by Judith Curry
Some interesting new papers on the hiatus in global warming.
I have been expecting to start seeing papers on the ‘hiatus is over.’ Instead I am seeing papers on ‘the hiatus never happened.’ Here is a collection of new papers on the hiatus, ranging from sense to nonsense.
UKMO
The UKMO has issued a good report Big Changes in the Climate System Underway? The report discusses the current situation (and near future possibilities) for El Nino, PDO, AMO. Re the AMO, which was the subject of a recent post:
Despite these signals it is not certain that there will be a shift towards cooler Atlantic conditions over the next few years. Temporary cooling has occurred in the past without leading to a sustained AMO shift. However, the current trends suggest that the chances of a shift in the next few years have increased.
The report has a good section on global temperatures, excerpts:
A better understanding of the cause of the global warming slowdown is needed in order to confidently predict its end. However, there are signs in the observations and near term climate predictions that are consistent with a resumption of warming.
Global mean surface temperature for 2015 so far is 0.38±0.14oC above the 1981-2010 average (0.68±0.14oC above the 1961-1990 average). If this continues, 2015 will likely be warmer than any other year in the observational record. Given that global average temperature responds to El Niño with a lag of a few months and that El Niño is predicted to develop further, it is reasonable to assume that both 2015 and 15 2016 will show similar warmth to the current value for 2015. If this were to happen then ten year global temperature trends would increase to a value of around 0.2C per decade by 2016, as often occurred in the late 20th century. Note however, that a large volcanic eruption or a sudden shift to a cool phase of the AMO would alter this and that trends over longer periods of 15 years would take longer to respond.
Norwegian climate model evaluation
A two part paper from a Norwegian team (both papers are open access):
Stephen Outten, Peter Thorne, Ingo Bethke, Øyvind Seland
The recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, along with numerous studies since, has suggested that the apparent global warming hiatus results from some combination of natural variability and changes to external forcings. Herein the external forcings for greenhouse gases (GHGs), long-lived trace gases, volcanic and tropospheric aerosols, and solar irradiance have been replaced in the Norwegian Earth System Model using recent observational estimates. The potential impact of these alternative forcings, and by residual the internally generated variability, is examined through two 30-member ensembles covering the period 1980 to 2012. The Reference ensemble uses the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 5 historical forcings extended with the Representative Concentration Pathway 8.5 (RCP8.5) scenario, while the Sensitivity ensemble uses the alternative forcings. Over the hiatus period defined herein as 1998–2012, all of the forcings show some change between the Sensitivity and Reference experiments and have a combined net forcing change of −0.03 W m−2. The GHG forcing is 0.012 W m−2 higher in the Sensitivity forcings. The alternative solar forcing differs from the Reference forcing by −0.08 W m−2, the same as the alternative volcanic forcing that was based on the latest estimates from NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies. Anthropogenic aerosol emissions were replaced using the EU-EclipseV4a data set and produce a mean forcing change of 0.11 W m−2 over the period. Part 1 details the creation of the two 30-member ensembles and their characterization for parameters of particular relevance to the explanation of the hiatus. A detailed investigation of the two resulting ensembles global surface temperature behavior is given in Part 2, along with comparisons to observational data sets.
Peter Thorne, Stephen Outten, Ingo Bethke, Øyvind Seland
Abstract. To assess published hypotheses surrounding the recent slowdown in surface warming (hiatus), we compare five available global observational surface temperature estimates to two 30-member ensembles from the Norwegian Earth System Model (NorESM). Model ensembles are initialized in 1980 from the transient historical runs and driven with forcings used in the CMIP5 experiments and updated forcings based upon current observational understanding, described in Part 1. The ensembles’ surface temperature trends are statistically indistinguishable over 1998–2012 despite differences in the prescribed forcings. There is thus no evidence that forcing errors play a significant role in explaining the hiatus according to NorESM. The observations fall either toward the lower portion of the ensembles or, for some observational estimates and regions, outside. The exception is the Arctic where the observations fall toward the upper ensemble bounds. Observational data set choices can make a large difference to findings of consistency or otherwise. Those NorESM ensemble members that exhibit Nino3.4 Sea Surface Temperature (SST) trends similar to observed also exhibit comparable tropical and to some extent global mean trends, supporting a role for El Nino Southern Oscillation in explaining the hiatus. Several ensemble members capture the marked seasonality observed in Northern Hemisphere midlatitude trends, with cooling in the wintertime and warming in the remaining seasons. Overall, we find that we cannot falsify NorESM as being capable of explaining the observed hiatus behavior. Importantly, this is not equivalent to concluding NorESM could simultaneously capture all important facets of the hiatus. Similar experiments with further, distinct, Earth System Models are required to verify our findings.
JC comment: While there are no punchline take away messages from these two papers (well maybe the bolded statement above), I find them to be valuable contributions. The papers provide a very detailed evaluation of a single climate model in context of the hiatus, using alternative forcings and alternative observational data sets.
Cowtan et al.
A new paper from Cowtan et al:
Kevin Cowtan, Zeke Hausfather, Ed Hawkins, Peter Jacobs, Michael E. Mann, Sonya K. Miller, Byron A. Steinman, Martin B. Stolpe, Robert G. Way
Abstract. The level of agreement between climate model simulations and observed surface temperature change is a topic of scientific and policy concern. While the Earth system continues to accumulate energy due to anthropogenic and other radiative forcings, estimates of recent surface temperature evolution fall at the lower end of climate model projections. Global mean temperatures from climate model simulations are typically calculated using surface air temperatures, while the corresponding observations are based on a blend of air and sea surface temperatures. This work quantifies a systematic bias in modelobservation comparisons arising from differential warming rates between sea surface temperatures and surface air temperatures over oceans. A further bias arises from the treatment of temperatures in regions where the sea ice boundary has changed. Applying the methodology of the HadCRUT4 record to climate model temperature fields accounts for 38% of the discrepancy in trend between models and observations over the period 1975-2014.
Co author Ed Hawkins has a blog post on this: An apples-to-apples comparison of global temperatures. The key point here is this:
Usually, global temperatures from climate models use simulated near-surface air temperatures (SATs). However, observations use SATs measured over land, and sea-surface temperatures (SSTs) measured over the ocean and are not spatially complete. The comparison of the global averages of these two different quantities is therefore not like-with-like.
This new analysis gets closer to a like-with-like comparison by sampling the models with the same spatial coverage as the observations, and by using the simulated SSTs over the ocean, blended with the SATs over the land. Note that more background, along with the code & data is available for this study.
Because SSTs tend to warm slightly slower than SATs over the ocean, this reduces the warming trend in the simulated estimates of global temperature, bringing them closer to the observations over the past decade. This simple correction accounts for about one third of the difference between the observations and simulations (top panel).
JC comment: This paper makes the important point that blending surface air temperature over land with bulk ocean surface temperatures over ocean introduces some problems (well they aren’t the first ones to make this point). The key problem I have with their analysis is that they rely on global climate model simulations to sort out the differences between trends in surface air temperature and bulk surface temperature over the oceans. The odds of climate models doing this correctly are slim to none IMO. Note, this particular subject, of differences between bulk ocean surface and surface air temp was a focus of my research circa 1994-2002, here are a few relevant papers:
Clayson, C.A. and J.A. Curry, 1996: Determination of surface turbulent fluxes for TOGA COARE: Comparison of satellite retrievals and in situ measurements. J. Geophys. Res., 101, 28,503-28,513.
Curry, J.A., J.L. Schramm, A. Alam, R. Reeder, T.E. Arbetter, P. Guest, 2002: Evaluation of data sets used to force sea ice models in the Arctic Ocean. J. Geophys Res., 107, art. no 3102.
J. A. Curry, et al., 2004: SEA-FLUX. Bull. Amer. Met. Soc., 85 (3), 409–424.
I also note that Roger Pielke Sr has been investigating this issue over land, I don’t have the relevant references handy, hopefully he will spot this and provide some in the comments. The bottom line is that ‘height matters’.
Statistics of the hiatus
Just published in Climatic Change (open access):
Debunking the climate change hiatus
Bala Rajaratnam , Joseph Romano, Michael Tsiang, Noah S. Diffenbaugh
Abstract. The reported “hiatus” in the warming of the global climate system during this century has been the subject of intense scientific and public debate, with implications ranging from scientific understanding of the global climate sensitivity to the rate in which greenhouse gas emissions would need to be curbed in order to meet the United Nations global warming target. A number of scientific hypotheses have been put forward to explain the hiatus, including both physical climate processes and data artifacts. However, despite the intense focus on the hiatus in both the scientific and public arenas, rigorous statistical assessment of the uniqueness of the recent temperature time-series within the context of the long-term record has been limited. We apply a rigorous, comprehensive statistical analysis of global temperature data that goes beyond simple linear models to account for temporal dependence and selection effects. We use this framework to test whether the recent period has demonstrated i) a hiatus in the trend in global temperatures, ii) a temperature trend that is statistically distinct from trends prior to the hiatus period, iii) a “stalling” of the global mean temperature, and iv) a change in the distribution of the year-to-year temperature increases. We find compelling evidence that recent claims of a “hiatus” in global warming lack sound scientific basis. Our analysis reveals that there is no hiatus in the increase in the global mean temperature, no statistically significant difference in trends, no stalling of the global mean temperature, and no change in year-to-year temperature increases.
Here is the press release from Stanford. Chris Mooney also has an article in WaPo.
JC comment: There may be some useful statistical tests, etc. here (I didn’t wade through the supplementary material), but the way they frame the analysis doesn’t make much sense to me.
Lew and Oreskes
And now for the nonsense part.
The “Pause” in GlobalWarming: Turning a Routine Fluctuation into a 2 Problem for Science
Stephan Lewandowsky, James Risbey, Naomi Oreskes
Abstract. There has been much recent published research about a putative “pause” or “hiatus” in global warming. We show that there are frequent fluctuations in the rate of warming around a longer-term warming trend, and that there is no evidence that identifies the recent period as unique or particularly unusual. In confirmation, we show that the notion of a “pause” in warming is considered to be misleading in a blind expert test. Nonetheless, the most recent fluctuation about the longer-term trend has been regarded by many as an explanatory challenge that climate science must resolve. This departs from long-standing practice, insofar as scientists have long recognized that the climate fluctuates, that linear increases in CO2 do not produce linear trends in global warming, and that 15-year (or shorter) periods are not diagnostic of long-term trends. We suggest that the repetition of the “warming has paused” message by contrarians was adopted by the scientific community in its problem-solving and answer-seeking role and has led to undue focus on, and mislabeling of, a recent fluctuation. We present an alternative framing that could have avoided inadvertently reinforcing a misleading claim. Capsule: Contrarian discourse about a “pause” in global warming has found traction in climate science even though there is little evidence for anything but a fluctuation in the warming rate similar to earlier deviations from a longer-term trend.
JC comment: I don’t even know where to start on this. I am just astonished that this was published by the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. The AMS is the one professional society that I am still somewhat chauvinistic about. Their journals and editorial practices have been superb, and I can’t remember the last AMS paper that I thought “what the heck were the editors thinking?” (note I think this about once a month for Nature Climate Change).
BishopHill has a good post on the paper, with some good comments including one from Nic Lewis. This post is long enough and I am running out of time, so I won’t comment further on this.
JC reflections
Hiatus revisionism is trying to pretend the hiatus doesn’t exist. Sorry, not going to work. There are three key issues:
Observations. We need to look at all of these data sets to understand what is going on with the hiatus:
- Conventional surface temperature analyses. But in light of the new Cowtan et al. paper, I think the land and ocean surface temperature data sets should be analyzed separately and (compared separately with climate models.)
- Satellite atmospheric temperatures (UAH, RSS, etc)
- Satellite ocean temperatures (OISST)
- Upper ocean heat content (ARGO, etc)
- Reanlyses from numerical weather prediction data assimilation systems (ECMWF, CFSR, etc)
- Arctic temperatures from arctic researchers that includes research datasets.
While it is conceivable that 2015 will be unambiguously the warmest year in all of these data sets, we need more realistic uncertainty estimates and reconciliations or at least understanding of differences among the different data sets.
Model-obs comparison. The problem raised by Cowtan et al. is a valid one, but I’m not buying their solution. More in depth comparisons of individual models using different external forcings, and evaluations against all of the above data sets is needed to sort this out.
Statistics. I am all in favor of getting statisticians involved in these evaluations, but they need to work as part of team with climate scientists so that the problem is framed appropriately. And there is plenty of grounds for disagreement on how to do this, but we need to open up this potential can of worms.
And finally, I am most definitely not in favor of advocate historians and psychologists making proclamations about topics in climate science where they seem to have little understanding.
“I am most definitely not in favor of advocate historians and psychologists making proclamations about topics in climate science where they seem to have little understanding.”
On the other hand, including them as author provides readers with a useful context for the paper. It’s called “signalling” in the social sciences, one of the powerful methods of quiet communication.
“Hiatus revisionism is trying to pretend the hiatus doesn’t exist. Sorry, not going to work.”
I hang out with a bunch of liberals, or did anyway, my family’s comprised of liberals, and the kinds of publications I’m interested submitting freelance writing to, are generally staffed by rabid progressives..I bring the subject up fairly regularly, and not a one of them is even aware of the pause. Obama certainly doesn’t acknowledge it, proclaiming with near hysterical certainty that the models are actually under-esitimating (!) the warmth that’s occurring.
We live in an Alice in Wonderland world where facts to a very great extent, simply don’t matter….Is there hope for such a world? I honestly don;t think so anymore.
urning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
WBY
(aka pokerguy)
Oops, To the best of my knowledge, Yeats was not called “pokerguy ”
as my comment seems to imply
OTOH, he could do worse… :-)
“Is there hope for such a world? I honestly don’t think so anymore.”
I felt the same way when I finally awakened to the deception. After several warned me, “We’re living in the end times” – I realized that the problem is just selfishness that is in all of us.
For an expansion on your Alice in Wonderland observation, see the 15:00 mark for the video of professor William Happer’s Alice in Climateland presentation at the following link.
http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/63554957
Rather than rejecting the paper because of the authors (do you reject the opinions of Nic Lewis or Freeman Dyson because of their previous academic/professional focus), could you comment on why you think that the statisticians they surveyed, on average, think that there has been no “pause?”
I am automatically suspicious and extra skeptical of papers written by advocates (on either side). Then when they also make sophomoric mistakes in understanding, the paper gets rejected by me.
Judith: I’m just curious — do you honestly think your own writing on this blog doesn’t advocate?
Remind me, what am I advocating for, beyond honesty and integrity in science?
Just a particularly timely, of many examples:
for a more intellectually diverse and heterodox academy.”
To advocate can have a wide connotation, and it can be selectively constricted and enlarged so as to advance….well….er….what someone is advocating for.
> Remind me, what am I advocating for, beyond honesty and integrity in science?
Let’s start with killing the IPCC:
http://business.financialpost.com/fp-comment/ipcc-climate-global-warming
This is not the first time you’re asking this rhetorical question, Judy.
A better quote:
Op. CIt.
curryja wrote:
“Remind me, what am I advocating for, beyond honesty and integrity in science?”
A few weekends ago, as I pointed out to you then on another blog post, you advocated for adaptation.
Viz. you advocated against mitigation.
Nope. I clearly defined what I meant by advocacy, and my recent statements on those subjects are not advocacy.
Judith also engages in policy advocacy – she’s against mitigation….and plays power politics with her expertise to do so.
“The IPCC needs to get out of the way so that scientists and policy makers can better do their jobs.”
yes.. advocating for honesty and integrity means getting rid of certain impediments.
Willard don’t take up golf since you obviously would whiff every shot in the round just like you took a big whiff with your absurd comment. Mosher has it right, she is advocating for integrity or is that too difficult to comprehend? I have yet to read anything she has written that was not for the loftiest of goals.
@ Willard and Joshua
For goodness sake! You have just made her point for her! The examples you posted are excellent at demonstrating exactly that she advocates for “honesty and integrity in science”.
What you need to find examples of – if you can – is where Judith has advocated for a particular policy response. I think the best you could really do is show how she has tried to advocate against policy responses that don’t take into account the uncertainty underlying the science. I think that’s about as close as it gets.
> advocating for honesty and integrity means
Just about anything. As the Editor says:
***
Another tidbit:
http://judithcurry.com/2015/05/06/is-federal-funding-biasing-climate-research/
INTEGRITY ™ – Please Remind Me
But Willard, don’t you know, calling for for politicised science is the height of ethical advocacy.
> I clearly defined what I meant by advocacy,
Why do you blog, Judy, if not to influence decisions within political, economic, and social institutions?
Another tidbit:
http://judithcurry.com/2014/09/21/an-unsettled-climate/
INTEGRITY ™ – It Just Means What I Choose It To Mean
From my about page:
Climate Etc. provides a forum for climate researchers, academics and technical experts from other fields, citizen scientists, and the interested public to engage in a discussion on topics related to climate science and the science-policy interface.
That is why I blog. I hope that my blog will help individuals in political, economic and social institutions understand the complexity of climate science and the surrounding issues.
My interests are issues at the science-policy interface (e.g. uncertainty). I do not advocate for specific policies for many reasons, notably because I don’t have any particular preference or wisdom in this regard.
Read Pielke Jr’s book, and try to understand the difference between honest broker and advocate. The paragraph you pulled pretty much defines honest broker
agnostic –
This will never be resolved. I think that Judith’s distinctions and definitions w/r/t advocacy are highly subjective and obviously self-serving.
IMO, she clearly advocates for adaptation vs. mitigation just as other scientists advocate for mitigation vs. adaptation. She testifies before Congress at the behest of politicians, for god’s sake. And yes, in her testimony she selectively addresses uncertainty which is, IMO, the most problematic form of advocacy.
But I have no problem, whatsoever, with her being an advocate. Advocacy is a fundamental right and a key component of our society. My criticism is that the fact of advocacy should not be used as a bludgeon in the climate wars to advance partisan agendas. That problematizes advocacy in a way that I feel is counterproductive.
curryja wrote:
“Nope. I clearly defined what I meant by advocacy, and my recent statements on those subjects are not advocacy.”
What a joke. You spent at least half a weekend advocating for adaptation. Have the guts to admit it, or else I’ll have to dig up the links.
If you think you’re the only one not advocating, you are blind, and seriously need to take a deeper look at yourself.
Now, go ahead and snuff out this comment, like you do many of my others.
@David and Joshua
Advocacy becomes a problem when scientists advocate for a solution the premise of which bias’s their research.
I am honestly stupefied that you both cannot see that. Judith has repeatedly “advocated” against that – because this is a misuse of scientific authority. If an advocate scientists says “we must do X because Y” and then Judy pipes up to say to say “hang on, we don’t know enough about Y to justify X” you are claiming that she is advocating against a policy and therefore a policy advocate.
Guys, that is preposterous.
She is “advocating” for greater integrity with which science informs policy, which implies that certain policy decisions taken without that due diligence and balance are likely to be suspect. There is no way to make that important point without calling into question the process by which some policy is developed.
> Read Pielke Jr’s book, and try to understand the difference between honest broker and advocate.
Brandishing INTEGRITY does not make anyone an honest broker, Judy.
Besides:
http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/2010/07/honest-broker.html
***
> The paragraph you pulled pretty much defines honest broker.
That paragraph defines nothing, and it pretty much goes under stealth advocacy.
Until you can tell me what policy I am allegedly advocating for, this discussion is senseless.
Before we return to something I already did, Judy (hint: Kill the IPCC) it might be nice if you could acknowledge that you can’t be the honest broker you seemed to imply earlier, at least not according to Junior’s own characterization. Even if we could make INTEGRITY ™ as an issue (it looks mostly as self-sealing and thus self-serving branding), you’re an issue advocate, whether you like it or not:
http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/2015/01/five-modes-of-science-engagement.html
In fact, one could go as far as to say that all this INTEGRITY ™ ringtone makes you a stealth advocate.
Underdog bias is a well documented phenomenon.
What public policy does ‘kill the IPCC’ imply? It is an issue of the integrity of science and broken interface between climate science and policy – i.e. the management of climate science. Some might even argue that getting rid of the IPCC would facilitate UNFCCC policies.
> What public policy does ‘kill the IPCC’ imply?
Are you seriously claiming that to put down the IPCC as soon as possible would not be a policy, Judy?
***
> It is an issue of the integrity of science and broken interface between climate science and policy.
You can’t even spell out the issue without injecting your one stance (hint: “broken”) in it. Talk about honest brokerage!
Just about anything can be turned into an INTEGRITY ™ issue. It’s a buzzword that triggers a moral stance that pleases a more conservative audience, who rejoices in moralizing ad homs. To borrow from the latest researcher with whom you collaborate:
http://www.christianpost.com/news/interview-jonathan-haidt-on-social-conservatives-new-atheists-and-civility-in-politics-74984/
Why do you think your post against Mike are the ones with the most hits and comments?
Please own your schtick, Judy.
….for adaptation, for more money to be spent on short range weather forecasting, against mitigation. That is policy advocacy.
You’ve made these points so frequently I’m astonished that you seem to think playing dumb will work.
Blind to the obvious they still insist on telling us all about the invisible. How does that work?
http://www.thenewamerican.com/world-news/europe/item/21592-euro-architect-warns-eu-bosses-against-superstate-by-stealth
Everywhere they look, they see nothing. Where have we heard that before?
Agnostic –
==> “Advocacy becomes a problem when scientists advocate for a solution the premise of which bias’s their research.”
I agree with you that scientists should try to control for how their own biases might affect their work.
That is a separate issue than the question of advocacy. I don’t think that we are well-served when people exploit the important concept of advocacy to push their own agenda. Everyone in this mess is advocating for integrity in science, and I think that her belief that only she and those who agree with her are advocating for integrity is a sign of her failing to control for her biases.
The condition of being an advocate, in and of itself, does not determine whether a scientist is or is not controlling for their biases. And all scientists are advocates for their conclusions and interpretation of the evidence.
Judith is deeply embedded in a politicized debate. As such, she has embedded herself in a discussion of policy. It is blatantly obvious that she is seeking to influence policy outcomes in line with her interpretation of the evidence, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that!
==> “She is “advocating” for greater integrity with which science informs policy, which implies that certain policy decisions taken without that due diligence and balance are likely to be suspect.”
The same could be said for those who she tries to discount by virtue of them being “advocates.” And like with her, those she would discount, and their supporters, see this as an issue of “integrity” in science.
==> “There is no way to make that important point without calling into question the process by which some policy is developed.”
Exactly! She is engaged in the policy discussion, and she advocates a particular position within that.
==> “Underdog bias is a well documented phenomenon.”
Interesting about that, is that Judith is involved with a group that is advocating to prevent us from slipping down into an evolution into a “victim culture.”
Judith –
Although you refuse to accept it, you are effectively advocating for a policy direction related to climate change.
But beyond that, you try to leverage no endorsement of a specific policy as the criterion for determining who is or isn’t an advocate.
You’re affiliated with a group that self-identifies as advocates: the Hererodox Academy. They aren’t advocating for specific policies, yet they are advocates.
PE says it here:
Wrongo. I am discussing a specific type of advocacy, related to public policy. Which policy direction am I advocating for related to climate change? This is all in your mind.
==> “Which policy direction am I advocating for related to climate change? This is all in your mind.”
Every single person who reads this blog knows that you’re advocating for a policy direction that focus on adaptation relative to mitigation.
Do you read week in review? Where I talk about energy technologies?
Can you point to some posts where I advocate adaptation? Do the number of posts related to adaptation exceed the number of posts where energy technologies are mentioned?
Do you see how silly this is?
With all due respect Professor, do you never think it may be a good idea to refrain from feeding blatantly obvious trolls?
Judith –
You are leveraging your scientific prestige to influence policy outcomes.
It’s your right, and I’m glad that you have that opportunity and that right. The alternative would be quite bad.
==> “Do you read week in review? Where I talk about energy technologies?”
I’m not sure what your point is. Do you mean that you post articles that advocate for a variety of policy incentives, without endorsement?
Do you recall a few years ago when I gave ‘climate fast attack plan’ (a mitigation strategy) the CE award for best paper of the year?
The point is that I am not endorsing policies, and certainly not advocating for them!
==> “Can you point to some posts where I advocate adaptation?”
Again, every single person who reads this blog knows that you’re advocating for a policy direction that focus on adaptation relative to mitigation.
Let’s try this a different way. It is my impression that as a highly credential scientist, you are quite clear and quite public and quite vocal in indicaing that you think that policies directed at mitigation are not well-supported by the current state of the science, and that “no regrets” policies that target adaptation are preferable?
Am I wrong in my assessment?
Yes you are wrong. I support robust policy decisions. Energy technology R&D is one example, adaptation to existing hazards is another.
From that thread – a nice example of none are so blind…
This was in response to Fred’s comment that other climate scientists might not react as favorably as you to the fast attack plan.
He says in a discussion of your post and comments about how you like a particular policy, to say that scientists should basically stfu about policy….somehow excluding you from the collective noun of climate scientists.
I don’t think I could come up with a better example to illustrate the self-serving selectivity here about “advocacy.”
> Can you point to some posts where I advocate adaptation?
You’re welcome:
http://judithcurry.com/category/adaptation/
Is this an socratic questioning an example of tactical adaptation?
I support.
You advocate.
They politicised science.
@Willard Joshua and others…
To advocate for a specific policy response based on an established but uncertain and unprove scientific theory is what Judith is advocating against…and advocate for scientific integrity. Because there have been scienticists abusing their position with respect to what science can reliably say and what they think policy should do about it, any objection to that can be construed by yourselves as taking a policy position.
But this is ridiculous.
It is NOT ok for scientists to advocate for specific policy responses, because it presupposes value judgements that may conflict with other values at work in society. For example, scientists may advocate against building a dam because it will impact the breeding habits of the lesser spotted throat warblers prey. This is serious! They may go hungry! How dare you cause the lesser spotted throat warbler harm! But on the other hand it may also improve the habitat of many other scarce creatures and more importantly provide drinking water for drought-stricken third world villagers.
So now you have a conflict of values; on the one hand a potentially serious inconvenience for the lesser spotted throat warbler or dehydration and famine for hundreds of thousands of humans. Since the scientist has made a value judgement in support of the lesser spot throat warbler and against the welfare of thousands of humans, he/she is abusing their position. It is valid only to draw attention to the possible deleterious effect a certain policy might have on the lesser spotted throat warbler, not advocate for their narrow interests.
I have drawn the analogy unfairly for effect, but the principle is valid.
Accusing Judith of policy advocacy because she complains that scientific advice warranting a certain policy outcome doesn’t justify it, is not advocatacy for a specific policy, it is an objection to the process (specifically the scientific advice) on which the policy is based.
Where she “advocates” is that the policy should reflect the uncertainty surrounding the science, not a predetermined conclusion on what it is or isn’t saying. That implies policy decisions that are robust against whatever changes there might be to the climate system, manmade or natural.
It boggles my mind that you think she has said anything else. I can see you all certainly believe that she has. But I also strongly suspect it is because her scientific conclusions about the evidence she has exminaned don’t agree with yours. Ergo, anything she says that undermines your conclusions about climate with respect to policy must mean that she is “advocating”.
Honestly, I find that exasperatingly disingenuous.
agnostic2015: “Honestly, I find that exasperatingly disingenuous.”
The word you are looking for is ‘mendacious’.
And at that, I’m being charitable.
BTW, I love the “more significantly” part. It’s a nice touch.
This one is nice.
”…..without the distraction of thinking that reducing carbon emissions would somehow prevent such extreme events.”
A straw man, of course, (who’s arguing that mitigation would “somehow prevent such extreme events?”), but it’s amusing that you think that isn’t advocacy, from your perch as a highly credentialed scientist that politicians turn to for advice…
So no one’s advocating against mitigation if they say that considering the uncertain impact of mitigation on the frequency or severity of extreme events is a “distraction?”
At any rate, I fully accept that you don’t think that you’re an advocate – despite that even some of your biggest fans acknowledge the subjective nature of how your make that determination. So in that sense, yes, the discussion is silly.
Agnostic –
You make a well-reasoned and reasonable argument (as you often do). It’s unfortunate that you consider my opinion to be disingenuous (let alone exasperatingly so), all I can do is assure you it isn’t. Consider the possibility that my opinion is just different than yours, or based on faulty reasoning, as alternaves.
Even if I grant you that Judith doesn’t advocate for policies (which I think is a stretch), I think it is clear that she lends her scientific weight to towards having a differential influence on the direction of policy outcomes by advocating against policies. In an inherently politicized topic such as climate change, no one can have as high a profile as Judith and then try to claim that they are not an advocate, IMO.
==> “…and advocate for scientific integrity. ”
I think that Judith’s distinguishing her advocacy by saying that she’s advocating for integrity is self-serving. Everyone engaged here is advocating for their view of science with integrity. Virtually everyone here thinks that those who advocate for different scientific interpretations than theirs are not upholding integrity in science. I think that both of those positions fail to account for identity protective cognition, motivated reasoning, etc.
==> “Because there have been scienticists abusing their position with respect to what science can reliably say”
I will not defend any scientists who misrepresent the reliability of science. But again, I think that is a separate issue than the fact of advocacy in and of itself.
.
==> “It is NOT ok for scientists to advocate for specific policy responses, because it presupposes value judgements that may conflict with other values at work in society.”
I am not convinced by that argument. Judith’s positions, that she clearly states publically and uses to try to influence policy outcomes, also rest on her value judgements at work in society.
==> “Where she “advocates” is that the policy should reflect the uncertainty surrounding the science, not a predetermined conclusion on what it is or isn’t saying.”
Those that she accuses of irresponsible advocacy advocate for the same thing. They disagree with her about the interpretation of the uncertainty.
==> “That implies policy decisions that are robust against whatever changes there might be to the climate system, manmade or natural.”
In such,, she is making a distinct conclusion about policy hierarchies, which is certainly her right.
==> “But I also strongly suspect it is because her scientific conclusions about the evidence she has exminaned don’t agree with yours. Ergo, anything she says that undermines your conclusions about climate with respect to policy must mean that she is “advocating”.”
Always possible, Agnostic. We are all vulnerable to motivated reasoning in these discussions. I just wish that more people were not convinced that there is some disproportionality in its manifestation, in association with views on climate change.
OK. Dead horses and beating and all.
Agnostic,
it boggles my mind that Judith, yourself and others believe that her arguing for what she judges to be a “robust policy” is any different in principle to other scientists arguing there is a robust case for strong mitigation policies.
Then you all have the gall to criticise their scientific ethics!
Honestly, I find that exasperatingly disingenuous.
VTG,
I find your comment exasperatingly disingenuous. The relevant facts are that there is no persuasive case that we should waste any money on mitigating GHG emissions. There simply is no substantial case that justifies the massive amount of money (purportedly $1.5 trillion per year on the ‘climate industry’) we are wasting on climate science and policies to fix the climate. Here are some relevant facts – note points 6-10 are the most critical:
Policy relevant facts on climate change:
1. Climate change does not change in smooth curves as the climate modelers’ would have you believe. It changes abruptly. Always has and always will.
http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=10136&page=1 ,
http://web.vims.edu/sms/Courses/ms501_2000/Broecker1995.pdf
2. Life thrives when the planet is warmer and struggles when colder. It thrives during warming periods and struggles during cooling. See Figure 15.21 here: http://eprints.maynoothuniversity.ie/1983/1/McCarron.pdf . Note that the climate warmed from near glacial temperatures to near current temperatures in 7 years 14,600 years ago and in 9 years, 11,600 years ago. And guess what? Life loved the rapid warming periods. Life burst out and thrived.
3. For 75% of the last half billion years – the period when animal life has thrived – there has been no ice caps at either pole http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch6s6-3.html . We are currently in a cold-house phase. It strains credulity to argue that 1% warming (i.e. 3K/273K) will be catastrophic when we won’t get anywhere near the global average temperatures of the previous warm times.
4. The planet has been cooling for the past 50 million years and we are currently in only the third cold-house phase in the past half billion years.
5. We won’t get out of the current cold-house phase until plate tectonics movements reopen a path for global ocean circulation around the equatorial regions http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/Carboniferous_climate.html .
6. Warming and increased CO2 concentration in the atmosphere has been a major benefit to life and to humanity for the past 200 years. It strains credulity to accept the increased plant productivity that this positive trend is delivering will suddenly change and turn negative.
7. Despite 25 years of climate research and spending reportedly $1.5 trillion per year on the ‘Climate Industry’ http://www.insurancejournal.com/news/national/2015/07/30/377086.htm , we have only a very poor understanding of the damage function. In fact, most people who blabber on about ‘climate science’ and call those who do not accept their interpretations of the relevant facts “climate deniers” haven’t even heard of the damage function, let alone able to define it and quantify it.
8. According to the most widely accept Integrated Assessment Model (IAM) for projecting future climate damages, abatement costs, social cost of carbon, net-cost benefit of proposed policies, the abatement policies that have a net cost – irrespective of any climate considerations – would be a net cost, not a net benefit for all this century. See the chart here:
http://catallaxyfiles.com/files/2014/10/Lang-3.jpg
explanation here: http://catallaxyfiles.com/2014/10/27/cross-post-peter-lang-why-the-world-will-not-agree-to-pricing-carbon-ii/
9. Figure 3 in http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10584-012-0613-3 (free access to earlier version here: http://www.copenhagenconsensus.com/sites/default/files/climate_change.pdf ) shows that global warming projected by the climate modelers would be net beneficial for most of this century. The only component that becomes a significant net cost, late in the century, is energy. This cost is based on the assumption that energy costs must rise as GHG mitigation policies force us to move to renewables. However, we won’t move to renewables (because they cannot provide the energy the world needs). We’ll move to cheap nuclear power. With cheap energy and all other parameters summing to be a significantly net-beneficial any GW that does occur would be net beneficial to well beyond this century. (Professor Richard Tol – has been a recognised world leader in estimating the damage effects of climate change for 25 years or so.)
10. What is needed to support rational policy analysis are probability distributions for:
a. time to next abrupt climate change
b. direction of next abrupt climate change (i.e. warming or cooling)
c. duration of next abrupt climate change
d. total amount of change
e. damage function (i.e. net economic cost per degree of warning or cooling)
It is concerning that we’ve spent 25 years on climate research (and are spending some $1.5 trillion per year on policies justified on the basis of CAGW) to get to the point we are at now where we know little that is relevant for rational policy analysis.
I am a libertarian and am an advocate for liberty. Most politicians are advocates for jobs. Who isn’t? I am an extremist while most politicians are boringly predictable. The advocacy label more easily sticks to me as I am not in the middle of the left/right spectrum. Advocating for adaptation is a middle ground approach while mitigation is what I’ll call a principle based extreme. They are in the same boat as the libertarians. The moderate approach is adaptation. Who isn’t for adaptation? Principled extremists. I am saying extremism equals advocate. Moderation does not. This is an oversimplification of course. Who isn’t for storm surge protection? The problem is we know how to do it well and it’s boring. New things like renewables while packaged as something else are extreme, if they don’t make economic sense and are not reliable. If they cause grid problems.
Joshua: “I think that Judith’s distinguishing her advocacy by saying that she’s advocating for integrity is self-serving.”
Self-serving? How is it self-serving in anything other than broad sense in which it can be said any thing is “self-serving”. You are impugning motives without any justification I can see.
Other scientists she is calling out as “irresponsible advocates” are irresponsible because they play down the uncertainties and inconsistencies in the science. THAT is irresponsible. Suppose (as seems increasingly likely) the scientific advice they have been giving IS wrong? Suppose just for a second that we could switch from fossil fuels over night and suck out all the extra CO2 in a week.
The way the advocate scientists have framed the problem it would look to policy makers as if that would solve all our problems. The sea levels would stop rising, the glaciers would stop melting and our climate would “stabilise” and return to “normal”. We need never fear extreme weather again.
Can you guys really not appreciate that advocating an unproven hypothesis is dangerous?
So Judith and Pielke’s and others say; “hang on we don’t know for sure that this theory is correct, and here is the evidence that suggests it might not be. It might be predominantly natural changes to climate. These changes may well happen anyway, whether we change how we produce our energy or not, and it makes sense to be prepared for that as well.”
Instead, anyone speaking up against policies that assume that one single theory is correct, ie manmade warming, are labelled heretics and deniers! By other scientists! That is most definitely unethical and irresponsible!
VTG: “it boggles my mind that Judith, yourself and others believe that her arguing for what she judges to be a “robust policy” is any different in principle to other scientists arguing there is a robust case for strong mitigation policies.”
Well our minds will have to boggle at each other, because it is crystal clear to me that there is a very major difference. If you overstate your confidence, if you withhold contradictory evidence, if you play down the uncertainties, if you put all your gold in one boat, and you’re WRONG, you are going to make costly, unnecessary and ineffective policy decisions.
All Judith does really is push back against this overconfidence and when she talks about killing the IPCC it is precisely for those reasons. The IPCC entire existence is the result of framing the problem the wrong way; ie by examining narrowly on one type of climate influence. It is an exercise in confirmation bias, particularly and most acutely at the point where science and policy meet.
But since you guys reject that there is any doubt with the science itself, that it is in effect “settled”, you see no reason to proceed as if there was any need to question it further or hedge your bets, and that any resistance is politically motivated….or “self-serving” (whatever at is supposed to mean). You are guilty of the same kind of faulty reasoning as the scientists advocating policy responses to their pet theory.
I’ve never read anything of Judith’s other than for more honesty and integrity.
> How is it self-serving in anything other than broad sense in which it can be said any thing is “self-serving”.
No everything are (a) self-sealing, (b) self-aggrandizing, (c) vacuously grand-standing, (d) moralistic to the point of being preachy, and (e) inoperative in any other context than political warfare.
***
> You are impugning motives without any justification I can see.
Not at all. The INTEGRITY ™ branding effort is self-serving whatever her motives.
It’s not that complicated.
@Willard
“Not at all. The INTEGRITY ™ branding effort is self-serving whatever her motives.”
So you assert with absolutely no argument or evidence to support it!
Suppose you were a scientist concerned that other scientists are overstating their findings. Suppose they were telling policy makers to outlaw hats because their was a correlation with hat wearing and dementia.
What if the conclusions became a popular meme and anyone who disagreed was pilloried and derided as being in the pay of big-hat manufacturers?
If you were to stand up and say that advocating for the abolition of hats is an abuse of scientific authority when the evidence in support of such a policy is unclear, what would that look like?
If you are concerned that scientists are advocating for specific policy – ie specifically fossil fuel mitigation (or hat mitigation) when the evidence they are producing does not include other factors, the uncertainties, the contradictory evidence etc, then how would you go about changing that?
What would it look like?
To me, it looks like what Judith does with that blog and the presentations she makes to policy makers and comments she makes in the media. She doesn’t say “I think we should do this and that” she says things like “we should frame problem in this way or that”. She doesn’t say whether we she build more levies and sea walls, or move the cities inland, she says we should prepare for a range of possibilties, how you do that is up to policy makers.
But because you don’t like the questioning of a theory you agree with, any push back against it is characterised as “self-aggrandisement”.
It’s patently absurd.
What else would you have a scientist in Judith’s position do? Just sit on their hands on shut up? That doesn’t sound like integrity to me.
agnostic:
==> “Self-serving? How is it self-serving in anything other than broad sense in which it can be said any thing is “self-serving”. You are impugning motives without any justification I can see.”
Not sure where to go with this. It has often happened in these threads that “skeptics” have said that I am impugning Judith’s motives when in fact I’m not. I don’t doubt her motives as being commendable: to advance science, to reach a clearer understanding of the evidence, to give the public a clearer understanding of the evidence, etc. But we all have other drives as well, to be right, to confirm biases, to protect identifications, and sometimes those drives influence where our motives take us. So I question Judith’s reasoning and logic and arguments at times. That doesn’t mean that I’m impugning her motives. Now some “skeptics” have argued that they know better than I what it is that I think and believe, and if you fall into that category, then there’s not much left for me to say. But on the chance that you don’t fall into that category..
What I mean by self-serving is largely captured in willard’s comment. I mean self-reinforcing, or circular. And I mean arbitrary, in the sense of being subjective. I have repeatedly spoken about the subjectivity with how terms like “advocate” are being used in such a way as to allow no other outcomes than to confirm biases. As I said, if Judith excludes her activities from “advocacy” on the basis of her calling for more integrity in how uncertainty is treated, then her argument fails, IMO, because those scientists that she impugns as being “irresponsible advocates” likewise call for an accurate treatment of uncertainty. The difference isn’t in whether they are advocating for accurate treatment of uncertainty, but in their scientific quantification of the uncertainty. That isn’t to say that I don’t think some “realist” scientists underestimate uncertainty. Although I don’t have the technical chops or the brains to evaluate specific examples, I firmly believe that a tendency to underestimate uncertainty is pretty much hardwired into our cognitive processes and psychology. But along those lines, I see many “skeptics” here and Judith herself underestimate uncertainty many, many times (on issues that don’t require technical chops or a lot of brains to evaluate). So I don’t accept this cleavage between Judith’s advocacy and that of others on the basis of the criteria that she puts forth. And keep in mind that Judith’s own determination of what is and isn’t acceptable advocacy has been a moving target.
IMO, Judith seeks to influence policy outcomes through her very public input as a scientific expert. Now she has recently indicated that my impression of what she is advocating for is flawed, and quite frankly I’m stymied by that. Given that I do trust her motivations, and I don’t think that she would lie about her beliefs (or that I know better what her beliefs are than she knows), I’ll have to give that some thought. I find it hard to reconcile her indication that she doesn’t preferentially support adaptation-oriented policies to mitigation-oriented policies (at least that’s how I interpreted what she said) with what I’ve read in her posts…so I need to give that some thought. The explanation could certainly lie in my own confirmation biases, no doubt.
This comment is getting long, and I have no idea whether Judith will pass it through moderation, so before wasting even more time (not that even if it does get posted it will mean that my time wasn’t wasted – why do any of us do any of this?)… so I’ll respond to the rest of your comment briefly.
==> “Can you guys really not appreciate that advocating an unproven hypothesis is dangerous?,”
I have repeatedly indicated that I appreciate that. On the other hand, I think that discounting uncertainty runs both ways in this debate, and that there is also risk in denouncing advocacy for examining unproven, probalistic analyses of risk.
Agnostic,
your argument seems to amount to it being OK for Judith to advocate for anything defined as “moderate”, but not OK for other scientists to advocate for anything defined as “extreme”.
As to who defines what is extreme or moderate, that seems to be… you!
Your position is patently absurd, the more so as Judith, at least as far as climatologists are concerned, appears to have really quite extreme opinions.
As to your question as to what I’d have Judith do? Advocate to her hearts content and give up the whining and insulting of others who advocate different positions.
Please stop the histrionics, verytrollguy. Our little willy, the clown who shall remain nameless and the other resident trolls have that covered. You are redundant.
> So you assert with absolutely no argument or evidence to support it!
I just did, Agnostic. There is no need to probe anyone’s motivation to say that promoting one’s position using the INTEGRITY ™ in a political warfare is self-sealing, self-aggrandizing, vacuously grand-standing, and moralistic to the point of being preachy.
Look. It’s very noble of you to play the Red Shirt of this episode, but really, there’s no need. Everyone’s for INTEGRITY ™, just like everyone’s for GOOD SCIENCE ™. This is just boring in-group/out-group schoolyard crap.
VTG: “your argument seems to amount to it being OK for Judith to advocate for anything defined as “moderate”, but not OK for other scientists to advocate for anything defined as “extreme”.
As to who defines what is extreme or moderate, that seems to be… you!”
No it has nothing to do with “extreme” or “moderate”. It has to do with what science can and can’t say about things. And it also has nothing to do with what ever I define as anything, which as much a non-sequitur as it’s possible to get.
Normally science can observe things, form theories about how they work, and then make predictions to test the theory. The objection has been all along that you can’t overstate what you know. Policy based on incomplete or overstated theories is likely to be ineffective or counter productive.
This has NOTHING whatsoever to do with moderate or extreme positions but norms of science.
It’s perfectly valid of you or a scientist to be highly convinced by a theory. You see evidence fitting the theory extremely well and it convinces you. What is NOT valid is to proclaim that to be “the truth” and tell policy makers such even though you know full well not everyone agrees and that there is evidence pointing the other way (however much it doesn’t convince you).
Willard:
“I just did, Agnostic.”
No, you didn’t.
“There is no need to probe anyone’s motivation to say that promoting one’s position using the INTEGRITY ™ in a political warfare is self-sealing, self-aggrandizing, vacuously grand-standing, and moralistic to the point of being preachy.”
All of which is you making subjective value judgements and not presenting any evidence. The quotes you picked out earlier in this thread support Judith’s argument, not your own. She doesn’t advocate for policy but for scientific norms to be upheld at the science/policy junction.
“Look. It’s very noble of you to play the Red Shirt of this episode, but really, there’s no need. Everyone’s for INTEGRITY ™, just like everyone’s for GOOD SCIENCE ™. This is just boring in-group/out-group schoolyard crap.”
No, that’s not true either. It might be true for you in the context of US politics but it really isn’t true around the world.
An example: some time ago the UK government asked some scientists to do an assessment on the dangers of recreational drugs. Unfortunately for the politicians, the results were not politically comfortable. For example, they pointed out that deaths or accidents from ecstasy were stastistically rare. You are actually more likely to die from horse riding or scuba diving than from taking ecstasy.
This caused a lot of heartache politically, and as a result the senior government scientist was sacked. Regardless of the moral position on the use of recreational drugs, the scientists did what scientists should and honestly reported the facts. What politicians did with that was entirely up to them. They did not ban horse riding or legalise ecstasy.
It has to be clear to politicians who have to devise policy for how we go about our lives, that not everyone agrees that global warming is entirely manmade, or even dangerous. YOU may not agree, Michael Mann and Kevin Trenberth and James Hansen, may not agree, but that does not mean that policy makers should not be made aware of the disagreements, and that policy should not be shaped to account for the uncertainties.
You can glibly say that of course everyone is “into” scientific integrity, but it’s not enough to SAY you are, you actually have to DO it, and those scientists NOT observing scientific norms should be called out. That is not self-aggrandisement it is walking the walk.
Well, agnostic, “extreme” and “moderate were your words, not mine. Now you seem to have changed tack and it’s about the “norms of Science”.
So, even assuming those norms are universally agreed, who gets to decide who is or is not conforming to them? You think Judith is in line with them and others are not, but many others profoundly disagree with that.
So we’re back full circle: your position is that you should decide who should advocate and who shouldn’t. Which is at least simple, and consistent with Judith, I suppose.
> She doesn’t say “I think we should do this and that” […]
Of course she does:
http://judithcurry.com/2013/09/28/ipcc-diagnosis-permanent-paradigm-paralysis/
It even connects the moralistic framing with a pseudo-medical diagnostic to please the crowd.
Not that she absolutely needs to say the words “we should” to issue prescriptions based on her INTEGRITY ™ brand.
***
> No you didn’t.
Of course I did make an argument that doesn’t imply any mind probing, Agnostic. Reading it should be enough to see that. You should concentrate on your dudeist “that’s your opinion, man” instead of arguing by assertion.
***
> [I]t is walking the walk.
Res ipsa loquitur.Pray tell me which Judy’s actions caution her INTEGRITY ™ branding, Agnostic. If you could tell me how, that would be great. I’ve never really understood personality cults.
Jesus, willard… it’s Sunday.
Joshua, among other issues, they did not survey statisticians. Read the abominable paper, or at least the abstract. They surveyed people they presumed had some knowledge of statistics. And, we know they pretended the data was not GMAT. But we do not know what questions were actually asked of the 200 respondents, which of course can subtly bias responses. Lew in particular has a documented record of such fudges.
Your concern about ‘purity’ skipped over a couple of vital and very polluted elements.
Rud –
==> “Joshua, among other issues, they did not survey statisticians. ”
Yes, fair point. They surveyed economists, who presumably have some expertise in statistics. However, it does seem a bit curious that experts in statistics wouldn’t sniff something odd about the data supposed to be about trends in agriculture.
==> “But we do not know what questions were actually asked of the 200 respondents, ”
Did you see this?
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/BAMS-D-14-00106.1
OMG! “Participants were shown the GMST data through 2010, but presented as “world agricultural output”
LO freaking L! Now what would economists think would happen with “world agricultural output”, as the population exploded?
for one thing they looked at shortened data series: only until 2010.
cutting off 33% of a purported pause is pretty lame.
Why do they even use data when they have plane tickets to give away for a good fat tale you want to tell about here or there?
http://www.investigatemagazine.co.nz/Investigate/17255/un-and-oxfam-caught-bribing-journalists-to-write-climate-change-scare-stories/
You don’t even have to ask, just do it.
attacking motives and agendas and such stuff is easy skepticism.
arm chair skepticism.
not scientific skepticism
That’s problematic.
It would be interesting to see a “skeptic” conduct a similar study with an enlarged data series to see if that changes the results…but what are the chances of that happening?
Of course, if “skeptics” were to do that, they’d better do it pretty soon….given the recent trend in GMATs.
Please consider what I am being paid. Most of your ‘science’ is fiction anyway(2035…). We need to pay close attention to the scientists of today or how will anyone smart be able to retire comfortably tomorrow? Tax the world for this dun heap is wrong. You are smart enough to see it too.
“arm chair skepticism”
It’s also easy to draw a squiggly line and then declare on Climate Etc. that people are making the earth warmer.
Leftist Brain Dead Warmerism.
Andrew
“Please consider what I am being paid.”
Ok: I see I am getting my money’s worth.
Most of your ‘science’ is fiction anyway(2035…).
Observational science, take the temperature record or the paleo record,
covers the PAST, sometimes millions of years.
As for predictions… consider F=MA..that holds forever
(under certain circumstances ) the science or predictions about the future are all fiction.. later we see if they are true fiction or scare stories
“We need to pay close attention to the scientists of today or how will anyone smart be able to retire comfortably tomorrow? ”
1. People retired confortably in the past giving no care to science.
2. Not sure science has anything to do with your retirement, but
go ahead an show that scientifically,
“Tax the world for this dun heap is wrong. You are smart enough to see it too.”
who said anything about Taxes.. that’s an option. not the only one
Nice head, fake too. You know you don’t have facts. You don’t even like the ‘… get real.
Arch.
Do you see what you are doing.
1. Judith thinks the study is bad
2. Joshua wants to know why
3. I explain that they only showed the statisticians 66% of the data
(thats real facts)
4. Rud points out that they may not be ‘real’ statisticians
And you throw in CRAPPY skeptical insinuations.
so now the conversation is derailed into crappy arguments.
If you dont have a good argument , dont steal focus from better arguments just to see your name appear in blue
Steven, in Nov. 2009, I made a decision. Your side lost it and you were not required to even be there. You know the real agenda at work and it is all about control. If you have not been reading the current world news COP 21 will leave the station soon without the public. Guess where that leaves us all?
“If you dont have a good argument , dont steal focus from better arguments just to see your name appear in blue”
That was good. Thank you for the laugh.
J*shua
“It would be interesting to see a “skeptic” conduct a similar study with an enlarged data series to see if that changes the results…but what are the chances of that happening?”
I find that odd. it would be interesting for ANYONE to do the study.
But why wont they?
1. Surveying statisticians is foolish
2. If you dont believe in a pause why would you question data that
supports your view.. confirming their results is NON PUBLISHABLE.
3. if you do believe in the pause a survey from statisticans won’t change your viewpoint.
Of course, if “skeptics” were to do that, they’d better do it pretty soon….given the recent trend in GMATs.
can you imagine the outrage 5 years from now if monkton did a survey on 2015 data? I can.
Quite simply, They did not conduct a proper survey. case closed.
You’d say the same were the foot on the other show
steven –
==> “1. Surveying statisticians is foolish”
Well, I’ve never said I wasn’t foolish, but as someone who doesn’t understand the statistics myself, it’s useful although not dispositive, to know the balance of expert opinion. Obviously, the Barton and Whitfield and Wegman and everyone on their team agrees with me.
==> “can you imagine the outrage 5 years from now if monkton did a survey on 2015 data? I can.”
I don’t govern my beliefs about some hypothetical outrage that some people might theoretically have at some point in the future. I couldn’t care less, actually. It’s irrelevant.
A survey of expert opinion on the time series is useful. A survey of expert opinion of a truncated time series is less useful than a survey of expert opinion on the entire time series.
J*shua
“A survey of expert opinion on the time series is useful. A survey of expert opinion of a truncated time series is less useful than a survey of expert opinion on the entire time series.”
except they didn’t do that. They surveyed people who purported to have at minimum an MA in statistics.
last time Lew did this he screwed it up as well.
bottom line and “expert” who answered the question wasn’t acting like an expert. The basically asked them to perform a non expert behavior.
Sadly people complied which has more to do with their subjects desire to please a researcher.
steven –
The low bar, and lack of specificity, for how they determined “expertise” doesn’t speak well for the paper.
That said, I find it amusing that on the one hand you think that surveying statisticians if foolish (even though it is a commonly accepted practice and one that such luminaries in the “skeptic” world such as Wegman have been involved in), but on the other hand you think that their study is invalidated because they didn’t have sufficiently high enough bar for determining expertise.
Reminds me of those who say that evaluating the prevalence of expert opinion among climate science experts is both irrelevant and anti-science, but who then spend heaps o’ time in endless blogospheric electron frenzies arguing about the precise quantification of the prevalence of expert opinion.
Or of those who say that they don’t doubt that the Earth is warming and that ACO2 contributes at least somewhat to that warming, but systematically argue that any metrics for measuring temp change over time are invalid, and then top it off by saying that global warming has paused.
There’s an old joke about lying – to paraphrase:
One guy confronts another about the money the first lent to the second. The borrower says:
1. I never borrowed that money from you, and
2. It wasn’t $100, it was only $50, and
3. Besides, I already paid you back.
Here we have the logic of the climate change consensus.
National weather forecast: excessive hiatus across the western U.S. will continue with widespread hiatus moving into the NE…
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NOAA just posted today, saying the first 8 months of this year are the warmest globally on record. They show a graph going back to 1880. 2/3rd of the earth is covered by oceans. How did anybody record temperatures over oceans a century or more ago? How accurate could any reporting be? In other word, how can NOAA even have a clue about global temperatures before the satellite era?
They often recorded the temperature of the ocean, not over it, using a bucket and a long rope. Not accurate at all, but since the errors are unknowable they are simply ignored, because the warmers like the result. This is the core fallacy of AGW.
I don’t know where NOAA keeps their error bars, but HadCRUT’s monthly error bars are right on their data page.
Those are statistical error bars, David, based solely on the variance. They have nothing to do with measurement error, which is probably large.(They are also treating ship based measurements, taken in different places, by different instruments, as though they were taken in the same place.)
Moreover, they are statistically bogus, for several reasons. First, they are using area averaging and there is no way to compute confidence intervals under area averaging. I imagine they are treating the grid cell averages as measurements, which is statistical nonsense. The global averages are averages of averages. Second, this is a convenience sample, while statistical sampling theory requires a random sample to estimate error, because that estimate is based on probability theory. In short those error bars are both way too small and meaningless, an interesting trick.
No, they include both measurements errors and statistical variances:
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcrut4/data/current/series_format.html
The UK group does a reasonably careful job of addressing errors, however here is what they miss. The size of the adjustments (at individual locations) matters, and should be included as part of the uncertainty.
I’m not sure you could get a statistically valid sample from ships because ships alter their courses to avoid bad weather. It’s not quite as bad as a weather monitor only collecting weather data when it’s not raining so they don’t get wet, but it’s bound to have some effect on the results.
Not all errors are quantifiable either.
Just to hack further into this issue, almost all ships ply trade routes to justify their existance. Those SST measurements are not random samples. Highly biased. Heck, Lord Nelson knew enough to sail south chasing the French from the Mediterranean to the Carribean, and north going back home. So the westerly was biased by tropics, and the easterly by the Gulf Stream.woild have anown anomalous warming. Except Nelson was not measuring SST. He was chasing the French fleet prior to the battle of Trafalger. Good history book, btw.
“Just to hack further into this issue, almost all ships ply trade routes to justify their existance. Those SST measurements are not random samples. Highly biased. ”
To assert they are biased you would have to make a comparison between the sampled and the unsampled.
There is a potential for Bias.
The way the problem can be address is rather simple.
You have historical ship routes. You have total satellite coverage
ffor over 30 years. you check the estimate you get for global using the
“biased” ship routes against the estimate you get using satellite only.
What you’ll find is that the fears of bias are largely misplaced.
Its good to have the concern about bias, but stopping there isnt science.
stopping there is just mere skepticism.
who knows maybe the temperature changed everywhere when we were not looking
But the SST’s are related to wind (they are not completely independent variables) and captains used to pick their courses (deviations from the optimal route) based on those winds. So depending on how sailing captains behaved, you could have a situation that oversampled certain types of weather patterns, such as the edges of particular kinds of fronts, whereas steam captains would be sampling more evenly.
“But the SST’s are related to wind (they are not completely independent variables) and captains used to pick their courses (deviations from the optimal route) based on those winds. So depending on how sailing captains behaved, you could have a situation that oversampled certain types of weather patterns, such as the edges of particular kinds of fronts, whereas steam captains would be sampling more evenly.”
That is why
A) recorded wind is used as an adjustment factor
B) morning temperatures are used.
Its NOT enough to point out their MIGHT be a bias. heck, their might be unicorns re writing the logs and we would never know. You have to
show the bias.
We took a look at the problem and yes the recorded wind at the time influences the temperature recorded. It might be that the adjustment for this is wrong. However, if you remove all adjustments you WARM he record. so the RAW data shows MORE warming.
.
“how can NOAA even have a clue about global temperatures before the satellite era?”
By expert guess and expert golly.
“In other word, how can NOAA even have a clue about global temperatures before the satellite era?”
Satellites don’t measure surface temperatures.
In fact, satellites don’t measure temperatures at all.
NOAA uses a long-established global network of weather stations. It’s like you going to your backyard and recording a therometer’s reading, a few times a day.
“In fact, satellites don’t measure temperatures at all.”
Neither do thermometers.
“How did anybody record temperatures over oceans a century or more ago? How accurate could any reporting be? In other word, how can NOAA even have a clue about global temperatures before the satellite era?
1. With a variety of methods. measuring a bucket of water dragged on board.
2. Accuracy? less important than you think when it comes to measuring
trends. What matters more is changes in observation practice.
3. how can we have a clue? easy. look at the records.
Steven Mosher wrote:
“2. Accuracy? less important than you think when it comes to measuring
trends. What matters more is changes in observation practice.”
Agreed — if you only wanted to compare temperatures over the bucket-measuring era.
But NOAA et al are comparing temps taken now to temps taken then during the bucket-measuring era. How do just trends suffice for that?
david.
read his question.
Have no clue where this reply will end in the thread. But Mosher, if as you admit do not know sampling, how the heck can you say what you said? About sampling.
Its simple Rud.
Think.
start here
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/2011JCLI3941.1
then here
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/img/climate/research/sst/ersst.pdf
when you find the problem, publish. You’ll be a rock star.
curryja wrote:
“The UK group does a reasonably careful job of addressing errors, however here is what they miss. The size of the adjustments (at individual locations) matters, and should be included as part of the uncertainty.”
I responded to this — Judith, you blocked my comment.
What are you so afraid of, Judity? You’re a professional climate scientist. I’m a freelance writer.
Why are you so afraid of so many of my comments that you have to block them? It makes you look like you lack confidence.
(I suspect you’ll block this comment as well.)
You are writing too many comments. I don’t allow individuals to hijack threads. Make fewer comments, and make them count.
“To assess the claim that global warming has stopped, Lewandowsky (2011) presented naıve participants with a graph of the historical temperature record, which either identified the data as global temperatures or as a fictitious share price. Figure 2 shows the results of Lewandowsky (2011) for the condition in which the data were identified as global temperatures. Respondents clearly did not perceive a pause or hiatus in the GMST data.”
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ahahahahaha a!
I clearly see Oreskes has been busy.
“Hi. I’m the really famous climate scientist on campus and I’d like you to look at this graph of, um, stock prices.”
Why that campus gets no more $ from me.
In this new paper Lewandowsky presented the GISTEMP temperature data labeled as “global agricultural output” and tested the statement about a pause since 1998 with economists. The majority of participants ranged from disagreeing, to thinking it was overconfident or just fraudulent to claim a pause from that data.
The big problem is that economists would know what a graph of global agricultural output looks like. It slopes up, dramatically and pretty smoothly. It even slopes up dramatically on a per-capita basis. So the first reaction of any economist would have to be “This graph is totally unrelated to global agricultural anything.”
And to think Fermat spent all that time scribbling a proof in his margin, what a waste! He could have just presented a bunch of economists with the theorem and asked their opinion.
When you think about the drain this scrutinizing logical approach to science has been on Western progress it is staggering. If the voting approach had been used we could have made it to the moon at the very least in the 1700’s.
Shucks.
Judy:
After your, “I am most definitely not in favor of advocate historians and psychologists making proclamations about topics in climate science where they seem to have little understanding.” I would love to hear what you really think of Oreskes and Lewandowsky.
“Advocate historian” will leave a mark like the bad tattoo of an old flame, who turns out to be a serial killer. Love it.
I think Rajaratnam et al and Lewandowsky et may be making the same argument. After all, the present hiatus is (as of now) smaller than the mid-20th century one. If so then both are missing the point, which is that neither hiatus has been explained, but Rajaratnam et al are missing the point rigorously.
The flurry of new papers, many being reanalysis of old data, disclaiming the hiatus is no surprise. This follows the paper earlier in the summer by Karl et.al. (NOAA), “Possible Artifacts of Data Biases in the Recent Global Surface Warming Hiatus” (Science Express June 4, 2015) which restates the previous historical data to adjust / remove the hiatus … said to be addressing an artifact of the satellite coverage that started around 30 years ago … concluding that “…the new (revised) global trends are (now) higher than reported by the IPCC, especially in recent decades.” The attention given to this hiatus thing and effort to discount and negate it indicates that the consensus is deeply worried about this thing. My question is – if the results are adjusted by making adjustments to the original data and to the models to give the desired answer, what is our confidence in this whole story line … and shouldn’t we be also elevating the discussion on the underlying “uncertainty” of what we say we “know” versus what we say is “fact” or “true.” If they have to make adjustments one time then surely they will have to continue to make adjustments as new information comes out. Or as Robert Burns would put it:
.
But Mousie, thou are no thy-lane,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men,
Gang aft agley,
An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,
For promis’d joy!
.
Still, thou art blest, compar’d wi’ me!
The present only toucheth thee:
But Och! I backward cast my e’e,
On prospects drear!
An’ forward, tho’ I canna see,
I guess an’ fear!
Hi Judy – As you requested, here are several of our papers that discuss issues with the land temperature analyses with respect to multi-decadal trends. The dependence of the trends on height is an important issue that has not been properly recognized.
Pielke Sr., R.A., C. Davey, D. Niyogi, S. Fall, J. Steinweg-Woods, K. Hubbard, X. Lin, M. Cai, Y.-K. Lim, H. Li, J. Nielsen-Gammon, K. Gallo, R. Hale, R. Mahmood, S. Foster, R.T. McNider, and P. Blanken, 2007: Unresolved issues with the assessment of multi-decadal global land surface temperature trends. J. Geophys. Res., 112, D24S08, doi:10.1029/2006JD008229.http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/files/2009/10/r-321.pdf
Klotzbach, P.J., R.A. Pielke Sr., R.A. Pielke Jr., J.R. Christy, and R.T. McNider, 2009: An alternative explanation for differential temperature trends at the surface and in the lower troposphere. J. Geophys. Res., 114, D21102, doi:10.1029/2009JD011841. http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/files/2009/11/r-345.pdf
Klotzbach, P.J., R.A. Pielke Sr., R.A. Pielke Jr., J.R. Christy, and R.T. McNider, 2010: Correction to: “An alternative explanation for differential temperature trends at the surface and in the lower troposphere. J. Geophys. Res., 114, D21102, doi:10.1029/2009JD011841”, J. Geophys. Res., 115, D1, doi:10.1029/2009JD013655. http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/files/2010/03/r-345a.pdf
McNider, R.T., G.J. Steeneveld, B. Holtslag, R. Pielke Sr, S. Mackaro, A. Pour Biazar, J.T. Walters, U.S. Nair, and J.R. Christy, 2012: Response and sensitivity of the nocturnal boundary layer over land to added longwave radiative forcing. J. Geophys. Res., 117, D14106, doi:10.1029/2012JD017578. Copyright (2012) American Geophysical Union. http://pielkeclimatesci.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/r-371.pdf
Lin, X., R.A. Pielke Sr., R. Mahmood, C.A. Fiebrich, and R. Aiken, 2015: Observational evidence of temperature trends at two levels in the surface layer in Oklahoma (1997 to 2013), ACP,http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/15/24695/2015/acpd-15-24695-2015.html
Other relevant papers of ours are on our webiste – http://cires.colorado.edu/research/research-groups/roger-pielke-group/publications/
Roger Sr.
thanks Roger!
Cowtan et al: A further bias arises from the treatment of temperatures in regions where the sea ice boundary has changed. Applying the methodology of the HadCRUT4 record to climate model temperature fields accounts for 38% of the discrepancy in trend between models and observations over the period 1975-2014.
Are the models (scenarios, expectations, predictions, projections, etc) for the rest of the 21st century likewise reduced? Is this cause for reduced alarm?
It is a cause for increased “robustness”. This is a really robusty paper, you know like when a cat falls off the table and pretends he meant to do that.
While the Earth system continues to accumulate energy due to anthropogenic and other radiative forcings …
Should be, “While we believe that the Earth system continues to accumulate energy due to anthropogenic and other radiative forcings … “
“…the point, which is that neither hiatus has been explained.”
1) The mid-20th century pause is thought to be due to increased aerosol emissions after WW2 and before clean air laws in the west.
2) The recent pause, such as it is (the data don’t show much of one now, except in the lower troposphere) has been attributed to natural variability: increased volcanic activity, a slightly cooler Sun, the preponderance of La Nina conditions since the turn of the century, and a negative PDO. See
http://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2015/03/top-lessons-to-be-learned-from-warming-hiatus/
David – you can buy the aerosol explanation for mid-century cooling if you want, but it’s a smoggy explanation.
One problem with the mid century cooling trend is that the uncertainty is greater than the absolute value of the trend, so it might not have been cooling. Too close to call.
Secondly there wasn’t all that much CO2 in the atmosphere yet, so it shouldn’t have been warming rapidly. Not much forcing going on.
How do you explain not much going on?
Personally, I think the warming to ~1940 was in part caused by ACO2. I believe Held says much the same. Also looks like OHT was involved. I think cooling did happen, and that it was caused by the negative phase of the PDO. Trenberth has voiced that opinion. However, the shape one would expect was interrupted in 1952 by something that appears to have been quite powerful; again, ACO2. And it has pretty much been the big dawg control knob ever since.
Your point one is contentious to say the least. It is so thought by some warmers, but widely doubted. I think Dr. Curry has expressed doubts in this regard. I doubt it because the timing is wrong vis a vis the clean air laws. It is pure speculation, with no observational basis. As for point two, last I knew there were over 50 hypotheses proposing to explain the present hiatus. That is not an explanation.
There were no measurements of aerosol concentrations in those days.
However, we do have measurements of SO2 emissions:
“Historical Sulfur Dioxide Emissions 1850-2000: Methods and Results”
PNNL 2004
http://www.scscertified.com/lcs/docs/SO2%20Emissions.pdf
See Figure 1 (p. 10), which shows global SO2 emissions ramping up strongly after WW2 and peaking around 1980.
Those are all being put in the climate models now, right?
Natural variability might be a tricky one since it requires a comprehensive and accurate model along with numerical error controls…
And, interesting link but it contains the usual fallacy about modelling:
“4. Climate Models Don’t Do Short-term Predictions
…
But climate models aren’t intended to calculate short-term variability — at least not yet. Instead, they use energy conservation over the long haul — many decades to centuries — over which these shorter-term effects average to, or decline to, approximately zero.”
This is a statement of religion. A model that cannot predict in the short term can never predict in the long term. The genie of climate science will not show up in between these time scales and ‘fix’ the 100% error accumulation.
Also, there is no such thing as ‘long term’ or ‘short term’ conservation laws. There are just, …. conservation laws. One might use different laws (and hence a different model) if you start going nanoscale or such, but not in climate (ok, physics portion, who knows, but not flow or basic radiative transfer). The assumption that intervening fluctuations ‘cancel out’ is a naive statistics way of thinking that does not apply to the solution of a massive physics coupled PDE’s which have errors that are highly correlated and do not cancel in any way.
Not to say #2 won’t end up being the case, it might. But hold off on destroying our economy and ceding all our international authority to the third world just yet. We have no idea it its #2 or something else and we might likely not want to do these things anyway since the third world kind of sucks.
nickels – please explain how climate models are supposed to do short-term predictions, when they are not initialized to a specific climate state.
A model that cannot predict in the short term can never predict in the long term.
I’m not sure that’s true. Sometimes people play a few games of roulette and win big, but the bank always wins in the long term.
@David
Exactly. Now extrapolate that concept.
@andrew I’m not 100% percent its true either, but in order to claim your system predicts you have to produce a proof or a reasoning why your system is really only a simple 1D energy equation and the specifics don’t matter. But then you will have trouble explaining things like increased storm activity and hurricanes, droughts, etc…. as you have just stated those things are not related to the energy balance.
Overall this sort of heuristic modelling its a lot of fun and creates pretty pictures (and gives scientists a really fun job) but its not worth selling out western civilization for.
There was most cooling in the eastern US and western Atlantic. It seems to have been very locally focused, and the eastern US is upstream of the Atlantic, so I suspect the growth in aerosol emissions that coincided with a sharp rise in oil consumption in the 50’s was a large part of this.
“1) The mid-20th century pause is thought to be due to increased aerosol emissions after WW2 and before clean air laws in the west.”
Except that while CO2 emissions are uniformly (relatively) distributed around the globe, aerosol emissions are fairly local, easily washed out of the atmosphere. Therefore the bulk of the aerosols were emitted in and remained in the Northern Hemisphere. Significant aerosol emissions in the Southern Hemisphere were delayed by about a decade.
However the mid 20th century hiatus occurred at the same time in the NH as the SH. Sooo…
Here are two reliable real world land temperatures both of which show a hiatus/ decline over the SST decade or so.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcet/
US contiguous
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs_v3/Fig.D.gif
There are obviously some reliable individual country data sets that must show appreciable warmimg that would offset the short term trend we can observe in these two sets, which of course don’t represent the world.
Could someone link to a few to enable a comparison to be made? Thanks
Tonyb
Berkeley Earth has a clickable global map. Higher latitudes. Like Siberia.
Jch
Thanks for reminding me. Here is a link.
http://berkeleyearth.lbl.gov/city-list/
Looking at the individual cities and Countries we can readily see the prevalent pause in many of them and a drop in others.the long term rise in temperatures for up to the last 300 years can also be seen.
Of particular interest are the country maps showing the interpolations used of up to 2000 km
Tonyb
Tony,
Here is a global map of local station trends. You can set the start year to 1999 (ends 2014). Big warming in the Arctic, and N Siberia. N Pacific, some in S America. But a lot of it is just moderate warming of much ocean.
Nick
Thanks for that but I can’t see any image at all. Perhaps it can’t be used on an iPad?
Tonyb
I have to use FireFox to get some of Nick’s gadgets to work.
Jch
Glad it’s not just me. I shall try to see if i can make it work on my laptop.
Tonyb
I’m using Chrome browser on Linux, and I have no problems with Nick’s stuff
Tonyb,
Sorry about that. It needs WebGL capability, which generally means a fairly good graphics card. Should be OK on laptop with Firefox, Chrome, or even, I think, Safari and IE. Here is a snapshot of trends 1999-2014. You can see that indeed UK is cool, US iffy, but warm arctic and Siberia.
http://www.moyhu.org.s3.amazonaws.com/2015/09/tonyb.png
Nick
Its fine with my laptop, thank you
tonyb
Hang on, Tony, isn’t that an adjusted anomaly graph – you know, adjusted to make the 30’s look cooler than the late 90s, in particular 1998? I am sure I’ve seen a pre-adjusted anomaly graph showing the 30’s as hotter.
Rajaratnam et al: We apply a rigorous, comprehensive statistical analysis of global temperature data that goes beyond simple linear models to account for temporal dependence and selection effects.
They assume stationary natural variation with a low-order correlation coefficient (equivalent to low-order autoregressive natural variation.) All the results from analyses such as that depend on the assumptions that are made about the order of the autoregressive model for the natural variation. If you assume a stationary process with power in the 950 yr period, then the current warming is completely “natural”.
The authors do not address the question of whether the well-studied oscillations (ENSO, stadium wave, AMO, PDO, THC) cause the autocorrelation of the natural process. Hence they do not address the question of whether the apparent hiatus has been “explained” by any of the explanations. Nor do they address the question of how long the apparent hiatus might last; two more decades, as some models have it, would change their parameter estimates considerably.
I am all in favor of models, the more the merrier. I hope to live long enough to see one that has a 20 year record of accuracy against out of sample data; in addition to all these models with multidecade histories of repeated revisions.
Science Magazine had an article this year about how the hiatus was predictable based on knowledge available 20 years ago. It’s a missed opportunity that no one thought to use the knowledge in that manner 20 years ago.
If one did, it would be an accident.
JCH–Why do you think that?
Last year even the NY Times conceded the existence of the hiatus.
“There’s been a burst of worthy research aimed at figuring out what causes the stutter-steps in the process [global warming] — including the current hiatus/pause/plateau that has generated so much discussion.”
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/08/26/a-closer-look-at-turbulent-oceans-and-greenhouse-heating/
Now Don, the “hiatus” only existed because the models were wrong and the “pause” only existed because HADCRUT was wrong. Now that both the models and HADCRUT are corrected we only have a slowdown. Plateau will require more time.
The hiatus existed because the DATA MODELS were wrong.
Karl et al Science 2015 took another look, and applied a correction.
The observational data come from models too, you realize — right?
Global temperature change observed over the last hundred years or so is well within the natural variability of the last 8,000 years, according to a new paper (2015-05-11) by a former Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change (IPCC) lead author. Dr. Philip Lloyd, a physicist and climate researcher:
Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2015/05/22/former-un-lead-author-global-warming-caused-by-natural-variations-in-climate/#ixzz3m1VV73It
Abstract:
“There has been widespread investigation of the drivers of changes in global temperatures. However, there has been remarkably little consideration of the magnitude of the changes to be expected over a period of a few decades or even a century. To address this question, the Holocene records up to 8000 years before present, from several ice cores were examined. The differences in temperatures between all records which are approximately a century apart were determined, after any trends in the data had been removed. The differences were close to normally distributed. The average standard deviation of temperature was 0.98 ± 0.27 °C. This suggests that while some portion of the temperature change observed in the 20th century was probably caused by greenhouse gases, there is a strong likelihood that the major portion was due to natural variations.”
http://multi-science.atypon.com/doi/abs/10.1260/0958-305X.26.3.417
This really starts to become interesting if we also take into account that IPCC used circular reasoning to exclude natural variability. IPCC relied on climate models (CMIP5), the hypotheses under test if you will, to exclude natural variability:
“Observed Global Mean Surface Temperature anomalies relative to 1880–1919 in recent years lie well outside the range of GMST anomalies in CMIP5 simulations with natural forcing only, but are consistent with the ensemble of CMIP5 simulations including both anthropogenic and natural forcing (Figure TS.9) even though some individual models overestimate the warming trend, while others underestimate it. Simulations with Well Mixed Green House Gases changes only, and no aerosol changes, generally exhibit stronger warming than has been observed (Figure TS.9). Observed temperature trends over the period 1951–2010, which are characterized by warming over most of the globe with the most intense warming over the NH continents, are, at most observed locations, consistent with the temperature trends in CMIP5 simulations including anthropogenic and natural forcings and inconsistent with the temperature trends in CMIP5 simulations including natural forcings only.” Ref.: Working Group I contribution to fifth assessment report by IPCC. TS.4.2.
thx for this link
By the way, Judith, you’re welcome to comment on my blog anytime. I don’t moderate, except for comments > 20 days old and then only to control spam, and I don’t fear what you have to say.
I don’t bother commenting at your blog for a variety of reasons.
your circular reasoning point is spot on
If that paper weren’t in E&E, it might matter…. but most gave up on that journal years ago, when the editor admitted she was biased. Nowadays, it’s become the journal of last resort….
First, you demand peer reviewed journals only. Exclude much of McIntyre, for example, or my own deconstructions of Marcott and PMEL here earlier. Now you want to get choosier and exclude journals that publish stuff you disagree with? So, DA, what is your opinion of the Lew/Oreskes in BAMS? How about responding below to my critique of the Stanford statistics paper–after reading up on Cochrane-Orcutt, and reading the McKitrick paper the Stanford abomination failed to cite. Assuming you grok the math.
Yes, peer reviewed papers can be taken seriously.
Self-published blog postings, like McIntyre’s post, who play to the choir, cannot.
This is a paper that appeared in Energy and Environment. Lloyd is not a lead author, or any kind of author, on any of the IPCC assessment reports. He is, or was Managing Director at Industrial&Petrochemical Consultants, Capetown. Sou has details here. He had a role in an IPCC report on Carbon Capture and Storage. His lead author role was on Annex II: “Glossary, acronyms and abbreviations”.
Nick, you have all the Marcott et al data, what is the standard deviation of each one of the individual reconstructions? What happens to the Marcott et al. reconstruction when you include out of sample “cap” reconstructions?
“Nick, you have all the Marcott et al data”
So do you, I imagine.
Nick, yep, but I am not the one using sou to “debunk” a fair reasonable statement.
“There has been widespread investigation of the drivers of changes in global temperatures. However, there has been remarkably little consideration of the magnitude of the changes to be expected over a period of a few decades or even a century. To address this question, the Holocene records up to 8000 years before present, from several ice cores were examined. The differences in temperatures between all records which are approximately a century apart were determined, after any trends in the data had been removed. The differences were close to normally distributed. The average standard deviation of temperature was 0.98 ± 0.27 °C. This suggests that while some portion of the temperature change observed in the 20th century was probably caused by greenhouse gases, there is a strong likelihood that the major portion was due to natural variations.”
let’s see,
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/–sQaqVGQEVo/VKloPB1CnQI/AAAAAAAAMEs/edyZ3rq6AYU/s757-Ic42/Tropics%2525204000%252520years%252520individual.png
It has been awhile, but I was just focusing on the G. Ruber and TEX 86 in the tropics. I was able to find more higher frequency cap reconstruction for those.
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-3k7UcdrOfRU/VLgkkI95IPI/AAAAAAAAMKU/vsje2z28wys/s676-Ic42/tropical%252520holocene.png
With the caps you end up with something like that and no spurious spike at the end. Of course the tropics are not the “globe”, but they should represent a good deal of the ocean energy. You like you though, I got no scientific chops.
“The average standard deviation of temperature was 0.98 ± 0.27 °C. This suggests that while some portion of the temperature change observed in the 20th century was probably caused by greenhouse gases”
Misleading. He calculates the sd of individual icecores – ie one site. You would find a similar sd with individual thermometer locations. That in no way represents the sd of a global average.
Nicks, “He calculates the sd of individual icecores – ie one site. You would find a similar sd with individual thermometer locations. That in no way represents the sd of a global average.”
Of course not, “suggests” is a wiggle word. Tropical temperature, especially SST would indicate a more “global” possibility. Rosenthal, Oppo and Linsey have some evidence of that with respect to global ocean heat imbalance/uptake estimates.
Anyone using Sou to debunk anything is a fool.
“The method of ‘postulating’ what we want has many advantages; they are the same as the advantages of theft over honest toil” – Bertrand Russell
I posted a comment on Climate Etc about 4 months ago about this matter. I found it interesting that Lloyd was taking a very different view of things when he was no longer with IPCC. Unknowning of Lloyd’s assertion, I created a figure of how the past 35-years of global temperature anomalies fit into just the past 300-years of Vostok Ice Data. I indicated on the plot the 1, 2, and 3-sigma valuses for the past 1000 years. Sigmas for the past 100,000 years are MUCH larger! Planet earth goes through some rather large changes in global temperatures. We have just been blessed with a relatively “smooth” ride for the past few 1000 years! Pretty raw conditions 25,000 years ago!
http://pages.swcp.com/~jmw-mcw/CurrentGlobalandLast300years.jpg
My May 21 News release to my local paper is at http://www.ladailypost.com/content/letter-editor-co2-and-global-warming
You think you can compare Vostok temperatures with satellite data, you know the satellite doesn’t cover Vostok?
All you got is Vostok flat and satellite temperatures increasing.
Does that tell you anything?
Whether you accept the last 100 years of Vostok data as credible, I show the sigmas for the last 1000 years of the Vostok data and they are NOT flat. The current trend, even up, is well within 1-sigma of the variation of the last 1000 years. Indeed, as Lloyd pointed out, it eve hold for the last 10,000 years! Lloyd could fell free to make such a statement now that he is no longer an IPCC lead.
You appear to be one of those who would have the Antarctica and the Arctic be unrelated as they are at opposite poles and sooooooo far away from one another. Guess you are assuming that both can not be downright frigid at the same time when one is in summer and while the other is in winter.
Below is a plot of the last 125,000 years for the two extreme locations. When the “global anomaly” was the coldest in Antarctica it was also the coldest in Greenland. The deepest chill (in the Vostok Ice Core) JUST happened to coincide with the last great glaciation of North America (about 25,000 years ago; takes about 75,000-100,000 years of chilling of earth to make those great glaciers. Guess you would take it that none of this has any correlation at all. Sorry, but I DO believe that they ARE HIGHLY interrelated! Frankly, when modelers get around to telling us when the next big freeze will occur (some big cosmic factors are going to be the driver, not mankind’s ‘campfires’!) as well as replicating the past 125,000 year “significant ups and downs” in the global anomalies and not just a few decades, then maybe some of their piddly predictions about eminent disasters, relative to those great deviations, might be received with more credibility.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/66/Ice-core-isotope.png
Article also at: http://gsjournal.net/Science-Journals/Research%20Papers-Climate%20Studies/Download/6066
Can Mankind Really Expect To Tame Earth’s Climate And Remove It From Cosmic Control?
The echo chamber here of climate change is not real, not a problem, or is not proven yet collides with the hard but simple truth that “the Earth system continues to accumulate energy due to anthropogenic and other radiative forcings” that are primarily due to excess CO2 in the atmosphere. Does anyone really think it is wise to continue this experiment with our only home? TAX CARBON!!!
Is that you Cass?
Actually, the primary echo chamber seems to be those who claim greater certainty louder and louder the more their predictions deviate from reality.
The higher the volume (and more sustained the echo) of the delusion, the less chance that anyone will notice someone singing in the key of reason.
Repent!
taxes and tithing work great for energy accumulation
‘hard but simple truth that “the Earth system continues to accumulate energy due to anthropogenic and other radiative forcings”. How do you know that? Tea leaves .. or a measurement?
Unclue is one of those 1950’s robots.
The kind lacking artificial intelligence.
Or any kind of intelligence for that matter
The reported “hiatus” in the warming of the global climate system during this century has been the subject of intense scientific and public debate,
The hiatus was in the warming of the surface air temperature of the globe, which is far less than “the global climate system”.
2 meters above the land surface and the SST, whatever the heck that means.
There are lines of evidence that pretty much rule out the claim that there was a hiatus the warming of the global climate system.
Troposphere?
Yes, such as the best metric, ocean warming (ask RP Sr). It’s accelerating:
http://davidappell.blogspot.com/2015/08/more-on-latest-ocean-heat-data-and.html
http://judithcurry.com/2014/01/21/ocean-heat-content-uncertainties/
What is a measured rate of ocean warming? Data, please.
I haven’t seen Judith’s blog post in the peer reviewed literature.
I wonder why not. Can you explain that?
yeah. whats the point? In terms of responding to current topics/papers, I have no interest in waiting 6 months to year for something to get published in a journal, and paying page charges to boot. My writings are thoroughly critiqued and reviewed at Climate Etc. and other blogs.
David Appell, that’s your response? You don’t need to respond to points unless they are in a peer-reviewed article? Does it matter that the data she posted is from very good sources? Why are you posting here? Your comments aren’t peer-reviewed. I am therefore allowed to ignore whatever link you posted, just as you are apparently ignoring Judith Curry’s links to a number of peer-reviewed studies, AR4, AR5, etc. Please do honest research.
As Steve McIntyre pointed out, you recently listed a OCEAN2K ocean temperatures proxy graph with a hockey stick, and ignored all the dozens there that showed no hockey stick at all. The overall impression of all of them together was: that one hockey stick was a statistical fluke. You were trying to give the opposite impression.
Now am I supposed to be impressed here that you found a single study that agrees with you? Am I supposed to trust you that you surveyed all the literature and this is the overall conclusion of the entire field? Or should I post Dr. Curry’s overall-conclusion meta-survey (as of Jan 2014, of course) – and you’ll prefer not to deal with it because you’d rather stick with the one that says what you like.
JCH, why is it that goal posts move so often? Climate science picked the lower troposphere as the reference even though they don’t really measure the lower troposphere and modeled the lower troposphere even though that could not be accurately compared to what was called a “surface” temperature. They were modeling one “surface” and comparing it to another “surface” and neither really exists. I believe I have gotten chastised on several occasions for mentioning such “nonsense”.
Now that everyone is starting to understand that it wasn’t really nonsense we have a “robust” paper explaining what was already know the delightfully forgets the punchline, how that impact “sensitivity”. I suspect another decades or two of carefully considered scientific robustness will be required for y’all to catch up.
Anyhow, I have no idea what you’re talking about when you say, “There are lines of evidence that pretty much rule out the claim that there was a hiatus the warming of the global climate system.” Which lines of evidence? “Rule out the claim”? No idea.
Lines of evidence.
Like those on your dining room table?
This is the part of Climate science I really don’t understand. There has been a long lasting plateau known as the Holocene lasting 11,700 years. It is an interglacial period. There has been no climate change. There was warm periods and cold periods riding the plateau. We are in a warm period but so far nothing out of the ordinary. Why so much attention is paid to this seems to be just semantic argument and not very scientific.
Clearly, things are very far out of the ordinary:
http://www.realclimate.org/images//Marcott.png
We’re warming 30 times faster than when the Earth left its last ice age (glacial period)….
Like I said just a game of semantics no real science:
https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/7175c-holocene2bgisp2.png
Sorry just the first one I ran across there are many more:
http://www.biocab.org/Holocene-Delta_T_and_Delta_CO2_op_784x588.jpg
Okay sports fans who might think Appell’s graph might be a tad misleading?
Marcott in Science comprises academic misconduct. Already proven by two previous guest posts here. Look them up, David Appell. You do yourself no credibility good by relying on Marcott here. Marcott himself said the ‘blade’ was not “statistically robust”. He could not do otherwise, as the paper itself and the SI said the resolution was (IIRC) about 300 years. And he cheated by core top redating, the academic misconduct part.
Ordvic: You don’t even say where you graph came from. A citation is the least you can do if you want to be taken at all seriously.
Then go to his University and prove it.
“We’re warming 30 times faster than when the Earth left its last ice age (glacial period)….”
Utter drivel Apple.
Even Marcott himself has rejected that graph!
But hey, you know that very well, don’t you?
Where, specifically, did Marcott reject that graph?
“Where, specifically, did Marcott reject that graph?”
Oh dear, what a disingenuous – mendacious even – little fellow you are.
The matter was debated at considerable length all over the internet, even your own blogs, such as this one for example.
http://davidappell.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/mark-steyns-expert-comes-up-short.html
Or even better, perhaps you could look at Marcott’s own response on Realclimate, the relevant portion of which is:
A: Our global paleotemperature reconstruction includes a so-called “uptick” in temperatures during the 20th-century. However, in the paper we make the point that this particular feature is of shorter duration than the inherent smoothing in our statistical averaging procedure, and that it is based on only a few available paleo-reconstructions of the type we used. Thus, the 20th century portion of our paleotemperature stack is not statistically robust, cannot be considered representative of global temperature changes, and therefore is not the basis of any of our conclusions.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2013/03/response-by-marcott-et-al/#sthash.tywV4tfo.dpuf
So don’t pretend you were not fully aware of the fact that Marcott himself had stated “Thus, the 20th century portion of our paleotemperature stack is not statistically robust, cannot be considered representative of global temperature changes, and therefore is not the basis of any of our conclusions“.
Which leads one to enquire, why precisely are you posting graphs which you are fully aware are – not to put too fine a point on it – total, unadulterated BS, to support your ridiculous contention that “We’re warming 30 times faster than when the Earth left its last ice age”?
Why are you GISP2 which is a regional data set and not a global one?
Sorry just the first one I ran across there are many more:
http://www.biocab.org/Holocene-Delta_T_and_Delta_CO2_op_784x588.jpg
Again EPICA is for the Antarctic..
I don’t think it is valid to look at short term trends, as you will always find the errors in the measurement of the trend too large to determine if the temperature is rising or stable. Not enough power to exclude either the hypothesis you are testing or the null of that hypothesis.
Short term trends are the errands of fools.
Thank you. This entire hiatus episode could have been avoided if people learned how to properly, and fully, calculate trends for time series, including autocorrelation.
Hawking short-term trends is about all the anti-AGWers have left anymore…..
DA, Ross McKitrick and any other grad level econometrician does. And did. See more detailed comment below. You are not distinguishing yourself here.
IIRC Kuhn frequently made the point that, when a paradigm change takes place, the history of Science gets re-written.
I wonder if that will remain true in the Internet age.
The hiatus matters as much as any ho-hum warming or cooling we’ve experienced lately. Can’t have a climate or Holocene epoch without a bit of this ‘n that.
Who told these people the climate could ever be stable, that sea levels and Arctic ice and temps stay the same? That they don’t vary constantly in both line and cycle? Stability…now that would be radical change. Wake us up when stability occurs and we’ll worry.
It’s true we don’t live in our grandparents’ climate. What they don’t like to say is that our grandparents didn’t live in their grandparents’ climate. When the temp in San Diego topped 96F a few days back it was indeed a record. What I don’t get is why it took 137 years to break that record. You’d think that with this big boost from post 1980s wickedness we’d be able to top 1878 real easy.
Checked out what 1878 was like all around the middle of the globe? Remember the St Louis heatwave of that year? The drought from Africa to Asia to S America, with all those deaths in India, China, Brazil. Even NZ dried up in 1878. Remember?
Of course they don’t remember! They’re climate scientists! Their business is NOT remembering.
Yup weather and climate vary. But the biggest deal about the pause is it now falsifies the CMIP5 climate models even by Santer’s 17 year criterion. J geophys Res 116: D22 (2011). Essay An Awkward Pause. IMO that is why rather than asserting it has ended (it hasn’t, yet) the Lysenko warmunists are now trying to claim it doesn’t exist. But it does.
Rud, it’s weird they take all that trouble to fudge something so trivial. My point is that the Pause’s existence is as yawnful as its non-existence.
Btw, bad boy Nino is not behaving here like the previous Nino, which in turn did not behave like 2002-3 (which was slight in intensity but brutal in effect.) Maybe ENSO really is just an observation set and not a mechanism?
Still, if Australia can’t manage some bad fire and drought for Paris this year they should change our name back to New Holland. Nietwaar?
Moso, it is not behaving on this side either. No sign yet in either UAH or RSS. What is a warmunist to do before Paris?
On the Stanford stats paper claiming the pause does not statistically exist: conclusion, as bad as Lew and Oreskes.
On the good side, second paragraph of Intro is a delightful complilation of peer reviewed papers saying pause exists, then giving completely contradictory explanations for it.
On the bad side,
(1) intro paragraph 3 claims no serious staistical study correcting for ‘obvious’ serial autocorrelation. NOT TRUE. A thorough and modern mathematical statistics treatment was published by econometrician RossMcKitrickin the Open Journal of Statistics 4: 527-535 (2014) for three data sets: HadCrut4, UAH v5, RSS.
(2) The correction method used was econometrics bootstrap Cochrane- Orcutt (1949). Literally both obsolete and inadequate for the papers small sample size 1998- 2013. Details were ‘cleverly’ buried in SI section 3. We no longer used it when I passed the Ph.D econometrics generals in 1972! (Serial autocorrelation is near universal in economic statistics, as is heteroskedasticity. Both mess up OLS, gross violations of the BLUE theorem underlying conditions. Any econometrician knows this, and how to fix).
(3) Used revised GISS (Karl’s abomination), NCEI, and HadCrut4. They did not dare try UAH or RSS. Would have blown the PR conclusion.
Summary: false/ inadequate prior lit search; obsolete methods for solving AR(1) residuals inadequate for the small sample size; two essential ‘unfiddled’ sat data sets ignored. Another example of ‘climate science’ that is ‘nonscience’ nonsense (pun intended and illuminated).
> A thorough and modern mathematical statistics treatment was published by econometrician RossMcKitrickin the Open Journal of Statistics […]
That one again:
https://quantpalaeo.wordpress.com/2014/09/03/recipe-for-a-hiatus/
Willard, I had not seen that blog post. Thanks. There are just two problems. 1. It has the null hypothesis bassackwards. 2. It misrepresents what McKitrick did, while claiming not to, by posting McKitricks R code. Hint. Posting code is not the same as understanding it. Do you?
Let’s hope you have something more than the word “backassward,” Sir:
https://quantpalaeo.wordpress.com/2014/09/03/recipe-for-a-hiatus/
As far as I’m concerned, NHST is mostly crap.
Willard, in my world repeating a ‘false’ blog assertion is not the same as ‘proving’ it. What parts of my above comment are objectively false in your considered opinion, and why? Please elucidate rather than assert. With credible researchable references like I try to provide.
“As far as I’m concerned, NHST is mostly crap.”
Titter!!!
> Titter!!!
Try this, Cat:
http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~gelman/research/published/philosophy_online4.pdf
> in my world repeating a ‘false’ blog assertion is not the same as ‘proving’ it
This also applies to “true” blog assertions, Sir Rud. It even applies to crap one might wish to sell in a booklet. You’re just begging the question by adding that “false,” BTW.
Perhaps you’d like to opine on this:
https://quantpalaeo.wordpress.com/2014/09/03/recipe-for-a-hiatus/comment-page-1/#comment-1538
Uh, Willard, I asked you to rebut McKitrick’s posted R code.
You know, the actual statistical stuff. Not your religious beliefs.
Charitably, a very public fail by you here now. How embarrassing.
I don’t need to rebut anything, Sir Rud. Richard Telford already did. If you got a problem with his mansplanation, you know where to find him. For anything else, please find yourself a subaltern to boss around.
You know, it’s at least the second time you try to recycle that McKitrick article without adding much to it:
http://judithcurry.com/2015/08/28/week-in-review-science-edition-19/#comment-728245
Not that you add much to anything anyway. Not that it prevents you from selling recycled stuff.
How green of you.
ristvan:
I can assure you I do understand the code, and my conclusion is Ross McKitrick’s new definition of the “pause” is basically worthless, having no connection to how people actually use the word. Because of that, the “pause” he finds is anything anyone would normally think of as a pause, being nothing but an artifact of a peculiar methodology he happens to have come up with.
Even worse, it appears he has come up with this peculiar methodology entirely to find something he could label a very long “pause.” The exact same methodology could be used to argue there was a “pause” in warming for 13 years before 1997. Or for any number of other arbitrarily chosen periods, just by changing the endpoint you use.
The most peculiar part of all this, however, is just that his methodology can erase any “pause” it finds with just a couple new years of data. That is, in as few as two years, McKitrick’s methodology could tell us there was never any pause in the 21st century. We’re talking on a post titled “Hiatus revisionism,” and you’re promoting a work which by its very nature will constantly revise the duration, and even existence, of any hiatus it might find.
If you need proof of anything I just said, you can find it in this post:
http://www.hi-izuru.org/wp_blog/2014/12/a-peculiar-pause/
Ah, Bayes’ theorem.
AKA “Making stuff up”!
I’m an engineer, we deal with reality, not BS.
Would you let your children fly on an aeroplane that was designed by climate “scientists” using Bayes’ theorem, Willard?
No, I didn’t think so!
For McKitrick’s paper see:
McKitrick, R. (2014) HAC-Robust Measurement of the Duration of a Trendless Subsample in a Global Climate Time Series. Open Journal of Statistics, 4, 527-535. doi: 10.4236/ojs.2014.47050
Discussed at Climate Etc: How Long is the Pause?
McKitrick provides further articles and opinion articles on the Pause/Hiatus.
McKitrick, Ross R. and Timothy Vogelsang (2014) “HAC-Robust Trend Comparisons Among Climate Series with Possible Level Shifts” Environmetrics DOI: 10.1002/env.2294.
See discussion at ClimateAudit
*McKitrick, Ross R. “Climate Policy Implications of the Hiatus in Global Warming” Vancouver: Fraser Institute, October 2, 2014.
Abstract. To explain the hiatus we use the readings for official thermometers and decrease by a factor of 5 the weight given to those areas for which the figures are only interpolated, and also decrease by a factor of 5 the weight given to surface ocean temperatures to account for what we do not know is going on under the surface. This simple correction was found to be an adjustment sufficient to turn global cooling into a global hiatus.
It doesn’t surprise me that the hiatus was statistically insignificant after all. You can take one year out, and bingo, no hiatus.
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/from:1950/to:1997.5/mean:12/plot/gistemp/from:1998.5/mean:12
Any trend that fully depends for its existence on one anomalously warm year is not a significant trend. Statisticians among the skeptics should have spotted this a long time ago, but kept quiet.
Something I’ve always agreed on with you. Trends need to be seen long term.
Nope. You have got the calculation backwards. Typical warmunist mistake.
Lets be very clear. There are two possible ‘pause’ tests. 1. No positive slope. 2. No statistically meaningful positive slope. Both the Stanford paper critiqued above and the McKitrick paper linked above use the latter. Monckton uses the former. In either case, serial correlation must be delt with for confidence intervals. I prefer the second test, since more ‘robust’. You might claim that is a fudge bias. Well, consult your own econometrician.
Now, on either the firstmor the second test, there has been no warming (depending on data set) from 16-18-26 years.
And, nobody starts from 1998. All statisticians start from the present month and work iteratively backwards for these sorts of calculations.
The present is NOT a cherrypick. It just is.
Without 1998, you would work back to infinity to find any significant pause length. That is the point.
“Without 1998, you would work back to infinity to find any significant pause length. That is the point.”
No, the point is that even if you leave out 1998, you STILL get a pause.
You’re not very good at this stats stuff are you?
JimD, you are on very shaky statistical ground. The math has been run, many times. Many papers and,posts. Depending on dataset, and depending on ‘start date’ ( now August 2015 since September is not yet over) the ‘answer’ (two distinct criteria) is anywhere from 1998 to the late 1980s. Just data and math. No wiggle room. Stop wiggling. It is embarassing.
A beautiful example of cherry picking. I hereby apologize for letting 1998 to happen.
BTW, you would not work back to infinity – merely to the Medieval Warm Period.
I prefer a third pause test, a trend less than 0.05 C/decade with uncertainty less than 0.05 C/ decade.
Much more robust and more likely to indicate a real pause if those conditions are met. I keep holding my breath.
I wouldn’t call the RSS trend from 1990 to 2015 a pause at 0.107 +/- 0.116 C/decade a pause, but apparently you and McKitrick do.
I reckon, Curious George, you’d go back to the 1930s, then back to the 1880s maybe back to the 1820’s and then you’d go back to the Medieval Warm Period.
It is a source of constant amazement how hostile folks like Mann and Marcott and Appell get over basic recorded history. Mosher too. They deny past heat.
I already gave you GISTEMP. Here is HADCRUT4 without 1998. Still no “pause”. Why are people so wedded to seeing something that just isn’t of any significance. Does looking at this give these people some kind of cognitive dissonance? It’s just not there, people. Give up on it.
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1950/to:1997.5/mean:12/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1998.5/mean:12
The Norwegian team’s papers seem impressively thorough, and well worth reading. After updating all separate forcings where thought appropriate (mainly due to new data), the revised estimated total forcing has a trend over their hiatus period (1998-2012) that is 0.08 W/m2/dec HIGHER than their reference forcing used for CMIP5 runs. That makes the hiatus harder to account for rather than helping explain it.
Applying their model (NorESM) TCR of 1.4 K, the increase in forcing trend would result in an increase in GMST trend of 0.03 K/dec if continuing for 70 years. Over a 15 year period the response would be expected to be somewhat smaller. In fact, they find that their new forcings produce an increase in the ensemble mean GMST trend over the hiatus period of 0.025 K/dec, which at ~80% of the level implied by the 70 year TCR is very consistent with what one would expect.
Overall, the Norwegian study finds little or no support for any of the explanations of the hiatus put forward in the literature save for internal variability.
The authors are also delightfully honest, writing in relation to the effect in NorESM of changing stratospheric water vapour (by changing the effect of moisture on various model levels in the radiation code):
“This would have the effect of changing the water vapor on those levels for radiative purposes. However, the resulting temperature response to this change was contrary to existing theory and literature on this subject and no explanation could be determined for this.”
Nic Lewis, re:
“This would have the effect of changing the water vapor on those levels for radiative purposes. However, the resulting temperature response to this change was contrary to existing theory and literature on this subject and no explanation could be determined for this.”
Temps went down then? Interesting.
Dr Curry wrote:
The odds of climate models doing this correctly are slim to none IMO.
Why do others not realize that the climate models are worse than useless.
They produce output that does not match real data and the output is used to determine what we should do to fix a problem that does not show up in real data. How stupid is that?
It will be interesting to read this and the comments.
I think early arctic warming was less than thought and that current is real, and part of a cooling process. A shift of latent to sensible heat, standing by in the atmosphere ready to be radiated away. And fueled by was pacific.
10/15 years, sporadic ice melt and large gains. More ice, more sensible heat, more outgoing radiation. More precipitation in the arctic.
Testing
C:\Users\Philip Nord\Desktop\jgrd52384-fig-0009.png
Testing:
http://s1275.photobucket.com/user/philipnord/media/jgrd52384-fig-0009_zpsli3giufy.png.html?sort=3&o=0
Is anyone going to note that Michael Mann is a co-author of the Cowtan et al paper? Surely that makes that paper safely ignorable, in the same way the Lewandowsky guff is ignorable.
Sure did. But have not yet had the time to deconstruct it. If Mann is an author, it ought to be deconstructable per se. But, that takes time and care, lest one be sued by his majesty. So, will take a bit longer than this post. Maybe a guest post in the future….
Christopher Monckton of Brenchley provides an update with a straightforward least squares analysis: A new record ‘Pause’ length: Satellite Data: No global warming for 18 years 8 months!
Rud, Nic Lewis and a few others are trying to make this dialog rational. However for the most part this is Mental Mastur..tion to the nth degree.
having spent most of my life in the right side of my brain
and with considerable experience in self satisfaction
the data duel is difficult to follow, so many of us are left to our own devices
rational discussion on this topic may be an irrational expectation
Climate Etc. is the closest I’ve seen
maybe it’s like the climate, we must accept the uncertainty of love
MS, yes, I agree. But that still does not let the other side continue to …..
So I will continue to protest. Disrupting the BORG is not easy.
The ability to quickly assess when you can skip long sub-threads is invaluable. With our hostess’s (welcome) fairly relaxed attitude, you need to be able to skim and catch things of value. Poster names are often a very strong clue as to likely value.
JCH made this comment above:
To which captdallas responded with this observation:
These remarks offered by JCH and by captdallas spawn the following question:
Has the IPCC ever published a recommended methodology for comparing IPCC climate model projections to real-world temperature observations? (E.g., what kinds of data gathered how and from where, using what kinds of statistical and analytical techniques to develop the model versus real world comparison analysis,)
The UKMO report reads like an essay on the difficulty of attribution. I dont know what else to say.
I also got a question. Presumably if heat isnt being transport north in the Atlantic then its staying around the tropics. And El Nino is making the tropical Pacific look hot. What does this tend to mean for heat loss back to space? Does having a hotter tropics have a nett effect on heat loss globally?
The tropical atmosphere, being hotter than elsewhere, generally has a higher level of water vapour. That will make it more difficult for LW radiation to escape to space in the tropics than is typically the case elsewhere. So if heat is kept in the tropics but GMST is unchanged, radiative heat loss globally can be expected to go down.
In practice, as the tropical troposphere heats up it transports more heat polewards, so that both tropical and extra-tropical areas warm. But there are possible mechanisms that may make this simple picture unreaslistic.
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The whole issue of the “significance” of the “pause” seems a total nonissue to me. The answer depends to a large extent on the statistical model employed to answer the question, and there is not enough reliable data to check the validity (understood as fitness for use) of models. Therefore, this type of study never gets beyond the level of a “what if?” exercise, and is rarely presented as such.
Another common problem of this type of study is the focus on either the increase since the 1970s or on the “pause”. At least both should be looked at simultaneously and in a consistent manner, within the perspective of data gathered over a longer period of time.
Trying to make the ‘hiatus’ statistically precise is probably a “fool’s errand”, but Romano etc (Stanford) do a surprisingly poor job of it. Even Tamino has realised that this is probably a sequential, change point, issue, as in McKitrick(2014). The fact they choose not to cite that paper speaks volumes.
One reason they should have cited McKitrick is that he addresses what is their main point – serial dependence between temperatures reducing variances. McKitrick uses standard lagged covariance estimators to account for this. Romano uses his own block bootstrap method. In theory, this could be identifying other forms of serial dependence not picked up in McKitrick’s method. That could be interesting, if studied in detail. But block bootstrap is hardly on the general time series analysis radar. One possible reason is that it may not be seen as nearly as ‘rigorous’ as the authors claim.
Excellent article by Ed Hawkins on the pause
http://www.climate-lab-book.ac.uk/2015/was-there-ever-a-pause/
Unless there is a continuous, statistically significant fall in observed GMT which lasts for thirty years or longer, mainstream climate scientists will not abandon their standard narrative that man-made GHG emissions are the dominant driver by far of the earth’s climate system.
Here is the text of Ed Hawkins’ short article posted on his blog on September 18, 2015, as referenced by Judith Curry above. In my view, his comments represent a position which will not be abandoned regardless of where GMT observations actually go over the coming three decades:
================================
Was there ever a ‘pause’?
http://www.climate-lab-book.ac.uk/2015/was-there-ever-a-pause/
Ed Hawkins, September 18, 2015
The importance of the ‘pause’ in global temperatures has never been about whether some particular trend is just below or just above zero, or about whether a specific period shows a statistically significant trend (whatever that actually means), or even about whether the trend has changed. The ‘pause’ has always been about understanding whether Earth’s climate is evolving in line with our expectations.
Several papers have now emerged suggesting that there has never been a ‘pause’. This claim is based on a rather narrow definition – if you compare linear trends over certain periods then the linear trend has not actually changed by much. For example, the recent papers by Karl et al , Lewandowsky et al (in two similar papers), and Rajaratnam et al all compared trends over specific periods and suggest that there has been no ‘pause’ or ‘slowdown’, defined by changes in linear trends. And, Cahill et al find no recent ‘change point’ in global temperature trends.
Estimating linear trends is a helpful structure (and I have used it too), but I think these papers fundamentally miss the point – we do not expect the climate to change linearly.
There was a recent period in which the observed trend was on the edge of the uncertainty derived from the raw projections from CMIP5, whichever observational estimate you use – the IPCC AR5 made this point in the Figure below (only using HadCRUT4). And, it is not just global temperature – for example, the winds in the Pacific are behaving outside expectations.
Science proceeds by taking an observation that does not match expectations and seeking to explain it. There are many possible explanations for this particular observation which have been analysed extensively, and the climate community now has a much better understanding of: the nature of climate fluctuations, the role of the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans in sequestering heat, the importance of observational coverage, how to best compare observations and models, and the role of uncertain radiative forcings.
This research has been valuable and worthwhile, even if global temperatures are about to break new records, in line with our expectations that the surface would indeed warm again.
http://www.climate-lab-book.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/Capture.jpg
From Chapter 9 of IPCC AR5 – comparing simulated trends with observed trend for 1998-2012
(End of Ed Hawkins article.)
================================
Here is a graph created by Dr. Roy Spencer illustrating CMIP5 model projections versus HadCRUT4 surface temperature observations. It represents what I think has been the simplest graphical illustration any one AGW skeptic has yet presented which asserts that there is a significant disconnect between what the CMIP5 models project and what actual GMT surface temperature observations currently indicate is happening in the earth’s climate system.
http://www.oarval.org/90-CMIP5-models-vs-observations-with-pause-explanation.gif
My question is this….. Does what Ed Hawkins say in his latest article either support, or else refute, what Dr. Spencer asserts about the existence of a significant disconnect between CMIP5 model projections and current GMT observations, assertions which are embodied and summarized in Dr. Spencer’s very simple graphic?
IMO, Ed Hawkin’s article neither supports nor refutes Dr Spencer’s assertion of a material disconnect between CMIP5 model projections and GMST observations. Whether the difference is currently statistically significant is more complex issue; we really need a longer 21st century period of comparison than exists yet.
I think that CMIP5 models do on average have too high a sensitivity and were able, despite that, to match GMST during the 20th century for various reasons, most notably:
a) most of them assumed anthropogenic aerosols had a stronger cooling influence than is now thought likely (e.g., per IPCC AR5);
b) natural influences (especially the AMO) had a modest warming effect over the 20th century as a whole, and particularly from the late 1970s to the end of the century;
c) quite possibly because GMST responses to volcanism are excessively negative in models (note how the CMIP5 mean GMST comes back down to the observed level after the 1991 Pinatubo eruption in Dr Spencer’s graph).
Note that the sensitivity that is most relevant here is transient sensitivity (TCR, measured over a 70 year period of linearly increasing forcing, roughly what has occurred to date) rather than equilibrium sensitivity (ECS). Some models may exhibit excessive ocean heat uptake, which for a given ECS will make their TCR lower, maybe producing a realistic GMST response to date despite an excessive ECS.
Nic Lewis,
I think you are probably right about the reasons why the models manage to match historical temperatures reasonably well: too high estimates of aerosol off-sets and ocean heat uptake, combined with too high sensitivity to forcing. But I am unconvinced that it is even meaningful to statistically compare an average of models with actual temperatures, since the models differ so much from each other. The “uncertainty” calculated from the pool of runs from many different models in no way addresses the question of whether or not the individual models are statistically consistent with reality. Seems to me that the correct comparison is reality with the mean and the variation in individual runs for each separate model. If several runs of the same model show that model is inconsistent with reality, then that model is not useful for making projections of future warming, and should be modified or discarded. Comparisons of reality with the variation between the individual models tells us absolutly nothing about the validity of the models: more poor models added to the pool, with wild divergence from reality, widens the ‘model uncertainty’. Which allows you to declare that “the pool of models” are not inconsistent with reality, no matter how far they are on average from being correct.
If obviously wrong models were not included in the calculation of the model mean, then the “average” model projection would be far more credible. I simply do not understand the apparent reluctance to discount those individual models which are demonstrably unable to accurately project warming.
stevefitzpatrick,
Whislt I agree that comparing observations with the CMIP5 model mean and uncertainty range may not be that helpful from a scientific and/or statistical standpoint, policy seems to be driven quite largely by the CMIP5 mean projections and their uncertainty range. I believe that the reason why ‘poor’ models do not get excluded is mainly political. But it is not entirely clear what good and bad models are from the point of view of how accurate their projections of future climate change (in terms of GMST) are likely to be. A model may poorly represent climate processes that are important for the metrics used to judge models, but be better than a ‘good’ model at representing the processes (many of them parameterised approximations) that are key to determining how the model responds to increasing CO2 concentrations.
Here is another of Dr. Spencer’s graphs which contains plots of individual CMIP5 rcp8.5 models versus observations for the tropical mid troposphere 20S-20N:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/CMIP5-73-models-vs-obs-20N-20S-MT-5-yr-means1.png
Looking at this graph, there would be a temptation to conclude that those climate models which are closest to actual observations are the ones whose process mechanism descriptions and whose parameterized assumptions are probably closest to what is actually occurring inside the earth’s climate system. And so it might be reasonable to conclude that those particular models should have greater credibility than the other climate models.
But I take it from Nic Lewis’ and Steve Fitzpatrick’s comments that this conclusion isn’t necessarily so, for the various reasons they’ve outlined.
The bulk of the scientific evidence I’ve seen so far indicates to me personally that the earth will continue to warm at some statistically significant rate over the next 100 years or so, with +0.1C per decade being the most likely figure.
What Nic Lewis and Steve Fitzpatrick have said above further reinforces my personal opinion that as long as the multi-decade GMT trend does continue to rise at some statistically significant rate — let’s say for purposes of argument that +0.1C per decade is the most likely scenario — mainstream climate scientists will continue to argue that the IPCC aggregated model mean projections are valid public policy input for purposes of justifying strong anti-GHG measures.
Unless and until governments begin taking truly serious anti-GHG measures, ones which directly and profoundly affect the lifestyles and economic circumstances of large segments of the voting public, a truly robust public debate over the validity of today’s mainstream climate science will not occur, and the politics of AGW will continue indefinitely into the future.
Today there is hope for ending the climate debate if both sides support Steven Goddard’s call for an end to changes in measured temperature and ACCEPT REALITY: The Sun’s pulsar core is the Creator & Sustainer of every atom, life and planet in the solar system and controls everyday events here today!
https://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2015/09/18/noaa-data-tampering-since-last-year/
Omanual, please stop polluting every thread in the global warming blogosphere with your off topic highly predictable contributions.
Hiatus revisionists are actually the new deniers, who promote the “Mike’s Nature trick to hide the decline”.
Remember folks, calling people “deniers” is horrible and extremely offensive. it should never be done.
Unless your side the one is doing it.
AGWers are the ones who have shot first and indeed for years.
And they are not only deniers.
They are corrupters who manipulate the data to hide the inconvenient truth, that there has been no statistically significant warming over the past 18 years, and that climate models are hereby formally invalidated.
Before getting “More in depth comparisons of individual models using different external forcings, and evaluations against all of the above data sets” one should first assess the validity of those data sets.
But the inconvenient truth is that data sets, especially those dealing with surface stations’ data, are highly questionable and indeed unreliable.
Two thirds of temperature anomalies are actually resulting from data corrections and not to raw measurements.
This means that, the 0.75°C warming “observed” since 1850 is indeed composed of a 0.25°C actual warming plus a 0.5°C positive (warming) correction…
With HADCRUT4 data series, the Hadley Centre has introduced new adjustments compared to previous HADCRUT3 data series :
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1970/mean:60/offset:0.025/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1970/mean:60
Curiously corrections are always in the warming direction… But where are the justifications ?
Has anyone assessed the validity of HACRUT4 adjustments compared to HADCRUT3 ones ?
I guess the answer is unfortunately that nobody knows except those who have defined the adjustments.
Moreover, data adjustments appears to be constantly and obviously “fluctuating” over time, and indeed corrupted.
When looking at US Temperature record as published in Hansen et al 1999 (graph fig. 6) :
http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/1999/1999_Hansen_etal_1.pdf
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/hansen_07/
● Warmest year is 1934
● In this graph,1998 only ranked 5th after 1934, 1921, 1931 and 1953…
Original data were also available at the following address but NASA has deleted the file beginning 2015…
Guess why…
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/data/update/gistemp/graphs/FigD.txt
In Hansen et al 2001, pretexting a “time of observation debiasing” (reaching up to +0.15°C), new adjustments made 1998 tight to 1934
This situation has been maintained up to 2007
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2007/Fig4_correction.gif
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/NEW_RANKINGS.pdf
In 2007, NASA GISS made a fruitless attempt to make 1998 ousting 1934 as Hottest U.S. Year
In [Link]
The “trick” has been discovered by McIntyre and NASA had to step back.
But the record published in 2012 finally reached the objective of ousting 1934 as warmest year in the US :
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs_v2/Fig.D.txt
Compared to the 2000 publication :
– 1998 average temperature anomaly has been adjusted by +0.35°C
– 1934 average temperature anomaly has been adjusted by -0.21°C
NASA also deleted those inconvenient data, but the resulting curve can be seen in Hansen et al 2010.
Looking at individual surface stations data, one can also observe significant and questionable evolutions of adjustments.
Few examples of how to hide the inconvenient truth that temperature have been warmer in the past, despite limited anthropogenic signature :
Station Data: Reykjavik (64.1 N,21.9 W)
– Old adjustments : the 30’s are clearly warmer than current period.
– New adjustments : Current period becomes much warmer. But why ?
The data manipulation is even more obvious and significant for Capetown Airpt (33.9 S,18.5 E) in South Africa.
– Old adjustments show a typical W profile where the 30’s are clearly warmer than current period.
– New adjustments make the W shape disappear and give place to a quite constant warming, with current period much warmer.
This is not cherry picking: such examples, all extracted from NASA GISS data base, can unfortunately be multiplied.
Conclusion :
Temperature data sets are manipulated and corrupted by questionable adjustments and nice “tricks” whose aim is “to hide the decline”, as per famous Phil Jones Climategate email.
When observational records do not support AGW consensus then modify the data to make them better fit models outputs,…And then you can claim that models are duly validated and right…
That’s climate junk science, but indeed that’s not science.
Pertinent comparisons between models outputs and observational data cannot be made before reliable and validated data sets are available as reference.
“The data doesn’t matter. We’re not basing our recommendations on the data. We’re basing them on the climate models.”
~ Prof. Chris Folland ~ (Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research)
This is interesting:
https://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2015/09/17/noaa-massively-ramps-up-their-temperature-fraud-ahead-of-paris/comment-page-1/#comment-541490
Adjustments to USHCN are 99% correlated with measured CO2.
If you just know CO2 is influencing temperatures, then you can just adjust them by the amount you think they should, and that proves that CO2 is influencing temperatures, right? No circular logic there.
Josha I will not defend any scientists who misrepresent the reliability of science.
Essentially the bulk of the government advocacy shills who make up the IPCC and ‘consensus’ then.
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“In sum, I see no correlation at all until the late 1970’ s. And then, from ca. 1998 to the present the earlier correlation again breaks down. So from 1880 through 2014, we see only ca. 23 years where warming is correlated with CO2 emissions – out of a total of 134 years. Looks to me like the long term trend is not correlation but its opposite.”
Vortex, Polar (2015-06-01). The Unsettled Science of Climate Change: A Primer for Critical Thinkers (Kindle Locations 493-495). . Kindle Edition.
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