solution of spatio-temporal dynamics involves always solving some system of PDE (partial differential equations). The solutions are fields, a set of functions Fi(x,y,z,t). So now how can I measure that my numerical FNi(x,y,z,t) has converged to experimental FE(x,y,z,t) ?
A short and easily readable answer in the case of CFD (computational fluid dynamics) is here : http://support.esi-cfd.com/esi-users/convergence/
Notice the sentence : “CFD-ACE sums the absolute value of this error over all the cells in the simulation and presents that information for each variable for each iteration in the residual file.”
This means that we approximate over a finite spatial grid ∫ [Fi(x,y,z,t) – Gi(x,y,z,t)]².dV
And it is not arbitrary – the space of the solutions is the Hilbert space of functions with certain properties equipped with the classical norm
∫ f.g.dV.
A rigorous introduction to the correct mathematical handling of the Hilbert space of Navier Stokes solutions can be read here (readable only with a minimum advanced math knowledge) :http://www.math.colostate.edu/~pauld/M646/PreNS.pdf
3) The technical explanations may be difficult but the purpose can be intuitively understood quite easily. Any numerical handling uses a spatial grid and a time step. So for a given time there will be a difference between the computed solution and the measured variable in every spatial cell. This is the spatial variability. To get an idea how far the numerical values are from the experimental ones, you have to sum the absolute (or squared) differences over all cells. So what you are doing is an integral over the space and note that here nothing averages out – being too low here is not compensated by being too high there.
Take home the conclusion that if you want to know how far your numerical model of a spatio-temporal system is from the reality and are serious about it, then you have to do exactly that. Anything less and what you say is irrelevant at best and wrong at worst.
4)
Climate or weather are spatio temporal dynamical systems and everything said above applies mutatis mutandis to weather/climate too.
The difference between the “simple” Navier Stokes problems and the climate is that the number of fields in climate is huge and their coupling is strong.
That’s why you have to do the exercice of spatial convergence for every single field and then sum over all fields.
It is not enough to get f.ex temperatures more or less right if you have made a hopeless garbage of cloudiness, pressure or precipitation.
The situation is even worse if a class of models gets cloudiness right and pressure wrong while another gets pressure right but cloudiness wrong.
In this situation (which is the state of GCMs today) you may be pretty sure that your understanding of the real system’s dynamics is poor to stay polite.
5)
If you have read and understood the above points, you will clearly understand why all those pseudo analysis of “global” averages (like temperatures) are totally irrelevant for about everything.
Just imagine a scientist who would try to publish a Navier Stokes paper where he claims having understood and modelised the Rayleigh Benard flow and uses as argument a fit between modelised and measured spatial averages of the velocity field. The “paper” would of course not pass review but the person would become a laughing stock of the fluid dynamics community as the “guy who thought that he can neglect spatial variability”.
Yet this irrelevant approach is quite current in many climate “papers”.
Personnaly I will take all this seriously only the day when I will read a paper properly analyzing the spatial distribution and variability of ALL relevant climatic fields.
But I don’t expect it anytime soon.
Tomas, We are so cowering in fear by your pronouncements.
Not really. Scientists use symmetry and approximations every day to make problems tractable. I think it is you that is a laughing stock.
Get a grip man. We are so over you and your ilk.
Web
Get a grip man
You make terse unqualified comments with unsupported waffle:
Scientists use symmetry and approximations every day to make problems tractable.
Why don’t you point to one of the silly things he is supposed to have said and how your point relates to it.
No? You can’t? You’re a vacuous little troll – qualification? It’s an implicit quality of your posts (e.g. quote above).
cd
Where is the heat supposed to come from?
The deep ocean?
In the new all singing all dancing version – H/t to the Chief and the many who workshopped this idea – of the simple global energy budget –
d(W&H)/dt = power in – power out
Where W&H is work and heat. Dangnabit – it has to be one of those terms. I’d have a good hard look at albedo – but what the hell – I’m jest a lonesome cowboy on a blue horse.
Shibboleth – and mosh – blame the unicorn. http://s1114.photobucket.com/albums/k538/Chief_Hydrologist/?action=view¤t=unicorn-1.png
WHT
Not yet, Webby.
According to IPCC ya gotta wait for “climate-carbon cycle coupling” to kick in:
Or, hey, maybe all that energy that’s hiding in the ocean (i.e. in Hansen’s computer-generated “pipeline”) will rush out and fry us.
Real scary stuff.
Max
Webster, “Where is the heat supposed to come from?
The deep ocean?”
It is not so much where it comes from, but where it goes and how fast. The sun shines all the time and there is always more than enough energy to warm. It would all depend on the albedo distribution and rates of mixing. It is kind of a four dimensional problem.
As Chief notes, d(W+H)/dt is a basic relationship, d(Wocean +Hocean)/dt(ocean)+d(Watmos+Hatmos)/dt(atmos) = Ein-Eout is a little more descriptive. One man’s H is another man’s entropy though. Oceans likely have a different time constant. I think Stephens et al budget pegged the surface uncertainty at +/- 17 Wm-2. That might have something to do with clouds or maybe a minor math error. 20 Wm-2 math errors seem to be pretty common in climate science.
I define the RH terms as Jules/s as it emerges in the derivative – please don’t confuse him further. I quite agree that energy in and energy out is more descriptive but energy has certain dimensions and power others – crunch – does not compute.
You two Captains Courageous are so stuck in your trick box that you will never get out.
The trick box is that we have global warming with a natural fluctuation on top of that warming. The global warming may be 1 to 3 C over time, with an extra fluctuation that is unknown and unknowable according to you two, and the genius-boy Tomas.
I asked about the origin of that natural fluctuating heat rather sarcastically, because you may not want too much of it. So say it was an extra +/- 1C peak-to-peak. That means the global warming may rise more than the 1 to 3 C, and instead it may hit peaks of 2 to 4 C above the historical global average.
Or say that your fluctuation was +/- 2C, then the peaks will be 3 to 5C.
Do you understand your trick box now? You are adding noise that not only will exacerbate global warming quasi-periodically, but that could also set off stochastic resonances due to positive feedback from albedo changes etc.
What does that mean? It means you are feeding Curry’s Uncertainty Monster. You guys are the neo-Doomers, not me. I am not the one that is saying that the climate could undergo huge shifts on its own, it is you guys that are saying it with your spatio-temporal chaos arguments
I only know that the ocean is not a source of extra heat, but is definitely a heat sink. The natural fluctuations are cooling periods caused by cold water upwelling interspersed with normal SST periods. I can’t imagine that the ocean will burp out a huge stimulus of heat (i.e. where does the heat come from??? I sarcastically asked), but you seem to suggest it is possible. Which is totally like wild, dude. What do you have down there, fire-breathing demons?
I am taking a conservative approach and seeking to understand from the mainstream climate science literature how the excess atmospheric CO2 generates a net radiative imbalance that will show up as a more predictable temperature rise.
All that albedo stuff and Clausius-Clapeyron activation is positive feedback with increasing temperature, so it only gets you deeper in a trick box.
And you still can’t explain the 33 C discrepancy.
I really can’t stand you neo-Doomers.
Which part of non-stationary and non-Gaussian doesn’t he understand? Oh right – all of it.
If I said I was a climate catastrophist in the sense of René Thom – would he hold it against me? I am not coming out – it’s just never been a secret.
Energy out has an emission component which changes a little and a reflectance component that changes big time. Yesterday he had a paper he was lauding which involved small changes in insolation leading to large change in ice volumes. How can he still not get it?
Webster, “I only know that the ocean is not a source of extra heat, but is definitely a heat sink. The natural fluctuations are cooling periods caused by cold water upwelling interspersed with normal SST periods. I can’t imagine that the ocean will burp out a huge stimulus of heat (i.e. where does the heat come from???”
There is always some cold water upwelling. It is the rates and locations that change. Since the time for total ocean mixing is roughly 1700 years, you should need to consider that time for natural variations to completely equal out or about 300 years for most of the variation to equal out. It is just two different time constants Web. There is no magic involve. Just on the order of 10^26 Joules versus 10^22 Joules. Remember that deep ocean mixing is driven by sea ice formation (coldest most dense sinking water) which is only on the order 10^22 Joules of energy per year.
Even though Chief doesn’t like me using it, entropy increases with temperature, the H. So Ein only equals Eout for a portion of the 1700 years.
The fun part is what effect mixing efficiency? Tides, surface winds and general energy imbalances. No heat is required, just changing energy differentials.
captain and toe-nail,
The concept of entropy reduces the possibility that heat can spontaneously build into a spatially concentrated form at which time it can then burp out a warming thermal signal. The discipline of statistical mechanics was partly devised to illustrate how heat tends to disperse in a volume, subject to the energy constraints and boundary conditions of the system.
The concept of AGW GHG does not violate this principle, because humans have released long-stored concentrated energy in the form of buried fossil fuels, which when combusted into GHGs then change the boundary conditions of the system, allowing the earth’s temperature to rise. As far as the system is concerned, the excess CO2 is an external stimulus, Same goes for any albedo changes that happen, as an external stimulus is driving the changes.
Climate science is open to people that have some knowledge of physics, of which you two are woefully unprepared to deal with.
No, they only reveal the possible energy states of the system, in line with the physical principles that Boltzmann elucidated long ago. Low energy states are common, and high energy states are less common. The idea of a partition function works at whatever scale you want to apply them to. It is no wonder that the empirical form of wind speed distribution, the Rayleigh function, also happens to be a maximum entropy principle formulation.
You two couldn’t derive that formulation if your life depended on it.
I know a fella who predicts eclipses from his own observations. Granted, he had foreknowledge of the formula and method. He doesn’t know it, nor do you, but we are tiptoeing along the edge of a deep -8 degree C crevass.
================
Webster, “The concept of entropy reduces the possibility that heat can spontaneously build into a spatially concentrated form at which time it can then burp out a warming thermal signal.”
You mean something like sudden stratospheric warming events, deep convection and blogs of energy like a lava lamp? You know, if CO2 actually added sufficient thermal mass to the atmosphere to contain the added energy it can “trap”. stuff like that might not happen.
Maximum entropy doesn’t strictly apply in non-equilibrium systems such as climate. It is the departures from equilibrium that are of most inerest. It is really the difference in energy balance at top of atmosphere that drives climate but this is modified by internal processes of biology, deology, ice, snow, cloud, etc. Think blue-green planet revolving and evolving.
‘Even an elementary description of Earth’s climate system must deal with the fact that it is composed of the above subsystems all interconnected and open, allowing fluxes of mass, energy and momentum from and to each other (see Figure 1). Since the Earth itself is a closed system, these fluxes eventually cycle through, so that outputs re-enter the system to become inputs, creating feedbacks and feedback chains. Eventually, each subsystem affects the response of every other subsystem and of the climate as a whole. It is this cross talk among the different parts of the climate that engenders the disproportionate relations between input and output typical of a nonlinear system. The phrase ‘the whole is more than the sum of its parts’ underscores the failure of the principle of superposition in a nonlinear system such as the climate.’ Rial et al 2004 – NONLINEARITIES, FEEDBACKS AND CRITICAL THRESHOLDS
WITHIN THE EARTH’S CLIMATE SYSTEM
Frankly webby more interested in being abusive and self aggrandising at the same time than understanding climate science. It is quite unfortunate as it disrupts the proper modes of discourse.
actually what the Chief produces is entropy.
Believe it or not, these skeptical climate science blogs are indexed by Google Scholar, so who knows how many of the Chief’s baseless assertions get added to the collective knowledgebase. The geniuses at Google must think that since these kinds of blogs win best science blog awards that they must be credible.
So now when one looks up some citation, you can find out all sorts of nonsense because they don’t strip out the comments.
That is entropy, disorder as opposed to order. Intentional FUD propagated to disrupt rational discussion.
Lots of serious papers on this topic recently. The Chief is a major FOO slinger, and one that would make a good case study for contributing to the devaluation of a once promising medium.
WebHubTelescope is still claiming people at Google specifically choose whether or not this site gets indexed (and in what fashion). Isn’t that the type of thinking that gets skeptics called conspiracy theorists?
You’d think he’d have learned from when he claimed the comments here were intentionally ignored by Google because of the quality of comments, only to have it proved the reason was the site was configured in a way that told Google not to do it. Oh well. I guess there are loons on every side.
Bs
This is Google Scholar I am referring to , not ordinary Google.
Scientific researchers are moving to Scholar in addition to other free sites at the expense of traditional fee-based ones such as Reuters Web of Science.
These are journals and books that are indexed, which have typically gone through some sort of review process.
When garbage like the stuff that shows up on WUWT and C.E. starts polluting the search indices of scholarly databases we all tend to suffer.
It’s clear that you have misunderstood my concern, which I shouldn’t really find surprising. Brandon Shollenberger has several citations on Google Scholar, all having to do with a free-for-all blog called Climate Etc
My own commenting handle has a dozen that point to the same. I am certainly happy that my professional name isn’t associated with these references as they hold to no scientific standards.
If you really want to read more on this issue, google an article called Shifting Sands by Hightower. She says that Scholar would be used more if it was of higher quality.
This is not a conspiracy, just an issue of quality standards.
WUWT is sucking us down a rathole.
Chief, “Maximum entropy doesn’t strictly apply in non-equilibrium systems such as climate. It is the departures from equilibrium that are of most interest. It is really the difference in energy balance at top of atmosphere that drives climate but this is modified by internal processes of biology, deology, ice, snow, cloud, etc. Think blue-green planet revolving and evolving.”
There are several groups that look like they are making pretty good progress with Maximum Energy Production (MEP) models. They consider quite a few layers and “boxes”, but MEP is just the path of least resistance.
You might find this interesting since it deals with the d(W+H)/dt :)
http://yly-mac.gps.caltech.edu/ReprintsYLY/N203Li_2007.pdf
Tomas, What you say is correct. I would add that in fact the proper norm for Navier-Stokes involves the derivatives of the variables as well, called the H1 norm. If the solution converges in the H1 norm, the numerical solutions also display the correct spatial averages. As you point out, the converse is not necessarily true, but yet the details of the dynamics are critical to getting the gross behaviour correct. And its the spatial details that can cause huge changes, such as ice ages. Webbies simple global energy balance methods are hopeless for this. They cannot explain the ice ages.
Webbie is a hard case. I do believe he does not read people’s posts but just lashes out. There is some personality problem lurking there. He also has little understanding of anything beyond the simplest math.
Simple is good.
Like Tomas,
I could have written a comment on the analytic intractability of the three-body problem, but that does not advance the yardstick.
Sad state of affairs when the nominees for best science blog go to places such as WUWT, where the stories revolve around how many women Willis Eschenbach has simultaneously infected. Willis is able to solve the 3-body problem, if you know what I mean, nudge, nudge
Seriously, this is the state of the skeptical rership. I am not part of the problem. Get yourself a mirror.
It is all FUD as far as I am concerned
, and this is just a soap opera to me.
The n-body problem has an analytical solution in the form of a convergent power series. The solutions converge to slowly to be of much use and the problem is solved numerically. Except that the motion of the bodes is apparently chaotic – it is not all that relevant.
Climate models have at their basis the nonlinear Navier-Stokes pde which are solved numerically. Analytic solutions simply don’t exist. For climate projections divergence of numerical solutions is an unexplored problem. Uncertainties in both climate data and in couplings cause solutions to diverge exponentially over time. http://s1114.photobucket.com/albums/k538/Chief_Hydrologist/?action=view¤t=sensitivedependence.gif
For a range of feasible inputs and couplings there is an arbitrary number of divergent solutions. It is not a matter of simplifying but of accepting that this is the case and assessing the range of solutions across systematically designed model families in terms of a probability density function.
This is certainly not something that is a deep dark mystery – or a sceptic meme.
‘Lorenz was able to show that even for a simple set of nonlinear equations (1.1), the evolution of the solution could be changed by minute perturbations to the initial conditions, in other words, beyond a certain forecast lead time, there is no longer a single, deterministic solution and hence all forecasts must be treated as probabilistic. The fractionally dimensioned space occupied by the trajectories of the solutions of these nonlinear equations became known as the Lorenz attractor (figure 1), which suggests that nonlinear systems, such as the atmosphere, may exhibit regime-like structures that are, although fully deterministic, subject to abrupt and seemingly random change.’ http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/369/1956/4751.full
It is simply the case that multiple solutions emerge from the calculations in a range that is yet to be explored.
Chaos in climate is something – webby introduced a paper that suggested that small initial changes in forcing caused large climate change. This is of course the definition of deterministic chaos. Lest I repeat myself – http://judithcurry.com/2013/02/22/spinning-the-climate-model-observation-comparison/#comment-298710
Simply armwaving about simplifications that might be possible in the future doesn’t really mean very much at all.
The royal “we” WHT? You can speak only for yourself.
Beth
Ah reckon he mus hav a mouse in his pocket.
Max
Webhub wrote
Scientists use symmetry and approximations every day to make problems tractable
What has my post to do with “symmetries” and “approximations” ?
Right, nothing.
So what are you babbling about?
Did you read the links ? That’s how we scientists do science.
I am afraid that you don’t understand and can’t understand anything even slightly going beyond additions.
Obviously this doesn’t prevent stupid, trollish posts which only show that you never read, let alone understand the issues.
The day there is an added value in your post will be a day when it will justify that Judith didn’t ban you yet.
Tomas, Your problem is that you can’t get your troops in order. The dynamic range of commenters on this blog is over the top. I am perfectly prepared to do the math, as are many others; one needn’t worry that competent engineers and scientists do manage to get airplanes in the air and prevent boats from sinking.
Yet, you will find commenters such as Girma and Edim who make a complete botch of anything closely related to science and all you and your compatriots do is sit around like villagers letting them get away with it. And then you come along with this screed and somehow manage to turn the place into an even greater impediment to scientific progress.
All problems are solved by making them tractable.
This is a huge circus. Is it so wrong to point this out and all its attendant hypocrisy?
What is she going to do? Give me an F on my report card? Give me a break, ha ha.
By the way, these aren’t “posts”. They are “comments”. When I write a “post”, I do it on my “blog”. And those eventually go into “papers” and “books”, which I have written and that you can look up. Read them and weep, as you have nothing to show for your efforts except empty screeds.
Is webby still here? Let me repeat myself – it must be OK – I am pretty sure I have heard this speil from this particular schumck before.
webby has spent years making entries on a blog that no one reads on a subject that no one much cares about on the basis of power laws that are pure fantasy. There are many tragi-comic stories on the interweb – webbies is one of the funniest.
Whenever the Chief Proctologist mentions math, he always seems to get it terribly wrong. He mentions that I work with “power laws that are pure fantasy”, yet in a comment right above, he claims an “analytical solution in the form of a convergent power series”.
http://judithcurry.com/2013/02/22/spinning-the-climate-model-observation-comparison/#comment-299069
So what is it? You either believe that you can use approximations such as Taylor’s series or you don’t.
Webby, You are so full of absolutely brain dead logic. Many mathematical techniques are valuable in some instances and not in others. Only the ignorant can overlook this fact that is taught to all undergraduates in mathematics. Just consider time marching techniques. Each has strengths and weaknesses. Backward differentiation methods are stable and are useful, but Runga Kutta methods mimick the stability properties of the Euler equations better. I don’t know what to do with you. You are just ignorant and even incapabile of seeing the most elementary distinction. Details and rigor matter Webby. Please, either educate yourself, or confine yourself to obsequent and irrelevant mild posts at Real Climate. You dare not contradict the climate scientists there because you risk humiliation in public. Here you dont’ seem to care and that shows why Judith should consider your value to here blog. Entertainment value only.
David Young,
You remind me of technical managers that have photographic memory when it comes to reciting buzz words but that would be hopeless if they actually had to come up with any ground-breaking research.
Once again, Webby, you are entertainment value only. Did you respond to the substance of my point? Of course not. You are shallow, incompetent and apparently failed undergraduate mathematics.
The generalised n-body problem is not so intractable as you mistakenly claim. But your power laws are pure fantasy. A two compartment carbon equation – an equation that uses ‘effective diffusion’ to calculate movement of heat from atmosphere to oceans – parameters that rely not on data but on fitting curves to purest fantasy. Overly simplistic and physically unrealistic nonsense. The two things are not comparable at all.
According to the Cripwell Criteria, there is no evidence of you having done anything of substance, therefore all we can conclude is that you are a non-entity.
Chief, I suppose you have done all this complicated math stuff …, like in your dreams, ha ha.
You can’t even get the units of power flux right, HA HA.
I document the atrocities because somebody has to.
You mean like 1 Watt =1 Joule/s? You are so weird.
It took you about two years to figure that one out. Your delusional powers are not strong enough to remove comments that provide the evidence of your mathematical incompetence.
What is really weird is that you think you own this place. Picture this — some Aussie yahoo camped out on a Georgia Tech blog trying to convince no in in particular of his neo-Malthusian fever dreams.
Only in radio land and the Murdoch faux news networks can right-wing blow-hards like yourself and Tomas and Old Mr. Young rightly claim that you can control the airwaves and what passes for objectivity.
Can’t happen here because you don’t own the airwaves, boo hoo.
Picture this – some redneck Minnesotan yeti thinking he can bluff and bluster his way out of any nonsense.
‘You can’t even get the units of power flux right, HA HA. ‘
1 Watt = 1 Joule/s
‘It took you about two years to figure that one out. Your delusional powers are not strong enough to remove comments that provide the evidence of your mathematical incompetence.’
The derivation is exceedingly difficult.
delta planetary work and heat = energy in – energy out
Now differentiate and try to get the units right. It is too difficult for webby and we all know how good he is at math – so it must be exceedingly hard to do.
He makes me feel like I have accidentally entered a weird bizzaro alternate universe. Planet of the Bigfeet. Because really I just keep seeing his foot in his mouth while he has his head in his arse – and he keeps talking. Or at any rate saying something that might make sense in a bizarro universe. Quite a party trick.
Neo-Multhusian. Using the same Orwellian logic as below – the neo means that I am not a Multhusian. Maybe in this context it means I am a Mathusian. Either way – I haven’t quite figured out what it means and will get back to you.
Apparently I have taken over an iconic American institutuion – climate etc. Seeing as I am now in charge there will be a few changes. I shall now be called General Skippy by everyone. I declare myself to be infallible. If wrong – we will retrospectively repeal physical laws so that I am right. I declare myself to be the most intelligent and attractive man on the blog – dissent will not be permitted. The musical theme for the blog will be Dragnet – dum de dum dum. Stay tuned for further instructions.
Chief said:
Commenting that it took you so long to get this right and only by a concerted effort by tutors such as myself did you finally correct it.
http://judithcurry.com/2012/01/31/climate-scenarios-2015-2050/#comment-164814
then here
http://judithcurry.com/2013/02/04/sensitivity-about-sensitivity/#comment-293980
I found those just by googling the incorrect formulation “dS/dt = Energy in – Energy out” of which there are dozens over the years, with me occasionally slipping in to try to correct you.
Now that you have it right, I guess it is your right to act like you never made the mistake. You think that it somehow protects your reputation as a deep thinker, but reality says that you have no reputation to defend. Spewing spew on the comments section of a blog is not the same thing as doing some original research that one can attach their name to. It is really about building up some credibility, and you have none.
Besides demonstrating your incompetence, it also reveals the sycophantic behavior of people like Old Mr. Young, whose agenda is never to attack people that are on his team, no matter that how ridiculously they have the science screwed up.
And yes, besides his neo-Luddite tendencies, the Chief is also a neo-Malthusian because he deep-down desires this planet to burn up, while putting on a front that he cares. Count the number of times he calls real climate scientists “pissant progressives” and “space cadets”. The chief is not in the least bit interested in trying to solve problems, while I will go out of my way in calling out doomers.
It as always right because I did the exceedingly difficult differentition correctly and defined the terms as average unit energy – J/s – which you continued to have a problem with until very recently it seems. Congrats.
Now – I am a little over such long winded whinges about how you are so unfairly treated. Don’t think it hasn’t been fun. But I am going away now – quite literally. Shibboloeth and I are headed for the Bulli Heritage Hotel for some R&R.
I suggest that you have a look at some science and come back when you have something substantive to say of a sciency nature and not simply complaints about Australians. Have a good day in Minnestota.
Have no idea what you said but it sounds like code for being shipped away to a loony bin.
Here is an excellent demonstration of why the IPCC got wrong its 0.2 deg C/decade warming for the next two decades.
http://bit.ly/13Wi8d9
The above result shows the recent warming of about 0.2 deg C/decade is the transient warming rate and the long-term warming rate is a smaller value of about 0.1 deg C per decade, which reduces IPCC’s climate sensitivity estimate by half to about 1.5 deg C.
If you analyze the data of the past ten thousand years, you are using data that is very well bounded. Any future projection to that would be well bounded.
If you analyze any or all of the instrumented data, you are using only part of the upward phase of the well bounded cycles. Future projections of that would not be bounded.
CO2 data is currently outside of the bounds of the past ten thousand years but temperature has not gone with it. It is not even close. We are at .6 above the long term average when the upper bounds of the past ten thousand years was 2 above the average, all the time and 1 above the average most of the time with the same on the lower bounds.
CO2 is well outside the bounds and temperature is very well inside the bounds and not headed out for the past 17 years and this according to the leader of the Alarmists, the head of the IPCC. This is not the time to try to stop CO2 from making green things grow better with less water. We do need that green stuff that grows.
It would take exponential increase in temperature to get out of bounds in the next hundred years and that is not in the data signature. It is only in the output of Climate Models that have shown no skill so far.
This also works for sea level. When oceans are warm it snows more and puts an upper bound on temperature and sea level. Right now, the oceans are warm and the bounding snows are falling. The oceans will be warm for some years to come and the bounding snows will fall until the bounding is accomplished.
Chicken Little said “The sky is falling! The sky is falling!”
Now, Chicken Little says for the last seventeen years the sky really was not falling, but it is still going to happen.
Pingback: Bright Lights | Skeptical Swedish Scientists
Looking at your third figure which shows the CMIP5 furniture duster, it is pretty obvious that these simulations are not of the real world, nor are their observations of the real world either. Their observation curve still shows the late twentieth century warming in the eighties and nineties that does not exist. That section of the temperature curve is a horizontal stretch of eighteen years where nothing but ENSO oscillations takes place. It should be shown as such, not a rising period. And after 2000 the simulation takes off into outer space and keeps extending that imaginary late twentieth century warming when real temperature curve has been horizontal for 16 years. Even on the small scale and with indistinct details you can see these whips departing from reality. Apparently software authors have not heard of the current temperature “standstill” and pretend it does not exist. I have news for them. It is not a standstill but the end of their greenhouse delusion. Future warming, if any, will come from the ocean and will take the form of a step warming as it did in 1998. That step warming took four years, raised global temperature by a third of a degree, and then stopped. There has not been any warming since then and there was none before it, back to 1979. Which means no greenhouse warming for the last 33 years. And not likely to resume because Miskolczi’s observations of infrared absorption over time prove that greenhouse warming is impossible.
I guess I am having that kind of a day in terms of mad theories. But the flooding is nearly down and I am out of here soon.
Of course it warmed between 1979 and 1997 – at about 0.1 degrees C/decade. The ENSO ‘dragon-kings’ of 1976/1977 and 1998/2001 are significant but by no means the only influence.
Miskolczi claims certain physical laws apply – and it turns out that they don’t. It seems it is all based on radiosonde data – something that is by no means accurate enough to prove the thesis. So we have an idea with no data, no theory and no mechanism. Not a good look – but par for the course for mad theories. It is all solved by the simple idea that optical depth is constant? It seems unlikely and it seems that it leaves whole swaths of climate complexity going begging for a explanation.
Remembrance of things past and forgetting …
(or sometimes convenient amnesia?)
Highly paid forecasters, bankers, financial investors and climate
modellers conveniently forget their many unsuccessful forecasts.
Here in Oz, on the eastern coast, widespread flooding yet only a
few years ago our Commissioner fer the Environment, Tim Flannery
said there was no point in building any new dams,.there wouldn’t be enough rain ter fill them. Being a member of the bureaucracy, guess
he can make these claims with impunity. But do ya think he might be
jest a teeny-tiny bit embarrassed? (
They have assumed a stationary climate and it is apparent since the 1980’s that this is not the case – http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/full/10.1175/2010JHM1215.1
Apparent to academics that is – farmers nad country people generally knew much before that. By 2003 it was apparent that we shifted again into a wet mode and now it is all catching up at once – PDO, ENSO, the Indian Ocean and our friend SAM the climate dog.
Some of us did say so way back when. But it is odd. Drought was the new reality now flooding. But still we are not outside the bounds of even the very limited (100 years) instrumental record. And you would think they’d have the decency of a short break between changing narratives.
Beth
“Embarrassed?”
No. (He’s too busy saving the planet to think retrospectively.)
But I hope he at least got a flooded basement out of the deal.
Max
Visions of Flannery’s flooded basement , Max, at his expensive
waterfront property, lol …
A word that troubles me, Chief, is the adjective “new’. so often
used by revisionist progressives as in the ‘new’ liberalism., or
post modern science … ( ( ( ( ( ( ( (
The Smart, it smarts.
=========
Beth
Jawohl. Ve vunz hed “die neue Weltordnung” (but zose days are futsch).
FDR brought us the “New Deal”.
Tony and Gordon once brought us “New Labour”
And, hey we even have “New Socialism” (didn’t work for the USSR but it’s gonna work this time – believe me, baby)
http://ricardo.ecn.wfu.edu/~cottrell/socialism_book/new_socialism.pdf
“New Same Old”
Max
Even after being corrected by Steven Mosher on the technicalities of constructing a global average (at least in the BEST case), I’d stil argue that you’re comparing models against a data set loaded with error and bias. Without a proper study, solely on the possible sources of error, and the likely magnitude and polarity of each error testing anything against these instrumental records is a waste of time. Furthermore, the models, many of which are trained on the same historical record, are likely to be way off the mark for the same reason.
@arno arrak
re; miskolczi
+1
A recent paper in American Meteorological Society’s Climate Journal , Surface Water Vapor Pressure & Temperature Trends in North America during 1948-2010 found relative humidity decreasing by the amount Miskolczi’s Saturated Greenhouse hypothesis predicts.
People repeating the old saw about radiosonde data not being accurate enough need to do less babbling on blogs and more reading of journals. You know who you are. Babble on, Garth.
David Springer
I went to the trouble of plotting the NOAA tropospheric humidity data from radiosondes, which you cited, versus the HadCRUT3 global temperature record.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3343/3606945645_3450dc4e6f_b.jpg
This shows a long-term decrease in water vapor content (specific humidity) with increasing temperature, as you point out (following Miskolczi’s prediction).
But, interestingly, it also showed short-term “blips” where the humidity increased with temperature (as would be expected following Clausius-Clapeyron and as also seen in short-term observations, such as Minschwaner & Dessler 2004).
So it appears from the physical evidence at hand that humidity does increase temporarily with temperature, but that there is a longer-term mechanism that reverses this trend, in effect acting as a “natural thermostat”.
The NOAA data on tropospheric relative and specific humidity are still being published and the older record has not been removed.
As a result it represents empirical data based on physical observations.
To simply argue, “well the measurements must be wrong, because we know that Clausius-Clapeyron works in our atmosphere” is a silly cop-out.
We must have an explanation for why the water vapor content of the atmosphere has decreased over a long-term period of global warming, and IPCC is unable to give us this explanation.
Max
Actually Max the paper I cited didn’t use radiosonde data it used data from GISS ground stations. The first sentence of the paper reads:
“Over ¼ billion hourly values of temperature and relative humidity observed at 309 stations located across North America during 1948-2010 were studied.”
And the point, which I guess I should have made explicit, is that the supposedly inadequate radiosonde humidity data is corroborated by non-radiosonde humidity data. So Chief Babbler or whatever the name he’s using would have to impeach the ground station data as well as the radiosonde data and then go on to explain why they both err in the same way. I think it’s safe to predict the babble would be voluminous in the attempt but the substance therein a high quality vacuum.
Let’s face it, none of you AGW/CAGWs claiming to be “climate scientists” knows anything about the natural world around us as you all use the brainwashed-into-the-education-system fake fisics acomic cartoon Greenhouse Effect model – land and ocean heated by visible light from the Sun and no direct heat from the Sun, thermal infrared aka longwave infrared, reaching the surface.
And you keep ignoring my challenge to prove this model.
How can you continue to think of yourselves as scientists?
In the real world, not as in your comic cartoon world, visible light from the Sun cannot heat and does not heat matter, is not capable of heating the matter of land and water, so, you have no heat at all in your comic cartoon energy budget because you have taken out the direct radiant heat from the Sun which in the real world does heat Earth’s land and water.
How can that not bother you?
There are two variations of why you don’t have the direct radiant heat from the Sun heating the Earth’s surface. I’m told by Pekka that the orginal one which says there is an invisible barrier at TOA as glass of a greenhouse which prevents the longwave from the Sun entering the atmosphere is only held by CAGWs, and AGWs, like Pekka, claim that the Sun radiates insignificant amounts of longwave infrared.
In the real world longwave infrared from the Sun is thermal infrared, radiant heat direct from the Sun which we feel as heat, we cannot physically feel shortwaves from the Sun. That is simply a physical fact.
So we have two absurd claims here, the first which says there is some invisible barrier to the Sun’s radiant heat, which is thermal infrared which is longwave infrared, but which is never specified or empirically proven to exist but simply claimed that this something exists and stops the direct radiant heat from the Sun, and, the second which AGWs hold, that the Sun gives off insignificant amounts of radiant heat, which is thermal infrared which is longwave infrared.
How can you not see that both these claims are beyond ludicrous?
If you really are scientists, then prove these claims.
If you really are scientists, then you’ll come back and admit that these claims are ludicrous nonsense, because that is what you will find when you try to fetch the empirical physics proofs I’m requesting.
And, until you either prove these claims you hold or admit they are a nonsense fiction, every time you discuss models you are using models which you are not even sure have any basis in physical reality. How does that affect you?
Prove that visible light from the Sun directly heats the Earth’s surface of land and water or you have no heat at all from the Sun in your AGW Greenhouse Effect Energy Budget.
Do you not believe an object can be black or even dark (absorbing most light)? If it is not absorbing or reflecting it, where is it going? Answer that and prove it somehow, because no one here understands what you are complaining about since black objects are common sights (unless you live in the Arctic somewhere).
Myrrh – You need to do some homework:
Start here.
Hi Myrrh,
What’s the difference between a blue photon from the sun and a blue photon from a laser? Blue photons from a laser can heat stuff up just fine so I don’t understand what you think is different about photons of the same wavelength from the sun. Please explain. Thanks.
So you don’t know.
Myrrh,
Its not that we know nothing but rather that we know nothing that will change your misunderstanding in the slightest.
I remember failing to convince you there were good reasons that the atmosphere didn’t separate out into distinct layers of oxygen, nitrogen etc. If you can’t see that, what chance has anyone else on the complexities of climate change theory?
If only you were as clever as you thought you were.
So you don’t know.
Does any climate scientist know?
You could try asking those who taught you this nonsense fisics, if you’ve paid for that education you could try getting a refund..
You have no heat direct from the Sun in your comic cartoon world.
If you really were scientists you would be bothered by this.
Read my opening post again until you have actually grasped what I’m saying.
Prove these AGWScienceFiction’s Greenhouse Effect claims – which are your basic “physics”.
Once again Myrrh fails to explain the difference between photons from a visible light laser which can certainly heat things up and photons of the same visible frequency from the sun which he claims cannot heat things up.
You lose, Myrrh. As always sparring with you was real, it was fun, but it wasn’t real fun. Better luck next time.
David Springer | March 1, 2013 at 5:43 am | Once again Myrrh fails to explain the difference between photons from a visible light laser which can certainly heat things up and photons of the same visible frequency from the sun which he claims cannot heat things up.
You lose, Myrrh. As always sparring with you was real, it was fun, but it wasn’t real fun. Better luck next time.
I’m sorry that “the Sun is not a laser” isn’t getting through to you. I find it difficult to believe that others here would equate the photons from the Sun with photons from a laser, the technology of lasers and their abilities are well documented, but anyway, I have asked you to elaborate and show how the Sun is a laser, but you haven’t come back with anything.
Either show the Sun is a laser, or respond intelligently to my demand that ‘you scientists and promoters of this idiotic idea that visible light from the Sun heats land and water of the Earth’s surface and no radiant heat from the Sun, which is thermal infrared which is longwave infrared, plays any part in heating same’ prove this claim. It is the claim of your AGW Greenhouse Effect Energy Budget.
If you can’t show how visible light FROM THE SUN heats matter on the Earth’s surface, and it takes a heck of a lot of heating of land and water at the equator to give us the huge equator to poles winds and dramatic weather systems, then you a peddling a science fraud.
All of you who use these AGW Greenhouse Effect models are peddling a science fraud. Prove you’re not.
Visible light from the Sun cannot and does not heat matter, it is incapable of doing so, and, you have excised from the comic cartoon world the real direct radiant heat from the Sun which we do feel as heat, longwave infrared, which is capable of heating matter and does; it cooks the land and water at the equator and cooks us.
It is one thing to blindly subscribe to a fake fisics meme, it is another to continue to avoid facing the fact. Visible light from the Sun illuminates our world by stimulating the nerves in our eyes, we cannot feel this as heat.
The invisible heat from the Sun which we do feel as heat, which is what heats us up, cooks us because we absorb it on a vibrational level, is what heats up matter at the Earth’s surface. The AGWScienceFiction claims this doesn’t get through the atmosphere/doesn’t exist from the Sun.
Deal with this. Because until you do, you’re only fooling yourselves.
You have no heat from the Sun in your AGWSF Greenhouse Effect Energy Budget models.
A photon is a photon whether it comes from the sun or a laser. Just like an atom of hydrogen is an atom of hydrogen whether it’s from the sun or from a water molecule. Write that down.
Ergo, if blue photons from a laser will heat something then blue photons from the sun will also heat the same thing. A blue photon is a blue photon regardless of its source.
By the way, I didn’t what’s the difference between the sun and a laser. I asked what the difference is between a blue photon from the sun and a blue photon from a laser. Once again you failed to answer the question and lamely try to dodge it by saying the sun isn’t a laser. True dat. Nobody said the sun was a laser. The claim is a blue photon from the sun is no different than a blue photon from a laser i.e. a photon is a photon regardless of source. They don’t have labels attached the them “Made by Laser” or “Made by Sun” so there’s no way for matter upon which they impinge to tell one from the other. You are ridiculous and pretty much everyone knows it. Personally I think you’re being paid by Al Gore to make skeptics look stupid. You’re doing a bang up job of that and if you’re not getting paid for it you should be.
Have you reached Australia yet?
Now you admit the Sun is not a laser, so what a laser does is irrelevant, show how visible light from the Sun heats the land and water at the equator to the intensity this is heated which gives us our massive equator to poles wind systems and dramatic weather.
Show how visible light from the Sun actually, physically, heats matter as you claim in support of the fake fisics impossible comic cartoon world of the AGWScienceFiction’s Greenhouse Effect Energy Budget.
Serious question David Springer – why are you supporting this nonsense fisics? Do you really believe the comic cartoon AGW/CAGW explanations of their idiotic claim that visible light from the Sun heats the EArth’s surface which they’ve subsituted for the direct radiant heat from the Sun – “the AGWSF Sun gives off insignificant amounts of longwave infrared/there is an unexplained invisible barrier preventing longwave infrared from entering the atmosphere”?
It’s really astonishing that intelligent scientists can believe that the Sun gives of insignificant amounts of heat, which is thermal infrared which is longwave infrared, which AGWSF has excised from its comic cartoon Greenhouse Effect energy budget.
But of course, in this la la land of AGW they say the Sun is only 6,000°C. Seriously, what can you expect from people who can think this?
My reply appears lost in the system, I’ll put in again as I won’t have time tomorrow to check if it’s arrived (haven’t had any problem with other posts today, including subsequent).
===================================================
Have you reached Australia yet?
Now you admit the Sun is not a laser, so what a laser does is irrelevant, show how visible light
from the Sun heats the land and water at the equator to the intensity this is heated which gives us
our massive equator to poles wind systems and dramatic weather.
Show how visible light from the Sun actually, physically, heats matter as you claim in support of
the fake fisics impossible comic cartoon world of the AGWScienceFiction’s Greenhouse Effect Energy
Budget.
Serious question David Springer – why are you supporting this nonsense fisics? Do you really believe
the comic cartoon AGW/CAGW explanations of their idiotic claim that visible light from the Sun heats
the EArth’s surface which they’ve subsituted for the direct radiant heat from the Sun – “the AGWSF
Sun gives off insignificant amounts of longwave infrared/there is an unexplained invisible barrier
preventing longwave infrared from entering the atmosphere”?
It’s really astonishing that intelligent scientists can believe that the Sun gives of insignificant
amounts of heat, which is thermal infrared which is longwave infrared, which AGWSF has excised from
its comic cartoon Greenhouse Effect energy budget.
But of course, in this la la land of AGW they say the Sun is only 6,000°C. Seriously, what can
you expect from people who can think this?
WebHubTelescope | February 28, 2013 at 3:32 pm |
“Believe it or not, these skeptical climate science blogs are indexed by Google Scholar, so who knows how many of the Chief’s baseless assertions get added to the collective knowledgebase. The geniuses at Google must think that since these kinds of blogs win best science blog awards that they must be credible.”
I use scholar.google.com a lot and I’ve never seen a reference to a blog comment turn up on it. I’m calling bullshiit. Provide a scholar search link that gives a hit on a blog comment.
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?start=10&q=site:judithcurry.com&hl=en&as_sdt=0,44
Only 18 hits. All articles. No comments.
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=site%3Awattsupwiththat.com&btnG=&hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C44
25 hits on Watts Up With That. No comments.
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=site%3Awattsupwiththat.com&btnG=&hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C44
15 hits on Skeptical Science. No comments.
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=site%3Arealclimate.org&btnG=&hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C44
15 hits on Real Climate.org, no comments
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=site%3Anature.com&btnG=&hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C44
427,000 hits on Nature.com If any are comments on their blog I’ll eat my hat but there’s too many to look through to guarantee there are none.
Herein you see the difference between making crap up out of thin air and doing a bit of due diligence to separate fact from fiction.
Thanks. Come back again. I’ll be here all week.
Springer:
Here are the Google Scholar hits for “Brandon Shollenberger”
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=%22Brandon+Shollenberger%22&btnG=&hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C24
Here are the Google Scholar hits for “pissant progressive”
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=%22pissant+progressive%22&btnG=&hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C24
Looky here too, guess who?
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=%22Maybe+you%E2%80%99re+an+ass+clown%22&btnG=&hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C24
All that Google Scholar has to do is filter out these sites as if they were spam. Not hard to do as libraries have curators that are responsible for keeping the citations of high quality.
That link I gave for comparing the fee-based Thomson Reuters “Web of Science” against free Google Scholar is here:
http://www.istl.org/10-fall/refereed3.html
I guess the point is that you get what you pay for.
I have four papers in the pipeline and finished a project report, so I run across this all the time and it seems to be getting worse. Like I said, I am glad that I am not using my real name as a commenting handle because I would hate to have my own citation record polluted by this kind of spew.
I certainly understand why you don’t want your real name associated with what you write here. If I wrote the crap you did I wouldn’t want it associated with my real name either. Thanks for being so candid about it!
None of the searches you referenced link to comments. They link to the top of the page i.e. the article itself not any individual comment. Comment URLs have the word ‘comment’ in them. Like:
http://judithcurry.com/2013/02/22/spinning-the-climate-model-observation-comparison/#comment-299522
Google scholar does not index or catalog blog comments. Write that down.
If I google scholar “David Springer” I get 845 hits. Four of them that are actually me are patents that appear in first 40 hits. I scanned through to the end skipping four pages at a time and only saw a single hit to judithcurry.com near the end of the list. Check it out:
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?start=839&q=%22David+Springer%22&hl=en&as_sdt=0,44
If I google scholar “David Springer” site:judithcurry.com I get six hits.
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&aq=&oq=“David Springer”&rlz=1T4LENN_enUS461US461&q=%22David+Springer%22+site%3ajudithcurry.com
Why only six you might wonder given I’ve probably posted 6000 comments here. I wonder myself. Google doesn’t reveal details of its indexing and cataloging scheme in order to make it more difficult to game it. I have no idea why only out of many thousands of comments I’ve made here google scholar only finds my name associated with 6 articles. Good luck figuring that one out. I don’t really care. If someone doesn’t like what I have to say here and wants to hold it against me they can go piss up a rope. My words are my words and I don’t hide from them like you do.
Goo
Google Scholar indexed a nasty put-down that David Springer wrote in a comment. Google Scholar also indexes references to “pissant progressive” that Chief Hydologist continues to make,
I think that you should write this down, Springer — the way that scholarly research works is that you should be objective in everything you record, because other people that use that information assume that some scholarly effort goes into it.
Since no scholarly effort goes into Climate Etc comments (or posts for the most part), they should not be indexed by Google Scholar.
It’s only a little better that Google itself indexes them, but that is only helpful in that it allows us to “document the atrocities” and search for ridiculous assertions that people make.
The other thing that Springer doesn’t seem to understand is that the top-level blog posts that are indexed by Google occur from other documents that cite the specific post. That is why you don’t see every comment that you make, but given enough time, that number will move up. As all sorts of crackpots start to mutually reference each other, the original intent of a scholarly knowledge-base goes by the wayside. Entropy takes over and it goes to pot.
I realized that you don’t really care long ago. Yet, what you do when you go after Capt Dallas or Myrrhh or any of these other crackpots is good on the whole. If it wasn’t for this criticism, naive or young users of the Google Scholar research tool may think that some of those ideas have merit. Somebody has to counter these bizarre arguments, just like someone has to police Wikipedia for content.
All Google Scholar has to do is remove the subjective blogs as cited reference works.
Anybody that would consider blog comments the same as published peer reviewed work has a few screws loose. This is a hobby for me not a profession. The blogosphere is a playground. I helped invent the frickin’ social part of the web fercrisakes and even that was just a hobby although kind of a lucrative one because I made about a quarter million displaying stupid banner adds on my multiplayer gaming system (4 million per month) circa 1999/2000 before the bottom dropped out of online advertising revenues. There are four hits on Google scholar to patents in my name. There are dozens of citations to those patents (now over ten years old) by IBM, Intel, AT&T, Seiko, Sony, Microsoft.
Look at the pedigrees on this list of patents that cite one of mine:
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2Fsearch-adv.htm&r=0&f=S&l=50&d=PALL&Query=ref/6321262
I don’t care what people who aren’t playing with a full deck think of how I entertain myself when I’m not at work and I haven’t been at work for 13 years and counting now. I love science and I love to argue and there’s no more target rich environment for that than evolutionary biology and climate science both soft sciences pretending to be hard sciences by the practitioners and both driven by leftwing ideologues just begging for smackdowns from a braniac like me with too much time on his hands. So sue me.
Don’t you all (both AGW advocates and skeptics) agree that the global mean surface temperature has returned back to its long-term mean as shown below?
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/mean:732/plot/hadcrut3vgl/compress:12/from:1875/plot/esrl-co2/compress:12/scale:0.003/offset:-1.04/detrend:-0.2/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1974/to:2004/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/mean:732/offset:-0.26/plot/hadcrut3vgl/mean:732/offset:0.26/plot/esrl-co2/compress:12/scale:0.003/offset:-1.3/detrend:-0.2/plot/esrl-co2/compress:12/scale:0.003/offset:-0.78/detrend:-0.2/plot/hadcrut3vgl/scale:0.000001/offset:1.5/from:1880
I don’t think the “skeptics” will be too happy with you showing that an upward curve fits the data. Vaughan Pratt carried out a similar exercise and met with a lot of anger. Indeed the warming rate has doubled in 60 years, and it is hard to find a natural cause for such a robust change in trend, let alone the trend itself.
Jim D
My “upward curve” started in 1870, his in 1970. There is a big difference. As shown in the above graph, the 0.2 deg C warming from 1970 to 2000 has a transient component, and that must be removed to obtain the true secular trend, which is about 0.1 deg C/decade.
Jim D, not all that difficult
http://www.nature.com/ncomms/journal/v3/n6/fig_tab/ncomms1901_F5.html
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/91JD00009/abstract
Jim D,
Technically speaking, as long as Girma’s curve is concave up, it means that the temperature rise is accelerating and that the earth’s warming is accelerating.
To make it worse, Girma puts a quarter degree positive warming cycle on his acceleration, which means that we will occasionally get at least a quarter degree warming on top of the acceleration.
If it was up to Tomas or Chief, this quarter degree fluctuation could be even stronger — as according to them, no one can predict what effect spatio-temporal chaotic oscillations can have on temperatures !
These supposed “skeptics” appear deceptively bold in conveying their alarmist global warming scenarios !
Web
IPCC’s is 0.2 deg C/decade, while the long-term secular trend is only 0.1 deg C/decade as shown here:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/mean:732/plot/hadcrut3vgl/compress:12/from:1875/plot/esrl-co2/compress:12/scale:0.003/offset:-1.04/detrend:-0.2/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1974/to:2004/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/mean:732/offset:-0.26/plot/hadcrut3vgl/mean:732/offset:0.26/plot/esrl-co2/compress:12/scale:0.003/offset:-1.3/detrend:-0.2/plot/esrl-co2/compress:12/scale:0.003/offset:-0.78/detrend:-0.2/plot/hadcrut3vgl/scale:0.000001/offset:1.5/from:1880
Girma, you can’t get away that easy. You made your bed, now you have to lie in it. This is your accelerating curve extended to the year 2200:
http://imageshack.us/a/img26/7849/girmatrendology.gif
Actions have consequences and when you present accelerating curves as products of your analysis, you have to stand by them.
I know it may be sheer unintentional incompetence on your part, but that is the way the ball bounces.
Web
Could you please project the sea level rise model to 2200 also to see what it looks like?
http://www.cmar.csiro.au/sealevel/downloads/CSIRO_GMSL_figure.pdf
Webby
You take a curve which Girma has made to show recent and projected future warming over the next couple of decades and extrapolate this to the year 2200!.
Duh!
That’s as dumb as what the yo-yos at IPCC have done.
Vaughan Pratt experienced a pratfall here on this site by doing the same, but only for the next 88 years.
Don’t fall into the trap that these guys have fallen into.
Before you do any extrapolation of anyone’s curve, ask the originator of that curve first what the time period of the extrapolation is expected to be.
Then do not extrapolate beyond this limit.
OKAY?
Don’t be a dummy.
Max
Max, you’re gonna have to get over yourself.
Girma Gobbles was the one that presented a concave up fit.
The conventional global warming isn’t concave up unless CO2 is accelerating beyond exponential. This is systems analysis not trendology.
Webby
You raise a good point.
The “consensus” view (also that expressed by Vaughan Pratt’s “extrapolation”) is that atmospheric CO2 concentrations increase at a greater rate than simply exponential.
The “natural” portion is held constant and the “human” portion increases exponentially (Vaughan shows the equation for this).
This was true over the period of extremely rapid population increase of the late 20th century, but no longer fits.
Most recently the increase in total atmospheric CO2 concentration has leveled out at an exponential rate of ~0.5% per year. As expected population growth slows down to an exponential rate of around one-fourth the past rate, it is logical to assume that human-produced CO2 will also slow down.
But even if one maintains a constant exponential rate of increase of the total atmospheric CO2 concentration, the temperature impact will rise at a linear rate (because the CO2/temperature relationship is logarithmic).
So I’d agree with you that Girma’s curve exaggerates future warming over longer time scales. It may fit for the next decade or so, but I’d use it with caution for anything much longer than two or three decades (which was my earlier point).
It appears we agree.
Max
Maxi Priest, you have to get over yourself.
The consensus science is the challenge that you have to refute.
I would be the first to find something terribly wrong if it existed.
Yet, all I find are simplifications that support the aggregate set of models.
No, I was the first to find something terribly wrong, but if I have seen fur, it is because I stand on the shoulders of cats and dogs.
======================
It’s fun to counteract the mindlessness of the bot-kim with deep earnestness.
The consensus science is that mankind is creating the excess CO2 that is raising atmospheric CO2 levels above the baseline of 294 PPM. This value was first accurately measured in the 1800’s.
To model this process, consider that the excess CO2 hangs around in the carbon cycle for years before diffusing to permanent sequestering sites. So the model of diffusion is characterized by an effective diffusion coefficient, represented as a median adjustment time. Physics tells us that we can model the response to a stimulus of CO2 input by convolving the stimulus with a response function derived from the diffusion equation.
We have a representative estimate of the amount of carbon dumped into the environment via the Carbon Dioxide Analysis Center.
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/ftp/ndp030/global.1751_2009.ems
The conversion from carbon to CO2 enables us to generate an estimate of past CO2 concentrations and project future concentrations.
This is the resultant model of excess CO2 compared to Mauna Loa measurements since 1958.
http://img819.imageshack.us/img819/4946/co2rms.gif
This has a sub-PPM RMS error over the sampled range.
This model has no freely adjustable parameters. The baseline of 294 PPM from Reiset measured in 1875. The diffusion time agrees with the adjustment time used by the centric “Bern model” from the IPCC WG1.
In summary, what we have is a straightforward computation of excess CO2 based on a concise physics model. It is really a triumph of consensus science. Alas, the people that Joshua labels as “skeptics” are not the least bit interested in such science.
Web
Your logic is great – except for one significant point.
Before I get to that, though, let’s remember that we are talking about anthropogenic changes in CO2 concentrations above an arbitrary baseline, which we postulate are directly related to human emissions of CO2, as estimated annually by CDIAC.
Since Mauna Loa measurements were put into place in 1958, we have seen the largest exponential increase in human population that has ever occurred – with an exponential growth rate of 1.7% per year. This growth rate has already started to slow down, and is expected to do so even more sharply over the rest of this century. With population expected to increase from today’s 7 billion to around 10.5 billion by 2100, this would represent an exponential growth rate of 0.4% per year, or around one-fourth the past growth rate.
It would be foolish to assume that increase in human CO2 emissions (and hence to the rate of increase in atmospheric CO2 concentrations) are not in some fashion related to increase in human population.
So it would also be foolish to assume that these emissions will continue to increase at the past exponential rate when human population growth is expected to slow down sharply. (This is the fatal flaw in Vaughan Pratt’s CO2 “extrapolation” to 2100, as I pointed out to him.)
Now, admittedly the average pro-capita use of fossil fuels has increased. Since 1970 this increased by around 20% (based on CDIAC and population data). And, despite the increasing pressure plus moves to replace fossil fuels in the developed world, it is reasonable to assume that this will continue to increase over this century as the developing nations increase their per capita use. I have made the WAG that this increase would be 30% on a global basis from today to 2100.
Taking the UN projections for future population growth to 2100 plus assuming a gradual increase of per capita fossil fuel use of 30% by 2100, I would arrive at a cumulated CO2 emission (2013-2100) of 3850 Gt.
It is well known that on an annual basis there is very little correlation between CO2 emitted by humans and the increase in atmospheric CO2 (we have exchanged comments on that). But taken over a longer period, it appears that only around half of the CO2 emitted by humans “remains” in the atmosphere, with the “missing” other half presumably absorbed by the oceans and the biosphere.
What has not been reported in any detail AFAIK is that the percentage CO2 “remaining” in the atmosphere has gradually decreased over the 50+ years since Mauna Loa measurements started, from around 55% over the period 1959-1990 to 50.6% over 1990-2010, or a linear decrease of around 1.1% per decade.
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8344/8200196434_ebb7559913_b.jpg
Whether or not this observed decrease reflects a higher percentage going to increased plant growth or somewhere else is not known, but the observed decrease of the amount remaining in the atmosphere is clear.
But let’s assume that this observed slight decrease will not continue into the future, and that the amount of human CO2 “remaining” in the atmosphere will stay at 50%.
On this basis we would see an estimated increase of atmospheric CO2 by year 2100 of 247 ppmv (to 640 ppmv).
[At the latest 2xCO2 ECS estimates of ~1.5°C, this would mean warming above today’s temperature of 1.1°C – or nothing to worry about.]
Now let’s compare that with Vaughan Pratt’s “extrapolation” which is based on the Hoffman projection, whereby “pre-industrial” CO2 level remains at 280 ppmv and “human induced” CO2 concentration continues to increase at the past exponential rate of 2.24% per year. On this basis, the total CO2 concentration by 2100 would be an estimated 1187 ppmv.
[And the warming to 2100 would be 2.4°C – or slightly higher than the “magic number” of 2°C, which is stated to be the threshold of being problematic.]
As I also pointed out to Vaughan Pratt, there is another constraint to AGW caused by human CO2 emissions from fossil fuel combustion, namely the amount of total carbon available.
WEC made an estimate in 2010 that by 2008 we still had around 85% of all the fossil fuels that were ever on our planet as “inferred possible recoverable resources” in place. [I know that you feel that this estimate is overly optimistic and that we are closer to “peak fossil fuels” than that, but let’s use the WEC figures for now as an absolute asymptotic maximum.]
15% of all fossil fuels got us from an estimated pre-industrial 280 ppmv to 385 ppmv in 2008, so the remaining 85% should get us to 980 ppmv, when all the fossil fuels on our planet are 100% used up.
So the 1187 ppmv level using the Hoffman projection is not even physically possible in the first place.
Finally, IPCC has made several estimates of CO2 levels in 2100 based on SRES model scenarios and storylines and various business-as-usual assumptions. These range between 580 and around 800 ppmv CO2 and none of these are as high as the 1187 ppm level.
It looks to me like around 640 ppmv is a reasonable estimate of the projected CO2 concentration by 2100 with resulting estimated added global warming of around 1°C above today’s value.
And that, Webby, is nothing I am going to get my knickers all twisted out of shape about.
Max
What I showed has a standard deviation of less than a PPM. And the correlation coefficient between CO2 model and CO2 data is 0.9997.
If we take the standard climate sensitivity of 3 degrees per doubling of CO2, then the modeled temperature increase will look like this :
http://img252.imageshack.us/img252/4531/temperature3sens.gif
I used the BEST data because land is where the transient and equilibrium trends tend to align more, and therefore we will see the temperature increases on land before the ocean.
You don’t like the physics Max, and your harping on eventual carbon released as estimated by some bureaucrat is pointless. The model is the model and if it predicts a 3C temperature change when atmospheric CO2 doubles from 300 PPM to 600 PPM that’s what will happen.
All the uncertainty is in the Energy Returned on Energy Invested (EROEI) on future fossil fuels extracted. As the EROEI approaches unity with marginal returns (like a supermarket chain with inventory), the extraction and refinery process will combust a fraction less than we use for ordinary consumption. If we maintain our current energy requirements that means we will potentially DOUBLE our yearly CO2 outputs, with half going as waste. This is a type of Carnot cycle demonstrating the loss of efficiency with poorer grades of fossil fuels. And this is just if we want to maintain our current fossil fuel usage, and don’t come up with some breakthrough that allows us to accelerate once again.
So as we double the yearly increase of CO2 from 2 PPM to 4 PPM as industry starts to extract from oil shale and what classifies as kerogens and bitumen (asphalt), we will see the time it takes to increase CO2 by 100 PPM drop from 50 years to 25 years. Peak Oil has been proven and this is its successor.
Max, you are in a trick-box, along with the other skeptics. You lost on the science and you lost on the possibilities of systems engineering. All it takes is for some enterprising engineering team to bootstrap the extraction process from in situ stores of low-grade fossil fuels and we are off to the races once again, but this time it is double or nothing. Remember too, that with a bootstrapping process, it’s theoretically possible to use up 100’s of equivalent barrels in situ to extract 1 barrel of usable stuff. Unless the CO2 is immediately sequestered, those molecules will go into the atmosphere at a 100:1 ratio of waste energy to usable energy. You may not like the analogy, but this is like burning down your house to stay warm.
This is science and engineering Max, and it is the way it has always been since the start of the industrial era. You have to get over yourself and your neo-Luddite tendencies, and realize that humans will do whatever it takes to maintain their lifestyles and BAU.
Bottomline, the C in CAGW is both in the uncertainty in climate sensitivity and in the uncertainty in fossil fuel consumption. It’s a basic systems engineering problem that will get assigned to someone to solve. We are simply getting a head start on the analysis. Impediments like you are annoying gnats on the road of progress.
manacker, re: your 640 ppm by 2100. This looks unrealistic based on simple calculations. Global per capita energy use could double by then (just from populous developing countries), and the population will rise at least 50%. This alone means that your projection that works out at a 25% increase in CO2 production over today’s for the average over the rest of the century must be based on drastic energy reduction or cutting over to major alternative energies, which are the policies you oppose. Have you accepted now that these policies are necessary and assumed that they will happen to get to your 640 ppm?
In response to my above comment, it turns out the “skeptics” are happy when Girma smooths the heck out of the temperature record (61 year running average) and still can’t get rid of the upward curve, but not when VP takes a more measured approach with filters, but essentially produces the same result.
I think the fact that the temperature record curves upwards even when above the long-term mean temperature represents AGW in the starkest terms, and skeptics should see that this is exactly what AGW explains.
Jim D
You tell me that in your opinion a CO2 level of 640 ppmv by 2100 is too low, and that it should be much higher. Tell it to IPCC.
They come up with similar atmospheric CO2 levels by 2100.
The problem is that Vaughan Pratt ignores the projected sharp slowdown in human population growth when projecting future human CO2 emissions – oops!
His estimate is much higher than the highest IPCC estimate
He even gets us to 2100 CO2 levels that exceed the amount of carbon theoretically available in all the optimistically estimated remaining fossil fuels – ouch!
I pointed out these errors to him.
BTW, even after correcting for these errors one still arrives at an upward CO2 curve with an exponential rate of increase in total CO2 concentration..
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8237/8522603165_ec621209f4_b.jpg
But, of course, the CO2 temperature relationship is logarithmic, so the temperature increase ends up being close to linear.
But, hey, if you want to delude yourself into thinking that we will reach higher CO2 levels than are theoretically possible based on the total availability of fossil fuels, go right ahead.
Just don’t expect me to fall for it, Jim.
Max
manacker, 640 ppm corresponds to 4.5 W/m2 forcing. This is in line with an IPCC mitigation scenario, I suppose. Do you think it represents business as usual, in disagreement with their experts?
Jim D
You ask me about “policies” to reduce CO2 emissions in the future.
The CO2 estimate I made for 2100, like those made by the IPCC, does not include any “climate initiatives”, but represents “business as usual”. I pointed out that following a policy of maximum future utilization of nuclear energy (as Peter Lang has proposed here) would reduce the CO2 (probably by somewhere around 80 ppmv by 2100), but that is not included in my estimate or in the IPCC estimates.
I have nothing whatsoever against any “policies” to “go nuclear” (since nuclear is economically competitive with coal). And if other economically viable alternate sources of energy can be developed, I would welcome these as well. So you are dead wrong in assuming that I would oppose economically viable “policies” that would end up reducing CO2 emissions.
I would oppose a direct or indirect carbon tax, since this would do absolutely nothing to reduce global warming (no tax ever did).
Hope this clarifies it for you, Jim.
Max
Max said this:
So Max is a neo-Mathusian! For shame. He is deliberately constraining the possibilities by adopting a limits-to-growth scenario. Can’t do that because the global economic system is geared to continuous growth, required to pay-off past debts.
Max’s arguments have now become inconsistent with his usual rosy outlook.
Max always tells everyone to “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” unless he gets stuck in a rhetorical sand-trap.
JimD,
The skeptics can’t get rid of the upward trend, because the underlying fluctuations are of an Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process. The O-U process has regression-to-the-mean properties which means it is very rare to see excursions much higher than the yearly fluctuations. The fluctuations are about a quarter degree plus or minus. If they try to eliminate the autocorrelation of the O-U process (which goes as r*exp(-a*t)) then the upward trend will only become more apparent.
This is the strategy that I would use: Take a curve of expected warming based on the nominal climate sensitivity and CO2 increase and compare that against the BEST data. Calculate the residuals between the curves. From the residuals, either do a type of multi-scale variance or an autocorrelation, or if ambitious, a full contour plot of temperature differences versus time intervals. If you do the latter, it will look like a solution to the Fokker-Planck equation
This approach is not that different than the approach that Lovejoy was advocating in a post here in January. I was aware of Lovejoy’s work in multifractal earth topography, which is a domain (modeling topography) in which I have used the O-U process quite successfully.
The real issue is that dudes like Girma are simply trendologists, who indiscriminately use naive stats to completely botch the interpretation.
I am only hesitant to dive in too deeply because the time series data is so limited in range.
Jim D
You ask me:
First, do me a favor. Don’t play the “IPCC experts” card.
In addition to a case with “constant year 2000 concentrations”, IPCC AR4 WG1 cites six “emission scenarios and storylines” from its Special Report on Emission Scenarios:
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/special-reports/spm/sres-en.pdf
IPCC states:
The first three of these have lower CO2 estimates for 2100 than mine:
580 ppmv B1
600 ppmv A1T
625 ppmv B2
The next three have higher CO2 estimates for 2100 than mine:
700 ppmv A1B
790 ppmv A2
850 ppmv A1F1
The average of ALL SRES scenarios is 691 ppmv, or slightly higher than my estimate.
So there is no major discrepancy here, Jim.
ALL of the IPCC estimates are much lower than Vaughan Pratt’s extrapolation (over 1100 ppmv, and physically impossible as constrained by total fossil fuel availability, as I pointed out).
Get it into your head, Jim. These are reasonable estimates, even if the higher ones are a bit on the high side IMO.
Max
Webby
Instead of using your head a bit, you are blathering again (this time about Malthusians).
Fuggidaboudit, Webby.
The UN has made estimates of projected human population growth.
I have used these, along with an estimated continued increase in per capita fossil fuel consumption (and CO2 generation) to arrive at the projected human-induced increase in atmospheric CO2.
No “Malthusianism”.
Just common sense. Webby.
Max
PS If you’ve done your arithmetic, you will see that economically highly developed nations (such as the EU, USA, Japan, etc.) have a much higher “carbon efficiency” or GDP generated per ton of CO2 emitted (currently between $2500 and $3400) while the developing nations (China, India, Russia, etc.) have a much lower “carbon efficiency” ($600-$700 per ton CO2 emitted). Partly developed nations like the “Asian Tigers” lie in between ($1400) while the OPEC nations are at around $700, along with the rest of the world. This number has increased steadily from year to year, and there is no reason to assume that it will not continue to do so. In fact, to assume this would be downright “Malthusian”, wouldn’t it?
Max
Don’t play the “UN expert” card.
your rhetorical strategy is so predictable as you accuse others of doing exactly what you practice.
Your bureaucratic numbers are always so much better than another set of bureaucratic numbers, but you can’t trust bureaucrats because they get funded by the governments of the world with their huge stash of cash.
Web
Huh?
First of all, where did you conjure up 300 ppmv? It’s been higher than that since Mauna Loa measurements started in 1958 and is 393 ppmv now.
Second, the “model” output is only as good as the “model” input (GIGO). Latest observation-based estimates for 2xCO2 ECS are around 1.5C, or half of your model-predicted number of 3C.
So going from 393 ppmv to 640 ppmv at a 2xCO2 ECS of 1.5C, would get us to around 1C temperature increase at equilibrium.
No big deal, Webby.
When you do arithmetic it’s always best to first check your assumptions. (You know, ASS-U-ME).
Max
manacker, the mathematics says 640 ppm is about 2.5 ppm per year for the rest of the century. This is 25% more than current. The population will grow 50% according to projections, so this is a per capita reduction in CO2 usage despite developing countries increasing their per capita amounts. The US per capita is 5 times the global average, so maybe you expect them to reduce to keep the average down(?). It just doesn’t add up. If you are basing your hopes on 640 ppm just happening, you need to rethink in terms of what policies you need to advocate to achieve that.
Max, Perhaps I can isolate the crux of your problem. It is much more than plain “arithmetic” that you want to consider. There is also calculus, statistics, and that sticking point called physics.
In this thread, I have gone through a comprehensive model of representative temperature rise, given the amount of carbon that the world has released in the last few centuries. This is a comprehensive model because it starts from estimates of carbon emitted every year since 1750, and then takes into account the sequestering response of CO2. It then applies the best estimate of climate sensitivity, which is about 3C for doubling of CO2.
Yet, Max wants to apply a 1.5C sensitivity.
Here is the comparison between a 1.5C sensitivity and a 3C sensitivity that I modeled based on historically extrapolated CO2 levels :
http://img96.imageshack.us/img96/6980/climatesensitivity.gif
Notice that the 1.5C undershoots the mark by quite a bit, while the 3C value does a much better job of approximating the historical temperature record.
Why Max has to be so deceptive about conveying the current consensus view, I am not certain. Sure, if this is just about CO2 alone, he has a point, but the 3C model is assumed to capture both CO2 and other greenhouse gases such as H20 and CH4 (along with other positive feedbacks), which come along for the ride.
Max is not a true skeptic but more like a fake skeptic who is not willing to objectively treat all the empirical evidence that presents before us. I give kudos to the scientists, both theorists and experimentalists, that have built up a body of work over the years. To have someone like Max casually trash all this work, on such a consistent basis and in such a deceptive manner, I guess is par for the course for a fake skeptic.
Jim D
Sorry, Jim.
Do the arithmetic.
With CO2 emissions growing with projected population, plus adding in a 30% increase in per capita fossil fuel use by 2100 (it increased by 20% from 1970 to today), gets you to a cumulated emission of 3860 GtCO2 (2013-2100).
Half of this “stays” in atmosphere = 247 ppmv added CO2
393 + 247 = 640 ppmv
The average increase over the past 5 years was 2 ppmv per year (2007 was 383 ppmv, 2012 was 393 ppmv). On the above basis, this annual increase is projected to grow to 3.8 ppmv per year by 2100.
If we were to switch to an all-out “go nuclear” policy (as suggested by Peter Lang), there would be around 940 GtCO2 less emitted (2013-2100), resulting in a 60 ppmv reduction in atmospheric CO2 by 2100 (580 ppmv vs. 640 ppmv).
Max
PS There is an alternate purely mathematical “extrapolation” by Hofmann (also the basis for Vaughan Pratt’s “extrapolation” he posted here a few months ago).
This ignores population developments or per capita fossil fuel usage, holds “pre-industrial” CO2 constant and increases “human-caused” CO2 by a flat exponential 2.24% per year (which is what it was during the population boom of the 20thC).
Using this purely mathematical extrapolation one gets to over 1100 ppmv CO2 by 2100 (equivalent to more than all the carbon there is in all the remaining fossil fuels on our planet. Duh!)
Don’t fall into the silly trap of making such extrapolations.
Webby
You are outdoing your normal negative BS this time.
Instead of bloviating on and on about what a bad person I am, etc. and totally avoiding the issue being discussed, COME WITH SOME DATA.
1. I have shown Jim D how tying human induced CO2 emissions to human population projections, PLUS adding in a component for higher per capita fossil fuel use, results in an estimated atmospheric CO2 concentration by 2100 of 640 ppmv.
You have been unable to refute this.
2. I have further shown Jim D that the implementation of a global “go nuclear” policy,as suggested by Peter Lang (all planned new coal-fired power capacity replaced by nuclear generation) would reduce this by around 60 ppmv to 580 ppmv.
Again, you have been unable to refute this.
3. You present some gobbledygook about “physics” supportinga 2xCO2 ECS of 3C, which everyone has heard from IPCC already – it’s based on model predictions.
We now have later observation-based estimates that are around half this value (see earlier post on this).
You have been unable to refute that these latest observation-based estimates give a 2xCO2 ECS value of around half the earlier model-predicted estimates of IPCC.
I have shown, using these latest estimates for ECS that the warming by 2100 will be around 1 degree.
You have been unable to refute this.
So it is pretty clear that all you can do is resort to ad hom attacks and serve up a line of gobbledygook, but cannot address the specifics.
You’re a loser, man.
Max
1. You are a bad, evil person, goes without saying
2. All I ever do is analyze data, which is both honey and kryptonite
You apparently can’t see how well the 3C log sensitivity model does over the modern era, and how poorly the 1.5C log sensitivity works.
Model of sensitivity of 1.5C per doubling and 3C per doubling, compared against land-based BEST data.
No, I serve up the sheet music that you dead-enders are forced to perform.
Web
The temperature curve is similar to the sea level rise curve with slight overall acceleration starting from 1880’s.
http://www.cmar.csiro.au/sealevel/
http://www.cmar.csiro.au/sealevel/downloads/CSIRO_GMSL_figure.pdf
Web
You write that the skeptics can’t get rid of the upward trend.
Not true.
Total CO2 concentration will most likely continue at its current exponential growth rate of around 0.5% per year, based on the estimates I’ve seen.
So there is an “upward trend”.
But since temperature increases logarithmically with CO2, this would mean a roughly linear increase in temperature.
All makes sense to me, Webby.
Max
Yes, that is all that the log sensitivity theory says for an exponential increase of CO2.
Again, I sometimes wonder why you are here.
Confusion is the typical flailing of someone who has not actually worked through the numbers themselves. Since they have not, some factoid trips them up and they get themselves into a bind, where their intuition is at odds with the generally understood theory.
Web
You write:
Speak for yourself, buddy.
Max
> er…Lamb, Mitchell, Budyko, Ladurie etc etc sparked it. I thought that ‘study’ by Connelley
Connolley. But never mind, accuracy isn’t your strong point. You’re looking for http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2011/09/08/global-cooling-again/ and related. I’d say this at WUWT, but the censorship there is too strong.
William Connolley
I had. Why did you write it without detailed reference to the older studies covering the period when it all first started?. There are numerous items on the cooling period, including one well referenced article today at WUWT. I am sure they woud be delighted if you went over to comment.(not snark-if you believe the links are wrong say so)
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/03/01/global-cooling-compilation/#more-81095
Surely your library of climate science books from the era , some of which I cited, with many more lnks at WUWT, tell you that the cooling scare was widespread, very real and , in the end, unfounded. I can’t comment whether the current 350 year warming trend (with numerous advances and retreats)will continue after its current ‘pause.’
tonyb
I’ve seen an early video of Stephen Schneider, possibly from the late 60s, in which he expressed his, and the science’s ignorance, of the direction of climate change. I thought he was more effective and honest then than ever since.
The cooling scare lives. Which way are we more likely to go over the next few centuries and millenia, and which way, warmer or cooler, has much more devastating consequences for the human race, and for all Gaia’s other little critters?
==============
Your blind faith in WUWT’s lack of censorship is misplaced (http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2012/05/02/so-long-and-thanks-for-all-the-1/). Poptech is also censoring comments, though unlike WUWT is at least honest enough to admit he is doing so, sort of..
> Why did you write it without detailed reference to the older studies covering the period when it all first started?
Not sure what you mean. We looked at scientific papers. Which ones do you think we missed?
See also andrew @ populartechnology.net with an extensive listing of the cooling scare literature, also available @ the Bish’s where the Stoat is being pursued by hounds of self-contradiction in the comments.
==========
Mitchell, young William, mocks you from 1972.
================
Ah, a fine specimen, and candidate for a highlighted display case, for my Museum of Ironies. We have here, ladies and gentlemen, William Connolley himself, expounding on censorship.
The donor is anonymous, so the gallant story of the rescue of this specimen from the hideous and frightful peril through which it went must remain untold. We are all in debt, though.
==============
Not only do I remember the proposed new ice age coming, I remember we lost spray-on antiperspirant over it. I really liked spray-on antiperspirant. I was pissed. I agree with the above commenter on the evil that governments do. I think like unions, their time is done.
Lol Eva, demarketing spray-on antiperspirant! Shows how
concerned they were abut global cooling.
http://www.chinatownconnection.com/global-warming-cooling.htm
There’s Schneider in 1972 predicting trouble with a capital ‘T’
A cooling trend has set in, perhaps akin to the Little Ice Age.’
As Yogi Berra said, ‘It’s deja view all over again,’
William
Its late . I leave in the morning on a two week trip so regrettably can’t continue this conversation. What burden of proof do you require, bearing in mind many of us were there at the time, the science books of the era reflect the concerns, there are many papers. It peaked in the early 70’s then interest declined as the trend moved upwards.
Do you disagree with the comment from Budyko I cited? Please tell us as writing an article on the subject is on my list, although there are many things with a higher priority.
tonyb
“1975 New York Times: “Climate Changes Called Ominous,”, June 19, 1975 – Harold M. Schmeck, – p. 31. Excerpt: “The most drastic potential change considered in the new report is an abrupt end to the present interglacial period of relative warmth that governed the planet’s climate for the past 10,000 years. […] The report also noted that periods of benign climate comparable to the present are unusual and have existed for about 8 percent of the last 700,000 years.””
Spoiled for choice, more on: http://www.climatedepot.com/a/3213/Dont-Miss-it-Climate-Depots-Factsheet-on-1970s-Coming-Ice-Age-Claims
…
“1970: First Earth Day Promoted Ice Age Fears – Excerpt: At the first Earth Day celebration, in 1970, environmentalist Nigel Calder warned, “The threat of a new ice age must now stand alongside nuclear war as a likely source of wholesale death and misery for mankind.” C.C. Wallen of the World Meteorological Organization said, “The cooling since 1940 has been large enough and consistent enough that it will not soon be reversed.””
…
“Atmospheric Scientist Dr. Reid Bryson, the founding chairman of the Department of Meteorology at University of Wisconsin (now the Department of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences, who was pivotal in promoting the coming ice age scare of the 1970’s ( See Time Magazine’s 1974 article “Another Ice Age” citing Bryson: & see Newsweek’s 1975 article “The Cooling World” citing Bryson) converted into a leading global warming skeptic before his death in 2008. In February 8, 2007 Bryson dismissed what he terms “sky is falling” man-made global warming fears. Bryson, was on the United Nations Global 500 Roll of Honor and was identified by the British Institute of Geographers as the most frequently cited climatologist in the world. “Before there were enough people to make any difference at all, two million years ago, nobody was changing the climate, yet the climate was changing, okay?” Bryson told the May 2007 issue of Energy Cooperative News. “All this argument is the temperature going up or not, it’s absurd. Of course it’s going up. It has gone up since the early 1800s, before the Industrial Revolution, because we’re coming out of the Little Ice Age, not because we’re putting more carbon dioxide into the air,” Bryson said. “You can go outside and spit and have the same effect as doubling carbon dioxide,” he added.”
Although in the seventies there were some environmentalists who jumped onto these global cooling warnings to continue demonising coal, as they had earlier blamed coal for warming (hence the Keeling Curve) and now do so again, the scientists taking cooling seriously were doing so because they understood we were coming to the end of our interglacial; they were seriously worried that we were entering the dire conditions of the Little Ice Age, and that it would be the forerunner of the final drop back into our full glacial. There are lots of pages on the views about this on the fabiusmaximus site, from which this letter to President Nixon:
From
“http://fabiusmaximus.com/2009/10/21/letter/
“An important letter sent to the President about the danger of climate change
An important conference was held in January at Brown University: “The Present Interglacial, How and When Will it End?” (The October issue of Science had a summary of the it) As a result, the following letter was sent to the President. The media has not reported this, but you should be aware of the letter and its significance.
This assessment that we were due to go into global cooling mode was taken seriously, because the real scientists at the time took our global climate patterns into consideraton, for example, http://www.climatemonitor.it/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/1974.pdf
It is this aspect, that we are at the end of our interglacial, which has been wiped out of the consciousness not only of the general population but of the majority of those professing to be “climate scientists” – wiped out as effectively as the faux climate scientists wiped out the MWP and LIA with the science fraud of the Hockey Stick, and the rest.
Myrhh
Of course the climate scientists at the time were warning us of the coming (human induced) global cooling in the 1970s. It is a joke to claim otherwise, or to say that this was all initiated by the media.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttLBqB0qDko
In addition to Bryson, Kukla and Matthews (whom you cite) there were also:
Mikhail Budyko
Paul Damon
Cesare Emiliani
Helena Kukla
Steven Kunan
James McQuigg
S.I. Rasool
Stephen Schneider
and many others
In those days, like today, there were also “dissenters”, who did not agree that humans were causing any changes in our global climate. Just to name a few that went on record:
Barry Pittock
C.H.B. Priestly
G.B. Tucker
But the really big difference between the global cooling scare of the 1970s and the current global warming scare is $$$$$.
Billions of dollars are being spent annually to keep this hobgoblin alive, with all sorts of groups and people jumping on the bandwagon in the hopes of getting a piece of the pie – especially if the truly big bucks from a direct or indirect carbon tax start really start kicking in.
This includes: politicians, industrialists, media darlings, environmental lobby groups, scientific organizations and (of course) climate scientists themselves
So, in spite of 10-15 years of no warming occurring at the same time as unabated human GHG emissions and CO2 concentrations reaching record levels, this scare will die a slower and more agonizing death than the global cooling scare of the 1970s. But it will die, like all doomsday scares before it.
The really strange thing is that we have learned nothing from this past scare and have, in many cases, reacted just as gullibly as we did 35 years ago.
Max
In those days, like today, there were also “dissenters”, who did not agree that humans were causing any changes in our global climate. …. The really strange thing is that we have learned nothing from this past scare and have, in many cases, reacted just as gullibly as we did 35 years ago.
Max, I don’t quite see it as that. The impression I get from what I’ve read of the history of “climate change scientists” is that there was a growing but separate thread of environmentalists/greenies who were anti coal and scientists such as Callander and Keeling joined these, and, it was these who began the campaign against coal by demonising carbon dioxide by their cherry picking of levels and cherry picking of the history of our growing understanding of gases, using Arrhenius’s first ideas which he got by misunderstanding Fourier and ignoring Wood’s falsification, for example.
These greenie climate scientists began manipulations when the temps were rising around the 30’s when they targetted carbon dioxide direct and then they moved on to targetting coal itself when the next cooling period set in, and then changed back to putting the emphasis on carbon dioxide when that changed back to warming. Hansen is still fully part of this thread with his campaigning against the “death trains”. These people are, as we have ample examples, unconscionable, they will lie and cheat and manipulate data for their cause and think themselves honourable.
It is these “environmentalist climate scientists” who have confused the history of this – the real climate scientists weren’t involved.
The real climate scientists were genuinely concerned that the period of cooling up to the 70’s was the beginning of the end of our interglacial as they took into consideration the cyclical changes and the downward temps from the Holocene Maximum and could see, as we still can, that although there are rises and dips of warmth and cold, such as the MWP and LIA, the highs were getting less warm than the previous and the lows colder.
There were two immediate concerns during this colder spell, that we were already in the colder cycle and temps would be as the LIA, but ever downward so become even colder, and that these colder temps would not be followed by a warming cycle as after the LIA, but, would tip into the next 90,000 years cycle of being in the grip of our current Ice Age. The estimates for this last were around 60 years, so fully back into our Ice Age by 2030-ish. It’s no longer available on the page, but a year or so ago I read a BBC page on Ice Ages which blandly stated that scientists estimate the time for entry into full glaciation is 100 years.
This was the concern of the real climate scientists of the time, and as anyone can see by our considerable data on glaciation/interglaciation cycles, that hasn’t changed, we should still be concerned about this. As the first quote I gave above puts it:
1975 New York Times: “Climate Changes Called Ominous,”, June 19, 1975 – Harold M. Schmeck, – p. 31.
“The most drastic potential change considered in the new report is an abrupt end to the present interglacial period of relative warmth that governed the planet’s climate for the past 10,000 years. […] The report also noted that periods of benign climate comparable to the present are unusual and have existed for about 8 percent of the last 700,000 years.””
We know our interglacials are of limited duration in our real climate norm of glaciation… It’s only a matter of time, and in the extended period of cooling last century when this came to prominence there was a very real likelihood that we had entered a colder LIA which it was thought would be in full swing by 2000 – with all the social problems this would create because of lack of food and so on as we know from our history of the LIA, but even worse because of the greater populations involved. Hence the letter to Nixon.
What has changed now is that the faux climate scientists who kick started this, those greenies/environmentalists like Keeling, have been joined also by those knowingly working for big oil/nuclear (who set up CRU) so there is now another thread of “climate scientists”, shills for these industries which got Maggie Thatcher on board and sent Salinger to begin altering NZ temp records, etc. … It is these who have effectively taken over control of the “climate change” narrative for which the IPCC was set up to put the blame on mankind. It is these who continue to use the emotional energy of the greenies/environmentalists to further their agenda. (Following the money from them we come back to the banking cartel and their set up of the UN and so on.) Real scientists have been deliberately excluded with concerted campaigns defaming them and so on and more importantly, made to be seen as outside of mainstream by the simple expedient of introducing into the general education system the fake fisics devised to promote the idea of AGW and demonising of carbon dioxide.
Now lots of different agendas are in play making the most of being on the bankwagon as it rolls inexorably along, but the general population is practically unable to untangle the threads because basic physics is no longer taught and the demonising of carbon dioxide has been brainwashed in. That “visible light from the Sun heats matter and no actual radiant heat which is thermal infrared from the Sun plays any part in this” can only be seen to be absurd when one has a grounding in traditional physics (which is still taught but not generally). The population has been dumbed down in order to sow as much confusion as possible to further the agenda of the banking cartel. We’re all just pawns in this game.
So, I think scientists against the greenie/environmentalist agenda blaming mankind for the cold might well have been as we have now, scientists who know mankind isn’t to blame for what are our natural climate cycles, but moreover, who are au fait with with the problem that we are heading back into our Ice Age. This part isn’t a manufactured scare, it’s the real deal, the only question is, when? The rise in temps after the cold decades to the seventies was genuinely unexpected..
Those making use of the real data we have by cleverly hiding it to put the blame on man are separate threads in this tangle, with a mix of personal agendas then as now. And it’s these who don’t give a damn about the effects on society of their policies, then as now. It takes greater bravery nowadays to be a scientist questioning any aspect of the claimed “certainty” because the AGW narrative is so ingrained.
There’s a look at the Keeling/Arrhenius/Fourier saga here: http://greenhouse.geologist-1011.net/
Myrrh
If you check, you will see that there were two groups of scientists, who did NOT support the premise of (anthropogenic) global cooling in the 1970s.
You mention the AGW greenies who already existed then. Undoubtedly Callander, Keeling et al. fell into this category.
But there were also scientists who went on record saying that humans were NOT causing the observed global cooling, but that this was due to natural factors. (I named three from Australia, who stated this opinion at a conference in Sydney at the time.)
BTW, Reid Bryson, who was arguably the father of modern climate science, first supported the concept of human-induced global cooling (as pointed out in the articles cited), but later came to the conclusion that the cooling was caused principally by natural causes. He remained skeptical of the notion that humans are the principal drivers of our climate even into the current AGW scare until his recent death.
Max.
Max, I see I didn’t write clearly enough, I’m agreeing with you on these two groups, but adding a third, scientists who didn’t particularly concern themselves with this disagreement, or rather who may or may not have, but who were genuinely concerned that we were in a temperature drop akin to the LIA because knowledge of our glaciation/interglaciation with the concomitant rises and falls of temps in the general slide back down from the Holocene Optimum was understood well enough by them, and further, that this presaged the beginning of the end of the Holocene was a genuine fear with them.
Their fears were genuine from the data we have and from knowledge of our history. There were great upheavals in society during the LIA from food shortages, hence the letter to Nixon because this would affect the growing season in North America as it would in the Soviet Union which would be a major concern at the time for the US government.
The greenie climate scientists jumped at this “scare” in order to continue their own agenda and as you say there were scientists who disputed with them on human cause of this, but this doesn’t make the “scare” of the global cooling fear manufactured out of nothing as in the case of the AGW runaway global warming, it is still something we should be concerned about now. I can’t see anything in the way these real climate scientists analysed the data that would lead me to think otherwise. The question is, when..?
The greenie climate scientists have successfully hidden the data on which this global cooling “scare” was based, and consequently can’t relate this to our history of changes in societies and movements of people when temperatures went up and down, as in the MWP and LIA, as did those real climate scientists who brought this to our attention.
Attributing this global cooling “scare” to human cause couldn’t have been as wide spread as the faux climate scientists have now achieved with the global warming scare. The global warming scare was planned and actual temperature records have been tampered with from that beginning to support it, and planned indoctrination of human blame for this was introduced into the education system. What we had during the ice age “scare” is just these greenie/environmentalist climate scientists simply making use of the genuine concern of real scientists, but this attribution of blame wasn’t in common consciousness as the fake global warming scare is now, with its dedicated acronym.. .
I’ve just seen there’s a post on WUWT, http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/03/01/global-cooling-compilation/
Steven Mosher | February 22, 2013 at 5:47 pm | :
********************************************************
‘Let’s stipulate that there has been a pause.. go figure.
What “caused” the pause. There are only a few options.
1. Changes in inputs ( solar )
2. Changes in other forcings
3. Internal unforced variation.
4. Some combination of the three.’
***************************************
Very gracious of you to so stipulate. But I reject all of your alternatives for the simple reason that there is no “pause.” That is because there never was any greenhouse warming that could be paused. There is a no-warming period but it is shown inaccurately because ground-based temperature curves do not reproduce the 1998 super El Nino and its surroundings accurately. You don’t know that because you guys simply don’t know what to do with a temperature curve and have no idea what is in it if faced with one. First, the only reliable temperature curves come from satellites. Ground-based temperature curves are corrupt, inaccurate, secretly computer processed, and distorted to show warming that does not exist. Here is an example. Satellite record shows that from 1979 to 1997, an 18 year stretch, global mean temperature was constant while temperature varied due to ENSO oscillations of alternating El Ninos and La Ninas. There were five El Nino peaks in that interval and I bet you never knew that. Today that temperature region is shown as a steady rise of temperature in ground-based temperature curves and even has a name: “late twentieth century warming.” It is completely phony. It also has historic importance because in 1988, right smack in the middle of it, Hansen gave his famous talk to the Senate in which he proclaimed that global warming had started. His message was carried by over ten television stations that night and started the present global warming mania. Checking temperature records for 1988 I find that it was the peak year of the 1988 El Nino, not the peak of any global warming. That El Nino was the middle one of the five in that temperature region. In six months it was over and the La Nina that followed it dropped global temperature by 0.4 degrees Celsius. You don’t know this and are blind followers of the warming hysteria he started. He did not do too badly because he was given a Heinz Foundation prize specifically for having presented his talk to the Senate. Nice payola, beats ExxonMobile any time. The period of ENSO oscillations came to an end with the arrival of the super El Nino of 1998. It brought so much warm water across the ocean that it caused a step warming. In four years global temperature rose by a third of a degree Celsius and then stopped. There was no warming after that as you know. And there was no warming before it either, back to 1979. This leaves no time for any greenhouse warming at all for the last 33 years. The only warming during this entire period was the step warming caused by the Super El Nino. But you cannot even see this in ground-based temperature curves because it is covered up by the phony late twentieth century warming. As i said, there was no warming that could be paused. The reason for it is that greenhouse warming is impossible. In 2010 Ferenc Miskolczi used NOAA database of radiosonde observations to study the absorption of infrared radiation by the atmosphere over time. He determined that it had been constant for 61 years while the amount of carbon dioxide increased by 21.6 percent. The addition of this substantial amount of carbon dioxide to air had no effect on the atmospheric absorption of infrared radiation. And no absorption means no greenhouse effect, case closed. This is an empirical observation, not derived from any theory, and it overrides any claims derived from theory that contradict it. Specifically, it overrides any claims of dangerous warming ahead that emanate from the IPCC. Finally, let me touch on secret computer processing of temperature curves. It is not so secret any more because their software operation had unanticipated consequences. Namely, it left sharp spikes pointing upward at the beginnings of a number of years. Most prominent are in the first two month periods of the years 1990, 1995, 1998, 2002 and 2007. There is more. They are present at the exact same locations in GISTEMP, HadCRUT3, and NCDC temperature curves. Check them out yourself. They suggest an ocean-spanning collaboration to fix global temperature curves.
Arno Arrak
Like Faustino, I have followed your comments here closely and find them convincing – let’s see how others react.
You mention the NOAA tropospheric humidity data from radiosondes going back to 1948, and how these empirical data provide support for the Miskolczi hypothesis that increased atmospheric CO2 has no effect on IR absorption by the atmosphere (IOW the “greenhouse effect”).
A couple of years ago I plotted the NOAA data on tropospheric water vapor content (specific humidity) from 1948 to 2008 against the HadCRUT3 global temperature anomaly over the same time period.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3343/3606945645_3450dc4e6f_b.jpg
I was a bit surprised to see that not only had the relative humidity decreased with warming (as I had expected it would), but the long-term record also showed a decrease in the absolute water vapor content (specific humidity) with warming. This is contrary to what one might expect following Clausius-Clapeyron or from what IPCC claims. It appears to confirm the Milkolsczi hypothesis (as I understand it).
On a short-term basis, however, the “blips” in the curves appear to show that water vapor content does increase with temperature, as was also confirmed by short-term observations over the tropics by Minschwaner & Dessler 2004 (although this study did show a marked reduction in relative humidity with warming).
Can you explain this?
Thanks in advance for an answer.
Max
Arno Arrak
I referred to the Minschwaner & Dessler study on water vapor feedback with warming over the tropics.
This short-term study did show an increase in water vapor content with warming; however, the increase was much lower than would occur by maintaining constant relative humidity (as is assumed by the IPCC models).
Here is Figure 7 of the study, extended to show the WV increase with 1 degree C warming.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3347/3610454667_9ac0b7773f_b.jpg
Max
That would seem to be the upper atmosphere water vapor above 300 mb. It is only about a tenth of the global total which is increasing.
The tropical oceans would have to warm before you see much water vapor increase, let alone following C-C. You may have noticed the warming is mostly over land and the Arctic at first because they can respond faster, but given time the oceans will follow.
Jim D
The long-term NOAA data is for the troposphere “up to 300 mb”. It shows a long-term decrease in tropospheric water vapor content (specific humidity) with warming, but short-term “blips”, where WV increases with temperature. This is what I was asking Arno Arrak about. (If you have an explanation for this, I’d be interested.)
The M&D study was a short-term study. It simply showed that tropospheric WV content increased with warming, but at less than half the amount required to maintain constant RH in lockstep with Clausius-Clapeyron.
From these two bits of independent empirical data one can conclude that the IPCC model predictions that WV content increases with temperature to essentially maintain constant RH is incorrect, and results in an exaggerated estimate for WV feedback.
My rough estimate is that this exaggeration results in at least 0.5C spurious increase in the model-predicted 2xCO2 ECS estimate of IPCC in AR4.
On top of the 1.5C exaggeration resulting from betting net cloud feedback wrong, this is roughly 2C exaggeration, putting 2xCO2 ECS at around 1.0 to 1.5C (in line with latest estimates), instead of a bit more than 2x this amount (realize that the math is a bit more complicated, but that is my approximation).
What’s your estimate?
Max
manacker, RH is not being maintained at present because the first warming is over the drier land and polar regions. RH can only be maintained by the warmer oceans when they catch up, which is the equilibrium assumption. Constant RH raises the water vapor amount by 7% per degree, which translates to 280 ppm water vapor out of 4000 ppm (its current globally averaged value). This feedback multiplies itself so that its final effect may triple the CO2-only effect. Clouds also have been decreasing in the last few decades, contrary to expectations of negative feedback, and more in line with positive feedback. Summer sea-ice and winter snow area reductions can also contribute in the positive direction.
Jim D
Thanks for response, but there is a little too much hypothetical stuff there.
I prefer empirical data.
And these tell me that
– long-term water tropospheric vapor content (NOAA data since 1948) has decreased at the same time that global temperature has increased, while short-term “blips” in the record appear to show increased WV content with warming
– short term observations (M&D 2005) show that WV increased with temperature over the tropics, but only at less than half the amount required to maintain constant RH as the IPCC models assume in estimating WV feedback
These two independent pieces of empirical data tell me that the WV feedback predictions of the climate models cited by IPCC are likely to be exaggerated, resulting in at least 0.5C exaggeration of the predicted 2xCO2 ECS.
In addition, the recent physical observations on cloud feedback with warming (S&B 2007) show me that the net overall cloud feedback with warming over the tropics is negative instead of strongly positive, as predicted by the IPCC climate models. These physical observations have been confirmed by model studies using superparameterization to better simulate the behavior of clouds (Wyant et al. 2007); these studies show a net negative cloud feedback at all latitides.
Prior to this new information, IPCC had conceded that cloud impact “remains the largest source of uncertainty”, yet IPCC models had predicted that a strongly positive cloud feedback would increase the 2xC2 ECS from 1.9C to 3.2C. This new information tells me that this faulty prediction results in an overall exaggeration of the 2xCO2 ECS of around 1.5C, as a result of clouds.
Together this would represent an exaggeration of the 2xCO2 ECS of around 2C, which seems to fit with latest studies.
That was my point, which you are not addressing.
Max
–
–
manacker, how does the negative cloud feedback explain the observed reduction in cloud cover with warming? How can cloud cover be increasing when RH is decreasing? In summer we have less cloudiness precisely because the continents are warmer than the oceans, and this is the way the climate is going in this transient period (longer drier summers). Your water vapor decreasing data is questionable because other datasets that look at the atmospheric total find it is increasing. I agree RH may be decreasing, because this is in line with the more rapid continental warming, and is a transient effect that may last this century. Not something to be happy with because lower RH also means drier hotter daytime conditions.
Jim D
Let’s go through your post
The observed reduction in cloud cover is very likely the cause of the observed warming (see Earthshine measurements).
Negative cloud feedback is an observed short-term phenomenon (S&B 2007)
.
You figure it out. Which is coming first? Is RH decreasing because more of the atmospheric WV is condensing out to form clouds?
.
Evidence?
I have given you references to the observed physical data I cited (NOAA long-term record, M&D 2005). I have seen no empirical data showing WV increase to maintain constant RH, as IPCC models assume.
Great! You agree that RH will decrease with warming (as I said the empirical evidence shows). IOW the IPCC assumption that WV increases to essentially maintain constant RH is wrong, and results in an exaggerated estimate for WV feedback and 2xCO2 ECS.
I have shown you empirical evidence from actual physical observations, which show that
– net overall cloud feedback with warming is negative, rather than strongly positive, as predicted by the IPCC climate models.
– WV increase with warming is considerably less than that required to maintain constant RH, as predicted by the IPCC climate models.
Correcting for these two factors results in a 2xCO2 ECS of around half the value previously predicted by the IPCC climate models.
This results in ECS values similar to those found in recent observation-based estimates.
You have not brought any empirical evidence to refute this.
Max
manacker, your water data was faulty because it was only the upper atmosphere. You can tell by the scale on the side of the graph if you know the average atmospheric value is 2.5 g/kg. Go to the last IPCC report to check the actual peer-reviewed data, and probably the next one too.
You are now making things up. Clouds are increasing, you say because RH is decreasing? Huh? That is a new one.
Yes, summer has a lower humidity and less clouds than winter. The main variability is over land where the RH changes a lot between seasons.
Jim D
Wrong again, Jim.
The NOAA tropospheric water vapor data is “up to 300 mb”. It shows a long term reduction of WV content with global warming (see chart):
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3343/3606945645_3450dc4e6f_b.jpg
I’m not going to speculate a lot of “what if” questions with you, Jim, because this would be a waste of time.
The M&D study I cited concludes:
Fig. 7 from this study shows just how much “weaker” this is:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3347/3610454667_9ac0b7773f_b.jpg
(As you can see, the observed WV increase was less than one-half the IPCC assumed increase.)
IOW, this empirical evidence supports the new observation-based estimates for 2xCO2 ECS, which are around half the earlier model-predicted values cited by IPCC in its AR4 report.
These show (quite simply)
-net cloud feedback with warming is negative (this is supported by a separate model study using superparameterization to better simulate the behavior of clouds)
– WV feedback is positive, but much lower than predicted by the IPCC models based on maintaining constant RH
We can rationalize why this is (or really is not) so until we are both blue in the face, Jim, but it does not change the fact that this empirical evidence points to a much lower 2xCO2 ECS than was predicted by the IPCC AR4 climate models, confirming the latest observation-based estimates.
Max
manacker, up to 300 mb means 0-300 mb, i.e. high levels only. The value of 0.25 g/kg gives this away. The tropospheric average is more like 2.5 g/kg. You need to straighten this out. This M&D study is looking only at the upper troposphere. If you look at the surface over oceans it is pretty much equilibrium phase-changs physics that determines that RH stays where it is as the temperature rises.
The climate sensitivity is likely 3 C for a doubling of atmospheric CO2.
Breaking apart the attribution, the direct contribution of CO2 of 1.2 C is solid. The control knob that CO2 exerts on H20 is also solid at 1 C.
That leaves about 0.8 C for other GHGs such as CH4, N2O, and albedo changes that come along with the industrial output from fossil fuel use and contribute positive feedback to the temperature rise.
The fact that skeptics can’t seem to face is that CO2 got us to where we are at — 33 C above a no-GHG steady state — and it will continue to drive the climate warmer as CO2 continues to increase and accumulate in the atmosphere.
http://theoilconundrum.blogspot.com/2013/03/climate-sensitivity-and-33c-discrepancy.html
Jim D and Web
Simply making statements that “the 2xCO2 ECS is 3C” (as you two are doing) or plotting graphs “proving” that it is 3C rather than 1.5C (as Webby has done) is a waste of time.
Latest observation-based studies show that this is not the case, but that it is likely around half this value.
The biggest error of IPCC models in AR4 appears to be their prediction of strongly positive net cloud feedback, as I pointed out. Correcting for this apparently false assumption reduces 2xCO2 by at least 1.5C.
The other correction is less important, as it is simply an exaggeration of the WV feedback (up in the troposphere where the GH warming is supposed to take place). This may have led to a further exaggeration of the ECS of around 0.5C.
I see from your reaction how the die-hard CAGW dogmatists react to these new data (they ignore them, because they conflict with their dogma).
It will be interesting to see how IPCC reacts in AR5.
If IPCC ignores it (or “sweeps it under the rug”, as our hostess wrote), it risks a further loss of credibility.
If it acknowledges it, it loses the fear factor to support its CAGW premise.
A dilemma.
I personally believe IPCC will react as you two have, hanging in there with the hard line, to keep the fear factor alive, at the risk of a further loss of public trust.
But who knows?
Max
Jim D
I plotted the NOAA tropospheric humidity record since 1948, which showed a reduction in WV content with warming over the log term. The record did show short-term spikes, where humidity appeared to increase with temperature, but the long-term tropospheric humidity trend was negative with warming.
Using the same NOAA data, but only from 1973 to 2007, Paltridge et al. 2009 found (bold type by me):
http://www.theclimatescam.se/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/paltridgearkingpook.pdf
Unless you can find studies, which falsify the NOAA record (and the Paltridge et al. summary), I believe it will be impossible for you to rationally defend the IPCC assumption of constant RH with warming, and hence the strongly positive WV feedback, leading to a 2xCO2 ECS of 3.2C, as the IPCC models cited in AR4 have predicted.
Max
For being a chemical engineer you sure are stupid maxi pad.
Relative humidity should stay constant with changes of temperature because it is defined as a percentage of saturated water vapor, and since the earth is 70% water covered, the answer is obvious.
The data supports this. Too bad yo rely on more of that crazy Australian climate science. Paltrige, Pilmer, Salby, Daly, plus all the crankpots that comment here from Australia.
#WHUT
Whuts up wid dat!
Webby
Who’s “stupid”?
Yeah, smart guy.
That’s what RH “should” do with warming.
But the facts on the ground (actually the measurements in the air) show that this is not what is actually happening in real life.
Paltridge et al. simply looked at the actual NOAA record over all altitudes (as I did too, for the upper troposphere only) and found that the data show RH decreasing with warming.
This means a very much lower WV feedback than was predicted by the IPCC AR4 models (and a very much lower 2xCO2 ECS).
Sorry that things aren’t working as they “should”, Webby.
Dessler(2010) Trends in tropospheric humidity from reanalysis systems.They find the results of Paltridge “spurious”
Webby
Use your head
So Dessler finds “Paltridge’s results spurious”.
But, hey, they agree with his very own results in Minschwaner & Dessler 2004, where their observations showed that tropospheric relative humidity decreased with warming.
In fact, M&D found that the observed increase in WV with warming was considerably less than half the theoretical increase with constant RH (see their Figure 7, below extended to show the IPCC assumption of constant RH compared to the actual observation).
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3347/3610454667_9ac0b7773f_b.jpg
Read it and weep, Webby.
Max
http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/adai/papers/Dai_JC06-sfcHumidity.pdf
Paper shows a small but statistically significant decrease in RH over the oceans from 1975-2005. Some land areas show an increase in RH accompanied by, not surprisingly, an increase in low-lying clouds.
NASA says impact of low-lying clouds in not well understood, although the GCMs generally predict a positive feedback from a reduction in low cloud cover.
“Scientists aren’t entirely sure where and to what degree clouds will end up amplifying or moderating warming, but most climate models predict a slight overall positive feedback or amplification of warming due to a reduction in low cloud cover. A recent observational study found that fewer low, dense clouds formed over a region in the Pacific Ocean when temperatures warmed, suggesting a positive cloud feedback in this region as the models predicted. Such direct observational evidence is limited, however, and clouds remain the biggest source of uncertainty–apart from human choices to control greenhouse gases—in predicting how much the climate will change.”
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/GlobalWarming/page5.php
John M
The paper you cite shows that RH at the surface decreases slightly with warming over the oceans and increases over land. Jim D has also made this point.
The NOAA data I cited (and Paltridge et al. used for their study) shows that the RH in the troposphere (lower as well as upper) decreases significantly with warming.
The M&D 2004 study used satellite data over the tropics and showed the same reduction in tropospheric RH with warming.
Since the troposphere is where GH warming is supposed to take place, this means that WV feedback is less than what it would be with constant RH (as assumed by the IPCC AR4 models).
That was my point to Jim D and Web.
Max
Thanks Max,
Just wanted to point out the citation for Web’s benefit, who is dead positive, absolutely sure, no doubt about it that RH has to stay constant, especially over 70% of the Earth’s surface..
Also wanted to point out the bit about low-lying clouds over land.
Arguing first-order physics
The saturation vapor pressure of H20 goes like K*exp(-E/kT)
An average partial pressure also goes like C*exp(-E/kT).
Relative humidity is essentially the second divided by the first, with the Boltzmann activation terms cancelling each other out.
RelH = C/K ~ constant
Now you can argue second-order physics and knock yourselves out.Won’t do any good because the damage is done by the first-order change in water vapor, which is the specific humidity.
I think the problem is when someone plots relative humidity against temperature and they see a slope different than zero, they get excited. But noise can push a value away from zero in any direction, positive or negative.
Paltridge (P09) created a spurious finding by reporting that specific humidity declined, and Dessler challenged him with the 2010 paper.
http://geotest.tamu.edu/userfiles/216/Dessler10.pdf
Dessler cut him a break by acknowledging that Paltridge himself was hedging his bet.
Looks to me Webby like we have 2 papers that draw opposite conclusions. One actually analyzes real data. You choose the other one. Sounds to me like the tropospheric hot spot that is not in the data. As Lindzen says, if you look for every source of error in the data you can assume all errors are in the same direction and come up with a positive trend, still not enough. But apparently, the satellite data also doesn’t show it. So, you assume that wind speed is more reliable than temperature (why in the world that is true is unclear) and calculate temperature from that, you get the hot spot. If the data disagrees with theory, the data must be wrong. I agree with Lindzen and several recent papers trying to resolve the mystery by trying to homogonize the data that it is a stretch.
In addition, if you look at Dessler’s figures, you see that none of the data sets shows the increase uniformly at all latitudes and there is a tremendous amount of scatter. They conclude, “Clearly, however, our analysis emphasizes the need to understand and reduce the uncertainties in long-term trends from reanalyses, and this goal should be a high priority of the community.” Not quite the open and shut case you portray. Webby, cherry picking quotes does not accurately portray a paper’s contents. Look at Figure 3 and try to tell me there is a consistent story here.
Webby
We have the old conflict between beautiful theory and observed empirical data.
The two do not agree.
So, since the beautiful theory can’t be wrong, the observed empirical data must be spurious.
Gimme a break, Webby.
Dessler co-authored a paper (with Minschwaner) in 2004, which showed that tropospheric water vapor increased over the tropics with warming, but at an amount less than half of that required to maintain constant RH.
The long-term NOAA data are there for one and all to see, and they also independently show that tropospheric RH has rdecreased with global warming.
But you say, since Clausius-Clapeyron tells us that RH should remain constant with warming, the observed empirical data must be wrong.
Fuggidaboudit, Webby. (It didn’t work out that way.)
Max
#1 can’t admit that new data supersedes old data
#2 conventional science builds on previous theory
“Validating a physics-based back-of-the-envelope climate model with state-of-the-art data”
Rasmus E. Benestad
http://arxiv.org/abs/1301.1146
Look carefully at the humidity data. First-order effects rule.
Web, you’re gonna get me to replace ‘It’s the sun, Stupid’ with ‘It’s the water, Stupid.’ Hey, it’s both, I’m Stupid.
==============
You also once again have the conflict between satellite and in situ balloon data. Last time Spencer and the satellites lost that one due to calibration errors. The WUWT item on the unpublished NASA NVAP data show this disagreement, but they don’t say much about it or why they prefer to believe the NASA data.
:That is because there never was any greenhouse warming that could be paused. There is a no-warming period but it is shown inaccurately because ground-based temperature curves do not reproduce the 1998 super El Nino and its surroundings accurately. You don’t know that because you guys simply don’t know what to do with a temperature curve and have no idea what is in it if faced with one. First, the only reliable temperature curves come from satellites.”
1 The temperature records do capture 1998 well.
2. Satellites do not give you temperatures.
Satillites do not measure the temperature of the air or the land or the sea.
They estimate the temperature based on
1. the values of pixels in sensors that are sensitive to the brightness
at certain wavelengths
2. Physics MODELS applied to these values
The physics models applied to these values are radiative transfer models.
If the “temperatures” estimated by satillites are reliable it is because that physics is reliable. That physics is ENTAILS that GHG cause warming.
So the evidence you cite deconstructs your position.
Steven Mosher, you write “That physics is ENTAILS that GHG cause warming.”
You are absolutely correct. But you leave out the IMPORTANT issue. HOW MUCH warming is caused by adding more CO2 to the atmosphere? That is the 64 trillion dollar question.
And there is no empirical evidence where anyone has MEASURED how much warming is caused by adding any given amount of CO2 to the atmopshere from current levels.
And that is the issue which you, and all other warmists, refuse to admit is true.
Steven Mosher
You state that “physics entails that GHG cause warming”.
I presume you are talking about the IR absorption characteristic of water vapor, CO2 and other GHGs, which has been demonstrated under controlled laboratory conditions and is posited to result in warming of our planet at higher CO2 concentrations due to the resulting GH effect.
That’s “physics” and “empirical evidence” that a mechanism for GH warming exists.
And temperatures have generally increased as atmospheric CO2 levels have done so (although the correlation is a bit dicey).
However, it does not provide any qualitative or quantitative empirical evidence regarding the GH warming one would actually see In our climate as a result of doubling the CO2 concentration, for example (Jim Cripwell’s point). It could be significant (as IPCC suggests) or totally insignificant.
We have an alternate hypothesis on another possible cause of past warming, which shows a pretty good correlation with past climate changes in the longer-term record: the galactic cosmic ray cloud nucleation hypothesis proposed by Svensmark et al.
Here again, just like for the GH hypothesis, we have a mechanism, which was tested and validated by experimentation under controlled conditions at CERN in the presence of certain naturally occurring aerosols.
The scientists leading this study have cautioned that, while the mechanism itself has been validated, it is still too early to tell to what extent this mechanism would caused actual changes in our climate. Added work is planned under controlled conditions simulating our climate to either corroborate or falsify the Svensmark hypothesis as a real driver of our climate.
So it appears to me that empirically we are about as far with one hypothesis (AGW) as we are with the other (cosmic rays/clouds).
To be sure, the AGW hypothesis has quite a bit of a head start in the funding, modeling and hype category, but empirically I’d say the two are on a par. And the continued work at CERN might actually give the Svensmark hypothesis an advantage (since I know of no such planned experimental work for the AGW hypothesis).
What do you think?
Max
You are describing the AIRS instrument onboard AQUA when referring to pixel brightness.
http://wdc.dlr.de/sensors/airs/
“The Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS), an advanced sounder containing 2378 infrared channels and four visible/near-infrared channels, aimed at obtaining highly accurate temperature profiles within the atmosphere plus a variety of additional Earth/atmosphere products.”
RSS/UAH temps are obtained from MSU instruments.
http://www.ssmi.com/msu/msu_data_description.html
The “physics” are the weightings
ftp://ftp.ssmi.com/msu/weighting_functions
although I’m as hesistant to call these tables physics as would be to call an artillery table “physics” I’d be more likely to call it math but they are both technically based on laws of physics – the former what you call “radiative transfer” and the latter gravity and friction. When I went to school it wasn’t called radiative transfer it was called electromagnetic wave propagation. That is exactly what microwave propagation through the atmosphere is and I’ve had formal schooling on it in the military. One of the systems I was taught everything about was a weather radar which is precisely the art of generating microwaves, bouncing them off clouds, and displaying the result. That’s active microwave sensing. The MSU units used by RSS/UAH for atmospheric temperature data are passive microwaves and the frequencies are different. My radar used a frequency that only partially penetrated clouds so by plotting returned signal strength vs. time we could see how much the signal was being attenuated over distance and hence the cloud density.
You’re welcome.
As I suspected. Complete silence from Steven Mosher. He refuses to admit to the scientificly obvious. Typical.
I see that Jim Cripwell isn’t asking for any more information on quantifying GCRs. Either (a) even he doesn’t believe that one, or (b) he has fallen for it hook-line-and-sinker. Come on, Jim Cripwell, show some interest in manacker’s GCRs at least.
JCH writes “I see that Jim Cripwell isn’t asking for any more information on quantifying GCRs.”
“There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under the heavens:” Ecclesiastes 3
I try to keep my discussions departmentalized. This is not the place to discuss GCRs. It is the place to discuss the disgusting omission by the IPCC in the AR 4 not to present the science that shows that no-one has actually measured how much global temperatures rise, as a result of adding more CO2 to the atmosphere from current levels. Nor will any warmists, including yourself, admit that this is an obvious, incontrovertable truth.
Admitting this will not invalidate CAGW; this will remian what it has always been, a viable hypothesis. But it does impinge on the IPCC discussion of probabilities as stated in the SPMs.
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch9s9-7.html The omission of this truth about no meausrements, if included in the discussion, would show that the conclusions drawn by the IPCC on probabilites and certainties are just plain wrong.
But clearly no true warmist wants to join in this sort of scientific discussion.
I can’t quite pin down Curry’s qualification of which of my comments are allowed and which are snipped. Evidently Mosher is more protected from barbs than others because a comment in this thread with two very small barbs (for me) didn’t pass muster. However the link it contained was something people should read so here it is:
http://disc.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/AIRS/documentation/amsu_instrument_guide.shtml
This talks about how the AIRS infrared sensor works which is CCD (Charge Coupled Device) based. CCDs are the heart of digital cameras and is crudely an array of phototransisters (PT) on an integrated circuit chip where each PT represents one pixel (picture element). Light (it can be IR, UV, visible) is focused on the array and photons striking each PT generate a commensurate voltage which is read off pixel by pixel.
The AMSU is a different beast and uses antennas instead of optics. In other words it’s a just a plain old radio receiver (several of them actually) tuned for microwave frequencies of interest that excited oxygen molecules in the atmosphere emit. Crude divisional layers in the atmosphere emit a slightly different frequency:
http://disc.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/AIRS/images/AMSU_WGT.TIF
and the amplitude of the emission at any given frequency is dependent on temperature (i.e. excitement level of the oxygen molecule). This is how atmospheric temperature is established by satellite. It is NOT established by the pixel-based IR sensors in the AIRS instrument. AIRS didn’t launch until 2002 and it can do things AMSU-A cannot do well (if at all) like determine the temperature of a cloud top or in clear sky determine the temperture of the ocean surface.
Combining the output of the two instruments can do things like temperature profile of a cloud top to bottom as well as the altitude of both with suitably clever math to correlate the information provided by each. AIRS and AMSU-A were designed such that the swath of the microwave horn antennas is 3 pixel-widths of the AIRS parabolic reflector view so the scans of each can be matched up, compared and correlated in real time.
Most of the satellite temperature record predates AQUA and AIRS (2002) and was solely obtained by first generation microwave sounding units (MSUs). As far as I know RSS and UAH both continue to use only microwave soundings to generate the notorius global average temperature.
You’re welcome, Steven Mosher. Now you should have a better idea of how the hardware works and I trust you won’t be mistakenly conflating AIRS and MSU again in the future.
Jim Cripwell, there are basic common-sense physics ideas dating to Arrhenius that hold that CO2 forcing causes warming. The forcing can be quantified and compared with solar variation for example, being much larger, but I don’t think you understand how they do that with physics (explaining the 33 degrees and all that technical stuff).
@Jim Cripwell
Electromagnetic wave propagation (radiative transfer) in simple situations (homogenous gas, homogenous pressure) is as well established as the acceleration of gravity. However in the atmosphere there’s a great many confounding factors in just the RTE (radiative transfer equation) alone which require the use of approximate numerical methods instead solving the RTE. The devil is in the detail. The worst confounding factor by far, especially in the troposphere, is mechanical transport of latent heat (ie water vapor convection) which accounts globally for the majority of heat transport in the troposphere and over the ocean for the vast majority of the transport. Latent heat is called latent because it doesn’t register on a thermometer and the physics of evaporation is such that a liquid water molecule and a vapor molecule can have exactly the same temperature but a thousand-fold difference in heat content. So water evaporating off the ocean warms the air to almost exactly the same temperature as the ocean but with a hugely larger energy content per unit volume (enthalpy or total system energy). This enormous amount of energy is transported insensibly until adiabatic cooling causes the vapor to condense into a cloud. So where there is water on the surface free to evaporate energy moves from the surface to the cloud deck with no increase in surface temperature. Absent evaporation only thermal convection and radiative transfer are available for cooling the surface and both of those require a warmer surface to increase the channel capacity. In deserts and sub-freezing surface environments with clear sky the effect of increasing CO2 is pretty much what the RTE solution says it is 1.1C/doubling. Elsewhere it’s not so simple. Warmists invented (from what data or theorectical basis is still a mystery to me) this thing called water vapor amplification which says where there is water evaporate it’s even worse than 1.1C and might be as much as 7C/doubling. This is preposterous on the face of it. Tropical deserts have the highest mean annual temperature of any climate type. Were the water vapor amplification effect real then a tropical rainforest should have the highest mean annual temperature. The effect of water vapor alone is amenable to calculation. It’s a greenhouse gas in the same way that CO2 is a greenhouse gas. The difference is that water vapor condenses into clouds which shade the surface and thus deprive the surface of the sunlight which is ultimately the only significant source of energy to warm it. Clouds form until the surface is deprived of so much sunlight that evaporation slows and no more clouds can form. Thus we see in the ice core records that when a glacial period ends temperature shoots up like a rocket from low albedo liquid water replacing high albedo ice and the global ocean subsequently warming up until it is evaporating fast enough for cloud cover to reach the saturation point and then the temperature rise halts and never again exceeds that initial surge level where enough clouds form to cap the temperature increase. During the following interglacial period the temperature (in fits and starts) slowly declines as ice rebuilds until after an average of 10,000 years the ice gets the upper hand again and keeps it for about 100,000 years as the low temperature creates a vast frozen desert out of the northern hemisphere which halts rapid glacier growth. Orbital mechanics (axial and orbital precession) and probably not a small amount of warming from volcanic ash darkening the ice surface then combine to make the ice start to melt and once the melt starts it’s a positive feedback process that make the glacial period end in a big hurry while the ocean warms up and clouds again cover 70% of the earth’s surface capping any further warming. There’s some overshoot at the beginning while the cloud thermostat effect kicks into full gear so the beginning of the interglacial is marked by short duration peak temperature the is practically identical on every cycle and never reached again until the start of the next interglacial cycle. Currently the earth is well below that temperature and is on the border of the current interglacial period ending. The Holocene interglacial is 11,500 years old and the average duration of interglacials is 10,000 years. We should fear Arctic sea and glaciers growing not receeding. No icecaps is good and is the usual state of affairs for the earth. The presence of polar ice caps is not a good thing for the biosphere. Plants don’t grow well in ice and animals can’t survive eating ice.
JIm D, you write “Jim Cripwell, there are basic common-sense physics ideas ”
As I suspected, when you dont want to admit the obvioius, you introduce a red herring. Sure I am familiar with the works of Arrhenius. I have always agreed that CAGW is a viable hypothesis, which is all that Arrhenius demonstrated. I also agree that the effect of CO2 at low concentrations, where the absorption of IR is not saturated, is far greater thatn the effect at concentrations above, say, 200 ppmv. I am also familiar with the scientific method, as developed by Galileo and Newton. This states that every idea is a hypothesis until it is confirmed by actual measurements.
No-one has measured how much global temperatures warm as more and more CO2 is added to the atmosphere. That is the incontrovertable fact which you refuse to acknowledge. I know I am wasting my time asking for an acknowledgement from any true warmist. But it will remaikn a fact that the IPCC’s claims to certainty and probability in the AR4 are just plain wrong, becasue of this omission.
Radiative transfer physics accounts for saturation effects and tells us that the forcing from doubling CO2 is equivalent to increasing solar irradiance by 1%. Arguing against an effect is like arguing that a solar increase of this magnitude (about 20 times a sunspot cycle) has no effect.
Jim D, you write “Radiative transfer physics accounts for saturation effects and tells us that the forcing from doubling CO2 is equivalent to increasing solar irradiance by 1%. Arguing against an effect is like arguing that a solar increase of this magnitude (about 20 times a sunspot cycle) has no effect.”
You can go on writing this sort of stuff until the cows come home, and it wont make any difference. NONE of these considerations measure how much global temperatures rise as more CO2 is added to the atmosphere. None whatsoever. When are you going to acknowledge that what I write is correct? I know, never. You will go on avoiding the issue for ever.
I am familiar with just about all the theoretical and hypothetical observations that support the hypothesis of CAGW. They are all valid, and they are all real. They all support the hypothesis of CAGW, as I have acknowledged over and over again.. However, there is nothing that can change CAGW from being a hypothesis into it being a theory, EXCEPT empirical evidence that measures how much global temperatures actually rise as a result of adding more CO2 to the atmosphere from current levels.
Jim D you also write “that the forcing from doubling CO2 is equivalent to increasing solar irradiance by 1%.”
This is, of course, a load of scientific nonsense. When the sun’s irrqadiance increases by 1%, it adds about 1% more energy, joules, which arrive at the earth’s location. Whatever happens to CO2, there are no additional joules addeed to the system. So the two forcings are in no way comparable at all.
Jim D | March 3, 2013 at 10:48 am |
“Radiative transfer physics accounts for saturation effects”
That’s controversial. Shoulder broadening in the real world is not fully understood.
“and tells us that the forcing from doubling CO2 is equivalent to increasing solar irradiance by 1%.”
It tells us no such thing. The spectrum of sunlight and DWLIR are vastly different and the matter it illuminates can and does respond differently to different frequencies of radiation.
“Arguing against an effect is like arguing that a solar increase of this magnitude (about 20 times a sunspot cycle) has no effect.”
No, it isn’t anything like that.
Two of the sun’s(MilankoTSI) probably multiple forcings are somewhat understood.
That’s all, folks.
=========
Jim D
Of course, Jim Cripwell is not asking for empirical data to support the premise that GCRs have a perceptible impact on clouds in our climate system, and hence on our climate.
He is fully aware that evidence does not exist.
The CLOUD experiment at CERN has simply confirmed that the cloud nucleation mechanism for such an effect does exist, in the presence of certain naturally occurring aerosols.
Longer-term records show a pretty good correlation (if not perfect)between solar activity (thus GCRs) and climate.
Further reproducible experimental work at CERN under controlled conditions simulating our planet’s climate is planned to either corroborate and quantify or falsify that this mechanism really has a perceptible effect on our climate.
A LW absorption mechanism has obviously also been identified in the laboratory for GH warming by CO2 ( plus other trace GH gases and water vapor).
And records since ~1850 show a fair correlation (far from perfect) between CO2 concentrations and climate.
But, just like for the GCR cloud effect, empirical evidence does not exist to show that the GH mechanism will result in perceptible warming of our climate in real life from increased CO2 concentrations. Again, the evidence just does not yet exist (as Jim Cripwell has pointed out).
So there is no inconsistency here whatsoever.
We have two nice-sounding hypotheses, both of which involve a mechanism, which has been confirmed by laboratory experiments, but neither of which has been corroborated, falsified or quantified for our atmosphere by real-time empirical evidence.
Admittedly, one has gotten a lot more hype than the other (plus a multi-billion dollar taxpayer-funded boost), but scientifically they appear to be on a par.
Pretty logical, right?
Max
kim
What Jim D does not understand cannot exist.
By definition.
Makes life simple.
Max
Jim Cripwell, a forcing of 3.7 W/m2 whether from the Sun or CO2, is a forcing requiring more outward IR to balance it (usually achieved by warming). The way CO2 achieves its forcing is by restricting the IR outflow, like partially blocking a drain, and the warming is like the water level rising until the pressure causes the outflow to be restored, in a common analogy.
manacker, the big difference with GCRs is that there is no way to know what they do in paleoclimate (unless there is a signature isotope, which I don’t know of), but the effects of rising and falling CO2 in the last several hundred million years and their coincidence with temperature changes, are not just the lucky coincidence that you are fervently claiming here. How sure are you that CO2 and temperature correlations in paleoclimate are just coincidence, and that volcanic periods producing CO2 did not lead to warm periods like the Triassic and Eocene? You are throwing away more certain science in favor of speculative effects, and doing that with more certainty than the evidence merits, which is not a good practice of scientific method.
Arno, I see that I’ve saved your posts refuting AGW or GW on 15 Dec 2011 and 24 May 2012, and now 2 Mar 2013 (Brisbane dates, GMT +10). So I must find your arguments convincing. Now let’s see what the more scientifically-minded and informed make of them.
Perhaps JC could put up this latest from Arno Arrak as a guest post so it can be discussed comprehensively..?
Myrrh
Great idea.
Hope our hostess is “listening”.
Max
Myrrh | March 2, 2013 at 1:14 pm | Reply
Perhaps JC could put up this latest from Arno Arrak as a guest post so it can be discussed comprehensively..?
manacker | March 2, 2013 at 6:58 pm |
Myrrh
Great idea.
Hope our hostess is “listening”.
Max
————————————————
She is now. ;-)
Arrak seems to be in the Tisdale School of Stepwise Warming. Because warming is stepwise, apparently it is no problem, at least until it isn’t stepwise anymore.
JimD,
You mean the irregular steps with no apparent “cause”?
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-Zbwrzf-PvC8/UTNfiB30H_I/AAAAAAAAHZI/187p7Ds9sdA/s912/steps.png
captain, you need to check with Tisdale, but I believe he wasn’t talking about solar cycles which you isolated, more like ENSO, but it was gibberish, so you could be right.
JimD, “captain, you need to check with Tisdale, but I believe he wasn’t talking about solar cycles which you isolated, more like ENSO, but it was gibberish, so you could be right.”
ENSO is just solar cycles with internal lags caused by meridianal heat transport variations. The irregular cycles of 28 years and longer are the real mystery.
captain, put it down to oceans and move on. How about the land temp? That is a whole different story.
JimD, “captain, put it down to oceans and move on. How about the land temp? That is a whole different story.”
Yeah, not including the Arctic circles that land is about 27% of the global surface. Nearly half of that 27% is between latitude 25 and 65 north. I have heard that ocean currents tend to impact the climate over that land area and that there has been a crap load of land use and water use changes up there. Why don’t we put that small regional impact down to land use and move on :)
> What burden of proof do you require…
As I said: “We looked at scientific papers. Which ones do you think we missed?” This seems like it should be an easy question for you to answer, if we have missed any.
As far as I can tell, that’s your only attempt at rebutting our paper. Clearly you don’t like the conclusions, because they disagree with your world-view, but your only response is why didn’t we include some studies, that you are, errm, unable to name. That’s not very convincing. Name them.
> Do you disagree with the comment from Budyko I cited?
You mean “the scientists concerned with climatic change almost UNANIMOUSLY (my capitalization) believed that the temperature would continue to decrease in the near future…” etc? Certainly I disagree with it: I agree he said it, I disagree that its accurate. At least, its not reflected in the scientific literature.
Which you can see from the graph I’ve helpfully put at http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2013/03/01/1970s-cooling-again/, or indeed you can actually read the paper itself.
> Spoiled for choice, more on: http://www.climatedepot.com/a/3213/Dont-Miss-it-Climate-Depots-Factsheet-on-1970s-Coming-Ice-Age-Claims
That doesn’t look very good: “A Small Sampling of 1970’s Reports Warning of Global Cooling: National Academy of Sciences Issued Report Warning of Coming Ice Age in 1975”. But that report doesn’t do so. If you’d like to read from the report itself, try http://www.wmconnolley.org.uk/sci/iceage/nas-1975.html.
William Connolley, please see my posts after tonybclimatereason’s post to you above,
http://judithcurry.com/2013/02/22/spinning-the-climate-model-observation-comparison/#comment-299462 to which you are replying here.
Err, yes, I’ve seen it. I quoted from it. You refer us to climatedepot, but as I point out, climatedepot is broken. They need to try actually reading the 1975 NAS report. I have, which is why I’ve got quotes from it. You clearly haven’t, or you wouldn’t be trying to claim it for your “side”.
It seems unlikely that you’ll be capable of following the link, so allow me to quote: “…we do not have a good quantitative understanding of our climate machine and what determines its course. Without the fundamental understanding, it does not seem possible to predict climate…”. And “Our response to the concerns is the proposal of a major new program of research designed to increase our understanding of climatic change and to lay the foundation for its prediction”. And “How large these future changes will be, and where and how rapidly they will occur, we do not know”. That was a fair enough summary of the state of the science in 1975, and that’s what they presented.
To try to say that is similar to the state of the science now, but with warm and cold reversed, is silly. IPCC makes confident predictions/projections of future warming.
William Connolley
You write:
Duh! Sure it does.
But let me correct that:
And, hey, BTW William it appears they may be forced to cut these projections in half, based on latest observation-based estimates of 2xCO2 ECS.
But you can be sure that however they respond to these latest estimates, they will continue to make overconfident predictions/projections of future warming (it has been their track record and is part of their sales pitch).
Max
Max
William Connolley | March 2, 2013 at 1:43 pm |
Err, yes, I’ve seen it. I quoted from it.
Hardly, you ignored everything except to introduce misdirection here:
Spoiled for choice, more on: http://www.climatedepot.com/a/3213/Dont-Miss-it-Climate-Depots-Factsheet-on-1970s-Coming-Ice-Age-Claims
That doesn’t look very good: “A Small Sampling of 1970′s Reports Warning of Global Cooling: National Academy of Sciences Issued Report Warning of Coming Ice Age in 1975″. But that report doesn’t do so. If you’d like to read from the report itself, try http://www.wmconnolley.org.uk/sci/iceage/nas-1975.html.
You refer us to climatedepot, but as I point out, climatedepot is broken.
That doesn’t look very good for you, you mean, it’s a very good compilation of the global cooling predictions of the time and especially gravitas in which it was held, and, the link isn’t broken; here it is again: http://www.climatedepot.com/a/3213/Dont-Miss-it-Climate-Depots-Factsheet-on-1970s-Coming-Ice-Age-Claims
And then you launch into something I hadn’t mentioned from the page, the 1975 NAS paper, which you then claim you link to it, but you don’t, you link instead to a piece you wrote about it with your own cherry picked quotes of incomplete sentences. So, let’s see the report in its entirety, please provide a link to it.
They need to try actually reading the 1975 NAS report. I have, which is why I’ve got quotes from it. You clearly haven’t, or you wouldn’t be trying to claim it for your “side”.
I haven’t been trying to claim it for “my side”, I’ve never mentioned before this and you’ve only mentioned it to distract from the quotes I did put in.
Which you have ignored:
http://judithcurry.com/2013/02/22/spinning-the-climate-model-observation-comparison/#comment-299475
“1975 New York Times: “Climate Changes Called Ominous,”, June 19, 1975 – Harold M. Schmeck, – p. 31. Excerpt: “The most drastic potential change considered in the new report is an abrupt end to the present interglacial period of relative warmth that governed the planet’s climate for the past 10,000 years. […] The report also noted that periods of benign climate comparable to the present are unusual and have existed for about 8 percent of the last 700,000 years.””
Spoiled for choice, more on: http://www.climatedepot.com/a/3213/Dont-Miss-it-Climate-Depots-Factsheet-on-1970s-Coming-Ice-Age-Claims
…
“1970: First Earth Day Promoted Ice Age Fears – Excerpt: At the first Earth Day celebration, in 1970, environmentalist Nigel Calder warned, “The threat of a new ice age must now stand alongside nuclear war as a likely source of wholesale death and misery for mankind.” C.C. Wallen of the World Meteorological Organization said, “The cooling since 1940 has been large enough and consistent enough that it will not soon be reversed.””
…
“Atmospheric Scientist Dr. Reid Bryson, the founding chairman of the Department of Meteorology at University of Wisconsin (now the Department of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences, who was pivotal in promoting the coming ice age scare of the 1970′s ( See Time Magazine’s 1974 article “Another Ice Age” citing Bryson: & see Newsweek’s 1975 article “The Cooling World” citing Bryson) converted into a leading global warming skeptic before his death in 2008. In February 8, 2007 Bryson dismissed what he terms “sky is falling” man-made global warming fears. Bryson, was on the United Nations Global 500 Roll of Honor and was identified by the British Institute of Geographers as the most frequently cited climatologist in the world. “Before there were enough people to make any difference at all, two million years ago, nobody was changing the climate, yet the climate was changing, okay?” Bryson told the May 2007 issue of Energy Cooperative News. “All this argument is the temperature going up or not, it’s absurd. Of course it’s going up. It has gone up since the early 1800s, before the Industrial Revolution, because we’re coming out of the Little Ice Age, not because we’re putting more carbon dioxide into the air,” Bryson said. “You can go outside and spit and have the same effect as doubling carbon dioxide,” he added.”
And the letter to President Nixon on the results from the conference at Brown University on : “http://fabiusmaximus.com/2009/10/21/letter/
“An important letter sent to the President about the danger of climate change
An important conference was held in January at Brown University: “The Present Interglacial, How and When Will it End?” (The October issue of Science had a summary of the it) As a result, the following letter was sent to the President. The media has not reported this, but you should be aware of the letter and its significance.
To try to say that is similar to the state of the science now, but with warm and cold reversed, is silly. IPCC makes confident predictions/projections of future warming.
These too are confident predictions/projections of future cooling. Since these are made based on real world data and understanding of our Ice Age and its cycles of 90,000 year glacials and 10,000 year interglacials by real scientists who know these are natural cycles, they are believable predictions.
The IPCC predictions are not at all believable as they are manufactured from fake fisics and tampered with data to promote a deliberate scare of runaway global warming driven by a trace gas which lags temperature changes for 800 years for the agenda of a few, and their useful idiots.
Oh, these warmists like William Connolley!
Some astronomers once felt that the Sun revolved around the Earth.
And now William Connolley would argue that we shouldn’t dismiss all current astronomical theory because some astronomers were wrong in the past?
William Connolley
The 1970s global cooling scare was similar to the current global warming scare in that it was supported by climate scientists (of whom there were very few back in those days, as compared to today).
To claim otherwise is simply sticking one’s head in the sand.
The big difference is the amount of taxpayer money going in to support the scare: billions of dollars per year today versus peanuts at the time.
And the stakes could even be higher (into the trillions of $) if a global direct or indirect carbon tax is levied.
So lots of folks are lined up at the trough to get a piece of the action and working to keep the scare alive (which was not the case in the 1970s).
But I am confident that it will eventually die (as the earlier scare did).
Max
> The 1970s global cooling scare was similar to the current global warming scare in that it was supported by climate scientists
No, it wasn’t. To know whether it was or not, you’d have to look at the scientific research that was published in the 70’s on the subject. Happily, someone has done exactly that: Tom Petersen, assisted by me and John Fleck. But you know that already, because I’ve already linked to the paper. I don’t think you’ve read it, though. If you did read it, perhaps you’d find something to disagree with – perhaps you wouldn’t like our methodology. Perhaps you’d find some studies we hadn’t included. Who knows. But you might at least be able to offer some informed criticism.
But since you haven’t read it, you’re just left wallowing in ignorance.
I’ve already provided quotes, just up above, that demonstrate clearly that in 1975 NAS were sure that they didn’t know what would happen to future climate. Perhaps you think they were lying. Perhaps you think they were deliberately refusing to cite relevant literature. Perhaps you just don’t like what they were saying. But certainly the situation then was quite unlike the situation now: then, people were unsure. Now they are (cautiously) sure.
“But since you haven’t read it, you’re just left wallowing in ignorance.”
reminds me of somebody I know.
Cooling alarm.
http://denisdutton.com/cooling_world.htm
That’s Newsweek. Its the meeja. Not science. Blame the meeja for what they write; scientists are responsible for the content of their scientific papers.
Learn to tell the difference.
William Connolley,
Can you put down your mailed glove long enough to cite any letters to the editor from climate scientists complaining about the media coverage in the 70s? I mean from back then, not revisionists.
“Blame the meeja for what they write”
You’re the media.
Andrew
Gwynne to this day claims he accurately represented the science of the time. This may be so.
http://www.examiner.com/article/peter-gwynne-author-of-the-the-cooling-world-newsweek-1975
However, the evidence at this time about the state of the science at that time tells a different story than Gwynne. Hindsight is 20/20.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_cooling
If John M happens to have access to an archive of Newsweek, I invite him to look to the letters to the editor commenting on global cooling, for an answer to his question. His local library may have kept some old copies.
Bart R,
I take it that means you can’t cite anything yourself. We’ll now wait for our thorough chronicler Connolley to weigh in.
John M | March 3, 2013 at 2:26 pm |
You could take it to mean you propose a meaningless and needless test. Flimsy as Gwynne’s 1975 article was, we can be sure there were those who at the time testified in writing to many of its errors.
Many supporting documents are referenced in the bibliographic sources of the wikipedia entry supplied above; as you could not be bothered to avail yourself of these electronic documents easily at hand, it is gross hypocrisy of you to criticize others for not making the far more arduous and unbalanced effort to track down magazine pages from almost four decades ago.
So what you can take it to mean is, you’ve proposed a straw man not worthy of attention or answer.
My former across-the-street neighbor was a scientist at UT Southwestern. In the 1990s there was an article in Newsweek about his field of study. He was unmentioned, so I asked him about it. He indicated disdain for the scientist who was quoted, and I’ll never forget his terse response. “When your life’s work is about to go down the garbage disposal, you publish it in Newsweek.”
The answer to my original question seems to be “No.”
“When your life’s work is about to go down the garbage disposal, you publish it in Newsweek.”
Still seems to be true.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2011/05/29/are-you-ready-for-more.html
Here’s an even better example of a has-been in Newsweek.
Guess who wrote it?
http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2009/12/03/power-failure.html
John M
Maybe we can revive Mann’s hockey shtick on “Newsweek”
It’s already gone down the drain, but whaddaya think?
Max
William Connolley
Scientists are also responsible for any hyperbolic BS that they feed the media.
And therein lies the problem.
Max
John M | March 3, 2013 at 4:33 pm |
So, which is it you’re now arguing? That Newsweek articles on science invariably draw strong rebukes disputing them, or that everyone in the 1970’s went along with Newsweek’s little puff piece?
And.. how exactly does it matter, either way?
Speaking of ‘hyperbolic BS’ or at least hockey blade bull, see Stevie Mac @ climateaudit.org
One wonders, at long last, why there’s no shame.
===============
Bart R,
Sorry, don’t follow. You seem a bit confused, since all I did was post links to “modern” Newsweek articles in towing the line of the current “consensus”. This was in response to JCH’s implication that anything published in Newsweek must be wrong.
What are you arguing?
The guy across the street is long gone, but I think his implication is correctly stated like this:
If you cannot get published in a scientific journal because your work is rejected, you publish in Newsweek.
It does not follow that Newsweek is always wrong on science, now or then, as he was using scientist humor, a version of gallows humor. My son is in medical school and he has learned a bunch of the lingo with which the various specialties put each other down.
John M | March 3, 2013 at 5:38 pm |
So your argument is that Newsweek is a progaganda tool of some consensus that puts out whatever message scientists want to brainwash the masses with?
And me without my tinfoil hat.
Sorry Bart, still don’t follow.
Where did I say any of those things? All I did was point out that JCH’s comment about the 70s still applies today.
Why don’t you take it up with him? In fact, Connolley was the first guy on this thread dissing Newsweek. Did you miss it?
You know, if I were you, I wouldn’t dismiss the utility of a tinfoil hat.
It might be an upgrade for you.
http://www.goldismoney2.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=9651&d=1313253323&thumb=1
I learned this trick from Johnny Carson. I printed out your question, folded it in two, put on my swami turban, and held the question up against my forehead while calling upon the forces on the other side of the veil to give me a clue.
A vision appeared to me of an old well dressed balding man protesting outside a coal mine. He was in handcuffs with a cop leading him away.
I’m not sure what the vision was telling me. Help me out?
John M | March 3, 2013 at 9:04 pm |
The not following part is the problem.
You’ve made a series of comments that appear to do nothing consistently and have no message other than to diss others, loosely united by the topic of Newsweek.
First you set a standard of proof so unbalanced as to be all-but-impossible, that of citing letters to the editor to Newsweek objecting to one specific article, from almost four decades ago. Then you imply agreement that letters to the editor of Newsweek will or ought often fit the category of responses you found your standard of proof upon, that of objecting to specific articles. Then you just plain wander all over the map following no apparent train of thought at all.
Maybe decide what point you want to express in your comments, and express that point in your comments?
Bart R
The reason I don’t follow is that you are not leading.
Perhaps that’s because I keep trying to respond to your putting words in my mouth. Maybe if you would just concentrate on what I actually said…
David Springer.
Not bad, but I’m not sure I’d give you the “well-dressed” part, although I admit it could help distinguish between a possible alternative.
http://www.australianclimatemadness.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/homer_hansen.png
William Connolley
It is you who appear to be “wallowing in ignorance”.
The 1970s global cooling scare is well documented.
You can’t change history just because you don’t like it.
Max
Read Mitchell from 1972. It’s in your own files, William Weasel.
==========
Mitchell ’72? You mean http://www.wmconnolley.org.uk/sci/iceage/quat_res_1972.html ? The one that says “…the basic conclusion to be drawn from the discussions in this section is that the knowledge necessary for understanding the mechanism of climate change is still lamentably inadequate”.
(this is a test. Don’t flunk it).
OK, William, source this quote: ‘By the early 1970s, when Mitchell updated his work(Mitchell 1972), the notion of a global cooling trend was widely accepted, albeit poorly understood.’
H/t omnologos.
=======================
Easy peasy! It was William Cannoli (sp?)
http://omnologos.com/world-exclusive-cia-1974-document-reveals-emptiness-of-agw-scares-closes-debate-on-global-cooling-consensus-and-more/
Yes, observations still show that the 70’s was a global cooling period. It is not surprising that they knew the observations at the time and had a consensus about the trend. kim’s consensus quote is on trends not predictions, but go ahead and take that reading comprehension test again.
Nice try, Jim D. It looks like Springer passes the test, and William hasn’t acknowledged the question, yet.
===========
Were Jim D inclined to be thoughtful, he might consider extending his thoughts on trends and predictions to the present, and through the intervening 40 years.
=============
William Connolley finally acknowledges the question further down, and uses Jim D’s sad rhetoric about trends and predictions to excuse his dishonesty. Perhaps he would consider bringing his meditations about trends and predictions through the intervening years to the present, also.
===============
> The 1970s global cooling scare is well documented.
I guess in your funny world you just have to keep repeating this, and hope. If you just stick to septic blogs, you might have some hope of making this work. Out in the real world, though, people are going to ask “just where is this documentation” and if you provide junk like the recent WUWT, they’re going to point out that’s all meeja, not science.
Read the scientific papers.
William Connolley
You are not the gatekeeper for history here, William.
The 1970s global cooling scare was supported by climate scientists (some of which have been specifically named here).
There were some climate scientists, who did NOT support the scare.
Some of these stated that humans were not able to change our climate perceptibly and that the cooling was from natural causes.
Others believed that global warming from GHGs would be more important than global cooling.
So, among the very few climate scientists that even existed at the time, there were differing opinions – just as there are today on the subject of CAGW as outlined by IPCC in its AR4 report.
The major difference between the two scares, as I pointed out, is $$$$$.
There was no multi-billion dollar (taxpayer-funded) “global cooling” industry then as there is today for AGW.
But, hey, go ahead and believe whatever you want to.
Max
National academy of Sciences published a panel review of the cooling in 1976.
Normally one can access NAS reports on their webpage to read PDF but this one was recalled for some unknown reason.
It was referenced in the book. the Cooling, also 1976
One can buy an old copy for $5-10 on e bay.
Scott
Here’s some nice irony. In the forward to ‘The Cooling’
by Lowell Ponte (1976) US Senator Pell writes: ‘The book
is as disquieting as ‘Silent Spring’ in its analysis of the
environmental hazards that can affect our future.
From the preface of the book, in the 1970s the was no consensus on global cooling:
…There is no agreement on whether the earth is cooling. – Reid Brysons
This is something I came across. It’s in German ) but
references in Section of Literature on Cooling scare is
in English, includes Ponte. also Kuhln, Matthews and
Mitchell, ‘The end of the present interglacial.’ There’s
a paragraph on Schneider 1971 but I don’t know what
it says. (
I’m digging out my Cassell’s waiting for the link.
===============
Yikes, sorry Kim , itconnection didn’t work. Now I must
go look fer it!
Now where are my glasses?
========
William Connolley | March 2, 2013 at 5:34 pm | Reply The 1970s global cooling scare is well documented.
I guess in your funny world you just have to keep repeating this, and hope. If you just stick to septic blogs, you might have some hope of making this work. Out in the real world, though, people are going to ask “just where is this documentation” and if you provide junk like the recent WUWT, they’re going to point out that’s all meeja, not science.
The documentation is still in the same place you obtained it when you too claimed global cooling was the consensus view from your own extensive examination of the papers of the time:..
Yep. And not just the foot Connolley, you don’t have a leg left to stand on.
That little gem is from http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/printable/7817/
Maurizio Morabito uncovers a 1974 CIA report showing that the ‘scientific consensus’ then was that the world was cooling.
We can now continue to repeat that global cooling was the consensus view of the scientists at the time because we have it on William Connolley’s authority…
JCH
CONSENSUS is a mighty big word.
Webster gives the synonym UNANIMITY, but also lists: “general agreement ”
There was no “unanimity” of opinion among scientists during the 1970s global cooling scare.
Based on the evidence at hand, there were climate scientists, who were of the opinion that a man-made period of global cooling could occur and that this would be detrimental for mankind. There were also others who disagreed. Does this constitute a “general agreement” (as opposed to a “majority vote”)? It’s too long ago to do a head count today, but there is no doubt that the global cooling scare was supported by some climate scientists and not by others.
There is no “unanimity” of opinion among scientists on the current global warming scare.
There is a claim of “consensus” by one side, which does not hold up to scrutiny (Oreskes notwithstanding).
There IS a forced “consensus” process of IPCC, whereby dissenting findings and opinions are filtered out to support a “consensus” position (has been covered here on another thread).
But does this constitute a “general agreement”? The current global warming scare is supported by some climate scientists and not by others, just as the global cooling scare was in the 1970s, so there is no “general agreement”, even if there might be a “majority vote”.
So you are right, JCH.
Max
Apologies fer delay, me word search is so far fruitless (
When (or if ) I find it I’ll post post haste.
Schnauffen, Schnauffen; Speichelfluss.
=================
With correlation coefficient of 0.9, the increased sun spot count is the cause of global warming as shown:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/mean:732/from:1895/to:1960/normalise/plot/sidc-ssn/mean:1056/from:1895/normalise
The longer the planners delay [action on climate], the more difficult will they find it to cope with climatic change once the results become grim reality.
April 28, 1975
Newsweek
So..
https://realitydrop.org/
Comments? Opinion? Should reality start dropping on Climate Etc. or is this just more reality off ducks’ backs?
Reality chirps,
Arches wings, shivers, and drops
Best bona fides.
===========
Bart R | February 28, 2013 at 9:21 pm |
There’s an app at the iStore that generates random short bad automatic poetry. You may wish to look into trademark infringement.
This from the guy who thinks “reality off a duck’s back” is clever.
Incredible.
David Springer | March 4, 2013 at 9:42 am |
See, kim?
David Springer thinks I’m incredibly clever!
Bart R
Reality Drop:
“Spread Truth”
Yeah. With a shovel.
Gimme a break, Bart.
Max
manacker | March 3, 2013 at 6:51 pm |
Shoot fewer messengers. I’m here to mention Reality Drop, not praise it.
Personally, I see it as slightly different from https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/ — which as you have been object of drops from it often enough, you must know I favor — or from http://www.physics.smu.edu/pseudo/Propaganda/ipatypes.html — which you must know I also make use of — and I’m not yet convinced of what best use to make of https://realitydrop.org/ if at all.
Is it appeal to authority to simply jump on Reality Drop’s bandwagon?
Please, be specific. Be detailed. Don’t be shy.
How exactly does Reality inflict itself on you?
It droppeth like the gentle rain, not in spastic shudders from an epileptic focus.
=====
> Easy peasy! It was William Cannoli (sp?) http://omnologos.com/world-exclusive-cia-1974-document-reveals-emptiness-of-agw-scares-closes-debate-on-global-cooling-consensus-and-more/
Again, that’s not science, that’s the CIA speaking. Who aren’t a noted scientific organisation, errm, they’re spooks, no? Please learn to tell the difference.
http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2012/05/25/global-cooling-and-spooks-again/
> The 1970s global cooling scare was supported by climate scientists (some of which have been specifically named here)… So, among the very few climate scientists that even existed at the time, there were differing opinions – just as there are today on the subject of CAGW as outlined by IPCC in its AR4 report.
Wrong, on all counts. First of all, there is overwhelming support for the IPCC position, today (and you’re wrong to describe the IPCC position as CAGW; that’s just a strawman invented by the septics). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change provides a helpful summary, if you’re in doubt.
Second, you misrepresent the 1970’s position, which was again “in favour” of warming, but less strongly so. All the facts are available – http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2013/03/01/1970s-cooling-again/ for links, and the paper. You’ll notice that your response is rather fact-free.
> National academy of Sciences published a panel review of the cooling in 1976.
Not quite. The report you’re thinking of is from 1975. See http://www.wmconnolley.org.uk/sci/iceage/nas-1975.html for some quotes. And it wasn’t a review of the cooling, it was a review of climate science at the time called “UNDERSTANDING CLIMATE CHANGE: A program for action”.
> Normally one can access NAS reports on their webpage to read PDF but this one was recalled for some unknown reason.
Call in the Black Helicopters!
> In the forward to ‘The Cooling’ by Lowell Ponte (1976) US Senator Pell writes…
Why not quote the opinions of a scientist instead? In the preface Reid Bryson: says “…There are very few pages that, as a scientist, I could accept without questions of accuracy, of precision, or of balance…” (http://www.wmconnolley.org.uk/sci/iceage/ponte.html).
You repudiate the authority, even though correct?
=============
The CIA isn’t an authority on climate. Obviously.
I’m not sure “widely accepted” is accurate. Global climate datasets were in their early days then.
You’re better off reading Spencer Weart’s The Discovery of Global Warming if you’re interested. Try http://www.aip.org/history/climate/20ctrend.htm#S2
You’re a silly thing. You now repudiate the authority you once used yourself.
Many years ago I asked Spencer when he would write ‘The Discovery of Global Cooling’. I still wait patiently for an answer.
=================
What are you on about? I’ve never used the CIA as an authority. You’re just making things up.
Omnologos’ quote is from your work. What to believe, what to believe, when William the Whiskered has brushes up his sleeves?
==================
Sorry, I still don’t know what you’re talking about.
You said “You now repudiate the authority you once used yourself.” What authority do you mean? If you mean a quote from http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/2008BAMS2370.1 then that’s not an authority I “once used” its a paper I co-wrote. No, I don’t repudiate that. I’m not very comfortable with “widely accepted” though.
I thought you were talking about the CIA stuff as in http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2012/05/25/global-cooling-and-spooks-again/
You’re not comfortable with your own words. Neither am I.
===================
kim | March 3, 2013 at 7:16 pm |
You’re not comfortable with your own words. Neither am I.
===================
Ooooooooo… BURN!
Good one, Kim.
William Connolley
You’re bloviating.
And apparently getting your knickers all twisted.
Get used to it. There was a “global cooling” scare in the 1970s, which was supported by some climate scientists at the time.
Others did not support the scare, some saying that humans are not able to change our climate significantly and others already pushing the global warming scare.
It’s history.
You can’t change it.
It was peanuts compared to the current global warming hysteria, because it was not fueled by a taxpayer-funded multi-billion dollar CAGW business.
That’s the significant difference between the two.
Basta.
Max
Try to keep up, Connolley.
Kim asked a question:
I answered it:
Then you, in what appears to be a knee jerk reaction, go off on a rant about the CIA and how they aren’t scientists.
The link I provided contained a quote :
‘By the early 1970s, when Mitchell updated his work(Mitchell 1972), the notion of a global cooling trend was widely accepted, albeit poorly understood.’
That’s the quote Kim was asking about. In the link was an attribution for the quote. It was quoting you.
Thanks for playing. Better luck next time.
Thanks william Connolly for the reference and title to the 1975 NAS report on climate science. I couldn’t find it and appreciate your effort. I understand more now thanks to you.
Scott
> (this is a test. Don’t flunk it).
You flunked it. It was easy, too. It just required a little basic reading. Maybe that’s harder than it seemed.
Ooh, and I copied omnologos’ notes of yours so diligently. A penalty for precision?
=================
Re me lost citation, this came up re GJ Kukla, RK Matthews et al, Quartenary Research, ‘The end of the present interglacial’ 1972,
Vol 2 pp 261-9.
Conclusion from the conference summary:
‘Global cooling and related rapid changes of environment
substantially exceeding fluctuations experienced by man in
historical times, can be expected within the next few millennia,
perhaps even centuries.’
http://www.wmconnolley.org.uk/sci/iceage/quat_res_1972.html
Well done! You’ve managed what the others haven’t – you read what I’ve written. However, you’re cherry picking – which is to say, reading dishonestly. Which is disappointing, because I wrote it honestly – as you see, I didn’t omit things that were inconvenient to me. Try reading it all.
William Connolley, re the Kukla, Matthews et al, ‘The end of
the present interglacial,’ yer say I’m cherry picking. Question,
how is stating the :: conclusion :: from the :: conference
summary :: cherry picking? Should I have included yer long
after the ball game statements such as:
:: ‘Remember, lots of things we now know weren’t available then.’
:: ‘Remember also these people are mostly geologist types .’
WC, these kinda sound like hind-cast special pleading ter me,
but what do I know? In case yer wonderin’ those little speckles ::
are simulated sun spots.
BC
> Question, how is stating the conclusion from the conference summary cherry picking?
You don’t seem to understand what CP is. Accurate quotation can be cherry picking. If you read what I wrote, you’ll see that the conference summary is inconsistent with the papers in the volume. I was honest enough to put both in; you need to be honest enough to read both, not just the bits you like.
> The documentation is still in the same place you obtained it when you too claimed global cooling was the consensus view from your own extensive examination of the papers of the time:.. ‘By the early 1970s, when [Dr Murray] Mitchell updated his work (Mitchell 1972), the notion of a global cooling trend was widely accepted, albeit poorly understood.’
Ah, now I understand your confusion. You’re mistaking
observations with predictions of the future. Remember, the (incorrect) claim from the denialists is that “everyone was predicting cooling in the 70’s”. Not observing.
No-one is denying that the obs, then, showed a cooling trend. But the
bit you’re missing is albeit poorly understood – that applies
both to the records themselves, which weren’t so clear, and to their
implications for the future, which were entirely unclear. Even then
the balance of predictions was for warming.
Whereas nowadays we understand the obs much better, and of course
everyone is “predicting” warming with confidence.
William well!
both to the records themselves, which weren’t so clear, and to their
implications for the future, which were entirely unclear. Even then
the balance of predictions was for warming.
That’s right up there with “we have known-knowns, known-unknowns and unknown-knows”
Whereas nowadays we understand the obs much better, and of course
Sorry this is a bit confused. The observations are not to be understood, the trends in them might be, but observations are just data.
BTW if you’re talking about global mean temperatures from the instrumental record, then these aren’t derived from observation they are not observations. They use station data (the observations) to construct are statistical models using a variety of interpolation methodologies – and very likely projection systems. At every step there will be bias introduced as a result of choosing one method over another. Then you have experimental error – which is very poorly constrained.
That should have been:
then these are derived from observation they are not observations. They use station data (the observations) to construct statistical models using a variety of interpolation methodologies – and very likely projection systems.
> The observations are not to be understood, the trends in them might be, but observations are just data.
The obs are data, but not “just” data. There are people whose entire careers are built on carefully examining the obs for bias, etc. David Parker’s stuff on canvas buckets is a good example.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate-change/guide/science/explained/observations
Now, William, bring your sophistry about ‘trends and predictions’ up through the intervening 40 years to the present.
===============================
William Connolley | March 4, 2013 at 4:44 am |
Gosh William, however do you manage to unknot your shoelaces?
now I understand your confusion. You’re mistaking
observations with predictions of the future. Remember, the (incorrect) claim from the denialists is that “everyone was predicting cooling in the 70′s”. Not observing.
You said they were observing a trend. A trend of cooling. Hence the widespread conviction that we were headed into another LIA at best and at worst that this presaged the inevitable end of the Holocene interglacial we are in and a full blown return into the depths of our Ice Age for another 90,000 years.
No-one is denying that the obs, then, showed a cooling trend.
You just have in your first para by separating trend from prediction, and now you show you’re obfuscating to hide that is exactly what they showed and you showed they showed, they observed then showed a cooling trend; a trend is prediction, they were predicting global cooling. The prediction of global cooling was widespread, was widely accepted, you said so yourself…
But the bit you’re missing is albeit poorly understood – that applies
both to the records themselves, which weren’t so clear, and to their
implications for the future, which were entirely unclear.
The mechanisms for our changes in and out of interglacials is what was poorly understood, pretending that this refers to the observed trend into cooling is disingenuous. Our IceAge cycle and interglacials were well enough understood then, which is why the prolonged decades spell of cooling was perceived as such a trend into another LIA and possible end of our Holocene.
Even then
the balance of predictions was for warming.
BS. Show it. It was widely accepted for global cooling as you first stated, and as the documentation still shows this was a serious concern by serious scientists then (and still is).
At that time it was overwhelmingly for global cooling, you said so yourself in that paper and you say so again here: “No-one is denying that the[y] obs, then, showed a cooling trend.”
So it stands, which you don’t as you have no more legs from denying it now, on William Connolley’s authority from extensive research of the papers of the time: “By the early 1970s, when [Dr Murray] Mitchell updated his work (Mitchell 1972), the notion of a global cooling trend was widely accepted,”
This destroys your concerted efforts since that paper to hide this fact and destroys any credibility you think you have for honesty by your shill denials now of documentation showing that global cooling predictions were widespread..
>> Even then the balance of predictions was for warming.
> BS. Show it.
I already have. See http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2013/03/01/1970s-cooling-again/ and in particular http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/2008BAMS2370.1
Or if reading a paper is too hard for you, this graph http://www.flickr.com/photos/belette/8518783241/ is a useful summary.
> At that time it was overwhelmingly for global cooling, you said so yourself in that paper and you say so again here: “No-one is denying that the[y] obs, then, showed a cooling trend.”
You’re still confusing the observations to-the-then-current-date with predictions of the then-future. The people, then (or at least most of them), knew full well that simply projecting current trends into the future is meaningless unless you understand the causes. And they knew they didn’t understand the causes.
Welcome to the present. We still don’t understand the causes.
==================
William Connolley | March 4, 2013 at 8:46 am | >> Even then the balance of predictions was for warming.
> BS. Show it.
I already have. See http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2013/03/01/1970s-cooling-again/ and in particular http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/2008BAMS2370.1
Or if reading a paper is too hard for you, this graph http://www.flickr.com/photos/belette/8518783241/ is a useful summary.
More irrelevant information – you cannot show that in this period of declining temps, as the Brown University conference and its letter to President Nixon state clearly, that there was any talk at all of global warming let alone that it was overwhelmingly of this. You’re just bsing. It’s rather sad, you appear to be intelligent enough not to have to.
> At that time it was overwhelmingly for global cooling, you said so yourself in that paper and you say so again here: “No-one is denying that the[y] obs, then, showed a cooling trend.”
You’re still confusing the observations to-the-then-current-date with predictions of the then-future. The people, then (or at least most of them), knew full well that simply projecting current trends into the future is meaningless unless you understand the causes. And they knew they didn’t understand the causes.
They understood our IceAge cycles and that the warming earlier in the century was a continuation of the rise after the natural dip into the cold of the LIA.They understood the natural cycles existed because, because we didn’t have corrupt scientists then making the MWP and LIA disappear and pretending that the low temp at the end of the LIA was “normal” .. there was no hiding that we are coming to the end of our Holocene and the scare was real after the decades of cooling, as I posted earlier, which you chose to ignore and distract from, among which the letter to President Nixon which explained the conclusions from the conference at Brown University. Here the pertinent points again:
From
“http://fabiusmaximus.com/2009/10/21/letter/
“An important letter sent to the President about the danger of climate change
An important conference was held in January at Brown University: “The Present Interglacial, How and When Will it End?” (The October issue of Science had a summary of the it) As a result, the following letter was sent to the President. The media has not reported this, but you should be aware of the letter and its significance.
We know the trend of rises and falls of temps in our Holocene, our last dip into the cold of the LIA was colder than the previous dips into cold after the Holocene Optimum, our hiccups into warmth have been decreasing since then also. We know we are heading back into glaciation, we may not know precisely when, but we sure as hell know that’s the direction we’re going in, not into the corrupt science scenario of the mythical runaway global warming of the IPCC science fraud consensus.
Only those with an agenda outside of science pushing the fake fisics of AGW global warming have an interest in keeping this science fraud going. The majority of the general public brainwashed by this fraud don’t have the time to examine the arguments, if they had they would see how those like you corrupt information about this, as you did and are still doing at wiki. Real science isn’t frightened of the truth.
The serious prediction was that our Holocene would end in a hundred years.
“The main conclusion of the meeting was that a global deterioration of climate, by order of magnitude larger than any hitherto experience by civilized mankind, is a very real possibility and indeed may be due very soon.”
More references on:
http://www.climatedepot.com/a/3213/Dont-Miss-it-Climate-Depots-Factsheet-on-1970s-Coming-Ice-Age-Claims
Wiiliam
Thanks for the link. It amounts to take our word for it…
When I have actually pressed anybody on this, the methodological approach to addressing bias, for example in the gridding method, I am left really underwhelmed. I find that they haven’t done it!
Can you show me a paper where they actually tested their gridding routine against knowns in areas of very sparse data. This simply involves simply removing, in a random fashion, control points and then interpolating the value at that point using the chosen method:
For n time
i = rand(n);
remove points[i];
result = using neighbouring points interpolate;
results[count] = result;
end;
Plot results against points.
A simple cross-plot would do? Have they done this for the most remote locals?
Is there paper that looks at the effects of changing the projection system and how this effects the global average. Simple sensitivity analysis really.
No? Well then, the link you cited is next to worthless.
> It amounts to take our word for it…
You’re easily discouraged. That’s just for the public. If you want to not-just-take-their-word you’ll need to be prepared to look for, and read, the papers. Googling “David parker” “canvas bucket” will find you stuff like
ftp://ftp.wmo.int/Documents/PublicWeb/amp/mmop/documents/JCOMM-TR/J-TR-22-CLIMAR-II/DOCUMENTS_JCOMM_22/005_Oral_presentations/3_Session_III/III_01_Rayner.pdf
If you’d looked in the AR4, you’d have found http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch3s3-2-2-3.html which again references Parker ’95 where you’ll find the details.
> When I have actually pressed anybody on this…
Where have you done this? If you’ve done it at any of the denialist blogs you’ll have got no answer, because no-one knows anything there. If you’ve asked here, well, everything is drowned in the soup – there is no quality control. Did you ever try asking anyone sane?
You should have read the IPCC report. The page I’ve given above links to papers that discuss gap-filling. Or google will point you the right direction, if you know the right keywords (like “interpolation” and “eof”). See for example ftp://ftp.wmo.int/Documents/PublicWeb/amp/mmop/documents/JCOMM-TR/J-TR-13-Marine-Climatology/REV1/joc1169.pdf There is loads of stuff out there, your main problem will be to not get drowned in it.
I think I have seen 1 or 2 sane skeptics show up on this blog’s comments section.
‘That’s just for the public’. Houston, we have a problem.
================
Webby
“two sane skeptics?”
Kim and I thank you, Webby, for your vote of confidence.
Anyone else in mind?
Max
Ah, I get to reprise one of my better lines, Max: Sometimes I think everyone’s crazy except you and I and sometimes I wonder about me.
========================================
Evertone’s crazy, ‘cept Kim and Max.
Hmm …
‘Insane in da membrane?
(insane in da brain)’
H/t Black Sunday album.
Urban dictionary definition,
‘insane in the membrane,’ beyond crazy. )
Beth the sane serf.
Beth
Course yew’s more’n sane in da mem-brain (more raht thn left, Ah reckon), even ifn Webby aint figgered it out yet (cause Ah aint too shur bout him).
Max
Trust me, baby…
Wow that is truly awful.
Firstly, why not stick to land based temperatures for the moment.
Secondly, why did they not run a blind study as suggested in my last post – much easier
Thirdly, all the work you have cited applies either a deterministic approach to remove error – which is simply applying a narrative to the data and processing accordingly – or applying a statistical method blindly without experimental reason (such as using neighbours to identify an anomalous data – who’s to say that the neighbours aren’t subject to the same experimental error and thus the anomaly is the only reliable one, and even if they are not, why assume that the seemingly wayward one is not correctly identifying a “wayward”, but real feature of the natural system). Truly awful!
I was expecting an argument that the proposed system of testing might be difficult if you have to detrend the data prior to interpolation. Do you use the test point for this step or not. If you do the result will biased as the test control point weights the trend, and if not, then the pre-gridding step will have changed from the actual run.
Jim Cripwell
Jim D you also write “that the forcing from doubling CO2 is equivalent to increasing solar irradiance by 1%.”
This is, of course, a load of scientific nonsense. When the sun’s irrqadiance increases by 1%, it adds about 1% more energy, joules, which arrive at the earth’s location. Whatever happens to CO2, there are no additional joules addeed to the system. So the two forcings are in no way comparable at all.
You are of course right. The statement you quoted is about as crackpottish as crackpottish goes.
If you picture the climate attractor as a countryside with a road network and your system (Earth) as a car then changing an internal degree of freedom (f.ex CO2 concentration) is analogous to leave a road A to drive on the road B. But you still stay bound to the same network.
However changing the energy supply is analogous to destroying the whole countryside and reconstructing a whole new network.
Your car is now bound to the new network and no more to the old one even if the intersection between both may be non empty.
This is what one clearly sees in the Lorenz attractor which is a simplified 2D model of chaotic convection with only 3 degrees of freedom.
If you change the energy supply, the whole attractor shifts and you may even pass from a chaotic regime to a non chaotic one and vice-versa.
So yes, the 2 things are qualitatively and quantitatively completely different and my suggestion to you is to stop commenting posts that are obviously crackpottish. If there had not been your (correct) statement, I would have just skipped it like I normally do for the few well known trolls on this blog.
Tomas has a big gap in his understanding of physics. Temperature is not the same thing as energy. Because of the radiative frequency spectrum and considerations of statistical mechanics, the re-emitting body can raise its temperature and thus make it appear that the forcing function is increasing (relative to the blackbody standard).
JimD is correct in the way he interpreted the standard view of radiative physics.
No, JimD is way off base. DWLIR and sunlight have vastly different spectrums. Matter can and does react differently to different frequencies of light. If you didn’t know that I suggest you write it down so you don’t make the same silly mistake again in the future.
Webster, “Because of the radiative frequency spectrum and considerations of statistical mechanics, the re-emitting body can raise its temperature and thus make it appear that the forcing function is increasing (relative to the blackbody standard).”
That is the issue, the blackbody standard. Solar has a different impact on the less than standard blackbody. It takes time to distribute energy in the higher density “blackbody” than the lower density “shell”. What is it, roughly 15% of the solar is absorbed at depth then advected from the source. the issue isn’t the radiant physics at and above the “shell”, it is the rate of mixing and conversion of energy at and below the “blackbody” surface that provides the energy to that “shell”.
Stick to the comics page Cappy Dick.
Stick
Webster, “Stick to the comics page Cappy Dick.” It will probably take crayons or comic books eventually.
Fact is though, convection and advection reduce radiant impact. Since there are long term changes in global convection and advection, those need to be figured out before leaping to conclusions.. Things like why the SH and Tropics shifted in 1976 but the NH impact was delayed until 1985. Why March April and May, those spring planting months have the strongest trend in the NH while December, January and February have the weakest trend. Those irritating little inconsistencies. According to the HADCRU4 data with its new nigher latitude NH stations, DJF has dropped 6 tenths of a degree since its peak with the 2007 ice melt. That is rather unusual for a well mixed greenhouse gas, selective seasonal impact.
Pingback: Politics: The Real Manmade Climate Crisis | Quixotes Last Stand
Well folks, we have reached the 300,000 comments mark (with William Connolley’s continued attempt to wipe the 1970s “global cooling” map from the history books).
shoud read “global cooling”
mapscare…CYCLIC GMST
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/mean:732/plot/hadcrut3vgl/mean:252/plot/hadcrut3vgl/compress:12/plot/hadcrut3vgl/mean:252/offset:0.2/plot/hadcrut3vgl/mean:252/offset:-0.2/plot/hadcrut3vgl/scale:0.000001/offset:2
Cyclic interpretation of the global mean temperature by a skeptic:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/mean:732/plot/hadcrut3vgl/mean:252/plot/hadcrut3vgl/compress:12/plot/hadcrut3vgl/mean:252/offset:0.2/plot/hadcrut3vgl/mean:252/offset:-0.2/plot/hadcrut3vgl/scale:0.000001/offset:2
>> I already have. See http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2013/03/01/1970s-cooling-again/ and in particular http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/2008BAMS2370.1 Or if reading a paper is too hard for you, this graph http://www.flickr.com/photos/belette/8518783241/ is a useful summary.
> More irrelevant information – you cannot show… that there was any talk at all of global warming let alone that it was overwhelmingly of this.
You don’t seem to understand the concept of reading to gather information; or perhaps its only information that disagrees with you that you can’t process.
Page 1332 provides a table of papers that favoured warming, neutral or cooling (there were 7 cooling, 20 neutral, and 44 warming). Page 1333 graphs this. Figure 2, on the same page, shows that warming papers received more citations.
> From “http://fabiusmaximus.com/2009/10/21/letter/ “An important letter sent to the President about the danger of climate change…
Sure. The claim isn’t that there were *no* papers about cooling – just that if you count them, you’ll find they are fewer than those about warming.
Try Broecker (1975): 54; Manabe and Wetherald (1975): 211;
Ramanathan (1975): 63; Reck (1975): 13; Schneider and Mass
(1975): 82; Schneider (1975): 94; Thompson (1975): 49
You don’t seem to understand the concept of reading to gather information; or perhaps its only information that disagrees with you that you can’t process.
You can be so amusing William Connolley… Does this mean you’ll reinstate all the thousands of items you deleted from wiki which showed your global warming narrative bereft of logic as it is bereft of real world physics?
Irrelevant is irrelevant in your cherry picking of years in 1975, besides cobbled together hiding the decline now as then when the great AGW global warming scam was put into action by CRU coordinated changing of national temperature records, see Salinger and New Zealand, etc. etc. which has to be added to the pattern emerging as noted here: http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/printable/7817/
Maurizio Morabito uncovers a 1974 CIA report showing that the ‘scientific consensus’ then was that the world was cooling.
“A pattern is clearly emerging. We have a ‘widely accepted [by the scientific community]…global cooling trend’, at least judging from Mitchell’s work in 1972; doubts about that growing in the same scientific community from 1975/1976, as per Damon and Kunen’s paper; but not early enough to prevent Newsweek from publishing its 1975 article, one that even mentions a certain Dr Murray Mitchell. That means that pieces of the global cooling puzzle do suggest that cooling was a widely-held view in the 1970s.
“Admittedly, such an agreed view did not last the whole decade: rather, it concerned the 1972 to 1975 period. Says who? Says the CIA, in a unique report I was recently able to re-discover in the British Library (9). It seems that even in the era of the internet and Google it is possible to unearth ‘lost files’.”
We still have it on your authority that after extensive research you concluded that global cooling predictions were widely held by the scientific community.
Unfortunately for you WC, I and others here have no problem reading to gather information as you show you do, further analysis by Morabito:
“Peterson, Connolley and Fleck proceed to conduct a scientific literature survey, but they exclude, for example, geology-related works, which is ironic given that they argue that ‘the myth’s basis lies in a selective misreading of the texts’. They carry on even after admitting ‘most’ of the surveyed articles ‘do not… make clear predictions’. They manage also to find a feeble excuse for the 1975 Newsweek article, enlisting New York Times uber-warmist Andy Revkin to explain that ‘cooling’ could have been a ‘good peg’ for climate stories at the time. They also extend the temporal window of their search so wide (1965-1979, with citations counted up to 1983) that it would have been truly remarkable if a scientific consensus of any sort had been maintained without an IPCC-like body to sustain it, especially in a science as young as climatology.
This certainly doesn’t seem like a healthy way to look at, and understand, history.”
Which reminds me of Kim’s post – have you heard the original version from which “Johnny Comes Marching Home Again”?
Great song of man back from the wars in Ceylon: http://www.irishsong.net/johnny_i_hardly_knew_ye.shtml
“Ye haven’t an arm, ye haven’t a leg, hurroo, hurroo
Ye haven’t an arm, ye haven’t a leg, hurroo, hurroo
Ye haven’t an arm, ye haven’t a leg
Ye’re an armless, boneless, chickenless egg
Ye’ll be having to put a bowl to beg
Oh Johnny I hardly knew ye.”
[The fighting in Ceylon the Kandydan Wars 1795-1818 – before Sarsfield was born; he would have heard this original folk song and in 1863 set his Johnny Comes Marching Home Again to the same tune.]
Or perhaps http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=0lgzz-L7GFg is more your style?
http://globalwarmingskeptics.info/thread-224.html
The Coming Ice Age – In Search Of: Season 2, Episode 23 (1978)
2-23 In Search Of… The Coming Ice Age (Part 1 of 3) (8:47)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ndHwW8psR8
2-23 In Search Of… The Coming Ice Age (Part 2 of 3) (4:23)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tokbiZW3gVY
2-23 In Search Of… The Coming Ice Age (Part 3 of 3) (7:57)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nprY2jSI0Ds
——————————————————————————–
It is our attitude toward free thought and free expression that will determine our fate. There must be no limit on the range of temperate discussion, no limits on thought. No subject must be taboo. No censor must preside at our assemblies.
–William O. Douglas, U.S. Supreme Court Justice, 1952
> No censor must preside at our assemblies.
Ho ho. Try telling that to WUWT.
Or even to Poptech – who was so frightened of http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2013/03/01/1970s-cooling-again/ that he wouldn’t allow a link to it in his comments. I’m dangerous, you know.
By contrast, no-one ever bothers censor you.
Oh, no, are the specimens going to be so common as to devalue my first acquisition? I had a wonderful gem, William Connolley declaiming on censorship; it was destined for a special display niche.
But if this is going to be a common occurrence? Oh, Katie Bar the Door.
============
William Connolley has been exposed in open field. His limbless torso still torques through the fray, further flaunting the feverish machinations of the historical climate debate.
==============
Five legs he walks on, and such progress.
==========
Oops, that slash was for Joshua just below. Missed badly; sorry William.
===========
I have to say – I’ve seen “skeptics” throw some weak sauce around, but this whole “global cooling scare in the 70’s” may actually just be the weakest.
First – the case is unproven that there was any “consensus” view among scientists that global cooling was more likely than global warming. WC’s evidence is solid. Media reports ≠ scientific consensus. This is just plainly obvious, and any arguments trying to equate the two should just be rejected out of hand.
Second – Even if that weren’t true, as WC makes clear, the comparison of media reports is weak sauce. There is no equivalency about the level of media focus on the two phenomena in the two time periods, respectively.
Third – Even if it were true, obviously relatively few climate scientists who were active in that research are still prominent researchers today.
Fourth – Even if that weren’t true – the fact that a given scientist may have previously been wrong in qualified statements about probabilities is not solid evidence that they are wrong about current, qualified statements.
Fifth – even if that weren’t true, the current state of the related science/evidence has changed by orders of magnitude relative to the 1970s. The “skeptics” are making an argument equivalent to saying “Astronomers were once wrong about geocentrism vs. heliocentrism centuries ago, so we should dismiss what current astronomers say about the configuration of our solar system.”
It is a stain on the principle of skepticism for “skeptics” to collate lists of newspaper reports as if they comprise a valid argument or are relevant to the debate about the science of climate change. The arguments they then build on the fallacious premise (that their lists are directly relevant to the science), only widen the gap between their “skepticism” and true skepticism.
Personally, I think debates about how to quantify uncertainty about anthropogenic climate change are a fine arena for for skeptical scrutiny.
It is fascinating that I have yet to see one self-described climate change “skeptic” step up to the plate to denounce this nonsense.
Should I start holding my breath?
So the argument becomes that the majority of scientists sat back while a few alarmists stirred up the notion of dangerous global cooling without the appropriate level of knowledge. Silence in such a situation is not better than being wrong in my mind. It seems to me that a similar situation caused Judith to start this blog.
steven –
Ok – if you want to make that argument, it still is weak (assuming the characterization to be true – just because it happened in the past doesn’t mean that it is applicable here).
I have seen a few other “skeptics” make a similar argument (i.e., that a fallacious notion of “scientific consensus” then is similar to a fallacious notion of a a “scientific consensus” now), but that certainly is not the argument that I see being made most frequently in the “skept-o-sphere.” In fact, the predominant argument is diametrically opposed to the one that you are making. The predominant argument is that a “scientific consensus” or at least a near “consensus” in the 70’s promoted a theory of global cooling.
I’m not making an argument. I am putting the argument presented by WC in context.
steven –
I stand corrected.
My critique of the argument still applies, however.
Joshua, you write “Should I start holding my breath?”
You can start breathing. I hope I qualify as a skeptic, but it is complete nonsense for any “scientist” to claim that they know what is happening to the global climate. This applies to what happened when it was claimed the world was cooloing, and it is equally true of people who claim the world is now warming.
Any “scientist” who claims he/she knows what is happening to global temperatures due to some “forcing” or other, is talking nonsense, UNTIL actual measurements have been made, quantitatively, of how much global temperatures vary as a result of the change in that forcing. In the case of CAGW, this is means a measurement of how much global temperatures rise as a result of adding a certain amount of CO2 to the atmosphere.
So any claims that anyone can forecast what is going to happen to climate in the future, are, at the moment, little more than guesses. No-one knows what is happeing to climate. The best we can do, preobably, is to guess that what has happened in the past, will occur again in the future. But this is also likely to be wrong. As Herman Kahn, of the Hudson Institute, remarked “Nothing would be more surprising, than that nothing surprising is going to happen”.
Jim –
Thanks, I was starting to feel a bit dizzy.
I think your argument is tangential to my point – but I will acknowledge that at least your argument is logically consistent. At least your conclusions about what is or isn’t possible to determine scientifically does not seem to be reverse engineered from your thesis.
One of the difficulties I have with “skeptics” is that they selectively throw “skeptics” such as yourself under the bus. It is a fascinating phenomenon.
Sorry – I should have said…”One of the difficulties I have with some “skeptics”……..”
Joshua, you write “One of the difficulties I have with “skeptics” is that they selectively throw “skeptics” such as yourself under the bus”
Thanks for the kind words, Joshua. Dont worry about me. I have been thrown under the bus so many times in my career, that I have lost count.
Joshua,
You must be too young to remember that time. Us oldsters have lots of faults but we can well remember the highlights of our youth. A thousands of yard high mountain of ice pushing down to engulg New York city inspired me to be involved in Science. So I remember well the consensus science. Only in retrospect do the other voices emerge. As this scare will show in 40 years.
Scott
The point here is, Joshua, close examination of the narrative, for which there is plenty of blame and shame to pass around to all of the deserving.
=====================
People like you and the Weasel really just focus attention on the deliberate machinations necessary for the sustenance of the narrative, despite your apparent attempt to obscure the image.
Please, keep the keen edge. Keep carving.
=================
Sixth?
Max, couldn’t place this in the proper place. It is starting to look like you are right about sensitivity. Don’t forget about uniform prices biasing IPCC values high. Another one where climate scientists need mathematical help.
Sorry, uniform “priors”.
It should be pointed out that the validation of a model is neither attempted nor accomplished by any of these comparisons. Each comparison is a scientifically meaningless “evaluation.”
Pingback: UK MSM on climate sensitivity | Climate Etc.
Pingback: Sociology of the ‘pause’ | Climate Etc.
Pingback: Spinning the climate model – observation comparison: Part II | Climate Etc.
Here monster warlord hacks it is But if we’re going to do it.
And, if possible, you can contact your instructor, go to the Allan Hancock College web site, and click on
the student tab — — then click on” register-add-drop-search” classes.
First you need to know the instructor of the class in the” add classes” worksheet, and then
click” submit changes. Once you have the add code, you need to know the instructor of the class in the” add classes” worksheet, and then you’ll be taken back to the monster warlord hacks worksheet.
For the sake of creating a relevant product comparisons, we’ve looked at routers in this
array that share similar attributes including IEEE 802.11n wifi standards, 2.4-ghz band and dual antennas.
Nothing significantly less than an n router
is highly recommended, if you’re searching for a
new router. It would be a good idea to improve into a radio n router,
when you own a wireless g router. The newest routers additionally increase speed with wifi
Quality of Service applications (QoS) regular, which makes efficient utilization of Ethernet
connections by prioritizing multimedia visitors based on the application’s
sensitivity to delay. Many wireless-n routers also apply multiple-input and numerous-output (MIMO) radio antennae to increase speeds.