by Judith Curry
“Arctic temperature anomalies in the 1930s were apparently as large as those in the 1990s and 2000s. There is still considerable discussion of the ultimate causes of the warm temperature anomalies that occurred in the Arctic in the 1920s and 1930s.” – IPCC AR5 Chapter 10
Readers of CE were introduced to the early 20th century Arctic warming in a post Mid 20th Century Global(?) Warming, with this figure from Polyakov et al 2003) shows a time series of surface land temperature in the Arctic from 1875-2000. The numbers above the abscissa show the number of stations used in the compilation. The graph shows a gradually rising surface temperature trend over the 105 years of the temperature record but the dominant feature is the nearly 2C (trough to ridge) warming from about 1920 to 1940, followed by a decline bottoming out in the mid-1960s. At that stage the temperature trends upward to almost the same level as the previous peak.
A subsequent post by Tony Brown entitled Historic variations in Arctic sea ice Part II: 1920-1950 provided anecdotal historical evidence of Arctic warmth during this period.
This early century Arctic warming has long fascinated me, and I have been collecting material for a new post on this topic.
Tamino
The particular impetus for posting on this topic at this time was a recent post by Tamino in response to my recent Senate testimony entitled (One of) the Problem(s) with Judith Curry. Tamino objects specifically to this text in my testimony:
Further, Arctic surface temperature anomalies in the 1930’s were as large as the recent temperature anomalies. Notwithstanding the simulations by climate models that reproduce the decline in Arctic sea ice, more convincing arguments regarding causes of sea ice variations requires understanding and ability to simulate sea ice variations in both hemispheres.
A key issue in understanding the recent decline in Arctic sea ice extent is to understand to what extent the decline is caused by anthropogenic warming versus natural climate variability.
Read Tamino’s post for his arguments. He concludes:
I think the IPCC goofed on this one — big-time — and if so, then Curry’s essential argument about Arctic sea ice is out the window.
I’ve studied the data. Not only does it fail to support the claim about 1930s Arctic temperatures, it actually contradicts that claim. By a wide margin. It ain’t even close.
What’s not hyperbole is how it looks to me: that Judith Curry cannot have studied the available data to draw that conclusion because the available data contradict it, that Judith Curry cannot have studied the supporting references because they don’t support it, and that if she believes it “because the IPCC report says so” then it’s obvious she’ll take the IPCC report’s word for what she wants to believe but not for what she doesn’t want to believe.
IPCC
Here is what the IPCC AR4 had to say about the early 20th century warming in the Arctic:
A slightly longer warm period [compared to the present], almost as warm as the present, was observed from the late 1920s to the early 1950s. Although data coverage was limited in the first half of the 20th century, the spatial pattern of the earlier warm period appears to have been different from that of the current warmth. In particular, the current warmth is partly linked to the Northern Annular Mode (NAM; see Section 3.6.4) and affects a broader region (Polyakov et al., 2003) (Chapter 3.2.2.4)
Here is what the IPCC AR5 has to say about the early 20th century warming in the Arctic in Chapter 10. The Executive Summary for Chapter 10 makes this statement:
It is likely that there has been an anthropogenic contribution to the very substantial Arctic warming over the past 50 years.
JC note: this is to be compared with ‘more than half’, ‘extremely likely’ for the overall attribution statement.
From the main text of Chapter 10 (JC bold):
Gillett et al. (2008b) detect anthropogenic influence on near-surface Arctic temperatures over land, with a consistent magnitude in simulations and observations. Wang et al. (2007) also find that observed Arctic warming is inconsistent with simulated internal variability. Both studies ascribe Arctic warmth in the 1930s and 1940s largely to internal variability. Shindell and Faluvegi (2009) infer a large contribution to both midcentury Arctic cooling and late century warming from aerosol forcing changes, with greenhouse gases the dominant driver of long-term warming, though they infer aerosol forcing changes from temperature changes using an inverse approach which may lead to some changes associated with internal variability being attributed to aerosol forcing. We therefore conclude that despite the uncertainties introduced by limited observational coverage, high internal variability, modelling uncertainties (Crook et al., 2011) and poorly understood local forcings, such as the effect of black carbon on snow, there is sufficiently strong evidence to conclude that it is likely that there has been an anthropogenic contribution to the very substantial warming in Arctic land surface temperatures over the past 50 years.
Arctic temperature anomalies in the 1930s were apparently as large as those in the 1990s and 2000s. There is still considerable discussion of the ultimate causes of the warm temperature anomalies that occurred in the Arctic in the 1920s and 1930s (Ahlmann, 1948; Veryard, 1963; Hegerl et al., 2007a; Hegerl et al., 2007b). The early 20th century warm period, while reflected in the hemispheric average air temperature record (Brohan et al., 2006), did not appear consistently in the mid-latitudes nor on the Pacific side of the Arctic (Johannessen et al., 2004; Wood and Overland, 2010). Polyakov et al. (2003) argued that the Arctic air temperature records reflected a natural cycle of about 50–80 years. However, many authors (Bengtsson et al., 2004; Grant et al., 2009; Wood and Overland, 2010; Brönnimann et al., 2012) instead link the 1930s temperatures to internal variability in the North Atlantic atmospheric and ocean circulation as a single episode that was sustained by ocean and sea ice processes in the Arctic and north Atlantic. The Arctic wide temperature increases in the last decade contrast with the episodic regional increases in the early 20th century, suggesting that it is unlikely that recent increases are due to the same primary climate process as the early 20th century.
Turning to model based attribution studies, Min et al. (2008b) compared the seasonal evolution of Arctic sea ice extent from observations with those simulated by multiple GCMs for 1953–2006. Comparing changes in both the amplitude and shape of the annual cycle of the sea ice extent reduces the chance of spurious detection due to coincidental agreement between the response to anthropogenic forcing and other factors, such as slow internal variability. They found that human influence on the sea ice extent changes has been robustly detected since the early 1990s. The anthropogenic signal is also detectable for individual months from May to December, suggesting that human influence, strongest in late summer, now also extends into colder seasons. Kay et al. (2011b), Jahn et al. (2012) and Schweiger et al. (2011) used the climate model (CCSM4) to investigate the influence of anthropogenic forcing on late 20th century and early 21st century Arctic sea ice extent and volume trends. On all timescales examined (2–50+ years), the most extreme negative extent trends observed in the late 20th century cannot be explained by modeled internal variability alone. Comparing trends from the CCSM4 ensemble to observed trends suggests that internal variability could account for approximately half of the observed 1979–2005 September Arctic sea ice extent loss.
JC note: In my essay for Climate Dialogue on the Arctic sea ice decline, I argued that the decline was 50% (+/- 20%) anthropogenic. Mine was the ‘skeptic’ position as opposed to the spiral of death position; looks like the skeptic position is mainstream IPCC!
So, who are the Arctic-knowledgable authors that contributed to AR5 Chapter 10? Names that I spotted on the lead author list are: Igor Mokhov, James Overland.
For context, the statements in my Senate testimony were specifically with regards to statements made by the IPCC AR5 and how they represented a ‘pullback’ relative to the IPCC AR4. The did not represent my own independent assessment. However, I don’t disagree with anything the IPCC AR5 wrote on this topic.
Arctic surface temperature record
Back to the topic that has Tamino in a tizzy: he says the recent temperatures are much warmer than the temperatures circa 1930, and that the IPCC is wrong (and I am wrong because I quoted the IPCC). In the literature, there are a number of different time series plots of Arctic surface temperatures:
- Polyakov et al.: Variability and trends of air temperature and pressure in the Maritime Arctic
- Wood and Overland: Early 20th century Arctic Warming in Retrospect
- Yamanouchi: Early 20th century warming in the Arctic: A review
- Fyfe et al.: One hundred years of Arctic surface temperature variation due to anthropogenic influence
- Johannessen et al.: Arctic climate change: observed and modeled temperature and sea ice variability
- Bekryaev et al.: Role of Polar Amplification in Long-Term Surface Air Temperature Variations and Modern Arctic Warming.
(full manuscripts for all but Yamanouchi are available online at the links)
Update: new references added
- A 2009 study of warming in Greenland by Jason Box et al found that ” The annual whole ice sheet 1919–32 warming trend is 33% greater in magnitude than the 1994–2007 warming.” Link
Some of the plots show the recent temperatures to be comparable to the earlier temperatures; others show current temperatures to be much warmer. The discrepancies to occur owing to the spatial variability of the trends. In particular there is a strong latitudinal trend with the warmest temperature anomalies circa 1930 occurring at latitudes higher than 70N (Bekrayev et al., Yamanouchi) and also in the Atlantic sector (Overland and Wood).
So back to the IPCC AR5 statement:
“Arctic temperature anomalies in the 1930s were apparently as large as those in the 1990s and 2000s”
Well, average temperatures above 70 N during the 1990’s were lower than in the 1930’s. The most recent Arctic temperatures that are published (say for 2005-2010) are higher. The IPCC’s statement is not incorrect, and the citation of the IPCC statement in my Senate testimony has been defended.
JC conclusion
This issue further highlights the importance of doing a better job on the climatology of Arctic surface temperatures; not just in the early part of the 20th century, but there are substantial discrepancies in various climatologies even of the last decade. Two recent posts addressed this issue:
This NASA page that shows the 30s warmer too!
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/ArcticIce/arctic_ice3.php
If one compares the rate of warming, the 30s were faster.
If one compares the peak, the 30s were warmer.
See: http://www.sustainableoregon.com/nasa_graph_omission.html
Jim, please email NASA and tell them that they must be wrong, Tamino says so. Don’t forget to cc Tamino!
Is it too early to call Tamino a denier???
Don’t tell NASA.
they will go back and change them. Correct them?
Scott
GISS has a policy which tends to ensure it gets a generous budget. The end of CC would knock millions from its income – so don’t put ur life on anything it says.
First link doesn’t show the 2000’s. The period Tamino says is warmer than the 30’s. Would help to link to the period that Tamino is talking about.
So why not run a 15 year low pass filter on the data and separate the signal into two bins, Weather (i.e. decadal and below) and Climate (i.e. multi-decadal and above).
I suspect that, if done, it will reveal the true structure of what has been going on. It works on all the other Climate data sources.
Nate Drake PhD would like to suggest that we use a 15 year Savitzky–Golay filter but I’ll settle for a Cascaded Triple Running Mean myself :-)
Source http://snag.gy/hFsMF.jpg
Original ©Nate Drake, enhancement © RLH
http://i879.photobucket.com/albums/ab357/NarwhaleNate/GISS_LOTI_S-G_Filternot-detrended_zps4a8d8e39.jpg
“Filter on NON-detrended GISS LOTI data: …
I ran a 5 pass-multipass with second order polynomials on
15year data windows as per the Savitzky–Golay method.” Nate Drake PhD
http://snag.gy/NDfZw.jpg
http://www.nature.com/news/climate-change-the-case-of-the-missing-heat-1.14525
Same basic structure. Same basic signal. So what does the Arctic look like through the same pair of glasses?
And then why not use a model-based filter — such as CSALT — to remove all the internal variability
http://contextearth.com/2014/01/22/projection-training-intervals-for-csalt-model/
Then we can dispense with all these crude low-pass filters, and apply real physics to the problem. In other words, use the physics of the Stadium Wave, orbital periods, and all the other factors that skeptics are screaming about and actually solve the problem at hand. RichardLH, what you are doing is pussy-footing around the problem.
WHT: I think that only needing two parameters beyond 15 years to explain what we see to date is simple enough for me.
Two parameters, yes.
CO2 level and CO2 effective climate sensitivity.
I do the rest because skeptics need evidence and they want to test their theories, I.e. Stadium Wave, orbital periods, SOI, etc
WHT: No two signals of ~60 year and 100+ year seems to satisfy all of the Climate data to date.
As to why just those two…..
Those are handled by the LOD signal.
Just a scaling amplitude required.
With a 60 year and 100 year, you have two degrees of freedom to pick the period, two more for amplitude, and two more for phase. That’s six parameters to describe a physical phenomena that is measured back to before 1900.
Why do you want to make things so complicated?
WHT: Actually they are expressing the functions 15 to 60 years and 60 years and above, not the precise frequencies as you seem to think.
Very broadband stuff, that the DATA itself has shown, not theory or cycle mania.
The differences in the warming patterns are interesting with the 30s being warmer above 75N and the whole Arctic being close to the same. What is really interesting is how 45N-60N has the highest rate of warming from any period prior to 1951.
It will without doubt have come to your Lordship’s knowledge that a considerable change of climate inexplicable at present to us must have taken place in the Circumpolar Regions, by which the severity of the cold that has for centuries past enclosed the seas in the high northern latitudes in an impenetrable barrier of ice has been during the last two years greatly abated… This, with information of a similar nature derived from other sources; the unusual abundance of ice islands that have during the last two summers been brought by currents from Davies Straights into the Atlantic.
Is the above evidence of GLOBAL WARMING? Yes, but, this is global warming as reported in “a letter from the President of the Royal Society to the British Admiralty” in 1817.
Arctic Reconstruction, graph:
http://www.worldclimatereport.com/wp-images/high_latitude_temps_fig1.JPG
See, http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/2011/03/10/amazing-arctic-reconstructions/
‘Understanding Arctic temperature variability is essential
for assessing possible future melting of the Greenland ice
sheet, Arctic sea ice and Arctic permafrost. Temperature trend reversals in 1940 and 1970 separate two Arctic warming periods (1910–1940 and 1970–2008) by a significant 1940–1970 cooling period. Analyzing temperature records of the Arctic meteorological stations we find that (a) the Arctic amplification (ratio of the Arctic to global temperature trends) is not a constant but varies in time on a multi-decadal time scale, (b) the Arctic warming from 1910–1940 proceeded at a significantly faster rate than the current 1970–2008 warming, and (c) the Arctic temperature changes are highly correlated with the Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation (AMO) suggesting the Atlantic Ocean thermohaline circulation is linked to the Arctic temperature variability on a multi-decadal time scale…
The build up of atmospheric aerosols from 1940–1970s followed by their decrease since late1970s is likely one of the factors contributing towards the cooling from 1940–1970 [IPCC, 2007; Chylek and Lesins, 2008; Shindell and Faluvegi, 2009] and the warming since 1970s. However, there is no reason why aerosol induced cooling should be 9 to 13 times stronger in the Arctic compared to the global mean. A more plausible explanation might be found in changes in ocean thermohaline circulation.’
https://www.lanl.gov/source/orgs/ees/ees14/pdfs/09Chlylek.pdf
See temps here – http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/chylek09.gif.html?sort=3&o=184
We have of course the familiar temporal pattern of global climate and ecological variability. But as we are told the causes of early century warming were different than those that caused late century warming – despite the lack of data on key processes and a fundamental lack of knowledge of key couplings.
We may all make assumptions. At this stage it seems safe to assume that there is considerable natural variability at decadal scales just like the rest of the planet. It seems moreover churlish to limit this assumption to decadal variability.
JCH, I am not surprised that you doubt it, but the Indian Ocean has the highest correlation with GISS LOTI of all the ocean basins, the warmest waters, and influences the impact of NH sudde3n stratospheric warming events. It is the last stop in the westward migration of ENSO regions.
It likely has the best correlation with GISS because it doesn’t normally have a very large thermohaline current influence. So when Antarctic Sea Ice builds enough in the southern Atlantic (drake passage) it can divert the Antarctic Circumpolar current northward into the southern Indian Ocean.
It may not happen of course, but the Antarctic Sea Ice rabbits ears could be a hint that it is coming.
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/S_bm_extent_hires.png
This might help Cap’n – http://www.ccrc.unsw.edu.au/PDF/Ummenhofer.etal_2009_GRL_clarification.pdf
captdallas:
Are you saying the Antarctic circumpolar current moves North with the expansion of sea ice in general?
Perhaps a more basic question needs an answer: Why did global temperature rise by nearly 0.5C between 1910 and 1940? and then reverse to an equally steep fall. This is a strong argument for a Quantum effect in 1940, or if you prefer classic radiation theory, a change in the mode of emission of the CO2 molecule.
No one should be surprised that the N.hemisphere, including the Arctic, is warmer than the southern: there is far more waste heat generated in the north.
These considerations lead to the conclusion that models that do not include the above non-linearity cannot successfully replicate past climate nor accurately predict future climate.
Anastasios Tsonis, of the Atmospheric Sciences Group at University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, and colleagues used a mathematical network approach to analyse abrupt climate change on decadal timescales. Ocean and atmospheric indices – in this case the El Niño Southern Oscillation, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, the North Atlantic Oscillation and the North Pacific Oscillation – can be thought of as chaotic oscillators that capture the major modes of climate variability. Tsonis and colleagues calculated the ‘distance’ between the indices. It was found that they would synchronise at certain times and then shift into a new state.
It is no coincidence that shifts in ocean and atmospheric indices occur at the same time as changes in the trajectory of global surface temperature. Our ‘interest is to understand – first the natural variability of climate – and then take it from there. So we were very excited when we realized a lot of changes in the past century from warmer to cooler and then back to warmer were all natural,’ Tsonis said.
The answer is more in complexity theory than quantum mechanics Alexander.
quoting TsonisThese shifts are superimposed on a low frequency signal known as global warming. Here we are not interested on
the origins of the low frequency signal. Rather we are interested
in the departures from this signal over decadal time
scales. The part of the black line that is colored yellow indicates
that the four climate modes are synchronized during a
period when the coupling between the modes is not increasing.
The part colored green indicates periods when the modes
are synchronized and the coupling is increasing. Thus, we see
that the network synchronized six times in the periods 1908–
1913, 1921–1925, 1932–1943, 1952–1957, 1975–1979, and
1998–2003. In the periods 1921–1925, 1932–1938, 1952–
1957 synchronization is not associated with an increasing
coupling strength and no change in the temperature trend
is taking place. However, in the periods 1908–1913, 1939–
1943, 1975–1979, and 1998–2003 synchronization is associated
with an increase in coupling strength. As the modes keep
on synchronizing and the coupling strength keeps on increasing,
at some coupling threshold the synchronized state is destroyed
and climate shifts into a new state characterized by
a reversal in global temperature trend. This mechanism appears
to be an intrinsic mechanism of the climate system as it
is found in both control and forced climate simulation (Tsonis
et al., 2007;Wang et al., 2009). It also appears to be a very
robust mechanism. …
the Tsonis graph.
So where are these changes in direction of the GMT/SAT? Except one, they are in very close proximity to where the PDO changes direction.
JCH, the Joker appears to be the Indian Ocean. Watch the IO dipole.
However, in the periods 1908–1913, 1939–1943, 1975-1979, and 1998–2003 synchronization is associated with an increase in coupling strength.
The second test of synchronous chaos in the quote you provided. They all coincide more or less with these global ecological, hydrological, oceanographic and climatic inflection points. Including the regime changes in the Arctic documented by Petr Chylek and Co.
The real message of the stadium wave is that these changes propagate across the planet.
I suggest that 10 year averaging is not the way to understand these things. Keeping as much of the variability as you can – typically monthly – is the way to go. It is a little hard to see the PDO as well sometimes – sst can switch back and forth as it did last decade – but the biological effects are unmistakable dating the latest climate shift at the 1998/2001 juncture.
This is leading edge climate science and you seem to have actually read something on it and are trying to understand – well done. Now why is it that Tsonis is suggesting non-warming or even cooling for decades?
I doubt that capt. The averaging doesn’t matter.
For around 83 years the PDO obviously mattered a great deal. The SAT and the PDO are in near unison. Then all the sudden the PDO goes south, and the SAT goes north.
I would submit that Tsonis and Swanson missed the obvious.
The Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) – is an index of SST in the western and eastern Indian Ocean.
http://stateoftheocean.osmc.noaa.gov/sur/ind/
The Dipole Mode Index (DMI) is currently slightly negative with the eastern zone warmer than the western zone. This brings cyclones to north-western Australia and rain across a wide swath extending to south-eastern Australia. The reverse brings rain to central Africa.
http://stateoftheocean.osmc.noaa.gov/sur/ind/dmi.php
You can see it here if you look in the right places.
http://www.ospo.noaa.gov/data/sst/anomaly/2014/anomnight.1.20.2014.gif
The origins of this decadal odd phenomenon are obscure – but it is linked to ENSO by the Indonesian Throughflow.
Chief, It will be interesting to watch. The major IO shift seems to be around every 60 to 90 years or so with 1941 being the last. The “normal” Indonesian through flow is around 4 Sverdrups, so it shouldn’t take much to double that. I haven’t seen very much published on longer term IO reconstructions if you happen to know a link or two that would be nice.
I’m interested in this topic also
JCH – I really have no clue at all what you are doing at wood for dimwits and frankly am less than inclined to work it out.
Here it is straight from the horses arse.
http://jisao.washington.edu/pdo/
NASA puts the turn south as you put it as late as 2008.
As the PDO involves upwelling of nutrient rich water.
North American fisheries links – http://www.nwfsc.noaa.gov/research/divisions/fe/estuarine/oeip/ca-pdo.cfm
Sardines return to Monterey Bay and the seal pups grow fat – http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/07/dining/07sard.html?_r=0
etc., etc.
These cold modes create immense abundance in marine ecosystems worldwide – but concentrated in specific areas. The definitive shift was after 1998 and it seems likely to intensify for a decade or so yet.
JCH there is some “adjustments” to the temp data about 1998 that muddies the water.
I guess I put it in the wrong place.
This might help Cap’n – http://www.ccrc.unsw.edu.au/PDF/Ummenhofer.etal_2009_GRL_clarification.pdf
Warm and cold phases can persist for decades. For example, a warm phase continued from 1925 to 1946 (red bars in Figure PDO-01), and a cool phase from 1947 to 1976 (blue bars). From 1977 to 1998, another 21–year warm phase occurred. However, these decadal cycles have recently broken down: in late 1998, the PDO entered a cold phase that lasted only 4 years followed by a warm phase of 3 years, from 2002 to 2005. The PDO was in a relatively neutral phase through August 2007, but abruptly changed in September 2007 to a negative phase that lasted nearly 2 years, through July 2009. The PDO then reverted to a positive phase in August 2009 (Figure TA-01) because of a moderate El Niño event that developed at the equator during fall/winter 2009–2010. This positive signal continued for 10 months (August 2009–May 2010) until June 2010, when persistently negative values of the PDO initiated and have remained strongly negative through autumn 2012. …
They are talking when the PDO goes below the zero line of the index.
The PDO obviously goes negative before that, which is obvious in every single graph of the PDO that exists in the universe. It has a negative effect the surface air temperature the second it starts trending downward. That’s basic Tsonis: the change in direction of the trend. That’s the magic moment. The moment that is ubiquitous in his papers.
Figure PDO-01. Time series of shifts in sign of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), 1925 to present. Values are averaged over the months of May through September. Red bars indicate positive (warm) years; blue bars negative (cool) years. Note that 2008 and 2012 were the most negative values recorded since 1956.
It is a very elongated downward trend in the PDO. So far around 31 years. s much as you want to bully it, the data is not lying and it will not yield to your nonsense.
JCH, “That’s basic Tsonis: the change in direction of the trend. That’s the magic moment. The moment that is ubiquitous in his papers.”
You seem to be missing the synchronization part. PDO is one of about eight pseudo-oscillations that Tsonis includes. Judith also had a poster on the 4 modes of PDO/AMO combinations and the impact on US weather. If the PDO and AMO go to cool at the same time there is a greater impact. Some of the shifts seem to require volcanic and/or solar influence and some, like 1941 don’t. 1941 was a down shift so large that most tend to doubt the data. 1941 was also before we started getting a lot of the southern ocean coverage. So it is kind of a blind spot and the increasing Antarctic sea ice is not exactly what was in the AGW game plan. If something down there shift in time with the PDO/AMO, things would change pretty quickly.
capt – I’m fully aware of all of that.
It’s in the data. The PDO shifted in nearly perfect unison with the global surface air temperature from 1900 to 1983. Can anybody dispute that. Look at the graph.
And then it obviously diverges in 1983. Majorly. You seem to be missing that.
Look at 1900 to 1940. Elongated trend downward. Relatively short stint under the zero line. Elongated trend upward. Maybe Tsonis is wrong on the 2030.
Anastasios Tsonis, of the Atmospheric Sciences Group at University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, and colleagues used a mathematical network approach to analyse abrupt climate change on decadal timescales. Ocean and atmospheric indices – in this case the El Niño Southern Oscillation, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, the North Atlantic Oscillation and the North Pacific Oscillation – can be thought of as chaotic oscillators that capture the major modes of climate variability. Tsonis and colleagues calculated the ‘distance’ between the indices. It was found that they would synchronise at certain times and then shift into a new state.
It is no coincidence that shifts in ocean and atmospheric indices occur at the same time as changes in the trajectory of global surface temperature. Our ‘interest is to understand – first the natural variability of climate – and then take it from there. So we were very excited when we realized a lot of changes in the past century from warmer to cooler and then back to warmer were all natural,’ Tsonis said.
Four multi-decadal climate shifts were identified in the last century coinciding with changes in the surface temperature trajectory. Warming from 1909 to the mid 1940’s, cooling to the late 1970’s, warming to 1998 and declining since. The shifts are punctuated by extreme El Niño Southern Oscillation events. Fluctuations between La Niña and El Niño peak at these times and climate then settles into a damped oscillation. Until the next critical climate threshold – due perhaps in a decade or two if the recent past is any indication.
We are talking abrupt shifts in Earth systems associated with changes in cloud cover – something fairly well demonstrated for the 1976-1977 and 1998/2001 climate shifts. Predominantly cool SST or predominantly warm SST – negatively correlated with global cloud cover – from more or less upwelling. This is what drives ecology, hydrology and climate.
You can see it also in the MEI of Claus Wolter – predominantly blue to 1976, red to 1998 and blue since.
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/enso/mei/ts.gif
The interesting question is why both the NH and SH systems have exactly the same decadal periodicity – and the most advanced thinking is that it is top down modulation of the polar annular modes by solar UV/ozone interactions. This opens up endless avenues of speculation.
You are torturing the data to little avail JCH – tilting at windmills in fact. Tsonis is exactly right and non-warming or even cooling over decades is indeed more likely than not. You should really review your assumptions when they are not in accord with the views of the distinguished professor of atmospheric physics on the leading edge of climate science.
I take it back – you have not understood at all and are merely indulging in tendentious argumentation.
Wyatt & Curry : http://curryja.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/stadium-wave.pdf
Yes indeed, we build on the work of others, in this case the LOD as a Stadium Wave proxy, to be able create models such as this
http://contextearth.com/2014/01/22/projection-training-intervals-for-csalt-model/
I am not clear what webby’s comment has to do with anything I have written about. The LOD in the Dickey et al (2011) paper lacks both a mechanism for the change in LOD and a mechanism for the influence on temperature. It is certainly a minor aspect of the Wyatt and Curry paper which is concerned with the propagation of a 64 year climate signal (in the 20th century) across the planet. Indeed the latter paper suggests that the loss of sea ice contains the seeds of subsequent decadal increase. Which is really more to the point.
JCH, “It’s in the data. The PDO shifted in nearly perfect unison with the global surface air temperature from 1900 to 1983. Can anybody dispute that. Look at the graph.”
There are several “oscillations” that influence or are influenced by the PDO. The IOD is an example of one that is out of sequence since ~1983-1995 which could change things. The data, btw, now has more higher latitude station influence than prior to 1990 adding a little bit of a challenge. Since the Indian Ocean now has the highest correlation to the current data station choices, more research is being focused on that region, Oppo, Rosenthal and others. So no, it’s likely not in the data.
Since you are a fan of the “Team”, Trenberth has mentioned that water cannot just keep piling up in the western Pacific. That is the inlet for the Indonesian through flow that influences the Indian Ocean. That through flow is mainly wind generated. Higher sea level in that region with stronger local surface wind could push that pile of water through, changing the IOD for a longer term.
As I mentioned, the Antarctic sea ice extent and orientation impacts the “shape” of the Antarctic Circumpolar current. (ACC) That can impact the African side of the Indian Ocean THC flow. If those two features synchronize, you would have a major climate shift.
http://www.woodhous.arizona.edu/geog453013/Toggweiler2009.pdf
As far as natural variability goes, the ACC has an average flow in the ballpark of 120 Sverdrups or 4 to 5 Gulf Stream equivalents, I am not sure how many Hiroshima Bombs that is, but it is a few, and changing the average surface winds or diverting the flow can change the flow by about +/- a Gulf Stream. I believe that would be significant.
Do you not understand that the signal of LOD directly relates to energy of the planet ? And that this change in energy has to have a dissipation component? And that dissipation is defined as heat? And of course that heat is related to temperature?
Next. Do you not understand that the LOD is predominately oscillatory and has very little long term trend compared to its fluctuations levels? The more rapid fluctuation levels in the LOD can be tied to kinetic energy in the atmosphere, and also to tidal energy in the atmosphere. These are also tidal terms that can be tied to thermal energy as perturbations. Think about it — of course tidal effects will change the temperature.
That is what smart skeptics such as Curry, Clive Best, Ian Wilson, Chiefio, and others are talking about. And that is what I am running with in regards to my CSALT model.
http://contextearth.com/2014/01/19/reverse-forecasting-via-the-csalt-model/
It always comes back to physics.
No, I don’t understand. I assumed the LOD changes were related to changes in mass distribution by radius, i.e. latitude. Perhaps you can explain?
Changes in energy always have a dissipation component defined as the release of thermal energy — this is measured as changes in temperature.
http://www.iers.org/nn_10398/IERS/EN/Science/EarthRotation/LODplot.html
Much of this is conserved as overturning of water volumes but its is real nevertheless.
Are you concerned about the high quality of this fit, based on Curry’s Stadium Wave theory?
http://imageshack.com/a/img89/5736/1jg.gif
Is this bothering you?
Is it so that dissipation is necessarily defined as heat?
======
Ah, Web tuned it up already. Are there dissipation components other than thermal ones?
=========
I don’t understand at all what you try to tell.
Oscillations of LOD are mostly caused by changes in atmospheric angular momentum, i.e. most significantly in the zonal winds. What should we conclude from that?
Perhaps it’s better to say that tidal effects of the atmosphere are mostly caused by changes in temperature, and those in turn by diurnal variability in solar radiation. The atmospheric tidal effects are very different from the ocean tides. There are also gravitational effects, but they are secondary.
CSALT can identify correlations, but cannot tell on causal relationships.
Absolutely !
And when the correlations are at the 0.99+ level, such as we find with this
http://imageshack.com/a/img89/5736/1jg.gif
then we must pursue this path. As Peter Van said:
“The basic mystery in thermodynamics is the universality. The validity of thermodynamic equations and theories regularly exceed the expectations.”
yes there are always mysteries, but until they are all solved you have to follow the path of least resistance. That’s why we always start with the simplest formulations, such as the ideal gas law, and proceed from there.
http://contextearth.com/2013/11/21/variational-principles-in-thermodynamics/
One other possible explanation is that the warming had started and was interrupted by the megatons of bombs that were dropped, thousands upon thousands of fires raging as cities burned from Tokyo to Dresden, not including the nuclear weapons detonated, and it took a little while to restart.
There is definitely a 0.1 C correction needed during the war years from 1941 to 1945. The readings were warm by this amount and need to be corrected downward. JJ Kennedy first postulated this and it shows up starkly as a warming anomaly in the fitted CSALT model.
Exactly why this happened may need further refinement but it has a lot to do with the fact that many people were concerned about getting killed by the axis forces, and doing temperature measurements was not their highest priority. All the thermometers were located closer to human structures, such as engine rooms aboard ships, etc.
The LOD is said to be mostly related to core dynamics – with changes in wind fields accounting for some 14% of variability. The mechanism for this is not understood and nor is the mechanism for influencing temperature. It relies merely on a partial – and perhaps coincidental – correlation over a small part of the instrumental record. They are certainly other causes for warming in the early 20th century including solar variability and the positive IPO.
To my mind it points to the perils of focusing on one aspect to the exclusion of too many others.
The LOD goes through quasi-cycles, which means that the earth’s rotation is flipping between acceleration and deceleration swings (and this is not the centripetal acceleration which is always there with a rotating body). When the earth accelerates, water will tend to pile up on the eastern side of the oceans due to laws of motion. When it decelerates, it will go in the reverse direction.
The Stadium Wave paper placed a negative sign on LOD and therefore plotted it as a lagging indicator. However, as TallBloke pointed out, change the sign on LOD and it leads all the other Stadium Wave measures.
The Stadium Wave theory may need some work but what Wyatt and Curry put together is miles ahead of the baby chaos stuff that keeps on getting bandied about these parts.
In this house we believe in the laws of physics, and for every action at the scale of the globe there is a physical forcing function with enough energy behind it to make the effect measureable.
“The IPCC’s statement is not incorrect, and the citation of the IPCC statement in my Senate testimony has been defended.”
+1
Foster Grant believe the temperature records to be steel, when in actuality he builds his castle on jello.
Judith Curry
I know this is just a very small piece of the puzzle, but a couple of years ago the topic of temperature trends at the mouth of the Jakobshavn glacier at Illulissat, Greenland came up, in conjunction with a discussion about recent temperature impact on the glacier. This location has a local temperature record going back to the late 19thC, so I downloaded the raw data and plotted it.
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2620/3797223161_16c1ac5e39_b.jpg
I found the same thing Polyakov found for a wider area in the Arctic. The peak warming trend (1920s to 1940s) was a bit more pronounced than the most recent warming (starting in the late 1980s).
But, unlike Polyakov, I found that the trend over the entire 20thC (through 2005, where the data series stopped) was essentially flat, and that the warming over the first half of the 20thC was essentially offset by a slight cooling over the second half.
For what it’s worth – another data point.
Max
MAnacker, nice job little buddy. Next you do that for all the points on earth and then you will have a product that can compete with the GISS global temperature record.
Then you can ask me to model the data and I will give you something that looks like this:
http://contextearth.com/2014/01/22/projection-training-intervals-for-csalt-model/
Then you can see how CO2 fits into the global warming signal. That’s how you learn!
“That’s how you learn!”
You also learn by knowing what the subject is, WHUT. Now go back to the top, read Prof. Curry’s post, and then see if you can figure out where you went wrong. If it’s too long, you could even try just reading the title!
And right you are! We are learning about the subject of Cherry-Picking.
What we learn from Curry is the concept of the planetary-scale Stadium Wave — which contains the principle of the conservation of energy well beyond one little area in Greenland.
When you actually consider the entire earth, that’s right, not some little pocket, then we can start reasoning using actual physics.
We can then take data up to 1950 and project the temperature to the current day using a model-based approach (which uses the stadium wave of course):
http://contextearth.com/2014/01/22/projection-training-intervals-for-csalt-model/
This does not cherry-pick using only data in Greenland, because then the approach wouldn’t work as well as it does. Isn’t applied physics a wonderful thing?
I can see reading comprehension isn’t your strong suit. In a discussion of 20th century Article warming, presenting arctic temperature data sets is germane to the discussion, and “planetary scale” modeling not so much.
What’s wrong, does CSALT have nothing to bring to such regional topics? Do you have nothing to contribute without CSALT?
Hey Santo, what you got?
Where’s your Johnny?
You’re not even a one-hit wonder.
I be makin the hits 24by7
I would think the temperature of the ocean currents entering the Arctic to be more interesting than the surface temperatures.
I put the SAT anomalies chart against my Sub Saharan precipitation, inverted delta equatorial Atlantic SST chart and came up with the same trend. Not surprising since the equatorial rain/cloud determines how much solar energy is absorbed and transported poleward. 1964 is a key date in the ITCZ since from then on there was a net reduction in EW activity.
If sea ice extent decline through 2005 is 50-50 natural and anthropogenic, what about the decline from 2006 to now?
This is indeed peculiar,when observations suggest that increased co2 cause seaice to grow.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/esrl-co2/from:1980/mean:12/normalise/plot/nsidc-seaice-s/from:1980/mean:12/normalise
maks
+1
It seemed uneccessary to specify Arctic as the post title suggests the topic is Arctic, interesting though the Antarctic situation being, I would predict that there would be continued increase in Antarctic sea ice. If you look at where the Antarctic sea ice extent tends to be at the minimum, the increase might be explained by winds and ice shelf losses to some degree.
Increase has been predicted by some to be due to AGW.
An increase of sea ice in the winter darkness has less feedback on the climate than a decrease of sea ice in the summer daylight, but that is just stating what should be obvious about the relative albedo effects.
Good point, jimmy dee. And the volume of sea ice formed in the dark winter has no effect on the amount of ice that needs to be melted by AGW in the summer daylight.
Also of interest is that the Arctic trend is larger. This would be the feedback I mentioned.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/nsidc-seaice-n/from:1980/mean:120/plot/nsidc-seaice-s/from:1980/mean:120
JJ lists a few things and then concludes all things and then waves his hands.
Do try discussing some science.
Bob Droege: “(Antarctic sea ice) Increase has been predicted by some to be due to AGW”
Any links to where it has been predicted in advance, that means before it had been observed?
Sure Sven,
Although you could do your own research.
https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2013/12/30/18748547.php
start there and see if you can find the original paper
Pingback: Early 20th century Arctic warming | Deft News
joshie, joshie
We “skeptics” are eagerly awaiting your tirade of comments along the usual line of selective reasoning/motivated reasoning/big boy pants/why you always pickin on me/yatta yatta yatta, ad infinitum.
‘Get a job’ usually sends Joshie under the covers. ;)
Andrew
I am getting worried about little joshie. This post has been up for more than a few minutes. He is overdue to be yapping at Judith’s heals by now. And what happened to that unusually numerous gaggle of Judith haters that has raised a cacophony of crude criticism around here for the last few days? Has this post caught them in between shifts? Have they become confused and had to return to alarmist HQ for instructions?
This is science. Josh will count adverbs or get willard to.
The funny thing is tammy didnt know about the paper judith bases this on.
Steven, tammy is undergoing a particularly problematic nappy change, but he should be along any minute. In the meantime, you must not have noticed that I have been gently nudging you to discuss the temperature data set issues raised by Frank Lansner over at WUWT. He seemed to particularly zero in on the BEST team with his criticism of the well-known temperature data sets. Care to comment beyond your mild and cursory reply on that thread?
“And what happened to that unusually numerous gaggle of Judith haters that has raised a cacophony of crude criticism around here for the last few days?”
Their reprieve is likely fleeting Don and perhaps ‘Judith haters’ is a bit too harsh. What I have noticed is a lot of advocating against Judith. It has become a sorry state of affairs. I have witnessed Judith being chastised for promoting propaganda at the senate hearing followed by remarks of her lowering the level of discourse by throwing down the gauntlet by asking MM to back up his assertions that she is anti-science only to have another gauntlet thrown down by a rabbit and an open minded blogger to provide evidence, scientific evidence no less, scientific evidence right now… Now! I say… that her testimony was not anti-science while several commentors slinging some of the best selective reasoning seen in these parts for weeks… No, months even… Missed golden opportunists to correct for thier bias. But alas, selective reasoning and bias is alive and well not only with the “skeptics” around here, as we have been reminded often, but also with the ‘realistists’ that come to visit and white knight on behalf of MM. I am afraid, Don, Judith’s replies are sure to be picked over, as promised, and examined far more intensely than any mere senator could possibly achieve. Yes, Judith is sure to provide ample grist for the mill of discontent on her very deep fall from true science as only true scientists and open minded bloggers know. Oh how the wheels turn and the mirror reflects immune to all that encounter them. Enough irony to press out the wrinkles of a thousand truths made out of whole cloth worn by conspiratorial strawman. Yes between all the fraudulent charges and defamation insinuations we are cobbling together a script only the lawyerly of lawyers could invision in their wildest courtroom fantasies with money flowing into their pockets like glacial ice melt into the burgeoning ever expanding seas as they defend the very essence of being a US citizen… Yes, the first amendment is at stake along with our very own AND ONLY planet of which we run this wild uncontrolled atmospheric experiment of human endeavor and nature. Wait a few, Don, and they will be back if not now… By morning.
Time for bed.
Nice rant, John Carpenter!
Frank Lansner?
Jeez.
first time I reviewed on of his pieces ( before it was posted) I found a number of errors. It never made it to print.
Last time I reviewed one of his published pieces, he had screwed up the download.
I receive any number of corrections from working researchers. They send me mail. They document their findings. They give me data to look at. We investigate.
They get credits on the acknowledgment page. Second to last person to write me found an error that effected 600 of 40000 stations. The last person to write me was concerned about 3 or 4 stations, we are working through that.
So, have frank write me a mail. he should provide the data, and its provenance ( given his previous failings I cannot promise it will go to the top of the stack )
Who, me? Harsh? They are haters, John. Judith is their worst nightmare: a real climate scientist who has strayed off the reservation. A traitor, heretic, stooge of the Tea Party. They are particularly furious because she testifies “for the Republicans” at Congressional hearings. That’s what this is all about, John. Damage control and punishment . In their narrow little hysterical minds, they have to discredit Judith’s testimony and beat her up to discourage others from straying from the party-line. They are mean and desperate. I would be harsher with them, but Judith is a softy and will bleep me, again.
Thanks, Steven. I value your opinion almost above all others on these issues. I will try to contact Frank, asap.
“They are particularly furious because she testifies “for the Republicans” at Congressional hearings. That’s what this is all about, John. Damage control and punishment .”
Yes Don, I am sure that is part of the reason why, however I am wary to ascribe motivation for the behavior, I am only pointing out observations I have made about the juxtaposition of ideas and the selective nature by which they are employed… And that the behavior will undoubtedly continue. A lame attempt to counter balance and point out the selective nature of argumentation by the other side… unrecognizable, as it were, by those that use such arguments against Judith. Word salad to be consumed and digested at your own risk… mere weeds that offer questionable nutritional value to the larger smorgasbord of climate dialogue. Not an iota of vitamin science to be found as Steven Mosher has already noted.
John Carpenter –
Interesting rants. Haven’t seen writing from you quite like that before.
Anyway, in case you missed it (the discussion seemed to be getting circular, so maybe you just felt there was no reason to respond).
http://judithcurry.com/2014/01/25/death-of-expertise/#comment-442760
Thanks Don ,
There are several issues that will be never ending
1. The identification of new data sources, 2000 were added last month.
2. The station merge process
3. Finding and fixing errors.
1. I get the strangest things. Folks sending me their grandma’s temperature records, dozens of stations from places we have little data, etc etc.
Vetting this stuff takes time. Ideally it would all end up in ITSI.
2. Station merge/de duplication is a complex problem. To give you an example. Robert Way and I tackled Labrador one summer. Less than 200 stations, looking at what Env Canada had versus other suppliers. That was
3 months of work to do station by station checks– algorithms can only
go so far. For 40K stations we have to use algorithms.. which means even
a 1 in 100 problem yeilds 400 problems to fix. Other folks are using baysian approaches to the problem ( we use heuristics) at some point I need to look at their code. The other approach is Phil Jones: let the country expert give you the data. But that means you work with adjusted data in most cases and
the experts often drop short records that we can use.
3. Finding and fixing errors. They pop up all the time. Just fixed a error with central park that resulted from upstream corruption ( the source is wrong)
These can often be hand fixes.. TOUGH to document, I would rather upstream corrections but guys dont always want to fix 1 station out of 20K
As we continue to improve stuff one thing remains constant. Its warmer now than it was a couple hundred years ago. That wont change.
“Interesting rants. Haven’t seen writing from you quite like that before.”
Yes, I even surprise myself at times. Not likely to be the norm going forward. A little too flamboyant. But I was trying to capture it in the style of some of the drama I have noted as of late (you as well) and gave it my level best to keep up. A lampoon on the state of affairs directed at many and no one in particular.
“Anyway, in case you missed it (the discussion seemed to be getting circular, so maybe you just felt there was no reason to respond).”
I did not miss it, I agree it was not really developing into anything worth pursuing… so I did not.
“Its warmer now than it was a couple hundred years ago.”
Mosher,
If this is the take-home claim of Climate Science, after lots of time spent and money changing hands, I feel a bit underwhelmed.
Andrew
John –
Maybe, but I quite enjoyed it. Reminds me of the Mike-withnumbersafterhisname, who used to post quite a bit – which were hilarious until he started smelling himself and got caught up in his own schtick.
A question, you say:
Meaning that I have noted the drama as well or that I have been dramatic as well?
We don’t see your flouncing around as dramatic, joshie. Comedy queen would be a more apt characterization to attach to your brand of foolishness.
Steven,
For curiosity I have gone trough what the data set has on Helsinki. I tell some observations as this is perhaps not a unique case.
1) Observations started on a location in the center of the present city in 1829 on private property of the professor of physics of the university that had moved to Helsinki in 1827.
2) In 1844 the place of observation was moved about 1 km to a location that’s still park.
3) Since 1844 the place of observation has moved only very little, perhaps 200 m, most recently in 1969.
4) In 2001 a new automatic weather station started. The old weather station worked in parallel until 2008 on the same location.
5) Finnish Meteorological Institute has combined the data and done adjustments to correct for all known changes and for UHI. Uncorrected and corrected data is shown here. The dotted line is 11-yr moving average with corrections. As far as I can see the corrected data is used in HadCRUT and also in BEST trough that. The recent part of the data is labeled Helsinki Kaisaniemi AGW, the old part without AGW.
6) Another long data series labeled Helsinki Vantaa Airport is used, but that’s not a real dataset before 1952. The earlier years appear to be a strange and rather badly biased combination of that real dataset and the Helsinki Kaisaniemi historical data. (The bias is towards too high temperatures before 1952, and thus has too little warming.)
7) The locations indicated by BEST for the Kaisaniemi weather station are a couple of kilometers off from the right place (60.175206N, 24.944552E).
I have used information form a Finnish language article by a meteorologist at the Finnish Meteorological Institute. That article contains photos of the present weather station.
Joshua,
Drama you noted as well… however there are times… well, I wont go there.
I agree mike was a real treat to read, very funny. He was the only commentor I can think of that could completely shut down Robert in a way he could not respond back to. He got moderated a few times in the end and think he just hung it up after that. He had some priceless rants tho… good times, good times.
Andrew
‘If this is the take-home claim of Climate Science, after lots of time spent and money changing hands, I feel a bit underwhelmed.”
Sorry, you see guys like you have
1. denied there is any warming ( see Keenan)
2. denied that global temperature has an meaning (See Mckittrick)
3. claimed we cant know ( various idiots )
I dont see you correcting them. I see you encouraging them.
“I see you encouraging them.”
If I’d have encouraged you, Mosher, would you have come up with something better than, “Its warmer now than it was”?
Andrew
Andrew.
Of course we can do better than Its warmer now.
But since you deny that why would I waste my time
“why would I waste my time”
Science, Mosher. The thing you abandoned some time ago.
Andrew
The temperature rise between the 1979-2001 period and 2002-2011 is shown in this earlier post here. See Figure 1.
http://judithcurry.com/2013/12/06/selection-bias-in-climate-model-simulations/
In this period, which is mostly past the end of the period shown above, the temperature rose by about 1.5 C and this is added to about the 1990 value. This more recent period also includes the major reduction of Arctic sea ice. So, I don’t think the 1930’s are anything like comparable with what happened by 2002-2011, especially looking at the Arctic Ocean latitudes.
Thanks, Judith.
[typo: a missing “been” in “This early century Arctic warming has long fascinating me”?]
The Bekryaev paper has the most recent data and shows current temps higher than those of the 1930s to 1950s period.
Your testimony stated
“Further, Arctic surface temperature anomalies in the 1930’s were as large as the recent
temperature anomalies.”
today you say
“The most recent Arctic temperatures that are published (say for 2005-2010) are higher. ”
Might as well tell Tamino you were mistaken.
Yes, the Bekryaev plot shows that the IPCC statement is not technically wrong because the peaks in the 30’s exceed one trough after 2000, but the later 2000’s exceed the 30’s easily, and a picture is worth a thousand words when it comes to how recent times compare to the 30’s. That should have been shown, rather than these inadequate statements that are easily misinterpreted.
So back to the IPCC AR5 statement:
“Arctic temperature anomalies in the 1930s were apparently as large as those in the 1990s and 2000s”
Well, average temperatures above 70 N during the 1990′s were lower than in the 1930′s. The most recent Arctic temperatures that are published (say for 2005-2010) are higher. The IPCC’s statement is not incorrect, and the citation of the IPCC statement in my Senate testimony has been defended.
I don’t think much should be made of your quibble – the IPCC statement seems strictly correct. The major point being that current temps are nowhere near 3 degrees C warmer than in the 1930’s.
The reasons why is addressed in the paper from Chylek et al I quote above – which is carefully within the limits of what is knowable for the region and for earlier periods.
I frequently get asked whether I think some experimental finding is solid. My usual heuristic for answering the question is to think about the papers that speak to it. I don’t normally overweight the findings of the most recent paper. But even if there is a reason to overweight one particular paper, it wouldn’t decide me on the matter.
Therefore, I really don’t understand at all why anyone would think Tamino’s pushing for the alternative hypothesis is even moderately convincing. If you think 2 of 5 or 3 of 5 studies pointing one way or another makes for a convincing meta-analytic statistical win, well, be my guest.
It should be taken into account that Bekreyaev et al presents temperatures for north of 59N and for 10 degree latitude ranges centered at 30N, 40N, 50N, 60N, and 70N. It’s also based on meteorological land stations.
As Judith emphaisized, the results are highly dependent on the area chosen.
Pekka Pirilä – There are of course differences dependent on the area chosen, but as far as I can see all widescale records of the Arctic indicate the most recent warmth (2005-2010, as defined by Judith) is greater than that seen at any time in the 20th Century. You could probably find a few regions which don’t show this feature, but you could say the same about regional trends in relation to global average temperature. Would it be reasonable to say ‘Global surface temperature anomalies in the 1930’s were as large as the recent temperature anomalies’ based on a few atypical regions?
You could point to uncertainties with regards Arctic records due to low data availability but Judith’s statement is a positive one – ‘they were as large’ – not a statement of uncertainty.
NW – Your analytical method doesn’t work for this question given that the temperature is changing over time. Older studies simply won’t have up-to-date records required for comparing recent warmth.
Bob Droege – I think what Judith is suggesting is that the IPCC statement effectively concerns a 20-year average: 90s were cooler, late 2000s were warmer, hence the average over the two decades is comparable. Judith’s comment about the most recent period being 2005-2010 is confusing in this respect, but I think she wants to associate her ‘recent temperature anomalies’ statement to an understanding based on 20-year averages.
The problem is that using 20-year averages also shows greater Arctic warmth (about 0.4-0.8ºC warmer) in the most recent 20-year period than any other time in the instrumental record, according to readily-available datasets. The only way to make a comparable earlier period is if you average the past 20 years then compare to annual averages from the 1930s, which doesn’t make much sense.
NW,
I may have a touch of the latest study disease, but it was in general agreement with the earlier ones in regard to the periods covered by all the studies reference in the post.
To me it just extended the data to the more recent time period
And since it all depends on what we mean by recent, several conflicting analyses may seem to be true at the same time.
But I think any case you can make for the Arctic not being warmed by CO2 get weaker as time goes by.
@ Bob and follow ups to his comments
As an outsider, the whole flap seems to be an argument over whose curve best fits a century of data that is sparse and somewhat suspect (Exactly who was monitoring the north pole temperature in 1930’s, using what to do the monitoring?). I don’t know what it says about arctic temperatures, but a wooden sailing ship was able to transit the NW Passage east to west 1918-1920 and a sister ship transited both directions, EW 1940-42 and WE 1944, so today’s ice anomaly doesn’t appear to be all that unusual.
After all the dust has settled and there is a ‘consensus’ (or not) that the arctic was a half degree or so warmer (or colder) in the 1930’s than now, what does that have to do with ACO2 and why we should have a world wide policy (about to be implemented via executive decree and regulatory fiat in the US, with no input from congress) to control it?
University of Alaska Fairbanks has a new interactive sea ice map for Alaska, that they are calling an atlas. Up now is 1953-2012, 1952 to the mid-1800s to come February 18th.
See my new post on it here:
http://polarbearscience.com/2014/01/27/new-interactive-sea-ice-atlas-for-alaska-1953-2012-check-out-past-polar-bear-habitat/
Susan
Thanks, we look forward to this!
I wish I remember where I saw this now, but a recent? paper said the warm Atlantic is warming the Arctic. If you look at SST anomaly maps, the Atlantic sure looks hot. If CO2 is the culprit, why isn’t the Pacific equally hot? And doesn’t that mean CO2 ISN’T the culprit warming the Arctic. It would be nice if climate science simply ATTEMPTED to be rational.
Because winds are about normal and that means there is still some upwelling of very cold water in the Eastern Pacific.
Judy, I see that you obviously did not read my article on Arctic warming that I once gave you. Bad example of not doing homework for your students. It also explains your take that Tamino quotes:
“A key issue in understanding the recent decline in Arctic sea ice extent is to understand to what extent the decline is caused by anthropogenic warming versus natural climate variability.”
I put that issue to rest in my paper. None of it is anthropogenic warming, none of it is that mysterious “natural climate variability” that explains nothing. When you now bear in mind that the Arctic is the only place in the world that is still warming you will realize that this can only be caused by warm water and not by any greenhouse effect. Arctic warming started around the turn of the century with a re-arrangement of North Atlantic current system which began to carry warm Gulf Stream water north. Kaufman et al. determined that the start of the warming was very sudden after 2000 years of slow, linear cooling. Their time resolution for twentieth century was poor but I was able to find an excellent temperature graph in NOAA’s Arctic Report Card for 2010. It showed a temperature rise from the beginning of the century until 1940, cooling from 1940 to 1970, and then warming again from 1970 to the present. I reproduced it as Figure 2 in the paper. IPCC has not been able to model Arctic cooling because cooling is variously reported to be two to four times faster than model projections. That is easy to understand because the models have greenhouse warming built in and we are not dealing with greenhouse warming. The mid-century pause in warming was not just cessation of warming but cooling at the rate of 0.3 degrees per decade. It is likely that this hiatus of warming was caused by a temporary return of the original flow pattern of currents. But what has happened in nature can happen again. The Arctic temperature history now consists of warming for 40 years, then cooling for 30 years and then warming again for 44 years which brings it up to now. What next? If there is a cycle operating it could be cooling, if not, just more warming. I wonder what that increase of sea ice in 1913 is telling us,
Typo: “…cooling because cooling…”
s/b: “…warming because warming…”
Sorry.
Even GISS seems to agree that the magnitude of Arctic warming in the 1920s and 1930s was comparable to recent:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/cdrar/do_LTmapE.cgi
The link errors out.
There are cycles in ice rafting events wherein during glacials, ice accumulates but traps the slight geothermal heat until the bottom of an ice sheet melts, lubricating the bottom which hastens the slippage out to sea.
In the same way, when Arctic sea ice accumulates, the ocean beneath doesn’t cool off as easily and may accumulate warmth from Pacific or Atlantic waters which enter the Arctic. When Arctic sea ice decreases, the ocean can lose more heat to the atmosphere, particularly during the Northern Autumn.
A regrowth of Arctic sea ice may amplify Arctic cooling – let’s see.
+1
When the Arctic sea ice covers an area of the sea the temperature below stays a constant temperature of 28 F so it isn’t accumulating any heat or cooling off.
You will have to take my word for it, I can’t post the data I took, the logs of the submarine are not accessible on the internet.
28F is the freezing temperature of seawater. You knew that, right?
Hey Dave,
Did you witness my triple point of water foodfight with Goddard over at Tony’s joint before he started his own blog?
Sea water at a couple hundred psi or so and at 28 F is liquid.
A couple hundred PSI doesn’t significantly change the freezing point of water. Be that as it may water may be either liquid or solid at freezing temperature. It must gain or lose a whole buttload (technical term) of something called latent heat of fusion to make a phase transition. They call it latent because that type of heat doesn’t change the reading on a thermometer.
In the hope (becoming forlorn at this point) of you becoming scientifically literate here’s some stats fo yo ass:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seawater
The freezing point of seawater decreases as salt concentration increases. At typical salinity it freezes at about −2 °C (28 °F).[1] The coldest seawater ever recorded (in a liquid state) was in 2010, in a stream under an Antarctic glacier, and measured −2.6 °C (27.3 °F).[2]
Not one alarmist claim holds up under fact-based scrutiny. Yet Mann & gang get to run around not only defaming and denigrating those who dare to point this out, they sue those who call them out in kind.
What is clearly man made in AGW is the hype, fear mongering and lousy policy solutions. Not to mention the rent seeking of those who profit from pushing the apocalyptic claptrap.
I’m waiting for the amateur climate scientist, Tamino, to actually comment here and defend his unfounded criticism of Judith. The others seem to have gone silent too.
Looking as though the Stadium Wave is providing a behavioral mechanism for the long term variability in global temperature.
Wyatt & Curry : http://curryja.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/stadium-wave.pdf
Yes indeed, we build on the work of others, in this case the LOD as a Stadium Wave proxy, to be able create models such as this
http://contextearth.com/2014/01/22/projection-training-intervals-for-csalt-model/
Keep on digging to find patterns and apply thermodynamic energy balance arguments and one can continue to make progress:
http://contextearth.com/2014/01/25/what-missing-heat/
webby copies the same comment not merely from previous posts but twice in the same post – yes we get it. But it was silly enough the first few hundred times.
I might copy a bit from above myself. The LOD in the Dickey et al (2011) paper lacks both a mechanism for the change in LOD and a mechanism for the influence on temperature. It is certainly a minor aspect of the Wyatt and Curry paper which is concerned with the propagation of a 64 year climate signal (in the 20th century) across the planet. Indeed the latter paper suggests that the loss of sea ice contains the seeds of subsequent decadal increase. Which is really more to the point of the post.
Do you not believe in the conservation of energy? That applies to the entire planet, and you can not cherry pick by isolating on one region, as this can show a long-term retention of energy that is entirely latent in its character.
That is what smart skeptics such as Curry, Scafetta, and others are talking about when they discuss large planetary scale effects. When Scafetta maps to 60 year cycles via orbital consideration, there is little doubt that this is connecting to the LOD and Stadium Waves.
And that is what I am running with in regards to my CSALT model.
http://contextearth.com/2014/01/19/reverse-forecasting-via-the-csalt-model/
This includes fits to cycles that contain the strong harmonics of diurnal and semidurnal cycles of 18.6 years and 8.85 years, the Sun-Moon-Earth cycle of 9 years, and the Hale cycle that Scafetta identifies
Why cannot you embrace what the smart skeptics are telling us?
The stadium wave addresses the propagation of a multi-decadal climate signal across the planet.
‘At all stages, seeds of regime reversal are embedded within the collection of sub-processes regulating the Arctic freshwater balance, thereby subtly and incrementally imposing ‘curbs’ on the prevailing trend of sea ice coverage, assuring an inevitable regime reversal years in the future. These negative feedbacks modify the Arctic freshwater balance through: i) sea ice related shifts in the Arctic Front and associated zones of precipitation and continental runoff; ii) ice cover associated sea-level-pressure changes that reorganize winds and thereby direction of freshwater and sea ice export between the Arctic Basin and marginal seas; iii) modified influx of warm, saline water into the marginal seas, particularly in the Atlantic sector; iv) and Pacific atmospheric circulation anomalies negatively feeding back onto the Atlantic freshwater balance through remote modification of precipitation regimes.’
Arm waving about whatever it is that you are arm waving about cuts no ice – pun intended. Invoking conservation of energy in this context is just another irrelevant silliness.
Your simplistic multiple linear regression is many unknowns in a single equation – unsolvable in any realistic fashion. It relies on a priori assumptions about scaling of parameters – to fit a specific agenda in your case. It has nothing to do with the stadium wave concept – where you taken a single minor component and keep postulating that this is the core of planetary signal propagation.
Repeating this endlessly in a blatant and forlorn attempt to generate traffic to your site is merely annoying and a waste of everyone’s time. It is time to move on from this ultimately misguided obsession with a simple scheme that can’t provide additional information about the past – something we didn’t already know – and certainly can’t predict the future unless you have some basis for understanding the propagation of the climate signal – and it’s causes. The quantification to the precision you claim is impossible – many unknowns in a single equation. It depends as I say on a priori assumptions about scaling of various components.
Even the past reconstruction is fundamentally wrong because you fail to incorporate a time integrated measure of Pacific variability. Which you dismiss as adding to zero over any time frame – but which is quite evidently not the case.
I really suggest you move onto understanding Earth systems rather than trying to shortcut the process with a simplistic mathematical representation that is nothing more than a scaling process in a multiple linear regression – but for which you absurdly claim are based on fundamental physical principles. And repeating it ad nauseum simply reveals your intellectual limitations and lack of a depth and breadth of understanding. There is much more to the world and climate than anything a multiple linear regression can say.
Have I dealt with this sufficiently to be able to ignore it in future?
Are you that dead set against anyone trying to validate the Stadium Wave hypothesis?
And the Holy Grail is to find a proxy measure for natural variation that we can use as a model-based filter to isolate any long term secular trend.
No interest? That figures.
The LOD is not the stadium wave – far from it. It is a minor element of Earth systems with a very uncertain connection to Earth temperature. For this you ignore time integration of major processes. Go play in the kiddy pool.
I think game, set and match to our gracious host. Though no doubt Joshie will soon be along to deconstuct the text and argue the meaning of words. The SKS group won’t grace us with their presence to defend their actions but no doubt a snarky post will appear, proving that black might not be white but it is a light grey.
nah, Tamino will create something.
my money’s on CapD, ChrisM.
Nah Josh is a lightweight, he’ll just step in it. I’m going with R Gates who is just warming up in responses to others. (below) Gates will dispute any scientific basis.
Chris,
Yes captdallas, Tamino, instead of surrendering gracefully, had the audacity to post data about 21st century temps in the arctic.
Now he did NOT show Generalissos bizarre idea of some sort of 3°C difference in temps, but I didn’t see Tamino or any of the others suggesting such a thing.
If you notice our hosts reaction was to say” it’s my ball and I am taking it home. I won’t play with you anymore.” What a brilliant take down of Tamino’s presentation of actual research relating to what she actually said in her senate testimony, of which Mann said she was distorting the science.
Hmmm. me thinks we should start a fund to insist Madame Curry sue Mann for insulting her.
The problem Tony is that the Arctic is very poorly sampled, it is now, and was worse in the 30’s. The technically correct answer is that we don’t know the actual temps now or in the past.
But, politicians, the MSM, and alarmists has for more than a decade waved IPCC reports, and the various models of surface temps as proof of warming. In a 5 or 10 minute allotment of time before a Congressional panel, you don’t get the time to explain the technicalities, nor would most there actually understand what you were saying, it wouldn’t be sound bite worthy, and would just be ignored.
Pointing out that AR5 shows that the 30’s and the 90’s-2000’s have similar maximum temps is something they can understand, and was the claims of the IPCC.
Tony, Dr. Curry just didn’t want to play Taminoball. If you carefully read the progession you will noticed that the goal posts were shifted. Just because Tamino has issues, doesn’t mean Curry has to have the same issues.
Mi Cro,
The issues is that she complained that she was attacked for distorting the science after her senate testimony
In these interactions she did not say, ” Hey we don’t know enough about the temps then or now. I just simplified for the idiots in congress” That would just be weaseling, something not uncommon in these arguments.
She went on the offensive showing just how wrong Tamino was. And she did so by NOT including the last decade of warming in the arctic.
when this was forcefully pointed out to her, she decided not to interact anymore.
Maybe I am wrong but it looks pretty straightforward
Captdallas
the only goalposts I saw shifted, where when Judith uprooted her goal post after the touchdown. See my response to Mi Cro. In short.
!. Curry says in senate hearings that IPCC says 30-40’s as warm as CURRENT arctic temps
2. Mann calls her out in general
3. Tamino says IPCC and Curry are wrong
4. Curry says NO, and presents “proof”
5. Tamino shows she excludes most recent temps
6. Curry says, ” I can’t deal with this”
Tony,
I think you left off:
7. Curry says, Arctic surface temperatures are actually so poorly measured, we really don’t know what the temperature really is now or in the past.
Tony,
“5. Tamino shows she excludes most recent temps”
Tamino did not include the uncertainties associated with the most recent temperatures. Globally, the recent temperatures have an uncertainty of about +/- 0.1C to 0.2C in 1938. Using just the Arctic region the uncertainties are closer to +/-0.25 C for the recent and +/- 0.5C for the 1930s. Curry was pointing out that due to limit coverage, the Arctic temperature record is not accurate enough to say anything other that the 1930s anomalies are “about” the same as today. By not including the uncertainties which are greater for the Arctic region, Tamino created a strawman.
Now get Tamino to overlay the uncertainties.
captdallas,
Quote the part in Judith’s testimony where she talks about limitations and uncertainties in Arctic surface temperature records.
Judith Curry,
In the business I am in, when I make a specific observation; i.e., the person has a fever, there are many roads to that physiological event: infection, malignancy, idiosyncratic response to a drug, body fluid loss, etc. It behooves me to explore those avenues, not as all of equal likelihood, rather, to assess the community (environment), other signs, weight loss, chills; history: overseas exposures, etc. Keeping in mind that some things fit, others don’t.
“The Arctic wide temperature increases in the last decade contrast with the episodic regional increases in the early 20th century, suggesting that it is unlikely that recent increases are due to the same primary climate process as the early 20th century.”
More likely than not, the etiology for Arctic warming during the first part of the 20th Century may be substantially different than causality of the late 20th Century. The disparity of regions of Arctic warming may offer clues. Then again, a stadium wave that leads to warming my have a cycle of its own, causing Arctic warming, just on a time scale that is also different. The Tsonis idea of synchronizing oscillations, only, one of the oscillators may be more dominant at one time than another, so the end point, Arctic warming, has several roads leading to the same general observed phenomenon.
Looking for the simplest answer to explain a unified everything may be a logical fault when there are many balls in the air at the same time. When the balls are of different sizes and weights, although there may be order in the juggler’s performance, such skill may not be readily apparent if one keeps one’s eye on only one ball.
In medicine, physicians can become “locked in” to a specific diagnosis and not see the broader picture: i.e., not acknowledging the contrary data that points to a more complex and/or another etiology for the observation.
Climatology seems to have the same faults as medicine; scientists becoming locked into a specific component when in fact, there are several other roads that need to be explored. Many times the best diagnostician is the one with slight graying of their temples, not too much, but enough to have been fooled in the past by jumping in with both feet before considering alternatives. As for the young and impetus, self-confident and certain? stand back an smile, you’ve been there yourself.
“In medicine, physicians can become “locked in” to a specific diagnosis and not see the broader picture: i.e., not acknowledging the contrary data that points to a more complex and/or another etiology for the observation.”
That’s almost a word-for-word description of “garden path error,” something I read about years ago in the context of diagnostic expert system programming.
The truly awful ones are the ones who believe they can make the diagnosis by an exercise of the will. It seems the flaw is present in some climate scientists, too.
=================
So, tamino’s complaint, quoted by JC is:
and JC’s response is extensive quoting of the IPCC? Can’t anyone here say “irony”?
Where is a single acknowledgment, let alone rebuttal, of any of tamino’s argument?
cobby, cobby
Did you not notice all the citations to peer reviewed science in the IPCC material quoted by Judith. Do you think that Judith is not familiar with the science on the Arctic climate/ Do you even have a freaking clue, cobby? Read those papers the IPCC cited and tell us where they went wrong. We’ll wait here, cobby.
Coby: love your xkcd posting about the recent cold. You are soooooo right. We haven’t seen this since the last time the PDO was in negative phase. It’s funny how people always think there is some sort of crisis going on when it’s just another random day on our dynamic planet. The pathetic ones resent Mommy figures because she says calm down, grow up and forget about the boogieman and the monsters they imagine live under the bed. Can you imagine how stressful life is for those who suffer in constant crisis inside one’s own head? You really gotta feel sorry for the terrified Eco-Astrologers.
The IPCC statement is strictly true and the significant issue is that the 2000’s are nowhere near 3 degrees C warmer than the 1930’s. This is discussed above and you are merely repeating the Tamino talking point – a trivial quibble that avoids the major and inconvenient questions.
So we have yet another climate warrior making pointless, trivial and quarrelsome complaints. The major point of dispute with AR5 is the overweening confidence (95%) that most recent warming is anthropogenic in origin. This avoids the definition of what most means and is overstated given what is known and not known about climate. It is presumed that natural variability added to temperature rise in the period from 1976 to 1998 – and we may be unclear as to how much but the satellite TOA radiant flux data suggests it is significant – and it is easy enough to quote the AR4 on this.
It is likewise presumed that the current hiatus in surface temps results from the shift in ocean and atmosphere circulation that occurred in the 1998/2001 climate shift – that seem again in the data to be accompanied by a change in cloud cover. Climate shifts are a relatively new concept but one that is critical to understanding climate. It is leading edge climate science.
There is also perhaps also some suggestion that climate sensitivity may be somewhat overstated given the influence of decadal shifts in the volume of state space occupied by a complex and dynamic climate system. Climate is a wild and angry beast as Wally Broecker said. However – as I agree with a recent Michael Ghil paper that climate sensitivity is γ – I won’t buy into that.
Overwhelmingly – there is no fundamental disagreement with the IPCC but some important distinctions to be made on interpretations of what are major issues in contemporary climate science.
We seem to be at a stage where activists are locked into a zeitgeist that is not keeping pace with the science – and with overweening and misplaced confidence in simple memes and the infallibility of blogospheric gatekeepers like Tamino – and indeed would be gatekeepers like yourself. It is simply not good enough – but what can you do with the circus that is the blogospheric climate wars.
Skippy, as far as I can tell, you are the only person who mentioned anything about the 2000’s being 3 degrees warmer than the 30’s in the Arctic.
Sorry Jimmy D – what on Earth do you think Arctic amplification means? We have about a three degree warming in the most recent warming period. Quibbling gets you nowhere good.
Skippy, not what you said. You can get 3 degrees compared to some other periods, but not the 30’s where it looks more like 1.5 degrees.
‘… the Arctic temperature change consistently exceeds the Northern Hemisphere average by a factor of 3–4…’ http://www.geo.umass.edu/faculty/jbg/Pubs/MilleretalQSRPolarAmp2010.pdf
This is getting a bit pathetic don’t you think?
Hmmm, Let’s see. And Tamino usually accepts what the IPCC says and now he doesn’t! So you can throw his own critique back at him. Foster seems to be a thin-skinned, arrogant, prima donna. So here the IPCC is wrong (all those thousands of brilliant humanitarians?) and he is correct.
The answer may be that in one case a longer average (10-20 years?) is being used.
One always must use periods of 20-30 years. This is what climate is. Only stupid denier sKeptiCs don’t know this. Unless you are a true believer. Then weather events longer than 20-30 seconds will suffice and warming can cause cooling and a smaller temperature differential between the equator and the pole can cause more extreme weather. It’s all PURE physics don’t you know. Just simple math and denying it is like saying 2+2 does not equal 4.
Yes, I did notice. And she followed her citations with this:
And her reason for preferring those plots showing recent temperatures to be comparable versus those showing current temperatures to be much warmer is…? I would like to see a scientific reason, not a desire for bias confirmation.
Isn’t the problem above obvious thanks to her own arrangement?
IPCC: 1930s anomaly as large as 1990s and 2000s
JC: 2005-2010 anomaly is higher
If you are a lawyer, sure there is technically no contradiction because of the overlap in her time periods from 2000 to 2005, but if you are trying to get at the reality then this evidence says current arctic warming is greater than in the 1930s. (Another word for lawyer is “advocate”, a supposedly dirty word around these parts).
And to reiterate: where is the response to tamino’s analysis? Where is Judy’s own analysis?
I know the timing is off by a couple of decades, but I can’t help wondering if black carbon or soot kicked up by the Siberian meteor/comet strike of 1908 might have contributed somewhat to the earlier Arctic warming period.
No. You can stop wondering now.
So the SAT anomaly chart here corresponds to rainfall across 7M km2 of Sub Saharan Africa. Any explanation?
Tom,
I’m also interested in the statement by Bryan Walsh about the California droughts that the 1930-50s were historically wet. Since that is the time of the last PDO/AMO peak and arctic warming. Yet now it is drought in CA….as commented on Keith Kloor’s blog.
Judith’s response was adequate, cobby. Not saying it was a slam dunk, but adequate. Your criticisms are inadequate. Now your lot can carry on screaming all you like. The testimony of a bonafide climate scientist is in the Senate Record. It’s painful, ain’t it. And let’s not forget that the pause killing the cause. Nite, cobby.
Well Tamino is a moron when it comes to temperature datasets. An absolute not to be trusted moron as bad as Goddard in some respects.
Here is what Tamino did. Thinking he was clever Tammy used our dataset.
He was not clever. Had he kept up with his reading he would have noted Polyakov et al 2003. He may have also noted that we dont include data from this paper. The problem is there isnt a live archive that we can easily pull from. We basically work from open data. I’ve discussed this paper before here on climate Etc. One day I would hope to include this data along with Env canada and some other new stations from that part of the world. To do that the data would have to be in a live maintained open site.
perhaps Tammy isnt up to speed on the data. Steve Goddard has got some serious competition. If he wants to question Polyakov, then he should be aware that Michael Mann is thanked in the acknowledgements.
Here is the data the paper in question used (see below). In the past I’ve talked about seeing what we can do to include it, but there is only so much one can do.
All that said, I’d say Judiths position is defensible. Its not anti science.
Tammy? Tammy’s not an expert on temperature datasets. He never has been; he never will be. His only claim to fame in the area is coming up with a sub optimal algorithm ( I used to support it in one of my r packages ) that nobody who understands statistics would ever use.
“The datasets of monthly surface air temperature and sea level pressure used in this study contain data from land stations, Russian NP stations, and drifting buoys operated by the International Arctic Buoy Programme (IABP). Several databases are consolidated. The Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute (AARI) produced an extensive archive of SAT and SLP observations at Russian land stations (V. F. Radionov 2001, personal communication; Aleksandrov and Dementyev 1995). The first high-latitude Russian stations appeared in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century and rapidly increased in number in the 1930s–40s. The Earth Observing System (EOS) Distributed Active Archive Center (DAAC) at the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), the University of Colorado, the Meteorological Service of Canada, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Goddard Institute for Space Studies provided monthly air temperatures for Europe, Greenland, the Canadian Northwest Territories, and Alaska. The National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) database updated the records for the latter datasets to the end of 2000 through the beginning of 2001. Monthly SLP for western land stations have been obtained from the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR), the EOS DAAC, and NCDC databases. SAT and SLP data from Russian NP stations are available on CD-ROM from the NSIDC. The NP stations were continuously maintained from 1950 to 1991, with one to three stations operating at any given time. These observations are considered the most accurate for SAT in the Arctic Ocean (Rigor et al. 2000). Monthly gridded drifting buoy data for 1979–98 were obtained from the Polar Science Center of the University of Washington. Additionally, reanalysis data has been used to evaluate the spatial patterns of SAT and SLP. The SLP reanalysis data were obtained from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR; 1990) CD-ROM. Daily (National Centers for Environmental Prediction) NCEP–NCAR reanalysis SAT were provided by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration–Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (NOAA–CIRES) Climate Diagnostic Center in Boulder, Colorado. Note that for composite Arctic SAT and SLP time series we used data from stations northward of 62°N only, whereas in the correlation and other analyses more southern stations were included.
Thanks for this summary Steven.
Does the word compare get through your fog? As in compared A to B
Steven,
did you read Tamino’s response to this?
All I saw was posted research that ALL points to higher temps in the entire arctic now than in the 30’s.
Does not the idea that Judith did not post research for the most recent period seem odd?
this al came form Judith lamenting Mann saying she distorted science, and people coming to Mann’s defense by saying that THIS testimony was distorting the science.
she said “the 30’s were warming than now.” Certainly that is what was heard by the people in the senate.
Tamino posted research that says that is completely untrue for the information we have from both time periods.
to me that is distorting science and therefore Mann tweet was, in this case, accurate.
She THEN decides there in no point in further discussing the matter.
It sure sounds to me like a wrestler being pinned for 2 seconds and then saying “OK. Match over nobody won, but I am going to pretend that I did”.
what does any of this have to do with your long comment above?
Tony Duncan – absolutely spot on.
Why do you keep calling me “cobby”? Is it some kind of attempt at argument by ridicule? It strikes me as rather childish if so.
I can understand your satisfaction with her response as yours is an excellent imitation: ignore and repeat. Where is the response to tamino’s analysis? Where is Judy’s own analysis? These questions remain unanswered.
Good night to you too. I’m in Australia so I’m sure by the time I am up and have a chance to check, the thread will have unwound very far indeed…if there is some substance to address I may try.
There won’t be any substance, cobby. It is a non-substantive issue. It’s a nit. You are not going to succeed in discrediting Dr. Judith Curry. Get over it. You don’t care what any of your Team says to further the cause. Your scrutiny is highly selective. Hypocrites. Congratulations on getting rid of your previous gubmint.
The failure is in repeating a minor quibble – when the major issue is the significance of natural variation. Are you capable of addressing any issue of substance? The prognosis thus far seems bleak.
Well, it’s late so somebody needs to sum this one up. Here’s the headline:
Alarmist Epiphany, IPCC Promotes Anti-Science Misinformation
That’s pretty good Skipper. Hopefully the alarmists will stage a *metaphorical* circular firing squad similar to what the deniers are doing at WUWT over pattern recognition. We are witnessing Climate Science in the teenage years.
Don,
the alarmist epiphany has been since 2007 and 2012, when SIE plummeted to numbers WAY below what the IPCC had suggested. THe IPCC has revised their position somewhat, but one has to remember that IPCC is a consensus operation and things like the extreme loss of ice are not easily refigured in the science.
so there is a difference. the IPCC is not anti-science, when they are just grossly inaccurate in this case.
Curry has all the available research and is pretending that there is no difference between the arctic in the 30’s and now. THAT is anti-sciecne misinformation
Arctic temperature oscillations are out of phase with the N. Atlantic and N. Pacific, with the decadal periodicities (uniquely) close to those found in the oscillations in the Earth’s core.
Inner core Oscillations 85 50 35 28 years
Arctic spectrum 82 54 32 25 years
This would suggest that role of the Earth’s magnetic field may be more important than previously assumed.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/Arctic.htm
wow just wow!
I thought the earths magnetic field was considered the most important factor as far as a sun shield?
„There is still considerable discussion of the ultimate causes of the warm temperature anomalies that occurred in the Arctic in the 1920s and 1930s …”
20 December 2013 was published another paper on this topic: “External forcing of the early 20th century Arctic warming.”, Suo et al.
Authors write:
“The observed Arctic warming during the early 20th century was comparable to present-day warming in terms of magnitude.”
…
“The results presented here, based on the model simulations and observations, indicate that intensified solar radiation and a lull in volcanic activity during the 1920s–1950s can explain much of the early 20th century Arctic warming.”
“According to the model the local solar irradiation changes play a crucial role in driving the Arctic early 20th century warming.”
“In summary, the early 20th century warming was largely externally forced.”
“… abrupt climate change on decadal timescales.”
It is worth (as authors of the cited work) noted that in the 20 – 30th was preceded by high volcanic activity destroys stratospheric ozone. The rapid cooling of the Arctic in the 50’s (http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/images/romanovsky_fig3.gif,
http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/detect/detection-images/land-permafrost-siberia-sml.jpg) was preceded by a “silence” volcanic – long-term increase of the ozone in the stratosphere.
“This opens up endless avenues of speculation.”
Of course. For example, Varma et al. , 2012., Describes such a phenomenon in the SH. (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2012GL053403/abstract): „The results suggest that during periods of lower solar activity, the annual-mean SWW tend to get weaker on their poleward side and shift towards the equator. [of course, when the Sun is more active there is a shift towards the pole]The SWW shift is more intense and robust for the simulation with varying stratospheric ozone, suggesting an important influence of solar-induced stratospheric ozone variations on mid-latitude troposphere dynamics.”
A similar effect of the Sun (by stratospheric ozone) on the winds certainly exists in the NH.
Incidentally, this has very interesting links also to an increase in natural sources of CO2 …
Would someone please understand this for me? Don’t all of you speak at once.
==========
Climate Scientist: I want a tool to examine Climate Temperatures.
Geek: How do you define Climate?
Climate Scientist: Longer than 30 years.
Geek: So you want a tool that will show how the planet’s temperature responds in periods of more than 30 years?
Climate Scientist: Yes.
Geek: Well basic theory says that a Low Pass filter with a corner frequency of 15 years will do exactly what you want.
Climate Scientist: But that’s not complicated enough and anyway that does not show me what I like to see. It says that there are natural oscillations in the signal and my theory says they don’t exist.
Geek: ??????????
RichardLH | January 28, 2014 at 5:02 am |
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/best-upper/mean:59/mean:61/mean:60/plot/best/mean:59/mean:61/mean:60/plot/best-lower/mean:59/mean:61/mean:60
Not complicated. What’s it show?
Or this:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4tr/mean:59/mean:61/mean:60/plot/hadcrut4sh/mean:59/mean:61/mean:60/plot/hadcrut4nh/mean:59/mean:61/mean:60/plot/hadcrut4gl/mean:59/mean:61/mean:60
Or this:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/mean:59/mean:61/mean:60/plot/esrl-co2/mean:59/mean:61/mean:60/normalise/plot/hadcrut4gl/mean:59/mean:61/mean:60
Go ahead. Narrate the graphs.
BartR: Well without the original data plotted simultaneously on the same graph it can be a but difficult to explain.
Try
HadCrut4
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/plot/hadcrut4gl/mean:220/mean:174/mean:144/plot/hadcrut4gl/mean:720
GISS
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/plot/gistemp/mean:220/mean:174/mean:144/plot/gistemp/mean:720.com
HadSST
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadsst3gl/plot/hadsst3gl/mean:220/mean:174/mean:144/plot/hadsst3gl/mean:720.com
These are simple Cascaded Triple Running Means (an FIR Low Pass Filter with a corner at 15 years).
Tell me what you see?
BartR: Add ‘compress=12’ if you want Yearly means rather than Monthly on the background, full data, plot.
Oops. The urls were with an 18.3 year corner by mistake. Replace with url values of ‘plot/hadcrut4gl/mean:180/mean:149/mean:123/’ for 15 years. Sorry.
BartR: And if you prefer higher order filters with a very nearly similar output.
http://snag.gy/hFsMF.jpg
Original ©Nate Drake, enhancement © RLH
“Filter on NON-detrended GISS LOTI data: …
I ran a 5 pass-multipass with second order polynomials on
15year data windows as per the Savitzky–Golay method.” Nate Drake
http://i879.photobucket.com/albums/ab357/NarwhaleNate/GISS_LOTI_S-G_Filternot-detrended_zps4a8d8e39.jpg
And if you play around with the filter settings, you can see those longer term cycles are robust. Much more robust than the hockey stick.
Jim2: I regard the 15 year ‘corner’ as being the ideal ‘binary chop’ for Climate.
Decadal and below = Stop band = Weather, Day, Month, Year, etc.
Multi-decadal and above = Pass band = Climate
That makes sense. Even one of Bart’s too-long filter still shows some of the long cycle. A more burning question is if there is an even longer term cycle that we just don’t have enough data to show.
jim2: I have an outstanding question about Nate’s GISS data as well. I just cannot reconcile it with the WFT data which comes straight from GISS. Something is wrong and it could be WFT but….
And as the Gun toting CAGW proponents seem so fond of ‘gun/bullet’ metaphors,
Gun – Shoot – Foot seems appropriate :-)
RichardLH | January 28, 2014 at 6:19 am |
Nonresponsive.
What’s your narrative for these wobble lines that clearly are aperiodic (ie there are no two apparent phases with the same duration)?
How do you account for the disappearance of the correlation between the Hale Cycle (which is a real thing, and can be confirmed by over a dozen cycles on the data) and global temperatures (which can be seen in the BEST curve, but that on all plots disappears in the 1950’s and never resumes)?
Because you’d think if smack in the middle of your wobble lines a correlation with solar became degenerate, that a wobble line reflecting an underlying solar correspondence would, y’know, become less self-similar. Where is your narrative for that?
And if you’re alleging a solar-earth correlation, why do NH, SH and tropics all tell a completely different story on your filters?
If not solar, then why do the NH, SH and tropics all tell a completely different story on your filters?
Why do AMO and PDO subtraction never give a stronger cyclic appearance on the wobble lines?
You really shouldn’t run around with firearms you aren’t in control of; do you need a band-aid for those feet?
Bart R. RichardLH is not obligated to explain data or its filtered appearance. Period. The long term signal is there. You can’t argue with that, or if you do, you won’t come off looking very bright. The filtered data is a form of observation. I look at grass and see it’s green. It will be green whether I understand why it’s green or not.
Or we can try Nate Drake’s narrative:
Nate Drake • 2014-01-24 05:37 PM there are no coincidences. None of those teleconnections is found in global average temperature. They OF COURSE are found in regional temperature records, as that is what they do. They shift where energy is moved in the system. They are very important for regional climate and weather, however they do not have a strong impact on GLOBAL climate. There of course are some very minute impacts, but those are all well below white noise levels. Let me say it again, REGIONAL TELECONNECTIONS (e.g. AMO, PDO, etc) do NOT cause global warming, they do not produce energy or retain more of it in the system they only redistribute what is already there. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O019WPJ2Kjs
Richard Linsley-Hood • 2014-01-24 05:53 PM The green wriggly lines don’t exist?
Nate Drake • 2014-01-24 05:57 PM No they don’t. And don’t forget, correlation is NOT equal to causation.
Richard Linsley-Hood • 2014-01-24 07:23 PM I never said who drove who. I just said they matched in period.
Richard Linsley-Hood • 2014-01-25 12:36 AM I suppose I need to create a single graphic with all the various plots on it
Nate Drake • 2014-01-24 07:24 PM and they dont.
http://www.nature.com/news/climate-change-the-case-of-the-missing-heat-1.14525?wafflebotCursorId=1390616498378643:0:0
The only people who see these things you pretend are there are people who see things that aren’t there.
Bart R | January 28, 2014 at 10:20 am |
“Nonresponsive.
What’s your narrative for these wobble lines that clearly are aperiodic (ie there are no two apparent phases with the same duration)?”
If I knew the answer to that I could collect my Nobel!
I am only a bookkeeper. I record what I see. Nothing more.
A signal of approximately 60 years in length is present in all the data records to date.
Why, I have no clue. But saying that because you can’t explain why it is there, it does not exist is crass stupidity.
As to Nate, well as he doesn’t think that means are a form of filter :-) I leave you to draw your own conclusions about how good a scientist he is!
BartR: As Nate has disappeared after I thanked him for so clearly demonstrating that ‘the pause’ exists from his own graph. I wonder if you would like to pick up the gauntlet as to where he got his GISS data from?
—
Nate: I would like to thank you for your contribution down thread with a very clear plot of temperature trends In GISS today.
An alternative visualisation of GISS data trends by Nate Drake using a Savitzky-Golay 15 year filter.
Source http://snag.gy/hFsMF.jpg
Original ©Nate Drake, enhancement © RLH
“Filter on NON-detrended GISS LOTI data: …I ran a 5 pass-multipass with second order polynomials on 15year data windows as per the Savitzky–Golay method.” Nate Drake
http://i879.photobucket.com/albums/ab357/NarwhaleNate/GISS_LOTI_S-G_Filternot-detrended_zps4a8d8e39.jpg
P.S. That should be Nate Drake PhD so as to not offend him :-)
BartR, can I play?
“REGIONAL TELECONNECTIONS (e.g. AMO, PDO, etc) do NOT cause global warming, they do not produce energy or retain more of it in the system they only redistribute what is already there.”
That is not completely correct. Redistribution of energy within a region does change global energy but due to land and polar amplification can cause “global” warming. A warmer north Atlantic SST is amplified Europe and the Arctic a warmer Eastern Pacific is amplified by North America. In order for that not to produce “Global” warming, snow field and glacial melt would have to return to the exact same conditions following a shift to a cooler phase.
The Northern and Tropical Atlantic SST also correlate with Arctic and Antarctic Sea Ice. That produces a “Global” impact even though the temperature change is REGIONAL.
http://www.nyu.edu/about/news-publications/news/2014/01/22/north-and-tropical-atlantic-ocean-bringing-climate-change-to-antarctica-nyu-researchers-find.html
So who ya going to believe?
captdallas 0.8 or less | January 28, 2014 at 10:47 am |
BartR, can I play?
“REGIONAL TELECONNECTIONS (e.g. AMO, PDO, etc) do NOT cause global warming, they do not produce energy or retain more of it in the system they only redistribute what is already there.”
Add to that moving a hot pan to a colder area is only moving energy around the system, but I guess the heat only leaks away and doesn’t affect the overall picture!
BartR: This is the sort of ‘scientist’ you are defending.
A response to his stupidity from me
—
So Vaughan Pratt knows nothing does he?
http://boole.stanford.edu/prat…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V…
Would not know a CTRM from a ‘real’ filter if he saw one.
http://climategrog.wordpress.c…
Scripts to automatically effect a triple-running-mean are provided here:
http://climategrog.wordpress.c…
Example of how to effect a triple running mean on Woodfortrees.org :
http://www.woodfortrees.org/pl…
Example of triple running mean in spread sheet:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/gp34…
How deluded and narrow minded can you get?
—
Go look for your self on the Nature thread and decide if you REALLY want to support his, so obvious, lack of any real knowledge outside of a dogmatic support for CAGW.
Bart and Nate are clever thinkers.
Don’t forget that these crude low pass filters throw away a lot of information that can be analyzed by different means.
I wouldn’t throw anything away, just like the skeptical statisticians tell us.
WHT: Low pass filters are a binary chop. Stop band – pass band. Nothing is lost.
You want the high frequency information, just use the high pass version instead.
WebHubTelescope (@whut) | January 28, 2014 at 11:37 am |
“Bart and Nate are clever thinkers.”
So clever that Nate (at least) does not know that means (of all sorts) ARE filters.
Despite his complete lack of knowledge on the subject.
How clever is that?
I use an all-pass filter and then get all the data.
You should try it sometime RichardLH!
Wordslaw and superstition, it turns out. Why am I not surprised?
If you don’t understand math, just say so.
Using means as filters is slapdashery, what you do when you lack decent tools or aren’t very choosy about the robustness of your results; if you’re _very_ careful you an avoid many of the pitfalls, but you can’t avoid them all because a filter is, by its nature, a simplification by enforcing choices of the interpreter on the image produced.
We can thus use WFT to impeach a lot of claims, but it is all-in-all too lacking in refinement to sustain many. Confidence in “about 60-year waves” is on of the most thoroughgoingly impeached of trend claims.
However often the claim is thrown up, the fact that it wasn’t there before 110 years ago, and then vanishes 20 years ago, tells us everything we need to know about the 60-ish-year-wave. http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/best/compress:12/plot/best/mean:180/mean:149/mean:123
If your wave were real, it’d be in the land-only data as far back as the start of the BEST record; but it doesn’t go that far back.
This is why you are obliged to provide a narrative interpretation of a graph, as you are the interpreter and what you present is just your opinion about how to view the data until and unless you present a scientific explanation: that you lay out your assumptions and show how you’ve reduced them to as few as possible, that you’ve accounted parsimoniously for exceptions, that your hypothetical curve is universal on as many ways of randomly selecting the data as possible. That’s not the stuff of Nobel prizes, that’s the minimum requirement of a trendologist. That you think it’s special or prize-making stuff shows you’re not well-versed in this subject.
Showing more than an arbitrary short span of the global temperature signal shows you’re making stuff up by handwaving and persiflage. Splitting the global data by hemisphere or region makes the supposed global signal disappear, Simpson’s Paradoxically. This tells us that there isn’t anything global about the ’60-ish year cycle’. But we knew that already because true cycles don’t approximate year-ishly. Either they have a fixed period, or they’re not a true cycle.
RLH, It’s like you are starting from a newborn state. Don’t throw away the data! It is telling us information.
http://imageshack.com/a/img22/720/9t8.gif
This chart shows the natural variation in the global temperature trend after the ln(CO2) secular trend is removed.
This natural variation consists of an SOI + AAM component, a volcanic aerosol component, a Stadium Wave LOD component, and a TSI component. In addition, there are several oscillation components that fill in some of the detail — corresponding to the diurnal cycle 18.6 years, the semidiurnal cycle of 8.85/2 years, the Sun-Moon-Earth alignment cycle of 9 years, and the 3rd harmonic of the Hale cycle of 22 years.
These terms are all demanded by skeptics to be included in a climate model.
Why would you want to throw all this information away and start from square one?
Webby, what’s the green line, or where did the blue model line come from(if the green line is your output)?
I’m really curious about Richard Linsley-Hood’s argument, from the point of view of his citation of Nathan Drake who fundamentally not only disagrees with Richard L-H’s claims, but who did so in exactly the exchange Richard cites while casting it as if Nate Drake’s argument supported Richard’s, when in fact Nate Drake’s case is quite fatal to Richard’s.. and then Richard later in comments cite’s Vaughn Pratt for support, when Dr. Pratt’s arguments and methods are fairly well-known to us and we ought understand that Dr. Pratt has exactly the diametric opposite view of what Richard purports. Will Richard come away from this exchange claiming the support of WHT’s points or mine?
And he casts himself in the role of geek, compared to Nate Drake or Vaughn Pratt?!
Do Richard, jim2 and other playahs really so misunderstand what’s going on as to not realise how backwards the picture they portray of what’s been said?
This is yet another case where it is possible to ascribe to ignorance what malfeasance more perfectly explains.
But Bart, that is exactly how to sow FUD.
Keep everyone guessing.
In RichardLH’ s case, he recommends using crude filtering. But watch it. He is just setting up some gullible sap for a stats guy to come down hard on the fellow.
Vaughan Pratt was able to generate extremely high correlation coefficients because he heavily filtered his data. But that becomes a double edged sword if it is hiding critical data.
WHT: I just get you do not know how engineers solve problems all the time. Based on good scientific principles.
Bart R | January 29, 2014 at 10:03 am |
“I’m really curious about Richard Linsley-Hood’s argument, from the point of view of his citation of Nathan Drake who fundamentally not only disagrees with Richard L-H’s claims”…And he casts himself in the role of geek, compared to Nate Drake or Vaughn Pratt?!”
My comment about Vaughn Pratt was solely to do with the question of if CTRMs (Cascaded Triple Running Means) are FIR Low pass filters as anyone who reads the exchange for themselves will see.
Nate claimed that CTRMs are not. I claimed they were. He was very rude. I was polite throughout.
Anyone want to disagree (on filters)? See the relevant thread here on JC if you want the low down of why I now use the 1.2067 inter stage multiplier.
http://judithcurry.com/2013/11/22/data-corruption-by-running-mean-smoothers/
And that, extremely well knowledged ‘Climate scientist’ is who you want to support?
He finally shot himself in the foot (am I allowed gun references as well now?) with his rather nice higher order filter on GISS which rather well show that the warming has stopped – flat line extension anyone?
Support the cause…..
The Pause
as demonstrated by Nate Drake PhD.
http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c274/richardlinsleyhood/NateAnimated_zps8efd1ce1.gif
And I STILL cannot find were he got that GISS data from, Doesn’t even come close to WFT figures. Anyone?
Bart R | January 28, 2014 at 8:53 pm |
“However often the claim is thrown up, the fact that it wasn’t there before 110 years ago, and then vanishes 20 years ago, tells us everything we need to know about the 60-ish-year-wave. http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/best/compress:12/plot/best/mean:180/mean:149/mean:123
If your wave were real, it’d be in the land-only data as far back as the start of the BEST record; but it doesn’t go that far back.”
You try to back your claim with BEST. Before 1940 or so! Have you ever looked at the number of 1*1 degree cells that are covered in the BEST database before that time?
1*1 degree cells, as that is what the maths is based on, not a very misleading ‘number of stations’ figure given the number of duplicate stations from the various sources and multiple stations per cell.
Have you analysed the databases themselves. Wondered why they are not even internally consistent? A standard data quality vet? I have. Now I know how “Harry” felt.
Anyone who tells me that they can get a better trend out of the data by ignoring Nyquist and assuming that they can ‘interpolate’/’guess’ the intervening wave shape spatially better than he said was possible leaves a lot to be proved.
P.S. Of course (ones again) the conclusions of the work Suo et al. (and another similar papers) very well correspond with the conclusions Semenov and Latif 2012 (http://www.the-cryosphere.net/6/1231/2012/tc-6-1231-2012.pdf): “This suggests that a significant reduction of winter Arctic sea ice extent may have also accompanied the early twentieth century warming …”
… What “breaks” hockey stick for the arctic ice: arctic ice extent now and in wthe 20 – 30’s are probably similar (just like its surface – area).
This is a telling map from WUWT:
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/6d36e-6a010536b58035970c01a73d62b38e970d-pi.png
No New Continent ‘Hottest’ Temperature Records Since 1978
Posted on January 28, 2014 by Anthony Watts
Something to consider for the SOTU address tonight where “extremes” of all kinds are likely to be discussed.
If indeed we are seeing hottest ever type scenarios, or if you prefer, greater extremes, where are the continental representations of this? If on the other hand, what we are experiencing is within bounds of natural variations, you would expect to see new continental records set. See the map:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/01/28/no-new-continent-hottest-temperature-records-since-1978/
We should not forget that the main reason for trying to understand what has happened in the past, is to help us understand what the science, the physics, means. When we fully understand the physics, then we can foretell the future. In the end, what is going to matter is how well the warmists are able to forecast what will happen to Arctic sea ice over the next few years. On this issue, they have really nailed their colors to the mast.
If, as I expect and hope, Arctic sea ice extent and volume is cyclical, then as these two values increase over the next few years, another nail will be firmly hammered into the CAGW coffin.
The relevant physics the produce the weather are well understood. Yet foretelling the weather more than a few weeks out remains mostly (educated) guesswork.
“When we fully understand the physics, then we can foretell the future.”
—–
This is absolutely incorrect Jim. Lorenz proved it is incorrect decades ago. It is especially incorrect with regards to weather forecasting beyond a few days and certainly climate modeling as well. The nature of deterministic chaos means that we can understand the physics to a great detail and use that knowledge to build our models, but the models will always be wrong about the details. In regards to climate models, we are more likely to have the big details right (trends and energy balance) with the most accurate physics and understanding of dynamics, but there will always be unknowns.
Given that there appears to be a fairly solid ~60 year cycle to the data so far, you may well be right
R. Gates, a Skeptical Warmist | January 28, 2014 at 8:19 am |
“This is absolutely incorrect Jim.”
You do know that, despite the fact that we cannot predict each individual atom in a mass of water or air, we can perform some overall analysis in the total flow of each within given parameters?
Perhaps the same is true for Climate if we take a timescale of >15 years?
R. Gates you write “This is absolutely incorrect Jim.”
It is not incorrect. All you are saying is that we don’t understand the physics of how climate works. And that is obvious. We do understand the physics of the motions of planetary bodies, and we can predict the places and timings of eclipses into the indefinite future.
“You do know that, despite the fact that we cannot predict each individual atom in a mass of water or air, we can perform some overall analysis in the total flow of each within given parameters?
Perhaps the same is true for Climate if we take a timescale of >15 years?”
—–
Climate over longer timescales will always be the sum of all forcings. In this regard we can be confident in our physics and the ability to forecast trends. The path along those longer trend lines will be noisy and even go against the trend for periods of time. But the best approach to the forcing from GH increases is to look at it from a net trend in system energy standpoint, and not strictly one form of that system energy. That would be a very noisy signal.
“All you are saying is that we don’t understand the physics of how climate works. And that is obvious.”
—-
You seem to have no grasp of what I was saying nor that fact that even understanding all the physics in a complex chaotic system will not allow us to predict exactly the future state of that system. Suggest you go read a bit more on Lorenz and Chaos theory.
R. Gates, a Skeptical Warmist | January 28, 2014 at 9:18 am |
“Climate over longer timescales will always be the sum of all forcings.”
Indeed.
Try
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/plot/hadcrut4gl/mean:220/mean:174/mean:144/plot/hadcrut4gl/mean:720
as a summary of HadCrut’s recording of those forcings to date.
Gate
You are placing a lot of faith on the knowns and known unknowns and have given little attention to the unknown unknowns and paradoxes that may be lurking out there in infinite amounts.
“You are placing a lot of faith on the knowns and known unknowns and have given little attention to the unknown unknowns…”
____
What kind of attention should we give to unknown unknowns? Certainly they exist, but beyond that acknowledgement, what do we say? But what we can place pretty high confidence in is our increasingly detailed understanding of past climates and the way that forcings affect the climate over long stretches of time. The paleoclimate record shows the climate, over long time frames is not a random walk, and that it is the net forcings that seem to drive the climate. Yes, there are sudden reversals, and yes (thankfully), there is much we don’t understand, but the secrets of Earth’s climate and the forcings that drive the climate are slowly being uncovered. But we should never expect that this will lead to the ability to predict the future in exact detail regarding climate. Only trends over longer-time frames.
Global Circulation Models give increasingly lower Arctic air pressure with increased warming, which is fine in theory. But Arctic warming and loss of sea ice occurs with negative NAO/AO conditions and lower Arctic pressure, so by definition, there cannot be any anthropogenic warming component to Arctic warming, as such warming should be lowering Arctic air pressure and not raising it. The accelerated sea ice loss since 1996 is inseparable from the increase in negative NOA/AO episodes since 1996, particularly at a seasonal noise scale, as well as the trend.
‘How do you explain turbulence?’
H/t mebbe Heisenberg, but I’m not certain.
=========
Dang, that was certainly supposed to follow AK @ 8:09. Is the thread just raveled or is it eddied?
================
your comment is diffusing.
Judy – just out of UK govts AR5 review. Nether side looked good, both on unsolid ground. The climate professionals spoke well but without substance – when one was asked how the evidence for AGW had improved since AR4 the response was confidence is now 95% – I don’t think anybody missed that ‘opinion’ was being used as a substitute for substance. No winners today, only losers. The venerable meteorologist for the sceptics spoke like alister cook – slow and measured, but with less panache and not much punch. I think the most switched on group were the MPs, but they dident have to answer questions. David Liddle MP was the sharpest tool in the box and swung the balence away from the whole event being a total waste of a cold, rainy Wednesday in London. I did try to waylay Mme LeFramboise, but she had a lunch schedule and I need to speak to the committee chairman, maybe get lucky next time.
Try ‘La’ next time. TNX for the crack of the switch.
===========
Desolet, don’t get much oppertunity to practice la belle langue on the south side.
Very, very interesting about the MPs. I’m amazed it’s risen so fast.
=======
Heh, I know you; you’re just laying willard bait.
==========
No – Judy mentioned she was asked to attend. My thoughts were she should have been happier to stay in a much warmer Bama, CO2 has a chilling effect in London.
stay tuned a post coming within the hour
Probably Peter Lilley. Coverage @ the Bish’s. I wanna photo of Richard Lindzen just after someone has yanked a cigarette from his mouth.
================
None of us are getting younger, and he proved it. But because he was the senior member ( no pun intended) he cast a shadow upon a more able and vigorous Mme LaFramboise. Bleah. 6 pints down.
Call me for CMcM decoder rings.
==============
Bowled me a google e chum. Run that by me again in Scotlaise.
It all comes back to the Stadium Wave model.
Wyatt and Curry titled their paper “Role for Eurasian Arctic shelf sea ice in a secularly varying hemispheric climate signal during the 20th century”
The arctic is an indicator of the planetary variability, which can be used to model the global temperature trends. Removing the compensating effects of the variability allow us to get at the secular trends:
http://contextearth.com/2014/01/22/projection-training-intervals-for-csalt-model/
As Curry stated, it has changed the way I “think about natural internal variability” . Thank you, thank you, thank you.
We got awful lucky that CO2 warms rather than cools.
=========
kim | January 28, 2014 at 9:03 am |
“We got awful lucky that CO2 warms rather than cools.”
In a laboratory – not yet proven to be a major factor in a global atmospheric long term sense.
I saw an experimen on tv to show how co2 warms the planet – a jar with elevated co2 became opaque and the temp rose faster than a simmilar jar with plain air, when both were exposed to a high watt light bulb. In reality this experiment would have a net cooling of a sea surface if applied to the real world by ensuring the solar energy is absorbed by the atmosphere rather than the sea. The role of emissions can swing ether way.
Of course, RLH, and note that just as CO2 rise follows temperature rise in the paleontological record, so temperature drop follows CO2 rise, but not in the nice orderly fashion as the rises.
I label myself a ‘lukewarming cooler’, admitting an as yet unknown warming component to AnthroGHGs, while also guessing that natural cycles will cool us for awhile. That term ‘lukewarming cooler’ was the source of much amusing backchat @ the Blackboard.
We’re lucky because warming climate changes are net beneficial and cooling climate changes are net detrimental. I’m not sure that paleontology has seen the limits yet of this ‘perfect certainty’, but recently there are apparent limits in the two attractors of glaciation and de-glaciation.
===============
From defiance to resignation that they have lost the argument. Yes, we are fortunate that CO2 warms the planet. And that burning straw releases heat. We are also fortunate that a multiplication does not result in a division and that addition does not result in a subtraction. Think about the loss of technological progress that this would entail!
Yes, thank god for that. Now the energy is released over the atmosphere where it can advect over to land and amplify the land warming!
http://contextearth.com/2014/01/25/what-missing-heat/
Good thing people are amphibians and don’t have to live on land unless forced to.
Polar Vortex
“It was shown that the detected earlier ∼60-year oscillations of the amplitude and sign of SA/GCR effects on the troposphere pressure at high and middle latitudes (Veretenenko and Ogurtsov, Adv.Space Res., 2012) are closely related to the state of a cyclonic vortex forming in the polar stratosphere. The intensity of the vortex was found to reveal a roughly 60-year periodicity affecting the evolution of the large-scale atmospheric circulation and the character of SA/GCR effects.”
Veretenenko & Ogurtsov
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0273117713005474
It seems like a whole lot of hair splitting.
The question is really whether a sufficient difference exists between the two periods in order to be able to say with confidence that most of the recent arctic warming can be attributed to a forcing (CO2) that wasn;t around in the earlier warm arctic period. Some data sets seem to give support for confidence (those emphasized by Tamino) , some don’t (Judith’s preferred). Overall it doesn’t look clear one way or the other to me. Given Arctic amplification I’m expecting this to be much clearer, the fact that it isn’t seems to support Judith’s position.
I like Judith’s final comment, more work please, preferably in a space were competing ideas can be aired i.e. not under the tyranny of a consensus.
A 2009 study of warming in Greenland by Jason Box et al found that ” The annual whole ice sheet 1919–32 warming trend is 33% greater in magnitude than the 1994–2007 warming.” Link:
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/2009JCLI2816.1
See also Fig. 10.
dalyplanet | January 27, 2014 at 10:13 pm |
JCH there is some “adjustments” to the temp data about 1998 that muddies the water.
That is the understatement of the year and is totally ignored by everyone on here.
The adjustments made to Iceland’s data is an absolute disgrace.
I think this image (from) is the key to what temperatures are measured in the Arctic, they are all coastal stations (The same thing I told Robert Way the other day).
When there’s ice, they get very cold, when the ice melts (which has to be from warm water), they read very close to open arctic water temps.
Arctic amplification is just a measure of ice melt.
Also because of the latitude, there is no tipping point to an ice free arctic, at high latitudes water reflects 40-50% if it’s energy back into space (or the clouds depending on the weather). So while Sun gets reflected, open water under clear skies radiates to space under a very cold sky. I can measure a -60F sky (8u-14u@41N Lat, 81W Lon) when it’s clear, so even if its 3C warmer from 14u-16u, the rest of the IR window is -60F (or colder) and radiating straight to space.
Sooner or later people are going to figure out that Co2 accounts for almost none of the warming, and it’s the ratio of cloud to clear sky that controls surface temps.
And Tamino, your response is?
New study compares to “Lamb’s Graph” figure 7 FAR
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921818114000253?np=y
http://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/1-s2.0-S0921818114000253-gr4.sml
One thing we know for sure, global warming is blamed for both arctic warming and no arctic warming–e.g., a (not quite) complete list of things supposedly caused by global warming, as follows:
Caused By Global Warming
… algal blooms, archaeological sites threatened,Arctic bogs melt, Arctic in bloom, Arctic ice free, Arctic ice melt faster, Arctic lakes disappear, Arctic tundra to burn, Arctic warming (not), Atlantic less salty, Atlantic more salty, atmospheric circulation modified, attack of the killer jellyfish, avalanches reduced, avalanches increased, Baghdad snow, Bahrain under water, bananas grow, barbarization, beer shortage…
Dr. Curry over Tamino by TKO.
One question about the 50/50 natural variation/AGW attribution. Polar amplification seems a well thought out proposition. But then the present period trend should have been greater than, rather than only equal to, the previous Arctic warming. Something isn’t fitting together well.
Yet another paper on the extent of the MWP, this time over the arctic..So much for unprecedented hokey schticks
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/01/28/inconvenient-study-arctic-was-warmer-than-the-present-during-the-medieval-warm-period/
In a 2007 paper James Hansen noticed two discrepancies in the global surface temperature record.
1. Absence of strong cooling following the 1883 Krakatoa eruption
2. Lack of a warm peak at about 1940.
The first can happen I suppose because of the variability in eruption characteristics. This is clearly observed in the CSALT model, as Krakatoa has less effect than most of the other VEI greater than 4 eruptions of the 20th century.
The second is directly related to the arctic warming observed. I see this global anomaly at 1940 in the CSALT model.
This is right on a minimum of the Stadium Wave LOD signal, which is the transition between the earth speeding up and slowing down. Putting on the brakes will release some amount of heat, as the energy has to go somewhere.
Take a look at figure 3 of the Stadium Wave paper. Specifically the difference between the peaks at 1915-1935 and 1973-1995. At first glance I’d say it might be catching the rise and fall of some longer-term peak, although there’s no good reason to assume we’re looking at repeating cycles here.
Interesting:
Figs 7 through 10
Temporal Group I: 56 years periodicity
Temporal Group II: 59 years periodicity
Temporal Group III: 60 years periodicity
Temporal Group IV: 60 years periodicity
Dr. Curry,
“Some of the plots show the recent temperatures to be comparable to the earlier temperatures; others show current temperatures to be much warmer.”
This is false. Arctic wide temperatures are greater than during the early period with all available Arctic-wide records. I note that many of the citations you provide are before the largest temperature anomalies in the Arctic. Here is the up to date comparison including the NansenSAT dataset from Johannessen et al:
Annual:
http://www.skepticalscience.com//pics/Arctic_SAT_Ann.jpg
120-month/10-Year Centered Mean:
http://www.skepticalscience.com//pics/Arctic_SAT_120RM.jpg
Comparison of the Warmest Periods:
http://www.skepticalscience.com//pics/1_Arctic_SAT_DBplot.jpg
“Well, average temperatures above 70 N during the 1990′s were lower than in the 1930′s. The most recent Arctic temperatures that are published (say for 2005-2010) are higher. The IPCC’s statement is not incorrect, and the citation of the IPCC statement in my Senate testimony has been defended.”
First the IPCC and your own claim that during the 2000s Arctic SATs were comparable to the early period is false. If in your testimony you meant only latitudes above 70°N and only for the early 2000s (which is on its own debatable) then you had every opportunity to specify that in the testimony. Instead you used a sweeping generalization that is not supported by the data. Secondly, you can’t simply take away a chunk of the Arctic and say you meant above 70°N. By any reasonable measure the Arctic extends as far south as 58°N in the Labrador Sea for example.
If we are truly going to be “Skeptical” about things then its important to be skeptical of both claims that exaggerate and underestimate. Its easy to look at the data and citing papers from years ago isn’t going to change the facts.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/Rapid_Arctic_Warming_Part_One.html
I also notice a big omission in not including Suo et al. 2013…
Robert: There looks suspiciously like there is a 60 year periodicity to that Annual data.
http://www.skepticalscience.com//pics/Arctic_SAT_Ann.jpg
Care to run a 15 year low pass filter on it to sort noise from Climate?
Hi, Robert, could you explain your box plot to me? There seems to be a lot of overlap, does this mean they are statistically indistinguishable?
Not really interested in blog skeptical science. Use references to the literature directly.
http://www.tellusa.net/index.php/tellusa/article/view/15260
The Nansen data set confirms Curry’s testimony that the Arctic was warminger in the early 20th century. The whole paper may be downloaded at the link above.
junior, junior
If you really want to be taken seriously as a scientist , you need to separate yourself from those activist bozos at skepticalscience.
I think at this point, Dr. Curry needs to explain why Robert’s plots are wrong. As someone pointed out, the result may not be statistically significant. Whatever the case, some input from Dr. Curry would be interesting.
Nice article Robert
What’s Arctic, and where have the records been obtained that are used in that comparison?
Looking at, what Wikipedia defines as Arctic, it’s easy to conclude that most of the long temperature records north of 60N are not from that region.
I live north of 60N (very slightly), Finland extends to 70N, but Finland is not part of Arctic, not even the northernmost part.
David Springer,
If you had bothered to look at the plots you would see I included NansenSAT… and it does not support Curry’s interpretation. Lazy on your part.
Excuse me Robert but I looked at the actual paper not skeptical science claims.
jim2, “I think at this point, Dr. Curry needs to explain why Robert’s plots are wrong.”
Nah, Robert is playing games. The point is that the 30s were “about” or “almost” as was as today which his own data shows and had he used monthly it would stand out even more. Robert is going out of his way to prove it wasn’t “warmer” in the 30s & 40s and even wants to redefine what the “arctic: is 58 degree instead of 66.5 which is typically rounded to 60 or 65 degrees.
Since CO2 equivalent forcing has increased by about 0.6C since 1950 the real arctic should be about 2 C warmer now than in the 1930s. If the AGW portion is only 0.3C, then the Arctic should be about 0.9 C warmer now than in the 30s. That is if you consider all that “polar” warming that has been advertised.
The Arctic is by strict definition the area north of 66.53N latitude.
Not strictly it may refer to north of the tree line or north of the 10C isotherm. These loose defintions change from year to year of course.
https://nsidc.org/sites/nsidc.org/files/images//arctic_map.gif
Robert is not an honest broker of course and thinks we all need to go by whatever arbitrary definition of the Arctic best suits narrative. Any reference to SS (Skeptical Scienct) is a dead giveaway of dishonesty.
Pekka, “I live north of 60N (very slightly), Finland extends to 70N, but Finland is not part of Arctic, not even the northernmost part.”
Aw, what about Santa Clausville in Rovaniemi?
Pekka Pirilä | January 28, 2014 at 1:22 pm |,
There are many definitions for the Arctic but >60N is a fairly good one. The Arctic may be further north in europe but it is further south along the western North Atlantic. I grew up in Labrador – the Arctic there descends as far south as 58 North there.
HR,
They are different and it is statistically significant. However I should amend the text on the post as I made a slight mistake in that the density plots use CW2014 and the Boxplots use HadCRUTv4.
The updated version is here:
http://www.skepticalscience.com//pics/2_Arctic_SAT_DBplot.jpg
‘Nah, Robert is playing games. The point is that the 30s were “about” or “almost” as was as today which his own data shows and had he used monthly it would stand out even more. Robert is going out of his way to prove it wasn’t “warmer” in the 30s & 40s and even wants to redefine what the “arctic: is 58 degree instead of 66.5 which is typically rounded to 60 or 65 degrees.”
Sorry but Robert is doing a far better job of explaining the state of the record than anyone else: He’s not stooping to the “anti science” charge as mann did, he’s showing all the data, unlike tamino, and he’s giving his considered judgment of an area of the world that he has spent a lot of time studying.
Of course he gets to make fine points and distinctions to point out the short comings of judith’s position.
The Santa Claus park is exactly on Polar Circle, thus on the border of Arctic based on the one definition David called strict. Rovaniemi itself is a little south of that.
There are, indeed, many definitions of Arctic, but all of them leave most of long temperature time series north of 60N out for the simple reason that most of the people north of 60N live outside of Arctic (a large fraction lives in Sweden, Norway, Finland or near St. Petersburg). The map of Fig 1. of the paper of Bekryaev et al shows that clearly.
These are define Arctic as north of 60 degrees,
Most of the warming was north of 80 degrees:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/tmp/modelE/ltmap/tmp.4_obsLOTI_ER_12_1880_2012_1951_1980-0/ltmap.gif
It does appear that north of 80 degrees, the temperatures were comparable to recent times. This is consistent with the anecdotal reports of sea ice loss during the time ( the 1922 report ).
steven Mosher, “Of course he gets to make fine points and distinctions to point out the short comings of judith’s position.”
If you are making fine points and distinctions you don’t start off with “that is false” and then add 8 degrees of latitude to the definition of Arctic. That should start with something a bit less abrasive.
Eunice, While we are at let’s show all that 1930s to 40s data that was available for comparison.
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/tmp/gistemp/NMAPS/tmp_GHCN_GISS_ERSST_250km_Anom1212_2013_2013_1930_1940/nmaps.gif
capt.
i consider bickering over the definition of “the arctic” to be making of fine points. 70? 66? 60 58? all reasonable nonsense. all arguable.
I’ll just point out that this debate is head and shoulders above a Mann tweet or a Tamino hatchet job.I’ll just point out that Robert actually works on this stuff and hes tough but fair.
Robert knows his stuff. He gets to make a strong case without being personally attacked by folks her. Same way Judith gets to make her case without being personally attacked.
Of course you guys might want to look at NanSat and see how the data product was actually produced.. right now everybody is debating the final answer without considering the primary sources and methods.
Put another way Judith rested her case on a paper or two and none of you have gone to look at how it was constructed. If you did and applied a skeptical eye you might think twice.
We are stuck in a situation where we know the recent past ( the last couple decades) better than the near past ( say 1920-30) And it would take some pretty good evidence to say with certainty that the arctic temps where higher /similar in the earilier parts of the record, or to argue as Tony B does that the Ice was in a similar state. On the balance of the evidence its warmer now. And there is less ice. Could that be wrong? sure, but to prove its wrong requires MORE than citing papers in my mind. On the other hand the facts look thin enough that I think somebody should probably dig down to the sources themselves.
The latter is hard to do and there no sure path to a paper out of it.
That means we will sit here and debate definitions of
“apparrently as warm, what is the arctic and who decided? and all other sorts of scholastic/academic questions.”
Steven Mosher, This debate definitely is better than most, but the start of the debate was that Judith presented false testimony to congress. That should require sticking to “her” talking points and text. Almost and About are the words used by the IPCC to indicate less confidence, that is what she conveyed.
The finer points are nice with less of an antagonistic start. Robert Way could be the most brilliant climate science the world will ever know, but he comes off as a butthole.
Steven Mosher | January 28, 2014 at 1:59 pm |
“he’s giving his considered judgment of an area of the world that he has spent a lot of time studying”
Seriously? Curry was studying the Arctic before Way was born.
Steven Mosher | January 28, 2014 at 1:59 pm |
“Sorry but Robert is doing a far better job of explaining the state of the record than anyone else”
Seriously? The state of the instrumental temperature record for the Arctic can be best summed up in one word: nonexistent. Who was recording the temperature at the north pole in 1930, Santa Claus?
Who’s recording it now? There aren’t any permanent stations anywhere near the NP.
Steven Mosher | January 28, 2014 at 2:35 pm |
“i consider bickering over the definition of “the arctic” to be making of fine points. 70? 66? 60 58? all reasonable nonsense. all arguable.”
I consider it to be moving the goalposts. The Arctic is the area inside the Arctic Circle which is 66.6N latitude. That’s why it’s called “The Arctic Circle”. Duh. Write that down.
captdallas 0.8 or less | January 28, 2014 at 2:44 pm |
“Robert Way could be the most brilliant climate science the world will ever know”
A PhD geography student at University of Ottawa?
Dude. Geography isn’t even a science. It’s Arts and Humanities. Even so the Geography Dept. at U of O doesn’t even rank in the top 200 Georgraphy departments worldwide.
http://www.topuniversities.com/subject-rankings
When I mentioned Skeptical Science recruiting from the bottom of the barrel I wasn’t kidding
Springer, “A PhD geography student at University of Ottawa?”
that qualifies him to be a climatologist, urban planner and even a cartographer. Who knows, he might even have 24 hours of statistics.
First, let me say I think he’s got the wrong answer, as did Jones, CRU, Mann, and BEST. Filling in huge areas with some made up temp where there’s no measurements, when surface temps are not linear, is wrong.
But, He tried, he got data, and tried. Maybe he’s smart enough to learn, we’ll see.
I in part have to say this, because I have no credentials, I am however an expert in simulator technology, and data processing/manipulation, and think I have something to add to climatology.
Mosh, I am heartened with the care you put into prepping the data, now if I can only convince you that making up values where none exist is worse than worthless.
“David Springer | January 28, 2014 at 3:47 pm |
A PhD geography student at University of Ottawa?
Dude. Geography isn’t even a science. It’s Arts and Humanities. Even so the Geography Dept. at U of O doesn’t even rank in the top 200 Georgraphy departments worldwide.”
A number of issues with this post. Physical Geography is a science, Geography is a part of Arts and Humanities. Physical Geographers tend to correspond to Climatologists, Cartographers, Geomorphologists, Glaciologists, Geographic Information System Specialists among other fields. I think you may be surprised to know that many climatologists and glaciologists work in Geography departments.
As for the University of Ottawa. I study permafrost-climate relations and the University of Ottawa is a fantastic place to study that. Several of the world’s leading permafrost researchers are based out of Ottawa including Philip Bonnaventure, Chris Burn, Stephan Gruber, Antoni Lewkowicz, Sharon Smith, Yu Zhang and the late Dan Riseborough. If you can think of a place in North America with as much permafrost expertise then I am all ears…
My undergraduate major was technically Geography, although I took mainly meteorology and climatology courses from the Geography Dept, and did minors in Biology, Math, Physics and Chemistry. Provided that the Geog major is supplemented with sufficient Maths and Physics, I think it is a good base from which to do certain aspects of climate science.
RichardLH – Did you see this?
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/01/28/inconvenient-study-arctic-was-warmer-than-the-present-during-the-medieval-warm-period/
With all due respect, IMO, you should disassociate yourself from Skeptical Science which is barely science and skeptical only of those questioning the CO2/AGW narrative but glad to see you engage here.
Yeah because the rabid loons here have shown such a good impression
Geography huh. Interesting. I searched for climate science PhD programs. At top shelf schools all are in natural sciences departments.
http://www.princeton.edu/cics/graduate-degree-program/
http://earth.yale.edu/graduate-program
http://atmos.rutgers.edu/
http://gsas.columbia.edu/content/academic-programs/atmospheric-science
http://scrippseducation.ucsd.edu/Graduate_Students/Prospective_Students/Program_Areas/climate.php
I google permafrost research.
https://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4GGNI_enUS573&q=permafrost+research
I looked through the first 60 hits. Google rankings don’t think much of U o O for permafrost research.
For the record here’s how U of O describes the physical geography program:
Physical Geography
How this grants expertise in statistical guesswork for generating temperature time series over a half frozen polar ocean is beyond me.
Just sayin’
Steven Mosher,
…Had he kept up with his reading he would have noted Polyakov et al 2003. He may have also noted that we dont include data from this paper…
Polyakov et al’s dataset is used by Berkryaev, Polyakov and Alexeev (2010) which Dr. Curry cites. If you look at that paper you will see that Dr. Currys position may have been defensible if she presented it in 2005 but today in 2014 it is not. And using that dataset its not even close…
My points a bit more sharp than that.
My point is that Tamino doesnt do himself any favors in his argument by using our data to make his point because we dont include the data that Judith was relying on. Any one who has followed her understands that the 2003 paper is one that she puts alot of weight on. She’s talked about it more than once.
It would be a good to have a comprehensive review of all the data for this period. I suspect that Judith’s opinion would have to be modified or qualified. And I suspect that if a good case was presented she would modify her position. But suggesting that she is anti science, just strikes me as unnecessary over-reaching.
This is really a bit of a yawn. I regard the temperatures of the arctic ocean to be pretty much unknown (I am not impressed by statistical extrapolations from land measurements). I read the papers written by experts on the arctic climate system and the Arctic temperature record, and I cite the IPCC. While i have not done fundamental research myself on the Arctic temperature record, I am an expert on the arctic climate as you can tell from my c.v. I judged that what the IPCC wrote on this topic is defensible in context of the recent published literature, which I stated in my congressional testimony. In fact, I was invited by Nature Geoscience to write a news and views article on this topic which is in press. So stay tuned for another post on this topic when the Nature Geosci article comes out.
They don’t want Judith to modify her position. They want to make a mountain out of molehill and use the mountain to discredit Dr. Curry, the climate scientist who strayed off the alarmist reservation. “Don’t listen to that woman, Judith Curry, she misinformed the Senate.” The lower level less sophisticated bozo activists will make it “Curry lied to the Senate! Curry lied to the Senate!” Which version turns up in Wikipedia remains to be seen.
They try to smear any prominent personage with any influence, who challenges the dogma. Lindzen has tobacco stained fingers and he once accepted 47 dollars and 67 cents from fossil fuel interests. OMG! Spencer and Christy are Christians, for chrissake. How can they possibly do science. When Michael Crichton was on the team with Lindzen that smashed Gavin and his Team in that NPR debate, Gavin pointed out that Crichton is too tall.
It’s a shame that Richard Way has fallen in with that lot. He has potential. But here he is with his skepticalscience links carrying water for tammy and the Team.
This is good discussion. The biggest weakness of the Arctic temperature is the paucity of data. IMO, more data is a good thing, and it would be good to divert some money from climate models to finding ways to improve data.
curryja | January 28, 2014 at 2:04 pm |
“So stay tuned for another post on this topic when the Nature Geosci article comes out.”
Look forward to it.
Don Monfort
Bingo squared!!!
The piling on the last couple of days was obnoxious and proves just what you said about those who disagree with JC
curryja | January 28, 2014 at 2:04 pm |
Apparently, this is the nub of the matter wrt Dr. Curry’s view. Seems perhaps conservative and reasonable. Anti-science falsehoods? not even close unless you are a self-absorbed drama queen or a frustrated gamer playing nature-boy accountant.
Steve dear, Judith Curry, by her publication record is an expert on Arctic climate. Now some, not Eli to be sure, might think that includes being familiar with the work of others in the subject area.
The premise of the Stadium Wave paper is that the source originates in the Arctic, and that is clearly evident by the title .. “Role of Eurasian Arctic shelf sea ice …”
So this is a source of natural variability that propagates over the rest of the planet. In this case the variability would have to be exaggerated at the source, because it has to be able to impact larger areas elsewhere. That is how the Stadium Wave is defined.
What this means is that the Arctic warming fluctuation of the 40’s has to be there, otherwise the Stadium wave paper would be missing a premise.
Remember that one’s research has to have a consistent set of premises to be able to move forward.
As Emerson wrote:
Maybe it’s better to have an “empirically validated” set of premises, rather than simply a “consistent” set of premises (which may be “foolish”), Webby.
Max
I don’t think a “foolish consistency” is bad when one is trying to come up with a theory as comprehensive in scope as the Stadium Wave conjecture, MAnacker.
A. The Stadium Wave originates in the Arctiic
B. The Stadium Wave is detectable on a global level as natural variability in the temperature records.
It follows from A and B that the temperature variations in the Arctic need to be significant to provide such a forcing change globally. And that is just what we are seeing. — which in turn is what we refer to as logical consistency.
One can always suggest that the Stadium Wave does not originate in the Arctic, but then the original paper would be invalidated, based on the title of the paper.
Robert Way, I suggest that you take a look at this site, which shows some of the data manipulation going on before being so absolutely positive in your statements.
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2014/01/21/giss-head-unfamiliar-with-his-own-data/
For an actual example see this
http://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2012/11/09/giss-double-up-on-reykjavik-temperatures/
Climate science today, as practiced by GISS
– Our models tell us that the Arctic must be warmer than at any time in the past due to AGW
– The thermometers out there show that the Arctic was slightly warmer in the 1930s than it is today
– Since our models cannot be wrong, by definition, the thermometers must be wrong
– So we must adjust the observed thermometer record to agree with our models
MAnacker good thing there are measurements, otherwise we wouldn’t get models such as the Stadium Wave theory.
Sorry to clue you in on this, but there is a love-hate relationship built into this mess. Can’t live with the temperature records, can’t live without it.
I hope this does not make you too weepy, MAnacker.
Tamino then Way, the passive aggression is strong with these guys. Their disdain and balls out hatred of JC emanates through their carefully tempered criticism.
I’m updating the main post with a few references i received via email:
A 2009 study of warming in Greenland by Jason Box et al found that ” The annual whole ice sheet 1919–32 warming trend is 33% greater in magnitude than the 1994–2007 warming.”
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/2009JCLI2816.1
you go girl!
Can I quote?
“It therefore seems much more likely that not that
Greenland is and will be for the foreseeable future be a
deglaciating Pleistocene Ice Age relic.”
You do indeed go girl
Can I quote?
Everyone can,that is the point of open debate.i can for example quote Thompson (lord kelvin) on the problems of ice melt from the Greenland glaciers.in the 19th century.
the freezing point of water is lowered by the effect of pressure 0.23° Fahr., or about a quarter of a degree for each additional atmosphere of pressure. Now, a sheet of ice 3000 feet thick is equal to a pressure of eighty-three atmospheres, at which pressure it would require a temperature of 19° below freezing point to retain the form of ice
So now we have a boundary constraint,your problem is now to resolve the Peclet number (peclet being the first to observe the problem) for the inflection point.
Robert Way said:
“If we are truly going to be “Skeptical” about things then its important to be skeptical of both claims that exaggerate and underestimate.”
___
Indeed! And those terrible claws of the Uncertainty Monster cut both ways!
Missed it by one minute.
opps 8 minutes
Yes RG, the Arctic variability better be large otherwise the Stadium Wave conjecture is invalidated.
Wyatt and Curry have the stadium wave originating in the arctic and unless that provides a big enough peak-to-peak forcing function, it won’t propagate to the rest of the world and generate a meager +/- 0.1 C variability on average global temperatures.
I have an interest in this as well since my CSALT model is dependent on the Stadium Wave component factor to express long-term natural variability.
webster, see if you can dig up a copy of this paper.
http://www.nyu.edu/about/news-publications/news/2014/01/22/north-and-tropical-atlantic-ocean-bringing-climate-change-to-antarctica-nyu-researchers-find.html
The AMO is part of the Wave right?
Here is a challenge to Robert Way and Tamino.
Using the 66.5 north definition of Arctic, how much colder should 1938 have been based on back calculation of Polar amplification and current best estimate of atmospheric forcing? Let us know what percentage you allowed for natural variability.
Natural Variability? There is none of that round here. It’s all (well possibly nearly all) C02. :-)
Upon reading the comments of this thread related to the Arctic temps in the 1930’s, I provide the following reflection. The times they sure have changed – look who is defending the text of the IPCC (moi) versus who is criticizing it (Tamino, SkS, Tenney Naumer, etc).
Indeed, strange times indeed. Who denies what now?
Yes, isn’t it amusing. Alarmists throw IPCC under the bus in attempt to discredit wayward climate scientist. Isn’t this the first time they have ever pointed out, or admitted, an IPCC error. What a coincidence.
It would seem the real issue is dealing honestly and accurately with the data and what they really show. I’ve never been aware of a lock-step effort to defend every jot and tittle of the IPCC.
Like a lot of people, I’ve long since given up on WUWT.
But Dr. Curry is not simply a climate blog. Unlike Tony, she’s a respected Earth scientist. Her credibility was important to and for the discussion and for the 3%. I have for a long time depended on it.
It’s a shame to have diminished it so publicly even if the risk (benefit?) was to point out an inaccuracy or shortcoming in the IPCC.
Shelama Leesen | January 28, 2014 at 6:18 pm |
“It would seem the real issue is dealing honestly and accurately with the lack of data and what they really cannot show.”
Fixed that for ya!
More like you are throwing your own work under the bus, Judith.
“GLOBAL temperature anomalies in the 1930s were apparently as large as those in the 1990s and 2000s. There is still considerable discussion of the ultimate causes of the warm temperature anomalies that occurred GLOBALLY in the 1920s and 1930s.”
About right.
Well, average temperatures above 70 N during the 1990′s were lower than in the 1930′s. The most recent Arctic temperatures that are published (say for 2005-2010) are higher. The IPCC’s statement is not incorrect, and the citation of the IPCC statement in my Senate testimony has been defended.
I agree. I doubt that it matters to anyone, but I have also read nearly all the comments. Prof Curry’s comments were not anti-science, not a mere regurgitation of IPCC AR5, and were well-sourced. Tamino was wrong in this instance.
Mr. Marler, your comment above is the main reason I an incented to contribute to Judith’s blog with occaisional guest posts and comments. Nice to see that an adult ‘jury’ from around the world can read the evidence and render an adult verdict. She helps us all move toward knowledgeable citizen science. Per her previous post on ‘the death of experts’. Regards to you.
Rud Istvan, thank you for your kind words.
More kind words, Matthew, your posts always maintain a high standard, as a non-statistician I don’t comment on them but do appreciate them.
Agree with Rud and Faustino (as usual) There are a few commenters who I appreciate because (1) they are experts who unselfishly share their knowledge without making the rest of feel in any way inferior (2) they don’t snark and never respond to the snark of others (3) they are always trying to add to the debate in a positive way and to keep threads on topic and (4) they are unassuming about their POV and seem willing to change it if new information comes to light.
Matthew Marler is a rare one who ticks all the boxes while most of the others I admire ticks some of the boxes.
Faustino and Peter, I thank you too.
These kind words put me in mind of the times that I have been wrong.
Judith Curry: I have responded to your post here.
Let’s be crystal-clear what the issue is. The issue is temperature in the Arctic, not some sector of the Arctic, not some season in the Arctic, and the real issue (the point of dispute) is: temperatures since 2000 compared to temperatures in the 1930s (and/or 1940s if you wish).
You have referred to a number of papers which give “time series plots of Arctic surface temperatures,” claiming that “Some of the plots show the recent temperatures to be comparable to the earlier temperatures; others show current temperatures to be much warmer.” When we look for ourselves, we discover that each and every one either has little or no data after 2000, or covers some sub-region of the Arctic/particular season rather than “the Arctic,” or flat-out contradicts the claim that “Arctic surface temperature anomalies in the 1930’s were as large as the recent temperature anomalies.”
The number of papers you have cited which show “recent temperatures to be comparable to the earlier temperatures” equals zero.
The number of times you have referred to examining actual data about the issue for yourself, equals zero.
The number of data sets which support the idea that “Arctic surface temperature anomalies in the 1930’s were as large as the recent temperature anomalies” northward of latitude 70N, not in some “sector” and not in some particular “season,” equals zero.
Tamino –
What Judith has said is consistent with the IPCC report, and she always takes what the IPCC reports as solid evidence of fact.
Bet you didn’t think of that.
I don’t see any further point to this exchange. The temperature of the entire Arctic region is unknown, owing to the lack of observations over the Arctic Ocean. The IPCC’s statements were made with regard to publications that looked at various regions in the Arctic where there was a long time series of observations. If you think the IPCC is incorrect in its statements regarding Arctic surface temperatures in the 1930’s, I encourage you to submit to the IPCC an error notification, and see what kind of response you get. If you think you have something publishable in your analyses, by all means try to get them published. If you think I mischaracterized what the IPCC said in my Senate testimony, write a letter to the Senate committee.
In the mean time, Arctic climate scientists will continue to do research on this problem. And people in the climate blogosphere will continue to argue over what does ‘comparable’ really mean, what does ‘recent’ really mean, etc. Go for it.
Joshua,
You say ” she always takes what the IPCC reports as solid evidence of fact.”
Did she not say ” Hence the data does not seem to support the IPCC’s conclusion of a substantial contribution from anthropogenic forcings to the global mean sea level rise since the 1970s.”
It is al a bit odd. Isn’t the real question what caused the increase to the 30′ and 40’s – which is comparable prima facie to the increase from the 70’s to last decade. This is one of the most interesting questions in climate – one that is ultimately indeterminate from a scarcity of data. It is the same old question – how much is natural and how much due to anthropogenic greenhouse gases.
Globally the residual (due to AGG) is at most 0.07 degrees C/decade. What dos this mean for the Arctic is indeterminate – but the key is to ask the right questions, not leap to premature conclusions and certainly to quibble about fractions of a degree difference between the 1930’s and late last decade. The data simply doesn’t justify such fine distinctions.
It seems much more a red herring – a distraction from the main game – than a discussion about science. But are we not used to that in the climate wars?
Senate Testimony: “Arctic surface temperature anomalies in the 1930’s were as large as the recent temperature anomalies”
Now: “The temperature of the entire Arctic region is unknown, owing to the lack of observations over the Arctic Ocean.”
blueshift –
I think that tamino has a point. Of course Judith is willing, at times, to question the validity of IPCC statements. That is as it should be, IMO.
But there’s an interesting question here where, despite often saying that she has practically no confidence in the IPCC reports and the process by which they are written, she cites the IPCC in support of an argument that the IPCC reports are largely invalid.
Just alone, it doesn’t matter a whole lot. The evidence is the evidence and stands on its own merits.
But if someone challenges the evidence that Judith cites (to support her larger argument that the IPCC’s conclusions are invalid), then it seems to me that science is served by Judith taking a harder look at the actual evidence, and acknowledging it if the specific component of her argument that rested on the evidence is legitimately called into question.
It wouldn’t invalidate her larger argument. And, at least as far as I’m concerned, it would provide evidence for her consistency in addressing uncertainty.
Judith has stated that the evidence supports a conclusion about the warming of the Arctic in the 30’s relative to “recent” warming. Her follow-on reaction to that evidence being questioned looks to me more like CYA and protecting a partisan orientation more than deeply and openly exploring uncertainty. I can understand why, given the tone of how her arguments were questioned, she might react defensively – but while that might be an explanation it seems to me like an insufficient justification.
This is getting tiresome but I’ll say it again. My personal assessment of uncertainties in arctic temperatures is given in this post: http://judithcurry.com/2013/11/18/uncertainty-in-arctic-temperatures/.
The theme of my recent Senate testimony was to compare the AR4 and AR5, and to demonstrate a lowering of confidence in elements of the AR5, and the growing issue of natural variability. So I stuck to citing the IPCC reports, not any recent papers or selling my own opinion (for example, in this context i cited the IPCC on the Antarctic sea ice, not the Liu/Curry paper). Included in this comparison was the AR5 statement about the Arctic in the 1930’s, which illustrated the importance of natural variability in the early part of the century.
Now a statement in my testimony is being criticized in an entirely different context, outside of my argument that quoted the IPCC AR5 on the subject of the increasing awareness of AR5 of natural variability, and lowering in confidence of some conclusions.
My testimony was NOT about a prima facie assessment of the 100 year climatological record of the entire arctic, however that ends up getting defined. It was about comparing the AR4 and the AR5 and illustrating the AR5’s growing concern about natural variability.
So I see no grounds to criticize my testimony regarding the 1930’s Arctic cite of the AR5. With regards to my theme I selected for my congressional testimony: two recent testimonies focused explicitly on the uncertainty issue, so while my most recent testimony focuses on lowering of confidence I did not include the same material on uncertainty that I included in my previous testimonies.
On this blog, I have had at least 3 posts on the arctic surface temperature record in the last few months, highlighting the uncertainties and the space-time variations. And several previous posts as well. I do not choose to do any analyses of the 100 yr Arctic temperature record myself. I am leaving that to others (as I am busy doing other things), and I will comment on these analyses as my interest in a paper is piqued.
Precisely.
It’s really quite striking. Moving from the first statement to the second is the way that science should work. Failing to acknowledge the inconsistency, and instead saying:
seems odd, indeed.
Someone get Mr. Uncertain T. Monster on the phone. Stat!
The fundamenal point in the Curry congressional testiony was that the IPCC was wrong to state with increased confidence that humans are the primary cause of the current global warming (even though that high confidence is supported by the detection&attribution literature). But now Curry defends her Arctic temperature comments by saying “IPCC said so”, even though the literature consistently shows Arctic temps are warmer today than at any time during the 20th century.
So basically Curry will blindly accept what the IPCC says when it suits her, reject what the IPCC says when it doewsn’t, and doesn’t care what the body of scientific literature says.
————-
JC COMMENT APPENDED HERE SO YOU DON”T MISS IT:
This is getting tiresome but I’ll say it again. My personal assessment of uncertainties in arctic temperatures is given in this post: http://judithcurry.com/2013/11/18/uncertainty-in-arctic-temperatures/.
The theme of my recent Senate testimony was to compare the AR4 and AR5, and to demonstrate a lowering of confidence in elements of the AR5, and the growing issue of natural variability. So I stuck to citing the IPCC reports, not any recent papers or selling my own opinion (for example, in this context i cited the IPCC on the Antarctic sea ice, not the Liu/Curry paper). Included in this comparison was the AR5 statement about the Arctic in the 1930′s, which illustrated the importance of natural variability in the early part of the century.
Now a statement in my testimony is being criticized in an entirely different context, outside of my argument that quoted the IPCC AR5 on the subject of the increasing awareness of AR5 of natural variability, and lowering in confidence of some conclusions.
My testimony was NOT about a prima facie assessment of the 100 year climatological record of the entire arctic, however that ends up getting defined. It was about comparing the AR4 and the AR5 and illustrating the AR5′s growing concern about natural variability.
So I see no grounds to criticize my testimony regarding the 1930′s Arctic cite of the AR5.
Disingenuous dana rears his little pointy head. Let’s throw the IPCC under the bus, just this one time. Judith’s OPINION on the Arctic temperatures does not depend on the IPCC. But you know that.
Ahh, thanks Joshua.
Dana –
Originally she cited the IPCC. That does not indicate blind acceptance – more evidence would be needed.
Then she said the IPCC was wrong – again, not indicating blind acceptance.
So I don’t see where your claim of blind acceptance is supported.
The problem, IMO, is that she said that the IPCC was wrong, yet said that her claim was “defended.”
Well, I guess that technically she did “defend” it – the problem is that the defense doesn’t seem valid as her statement relied on evidence that she later said was incorrect.
Odd logic.
I think it IS legitimate to trust and cite the IPCC on a subject until you find out it’s wrong. So I don’t think it’s inconsistent to disagree with the IPCC on one subject explored in detail that you think is wrong, but agree with them on another without having confirmed whether they are right.
“This is getting tiresome”
Oh come on we discussed that ship getting stuck in ice thing for so much longer than this.
Judith –
Have you ever seen this before?:
Poor joshie. You don’t even know what Judith said. Read it again. You are at least smart enough to find your error. But I could be overestimating you, again.
Wow! All bold and all caps!
Impressive.
lolwot: Senate Testimony: “Arctic surface temperature anomalies in the 1930’s were as large as the recent temperature anomalies”
Now: “The temperature of the entire Arctic region is unknown, owing to the lack of observations over the Arctic Ocean.”
Not much of a problem there. The first sentence refers to extant records of data; in those, current “anomalies” are matched by previous “anomalies”, undercutting the idea that extant Arctic data series provide much evidence for global warming..
The second sentence refers to the fact that such records as exist are a biased sample.
curryja | January 28, 2014 at 5:52 pm |
“The temperature of the entire Arctic region is unknown, owing to the lack of observations over the Arctic Ocean.”
Yes exactly fercrisakes.
Matthew R Marler: nice try but no cigar
Watching them circle round the IPCC’s own statements, and even other consensus opinions – and try to tear them apart… It’s just so hilarious. And yes, sad. But mostly hilarious. They’re actually fighting about what parts of AR5 to extol as gospel, and what to label as denier propaganda.
A month ago if you told me I’d be treated to such a delight in response to Dr. Curry’s testimony to the uncertainty in climate science, I’d have thought it was a crazy dream… Yet here they all are. Truly fantastic.
A certain opacity in her commuication doesn’t help Judith’s cause…though cynics might suggest that is a strategy rather than a failing.
You got it bassackwards, joshie. Judith never claimed that the IPCC had gotten it all wrong. The IPCC is the alarmists’ Bible. They haven’t had a complaint about it, until now. Bunch of disingenuous maroons.
Precisely. See – there’s a first time for everything.
Precisely what, goofball? Are you saying that what I said agrees with this false statement “she always takes what the IPCC reports as solid evidence of fact.”? You need to find an interest outside of trying to dog Judith. You are continuously embarrassing yourself. You are not helping the cause with your foolishness.
Dr. Curry, heretofore I had been relying on you to help provide what I thought was “balance.” The same way I had with Roger Pielker, Sr. up until he suddenly closed his blog (to help Anthony Watts try to get his “game changing paper” ready for prime time?).
I’d personally not go so far as directly calling your either dishonest or incompetent, but I’m afraid I’m now no longer comfortable that you’re particularly reliable in dealing either honestly or competently with the date or the discussion.
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2014/01/28/judith-curry-responds-sort-of/
And you think that some character who knows squat about the Arctic climate gets to define the issue. A character who suddenly finds that he disagrees with just one of the IPCC’s pronouncements. Aren’t you just what they commonly call a concern troll.
Shelama Leesen | January 28, 2014 at 6:05 pm | Reply
“I’m now no longer comfortable that you’re particularly reliable in dealing either honestly or competently with the date or the discussion.”
Wow. Curry must be just crushed. This is surely the end of climate change dissent.
Say it ain’t so, Joe!!!
Give me a break.
Pingback: Judith Curry responds … sort of – Nouvelles et satellite scientifique
From Tamino’s Blog?
Shelama | February 13, 2013 at 4:58 am |
“Steve Goddard,” of course, also claimed that Venus was hot not because of CO2 but because of the high atmospheric pressure according to PV=nRT. And he wasn’t talking about “pressure broadening” of the absorption curves, it was just flat-out ideal gas, PV=nRT,
Of course, Tony Watts hosted that bunkum, too, and for weeks or months had people convinced.
I once asked Pielke Sr why he gave such uncritical, fawning support to Watts and he said that he didn’t, and that Watts had provided a lot of useful input into the climate discussion. I refuse to believe that he wasn’t totally aware that 90+% of Watts was unadulterated crap. I could only wonder whether Pielke’s being obtuse was deliberate.
Pielke has since closed his blog and I can only wonder if he’s working desperately to salvage Tony’s “game changing paper.”
From only wonder to to fact in a year!!. Not that much is original though, did tamino write it for you?
Earlier it was a wonder. Now it’s still a question. You’re the only one mis-reading a claim of “fact” into it.
When something remains constant, what’s the need for “original”?
Nope, he did not. Does Curry write your stuff?
Cap’n –
You don’t have to reference evidence that you think is inaccurate (w/o mentioning it’s inaccuracy) in order to justify an argument about the confidence levels of IPCC AR4 and AR5, respectively.
Joshua, eat some bacon quick. “You don’t have to reference evidence that you think is inaccurate (w/o mentioning it’s inaccuracy) in order to justify an argument about the confidence levels of IPCC AR4 and AR5, respectively.”
If you are showing changes in the AR4 and AR5 you would HAVE to reference AR4 and AR5. Then if you reference a graph in either it is proper to cite the real author. If you want to keep building mountains out of mole hills you might want to consider getting an SS uniform :)
I’m too busy holding a seance to bring back Lysenko.
You would HAVE to reference some of the information from each report and compare them, of course. You would not HAVE to reference specific information that does not adequately speak to uncertainty, without mentioning its inadequacy.
Maybe this quote from Tamino is relevant:
Strawmanish – but I think likely an accurate reading. Do you disagree?
Any ambiguity could have been easily erased by: (1) inviting Mr. Monster to testify with her, (2) addressing the question directly in her response to Tamino.
Tamino goes further:
So what would her answer have been? (1) Because the IPCC says so? Obviously a poor answer, particularly given that her whole thesis is that the IPCC can’t be trusted. (2) Because the evidence supports that conclusion? If so, then why does she now say:
Joshua, “Strawmanish – but I think likely an accurate reading. Do you disagree?” I really wouldn’t know. The 1930s Sea ice extent was lower than normal for that period but we don’t know how much or why. It intrigues Dr. Curry if memory serves, so I doubt she have a definitive position.
The rest of Tamino’s quotes are just more straw piling. Her response would probably have been “I don’t know, probably a little cooler than the past 5 years but about the same as 1990 to 2000 if I had to guess.” Given that Tamino doesn’t list a single error margin for his plots, based on some others I have seen the margin of error is around 0.5 C just for the high Arctic making it a guess however anyone responds. Perhaps Mosher and BEST will publish their combined land and ocean series soon and list error margins by latitude which should be some fun docha know.
I guess the lesson is that if you are going to testify before Congress on a subject you should thoroughly research the literature and not accept the IPCC’s conclusions on face value.
Nothing in my testimony implies my acceptance of any of the statements i cite as some sort of scientific ‘truth’. I made an argument in my testimony regarding the differences between the AR4 and AR5 and the growing recognition in AR5 of natural variability. I have a very thorough command of the literature on the topic of Arctic climatology.
Judith has researched the topic thoroughly.
Clearly, Judith doesn’t accept the IPCC’s conclusions on face value.
What the lesson should be, IMO, is that when someone questions your conclusions, or more specifically the evidence you use to draw your conclusions, you should take those questions seriously and acknowledge revisit your conclusions.
Actually, Judith seems to have done that here. What’s strange is that she now claims that she “defended” her testimony after saying that the evidence she cited was incorrect.
Odd logic.
The evidence in my argument is that the IPCC AR5 said what I quoted it to say.
I guess the lesson is that if you are going to believe something on a subject you should thoroughly research the literature and not accept the IPCC’s conclusions on face value.
Andrew
You are really a dope, joey. Check Judith’s credentials. Compare them with the cred of tammy and the little posse of characters that he has brought along. Of course, you need to check yourself.
Judith –
Yes, the IPCC said what you quoted it to say. I don’t think that anyone has questioned that.
What does that have to do with the price of tea in China?
Uh, my testimony is about comparing what the AR5 said versus the AR4. So the only issue with regards to my testimony should be whether I cited the IPCC correctly.
don montford on death-of-expertise thread: “So, you always fall for the appeal to authority. That what comes with low self-esteem.”
don montford now: “Check Judith’s credentials.”
lollie, lollie
Why don’t you copy/paste the stupid comment that I had replied to? You disingenuous little rascal. Context, lollie.
The only context here is that you just appealed to authority.
Joshua | January 28, 2014 at 7:07 pm |
Judith –
The evidence in my argument is that the IPCC AR5 said what I quoted it to say.
Yes, the IPCC said what you quoted it to say. I don’t think that anyone has questioned that.
What does that have to do with the price of tea in China?”
Are you going through bacon withdrawal? Experiencing a prolonged case of brain fog? Tamino set up a strawman and Judith ain’t playing.
http://www.epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Files.View&FileStore_id=07472bb4-3eeb-42da-a49d-964165860275
There is her written testimony.
lollie, lollie
I simply invited a moron to compare the credentials of a smarmy anonymous blogger, dana nutticelli, various concern trolls, joshie et al with those of a real climate scientist, who actually knows something about the Arctic climate.
Would you let tamino take out your tonsils? Or would you go with a doctor? If that is an appeal to authority, I am guilty.
Cap’n –
Sure, there’s a strawmanish quality to tamino’s argument (and Dana’s above).
But tamino also has a point, and Judith has not addressed it.
When she presented her testimony, she quoted a reference. Turns out that the evidence is considerably more uncertain than what was indicated in her reference – as she now states. Unless we should be taking the IPCC reports w/o question – and most certainly Judith thinks that we shouldn’t (indeed that was her basic thesis), seems to me Judith should be speaking to how her testimony did not address uncertainty.
Yet instead, she defends her testimony.
It’s odd logic.
Judith thinks that it is important to stress uncertainty, as a matter of scientific principle.
I agree with her in that regard.
You tried (and failed?) to resolve an argument put forward by Joseph by appealing to Dr Curry’s authority.
joshua, “But tamino also has a point, and Judith has not addressed it.”
Actually, Judith did address it. She said that did not think that interpolating SST from coast land SAT stations where most of the sea surface was under ice most of the year was valid. Most of the Arctic you see is ocean. Same issue she had with Cowtan and Way. They ignored that and added more straw.
Joey’s argument was that Judith relied on the IPCC, on an issue concerning the Arctic climate. Her credentials and academic history indicate that she is an expert on Arctic climate. She knows the science independently of what she reads in an IPCC report. If you want to believe she was fooled by the IPCC, have at it. By the way, when did you characters first discover and point out that the beloved IPCC was for the first time wrong about something? Hypocrites. End of story.
Joshie, you routinely lie about what Judith says, or does, or what her position is. She has had more than enough justification to ban you for your silly incessant stalking. You seriously need to discuss your problem with a mental health professional.
“She said that did not think that interpolating SST from coast land SAT stations where most of the sea surface was under ice most of the year was valid”
In which case you don’t claim the 1930s were just as warm.
“She knows the science independently of what she reads in an IPCC report.”
So you are saying she should have known better?
Cap’n –
Which, if valid (I have no reason to doubt that it is, after all, as Don says she is an “expert”), would support her statement that:
And not her testimony:
Tamino had more than one point.
Why would Judith testify to the latter if she already knew the former (which, given her expertise, she must have)? All it would have taken was for her to invite Mr. Monster to speak up as she testified. I’m sure he would have been glad to oblige.
Would the explanation be that IPCC statements – that she thinks are not supported by the testimony should be taken at face value? Of course not!
sorry…..that she thinks are not supported by the evidence….
lolwot, “In which case you don’t claim the 1930s were just as warm.”
That is what the IPCC claims in AR5.
http://www.epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Files.View&FileStore_id=07472bb4-3eeb-42da-a49d-964165860275
Where does she make that claim?. She did note as an aside, that the SAT anomalies above 70N were about as warm, but that is land SAT not THE ARCTIC. There are not a whole hell of a lot of SST records above 70N that are continuous for 60 to 100 years.
Joshua, “Would the explanation be that IPCC statements – that she thinks are not supported by the testimony should be taken at face value? Of course not!”
You don’t have to have an opinion to show the changes in confidence used in the IPCC AR4 and AR5. You should really read what she said instead of what Tamino thinks she said.
Joshua I hit reply too quick.
““Arctic surface temperature anomalies in the 1930’s were as large as the recent temperature anomalies””
I know that this is confusing the hell out of you and lolwat, but those surface temperatures are land based. She made no contradictions.and said exactly what she meant to say. A “real” expert would have known the difference.
cap’n –
Sorry – belongs here:
http://judithcurry.com/2014/01/27/early-20th-century-arctic-warming/#comment-444014
Cap’n –
Good thing that the target of her testimony are all “real experts,” eh?
“That is what the IPCC claims in AR5”
So the point of testimony is to agree with the IPCC?
lolwot, “So the point of testimony is to agree with the IPCC?”
No, the point was to show how IPCC AR4 and IPCC AR5 disagree. How the confidence has changed to consider more natural variability.
http://www.epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Files.View&FileStore_id=07472bb4-3eeb-42da-a49d-964165860275
It is really not that long.
Dr Curry did not only quote the IPCC statement about the arctic but claimed it was correct.
Yet later said:
“The temperature of the entire Arctic region is unknown, owing to the lack of observations over the Arctic Ocean.”
So how can it be correct when vast amounts of the Arctic are unknown?
lolwot, ” lolwot | January 28, 2014 at 8:49 pm |
“Dr Curry did not only quote the IPCC statement about the arctic but claimed it was correct.
Yet later said:
“The temperature of the entire Arctic region is unknown, owing to the lack of observations over the Arctic Ocean.”
So how can it be correct when vast amounts of the Arctic are unknown?”
Surface air temperature versus sea surface temperature. That is what Mattstat was hinting at for ya. If you look at giss or hadcru monthly anomailies the 30s were about the same as 1990 to 2000 and not even that much different that 2000 to 2010 unless you use some interpolation or smoothing.
http://climexp.knmi.nl/data/igiss_temp_1200_0-360E_70-90N_n.png
Considering how much “polar” amplification there “should” be it shouldn’t even be close. In that GISTEMP series they are still assuming SST and if you interpolate air temperature over sea ice from land readings you are really pushing the envelope. Both poles are a can of worms really.
Oh they’re not dopes. This is what’s known as a tactical retreat, blaring anthems as they promptly head out the door. It’s the closest thing Warmists have to an apology.
“If you look at giss or hadcru monthly anomailies the 30s were about the same as 1990 to 2000 and not even that much different that 2000 to 2010 unless you use some interpolation or smoothing.”
On that basis you could claim the Arctic hasn’t changed in temperature over the entire 20th century couldn’t you! Because “monthly anomalies are about the same”.
The actual picture given by GISTEMP is recent temperatures are higher than the 30s:
http://tamino.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/giss_70n.jpg
Dr Curry is trying to avoid that conclusion by appealing to “The temperature of the entire Arctic region is unknown, owing to the lack of observations over the Arctic Ocean.”
Well if that’s so you can’t claim the 30s were just as warm. And that’s the error.
lolwot, “Well if that’s so you can’t claim the 30s were just as warm. And that’s the error.”
The anomalies of the 30s are about the same as the present. Robert Way posted a comparison and the uncertainties of the two periods overlap. The present is likely “statistically significantly” warmer meaning they are not obviously warmer. If you look a surface station regions, Nunavut, northern Canadan, is obviously warmer by a full degree. Greenland may be slightly warmer, Taymyr, about the same, but to make the “Arctic” definitely warmer you have to include more area that isn’t in the Arctic circle.
This part would be a fun debate provided the ankle biters weren’t building strawmen and playing gotcha. I mean really, why would the majority of “Arctic” warming be limited to a few areas? That is more of a Stadium Wave or instrumentation issue than a well mixed greenhouse gas issue.
None of this resolves the Arctic SST issues. The northern oceans from 45 to 65 degree north are about the same now as they were in the 1930s. Above 65 north the SSTs are a guess. Since the majority of the Arctic is ocean, should you try to make-up numbers for marine surface air temperatures and create a new data set? That is what C&W are basically doing. Should you not merge land and ocean temperatures? That is probably a good idea because they are not the same type of measurement anyway. There are a lot of questions because it is not a simple problem.
You keep saying this, joshie: “after saying that the evidence she cited was incorrect.” You need to take a break.
Is that what the IPCC said, Don?
Did the IPCC say that the temperature of the entire Arctic is known? You are just playing tiresome games, joshie. Show us the quote where Judith said that the evidence she cited was incorrect, or stfu.
If the temperature of the entire Arctic region is unknown, owing to the lack of observations over the Arctic Ocean, how can you claim to know the Arctic was just as warm in the 30s don?
If the temperature of the entire world is unknown, how can you claim that we are experiencing AGW, lollie?
I am not the one dismissing the evidence that temperature anomalies today are warmer than the 1930s don.
“I am not the one dismissing the evidence that temperature anomalies today are warmer than the 1930s don.”
I thought global average temperature, sorry, the mean of krigged, inferred, adjusted “global” surface air and sea surface temperature anomalies, didn’t matter any more?
OHC is where it’s at. Where are the OHC figures for the 1930s? Oh wait….
The list of what “we don’t know” covers pretty much the full range of climate science.
Who is dismissing evidence. lollie? You are making up crap, like joshie does. Are you saying that Judith is dismissing evidence? It looks to me like she is weighing/comparing evidence. That’s different than dismissing evidence, lollie. I am not a scientist, but I am way ahead of you.
When weighing and comparing evidence leads to both:
“The temperature of the entire Arctic region is unknown, owing to the lack of observations over the Arctic Ocean.”
and
““Arctic surface temperature anomalies in the 1930’s were as large as the recent temperature anomalies””
Something is wrong.
You really don’t see the contradiction?
Don Monfort | January 28, 2014 at 6:36 pm |
“And you think that some character who knows squat about the Arctic climate gets to define the issue.[?] A character who suddenly finds that he disagrees with just one of the IPCC’s pronouncements. Aren’t you just what they commonly call a concern troll.”
Actually, Don, I’m kinda thinkin’ that the issue is the same as it’s been at least since the beginning of The Enlightenment: …what conclusion is best supported – and best and most honestly communicated – by the evidence?
I would hope that’s what would guide honest, competent, scientific judgement. And communication to the Congress. But maybe that’s just me.
I don’t know what a “concern troll” is so you tell me.
Thanking you in advance.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll_(Internet)#Concern_troll
Don’t they teach kids how to use standard references in grade school anymore or hasn’t Shelam Leesen completed grade school?
Judith, your patience and forbearance on this thread are impressive. A sacked Australian prime minister once asked people to “Maintain the rage!” Happily, you maintain the calmness.
Once again J’s motivated reasoning blocks him from reading and understanding Judith’s point. She has posted a number of items about uncertainty in the Arctic temperature data and believes that it is too high to make strong claims about the difference in temperatures over time, especially because measurement of the ocean temperature there is very weak. Then she says “Suppose I’m wrong about the uncertainty. If you use the data the IPCC uses to draw its conclusions, those data in fact do not back up a greater certainty of anthropogenic warming. In particular the part of the record relating to the Arctic is admitted in the IPCC report to not be reliably measured as warmer lately than back in the 1930s and 1940s before ACO2 was a factor.”
This isn’t very hard, yet Joshua is so bent on finding Judith’s bias that his own biased motivation short-circuits his literacy.
That doesn’t remotely reflect Dr Curry’s argument.
Please correct me then. And perhaps Judith can correct me if I have misstated her position.
Steve,
you gysa are arguing in circles, so I will simplify the actual issue here
1. Judith testifies that according to IPCC 30’s as warm as today
2. Mann says she distorts science
3. Judith says “Prove it”
4. Tamino, Eli, and one more point out where they think she is doing so
5. Judith FIRES back with research supporting her claim
6. Tamino points out that ALL her sources do NOT include 2000’s
7. Judith decides she has had enough of this.
simple. Judith was distorting science. she was called on it. she responded with distorted science. she was called on it. She argues that the issue is too uncertain to know.
Game set match to Mann, Tamino.
It doesn’t make her evil, but she was foolish to make a post full of research that anyone with knowledge of the issue could throw back in face face as being totally inadequate.
The research is indeed inadequate but that is the state of the published science, which was assessed by the IPCC AR5.
As a rule, the Urgent Mitigationists on this site are remarkably bad about understanding conditional arguments and arguing in the alternative. It comes up constantly, where skeptics say “I don’t believe in the validity of method or data X, but even if you do it doesn’t support the conclusion you are trying to draw.” Confuses them every time. Or at least they pretend it does.
Actually, steve –
I have read you make that argument a number of times now. I think that is an interesting point, and could be worthy of discussion.
Problem is, I attempted to discuss with you your application of that logic before, and you dismissed my argument. So it’s neither that it confuses me or that I pretend that it does. It’s that I disagree with your application.
Next year at this time the Republicans will be in charge of both the House and the Senate. Babs Boxer will just be a whining back bencher. Watch the alarmists squeal after the Republicans start calling the shots in the climate hearings and on climate legislation. Who will chair the committee, Inhoff? YEEEAAAAH! With Mike Morano as his chief assistant. LOL! Stock up on popcorn! Sell all green energy stocks short! The pause is killing the cause!
It seems to me that Dr. Curry’s bottom-line conclusion to Congress equally well could have been:
“The conclusions and confidence of AR5 are robust but uncritical acceptance of all of the specific comments – and the uncritical failure to examine the data behind them – may lead to under-estimation of the actual confidence of AR5 compared to AR4. My presentation here today has examined and corrected one source of potential under-estimation. There is arguably more reason now to have even more confidence than before.”
Equally well could have been.
Even more equally well should have been?
Dr. Curry is to be complemented. We should all hope that she focuses the same attention scouring the entire AR5 and when she finds another such indication of under-estimation, encouraged to bring it to public attention. To be included in AR6.
shalama, shalama
Maybe the Senate will call you to testify, next time.
Watching the evolution of Dr. Curry’s treatment by the CAGW Climate Establishment and its supporters over the past few years as her views on the importance of ACO2 have shifted it occurs to me that one could DERIVE Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals by reading the posts of the CAGW faithful on this and other ‘climate science’ sites and her coverage in the MSM.
Does anyone suppose that it is coincidental?
Good point but I doubt they have realize what they are doing :) Anyone who agrees wholeheartedly with any person or ideology, clearly cannot think independently and has lost all true objectively.
Don Monfort | January 28, 2014 at 8:37 pm |
“shalama, shalama
Maybe the Senate will call you to testify, next time.”
Personally, Don, I’m thinking we should both prefer that Congress continue to call Dr. Curry.
And we should both hope that she responds with the same careful, honest, thorough, professional, and probative science each time.
Somebody needs to do that to the entire AR5. Who better than Dr. Curry?
Professor Curry,
The graph you provide only has data up to the year 2000. Tamino has reproduced charts from *all* of your references and shown them to be insufficient to support your claims.
Do you now agree that Arctic temperatures in the 2000s are greater than those in the 1930s or 40s? If not, is there *any* data to support this – since you have not been able to provide any so far?
Many charts don’t list the latitude or method of data reduction. Give it up. You haven’t made your point.
Any smoothing isn’t acceptable, since you are making a claim on temperature. Therefore, you have to show the actual temperature, not a running mean, centered mean, or means of any other.
jim seriously, if you are going to claim the data isn’t good enough then you are admitting Curry’s statement that the warming was just as large in the 30s is unsupportable.
You can’t have it both ways.
jim2 | January 28, 2014 at 10:12 pm |
“Any smoothing isn’t acceptable, since you are making a claim on temperature. Therefore, you have to show the actual temperature, not a running mean, centered mean, or means of any other.”
A mean is a filter. True for Hourly, Daily, Monthly, Yearly or any other length.
A single mean is probably the most crap filter possible. Combinations or other techniques can provide perfectly good filters though :-)
Lolwot:
So what does this graph tell you about the two periods in question
http://www.skepticalscience.com//pics/Arctic_SAT_Ann.jpg
Kevin: Same question, using the sceptical science graph of the arctic do you see any similarities between the time periods in question?
The graph linked at http://www.skepticalscience.com//pics/Arctic_SAT_Ann.jpg shows me the 2000s are significantly warmer than the 30s or 40s.
I suggest looking past pretty pictures and look at how many actual measurements went into each time period, the points that make up a line are not all equal.
Kevin O’Neill | January 29, 2014 at 10:18 pm |
“The graph linked at http://www.skepticalscience.com//pics/Arctic_SAT_Ann.jpg shows me the 2000s are significantly warmer than the 30s or 40s.”
I was not arguing about the absolute figure. I was pointing out the ~60 year cycle.
If one were to add a longer term periodicity to that ~60 year figure (or some appropriate CO2 component) then the ‘extra’ rise is quite explainable.
David Springer | January 28, 2014 at 9:23 pm |
“Don’t they teach kids how to use standard references in grade school anymore or hasn’t Shelam Leesen completed grade school?”
David, more important and more relevant, is that by second grade we should know how to recognize and understand what a ‘question mark’ (?) is and what it means.
Peace
For Reference – what in AR5 do you disagree with?
Dr. Curry, let me ask you a question…
Had you and Tamino, unbeknownst to each other, both been asked by Congress to address the science of this specific concern regarding of Arctic warming and, totally independent of each other, you presented the argument and testimony that you actually did, and Tamino presented his argument (just the science, with no reference to you or yours), which one would represent a better and more accurate, and comprehensive understanding of what we know about Arctic warming thru 2010?
Thanking you in advance.
Shelama, I have written a half dozen blog posts on the climate of the Arctic, and maybe 50 published papers. I have a paper in press in Nature Geoscience. The purpose of these 3 or 4 sentences in my testimony was not to present a comprehensive understanding of the Arctic climate, but to make a point regarding the AR4 versus the AR5 and natural variability. So I find your question pointless, and I don’t see that Tamino has contributed anything useful to our understanding of Arctic climate variability since his analysis of the data is incomplete and unassociated with any interpretation of Arctic climate dynamics.
shelamo
Again the sloth. Look up Curry’s expertise in the literature with regard to Arctic climate:
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4GGNI_enUS573&q=ja+curry+arctic
Many hits.
Now try tamino (Grant Foster):
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4GGNI_enUS573&q=g+foster+arctic
Not a single frickin’ thing.
Your inability to answer simple questions for yourself is tedious. How about you STFU and let the adults converse?
Judith
the issue here is not about any of these irrelevant issues regarding your interpretation of the science or what you meant by your testimony.
the ISSUE is that you were accused of distorting the science
you threw the gauntlet down saying you hadn’t
Tamino and others pointed out where they perceived you to have done so.
and here is the important part, You responded to Tamino with DISTORTED science that did not include arctic temps after 2002.
Tamino then pointed out you had done so with subsequent research,
and you said there no point in discussing it further.
IF you had acknowledged the uncertainty or any of the other explanations you are using now BEFORE attacking Tamino back, you would have some credibility. But you chose to respond with incomplete very misleading research.
In my book that just supports Mann’s argument in a very practical and clear way, that I do not doubt will also be very clear to other scientists who are familiar with the science.
Dr. Curry, so, then, you don’t actually want to answer the question that was asked.
I understand.
If you want an answer to your question, my 3-4 sentences are better than what Tamino did, because they reference the IPCC AR5 with its broader interpretation and references is much more useful information for policy makers than plots by Tamino without context.
Dr. Curry, had you made use of all of the relevant data that was available to you in January 2014 in your testimony before Congress, and your conclusion had been…
…“The uncritical acceptance of all of the specific comments of AR5 – and the uncritical failure to examine the data behind them – may lead to under-estimation of the confidence of AR5 compared to AR4. My presentation here today has examined and corrected one source of error in AR5 as a potential under-estimation of confidence. There is arguably more reason now to have more confidence than stated in AR5.”
…would that have been a valid conclusion?
Would you please answer my question so I know something of your beliefs – What in AR5 do you disagree with?
Shelama Leesen | January 28, 2014 at 10:39 pm | Reply
I have been mulling over whether to make a comment on Tamino’s recent postings and blogs on this issue for several days due to this blog in particular.
True Lies Posted on January 23, 2014 | 36 Comments
I agree, women have a hard enough time in science already and we can’t afford to waste all that brainpower. And if you want to criticize Curry, there’s plenty to say that’s purely academic.]
was his rejoinder to one of numerous foul comments mad by his supporters in a nasty pot potpourri of misogyny.
Nonetheless he left these 36 comments up and made no attempt to remove them.
My first thought was that any woman who read that blog and was supportive of AGW would never go near one of his sites again, but then you came along and obviously agree with Tamino implicitly.
My best suggestion to you, would be to politely ask Tamino to remove the offensive blog comments as soon as possible.
If I were him I would not do it.
I would also like to ask Josh, and LOLWAT and WHT to add their voices to this request. My feeling is Joshua might oblige when he reads it.
I would like to ask Steven Mosher S| January 21, 2014 at 4:11 pm | Reply and Robert Way | January 21, 2014 at 4:42 pm | Reply
who both commented [but nicely] at Tamino’s on an earlier blog “(One of) the Problem(s) with Judith Curry”
to do the same and in particular urge Robert to ask for the blog comments to be removed and to consider whether they should be adding legitimacy to such a blog by commenting at it.
Big science is for big boys only, apparently.
Shelama Leesen | January 28, 2014 at 6:05 pm | Reply Dr. Curry, heretofore I had been relying on you to help provide what I thought was “balance.”
Bella | January 28, 2014 at 10:55 pm |
“Would you please answer my question so I know something of your beliefs – What in AR5 do you disagree with?”
Bella, I disagree with everything in AR5 that has been falsified to the satisfaction of the legitimate climate science community.
…falsified to the consensus satisfaction of…
That is truly ambiguous statement. You cannot possibly be CAGW since you do not agree with absolutely everything. Questioning of anything lumps you in denier community. How does one gain membership in the “legitimate” climate science community? Is there a credentialing process?
shalama, shalama
I don’t think you are going to get Judith to alter her testimony to suit your theory on what it shoulda been. She explained her testimony to you patiently and clearly. What you are doing now is badgering. We have plenty of little intellectual runts here already fulfilling that role.
*raises hand* – intellectual runt about CS here and proudly admit it :) You are always welcome to tell me to go back to my corner. Plentiful supply of popcorn at the ready.
Bella | January 28, 2014 at 11:31 pm |
“That is truly ambiguous statement. You cannot possibly be CAGW since you do not agree with absolutely everything. Questioning of anything lumps you in denier community. How does one gain membership in the “legitimate” climate science community? Is there a credentialing process?”
I am not and have never claimed to be nor implied I was part of “CAGW.” You’re right.
Your conclusion about who is lumped in the “denier community” is just silly.
How does one gain membership? Well, Dr. Curry is a member. Ask her.
I dont make the rules. I’ve been observing for a while but readily admit, I’m a novice to this game. The “consensus” rule appears to be – if you don’t agree with everything then you are a denier. It’s their (major players) silly rule, not mine. I do consider it extremely silly.
I’m trying to understand why one persons opinion (Dr. Curry) is so worrisome to you. There seems to be a LOT of variables in the game and yet the entire CS community is lumped into sites around their pet belief.
Don Monfort | January 28, 2014 at 11:41 pm | Reply
“shalama, shalama
I don’t think you are going to get Judith to alter her testimony to suit your theory on what it shoulda been. She explained her testimony to you patiently and clearly. What you are doing now is badgering. We have plenty of little intellectual runts here already fulfilling that role.”
Don, I take that to mean that Dr. Curry has delegated you to answer for her in her stead. Thanks you for your consideration even though nothing in the premises of your comment comports with the question I actually asked her.
Peace
Stupid comment, shalama. Judith has answered you. And she made it clear to all, excepting idiots, that it was pointless to monkey around with your silly butt any longer. Now I am giving you the same message. End of story.
running away huh don?
The takehome point for you and other skeptics is that you can no longer go around claiming the Arctic was just as warm in the 30s. You now know better and will have no excuse.
One of the local badgers I was talking about. Thanks for helping out, lollie.
Shelama Leesen | January 28, 2014 at 10:39 pm | Reply
I have been mulling over whether to make a comment on Tamino’s recent postings and blogs on this issue for several days due to this blog in particular.
True Lies Posted on January 23, 2014 | 36 Comments
I agree, women have a hard enough time in science already and we can’t afford to waste all that brainpower. And if you want to criticize Curry, there’s plenty to say that’s purely academic.]
was his rejoinder to one of numerous foul comments mad by his supporters in a nasty pot potpourri of misogyny.
Nonetheless he left these 36 comments up and made no attempt to remove them.
My first thought was that any woman who read that blog and was supportive of AGW would never go near one of his sites again, but then you came along and obviously agree with Tamino implicitly.
My best suggestion to you, would be to politely ask Tamino to remove the offensive blog comments as soon as possible.
If I were him I would not do it.
I would also like to ask Josh, and LOLWAT and WHT to add their voices to this request. My feeling is Joshua might oblige when he reads it.
I would like to ask Steven Mosher S| January 21, 2014 at 4:11 pm | Reply and Robert Way | January 21, 2014 at 4:42 pm | Reply
who both commented [but nicely] at Tamino’s on an earlier blog “(One of) the Problem(s) with Judith Curry”
to do the same and in particular urge Robert to ask for the blog comments to be removed and to consider whether they should be adding legitimacy to such a blog by commenting at it.
Big science is for big boys only, apparently.
thought I would put it as a new thread
”
Judith
If AR4 and AR5 are both wrong, why bother comparing them? You should have testified that both reports are garbage advised them to look at other more reliable reports. Using dubious data and analyses to gain political brownie points whether for or against AGW is anti-science and you should stay away from it.
Robert Way:
Judith Curry:
Can you both agree that there is a significant ~60 pattern to the data you have provided?
Way: http://www.skepticalscience.com//pics/Arctic_SAT_Ann.jpg
Curry: http://curryja.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/stadium-wave.pdf
Dear Prof. Curry,
Here you say
But Eli recalls you also writing in your testimony
and later in the testimony your summary states
and, of course, there is a great deal of much earlier work that reaches the same conclusion as Liu and Curry. Some of which was noted in Liu and Curry and some not so much.
Now Liu and Curry has its problems (see links at the link too), but some, not Eli to be sure, think that the stadium wave is little worse than hand waving.
So yes, a Curry vs. Curry rematch
HoneyBunny,
I had a read of Curry’s paper. The data seems to come in two forms. Up to the year 2000 Curry shows observation data. Post 2000 the analysis is based on model outputs.
You are right that obs suggest that sea ice increases on the back of a warming Southern Ocean. But the model outputs for post-2000 suggest that this feedback is ‘overrun’ by other factors and the antarctic sea ice is projected to decline. I see three projections which seem to suggest sea ice is either flat or declining 2000-2013 (based on imprecise eyeballing, I’m happy to hear what you think her Fig5 is saying).
Observations http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/timeseries.south.anom.1979-2008
seem to suggest that antarctic sea ice has continued to increase, looks like pretty high at around 10% per decade for the 2000-2014 period.
Therefore it actually looks as if Curry’s testimony is in line with her earlier paper. The 2000-2014 antarctic sea ice seems to be at odds with the projection in her paper i.e. the continuing Antarctic sea ice increase IS problematic for Curry’s earlier analysis and wide climate change arguments.
The link was http://rabett.blogspot.com/2010/08/judy-and-intertubes.html. Apologies
To much Bunny, not enough logic.
Another ‘drive-by’ by the Bunny. (oops sorry – a gun reference – if you take any offense I’ll take it back – honest).
Very difficult to have a conversation with Rabbits who do the ‘I’m late, I’m late’ stuff all the time. Just as Alice found out.
It’s possibly all being down to still living on Oxford time when the rest of the world has already changed to Railway time. Progress, what DO you know?
Let me know if you come past again. I need to finish that conversation about getting basic facts right. Like 15 not equal 21 and Dec 3rd not being the same as Nov 28th. Still not update the posters on the outside of the hutch to real facts as opposed to initial, incorrect, guesses.
Judith –
Just ran across something rather remarkable in the blogosphere:
my emphasis.
I can only assume that Muller mischaracterized your view; certainly, based on what I’ve read, it doesn’t seem that you believe that any correlation between increased ACO2 and warming is an “accident.”
Can you confirm whether Muller’s representation of your views is accurate?
Sorry –
the link:
http://www.carbonbrief.org/blog/2012/08/the-best-is-yet-to-come-an-interview-with-richard-muller
Yes, Muller misinterpreted/mischaracterized my views.
The observed increase in variability in the BEST study as you progress further back in time would tend to lead to a conclusion that all is not well with the methodology, certainly in the earlier part of the record and possibly throughout.
The variability is much higher in the earliest part of the record than other studies done with similar time frames.
Why is this?
Richard, it’s the number of samples, and it’s one of the big lies GAT series, they are all poorly sampled prior to 1973(ish).
The NCDC GSoD data set has 2 station N of 66.5Lat listed with data in 1941, neither sampled the entire year. The same series has a total of ~120 station in 1930. Now I have learned that there are other data sets with more station in the early, but in the later 70’s there are about 6000 stations which increases to ~12000 station in 2010-2012.
At least BEST does include error bars and they do get larger as they go back. Personally I think it’s likely that they are still too small, but I applaud them for at least showing them, and showing that they get larger.
Joshua:
Even if Judge Judy was quoted verbatim by Dr. Muller, that was 1.5-years ago. Since we have seen her stadium-wave hypothesis, we know for certain that Right Now, she believes that climate is deterministic and has guessed at the reason as to why it appears random.
Since you have provided such valuable service to the conspiracy addled deniers, I think you deserve some help for your own debilitating condition. The first step to restoring mental health is the recognition that you have a *problem*. We all hope and pray it’s before you hit rock bottom.
http://www.voicelessness.com/disc3//index.php?topic=5795.0;wap2
Thanks, Judith.
It would be interesting to know how Muller could have completely misunderstood such a fundamental component of your views.
Mi Cro | January 29, 2014 at 12:02 pm |
“Richard, it’s the number of samples, and it’s one of the big lies GAT series, they are all poorly sampled prior to 1973(ish).”
I rather suspected that. Given that the number of grid cells that they have data for drops off very fast. So fast that it is a wonder they get anything sensible in the early part of the record at all.
As far as I can see, it is 90% estimation then!
It absolutely is 90% estimated, It’s a big bug up my a$$, these GAT series are junk. Like I said there’s now maybe 12,000 stations collecting data. IMO further than 100 miles from a station and you are just guessing (you can see the difference between station with any weather app, just switch between different stations). If I remember correctly, those station sample about 4% of the Earth’s surface, and it’s like 20% if you include only land(I estimated this a month ago, and these numbers are from memory).
And that’s with 10 times as many stations as there were in the 40’s and 50’s. This also doesn’t included the excluded stations in the GAT processes.
There are 5 stations North of 80Lat with data less than 65 years, 5.
6 N of 70Lat with more than 100 years of data.
Micro, have you seen Frank Lansner’s research on the coverage of the temp data sets?
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/01/06/the-original-temperatures-project/
Don, I hadn’t seen that, excellent work from Frank.
But I’ve found that good work isn’t enough if it doesn’t confirm warming and match the various models of GAT (because they sure aren’t the actual measurements).
Mi Cro | January 29, 2014 at 12:26 pm |
“It absolutely is 90% estimated”
I think the big warning sign I encountered was when I realised that the various databases do not even reconcile with each other!
Now me, I would just have different ‘views’ of the same database. You know, professional like. Here we have databases that are supposed to represent the same things with columns interchanged and values that are well outside of obviously verifiable values.
When I import data I do run it through a set of sanity checks because it is SO difficult to sort it all out later if stuff goes wrong.
Now I know what others felt like when approaching the ‘Climate Science’ way of doing computing work :-) What WAS his name…..?
Richard, I tried to include as much of the data as I could (NCDC already has a number of QA steps), my interest was how much of todays warming was lost over night, and I preprocessed the data as I read each record in as I generated my table of data. Then I made it so I can run a report by Lat/Lon areas (squarish), then I build a reports for each series I generated which each station, and a year by year sample count, later versions I also generate an average temp for each of them. Then lastly I create a google map of every station location.
But as I mentioned to Don, believers don’t like to see actual measurements reported on, because most of the modern warming is from processing and interpolating, and when you look back in time the data is very sparse, you can’t make a good narrative on that, now can you!
Mi Cro | January 29, 2014 at 2:02 pm |
“most of the modern warming is from processing and interpolating”
Way too hard a way to go in my opinion.
Lets try to stop trying to do fluid mechanics by tracing each individual atom?
Use aggregates (means) of the values and get an impartial, long term view of what Is happening. On timescale s that represent what Climate really means (pun).
At the time I just figured Muller had confused chaos with chaos theory.
Station counts
http://berkeleyearth.lbl.gov/auto/Regional/TAVG/Figures/global-land-TAVG-Counts.pdf
“At least BEST does include error bars and they do get larger as they go back. Personally I think it’s likely that they are still too small, but I applaud them for at least showing them, and showing that they get larger.”
well the statistical tests say you are wrong
the out of sample tests say you are wrong
the tests with synthetic data say you are wrong.
chances are? you are wrong since there is no evidence to suggest otherwise.
Steven Mosher, What is the error margin for 66N to 90N from 1900 to 2013?
Please include the number of stations, and the number of samples from those station/year.
I looked at your chart, NCDC’s GSoD data set has 1576 stations reporting data in 1950 which averaged taking 288 samples per year. I couldn’t tell from the chart how the average was defined. Do you have any data on how you ended up with 8,000-9,000 stations in 1950? Something like a station list, number of samples each of those stations contributed to the average?
What’s the error margin for temps for that list of stations? In 1760 or so where you have 10 stations, how many samples, and how accurate is your world wide average? I’m thinking with 10 samples, you really have almost no idea what the GAT really is, and how do you test it you don’t have a GAT other than one made from 10 stations? And what does GAT do if you only include those same 10 stations till 2013?
Steve: So do you want to give a count of the number to the1*1 degree cells that have stations in them?
Station counts are of no use if there are multiple stations – even multiple versions of the same station. That makes the figure useless.
So a count of cell coverage please.
What is the margin of error for the south pole in the Giss “Instrumental” record 1880-1910.?
Eli: We get that you don’t like the JC paper. What specific problems do you have with it?
I’m afraid I cannot figure out all your Bunny talk. Could you do in scientific language for the hard of hearing?
Which one?
The url you referenced to your site. Such garbled thinking and expression. seems more like your keep looking at your watch rather than having a real discussion.
I mean just look at the hysteria from Judith’s comments about Arctic temps. Polar data is very sparse.
But apparently easy to interpolate into existence! :-)
I don’t know, I think Mosh said it takes 4-5 days to make up all that data :-)
Well as it is only an exercise in applying weighting values (variable) to actually sampled data to express an estimated data summary you could probably skip all of that and just track the input data changes.
Depends if you believe that Nyquist got it right about sampling theorem or not. Save all that trying to guess the wave shape in between.
Jut go with the deltas in the fixed points you have and believe that they too accurately express the underlying change.
How does the IPCC statement about Arctic anomalies cause a change in attribution of warming? Why use a statement which you think is unsupported by data without letting those you were talking to know this?
You were the expert the panel was relying on. Why not tell them your thoughts on the statement you chose to highlight?
The Arctic ocean was warmer in 1938 that it was in 2013.
Why do you think that was?
Much as we appreciate Generalissma Judith’s contribution to the military music of the Climate Wars , it was anticipated by the great baroque composer P.D.Q. Bach, as can be heard by fast forwarding 7:00 minutes into this YouTube video clip
JC Testimony:
”
Further, Arctic surface temperature anomalies in the 1930’s were as large as the recent temperature anomalies.
”
It is truly astonishing that any person hearing these words uttered by a self-professed expert in Arctic climate could possibly imagine that the expert actually believes what she says.
Even more astonishing that any person hearing these words uttered by self-professed expert in Arctic climate could possibly imagine that the expert has a strong command of the currently available evidence for her claims.
Pffft. After all, testimonies are merely words. Sure – The words were given under oath – but, to politicians who understand that mere words are meaningless.
Let’s not get blogged down by debates about the meanings of “Arctic” or “recent”. Or, God forbid, “temperature anomalies”.
Walk it back, Dr Curry. Way back. After all, we really don’t know anything much:
”
The temperature of the entire Arctic region is unknown, owing to the lack of observations over the Arctic Ocean.
”
Brilliant.
But, on reflection, Dr Curry should probably have lead her Senate testimony with this:
”
Nothing in my testimony implies my acceptance of any of the statements i cite as some sort of scientific ‘truth’.
”
Dr Curry was just making some science-y word sounds.
If only people had understood that ahead of time, much pearl-clutching might have been avoided.
The Very
Why dont you thrill us with your acumen and educate us on exactly where her testimony misses the mark. The ability to criticize does not take much knowledge or expertise.
The Arctic was warming 1938:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/nmaps.cgi?year_last=2013&month_last=12&sat=4&sst=3&type=anoms&mean_gen=0112&year1=1938&year2=1938&base1=1951&base2=1980&radius=1200&pol=pol
than it was in 2013:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/nmaps.cgi?year_last=2013&month_last=12&sat=4&sst=3&type=anoms&mean_gen=0112&year1=2013&year2=2013&base1=1951&base2=1980&radius=1200&pol=pol
Get the picture?
The Very Reverend Jebediah Hypotenuse | January 30, 2014 at 1:08 pm | Reply
“The temperature of the entire Arctic region is unknown, owing to the lack of observations over the Arctic Ocean.” but given the very limited data we now have it is likely that “Arctic surface temperature anomalies in the 1930’s were as large as the recent temperature anomalies.”
Happier now?
The IPCC paragraph quoted goes on to refer to a few more papers and concludes with
“The Arctic-wide increases of temperature in the last decade contrast with the episodic regional increases in the early 20th century, suggesting that it is unlikely that recent increases are due to the same primary climate process as the early 20th century.”
There definitely are differences but there are some striking similarities.
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/tmp/gistemp/NMAPS/tmp_GHCN_GISS_ERSST_1200km_Anom12_1937_1937_1951_1980_POL/nmaps.gif
The breakdown or elongation of the polar vortex for example. That would make long range interpolation a good bit more challenging. I am sure CO2 and black carbon influences would be different, but Arctic Winter Warming and sudden stratospheric warming events are more complicated than just one kind of forcing changing.
“The Arctic-wide increases of temperature in the last decade contrast with the episodic regional increases in the early 20th century, suggesting that it is unlikely that recent increases are due to the same primary climate process as the early 20th century.”
assuming that the earlier data coverage can be considered to be a true statistically representative sample of what actually occurred at that time.
Filled in the implied statement.
Richard, have you seen the DMI prints of the Arctic from the 1980’s til 1950’s? They mostly only go to August, and not September, and they’re not satellite, but it is possible that some of the later ones were partly surveyed by plane. I’m sure there’s documents on this somewhere, but you can easily see how currents change over the years, melting different parts of the ice.
Oh, look at 1954.
The problem is that it’s like trying to figure out the entire plot of a film an hour or two long from just a very few frames, randomly selected.
If you are really lucky you might just be able to make a synopsis that holds true.
But mostly it will be guesswork.
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No one has discussed the effects of the volcanic action on the bottom of the Arctic Ocean. There have been significant quakes there that have created flumes of HOT WATER rising to the surface,
Gee,might that melt the ice somewhat ????????
I believe volcanic action in the Gakkel Ridge in the late nineties created open water. Photographs from orbit supposedly show clouds, but no one seems to be able to tell me if they are ordinary Arctic clouds over ice or ones arising from open ocean.
==========
6 flumes opened in the mid 90s and are still flowing ( to be verified ).