by Judith Curry
The Interim Report of the Nongovermental Panel on Climate Change has been released: Climate Change Reconsidered.
From the Press Release:
New Report on Global Warming Contradicts U.N.’s IPCC
The United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), already under severe criticism for violating the requirements of academic peer review and relying on secondary sources, comes under attack again in a new report co-produced by three nonprofit research organizations.
According to the new report, “natural causes are very likely to be [the] dominant” cause of climate change that took place in the twentieth and at the start of the twenty-first centuries. “We are not saying anthropogenic greenhouse gases (GHG) cannot produce some warming or have not in the past. Our conclusion is that the evidence shows they are not playing a substantial role.”
The authors of the new report go on to say “the net effect of continued warming and rising carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere is most likely to be beneficial to humans, plants, and wildlife.”
Both conclusions contradict the findings of the widely cited reports of the IPCC. Click here for an executive summary of the book. Click here to review the book chapter-by-chapter.
The report was produced by The Heartland Institute,Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, and Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP), three national nonprofit organizations based in Chicago, Illinois, Tempe, Arizona, and Arlington, Virginia, respectively.
The 430-page report was coauthored and edited by three climate science researchers: Craig D. Idso, Ph.D., editor of the online magazine CO2 Science and author of several books and scholarly articles on the effects of carbon dioxide on plant and animal life; Robert M. Carter, Ph.D., a marine geologist and research professor at James Cook University in Queensland, Australia; and S. Fred Singer, Ph.D., a distinguished atmospheric physicist and first director of the U.S. Weather Satellite Service. Seven additional scientists and one policy expert on sustainable growth made contributions to the volume.
The book is titled Climate Change Reconsidered: 2011 Interim Report because it precedes a comprehensive volume that is expected to be released in 2013. It focuses on scientific research released since publication of Climate Change Reconsidered: The 2009 Report of the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC).
Key findings, as outlined in the interim report’s executive summary, include:
“We find evidence that the models over-estimate the amount of warming that occurred during the twentieth century and fail to incorporate chemical and biological processes thatmay be as important as the physical processes employed in the models.”
“More CO2 promotes more plant growth both on land and throughout the surface waters of the world’s oceans, and this vast assemblage of plant life has the ability to affect Earth’s climate in several ways, almost all of them tending to counteract the heating effects of CO2’s thermal radiative forcing.”
“The latest research on paleoclimatology and recent temperatures [finds] new evidence that the Medieval Warm Period of approximately 1,000 years ago, when there was about 28 percent less CO2 in the atmosphere than there is currently, was both global and warmer than today’s world.”
“New research finds less melting of ice in the Arctic, Antarctic, and on mountaintops than previously feared, no sign of acceleration of sea-level rise in recent decades, no trend over the past 50 years in changes to the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (MOC), and no changes in precipitation patterns or river flows that could be attributed to rising CO2 levels.”
“Amphibians, birds, butterflies, other insects, lizards, mammals, and even worms benefit from global warming and its myriad ecological effects.”
“Rising temperatures and atmospheric CO2 concentrations, by increasing crop yields, will play a major role in averting hunger and ecological destruction in the future.”
“The latest research suggests corals and other forms of aquatic life have effective adaptive responses to climate change enabling them to flourish despite or even because of climate change.”
“Global warming is more likely to improve rather than harm human health because rising temperatures lead to a greater reduction in winter deaths than the increase they cause in summer deaths.”
“Even in worst-case scenarios, mankind will be much better off in the year 2100 than it is today, and therefore able to adapt to whatever challenges climate change presents.”
Link to the full report [here].
The chapter headings from the Table of Contents:
1. Climate Models and Their Limitations
2. Forcings and Feedbacks
3. Paleoclimate and Recent Temperature
4. Observations and Projections: Cryosphere, Ocean Dynamics, and Hydrology
5. Observations and Projections: Extreme Weather
6. Terrestrial Animals
7. Terrestrial Plants and Soils 8. Aquatic Life
9. Human Health Effects
10. Economic and Other Policy Implications
Bart Verheggen is first off the block with a critique of the NIPCC Interim Report.
JC’s comments: I’ve taken a quick look at this. The press release seem less hyperbolic than the hype surrounding the previous report, so I was optimistic that this could be better than the previous report. My optimism was temporarily dashed upon reading the Foreward, where the first subheading is “Recanting Alarmists, Climategate.” The Foreward is a turnoff for anyone prepared to read this with an open mind.
The Executive Summary is more carefully written than the previous NIPCC Report. Their main conclusion:
On the most important issue, the IPCC‘s claim that ―most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-twentieth century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations [emphasis in the original],‖ we once again reach the opposite conclusion, that natural causes are very likely to be dominant. Once again, we stress we are not saying anthropogenic greenhouse gases (GHG) cannot produce some warming or have not in the past. Our conclusion is that the evidence shows they are not playing a substantial role.
IMO, this statement has the same problem as the IPCC statement: “very likely” reflects too much confidence. The fact that we have two opposite conclusions, both with “very likely” confidence levels, is a classic situation of competing uncertainties, with the likelihood that both groups are not sufficiently accounting for the uncertainties.
I haven’t read the individual chapters. The Chapter headings and general emphasis are quite different from the IPCC AR4 and forthcoming AR5.
Chapter 3 on Paleoclimate and the Medieval Warm Period promises to generate much discussion.
Thank you, thank you, Professor Curry, for the update.
World leaders failed to grasp that molding government science into consensus opinions would destroy the dynamic vitality of science that protects us.
With kind regards,
Oliver K. Manuel
Former NASA Principal
Investigator for Apollo
This NIPCC report is not any better than the IPCC reports, or governments science, for NIPCC report lacks the supporting science and mathematics. The present warming is caused by humans and natural causes has nothing to do with it. Global warming will, however, cease on its own naturally and without human intervention. I do agree with NIPCC report that there are advantages and disadvantages to global warming and the option of doing nothing must be explored.
The IPCC reports are as wrong as your book, “Global Warming: Calculation and Projection.”
If you seriously want to understand global warming you can begin by acquiring quantitative information on Earth’s heat source – the Sun:
1. “Earth’s Heat Source – The Sun”,
Energy and Environment 20, 131-144 (2009)
http://arxiv.org/pdf/0905.0704
2.”Neutron Repulsion”, The
APEIRON Journal, in press (2011)
http://arxiv.org/pdf/1102.1499v1
I know that this is not the thread to discuss my work, although am looking forward to it. Competent people around the world disagree with you.You have to be specific and point out what is wrong with it. The work calculated the present warming trend correctly through 2007 and projected 2008, 2009, 2010, and appears to project 2011 correctly as well. Do you think that this is a coincidence?!
You can neither calculate nor project global warming without considering Earth’s heat source.
Dear Oliver,
As I said, I am looking forward to discussing my work in detail on Climate etc. However, this is not the thread to discuss your work or mine. I would be very pleased to discuss my work with you or anyone else through my website, Just click on my name.
Thanks Nabil,
I agree, but our agreement will not change reality any more than the 1971 agreement between Henry Kissinger and Chairman Mao made Earth’s heat source a steady H-fusion reactor.
As you know heat flow from the Sun sustains you and me, life on Earth, and Earth’s climate.
Earth’s heat source is a variable star – despite the 1971 Kissinger/Mao agreement. Thus Earth’s climate has always changed, and life has continued to evolve [1].
1. Journal of Modern Physics (2011) 2, 587-594:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/10640850/JMP20112600007_31445079.pdf
I do not disagree with you, but we do not have the science that explains how summer and winter occur or climates change. We have to discover this science for there is so much a stake. If we do not, the climate/environment issue can devour our resources.
The NIPCC report is refreshingly candid regarding AGW.
But great care is needed to avoid more damage to society.
World leaders did not realize that they destroyed the most beneficial quality of science for society – its dynamic vitality – when they molded government science into an unreliable stream of consensus “scientific” opinions [1]:
a. CO2 from fossil fuels causes global warming.
b. Earth’s heat source is a steady H-fusion reactor.
c. Steady H-fusion reactors will meet future energy needs.
d. Radioactive waste from fission reactors can be safely stored.
e. Windmills and ocean waves are safe, reliable energy generators.
Etc., etc. ad infinitum.
AGW proponents are now desperate, like rats on a sinking ship, and extremely dangerous. They have great political power, but cannot free themselves from responsibility for decades of misinformation about:
1. The origin, composition, and operation of the Sun, and
2. Safe ways to meet energy needs for Earth’s growing population.
A face-saving exit [2] from their politically powerful but scientifically indefensible position may avoid more damage to society.
To be accepted, the exit strategy will need to:
1. Abandon retaliation or punishment for their wrongs, and
2. Acknowledge benefits we reaped from their noble goals.
Are we ready to move in that direction? Slaying the dragon may cause more damage to society than the dragon did.
Oliver
References:
1. “Deep Roots of Climategate”
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/10640850/20110722_Climategate_Roots.pdf
2. “Harmony from Climategate”
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/10640850/20110815_Climategate_Harmony.pdf
Dr. Curry,
The link to Bart’s site points to his criticism of the 2009 report, not the 2011 interim report.
I’d take them a lot more seriously if they’d back off the same kinds of talk they criticize the “alarmists” over.
When we form an opinion, it is difficult to not believe we are”very likely” right.
It would be great to have a link to the study…
Anyway, here it is:
http://www.nipccreport.org/reports/2011/2011report.html
thanks, i’ve added the link (forgot to do this)
Judith, while you are editing, you might want to change “Foreward” to “Foreword”, which I think is what you mean.
Thanks! Reading this will take a while.
3 lead authors, 8 contributors, where is the peer review of this report?
Where is the peer review of the IPCC reports? Some skeptics, including myself, put a lot of effort into commenting on the IPCC reports, only to be ignored. This is advocacy, on both sides, so peer review is irrelevant. Or if you really really need peer review, I am a peer and I approve. Satisfied? I can get six other peers if you really need it. Or 300. In this political context peer review is a joke.
Well said!
For WG1, you might try here
Most of IPCC reports are based on “peer-reviewed” papers that are scientifically worthless. Climate science is simply lacking and no amount of peer-review will rectify the deficiency caused by the lack of climate science.
“Most of IPCC reports are based on “peer-reviewed” papers that are scientifically worthless.”
Why would you think your opinion as someone totally ignorant of science would carry any weight?
A scientific illiterate thinks the work of the IPCC is “worthless.” Noted.
Dear Robert;
IPCC reports are scientifically worthless because they are based on false science that can not explain even how summer and winter occur, not to mention the climate. Example: IPCC calculation and projection of precipitation is in the order of +40% to +60%, which is clearly very wrong and misleading, so is surface temperature and sea level rise, to name a few. Therefore, IPCC recommended solutions to global warming can very well be misleading and costly. We have to be very careful.
Robert:
You do not need scientifically literate people to reject the IPCC based climate science that assumes that the atmosphere is transparent to visible solar radiations. High-school level rejects this assumption. So is the assumption of radiations between atmospheric layers and carbon dioxide heat trapping. So what are chances of success does this IPCC climate science have in the future? My best estimate is none!
Robert:
People like you, who think that only opinions of climate science “elites” that matter, are the ones who placed us in this climate/environment predicament. Do you think that your opinion matters more than ordinary people? Remember, these ordinary people are the ones who reject your science and voted you out in the last election. They will humble you with time for you have not learned nothing yet.
Yes Arthur, I want to see the review comments as well, posted online like we demanded of the IPCC. As a document this thing is a joke.
1. conflicted lead authors citing themselves.
2. No outside review, The IPCC process at least allowed for people like Mcintyre and McKittrick to be included in the review.
3. no transparency.
For me its like the skeptics who demand code and never produce any of their own.
Give them a little time. How long has the IPCC had to do whats right? 20 years?
Unacceptable. Every person on this thread knows what the issues are and every one of us could have designed a better more open process for publishing findings. If you cant learn from the IPCC mistakes there is no hope for you. Stop excusing shoddy work merely because you like the results. you make Mann look good.
Oh … I’ve redeemed Mann have I? Steve, you get so emotional when your belief system is mocked.
Forget the emotions, he’s obviously right, both in principle and pragmatically. Pragmatically because there is no way in the world a political class steeped in the outputs of the IPCC and its friends from science academies are going to take seriously anything that doesn’t greatly improve on IPCC processes.
As Margaret Thatcher once said to Shirley Williams (a political opponent) when she’d just been dusted over unfairly by a bunch of men: we have to be twice as good to even get noticed. It’s the same here. That’s being pragmatic.
Mosher is right. Why even bother if you are not even going to try to do better than your arch nemesis? Even comic books get it. And they are for children.
Mosher is just requesting an adult level of response.
This isn’t about dealing with adults. An adult level response is only appropriate when responding to adults.
Andrew
Establishment Climate Science is populated with children who insist on having their way. They are making quite a scene.
Andrew
The opposite conclusion of a thing being very likely is not that it’s opposite is very likely, but that the thing itself is very unlikely.
Forty percent chance of rain today, don’t you find yourself as ready to carry an umbrella as at sixty percent?
So no, the preliminaries to the report do not presage well the reasoning abilities of its authors.
40% chance of an extra .2C.
I have a choice.
180 trillion on renewables by 2050 and allowing China/India to steal away 100s of millions of jobs from the idiot countries
or
I’ll undo the top button on my shirt.
Bruce
Relevance?
The squandering of hundreds of trillions based on miniscule possible changes in temperature over 200 years.
So how long have you had this problem with math?
Don’t laugh, folks, it’s a serious problem:
http://www.amazon.com/Innumeracy-Mathematical-Illiteracy-Consequences-Vintage/dp/0679726012
“The total bill for WWS comes to around $225 trillion over the next 20 years. That is nearly the entire output of the world’s largest economy every year for two decades. ”
http://thegwpf.org/best-of-blogs/2611-the-cost-of-running-the-world-on-renewable-power.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/jan/20/global-warming-policy-foundation-donors
The first measure of a skeptic is that one makes so many efforts to impeach his own sources of information as to impeach those one objects to.
I try not to read the Guardian … especially since they got caught bribing policemen to get access to private information.
However, the article I link to shows their math. Do you disagree with their calculations? If so, which ones?
I actually spent some time googling to see if their math was in the right ballpark because I was amazed at the numbers. And I got similar numbers from pro-wind and pro-PV websites.
It was the UK Guardian that was investigating News of the World and Murdoch’s other outfits for illicit news gathering.
So I think you made an honest mistake, and got this backwards.
Otherwise, I think you doth project too much?
“A COP has been arrested over allegations he leaked details about the Met’s phone hacking inquiry to The Guardian.”
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3763115/Guardian-cop-arrest-disappointing-say-Met.html
It wasn’t just Murdoch papers. Thats the left-wing spin from the BBC and Guardian.
“The BBC reports today that police asked for files from Operation Motorman, an earlier inquiry into the use of private investigators by newspapers. These files contain details of 4,000 requests for confidential information from a private investigator, made by 300 journalists working for 31 publications. In many cases, this information was obtained illegally.
The biggest offender was not a News International paper, but the Daily Mail, with the 2006 report What price privacy now totting up 952 transactions with private investigators by 58 journalists (“Have I ever countenanced hacking or blagging? No,” the Daily Mail’s editor Paul Dacre told a committee of MPs last week). The Sunday People was next with 802 transactions and 50 journalists. It was not just the tabloids, either: 103 transactions by four journalists were found at the Observer.”
http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/the-staggers/2011/07/public-interest-private
Bruce
they got caught bribing policemen to get access to private information.
I’m a skeptic, not a nice man.
Indeed, I intensely dislike much the source I cited says, and I’m not overly fond of the British, either, for what they do to food. Except Stephen Fry. He’s awesome. And their comedians. Not that Fry isn’t one of those too. Or that I’d let most comedians near a kitchen. But I mean that in the best possible way.
To the point, could you put as much effort into impeaching your sources as you did into impeaching mine?
Because I can kick the living daylights out of the Guardian in general and the citation I provided in particular compared to your rather tame efforts, but the point is.. your source sucks still worse.
I’m just wondering if you can put your finger on how and why?
“The latest research on paleoclimatology and recent temperatures [finds] new evidence that the Medieval Warm Period of approximately 1,000 years ago, when there was about 28 percent less CO2 in the atmosphere than there is currently, was both global and warmer than today’s world.”
That is not new. That is in the Ice Core Data. People farmed further north during the Medieval Warm Period than they do today. We have long known these things. What is the nature of the new evidence?
I am anxious to see the data that they used to draw conclusions that are different from the IPCC conclusions.
Herman Alexander Pope
You ask:
For starters, check out the 33 reports cited by NIPCC. These cover the entire globe using different paleoclimate methodologies, all confirming a MWP that was slightly warmer than today. Many of these were published after the IPCC AR4 cut-off in 2006. Others had already been published, but were ignored by IPCC in favor of the “hockey stick” and its “spaghetti copies”.
Max
They cover the entire globe? No they don’t. What you mean is each study is part of the entire globe.
Herman,
Just have a look on NIPCC reports Chapter 3.1 dedicated to MWP.
TAR and AR4 have steadily tried to wipe out MWP, claiming this was just a local (mainly in Northern Europe and Greenland) warm event, still cooler than current warm period. Some of the Climategate mails also revealed continuous attempts by Mann, Hansen, Jones etc… to deny & hide this MWP.
Just because MWP provides an irrefutable rebuttal to AGW theory: AGW theory is fully incompatible with a worldwide warm period while CO2 concentration was 30% lower than today…
As you have yourself stated, there are numerous historical evidences (dates of crops, of trees’ blooming, wine growing in England, farming in Greenland etc…) showing that MWP was a warmer global period that current one. NIPCC intermediate report just provides a synthesis of recent (2009 and 2010) paleoclimate reconstructions, confirming scientifically what historical records had taught us for years (and even decades) i.e. that MWP was a global warm period…
I notice the complete failure of the NIPCC report to show any global or hemispheric temperature reconstructions apart from the “spaghetti graph” ones which show temperatures currently are more likely warmer the MWP.
Yet they are happy to claim the world was warmer during the undefined medieval warm period. Can’t really see (from a quick scan) how they’ve managed to draw that conclusion without a global or hemispheric reconstruction.
I think one tree in Yamal is neither global nor hemispheric.
Maybe if the NIPCC turned some of their proxies upside down like Mann has you would be happier?
“I think one tree in Yamal is neither global nor hemispheric.”
There’s that counting problem again. Maybe some sort of educational therapist? Play therapy?
“Coming to light in recent days has been one of the most extraordinary scientific detective stories of our time, bizarrely centred on a single tree in Siberia dubbed “the most influential tree in the world”. On this astonishing tale, it is no exaggeration to say, could hang in considerable part the future shape of our civilisation. Right at the heart of the sound and fury of “Climategate” – the emails leaked from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) in East Anglia – is one story of scientific chicanery, overlooked by the media, whose implications dwarf all the rest. If all those thousands of emails and other documents were leaked by an angry whistle-blower, as now seems likely, it was this story more than any other that he or she wanted the world to see.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/6738111/Climategate-reveals-the-most-influential-tree-in-the-world.html
It’s a lie that global or hemispheric temperature reconstructions are dependent on one tree.
But besides from that you didn’t answer why the Heartland institute didn’t include any such reconstructions. What about Loehl or Ljungqvist for example?
http://www.skepticalscience.com/hockey-stick-own-goal.html
Idiocy is relying on trees to determine temperature with 0.1 degree precision. Sheer idiocy.
John Cook leaves the error bands out of his graph of Ljungqvist – very dishonest. Loehle uses a treeless proxy and shows the MWP as warmer than today.
No one claims that only one tree was used. The Mann hockey stick was based on 18 Bristlecone samples. When refuted – the 12 CRU Siberian birch samples were used – including Yad06 – which has outstanding characteristics. The samples were cherry picked. But the tree proxies all have problems – they respond to multiple factors in the environment.
LOLwot: “It’s a lie that global or hemispheric temperature reconstructions are dependent on one tree.”
They are also dependant on upside down Tijlander.
“By flipping the data opposite to the interpretation of Tiljander et al, Mann shows the Little Ice Age in Finland as being warmer than the MWP, 100% opposite to the interpretation of the authors and the paleoclimate evidence. The flipping is done because the increase in varve thickness due to construction and agricultural activities is interpreted by Mann et al as a “nonlocal statistical relationship” or “teleconnection” to world climate.
A more convincing example of spurious regression in “peer reviewed” literature will be hard to find.”
http://climateaudit.org/2008/10/02/its-saturday-night-live/
“Without doing any sort of fancy statistical test, one can readily see a difference. None of the YAD** trees on the right are especially old – the graph shows their full history – all start after AD1800. However, instead of the standard negative exponential declining growth, these particular trees started off very slowly, like old trees, and then got a burst of virility when they got to be 100 years old. Benjamin Button trees so to speak. Because of the one size fits all RCS standardization, this post-100 growth pulse is divided by a small standard denominator – YAD06 reaches 8 sigma and is the most influential tree in the world.”
http://climateaudit.org/2009/09/30/yamal-the-forest-and-the-trees/
This graph contains Loehl and Ljungqvist as well as Mann 08
http://www.skepticalscience.com/images/recon_lj_with_others.png
None of them support the MWP being warmer than today.
John Cook leaves the error bounds out – splices instrumental records without explanation – but here is the Loehle abstract.
‘Historical data provide a baseline for judging how anomalous recent temperature changes are and for assessing the degree to which organisms are likely to be adversely affected by current or future warming. Climate histories are commonly reconstructed from a variety of sources, including ice cores, tree rings, and sediment. Tree-ring data, being the most abundant for recent centuries, tend to dominate reconstructions. There are reasons to believe that tree ring data may not properly capture long-term climate changes. In this study, eighteen 2000-year-long series were obtained that were not based on tree ring data. Data in each series were smoothed with a 30-year running mean. All data were then converted to anomalies by subtracting the mean of each series from that series. The overall mean series was then computed by simple averaging. The mean time series shows quite coherent structure. The mean series shows the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) and Little Ice Age (LIA) quite clearly, with the MWP being approximately 0.3°C warmer than 20th century values at these eighteen sites.’
http://www.ncasi.org/publications/Detail.aspx?id=3025
Yes, their first chart was an epic fail at chartmanship.
Let’s see…
The Heartland Institute – an overtly political organization, with a history that includes advocacy on the part of the tobacco industry to put in doubt conclusions about the harm caused by secondhand smoke, publishes material that scientifically shows recent warming is likely due to natural variation.
I’m shocked. Who could have predicted that.
And of course, let us not forget that vast asymmetry in the political influence on the different sides of the climate debate.
*very big SIGH*
do you also question anything Greepeace reports because they are “overtly political”?
So tiresome….
Apply a Double-standard much?
Actually, yes. It’s a valid question to ask about all sources of analysis.
So, where’s that double standard?
Who could have predicted natural variation affects climate?
Everyone can. Happens everyday. Temperatures can rise and fall by 30C in one day in the desert, by 30C over a year in mild coastal climates and the whole earth can cool and warm by .8C in just a few months because of El Nino/La Nina.
Who believes the fairytale that man causes warming when the warming stops for 13 years and man causes 1900mm of seal level rise by 2100 when it dropped 6mm in 2010 and has only risen 20mm since 2001 (using the enhanced adjusted satellite data).
You are the one pushing the fairytale.
Let’s try sticking to the actual point, instead of points that “warmists” make in your fantasies, OK?
No one doubts “natural variation affects climate.”
The question is about what “very likely” causes recent warming trends.
1) There is no warming trend for last 13 years
2) Warming trends in previous decades were just as high as the 90s
3) Global brightening occurred during the 1990s which added as much as .5W/m-2/year to the incoming solar energy that reached the ground.
4) Cosmic Rays hit a record low in the early 1990s which may mean that clouds were not formed which may be the reason the very real brightening occurred.
http://i55.tinypic.com/34qk01z.jpg
http://www.sciencebits.com/CosmicRaysClimate (fig. 3)
Bruce –
You have seen counter-arguments to each of your points below – many times. I’m sure that you are quite familiar with the counter-arguments. For example, I wouldn’t doubt that you could recite chapter-and-verse the counter arguments to your statement that there is no warming trend for the past 13 years.
That you choose to disagree with them is certainly your right.
However, if your disagreement is based on mischaracterizations as exemplified in your post above, I suggest that you re-evaluate.
What counter arguments?
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/wti/from:1998/to:2011/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1998/to:2011
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1998/to:2011/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1998/to:2011/trend/plot/none
First you need to use the variance adjusted data which takes into account the differing number of observations in the data. If you want the best estimate use the one that includes optimal averaging. That’s the one produced for the IPCC. I question whether you are adequately skeptical of your own conclusions because you didn’t even check the data sources or the literature associated with them.
Second, a simple least squares fit ( which is not a trend) indicates a small but statistically insignificant warming trend. Of course since natural variation over 30 year or 60 year periods can be substantial, looking at 13 years of data to establish or rule out a small secular trend ( 2C per century) is a foolish exercise from the start. That is, since we know that the AGW trend is small, and since we know that short term natural variations can be high, a simple power test would probably tell you that you dont have a good chance of finding that small single in short periods. You can make your chances of finding it lower by cherry picking. In short, before you ever go looking for a trend, you’d be wise to undrestand the effect size you are looking for and the variance. If you are looking for a small effect size in a dataset with large varience then a simple power test would tell you that its going to be hard to find in a small ( short) dataset.
AGW as a theory does not predict monotonic increases, in fact climate models often have long periods ( even decades ) where cooling occurs.
You actually need to understand a theory before you can criticise it
100th of a degree?
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1998/to:2011/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1998/to:2011/trend
LOL
Oh … I’m burning up! The earth has a fever!
You have no answer for the power of the test problem. Do you ?
I was agreeing with you! The earth has a .01C feevahhhh. LOL
But seriously … when did AGW begin? Pick a year. Go out on a limb and pick a year. I keeping hoping someone will.
Who predicted 13 years of no rise?
When Hansen made his predictions, the one closest to the current scenario was the Scenario C which was only supposed to occur with a rapid decline in greenhouse gas emissions starting around the year 2000. His prediction is a joke.
Why is AGW so non-predictable?
It seems clear to me that those who believe in AGW ascribe all natural warming to CO2 but have no evidence it was caused by CO2 … and then go ahead and ignore changes in solar energy reaching the earth because it ruins your religion.
More sunlight. More warming. No change, no warming. Less sunshine, cooling.
http://i55.tinypic.com/34qk01z.jpg
http://i51.tinypic.com/eb3pmb.jpg
A feeeeever. 01C. LOL
So if 13 years is a foolish amount of time to rule out a 2C trend, what would you say isn’t a foolish amount of time? 15 years?
There are a lot of ways of looking at the data. http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3sh/from:1979/to:2011/plot/hadcrut3sh/from:1979/to:1997/trend/plot/hadcrut3sh/from:1999/to:2011/trend/plot/hadcrut3nh/from:1979/to:2011/plot/hadcrut3nh/from:1979/to:1997/trend/plot/hadcrut3nh/from:1999/to:2011/trend
Comparing the NH with the SH removing only 1998 which was a bit of an odd ball, is interesting. I would what it would look like if you plotted just the areas where the paleo proxies were located?
“AGW as a theory does not predict monotonic increases, in fact climate models often have long periods ( even decades ) where cooling occurs.”
Which natural variations can cause that in the model runs Steve?
A little over 5% of modeled decades have no warming.
Tallbloke,
I have an idea for your blog. A Mannian Global Temperature average. Take just the instrumental temperature records from the areas where the proxies originated and average those. There may be some that you have to invert to be consistent.
‘What’s our perspective on how the climate will behave in the near future? The HadCRUT3 global mean temperature to the right shows the post-1980 warming, along with the “plateau” in global mean temperature post-1998. Also shown is a linear trend using temperatures over the period 1979-1997 (no cherry picking here; pick any trend that doesn’t include the period 1998-2008). We hypothesize that the established pre-1998 trend is the true forced warming signal, and that the climate system effectively overshot this signal in response to the 1997/98 El Niño. This overshoot is in the process of radiatively dissipating, and the climate will return to its earlier defined, greenhouse gas-forced warming signal. If this hypothesis is correct, the era of consistent record-breaking global mean temperatures will not resume until roughly 2020. Of course, this contrasts sharply with other forecasts of the climate system; the purple line roughly indicates the model-based forecast of Smith et al. (2007) , suggesting with a warming of roughly 0.3 deg C over the 2005-2015 period.’
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/07/warminginterrupted-much-ado-about-natural-variability/
The residual ‘trend’ after ‘climate shifts’ is about 0.1o C/decade.
You were the one who (predicatbly) wandered off into “overtly political” (as if the IPCC isn’t) and the usual knee-jerk reference to the tobacco industry.
Let’s try sticking to the actual point, indeed.
Look on virtually any thread at Climate etc., and you will see a long line of posts about the political influences on the IPCC and climate scientists writ large.
My point is that the political influences exist on both sides, and that the political influences on either side are an important consideration.
What I find interesting is that at a site where, rather predominantly, “skeptics” attribute the believe that GW 90% likely to be more than 51% A to political influence, we find a reluctance to examine the degree to which counter-balancing political orientation might influence alternative views in the climate debate.
“Look on virtually any thread at Climate etc., and you will see a long line of posts about the political influences on the IPCC and climate scientists writ large.”
It isn’t the same as AGW consensus leadership making a very basic concession about the their common political culture. “The NYTimes is a centerist newspaper?” That should should get logic pass if people who are even more fringe view it that way? When you shut your curiosity down to this degree what is there to offer you?
“we find a reluctance to examine the degree to which counter-balancing political orientation might influence alternative views in the climate debate.”
The would-be central planning authority is the IPCC. If you can’t ID the political culture you’re not being honest. Trust is gone, debate over you lose. Dr. Curry is a silent partisan in a moderate facade if she can’t ownup on the IPCC political culture question.
Had the fraudulent statistics on deaths from second hand smoke not been identified by Singer the faulty legislation on second hand smoke would have been passed but then revoked when the flaws wer identified. Because this error in the data was discovered proper legislation based on real data is now in place and if anything Singer should be thanked for preventing the faulty legislation.
Is it a coincidence that the climate change issue is based on the same type of fabricated evidence and that Singer is once again exposing the fraud through honest science?
It is this type of ad hominem attack that has supported the climate change fraud and people making these slanderous claims should be held accountable for the part they have played in perpetrating this fraud which has crippled the economy and created global starvation by using basic food staples as feedstock for biofuels.
The goal of the Hartland Institute is to put an end to this fraud; what is your goal?
There are many papers which show that bans on smoking in public places have reduced the incidence of smoking and saved lives.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_smoking#Effects_2
http://www.nhs.uk/news/2010/06June/Pages/Heart-attacks-fall-after-smoking-ban.aspx
http://www.bmj.com/content/328/7446/977.abstract
Singer is a political ideolog with a knee jerk opposition to environmental and health regulation, who has been paid by corporations to cast doubt on the scientific evidence. He can no longer claim to be a legitimate scientist.
Eric.
Abstract
Objective To determine whether there was a change in hospital admissions for acute myocardial infarction while a local law banning smoking in public and in workplaces was in effect.
Design Analysis of admissions from December 1997 through November 2003 using Poisson analysis.
Setting Helena, Montana, a geographically isolated community with one hospital serving a population of 68 140.
Participants All patients admitted for acute myocardial infarction.
Main outcome measures Number of monthly admissions for acute myocardial infarction for people living in and outside Helena.
Results During the six months the law was enforced the number of admissions fell significantly (− 16 admissions, 95% confidence interval – 31.7 to – 0.3), from an average of 40 admissions during the same months in the years before and after the law to a total of 24 admissions during the six months the law was effect. There was a non-significant increase of 5.6 (− 5.2 to 16.4) in the number of admissions from outside Helena during the same period, from 12.4 in the years before and after the law to 18 while the law was in effect.
Conclusions Laws to enforce smoke-free workplaces and public places may be associated with an effect on morbidity from heart disease.
“We did not make any direct observations to
measure how much exposure to secondhand smoke
was reduced during the months when the law was in
force. We do not know the prevalence of smoking in
venues covered by ban, though the city-county health
department reported that all but two businesses
complied.16”
Note that there is NO information actually gathered that connects the ban on smoking with the decrease in admissions for acute myocardial infarction. In fact, there is no information gathered as to whether the people being admitted before had any exposure to smoking of any kind. No long term health records investigation… These are the types of statistical correlations that are, more and more, being used to justify whatever agenda someone has in mind. This is pure Junk Science. The only thing it should be used for is to apply for funding to do a REAL study that includes actually evaluating the patients and their histories!!!
This is measuring a statistic with no connection to anything but a start date. This is the kind of Junk Science you would SCREAM about if it were used to debunk AGW!!
The other link is equally dodgy:
A whole 2.4%? Like WOW! Presumably at P = 0.05 and with a confidence interval an order of magnitude greater than the purported effect.
It just goes to show how people will clutch at any straws which appear to support their pet ideologies.
And note how they ‘estimated’ the figure, not actually measured it. That would have been too easy – simply a matter of counting heads.
He ripped them off then – I would have done it for nothing.
Joshua:
If you’re looking for a stick to beat anyone with, the I’d advise you to stay well away from the secondhand smoke story. A read of the congressional hearings and court records with respect to the EPA research ought to tell you that you may be skating on very thin ice.
And, as an ex-smoker, I’m not exactly enamoured with the tobacco industry.
This story has some parallels
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/exclusive-smoked-out-tobacco-giants-war-on-science-2347254.html
Peter – the data of epidemiological studies overwhelmingly support conclusions about the deleterious impact of second-hand smoke. Even if you choose to ignore the potential as a carcinogenic, there is abundant evidence showing that it negatively impacts respiratory and cardiovascular health. I mean seriously, outside of the statistical evidence, it’s just common sense. Would you subject your child to a smoke-filled environment?
Sorry – I give some measure of credibility to “skeptics” about the impact of global warming, for a variety of reasons. But “skeptics” who argue that second-hand smoke doesn’t negatively impact health, IMO, are basing their conclusions on nothing other than motivated reasoning based on political orientation. That “skeptics” of climate change would allow themselves to be identified with the defense of theories that second-hand smoke isn’t harmful only works to their own discredit, IMO.
I see no thin ice. I see only massive icebergs. Contrary to what you can see in Greenland.
Read up on it – then get back to me. I’m not prepared to waste my time arguing against what amounts to little more than ignorant belief.
Sorry, that’s just how it is.
I’ve actually read up on it quite a bit.
The evidence from very a large number of comprehensive epidemiological studies is overwhelming.
Now you may believe that the entire paradigm of epidemiological study is flawed or corrupted by political influence, and you’re entitled to that belief.
But if you’re basing your conclusions on the epidemiological evidence, then anything other than a conclusion that second-hand smoke is harmful to health is, simply, unfounded.
Not the entire epidemiological study, no.
It’s just that it’s so easy to corrupt – you can ‘prove’ anything with (the misuse of) statistics, especially if you’re prepared to accept P values of 0.1 as being significant, RR values very close to unity and confidence intervals which encompass unity (ie no effect), if you’re prepared to leave out ‘inconvenient’ results and to gloss over ‘unfortunate’ facts such as lack of biological plausibility, dose response, tiny sample sizes and massive confounding factors.
Just compare the results of two epidemiological studies, one into smoking vs lung cancer, the other into passive smoking vs lung cancer
Smoking: RR > 20.0, P = 0.01
Passive smoking: RR ~1.24, P = 0.1
It’s not just passive smoking either – epidemiology has been corrupted by unscrupulous people with poor standards. Look at Andrew Wakefield on MMR vs autism, and Ancel Keys on dietary cholesterol vs heart disease, for just two examples.
“If you’re looking for a stick to beat anyone with, the I’d advise you to stay well away from the secondhand smoke story.”
I’d advise you to drop this particular delusion quickly — nothing destroys the credibility of science deniers faster than illuminating their GENERAL contempt for any science that conflicts with their ideology . . .
You’re the one with the ideology here, which you’ll let nothing get in the way of – even if it means drawing parallels with dodgy science, which does your case no favours. But you just can’t see that, can you!
Look at those figures above again:
Or can’t you tell the difference between rigorous and dodgy results?
But I see we’re coming up in the world – we used to be plain ol’ climate deniers, and now we’re science deniers – lol
This report is notable as compared to the IPCC reports by its small number of authors.
Koch brothers remind me to ask: What the HE(MMann)2 happened to Berkeley Earth?
coming soon. a slew of papers are on the verge of being submitted for publication. Once they are accepted, I anticipate that the data set will be made public.
thanks. looking forward to it.
You might want to mention to them that their website is all messed up –
http://berkeleyearth.org/
The website is now fixed. Apparently their domain host godaddy implemented some sort of change which broke the links.
The Berkeley Earth website list NOVIM as their financial backers. The NOVIM website lists as the projects they are funding only CO2/Global Warming projects giving the appearence they are an advocacy group. Given Berkeley’s natural inclinations, do you think we can expect a fair treatment of the sublect?
As the pigeon on TV said: ‘you gotta feed the doctor’s boy’…
Looking forward to the data dump..
How many authors wrote the key IPCC chapters? 3? 5?
Sure, the IPCC padded it out so lots of their buddies could make money off it.
Bruce,
It’s just an impression that struck me. I’m aware that the long list of names on IPCC reports and even peer-reviewed papers doesn’t necessarily imply a significant contribution on everyone’s part.
I want someone to answer my follow up question though.
Maybe Dr. Curry knows more?
Bill
Bill, do you mean your question about the BEST? It is a bit odd. They first said their results would be released in the first half of 2011. That timescale passed. Currently, on the FAQ it says “We expect to be in a position to publish preliminary results during the summer of 2011, together with the initial data release.” Well, summer is now officially over. Presumably they found that the process was more complicated than they had first thought – in fact the FAQ says something like this.
Also, I signed up for their newsletter months ago and have received nothing.
If Judith is right that papers are ‘on the verge’ of being submitted and the data won’t be released until they are accepted, it could be another 6 months.
This is not good for them. Whichever way the results turn out, the long delay will create suspicions and doubts from the side that don’t like the outcome!
PaulM –
Interesting about the newsletter. That is not good PR for them. At the very least they could comment on the challenges etc. without tipping their hand as to the results.
It could be a year before we see any results. That seems to be something of a trend lately, and the CERN CLOUD discussion highlighted that point.
I don’t know that the delay will really affect the attitudes of those who don’t like the results. I’m just impatient. I want to hear SOMETHING beyond Dr. Muller’s March Congressional testimony.
I’ve always thought surface temps were simple minded as climate is more complex. That it’s a subculture war zone going back to Moses I understand the efforts. Certainly if the data comes back looking cooked or creates more uncertainty hurts the AGW advocates.
If it was such high minded science why would the “consensus” continue to cling to surface temps and make such unscientific talking points? same with all the weather extreme associations to AGW?
BEST will be anticlimatic in the end, the short side of the release will have no trouble finding the margin of error on this type of data stream. Then it’s back to the hockey stick for the 10 to the nth time. Generally it makes the science look worse since surface measurements in themselves can’t define climate. Yawn.
The year 2007 marked the fifth year of the global cooling trend that started in 2002 which is still continuing today and is expected to continue for at least the next two decades until the end of solar cycle 25.
Over the five years from 2002 to 2007 atmospheric CO2 concentration increased by 2ppmv per year and the correlation between HadCRUT3 raw monthly temperature and CO2 was R= -0.42 and between the more precise UAH MSU satellite raw monthly temperature was R= -0.31.
With the world cooling and negative correlation between the IPCC’s own temperature data and atmospheric CO2 concentration from Mauna Loa Observatory confirmed by negative satellite data correlation the IPCC produced the Bali Declaration in support of the IPCC 2007 Fourth Assesment Report:
2007 Bali Climate Declaration by Scientists
This consensus document was prepared under the auspices of the Climate Change Research Centre at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia.
——————————————————————————–
The 2007 IPCC report, compiled by several hundred climate scientists, has unequivocally concluded that our climate is warming rapidly, and that we are now at least 90% certain that this is mostly due to human activities. The amount of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere now far exceeds the natural range of the past 650,000 years, and it is rising very quickly due to human activity. If this trend is not halted soon, many millions of people will be at risk from extreme events such as heat waves, drought, floods and storms, our coasts and cities will be threatened by rising sea levels, and many ecosystems, plants and animal species will be in serious danger of extinction.
The next round of focused negotiations for a new global climate treaty (within the 1992 UNFCCC process) needs to begin in December 2007 and be completed by 2009. The prime goal of this new regime must be to limit global warming to no more than 2 ºC above the pre-industrial temperature, a limit that has already been formally adopted by the European Union and a number of other countries.
Based on current scientific understanding, this requires that global greenhouse gas emissions need to be reduced by at least 50% below their 1990 levels by the year 2050. In the long run, greenhouse gas concentrations need to be stabilised at a level well below 450 ppm (parts per million; measured in CO2-equivalent concentration). In order to stay below 2 ºC, global emissions must peak and decline in the next 10 to 15 years, so there is no time to lose.
As scientists, we urge the negotiators to reach an agreement that takes these targets as a minimum requirement for a fair and effective global climate agreement.
——————————————————————————–
Bali Declaration translations: Arabic Bengali Chinese French Hindi Indonesian Portugese Russian Spanish
——————————————————————————–
Media release information Press conference information
——————————————————————————–
The 2007 Bali Climate Declaration has been signed by the following scientists:
When the world is cooling and ther is negative correlation between CO2 and global temperature and the IPCC declares “unequivocally concluded that our climate is warming rapidly, and that we are now at least 90% certain that this is mostly due to human activities” one must conclude that there is something terribly wrong with the IPCC!
In contrast there is not even a single point raised in the NIPCC report that is not fully justuified by hard physical evidence.
The only reason that the NIPCC was formed was to provide a physical data based challenge to the conjecture based IPCC report which uses faulty model projections in support of this conjecture but does not include the actual physical data which refutes the ludicrous contention that a 2ppmv/year increase in CO2 will produce catastrophic global warming by year 2100 with the Earth expected to continue to cool at least until 2032 as CO2 emissions from fossil fuels continue to increase.
Species Extinctions
David Stockwell has a post discussing:
NIPCC Report on Species Extinctions due to Climate Change
Stockwell cites “Daniel Botkin on Thomas 204:
I think it’s a good idea to present the science that they believe favors the sceptic cause in a reasonably dispassionate way. But as with the foreward, they just can’t hold back the rhetoric in the science sections. From Chap 3:
They used Mann‘s “Nature trick” of Climategate fame, truncating the reconstructed temperature history near its end and replacing it with modern-day instrumental data, so the last part of the record cannot be validly compared with the earlier portion.
This subterfuge is unwarranted. And in its current application, it‘s not just from 1981 or 1961 onwards that the ruse is applied….
……..
So why wasn‘t this clearly superior method of data analysis employed? Perhaps to hide the decline in the reconstructed temperature history that was evident in the latter decades of some of the proxy data. And why was that done? Perhaps to get rid of the Medieval Warm Period, because knowledge of the existence of higher temperatures during the MWP makes it much more difficult for most rational people to believe the planet‘s current level of warmth is due to its high atmospheric CO2 concentration.
Not very believable as a review of the science.
“Not very believable as a review of the science.”
A lot more believable than the IPCC’s corrupt report.
Even the great Nick Stokes has belief systems.
Andrew
Everyone knows the science on CSI is impeccable.
Yes, from my perspective and from Bishop hills and Anthony’s perspective the kind of language used here does not belong in the document. It’s annoying as hell to work so hard on an issue like the HS and then have people like Carter, Singer and Idso summarize a technical argument in emotional terms. It’s one thing to get snarky on blogs, but quite another thing to let that filter into a “scientific” report.
Boo hoo. Write your own document.
Let me elaborate, Steven. You are part of the problem so your displeasure is good news. More specifically, the fantasy that the IPCC reports are scientific is what we are fighting.
You dont fight it by doing a worse job.
You dont fight it by producing a document where every author is conflicted. You dont fight it by have no review. you dont fight it by having a totally closed process. The IPCC reports are summaries of the science. They are not science. As summaries they fell short. It is illogical to think that you combat poor summaries by doing worse ones. It is illogical to think that you solve the IPCC problem of having conflicted Lead authors, by engaging in the process in every chapter of your report. it is illogical to think that you solve the problem of ignoring reviewers by eliminating them altogether and it is illogical to think that you combat the problem of transparency the IPCC had by creating an opaque process. I have seen much stupidity in defense of the IPCC, but your defense of this report makes them look brilliant in comparison. This is not about personailities this is about a process. The IPCC had a broken process, this report had a perverse process.
Maybe you could elaborate on funding.
How many billions for IPCC?
Actually, you may be making a tactical misjudgment here. If the authors’ goal is to prevent CO2 mitigation policies from being adopted, then mirror-imaging the flaws of the IPCC may be just the ticket. Either the IPCC defenders make the same objections you have, in which case the criticism boomerangs on them big time, or the IPCCers try to argue from authority/ad hominem, which just drags them down further into the swamp of non-credibility. Either way, public confidence in the need to adopt immediate mitigation policies is damaged.
On the other hand, if the authors were trying to create a better understanding of the state of knowledge on these issues then your criticism would be on target. The one objective may conflict with the other.
That’s a good observation. It’s sad we have to roll in IPCC mud of course and give credit to those make the effort.
Driving climate science down to the level of trial lawyers or building contractors in an ugly process but it’s nothing AGW activists have every avoided.
Steven
You overlook the tiny budget and/or volunteer efforts of NIPCC relative to the IPCCs massive funding.
NIPCC is posting incremental reviews and then collecting them into summaries. It is seeking reviewers:
Should you find material missing, please review and submit it.
Steven, the NIPCC is the polemical counter to the IPCC. What don’t you understand? Skepticism must meet the enemy at every level, not just yours. Happily we can.
Nick Stokes
Please explain your objection to “the rhetoric in the science sections”.
The NIPCC summary appears to me to be an accurate evaluation of “hide the decline” as exposed by Climategate. See:
Merriam Webster
Daniel Webster 1828
Daniel Webster 1828
They have used the technically accurate words to summarize “hide the decline”. Why mince words? As advocated for 3000 years,call a spade a spade.
The public trust in science is at stake as well as the wise use of trillions of tax payer dollars. This is NOT the time to pussy foot around the bush trying to pretend that everything is OK. It is NOT.
To uphold the integrity of science, we must bluntly and clearly expose fraud and return to use of clear objective evidence and accurate analysis.
Judith,
Is it the heat and further length of the growing season or just CO2 as the cause?
Co2 will still be in the air in colder weather and colder weather definitely stunts and shortens growth.
I doubt this organization can any better defend their position than the alarmists can their own. We’ve learned in the previous 36 months that there is a vast amount of unconsidered information not available in the run-up to this report, and for all the IPCC reports to date. One would think it patently obvious that what is now required is for all the parties to begin working together on this puzzle, each carefully fitting their piece into the larger, growing solution. As it is, each party believes it is their newly discovered piece that will provide the first accurate preview of the assembled parts and nothing could be further from reality. Nobody yet can say what color the lipstick is on this pig.
Science being the record of truth in an investigation, it also acts as regulator – Hansen and Carter cannot both be right, and yet the scientific method ultimately produces but one correct solution or no solution at all. All of this Nevillian paper waving is utter BS. Until the belligerents agree on the one true scientific result there will remain work to do. I think few if any of the current crop of scientists on either side are capable of bringing this to a resolution.
As pointed out by Gene, my post discussed the 2009 NIPCC report “climate change reconsidered”.
I haven’t yet looked at the more recent 2011 interim report. Inasmuch as both reports are similar, my critique would still be relevant though (imho).
Blah, blah, blah. The same old back and forth. It’s so wearying. I’m a skeptic, but fail to see how a report like this from The Heartland Institute advances the cause. These are the same folks who aligned themselves with BIG TOBACCO in the 90’s, are they not?
This is not to say that I disagree with what they’re saying. In fact I do no. And for all I know second hand smoke studies were badly designed. But do you suppose a single alarmist is going to place the slightest credence in such a report?
Fine. This is America. I celebrate their right to write reports and disseminate them to their hearts content. And if that makes the skeptics feel good about themselves, that’s fine too. I just fail to see the point..
I’m close to where you are pokerguy but I think it’s a false narrative to try to hold skeptics, regardless of how inflamed their politics, to be judged in the same fashion as the IPCC who have the burden to actually “prove” the argument that is designed to support a massive real world policy like cap and trade. Skeptics get no policy benefit accept perhaps easier regulations than is current. It’s a very small potato in comparison to what AGW advocates stand to gain.
Dr. Curry makes the same false equivalence above;
“The fact that we have two opposite conclusions, both with “very likely” confidence levels, is a classic situation of competing uncertainties, with the likelihood that both groups are not sufficiently accounting for the uncertainties.”
The IPCC can’t support their claim, they should be dismissed. Skeptics are only asking that an unjustified science claim be dismissed until there is actual evidence. It really is the ultimate in “anti-science” to demand that a hypothesis be “proven” “wrong”. What kind of science method is that? It’s one thing if a skeptic makes a science claim, it should be truthful within the range of the claim and science. The real burden lies on the AGW claims at the core, where’s the proof? So it’s not apple vs. apple in requirements and AGW advocates make this sort argument all the time. AR4 failed, it doesn’t matter what Heartland or any skeptic might retort with. AR4 and the IPCC haven’t made the case.
That the IPCC does a better job of hiding their emotional politics isn’t really a fault of Heartland for having it on their sleeve. I wouldn’t argue that Heartland doesn’t have a politcal free-market bias but to this point Dr. Curry only hints in abstract and indirect ways the political color that exists in the IPCC and consensus community. It’s poor logic as is equalizing a theory advocate with skeptics replys.
Why isn’t this lambasted on this thread?
Science declinism.
Should there be a “double standard”?
IPCC is a taxpayer-funded political organization under the UN, which has been charged with providing data on human-induced climate change and its potential impacts. Through our taxes, you and I and everyone else is paying this group for reliable knowledge regarding our planet’s climate and any impacts on this, which we may be having.
In addition, it has been touted as the “gold standard” global body on climate science.
As such, it must be held to a very high standard of scientific objectivity.
NIPCC is a private group of scientists, who have found and reported errors, exaggerations, distortions and omissions in the IPCC report.
This group may be every bit as objective and reliable as IPCC (or possibly even more so), but we are not paying for them with our taxes.
So we cannot hold them to the same high standard, to which we must hold IPCC.
Max
pokerguy
Please address the science, not ad hominem attacks by association.
E.g. Can you comment constructively on the published evidence for the greater harm to health with colder temperatures than warmer temperatures? See Figure 9.1.1. Monthly deaths in the Castile-Leon region of Spain attributable to cardiovascular disease vs. mean daily air temperature. Adapted from Fernandez-Raga et al. (2010).
The difference between the IPCC report and the NIPCC report is that most of us will immediately recognize most if not all the authors of the second but few of the first.
Here are three reasons I can think of for this.
1. The NIPCC report is written by noted authorities in the field, rather like a report written by Stephen Hawking and Roger Penrose. The IPCC report is largely authored by unknown academics isolated in their ivory towers and lab technicians toiling over a hot Bunsen burner.
2. Ditto with “celebrities” in place of “authorities.”
3. The sizes of the scientific communities on the respective sides of the debate are so disparate that we’re only able to keep track of the minority side.
Take your pick.
“pokerguy
Please address the science, not ad hominem attacks by association.”
Some of you guys are like little kids with firecrackers. You learn a few big words and can’t wait to go out and use them. I’m not attacking anyone. Just making the general point that there’s not an alarmist alive who’s even going to bother reading this, much less be persuaded by it…
Cwon, of course I hear what you’re saying. And you’re right. It’s not fair.
Alas pokerguy I suspect that for both organisations the aim is not so much to persuade others as to provide some manner of ‘ammunition’ for their diehards then proceed to draw a line in the sand put fingers in ears and utter ad infinitum ‘na,na,na,na…’ Some commenters at this site have been known to exhibit similar behaviour, in the face of contrary evidence simply shout louder and/or longer. Our host posted an enlightening paper ‘Disagreement, Dogmatism, and Belief Polarization’ a while back in which FWIW, we would do well to refer to before engaging in a smackdown with someone who gets our hackles up.
http://judithcurry.com/2011/02/18/epistemology-of-disagreement/
It’s a good thread ian but why not just come out and state what the IPCC is biased about? What is the common culture?
By ducking the details Dr. Curry undermines her own point, especially since she is deeply associated to the orthodox AGW left. I myself am very bored of the proxy wars that use “science” as foil when in fact there is something else driving the true debate. Hiding in the center and acting as if there isn’t an eco-left IPCC association is too much to surrender. There can’t a logical debate which is why the taboo is so strong in the AGW community.
Vaughan Pratt
I am disappointed at your weighing the NIPCC report by celebrity status. I had hoped for something substantive from you.
On Ch 2. Forcings and Feedbacks,
See Fig 2.3.2 page 40 comparing the Length Of Day with measures of solar forcing.
(Apparently the CERN report came after the cutoff date.)
This appears to support Solar modulating cosmic rays nucleation which drives clouds and modulates insolation which affects temperature and thus CO2.
See: Fig. 2.3.3 comparing global temperature variation with Effective Stratospheric Chlorine Concentrations.
I do not recall IPCC seriously addressing these issues. Are there credible explanations for CO2 causing these LOD and chlorine variations? None come to mind.
I am disappointed at your weighing the NIPCC report by celebrity status. I had hoped for something substantive from you.
From me? Why would you hope that, David? When did I ever say anything substantive about the IPCC report? I’m all for equal time, so if you can point me at an example I’ll be happy to match it with something equally or more substantive about the NIPPC report.
Vaughan
Why? Just that your reputation and your presentation has preceded you.
OK, on the IPCC, under Slaying the Greenhouse Dragon IV You mentioned:
Do you have any better data or evaluation to add on any of the issues the NIPCC 2011 reviewed?
Sure. Global warming involves climate fluctuations spanning not much more than an octave of the temporal spectrum, covering periods of length 30-90 years. In particular the time period for the recently observed global warming phenomenon is around half a century, and the projections of most interest are those for 2040 to 2100 (and the latter date is so far into the future as to be a big unknown).
The reason for neglecting significantly shorter-term phenomena, in particular those associated with solar cycles and El Nino events, i.e. the next two octaves down, is that there has been no detectable change in their amplitude between 1850 and now. No one I know of is proposing that events with those durations are relevant to global warming.
Several octaves below that however, an increasing intensity of storms has been associated with global warming, initially by the insurance industry in the 1970s.
Phenomena longer than a century are certainly of academic interest, but their relevance to global warming policy and planning is far from obvious to most observers and policy-makers.
Most of the data and discussion in Chapter 2 concern bands in the temporal spectrum that so far have had no demonstrated relevance to global warming. Figure 2.3.1 is on a multicentury timescale while Figure 2.3.2 is on a decadal one involving LOD variations varying similarly to solar cycles.
This spectral viewpoint also shows that Paul Vaughan’s LOD analysis is unlikely to have anything more to say about global warming than do the other phenomena of that duration, all which have been with us for centuries as far as we know. These have shown no correlation with growing human population, which increased by factors of 1.3, .18, and 4 over the respective past three centuries. This compounds to an order of magnitude growth in population since 1700, which further compounds to more than two orders of magnitude of atmospheric loading from byproducts of energy consumption when taking into account that per capita energy consumption increased by more than an order of magnitude over those three centuries.
The only material in Chapter 2 relevant to the timeframe of global warming is provided by Lu’s Figures 2.3.3 and 2.3.4 at the end. The former shows a correlation between CFCs and temperature (no surprise there) and the latter depicts a surprising decline in temperature over the coming decades. Chapter 2 concludes with the following discussion of Lu’s projection.
“As for what it all means, Lu states in the concluding paragraph of his lengthy treatise that the ―observed data point to the possibility that the global warming observed in the late 20th century was dominantly caused by CFCs, modulated by CRE-driven ozone depletion‖ and ―with the decreasing emission of CFCs into the atmosphere, global cooling may have started since 2002.‖ Lu does not contend this must be the case; he states only that ―this is likely a subject deserving close attention.‖ The question now is: Will other scientists and the IPCC provide that close attention?”
Now Arrhenius calculated values of 5 and 1.6 °C for surface temperature climate sensitivity in respectively 1896 and 1904. Taking those as probable limits on the range, we can therefore peg climate sensitivity at 2.8 °C to within a factor of less than two, 1.8 to be more precise. (The often-heard figure of 3 °C as a center could be understood as either the nearest whole number or a compromise between arithmetic mean and geometric mean when the latter ought be the appropriate choice.) Many dozens of scientists have attempted to calculate this value since, almost all arriving within that range. Though there has been little sign of improvement in our certainty as to its precise value, there has been greatly increased confidence in the limits of that range: pretty much everyone in the business accepts that the number (to the extent it is well-defined, which I question) is in that range.
As long as Lu remains the only person to calculate the extent to which CFCs contribute to global warming, I would say that the answer to the concluding question of the NIPCC’s Chaper 2 should be a firm “No.” Currently it is not a serious candidate for a wholesale replacement of the greenhouse effect theory of global warming.
(If you see an incomplete paragraph around par. 5 of the above, just ignore it, it shouldn’t be there.)
differential pulse-position modulation
multiscale spatiotemporal aliasing
(See the writings of Tomas Milanovic at Climate Etc.)
Vaughan
Thanks for something more substantitive.
Re: “Global warming involves . . . covering periods of length 30-90 years.”
You might also be interested in the ~1500 year climate cycle detailed by Loehle and Singer. that takes in the Medieval Warm Period & the Little Ice Age. That undergirds the underlying trend of “warming” since the LIA. See: Craig Loehle & Fred Singer, Holocene temperature records show millenia scale periodicity Can. J. Earth Sci. 47, 2010 1327-1336 (2010)
Re: “solar cycles and El Nino events, . . .there has been no detectable change in their amplitude between 1850 and now.”
Any evidence for that?
e.g., Leif Svelgaard shows a strong difference between 1954 and 2008
See also his Updating the Historical Sunspot Record. That appears to show substantial variations since 1850 with the current solar cycle 24 returning to much lower levels. e.g.,
Archibald discusses evidence for “A de Vries Cycle repeat of the Dalton Minimum is what is in prospect up to the early 2030s and then a return to normal conditions of solar activity, and normal climate.” Note particularly Ed Fix’s solar cycle model.
The climate sensitivity levels you note as “almost all arriving within that range” are around the conventional upper range.
There are also a substantial number of observational climate sensitivity estimates below 1 C. e.g. Lindzen & Choi (2009) at 0.5C.
See my comment on apparent bimodal distribution of climate sensitivity estimates. These lower climate sensitivity evaluations are closer to the null hypothesis of predominantly natural climate forcings.
The challenge for the anthropogenic forcing hypothesis is both to show that the null hypothesis is insufficient and that why these estimates for low climate sensitivity are inaccurate. It then has to show substantial statistical evidence that anthropogenic forcing is substantially different from and dominates natural forcing.
In particular, the anthropogenic forcing model must distinguish a linear CO2 forcing increase (log of exponential CO2 growth) that is greater than natural variations from multiple sinusoidal cycles, especially as the dominant natural cycle passes through an inflection point (from accelerating to decelerating growth.) e.g., see Loehle & Scafetta 2011
From what I have seen, that anthropogenic dominant model is still “Not Proven” relative to the natural forcing dominant model – which is not to say that anthropogenic forcing might not be detectable.
You might also be interested in the ~1500 year climate cycle detailed by Loehle and Singer. that takes in the Medieval Warm Period & the Little Ice Age.
Thanks for the pointer, David, it’s a perfect example of what I’m referring to. Prior to the 20th century temperatures tended to fluctuate more slowly than the 2 °C/century rise we saw in the three decades starting in 1968. Of all the figures in the Loehle & Singer paper, Figure 9 has by far the fastest rise, at 0.1 °C/century. The current pace is 20x faster!
Historically the planet has seen far higher CO2 and temperature levels than today, in fact for most of the past 100 million years. What it hasn’t seen is anything like as rapid a change. Many people on both sides of the debate have yet to come to grips with this rate aspect of climate change, David Archer for example who neglects it in arriving at a very high estimate of CO2 residence time.
Re: “solar cycles and El Nino events, . . .there has been no detectable change in their amplitude between 1850 and now.” Any evidence for that? e.g., Leif Svelgaard shows a strong difference between 1954 and 2008
That’s a mysterious looking graph, how does it bear on climate defined as temperature? I was speaking about the impact of El Nino and solar cycles on temperature fluctuations. These can be seen very clearly in this graph, which should be a lot more familiar to people than Svelgaard’s graph. The El Nino fluctuations are the narrow spikes, a couple of years wide. The solar cycles are the wider ones, about five years wide (their period is 11 years). The most recent spikes don’t look any bigger to me than those of 50, 100, or 150 years ago. If you think they’re bigger, point out the big ones so we can look at them more closely to figure out what’s going on there.
There are also a substantial number of observational climate sensitivity estimates below 1 C, e.g. Lindzen & Choi (2009) at 0.5C..
Well, I did say “almost all.” Let me quantify that as “well over 90%.” Here are some more outside the 1.5-5.0 range.
Möller 1963……………………. 9.6°
Rasool & Schneider 1971… 0.8°
Sellers 1973…………………… 0.1°
Idso 1980………………………. 0.26°
Wilson & Mitchell 1987……. 5.2°
Mahfouf et al 1993………….. 1.4°
Shaviv & Veizer 2003………. 0.75°
I think we can fairly discard 9.6° and 0.1° as outliers. That leaves 6 out of the 86 listed here, whence my “almost all.”
the null hypothesis of predominantly natural climate forcings.
That’s a fine null hypothesis for 99% of recorded history. Only in the last few decades can we start looking more closely at it.
and that why these estimates for low climate sensitivity are inaccurate.
That oughtn’t to be hard to prove. I would say that at least five out of the six estimates 0.5°C, 0.8°C, 0.1°C, 0.26°C, 1.4 °C, and 0.75°C would have to be inaccurate. YMMV.
The mean of the above 84 estimates is 2.90 and their standard deviation σ = 1.13, whence two sigmas is 2.26. Hence the odds of any estimate being below 2.90 − 2.26 = 0.64°C is less than one in 20. On that basis I’d say that Lindzen & Choi’s 0.5° is too statistically improbable to take seriously.
From what I have seen, that anthropogenic dominant model is still “Not Proven” relative to the natural forcing dominant model – which is not to say that anthropogenic forcing might not be detectable.
Certainly for the time period focused on in the Loehle & Singer paper you cited, I’d have to agree with you there. In fact for any 30-year period up to about 1960 I’d continue to agree with you.
What is your feeling about the 30 years starting in 1968? Would you say that the ratio of athropogenic to natural forcing is unchanged from 100 years earlier?
Hence the odds of any estimate being below 2.90 − 2.26 = 0.64°C is less than one in 20.
That was garbled, I meant to say “Hence the odds of any estimate below 0.64°C being correct is less than one in 20.
Vaughan
Thanks for the additional estimates. As a refinement, note that Idso (1998) provided 8 separate distinct evaluations. – more than doubling the number of “low” evaluations.
Re: “On that basis I’d say that Lindzen & Choi’s 0.5° is too statistically improbable to take seriously.”
I expect that assumes all errors are uniformly distributed. If there is a systemic high or positive feedback bias in models (Type B errors), then all the estimates above 1C could be seriously biased high. Then the true value would be the average of those below. e.g. somewhere around 0.6C. .
See NIST Guidelines for the evaluation of uncertainty in measurement.
(e.g., by omitting/underestimating major cooling methods like thunderstorms/hurricanes or external forcing like cosmic rays/clouds)
See also numerous discussions of uncertainty at Climate Etc.
See Lindzen’s (2011) “Response as a function of total feedback” curve and his discussion of the two major regimes and corresponding uncertainties based on the different methodologies involved.
There are numerous previous examples of “consensus” views being way off – eg plate tectonics, cause of ulcers etc. Since such game changer issues are involved, there is a need to evaluate ALL uncertainties in each of the measurements – especially the systemic errors, including the potential for major group think or common model errors. Then there is the challenge to try to distinguish between the major systemic errors between the different camps.
Re: “What is your feeling about the 30 years starting in 1968?”
Similar to that about the 11 years starting in 2000. i.e., We see major variations that are NOT explained by CO2 dominant forcing. e.g. Lucia showing the trend since 2000 plus red noise being outside the error bounds of IPCC mean CO2 driven trends.
Monckton (2009) notes: “From 1850-1880 and from 1910-1940, the
warming rate was identical to that from 1970-2000.” See Figure 9. Furthermore, there are correlations between galactic cosmic rays and global temperature sufficient to say something is happening there that is currently ignored by the IPCC. See Fig. 1 of
Temperature change and CO2 change: a scientific briefing
That gives me pause to say something major is missing, or a major systemic error etc. (e.g., Major ocean oscillations are missing as well as Cosmic rays/clouds at least).
Furthermore, the chicken/egg issue of which comes first – CO2 or warming has not been quantitatively decided.
Thus I find the NIPCC review reports of further scientific literature to be stimulating to explore all the uncertainties involved, not just the “consensus” models.
Let the games continue. We have yet to see the full uncertainties laid out, AND we have not seen definitive “experiments” or evidence sufficient to distinguish between them.
I look forward to how you propose addressing such major systemic uncertainties / errors, and the chicken/egg issue of warming vs CO2.
As a refinement, note that Idso (1998) provided 8 separate distinct evaluations. – more than doubling the number of “low” evaluations.
Your reasoning here nicely illustrates why the Internet came up with the concept of “unique visitor” to a website. Before the Internet it was called stuffing the ballot box.
There are numerous previous examples of “consensus” views being way off.
And would you say there are more of those than examples of where they weren’t way off?
e.g. Lucia showing the trend since 2000 plus red noise being outside the error bounds of IPCC mean CO2 driven trends.
She’s using a 25-month window, which means that what she’s observing are the large spikes that can be seen throughout the 150-year history of the graph I pointed out earlier. These have nothing to do with global warming, they’re just very loud noise as far as climate prediction is concerned.
In order to make CO2-driven trends visible above the background noise of El Ninos and solar cycles, one should use an 11-year moving average window, aka a boxcar filter. The reason this works well on solar cycles and El Ninos is that these tend to congregate around the low-order harmonics of that filter’s 2.88 nHz (= 11-year period) fundamental frequency, which boxcar filters remove completely — it’s the half-harmonics (1.5, 2.5, …) that get through. To get rid of those as well apply the filter a second time, equivalent to squaring its frequency response. Woodfortrees doesn’t have the apply-twice option but Excel and Open Office CALC do: just put the moving average in the next column over and repeat.
That gives me pause to say something major is missing, or a major systemic error etc. (e.g., Major ocean oscillations are missing as well as Cosmic rays/clouds at least). […] I look forward to how you propose addressing such major systemic uncertainties / errors, and the chicken/egg issue of warming vs CO2.
Well, that’s easy, namely by agreeing with you (yet again). The major ocean oscillations are indeed missing.
Amusingly the blog denizens who are in the habit of contradicting climate skeptics get just as dismissive when ocean oscillations are pointed out to them as the skeptics do when the big rise in CO2 and temperature over the past half century is pointed out to them. I was kicked off the (ironically named) “Open Mind” blog for daring to suggest that ocean oscillations might actually be substantive and not just yet another irrelevant climate skepticism fantasy.
Cosmic rays are also very interesting, though I’m very rusty on them (as an undergraduate I took a couple of courses focusing on cosmic rays but I’ve forgotten a lot of it). I have no idea whether they’re a common underlying cause of sunspots and the 11-year oscillation in the temperature record (which correlates with sunspots only in period and not in intensity), but even if they are, unless there are longer-term periodicities in the cosmic ray field, in particular in the range from 20 to 100 years, I’d say cosmic rays are irrelevant to climate change, but that ocean oscillations are very relevant.
Meanwhile I read up a bit on cosmic rays and sunspots. One thing I hadn’t realized (sunspots not being my thing) is that the 11-year cycle is actually two phases of a 22-year cycle that could be described as a magnet rotating at a rate of one revolution per 22 years and producing sunspots most strongly when it’s normal to the Sun’s equatorial plane. This magnetic aspect of sunspots was discovered by George Hale in 1908, after whom the 22-year period is named.
The harmonics of a 22-year period would have periods 22/2 = 11 years, 22/3 = 7.3 years, 22/4 = 5.5 years, 22/5 = 4.4 years, and so on. One has to wonder whether the variability in duration of the El Nino events is linked to these odd harmonics. So far I haven’t seen much in the literature about this possibility, but I’ll certainly keep my eyes peeled, pointers gratefully accepted. The general sense in the literature seems to be that this magnetic aspect of sunspots has less impact than its thermal aspect.
It would be very interesting if there were a clearly identifiable 22-year period in the HADCRUT3GL global land-sea temperature data, or in NASA’s GISTEMP data.
Quite serious problem: The authors don’t understand the simple implications of LeMouel, Blanter, Shnirman, & Courtillot (2010).
Paul
Re: Le Mouel, J.-L., Blanter, E., Shnirman, M., and Courtillot, V. 2010a. Solar forcing of the semi-annual variation of length-of-day. Geophysical Research Letters 37: 2010GL043185
Abstract:
Under section 2.3. Solar Forcing of Climate p 39, NIPCC quotes:
Have they misquoted or miss summarized Le Mouel et al. 2010?
Hello David,
They’ve not realized the implications of the seminal finding. The finding & the implications collectively constitute the most illuminating observation in the history of solar-terrestrial relations research. I don’t have time to write a formal article to explain (since I’m working 7 days per week), but I’m drafting a skeletal, informal article.
Regards.
Thanks Paul for your earlier extensive discussions on the Length Of Day (LOD) here and at WUWT. I look forward to your next article.
Le Mouel’s quantifying the leading phase of sunspot number and galactic cosmic rays relative to LOD and its relative to the wind portion of LOD are both insightful.
Note also David Stockwell’s new accumulative solar forcing theory which explains global temperatures AND it explains the leading phase of solar variations relative to Sea Surface Temperatures.
Stockwell’s ideas are not new. Looking at integrals & derivatives is among the first things one does when investigating a new time series (so this wheel has been reinvented repeatedly by countless people for decades). The integral of sunspot numbers most closely follows SST in the band 30S-90S.
Caution: Stockwell’s cross-correlation plot is misleading. More generally, cross-correlation is patently NOT an adequate tool for climate investigations (something I also did not realize when I first started out, in part because it takes time to map out where mainstream assumptions are going seriously wrong when one moves into a new field of research).
Who is Stockwell’s target audience? The only answer I’ll volunteer is that the target audience does not include me.
Paul
Thanks for the caution.
What do you think of Stockwell’s evidence for a 1/4 cycle leading phase of solar cycle to ocean surface temperature?
As I indicated when Wyatt’s recent paper came out: Cross-correlation methods alone are patently inadequate for the job. (Review of details another day…) However, Stockwell’s article may provide useful stimulation for those who don’t realize why there are often 3 adjacent derivatives in differential equations (e.g. ax + bx’ + cx” = 0). [Note: These people won’t be leading online climate discussions…]
David, I appreciate very much your interest in natural terrestrial climate variations. I hope you will join the discussion when I release my next article.
Best Regards.
Thanks for the encouragement Paul. Look forward to you paper. Happy to give informal feedback to (LastnameInitials) {at} asme {dot} org.
In listening to Nir Shaviv’s Dec. 2010 presentation, I noted his paper: Using the oceans as a calorimeter to quantify the solar radiative forcing JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH, VOL. 113, A11101, doi:10.1029/2007JA012989, 2008
See from 16:33 on, especially his graph at 28:20 showing GCR with 0.5 to 1.5 C sensitivity vs IGCC GCM of 1.5 C on up.
LOD, not a cause but a consequence of the tidal (sun/moon/ earth) and the internal geomagnetic braking forces. Not convinced to be climate effective; few ms/86400, just a minor detraction, same order of magnitude as the CO2, GCRs and similar parts/million, billion etc., real but insignificant entities.
No one sensible is suggesting LOD causes climate (…but that IS the favorite pretend-misunderstanding we repeatedly see engineered by those preying on the naive). The utility of LOD is as a highly informative indicator of climate.
Vukcevic, it appears that you have begun mimicking your adversary’s tactics. I encourage you to reconsider the utility of the maladaptive approach; it erodes trust.
Paul
That LOD comment came from a misfortunate statement in a European article on LOD noting a leading phase shift for LOD vs another parameter. I chalked that off to English being a second language.
Judith Curry
Thanks for bringing this post on NIPCC.
The new NIPCC report starts with an introduction covering “uncertainty” regarding climate model outputs, which appears to me to be pretty close to the viewpoint on this topic, which you have expressed.
The introduction to the first chapter, “Climate models and their limitations” cites the Rosenberg 2010 conclusion on uncertainties related to GCM outputs as bases for projecting climatic change impacts:
A compelling argument is made that GCMs have not met the three essential criteria as set forth by Susan Solomon and her co-authors in:
Solomon, S., Plattner, G.-K., Knutti, R., and Friedlingstein, P. 2009. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 106: 1704–1709.
– Observed changes [in global climate] have, indeed, occurred since the modern HadCRUT temperature record started in 1850, but there is no real-world empirical evidence for anthropogenic contributions to these changes.
– Some principles may be “thought to be well understood” (GH theory, for example), but others, which may be equally as important or even more so, are not (ex. natural forcing and variability).
– Projections are available (which are only as good as the assumptions, which were made leading to these projections), but these do not even show robust agreement across models and, more importantly, have not been validated against actual empirical data.
This seems like a key argument, which (as you have argued in your recent ACS presentation on uncertainty) raises serious questions regarding the validity of the key IPCC claim, i.e.:
I’ll go through the rest of the new NIPCC report to check out other arguments, but this one seems to me to be the key argument questioning the most important claim made by IPCC in its 1000+ page AR4 WG1 report.
Max
Max,
“The new NIPCC report starts with an introduction covering “uncertainty” regarding climate model outputs, which appears to me to be pretty close to the viewpoint on this topic, which you have expressed.”
You should review word destruction and Newspeak before jumping the shark about what Dr. Curry means with words like “uncertainty” or “very likely”. They could have been carved next to “work will make you free” or “ignorance is strength”.
Skeptic science will never be accepted by the cartel orthodox, there can only be internal reforms but the Supreme Climate Soviet must continue. Tie it end to end, your approach falls on deaf ears.
cwon14
We may agree on almost all points regarding the current CAGW craze.
I’m just trying on this thread to stick to the validity of the NIPCC critique of the “science” behind claims and forecasts of the IPCC report, rather than getting into the motives behind the “cartel orthodox” (as you put it).
I realize that “true believers in the CAGW dogma” (in the pseudo-religious sense) are not going to change their minds based on rational argumentation nor will those who are supporting the CAGW dogma for purely political reasons.
And I do not know into which category to place Joshua.
Max
PS JC is not what I would refer to as a rational skeptic of CAGW (as you and I may be), but she is a rational voice from the inside of “climate science” and, as a result, very influential in the ongoing climate debate.
I may be wrong, but It appears to me that her motive is to expose IPCC claims of overconfidence in a science, which she feels is still loaded with too much uncertainty to be able to make any real claims regarding the past or projections for the future, IOW to act as sort of a “BS filter”.
Doing this is tricky, because the “BS spinmeisters” don’t like being exposed.
You’re giving way too much slack that Dr. Curry doesn’t deserve. It isn’t enough to talk about tribes and bias but then go through every possible language contortion to avoid what the IPCC base political culture is that unifies the tribe in that unnamed bias agenda.
It leads to false equivalence which is a basic AGW requirement to survive in a debate.
Do they have review comments on line? I mean we fought long and hard to get the IPCC to open up the process and show us the review comments.
I read the section on UHI. Not much there that has anything to do with the real issue.
Steven
Curry has opened this post. Look forward to your constructive comments.
Well we had many posts on the IPCC but you would never have counted that as a best practice in reviewing an article. Several aspects are missing
most notably a requirement for the authors to respond and a review editor to insure that reviewer comments are handled. Also, reviewers were given free access to all the material being reviewed. Finally, the author had authority to ask that committees be formed to discuss any contenious issue. in fact we criticized the IPCC for failing to abide by its procceedures in a rigorous manner. Such a criticism presupposes that the procceedures were necessary. Consequently if you participated in or agree with the criticisms of the IPCCs failure to abide by those principles then you accept the importance of those principles and cannot accept anything less from this report. Well, you can, but we have a word for that.
Steven,
“Consequently if you participated in or agree with the criticisms of the IPCCs failure to abide by those principles then you accept the importance of those principles and cannot accept anything less from this report. Well, you can, but we have a word for that.”
You keep making such pious statements. When are you going to apply these standards to the investigation of the basis for the adjustments and their application to the temperature series??
steven mosher
I’ve read the UHI section, as well, and here is my take-home:
The “real issue” according to NIPCC appears to be that the surface temperature record contains a spurious warming signal resulting from the UHI effect plus land use changes, and that this distortion is understated by IPCC.
Most of the conclusions reached are no different from those in the earlier NIPCC report, but five separate new studies are cited, all of which were published after the IPCC AR4 cut-off date, so there are “new data” cited.
Max
“The “real issue” according to NIPCC appears to be that the surface temperature record contains a spurious warming signal resulting from the UHI effect plus land use changes, and that this distortion is understated by IPCC.”
well that is clearly not established by any of the papers they cited.
The UHI literature is pretty clear. You can look at isolated cities or groups of cites as IMhoff did ( the best work in the lot since he actually took the time to look at LST) and find UHI. That has never been questioned. never. The issue is, does this bias creep into the global average. On that issue the literature is pretty clear. Looking at global averages, not isolated cases, but global averages there are two competing views.
1. jones, peterson, parker.
2. McKittrick
The Jones, peterson, parker approach has been to look at rural stations and urban stations that actually get used in the global average. ( err except peterson) They then test for a difference between rural and urban. They find no large signal.
Ross comes at the problem from a different perspective with a different method and finds that socio economic factors ( a PROXY for UHI ) do appear in the data actually used.
No isolated study, no regional study can address the chasm between Ross’ view and Jones view. That is where the battle ground is. It is no great feat to find a city ( reno, new york, you name a huge one ) and find a UHI signal. In fact its climate science 101. read any textbook on the energy balance of the urban environment.
The most notable work was the work done by Imhoff. Notable because he used the MODIS LST product. (others have as well in isolated cases) perhaps ( still sorting through this) is a bit problematic as well since LST really is not a direct measure of UHI. There’s some debate on that I’m still sorting through.
Nice post, best one stop shop I have seen so far that distills the real debate down about UHI.
“You can look at isolated cities or groups of cites as IMhoff did ( the best work in the lot since he actually took the time to look at LST) and find UHI. That has never been questioned. never. The issue is, does this bias creep into the global average.”
As I’ve said before, if UHI doesn’t change the global average then there is something wrong with the data or calculations (or both) the global average is built on.
If say to me “Sure, the data is crap, but I got the right result.”
I say: LOL.
That is a facile answer. You say the data is crap. Maybe your theory is crap. The simple fact is this. You can take out every urban station and the answer you get from rural stations is the same. Peterson himself called this a mystery. he had an explanation. Do you know what his explantion was? do you? This is a little test question for how well you know the issue and the literature. Jones repeated his explanation as did parker.
In any case you dont know what it is.
We are left with these explanations.
1. UHI is real, however, its effect is modulated by factors such as cloudiness and windiness. On some days its horrible on other days it’s actually negative. On AVERAGE its small. so small as to be undetectable.
2. Rural stations are contaminated as well.
3: some of 1 and some of 2.
4. All the data is crap. Except the sunshine data, I like that data.
5. All the data is crap. Except when it correlates with sunspots, then I like the data. Oh and UHA and RSS are crap too because they match the trends at the surface.
6. Its actually cooler now than in the LIA.
And any other crazy notions you can come up with
Quote “The simple fact is this. You can take out every urban station and the answer you get from rural stations is the same.”
You have said this many times on various blogs and not once has it struck you that there is anything wrong with that result.
If you remove stations exhibiting obvious UHI, ie greater trends than average) it should have an affect, but doesn’t.
Don’t you think that there is something wrong with that?
UHI is real.
http://ams.confex.com/ams/pdfpapers/71791.pdf
http://www.weather.gov.hk/publica/tn/tn107.pdf
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2011/08/new-paper-urban-heat-island-effect.html
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/07/28/new-paper-uhi-alive-and-well-in-china/
And my favorite:
“Summer land surface temperature of cities in the Northeast were an average of 7 °C to 9 °C (13°F to 16 °F) warmer than surrounding rural areas over a three year period, the new research shows. The complex phenomenon that drives up temperatures is called the urban heat island effect.”
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/heat-island-sprawl.html
If you get the same answer with or without data contaminated by 7-9C of UHI … your algorithm is crap or your data is crap or both.
Steven,
“The simple fact is this. You can take out every urban station and the answer you get from rural stations is the same. ”
There you go again, pretending that there is a mythical group of RURAL stations out there. When are you going to present us with studies showing that these mythical beasts exist outside of some poor definitions and labels you use?
See: Ross McKitrick’s ACS presentation
The influence of anthropogenic surface processes and inhomogeneities on gridded global climate data. [mckitrick_acs_august]
I understood McKitrick to thorougly disprove the IPCC’s statement with quantitative statistics..
See also McKitrick’s 2010 paper
I actually talk to Ross. he’s a friend. I actually read his code. I actually try to hunt down the data he used for his regressions. I’m still confused why literacy is a predictor for warmer temps. Perhaps you can explain that to me. ( Ross did, but you give it a shot) or perhaps you can hunt down the population data he used from the world bank, circa 2003. You know of course that there are massive controversies about population datasets and you understand that he used population growth as a regessor. So perhaps you could tell me what sort of methodology was used to calculate worldwide population growth in a 5 degree grid and how that methodology compares with landscan or GPW or Hyde or Grump? go ahead, impress me.
And then you could answer the question about how population growth as a rate is related to UHI. We know that absolute density is related because density drives building height and building height is PHYSICALLY related to disruptions in the boundary layer and curtailing of turbulent vertical mixing, not to mention radiation canyons.
I dont think you want to go there. Did you think that I dont read everything that Ross writes? down to the code and then the source data.
Steven – I was just giving other readers the links to McKitrick’s publications that you referred to. You obviously knew of them.
Steven,
More bloviation with not a link or piece of hard data in sight. Some day you are going to have to gather all this knowledge and information you claim to have and post it on your site and link to it. I simply think you are shooting off your mouth due to this lack. Show me I am wrong and give us some thing hard.
You are always talking about data and code, where is yours??
I can already spot plenty of the condescension regarding Heartland with the usual suspects chiming in or soon to be here. My link below will touch on a usual standard smear found at every level of the modern left in particular. While an effective debating tool on opinion there is no evidence to support the slicker presentation actually is more logical or scientific. I think Dr. Curry is being a little knee-jerk in her obsevations;
“My optimism was temporarily dashed upon reading the Foreward, where the first subheading is “Recanting Alarmists, Climategate.” The Foreward is a turnoff for anyone prepared to read this with an open mind.”
I wonder how open-minded a party can be that doesn’t publically comment on the base political culture that is obvious to many in regard to the IPCC consensus supporters and lead advocates that extrapolate AR4 into climate alarmism. Maybe she could expand on that, it’s not like I don’t ask all the time.
As the silly season approaches we should also add this related theme found everyday somewhere in MSM advocate jourNOlism land;
http://www.examiner.com/libertarian-in-national/you-think-liberals-are-smarter-than-conservatives-prove-it
IPCC (liberals) smart, Heartland (conservatives) stOOpid. Got it.
It might be telling again of what Dr. Curry focused on as a first reaction; “Recanting Alarmist, Climategate”. It was a reference to Mike Hulme who is also very focused on “uncertainty” regarding AGW claims. A soft-soap AGW advocate with similar talking points to Dr.Curry and I’m trying to be fair. His recent book; “why we disagree about climate change” can be found here;
http://www.cambridge.org/gb/knowledge/isbn/item2327124/?site_locale=en_GB
“Climate” gets the Newspeak treatment in the first excerpt, “The Social Meaning of Climate” (the big chunks are in my throat almost at once);
http://www.cambridge.org/servlet/file/store6/item2495544/version1/item_9780521727327_excerpt.pdf
It would have been so much more fun if they had quoted Dr. Curry herself for this chapter but it is what it is. There is a good back and forth on the nuances of Mike Hulme here;
http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/2009/11/mike-hulme-on-climategate.html
I’m sure the link to the Heartland report might get Hulme on the Joe Romm future reeducation camp list but the only other thing about the section is it kinda links Hulme/ The CRU Emails and Climategate so is he being outed here!? He drops from the page in a rather odd way. While sniveling I wouldn’t call his comments “recanting” so Dr. Curry has a fair point to target at Heartland. This might be little closer to a recant but plenty of weasel words as well;
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704107104574571613215771336.html
Note the “stolen email” line which is straight warmist doctrine, zero evidence and in fact unlikely;
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/FOIA_Leaked/ (another old topic)
Regardless he looks like another fence sitter or Kerenskyite when objectively we have no use for misguided AGW even in full mush form.
cwon – do you question the science of the IPCC, or climate scientists, based on what you perceive to be political influence?
I believe I may have read a post or two of yours along that vein?
If so, do you consider it to be “condescension” to point out that the Heartland Institute has an abundantly clear political orientation?
I mean seriously, read again what you just wrote:
And perhaps you’ll want to chime in on the political influence on Heartland’s approach to the science?
Those who live in glass houses, cwon….
Heartland is right of center, free-market advocates. I said so in my posts.
It’s fully disclosed, describe the IPCC political culture for us?
Your retort is pointless above, more straw then can be lifted.
I find it difficult to describe the IPCC’s political culture with much confidence.
But it is clear that you feel confident in doing so, and as a consequence, dismiss the IPCC’s findings based on its political orientation.
Do you do the same with the conclusions of the Heartland Institutes analysis of climate change? If not, why not?
“I find it difficult to describe the IPCC’s political culture with much confidence.”
You ingested too much kool-aid, you should seek treatment. It’s a basic question like this, it isn’t worth going on much further. It’s settled science, you’re too deep into your culture bias if you can’t admit this basic reality. Do you really think there isn’t an eco-left on campus, with a concentration in eco-studies? How long have you been on the planet earth and do you live in a cave or commune?
“Do you do the same with the conclusions of the Heartland Institutes analysis of climate change? If not, why not?”
This is false equivalence, being a logical skeptic doesn’t promote a large policy except perhaps lighter carbon restrictions which I do support. This is chump change compared to what the AGW agenda would lead to if unopposed. Heartland is privately funded while the IPCC sucked blood from others to exist, it’s publically funded with a state expansion theme. Do I trust the private sector more than the public one, yes. There is no logical requirement to come up with alternative explanations for the AGW theory being poor. This isn’t how the scientific method works at all. I realize we have been dumbed down over the past 30 years of this echo chamber and even skeptics have slipped into these no sequitur debates. It’s sad the public expects Heartland and others to produce science arguments and alternative climate narratives to “prove agw wrong”. It should be enough that there isn’t a working real world model or experiment to prove GHG theory. There is no equilibrium, all else equal proof regarding co2 or anything else. We do live in low science IQ culture and the irony that you can’t explain is that the warmist prols are the lowest on the food chain. They are also the most cynical since I know many know the science is garbage but love the emotionally based hate against private interests in the hopes attacking “big oil” or creating wealth redistribution schemes. Perhaps not out personal gain either, leftist ideology is more complicated than that. Being the expert regulator and supporting that culture is a reward into itself at many levels. Most true believers can’t be as stupid as their arguments, Dr. Curry isn’t stupid for example but in her own way she is playing the crowd refusing to ID the IPCC political culture is a perfect example of having no good excuse left. It isn’t stupid it’s deep social kinship to political peers (that in fact are highly developed tribal cultures) that cloud every thought on the left in particular. People on the right simply don’t relate to others in this way, it’s not as direct. It’s actually a huge social and political advantage for the left
how they socially group.
While Heartland might be interesting and politically useful in practice it has little to do with my and many others opinions. All the “it’s about science” in fact is a false narrative, it’s political and the idiotic “expertise” culture of the left is a sham;
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2011/08/31/seduced_by_the_cult_of_experts_111146.html
So, the schoolteachers in the familia of the government-funded education machine are trying to save the world from humanity and humanity is resisting, right? Humanity has faced this kind of oppression for as long as humanity has been able to record examples of man’s inhumanity to man.
cwon and Joshua
Sure there is a lot of politics involved in both IPCC and NIPCC.
Sure there are “spinmeisters” out there on both sides (but it appears to me that there are more on the well-organized CAGW side than on the more loosely cobbled-together skeptic side).
But the important part is the validity of the science supporting the claims and projections.
IPCC has put together a 1000+ page AR4 WG1 report (plus WG2 and WG3 reports). This report claims human GHGs are responsible for most of the observed warming since 1950. On this basis (and with some model-derived feedback estimates based on theoretical considerations plus some model-based assumptions on increase of human GHGs over time) IPCC has projected future changes in global average temperature and resulting impacts on our environment.
NIPCC has challenged the bases for these claims and projections, citing some very plausible and compelling reasons, why these claims and projections are exaggerated and/or distorted or based on false assumptions.
Let’s see if someone can refute the NIPCC arguments with scientific data, instead of simply with political rhetoric.
Max
Max –
So your point is that neither the work of the Heartland Institute, nor the work of the IPCC should be dismissed because of apparent or overt political orientation and the potential for that orientation to influence their process of scientific analysis. Is that right?
I look forward to your even-handedness the next time someone posts a rant about how the IPCC and the work of climate scientists can’t be dismissed because of their apparent or overt political orientation.
No, Joshua, that is NOT my point.
My point is that “it’s the science, stupid”.
Max, it’s naive. It’s like an economics or a string theory debate. There just isn’t enough hard measurements or isolation of inputs in the real world to conclude anything.
That Joshua or Dr. Curry can’t touch the taboo; IPCC = Eco-left Agenda
should tell you what is important. It isn’t spagetti charts.
… er, “can” be dismissed…
Here’s a quote from the NIPCC report that’s rather amusing
“The Arctic appears to have recovered from its 2007 decline”
lolwot
Check out the nsidc data before laughing too hard.
ftp://sidads.colorado.edu/DATASETS/NOAA/G02135
The Arctic sea ice extent at the end of the last summer melt (September 2010) was 14.0% higher than in September 2007, so there was indeed a partial “recovery”.
There are no data available for end-September 2011, of course, but the last published end-month extent is for July 2011. This shows roughly 5.6% less ice than in July 2010, so this would mean that around one-third of the observed recovery has been reversed. Let’s see what the end-September data tell us.
Of course, we all know that Arctic sea ice has been on a downward trend since satellite records started in 1979, reversing a growing trend from the 1940s to the 1970s, which was observed by other means by mostly Russian records.
Longer term temperature records from the few Arctic sites (ex. Illulissat, Greenland) show a cyclical trend over the 20th century, with peaks reached in the late 1930s and 1940s. How these temperature cycles link with cycles in sea ice extent is not known for sure, but it seems logical that they would be linked in some way.
What we also do not know now, of course, is whether the most recent lack of global warming will become a longer-term trend and, if so, whether it will have any influence on Arctic sea ice trends.
At the same time Antarctic sea ice continues a long-term trend of increasing since 1979 (but that’s another topic).
Max
The idea that the difference between 2007 and 2010 ice extent represents a recovery of a decline since 2007 is nonsense, or rather nonscience. The differences between these two years are well within the historical noise level, and therefore are meaningless. Statements like this reveal that this report doesn’t deserve to be called science.
A look at the trend over the last 30 years shows an acceleration of the decline in Arctic Sea Ice extent.
August Ice area from NSIDC for 2011 is less than 2007.
July had lower than 2007 for both area and extent for 2011 from NSIDC.
Ice extent was lower this year than on 144 corresponding days in 2007.
I think we will have a tie with 2007 this year, or close to it, for ice extent, but estimates of ice volume is a different story.
Yes ice extent recovery is funny.
And if you can show a statistically significant long term trend in Antarctic sea ice, dinner’s on me.
bob droege
The end-summer (March) Antarctic sea ice extent shows a linear trend of: y = 0.011x + 4.16
The end-summer (September) Arctic sea ice extent shows a linear trend of: y = -0.078x + 7.891
So the long-term linear trend of the much-ballyhooed Arctic sea ice decline is seven times as “statistically significant” as that of Antarctic sea ice increase.
So I’ll settle for one-seventh of that dinner: how about the shrimp cocktail?
Max
Do you understand what ATFQ means?
Where is your analysis of the statistical significance of the trends you calculated?
What is the odds that the trend of the antarctic is due to chance?
No shrimps for you yet.
Bob
bob droege
It may ALL be “due to chance” as you write.
But I’d bet that the increase in Arctic sea ice reported by Russian studies from the 1940s to the1970s had something to do with the cooling trend over those years, while the sea ice retreat since 1979 had something to do with the more recent warming trend there.
Just like the slow retreat of Alpine glaciers since 1850 has likely had something to do with warmer long-term temperature trends over Europe, since we have been emerging from a generally colder period, called the Little Ice Age.
The very limited data that exist have shown that the Antarctic has been cooling ever so slightly most recently, which probably also has something to do with the slightly increasing sea ice there.
But you’re right. The changes in temperature probably are “due to chance”, as you wrote. And they have shown an increase since 1979 in most regions except Antarctica.
Max
Well, what is the chance the trend in the Arctic is due to chance?
What is the chance the trend in the Antarctic is due to chance?
One is less than 5% and one is more than 5%.
What is the chance the current global temperature trend is due to greenhouse gases?
What is the mechanism behind the temperature increase being due to a natural recovery from the little ice age?
Are you still looking for that statistically significant trend in Antarctic sea ice?
bob droege
You ask some questions. Let me address them.
The “current global temperature trend” (since the end of 2000) has been one of “unexplained” slight cooling (Trenberth’s “travesty”). I doubt that this has anything to do with GHGs, which have increased to record levels. Met Office cites “natural” factors. I’d agree.
If you mean the “late 20th century warming trend” (1951 to 2000), I’d agree that a part of this warming may well have been due to GHGs.
Looking at the longer-term trend (since 1850), it is likely that around half of the observed warming of 0.7°C (rather than 93% as assumed by IPCC) can be attributed to GHGs, although it is hard to see how the observed multi-decadal 30-year warming and cooling cycles could have anything to do with GHGs.
We still do not know the complete answer to that question, although it is unlikely that it can all be attributed to GHGs. IPCC models estimate that 93% has been due to anthropogenic forcing (= CO2); several solar studies attribute 50% to the unusually high level of 20th century solar activity (highest in several thousand years). Who knows the real answer?
As far as sea ice trends are concerned, both the Antarctic and the Arctic lose most of their sea ice and regain it again each year. There has been a multi-decadal oscillation in the late-summer extent after the seasonal melt, which seems to follow a similar multi-decadal temperature oscillation. Who knows what has caused this? I’d not call it “chance”, because I’m sure someone will figure out the answer some day. We just haven’t gotten there as yet.
We just shouldn’t fixate myopically on human GHGs (especially CO2) as the cause of all climate change. It isn’t.
Max
CLIMATEGATE: GlacierGate, AmazonGate, PachauriGate, IPCCGate, ChinaGate, CRUGate, HimalyaGate, SeaLevelGate, RainForestGate, HurricaneGate, GreenpeaceGate, SternGate, KiwiGate, HockeyStickGate, WeatherStationGate, HANSENGate, NASAGate, GISSGate and NOAAGate, PolarBearGate, EPAGate…
I like how their section 3.3 on “Recent Temperature Trends” leaves out 5 continents and most of the ocean.
Southern Hemisphere has been cooling.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3sh/from:1998/to:2011/plot/hadcrut3sh/from:1998/to:2011/trend
Why haven’t they included this, but over a much longer period, and with the rest of the ocean they exclude (which is most if it), along with the 5 continents they exclude?
Bruce, would you describe section 3.3 (probably an important one!) as in any way “good”?
I can understand why I would ignore SST … since the data collection with buckets and engine inlets etc is big joke.
wow…
he forgets that SST is also measured from space. Bruce only trusts instruments that give him answers he likes,
Which satellites were flying in the 1930s?
Steven,
I am SURE you SUGGESTED that we shouldn’t trust satellite measurements because their algorithms are proprietary when the argument was better for you!
the surface was 0.5°C. 0.9°F.) or more warmer than water at 5 meters but 12 times, and 1°C. (1.8°F.) or more warmer but three times. The greatest difference observed was 1.52°C. (2.7° F.).”
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/1520-0493(1926)54%3C241%3AOWTAS%3E2.0.CO%3B2
“In comparison with the surface water temperature obtained with a tin bucket from a lower deck at about the same time, water surface temperatures procured by the author with a canvas bucket dropped from the bridge averaged 0.5° F. too low, and those by quartermasters with the same bucket averaged 1° F. too low. These errors were the combined result of the predip temperature of the canvas bucket, evaporative cooling of the partially filled canvas bucket after leaving the sea, temperature change of the thermometer if withdrawn for reading, and several unsystematic errors, such as occasional 5 or 10 degrees misreadings. On some other ships the average depression of the recorder canvas bucket temperatures below the condenser intake values was found to be 3°F. or more. In the Gulf Stream region north and northeast of Hatteras, winter observations from four ships gave canvas bucket temperatures averaging about 5° F. lower than the condenser intake. In cold gales over the Gulf Stream, departures in a group of 24 observations from 4 ships were so large as to have a median at 7 and upper extremes of 20 to 24°F.”
Has the Yamal tree been recycled?
Yup …over and over again in Mann’s papers and his disciples papers and in the IPCC.
Hello
Certain statements in the NIPCC reports are unfortunate and perhaps uncalled for. But I assumed that the NPICC was not intended to present an unbiased case for a stable or cooling climate. I assumed the NIPCC was intended to show that the AR4 was biased and did not cite papers that weakens their (IPCC’s) case for CAGW. I also assume that the NIPCC was intended for professionals, based on the absence of elementary material for the layman.
If my assumptions are correct, was the NIPCC so bad? Are there significant technical errors in their statements? Can the science that the NIPCC presented be trusted?
I have have only glanced at the NIPCC’s latest report. While I certainly agree that some of the statements in the report may be questionable I do not think they have tried to hide their views on CAGW.
klee12
“The latest research on paleoclimatology and recent temperatures [finds] new evidence that the Medieval Warm Period of approximately 1,000 years ago, when there was about 28 percent less CO2 in the atmosphere than there is currently, was both global and warmer than today’s world.”
Medieval Warm Period with 28% less CO2 perhaps proves that the 20th and 21st century were cooler because more CO2 (GHGs) help cooling the Earth and the Atmosphere.
When they say 28% less CO2 that puts it back to the pre-industrial value near 280 ppm, which is where it has been for the past millennium, give or take 5 ppm for warmer and cooler periods. If the MWP was 0.5 degrees warmer that would only release about 5 ppm from the ocean, which would not be discernible from whatever CO2 record they have for the MWP. They say this kind of thing in NIPCC to catch their unwary followers out making them think it is something significant when it isn’t.
“My optimism was temporarily dashed upon reading the Foreward, where the first subheading is “Recanting Alarmists, Climategate.””
Maybe if the AGW proponents stopped calling those skeptical of their hypotheses “deniers”, and did something about the continued tenure of those who engaged in unscientific practises such as data bending, opaque statistical massaging and weighting, email deletion, undermining the peer review process and subverting journal editor’s independence, then the big bad nasty “deniers” might stop using the “Alarmist” tag and highlighting climategate.
Just a thought.
tallbloke
Your observation is spot on.
The “name calling” began in the CAGW camp: those who were rationally skeptical of the premise a) that AGW, caused principally by human CO2 emissions, has been the primary cause of late 20th century warming and b) that it thus represents a serious threat to humanity and our environment, were labelled “anti-science:, “flat Earthers”, “deniers”, “obstructionists”, etc. After all, “the science was settled”.
Scientists who turned into activists and who used fear mongering to get their message across were then quickly labelled “alarmists” by the rational skeptics and the name-calling escalated.
We have seen from the Climategate leaks and later revelations the unscientific practices of the “consensus group”, which you cited.
This has certainly made the name calling worse.
But, most of all, it has caused the general public to lose confidence and trust in the IPCC and in climate science, in general, a result which our host here has recognized and acknowledged with a certain sense of sadness.
IMO this confidence will not be restored until there are fundamental changes in the corrupted IPCC process. This may well require the replacement of IPCC with a much smaller, non-political body of climate scientists representing all sides of the ongoing scientific debate, who act as neutral collectors of scientific studies relating to our climate and to anthropogenic plus natural causes for changes in our climate, without fixating myopically on AGW alone, as IPCC has done.
Will this happen?
Efforts like NIPCC are a small step in the right direction, as they can open the eyes of undecided readers to errors, distortions, exaggerations, understated uncertainties and omissions in the highly touted IPCC summary reports.
This thread and other venues will give CAGW proponents a chance to rebut some of the NIPCC statements on the merits of the science cited.
However, one must remember that CAGW has become a multi-billion dollar big business, with many powerful interest groups already benefiting or hoping to do so in one way or another from it. These interest groups will fight tooth and nail to keep CAGW alive and I’m afraid that name calling will remain part of these efforts.
Max.
they did it first mommy!
mommy. mommy mommy.
You guys need to grow up take the high ground and stop whining. They called you name. boo effin hoo. Well they called me names, hell at Tobias place they called me evil and a sociopath. Their behavior doesnt entail that I have to support shoddy crap from heartland merely because some body called them names or me names.
Steven Mosher, your response here is ridiculous. The “whining” you referred to can’t actually be found in the comment you’re responding to. manacker pointed out how the name-calling began, but that doesn’t mean he used that to try to justify further name-calling. You’re acting as though people can’t identify bad behavior if it comes from a group opposing a group using similar behavior. It’s silly!
Not only are you responding to something which just doesn’t exist, you’re doing so while ignoring the majority of the comment you’re (supposedly) responding to. Your contribution here is pure misrepresentation and distraction. Oddly enough, that seems to be the case every time I see somebody start saying “mommy, mommy.” I swear, if I didn’t see your name, I’d think you were Joshua.
Maybe the reason you get criticized by people on both sides isn’t as foolish as you like to portray.
They did it first is perhaps the worst way to begin any discussion. Thats not the issue and only leads to stupid exchanges. Anyone who starts a paragraph with that isnt likely to say anything smart after it.
“Efforts like NIPCC are a small step in the right direction, as they can open the eyes of undecided readers to errors, distortions, exaggerations, understated uncertainties and omissions in the highly touted IPCC summary reports. ”
Huh? in what way is is this sophmoronic effort by Carter Singer and Idso a step in the “right” direction?
Steven Mosher
“Sophomoric”?
Are you referring to the highly touted, taxpayer funded IPCC AR4 report, which was supposed to be the “gold standard” but was filled with exaggerations, distortions, understated uncertainties and inaccuracies – all leading in the direction of AGW fear mongering?
Or are you referring to the much smaller, privately funded (and infinitely less expensive) NIPCC report, which pointed out some of these flaws?
Or are you maybe referring to BOTH?
Get specific, man – don’t just babble.
Max
steven mosher
A lesson in humility for you: Remember that it was the “sophomoric” child who saw that the emperor was naked, while the “savants” of the day were all impressed with his new clothes.
Max
NIPCC Section 3.1 pretty effectively falsifies the IPCC AR4 claim that“the warmth of the last half century is unusual in at least the previous 1,300 years”, citing studies from all over the world, using different paleoclimate methodologies, which all show a MWP slightly warmer than today.
It cites many of these studies, some of which were included in an earlier NIPCC report from 2009 and some, which were more recent.
IPCC relied heavily on the since discredited Mann hockey stick and “spaghetti copies”, but the number of studies cited by NIPCC make a pretty strong argument for a warmer MWP, as extensive historical records as well as actual physical evidence from today have also suggested.
It is a shame that IPCC rushed so quickly to embrace the Mann hockey stick without first subjecting it to “due diligence” scrutiny and, even more so, that IPCC has never formally retracted the hockey stick or acknowledged that it was a piece of bad science (simply moving it from a “center fold” position in the Summary Report to a less prominent slot buried in the main report.
On this point NIPCC is definitely much stronger than IPCC.
As far as the 280 ppmv CO2 claim is concerned, NIPCC states:
I can find no fault in this reasoning, assuming of course that the IPCC estimate of pre-Mauna Loa CO2 levels based on ice core data is correct. NIPCC apparently does not question this estimate.
Max
“but the number of studies cited by NIPCC make a pretty strong argument for a warmer MWP”
No they don’t. Where is the global reconstruction to show the MWP in all these studies even lines up?
If one study has a warm period in the 1000s and another has a cool period in the 1000s, but a warm period in the 1200s the NIPCC report will claim both have a MWP warmer than today.
The NIPCC report ignores actual northern hemisphere and global reconstructions which would show their claim to be unsupportable. At the very least the MWP might have been cooler than the present period, at most it is likely to be cooler than present. Either way their conclusion is not supported except for their cherrypicking.
Additionally of course the issue is more to do with where 2C or even 4C more global warming will take us. Even 1C warming will take us easily above the MWP beyond dispute.
Sorry. lolwot.
The studies are all out there. For the line-up, check Loehle.
Face it.
The evidence (from all sources) is overwhelming that the MWP was global and warmer than today.
Denying this just makes you a “denier”
Max
PS Shifting the topic from the MWP to
is simply a diversionary ruse.
If the MWP was warmer than today, despite significantly lower CO2 levels, there is no valid reason to think we will have “2C or even 4C more global warming” as a result of future CO2 increases.
Right?
The extent of the MWP does not constrain climate sensitivity one jot. Don’t labor under that misconception.
You say “For the line-up, check Loehle”.
Here’s the Loehle reconstruction:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/images/robhon_kungfu2.gif
Perhaps you didn’t realzie the reconstruction ends in 1935. Certainly most skeptic presentations I have seen do not attempt to add the warming since then.
“The evidence (from all sources) is overwhelming that the MWP was global and warmer than today.”
Not even your source (Loehle) shows that. In fact without uncertainty it shows the opposite.
Accepting the conditional statement there as conditional – my understanding is that pro-AGWers believe that controlling of the effects of CO2, there are other causes for the warming in the MWP – i.e., greater average solar activity and less volcanic activity. Also, couldn’t changes in ocean currents have caused warming in various locations that would not be inconsistent with a causal link between CO2 and warming?
Now your comment was quantified as to a strength of correlation between CO2 increase and warming – but certainly you agree that other variables could have caused warming in the MWP without a concurrent rise in CO2, right?
I find it ever so enlightening when the people pretending they are on the high ground START their critique of the oppositions contribituon by ad homs. Yup, that is the way Climate Science Believer work. Why? Probably because they are losing the actual FACTS battle every day the Hot Spot fails to appear showing that the PHYSICS alledgedly implemented in the models wasn’t implemented very well.!!
Here are the evidences that support the above statement.
1) If further warming were projected in the 1940s, it would have been wrong as shown in the following graph.
http://bit.ly/njfRVL
2) The global mean temperature (GMT) has never exceeded its upper boundary line for long for the last 160 years as shown in the above graph.
The current GMT is near at its peak on the upper boundary line. As a result, it is unlikely it will exceed that upper boundary line in the next two decades, contradicting IPCC’s projection.
3) There is early evidence for the validity of the above interpretation with the GMT plateau in the last decade as shown in the following graph.
http://bit.ly/dSA3Ly
Real world temperature doesn’t follow patterns, it follows physics.
According to the pattern global temperature will continue rising forever. It can’t.
For the last 160 years, the trend has not changed.
Change in that trend indicates climate change, which has not happened during the whole of the data.
Same steady warming of 0.06 deg C per decade together with cyclic warming and cooling of 0.5 deg C every 30 years.
That is what the data shows.
Expect global cooling in the next two decades.
@ lolwot.
Real world temperatures do follow patterns.
These patterns are just the translation / the picture of the physical laws that govern climate processes.
As Girma stated, the general pattern has been quite stable since at least 1880 :
– Cooling – 0,2°C (-0,07°C per decade) from 1880 to 1910
– Warming 0,45°C (0,15°C per decade) from 1910 to 1940
– Cooling – 0,1°C (-0,03°C per decade) from 1940 to 1970
– Warming 0,45°C (0,15°C per decade) from 1970 to 2000
– No significant trend since 2000 (even 1998)
(http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1880/to:2011/mean:12/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1880/to:1910/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1910/to:1940/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1940/to:1970/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1970/to:2000/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1998/trend)
Overall warming rate is roughly 0,06°C per decade.
This overall warming actually corresponds to LIA recovery.
Of course temperature will not keep rising forever. Unfortunately temperature records are not old enough (160 years maximum) to provide larger scale (centennial especially) patterns, that could tell us when this overall warming would end. What is for sure is that we have recently entered into a (slightly) cooling period that should end in the 30’s according to the current general pattern. According to the same pattern, global warming shall not exceed 0,5°C by the end of the century, which is 4 times lower than IPCC most optimistic forecasts…
See Scafetta’s work on this topic (http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/originals/climate_change_cause.pdf)
The general pattern results from the superposition of various cycles related to sun activity (11 years Schwabe cycle, 22 years magnetic cycle, Wolf 90 years cycle…) and oceans’ thermal oscillations (PDO, AMO, ENSO…)
One of the main problem that, Girma and NIPCC forgot to point out, is that none of the climate models is able to reproduce this general pattern, which actually formally invalidate all of them !
– Models fail reproducing cooling.
– They produce a warming trend from 1900 to 1960 whith an almost constant rate of 0,06°C per decade, that is 2,5 times lower than rate observed over [1910 – 1940] period.
– Models only fit with observations over [1970 – 2000] period, which is too short a period to state that these models are well correlated and validated.
It shall also be highlighted that warming rate is exactly the same over [1910 – 1940] and [1970 – 2000] periods, whereas consumption of fossil energy (i.e manmade CO2 emissions) has been multiplied by 5 in the meantime… which actually falsifies AGW theory.
So we have a global atmospheric experiment that is not noticeably warming the planet – but warming and the increase in greenhouse gases will be with great certainty a positive on all counts? Only if non-linearity is neglected.
‘Recent scientific evidence shows that major and widespread climate changes have occurred with startling speed. For example, roughly half the north Atlantic warming since the last ice age was achieved in only a decade, and it was accompanied by significant climatic changes across most of the globe. Similar events, including local warmings as large as 16°C, occurred repeatedly during the slide into and climb out of the last ice age. Human civilizations arose after those extreme, global ice-age climate jumps. Severe droughts and other regional climate events during the current warm period have shown similar tendencies of abrupt onset and great persistence, often with adverse effects on societies.
Abrupt climate changes were especially common when the climate system was being forced to change most rapidly. Thus, greenhouse warming and other human alterations of the earth system may increase the possibility of large, abrupt, and unwelcome regional or global climatic events. The abrupt changes of the past are not fully explained yet, and climate models typically underestimate the size, speed, and extent of those changes. Hence, future abrupt changes cannot be predicted with confidence, and climate surprises are to be expected.’ http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=10136&page=1
Mr Mosher seems a little agressive at the moment towards skeptics. Perhaps his book sales have dropped….
You obviously havent been around for the last 4 years.
Let me keep this short so that I might expect a reply; maybe Dr. Curry. I keep coming back to one single question. When the GHG takes effect and global surface temperatures rise, does the lapse rate change? And if the lapse rate does not change, where is there a really good discussion in the literature as to WHY the lapse rate does not change?
Jim,
The purpose of this blog isn’t to answer scientific questions but rather to raise as many new ones as possible with the aim of maximising any doubt and uncertainty about climate change.
I’d have thought you’d have picked up on that by now.
The problem is that climate science has no answers.
Andrew
Taking a neutral stance at this point on rehashed work from ‘NIPCC’ (Fred Singer and friends), well known for serial, serious errors in overall interpretation, analysis and communication of the science and transparent but largely unexamined ideological bias at play in their playground ‘reports’ – never mind suggesting that this kind of effort ‘competes’ with the work of the world’s climate scientists and the 2,500 multidisciplinary specialists contributing to IPCC reports combined with the tens of thousands of additional scientists and many others who raise real questions that result from reading, reviewing, evaluating and evolving the information in both IPCC summaries and domestic science and discussion of the science, knowledgeably and in good faith and with open identification of the nature of the social and political issues – is just not credible.
Nice sentence.
Brevity is the soul of wit, so this sentence is the soul of what? Witlessness? By the way I am one of the 2500 experts, since they include we skeptical reviewers. Is that funny or what? Rave on, Martha.
Martha,
nice ad hom. Not a sinlge link or factual statement easily evaluated.
When are you going to point out the mistakes in the NIPCC work?
Martha
Let’s analyze what you wrote:
Strike ”rehashed”
Change ”Fred Singer and friends” to ”Fred Singer et al.”
Strike phase beginning with ”well known” and ending with ”never mind””
Add ”several of” before ”the world’s climate scientists”
Do a reality check on ”2,500 multidisciplinary specialists” as well as on ”the tens of thousands of additional scientists…”; if the numbers cannot be validated, replace with the more factual ”large number”
Strike phrase beginning with ”knowledgeably and in good faith and with open identification of the nature of the social and political issues”
At the end add ”in my humble opinion”.
You now have a opinion statement that could have been written by a person with scientific or technical training:
Just a tip for making your comments sound a bit more rational and credible.
Max
Martha
Let’s analyze what you wrote:
Strike ”rehashed”
Change ”Fred Singer and friends” to ”Fred Singer et al.”
Strike phase beginning with ”well known” and ending with ”never mind””
Add ”several of” before ”the world’s climate scientists”
Do a reality check on ”2,500 multidisciplinary specialists” as well as on ”the tens of thousands of additional scientists…”; if the numbers cannot be validated, replace with the more factual ”large number”
Strike phrase beginning with ”knowledgeably and in good faith and with open identification of the nature of the social and political issues”
At the end add ”in my humble opinion”.
You now have a opinion statement that could have been written by a person with scientific or technical training:
Just a tip for making your comments sound a bit more rational and credible.
Max
Speaking of kool-aid;
“IPCC reports combined with the tens of thousands of additional scientists and many others who raise real questions that result from reading, reviewing, evaluating and evolving the information in both IPCC summaries and domestic science and discussion of the science, knowledgeably and in good faith and with open identification of the nature of the social and political issues – is just not credible.”
What a joke, the IPCC are statist hacks associated to political selection and eco-left cultural inbreeding. The IPCC is a political organization not a science group.
How many of the 2500 front line number are you claiming are climate scientists?
What a joke, the IPCC are statist hacks associated to political selection and eco-left cultural inbreeding.
Presumably you can back up this assertion by quoting some detailed research into the political leanings and affiliations of those scientists involved in the IPCC process.
It would be nice but a good chunk are following the Hollywood Ten model, “we’re victims” you can’t ask us those questions.
You can look at the gray materials, it requires reading between lines and the Orthodox as seen by many of the players on this thread including the host are loathe to connect this dot.
http://coast.gkss.de/staff/storch/pdf/GKSS_2010_9.CLISCI.pdf
There are many book from critics of course, you would have your reasons to dismiss them. It’s just a form of dishonest conversation which is why the threads are circular. Did you expect a peer reviewed study where green party IPCC members disclose themselves?
It would be enough if Dr. Curry addressed topic but we get middling and false quivalence regarding skeptic views as with the line of hostility toward the Heartland group is obvious.
Dr. Lindzen is still the gold standard of explaining the motivations, a former democrat;
http://news.heartland.org/newspaper-article/2001/06/01/ipcc-report-criticized-one-its-lead-authors
True ten years ago, true today.
Andrew,
Steven McIntyre was a reviewer on an IPCC report. He has found many things wrong with Mann and others work, yet, he has stated that he believes in CO2 warming and if he were in government he would listen to the IPCC recommendations.
Seriously bud, is there ANYONE associated with the IPCC who isn’t at least left leaning?
There are over 600 names contributing to the physical science section of AR4.
Then why the constant quote of “2500” and the mix and match game of “multidisciplinary specialists” and “tens of thousands of additional scientists” as if this is a drool feed from left-wing media outlets? As if that many scientist support the AGW nucleus of the summary committee on AR4.
Pure disinformation and dogma Martha.
Really? So many? I didn’t think it would take more than about 1 or 2 to explain the physical science
Martha,
are those 600 names authors and contributors to Peer Reviewed Papers that are referenced in WG1 or administrators, leads, reviewers and drones many of whom were ignored when they provided comments on the science?
We would really like for you to sort these statements yourself.
“600 names”
or
” 2,500 multidisciplinary specialists” plus ” tens of thousands of additional scientists”
Which is it? 600 or 12,500+? Seems a bit of a difference there, Martha.
Max
“multidisciplinary specialists”
Newspeak arrives again to the forum;
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/02/17/william-schlesinger-on-ipcc-something-on-the-order-of-20-percent-have-had-some-dealing-with-climate/
We know that anti-Americanism is happening. We know that UN-sponsored anti-Americanism has been happening for years. So, how could it be possibly surprise anyone that superstitious fears about global warming would not be used as a political weapon against America by secular-socialists and the UN?
The party of science;
http://hotair.com/archives/2011/09/01/video-why-are-tar-sands-evil-again/
:)
Mosher is over the top in his criticism of the NIPCC report though I have to agree with him taking exception to the discussion of MBH 2009.
By discussing such a discredited scientific paper, the authors of the NIPCC study accord undeserved legitimacy to Mann, Bradley, Hughes et al.
I dunno, i like the Mosh, he’s an equal opportunity grumpy bastard.
Thank you. I pretty much try to hold everyone else to same impossibly high unreasonable standards that I hold myself to. hehe.
He’s not equal opportunity. He’s a Warmer who goes around trying to “frame” the debate for everyone. Like a catcher who tries to make a pitch look better by always moving his glove into the strike zone after he catches it. He’s trying to make climate science look better than the pile of dung that it is.
Andrew
I like the Mosh too but sometimes he gets a little wild.
Steven Mosher just keeps it real. Very simple.
This is interesting:
“Abstract: Peer-reviewed journals are a pillar of modern science. Their aim is to achieve highest scientific standards by carrying out a rigorous peer review that is, as a minimum requirement, supposed to be able to identify fundamental methodological errors or false claims. Unfortunately, as many climate researchers and engaged observers of the climate change debate pointed out in various internet discussion fora, the paper by Spencer and Braswell [1] that was recently published in Remote Sensing is most likely problematic in both aspects and should therefore not have been published. After having become aware of the situation, and studying the various pro and contra arguments, I agree with the critics of the paper. Therefore, I would like to take the responsibility for this editorial decision and, as a result, step down as Editor-in-Chief of the journal Remote Sensing. […]”
http://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/3/9/2002/
Any comments?
It goes on to say “With this step I would also like to personally protest against how the authors and like-minded climate sceptics have much exaggerated the paper’s conclusions in public statements,” and much more.
Worth a read
Yeah. There is no place in climate science for exaggeration. He uses Trenbreth as a source, no doubt. LOL.
Louise,
Yes, peer review pressure!! 8>)
NIPCC vs IPCC. Who to believe?
On the one hand we have a group of guys from the big bad governments of the world who are telling us we have a problem, we’ll have to pay Carbon taxes and learn to ride bikes. On the other we have freedom loving American patriots who are quite sure that we haven’t; and, there is no reason at all to not ride around in SUVs fuelled by cheap fossil fuels which will never be depleted.
It’s a no brainer, isn’t it?
The IPCC is a playgound and lucrative con game for those who are obsessed with CO2 or think this is a great chance to bring down capitalism.
The NIPCC and a lot of outher scientists are making the case that the obsession with CO2 ignores many other factors that make up climate … like the sun and clouds.
Bruce,
not so much to bring down Capitalism as to gain full control over Capitalism and whatever other strings controlling people exist.
tempterrain
Your (apparently “tongue-in-cheek”) analysis of the situation displays some unexpected lucidity.
Of course, it’s much more complicated than that, especially since CAGW has become a multi-billion dollar taxpayer-funded big business, and the “big PR bucks” are still on the side of the IPCC, rather than the small, privately-funded NIPCC.
But truth loves light, and even a little bit goes a long way.
Max
Judith Curry cites the rebuttal by Bart Verheggen as a first critique of the recent NIPCC report.
So let’s look at that critique in more detail:
1. “Second opinion” argument: Bart’s argument is weak. A “second opinion” means an opinion by a second person or group of persons. Going to the same group (IPCC) that gave you the “first opinion” will not give you a ”second opinion”, but just a ”first opinion” twice.
2. “Risk” argument: Bart may know something about physics, but economics (and ”economic risk”) are not his strengths, and his ideas on ”winners and losers” are weak. Judith has done some better thinking on that.
3. “Usual stuff” argument: Here Bart offers no rebuttal of specific points brough up by the latest NIPCC report, but rather cites a very shallow “bullet” review (with no scientific references) of an earlier NIPCC report by Jan Dash and John Cook at Skeptical Science (huh?)
4. “Uncertainty” argument: Bart appears to be confused on the meaning of ”uncertainty”. What it means in layman’s terms is that we do not know if the projections based on climate model simulations mean anything at all if we are “uncertain” about the assumed inputs to those climate models. Judith has covered the point of ”uncertainty” elsewhere, and it is a significant point.
5. “Feedbacks” argument: Here Bart argues against low climate sensitivity estimates cited by NIPCC by simply stating that they are much lower than the estimates, which are ”accepted” by IPCC or that can “satisfactorily” be modeled by the IPCC models. This is no argument.
6. “Aerosol” argument: The data on aerosols and their impact on our climate is rudimentary. The hypotheses suggested by NIPCC are no less plausible than others accepted by IPCC. IPCC gas told us that since 1750 the net impact of all anthropogenic forcing factors other than CO2 (including aerosols, other GHGs. etc.) have cancelled one another out. This was prior to the recent data from CERN, which might provide a mechanism for the observations of Spencer and the independent Earthshine results on clouds. Now we have a study that tells us that China is causing the recently observed global cooling with aerosols. Take your pick; Bart has no argument here despite his “cloggs breaking”).
7. “Bottom line” (summary) argument: Bart states that the NIPCC report ”exhumes a strong and unfounded faith in negative feedbacks from nature”. Yes, it does, and these are based on physical observations from CERES and ERBE satellites, which were published after IPCC’s AR4, so could not be considered there. As our host here has stated elsewhere, the largest unresolved uncertainties revolve around ”natural forcing and feedbacks”, as NIPCC has suggested.
8. The “how would you know” argument provides no scientific arguments at all but simply some chest beating and arm waving, with a final “dig” at the Heartland Institute.
All in all, Bart’s rebuttal provides us with no new knowledge or real reasons why the NIPCC critique of the IPCC message should not be taken seriously.
Maybe there will be a more serious rebuttal of NIPCC, which covers individual points specifically with solid backup data, but this was not it.
Max
Max, You show more clear headed logic than any other post in this blog.
What a sad, sad state of affairs when information from private institutions, like the Heartland Institute, is obviously more reliable than information generate with public tax funds!
World leaders, Al Gore, and the UN’s IPCC have nobody but themselves to blame for worldwide loss of confidence in government leaders.
Oh dear this thread really got quite childish and unscientific. Let me set up the experiment for you. The null hypothesis is that Man-made CO2 is not causing the planet to warm. The IPCC support the alternative view that it does, hence it is incumbent upon them to support their alternative position to a certain level that we have no other course than to reject the null (off the top of ones head 90% sure is not good enough for me). The NIPCC position is the default null position, it does not require the same level of support as the alternative (as basically world policy will not be drastically affected if they are right).
I know some would have as ‘most scientists agree’ that their position should be adopted as the null and those who do not support this now require another alternative (cosmic ray cloud formation maybe). That’s not how science works.
Stop bleating and support your hypothesis, it’s looking fairly fragile from my viewpoint and perhaps you should rethink, formulate another Ha, given the counter evidence of recent years. I’m not asking anymore of you than I would anyone who cannot support their ideas.
David Shaw
Well stated.
Max