by Judith Curry
There was a big hearing today in the Senate on climate change.
The website for the hearing is [here]. I don’t see a charter for the hearing, and the majority and minority statements don’t seem to be posted. There are 10 witnesses in two panels, those testifying and links to the their testimony are provided below. I didn’t listen to the hearing, but I have read all of the individual testimonies, I provide some brief excerpts and comments below.
Update: I just spotted this Minority response entitled Critical Thinking on Climate Change. Lots of fodder here, I might do a separate post on this.
Nothing surprising here:
Climate change was for a long time thought to be an issue for the distant future. But I am here today to testify that it has, in many respects, moved into the the present. The impacts of human‐caused climate change are being observed right here and right now in our own backyards and neighborhoods.
But she does include some dubious and misleading statements, particularly this one:
According to the draft National Climate Assessment, sea level could be as little as 8 inches or as much as 6 feet 7 inches above 1992 levels by the end of the next century.
Frank Nutter is President of the Reinsurance Association of America. He provides an extensive summary of natural disasters in recent decades. Of particular interest, he makes the following policy recommendations:
As Congress considers the impact of climate change, the RAA suggests the following legislative principles or actions to consider:
- Provide tax credits to individuals for specified mitigation and resiliency actions associated with extreme weather and climate change.
- Incent communities to develop and implement mitigation and resiliency initiatives.
- Reform the National Flood Insurance Program to reflect extreme weather and climate risk in its rates.
- Apply Federal standards to state/local building codes and incorporate climate and extreme weather risk into these standards.
- Purchase or relocate properties near coastal or river areas at repeat risk.
- Use nature to mitigate risk before and after extreme events.
- Transfer development rights from coastal and river properties to areas inland (Strengthen the Coastal Barrier Resources Act)
- Fund adequate remote sensing for NOAA and NASA.
- Require the Army Corps of Engineers to assess climate risk for all projects.
- The Federal government should lead by example: GSA should assess its buildings and critical facilities in light of climate and extreme weather information.
- Fund climate and weather research through the National Science Foundation, NOAA and other Federal agencies at priority levels.
- Use disaster assistance as an incentive for local communities for climate and extreme weather sensitive, forward looking recovery.
His main point:
My testimony will affirm that climate solutions are feasible, practical, and economically sound. Americans are stepping forward to develop and deploy these solutions now. Our commitment to deliver clean energy, energy efficiency, and better transportation choices is helping us build stronger local economies and healthier communities. But we cannot implement these solutions at scale without the active engagement and partnership of our federal government, including the United States Congress. And so it is with tremendous hope and determination that I welcome this opportunity to speak with you and invite that partnership.
Her testimony provides a critique of President Obama’s climate policy plans, with a good overview of the political and economic challenges facing any climate policy geared towards emission reductions, including the carbon tax. Her proposed solutions:
To reduce global greenhouse gas emissions in a less costly manner, America could assist China and India develop shale gas from hydrofracturing and build natural-gas fired plants to reduce their reliance on coal. Or, America could ship coal to China, because U.S. coal burns cleaner than Chinese coal. The majority of China’s coal (54 percent) is bituminous, which has a carbon content ranging from 45 to 86 percent.12 On the other hand, 47 percent of the U.S.’s coal, a plurality, is subbituminous, which contains a carbon content of only 35 to 45 percent.13
Congress could fund research into geoengineering measures. More needs to be done to study solar radiation management, which potentially diminishes the warmth caused by the sun’s rays. This could be done by injecting fine sulfur particles or other reflective aerosols into the upper atmosphere to reflect incoming radiation, or spraying clouds with salt water to increase their reflectance.
Another avenue of research is to explore making the surface of the planet more reflective, by brightening structures and painting roofs white, as well as increasing the reflectivity of deserts and oceans.
Murphy’s testimony focused on an economics perspective of the social cost of carbon, including issues surrounding the discount rate and domestic versus global social cost of carbon. His testimony concludes with this rather surprising statement:
The American public and policymakers alike have been led to believe that the social cost of carbon is an objective scientific concept akin to the mass of the moon or the radius of the sun. However, although there are inputs from the physical sciences into the calculation, estimates of the social cost of carbon are heavily dependent on modeling assumptions. In particular, if the White House Working Group had followed OMB guidance on either the choice of discount rate or reporting from a domestic perspective, then the official estimates of the current SCC would probably be close to zero, or possibly even negative—a situation meaning that (within this context) the federal government should be subsidizing coal-fired power plants because their activities confer external benefits on humanity.
No surprises, here are her main points:
It seems as though the weather gods have gone berserk in recent years, as nearly every day the headlines report unusual droughts, floods, prolonged cold and snow, heat waves, or unusual weather events happening somewhere around the globe. Sea level is rising ever faster, and its contribution to damage from coastal storms is already being felt. Nearly three-quarters of the sea ice floating on the Arctic Ocean has disintegrated…in only 30 years. How and why are these changes happening, and what can we expect in decades to come?
As the oceans continue to absorb additional heat trapped by ever-accumulating greenhouse gases, as sea ice continues to disappear, and as the Arctic continues to warm faster than the rest of the globe, we can only expect to see more weather-related adverse impacts. The details of those impacts are still emerging from ongoing research, but the overall picture of the future is clear.
She makes several statements about the science that seem to me to be misleading:
Warming Oceans Contributes to Ice Loss in Both Hemispheres: Rising ocean temperatures have also been implicated in thinning ice shelves along the Antarctic Peninsula and in warming the air in that region. (JC comment: no mention of growing Antarctic sea ice).
Counter to claims by those who choose to ignore peer-reviewed scientific research, the heating of the Earth is not slowing down. Because of surface cooling over much of the Pacific Ocean in recent years owing to natural fluctuations in ocean circulation patterns, global-average air temperatures have not risen as fast as during the previous decade. Instead, the additional heat trapped by greenhouse gases has warmed deeper layers of the ocean. (JC comment: JF has 100% confidence in making this statement, perhaps she needs to read the peer reviewed literature on air temperature trends, uncertainties in estimates of global deep ocean temperature, and develop a better understanding the scientific debate surrounding the ‘pause’.)
Doney’s testimony is on the topic of ocean acidification. Since I have been meaning to do a thread on ocean acidification, I will discuss his testimony in a subsequent post.
Leinen’s testimony concentrated on changes in ecosystems or in systems that affect us directly, highlighting three systems: US North Atlantic fisheries, Florida-Caribbean coral reefs, and South Florida sea level rise and its impact on shoreline communities. The remarkable thing about Leinen’s testimony is that it was completely non-normative: there was no attribution of these changes to humans, and no evident policy agenda.
No surprises here, RP Jr focuses on climate change and extreme weather events. His main point:
It is misleading, and just plain incorrect, to claim that disasters associated with hurricanes, tornadoes, floods or droughts have increased on climate timescales either in the United States or globally. It is further incorrect to associate the increasing costs of disasters with the emission of greenhouse gases.
His testimony follows closely the findings of the IPCC SREX report. This is in contrast to Heidi Cullen, who followed the rather dubious analyses from the Draft National Climate Assessment Report.
No surprises here. This argument is particularly clever:
It should also be noted that the fact that I believe at least some of recent warming is human-caused places me in the 97% of researchers recently claimed to support the global warming consensus (actually, it’s 97% of the published papers, Cook et al., 2013). The 97% statement is therefore rather innocuous, since it probably includes all of the global warming “skeptics” I know of who are actively working in the field. Skeptics generally are skeptical of the view that recent warming is all human-caused, and/or that it is of a sufficient magnitude to warrant immediate action given the cost of energy policies to the poor. They do not claim humans have no impact on climate whatsoever.
His treatment of the ‘pause’ was well done:
The lack of statistically significant warming in the last 15 years is sometimes glossed over with the claim that the global temperature record has a number of examples of no warming (or even cooling) over fifteen year periods. But this claim is disingenuous, because the IPCC presumed radiative forcing of the climate system from increasing CO2 has been at its supposed maximum value only in the last 15 years. In other words, when the climate “stove” has been turned up the most (the last 15 years) is also when you least expect a lack of warming.
It is time for scientists to entertain the possibility that there is something wrong with the assumptions built into their climate models. The fact that all of the models have been peer reviewed does not mean that any of them have been deemed to have any skill for predicting future temperatures. In the parlance of the Daubert standard for rules of scientific evidence, the models have not been successfully field tested for predicting climate change, and so far their error rate should preclude their use for predicting future climate change.
The claim has been made that the extra energy from global warming has mostly bypassed the atmosphere and has been sequestered in the deep ocean, and there is some observational evidence supporting this view. But when we examine the actual, rather weak level of warming (measured in hundredths of a degree C) at depths of many hundreds of meters, it implies relatively low climate sensitivity. Part of the evidence for this result is satellite radiative budget measurements which suggest that more intense El Nino activity since the 1980s caused an apparent decrease in cloudiness, which allowed more sunlight into the climate system, which caused a natural component to recent global warming. Since the global energy imbalance leading to ocean warming since the 1950s is only about 1 part in 1,000 compared to the average rates of solar heating and infrared cooling of the Earth, it should not be surprising that natural climate cycles can cause such small changes in ocean temperature. Even if our ocean temperature measurements of deep warming of hundredths of a degree over the last 50 years are correct, and mostly due to human greenhouse gas emissions, they probably do not support the IPCC’s pessimistic view of future warming.
JC comments: I found this hearing to be more interesting than the previous Senate hearing on climate change held last February (link to Climate Etc post). I found the most interesting testimony to be provided by Frank Nutter and Diana Furchtgott-Roth. It was refreshing to hear testimony from Leinen and Doney on topics other than extreme events and temperature.
This Hearing (along with the February Senate Hearing and also the House hearing where I testified) motivated me to reflect on what contributed to effective testimony by climate scientists, on both sides of the debate:
On the “warm” side, overconfidence or snarky putdowns of scientists on the other side of the debate does not go over well, since this triggers reminders of Climategate and detracts from your credibility. On the more “skeptical” side, aligning yourself with consensus is an effective strategy, which was used both by Roy Spencer and Roger Pielke Jr. in this Hearing.
Clarity in presentation of arguments is a big plus (James McCarthy is exemplary on this IMO), but oversimplification and insufficient references to assessment reports or the primary literature reduces credibility (IMO Jennifer Francis’ testimony suffers from this).
So, do these hearings “matter”? I’m not sure the February hearing did, but House hearing in May does seem to have had an impact on how the Republicans perceive this issue. The significance of the Hearing today IMO is to find common ground among the perspectives Nutter, Goldin and Furchtgott-Roth.
Don’t negate the positive externalities.
====================
Dyn-a-mite! ;)
Andrew
Who let the benefits out?
==========
“There was a big hearing today”
and nobody cared or gave a damn.
Here is the LA Times take on it.
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-democrats-new-climate-change-action-20130718,0,4590908.story
The Democrats have no hope of getting anything serious through the House, so this is just posturing for their constituents, most of whom believe in the threat.
“It seems as though the weather gods have gone berserk in recent years, as nearly every day the headlines report unusual droughts, floods, prolonged cold and snow, heat waves, or unusual weather events happening somewhere around the globe.”
Cue theremin music!
Do our “scientific” authoritiies take their scripts from 1950s disaster movies? My local shopkeeper in Carss Park used to think the weird weather of the fifties was caused by nukes and Sputnik and “all the things they were sending up there”. Can’t blame my shopkeeper guy. The weather was pretty extreme in the 1950s.
In fact, nobody can find a decade or century or even year when the climate was stable…but don’t tell Jennifer Francis. If word got out that the biggest rises in sea level occurred between the late 1700s and the 1860s, and that the Arctic did its melt thing in the early 1800s an early 1900s, and did its latest icing-up thing as recently as the 1960-70s…why, Jennifer would have to get a real job. Now there’s a great human catastrophe for you!
Er …who would employ her?
Dr Ed Hawkins graphic got a walk on part, which was disagreed about..
Maybe they should have sent him an airline ticket, to explain what HE meant by HIS own work
I found the most interesting testimony to be provided by Frank Nutter and Diana Furchtgott-Roth.
Agenda 21 and insanity –
On the more “skeptical” side, aligning yourself with consensus is an effective strategy, which was used both by Roy Spencer and Roger Pielke Jr. in this Hearing.
Effective? What has any of this line of effectiveness done to change the route of the juggernaut of catastrophic controlled opposition which is rolling your inalienable rights into the dust?
http://deoxy.org/emperors.htm
America must be stuffed full of historical climatologists. Wouldn’t it be nice if one of them was invited to one of these hearings in order to bring some historical context to these often painfully short term examinations of climate?
tell you what I will offer to contribute the tea and biscuits for these little soirees if one is invited. Mosomoso will you contribute the orange squash?
tonyb
Orange squash? Since the frost sweetened my citrus I can offer you mandarin, orange, lime, lemon, tangelo, pummelo, lemonade, sweet lime, kumquat…
No grapefruit!
Moso – what are you doing at a computer when you could be out there hugging your bamboo and humming snatches of the Canon en Re Mayor by Johann Pachelbel? – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtIqnkFc_B0
I have yet to receive my bag of Ethiopian Yirgacheffee Gold – but happy contribute a roast.
I think it needs shaking up. It’s now legal in Washington I believe – so a few ‘special cookies’ and someone dressed up as Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny might help. It is a shame Ken Kesey is no longer with us. I’d suggest instead a reading from ‘Sometimes a Great Notion’ – one of my favourite books of all time.
Chief,
Ethiopian Yirgacheffee Gold
Is this the Arabic bean that the monkeys eat and poop, or is this the leaf when smoked or eaten makes your mind go poop?
Coffee is my drug of choice – and you can get some monkey coffee for about $50 bucks a shot. http://animalcoffee.com/proddetail.php?prod=BagA4 Sounds nearly as expensive as a regular drug habit. But I have ordered a couple of keys of ordinary dry process Yirgacheffee.
– http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzrkDGxZexA
For monkey coffee perhaps very finely ground and prepared in the Turkish style.
– http://mideastfood.about.com/od/drinkscoffeetea/r/Turkishcoffee.htm
“have yet to receive my bag of Ethiopian Yirgacheffee Gold – but happy contribute a roast.
I think it needs shaking up. It’s now legal in Washington I believe – so a few ‘special cookies’ and someone dressed up as Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny might help. It is a shame Ken Kesey is no longer with us. I’d suggest instead a reading from ‘Sometimes a Great Notion’ – one of my favourite books of all time.”
Yup.
It’s almost quite sad- there seems to be measurable global deficient of spirit.
I suppose in such vacuum, that the young woman shot in the head by terrorist and speaking at UN is even more powerful:
http://www.jewishpress.com/news/on-16th-birthday-pakistani-girl-shot-in-head-speaks-at-un-video/2013/07/13/
How many of Frank Nutter’s suggestions would be unnecessary if federally subsidized flood insurance was eliminated? If people have to bear the real cost of predictable and inevitable disasters, they would stop building in flood zones or they would build expensive storm resistant structures where required.
+1
Well stated!
I do not think the National Flood Insurance Program covers ocean flooding, only flooding on inland waters, which is neither predictable nor inevitable. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flood_insurance and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Flood_Insurance_Program. Most US cities are in flood plains and a great many smaller communities because creeks and rivers are everywhere. Thinking we can move everyone out of the floodplains is wildly wrong.
It does, but the congress passed a bill last year that would increase premiums by 25% per year until the cost equals the actual cost. Anyone see a problem there? The politicians do who are now looking at suspending that increase for this year.
56. What flood losses are covered?
Direct physical losses “by flood,” losses resulting from flood-related erosion caused by waves or currents of water activity exceeding anticipated cyclical levels, or caused by a severe storm, flash flood, abnormal tidal surge, which result in flooding, as defined in the SFIP. Damage caused by mudflows, as specifically defined in the policy forms, is covered.
http://www.fema.gov/library/viewRecord.do?id=1404
I don’t know if it had anything to do with my postings on the topic, but I’m happy to see Roy Spencer say:
This is a point everyone who talks about the Cook et al paper should understand.
New York is built near sea level in a hurricane zone notorious since the 1600s. Gotta move.
Seeing all those soda-limited cosmopolites relocated to fly-over country should be interesting. Of course, one assumes the fly-over people will want the influx of crime and sophistication.
Right. Stand back and watch the propaganda fly if we get a 1950’s style cat 2-3 hitting the northeast later this summer. “Carbon pollution” will be the culprit, not short memories and idiotic over-building…
I’ve read that the Fire Island Cut was formed by a massive storm in 1693, and that people nearly gave up on Fire Island after the devastation of 1938. (Don’t know how hard it was hit by the 1944 monster which mangled New Jersey’s coast, but Fire Island is certainly in the firing line.)
The hurricane of 1821 is likely the worst about which we have details. There is no reason to think it can’t happen again. Nonetheless, not that long ago World Trade Centre rubble was dumped into the mouth of the Hudson to make more real estate. No wonder Bloomberg would rather talk about climate “science” and soft drink sizing.
These sophisticates!
“There is no reason to think it can’t happen again. ”
Exactly right, except I’d go further and say there’s every reason to think it will happen. Sickening to me, to think what they’ll do with another hurricane Carol (I was a wee lad but I remember the excitement), or worse yet, another 1938 which I believe put much of the city of Providence R.I. underwater…
“superstorm” sandy for all the hoohah, was a pale imitation of what’s sure to come, likely sooner rather than later…
Yes pokerguy.
Climatologists predictin;
a catastrophic futchur
eschew the past, it’s
down the memory hole
with historee, it’s
gotta be a mysteree
allowin’ no comparisuns
to the dire event
that they portend.
Bts
Do any of you geniuses know anything about Sandy and its predecessors besides maximum wind speed at landfall (and therefore category)? Central pressure? Storm surge? Range from eye of tropical force winds? Unprecedented track that directed maximum surge towards NYC? Wave height?
The press grossly exaggerated the role GW played in Sandy, but that doesn’t give skeptics license to discount the storm.
Quote Roy Spencer:
“In other words, when the climate “stove” has been turned up the most (the last 15 years) is also when you least expect a lack of warming.”
This comment can be summarised in this 1.32 youtube video from Mr Know-it-All, titled, “How To Cook a Turkey’s Goose.”
“It is time for scientists to entertain the possibility that there is something wrong with the assumptions built into their climate models. ”
I like this and the rest of Roy Spencer’s evidence. I’ve always thought that the earth has a natyral and powerful air-conditioner built-in due to the imbalance of latent heat of evaporation and precipitation. It is easy to imagine that these two energies balance out, but this is not so because most of the precipitaion energy is released high in the troposphere where it can more readily escape into space. We do not know whether the models correctly include this effect
No one seems to know which vibration modes of the CO2 molecule are important yet there is almost universal agreement that they account for CO2’s vociferous appetire for heat. Brcause of the isotopic nature of CO2 many theoretical modes are close together in the spectrum. This poses difficulties in digital simulation and we don’t know how successfuly that has been handled, particularly as the CO2 molecule fajjs and cools in the troposphere.
fajjs = falls
If I put a heated mass in a vacuum and permit radiation to space, how fast will it cool?
If I put a heated mass in a vacuum and permit radiation to space, but interpose a non-GHG between it and the vacuum, how fast will it cool?
If I put a heated mass in a vacuum and permit radiation to space, but interpose a GHG between it and the vacuum, how fast will it cool?
It’s a simple question, easily and unequivocally answered in the physics lab. Does an IR absorbing/emitting gas advance or retard radiative cooling of a heated body?
For it to do anything, the greenhouse gas has to be cooler at the top and the same temperature as the object at the surface where they are in contact. Then it would have an insulating effect, given this gradient within it. Maintaining a gradient is the way insulators work.
(JC comment: no mention of growing Antarctic sea ice)
Indeed 9 of the the last 10 record sea ice anomalies have all occurred in the 21st century.
“On the “warm” side, overconfidence or snarky putdowns of scientists on the other side of the debate does not go over well, since this triggers reminders of Climategate and detracts from your credibility. On the more “skeptical” side, aligning yourself with consensus is an effective strategy, which was used both by Roy Spencer and Roger Pielke Jr. in this Hearing.”
My sentiments exactly. Just view the “why farmers don’t believe” comments where David Appell gives a tutorial on how not to communicate effectively with “skeptics” as we’ll as skeptics. I’m sure he will not find my comments helpful.
Warmists must go to snark school. It is the only explanation for near universal behavior. It seems they would wise up.
As to the claim that subbituminous coal has a CO2 edge over bituminous:: sub-bituminous coal has higher moisture and ash content and lower BTU/tonne. I very much doubt that there’s any edge to subbituminous in BTU/tonne CO2 emitted.
Assuming equivalent shipping costs per tonne, I would expect the customer to prefer the higher grade BTU coal unless the grade price differential offsets the shipping costs.
I suggest most customers want the lowest total cost coal available. The sum of the cost of the fuel and the cost of getting that fuel to the power plant. Imo, not many developing countries do or will add the “cost of environmental damage” into their formula for determining the total cost to their acquisition.
The quantity of energy obtainable by combusting a fixed quantity of carbon atoms is sadly unchangeable.
The only possible “CO2 edge” would be the error in reporting the proportion of carbon for computing a carbon tax or ETS carbon unit.
Steve and others: The amount of energy that can be obtained from burning fossil fuels depends on the ratio of hydrogen to carbon. The formation of O-H bonds (from C-H) is more exothermic than the formation of C=O from C-C bonds. On a per molecule (and a weight basis), one therefore gets more energy from methane/natural gas/CH4 than gasoline (roughly C8H18) and least from coal. Coals is a very heterogeneous material and different coals contain different amounts of C-H bonds AND trapped water. Anthracite is 90-98% carbon and contains little water or hydrogen bonded to carbon, so it gives the most energy per unit weight, but not necessarily the most energy per CO2 emitted. According to this government website, lower grade coals do emit less CO2 per BTU than higher grade ones: http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=73&t=11 Of course, they give less energy per unit weight too. I don’t know if these figures include the cost of boiling off the water in the coal when burning it, or if the coal was dried before burning.
Murphy’s testimony claims to illustrate the procedural irregularities that the White House indulged in in order to derive an “acceptably” high social cost of carbon. If accurate, it is another rung on the ladder of distrust of Urgent Mitigationism.
Judith notes that Jennifer Francis appears to makes statements that are misleading. This one for sure is bogus:
“Because of surface cooling over much of the Pacific Ocean in recent years owing to natural fluctuations in ocean circulation patterns, global-average air temperatures have not risen as fast as during the previous decade.”
While I understand Jennifer Francis is talking about ENSO, she needs to be more specific. Sea surface temperature anomalies in the Pacific haven’t warmed in almost 20 years, while climate models indicate they should’ve warmed a chunk:
http://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2012/12/06/model-data-comparison-pacific-ocean-satellite-era-sea-surface-temperature-anomalies/figure-2-42/
Graph is from this post:
http://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2012/12/06/model-data-comparison-pacific-ocean-satellite-era-sea-surface-temperature-anomalies/
I think she was talking about the PDO phase. The eastern Pacific is not warming, possibly cooling, due to enhanced upwelling in this phase. Its temperature now is no higher than 30 years ago, as can also be said about the Southern Ocean upwelling region around Antarctica.
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/nmaps.cgi?year_last=2013&month_last=6&sat=4&sst=3&type=anoms&mean_gen=0112&year1=2002&year2=2012&base1=1970&base2=1990&radius=1200&pol=reg
Hi Jim D: I don’t believe Jennifer Francis was referring to the PDO, because the PDO does not represent the surface temperatures of the North Pacific where it’s derived or the surface temperatures of the Pacific as a whole. Basically, the PDO index only represents how closely the spatial pattern of the sea surface temperature anomalies in the North Pacific (warm in the east and cool in the central and western North Pacific for example) resembles the spatial pattern created by El Niño and La Niña events.
But you’re right, the East Pacific hasn’t warmed in over 31 years, while the models indicate it should have warmed about 0.45 deg C in that time:
http://bobtisdale.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/09-east-pac.png
That graph is from the most recent model-data comparison of satellite-era sea surface temperature anomalies:
http://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2013/02/28/cmip5-model-data-comparison-satellite-era-sea-surface-temperature-anomalies/
Regards
It would have been remarkable if the models had predicted a PDO phase when they weren’t initialized with a specific year’s ocean state, but anything’s possible I suppose.
Good god, Judith – you think this is “clever?”
Heh.
Yeah, all those scientists who say that recent warming is all human caused.
Yes indeed. All those scientists who say that natural variability has no influence on the climate.
And Judith and my much beloved “skeptics” fail to take Roy to task? Judith goes so far as to call this “clever?”
My kingdom for a skeptic – I’m surrounded by “skeptics.”
Hansen attributed the Arabs as a causal mechanism for the “standstill”
You are surrounded by a stench, joshie. Wherever you go.
Joshua, your posts are usually so inane they are not worth responding to, IMO. This one is a borderline exception, since you so obviously twisted words and meanings to attempt to score disingenuous points. You leave an easy rebuttal that exposes your arguments for what they are–disingenuous at best, mendacious at worst. Not to mention your ongoing personal disrespect of Dr. Curry, a contemptible personal style.
Mann’s hockey stick deliberately and misleadingly suppressed past natural variability in order to assert recent warming was all man made. ‘No’ LIA, ‘no’ MWP. No siree, just CO2 induced warming in the 20th century. The IPCC picked this deliberately falsified graphic up, and it became iconic of that view. You feign not to know this hockey stick has been the consensus position based on ‘hide the decline’, upside down Tiljander, ‘Mike’s Nature trick’, and more recent nonsense like the Marcott caper?? Assert above the consensus allows for significant natural variability??
You destroy any credibility you might have had. You might try shutting up, as this would significant reduce air pollution in the vicinity of Dr. Curry’s blog.
> This one is a borderline exception, since you so obviously twisted words and meanings to attempt to score disingenuous points.
No twisting of words are required to show that Roy Spencer constructed a strawman. All you have for now, Sir, are cheap ad hominems against the messenger. Paying due diligence to Spencer’s ABSTRACTS in Cook’s database should reveal the cleverness of Spencer’s way to solve his rhetorical problem:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/tcp.php?t=search&s=&a=spencer&c=&e=&yf=&yt=
‘The 97% statement is therefore rather innocuous, since it probably includes all of the global warming “skeptics” I know of who are actively working in the field. Skeptics generally are skeptical of the view that recent warming is all human-caused, and/or that it is of a sufficient magnitude to warrant immediate action given the cost of energy policies to the poor. They do not claim humans have no impact on climate whatsoever.’
A kingdom of tendentious twaddle from Joshua? No one is interested.
The interesting question is how much is anthropogenic. The clouds Roy refers are based on data that shows that there was cooling in the IR and warming in SW between the 1980’s and 1990’s – natural variation that very much dominated climate change from 1976 to 1998 – and indeed since.
Instead we have this – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9ob9WdbXx0 – claiming that recent warming was all or mostly anthropogenic.
While there are many scientists who have ‘discovered’ decadal variability in Earth’s climate – and more all the time as surface temperature fail to agree with IPCC projections – this is still not translatable with any confidence into climate models. It seems better to make of clean breast on things than to continue with a specious claim that we were always right no matter what – much as the space cadets might resist.
‘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.”
The further interesting question is what the future will bring. The bottom line is that we are in a cool global mode likely to last for another decade to three.
A further interesting question is why we get these multi-decadal shifts in surface temperature and hydrology. The answer to that comes form complexity theory. This would tend to preclude realistic predictions of future climate shifts.
‘The climate system has jumped from one mode of operation to another in the past. We are trying to understand how the earth’s climate system is engineered, so we can understand what it takes to trigger mode switches. Until we do, we cannot make good predictions about future climate change… Over the last several hundred thousand years, climate change has come mainly in discrete jumps that appear to be related to changes in the mode of thermohaline circulation. ‘ http://www.earth.columbia.edu/articles/view/2246
Joshua’s repetition of tendentious and specious twaddle notwithstanding – a complete reassessment of climate theory on a couple of fronts is inevitable.
Joshua, check this out:
http://ossfoundation.us/projects/environment/global-warming/myths/global-warming-is-only-part-human-caused
There are many who believe it is ALL human caused.
John –
The iconic IPCC statement is that it is very likely that most recent warming is anthropogenically attributable. That means that some isn’t.
So, then, by Roy’s “clever” rhetorical standards, the IPCC are skeptics, since Roy says that:
So – according to Roy’s “clever” rhetoric, the IPCC are “skeptics” and Spencer and his buds are members of the “consensus.”
The silly rhetorical games such as Roy’s are the weapons of tribalists.
IMO, those interesting in “building bridges,” such as Judith, should distance themselves from the tribalists on both sides of the debate. Judith thinks it’s possible to build bridges by, for the most part, only criticizing tribalists on one side and turning a blind eye to (say when McKitrick calls people “groveling, terrified cowards) or praising (say when she calls Roy’s rhetoric “clever”) tribalists on the other side.
Hey – to each his/her own. As my father used to say, that’s why they make chocolate and vanilla.
The forcings, attributions and projections in the IPCC are quite clear cut as shown in the David Attenborough segment – despite any wriggle room Joshua might claim from the IPCC summary.
Oh and a misogynist. I forgot to mention the other of the top three glaring personality flaws of yours – misogyny. Your upcoming marriage won’t last 5 years. To be quite honest I don’t think you’ll fool your fiance long enough to get her to the alter. She deserves a heads up about your writing here. Do you let her know about it or does your inner coward hide it from her too?
David Springer,
your personal comments to Joshua come across to me as bullying in tone and content. I’d very much appreciate it if you stopped.
I’d appreciate it if you’d join me in putting asshats like Joshua in their place.
What do you say?
Personally I tend to not read Joshua’s comments much any more since he generally seems to like to comment on things that relate to how people feel or believe about climate change and I tend to not care about that. In this case I happened to read VTG’s comments and read the comments above.
David Springer,
“I’d appreciate it if you’d join me in putting asshats like Joshua in their place.”
I’ve no desire to put anyone in their place, thank you. Continuing to insult, and, in my view, bully Joshua, only diminishes you rather than him. It also takes the overall level of discourse beyond the point where I would even visit the site, to be honest.
Just my opinion, feel free to take it or leave it.
I certainly won’t mourn your absence and I’m not here to please you in any way. You can whine about me until the cows come home for all I care.
[Let’s try with the proper emphasis and another entry point for the end of the the thread.]
Here’s the SPM claim:
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/spmsspm-understanding-and.html
This was the consensus claim that was being tested by Cook & al. Therefore, Roy Spencer’s claim that
> It should also be noted that the fact that I believe at least some of recent warming is human-caused places me in the 97% of researchers recently claimed to support the global warming consensus (actually, it’s 97% of the published papers, Cook et al., 2013).
is therefore false.
But very clever indeed.
***
The emphasized parenthesis is also incorrect in many ways.
First, it’s 97% of the ABSTRACTS, actually.
Second, it’s 97% of the ABSTRACTS published between 1991 and 2011 matching the topics ‘global climate change’ or ‘global warming’, actually.
Third, it’s 97% of the ABSTRACTS that take a position on AGW, actually.
These three missing bit of information come from the very first sentence of the ABSTRACT from Cook et al 2013:
http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/8/2/024024/article
Fourth, this selection comes from Web of Science, a more conservative portal than the liberal Scopus or the libertarian Citeseer, actually.
***
There are other bogus claims in Roy Spencer’s quote. This should be enough to see that Joshua might have a point. This should be enough to make auditors wonder if the Denizen’s have anything else against his point than concerns about his tone or his person.
We are nevertheless thankful for these concerns,
Due diligence,
w
Replying to this comment by Big Dave:
http://judithcurry.com/2013/07/18/u-s-senate-hearing-climate-change-its-happening-now/#comment-347277
might lead you to the end of the thread.
Oh, and it’s Denizens, not Denizen’s.
Replying to my comment above also worked, it seems.
Joshua was complaining about the statement that all global warming was caused by CO2. It seems true enough that the IPCC ascribes effectively all recent warming to anthropogenic causes. It increasingly clear that this is not true even to Joshua.
The Cook analysis of abstracts refers to – inter alia – explicit support for AGW without quantification. Accepting the simple atmospheric radiative physics – within the framework of a larger and more complex system count as support for the consensus according to John Cook.
Wow – the space cadets are exploring the limits of specious and tendentious in new and desperate post hoc rationalisations. Funny hey?
> It seems true enough that the IPCC ascribes effectively all recent warming to anthropogenic causes.
Citation and quote needed.
Hi Willard….Chief used the word “effectively,” as in …”ascribes effectively all recent warming….”
“Effectively” in this case means, “in effect,” or “practically speaking.”
Thius, your request for citations and quotes seems…well….let’s just say ill considered.
I’m sure you know what a call means, pokerguy:
http://judithcurry.com/2013/07/18/u-s-senate-hearing-climate-change-its-happening-now/#comment-347386
Senate n. A body of elderly gentlemen charged with high duties and misdemeanors.
Satan n. One of the Creator’s lamentable mistakes, repented in sashcloth and axes. Being instated as an archangel, Satan made himself multifariously objectionable and was finally expelled from Heaven. Halfway in his descent he paused, bent his head in thought a moment and at last went back. “There is one favor that I would like to ask,” said he.
“Name it.”
“Man, I understand, is about to be created. He will need laws.”
“What, wretch! you his appointed adversary, charged from the dawn of eternity with hatred of his soul–you ask for the right to make his laws?”
“Pardon; what I have to ask is that he be permitted to make them himself.”
It was so ordered.
H/t A. Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary.
===============
Bravo, Kim!
Andrew
TNX, but all completely stolen.
====
Heh, I steal everything, attribute when I think I’ll get caught.
=====
Now where did I hear that before?
Faustion, what are you referring to?
The forcings and the projections are all there in AR4 for you to peruse. There is this – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9ob9WdbXx0 – that I posted earlier as well.
> The forcings and the projections are all there in AR4 for you to peruse.
Please, Chief. Handwaving helps no one. I can’t find anything in AR4 that resembles your reading. So you’ll need to provide a claim upon which you are basing your interpretation yourself.
You can start here:
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch9.html
No need to provide a definition for “very likely”. I already have it:
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/supporting-material/uncertainty-guidance-note.pdf
Nothing to say about David Attenborough? Haven’t looked at the forcing? Or at the projections? Or past the abstract of the Cook monstrosity to where it actually defines the 97%? Utterly pathetic as usual.
Here, Chief:
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch9s9-7.html
Indulge yourself.
A quote, please.
Since you seem incapable of actual numbers – http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/figure-ts-5.html
When will willard wonder well?
=============
Or David.A dare discredit doctored data ?
Oops wrong place.
Or David.A dare discredit doctored data?
Nice cite, Chief, but not close enough for a quote.
Here’s how we quote and cite:
http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/8/2/024024/article
You see? A quote, then a link. We sometimes call the link a c-i-t-a-t-i-o-n, Chief.
Now, can you quote that “2007 IPCC statement” and provide a citation for it, pretty please with some sugar on it?
Many thanks!
We know you are quite a lot scientifically challenged wee willie – but I suggest you might be able to compare natural and anthropogenic forcings if you really try hard.
Here would be an acceptable statement from the IPCC documentation, Chief:
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch9s9-7.html#table-9-4
Notice the emphasized bit about uncertainty, which you tried to sweep under the rug. A champion of uncertainty like you. Imagine that.
***
Roy Spencer misread Cook & al.
Roy Spencer misled Congress. Under oath.
It’s simple as that.
Thank you for playing, Chief.
willard quotes various sources while ignoring the fact we know exactly what standards were used by Cook et al. Naturally, he claims Roy Spencer misled Congress. But compare what he says to what happens when people examine what the authors actually did. Suddenly, Roy Spencer is right and willard is the one misrepresenting things.
That’s what happens when one actually examines work. Roy Spencer apparently did so. willard didn’t. He chose to quote mine instead.
> [C]ompare what he says to what happens when people examine what the authors actually did.
Here’s what Roy said:
Here’s what Cook & al did:
http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/8/2/024024/article
Whatever the merits of Cook & al, Roy misrepresented it.
***
Perhaps Roy thinks that the belief in at least some of GW is from A, but he must also, in all of his ABSTRACTS, state that he’s endorsing the IPCC claim that most of the recent GW comes from A, or presume AGW as a basis for his work
It would be interesting to know if he responded to Cook & al’s questionnaire, and how he classified his PAPERS, if he did. Here are Spencer’s ABSTRACTS rated by Cook & al:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/tcp.php?t=search&s=&a=spencer&c=&e=&yf=&yt=
The only ABSTRACT take is seen as taking position regarding AGW minimizes it:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2007GL029698/abstract;jsessionid=19B293D7662C30034A5499EB59DB9EA6.d01t04
Not only Roy Spencer misrepresented Cook & al, but he’s misrepresenting his own work.
***
Also note that Brandon’s analysis has been refuted at Bart’s more than a month ago. Readers can start there:
http://ourchangingclimate.wordpress.com/2013/05/17/consensus-behind-the-numbers/
Somewhere I suggested that willard have a peek at a John Cook video.
================
I’ll put it this way, willard; over the years I’ve read thousands of cogent defenses of the Hockey Stick.
================
I’m sure you did, kim, but that has nothing to do with what I’m doing right now, which ain’t a defense: under oath, Roy misrepresented his position.
Really Willard, this from the master of misrepresentation, Well played!
Heh, I suppose your objection to Wegman was the ‘plagiarism’.
===============
> I suppose your objection to Wegman was the ‘plagiarism’.
No, my main one would be his strange use of “replication”:
http://moyhu.blogspot.com/2011/06/effect-of-selection-in-wegman-report.html
Thanks for asking.
(2) Explicit endorsement without quantification
Explicitly states humans are causing global warming or refers to anthropogenic global warming/climate change as a known fact
[E.g.,] ‘Emissions of a broad range of greenhouse gases of varying lifetimes contribute to global climate change’
An explicit endorsement of the simple radiative physics of greenhouse gases?
We thank wee willie for being such a tendentious idiot.
> An explicit endorsement of the simple radiative physics of greenhouse gases?
No, Chief.
Of A as a fundamental cause of GW.
What you just denied with your majestic We.
Thank you for your concerns.
(3) Implicit endorsement Implies humans are causing global warming.
[E.g.,] research assumes greenhouse gas emissions cause warming without explicitly stating humans are the cause.
‘It should also be noted that the fact that I believe at least some of recent warming is human-caused places me in the 97% of researchers recently claimed to support the global warming consensus…’ Roy Spencer
‘What you just denied with your majestic We.’
Well no I didn’t and nor did Roy. And you must recognize that the ‘we’ is a parody of you?
‘We thank Chief for being such a good sport.’
Perhaps not. You are not working on all 8 cylinders.
Here you go, Chief:
http://judithcurry.com/2013/07/18/u-s-senate-hearing-climate-change-its-happening-now/#comment-348648
You’re welcome.
‘Since this “we” was in the context of Roy’s beliefs, it sounded more like a majestic We (i.e. Chief speaking for his Denizens subjects, including Roy) than an academic “we,” which refers to the author.’
We are certainly skeptical of the view that all recent warming – or even most – is human caused.?
It seems certainly obvious that Roy doesn’t believe that all warming was caused by greenhouse gases. Bizarre to think otherwise. He says it in the testimony. It is obvious as well that there are many denizens who might agree. What’s the point of being a sceptic if you can’t say we?
‘Saying “at least some” is not enough to endorse the AGW hypothesis. Its trutiness (sic) lies in the fact that Roy did raise concerns about AGW in his publications.’
Although this is not the criteria that was used by John Cook -which you first of all neglected to read and now refuse to accept as the criteria that Roy Spencer was talking to. Instead your state of umbrage and outrage that he should dare put himself in the 97% – is frankly a hoot.
The data shows that very little recent warming was due to greenhouse gases.
‘In summary, although there is independent evidence for decadal changes in TOA radiative fluxes over the last two decades, the evidence is equivocal. Changes in the planetary and tropical TOA radiative fluxes are consistent with independent global ocean heat-storage data, and are expected to be dominated by changes in cloud radiative forcing. To the extent that they are real, they may simply reflect natural low-frequency variability of the climate system.’ AR4 s3.4.4.1
Do I accept the evidence uncritically? There are many strands of evidence that suggest that low-frequency natural variability is very real – but no. Yet there is no equivalent evidence on the other side – merely some cloud observations in areas where you would expect cloud to increase in the warm decadal mode. So the evidence seems less equivocal than might be assumed.
Decadal variability is on very solid ground – and it remains the case the planet is in a cool mode with the likelihood of little warming for a decade to 3 more.
So this makes me a sceptic – according to your definition – and you an idiot frothing at the mouth making quibbling and trivial points.
> It seems certainly obvious that Roy doesn’t believe that all warming was caused by greenhouse gases.
Yes, but this has nothing to do with the Cook & al study.
Enjoy your red herring, Chief.
***
> Although this [the AGW hypothesis] is not the criteria that was used by John Cook […].
Of course it was. The criteria is an endorsement that A is a fundamental cause of GW, as specified by the the 2007 IPCC statement. Saying that “the data shows that very little recent warming was due to greenhouse gases” disqualifies you as a part of the consensus on AGW specified by the 2007 IPCC statement. Spencer’s publications do not qualify as endorsements of the AGW hypothesis specified by the 2007 IPCC statement.
Trying to misread “Implies humans are causing global warming” will lead you nowhere, Chief. Read Cook & al again, this time harder.
‘We classified each abstract according to the type of research (category) and degree of endorsement. Written criteria were provided to raters for category (table 1) and level of endorsement of AGW (table 2). Explicit endorsements were divided into non-quantified (e.g., humans are contributing to global warming without quantifying the contribution) and quantified (e.g., humans are contributing more than 50% of global warming, consistent with the 2007 IPCC statement that most of the global warming since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations).’
This leaves implicit endorsement – ‘implies humans are causing global warming. E.g., research assumes greenhouse gas emissions cause warming without explicitly stating humans are the cause’
You have to remember that this ‘citizen science’ – or poor excuse for science – was based on reading abstracts.
I haven’t read the paper and don’t intend to. I read the abstract and the methods. You read the abstract – leapt to an assumption and lack the personal integrity to backtrack. You are getting seriously weird wee wilie.
> You have to remember that this ‘citizen science’ […] was based on reading abstracts.
Don’t forget the self-ratings of the PAPERS, Chief.
And don’t forget to look how explicit endorsement got defined in the ABSTRACT, Chief.
More than 50%.
Now, if an explicit and quantified endorsement states more than 50%, what does it implicate for emplicit endorsements? How do you think Cook & Al rated ABSTRACTS that minimizes AGW?
In fact, if you limit yourself to Cook’s ABSTRACT, you should dismiss Roy’s testimony and look at Roy’s ABSTRACTS.
Think, Chief. Why trust Roy’s beliefs when you have all this junk on the Iris hypothesis?
I hate to watch video, but now and then duty calls. I try to take it all philosophically. One takes the goods with some bads.
==========
‘We analyze the evolution of the scientific consensus on anthropogenic global warming (AGW) in the peer-reviewed scientific literature, examining 11 944 climate abstracts from 1991–2011 matching the topics ‘global climate change’ or ‘global warming’. We find that 66.4% of abstracts expressed no position on AGW, 32.6% endorsed AGW, 0.7% rejected AGW and 0.3% were uncertain about the cause of global warming. Among abstracts expressing a position on AGW, 97.1% endorsed the consensus position that humans are causing global warming. In a second phase of this study, we invited authors to rate their own papers. Compared to abstract ratings, a smaller percentage of self-rated papers expressed no position on AGW (35.5%). Among self-rated papers expressing a position on AGW, 97.2% endorsed the consensus. For both abstract ratings and authors’ self-ratings, the percentage of endorsements among papers expressing a position on AGW marginally increased over time. Our analysis indicates that the number of papers rejecting the consensus on AGW is a vanishingly small proportion of the published research.’
To repeat – ‘Among abstracts expressing a position on AGW, 97.1% endorsed the consensus position that humans are causing global warming.’ So does Roy.
I have no idea at all what you are saying wee willie – it seems so inordinately nonsensical – divorced from any rational reading of anything at all relevant and descending to incoherence and madness.
But as for the iris hypothesis. http://judithcurry.com/2013/07/19/ocean-acidification-discussion-thread/#comment-348773
Actually – I was limiting myself to Cook’s methodology.
> I have no idea at all what you are saying wee willie – it seems so inordinately nonsensical – divorced from any rational reading of anything at all relevant and descending to incoherence and madness.
Beware of your inner Chewbacca, Chief.
In the ABSTRACT, the expression “scientific consensus on anthropogenic global warming” does not refer to the minimal interpretation of “humans are causing GW” you get when playing dumb, however plausible you might sound.
***
As for your response to the Iris hypothesis, you seem to have forgotten to answer Bart R.
‘ Definitions of each level of endorsement of AGW.
(1) Explicit endorsement with quantification
Explicitly states that humans are the primary cause of recent global warming.
(2) Explicit endorsement without quantification
Explicitly states humans are causing global warming or refers to anthropogenic global warming/climate change as a known fact.
(3) Implicit endorsement
Implies humans are causing global warming. E.g., research assumes greenhouse gas emissions cause warming without explicitly stating humans are the cause.’
To repeat – ‘Among abstracts expressing a position on AGW, 97.1% endorsed the consensus position that humans are causing global warming.’ That’s what it says.
‘ “scientific consensus on anthropogenic global warming” does not refer to the minimal interpretation of “humans are causing GW” you get when playing dumb, however plausible you might sound.’
Are you insane?
As for the iris and Bart – I show the latest data from CERES that shows that higher sst results in higher losses of IR to space and vice versa.
‘During positive ENSO phase (El Nino), outgoing LW
radiation increases, and decreases during the negative ENSO phase (La Nina)…
At the global scale, outgoing LW flux anomalies are partially compensated for by decreases in mid latitude 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.’
http://meteora.ucsd.edu/~jnorris/reprints/Loeb_et_al_ISSI_Surv_Geophys_2012.pdf
The total longwave feedback is negatively correlated with sst in the equatorial Pacific as Lindzen said.
Here is the link to Lindzen’s 2012 statement – http://www.thegwpf.org/richard-lindzen-response-to-the-critique-of-my-house-of-commons-lecture/
I give the latest and most conclusive data I know and Bart gives me handwaving. Quite frankly I didn’t return to the thread before because he is as scientifically incompetent as you.
The Long Wave was asked where it was going and it said ‘Out’. When asked what it was going to do it said ‘Nothing’.
================
> That’s what it says.
Your dumb playing gets more and more convincing, Chief.
I thought you were restricting your analysis to the ABSTRACT. Since you’re willing to look at Table 2, why don’t you read 4-5-6-7? You can’t say that Roy’s beliefs belongs to 3 without making sure they should not go elsewhere.
By saying that there’s only “some” A in GW, Roy does minimize the importance of the A in GW. He also minimizes AGW in at least one of his ABSTRACT. His papers on the Iris hypothesis either expresses uncertainty regarding or minimizes the amount of A in GW.
This kicks him out of 2-3, contrary to what you say and what he implies.
I’ll update Bart R with your misplaced response.
Please do continue.
You are a liar wee willie. I introduced the methodology upfront and have specifically quoted the categories much more than once.
So either you accept that studies that fall into categories 2 and 3 don’t support your consensus – thus the consensus is far less than 97% of the 32% of papers that had a position – or change your definition for the purpose of this bit of egregious nonsense. Not counting those papers that were mis-categorized.
Either way I am utterly bored by the paper – your voluminous trivia – and the ongoing misdirection and obfuscation.
The real issue is that this decade will be cooler than last – because natural variability trumps AGW. Can’t possibly contemplate that can you?
This one I meant to post again above – rather then Loeb et al.
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=8703
It should really sink in – but doesn’t seem to. I wonder why?
Say, Chief –
On what basis do you change your analysis? Days of the week? Phases of the moon? Odd number or even number dates? Dartboard?
One time it’s cooling that’s certain, the next it’s likely cooling, the next it is a likelihood of little warming.
God love ya’, Chief – your concept of science is truly a joy to behold.
What science understands Joshua is that the world is in a cool decadal mode. These last for 20 to 40 years in the proxy record. This decade will be cooler than the last. As the sun declines in the 11 year cycle (and longer)and the Pacific cool mode intensifies as it does.
So hey – cooling for 20 years from 2002 with virtual (99-100%) certainty. It is a testable hypothesis that I first raised in 2007 – after the failure of the IPCC – in open media ( http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/11/enso_variation_and_global_warm.html ) and indeed as one of James Inhofe’s infamous original 400.
The confidence in, support for and the understanding of the relevant mechanisms increase year by year.
http://meteora.ucsd.edu/~jnorris/reprints/Loeb_et_al_ISSI_Surv_Geophys_2012.pdf
That is what you seem incapable of understanding and that seems inordinately obtuse. Cognitive dissonance? Deliberate lies and obfuscation? Just goes right over your head? Whatever.
Tolstoi told us.
==========
Climate Cowboy.
We’re here to plan a takeover of the popular press.
I need a finance document by half past six.
I want some strategies for public opinion,
A list of trade-offs for the workers’ union.
We’ll need more action from the activist tribe,
Offer some jobs and offer a bribe.
Jane – call the governor, I need him here,
Tell him to meet me at five for a beer.
I was once a lonesome cowboy,
I fought at the OK Corral,
But now i’m a climate cowboy, )
And I’m doing very well.
So stand aside sister and brother,
I’m after wealth and fame,
All you skeptics take cover,
Climate alarmism’s the name of the game.
In the new gravy train paradigm
the pen’s mightier
than the six-shooter.
Jane – polish my spurs and fetch my horse.
BC.
> It has already been suggested to you that you look at Table 2 in the Cook opus to find out what’s included in the 97%.
Here you go:
http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/8/2/024024/article
This excludes Chief, if he includes himself in his:
> We are certainly skeptical of the view that all recent warming – or even most -is human caused.
This excludes Roy, if by “some”, Roy does not mean most. Readers may confer to Roy’s publications to validate that indeed, Roy belongs to Chief’s majestic We.
***
We thank Chief for being such a good sport.
‘It should also be noted that the fact that I believe at least some of recent warming is human-caused places me in the 97% of researchers recently claimed to support the global warming consensus (actually, it’s 97% of the published papers, Cook et al., 2013). The 97% statement is therefore rather innocuous, since it probably includes all of the global warming “skeptics” I know of who are actively working in the field. Skeptics generally are skeptical of the view that recent warming is all human-caused, and/or that it is of a sufficient magnitude to warrant immediate action given the cost of energy policies to the poor. They do not claim humans have no impact on climate whatsoever.’
You continuing to froth at the mouth over this wee willie? It has already been suggested to you that you look at Table 2 in the Cook opus to find out what’s included in the 97%
We are certainly skeptical of the view that all recent warming – or even most -is human caused.
Thanks for frothing at the mouth and making an utter idiot of yourself.
Chief Hydrologist, Cook et al’s results don’t refer just to “explicit support for AGW without quantification.” Most of their 97% comes from implicit support. So it’s even worse.
illard (@nevaudit) | July 19, 2013 at 12:26 pm | There are other bogus claims in Roy Spencer’s
quote. This should be enough to see that Joshua might have a point. This should be enough to make
auditors wonder if the Denizen’s have anything else against his point than concerns about his tone
or his person.
Yes – he like the official “consensus” AGWs pretends that his view is the skeptic view – “They do not claim humans have no impact on climate whatsoever.”
AGWs have usurped the term “skeptic” from those who were orgininally the sceptics – those the CAGWs called “deniers”, because they denied there was any such thing as the AGW Greenhouse Effect. No Greenhouse Effect and no Anthropogenic.
I, for one, am tired of being told I don’t exist.. And getting censored for giving my reasons why I DENY the whole caboodle. It is nonsense science completely unknown to traditional physics.
If you cannot handle that then you are not open to discussion.
willard misrepresents Cook et al’s work in order to accuse Roy Spencer of misrepresenting it. First Jim D, now willard. Who’ll be next?
> willard misrepresents Cook et al’s work in order to accuse Roy Spencer of misrepresenting it.
Reading the first sentence of Cook & al’s ABSTRACT suffices to disprove Roy Spencer’s interpretation of that paper.
Brandon might be well-advised to hurl his empty claims from Lucia’s.
David Springer,
“I certainly won’t mourn your absence and I’m not here to please you in any way. You can whine about me until the cows come home for all I care.”
I’m not sure why you choose to respond in such a way. I hope you find some time to reflect on what’s driving what comes across bullying and aggression.
I wish you well, I won’t be back.
vtg,
Josh is an adult. As such, if he can be “bullied” over the Internet, then he has problems far more serious than worrying about climate change. That said, I doubt he feels bullied at all. As I said, he’s an adult. He’s also been here long enough to know when to ignore Springer.
Dave,
While I agree with you on Josh’s behavior towards Dr Curry, what purpose is served by going a step further with the marriage comment? Compare your comments to those of Rud’s. Except for the squirrel, who seems to think Josh’s childish badgering of Curry is worth defending, most here recognize when Josh is putting out drivel. Your deciding to step in crap just to point that out demeans you, not him.
Josh,
I’d suggest putting a cork in it, but then the stuff would be coming out your ears.
Springer- The last paragraph of your comment diminishes from the quality of what you wrote previously- which was quite correct imo. The personal attacks are counterproductive
Are you under the impression that blog comments are productive?
They can be special, if done in an outstanding manner.
Perhaps rarely but at least occasionally.
Joshua,
You have a tiny little point. (Not the one at the top of your head. heh-heh, sorry that slipped out).
You are correct that he should have said “mostly”, not all.
Soon, the consensus may switch to about half with the warmists saying more than half and the skeptics saying less than half. That would be progress.
Of course, that would not prevent the MSM or politicians twisting it but it would be a start.
Well, Bill, that tiny point has some impact. See for instance:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2007GL029698/abstract;jsessionid=848077E35ECA0D5283D77FAE4CF99CD3.d02t02
Would you say that the writers of this ABSTRACT are endorsing the consensus on AGW?
Many thanks!
“Yes indeed. All those scientists who say that natural variability has no influence on the climate”
Yawn, what a surprise, another willful misreading of what was clearly meant so you can show the world who bright you are. We should hold your nauseatingly vapid posts to the same exacting linguistic standard to which you try to hold Judith’s. That would be some fun.
sorry, “how”
:)
Roy Spencer says: “…Skeptics generally are skeptical of the view that recent warming is all human-caused, and/or that it is of a sufficient magnitude to warrant immediate action given the cost of energy policies to the poor. They do not claim humans have no impact on climate whatsoever.”
Dr. Curry’s response: “This argument is particularly clever:”
That paragraph as a whole is not an argument at all. It is a statement of fact. Which is then either true or not true. Given the hundreds of times I have seen similar statements from other skeptics on this blog alone, I would guess it is true. If it weren’t for the fact that I have no confidence in the reported temperatures from the consensus, it is a statement I would join in. If the climate is warming, I would have no trouble at all accepting that human actions have had some impact. Though I would still doubt the ability of the consensus scientists to determine how much.
But clever? Why? In what sense? Since when is a statement of truth clever?
Gary, I ‘d say J. means effective more than clever, inasmuch as it comes across as reasonable and moderate. But you’re right. It’s simply a statement of fact.
She meant it was clever to be sure to use their definition and explain what it really meant. Especially in a public venue like this. You are right, it is just the truth, but this whole 97% meme is so exceedingly stupid. The things that the 97% agree on are almost trivial. But a lot of idiots think it means something.
No mention of growing Antarctic sea ice.
Perhaps a post on this topic, maybe there are anthropogenic causes to this growth in Antarctic sea ice.
I don’t think it is the weak think in AGW theory some think it is.
Its the weak link in both theory and the models ie it would be nice to at least get the sign correct.
We need to mention the Larsen ice shelves disintegrating. This has been going on quietly without the skeptics noticing apparently.
Yes the earthquakes around the Larsen ice shelf are obviously caused by you 4WD.
Earthquakes? Is that theory your own invention? Are you certain of that?
There is both substantive evidence from seismoloical data and the l nature of the calving (straight line fractures) similarly tsunami effects fast changes in the Antarctic.
http://www.ibtimes.com/japan-tsunami-calved-antarctic-ice-shelf-manhattan-sized-iceberg-broke-828795
Spencer distorts the 97% which agree with the IPCC statement that the majority of warming has been human-caused. He neatly side-stepped that with obfuscation to even claim to be part of that 97% when actually I suspect he isn’t.
Jim D, it’s good you “suspect he isn’t” what he obviously is if you bother to read the Cook et al paper. That shows you consistently get even the simplest beliefs wrong.
The person you accuse of distorting Cook et al represented it accurately while you baselessly accused him of doing what you pretty much did.
+1
+2
You might want to pay better attention.
Trying to nit pick Roy Spencer over who he used the 97% while ignoring the dung pile of misrepresentation both Cook and others are responsible for is the act of a fool.
You must prefer cable ovr dish.
Does anyone know whether there may be a ‘tipping point’ beyond which the entire Earth may heat up so fast that no measures could be taken to stop/reverse the trend?? And, what would be the symptoms the Earth would experience approaching that ‘tipping point’??
Boiling oceans and melting traffic signs would be the first indications.
+1
Increases in autocorrelation – http://www.pnas.org/content/105/38/14308.full
Sun going nova. Leif Svalgaard, I expect, will give sufficient notice so that I can consume the contents of my wine cellar before the conflagration.
So, apparently, none of us is willing to consider the ‘tipping point’ scenario. Measurements at Mauna Loa, since the 1950s have risen from 315 ppm to near 400 ppm. Given man’s continuing contributions and continued ignoring of CO2, I conclude IF that there is a tipping point, our worldwide politicians will delay taking any positive steps until the world is past it and therefore, mankind may have a very limited time remaining.
Is there a tipping point at which the effect of progressive propaganda on the mind of the typical voter may reach a “tipping point,” beyond which there is no hope to avoid a complete economic collapse? And how would the symptoms be any different from the current enormous structural unemployment and long term absence of growth in western economies?
GaryM
No growth? But Average world growth is over 3%. Are you saying averages can be pointless. Like for instance Average global temperatures?
For shame. I will give you a call on the average world telephone number and have a chat about it.
tonyb
tonyb,
Notice I wrote “western economies,” while you referenced “world growth.” If you include the”growth” in historical economic basket cases like China, then the global average looks just fine. But check the (reported) growth in the EU, US and Japan.
http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.KD.ZG
But yes, if I tried to claim that I knew the “average global gdp growth” with any precision whatsoever, you would be well justified in smacking me over the head with the world telephone book, from which you can get the average world telephone number.
Call Guam, it’s about to tip over.
=======================
Would the owner of the average telephone number be a better chief executive of these United States than the present teleprompter?
================
Yes.
Walter,
I recommend the SciFi channel.
Shhhh. Nobody talk about this!
“As President Obama last month launched a sweeping new national program to combat “climate change,” including tens of billions of dollars in likely new subsidies for solar and wind power and bio-energy, a separate, groundbreaking study by the National Research Council has warned that those kinds of subsidies are virtually useless at quelling greenhouse gases.
…
It was carried out by a 12-member National Academy of Sciences panel of economists, energy experts, environmentalists, tax specialists and climate scientists backed by consultants wielding powerful computerized economic models and a sizeable handful of National Academy of Sciences staff.”
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/07/18/billions-spent-in-obama-climate-plan-may-be-virtually-useless-study-suggests/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+foxnews%2Fpolitics+%28Internal+-+Politics+-+Text%29
Don’t worry all you progressives, moderate, independents and luke-warmers. Fox News is reporting on it, so it is irrelevant that the findings were from a panel made up of NAS members. You can safely ignore it.
But oops, how do you ignore this?
http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=18299&page=1
The study itself. The best stuff starts at page 3 of the summary. An item by item description of the abject failure of government “climate policy.” The general findings start on page 7 of the summary.
Enjoy.
Warmists, hats in hand, plead for Federal Intervention and Financing. That’s a surprise.
Did Senator Whitehorse commit a fraud? He showed three graphs comparing model output to observations.
a) models vs sat/ballons diverging
b) models vs surface/sat/ballons diverging
c) models vs what? all the data thus close agreement
He implied that if one included all the data the models and observations were in close agreement. Does “c” graph exist? Or was it just the models without any observation data?
Sen. Whitehouse is an embarassment to the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, where I live.
Hi Judy,
It would have been better if Diana Furchtgott-Roth had checked her coal information with someone before she presented it to Congress. She seems to be comparing Chinese reserve numbers with US production numbers. Chinese production is in fact virtually all bituminous. See the World Energy Council’s Survey of Energy Resources
http://www.worldenergy.org/publications/3040.asp
In addition, bituminous and sub-bituminous coal produce almost the same amount of carbon dioxide on an energy basis. Bituminous is actually slightly lower. From the EIA
http://www.eia.gov/coal/production/quarterly/co2_article/co2.html
In any event people that manage power plants definitely prefer the higher energy-density bituminous coal, other things being equal.
My guess also is that Wyoming coal miners would be effectively competing with Australian and Indonesian coal miners in the Chinese market, rather than directly with Chinese coal miners. And I think the competition would be on price rather than on quality. In particular, I believe that Indonesian coal beats us in the ultra-low sulfur markets
Dave
Anyone who advocates spending a dime to reduce GHG emissions is by definition either poorly informed, promoting a personal agenda, or (most likely) both. Roth is no exception. Thanks for the heads-up about the coal mistakes.
That said, the US West is slowly improving its rail/port infrastructure to support the export of Wyoming coal – despite virulent opposition from environmental groups.
Hi Dave, thanks for this info
Roy Spencer said:
“satellite radiative budget measurements which suggest that more intense El Nino activity since the 1980s caused an apparent decrease in cloudiness, which allowed more sunlight into the climate system,”
My interpretation would be that high solar activity caused more zonal / poleward jets which reduced global cloudiness, allowed more sunlight into the system and enhanced El Nino relative to La Nina.
That interpretation accommodates more actual observations than does Roy’s.
“To reduce global greenhouse gas emissions in a less costly manner, America could assist China and India develop shale gas from hydrofracturing and build natural-gas fired plants to reduce their reliance on coal.”
_____
In the mean time, America could export more natural gas if restrictions were eased. Sure, rising export demand would mean higher domestic prices for gas, but that’s the way a free market is supposed to work.
Max you take the cake for hare brained ideas borne of ignorance or personal greed. Fracking comes with unavoidable negative consequences like all forms of mining and drilling. Cheaper electricity in the United States is good for the United States. It raises living standards in the US and makes US businesses, especially manufacturing, better positioned against foreign competitors. Enduring the inevitable public aquifer pollution that comes with drilling including fracking (from accidents, shoddy work, or otherwise) can only be justified by a greater public good and that means not shipping natural gas out of the country.
It’s a pretty radical version of free markets, by the way, which doesn’t recognize national security needs. We don’t have free markets in weapons systems, super computers, and a large number of other items deemed dangerous in the wrong hands. Food, water, and energy are also critical components of national security. These are also not entirely free markets.
Dave – do you have any evidence of aquifer contamination from fracking? It has been done since the 50’s. There are some natural seeps of nat gas in Pennsylvania and some other places, but IIRC, I have heard of only one case from fracking.
Contamination of ground water is possible around any drill hole. Even a water well needs a casing so that local sources of contamination such as septic systems doesn’t get into the well hole. Casings sometimes have flaws. The more casings the more chance of flaws. Some nasty chemicals are used in fracking and above ground waste ponds are used for containment. Accidents and flaws happen above ground too. The more activity the more chance of it happening. Just like drilling for oil off the coast, shipping oil in big tankers… accidents happen. The more activity the greater the chance of accidents. That isn’t a complicated or disputable concept.
Dave – I am not asking about potential. I’m asking for evidence it has happened. Many thousands of wells have been drilled through the water table. If it is happening, it should be evident.
Fracking isn’t particularly new. Horizontal drilling is more recent. What’s recent is lower cost and greater incentive to do both. Horizontal drilling multiplies the potential for inadvertant intrusion into an aquifer. Drilling straight down you know exactly where an aquifer is because you pass through it and hopefully you flawlessly case the borehole. It isn’t always flawless even with vertical boreholes. Horizontal drilling you don’t know for sure where you are in relation to any aquifer. You think you’re underneath it but can’t be sure nor can you be sure that fissures, existing or created by explosive fracturing of the strata, aren’t connecting to an aquifer with a horizontal borehole.
The shale is where the hole goes horizontal. The shale is thousands of feet below the water table and the initial hole, the part that penetrates the water table, it vertical. The chemicals used in shale fracking are food grade. I used to be an oilfield chemist, so I do know that conventional wells are sometimes fracked with harsher chemicals, but the shale gas drillers are very aware of the adverse and undeserved publicity and have taken steps to ameliorate the risk. That being said, risk always exists, but in this case it is very small.
Also, well logging tells you where water is, if you didn’t already know.
Sure. Start here:
Anthropogenic Groundwater Contamination in Texas Aquifers Volume I:
http://www.twdb.state.tx.us/publications/reports/contracted_reports/doc/1004831126_gwcontamination.pdf
In general there arelinks to a great deal of information here:
http://www.tgpc.state.tx.us/Contamination.php
Jim2
Would you bet your life that no aquifer contamination will happen from from increased drilling activities? Or are you just willing to bet someone else’s life?
Dave – If you look at that first document, there are lots of other activities that are riskier than fracking. I take the same chances as we all do. The answer is yes, I am willing to take the chance. I take bigger chances every time I drive my car.
To put a finer point on it, Dave, unlike the Barts of this world, I appreciate the lifestyle afforded fundamentally by cheap energy. I don’t have to spend my day killing game, rolling rock furniture into the cave, or getting eaten by something higher on the food chain. The infrastructure, goods, and services that we in the US enjoy are there only due to fossil fuels and our own ingenuity. Without cheap energy, we’d still be living in shacks and dying at the age of 30. For me, taking the risk of some inevitable pollution is more than worth it. I am more than willing to make those trade-offs. If someone else isn’t, let them go find a nice jungle to live in and see how long it takes them to come back. It would probably be a matter of day for most people, especially the liberal whiners.
Since Bart Rs of this world are minarchists, jim2, you may be confusing whiners.
Well, I was looking for Sycamore Valley turn of the century(19th-20th) fracking with nitroglycerin and the wondrous way wagon and intersection could both disappear at once, but you’ll have to settle for Sin in the Valley.
The most prevalent sin was in business deals. Seven rows of corn went to the landlord and 14 rows belonged to the renter. The landlord always got the rows next to the hedgerow as they were stunted. Sam McEvers told me “You had better give the renter a good deal or he will take it anyway.”
H/t William C. Burke.
==============================
Willard – I judge Bart R. by what he says, since I don’t know what he does, and not by what label you append to him or he to himself.
Sure, jim2, and that’s why I’m telling you you are confusing your labels.
Bart R has nothing to do with the liberal windmills of your mind.
That’s not what I get from what he writes, Willard. Sorry.
No worries, jim2. As Bart R would say: READ HARDER.
jim2 | July 19, 2013 at 2:28 pm |
The number one, archetypal, Classic Liberal policy is “Cheap Energy” by state subsidy, gifts, favors and winking at the business interests behind the type of energy that most serves the state’s interests.
It’s hard to take seriously someone who is completely fallen to worship at the altar of cheap energy and yet complains of the liberalism of others.
But for what it’s worth, sure, I’ll support a liberal policy. Or a conservative one. Democrat. Republican. Green. Orange. Left. Right. I don’t care.
So long as it’s the one that leads to minimal government and minimal cost to the Market without violating the Constitution or being patently morally depraved, why not? What business is it of mine what policy someone makes that doesn’t affect me? It’s when the policy grows government heedlessly or interferes in the Market needlessly I’m offended.
I found Nutter and Roth to be typical “OMG we have to spend money and lets spend it where and how I suggest” types. Mildly offensive given far more and greater spending priorities. Spencer was the most reasonable which is no great surprise. But of all the congressional testimony this year by far the best has been Bjorn Lomborg.
Dr. Curry,
Murphy’s testimony contains useful links to both OMB Circular A-4 and the related Primer on Regulatory Impact Analysis. Step 9 of the latter document provides instruction to US Federal regulatory agencies on how to address uncertainty in their regulatory analyses. Your readers may find the instruction interesting:
****
Step 9: Characterize uncertainty in benefits, costs, and net benefits
Regulatory analysis requires forecasts about the future. What the future holds, both in the baseline and under the regulatory alternative under consideration, is typically not known for certain. The important uncertainties connected with the regulatory decision should be analyzed and presented as part of the overall regulatory analysis. The goal of the agency’s uncertainty analysis is to present both a central “best estimate,” which reflects the expected value of the benefits and costs of the rule, as well as a description of the ranges of plausible values for benefits, costs, and net benefits, which informs decision-makers and the public of the degree of uncertainty associated with the regulatory decision.
In developing an uncertainty analysis, agencies should follow these steps:
Specify potential scenarios. As a first step, the agency should specify a set of plausible, mutually exclusive scenarios for both the baseline and for each regulatory alternative. Each scenario represents a complete description of a state of the world, including its evolution through time, that could arise. The goal is to specify scenarios that cover the full range of how the benefits and costs of the rule might vary. Typically this is done by specifying the set of factors that affect the benefits and costs of the regulatory alternatives.
Calculate the benefits and costs associated with each scenario. Once the set of plausible scenarios has been specified, the agency can calculate the benefits and costs associated with each scenario. At this stage, the agency has all of the information it needs to conduct a sensitivity analysis. A sensitivity analysis examines how the benefits and costs of the rule change with key uncertain variables.
Construct a range of values. When the agency cannot specify probabilities for the relevant scenarios, the agency should develop a central scenario for the baseline and for each regulatory alternative that reflects the agency’s best estimate of the likely consequences of each regulatory alternative. The agency should use the benefits and costs of these best estimates to approximate the expected value of the benefits and costs of each regulatory alternative to use in its regulatory decision-making. The agency should also characterize ranges of plausible benefits, costs, and net benefits of each regulatory alternative. The goal is not to characterize the full range of possible outcomes, which may turn out to be extremely large, but rather the range of plausible outcomes as in a confidence interval. The agency must use its judgment on the range of scenarios that such ranges should reflect. At a minimum, the range should include a “high” and a “low” scenario that provide plausible upper and lower bounds.
The approach to constructing a range outlined above should be thought of as the minimal analysis that agencies should conduct. When feasible, agencies should also:
Assign probabilities and calculate expected values. Having specified the set of plausible scenarios, the benefits and costs associated with each scenario, and the probabilities of each scenario, the agency should calculate expected values of the benefits and costs for each regulatory alternative. In these cases, where probability distributions can be assigned to each scenario, the agency should conduct a formal uncertainty analysis in which it characterizes the distributions of benefits, costs, and net benefits.
Circular A-4 requires formal quantitative analysis of uncertainty for rules that exceed the $1 billion annual threshold in benefits or costs.
****
I hope this is useful.
Regards,
MK
Pingback: US Senate hearing on climate change
If you get around to a piece on ocean acidification, there was some fascinating research on the impact of fish on maintaining oceanic pH balance, with the logical imputation that massive overfishing as we have seen in the past century may be having a much bigger impact on ocean acidity than CO2. I mentioned it in the “Air Con” kindle version.
http://www.investigatemagazine.co.nz/Investigate/2641/ocean-acidification-climate-change-fears-overblown-studies-show/
Thanks for this link
Rud Istvan, writing of the inimitable Joshua says : “Not to mention your ongoing personal disrespect of Dr. Curry, a contemptible personal style.”
Contemptible is exactly the right word. I’d also add arrogant, sneering, and vapid. HIs nasty, wormy tone has bothered me from day 1.
No kidding. +1
The majority of China’s coal (54 percent) is bituminous, which has a carbon content ranging from 45 to 86 percent.12 On the other hand, 47 percent of the U.S.’s coal, a plurality, is subbituminous, which contains a carbon content of only 35 to 45 percent.13
Someone needs to inform this person that carbon content per ton of coal doesn’t determine how much CO2 will be emitted by a power plant.
Carbon content per BTU and more precisely per KW generated determines how much CO2 will be emitted.
Powder RIver basin coal does indeed have a low carbon content, it also has a low BTU content which means power plants have to burn more of it to produce the same amount of electricity.
Joshua | July 18, 2013 at 11:26 pm |
In typically dishonest fashion Joshua Brooks cuts Spencer off in mid-sentence to make it seem Roy said something different.
Here is all of what Spencer said. My emphasis. Joshua quoted only the part preceding the word I bolded.
“Skeptics generally are skeptical of the view that recent warming is all human-caused, and/or that it is of a sufficient magnitude to warrant immediate action given the cost of energy policies to the poor. They do not claim humans have no impact on climate whatsoever.”
What Joshua Brooks did is dishonest. Plain and simple. A willful lie of omission. I’m at a loss for words that would survive moderation to describe how loathesome is Joshua Brooks’ behavior.
Rob Starkey | July 19, 2013 at 10:34 am | Reply
“Personally I tend to not read Joshua’s comments much any more since he generally seems to like to comment on things that relate to how people feel or believe about climate change and I tend to not care about that. In this case I happened to read VTG’s comments and read the comments above.”
Yeah well I happen to admire Roy Spencer as a person and as a scientist and when an anonymous dirtbag like Joshua Brooks trashes Roy it brings out the mean spirit in me.
It would be very interesting if more skeptics used Spencer’s approach of occupying the consensus. This was something I suggested to them a few years back on WUWT. Even if they didnt necessarily believe that they were a part of the consensus. What this does, over time, is change the focus of the debate to what the consensus is, rather than whether it exists or whether it has any epistemic weight.
Put another way, when Spenser argues from a position inside the consensus he takes away certain deligitimizing tactics from his critics, and he also, just by making that move, forces some of them to do boundary work. That boundary work on Roy is something folks would rather do in private. Forcing them to do that work in public, as they have have had to do with Judith, exposes the underlying social construction of the consensus. By agreeing that he is part of the consensus, rather than fighting the concept head on, Roy occupies and undermines it. Further, occupying the consensus means you must give up certain positions: you have to give up the “hoax” position for example. You have to give up the whole watermelon line of attack, in short, when you occupy the consensus you get to walk away from all the vile arguments about politics.
Steven, you write “It would be very interesting if more skeptics used Spencer’s approach of occupying the consensus.”
I dont know if I qualify, but I have stated many times that CAGW is a very plausible hypothesis. Does that make me part of the consensus? HOWEVER, and it is an enormous HOWEVER.
No-one has measured climate sensitivity, and at the moment, it is beyond our technical capability to measure climate sensitivity. Without this measurement, and the inevitable +/- accuracy, we have no idea what the accuracy of the hypothetical estimates are, or whether they are any more than just guesses. This means that the IPCC claims of things about CAGW being “extremely likley” or “very likely”: are complete and utter garbage. http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch9s9-7.html
And your nonsense that there is no categorical differenc between measurements and estimations merely muddies the waters, without adding an iota of science to the diacussion..
“And your nonsense that there is no categorical differenc between measurements and estimations merely muddies the waters, without adding an iota of science to the diacussion..”
Ask yourself this. Why does it matter that sensitivity hasnt been measured?
is it because we can only know what we measure?
is it because you only believe what you can measure?
The question is what is SPECIAL about measuring?
or more specifically what is special about measuring as opposed to estimating?
There is no catagorical difference between measuring and estimating. By that I mean something very simple.
1. Both measurments and estimates come with errors
2. both measurements and estimates rely on assumptions.
3. both measurements and estimates can be wrong.
So, if you merely appeal to the fact that something isnt measured, you havent really said anything of interest or importance. Why? well because what matters is the amount of error, the number of assumptions, and the lack of certainty in both.
To be sure, measurements are always better to have than estimates.
And to be sure we take measurments in different ways than we make estimates. There are differences, but none of these differences addresses the real issue: how accurate is our knowledge, how reliable is our knowledge. MERELY NOTING “this isnt measured’ TELLS YOU NOTHING about the accuracy of the estimate or the reliability of the estimate. As I’ve pointed out to you. The BETTER argument is to discuss the accuracy and to discuss the reliability rather than trying to assert that we know nothing unless we measure.
When you just assert “this isnt measured” you actually havent made a point.
Jim C writes- “This means that the IPCC claims of things about CAGW being “extremely likley” or “very likely”: are complete and utter garbage.”
On that point I would tend to agree. Regarding measurements vs estimates the debate seems pointless. The issue is the relative reliable accuracy of the result. In regards to TCS and CO2 the number is time dependent and ranges greatly depending on other conditions. If you ask Mosher what it will be for the next 20 years see what answer you will get.
Rob, you write “The issue is the relative reliable accuracy of the result.”
I agree completely, and that is what the issue is all about. The debate about measurements and estimates is NOT pointless. It is very much THE point. If you make a measurement, you autimatically get a +/-; the uncertainty is certain. You know how accurately you have made the measurement. This is Physics 101. Estimates are categorically different. When you make an estimate of something that has NEVER been measured, as is the case of climate sensitivity, you are in cloud cuckoo land. You have absolutely no idea what the numbers mean, whether they are merely guesses. Nor have you any idea whatsoever how accurate the estimates are. In the case of climate sensitivity, the numbers could be anywhere from 0.0001 C to 10 C for a doubling of CO2.
Steven, I have discussed this with you for a long time. I think I am right in saying that I have completed Physics 101 Practical Labs. I dont think you have. That is all I have to say.
Steve Mosher, I suspect you are grasping for straws in your unproductive discussion with Jim. You are correct that measurements and estimates both have errors, but one is given by nature, the other by the scientist.
Remember Max Planck – ” “An experiment is a question which science poses to Nature and a measurement is the recording of Nature’s answer.”
Jim
Mosher seems to playing a bit of a word game with you and that is why imo it is a pointless exchange. If you think about it the relative accuracy of either a measurement or an estimate depends upon the basis upon which it was formed. There are estimates that are more accurate than the same thing that was measured.
Mosher believes in a greater climate sensitivity to CO2 than I think is likely and seems to continue considering the outputs of models that have shown results that are quite inaccurate. The ladder I do not understand. On this issue he is correct however. You are fighting a losing battle. In all comes down to the specifics.
That is why I asked Mosher (and others) to state what they believe the observed sensitivity to increased CO2 will be over the next 20 years. I’d expect his answer would be- between 0 and .3 C. Which really tells you next to nothing about whether there is a problem does it?
“I dont know if I qualify, but I stated many times that CAGW is a very plausible hypothesis. Does that make me part of the consensus? HOWEVER, and it is an enormous HOWEVER.”
You are missing the point. You are asking if you qualify. This ASSUMES that the consensus is well defined and that the answer can be given.
I am telling you something different. Watch what Roy does. First he claims membership: “I belong” and then he defines what it means to belong to the consensus. He occupies to control the definition.
In your approach, you assume that there are strict membership rules and ask the question “do I belong?” That question pre supposes rules for belonging. Like asking “Am I a Veteran?” and there we could say
” all veterans have served in war, you have served in war, you are a vet” But, with the climate change consensus there is no clear set of rules for belonging.
Given that there are no clear rules for belonging, you can address that in two ways. You can say “there is no consensus” and then folks will argue and say there is, OR you can assert you belong and define what you think the consensus is. For example, you can occupy the consensus and argue that only people who deny that C02 is a GHG are outside the consensus.
So what is the difference between arguing that there is no consensus and occupying the consensus and defining what it is? let me give you an analogy.
Suppose an American tried to convince you that Canadians believed X.. you might question his authority to speak for canada or just ignore him. He has no authority to speak. Suppose a man told you he was a canadian and that he believed X. What are your options if you dont believe him? deny that he is a true canadian? Now, if you have any loyalty to other canadians you might think twice about attacking another canadian.. It puts you in a bind. Witness what happened to Judith when she invited mcIntyre to speak at georgia Tech. She invited an undocumented citizen into the tribe. That put her on the margin, a liminal creature.
This also explains why talking about CAGW is not a very interesting approach. You dont get to redefine a group from the outside. For example, as an american if I told you that only people living in quebec where ‘real’ canadians, you’d laugh at that. The only hope you have of defining, controlling, shaping, changing, what it means to be a canadian is to actually be a citizen.
As it stands the climate change consensus has weak immigration laws. Im suggesting that skeptics would do better by jumping the fence and voting in the elections.
Rob, you write “There are estimates that are more accurate than the same thing that was measured.”
I defy you to give me an example of this, where the quantity being estimated has NEVER been measured.
I can estimate the length of this argument.
================================
Mosher – so when a car parts manufacturer is making a mold for, say, an interior door panel; they send in a guy who carves one out of clay, then they use that to produce the panels. To be clear, he just estimates what he thinks the shape is, rather than measures it to fit the car door.
When or if you went to a tailor, do you ask him to just look at you and make your $400 suit? Or, do you let him measure you?
Really, Mosher, these sorts of ramblings make you look really stupid.
Steve most accurately describes many of the advantages of being inside the tent and pissing out, rather than outside pissing in, something the consensus would do well to consider, as they would benefit almost as much as those individuals claiming refuge within the confines of respectability. However, without also analyzing the consensus ability to define skepticism and utilize the denier label, his exegisis falls somewhat short. Steven?
The way I heard it two GIs were having a few beers and a pick-up bridge game with a coupla Army nurses when one of the guys excused himself and went outside to piss. As the splattering sounds penetrated the walls, the pisser’s partner said ‘That’s the first time all night I’ve known what’s in his hand’.
==================
Translation: “Here’s what my political opponents should do to help me in their defeat…”
or
Topic Suggestion: Why Skeptics Should Do What Warmers Want.
Andrew
I too skip Joshua and suggest he practice courtesy and fair quotes of snippets from other commentaters.
Scott
Allow me to complement yet another Climate Etc. denizen for a display of truly spectacular logic. There are many other places in the blogosphere where such logic can be found, but I have to think that its prevalence here must be among the highest.
Here’s the SPM claim:
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/spmsspm-understanding-and.html
This was the consensus claim that was being tested by Cook & al. Therefore, Roy Spencer’s claim that
> It should also be noted that the fact that I believe at least some of recent warming is human-caused places me in the 97% of researchers recently claimed to support the global warming consensus (actually, it’s 97% of the published papers, Cook et al., 2013).
is therefore false.
But very clever indeed.
***
The emphasized parenthesis is also incorrect in many ways.
First , it’s 97% of the ABSTRACTS.
Second, it’s 97% of the ABSTRACTS published between 1991 and 2011 matching the topics ‘global climate change’ or ‘global warming’
Third, it’s 97% of the ABSTRACTS that take a position on AGW.
These three missing bit of information come from the very first sentence of the ABSTRACT from Cook et al 2013:
http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/8/2/024024/article
Fourth, this selection comes from Web of Science, a more conservative portal than the liberal Scopus or the libertarian Citeseer.
***
There are other bogus claims in Roy Spencer’s quote, but this should be enough to see that Joshua might have a point. This should be enough to make auditors wonder if the Denizen’s have anything else against his point than concerns about his tone or his person.
We are nevertheless thankful for these concerns,
Due diligence,
w
Hi Willard….Chief used the word “effectively,” as in …”ascribes effectively all recent warming….”
“Effectively” in this case means, “in effect,” or “practically speaking.”
Thius, your request for citations and quotes seems…well….let’s just say ill considered.
pokerguy,
However ill considered you might consider requesting a citation and a quote that inspired a paraphrase, that’s still what I request.
Either Chief’s interpretation rests on textual evidence, or not.
Thanks for a very informative overview of the hearing, Judith.
One thing that caught my eye was the first response of the insurance industry, Frank Nutter:
The insurance company makes big, big money out of insurance, and more power to them. However, that means that
1) The more they can scare you, the more money they make, and
2) The less they pay out, the money they make.
The first fact has made the insurance industry the natural allies of climate alarmists. What could be better for an insurance company than to have a bunch of folks going around warning about every climate calamity under the sun, floods, droughts, too much hot weather, too much cold weather, when James Hansen speaks, the insurance companies profits increase.
So to have someone with a huge financial interest speaking in the same forum as scientists? Sorry, but that’s just a joke. He is there to promote alarmism.
However, he’d prefer not to have to pay as much when the inevitable happens and the next weather calamity occurs. So what does he recommend?
This is pure genius. The taxpayer is supposed to pick up the tab for strengthening the houses, with the result that when the calamity occurs the insurance companies make more money because .
Now, of course they won’t reduce their rates, heck, they can’t do that, there’s a total global thermal meltdown sea level rise drought flood just around the corner, and they have to raise their prices appropriately …
So Judith, when you say that:
I fear that you need to be much more suspicious of the nutter in the group, he’s crazy like a fox.
The insurance companies have already made billions of dollars from the fears generated by the alarmists, and stand to make billions more. They saw the opportunity early, particularly Munich Re, and since the first days they have been shameless apologists for and promoters of bad science, and climate alarmists of the most underhanded kind. They are brilliant, as this example shows, at crafting perfectly reasonable sounding arguments to cram more money into their pockets, absolute geniuses at deceiving people like that.
I mean for example, you seem to think Mr. Nutter’s shamelessly self-serving ideas on how to increase his profits are reasonable suggestions for how to respond to a non-crisis …
w.
Second this.
The Economist claims to have been given a sneak peak of the next set of projections. Amazingly, it’s not “worse than we thought.” In fact it’s better than we thought
http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21581979-peek-inside-next-ipcc-assessment-sensitive-information
Of course the IPCC is a political animal. What’s going on in politics that could make a lower-level of concern more palatable? The Economist again: http://www.economist.com/news/business/21582018-sustainable-energy-meets-unsustainable-costs-cost-del-sol
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I agree with Roger Pielke Jr and Roy Spencer otherwise, but I do not understand why they still are persisted in the belief that anthropogenic CO2 emissions could have some kind of essential (although small) role in global warming.
As I understand, Pielke Jr states that until now there has not been found any proper evidence for extreme weather events influenced by anthropogenic warming. However, he even does not seem to exclude the kind of eventual evidences in the future as a consequence of anthropogenic CO2 emissions:
Roger Pielke Jr:
”It is misleading, and just plain incorrect, to claim that disasters associated with hurricanes, tornadoes, floods or droughts have increased on climate timescales either in the United States or globally. It is further incorrect to associate the increasing costs of disasters with the emission of greenhouse gases.
– – –
A considerable body of research projects that various extremes may become more frequent and/or intense in the future as a direct consequence of the human emission of carbon dioxide.
Our research, and that of others, suggests that assuming that these projections are accurate, it will be many decades, perhaps longer, before the signal of human-caused climate change can be detected in the statistics of hurricanes (and to the extent that statistical properties are similar, in floods, tornadoes, drought).”
Roy Spencer:
”Thus, the evidence that humans are mostly responsible for either recent warmth or severe weather changes (if such changes exist at all) is equivocal, at best.”
He points attention to the climate sensitivity that is smaller than the earlier determined:
”Our most recent peer-reviewed paper on this subject, Spencer & Braswell (2013),
has arrived at a climate sensitivity of only 1.3 deg. C for a doubling of atmospheric carbon
dioxide, based upon a variety of global measurements, including warming of the global
oceans since the 1950s. This level of warming is below the lower limit of 1.5 deg. C
minimum predicted in the last (AR4) IPCC report.”
As you calculate the anthropogenic share of 4 % in this 1.3 deg. C, you should understand why any influence of anthropogenic CO2 emissions on warming cannot be empirically proved. And, as Jim Cripwell states, even ‘the total climate sensitivity is indistinguishable from zero’. This is because an increase of global CO2 content in atmosphere follows warming and not vice versa. Look e.g. at my comment http://judithcurry.com/2013/07/15/agw-skeptics-in-the-professional-community/#comment-345828 .
There are numerous things to comment on but first and foremost to me is lack of science and ignorance of the state of temperature history. A number of presenters, Heidi Cullen among them, made a big deal of the occurrence of extreme events, now that they no longer can speak of temperature rise. I was impressed by the way Roger Pielke Jr. put them down and set the record straight. He himself is a believer but he wants to play by the rules of science. Temperature history is not a trivial thing if the occurrence of record warm years is brought into play by senator Whitehouse and others. He had the twelve warmest years since 1880 occurring after 1998. This is true of course but the meaning is distorted because they expect the default explanation, AGW, to be automatic. It just aint so. If they had read my book [1] they would know that greenhouse warming had nothing to do with creating that warm platform. My analysis was based upon the satellite temperature measurements, the only ones that take account of the whole world. The satellite data begin with 1979. I discovered first that there was no warming from that point on till the appearance of the giant super El Nino of 1998. There were five El Nino peaks in that interval but in between the peaks global average temperature stayed the same. That super El Nino peak was twice as high as the others before it. In its wake came a step warming caused by the large amount of warm water it had carried across the ocean. The source of this warm water was the Indo-Pacific Warm Pool as it is for all El Nino peaks. The step warming raised global temperature by a third of a degree Celsius in approximately three years and then stopped. It was oceanic in origin and had nothing to do with greenhouse warming. But as a result of the warm plateau it established all the years of the twenty-first century are warmer than the eighties and nineties that preceded. But while they are warm, there is no additional warming going on. Hansen noticed this warmth and remarked that nine out of ten warmest years happened after 2000. Again correct, but like everyone else, he attributed it to greenhouse warming which is physically impossible. Just to make it clear, laws of physics demand that to start a greenhouse warming you must simultaneously increase the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. This did not happen when the step warming took place. As a matter of fact, looking at the carbon dioxide record from Mauna Loa and its extensions by ice core studies we find that within the last 100 years there have been no sudden changes in the atmospheric carbon dioxide level that could qualify as warming starters. This means that the warming that started suddenly in 1910 cannot be included as part of the global warming as the activists would like to claim. Nor does the short warming period that accompanied the PDO shift from cool to warm phase in 1976 qualify for that. With that, we have eliminated any possibility that any warming that began after the start of the twentieth century can be greenhouse warming. It’s simply laws of physics at work. Now let’s look at the works of Man. After I determined that according to satellites there was no warming before the super El Nino arrived I found that in ground-based curves the eighties and nineties were dedicated to a steady warming called the “late twentieth century warming.” I considered it fake and said so in my book but nothing happened for two years. But suddenly last fall I discovered that GISTEMP, HadCRUT, and NCDC had all given up this fake warming and aligned their eighties and nineties with satellites. It was done secretly and no explanation was given. Great, I thought, now the opposition to publishing real temperature has disappeared. The temperature record for the satellite era now looks like this. From 1979 to the first half of 1997 there is no warming. ENSO oscillations are active but they move around a constant global mean temperature. Add to this another no-warming period for the observable part of the twenty-first century. This leaves just a narrow window between them, just enough to accommodate the super El Nino and its step warming. And no room left over for any greenhouse warming! This means 34 greenhouse-free years so far and counting. Knowing this, what are the chances that any warming before 1979 was greenhouse warming? Not very good I would say. Consider that we already disproved the possibility of early century warming being a greenhouse warming. All this would have been clear to anyone studying my book carefully but there is no sign that even one “expert” at this meeting was aware of its existence. It was and still is ahead of current climate science. Half of it can not be found anywhere else. An example is Arctic warming about which I had a short section. When further confirming evidence came out I expanded it into a journal article of which this crowd seems still ignorant of, judging by what they say about Arctic warming. And those are the ones who get to talk to the Senate.
[1] Arno Arrak, “What Warming? Satellite view of global temperature change.” (CreateSpace 2010)
Steven Mosher says, “It would be very interesting if more skeptics used Spencer’s approach of occupying the consensus… …What this does, over time, is change the focus of the debate to what the consensus is, rather than whether it exists or whether it has any epistemic weight.
Put another way, when Spenser argues from a position inside the consensus he takes away certain deligitimizing tactics from his critics…. …By agreeing that he is part of the consensus, rather than fighting the concept head on, Roy occupies and undermines it.”
I think Steven Mosher has something important here. I think there is a ‘Consensus Problem’. Perhaps the way to deal with it is to demphasize it and then try to effect it in perhaps more subtle ways. We hope to see the Consensus shift our way as we learn more about the climate. But do we expect the overt act by current climate scientists of leaving their consensus (admitting that definition is a very difficult one)? I’d bet some are hesistant to do that. So perhaps Spenser looks like the good guy here, and he may gain some support if he includes himself with the Consensus. Is Steve Mosher saying it’s about being effective? Many things are like that.
Nesting awry? Replying to kim @ 19/7 10.30pm.
Bts
Maybe it would help if willard watched John Cook speak. There are videos available.
===========
He would have to take time away from his hobby of squirrel catch and release.
Addding to what I said about Steven Mosher’s comment on Spencer and the Consensus. One approach is binary. Yes, No. True, False. We like it when things are like that. It seems there is the Consensus, whatever that is, and Skeptics. Do we look at this as a binary situation? We can. Them and Us. But Them have shades of Grey, as do Us. I think we are after those binary answers with regards Global Warming, but it might take us awhile to get them. If we are trying to get to our answers sooner, what type of group dynamics do we think is best for that? Binary? When I see binary group dynamics I see Loyalty to the groups apparent positions, when perhaps it should be to the advancement of the Science. If a Scientist says they are part of the Consensus there may be some tangible result as the Consensus stops looking so critically at that Scientist, and maybe even looks 180 degrees in the other direction to see if there are any outliers on that side.
> Well no I didn’t […].
Here you go, Chief:
http://judithcurry.com/2013/07/18/u-s-senate-hearing-climate-change-its-happening-now/#comment-348287
Vintage July 21, 2013 at 2:07 am.
Since this “we” was in the context of Roy’s beliefs, it sounded more like a majestic We (i.e. Chief speaking for his Denizens subjects, including Roy) than an academic “we,” which refers to the author.
***
> [N]or did Roy[.]
Saying “at least some” is not enough to endorse the AGW hypothesis. Its trutiness lies in the fact that Roy did raise concerns about AGW in his publications.
That Chief plays dumb on a blog is to par for his course. That Roy plays dumb “under oath”, as auditors are wont to say, is a more important matter.
Have we lost a raft of pointless comment. The essential point is that the Cook methodology did not use wee willie’s definition of consensus.
Not my definition, Chief. Just a description one can find in Cook & al. Parsomatics over one sentence lead nowhere.
The essential point is that Roy Spencer misled Congress.
Under oath.
You will find that the descriptions of endorsement in the methodology include unquantified and implicit endorsement. So how much of the 97% of the 36% – the percentage of the 12,000 saying anything at all about global warming in the abstract – were in the unquantified or implicit categories? Not stated. So how many didn’t endorse wee willies consensus? Cannot know.
It is all absurd. AGW seems hardly science at all. How do you characterize this for instance?
‘Following Lorenz’s seminal work on chaos theory in the 1960s, probabilistic approaches to prediction have come to dominate the science of weather and climate forecasting. This paper gives a perspective on Lorenz’s work and how it has influenced the ways in which we seek to represent uncertainty in forecasts on all lead times from hours to decades. It looks at how model uncertainty has been represented in probabilistic prediction systems and considers the challenges posed by a changing climate. Finally, the paper considers how the uncertainty in projections of climate change can be addressed to deliver more reliable and confident assessments that support decision-making on adaptation and mitigation.’
I suppose it is implicit endorsement. But it is not about AGW but the new paradigm of abrupt climate change.
There are many others and the attempt to shoehorn science into a simplistic and quite misguided framework is ludicrous.
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