by Judith A. Curry
My invited talk at the American Physical Society Meeting in Denver.
The abstract for my talk:
Causes and implications of the growing divergence between climate model simulations and observations
For the past 15+ years, there has been no increase in global average surface temperature, which has been referred to as a ‘hiatus’ in global warming. By contrast, estimates of expected warming in the first several decades of 21st century made by the IPCC AR4 were 0.2C/decade. This talk summarizes the recent CMIP5 climate model simulation results and comparisons with observational data. The most recent climate model simulations used in the AR5 indicate that the warming stagnation since 1998 is no longer consistent with model projections even at the 2% confidence level. Potential causes for the model-observation discrepancies are discussed. A particular focus of the talk is the role of multi-decadal natural internal variability on the climate variability of the 20th and early 21st centuries. The “stadium wave” climate signal is described, which propagates across the Northern Hemisphere through a network of ocean, ice, and atmospheric circulation regimes that self-organize into a collective tempo. The stadium wave hypothesis provides a plausible explanation for the hiatus in warming and helps explain why climate models did not predict this hiatus. Further, the new hypothesis suggests how long the hiatus might last. Implications of the hiatus are discussed in context of climate model sensitivity to CO2 forcing and attribution of the warming that was observed in the last quarter of the 20th century.
My .ppt presentation is posted here [APS Curry ]. Below is the text from some of the summary slides.
Significance of the pause
Under conditions of anthropogenic greenhouse forcing:
- •Only 2% of climate model simulations produce trends within the observational uncertainty
- Modeled pauses longer than 15 years are rare; the probability of a modeled pause exceeding 20 yrs is vanishing small
Questions raised by the discrepancy
- Are climate models too sensitive to greenhouse forcing?
- Is climate model treatment of natural climate variability inadequate?
- Is the IPCC’s ‘extremely likely’ confidence level regarding anthropogenic attribution since 1950 justified?
- Are climate model projections of 21st century warming too high?
- How confident are we of the observations?
I. Where is the missing heat?
Hypothesis I: It MUST be hiding in the ocean
- Evidence of deep ocean sequestration is indirect; few observations of deep ocean temperature prior to 2005
- Ocean models do not transfer heat in the vertically any where near as efficiently as inferred from the ECMWF reanalyses
- Concerns about the heat returning to the surface seem unrealizable if the heat is well mixed – 2nd law constraints
Hypothesis II: There is NO missing heat; changes in clouds have resulted in more reflection of solar radiation
- Global cloud satellite dataset only goes back to 1983; calibration issues complicate trend analyses
- Global energy balance analyses are associated with significant uncertainties
II. Maybe the models are OK, the problem is the external forcing
There is significant disagreement among different forcing data sets
CMIP5 simulations were forced by single ‘best estimate’ data sets
There has been no systematic effort to assess uncertainty in these data sets or the sensitivity of climate models to forcing uncertainty
These uncertainties have not been factored into the 20th century attribution assessments
III. ENSO (natural internal variability) is masking the greenhouse warming
IV. Multidecadal modes of natural internal variability
- The ‘hiatus’ will continue at least another decade
- Climate models are too sensitive to external forcing
- Hiatus persistence beyond 20 years would support a firm declaration of problems with the climate models
- Incorrect accounting for natural internal variability implies:
- —Biased attribution of 20th century warming
- —Climate models are not useful on decadal time scales
Summary of major uncertainties
- Deep ocean heat content variations and mechanisms of vertical heat transfer between the surface and deep ocean
- Uncertainties associated with external forcing data and implications for attribution analysis and future projections
- Sensitivity of the climate system to external forcing
- Clouds: trends, forcing, feedbacks, and aerosol – cloud interactions
- Nature and mechanisms of multidecadal natural ‘internal’ variability
- Unknowns – solar indirect effects, magnetic and electric field effects, orbital (tidal and other) effects, core-mantle interactions, etc.
An Extraordinary Popular Delusion, and Madness of the Crowd, a madness fueled by fear and guilt.
=================
The first three conclusions are based on observations and measurements.
The last is based on blind faith in the benevolent force that controls us.
A summary of the present state of IPCC climate modelling:
Carl Sagan got the aerosol optical physics wrong. Hansen, Trenberth and Ramanathan got the IR physics wrong. The computer models artificially heat the lower atmosphere and artificially cool the upper atmosphere to pretend that all atmospheric lapse rate (temperature gradient) is caused by GHGs; it ain’t.
Finally, to offset the atmospheric temperature increase in hind-casting, they use nearly 25% more low level cloud albedo compared with reality.
The models haven’t a chance in Hell of predicting climate; it’s politically-funded ‘cargo cult’ science, as predicted by Eisenhower and Feynman.
PS The explanation of the increase in OHC in the 1980s and 1990s is Asian industrialisation, more aerosols. Fix Sagan’s physics and the sign of the indirect aerosol effect is reversed; decrease of albedo, more ocean heating.
That effect has now saturated; CO2-AGW remains near zero because the atmosphere self controls. Sorry, the ‘Stadium Wave’ is excuse number 11!
…and the crowd thinks it hasn’t paused…!
…
It has now.
Excellent. Worthy of a much wider audience. From ppt presentation.
Since 1960, the warming in the 0-2000M layer is 0.06C.
A real jewel. No pun intended.
The heat capacity of the ocean is about 1000 times that of the atmosphere. So a temperature change of 0.06 C in the top half of the ocean is a huge amount of heat…. That, and the slow inertia of the climate system due to the massive ocean, is why scientists are warning we are causing trouble.
“Since 1960, the warming in the 0-2000M layer is 0.06C.”
Peer reviewed or not, the Levitus chart shows measured heat content data where there is practically none.
A much better point to make is:
Even if Levitus is correct, 1.40*10^23 Joules or 140 ZJ amounts to no more than 0.06 deg C. Prior to the start of ARGO in 2003, who here believes we know the Global Temperature of the Oceans 0-2000 meters to even 0.5 deg C? We have nothing but anecdotes for data.
Any measure of Ocean Head Content deeper than 1000 meters prior to the start of ARGO in 2004 is pure guesswork. The sampling is so sparse as to be useless.
Any measure of warming of 0 to 1000 meters prior to the start of ALACE 1993 is also pure guesswork because only with the start of ALACE was a fair sampling, as sparse as it was, possible.
1960-1992 OHC measurements are mostly limited to 0-300m and have spatially biased concentrated sampling in the areas of anti-submarine efforts, North Atlantic, NW and NE Pacific. The Southern Hemisphere is incredibly sparse. To assume we KNOW the change in Global Ocean Heat Content is fantasy.
See Figure 1 data coverage: maps b=1960, c=1985. from Abraham, J. P., et al. (2013) (pdf),
DocM, the net heat is OUT of the ocean. More CO2 means less net OUT, means warmer ocean. This concept has been hammered home to the “skeptics” for several years now, but still seems not to have sunk in.
Stephen: There have been millions of data points collected by NOAA (especially Sydney Levitus) over the last several decades. That data isn’t useless.
But even the data since Argo is troubling. A quadratic fit (which is better than a linear fit) finds the 0-2000 m region now warming at 0.78 W/m2, with a positive acceleration of +0.05 W/m2 per year.
That is a lot of warming.
“More CO2 means less net OUT, means warmer ocean. This concept has been hammered home to the “skeptics” for several years now, but still seems not to have sunk in.”
Alas, LWIR doesn’t sink in beyond the evaporating surface skin of the ocean. The people doing the hammering couldn’t tell the difference between an STD probe and a depth charge without stenciled labels even if their life depended on it.
“That’s a lot of warming”
Lol, Compared to what exactly? Oh, that’s right. We have nothing to compare it to.
John S, that is what DocM’s now deleted (for an insult, I assume) comment said. It doesn’t matter that IR doesn’t get through the ocean skin layer. You need to think about net IR radiation which is outwards. The ocean warms from the sun and cools from IR. Restricting its cooling rate makes it warmer. Insulation is the analog. CO2 is an insulator.
Jim D | March 4, 2014 at 9:29 pm |
“The ocean warms from the sun and cools from IR.”
Teh stupid. It burns!
Ocean cools primarily from evaporation not IR. This is basic heat budget information. I’ve stressed it a million times. Why do you refuse to comprehend it?
http://oceanworld.tamu.edu/resources/ocng_textbook/chapter05/chapter05_06.htm
Introduction to Physical Oceanography
5.6 Geographic Distribution of Terms in the Heat Budget
Figure 5.6 shows the global average surface (including land) cools by 78W/m2 via evaporation and 66W/m2 via infrared. Figure 5.7a shows in the tropics (-30 to +30 latitude) infrared cooling is 50W/m2 while evaporative is 100W/m2. Figure 5.8 (lower) shows infrared cooling rates on a global map and where it only goes above 60W/m2 over land and reaches as much as 200W/m2 in the Sahara, Death Valley, Western Australia, and similar hot dry regions. Figure 5.9 shows evaporative cooling over the ocean well over 100W/m2 almost everywhere and nearly 200W/m2 in some regions.
Anyone who doesn’t know this should instantly STFU because you don’t know WTF you’re talking about. You know who you are.
I thought that the standard units of oceanic warming were Hiroshimas ?
Jim D wrote:
Compared to what exactly? Oh, that’s right. We have nothing to compare it to.
Compared to changes in solar irradiance, averaged over a a solar cycle and over the course of the year.
Compare, for example, the change in solar irradiance between the Maunder Minimum and after it ceased, in W/m2.
DA, that was Jim S.
@David Appell 9:02pm:
There have been millions of data points collected by NOAA (especially Sydney Levitus) over the last several decades.
That statement is entirely consistent with what I wrote at 8:55 pm.
ARGO collects 100,000 profiles per year, 200 data points per profile, presto 2 Million data points per year times 9 years, 18 million data points. Gosh David, you are right!!!
That data isn’t useless.
No it isn’t. But it should not be USED for claims it cannot support.
That we have 1,000,000 Argo data points per year, mostly evenly distributed around the world between 1000-2000 meters at 10 meter intervals, is not in dispute.
The key question is how many temperature measurements between 1000-2000 meters do we have on average between 1960 and 1990? And where are they? How many are in the Southern Hemisphere? I linked to maps. It is your turn.
If we don’t have a representative sample of temperature measurement, then we don’t know what the heat content was. It wasn’t measured enough.
Stephen: No, I meant millions of data points before ARGO. Have a look at
NOAA Atlas NESDIS 60: WORLD OCEAN DATABASE 2005
http://rda.ucar.edu/datasets/ds285.0/docs/wod05_introduction.pdf
and see all the effort that has gone into data collection and quality control.
That data isn’t useless.
No it isn’t. But it should not be USED for claims it cannot support.
How is it being used for claims it cannot support? Specifically?
You’ll notice the pre-ARGO OHC numbers have uncertainties that get considerably large as one goes back on time….
David Appelll
According to Rosenthal in an interview the oceans are a capacitor smoothing the climate system. If you have any idea of an analog power supply, large capacitors smooth the current. It appears they take a lot of watts without much response. Or the watts didn’t get there or some combination. It seems both is the most plausible.
@David Appell 12:08 am
Rasey: The key question is how many temperature measurements between 1000-2000 meters do we have on average between 1960 and 1990? And where are they? How many are in the Southern Hemisphere? I linked to maps. It is your turn.
From your hand-waving unspecific link to a 192 page report:
Check out Page 60, 61, in particular Fig. 3.2.
Just as I said.
Geographically clustered
mostly submarine patrol zones,
N. Atlantic, NE, NW Pacific, hugging the continents.
Much too sparsely sampled in the Southern Hemisphere,
half prior to 1990,
a small fraction prior to 1980,
a small fraction below 1000 m
Pages: 73-74, Fig. 4.4 XBT soundings.
Fig.4.4: The map is over saturated. Can’t tell if it is one sample or 1000.
But it is clear that south of 40 S, the sampling is sparse.
But much fewer than 1% of all XBT worldwide were deeper than 1000m. And we don’t know where and when the deep ones were.
RE: David Appell 9:02 pm: warming at 0.78 W/m2
Water Column = 2000. m
Volume of Water per m2 = 2000. m^3
Density of Sea Water = 1030. kg/m^3
Mass of Sea Water in 2000.m x 1 m^2 = 2.06E+06 Kg
Specific Heat Cap of Sea Water = 3.99E+03 J / kg / degK
Heat to raise 2000. m3 of sea water = 8.22E+09 J / degK
1 Joule = 1 Watt/sec = 1.000 Watt-sec/J
Heat to raise 2000. m3 of sea water = 8.22E+09 watt-sec / deg K
Seconds per year 3.16E+07 sec/yr
Heat to raise 2000. m3 of sea water = 260.457 watt-yr / deg K
Heat imbalance at surface m^2 (per David Appell) = 0.780 W/m2
Temp change of 2000.m3 of sea water = 0.003 deg K / yr
Temp change of 2000.m3 of sea water = 0.030 deg K / decade
Willis Eschenbach’s ARGO post shows a temp change slope of only 0.02 deg K.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/03/02/argo-temperature-and-ohc/
and second order terms are nuts at this point.
Thanks, Stephen Rasey. That calculation is both correct and sensible.
David Appell:
So a temperature change of 0.06 C in the top half of the ocean is a huge amount of heat….
So what do you have to say about Rosenthal’s paper claiming the atlantic and pacific oceans were .67 degees “C” warmer during the MWP than today? The planet didn’t roast in the MWP.
I hope ocean heat uptake is fast, as some argue. It will provide an enormous buffer, perhaps centuries long, to get closer to the truth around CO2. In fact, maybe it would be a good thing to warm up the oceans a half a degree or so, if only we could do it. Buffer against an ice age.
The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics strikes again.
The prospect of trapped ocean heat warming the atmosphere is indeed fearsome – to climate “enthusiasts” (aka “catastrophic anthropogenic global warming”).
Back in the real world, Putin is repeating Hitler’s effort of assisting “self determinism” for ethnic groups.
Both the EU and Putin are seeking to exercise President Wilson’s “right of self determination” – which led Hitler to start WWII – and Putin to invade Crimea.
Ambiguous ideas leveraged by equivocation have consequences – both in politics – and science.
Go for it Judith. Keep telling it like it is. Some of us are listening and will carry the message forward. You and Richard Lindzen are my heroes.
Thank you.
Unknowns …core mantle interactions.
Worthy of future post?
This is Jean Dickey’s work, it is pretty interesting
I have an analysis of the LOD here which I completed yesterday:
http://contextearth.com/2014/03/04/decadal-temperature-variations-and-lod/
Dickey does believe that the varying LOD is caused by movement under the surface. To interact with temperature, she makes a conjecture that the EM fields change the atmosphere somehow.
My post is about considering what it takes for movement of ocean water to make that same change in LOD. Water has to move poleward transiently for the moment of inertia to reduce and therefore have the earth’s rotation speed-up. This is more parsimonious in that temperature changes will come along for the ride. It does take huge volumes of water, but still plausible. The effect would be similar to a long-term tidal motion.
This may also form the basis of the stadium wave.
I have a hunch that CRF could also affect these processes. In addition to creating cloud nucleation particles, similare onization effects are likely to happen in magma and ocean waters, affecting chemical processes and circulation. There would be interplay with ions and magnetic field changes which could subtlely change circulation.
Saynisch et al. find ocean mass driving the annual LOD variations.
Assimilation of Earth rotation parameters into a global ocean model: length of day excitation Jan Saynisch · Manfred Wenzel · Jens Schröter J Geod (2011) 85:67–73 DOI 10.1007/s00190-010-0416-0
Yan, H., and B. F. Chao (2012), Effect of global mass conservation among geophysical fluids on the seasonal length of day variation, J. Geophys. Res., 117, B02401, doi:10.1029/2011JB008788.
Consider also Solar – LOD
Semi-Annual Solar-Terrestrial Power, Paul L. Vaughan, M.Sc.
Le Mouël, J.-L.; Blanter, E.; Shnirman, M.; & Courtillot, V. (2010). Solar forcing of the semi-annual variation of length-of-day. Geophysical Research Letters 37, L15307. doi:10.1029/2010GL043185.
at NIPCC Solar Forcing of Meteorological Phenomena
There really isn’t much of a pause — just typical oscillations around the same trendline as 1975-2000:
http://davidappell.blogspot.com/2014/02/the-pause-that-aint.html
And in fact, this slowdown isn’t even as deep as the one that appeared in 1993-1994:
http://davidappell.blogspot.com/2014/03/the-lesser-of-two-pauses.html
Hey apple, for an “unimpressive” pause it sure is causing a lot of consternation among the true believers. It seems like every month we see a new paper claiming to have solved the riddle of all that unimpressive missing heat. Getting to be right up there with the riddle of the Sphinx.
What kind of science is certain in the morning, doubtful in the afternoon, and utterly trashed by the evening?
Appell does not realize that the “pause” is not around to impress people. It is data. As such, it exists. In direct contradiction to the AGW meme.
Yes, scientists are working to understand why the recent rate of warming is a little lower than in the last few decades. Do you realize that’s what scientists are SUPPOSED to do? — reconcile observations and theory?
The rate of warming is non existent. Not a little lower. But I guess you are the lone voice trying that shenanigans as most of the “scientists” acknowledge the “pause”.
apple says “..is a little lower …”
I guess “a little lower” is in the eye of the beholder, especially considering that during this time of no warming, fully 25 oercent of all anthro co2 since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution has been added to the atmosphere.
An honest man (are you an honest man, David) might concede this argues for a lower atmospheric sensitivity than the alarmists would have us believe.
‘First, take the Cowtan & Way data‘
Data?
You think that an attempt to recalculate an average utilizing three different types of data-set counts as data?
Have you looked at the data-sets that were not, a prior, looking for warming?
pok: This is certainly NOT a time of no warming. The oceans are warming strongly, and they are the best measure of the planet’s energy imbalance. Even the surface sliver is warming, despite two recent La Ninas and an change in the PDO, a slightly cooler sun, and some volcanoes.
There simply no reason to think that GHG warming has ceased or paused.
No, only the indian is warming. The rest are cooling or unchanged. So your statement about “oceans” is flat out wrong.
I would make a similar point. The warming since 1980 has been 0.16 C per decade, which is close to what the models say it should be for this last 30 years, which is also when half the manmade CO2 ever added has been added. The “pause” is overstated by looking at just a shorter period and discounting the high warming rate just before it. Also land has been warming by 0.26 C per decade since 1980, and the Arctic even faster. Important factors to mention when talking about natural variation, because these fast rises don’t have a “natural variation” explanation.
“Do you realize that’s what scientists are SUPPOSED to do? — reconcile observations and theory?”
Of course; that what we are whining about: the fact that Climate Science, unlike traditional science, routinely adjusts observations to conform to the ACO2 Axiom, rather than abandoning the axiom in the face of conflicting observations.
Fact: Comment moderated at Climate Audit by one of my most able editors.
‘A characteristic of many of the instantly famous papers recently is the attempt to cover some hole in the hypothesis of a CO2 climate control knob that ongoing data acquisition is uncovering.
We invite examination of the methods of these papers. Are they ignorant or disingenuous? Always the same question, the same question.’
Well, actually I edited it slightly for grammar. Maybe that was his objection.
=========================
Of course; that what we are whining about: the fact that Climate Science, unlike traditional science, routinely adjusts observations to conform to the ACO2 Axiom, rather than abandoning the axiom in the face of conflicting observations.
All data depends on models, and the models need to get better and better. You’re perfectly free to make and publish your own data models. Go for it. In the meantime, stop whining about people who are doing their best to accurately capture what is happening in the climate system.
No david, you keep spouting that stupidity, but it still is not true. Data does not depend on models. Data is used to generate models. Data exists. No one has to be in the forest to see the tree fall, for it to be a statistic. It still fell.
‘You’re perfectly free to make and publish your own data models’
‘ And of course all the academics say we’ve got to have peer review. But I don’t believe in peer review because I think it’s very distorted and as I’ve said, it’s simply a regression to the mean.
I think peer review is hindering science. In fact, I think it has become a completely corrupt system. It’s corrupt in many ways, in that scientists and academics have handed over to the editors of these journals the ability to make judgment on science and scientists’
Sydney Brenner, Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2002.
http://kingsreview.co.uk/magazine/blog/2014/02/24/how-academia-and-publishing-are-destroying-scientific-innovation-a-conversation-with-sydney-brenner/
‘The other paper by MM is just garbage. I can’t see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. Kevin and I will keep them out somehow — even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!’
Phil Jones, Director of the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) and Professor School of Environmental Sciences at the University of East Anglia.
David,
Just looked at your first link.
0.17 C/decade is 1.7 C in one hundred years.
This is lower than the “catastrophic” 2C that will destroy the planet.
Don’t many simulations predict 0.3 C per decade? So, isn’t 0.17 C about half of the predicted change?
Maybe the science is converging on the truth.
I’m not sure why it is ok in this preliminary stage to take one of 15 explanations for the “slow down” and assume that one is the “Word”.
Not following your point. “Causes and implications of the growing divergence between climate model simulations and observations” – note how Dr. Curry defines the “pause”: the models are failing to match surface temperatures. That is a fact. There are a number of attempts to explain what is happening including yours, Dr. Curry suggested some others. That’s fine – but those do not rescue the models; they are _new models_. Also fine, but the new models have not been validated, will not be maybe for decades. In the meantime, we have no working models. I don’t know if there’s one single feature of the climate that we are confident of modeling; surface temperature was the best they had.
David, stop hawking your blog. No one reads it for a reason.
As for the talk, it should be very interesting to see the reactions.
I understand how the facts can make someone like you uncomfortable. In which case, yes, it is probably best for you to avoid my blog.
Facts? You have none! LOL! I did not speak of facts, I spoke of you shilling for your non-visited site! Where you make such proclamations that CO2 is not a trace gas! LOL – http://dailycaller.com/2013/12/20/the-top-seven-global-warming-alarmist-setbacks-in-2013/#comment-1264888051
Phil,
hawk
verb (used without object)
to make an effort to raise phlegm from the throat; clear the throat noisily.
verb (used with object)
to raise by hawking: to hawk phlegm up.
hawking
verb
To discharge phlegm
Doc re; hawking
Interesting. Is English not your first language?
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/american-english/hawk_2
hawk
verb [T] (SELL) /hɔk/
› to sell goods in public places by calling out to people: She was hawking flowers at the parking lot exit.
Doc – http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/hawk?s=t
Try the US English Dictionary:
1. to peddle or offer for sale by calling aloud in public.
2. to advertise or offer for sale: to hawk soap on television.
3. to spread (rumors, news, etc.).
verb (used without object)
4. to carry wares about for sale; peddle.
I read it. It’s one of those long-running science blogs that you go to to find out what findings may have fallen through the cracks.
Like I said, no one reads it.
hawk vt to offer for sale by calling out in the street. I like ‘tout’.
Another nice noun, for the deep ones, Doc, is ‘hufferbellyphlegm’.
================
Shill is another good one. The beauty of the English language is the choice of words to describe an event.
Well, phil, one very interesting reaction to the talk is all of Appell’s harrumphing, and copious production of hufferbellyphlegms.
=================
Yes, he is prodigious in that respect. ;-)
David, I am English and live in the US. You would be surprised at the difference in homonym usage in the two nations.
England and America – 2 nations separated by a common language.
A scathing indictment of the settled science crowd.
Asked by Climate News Network how WMO regarded claims by some critics that there has been a “global warming standstill since 1997”, Mr Jarraud said: “Which standstill? The coldest year since 2001 is warmer than any year before 1998:
Each decade is warmer than the previous one. There is global variability from year to year. You have to look at the longer period. If you do that, then the message is beyond any doubt…Despite the fact that there was no El Niño in 2013, it was still the sixth warmest year. This is significant.
The WMO says surface temperature is just part of a much wider picture of climate change. “More than 90% of the excess heat being caused by human activities is being absorbed by the ocean”, it says.
It has released the temperature data in advance of its full Statement on the Status of the Climate in 2013, to be published in March. This will give more details of regional temperatures and other indicators.
************************************************************
Globally, Earth had its fourth warmest January this year [2014] since modern temperature record-keeping began in 1880, according to a report released Thursday by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
In January, the global average temperature – the combined temperature of both land and ocean surfaces – was 54.8°F, or about 1.17°F above the 20th century average of 53.6°F.
“The message is beyond any doubt”—–what message? That the earth is warming? Ok. I get that message. Past that point, I don’t see anything that is beyond doubt.
None of which proves that any of it is truly unprecedented. Unless, of course, you believe that the climate started in 1880.
Is your wife referred to as ummmm ‘er? :-)
“Is your wife referred to as ummmm ‘er?”
:) :) :)
Very witty
Ceresco kid
you said;
‘None of which proves that any of it is truly unprecedented. Unless, of course, you believe that the climate started in 1880’
Its worse than that. Many people seem to believe that climate started when they were born.
I am currently looking at the period 1200 to 1450Ad. Which coincidentally covers the transition period between the MWP and LIA that you were asking about in one of your comments last week.
Now, back then they REALLY had climate, which makes our current extreme events pale in comparison.
tonyb
Heh, the current carries us on.
=======
It’s probably deeper when smoother and shallower when rough. Dynamic thermal actions and winged butterflies strangely attracted.
=======================
Oh, sorry, it’s ‘ummmm’, not ‘ommmm’.
===================
I would love to see an analysis of accuracy of at least one model:
1. The influence of a grid size, and related
2. The influence of an elevation model (mountains, coastlines)
3. Effects of turbulence and convection
4. Cloud creation and dissipation
5. Effect of wind on water evaporation
6. Heat capacities and albedo of jungle vs prairie vs desert
With an amazing number of free parameters, models can be made to fit any past scenario. The problem is to fit the future.
There are whole journals devoted to model evaluation, such as Geoscientific Model Development (http://www.geosci-model-dev-discuss.net/volumes_and_issues.html).
Have you started there? Or looked in any IPCC AR?
David – thanks. A typical article in your reference is titled “Evaluating and constraining ice cloud parameterizations in CAM5 using aircraft measurements from the SPARTICUS campaign”. I am looking for a whole model evaluation, not a piecemeal approach.
George: Then I would either read the IPCC 5AR’s sections on model verification, and the references therein, or start with the NASA GISS Model E2, which I present in the link below. The link, and especially the paper, has discussions of how the particulars of the model do:
http://davidappell.blogspot.com/2013/09/a-useful-paper-on-one-models-results.html
David – could you please point to me where exactly the article you are referring to analyzes the expected accuracy of results?
George: Results for what?
Snark Soup.
It looks about right to me.
I fitted the 1976-2014 HADCRU4 to 1911.
http://i179.photobucket.com/albums/w318/DocMartyn/HADCRU41976in1911_zpse8c7011a.png
While CO2 did this
http://i179.photobucket.com/albums/w318/DocMartyn/CO21976in1911_zps41ed51b9.png
Well I guess it is Appell’s time for the night shift of the Rapid Response Team. Can someone write me code to disappear his name from my comments section. I do hope Joshua has the night off.
“Modeled pauses longer than 15 years are rare; the probability of a modeled pause exceeding 20 yrs is vanishing small”
This is an underappreciated point. The odds that climate models are seriously wrong increase exponentially with the time and amount that the climate deviates from the models.
Perhaps this is why the rhetoric against so-called “deniers” seems to have heated up over the last year. Defending the reliability of climate models is fast becoming impossible based on evidence, so they’ve turned up the volume hoping to drown everything else out.
You are completely right, which is why the team are redefining what the ‘forcings’ are, making the models ‘better’ and chasing around the Arctic to get as much warming as they can.
If Mann can have treeringless years than Gavin et al., can alter the properties of the whole instrument record of light flux, aerosols and clouds.
Defending the reliability of climate models is fast becoming impossible based on evidence,
This statement is so huge it’s essentially meaningless. Reliable how? In what way? Modelers, of course, spend enormous amounts of time working to verify their models. Then people like John Christy publish a misleading graph in the WSJ and suddenly everything thinks models are unreliable (when actually they do a pretty good job of reproducing the 20th century).
Why Christy’s graph is misleading:
http://ourchangingclimate.wordpress.com/2014/02/22/john-christy-richard-mcnider-roy-spencer-flat-earth-hot-spot-figure-baseline/
One model’s reproduction of the 20th century:
http://davidappell.blogspot.com/2013/09/a-useful-paper-on-one-models-results.html
David Appell:
If it’s not possible to meaningfully question the reliability of climate models by comparing their projections with what actually then occurs, then these climate models are not “falsifiable” and thus are not scientific entities.
Exactamundo.
+1
If it’s not possible to meaningfully question the reliability of climate models by comparing their projections with what actually then occurs.
Look — science is about the details. Until you ask a good, firm, detailed question, you can’t get an answer.
Climate models don’t make predictions, they make projections. If you don’t know the difference, now is a good time to learn.
Modelers have a saying: “All models are wrong, but some are useful.” What do you suppose they mean by that?
It is a sophistry to disguise the difference between a testable hypothesis and computer assisted arm waving.
You call them projections as if they were predictions, we would know they were complete bollocks already.
One of the most reliably predictable relationships in climate science is that as questions of the models’ validity increase, there is a more than proportionate increase in cries of “Denier!”
Well Faustino, at least that’s one correlation, fergit observations’
divergence from the models.
bts
If it’s not possible to meaningfully question the reliability of climate models by comparing their projections with what actually then occurs, then these climate models are not “falsifiable” and thus are not scientific entities.
I never said that. Look, it’s a fact that models project, not predict. They can’t predict — it’s impossible, since no one knows the precise future of energy use or anthropogenic emissions (including aerosols).
That’s why backpredictions can be especially useful — because we know a lot more about the emissions pathways. And the models do a pretty good job:
http://davidappell.blogspot.com/2013/09/a-useful-paper-on-one-models-results.html
By the way, how well does your model do?
The Null hypothesis “do’ well. Much better than any fake climate model that is wrong by 98%
David Appell
You ask:
Of course they’re “useful” (for the modelers, at least)
Follow the money trail.
Max
“Look, it’s a fact that models project, not predict. They can’t predict”
Then it’s a good thing that IPCC doesn’t mention predictions!
Or does, it, David Appell?
Does it?
David Appell:
We have all heard claims like “Scientists say that the global temperature may climb by as much as 4C (or 2C or 3C or 5C or 6C) by the end of the century”. You yourself may have said such a thing.
We all accept that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, but how do we go from that to specific statements about the climate as whole? What testable and potentially falsifiable theory are these claims about the turn of the century based on, and how would we subject that theory to a test? According to you the results of computer models should not be used for such purposes, so what else?
Or should we denounce statements about the turn of the century as being unscientific?
@davidappell
BS. One could do a mapping perfectly well between sets of all conceivable emission trajectories and climate responses, provided one had a proper theory. That would be a prediction in the traditional scientific sense of the word. Alas, it is never done in climate science for reasons undisclosed.
By the same logic trajectories of space probes are unpredictable, because they do not only depend on celestial mechanics, but on details of how operators choose to implement orbital corrections, the precise future of which is unknowable.
Still, in this case no one uses abstruse “projection” language, because we have a good enough theory of celestial mechanics, therefore no linguistic tricks are needed to hide incompetence like it seems to be customary in climate science.
I love ‘backprediction’. The ‘back’ and the ‘pre’ cancel, leaving just ‘diction’, which pretty much says it all.
================
@davidappell
The word is retrodiction.
@davidappell
The reference to Geosci. Model Dev. you provide is interesting, although the GCM etc evaluations seem of the ‘black box’ variety. However, in skimming I came across an excerpt from Pipitone and Easterbrook (2012) which I just could not resist. On p1012 c2, they say “Climate modelling has also become a way of answering questions about the nature of climate change and about predicting [not projecting] the future climate…” They should know?!
David Appell (@davidappell) | March 5, 2014 at 12:18 am |
“I never said that. Look, it’s a fact that models project, not predict. They can’t predict — it’s impossible, since no one knows the precise future of energy use or anthropogenic emissions (including aerosols).
That’s why backpredictions can be especially useful — because we know a lot more about the emissions pathways. And the models do a pretty good job:”
You have just described why the Models are wrong. This is a fact not an opinion and it is a fact that can be proven rather easily.
Of course you cannot falsify them yet by just checking their projections against the real world as not enough time has passed to be definite. Also you cannot run an experiment with the Earth to falsify them.
However, there is another way to disprove any hypothesis. All you need to do is show that it produces an impossible result.
So what would be an impossible result for an accurate and correct model?
Well what does it output? It outputs a climate signal quantified by the Earth’s global temperature. This output is compared and graphed to past actual temperature data and is then taken forward to predict the future.
All the current climate models do very well on the back cast against data. Remarkably so really, over the 20th century as the temperature data shows rises and falls so do the models track it with little variation except for the shortest periods. Is that good?…….. NO!
You see the models average out a lot of the natural variation factors, mainly ENSO. The designers original argument for this was that it made the models simpler (true) and that anyway natural variation was so small it did not affect the main signal significantly. (false)
Now they say that ‘of course natural variation is strong enough to mask the true signal and for quite long periods, way longer than a decade’. They have to say that now of course because if they maintained their previous line, that it was too weak to have any significant effect, they would have had to ditch their models already.
So now both sceptics and warmists agree that natural variation (mainly ENSO) can completely alter the underlying modelled climate signal. Indeed the modelled climate signal, of a greatly accelerated warming rate, as compared to the 20th century, has been masked completely since 2001. Indeed it has cooled very slightly over this period. However, the warmists say ‘hey trust our models this is just natural variation doing its obvious thing’.
So we can see that the models and the temperature records are outputting different signals. One, a climate signal plus averaged variation and the other, the climate signal plus actual variation. It is now accepted that actual variation causes the models to drift well away from reality for quite lengthy periods. Therefore the fact that the models are currently drifting well away from reality does not prove they are wrong. Indeed it is a behaviour that only an accurate model would display in anything other than neutral variation. It doesn’t prove it is correct but it certainly doesn’t prove it is incorrect
So what would be impossible result for an accurate and correct model to output. Well clearly that would be a signal that does closely match the actual temperature data over the short to medium term. An apple doesn’t equal an orange no matter how you cut it. Only in the long run would the signals align. In the short to medium term an accurate model must run either hot or cold
So, given that ENSO has been doing its thing over the 20th century, the fact that on the back cast run the models track the temperature record very closely in all its up and down movements proves that these models are in fact false. That is an impossible result for an accurate model. QED.
In their hubris, the warmists when fiddling with their free parameters to make a great fit with the historical data, overlooked that they were trying to fit an apple to an orange! Or perhaps they didn’t think anyone would take much notice of them if they couldn’t even match the past.
So what say you Appell?
Alan
Years ago I said the modelers were running their toys on circular tracks, on the ceiling.
===========
The “stadium wave” climate signal is described, which propagates across the Northern Hemisphere through a network of ocean, ice, and atmospheric circulation regimes that self-organize into a collective tempo.
===========================================================
Words that would make a cheerleader look brainy!
Sure if he or she understood multi-channel singular spectral analysis. He/she would probably also have some understanding of Fourier analysis and perhaps some other spectral analyses tools.
I could see a cheerleader understanding it.
Besides understanding the mathematics of SSA, the cheerleader would also have to specify the Laplacian of the propagating wave in order to provide at least a modicum of physical plausibility. Without such, it’s just pom-pom waving.
Who is John S. quoting?
Never mind. Found it.
Question Why are sea-level rise, ice-mass loss, and ocean-heating, all observed to progress without “pause”?
Occam’s Razor says Because James Hansen’s 1981 climate-change worldview is broadly correct.
Prediction Committed denialists will increasingly focus upon high-noise datasets, personal smears, and conspiracy theories … distilled and spread by special-interest astro-turfers.
It’s not complicated, Climate Etc readers!
Query If land-temperatures increase in coming years, what then will be denialism’s “Plan B”?
” Why are sea-level rise, ice-mass loss, and ocean-heating, all observed to progress without “pause”?”
Without bothering with dubious invocations of Occam’s razer, I would answer…
“Because the earth’s response to a change in overall air temperature is not instantaneous. Even if air temperature stayed constant afer that, it would take a long time to achieve equilibrium.”
Last time I brought up Houston and Dean your rebuttal was of near record brevity and a bit wimpily, I might add. So I will pass on bringing it up again so as to not threaten your record.
Climate isn’t complicated? Is there a consensus on that?
CK, ah’ll jest see yer two cherry-picked denialist authors, an` raise-yah fifty on the other side.
Jimmy will be happy to explain it too yah!
Fanny, I’m shocked to see you trading on the Holocaust victims’ suffering.
Do you feel that it suits your persona?
Thisisnotgoodto, let’s jest see yer snark, and raise yah 5,211 reasoned & civil scientific articles on the topic of denialist cognition. Here’s a summary:
SUMMARY Climate-change denialism ain’t complicated … its five symptoms are plain … it is sure is common … and civil, rational, scientific responses to denialism are feasible.
Thank you, thisisnotgoodtogo, for helping Climate Etc readers to a deeper scientific appreciation of the cognitive mechanisms of climate-change denialism!
Beyond the fact that the rise in ocean heating has had it’s rate reduced to pretty much zero once accurate data became available rather than using guesswork, the small sea level is continuing as it ever did and if it didn’t we would be heading for an ice age, the temperature in the Arctic is the same as it was in the 30’s and the Antarctic is gaining ice contrary to alarmists expectations the real point you continually miss is that none of this has actually been pinned on manmade warming because none of it is out of the ordinary. What we have is a gentle 0.6K rise per century and models that predicted alarming rises are all wrong.
As for conspiracies – I’ll bet you are one of those who talk of fossil-fuel funded deniers aren’t you. Well that’s a conspiracy theory right there!
Occams razor says when observations refute your theory you abandon the theory.seemingly that is too complicated for the likes of you.
Fanny, why did you attempt to shift the subject away from the subject of what “Denial” refers to?
Do you think that the horrible misusing of the term to denigrate your enemies, suits your sensitive persona?
Fanny, I’m again shocked, by your response.
Imagine! You responded to questioning the propriety of using the term by showing how to identify the target persons!
How does this jibe with your persona, which oozes beatific sensitivity?
Persons afflicted by the cognitive spectrum disorder known as denialism aren’t “enemies” … they are fellow-citizens who can be politely helped to a better-rounded civic, scientific, economic, and moral appreciation of climate change
That’s *CIVIC* common-sense, eh Climate Etc readers?
It is a pleasure to assist you, thisisnotgoodtogo!
Fanny, medicalisation of enemies’ perceived faults is a great step. Goosing, it is!
Whether you perceive the persons targeted as enemies or as genetic or circumstantial victims of the illness you project upon them, matters little as to the goal, eh,Fanny?
Isn’t his second step in targeting even worse for your beatifically red-slippered sensitive persona, Fanny?
The revolution will not Televised.
===========
Thisisnotgoodtogo, let us rejoice that careful study and mature reflection upon climate-science can induce remarkable improvements in emotional health and civic capability.
Not every ideological movement welcomes these scientific advances, needless to say!
In the end, an informed electorates have the final say, eh thisisnotgoodtogo?
Fanny, after the medicalisation of the targeted persons, and my further questioning of the suitability of it wrt to your sensitive persona, you point out the value in studying climate science.
However, my questions concern the value you place in labeling persons who fail in agreeing with what you believe are the pertinent scientific findings.
So again, how does the labeling with the term associated with the evil perpetrated in the holocaust, fit with your sensitive persona?
If it’s a mental dysfunction, how does smearing the victims of the disorder, fit with your sensitive persona?
Judgment by thisisnotgoodtogo, links by FOMD.
The association of denialist cognition (5,211 articles) to evil outcomes (1,565 articles) indeed is fertile ground for scientific inquiry.
Thisisnotgoodtogo, do you wish for all 6,766 scientific articles on these two topics to … never be read? … never be discussed? … disappear forever?
That’s not likely to happen, is it?
Links fixed!
Judgment by thisisnotgoodtogo, links by FOMD.
The association of denialist cognition (5,211 articles) to evil outcomes (1,565 articles) indeed is fertile ground for scientific inquiry.
Do you want all 6,766 scientific articles on these two topics to … never be read? … never be discussed? … disappear altogether?
That’s not likely to happen, is it?
Fanny, the judgment of “evil” was of the holocaust.
How does your labeling of people who disagree on some portion of scientific finding which is too small ( possibly non-existent) to be distinguishable by IPCC reckoning, as evil-doers comparable to deniers of the holocaust, reflect on your sensitive persona ?
Fanny,
Would you endorse using the term, say, as a label for persons who disagree on the amount of fluoride that should be added to municipal water supplies?
That is, you do not acknowledge any legitimacy of entreaties that it be kept for special meaning referring to holocaust deniers?
How does that, Fanny, fit with your sensitive persona?
thisisnotgoodtogo, please don’t overlook the *VAST* scientific literature of “denial” relating to the tobacco-cancer link, the DDT-reproduction link, the CFC-ozone link, the coal-acid rain link, and the HIV-AIDS link.
Gosh, those denialist/astroturfing enclaves sure keep busy, don’t they?
It’s good that scientists are learning responsible and effective methods for dealing with denialist cognition, , eh?
Drapetomania was the mental illness described by American physician Samuel A. Cartwright in 1851 that caused black slaves to flee captivity.
Isaak Agol, Nikolai Vavilov, Solomon Levit, Grigorii Levitskii, Georgii Karpechenko and Georgii Nadson were all murdered for Lysenkoism denial.
In the Soviet Union, dissidents were labeled schizophrenics and were placed in psychiatric hospitals.
People who can look at graphs are called, deniers and fascists, by Appell and John Sidles, without sanction.
” the DDT-reproduction link”
???????????????????????????
Fanny, I’m understanding that no matter how insignificant the discrepancy with prevailing thought of the few, that labeling with the pejorative is your course of action.
How does that fit with your sensitively red-sllppered beatifically smiling persona, Fanny?
Fanny, is it your wish to minimize and make ordinary the horrors of the holocaust?
How does that fit with your ever-loving sensitive persona, Fanny?
Query by DM, science by FOMD, denial by Heartland.
Your science-minded query and insights regarding denialist cognition both are appreciated, DocMartyn!
So nothing to do with reproduction, but rather an potential epigenetic mechanism of action.
You just make this stuff up as you go along.
Epigenetics has nothing to do with reproduction? The authors of Current concepts in neuroendocrine disruption (2014) venture to disagree.
“Query If land-temperatures increase in coming years, what then will be denialism’s “Plan B”?”
Presumably the same as your alarmist workable plan A, right?
“Question Why are sea-level rise, ice-mass loss, and ocean-heating, all observed to progress without “pause”?”
Heat capacity.
“Question Why are sea-level rise, ice-mass loss, and ocean-heating, all observed to progress without “pause”?”
Because all of this is based on model output and none of this is based on actual observed data.
Climate Model Output and “adjusted” data are not real data.
ACTUAL, REAL, HONEST, Data does not agree with Model Output so they correct this travesty with tricks to adjust the data. And they got caught. They should have consulted with Nixon and Oliver North before they tried to get rid of the evidence.
There is no actual, honest, observed, data that shows sea level is rising.
There is no actual, honest, observed, data that shows that earth is losing ice mass. Earth Spin Rate Data shows that Earth is building more ice mass.
There is no actual, honest, observed, data that shows that earth oceans are heating and hiding the heat.
“Question Why are sea-level rise, ice-mass loss, and ocean-heating, all observed to progress without “pause”?”
Because all of this is based on model output and none of this is based on actual observed data.
Climate Model Output and “adjusted” data are not real data.
ACTUAL, REAL, HONEST, Data does not agree with Model Output so they correct this travesty with tricks to adjust the data. And they got caught. They should have consulted with others before them, who tried to get rid of the evidence.
There is no actual, honest, observed, data that shows sea level is rising.
There is no actual, honest, observed, data that shows that earth is losing ice mass. Earth Spin Rate Data shows that Earth is building more ice mass.
There is no actual, honest, observed, data that shows that earth oceans are heating and hiding the heat.
THERE IS NO PAUSE!
Before the 80’s they were massaging the numbers and were presenting that: ”because of the CO2 Dimming Effect – it will be Nuclear Winter by year 2000. Then, because year 2000 was approaching – they went 180 degrees in opposite direction for Global Warming.
Because of constantly ”massaging” the truth, made it to look as if it was colder in the 70’s gone to warmer in the 80’s and than stop. In reality: THE OVERALL GLOBAL TEMP WAS ALWAYS THE SAME!!! http://globalwarmingdenier.wordpress.com/climate/
This is true, overall the earth’s temperature has been very stable since we started measuring it. Something that is easy to forget when one spends a lot of time staring at temperature anomaly graphs marked in tenth of a degree increments.
Um…. Nuclear winters aren’t due to CO2….. (Wow.)
But, it’s the BEST anomaly we have.
umeinu | March 4, 2014 at 9:37 pm said: ” when one spends a lot of time staring at temperature anomaly graphs marked in tenth of a degree increments”
umeinu, nobody knows what’s the worlds temp, to save his / her life; because on 99,999999% of the planet nobody is monitoring
b] global temp is not as human body; when is one degree warmer under the armpit = the whole body is warmer by that much – in the environment temp changes on every 100m, every 10-15 minutes
they ”pretend” to know in tenth of degree precision what is the overall temp…? that is the biggest lie since the Homo-Erectus invented the language !!!!..
David Appell (@davidappell) mumbled: ”[Um…. Nuclear winters aren’t due to CO2….. (Wow.)”
David, you can muddy the water, but same end result will be!
”ALL literature regarding GLOBAL temp in the 70’s is on record, stating: ”the DIMMING effect of CO2 is same as of many nuclear bombs explosions would lift tons of dust up and block the sunlight of coming to the ground” Cheers!
jim2 | March 4, 2014 at 10:19 pm said: ”But, it’s the BEST anomaly we have”
jim2, we don’t have any anomaly, That ”anomaly” you are referring is ”pretend anomaly”.The truth is that: the overall temp is ALWAYS the same; read my post and you will see: http://globalwarmingdenier.wordpress.com/climate/
they ”pretend” to know in tenth of degree precision what is the overall temp…?
No they don’t. GISS, Hadley, NCDC etc. aren’t calculating the average temperature of the planet. They’re calculation the temperature of their MODEL of the planet,. And that model only means something insofar as it compares to itself — viz. they try to make their data model as self-consistent as possible, and then see how much that anomalies change.
They are limited by practicalities, such as the cost of installing, maintaining and reading stations. So they stick to their model of the planet and don’t really pretend it’s the real world (though it looks to be a pretty good facsimile of it, by comparison to satellite data, which can scan much more of the earth).
stefan: CO2 isn’t what causes dimming. For a nuclear winter, it’s all the dirt and dust thrown into the atmosphere…..
“No they don’t. GISS, Hadley, NCDC etc. aren’t calculating the average temperature of the planet”
That is exactly their claim, Appell. Averaged global surface temperatures.
You’re accusing them of false advertising? Fey!
Appell seeks to rewrite history by the hour.
No predictions, and no global temperatures given!
David Appell,
No predictions?
You need to straighten out David Archer;
“Global Warming: Understanding the Forecast is a comprehensive introduction to all aspects of global warming. Written in an accessible way, and assuming no specialist prior knowledge, this book examines the processes that control climate change and climate stability, from the distant past to the distant future.”
So, like the consensus climate people, you have taken out the Roman and Medieval Warm Periods and You have taken out the Little Ice Age and made Global temperature the same before the modern hockey stick.
People did move to Greenland because there was a warm period and they did leave Greenland because a Little Ice Age does follow a warm period.
The data shows that it is natural and normal for cold and warm periods to alternate. We did get warm because that is always next after cold. It will get cold again and you can forecast how long by looking at the past cycles.
It will take about the same amount of time to replenish the ice on earth in this warm period as it did in the last two, where we have historical records. We have Ice cores for the last eleven thousand years. We will cycle again, like we have done before, in this well bounded period.
stefanthedenier,
I agree – more or less, as usual.
I believe it is beyond the bounds of present technology to measure global surface temperatures with any well defined level of precision.
In any case, given that the frozen crust of the Earth is proportionally about the thickness of the skin of an apple, talk of measuring changes in the energy content of the Earth is nonsensical. All we can say is that the Earth is cooling, and anybody who doubts this needs to either demonstrate verifiable measurements to the contrary, or alternatively make an appointment with the Department of Reality Readjustment.
I agree with you – the cause of the pause is the flaws.
Live well and prosper,
Mike Flynn.
Herman Alexander Pope | said: ”So, like the consensus climate people, you have taken out the Roman and Medieval Warm Periods”
Herman, I haven’t taken, what isn’t there. Roman warming LIA… they were all localized, b] cycles were /are localized. those things can never be GLOBAL! The ”normal” laws of physics don’t permit higher temp overall, OR LOWER, to be on the whole planet for more than a day. When the shonks were ”discovering those ”GLOBAL changes ”\\simultaneously” they were not scrutinized, so they made it official, but they didn’t take in consideration the normal laws of physics; same as the Warmist are not taking them now. Read and see how the past ”climatologist” were exaggerating: :http://globalwarmingdenier.wordpress.com/2012/08/25/skeptics-stinky-skeletons-from-their-closet/
Mike Flynn | March 5, 2014 at 7:59 am said: ”I agree – I believe it is beyond the bounds of present technology to measure global surface temperatures with any well defined level of precision”
Mike,thermometer is very good to monitor room temperature; BUT, one thermometer for thousands of square miles…? therefore: nobody knows what’s the world temp to save his / her life
when they start talking in a hundredth of a degree precision = only shows how far religions fanaticism / blindness is happening… psychiatrists will be the biggest beneficiaries… Cheers!.
David Appell (@davidappell) said: ”So they stick to their model of the planet and don’t really pretend it’s the real world (though it looks to be a pretty good facsimile of it, by comparison to satellite data, which can scan much more of the earth)”
Davis, David… I didn’t expect from you to tell the truth that: ”all they do is sandpit job , on the computer, for billions off dollars – thanks
David, nobody knows what’s the GLOBAL temp, to save his / her life!!!
Because MUST take in the account every cubic meter .difference in temp, individually FOR EVERY MINUTE IN 24H!!!! b] the temp in the WHOLE troposphere, not only on few places where it suits them
David,Pacific IS MANY TIMES LARGER THAN usa; how many thermometers are in each on those places?
2] satellites all together have 14 thermometers, for the WHOLE planet…?
the biggest con since homo-erectus invented language!
David Appell (@davidappell) said:”stefan: CO2 isn’t what causes dimming. For a nuclear winter, it’s all the dirt and dust thrown into the atmosphere”
David, I know that it doesn’t, but that was the story then – same as now CO2 is not a greenhouse gas, by they con that it is…
2] satellites has altogether 14 thermometers for monitoring the whole planet. a] thermometer needs to be in the place is monitoring; not from 400miles away b] if satellite thermometers were of any use – people wouldn’t spend millions for monitoring on the ground and by balloons. c] they are instead taking infrared photos from space – which overlaps different time zones. Satellite temp is used exclusively to con the zombies as: satellite is sophisticated = must be the monitoring sophisticated = in reality that is the biggest con since homo-erectus invented language! cheers!
Perhaps the pause is caused by the cooling effect of melting one trillion tons of glaciers a year.
The pause was caused by increased snowfall that stopped Albedo from decreasing. Albedo has been constant for some years now. Consensus Theory and Models are still decreasing Albedo. Earth Data does not agree.
Really? Where is the time series for albedo?
Good point. Where is the time series for albedo? Given the importance of the subject, why isn’t there one?
Really? Where is the time series for albedo?
http://www.bbso.njit.edu/
click on Project and select Earthshine from the dropdown list.
The Earthshine project measures Albedo and a new report is due to come out. I have been told that they will show good correlation between albedo and temperature.
“Only 2% of climate model simulations produce trends within the observational uncertainty.”
In other words, 98% of climate models are complete failures. Yet, climatologists still rely on them?
Which model simulations?
Simulations of what?
How well do the assumptions of model track what actually happened, in terms of GHG concentrations, aerosol concentrations, solar irradiance, volcanic emissions, etc?
You see, these are very complicated questions, and simplistic answers like “2% of climate model simulations produce trends within the observational uncertainty” try to bypass all those uncertainties, which isn’t exactly fair.
A simple minded serf’s responses to
‘Questions raised by the discrepancy’:
* Yes
* Yes
* No
* Yes
* Hmmph, more confident of the
observations than of the models.
slide 12. Hypothesis I is not well worded. The heat isn’t hiding in the ocean, it has been measured there. Very little would have already gone below 2000 meters, so most of it is visible, not hiding. Also this heat doesn’t have to come out of the ocean for global warming to occur. It is necessary for it to stay there for global warming. The implication of a rise in OHC is that there is an imbalance in the forcing, and the only way to remove this now is through a surface temperature increase, whether of the land or the ocean. AGW doesn’t state that the surface temperature has to rise continuously with rising forcing. It states that a sum of surface temperature and OHC rise. If neither did, then AGW would be in trouble, but with OHC rising measurably, it is not even close to being in trouble.
The heat has not been magically teleported there, I hope.
CG, not unless you think La Ninas and PDOs are magical. It’s like them.
“The heat isn’t hiding in the ocean, it has been measured there”
You’ve repeated that often recently, Jimmy old bean
Argo has been recording for only 9 years now (started 2005). The most recent data compilations up to January 2014 that I’ve seen show no increase (or decrease, for that matter) larger than the error bars
So, without moving goalposts (and that includes Appell), where is your empirical data for this ?
Jim D should be ignored. He doesn’t even understand that evaporation is the primary means of ocean cooling. He thinks the ocean cools by infrared emission.
Jim D said:
“AGW doesn’t state that the surface temperature has to rise continuously with rising forcing. It states that a sum of surface temperature and OHC rise”
You can continue to make things up for as long as you like, Jim D.
“Jim D should be ignored. He doesn’t even understand that evaporation is the primary means of ocean cooling. He thinks the ocean cools by infrared emission.” – David Springer.
David,
Radiation loss (w/m^2) from the ocean surface is greater than via evapo-transpiration. Much greater. But the net loss is similar.
Increasing CO2 has significant implicationsh here. Rising OHC might cause ‘skeptics’ to consider this.
Another mowron who can’t read an introductory physical oceangraphy text.
http://oceanworld.tamu.edu/resources/ocng_textbook/chapter05/chapter05_06.htm
The net loss isn’t even close to similar. It’s 100% greater for ocean than land on average. Net loss and loss are synomous. If I give you a dollar and you give me a dollar at the same time does either of experience a loss, net or otherwise? What a dope.
“mowron who can’t read” – David
Projection.
Really. So it’s your position that the references used in TAMU’s online intro to physical oceanography text for chapter 5.6 are wrong in regard to ocean heat budget terms for latent and radiative cooling? Either that or I took you to school. Choose one.
Or perhaps you care to contest my contention that loss and net loss are synonyms in that if I give you a dollar at the same time you give me a dollar neither of us has experienced a loss, net or otherwise?
Do tell “Michael”, whoever you are.
The longest average we have is the last four and a half billion years or so. The surface is no longer molten. The seas no longer boil. The amount of heat within the solid Earth from radioactive decay has decreased. The Earth continues to cool.
A naive forecast would be that the observed decrease of about 6,000 K over 4.5 billion years will accelerate, to maybe 0.000001 K per annum.
Quick! Panic! We’ll all freeze in a billion years or so. Maybe a little sooner. Pardon me while I reexamine the tea leaves.
Live well,and prosper,
Mike Flynn.
Of those 4.5 billions years, modern civilization has existed for about 0.000005 billion years.
So what again is your point?
I can draw a line between two points as well as you can Flynn.
By the way Mike, you got any evidence that the earth was molten on the surface when it formed?
Sure. The moon.
http://mygeologypage.ucdavis.edu/cowen/historyoflife/earlyEarth.html
Bob Droege,
I haven’t any first hand knowledge, of course.
If you wish to believe the Earth was created with a molten interior and a solidified crust, you may be quite right. One cannot prove that the universe was not created just now, complete on every detail.
It seems one rational explanation of what we think we know about the Earth’s history is that it was created in a molten state, a long time ago. You may believe that it was created cold, but you would need magical physics to heat it to its present temperature. I’ll stick with my assumptions for the moment.
Thank you for your interest.
Live well and prosper,
Mike Flynn.
Mike Flynn
Your frightening prediction that “we’ll all freeze in a billion years or so” has upset me greatly, as I am extremely worried for my great-great-great (x10^8) grandchildren.
Please tell me it’s not really certain, and could only happen in 3 billion years.
Max
The earth’s fate is incineration not freezing. The sun is a G-type star whose evolution is well documented by observation of other G-type stars of all ages. It grows progressively hotter as it ages and will have twice the current luminosity before its supply of hydrogen fuel is exhausted. It then transitions into the Red Giant stage where it expands to about 2 AU in diameter which will vaporize the earth and possibly Mars too.
If life that evolved here is to endure a technological species capable of space travel must seed another planet. Presumably we are that species and by extension we are the result of evolution writ larger than the lifespan of individual stars.
David Appell
And what’s your point?
Max
Mike Flynn,
Well, just to add to the hilarity, we won’t freeze. According to a new post on BraveNewClimate yesterday, we’ve got enough energy to see us through for a billion years. And plenty to control the climate with on precisely defined control limits in the meantime.
According to Professor Barry Brook we have sufficient nuclear fuel on Earth for a billion years at 30 TW (30 billion TW years). And there’s 14 billion TW-years of hydrogen if we go and get it from the Moon, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune.
Max, don’t ask – unless you also want to hear Fractured Flickers, Biology Division.
Whoops. Now n the correct place, I hope.
Dave Springer,
You may well be right. Damn. I’ll let you know in a billion years.
Live well and prosper,
Mike Flynn.
“Unknowns – solar indirect effects, magnetic and electric field effects, orbital (tidal and other) effects, core-mantle interactions, etc.”
It makes sense to explore Joule heating of the upper atmosphere, especially in the polar regions and the influence on the AO/NAO and AAO. Correlations of solar plasma velocity with El Nino episodes in 1997/98 and 2009/10 are very striking:
http://snag.gy/ppB3v.jpg
Judith said, “The ‘hiatus’ will continue at least another decade.” I just told a group of colleagues last week that “based on the pattern the hiatus will continue for at least another 15 years.” Look at the global mean temperature history back to 1900 and look at
a) the pattern leading up to …
b) the 30 year cooling – hiatus from the mid 1940s to mid 1970s. Followed by …
c) monotonically increasing temperatures from the mid 1970s to mid 1990s.
Followed by …
d) the current hiatus up to the present.
The patterns in the two increasing periods and two hiatus are remarkably similar and strongly appear to be due to a non GHG cause.
The pattern goes back to the mid Nineteenth Century. Phil Jones, heself, told me so.
========
Danley Wolfe
A good analysis of what will very likely happen.
But a question:
What is the plural of “hiatus”?
Is it “hiati”?
Or “hiatuses”?
Max
Hiatuses.
Dave Springer,
You may well be right. Damn. I’ll let you know in a billion years.
Live well and prosper,
Mike Flynn.
Curve fit the past eleven thousand years and extend that cycle forward and we will have something that is many orders of magnitude better than the lucky models and many many many orders of magnitude better than the unlucky models.
Go with a repeat of what has consistently happened for eleven thousand years and forget the models that tell us that what will happen is something that has never happened before.
Go with a repeat of what has consistently happened for eleven thousand years and forget the models that tell us that what is happening now is something that was not possible. Look at the model output. All Model Output is not close to actual Earth Temperature. How many people do you think you can fool with junk such as this?
Get the Theory right and then get the Models right and get back to us someday in the distant future. Stop taking taxpayer money until you get something that is credible.
When you hear pejoratives (childish name calling) in an opinion, you know the author is attacking his/her opponent from a weak position on the issue. JC is to be commended for her dedication to the science…I also applaud her stand on free speech…even against her work. Follow the money, those chasing Grants that have been fairly easy to come by…so long as they support young votes to “Save the Planet”. Frighting our children that they are going to be helpless. Look who’s name calling…she knows that this post will have them on their Talking Points of childish name calling.
I use the skeptical arguments all the time. I model them and then put them in the hopper to see what pops out quantitatively. The discovery that I have made is that many of these factors — from tidal effects, solar, stadium wave, etc. — do exist but they are relatively small and bounded in scale.
The question I have is why skeptics don’t actually finish what they start. What you find here are plenty of hand-waving arguments that never go past the talking stage. You wonder why this happens until you step back and realize that this uncertainty keeps people guessing. That is good from a FUD perspective, as it keeps the dialog going with no closure.
Yet if we put all the skeptical arguments for natural oscillatory factors together, we find that of course the pause is easily explained — when enough of these constructively interfere to temporarily compensate the warming we see a temporary pause:
http://contextearth.com/2014/01/11/the-cause-of-the-pause-is-due-to-thermodynamic-laws/
But of course this constructive interference can’t last long and when the specific cycles start their upward trajectory, the pause evaporates.
Watch what happens later this year and into next year when the ENSO reverses. It will happen, as over 100 years of SOI measurements guarantee that it will.
Why is the trend from 1979 to 2014 greater than the trend from 1979 to 1999?
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/uah/from:1979/to:1999/trend/plot/uah/from:1979/to:2014/trend
You know the trend up to the start of the pause is less than the trend up to the current date, which in my humble analysis is one data point in favor of the following thesis.
“Global temperature trends have increased in the last 15 years”
Maybe there are more data points supporting my position than there are supporting the existence of a pause, calling any skeptics to go check.
If you plot it like this you see two similar small trends and a step change.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/uah/from:1979/to:1998/trend/plot/uah/from:1998/to:2014/trend/plot/uah
Bob Droege
You ask:
Because you cherrypicked UAH.
Here is the same comparison using RSS or HadCRUT4, and the trend to 1999 is greater than the trend to 2014.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:1979/to:1999/trend/plot/rss/from:1979/to:2014/trend
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1979/to:1999/trend/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1979/to:2014/trend
Hope this answers your question.
Max
Max, are the trends in your graphs statistically different?
Neither are mine, and all three show the pause is non-existent.
Well done Max, that puts you on the path to scientific discovery.
Dalyplanet,
You show a step change in the warming direction of almost 0.2 C.
What caused that?
Bob Droege
Don’t be a dummy.
Citing the UAH record, you asked (bold type by me)
I answered that the1979 to 2014 trend was greater than the trend from 1979 to 1999 because you cherry-picked the UAH record, rather than the others, which show that the trend from 1979 to 2014 is smaller than the trend from 1979 to 1999 (indicating a slowdown, or “hiatus”).
So now you switch the conversation to statistical validity.
Duh!
Don’t act sillier than you are, Bob.
Max
Max,
Wonderful, now you have provided evidence that the pause is a mere trend of 0.154 or 0.157 C per decade, damn near the IPCC about 0.2 C per decade.
That’s the evidence which you so nicely posted.
Well done sir, keep going and we’ll make a warmer out of you yet.
And go crack a statistics book before you call someone a dummy, or silly, or a silly dummy.
Hey Bob, did you know that IPCC Assessment Report 1 (1990) projected 0.3C/decade warming in 21st century if CO2 emissions continued Business As Usual? CO2 emissions were actually greater than business as usual. How did that projection work out almost 25 years later?
Hopefully that’s rhetorical. In AR4 they reduced the projection to 0.2C/decade. That’s a huge frickin’ retreat, Bob. How is that working out?
That’s another rhetorical question unless you’re a “Hiatus Denier”.
So now we have the top consensus excuse for their monumental failure to make any global average temperature projections that can stand the test of time “the ocean ate my global warming”. Lovely.
Is this supposed to inspire confidence in the competence of the projectionists, Bob? If so how?
Dave,
We have about 14% of the 21st century complete. Are you going to bet the trend of the whole century on the first 14%?
How is a projection of 0.3 C per decade a monumental failure when the actual rate is 0.15 C per decade, when the warming due to doubling CO2, which will in all likelihood occur sometime this century.
Dr. Curry, with respect;
There is another hypothesis that completely explains the “pause”. I know it might be hard to accept for the climate science community but please consider it.
The “greenhouse effect” is only still a hypothesis. The only thing that has
been demonstrated is that certain gases just happen to absorb radiation near wavelengths emitted by the surface of the Earth. This is no startling thing, everything absorbs Electromagnetic Radiation (aka EMR), even the very best mirrors. The hypothesis that this absorption (and later re-emission) of energy causes the average temperature of the planet to be higher than it otherwise would be is still just a hypothesis. Still just a hypothesis, never demonstrated in a laboratory, not repeatable, never used for any other useful purpose by decades of very smart engineers. A computer model that mimics a hypothesized effect is NOT PROOF of the existence of the effect.
In other fields of science there is what is known as a “delay line”. In optical engineering a delay line can be generated by bouncing a laser beam between a pair of parallel mirrors. The beam travels first outward then backwards (like the beloved “back radiation”) then forwards again. Since the energy is travelling at the speed of light these multiple bounces simply delay the flow of energy through the system. Unfortunately, if the light beam entering the system is “steady state” we cannot observe this delay with currently available tools. However if the input is a “pulse” of light the delay is easily observed.
If I might, I suggest you look up the “temporal response” of an optical integrating sphere. This is a simple hollow sphere wherein resides a light bulb. The internal surface of the sphere returns almost all of the light striking it backwards towards the bulb. I believe in climate science terms this would be “complete, total radiative forcing”. And yet the bulb does not get “brighter”, yes there is a tertiary effect termed “self absorption” which changes the temperature of the bulb and its efficiency (light output per unit of electrical input power). The important thing to note is that with a steady state input the temporal response of the integrating cannot be observed (with currently available tools) but it is there never the less. If you inject a pulse of light energy (like a flash bulb) into the sphere the temporal response is observable.
Sadly, the “greenhouse effect” in reality simply delays the flow of energy through the Sun/Earth’s Surface/Earth’s Atmosphere/Universe System by causing the energy (alternating as heat (when absorbed) and IR EMR (when emitted)) to make multiple trips through the system. Given the speed of light and the distances involved (approx 5 mile to TOA) this delay is only a few tens of milliseconds. Since the “frequency” of the energy source (i.e. the SUN) is 24 hours (about 86 million milliseconds) this delay from the “greenhouse effect” has no effect on the average temperature of the Earth.
So the “greenhouse effect” simply delays the flow of energy through the system, which changes the “response time” of the gases in the atmosphere. As the GHGs increase all the gases in the atmosphere warm up slightly faster after sun-rise and cool down slightly slower after sun-set.
A thermal insulator in contrast actually slows the velocity of thermal energy, in your house the insulation in the walls and ceiling simply slows the inexorable flow of heat to colder places. Which means that your furnace, or heat pump (a handy thing to have this winter) has to “re-charge” your residence with “thermal energy” less frequently which I’m sure everybody’s wallet appreciates.
Note that this “simple delay line” hypothesis explains the pause exactly, as the many other complex interactions in the climate system occur the response time of the gases in the atmosphere make NO DIFFERENCE. And this hypothesis also aligns well with the relative magnitude of the thermal capacities of the “GHG’s” and the oceans. The current “GHE” hypothesis that a few trace gases in the atmosphere are “FORCING” the massive thermal capacity of the oceans into compliance is frankly embarrassing. And as CO2 levels rise/fall from other causes during the life span of the Earth the response time also changes but the available historical records (tree rings, etc.) simply do not contain the necessary data to answer this question.
The missing heat is traveling away from the Earth as a spherical IR wavefront that is “X+d” light years away at this time. In this equation “X” represents the elapsed time since the sunlight arrived at our location (i.e. 100 years for sunlight from 1914) and “d” represents the slight delay (tens of milliseconds) from the “greenhouse effect”. “d” is of course a statistical distribution since some photons may exit directly to the universe and others may be delayed by bouncing back and forth, back and forth several times between the surface and the atmosphere before exiting.
And for other commentators feel free to call me a quack, lunatic, denier, and any other words that you enjoy, but the simple truth is that Mother Earth has done the experiment for you and the results are clear, GHG’s HAVE NO EFFECT on the average temperature of the Earth, PANIC OVER, CANCELLED.
Cheers, Kevin.
What? Do you mean we can’t count on AnthroCO2 to help ease us through the initial stages of the next glaciation, before we know it is upon us?
=============
Easy to call you a quack. If you don’t mention the radiative spectrum and its influence on GHG, you classify.
So here we have a logical “skeptic.”
I certainly can’t asses his understanding of physics. I have been told by the like of Judith that no one she listens to think like KevinK does – but I have to say that at least w/o considering the physics, he argument is coherent.
If you don’t believe that there is a GHE of ACO2, then you don’t have to have an explanation for why the GHE of ACO2 paused.
If you do believe that there is a GHE of ACO2, then it isn’t logical to say that there has been a “pause” – unless you have a mechanistic explanation for why the GHE of ACO2 has “paused.
Otherwise, the logical thing to say is that there has been a short-term flattening out of a longer statistically significant rising trend in the mean of SATs.
I find it quite fascinating that Judith and self-described “skeptics” would, on the one hand, talk the importance of precision, accuracy, and careful accounting for uncertainties, and then on the other hand talk of a “pause in global warming,” w/o providing a mechanistic explanation for that supposed “pause.”
Same ol’ same ol’ in the climate wars, eh?
Kevin: The greenhouse effect is a fact. You only have to go to the Earth’s orbit and look downward with a sensor, and measure the outgoing radiation:
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/schmidt_05/
Joshua. Judiths explanation for the pause is the wave. RIF
To be pedantic spectral radiance is measured through an aperture – so it is radiant flux less IR scattering. That is – IR photons are scattered in all directions and so give the characteristic brightness profile when viewed through an aperture.
The stadium wave is not an explanation for anything other than what we are dealing with is a global system and not a collection of parts.
‘Our research strategy focuses on the collective behavior of a network of climate indices. Networks are everywhere – underpinning diverse systems from the world-wide-web to biological systems, social interactions, and commerce. Networks can transform vast expanses into “small worlds”; a few long-distance links make all the difference between isolated clusters of localized activity and a globally interconnected system with synchronized collective behavior; communication of a signal is tied to the blueprint of connectivity. By viewing climate as a network, one sees the architecture of interaction – a striking simplicity that belies the complexity of its component detail.’ Marcia Wyatt
The climate indices are nodes on the network but are not necessarily prime characters in the climate drama. The players are cryosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere, lithosphere, pedosphere and biosphere. Complex multi scale interactions between the players are initiated by small changes in orbits or the heliosphere and translate into abrupt shifts in climate phase space.
Unless there is reliable space based data acquisition it will all remain a complex mystery. What data we have suggests most recent warming – and all the recent hiatus – was caused by changes of cloud cover associated with the changes in ocean and atmospheric circulation captured by the indices. The worm Ouroboros aye?
‘The Ouroboros often symbolize self-reflexivity or cyclicality, especially in the sense of something constantly re-creating itself, the eternal return, and other things such as the phoenix which operate in cycles that begin anew as soon as they end. It can also represent the idea of primordial unity related to something existing in or persisting from the beginning with such force or qualities it cannot be extinguished. While first emerging in Ancient Egypt, the Ouroboros has been important in religious and mythological symbolism, but has also been frequently used in alchemical illustrations, where it symbolizes the circular nature of the alchemist’s opus.’ Wikipedia
The dragon motif has such archetypal force.
Actually if one of those mirrors is partially transparent you get light amplification through stimulated electromagnetic radiation (LASER).
Thanks for playing. There’s a consolation prize waiting as you exit stage left.
Green-House gases was a really bad choice for a name for Water Vapor and CO2. These gases do actually cool the Earth. A warmer Earth will give off more IR and get more cooling. The CO2 warming influence is very small. The CO2 cooling influence is larger. The cooling influence of Water Vapor is huge compared to whatever CO2 does. They claim they understand the feedback of the really small influence of CO2 on Water Vapor and Clouds and they get the extreme warming from that which has not happened in the past seventeen years.
I really believe something is going on that they don’t understand. I don’t think they even suspect.
It always gets cold after warm and they think that what always has happened before will never happen again.
There is something really really wrong with that logic.
Robert I. Ellison: The stadium wave is not an explanation for anything other than what we are dealing with is a global system and not a collection of parts.
I agree, but I think you underestimate the importance of your point. It draws attention to how much is not understood about how the global climate system works. Can anybody have the same confidence in any projection after the documentation of the stadium wave that they had before? What other important phenomena relating the “nodes” as you call them to each other remain to be discovered and studied?
Without persistent energy flow through them, mostly unmeasured, all these waves, gyres, currents, winds, jetstreams and such would diffuse toward equilibrium, but they have not done so. How much energy goes into maintaining them, and how much energy flows through them from the warmer parts of the climate system to the cooler parts?
I’m still betting that rising CO2 somehow embellishes heat flow poleward and/or impedes energy flow into the oceans.
======================
Uh.. What the heck?
“Only a hypothesis” in the sense you use it describes everything from cogito ergo sum to Capitalism to the iPad. If we remove your rhetorical repetition of this nonsense, we cut your claims down to, you don’t know what you’re talking about, but you don’t like it.
Which part of GHE has not been demonstrated in a laboratory? That CO2e gases have absorption profiles that fill the radiative transfer windows in the atmosphere prior to the Industrial Revolution? Demonstrated amply. Rayleigh scattering? Amply demonstrated in blue eyes. All that isn’t demonstrated in your claim is your knowledge of what you’re claiming.
Never used by engineers?
May I refer you to Dr. Richard Alley’s work on heat seeking freaking missiles?
This dime-a-dozen faux expertise line gets reprised over and over and over again by everyone who doesn’t bother to acquaint themselves with the facts.
And oh look, kim | March 4, 2014 at 10:45 pm | and kim | March 6, 2014 at 10:14 am | bookending even more not being acquainted with the world of fact.
Jim D. “The ocean warms from the sun and cools from IR”
Relatively how much heat is lost from the oceans due to evaporative cooling? Note, I concede that this puts heat back into the atmosphere. but also puts moisture there (positive feedback) which can make clouds (negative feedback).
The Kiehl-Trenberth energy budget gives 66 W/m2 for net IR and 78 W/m2 for evaporation globally, but likely similar for the ocean itself, so IR is about as important as evaporation, and its net cooling effect can’t be neglected.
Jim D | March 4, 2014 at 11:09 pm |
Not even phucking close to equal between land and ocean. You don’t make any attempt whatsoever to correct your monumental ignorance of earth sciences do you?
http://oceanworld.tamu.edu/resources/ocng_textbook/chapter05/chapter05_06.htm
I’ve given that link scores of times. You can’t have missed it as long as you’ve been on this blog. So what exactly is your major malfunction?
Evaporation cools water and warms air. This does not warm or cool the Earth, it just moves the heat from place to place.
IR can leave the Earth. That does all the cooling.
Albedo reflects light before it becomes heat. Albedo is adjusted to do the fine tuning of Earth’s Temperature. It always snows more when oceans are warm and polar ice is thawed and Albedo increases. It always snows less when oceans are cold and polar ice is frozen and Albedo decreases.
The temperature that Polar Sea Ice Freezes and Thaws is the thermostat. It is the Set Point.
When this ocean temperature is exceeded it always causes the snowfall that will cause more Albedo.
When this ocean temperature is not exceeded it always causes less snowfall and allows the sun to reduce Albedo.
popesclimatetheory | March 5, 2014 at 8:16 am |
Evaporation cools water and warms air. This does not warm or cool the Earth, it just moves the heat from place to place.
————————————————————————-
Critically it moves it from the surface to thousands of feet above our heads and reduces the lapse rate in the process which is a huge negative feedback whose magnitude is estimated to be -1W/m2. This becomes uber important when we consider that instead of the air at the surface level where we live and breathe and where agriculture takes place getting warmer it gets warmer thousands of feet up at the cloud deck instead where for all practical purposes it doesn’t matter.
Moreover when a cloud top is at a higher altitude as a consequence of reduction in lapse rate the cloud top has a less restricted radiative cooling path to space due to less greenhouse gases above the [higher] cloud and a more restricted path below it so it doesn’t produce as much positive feedback at the higher altitude.
Recent observation is revealing that modeled lapse rate feedback is larger lower than what’s taking place in the real world. Rather than one single big thing being wrong with climate models I believe it’s a number small errors that add up to a large deviation between model and reality. A little motervated reasoning here, a bit of confirmation bias there, and linear extrapolations taken a bit too far in a non-linear process, taken in a large number of otherwise reasonable analytic choices and it adds up into one giant phuckup called catastrophic anthropogenic global warming.
This pair of images of Earth show reflected shortwave and outgoing longwave radiation:-
http://missionscience.nasa.gov/images/ems/emsRadBudget_mainContent_earth-radiation-budget.png
note how the where the clouds actually are, alters the outgoing.
DS, your link is Kiehl-Trenberth which is exactly what I referred to. Look at the numbers. Net IR versus evaporation. Same order of magnitude, so you can’t ignore net IR relative to evaporation as a driver of ocean temperatures. I answered the original question. What would your answer be?
The link to the geographic distribution of heat budget terms begins with the Trenberth cartoon which doesn’t separate land/ocean. On a global average latent is 78W/m2 and radiative is 66W/m2. However, you presumed the ratio is about the same over water as it is over land. That is incorrect. Between 30N and 30S latitude where the majority of solar energy is absorbed and lost by the surface, it’s 100W/m2 for latent and 50W/2 for radiative.
You still either can’t read or didn’t bother. Either way you’re wrong and I corrected you lest others find you credible. You’re not.
It seems that many APS members would be excited that climate science has so many areas of knowledge to fill in and explore. Just saying the science is settled isn’t very exciting at all.
I was at your presentation, so first off,good job; it was informative and interesting. Now, I’m not an expert in the field at all, so forgive me if something I say here is just fundamentally wrong (do let me know though), but the following is the conclusion I left the room with after all the various speakers.
To echo the gentleman who asked a question to the presenter before Dr. Curry, it seems that, at least from the physics aspect of climatology, we should be looking for was to test these hypotheses, preferably without waiting a hundred years for a more robust record. Dr. Curry mentioned in a response about her former student who had been working on reconstructed data records, but this is still not enough. If the hypothesis involves heat transport or reflected energy, we must seek to measure this as directly as possible. For instance, everyone is debating possible reflection from clouds… this should be easy to get a decent measure using a couple of satellites that just keep a constant spectrographic watch on light leaving the globe. Until we do this better, the entire concept of modelling seems almost premature.
Good point on the ACS statement on climate change though. As it stands, it is just embarrassingly activist.
The problem is that we are looking for a needle in a haystack and current satellites can’t resolve needles. The modeled energy imbalance at top of atmosphere is 0.5W/m2 (derived from OHC measurements) and the CERES satellite is only accurate to 4W/m2. The sources are error are legion. A biggie is that solar radiation is reflected at all angles as sunlight illuminates the sphere but the satellite can only measure that which happens to be reflected perpendicular to it. Computer algorithms must calculate the other angles. Adding complexity to this is that the surface doing the reflecting changes radically as the earth rotates beneath the satellite’s view and as clouds/snow appear and disappear, and winds (or not) change ocean surface reflectance, and biologic activity changes from time to time. It’s a wicked problem measuring albedo with accuracy and precision needed for attribution purposes.
“Hypothesis II: There is NO missing heat; changes in clouds have resulted in more reflection of solar radiation…”
…and sea levels have proceeded to rise at an undiminished rate during the pause by magic.
Sea level in the Holocene (current) interglacial peaked some 6-9 meters lower than it did during the Eemian (previous) interglacial period. Given there was no anthropogenic warming during the Eemian interglacial we can reliably conclude that sea level has not reached its natural peak as of yet in the Holocene. Whatever caused the natural rise some 6-9 meters higher in the Eemian could therefore be at work today in the Holocene.
Thanks for playing. There’s a door prize waiting as you exit stage left.
@ Pierre-Normand
“…and sea levels have proceeded to rise at an undiminished rate during the pause by magic.”
Magic?? Of course not; sea level has continued to rise because the CO2 content of the atmosphere has continued to rise monotonically during the ‘pause’. Atmospheric CO2 is the only significant planetary variable that influences sea level. Control ACO2 so that total atmospheric CO2 flatlines and sea level will flatline in response.
I know that you are familiar with the hundreds (thousands?) of papers and media reports on the threat posed by the fact that ACO2 is causing the seas to rise rapidly (currently as much as 3 mm/year) so I assume that when you referred to ‘magic’ you were just ‘yanking our chains’ by being facetious.
Bob, this was a reaction to Judith Curry’s Hypothesis II, which attributes the pause to a reduced TOA imbalance caused by a temporary increase in cloud albedo (which would allegedly cancel the increased CO2 forcing). This hypothesis is inconsistent with the undiminished rate of sea level rise. Springer also misses this point with his Eemian/Holocene comparison. The topic is the rate of sea level rise *during* the pause. Of course I agree with you that ACO2 is most likely responsible for the lack of slowdown.
Okay Pierre. What was the cause of Eemian interglacial sea level reaching 6-9 meters higher than Holocene interglacial sea level? It wasn’t aCO2 since humans weren’t burning fossil fuels 125,000 years ago. A followup question, if you don’t know the cause of the higher Eemian sea level then how do you know the same cause isn’t working in the Holocene today to cause sea level to rise?
“…and sea levels have proceeded to rise at an undiminished rate during the pause by magic.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Post-Glacial_Sea_Level.png
Sea level rise cannot be an argument for a new phenomena if they have been rising for thousands of years. The is a major alarmist red herring. Further, David Springer’s points are valid, a little scary and should be addressed before blaming sea level rise on CO2.
What I do know is if sea levels start falling again, we will all be much more alarmed than by the current thousands of years long trend.
Judith –
What is the mechanism, that previously caused surface warming, that has currently “paused?” Has the GHE of ACO2 paused? How would that work, exactly?
You keep saying that something has “paused.” Surely, you must have mechanistic explanation for what has “paused.”
I mean surely.
Right?
Joshua,
You add so much to the proceedings. I really admire your often brilliant posts…every one of them a joyful celebration of a first rate mind in action.
Do keep up the fantastic work.
Love always,
PG
Why thanks, PG.
And I certainly feel the same way about your comments.
For example, the ones where you plead for people to not respond to my comments (with such a profound impact).
Or your brilliant theories about how Nick Stokes is getting paid to distract from the devastating impact of the blog comments from you and your fellow “skeptics.”
Or your constant declaration of your moral superiority.
Anyway, as always PG, thanks for reading. I can’t tell you how much it means to me.
The wave. Idjit.
I dont agree with Judith on this. But read what she wrote. Idjit
The quasi-60-year cycle has an amplitude of +-0.1 C. Warming is already at 0.8 C. In the big picture it doesn’t do much, but it can mess with local decadal trends occasionally, so this is about decadal-scale, not century-scale variations. The stadium wave amplitude wasn’t made clear in the talk, but hopefully the APS people realized this.
Funny that you now will not recognize surface temps, eh? Funny, Joshua.
For steve’s benefit, I’ll repeat the question.
What is the mechanism, that previously caused surface warming, that has currently “paused?
This is true. In the CSALT model, the contribution of LOD is at best +/- 0.1C.
This pales in comparison to the 0.9C change in temperature the last 130 years and almost 1.3C on land.
El Nino paused Josh.
Joshua,
When you talk about surface warming, can you actually provide useful definitions of surface and warming?
It seems that the usual Warmist obfuscation precludes actually defining such terms. I note that surface temperature readings are not actual surface readings which have been, strangely enough, recorded as surface (ground) temperatures by meteorological observers.
Additionally, warming seems to be often defined by Warmists as a reduction in the rate of cooling, to my knowledge.
If you are not prepared to provide mutually agreeable definitions about basic terminology, you may experience difficulty in convincing others in regard to the logic of your arguments.
Live well and prosper,
Mike Flynn.
Bob –
What do you mean by that?
First, what does it mean when you say that “El Nino” paused.
Second, how would El Nino “pausing” explain a mechanistic explanation for how what was previously warming the surface at an increasing rate for a relatively longer period of time, “paused” in warming the surface?
The the GHE of ACO2 take a coffee break?
tingtg –
You are mistaken. If you read what I’ve written – at no point will you find what I’ve said to support your impression of what I’m saying. Go ahead, try and find it if you’d like. You won’t be successful, however.
I think that “skeptics” had a legitimate beef that “realists” over-played their hand by rhetorically equating “global warming” with a trend of increased in surface temps,
One of the reasons why I find some “skeptics” are not skeptical is because they are now turning around and doing the same exact thing. Some of them even do it, repeatedly, in Congressional testimony.
In both cases, uncertainty and scientific precision are not given an appropriate emphasis, IMO.
Now I recognize that sometimes “advocates” downplay uncertainty and are less precise to advance their advocacy. It goes along with motiv@ted re@soning.
Two can play this game Joshua. If you (or Tamino, or Gavin, or whoever you get spoonfed from) thinks that heating of the globe has been uniform for the past 40 years, then what mechanism explains the diversion from atmospheric heating to ocean heating? What switch was thrown? When and why will it switch back?
“motiv@ted re@soning”
Josh,
Do you realize your deck is not only short, but only has one card?
Andrew
Tamino?
You say:
Let’s start with that, shall we, because embedded in your statement is an inaccuracy.
Correct that mistake of yours and we will have a starting point for further discussion.
Mike –
I agree that a specificity of definitions is very important. So important, in fact, that since Judith is a renown climate scientist, I will defer to her answer to that question.
So, Joshua, you get spoonfed from Josh Halpern – that explains a lot. Look, Judith has a good list of the uncertainties – most notably ocean heat transfer, clouds, and aerosols. Until these are understood, everyone should refrain from making grand predictions on 10-20 years of data. I happen to think there has not really been a pause, but the sensitivity is just lower than previously thought. I think that puts me in league with Annan.
Tom C –
Dude. You’re the one who characterize Tamino’s position. I just corrected your (mis) characterization.
Show some accountability.
Let’s take this up again once you’ve decided to engage in an actual discussion.
Joshua
You desperately search for “mechanisms” to explain the observed “pause” – and since you can find none, you declare that there must not really be a pause.
Here’s a mechanism: the vagaries of Big Momma Nature.
Write that down.
Max
Max –
If there is a “pause,” then there is an action, or a mechanism, that is “pausing.” Trend lines on graphs don’t “pause.”
So tell me what that mechanism is.
Otherwise, why don’t you just use an accurate description. Something along the lines of: “A short term flattening out of the longer-term trend of significant increase in surface temperatures, only. Which, of course, does not equate to a pause in global warming, because only those who are pursuing an agenda would equate the trend in surface temperatures with global warming (or the lack thereof).”
Hope that helps.
Joshua, you say:
“Which, of course, does not equate to a pause in global warming, because only those who are pursuing an agenda would equate the trend in surface temperatures with global warming (or the lack thereof).”
and you say:
“One of the reasons why I find some “skeptics” are not skeptical is because they are now turning around and doing the same exact thing.”
So Michael Mann and his followers Marcott-Shakun fit your model as being
such agenda-driven entities.
RealClimate hosted the reclusive Marcott and Shakun after McIntyre took them down half a dozen notches.
They said
” Global average surface temperature is perhaps the single most representative measure of a planet’s climate since it reflects how much heat is at the planet’s surface. Local temperature changes can differ markedly from the global average. One reason for this is that heat moves around with the winds and ocean currents, warming one region while cooling another, but these regional effects might not cause a significant change in the global average temperature. A second reason is that local feedbacks, such as changes in snow or vegetation cover that affect how a region reflects or absorbs sunlight, can cause large local temperature changes that are not mirrored in the global average. We therefore cannot rely on any single location as being representative of global temperature change”.
So, how much do you discount surface temperatures, Joshua? Is it dishonest to present a picture based on them?
“
Latest RSS data shows no warming and no cooling over the past 17 years and 6 months.
Though I “shiver” doing linear regression through none-linear data, it serves an informative purpose I guess, further analyses shows the following temperature trends:
Last 5 years: y = -0.028x + 55.869, R² = 0.060
Last 10 years: y = -0.003x + 5.772, R² = 0.003
Last 15 years: y = 0.003x – 4.795, R² = 0.005
Since 1998 peak: y = -0.002x + 3.764, R² = 0.003
Last 20 years: y = 0.005x – 9.893, R² = 0.029
Since 1979 (all data): y = 0.012x – 24.757, R² = 0.349
First 20 years: y = 0.0153x – 30.358, R² = 0.184
Hence, the data doesn’t support “accelerating global warming” or even “warming” over the past past 20yrs. Instead the data supports “an accelerating global cooling” (since the trend over the last 5yrs is more negative than that over the past 10yrs, which in turn is more negative than that over the past 15yrs)
Applying a MACD to the longer record of surfaces measurement data elegantly, and simply shows the ~30-32yr period in GSTAs, as also presented in Curry’s slides 18-20 using much more complicated methods. The MACD also predicts cooling until 2030s, easy as 1-2-3…
This trend method was first presented by author late last year here: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/10/01/if-climate-data-were-a-stock-now-would-be-the-time-to-sell/
The beauty is that this method is simply based on a few moving averages. It can be easily calculated in Excel at no cost…. Now the reasons for these trends need to be identified, that’s where the real science kicks in, and the first starts of this endeavor are presented by Judith ! Hats off, because science and the understanding of our Earth ONLY progresses through critically and objectively questioning.
E.g. “It is warming you stupid denier, PERIOD.” helps nobody (see also Judith’s slide 25, describing it more elegantly. We need to remember that everything in this universe goes in cycles. EVERYTHING. Cycle analyse (none-linear, stochastic, etc) is key to understanding the Earth’s climate. Hence, I applaud the stadium wave approach.
How can you argue anything with such R2 numbers?
Bob Droege, R2 in itself is not a measure of significance or validity of the trend. It simple shows how much the variation of x can explain the variation of y. Just because an R2 is low doens’t mean one can’t argue… Let me explain. Are low R-squared values bad? No! There are two major reasons why it can be just fine to have low R-squared values.
In some fields, it is entirely expected that your R-squared values will be low. For example climate which is a chaotic, none-linear physical process.
Furthermore, if your R-squared value is low but you have statistically significant p-values, you can still draw important conclusions about how changes in the predictor values are associated with changes in the response value.
Are high R-squared values good then? No! A high R-squared does not necessarily indicate that the model has a good fit. A fitted line plot may show a R-squared of say 98.5%, which sounds great. However, the regression line may systematically over and under-predicts the data (bias) at different points along the curve.
Hence, one has to choose between linear and nonlinear regression. In the climate case, the answer is to use nonlinear regression because linear models are unable to fit the specific curve that these data follow…. To address all these issues one has to look at the residuals, but the MACD however circumvents all these issues!
Therefore I wrote “Though I “shiver” doing linear regression through none-linear data, it serves an informative purpose I guess,”…
I guess I should have asked you to calculate the uncertainties in the trends on which you base your arguments.
But the uncertainty monster speaks
5 year +/- 1.213 C/decade
10 year +/- 0.405 C/decade
15 year +/- 0.211
since 1998 +/- 0.217
20 year +/- 0.156
since 1979 +/- 0.069
first 20 years +/- 0.172
So actually the data can not distinguish between warming or cooling in all instances but one, because the periods are not long enough for the data to exclude one or the other. But the one period that does lands quite surely on the warming side.
And everything goes in cycles? You should commit that statement to the bin. Would you like one counter example, or a hundred thousand?
Like you said “It is warming you stupid denier, period” puts it pretty succinctly.
Proposed additions to “Questions raised by the discrepancy”
Is the climate too complex to model?
Do we not understand the climate enough to model it?
Of course, if either of those questions were answered yes, budgets would fall all over the globe. So that can’t be.
Conspiracy ideation? What conspiracy ideation?
Judith wrote:
For the past 15+ years, there has been no increase in global average surface temperature, which has been referred to as a ‘hiatus’ in global warming.
Judith, this isn’t true. Your talk is starting out on the wrong foot.
The data models have to be looked at as well as the climate models. Cowtan & Way have raised significant issues about HadCRUT4’s infilling of the polar regions. That can’t just be ignored. They have made a strong case for why kriging is a superior method of infilling, some of which we went over here at the time of their publication, to which I didn’t see a good answer from you. They’ve updated their results to Jan 2014, and they show a significant deviation from HadCRUT4 in recent years (an average difference of 0.07 C for the last 60 months).
Just talking about the climate models is only half the picture. Unless you look equally hard at the data models, you are only presenting half the picture.
So why not use RSS directly?
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/plot/rss/from:2002/trend
I always suggest calculating trend from 2002 – post the 1998/2001 climate shift.
e.g http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/JCLI-D-12-00626.1
“The data models have to be looked at as well as the climate models. Cowtan & Way have raised significant issues”
oooh, “raised issues”. That makes it “just not true”!
@ David Appell
“The data models have to be looked at as well as the climate models. Cowtan & Way have raised significant issues about HadCRUT4′s infilling of the polar regions. That can’t just be ignored. They have made a strong case for why kriging is a superior method of infilling, some of which we went over here at the time of their publication, to which I didn’t see a good answer from you.”
Data modeling? Kriging? Infilling?
Back-in-the-good-old-days most science was done by evaluating data that was measured and collected using actual, physical instrumentation systems; now, instead of slogging all over the Arctic or Antarctic (for example) toting thermometers to extremely inhospitable locations, we just set up thermometers at a few convenient locations as much as hundreds of km from the location we are actually curious about, collect data from THOSE locations, and then model/krig/infill to produce the temperature at the inhospitable location. Amazingly, the modeled/kriged/infilled data is so precise that it can be used to produce trend lines with slopes in the fractions of a degree/decade range.
These young whippersnappers have it WAY too easy.
“Judith, this isn’t true. Your talk is starting out on the wrong foot.”
You mean like starting with CO2 is the control knob? Hello pot…..
http://imgur.com/BKaEalG How about we start with explaining the major temperature fluctuations across the Holocene? The link is a graph off the web, pick another Holocene temperature reconstruction if you do not like this one. So I “highlighted” a dozen warming episodes at this very low resolution. For higher resolutions we could probably see 100. Then there is the over all trend. So CO2 caused all these, or not, but CO2 is totally responsible for the last 50 years though. How about everyone pick their favorite graph and extrapolate (your prediction)?
No David., the DATA needs to be looked at. And when done objectively, the bear out what Dr. Curry says.
It is mind boggling you think you can make a living at something you demonstrate no comprehension of.
The proximate cause of the pause is the lack of trend in net TOA radiant flux anomalies.
http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/HadCRUT4vCERES_zpse5107cfd.png.html?sort=3&o=45
Nor is there much justification for the idea that oceans have continued warming.
‘Comparisons of global steric height trends based on different gridded fields of Argo in situ measurements show a range of 0–1mmyr−1 which can be lead back to data handling and climatology uncertainties. Our results show that GOIs derived from the Argo measurements are ideally suitable to monitor the state of the global ocean, especially after November 2007, i.e. when Argo sampling was 100% complete. They also show that there is significant interannual global variability at global scale, especially for global OFC. Before the end of 2007, error bars are too large to deliver robust short-term trends of GOIs and thus an interpretation in terms of long-term climate signals are still questionable, especially since uncertainties due to interannual fluctuations are not included in our error estimation.’ http://www.ocean-sci-discuss.net/8/999/2011/osd-8-999-2011.pdf
http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/vonSchuckannandLeTroan_zps45e82e5b.png.html?sort=3&o=3
Even in this earlier period when CERES was showing a modest decrease in reflected SW – ARGO data was uncertain. Over the full record ARGO will reflect CERES net.
The CERES record reflects changes in cloud, ice, dust, snow and biology as ocean and atmosphere circulation shifts.
‘The global climate system is composed of a number
of subsystems – atmosphere, biosphere, cryosphere, hydrosphere and lithosphere – each of which has distinct characteristic times, from days and weeks to centuries and millennia. Each subsystem, moreover, has its own internal variability, all other things being constant, over a fairly broad range of time scales. These ranges overlap between one subsystem and another. The interactions between the subsystems thus give rise to climate variability on all time scales.’
http://www.atmos.ucla.edu/tcd/PREPRINTS/Math_clim-Taipei-M_Ghil_vf.pdf
The interactions are dynamic and complex giving rise to a characteristic behavior diagnostic of a deterministically chaotic climate system – abrupt climate change – called equivalently a phase transition, a bifurcation, a catastrophe (in the sense of Rene Thom), or a tipping point – to a new climate phase space.
The temporal dimension of this particular phase space – the cool Pacific decadal mode – suggests that the pause will persist for another decade to three. There is no likelihood – either – that the 20th century pattern will be repeated in the 21st century. A longer term natural cooling influence seems much more likely as we cross the threshold of Bond Event Zero.
This is a prediction that has no basis behind it.
The stadium wave has historically provided at most a +/- 0.1C amount of variability to the global temperature.
http://contextearth.com/2014/03/04/decadal-temperature-variations-and-lod/
In contrast, land temperatures have increased by at least 1.2C the last 130+ years.
The ENSO always reverts to the mean so all that has to happen is that the SOI stays near zero for continued warming to occur.
What has no substance is webby’s dubious blog science. As I say – this is no prediction. The Pacific is in a cool mode since 1998 – and these last for 20 to 40years in the long proxy records.
e.g. http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=8703
The 1976/1998 warming mostly ENSO. In the 76/77 and 97/98 events – and at least half of the remainder. This leaves very little as a response to CO2 – some 0.05 degree C/decade.
As interesting as the Pacific decadal variability is – ENSO varies over centuries to millennia.
e.g. – http://www.clim-past.net/6/525/2010/cp-6-525-2010.pdf
As we are at a 1000 year high point in El Nino intensity – a shift to more intense La Nina over centuries seems far more likely than not.
e.g. http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/Vance2012-AntarticaLawDomeicecoresaltcontent.jpg.html?sort=3&o=147
More salt is La Nina.
And as significant as ENSO is for climate processes – it is still just a part of the global system. There are different processes interacting at different scales.
Robert I. Ellison: The temporal dimension of this particular phase space – the cool Pacific decadal mode – suggests that the pause will persist for another decade to three. There is no likelihood – either – that the 20th century pattern will be repeated in the 21st century. A longer term natural cooling influence seems much more likely as we cross the threshold of Bond Event Zero.
Is that a prediction or not? “Suggest” is a word that suggests that if the pause continues you’ll claim a successful prediction, but if the pause ends next year you’ll back off from it and call it a “scenario” or something. I don’t see any possibilities that can be confidently ruled out on current knowledge: continued “pause”, near-term cooling, near-term warming.
Robert I. Ellison: As I say – this is no prediction. The Pacific is in a cool mode since 1998 – and these last for 20 to 40years in the long proxy records.
Oh. There’s my answer. The “suggestion” is not a “prediction”. It is another example of (my favorite word coming next) “maybe”.
We are in a cool mode and these last 20 to 40 years.
You want guarantees – see a used car salesman.
Anyone can partake in the game that BobbIESocksPuppet plays.
Here goes: The end of the year will see an ElNino that will break global temperature records — but if you want guarantees — see a used car salesman.
Boy, that was easy!
What is guaranteed is that we are in a cool decadal mode and that these last for 20 to 40 years.
These are associated with changes in the frequency and intensity of ENSO. So more frequent and intense La Nina and less frequent and intense El Nino for decades yet.
Small El Nino – such as we have seen over the past decade – are more likely than large when they happen in this cool period. This is hardly likely to challenge the February 1998 surface temperature highpoint.
If you want a used car see webby.
Other papers given in this APS session are here (abstracts at least). Kyle Armour’s on sensitivity looks interesting.
http://meetings.aps.org/Meeting/MAR14/Session/G40
Climate sensitivity is variable and regional. I like that. Sounds like something I might say.
Waves that form on the water are variable and regionally localized. That doesn’t mean that they change the average height of the water.
Skeptics like “stephen” do not seem to understand the simplest physical reasoning.
I can’t believe comparing Web to a hamster running in a wheel was deserving of deletion. That is exactly what he does. It was a scientific observation and there is plenty of data to support it.
WebHubTelescope: Waves that form on the water are variable and regionally localized. That doesn’t mean that they change the average height of the water.
Is that related to non-constant climate sensitivity (either to CO2 doubling or an increase in downwelling LWIR)? If so, how is it related?
Jim D, thanks for the link.
The point remains that the models are supposed to use the latest and best forcing data.
I note that Schmidt’s latest effort also revises way down the negative forcing from Penatubo. Does this mean the sensitivity estimate based on that eruption is wrong and too high? It almost certainly does.
There is a weird skeptic fellow called Willis Eschenbach who claims that volcanoes have no influence on the climate:
This is beyond bizarre as the precise timing of sudden drops in global temperature always correspond to volcanic eruptions of either VEI 5 or 6 in explosivity.
There haven’t been any of these since Pinatubo/CerroHudson so that the amount of impact that we can pin the pause on volcanoes is minimal
WebHubTelescope:There is a weird skeptic fellow called Willis Eschenbach who claims that volcanoes have no influence on the climate:
He doesn’t deny that there are short-term and regional effects on weather due to the volcanoes. His claim, which you do not even attempt to refute, is that they have no long-term effect on global climate, e.g. global mean temp.
Marler said:
You are DENYING what Willis said in his own words. Willis said volcanoes “don’t do jack in the way of affecting the global temperature”.
Significance of the pause Under conditions of anthropogenic greenhouse forcing: •Only 2% of climate model simulations produce trends within the observational uncertainty
Not sure this comment is correct in that any decent [?] climate model with parameters of anthropogenic greenhouse forcing: must when run the standard number of times present an 0.2 degrees of warming a decade trend.
[or it would not be an anthropogenic greenhouse forcing: ]
The models [?2%] that produced the closest to the pause were as I recall the ones with AG Forcing removed. In other words we all stopped using oil and went back to nature and the world reverted to “normal”
The amazing thing is that none of the models go up in a Mauna Loa stepwise sawtooth with the CO2 changes. Nor do they follow straight trend line at 0.2 decade. Instead each and every one smooths the CO2 trend and chucks a volcano, El Nino or La Nina in arbitrarily to give the graphs a more natural look instead of the pure trend line of a true computer program.
The laugh here is that each and every model sets its own volcanic eruptions hence they overlap and wriggle around and none matches the others
Judith Curry
Great ppt presentation – am curious how APS members will receive it.
I personally believe that the “where’s the missing heat?” discussion is a divergence from the real issue, namely that there is a “hiatus” in the warming, which was not foreseen by the climate models. Trying to rationalize that it has gone hiding in the ocean is a red herring rationalization IMO. And, even if there were some “missing heat” going to the ocean, it seems very doubtful that this could ever come out of hiding to fry us all some day in the future.
Particularly liked the “Implications for the future” slides, showing the IPCC AR5 position versus the view emphasizing natural variability.
It appears that the question of “who is right here” will be settled fairly quickly (within the next five years).
If the warming resumes at the rates projected by IPCC (0.2C per decade or close to this), the models will have been validated, even if this is partially the result of a return to a warmer cycle from AMO, PDO, ENSO, etc.
If, however, the “hiatus” does not end, IPCC will have to concede that
– natural factors (including clouds?) are playing a larger role in our climate than assumed by the models,
– the “most warming since 1950 due to AGW” claim is questionable, and more importantly that
– the models are not able to project future climate because they are too sensitive to external forcing from GHGs.
Am looking forward to hearing from you how this all went down at the APS meeting and what the reactions were.
Max
Max
What I am curious about with the missing heat (that apparently is in the ocean) is when heat stopped warming the Atmosphere AND the ocean and then apparently ignored the atmosphere and just started heating the ocean.
What is the physics explanation for this?
tonyb
Manacker,
There is no missing heat.
http://contextearth.com/2014/01/25/what-missing-heat/
ebby
You state confidently
Of course, there is no truly “missing heat” (all heat has to be accounted for somewhere).
The problem is that we (including IPCC and you) do not know where that “somewhere” is (despite a lot of conjecture).
1. Has it been reflected back out to space from a slightly increased cloud cover and resulting albedo change?
2. Has is been absorbed by the oceans?
3. Is it a “fata morgana” that only exists in the virtual world of climate models, resulting from an exaggerated assumption of 2xCO2 climate sensitivity?
Or is it a combination of the above factors?
If it is 1. or 3. above, it is “gone” completely from our climate system (or was never there in the first place).
If it is 2. above it is “gone” from our climate system for all practical purposes, and will not affect us in any way.
So we can forget about it Webby.
In that sense it is “missing”.
Max
It is refreshing to see an honest assessment of the subject. Climate science is broken and there are far too many vested interest groups still insisting that the failed models are correct, the science is settled and the consensus is as strong as ever.
Those who are in denial about the failure of the models are a major obstacle to the future development of their science and may well inflict lasting damage.
Judith
Have you considered that, with the pause at >17 years (RSS) there are no school age children who have experienced Global Warming?, in fact, with apologies to Dr David Viner,
My answers:
Summary of major uncertainties
◾Deep ocean heat content variations and mechanisms of vertical heat transfer between the surface and deep ocean
Not relevant. Ocean surface temperatures are determined primarily by the temperature at the base of the troposphere, because solar radiation passes trough the top thin layer which is transparent and thus does not act like a black or grey body at all.
◾Uncertainties associated with external forcing data and implications for attribution analysis and future projections
Radiative forcing is not what is determining planetary surface temperatures anywhere, not even on Earth.
◾Sensitivity of the climate system to external forcing
Nil to radiative forcing from atmosphere.
◾Clouds: trends, forcing, feedbacks, and aerosol – cloud interactions
Water vapour affects temperatures by reducing the thermal gradient to the so-called “wet adiabatic lapse rate” and thus lowering surface temperatures. Forcing is almost complete irrelevant to what determines mean surface temperature
◾Nature and mechanisms of multidecadal natural ‘internal’ variability
Yes – likely to play a role, but probably still regulated by Sun, Moon and/or planets
◾Unknowns – solar indirect effects, magnetic and electric field effects, orbital (tidal and other) effects, core-mantle interactions, etc.
Agree this is still not fully understood, but planets probably affect cosmic ray production (through magnetic fields) and that may affect cloud formation. The gravity of Jupiter affects and regulates Earth’s variations in eccentricity, and causes variations in mean distance from the Sun which may then relate to 100,000 year glacial intervals.
A layman’s contribution for what it is worth and thats not much in this company.
I have great trouble in consigning the plateauing of global temperatures to the effects of volcanoes and aerosols.
Low level volcano activity is probably an almost constant occurrence so the effects are likely to be just a steady state effect on the climate and thats over centuries of time.
Furthermore with global land areas only taking up 29% of the global surface the effects of volcanoes is quite limited unless there is a heck of a lot of undersea volcanic activity which we don’t know about and which we never see the aerosols from that suposedly affect the climate.
The same land surface argument applies to anthropogenically created aerosols although the wind drift in the Northern Hemisphere distributes the aerosols around the planet.
The counter argument for aerosols is the fact that prior to mankind extending his reach right across the world from when our numbers were perhaps only a billion or less, immense fires raged for weeks and months at a time through the forests and the great forests and grassland steppes of central Asia, Africa, North and South America and Australiasia .
In the early 1800’s soon after the Australian city of Melbourne was founded, the inhabitants gathered at what is now a historical site called Flagstaff Hill to watch the great fires to the north of the settlement that created a blood red sky and extended from horizon to horizon.
Fire was one of the realities of the natural environment of pre human history.
Those great natural fires which occurred when ever conditions were dry enough all over the planet also threw colossal amounts of aerosols up to heights of 25 to 30,000 feet or more or about similar heights to which low level volcanic activity will also produce.
There were arguably epochs when the great droughts as recorded in the paleo records, dried the countryside out and the consequent wild fires must have been awe inspiring and truly of immense scale as well as occurring over perhaps a century long periods in time. Along with the creation of vast tonnages of aerosols injected into the lower levels of the atmosphere at least equivalent to that produced today by mankind’s activities.
So I have my serious doubts about the current claims that aerosols are a major contributing factor to the current plateauing of global temperatures.
Through this whole saga there is an almost willful dismissal of anything south of the equator by climate science. Everything is apparently due to something occurring in the Northern hemisphere which obviously is closest to the ivory tower flesh pots of the climate modeling academia.
Only around 20% of the global land surface is south of the Equator so there is not a very large influence from land based volcanoes or aerosols in the Southern Hemisphere which either supposes that the Southern hemisphere is and should be acting quite a lot differently to the land happy Northern Hemisphere or if both hemispheres are recording similar observations then there is another factor at work.
The Northern Hemisphere has Dr Curry’s Stadium Wave which is all and good for the northerners and is likely to be viable supposition in sorting out the effects at least if not the triggers that create such a northern circumpolar climate system.
In the southern hemisphere there is the mighty Antarctic Circumpolar current which flows from west to east around Antarctica and takes about 2 years to do the complete circuit around the Antarctic continent.
http://polardiscovery.whoi.edu/antarctica/circulation.html
[quoted ]
Oceanographic Circulation:
The Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) is the largest wind-driven current on Earth. It is the only current that goes all the way around our planet and connects the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans.
It is driven by strong westerly winds and creates some of the roughest seas in the world that are notorious to sailors. It was discovered by Edmund Halley, the British astronomer, during the expedition of the HMS Paramore in 1699-1700. Later, James Cook in 1772-1775, and James Clark Ross in 1839-1843 both described the ACC in their journals.
The ACC is a massive flow of water that acts as a barrier separating the Southern Ocean from more northern oceans. The current extends from the sea surface to depths of 4000 m (more than 2.5 miles) and can be more than 120 miles wide. It is a very cold current with temperatures ranging from –1 to 5°C depending on the time of the year, and with speeds up to 2 knots (2.3 miles per hour or 3.7 km per hour). This is the same speed as a brisk walk.
Antarctica is also the birthplace of deep ocean waters that make up part of the global Ocean Conveyor. Water that flows at the bottom of the ocean is formed on the continental shelf, particularly in the Weddell Sea and the Ross Sea. As ice forms the water becomes saltier. As the ice drifts and gaps open up, the water loses heat and gets colder with temperatures from -0.9°C to +0.4°C (30 to 32°F). Its density increases to become the densest water in the world and it sinks to the bottom of the ocean (below ~4000 m) to flow throughout the world’s deep ocean.
Different weather conditions a little further north at 45-55°S cause another water mass, called Antarctic Intermediate Water, to form. In this area, precipitation is greater than evaporation, so the salinity of the water is low. However, the water gets cooled and sinks to flow through the ocean northward at depths of 600-1000 m.
[end]
The very interesting item is that there are two cold pools and two warm pools buried in the ACC, the Antarctic Circumpolar Wave
From;
http://www.parks.tas.gov.au/fahan_mi_shipwrecks/infohut/acc.htm
[quoted]
Using the data from the latest satellites that measure the sea surface temperature and height, scientists have noticed that the temperature of the water in the current varies, some parts are 2-3 degrees C warmer (shown in red) while other parts are 2-3 degrees C colder (shown in blue)than the average. There are two warmer and two colder pools and each one is several thousands of kilometres long and thousands of metres deep. They appear to be due to interactions between the atmosphere and the ocean. The regions seem to move eastwards with the ACC and take about 8-9 years to travel around the globe in the southern latitudes. This phenomena has been christened the “Antarctic Circumpolar Wave” (ACW). Researchers believe that the ACW may have a considerable on influence the weather patterns in southern Australia, South America and southern Africa.
[end]
These contrasting temperature Circumpolar Wave pools can generally be seen in the SST charts.
Because the Circumpolar Wave pools of the ACC seem to be constrained and semi permanent features of the ACC and not smeared out which would have led to their rapid disappearance, it is highly likely that any of the claimed increases in ocean temperatures even at depth would have become obvious in a higher than average warming of the ACC warm pools over and above the average claimed warming increase in the global deep ocean temperatures.
An analysis of the ARGO floats operating in the ACC’s Pools might show quite substantial differences over the last decade or so if the deep ocean heat hypothesis is at all a possibility.
A much simpler and probably far quicker and even more accurate means of assessing any changes in the heat content / temperature of the ACC pools would be to have a close co-operation and an examination of the log books and interview the crews of the ocean fishing trawlers operating down in those latitudes. and in the ACC.
If the species of fish they were catching in what were known to be the cold pools and warm pools at various times changed over time to fish species which preferred a different gradient of temperature then it would be easier to find where and when to examine the entrails of the relevant ARGO and satellite SST data to see if the claimed deep heating of the oceans was a reality in that academic and climatically forgotten half of the globe, the Southern Hemisphere .
After all the Southern Ocean is the ONLY ocean that connects all of the world’s ocean basins together and as such, is arguably likely to be the key to most of the major climatic epochs that have occurred and will continue to occur in the times ahead.
Thanks for the info. You might want to watch for R Gates and Robert Ellison aka generalisimo skippy for posts and links on ocean heat.
@
Robert I Ellison
– excellent note
@
David Appell (@ davidappell)
“The oceans are warming strongly, and they are the best measure of the planet’s energy imbalance.”
The mainly problem is how “this” will affect the SST and the temperature of the troposphere. If the heat will accumulate in the deep ocean (in the hundreds and perhaps thousands of years old), this process should be treated as highly underestimated negative feedback, significantly limiting global warming SS and the troposphere.
If the trend contained in this figure (http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/heat_content700m2000myr.png) to continue – and even the process will deepen – not linear and “squared”, whether warming will become increasingly to slow down?
Real Climate: “Neither is this heat going to come back out from the deep ocean any time soon (the notion that this heat is the warming that is ‘in the pipeline’ is erroneous [ http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2011/10/global-warming-and-ocean-heat-content/%5D.)”
Or maybe we will have such an effect as the figure at R. Spencer (http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/SSMI-clw-Net-flux-energy-accum-vs-Levitus-OHC.jpg)?
Real climate (http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2013/09/what-ocean-heating-reveals-about-global-warming/): “It is difficult to establish the exact mechanism for this stronger heat flux to deeper water, given the diverse internal variability in the oceans.”
Perhaps it is results in La Nina, perhaps winds … etc..
Perhaps SS and tropospheric warming will be, maybe not?
We also “forget” of the clouds (http://www.drroyspencer.com/2013/10/oceanic-cloud-decrease-since-1987-explains-13-of-ocean-heating/), aerosols and natural variability of the winds …
(http://www.drroyspencer.com/2013/04/more-on-trenberths-missing-heat/) R. Spencer:
“Plot s of changes in ocean heat content since the 1950′s might look dramatic with an accumulation of gazillions of Joules, but the energy involved is only 1 part in 1,000 of the average energy flows in and out of the climate system.”
“To believe this tiny energy imbalance is entirely manmade, and has never happened before, requires too much faith for even me to muster.”
David Appell
You remain a dedicated acolyte of the Church Of Climatology, your obtuse refusal to recognise that observations trump ‘projections’ is a key indicator of your membership
Levitus, NOAA and others agree, deep (2000m) ocean warming rate remains estimated at circa 0.001°C per annum since around 1960. As one deep ocean protoplasmic blob said to another, “Bud, I can’t stand the heat”
The amplification by water vapour may be a logical consequence of warming but it does not seem to be happening. The humidity of the middle and upper troposphere is decreasing, not increasing, there is no hot spot and the temperatures are of the order we might expect from CO2 forcing alone.
Perhaps the theory is flawed. Maybe the extra vapour leads to more cloud cover. Perhaps warming accelerates the transport and subsequent loss of heat energy in the manner of a speeded up heat pump. There may be natural water vapour limits at which other processes intervene.
Water vapour over the tropics does not lead to runaway localised warming for a number of reasons. Perhaps the clues to what is happening globally lie there.
I’m sure the belief that the solar output is constant has muddied the debate for too long. The UV output changes substantially. This high energy end of the solar spectra plays a major but poorly understood role in the chemistry of the upper atmosphere.
The electrical and magnetic solar fields are ever changing together with the unpredictable CME or solar wind. The fluid body of the sun may also undergo cyclical and random perturbations in its gravimetric field resulting from its interactions with the heavier nearby planets and other galaxies.
It is my opinion that the majority of climate scientists have chosen to reject and ridicule research in these areas for decades. This has contributed to the inability to explain what is currently driving our climate.
You are absolutely right about solar spectral output changes being ignored.
BREAKING NEWS
data analysis shows
CLIMATE ETERNALLY IN “PAUSE”
Considered objectively, the “Fallacy of the Eternal Pause” exhibits five characteristic elements of denialist cognition:
SUMMARY Climate-change denialism ain’t complicated … its five elements are plain … the “Fallacy of the Eternal Pause” exhibits these denialistic elements … denialist cognition is sure is common … and civil, rational, scientific responses to denialism are feasible.
The “Fallacy of the Eternal Pause” is *NOT* complicated, Climate Etc readers!
Mathew 7:5 or mere psychological projection? Given as according to RSS the global average temperature will soon have been static for longer than it increased who is in denial?
Fan
Your link to a sceptical science graph somewhat misses the point as the warming depends on the start point. If you start at 1660 the climate has been warming. Why so long? Why do you concentrate on only the recent past? Climate did not start only when you were born.
Go back to around 1380 and the climate has been cooling overall since then. So it is YOU doing the cherry picking with a 1970 start date. Do put things into historic context whether temperature or sea level. And that means a sensible HOLOCENE context, not the Eemian, when the circumstances were very different.
By the way I am not driven by any of the motivations you cite. ‘Celebrity status’ indeed.
tonyb
Say fan, do yer remember those medja scary photographs of
globul warming seems so long ago? Hmm, this has not so far
been a good year, well decade really, fer warming alarmists,
what with ships of fools down south gettin’ stuck in ice, now,
up north, photographs of frozen waterfalls. Brrrrrr Makes me
feel cold jest ter look at them
.
http://www.torontosun.com/2014/03/04/frozen-niagara-falls
beth makes an excellent point.
Those pictures of frozen waterfalls make such a comprehensive scientific argument, disproving the potential of long-term deleterious impact from increasing ACO2 emissions.
Denialists commonly are unconscious — both individually and collectively — of their non-rational patterns of cognition.
That’s everyday experience, eh climatereason?
Everybody knows, Joshua, a picture’s worth a thousand words, )
and every body knows, a photo documenting an actual event
is more reassuring than jest a model of the climate, hockey (
sticks ‘n such. Why models can leave out whole Little Ice Ages
and it is said they can’t do clouds or other misty complexities.
Fan
Ok. You know me quite well by now. Which of the motivations you cite do you think I am driven by?
“For some it is greed, lured by the corporate largesse of the oil and tobacco industries. For others it is ideology or faith, causing them to reject anything incompatible with their fundamental beliefs. Finally there is eccentricity and idiosyncrasy, sometimes encouraged by the celebrity status conferred on the maverick by the media.”
* The lure of the oil and tobacco companies? I get no money from the oil companies and hate smoking. What’s the lure?
* Ideology or faith-what fundamental belief am I trying to cling to?
* eccentricity and idiosyncrasy. That’s a bit pathetic really. No, I believe in the scientific method married to some notion of historic context
* Celebrity status. I am not 12 years old,.
Come on then fan, what are my motivations?
tonyb
… and three scientific laws are worth a thousand pictures!
• conservation of energy, and
• increase of entropy, and
• radiative energy imbalance.
Those are the three common-sense pillars of 21st century climate-change science, eh beththeserf?
Motivations are opaque … please consider that Diethelm-McKee denialism encompasses:
• Ideology or faith … for example, the denialist belief that scientific opinions regarding climate-change science need not be informed by quantitative considerations of energy conservation, thermodynamics, or radiative transport.
• Eccentricity and idiosyncrasy … for example, the denialist belief that a sufficiently thorough analysis of cherry-picked historical and/or economic records can compensate for the neglect of thermodynamical and energy-transport analysis.
These cognitive tendencies (which everyone shares) can be tempered by careful reading and thorough pondering of (for example, and as a starting point) Spencer Weart’s The Discovery of Global Warming
Good luck in your studies, TonyB!
Fan
I said this,
http://judithcurry.com/2014/03/04/causes-and-implications-of-the-pause/#comment-475360
and as usual you have put on your dancing gear and are merrily gliding round the subject.
It seems to me that some of your biggest attempts at cherry picking are trying to ignore the recent historic record and thereby put everything in context.
Yesterday I pointed out that previous episodes of sea levels in the last millennium have exceeded the present. Today I point out that temperatures have been higher in our recorded past. No doubt tomorrow I shall point out some other bit of historical context which you will blithely ignore whilst fondly believing that sceptics are all idiots or motivated by greed or ‘celebrity.’
tonyb
“denialist cognition”
Fan never sees it in himself. ONly in those who disagree with him. WHy? Because he can’t be wrong.Like the Pope, Hansen, and Bill Nye the science guy, Fan considers himself infallible. THousands of comments, likely tens of thousands of assertions on climate etc., and he stands by every single one.
So regardin the 2nd law, if… jest * IF* there was heat hidden in
the ocean depths, would you expect it all of a sudden to come
roaring bacK, fan?
Misty complexities,
Can’t see or know;
With scary projectories,
Forward we go.
============
It’s more accurate to say “The consensus view of climate-change likely is scientifically, economically, and morally correct.”
Isn’t that reasonable, pokerguy?
Unless climate-science is a vast conspiracy, that is!
“Unless climate-science is a vast conspiracy, that is!”
Me thinks I spy denialist thinking Fan, with a nice piquant dash of the strawman fallacy.
F98 percent of the models on which alarmist cries for mitigation are based, are close to being completely blown up. Another few years is all it’s going to take.
The implication that informed skepticism is based on conspiracy ideation is false, misleading, and just plain sh****
He keeps trying to polish his site with shinola.
================
A fan of *MORE* discourse: Considered objectively, the “Fallacy of the Eternal Pause”
Who has written of an “eternal” pause?
‘With scary projectories
forward we go.’
+1 ter kim.
Belinda responding, Beth the serf’s computah’s has crashed
… #>/~$ 0-// … as will those scary forward projections that are
unable to match observations. Divergency’s such a b—- (
I couldn’t resist your misty complexities, Missy Belinsky.
=====================
“The most recent climate model simulations used in the AR5 indicate that the warming stagnation since 1998 is no longer consistent with model projections even at the 2% confidence level.”
This is a difficult statement to parse. Do you mean the P-value is less than .02 with the model taken as the null hypothesis?
Bob K is correct that, to be scientifically credible, this claim requires further well-considered elements:
In regard to Diethelm-McKee element of denialism #3 selectivity [cherry-picking]:
• What null hypothesis, what statistical test, and what Bonferroni corrections are associated to the claimed “2% confidence level”?
In regard to Diethelm-McKee element of denialism #4 impossible expectations:
• Why favor surface temperatures measures (which have low energy capacity, hence large decadal fluctuations) over global energy-balance measures (which have large energy capacity, hence small decadal fluctuations)?
Absent scientific answers to these questions, the presumptive explanation is simply “the Fallacy of the Eternal Pause“, eh?
The world ponders!
Maybe, comparing means…?
–e.g., 2% as opposed to a 95% confidence interval
–e.g., are the models even looking at the world we live in?
Bob K. This is a difficult statement to parse. Do you mean the P-value is less than .02 with the model taken as the null hypothesis?
The observed data (global mean temp) falls in the lower 2% of the distribution of the model runs that go up to this year. If the underlying model (whatever it is that all these model simulations have in common) is taken as the null hypothesis, and data since the model runs are taken as the test, the actual data are way, way outside the confidence limit of the model mean (at least if the mean model run is reasonably close to the true model mean.)
This is a post-hoc formulation of a test that would have been perfectly reasonable had anyone thought to formulate it at the time the models were run: use all the data after the model parameters were set and the simulations run in order to test the hypothesis that the model was reasonable and the various runs independent samples of the population defined by the model and the assessments of random variation.
rgbatduke (writing at WUWT) has written good critiques of that point of view. The important point NOW is that we can formulate the hypothesis this way for testing most recent model runs on the next 20 years worth of data (I recommend a sequential test, as described in books on sequential tests.)
I don’t know a more reasonable way of thinking about model performance over the last 20 years based on model runs before these data became available. No matter what you compute, what has happened has been a lot different from what the models predicted/forecast/extrapolated/modeled. Whatever the language, the models are not close to reality by any statistical measure that might be appropriate.
Dr. Curry, what happens if you start your analysis 20 years ago instead of 1998? How do the same models perform?
Eric, you write “Dr. Curry, what happens if you start your analysis 20 years ago instead of 1998?”
I think you misunderstand how the cessation in warming is calculated. You don’t start at the early date. You start at the end. You take the very latest data point, and calculate back until the cessation ceases. Thus the beginning point is calculated. It does not represent a “start” point.
Jim, because of uncertainty I can find no cessation in warming so your description is not how it is done.
The models are constructed — tuned based on certain assumptions and various parameters — to mimic the past. The proof of the pudding is to use models (GCMs) constructed in such a fashion to forecast the future. Now that the ‘future’ has come and gone we see that the ‘pudding’ is bloody-bad–e.g., the GCMs are constructed using erroneous assumptions and tuning parameters that have little or nothing to do with helping us understand what will actually happen in the real world when we try to look out more than a week or two into the future. Western civilization has wasted billions of dollars chasing chimera and every day that passes shows us that continuing to proceed down AGW’s dead end road is just flushing more good money after bad, down the ivory toilet we call Western academia.
Eric, you write “Jim, because of uncertainty I can find no cessation in warming so your description is not how it is done.”
Werner Brozek says it has been done. See
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/01/25/another-year-another-nail-in-the-cagw-coffin-now-includes-december-data/
I can see no reason why this sort of calculation cannot be done. it is simple straightforward arithmetic. You set whatever uncertainty you like.
People do discuss and use the sixty year cycle, or stadium wave, if that is the same thing, in their presentations.
The thousand year cycle is left out of most all the discussions. The Roman and Medieval and Modern Warm periods are on the Money in the thousand year cycle. The Little Ice Age and the Cold Period that will follow this Modern Warm Period are on the Money in the thousand year Cycle.
popes climatetheory.
If you look at my figure 5 here
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/08/16/historic-variations-in-temperature-number-four-the-hockey-stick/
You can clearly see the 1000 year cycle by way of glacial movements. Just out of view on the left hand side is another glacial retreat coinciding with the Minoan warm period
tonyb
Is this hiatus the Modern Warming Optimum? Inquiring minds want to know.
===============
We hope it is natural, millennial scale, cycles which have brought the Modern Warm Period to near the maximum of the Medieval Warm Period. If it is AnthroGHGs which have brought us here, then Katie Bar the Door, because natural cycles are no longer warming us, and we’ve only got so many hydrocarbon bonds to spare.
=================
As silly as it might sound, much of what has happened to temperature was predicted well over a decade ago on the basis of solar eruptivity and magnetic activity:
1. Solar cycle 24 would be much smaller than cycle 23: correct!
25 and 26 will be lower still: wait and see!
2. A declining trend in global temperature was predicted to be evident before the deepest point in its development around 2030. If correct the ‘pause’ has some way to go yet and will be at least 30 years long.
3. Only El Ninos would interrupt the trend, but the PDO was predicted to show negative values to at least 2016, and La Ninas will be more frequent and stronger than El Ninos through 2018: This is correct so far.
I don’t think anyone can answer ‘what caused the pause?’ until someone answers ‘how does the climate work?’.
Andrew
Bad Andrew.
Fan seems to think he knows, so just ask him
tonyb
Fanny doesn’t believe his own comments. lol
Andrew
So Judith you do a good job of laying out all(???) the possible proposed mechanism or explanations for the hiatus, understandably giving emphasis to your own pet theory (I say understandable only because that’s what scientists do!!). Do you consider all the proposed explanations plausible? You seem to suggest that so much heat transfer to depths is unlikely but is some transfer plausible? And presumably some combo of processes is plausible to? Given that some explanations might mean CO2 forcing has been underestimated, some leave things as is, while other explanations such as your stadium wave suggest overestimation of the impact of CO2, then it really looks like we are back to where we where. Maybe the range of sensitivities has widened a little at both ends but essentially we’re still in the same ball park and as you say uncertainties over data sets is basically going to keep us there.
In that sense is the hiatus really that much of a game changer?
Well, no, most plausible is that CO2 effect has been overestimated and natural forcing underestimated.
====================
Kim it seems the content of Prof Curry’s lecture demands that I reject the certainty in your statement.
Go ahead and reject the more plausible for the less.
==============
With regards to ‘gamechanger’, consider where we would be politically, socially, economically, and scientifically if the temperature record were following Hansen’s Scenario A. Do you think the game has changed from that scenario because of climate denialism, or because of the pause in temperature rise?
Hate to say it, but you’re using foxy equilibrance of the various uncertainties to continue to maintain that we’ve not narrowed, and lowered, the estimation of climate sensitivity to CO2. Sorry, it’s lower, and no longer fearful. Sorry? I should say, aren’t you glad?
===========
The IPCC buries good news; you refuse to hear it. Why choose fear and ignorance?
=================
Kim I feel most comfortable with the idea that hiatus = lower sensitivity, but trying to be objective as possible I see it all depends on how you attribute the cause.
BTW I’m not playing “foxy equilibrance”, as fun as that sounds, I genuinely think all explanations have a degree of plausibility and I don’t see any way ATM to distinguish between them. If you have something that explains why your favorite is the most plausible then please link to it.The best I can do is look for bias in others through their own omissions.
Well, OK, I was too harsh on you personally, but I think it is normal, natural, and easy to rank the plausibilities.
Look at it this way. There should be no need to wonder at the pause. Temperature has always paused, risen, paused, fallen, paused, risen, and often run risens or falls in a row. It’s only become a matter of wonder, because of the comparison with the shonky models. The models overestimate CO2 effect and underestimate natural effects, hence that is the most plausible explanation, not for the pause, but for our wonder at it.
==========
So, you want the cause of this pause? Clearly, it’s the oceans. What causes the oceans, I dunno yet.
============
Well, now, on to implications. Clearly, don’t you love that word, there will next either be temperature rise, temperature fall, or more pause. One of these three futures has far more dangerous implications.
Let’s take a poll to determine which of the three is most dangerous. Another poll for which is most likely. We should determine this matter democratically.
==================
kim i’m suffering aches and pains ATM, i’m stubbornly avoiding going to see a doctor about it. Maybe you can include a crowd-sourced diagnosis in your democratic survey?
Malaise, eh?
Got de gryppe?
Look up at crowds of clouds,
And say ‘Ah’.
========
“a doctor”
Uh oh, The Doctor Analogy.
Watch your orifices.
Andrew
Here are a couple of figures that visually demonstrate what a modest cyclical process, +/- 0.15 degrees over 30 years, has on a constant rise in temperature, 0.5 degrees per century.
http://i179.photobucket.com/albums/w318/DocMartyn/ImplicationsofstadiumwaveI_zps9257a7d9.png
Now if you were to take the slope from 1975 to 2005 of the cyclic component and the gradual increase, you can also generate the ‘Grant Foster’ plot.
http://i179.photobucket.com/albums/w318/DocMartyn/ImplicationsofstadiumwaveII_zpsf0c400cb.png
A slope of 0.5 degrees per century is transformed into 1.6 degrees per century, and you can prove there is no pause.
= = = = = = = = = = = = = =
What I find telling is how the PDO graph is cropped at 1925 (p. 18).
= = = = = = = = = = = = =
http://curryja.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/aps-curry.pdf
Before then it doesn’t fit the pattern. This is not news. (It’s noticeable to an amateur upon first inspection.)
PDO’s definition is based on fundamentally false assumptions about spatial differentials.
Competent, careful parties running careful diagnostics on the reconstructed PDO component from ‘stadium wave’ MSSA (p. 19) will find that it fails.
Can we afford to follow leaders who don’t bother with diagnostics? Spreading misinterpretation of PDO far & wide is unhelpful.
Courteous Suggestion: Reassess, starting with careful diagnsotics.
_
Related — on p.15 patterns: I aim to have something to show about this sometime this month. It may turn inside-out the way Judy & Marcia look at the ‘stadium wave’…….. (to be continued……)
__
Cross-disciplinary Semantics Inquiry:
Can someone (preferably but not necessarily Judy) tell me whether “non-radiative” would be considered to include changes in insolation pattern that involved no change in total insolation?
(We can avoid unnecessary, preventable, serious misunderstandings by checking to ensure mutual understanding on cross-disciplinary semantics.)
paul do you have a link that fleshes out what you assert here?
Sneak preview of part 2 (of 3):
Stadium Wave expression in ERSSTv3b2:
http://s10.postimg.org/cz7c1mg0p/image.gif
(in sixteenth-of-a-wave phase-steps)
Credit: Animation facilitated by KNMI Climate Explorer.
(to be continued….)
Sneak preview of part 3 (of 3):
http://s21.postimg.org/rt3hq2quf/ERSSTv3b2_Volcanic_AOD.gif
The PDO is fundamentally about biology – and there is more than enough to show a fundamental reality of changing regimes of upwelling, nutrient rich water.
Supercilious whining about the PDO manages to miss the central point entirely. The underlying and quite unmistakable reality.
“The PDO is fundamentally about biology…”
—–
Nope, it may affect biology, but that is not what it is fundamentally about. It is about large scale shifts in atmospheric and ocean dynamical regimes. A 16 year period that commenced after the large 1997-98 El Niño in which less sensible and latent heat had been flowing from ocean to atmosphere. A period in which, aa a result of this reduced flux, tropospheric temperatures have flattened, but the ocean heat content in the largest single pool of heat, the IPWP, has reached instrument record highs.
Earth to Major Randy? Somehow we segue from the PDO to the Indo-Pacific Warm Pool? Honestly gatesy – I don’t know where you have your head but it doesn’t seem all that interesting a place. This is the original paper naming the PDO.
‘A considerable body of literature has been devoted to the discussion of persistent widespread changes in Pacific basin climate that took place in the late 1970’s (Namias 1978, Trenberth 1990, Ebbesmeyer et al. 1991, Graham 1994, Trenberth and Hurrell 1994). Several studies have also documented interdecadal climate fluctuations in the Pacific basin, of which the changes that took place in the late 1970’s are but a single realization (Ebbesmeyer et al. 1989, Francis and Hare 1994-Hare and Francis 1995, hereafter FH-HF, Latif and Barnett 1994, 1996, Ware 1995, Hare 1996, Zhang 1996, and Zhang et al. 1996, hereafter ZWB).
Widespread ecological changes related to interdecadal climate variations in the Pacific have also been noted. Dramatic shifts in an array of marine and terrestrial ecological variables in western North America coincided with the changes in the state of the physical environment in the late 1970’s (Venrick et al. 1987, Ebbesmeyer et al. 1991, Brodeur and Ware 1992, Roemmich and McGowan 1995, Francis et al. 1996, Brodeur et al. 1996). Rapid changes in the production levels of major Alaskan commercial fish stocks have been connected to interdecadal climate variability in the northeast Pacific (Beamish and Boullion 1993, Hollowed and Wooster 1994, FH-HF), and similar climate-salmon production relationships have been observed for some salmon populations in Washington, Oregon, and California (Francis and Sibley 1991, Anderson 1996).
Our results add support to those of previous studies suggesting that the climatic regime shift of the late 1970’s is not unique in the century-long instrumental climate record, nor in the record of North Pacific salmon production. In fact, we find that signatures of a recurring pattern of interdecadal climate variability are widespread and detectable in a variety of Pacific basin climate and ecological systems. This climate pattern–hereafter referred to as the Pacific (inter)Decadal Oscillation, or PDO (following co-author S.R.H.’s suggestion)–is a pan-Pacific phenomenon that also includes interdecadal climate variability in the tropical Pacific.’
http://judithcurry.com/2014/03/04/causes-and-implications-of-the-pause/#comment-478981
Upwelling is what drives both the biological fecundity of both the negative PDO and La Nina – in fact they are not independent phenomenon – but also the ocean and atmosphere feedbacks that created the more recent increase in area of the Indo-Pacific Warm Pool.
Vigilant differentiation between PDO the concept & PDO the measure is necessary to generate any hope of advancing discussion.
The problem isn’t so much with the concept as with the standard measure. The measure’s suboptimal and because of this it’s causing problems with human pattern recognition. The algorithmically built-in assumption that the thing in concept doesn’t change shape over time is the problem people aren’t facing. The basis doesn’t flex with reality.
Adaptive bases are needed. With them it will be possible to tune the aggregation to reveal the evolution of the attractor. This attractor doesn’t just sit still. It flexes.
Circulation is a function of both base background and gradients. Early in the 20th century, the base background was fundamentally different. Careful temporally windowed diagnostics (across a range of scales) on PDO EOF patterns should help explorers get a better handle on this.
The problem I see is that climate scientists know how to run canned statistical algorithms, but very, very few of them are well-trained in diagnostics.
After you’ve finished an analysis, the real work starts: diagnostics. Careful diagnostics are a lot of tedious work. Very few people have the intuition, patience, & judgement needed to do a good job at it.
Computers don’t automatically detect things they were never programmed to see. No matter how good algorithms get, there will always be an infinite number of things canned algorithms miss, so careful diagnostics are done manually.
PDO is a many-to-one function. Many climate states can map to the same index value. Some eras are systematically on one or the other side of the temporally-global (not to be confused with spatially-global) attractor and this is being ignored.
As the PDO metric is currently constructed, the same index value can represent significantly differing physical states. This limits the utility of the currently-favored PDO measure (it was a good & useful stepping stone on a path we should be moving along), even if the PDO concept is largely sound.
Remember: The measure is an approximation of the concept.
The measure can be improved.
Meanwhile: Vigilantly conscious differentiation between PDO the concept & PDO the measure is needed to facilitate any worthwhile discussion of PDO.
Sometimes I think an eye doctor could help me, and then it comes in loud and clear through the ears.
==============
Dr. Curry, because of the uncertainties involved, how can you say “For the past 15+ years, there has been no increase in global average surface temperature”.
This seems to be overstating what is known. Isn’t the most that can be said is maybe. Where is the uncertainty monster?
Daily
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2014/03/new-daily-temperature-dataset-from-berkeley/
Nice piece Judith, good to see a little common sense on the matter for a change.
I see the “pause” deniers are becoming increasingly desperate.
maybe one weakness of the presentation is the “implications” section which in pitching things as the stadium wave against “the next el nino” sidestepped some of the other explanations.
having said that BOM is suggesting the next el nino might be upon us fairly soon.
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/enso/
But how much of the warming from the 80s an 90s was because of the preponderance of ENSOs?
” Jim D | March 4, 2014 at 8:58 pm |
DocM, the net heat is OUT of the ocean. More CO2 means less net OUT, means warmer ocean. ”
The ‘average’ global temperature is 15 degrees.
The ‘average’ ocean temperature is about 4 degrees centigrade.
The oceans are cooler than the surface because, during the long polar nights, very cold brines sink to the bottom of the oceans.
The absorbed solar energy at the surface only heats a small amount of the total bulk volume of the water at about 4 degrees.
The oceans do not emit IR, based on how much CO2 they know is above them. They emit IR based on the temperature of the surface 1 mm, regardless of what the atmospheric composition is.
The incoming IR, which may be modulated by the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, is also absorbed by the surface 1 mm. How the absorbance of these photons is converted to heat, I do not know. The incoming IR from the atmospheric black body radiation may be full thermalized or completely converted to latent heat.
No physicist has ever shined know frequencies of IR onto the surface of sea water and measured the ratio of energy that is thermalized and converted into latent heat.
DocM, yes, oceans emit IR according to their temperature and receive IR largely based on GHGs above them. By net, I mean emitted minus received. More GHGs means less net. Less net means warmer. I hope that is clear now. Sorry for the confusion.
Judith –
This reminds me a bit of the National Enquirer…..”…which some experts say indicates a ‘hiatus’ in global warming.”
It’s all well and good but it continues the falsehood that “climate science” and the more important political cause advocating mitigation or adaptation policy is driven by this science.
Without directly admitting the partisan steering and control of the “consensus” science wing the disservice will always be there. The movement is based on left-wing regulatory control guidelines deeply found in academics, polls and green cultures supported by a willfully ignorant MSM machine with similar ideology. The pause is clearly illuminating but in itself in the range of stat isn’t that scientifically significant. Nor was the warming period which coincided with the birth of the CAGW movement which was spun out of the zero growth 60’s glacier fear movements from the usual suspects. So by flattering the importance of “the pause” it’s simply the other coin-head of the same anti-science presumption that caused the irrational climate science movement to begin with. Temperature is obviously one part of climate complexity and its importance was obviously emphasized for mass population manipulation and political narratives not for serious science reasons.
What’s significant is that a science community could be so overcome with political “common good” ideology that it could advocate and advance the lowest form of the “scientific method” from the very start of inventing models and discounting observations as it was well understood what was required to assist regulatory over reach. So in part Dr. Curry contributed to observation discounting and by failing to directly address the political ideology she shares with the advocate community perpetuates the myth of “it’s about science” from a position of authority. It’s the political corruption of the science and academic community advocating AGW policy that is decisive not short-term temperature stats that Dr. Curry is choosing to focus on. Experts perpetuating ignorance as climate is certainly more complicated than the claims of radiative co2 forcing or even the global temperature sets. It’s political corruption that the authoritative community should acknowledge and show courage. The Greenshirt movement certainly doesn’t care about “The Pause” as it’s motives were never really based on science to begin with. “Science” is just another Orwellian concept word for authority at this point for advocacy of the AGW policy.
Had Dr. Curry addressed the political bias of the APS statement committee it would have had far more impact but the game of make believe always goes on. If it were known she might address the central driver of the AGW movement she wouldn’t have a seat at this particular meeting. Then again, how does that not make her a stage prop instead of an actual expert on the Climate Change orthodoxy? The “pause” is just another tactical backwater that highlights the stupidity of models vs. observations that were committed to so long ago and for very politically contrived reasons from the start. In short; “We don’t need no stinking empirical evidence, we’re experts”. Dr. Curry is essentially hoisted on her own petard as she just another outside the group who cared little for actual empirical rules of the scientific method and can’t exist within the confines of that method. Dr. Curry and her peers helped create post normal “science” and there is close to nothing more post normal than the entire AGW “consensus” that hardly actually exist as an actual science group. We have bullies (consensus advocates) and we have large flock of sheep in the science community within the actual working and government/academic funded community who maintain the protocol of talking in terms of the bully community. The term “the pause” itself is pandering. Warming has stopped, we have no idea if it “paused” as if it were a mere trivial event in the imagined co2 induced trend line. Nothing in the temp stat indicates any scientific cause or effect relating to co2 policy. The “pause” is the baseline plausibility that the climate orthodox is willing to go in a discussion. So it’s tool of useful idiocy while the political culture of the core advocate community gets a major pass or is left in the back room and largely unspoken publicly.
The APS is a farce and so is the concept of the “pause” being the key “science” involved. There is no long-term link of co2 and warming in the open set Earth. Addressing government funding of largely partisan academics is much closer to the actual history and manufacturing of climate consensus. Dr. Curry should bring slides on those relationships and skip the self importance of topics framed by AGW advocates. Sticking a pin the side of warmers isn’t a goal, it’s drumming them out of the actual serious science community as it represents another huge social decline in the post WWII era.
Several things, but I will ignore most of them. First, you have to be scolded for your display of tropospheric temperatures from MSU satellite observations. You have my book and I have referred you to Figure 15 in it but there is no sign that you understand why this is important. You must give up computer fitting an anomaly curve to it and use a magic marker to produce a transparent (red) anomaly band. It should include most of the fuzz within its width but not the occasional long outliers. Computers will include everything mechanically and that is why the obvious traces of data manipulation in GISTEMP, HadCRUT3, and NCDC escaped detection for years despite being out there in plain sight. Once you do that you will have a continuous wave train on the left, not a strangely contorted computer trace. Do it by hand. If you have Photoshop you can use layers for each step. The first step is this colored transparent band. Now you have wave peaks and valleys. Peaks are El Nino warming peaks, valleys are La Nina cooling periods. There are five El Ninos and they alternate with La Ninas. There is no such thing as isolated El Ninos or isolated La Ninas. Talk of “El Nino-like” Pliocene is nonsense. In long term temperature records wave peaks and valleys appear as a sawtooth pattern. Next, get a different colored marker (yellow) and put a dot at the midpoint of an El Nino peak and its neighboring La Nina valley. That defines the mean temperature as best you can define it for a temperature oscillation. When you are finished, connect the dots. That is the final anomaly curve. On the left side of the satellite record it turns out to be linear, a straight horizontal line for 18 years. There are some random squiggles but they can be ignored. But in ground based temperature records this entire period, starting from about 1980, is tilted up and has a temperature rise of approximately 0.1 degrees Celsius per decade. Bear in mind that having an actual temperature rise for this time segment was extremely important to Hansen because he had testified to the Senate that peak greenhouse warming was reached in May 1988. That is incompatible with the 18 year period of no warming in the eighties and nineties. I advise you to redraw your RSS satellite curve as I explained and use the revised version from now on.
I also looked over your answer to the question:” To what would you attribute the stasis?” and found nothing meaningful. The answer is of course that the greenhouse theory of global warming has failed and should be discarded.
I think that JC’s statement: “the warming stagnation since 1998 is no longer consistent with model projections even at the 2% confidence level” is a nonsense. First issue is that confidence levels are ussualy expressed in terms of 90%, 95%, 99%, … not as 1-98% = 2%.
Bob K. (in a comment above) interprets it like “the P-value is less than .02 with the model taken as the null hypothesis”.
But I think that JC must refer to the 1st slide of her APS presentation (also slide 5 of 26). In there we see that observations in the year 2013 go below most RCP4.5 scenario projections.
The thing is that the CMIP5 model shown in that slide is not only one model, but 42. All of them following IPCC’s WGI AR5 RCP4.5 scenario (in Figure 12.42.a), i.e., following a fictitious (meaning non demonstrated by science) dependence of global temperature surface with GHG emissions. There are many issues with this multi-model approach and the predictive capability of this approach is ZERO, because of the 6 reasons I explained in: http://judithcurry.com/2014/02/18/uk-us-workshop-part-iv-limits-of-climate-models-for-adaptation-decision-making/
(also they can be found in that pdf I sent you Judith, called: “Climatic models, used by IPCC and called CMIP5, are not reliable”).
Additional comments on some last ends from that APS presentation:
– In pg 25/26 JC is too polite. I have a “slight” different point of view, expressed in my first comment in:
http://judithcurry.com/2014/02/19/aps-reviews-its-climate-change-statement/
– I don’t agree with the stadium wave hypothesis. Wyatt figure at pg 19/26, could be seen as white noise (not a cause-effect issue). In order to investigate this we need no know how uncertainties in global temperature measurements grow as we go back to year 1900 (or even to 1700), is this hypothesis based in unaccurate measurement of proxies?.
– pg 13/26 contains a sentence: “II May be models are OK, the problem is the external forcing”. Well, from my comment above anyone understands that models can not be OK as they relie in invented values of parameters like: Total Aerosol and Climate GHG Sensitivity.
– The problem with the total aerosol external forcing is also seen in slide 2/26. It is not an issue related with overconfidence (pg. 24/26). It is an issue related with being a bad scientist: that blue-red histogram is just a manipulation.
Another chapter on how IPCC manipulates figures in order to attribute climate change to humans can be seen in figures: AR4’s fig. 2.20.b and AR5’s fig. 8.16 ( I explained this to JC in a pdf titled “Anthropogenic attribution the Monte Carlo confusion”. Hopefully we can discuss about this in JC’s blog).
““Question Why are sea-level rise, ice-mass loss, and ocean-heating, all observed to progress without “pause”?”
_____
Indeed, these broad and more accurate measures of gains in climate system energy more accurately reflect the continued external forcing from the rapidly rising GH gases. The very low thermal inertia and relatively low energy content troposphere is quite a bit more dependent on natural internal variability, and thus a very poor proxy over short periods for gains in energy of the climate system. While of course over multi-decadal timeframes sensible heat in the troposphere starts to be a better proxy for gains of energy in the entire climate system, it is far more scientifically accurate to look at sea level, ocean heat content, glacial mass, etc. for a reliable proxy over the broadest range of time frames.
Bottom line: The failure of the models to predict the tropospheric “hiatus” is a failure to model internal variability as well as unpredictable external forcings (solar & volcanic aerosols) but not a failure of the models to accurately predict the overall gains of energy to the climate system, which have continued steadily for many decades without pause or hiatus.
The usual repetitive nonsense from gatesy. Nothing is that obvious and clear cut. The usual method is fitting data – where there is any – to the narrative.
http://judithcurry.com/2014/03/04/causes-and-implications-of-the-pause/#comment-474974
They’re all faked. You can’t trust ‘puters. Follow the money. Evil people typically get really good grades in math and science, and then go to work for racketeering operations like NASA, GISS, JPL, and NOAA.
Another odd non sequitur from JCH. I quote hundreds of scientists – including NASA and the IPCC on models and data.
Maybe that’s the problem – science isn’t saying what they want it to say.
“Overconfidence.” (no, not “weather”)?
JCH
Do you really believe what you just wrote?
If so, you need medical attention.
Max
R. Gates
Gatesy, I’m beginning to follow your shell and pea game.
When the global atmospheric temperature warms (as it did from the 1970s to 2000) it is a “broad and more accurate measure of gains in climate system energy [which] more accurately reflect[s] the continued external forcing from the rapidly rising GH gases”. IPCC loves it!
When it stops warming (as it did in 2001), it no longer is a “”broad and more accurate measure of gains in climate system energy [which] more accurately reflect[s] the continued external forcing from the rapidly rising GH gases”, and this is now evidenced by “sea-level rise, ice-mass loss, and ocean-heating” (the first of which has been going on since the 19thC, the second only since 1979 and the third only marginally since ARGO started in 2003).
Duh!
Don’t expect too many truly skeptical observers to fall for that one, Gates – it’s too transparent.
Max
There is very low uncertainty that there has been continued (unpaused, no-hiatus) gains to the overall energy of the climate system for many decades. Multiple sources of corroborating data exist, from sea level rises, to ocean heat content, to global glacial mass loss. Focusing on the low thermal inertia troposphere which is highly dependent on ocean to atmosphere sensible and latent heat flux is simply a distraction that fake-skeptics love to constantly point to as a source of uncertainty—a “look squirrel!” opportunity to create an inflated sense of uncertainty.
There is very great uncertainty.
‘‘Comparisons of global steric height trends based on different gridded fields of Argo in situ measurements show a range of 0–1mmyr−1 which can be lead back to data handling and climatology uncertainties. Our results show that GOIs derived from the Argo measurements are ideally suitable to monitor the state of the global ocean, especially after November 2007, i.e. when Argo sampling was 100% complete. They also show that there is significant interannual global variability at global scale, especially for global OFC. Before the end of 2007, error bars are too large to deliver robust short-term trends of GOIs and thus an interpretation in terms of long-term climate signals are still questionable, especially since uncertainties due to interannual fluctuations are not included in our error estimation.’ http://www.ocean-sci-discuss.net/8/999/2011/osd-8-999-2011.pdf
The cause of short term variability in ARGO last decade needs space based data acquisition to assess. CERES say it was all SW – which has since turned around.
e.g. http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/CERES_EBAF-TOA_Ed27_anom_TOA_Shortwave_Flux-All-Sky_March-2000toJune-20131_zpsd3c5a965.png.html?sort=3&o=42
“There is very great uncertainty.”
Sorry Chief, no sale. The uncertainty that humans are altering the energy balance of the planet is very small- 5% or less. Fake-skeptics would love to take this tiny uncertainty monster swimming around in a teacup and make it into a large sea serpent stirring up a great storm of uncertainty.
Sorry Gates, opinion is not data nor facts. Many express the same opinion as you do. But they are searching for data to support that opinion and have so far come up empty.
R. Gates
Sure we are seeing an underlying long-term trend of slow warming since the modern record started in 1850, superimposed with multidecadal cycles of rapid warming followed by cycles of slight cooling, each lasting around 30 years.
The last cycle of rapid warming appears to have ended in 2000 – whether it will resume again next year or pause for another two decades is anyone’s guess. It appears that a growing number of scientists, including our hostess, are beginning to think it could last for another decade or two.
The longer the current “hiatus” lasts, the less it looks like AGW has been the principal reason for the observed warming (lead post), and therein lies the dilemma for the “CO2 control knob hypothesis” and the CAGW premise as specifically outlined by IPCC.
All the arm-waving about receding Arctic sea ice and gradually increasing sea levels or postulated warming of the ocean by a few thousandths of a degree will not change this basic dilemma – if the pause continues for another decade or two.
My question to you: How long does the “hiatus” have to last before you become truly “skeptical” of the CO2 control knob hypothesis?
Max
Rgates
If you would like to go to the foot of my very detailed article on historic sea levels you will find a number of graphs
http://curryja.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/document.pdf
They show that not only has sea level been rising for ‘many’ decades it has actually been rising since around 1750 having previously reached a peak higher than today in both the mwp and the roman warm period.
Tonyb
Randy stated that there was no uncertainty wrt to ocean temps continuing to increase over the past decade. It is certainly not the case.
Now we shift the goal posts to energy accumulation – which certainly can’t be distinguished against natural variability. The anthropogenic contribution to recent – 1976/1998 – warming was 0.05 degrees C/decade at most. Minor in any realistic assessment – and likely to be offset as the planet cools in Bond Event Zero. The only real risk is in chaotic indeterminancy.
rgates that all seems true but could you please quantify those things please. its my understanding that ocean heat gain has slowed over the hiatus period, its the reason trenberth is looking for his missing heat. So yes widen the metrics and it looks like a slowdown rather than a stop which still needs to be explained and having accounted for more parts of the system it would seem there are less places to hide.
one point against your present position. i can remember when things appeared to be warming nicely at the surface that it mattered because thats where we live and thats where the wider impacts are felt, presumably this is still true.
Robert I Ellison, I have a question: If the ocean did increase in temp by an average of 0.2C (use any value you like, that is just a suggestion), how long would it take for the sea level to exhibit the rise forced by the heat-driven expansion. Surely there must be some lag time.
Alternativley, given the great weight of the water above it, if a layer of water at low depth increased a certain inflow of heat, how much would it warm, and how long would that take? Surely expansion would do work against the water above it, reducing the temperature increase in that layer?
“The last cycle of rapid warming appears to have ended in 2000…”
______
Exceptionally incorrect. You are using the poor proxy of tropospheric sensible heat for suggesting that the climate system somehow stopped accumulating energy or stopped responding to GHG forcing. In reality, the climate system has continued to respond quite steadily, and this whole discussion of the “hiatus” is really about internal variability for heat flux from ocean to atmosphere more than anything–not about the climate system response to continued anthropogenic GHG forcing.
Just keep repeating this mantra Randy – and you may convince someone other than yourself.
R. Gates, Skeptical Warmist: You are using the poor proxy of tropospheric sensible heat for suggesting that the climate system somehow stopped accumulating energy or stopped responding to GHG forcing.
Have you ever explained why tropospheric sensible heat is a poor proxy? The troposphere is the locus of the CO2 reservoir where the increase in LWIR and increase in CO2-induced warming first occur, and it has a low total mass and low specific heat. Surely, that is the most sensitive indicator of CO2-induced heat increase.
Global warming? It’s natural, say experts
Authors Dennis Avery and Fred Singer looked at the work of more than 500 scientists and argue that these experts are doubtful the phenomenon is caused by man-made greenhouse gases…
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-481613/Global-warming-Its-natural-say-experts.html#ixzz2v7hLd1Qf
“We have a greenhouse theory with no evidence to support it, except a moderate warming turned into a scare by computer models whose results have never been verified with real-world events.” ~Fred Singer
Pause? Maybe Gaia menopause.
“We found a witch!”
“May we burn her?!?!”
Throw her in a GCM. If she comes out asphyxiated from CO2 she was innocent. If she survives, she’s guilty. Put a stake through her heart and bury her at a crossroads.
============
Turned me into a newt?
El Nino is coming, El Nino is coming!
http://cobblab.blogspot.com/2014/03/all-eyes-on-tropical-pacific.html
Batten down the hatches – all you’ll hear about is how the world is frying again.
Of course it’ll end the Cali-drought and bring rain to my little burg, but never mind that, it’s the end of the world.
As James Hansen foresaw in January
Uhhh … maybe `cuz Hansen’s scientific climate-change worldview is proving to be scientifically solid?
The world ponders!
El Nino coming ? the answer is blowing in the wind not showing in the wind.
Bit like predicting a stock market crash, it will happen, eventually.
It works like this.
It is 50/50 whether we will have an El Nino or a La Nina next.
If you follow the graphs the trend is down so we are currently far more likely to have a La Nina type event next.
If you follow the reversion to mean then the pattern will turn back to neutral giving a trend heading to El Nino.
If you take a random walk, nobody knows, even money bet.
Trade winds are there all the time sometimes fast,sometimes slow, but as Paul S says, they are both indicators of global warming [no contradiction allowed] even though they do not mean a thing with respect to predicting El Nino, nil, zip, etc
to be clear i think hansen is expecting a “super el nino”. i think i saw a made for tv movie about one of those.
a fan of *MORE* discourse: As James Hansen foresaw in January
Hansen has foreseen this in several consecutive Janurarys now. If it does not happen this year, he’ll foresee it again next January (that’s a contingent prediction.)
An el nino during the negative phase of the PDO adds another layer of interest to the proceedings. Should be interesting. It’s worth noting the 2010 ENSO failed to break the hiatus.
So, how much of the warming of the last three or four decades is not from CO2 forcing but from a preponderance of El Ninos instead?
http://images.intellicast.com/App_Images/Article/126_5.gif
I suspect Trenberth is right that some heat is transferred to the deep ocean without being detected, and that this happens during ENSO neutral and la Nina conditions. When el Nino are infrequent, I bet more heat is transfered to the deep ocean and that the el Ninos will be weaker than expected.
It seems to prove that climate models must provide alarm to survive in the marketplace.
Otherwise a lot would be predicting not much warming. These are culled in grant granting.
Stationary gaussian random processes, by the way, are nothing but sums of cycles. It’s a pretty general waveform.
Put in lots of cycles and you can reproduce anything.
Conversely you can’t deduce anything else from the data.
First step in any real model would be it’s ability to predict known periods…none of the climate models came close.
That is what happens when you decide at the beginning the result you need then build the model and enter the data which gives you that result.
Hokum….
IOW, the first step may be in not starting out with a predisposed outcome.
“Questions raised by the discrepancy
◾Is climate model treatment of natural climate variability inadequate?”
If the answer to that is yes then, if they are, the rest probably does not matter.
Although I’m not a “climate scientist” I am an engineer and there are a few principals that I see here that cause me to question any attempt to claim that the science is completely understood.
1) how many different planets have been studied to develop the heuristics being applied? Just the one, right?
2) How adequate has the data collection been over, say, the last 1000 thousand years? Lots of guesses and inferences not to mention “rock solid datasets” that somehow were “disappeared when uncomfortable questions began to be asked..
3) How consistent have the studies proven to be as related to item #1. (As stated above, only 1 planet is the sample size).
4) “Secret Sauce” analysis, most of which was carried around somewhere in the minds of the climate savants.
It seems to me that we are fish in a bowl trying to make big judgements about the outside world based upon local changes of which perhaps only a few are dominant (or then again, maybe not).
Into this mix throw a liberal measure of political heat, political money, cultural bias from those for and against a greater power, conceit, arrogance and frankly intellectual dishonesty.
Mix thoroughly and viola’ – the soufflé is ready, but it sure tastes strongly of fish.
Al
And I can smell it all the way over here.
=======================
Causes and implications of the growing divergence between climate model simulations and observations A recent article by Prof. Chris Turney of Akademik Skokalskiy fame is
Fogwill CJ; Turney CSM; Meissner KJ; Spence P; England MH; Golledge NR; Carter L; Roberts JL; Jones RT, 2014, ‘Testing the sensitivity of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet to Southern Ocean dynamics: Past changes and future implications’, Journal of Quaternary Science, vol. 29, no. 1, pp. 91 – 98, http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/jqs.2683:
“Here we report a series of independent model simulations exploring the effects of migrating Southern Hemisphere Westerlies (SHWs) on Southern Ocean circulation and Antarctic ice-sheet dynamics. We suggest that southerly shifts in winds may have significantly impacted the sub-polar gyres, inducing pervasive warming…”
Most climate “scientists” know diddly squat about modeling. They should try and get a real job, as long as it doesn’t require basic algebra, statistics, trigonometry, or calculus.
All of the above comments only go to show that the entire subject is bogus. As a wise man once said “Follow the money”.
The sheer quantity of “scientists” hooked on getting funding to model, measure, interpret, etc. etc. any and every possible thing that might have any influence on “climate” is simply a scam!
CLIMATE CHANGES…ALWAYS HAS…ALWAYS WILL…WE CAN DO NOTHING TO ALTER THAT FACT!!
Tom | March 5, 2014 at 7:15 pm said: ”CLIMATE CHANGES…ALWAYS HAS…ALWAYS WILL…WE CAN DO NOTHING TO ALTER THAT FACT!!
good on ya Tom!!! looks like you are not affected by the massive brainwashing propaganda, good on you!!!
I would nominate another bullet point for similar presentations, something involving the word “overfitting”. Perhaps as simple as just “overfitting” followed by a question mark. Or “as data not known at the time of model publication has accumulated, the fit of the models’ output to the data has deteriorated; might this be a symptom of overfitting?”
V. The models are simply patently incorrect regarding anthropogenic global warming.
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Correct or incorrect they only represent a belief set, and are all the product of lots of guess-work plus faith in one group of prognosticators or another.
The continuing debate certainly is evidence that none of the existing models truly are lining up against (real) reality in any reliable way, and indeed, not everything is fully accounted for by their “model” yet. (such as the fabled “unknown unknowns”).
But still the “climate scientists” claim that only they can divine the truth and that the(ir) science is “settled”. The evil skeptics are risking the worlds destiny by slowing down the march towards carbon credits.
Eliminating FOIA’s and supressing dissenting views seems to be the way things are settled in this “science”.
At least in engineering malpractice, bridges crack, boats sink, Iphones burn up, and you can go back and prosecute the bad apples :-).
With “climate science” they simply lock arms, invent a new theory, applaud one another and dedicate library wings to their “genius”. When caught they conduct “fact-finding” investigations which (surprise-surprise) conclude nothing untoward and the grant money continues to flow uninterrupted.
So sad.
Leave off counting the number of angels that can dance on the head of a pin. If the Earth and/or its atmosphere were actually warming. none of these arguments would mean anything. Astrologers and Ptolomaic astronomers had to go back to their theories and add even more epicycles to the orbits of Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn to explain away the fact that the Earth is not the center of the Universe. The fact that The Great Pause is with us has caused “climate scientists”, their spiritual and academic brethren, to try to fix their theories too, by shoving atmospheric heat into the oceans and ginning up clouds.
Give it a rest, guys, the carnival has folded up its tents and left town. The rubes have caught on to the game.
Whoa, what is all this argument and debate? Haven’t you all heard that the science is settled? Come on now, let’s all fall in line.
“It [global warming/climate change] is a powerful convergence of interests among a very large number of elites, including: Politicians, who want to make it seem as though they’re saving the world; environmentalists, who want to raise money and get control over very large issues like our entire energy policy; media, for sensationalism; universities and professors for grants. You can’t hardly get a science grant these days without saying it has something to do with climate change. It is a kind of nasty combination of extreme political ideology and a religious cult all rolled into one.”
– Patrick Moore, co-founder of Greenpeace, February 2014
The bigger they come the harder they fall. Confidence in ability to control the narrative through fear and guilt overcame scientific diffidence. At that stage, Nature hadn’t really entered the ring. In the later rounds, now, though.
==============
You should reword this, Judith.
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It’s the Sun wot dunnit.
No amount of twisting and databending is going to save the co2 hype-othesis
Gaia greets her champion, Apollo.
========
policy conclusions:
1. We should pursue proof-of-concept geoengineering. Especially for stadium wave type 80 year lags (which might hit us with a century’s worth of GHG forcing at once), but even for natural variability is thick tailed and is possibly just as likely as AGW to have a material impact over the next century.
2. Only 3 more years of flat temp until it’s back to the drawing board for estimating TCR. So, costly mitigation at present is high risk (and low reward).
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