by Judith Curry
Here are a few things that caught my eye this past week.
Science journalism under fire
Keith Kloor has a good article at YaleClimateMediaForum, entitled Science Journalism Under Fire. Some excerpts:
Science journalism is getting smacked around a lot this week. The hits are coming from all directions.
At the climate activist website Desmogblog, writer and author Chris Mooney says he is “appalled” at thisWashington Post article for what he regards as its tarring of climate scientists “as radicals or political operatives.”
On the other side of the opinion spectrum, Roger Pielke Jr., a University of Colorado political scientist, believes that journalists have been too obsequious to climate scientists — to the detriment of climate science.
Indeed, if there is an Achilles heel to climate reporting, it would be its penchant for simplistic, dramatic coverage — be it a new study linking climate change to shrinking animals or to declining grape quality in wine-growing regions.
Then there is the issue of official press releases, and the propensity of too many in the media to recycle PR claims with little or no scrutiny.
Freelance science writer Ed Yong echoes this sentiment at his Discover magazine blog: “If the paper was rubbish, if the peer reviewers missed something, if the scientist lied, if the press release is distorted, it’s still our fault for producing something that is inaccurate or that fails to root out these problems.”
Climate Pragmatism
Remember climate hawks? A previous CE post discussed climate pragmatism. Two new voices on the climate pragmatism front
DotEarth profiles Jonathan Foley, Director of the Institute for the Environment at the University of Minnesota.
He is a scientist on the leading edge of climate change analysis who proposes an end run around paralyzing climate disputes by focusing on energy and forest policies with multiple benefits and on fostering resilience to climate extremes.
In 2010, Foley wrote an essay Becoming a Climate Pragmatist. Foley is a very interesting voice on climate change.
Thomas Friedman, whom I previously regarded as a climate hawk, seems to take on the pragmatist mantle with his piece on Take the Subway. Some excerpts:
This is a column about energy and environment and why we must not let the poisonous debate about climate change so tie us in knots that we cannot have any energy policy at all, particularly one focused on developing much more efficient use of resources, through better designs and systems.
We can’t let the climate wars continue to derail efforts to have an energy policy that puts in place rising efficiency standards, for buildings, windows, traffic, housing, packaging and appliances, that will drive innovation — which is our strength — in what has to be the next great global industry: energy and resource efficiency.
Delingpole thinks that the climate realists are winning the debate, because climate alarmists seem to have lost their prestige. I guess climate realists are defined here as skeptics that agree with Delingpole.
So now we have new taxonomy in the climate debate to confuse us: climate hawks, climate pragmatists, climate realists. I think I like this better than alarmists, deniers, skeptics.
Climate Change Analyst Job Description
Check this out: climate change analyst job description. Excerpts:
Climate change analysts use research and analysis to make recommendations for climate-related legislation, fundraising, and awareness campaigns.
Responsibilities for climate change analysts often include:
- Informing legislators and regulatory agencies of research findings.
- Proposing policies related to alternative fuels and other factors related to climate change.
- Identifying the environmental impacts of existing policies.
There are currently 85,870 climate change analysts in the United States, with 4,840 new climate change analyst job openings created each year.
Climate Change Analyst jobs are not expected to see much growth beyond their current levels in the next decade.
I suspect that those of you you that have been diligently attending the College of Climate Etc. are eminently qualified for such positions :)
Although most of the money for such positions may be on the green side. Larry Bell bemoans at Forbes: How can I get some of that big oil anti-global warming money? Given that the budgets at NGOs such as Greenpeace and WWF are almost two orders of magnitude larger than the likes of Heartland, the prospects for climate and green energy skeptics don’t look to good for climate analyst positions.
JC note: I made an attempt to keep this review Gleick-free and Mann-free.
In the meanwhile … has been seen … in a rather shameful way, whilst … revels in the light of dumb journos.
For “the unbearable nakedness of climate change,” see
http://www.weatheraction.com/docs/WANews12No12.pdf
GIGO
“…The present global financial crisis should be inducing politicians not to squander money on non‐solutions to non‐problems. Yet to support their plans for emissions taxation Western governments, including ours, are still propagating scientifically juvenile greenhouse propaganda underpinned only by circumstantial evidence and GCM computer gamesmanship.
“Perhaps a reassessment will finally occur when two‐metre thick ice develops again on Father Thames at London Bridge, or when cooling causes massive crop failure in the world’s granary belts.”
~Bob Carter
I will be more interested in Bob Carter’s reassessment when the world continues to warm in defiance of his cooling fantasies.
Do you think skeptics like him will just slink off or do you think they will try and revise history and pretend they never thought the world would cool?
added ol’ Bob to my global cooling list
This might help you fill in the list numbnut – http://www.thedailygreen.com/environmental-news/latest/inhofe-global-warming-deniers-scientists-46011008-2
That’s Kangaroo with one r and two o’s.
I have absilutely nothing to add – http://www.thedailygreen.com/environmental-news/latest/inhofe-global-warming-deniers-scientists-46011008-2
You are such an idiot
only interested in skeptics who are a) reasonably prominent or have been cited by reasonably prominent global cooling fantasizer and b) who have actually predicted cooling or at the very least an end of warming
meant to include this
http://lasp.colorado.edu/sorce/data/tsi_data.htm#plots
Warming is utterly impossible for the rest of the decade.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/11/enso_variation_and_global_warm.html
This got me onto Imhoff’s infamous 400 list. But honestly I won’t feel slighted in the lest not making your list. You are just a loser nonentity with another loser blog.
Nice list, lolwot. What the heck, someone may stumble across this in a few years and find it useful to research a term paper.
You can add these guys to your list.
‘Using a new measure of coupling strength, this update shows that these climate modes have recently synchronized, with synchronization peaking in the year 2001/02. This synchronization has been followed by an increase in coupling. This suggests that the climate system may well have shifted again, with a consequent break in the global mean temperature trend from the post 1976/77 warming to a new period (indeterminate length) of roughly constant global mean temperature.’- http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2009/2008GL037022.shtml-
‘Ensemble hindcasts for the 20th century demonstrate a predictive skill in the upper-ocean temperature over almost a decade, particularly around the Kuroshio-Oyashio extension (KOE) and subtropical oceanic frontal regions where the PDO signals are observed strongest. A negative tendency of the predicted PDO phase in the coming decade will enhance the rising trend in surface air-temperature (SAT) over east Asia and over the KOE region, and suppress it along the west coasts of North and South America and over the equatorial Pacific. This suppression will contribute to a slowing down of the global-mean SAT rise.’
– http://www.pnas.org/content/107/5/1833.full –
Point of interst – do ya got anything? Any peer reviewed science at all? Ya not just going by raw instinct here are you?
ah you are running scared.
Thanks for up that article, but I won’t add you to the list. If I told people that Robert Aliceson predicted cooling people would say “who?”
It’s the david evans, the bob carters and delingpots that are the prize. To have these people humiliated and forced again and again to confront their errored prediction everytime they try to give climate scientists crap will be worth it’s weight in gold
Give me some hint that you understand enough science to confidently predict 0.2 degrees warming this decade. Where the hell are you coming from. All I see is stupid little posturings with absolutely no substance. I give you all sorts of graphs, connections, quotes from actual science – but what we get back is juvenile banter.
You are an idiot waste of bandwidth. You are capturing prizes on your loser blog? What a wa_ker you are.
Capt Wallaby doesn’t even understand the articles he links to.
Thinks that a “slowing….of the rise” in global temp means cooling.
And he thinks other people are idiots………sheesh.
Are you the dumb one of the dynamic duo? That would be pretty hard to do but well done on the attempt. The best you got depends on quibbling on A word of my quote.
‘Prediction of internal decadal variability in the climate system represents one of the newest and toughest challenges. It is only recently that near-term climate projection experiments have been carried out focusing on internal decadal variations (10–12). Keenlyside et al. (11) have suggested that, in the coming decade, decadal-scale weakening of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) can work to suppress the globally averaged SAT rise due to anthropogenic forcing.’
‘The predictability of the PDO phase can contribute to that of global climate changes on decadal timescales (e.g., global-mean SAT changes) as implied in Fig. 1. In fact, when examining the individual ensemble members of the HCST data between July 1975 and December 1989 together with the assimilation data for the preceding initialization up to June 1975, a large global-mean SAT rise is always simulated with a positive PDO tendency in the 1980s. The global-mean SAT rising rate (see Fig. 1) and changes in the PDO tendency (see Fig. 3B) exhibit a significant relationship in the averages during 1979–1986 minus those during 1971–1978; the correlation coefficient is 0.791. This suggests that the external forcing and the PDO interplay to realize the late-1970’s change in climate, and that the initialization has a great impact on the future prediction associated with global climate change as well as the PDO. Fig. 3B suggests that the PDO may also contribute to the decadal-scale climate changes in recent years.’
Prediction is somewhat irrelevant – though with declining solar for the rest of the decade and a cool Pacific mode – well you get the idea I’m sure. The real conclusion to be made is that recent warming was at most 0.1 degrees C/decade – and that this is not significant in the scheme of things.
There are a number of ways of deriving warming – here are 2 that remove ENSO – http://s1114.photobucket.com/albums/k538/Chief_Hydrologist/?action=view¤t=ensosubtractedfromtemperaturetrend.gif
Please – give me something original and that relies on a some depth of understanding and not just quibbling on a word. On the other hand – I suppose you are an irrelevant little dipsh_t with nil capability like numbnut.
Corporal Joey,
You linked to that article in response to lolwot’s list of global cooling predictions, and said “add these guys”.
There’s no ‘quibbling’, you just got it wrong.
Right – it is not cooling – just not warming much? Idiot.
Everyone is looking for a suppression of global warming in the next decade or three – but you guys are still in there batting for the warministas. Great chuzpah guys – I admire your tenacity.
I will give you a clue however – it is very difficult to dis someone who calls themself Captain Kangaroo. Attempting just really speaks to idiocy. Now if you don’t have anything in the way of science to suggest catastgrophic gloabl warming in the next decade – I will just think you are an ordinary warminista idiot and move on.
Best reagrds
Captain Kangaroo
The rate warming is the issue.
Can you point to any observable evidence that supports a rate of 3c for a doubling of CO2? What rate of warming do you believe is likely?
Ha. they will spin. nice list below
lolwot,
You could be the Baghdad Bob of AGW.
I am glad the internet is forever.
go on keep it up. You are only building up a fine record of global warming denial that’ll come back to haunt you.
When the world continues warming and this decade turns out warmer than the last I am unsure there’ll be a single skeptic who won’t be discredited. How you going to face the failure?
It’ll be mighty hard to attack climate scientists when they were right and you were wrong.
You think that will bother them?
It doesn’t now, when almost every statement they make can be shown to be errorneous in the the here-and-now.
They are impervious to embarrassment becuase they aren’t interested in knowing the truth, just winning an argument.
“According to the U.S. Federal Highway Administration, the number of registered vehicles (including cars, vans, buses, and trucks) in the U.S. has been growing slowly but steadily from 189 million in 1990 to 247 million in 2007. By comparison, according to China’s State Statistical Bureau, the country had merely 5.54 million vehicles on the road in 1990, but the number exploded to 62 million last year.
…
Update on 8 October 2010: The Chinese Ministry of Public Security discloses today that there are 199 million registered motor vehicles in the country, including 85 million automobiles.
…
Data released on March 1 [2011] by the National Bureau of Statistics of China show that the number of registered automobiles for civilian use reached 90.86 million units at the end of 2010, up 19.3% from a year earlier. The tally includes 12.84 million three-wheeled motor vehicles and low-speed trucks and vans. ”
http://chinaautoweb.com/2010/09/how-many-cars-are-there-in-china/
So at the moment, I would guess China has nearly as many vehicles as US and as much or more paved roads.
And in decade or so will have twice as many vehicles.
In US in 2009: 134.8 million automobiles & 246.2 million total vehicles
In 2008 global CO2: 29.8 billion tonnes. China: 7.0 billion. US: 5.4 billion
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions
China: 2009: about 7.8 billion. So in about a decade China will emit more twice US emission.
2010 emissions estimates:
China 8,240,958,000 tonnes
United States 5,492,170,000 tonnes
same ref.
“ScienceDaily (Sep. 21, 2011) — Global emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) — the main cause of global warming — increased by 45 % between 1990 and 2010, and reached an all-time high of 33 billion”
tonnes in 2010. ”
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/09/110921074750.htm
Global CO2 levels continue climb during these years at more less constant rate:
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/
If there is average 2 ppm increase per year by the year 2020 global CO2 should be around 410 ppm [a bit less than 4.5% increase from today levels]. At this time China will around twice US emission and within another 10 year after this China and India will be probably be emitting half of global human CO2 emission with US and Europe emitting about 25% or less.
India:
“The global nuclear industry is moving forward at a brisk pace, only slightly slowed by the Fukushima accident. The International Atomic Energy Agency’s most realistic estimate is that 90 new nuclear plants will enter service by 2030. Ten new nuclear plants went online over the past two years.
India now envisages increasing the contribution of nuclear power to overall electricity generation capacity from 3.2% to 9% within 25 years.”
By 2030 India will almost as much nuclear power generation as the US does currently- and since US has still not built any new plants, time may reduce the number of US plant by 2030.
It seems to me that in the period up to 2030, India will be the country that done the most to reduce CO2 emission. And have taken a path with best long term prospects in terms having enough energy for it’s population in the future. Of course Japan and France has much higher percent of nuclear power than US [or India will have by 2030]- but these countries did that already, decades ago.
If it’s failed predictions you are interested in then I suggest you consider those of Professor Tim Flannery, the Australian government appointed Chief Climate Commissioner and prominent warmist – “Even the rains that fall won’t fill our dams and river systems.” Here is eastern Australia, Brisbane was flooded last year; this year large areas of New South Wales and Victoria are flooded and Canberra has just experienced the coldest and wettest summer I can recall. For a full catalogue of Flannery’s failed predictions see Tim’s book
http://www.theweathermakers.org/
and especially
http://theclimatescepticsparty.blogspot.com.au/2011/05/weather-makers-re-examined.html
Thanks for Bob Carter’s quote (above). My summary:
1. FEAR is the world’s climate
2. Society suffers while we debate
3. Western economies are crumbling
4. Politicians want AGW for tax revenues
5. Who wins the debate is now unimportant
6. We must tell the truth about climate change
7. Too much is at stake to continue endless debate
To that end I will post questions about key experimental data that have been ignored or hidden by government scientists on “The Whole Truth” blog [http://judithcurry.com/2012/03/08/should-we-tell-the-whole-truth-about-climate-change/ ] and ask US NAS President (Dr. Ralph Cicerone), the US Secretary of Energy (Dr. Steven Chu), and the Administrator of NASA (Charles F. Bolden, Jr.) to address these candidly with assistance from the scientists at their disposal.
That seems the right thing to do to resolve an increasingly wrong situation.
Oliver, permit me to suggest #8, an extension of #4.
8. Politicians want AGW for control. It provides vehicle for
– a) Waivers (San Francisco and Unions)
– b) Allocations and favoritism (TARP, “stimulus”, Solyndra and LightSquared)
– c) Punishment for the unenlightened or inconvenient (IPAB)
– d) Expansion of the “Corporate State” (look up “Corporatism”)
– e) Contributions to the appropriate political parties
I agree. World leaders want total control !
Until they admit powerlessness over everything that is controlled by cause-and-effect, they cannot escape the ego cage, enter the spiritual world, and discover for themselves why ancient spiritual truths better reflect reality than computer models.
I simply asked Ralph Cicerone, Steven Chu, and Charles F. Bolden,
“Is element #1 (hydrogen) the fuel or the waste product from the energy source that sustains life on Earth?”
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/10640850/Question_Bolden_Chu_Ciscerone.pdf
They did not reply, but the answer came from new observations that show elements linked to their source – material formerly thought to be dead nuclear embers of stars:
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/universe/features/rxte-thermo.html
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/03/120310150004.htm
“At the climate activist website Desmogblog, writer and author Chris Mooney says he is “appalled” at thisWashington Post article for what he regards as its tarring of climate scientists “as radicals or political operatives.””
Of course confirming the obvious of what Desmogblog is denying.
Feel free to chime in anytime Dr. Curry with an open, unvarnished statement on the matter. Green and left-wing radicalism is the cornerstone of mainstream climate science. You should go on the record and confirm it
for the sake of ending “gridlock” you commented on yesterday. Anything less is obfuscation.
Any sane and rational person must ask: If it is reasonable to fear of Big Oil because they’re making money destroying the Earth just to sell their products, why don’t you also fear ‘products’ of the Anthropogenic alarmism ‘industry’ and all of the money they’re hauling in making believe human activity is to be feared because it is destroying the Earth,
Why not bring back some of the old fears while we’re at it–e.g.:
[partial list]
* Population Bomb; starvation/crowding (1950s and 1960s)
* Run out of Oil; (1950 to present)
* Silent Spring; DDT (1960s 70s)
* Global Nuclear War (1950s thru 1980s)
* Global cooling; Ice Age/starvation (1895 to 1930 and 1956 to 1976)
* Hole in the Ozone layer; CFC‐cause? (1980s)
* Acid Rain (1980s)
* Nuclear Winter; nuke‐caused ice Age (1980s 1990s)
* Y2K; power/communication meltdown (1999)
* Global Warming; earth burns & seas rise (1929 to 1969 and 1983 to 2003)
* Catastrophic climate change (’03 to present)
here are two more old fears:
*Another world war (1920s thru 1930s)
*Terrorism (1980s thru 1990s)
People weren’t afraid of terrorism in the 80’s and 90’s, and the fear after that was mostly a product of Afraid Inc. I can’t speak for between the wars, but remember it wasn’t called WW1 then, it was the Great European War. It wasn’t till the mid 30’s that is started looking like war again – and even after it started it was called the ‘phoney war’ for about six months. I doubt the 20’s were full of war fear.
Note also neither of your examples envisioned the end of civilization as we know it. People have a a special place in their heads for doomsday, but those aren’t examples of that (unless you consider terrorism to be an irrational fear, but that would be counter to your point).
“People weren’t afraid of terrorism in the 80′s and 90′s”
Oh the alarmists were warning of the possibility of a massive terrorist atrocity. But of course they were just alarmists and nothing alarmists say turns out right.
Terrorism is a form of asymmetrical warfare, it relies on a larger force reacting out of fear, in a way that disadvantages them. Like say taking on massive amounts of debt, lowering interest rates to zero, and starting two wars. It does this by generating ‘terror’ instead of being an actual threat, which forces/allows the larger side to react – that is why they call it terrorism. It can only win if you get scared enough to overreact.
Every time you see a group peddling fear, look for the overreaction they are hoping for and figure out who would benefit from it. It is always the same group.
wrong
Well, I disagree. Wait, where am I?
==============
I’m lost too. I have this book though, and the cover says ‘DON’T PANIC!’ : )
It’s all very simple—nothing complicated about it:
Global warming alarmists want you to live in fear; everything they hope to gain depends on that.
The existence of the global warming alarmists demands that must never listen to common sense so they will tell you that reality is far to complicated for you to understand.
Capiche? You must address your fears if you want to grow. Be not afraid of truth: it will set you free. “Fear always springs from ignorance” ~Ralph Waldo Emerson
Lindzen’s apology for claiming GISS was manipulated has just been published http://www.repealtheact.org.uk/blog/apology-from-prof-lindzen-for-howard-haydens-nasa-giss-data-interpretation-error
Would he have done so if it wasn’t repeatedly pointed out to him? WIll he personally write to each of those people that he mislead (lied to)? Why didn’t he either check the work before he showed it or, at the time show it as somebody else’s work? Perhaps he was happy for it to be thought his own if it was correct but only when it was shown to be wrong was he happy to say it was somebody else’s error/lie?
Louise
It would help if you pointed to how/where the error occurred. Lindzen stated:
Oh yeah, weasel words of ‘I did not notice that the heading said that the data referred to meteorological stations only’ is supposed to make it all OK?
I thought this bloke was supposed to be a scientist? Not only did he not check the graph that he was happy to post and state showed GISS manipulation (ie fraud) but he’s now passing the buck to somebody he didn’t even credit with the chart in the first place – what a slimeball.
Yes. When honest people make a mistake, they correct it. Here it was not Lindzen that actually made the mistake and they have owned up to it and removed that slide from the pdf. Not sure what else you want.
When Michael Mann makes a mistake, he lies about it, gets all of his colleagues to lie about it (partly because they are scared of him and his influence), and misrepresent and attack the people who pointed out his errors. You can read most of this yourself in the actual e-mails if you are so inclined.
Same with Gleick. He faked a memo, then only owned up to stealing the data and performing identity theft. He also lied when he sent the e-mail and said he got all of the documents from his theft. The faked one he now has changed his story and said he had it in advance.
Yes Lindzen corrected the mistake, and apologized.
On WUWT Louise suggested that Lindzen be “prosecuted” (her exact word) for “using a fake slide”.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/02/23/fakegate-why-the-perps-should-be-prosecuted/#comment-917466
Seriously, making a mistake and then apologizing and correcting it is a crime now?
***JC BLEEP***
Yes Anthony – you claimed I was mentally ill and then when I explained that I was following the wording in your own headline you chose to lose my post so that it didn’t appear (it went into moderation and then was lost without posting) – how very grown up and sensible of you.
just to note on the matter of post censorship, I didn’t censor Anthony Watts childish comment on my blog, with his “pwned” line (what is he, 17?). I just laughed and ignored it.
lolwot,
And everyone ignores your blog, too.
Is WUWT a climate-change forum? Not by the above definition.
WUST has been failing the criterion of “open discussion”, in consequence of censorship. And WUWT has been failing too the criterion of “voicing of ideas”, in consequence of WUWT’s growing predilection for quibbling, personalization, and abuse (per Louse’s experience).
Elevator Summary Climate-chance forums exist, but WUWT is not one of them.
A physicist, what are you talking about? I searched for “forum” and can’t find any context for what you are linking to the word “forum”.
Mr. E, try this link for a definition of ‘forum’.
b. a public meeting place for open discussion.
Agoraphobia rules climate science. That’s what its corrupted peer review amounted to. That’s why there’s the urge for message control. That’s why there is blindness to all the wares available, openly displayed.
=========================
Kim, are you saying that the prevalence of censorship, abuse, and cherry-picking at sites like WUWT are deliberate distractions, whose objective is to sustain “blindness to wares available, openly displayed?”
Gee, that does explain a lot. Gang-sites like WUWT (`cuz these sites sure ain’t forums!) are simply exhibiting the traits that Trish Roberts-Mills lists as “Characteristics of Demagoguery.”
Thanks, Kim! :| :( :D
a p, Joshua had his own variety of ‘motivated thinking’ and ‘tribalism’, and you have your ‘demagoguery’. You have the same problem he had, which is that you are projecting the errors which got the alarmists into trouble onto the skeptics. There are violations of the rules of warfare on both sides of the struggle, but just like the funding, the mass of demagoguery is in the alarmist camp.
I don’t mind the imbalance. Your swords are as bronze to Damascene.
================
Kim, when you can point to skeptical documents that are comparable in scope, rigor, verifiability, openness, and good manners, to those of The American Institute of Physics … then many folks (including me) will be impressed. :| :) :D
Unfortunately, with regard to all five criteria, in recent months the skeptical community has been performing steadily worse. Moreover, allying with quibbling tobacco manufacturers (via the Heartland Institute) is harmful, not helpful, to the cause of rational skepticism. This is regrettable. :shock: :( :cry:
A smith forges counterfeit science. A fine copy, but missing the solar watermark.
============
Kim, the flowery yet imprecise language of your post is redolent of the rhetorical mode of Chris Monckton, which is a mode that that Anthony Watts/WUWT have recently taken to celebrating as a high form of rational skepticism.
On the other hand, more-and-more sober-minded folks (and I am one of them) are discerning in Chris’ rhetoric all of the Characteristics of Demagoguery that Trish Roberts-Miller’s essay (of the same title) so exhaustively catalogs.
Is Chris’ rhetoric a superb example of rational skepticism … or is it a superb example of demagoguery?
It is entirely practical for folks to compare Monckton’s rhetoric with Roberts-Millers listed characteristics of demagoguery, and make up their own mind.
The criteria are simple and the result is definite. Monckton’s rhetoric is the rhetoric of demagoguery, pure and simple. :( :mad: :roll:
Shame upon Chris Monckton. And shame too upon Anthony Watts and WUWT, for polluting the pool of public discourse with the rhetoric of demagoguery, and the censorship, cherry-picking, and abuse that goes with it.
Uh, public discourse about climate has been hampered more by alarmists than by skeptics. Demagoguery has been the hallmark of the CAGW social mania. You’ve got a schtick, a phys, but you’ve got hold of the wrong end of it.
==================
David L. Hagen | March 9, 2012 at 3:27 pm
“It would help if you pointed to how/where the error occurred.”
I note that it was only after the error blew up that Howard Hayden’s role was acknowledged.
rather like Mann trying to lay the blame at rutherford’s door
or Jones trying to lay the blame for the lamb diagram at Folland’s door
You really do not want to open THAT particular can of worms.
Think one step ahead.
i dont think I care. I want to hear more about where Lindzen got his other slides from now.
Did they all come from this Howard Hayden? Who else is involved?
Now, you know why I demand code and data.
for papers. for blog posts, for presentations.
If you were smart and wanted to be consistent you would
get on board with that approach.
WHY? because skeptics are less willing to share these things because
they will be found out. That is why, climate science should take the High
ground here.
Get in the habit of demanding it from everybody. Its a win win.
Come to the Casbah.
==============
Louise
Perhaps you could encourage Michael Mann and Lonnie Thompson to address their “irreproducible results”. See Hu McCulloch:
Mann on Irreproducible Results in Thompson (PNAS 2006)
If not, I recommend nominating them for the Ig Noble award for the most influential irreproducible results.
Making errors is human.
Not noticing errors that should be noticed, when they happen to support own prejudices, and being ready publicize conclusions based on those errors is also human, but not as acceptable as making errors.
Louise: do you support lying to advance your cause?
Louise: you realize that others have done worse than Lindzen and you remain silent. Do you believe remaining silent advances your cause.
Simple questions. Answer yes or no.
Louise
Re: “that he mislead (lied to)?”
From what I have read of Lindzen, he generally understates the issue and is
meticulous in his evidence and references.
You explicitly infer a conscious moral failure.
That is a serious charge that requires exceptional evidence.
Unless you can support that, please withdraw your accusation.
Can we get over this essentially trivial issue and get on with it?
Climate wars or free trade?
EU-China dispute ‘delaying Airbus orders’
In this game of “chicken”, who will back down first?
My guess is that the EU needs to keep the jobs.
Currently in progress is the strongest Forbush decrease (about 15%) of the recent years
http://neutronm.bartol.udel.edu/~pyle/TheThPlot.gif
which will put the Svensmark’s cosmic rays hypothesis to a global test. In the British Isles and nearby Atlantic cloudiness levels are not perceptibly different to the forecast. The event may last 2-3 days, if the cloudiness doesn’t depart significantly from the forecast it’s a bad news for Svensmark.
Also may need H2SO4 in the air or other events to make a large effect, so it may be more complicated. I don’t think a single observation over a few days would completely rule it out, just raise questions.
The H2SO4 is newly added condition, but it is not present in the the Svensmark’s original paper or subsequent updates
http://www.dsri.dk/~hsv/new_sven0606.pdf
until very recently. Svensmark et al quote the ‘Forbush decrease’ :
Close passages of coronal mass ejections from the sun are signaled at the Earth’s surface by Forbush decreases in cosmic ray counts. We find that low clouds contain less liquid water following Forbush decreases, and for the most influential events the liquid water in the oceanic atmosphere can diminish by as much as 7%. Cloud water content as gauged by the Special Sensor Microwave/Imager (SSM/I) reaches a minimum ≈7 days after the Forbush minimum in cosmic rays
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2009/2009GL038429.shtml
So within next 10 days or so we should know if the hypothesis works with natural events as they are, or it doesn’t. For hypothesis to become theory it requires repeatable positive verification without failure. Good science is brutal and doesn’t tolerate excuses.
trust me vuk, the GCR folks will find a way to wriggle out of any falsification. True believers always do.. on all sides.
vukcevic: Reading more closely, I think you will find that H2SO4 is not a newly-added condition. It was there in 2009 when I first outlined the cascade that Svensmark proposes. I cannot post the table (2009) representing cosmoclimatology on this forum; it does not support html “tables”. However, for decreasing Solar Wind:
– Solar wind decreases;
– Decreases magnetic field strength within Heliosphere/Heliopause (~ 90-120 AU). Changes take years to get there, albeit more diffuse.
– Magnetic shielding is weakened;
– Fewer High-Energy GCR (Galactic Cosmic Rays) are weakened or deflected;
– More strike Upper Atmosphere;
– Appears to modulate Geomagnetic Field , esp. tropics. Further research is required;
– More GCR strike Nitrogen molecules, producing Muons;
– More high energy Muons penetrate to lower Atmosphere;
– More Muons become Electrons;
– More Electrons produce Ionization in lower atmosphere;
– Resulting in more Aerosols (clusters of Sulfuric Acid [H2SO4] and Water molecules);
– More Aerosols grow to be come Cloud Condensation Nuclei (CCN);
– Around which form more Low Clouds;
– More Low Clouds increase albedo;
– Albedo reflects sunlight and increases shading;
– The effect of which is cooling.
Cheers! :-)
vukcevic
Compare the current Forbush event results with:
Jacob Svensmark, Martin B. Enghoff, and Henrik Svensmark
The effect of coronal mass ejections on cloud microphysics The 2nd Nagoya Workshop on the Relationship between Solar Activity and Climate Changes
Also Effects of cosmic ray decreases on cloud microphysicsJ. Svensmark, et al.
Current Forbush decrease (13.6%) and one of 2003 (10-15%, quoted by Svensmark) are roughly the same, so the results should be comparable.
Despite the fact that the Earth’s magnetic field changes are by order of magnitude greater than changes in the strength of the heliospheric magnetic field (caused by solar modulation), and thus the Earth and not the sun, is the long term deciding factor in modulating cosmic rays http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LL.htm
I do not think that the cosmic ray effect, via the clouds albedo, is strong enough to cause either the MWP, the LIA or 20th century rise in temperatures.
David, see above. I’m always open to well-founded corrections. :-)
Thank you!
I wonder if anyone is looking at changes in diurnal temperature range (DTR) , as per the recent Serbisn study.
DTR was used as a proxy for cloudiness. Its a poor substitute
vuk,
From my look at the data his theory is bunk already. Any way more de bunking is welcomed
Don’t know if its good or bad news..and for whom… but it’s been pretty darned cloudy in my part of Southern England since about Tuesday. And dull and overcast at dawn this morning too.
It is important to see if deviates much from a 2-3 days forecast for a large area.
Locally look up http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/2635167 just enter your county or post code.
Vuk
The weather always deviates from the forecast anyway sio how can we tell if anything else is up?
tonyb
Hopefully we might get some numbers from the NOAA. You could look at the Atlantic to the west and north of the UK land mass at http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/2635167 , and move forward to Wednesday, it shows mostly cloudy. If that large area is suddenly cleared or the forecast is substantially altered than we may have something. Small local patches count for zilch.
For a wider view without a forecast see: http://www.sat24.com/en/eu or globally http://www.goes.noaa.gov/goesfull.html
It is one chance in years, 2003 was last time, forget about the CERN’s CLOUD experiment if the natural one doesn’t work.
Ok looks pretty cloudy throughout but surely the clouds will be dictated by the wind direction?
tonyb
We’ll see what professionals make out of it in coming weeks and months. On the sceptic side Lindzen is very keen on clouds and evaporation, so I think he will make sure there is no data misinterpretation by the other side. Svensmark claims that in 2003 evaporation dropped by 7%, the current ‘Forbush’ is just as strong.
Problem is tony none of the studies have controlled for winds. so it looks rather ad hoc to
appeal to them now. that is winds were not ruled out as acause of decline in the previous studies its hard to appeal to them now
Mosh
Which studies are you referring to? I’m commenting on the reality that how much cloud we get (in the UK) will largely be dictated by which way the wind is blowing. Generally winds from the west will bring moisture and rain off the Atlantic, whilst Easterlies will bring drier often sunnier weather from Europe.
I cant see what that will have to do with the cosmic ray theory unless that is supposed to affect winds as well as clouds.
Today was much better than forecast-had expected it to be mostly cloudy all day but it turned nice and sunny at lunch time.That is because the clouds cleared away-was it the winds or was it cosmic rays?
I don’t know what if anything that will prove.
tonyb
Mosh
Please send lots of money for further research :)
tonyb
I agree with Tony that in this part of the world the cloudiness is controlled by the wind direction, and also agree with Steven that is unlikely that cosmic rays have much to do with it.
Oxford University has recorded accurately number of sunshine hours in the area for every month since 1929, here is data file with the monthly sunspot numbers included:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/Data.htm
Steven is able to evaluate it, if he has time and inclination to do so.
Sunshine hours have seasonal factor which has to be taken into account, while the sunspot number does not, so it is the job for a professional to do.
Vuk
Sunday.
Again, for what it’s worth the forecast for our part of the south coast was pretty cloudy. The skies cleared about 9am and it has been gloriously sunny all day. Forecast 0. Real world 2
Tonyb
Same here.
Any chance the last such Forbush decrease could be looked at retrospectively and if so why hasn’t it been done already?
=========================
Kim
It isn’t over yet, there were two more M-class Xray flares in last 3 days, one is arriving now and the other one in a day or two. Hopefully, since the NOAA is doing global observations we may have some numbers soon. Hope you are not squeamish:
http://www.goes.noaa.gov/GIFS/NHWV.JPG
Climate mitigation insurance
As sea levels rise, Kiribati eyes 6,000 acres in Fiji as new home for 103,000 islanders
Their ancestors migrated there by deep sea canoes.
This pragmatic action appears a lot more cost effective than the EPA’s $1,700 trillion per degree to try to “control climate”.
“There are currently 85,870 climate change analysts in the United States, with 4,840 new climate change analyst job openings created each year.”
Can those numbers be real? The same site lists, for example, only 18,200 conservation scientist positions and about the same number for microbiologists. If true, it seems to me a shocking disorder of our national priorities.
And you know if it is their job to find climate change and problems associated with it, then that is what they will find.
They arrived at this number the same way as the number of “green” jobs announced last year or so–it included bus drivers since driving a bus saves energy, it included window installers, insulation installers, sanitation workers, and farmers (at least the green there is real).
There are probably 85,000 people who as a tiny part of their job are asked by their company to keep track of the issues and give some input.
Science journalism is conducted by journalists who are foremost journalists and not scientists. Because they don’t understand science they try to project it into a world that they do understand. In their world good-guy-versus-bad-guy narratives get a lot of traction. So does the idea of projecting democracy into science, which leads to consensus statements dictating what is or is not recognizable as knowledge. Having made these projections journalists then can play on a level field with the scientists themselves. A scientist who takes a stand out of alignment with the consensus can be dismissed either as being objectively disordered or a cynical sellout to the bad guys in the narrative (e.g. “big oil”). It seems to be too much to ask journalists simply to report both sides of the issue without obviously slanting the wording to favor one side over the other. It’s one reason not to trust a single source of reporting for information on any controversial topic.
The ideal situation for a journalist (from the old days) was when scientists announced a new subatomic particle or a new species was found–not much room for debate. The current situation is the worst nightmare of journalists: people making a science claim they can’t evaluate about a big policy question like smoking or diets or climate change. If they report exactly what the scientist says, they are being spun, but they can’t evaluate it. Tough to be them.
True, it is tough, but that’s what they’re paid to do. It would help if, for a start, journalists actually read the abstract, or even the paper, rather than just the press release. Then they could actually ask other scientists who are known to have different views for comment.
But all that would require actual work and cut into drinking time, a traditional sacred rite for journalists.
That’s right. A journalist is in no position to evaluate a claim made by a subject-matter expert. But a journalist can and short report the claim and give attribution for it, and seek the reactions of other subject-matter experts to include in the article. By doing that alone a journalist can do an immense service to the reader. It may seem bland but the last thing I am looking for in a journalist’s writing is passion. If I want that I’ll go to the Op-Ed page.
Having worked as a journalist covering climate science for Electricity Daily from 1994-2004 I think the above criticisms are based on ignorance. Research results by themselves are typically not controversial. The controversy lies in the interpretation, but that is up to the journalist, many of whom are CAGW believers. If you believe the science Is settled there is no debate to report. I just had this argument with both the NYT and the LA Times. The reporters assured me that there is no climate science debate.
“The reporters assured me that there is no climate science debate.”
This is essentially how the Newshour responded (online, not on the show) to the small flood of complaints they received in 2009, concerning their total silence on Climategate I.
You were a columnist for an electric power industry magazine, and you discussed technology, regulation, and your views on policy, including climate change policy — not climate science.
You also thought a president who called CO2 “carbon monoxide” was someone who had climate science covered.
:-(
Martha,
I still laugh hard at GWB’s “You’re working hard to put food on your family.” On the other hand, we all knew what he meant. :)
No Martha, I also covered the science. I even read the journal articles, and still do. Many of the policy studies I did were on the science policy, especially CAGW bias in the research agenda and assessments. My research field is the logic of complex issues, in this case thevscientific issues.
Martha, I assume you are referring to the time someone sneaked carbon dioxide into Bush’s speech and he choked on it. But I despised Him as an appeaser, since he left most of Gore’s science people in charge of the USGCRP.
David, I think that what I said is generally true. If “reporters assured you that there is no climate science debate,” how did they reach that conclusion? What I wrote did not apply just to climate science. More and more what I see from journalism is an attitude that they are there to sort our the information for us and help us draw the proper conclusions. Simply giving us a balanced report is too much drudgery I suppose. But I find that to be condescending and irritating in the extreme. All the more so as the qualiy of their writing has declined.
Bob, you seem to have missed my point. What you call balanced is a specific perspective, that many reporters do not share. That is the problem, not ignorance or laziness or cutbacks. These reporters are part of the movement, right along withthe scientists. Ideology and ignorance are two very different things.
Nor do I believe that quality has declined, except in so far as I stopped writing (just kidding). The CAGW movement has many fine writers.
Part of the movement on what level? As cacophones? Did they get with the program because their knowlege of the science led them to that or because getting with the program comported with their larger world view in which the CAGW debate reduces to angels versus demons?
Keeping Florida, Loiusiana, East Texas, etc. above the waves is going to cost a great deal more than $1.7 trillion. As the ad said, “You can pay me now, or you can pay me much, much more later.”
At the current rate of rise, it will take 300 yrs for even a meter of rise, which would only put the southernmost tip of fla under water. “Acceleration” is claimed daily, but I’m still waiting for it. Current rate of sea level rise is the same as for the past 50 + yrs.
During which time everything will be scrapped and replaced many times so there is literally no problem.
How many organisations devoted to the preservation of historical structures would disagree with you?
Bob, this depends on where you live. I made my home in Houston for about twenty years. A buddy of mine, a political scientist, once quipped that “There are only three preservationists in Houston, and at least two are locked up at all times.” You may not like the urban geography of places like Houston, Phoenix and Orange County, but they are built on an assumption of total transience and permanent change. Almost no commercial architecture in those places is intended to last more than 20 years: It is anticipated that it will be erased, resketched, and redrawn before that. These places are built for change.
NW,
Your friend was kidding you about Houston.
My neighborhood is made up of houses >50 years old. Neighborhoods with houses dating back to the late 19th and early 20th century exist and are highly valued. The Esperson buildings in downtown were built in the 1920’s and 30’s. Do we tend to be open to new construction? Yes- we are a city less than 140 years.
Hunter,
I lived there for 20 years. Great city, wonderful people, amazingly fluid. You probably live inside the loop. I am thinking of the miles and miles of strip malls outside the loop. Think of Hillcroft: Every commercial structure on Hillcroft is practically made of cardboard. But that’s ok! The immigrants make tons of $$$ there! They and the buildings will move on… the whole strip will be replaced by something else.
Even within the loop, the old bungalo and victorian neighborhoods’ deed restrictions have frequently lapsed, so that virtually anything can be torn down and replaced with something else. To me, this feature of the loop leads to some of the zaniest neighborhoods I have seen anywhere…like the 6th ward west of downtown, where metal boxes sit cheek and jowl with victorian bungalows. I lived there very happily for 10 years. Loved it.
Don’t get me wrong… I miss Houston!
ps– By comparison, the OC sucks. I got a much better job here and the weather is undeniably nice, but the OC is about as interesting as reruns of Leave It To Beaver. I do miss Houston.
Ross,
Do you believe that reducing CO2 will keep Texas, Louisiana, Flroida etc. above the waves?
Do you believe these areas are behaving as they do because of CO2?
When the EPA first studied this the cost for the whole US was 400B.
400B to adapt to a 1meter sea level rise
Much, much, much, much later. :-)
Ross Cann
There is a lot we can do to “keep Florida, Louisiana, East Texas, etc. above the waves” if our planet decides to continue warming of the next few thousand years until that happens – namely build higher dikes, if and when they are needed (as the Dutch have been doing for centuries)
On the other hand, throwing $1.7 trillion at our climate won’t change it one iota.
Max
Please forgive Louise, in her world Scientists Are Always Right and Never Admit Any Wrong.
Spencer and Christy are still being hounded by people for the crime of correcting their data. No wonder Thompson is so well regarded.
Pielke on the other side of the opinion spectrum? I do not think so. Radical alarmist vs. rational warmist.
Sad commentary on the science/media that R Pielke Jr is considered on the other side of activist/liberal.
Consider the source. At WashPo only liberals are real, which puts RP.Jr on the right. It is wonderful that they finally admit that climate science and advocacy are hand in green glove (like that was news).
What we’re missing here in my opinion is the radical change in the climate zeitgeist compared to a year or two ago.
“Science Journalism Under Fire.”
The Washington Post being accused of aiding and abetting the skeptics.
Jonathon Foley and Thomas Friedman (however absurd their other points) all but conceding that the skeptics have been successful in derailing the AGW movement.
This is all good. A few more years of cooling (or even just not warming) might well do the trick.
Agreed. Poisoned debate and climate wars says it all. Music to my ears, and it only took 20 years.
http://www.cato.org/store/climate-coup-global-warmings-invasion-our-government-our-lives-digital-edition
Fun for all.
The magnitude of the impact and the magnitude of the error insure that the reaction will also have a similar magnitude. Clear the decks, batten all hatches, keep the powder dry.
================
With renewables grabbing 640% the subsidies of fossil fuels, why is Obama harping on cutting fossil fuel subsidies? See:
Energy subsidies total $24 billion, most to renewables
Errara: Obama’s tax reform plan extends P.T.C., cuts fossil subsidies EcoSeed Thursday, February 23, 2012
I have to apologize Judith Curry. I know you say:
But I just uploaded a follow-up to my earlier review of Michael Mann’s book, and I wanted to share a link to it here. For anyone who missed the original piece, you can find it here (it’s best to read it first).
The point of this document was to provide an alternative chronology. Rather than focus on individual quotes like my original piece did, it tries to provide an alternative perspective of the hockey stick controversy, referring to what Mann says in his book to show the contradicting views. I think the writing is rougher than the original (I wrote it more quickly), but I believe it should be easy to read for anyone who is interested.
As a matter of fairness, I have seen a response to my efforts. If you’d like to read it, you can find it here and here. I’ll let readers judge for themselves the value of it.
There seems to be a trend of a token mention of global warming, and then the presentation as it is – even when it flies in the face of ‘settled science’.
Eg, I happened to see today:
http://www.umces.edu/al/project/mid-atlantic-suburbs-can-expect-early-spring-thanks-heat-big-city
” Green leaves on trees turn carbon dioxide – a greenhouse gas that traps heat in our atmosphere – into oxygen. Carbon dioxide also helps trees grow since they use energy from the sun to convert the gas into plant matter. A longer growing season could change quickly forests grow and increase the amount of carbon dioxide taken out of the atmosphere.”
Never mind mentioning CO2 benefits plants, but isn’t it settled that UHI doesn’t exist? Maybe that was last week, but I swear I read that in a few places.
PS Doesn’t Friedman’s line basically say he knew GW was just a tool used to set policy and is fine with chucking it, as long as we keep advancing the policy. Whaaa..?
What a waste of huge proportion we are seeing in Australia.
They said the draughts are the “new normal” in Australia and built desalination plants (http://bit.ly/y8vdtq) . They did not build a single dam. Now the floods have returned and houses and farms are inundated (http://bit.ly/zt9Yff ). If we had built dams, they would have saved houses; they would have saved farms; they would have saved water for the sure to return next drought. Now this precious water is slowly going to be wasted to the sea. They spend billions on desalination plants. All the existing dams around Sydney are full (http://bit.ly/hQb5ab ), and the desalination plants are not required.
What a waste.
Who is to blame?
I blame it on environmentalism. They hate dams.
Here is what our Australian Climate Commissioner predicted about dam levels few years ago (http://bit.ly/ygpYyU). The dams are full now!
Girma,
The extremists are too cowardly to own their failures. In fact, as wee from climategate to Gleickgate, many believers will do nearly anything to blame those who resisted them.
They need more of both. prepare for both extremes.
Girma, you’re a nong.
That idiot Bolt misquoted Flannery…….a real ‘skeptic’ would have checked this claim out and found out themselves it was wrong.
Why does inaccuracy and climate ‘skeptcism’ go hand in hand??
Climate ‘science’ debate? Jest part of the great seesaw of history, I guess. Lists of sceptical scientists goin’ up,sunspots goin’ down.
Decadal variety in Earth’s albedo up ‘n down,
up
n’
down.
+1
I guess my comment got caught in moderation, probably for having too many links. Short version, a follow-up to my earlier review of Michael Mann’s book can be gotten here.
Nevermind. I apparently just can’t use the Ctrl + F feature.
That’s a little embarrassing.
Folks, I have plotted the 30-year trend for each year from 1880 to 2011 as a single dot and here is the interesting chart.
http://bit.ly/yni1Ug
I am studying it to learn what it means.
What are your interpretations?
Thanks in advance.
For example, for year ending 1946, the period is 1916 to 1946 and the trend is 0.17 deg C per decade and I plotted this as a point.
http://bit.ly/y3Ti3v
For year ending 2004, the period is 1974 to 2004 and the trend is 0.19 deg C per decade and I plotted this as a point.
http://bit.ly/zqVIbW
So on for each 30-year trend end years from 1880 to 2011.
I am sure IPCC’s interpretation of global mean temperature in the following chart is wrong:
http://bit.ly/b9eKXz
They used varying period for trend calculation and only 5 trend values.
In my case, the period is constant at 30 years and the trend values are calculated for each year as 1850-1880, 1851-1881, 1852-1882, …., and 1981-2011, a total of 132 trend values.
Girma
The IPCC chart you cite is a classical example of “smoke and mirrors”.
In a record with multi-decadal warming and cooling cycles (as we have here) one can always show that shorter time periods have a steeper slope than longer ones. By fixing one end at “today” this can be used to convey the false image of an accelerating rate, as IPCC has done.
Your graph shows very clearly that there was no such accelerating rate, but simply a cyclical trend on a tilted axis of slight warming.
One could fix the end at 1900 and then show that the most rapid warming occurred in the first 40 years (around 2X the rate over the entire 100 years), implying the false message of a decelerating rate over the century.
It’s known as “chartmanship”.
Max
Girma, Congratulations on another brilliant graph. Pekka is, of course, completely wrong to criticize it. It is merely another way of showing the same data. It is when anyone interprets the graph that difficulties might arise.
When I saw your first graph, I realised immediatley what it’s message was. Over the whole time period for which we have data, there has been no change in what is happening. The last 50 years are no different from any other 50 years.
What this new graph shows is precisley the same thing, but in a much more stark way. It really is res ipsi loquiter. It absolutely speaks for itself, and Pekka has no grounds, whatsoever, on which to criticize it at all.
You can learn next to nothing from the surface record.
steven mosher
Agree. Too bad IPCC is not aware of this, though.
Max
Mosh
So if we can learn next to nothing from the surface record and next to nothing from the oceanic record what are we all doing here? More importantly why are Western Governments extracting large sums of money from us to study things we can learn next to nothing from?
tonyb
There is only one question that matters.
we know GHGs warm the planet from fundamental physics. Not from thermometers, not from treemometers, from fundamental physics. From radiative transfer theory and energy balance. The question that matters
is the question of sensitivity and the temperature record can only get you to an guess at the TCR.
Maybe I should have said GIRMA will learn next to nothing
The problem appears to be that the IPCC is learning next to nothing. Both the temperature record and present observational science are pointing to a much lower sensitivity than the IPCC perverts Bayes to achieve.
And you guys are worked up about Girma. Eye on the ball, please, or strike out.
============
Steven – the most fundamental physical principle involved in your disagreement with Kim and others does not involve temperature, but hydrostatics.
(The source of the above is “The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table”.)
The Bot Council wants to know more details of this alleged ‘disagreement’ between this Steven Mosher and the bot kim. Be precise and accurate, or risk being rejected as a witness.
=====================
“There is only one question that matters.”
This is what they call ‘framing’.
Andrew
Fred, you just threw that ‘Kim’ out there in your 11:23 post because you felt like it, didn’t you? You didn’t really have any specific ‘disagreement’, particularly none having to do with ‘temperature’ or ‘hydrostatics’, did you?
Contingent judgement, Fred’s witnessing is impugned, in the absence of any evidence of ‘disagreement’.
=================
This is not true. From fundamental physics, GHGs may have an effect of decreased radiative heat transfer from the Earth’s surface to space. However, the heat transfer at the surface is multimodal (evaporation, radiation and convection) and fundamental physics requires this to be solved properly (non-feedback/feedback is not correct – if CO2 has an effect on radiation, it will affect the evaporation/convection too). The surface is cooled predominantly by evaporation, whereby the atmosphere is cooled exclusively by radiation.
Indeed Edim, but more so. Mosher is working the fundamental ambiguity in the word sensitivity. If sensitivity means what will actually happen if CO2 doubles then it can be zero or negative, including a new ice age. But if it is a theoretical abstraction meaning what will happen if nothing else happens then it must be positive, but this tells us nothing about what will actually happen.
Mosher is using it both ways at once, implying that it must be positive no matter what else happens. This construction is fundamentally false, yet he does it all the time. This is the semantic fallacy that underlies AGW, theoretical sensitivity is positive so temps must go up, so the only question seems to be how much, which is simply false. I have pointed this fallacy out repeatedly.
steven mosher
You are treading onto thin ice here.
Yes, we know there is a GH theory, that CO2 is a GHG and that humans emit GHGs (principally CO2) – but that’s where it stops.
We have no earthly notion how much warming will actually result from a doubling of CO2 nor how much time lag there might be for the CO2 temperature response to actually take place.
We have a (lousy) temperature record that gives us some hints to the answer to those questions, but this is far from conclusive (as you write).
Models are only as good as the input assumptions, as Willis Eschenbach has pointed out many times.
Richard Lindzen has summarized it pretty well for the House of Commons.
What is needed (and is missing) are empirical data based on real-time physical observations or reproducible experimentation, NOT simply more model runs with theoretical input assumptions.
Max
Mines better, 17 years gives you the best compromise between noise and signal.
http://i179.photobucket.com/albums/w318/DocMartyn/GISSalltempsandrates.jpg
Doc
The 30-year lagging trend used by Girma smooths out a lot of the bumps in your 17-year trend graph and still conveys the same message.
The 30-year time period also seems to concur with the apparent length of the observed warming and cooling half cycles.
Just my impression.
Max
Girma
Very interesting chart.
A statistician might see more in your analysis, but here is what I see:
1 – Warming and cooling cycles are shown more clearly using the 30-year average decadal trend than with the raw temperature points alone
2 – These cycles appear to cover a time span of around 30 years each (half cycle)
3 – The amplitude is roughly +/- 0.12 degC and the pattern is very repetitive (too repetitive to be purely coincidental?)
4 – Average 30-year decadal trend over the entire period appears to be around 0.05 degC per decade; this checks with a linear regression analysis over the entire period.
5 – The 30-year periods of “flat trend” you have highlighted show time periods when global temperature switched from warming to cooling (and vice versa)
6 – The latest (late 20th century) warming cycle is identical in magnitude to an earlier cycle (early 20th century)
7 – It is arguably too early to tell for sure, but it appears that we have entered a new period of diminishing warming – if history repeats itself, we should have a 30-year average “flat trend” around 2030 (period 2001-2030)
8 – A picture is worth a thousand words.
Max
Thanks Max for your time.
My interpretation is that you have used a method that produces misleadingly dramatic results from very many time series.
That’s really a pretty extreme example on, how seemingly innocent methods can lead to amazingly misleading outcome.
The problem is a very common error in looking at a essentially continuous time series to produce a smooth time series. The visual impression gives to the curve an apparent accuracy based on the small differences between adjacent points. That impression is, however, just an artifact created by the method.
Lie – damned lie – (misleadingly manipulated) statistics.
Pekka, you write “Lie – damned lie – (misleadingly manipulated) statistics.”
I completely disagree. What all the various temperature/time graphs illustrate very vividly is that there is no CO2 “signal” of any sort, against the background of natural “noise”. Some 30 years ago, we were assured that adding CO2 to the atmosphere would cause CAGW. Implicit in this is the idea that over these 30 years, if we went on adding CO2 to the atmosphere, which we have, a clear CO2 “signal” would emerge in theses graphs.
This has simply not happened. By this time, someone ought to have been able to detect the CO2 “signal”, and from this observation made a direct measurement of the climate sesnitivity of CO2. No-one has done this. There simply is no direct evidence in all the various temperature/tiem graphs that CO2 is having any effect at all. The climate sensitivity of CO2 is clearly indistinguishable from zero.
So, my challenge to you is simple. Where is the CO2 “signal” in the temperature/time graph; ANY temperature/time graph? And the follow up question is, how long do we have to wait when no CO2 “signal” has appeared, before we conclude that there is no CO2 “signal” at all?
There are lies and there are damned lies in this climate business. Pekka, find some Big D Damned Lies.
======================
Oh, Jeez, now I’ve gone and looked at Girma’s graph that has exercised Pekka so much. Pekka, you need to get out more. It’s just the same old damned temp graph with no CO2 signal as Jim mentions.
This is what Pekka calls a ‘damned lie’? Well, I’ll be damned.
==============
Jim and Kim,
Graphs that are drawn letting the same information of the original data influence many points in the presentation give always a false impression of significance. In this case the information is essentially given by the points of minimum and maximum, i.e by the points P1, V1, P2, V2 and P3, i.e. by five separate points and telling that they are the extremes. Joining them by a relatively smooth curve as Girma has done gives a totally misleading impression of something that oscillates regularly.
Replacing the same graph with another, where the oscillations are smoothened and all data points left out is much better, because most people interpret that more correctly.
This figure is really worse a than damned lie.
Same ol’ damned temp curve with no CO2 signal in it. Now go find the Big Lie about CO2, that it is pollution.
=====================
This kind of errors are typical for those, whose method of study is the search of signals in data or data mining, but who don’t have full understanding of the caveats of those methods (and of course also those who do understand, but want to mislead others).
William M. Briggs has written in his blog numerous postings on the errors in statistical analysis that are made by preprocessing data in an inappropriate way and that most of the ways are indeed inappropriate, if done without full understanding of their significance by both the person who does the preprocessing and by those who use the resulting curves or numbers. Although he has certainly discussed many such errors in his blog, I don’t know, whether any of his examples has been as bad as this.
You fiddle, and Rauma freezes.
=====================
JC (please delete the previous post)
Pekka
Joining them by a relatively smooth curve as Girma has done gives a totally misleading impression of something that oscillates regularly.
I have not joined any thing!
They are all the 30-year trends for each year successive years as below (for hadcrut3)
Period > Trend (deg C / decade)
1850-1880 > 0.053
1851-1881 > 0.051
1852-1882 > 0.058
1853-1883 > 0.064
1854-1884 > 0.065
1855-1885 > 0.064
1856-1886 > 0.062
1857-1887 > 0.059
1858-1888 > 0.045
1859-1889 > 0.033
1860-1890 > 0.036
1861-1891 > 0.024
1862-1892 > 0.013
1863-1893 > -0.012
1864-1894 > -0.025
1865-1895 > -0.044
1866-1896 > -0.049
1867-1897 > -0.042
1868-1898 > -0.038
1869-1899 > -0.040
1870-1900 > -0.038
1871-1901 > -0.031
1872-1902 > -0.031
1873-1903 > -0.035
1874-1904 > -0.047
1875-1905 > -0.063
1876-1906 > -0.074
1877-1907 > -0.077
1878-1908 > -0.074
1879-1909 > -0.064
1880-1910 > -0.069
1881-1911 > -0.070
1882-1912 > -0.073
1883-1913 > -0.069
1884-1914 > -0.067
1885-1915 > -0.059
1886-1916 > -0.045
1887-1917 > -0.039
1888-1918 > -0.041
1889-1919 > -0.034
1890-1920 > -0.015
1891-1921 > -0.009
1892-1922 > 0.002
1893-1923 > 0.000
1894-1924 > -0.002
1895-1925 > -0.001
1896-1926 > 0.006
1897-1927 > 0.031
1898-1928 > 0.049
1899-1929 > 0.058
1900-1930 > 0.065
1901-1931 > 0.088
1902-1932 > 0.110
1903-1933 > 0.121
1904-1934 > 0.118
1905-1935 > 0.120
1906-1936 > 0.126
1907-1937 > 0.138
1908-1938 > 0.146
1909-1939 > 0.151
1910-1940 > 0.153
1911-1941 > 0.154
1912-1942 > 0.155
1913-1943 > 0.152
1914-1944 > 0.148
1915-1945 > 0.161
1916-1946 > 0.170
1917-1947 > 0.153
1918-1948 > 0.132
1919-1949 > 0.116
1920-1950 > 0.102
1921-1951 > 0.083
1922-1952 > 0.075
1923-1953 > 0.065
1924-1954 > 0.058
1925-1955 > 0.036
1926-1956 > 0.019
1927-1957 > 0.003
1928-1958 > -0.001
1929-1959 > -0.002
1930-1960 > -0.014
1931-1961 > -0.018
1932-1962 > -0.014
1933-1963 > -0.012
1934-1964 > -0.017
1935-1965 > -0.032
1936-1966 > -0.045
1937-1967 > -0.051
1938-1968 > -0.049
1939-1969 > -0.044
1940-1970 > -0.031
1941-1971 > -0.019
1942-1972 > -0.011
1943-1973 > 0.001
1944-1974 > 0.020
1945-1975 > 0.030
1946-1976 > 0.037
1947-1977 > 0.027
1948-1978 > 0.033
1949-1979 > 0.033
1950-1980 > 0.040
1951-1981 > 0.040
1952-1982 > 0.050
1953-1983 > 0.058
1954-1984 > 0.079
1955-1985 > 0.073
1956-1986 > 0.063
1957-1987 > 0.052
1958-1988 > 0.066
1959-1989 > 0.083
1960-1990 > 0.091
1961-1991 > 0.105
1962-1992 > 0.119
1963-1993 > 0.124
1964-1994 > 0.133
1965-1995 > 0.126
1966-1996 > 0.129
1967-1997 > 0.125
1968-1998 > 0.134
1969-1999 > 0.151
1970-2000 > 0.160
1971-2001 > 0.163
1972-2002 > 0.165
1973-2003 > 0.175
1974-2004 > 0.192
1975-2005 > 0.188
1976-2006 > 0.186
1977-2007 > 0.173
1978-2008 > 0.171
1979-2009 > 0.159
1980-2010 > 0.160
1981-2011 > 0.162
Girma
I know, but year-to-year variability is much less than the variability over longer periods. Therefore they carry much of the same information and the neighboring points of your curve are not independent enough. Therefore the change from say 1910 to 1940 is not in the proper way independent of the change from 1911 to 1941. Not understanding the importance of this fact means not understanding the minuscule significance of your graph. Therefore you produce a graph that gives a totally faulty impression of significance.
Girma,
I state my comment in another way:
The nearby annual temperatures are not independent, the changes from one year to the next are more independent. Thus the change over 30 years is a sum of 30 changes that are not very strongly correlated.
The change from 1910 to 1940 and the change from 1911 to 1941 contain common 29 annual changes and each only one that’s not common. Thus every annual change affects 30 neighboring points of your curve. This makes the curves behave so smoothly, and this is highly misleading.
‘miniscule significance’. And you get all riled up, Pekka. There are Big Lies out there and you are a big enough boy now to go hunting. Gird your loins, hitch up your britches, remember your lines.
===================
Pekka
That is not fair.
I am trying to correct IPCC’s mistake in the following graph.
http://bit.ly/b9eKXz
IPCC compared trends that have different periods 150, 100, 50 & 25 years. In contrast I used a constant 30-years period (1850-1880, 1851-1881, …, and 1981-2011)
IPCC arbitrarily selected 2005 as the end point of all the trends. In contrast, I used every year starting from 1880 as end point.
IPCC used only four trend periods to make its “accelerated warming” conclusion. I used 132 trend periods.
Here is what I got => http://bit.ly/yni1Ug
As I stated already in one of my early comments, there has certainly been variability in the temperatures, we all have known that all the time. The instrumental data has clear indication of variability with a period of about 60 years, but the whole period is too short for drawing strong conclusions of that. (There’s also evidence of earlier oscillations of roughly the same period, but that evidence is weaker and a different issue.)
What I protested so strongly is that the graph of Girma gave very strongly the impression that the variability has been much more regular than it has been in reality. All this “extra evidence” was spurious, there isn’t anything that has not been known all the time. The evidence is as weak or as strong as it was before.
That is fair Pekka
Much ado about nothing. It’s the same ol’ temperature graph with no CO2 signal. I recommend perusal of some El Greco by Pekka.
====================
There is no CO2 signal and a warmer earth is preferable to a cooler one. That’s a Full House against your singleton Ace of Carbon Clubs, in a game for which trump cannot be bid. Now shuddup and deal.
=================
To the extent one may learn something about AGW from curve fitting, what Vaughan Pratt has done is highly superior to all other attempts I have seen.
Read this message and look at the curves of his plot.
The AGW signal is pretty strong.
I cannot tell, how much weight one should give to this result, but most certainly it presents a strong proof against everybody, who claims that the the temperature time series data does not support the presence of significant AGW or would even speak against that.
Fee, Fi, Fo, Fum,
I smell the blood of a tree ring Munn.
===================
Kim,
How can you smell tree rings in fits to instrumental data.
Perhaps it’s time that you open your eyes. They may tell more than your nose.
My ears hear the SAW straggle on the right, my eyes see a mismatch between the curve and present temps and my nose still thinks it stinks.
===================
Peeka, Vaughan’s post is very good. One problem though is that using the global average is just a first step in the analysis. Vaughan sees a good correlation with CO2 forcing, but if he were to compare NH to SH, the correlation with CO2 decreases. Then comparing Northern extent to southern extent to tropics, the correlation drops even more.
As Mosher said, the surface temperature average won’t tell you much and since land use impact would be amplified by CO2 impact, regional analysis would show a much greater correlation to land use than CO2 forcing. Any attempt to prove CO2 correlation without an equal attempt to disprove that correlation is just fooling with numbers. The same with Girma, every attempt to disprove a CO2 impact should be balanced with an attempt to prove a CO2 impact if he wants to be honest to himself.
What’s Behind the Green Curve?
====================
The whole exercise is a fit based on functional forms chosen by Vaughan, which have some free parameters. The green curve is just an oscillatory curve built from two sinusoidal functions. Learn his comment for more information.
I agree with Captain Dallas that going into details opens up all kind of questions. In some cases there are valid reasons to expect that differences in different subsystems cancel partially to form a regular overall average (that might perhaps happen for the hemispheric differences). Even when that doesn’t happen the sum is usually somewhat smoother than the components, but this kind of arguments don’t extend very far. At some point it’s essential that the subsystems and different mechanisms are considered separately.
As an example the volcanic activity has been important in some periods in a way that’s almost certainly not canceled in a causally linked way by other mechanisms. If the effect is small enough, the fit changes only little and is again almost as good (or even better by accident), but if it’s large the analysis should be repeated after an attempt to correct for the influence of such a mechanism.
Sorry Pekka, there are enough known unknowns about the assumptions behind that analysis to call its significance into question. There are UUs, too, too.
==================
Kim,
From my comments it should be clear that I’m in general critical on the approach of curve fitting with a model not based on solid theory. For that reason, I give some credit to it only, when the statistical significance is really high. Vaughan’s r2 = 0.9996 for a 9 parameter fit is really high even when all caveats are taken into account.
Meh, I’m still dubious about the provenance of the green curve, and I wonder what the last decade, and the next, will do to that summed curve.
===============
Pekka your 8.50
You said;
‘I know, but year-to-year variability is much less than the variability over longer periods.’
Would you like to substantiate that claim?
It never ceases to astomish me how wildly different one year can be from another. I commented on this very fact in one of the conclusions in ‘The long slow thaw?’ as follows;
‘….First, a disastrously cold winter threatened their existence- but brought the chance of riotous frost fairs- which might quickly thaw to a mixed and floody spring where crop planting was a struggle, to be rapidly supplanted by a hot bucolic summer bringing anxious periods of drought, saved by rain that enabled a bountiful harvest, after which violent winds would blow in a stormy autumn as first one weather system gained ascendancy, only to be supplanted by another as the wind direction changed. During the following year all may be reversed, with complaints that an excessively wet mild winter didn’t destroy diseases, whilst the previous year’s baking hot summer was supplanted by a series of dull cool months threatening the all-important harvest, touching our ancestors with the ever present specter of famine.’
Tonyb
Pekka
To accurately DESCRIBE the existing data, you don’t need solid theory.
What I am saying is the 30-years trend for each year ending from 1880 to 2011 looks like this => http://bit.ly/yni1Ug
The above data cannot be denied. IPCC has wrongly done it by choosing varying periods (150, 100, 50 & 25 years) and arbitrarily selecting 2005 as the end trend year for the four trend periods.
Girma,
Describing data is one thing and determining the statistical significance of a hypothesis is another.
A solid theory allows for the construction of a model whose consistency with the data can be tested. The more freedom there’s in the details of the models the less significant is success in such a test. Without any well specified theory the freedom in building up the model is unlimited. An infinity of approaches are available and a very large number of models may be tested. Looking at the data helps in making guesses that have a good chance of being successful. That means that an unspecified amount of freedom is used in that step.
When a model described above the great freedom of choice that has been used means that the resulting fit must be extraordinarily good to have any significance as a significant hint for further interpretations.
Coming back to your point that a fit can describe the data. What’s the meaning of the word describe? When the fit involves parameters that are given names like trend or natural oscillations we are moving beyond describing the data. We are interpreting it and that means that we are using a model. At that point we must asked, is the model based on some kind of theory or not, and if there’s some theory, is that theory such that it can, indeed, justify the form of model that we are using. Is the number of degrees of freedom well defined, or have we used essentially infinite freedom to get a good fit.
===
Another point is processing the data. On that point the statement of William M. Briggs (http://wmbriggs.com/blog/?p=195):
is a good starting point. (You may have noticed that I made the same point also on smoothing presented by JimD in another thread.)
No rule as strict as that is valid in all situations, but as long as the situation is not really well understood, it’s better to stick with the requirement.
Doing the smoothing in a way where the same data point affects several points in the smoothed data is even worse than reducing the number of data points by taking averages over distinct intervals. The latter may lose information, the former does that and is in addition misleading.
High Explosive CO2 from WW I & WW II, perhaps? Another billion dollar question that requires study, got cash?
I have plotted the BEST land temperature trend.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/best/from:1800/mean:120/mean:60/plot/best/from:1800/to:2000/trend
Skeptics are saying pay attention to the straight line, not what is happening at the end. I think if I was a member of the public seeing that for the first time, I would laugh at the skeptical view of this. Isn’t there something unusual happening at the end, or does it look natural so that we can ignore it?
Allow me to fix that for you:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/best/from:1800/plot/best/from:1800/trend
Peter’s quicker than me, but ten years ahead of Jim D. Was that chicanery deliberate, Jim D?
=====================
Ten year averaging removes solar cycles and inconsequential ENSO variations that average out over the long term.
Yes, filtering does that. It also tends to introduce artefacts for at least the filter period at both ends of the graph.
So maybe your sharp uptick at the end is real, or perhaps it’s just an artefact of your filtering. We won’t know for at least another 10 years.
There are no artifacts if it ends in 2006 using a centered 10-year average as I did.
One would think so, wouldn’t one?
Try a 100-year average, and your uptick is still very evident.
But the next 10 year’s data could change all that. We shall see.
It is evident in 30-year averages, and since 30 years is used to define climate, it would seem to mean that the climate is changing faster now than before.
It’s always amused me that 30 years is about one phase of the cycle of the great oceanic oscillations. Hey, it’s about 3 solar cycles too.
=========================
Subtle change of subject there, I see.
But while we’re on the subject, why don’t you tell that to DEFRA in the UK? They’re now telling farmers to prepare for long-term drought conditions, whereas 10 years ago they were telling them to prepare for long-term flood conditions.
Jim D, ENSO variations do not average out. Why do you repeat this?
http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/cmb/teleconnections/eln-f-pg.gif
http://climexp.knmi.nl/data/imei.png
Multidecadal trends are obvious.
Edim, ENSO is defined as an anomaly. If it doesn’t average out, the anomaly is not being done properly. La Ninas now are warmer than El Ninos used to be, but this is not a permanent El Nino. They have tried to remove the trend but not fully succeeded, possibly because the trend is accelerating.
Yes, skeptics embrace noise. It hides the incline quite well.
That’s called “hide the rise”.
Heh, it’s called hide your eyes from the last ten years.
============================
BEST has no unusual flattening in the last ten years. This is what the land is doing. My previous graph included all this data, but a ten-year average has to end in 2006.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/best/from:1970/mean:12/plot/best/from:1970/mean:120
Kim,
Monthly data was the tool of hiding the rise. Taking even annual averages gives more reasonable results, but is still too much influenced by ENSO. Four year averages are a reasonable compromise that shows also the last decade, but is not overwhelmed by noise and ENSO.
Deliberately hiding your eyes. Oh, Richard, wherefore art thou?
=================
I don’t think Lindzen or Monckton will be presenting the BEST raw data any time soon. It will raise too many questions on their hypotheses to see 1 degree since 1970. However, when talking about global warming, you should start with these graphs from actual thermometers, otherwise it might seem like you are hiding something. Makes sense, no? Truth or inconvenient?
Heh, I’ve often advised true believers to watch the thermometers. And to go to sea in a beautiful pea green boat. Don’t forget your towel or your thermometer.
========================
JimD,
I have just spent some effort arguing against graphs of Girma that give a misleading impression of significance. Unfortunately the sane problem applies also graphs smoothened by moving averages like the one, you present. To get a more correct impression of the significance of the data one should have a discrete series of points, e.g. decadal averages, i.e. you should add to the request the line “Every (samples): 120. The final maximum is still there, but now shown at the level that gives a more correct view of its real significance.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/best/from:1970/mean:120/every:120/plot/best/from:1970/mean:120
The red line here is that. Ideally you would just have a point every ten years, but this graphics system doesn’t seem to do that. I am not completely in agreement that a moving average is less valid than this because the end years should be arbitrary, and the moving average shows the noise level in this average in a visual way.
Jim,
One can see something about the noise in the moving average, but the problem is that it gives a highly misleading impression of the amount of noise as it’s often far too smooth in comparison to the actual level of uncertainty. As I commented in the discussion about one of Girma’s plots, the impression becomes misleading when each separate data point influences many neighboring points of the presentation. Some variability is left but the real statistical uncertainty may be several times larger than that variability.
Allow me to fix that too:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/best-upper/plot/best-lower/plot/uah
UAH is for comparison.
Girma and DocMartin
Thanks for thought provoking graphs.
May I encourage you to try the 21 year Hale cycle for your averaging length. That may reveal info otherwise lost in shorter/longer periods.
See WJR Alexander’s analysis of the precipitation/runoff in Southern Africa which showed a strong impact of the Hale cycle.
Linkages between solar activity, climate predictability and water resource development
Girma, your graph appears to show ~ 60 year cycle which sounds similar to the PDO cycle. Suggest running a similar analysis on the PDO index and comparing them.
Your chart (http://bit.ly/yni1Ug) looks similar to Figure 1e, page 4 in Akasofu, Syun-Ichi. “The Recovery from the Little Ice Age (A Possible Cause of Global Warming) and The Recent Halting of the Warming (The Multi-decadal Oscillation).” Research. University of Alaska Fairbanks, September 25, 2008. http://people.iarc.uaf.edu/~sakasofu/pdf/recovery_little_ice_age.pdf
Pooh
Thanks so much for the reference!
That is the exact conclusion you get from the chart I provided.
Girma, I like your chart very much. What it shows is that if climate be defined as a 30 year average then climate is always changing. (One of the great confusions is that there is no scientific definition of climate.) Moreover, climate is an oscillator.
climate is long term statistics of the weather
Steven. (This is a real question, not intended as a quibble.)
If the PDO index has a cycle of ~60 years, then should we adjust our definition of “climate” to incorporate a longer cycle? I think I read somewhere that reported “normal”, maximum high, minimum low, precipitation, etc. is based on a thirty-year average.
Anon. “NASA – What’s the Difference Between Weather and Climate?” Feature Articles. Missions: Climate and Global Change, February 1, 2005. http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/noaa-n/climate/climate_weather.html
Practically nothing
You don’t have enough data points yet.
for Girma
MrE
“Not enough data points”?
Certainly not enough to be able to project centuries into the future (as IPCC has done), but still enough to begin to discern a repetitive trend that has nothing to do with human GHG emissions.
Max
All around us the intersections of space and time are conjoined in the cosmos with the Apex of the Vortex of the Ozone and the Ezone and the Yzone phases into one b$tch of a weekend!
Use the carriage return in the right way, and you might have a half-way decent Tom Waits lyric there.
“Given that the budgets at NGOs such as Greenpeace and WWF are almost two orders of magnitude larger than the likes of Heartland, the prospects for climate and green energy skeptics don’t look to good for climate analyst positions”
Indeed. Greenpeace uses popular education and demonstrations, not political endorsements. Heartland is known for its complete disinterest in anything resembling education, so when combined with its relatively small budget, it is a marvel how Heartland and its political network have been quite effective at directly influencing policymaking in the United States Senate.
Lesson learned: spend money influencing politicians and congressional candidates, not education or anything resembling popular democracy.
Martha,
Since HI offers books and other forms of written information to express its point.
It is factually incorrect for you to assert that HI has no interest in education.
You may not like what they teach, but they teach.
Does this mean you are sort of the “it’s OK to lie” sort of AGW believer?
Son, if it’s not the party line then it is fear, uncertainty and doubt. How can that have educational value?
====================
Martha,
You make it sound like it’s the end of the ‘Big Tops’ & the start of: Buy your candy and popcorn in the Lobby. The tax-paying public, don’t even get a parade.
Martha: do you support lying to further your cause?
yes or no
Steven
Ladies aren’t lying, just cherry pick decade of their birth.
Chris Mooney is a Catholic Bishop dismissing the problem of child abuse by Catholic Bishops.
China Coal Update Posted Mar 8, 2012 by Richard Heinberg
China 25% to US 16% on GHG emissions.
By contrast: After Coal Plants Close Where Does America Get Cheap Electricity?
The EPA is pushing to raise my electricity rates from 7.67c/kWh to California’s 13.01 c/kWh.
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-IWxs423LM14/T1r-ofzbGZI/AAAAAAAAALk/TcwMCOQasXs/s800/sustainable.png
Judith Curry
Some interesting stuff.
As you wrote, the suggested new taxonomy of “climate hawks, climate pragmatists, climate realists” sounds like a good classification at first glance, but I wonder who will identify which group who belongs to? If you use the key:
hawks = alarmists (motivated by real fear of future climate disaster or personal gain and hawkish about “need for action”)
pragmatists = deniers (motivated by rejection of a big government power grab/higher taxes or personal gain)
realists = skeptics (motivated by rational skepticism of the science supporting the position of the hawks or personal gain)
This could work (but maybe you did not see it that way). In such a classification, I’d see you as a “realist”. I’d also see Richard Lindzen, Steve McIntyre or Roy Spencer in that category – along with several of your “denizens” (including me).
In each group I have included those who are there primarily for personal gain (power, prestige, self-aggrandizement, recognition, financial gain, etc.). Probably not many of your “denizens” are in that sub-category. The “hawks” here are most likely truly motivated by “fear” (which they might prefer to call “concern”, but the underlying emotion remains “fear”).
Second topic:
Job openings for ” climate change analysts”?
Hopefully these are not simply ”climate change activists”.
The job description reads:
Not much detail there, but it sounds like a “marketing” or “business development” function. Is independent, critical thought required or is this simply a matter of parroting and communicating the desired party line?
Who is paying the salaries of these individuals?
As I figure it, there will be around 90,000 of these individuals earning $62,000 each. If we add 40% indirect payroll cost this equals $7.8 billion per year paid by the US taxpayer. There were 110 million tax returns filed in the USA in 2011, so that equals $71 per year per taxpayer.
If the taxpayer is paying the salary, does he/she have any say in the job description or the party line being marketed?
(Probably not.)
Just some thoughts.
Max
PS Thanks for keeping this “Gleick-free” and “Mann-free”
Just saw that there were 140 million US tax returns filed (not 110 million), so those climate analysts (CAGW lobbyists?) are only costing each taxpayer $56 per year (instead of $71).
Whew! What a relief!
“earning $62,000 each”.
Blimey Max, don’t tell those smart guys in Wall Street. They’ll all be wanting jobs a climate scientists if they know that’s the weekly rate!
David Hagen,
Convert coal plants to natural gas (many are already dual fuel)
Lower electricity costs and emissions at the same time.
Seems like a win win to me.
I am currently on an electric plan tied to nat’l gas prices.
My highest summer bill of 285.00 would have been 200.00 if I had been on the nat’l gas plan.
tomjtx
Good plan to “convert coal plants to natural gas”.
Add to that: “Increase development of shale gas deposits to ensure longer-term supply” and you’ve got a real winner (for the USA anyway).
Max
tomjtx
Your greatest threat is not getting your feet wet from rising sea levels, but not being able to get to work for lack of transport fuel.
Natural gas is much more valuable to turn into fuels so you can get to work, and into petrochemicals for all the plastics you use, than to burn for electricity in the vain hope of reducing global “emissions”.
For a reality check on the “value” of reducing emissions, see:
Monckton’s Schenectady showdown
Judith, I particularly enjoyed your thoughts on climate pragmatism…it seems to me there’s a connection here between that notion and Stephen Covey’s idea that highly effective people have a habit of thinking Win-Win. It’s encouraging to see the discussion moving in this direction. More thoughts at http://www.livingontherealworld.org/?p=598
Warm the world and feed the plant kingdom increasing biodiversity and sustainability all the while providing cheap enough energy to bring humanity out of sunrise to sunset physical labour. Win, win, win, win, win. Who is it that wants to stop this, anyway?
==========
Hi Bill, thanks for the link, I am enjoying your series on this
Let me put his as a new piece to Pekka. I asked you to show where there is a CO2 “signal” in the temperature/time graph; ANY temperature/time graph. You have not provided any answer. I know why. Because there is NO CO2 “signal’, and I suspect there never will be.
Jim,
Why should I jump to satisfy your requests, when I criticize something totally unrelated?
Pekka, satisfy yourself that there is a CO2 signal. This is something about which you should be satisfied, or not. This is not a demand, rather a request that you do something to help yourself.
=================
Thanks, Pekka. That is all I need. No, there is no need for you to respond to anything. It is just that if there was an obvious answer, I would have thought that you would have given it to me.
Jim,
I linked higher up to Vaughan Pratt’s earlier comment. It’s quite relevant although I have some difficulties with a fit that excludes many known phenomena that cannot be causally linked with any of the other important mechanism.
The really excellent r2 values that Vaughan reports are possible, because he compares with smoothened data. Even so the agreement is so strong that there must be some truth in his conclusions.
What’s Behind the Green Curve?
==================
Kim, one of the main things in Vaughan’s green curve is solar :) The 22 year Hale cycle is stronger. There should be some interesting new papers in the next few years.
Thanks Pekka, I saw that. I am not convinced. There has been no measurement of climate sensitivity for a doubling of CO2 as a result of those curves. When I see that number, I will be more convinced.
I find Girma’s graphs far more convincing.
Interesting…
What percentage of the world’s energy–rounded to the nearest whole number–is wind energy?
The answer is the same as the answer to this question: what good can can come of a situation where schoolteachers are empowered to make decisions concerning the allocation of scarce resources in this country?
Forty-two for both, when you consider how much work the wind does blowing everything around, and that teaching is for de two of ’em, student and teacher.
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Ugh. No thanks for inducing me to go to Dot Earth. What drivel. The whole “Precautionary Principle” enchilada.
There have been wide excursions of conditions beyond his so-called “tipping point” candidates in “all of human history”. We’d LOVE it if the Roman or Mayan Optima recurred, thankyewverrahmuch.
The minute chance that warming will/would, for the first time evah, be negative in its effects should be counterbalanced against the near-certainty that pauperizing the planet by pricing the coal mines and oil wells out of business with global taxes would set off (as explicitly and eagerly anticipated by the Greens) a mass culling of the population through murderous privation.
As for climate analysts, here are the unspoken real responsibilities:
Informing legislators and regulatory agencies of [carefully selected and filtered pro-interventionist] research findings.
Proposing policies related to [directing massive subsidies to economically nonsensical] alternative fuels and other factors related to [hyping] climate change.
Identifying the [computer-game projections of] environmental impacts of existing policies.
Kim versus Pekla: umpire’s decision, Kim is winning, 2 sets to nil.
Naw, I fled the field in disarray leaving Pekka in possession of Pratt’s fitted curves and miraculously significant result. I’ll be amused to watch how long he keeps it.
========================
Steve McIntyre has a very interesting article Gleick and the Watergate Burglers
http://climateaudit.org/2012/03/10/gleick-and-the-watergate-burglars/
“Thomas Friedman, whom I previously regarded as a climate hawk, seems to take on the pragmatist mantle with his piece on Take the Subway. Some excerpts:
This is a column about energy and environment and why we must not let the poisonous debate about climate change so tie us in knots that we cannot have any energy policy at all, particularly one focused on developing much more efficient use of resources, through better designs and systems.
We can’t let the climate wars continue to derail efforts to have an energy policy that puts in place rising efficiency standards, for buildings, windows, traffic, housing, packaging and appliances,”
———————————————————————————
What drivel. It’s just another way of skinning the cat in new packaging. It’s shifting from the receding ground of climate alarmism to faux debates about ‘sustainability’ to achieve the same ends. Note the emphasis on ‘putting in place rising efficiency standards’ – ie top down mandates governing every aspect of our lives.
If the climate wars are ‘derailing’ his objectives (because he is losing) he just goes about it another way.
As for ‘that will drive innovation — which is our strength — in what has to be the next great global industry: energy and resource efficiency.’ – this is just fatuous. Firstly, governments picking winners is the most wasteful and unsuccessful method of driving innovation that there is. It is littered with expensive failures. So is private sector innovation, but the key difference is that no-one was legally obliged to contribute their hard earned cash to them because someone in government thought it was a good idea. And, the people who took the risks (voluntarily) had the carrot of becoming rich. Very rich, in some cases. Taxpayers,however,are just the gift that keeps on giving.
As for the suggestion that energy and resource efficiency will be the next great global industry – this is codswallop on so many levels. When was improving efficiency not a key driver of industry? What he means, of course, is that in the world he and his pals want to create for us, only approved methods of improving efficiency will be viable. The rest will either be illegal or so weighed down with taxes that they will go broke.
I can’t believe that this transparently dishonest and disingenuous twaddle is taken seriously.
We all will be able to pay their pensions when the parts they now require cost $100 bucks a pop…
http://www.nhtsa.gov/cars/rules/rulings/tpmsnprmpost2cir/tpmsnprmpost2cir.html
think, you will save that much in gas? Government productivity, for you.
WHO would have guessed?
http://www.johnsoncontrols.com/content/us/en/sustainability/for_the_world.html
They make theTPMS parts too.
(JC please delete the previous post)
Pekka
How could you say the 30-year trends are misleading?
Don’t they successfully demonstrate (http://bit.ly/x6uWqi ) the 1880s turning point?
Don’t they successfully demonstrate (http://bit.ly/x1etVe ) the 1910s turning point?
Don’t they successfully demonstrate (http://bit.ly/z1vhK4 ) the 1940s turning point?
Don’t they successfully demonstrate (http://bit.ly/zSuqMS ) the 1970s turning point?
Girma,
What are those trends and turning points?
When you look at the historical time series and find turning points or trends in it, you imply that they have some meaning. Usually such observations are supposed to have some value either in learning about the climate system or in drawing conclusions about what to expect from the future, but it may very well be that the historical trends and turning points are influenced significantly by some random effects and have much less informative value than they seem to have when shown. This risk of misinterpretation grows the more the more work is put in creating graphs that look convincing.
The raw data has the real information, the nice looking plots represent often more the thoughts of their creator than real empirical information. They become tools in trying to influence others rather than in representing empirical knowledge.
What Girma is trying to pawn off is nothing more than a POS.
WHT
Apparently you do not understand what Girma’s analysis is telling us: the observed temperature record does not correlate with the observed increase in atmospheric CO2.
It’s just that simple.
Max
I disagree. As long as the math is correct then every pattern is potentially important, because science is about discovering patterns and the reasons for them. Moreover, in principle every observed pattern should be explainable. To the extent a pattern is not explainable, there Is either something going on that we do not know about, do not understand, or both.
Pekka
All the nice words in the world are not going to change the basic conclusions of Girma’s analysis:
Since around 1850, global temperature has been increasing and decreasing in roughly 30-year half-cycles, all on a slightly tilted axis showing 0.7C warming per century.
We know that atmospheric CO2 has not had these multi-decadal cycles, but has increased at a roughly exponential rate (at least since accurate measurements are available).
So the CO2-temperature correlation is anything but robust.
Where there is no robust correlation, the case for causation is weak.
Pretty simple, actually.
Max
Here is the comparison for the 30-year trends between hadcrut3 and gistemp.
http://bit.ly/wZznwS
Why are the trends consistently less in gistemp for the years before mid-20th century?
Pekka
IPCC:
Linear trend fits to the last 25 (yellow), 50 (orange), 100 (purple) and 150 years (red) are shown, and correspond to 1981 to 2005, 1956 to 2005, 1906 to 2005, and 1856 to 2005, respectively. Note that for shorter recent periods, the slope is greater, indicating accelerated warming.
http://bit.ly/b9eKXz
I am doing what the IPCC did. However, I made the trend period a constant 30 years, as it is wrong to compare a ratio with decreasing denominator and claim “accelerated warming”.
Also, instead of arbitrarily considering just four trend periods, I calculated the 30-year trends for all the years since record begun (132 trend periods).
Any comment on the IPCC methodology?
Paging Pekka. He’s on call today, right?
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I have made my main points already several times. They don’t apply to this particular case, but there are certainly two other issues with this:
1. The lines were drawn based on data extending to 2005. Now we know that doing the same exercise with data up to 2010 using periods of equal lengths would give a different result. There’s nothing wrong in using data up to the most recent available, but this gives a warning of what it may mean.
2. The chosen periods were particularly supportive for the argument, picking one of 75 years had broken the “nice” picture. 25, 50, 100 and 150 are a rather natural sequence, but knowing that 75 years would break the trend is a reason to avoid this kind of presentation.
I’m opposed to misleading presentations independently of the side, which presents them. This picture is not the worst case of cherry picking but even so it has something of that nature.
Thanks, Pekka.
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Girma
The “IPCC methodolgy” behind the curves you showed from AR4 WG1 Ch.3 FAQ is very simple: “smoke and mirrors”
One could have drawn the same chart with all the lines fixed at a starting point of 1906 (the date IPCC begins the “20th century”).
Then one would see a “decelerating trend” as the lines get longer.
But it would be just as big a lie as the IPCC chart.
Max
Judy,
Apologies if someone else has already posted this, for I lack the time to plow through all the comments at the moment.
Walter Russell Mead (a liberal Democrat although he seems to be rethinking a lot of things) writes about the EU failure to get a climate policy in place http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2012/03/10/another-eu-greenfail-as-poland-vetoes-carbon-targets/
“If the Europeans can’t agree on a climate plan, the prospect that the rest of the world can agree is less than zero. Every dime spent by climate activists on this goal was wasted. Every white paper on the subject was a folly. Every global conference was a grotesque and pointless boondoggle. Every pundit who supported this agenda was blowing smoke and every politician who endorsed it was either an idiot or a demagogue — or both.
This dog won’t hunt. This pig won’t fly. This horse can’t win. This parrot is dead.”
I love that last line. Dude can write. He goes on:
“None of this will stop green scam artists raising money from naive and goodhearted donors. It won’t stop bureaucrats who have a vested interest in eternal international processes and immortal, salary paying institutions devoid of all purpose or use. It won’t stop people who don’t understand the international system dreaming up new and equally unworkable unicorn catching devices. It won’t stop socialists, Malthusians and other anti-capitalist activists from using green rhetoric in attempts to whip up resistance to progress and change.
But maybe, just maybe, it will persuade a few more thoughtful and public spirited people who genuinely do care about the future of mankind that the environmental movement needs to rethink its approach from the ground up.”
Stan, thanks for this link, interesting article.
Thanks Stan.
Just brilliant.
What a morsel of a read.
Mead’s “Via Media” blog is reliably interesting, almost all the time. I think he is one of the very best social/political/economic bloggers around.
“This dog won’t hunt. This pig won’t fly. This horse can’t win. This parrot is dead.”
LOL. It’s sad though, how much time and resources was wasted. Bureaucracy is very harmful.
“Every dime spent by climate activists on this goal was wasted. Every white paper on the subject was a folly. Every global conference was a grotesque and pointless boondoggle. Every pundit who supported this agenda was blowing smoke and every politician who endorsed it was either an idiot or a demagogue — or both.”
This is only true if CAGW was a scientific movement. As a political movement, CAGW has been, up to now, a spectacular success. Who runs virtually every government in Europe? Who controls the US presidency, the Senate, and has control of the Supreme Court, the EPA and the U.S bureaucracy in general? Who runs the UN, and the IPCC? Who runs the supposedly private firms receiving hundreds of billions of dollars to create “green energy” and its industries like the creators of the now defunct Volt?
As a means of accumulating power, CAGW has been a smashing success. As far as transferring vast amounts of wealth from the pockets of taxpayers to the pockets and budgets of government apparatchiks, green crony capitalists and the whole climate governmental/industrial complex, also a resounding success.
The hundreds of billions that have been spent on CAGW have made wealthy men of the Pachauris, Gores, and Hansens. They have provided the bulk of the salaries of an untold number of bureaucrats, omnipresent NGOs, government funded scientists, and other retainers and rent seekers without number.
CAGW has been political since its start. It is a mistake to judge its effectiveness from an objective, public policy perspective. As policy it is a train wreck. As politics, it has been a freight train that is only now facing derailment. And even that is not a sure thing.
100 out of 10.
Anthropogenic Global Warming:
It is the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen in my long life as a physicist.
Hal Lewis: My Resignation From The American Physical Society
http://bit.ly/p0sO4l
Great analysis, Gary.
A smashing political and economic success built on an incredibly flimsy scientific basis.
Max
I have done my interpretation of the 30-year trend graph.
Here it is => http://bit.ly/wnECGt
Do you agree with my interpretation?
Girma
Your analysis looks sound to me.
The difficulty I see that people like Pekka are having is that your data challenges their firm belief, based on theoretical physics and assumed feedbacks, that human GHGs (primarily CO2) are the principle drivers of climate.
As the early 20th century warming cycle is statistically indistinguishable from the warming cycle of the late 20th century, although increases in atmospheric GHGs were less than one-fourth, it raises serious questions regarding the attribution of the late 20th century warming.primarily to GHGs. The same is true for the somewhat less pronounced warming cycle of the late 19th century, when there was even less human GHG. And then there are the pesky cooling cycles in between (as well as the past cooling decade) which are being rationalized with all kinds of complicated arguments in order to make them fit the theory.
It is never pleasant to have a firmly held paradigm challenged.
I also believe that this is the reason steven mosher shies away from the temperature record as “meaningless” – because it does not confirm what he KNOWS is right, based on theoretical physics and model simulations.
But, hey – we are talking about “global WARMING” – so if we do not analyze the actual temperature record to death, we are simply talking “meaningless” theory.
Keep up what you are doing – it’s valuable, primarily because it seriously challenges the ingrained paradigm.
Max
Max
I have found the 30-years trend for 1915 to 1945 to be IDENTICAL to the recent trend for 1970 to 2000.
http://bit.ly/xBpREA
So you can replace your “statistically indistinguishable” with “identical”
“Desmogblog, writer and author Chris Mooney says he is “appalled” at this Washington Post article for what he regards as its tarring of climate scientists “as radicals or political operatives.”
Given Desmog’s tortured interpretation of the Gleick affair, the terms ‘radical’ and ‘political’ are mild descriptors, as far as I’m concerned. Their boss, Dr. Suzuki goes much further than that, even, apparently sincerely desiring to silence skeptics with totalitarian tactics. They preach to their choir, but to those of us not in the choir, their crapulence is obvious.
Chinese 2,485 year tree ring study shows natural cycles control climate….. temps may cool ’til 2068. Go to JoNova blog for study details and more.
Pielke Sr has an interesting paper posted on his blog from this week. It appears that Australia is worrying over accelerating SLR without cause.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378383912000154