by Judith Curry
Is global warming slowing down? – David Appell
David Appell has written an extensive article on the pause over at YaleClimateMediaForum, entitled Whither global warming? Has global warming slowed down? The whole article is well worth a read, here I excerpt some quotes from scientists that were interviewed:
These increases are certainly less than the warming rates of the 1980s and first half of the 1990s of about 0.15 to 0.20 C (.27 and .36 F respectively) and per decade. The earlier period may have provided an unrealistic view of the global warming signal, says Kevin Trenberth, climate scientist with the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Co.
“One of the things emerging from several lines is that the IPCC has not paid enough attention to natural variability, on several time scales,” he says, especially El Niños and La Niñas, the Pacific Ocean phenomena that are not yet captured by climate models, and the longer term Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) and Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) which have cycle lengths of about 60 years.
From about 1975, when global warming resumed sharply, until the 1997-98 El Niño, the PDO was in its positive, warm phase, and heat did not penetrate as deeply into the ocean. The PDO has since changed to its negative, cooler phase.
“It was a time when natural variability and global warming were going in the same direction, so it was much easier to find global warming,” Trenberth says. “Now the PDO has gone in the other direction, so some counter-effects are masking some of the global warming manifestations right at the surface.”
Giving support to their finding is a forthcoming “reanalysis” by Magdalena Balmaseda and Erland Källén of the European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasts in the U.K., and Trenberth. Their research, by combining several sources of data with climate models, finds a sharp increase in ocean heating over the past decade, beginning shortly after the 1997-98 El Niño. “In the last decade, about 30 percent of the warming has occurred below 700 m, contributing significantly to an acceleration of the warming trend.”
In fact, their reanalysis finds that the total of all oceans actually lost heat during the 1990s, at a rate of about -0.26 Watts per square meter of ocean surface area. By contrast, the ocean gained about 1.19 Watts per square meter in the first decade of the 21st century, most in the top 700 meters. That gain, Trenberth says, is associated “with changes in the winds and changes in the ocean currents that are associated with a particular PDO pattern that has dominated in the 2000s.”
So it’s not surprising that there was a significant warming of the surface during the 1990s, but not over the past decade. This recent, large increase in ocean heat content is the best sign that the Earth is still undergoing an energy imbalance caused by an enhanced greenhouse effect.
About 90 percent of this extra energy goes into the oceans. But meteorologist Roger Pielke Sr. of the University of Colorado in Boulder says he would like to understand why more heat is going into the deep ocean. “Until we understand how this fundamental shift in the climate system occurred,” says Pielke, “and if this change in vertical heat transfer really happened, and is not just due to the different areal coverage and data quality in the earlier years, we have a large gap in our understanding of the climate system.”
These large changes in ocean content reveal that the Earth’s surface is not a great place to look for a planetary energy imbalance. “This means this heat is not being sampled by the global average surface temperature trend,” he says. “Since that metric is being used as the icon to report to policymakers on climate change, it illustrates a defect in using the two-dimensional field of surface temperature to diagnose global warming.”
James Hansen, just retired from NASA, wrote recently:
The rapid growth of fossil fuel CO2 emissions in the past decade is mainly from increased coal use…mostly in China with little control of aerosol emissions. It is thus likely that there has been an increase in the negative (cooling) climate forcing by aerosols in the past decade, as suggested by regional aerosols measurements in the Far East, but until proper global aerosol monitoring is initiated, as discussed below, the aerosol portion of the amplified Faustian bargain remains largely unquantified.
However, a recent study by Daniel Murphy of the Earth System Research Laboratory at NOAA, in Boulder, Colorado, found surprisingly little net change in aerosol forcing over the past decade. As air pollution shifted from the northern latitudes of the U.S. and Europe towards the equator in China and India, competing effects largely cancelled one another out — there is more sunlight nearer the equator, but its effect on aerosols is undone by its steeper angle, which means both that it travels through a shorter path in the atmosphere (so has less opportunity to scatter off aerosol particles) and less of its scattering is upward.
Murphy actually found that in the past decade aerosol concentrations have increased the most in the Middle East at about 20 degrees North latitude, perhaps because of dust. Aerosol concentrations decreased around 40 degrees North and around 40 degrees South, with the latter probably brought about by winds that scatter sea salts.
He cautions that his result applies only to aerosol’s “direct effect” — its scattering of sunlight — and not to its many “indirect effects,” such as the function aerosols serve as condensation sites for cloud formation. (The effects are roughly comparable in magnitude.)
“The message is simple,” he says. “For the direct effect, it matters more how much total aerosols there are than where you put them around the Earth.”
“Our expectation has never been that each year would be inexorably warmer than the previous year,” saysBen Santer, a climate modeler at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
It’s simply scientifically incorrect, he says, to attribute the divergence of climate model projections and observations to an overestimation of the climate sensitivity. Santer says he sees several explanations of why climate model projections of surface warming may be differing from actual observations in the past decade or so.
“It’s certainly the case that we got some of the forcings wrong,” he says of the factors that specify the influence of any particular component of the atmosphere. “It’s likely we underestimated the true volcanic aerosol forcing, and may have underestimated the cooling effect of stratospheric ozone depletion.”
The bottom line, Santer says, is “there are multiple, not mutually exclusive interpretations of modeled versus observed differences, and claiming that there is only one explanation is not scientifically accurate.”
“We study the signal. If others want to study the noise, let them.”
Nor is it clear that recent surface trends are particularly unusual. “The term ‘hiatus’ is premature,” says planetary climatologist Raymond Pierrehumbert of the University of Chicago. “Maybe with another 10 years of data you’d say that’s something that needs explanation here.”
Pierrehumbert notes that the increase in carbon dioxide’s radiative forcing over any one decade is about one-fourth of a Watt per meter-squared, so if climate sensitivity is 2 C, the expected warming is only about 0.13 C (forcing increase divided by sensitivity). That can easily be swamped by natural fluctuations of 0.2 to 0.3 C from an El Niño or La Niña, and fluctuations from longer ocean cycles.
And, he says, “There’s really nothing in this that changes our estimates of climate sensitivity.” Calculation of that all-important number from the 20th century record is not possible, because the aerosol forcing is not well known, nor are the data for ocean warming up to the task.
“Any estimate of sensitivity requires all of the record and not just the last 20 years of it,” Pierrehumbert says. “The smaller the piece of it you take, the less certainty you have in your result.”
Nonetheless, he agrees that earlier warming may have been deceiving.
“I think it’s true that some rather sloppy discussion of the rapid warming from the 20th century has given people unrealistic expectations about the future course of warming.”
All the same, the warming effect of carbon dioxide is far down his list of topics that need further examination.
“Why would anyone seriously question greenhouse gases?” he asks. “They absolutely have a radiative effect, and no serious scientist thinks climate sensitivity could be much lower than 2 degrees Celsius based on the balance of the evidence.”
JC comment: A nice job on this article by David Appell. Recall all the flack I took last year for talking about the ‘pause’? The money quote from this article is Pierrehumbert’s: “I think it’s true that some rather sloppy discussion of the rapid warming from the 20th century has given people unrealistic expectations about the future course of warming.” I wonder how long it will be before these scientists take seriously the possibility that sensitivity could be lower than 2C.
Pierrehumbert says ““Why would anyone seriously question greenhouse gases?” he asks. “They absolutely have a radiative effect, and no serious scientist thinks climate sensitivity could be much lower than 2 degrees Celsius based on the balance of the evidence.””
I wonder what “evidence” Pierrehumbert is talking about. There is no empirical evidence that adding CO2 to the atmosphere has anything other than a completely negligible effect on global temperatures.
Our hostess ponders “I wonder how long it will be before these scientists take seriously the possibility that sensitivity could be lower than 2C.”
They dare not consider any value of CS that is less than 2 C. If they do, then the whole house of cards that is CAGW will come crashing down, and all the funding our stupid governments are providing them, will dry up. Those `scientists`who have nailed their colors to the mast of the good ship CAGW, will go down with the ship when it finally founders.
YEP
The pause is causing a lot of consternation. How sensitive the climate is to CO2 doubling is uncertain but I’m to tell you it’s certain that the usual suspects clinging to the CAGW story are UBER-sensitive when “the pause” is discussed and factored into the observed GAT in the satellite era. Now suddenly troposphere data is, according to Trenberth, the noise while the far-less-studied average global ocean temperature becomes the only reliable signal.
Roger Pielke Sr. should get credit for that. He’s been saying for a long time “the signal is in the ocean, stupid”. I suppose that’s progress when the usual suspects in climate boffinry adopt the position of a skeptic climate scientist. :-)
I read Hansen’s papers and he explained this in the early 1980’s.
Link?
Consider recent NASA observations of Earth’s heat source [1,2]: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sunearth/multimedia/Solar-Events.html
[1] Peter Toth, “Is the Sun a pulsar?” Nature 270, 159-160 (1977):
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v270/n5633/abs/270159a0.html
[2] Carl A Rouse, “Evidence for a small, high-Z, iron-like solar core,” Solar Physics 110, 211-235 (1987):
http://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007%2FBF00206420.pdf
It is also surprising to see that the central IPCC estimate for sensitivity (3°) has actually been disregarded, to favor a new, lower figure (2°C). I have seen several recent studies hinting at figures below the IPCC central estimate, but didn’t know that core participants in the IPCC process have adopted that view.
I am have a problem with the term “greenhouse gases”. Since this articles main proposition is that some scientists (?) are admitting that they were hasty in declaring “the sky is falling”. In my opinion, it would be better to use the proper scientific names for the atmosphere and its components.
Pierrehumbert is one of the few in the team with brains. Thus in his 2011 paper, which is worth reading**, he doesn’t dwell on the Aarhenius mechanism which any professional with decent heat transfer knowledge immediately realises is bunkum. Instead he cleverly used the ‘CO2 bite’ in OLR plus slipping in the ludicrous claim that this accounts for a third of the GHE thus cleverly cementing in the public psyche the 134.5 W/m^2 created artificially within the models. However, he does this with quite clever weasel words.
The team is desperately defending the phoney heating caused by phoney boundary conditions. The claim that this is being put into the oceans because it doesn’t appear elsewhere is based on 0.9 W/m^2 [2009 data]. However, they are really using this as a way of dragging the attention of the public away from a much larger error – where does the 134.5 – 0.9 W/m^2 go?
My point, that it never existed in the first place, is now ignored rather than being furiously countered with claims that Kirchhoff’s Law of Radiation applies at ToA when it can’t!
**PhysTodayRT2011.pdf
PS you can easily explain how the ‘CO2 bite’ is bypassed from the lower atmosphere.
The CO2 ‘bite’ (and other spectrum bites) has got nothing to do with surface warming, of course. It is the radiative transmissivity signal of an atmosphere with IR-absorbing gases. The absorption of radiative heat from the surface by the so-called GHGs is minor to begin with (~26 W/m^2 ((390-40=) 350 – 324 W/m^2). It warms the troposphere slightly, but of course not the surface providing the heat in the first place. Illustrated simplistically by a planet/shell model, the (absorptive gas) shell takes half of the heat for itself, getting warm, and emits the other half out as radiative heat loss. So what we ‘see’ is the 26 W/m^2 go up from the surface but only half (13 W/m^2) emerging from the TOA. The radiative rate of heat loss to space has been reduced by the presence of an IR-absorbing troposphere, because some of the heat going out goes into making the troposphere warmer. That is the ‘bite’. This reduction could however NOT make the surface warmer.
So the bite does not tell us anything about the total OLR emitted from the TOA to space. This balances (in the longterm) perfectly with the net incoming from the Sun. There is no tropospheric holding back of anything. No inherent heat transfer delay (the only delay is in Earth system response time when the solar input changes). There is just the ‘constant’ budget balance.
So, then, what mechanism fills in the ‘bite’? Well, convection of course. The convectional fluxes (conductive/convective and latent heat transfer from ground level to the tropopause). The kinetic (thermal) energy produced by the absorption is eventually transported aloft by the convectional engine to be dumped to space as radiation.
Oh bear of little brain, I despair of thee! This is what you have been indoctrinated with but it’s scientific nonsense.
Basic radiative thermal equilibrium theory taught to all physicists and engineers shows that black body amplitude thermal emission from atmospheric ghgs to the Earth’s surface mutually annihilate on average with black body surface emission. I used to measure such stuff in metallurgical plants.and we developed ghg physics. If this were not true, we’d be a ball of tenuous gas in space.
The only real surface IR emission is ~23 W/m^2 absorbed mainly by water vapour side bands and the ~40 W/m^2 that goes to space. Of the rest of the ~160 W/m^2 average solar SW thermalised at the surface, ~17 W/m^2 leaves by convection and ~80 W/m^2 by evapo-transpiration. These are average figures but are reliable, amazingly good experimentation.
However ‘The Team’ purports that the Earth’s surface emits 396 W/m^2 real energy flux by adding imaginary 333 W/m^2 ‘back radiation’ to the 63 W/m^2 real IR emission. This is utter, complete, incredible scientific tripe, unknown outside Climate Alchemy [incorporating Meteorology from which this balderdash came].
It assumesthe signal output by pyrgeometers, the product of putting the measured ‘temperature’ of the atmosphere into the S-B equation, is real when it is the potential energy the temperature radiation field of the atmosphere would emit to the zero point energy of space, Go into the guts of pyrgeometers and incorporate that the atmosphere is semi transparent to IR and the temperature data are dodgy too.
The bottom line is that the climate models exaggerate ghg energy absorption by up to 6.85x, 134.5 W/m^2 is imaginary and in thermodynamics’ terms a Perpetual Motion Machine of the 2nd Kind.
Climate Alchemy is now desperately trying to keep the eye of the public on the 0.9 W/m^2 ‘missing heat’ to keep them from realising that 134.5 – 0.9 W/m^2 never existed and causes equally imaginary ‘positive feedback’.
I’ve seen through this clever scam. So have many more but to do so you have to have post-grad physics and very good practical heat transfer knowledge which is why these people have got away with this new version of Lysenkoism for so long……
AlecM (aka Spartacusisfree (aka mydogsgotnonose) ) says:
I also see through your scam, Sockpuppet.
As for the rest, you will have to provide a theory for why we have seen a 1.2C land warming over the past century.
Hehe, calm down AlecM. I’m completely with you on this one. The only reason I used the Trenberth numbers was so that the people actually buying into this nonsense (which I would think is most people here) wouldn’t go off the rails right away: “What!? Where the heck did you get the 26 figure from?! The ‘real’ figure is of course 390 W/m^2! It’s right there in the diagram! Are you blind?!” Certainly the only real flux is the 23 or 26 or whatever thereabouts W/m^2. The only one that is measured. The radiative HEAT going from surface to troposphere. All other figures are simply inferred through circular reasoning from this flux.
WEB,
As for the rest, you will have to provide a theory for why we have seen a 1.2C land warming over the past century.
Here’s mine – The Lord observed the bikini and saw that it was good. At least on those of his children meant to wear it.
web hub…several changes and a GUT.
land use change, urbanization, UHI induced temperature measurement error, deforestation and, yes, CO2 for a bit at the margins.
GUT – more humans = greater temperature on land (where the bulk of the humans live, not so much on the oceans)
CO2 contributes its wee jot but the control knob is rather well illustrated by this graph http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:World-Population-1800-2100.svg
1.8 billion in 1900, 6 billion in 2000. This is not rocket science.
AlecM, (above in response to Kristian?), at http://judithcurry.com/2013/05/07/more-on-the-pause/#comment-319550
Re: (“… bear of little brain …”.)
Sir: I did not write that comment. I do protest; perhaps too much. :-)
The Earth’s surface actually emits about 396wm-2.
This is both observed and follows from basic physics.
Take care.
As for the rest, you will have to provide a theory for why we have seen a 1.2C land warming over the past century.
So easy. Ice has retreated since the little ice age and land warms as ice retreats.
It is all over now or almost all over now. When the oceans get warm enough to open the Arctic, it does snow enough and does start getting ready to go the other way.
I must agree. That more CO2 instantly turbocharges plant metabolism and hence their transpiration of H2O, shunting LHV to the upper atmosphere and into space and water vapour into cloud formation and, as recently reported, their production of natural aerosols which also promote cloud formation and enhance their albedo is hardly rocket science and the first two effects are high school level knowledge. And then there is the sun and solar cycles etc etc etc.
What I do not get is how many allegedly intelligent scientists can actually believe that they can get away with peddling such utterly simplistic crap.
That said, I watch the antics of politicians and celebrities and understand that there are people out there of some nominal intelligence who are utterly addicted to the crack cocaine of publicity, accolades and free travel around the world.
There is copious evidence of CO2’s enhanced greenhouse effect:
“Increases in greenhouse forcing inferred from the outgoing longwave radiation spectra of the Earth in 1970 and 1997,” J.E. Harries et al, Nature 410, 355-357 (15 March 2001).
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v410/n6826/abs/410355a0.html
“Comparison of spectrally resolved outgoing longwave data between 1970 and present,” J.A. Griggs et al, Proc SPIE 164, 5543 (2004). http://spiedigitallibrary.org/proceedings/resource/2/psisdg/5543/1/164_1
“Spectral signatures of climate change in the Earth’s infrared spectrum between 1970 and 2006,” Chen et al, (2007) http://www.eumetsat.int/Home/Main/Publications/Conference_and_Workshop_Proceedings/groups/cps/documents/document/pdf_conf_p50_s9_01_harries_v.pdf
I learned from reporting this article that, of all the factors that might be causing a flattening of surface temperatures, uncertainty about CO2 and other GHGs is very, very far down the list.
Shorter Pierrhumbert:
‘Curses..they’ve found us out! That’s another fine mess you’ve got us into, Mikey’
I like Ben Santer’s take:
“Santer says he sees several explanations of why climate model projections of surface warming may be differing from actual observations in the past decade or so.”
“It’s certainly the case that we got some of the forcings wrong,” he says of the factors that specify the influence of any particular component of the atmosphere. “It’s likely we underestimated the true volcanic aerosol forcing, and may have underestimated the cooling effect of stratospheric ozone depletion.”
In other words they only missed on forcings that would not invalidate their theory. Zero possibility they missed on overestimating positive feedback effects such as water vapor.
Yer gotta inn -occ-u-late the positive..
Beth
It is with great exceitement that I can report that probably the greatest scientific experiement of our age regarding the climate has now commenced.
Our tomato plants were put in yesterday and I shall give you updates on the progress of the four closely monitored and varied experiments-each plant is of a different variety and in a different locatiion on the giant rolling acres of our sea side estate. Can tomatoes grow in the new reality of temperatures in the UK whose anomaly has now reached that of the 1730’s, 1640’s and 1530’s?
Scientific note; The UK must be due for what we in the climate business scientifically call ‘any sort of decent summer for pity’s sake.’
Watch this space.
tonyb
tony b
Your tomato experiment has a fall-back option (just like the deep blue sea as a hiding place for all that missing heat when warming stopped).
Import them from Italy and pray for the MWP to return to England.
Max
TONY
This will be such an important study. Us serfs
so prey ter cold weather, pestilence n’ famine
do fear the drops in food production of ice ages –
lest we fergit – I beleeve the serf charcoal burners
are raisin’ funds fer this experiment in cold whether
food pro- duck – shun We will be in tuch,
Serf Under-ground.
Please note that these are all Team members or affiliates. Appell has not even made the effort to interview one single climate scientist who happens to holds skeptical views. Bias, I would say.
More interesting is that, “team members” or not, the interviewees all sound far less confident and more conservative regarding minimum sensitivity. Trenberth speculating that late 20th C warming might have been over emphasized and that natural mechanisms may have been underestimated is intriguing to say the least. This is a long step back from stating the “missing heat” is a travesty and the data had to be wrong. Plainly, merely because the label “theory” has been slapped on an hypothesis doesn’t make it more reliable.
Tetris: In fact, I reached out to several well-known contrarians — none of them responded to me, except for Judith and Roger Pielke Sr (and I don’t consider RP Sr a true contrarian).
Some scientists are quite willing to go on Fox News or write op-eds for the WSJ, but won’t answer questions from those who know a little about climate science….
More like:
“And we would have gotten away with it too, if it wasn’t for those meddling Canadians”.
Yes, it is good to see that people are trying to keep them accountable.
The overwhelming observational evidence in the paleological record is that ANY forcing is negated by internal system changes so as to constrain climate sensitivity within very narrow bounds.
The radiative characteristics of constituent molecules are clearly dealt with by the same highly effective negative system response(s).
CO2 might theoretically warm the system by 2C per doubling but other system components then change to negate it to as near zero as makes no difference.
My proposal is that the circulation of the atmosphere changes as necessary so as to alter the rate of energy throughput and in doing so ensures top of atmosphere radiative balance over time and negates the thermal effects of all forcing elements other than atmospheric mass, the strength of the gravitational field and top of atmosphere insolation.
+10
ask him how he measured this
It snows more when oceans are warm and wet and it snows less when oceans are cold and frozen. it does change to bound temperature in a narrow range. This does negate any and all other forcing that does try to violate the thermostat that is set by ice and water.
+1
The unique properties of water in all its phases controls the climate. Non-condensing greenhouses gases do little to nothing except in the absence of water in liquid and gas phases. Wherever and whenever it’s very dry then non-condensing greenhouse gases can play a major role.
Depends on what Springer means by “very dry” or “little or nothing”. Springer is a master rhetorician who depends on the ambiguity of the English language for every argument he makes. So if “very dry” means an absence of water and “little or nothing” means nothing, then this is wrong with respect to the well-regarded scientific view; and is best explained by the control knob paper of Lacis.
A. A. Lacis, G. A. Schmidt, D. Rind, and R. A. Ruedy, “Atmospheric CO2: principal control knob governing Earth’s temperature,” Science, vol. 330, no. 6002, pp. 356–359, 2010
CO2 will act as a catalyst to bring the atmosphere out of net ice-box conditions. The lowest thermodynamic state in this case for a condensing GHG such as water vapor is below freezing. A non-condensing gas such as CO2 has the long-term atmospheric persistence to lift it out of this stable state and into a meta-stable state, whereby fluctuations can set the warming into motion.
+33C baby.
I thought nobody believed the CO2 the knob hypothesis any more.
You could perhaps provide citations to studies that claim to refute the control knob hypothesis.
The thermostat effect can be overridden — by the changes in solar energy; and, we know it has been overridden in the past. The historical temperature record shows that. And, it happened without having been caused by the CO2 of us moderns.
Never happened
Earth temperature has been well bounded for ten thousand years and has not bee overridden by anything in ten thousand years.
Yes, nothing due to CO2.
True, true…
Pic–> http://evilincandescentbulb.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/real-hot-today-kobashi-40002.jpg
The real science does does not do 2C.
So, no ice ages then?
Or glaciations for the pedantics in the mist.
Ice ages happen after ice advances and that happens after warm oceans cause more snowfall. CO2 in the atmosphere does drop then because warm oceans hold much more CO2 than warm oceans. This is simple physics.
http://popesclimatetheory.com/page44.html
Posted at the Yale forum, awaiting moderation:
“Mathematics teaches us that 15 years is simply too short a period from which to draw statistically valid conclusions.”
It’s a shame you weren’t there to point that out at Hansen’s 1988 Senate hearing.
“‘But that does not mean the problem is going away.’
The second half of that conclusion is certainly right. Even if climate sensitivity is somewhat less than the IPCC’s median value of about 3 degrees Celsius, atmospheric carbon dioxide levels are increasing exponentially, so a smaller value merely buys an extra decade or two until the same amount of warming is reached.”
To what level did you study mathematics?
Re: “We study the signal. If others want to study the noise, let them.”
On the “mathematics”, only when we understand the “noise” and the other natural “signals” within it can we distinguish the anthropogenic “signal”.
Climatic Variability Over Time Scales Spanning Nine Orders of Magnitude: Connecting Milankovitch Cycles with Hurst–Kolmogorov Dynamics Yannis Markonis, Demetris Koutsoyiannis, Surveys in Geophysics March 2013, Volume 34, Issue 2, pp 181-207
The Hurst Kolmogorov standard deviation appears to be about twice as large as conventional analysis shows. Thus much of IPCC’s “signal” may actually be natural Hurst Kolmogorov dynamics (aka “noise”.)
Markonis, Y., and D. Koutsoyiannis, Hurst-Kolmogorov dynamics in paleoclimate reconstructions, European Geosciences Union General Assembly 2010, Geophysical Research Abstracts, Vol. 12, Vienna, EGU2010-14816, European Geosciences Union, 2010.
See Presentation Fig. 10 p 6/7
Richard Feynman, The Character of Physical Law (1994 p. 71).
Quoted by Yannis Markonis & Demetris Koutsoyiannis
Once again, I’m gratified to see that the science is settled. It makes paying for subsidised renewable energy all seem worthwhile.
my thoughts exactly.
Actually, if you compare transient models backed to around 1960, you get a sensitivity of about 1.6degC. Did that in 2002. We could all just settle on something in that range and then pester the public (or in my case, non-government donors) to fund us to do something useful.
Well, yes, but what is the fun in that? Since there is evidence of a longer term upswing from 1900 and before, I think shooting for 0.8 C would be entertaining :)
That is – not sure I can tell which is the bigger twit.
Dallas, it wouldn’t be difficult to shoot for 0.8 C or even less. If SSTs determine water vapor and OHT determines SSTs and CO2 does not affect OHT, it is possible to imagine a scenario where feedbacks from CO2 are negative and the contribution to warming from CO2 is very small.
Webster, Right, you will continue to ignore the impact of asymmetry and stay wedded to a theory even though the observations are diverging from the estimates.
You know, it is really not that difficult a problem. Down Welling Long Wave Radiant energy or the “average” Tmin of the atmosphere is estimated pretty accurately at 334.5 Wm-2. It is fairly stable because that value is determined by the effective energy of the black body source, the world’s oceans. Increasing DWLR by 3.7Wm-2 will increase the world’s oceans by 3.7 Wm-2 which would be ~ 0.8C of warming. At a lower temperature and higher altitude there would be more warming, but the “surface” is sea level and the energy source for the atmosphere is the oceans.
Since the atmosphere is a fast response, you can compare OHC with satellite data and “see” the how the system responds.
http://redneckphysics.blogspot.com/2013/05/ocean-heat-content-versus-stratospheric.html
Pretty neat actually. Then I am a data kinda guy.
Where’s BBD? He’s got to get a load of this. Cappy dick is starting to invert curves and do stuff like that again.
Someday he will find an acorn in the compost pile.
The key word is transient. Only land temperatures will approach the transient rate and those show about 3 C for doubling of CO2. The ocean temperatures are faced with sinking half the heat, so are showing much slower rise.
Actually the ocean is not directly warmed by greenhouse gases. The physical response of water to downwelling longwave infrared makes it impossible. All that happens is evaporation increases and the water cycle works faster at transporting energy away from the surface. Any net change in ocean heat content from greenhouse warming comes indirectly from the continents. Land is warmed by the greenhouse effect and this results in warmer rivers which eventually run off into the ocean and indirectly warm it by that mechanism. But it’s drastically less warming than there would be if it were physically possible for longwave infrared to alter the temperature of a liquid body of water.
You have made the assertion many, many, times. You have never to my knowledge stated why you believe this to be the case.
If true it is very important. So why do you think that the seas and oceans are capable of responding to changing radiative influx, bu altering their surface temperatures, during the course of a year, but not to very small changes in IR ?
There was a post at RC a while back purporting to explain how heat from downwelling IR could heat the ocean. AFAIK it reported research not reported in any peer-reviewed literature, but that may have changed (or my search might have been defective). I linked to it several months ago, but don’t have time to track it down again right now. Shouldn’t be hard if somebody’s interested.
Warming from decreased losses is not difficult – http://www.skepticalscience.com/How-Increasing-Carbon-Dioxide-Heats-The-Ocean.html
Losses will increase over time in a warmer ocean to compensate – but the time frame is not obvious.
The RealClimate post is here:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/09/why-greenhouse-gases-heat-the-ocean/
They show the skin surface effect and the thermal gradient below it. There are alternate ways of explaining this behavior but the net effect is that excess heat is diffusing downward.
Webster, Cool! Real climate explains the ir skin effect in 2006.
Here is one where they explain the stratospheric cooling :)
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/why-does-the-stratosphere-cool-when-the-troposphere-warms/
There is a couple of great ones on Antarctic cooling/warming/cooling/warming ……
There are no alternate ways of describing it. The oceans are heated by the sun and heat is transported in the ocean by turbulence and convection. The dweeb cannot admit that he is just plain wrong. Pathetic really.
Chief is upset that Tsonis has not been mentioned enough, and is lashing out at anyone within spitting distance.
Well we have one twit insisting that the ocean doesn’t warm and another twit insisting that heat flows from the atmosphere to the oceans. Not sure that I can tell the difference.
I have though quoted Tsonis elsewhere in this post – go find it and learn something.
Mid-infrared is absorbed by the first few microns of the ocean’s surface. Since warmer water is bouyant it will remain at the surface. Water is poor thermal conductor but even if it weren’t physical measurements disprove conduction downward as a possibility. You see the ocean has what’s called a “cool skin layer” which is to say a ~1 millimeter deep layer that is ~1C cooler than the water below it. Conduction goes from warmer to colder not colder to warmer so it’s physically impossible for heat to conduct downward from the cool skin layer. Ergo where does the energy from downwelling infrared end up? Latent heat of vaporization. There’s nowhere else it can go. Rock doesn’t vaporize at such low temperatures so its reaction is quite different from water. Rock doesn’t have a cool skin layer like the ocean does.
Once you take this into account all the observations make perfect sense. I’ll probably do a back of the envelope calculation in the near future to see if the reported number of Joules of increasing ocean heat content can be reasonably accounted for by warmer river runoff from the continents and sea ice. I suspect it’ll work out nicely Continental surfaces become warmer and thus river temperatures and runoff from glaciers becomes warmer too and eventually ends up in the ocean. This explains the so-called missing heat. There’s far less heat going into the ocean because it’s predominantly indirectly added from continental runoff rather than direct from GHG forcing.
Chief Kangaroo Skippy Ellison using skeptical science for an authoritative reference on science?
ROFLMAO
Webster and Chief Kangaroo,
Find peer reviewed literature demonstrating by experiment that overhead illumination with mid-infrared can warm (or slow the the rate of cooling) of a body of water.
You can shove Gedankenexperiment blog science from real climate, skeptical science, and other hand wavers up your arses. If it’s possible it can be experimentally demonstrated.
Good luck with that. I’ve searched long and hard and can find no experimental validation of it nor can I find any practical devices used in industry that take advantage of the mythical effect. I don’t believe it exists and will stick to my guns until proven wrong.
Handwaving from the other aisle:
http://www.climatescience.gov/workshop2005/posters/P-GC2.9_Singer.S.pdf
At least this doubt about the efficacy of ocean heating from downwelling longwave was presented in more formal setting than CAGW apologist blogs. I really can’t stress enough that Gedankenexperiment in notoriously biased CAGW blogs is NOT science. It’s laughable to use that as any kind of authoritative reference. WTF is the matter with you dipchits doing it?
That would be fine if it were not exactly the opposite of what happens.
The skin is not warmer, it’s cooler. IR does not warm it, it cools it. The skin emits more IR than it absorbs. With more GHG’s the difference is smaller. Therefore the skin cools less efficiently and a little larger part of the heat brought to the ocean by solar SW stays there. That leads to warming of the ocean.
Pekka Pirilä | May 9, 2013 at 7:31 am |
“The skin is not warmer, it’s cooler. IR does not warm it, it cools it.”
You should have stopped right there. The rest of what you write contradicts it.
“The skin emits more IR than it absorbs. With more GHG’s the difference is smaller.”
Yes but latent heat is larger. That’s the whole point.
“Therefore the skin cools less efficiently and a little larger part of the heat brought to the ocean by solar SW stays there. That leads to warming of the ocean.”
Why has this less efficient cooling not been demonstrated by experiment? I encourage you to demonstrate the effect in a laboratory or point me towards published results of such demonstration. I would also accept some practical application of the effect as refutation. What I will not accept is the just-so stories that are the only thing on offer so far.
The stories originated from an article written by Peter Minnett and published at RC, linked above. At the time it was indicated his research was going to result in journal publication. He has since published extensively. Most are behind pay walls.
new explanation for the “cartoon”
Springer,
You are looking at years and years of wise physics instruction that Pekka has bottled up and served to you.
His first-order explanation is a thing of beauty and you have been stoppered.
Parodoxical reasoning (as in the stuff you have picked up in your years of inhabiting the Intelligent Design wars) is no match for plain-spoken physics.
BTW, I can waste a lot of your time by asserting that 1+1=3 is true and then having you prove that is not the case. But I don’t, because I am interested in the science, and not on winning the equivalent of high-school debate tournaments.
@WebHubTelescope (@WHUT), David Springer, Pekka Pirilä… I read that post a few months ago, and what I got out of it doesn’t match any of the descriptions I see here.
First, the majority of overall downwelling radiation is short-wave, absorbed in the first few meters. This produces warming, which diffuses both upwards and downwards.
IR is absorbed in the first few microns, which affects the balance of energy into and out of the skin layer. That layer is cooler than the underlying water, but too thin for gravity fed convection to overturn it, given a difference of under 0.3ºK with the underlying (5cm) temp (fig 2). The fact that it’s cooler means there’s a net upwards heat flow, transferring some of the energy brought by short-wave upwards out of the sea.
Part of that heat loss is due to upwards IR, part to evaporation, part to conduction. The ratio would depend (my conclusion) on the temp and humidity of the overlying (1m) air, and the current wind conditions (which would affect forced convection at scales around 1 micron).
The actual experiment (which I couldn’t find reported in any peer-reviewed source) involved correlating the extent of downwelling IR with the temperature difference (fig 2). They weren’t using greenhouse effect, rather cloud cover, about 2 orders of magnitude greater. But in principle, it demonstrates that more IR means a lower temperature difference, i.e. gradient, which means less of the heat delivered by short-wave to the .05-10m depths is lost through the skin layer.
I’m highly skeptical that Minnett has is orders of magnitude right, it intuitively seems to me the effect of global GHG’s would be negligible relative to the heat flow needed for the “lost heat”. More importantly, there are sociological reasons for doubt: if the numbers were right, it would have been published and trumpeted.
For me, the more important potential effect is on evaporation, which in any circumstance of air temp, humidity, and wind conditions would be higher with higher skin temp. This without any significant differences in temperature beyond a few microns. Most evaluations of “feedback” from clouds and water vapor depend (AFAIK) on modeled differences in air and water temp on a scale of meters.
But this effect could take place absent any higher temp, which means increasing humidity at the surface and in the mixing layer (under 1 km). This in turn would often (usually?) lead to more clouds, which would both increase the downwelling IR and decrease the short-wave due to higher albedo. This means low clouds from increased evaporation from more GHG’s would produce a positive feedback at the skin, while producing a negative feedback on overall downwelling radiation.
According to Minnett:
This means positive feedback from clouds could produce an up to 2500% amplification of the effects of GHG’s increasing evaporation while decreasing overall downwelling radiation. The actual extent of the feedback would depend, of course, on local conditions.
If this hasn’t been taken account of in the models, it could easily render their results totally invalid.
AK, All you have to do is take Springer’s argument and use it to prove something that is obviously unphysical. I have mentioned it once before.
@WebHubTelescope (@whut)…
I’m not interested in “Springer’s argument“, I specifically stated my understanding of that post didn’t match his. OTOH, you haven’t addressed my argument, which is that if the numbers actually provided a mechanism for the “missing heat” to have arrived in the ocean, they would have been published and trumpeted.
In another subthread I commented on the limited value of averages in understanding quantitatively the atmosphere. The same applies to the ocean. It would be easy to describe the ocean if it would be the same everywhere, but it’s not.
Perhaps it still of some help to think what happens assuming that there’s no horizontal mixing beyond local turbulent mixing. In that case solar SW heats all levels down to considerable depth. The heating is strongest in top few meters but there’s some heating to depths of tens and even hundreds of meters. Under the assumption made all those levels warm continuously unless the heat is transferred up or down. In a semi-stationary situation almost all of that heat is transferred up to the surface and released from there as IR, latent heat of evaporation or sensible heat. A very small fraction would be transferred down making the situation semi-stationary rather than fully stationary.
The amount of heat transferred to atmosphere must be transferred off from the atmosphere, i.e. it must be radiated to space. With a stronger GHE the radiation to space is reduced (until temperatures have risen enough, i.e until warming has reached a new stationary state). As the atmosphere settles rapidly to it’s new state, we can conclude that the heat loss from the surface is determined by the OLR at the top of the atmosphere. We need not know the relative ratios of net IR at surface, evaporative losses and conduction to know the sum of these all.
This is the reason for the fact that the balance at OLR is the only one that finally matters. That’s the balance of the Earth as whole, what else do we need. Knowing the balance at surface would be equally good but determining that is much more difficult than determining the balance at TOA (which is certainly also difficult enough).
Thanks for further confirmation that a simple laboratory experiment under well controlled conditions has not been done demonstrating that varying 10um illumination on the surface of a vessel of water changes the rate at which cooling of said water occurs.
No direct slowdown of ocean cooling by increased 10um illumination from the atmopsphere explains everything we observe so I’m sticking with that story until it fails to explain something and/or it is demonstrated by laboratory experiment that it’s wrong. Gedankenexperiments on blogs don’t count as real experiments. It’s no more than handwaving. Sorry fellas.
@Pekka Pirilä…
I’m not talking about averages, I’m making intuitive suggestions regarding individual elements in a global scale integral of many variables.
No, with a stronger GHE, everything else being equal, the radiation to space is reduced… But everything else isn’t equal, and the details of how and where it’s not equal are precisely what I’m talking about.
And we don’t know what that is! From Stephens et al. (2012):
Now, I don’t claim to be an expert, but as I read this, and the remainder of the article, we don’t really know that there’s an energy imbalance at TOA, rather the assumption is built into the interpretation of the data, based on other (e.g. surface) observations and models. The instruments are much better with incremental changes:
But this condition could remain true even if the net flux during the “pause” were zero, couldn’t it? In fact, I’m highly suspicious that much more circularity has been built in to the paradigm than most of its practitioners realize. The problem is that people working within the paradigm generally don’t question its fundamental assumptions, and one of the fundamental assumptions of the paradigm is that increasing GHG’s must lead to an energy imbalance until the system “stabilizes”. But if that weren’t true, if in fact on a planetary scale small increases in GHG’s didn’t lead to an energy imbalance because the greenhouse effect is counteracted by negative feedbacks (from e.g. clouds), then the changes to TOA energy balance could be varying around a stable value of zero, which would be consistent with the observed data. Wouldn’t it?
Stephens et al. (2012) An update on Earth’s energy balance in light of the latest global observations by Graeme L. Stephens, Juilin Li, Martin Wild, Carol Anne Clayson, Norman Loeb, Seiji Kato, Tristan L’Ecuyer, Paul W. Stackhouse Jr, Matthew Lebsock, and Timothy Andrews Nature Geoscience published online: 23 Sept 2012 doi: 10.1038/NGEO1580
OHC continues to be positive. Each year energy is added to the oceans. My understanding is usually what Pekka is saying is exactly right. OHC data and the TOA data are in close agreement. There is no missing heat when that is the case as the data approximately balances. GISS took the position there is no missing heat, which just shows how looney Max is. They accepted OHC and the TOA are in approximate balance.
It’s when there is a divergence that the missing heat issue arises and has to be solved, and the only place to solve it is by finding out whether or not it is in the oceans. If it’s not there, then it was reflected back into outer space long before it reached the surface.
AK,
The conditions that make my description true are very much weaker than “everything else being equal”. They are so much weaker that they are virtually certain to be satisfied. The alternative is that there is no GHE that may change. I didn’t even make any claims on the origin of GHE, only that it made stronger by something.
You may perhaps argue on the existence of GHE, but if it exits, it does almost by definition have the properties required to make argument valid.
JCH, “OHC data and the TOA data are in close agreement.” Yes, that is where the MSU lower stratosphere data comes in handy. It basically mirrors changes in ocean heat uptake and is broken down into regions both land and oceans.
UAH though, has to be wrong in the opinion of some, since it indicates less CO2 impact and a more significant, “pause”.
The witless one complains about referencing scepticalscience?
In this rare case I agreed with the exposition rather than otherwise.
The sun heats the oceans – the oceans lose energy in IR, latent heat and conduction. If net IR up from the ocean decreases the rate of loss from the ocean decreases until the ocean warms up enough such that the losses again equilibriate. http://pmm.nasa.gov/education/videos/water-cycle-heating-ocean.
There is an inordinate confusion about the baby physics.
The Chief thinks that incoming IR will lead to a net cooling of the surface. If that was true, the converse would also have to be true — whereby IR leaving the surface will heat the surface.
Yet, anyone can see how obviously that is crazy talk.
Chief Hydrologist | May 9, 2013 at 6:22 pm |
“The witless one complains about referencing scepticalscience?”
No. The witless one made the reference as he practiced his passive aggressive style of insult hoping that it won’t get him spanked by the lady of the house again. LOL.
“In this rare case I agreed with the exposition rather than otherwise.”
In this case you couldn’t find a source other than blog science. Double LOL.
“The sun heats the oceans – the oceans lose energy in IR, latent heat and conduction. If net IR up from the ocean decreases the rate of loss from the ocean decreases until the ocean warms up enough such that the losses again equilibriate.”
Not necessarily. What caused the decline in IR energy loss can also accelerate latent loss for net change that amounts to greater cooling efficiency not lesser.
“There is an inordinate confusion about the baby physics.”
Yes, you are definitely confused and making fundamental mistakes buttressed by schoolyard insults to typical of the juvenile mind. Grow up.
WebHubTelescope (@WHUT) | May 10, 2013 at 2:11 am |
“The Chief thinks that incoming IR will lead to a net cooling of the surface. If that was true, the converse would also have to be true — whereby IR leaving the surface will heat the surface.”
No, that’s not what the chief thinks and no one with a triple digit IQ and an ounce of honesty could have come to that conclusion. You’re either stupid or dishonest or both.
Springer, You think you can always come in here and reason your way out of anything using English. Unfortunately, doesn’t work that way. You and Chief have both claimed that heat will not be absorbed in the net with respect to incoming IR by the underlying water. This is impossible WRT thermodynamics and I can show this mathematically by applying the conservation of energy and the arrow of entropy. The last bit is the nail in the coffin as energy always wants to disperse and you are preventing it from dispersing with your assertion.
Your likely problem is that you are deeply frightened of math. I will let you stew over this one.
Webster, That average temperature/energy of the northern hemisphere oceans is 19.9C(418Wm-2) and the average temperature/energy of the southern hemisphere oceans is 16.9C (401 Wm-2). The average temperature of the NH land is 10.17C and SH land is 6.9 C using BEST for the 1951 to 1980 time period. Why don’t you draw us up a nice little heat flow chart showing how CO2 is going to warm the global oceans 3C degrees.
BTW, that 3C difference between the NH and SH seems to be a few millions years old.
Here is the state machine:
Leave out the CO2 and you don’t get 33C.
You can make the next connection.
Webster, “Here is the state machine:
{CO}_2 \rightarrow {33^{\circ} C}
Leave out the CO2 and you don’t get 33C.
Oh that’s right, you have already done that. Let’s see, since clouds reflect ~24% of the shortwave, CO2 will adjust those to maintain that 33C + your 3C right, even though clouds would have started forming around 15C from the top end of that 33C. and end up producing about 326 Wm-2 of reflection that magically allows you to use 33C as your choice of baseline. That nonlinear increase in cloud cover and the associated non-linear increase in latent heat loss doesn’t impact your calculation since your “surface” is fictitious to begin with.
Sorry, not fictitious, a theoretical construct based on ideal radiant isothermal “shells”. So you can ignore the “actual” temperature differential between hemispheres and land/ocean because your construct doesn’t include land and ocean or the possibility of hemispheric imbalance to begin with.
That’s about it right?
If we didn’t have excess non-condensing CO2 around, the climate would be an icebox. This is an energy minimum.
Since the CO2 is around, the transition is:
This is a meta-stable energy minimum, made very shallow by the highly sensitive feedback effects of the GHGs.
Webster, you are obviously wedded to theory not reality. CO2 can produce a portion of that 33C, only because the combined albedo of the surface and atmosphere is 30%. If the Earth had zero clouds and 30% albedo, the CO2 forcing would be different. CO2 is not an independent forcing. There is a water/water vapor greenhouse surrounded by a WMGHG greenhouse. You can’t ignore 70% of the surface and 80% of the atmospheric forcing.
Since the absolute surface temperature of the NH ocean is nearly 20 C degrees, 415Wm-2 equivalent, 3 C warmer and about 16 WM-2 more energetic than the SH oceans, it is not going to happen. Look at a psych chart, water vapor is a control variable.
You wanted a flowchart so I gave you a flowchart. If you want more than that, I suggest you read this post again:
Climate sensitivity and the 33C discrepancy
This applies CO2 as a catalyst to determine what the natural temperature excursions due to water vapor could be. The analysis describes a way to find temperature bounds within the context of an energy well and a mild positive feedback mechanism.
CD says”if the Earth had zero clouds and 30% albedo, the CO2 forcing would be different.’
The albedo is closer to 29% (ceres 28.6) eg Kim and Ramanathan.
Giss in all its model configuration uses a higher figure (although recently has reduced it from .316-.306 without any determination.)
Maks said, “The albedo is closer to 29% (ceres 28.6) eg Kim and Ramanathan.” Yeah, and it does fluctuate a bit. It is nice to know that they can almost model a surface floating around about 5000 meters above sea level. Now it they could start a model with an initial 5% albedo and have it settle into the 29% to 31%, I would be impressed. Who knows, they may even get the absolute surface temperature to with in a couple of degrees and “discover” that the Antarctic is effectively the stratosphere. .
The GCM fix albdeo ie they use it as a constant ( which requires explanation) As it is necessary to affirm albedo eg the SB equation it is a first order problem.
The problem is non trivial
Giss has a simple tool to evaluate the problem
http://icp.giss.nasa.gov/education/geebitt/minigeebitt_a3.xls
Anybody looking to replace the supposed risk of catastrophic climate change in view of the apparently lower “sensitivity” can look to Catastrophic regime shifts in ecosystems. AFAIK we not only don’t have the data to produce an estimate of the probability with increasing pCO2 and the ocean acidification it drives, we don’t even have the technology to gather that data.
Of course, that’s not to downplay the risk of catastrophic economic regime shifts due to artificially increased energy prices. Or perhaps I should say military-economic regime shifts.
Best answer, IMO: much more investment in R&D for non-fossil (“renewable”) energy. Bring the price down where it can compete with fossil fuels.
You may wish to revisit that point and discover the meaning of ‘base’ in the context of the pH scale. Just saying.
When a solution is made less “basic”, by any means, that’s “acidification”. Even solutions at pH 12-13 are acids, just not very strong ones.
Yeah drink one of those “not very strong acids” and tell us how close to neutral it was. Wait, that was a joke, don’t do that, ok? It might actually not be too healthy.
AK-46, there’s a reason chemists have these two different word, acidic and basic – there are actually two different kinds of ions, you know…
The pH scale is technically defined as the number of hydronium ions in an aqueous solution – http://chemed.chem.wisc.edu/chempaths/GenChem-Textbook/Ionic-Equilibria-in-Aqueous-Solutions-528.html
But the actual chemical forms are such things as carbonic acid or sodium hydroxide. Additional CO2 in the atmosphere increases the amount of carbonic acid in seawater which drives the reduction in calcite and aragonite supersaturation. This in turn increases the dissolution of solid calcium carbonate – which is in adequate supply almost everywhere.
Nonetheless, people are expecting undersaturation of calcium carbonate in oceans this century. Something that would change the species composition in the ocean and might drive large changes in ecological systems.
‘The uptake of anthropogenic CO2 by the global ocean induces fundamental changes in seawater chemistry that could have dramatic impacts on biological ecosystems in the upper ocean. Estimates based on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) business-as-usual emission scenarios suggest that atmospheric CO2 levels
could approach 800 ppm near the end of the century. Corresponding biogeochemical models for the ocean indicate that surface water pH will drop from a pre-industrial value of about 8.2 to about 7.8 in the IPCC A2 scenario by the end of this century, increasing the ocean’s acidity by about 150% relative to the beginning of the industrial era. In contemporary ocean water, elevated CO2 will also cause substantial reductions in surface water carbonate ion concentrations, in terms of either absolute changes or fractional changes relative to pre-industrial levels. For most open-ocean surface waters, aragonite undersaturation occurs when carbonate ion concentrations drop below approximately 66 μmol kg-1. The model projections indicate that aragonite
undersaturation will start to occur by about 2020 in the Arctic Ocean and 2050 in the Southern Ocean. By 2050, all of the Arctic will be undersaturated with respect to aragonite, and by 2095, all of the Southern Ocean and parts of the North Pacific will be undersaturated. For calcite, undersaturation occurs when carbonate ion concentration
drops below 42 μmol kg-1. By 2095, most of the Arctic and some parts of the Bering and Chukchi seas will be undersaturated with respect to calcite. However, in most of the other ocean basins, the surface waters will still be saturated with respect to calcite, but at a level greatly reduced from the present.’ http://tos.org/oceanography/archive/22-4_feely.pdf
I don’t think this can possibly be right – the source of the supersatuation is eons of limestone and shell deposition and any deficit will simply be scavenged from these abundant sources.
Nonetheless – we should have a plan B – just in case I am wrong.
Hey DirkH,
The ion HSO4-, which one is it?
acid or base?
AK46 and I will conduct chemistry seminars if anyone is interested.
In most of the earth’s history atmospheric CO2 level was far higher than it is today and far higher than anthropogenic fossil fuel combustion can reasonably drive it before said fuels become economically unrecoverable.
Therefore the so-called acidification of the ocean is no more than a small, partial change towards its usual state where the earth has no polar ice caps and Antarctica is temperatue forest. The vast majority of the evolution of life happened when the earth was much warmer the global ocean less alkaline. Will ecosystems be upset? Certainly. But the point is that there are alternative ecosystems waiting in the wings for their turn at bat. Overall a warmer planet supports more life not less. Snow and ice are not friends of photosynthetic organisms which comprise the primary producers in the food chain. Wherego the primary producers go the rest of the food chain so what’s good for them is utlimately good for everything else. More CO2 is a good thing. If we weren’t already increasinging it in the atmosphere we’d need to invent a way to do it in order to increase the vitality of the food chain.
@Chief Hydrologist…
Carbonic acid is a factor, but sodium hydroxide isn’t. The latter dissociates completely. Sodium ions (Na+) are a factor, so are carbonate (C03-2) and, most importantly, bi-carbonate (HCO3-).
Aragonite supersaturation is usually referenced WRT ocean acidification, but while undersaturation is capable of resulting in the dissolving of existing shells, in the more general sense it’s not a “hard” barrier. Neither form will precipitate without catalytic help, and the lifeforms that use catalytic enzymes probably also use calcium pumps to help the process along.
Changing the concentration of carbonate ions changes the energy required for those pumps, which can change the competitive balance between different populations (of different or the same “species”), with changes to the overall balance.
The problem is moving it around. Most of the precipitated carbonates in the biosphere are lying on the bottom somewhere, with limited ability for transport when/if they dissolve. For that matter, as I’m sure you’re aware, a large part of the “carbonate pump” consists of precipitation (with or without catalytic help) in warmer upper water followed by re-dissolution in the cold lower-level water after the solid particles have drifted down. There simply isn’t enough interchange between levels to keep it mixed. And anyway, if cold undersaturated bottom water were warmed (and brought to the surface), it would normally become super-saturated due to lower saturation points in warmer water. (Of course, the foregoing is a simplistic cartoon. Any realistic discussion would require more space/time than a blog comment allows.)
Personally, I’m a lot more concerned about the direct effects of increased pCO2. As so many proponents of inaction are wont to repeat, “CO2 is plant food”. All plants (and algae, cyanobacteria, even anaerobic autotrophs), not just the ones we depend on. While known weeds appear to get less benefit from increased pCO2 than currently popular crop plants (no time to dig up refs, but I’ve seen them), we have no idea what low-density populations of what “species” might be hiding in some wild ecosystem, already pre-adapted to higher pCO2, ready to become a major pest.
@David Springer…
The problem is that the settling time for such upsets is measured in centuries (or millennia, or more). And our current economic-agricultural cycle is measured in years (if that). More life doesn’t necessarily mean higher crop yields, at least not until new crops and agricultural techniques can be developed and deployed.
In the long run, of course, it won’t be a problem. Already PV and CSP systems are outstripping the energy efficiency of bio-photosynthesizers, electrolysis of water is a very efficient (and already pretty cheap) way to convert it to bio-usable energy, and the necessary bio-tech to feed it directly into the Calvin cycle can be easily envisioned and won’t (AFAIK) require any special breakthroughs.
And, in the long run, the real issue of atmospheric pCO2 will be keeping all those “free riders” from taking so much out for conversion to fuel, food, and construction material that they draw down the levels to the point where it kicks off another ice age. Assuming there really is a “greenhouse sensitivity”. (Which IMO is likely but unproven.)
If I may add to David Springer’s comment.
The greatest biological impact of enhanced CO2 and water vapor is in the driest regions – a greening of brown and white. For example, during the Eemian interglacial, the Sahara disappeared, the desert southwest of US was wet and forests grew in west Texas and southern Greenland.
Greens ought to fanatically oppose CO2 reduction. Are there no true Greens? Only pseudo-Greens (“Greens”) ought favor EVs (lithium), CFLs (mercury) and asphyxiation of plants.
AK,
‘When CO2 from the atmosphere reacts with seawater, it immediately forms carbonic acid (H2CO3), which in itself is unstable. This further dissociates to form bicarbonate and carbonate ions. The bicarbonate and carbonate ions are responsible for the buffering capacity of seawater, i.e. seawater can resist drastic pH changes even after the addition of weak bases and acids. The carbonate ion can react with calcium ions (Ca), which are in excess in seawater, to form calcium carbonate (CaCO3), the material out of which the shells of mussels, the skeleton of corals and the exoskeleton of some microalgae is made of.
http://www.mbari.org/chemsensor/ca/calcium.html
The ‘pump’ is immaterial if there are lots of calcium sources in all of the places where shell is formed – and not just in the deep ocean. Does pH change – or is there more dissolution of calcium carbonate minerals? Do we get undersaturatuion of aragonite or more dissolution of limestone?
‘Calcium carbonate minerals, present on the deep ocean floor below what is called the saturation horizon, constantly dissolve and thereby increase the alkalinity of seawater, which offsets the decline in pH. But there is a problem: these minerals dissolve much more slowly than the current uptake of carbon dioxide by the oceans, and that leads to increased ocean acidity and lower pH. Furthermore, CO2 uptake occurs at the surface of the ocean, far from the deep ocean floor, so this critical zone experiences the most rapid increase in ocean acidification.’ http://spice.wa.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Researching-ocean-buffering.pdf
Above the saturation horizon – the minerals are formed biologically. These minerals are everywhere in the ocean and in huge abundance.
OK. This is another one of those really stupid arguments. Yawn.
AK | May 8, 2013 at 7:46 am |
“And, in the long run, the real issue of atmospheric pCO2 will be keeping all those “free riders” from taking so much out for conversion to fuel, food, and construction material that they draw down the levels to the point where it kicks off another ice age.”
Very much agree with this and it’s unusual to see it stated by someone other than myself. I usually put it thusly: Mark my words. Before the end of this century we will have laws limiting how much CO2 can be removed from the atmosphere rather than laws limiting how much may be added.
Good for you for recognizing that atmospheric CO2 is a handy source of carbon available everywhere and that most of the durable goods that humans desire can be built using carbon and carbon compounds.
blueice2hotsea | May 8, 2013 at 11:47 am |
“Greens ought to fanatically oppose CO2 reduction. Are there no true Greens? Only pseudo-Greens (“Greens”) ought favor EVs (lithium), CFLs (mercury) and asphyxiation of plants.”
Right on. I’m greener than any CAGW apologist.
These people want the status quo to continue. I recognize that the earth’s current atmosphere is starved of CO2 compared to most of the past 500 million years since life emerged from the ocean. CO2 is quite literally plant food.
Thanks for the heads up on Callendar. He was engineer not a scientist which handily explains why I would I independently reach the same conclusion. Engineers are empirical and practical. There’s far less room for contrary conclusions under those constraints. Climate science and climate policy seems to be skipping over the vital step of getting engineering to sign off on it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guy_Stewart_Callendar
I’ve looked at some of the key characters (from a historical perspective) and I wasn’t sure if you were referring to my article here
http://grumpydenier.wordpress.com/resources/more-about-co2/more-about-co2-page-iv/
No I was referring a comment you made upthread about Arrhenious Callendar coming to the same conclusion as me about the blessings bestowed CO2 and that if it weren’t rising we’d want to invent a way to make it rise because more is better at least up to some point far above what’s in the atmosphere now.
AK; bringing the price of renewable energy down to where it can compete is a wonderful idea; probably even better than installing and subsidizing renewable energy when it can’t compete.
(I have some great ideas there, for instance wind turbines without foundations; that would bring the CO2 emissions during the concrete production down just wonderfully. Can’t tell you how I would keep them erect; still gotta apply for the patent, you know)
But hey; you want to prevent regime shifts you can’t predict. Think of asteroid impacts. Do you already live in a bunker? If not, consider getting a used one, they’re cheap.
And get one of your namesakes with the -47 at the end.
David Springer says @ 7.34 am CO2 is quite literally plant
food . I’m with DS, Primo Levi and Chiefio on this.
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2010/10/10/got-wood/
I thought there was only one “The Chief”?
I suggest you go round up the Chiefio imposter romper-stomper style. Your hybrid ocker/bogan/yobbo accent will scare him into submission.
AK, as the definition of acidify is “to make or become aid” and no one AFAIK is talking about the oceans becoming acid, your use of acidification is incorrect. The correct terminology is neutralization, but it doesn’t have the same ring to it in terms of scare factor.
+10
The correct term is “acidification” which means to lower the pH. While people who don’t understand chemistry might get scared about the oceans becoming “acid” (while cheerfully using vinegar on their salads), ocean acidification scares me, so I’m being perfectly honest in communicating my concern.
Um, AK, “acidification” is the noun form of “acidify”, both of which refer to “make or become acid”…
Check out Webster’s, FreeDictionary.com, etc.
Please, what you are referring to is a misuse of the word acidification. Correct word is neutralization.
When the temperature changes from -40C to -35C we have warming, when pH changes from 8.2 to 8.0 we have acidification.
In both cases we are looking at the direction of the change and using the natural name for that direction. Neutralization is not a natural name for a direction.
What would be the neutralization agent for a basic mixture of carbonates and bicarbonates?
Just asking.
If the answer is the same as adding carbon dioxide gas to the solution, what is the difference?
acidify For the record, dictionaries aren’t authorities, just books of observations.
Hmmm … even with high CO2 levels in the Cambrian, limestone was laid down and contains a multitude of shelled animals. Maybe people are over-reaching in their speculation about:
1. If the ocean will ACTUALLY go acidic.
2. Will shelled animals flourish or not if it does.
It sure looks like many of them did just fine. This is another one of those complex situations where warmist’s imaginations go wild.
“Not a lot is known about the global climate during the Cambrian period, but the unusually high atmospheric carbon dioxide levels (about 15 times those of the present day) imply that the average temperature may have exceeded 120 degrees Fahrenheit. ”
…
“The Cambrian period saw the worldwide spread of the earliest plankton, as well as trilobites, worms, tiny mollusks, and small, shelled protozoans”
http://dinosaurs.about.com/od/PaleozoicEra/a/Cambrian-Period.htm
“Almost every metazoan phylum with hard parts, and many that lack hard parts, made its first appearance in the Cambrian. ”
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/cambrian/cambrian.php
“Fossil monoplacophorans displayed at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History in Washington D.C. These fossils are from the Cambrian Period (570-500 million years ago) and were found in Missouri. ”
http://louisvillefossils.blogspot.com/2010/09/cambrian-monoplacophorans.html
So Pekka and AK, what do you call it when you use a base to counteract the effects of an acid? Basification or neutralization?
@jim2…
No, this is another one of those complex situations where denialbots draw unwarranted and self-serving conclusions from insufficient data. Given that nobody knows much about the Cambrian, the assumption that erosion rates for calcium and magnesium (silicates) were identical to today’s is completely unwarranted. Oh, you didn’t know that the relationship between calcium (and magnesium) and carbonates depends on the rate of supply (via erosion) as well as the rate of removal (via carbonate precipitation).
Maybe you ought to go bone up on the geological carbon cycle before you try to make arguments based on paleo information. Not that I’m saying I totally agree with all the conclusions drawn WRT it, but it’s pretty clear don’t understand the subject you’re pontificating about.
AK, please educate us. How much CO2 is required to change the pH of the ocean to below 7.0. Please show your work.
@k scott denison…
Alkalinization.
@k scott denison…
I’m not going to waste any more of my time on a denialbot.
AK, guess that means you either don’t know the answer, don’t know how to get to the answer, or know that at the current temperatures of the ocean there is no way that enough CO2 could be dissolved in the oceans to cause pH to be lower than 7.0.
So, how can something be acidifying if it will never be an acid?
AK – If there is anything we have a lot of, it’s insufficient data.
AK, here’s a link from a non-skeptical site that forecasts ocean pH will be -wait for it – 7.8 by the year 2100:
http://www.ocean-acidification.net/FAQacidity.html
After all, it’s dropped 0.1 since the beginning of the industrial revolution for cripes sake!!!!
So lets see. Based on this, to go from today’s pH of about 8.1 to 7.0 will require the oceans to absorb 11x more CO2 (1.1/0.1) than since the beginning of the industrial revolution.
How fast you figure that will happen?
Now, can we please use non-inflammatory words when speaking about the change of pH of the oceans?
Ocean acidification is what it is, and what everybody who discusses it intelligently calls is.
AK, btw in re: your “denialbot” comment, two things.
(I) smacks of ad hom.
(II) I firmly believe that increasing CO2 in the atmosphere, all other things being equal, will cause warming. It’s the *all other things being equal* um, thing, that I don’t believe ever holds true.
Also, I like to think I’m wise enough to see that the torturing that the surface tempertaure data goes through to become the *global* temperature should be validated and verified before being believed.
On the other hand, it sounds as if you might be a good prospect for the bridge I’m trying to sell in NYC. Give me a call if you’re interested!
AK | May 8, 2013 at 10:51 pm |
Now, can we please use non-inflammatory words when speaking about the change of pH of the oceans?
Ocean acidification is what it is, and what everybody who discusses it intelligently calls is.
———-
Ah, now on to argumentum ad populum… you are on a roll!
k scott – correction: AK is on a SCIENTIFIC roll. Only warmists’ speculations are scientific, don’t you know.
AK | May 8, 2013 at 10:36 pm |
A dictionary is not an authority merely a collection of observations…
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/lame
AK appears to be in denial about how words and phrases are chosen to frame debates. One can just as easily and with the same number of syllables say CO2 causes the ocean to become less alkaline. This is both true and imparts more information about the situation. Acidification is a direction for pH movement. Less alkaline is both a direction and a starting point. The latter phrase has a smaller fright component for the unwashed masses so chicken little alarmists like AK choose the former.
I don’t really care for calling AK a chicken little alarmist but he chose to lower the dialog to playground level by calling others denial-bots so if that’s his level I’m willing to stoop to it if that’s what gets through to him.
@David Springer…
To the contrary, I already discussed my choice of language:
I might not have framed it that way were I choosing the language for the discussion, but “ocean acidification” is the standard term for it, and this is a presumably technical blog. Nevertheless, “acidification” is actually the correct term:
From Wiki, and notice that, while the page on “ocean acidification” is listed when you ask Wiki for “ocean de-alkalinization”, it’s not even at the top. The primary danger of ocean acidification is the increase in H+ ion concentration, and while a 30% increase is pretty small potatoes compared to the 1000% increase involved in a change of one pH level, it’s enough to have a serious effect on many biological functions.
I called them denialbots, and now you David, because anybody who objects to my use of the common term is clearly pursuing a denialist agenda. Especially since my discussion wasn’t even really about ocean acidification, but ecological destabilization, primarily as a direct result of increasing pCO2, but also (incidentally) the ocean acidification it drives. I doubt anybody who is willing to consider the potential dangers of ocean acidification would object to the term. Only knee-jerk deniers.
If denialbots are really interested in changing the language, rather than just pursuing a knee-jerk denialist agenda in the blogosphere, they ought to start by getting Wiki to point their preferred term to the article on ocean acidification.
This isn’t a chemistry blog and I didn’t object to acidification I merely described how it helps frighten those who don’t understand it’s the term a chemist would normally and naturally use because they understand it carries no negative connotation in this context. I pointed out that when describing ocean acidification to non-chemists it would be more descriptive and less fright-inducing to say increasing CO2 makes the ocean less alkaline. Your objection to that reveals your bias as an alarmist bedwetter. There are ointments that can help alleviate the symptoms but I’m afraid the only cure for your ailment is to grow the f*ck up.
“This recent, large increase in ocean heat content is the best sign that the Earth is still undergoing an energy imbalance caused by an enhanced greenhouse effect.”
I think the term “ocean heat content” should be put into a box with “global average temperature,” and buried at sea near bin Laden. The term GAT is often used, but look closely at the graphs and they really purport to describe surface air temperatures, or sometimes combined land and sea surface temperatures. But given the inaccuracy and imprecision of measurements, and vast areas (including much of Antarctica and the deep ocean) that are not even measured, the figures are neither truly global, nor an accurate average.
Since the heat content of vast volumes of the oceans are not even measured, I don’t think anyone has a clue to what the ocean heat content of the Earth is now, let alone ten years ago, let alone 100 years ago or more. Yet somehow the consensus has gone from speculating that the “missing heat” is in the oceans, to claiming they have actually found it there. Nice trick.
Not to be skeptical, but how do you know there’s a pause if you don’t even really know the GAT?
Gary
Another nonsense is ‘global average sea level.’
Tonyb
Seconded.
Regarding claims that warming has supposedly only slowed…
If you go to the CRU website, and look for Professor Phil Jones, you will find this graph which also appears to show HADCRUT 4 temperatures plateauing and actually dropping
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/info/warming/
Graphs of HADCRUT temperature reconstructions on their webpage shows the same plateau and temperature decline, particularly in the Northern Hemisphere!
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/
I found this rather cool graph, which looks JUST LIKE the HADCRUT4 temperatures, but it is a NOAA global land/ocean air temperature reconstruction. Shows plateau and decline at the end, also!
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/service/global/global-land-ocean-mntp-anom/201101-201112.png
Regarding claims that ocean temperatures continue to rise…
Found a graph of NOAA’s Extended Reconstructed Sea Surface Temperature from 1880 to 2010. It appears flat since about 1995 through 2010 to me!
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/ersst/
I went looking for 2013 Ocean Cooling Numbers. Graph of Microwave sea surface temperatures from 2002 to 2013 shows slight cooling
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2013/03/global-microwave-sea-surface-temperature-update-for-feb-2013-0-01-deg-c/
Chris Shaker
Chris,
Regarding claims that ocean temperatures continue to rise…
Found a graph of NOAA’s Extended Reconstructed Sea Surface Temperature from 1880 to 2010. It appears flat since about 1995 through 2010 to me!
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/ersst/
They’re not just talking about sea surface temperatures.
I’d like to see the graph of ocean temperatures below 700 meters…
Chris
You care to point me at a good source of historical deep ocean temperature records? I don’t seem to see any here at RealClimate.org?
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/data-sources/
According to this article, there is a reason I can’t find such data?
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/05/03/ocean-heat-content-0-to-2000-meters-why-arent-northern-hemisphere-oceans-warming-during-the-argo-era/
Chris Shaker
Also, we should be seeing the heat from radioactive decay and from the left over heat of formation rising up through the oceans as well?
Radioactive decay accounts for half of Earth’s heat
“Geophysicists believe that heat flows from Earth’s interior into space at a rate of about 44 × 1012 W (TW). What is not clear, however, is how much of this heat is primordial – left over from the formation of the Earth – and how much is generated by radioactive decay.”
http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/2011/jul/19/radioactive-decay-accounts-for-half-of-earths-heat
Radioactive decay is key ingredient behind Earth’s heat
“Nearly half of the Earth’s heat comes from the radioactive decay of materials inside, according to a large international research collaboration that includes a Kansas State University physicist.”…
“Previous research has shown that Earth’s total heat output is about 44 terawatts, or 44 trillion watts. The KamLAND researchers found roughly half of that — 29 terawatts — comes from radioactive decay of uranium, thorium and other materials, meaning that about 50 percent of the earth’s heat comes from geoneutrinos.
The researchers estimate that the other half of the earth’s heat comes from primordial sources left over when the earth formed and from other sources of heat. Earth’s heat is the cause behind plate movement, magnetic fields, volcanoes and seafloor spreading.”
http://phys.org/news/2011-08-radioactive-key-ingredient-earth.html#jCp
Chris,
See for example Balmasdea, Trenberth and Källén (2013)
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/grl.50382/abstract
But my point was that even if you dispute their findings you can’t contradict them by pointing to surface temperature records.
I don’t think they are making conclusions based on actual measurements in the ocean. I strongly suspect that they are making conclusions based on their computer models.
I’m a computer scientist. I’m not terribly impressed with claims made based on computer models of the climate.
If I am wrong, please point me at historical data for ocean temperatures below 700 meters, and preferably graphs of temperature at a given depth over time.
Thank you,
Chris Shaker
Also, we should be seeing the heat from radioactive decay and from the left over heat of formation rising up through the oceans as well?
Maybe, but you’d have to show the effect was significant enough to make a difference. I don’t pretend to know much about the subject myself but I’ve seen it discussed elsewhere and the opinion seemed to be that it was orders of magnitude too small.
The effect is both small and stable. As it is stable it would not make any difference on warming even if it were not as small as it is.
The Earth is perhaps about 0.1 C warmer due to geothermal energy than it would be without (the exact value depends on the feedbacks). Thus the effect is not totally negligible, but as I wrote already this effect is stable.
Chris,
They use data from ORAS4, which as far as I can see is produced using a combination of observed data and models. See below for more info.
http://godaetwiki.ab-hosting5.co.uk/pub/Main/RelevantDiagnostics/oras4_QJ_latest.pdf
Thank you Andrew
Chris
Concerning primordial heat vs. heat from radioactive decay, back before the era of plate tectonics made geology a much simpler science in some ways, a standard exercise in physical geology class was to take typical concentrations Uranium isotopes in granite, typical conductivity of granite and calculate the amount of heat generated in a given volume per unit time. This was one of the keys to geosynclinal theories of mountain building (orogeny). The short of it is that a typical granite is “hot” enough radiocatively to melt itself, in sufficient volume and at depth.
A better link for the HADCRUT4 temperature graphs showing declining temperatures, particularly in the Northern Hemisphere
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/HadCRUT4.png
Chris Shaker
WHAT?
It’s simply scientifically incorrect, he says, to attribute the divergence of climate model projections and observations to an overestimation of the climate sensitivity.
HE HAS GOT TO BE KIDDING. WHAT ELSE WOULD EXPLAIN THIS?
The scientific proof of the pudding is in testing models against the consequent data. e.g. compare IPCC’s vs Scafetta’s models against the data.
When IPCC gets its climate sensitivity right, then the model mean might be closer than 2 sigma away from the subsequent temperature. They would then still have to show the ability to hindcast/forecast from one half the data to the other half for credibility.
Here is cet, the oldest instrumental record in the world and seen by many scientists as a reasonable proxy for northern hemisphere and global temperatures
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcet/
It has been dropping sharply for a decade
Tonyb
Tony,
Why do we need to use the CET as a proxy for global temperatures over the last decade when we have actual measurements of global temperatures for the last decade?
Furthermore we can conclude from this discrepancy that CET is not a good proxy for wider area averages.
Andrew
There was no global record back to 1660 so this makes cet a useful guide to historic temperatures.
Tonyb
Pekka
Here is a study of CET and BEST global temperature to 1820. There is a pretty good match
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/08/14/little-ice-age-thermometers-historic-variations-in-temperatures-part-3-best-confirms-extended-period-of-warming/
Cet is a reasonable precursor and a reasonable but not perfect proxy.
Tonyb
Tony,
But we’re not discussing 1660, we’re discussing the last decade. We don’t need to use the CET as a proxy for that period.
Tony,
CET and measurements from nearby parts of Europe must have significant influence on the earliest part of BEST. Thus they are not independent enough for straightforward conclusions.
It’s certainly to be expected that any single measurement series correlates better with global temperatures for multidecadal averages than in short term, but even longer term averages may behave differently – or not. We just don’t know, how good proxy it is.
tony b
It appears to me that both Andrew and Pekka are missing your point.
– CET gives good correlation with BEST over the period of overlap.
– Ergo it seems reasonable that CET would also be a good proxy for BEST for the period where there is no BEST record.
This makes sense to me (if I understood it correctly).
Max
tony b
To my earlier comment:
Both BEST and CET are land only measurements, so they do not necessarily tell us much about land and sea average temperatures.
The “globally and annually averaged land and sea surface temperature anomaly” (HadCRUT 3 or 4) shows a slight cooling since the new millennium (January 2001).
The Hadley sea only surface temperature also shows slight cooling, whereas BEST shows slight warming over land only.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:2001/to/trend/plot/best/from:2001/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:2001/trend/plot/hadsst2gl/from:2001/trend
Max
manacker:
If CET were independent of BEST, that would be true. The problem is CET is not. CET’s data, and data from neighboring areas, are used by BEST. They even had an higher effect on BEST’s early results than its later results.
Without accounting for the effects of their non-independence, any correlation between the two is meaningless.
“Without accounting for the effects of their non-independence, any correlation between the two is meaningless.”
Oops, there go all the bristlecone pine reconstructions that supposedly make for a “robust” understanding of paleo-climate,
andrew adams | May 7, 2013 at 5:55 pm | Reply
Tony,
Why do we need to use the CET as a proxy for global temperatures over the last decade when we have actual measurements of global temperatures for the last decade?
———-
I’ll bite, where can I find these measurements of “global temperature”? Last time I checked what we have is a very small sample of local temperatures that are then gridded, massaged, folded, spindles and mutilated into something many call “global average temperature”. It’s nonsense, of course, but that’s what they call it.
Tony, I guess folks dont know that the early BEST record contains the northeastern united states and more than CET
http://berkeleyearth.org/movies/
Brandon Shollenberger
Good point.
Thanks.
Max
k scott denison
You write:
I think our hostess has referred to the process you describe as “tortured”.
Max
k scott denison,
Since you obviously know what records I’m referring to I’m not sure I can give you a reply which will satisfy you.
Mosh
I think the reasonable correlation between BEST and CET is interesting. It gives us some idea of what was happening in (possibly) the wider world back to 1660.
Having read some more of Phil Jones’ work and that from other researchers I think my reconstruction to 1538 is pretty indicative as well. Previously I was surprised at the apparent warmth in the 1640’s and early 1500’s but now I’m confident it was correct.
tonyb
“If CET were independent of BEST, that would be true. The problem is CET is not. CET’s data, and data from neighboring areas, are used by BEST. They even had an higher effect on BEST’s early results than its later results.”
The effect on the early results is determined by the correlation in the later results.
Now of course one could rerun the data with CET taken out. what is your prediction?
andrew adams | May 8, 2013 at 3:35 am |
k scott denison,
Since you obviously know what records I’m referring to I’m not sure I can give you a reply which will satisfy you.
——–
It’s easy andrew: show me the records that are validated and verified to represent the “global temperature”. For that matter, show me the records that indicate that the temperature and trend of even a ver small, say 1%, area of the globe can be measured using one thermometer within that area.
The experiment I would run would be to saturate that area on a uniform grid with thermometers at very high spatial resolution. Record the temperatures and trends for a significant period of time. Plot all of the data to see if they all have the same trend over time.
Do that, and I’ll start to believe in what the *climate scientists* say is global temperature.
As Mosher has pointed out, in the BEST data ~30% of the stations show cooling while the others show warming. So who decided that we simply haven’t over sampled areas with positive trends and under sampled areas with negative trends?
Steven Mosher, you didn’t contradict anything I said, but you did provide an opportunity to point out BEST’s decision to use spatial correlation in one period as a constant over all time is unsupported. It is, in fact, known to be incorrect, and it even contradicts BEST’s own data. BEST has simply set a variable (in formula two of the appendix, as I recall) to zero with the wave of a hand. BEST has made no attempt to justify this decision, nor has it offered any indication as to how this decision affects BEST’s results.
As for predictions, the only one I’ll make is that you’ll fail to address this issue as you have for something like a year now.
(For the record, I did do as Zeke suggest and contacted Robert. I received no response.)
I wonder how long it will be before these scientists take seriously the possibility that sensitivity could be lower than 2C.
It will be soon after the money they get to say this alarmist stuff stops flowing.
AFAIK, it is well understood that CO2 emissions alone could only contribute a 1°C climate sensitivity. The remaining 1°-3°C that are hypothesized are due to positive feedbacks. It would now appear as if the modelers mistook natural variability for feedback as they calibrated their models to the increased warming between the mid 1970s and the late 1990s when all the natural cycles that we are aware of were causing additional warming.
Tom, you write “AFAIK, it is well understood that CO2 emissions alone could only contribute a 1°C climate sensitivity“
This is another of the myths propogated by the warmists. It is merely a hypothetical guess that doubling CO2, by itself, with no feedbacks, causes a rise in global temperatures of around 1C. This number can NEVER be measured, so it is purely hypothetical, and completely meaningless. Basically, it is just another part of the scientific garbage which is promulgated by the warmists
Jim Cripwell – I think your refutation of climate sensitivity to CO2 (ECS) goes a step too far. The value of ECS is a bit more than a hypothetical guess, because it is supported by laboratory experiment. It is indeed difficult to see how it could be measured in the real world, but scientists – the genuine variety – may one day work out a way of doing it. So the situation as I see it is not that climate sensitivity is completely meaningless, but that it cannot yet be used with any confidence. The lab results plus a bit of theory place it I think at around 1 in today’s conditions. To my mind it is reasonable to work theoretically with it at around that level but without confidence. There is probably an equally valid reason for working with it at around zero (the effect is ‘saturated’). The only statement that can be made about its value with any confidence is “we don’t know”. NB. I included the words “in today’s conditions” above, because I don’t think it has yet been established that ECS is a constant – it would seem likely that it is highly dependent on other conditions.
Mike,
You bet that ECS would not be a constant (with wide error bands) because the other influences would swing in and out of the system in a random fashion with varying impacts on ECS.
ECS would better be represented as a series of PDF’s across space and time.
Mike Jonas
Jim Cripwell’s statement should be modified as follows:
I think you’ll both agree to the modified statement.
Max
Max, you write “I think you’ll both agree to the modified statement.”
Sorry, Max. No sale. So far as I am concerned, the no-feedback climate sensitivity for a doubling of CO2 is a hypothetical, meaningless number. It has a place in physics if it is used for one purpose, and one purpose only. That purpose is to help design the experiment where the actual change in global temperature caused by adding CO2 to the atmosphere from current levels is measured. All other uses of this number are not legitimate in physics.
Judith,
The money quote from this article is Pierrehumbert’s: “I think it’s true that some rather sloppy discussion of the rapid warming from the 20th century has given people unrealistic expectations about the future course of warming.” I wonder how long it will be before these scientists take seriously the possibility that sensitivity could be lower than 2C.
The whole point of what many of the scientists quoted in the article are saying is that the global temperature levels we have seen in recent years do not demonstrate that climate sensitivity is significantly lower than previously estimated. The “money quote” from Pierrehumbert does not suggest that this is the case and indeed he points out immediately afterwards that “no serious scientist thinks climate sensitivity could be much lower than 2 degrees Celsius based on the balance of the evidence”.
Andrew Adams
You need to get up-to-date.
There have been several recent studies (some at least partly based on actual physical observations), which all point to a lower 2xCO2 ECS than previously predicted by the models cited by IPCC.
Recent studies on 2xCO2 ECS
Lewis (2013) 1.0C to 3.0C
Berntsen (2012) 1.2C to 2.9C
Lindzen (2011) 0.6C to 1.0C
Schmittner (2011) 1.4C to 2.8C
van Hateren (2012) 1.5C to 2.5C
Schlesinger (2012) 1.45C to 2.01C
Masters (2013)* 1.5C to 2.9C
* not yet published
The average range of these recent studies is 1.2°C to 2.4°C, with a mean value of 1.8°C, or about half of earlier model-based predictions cited by IPCC..
Max
PS It appears that Pierrehumbert also needs to get up-to-date with his “no serious scientist” quote (there are at least around a dozen of them who would disagree, i.e. the authors of the recent studies on ECS).
There are papers putting ECS at around 0.2 :-
January 15, 2013
A paper under review for Earth System Dynamics uses a novel technique based on satellite data and surface air temperatures to find that global warming due to increased CO2 is is much less than claimed by the IPCC. According to the author, the findings confirm those of Spencer & Braswell and Lindzen & Choi that a doubling of CO2 levels would only lead to an increase in top of the atmosphere temperature of 0.67°C, or global surface temperature of about 0.18°C, instead of the alleged 3°C claimed by IPCC computer models.
http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=10954
NB. This paper is reported as only being “under review”, but the papers it refers to have been published.
Hmmm. You lump together different estimates based on different methodologies and calculate a “mean value.”
Does the IPCC do that?
Max,
The point I’m making is about what the scientists quoted in Appel’s piece are saying. Judith seems to be taking their comments as evidence for lower CS whereas what they are saying is that what has happened to global temperatures in recent years is perfectly consistent with our current best understanding of CS. You or Judith may think that CS is lower (I’m familiar with some but not all of your references so I will look them up) but that doesn’t follow from Appel’s piece.
Mike Jonas,
Much as I don’t want to get into an argument about climate sensitivity, I have to say that putting your faith in an unpublished paper which is contradicted not only by virtually every other study on the subject (apart from one which has not stood up to serious scrutiny) but also by everything we know about climate changes in the past seems to me to be a bit… optimistic.
Andrew Adams
That’s correct.
I was talking about the estimates of seven new studies on ECS, which are (at least partly) observation-based, which all indicate that 2xCO2 ECS is around half of the model predictions cited by IPCC in AR4 rather than “Appel’s piece”.
Max
The review process of the Börnbom paper referred to by Mike Jones was interrupt for the following reason:
http://www.earth-syst-dynam-discuss.net/4/C202/2013/esdd-4-C202-2013.pdf
Max,
Lindzen’s claims of very low sensitivity have repeatedly failed to survive serious scrutiny.
I’ve looked up some of the other references.
The only paper I can find for Berntsen is Aldrin et al (2012) to which he is a contributor. Yes, their results are slightly lower than the IPCC estimates, although they acknowlege that the results could be underestimated due to indirect aerosol effects which are not included. Also they get much higher figures if they include certain cloud effects. You can certainly argue that it supports CS being at the lower end of IPCC estimates but it doesn’t contradict them.
Schlesinger’s paper is not about climate sensitivity, it is about reducing CO2 emissions. It uses certain values of climate sensitivity for the purposes of estimating the global temperature trajectory but it doesn’t calculate them from first principles.
The values in van Hateren’s paper are for the transient climate response so are consistent with the existing mainstream position.
I was interested in the discussion but now wonder if the info being provided is being influenced by ‘motivated reasoning’. I see that Andrew Adams is apparently ideologically aligned with the Greens and LibDems. So can I trust his interpretations of the sources he refers to as being objective and unbiased?
From Andrew’s web site referring to the 2010 UK election:
Science does not have an ideology. I suggest that you listen to what Andrew Adams is telling you about the premises of those papers estimating a low sensitivity.
Above all, I would recommend that people like Manacker work out the analysis themselves using current observational data.
The problem I think is that the skeptics are serving as obedient lap dogs — in not being able to do the analysis themselves, they take the lazy way out and apply rhetorical debating tactics. Having gotten past the procrastination stage and I became motivated to do the analysis for myself, I find that it is not too hard to work it all the way through. Once one finds canonical ways of representing what are often sophisticated mathematical behaviors, the results are surprisingly straightforward.
Good luck!
Peter,
If you think my interpretation of those papers may be incorrect (and I don’t expect you to merely take my word for it) then all you need to do is read them.
As for motivated reasoning, well I reckon pretty much everyone here probably has strong views of one kind or another. If people habitually make blatantly wrong arguments, and they have strong and overt political views, then it can sometimes be interesting to consider if the latter is influencing the former. And there are arguments around climate change, its consequences and what action should (or should not) be taken where people’s values are actually relevant and will naturally inform their arguments.
But assuming that because people have strong political views their argument must necessarily be suspect makes any meaningful discussion very difficult. Of course we should all be wary of falling into the trap of motivated reasoning but it’s wrong to see it in every argument made by others.
Andrew Adams,
I agree with your words. But many people are excellent at writing words that do not truly and honestly reflect what motivates them to write those words.
Mine are open. I support economically rational policies. If I am to be persuaded we need to implement policies that will be economically damaging, there needs to be strong evidence the chosen policies will succeed in making the climate better.
I take a risk management approach. So I recognise there are future risk of climate change and almost certain economic damage by the policies that have been proposed to date.
Therefore, I argue it is entirely rational for everyone to seriously questions every aspect of the science that is relevant to defining policy. I strongly disagree with those people who want to try to stop debate and get on with implementing (bad) policies.
There is no point in me reading every scientific paper I am referred to. I am interested in the information that is suitable for policy analysis. The sort of information I want that which informs analyses like Nordhaus RICE and DICE http://nordhaus.econ.yale.edu/ and Richard Tol’s https://sites.google.com/site/climateconomics/
I particularly want to know the best estimate and uncertainty for these four inputs:
1, Climate sensitivity
2. Damage function (damages per degree of warming)
3. achievable decarbonisation rate of the global economy
4. probability that the chosen policy will succeed and survive until the job is done
The uncertainty on climate sensitivity is huge and has changed little in the past 25 years or so. And virtually no work has been done on items 2, 3 and 4.
I am interested in the latest information on our best estimate for ECS and the uncertainty, but not in reading each paper. (and yes, I have read the relevant section of draft AR5 WG1 and the Figure 12.1).
The Greens and Leftist parties like the LibDems have displayed little interest in the economic consequences of the policies they push, so I am very distrustful of anything they argue.
Peter,
In principle I don’t disagree with a lot of that. I certainly think that it’s important to ask the kind of questions you raise. The problem is we might not get as accurate answers as we would like for some time, so we are stuck with having to make decisions baased on the imperfect information we have.
Although the economic arguments are important I don’t think that the issue can be framed in purely those terms – there are questions around both how we judge the risks involved and what kind of action (if any) we should take and how costs are borne which involve value judgements and so it is inherently a moral and political issue as well as a scientific and economic one. But much as I make no apology for my liberal left leanings (I don’t really think of myself as a LibDem of Green although I have, or had, some sympathies in those directions) I don’t claim that any political ideology will have the answers by itself – I think this is genuinely an issue whose scale means means we have to look at solutions which cross political boundaries.
I certainly wouldn’t reject out of hand suggestions for policies to address climate change from anyone regardless of their political affiliations, and ISTM there are quite big differences of opinion on policy querstions even amongst people with quite similar outlooks.
“no serious scientist” == “no true Scotsman”
BZZZZZZZZZT! Logical fallacy.
Thanks for playing. Next contestant please.
Pushing a buzzer about what Pierrehumbert said does not provide a good answer to Andrew Adams’ point, which was:
> The whole point of what many of the scientists quoted in the article are saying is that the global temperature levels we have seen in recent years do not demonstrate that climate sensitivity is significantly lower than previously estimated. The “money quote” from Pierrehumbert does not suggest that this is the case [.]
Thanks for playing.
Willard, “> The whole point of what many of the scientists quoted in the article are saying is that the global temperature levels we have seen in recent years do not demonstrate that climate sensitivity is significantly lower than previously estimated. The “money quote” from Pierrehumbert does not suggest that this is the case [.]”
Well of course not, when the range is twice as large as is should be because of “averaging” two guesses, how could it be “significantly” lower?
Thanks to AR4 though, that could change. Originally the range was 1.5 to 4.5 following the Charney Compromise. AR4 slipped in a minor change in that range making it 2-4.5. Since that is supposed to be a “95% confidence level”, the 1.6 range would be “significantly” different than the AR4 estimated range.
Once sensitivity drops to 0.8C, then the real fun will begin. AR5 should also be amusing. Should someone’s dog eat their corrigenda, there is likely to be a bit more notice taken. :)
Yes it provides a wonderful answer to those with a keen intellect. I’m sorry it went over your head but you should be used to that by now.
Cap’n,
Before a but the AR4 may such and such and so and so, I’d like to hear a loud and clear yes on Andrew’s point:
> The whole point of what many of the scientists quoted in the article are saying is that the global temperature levels we have seen in recent years do not demonstrate that climate sensitivity is significantly lower than previously estimated.
If you’re to play yes, but games, at least say but loudly and clearly.
Thanks for playing.
PS: What you just did was an argument from fallacy, Big Dave.
Willard, “Before a but the AR4 may such and such and so and so, I’d like to hear a loud and clear yes on Andrew’s point:”
You will have to settle for a yes, BUT. Just because Andrew’s statement is correct, doesn’t mean it is meaningful. That is the delightfully part of playing statistical games.
That is like me saying the models are WRONG. You have to agree, then you might add a but.
Cap’n,
Thank you for that yes.
Now, please put this yes into some perspective:
> Recall all the flack I took last year for talking about the ‘pause’? The money quote from this article is Pierrehumbert’s: […] I wonder how long it will be before these scientists take seriously the possibility that sensitivity could be lower than 2C.
These one-liners are interesting to read in the light of such a yes, don’t you think?
As for what the future will be, you’re entitled to your opinion, which we no doubt will hear again in a near future.
Thanks!
w
What you just did, Willard, was babble.
Williard, Judith’s definition of Flak and yours can differ. In fact, I think your view on just about anything is highly different than most. You have advanced “hair splitting” to a fine art.
In Judith’s mind, she may also think she has taken “flak” for her Italian Flag, conversing with Steven McIntyre, consorting with Richard Muller and blogging. Her definition of “Flak” is hers.
Now should Ray Pierrehumbert take a little “flak” for his statement? Since he wrote the book on the atmospheric radiant effect, it would seem he should have been one of the first to mention and explain the “pause”. In fact, it should have been mentioned in AR4 since Ray is an expert on the GHE, if anyone was capable of recognizing the “skeptics” pause, he should have been the one.
[Response: Wayne, please note that this is Kyle’s article not mine, though I did encourage him to write it for us. I think the interesting question raised (though not definitively answered) by this line of work is the extent to which some of the pause in warming mid-century might have been more due to decadal ocean variability rather than aerosols than is commonly thought. If that is the case, then a pause or temporary reduction in warming rate could recur even if aerosols are unchanged. Learning how to detect and interpret such things is important, lest a temporary pause be confused with evidence for low climate sensitivity. –raypierre] … 2009
Emphasis mine.
What do our results have to do with Global Warming, i.e., the century-scale response to greenhouse gas emissions? VERY LITTLE, contrary to claims that others have made on our behalf. Nature (with hopefully some constructive input from humans) will decide the global warming question based upon climate sensitivity, net radiative forcing, and oceanic storage of heat, not on the type of multi-decadal time scale variability we are discussing here. … – Kyle Swanson, 2009
Big Dave,
Since you kindly asks:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_fallacy
Your argument against Raypierre was exactly that,
BZZZT. You’re out.
Next Denizen, please.
Cap’n,
You’re right, Judith’s definition of Flak and mine can differ.
This is why I keep asking what flak she had in mind.
Until she answer that one, I’ll keep pushing one unanswered criticism after the other.
Running with talking points for victimization’s sake has to stop.
More Pierrehumbert from elsewhere:
Williad, “Until she answer that one, I’ll keep pushing one unanswered criticism after the other.”
That sounds like a fun game. I myself think that some of the misconceptions of AWG theory will require the complete and utter humiliation of some of the participants.
Since I like picking on Trenberth, perhaps I can pick a little more by explaining his heat was never missing? He just can’t add.
If he didn’t have an “irrational” fear of satellite data, he would have known that by now.
http://redneckphysics.blogspot.com/2013/05/ocean-heat-content-versus-stratospheric.html
“There’s really nothing in this that changes my estimate of climate sensitivity.” -Bad Andrew
Cap’n,
Here kind of comment can help identify a game:
> That was fun.
http://judithcurry.com/2013/05/07/more-on-the-pause/#comment-319772
What you call a game right now ain’t one.
Willie, Willie, Willie…
What I implied and what you inferred are two different things. Since it’s my implication I get to clarify it.
I inferred that anyone who would commit the no true Scotsman fallacy is an imbecile. I know you admire imbecilic wool gatherers, a professonal courtesy no doubt, but others might not and so I pointed out one signature of a deficient intellect in a subtle way that was, unsurprisingly, too subtle for similar deficient intellects to properly construe.
Thanks for playing. Better luck next time but I’m afraid you need more than luck. Maybe someone smart to proof read your babble before you publish it…
Big Dave,
Thank you for clarifying:
> I inferred that anyone who would commit the no true Scotsman fallacy is an imbecile.
So you’re using a fallacy argument to construct an ad hominem for the sake of dismissing Pierrehumbert’s claim.
Since even imbeciles may be right, your construction is illegitimate.
BZZZT. The point stands.
Thanks for playing,
w
After due consideration of your point “even imbeciles can be right” I concede the argument to you. Even you can be right.
But a betting man will still bet on the imbecile being wrong.
And the trite expression, which I use often, is even a blind squirrel finds an ocassional acorn. Write that down.
All guesswork. None of them have a clue about climate. Nature makes fools of hubristic zealots..
That the warnings from those in-the-know are overblown and the world can keep burning fossil fuels?
Actually, those not ‘in-the-know’ where really those in-the-know.
Serial sovereign defaults and further severe global economic recession seem unavoidable. In these conditions, the ongoing obsession over AGW is looking more and more like a mental disorder, not unlike the mass manias of the Middle Ages… [where] angry mobs may be only too willing to accord full credit to false prophets. (Walter Starck)
“…no serious scientist thinks…”
How many times in history do you suppose this stuffy phrase has been uttered in defense of some academic status quo, only to be subsequently overturned?
+10
Indeed, no serious captain would ever start a serious claim with ‘no serious scientist’.
In this one quote by Ben Santer, one can see both the ignorance and arrogance of the “consensus” bunch:
Duh!
Arrogance: “Hey guys, we know it all.”
Ignorance: The “noise” may turn out to BE the “signal”, stupid!
As Albert Einstein is quoted as saying:
Looks like we’ve got both at work here.
Max
Judith Curry
Thanks for this post. Good stuff.
You last sentence is spot on:
So do I.
Max
Manacker,
In the Earth sciences discipline, geologists have come up with the ranking system for prediction called 3P . The 3P’s stand for Proven, Probable, and Possible. Just ask someone like the great Steve McIntyre, what relying on the lowest certainty Possible means when you are making recommendations concerning natural resource availability to Wall Street. (yes, you may make a trip to the hoosgow if the authorities catch on)
Hope this helps how much you can depend on the “possibility that sensitivity could be lower than 2C.”. And stay out of trouble.
I have prepared a “feel good” chart for fans of the pause (see link). Please concentrate on the OLS line for 1998- 2013, and ignore the silly 1880-1997 period.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1880/to:2013/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1998/to:2013/trend
My mistake for not throwing out that silly 1880-1997 period to begin with. My new and improved “feel good” chart for pause fans is
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1998/to:2013/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1998/to:2013/trend/plot/none
Max_OK
Great charts, Okie.
I feel much better already.
Thanks.
Max_not from OK
Max_OK, here’s a better one
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1880/to:2013/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1998/to:2013/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1880/to:1920/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1940/to:1980/trend
Shows that the cooling trends out number the warming trends 3:2 over since 1880. This is what makes me feel no need to panic.
k scott, the problem with showing that many years is some rude “take-the-longview” type is gonna call attention to the overall trend. Look at how that would mess up your chart.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1880/to:2013/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1998/to:2013/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1880/to:1920/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1940/to:1980/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1880/to:2013/trend
I was purposely avoiding the long-view in my revised feel-good chart for pause fans. Many of those fans are getting up in their years and don’t have long left, so it’s best not to bring up the long-term.
Yes we have seen this before – and if you think that 0.06 degrees C/decade is something we will worry about – even if it is continued for the next 100 years – you are off your meds.
We have seen it 100 times.
‘To unmask the anthropogenic global warming trend imbedded in the climate data, multiple linear regression analysis is often employed to filter out short-term fluctuations caused by El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO), volcano aerosols, and solar forcing. These fluctuations are unimportant as far as their impact on the deduced multidecadal anthropogenic trends is concerned: ENSO and volcano aerosols have very little multidecadal trend. Solar variations do have a secular trend, but it is very small and uncertain. What is important, but is left out of all multiple regression analysis of global warming so far, is a long-period oscillation called the Atlantic multidecadal oscillation (AMO). When the AMO index is included as a regressor (i.e., explanatory variable), the deduced multidecadal anthropogenic global warming trend is so impacted that previously deduced anthropogenic warming rates need to be substantially revised. The deduced net anthropogenic global warming trend has been remarkably steady and statistically significant for the past 100 yr.’ http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/JAS-D-12-0208.1
Chief Hydrologists inadvertently revealed his age with the following remarks:
“… and if you think that 0.06 degrees C/decade is something we will worry about …”
“We have seen it 100 times.”
_______
Holy Cow, 10 x 100 puts Chief at 1,000 years of age! HA HA, he sure knows how to exaggerate. Actually, the “100 times” probably is just a typo
If Chief meant 10 times it would put him at 100 years of age. I can easily believe a hundred. He’s the fuddiest fuddy-duddy I can recall.
Note Chief said “we.” Maybe he will tell who “we” are.
We have seen the science 100 times at least. We includes the many scientists who have identified decadal variability.
‘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
So yes we have seen the 20th century trend 100 times or perhaps a 1000 – and it is perhaps 0.08 degrees C/decade.
And all you have in response is trivial, inane, adolescent and uninformed rubbish. Go back to mummy because you haven’t learned to be a real man let alone a real human being yet.
So, Chief, you don’t deny you are 100 years old. I hope I live that long.
You may not have much time left to let go off that silly decade notion. It is not an explanation for climate change, it’s simply observation. It’s like observing an old wind-up clock and attributing the movement of the hands to the passing of time rather than to what’s inside the clock, and then when the clock runs down, thinking time has stopped.
Wise up while you still have some times (hopefully years) left.
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
There is a big picture of quite a lot of the planet on the site. Are you really quite insane Max?
Chief, you are describing observations. You aren’t explaining the causes of what’s been observed. You are doing little better than saying warming is a warming influence and cooling is a cooling influence.
You say: 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.”
Yes, and ?
Max_OK
You write to the Chief that you “hope to live to 100”.
That’s wishing for a lot.
In your shoes I’d just hope to live until I grow up and become an adult.
Max_CH
Well gee wiz, if we want long term trends….
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Holocene_Temperature_Variations.png
http://ourchangingclimate.wordpress.com/2013/03/19/the-two-epochs-of-marcott/
In case you wanted something new in old.
CO2 Climate Sensitivity Vs. Reality
One of the Faithful–David Appell–interviews some High Priests–who intone that the science is settled, only “sloppy”–and Curry thinks it is a “nice job”. All involved are incompetents, chanting in ritual consensus. Climate science is doomed, unless someone, anyone, can (as I wrote at that last link) “explain, within the ‘consensus’ theory, why the Venus/Earth temperature ratio should be precisely (!) due only to the relative distances of the two planets from the Sun, and nothing else”. Explain it quantitatively, people, or admit your consensus theory is false.
ZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz………..
WTF? You woke me for that nonsense?
Venus is a red herring. You need to explain why the earth is much warmer than its own moon where both are the same distance from the sun. Good luck. Wake me up when and if you get to the point where you start discussing the effect of a global ocean.
Thanks for playing.
ZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz………..
HDH: As I’ve pointed out on your blog many times, the Venus/Earth ratio is hardly exact, and the entire idea that pressure determines temperature violates conservation of energy.
I must confess to being confused by the role of “natural oscillations” as used on all sides of the climate debate. I have both an evidentiary confusion and a causality confusion.
On the evidentiary side, we have Urgent Mitigationists, who used to downplay the role of natural fluctuations (when measured surface temps were rising), now using them to explain the “pause”. We have some Militant Nonbelievers, who used to cite natural fluctuations as an alternative hypothesis to AGW (when temps were rising) now blaming the “pause” on lower climate sensitivity to CO2 than assumed in the simulators. It would be nice for everyone to get his story straight.
On the causal side, I don’t understand exactly what explanatory role natural fluctuations are supposed to play. As Mosher likes to say, if we don’t know what causes these fluctuations, they are observations of climate rather than explanations of climate.
I would go further to say that even if we knew the causes of these fluctuations, their impact on climate would not be clear.
As far as I can make out, there are three main routes by which natural oscillations could counteract or reinforce the greenhouse effect on measured temps: a) We could have a redistribution of heat within the earth system. b) We could have a change in the albedo of the earth system. c) We could have a change in the effective transparency of the atmosphere to upwellng infrared radiation. These routes could operate simultaneously and each could be subdivided into multiple mechanisms, but I find the classification useful in thinking about the problem.
Do we know very much about which route is most important in causing natural oscillations to affect measured average surface temps?
stevepostrel
You listed three natural routes, by which natural factors might “counteract or reinforce the greenhouse effect on measured temps”
Let me add one.
d) some other as yet unknown mechanism by which our planet’s climate is naturally forced, which could or could not occur via the routes listed in a) through c) above.
Max
Stevenpostrel said, ” a) We could have a redistribution of heat within the earth system. b) We could have a change in the albedo of the earth system. c) We could have a change in the effective transparency of the atmosphere to upwellng infrared radiation. These routes could operate simultaneously and each could be subdivided into multiple mechanisms, but I find the classification useful in thinking about the problem.
Yes, that is useful.
a) has not only be noted but roughly quantified in paleo. Brierly et al. 2010
http://eesc.columbia.edu/courses/w4937/Readings/Brierley%20and%20Fedorov.2010.pdf estimates the change in meridional flux due to the Drake Passage opening/circulation changes to be ~3.2 C and the Zonal variations ~0.6 C. That agrees well with Toggweiler et al 2000
http://sam.ucsd.edu/sio219/toggweiler_bjornsson.pdf
b) Toggweiler describes as a shifting of the “thermal Equator” or ITCZ. This shift from southern hemisphere dominate to northern hemisphere dominate change the westerlies which drive the THC as described in papers linked in a)
c) is the more complex issue. That one might make someone a new science super star.
The Drake Passage paper, from its abstract, does not describe a redistribution of heat such that the overall surface temperature would change, but rather a shift in heat between the surfaces of the SH and NH. So that wouldn’t explain anything about the average measured surface temp.
A redistribution of heat affecting average surface temp would have to be into or out of the deep ocean, higher altitudes, or some hypothetical non-thermal process (biota growth, wind, or what have you).
On b) you could have various ice-and-snow feedbacks, cloud feedbacks, changes in biological ground cover, changes in the reflectivity of the ocean surface (whitecaps?), etc.
On c) the only things I can think of are possible cloud feedbacks, water vapor changes, or maybe changes in the number and frequency of sudden stratospheric warming events.
This is just a list. It would be interesting to know if there is any way to tell if any of these are linked to the natural oscillations in a way that could explain (part of) fluctuations in average measured surface temps.
Steven, a) and b) are a little more interesting. The Drake Passage opening allows more efficient mixing of the oceans at various depths. Without that mixing, the thermocline layers become higher, warmer and more uniform which causing warmer surface temperatures.
With the Drake Passage, the southern hemisphere deepest downwelling water temperature is nearly fixed at -1 to -2 C. In the Arctic, the temperature is warmer but more variable because of the sea ice extent and salinity are more variable. The two hemispheres have different “setpoints”. .This is the main reason for the AMO impact on climate.
The story gets better due to the Drake Passage bottleneck. Nielsen et al found various common time scales for temperature fluctuations related to precessional forcing. 150 years, one of the mixing times mention in the Toggweiler paper with was noted also in the Greenland melt studies, 400 years, .1070 and 1220 years, During a NH dominate regime, SH sea ice extent increases which tends to vary the average flow rate.
So more efficient mixing equals cooling atmospheric temperatures and warming deeper ocean temperature and the reverse of course. The time scale for ocean warming is ridiculously long, ~1700 years and appears to be roughly limited to the range of 2C and 4C currently, likely due to the difference in Arctic and Antarctic downwelling deep water temperatures. That possible limit and the hemispheric “seesaw” keeps global mean temperatures pretty stable but there is huge variation in the NH high latitude temperatures. Kinda like the AMO and PDO on millennial scale steroids.
BTW, that ~1700 years I determined from the Bintanja and Van de Wal Northern Hemisphere paleo reconstruction. That is a 5 million year reconstruction and the lag relationship between SST and deep ocean temperature is consistently in the 1700 year range. That is pretty close to the Bond event timing, but paleo can be off a few hundred years.
ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/contributions_by_author/bintanja2008/bintanja2008.txt
It is a shame there are so many issues with paleo dating and calibration.
You should add “change in convection” to the list of factors. In fact since convection is the primary cooling mechanism for the earth’s surface its absence from your list indicates a fundmental ignorance of the climate system on your part.
Charming as usual. Convection changes would be covered in my list for a), redistribution of heat to higher altitudes.
That’s a pretty broad definition of redistribution. Convection makes cooling more efficient by insensibly transporting energy to a higher altitude where there is less radiative restriction by the remaining atmosphere above it. It’s not like the energy is simply moved it’s moved and dissipated. But that’s a quibble and since I see in your other comments you clarified your meaning I will retract the criticism.
An example of one source of noise is volcanic eruptions. The number and timing of eruptions likely follows a Poisson process and the sizes are picked likely from a fat-tail distributions. That’s as close as you are going to get to prediction, so you deal with it.
Other sources of noise can be similarly characterized. The main point to consider when dealing with random walk type of noise is whether there is a reversion to the mean process.
http://mathworld.wolfram.com/ReversiontotheMean.html
The continual addition of CO2 to the atmosphere is not a reversion to the mean process, while all the noise sources such as tides, solar, coriolis, and chaotic fluctuations have a reversion to the mean.
Volcanoes are transient phenomena – they make an impact and are gone.
Other climate series are non-stationary and so do not have a mean to revert to. That’s the secret – aye dweeby?
Here’s an 11,00 year ENSO series.
http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/ENSO11000.gif.html?sort=3&o=107
Chief makes an observation: “so do not have a mean to revert to”
Ha ha ha ha ha. Chief is a total buffoon and doesn’t even realize that the measure in the chart he links to has a BASELINE that it reverts to.
In comparison, what does the measure of this chart do?
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/obop/mlo/programs/coop/scripps/img/img_scripps_co2_record.gif
It is not reverting to the mean, ha ha ha.
The not-so-secret secret is that there is a big gap in your knowledge concerning elementary time-series analysis.
WebHubTelescope (@WHUT) | May 9, 2013 at 12:22 am | Reply
“An example of one source of noise is volcanic eruptions.”
Another example of noise is anonymous commenters who are just barely bright enough to not want to damage their reputations elsewhere by attaching a traceable real-life name to their written demonstrations of juvenality and scientific illiteracy.
Before applying Feynman’s rules, first observe.
If it warms, blame CO2. If it doesn’t warm, blame aerosols. This seems to be the belief system.
I am confident that Mother Nature will eventually prove that GHG warming is of no consequence compared with natural variability.
The real inconvenient truth is that the earth’s temperature has been falling for 3,000 years as revealed by the Greenland ice core data. Current temperature changes are but tiny blips in the overall cooling. The temperature has dropped some 3.75 degrees Fahrenheit since the Minoan Warm Period some 3,300 years ago. The ultimate irony will be that if the long term trend continues shivering future generations may look back and wonder why we saw warming when the next ice age was staring us in the face. (Meteorologist, Art Horn)
Wagathon
Global temperature has probably been cooling since the Holocene Climatic Optimum about 8,000 top 10,000 years ago.
I’d lay even odds that’s not true, David. Unlike past interglacials the Holocene didn’t spike at the very beginning like predecessors. It just suddenly stopped rising about 2-3C short of the average of past interglacials. So it didn’t get a warm spike at the beginning and has now 12ky later failed to get on a steady downtrend.
The best explanation I’ve seen is Herman Pope’s who lays out and offers empirical support for a hypothesis that melting of the Greenland glacier is what starts a downward slide out of interglacial warmth. Without the extra water (larger global ocean surface area to absorb sunlight) and warmth from a naked Greenland soaking up rays the northern ocean doesn’t warm enough to drive high snowfall rates required to begin rebuilding of continental glaciers. Thus we’re stuck in a never-ending interglacial getting neither warmer nor colder just oscillating slightly around a tightly constrained median. The reason for the odd interglacial is, according to Pope, the Younger Dryas which interrupted the melt, quenching its inertia, and thereby saved Greenland’s glacier. He believes the Younger Dryas was caused by the premature (compared to past interglacials) collapse of an ice dam holding back meltwaters around the NA Great Lakes. The flood of freshwater into the North Alantic halted glacial melt in Greenland and it didn’t resume for 12,000 years right up to now.
Sounds perfectly plausible to me. If there’s a tipping point it would probably be a point of no return for Greenland’s glacier but we’re talking a thousand years for that to melt off and then a 100,000-year descent back into ice age conditions.
I think civilization has more immediate and more important concerns to say the least.
Springer
See: First complete ice core record of last interglacial period shows the climate of Greenland to be significantly warmer than today
Furthermore, the glacial period was about 8 – 10 C colder than at present. Cold has far greater danger of catastrophic mass deaths than a few degrees of warming.
The Greenland glacier never melted during Eemian interglacial, though 8C warmer than present. Consequently, Pope’s hypothesis of melting fails on the data.
Norman Page shows cooling since the Holocene Optimum.
Hagen
Dunno where you got your info but it’s wrong. Ice at bedrock level in Greenland is only 130,000 years old (Eemian Interglacial) so the last interglacial melted it all.
http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1901157/scientists_finally_reach_greenland_ice_sheet_bedrock/
Certainly not global but high resolution C Dome ice core in Antarctica shows temperature constrained within a 1-2 degree range with no trend up or down since Holocene interglacial began.
http://c3headlines.typepad.com/.a/6a010536b58035970c0134849d3d3f970c-pi
http://www.climatedata.info/Proxy/Proxy/icecores_files/BIGw07-temperature—vostok-and-gisp2.gif.gif
Greenland a bit noisier than Vostok but same story. No real trend in past 10,000 years.
Yet more evidence of Eemian melt:
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/337/6091/216
It’s a well known factoid that if the entire Greenland ice sheet melted it would raise sea level about 7 meters. The fact that Eemian sea level peaked 6-9 meters higher than Holocene means Greenland was, if not bare, close to it.
Thanks for playing. Think twice before contradicting me next time and save yourself some embarrassment.
Springer
Suggest “digging deeper.” Yes the NEEM project reported the Eemian temperatures. Yes they reached bedrock. Pope’s conclusion fails from the omitted middle. See:
Eemian interglacial reconstructed from a Greenland folded ice core Nature 493, 489–494 (24 January 2013) doi:10.1038/nature11789
See Figure 4: Reconstruction of the temperature and elevation history. Note the record of warming at the beginning of the Eemian interglacial followed by cooling. The presence of records through the Eemian interglacial indicates that the ice goes back at least that far.
A glimpse into the Eemian, Centre for Ice and Climate
Note: Ice Core Drilling Project NEEM Depth approx 2550 m
400/2550 = ~16% melted
I read that to mean the full core has not yet been reported on.
Hagen feel free to explain where the water came from, if not largely from the Greenland ice sheet, to raise the Eemian ocean 6-9 meters higher than the modern ocean. Absent that I’m just going to blow off your response as that of a poor sport who can’t admit a fault.
Springer
This remains a lively subject of scientific debate. See:
Greenland May Contribute Less Than Antarctica to Sea Level Rise
Your sea level rise argument fails from the fallacy of a false dilemma or exhaustive hypothesis.
Rather than “blowing off”, may I recommend that you try the scientific method. I.e., show evidence to support your/Pope’s hypothesis, and show errors in the Greenland evidence that are overcome by the other data. We have not seriously addressed either set of data nor the full range of models and their errors and uncertainties.
You simply can’t rule out the possibility that the Antarctic sheets melted just enough for that amount of rise. It would be a coincidence, but not an extremely unlikely one.
NEEM Data will help us all understand this better.
Based on having ice core data this old, we now know that all the ice on Greenland did not melt in the warming that ocurred about 130k years ago. Other ice cores from Greenland do show that some parts of Greenland did lose all their ice.
If we look at this actual data and the results of the analysis of what it means, we all might better understand what really happened and what it means for our future.
Herman Alexander Pope
Well put. I look forward to your further evaluation of all the collective data in this challenge of discovering the interactions in climate.
May I suggest including the stochastic evidence for the Hurst-Kolmogorov dynamics in your developments. See RPielke:
New Paper “Climatic Variability Over Time Scales Spanning Nine Orders of Magnitude: Connecting Milankovitch Cycles With Hurst–Kolmogorov Dynamics” By Markonis And Koutsoyiannis
Well you at least acknowledged that Eemian sea level peaked 6-9 meters higher than today. This is important in and of itself aside from being a breakthrough for you to acknowledge contrary data. No matter whether the source of the higher sea level was mostly Greenland or mostly Antarctic ice it supports the hypothesis that the melt was more extensive in the Eemian. Furthermore, a point I’d already made in this thread which you also ignored, the higher sea level creates a greater surface area for the global ocean. The ocean being very low albedo compared to land, especially where it greatly diminishes snow cover because land freezes over easily while ocean does not, causes the earth to capture more energy from the sun than it would otherwise and, as well, the greater oceanic surface area and warmer world injects more moisture into the atmosphere which falls out and builds up on the continents.
You think your argument somehow diminisheds or even extinguishes Pope’s but that diminishment is a figment of your imagination. You diminish yourself and no one else.
Springer
How much was the change in surface albedo by reduction in land area/increase in sea area, compared to the change in solar drivers?
So you interview 5 scientists and you get 5 differing answers.
We seem to have the true consensus. We don’t really know.
And there likely won’t be an El Nino this year so we can’t rely on the ‘noise’ helping to restore the warming.
“says Kevin Trenberth, climate scientist with the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Co.
One of the things emerging from several lines is that the IPCC has not paid enough attention to natural variability, on several time scales,” he says, especially El Niños and La Niñas, the Pacific Ocean phenomena that are not yet captured by climate models, and the longer term Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) and Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) which have cycle lengths of about 60 years.”
The above should be sufficient evidence to rhrow serious doubt on the IPCC climate reports. It shows that neither the IPCC nor the modellers understand climate well enough to shut down our fossil ruel industries.
The “invincibility of ignorance” was noted long ago by St.. Augustine. But the resourcefulness of leading “climate scientisits” in maintaining that invincibilty.is nothing short amazing. Despite the fact that there’s not a single first-rate physical oceanographer, thermodynamicist or system/signal analyst among them, they’re all sure that only the momentary difficulty of obtaining “climate signal” data from the deep oceans, clouds or far reaches of the atmosphere stands in the way of universal recognition of inexorable AGW.
OBSERVATION BASED ESTIMATE OF CLIMATE SENSITIVITY.
Increase in GMST from 1960 to 2010, dT = 0.4 deg C
CO2 concentration for 1960, C1 = 317 ppm
CO2 concentration for 2010, C2 = 390 ppm
Climate sensitivity, CS = ln(2)*dT/ln(C2/C1) = ln(2)*0.4/ln(390/317)
CS = ln(2)*0.4/0.207 = 0.693*0.4/0.207 = 1.34 deg C
The observation-based estimate of climate sensitivity is 1.34 deg C for doubling of CO2.
you calculated TCS
Aye.
The Princess Bride comes to mind
http://judithcurry.com/2013/05/07/more-on-the-pause/#comment-319474
Steven
That is 50 years.
How many more years do you need?
Web
Yeah. So does the “fairy godmother” (with her “magic wand”).
Gotta love those fairy tales.
Max
ECS (Equlibrium climate sensitivity) goes from equlibrium to equilibrium.
TCR (Transient climate response) goes from equlibrium to time of CO2 doubling.
The difference ist the additional warming commitment and takes 500 years and more.
There was no equilibrium in 1960
.
Looking at the TAR (“The Scientific Basis”), what Girma calculated is quite near to ECS, and about double TCR.
Girma: “Steven, that is 50 years.
How many more years do you need?”
Mosher wants you to add those o.6°C (mentioned by Max-CH), because he thinks nothing was in the pipeline in 1960. That would make the final result 1.94°C, at least according to Mosher/Manacker/IPCC.
ECS varies by geography. Where it’s frozen a lot of the time it can go up a long way until evaporation and negative feedback from clouds halts the rise. Where the surface temperature is already capped by cloud feedback not much happens.
The characteristic pattern predicted by the above and empirically observed as well is that CO2 warming of the surface happens in inverse proportion to how much evaporative cooling happens in the same place. Everything observed makes perfect sense in light of that.
The IPCC model is here:
http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/tar/wg1/345.htm
It assumes: +1% CO2 per year (that is 70 years doubling), TCR 2°, ECS 3.5°, thus add warming 1.5°
Girma used (the equivalent of) a piece of the curve between year 70 and year 140 to get (the eq of) 3.25° ECS.
Mosher thinks he got (the eq of) 2° instead (yr 0 to yr 70).
Mosher is wrong.
Steven what do you think the ‘lag’ will be in a Planet that rotates on its axis and orbits its star?
I have never seen a proof that there should be anything but an annual response.
Could you please explain to me this ‘lad’?
Girma,
start here
http://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/blog/isaac-held/2012/04/30/27-estimating-tcr-from-recent-warming/#more-3531
Steven Mosher (about Held):
which is the part you want us to read: The primary post by Isaac Held or the comment by Nic Lewis on why it is wrong?
Alexej Buergin
Looks like not only the 2xCO2 ECS is overestimated by a factor of 2x by IPCC, but also the exponential CO2 growth rate.
This has leveled off at around 0.5% per year (NOT 1% per year).
So, instead of doubling in 70 years it would increase by 40% in 70 years, and would double in 140 years.
Big difference.
And when you compound the two exaggerations, you get a super-exaggeration.
Max
DocMartyn | May 8, 2013 at 10:08 pm |
“Steven what do you think the ‘lag’ will be in a Planet that rotates on its axis and orbits its star?
I have never seen a proof that there should be anything but an annual response.
Could you please explain to me this ‘lad’?”
I have similar concerns. Maximum and minimum seasonal insolation is followed mere weeks later by maximum and minimum temperature respectively. The lag between insolation and temperature empirically appears to be weeks not years. I attribute the disparity in warming to rocks not being able to evaporate in response to downwelling infrared. One very simple rule (ocean temperature is not directly effected by greenhouse gases) explains all the observations. Occam’s Razor favors the simpler explanation. The set of alternative explanations can fill a municipal library and still comes up wanting.
Girma
Let’s play Mosh and Webby’s “hidden in the pipeline” game, and convert your 2xCO2 TCR value of 1.34C to ECS.
IPCC tells us in AR4 that there were 0.6C added warming “hidden in the pipeline” that we would eventually feel over the next 100 years even if all human GHG emissions stopped in 2000.
Let’s assume that 80% (or 0.48C) of this resulted from added GHG concentrations occurring after 1960.
So your estimate becomes 1.34C + 0.48C or 1.82C
This is almost exactly the same average figure obtained by all the new studies (1.8C+/-0.6C).
Voilà!
Max
It looks to me that CO2-concentration has gone up about 0.25% per year for the last 150 years.
If that is the only reason for the warming (as Girma assumes), the heat in the pipeline in 1960 would be the same as in 2010.
Manacker, Do you really trust the incompetent Girma? I suppose you would also trust him to do your taxes?
Why not trust instead what DocMartyn has done? He is clearly a smart cookie, working to find cures for various human illnesses, and using good scientific techniques (worthy of your hero Feynman, no doubt).
I think DocMartyn did a good job with this. If you add 1.15 degrees to his 1.2 degrees, we get 2.35 degrees of warming (Doc estimated this as 2.4), and then if we add the extra 0.6 degrees that Manacker demands that we add to the pipeline, we get 2.95 C for a doubling of CO2.
This is pretty close to the 3 C for doubling that I get, and that seems to be the mean value of all climate studies.
Manacker, I hope this clears things up for you, as you struggle to find credible people to listen to,
I agree with Web’s 3C below. Now that the heat is going into the deep oceans, this will manifest itself as a 0.1 C rise in the deep oceans in 1,000 years. We must act now!!
At about 280 ppm the pre industrial CO2 concentration was in equilibrium; so that seemed (to DocMartyn) a good starting point for calculations.
Unfortunately the temperature varied a lot, even though the CO2 did not. Do you choose the medieval warm period or the Little Ice Age?
It only proofs that CO2 was not the important driver some people think it is.
Seems to me the good Doc has sold himself the dummy.
Max
What we are concerned is what would be the warming for this century. For that the transient climate sensitivity apply.
For that, a more useful measure is the transient climate response (TCR), the temperature you reach after doubling CO₂ gradually over 70 years. Unlike the equilibrium response, the transient one can be observed directly; there is much less controversy about it. Most estimates put the TCR at about 1.5°C, with a range of 1-2°C. Isaac Held of America’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration recently calculated his “personal best estimate” for the TCR: 1.4°C, reflecting the new estimates for aerosols and natural variability.
http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21574461-climate-may-be-heating-up-less-response-greenhouse-gas-emissions
Girma: The 70 years for doubling are just a result of the IPCC assuming a growth of CO2 concentration of 1% per year, which, of course, leads to a linear temperature vs time plot.
Web, I am happy with you quoting me, but when you throw in this ‘missing’ heat crap, could you make sure that people know that this is your invention and not anything I have either calculated or endorsed.
As I have stated, an update of the data, over a longer timescale gives 1.71 degrees for a doubling of CO2.
DocMartyn
please pardon me for blaming WebHubbi’s nonsense on you.
DocMartyn
… but when I see you writing [CO2]=280ppm 1940 I set a question mark.
Webby
No struggle on my part.
I’ve just gone through seven independent recent studies (most of which are at least partly observation-based), which conclude on average that the 2xCO2 ECS is around half of the model predictions cited in AR4 by IPCC.
These (not Girma’s estimate) lead me to believe that IPCC (and Hansen et al.) overestimated 2xCO2ECS by around 2X. [Hansen’s failed 1988 projection, which were based on the same exaggerated ECS estimate, show the same 2X exaggeration compared to the actual warming.]
So much for that.
Now to Girma.
He estimated 1.3C for 2xCO2 based on temperature trend from 1960 to today.
He was criticized (by Mosh and you, I believe) that this was only the “transient climate response” of 2xCO2, which did not include the warming still “hidden in the pipeline” waiting to reach “equilibrium”.
I added in the IPCC estimate of 0.6C “in the pipeline” (which was presumably estimated by IPCC using the higher ECS estimate of 3.2C), and assumed that 80% of this warming in the pipeline occurred after Girma’s 1960 cutoff point = 0.48C.
Adding this to Girma’s TCR I got around 1.8C (coincidentally around the same number as all those seven recent independent studies).
Hope this has cleared up your apparent confusion.
Max
DocMartyn
Thanks for clearing this up.
Max
Max.
Very clear.
There are multiple different ways of estimating climate sensitivity with different outcomes and uncertainties associated.
You choose one particular method, and disregard evidence from others.
You make no effort to acknowledge the uncertainties with the method you prefer.
Crystal. Clear.
Girma
I’m not going to get into a big argument with you on the “hidden in the pipeline” premise.
To me, the concept of our “climate” ever reaching “equilibrium” seems foreign to the way it actually works.
The idea that heat is “hidden in the pipeline” for decades or even a century seems a bit like voodoo science.
The logic used by Hansen et al. to arrive at this estimate is circular:
– My models tell me it should have warmed by X degrees since 1880
– The thermometers tell me it only warmed by X/2 degrees
– Therefore the difference = X/2 is still “hidden in the pipeline”
And, in addition, his arithmetic was sloppy.
And the whole concept is not supported by any empirical evidence.
But, having said all that, you will never get a true “believer’s” attention if you pooh-pooh the “hidden in the pipeline” concept – it has become something like the “holy grail”.
The good news is that IPCC has, in effect told us its impact: if all GHG emissions had stopped in 2000, IPCC estimates that 0.6C warming would still occur over the next century as the “hidden heat” comes out of the “pipeline”. IOW this is the amount of warming that must be added to any observed transient climate response to arrive at an estimate for ECS, which could be accepted by a true “believer”.
Max
VTG
You are mistaken when you write:
I have cited the seven recent studies on 2xCO2 ECS, which arrive, on average at a value of around 1.8C with ranges of +/- 0.6C, or around one-half the value predicted by the models cited by IPCC in AR4 WG1 Ch.8 (3.2C+/-0.7C).
If you look at these studies, you will see that, while several of them use actual observations as opposed to simply model simulations, they use different ways of estimating ECS. [So I do not “choose one particular method”, as you write].
The uncertainties are cited by the authors. I simply averaged their ranges. And there is no “method that I prefer”.
So you are wrong on all points.
Max
Max,
you do indeed, as usual, continue to ignore studies whose results you don’t like. Indeed entire methodologies.
Knutti & Hegerl
Enjoy the echo chamber
Hansen first discussed unrealized warming in a paper written in 1985:
Hansen, J., G. Russell, A. Lacis, I. Fung, D Rind, and P. Stone, 1985: Climate response times: Dependence on climate sensitivity and ocean mixing. Science, 229, 857-859, doi:10.1126/science.229.4716.857.
…The response times are particularly sensitive to (i) the amount that the climate response is amplified by feedbacks and (ii) the representation of ocean mixing. If equilibrium sensitivity is 3C or greater for a doubling of carbon dioxide concentration, then most of the expected warming attributable to trace gases added to the atmosphere by man probably has not yet occurred. This yet to be realized warming… – James Hansen, 1985
The existence of unrealized warming complicates the CO2 and trace gas issue… – James Hansen, 1985
Scratch that, now he’s discussing it in 1983.
VTG
Seems to me like you are the one who is ignoring SEVEN new independent studies, all published since 2011 and all showing a 2xCO2 ECS of around half the previously estimated value, using different methods of analysis.
But you gleefully cherry pick one from 2008 that suits your taste.
This study concludes
– that “current models” arrive at a range of “2.1–4.4 °C”,
– “that uncertainties in forcing and response made it impossible to use observed global temperature changes during that period to constrain S more tightly than the range explored by climate models (1.5–4.5 °C at the time)” [this is exactly the point now contradicted by the more recent studies, which constrain ECS to the 1.2–2.4 °C range based on “observed global temperature changes”],
– that paleo-climate reconstructions show “the relationship between temperature over the past 420 million years supports sensitivities that are larger than 1.5 °C, but the upper tail is poorly constrained”, “most studies find a lower 5% limit between 1 and 2 °C” and “studies that use information
in a relatively complete manner generally find a most likely value between 2 and 3.5 °C and that there is no credible line of evidence that yields very high or very low climate sensitivity as a best estimate.”
From this the authors suggest that the range of 1.5–4.5 °C seems to be realistic, with the remainder of the paper discussing effects and impacts.
With the exception of the estimates based on “observed global temperature changes” (which has been superseded by the more recent studies I cited), I see nothing very exciting here: models suggest one range for ECS, paleo data another and now actual physical observations a third.
Max
Max
JCH
According to the quotation you cited, Hansen wrote (in 1985 or 1983):
That’s the circular logic, JCH (starting with the little BIG word, “IF”)..
Max
Your claim has been he dreamed up the pipeline recently, and your claim is wrong.
Manacker and others,
I carefully follow James Hansen’s recommendations for how to combine a Ocean Heat Content (OHC) Model and Proportional Warming (PW) in this sequence of analyses. Let me lay it out for you so that you can follow a linear narrative. Note that these are all based on observational data, used correctly, in contrast to the references you supply.
1. This is how to analyze log sensitivity of CO2 to warming:
http://theoilconundrum.blogspot.com/2013/03/stochastic-analysis-of-log-sensitivity.html
2. This explains how to determine heat uptake by the oceans:
http://theoilconundrum.blogspot.com/2013/03/ocean-heat-content-model.html
3. This puts together the log sensitivity and OHC models into a PW model that explains SST, Land, and the combined global temperature anomaly:
http://theoilconundrum.blogspot.com/2013/05/proportional-landsea-global-warming.html
I feel blessed to have the mathematical skills to synthesize from the research of Hansen and others; and fortunate to be able to present a concise representation of what his happening in a world where a 3C sensitivity to doubling of CO2 is taking place.
To be able to help out the citizens of other countries such as Switzerland and Australia, who come to this American blog out of desperation, is quite satisfying.
I truly hope this helps you out of your confusion Manacker and gives you a dose of reality. This is the least I can do.
Manacker: concerning TAR, The Scientific Basis
http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/tar/wg1/345.htm
You are perfectly right that +1% per year CO2 and 3.5° ECS is way off.
So lets us just look at it as a model where the numbers could and should be corrected (to about half), but the shape of the curves remains the same
.
It still shows that “the heat in the pipeline” does not make a difference. It is there at the beginning (look at year 70) and the end (look at year 140). The temperatur difference from 70 to 140 is more or less the same as from 170 to 240 or from 570 to 640.
So we do not have to add 0.6°C to Girma’s numbers, even though there is no E (from ECS) at the beginning or at the end.
Webby
Your superior mathematical skills only go to show that if you start with a bogus hypothesis and torture the data and mathematics long enough, you can end up with the answer you knew was right from the get-go.
Fuggidaboudit, Webby.
Hansen’s notion of a high 2xCO2 ECS is being shown to be incorrect by the more recent studies based on the data on the ground.
Read them (all seven of them).
Then take a deep breath, and read them again.
Then clear all the clutter from your mind, and read them once again.
You’ll feel better afterward.
Max
Alexej Buergin
You are correct.
The “missing heat” remains at large.
As a matter of fact, it is so well hidden that it cannot be found.
And, even if it really were there (as a 0.001C warming of the entire deep ocean) we will never see it again.
It defies all rules of logic that this heat is going to miraculously rise up out of “hiding” and fry us all.
So it will always remain “missing”.
Max
JCH
Nowhere have I said that Hansen dreamed up the “hidden in the pipeline” story recently, as you suggest.
It’s been his “ace in the hole” for some time (in case warming would be much less than his models predicted – as it turned out).
He formalized this postulation in a June 3, 2005 paper in Science co-authored by several others, entitled “Earth’s Energy Imbalance: Confirmation and Implications”.
It’s available on-line, if you are interested.
Max
The “missing heat” and the “heat in the pipeline” are basically two completely different things.
This is Hansen’s prediction from 1981 along with observational data based on log sensitivity of T to CO2 overlaid:
http://imageshack.us/a/img802/3918/hansen1981.gif
J. Hansen, D. Johnson, A. Lacis, S. Lebedeff, P. Lee, D. Rind, and G. Russell, “Climate impact of increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide,” Science, 1981, V.2l3, pp. 957–966.
The overlay is equivalent to land-only data which doesn’t have a heat sink, The banded region is the range assumed for realistic heat content absorbed by the ocean. That also works well.
Hansen’s more recent high sensitivity of around 4C is likely too high based on observational data. He ascribes this discrepancy to aerosols compensating the higher value to a value that is around 3C for doubling of CO2 seen in observational data.
The bottomline is that if Hansen had stuck to his 3C number that he had from 1981, the observational data would still be on track.
Does everyone understand this?
Hi Judy – I agree he did a very good article. Here is my complete reply to him
Hi David
Here is my reply to your question
“What do you think of Trenberth’s recent paper on ocean warming (attached)?”
Balmaseda et al, Distinctive climate signals in reanalysis ofglobal ocean heat content, GRL
They obtain an ocean warming, for 2000-2009, of 1.19 W/m2.
Does that change any of your concerns about models overestimating net
radiative forcing, such as you wrote in Physics Today in 2007 (also
attached)?”
My Answer
1. The recognition that ocean heat content changes can be used to diagnose the global radiative imbalance in Watts per meter squared, that I discussed in my paper
Pielke Sr., R.A., 2003: Heat storage within the Earth system. Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., 84, 331-335. http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/files/2009/10/r-247.pdf
is applied in the Balmaseda et al 2013 paper. This, as I reported in my Physics Today article, is the much more robust approach to assess global warming and cooling, than using the global annual average surface temperature trend.
The Balmaseda et al paper is a step forward in understanding the changes of heat content.
2. However, there are substantive, unanswered questions that their paper introduces.
(i) First, they report that
“In the last decade, about 30% of the warming has occurred below 700 m.”
This change in heat content is a marked difference from what they report for the earlier years as illustrated in their Figure 1. They can only speculate on how this could have occurred; i.e. they write [boldfaced highlight added]
“….that changes in the atmospheric circulation are instrumental for the penetration of the warming into the ocean, although the mechanisms at work are still to be established. One possibility suggested by Lee and McPhaden [2008], is related to the modified subduction pathways in response to changes in the subtropical gyres resulting from changes of the trade winds in the tropics (Figure S04), but whether as low frequency variability or a longer term trend remains an open question. The 2000–2006 warming trend is likely associated with the weakening of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (MOC) in both experiments (see BMW13).”
Until we understand how this fundamental shift in the climate system occurred (and if this change in vertical heat transfer really happened, and is not just due to the different areal coverage and data quality in the earlier years), however, we have a large gap in our understanding of the climate system.
(ii) Moreover, how could this heat be transferred to depths below 700m without being been seen in the upper 700m of the ocean? [and this is a question also on the transfer of heat to between 300m and 700m without being seen in the upper 300m].
This absence of observable heat transfer through the upper 300m of the ocean is an issue that must be resolved.
3. There are also major implications for their findings even if they are robust.
(i) First, they report on a rate of heating that reads
the latest decade being significantly higher (1.19 ± 0.11 W m-2).
While, this is larger than found in the past, it is still less than the best estimate of the global average radiative forcing reported in the IPCC 2007 report (1.6 ± 0.6 to 2.4 W m-2 total net anthropogenic plus 0.12 ± 0.06 to 0.30 W m-2 from solar irradiance changes).
Since their reported diagnosed radiative imbalance for the last decade is 1.19 ± 0.11 W m-2 – which includes both the radiative forcings and all of the feedbacks (including from water vapor), this indicates that either the IPCC best estimate of the total radiative forcings by the IPCC is in error, and/or the radiative feedbacks in the climate system are a net negative.
(ii) Another very significant conclusion of their study, if it is correct, is that when they report that
“about 30% of the warming has occurred below 700 m.”
[and from their Figure 1, the percentage below 300m since 2003 is clearly well above 50%!]
this means that this heat is not being sampled by the global average surface temperature trend.
Since that metric is being used as the icon to report to policymakers on climate change (i.e. paraphrasing from other sources “we need to remain below a +2C change”), it illustrates a defect in using the two dimensional field of surface temperature to diagnose global warming.
I discuss this in my post
Torpedoing Of The Use Of The Global Average Surface Temperature Trend As The Diagnostic For Global Warming. http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2011/09/20/torpedoing-of-the-use-of-the-global-average-surface-temperature-trend-as-the-diagnostic-for-global-warming/
(iii) Moreover, they write,
“La Niña events and negative PDO events could cause a hiatus in warming of the top 300 m while sequestering heat at deeper layers.”
If this is a real effect, than this is a muting of the radiative effect as this deep layer warming is unlikely to be reemitted back into the atmosphere in short time periods in large amounts (of Joules) as it would diffuse horizontally and vertically, at depth, in the ocean.
(iv) Also, the latest real world measurement of upper ocean heat content; [see the attachment in my e-mail from http://oceans.pmel.noaa.gov/%5D continues to show, little if any significant recent warming.
(v) Finally, with respect to the change in slope, this occurred when the ARGO network achieved world-wide coverage. This raises the suspicion that it is the date quality and coverage that remains more of an issue before 2003 than concluded in Balmaseda et al paper when they excluded the ARGO data.
Please let me know if you have any follow up questions. Thank you for the opportunity to comment.
Best Regards
Roger Sr.
(ii) Moreover, how could this heat be transferred to depths below 700m without being been seen in the upper 700m of the ocean?
Most certainly this, “is the issue that must be resolved.” There could be a Nobel to the scientist who can explain the Trenberthian effect.
Ooops… I mean, “is an issue…”
The surface is cooler because of upwelling and mixing. This is the essence of ENSO and PDO. The cool modes are cool because cold water upwells from the depths. It shows up regionally rather than as global averages.
Onward and upward to Stockholm.
Regionally? Better cancel your reservations. Upwelling and mixing what brings nutrient-rich cold water to the surface as waters shallow.
It shows up in regions of the earth known as the central and northern Pacific. You remain as incoherent as usual. Reservations? Waters shallow? Try talking English and in sentences – as it is your credibility is fading rapidly.
“Shallow” when used as a verb means to get less deep. Hopefully your Swedish is better is better than either your English or your science.
Cold water cannot stay on the top of warm water. Research into the dynamics of swirling vortices show that.
Nobody was looking for it in the upper 700 meters of the ocean. Josh Willis told Pielke that it might be possible to find it in the ARGO data, but that I have read nobody is doing that work.
Emphasis mine:
Hi Roger,
The way I would answer this is that we can probably diagnose the amount of warming between 700 and 2000 m in the Argo data for the past 5 to 7 years. Using the data to determine the cause of this, however, can be tricky. For example, if an isotherm at 1000 m is depressed in one region by 10 meters, is this caused by a simple downward advection of the isopycnal, or is it due to vertical or horizontal mixing with a nearby warm water mass?
Questions like this can be difficult to answer with the Argo data. Nevertheless, with some basic knowledge of the local oceanographic conditions and use of additional data, like salinity and horizontal advection, it might be possible to tease apart the causes of this temperature change. There are some efforts to do this for the abyssal warming signal published by Purkey & Johnson, by asking the question: how big of a reduction in bottom water formation would be needed to account for the observed warming of the abyssal waters? I’m not sure if that work is published yet, however.
Hope this helps.
Cheers,
Josh
Thanks JCH for that quote.
Indeed some of the discrepancies are at the 10% error level. I recall that DocMartyn was making a big deal of a 10% error via comments on this blog, and he also commented to RealClimate, where I responded.
So the issue is the risk one of blowing your wad over a discrepancy that could be in the noise or could be a systemic measurement error. Or it could be explainable as a natural behavior as per Josh Willis .
Reading what i said, I need to change it. Nobody was looking for the heat passing through 0-700 meters in the ARGO data. Willis is speculating it could be teased out of the data.
That is shows up in the ARGO data 700 to 2000 meters is adequate proof for most, but without the work to prove it passed through, there is I guess a possibility it was always down there. I would think it a very slight possibility.
I doubt anybody is doing that work.
Odd indeed – shoaling is the term you are thinking. To shallow is a term never used in English. Don’t know about Swedish at all. You call what you do science aye?
shal·low
/ˈSHalō/
Adjective
Of little depth.
Noun
An area of the sea, a lake, or a river where the water is not very deep.
Verb
(of the sea, a lake, or a river) Become less deep over time or in a particular place.
Synonyms
adjective. superficial – shoal – perfunctory – skin-deep – cursory
noun. shoal – hurst – ford
verb. shoal
“Shallow men believe in luck or in circumstance. Strong men believe in cause and effect.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson
“If most of us are ashamed of shabby clothes and shoddy furniture, let us be more ashamed of shabby ideas and shoddy philosophies… It would be a sad situation if the wrapper were better than the meat wrapped inside it.”
Albert Einstein
To shallow – meaning to make or become shallow – is a ridiculous usage.
Not even Einstein can purse out of a pig’s ear shallow man. As the creeks shallow out and their courses have shallowed to pools of memories of past vigor with deadly falls that have now shallowed like lazy fools, I called out the global warming alarmists to ‘shallow down dudes’ — as if they’d shallow up over their babbling long enough to learn any noun can be verbed, as too many adjectives (enough so that poets quickly shallow the pool of words that can’t) — but, perhaps thoughts traveling at Godspeed can reach minds without ears to shallow our relentless plummet into the abyss.
Web, not only did the ‘Real Climate Scientists’ block my contributions, you now push a answer to which I was not allowed to reply to.
It is a despicable intellectual ‘trick’ to pass of the major result of a published figures as a result of ‘noise’.
you know, and I know, that this
http://i179.photobucket.com/albums/w318/DocMartyn/deepoceanJPEG_zpsc6585990.jpg
shows a great degree of heating at 300-700m than from 0-300m, even though the heat source is directed toward the 0-300m level.
This is Thermodynamically impossible. This was not a question of noise, it was a question of lies, which is why Gavin sanitized the thread.
Your conspiring with these charlatans speaks poorly of your character. .
AGW-believers have done more to shallow the pool of good will than anything skeptics could do.
The surface is cooler because of upwelling and mixing. This is the essence of ENSO and PDO. The cool modes are cool because cold water upwells from the depths. It shows up regionally rather than as global averages.
Water at the surface is cooler because of mixing with cold subsurface water. Overall the heat is there because oceans are expanding – and it is measured.
All the rest seems to empty and quite clumsy verbiage. On the verge of meaning but never quite getting there.
You have defined Trenberthian AGW: empty.
This rpielke guy is close to winning a cigar, but I thought I could clear things up a bit.
The heat uptake by the ocean is close to what one would predict by solving an uncertainty-quantified heat equation:
http://theoilconundrum.blogspot.com/2013/03/ocean-heat-content-model.html
The overall temperature increase is then explained by a proportional warming. This takes into account the excess heat sinking into the ocean and thus not contributing to a rise in measurable ocean surface temperatures. The land however heats up according to the thermal forcing, thus one finds a proportional warming model:
http://theoilconundrum.blogspot.com/2013/05/proportional-landsea-global-warming.html
This is all conventional physics, which supports the current view but is simplified as a result of taking a macro view of the system.
I hope this helps your understanding, rpielke. This is nothing out of the ordinary from what Hansen was saying in the early 1980’s.
I’m not sure how this is relevant to pielke’s point. If the measured ocean warming amounts to 1.19 W/m2 and this is less than the IPCC estimated direct forcings, then one or both of these numbers must be wrong unless the net feedback is rather strongly negative. The data actually shows a deceleration of ocean warming in the last few years as greenhouse forcing has continued to grow, adding further to the puzzle. What’s your explanation for this problem?
The 1.19 W/m^2 doesn’t go into a significant temperature increase, but the 1 W/m^2 or so that doesn’t penetrate into the ocean does.
Think man, think. And if that doesn’t help, read Hansen’s papers from the early 1980’s.
Oh for God’s sake – the dweeb continues to rabbit on about fitting a curve to ocean heat data which then explains ocean heat – while losing all the variability. It is not only horrendously circular – but based a concept of heat diffusing from the atmosphere to the oceans with no consideration for TSI or albedo at all. Completely unphysical and so utterly unable to claim any insights into physical processes at all. Nonsense of the highest order and yet he continues to prattle and preen.
The real heat content is –
http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/vonSchuckmannampLTroan2011-fig5PG_zpsee63b772.jpg.html?sort=3&o=17
It is fully accounted for by changes in TOA radiant flux.
http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/CERES-BAMS-2008-with-trend-lines1.gif.html?sort=3&o=95
Chief, Can you at least try to be coherent?
Dweeb – coherency is not something you could recognise if you hit you over the head. The description of your fantasy physics is quite coherent to anyone with half a brain.
The data speaks for itself to anyone who has the least competence. That excuses you. That you continue to prattle and preen I find absurd and incredible but there it is.
Chief, You make even less sense than your Australian buddy Girma.
You make less sense than a gerbil – that’s what I am saying. Accept your oddness, the preening, the prattling and that your physics are fantasies and we will get along just fine.
You can start with the fantasy physics. Give up on diffusion of heat from the atmosphere to the oceans because it is just total dweebness.
Web
I’d agree with your observation that “this rpielke guy is close to winning a cigar”
Here are my “take homes”
(i) the stated rate of forcing including feedbacks is much lower than previous IPCC estimates (AR4)
(ii) the study states that “30% of the warming occurred below 700 m”, yet the data cited show that “well above 50%” has occurred below 700 m since 2003.
(iii) IF the heat really went into the deep ocean at the same time that there was no warming of the upper 300 m, then this heat is likely to remain there, “diffusing horizontally and vertically, at depth, in the ocean”. This is good news, since it means it is gone and will not likely ever come back out to haunt us at a later date as added surface warming.
(iv) observations show that the upper ocean is not warming significantly (see (ii) and (iii) above)
(v) data prior to ARGO, when the most rapid warming is believed to have occurred, is questionable.
Let’s give ‘im that cigar, Webby.
Max
I have a question. If Climate scientists are finding they have to resort to moving the missing heat to the deep ocean to justify their models’ predictions, why do they stop at the deep ocean? Why not simply move it to the centre of the Earth and get it over and done with in one go?
Peter Lang
You ask why modelers have not picked the center of the Earth for locating the “missing heat”.
How about outer space? (as in, “hasta la vista, baby!”)
Max
Manacker, You clearly do not have any intuition as to how diffusion of heat into the deep layers of the oceans works. That is understandable as real engineers and scientists usually like to derive the math for themselves to get that level of intuition (and that is how I learned things in school and on the job),
So, Manacker, if you would like to develop this intuition for yourself, I suggest that you work through my derivation that you will find on my blog:
http://theoilconundrum.blogspot.com/2013/03/ocean-heat-content-model.html
Take a look at the graphs that I fit to, which are derived based on excess forcing.
Hope this helps with your limited knowledge of climate science, Manacker. It is never too late to try to improve your understanding.
Cheers.
Dweeby – you remain utterly clueless, preening and prattling. Diffusion to the deep ocean from the atmosphere? Give it up. The ocean is heated by the sun and is mixed turbulently and by convection. Diffusion has very little to do with it – and relabelling it ‘effective diffusion’ is just compounding the nonsense.
Chief, Hope this extended narrative that I wrote in another subthread helps you out:
http://judithcurry.com/2013/05/07/more-on-the-pause/#comment-319917
As this is an academic blog, you should be aware that educators are sensitive to students who have a tough time learning science. When students get flummoxed over some aspect of a scientific topic, it is not uncommon to see them lash out with misplaced anger.
Patience may be a virtue. Let’s see how this works.
BTW, I can be as condescending as the best of you.
More preening and prattling dweeb?
The sun heats the oceans – which heat the atmosphere – which lose energy to space. You simplistic mish mash of fantasy physics – which we have been through in great detail – is a black box. It has no physical reality – therefore does not yield insights into process as they occur in the real world. In the case of ocean heat content it takes data and very roughly fits a curve to it using fantasy physics – losing information in a hugely circular and misplaced argument. It is not merely pointless but ultimately very misleading if you believe the fantasy physics in a way that James Hansen did not back in the 1980’s. For Hansen it was a black box model – for you it is just utter delusion.
Chief can’t admit that the ocean is gaining temperature in exactly the way that is predicted by solving the heat equation for a thermal forcing function applied to the ocean surface.
Highly confused and agitated, he calls such scientific analysis “preening and prattling” and starts sounding like his Oz buddy Mr. “fantasy physics” Myrhh.
Thanks for your excellent comment, especially whether global mean surface temperature is a good metrics of global warming. May be as we average surface temperature all over the world, we should also average along the depth of the oceans to arrive at the true global mean temperature, instead of global mean Surface temperature.
> May be as we average surface temperature all over the world, we should also average along the depth of the oceans to arrive at the true global mean temperature, instead of global mean Surface temperature.
I do not usually think that the average surface temperature exists, but when I do, I think like no true Scotsman would.
The IPCC has total net radiative forcing of 2.28 W/m2 in 2012 (AR5 RCP 6.0 scenario).
On top of that, we are supposed to be seeing 1.7 W/m2 of feedback forcing according to the water vapor, cloud, lapse rate feedbacks etc per the 0.7C temperature increase we have experienced.
They should be able to explain where 4.0 W/m2 is going.
Argo floats are only measuring 0.46 W/m2 going into the 0-2000 metre ocean and 0.03 W/m2 is going into atmosphere, land, and ice-melt (Church 2011).
Climate models might have 0.83 W/m2 of additional OLR occuring right now (Church 2011).
They are not talking about the whole picture since much of it is missing
2.28 + 1.7 – 0.49 – 0.83 = 2.67 W/m2 not explained.
The feedback doesn’t add to the forcing in W/m2, it adds to the response in deg C.
One feedback does influence the forcing, the Planck feedback reduces the forcing. Therefore the expected remaining forcing is around 1 W/m^2.
The number to check is 3.6 W/m^2 which explains land warming nicely. If about half of this gets absorbed into the ocean depths, it explains ocean above surface as well.
Then you take proportion of land and sea, and it explains the overall global rise.
The OHC may be short by at most 0.2 W/m2 but not 2.67.
What kind of strawman is w.Illis setting up?
JimD, “The feedback doesn’t add to the forcing in W/m2, it adds to the response in deg C.”
Six of on half dozen of the other. C anomaly on the other hand has to be used cautiously for either feed back or forcing. It is better to stick with Wm-2 or Joules.
btw, that is Webster tends to lose touch with reality. The warming of the NH land is amplified both by absolute temperature, fewer Wm-2 required per degree which the the polar amplification and also the lower air density of the air at the average land altitude,. To compare apples with apples, the absolute temperature should be used and adjusted for altitude before being compared to forcing.
As it is Webster has ~15% of the global controlling the destiny of the remaining 85%. That is also the issue with “which surface”. Using the atmospheric boundary layer, ~5000 meters, produces different results than using the surface at sea level.
Cappy Dick wants to include polar amplification, yet he doesn’t want to see the effects of the increase in temperature.
Quantify the error bars, otherwise you have nothing. The anomalies were relative and not absolute so you have nothing there either.
Notice how I am adding to the knowledgebase while Cappy is subtracting, or at least trying to..
Webster said,
“Cappy Dick wants to include polar amplification, yet he doesn’t want to see the effects of the increase in temperature.”
I don’t particularly want anything but a better understanding of what is happening and less smoke blown up my butt.
Polar amplification works both ways Webster, through natural and anthropogenic “forcing”. In 1989/90 there was a step change in surface temperature in Scandinavia. If you look at the Tmin for Iceland and others in close proximity to the north Atlantic, there was a relatively flat temperature trend from ~1930 to ~1990.; In ~1990, according to the Iceland Tmin via BEST, the temperature broke past the 0C barrier. The warming North Atlantic temperatures were amplified by increased Arctic sea ice melt and the increase in water vapor that would be associated with increased snow/ice melt. That along with albedo change is most of the “Polar” amplification.
During that warming and snow/ice melt period, the magnitude of NH SSW events was reduced. A decade later, the SSW magnitude increased and the regional temperatures “paused” and in many areas started a decline. That is not a part of the expected polar amplification.
Interestingly, there is not a very good correlation between individual station warming and CO2 in that region. There is a much better correlation between north Atlantic temperatures, that nasty AMO, and NH land temperatures.
You keep saying that most of the energy is going into the oceans but to the land warming, but it looks like it is happening the other way around.
I think there is a paper fresh of the presses on this interesting situation that may be the subject of a future post :)
captd, the direct no-feedback response and the feedback are both in units of temperature. The forcing only goes back to zero when the equilibrium response is completed with a temperature rise.
Like the captain of the SS Minnow, you are hopelessly lost at sea.
There is a difference between the extensive physical measure known as heat and the intensive measure known as temperature. As Jim D helpfully pointed out, when a steady state is eventually reached, much more than 90% of the heat will have cumulatively gone into the ocean. However during the transient phase, we get to keep track of the temperature as a non-cumulative reference.
So, because of the way temperature is defined, the relatively small heat capacity of the land suggests that measure is sucking all the heat. A wrongly-intuited appearance can be deceiving.
I understand that physics is sometimes confusing. We are here to help.
Kevin Trenberth
…the Pacific Ocean phenomena that are not yet captured by climate models
Thanks Kevin. We skeptics now have been vindicated.
My prediction does a better job than the climate models.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/compress:12/plot/gistemp/compress:12/offset:-0.08/detrend:0.04/plot/hadcrut4gl/compress:12/offset:-0.03/detrend:0.02/plot/hadcrut3vgl/mean:732/plot/hadcrut3vgl/mean:252/plot/hadcrut3vgl/mean:252/offset:0.2/plot/hadcrut3vgl/mean:252/offset:-0.2/plot/hadcrut3vgl/scale:0.000001/offset:2/plot/esrl-co2/scale:0.003/offset:-1.03/detrend:-0.22/from:1982/plot/hadcrut3vgl/mean:252/offset:0.015/plot/hadcrut3vgl/mean:732/offset:0.015/plot/esrl-co2/scale:0.003/offset:-1.03/detrend:-0.22/from:1982
A lot of climate discussion participants get upset when I say this, but I’ve always maintained that Trenberth has a healthy & refreshing appreciation for nature, including natural climate variability.
Research Update:
I’ve cracked the code of the 107 to 108 year solar cycle. Here’s a raw graphical glimpse:
http://img13.imageshack.us/img13/5691/911k.gif
Details will have to wait until I have time (weeks to months). For now I suggest just noting well that the phase relations reversed during the last “pause” (~1945-1975). There’s quite a lot more to the story. The temporal framework follows some rather simple rules that conventional methods (including neural networks) would totally overlook.
More details in the weeks & months ahead.
This is obviously some sort of mind-control experiment gone awry.
Data:
http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/greenwch/sunspot_area.txt
http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/greenwch/sunspot_area_north.txt
http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/greenwch/sunspot_area_south.txt
The rules governing the phase reversals are simple and can be isolated in a single sitting.
Here’s a reminder about the relationship of ~11 year activity cycles & volatility cycles:
http://img201.imageshack.us/img201/4995/sunspotarea.png
The mainstream solar asymmetry literature ignores that very simple relationship and as a result runs off the rails in a mess of unresolved disputes. (This is as bad as the heavy-tailed vs. light-tailed probability modeling issues that catastrophically derailed economic forecasts despite clear warnings from folks with superior awareness.)
9 year heliographic North minus South solar asymmetry cycles are reported in the mainstream solar literature, but the simple rules governing the phase reversals on the 9 year framework have not yet been published.
For those who don’t see where this is going, another reminder: Jean Dickey’s 4.5 year LF (low frequency) ENSO cycle.
Policy vanguards — Caution:
Be soberly wary soliciting advice on multidecadal climate cycles from anyone who can’t isolate these patterns, especially if they can’t do it with the generous hints given.
___
As rare luxuries (time & resources) permit I will illustrate further in the weeks & months ahead.
http://img268.imageshack.us/img268/8272/sjev911.png
http://tallbloke.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/scd_sst_q.png
The concert of decadal solar heliographic N+S, |N-S|, & N-S (where N = north & S = south) is coherent with multidecadal timescale July & August ENSO and year-round North Pacific Index (NPI).
Krank as performance art. Combination of Ralph Steadman and Mondrian.
http://img829.imageshack.us/img829/2836/volcano911.png (volcanic indices in italics; Cy = Chandler wobble y phase; SOST = southern ocean surface temperature; ISW = integral of solar wind)
http://img267.imageshack.us/img267/8476/rrankcmz.png
Explains figure 2 changepoints:
Trenberth, K.E.; & Stepaniak, D.P. (2001). Indices of El Nino evolution.
http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/staff/trenbert/trenberth.papers/i1520-0442-014-08-1697.pdf
All on 6.4-9-11 timing framework. I bet Jean Dickey of NASA JPL has known all along.
Maybe I’m being a nudnik, but “no serious scientist thinks climate sensitivity could be much lower than 2 degrees Celsius” is actually quite an admission. That means that loads of serious scientists think it might be somewhat lower. Which was what Judith Curry said might happen in the future, and exactly the kind of thing Annan and such were suggesting.
Isn’t a sensitivity slightly less than two degrees Celsius a whole lot better than the 3 degrees the IPCC thought was most likely? Obviously the author doesn’t want to say that anyone is changing his mind, but he is anyhow.
miker613
Your analysis of Pierrehumbert’s statement that “no serious scientist thinks climate sensitivity could be much lower than 2 degrees Celsius” is actually spot on, on closer inspection.
I’m afraid I took it much too literally up-thread, without taking a closer look at the carefully included “much lower” escape clause, as you have done.
Taking this into account, the statement is not at all contradictory to the results of the may recent studies, which show an average (at least partly observation-based) estimate for 2xCO2 ECS of 1.8C+/-0.6C.
This is not “much lower” than 2C (but around half of the previous model-derived estimate of 3.2C cited by IPCC in AR4.
Max
Alas, catastrophe lack.
====
It will go like this
‘“no serious scientist thinks climate sensitivity could be much lower than 2 degrees Celsius”
err, turns out that its 1.9
See, thats not much lower
err turns out that its 1.6
see, thats not much lower
err turns out its 1.5
see Ar4, we did not exclude this possibility.
You missed your calling Mosher; Presidential Speech Writer
Thank you Doc, and in closing I would l like to say that no serious scientist thinks climate sensitivity could be much higher than 2C.
No true commenter
Would ever consider
That the IPCC consists
Of only true scientists.
Willard
Is this the stuff you want re Judy’s comments abot taking flak over the pause?
http://judithcurry.com/2013/05/07/more-on-the-pause/#comment-319659
ytonyb
The PDO is important to understanding how the warmer water only seems to appear below 700 m and not in the upper level first. Enhanced upwelling of colder water in regions such as the east Pacific, and its faster westward spread in the PDO cold phase, cool the upper 700 m. This seems to cancel out any heating effect in that layer. Ocean dynamics cools that layer, and the cooling would have been clearer without the background general warming going on.
Recall all the flack I took last year for talking about the ‘pause’?
It appears I owe Dr. Curry an apology.
If the fairly balanced, nuanced, somewhate detailed, reasonably complete analyses by David Appell were exactly what Dr. Curry meant lately, then I sorely misjudged her points.
I was wrong to disagree with our host, if Dr. Curry meant what David Appell says so clearly in his conclusion, “Uncertainty from the statistics, from climate inertia, and from climate noise all show that 15 years is simply too short of a time period when making judgments about climate.. So the lesson of the mathematics is: 15 years is simply too short of a time interval from which to draw statistically valid conclusions, which are heavily influenced by “end point” effects. This is why most climate scientists prefer to draw their conclusions from 30 years’ worth of data or more.”
If Dr. Curry really means when she says a pause on a statistically significant period merely means a slowing of the climb in global surface temperatures (replaced by climb in ice and deep ocean temperatures, or restructuring of currents in air and water, or taken up by chemical changes, or otherwise rerouted in the atmospheric energy budget as the drive to overcome the GHE barrier to outgoing surface radiation climbs), or even that there is a slightly lower than one in six chance of an actual 30-year or longer cooling trend on GMT, as happens in about a third of all GCMs.. then I was wrong, and am glad to say so.
Bart,
I’m not sure but I think that 1988 to 1998 is less than 15 years. People in the CAGW camp or even the AGW camp seemed to be convinced from the very start and it only took a few years of data. While many on the other side were saying things like: we should pay more attention to the ocean cycles and clouds, that the heat could go into the ocean and cause long lags, and that there seem to be fairly obvious 60 year cycles and that even 30 years is not long enough. Now that there has been a flatter temperature rise (a pause), all of these things have been rediscovered by the “good guy”, is that how it works? And never mind that the “deniers” had some good points all along? Another 10-15 years and many questions will be answered. Just hope it does not turn out that we’ve wasted trillions of dollars for nothing. Luckily with the heat now going into the ocean and “the pause” we have plenty of time in case the data show large amounts of warming are inevitable.
Bill | May 8, 2013 at 9:21 am |
Uh.. where did the span 1988-1998 come from? I’m not sure I follow your premise.
While it’s true 1988 was the start of some groups organizing, it’s not the start of the available data. Arrhenius and Callendar were long dead by 1988, and their work long accepted on its mathematics and long uncontroversial on the experimental support of laboratory research by that year.
While it’s true 1998 was a year with a significant weather event, it’s less than 15 years ago so due to the end points David Appell refers to on the 30-year span he explains is preferred for analyses (and at one thirtieth such a sample, its influence is much diluted) and so not all that significant. The power of computers to simulate, and of climatologists to model, the global climate was in its infancy, and the number of climatologists worldwide was still tiny.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/mean:11/mean:13/from:1974/plot/hadcrut4gl/mean:11/mean:13/from:1974/plot/gistemp/from:1988/to:1998/trend/plot/gistemp/from:1974/to:1988/trend/plot/gistemp/from:1998/trend
Help me out. Why 1988-1998? Did I miss something in the Appell article?
While I don’t pretend to speak for any camp, I believe there are far more than just 3.
There are those who say all science is a hoax and all scientists are in effect nothing but corrupt mouthpieces of political or business interests. There are those who say the observations are riddled with such severe mistakes that the data cannot support any theory at all. There are those who entirely agree with the mechanisms and the data of some other camp, but interpret the implications the opposite way, or at a lower level of importance, or who deprecate or inflate the issues one way or another. There are many who seem to change their stance with the direction the wind blows. There is a multiplicity of voices.
..we should pay more attention to the ocean cycles and clouds, that the heat could go into the ocean and cause long lags,
I agree we ought may more attention to ocean cycles and clouds, but we ought not succumb to the “fingoist” approach of speculating on effects from oceans and clouds for explanations while the observations we do have satisfy that GHE is as true as any ocean circulation effect, as true as any cloud effect, and cumulative as CO2 levels rise.
We aren’t seeing a 43% increase in clouds globally since 1750. We aren’t seeing 70% more clouds than the average of the past 800,000 years. We know clouds essentially form an arc within the feedback pathways of CO2, and so while we must pay more attention to clouds, it is within the context of CO2 and GHE.
We have barely scratched the surface of ocean circulations, and that is a travesty. There have been voices in science telling us how crucial understanding these phenomena is for centuries; we’ve had the technology to closely, regularly, and in great detail measure and record hundreds of thousands more data than we do even today, for decades, and continue to fail to do more than a few samples here and there. All of our ocean circulation data except ARGO is, in essence, improvised from weather research and navigation and adapted to climatology. Which we see from UAH and RSS’s terrible climate-scale agreement is simply inadequate.
Which is reason to form silly and unfounded hypotheses.. why? 300 years ago Isaac Newton in great detail and at great length expounded on why throwing fake (fingoist) hypotheses around in such circumstances is wrong. It is superstition. It is an error. And it does not form valid counterargument to sound hypotheses like GHE and AGW.
..and that there seem to be fairly obvious 60 year cycles and that even 30 years is not long enough.
So while every human eye on the planet ‘sees’ an ‘obvious’ 60 year cycle in GMT data.. Oh, wait, someone says 62-ish years. Someone says 65 years. Maybe 70 years? 58 years? Well, they’re all close to 60, so isn’t that pretty good as an approximation?
NO! Cycles have a fixed period, synchronize to a fixed wavelength, on the same effect. If the wavelength shifts unpredictably, if the frequency drifts without synchronization, then there is NO CYCLE. All that two sorta-kinda similar wavelike seeming patterns means is that the data is not linear and not cyclic. It’s random. Because that’s how randomness freaking looks!
You need a minimum of three good full wavelengths that correspond to a suspected cycle.. and we have just over 180 years of data (or more, for land only, on BEST).. except that when you go back to that first ‘wavelength’ it doesn’t match the next two. Which proves they are RANDOM, not cyclic.
Now that there has been a flatter temperature rise (a pause), all of these things have been rediscovered by the “good guy”, is that how it works?
Now? You have to be aware of the “down the up escalator” presentation. There have been flatter temperatures (pauses), and even downturns, all during the highest temperature rise on record, for the past half century or more. And what’s more, we’ve seen such pauses (and longer!) on the GCM computer simulations. The “good guy” — the informed, evidence-based guy doing the science — was saying this all along. You’re being fed a line of straw man crap if someone’s telling you the ‘good guy’ was saying anything else.
And never mind that the “deniers” had some good points all along?
My nephew, when he was five years old, asked his mother to explain why “Pie Day” was funny. She did her best to explain about numbers that have their own names, and he made my jaw drop when he said, “Oh. Like the number ‘i’.” See, he meant the Roman numeral, but by happenstance sounded like he was talking about the square root of -1, and the Imaginary numbers.. He happened to have a good point. But he was a five year old child who meant something entirely different and only said the right thing by pure accident.
Another 10-15 years and many questions will be answered.
I’ve been paying attention to this for far more than 10-15 years, and it has not been my experience that good answers that satisfy all the conditions of logic and mathematics are absorbed and accepted on so short a span by those who do not want to hear them. Further, NO, it’s a false argument to suggest 10-15 more years of data will ‘settle’ trendology. Trendology is a probabilistic field, and unless 10-15 years include aliens or angels appearing in a flash of light and telepathically implanting knowledge of the invisible unicorns and fairy realms all around us.. the questions will remain.. and at the rate governments are cutting spending on data gathering and evidence collection on climate and other fundamental sciences, it’s like they’re being run by people who count on aliens or angels.
Just hope it does not turn out that we’ve wasted trillions of dollars for nothing.
Trillions of dollars. Cite. I want to see the line-by-line account books. The ledgers. The receipts. In no field of human endeavor can people attach claims of dollar amounts without this level of evidence.. you don’t get a free ride on the rules of accounting from me.
Luckily with the heat now going into the ocean and “the pause” we have plenty of time in case the data show large amounts of warming are inevitable.
What time do you imagine we have?
Warming isn’t the problem. Warming is a benign effect in and of itself. Melting, storming, blocking patterns, erosion, acidification, extreme shifts, droughts, floods, tipping points.. things that aren’t fingoistic hypotheticals but inevitable conclusions of the most parsimonious, simple, universal, accurate hypothesis we have by logic and mathematics.. things already being observed.. things that will continue for generations after the external forcing that prompts them end.. those are the problems. And that’s just in climate.
Economically, the systems of subsidies and Market distortions caused by the anti-capitalist “cheap energy” argument that has infested so much of the world, that leads to so much waste in carbon burning and propping up inefficient and outmoded obsolete industries.. that’s where you can actually see accounts books showing real trillions of dollars being blown.
> Where did the span 1988-1998 come from?
1998:
Looks like my apology was premature.
Oh well.
Dr. Curry gets credit for enduring David Rose, and us. For sticking to her guns to get a semi-retraction of sorts from Rose, and repeating her message until the MSM almost got part of it right.
She deserves credit for providing this forum — arguably the best online forum of its type — for miscreants and misfits from all sides of all tribes to come together and talk about this topic. It appears Dr. Curry’s frontier salon helped form the questions David Appell chose to frame and discuss, at least in part, and so Dr. Curry gets credit for helping move the subject foward, much further than her own views themselves.
Well done, Dr. Kudos, and please keep up the excellent example.
> Recall all the flack I took last year for talking about the ‘pause’?
No.
Links pretty please with some sugar on it.
why should we give you links when all you will do is find mistakes.
Like CRU who pointed Willis at the pile of GHCN and said some of our data is there, I will point to this web site and say.. her data is here.
now go read the entire blog.
‘why should we give you links when all you will do is find mistakes.’
Quibble, obfuscate and distract more likely.
haha. I find it humerous that the same people who defended CRUs refusal to turn over scientific data howl when you dont give them a link.
Good idea.
And then perhaps I should start a blog about my incapacity to reproduce Judy’s flak and compare Judy’s behavior with glorious companies and individuals.
And if in a few years people tell me that I had the links all along, I could point out that I still don’t know if Judy based her appeal to pity on these.
> Quibble, obfuscate and distract more likely.
Let’s hope Warwick Hugues does not overhear that!
No willard, in the end she would say the posts were lost, you can find them in the same bit bucket as the SkS posting of Dr. Loo’s survey..
Or perhaps Judge Judy would declare that’s I’m mad, so it’s OK, as Willard Tony said of Zeke.
No, she’d do better to claim that you were a conspiracy nut or taking money from big Solar, attacking the character last longer than just claiming you were having a bad day.
Then I could play the victim and rip off my shirt on every subsequent thread.
This is so tempting I could start to whine right here, right now.
No willard, you’d stop with the shirt ripping the minute one honest person on the other side said it was wrong to not give you link.
No, I’d use all the rhetorical tricks to remind of this incident. And I’d never link to it. WIthin years, this incident would reach mythical proportions. Everything I’d write that would mention Judge Judy would be peppered with my memory of it.
Only a commenter who’d make the effort to recall of the incident and describe my modus operandi could ever stop me. And even then, I could simply ignore him.
hmmm.
why should we give you links when all you will do is find mistakes.
“Mommy, mommy, they did it fiiiiiiirrrrsssttt!”
Never seen that before.
Joshua,
since you are on record condemning Phil Jones, you can have any links your request. But you must request them and prove you are an academic because I have confidentiality agreements which I’ve misplaced which preclude me from sharing links with anyone who is a non-joshua.
Willard, is in the pay of Big Solar, so he will have to request them via FOIA, and my plan is to deny them on grounds of national security.
It sure is hard to have a dialogue when folks won’t substantiate their claims. Of course willard is within his rights to suspend judgement about the claims made by Judith. Nobody would argue that he’s a denier when he cant do a simple check, now would they.
“Evidently Prof. Curry operated on the Bushian principle of the one about fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on you.”
This is by far my favorite part from Rose and Curry’s nonsense:
“Prof Curry said that stripping out these [exogeneous] phenomena made ‘no physical sense’. She added that natural phenomena and the CO2 greenhouse effect interact with each other, and cannot meaningfully be separated. It’s not just that the ‘cold mode’ has partly caused the plateau.
According to Prof Curry and others, the previous warm Pacific cycle and other natural factors, such as a high solar output, accounted for some of the warming seen before 1997…”
So according to Curry we can’t separate the influences of ENSO etc. from CO2 when they’re causing cooling, but when they’re causing warming, well then they can quite easily be separated!
Curry tries to play the role of the ‘open minded skeptic in the middle’, but that quote comes straight out of the book of Wattsian denial.
Remember when Curry criticized Richard Muller for saying that global warming hadn’t stopped? When she said there was a “pause”? When she insisted Muller had to have a “scientific basis” for his claim?
I asked her for her scientific basis for claiming a “pause.” She couldn’t even provide a faulty response — she had none at all.
As far as I am able to discern she shows absolutely no such understanding when she comments on climate change. Rather, it’s all fuzzy waffle and prevarication – the intellectual equivalent of putting a hand over one eye and closing the other until the pig looks like a princess.
The sad fact is that Judith Curry is no longer capable of rational thought or elementary logical analysis. She’s become so blinded by her “uncertainty monster” ideology and her desire to host a forum for some of the biggest nitwits on the internet (second perhaps to WUWT on climate-related matters) that she is incapable of actually dissecting a flawed argument, or thinking about the physical implications of her claims. And her ideology is biased only in one direction. Judith Curry is a fake skeptic and no longer a credible scientist. Rose using her as an authoritative figure is no different than PBS hosting Anthony Watts as a representative expert of “the other side.” Just silliness.
Well this is one of the most astonishing comments I’ve seen in awhile.
Pretty much everyone acknowledges the existence of a ‘pause’, from Kevin Trenberth, Susan Solomon, Hansen, etc. Even Muller wrote the same in his FAQ http://berkeleyearth.org/faq/
Separating out ENSO, PDO, etc from the record and inferring that the residual is forced is flawed if you think there is any merit to arguments by Tim Palmer, Tsonis, many others, who say forced warming is likely to be projecting onto the modes of natural internal variability.
As for a scientific basis of the pause, most people seem to think that that the lack of a statistically significant increase in temperature for the past 15+ years might be characterized as a pause.
Looks to me like I have dissected your flawed argument.
See also my previous thread on the pause
http://judithcurry.com/2012/10/17/pause-waving-the-italian-flag/
Mosh
I would like to believe that someone has hijacked your name. What an unpleasant unscientific and uncharacteristic comment you apparently made at 2.42,
I am sorry that we don’t appear to live up to your high expectations
Tonyb
Tony, those are quotes from Eli, Chris Colose, Dana N…
Sorry, with multiple C&P I neglected to add quotes around everything
For what it is worth, using the trend calculator at SKS, using GISS for the period 1983 to 1998, carefully picking data source and time period, being a warmist pure and to the core, had it calculate trend and statistical significance.
What result did I get?
Not statistically significant!
So we can say that there also was a pause 1983 to 1998.
Mosher –
Indeed, you write much more concisely than the above.
Judith
‘Well this is one of the most astonishing comments I’ve seen in awhile.”
Ha, well its Eli, And tamino, and Chris Colose, and Dana.
I went dumpster diving over on tammmys
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2012/10/23/more-on-david-roses-nonsense/
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2012/10/23/more-on-david-roses-nonsense/#comment-72001
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2012/10/23/more-on-david-roses-nonsense/#comment-72016
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2012/10/23/more-on-david-roses-nonsense/#comment-72036
hey willard wanted links…
no doubt he joshua and FOMD will head over and be nannies on Tamino threads… na
Ah, the dittoheads, thanks for the links
Good to read that you have not gone cuckoo or worse – morphed into a hell-hound. Back on must read list.
Mosh
I said it was uncharacteristic of you. Glad I was right. Hope Judith realises the source of the quotes
Tonyb
> Willard, is in the pay of Big Solar,
Only a mind that is corrupted by nobility could see such scheme.
yes willard I was channelling nobelity, ala Mann
The magic word might very well be “attribution”:
http://judithcurry.com/category/attribution/
That was fun.
Andrew Adams does not have the knack to attract attention:
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2012/10/23/more-on-david-roses-nonsense/#comment-71896
He might not be dittohead-worthy.
Willard,
Thanks for the mention. I will point out for the benefit of other readers that I did ultimately get a response here from Judith (partly thanks to your prompting)
Statements about AGW as simulated by climate models do not find such periods longer than 15 or so years (or 17 years). So ANY period of this length (whatever start/end dates) challenges these earlier statements.
Which I think only partly addresses my questions, but I guess I have no particular claim on Judith’s time and effort. But I’m not sure that her arguments on the subject in general in the course of those threads were really any more illuminating – they basically came down to “this proves the models are wrong”. What Appell’s piece does is present arguments from scientists which try to put recent temperature trends in context and understand whether we have evidence of underlying reasons behind them. There seems to me to be a big difference in those approaches to the issue. As I said at the time I certainly don’t dispute the existence of a “pause” per se and as Judith points out prominent figues on the “concerned” side don’t either. What Judith was criticised for was not “talking about the pause”, it was the substance of her arguments.
> Thanks for the mention. I will point out for the benefit of other readers that I did ultimately get a response here from Judith (partly thanks to your prompting)
For the benefit of other readers, here’s where the prompt occurred:
http://judithcurry.com/2012/10/16/pause-discussion-thread-part-ii/#comment-256664
In retrospect, we can see that NevenA’s point got acknowledged with the robust “pot meet kettle”.
For crickets’ sake, here was NevenA’s point:
http://judithcurry.com/2012/10/16/pause-discussion-thread-part-ii/#comment-255469
***
Now, compare Andrew Adams and NevenA’s points with Judge Judy’s rhetorical question:
> Recall all the flack I took last year for talking about the ‘pause’?
I must say that my recall gets better and better. I now recall having talked about running with talking points. Non nova, sed nove.
And there must be some other flak out there in all the links.
So much to do, so little time.
‘But I’m not sure that her arguments on the subject in general in the course of those threads were really any more illuminating – they basically came down to “this proves the models are wrong”.
Wrong., andrew.
her statement is this
“Statements about AGW as simulated by climate models do not find such periods longer than 15 or so years (or 17 years). So ANY period of this length (whatever start/end dates) challenges these earlier statements.
She isnt claiming that the models are wrong. They are wrong by construction. I say that as a former modeler. You must understand that models are never right. The issue is always how wrong are they and can we use them. They are always wrong and will forever be wrong. They will never match observations and their predictions will always and forever be wrong. The issue is how wrong and does it matter. The issue here is do they “accurately” represent past pauses and does the variability they show match natural variability. Answer? No. plain and simple no.
If you like I can point you to mounds and mounds of regional data and
you can compare for yourself.
Continuing, One thing that models get wrong is capturing cooling regimes and plateaus. Hell models cant even get absolute temperature correct.
Models cant even get the ice correct.
Wanna see how bad
https://49d81a7c-a-62cb3a1a-s-sites.googlegroups.com/site/apcmip5/home/trnd/histrcp85-sep-enh.png?attachauth=ANoY7crT8zGlxFD6bswz24yGXL-KQ100sjY61sQLjruxFzq8d9V7ncg0UCr2eOW42IBDHkT94LiMSdmJitHSBD3zr47GaaO8JJdHLsELmlUGpqxl1MrfjAiCffGdDWezfQNtbXDBaHSDlNaUQY_xYIhHatcUoyPm2lbHyCVO6DMZMkwS7M3eji8qSf4XD6a3f9axWu9TnPFaQ82falx0JFdyrAJvaINn-x5qmxrYdXEF21F8LtDDhow%3D&attredirects=0
This doesnt mean that models are not useful in informing us that adding C02 at current rates is a horrible idea. Models are good enough to show us that adding C02 is a bad idea. they are not good enough to simulate decadle natural pauses or cooling periods
“The issue is that GWPF/Rose lie by omission to mislead.
What people are taking away from Rose’s disinformation is not: “Oh right, they should improve the models so that they incorporate the off-chance that all factors of natural variability are in negative mode (after a Super El Niño) and thus in the short-term suppress the long-term warming trend”. No, what people are taking away from it – and I’ve heard with my very own ears today listening to a local Dutch radio show interviewing people on the street – is: “There’s no global warming. Scientists are stupid and in it for the money, just like we are.”
That’s what Rose/GWPF are after, and you condone that.
############################
So lets see Neven believes that Judith Condones the random responses that people have to Rose’s nonsense.
Wow, mind reader neven, thats some tar baby action.
I suppose he condones deleting emails which lead inexorably to stealing documents from heartland.
mosher –
My comment was merely on the mommymommyistic nature of your argument, not the primary subject at hand.
As for the primary subject – my criticisms of Judith’s rhetoric are twofold:
My first criticism is that she fails to denounce the obviously bogus arguments from folks like Rose. I find the selectivity of her objections to tribalism to be counterproductive (at least relative to what might occur if she were even-handed).
My second criticism (slightly overlapping) is that I still don’t get how anyone can say both that they “don’t listen” to anyone who questions the basic physics of the GHE and also that they think that global warming has “paused.” If you accept the basic physics of the GHE, then you by definition accept that if you add more ACO2 to the atmosphere, globally warming cannot “pause.”
Now – is that giving Judith “flak?” I don’t think so. I think of it as criticizing her rhetoric – for it’s tendency towards fanning tribalism and because of what I perceived to be a (in effect counterproductive) lack of scientific accuracy.
If my criticisms are just “flak,” then we may as well call what Judith does giving people “flak” as well (not to compare my scientific analysis to hers).
> I suppose he condones deleting emails which lead inexorably to stealing documents from heartland.
Here we go again with the squirrels,
Which are, in general, quite obvious tells.
Perhaps to be expected when speaking
Of the talking points and running.
***
Here was another unanswered comment:
http://judithcurry.com/2012/10/16/pause-discussion-thread-part-ii/#comment-255515
Perhaps this can be dismissed as a p***ing match.
Or perhaps they, whoever that might be, started it.
Or perhaps it was flak?
Lots of theories.
Mosher writes some interesting points I’d like to examine and request that he expand upon.
Steve writes: “models are never right”-
My response- Steve’s comment is somewhat misleading. In fact models are occasionally right but that is not really the point Steve is making. Models generally perform within a stated margin of error for each characteristic they have been designed to simulate before they are ever used outside the modeler’s lab. Steve fails to mention those climates models are just about the only instance where models of unknown capabilities (and frequently demonstrated to be very inaccurate) are still used to make decisions. I ask why? Why aren’t the models that have performed poorly dropped from consideration?
Steve writes- “Models are good enough to show us that adding C02 is a bad idea.”
My response- I’d ask Steve to elaborate on what models have produced what results to validate this conclusion. If you have a model that can reasonably accurately forecast temperature, what other characteristics has that same model been able to reasonably accurately forecast that would lead you to believe a warmer world is necessarily worse for humanity overall over the long term?
Joshua
“My comment was merely on the mommymommyistic nature of your argument, not the primary subject at hand.”
Sadly, its not playing mommy they did it first.
its quite the opposite of that.
In mommy mommy it goes like this
Willard steals Candy
Mom does nothing
Joshua steals candy
Mom punishes him, and Joshua screams unfair. They did it first.
That is trying to excuse your bad behavior by pointing at somebody else bad behavior.
In this case, I am not screaming unfair.
This case goes like this.
Jones Steals Candy
Mom does nothing.
Moshpit says ‘ Hey mom, Jones stole candy”
Willard argues that stealing Candy is ok
Mom says, stealing Candy is ok
Moshpit steals candy, mom said it was ok.
Totally different.
“As for the primary subject – my criticisms of Judith’s rhetoric are twofold:
My first criticism is that she fails to denounce the obviously bogus arguments from folks like Rose. I find the selectivity of her objections to tribalism to be counterproductive (at least relative to what might occur if she were even-handed).
###############################
So, do you find your selectivism to be counter productive? You played the same game over and over again at keiths and rogers, failing in all cases to ever search for a ground of agreement before you set out on suggestions for improvement. you are non even handed with judith and not even handed with yourself.
#######################
My second criticism (slightly overlapping) is that I still don’t get how anyone can say both that they “don’t listen” to anyone who questions the basic physics of the GHE and also that they think that global warming has “paused.” If you accept the basic physics of the GHE, then you by definition accept that if you add more ACO2 to the atmosphere, globally warming cannot “pause.”
Wrong. physically wrong. C02 does warm the planet all other things being equal. we have added c02 and the temperature has not gone up. Comes the question, WHAT EXACTLY has not been held equal.
a) other external forcings ( like aerosols )
b) other internal forcings, the stuff Judith would like to see studied
Its pretty simple Joshua and it relates directly to the issue of attribution
and it relates directly to the area of study that has gotten short shrift in Judiths estimation.
So Judith does not want to listen to people ( skydragons ) who question RTE. people who say GHGs have no effect. The issue is how much effect GHGs have versus how much unforced variability there is. In judiths mind unforced variability has gotten the short stick and the short dollar. The pause, in her mind, is good evidence that C02 and other GHGs might not have caused as much of the warming as we have thought.
###############################
Now – is that giving Judith “flak?” I don’t think so. I think of it as criticizing her rhetoric – for it’s tendency towards fanning tribalism and because of what I perceived to be a (in effect counterproductive) lack of scientific accuracy.
You totally missed the point. For the past 4 years Judith has been arguing that PART of the warming we see has been caused by C02 and Part by changes in oceanic cycles. ( Say PDO) This lead her to criticize the attribution statements where “blame” was portioned out by the IPCC.. Now that we have a pause or slacking in the rate, you see some other folks backpeddling TOWARD Judiths position, A position for which she took flak. Suddenly its ok for Santer to say they got forcings wrong, but its NOT OK for Judith to have challenged models.
Suddenly its ok for other people to suggest that some of the warming might be due to PDO but it was lunacy for her to suggest it. and its lunacy for her to suggest that we might see a continuation of this..
I think she’s wrong, but no way in hell would I bet against her position.
Finally, I think it ridiculous for people like you and Willis and Willard to hold her to standards that you dont hold anybody else to. You and Willis and Willard participate in making her into Judge Judy. From my experience with Judith I can say that she doesn’t really appreciate being thrust into that role. I remember in Lisbon I really wanted her to tell certin people to shut up. And then it struck me.. why am I expecting her to be a Judge? Stop expecting her to be fair. She’s not. She’s a voice. You can engage her to understand her position better or you can poop on more threads. When you do poop on a thread expect other to pick up your droppings and throw it at you.
> Finally, I think it ridiculous for people like you and Willis and Willard to hold her to standards that you dont hold anybody else to.
Yet another untruth.
I’m asking for Judge Judy to substantiate her:
As if I only asked that kind of thing of Judge Judy.
***
So, what was that flak, and how does this flak relate to our actual discussion?
I’d even settle for a response that shows a vague interest in p**ing contests.
Interestingly, the only flak I recalled was about running with talking points.
Speaking of which, here’s an unanswered comment:
http://judithcurry.com/2012/10/16/pause-discussion-thread-part-ii/#comment-256877
Is that flak?
Willard
Here was another unanswered comment:
What part of the headline misrepresents the text?
#################################
huh. who ever made a cognet argument about the headline to begin with? There is really nothing to answer here. To her credit Judith moved beyond the headline and acknowledged rather eliptically that it wasnt the best, which is why one moves beyond it to the meat of the story
First sentence:
The world stopped getting warmer almost 16 years ago,
Then
The new data, compiled from more than 3,000 measuring points on land and sea, was issued quietly on the internet without any media fanfare, and, until today, it has not been reported.
Well, OK, maybe the headline writer is responsible for inventing the Met Office report. But the idea that the Met should make a “media fanfare” about a few months of extra data which don’t add anything to the story that was not in the long-published Hadcrut 3 data is ridiculous
###########
So we have Nick saying that something makes no sense and is ridiculous. Does every Chewbacca need a response. The point is rather simple. Had the new data resulted in an uptick we would expect the MET to say something as was their practice in the past.
Moshpits solution is simple. When you update data that people use you make a very bland factual announcement.
############################
Perhaps this can be dismissed as a p***ing match.
Or perhaps they, whoever that might be, started it.
Or perhaps it was flak?
Lots of theories.
Sure there are many ways to construe this. To Judith it was flak.
Some people see her refusal to pick Rose apart as Treason. Nutjobs like neven can call it anything they like. He runs a great blog, but tends
to get unhinged ( as with Spencer) thats ok. Given that there are lots of theories, given that Judith experienced flak, you have a choice. sort through the theories, document the theories, make up your own theory,
or shoot squirrels…
but she said she experienced flak. I just practice charity and look for an intrepretation where what she says is true and interesting.
I certainly see things that i would take as flak, I dont know that everyone would take them as flak. Maybe they just lacked etiquette and Judith is used to getting private emails about her mistakes.
Somebody should call FOMD cause many people were farting in church.
> I certainly see things that i would take as flak, I dont know that everyone would take them as flak
Then Moshpit’s whiteknighting, while amusing, lacks relevance.
So, what was the flak?
What was it about?
How does it relate to our actual story?
***
While we’re here, let us note this gem:
> So we have Nick saying that something makes no sense and is ridiculous. Does every Chewbacca need a response.
Chewbacca suffers from an identity crisis.
With more roars, he should be fine.
steven –
Aside from doubting the veracity of your characterization of willard did or didn’t say (I really don’t know, but it doesn’t sound like willard), I also disagree with your diagram.
Selective reasoning is never productive. Why would you think I would suggest otherwise?
You played the same game over and over again at keiths and rogers, failing in all cases to ever search for a ground of agreement before you set out on suggestions for improvement.
Well, I don’t think your statement is true. I believe I often seek grounds for agreement. But regardless, I have never expected my input to have impact one way or the other. I am a nothing (in this context if not others). I write blog comments. Judith has impact. She has a role to play. She writes blog posts. She writes papers on climate change. Why would you compare the impact of my selectivity with hers? It is a ridiculous comparison.
Well, ACO2 warms the planet whether other things are equal or not.
If I have a flame under a pot of water outside in the winter, and then I put a flame under it, does the flame warm the water even if the amount of heat it generates is not sufficient to prevent the water from freezing? Does it warm the water only if the ambient temperature is relatively warm, and then “pause” if there is a sudden cold blast of air, only to resume once that cold blast is over?
Now, the trend of increase in certain measures of global warming – specifically land surface temps – has moderated, or “paused” if you will, but if you accept the GHE, then how can you say that “global warming” has paused if we’re anthropogenically increasing the total volume of CO2 in the atmosphere? Is there something taking that ACO2 back out of the atmosphere? Is there some other mechanism that is removing energy from the system, or reducing the extent to which increased ACO2 affects the earth’s energy balance?
Now can other forcings other than ACO2 can affect certain land surface temperatures, and they can do so to the extent that they overwhelm the impact of ACO2 on land surface temperatures. And if certain climate scientists underestimated the impact on land surface temperatures of those other forcings relative to the impact of ACO2, then by all means their work should be corrected. But you can’t correct their work, IMO, by saying that “global warming has paused.” Such a statement, IMO, serves only a rhetorical purpose from within the framework of tribal battles.
I have no problem with that. My problem is with bogus rhetoric, such as that “global warming has paused,” or even worse, the “global warming has stopped” kind of rhetoric that Judith turns a blind eye to.
Yes, that is the issue. And saying that “global warming has paused,” IMO, skirts the issue.
That’s fine. It is a valid issue to raise, IMO.
Replace “the pause [in global warming]” with “the decrease in the trend of increasing land surface temperatures,” and I think what you describe is entirely reasonable skepticism (as opposed to “skepticism.”)
Legitimate “skepticism,” IMO.
I see two “positions” there. One is that the attribution was problematic. The other is that “global warming has paused.” I see one as valid skepticism and the other as unfortunate rhetoric.
IMO, not deserved in the one case and well-deserved in the other.
I am not responsible for what other people think is or is not OK.
I am in no position to bet either one way or the other here.
Interesting group. Me, Willis,and willard. Two smart and knowledgeable people and one non-technical person of very limited intelligence (I’ll let you figure out which is which!). Can you show where I have held Judith to a standard that I don’t use against others?
I believe that to be true – which is why I think she should think more deeply about the selectivity of her rhetoric and her advocacy.
Fair? I don’t think that fair is relevant here. Fair has nothing to do with it. This has to do with the validity of reasoning and analysis, and why smart and knowledgeable people drop the ball on occasion..
Again, you seem to be failing at trying to read my mind. I have no expectation for anything to happen in these threads any differently than how it takes place. The same patterns repeat here over and over and over and over. Thread after thread. Day after day. And it happens here and at other blog after blog after blog. Anyone who expects anything different than what repeats itself over and over and over so often is necessarily employing motivated reasoning.
This is a long thread and I hope that this goes to the correct position. Joshua’s post is rather long but I am in general agreement with his position on the logical inconsistency of certain commenters that arises when rhetoric takes over from reasoning. We are all fallible at times and Joshua seems to accept this as pertaining to him as well.
mosh
In Mann’s case:
“Nobelesse oblige”.
Max
Steven Mosher,
Thanks for your response and I apologise in advance for the long reply.
I don’t disagree at all with what you say about models – my objection isn’t that Judith was wrong because the models are “right”. I guess it is fair to characterise Judith’s argument not so much as “the models are wrong” but “the models are even more wrong than we thought”, but my question still remains – is this really true? Is the fact that you can, if you choose your start date carefully, plot a linear trend on a surface temperature graph which shows only a very small rising trend over the last 16 years or so really mean that there is an bigger issue with the models than the known difficulties that they have in predicting natural variability over relatively short timescales? And does this (in the context of Rose’s article) really mean that “global warming stopped 16 years ago”? My inclination is to be dubious on the first question, but it’s a question about statistics as much as about models and climate science, and I’m no statistician. But I’m pretty certain that the answer to the second question is “no”.
I don’t think Judith, either in reply to me or in her posts in general really addresses these questions in a meaningful way. Neither does she make any serious attempt that I can see to put the trends we can see from just looking at graphs into the context of what has actually been happening to our climate over the last [insert number] years. Merely saying it proves the models underestimate natural variability is just superficial, just as simply saying “well, you can’t expect the models to agree over such short periods” is not sufficient. Both are the basis for an argument but require more detailed analysis, which is something we should surely expect from someone in Judith’s position. And that’s what Appel tries to do in his piece – he says “there is something in recent temperature trends worth discussing, what can we really learn from this?”. In contrast Judith seems to me to be just saying “look, I was right all along”. Maybe that’s uncharitable but that’s really how it looks to me.
What’s more, articles like Rose’s simply muddy the waters for the general public, for whom this subject may be difficult to grasp as it is. And he is doing it in one of the biggest selling UK newspapers, so it’s hard to argue that it is not going to influence people’s views. One of the reasons Judith was criticised was because she gave his arguments far more credibility than they deserved. It is perfectly possible to argue both that both recent temperature trends do raise questions about climate models and that Rose made statements in his article which are simply not supported by the facts. And “yes but Climategate” doesn’t work here – Judith chose to write about Rose’s article, I don’t claim that she has a duty to debunk every piece of contrarian nonsense that appears in the media but she should certainly be wary of appearing to give credibility to misleading pieces. I don’t think that she as you put it “condones the random responses that people have to Rose’s nonsense” but it would have been nice if she had recognised that Rose’s piece was bound to generate such responses and criticise him for it.
Steven,
Just one more point. You say
Had the new data resulted in an uptick we would expect the MET to say something as was their practice in the past. Moshpits solution is simple. When you update data that people use you make a very bland factual announcement.
I agree that if the Met Office didn’t make an announcement when it put out the updated HadCRUT4 data then it should have done. It is after all something in which there is a certain amount of interest. But Rose was suggesting that the updated data revealed something about recent temperature trends which was hitherto unknown, which is patently untrue – the data revealed nothing which was not already understood from the existing HadCRUT3 data, in fact if anything the 16 year trend is more positive in HadCRUT4 than in HadCRUT3.
Joshua, “Global Warming” was the first or one of the first terms used to describe the CO2 impact on climate. That was changed to “Climate Change”. Why? Now “Climate Disruption” has been proposed as a new name for the former “Climate Change”. Why?
When someone points out the “pause” in “global Warming” it is just consistent with the science part of the issue. Politically, “Global Warming” has a different meaning or science would not have decided on “Climate Change/Disruption”.
Judith also caught some “Flak” when she posted that the current “surface” temperatures are falling outside of the 95% confidence levels of the model “ensemble” use to predict climate sensitivity. The “surface” temperatures are, that is an indication of an over estimate of climate “sensitivity” and that is consistent with the name changes warming to change to disruption.
So science seems to agree with a “pause” in “global warming”, since “science” changed the name to begin with. Ignoring the “pause”, reversion to mean, reduction in rate or regime shift in “global warming” is politics not science. Science has already agreed that “global warming” was not the best description.
When Tamino removes Volcanic aerosols, solar and ENSO, which he assumes to be neutral, he shows what he “thinks” would be the slope of “global warming” without natural variability. You might notice he didn’t remove AMO or include error bars on the graph. Willard seems to like that visual. Could that graph be considered “politically” or “tribally” motivated?
Wouldn’t it have made more sense for the “scientific” community to say, “Well, yes, there is a pause or reduction in the rate of warming globally. That is why we changed the name. There is a great deal of uncertainty involved in the science of “climate change/disruption”.
Have you ever considered that Rose might know how to push political hot buttons?
Cap’n –
Dagnabit.
http://judithcurry.com/2013/05/07/more-on-the-pause/#comment-320206
Peter Davies –
Thanks for the comment at 10:50 PM. I have noted that you are one of the few commenters here that is not ideologically fixed in orientation. I use such commenters as a touchstone for checking my own triballisitic predilections.
Wow. That may be one of the dumbest arguments I’ve ever seen on this site: Joshua claims if you believe in the greenhouse effect and humans keep raising CO2 levels, you cannot possibly say global warming has paused. Nevermind if the temperature increase has paused.
What if natural forcings decreased? Doesn’t matter. CO2 is rising; global warming can’t pause.
What if anthrogenic forcings (such as aerosols) counteracted CO2’s forcing? Doesn’t matter. CO2 is rising; global warming can’t pause.
What if non-CO2 anthropogenic greenhouse gas levels were to drop, causing net forcings to stay constant? Doesn’t matter. CO2 is rising; global warming can’t pause.
To really have fun, we can imagine a situation in which net forcings decreased even while CO2 levels increased – perhaps a sharp decline in methane emissions (with their short atmospheric lifespan, the impact would be felt quickly). Because the net forcings decreased, the planet begins cooling a bit. And while the temperatures are dropping, Joshua says, “Doesn’t matter. CO2 levels are rising; global warming can’t pause/stop/reverse.”
The best part? He criticizes Judith Curry for not sharing this belief!
willard,
“So, what was the flak?
What was it about?
How does it relate to our actual story?
***
The flak has been cited. the flak has been linked. the flak has been discussed. And, if you dont see the flak, then you dont see the flak.
I can point to the sky and say ‘willard, look at the blue sky” and you can
say ‘what blue sky?” and I can point again. So, the flak
A) the flak for not criticizing every detail of Rose
B) the flak for saying models are wrong
C) the flak for suggesting that natural cycles complicate attribution
D) the flak for suggesting that there was a pause.
E) the flak for having an opinion about the next few decades.
In the present case.
Santer does what judith did in B
Ray does what Judith did in C
Hansen does what Judith did in D
everybody gets to do E
The relation to the present story is simple, judith Sees scientists saying the same things she said a while back. She sees them saying things that she got flak for. It’s pretty simple. You would see this if you actually worked in the field. Lets see. So, the other day I was having a debate with a scientist and was remarking about how the models were getting certain values wrong. the response was characteristic. you know about surface temperature Mosher, how dare you speak about models. And then the modelling spoke up to confirm what I said. So, when Judith criticizes models, “how dare she”, when Santer does, well umm, well umm, of course he has standing to do this. So, Judith speaks up about the pause, and tamino mouths off, how dare she speak about statistics, and of course when Hansen says what she said, schmidts bulldog, becomes hansens lapdog. Now when, RomanM found an error in taminos stats,
RomanM, the professor of statistics was banned from taminos..
interesting in who gets to speak and how punishment is delivered if you cross the thin green line.
Joshua,
“Since you are on record condemning Phil Jones”, I must tell you that you are not alone:
http://neverendingaudit.tumblr.com/post/22836534127
If you can find back a quote where you are condemning Jones, I will gladly add your name to the list:
– Bart V
– J Bowers
– dhogaza
– Mapleleaf
– PDA
– Mike Mann
I’m sure I could add Andrew Adams
If you are interested by this Greenline test trickery, there is this category:
http://neverendingaudit.tumblr.com/tagged/BeingTested
Note that “being on record condemning Phil Jones” puts yourself into a set. Perhaps not a tribe. Perhaps a clan?
The lukewarm ontology gets murkier and murkier. The ontology is not what matters anyway. What matters is the bait and switch to escape a hard stance and a rhetorical rock.
Greg Laden calls him a moron:
This 10 days after James Hansen et al. were observed saying:
Of course, GL is (IMO) the archtypical marxbot, much worse than anyone here.
Andrew
‘Steven Mosher,
Thanks for your response and I apologise in advance for the long reply.
I don’t disagree at all with what you say about models – my objection isn’t that Judith was wrong because the models are “right”. I guess it is fair to characterise Judith’s argument not so much as “the models are wrong” but “the models are even more wrong than we thought”, but my question still remains – is this really true?
#############
It depends on who you mean by “we”
lets stick with you.
1. what do you think of models ability to predict see ice
2. what do you think of models ability to get absolute temperature
correct?
3. Local sea level rise correct
4. regional temperture correct for impact studies or adaptation studies?
5. precipitation correct or temperture correct? pick one, its common
for models to get one right and the other wrong.
6. hydrology
In general, the models are good at telling us what we know. We cannot
continue to dump c02. duh, arrenhius knew that. wee know that from the simplest EBM. we know that from paper and pencil.
Put another way, models are good to inform us on mitigation but
lousy on adaptation and since climate change is the pipeline,
they need to get better at the next 30 years, which is what Judith
has been arguing and in fact is what she is working on with her
hurricane business.
Now of course, its mean to criticize the work of others. but the planet is at stake and some people take this seriously. Its way more important than some hurt feelings. Its way more important than handing “ammunition” to skeptics.
andrew:
“Is the fact that you can, if you choose your start date carefully, plot a linear trend on a surface temperature graph which shows only a very small rising trend over the last 16 years or so really mean that there is an bigger issue with the models than the known difficulties that they have in predicting natural variability over relatively short timescales? ”
1. you are assuming it is natural variability ( whats that)
2. It could be, as Santer argues, getting forcing wrong.
3. it could be, as some of have argued since 2008, that sensitivity
is high. That is worth trillions.
In short, you have assumed the issue is “simply” missing natural variability and that this is benign. But, even there, if the kind of mechanism that Judith is interested in ( regime change) is in play
then the inability to capture short term variation may be important.
“And does this (in the context of Rose’s article) really mean that “global warming stopped 16 years ago”? My inclination is to be dubious on the first question, but it’s a question about statistics as much as about models and climate science, and I’m no statistician. But I’m pretty certain that the answer to the second question is “no”.”
The difficulty everyone has is coming up with a neutral way of describing the last 16 years. While I’m not entirely happy with “the global warming has stopped” it is one way to describe the graph. “the global warming”
is probably the part of the description that gets misused by all sides in this debate. Here’s another way to look at it, if the rate of warming up to 1997 was .2C per decade, and if the last 16years increased to .4C, we would say, “the global warming increased” nobody, would blather on cherry picking or short term data. If apple stock was going up and then hit a plateau, we would say, the growth stopped.. and yet we could also say that apple grew. The fact that we can describe the same data in seemingly contradictory ways in words is a good clue that you should not rely on words to describe this.
Moshpit has not cited the flak Judge Judy used for her ad misericordiam. His listing does not identify the flak. 0or instance, “E) the flak for having an opinion about the next few decades” does not identify the flak. In short, Moshpit only says “here is flak”, as if that alone sufficed to justify the relevance of Judy’s ad misericordiam.
Onto the links.
***
1. As we already seen above, the first link Moshpit offered contains only the word “nonsense”. To run away from flak by crying “flak” is a way to dodge the point behind the flak.
***
2. The second link is to Dana’s comment:
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2012/10/23/more-on-david-roses-nonsense/#comment-72001
This is a comment on this:
> [S]tripping out these [exogeneous] phenomena made ‘no physical sense’. She added that natural phenomena and the CO2 greenhouse effect interact with each other, and cannot meaningfully be separated. It’s not just that the ‘cold mode’ has partly caused the plateau. According to Prof Curry and others, the previous warm Pacific cycle and other natural factors, such as a high solar output, accounted for some of the warming seen before 1997…
Dana’s point seems to be that suggesting (C) and (D) at the same time deserves due diligence.
***
3. Third link is a quote from Tamino’s Voice of God:
The flak was about Judy’s unresponsiveness. This flak is not about her claim of da paws itself, but about the justification of that claim. If Judge Judy stood up and laid out her justification for her scientific claim, made under the weight of her own authority, then Tamino would have to bite his tongue. Not that he would have: as I already said, Tamino is a blogger with an attitude [1].
[1] http://neverendingaudit.tumblr.com/post/12239577107
But to claim that this is an example of (C) is yet another untruth. The “Told Ya” stance makes sense only if it has been told so. We’re talking about scientific claims here, not sporting bets.
***
4. The last piece of evidence of flak is Chris Colose’s comment:
However harsh this may sound, this editorial comment has nothing to do with any of A-E. This would be akin to claim that this:
http://julesandjames.blogspot.ca/2013/03/anthropological-data-point.html?showComment=1364946569869
would have anything to do with a specific claim by Judge Judy.
In other words, to claim Colose’s comment illustrates A-E is yet another untruth.
***
We clearly see that to identify the object of the flak is not a trivial manner. Even Moshpit can’t do this, however hard he’s trying to white knight Judge Judy. His appearance of sincerity might improve were he to keep his name dropping relevant and truthful, for instance:
Let’s also end this up with this yet another untruth:
> Tony, those are quotes from Eli, Chris Colose, Dana N…
There wasn’t any quote from Eli there.
***
We conclude that Moshpit’s analysis is unsubstantiated.
‘I don’t think Judith, either in reply to me or in her posts in general really addresses these questions in a meaningful way. Neither does she make any serious attempt that I can see to put the trends we can see from just looking at graphs into the context of what has actually been happening to our climate over the last [insert number] years. Merely saying it proves the models underestimate natural variability is just superficial, just as simply saying “well, you can’t expect the models to agree over such short periods” is not sufficient. Both are the basis for an argument but require more detailed analysis, which is something we should surely expect from someone in Judith’s position. And that’s what Appel tries to do in his piece – he says “there is something in recent temperature trends worth discussing, what can we really learn from this?”. In contrast Judith seems to me to be just saying “look, I was right all along”. Maybe that’s uncharitable but that’s really how it looks to me.”
If that is how it looks to you, then I have two coments.
1. that is how it looks to you, and nothing of consequence follows from that.
2. Look again.
The history here is pretty clear. Judith was criticized for the following
A. Failure to great enough distance from Rose for some peoples taste.
B. Suggesting that oceanic cycles were under appreciated
C. saying the pause word.
D. criticzing models
E. Having an opinion about the next 30 years.
Now, she isnt saying “I was right” what she is pointing out is that various folks are saying the SAME THINGS she said, and nobody is reaming them. She crossed a thin green line. with A and E, because she did that her opinions on B,C and D were maligned. Now of course, other folks say
B C and D, but its ok. Why? because they didnt cross a thin green line.
Put another way.
If Judith says models have mistakes david Rose piece that means one thing
If Santer says it in a david Appell piece it has an entirely different meaning.
or so it seems.
Willard
“Moshpit has not cited the flak Judge Judy used for her ad misericordiam. His listing does not identify the flak. 0or instance, “E) the flak for having an opinion about the next few decades” does not identify the flak. In short, Moshpit only says “here is flak”, as if that alone sufficed to justify the relevance of Judy’s ad misericordiam.”
Yes I have identified it. Again, you dont se the flak that Judith sees. you dont see the flak that I see. I cant make you see it. And you have directions on how to find E, its kinda like having Yamal data and not really knowing it. look harder.
this is fun.
[Let’s hope this gets in its proper place. I also added the link to Judge Judy’s statement of interest.]
> Yes I have identified it.
To identify the flak, you need to quote it, link to it, describe its content, circumscribe its object, and explain its relevance to our topic at hand.
Moshpit offered four links. These lead to two op-eds at Tamino’s. These links do not suffice to substantiate his rational reconstruction of Judy’s ad misericordiam.
His ad hominem has no bite against the fact that he’d need to step up his game to offer his audience a credible white knight impersonation. He can try again, this time with more feeling. By chance Moshpit’s having fun.
***
Perhaps Moshpit could try to find some flak coming from somebody else than the Dittoheads, since:
> It doesn’t matter really; both sides engage in this kind of behavior, it is part and parcel of the media and politics. I am far more interested in the public statements of scientists […]
http://judithcurry.com/2012/10/16/pause-discussion-thread-part-ii/#comment-256738
Having clearly identified flak from scientists would a lot more interesting, considering the interest emphasized and the fact that our current op-ed mainly copy-pastes public statement of scientists.
Not that I mind paying due diligence to what Dittoheads say in the meantime.
Willard, I have been through my share of audits and I have observed the following when a finding is/isn’t present:
1) the auditor will properly identify a finding and write it up.
2) the auditor will properly identify a finding and, if permitted, allow it to be fixed ‘on site’, resulting in no finding.
3) the auditor will properly identify a finding and not write it up because it is trivial.
4) the auditor will improperly identify a finding and write it up (i.e. make a finding where there is none).
5) the auditor will look at all the records, certs, and requirements and not see the finding right in front of him (because the auditor does not know enough about what he is auditing)
I have seen all of these, but never all from one single auditor. One of the biggest problems with the auditing process is auditor inconsistancy. Not that the auditor is inconsistent, but no two auditors are the same, that is to say each auditor has specific areas they like to drill into and let’s face it, some auditors are just better than others. Generally, auditors that consistently do 1 – 3 are good auditors. Auditors that consistently do 4 and 5 are not so good. Where we have a problem with auditors who do 4 and 5 too often is what kind of oversight do we have over the auditors? Well, a good auditing system has someone other than the auditor close out the finding. That someone has the authority to correct a situation like 4. Another feature of a good auditing system is the auditors are subjected to testing and findings trending by the auditing function. That corrects for situations like 5.
Your looking for examples of ‘flak’
Judy didn’t give you any
You want to make it a finding
Mosher provides examples of ‘flak’ in Judy’s defense.
Your not satisfied with Mosher’s examples and still want to make a finding
From my experience and IMO, this is beginning to look like situation 4.
What type of example would resolve your finding? Because I have to say the examples provided by Mosher are pretty good examples of ‘flak’ taken. At this point the auditor needs to establish that just because no links are given, that none exist. Seems like a pretty tall order for an auditor to make.
John,
There is an implicit argument in Judge Judy’s ad misericordiam.
This implicit argument might be strengthened by its handwaving.
This could be verified by looking at the flak Judge Judy had in mind.
I don’t dispute that there is flak. On the contrary, in fact.
There is so much flak that it would be easy to say ‘oh, no, that wasn’t what I had in mind’ were I to show my homework first.
I did my homework. What about Judge Judy?
Remember Yamal.
Willard,
It is not a ‘pity me’ argument. I have seen an auditor in these parts call examples like that an untruth. A ‘pity me’ argument would be… ‘I talked about a ‘pause’ and got flak for it…. it hurt my feelings… now other people are talking about a pause with no flak from anyone… woe is me’. While what we are looking at is… ‘I talked about a pause and I got flak for it…now it seems like everyone agrees there is a pause’.
So if it’s not a ‘pity me’ argument, then it still looks like situation 4 to me.
Ball in your court
John,
My identification of her argument as an ad misericordiam is independent from my request that Judge Judy substantiates her implicit argument.
In any case, here’s Walton:
My emphasis.
There’s something that Judge Judy accomplishes with this op-ed beyond “WTF?” or “Told Ya!”.
We do have to wonder if this implicit argument helps accomplishes that goal.
***
Out of curiosity, what relevance do you find in Colose’s comment regarding the specific issue of da paws?
Steven,
In short, you have assumed the issue is “simply” missing natural variability and that this is benign. But, even there, if the kind of mechanism that Judith is interested in ( regime change) is in play
then the inability to capture short term variation may be important.
I don’t think I’m making that assumption, but natural variability is the reason we need to consider longer timescales when comparing models with observations, which is what we are concerned with here, so if there is some divergence between the two over shorter timescales it would seem logical for it to be at least be the first line of enquiry. But as I said in my last comment you do need further analysis – natural variability, whether it is posited as an alternative explanation for observed warming or a reason for an apparent lack of it, still requires a physical mechanism and needs to be supported by evidence.
As it happens I think we do have evidence to suggest that what we have seen happen to the GAT in recent years can to a large extent be attributed to such variations (largely ENSO and the solar minimum), see the Foster and Rahmstorf paper for example. I don’t see any compelling evidence for a regime change. But Appell’s piece does raise some other possibilities and I wouldn’t suggest they should be dismissed.
Willard,
“Out of curiosity, what relevance do you find in Colose’s comment regarding the specific issue of da paws?”
It’s relevant as an example of flak taken. Judy was quoted as a climate expert by Rose in the Mail article about the pause. She commented that there is reason to say there is a pause based on new data revealed. Colose comments at Taminos that she is now a ‘fake skeptic’ and ‘no longer a credible scientist’ because of it. She ‘is incapable of disecting a flawed argument’ in his view. You don’t see that as a relevant example of taking flak?
Steven,
I don’t think Judith was saying quite the same things as other people and many of the criticisms made of her were fair. People saw inconsistencies in her comments about ocean currents, and lack of evidence to support her claims. I personally don’t see “the models say we shouldn’t see pauses of 16 years” as a serious critique or a meaningful attempt to actually understand what we are seeing. And yes, she should have distanced herself further from Rose and her failure to do so certainly exacerbated the level of criticism she received. And of course some of this has to be seen in the context of longer running disagreements she has with some of the people involved, it’s not just about one particular issue or blog post.
But frankly, she has created a certain position for herself which she seems to enjoy and it’s one which, whether one agrees with her or not, is bound to attract criticism and she is certainly not adverse to dishing it out herself (dismissing her critics as “dittoheads” or “IPCC idealogues” for example). So she is of course entitled to defend her views but complaining that it is somehow unfair that she receives such criticism is not going to get my sympathy.
Willard,
I’m sure I could add Andrew Adams
Well since you mention it, here is what I said over at Eli’s – I don’t mention Jones by name but I think it still counts.
“UK FoI states that a body which received a FoI request must not take into account the identity of the person making the request, and I think this is absolutely right, so however much we might distrust the motives of McIntyre, David Holland etc., they were entitled to have their requests handled without prejudice and if (which is a separate question) the information they requested was subject to FoI they should have been given it. Ultimately the same applies to FoI as to any other kind of freedom – if you believe in it you have to be prepared to defend it for people you don’t like.”
I’m sure I’ve said somewhere or other that Jones was an idiot for suggesting that people delete emails as well.
The success of the Foster & Rahmstorf explanation seems to be partly based on overfitting as the fit deteriorates rapidly as soon as the period was over that was used in the fit. I have been following what has happened since that time and my latest comparison with GISTEMP looks like this (I compare a trend picked from their paper with data adjusted according to their formula)
http://pirila.fi/energy/kuvat/FGext.png
I have not made comparison with other temperature time series, but the effect should be essentially the same in comparisons with them.
The data series that I use start in 2003. Therefore the period of moving averages I show starts in 2004. The sharp deviation from the Foster – Rahmstorf trend starts in autumn 2011 where the moving average starts to go down.
I dont’t think that this short period tells much about climate, but it tells that the Foster & Rahmstorf explanation has failed at the level it appeared to have significance based on their paper.
In this case overfitting results in overcompensation.
More specifically the issue is using data of relatively large short term variability in a short term analysis that extends to the end of the available data. The statistical analysis was not on a solid basis when it was published and in this case more or less the worst case came true immediately after the data cut-off.
They draw conclusions that had not statistically significant support, and they were not lucky enough to guess correctly.
John,
First, let me say that I liked your audit comment. It was a bit mischievous, but I don’t mind much. Since you’d like an audit, here goes.
Here’s how you describe Colose’s comment:
> Colose comments at Taminos that she is now a ‘fake skeptic’ and ‘no longer a credible scientist’ because of it. She ‘is incapable of disecting a flawed argument’ in his view.
I don’t think that this episode of ClimateBall is what helped Colose made his mind on this issue. So the emphasized expressions rest on a very litteral interpretation of what Colose said:
The uncertainty monster and his impression of Judy’s seem to rest on his own experience down here, both of which predate this kerfuffle. The only bit that matters for our case is where Colose accuses Judge Judy of disregarding “the physical implications of her claims”. He does raise concerns regarding Judge Judy’s authority, but no argument supports these concerns.
In fact, for the most part, Chris Colose is simply ranting. This comment contains nothing but flak. If the point was to prove that there exists flak, this would be relevant. But we all know that Judge Judy receives more than her share her flak daily since at least 2010. See for instance:
http://chriscolose.wordpress.com/2010/11/09/934/
For what I have in mind, this would be an interesting piece of flak to analyze. We can distill the choler it contains (“I see no evidence that Judith is thinking clearly with respect to her claims about the IPCC”) and find arguments in the full text. This is not the case with Colose’s rant emphasized by Moshpit.
***
To prove how silly was Moshpit’s exercise of proving that there exists flak, I already gave links of examples of flak, in this very blog alone, starting with this comment:
http://judithcurry.com/2013/05/07/more-on-the-pause/#comment-319662
I’ve even added the whole category of this website, i.e. attribution. These links contains discussions I already quoted in this very thread. For instance, there’s a non-exchange with Dana “Nuticelli” — :-) — not far from NevenA’s.
Moshpit simply threw squirrels around for yet another fool’s errand, built upon the untruth that I was denying that Judy was receiving flak.
***
In fact, the only bit that could be interesting to audit on Tamino’s post entitled More on David Rose’s nonsense would be the two links.
The second link to Tamino’s post entitled Temperature “analysis” by David Rose doesn’t smell so sweet, in which he argues that David Rose cherrypicked. This would be tough to contradict since David Rose admitted to have done so himself. If you search for “jud” in that page, you will find 4 hits. Some flak, but not much, and not of the kind that would help Moshpit drop any names.
The first link leads to this:
http://skepticalscience.com/rose-curry-double-down-denial.html
This is what I believe Judge Judy should have in mind (?) when she spake of flak. Would it have been so hard to mention and cite Nuticelli’s post? Auditors may have lots of theories about that.
***
Interestingly, that op-ed contains only a few quotes from Judge Judy. It should not be that hard to compare them with the quotes that are supposed to agree with them.
Here is a first, which seems to be what Chris Colose has in mind when he talks about physics:
A second, which seems to be ze da paws quote:
A third already appeared in a previous article by David Rose:
***
Incidentally, ze da paws quote does sound a lot like this other one:
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2011/10/30/judith-curry-opens-mouth-inserts-foot/
Notice the year.
Is this what you had in mind in terms of audit?
Best,
w
Andrew,
Thank you for your testimony:
http://neverendingaudit.tumblr.com/post/22836534127
You are not alone.
It gets better already.
Willard,
I appreciate your thoughtful reply. Engaging in thoughtful discussion produces much better reasoned responses. Much of the discussions we engage in come with predisposed ideas of what the conversation is about. This leads to a situation where interlocutors start to talk past one another as they are trying to prove a point… they don’t want to ‘lose’ the argument. I don’t see arguments as won or lost, they evolve. They only evolve if the participants are willing to adjust, compromise and acknowledge the counterarguments. Not everyone can do this. Perhaps not even many can, IMO.
When faced with a questionable finding in an audit, there are a number of strategies one can take to persuade the auditor to your position. The best strategy is to be honest with the auditor and acknowledge the appearance of weakness of your position. Ultimately I am trying to move the auditors position from 4 to 2 or 3 (if I think 1 is not warranted). The auditor wants to show he is in position 1. To move him to 2 or 3 requires working with the auditor. Some auditors are willing to work with the auditee to resolve the issue, some are not…. some need to be worked on over the span of the audit. If we can work to a compromise about what we are really after in the audit, more times than not the auditor will back away from the finding and let it go. This has been my experience (which is the movement from position 4 to 3).
There is a question about flak taken by Judy about the pause based upon the comment ‘recall all the flack I took last year for talking about the pause?’. The auditor is looking for evidence about the flak taken. Some evidence was supplied to the auditor by a third person. The auditor dismisses the third person evidence as not specific to the comment and acknowledges there is flak surrounding the subject of the audit. Each talks past the other a couple times. I question the auditor about what evidence he is looking for to close the finding. Auditor asks what I think about one of the pieces of evidence in this context. I bite knowing the auditor has a purpose to this question. Auditor explains his position based on my response.
1) Auditor acknowledges Judy takes flak in many areas including the pause.
2) I acknowledge third persons evidence is not rock solid specific to the pause.
The compromise:
Consider each instance of flak (disparaging blog comments etc) as data points. When do we see upticks in data points? The day before the Mail article came out, was there an uptick? Something has to trigger flak events. When Judy talked about the pause, we saw an uptick in data points. Whether the data points are old ones being rehashed or specific to the trigger, there are more after the trigger than before it. If talking about the pause is the trigger, there was more flak directed toward Judy after it than before it, no? Does this not support the claim Judy made?
How charitable of an auditor do we have today?
John,
Thanks for this. I don’t have much time this week-end, but let’s return to Judge Judy’s rhetorical question:
> Recall all the flack I took last year for talking about the ‘pause’?
We can agree that she took flak, but was this flak really for talking about the ‘pause’? This rhetorical question does seem to hint that Judge Judy received flak because she deemed to talk about the flak.
Not because of what she said exactly, nor because to whom she said it, but because she deemed to say it.
And what she said is not supposed to be unlike what Hansen, Trenberth, Pierrhumbert, or Santer said.
And yet we don’t have a link to what she said nor to the flak, so we have no means to verify what was the critical basis for this flak.
And yet all the flak we have comes from the Dittoheads, whereas Judy declared her interests, which excluded the Dittoheads, except perhaps to dismiss them or use them as flak throwers. How is the flak from the Dittoheads relevant to Judge Judy’s purpose?
***
Besides, you’ll notice that the first part of ze da paws quote has an interesting formulation:
> There is no scientific basis for saying that warming hasn’t stopped.
Compare and contrast:
> There is no scientific basis for saying that God does not exist.
There is an interesting lichurchur on the use of double negations, which spans from psychology to logical intuitionnism.
***
Considering Judge Judy’s self-declared interests, auditors ought to wonder why we shan’t try to find flak from comparable authorities, and see the critical basis of that flak coming from comparable authorities.
Mocking Nutticelli and the Dittoheads might not be the best way to fight tribalism, even more so if there’s a lack of interest in p**ing matches.
Hope this helps,
w
Hi Willard
Is this the threead Judith is referring to regarding controversy over the pause? At its foot are links to further articles on the controversy
http://judithcurry.com/2012/10/14/pause-discussion-thread/
tonyb
Only Judge Judy knows.
Here’s another one, which Al Lakos won:
http://judithcurry.com/2012/10/17/pause-waving-the-italian-flag/
It could also be this one:
http://judithcurry.com/2012/10/16/pause-discussion-thread-part-ii/
There is also this one, which dates back from a bit more than a year, but about which somebody, somewhere most probably gave some flak to Judge Judy:
http://judithcurry.com/2011/11/04/pause/
There is also this more recent one:
http://judithcurry.com/2013/01/16/hansen-on-the-standstill/
This other one is in the correct time frame:
http://judithcurry.com/2012/10/21/sunday-mail-again/
This one has more than 1,000 comments, too!
Another one in 2012 with more than 1,000 comments:
http://judithcurry.com/2012/02/07/trends-change-points-hypotheses/
wow, FOMD has much etiquette to teach, I wish him much pretty pony power
Time out to wave the transparent flag
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/05/08/ipcc_vs_holland_foi/
Speaking of transparency:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-29/billionaires-flee-havens-as-trillions-pursued-offshore.html
Not that it matters much to the auditing sciences.
“Not that it matters much to the auditing sciences.”
we will leave that fight to you. divide and conquer under the transparent flag
Even better, with mug shots:
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/super-richs-offshore-tax-avoidance-213052491.html
hey willard did you realize that fracking success in the US is due to transparency and open data?
One of the interesting differences between the US and China.
How interesting.
I’d rather stay with flakking right now.
More exactly, what was the flak about, again?
Here’s Heinrich the Norwegian Elkhound:
http://judithcurry.com/2012/10/17/pause-waving-the-italian-flag/#comment-257077
This was left unanswered.
Perhaps this was not what Judge Judy had in mind.
willard,
‘what was the flak about, again?”
I can post it for you, I can link to it for you, but I cannot understand it for you. No one can. If you you don’t see the flak, here is a hand. Put another way, if you don’t see the flak, if you deny that there is flak, then read harder. If you still don’t see the flak, then we can agree to disagree. Nothing much turns on the fact that you don’t see what Judith see’s, or that you don’t feel what she feels.
‘If you [Judge Judy] spent half as much time on this blog actually explaining climate science as you do defining and defending your personal affiliations and complaining about how everyone else is doing it wrong, people might learn something.”
This was left unanswered because there is no question.
If Judith spent half as much time explaining science as she does complaining about how everyone else is doing it wrong, she would spend no time explaining science because half of zero is zero.
Put another way. Calculate the amount of time she spends complaining about how everyone else is doing it wrong.
links please and your spreadsheet showing an estimate of time.
> This was left unanswered because there is no question.
Wrong answer.
My response “Wrong answer” should suffice to see how wrong is this answer. Sometimes, people do answer to criticism.
Flak does seem to be some kind of criticism. Such criticism could very well contain a request for justification. At the very least, it implicitly asks for an acknowledgement.
Appealing to pity does seem to provide some kind of answer to flak.
Again, what flak did Judy had in mind?
Hen this will be clarified, we should be able to see how this relates to Judy’s one-line op-ed.
“Again, what flak did Judy had in mind?”
you’ve been given a bunch of examples. If you dont see them as flak
then you dont see them as flak. let me repeat that. If you dont see them as flak, then you dont see them as flak. What can anyone say except,
Judith saw the criticism of her as flak. What she says is interesting, I try to find the truth in it. If I were her what would I see as flak? Trying to be charitable about her claim.
First and foremost the flak she received for suggesting that models are wrong. Second the flak she got for not criticizing Rose. Third the flak she got for suggesting the pause was real. 4th the cricticism she got for suggesting that natural cycles may play a role. 5th the flak she got for suggesting that we could see decades of the same going forward.
For suggesting models are wrong, now we have santer admitting that they may have gotten forcings wrong. She gets flak, but you wont see Chris Colose slamming Santer
The flak she got for not correcting all of Rose’s mistakes. valid flak in my mind, but flak nonetheless.
Third the flak for suggesting the pause was real. Now we have Hansen and others recognizing what she said. The pause is a great opportunity to learn more.
The criticism of her interest in cycles? man I hate her interest in cycle. But Now we have the climarati acknowledging PDO.
The flak she got for suggesting potential cooling ahead? absolutely on par with old Hansen suggestions that the next el nino was around the corner. every body gets to have an opinion.
> you’ve been given a bunch of examples
No, I’ve been given links. Do I have to construct the examples myself as to what was flak to Judge Judy? All we have so far is:
> Ah, the dittoheads, thanks for the links.
So, thanks for the links.
***
Now, what about examples taken from these links?
Here’s the first link:
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2012/10/23/more-on-david-roses-nonsense/
What Chewbacca’s move (“the latest David Rose/Judith Curry nonsense”) the example of flak MoshPit wished to bring on the table?
If that is so, how is this supposed to be related to Judy’s ad misericordiam?
***
This “latest David Rose/Judith Curry nonsense” op-ed by “Dittohead” Tamino refers to this post:
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2012/10/21/temperature-analysis-by-david-rose-doesnt-smell-so-sweet/
There is no mention of Judy in that blog post.
So, how’s this “latest David Rose/Judith Curry nonsense” about Judy at all?
It it audit. It it awe. Audit, audit. Audit awe.
==========================
Mosher
You are a strange one to criticize others for unsupportable positions.
sorry you are missing my sarcasm..
And then people wonder why Fan uses emoticons.
willard FOMD uses emoticons because he is kawaii
I don’t wonder about the emoticons.
Perhaps you should wonder about the pom-poms instead, timg
Kawaii: not caring is essential
No pom-poms willard.
That’s your weak attempt at characterisation.
Why you get annoyed at my enjoying the schooling Mosher does to folks here on a regular basis only you can explain. That you are among those schooled is your own doing.
You’re cheer leading, timg.
Pom poms you’re waving.
willard,
Know the difference between an observation and cheer leading?
Or are you punch drunk from the beating Mosher is laying on you?
timg,
One can make an observation for the sake of cheer leading: “you look pale”, “you’re sweating”, “you’re punch drunk”, etc. Please do distinguish the speech act from its function.
Fess it: that you oftentimes root for Moshpit makes it tough for you to keep these pom poms hidden from everyone to see.
The canonical term for what you’ve been doing is “Me Too”, btw.
gosh, some folks make observations to cheer and others make observations to boo.
pom poms are nice. they tell me that somebody has charity and has worked to see the truth in what i say.
so thank you timg56 for working hard to find some points of agreement, you have honor and integrity.
You have honor and integrity,
Says Big Dog to Me Too.
> I certainly see things that i would take as flak, I dont know that everyone would take them as flak
Then Moshpit’s whiteknighting, while amusing, lacks relevance.
So, what was the flak?
What was it about?
How does it relate to our actual story?
Willard: She took flak. You’re being dense. I have no idea why Mosher even bothers writing responses to you.
Scott Basinger,
Running away with the ad misericordiam has to stop.
Either Judge Judy sticks to science, or not.
Scott
‘Willard: She took flak. You’re being dense. I have no idea why Mosher even bothers writing responses to you.”
it’s amusing. I mean seriously.
Judith thinks she got flak.
Either She’s lying about her perception or that’s her perception.
lets be charitable as Willard often suggests and assume this is her honest perception. That perception is one we can understand or not.
Willard chooses to not understand it or pretends to not understand it, or
refuses to say whether he understands it or not., or looks to the left when its pointed out on the right. Me, i can understand it.
Now, understanding it requires no great mental feat, so I find Willards responses puzzling. But I like puzzles. Sometimes however puzzles cant be solved. shrugs. It would be nice if folks would just stick to the science,
but that term “the science” is very squishy and we all use that term as a weapon against folks who are talking about stuff we dont like.
now did Judith really take flak? willard says no. he’s entitled to his perception. Same as Judith is entitled to her perception. They both make sense in my world. Although there are always degrees.
Oh look. Yet another handbag fight over the irredeemably inane and off topic. In other words business as usual for Mosher and his weak but ever-present foil Wee Willie Winkie. Gag me with a spoon.
Making an explicit argument would show be even more amusing.
INTEGRITY ™ — Ad Misericordiam Handwave.
“Making an explicit argument would show be even more amusing.”
There you go with that word explicit. as you know not all arguments are deductive, nor are all arguments explicit. you’ve made that clear before why repeat yourself? you dont think she got flak. we get that. And that matters how? She thinks she got flak. lots of people can see the truth in that. it makes sense to them. it makes no sense to you? fine. If we can stipulate that the kinds of things said about Judith do not constitute flak, then I’m happy to live with whatever you want to call it and practice the same with your endorsement.
And willard
” the ad misericordiam has to stop.”
Whereever did you get the idea that Judith noting that she got flak was an appeal to emotion? There is no appeal that her argument is correct on this account. It’s more like
She says pause. colose says she is irrational
hansen says pause. crickets.
Judith says: hey? WTF
Judith says pause. tamino says shes no expert and wont answer
questions from a man known to abuse women who visit his blog.
Hansen says pause. the bulldog is silent. he only hits girls.
Judith says : hey WTF.
if anything its a misplaced appeal for fairness, which we know you are incapable of.
Yet another untruth:
> Not all arguments are deductive, nor are all arguments explicit. you’ve made that clear before […]?
That not all arguments are deductive is irrelevant to the fact that Judge Judy’s **main** argument in her op-ed is implicit. That not all arguments are explicit has nothing to do with the obligation to substantiate one’s claim. To imply a contradiction out of this lacks integrity.
***
Yet another untruth:
> you dont think she got flak. we get that.
This is false. Judge Judy gets flak day in, day out. What matters is the flak she’s using in her implicit argument.
If Judge Judy wishes to convey the idea that what she said to Leake, Rose, or anyone else about da paws is similar to what the scientists she quotes are saying, then we need to see that.
If Judge Judy wishes to convey the idea that she got undeserved flak about her claims about da paws from the Dittoheads, then show the flak too.
Judge Judy should do her homework.
> Whereever did you get the idea that Judith noting that she got flak was an appeal to emotion?
Because she mentions the flak without paying due diligence about the point of this flak. The Dittoheads sent Judy some flak. As auditors ought to say:
> Boo hoo
http://neverendingaudit.tumblr.com/post/522052748
Moshpit writes: “She says pause. colose says she is irrational
hansen says pause. crickets.
Judith says: hey? WTF
Judith says pause. tamino says shes no expert and wont answer
questions from a man known to abuse women who visit his blog.
Hansen says pause. the bulldog is silent. he only hits girls.
Judith says : hey WTF.”
This. Exactly.
Willard: Still being dense. It doesn’t matter what else is said, the point is she got flak for pointing out the Pause. Now it’s the elephant in the room that nobody can avoid, Team apologists have to address the issue. She took flak at the time for simply pointing out the Pause, not the rest of the implication.
In non-pathological fields of study, she would be considered prescient and her opinion would be sought after. In the bizzaro-world of climate science you get discussions like this one.
The natural willard is bizarrely represented in the climate flak/hack/hate/spate topsy turvey Big Top. Toto took his shoes and expects him to find his own damn way home.
==============
> It doesn’t matter what else is said, the point is she got flak for pointing out the Pause.
That remains to be shown.
> She took flak at the time for simply pointing out the Pause, not the rest of the implication.
Repeating the meme does not make it true.
***
It might be important to recall what people say, since “Hansen says pause” does not represent what is being quoted of him in our current op-ed:
If we merge the two emphasized expressions together, we get the negative climate forcing by the aerosol portion of the amplified Faustian bargain. Is this really an equivalent to “pause”?
Also notice what is being predicated: “remains largely unquantified”. Yes, but uncertainty. The point of Hansen’s quote is not to say that there is da paws, but that we are still looking for an explanation of it.
***
Seeking out to explain da paws does not seem to be at the same rhetorical level than:
> Nothing in the Met Office’s statement […] effectively refutes Mr Rose’s argument that there has been no increase in the global average surface temperature for the past 16 years.
Incidentally, this quote does not even claim there is a pause. Nor does it directly talks about the pause either: it talks about Mr. Rose’s argument. Judge Judy does not say “there’s a pause”, she says “Scientists have not refuted the claim that there is a pause”.
Double negatives and straight talk might not got well together.
Cap’n –
When people refer to “global warming,” they generally are not referring to “an increase in mean land surface temps,” but to “climate change/disruption.” Judith certainly must know that.
That is precisely why I am saying that it is illogical to say that you outright dismiss those who question the GHE, and then to turn around and say that “global warming has paused” if we are increasing the proportion of ACO2 in our climate.
Now that is a subject for legitimate skeptical scrutiny, IMO. “Flak” is not an appropriate response to such scrutiny. But what you described there is notably different than “global warming has paused.”
I will add, however, that much of the argumentation about the trend of land surface temps falling outside of the 95% CI, vis-a-vis “global warming has paused,” is similarly being played for rhetorical purposes. Until there might be sufficient evidence that the mean of SATs, after falling outside the 95% CI for a while might not just go right back into the 95% CI band a few years later, the fact that they have fallen outside the 96% CI is important, and supports skeptical scrutiny – but it does not make the case that “global warming has paused.”
The tribalism of others does not explain why I would use tribalistic rhetoric – nor does it explain why Judith is selective in her criticism of tribalistic rhetoric.
Of course he does. That is my point.
Jousua, “That is precisely why I am saying that it is illogical to say that you outright dismiss those who question the GHE, and then to turn around and say that “global warming has paused” if we are increasing the proportion of ACO2 in our climate.”
Surface temperature is a metric, “Global Warming” is related to that metric. Since there has been attention focused on that metric for what ever reasons, there is nothing “unfair” about using that metric in a counter argument. You are stuck in a logical fallacy.
When Mann for example, sticks that metric on the end of a paleo reconstruction, it becomes a sales pitch, not science. You can use the “mommy, mommy etc” but that is just politics. Science would be showing projections falling out side of 95% confidence level then grinning.
As far as dismissing those that question GHE, there are levels of dismissal. I say that an increase of 3.7 Wm-2 of total atmospheric forcing will cause 0.8C or less increase in “average” surface temperature. That is not dismissing GHE, that is just a lower estimate of the GHE based on the estimated DWLR for lack of a better term and the source of that DWLR, the oceans. It is actually not a bad estimate and has a number of “real” scientists that agree. Should I be dismissed?
Cap’n –
joshua, “When people refer to “global warming,” they generally are not referring to “an increase in mean land surface temps,” but to “climate change/disruption.” Judith certainly must know that.”
Has Judith been promoted to mind reader? Judith posted on Rose who used “Global warming” “Pause” and surface temperature. The hockey stick is an icon of “global warming” based on reconstructed “surface temperature”. It has only been recently that the “believers” switched to heat content. So she felt the post was worth comment. Did she feel that way because it is politically or scientifically relevant? Do you think Tamino’s massage of the “surface temperature” was politically or scientifically motivated? Instead of coming out with an “opinion” on the motivations of others all the time, she posts and reads the comments.
You seem to be implying she is Saint Judith of Arc when she is often just getting feed back by stirring the pot a little. This post was great BTW, I think Willard blew a few synapses. Unfortunately, this probably means there will be another boring psychology post next instead of the asymmetry post.
> You seem to be implying she is Saint Judith of Arc when she is often just getting feed back by stirring the pot a little. This post was great BTW, I think Willard blew a few synapses. Unfortunately, this probably means there will be another boring psychology post next instead of the asymmetry post.
Unless you have special connections with neurologists, I will surmise that you are just jesting, Cap’n. And you’d be wrong, for I think Judge Judy may have a point. On the other hand, please consider Judge Judy’s self-avowed intention:
http://judithcurry.com/2012/10/16/pause-discussion-thread-part-ii/#comment-256759
This declaration of self-interest goes a bit against your pot stirring theory, since stirring the pot might not be enough to eradicate groupthink, whatever that means.
In fact, I fail to see how we can be serious about eradicating groupthink and handwave ad misericordiam an argument that, if taken seriously, could help eradicate groupthink.
But if Judge Judy prefers to mock Dittoheads, I think your comment has even more merit, Cap’n.
Willard, “This declaration of self-interest goes a bit against your pot stirring theory, ” No, that link is perfectly consistent with pot stirring.
“But if Judge Judy prefers to mock Dittoheads, I think your comment has even more merit, Cap’n.” I think she doesn’t much cares about the dittoheads. Her post on Stephen’s Energy Budget took mocking a touch higher up the food chain. Also her not too covert posts on ethics weren’t directed toward the low end of the food chain. There are bigger fish to fry.
That’s on the low side, the effective rise for 3.7 W/m^2 is 3C in the steady state, and about 2C with the ocean acting as a heat sink in the transient state. This latter state may last a long time until the rates start to equilibrate.
Joshua
When IPCC referred to “global warming” in its past summary reports, it was referring to an increase in the “globally and annually averaged land and sea surface temperature anomaly”, as reported as “HadCRUT3”.
(This makes sense, since it is, after all, the temperature that we humans would feel if AGW were really causing a significant warming,)
When IPCC projected future warming of 0.15C to 0.3C per decade (in TAR) or 0.2C per decade (in AR4), it was referring to a projected increase in this “GAAALASSTA”.
It appears to me that now that there has been NO increase in this indicator as was projected by IPCC, I hear the sound of goalposts being moved and parameters being changed.
Max
Web
To the comment:
you responded:
You are spouting theory and model predictions here, Webby. There is no empirical evidence to support your claim.
Hansen’ now infamous 1988 projection of warming was based on the same theoretical model-derived figure you have cited – and it turned out to be off by a factor of 2:1.
Latest (at least partly) observation-based estimates (several of them since 2011) also indicate that your estimate is exaggerated by a factor of around 2:1.
So I would respond to you:
Max
Cap’n,
There are bigger fish to fry indeed. Auditors ought then to compare how David Appell’s article starts:
with Judge Judy’s double negatives:
The first quote is by a small fish. The second quote is by a bigger fish.
Does’nt that smell a bit fishy?
Willard, It definitely depends on whether you are picking sides or now. Personally, I thought the MET office response was hilarious. From memory, the release said something like there was a warming trend of 0.034C +/- 0.012C (95% confidence interval). Now if you happen to know the difference between the real margin of error and the silly number that a spreadsheet will spit out, you would get the joke. If you don’t, you might think that the MET office had said something profound and devastating to Rose’s position.
So if you happen to “believe” the significance of the MET office response, you would have one point of view and if you happen to know that the MET office was blowing smoke up your ass, you would have another point of view. It really boils down to gullibility and ignorance.
Who’s ignorant?
Cap’n,
You have the quote and the link to MET’s response?
Meanwhile, please tell us more about Judge Judy’s double negatives.
Willard, “You have the quote and the link to MET’s response?”
http://metofficenews.wordpress.com/2012/10/14/met-office-in-the-media-14-october-2012/
Clive Best questioned the confidence in the “about” 0.03 C in the original response and got the 0.034 +/- 0.011 (95% confidence) in the blog comments.
http://clivebest.com/blog/?p=4237
Cap’n,
Thanks for the link.
I’m not sure to what does refer Met Office’s statement. Could be a response to David Rose’s loaded question Q.1 “First, please confirm that they do indeed reveal no warming trend since 1997.”:
The emphasis sentence should does seem to offer a response to David Rose’s loaded question, don’t you think?
***
I note that you preferred to link to Clive Best than to comment on Judge Judy’s double negatives, which is relevant here:
Judge Judy’s double negatives does not confirm anything about the pause. All it does is to disconfirm that the MET could anything about David Rose’s claim.
Do you agree about this reading?
***
Now, this could mean at least two things:
(H1) David Rose’s made a scientific claim which has not been refuted yet.
(H2) David Rose’s made a claim that lies outside the MET’s scientific authority.
In either case, Judge Judy’s double negatives does not confirm what David Rose asked the MET Office to confirm.
Do you agree?
***
I note that you estimate that MET’s Office statement was “hilarious”. This “hilarity” (I hope you appreciate how I can use your favourite kind of quotes too) seems to rest on “the difference between the real margin of error and the silly number that a spreadsheet will spit out”. Do you have access to the “real margin of error”? Perhaps Clive Best?
Contrarians do seem to have all the right connections, don’t you think?
***
Finally, I have no idea if the MET office had said something profound and devastating to Rose’s position, since Rose’s position might not even be a scientific one. What I do know is that this response:
http://metofficenews.wordpress.com/2012/10/14/met-office-in-the-media-14-october-2012/
shows how “suboptimal” David Rose’s claim that the Met Office made no comment about its climate predictions “really” is, if I may use your favorite kind of quotes.
Do you agree with this?
Many thanks!
Willard, “The emphasis sentence should does seem to offer a response to David Rose’s loaded question, don’t you think?”
In a defensive way, yes. Had they been a tad more “scientific” they could have said, “yes, the current trend from Rose’s selected point is statistically insignificant. With a margin of error of +/- x, considering only a linear trend, it was last significant from y date. There has been a reduction in the overall trend.”
That would have been a more realistic response. Rose’s job is to print “loaded” questions to sell papers. The MET office job is meteorology not “spin”. Since the UK Parliament is asking rather pointed statistical methodology questions of late, I would reckon that Rose won that round.
It just boils down to your personal biases. I thought it was hilarious. I thought lolwot’s and others creative linear regression approaches to “deny” the pause were hilarious as well. I am just here to watch the train wreck.
willard
Let’s compare and grade the two statements you cited based on logic and scientific objectivity:
“Li’l Fish”, David Appell:
This is more a “call for action” than an objective scientific statement of fact. If “15 years is simply too short a period from which to draw statistically valid conclusions”, then we should wait until the period of no warming is long enough “to draw statistically valid conculsions” BEFORE we draw any conclusions calling for action.
Grade
Objectivity: D-
Logic: F
“Big Fish”, Judith Curry:
A simple objective statement of the observed fact that there was “nothing in the Met Office statement”, which “refutes Mr Rose’s argument that there has been no increase in the global average surface temperature for the past 16 years”.. No hysteria, no “call for action”. To quote Detective Friday of old: “Just the facts, ma’am”
Grade
Objectivity: A
Logic: A+
Max
Cap’n,
Glad we agree that the emphasized sentence seems to provide an answer to David Rose’s loaded question.
Now, let’s compare your suggested statement with the MET Office’s:
(S1) The current trend from Rose’s selected point is statistically insignificant. With a margin of error of +/- x, considering only a linear trend, it was last significant from y date. There has been a reduction in the overall trend.
(S2) [C]hoosing a starting or end point on short-term scales can be very misleading. Climate change can only be detected from multi-decadal timescales due to the inherent variability in the climate system. […] The current period of reduced warming is not unprecedented and 15 year long periods are not unusual.
http://metofficenews.wordpress.com/2012/10/14/met-office-in-the-media-14-october-2012/
I like S1, but I’m not sure how S2 is a tad less “scientific”. S2 might sound a tad less “statistical” than S1, but I hope we agree that being “statistical” is a tad different than being “scientific”.
***
The MET Office version adds enough arguments in their expanded version of S2 to warrant that choosing a starting or end point on short-term scales can be very misleading. And in fact, the Daily Mail did admit of cherry-picking:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2220722/Global-warming-The-Mail-Sunday-answers-world-warming-not.html
I don’t think that MET’s argumentation consitutes the same kind of “spin” by which plays populist outlets like the Daily Mail. Presenting these arguments does seem to me to fall within its mandate. Countering populist spin with facts that everyone can verify sounds fair enough to me.
***
Besides, According to the MET Office, David Rose’s op-ed contains other misleading information, which sounds like an understatement, as the title from David Rose’s op-ed contains at least one false claim:
The Daily Mail got caught telling yet another untruth, don’t you agree?
***
Publishing misleading and untrue statements can certainly help sell papers and stir up parlementaries. If that’s be considered legitimate, I don’t think the MET Office could expect to ever win against such guerilla tactics. So I suppose it will have to be satisfied with having done its job the best it could.
Which can always be questioned and mocked. This should good news to contrarians. But then, we know about this dynamics since at least Ra and Osiris.
Willard, ” I don’t think the MET Office could expect to ever win against such guerilla tactics. So I suppose it will have to be satisfied with having done its job the best it could.”
Why should you think the have anything to win? The science in this case is all statistical, they should have issue a simple press release like 1) and dropped it. When they issued the number, 0.03 they left themselves open, then screwed the pooch. Less is more in a press release most of the time. People actually read those silly things.
> Why should you think they have anything to win?
That’s what I’m wondering, Cap’n. However we model the interaction between the MET Office and David Rose, putting David Rose’s loaded question into some scientific perspective does seem a good idea. This hurly burly would at the very least have this perspective as a constructive outcome.
***
In the comment thread, there’s a response from Dave Britton (at 10:48:21) that sounds like good news to you:
http://metofficenews.wordpress.com/2012/10/14/met-office-in-the-media-14-october-2012/
It does seem that the MET Office stood by the number that brings you joy, Cap’n, while keeping an eye on the “trend”.
manaker
‘ Mathematics teaches us that 15 years is simply too short a period from which to draw statistically valid conclusions.”
This isn’t even true. You can draw valid conclusions from any number of years. Moreover the lack of more than 15 years of data doesnt stop anyone from seeing that the models are busted when it comes to ice predictions.. Did you ever see a post about how it was too early to claim that models were getting ice wrong? that would interesting to look at..
Willard, “David Rose, putting David Rose’s loaded question into some scientific perspective does seem a good idea.”
David Rose, said there was a “pause” in the warming. “Pause” is not your everyday scientific term, but for any layperson looking at the chart, it would appear that there is not a whole lot of warming going on.
When the MET office attempts to explain there is not really a “pause” they are in a no win situation. When they attempt to nit pick the obvious, they start heading down hill. They really should be intelligent enough to realize that and simply state that the rate of warming is less than expected which “may be” due to this or that but it depends on the starting point. End of response. That is called Keep It Simple Stupid, KISS. KISS is actually a scientific term :)
By not letting this sleeping dog lie, climate science is under a more powerful microscope. Believe it or not, there are people to this day making a mountain out of this molehill. Yes, Willard, I know you find that shocking, but there are people that will keep beating this dead horse. :)
Cap’n,
I wanted to write
The KISS principle sure is sound advice. Next time you’ll ask for more clarification, I’ll remind you of it.
Speaking of which, this:
> Had the Met Office followed the KISS principle (H/T Cap’n), it might not have seemed that they have not missed addressing (1) and (2).
http://judithcurry.com/2013/05/13/lennart-bengtsson-on-global-climate-change/#comment-321659
might not be unrelated to our discussion.
> Yes I have identified it.
To identify the flak, you need to quote it, link to it, describe its content, circumscribe its object, and explain its relevance to our topic at hand.
Moshpit offered four links. These lead to two op-eds at Tamino’s. These links do not suffice to substantiate his rational reconstruction of Judy’s ad misericordiam.
His ad hominem has no bite against the fact that he’d need to step up his game to offer his audience a credible white knight impersonation. He can try again, this time with more feeling. By chance Moshpit’s having fun.
***
Perhaps Moshpit could try to find some flak coming from somebody else than the Dittoheads, since:
> It doesn’t matter really; both sides engage in this kind of behavior, it is part and parcel of the media and politics. I am far more interested in the public statements of scientists […]
Having clearly identified flak from scientists would a lot more interesting, considering the interest emphasized and the fact that our current op-ed mainly copy-pastes public statement of scientists.
Not that I mind paying due diligence to what Dittoheads say in the meantime.
last I checked, Eli, Chris Colose, Grant Foster and dana were scientists.
And of course there are the anonymous scientists whose identity we can only surmise by looking at certain IP data.
Please note, Judith’s “interest” even in that regard is quite selective. She’s not interested in the public statements of “skeptical” scientists when they insult and slander other scientists, analogize environmentalists to eugenicists, make it clear that they are political advocates, etc. (On the other hand, her “interest” seems to perk up when non-scientist “realists” give people flak.
‘Please note, Judith’s “interest” even in that regard is quite selective. She’s not interested in the public statements of “skeptical” scientists when they insult and slander other scientists, analogize environmentalists to eugenicists, make it clear that they are political advocates, etc. (On the other hand, her “interest” seems to perk up when non-scientist “realists” give people flak.”
################################
all interest is selective. I’m not sure how you quantify “quite selective” , perhaps thats just your bias at work. Further Judith may not write about all things that get her interest. i know this because she will often say ‘I’m interested, but don’t have time to write about it.” But yes its true that she doesnt take much interest in people calling for the execution of denialists. To her credit she usually stays away from the more insane rantings of both sides.
Right on, Mosh
A frightened young blogger named Josh
Started arguing logic with Mosh
The went ’round in rings,
Wrote incredible things
But Mosh was the winner, by Gosh.
First, let’s note that mentioning Eli reminds us of yet another untruth by Moshpit:
> There wasn’t any quote from Eli there.
http://judithcurry.com/2013/05/07/more-on-the-pause/#comment-320274
***
Second, here was the context where Judge Judy’s self-declaration of interest resurfaced:
http://judithcurry.com/2012/10/16/pause-discussion-thread-part-ii/#comment-256738
The exchange Judge Judy mentions does seem to be the kind of “public statements of scientists” she’s referring to. She opposes that to the media and politics. The division between “statements of scientists” and “media and politics” deserves due diligence. To which kind should be subsumed statements to Congress?
***
Moshpit is certainly right in suggesting the possibility that Judge Judy is interested in other forms of exchanges between scientists. But then he’d have some more parsomatics to perfect his white knighting:
http://judithcurry.com/2012/10/16/pause-discussion-thread-part-ii/#comment-255482
It would be quite interesting to know how running away with a talking point against Nuticelli and the Dittoheads pursues scientific truth or communicates this to the public in an honest way. This would be interesting to know independently from the supposition that the ad mericordiam was indeed targetting them, something we have yet to have a confirmation. This would also be interesting to know regarding the use of a double negatives in ze da paws statement, which has the form:
huh willard.. no quote from Eli? As I quoted before.
“Evidently Prof. Curry operated on the Bushian principle of the one about fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on you.”
Here are the four links provided:
No comment from Eli in those links.
Just lazy white-knighting.
since eli’s quote was in the link you provided its kinda like you having the yamal dataset
So, I went to the links you provided. found Eli’s quote. Went to Tammy’s
Why would I give you a link you already provided?
> since eli’s quote was in the link you provided
Nuticelli was also in the link I already provided:
http://judithcurry.com/2012/10/16/pause-discussion-thread-part-ii/#comment-255537
***
Since all the links lead to a post where Tamino links to Nuticelli, and that his own Voice of God refers to a previous encounter with Judge Judy, may not have learned much from our White Knight’s dumpster dive.
Pheww …a hole lotta shakin’ goin’ on. Bts
Judith, the undeniable pause is only loosely connected to estimates of ECS. One can get to 1.5-1.9 ECS without any pause in warming what-so-ever, as posted previously.
What is interesting is the necessarily increasing natural variability that confounds all the models, including their inferred ECS.
Much work to do on the basic climate science.
Rud Istvan
Your comment confirms the statement:
“Don’t underestimate Nature – she’s a Mother”
Max
manacker | May 8, 2013 at 3:24 am |
So.. you’re making some closeted misogynistic statement about Nature that means we ought believe ‘She’ is _less_ sensitive to our thoughtless ways?
Playing the PC card?
High horse once again demostrates he can be as classless as the least of them.
Bart R
“Misogynistic?”
Huh?
“She” is in charge here, Bart – get used to it.
“We” are just bit players.
Don’t ever forget that.
Max
manacker | May 9, 2013 at 6:45 pm | & timg56 | May 8, 2013 at 6:29 pm |
Hard to know where to start disentangling the muddled thinking.
First, it’s a sad day for someone when I’m considered the PC guy anywhere. Have you never read my comments?
Freudian references to the mommy issues revealed in comments are neither politically correct, nor political.
As manacker’s firm conviction that mommy is in charge and that he’s used to it reaffirms the Oedipal analysis, we can be pretty sure he’s exposing a deeper hangup, not providing meaningful logic.
After all, no one claims ‘we’ are in control, either.
When was the last time your, or anyone’s, destructive lack of self awareness and self control had a positive impact on the mommies in your, or their, life?
Our actions have consequences. We can’t keep blaming our mommies.
Yo Mama let out a big Bart.
=======
Bart R
Are you off your meds again?
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
All the skeptics talk about ECS as if they understand what it means.
Web
Kevin Trenberth says:
…the Pacific Ocean phenomena that are not yet captured by climate models.
Why not you?
Web
Santer says:
It’s certainly the case that we got some of the forcings wrong,
Why not you?
Girma croaks:
I have no idea what you are trying to say. How much are you suffering?
In his way he is signalling the insanity of the dweeb – Laplace’s long haired leaping gnome. Such a wondrous intellect for whom all is certainty.
Chief,
I am honored to be compared to Laplace or anyone he was associated with. One of my favorite quotes, and one that I used in my book on natural resource modeling is
“The theory of probabilities is at bottom nothing but common sense reduced to calculus.”
— Pierre-Simon Laplace,
Théorie analytique des probabilités, 1820
Chief says:
Au contraire, Laplace is considered one of the fathers of modern day probability theory. Bayes theorem could have just as easily been called Laplace’s theorem. Laplace deeply understood the mathematics behind uncertainty.
Hope this helps with your historical knowledge, Chief.
but weirdly its not possible to get sensitivity wrong in Santers mind
Could there be fat tails on both sides of the distribution.
Bob Droege, “Could there be fat tails on both sides of the distribution.”
Well that would be inconvenient.
bob droege | May 8, 2013 at 5:10 pm |
Could there be fat tails on both sides of the distribution.
##########
No. there is long tail on the high side.
In the introduction to his 1814 Essai philosophique sur les probabilités, Pierre-Simon Laplace extended an idea of Gottfried Leibniz which became famous as Laplace’s Demon, the locus classicus definition of strict physical determinism, with its one possible future.
Laplace said,
“We may regard the present state of the universe as the effect of its past and the cause of its future. An intellect which at a certain moment would know all forces that set nature in motion, and all positions of all items of which nature is composed, if this intellect were also vast enough to submit these data to analysis, it would embrace in a single formula the movements of the greatest bodies of the universe and those of the tiniest atom; for such an intellect nothing would be uncertain and the future just like the past would be present before its eyes.”
Seriously Judith – I question your ability to discriminate between serious comment and otherwise. Surely a quote from Laplace lends gravitas? How can preening and prattling not be accurate and a pale imitation of the abusive style of the dweeb? And how can Laplace’s long haired leaping gnome not be funny? Even if he doesn’t get the reference and thinks that Laplace actually hung out with gnomes?
Laplace would understand the idea of long-tails. OTOH, the Chief tucks the tail between his legs in embarrassment.
You do such odd things dweeb. A mole of air for the entire atmosphere. An assumed power law for movement of a gas from one compartment to another – in lieu of the carbon cycle. Heat diffusing from the atmosphere to the oceans instead of the real complex flows of energy in the environment – and another power law. And then you prattle and preen as if it actually means anything.
It would perhaps mean something if you understood the complexities first and then achieved a radical synthesis that has escaped everyone else thus far. That is why – instead of Laplace’s demon – you are a mere gnome.
The Chief lashes out because he does not have what it takes, and never will.
Food fight at Curry Middle School.
Harold – I made what was a quite serious and concise point about the nature of webby’s gross simplifications – and was ignoring the latest dross.
Check it out if you have any capacity at all. Otherwise take your ill-considered inanities and shove them.
That’s how Chief does his mathematical modeling. He feeds spew into a rhetoric compiler.
Is this tag team inanity? Address the gross simplifications – instead of repeating content less drivel.
Calling curve fitting using fantasy physics mathematical modelling is really very funny – and don’t act all injured innocence about my mild jibes after your inveterate and unsophisticated abuse. Really it is like having a discussion with an ill-mannered 5 year old.
Keep it up Chief. Everytime you open your mouth, people realize that you are no different than the other Aussie kranks like Myrrrhhh, StephTheDenier, Doug Cotton, Girma, and the rest that populate this message board.
If this is your pranking plan, it ain’t working. So, like I said, keep it up.
Webby writes (corrected):
Manacker constantly tries to change the laws of physics to suit his needs. He uses the technique of belligerent assertion with a huge dose of dripping condescension thrown in.
‘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.’ http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch3s3-4-4-1.html
The most parsimonious explanation for independent evidence and consistency with independent ocean heat data – along with surface observations of cloud where it should be making the whole lot a whole lot less ‘equivocal’ – is to accept the data as real.
There are some things that are known. That cloud increases in La Nina and decreases in El Nino.
http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/Loeb2011-Fig1.png.html?sort=3&o=31
That cloud changes with the PDO – a decrease in the 1970’s and an increase in 1998/2001. Inversely correlated with sea surface temperature as it is.
http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/Clementetal2009.png.html?sort=3&o=38
That the oddness of Arctic cloud is odd.
http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/detect/climate-clouds.shtml
That we are in a cool mode.
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
We are in the hiding phase for a decade to three more at least. I suspect there might be more hiding to come.
No serious scientist would make such an extravagant overconfident claim as “no serious scientist thinks climate sensitivity could be much lower than 2 degrees Celsius”
I guess Lindzen is not a serious scientist, or Pielke Sr., or Judith. Not aimed at you Paul.
More on the Pause
There is a misprint in the title; it should read ‘More on the Paws’ since it contains a level of excuses for poor science at the level of a schoolchild claiming ‘a dog ate my homework’ – they do not even know which dog!
The IPCC “Nobel” climate scientists ignored the established method of enquiry of real science as stated by Richard Feynman:
http://fgservices1947.wordpress.com/2011/04/03/richard-feynman-on-the-scientific-method/
“In general, we look for a new law by the following process. First, we guess it. Then we compute the consequences of the guess to see what would be implied if this law that we guessed is right. Then we compare the result of the computation to nature, with experiment or experience; compare it directly with observation to see if it works. If it disagrees with experiment it is wrong. It‘s that simple statement that is the key to science. It does not make any difference how beautiful your guess is. It does not make any difference how smart you are, who made the guess, or what his name is—if it disagrees with experiment (observation) it is wrong.”
As Richard Feynman stated it is necessary to establish questions that cover all the known possible outcomes as well as allowing for the unknowns and to be rigorous in experimental design and statistics. Instead they set out a hypothesis for which they had already decided the conclusion – increased atmospheric carbon dioxide will cause CAGW – but when this was falsified (no hotspot, no increased water vapour in the upper troposphere, wrong model projections of temperature, too high climate sensitivity, etc. etc) they double down and claim that it would have been true if only they had included all the known factors in their models:
“Santer says he sees several explanations of why climate model projections of surface warming may be differing from actual observations in the past decade or so.”
“It’s certainly the case that we got some of the forcings wrong,” he says of the factors that specify the influence of any particular component of the atmosphere. “It’s likely we underestimated the true volcanic aerosol forcing, and may have underestimated the cooling effect of stratospheric ozone depletion.”
To which he and the Team can add that they ignored ocean cycles, cloud effects, the hydrological cycle, the carbon cycle, solar activity other than TSI etc.
Well this is just hubris. It is a pity that they did not study the accepted scientific method before coming up with “results” that support the IPCC CAGW hypothesis with undue confidence, especially when one considers the costs to the taxpayer and in human lives in the under-developed World as a consequence of politicians believing what the IPCC states.
To quote some more pertinent sayings of Richard Feynman that the Team should take to heart:
‘The first principle is that you must not fool yourself–and you are the easiest person to fool. So you have to be very careful about that. After you’ve not fooled yourself, it’s easy not to fool other scientists. You just have to be honest in a conventional way after that. ‘
‘It is in the admission of ignorance and the admission of uncertainty that there is a hope for the continuous motion of human beings in some direction that doesn’t get confined, permanently blocked, as it has so many times before in various periods in the history of man.’
‘I think that when we know that we actually do live in uncertainty, then we ought to admit it; it is of great value to realize that we do not know the answers to different questions. This attitude of mind – this attitude of uncertainty – is vital to the scientist, and it is this attitude of mind which the student must first acquire. It becomes a habit of thought. Once acquired, one cannot retreat from it any more.’
“When a scientist doesn’t know the answer to a problem, he is ignorant. When he has a hunch as to what the result is, he is uncertain. And when he is pretty damn sure of what the result is going to be, he is still in some doubt. We have found it of paramount importance that in order to progress, we must recognize our ignorance and leave room for doubt. Scientific knowledge is a body of statements of varying degrees of certainty — some most unsure, some nearly sure, but none absolutely certain. We fault many of our predecessors for assiduously collecting and presenting all the facts that confirm their theories while failing to seek facts that contradict them. For science to work properly, it is vital to stress one’s model to its fullest capacity (Feynman, 1974).
“It’s not dishonest; but the thing I’m talking about is not just a matter of not being dishonest, it’s a matter of scientific integrity, which is another level. . . [A]lthough you may gain some temporary fame and excitement, you will not gain a good reputation as a scientist if you haven’t tried to be very careful in this kind of work. . . The first principle is that you must not fool yourself–and you are the easiest person to fool. After you’ve not fooled yourself, it’s easy not to fool other scientists. You just have to be honest in a conventional way after that. I’m talking about a specific, extra type of integrity that is not lying, but bending over backwards to show how you are maybe wrong, that you ought to have when acting as a scientist. And this is our responsibility as scientists, certainly to other scientists, and I think to laymen.”
Right on!
Not really, As Mosh has recently pointed out, Feynman did not practice what he preached. He complained that the “Philosophy of science is about as useful to scientists as ornithology is to birds”, yet that didn’t stop him from pontificatiing on it and didn’t prevent him from telling everyone about the philosophy of science . In terms of his approach, he was all over the map and broke all the rules by applying creativity as far as physics theory was concerned. That is OK, because he was a theorist and not an experimentalist.
Don’t get me wrong, I devoured Feynman’s Lectures on Physics, but took his popular books with a grain of salt.
Do we discard Newton’s Laws when air resistance disrupts a trajectory? No, we add more physical understanding. It’s like that. The basics of physics about CO2 and the energy balance hold, but natural variations modify the behavior in some cases. That is what all the climate scientists are doing. Allowing for the PDO, the underlying trend is there. In fact without it, the PDO would have caused a cooling by one or two tenths, which is its amplitude. In the large scheme of things, one or two tenths doesn’t matter against a rise of 3 or 4 degrees. There is a disproportionate fixation on this small PDO effect.
Webby, I agree. That’s the reason we should always question authorities and cults of personalities. I admire Feynman’s ideas, not his personality. He’s after all human. Don’t get me wrong, I like humans.
“The basics of physics about CO2 and the energy balance hold, but…”
Jim, you know I disagree. The energy balance at the surface problem is not solved. You cannot solve the TOA balance and handwave down to the surface. The surface balance (ocean and land) drives the surface temperatures. Furthermore, most of the surface cooling is latent heat exchange! The net water influence on the surface is cooling, even according to consensus (evaporative cooling > postulated H2O GHG effect). Then we have the atmospheric radiative cooling to space, done by the GHGs! And clouds of course.
Edim, for small perturbations like a few degrees, the lapse rate is a hard constraint that fixes the surface to the top temperature. The tropopause hardly moves.
But in these passages quoted by P. Azlac, Feynman is simply talking about humility and scientific integrity, not about the philosophy of how one conducts an experiment. I think some could surely learn a thing or two from Feynman’s admonitions to bend over backwards, not fool yourself, and always publicly recognize uncertainty.
@Jim D…
The polar jet stream meanders quite a bit, and the tropopause is much lower poleward of it. Changes to the troposphere height could easily be expressed as a change to the statistical distribution of jet stream location.
AK, for the purposes of the energy balance, perhaps I should have said that the global mean tropopause doesn’t move. This separates the stratospheric cooling layer from the tropospheric warming layer in a global mean sense, and this would be blurred anyway because the tropopause height doubles going from the pole to the equator.
@Jim D…
I’ve seen that assertion thrown around here (Climate Etc.) quite a bit, never with backup. I don’t believe, and won’t without substantial proof, that we have enough information about the movement of the jet streams to even begin to know whether that assertion is true. Perhaps you’re relying on some theoretical “justification”? How about links? I strongly suspect there’s fatal circularity built into any such “justification”.
The average lapse rate is fixed by a thermodynamic relationship. Look up the value of gravity and the molar properties of the main atmospheric gas constituents and one can predict it for any GHG atmosphere.
Given that, the effective forcing determines the temperature. Negative feedback changes in the average lapse rate is the biggest recent canard that the desperate climate skeptics are pinning their hopes on.
Nonsense! A clear sign that the writer doesn’t understand meteorology. What’s fixed is the maximum lapse rate without convection in a dry atmosphere. The pseudo-adiabat depends on the temperature and amount of water vapor present in a saturated atmosphere, and the average falls somewhere in-between. Where depends on the details of a complex non-linear system. AFAIK nobody familiar with the field would assert that the “average” of actual lapse rate, or the “average” tropopause height, or the “average” temperature is fixed by thermodynamic relationships.
In fact, “averages” over these values are myths.
Any single parameter like the average surface temperature or average lapse rate is just a number that has it’s relevance form the use we have for that number.
All the average temperatures calculated from various sets of observational data using various methods may be more or less useful. The average over the whole globe is not necessarily more useful than an average calculated over some restricted area. Similarly the average lower troposphere temperatures may be more or less useful than some average surface temperature. What matters is the repeatability and stability of the method as well as the level of correlation that the outcome has with such climatic effects that affect humanity and environment.
The only advantage of the global average surface temperature may be that its definition is somewhat less arbitrary than the definitions of the alternatives. If an attempt were made to find the optimal index to describe global warming based on both the accuracy and stability of the methods used to calculate it and its value in estimating relevant changes on global scale, the outcome would probably be something quite different from the global average surface temperature.
The average lapse rate has probably only one use: It’s a part of highly simplified descriptions of the atmosphere. Through that it has some educational value.
@Pekka Pirilä…
Thanks. Sorry to waste your time, I wasn’t sure just what was behind the assertion.
IOW cartoons. The problem with such cartoons is that people who don’t know better treat them as science, rather than simplistic outside descriptions of science.
Anybody want to bet how soon the marxbot repeats his unbacked, unfounded assertion?
Explaining climate science to non-scientists is a difficult issue. Understanding properly that part of atmospheric science that can be considered known beyond reasonable doubt requires a fair amount of knowledge of physics and a sizable effort. Climate science is not at all unique in that, we live in a world full of such issues.
As it’s impossible to get the full picture understood, scientists and educators have proposed many different ways of simplifying the message, each of them is lacking in several ways, but many of them can provide some partial understanding. There seem to be as many (or more) opinions on the most useful simplifications as there are people presenting them.
The existence of a lapse rate that’s stable up to a point and does not change without good reason is a really essential factor in every explanation that has some semblance to the reality, but as discussed in some above comments the lapse rate is not the same everywhere and at all times. In quantitative scientific study of the atmosphere the concept of average lapse rate is of little if any use. That’s what I meant by my comment.
The idea of a average fixed lapse rate does not come from meteorology. It comes from astrophysics. Every stellar body has what is called a polytropic equation of state, and if the body is convective then this equation is invariant from shell to shell.
Scientists looking at distant planets is a lot like engineers looking at atoms. We are inferring the characteristic properties remotely to try to make sense of the bigger picture.
I suppose I am a “marxbot” for trying to characterize the polytropes of earth, Venus, and mars. To do this, you have to make an assertion like I did. Then you find out if it takes you somewhere. So far, I have the polytropic index for most of the planets estimated. Interesting as in Carl Sagan interesting.
@WebHubTelescope (@whut)…
Making an assertion like that in a discussion of climate change due to GHG increases is highly deceptive. It gives people the impression you’re saying something somehow backed by science. If the average lapse rate of the Earth were actually scientifically claimed to be fixed by thermodynamic principles, it would be a game-changer for the discussion.
You mentioned three planets, and I don’t see how you can generalize from any of them, much less in a group. Venus doesn’t have significant rotation (enough for a geostrophic wind), and AFAIK Mars doesn’t have a phase-changing component of the atmosphere.
I called you a bot because I can’t believe nobody’s ever called you down on this assertion before, but you continue making it, and making your deceptive references to general data when called on it. “Marxbot” because you seem to be pushing an ideological agenda, and using “global warming” as a stalking horse.
AK, Webster’s “fixed” lapse is interesting for looking at the differences between astrophysical limited models and a complex open system like climate.
The lapse rate would have to be fixed for an atmosphere to exist. Since Ein has to Equal Eout or you have runaway conditions, absorption and emission are fixed and regulated by the “fixed” lapse rate. Then, everything is “fixed” if you are assuming a true equilibrium.
In the real world, the dry lapse rate in nearly “fixed” and emissivity is nearly “fixed” and absorption is nearly “fixed”. We can get an extremely accurate estimate of the TOA imbalance because in the dry atmosphere, everything is nearly “fixed”.
Unfortunately, we don’t live at the TOA. Because of limits of the ideal “fixes”, climate science has more than its fair share of “Paradoxes”. That is generally a sign that the information you can gather from the telescope jockey view of planets is somewhat limited, since the uncertainty at TOA on Earth is +/- about 0.5 Wm-2 and at the sea level surface about +/- 17 Wm-2.
But if you ever want the approximate surface temperature of some random rock wandering in space, Webster is the man.
Apart from the scientific evidence, there is the engineering evidence. The Standard Atmosphere was defined early on and has been used to optimize aircraft engine designs since the 1920’s. This Standard Atmosphere defines the lapse rate and the polytropic index. NASA maintains this standard and it hasn’t changed. You would think that with all the additional GHGs added to the atmosphere that it might differ by now than it was in the 1920’s. In fact, the average doesn’t change because it is primarily determined by N2 and O2 composition.
Someone measured the polytropic index one hundred years ago with weather balloons and came up with an average. The same average still holds. I am nagging on this because it leads us to simplifying certain aspects of the science. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that!!!
But marxbot is pretty funny, and Wangathong probably wishes he would’ve thought of that.
AK, in the energy balance and sensitivity argument, the CO2 raises the temperature by 1 degree, turning into about 2-3 degrees with water vapor feedback, maybe more with albedo and more or less with clouds, but not exceeding a few degrees. The annual temperature in a region varies by ten times this, so the mean tropopause variation due to climate change will be much less than anything that happens every year. This is why I say it is a small perturbation. Linear approximations like the fixed lapse rate work fine in this situation.
This is how Manabe viewed the lapse rate in 1964.
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-eO9UvCPEDxU/UV2f7fsG9sI/AAAAAAAADY8/wNiMzuo_m6A/s400/lapse_rate_manabe.GIF
Note how the slope doesn’t change but the curve shifts over with higher concentration of GHG. That is essentially the way to visualize what is happening.
@WebHubTelescope (@WHUT)…
That’s essentially the way to visualize what he assumes is happening. Building such assumptions into models means that those models are just feeding out the assumptions put into them. Pure circularity.
Web, you don’t seem to understand that one generates an hypothesis, based on postulates, and then attempt to destroy the hypothesis. Creative use of intelligence allows one to put forth a wide variety of postulates, but the philosophy of science isn’t based on making postulates or testable hypotheses, but on testing them. ‘What do I predict will happen in the system if A has this relationship with B, measuring C’, is the formulation of an hypothesis.
Testability is all.
peter azlac
+1 on the paws and Feynman who also said re
freedom, which is a pre -occ -u-payshun of we serfs …
“No government has the right to decide on the truth
of scientific principles, nor to prescribe in any way
the character of the questions investigated. Neither
may a government determine the aesthetic value of
artistic creation, ) nor limit the forms of literacy or
artistic expession. Nor should it pronounce on the
validity of economic, historic, religious, or philosophic
doctrines. Instead it has a duty to its citizens to
maintain the freedom to let those citizens contribute
to the further adventure and the development of the
human race.”
And that goes fer whispery coteries like the IPCC and
the UN as well.
Beth – the – cow – girl – on – a – wild – horse !
The laws of nature that Feynman discusses are either right or wrong (making a reservation for a possible really small error in the right laws). His arguments cannot easily be applied to development of methods that are known to be only approximate at best.
Most fields of science study laws and methods that are only approximate at best, climate science is only one of them. Feynman’s comments are misused all the time when they are extended to situation where they are of little value.
Thanks, Pekka. It seems like we’ve been here before on the use of ‘Feynman cloaking’ as authority…sigh. Sometimes I wonder if JC should rename this blog Feynman, etc. ;o)
I think the more important points Feynman made were not to fool yourself, to bend over backwards to show both sides of the argument and to clearly recognize all the uncertainties. It’s called scientific integrity, although actually it should apply to most academic fields and properly be called academic integrity.
Pekka,
You appear to have completely missed Feynman’s message. He was talking mostly about doing your best to avoid confirmation bias… note how he says that the scientist doing the research is the person most likely to be ‘fooled’ into believing a false hypothesis is true. He noted that if you can avoid fooling yourself, then not fooling others is easy. That applies to all fields of science, and especially fields where understanding is less than complete, like, say, climate science… or cancer research, or 50 other fields; confirmation bias is ALWAYS a potential problem. Maybe you should re-read ‘Cargo Cult Science’ and think about it a bit.
I have no problem with Feynman’s comments. They all make sense when taken in the context where they have been presented. (By “all” a I mean all that I can remember.) Many of them are very similar to the advice that I have given to my own students as guidelines for doing science.
I really and deeply dislike misuse of his comments to promote anti-science goals pretending that the references are presented to improve the integrity of science.
Pekka
Insisting on empirical evidence to support hypotheses (as Jim Cripwell has done here) is NOT a misuse of Feynman’s comments, as you imply (if I understood you correctly).
It is the classical stance of a “rational (or scientific) skeptic”.
Even “experts” in the climate field have to be careful that they do not “fool themselves” into accepting well reasoned hypotheses, backed well by computer simulations, but lacking empirical evidence.
Max
peter azlac. What you have written is just plain simple basic Physics 101. I have been fighting this same battle on Climate Etc. for months, even years. Note the reply from Pekka. The warmists will go to enormous lengths to claim that the basic principles of physics do not apply to climate science. In climate science, for example, there are no such things as measurements, which are seperate from estimates. Estimates and measuements are exactly the same thing according to the warmists. So the output of non-validated models have the same status as experimental measurement.
So, on Climate Etc., I wish you the very best of luck trying to get your ideas accecpted, and I hope you have a lot more luck than I have had. Our hostess does not help in this sort of discussion.
Cripwell said:
In America, teachers usually expect students to do their own homework. I infer from you that at the Cavendish Lab, where you claimed to have gotten your education, lots of hand-holding was required. That’s too bad.
WHT, you write “I infer from you that at the Cavendish Lab, where you claimed to have gotten your education, lots of hand-holding was required. ”
You infer wrongly. My remark was aimed at the numerous threads out hostess has on recent estimates of climate sensitivity; which I sometimes comment on at the time. These estimates are doubtless done be people who are far better qualified that I am, at huge expense, probably to some poor taxpayer. These estimates are about as useful as having a simian throw darts at a board filled with random numbers. That is why I dont think our hostess is being very helpful in this discussion.
‘ Estimates and measuements are exactly the same thing according to the warmists. So the output of non-validated models have the same status as experimental measurement.”
wrong. there is no CATEGORICAL difference between measurements and estimates, there are definately qualitative differences. The are not the same thing, but exist on a continuum of reliability and accuracy with “measurements” being the most reliable and accurate and estimates being less reliable and accurate. The outputs of models ( all measurement depends on models ) do not all have the same status. So, the output of a thermometer, is of higher quality than the output of say a GCM. A thermometer reading, for example, relies on a physical model that is fundamental and painfully hard to dislodge. The outputs of a GCM, rely on more uncertain physical theory and so one would not place these two outputs at the same status.
> In climate science, for example, there are no such things as measurements, which are seperate from estimates.
OK. That’s it, Baseball Jim. Please pick a properly defined concept of measurement.
Start here:
> Metrology is defined by the International Bureau of Weights and Measures (BIPM) as “the science of measurement, embracing both experimental and theoretical determinations at any level of uncertainty in any field of science and technology.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metrology
Your pet peeve won’t suffer from its Wiki death.
Thank you for your concerns,
w
Nice link willard
‘The ideal standard is independently reproducible without uncertainty. This is what the creators of the “meter” length standard were attempting to do in the 19th century when they defined a meter as one ten-millionth of the distance from the equator to one of the Earth’s poles. Later, it was learned that the Earth’s surface is an unreliable basis for a standard. The Earth is not spherical and it is constantly changing in shape. But the special alloy meter bars that were created and accepted in that time period standardized international length measurement until the 1950s. Careful calibrations allowed tolerances as small as 10 parts per million to be distributed and reproduced in metrology laboratories worldwide, regardless of whether the rest of the metric system was implemented and in spite of the shortfalls of the meter’s original basis.”
With an H/T the anti-realists philosophers of science Has van Fraassen and Yvon Gauthier.
GRRR. Bas, not Has. Damn tablet.
Steven Mosher writes “wrong. there is no CATEGORICAL difference between measurements and estimates,”
For the record I disagree completely; there IS a CATEGORICAL difference between measurements and estimates. But I dont intend to open this whole issue for debate again.
Willard, you write “experimental and theoretical determinations”
I am sorry, but theoretical determinations are NOT estimates. Thoeretical deterimations are when we have an exact formula for calculating what the numeric value is. For example, it is not possible to measure the number pi to an infinite number of significant figures by using some sort of measuring device. But we can calculate pi to as many significant figures as we like using an exact mathematical formula. That is what is meant by a “theoretical measurement”.
Your attempt to show that measuremetns and estiamtes are the same this is just plain wrong.
Proving by assertion might be kosher in your unwritten book, Baseball Jim, but this won’t save your pet peeve from its death by Wiki:
There seems to be an International vocabulary of metrology:
> The International vocabulary of metrology (VIM) [1] is an attempt to find a common language and terminology in metrology, e.g. the science of measurements, across different fields of science, legislature and commerce.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_vocabulary_of_metrology
There is an link to a Guide to the Expression of Uncertainty in Measurement
http://www.bipm.org/en/publications/guides/gum.html
Here’s a hit for “estim”
Look, Baseball Jim. Nobody in his right mind can contest that when you are measuring something, you are not estimating it. But when you do measure something, you have to rely on something like an estimator, at least when comes the time to use statistics to evaluate your confidence in your measure. Unless you’re Star Trek’s Q, in which case you do as you please.
This was MattStat’s point all along.
van Fraassen
kool willard. maybe I can sneak into his classes
I have said all I am going to say.
> I have said all I am going to say.
Has it ever stopped you from rehearsing over and over again your unwritten book, Baseball Jim?
Jim Cripwell
There are two aspects here.
No, our hostess has not played the “rational skeptic” card (as you and I have), i.e. insisting on empirical evidence to support any postulations of what would happen to our “globally averaged temperature” if atmospheric CO2 were to double. This has not been her chosen role.
But she has opened the discussion here (and elsewhere).
She has also indirectly given us her opinion on the validity of the IPCC CAGW premise as outlined in detail in AR4. She has raised doubts regarding this premise based on the great uncertainty in establishing exactly what the temperature impact of added GHGs really have been in the past or are projected to be in the future. And she has gone on record under oath that she does not consider AGW to be an existential problem to the end of this century, even in its most extreme incarnation
Plus she keeps bringing new and interesting articles, which whittle away at any dogmatic positions.
And it appears very much like the tide is beginning to turn on the CAGW dogmatists, possibly to some extent as a result of her efforts.
So I am not disappointed. Are you?
Max
Manacker,
Here her to your summary of what JC has done for climate science. IMO, she has helped greatly to – reopen a debate that the CAGW believers were trying to shut down. We could say she is responsible for reinvigorating the Enlightenment, for climate science at least.
Jim,
I agree with Max Anacker 9/5 @ 8.04pm that
Judith Curry has opened up a forum for broad
discussion on climate and presented articles
that allow whittling away of dogmatic positions,
both ‘theirs’ and ‘ours’ )
Beth.
Beth and Max, You are taking my remark completely out of context. I was trying to explain to Peter Azlac why it is difficult to get the sort of ideas he was expressing, accepted on Climate Etc. Certainly our hostess has done a fantastic job of having the one, and only, blog that is reasonably even-handed in discussions between the two sides. What I was expressing is a slight frustration I feel sometimes, when I think Judith puts too much emphasis on the validity of estimations of climate sensitivity. Surely I have said enough of what I think about estimations, that you can understand what I was trying to say to Peter.
peter azlac | May 8, 2013 at 5:16 am |
I hate when people clothe themselves in virtues they do not themselves possess, as if invoking a name transferred the power of it.
You testify as if you were there and inside the heads of “IPCC” scientists.. when this clearly from your narrative is nothing like the case.
Aside from bilious and ignorant sniping and putting words into Feynman’s mouth he never said nor wrote, do you have anything real to add to the discussion?
Because we can all get Feynman wrong for ourselves, if we try as hard as you have.
Hijacking the dead is done because the dead cannot defend themselves.
They rarely hijack a person with a heartbeat. Like Tsonis. Because you can just email him and ask what he thinks.
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.
Hey folks – now we got Wee Willie (and is grouchy twin, Webby) accusing Feynman of hubris.
Duh!
Max
Bart R
Then don’t do it.
Max
If MiniMax could provide only one case where Bart R brandishes someone’s name as a war standard, that would be a fair remark.
Until then, we’ll keep wondering:
http://neverendingaudit.tumblr.com/post/49857559548
> Well this is just hubris.
Feynman in action:
http://neverendingaudit.tumblr.com/post/1177511827
Feynman returns:
http://xkcd.com/397/
Thank you peter azlac
Very good, Peter!
(Too bad it goes right over Webby’s head.)
Max
The fact that Feynman blew the Challenger disaster investigation probably goes over Manacker’s head. Feynman signed off on a report that placed blame on a disaster where there was still lots of uncertainty in the cause. This was hubris on his part. He could have just walked away, but didn’t, having given this anecdote during a hearing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Rwcbsn19c0
Feynman had a thing with anecdotes.
manacker | May 9, 2013 at 8:06 pm |
You’ll have to be more specific.
Other than the obvious physical attribute difference, how does one distinguish the “scientists” of Trenberth’s ilk from the Money Honey’s on CNBC, explaining the latest undulation in some behavior associated with the market.
DWEEBEE, You are confusing the soft science of economics with the hard science of atmospheric physics.
Practitioners of the former could be called “scientists” (using your quote) while the latter can be referred to as scientists.
IPCC AR4:
For the next two decades, a warming of about 0.2°C per decade is projected for a range of SRES emission scenarios. Even if the concentrations of all greenhouse gases and aerosols had been kept constant at year 2000 levels, a further warming of about 0.1°C per decade would be expected.
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/spmsspm-projections-of.html
In 2013
Pierrehumbert
I think it’s true that some rather sloppy discussion of the rapid warming from the 20th century has given people unrealistic expectations about the future course of warming.
If I may interject a pause in discussion of The Pause:
The latest on Mann’s jihad against Mark Steyn and National Review:
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/347697/accidentally-purpose
Michael Mann, accidentally famous.
Has Western science become the theater of the absurd? We have humanity which is dirtying up the Earth with its marathon-producing CO2 and that is worthy of a Greek tragedy full of pessimism and nihilism. But rather than on a somber note it ends in outrageous comedy — a gut-wrench, belly-laughing finale about this F-Troop comprised of Western school teachers who valiantly try to save the world — with polar bears and islanders splashing about in hot, ice-free, rising sees — while, Neptune-sized, SUV-driving soccer moms with flaming hair, contemptuously blowing poisonous CO2 out of flared nostrils, flip-off the world as they back up onto sands and crap out surfboard-toting gremmies into the surf from their lifted tailgates.
It is so bad isn’t it, that increased CO2 actually helps the biosphere – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-nsU_DaIZE
Wagathon: you appear to be one of the true believers?
“Has Western science become the theater of the absurd? We have humanity which is dirtying up the Earth with its marathon-producing CO2 and that is worthy of a Greek tragedy full of pessimism and nihilism. But rather than on a somber note it ends in outrageous comedy — a gut-wrench, belly-laughing finale about this F-Troop comprised of Western school teachers who valiantly try to save the world — with polar bears and islanders splashing about in hot, ice-free, rising sees — while, Neptune-sized, SUV-driving soccer moms with flaming hair, contemptuously blowing poisonous CO2 out of flared nostrils, flip-off the world as they back up onto sands and crap out surfboard-toting gremmies into the surf from their lifted tailgates.”
Seeing the unholy marriage of supposed science, guilt, and politics is what started me down the road to skepticism. That, and the BS in Al Gore’s, “An Inconvenient Truth”
Keep religion, guilt, and politics out of what is supposed to be science!
Chris Shaker
Wagathon: Read your post a few times more. I’m not really sure which side of the debate you’re making fun of now :^)
Chris Shaker
Thesis – the individuals, careers, groups, policies, frameworks, organizations and political agendas based upon theories of AGW (and conversely) AGC lag the Earth’s climate somewhere in between five to fifteen years. We are already probably about five to ten years into the AGW process. Within the next five years, the entire AGW apparatus will be reconfigured back into global cooling mode and (sadly) the entire process is liable to repeat itself ad nauseam.
…and, add to that, the Earth has been in a cooling trend for 10,000 years.
Gerald A. Meehl, Aixue Hu
, Julie Arblaster,
John Fasullo
, and Kevin E. Trenberth
Externally forced and internally generated
decadal climate variability associated with
the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation
458 the current observed hiatus could continue for several more years.
http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/Trenberth/website-archive/trenberth.papers-moved/Meehl_etal_2013.pdf
Which means natural variation is feckless when compared to its manifestations in prior centuries. It used to decrease the SAT significantly; as in, by an amount roughly the same as the amount by which it had just increased it.
Now all it can do is barely hold off the AGW signal, and they do not have a clue for how long because ACO2 is now 397 ppm, and that makes it a whole new ballgame.
And that ballgame is not in your graphs.
‘They absolutely have a radiative effect, and no serious scientist thinks climate sensitivity could be much lower than 2 degrees Celsius based on the balance of the evidence.”
Ray has just insulted some of the top researchers in the field, without even knowing it
Hi Judith,
Nice post documenting the early stages of ‘climb-down’ on high climate sensitivity by at least some in the climate science community. But most of the leading lights appear to be doubling down by stating the recent temperature data doesn’t reduce the likelihood of high climate sensitivity. I find their take on this strange, and even bizarre; they may well end up regretting that double-down.
I want to point out that the strongest support for the claim that changes in ocean heat uptake are responsible for the slow recent warming comes not from ocean temperature measurements, but from a ‘reanalysis’ (AKA climate model generated) data set, which is only as reliable as the climate model used. Climate models have never been able to accurately simulate ocean behavior, so I find claims that a climate model of ocean heat uptake is more reliable than direct measurements nonsensical. Since ARGO has become operational (2003-2004) there is a wealth of data showing that the rate of heat uptake (including 700 to 2000 meters) has not changed very much from the earlier rates calculated from less complete data. The reanalysis that is used to explain the recent slow warming is obviously inconsistent with the data. The article fails to raise this important issue, and so misleads a bit, even if only inadvertently.
Global warming alarmists hear the words “oceans” and “heat” and “sink” and like Al Gore they seize onto the latest big idea that heat sinks into the ocean and that explains why we cannot find all the heat — yeah that’s the ticket: the heat is hiding due to the Trenberthian effect.
Here’s a global warming litmus test for rational people: what do the following best describe: Heat reservoir, heat sink, heat content, heat storage, heat capacity heat in the pipeline, thermal budget, thermal memory, thermal capacity, buffer…
ΔT = RF / λ ?
Whatever happened to: ΔT = λ ⋅ RF?
Or what am I missing? thanks.
I noticed the same problem.
Pierrehumbert notes that the increase in carbon dioxide’s radiative forcing over any one decade is about one-fourth of a Watt per meter-squared, so if climate sensitivity is 2 C, the expected warming is only about 0.13 C (forcing increase divided by sensitivity). That can easily be swamped by natural fluctuations of 0.2 to 0.3 C from an El Niño or La Niña, and fluctuations from longer ocean cycles.
At this point the only thing that is keeping the AGW bubble aloft is coming up with still another yet-to-be-debunked theory that has been offered and accepted by the “in-the-know” of government-funded climate change.
As the Trenberth “our new model says the missing heat might be in the oceans” paper shows, the theory of human caused global warming is now in a state of decline. The curtain has been drawn back and the Professor of Oz is now being seen as the knobs and buttons pushing loud blowhard. The entire apparatus will take years to pull down because there is so much money and political capital tied up in it. But there is still more money to be made by these societal sycophants because the entire enterprise has become so larger that it will take yet more money and more years of research to do a proper post mortem of the whole debacle. The sad truth is, how many millions of people continue to live in abject poverty because of this ridiculous blind alley that the western world went up? While I don’t have much respect for the U.N at all; it is still true that UNESCO does some good work, and it could have done much better work if the IPCC had never existed. It’s really very sad but it does remind me of the importance of the principle of keeping institutions small where they can do less harm if they go awry.
It will also take a long time to undo what the Left has done to the society and the culture and a good place to start is a serious downsizing of the government-education complex. The promise of universal education has turned into the theater of the absurd with unelected bureaucrats pushing climate porn in the classrooms.
Wagathon below, don’t think the right is any better than the left. They have both become members of the Party of Statism.
Will the SPM for AR5 reflect the above changing views of these vocal defenders of the “IPCC consensus”?
Does Ray Pierrehumbert think the IPCC’s central estimate of climate sensitivity should be 2 degC (the figure he casually tosses out above)?
Now that he believes that models can’t explain how heat is being transported into the deeper ocean, will Trenberth insist that the projections of the IPCC’s models be described in more uncertain terms ? How about prefacing every projection with the phrase: “Although our climate models have limited capability to reproduce recent changes in climate, we nevertheless project that by 2100 …..”
Pingback: Even More about Trenberth’s Missing Heat – An Eye Opening Comment by Roger Pielke Sr. | Bob Tisdale – Climate Observations
This day is getting weird on several fronts.
Where is the inestimable lolwot in all of this? Perhaps since he’s convinced the pause doesn’t exist, neither does this thread.
I just don’t get the strength of the alarmist faith. These are supposedly leading climate scientists, that is respected experts on the subject of climate. And yet they forgot to factor in natural variability. That’s like a physician forgetting to factor in blood pressure, or heartbeat. These are the major natural drivers. El Ninos, La Ninas, the PDO, the AMO. Likely many more, some we might not even know about yet.
And we’re not even talking about the sun here, or clouds, or God knows what other minor details they “forgot” to stick in their models.
And yet from the alarmist camp, I see nothing that approaches chagrin, much less outrage. It’s hard to fathom.
Pokerguy
Scepticism about natural variability is deeply ingrained within the climate aristocracy. This statement was on the met office web site until very recently
‘Extract “Before the twentieth century, when man-made greenhouse gas emissions really took off, there was an underlying stability to global climate. The temperature varied from year to year, or decade to decade, but stayed within a certain range and averaged out to an approximately steady level.”
Within their own archives is ample evidence from contemporary observations back to the 12th century to disprove their silly statement. I think the notion of stability until modern times can be traced back to the hockey stick.
Tonyb
Thanks for that background Tony. And yet am I right in my understanding that the hockey stick overturned, or tried to overturn, what had into the 1990’s been a pretty well accepted view of climate events like the MWP and LIA.
Pokerguy
You are right. The idea of considerable natural variability would have been uncontroversial prior to the 1990’s. This has changed and You can see how upset some people here get when I write historical pieces pointing out the surely obvious fact that variability is considerable and that weather extremes are not limited to the modern age.
Tonyb
” And yet they forgot to factor in natural variability.”
Or to put it another way,if the cause of the pause is chance,what are the chances of the causes? 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 hy-
pothesis is not a random coincidence of small, stochastic excursions of global temperatures with all, or nearly all, the same sign?”
http://www.atmos.ucla.edu/tcd/PREPRINTS/NLPG.pdf
As there is sufficient evidence in the paleo record that chance does effect climate ie synchronization and mode locked response to orbital forcing,how well do the models capture chance behavior?
As the experiments did not predict this,we can assume not very well.
‘The global climate system is composed of a number of subsystems: atmosphere, biosphere, cryosphere, hydrosphere and lithosphere, each of which has distinct characteristic times, from days and weeks to centuries and millennia (Ghil and Childress, 1987; Trenberth, 1992). The atmosphere has a characteristic time of days-to-weeks in terms of the life cycle of extratropical weather systems. The global mixing of atmospheric trace gases, on the other hand, takes one or more years. The meanders and rings of the major wind-driven currents are the oceanic counterpart of weather systems; their characteristic time is as short as months to years. Temperature and salinity contrasts, on the other hand, drive the oceans’ overturning circulation; its characteristic time is as long as centuries to millennia. Snow cover and sea ice have a huge seasonal cycle, as well as sub- and interannual variability, while continental ice sheets take many
millennia to build up and at least centuries to collapse. Each subsystem has therewith its own internal variability, all other things being constant, over a fairly broad range of time scales. These ranges overlap between one subsystem and another. The interactions between the subsystems thus give rise to climate variability on all time scales.’
But don’t forget that the average lapse rate is – well – average?
And climate is constrained to a narrow range of variability.
One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one’s work is terribly important.
Kevin Trenberth
“One of the things emerging from several lines is that the IPCC has not paid enough attention to natural variability, on several time scales,” he says, especially El Niños and La Niñas, the Pacific Ocean phenomena that are not yet captured by climate models, and the longer term Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) and Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) which have cycle lengths of about 60 years.”
In 2013, the sceptic’s argument has entered the mainstream.
Very gratifying.
This means that IPCC’s “0.2 deg C per decade warming for the next two decades” is wrong.
..has not paid attention to natural variabiliy,
on several time scales.’ Say, let them eat
humble pie.
Yes, Beth. Indeed. And in the case especially. a dish best served cold.
Brrr.
Serf, I found the missing heat. It’s being used by deep ocean pixies for the baking of gigantic humble pies.
Pokerguy and mosomoso fer yer tart replies
I’ll bake yer both a pie. not cherries but
blackberries …mmmm.
Fellow serf.
Girma cherry-picks Trenberth and Beth Cooper,
pokerguy, and mosomoso say “yummy.”
Below is the context from which Girma’s took his Trenberth quote. Now, maybe this wasn’t intentional cherry-picking, and Girma just didn’t finish what Trenberth had to say. If he had he would see the message is natural variability may either exacerbate or mask man-made warming more than was previously thought,
‘These increases are certainly less than the warming rates of the 1980s and first half of the 1990s of about 0.15 to 0.20 C (.27 and .36 F respectively) and per decade. The earlier period may have provided an unrealistic view of the global warming signal, says Kevin Trenberth, climate scientist with the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Co.
“One of the things emerging from several lines is that the IPCC has not paid enough attention to natural variability, on several time scales,” he says, especially El Niños and La Niñas, the Pacific Ocean phenomena that are not yet captured by climate models, and the longer term Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) and Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) which have cycle lengths of about 60 years.
From about 1975, when global warming resumed sharply, until the 1997-98 El Niño, the PDO was in its positive, warm phase, and heat did not penetrate as deeply into the ocean. The PDO has since changed to its negative, cooler phase.
“It was a time when natural variability and global warming were going in the same direction, so it was much easier to find global warming,” Trenberth says. “Now the PDO has gone in the other direction, so some counter-effects are masking some of the global warming manifestations right at the surface.”
http://www.yaleclimatemediaforum.org/2013/05/wither-global-warming-has-it-slowed-down/
Max_OK
Don’t get too hung up on the “explanation of the week” from Trenberth (or any other member of the “team”) for why the “globally and annually averaged land and sea surface temperature anomaly” is not showing warming anymore.
They’re scrambling.
Max_CH
Max_Ch, climate scientists always recognized natural variability can either exacerbate or mask man-made warming. All Trenbeth is saying is the natural variability may be a greater influence than previously thought.
BTW, do you have an explanation for the lack of variability in average global temperature during your pause? And please don’t cop out by telling me it’s because the natural cooling influences offset the natural warming influences.
Max_OK
Lemme give you my “explanation” for the past warming and the current pause:
“Because that is the way the climate wanted it.”
Anything more specific is pure conjecture and likely to be proven wrong.
And that’s why the “team” is scrambling today.
Max_CH
Max_OK
You write (of the “team”):
Or maybe anthropogenic forcing may be a smaller influence than previously thought?
Looks to me like that ball can bounce either way.
Max
‘That said there is a LOT of nonsense about the PDO. People like CPC
are tracking PDO on a monthly basis but it is highly correlated with
ENSO. Most of what they are seeing is the change in ENSO not real
PDO. It surely isn’t decadal. The PDO is already reversing with the
switch to El Nino. The PDO index became positive in September for
first time since Sept 2007.’ KT
It surely is decadal – and longer. And the change in ENSO is related to the PDO in the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation.
‘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
Lack of variability? The variability is always about TOA radiant flux.
http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/Loeb2011-Fig1.png.html?sort=3&o=31
Really – the depth of ignorance coupled with arrogance is astonishing. I suppose that is always the way.
Max_Ch, for a person who pleads ignorance of what’s behind the warming trend and the recent pause (“Because that is the way the climate wanted it.”), I am surprised at your willingness, even eagerness, to experiment with running atmospheric CO2 up to levels never experienced by modern man.
But I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised at your enthusiasm for taking a risk that’s no risk to you at all. You won’t live long enough to suffer any of the consequences of the gamble you want to take. You are in effect gambling with someone else’s money, and it’s money you know you won’t have to repay.
I’ll leave you with this thought before turning in for the night. Your legacy may turn out to be “climate deadbeat.”
He gambled away something that was ours, and now he’s gone and can’t pay us back, future generations may say about people like you.
Max_CH, wouldn’t you sleep better a night knowing you won’t be remembered as a climate deadbeat?
I find Ben Santer’s speculations interesting. To say that the models have the sensitivity too high is “simply scientifically incorrect.” But the models may have some of the forcings wrong. But wait, don’t the forcings take part as components of the overall sensitivity? Oh well, I’m sure that isn’t what he meant. Of course, he can think of a lot of other things that “might” be the problem. Oh, and that’s scientific.
Maybe Saner is coming around. It may be “simply scientifically incorrect” if there is at this point zero sensitivity. And, that was believed to be the case from the beginning–i.e., as Dr. Tim Ball observed:
Dr. Ferenc Miskolczi provided the most recent scientific argument against CO2 as the cause of temperature change. Here is an explanation by Dr. Miklos Zagoni.
It illustrates why the scientific arguments that CO2 is not the problem are not making much headway – they’re very complicated. Basically, Miskolczi is saying that the Greenhouse Effect is present but essentially constant over time; therefore, temperature variations are due to some other cause. He is extending the idea of saturation, already known about CO2, to all greenhouse gases. I refer to this as the black paint condition. If you want to block light coming through a window, a single coat of black paint will stop almost all of it. Second and third coats reduce the light, but by decreasing fractions. The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is like the first coat of paint – doubling and tripling the amount reduces heat going to space by decreasing fractions. The IPCC got around this problem by incorrectly claiming a positive feedback. This says increased CO2 raises global temperature that increases evaporation of water vapor to the atmosphere. This supposedly enhances the warming due to increased CO2, but the idea is now discredited. Miskolczi’s argument means any variations in global temperature are almost all due to changes in solar and geothermal energy. Inclusion of geothermal is unusual. This energy from within the earth, especially into the oceans is essentially (and as I have longed argued, incorrectly) ignored.
‘They ‘dare not consider any value of climate sensitivity
less than 2C’ – and yet it cools. Seems the IPCC
et al are all goin’ ter hafta eat humble pie. Hmmm,
better get bakin’ …
Beth
A menu suggestion for the “team” dinner – at a gourmet French restaurant (at taxpayer expense, of course)::
Main course: croustade de corneille
Dessert: clafoutis aux cerises triées
Wine: Château Dernier Chauffage 1998
Mmmm…
Max
PS No serfs invited. Sorry.
Max
If you have a few minutes I would be grateful for your comments here
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/05/08/the-curious-case-of-rising-co2-and-falling-temperatures/#comment-1300795
An inviation extended to all denizens of course
tonyb
tony b
Sorry for delay in getting back to you.
The exchange of comments on CET, which you cited, are interesting.
First of all, I would think that if urbanization has had a perceptible impact on temperature records (which I still conclude is the case, despite the strange findings of BEST that UHI has had a net cooling affect in the past!), then that impact should have been felt in England, which had a very high level of urbanization.
vukcevic seems to agree that CET is a reasonable proxy for NH (and, to a lesser extent, global) temperature. You are right IMO that it is certainly a better proxy than a tree-rings from a couple of locations.
Due to the fact that England is surrounded by water, CET might give a better proxy for global temperature than the BEST land-only record.
On the same thread peter azlac asks about some divergences between CET and the central European record, but this might also have to do with the fact that CET is more highly effected by the island influence.
I’m convinced that the work you are doing to recreate a CET record for earlier years based on researching various historical documents is valuable work.
Those who downplay this sort of research as “anecdotal”, but then hang their hats on dubious tree-ring proxies from a couple of isolated locations, are simply fooling themselves.
ALL data is important IMO.
So keep up the good work.
Max
the ”pause” is a wishful thinking. the truth: the planet wasn’t warming; didn’t stop warming – same as in the 70’s wasn’t going for ice age by year 2000.
reality: climatologist don’t produce anything that can be sold in supermarket, or for export. Regularly since. Darwin published his book, climatologist have being inventing things to spook the ignorant and show their importance. Before Darwin, the weather depended on St. Peter’s mood
it’s entertaining; but when it doesn’t eventuate; they blame the sun, the politicians, the galactic dust… it was the most stupid to pick on carbon, essential for plants and animals. PAUSE?! Running out of justifications, is renamed ”pause”?!
Okay. Entrail-reading time.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/derivative/trend/plot/gistemp/mean:119/mean:121/derivative/scale:300/plot/gistemp/mean:119/mean:121/plot/gistemp/mean:29/mean:31/derivative/scale:40/plot/gistemp/last:240/trend
We resort not to Ben Santer’s 95% signal:noise ratio argument, but the slightly more statistically rigorous Foster and Rahmstorf, since we’re dealing with derivatives.
And we’ll use GISTemp because it’s slightly less awful than the other published GMT with Ocean sets.
Red line is zero. Derivatives above zero indicate temperature for that time period is increasing in a real and significant way. That is, overall in that time period taking the whole globe into consideration, weather with lower temperatures is less likely, or weather with higher temperature is more likely, or some combination of the two. The opposite is true for time periods below the zero line.
The green line represents the climate, treating individual months as if they were influenced by their neighboring months. This is an over 95% reliable predictor, but almost one time in 20 it will not reflect the ‘actual’ statistical behavior of a climate (which statistically can be said to be 32 years, if you work out the sigma levels and are a stickler).
Note, after 2003 or so we can say nothing about the climate to any reasonable certainty. Note also that at the end of the knowable climate line, in 2003, warming is at a higher rate than all but two short spans (near 1940 and 1980) in addition to the span it is part of.
The blue line is GMT smoothed to 20 years, for reference. Note how the last measurable, reliable warming trend was during the highest peak of climate heat in the instrumental record. We know from paleoclimatology this could be a plausible candidate for the warmest temperature in the Holocene, but that is far from certain. What we can say is that as temperature increases, the energy required to raise it the same amount rises much faster. This matters because it makes it difficult to deal with the trends by parts. If you wanted, for example, to account for ocean circulations you couldn’t just subtract out ocean changes, because at different temperatures they represent different amounts of energy. And that’s just to start. A real climatology genius could arguably do the math.. but they’d need to be extraordinary at multivariate high order calculus techniques, too. I’m not volunteering, especially on this data.
We come to the purple line. It’s crap. It represents the derivative of five year trends, which we know are inconsequential as predictors of actual climate change. However, if we examine the entrails of these underage derivative curves, we might be able to speculate with a bit of insight beyond the endpoints of our principle climate curves. What does this entrail reading tell us? Compare the section in purple after 2003 with any section that looks something like it before 2003, remember that it deals with higher energy levels, and make your best guess. My best guess is that it looks most like a similar length of time around 1970.. a warming trend. This corresponds to the linear approximation method, and to the observation that the five-year smoothed temperature line after 2003 exceeds at every point the 20-year smoothed temperature line up to 2003.
Next pigeon:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/derivative/trend/plot/jisao-pdo/mean:119/mean:121/plot/gistemp/mean:119/mean:121/plot/esrl-amo/mean:119/mean:121
PDO. It’s had it’s 30-year declining phase. Now it’s due to start climbing, as it did up to around 1940 and up to the early 1980’s. What’s that you say, those were two of the fastest rising periods of climate temperature on record? Why, so they are.
AMO. It’s had 40 years of rise just like the time after the 19 naughties, and if history repeats itself is due to stagnate for another two decades at the top of its influence.
If we’re talking influence of circulations and phases.
ENSO? ENSO’s phases are founded on rough analysis of roughly three quarters of one wavelength. We have no ideas when, or if, the phase itself will end, or whether its influence will be the same now as over that tiny period of time it was sort of handwaved in a poorly-documented, poorly statistically supported way.
Solar? Hale cycle stopped showing up above the level of noise around 1955-1960. The sun might play a role, but there is zero predictability associated with that role.
Volcano and aerosol influence, cloud feedbacks, all equally poorly understood alongside ocean influence — which is deeply concerning, but trendology leads to little evidence we can rely on them to overcome CO2 on spans over the Foster & Rahmstorf climate span.
And if they do combine to overcome the GHE signal, because they don’t synchronize and have different periodicity (if ocean circulation period is real and isn’t tipped by the added energy), it will be once around 2070, and not happen again for another 140 years after that.
And CO2 level just keeps going up.
Le Pétomane strikes again. That has to be the most bizarre reading of the entrails ever seen.
The cool PDO has not even hit it’s stride after a few years – and he is declaring it over.
http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/PDO_zps89a7b4c1.jpg.html?sort=3&o=9
La Nina continues to intensify in the cool mode of the Pacific Interdecadal Oscillation.
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/enso/mei/
It has been this way for a 1000 years at least.
http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/Vance2012-AntarticaLawDomeicecoresaltcontent.jpg.html?sort=3&o=48
‘ENSO causes climate extremes across and beyond the Pacific basin; however, evidence of ENSO at high southern latitudes is generally restricted to the South Pacific and West Antarctica. Here, the authors report a statistically significant link between ENSO and sea salt deposition during summer from the Law Dome (LD) ice core in East Antarctica. ENSO-related atmospheric anomalies from the central-western equatorial Pacific (CWEP) propagate to the South Pacific and the circumpolar high latitudes. These anomalies modulate high-latitude zonal winds, with El Niño (La Niña) conditions causing reduced (enhanced) zonal wind speeds and subsequent reduced (enhanced) summer sea salt deposition at LD. Over the last 1010 yr, the LD summer sea salt (LDSSS) record has exhibited two below-average (El Niño–like) epochs, 1000–1260 ad and 1920–2009 ad, and a longer above-average (La Niña–like) epoch from 1260 to 1860 ad. Spectral analysis shows the below-average epochs are associated with enhanced ENSO-like variability around 2–5 yr, while the above-average epoch is associated more with variability around 6–7 yr. The LDSSS record is also significantly correlated with annual rainfall in eastern mainland Australia. While the correlation displays decadal-scale variability similar to changes in the interdecadal Pacific oscillation (IPO), the LDSSS record suggests rainfall in the modern instrumental era (1910–2009 ad) is below the long-term average. In addition, recent rainfall declines in some regions of eastern and southeastern Australia appear to be mirrored by a downward trend in the LDSSS record, suggesting current rainfall regimes are unusual though not unknown over the last millennium.’ http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/JCLI-D-12-00003.1?journalCode=clim
Not quite entrails – but if you look at the eastern equatorial region over the past month you can see the next La Nina evolving. http://www.ospo.noaa.gov/Products/ocean/sst/anomaly/index.html
Chief Hydrologist | May 9, 2013 at 12:11 am |
Are you saying your superstitiously baseless interpretation of too little fact is better than my superstitiously baseless interpretation of too little fact?
Nothwithstanding that intensification is often what happens in trends as they’re about to change direction.. If you really need to be more right about things there’s mathematical proof are meaningless, fill your boots.
Absolutely, I concur that your nonsense is superior in some unmeasurable, statistically meaningless, way to my nonsense.
There’s certainly more of it, at the very least.
You have the chutzpah to respond? I suppose I should expect no less form Le Pétomane.
‘While the correlation displays decadal-scale variability similar to changes in the interdecadal Pacific oscillation (IPO), the LDSSS record suggests rainfall in the modern instrumental era (1910–2009 ad) is below the long-term average. In addition, recent rainfall declines in some regions of eastern and southeastern Australia appear to be mirrored by a downward trend in the LDSSS record, suggesting current rainfall regimes are unusual though not unknown over the last millennium.’
This IPO last 20 to 40 years in the proxies – and combines PDO modes with changes in the frequency and intensity of ENSO.
We are indeed far from maths and in the realm of data and observation. But what you did with the PDO was lose any information that was there – and then claimed the cool mode was over. Such an obviously baseless claim marks not a mild case of superstition but a descent into irrational insanity.
‘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
Chief Hydrologist | May 9, 2013 at 1:52 am |
Respond? Respond implies I bothered to read what you wrote.
Do you have this same unrealistic expectation of everyone?
Let’s bring a couple of themes together.
‘In the introduction to his 1814 Essai philosophique sur les probabilités, Pierre-Simon Laplace extended an idea of Gottfried Leibniz which became famous as Laplace’s Demon, the locus classicus definition of strict physical determinism, with its one possible future.
Laplace said,
“We may regard the present state of the universe as the effect of its past and the cause of its future. An intellect which at a certain moment would know all forces that set nature in motion, and all positions of all items of which nature is composed, if this intellect were also vast enough to submit these data to analysis, it would embrace in a single formula the movements of the greatest bodies of the universe and those of the tiniest atom; for such an intellect nothing would be uncertain and the future just like the past would be present before its eyes.” http://www.informationphilosopher.com/freedom/laplaces_demon.html
‘The global climate system is composed of a number of subsystems: atmosphere, biosphere, cryosphere, hydrosphere and lithosphere, each of which has distinct characteristic times, from days and weeks to centuries and millennia (Ghil and Childress, 1987; Trenberth, 1992)… These ranges overlap between one subsystem and another. The interactions between the subsystems thus give rise to climate variability on all time scales.’ Michael Ghil
If there really were a being of such wondrous intellect – all would be deterministically calculable. Nothing is truly random in the macro-universe. Where we start however is with nonstationary time series for each of these subsystems – and interactions between the components that cause chaotic shifts in the state of the composite system. These are not cycles over a short term but perhaps ergodic over much longer time frames.
http://www.yaleclimatemediaforum.org/2013/05/wither-global-warming-has-it-slowed-down/#comment-540406
Mike Smith says:
May 7, 2013 at 11:50 am
This article,with the exception of Judy Curry, only quotes believers in catastrophic global warming. This is unfortunate. A more balanced approach would have emphasized the following points:
Science works by offering a hypothesis. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and others did that by predicting, year-by-year, future temperatures based on their estimates of climate sensitivity. Temperatures are now well below their predictions. If they can’t get it right for 15 years, it certainly calls their 50 year predictions into question.
By offering explanations of the incorrect year to year forecasts by saying, “Model studies found many 10-year periods that showed no surface warming, with even longer periods easily possible” is moving the goal posts. Now, it may be that Dr. Santer’s new hypothesis is correct but that has nothing to do with the original forecasts being wrong.
Thirdly, there has been no increase in hurricanes or tornadoes as predicted by climate science.
More and more, it appears that global warming is not the catastrophic threat once thought. Climate science would increase its credibility by acknowledging its incorrect forecasts as a basis for going forward.
While I do not expect the “dangerous warming” types to surrender horse and foot just yet, their unwillingness to even admit the current warming pause was unlooked for is downright unseemly. NOAA said in 2008 a 15 year “near zero” trend was ruled out by the models at a 95% level.
And yet here we are.
geo,
think about it.
In the last 20 years we can look at 20 different 15 year temperature gradients back from any given year.
On average, if a 15 year zero gradient would be *expected* once in those 20 years if its appearance is rejected at 95% confidence.
So even if there is a 15 year zero gradient (is there?), its appearance is not unexpected. Indeed, it is predicted.
Perhaps, once you have thought about this, you could suggest a test, using the surface temperature record, which would reject the AGW hypothesis.
Absurd. There is no chance of teasing out cause from staring at the surface temperature record.
http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/Loeb2011-Fig1.png.html?sort=3&o=31
http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/tropicalcloud.png.html?sort=3&o=37
geo, we dont have a zero trend.
geo,
Agreed that it was not looked for, except in Phil Jones’ correspondence. There was worry about getting strung up if it happened to come about that there would be no significant warming for a more extended period – such as 15 years…so that i where the extra significance of a 15 yrs “deadline” comes into it,I think.
Now all we have to figure out is how to make it higher than 95% sure it’s wrong. How did the IPCC handle this kind of problem? Can’t we get even higher than that by the same methods?
2011:“Humans are changing our climate. There is no doubt whatsoever,” said Trenberth. “Questions remain as to the extent of our collective contribution, but it is clear that the effects are not small and have emerged from the noise of natural variability. So why does the science community continue to do attribution studies and assume that humans have no influence as a null hypothesis?”
2013:The earlier period may have provided an unrealistic view of the global warming signal, says Kevin Trenberth, climate scientist with the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Co.
“One of the things emerging from several lines is that the IPCC has not paid enough attention to natural variability, on several time scales,” he says,
http://judithcurry.com/2011/11/03/climate-null-hypothesis/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/11/03/trenberth-null-and-void/
Closing Night
Our 11th Hour: Straight Talk on Climate Change from People Who Know
June 15, 2013, 7:30 p.m. at Seattle Repertory Theatre
Climate change is widely recognized as the major environmental problem facing the planet. Some of the most important issues shaping our collective future hinge on how we address this matter. This thought-provoking event features three TED-style presentations with world-leading experts on climate change, including Dr. Kevin Trenberth, Dr. Richard Alley and New York Times journalist Andrew Revkin, followed by an uplifting 30-minute opera focused on environmental stewardship set in the Pacific Northwest, Heron and the Salmon Girl, performed by Seattle Opera and Seattle Opera’s Youth Chorus. Emceed by Pulitzer- and Polk-prize winning environmental journalist, Usha McFarling.
http://www.seattlesciencefestival.org/Science-Festival/2013-opening-closing-night-events
======
World leading expert on climate change Trenberth blames the IPCC to get himself out of the fix he created as lead author of the 95 report (the one Santer doctored out the real consensus that no man made signal discernible), and other reports, and the IPCC blames Trenberth for giving personal views re hurricanes when he is billed as lead author when giving them:
http://climatesanity.wordpress.com/2009/11/24/kevin-trenberths-real-travesty/
“The REAL travesty
The real travesty with Trenberth has been his long-term take on climate, not weather. Trenberth has loudly trumpeted climate alarmism by preaching hurricane panic. See his Scientific American article from 2007. He predicted a trend toward gigantic hurricanes which was depicted by an illustration of a “future hurricane,” which is shown at the left (click to enlarge).
“Prior to that, in 2005 he wrote about the importance the Accumulated Cyclone Energy (ACE) index. This is a measure of the amount of energy dissipated by cyclones over the entire planet, or some part of the planet. In the June 17th, 2005 issue of Science he said…
“An important measure of regional storm activity is the Accumulated Cyclone Energy (ACE) index…The ACE index reflects the collective intensity and duration of tropical storms and hurricanes during a given hurricane season.
“At that time he used the ACE to bolster his argument that “Trends in human-influenced environmental changes are now evident in hurricane regions.” This is what the satellite derived ACE looked like in 2005, about the time of Katrina…
http://climatesanity.files.wordpress.com/2009/11/ace-to-2005.jpg?w=450&h=236
“For some reason, he left the ACE data out of his 2007 Scientific American article. Maybe because when he wrote his article in 2007 it looked something like this…
http://climatesanity.files.wordpress.com/2009/11/ace-to-20073.jpg?w=450&h=236
“I wonder if he includes the ACE index in his presentations today [2009] when he talks about the dangers of future hurricanes. The Accumulated Cyclone Energy index as derived from satellite data, for both the planet and the Northern Hemisphere are at historic lows. And that’s climate, not weather…
http://climatesanity.files.wordpress.com/2009/11/ace-to-20091.jpg?w=450&h=236
[From a post in the discussion]
“This isn’t the first time Trenberth objectivity and political motivation has been called into question. Dr. Chris Landsea’s resignation letter to the IPCC is illustrative http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/prometheus/archives/science_policy_general/000318chris_landsea_leaves.html
excerpt:
It is beyond me why my colleagues would utilize the media to push an unsupported agenda that recent hurricane activity has been due to global warming. Given Dr. Trenberth’s role as the IPCC’s Lead Author responsible for preparing the text on hurricanes, his public statements so far outside of current scientific understanding led me to concern that it would be very difficult for the IPCC process to proceed objectively with regards to the assessment on hurricane activity. My view is that when people identify themselves as being associated with the IPCC and then make pronouncements far outside current scientific understandings that this will harm the credibility of climate change science and will in the longer term diminish our role in public policy.
My concerns go beyond the actions of Dr. Trenberth and his colleagues to how he and other IPCC officials responded to my concerns. I did caution Dr. Trenberth before the media event and provided him a summary of the current understanding within the hurricane research community. I was disappointed when the IPCC leadership dismissed my concerns when I brought up the misrepresentation of climate science while invoking the authority of the IPCC. Specifically, the IPCC leadership said that Dr. Trenberth was speaking as an individual even though he was introduced in the press conference as an IPCC lead author;”
by Jim Steele December 6, 2009 at 9:17 pm
===
Whatever the hurricane scenario is now, Trenberth and the IPCC have been in cahoots to misrepresent science to promote the science fraud of AGW.
+1
If yer look at Tony Brown’s historical and cross referenced
record climate’s natchural variability is plain as the nose
on yer face.
ya, and if you look at the increease in c02 and the AMO you can explain BOTH the up and downs on the short term and the long term rise
Pingback: Even More about Trenberth’s Missing Heat – An Eye Opening Comment by Roger Pielke Sr. | Watts Up With That?
Well !
If you realize that Dessler and Trenerth totally has missunderstood and put the wrong sign in front of water wapour and cloids you have solved the mysteriuos “hiatus”. and an answer to why all the modells calculate this wrong. Why not start with the most obvious reason to why the modells dont wokr?
HOW IPCC’S CLIMATE SENSITIVITY OF ABOUT 3 DEG C IS DERIVED.
From Knight et al. 2008:
Observations indicate that global temperature rise has slowed in
the last decade (Fig. 2.8a). The least squares trend for January 1999 to December 2008 calculated from the HadCRUT3 dataset (Brohan et al. 2006) is +0.07±0.07°C/ decade—much less than the 0.18°C decade–1 recorded between 1979 and 2005 and the 0.2°C/ decade expected in the next decade (IPCC; Solomon et al. 2007).
http://rankexploits.com/musings/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/global_temperatures_09_Knight.pdf
So in the climate models, for the period from 1979 to 2005, the global warming rate was 0.18 deg C/decade, which gives a global warming of
dT = (2005-1979+1)* 0.18/10 = 27*0.18/10 = 0.49 deg C.
For 1979, CO2 concentration in the atmosphere was C1 = 337 ppm.
For 2005, CO2 concentration in the atmosphere was C2 = 380 ppm.
The climate sensitivity (CS) is defined by the formula:
CS = ln(2) * dT/ln(C2/C1) = ln(2) * 0.49/ln(380/337) = 0.693*0.49/0.12 = 2.8 deg C.
This estimate is identical to GISS’s modelE:
The model’s climate sensitivity of 2.7–2.9°C for doubled CO2 is well within the empirical range of 3±1°C for doubled CO2 that has been inferred from paleoclimate evidence (Hansen et al. 1984, 1993; Hoffert and Covey 1992).
http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/2007/2007_Hansen_etal_3.pdf
“The climate sensitivity (CS) is defined by the formula:
CS = ln(2) * dT/ln(C2/C1) = ln(2) * 0.49/ln(380/337) = 0.693*0.49/0.12 = 2.8 deg C.”
WRONG.
It is a bit silly to shout WRONG at the top of the voice and then be too lazy to say what is wrong.
The word “definition”? ECS or TCR? The calculation?
Judith,
” I wonder how long it will be before these scientists take seriously the possibility that sensitivity could be lower than 2C.”
Yes, there is a possibility that sensitivity could be lower than 2degC. Has there ever been a serious suggestion that it couldn’t?
But you, yourself, have previously suggested the possibility that it may be higher than 5 degC or even 6 degC?
Or, have you changed your mind about that now?
tempterrain | May 9, 2013 at 6:30 am | Reply
Judith,
“But you, yourself, have previously suggested the possibility that it may be higher than 5 degC or even 6 degC?
Or, have you changed your mind about that now?”
Temp, a true scientist is never absolutely sure of anything. Those that are sure are advocates, not scientists. The blogosphere is rife with them. They seek to foist their “idee fixe” on us by bullying repetition. You will learn nothing from them.
” Temp, a true scientist is never absolutely sure of anything. Those that are sure are advocates, not scientists”
Perfectly said.
Actually, my concern on the high end is not directly CO2 related, but for the possibility of abrupt climate change (of whatever cause), which the climate models don’t predict. Recent analyses indicate that CO2 sensitivity is not that high, probably not higher than 4C (and looking more likely to be 2C or lower)
Judith
What might cause ‘abrupt climate change’ and if it is that abrupt can we actually plan for it or hope to mitigate it?
tonyb
Judith
Thank you for writing your assessment of ECS. What you wrote seems much more reasonable and defendable than say Moshers claim of up to 6C . I can’t understand why someone includes the consideration of models that completely fail to not match observed conditions when they attempt estimate ECS.
Rob Starkey
See my graph here for ‘ observed conditions’.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/05/08/the-curious-case-of-rising-co2-and-falling-temperatures/
Difficult to see where 6 Degrees C could possibly come from as increasing Co2 seems to have done very little as yet.
tonyb
“What might cause ‘abrupt climate change’ and if it is that abrupt can we actually plan for it or hope to mitigate it?”
Tony, I get the feeling Dr. C’s talking about events like the Younger Dryas, which as I understand it was abrupt in both it’s arrival and departure…years to perhaps a few decades. I’ve read that temps rose 18 degrees F.in Greenland in less than a decade…
Don’t suppose there’s a thing we can do about events like that, and they’ll certainly be coming. ONly question is when…
‘I can’t understand why someone includes the consideration of models that completely fail to not match observed conditions when they attempt estimate ECS.”
Models dont give you ECS above 4.4.
Observational data and paleo data give you the long tail.
read a chart.
Mosh
Yup. Fat tail, long tail, you name it, you get it.
As a matter of fact, “paleo data” can give you anything you want to see and it gets worse the further back in geological time you go..
It’s like reading tea leaves or studying animal entrails.
– The intent is often to prove a preconceived hypothesis (i.e. CAGW)
– The analysis is subjective.
– The proxy data are dicey and incomplete.
– The uncertainties are enormous.
– The geological time periods are carefully selected.
– The conclusions drawn are based on the classical argument from ignorance: “we can only explain this if we assume…”.
Fuggidaboudit, Mosh
This is the next thing to voodoo science. Observational data are all that really count as empirical evidence.
Max
‘Observational data are all that really count as empirical evidence.”
Do Not go Cripwell on me.
Steven, you write “Do Not go Cripwell on me.”
Thank you very much indeed for a REAL compliment. I never expected that from you, of all people.
Mosh
Don’t know about “going Cripwell”, but how ’bout just “going Feynman”?
See peter azlac’s comment above (my bold to Feynman quote)
http://judithcurry.com/2013/05/07/more-on-the-pause/#comment-319530
Good enough for me.
Max
Max, you bolded the wrong part. Here’s the part that matters:
If it disagrees with experiment it is wrong.
Judith,
Its good that you still do have a concern for the possibility of higher end events. As usual, you are trying to ride two horses simultaneously. The comments you make about climate sensitivity probably not being higher than 4C are in line with mainstream scientific opinion. Then you switch to the other horse with “not that high” and “more likely to be 2C or lower”. You are careful to give the impression that climate sensitivity is likely to be less than 2C but what you are actually saying is that its more likely to less than 2C than greater than 4C.
The only sensible approach is to assign some definite probabilities for each of these ranges and undertake a risk assessment on that basis.
Even if we say that Climate sensitivity is unlikely to be higher than 4C, (10% level of probability) or higher than 6C (2% level) it doesn’t mean these probabilities are negligible. The risk can be considered to be the product of the possibility of something bad happening times the consequences of it happening.
So, for example, we might accept a 2% risk of rain and leave the house without an umbrella but we wouldn’t overtake on a blind bend even if we knew that there was only a 1 in 50 chance of a truck coming along in the other direction.
manaker
“Don’t know about “going Cripwell”, but how ’bout just “going Feynman”?
Feynman was wrong or inconsistent. Lets start with this. When you do an experiment the data NEVER fit the hypothesis. never.
But experimenters including Feynman do not automatically reject the theory. Here are the choices they employ
A) they question the data and do the experiment over
B) they say the data is close enough and say the theory is
confirmed. To do this they say “error exists” error is never
observed.
C) they decide to change the theory by adding auxilary hypotheses,
Feynman did all sorts of weird things to keep theories around.
One game is called renormalization
http://www.pha.jhu.edu/~blechman/papers/renormalization/node5.html
Now Feynman played this game, but he didnt like it
“The early formulators of QED and other quantum field theories were, as a rule, dissatisfied with this state of affairs. It seemed illegitimate to do something tantamount to subtracting infinities from infinities to get finite answers.
Freeman Dyson has shown that these infinities are of a basic nature and cannot be eliminated by any formal mathematical procedures, such as the renormalization method.[5][6]
Dirac’s criticism was the most persistent.[7] As late as 1975, he was saying:[8]
Most physicists are very satisfied with the situation. They say: ‘Quantum electrodynamics is a good theory and we do not have to worry about it any more.’ I must say that I am very dissatisfied with the situation, because this so-called ‘good theory’ does involve neglecting infinities which appear in its equations, neglecting them in an arbitrary way. This is just not sensible mathematics. Sensible mathematics involves neglecting a quantity when it is small – not neglecting it just because it is infinitely great and you do not want it!
Another important critic was Feynman. Despite his crucial role in the development of quantum electrodynamics, he wrote the following in 1985:[9]
The shell game that we play … is technically called ‘renormalization’. But no matter how clever the word, it is still what I would call a dippy process! Having to resort to such hocus-pocus has prevented us from proving that the theory of quantum electrodynamics is mathematically self-consistent. It’s surprising that the theory still hasn’t been proved self-consistent one way or the other by now; I suspect that renormalization is not mathematically legitimate.”
So there you have it. Feynman did not throw out a theory which required him to subtract infinities from infinities to get finite answers.
even though he thought it was dippy. Now you would think that a theory that requires you to do such things that are mathematically suspect would get the boot. But no.
Great stuff Steve. “I see your Feynmann and I play my Dirac.” What a great he was. Profound history.
+1.
Very good point, Steve.
I
Imagine the furore if Feynmann’s term ‘hocus pocus’ had turned up in one of the so-called Climategate emails!
You do the imagining tt. There was enough that was really there, when understood in context, to derail public trust in climate science. That’s your problem. The honesty of Feynmann and Dirac in facing up to theirs is however a very good place to start.
And Dyson of course. Imagine if a guy like that had lived long enough to take a good hard look at climate science in all its finery.
Richard –
Is that a statement that public trust in climate scientists has been “derailed,” or merely a statement that if the public “understood” the emails in context, public trust in climate scientists would have been derailed?
If your statement means the former – could you provide some evidence for your claim? Being a “skeptic,” I’m sure you must have evidence for your conclusions.
Right?
Mosh
You’re rationalizing.
Let’s just leave it that you are less insistent on empirical data to support a hypothesis than Jim Cripwell is, for example – or than was expressed by Feynman in the very clear quotation cited above by Peter Azlac..
Nothing wrong with that at all.
Cripwell is what I would call a “rational (or scientific) skeptic” (see Wiki) and you are apparently not.
I tend to be a “rational skeptic”, in that sense, myself – but I am probably more willing than Jim is to accept some things provisionally, even if they are not supported by empirical scientific evidence, at least until such evidence can be provided,
Just the way it is.
Doesn’t mean either of us is “wrong” or “right”
Max
So a true scientists would say thing like:
That’s a good question.
Well, it all depends.
Maybe, maybe not.
On the other hand, …
It’s hard to say.
Whadda ya want from me !
BUT a true scientist would never say:
It looks like that could be a problem.
I think we should do something.
HA HA !
Joshua
Maybe you missed this US poll by Rasmussen, which indicated that close to 70% felt climate scientists were falsifying global warming research:
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/current_events/environment_energy/69_say_it_s_likely_scientists_have_falsified_global_warming_research
Not exactly a “vote of confidence”, Joshua.
Max
Max_OK
Naw.
A “true scientist” would say:
“I don’t know that there could be a problem. Give us some time and we’ll see if we can find out”.
(no “HA HA” needed)
Max+CH
manacker –
Now you and I have discussed that poll before. And when we did, I made some obvious points about the poll that would be consistent with skeptical scrutiny One would think that any skeptic would consider the poll you linked with that sort of skeptical scrutiny, and those points make it clear that using that poll to support the argument:
would be an example of “skepticism” and not skepticism. So I am surprised that you link to that poll, again, as you have just done.
If you’d like, I could explain those points to you again – but I would suggest that maybe first you’d like to think things through from a skeptical perspective first.
And after that, you might want to look at polling analysis that looked at the impact of climategate on public opinion more directly.
Why do “skeptics” sully the notion of skeptical scrutiny as you do, manacker?
“a true scientist is never absolutely sure of anything”
The implication being that therefore there is no need to reduce human CO2 emissions?
And if we, as “true scientists”, aren’t “absolutely sure” about the adverse effects of tobacco on health , why bother discouraging children from smoking? And if we, as “true scientists”, aren’t “absolutely sure” that AIDS is caused by HIV transmission, (similarly with many other diseases like Herpes) why don’t we all forget about all the official advise about having unsafe sex with strangers, cast caution to the winds and just do whatever we like?
Joshua
You’ve just added lots of blah-blah in a failed attempt to rationalize away the Rasmussen poll (in the USA), which showed that close to 70% of respondents believe that climate scientists fudge the data.
The poll is what it is, Joshua.
It supposedly represents a USA cross-section.
There is no question that Climategate and the subsequent revelations of IPCC exaggerations and fabrications have caused some of this. The awareness that it is not warming despite unabated GHG emissions may also be a factor.
Whatever the reasons, that is the poll.
Max
tempterrain
You parade out the same tired sidetracks every time.
– Scientists have compelling evidence that smoking increases the risk of respiratory disease.
– Scientists have compelling evidence that the HIV virus aid AIDS are connected.
BUT
– Scientists do not have compelling evidence that human emissions of CO2 will have a potentially catastrophic impact on our climate, as outlined by IPCC in its AR4 report.
BIG difference.
Max
The evidence for AGW is compelling because it is all interlocking puzzle pieces and there are very few places for escape hatches. The only place that the energy can eventually balance is through radiative transfer. This reduces the number of canards and straw-man arguments that skeptics can spring on real scientists.
Of course, these same canards and strawmen are flung on a fraction of the unsuspecting and gullible public, and in this case the misleading information (i.e. misinformation) leads to the dependable propaganda strategies of FUD and foo.
“Steven Mosher | May 9, 2013 at 9:08 pm |
When you do an experiment the data NEVER fit the hypothesis.”
This is nonsense. In physics “data” includes a calculation of the error in measurement. If that interval covers the hypothesis, it fits.
manacker –
Well, you did get that right. I’ll give you credit for that. The poll is what it is.
However, it is also a poll that is insufficient to support the argument made, the argument that I criticized. This is true for a number of reasons. That you fail to acknowledge them is evidence that you fail to employ basic skeptical scrutiny.
I would suggest that you think about no longer referring to yourself as a “rational skeptic.”
If you polled people on their trust level in lawyers, and the polls showed a cross-section of respondents felt that lawyers sometimes fudge evidence, should we conclude that such a poll result was the result of climategate?
You are claiming a longitudinal finding from a cross-sectional analysis. That is invalid at a very basic analytical level.
You have no idea whether the poll result reflects any kind of change pre-climategate to post-climategate. You have no idea whether the polling data reflect less trust in climate scientists than any other profession, or group of scientists.
Your analysis is “skepticism,” and not skepticism.
The actual validated data we have on the impact of climategate shows that it had a significant impact on the views of a small % of Americans, and that among those whose opinions were influenced, a high number were of a political/ideological persuasion such that we could predict that they would use evidence to confirm pre-existing opinions as opposed to having their opinions shifted from one perspective to an opposing perspective. (In fact, just as there were some for whom climategate reinforced a pre-existing view that AGW does not represent a risk, so there were some for whom climategate reinforced a pre-existing view that AGW does present a risk.)
In other words, if you had asked that group the same questions prior to climategate you would likely have gotten very similar results.
Now if you have some validated data that support different conclusions, please link them. I’d love to see them. What you say is certainly possible. But from what I’ve seen, your opinion has been formed data-free. Your conclusions are based on a combination of wishful thinking and projecting your own views onto those of others.
Anyway, viewed with due skeptical scrutiny, the Rasmussen poll you linked does not support Richard’s statement that “there was enough….really there…. to derail public trust in climate science.”
But yes, you are right, the poll is what it is.
Oh, and btw manacker –
That statement of yours is a mis-representation of the poll data. So either you are being deliberate in your misrepresentation, or you are misrepresenting the data due to a failure to exercise skeptical scrutiny.
Either way, your comment is certainly not that would be made by a “rational skeptic.” Take a look at the data and see if you figure out why your statement misrepresents the results of the poll.
This is a test of your abilities for skeptical analysis. Let’s see if you an pass the test, shall we?
Max,
So the usual contrarian line that “a true scientist is never absolutely sure of anything” unless they are “advocates, not scientists” isn’t to be taken too generally?
They can be sure of all sorts of things – providing that they have no connection with climate change that is. Then everything is full of uncertainty and doubt? Even carbon dioxide as a GH gas is ‘not proven’.
Have I got that right now?
JC
You must be very proud of your stand. It is taking fruit. They are moving to your position:
Towards Rebuilding Trust
“Rebuilding trust with the public on the subject of climate research starts with Ralph Cicerone’s statement “Two aspects need urgent attention: the general practice of science and the personal behaviors of scientists.” Much has been written about the need for greater transparency, reforms to peer review, etc. and I am hopeful that the relevant institutions will respond appropriately. Investigations of misconduct are being conducted at the University of East Anglia and at Penn State. Here I would like to bring up some broader issues that will require substantial reflection by the institutions and also by individual scientists.
Climate research and its institutions have not yet adapted to its high policy relevance. How scientists can most effectively and appropriately engage with the policy process is a topic that has not been adequately discussed (e.g. the “honest broker” challenge discussed by Roger Pielke Jr), and climate researchers are poorly informed in this regard. The result has been reflexive support for the UNFCCC policy agenda (e.g. carbon cap and trade) by many climate researchers that are involved in the public debate (particularly those involved in the IPCC), which they believe follows logically from the findings of the (allegedly policy neutral) IPCC. The often misinformed policy advocacy by this group of climate scientists has played a role in the political polarization of this issue.. The interface between science and policy is a muddy issue, but it is very important that scientists have guidance in navigating the potential pitfalls. Improving this situation could help defuse the hostile environment that scientists involved in the public debate have to deal with, and would also help restore the public trust of climate scientists.
The failure of the public and policy makers to understand the truth as presented by the IPCC is often blamed on difficulties of communicating such a complex topic to a relatively uneducated public that is referred to as “unscientific America” by Chris Mooney. Efforts are made to “dumb down” the message and to frame the message to respond to issues that are salient to the audience. People have heard the alarm, but they remain unconvinced because of a perceived political agenda and lack of trust of the message and the messengers. At the same time, there is a large group of educated and evidence driven people (e.g. the libertarians, people that read the technical skeptic blogs, not to mention policy makers) who want to understand the risk and uncertainties associated with climate change, without being told what kinds of policies they should be supporting. More effective communication strategies can be devised by recognizing that there are two groups with different levels of base knowledge about the topic. But building trust through public communication on this topic requires that uncertainty be acknowledged. My own experience in making public presentations about climate change has found that discussing the uncertainties increases the public trust in what scientists are trying to convey and doesn’t detract from the receptivity to understanding climate change risks (they distrust alarmism). Trust can also be rebuilt by discussing broad choices rather than focusing on specific policies.
And finally, the blogosphere can be a very powerful tool for increasing the credibility of climate research. “Dueling blogs” (e.g. climateprogress.org versus wattsupwiththat.com and realclimate.org versus climateaudit.org) can actually enhance public trust in the science as they see both sides of the arguments being discussed. Debating science with skeptics should be the spice of academic life, but many climate researchers lost this somehow by mistakenly thinking that skeptical arguments would diminish the public trust in the message coming from the climate research establishment. Such debate is alive and well in the blogosphere, but few mainstream climate researchers participate in the blogospheric debate. The climate researchers at realclimate.org were the pioneers in this, and other academic climate researchers hosting blogs include Roy Spencer, Roger Pielke Sr and Jr, Richard Rood, and Andrew Dessler. The blogs that are most effective are those that allow comments from both sides of the debate (many blogs are heavily moderated). While the blogosphere has a “wild west” aspect to it, I have certainly learned a lot by participating in the blogospheric debate including how to sharpen my thinking and improve the rhetoric of my arguments. Additional scientific voices entering the public debate particularly in the blogosphere would help in the broader communication efforts and in rebuilding trust. And we need to acknowledge the emerging auditing and open source movements in the in the internet-enabled world, and put them to productive use. The openness and democratization of knowledge enabled by the internet can be a tremendous tool for building public understanding of climate science and also trust in climate research.
No one really believes that the “science is settled” or that “the debate is over.” Scientists and others that say this seem to want to advance a particular agenda. There is nothing more detrimental to public trust than such statements.
And finally, I hope that this blogospheric experiment will demonstrate how the diversity of the different blogs can be used collectively to generate ideas and debate them, towards bringing some sanity to this whole situation surrounding the politicization of climate science and rebuilding trust with the public.”
http://curry.eas.gatech.edu/climate/towards_rebuilding_trust.html
Girma,
Well done.
You are right about Dr.Curry’s positions, She was progressive in a positive manner. Taking the high ground in the climate discussion against the extremists positions was a thankless job even when you are right..
Her effort reminds me an accomplished University surgeon (Herb Ruckle) and Department Chairman in California. I asked, why are you so patient with interns, working these awful hours seven days a week and doing free surgeries?”. His complete answer “I just want to leave my profession a little better than when I started”. Judy and so many special people make everyone better.
From Girma’s post:
“At the same time, there is a large group of educated and evidence driven people (e.g. the libertarians, people that read the technical skeptic blogs, not to mention policy makers)
_________
Libertarians are “evidence driven people” ? Well, maybe some are. But libertarian ideology is the main driver of libertarians.
Eh? And how does that differ from liberals being driven by liberal “ideology?” You make less and less sense Max_OK .
pokerguy, I’m a liberal and ideology doesn’t drive me on the subject of climate change. I wish there were no AGW, but I cant deny the evidence. I am not willing to gamble with the climate. You do, and in effect you want to gamble with someone else’s money, money you won’t have to repay if you bet wrong.
Max_OK,
Let me paraphrase that for you:
Max_OK, I’m a conservative and ideology doesn’t drive me on the subject of climate change. I wish there were no CAGW movement, but I cant deny the evidence. I am not willing to gamble with the global economy. You do, and in effect you want to gamble with everyone else’s money, money you won’t have to repay if you bet wrong.
There, that’s better.
In reality, my conservatism has an enormous impact on my decision on the CAGW movement for decarbonization of the world economy, because that is a political question.
But my conservatism does not lead me to doubt that radiative physics shows that CO2 is a green house gas. It does not lead me to reject the GHG effect in general. It does not lead me to doubt that anthropogenic influences, GHGs, land use, black carbon deposits, etc., may be warming (in the Mosherist definition of warming, which includes slowing of cooling) the climate, certainly on a localized basis and perhaps globally.
Politically, my conservatism leads me to be skeptical of environmental arguments used by progressives to justify policies they want to implement whether the globe is warming or not. My knowledge of human nature causes me to doubt claims of certainty and precision that underlying research makes clear are unwarranted.
My doubts as to the accuracy and precision of temperature records, paleo-climate, climate models, and CAGW predictions are based not on my politics, but on the admissions of the CAGW advocates themselves. We don’t know near what the political advocates of CAGW claim we know, at least not to anywhere near the levels of certainty claimed.
So my natural skepticism of progressive arguments certainly informs my review of the scientific aspect of CAGW, by making me look more closely than I would if the advocates were not trying to remake the entire global economy. But it is not determinative.
First of all Max, I’m a liberal democrat. I’ve said so many times on this forum, though in truth I’m thoroughly disgusted with both major parties.
Secondly, you’ve just said that your position on climate change is based on your unwillingness to gamble with the climate (which is an absurd statement in itself. It doesn’t mean anything.) But that aside, you’ve just conceded that it’s your moral philosophy that informs your position, that is your sense of what is right and proper, and what is wrong and improper. I’ve got news for you my young friend. That’s part of your IDEOLOGY. Look it up. Keep you out of trouble for a while at at least.
GaryM
+1.
Max OK and others like him believe that they can “win” the conversation by pushing folks like you into the nut job camp, or politically motivated camp, and in the process avoid answering your real considered doubts.
“But libertarian ideology is the main driver of libertarians.”
being evidence driven we’d ask for evidence of that
Gary- good post, but I expect Max to not understand
GaryM, you “ruin the economy” types get all panicky at the thought of taxing carbon for its true cost. Yet, we see no economy’s ruined by carbon taxes.
pokerguy doesn’t mind gambling with other peoples money, but if he loses his bet, he won’t be around to pay them back. He’ll be a climate deadbeat. It’s that simple.
Max_OK
Your logic seems flawed to me:
“libertarian ideology is the main driver of libertarians” BUT
“liberal ideology is NOT the main driver of liberals?”
Huh?
How about (in your case):
“goofy ideology is the main driver of goof-balls”
Max_CH
Max_OK
Try using your head.
You write:
We also “see no environments ruined by human CO2 emissions”.
So we see no NEED for a carbon tax.
Got it?
Max_CH
Steven Mosher | May 9, 2013 at 3:01 pm |
Max OK and others like him believe that they can “win” the conversation by pushing folks like you into the nut job camp, or politically motivated camp, and in the process avoid answering your real considered doubts.
_____
You don’t win a conversation with hard-core deniers and false skeptics. As you yourself have pointed out, there will always be some excuse they will use.
Some deniers and false skeptics are in the nut camp, but there’s nothing nutty about being unconcerned about something that can’t happen fast enough to affect you in your lifetime. An older person, yes. Selfish, yes. Self-centered (the libertarian), yes. Sociopathic ( some libertarians?), yes, Bad citizen, yes. But nutty, no.
I would say, however, the climate contrarian group has more than it’s share of nuts.
Max_OK
Can you cite a carbon tax that has effectively lowered comsumption in the country where it was imposed by enough to make any significant impact on overall CO2 emissions in that country? If you do the reaseach you will find the answer to be no. The cost of fossil fuels has risen over the last 30 years to the extent that people have already decreased their consumption. It would take a very large tax to significantly reduce comsumption in the US.
While I agree that the US needs the revenue, such a tax disproportionally hits those in the lower income brackets. if you give those same people a tax rebate- the incentive for reducing consumption also is reduced- as well as the desired additional revenues. In addition it then becomes an inefficient means of collecting revenue. Be realistic.
Max,
“I’m a liberal and ideology doesn’t drive me on the subject of climate change. I wish there were no AGW, but I cant deny the evidence. ”
I’ll ignore the first sentence. Regarding the second, could you please avail us of some of that “evidence”? Something other than model results, that is.
Max_OK,
“GaryM, you ‘ruin the economy’ types get all panicky at the thought of taxing carbon for its true cost. Yet, we see no economy’s ruined by carbon taxes.”
So much inanity is such a small; comment.
1. What precisely is the “true cost” of carbon?
2. We see no global climate ruined by CO2. Does that disprove CAGW?
3. You really don’t get that ruining the economy is the goal of the leaders of the progressive party.
As to point 3, you are a default progressive. You don’t understand progressive economics any more than you do free market economics. All you know is what you have been taught since grade school. Government good, free market evil.
Those who are really the architects of the progressive agenda do indeed want to radically transform the U.S., and the world. Some of them in moments of weakness have even been known to say so.
But I don’t expect you to understand that. It takes effort, critical analysis, reading and listening to those who disagree with your ingrained beliefs.
CAGW is like Obamacare. Full implementation will do away with the free market in the respective industries. And that is the intent of the progressives who really know what they are trying to do, and why. They are a small minority, but they are the ones who design the thousand page laws and six foot thick books of government regulations.
If the healthcare/insurance industry implodes as planned, the smart progressives know the people are likely to turn to government. Same with destruction of the energy industry. The massive inefficiencies of CAGW and Obamacare are not glitches, they are features to those who planned them.
So you stay comfortable in your ovine allegiance to progressive dogma. Don’t listen to, let alone actually think about what others say or why. Don’t analyze your own beliefs and opinions. And be sure to keep accusing everyone else of being dominated by their ideology, without a hint of irony.
But don’t worry, if the energy economy and healthcare economies implode, and the rest of the economy with them, conservatives will rebuild them and keep you from living in the Hobbesian world that would otherwise result.
Steven Mosher,
I am a Catholic, a conservative, a skeptic and a lawyer. I am used to people trying to paint me as a nut job and much worse. Hasn’t bothered me yet.
Rob Starkey said on May 9, 2013 at 3:53 pm
Max_OK
“Can you cite a carbon tax that has effectively lowered comsumption in the country where it was imposed by enough to make any significant impact on overall CO2 emissions in that country?”
_____
B.C., which has a carbon tax, compared to the rest of Canada which does not.
@ GaryM | May 9, 2013 at 2:06 pm |
Excellent comment. I agree 100%.
I suspect your comment states the position of many conservatives, most rational people, and most of those whose ideology does not influence their ability to think rationally about policy.
It would be great to be able to tag comments like yours or extract them and save them somewhere so we can refer to them in the future.
Many contributors to this blog seem to have a problem accepting that “libertarian ideology is the main driver of libertarians”?
We, non-libertarians or more correctly non-proprietarians, mostly accept that the GH effect warms the Earth by about 33C. We, mostly, accept that a doubling of atmospheric CO2 and other GH gas levels will cause a likely warming of several degrees, and that the uncontrolled increase in GH gas concentrations in the atmosphere, caused by human emissions , presents an unacceptably high climatic risk.
What’s political about that? Why do many of you think it is impossible to agree with the consensus scientific position on climate change and still be a of a right wing political persuasion?
GaryM can’t remember what he says from one post to next, regarding ideology and climate change,
In his May 9, 2013 2:06 pm post GaryM said:
“Max_OK, I’m a conservative and ideology doesn’t drive me on the subject of climate change.”
Six hours later in his 8:36 pm post GaryM alludes to his ideological objection to addressing CAGW in his comments to me, some of which I will quote as follows:
” You don’t understand progressive economics any more than you do free market economics. All you know is what you have been taught since grade school. Government good, free market evil.”
“Those who are really the architects of the progressive agenda do indeed want to radically transform the U.S., and the world.”
“CAGW is like Obamacare. Full implementation will do away with the free market in the respective industries. And that is the intent of the progressives who really know what they are trying to do, and why.”
“If the healthcare/insurance industry implodes as planned, the smart progressives know the people are likely to turn to government. Same with destruction of the energy industry. The massive inefficiencies of CAGW and Obamacare are not glitches, they are features to those who planned them.”
_____
So several hours after GaryM declares “ideology doesn’t drive me on the subject of climate change,” he describes how his anti-government / free-market ideology is threatened by government efforts to address climate change, which he attributes not to any problems that global warming could actually cause, but a conspiracy by “progressives” who want government to take control of everything. GaryM believes I have been suckered into supporting the conspiracy.
IMO, GaryM is a sick puppy.
Max_OK,
Max, being a typical drone progressive, doesn’t understand humor at all. He seems to have missed that the sentence he quotes is a parody of his own comment immediately above, with just a few words changed to show him what his gibberish would look like coming from the other side of the political spectrum. (The rest of the comment makes my political position, and its impact on my decision making process, quite clear I think.)
The word “paraphrase” should have been a clue.
tempterrain,
Here’s where your non-political description of the consensus is…well…completely political:
“unacceptably high climatic risk”
I wasn’t aware that unacceptable was a scientific term. I know it is a common political term, meaning one has done a cost benefit analysis of the physical, economic and human costs, and deemed that a particular action (in your case decarbonization), is necessary. But it is not a scientific issue. Nor could any such analysis be in any sense be considered scientific. The determination of “acceptable” necessarily being a product of non-scientific values in deciding what costs are acceptable and which are not, let alone whether there is sufficient certainty to justify the enormous cost of the proposed “solution” to that risk.
Labeling your political beliefs “science,” and claiming there is a “consensus” on those beliefs, does not make it so. Though y’all have been trying it for decades.
GaryM said in his post of May 10, 2013 at 9:20 am
“Max, being a typical drone progressive, doesn’t understand humor at all.”
_______
GaryM claims he was just kidding around when he gave the impression he is an anti-government / free market ideologue and a conspiracy theorist. His idea of humor is pretending to be pretty much what he is.
I didn’t catch on to GaryM making fun of himself by impersonating himself. I’ll have to read his post more carefully in the future.
GaryM,
You’re saying that talking about any kind of risk, climatic or otherwise, is political rather than scientific? The implication being that scientists should avoid mention of that term?
Does this mean researchers into bird ‘flu mutations shouldn’t issue any kind of ‘political’ warnings connected to their findings? Or geologists shouldn’t say anything ‘political’ about volcanoes which are about to erupt, or tsunamis which may be about to occur?
tempterrain,
“You’re saying that talking about any kind of risk, climatic or otherwise, is political rather than scientific? The implication being that scientists should avoid mention of that term?”
Actually I said nothing of the kind. I am beginning to wonder if you progressives are congenitally incapable of dealing with the arguments others actually make.
Try again, and if you ask a question about what I actually wrote, I will be happy to respond.
GaryM,
Its just when its climate is it? Then any talk about “unaccptable risk” is political. But it’s not political when it’s about anything else. I get it now.
A scientist may be eminently qualified to say that the risk of something or another is x, but being a scientist does not qualify them to say whether or not x represents an unacceptable risk. That is for society to decide.
That’s not to say that the scientist is disallowed from saying it’s an unacceptable risk, but he or she is not talking as a scientist when they say it, but rather as a member of society – and is no more qualified than anyone else to make such a pronouncement.
tempterrain,
Nope, you still need to misrepresent what I wrote because you are clearly incapable of addressing real argument with which you disagree.
Straw men are just one of many forms of dishonesty, and after a while it gets boring responding to them. Quote what I said, and ask me a question about what I said, not what you wish I had said so you can respond to it without really…you know…actually thinking about it.
GaryM,
OK. If you want questions.
Why is it “absolutely political”, rather than scientific, to use the term “unacceptably high climatic risk”?
Would it be “absolutely political”, rather than scientific, to use the term “unacceptably high risk” in connection with smoking and health, failure to vaccinate children against common diseases, AIDS/HIV, controlling outbreaks of influenza in poultry etc
Would you agree that scientists should give a warning on the dangers of an impending volcanic eruption?
Would you disagree that scientists should give warnings of , maybe not quite so impending, climate problems caused by human CO2 and other GH gas emissions?
tempterrain,
“Would it be ‘absolutely political, rather than scientific, to use the term ‘unacceptably high risk’ in connection with smoking and health, failure to vaccinate children against common diseases, AIDS/HIV, controlling outbreaks of influenza in poultry etc”
Yes, it would be absolutely political. And is. “Unacceptably high” is plainly and simply not a scientific judgment. It is a value/policy judgment. Your problem is that you continue desperately to dress your politics up as science. Science deals in probabilities. not “acceptability.” Notice that “science” does not require the outlawing of smoking, the vaccination of children or the sale of poultry. Politicians assess the risks, and determine policy.
“Would you agree that scientists should give a warning on the dangers of an impending volcanic eruption?”
This is just another straw men. Warning of risk is not the same as making the value judgment of whether a risk is “unacceptably high.” No matter how much you progressives yearn to control other people’s lives, your desire does not change your politics into science. One is an estimation of probability, the other is a demand for policy.
But then, you would have understood all this already if you had actually read and thought about my first comment to you, because it is all right there.
“I wasn’t aware that unacceptable was a scientific term. I know it is a common political term, meaning one has done a cost benefit analysis of the physical, economic and human costs, and deemed that a particular action (in your case decarbonization), is necessary. But it is not a scientific issue. Nor could any such analysis be in any sense be considered scientific. The determination of “acceptable” necessarily being a product of non-scientific values in deciding what costs are acceptable and which are not, let alone whether there is sufficient certainty to justify the enormous cost of the proposed “solution” to that risk.”
But you can’t dispute the argument logically, so you build straw men and ask me to defend positions that exist only in your politically clouded mind.
GaryM,
So you’re saying that its OK to for scientists to say there is a risk that temperatures will rise by several degrees, a risk of sea levels will rising by a metre or more, a risk that the polar ice caps will melt, a risk hurricane intensities will significantly increase etc etc ?
But they just shouldn’t express any opinion on whether or not these are acceptable risks?
And that’s your only criticism of mainstream scientists on the issue?
Please note the ?? at the end of the above sentences.
tempterrain,
Responding to you on this thread has reached the point of diminishing returns. I will address your latest dishonest straw man before leaving you to misrepresent what I write now.
“But they just shouldn’t express any opinion on whether or not these are acceptable risks?”
I have never said scientists should not voice their opinion. Nor do the words “shouldn’t express” appear in any comment by me. The point I made, which you continue to misrepresent, was that your claim that the risk of globalclimatewarmingchange was “unacceptable” was political not scientific. Not that you shouldn’t make it, but that your attempt to dress your political opinion up as science was transparent. In fact I have consistently dissented from the view that climate “scientists” should not even be advocates. Just that they should be honest about the fact they are expressing political opinion when when they are doing so. Rather than dressing their political views up as science.
Which brings us full circle to my original comment before you (repeatedly) dishonestly tried to twist it beyond recognition.
Now that you have admitted that it is your “opinion” that the risk is unacceptable, thereby (finally) admitting the truth of my initial comment, I will now withdraw and allow you to misrepresent this comment without rebuttal. Because if I was bored before by your quibbling, I am now on the verge of coma.
I recall from a “philosophy of science” class I took back in college the principal that when faced with competing hypotheses, it’s generally better to pick the simpler one. God knows I’m not a scientist. But even still the CAGW hypothesis is looking more and more like something designed by Rube Goldberg. Wouldn’t it be more parsimonious in a scientific sense, hence generally better, to simply assume that the missing heat isn’t there in the first place…?
It would save you guys a lot of work, like trying to figure out how the missing heat suddenly took it into its head to take a flying leap off of dry land smack into the deep ocean.
Can a scientific hypothesis commit suicide?
:
pokerguy said: “I recall from a “philosophy of science” class I took back in college the principal that when faced with competing hypotheses, it’s generally better to pick the simpler one. God knows I’m not a scientist….”
______
Neither am I, but I know the difference between “generally” and “always.”
I also know the hypothesis in this case would be there is missing heat and the null hypothesis would be there is no missing heat. One is no more simple than the other.
It’s a good thing I never took the course in “philosophy of science.”
‘t’s generally better to pick the simpler one.”
the problem is an objective measure of what is “simpler”
lets take the berkeley earth reconstruction of land temperatures since 1750. Using two variable ( C02 and Volcanic emissions ) we reconstruct the temperature. That pretty damn simple. you dont need to know about the
sun, CFC, aerosols, ozone, black carbon.
Of course, for some folks ( me included ) this is too simple. what’s that mean? objectively.
Well, how many things must be explained if we accept the heat is missing, and don’t know with any certainty where it is, or how it got there?
And how many things have to be explained if we decide there’s no missing heat in the first place? Again, always cautious to quickly concede I’m not a scientist, but if we decide the latter it seems to me that for practical purpose we simply (there’s that word) have to assume a lower sensitivity to Co2. I grant you there must be all sorts of theoretical considerations that flow from that, but again, from a practical point of view the second option seems self-evidently simpler to me..
“Well, how many things must be explained if we accept the heat is missing, and don’t know with any certainty where it is, or how it got there?
And how many things have to be explained if we decide there’s no missing heat in the first place? ”
So, you want to count “things to be explained” But clearly in any theory there are a multitude of “things” and statements that can effected. In fact its not countable.
But lets take you up. If the heat is not missing, then whole branches of science have to be rewritten in fact all of physics.
If however the heat is missing, one can simple say choose
A) its lost to space somehow.. some physics to understand
B) its hidden in the depths, some process to understand and
quantity to measure
C) the measurement systems need improvement, some engineering to do.
So its simpler to say the heat is missing because you dont have to throw entire branches of physics out, instead you get to go look for additional physics and you get to do better measurement. Instead of counting entities to get at simplicty, you look at the work you have to do.
Now we could simplify everything and say the world is a dream and that an evil demon is just fooling me about the existence of everything. That universe needs no more explaination, no more things to explain. its utterly simple. There is just the demon, me, and the dreams he gives me.
“If the heat is not missing, then whole branches of science have to be rewritten in fact all of physics.”
Of course I’m not arguing that there’s no additional heat at all to be accounted for, so you can keep your physics books proudly on their shelves. The question is, as you well know, is whether there’s going to be enough additional heat…i.e. enough warming…to be destructive.
Steven Mosher | May 9, 2013 at 8:47 pm said: “Well, how many things must be explained if we accept the heat is missing, and don’t know with any certainty where it is, or how it got there?”
Mosher, you are still molesting the truth! Shonky ”science” needs to be rewritten! The ”missing heat is imaginary / wishful heat. Correct science says: ”any extra heat / no matter how made; is wasted that same day – extra heat in the atmosphere is NOT accumulative” SAY THE LAWS OF PHYSICS. Extra heat makes troposphere to expand INSTANTLY, and wastes that EXTRA heat
B] if is extra heat in the sea, because of submarine volcanoes activity; evaporation increases / evaporation is COOLING PROCESS. Extra evaporation = more clouds / clouds are sun-umbrellas for the sea / land.and equalizes in a jiffy. ”Honest / solid science”
“If the heat is not missing, then whole branches of science have to be rewritten in fact all of physics.”
Actually no,it is the incorrect use of mathematical physics (and analogy) that is the problem.
it is well known that Fouriers law does not hold in a harmonic oscillator,and neither does Kirchhoff’s law of circuits hold in a (a)harmonic oscillator a problem that is almost obvious.
http://arxiv.org/abs/nlin/0305006
Hold on a minute, the Argo data does not support the notion that the oceans are getting warmer down to a depth of 700m.
This field of science is a bloody joke!
Argo: The movie was fake. The mission was real.
Argo f* yourself
That was a joke, so what exactly is your bloody joke?
.
JC Comment:
” – – – I wonder how long it will be before these scientists take seriously the possibility that sensitivity could be lower than 2C.”
I like to repeat here something what I have earlier stated.
Already Nicola Scafetta states that the climate sensivity assessed by IPCC is too high to be reliable http://judithcurry.com/2012/12/19/climate-sensitivity-in-the-ar5-sod/#comment-278277 :
”The climate models used by the IPCC needs a climate sensitivity of about 3 C because only in this way the chosen readiative forcing functions are able to reproduce the about 0.8-0.9 C warming since 1850.
However, this same models fail to reproduce the natural cyclical variability of the climate system at many time scales from the decadal to the multidecadal, secular and millennial scale. Because of this failure it is possible to demonstrate that about half of the warming since 1850 is associated to these natural oscillations. As a consequence the real climate sensitivity is less than 1.5 C.”
As I have learned to see, one can avoid the uncertainties related to climate sensitivity by understanding the role of anthropogenic CO2 emissions in reality. The uncertainties are mainly caused by certain parameters of models based on assumptions. The most striking of them is the recent increase of CO2 content in atmosphere that is, without any evidense in reality, assumed to be totally anthropogenic.
Judith Curry, you have earlier stated:
”In weighing the new evidence, especially improvements in the methodology of sensitivity analysis, it is becoming increasing difficult not to downgrade the estimates of climate sensitivity.”
And finally you have to admit that the climate sensitivity caused by antropogenic CO2 emissions is indistinguishable from zero – as even Jim Cripwell has stated. That is true already concerning the total CO2 increase, and the human share of that is only about 4 %. E.g. http://judithcurry.com/2013/01/16/hansen-on-the-standstill/#comment-287036 .
Anthropogenic CO2 emissions do not have controlled the recent increase of CO2 content in atmosphere, and even the total increase of CO2 content in atmosphere does not have controlled the recent warming of global climate. Thus the threat on anthropogenic warming is avoided. An uncertainty is connected only with natural changes of climate and natural events of weather, where the main challenge is to learn how to adapt mankind to potential threats of climate changes and extreme events of weather.
‘”The climate models used by the IPCC needs a climate sensitivity of about 3 C because only in this way the chosen readiative forcing functions are able to reproduce the about 0.8-0.9 C warming since 1850.”
Wrong.
The models used by the IPCC vary from an ECS of 2.1 to 4.4C
Depending on the model and depending on how you set the fordings for aerosols ( a big unknown) you can reproduce with the warming with
anything with that range ( 2.1-4.4) here is a clue. Dr. Scaffeta does not
share his data or his code. His co author has even distanced himself from
Scafetta’s practice. Like Dr, Mann cannot be trusted, neither can Scaffetta.
I don’t understand why the terms for using public money for research don’t include public release and archive of all code and data used to generate the work.
“Anthropogenic CO2 emissions do not have controlled the recent increase of CO2 content in atmosphere”
*facepalm*
curryja | May 9, 2013 at 10:54 am |
Actually, my concern on the high end is not directly CO2 related, but for the possibility of abrupt climate change (of whatever cause), which the climate models don’t predict.
North West Europe temperatures may move to levels of 1960/70’s. North Atlantic SST fell by about 1C in two decades from 1955.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/NVa.htm
Abrupt ? Yes, if one considers rising CO2 as a driver.
Abrupt ? No, if one considers and understands what is going on in the N. Atlantic.
about ½C in two decades
How can we talk about a pause in global warming when California is burning because of it?
“‘Our climate is changing. The weather is becoming more intense,’ Brown said at a news conference at Cal Fire’s aviation facility. ‘Fire season has grown over the last four years. It’s gotten longer and larger.'”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/07/jerry-brown-climate-change_n_3228232.html?utm_hp_ref=los-angeles
God bless Governor Moonbeam for telling us what we all really need to hear.
“‘The big issue: How do we adapt?’ he said. ‘Adapting is going to be very, very expensive.'”
He’s already counting the tax dollars he plans to take from all those stupid people who voted him into office.
GaryM, California has smart people. They know how to pick winners. Obama is an example. If you want a State that does not have smart people, consider Texas. I would say Oklahoma, but Texas is a lot larger, so it has a greater number of not smart people. However, man for man, I would say Oklahomans outdo Texans on not being smart.
Max,
The level of your logic appears to not have progressed past that of 14 year old.
Perhaps you should consider asking fan out on a date.
Texans are dummies and Californians are smart. Why? Because of whom they voted for President. What was that you were saying about ideology driving one’s opinion?
First, it was Fan, e.g.:
http://judithcurry.com/2012/10/16/pause-discussion-thread-part-ii/#comment-255865
What is this fixation with the 14 yos, timg?
timg56, my silly comment was in response to following silly comment by GaryM about the Governor of California.
“He’s already counting the tax dollars he plans to take from all those stupid people who voted him into office.”
BTW, the Census Bureau’s reports 29.9% of Californians had a bachelors degree or more education in 2012, compared to 25.5% of Texans, and 22.7% of Oklahomans. Data for all States can be found at
http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s0233.pdf
I would agree there are many intelligent people in California, many of whom have been smart enough to move to Texas.
As to Jerry Brown, he is the King Canute of the air headed left. Zero emission vehicle mandates being just one example. He has helped make California the Greece of the U.S. It is likely to be the first state economy to collapse, if my state of Illinois doesn’t beat them to it.
Define “winner”.
no fixation willard,
I get to do science in the field with students 1st grade thru 12th. Among other things, it provides a basis for comparison (i.e. I recognize 14 yr old behavior when I see it).
Max,
I have 3 degrees, 1 BA and 2 MS. Doesn’t make me smarter than someone else. A bit more educated perhaps, but not smarter.
As a long-time California resident, I have three words for anyone who thinks my fellow Golden Staters especially intelligent: High Speed Rail.
You can Google the entirely foreseeable, ongoing, tragicomic fiasco for yourself.
Max_OK
CA has great climate and scenery, but it is broke as a state.
TX climate is too hot for some folks and its topography is generally too flat, but it is not broke as a state.
Both states have some pretty smart folks and some doofuses.
(So does OK, for that matter.)
Max_CH
Timg,
Since you’re an authority on 14 yo girls’ argument skills, you might appreciate this:
> The present study sought to evaluate (a) the effectiveness of an intervention in developing adolescents’ argument skills regarding a decision on a topic of high potential personal relevance (teen pregnancy) or one of general social relevance (capital punishment), and (b) differential effects of the two topics in promoting the generalization of skills to a new topic. Thirty 14–15-year-old adolescent girls participated in an intervention on one of the two topics. The 16 sessions of the intervention were identical except for topic. Argument skills were assessed on both topics at pretest and posttest. Both interventions were effective in developing rudimentary argument skills, but only the intervention focusing on the personally relevant topic resulted in transfer to the less personal topic. Transfer in the opposite direction did not occur.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0885201407000123
Have you ever considered that your teaching experience may be priming you?
Please mind your pom poms,
w
willard,
I said 14 year olds, not 14 year old girls. I do not recall ever having students from an all girls or all boys school. I believe even the Catholic schools have pretty much moved away from that set up. (I know my HS in DC went co-ed quite some time ago.)
As for my experiences “priming” me, I don’t know. I was relating observational experience. And btw, the organization I volunteer with puts more emphasis on mentoring rather than teaching. Not my job to teach a set of facts to kids. It is to facilitate development of their skills in science inquiry.
I was under the impression that you were teaching girls, timg:
http://judithcurry.com/2013/04/17/meta-uncertainty-in-the-determination-of-climate-sensitivity/#comment-314967
Sorry if I misunderstood.
***
While I only studied cognitive science mainly from an hardware point of view, I did study inference a bit. So I’m not sure you could back down your estimate of Fan’s reasoning skills. Fan might have a strange way to express himself, but what is being expressed does sound a bit more mature than 14 yos, both epistemically and morally speaking.
Raymond T. Pierrehumbert is “he”: Nonetheless, he agrees that earlier warming may have been deceiving.
“I think it’s true that some rather sloppy discussion of the rapid warming from the 20th century has given people unrealistic expectations about the future course of warming.”
Now he tells us.
Even if the climate system has an equilibrium (assumed, but generally not true for high dimensional non-linear dissipative systems — even with constant input, which the climate does not have), the equilibrium does not predict the rate.
Hmm there seems to be no statistically significant pause in the temperature data.
Talk about your aforementioned “facepalm.”
Just as there seems to be no statistically significant increase in the temp data.
Observational data supports this. On land it is supported directly. Over the ocean it is supported as a surface temperature increase plus a heat uptake through deeper subsurface layers.
http://theoilconundrum.blogspot.com/2013/03/ocean-heat-content-model.html
One just needs to read the relevant papers and follow Leonard Susskind’s advice as to how Richard Feynman broke down problems to make them canonically solvable.
what so skeptics don’t require the pause to be statistically significant to believe it exists?
But they demand warming be statistically significant or they won’t believe it.
can someone explain these rules. They should a little..convenient.
I agree lolwot. It’s grossly unfair to insist that actual warming be demonstrated before spending trillions of dollars on a problem that might not even exist. It’s borderline crazy.
So you agree there is no statistically significant pause in the temperature data? I’ll take it that you do unless you explicitly disagree.
Statistical significance is the likelihood that the result is caused by something other than chance.
There is no chance – merely natural variation of one sort and another and likely to continue for another decade or three. The pause is profoundly significant in many ways – including statistically. It was predicted.
lolwot, “But they demand warming be statistically significant or they won’t believe it.”
Warming of 3C was projected. Confidence ranges were established based on those projections. Demands were made based on those projects. “GLOBAL MEAN TEMPERATURE ANOMALY” is used both in the observations and projects. The Skeptics didn’t make the projections, demands, select the metric or set the confidence intervals.
“can someone explain these rules. They should a little..convenient.”
Actually they are convenient and simple, if you say something will happen and state that you have a 95% confidence level in it happening, if it falls outside of your confidence range you were wrong. There are no extenuating circumstances after the fact. That uncertainty should have been included in your original confidence intervals.
You can say, “well look at the OHC squirrel!” That option was recommended by a Skeptic long ago. You can say, “it is still near the lower range of the estimates.” Skeptics never recommended forcing a compromise to fabricate the range to begin with.
Now the GMT will fall outside of the 95% confidence range it has been toying with. It will do that because natural internal variability was grossly underestimated and the upper half of the range should have never been there.
The interesting part will be finding out which of the scientist activists are smart enough to abandon ship before it is too late.
HADCRUT4 cooling for 12 years.
The 4 year figure is scary. -0.292C / Decade
http://sunshinehours.wordpress.com/2013/05/09/hadcrut4-march-2013-cooling-at-0-292c-decade-for-last-4-years/
Is that statistically significant?
(no. no it isnt)
lolwot
Another way to put that is
Hmm there seems to be no statistically significant AGW signal in the temperature data.
Max
I wouldn’t expect to see one because AGW is a theory based on physics, not statistics.
Still can’t understand this ‘lag’ in temperature following a tiny rise in background flux and hidden heat in the oceans traceling from IR in the atmosphere to 300-2000m.
Here is what I note
“Typical growth and decay of the seasonal thermocline at a mid-latitude site in the Northern Hemisphere (50o N, 145 o W).
Reprinted by permission of Waveland Press, Inc. From Knauss, Introduction to Physical Oceanography. (Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press, Inc, 1997 (reissued 2005)). All rights reserved”
http://www.astr.ucl.ac.be/textbook/images/image1x17.jpg
now call me Dr. Suspicious, but the surface temperature seems to oscillate as a function flux with a ‘lag’ of a few months for cooling and slightly less for warming.
Now why the oceans should respond differently to an energy packed made up of solar light that has passed through the atmosphere and IR light radiated downward from the cold atmosphere. However, quite how the energy packet gets through the upper 300m without being absorbed is beyond me.
Perhaps a real physicist like the dumb bunny or Pekka can explain how IR warms below the Thermocline?
.
DocMartyn,
I wrote higher up in this thread what we can conclude just from energy balance in absence of large scale transport. That would lead to an extremely slow warming of the deep ocean. Add to that large scale circulation like the thermohaline circulation and add to that the large eddies that build up when water flows across ocean floor ridges, and suddenly I cannot tell anymore, what’s possible and what’s not.
The preferred idea seems to be now that the natural variability just happens to be now in a phase where heat is transported to deep ocean and colder water brought to surface to counteract the warming we would observe otherwise. Now it’s right to say that warming was accelerated by natural variability in late 20th century and cancelled since 1998 or so.
This is not new at all. People like Mann discussed such variability already in 1990’s and others much earlier. I don’t think it was denied by scientists at any moment but for a while many of them preferred to keep silent about the likely strength of the internal variability.
I went through Appell’s article very quickly, but I did not see that he asked anybody from Tsonis and Swanson et al. any questions, which is unfortunate as they said there would be a flat surface air temperature and, a change to a regime, I believe this was their gist, which in the past resulted deep-ocean warming. So I think they nailed both.
I think that the main deviation of Tsonis and Swanson from more conventional thinking is the idea of state shifts in place of quasiperiodic oscillatory variability. What we have seen fits well the oscillatory picture as well.
In the topsy turvy world of AGW, heat sinks and cold rises.
The large-scale circulation that is relevant to surface climate is the wind-driven set of anticyclonic hemispheric-scale gyres that transport warm tropical waters poleward along western ocean boundaries and return cooler water to the tropics along the eastern ones. THC is hugely more confined spatially and is orders of magnitude slower temporally. Density alone effectively prevents upwelling of cold bottom waters to the surface. What upwelling occurs over relevant time scales is confined to continental shelves where winds drive away the warm surface layer from the coast, which is then replaced by cooler subsursurface waters.
question: can oceanic warm water which is highly saline ( due perhaps to surface evaporation in warm climes) achieve densities greater than cold water which is less saline (due perhaps to fresh water influx to the surface such as rain or runoff or melting of ice) such that the warm water will sink below the cold water due to the greater density (owing to its greater salinity) of the warm water; thus carrying heat into the ocean depths? If that can happen, can it happen to large enough volumes of water to create a significant flux of heat to the abyssal depths? If that can happen can it happen with waters of temperatures equal to the temperatures prevalent from 0 – 700m such that a downward flow of denser, more saline water with temperatures equal to the temperatures prevalent from 0 – 700m would pass unnoticed by the thermometers in the argo fleet?
Pekka, I had a look at fresh water lakes and the Mediterranean sea. In both cases the depths are colder than the surface.
Cool dense water generated on cold winter nights sink to the depths. In the case of the Mediterranean, summer heating makes dense brines and the surface layers cools during the winter, then sinks.
There is a layer cake of brines from different years at the bottom of the Med, the lowest ones are the result of hot summers/cold winters which generate the densest brines.
However, with respect to the heating of the ‘300-700m’ at a greater RATE/ than the surface 0-300m layer, I know, and a physicst like you knows, it is bollocks. You know it is bollocks Pekka, but you do not have the intellectual honesty to call it out. You know all about heat fluxes and energy transfer gradients, you know the behavior of a body’ with a heat source at one end and a heat sink at the other.
http://i179.photobucket.com/albums/w318/DocMartyn/deepoceanJPEG_zpsc6585990.jpg
You don’t call it out, you say, not sure.
Your ball Pekka.
Your field.
Basic thermodynamics. basic math.
I expect Eli to act like a partisan hack, but thought better of you.
DocMartyn | May 9, 2013 at 9:30 pm |
You think I call him Pekka “The Weasel” Pirila for nothing?
DocMartyn is apparently incapable of working out the diffusional heat equations on his own. If he were to do this with the kind of skill and panache that someone like Hansen brings to the table, he would come up with something like this analysis:
http://theoilconundrum.blogspot.com/2013/03/ocean-heat-content-model.html
In particular, take a look at this general agreement with the Levitus data:
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/—w59rfoDCw/UVQ1UGZLDmI/AAAAAAAADYA/nfeF3GoiJds/s400/SkS_OHC.GIF
Granted, there could be a slight discrepancy if the deeper water tends to collect a proportionately larger amount of heat than the shallower water, but this could be attributed to measurement noise.
Heat transfer in oceans is not a diffusion process. It’s still possible that diffusion type models like that of WHUT provide a fair approximation to the heat transfer when averaged over the oceans but it’s also possible that they fail badly.
Heating the deep ocean means that more heat is going in in regions where heat is going in that coming out in the other regions. Changes in the cold subsiding flows in the Northern and Southern seas affect the balance and so do changes in upwelling flows in other parts of the oceans. As far as I know nobody has ocean models that can describe well such changes. Thus it’s not possible to predict the outcome, and ti’s not possible to tell that the deep ocean cannot warm right now significantly faster that it does on the average. (There are also important mixing processes that are closer to diffusion trough turbulent mixing, but they are only a fraction of what’s going on.)
The preferred ideas that I mentioned do not come from understanding of the oceans, they come from other arguments, but the understanding of the oceans does not contradict those ideas but is essentially neutral on that point.
All the above is a lengthier version of my words “I cannot tell anymore, what’s possible and what’s not”.
As a physicist I read the papers trying to figure out
1) what I can understand as very likely true
2) what goes beyond my knowledge but seems straightforward enough to give me trust that the specialists can analyze reliably
3) what’s probably so difficult even for the specialists that the conclusions are rather likely to contain errors beyond those stated explicitly
4) what seems to be outright wrong.
Having little specific knowledge on many fields I know that my assessments fail often, but even so that’s the way I classify new scientific results in my own mind.
Horizontal and vertical eddy diffusion is not a “standard” diffusion process such as you would find in a Brownian motion example, yet the math used is similar. That’s why macro-scale eddy behaviors are classified as diffusion processes. The heat gets dispersed not because of ordinary thermal conductivity but because of advective diffusion processes which carry the heat away as a free ride.
Sometimes we refer to these kinds of processes as “effective” diffusion coefficients because they are a hybrid combination of various diffusivities. In this case, the highest diffusion coefficient, that of eddy diffusivity wins out.
Recall that James Hansen applied the concept of this effective macro diffusion in the early 1980’s. He used diffusion coefficients as high as 1 cm^2/s in trying to model the behavior of vertical eddy diffusivity:
http://imageshack.us/a/img802/3918/hansen1981.gif
A value of 1 cm^2/sec is comparable to the thermal diffusivity of copper. Stick your tongue to a below freezing copper sheet and you will get an appreciation for how fast heat will diffuse away from your tissue.
Science is about building on the work of others. What I am doing is following the numbers as supplied by Hansen and oceanography scientists and then make sense of the data models provided by Levitus and Balmaseda/Trenberth. I added Pekka’s comment to my blog post since it does illuminate some of the confusion surrounding effective thermal diffusivity:
http://theoilconundrum.blogspot.com/2013/03/ocean-heat-content-model.html
Bottomline is that the theory and experimental data is all very self-consistent. I happen to do all the mathematics and numerical analysis on my own accord, because I can’t juggle all the numbers in my mind while trying to keep track of the arguments.
WHUT,
I had all that in mind, when I wrote my comment. Thanks for making all that explicit.
My point is that no diffusion model can explain fully phenomena which are to a significant part due to large scale convective processes like the thermohaline circulation. Naturally effective diffusion occurs also around that circulation and is important there, but that does not make any description correct that does not handle explicitly and correctly those large scale phenomena.
A simpler model may happen to give good results on some averages, but we cannot trust any of those results as they are based on models known to miss some essential phenomena.
Consider this point as well. We can add the very large scale thermohaline circulations on top of the eddy diffusivity and the dispersion can only become greater, it can not subtract from and therefore reduce the thermal spreading. That is a basic entropy consideration.
@WHUT
You should STFU and take careful note of what Pekka is trying to get through that pointy little head of yours. Pirila’s not the sharpest tack in the room but he has you beat by a country mile.
Springer, something eating at your craw? It looks like you are having problems getting the letters S, T, F, and U fully articulated.
dweeby’s ‘model’ is based on diffusion of heat from the atmosphere to the ocean and so misses all of the relevant physical processes. It is what Hansen in a 30 year old paper referred to as a ‘box model’ – used to partition heat between the oceans and the atmosphere.
‘Effective diffusion’ can only be determined on the basis of heat content of the ocean – real world data. He then fashions a smooth curve to vaguely look like the data but without any of the variability and with seemingly no other purpose – such as partitioning heat.
It is all a trivial and pointless exercise subject to much preening and prattling.
” It is what Hansen in a 30 year old paper referred to as a ‘box model’ – used to partition heat between the oceans and the atmosphere.”
Here is the model of diffusional behavior in the Ocean Heat Contentr.
http://theoilconundrum.blogspot.com/2013/03/ocean-heat-content-model.html
One can either use a linear stimulus of incoming heat, or use an estimated forcing function. For the latter, we get a set of curves that we would recognize as matching those of Balmaseda
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-hHs8FuF7SWY/UVe39CUosSI/AAAAAAAADYs/i7RVxRx6wmE/s640/hansen_forcing_diffusive_response.GIF
Note how it starts flattening out if the forcing function is stable.
JT:
Acquaintance with the sigma-t parameter used in oceanography reveals that much more saline water can be slightly more dense than typical seawater at a slightly cooler temperature. But that does NOT translate into warm seawater sinking to the bottom. The “great conveyor belt” of THC as popularized by the AGW crowd is fantasy physics.
Looks to me like it is absorbed.
They is a large amount of upwelling. Cold water from the bottom goes to the top, so wouldn’t its replacement have to come from the top layer? The part of the top layer that is not going down, is being blown to the Western Pacific.
where it appears a fairly deep mound of hot water is hanging out
Is John S above correct that vertical convection in the ocean is not quantitatively important in explaining warming of the deeper ocean? He posted no links for his claim that
“The large-scale circulation that is relevant to surface climate is the wind-driven set of anticyclonic hemispheric-scale gyres that transport warm tropical waters poleward along western ocean boundaries and return cooler water to the tropics along the eastern ones. THC is hugely more confined spatially and is orders of magnitude slower temporally.”
If correct, it would render irrelevant most of the debate/discussion/foodfight on this subthread.
Stevenpostrel, “If correct, it would render irrelevant most of the debate/discussion/foodfight on this subthread.” Yes it would, wouldn’t it :)
David Springer | May 9, 2013 at 7:34 am said: ” CO2 is quite literally plant food”
Springer, HUMAN is made 22-25% from carbon = no carbon = no Springer. Proves that: the green people are not human, but Martians (green critters from the red planet). are you one of them?
WebHubTheCrackpot (@WHUT) | May 9, 2013 at 7:40 am said: ”I carefully follow James Hansen’s recommendations for how to combine a Ocean Heat Content”
Hansen has committed much bigger / costlier crimes to humanity than Bernard Madoff – he should be in the same jail cell as Madoff. The Crackpot and Mosher are the only two rats that are ”FOLLOWING” and swimming towards the sinking Titanic!… should build bigger jail cell, to accommodate the HARDCORE criminal’s followers / supporters / assistants; even though they are no more than pick-pocketers, compared to Hansen & Madoff
Krank as Yakoff Smirnoff. Moving from Oz to Soviet Russia, you catch cold. Moving from Soviet Russia to Oz, cold catches you.
Here’s something literary, witty and grim, Beckett’s radio
play in one act, ‘All that fall,’ the desolate soul-scape
journey of Maddy Rooney to the local railway station
and back. Covers many ways of falling and includes
‘the pause.’ Ends with sounds of worsening weather
and a tempest. See it on video. BC
Evenin’ Miss Beth,
It took me a long time to realize how funny Beckett could be. I was taking an adult ed class in absurdist theater years ago and we started in on “Waiting for Godot,” which I’d read on my own a few times but never seen performed. We read it aloud in class with classmates taking turns, and I suddenly realized how funny the play was…
Who knew?
pokerguy,
I saw Waiting for Godot with Ian McKeller as Estragon.
So brilliant I was on the edge of me seat.. R u in New
York if so yer’d get ter see some good drama )Don’t
fergit yr doin’ an essay fer SU-g on Tolstoy and
the serfs. )
Say, take a look at Steve Mosher’s vid on Beethoven
with its sublime ending, despite the comic effects )
Beth
Hi Beth,
“I need my hallucinations for my job” has to be one of the funniest lines I’ve heard in a long time. Whole thing was brilliant, including and especially the music. Truthfully I’m ambivalent about brilliance, which is to say I admire it of course, but also made envious by it. MOst times, the funniest lines seem, once you’ve heard them, like low hanging fruit. My reaction is generally, crap, how come I didn’t think of that? (Answer: I’m not brilliant)..
I’m honored to be writing for SU-g in any capacity, and in preparation am reading all the Tolstoy I can find. Except “War and Peace.” I want to get this written before the next ice age kicks in after all. Fortunately I read Anna K. last year, so we’re covered on that score. To get myself in the proper frame, I’ve also been running around town looking for someone dying of a mysterious kidney ailment, who wouldn’t mind putting his legs up on my shoulders.
We’re just outside Boston, Beth. And we don’t see enough theater. That must be corrected. I need to stay sharp if I’m going to remain a serf…
Here beth, my friend Will
Thx SM you have very funny friendsl
BCol
thot you’d enjoy it
Picture the following exercise: repeat this conversation, with the participants having only the data up to 1970 (which no one really had until after 1988, after all).
And then picture what we’d say about their claims knowing what we know now.
David Springer commented on More on the ‘pause’.
in response to David L. Hagen: ”Dunno where you got your info but it’s wrong. Ice at bedrock level in Greenland is only 130,000 years old (Eemian Interglacial)”
Springer, listen very, very carefully: every year over one meter of ice builds up by freeze-drying the moisture from the air, on Greenland. b] if on the bottom is 130 000 years old ice = Greenland would have had 130km thick ice, but she doesn’t!
because: over 1meter of ice is melted every year, from the bottom; by the GEOTHERMAL heat / similar amount is created on the top. Therefore: there isn’t any older ice on Greenland than 1000 years, full stop
I say over one meter conservatively. BECAUSE: some US warplanes dropped on Greenland during WW2 — now they have being found 170m deep below the surface – that is: the surface ice from 70y ago, now is gone down by 170m = over 2m is melted from below every year and as much new ice is created on the top / by freeze-drying the moisture from the air. Same way as the old fridges were building lots of ice and need defrosting regularly.
Unfortunately, your brains trusts .see that isn’t much snow or rain on Greenland and presume that the bottom ice is 130 000y old. stop buying crap from shonky scientist and then legitimizing it!!!
I provided more evidence than just the age of the ice at bedrock level. The clincer is that sea level in the Eemian peaked 6-9 meters higher than in the Holocene. If ALL of the Greenland ice sheet were to enter the ocean then sea level would be 7 meters higher. Feel free to speculate on where the extra water in the Eemian ocean came from of course. Good luck coming up with a credible source other than Greenland’s ice sheet.
David Springer | May 10, 2013 at 7:26 am said: ” If ALL of the Greenland ice sheet were to enter the ocean then sea level would be 7 meters higher”
Springer, leave ”ifs, maybes” to the organized crime! ”IF” grandpa had that thing… well, if he did, he wouldn’t be grandpa, but would be grandma; that will never happen.
the planet needs to warm up by 30C, that ice to melt, because of heat. OR: if you shift Greenland close to Sahara or, if you move Atlantic away. As long as Greenland is wedged between Atlantic and north poll, you can go to sleep with no worries.
i told you in the other comment: on same latitude where is a 1km thick ice on Greenland, in Finland they grow potatoes – further east, ON SAME LATITUDE in Siberia is permafrost!!! the amount of ice entirely depends on availability of row material, to regularly renew the deficit.
if Greenland + Antarctic melts = if central Pacific freezes… grandpa will never be a grandma, believe me; don’t waste your life on ”ifs” Storks do bring babies, only for themselves. Get out of the box / septic tank and start thinking for yourself. For the last 150y was no scrutiny; shonks were competing who will come up with more interesting lies. GLOBAL warmings, global ice ages, million global cycles… and similar crap… IF THE LAWS OF PHYSICS DON’T APPROVE = IT’S A LIE!!!
Stefan, pay attention. The volume of Greenland’s ice sheet and the surface area of the global ocean are quantities that are rigorously known to the precision needed to say, with engineering level confidence, how much the ocean would rise if the volume of ice over Greenland were added to it. You’re just making an ass of yourself now. Stop.
By the way, Stefan, what leads you to believe that snowfall over Greenland during the glacial epoch is the same as during an interglacial? I thought everyone realized that the farther below freezing the less snowfall occurs because precipitation requires evaporation and evaporation decreases with temperature. In the Antarctic interior for instance annual snowfall is measured in millimeters. So there was almost certainly far less precipitation over Greenland outside of interglacials and therefore your reductio ad absurdum argument of 130 kilometers of ice is fatally flawed.
Why don’t you tell him the real reason his “demonstration” is nonsense? Ice is like glass, it flows very slowly in response to pressure. Such as the pressure of a heavy plane sitting on it. Which sinks.
A plane isn’t very heavy in pounds per square inch of surface area. Perhaps the landing gear and bottom of the fuselage would slowly sink but as soon as horizontal surfaces of wings and tail make contact such sinkage would certainly halt.
I’ve no doubt that snowfall rates over permanently frozen parts of Greenland today might be a meter per year. That said it’s utterly lacking in both scientific basis and plain old common sense to say the interglacial precipitation rate remains the same outside the interglacial period. That was a fatally serious flaw in Stefan’s thinking. All the evidence points to a vastly reduced ice sheet over Greenland during the Eemian interglacial. The clincher is sea level that’s higher by just the amount we’d expect. The age of the ice where ice meets bedrock is independant corroborating evidence. In forensic science our hypotheses must be constructed and tested by multiple lines of independent evidence.
The flow patterns of glaciers are very complex, dependent on pressure and sheer stress. AFAIK in many cases flowing glaciers do flow fastest at the bottom, so before using the age of ice at the bottom it would be necessary to demonstrate that ice at the bottom wasn’t “scooting out from under” (that’s a technical term:) younger ice at the top at that particular location. Even then, there’s always the chance that it was at some time in the past, and stopped due to changes in flow patterns prior to the present. Of course, for most purposes researchers would be looking for a spot where such flow didn’t take place, but the demonstration that they had, and references to their reasons for thinking they were successful, would be part of any reasonable proof.
As for planes sinking in the ice, that’s something I heard (from a fairly reliable source) as a child, but haven’t been able to verify (yet) from recent publications. So I’m putting any discussion of that on hold till I can track down the source of the myth.
For information about WWII airplanes sinking into the ice in Greenland, search for ‘Glacial Girl’, or ‘The Lost Squadron’. It is not a myth. The airplanes ended up 260 feet below the surface of the ice. I’ve got a book written about the recovery effort.
http://www.p38assn.org/glacier-girl.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glacier_Girl
Chris Shaker
David Springer | May 11, 2013 at 8:29 am said: ”I’ve no doubt that snowfall rates over permanently frozen parts of Greenland today might be a meter per year. That said it’s utterly lacking in both scientific basis and plain old common sense to say the interglacial precipitation rate remains the same outside the interglacial period. That was a fatally serious flaw in Stefan’s thinking”
Springer, if now is 1m of snow per year contributed on the top – during glacial / colder waters; say was only 0,5m; that still means 65km thick ice on Greenland. minus 1km, instead of 130km thick. Where are the other 64km of thick ice. Your ice of 64km is missing on the bottom of the sea ? on the top of mountain? or what about the theory: if you volunteer for a lobotomy… should be hidden there?
Springer, on the polar caps, most of ice is created by freeze-drying the moisture from the air, not from snow. I told you; as the old fridges – the more you open the freezer door -> the more ice creates inside; with zero snowfall or rainfall in the kitchen. Greenland &Antarctic don’t have doors – moisture coming from every direction is snap frozen and that’s how the ice builds up. that’s why it confuses the shonks going there – they only measure snowfall.
VERDICT: the amount of ice is melted from below – replaced on the top = you have Greenland – less ice is created than melted = you have the north-European farms — ice is melting but not replenished = you have permafrost. I’m never wrong because of using the laws of physics and
logic/ common sense
Actually, glass can’t really be said to flow.
http://www.thefoa.org/tech/glass.htm
jim2 | May 10, 2013 at 9:53 am SAID: ”Actually, glass can’t really be said to flow”
Jim, I think you are correct..The idea of glass flowing must have come from this: in the church’s glass they used to put lead for coloring – that coloring intercepts the sunlight and gets very hot, lead is very sencetive to heat and may start dripping; but not ice, or clear glass
The Greenland ice sheet develops large cavities because of melting. They disappear quickly as the ice deforms and fills them. So I guess ice is like ice.
Ice is more like salt in salt domes when it come to characteristics of flow.
David Springer | May 10, 2013 at 7:35 am said: ”By the way, Stefan, what leads you to believe that snowfall over Greenland during the glacial epoch is the same as during an interglacial?”
Springer, be a good sport and lets get to the bottom of it; it’s interesting and important subject.
first of all, ice age / glacial was only north of parallel of Cancer, NOT the whole planet! Literature you and the rest have being reading comes from shonks for 150y creating theories by completely disregarding the laws of physics and logic:
1] you hit the nail on the head / unintentionally; when pointing that south pol doesn’t get snow. Here is the set-up: for 8-9 months in a year, cold / heavy winds (called ”Highs”) from south poll blow as far north as new guinea -> to avoid vacuum – low MOIST winds from the Indian flow south – when they get to very cold area moisture crystallizes / blizzards and deposits it on and around Antarctic. By the time those winds reach south poll; they have being freeze-dried = no moisture left in them for snow. step back:
2]Similar winds (Sirocco) from north poll via Siberia flows south to the Mediterranean – to avoid vacuum – moist winds from north Atlantic flow towards the north poll – because Greenland is wedged in the path of those winds, gets the benefit. that’s why; where is 1km thick ice on Greenland; on same latitude in Finland & Norway they are growing potatoes (because those places are away of moist winds, cannot create lots of ice in winter) therefore: on the polar caps the amount of ice only depends on the availability of raw material for renewing the ice.
3] reason I was correct and everybody was wrong; when the Warmist were rubbing their hands that: Arctic ice will melt and they will have their proof of GLOBAL warming —– the reality is completely the opposite:
4] TRUTH: the more ice disappears from Arctic’s water – the colder winters are experienced south. because: arctic’s water without ice as insulator from the unlimited coldness in the air -> water absorbs extra coldness – with double strength radiates coldness south. Ice Age was created, because Europe & north America were intercepting all the moisture as freeze-drying it; was no moisture left for renewal of the arctic’s ice – exposed water was much colder radiating extra coldness and was keeping the ice solid in Europe + north america during summer
5] your brains-trusts used simplistic science and declared that: because was lots of ice on land = the sea-level was lower…? WRONG! about 11000BC the sea-level was much higher than today – reason Atlantic overflowed and cut the Gibraltar Straights / Tasmania got separated from the mainland, and other similar places.
B] During the ice age, Mediterranean, Adriatic, Black sea, Caspian, Aegean were only freshwater swamps; where was their water gone?! today those seas have more water than all the water trapped in Greenland’s and Antarctic’s ice. (reason now when lake Chad, Caspian sea are getting dry – they blame sea rising on carbon). Springer, 10m3 of less water on the land – rises the seawater on 10km2, by one millimeter / Sahara, Australia are getting dryer = more water into the sea. BUT, they are smart to point what Greenland’s melted ice would do; because saving storm-water in new dams to attract extra rain on dry lands and improve the climate, is against their religion.b] turning Congo river north would make Sahara green; now is like dry sponge.
Springer, talk to somebody that works deep in the mine-shaft; will tell you that: it gets hot over 40C. Well, because there are lots of metallic elements in earth’s crust, as perfect heat conductors – they regularly bring that heat to the surface. Same geothermal heat prevents freshwater lakes from freezing. Greenland &Antarctic are not different. the white ice, as perfect insulator prevents the coldness from the air to go deep below the ice -> that heat accumulates and is eating the ice from below day and night, summer and winter. but your shonks disregarded reality and came up wit ”glacial, inter-glacial… the most stupid is: when they declared that they found what amount of CO2 was 10000, 600 000y ago in the ice…?! because for them freeze-drying to make ice every season AND the geothermal heat don’t exist; for them to realize that: their 10 000y old ice is only few hundred years old, 600 000 doesn’t exist apart in the crevices of some rocks on the bottom as nuggets that the geothermal heat cannot melt:http://globalwarmingdenier.wordpress.com/sea-rising-or-not/
http://globalwarmingdenier.wordpress.com/midi-ice-age-can-be-avoided/
Springer, my English is very bad, but your’s is perfect; read what’s on my blog and rub the noses oFf your brains-trusts. Physics is the most reliable science; was same physics 10 000y ago and 70 000y ago AS TODAY; can guide you as if you have being there in the distant past personally. will tell you what was exactly happening, what was definitrelly not, and why not. Take the chalenge
Bottom line, literally and figuratively, is the ice at the base of the Greenland ice sheet is 130,000 years old. At the same time the Eemian ocean was 6-9 meters higher than the modern ocean which is how much higher we’d expect it to be if the Greenland ice sheet was greatly reduced or gone. Your explanation lacks credibility. The evidence is all mine and the handwaving is all yours.
JCH | May 11, 2013 at 8:48 am said: ”The Greenland ice sheet develops large cavities because of melting”
Those cavities don’t develop because ice is melted in them. BUT, in the valleys geothermal heat is stronger.-> melts more ice FROM BELOW -> that makes ice to collapse (similar as soil in earth-quack) and large chunk collapses; on the end of it becomes a crevice
AK | May 10, 2013 at 8:09 am said: ” Ice is like glass, it flows very slowly in response to pressure. Such as the pressure of a heavy plane sitting on it. Which sinks”
WRONG!
1] aircraft doesn’t ad much pressure’ per volume is not much heavier than the ice. 2] ice creates pressure, when spoonful of water in the crevices freezes, splits a big granite rock in two – therefore: ice is resistant to pressure. 3] those planes are frozen to the same molecules of snow and will stay together traveling to the bottom b] at 170m dept, pressure is there without any planes. I don’t know how much ice is below them; but in couple of hundred years, the ice below them will melt and they will get on the solid ground. c] if it was a lump of polystyrene, would have happened the same travel! Ice is not as fluid water, to let things to sink – ice sticks, cannot chisel it. (Cannot comment on glass / I’m ice / water / rain, expert)
geothermal heat constantly melts ice on Greenland AND Antarctic FROM BELOW; day and night, summer and winter. because the ice is perfect insulator and is protecting the geothermal heat from the unlimited coldness from the air. They have rivers and lakes, same as on any other continent, because of that; topographically are same set-up, just there are below the ice. p.s. Ice below 50m is solid as a diamond.
manacker said on May 9, 2013 at 3:44 pm
Max_OK
Try using your head.
You write:
“… you “ruin the economy” types get all panicky at the thought of taxing carbon for its true cost. Yet, we see no economy’s ruined by carbon taxes.”
We also “see no environments ruined by human CO2 emissions”.
So we see no NEED for a carbon tax.
Got it?
________
I get what climate contrarians think doesn’t matter. You are a small and shrinking minority. If contrarians were a traded stock, I would short sell you.
If it’s any comfort to you, most climate contrarians probably are too old to worry about carbon taxes that are years off. Better they be concerned about failing health.
Max_OK
I’ll repeat the first part of my comment:
“Max_OK, try using your head.”
Max_CH
PS You are headed for certain extinction like the Tasmanian tiger and the dodo bird – enjoy life on this planet while you can, and don’t be such a pessimistic sourpuss.
Max_CH, please give me credit for not asking you to use your head. That would be cruel. HA HA !
I am enjoying myself. I hope you are enjoying yourself too. But life is about more than just having fun. We should act responsibly, and as you know, I believe you could act more responsibly.
Max_OK, I agree we should act responsibly and that’s one of the most important skeptical points. The consensus is not acting responsibly! They waste everything – money, time, resources, scientific credibility…
Max_OK,
Manacker asked “So we see no NEED for a carbon tax.” You answered, in part:
What do you base that opinion on?
The Australian public has turned right against CAGW doomsayer beliefs and against the carbon tax. The UK voters have sent a clear message to the major parties they no longer believe in the doomsayer stuff or wasting money on purported climate policies like wind farms and carbon pricing.
The EU carbon price has fallen from €25 per tonne CO2 in 2008 to €4 per tonne CO2 in 2013. (At that average rate is will be €0 in 2014.)
The Chicago Carbon Exchange collapsed.
Is there any evidence to support your belief, or is it another example of CAGW doomsayers’ wishful thinking?
Damn, I quoted the wrong sentence. I’ll have to repost with correction. Ignore the previous comment.
Max_OK,
Manacker asked “So we see no NEED for a carbon tax.” Your answer included this:
What do you base that opinion on?
The Australian public has turned right against CAGW doomsayer beliefs and against the carbon tax. The UK voters have sent a clear message to the major parties they no longer believe in the doomsayer stuff or wasting money on purported climate policies like wind farms and carbon pricing.
The EU carbon price has fallen from €25 per tonne CO2 in 2008 to €4 per tonne CO2 in 2013. (At that average rate is will be €0 in 2014.)
The Chicago Carbon Exchange collapsed.
Is there any evidence to support your belief, or is it another example of CAGW doomsayers’ wishful thinking?
I base that opinion on what’s happening to the GOP. It’s demographic base is shrinking relative to the total voting population.
Peter Lang said:
“The Australian public has turned right against CAGW doomsayer beliefs and against the carbon tax. The UK voters have sent a clear message to the major parties they no longer believe in the doomsayer stuff or wasting money on purported climate policies like wind farms and carbon pricing.”
____________
Peter you remind me of Republicans who thought Romney would win easily.
Max_OK
In your great nation, you have a two-party system.
As a result, it’s a “winner take all” (or “black and white”) political landscape.
And it is true that (at the last election) more Democratic voters came out than Republican voters (51.3% to 48.7%, I believe).
But the voter participation was only 58.7%.
So we really have
30.1% – Leaning Democratic
28.6% – Leaning Republican
41.3% – Unknown
It is generally believed that a higher percentage of Democrats would support a carbon tax in your country than Republicans, although there are no hard poll data on this.
A poll of Democrats and Republicans regarding the overall topic of AGW, however, showed that 70% of Democrats and only 29% of Republicans felt AGW was a potential problem.
http://phys.org/news/2011-04-democrats-republicans-increasingly-global.html
If we make the “leap of faith” that the last voting electorate also followed this split, and that all those who believed in AGW would also support a carbon tax, we have:.
We then have:
0.70*30.1 + 0.29*28.6 = 29.4% in favor
0.30*30.1 + 0.71*28.6 = 29.3% against
and 41.3% undecided (or unknown)
So, with less than 30% of the population in favor of a carbon tax, it is unlikely that this is going very far in the USA today, as seen by someone on the outside.
Max_CH
Max_OK,
More evidence that interest in climate change is waning – see the activity time line here: http://climatechange.carboncapturereport.org/cgi-bin/topic?
Interest in carbon credits is also waning – see the activity timeline here: http://carboncredits.carboncapturereport.org/cgi-bin/topic?
Hardly a pulse, eh? Can the statisticians can project when it will die? :)
Max_OK,
It’s more a case that climate contrarians are too old to have to worry about the full effects of climate change, but they may still be expected to share some of the expense of mitigation measures. I’d have to disagree with you slightly – they probably aren’t too old for that.
So, it does make some sense for them to argue as they do.
I’m looking forward to see the full effects of climate change, hoping it will kill the Orwellian Climate Change and humanity will learn something from it.
Well, maybe some of seniors will, and I guess they could claim they are getting the expense without the climate benefits, except for cleaner air. The benefits will go to future generations. But those on Social Security and Medicare are getting some financial benefits without the expense. The expense will go to younger people.
Max_OK,
Further to your comment:
I’ve just seen this:
Peter, you refer to an opinion piece that pleases you. It’s good you can find one that pleases you, even if it is over two months old. But it’s opinion.
Max_OK,
Do you think 10 May 2013 is 2 months out of date, do you? It’s today’s you nincompoop.
Peter, my mistake, but it’s still an opinion piece, and it’s written by a pollution advocate.
Max_OK,
Firstly, I don’t agree that CO2 is pollution, but no pint discussing that, it’s the opinion of the scaremongers but not of me.
Second, yes its an opinion piece, but so what? The alarmists continually refer to opinion pieces and want us to read them. So that point is nothing but hypocracy.
Thirdly, yes the author is does not support irrational policies like carbon pricing. But again, so what? Do you prefer that opinion pieces should be band if they do not support your ideological beliefs? )Band by legislation I presume?)
Do you believe we should have freedom of speech only where it supports your views?
Lastly, and most importantly, have you identified any important facts he has wrong?
manacker said on May 9, 2013 at 3:44 pm
“So we see no NEED for a carbon tax.”
____
Max_CH, a government needs tax revenue, and a carbon tax is preferable to an income tax and a sales tax.
An Income tax is not an incentive to do good. For some, It may even be a disincentive to work harder and be more productive.
A sales tax is not an incentive to do good. It may discourage spending, and spending creates a need for workers.
A carbon tax is an incentive to do good. It encourages efficient use of fossil fuels and discourages pollution.
Here’s a quote from a recent Washington Post editorial about the carbon tax and a link to the editorial:
“No honest tax reform paper, for example, would be complete without discussion of a carbon tax, an elegant policy Congress could immediately take off the shelf. It would make polluters pay for their own pollution, which is the best way to encourage greener thinkingNo honest tax reform paper, for example, would be complete without discussion of a carbon tax, an elegant policy Congress could immediately take off the shelf. It would make polluters pay for their own pollution, which is the best way to encourage greener thinking.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/carbon-tax-is-best-option-congress-has/2013/05/07/883f2184-aeaa-11e2-98ef-d1072ed3cc27_story.html
I don’t proposer eliminating the income tax altogether. Instead I would like to see the rates drastically reduced, with a carbon tax making up for the revenue shortfall. Low income families should receive a credit to compensate for the regressive nature of the carbon tax, which would be similar to the earned income tax credit they now receive.
I apologize for the double quote.
Max Ok,
So called Pigovian taxes are better than other taxes if and only if they reflect correctly existing market failures of the type of externalities.
A tax that proprtional to an externality but more than twice its size is likely to lead to a worse outcome than no such tax.
I do believe that carbon taxes do correspond to real externalities, but I’m very uncertain on the correct rate of such a tax, and consequently also on the point where it’s net effect turns negative. The unfortunate situation is that a tax that’s almost certainly good based on the above argument is probably very inefficient in reducing worldwide carbon releases. That’s partly due to the issue I discuss above, and partly to other factors that reduce the influence on CO2 releases like the effect of carbon leakage.
Pekka I’m not sure why all that would matter much if a carbon tax is partially replacing other taxes (i.e., the income tax and/or sales tax).
Max-OK
Switzerland has 2 income taxes (one for canton and community, one for the federal state), a sales tax (VAT) AND a carbon tax.
The carbon tax was introduced not instead, but in addition to the other taxes. The people were told it would be used to make health care cheaper; not true (or only half true).
Maxok
New Taxes tend to be used in conjunction with existing ones rather than replace them. Income tax was introduced in Britain in 1799 was abolished soon after reintroduced again and has become a permanent fixture.
Govts are desperate for sources of tax revenue and this need will only increase in future years. So substitution of one tax for another is a nice idea but is unlikely to happen
Tonyb
Deciding what’s the least disruptive way for the government to get the revenue it wants to get is certainly not an easier problem than that of climate change. (No two economists agree fully on that – there’s no consensus.)
In the short term new forms of taxes are very often linked to raising the overall level of taxation, in longer term I don’t think that such an effect persists. Other considerations determine ultimately the overall level of taxation and at that point an additional form of tax leads to a reduction of level of the other forms of taxes.
According to economic theory there’s is probably some way of collectin taxes that’s best for the economy, but nobody knows what it precisely is. It’s different, when environmental external costs are taken into account than otherwise. Because the environmental costs accrue in long term, the optimal that includes these externalities is not optimal for short term development of economy.
Not really knowing what’s best means that any change made has an unknown effect on the economy, but on the average including any other arguments on top of those related to the state of economy is expected to be worse for the economy.
Everything I write above should be acceptable for fiscal conservatives as well as progressives, but their views do certainly differ on what’s optimal for the economy.
Let’s just get it over with and establish a national church, The Church of Carbon Sin, and give the EPA the power to sell indulgences.
Oh wait. That’s what we have already.
Nevermind.
Alexej and Tonyb, if you have made up your minds that politicians are going to break their promises on taxes there’s nothing that will ever convince you that one tax can replace another. But you may be confusing the issue with raising taxes in general.
pekka, I’m not suggesting a drastic and immediate tax change that would be disruptive to the economy, nor would the carbon tax ever entirely replace other taxes.
Phasing a revenue-neutral carbon tax in gradually should minimize disruptions.
We aren’t starting from a U.S. income tax code that’s ideal to begin. It favors special interest groups, and people not a part of those groups rightly complain about it not being fair. I think you are suggesting reducing the income tax by having a tax on carbon would make taxes even more unfair. I see it as an opportunity to make taxes fairer.
Max Ok does not seem to consider some basic facts when forming his opinions.
The carbon tax he points to in BC as being a model has been estimated (by those who advocated the implementation of the tax) to have reduced CO2 emissions from fossil fuels in BC by only 5%.
An income tax or a sales tax are more efficient means of collecting revenue than a carbon tax with a rebate
The USA would need to add a tax of approximately $3 per gallon to the cost of oil used in the US to balance its budget.
Does Rob not know with a B.C. election coming up both leading parties want to keep the carbon tax?
The National Review says it has a court date with Michael Mann next month.
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/347697/accidentally-purpose
Back in January the National review filed a motion to dismiss Mann’s suit pursuant to the D.C. anti-slapp act.
Is National Review referring to this motion when it says a court date next month, or has the motion been denied?
Max_Ch and Beth, was my question not clear?
Mann’s path: exaggerate, fabricate, prevaricate, litigate.
The “scientific method” as practiced in climate science?
…and goddam irritate …
…serfs at any rate,
Bts
The main thing we can conclude from the energy balance is rapid warming and cooling of the oceans in phase with net radiant flux at TOA – as we see here from net ERBS flux and satellite altimetry on Fig 7 of Wong et al 2006.
http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/Wong2006figure7.gif.html?sort=3&o=106
The change in ERBS – and indeed in ISCCP-FD – is mostly in cloud cover.
It is seen both globally and in the tropics – with cloud cover inversely correlated with sea surface temperature in the tropical Pacific. Not surprising given the impacts on global rainfall of ENSO.
http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/Loeb2011-LWCERES.png.html?sort=3&o=50
Seen here as LW anomalies.
http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/Loeb2011-Fig1.png.html?sort=3&o=31
Or here as changes in cloud and SW with the most modern instruments.
http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/CERES_MODIS-1.gif.html?sort=3&o=64
Which is consistent with quite moderate ocean warming in ARGO.
http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/vonSchuckmannampLTroan2011-fig5PG_zpsee63b772.jpg.html?sort=3&o=17
Tsonis doesn’t deviate from the most modern concept of climate. I can name dozens of leading climate scientists who agree that climate is intrinsically a non-linear, complex, dynamic system. Rather it is some of the more intransigent who have not quite caught up with the current thinking.
Climate shifted – which involved both changes in ocean and atmospheric circulation and changes in cloud cover – after 1998. These shifts last 20 to 40 years in the climate proxies.
Far from suggesting that this makes a case for business as usual – it suggests quite uncertain and potentially large shifts are possible. But the question I keep asking is what they think will happen to the politics of carbon mitigation with non warming of the atmosphere and oceans as La Niña intensifies for another decade to three? They – the usual suspects – seem more the problem than the solution.
The main thing we can conclude from the energy balance is we don’t have any reliable means of determining either the polarity of magnitude of it. The modeled imbalance is on the order of a half watt per square meter averaged over the entire top of atmosphere while the margin of error in the actual measurements is five watts per meter squared. We don’t reliably know the polarity of any imbalance. It’s all based on what are known as just-so stories i.e. assumptions that are true by fiat rather than by empirical means. I tend to refer to these as narratives. Climate science is, by and large, a collection of unproven narratives or stories concocted to support ideologic agendas. Hence we are asked to believe that there’s a half watt more energy entering TOA than leaving it when the fact of the matter is we can’t measure the imbalance any better than plus or minus five times that amount.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-so_story
What appears to show up in ARGO period
is that the imbalance is positive and 0.69 +/- 0.1 W/m2.
http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/vonSchuckmannampLTroan2011-fig5PG_zpsee63b772.jpg.html?sort=3&o=17
The balance is conceptually quite simple.
d(W&H)/dt = power in less power out
Where W&H are heat and work and d(W&H)/dt is positive for the ARGO period as noted.
Power in changed very little – http://lasp.colorado.edu/sorce/total_solar_irradiance_plots/images/tim_level3_tsi_24hour_640x480.png
Most change was in power out – and most of that was in reflected shortwave
http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/AdvancesinUnderstandingTop-of-AtmosphereRadiationVariability-Loebetal2011.png.html?sort=3&o=27
The changes in anomalies are far more precise than absolutes – where there a calibration issue. What would you compare it to? But if you know the planet is heating – the sign of the imbalance is known and the data can then be interrogated to see what exactly is changing.
The imbalance changes in sign and amplitude constantly.
I think you are probably better off reading some real science rather than Wikipedia –
‘This paper highlights how the emerging record of satellite observations from the Earth Observation System (EOS) and A-Train constellation are advancing our ability to more completely document and understand the underlying processes associated with variations in the Earth’s top-of-atmosphere (TOA) radiation budget. Large-scale TOA radiation changes during the past decade are observed to be within 0.5 Wm-2 per decade based upon comparisons between Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Energy System (CERES) instruments aboard Terra and Aqua and other instruments. Tropical variations in emitted outgoing longwave (LW) radiation are found to closely track changes in the El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO). During positive ENSO phase (El Nin˜o), outgoing LW radiation increases, and decreases during the negative ENSO phase (La Nin˜a). The coldest year during the last decade occurred in 2008, during which strong La Nina conditions persisted throughout most of the year. Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) observations show that the lower temperatures extended throughout much of the troposphere for several months, resulting in a reduction in outgoing LW radiation and an increase in net incoming radiation. At the global scale, outgoing LW flux anomalies are partially compensated for
by decreases in midlatitude cloud fraction and cloud height, as observed by Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrometer and Multi-angle Imaging Spectro Radiometer, respectively. CERES data show that clouds have a net radiative warming influence during La Nina conditions and a net cooling influence during El Nino, but the magnitude of the anomalies varies greatly from one ENSO event to another. Regional cloud-radiation variations among several Terra and A-Train instruments show consistent patterns and exhibit marked fluctuations at monthly timescales in response to tropical atmosphere-ocean dynamical processes associated with ENSO and Madden–Julian Oscillation.’
http://meteora.ucsd.edu/~jnorris/reprints/Loeb_et_al_ISSI_Surv_Geophys_2012.pdf
Dear Chief Kangaroo Skippy Ellison,
Stephens et al. (2012)
http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v5/n10/full/ngeo1580.html
Owing to your short attention span I highlighted the part that illuminates the vast depth of your ignorance on the topic of accuracy and precision of TOA energy imbalance numbers you so carelessly bandy about.
Let me know what part of Stephens 2012 you don’t understand.
Let me say I sincerely hope that 2012 isn’t too outdated for your delicate temporal sensibilities when it comes to science.
I agree that the Chief flings about those noisy energy balance charts like an angry monkey flings about feces.
The noise is clearly large enough that I would hesitate to try to extract a signal.
Chief Hydrologist, you wrote:
“What appears to show up in ARGO period is that the imbalance is positive and 0.69 +/- 0.1 W/m2.
but the figure that you linked to appears to show that the imbalance was 0.55 +/- 0.1 W/m2.
0.55 +/- 0.1 W/m2 is consistent with Loeb et al, Nat Geoscience, 2012 (0.50 +/- 0.43 W/m2 over 2001-10) and Stephens et al,Nat Geoscience, 2012 (0.58 ±0.4 Wm–2 over 2005-10).
Meehl et al
Externally forced and internally generated decadal climate variability associated with the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation
Abstract: Globally averaged surface air temperatures in some decades show rapid increases (accelerated warming decades) and in other decades there is no warming trend (hiatus decades). A previous study showed that the net energy imbalance at the top of atmosphere of about 1 Wm-2 is associated with greater increases of deep ocean heat content below 750m during the hiatus decades while there is little globally averaged surface temperature increase or warming in the upper ocean layers. Here we examine processes involved with accelerated warming decades, and address the relative roles of external forcing from increasing greenhouse gases and internally generated decadal climate variability associated with Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation (IPO). Model results from CCSM4 show that accelerated warming decades are characterized by rapid warming of globally averaged surface air temperature and greater increases of heat content in the upper ocean layers and less heat content increase in the deep ocean, opposite to the hiatus decades. In addition to contributions from processes potentially linked to Antarctic Bottom Water (AABW) formation and the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), the positive phase of the IPO, adding to the response to external forcing, is usually associated with accelerated warming decades. Conversely, hiatus decades typically occur with the negative phase of the IPO, when warming from the external forcing is overwhelmed by internally generated cooling in the tropical Pacific. Internally generated hiatus periods of up to 15 years with zero global warming trend are present in the future climate simulations. This suggests that there is a chance the current observed hiatus could extend for several more years.
http://www.cawcr.gov.au/staff/jma/Decadal.trends.Meehl.JClim.2013.pdf
IPCC’s “0.2 deg C warming for the next two decades” has been dumped without fanfare.
Congratulation to nature all sceptics.
The IPO involves both PDO and ENSO dynamics. It seems associated also with changes in cloud radiative forcing and the distinction between internal and external processes could be quite misleading.
The IPO lasts for 20 to 40 years – and at some stage it seems likely to switch from a cool phase to a cooler phase. We get approximately 1000 year peaks in El Nino activity.
Girma believes “several years” means seven years, and has faith in a prediction he likes.
(= is an optimist; sees “the pony”)
Max_OK “has faith in a prediction he doesn’t like” (= is a pessimist; sees only “the pony-poop”)
Takes all kinds in this world.
But cheer up, Okie, it’s only an imaginary bogeyman out there (and there really is a pony).
Max
Joshua | May 10, 2013 at 9:09 am |
Yeah well maybe you should try something else to check those predilections because whatever you’re doing now isn’t working.
The face of globull warming.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/weather/2013/05/09/quiet-tornado-season/2148075/
Look
squirrelArctic sea ice!no thats not a squirrel thats ‘multiple lines of evidence’
No actually it’s redistribution of energy. Less energy in atmosphere over tornado alley resulting in fewer tornadoes more energy in atmosphere over Arctic ocean resulting in less ice. It’s not rocket science but it’s evidently over your head nonetheless.
Max_OK writes; “Pekka I’m not sure why all that would matter much if a carbon tax is partially replacing other taxes (i.e., the income tax and/or sales tax).”
Honestly injun’ Max, (and no slight intended on Indians of whatever stripe) your naivete is staggering. Do you honestly think cash strapped western governments…. which is to say governments drowning in debt….are going to decide to do away with income taxes or sales taxes or any other tax? The idea is beyond absurd. Personally, I’d be ashamed to write such drivel but you don’t seem in the least bothered.
…that is, in order to make more money available for a carbon tax. I suppose it’s possible the U.S. government for example, might up the sales tax to take the place of income taxes.
A carbon tax is not technically a Pigovian tax – it is a tax intended to change the relative economics of energy sources based on the carbon content. Typically the tax is not set anywhere near a level where substitution becomes feasible and the justification then becomes that of providing an economic incentive for using less power. Thus the potential effectiveness seems marginal at best for two reasons. Demand for energy is relatively inflexible and the typical tax has had far less impact than the large increases of oil cost especially. In Australia for instance – the price of petrol in Central Queensland was about $1.46/litre yesterday. Of this some 40% is tax. The carbon tax component is some 6 cents – which in fact was imposed as a reduction in the existing tax – making no difference in the price of petrol.
Countries may impose taxes as they wish – a revenue neutral carbon tax theoretically imposes no additional burden on economies. Although it may encourage exporting companies to move elsewhere. Carbon taxes at a level sufficient to cause substitution are a different matter. We would be left with higher energy costs, no revenue and lower productivity. An unmitigated bad. The only way forward is to develop new and low cast energy sources – and in the interim pursue alternative mitigation pathways.
Carbon taxes seem destined to fail – more a distraction than a way forwatd for the world. The Breakthrough Institute expressed it as well as anyone.
‘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.’ http://thebreakthrough.org/archive/climate_pragmatism_innovation
1. Chief says: “Demand for energy is relatively inflexible and the typical tax has had far less impact than the large increases of oil cost especially.”
_____
Yes, inflexible in the short-run, but consumers will adjust by buying more fuel-efficient cars,etc.
2. Chief says: “Carbon taxes at a level sufficient to cause substitution are a different matter. We would be left with higher energy costs, no revenue and lower productivity.”
If substituting more expensive energy, yes. But see # 1.
3. Chief says: “Countries may impose taxes as they wish – a revenue neutral carbon tax theoretically imposes no additional burden on economies. Although it may encourage exporting companies to move elsewhere. ”
So subsidize ’em with tax breaks.
By far the biggest incentive for efficiency is from increases in oil prices. The effect of taxes at any level mooted are marginal at best.
Although energy efficiency and carbon intensity have been increasing for decades in the west – and there may not be a hard limit – see 1 above.
Subsidise exporters? Blah.
Taxes are a distraction from real progress at best. No one is opposed to cheaper energy however arrived at.
Chief, you are wrong. I’m somebody opposed to cheaper energy.
Max_OK
If actually implemented (and if it is not simply a cosmetic “token tax” like we have in Switzerland), the carbon tax you are proposing would end up being a can of worms that punishes the average family that drives a car or two going to work plus shopping and carting kids around, heats and air conditions their home to a comfortable temperature, uses hot water, etc.
All products that contain an energy component (what product doesn’t?) would become more expensive for the consumer, again hurting the average guy the most.
The carbon tax credit for lower income folks just hurts the middle income folks that much more and would be another costly and bureaucratic can of worms to implement.
A cosmetic “token tax” will achieve absolutely no change in anyone’s behavior.
There is no majority in favor of such a tax in the USA, so it has an extremely low likelihood of ever being passed by a congress elected by the people.
(So much for the practical arguments against a carbon tax.)
Now let’s look at what it would achieve.
My “null hypothesis”: A USA carbon tax will achieve no perceptible change as far as our climate is concerned. (No tax ever did.)
Let’s do a reality check on that:
US population is expected to grow to 420 million by 2060
http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2012/12/14/census-bureau-lowers-u-s-growth-forecast-mainly-due-to-reduced-immigration-and-births/
Let’s assume it continues growing at the same exponential rate, reaching 535 million by 2100.
And let’s assume that US per capita CO2 emissions remain at today’s level over the entire century without a tax (probably pessimistic, since they have diminished over the past decade).
And let’s assume that with the tax, the USA will start cutting CO2 emissions tomorrow to reach half the “no tax” emissions by 2030, remaining at half the “no tax” level from then on (pretty ambitious).
Run the numbers, Okie.
You’ll see that we would have a cumulated savings of 305 GtCO2 by 2100, over the entire 87 years from today, half of which would have “remained” in the atmosphere.
This results in a reduction of atmospheric CO2 by 2100 of around 20 ppmv.
Without this reduction, CO2 level is expected to reach 640 ppmv by 2100; so, with the US tax and reduction, it would only reach 620 ppmv.
Using the IPCC 2xCO2 ECS estimate of 3.2°C, the theoretical net reduction in (equilibrium) warming by year 2100 resulting from the US CO2 tax and cutback is 0.14°C.
Summary: No gain. Lots of pain. Bad plan.
Fuggidaboudit, Okie.
Max_CH
Max_ CH, there may be hope for you. You have progressed from believing rising atmospheric CO2 isn’t a problem to believing a revenue-neutral carbon tax isn’t a solution to the problem. I applaud you for taking a step in the right direction. The tax is also a step in the right direction, but of course is not by itself a complete solution.
pokerguy, I’m not sure you know what a revenue neutral tax means. The government reduces the income tax by the amount generated from the carbon tax. There is no net reduction in total tax.
We know what it is – and we know that it is pointless. Let’s vote on it – http://oddsscanner.dailytelegraph.com.au/specials/politics-and-election/australian-politics/federal-election-winning-party
No one expects Labor to survive in Australia past Septmber. Carbon taxes are dead and buried in yet one more country.
I’d like to move on to practical and pragmatic solutions – but you seem more an intransigent impediment to solutions rather than otherwise. Part of the problem not part of the solution.
Maxok
I missed the start of this sub thread. How and when would a carbon tax be imposed and how is it collected?
Tonyb
TonyB, the Washington Post brought it up in the context of reforming the U.S. income tax code. See my above link to the Post editorial.
Max_OK | May 10, 2013 at 4:38 pm |
There is no net reduction in total tax.
Though what you say is technically incorrect at the level of a quibble, it at least dwells in the same neighborhood as Reality.
It’s well known that BC over-recycles its carbon tax, which means it reduces other taxes to business and individuals more than the carbon tax collects.
The law is written so if the tax isn’t at least recycled, the Minister of Finance is personally penalized 15% salary, so some incentive there to cut more.
However, this doesn’t hurt BC’s revenues so much as you’d think. Because of the Double Dividend effect reported by (among many others) Dr. Ross McKitrick in his PhD thesis paper, BC’s carbon tax is so much more efficient than other taxes that it makes up for over-recycling.
Which may be why BC’s neighbors are starting to imitate it.
Bart R, thanks for pointing that out about the BC carbon tax.
There’s certainly no pause (lame attempt to keep it on topic!) in CO2 level. 400ppm hit.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-22486153
Break out the champagne!!!!! Let us hurry things up so that we can reach first 450 ppmv, and then 500 ppmv as soon as possible.
The deniers and false skeptics want to experiment with pushing it up to 1000ppm. But they won’t be around to see the results of their experiment. There’s something not right about that.
Max_OK, you write “The deniers and false skeptics want to experiment ”
I, for one, dont want to experiment with anything. To maintain the style of living I enjoy, and hope to see many others in the world who are not as lucky as I am, get to the same sort of level, we need to burn fossil fuels. It is what keeps the economy growing. Furthermore, there is no empirical evidence whatsoever, that adding CO2 to the atmosphere causes CAGW. And CO2’s effects are only beneficial when it comes to agriculture. All good reasons the break out the chanpagne.
only if you ignore the fact that human CO2 is the primary driver of global temperature on centennial timescales.
That’s really not true. Or were humans around driving their cars just before the last few interglacials?
lolwot, you write “only if you ignore the fact that human CO2 is the primary driver of global temperature on centennial timescales.”
There is absolutely no empirical data whatsoever to support that statement. All there is, are a bunch of hypothetical guesses.
Jim Cripwell says “And CO2′s effects are only beneficial when it comes to agriculture.”
Jim, why do you think greenhouses are air-conditioned?
Max_OK | May 10, 2013 at 5:14 pm
MaX: Who are those “deniers and false skeptics” you keep babbling about? Name some names and tell us why they are wrong or shut up.
Max_OK | May 10, 2013 at 11:49 pm | Reply
Arno, there’s one right under my post, and there’s another one two up from your post. They are all over the place.
Arno, I put this in the wrong place previously. Sorry.
Max_OK
You ask:
Well, it’s certainly NOT from the enhanced CO2 concentrations they use to improve plant growth.
Max_CH
Get real. Mauna Loa is the site of an active volcano where CO2 levels vary up to 600 ppm in a single day and all of the data collected there is the product of a cottage industry of an IPCC-approved scientist to selected his son to carry on the family business as facilitators of the global warming hoax.
Waggy doesn’t like small businesses.
… you mean, ideologically-driven bomb makers for the Left?
Wagathon | May 10, 2013 at 6:27 pm said: ”Get real. Mauna Loa is the site of an active volcano where CO2 levels vary up to 600 ppm in a single day and all of the data collected”’
My friend, they don’t collect data. Around Mauna Loa in the water are lots of submarine volcanoes and hot vents that are spewing CO2 at different amounts every day as from beer bottles. IF they were collecting that data; would have known about great fluctuation (reason i suggested in my book: CO2 to be monitored on Easter Island
2] at daytime the sun lifts CO2 into the upper atmosphere – after sundown loses the benefit of sunlight to warm itself up -> falls down to the ground and the trees are most active after 9PM collecting it. therefore: monitoring at different times in 24h shows completely different amounts of CO2. On the streets where is traffic and other activity is different amount than in the desert. 3] in the jungle is much more CO2, than outside your city. because: wind brings same amounts, BUT the fungi in the rainforest are factories for producing tremendous amount of CO2. The Organized Crime don’t ”collect” data; they just say what suits the occasion and their propaganda.
4] the more CO2 is released in the air -> the more rain washes into the sea. compare the amount of reserve carbon with the amount of seawater. the good lord made water to wash things.
5] reason they quote 380 – 400ppm is: they ad all the CO2 produced on the top of the existing one; not taking in consideration that: more falls into the sea -> more algae grow, they collect it -> get buried / cemented by sediments – on the top new algae grow. b] all that extra sewage that ends up in the sea because of growing population – big part gets buried on the bottom after pooped by fish and cemented; that sewage is made from carbon… nobody take those and other deficits in consideration. Whoever tells you that he monitored CO2 and knows the correct amount, IS A LIAR
Max_OK
Think you got that wrong
CAGW is not a “small business”.
It is a multi-billion dollar per year BIG business.
And if the pols could get a global carbon tax enforced (they can’t), it would be a trillion plus dollar business.
Lots of folks are lining up at the trough – are you one of them, Okie?
Max_CH
Max_OK, you ask “Jim, why do you think greenhouses are air-conditioned?”
I dont understand the question. Many people who run greenhouses artficially raise the CO2 level to around 1200 ppmv, so as to increase the productivity of the operation.
Without air-conditioning greenhouses can get too warm for plants. That’s why greenhouses are air-conditioned.
First, they had insanely productive greenhouses long before there was CO2 enhancement, or air conditioners. In the Dakotas they heated them. Wonder why?
Greenhouses have a limited amount of air available to plants. They have walls and a roof. During CO2 uptake, the concentration of air in that limited volume of air can hit very low numbers, and plants will simply stop growing. This is inefficient.
None of this has much to do with a plant in a field. I heard farmers pray for just about any imaginable thing to do with growing a crop, mostly for rain. I’ve never heard one pray for more CO2.
concentration of “CO2” in that limited volume drops.
Max_OK
Yeah. They are open to incoming solar radiation but (unlike our climate system) closed to convection, so they heat up.
Duh!
Max_CH
Well, Arno, there’s one right under my post, and there’s another one two up from your post. They are all over the place.
Please can someone show me the results of any real experiment quantifying thermalization of IR by *any* IR absorbing/emitting “greenhouse” gas not confined within an IR reflective chamber.
http://www.raesystems.com/sites/default/files/downloads/FeedsEnclosure-TN-169_NDIR_CO2_Theory.pdf
Thanks for asking. There’s about a million of these in operation around the world controlling ventilation systems of high occupancy buildings. They sense how much CO2 concentration has gone up by people breathing the same air and when it reaches a set point turns on ventilation fans that exchange stale inside air with fresh outside air.
No. The witless one made the reference as he practiced his passive aggressive style of insult hoping that it won’t get him spanked by the lady of the house again. LOL.’
Springer is the one to talk about moderation. The habits of bombast and bellicosity aside – he links to 30 years old papers, Wikipedia and quite often gets those wrong. There was for instance a claim of a foam effect of IR loss in waves. The paper by Jarrett from memory was 20 years old – and cited some other studies on a foam effect – but in fact found no foam effect. It seems that springer neglected to read to the end of the paper. Again he cited a 30 year Mother Earth News article to suggest that conservation farming was controversial. It isn’t. There is much else – such that I have given up reading his comments for the most part as a pointless waste of time. Then there is the habit of dropping in with irrelevant and unwelcome snark that is essentially trivial drivel. Overall we have a shallowness of intellect combined with the smartest nitwit in the room syndrome. The constant need to insist how smart he is and to shout everyone down. The constant obsessive abuse of just about everyone – is there anyone he hasn’t abused – is an ongoing irritant.
“In this rare case I agreed with the exposition rather than otherwise.”
In this case you couldn’t find a source other than blog science. Double LOL.
http://curryja.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/stephens2.gif
He wants peer reviewed studies showing that the sun heats the oceans to 100 metres or more and loses energy in IR, latent heat and conduction from the surface millimetre at best? This is baby physics.
“The sun heats the oceans – the oceans lose energy in IR, latent heat and conduction. If net IR up from the ocean decreases the rate of loss from the ocean decreases until the ocean warms up enough such that the losses again equilibriate.”
Not necessarily. What caused the decline in IR energy loss can also accelerate latent loss for net change that amounts to greater cooling efficiency not lesser.
What caused the decline in net IR losses is warming of the atmosphere. The decline in net IR loss causes the oceans to warm until losses increase again. As I went on to say – the timing of this equilibriation is uncertain. All things being equal – which they never are – from limited data ocean heat follows changes in toa flux quite closely. Instantaneous and as a result of increased evaporation from a warmer skin? Perhaps – but it goes beyond any available data – or the ability to calculate for these broadscale phenomena.
“There is an inordinate confusion about the baby physics.”
Yes, you are definitely confused and making fundamental mistakes buttressed by schoolyard insults to typical of the juvenile mind. Grow up.
The concepts are fairly simple. Sunlight penetrates water to 100m or more – if you have ever dived deep in crystal clear water you can see this – although most is absorbed in the first couple of metres. Heat moves to the surface by convection – warm water is buoyant. Turbulent eddies form both at the surface and over irregularities on the ocean floor. In places the water gets cold and saline enough to sink – in places the warm surface layer is dispersed and cold and turbulent currents can rise to the surface. The complexity and dynamism of this system resists simple characterisations to the extent that perhaps the only way of understanding is real time monitoring and virtual displays.
Here’s one that’s fun and a sign of things to come – http://eyes.nasa.gov/earth/launch2.html
All in all it seems humgungously ingenuous of springer to advise me to grow up – but hey I am just a lot bored with this nonsense.
So science has expiration dates now?
Wow. Fascinating.
If you don’t like established science from 20 or 30 years ago I can only imagine how twisted your panties will become if I quote a law of thermodynamics that hasn’t changed in 200 years.
ROFLMAO
A 30 year old Mother Earth News article certainly dates. And the 20 year old article on ocean IR may be right as far as it goes – but that didn’t stop you not reading to the end and coming away with an entirely erroneous impression.
ROATFFHMFS
A 30 year-old mother earth news article “certainly dates” huh?
Yeah right. Plants, dirt, and water are entirely different substances now.
You are the dumbest git with a pulse sometimes, Ellison. What’s dated is you.
Actually it does. And energy isn’t conserved.
http://freelanceastrophysicist.com/2011/11/getting-nothing-for-something-and-vice-versa/
OMG yer can learn somethin’ everyday…even
a serf!
Amazing!
David Springer
Science itself – probably not.
Scientific knowledge – undoubtedly yes at an exponential rate on a day-to-day basis
Scientific paradigms – yes, when they are replaced with new knowledge resulting in a shift to a new paradigm
Climate “science” (“consensus” view) – absolutely (whether this can be expressed as a decay rate following a natural half-life equation or falls under the paradigm shift category is open to question, but I am sure it has an “expiration date”).
Just my take on it, David.
Max
It’s distressing that pikers view it that way. Experimental science, documented and replicated, is forever. It’s been hundreds of years since Galileo demonstrated that gravitation accelerates all objects at the same rate. The laws of thermodynamics were formulated and tested in the 19th century. Quantum mechanics dates back 80 years.
Junk science such as we see promulgated by the usual suspects in the Climategate chronicles is dead on arrival. Science done right is forever with very rare exceptions.
I take the distrust by the unwashed masses brought into evidence by you as a sure sign of the damage that has been done to the entire enterprise by the purveyors of political ideologies corrupting the edifice of scientific research. Very sad.
Dr. Tim Ball quotes the work of Ernst-Georg Beck (confirming the work of Zbigniew Jaworowski), as follows:
Modern greenhouse hypothesis is based on the work of G.S. Callendar and C.D. Keeling, following S. Arrhenius, as latterly popularized by the IPCC. Review of available literature raise the question if these authors have systematically discarded a large number of valid technical papers and older atmospheric CO2 determinations because they did not fit their hypothesis? Obviously they use only a few carefully selected values from the older literature, invariably choosing results that are consistent with the hypothesis of an induced rise of CO2 in air caused by the burning of fossil fuel.
(T. Ball, Pre-Industrial And Current CO2 Levels Deliberately Corrupted.” May 9, 2012)
To get back to the original question: Is global warming slowing down?
It doesn’t look like it to me.
http://nas-sites.org/americasclimatechoices/files/2012/10/Figure-1.png
I wish the graph of my share investments had a similar look! Unfortunately they have not only slowed down, they’ve definitely cooled in the last few years. :-(
Since this has not been discussed in depth, I thought I would add in my 2 cents to Appel’s observation:
A better metric would be to consider what I refer to as a proportional warming model. The model considers the land temperatures without a heat sink combined with the ocean temperatures featuring a built-in heat sink.
http://theoilconundrum.blogspot.com/2013/05/proportional-landsea-global-warming.html
This is the approach I use to analyze the ocean heat content:
http://theoilconundrum.blogspot.com/2013/03/ocean-heat-content-model.html
We don’t need to throw away the surface temperature as a metric but instead characterize it as a hybrid measure. Of course, we can also spend more time in reporting the land and ocean separately, but skeptics don’t seem to like this. That’s why they are trying to wish away large anomalies as due to UHI effects.
If in fact, we consider the ocean, say SST as a metric, it has warmed a lot less than the global mean surface temperature would indicate. Without looking up the exact numbers, it is roughly 1C per century, I believe. Or we could use the southern hemisphere to calculate sensitivity. Southern hemisphere is much less effected by aerosols, whose effect is pretty uncertain. In reality, its mostly the northern hemisphere land temperatures that have driven the rapid rise in the late 20th century. My problem here is that its a jumble that’s difficult to interpret. Lindzen contends that the lack of a tropospheric hot spot means that perhaps land surface temperatures are wrong. If greenhouse theory is correct, and Lindzen says its, there is more work to be done. Or perhaps the balloon measurements are wrong. When you are looking for an effect that is 3 orders of magnitude smaller than the total, you have these problems.
David Young | May 11, 2013 at 12:08 am said: ”If in fact, we consider the ocean, say SST as a metric, it has warmed a lot less than the global mean surface temperature would indicate”
David, even if the ocean has warmed, nobody knows; nobody is monitoring the whole ocean; temp fluctuates on every 10m, every hour!.
2] As soon as the water warms up -> evaporation increases – evaporation is cooling process b] higher evaporation = more clouds, clouds are the sun-umbrellas for the sea and land, and equalizes in a jiffy!!!
BUT, if is warmer seawater now than 100y ago, is not because of CO2, but because we spill lots of engine oil, canola oil, olive oil and fats into the sea; because of increased population. Oils / fats spread as invisible film on the surface and prevent evaporation. trust me, I’m correct and everybody else is wrong. A lot can be done to minimize that negative impact; but the misleading propaganda is harmful. Those fats and oils prevent water to replenish itself with oxygen – big part of the sea, for big part of the year is oxygen depleted for many variety of fish… they blame the fishermen instead – welcome to the lunatic’s circus.
Warming and cooling of the coupled ocean/land/ocean system is relatively simple and depends only on energy in and energy out. And I am sure – Scott – that energy is conserved if only I had the psychic energy to respond and not simply moan and froth at the mouth.
The complete energy budget is:
d(W&H)/dt = power in – power out
W&H is work and heat – and includes such terms as enthalpy, storage as potential and kinetic energy as well as heat.
There are a couple of minor terms such as the heat from radioactive decay and the difference between energy stored by organisms and lost by combustion or respiration.
So we can consider both the power in – http://lasp.colorado.edu/sorce/total_solar_irradiance_plots/images/tim_level3_tsi_24hour_640x480.png – and power out – http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/AdvancesinUnderstandingTop-of-AtmosphereRadiationVariability-Loebetal2011.png.html?sort=3&o=27
As well as the result in terms of global tropospheric temperature – http://www.ssmi.com/msu/msu_time_series.html – and in the oceans – http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/vonSchuckmannampLTroan2011-fig5PG_zpsee63b772.jpg.html?sort=3&o=17
All of the warming last decade – modest as it was – happened in SW from changes in cloud cover.
http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/CERES_MODIS-1.gif.html?sort=3&o=64
Webby likes to give up simplistic algebra – I like to counter with data from the most sophisticated environmental monitoring systems ever assembled.
Unfortunately both CERES and ARGO missed the 1998/2001 climate shift to a cool PDO and more intense and frequent La Nina – but we can see the climate shift in many different ways – including cloud. These last 20 to 40 years and the current cool mode seems likely to intensify for a bit yet.
http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/ISCCP-cloudamount.png.html?sort=3&o=36
I looked at he Yale web site. David Appell attempts to defend the indefensible and borders on pseudoscience in doing it. Important scientific facts and observations are ignored and the most important theory that explains the greenhouse process, that of Ferenc Miskolczi, is not even mentioned. Judging by the satellite curve, it is clear that that no warming at all has taken place this century. The three ground-based curves referred to by Appell have been manipulated and cannot be trusted. They were all computer processed, but unbeknownst to the owners their software had unanticipated consequences. Namely, it left sharp upward spikes at the beginnings of most years. In addition I found that these ground-based curves showed a phony temperature rise in the eighties and nineties where global mean temperature stood still for 18 years. I published that in my book “What Warming?” but was totally ignored. But last fall all three data-sets decided to revise their eighties and nineties data and to eliminate the previous phony warming. This fact tells me that they cooperate on their temperature data and knew very well what they had been doing. The eighties and the nineties according to satellites were a period of ENSO oscillations showing five El Nino peaks. To find the global mean temperature of this oscillation you have to put a dot in the middle of each line connecting an El Nino peak with its neighboring La Nina valley. When this is done, connect the dots. Doing this for the eighties and nineties you get a horizontal straight line from 1979 to early 1997, an 18 year stretch. This period of no warming was followed by the super El Nino of 1998. It carried much warm water across the ocean and started a step warming. In four years, global temperature rose by a third of a degree and then stopped. There has not been any warming since then and the global temperature of the twenty-first century is another horizontal straight line. Hansen has made a big deal of pointing out that nine out of ten warmest years happened after 2000. That is not because of any imaginary greenhouse warming but because they all sit on top that high plateau created by the step warming. And that step warming does not appear on most temperature curves because it is wiped out by the phony warming of the eighties and nineties. All this adds up to no greenhouse warming at all since the satellite era began in 1979. It also follows that the so-called “warming hiatus” or “pause” extends back to the beginning of the satellite era in 1979, not just to the super El Nino. It was simply interrupted by the super El Nino and the step warming it brought. The length of the presumed hiatus the author is trying to explain is thereby more than doubled. But if you then go back before 1979 do you start getting greenhouse warming? Unfortunately IPCC has never specified which warming period was greenhouse warming and which one was not. They just waved their hands, pointed to the parallel rise of carbon dioxide and global temperature, and called that proof of anthropogenic global warming. To evaluate which warming was which we have to go through the entire twentieth century. Starting from the beginning, its first ten years were cooling. Then suddenly warming started in 1910. It kept going until 1940 and then stopped equally suddenly. There was no increase of carbon dioxide in 1910 which rules out greenhouse warming as a cause. And the sudden halt in 1940 likewise rules out greenhouse warming for it. By 1950 the cooling trend from World War II had alleviated but there was no real warming until mid-seventies. In 1976 there was a noticeable warming that was dubbed the Great Pacific Climate Shift. It is said to have raised global temperature by 0.2 degrees although I have a problem identifying it. At any rate, it was a short step warming that was finished by 1980, and this closes the cycle to the satellite era. We already determined that there was no greenhouse warming after 1979. And this survey shows that there was none before that either. In summary, there has not been any greenhouse warming at all for the last 100 years. Which means that there has not been any global warming that could be “paused.” This fact of course is not what you have been told but it is a necessary consequence of the greenhouse theory of Ferenc Miskolczi.
One explanation is that the politicians of secular, socialist Western Europe and academia conspired with the UN to run a sting on Americans, many of whom have yet to realize the Left had declared jihad on Americanism.
Arno, I doubt you will sell that one to many people here. You might have better luck at WUWT, but even there I imagine it will be a hard sell.
Steven Mosher
You said the formula I used for climate sensitivity is wrong. I disagree.
1) We accept that global mean temperature is proportional to the natural logarithm of CO2 concentration in the atmosphere, which gives T = k*ln(C)
2) Change in temperature is therefore dT = T2 – T1 = k*(ln (C2) – ln (C1)) = k*ln(C2/C1)
3) So the formula for change in temperature is dT = k*ln(C2/C1).
4) Now we need to determine the unknown coefficient k, which can be eliminated by introducing the climate sensitivity. The climate sensitivity (CS) is the change in temperature dT for doubling of CO2 (C2/C1 = 2). Using these relationship in step 3 gives, CS = k*ln (2).
5) Dividing the result in step 4 by that in step 3 and simplifying gives:
CS = ln(2) * dT/ln(C2/C1).
Which is the formula mentioned in Knutti and Hegerl (page 736)
http://www.iac.ethz.ch/people/knuttir/papers/knutti08natgeo.pdf
The above result gives a climate sensitivity of 1.34 deg C for doubling of CO2, using dT=0.4 deg C from 1960 to 2010, C2 = 390 ppm for 2010 and C1 = 317 ppm for 1960.
CS = ln(2)*0.4/ln(390/317) = 0.693*0.4/0.207 = 1.34 deg C
“CO2 climate sensitivity has a component directly due to radiative forcing by CO2, and a further contribution arising from feedbacks, positive and negative. “Without any feedbacks, a doubling of CO2 (which amounts to a forcing of 3.7 W/m2) would result in 1 °C global warming, which is easy to calculate and is undisputed. The remaining uncertainty is due entirely to feedbacks in the system, namely, the water vapor feedback, the ice-albedo feedback, the cloud feedback, and the lapse rate feedback”;[8] addition of these feedbacks leads to a value of the sensitivity to CO2 doubling of approximately 3 °C ± 1.5 °C, which corresponds to a value of λ of 0.8 K/(W/m2).”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_sensitivity
That formula does not DEFINE Climate Sensitivity. The definition is here:
http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/tar/wg1/345.htm
If you look at Figure 9.1 what you calculate is equivalent to the temperature difference from year 70 to year 140.
Mosher thinks this is TCR. It is not. It is quite near to ECS (In Fig 9.1 ECS is 3.5°, TCR is 2°, what is equvalent to your calculation is 3.25°).
The numbers in Fig. 9.1 are not realistic. They are from the IPCC, after all. And that is the topic of JC’s article.
Alexej Buergin
The mere notion that our “climate” ever reaches “equilibrium” is a purely hypothetical notion that is contradicted by nature; the IPCC premise that it takes several centuries for this to occur after a “forcing” has occurred is bordering on voodoo science.
Inasmuch as there is no empirical evidence supporting this notion, I believe “equilibrium climate sensitivity” as defined by IPCC can be discarded as a hypothetical artifact.
I see it more as a creation of circular logic, as can be seen in Hansen et al. 2005:
– Our models tell us it should have warmed by X degrees since 1880 as a net result of the increase in GHGs, principally CO2.
– The temperature record tells us it has only warmed by around X/2 over this period.
– Therefore, the difference = X/2 is still “in the pipeline”, from where it will eventually be released to cause the missing warming
As the Scripture tells us: “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”
[Faith is a wonderful thing.]
Max
Manacker
you are right about the “equlibrium(s)”, and that makes it impossible to ever measure ECS directly.
And that is why I stress the fact that one gets more or less the same result by doing the calculation Girma’s way, and that there is no need to add 0.6° or multiply by 2.
We serfs, due ter
livin’ on the littoral,
or ‘existin’ on the littoral,
more like it, don’t know
yer can call serfdom
‘livin’…well anyways,
from spendin’ so much
time in the great out-doors,
in the fields and way-sides,
but I won’t go into that …
we serfs know, like history
shows, the vicissichudes
of nay-chur’s vari-ability.
There’ one thing other than
death and taxes is certain,
the weather will change… and
then some.
* The serf – Under-ground Journal – will –
come – out – soon. Bts
The two Swiss Missies, Buergin and Manacker, are having a cute catfight arguing over the diff between ECS and TCR.
Let me clear things up for you two Heidi Ho’s. When you look at the observational data concerning average global temperature, multiply the current number by 3/2 to get a rough idea what the steady state value will be.
BTW, while the 1/3 is not observed, it is still building up under the ocean surface as heat, suitable for melting ice and other relentless activities.
WebHubbi
before you try to clear anything up, you should first understand it yourself.
Looking at Figure 9.1 Girma calculates the (equivalent of the) slope of the interval from 70 to 140 and then extrapolates to doubling of CO2 (the whole interval from 70 to 140). If he would use the IPCC numbers, he would get 3.25°C, That is more or less the ECS (3.5°). Multiplying by 1.5 gives you the 5°C from year 70 to year 300, obviously nonsense.
In Fig. 9.1 there is an equilibrium before the year 0, in 1960 there was none. So we cannot start in the year 0.
You have looked at Figure 9.1, have you not? It is “The Scientific Basis”, from the IPCC itself, and not very complicated.
Beth
Ah ain’t all that cul-churd an all, but Ah wuz wunz dragged ter see an O-ra-to-rium (kinda lahk a buch of folks talkin and singin with sum music in the back) writ by a guy named “Josef’s Hidin'” (er wuz it “Hayden”?) called “The Seasons”.
It wuz all ’bout a bunch of serfs (lahk us) barely survivin a long time ago cause of crool ol Nay-chur..
Jus imagin – them folks back then didn’t have no e-lec-tri-city, no heat in ther houses, no tracters an no gas-o-line ter put innem if they haddem.
It wuz a mean life – speshully in winter when a bunchofem up an died.
Ah shore am glad we don’t hafta live lahk that no mo.
Ain’t yew?
Yore feller serf Max
PS That wuz a mahty purty po’m yew just writ.
Max
I agree that the concept of warming on the pipe line does not make sense. If the sunspot count drops, it will wipe out the warming that would occur to achieve the equilibrium condition. Warming in the pipe line assumes a constant solar forcing, which is wrong.
There’s certainly no pause in rising Co2 levels.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-22491491
Since CO2 levels are rising, and temperatures are not, do you mean to say that CO2 has no effect on temperature?
Alexej, you write “Since CO2 levels are rising, and temperatures are not, do you mean to say that CO2 has no effect on temperature?”
Precisely. We now have the April 2013 data from GISS on global temperature anomalies; and I emphasise GISS. If I have done the correct arithmetic, April 2013 is the 12th equal warmest April. There is absolutely no sign that the pause has stopped.. The warmists will never admit it, (just like they wont admit that there is a difference between measurements and estimates), but we really are going through a period of rapidly rising CO2 levels, and no rise in global temperatures at all. My contention that the climate sensitivity of CO2 is indistinguishable from zero is being more and more firmly indicated.
There is a deceleration, in lock step with the temperature pause. Right at the time emissions were accelerating.
That is because temperatures control CO2, not humans. In a few years, the divergence will be so great that the real deniers will have to confront it.
The deceleration in atmospheric concentration.
Normally I try to avoid entanglement with threads where there are other Barts, to avoid confusion.
However.. cause and effect in warming driving CO2 out of solution in seas and lakes, and CO2 climb in concentration in the atmosphere giving the drivers of escape of energy from the surface to space a steeper gradient through the atmosphere leading to the warming effect of the Sun being more intense are both known, expected phenomena of Physics and Chemistry.
The same Physics and Chemistry. You can’t have the one without the other.
What you can do is trace the isotopic origins of CO2, and even Murray Salby (www.skepticalscience.com/Murry-Salby-CO2-rise-natural.htm) can’t make the evidence say otherwise.
Rise in temperature causes some of the rise in CO2.
Rise in CO2 causes rise in the frame of natural temperature changes, making all such changes shift upwards.
Most of the rise in CO2 is due human activity.
Most global warming on scales longer than two decades is provably human caused.
And while ‘warm’ isn’t a bad thing, species suffer when their habitat is radically disrupted by external forcing. We’re setting fire to our own house.
Bart said:
This is one of the most ridiculous straw-man arguments that I have seen. Obviously the CO2 level depends on temperature, but that effect is largely independent of the anthropogenic component. Here is how we trash the argument. Say that the CO2 signal is composed of three components A, B and C.
CO2(t) = A(t) + B(t) + C(t)
The A(t) component is the strictly period seasonal variation caused by outgassing of water and biological processes due to temperature changes.
The B(t) component is the slowly varying anthropogenic component.
The value C(t) is the remainder which is caused by random fluctuations in A(t) and cross-terms related to B(t).
What Bart does is take the derivative of CO2(t) and compares it against global temperature. If you filter this right you should be able to reveal the bits of C(t) that have to do with the Arrhenius activation energy of CO2 with increasing water temperature — i.e. CO2 outgassing.
First note that if we don’t filter A(t) out, that will dominate the signal. So we leave it in there, we get this:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/esrl-co2/derivative/mean:1/from:1979/plot/rss/scale:0.24/offset:0.12
So Bart dutifully puts in exactly a 2 year filter, which removes the predictable seasonal variation. We can therefore remove A(t) from the equation.
Next consider what happens when a derivative is applied. A derivative acts as a high-pass filter, which will pass through fast variations in CO2 and scale down the slow variations in CO2. So that means that the slow variations in the relentless growth in B(t) are essentially removed from the equations.
What we then have left is the fast variations in the C(t) term. These get passed through, or better put, accentuated by the derivative, and they clearly follow the global temperature signal. This is the variation of temperature that is beyond seasonal and has to do with measurable global temperature fluctuations caused by La Ninas, El Ninos, volcanic eruptions, etc.
Congratulations to Bart in being able to isolate the CO2 outgassing with temperature. I have done this myself.
http://theoilconundrum.blogspot.com/2012/03/co2-outgassing-model.html
The difference between Bart’s approach and my approach is that I don’t treat it like a piece of FUD, seeking to make it into something that disproves AGW.
People like Bart with some engineering acumen but are willing to twist the arguments for their own nefarious purpose are sick puppies.
Notice how Bart stays in hiding for long periods but then trots this straw-man argument out on occasion to surprise the gullible onlookers. Fortunately, some of us have long memories and we recognize Bart as Bartemis, the one-trick pony. Go away, stay, I don’t care either way, the real scientists will still be here.
Bart R (not bad Bart) makes the important point that this outgassing must be observed because that is what physics and chemistry says should occur. The fact that it appears so clearly and cleanly is a testament to the skills of the atmospheric scientists such as the Keelings that have manned the Mauna Loa for years.
The Keelings have indeed taken great care to make very accurate measurements — accurate enough to serve as a proxy characterization for subtle global temperature changes!
Bart Right, The out gassing of CO2 would be influenced by the rate of ocean heat uptake which influences the “average” temperature of the oceans. There is more to the relationship between atmospheric CO2 and ocean heat content, but there should be a noticeable shift in the CO2 uptake rate if you can filter out enough of the other noise.
To back that up, there should also be a shift in the rate of Stratospheric cooling or warming if there is a shift in the rate of Ocean Heat uptake.
http://redneckphysics.blogspot.com/2013/05/more-rehashing-of-obvious-ohc-and.html
So there ya go. There is apparently a shift in the rate of ocean heat uptake that corresponds with the climate regime change associated with the 1998/99 super El Nino. Using the regional Stratospheric temperatures, you can even follow some of the internal ocean dynamics. Since the CO2 stored in the deep oceans would either be related to the roughly 3 C temperature of the northern hemisphere more saline down welling water or the -2 C temperature of the southern hemisphere less saline down welling water, there would be a natural oscillation in atmospheric CO2 due to the asymmetry of the world’s oceans.
We live on a marvelously complex planet.
BTW, Murry Salby apparently did report on some of his findings at this years EGU conference
M. Salby and E. Titova, “Relationship between CO2 and Global Temperature: Simulated vs Observed,” presented at the EGU General Assembly Conference Abstracts, 2013, vol. 15, p. 86.
This is the abstract.
http://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EGU2013/EGU2013-86.pdf
Pretty vague stuff. Salby says that the relationship is linear in the models but nonlinear in the real world. Many times abstracts are vague because scientists don’t like their findings pilfered before they get to present them. We will have to wait on Salby should it get published anywhere. It appears that he may be backpedalling from what he said in the past.
There is also this
M. Salby and E. Titova, “Relationship between Greenhouse Gases and Global Temperature: Atmospheric Observations vs the Ice Proxy,” presented at the EGU General Assembly Conference Abstracts, 2013, vol. 15, p. 125.
More like we have kooky people who will torture the data in marvelously complex ways.
Webster, torture is such an ugly word.
Capt’nDallas
On you latest Phun Physics;
The oceans are being charged by the sun, right?
The oceans hold onto that energy including to depth, right?
Then there is less energy heading from the oceans to space so less energy flowing through the stratosphere and the temperature of the stratosphere goes down, right?
We can use the stratosphere cooling as a reflection of the oceans holding onto that energy, right?
OK, why does the ocean hold onto energy some times and not others?
Inquiring minds sometimes miss the obvious.
There are some very smart people who will say things like “the heat will come back to haunt us”.
The vast majority of the energy will not come back out of the oceans until TOA imbalance is the other way: more energy leaving the earth system than coming in from the sun.
The haunting will be between two competing anomalies, OHC and SAT. The energy being slopped around between them is a pretty small portion of the total energy storage in the oceans.
RI008 “OK, why does the ocean hold onto energy some times and not others?”
The oceans are always holding on to energy. What is changing is the charge/discharge rates. Volcanic aerosols reduce the charge rate. The oceans still discharge to the atmosphere, more to NH than SH because of the asymmetry of land/ocean, so the NH oceans lose more capacity which is more quickly replaced by the tropical and SH oceans than solar. You can see the lag between the SH and NH stratospheric temperatures related to the internal transfer.
Most of the charging is done in the tropics and SH. When the NH recharges following a volcanic event, the rate of charge reduces as the NH ocean approaches fully charged. Once the internal heat transfer reaches a steady state, the overall charge rate decreases. The 1998/99 was like the fully charged light going off on the charger. That is about as close to “equilibrium” or “steady state” as the system gets, so you should estimate Anthropogenic impacts on the “charged” state not the “charging” state, if you want to get a reasonable estimate. Otherwise, you over-estimate the impacts.
The “charging” curve, is directly related to the climate “sensitivity.” In fact, every wiggle in the data should be related to climate “sensitivity”. Since the wiggles vary in amplitude and duration, “sensitivity” is non-linear, the data sucks or a bit of both. The wiggles are bigger and faster in the NH because of the lower capacity of the NH oceans and land which tends to imply the both. So not to dis Steven Mosher, but the wiggles explain everything :)
Now that last paragraph is or should be common knowledge. Ray PierreHumbert has even commented on it in a few blog posts. A paper was written that used that response relationship to estimate a lower climate “sensitivity” but was picked apart by the main guys that defined the relationship to begin with. Why? Because it didn’t agree with their models. That was pre-pause recognition though.
JCH, “There are some very smart people who will say things like “the heat will come back to haunt us”.”
There are some very smart people that are saying things like the models were over adjusted and need to be redone. Everything that is “known” because it was the product of a failing model, needs to be re-estimated.
That means the only current “known” is the no-feedback atmospheric response to a doubling of CO2, not “sensitivity”, but atmospheric response. So what will 3.7Wm-2 per doubling do to the system that is producing ~340 Wm-2?
Capt – i think it will do something entirely congruent with libertarian ideas, and totally opposed to the ideas of pixieant progressives. ’cause that would be like the butterfly effect from H/
JCH, “Capt – i think it will do something entirely congruent with libertarian ideas, and totally opposed to the ideas of pixieant progressives. ’cause that would be like the butterfly effect from H/”
I don’t disagree with that. A complex non-equilibrium system the size of a planet will make anyone look like an idiot. The best you can do is learn from your screw-ups.
Capt’nDallas
“the oceans released energy to compensate for the impact of the volcanic aerosols.”
I’m not quite there yet.
The volcanic aerosols hid the sun from the oceans so the rate of charging of the oceans was reduced, right?
I’m stuck on the word “compensate”.
When you use the word “compensate” do you mean that the rate of discharge is now elevated? If so, why? Was there an accumulation of energy that now needs to be released? Trying to attain some sort of but never to be reached quasi-equilibrium?
Is there an asymmetry between energy in vs energy out with volcanic aerosols?
Maybe you can point out what I am failing to grasp.
Regards
I think that what David Appel is saying is that we will perhaps move toward more comprehensive calorimetric estimates to supplant these temperature-based metrics that we have relied on. This will more accurately gauge the total amount of heat that the earth is accumulating. That will become the re-estimate. Better data and statistics will move us in that direction.
Don’t pay attention to what Cappy yammers about. No one has yet to figure out his jibber-jabber.
This is the view or volcanic aerosols.
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-hHs8FuF7SWY/UVe39CUosSI/AAAAAAAADYs/i7RVxRx6wmE/s640/hansen_forcing_diffusive_response.GIF
Those downward excursions (left side) in forcing are the volcanic plumes that obscure insolation. These get reflected in the lack of heat being propagated down through the ocean depths (right side).
Bart R | May 11, 2013 at 9:41 am |
“What you can do is trace the isotopic origins of CO2, and even Murray Salby (www.skepticalscience.com/Murry-Salby-CO2-rise-natural.htm) can’t make the evidence say otherwise.”
Worthless SS reference. The isotopic signature argument has been debunked many times. It is a mighty slender reed upon which to base your argument.
WebHubTelescope (@WHUT) | May 11, 2013 at 10:19 am
“This is one of the most ridiculous straw-man arguments that I have seen”
More feces flung by the Peak Oil Monkey. Meh.
“Go away, stay, I don’t care either way, the real scientists will still be here.”
Who died and made you king? Your delusions have reached new heights.
“Next consider what happens when a derivative is applied. A derivative acts as a high-pass filter… blah, blah, blah”
You are clearly way outside your area of skill, whatever that is. Apparently you have never even heard of basic uniqueness theorems of differential equations. The CO2 derivative tracks the slope of the temperature trend perfectly, while meshing with the high frequency deviation as well. When you integrate that, you get, as you must, the delta-CO2 within the interval. Adding anthropogenic input adds additional trend to the rate of change signal. But, you cannot back off the trend from the temperature induced term without ruining the agreement with the variation.
The necessary conclusion is that temperature is driving atmospheric CO2, and human inputs are rapidly sequestered near the source.
Look, this is so simple, even your tiny brain can comprehend it. CO2 emissions are accelerating. CO2 concentration is decelerating in lockstep with the temperature. CO2 emissions are convex. Atmospheric CO2 is concave. Game, set, match.
In the future, as the relationship continues, there will be increasing divergence. Eventually, even Monkey Boy will have to admit that the fundamental assumption behind observations of increasing CO2 is wrong.
To all: this is exactly the dynamic which should be expected. There is a continual flow of CO2 into the surface system, which is modulated by temperatures. There is a continual flow out, which is modulated by temperatures. Any mismatch between those flows will result in either accumulation or draining of CO2 from the surface system. That leads to an affine relationship of the form
dCO2/dt = k*(T – Teq)
And, that is precisely what we see in the data for the past 55 years.
RiH008, “When you use the word “compensate” do you mean that the rate of discharge is now elevated? If so, why? Was there an accumulation of energy that now needs to be released? Trying to attain some sort of but never to be reached quasi-equilibrium?”
A battery is the best analogy. If you unplug the charger you still have voltage, only that voltage will decrease since the charger is unplugged. How much it decreases depends on the size of your battery. Ideally for the oceans Ein would equal Eout just like the TOA. The oceans have a large enough reserve capacity that Eout can be greater than Ein, for a long time. So while the atmospheric load remains nearly constant, the battery internally transfers energy to maintain a near constant voltage. Only with the oceans, there are battery cells with different voltages. During a volcanic cooling period, the inner lower voltage cells provide more energy to “compensate” for the reduced voltage of the cells or thermocline regions near the surface.
So back to your questions, “When you use the word “compensate” do you mean that the rate of discharge is now elevated? If so, why?” No, now the charge and discharge rates are closer to being in balance, the Ein and Eout of the oceans is closer to equal. Since the OHC curve is sloping toward zero, that is an indication that a good deal of the OH uptake is due to recharge not CO2 forcing.
” Was there an accumulation of energy that now needs to be released?” No, energy was accumulating to restore “charge” lost “compensating to volcanic forcing. The 1998/99 El Nino was like spike as the charging rate neared zero. Not knowing how much or how long the system was charging is a problem. There is a 100 to 150 year “secular” trend that may be related to recovery or “recharging” from the little ice age or not. It would be a big help if that was first recognized then estimated. Right now the oceans are more of an after thought, but there is quite a bit of growing evidence that 150 plus year recurrent “charge” and “discharge” patterns are a normal part of the system.
“Trying to attain some sort of but never to be reached quasi-equilibrium?” More often than not the system should be “hunting” that optimum equilibrium. Hunting is just a control term for overshooting and reverting to mean with another but smaller over shot. When there is an overshot in either direction with complimentary forcing, the overshot is bigger, that could be a bifurcation point, ala 1998/99 or not. It is a lot easier to figure out what is what if you actually know what “normal” is. Hansen seems to have picked a below normal condition for his “normal” and the noisiest metric, GAT to really add to the confusion. That is why there is a rush to OHC which has already shifted.
Capt’nDallas
I’m a little bit closer.
Thanks
Webster said, “Don’t pay attention to what Cappy yammers about. No one has yet to figure out his jibber-jabber.”
Most of the interesting stuff going on would be just Jibber jabber in your featureless world. Your world has a uniform ocean at a uniform temperature. The real world has more ocean in the southern hemisphere and that ocean has a surface temperature 3C degrees cooler than the northern hemisphere. ~16.9 C in the SH and ~19.9 C in the NH. The southern hemisphere receives more solar energy than the northern as well. So an equatorial volcano will have greater impact on the NH than the SH. Your drawing shows “global” averages that are biased to the northern hemisphere, your CO2 forcing estimates use land only temperatures which are also biased to the northern hemisphere. Your ocean diffusion model assume both poles share a common sink temperature and initial surface temperature. You know, if all your models are biased to the northern hemisphere, you should also bias your paleo to the northern hemisphere, but you use a southern polar ice cap as the source of your most cherished paleo reconstructions.
Because of your fantasy representation of your fantasy world, you have managed to replicate the mistakes that Hansen made. And much like Hansen, any mention of the issues and your eyes glaze over while your mind wanders to boiling oceans and two dimensional radiant models.
I would expect the normal situation with volcanic aerosols sufficient to reduce SW in would result in SST cooling and a reduction in the SAT anomaly. How could the SAT anomaly continue to go up with cooler SST?
Cappy does not understand that the earth’s macro characteristics are determined by the macro characteristics of the forcing function and the macro characteristics of the response function.
The concentration of excess atmospheric concentration could reach 10,000 PPM and Cappy will still go weed-diving, yelling things like “Don’t forget about the Drake Passage !!!!”.
Until Cappy understands the utility of statistical thinking, he will be fighting phantom demons for the rest of his life.
JCH, “I would expect the normal situation with volcanic aerosols sufficient to reduce SW in would result in SST cooling and a reduction in the SAT anomaly. How could the SAT anomaly continue to go up with cooler SST?”
The SAT doesn’t necessarily go up, it just doesn’t change as much in some regions and doesn’t change at the same time globally. SAT anomaly also doesn’t really indicate all the changes in energy flux. For example, the NH SST is nearly 20 C degrees, about 3 C warmer than the SH oceans, so the NH ocean can lose more energy with less reduction in temperature anomaly in one situation and appear to lose more in another situation.
The Stratosphere temperatures respond quickly and being at a more uniform temperature appear to show the changes more accurately.
Bartemis says
All Monkey Boy has to do is approximate the CO2 as an exponential with time to first-order, with some additional sinusoidal signals thrown in to model fluctuations. The derivative of an exponential is an exponential, sinusoidal signals get a phase shift, and your formulation goes to pot. You try to hide that fact with offsets and rescaling, but Monkey Boy can see through that smokescreen.
You are one strange engineer.
WebHubTelescope (@WHUT) | May 12, 2013 at 1:50 am |
“All Monkey Boy has to do is approximate the CO2 as an exponential with time to first-order, with some additional sinusoidal signals thrown in to model fluctuations.”
On what basis? I thought your favored paradigm was that human emissions are driving atmospheric concentration.
Perhaps you now recognize the futility of trying to correlate those emissions with atmospheric measurements considering the increasing divergence of even coarse comparisons? So, now you flail and try to come up with some arbitrary sum of functions with no explanatory power?
Why, when there is a perfect fit here already?
“The derivative of an exponential is an exponential…”
Indeed it is. Where do you see an exponential curve in this plot?
“… and your formulation goes to pot.”
Because you threw some functions at the board? Are you high?
“You try to hide that fact with offsets and rescaling, but Monkey Boy can see through that smokescreen.”
Offsets and scaling are used when people try to match emissions with measurements, too. I just have a more solidly grounded reason for doing so, because I have data which confirms it in both the coarse and the fine grain. And, I have an argument from basic principles which supports it. Read again very closely:
The mistake the establishment has made is in considering oceanic outgassing to be static, like a warm coke sitting on a counter. But, it is a continuous flow problem. There is a constant input of CO2 laden waters coming up from the depths, and output of waters going back down from the surface. The flows are immense. It does not take much of an imbalance in CO2 concentration to create a steady increase or decrease in the surface system.
I have made a prediction. The already glaring divergence between atmospheric concentration and emissions will increase. Emissions have accelerated in the last decade. Measurements have decelerated, in lockstep with temperature. That discrepancy is only going to expand as the Earth descends into its normal cooling cycle for the next ~30 years.
Presumably, your prediction will be that, contrary to the current deceleration, and what you apparently consider to be its utterly accidental coincidence with the hiatus in global temperature anomaly, it will explode upward with increasing anthropogenic inputs which, let’s face it, are not going to decrease worldwide under any realistic scenario.
In a few years, maybe 1/2 a decade or so, we should know which one of us is right.
“You are one strange engineer.”
That I am. I am very good at what I do.
@Bart R
There is a deceleration, in lock step with the temperature pause. Right at the time emissions were accelerating.
That is because temperatures control CO2, not humans. In a few years, the divergence will be so great that the real deniers will have to confront it.
So have I got this right … ?
1. Human CO2 emissions are rising
2. Yet overall CO2 concentration is decreasing.
3. We postulate this is due to temperature-driven in-gassing (?) of the oceans.
4. And that in turn is driven by natural ocean-atmosphere cycles.
5. So what we ultimately need to understand, are these damn natural cycles?
Pretty neat, Montalbano. CO2-controlknob scientists get all that egg removed from their faces; PLUS, mankind escapes a CAGW frame-up.
The only losers are those using CAGW as a ruse to raise taxes and other political controls over society. I say “only”, but that’s probably where 90% of the support for political action comes from.
It’s simple. CO2 is rising due to human emissions and the rate of CO2 rise is increasing (ie CO2 level is accelerating).
No CO2 rise hasn’t stopped. To those who claim that CO2 rise follows temperature AND also claim that there has been a pause in global temperature. How do you explain why CO2 continues to rise?
Webster, “Until Cappy understands the utility of statistical thinking, he will be fighting phantom demons for the rest of his life.”
Actually, the limits of statistical thinking are the key to understanding the system. The biggest problem I have with the climate science “norm” is unrealistic confidence intervals.
Temperature anomaly can have a zero margin of error if you have an infinite number of thermometers. But the interpolation of those thermometer readings over variations in altitude and area with a variable temperature gradient will have a limit. +/- 0.125 C is likely the realistic limit of surface anomaly accuracy. The “global” temperature change from 1900 is on the order of +/-0.4 C with a margin of error greater than +/-0.125 C. You have to pick the noisiest data to “fit” your CO2 curve in order to get the 3C which gives you a larger margin of error.
I believe that is “statistics” which involve human and instrumental errors.
“Robustness” requires arriving at the same answer from different baselines. That is equivalent to thermodynamic “frame of reference.” If your answer is correct, it will be correct in all frames of reference. Your 3C is limited to NH land so it is not “robust” statistically or thermodynamically.
Bart sez
We find Bart not necessarily incompetent at math but certainly naive. For example, take the above relationship and pose it more formally, keeping track that T is a function of time:
dCO2(t)/dt = k*(T(t) – Teq)
this can be integrated to the following
This is a better formulation, because it is the more fundamental relationship. It says that CO2 will keep accumulating as long as the temperature anomaly is positive. Further, it will keep accumulating if the temperature anomaly is positive and constant. That means if a temperature anomaly of a few tenths of a degree above T0 persists, the amount of atmospheric CO2 will continue to grow unbounded. It will keep growing to 1000 PPM unless the global temperature really starts to reverse course.
Will Bart’s “affine” relationship hold up to this scrutiny?
Anyone can make up any nonsense relationship to fit data that they want, but it still has to make physical sense. The reality is that CO2 will outgas from the ocean according to temperature changes, but this will self-limit according to the partial pressure law due to Henry.
Montalbano | May 12, 2013 at 4:15 am |
“2. Yet overall CO2 concentration is decreasing.”
No, the rate of change of CO2 is decreasing. At a time when human inputs are accelerating.
lolwot | May 12, 2013 at 6:36 am |
“It’s simple. CO2 is rising due to human emissions and the rate of CO2 rise is increasing (ie CO2 level is accelerating).”
It isn’t. The measured CO2 level is decelerating.
“To those who claim that CO2 rise follows temperature AND also claim that there has been a pause in global temperature. How do you explain why CO2 continues to rise?”
It is not CO2 level, it is the rate of change of CO2 which is essentially proportional to temperature anomaly relative to a particular baseline in the modern era.
WebHubTelescope (@WHUT) | May 12, 2013 at 11:01 am
“We find Bart not necessarily incompetent at math but certainly naive.”
No, I am not the naive one. This is a linearized, time invariant model of a more complicated nonlinear and time varying relationship. Linearization is a common analytical tool which has found wide application in the sciences. It is no exaggeration to say that our modern technological society is founded upon it.
The variables “k” and “Teq” are not necessarily, indeed should not be, constant. Indeed, it is remarkable that they have been so steady in the modern era since 1955 that we can use a constant approximation.
Sorry to the other Barts. I post commonly elsewhere as “Bart” and it is more or less automatic. Bartemis is my handle when I want to avoid confusion.
Anyhoo, here is a plot to show what I mean by the deceleration of measured CO2.
“It isn’t. The measured CO2 level is decelerating.”
No it isn’t.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/esrl-co2/derivative/mean:360
“Anyhoo, here is a plot to show what I mean by the deceleration of measured CO2.”
There’s no way that trend line has any statistical significance whatsoever
WebHubTelescope (@WHUT) | May 12, 2013 at 11:01 am
“The reality is that CO2 will outgas from the ocean according to temperature changes, but this will self-limit according to the partial pressure law due to Henry.”
Again, this is the static analysis of a warm coke can. We are dealing with a dynamic system of continuous flow. If less CO2 goes down with ocean circulation than is coming up, then there will be a rate imbalance, and CO2 will accumulate at the surface.
lolwot | May 12, 2013 at 3:03 pm |
“No it isn’t.”
Your plot is a 30 year average which cuts off before the lull in temperature even takes hold, right at the record El Nino of 1998, which produces a tiny illusory uptick.
It is 2013, and the direction the data are taking is quite evident now. You get an F.
lolwot | May 12, 2013 at 3:05 pm |
“There’s no way that trend line has any statistical significance whatsoever.”
Just cover your eyes, and it will all be a bad dream.
Perhaps this graphic will help bring what I am saying into sharper focus. The rate of change of CO2 has stalled in the last decade, along with the temperature. It is markedly diverging from emissions, as collected from the CDIAC site. The divergence is only going to get greater with time.
Might as well then say that
dCO2(t)/dt = f(t)
where f(t) is an unknown function. That unknown function approximates the rate of change of anthropogenic CO2 accumulation. CO2(t) is then the convolution of carbon emissions with the sequestering impulse response of CO2.
http://theoilconundrum.blogspot.com/2011/09/fat-tail-impulse-response-of-co2.html
Read the whole thing to the end.
Bart is wrong.
Problem solved.
Bart says:
This is just so magical. Spontaneous rearrangement of dissolved CO2 that shows no signs of abating. This happens with about 1 degree C change in global temperature. With a change of CO2 of 30% at least, this would point to an activation energy of 2 eV. Where is that coming from?
Why aren’t all sorts of other dissolved gases outgassing? Gases such as Argon, eh? As I recall, the last time we had this discussion, I brought up this point and you ran away without responding.
Webster, “This is just so magical. Spontaneous rearrangement of dissolved CO2 that shows no signs of abating. This happens with about 1 degree C change in global temperature.”
It is not magical, you are just missing the point. The Southern Hemisphere CO2 absorption temperature is closer to 0 C while the Northern hemisphere CO2 absorption temperature is closer to 4 C. CO2 is absorbed and sequestered in the deep ocean at two different locations. Compare Barrow Alaska CO2 with South Pole CO2.
cappy dick,
I don’t think you “understand”. Because the CO2 build-up is “unlimited” according to Bart’s “theory”, the concentration can get “big” over time.
Watch out ! The Drake Passage is opening up behind you. Duck!
WebHubTelescope (@WHUT) | May 12, 2013 at 9:24 pm |
“Might as well then say that
dCO2(t)/dt = f(t)”
You might. But, that would be stupid. Because, f(t) is clearly closely approximated in the modern era by an affine function of T, the temperature, f(t) := f(T(t)).
“Read the whole thing to the end.”
Your “fat tail” impulse response is merely a contrived function based on your assumptions on how the flows progress, and the parameterization you selected to get a superficial fit to the data.
It is wrong, because it clearly will suffer from even worse divergence than that unfolding directly between emissions and measurements which I showed here. When you update your plot #3 to the present day, you will see it. It will show acceleration (it already is), while in the real world, atmospheric concentration is decelerating.
WebHubTelescope (@WHUT) | May 12, 2013 at 9:44 pm |
“This happens with about 1 degree C change in global temperature. With a change of CO2 of 30% at least, this would point to an activation energy of 2 eV.”
You just can’t get your head out of the static warm-coke-on-a-shelf paradigm, can you?
Well, anyway, we shall see how things progress.
“The rate of change of CO2 has stalled in the last decade”
no it hasn’t. You are just incompetent at analyzing data.
The rate of change of CO2 is increasing. Ie it’s accelerating.
lolwot, just like the global temperature indices are accelerating? The annual growth in atmospheric CO2 is not even rising, since more than 10 years, despite the rising anthropogenic emissions.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/esrl-co2/derivative/mean:12/from:1979/plot/rss/scale:0.24/offset:0.12/plot/esrl-co2/derivative/mean:12/from:2002/trend
http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v2/n1/images_article/nclimate1332-f1.jpg
lolwot | May 13, 2013 at 3:25 am |
“The rate of change of CO2 is increasing. Ie it’s accelerating.”
Isn’t.
Whatever tortured arguments you may offer to convince yourself that it is not decelerating, there is zero evidence whatsoever for an acceleration. Emissions are accelerating.
like I pointed out to bartemis, the trend you have plotted is not statistically significant. Too short a time period vs noise.
Smoothing over a longer time period helps to show that CO2 is accelerating over the LONG TERM.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/esrl-co2/derivative/mean:120
Bartemis you’ve plotted the 2ND DERIVATIVE.
The fact that the 2nd derivative is above zero means CO2 rise is accelerating.
Here’s the 1st derivative:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/esrl-co2/derivative/mean:120
See it’s going up? That’s ACCELERATION. It means the rate of CO2 rise is INCREASING.
What you’ve plotted is the 2ND DERIVATIVE: Change in acceleration.
Dear god, get a clue.
lolwot | May 13, 2013 at 4:04 am |
“Smoothing over a longer time period helps to show that CO2 is accelerating over the LONG TERM.”
The longer you smooth, the more your estimate is biased. There is always a tradeoff between bias and variance. You should smooth no more than needed to clear out excess noise, and stop if you start seeing significant alteration of the characteristics of interest, because at that point, you are lying to yourself.
With your 10 year smoothing, you are still carrying the effects of the enormous 1998 El Nino all the way to mid-decade. After that, your storyline falls apart.
lolwot | May 13, 2013 at 4:07 am |
It’s gone negative, Doofus. The trendline shows decreasing curvature until it inflects. Dear God, get a clue.
Interesting how climate scientists seem to understand the concept of a convolution, yet a supposed engineer such as Bartemis seems clueless about the way it works.
In my analysis, I don’t do anything extraordinarily different from the conventional analysis
![\large [CO_2] = f(t) \otimes R(t)](https://s0.wp.com/latex.php?latex=%5Clarge+%5BCO_2%5D+%3D+f%28t%29+%5Cotimes+R%28t%29++&bg=ffffff&fg=333333&s=0&c=20201002)
f(t) is the carbon emissions and R(t) is the carbon sequestering impulse response. The funny looking operator is the convolution operator, which you will find in any number of climate science research papers. The impulse response of course can force a lag between the carbon emissions f(t) and the atmospheric levels of [CO2].
As the carbon emissions change due to changes in fossil fuel combustion, the CO2 levels will reflect that value over the course of time. One just has to be patient as you can’t rush nature.
Time to hit the books, Bartemis!
Webster, ” I don’t think you “understand”. Because the CO2 build-up is “unlimited” according to Bart’s “theory”, the concentration can get “big” over time. ”
Yeah, If there were not competing rates of release and sequestration, CO2 concentration would run away. There is a surface temperature that is part of the process, that varies annually plus there is a deep ocean average temperature that varies on a longer time scale. The bulk of the oceans are at ~4C degrees, the SST average is around 18C, if temperature were the only variable, it would be easy. It is not of course, but if the “average” of the deep ocean temperature changes from 2C to 4C, that would be around 1×10^20 grams of CO2 change.
Stott with UCSD has some ideas on CO2 sequestration that are a bit more involved than your and Bartemis’., but if you simply look at the annual cycle difference between the NH and SH, part of that is due to local SST and part is due to biological activity. Good luck figuring out which is which.
But once again, you are using the noisiest proxy and drawing over confident conclusions while ignoring the majority of the system.
Cappy Dick the Scare Quote King,
You should “look” at the research, perhaps “seek out” the papers by Keeling and his students at USCD concerning how constituents “outgas” from the ocean.
http://bluemoon.ucsd.edu/publications/tegan/Blaine_thesis.pdf
referenced from
http://theoilconundrum.blogspot.com/2012/03/co2-outgassing-model.html
The compounds either outgas “at the same time” according to their activation energy, or something else is “happening”, That “something else” is anthropogenic release of CO2.
You really are such a “knob”.
Webster, “You really are such a “knob”.”
I guess I would rather be a knob than an idiot. “surface” temperature is a poor proxy to total energy in the system. Ocean heat content is a better metric. OHC would be more closely related to “average” deep ocean temperature and sea level than “surface” temperature which is 3C higher in the NH than in the SH. It seems you can be a bit selective with your metrics.
Webster, in fact if you feel like torturing some data, you can compare the lower stratosphere by hemisphere to the CO2 by hemisphere and maybe finding a MSL by hemisphere. Since this is a battle of ideal models, the radiant model, black body and shell, should provide a different look.
I have compared the UAH data with thermosteric SLR in the past just to see how reliable the UAH data was given the kerfuffle, and it is pretty good stuff. In fact it even shows the CO2 “signature” over NH land, volcanic regional impacts and lags, all sorts of interesting stuff.
Of course, you would have to break away from your “global” approach for a while, but you might find it refreshing.
WebHubTelescope (@WHUT) | May 13, 2013 at 7:01 am |
“Interesting how climate scientists seem to understand the concept of a convolution, yet a supposed engineer such as Bartemis seems clueless about the way it works.”
Really? Is that the best you can do? That’s like taunting “well, well, well, you can’t even add.” Hell, I was introduced to convolutions before you were a gleam in your father’s eye.
You apparently do not understand the essence of what you are doing. This is common for young people, proud of recently gained knowledge, but with little experience. Until you can dig down and understand what your manipulations fundamentally mean and how they relate to basic operations, you will continue kluging stray bits together in a vain hope at getting convergence, and ending up with a gawdawful mess which means nothing.
The essence of your analysis is that it is equivalent to a curve fit via eyeballing. And, it is diverging from reality. You lose.
Bartemis,
Where’s the Argon increase?
Ha ha, I bet it’s Ar Gone.
What a buffoon you are trying to substitute real physics for mathematical chicanery.
WebHubTelescope (@whut) | May 13, 2013 at 12:42 pm |
“What a buffoon you are trying to substitute real physics for mathematical chicanery.”
Curious how your “real physics” diverges from the “real world”. Perhaps jeering is a negative climate forcing mechanism: you’re sucking all the hot air out and making it your own.
Webster, “Where’s the Argon increase?”
Good question. It seems that Argon in the deep ocean tends to be under-saturated and near the thermocline over saturated. Something about dysfunctional or diapycnal mixing in the interior ocean. Toggweiler had something to say about disequilibrium between the high latitude oceans and the atmosphere?
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2003AGUFMOS22D..02A
It is all pretty much Greek to me.
See also these refs, a very interesting topic
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2012GL053054/abstract
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2005GB002655/abstract
:)
Dr. Curry
From the Ito & Deutsch paper
“Thus noble gas concentrations may provide a unique constraint on the basin-scale diapycnal diffusivity of the subtropical thermocline.”
Does this mean that dissolved gases constrain mixing?
I can imagine issues of surface tension being applicable.
The influence on temperature on the CO2 solubility is well known. Ocean temperatures have risen so little that an increase of 10 ppm in the atmospheric concentration has a stronger opposite effect. From that we know that the warming of oceans has contributed only a few ppm out of the more than 100 ppm that atmospheric concentration has risen.
A simple calculation tells reasonably well, what the expected effect from CO2 releases is
http://pirila.fi/energy/kuvat/CO2rise.png
The agreement is far from perfect, but still fairly good taking into account the simplicity of the model and the fact that this calculation is not a fit but based on actual fossil fuel emissions and a parametrization of the removal of CO2 from the atmosphere that was published in 1987. The parametrization is in turn based on a crude compartment model of oceans, whose parameters are a largely determined on empirical data available at that time on ocean mixing.
The model does not take into account land use changes or other known factors that influence CO2 concentration, and the persistence model is certainly not accurate. The choice of the preindustrial concentration helps in getting the overall level right, but the shape of the calculated curve is fully determined by the approach. We can see that the actual rate of increase is a little lower than the calculated one, but only within natural uncertainties of this simplistic approach. Even so we can see how the increase of CO2 concentration is of anthropogenic origin.
Pekka Pirilä | May 13, 2013 at 4:59 pm |
“The agreement is far from perfect, but still fairly good taking into account…”
The agreement is awful, superficial, and getting progressively worse. You have two very simple time series with slight upward curvature. Making them seem similar over a finite time interval via affine transformation is a simple matter: just do a 1st order least squares fit between the two to get the best affine parameterization. The match, such as it is, is only testimony to the efficacy of least squares fitting, something already well established.
If you want to get a real match, you need to look at the differentials or the (numerical) derivative. There, the temperature anomaly matches the rate of change of CO2 in as close to every detail as one could hope given inherent inaccuracies in the data.
And, before you say “that’s just in the short term”, the agreement is over the long term, too. The trend and the variation match. You cannot add significant anthropogenic forcing in without reducing the scaling of the temperature driven term, at which point the variation will not longer match.
The trend and the variation of the temperature and the rate of change of CO2 match effectively perfectly. There is no need to know anthropogenic inputs to determine CO2 to high fidelity at any point in the last 55 years. Just give the starting point, and the temperature history up to that point, and that is all you need.
Read again what I wrote. And again. You may ultimately understand.
Pekka Pirilä | May 13, 2013 at 6:11 pm |
You have made assumptions. Given the remarkable agreement between the temperature anomaly and the rate of change of CO2, and the unfolding divergence in the data between measurements and accumulated emissions, it would be prudent for you to reexamine those assumptions.
The whole point is that I used as little assumptions on top of well confirmed knowledge as possible.
The issue to be explained is the overall trend. Fitting to the data has no value in that (as you also note), that must be studied in other ways. Fortunately the other ways are fully sufficient in that. What I present is not a full analysis along those lines, but it explains one central part of it, as it tells, how the outcome could be predicted using as input only:
– known emissions of CO2
– knowledge on CO2 solubility that has been obtained using laboratory measurements
– understanding about oceans that has been obtained studying mxing mechanisms by various means that are not dependent on any assumptions related to CO2.
This is specifically not something made to agree with the data. This is a calculation that specifically avoids doing anything along that line. All the assumptions are well justified, some are known to be inaccurate, but still basically correct.
It’s you who draws conclusions from looking at the date forgetting much that’s perfectly well known for various reasons.
Pekka Pirilä | May 14, 2013 at 2:08 am |
“The whole point is that I used as little assumptions on top of well confirmed knowledge as possible.”
But, the fit stinks, Pekka. It’s really not even close. Making two slightly curved series look sort of, kind of, similar when you have several knobs to turn to make it so means absolutely nothing. It’s a Von Neumann elephant.
“It’s you who draws conclusions from looking at the date forgetting much that’s perfectly well known for various reasons.”
Obviously, it is not as well known as people think. That’s what happens with open loop science, where speculation gets piled on fact, and the mixture emerges as conventional wisdom simply because nobody ever bothered to, or did not have the means to, verify that the underpinnings were correct for the real world system. If you start picking apart all of the assumptions and extrapolations which have gone into your viewpoint, you will find that it is not so much on solid ground as you evidently take for granted. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link.
There is no way that the fit of temperature to both the slope and the variations of the rate of change of CO2 is happenstance. I mean, have you looked at this? Really looked? You couldn’t beg for a better match. The probability that this is an accident is vanishingly small. And, that temperature induced slope takes up the space anthropogenic emissions would otherwise inhabit.
You cannot just assume willy nilly that the temperature contributes just to the variation, and the long term slope simply gets filtered out in some unspecified fashion. In the first place, that would require a high pass filtering mechanism, which necessarily would induce phase distortion which is not evident. Secondly… the slope matches perfectly when the data are scaled just to match the variation. Again, the odds are exceedingly long against that being happenstance.
Well, we’ve said all there is to be said. I have little doubt I have failed in convincing you even to at least take the possibility seriously. We’ll just have to watch and see what happens.
But, if I were one of the guys who had staked his reputation and livelihood on the assumed relationship between emissions and atmospheric concentration, I would surely be sweating at the emerging divergence in the two time series. A divergence which, mind you for the first time since the record began in 1958, is taking place during a time without any large volcanic eruptions or ENSO events. It is unprecedented. And, it is occurring right at the time that temperatures have plateaued. Coincidence? I think not.
To be a little more specific.
We know for sure that CO2 is released to the atmosphere, and that the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is increasing at approximately half that rate. Thus the two essential questions are:
1) What other changes from the past equilibrium (true for the multi-year averages, not each year separately) are influencing the balance?
2) How long does the additional CO2 affect the atmospheric concentration?
My assumption, supported by research and straightforward calculations, on the first point is that the other sources are not irrelevant, but still much smaller over periods long enough to determine the overall trend.
On the second point I chose the the well known rather old formula based on empirical data and a compartment type balance model of the oceans. That model is certainly not accurate, but it’s not totally false either as the basic arguments behind it are solid.
The deviation between the two curves I show seems to tell that I other sources of additional CO2 have been more important in relative terms in the first half of the 20th century and that the persistence model may underestimate a little the removal rates during the first years after release. In my interpretation have taken into account the shape of the prediction also in years preceding the Mauna Loa data although I have no data to compare with over that period. It’s possible that this interpretation is erroneous, but it remains true that the basic result holds: The principal mechanism is certainly the one I describe.
On your latest message:
This is the probably the simplest and most certain issue in the whole climate issue. Anybody can understand the balance.
– Adding CO2 two the atmosphere increases the concentration.
– Gradually that increase levels off when the extra CO2 goes elsewhere.
– Both parts can be estimated reliably well enough to prove the main point beyond any doubt.
– Details are more complex and the exact values are difficult to determine, but the main idea is rock solid.
One has to really close the mind to deny such simple things. None of the skeptic scientists has any other ideas (there was one exception, but even he may have changed his mind), their skepticism is on other points. Denying simple facts is not something that any real scientist does.
Pekka Pirilä | May 14, 2013 at 3:36 am |
“One has to really close the mind to deny such simple things. “
No, I am sorry, you are wrong. Your assumptions are facile, and show no appreciation for feedback or constraints under which time series must evolve in the natural and causal world.
Everything you have written is begging the question. You started with the answer, and from that deduced how you wanted the system to behave. That is a very unscientific method. The natural world doesn’t care how you want it to behave. It has strict rules by which it does things.
There is not point in going further. Watch and see what happens.
tempterrain
Correct.
But there has been a pause in global warming (as measured by the “globally and annually averaged land and sea surface temperature anomaly”).
IOW “rising CO2 levels” are not causing “global warming”.
Seems pretty obvious to me.
Max
I see Max is being extra careful not to fool himself. I’m going hijack Feynman and have him clap for Max. Feynman says, “Bravo Max!”
Rising CO2 levels create accentuate the Planck response curve into allowing less infrared radiation to pass directly through the atmosphere, thus promoting the outgoing radiation toward shorter wavelengths and a higher gray-body temperature. The higher temperature activates greater amounts of water vapor into the atmosphere, which will raise the gray-body temperature in a similar fashion.
Accompanying the CO2 increase are other GHGs such as CH4 and N20, which are byproducts of combustion activities, and some amount of albedo decrease feedback.
This all pretty obvious to me as well.
Webster, the issue Max is bring up is that the correlation between CO2 and surface temperature is not consistent with projections. That could be because there is either other underestimated influences, the data sucks or the theory is to some degree FUBAR.
You need to learn how to better torture your data to find out what or what combination it is :)
http://redneckphysics.blogspot.com/2013/05/torturing-data.html
Small Government = Good? Big Government = Carbon Taxes = Lower Living Standards = Socialised Medicine = Bad?
Well maybe not!
http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2013/04/where-would-you-rather-live-small-government-somalia-or-big-government-sweden
Say tempt, Soma – lia a country in trans – ishun?
http://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and-africa/21577437-new-government-mogadishu-has-yet-prove-its-mettle-centre-holds
How about small gubmint Somalia vs big gubmint North Korea?
Hope yer temp’ted ter respond tempt m’ dear… )
Life Expectancy;
Somalia 54 yrs
N Korea 68 years.
14 more years of suffering
Comparing apples and apples:
Life expectancy
Big gubmint North Korea 68 years
Smaller gubmint South Korea 81 years
How about small G Mississippi versus big G North Dakota?
How about warmer Mississippi versus colder North Dakota?
Mississippi – 74.8
North Dakota – 80.1
Drats.
My new Texas doctor was giddy when he found out I grew up in the Dakotas. He’s a libertarian and they have been reading about North Dakota being the freest state. Well,it’s freer than Texas. Texas is one of the least free places I have ever lived. But I grew up in tiny G South Dakota. North Dakota is a bunch of big G commies.
Alexej,
Short memories…….
JCH
it seems that ND and SD have about the same life expectancy,so maybe big/small G is not the point. And warm HI leads just before cold MN.
But AK is only 45th; let us blame George W. Bush for that, he was governor aound these parts somewhere.
Alexej – agreed. North and South Dakota are great places to test notions as they are so similar, yet so unalike. For instance, North Dakota is the arctic belt; South Dakota is the banana belt. North Dakotans would deny it forever, but they’re by nature socialists. South Dakotans are not socialists. So I conclude socialists win because that’s where gawd put the oil.
One thing, the cold ain’t killin’ the Dakotans.
JHC
And let us not forget: The North is German (Bismarck)
The South is French (Pierre)
Michael
no, I do remember writing “how about Samalia and North Korea”.
I just thought that nobody was interested in defending the one or the other; they are very different, but both awful.
Alexej, to show you how few French people live in South Dakota, they pronounce that pier
It takes a particular kind of blind ideologue to call Somalia an example of “small government.” The Hobbesian state of anarchy in Somlaia is an example of “small government” only in the fever swamps of the progressive imagination.
tempterrain is like the mom of the 600 pound guy who can’t leave his own apartment, telling him “Honey, ignore all that nonsense from the doctor about diet and exercise. Famine is not healthy”
Big government – USSR, China, Cambodia, Viet Nam, North Korea (155th on the life expectancy sweepstakes by the way – and that’s assuming you are dumb enough to believe statistics produced by that megalomaniacal regime).
Small government – there are virtually no examples in the west because all government right now are run by progressives. Europe is on the verge of economic implosion, the U.S. is probably only five years behind in the race to the abyss. California and Illinois are leading the way toward state bankruptcy, and the tempterrains of the world claim the only alternative is social anarchy.
I know progressives need straw men, because they can’t argue with conservative economics (since they don’t have a clue what that’s all about), but it would be nice if y’all would at least try for a modicum of rationality in your demagoguery.
Do not blame TT for the stupidity of a British weekly that used to defend Joseph Stalin. I suppose the English would describe it as the third cheek of the arse otherwise shaped by Guardian and BBC. Or maybe that is the Independent?
Gee Gary M, you left out Australia from this list:
Did you see this post from yesterday? “The myth of green Asustralia” http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=14994
It explains quite succinctly the mess 6 years of ‘progressive’ government has left Australia in. And the major role climate change scaremongerring and carbon pricing has had on getting us into this mess. {And, yes, for the inevitable sreeches from the ‘progressives’ claiming it’s “not our fault’ I do realise we are not in as deep a hole as EU and USA, but that is largely because of the excellent state the previous (Conservative) government left our economy in].
Peter Lang,
I was using “the west” in the cultural sense, not geographical. I consider Australia part of western culture, and the progressive leadership there as statist as all the rest, agreed.
‘Tain’t the “third cheek” (there are only two): it’s the spot in the middle.
tempterrain
You raise an interesting question: does prosperity of a nation have any relation to its government spending?
One might think that this is the case, as inhabitants of nations get more prosperous, they can afford to pay higher taxes, which in turn support higher government spending – bit is this really the case?
Just did a scatter graph of “government spending as % of GDP” plotted against “per capita annual GDP”.
There is no apparent correlation of any kind.
Nations like Zimbabwe have a very high government spending (97.8% of GDP) but a very low pc GDP (~$800/year).
The “winner” (tiny Kiribati) has government spending of 114.6% of GDP (and an annual pc GCP of $1,600).
Cuba is also high on government spending (78.1%) and relatively low on pc GDP ($5,400).
Sweden, on the other hand, has relatively high government spending (52.5%) and a high pc GDP ($55,200).
The EU Nations on average have a high government spending (47.5%) and a fairly high pc GDP ($32,500)
The EU “basket case”, Greece is at 46.8% and $22,100)
Switzerland, USA and Japan all have relatively high pc GDP ($79,000, $49,900 and $46,700, respectively) but medium government spending (32%, 38.9% and 37.1%).
Interestingly, North Korea (if you can believe the numbers) has a slightly lower government spending than South Korea (23% versus 30%) but a much lower pc GDP ($1,200 versus $23,100).
Singapore and Hong Kong have very low government spending (17%, 18.6%) but relatively high pc GDP ($51,200, $36,700).
So we can safely say that there is no correlation.
Max
@ manacker | May 11, 2013 at 6:05 pm
Excellent comment. You certainly destroyed that thought bubble.
Where did you source the stats? I often us GapMinder for easy way to chart UN stats like you have quoted, but I cant see Government spending per GDP listed as an option for the axes. Do you have another source for easy charting of authoritative stats?
GapMinder is here for those who haven’t seen it before:
http://www.gapminder.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tax_revenue_as_percentage_of_GDP
Peter Lang
Got all the stats on government spending plus pc GDP from Wiki (except North Korea, which I got from a separate CIA report – for what it’s worth).
Max
Max,
You say “You raise an interesting question: does prosperity of a nation have any relation to its government spending?”
It’s not quite what I said, but I would agree that there is no obvious correlation using averaged figures. . Its probably better to use a median figures for income, rather than an average, if you are trying to convey what is typical. One million dollar income averaged with nine thousand dollar incomes gives an average income of 100 thousand dollars but the median is much closer to a thousand.
What I was really arguing was that government does have a role in creating the right frame work for a healthy society. Under democracy the above nine would have nine times the voting power as the one millionaire, so governments do have the appeal to the majority in some way to become elected. The millionaires, or more likely the multi-billionaires these days, would probably own the media outlets and have much more influence on the democratic process than their mere personal voting power, so the playing field isn’t quite a s level as some of us would like.
It’s for the voters to ultimately decide what the extent of government should be and its involvement is industry, health, education etc. There is always going to be some disagreement on what that should be. But that’s democracy for you.
Quite a strawman. No one here advocates no government, but rather limited government – a night watchmen type of state – with the rule of law and a lot of economic freedom as well as political freedoms.
Democrats tend to favor (or used to) more political freedoms and Repubs used to favor more economic freedoms (now its mostly rhetoric) but both are really still mostly classical liberals as that is the history of the U.S.
Here is a ranking of economic freedom:
http://www.heritage.org/index/ranking
Sweden ranks 5th with the U.S. 10th, although I heard we had recently fallen to 16th. North Korea is like 177. Places like Iraq and Somalia are not ranked (about ten out of 200 fall into this category) as they are in the middle of civil war or strife.
Sweden is 18th (think Anita Ekberg and Ingrid Bergmann)
Switzerland is 5th (think Ursula Andress and Tina Turner)
Bill,
Thank you for that link. I was surprised to see Australia ranked 3rd on economic freedom. I suspect the figures predate 6 years of the most incompetent government the country has had in over 60 years.
This posted yesterday tells a bit of what has been happening in those 6 years:
“The myth of greening Australia”
http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=14994
tt
“Small government Somalia versus big government Sweden?”
How ’bout “Small government Switzerland versus big government China?”
Max
You use the interstate to go shopping (speed limit 50 mph); on the slip road (speed limit 40 mph) you drive 45, are measured by radar and get a fine. Fortunately you do have the yearly interstate-decal on your windscreen (100 bucks), and you did pay the yearly 500 bucks for your tag. There are lots of free parking spaces at Walmart, but you have to pay for it anyhow (by order of the state). If too many people go shopping there, Walmart pays a fine. You buy a newspaper and read that the state has opened all thick letters from India to count the number of Viagras included. The recipient gets a fine, or a bill for the counting. And so on.
You call that small gubmint?
A country’s level of civilization should be judged by the welfare of its lowest 10%: health, housing, education.
Michael a bit of context here. North Korea ain’t
a country in transition, it’s an established autocracy
that has the population firmly inder the thumb. While
yer about it, cf North and South Korea why don’cha?
A serf.
Infant mortality,
a chasm,
medieval
in its extreme,
‘twixt north
and south.
Neutron stars are no longer considered “dead nuclear embers” of stars that had been earlier heated by fusion.
This quote from the first and last sentences in the abstract of the paper by Abdo et al. illustrates the scientific revolution in nuclear and particle physics that will settle the debate over AGW.
“A young and energetic pulsar powers the well-known Crab Nebula. . . . These are the highest-energy particles that can be associated with a discrete astronomical source, and they pose challenges to particle acceleration theory.”
This explains observations on the Sun that were recorded by Birkeland in the The Norwegian Aurora Polaris Expedition of 1902-1903.
http://archive.org/details/norwegianaurorap01chririch
He describes radiation from an old pulsar, after passing through billions of tons of waste products that have been gravitationally retained around the pulsar that made our elements and birthed the solar system five billion years (5 Gyr) ago.
Thank you, Professor Curry, for having the courage to publish comments that give the physics community proper credit for its role in the current climate wars controversy.
“Why would anyone seriously question greenhouse gases?” he asks. “They absolutely have a radiative effect, and no serious scientist thinks climate sensitivity could be much lower than 2 degrees Celsius based on the balance of the evidence.”
When a scientist like Pierrehumbert on political money talks about “serious scientists”, what he means state lackeys like himself who put political correctness first.
what Pierrehumbert says is true. He expresses the real bewilderment out there that people cannot see the evidence for themselves. If you went to talk to most experts on climate I am sure they would have a similar view, whether or not they are funded.
No, give Pierrhumbert credit – he does genuinely seem to be drifting towards openness and honesty for the first time, saying the alarmist drumbeat has been overhyped.
And it does seems more than coincidence that scientists that preach CAGW are found to be in the pocket of government, the very organization that stands to gain so much from public belief in CAGW..
Of course, based on the broadest measure of energy in the Earth system, global warming is indeed not slowing down, but rather, we seem to be rapidly approaching yet another milestone– that being an ice free summer Arctic, meaning of course that even more solar SW will be able to penetrate into the oceans as even less continues to escape because of increased GH gases and ocean heat content will rise even more rapidly. All this leading to a Pliocene-like climate in the next few centuries based on the very best paleoclimate data we have:
http://www.livescience.com/29471-arctic-climate-change-global-warming.html
R. Gates aka Skeptical Warmist | May 11, 2013 at 3:20 pm said: ”another milestone– that being an ice free summer Arctic, meaning of course that even more solar SW will be able to penetrate into the oceans as even less continues to escape because of increased GH gases and ocean heat content will rise even more rapidly”
Gates, you forgot to say: BOO!!!.
1] arctic without ice as insulator; absorbs more coldness and makes colder winters in US &Europe, NOT warmer!!!
2] the strength of the sunlight over Arctic is a joke; once again: water without insulator there, gets colder – is same as: if you are naked / painted in water colour, to keep yourself warm on the polar cap.
3] water surface has ”mirror effect” better than white ice, grow up; stop parroting Organized Crime’s lies!!!
stefan used the phrase: “absorbs more coldness…”
Is this a new law in thermodynamics? Coldness is a thing to be absorbed?
Of course other reasonably eductated people know that open water will absorb more SW than snow and ice in the summer and the same open water will release more energy to the atmosphere in the fall and winter, but at no time and in no way is there a thing called “coldness” to be absorbed and the net effect is that as GH gases continue to accumulate in the atmosphere, more energy winds up in the Arctic, and sea ice extent gradually declines to a summer ice-free Arctic. When that happens, true it is that the ice will return in the following winter, but then that will mean the Arctic will be all first year ice and will melt even faster in the following summer, until of course, if GH gases continue rising, we might not even get a full Arctic Ocean of ice forming in the winter as the cloud cover that will form from all the heat and moisture being released by the open water will keep a nice warm blanket over the ocean and keep it from even freezing over. Welcome back to the Pliocene ancestors of Australopithecus.
Always from warm to cold stefan, sun to ocean to atmosphere and back to space is the general flow of non-tectonic energy on Earth, with the biosphere aborbing and releasing some of that during the flow over various time frames from very short to very long.
R. Gates aka Skeptical Warmist | May 12, 2013 at 3:07 pm said: ”stefan used the phrase: “absorbs more coldness…”
yes Gates, beer in the fridge ”absorbs coldnes” water in Arctic ”absorbs” coldness and currents are distributing that ”absorbed” coldness south.
The fridge and oven are calibrated in Centigrade, not in Kelvin; for the normals. I wander how the ”inferiority complex sufferers” understand the weather girl on TV…? I give lectures to the normals, they understand practicality / yes they are 98% of the society – they don’t put the beer in the fridge, to warm it up to 243 degrees Kelvin, there ovens, fridges are calibrated in Centigrade.
From 10 000 commenters on English language, you are only the third to brag about ”knowing Kelvin”
b] you can have the opposite aprouch, to confuse yourself even more:: in the beginning with the Big Bang (in which by the way I don’t believe) it was very hot – therefore ”COLDNESS” was introduced after, to cool down. So; heat doesn’t exist – it’s only coldness added to the base, for different temps. Happy now? I refer to ”inferiority sufferers” as: ”Oxygen two & Nitrogen two” zombies – they don’t understand what’s oxygen and nitrogen are… like the normals on the street
Gates, if somebody takes you by time machine to 2100 – you see that is same temp as today – when you come back . you would still tell same lies; so I know where you are coming from! When the normals, not involved on the net realize that temp overall is same; even though CO2 increases then the psychiatrists will be making lots of money on people like you, lolwot, Tony Brown and similar. Those people today don’t understand that: water has mirror effect + ice is perfect insulator.
b] if Arctic gets ice free, USA &Europe will be experiencing same ice age as it was 15000y ago. ”colder water in Arctic was keeping the ice from melting in summer, reason was 100m ice in Europe, 1km in USA. You are not just wrong, but back to front on everything also.
Reason part of Europe experienced very cold winters / when patches of ice was dissapearing from Arctic; when your organized crime was predicting WARMER, I was the only correct. LAWS OF PHYSICS Gates, they control everything, not you and lolwot. you are only wasting your life on childish mythology… I should feel sorry / pity for you; but for some reason, I don’t…
Well, this ocean heating theory does not hold water, so to speak. You can collect quarterly OHC (Ocean Heat Content) data from the NOAA NODC OCL site (upper 700 m, from 1955 to present). One can also calculate carbon dioxide forcing from NOAA ESRL as far back as 1958, based on logarithmic dependence and 3.7 W/meter squared for doubling. From these one can calculate fluxes in and out of ocean (if we suppose the upper 700 m of oceans constitute about 63% of heat storage capacity in the terrestrial climate system), then residual fluxes by subtracting them from forcing. This residual forcing has no memory whatsoever, changes are supposed to show up in lower tropospheric temperatures immediately. Unfortunately it is not the case on any time scale up to 4 years. RSS TLT (Temperature Lower Troposphere, since 1979) is absolutely, but utterly uncorrelated to this residual forcing.
Which can mean either one of two things or both.
1. Noise of OHC data is actually much higher than claimed, so signal is simply lost in noise.
2. Energy balance is dominated by fluctuations in radiative processes, either short wave, thermal or both.
In either case measured variations in OHC can explain nothing.
Point (2) above can be explicated further. It is well known that there are large short term fluctuations in Earth’s short wave (UV, visible, near IR) albedo, primarily due to changes in cloud cover. We know nothing about low frequency components of this variation though. For thermal radiation, it obviously depends on average IR optical depth of the atmosphere, which has a small (and growing) contribution from well mixed optically active components like carbon dioxide. Still, it is dominated by water vapor (and droplets’) absorption. Now, water vapor is NOT a well mixed gas, its atmospheric lifetime is short (~10 days), and its distribution is fractal-like with huge spatio-temporal variations on all scales. Its uneven distribution implies that its contribution to IR optical depth is not determined by its average density, that only gives an upper bound. The actual, substantially lower value is determined by higher moments of its distribution, which are not measured directly in the long term, so we know nothing on history of the overall “greenhouse effect”. Or, at least, this knowledge is pushed to fringes.
It may well be the case, that long term behavior of average thermally weighted IR optical depth is pretty stable (at ~1.87) with large short term variations (up to several years), as Dr. Miskolczi claims (who has found a way to extract it from several decades of satellite data) and purports it should be that way on any planet with an inexhaustible supply of a GHG from a substantial reservoir (water, in the terrestrial system).
In any case, Trenberth’s missing heat will not be found until the water cycle is understood at depth.
David Springer said: ”The volume of Greenland’s ice sheet and the surface area of the global ocean are quantities that are rigorously known to the precision needed to say, with engineering level confidence, how much the ocean would rise if the volume of ice over Greenland were added to it. You’re just making an ass of yourself now. Stop”
Springer, you have just proven that: ”closed mind is same as closed parashoot = not very useful to the owner!… You are having a grip on the misleading literature, same as a blind to a lamppost – wan’t let go. If you stop being pigheaded, start using the laws of physics and common sense, instead of the outdated misleading mythology; would be like turning the lights on, for you. You are intelligent and by using the reliable laws of physics – you will be finding faults yourself in the shonks’ science
Greenland is used only for fear-mongering = your shoes ”fit” in the oven, but you don’t put them in there…
3] Greenland’s ice will disappear, and USA will get dryer; if Sahara keep building strength and sends more dry winds west into Atlantic, to destroy the moisture, which is for rain in USA and for renewal of Greenland’s ice.
4] during the ice age, northern tip of Greenland and most of Alaska was permafrost – permafrost is desert in a cold country. but the rest, especially the southern part had more ice than today. Ice was in USA&Europe; but arctic was ice free, ”moist winds” were not reaching there. In my book I have given it the name ” Ice Donut Effect” (if you piss against the wind = you wet yourself) because exposed Arctic’s water was getting colder – was radiating coldness south, and intercepted all the moisture there = was no moisture left for northern Greenland, Alaska and Arctic ocean. see, simple, for active brains
Now repeat after me: -” Greenland is as far from the molten lava in the center as Sahara. Geothermal heat keeps melting the ice, from below, every minute of the year. BECAUSE: white ice on the top is perfect insulator, and prevents the coldness from the air to cancel the geothermal heat – would melt the ice in few hundred years; if it wasn’t source for renewal” see, you can understand, if you activate your brains.
“The term ‘hiatus’ is premature,” says planetary climatologist Raymond Pierrehumbert of the University of Chicago. “Maybe with another 10 years of data you’d say that’s something that needs explanation here.”
About five years ago, RC (Schmidt actually) said another five years of pause would warrant a rethink.
It’s the Consensus variant on the “Free beer tomorrow” sign.
>> The money quote from this article is Pierrehumbert’s: “I think it’s true that some rather sloppy discussion of the rapid warming from the 20th century has given people unrealistic expectations about the future course of warming.” >>
Early signs of some honesty and integrity finally breaking out in mainstream climate science ? Who knows, perhaps one of them will finally take to task the hiding of data and other frauds and motivated biases on which the alarmist consensus has been built.
Because equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS) estimates continue to inspire interest, I thought it might be worth linking to three very recent papers relevant to the topic. None resolves all the uncertainties, and although I’ve read the full PNAS article, I’ve had access to only abstracts of the other two. These latter two imply that aerosol negative forcing may have been substantially underestimated in earlier ECS calculations. The full PNAS paper provides evidence that the 3 C annual seasonal variation in global temperature is associated with radiative feedbacks roughly comparable to those the models estimate for doubled CO2 (although the abstract doesn’t describe this aspect of the paper). Having seen only the abstracts of the other two articles, I can’t comment on potential errors or uncertainties. However, to the extent the reported evidence is accurate, individuals familiar with the methodology and previous data underlying ECS calculations will know what to make of it.
Radiative Impact of Clouds and Aerosols
underestimation of aerosol direct effects over Europe, Japan, China, India
Annual flux variation and radiative feedback in models
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