by Judith Curry
The latest data release from HadCRUT4 is creating quite a stir.
David Rose has published a provocative article in the Daily Mail entitled Global warming stopped 16 years ago, reveals Met Office report quietly released . . . and here is the chart to prove it. The two main people that were interviewed were myself and Phil Jones. Here is the meat of the article in terms of my and Phil Jones’ statements:
‘The new data confirms the existence of a pause in global warming,’ Professor Judith Curry, chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Science at America’s Georgia Tech university, told me yesterday.
‘Climate models are very complex, but they are imperfect and incomplete. Natural variability [the impact of factors such as long-term temperature cycles in the oceans and the output of the sun] has been shown over the past two decades to have a magnitude that dominates the greenhouse warming effect.
‘It is becoming increasingly apparent that our attribution of warming since 1980 and future projections of climate change needs to consider natural internal variability as a factor of fundamental importance.’
Professor Phil Jones, director of the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, who found himself at the centre of the ‘Climategate’ scandal over leaked emails three years ago, would not normally be expected to agree with her. Yet on two important points, he did.
The data does suggest a plateau, he admitted, and without a major El Nino event – the sudden, dramatic warming of the southern Pacific which takes place unpredictably and always has a huge effect on global weather – ‘it could go on for a while’.
Like Prof Curry, Prof Jones also admitted that the climate models were imperfect: ‘We don’t fully understand how to input things like changes in the oceans, and because we don’t fully understand it you could say that natural variability is now working to suppress the warming. We don’t know what natural variability is doing.’
Yet he insisted that 15 or 16 years is not a significant period: pauses of such length had always been expected, he said.
Yet in 2009, when the plateau was already becoming apparent and being discussed by scientists, he told a colleague in one of the Climategate emails: ‘Bottom line: the “no upward trend” has to continue for a total of 15 years before we get worried.’
But although that point has now been passed, he said that he hadn’t changed his mind about the models’ gloomy predictions: ‘I still think that the current decade which began in 2010 will be warmer by about 0.17 degrees than the previous one, which was warmer than the Nineties.’
Only if that did not happen would he seriously begin to wonder whether something more profound might be happening. In other words, though five years ago he seemed to be saying that 15 years without warming would make him ‘worried’, that period has now become 20 years.
Meanwhile, his Met Office colleagues were sticking to their guns. A spokesman said: ‘Choosing a starting or end point on short-term scales can be very misleading. Climate change can only be detected from multi-decadal timescales due to the inherent variability in the climate system.’
He said that for the plateau to last any more than 15 years was ‘unlikely’. Asked about a prediction that the Met Office made in 2009 – that three of the ensuing five years would set a new world temperature record – he made no comment. With no sign of a strong El Nino next year, the prospects of this happening are remote.
Overall, I would say that this is a very good article; I think the exchange between me and Jones, mediated by Rose, is an important one. However, I am not happy with this statement in the early part of the article:
Some climate scientists, such as Professor Phil Jones, director of the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, last week dismissed the significance of the plateau, saying that 15 or 16 years is too short a period from which to draw conclusions.
Others disagreed. Professor Judith Curry, who is the head of the climate science department at America’s prestigious Georgia Tech university, told The Mail on Sunday that it was clear that the computer models used to predict future warming were ‘deeply flawed’.
I have no idea where the ‘deeply flawed’ came from, I did not use these words in any context that Rose should be quoted (perhaps I used them somewhere on my blog?) Also, I agree that 16 years is too short, given the timescales of the PDO and AMO, to separate out natural versus anthropogenic variability (but this cuts both ways: the warming period between 1980 and 1998 was arguably amped by the PDO and AMO). And while I am griping, why did he have to use that photo that makes me look like a gorgon :( .
Here is the text I emailed Rose, in response to his questions:
The UK Met Office has responded to Rose’s article with this statement.
For context on this issue, see these previous Climate Etc. posts:
Please, Daily Mail, buy a photographer worth his silver salts.
======
Yeah, sure, Churchill; but no cigar?
========
Kim,
I keep wondering what these scientists have been smoking to keep pushing garbage they do not understand nor do they want to understand.
It would take a completely different approach to science that would jeopardize their standing in the “peer” community and grants they receive from the government that they also consult with.
The oscillation and temperature data gathering approach is insane as they miss many areas of facts such as their is no actual true oscillation as the planet and solar system is in constant change. If they were exactly repeating then this approach would be correct….but…
They are immersed in their GIGO land, hopeless.
Oh yes, we have no banomalies; banalities, we’ve got bunches.
===============
> Physics is like sex; sure, you can get some interesting results, but that’s not why we do it.
— Richard Feynman
There’s lots we don’t know, down in Kokomo.
=========
> That sounds like a bunch of baloney. Give me something real to do.
— Richard Feynman
Gut-packed thrilla, Colon at panimmodijella.
==============
I’ve participated in both and physics doesn’t reside on the same planet as sex.
But then few things do.
I’d rank holding the result in your arms 9 months later as one of the things that may top sex.
+1
Are you pro-choice Willard?
After how many years of no warming does it take to be significant? Depends….when does Phil retire?
> Also, I agree that 16 years is too short, given the timescales of the PDO and AMO, to separate out natural versus anthropogenic variability (but this cuts both ways: the warming period between 1980 and 1998 was arguably amped by the PDO and AMO).
— Judith Curry, who does not look happy after David’s charming twist of events
It means that Judith Curry will now suffer the rath of those that push radical agendas,and those that profit from it.
What does this say for Barak Hussein Obamas use of climate warming to push his agenda of cap and trade and other unfair and wastful policy.
Look, a squirrel that might be born in Kenya.
Ok, true, but if you’re tempted to repeat this elsewhere, you’ll look less illiterate if you spell “wrath” and “wasteful” right. Oh, and it’s “Obama’s” not “Obamas”.
There’s an interesting discussion that begins to shed light on that question in http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcrut4/HadCRUT4_accepted.pdf .. which is a discussion by the authors of the curve in question of their work and their process.
Taking into account what they say, we can pretty definitively tell in about two decades from now whether there actually was warming on any present date, nineteen times in twenty, to 95% confidence.
A Bayesian will then tell you, depending on your prior beliefs, whether that warming (or no warming) is significant (http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~murphyk/Bayes/bayesrule.html).
Bart, shouldn’t that be from 1997 and we need but 4 more years not twenty? And that does not include the probabilities to test are the claim that GHG forcing is about 0.2C per decade. Your model would be for a zero trend. The claim is 0.2C per decade. Ch10 of AR4 indicates that we are well outside at the 1997 date for the magnitude of warming expected by 2030. Since the attribution of the effect of CO2 was estimating the magnitude of natural variability and assigning the remainder to GHG’s, the results indicate that the CS has been over predicted.
johnfpittman | October 15, 2012 at 8:42 am |
You ask excellent questions.
We can tell a good deal about a dataset in terms of derived descriptors, such as trend or rise or confidence interval or significance, find points of inflexion and fit curves, with enough data and good technique, but we will never be able to fully remove the subjective element of judgement in interpeting those derived values.
Can we tell if 1997 was part of a rising trend? To above 80% confidence, we can, and it was for every span longer than 15 years up to about 180 years or more. If you’re satisfied with 80% confidence, I’m not going to be terribly critical of your judgement; however, I should point out that until BEST, I rejected the claim that Global Warming was confirmed by HadCRUT3 or GISSTEMP due to the confidence level being no higher than 93% on the data. BEST took it up over 97.5%, which is an astounding accomplishment given the poor quality of the improvised data (especially compared to what could have been collected).
Cleaning up and overcoming the limits of individual bits of a dataset by statistics is one of those areas of judgement in interpreting derived values I mentioned earlier. While mathematically rigorous, not everyone accepts every method of data cleaning; BEST used seven distinct methods and compared them to each other and to objective measures. (I further used two more approximation methods of my own to check the credibility of BEST’s methods – I recommend anyone do so themselves.)
Now, compared to BEST, HadCRUT4 is a piece of crap, but it’s a piece of crap that includes oceans, and that seems to be important to some for their interpretation, so we plow ahead with it despite its faults.
And yes, indeed my premise is that trend is in the same direction and that trend of trend is overall rising, rather than that it compares with 0.2C/decade. Why? Because, when has it ever been 0.2C/decade for a significant span, and when was the 0.2C/decade assertion ever valid in any way? Not so much as anyone would judge meaningful. It’s a made-up number pulled out of someone’s hat. (That said, I wouldn’t be surprised where we currently in a 0.2C/decade or higher rise yet to be confirmed by future data in some future year over the next decade or two.)
What you say about AR4 does indicate serious issues, but these issues are more of interpretation of the meaning of model projections than of the temperature dataset. (For my part, I do believe the projections get several elements wrong, probably, but also that they depend on far too low a granularity to produce fidelity to the natural systems, by up to two orders of magnitude.)
If we interpret the model projections in a like-to-like way, for example a model including CO2E and a model without CO2E, we see that the models without CO2E fail entirely to capture any GMT rise at all. They’re too dissimilar from the actual measures to be taken seriously, and must be rejected.
Likewise, the model projections failed on anticipating polar ice trends.. which isn’t surprising, the poles are extremely complex elements. There’s little basis to claim the models could get oceans completely right, and since poles and oceans are determiners of so much about temperature, we don’t expect great precision from the models. The models also underpredicted extreme events.
Thinking in terms of temperature only would be missing the point. Viewing temperature as a proxy for heat, as a proxy for energy, the models do the job of correctly projecting the energy balance shift due CO2E, not the temperature rise at the surface, which after all is just a proxy for energy balance changing.
So attribution of effect of CO2 is supported, albeit hamhandedly, by the models.
We expect even with these considerations that about one period of up to 30 years in twenty to not rise. We expect the rising trend of periods up to about 30 years to vary between significant minimal rise and significant high rise. So we’re in one of the periods of significant minimal rise, by that interpretation? That’s not unexpected. The fact that we don’t have a significant 17-year fall tells us we aren’t even in the range of the one in twenty scarcity.
What if we get two 17-year ‘pauses’ in a row? Or three? Well, then we have to use Bayes’ formula, before we can reject rising global warming, or even reject correlation between CO2E and temperature, at whatever level of prior belief we bring. Which again is a subjective judgement.
Which brings us to endpoints. The ends of a curve are always troublesome to interpret. The data’s been smoothed or curves fitted to produce an image for the eye.. and part of that process involves assumptions about data we don’t have yet. While we’re less than halfway through a climate (whether you use 30 years, or the 95% proxy 17 years) from an endpoint, we’re working with implicit assumptions and should avoid putting much weight or reliance on that span in interpretation. This is universal across all graphical analyses.
Anyone making claims about relative climates since the start of the satellite era relying only on satellite data — as we have only one 30-year climate in the 33-ish year span since the 1970’s technology was deployed (not without technical problems), and the products of the three interpretations of the satellite feeds are in mutual disagreement with each other, with all surface records, and with global effects like sea ice extent change and migratory patterns of animals changing, (we ought show even greater caution in using satellites than for the lamentable improvised surface record) is therefore on very shakey ground. The satellite data are being mismanaged, is about all we can conclude from the facts at hand.
Bart.. hopefully in a little bit I’ll ( actually robert ) have something to show folks about the limitations of the CRU method and the GISS method.. quite remarkable.
Of course many people are not interested in better methods.
Steven Mosher, How is your station location relative to significant body of water distance coming along?
http://berkeleyearth.lbl.gov/auto/Regional/TMIN/Figures/new-zealand-TMIN-Trend.pdf
That would impact both Tmax and Tmin wouldn’t it?
Cap dallas.
The data crunching on distance from water continues.
Some background.
1. You will see decreased Standard deviations as you approach a coastline. But there is no sharp cut off in the data.. Some people use
30 or 50km as a cut off for defining a coastal station.. I’m not so sure there is a fine line of demarcation. I have a bunch of unpublished stuff. meh. maybe someday.
2. In the current implementation of BEST we start with a regression ( think KED or Kriging with external drift ) and that regression does not explicitly model distance from water. it models lon/lat elevation with a seasonal component with the residual ( weather) put into the kriging field. With that the temperature at any given location is known to within 1.6C. I think by adding distance from water that may be reduced. Hmm my own regressions show that. However, I’d like to define more than distance from a coast.. Im talking distance from any body of water. then the size of the body of water matters as well.
None of this will change the trends. Crap. long ago I did some work were I threw out all coastal and island locations. basic answer is the same.
How do I make this clear to people. There ARE interesting technical questions in the land surface and SST record. But do NOT expect to find something that will
A) change the global trend in ANY meaningful way.
B) have any relevance to radiative physics
Of course both sides of this debate continue to mis represent the land surface record. They either argue that its not interesting or argue that it somehow proves that AGW is false.
Steven Mosher, I have been using some near water with allowance for prevailing winds to look at the bucket to intake period. Looks to me like there was no glitch.
I agree that the GAT trend shouldn’t change, I am just more interested in isolating the longer term underlying trend and the change in the diurnal range which looks to be ocean oscillation related :)
Bart R: BEST took it up over 97.5%, which is an astounding accomplishment given the poor quality of the improvised data (especially compared to what could have been collected).
The BEST team have not yet “published” their work in a peer-reviewed journal, though they made it publicly available for extended peer review. Another unpublished but publicly available analysis of surface data is by Anthony Watts and team. What do you think of it? Start here and page backwards:
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/watts_et_al_2012-figure20-conus-compliant-nonc-noaa.png.
MattStat/MatthewRMarler | October 15, 2012 at 1:57 pm |
You put forward a respectable challenge.
However, I steadfastly avoid WUWT. In my opinion, it’s unhealthy, it never improves, and it inevitably makes visitors unhappier.
I find the censorship and moderation policies arbitrary, antagonistic and dishonest. I believe the dialogue there poisons the mind of readers. And I just don’t trust or respect the host, based on his actions.
So I’d prefer not to give his site my slim web traffic.
I propose in the alternative that I meet you halfway: Mr. Mosher’s doing not dissimilar (but from what I can collect clearly technically superior and more transparent) work at his own blog.
Would you accept an appraisal of that from me?
BartR October 15, 2012 at 11:00 am: “What if we get two 17-year ‘pauses’ in a row? Or three?”
We might get a re-run of the LIA. How much is the question. But, as a “precaution”, we should dump initiatives to reduce availability of fossil fuels and increase the cost of energy.
Recall that the French Revolution happened around the bottom of the LIA; precipitation had flattened wheat crops; bread was scarce and costly. Let us not repeat history with a different driver.
Bart R: However, I steadfastly avoid WUWT.
We can come back to the topic if the paper gets published. I think a blanket deprecation WUWT is unwarranted.
MattStat/MatthewRMarler | October 16, 2012 at 12:53 pm |
Since when am I a paragon of forgiveness and charity?
I don’t expect a statue of me built with a plaque that reads, “Friend of the Mean-spirited Everywhere”.
But if you want to prove you’re more virtuous than I, by all means let me know what you think of Mosher’s work in the sort of detail you’d hope of me about Watt’s.
Pooh, Dixie | October 16, 2012 at 12:02 pm |
What day did the LIA start on?
End?
How much of France did it affect? By how much? What was the productivity of the French dairy region in those years? When did the Salt Tax come in? Under which French King? What were the barley harvests in those years? Wheat? Acorn? How many head of cattle went to beef? Pork production? Which wars fought? What salaries to foreeign mercenaries?
I’d like some basis to judge this historical conformity to climate people are talking about. Can you provide it?
Re: Bart R | October 16, 2012 at 11:57 pm
Don’t be ridiculous. Common knowledge. If not, look it up. French Revolution. Little Ice Age.
Bart, the logic of rejecting models without CO2E is impeccable, but contains an omission. It may also simply demonstrate that the representations of natural processes embedded in the models are very low quality. This, of course, renders the conclusion that CO2E is necessary invalid. I refer you to http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/02/22/omitted-variable-fraud-vast-evidence-for-solar-climate-driver-rates-one-oblique-sentence-in-ar5/ .
Pooh, Dixie | October 17, 2012 at 1:07 am |
En francais s’il vous plait?
Because I don’t think you know.
If you did, you’d have spotted the correct question for me to have asked was about “chestnut”, not “acorn”.
Handwaved historicism is meaningless, cannot be verified, and relies on how gullible and complicit the audience, not how skeptical and rigorous.
Brian H | October 17, 2012 at 5:50 pm |
Hypotheses non fingo.
I don’t need to give WUWT another hit of web presense to know what you claim requires feigning hypotheticals without foundation, a fallacy.
I refer you to Newton’s Principia.
Français.
S’il-vous-plaît.
willard (@nevaudit) | October 18, 2012 at 7:27 am |
You evince greater regard for the French than did Mark Twain.
And while you’re quite brilliant, Mark Twain has the quality of being brilliant and dead, which I profoundly hope you will be some time in equalling.
Bart R,
Beware that John F. Pittman might not be taking your comment seriously, since he said on another thread that he needs to know your legal name to do so.
willard (@nevaudit) | October 15, 2012 at 8:52 am |
Pittman and Whitman both? Or are they the same person with two different sockpuppets? Or is there some confusion of who’s who?
One more reason I seldom concern myself with names in Climate discussion, except to use to reference published works.
Back to ideas now.
Bart R,
Sorry, I mistook the names.
Should have checked.
Sorry, John F.
Not a problem willard.
Good write up Bart. Your post is indicative of why I get into arguments from those who claim they support AR4, and then post items in contradiction to what is stated. I especially like your point of implicit assumptions. These assumptions, such as comparing what a model states as to ECO2 wrt a model without and then doing essentially a temperature balance without taking into account start/end dates or which period to use can lead to much misunderstanding. But looking at some of the sea level and other reports such as coral bleaching, it is still on going.
Joshua, I cannot fault the less skeptical of the skeptics when I see the IPCC graph that shows an ever increasing rate as the number of years approaches an endpoint. So those who wish to be “fair”, should consider that this cherry picking was made a big deal by the IPCC in the build up to Copenhagen. So, if these very good scientists can end up with such a graph, then it should be understandable if lessers copy them. Note some of the wording is tongue in cheek. Though, I understand that two wrongs don’t make a right, and using someone’s argument against them because it was erroneous does not make a statement correct on its own, perhaps more can realize that just because someone does not like someone else’s credentials or the manner of their prose, a valid complaint, criticism, or observation should be awarded its worth.
John –
Not sure why this is directed to me in this location – but I do generally read your posts because I respect your opinion (and exchanges between you and Bart are worth reading), so I found it.
Yes, in principle, I agree with what you say there. The differences would be more quibbling than substantial.
But to add, while I don’t fault anyone for these kinds of errors per se (we all make errors of this type due to the underlying nature of humans to be motivated reasoners) I do expect that people who don the mantle of skepticism (or the mantle of scientist) will address critical analyses in good faith and with an open mind. I don’t dismiss the potentially misleading message from graphs as you describe. A scientist should be accountable for how their work might potentially be misinterpreted (or reflect unrealized biases). By the same token, a skeptic should be accountable for the potential for uncertainties that climate scientists have acknowledged to be demagogued or dismissed. (Please note – I am not saying that skeptics are accountable for “skeptics.” – but only for how the work of scientists might potentially be “skepticized.”)
I think that is fully fair in all respects. How about you?
Yes, in general, I agree Joshua. BTW, the looping was getting confusing, so I stuck it here. You know most of my specific disagreements. I will have to check to see if that iconic accelerating graph was in the summary, which I believe, or not. But, I also don’t think scientists should hide the uncertainties, while maintaining in private that they do exist. Or state the uncertainties, stick them in a handwave, and not discuss how that hand wave changes the robustness or certainty of the conclusions. How about you?
John –
I am in complete agreement. I don’t expect that the initial problem (hiding uncertainties) will never occur – for one reason or another (be it deliberate attempts to hide uncertainties or merely the product of motivated reasoning). When is significant (IMO) is what occurs after it happens – be it hand waving or private-only acknowledgment on the one hand, or assumption of bad faith, or willful misrepresentation and/or demagoging of what originally occurred on the other hand (that list of follow-on problems was not meant to be exclusive. A lot of other bad stuff happens as well).
Cheer up, we all be chillin’.
=======
No, warming is good. Chilling will be disasterous. Unfortunately, CO2 at 800ppm cannot warm up the atmosphere by 0.000000..1 degC.
In all this talk of a “pause”, no mention of attribution studies such as Foster & Rahmstorf, 2011, the fact that the past 10 years were the warmest 10 year period on instrument record, or that the oceans have continued to accumulate energy? Seems a rather interesting and glaring omission if the aim was to really look at what’s happening with the climate. Overall, Mr. Rose seemed to have a decided lack of understanding what climate models can and can’t do, and what natural variability means (and how models really can’t forecast it).
@r gates
You keep on saying ‘the warmest 10 year period on record’.
But it seems to me that this says nothing at all about the trend (warm*ing* or not, not warm*est* or not).
Please can you explain why you think it is relevant to this discussion. Because it’s baffled me
TIA
Latimer,
A ten year period may tell you nothing about a longer trend, and indeed, if you believe Santer’s research, it may take up to 17 years to see a longer term trend. But the point is that we maintained the higher levels we established in the 1990’s, and this higher level means that the underlying forcing is still in place (as the Foster and Rahmstorf 2011 and other studies have shown). I obviously happen to believe in the underlying validity of attribution approches to looking at the full range of underlying forcing going on during any given period, and do not think it is reasonable or even possible to attempt to have the models predict short-term variablility that may be caused by factors that simply can’t be modeled. What the attribution studies have shown is that absent the increased aersols, quiet sun, and cool PDO etc. we would have been seeing a continued warming over the past 10 years, rather than just a halt to the warming. The negative forcing rougly balanced the effects of increased greenhouse gases. When the these natural variations turn the other way (and they will), we can expect the tropospheric temperatures begin to rise again…perhaps quite dramatically. This discussion says nothing by the way, about ocean heat content, which is an entirely different issue and which I’ve posted quite a bit about so I won’t go into again here.
@r gates
Sorry, but I cannot see much point to your remarks other than a very long-winded restatement of the pretty obvious proposition
‘if things were different they’d be different’
or
‘If it weren’t for the things making the world cooler, it might be hotter’
You’ll need to be considerably better than that if you are going to persuade many that you are right.
So now it was the aerosols, it was the PDOs , it was the quiet sun, it was the Man in the Moon that sopped the temperature going up for sixteen years. But you didn’t tell us that sixteen years ago. It was all gungho fro Thermageddon then. Now you say that these things couldn’t have been foretold and models couldn’t predict them, but you’re quite happy with hindsight that they were the causes.
You’ll not be surprised to know that I get a a very strong flavour that the alarmists are extremely good at supposed post-hoc rationalisation after the inconvenient facts become known. But any old fool can tell the results of a horserace when all the runners have crossed the finishing line.
R, Gates,
Further to Latimer Alder’s comment, I also wonder why ‘warmest on record’ is relevant given we only have a couple of hundred years of ‘records’ but (palaeoclimate record) the major natural temperature cycles are about 1000 years and 100,000 years.
Therefore, what is the relevance of being the hottest decade in the past 200 years, when it was hotter 1000, 2000, 5000-8000 and 100,000 years ago?
Is this related to the paper Tamino had on his blog where he showed if you took away all the things that he (theory) thinks caused cooling, that it actually would have warmed at a greater rate?
That’s Grant Foster and yes, the Foster & Rahmstorf 2011 paper was one of several recent attribution studies that clearly identified the continued underlying foricng still present but being masked by natural variations. Those who faulted climate models for not forecasting this period of natural variations tending to the cool side simply don’t understand what models can do and are designed to do.
The problem is with the IPCC folks that oversold the models, since they mistakenly thought that the natural variations were merely noise and would not impact trends beyond a decade.
Judith Curry, surely such a strong assertion deserves citations!
• Who specifically are these “IPCC folks”?
• How specifically did they phrase this claim?
• In what specific context was this claim asserted?
• What concretely was the length-of-time [“decade”] claimed?
• What IPCC caveats accompanied this claim?
• Where specifically in the IPCC report(s) is this claim found?
• Upon reflection, is this overall claim a fair summary of the IPCC position?
We look forward to clarification of this important assertion, Judith Curry! Perhaps it deserves a Climate Etc post of its own? That would be *terrific*! :wink: :smile: :grin: :lol: :!:
In other words what you’re saying is the models can only predict warming.
So what are they predicting now ? Warming ? Cooling ? and when ? and how much ? Or no change ?
The fact is the modellers only ever say their models predicted the event after the event happened and never before.
If the models can’t predict and the modellers don’t predict, then both have no value and are useless.
My above comment was in reply to R Gates who said ” Those who faulted climate models for not forecasting this period of natural variations tending to the cool side simply don’t understand what models can do and are designed to do.”.
• Hansen and colleagues (1981): “The opening of the fabled Northwest Passage.”
• Hansen and colleagues (2011): “Acceleration of the rate of sea-level rise this decade.”
Hansen’s predictions illustrate the four primary elements of modern climate science: the predictions arise from (1) fundamental thermodynamical considerations, as subsequently affirmed by (2) large-scale computations, (3) laboratory experiments on small-scale systems, and (4) global-scale climate observations.
Can denialists show *ANY* predictions to match? :wink: :smile: :grin: :lol: :!:
And by “clearly identified the continued underlying foricng still present but being masked by natural variations,” what we really mean is the Foster & Rahmstorf paper did simplistic curve-fitting that shows if you remove squiggles in a line while forcing a linear component… you get a linear trend.
Or at least, that’s what reasonable people took from the paper. I’m sure R. Gates took the paper to mean he was right because it agreed with him.
The Arctic situation is a function of weather and currents not co2.
Hansen on sea levels (2011), ironic in that sea levels fell during 2011.
Landscheidt predicted the minimum we are entering back in 1983, he predicted both the length and the depth (Maunder if memory serves me right).
Whereas Hansen is probably glad he didn’t put his money where his mouth is and open a shop in New York selling waders and canoes.
J Martin, until such time as your post’s broad claims are verifiably supported by concrete citations, perhaps we should regard your memory (and Judith Curry’s memory too) as being (possibly) fallible and/or subject to a confirmation bias?
“Trust, but verify”, eh? :wink: :smile: :grin: :lol: :!:
fan,
RE citations:
Smiley faces and non-relevant links do not count as citations. As such I believe you provide citations for few of your comments. Why make demands on others which you fail to meet?
LOL … Climate Etc readers are invited to verify that, in regard to the topic at-hand, my post [above] provided in-context, scrupulously verbatim quotes of climate-change predictions, with links provided to the multi-author peer-reviewed articles in which those predictions appeared.
Uhhh … and then, check to see whether commenters that included J Martin, Brandon Shollenberger, timg56 (and even Judith Curry herself) put forth the effort to do the same.
Golly! :wink: :smile: :grin: :lol: :!:
A fan of *MORE* discourse: You appear to have the opinion that climate science is about predictions. You raised predictions in a comment to me on an earlier thread.
The predictions/projections are worthless if the modelers have incorrectly attributed the cause of the warming we’ve experienced. Contrary to what you believe, and that’s all you have is your belief to sustain you, the sea surface temperature, ocean heat content, lower troposphere temperature, and land+sea surface temperature records all indicate anthropogenic forcings played little to no role in the warming that has taken place in the last 30 years.
I don’t normally waste my time responding to people like A fan of *MORE* discourse, but since he specifically called me out:
I don’t know what delusion would make someone think I ought to have provided quotes and links to predictions when I didn’t say a word about them. Is it really a criticism of someone to say they didn’t put effort into providing references to things they aren’t discussing? Does it really make sense for A fan of *MORE* discourse to act like he is better than me because he did something I had no reason to do?
But since he dragged me into this with his stupidity, I feel I should point out neither prediction he referenced is meaningful for the conversation that was being had. One prediction he cited was made last year, meaning it couldn’t possibly rebut what J Martin said. The other prediction was something anyone could have predicted based on common sense, so it says nothing about climate modeling.
I hope his smileys indicate some form of trolling because I’d hate to think anyone believes this drivel.
The bottom-line graphic from the Daily Mail has been manipulated. It has been shifted by 6 months.
http://imageshack.us/a/img856/3547/hadcrut4.gif
Lolwot also notes how the endpoints are carefully chosen to show the same level, a very clever lying-with-graphics trick.
And of course, all the clueless right-wing news sites are picking this up without any regard for scientific verification. For instance see the front page of the Drudge Report
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/839/drudge.gif/
Could call this DailyGate, but general incompetence amongst the climate skeptics is a daily occurrence so that name loses some of its impact :) :)
Wouldn’t ever gain traction. Skeptics expect this kind of nonsense, and “skeptics” are completely uninterested: Their interest in incompetence is entirely selective.
Selectivity is a key component of all sorts of fallacious arguments, from cherry-picking to building strawmen, and to psychological tactics such as projection, transferrence, and framing.
Doing solid science is removing selectivity. If you see that outlier in a statistical data set, you don’t ignore it. Before the advent of fat-tail statistics, these got routinely ignored, and that was actually part of freshmen physics lab courses, being allowed to throw out an outlier. But nowadays, these outliers are not ignored because they are often part of the real physical behaviors.
Yet all these skeptical trendologists show no hesitance to manipulate or throw out any data they collect. So selectivity is really out of control, both objectively and subjectively, amongst the skeptical sect.
Glad you agree that AGW with all it’s cherry picking of time frames is a fallacious argument. Throwing out data as was done with Yamal is a perfect example amongst many.
Typed too fast. The second sentence should have been: Also, throwing out data as was done with Yamal is a perfect example amongst many of modern “scientific” usage by AGW proponents.
Calling David Rose incompetent presumes a malfunction.
I see no reason to believe this is a malfunction.
Simples.
Just trying to extend the benefit of the doubt, willard. I think it is theoretically possible a case of incompetence, although not very probable.
But it’s what we should expect from the outrage machine – which extends beyond the media to combatants on both sides of the fence.
What is interesting is Judith’s (once again) selective concern – to the point where she could find such problematic reporting to be “a very good article.”
Again, what part of this nonsense:
fits with the descriptor of “very good?”
Notice how Judith’s fault finding is constrained by a viewpoint that the only possible, or probable mis-reporting occurs with how what she said portrayed, and not how what Jones was portrayed.
Odd that a scientist would apply such selective analysis.
The simple fact is temps have flattened out. No amount of obfuscation by clueless leftwingers like Web and lolwot can change that.
But yes. 16 years is not very long, even if Jones once said it was. Over at Realclimate the figure of 17 years was seen as significant some months ago.
“Lolwot also notes how the endpoints are carefully chosen to show the same level, a very clever lying-with-graphics trick.”
Or if you are asked the question ‘For how low long has there been no warming?’, you start at the present and work back to the point where warming ended. So how is that a clever choice of start and end points? It’s just what the data tells us. Now you could argue that is a clever question. And I’d suggest that more clever questions need to be asked…. that’s what sceptics should do. And supporters of a theory need to provide rigorous scientific answers to sceptics questions not low shots like your Lolwot quote.
It’s slightly more serious than just picking endpoints.
The Daily Mail has actually altered the temperature values for September 1997 and August 2012 to fit their story. They are both depicted and drawn as being exactly 0.5C.
In the HadCRUT4 data this isn’t the case. August 2012 happens to be above 0.5C and September 1997 below 0.5C.
I guess they are so naive that they
a) think “trend” is defined as the difference between end and start point.
b) noticed said “trend” was positive so adjusted the data to be 0.5C both at the start and end of the graph to fit their “no warming” story.
Some might call that data fraud. What do you think?
I think that if even an out-and-out bigoted alarmist science crook like Jones agrees there’s no warming for 16 years now, then there isn’t one.
Ahh, very interesting. You did say to look carefully, and I didn’t look carefully enough. I do agree that it may be data fraud, as there are too many glitches for it to be benign mistakes.
Notice how the fake skeptics such as Tomcat jump in and try to change the subject.
“Look! squirrel!”
Not only Tomcat plays squirrel, but he does not seem to have read agree with Phil Jones in the main op-ed:
> I agree that 16 years is too short, given the timescales of the PDO and AMO, to separate out natural versus anthropogenic variability (but this cuts both ways: the warming period between 1980 and 1998 was arguably amped by the PDO and AMO).
Simples.
Make that:
> Not only Tomcat plays squirrel, but he does not seem to have read that Judy agrees with Phil Jones in the main op-ed.
Look, a squirrel made of straw.
I agree that no one should be altering or adjusting data without a good reason.
It’s being tricksy, at the very least. The DM graph was created with WfT. Here it is done anew. To get the DM red curve, 1997 data prior to 1997.67 must be omitted.
Why the DM shifted the red curve is beyond me.
“Some might call that data fraud. What do you think?”
Hmm.
The rules for data fraud versus chartsmanship were clearly established in the Briffa case and the WMO case.
In those cases, it was determined that
If the data was actually presented correctly some other place and time that it is not fraud.
It’s basically an “anything goes” approach, brought to you curtosy of those people who defend hiding the decline.
Oh come off it steve ;-) Trying to blame Mann and Jones and the rest for the Daily Mail? Nothing they could possibly have done justifies the existence of the Daily Mail.
Yes they should have shown the correct start and end points and not hide anything. It isn’t fraud but certainly is deceptive. The headline and text says “The figures reveal that from the beginning of 1997 until August 2012 there was no discernible rise in aggregate global temperatures”.
So I looked at the figures and taking account of the 95% confidence intervals provided in Hadcrut4, I can see no statistical argument against the assertion of “no discernable rise…….”.
You can’t just draw a trend line through the data but you have to take account of inherent statistical errors in the measuring process.
Please enlighten me what the statistical argument is that counters the basic assertion of the article.
BBD,
perhaps you misunderstand my argument.
let’s start with your response
“Trying to blame Mann and Jones and the rest for the Daily Mail? Nothing they could possibly have done justifies the existence of the Daily Mail.”
1. I am not blaming Mann and Jones and the rest for the Daily mail.
Blame implies some sort of moral judgement. I make no moral judgement.
2. I am not discussing the “existence” of the newspaper or “justifying its existence. Nothing justifies the existence of anything. Justice and existence are two entirely different matters.
Here is what I am doing. I am making a point. The point is this.
If you accept the justification of hiding the decline under the terms under which it was defended, then you accept the following principle:
“It’s not fraud if the data was shown properly in some other context”
That argument was chief amongst the justifications of hiding the decline.
Another central argument was that the publications ( the WMO piece for example ) were not that important.
If you accept those arguments, then you have no grounds to criticize what the Daily news has done. I do not accept those arguments and I do not accept what Rose has done. To put in a way that you will not be able to misunderstand : I object to both. Both are misleading.
If you want to take space to distance yourself from shoddy chartsmanship and state plainly and clearly that Hide the decline was not best practices I offer you this opportunity to do so. But if you want to accept the grounds under which it was defended then you have no standing to criticize the mislead crap that Rose puts out.
BBD. It is logically possible to both accept AGW and to criticize the fact that hide the decline was not best practices. The fact that you dont avail yourself of this option will be telling.
In my book some people have lost credibility because they continue to defend shoddy work while at the same time trying to attack shoddy work from skeptics. You either have standards, or you don’t.
Steven Mosher has a point.
But there is another aspect IMO.
The Daily Mail (like the once-proud NY Times) is just a newspaper – a “rag”.
As the saying goes, “Don’t believe everything you read in the papers”.
It’s known as “freedom of the press” (to tell you anything you’re gullible enough to believe).
But when a scientist purposely fudges the data, that’s a more serious offense (not legally, morally or ethically, maybe – but scientifically).
It’s BAD SCIENCE.
My opinion.
Max
In data was altered, you have a point. If it is simply a case of picking an arbitrary start and end point, then you don’t. Both sides of the discussion do it and both sides complain about the other doing it. Mosher has it right – if you are going to play that game, you can’t complain when the other side follows suit.
Yes, nothing justifies the Daily Mail. How dare it blurt out clear facts like this? As Jones would have preferred to say, Why should they show the data, when people will only see it doesn’t do much for the CAGW bandwagon ? Gives us the blinkered, agenda-driven Goebbels-style BBC anyday.
steve, I was being flippant. Perhaps you need to be UK resident to understand how fractally awful the DM is. This understanding illuminates the intended humour.
As for your endless banging on about Hide the Decline and ‘Climategate’ and ‘The Team’ – it is a counter-productive hyper-focus on irrelevancies. In case you don’t understand that, I mean that it is chum for the crypto-denialist crowd. Whether you are in fact of the CD faction is irrelevant to the fact that what you do fills their bowls. Reconsider it, why don’t you?
BBD, as for your “As for your endless banging on about Hide the Decline and ‘Climategate’ and ‘The Team’ – it is a counter-productive hyper-focus on irrelevancies” …
… it is not irrelevant at all , it is fundamentally important. It tells the public about the reliability of those feeding us the ‘official’ ideas about the climate. In legal terms, climate science has been shown to be lying to the court, and as such is deemed an unreliable witness.
And if you think it is harsh to condemn the whole profession for the acts of some of its leading lights – it isn’t, since very few of them have voiced any concern. Indeed this deafening silence of the many, is far more damning than the hiding of data etc etc, since it indicates that these acts of Mann and others to sabotage the science process were not the acts of some radicals on the edge, but were seen as normal practice not warranting comment.
That is why the profession as a whole is simply untrustworthy, and why this needs to be constantly brought up until such time as the profession – and its apologists such as yourself – acts decisively against those like Mann and Jones have brought the profession into such disrepute.
I don’t think it’s ‘harsh’ I think it’s nonsensical, dishonest, unwarranted, stupid, dangerous, and above all, political.
You are doing the classic fake sceptic fake outrage chicken squawk over things that only fake sceptics care about. The rest of the field gets on with science, leaving the chicken squawk to the fake sceptics.
You should study mike’s stanzas, BBD.
You too can write with zest and gusto.
BBD
I will make this simple for you since you are British and after 17 years of marriage to a Brit I understand all to well the importance of keeping things simple for you guys.
You believe that Hide the decline was irrelevant. –watch very closely you twit– SO DO I.
That’s right. Hide the decline was not relevant. That is WHY I can plainly say that the behavior was wrong and can plainly say that it wasnt best practices.
So, if you agree that hide the decline was not relevant and not important then it should be easy for you to agree that the chartsmanship they engaged in was wrong, misleading, and not best practices.
get it you twit.
I agree with you that it wasnt important that is WHY I think we should say what is simply true. What they did was wrong. We should NOT encourage others to do the kinds of things they did. It was a mistake. A small one. Admit it and move on to do better in the future.
Dear BBD,
We should say what is simply true
Because it’s not important.
If it were important,
What should we say?
Please pay attention and stop
Arguing against the truth.
Twit.
Simples.
steven
I see a man who cannot leave certain topics alone for long enough to claim plausibly that they do not matter. I see someone who doesn’t appreciate that he cannot have it both ways, while trying to make that exact same argument. In fact, I think I see a twit.
So what we essentially have is
– leading lights in mainstream climate science engaging in outright science fraud – hiding data, covering their tracks etc – in order to sell alarmism
– the climate science hoi-polloi saying nothing much about it, thereby making themselves complicit in the the fraud, and signalling their acceptance of fraud as a valid practice in science.
Only “fake” skeptics condemn the hoi-polloi for their fraud-endorsing deafening silence, says BBD, who himself will not condemn it either, and who by implication is eager that the profession just be left to get on with more fraud. As long as it reaches an alarmist conclusion, of course.
Fake alarmists ( is there any other kind though ?) like Web and Willard can wriggle as much as they like. The fact is, Jones is near the very top of the climate science tree, has been heavily committed to science fraud in order to advance the alarmist political agenda, and even he agrees there has been this flattening.
And yes, we all know it’s only 16 years.
Look, a red squirrel.
Look, more running from the facts.
http://neverendingaudit.tumblr.com/post/19812661875
Naw, willard – it’s a waffly wabbit.
Max
manacker,
This waffly wabbit just told me you that you forgot to say if you knew the difference between a projection and a prediction.
It also wonders if you got that quote from that Willard Romney book.
Look W, a straw squirrel
Good catch Web. I would hope for a correction. Still that does mean about 15 years or so. Start date problems are just that. Have to start somewhere and 15 years is 15 years. I think that stating no significant (.2C per decade) also needs to be stated correctly and consistantly.
Web
You incorrectly judge the bottom line. A more accurate assessment of the actual bottom line is that warming has not been occuring as quickly as was feared, that the consequences of it getting warmer are not as dire as had been feared, and that in the real world, governments are not going implement actions that will prevent CO2 levels from continuing to rise for decades. The real bottom line is that mitigation actions generally make no sense and that adaptation is the only reasonable response.
> A more accurate assessment of the actual bottom line […]
If we can witness the actual bottom line, why assess it more accurately?
willard- did i state that we witnessed or observed the bottom line?
Rob Starkey,
Talking about the “actual bottom line” like you do presumes you have a way to judge that your guestimate is better than WebHubTelescope’s. How can you tell, if you have no idea what the actual bottom line is?
Simples.
Worse still is your overall line of argument, which repeats the old Gorgian trick:
http://neverendingaudit.tumblr.com/post/872135681
In other words, your overall stance can well lead to the inconvenient fact that nothing exists.
I’d rather stick to mundane reality than follow through your bottom lines.
Permit me to build upon one of your quotes….
Climate models are very complex. They are imperfect, incomplete, and written by human beings based upon simplified theories difficult to test, calibrated and initialized with noisy data. The building of the models is paid by human sponsors whose scientific objectivity is questionable and who like to see results. “Favorable” results correlates with funding of later phases of model development.
A two-dimensional surface, which strictly speaking can’t hold any heat at all, is about the worst place to look for the energy imbalance created by GHGs. The best place, of course, is the ocean, whose heat capacity is 1000 times the atmosphere’s — and it continues to warm.
Aye, David. There is no evidence of any kind of reversion to the mean with the ocean heat content.
Noise is a natural part of any reversion-to-the-mean process, especially where the potential energy well is shallow enough to allow for significant excursions and fluctuations. That’s what is happening with the atmosphere. What prevents these excursions is the integral filtering of a sink with huge thermal capacities, such as the ocean.
Pretty sad that most of the climate skeptics have little appreciation for practical physics, not to mention any real understanding of.the underling principles.
actually, the reversion to mean is most evident in the OHC. The 0-300 ENSO region has been neutral to declining,
http://i122.photobucket.com/albums/o252/captdallas2/climate%20stuff/WabbitsFolly.png
and 0-700 http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/ is indicating a turn.
The 0-2000 is less certain, but that much thermal mass would not stop on a dime.
The mean though for the instrumental was a slope of ~0.4C per century that started circa 1900 which is likely an even longer term internal response to multiple perturbations over the centuries leading up to 1900. The timing of the modern era peak is in the range of the Bond event recurrences.
Since you are so confident that CO2 is “the” perturbation, when would you post a graph of your “skepticism”?
http://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/bibliography/related_files/jrt9502.pdf
That is a pretty good paper on that Fickiian diffusion thingy.
Really Captn, this bit from you:
“and 0-700 http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/ is indicating a turn.”
____
And you based this “indicating a turn” on what? There is no “turn” indicated.
Gates, the ARGO data is the less steep part of the curve near the end. The turn is relative to the “mean” slope from 1900 which is not zero. Earth does have century and longer oscillations because it takes centuries and longer for heat to transfer in the ocean.
BTW,since the ocean heat content data is a touch spotty on the century and longer scales, you can use SST to estimate the changes in OHC uptake. Since most of the factors that influence the rate of OHC are in the southern hemisphere with most of the ocean to uptake heat, that would be a good place to start looking :)
Captn said:
“BTW,since the ocean heat content data is a touch spotty on the century and longer scales, you can use SST to estimate the changes in OHC uptake. ”
______
You absolutely cannot use SST’s to estimate changes in OHC uptake. Some times they move in opposite direction and sometimes they move together. SST’s are often a better metric for how much heat is leaving the ocean, for example, during some El Nino episodes. So in this case they’d be negatively correlated. On the flip side, OHC often increases, especially in areas like the the Pacific Warm Pool during La Nina episodes, so even though SST’s are cooler in the eastern Pacific, they may be warmer in the Western. Which region are you going to try to associate with OHC. In short, you can’t use SST’s as a consistent proxy to estimate changes in OHC.
Capn
R. Gates says:
Now I’ve recently said *exactly* the same thing to you – almost word for word. You do have a terrible habit of simply ignoring things that are inconvenient to your rats’ nest of hypotheses. You need to fix that.
BBD, you where wrong then and you are wrong now. SST is not an exact estimate of OHC uptake, but with proper allowances for lag times, does provide a reasonable estimate of changes in OHC uptake.
http://redneckphysics.blogspot.com/2012/10/how-would-you-predict-future.html
You won’t read that of course, but the relative changes in the SST in 44-64S lead climate by ~30 years. The general slope of the change, removing the ~30 oscillation, is proportional to the rate of ocean heat uptake.
http://berkeleyearth.lbl.gov/auto/Regional/TMIN/Figures/new-zealand-TMIN-Trend.pdf
Even the Tmin from surface stations located close to the Antarctic Convergence provides clues to climate oscillations.
You really should expand you reading list, Tuggweilder, Lawrence, Stott …
Captn
I wouldn’t have said this, given the horrible embarrassment you suffered because you didn’t read Martin et al. And Stott is wrong, as Shakun et al. (2012) neatly demonstrates. And as I have already pointed out. You really need to fix this *ignoring stuff* problem or you will be taken for a crank and a bore.
lol “I wouldn’t have said this, given the horrible embarrassment you suffered ” You mean my promotion? Time will tell BBD.
Captn
In your case, time has told. You blew it.
The last time I checked, the 1st law of Thermodynamics requires the conservation of energy, not the conservation of heat. My understanding of physics goes at least as far as that.
Oh, and every now and again somebody remembers to mention the concept of work [in the thermodynamic sense, not the models which don’t work].
Web and Gates,
http://redneckphysics.blogspot.com/2012/10/how-would-you-predict-future.html
When is a trend a trend? When it is too late.
Web,
Guess we can’t all be as learned or smart as you.
Fortunately most of us also can’t be as nasty and uncivil as you either.
Must be lonely at the top.
You give what you get, oh learned one.
@David Appel “The best place, of course, is the ocean, whose heat capacity is 1000 times the atmosphere’s — and it continues to warm.”
What data can we use to track global ocean temperatures at say on the surface, medium depth (3 metres say), 10 metres and below 10 metres?
Citations?
Easy to do this, check how I did the data exploration using the NOAA TAO site :
http://theoilconundrum.blogspot.com/2011/10/sea-temperature-correlation.html
Would you like to volunteer and continue on with my analysis?
Or are you one of the skeptics that depends on Bob Tisdale to do everything for you? :) :)
Not yes, and not no.
===========
I had a look at your work on sea temps WHT and can see that you are prepared to put in the work, well done. It is also obvious that your mind works in a similar way to mine since you have already thought of some of the questions that I have about ocean heat build-up and the rate of exchange between different levels.
This is the second time that you have invited me to do some research of my own and contribute something more to the debate, but I am concerned about my shortcomings in the physics and in handling dissenting views that invariably gets aimed at the tall poppies such as yourself and Chief.
kim: Not yes, and not no.
I second that.
A two-dimensional surface, which strictly speaking can’t hold any heat at all, is about the worst place to look for the energy imbalance created by GHGs
Unless you are looking at an increase in temperature, say 1975 – 2000, and you want to demonstrate AGW, in which case your two dimensional surface is pretty much OK for IPCC et al, the media, and so on.
The bottom line is that Argo data shows that the oceans have not been acumulating heat. In fact, a negative bias is very pronounced since 2003.
The surface temp record from Hadcrut4 shows a very level trend since 1997.
The bare facts of all of this are that the earth has not warmed statistically, nor has it cooled statistically. It has been esentially flat for the past 16 years.
One more year of sub normal surface temps will make 17 years and meet the criteria of Dr. Santor’s 17 year period.
Camburn | October 14, 2012 at 11:19 pm | said:
“The bottom line is that Argo data shows that the oceans have not been acumulating (sp) heat. In fact, a negative bias is very pronounced since 2003.”
_____
Have you been drinking the Bob Tisdale cool-aid? This is the broadest measure we currently have of energy accumulation in Earth’s energy system:
http://i49.tinypic.com/riuhaa.jpg
Don’t see much cooling here. Or perhaps we should focus on Bob’s hand-picked (i.e. cherry picked) artificially divided up regional approach to look at GLOBAL ocean heat content.
Earth continues to accumulate energy, and will do so as long as greenhouse gases continue to accumulate.
R. Gates:
No, I look at the ARGO data. The trend is flat to down.
Nice pic that you posted, but until I can read the paper and see the methodology, all you have is a pic. And that pic, at this time, is not worth a 1,000 words.
Camburn,
The last part of that graph was the ARGO data. With a high degree of confidence we can say that the global ocean down to 2000 meters has definitely NOT cooled in the past 10 years, but saw the warmest 10 years on instrument record.
But if you enjoy it, then continue to drink the Tisdale cool-aid.
R. Gates:
If you insist in “the warmest 10 years” theme, the only thing you show is you are cheating. Warmest ten years does not mean warming ten years. They may be the warmest, and be warming … or cooling.
Plazaeme,
And they may be the warmest 10 years and not really be warming or cooling, but just staying level near record levels– which is the case. 2011 was the warmest La Niña year on record. So even within natural variation that would tend to bring temperatures down, we are seeing the warmth persist.
R. Gates
The “warmest 10 years” argument is a red herring.
OBVIOUSLY if it warmed at a higher rate toward the end of the last century (+0.16C/decade) than the rate of cooling since the century changed (-0.06C/decade), the last 10 years will be warmer than the prior 10 years (even if the current trend is cooling).
Plain old fourth grade arithmetic.
Max
R. Gates
ARGO has told us (Willis, Loehle) that the ocean has NOT accumulated heat since ARGO was installed (2003). Willis called it a “speed bump”.
Before that, we had spotty measurements by expendable XBT devices, which were known (Willis) to introduce a “warming bias”.
Before XBT, the measurements were even more spotty, and can most likely be discarded..
So we REALLY only have a meaningful record of ocean heat content since 2003, and it does not show an increase.
Now I will admit that it is logical to assume that during the late-20th century period of atmospheric warming, it is likely that the ocean also warmed a bit (even if it wasn’t accurately measured)
But I would not try to use “increasing ocean heat content” as evidence for global GH warming.
Max
This the second time you have misrepresented the “speed bump”. What you are saying is just plain rubbish. Willis published a paper that showed the oceans were cooling. When he thought the oceans were cooling, he called it a “speed bump”.
His data was at odds with Takmeng Wong’s data. Wong started hinting his data was right and that there was a problem with ARGO. Then Willis found the problem with ARGO.
The speed bump was erased. It was never there. There was no speed bump.
The Skeptical Warmist (aka R. Gates) says: “The last part of that graph was the ARGO data.”
Wrong. The last part of the graph you linked includes ARGO data. It is not solely ARGO data. Also, it has been adjusted by the NODC. Raw ARGO data is better represented by the UKMO EN3 data in these graphs:
http://bobtisdale.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/figure-2.png
And
http://bobtisdale.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/figure-3.png
They’re from this post:
http://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2012/06/02/ukmo-en3-ocean-heat-content-anomaly-data-disappeared-from-the-knmi-climate-explorer-as-suddenly-as-it-appeared/
Also, A fan of *MORE* discourse’s and your personal attacks on this thread are quite humorous. They included: “Have you been drinking the Bob Tisdale cool-aid?” and “Bob Tisdale’s recent analyses exemplify denialist cognition; James Hansen’s recent analyses exemplify scientific cognition.”
You both have no grasp of the subject matter—you make that obvious to all those reading this thread. Your beliefs have blinded you to the point that you’ve become funny—in a laughing-at-you, not with you, way. You should be embarrassed with and by yourselves. I’m embarrassed for you.
Adios.
Bob Tisdale, as was posted previously:
Historically the pillar that came first, and that is regarded as the strongest pillar of modern science, is the thermodynamic pillar that is at the core of (for example) James Hansen’s climate-change worldview.
An important advance of 2012, has been the extent to which the computational, experimental, and observational pillars, all are supporting the fundamental thermodynamical pillar.
Conclusion Sufficient thermodynamical, comptuational, experimental, and observational evidence now exists, for rational skeptics to confidently infer “James Hansen’s worldview of climate-change science is substantially correct.”
Thank you for helping to clarify this point, Bob Tisdale! :wink: :smile: :grin: :lol: :!:
Fan
Looks to me like you need to check with Bob Tisdale if you understood what he wrote (it appears to me that you didn’t).
Max
A fan of *MORE* discourse: Thank you for confirming that you are in fact a parrot; that is, you can offer nothing to this discussion other than links.
Do me a favor. When you and R. Gates want to downplay my work, link to the post about my book:
http://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2012/09/03/everything-you-every-wanted-to-know-about-el-nino-and-la-nina-2/
Or you could link directly to the download/sales site:
http://transactions.digitaldeliveryapp.com/products/6574/purchase
Since no one believes anything you two write, the ways you jabber on and on with all of those negative things you say about me will suggest to people that they should buy my book.
Bob,
Taking the believer fanatics seriously is an error.
they are clowns with little more than self-parody and echoing of climate fanatic talking points.
Gates was a wee bit better in the past, but has devolved lately. Fan was always a neverwuzzer.
Keep with your good work.
The more the trolls whine and howl, the more you can know yuo are on the mark.
Bob T.,
You cherry-pick a select set of regions of the planet’s oceans for measuring ocean heat content, measure only down to your prescribed depth (because you know much further gives you results you don’t like), don’t actually measure heat content but “anomalies” to heat content, offer a flimsy excuse as to why measuring the whole ocean’s heat content means we are “assuming” CO2 global warming, and then ask for people to prove why your cherry-picking is incorrect. You are a hoot Bob! But a dangerous hoot, as I fear your extremely skewed and cherry-picked view of things will cause many to be confused about the nature of internal variability, and the role that external forcings play in Earth’s climate system. I hope that at least some can see through the cherry-picked and skewed view of things that you present and get back to some fundamental physics whereby we measure heat content of the whole ocean by… actually measuring the heat content of the whole ocean, rather than heat content anomalies form Bob Tisdale’s Cherry-Picked regions.
R Gates …………offer a flimsy excuse as to why measuring the whole ocean’s heat content means we are “assuming” CO2 global warming
That bit does rather nail you in particular Mr Gates.
The Daily Mail article helped me to an appreciation that:
• The denialist climate-change worldview is short-term and local … to denialists the world’s climate is governed by local dynamics that is so chaotic that nothing can be predicted.
• The scientific climate-change worldview is long-term and global … to scientists the world’s climate is governed by global conservation laws that are broadly understandable and predictable.
Example Bob Tisdale’s recent analyses exemplify denialist cognition; James Hansen’s recent analyses exemplify scientific cognition.
Judith Curry’s climate-change worldview (AFAICT) is intermediate between these two exemplars!
:wink: :smile: :grin: :lol: :!:
@AFOTBS
Let me translate that for you
Realists look at what real measurements tell us about actually happens in the world. This used to be called ‘the scientific method’
Alarmists look at what their untested and unverified models tell them about what might happen in 100 years or more. This used to be called ‘astrology’
There. Fixed it for you.
Tisdale’s book is observation based star studded true action analysis, you know, real measurements, and science and stuff. Just the Max, Ms. Facts.
=======================
:( :) :) ;) ;) ((:
A fan of *MORE* discourse: The scientific climate-change worldview is long-term and global … to scientists the world’s climate is governed by global conservation laws that are broadly understandable and predictable.
The warmist view is based on modeling of the Earth as flat; with a homogeneous surface; uniformly illuminated at its average value; that lacks cloud formation and rainfall; and has no non-radiative heat transfer; and is based on an imaginary “equilibrium”. I refer to this jocularly as the “flat Earth” model. The dynamic models with a rotating spherical Earth; convective heat transport; emerging and dissipating clouds over oceans, mountains, plains, and forests; and with latent heat exchanges is pretty agnostic about the future, with predictions all over the place and with demonstrated disagreements and inaccuracies in every location. The whole thing was hyped up based on a short run of apparent warming after some decades of cooling.
Yes, cargo cult science.
Climate Etc readers can verify for themselves that standard climate models contain no trace of the world that MattStat describes! :wink: :smile: :grin: :lol: :!:
Whoops! LINKY! :oops: :smile: :grin: :lol: :oops:
I described two worlds. The “flat Earth” model is elaborated in great detail in Raymond T. Pierrhumbert’s book Principles of Planetary Climate. He does address some modifications of the “flat Earth” model, but not in detail at any length. The focus on equilibria is asserted right up front. The possibility of equilibria is called into question in the later chapters of Kondepudi and Prigogine: Modern Thermodynamics.
FWIW, I recommend both books highly.
Here’s the history of the sixty-four year journey to Climategate:
http://omanuel.wordpress.com/about/#comment-1369
– Oliver K. Manuel
“Oh what a tangled web we weave, . . .”
For later coincidence to concede !
http://judithcurry.com/2012/10/13/week-in-review-101312/#comment-253906
There are special problems with statements about trends at the endpoints of any graph. When this span of 17 years isn’t an endpoint, we’ll have a much better picture of its significance..
It’d be nice if we had nearly so much data collection on physical measures fit to the purpose of climatology as we do of data collection on public opinion.
We don’t have it, and it’s likely never to reduce the lag between when we make the observation and when we have the context to understand it in terms of climate to below thirteen years or so, in any event.
Come back in seventeen years, and we’ll discuss the significance of the current pause.
True, but unfortunately this agrees with Tebaldi and Knutti that we may need to wait 130 years or longer to see if a 100 year prediction was correct. This consideration becomes important as one reads what was said in AR4 and the conversation below between Mosher and Joshua. My position is that the over certainty that is appearring after it seemed much to obvious at the time of formulation of the work that went into AR4, people should take science to mind and not to heart. There has been too much vested interest, in a personal sense, and this has led to excess claims of the unsupportable. There will always be such excesses with humans. But the unfortuante conflagation of policy and science and the excessive claims of certainty have warped and poisoned a lot of conversation.
johnfpittman | October 15, 2012 at 1:31 pm |
I could read the papers of Tebaldi, Knutti, Oreskes et al sixteen hours a day for a month, and every hour revise completely all my knowledge and views and perspectives about statistics and the interpretation of data. They’re real professionals; I do not say this to argue for endorsing every conclusion or view they express.. indeed, I think that would be more useless to them than it would be useless to me, and it’s pretty useless to me.
I say this because the first four minutes of http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGh64Xo4axc&feature=g-logo-xit reminds me that there are steps in interpretation of data, and if you’re just winging it off the top of your head, or trying it without sufficient preparation and exercise and drill, you will go *SPLAT* at some point.
We can tell from the datasets, not just GMT, or sixteen 70-year models, but also Arctic extent and volume, and aerosol count and sea level and Argo and GRACE, and extreme event frequency and migration of animals and plants and ocean pH and ice core and last time I tried to count it over a thousand distinct measures across the sciences that conform to the GHE proposition, and the hard logic of the ab initio proposition itself.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/last:900/plot/hadcrut4gl/last:720/trend/plot/hadcrut4gl/last:180/trend/plot/hadcrut4gl/last:900/mean:71/mean:73/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1937.67/to:1997.67/trend/plot/hadcrut3sh/from:1937.67/to:1952.67/trend
For example, if we look at the Daily Mail kerfuffle over their rapidly hamfisted interpretation of HadCRUT4, we see they skipped about 90% of the steps (though some of the steps they took, they actually got right, despite some of the criticisms we’ve heard here). Even Mr. Girma Orssengo’s techniques lend us useful interpretive measures to apply to the DM ‘flat’ trend.
#Time series (hadcrut4) from 1850 to 2012.67
#Selected last 180 samples
#Least squares trend line; slope = 0.003296 per year
1997.67 0.424851
2012.67 0.474291
#Data ends
#Number of samples: 2
#Mean: 0.449571
#Time series (hadcrut3) from 1850 to 2012.67
#Selected data from 1937.67
#Selected data up to 1952.67
#Least squares trend line; slope = -0.0228886 per year
1937.75 0.01545
1952.75 -0.32788
#Data ends
#Number of samples: 2
#Mean: -0.156215
DM did get right starting and ending their sample in the same month; the globe is asymmetric N/S, so while seasons ought not matter it’s easy to see if we test that there’s a bias. They got right their claim of ‘no rise’ (in effect) on 15 years, but only very misleadingly in a sense that qualifies to my mind as intentional deception or incompetence. 0.033C/decade is, on 180 samples, slightly below the confidence level we’d need to distinguish from zero rise. And 0.47C does technically round to 0.5C, given the significant digits we can apply, given the data.
What they got wrong, from two views.
Since we’ve invoked Mr. Orssengo, let’s use his techniques to invalidate DM first:
1. As Mr. Orssengo will tell you, there’s an apparent 60-year cycle.
2. While we don’t have to accept his hypothesis of a 60-year cycle, we can use the same methods to determine that parallel tangents on HadCRUT4 are about 60 years apart, so comparisons 720 months separated are more valid than shorter trend lines in some sense.
3. Comparing the 1937-1952 trend to the 1997-2012 trend (at 0.67 of the way through the year), we see that the ‘flat’ trend of the current period has three distinct qualities:
a. it reverses the sign of the most reasonable comparison period,
b. it is far hotter (0.6C+ in just 6 decades), and
c. it is relatively rising far faster.
4.These three qualities we’re sure of to above 97.5% confidence, an astounding improvement over the approximately 85% confidence of the DM’s ‘flat’ trend claim, thoroughly dismantling the DM’s assertion of a pause.
5. Relative to what the trend suggests we ought expect, not only is this an extremely rapidly rising period, but it’s hotter than the IPCC suggests ought happen.
Second, let’s look at BEST:
http://berkeleyearth.org/pdf/annual-with-forcing.pdf
Taking into account aerosols — and it’s a travesty we have such poor collection of aerosol data (in fact, I believe it’s about 80% of _the_ travesty alluded to by Trenberth) — from the evidence we do have, we can see the right headline the DM article should have had, if the DM valued truth in journalism, would be “CHINESE SOOT HIDES CINO-US CO2 WARMING”.
So, yes. Come back in 17 years to discuss the ‘pause’ you think we’re in, and we’ll laugh that people were ever so foolish as to even think in terms of pause at all.
Bart R.,
You given some excellent reasons for your position on the issue of Anthropogenic climate change, and I agree in principle with many of them. You do realize of course that no one’s mind was ever changed by a blog post. But occasionally you’ll get a true skeptic (in the broad sense of the word) who might be persuaded to at least step away from the blogs and do some actual scientific reading themselves and remain open minded to the issue. After a year or so of this, most will come to the conclusions that you have outlined, and which the majority of the experts in the field have come to. Humans are altering the planet in multiple ways with the Anthropocene in full swing and having been so for quite some time. This party is really just getting started…
Bart R: Come back in seventeen years, and we’ll discuss the significance of the current pause.
This is very similar to my repeated assertion that the whole picture will be much clearer after the next 20 years of persistent research.
MattStat/MatthewRMarler | October 15, 2012 at 2:41 pm |
Except that — if I understand you correctly — you argue to drop everything but research, (apparently preferrably fingoist research into alternate hypotheses more to your liking) and do nothing useful for 20 years.
Me, I prefer to do as Newton argued, accept the proposition that has been proven as accurate or very nearly true, use prudent policy to act guided by this science and logic, and regard any other hypotheses as pointless until new data overturns the accepted proposition.
everything but research, (apparently preferrably fingoist research into alternate hypotheses more to your liking) and do nothing useful for 20 years.
What I advocate from time to time is R&D on all energy supplies to drive down their costs; and construction of much better and more extensive irrigation/flood control works. Not everything is possible all at once, but those are almost “no regrets” strategies that will pay off whether increasing CO2 causes increased temperatures or not.
accept the proposition that has been proven as accurate or very nearly true
In climate science there isn’t one of those.
MattStat/MatthewRMarler | October 16, 2012 at 12:19 am |
I might have agreed with you about hydrology research, but of late I’m soured on the whole topic. Then again, that seems a silly bias to harbor.
And the GHE propostion is unarguably accurate or very nearly true, without observations that require much refinement or extenction or revision of the original rationale.
Bart R: I might have agreed with you about hydrology research, but of late I’m soured on the whole topic.
What do you support? You presumed to know that my advocacy was bad, so I gave a short outline; what do you advocate?
And the GHE propostion is unarguably accurate or very nearly true,
What’s not known is what increased CO2 will do to the many energy transport processes in the atmosphere and what their net effects will be, starting from where we are now. Increased CO2 might increase the rate on non-radiative transfer of heat from the lower troposphere to the upper troposphere, and the rate of radiative transfer to space; it might increase cloud cover; it might increase the rate of transfer of heat from the tropics to the poles and the net rate of cooling of all extra-polar atmosphere; these and many more can not be ruled out on present evidence, and there are no accurate simulations of recent CO2 effects in climate change. No one predicted that the highest CO2 concentrations in recorded history would produce 15 years of nearly no warming; only post-hoc adjustments, not stringently tested, account for that. The modelsl are arguably wrong, and not accurate.
MattStat/MatthewRMarler | October 16, 2012 at 1:03 pm |
What do you support? You presumed to know that my advocacy was bad, so I gave a short outline; what do you advocate?
I advocate privatization of the Carbon Cycle with the price set by the Law of Sypply and Demand.
Since every country in the world is a sovereign nation governed by laws that are none of my business, I’m all for each of them deciding what that means in their own local case.
My own ideal version uses the income tax system to deliver dividends to everyone with a job every paycheck, and the retail tax system to collect fees from every carbon sale based on CO2E, the level of the fee set by the amount that maximizes dividends, and the government taking nothing out of this process. By reducing tax churn, the government saves more than enough to support the marginal cost of added administration.
In this system, if no one wants to use less carbon, that’s great. They have all the money from dividends to continue paying the fair Market price for the Carbon Cycle they use. But if they choose, realizing the fair price is so high to make other democratic choices at time of purchase, that’s their free Market right.
This simple measure ends the current confiscation of scarce resources without compensation by Free Riders.
If, after the Carbon Cycle is priced, nations find they want to do more, then let them. Who am I to tell nations what to do? Who am I to say what subsidies to give whom (though in general, I’d prefer fewer or no subsidies, where it can be arranged)? Who am I to determine what Science ought be done?
I just want my money.
What’s not known is what increased CO2 will do to the many energy transport processes in the atmosphere and what their net effects will be, starting from where we are now.
Increased CO2 might increase the rate on non-radiative transfer of heat from the lower troposphere to the upper troposphere, and the rate of radiative transfer to space;
Fingoism. Lacks parsimony. Lacks simplicity. Lacks universality. Fails on estimation checking.
it might increase cloud cover;
Fingoism. Fails on estimation checking. The best indications we have are indecisive, so we treat the GHE proposition as accurate or very nearly true until sufficient data is collected to revise or enhance our knowledge.
it might increase the rate of transfer of heat from the tropics to the poles and the net rate of cooling of all extra-polar atmosphere;
Fingoism. Fails on conservation of heat budget. The best indications we have are indecisive, so we treat the GHE proposition as accurate or very nearly true until sufficient data is collected to revise or enhance our knowledge.
these and many more can not be ruled out on present evidence, and there are no accurate simulations of recent CO2 effects in climate change.
You make the classic fingoist argument for paralysis by analysis through feigning endless hypotheses. Which means we can use the classic scientific response of just dismissing you until such time as new observations warrant revising the current proposition.
No one predicted that the highest CO2 concentrations in recorded history would produce 15 years of nearly no warming; only post-hoc adjustments, not stringently tested, account for that.
To characterize the warmest fifteen year period in history, doubling of the relative frequency of warmer years relative to cooler years, the longest unbroken period in the modern record without a significant cold snap, the meltdown of the Arctic Sea Ice as ‘nearly no warming’ is so wrong as to beggar description.
By every measure except peak annual temperature rise compared to the prior span for each span of five years in the past six decades has left all old records behind — including the warming trend between the first and second world wars — and just two of those five year spans failed in that measure, with only one of the most recent three spans of five years breaking that trend.
Aerosols are a poorly-measured, but well-understood phenomenon. Or do you really think no one ever noticed before that soot and ash in the atmosphere has a cooling influence?
What you seem to be trying to say is that the IPCC — in the report that they put out warning that they would not be able to account for many variables — failed to account for some variables. That’s the nature of the beast. Things you can’t anticipate, you adjust post hoc.
Does that weaken the IPCC case? Compared to what standard do you mean weaken? Weaker than it was in the first place, where they had all those caveats?
The modelsl are arguably wrong, and not accurate.
All models are wrong. Some are merely useful. In the case of the much-contested projections, it would be incredible if they turned out to be accurate. So many arbitrary guesses (immaterial to the fitness to purpose of the models) would have to have been bang-on right about so many unknowns and unknowables that it boggles the mind.
What are the models fit for? They’re fit to show that a world without a GHE does not adequately explain GMT. They’re fit to show that the variability of the climate we see now can only be explained by AGW. They’re fit to anticipate ‘pauses’ (what an inarticulate and clumsy term) like we might be able to confirm about the present day in eight years, because there were 23 such pauses in the projections used for the IPCC ensemble. They’re extremely fit to show that even with all the advantages of having carefully built cases, some people will still say incredibly stupid things like various people in the IPCC said.
What aren’t they fit for? Temperature prediction, they’re utterly incapable of doing.
Bart, are you saying that you just want your share of the money paid for despoiling the future of Hansen’s grandchildren ?
Isn’t that just taking a personal profit from the intergenerational crimes being committed ?
Yes, in effect Bart does indeed just want to be paid for the damage done to the environment. He probably thinks this will reduce such pollution, but hasn’t factored in that the people doing the pollution are the same people as the ones that will be paid, so the net result on both pollution and wealth distribution will be about zero.
Along Georgist lines, Bart proposes to nationalize the natural resource of carbon (confusingly calling the nationalization “privatization”, and carbon the “carbon cycle”). And then distribute the takings to the public, in keeping with Henry George’s intentions of benefiting the public with the rent from natural resources.
Heck why not nationalize air too – that’s also a natural resource – charge all users of it, and pay them the takings? That’ll get rid of all those free riders.
Memphis | October 17, 2012 at 1:22 am |
You know, if you want to propose something, just propose it. Don’t slap it all over what I actually said and pretend what you want is what I meant.
You know as well as I do that you can’t nationalize a Commons; it’s already nationalized. At worse, if what you allege falsely were true, it would be a conversion from a nationalized system that pays into the pockets of a few fossil industry owners to a nationalized system that pays into the pockets of everyone equally. How is that not better than what we now have.
At best, what I say I intend, what the common definition of the words I use mean, what Economics demonstrates, what Capitalism ensures, is that privatizing the carbon cycle is due, right, proper, and a necessary duty of government.
As would be the case for any resource treated as commons that exhibits scarcity, rivalrous use, and administratively practical excludability.
The carbon cycle exhibits these qualities. It’s past time for government to do its job.
And for you to stop trying to put words into other people’s mouths.
Seems Bart doesn’t take too kindly to his “ideas” being examined for what they actually are. And won’t explain why nationalizing carbon (not the ca carbon “cycle”) is good, but nationalizing air is not.
It is nor really a resource rent tax either. The intention is to do away with the energy source entirely – with a tax of about $300/tonne.
‘The policy objective is to cause a substitution from low-cost but dirty energy production to higher-cost but cleaner energy production. In plain language the policy objective should lead to a permanent increase in household prices and fewer carbon emissions. But if successful, the revenue will decline, meaning there will be no money to pay compensation. There just isn’t enough money to finance this scheme.
The government is planning to allocate revenue from a windfall gain to permanent spending. This is a recipe for structural deficits and fiscal irresponsibility. In the short run this policy isn’t revenue neutral and in the long run it isn’t budget neutral either.’
http://www.ipa.org.au/news/2332/carbon-illusion-we-can%27t-afford/pg/4
A bizarre argument that he repeats ad nauseum with the same elements and psuedo sources – Newton for God’s sake. Much like fan but without the emoticons. Got to be a psychopathology – it meets Einsteins definition of insanity. I didn’t how to spell psychopathology until I started blogging here. I don’t think this is progress.
Memphis | October 21, 2012 at 3:24 am |
You still seem to be having a problem with definitions.
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=nationalization+privatization
Bart is the one who wants to mislabel the taxing/nationalizing of carbon fuel “privatization”. If you really want privatization, issue tradeable shares,
Memphis | October 23, 2012 at 12:48 am |
Buy tradeable shares with the cash from your carbon cycle dividend, if you like. It’s your cash money to spend how you will.
How can I buy tradeable shares in air (or pollution rights thereto, which is I suppose the idea you are grasping for in your impenetrable and bizarre “carbon cycle” terminology), if there aren’t any ? And there won’t be any in your recommended scheme of taxing instead.
I love this: He “admitted” that climate models were “imperfect.”
You know, because previously he had tried to argue that they were “perfect,” right?
Another day, other fraudulent portrayal in the climate debate. Some ol’ Same ol’.
in the context of the many years of people arguing that we “know things” because of climate models, “admission” is probably one of the defensible words you could use.
What other suggestions do you have
Like Prof Curry, Prof Jones also agreed that the climate models were imperfect…:
Like Prof Curry, Prof Jones also accepts that the climate models were imperfect…:
Like Prof Curry, Prof Jones also argues that the climate models were imperfect…:
Like Prof Curry, Prof Jones also asserted that the climate models were imperfect…:
My speculation is nobody could write anything that you would not be able to take in an uncharitable fashion. because, of course, you have an unstated bias.
like this BIAS
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/10/15/ghcns-dodgy-adjustments-in-iceland/
or this bias
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/10/15/circularity-of-homogenization-methods/
Well said.
steven –
Once again, you are wrong.
I will assume that the following statement would not only be true (and not uncharitable), but also more useful, and informative:
Now I don’t know what Jones has or hasn’t said well-enough to know if the following statement would be true; but it should be true, and if it is true, then this is what should have been said:
Joshua
How would you describe how these models have performed when compared to observed conditions? Wouldn’t your statement mislead less informed readers into believing there is great debate regarding the models actual performance?
And btw, steven,
I was wondering whether you yet “admitted” that models aren’t perfect.
Hi David, Good to see you recognize the use of surface temperture (often poorly measured) is not appropriate in looking for energy imbalances. What do you make of the lack of increase in ocean joules over the past decade or so (see http://www.scirp.org/Journal/PaperInformation.aspx?paperID=3446 and http://www.pas.rochester.edu/…/PLA_21192_proofs_plusFigs1_2.pdf )? If you ask John Cook he’ll tell you the heat is hiding in the 700-2000 meter depths of the ocean. Do you agree?
Thanks for the link Geoff. Your link only confirms what I have deduced by looking at ARGO data.
Photographs, Tsk! I have seen yew on video, Judith,
and yew looked bewtifull!
They gave you the sad face because you are perceived the negative pessimist, delivering the bad news that we aren’t all going to die of global warming. Oh wait…
In other news, I think this is the coal plant in the other picture – love google sleuthing!
https://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&safe=off&q=Selby+uk&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Selby,+North+Yorkshire,+United+Kingdom&ll=53.740049,-0.9946&spn=0.00882,0.026994&t=f&z=16&vpsrc=6&ecpose=53.72934044,-0.99997059,409.95,16.523,72.014,0
In 1965, I was working at the Central Electricity Generating Board. A report reached my desk saying that wind-tunnel tests of models showed that Selby B’s cooling towers would withstand 200 mph (320 kph) winds. That night, three of the towers collapsed in much lighter winds, perhaps 90 mph. Three deaths. Turns out that a single tower model was tested, the effects of having an array of eight close-together towers (2 x 4 bank) had not been considered. Model specification v reality, anyone?
Favouring public information and having been a journalist, I wondered about advising the media of the report. I didn’t, but could concoct a good conspiracy theory, as when I was on motor-bike a few weeks later, a car was driven straight across a main road into me, injuries were expected by the medics to be fatal. (I knew they were wrong; my internal data was better than their external observations; more parallels?)
(No, totally unconnected, but, hey, it’s a good story for the consp theorists.)
Faustino,
You should have jumped – like Steve McQueen!
Peter, on my 70th birthday in June, I received a card with a Lego reconstruction of McQueen going over the wire, 47 years too late for me to take the advice.
Faustino,
I was wondering if the accident had anything to do with your later period of ill-health (I think you said it occurred from about 2000)? No need to answer unless you want to.
Peter @ 2.56, no, I’m still affected by my 1965 injuries and subsequent botched leg surgery, but the 2000-09 illness was unrelated. I just get lots of opportunities to develop equanimity. :-)
Faustino,
Here’s a more recent example of how models don’t always do a good job of reflecting the real world.
The San Onofre Nuclear Station is off line do to problems with excessive vibration and tube failure in their new steam generators. The root cause of the problem appears to be flow models used by Mitsubishi in designing the SG’s. Behavior of flow in steam generator tubes is far less complicated and better understood than climate, yet the models still proved to be wrong.
Regarding that power plant photo, I find it pretty sad so many people can’t tell water vapor from smoke and a cooling tower from a smokestack.
In the context of ocean heat content down to 2000 m, there is no pause since 1998
http://www.skepticalscience.com/pics/Levitus2012OHC.jpg
There is no pause in sea-level rise since 1998
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Trends_in_global_average_absolute_sea_level,_1870-2008_(US_EPA).png
Also for land temperatures there is no pause (see any of them), and do we need to be reminded of the Arctic sea-ice volume decline accelerating (I will spare you the PIOMAS plot).
These indicate that the “pause” is confined to surface ocean layers, and that it is not sustainable.
Broken link. Try this for sea-level rise.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Current_sea_level_rise
Jim,
The fake-skeptics and politically motivated seem to love to latch on to anything. If you want to measure the warming of a planet…wouldn’t you measure its biggest heat sink as broadly as you could? Of course you would (or at least, an honest person would). If you did want to get a pretty good snap shot of energy accumulation in the Earth system over the past 50 years, it would look like this:
http://i49.tinypic.com/riuhaa.jpg
Nothing like Bob Tisdale’s cherry-picked graphs.
Yes, unforced natural variations have, by their definition, no effect on integrated quantities such as the total energy in the system.
This is obviously true, yet Bob T. and Chief Hydrologist seem to think that magical energy is added to the system or created by internal natural variations.
Bob Tisdale must be over the target from all the flak he’s drawing. Buy and read his book before it sells out.
=================
Ladies and gentlemen – I give you the logic of a “skeptic.”
Let’s extend the logic, shall we? Michael Mann gets a lot of flak. He must be over the target.
Al Gore gets a lot of flak. He must be over the target.
Joe Romm gets a lot of flak. He must be over the target.
Shall I go on?
Funny Kim. Thinking an e-book could “sell out”.
Kim’s a peak electrons doomsayer.
The useful bit that Tisdale gives us is a link to this site:
http://climexp.knmi.nl/selectfield_obs.cgi?someone@somewhere
If you know how to do statistical data analysis, this site is way more comprehensive than WoodForTrees.
Buy quick, or be squared.
=======
I agree that the Climate Explorer is the most useful thing that Bob posted. Great tool.
The Piltdown Mann is over the target and has started a firestorm in climate science. Al Gore is over the target and dropping worthless gazillion green bank notes in carpet bombing of the financial centers. Joe Romm is over the target and blaring BIG LIES through his Rent-a-Center megatrombonaphone. Frozen turkeys, all of them. Oh, the Humanity.
=====================
Bob T is over the target and dropping psychotropic cherries at $8 a bushel. Pretty good deal if you want to see all the pretty colors of his very special graphs…
Like the OHC, the quality of the data retrieval services is going in one direction — upwards.
That Dutch-based climate site has some really cool data reduction features, such as autocorrelation, histogram binning, etc
Bright links to hot sauce, sidj. See all the gory details of climate-making in the raw.
======================
Andrew Montford, the Bish, and Mike Smith, Tornado Maven, have new books out, too. Makin’ a list and checkin’ it twice. Gonna find out who’s hottie or ice.
==================
I hope he’s not in a Catalina.
Josh @ 12.38, one of the funniest comments on CE.
Take a peek @ Bob’s electrons. Electrifying peaks of insight from the isthmus, surveying Pacifica’s Balbonic plagues.
==========================
Kim @ 2.00, raising the (iso?) bar again.
I saw the ice bear, but I didn’t shoot him swimming.
===============
faustino – 1:38,
It’s nice to know that at least someone gets my jokes. Or, in the name of skepticism, I guess I should say at least someone got one of my jokes. Once.
BTW – in case you missed it:
http://judithcurry.com/2012/10/10/communicating-uncertainties-in-natural-hazards-research/#comment-252311
Joshua @ 8.45: reinforces my concerns about “government failure.” And about ideologues, I’ve never been an ideologue but earlier in life I knew many. My views are based on my knowledge, experience and understanding rather than a pre-defined position, and are moderated by self-knowledge, including of my weaknesses and ignorance.
This is a prime example of the very odd logic of a mind bent on picking cherries. Bob T. writes:
“USING A GLOBAL DATASET TO REPRESENT GLOBAL WARMING IS MISLEADING
It sounds odd, but it’s true.
By looking at a dataset on a global basis, one can only assume greenhouse gases play a role in the warming.”
“”””””
Huh? How does looking at a broad measure “assume” anything at all as to a cause? We simply want to know how much energy is accumulating in the whole planetary ocean (since it is, after all, connected). The global data could have shown the energy going down in the global ocean or the energy flat over the past 50 years. Looking at the global data assumes nothing at all. We are looking at global planetary energy. Bob Tisdale is 100% incorrect is stating that there is any assumption at all in the process of looking at a whole-planet metric. The global ocean metric is the most honest and actually most neutral way of trying to find out how much energy is accumulating in the whole system. His cherry-picked approach is actually the misleading one.
That is very odd for Tisdale to state that since heat is an extensive quantity, making it more suitable for summation than intensive quantities such as temperature.
Actually, in looking at the cherry-picked graphs that Bob created, I only now realized that he’s not even looking at actual ocean heat content in the regions that he’s cherry-picked, but in the change in the ANOMALIES over time. Wow. Not only does his cherry-picked data not actually looking at the metric of global ocean heat content, it has no possibility of even seeing this metric. In the case of Bob T’s cherry-picking– it truly is worse than we thought. He didn’t just pick the special cherries, he chose only his special cherry orchards!
And yet, the children toddle and tattle.
==========
Yes, odd statement about global heat content. It is, in fact, the best measure of the effects of a radiative energy imbalance. What causes the imbalance is not assumed. This just measures it. Having established the imbalance exists, the next question is where it comes from. GHGs fit the bill quantitatively, but maybe the skeptics will have to come up with something else when they come to this realization of what the OHC is telling them, because natural ocean currents don’t fit the bill for global deep OHC. It is the smoking gun minus all the fog that the surface temperature record has with its multiple influences.
Jim D | October 15, 2012 at 1:19 am |
… global heat content … is … the best measure of the effects of a radiative energy imbalance … Having established the imbalance exists, the next question is where it comes from. GHGs fit the bill quantitatively
Perhaps so. However, for GHGs to be the agent, the atmosphere would need to be warming. Which it hasn’t been doing for the last 16 years.
Bated, wrong on several counts.
1) The past 10 years have been the warmest 10 years on instrument record for both the troposphere and the oceans.
2) The troposphere does not transfer heat to the ocean directly, but controls the amount of heat leaving the ocean. The net energy flow is always from ocean to atmosphere. Thus, if temperatures plateau at higher levels in the troposphere as they have for the past 10 years, then that means that the rate of energy flow from the ocean to atmosphere is also static– i.e. energy is still accumulating at a constant rate in the ocean even if tropospheric temperatures are flat because the “control valve” is being held constant.
R. Gates, wrong on several counts.
1) The past 10 years have been the warmest 10 years on instrument record for both the troposphere and the oceans.
As someone else already pointed out to you, this doesn’t contradict the basic ‘Pause’ fact above – that these same ten years have seen no increase in atmospheric temperatures.
2) …if temperatures plateau at higher levels in the troposphere as they have for the past 10 years, then that means that the rate of energy flow from the ocean to atmosphere is also static– i.e. energy is still accumulating at a constant rate in the ocean even if tropospheric temperatures are flat because the “control valve” is being held constant.
Flawed logic. For additional energy to accumulate in the ocean, the ocean-atmosphere gradient has to increase – the control valve needs to open some. If the difference remains static (as before CO2 began to be added, say), the ocean temperatures would remain static.
Bated, you apparently don’t understand the concept of a control valve. You don’t have to open the valve filling up your bathtub more for it to continue to fill up if the rate that it is filling up still exceeds the rate that any water is leaving down the drain. Tropospheric temperatures control the rate of flow of energy from ocean to atmosphere.
Gates, the fact remains that for the oceans to keep warming as a result of atmospheric warming, the atmosphere itself has to keep warming.
If the atmosphere remains as at a constant temperature, it cannot be the agent of ocean warming (slower cooling).
(As I recall you even agreed on an earlier thread).
So given the current 16-year Pause in atmospheric warming, it cannot be the agent of any ocean warming during that time.
Question for the Skeptical Warmist:
If rising ocean temperatures are a consequence of rising air temperatures, would a once-off rise in air temperatures produce a rise in ocean temperatures that is
a. once-off ?
b. ongoing ?
Sullivan,
What do you mean by a “one off” rise in air temperature? El Ninos create a short-term rise in tropospheric temperatures, but they are most associated with energy leaving the ocean (which is what causes the SST’s to rise, and then that heat is transferred to the atmosphere).
In general, when it comes to a long-term warming of the oceans, such as we’ve seen over the past 50 years, we are looking at some long-term external forcing that would be causing this warming. Something is causing the oceans to retain more heat than they are losing. As the flow of heat from ocean to atmosphere is dictated by the temperature gradient between the two.
Skeptical Warmist
A once-off event is one that happens only once, as opposed to one that happens over and over.
So if as you say ocean warming (via slower cooling) is regulated by atmospheric warming, would a once-off rise in atmospheric temperature ( At to At+1 say), would this result in
– a once-off rise in ocean temperatures (Ot to Ot+1 say)
– an ongoing rise in ocean temperatures (Ot rising indefinitely)
Bated said:
“BatedBreath | October 15, 2012 at 8:02 am |
Gates, the fact remains that for the oceans to keep warming as a result of atmospheric warming, the atmosphere itself has to keep warming.”
_______
Bated, you may not understand why this is very incorrect, but I sure hope everyone else does.
I have attempted to explain this point several times, but now it is BatedBreath and Sullivan rather than the “Captains” that are having trouble understanding. For the oceans to warm, the atmosphere does not have to warm first. Just by virtue of having more CO2 at the same temperature, they would prevent some ocean cooling. This is because CO2 determines the downward IR flux, even if the temperature isn’t changing. This is why the heat content of the ocean can increase just because of the atmospheric CO2 increase, even when its temperature is not warming like now. This current period is a great object lesson for learning about the mechanism.
http://s1114.photobucket.com/albums/k538/Chief_Hydrologist/?action=view¤t=CERES-BAMS-2008-with-trend-lines1.gif
“Overall, I would say that this is a very good article”
Only if you have no regard for elementary accuracy. Start with the headline
“Met Office report quietly released”
Was there a report, quietly released or otherwise? Where?
“The world stopped getting warmer almost 16 years ago, according to new data released last week. “
That’s wrong, but that’s familiar ground. But “according to new data”? Hadcrut 4 has on any interpretation been rising faster recently than Hadcrut 3.
“The new data, compiled from more than 3,000 measuring points on land and sea, was issued quietly on the internet, without any media fanfare, and, until today, it has not been reported.”
Well, here’s what he said last January:
“Based on readings from more than 30,000 measuring stations, the data was issued last week without fanfare by the Met Office and the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit. It confirms that the rising trend in world temperatures ended in 1997.”
until today, it has not been reported?
more than 30,000?
What a beatup! Over release of a few months of Hadcrut 4 data, which show more warming that Hadcrut3, not less.
Dr David Whitehouse:
“It is disappointing, if not misleading, that when the Hadcrut4 data was announced in March, with data only available to 2010 (a warm El Nino year), the Met Office promoted it with a press release and briefings to journalists. They told Louise Grey of the Daily Telegraph that the Hadcrut4 data showed that the world had warmed even more than expected in the past ten years and that the warming between 1998 – 2010 was 0.1 deg C.
When the full dataset was available, in the past week, showing global temperatures to August 2012, and telling a very different story, no press release was produced.”
Well, here is the news that they would be reporting. Very little different from Hadcrut 3, just a continuation of slightly higher warming. It’s not a “very different story”.
The interest in March was largely because Hadcrut 4 dealt with the “bucket” issue from mid C20.
Dear Professor Curry–
Do you ever smile? I regret asking such a personal question, and yet I look at the Daily Mail article and wonder if they are doing you dirty, or you’re just a sour-puss.
Surely you smile at babies (human, kitten, puppy, or otherwise), weddings, and other experiences of joy at the human condition?
Maybe a smiling Judith on the home page of this site to dispel the attempt to portray you as a joyless person?
Oh, she laughs at some of my jokes. Some of them, well that’s the face just before she pushes the button.
=================
That is the expression of a skeptic. I imagine most of them here have that, except perhaps Captain Dallas and kim :-)
Gnash on the Cherry Mash,
Break out in a bitter rash.
================
I must agree. The DM picture could best be described as ‘unflattering’. And that’s being generous to it.
Geo,
Is that a question for post-normal science research?
I just find it sociologically interesting that the Cassandras of Imminent Doom get the pixiesh grin photos, while those less convinced the doom is nigh viewpoint has been conclusively proven, are shown as if they’ve just applied the “Salmon of Correction” to someone’s forehead.
;-) Smiles…
http://www.earthzine.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/JudithCurryLP.jpg
http://www.ti.gatech.edu/people/profile/curry.php
http://sppiblog.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/climate-heretic_1.jpg
http://www.cartoonsbyjosh.com/download/Right_of_reply.jpg
Wasn’t the one used by the Daily from the Scientific American interview (Heretic) where thay asked Judith to iook ‘serious’?
R. Gates | October 14, 2012 at 10:41 pm.
Sorry, but your protestation that the last decade has been the warmest on the instrumental record does not alter the fact that the same record shows that there has been a plateau in global average temperatures. (AKA as flat, or a pause in warming, and similar expressions of fact).
If you look at a range of T record sources back to the 1940’s, note that a linear trend from ~(1935 – 1945) was also flat and until that time was the warmest decade on record. Was that the end of the world? No, although unfortunately the record shows a substantial period of cooling that followed. Furthermore, if you examine a broader period of say ~(1930 – 1950) the linear trend was also flat and the warmest 20-years on record. Oh dear, the sky was falling in even before a big growth in CO2 emissions!
Perhaps the easiest illustration to understand this is the Hadcrut3 graph following, although strangely, they use a 21-year CMP filtered smoothing, and the last 10 years of the black line are speculative on their part what with absence of data 10-years into the future beyond the end centre point. (and arguably should be ignored).
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/nhshgl.gif
A conclusion that can be drawn from this is that it is not sensible to draw short-term linear trends on what appears to be cyclical raw data or at best; confusing noise or very disturbing factors arguably attributed to natural cycles.
The earliest relevant paper concerning natural cycles that I’m aware of is:
L.B. Klyashtorin & A.A. Lyubushin 2003
http://www.biokurs.de/treibhaus/180CO2/Fuel_Consumption_and_Global_dT-1.pdf
Interestingly, nine years later their prediction of what we see now is remarkably accurate although it was based entirely on recognition of a natural cycle that they did not attempt to explain.
“Interestingly, nine years later their prediction of what we see now is remarkably accurate although it was based entirely on recognition of a natural cycle that they did not attempt to explain.”
Intuition is a wonderful thing.
Bob,
You make good points, but overall, I care about the broadest measurements we can make in Earth’s non-tectonic energy system. The energy fluctuations in the weakest and lowest thermal inertia part of the system (i.e. the troposphere) is assumed as is that there will be natural variabilty over years and even decades and that global climate models will never be able to capture this. If global ocean heat content as measured down to the deepest levels of the ocean declines over a decade or more and the Arctic sea ice suddenly actually recovers to previous summer levels that we saw in the 1970’s I’d begin to have serious reservations about AGW. Because of my willingness to have some reasonable metric whereby AGW could be falsified (and actually remain actively looking for it), I keep to the spirit of being a true skeptic in the more general sense.
“some reasonable metric whereby AGW could be falsified”
How about air temperature? If the air isn’t warming, the greenhouse effect either isn’t happening, or is being overwhelmed. In which case, either way, what are we worried about?
We’re worried about the travesties. The travesty of Kevin Trenberth losing all that heat all over the place, the travesty of Michael Piltdown Mann molesting old trees and young statistics, the travesty of Lewandowsky projecting his illness through the Hall of Mirrored Ethics, the travesty of Phil Jones knowing in his bones the hollowness of his work, the travesty, the travesties, the trespasses on decency, on logic, and who am I to forgive them?
================
Sullivan,
As far as the more important of the two, lots of energy being stored in the ocean is more significant than the temperature of the troposphere. As far as being worried….still accessing any need for that. Generally though, worry is rather unproductive.
@r gates
It’s the atmosphere that we all live in, not the oceans.
If there’s no effect in the atmosphere, exactly what should we be wetting our knickers about?
Gates, you didn’t address my point : if the air isn’t warming, it means the greenhouse effect isn’t noticeable, ie CO2 not causing warming as feared. I’m not saying ocean temperature isn’t important. Just doesn’t seem to be related to air temperature (and hence not CO2).
Latimer,
Can’t speak for what you should or shouldn’t be wetting your knickers about, but as go the oceans so goes everything else on this planet. A healthy ocean means a healthy biosphere. We land dwellers need the ocean to be healthy every bit as much as the creatures that dwell there.
kim,
one of your best yet.
@ r gates
‘ A healthy ocean means a healthy biosphere. We land dwellers need the ocean to be healthy every bit as much as the creatures that dwell there.’
Trite stuff taken straight from the Greenpeace version of the Sunday School.Bible for Infants. But pretty limited as serious science.
Is there any reason to expect that a slightly warmer ocean will not be a healthy ocean? How do we know? If so what is the optimum temperature for it? How do we know? And where on the globe now has that temperature?
This goes some way to explain why Jones once said
. He’s known for some time the data wasn’t complying with the whole politically-motivated and politically-financed drive to dupe the public and sell CAGW.
Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead. Damn, it’s an iceberg!
=============
Hey,
No torpedo damning. I once made my living with them.
Think what a torpedo would do to an iceberg.
OK, there’s probably a YouTube of it somewhere.
============
kim,
Not much. A Mk 48 (last time I saw one) carried ~ 680 lbs of PBXN. While that produces an impressive explosion and will shatter the keel and lift a 8,000 ton ship almost completely out of the water, it would hardly be noticed by a berg.
Although I was in the minority in my division for thinking it, I held that we would have to put at least 3 and possibily as many as 4 or 5 of them into one of our Nimitz class carriers to sink it.
Spruance class DD vs Mk 48
Global warming stopped 16 years ago!
The figures, which have triggered debate among climate scientists, reveal that from the beginning of 1997 until August 2012, there was no discernible rise in aggregate global temperatures.
That figure using woodfortrees=>
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1998/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1998/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1998/trend/offset:0.1
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How many times does it need to be pointed out that the “the warmest decade on record” does not mean that the decade in question cannot have been at a steady temperature?
If global warming stopped in 1997, how can the last decade be the warmest on record?
Fact is that drawing a trend line from 1997 does not tell you if warming has stopped or is ongoing. The period is too short. There’s actually been a faster rate of warming since 1980-present, than from 1980-1997
Do know the difference between ‘warm’ and ‘warming’?
If you did then you should realize how the past decade could be warm and not warming at the same time. Duh.
First rule of holes, little buddy.
During the warmest decade on record, there was no warming. Where is the problem with that ?
1997 is not in the last decade
Simple math Erica. The average temperature of the past 10 years was higher than the average temperature of the previous 10 years. Temperatures flattened at a higher level than the average of the previous 10 year period. Why is this so hard for you to understand?
That’s what she said.
R Gates
I asked you to show me where the problem is. You still haven’t. Why is it so hard for you to understand this?
November 1997 to December 1998 was the hottest Nov-Dec in the instrument record. In the next decade that record was exceed three consecutive times:
97-98 – .594
04-05 – .608
06-07 – .613
09-10 – .639
The 204-month trend: least squares trend line; slope = 0.0109438 per year.
It is good news that there is no global warming rate at present. Australian politics are curremtly dominated by the greens so this will hard news for them.
However some people have been quick to label this as a ‘pause’, implying that worse is to come with vague references to natural internal affects: the greatest of which is El Nino which is not understand and others even murkier. Read my own theoretical model at: http://members.iinet.net.au/~alexandergbiggs and if you agree with me, the key to climate and CO2 affects is what happened in 1940. Understand that and ypu will understand future climate as well as the currant ‘pause’.
So how does the shaft of the ‘hockey stick’ fit in with the last 16 years global near surface temperature?
How does the relative % of CO2 in the atmosphere correlate to global near surface temperature in the last 16 years?
Any greenhouse gas enthusiast who can make square pegs fit into round holes must surely be in line for the Booker Prize for best contemporary fiction.
We don’t know what natural variability is doing.’
This year it is 15 years is too short, next year it’ll be 16 years it too short, the year after 17 years is too short.
It is time this nonsense stopped. This is undermining not only the credibility of climate “science” but also every other scientific discipline.
Hey Judith,
One of the quotes from Climategate files was:
Yet in 2009, when the plateau was already becoming apparent and being discussed by scientists, he told a colleague in one of the Climategate emails: ‘Bottom line: the “no upward trend” has to continue for a total of 15 years before we get worried.
I’d like to focus on the phrase ‘before we get worried’. Now ask yourself why anyone would get worried about a level temperature trend. It is pretty clear to see the alarmists motivations showing through here.
Cheers
Robin
I have an oddly symmetrical dilemma with the warming catastrophists who fear it may not warm like they predict and bewail. I’d love for it to warm instead of cool like I predict and bewail.
==================
someone recently used a phrase about ‘climate hypochondiacs’ which seems more fitting for some of the climate activists. I’ve met a number, and they are genuinely ‘terrified’ of future climate.
It was Eduardo Zorita:
http://klimazwiebel.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/interview-with-eduardo-zorita.html
Are there “alarmists”? Is that a good term?
Yes, I think there are alarmists, if by that term we include those that see anthropogenic forcing behind every change we see in the environment. Perhaps alarmist is not the right term. I would rather use the expression ‘climate hypochondriacs’.
Here’s the asymmetry, which I point out to an audience already acutely aware of it: A cooling globe is a terrifying and an alarming one; a warming one, meh, will sustain more total life and more diversity of life.
===================
Robin
Exactly. Would the warmists on this blog all please confirm that if, as appears to be the case, there is no warming to worry about, it is unreservedly good news for mankind.
It’s no good news for the warmists. They’re praying for more warming.
He was talking as a scientist. It’s worrying for their understanding of how the climate works.
That too. They don’t want to understand – they want to confirm A(GHG/CO2)GW.
AGW is already confirmed, what they are trying to understand is how exactly it will manifest. Climate skeptics for example think AGW will cause an increase in cloud cover and reduction in sunlight. Wonder what the impact will be on plants (!?)
> AGW is already confirmed
Obviously not. We have some basic principles, but are still nowhere near putting any numbers on it or making any worthwhile predictions.
Confirmed? Au contrair mon ami. By 2020 you will be ashamed that you believed in it or you will deny that you ever believed in it.
nzrobin
The “before we get worried” quote is not much different from Trenberth’s “travesty” quote.
It appears these guys want global warming to occur, in order to prove their hypothesis that we are causing “bad” global warming, so we can force top-down actions to stop the global warming they now want.
Is there something basically screwy with this picture?
(Or is it really not about global warming at all?)
Max
The Met Office has a reply that seems to owe more to PR than science, including a very odd graph, seemingly contrived to give just what impression?
http://metofficenews.wordpress.com/2012/10/14/met-office-in-the-media-14-october-2012/
Why can’t they just use this official graph,
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcrut4/diagnostics.html
which shows all the data, ie warming since 1850, periods of warming, cooling and late 2oth century warming and 21st century, pausing’ or plateau. It appears he response is just spin.
They do however confrm at least one point, by stating a cliam of per decae rate of warming, which is exactly HALF that required to get us all to 2C by 2050. and every relatively cool year perhaps for a few years will see that rate drop further.
(I also have 2 comments pending moderation at the Met Office News blog, for about a day now)
ps – I think they choose the photo, to make out you were cross with Phil Jones, as it was put next to his.. ;-)
Barry Woods,
They do however confrm at least one point, by stating a cliam of per decae rate of warming, which is exactly HALF that required to get us all to 2C by 2050.
Yes… given the start date which Rose has chosen. The trends for the last 14, 15, 17 and 18 years are all greater than for the last 16, wich is what the Met Office are referring to when they say
As we’ve stressed before, choosing a starting or end point on short-term scales can be very misleading.
It’s not just spin, it’s the truth.
No the Met Office chose a start date of 1979, (cherry picking themesleves? at start of short term warming period?) to counter David Rose.
Yet this rate, is half the rate required to hit 2C by 2050.
see the Met Office response here:
http://metofficenews.wordpress.com/2012/10/14/met-office-in-the-media-14-october-2012/#comment-264
Apologies, I misread your post. But 0.16C per decade would get us more than half way to 2C by the end of 2050. Yes, it would be at the low end of the IPCC projections but none of them have us hitting 2C by 2050. And that doesn’t excuse Rose’s cherry picking.
> Apologies, I misread your post.
Take note, Soclates.
This is how we do it.
Simples.
Barry
That Met Office graph is intended to distract the viewer from the fact that there has been an “unexplained pause” in global warming, despite unabated human GHG emissions (principally CO2) and CO2 concentrations reaching record levels.
It’s the old “shell and pea” game.
“Now you see it, now you don’t”
Max
Daily Mail Churnalist misquotes. News at eleven.
Evidently Prof. Curry operated on the Bushian principle of the one about fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on you.
@eli rabbett
Care to turn your post into an understandable point?
Or are you too infested with the
‘speaking in esoteric riddles to in a forlorn attempt to make one look clever and disguise the fact one has nothing relevant to say’
virus that seems to be sweeping through the alarmist commentators here of late? Joshua has it, AFOTBS has it. ‘Willard’ is now completely in its thrall. I think it was originally brought here by Web Hub Telescope, presumably from another planet
It’s dangerous stuff. The only cure is clear thinking and straightforward direct writing
Example :
‘
‘The cat on the mat’
Try it for a few weeks. You’ll soon find your distressing symptoms disappear.
Simples!
Latie said:
Another case of massive transference and projection. Latie is the commenter who will don multiple sockpuppet disguises, write long diatribes filled with imaginary dialog, and otherwise substitute rhetoric for useful dialectic into the arguments.
Note how Latie attacks Eli, who actually does a lot of interesting work, including his latest series of blog posts where he helpfully describes his use of Python to check out the data that Anthony Watts is evaluating:
http://rabett.blogspot.ca/2012/10/wattsbusters.html
No doubt that this is a psychological projection of Latimer’s inability to do anything useful onto a scientist who does practical analysis, and does it with style. Ultimately, the root of this may be bitterness and jealousy on Latimer’s part.
Yes, indeed, it is all so simple, understanding the fake skeptic’s mind .
WebHubTelescope,
Steve Milesworthy suggests fruit machines:
http://neverendingaudit.tumblr.com/post/25540695794
@Web Hub Telescope
If Socratic dialogues were good enough for Socrates, they’re good enough for me.
If you find one I’ve written that doesn’t make my point clearly and directly, please point it out and I’ll be happy to clarify for you and/or rewrite if needed.
> If Socratic dialogues were good enough for Socrates, they’re good enough for me.
This sentence is not clear.
Nor is it direct.
Nor addresses WebHubTelescope’s point.
Nor does its philosophical content makes sense, since it does seem to confuse a dialectical process with a self-congratulating one.
Re: “fruit machines”, I missed that one.
I think Latimer has extended well beyond his reach. The use of multiple sockpuppets provides diminishing returns once people catch on. But then again, his primary audience likely eggs him on, all in the service of FUD.
You are right, Willard, it’s never-ending.
WebHubTelescope,
Beware that Soclates’ pushback effects comes in three degrees:
http://neverendingaudit.tumblr.com/post/9755075050
@webbie, @willard
I’m deeply flattered that my simple remarks and questions here so frighten you that you feel the need to discuss them on another blog.
Must be touching a few nerves……………
WebHubTelescope,
You might notice that Soclates does not seem to realize that the two posts were excerpted from Judy’s.
Willard, The Latimer is in fact a Stirling Engine. It works via the cyclic compression and expansion of gas.
Remarkably it is one more of the potential renewable energy technologies available to mankind in the coming years.
Perhaps multiple sockpuppet names are for the good. Socrates Windfarm would also work for Latimer.
WebHubTelescope,
Soclates’ engines my very well be the way of the future:
http://bobmccarty.com/2008/04/01/scientists-harness-kinetic-energy-from-keyboards/
Webby.
Eli is both known for and proud of his unclear elipitical comments.
It would be charitable of you to acknowledge that.
WebHubTelescope,
You certainly can concede that Eli’s style is not always clear and direct. Sometimes, Eli even talks about being pedagogical. Sometimes.
In any case, I’m sure you can agree with me that Eli’s main point in the article the escapes Soclates’ inquisivite mind is expressed with this sentence:
> Being able to *show* the non believers rather than just *telling* them seems to be helpful…
This point is also repeated in the next paragraph:
> [T]he global-temperature anomaly, involving nothing more than simple averaging, is something that bunnies can explain to non-technical friends/relatives in a way that they actually *get it* (at least to some extent).
This point is also repeated in the last one:
> This seems to be the Watts-skeptic crowd’s biggest vulnerability — they’ve gone out on a limb by being consistently wrong about stuff that I can explain to high-school/junior-college-educated folks…
That half of the words Eli wrote are related to his main point might not have been enough to be clear and direct, this time.
Bad bunny.
***
For charity’s sake, we should also note that the post in question has been mainly written by Caerbannog.
Here are the sections:
1. How we can know what the earth’s temperature is
2 What sort of games Watts has been playing
3 How real skeptics can beat him by reducing the data themselves
4 Where to get that data
Section 2 might have something to do with Eli’s main point. A quote:
> The big problem with the Watts approach is that he and his followers have not bothered to perform any global-average temperature calculations to test the claims they’ve been making (i.e. claims about UHI, homogenization, “dropped stations”, etc.)
http://rabett.blogspot.ca/2012/10/wattsbusters.html
Not that all this should distract us from more pressing matters: Eli’s lack of clarity and directness, which you certainly should acknowledge.
Eli writes a blog, and posts some interesting stuff in it. Like a lot of blogs, I don’t always get to it, but when I read it, I pick up some info. His rabbit sidekick always reminded me of the author Updike, who I haven’t read.
> Care to turn your post into an understandable point?
“Churnalism”:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Churnalism
“Fool me twice”:
http://judithcurry.com/2011/10/30/mail-on-best/
“Nothing new under the sun”:
http://bible.cc/ecclesiastes/1-9.htm
Simples.
> I think it was originally brought here by Web Hub Telescope, presumably from another planet.
No clear, nor direct.
And false to boot.
I was here first.
@willard
Happy for you to take the ‘credit’ for bringing the
‘speaking in esoteric riddles to in a forlorn attempt to make one look clever and disguise the fact one has nothing relevant to say’
virus here if you wish to.
Though few would view this ‘achievement’ as a badge to be worn with pride. But if the cap fits…….
Soclates,
If my few remarks of questions make you &c, I must have struck a nerve.
Simples.
Latimer –
In the name of skepticism (as opposed to “skepticism”) – please identify what evidence you have that justifies you characterizing me as an “alarmist.” You have done this a number of times now, sometimes in ways considerably more nasty than you have just done. Surely, you must have abundant evidence to base such nastiness. Please, share some of it.
If you are unable (or perhaps unwilling) to produce any actual evidence, one might say that you’re an alarmist about alarmism.
@joshua
If you so assert, I am happy to exclude you from the list of ‘alarmist’ commentators.
It may come as a surprise to some here who have followed your postings (and to the many more who just ignore them), but if you do not feel that ‘alarmist’ is a term with which you wish to be associated, I will of course refrain from using the term in future.
> If you so assert, I am happy to exclude you from the list of ‘alarmist’ commentators.
To Soclates, everyone’s an alarmist by defaut.
To be excluded from his sweeping generalities, one must ask him.
Reminds me of mail spam.
Latimer,
Don’t be a weasel.
I asked you to show evidence for your claim. You have made similar claims multiple times – and at times accompanied your claims with some associated nastiness; so despite that you now seem to be waffling, it seems that you were at least previously quite confident that evidence for your claims existed.
Nowhere did I request that you remove me from your list. Either way I don’t care at a personal level.
My point was not that I object to the classification (I expect to be mis-classifed by tribalists, and if I cared about it I wouldn’t post my comments) to show your habit of making claims for which you have no evidence. I think your habit is instructive as to clarifying the oft-claimed identification of skeptic by people who are actually “skeptics.”
Do you have any evidence? You seem to have the confidence that would suggest the evidence is abundant. If so, please provide just a smidgeon.
‘To Soclates, everyone’s an alarmist by defaut.”
hmm. interesting proposition. Perhaps you can get to the truth of it by asking him directly. have some integrity willard. Go ahead an ask him and then be charitable. We will watch and see if you get it right. I lay odds you will, but still it will be fun to see if you can actually do it.
Moshpit,
Will do, although I believe that you do get my point.
An auto-include like the one I alluded to does seem built-in the speech act he just did.
By anyone, I meant anyone who stands in his way to ask tough questions and profer soclatic remarks from his soapbox are alarmists.
I’m not sure he ever said anything about those who run wild about alarmism, except perhaps that they’re asking tough questions and believe that anyone who talks to them are liars.
One has to wonder why.
***
Dear Soclates,
Moshpit does seem to wonder if you could clarify this speech act of yours:
> If you so assert, I am happy to exclude you from the list of ‘alarmist’ commentators.
It does seem to presuppose that the assertion that one does not belong to the class of “alarmist” commentators suffices to be taken out of that class.
It also seems to presuppose that you have the power to judge who belongs to the class of “alarmist” commentators.
Am I reading you correctly?
Many thanks!
@willard
I drew up a short list of alarmist commentators infested with the virus of
‘‘speaking in esoteric riddles to in a forlorn attempt to make one look clever and disguise the fact one has nothing relevant to say’
You are on it, AFOTBS is in it, Web Hub Telescope is on it. Joshua was on it, but objected to being called an alarmist. I removed him from the alarmist list.
That was it. No more, No mountains, just a molehill.
If the virus makes you need to create some vast conspiracy worldview based on this simple transaction, knock yourself out.
Latimer,
You did a bit more than that, but paying due diligence to your bad faith is getting dull. You have no other evidence for my alarmism than the fact that my comments are not rooting for your team. You are using my name for your sloganeering and, pour ajouter l’insulte à l’insulte, in a shrieking tone that is way more alarming than mine.
My name is my honor. You are bugging me. You should stop.
This last week should make you feel why.
Latimer,
As I said:
As willard said:
I asked you for evidence for your claim. You have made it multiple times – sometimes in a nasty fashion. I have asked you, more than once, for evidence for your claim.
Please remember, the difference between a skeptic and a “skeptic” is that a “skeptic” makes claims for which he has no evidence.. Are you a “skeptic” or a skeptic, Latimer? You make the call.
Latimer Alder
“Wabbit-talk” is different from “people-talk”.
Max
Eli
Can we see your graph showing the correct data and same end points? Thank you
tonyb
Gee Eli,
Bush bashing. How unexpected.
Are GCMs deeply flawed? Well, you have at least 3 that produce a centennial oscillation in the Pacific and we don’t know if it is real or if model imperfections are creating it. What initializes it? What feedbacks perpetuate it? What causes the oscillation to reverse? What do all these factors do under external forcing? I’d say the models should be shelved until the scientists using them understand what they are doing.
HAL? What are you doing, HAL?
Steven,
The model approach is a totally mathematical concept.
You need no sun, no atmospheric pressure, no planetary tilting, nothing that actually constitutes temperatures or changes due to factors beyond current model input. The overall approach misses vastly many anomalies and “averages” an orb which is impossible to actual mathematics as every point is unique and at very different velocities, thicknesses of atmosphere and heat transfer mechanisms.
You can learn more by just trying to transfer the data that science currently generated to an actual globe and see their is a huge error going on.
Judith, I’m sorry about the photo. You’re a good sport about it. I think they sometimes use that one (it’s the second time I’ve seen it I believe) because it makes you look feisty Maybe if as someone suggested, you posted a more flattering one on your blog the papers might start using that instead.
I’m interested in the discussion of to what extent the models are flawed. .I don’t think you’d call them “a little bit flawed, ” would you? How flawed would the models have to be before you’d feel comfortable with the term “deeply.” It doesn’t seem as if they need merely a little tweak here, or a bit of an adjustment there. Otherwise they’d have done that already, no?
That photo is Joe Romm’s favorite, he uses it when he is trying to discredit me in some way.
Re the models. The issue is what you use them for, see my recent presentation Climate models: fit for what purpose?
http://curryja.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/rs-uncertainty-12.pdf
The issue is not so much the models themselves, but the design of the simulation and interpretation of the results, and the level of confidence to ascribe to them for a specific application.
http://i.ytimg.com/vi/zPyhT24m7ng/0.jpg
Joe’s probably jealous that you still have hair on your head. It’s glaringly obvious in the photo of him above. I hope the people facing the witness bench had sunglasses available. Or better yet welder’s googles. ;-)
> That photo is Joe Romm’s favorite, he uses it when he is trying to discredit me in some way.
As partial support for the concept of “social priming”, it seems to me that there is a statistically significant increase in the incidence of screeds by activists after being primed with this photo [1].
[1] http://climateaudit.org/2012/10/14/lewandowsky-and-hide-the-decline/
To be fair, the chimp photographs better than Prof. Lewandoski. But it isn’t relative, as one’s looks should have no bearing on one’s intellectual abilities.
That said, based on his last paper, Prof. Lewandoski has given us all reason to wonder whether the chimp could produce better work.
Gee timg56,
Lew bashing. Et cetera.
willard,
If you consider pointing out the obviously poor work of Prof Lewandoski’s latest paper as bashing, then I’m guilty. Personally, I would only consider it bashing if there was no substance to the point other than spite. I don’t know the man.
If I put out substandard work, I expect to be hammered and held account for it. Were Prof Lew a friend, I’d be telling him to stop digging the hole he’s created and own up to the poor quality of his paper. But then I am of the opinion that personal responsibility matters more than been seen as right or wrong on a subject.
judith
Cheer up. ANY photo of Joe Romm discredits him.
Max
PS Solution to the problem (at least for interviews). Provide your selection of your mugshot to the interviewer, and tell him you will only give the interview if he uses that picture. Basta!
+1. Exactly. The issue in not the models themselves. The models are always wrong, so the issue is those who either make excuses or cast blame for the models being wrong because they simply fail to understand either the limitations and valid usefulness of the models.
I think this particular quote is very interesting. ” Asked about a prediction that the Met Office made in 2009 – that three of the ensuing five years would set a new world temperature record – he made no comment. ”
I suspect the UK Met. Office would like to forget Smith el al, Science, August 2007. Between now and 2014, we are going to see all sorts of excuses as to why the predicitons made in this paper should be disregarded.
Jim,
How many changes are in your country by the “global warming” scare that pushed our politicians into policies that are generating a massive burden on everyones budgets for bad to terrible technology that have to be massively subsidized for many years?
Not quite as bad in Canada as in a few other countries but still I am paying for others stupidity to what they have been advised.
Pretty devastating Jim. At least they could have come up with some transparent b.s. The faithful will believe anything they say. Anything at all. “No comment” looks borderline pathetic.
“Asked about a prediction that the Met Office made in 2009 – that three of the ensuing five years would set a new world temperature record – he made no comment. ””
The met office claimed he never asked that.
lolwot
Sure, the Met Office made that claim
To paraphrase Mandy Rice-Davies:
“Well they would say that, wouldn’t they?”
Max
The Met Office has a webpage dedicated to Smith et al, and they have absolutely no reason at all to forget one of the first attempts at ‘the “said to be impossible” decadal forecasting.
It would seem that the Met Office are calling Rose a liar when they say:”he did not ask us to make a comment about them [the decadal climate predictions].”
My impression (and I think it’s a reasonably well-informed impression) is that the Met Office might say that the decadal predictions can only include forcings that are observable. As there appear to be changes in forcings that cannot currently be accurately observed, there will be potential errors in the forecasts. The other answer possibly is that HadCRUT3 did not pick up some of the warming that HadCRUT4 apparently has, which has led to the forecast looking worse than it really is.
But the Met Office have been tasked to write a report about the warming hiatus, so I guess you’ll get to hear more soon.
Well the Met office response seems to be a bit of a cherry pick itself, (1979) the start of a short term warming period.
A couple of years ago Phil Jones gave a BBC ineterview, about the lack of significan warming… which drew a lot of attention. (and it also showed historic rates of warming, similar to late 2oth century ( thus could it be natural?)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8511670.stm
in 2011 Phill Jones spoke to the BBC and said global warming now ‘significant’ as he had include now 2010 data (a warm year, as shown by ranking)).
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-13719510
Phil Jones:
“The trend over the period 1995-2009 was significant at the 90% level, but wasn’t significant at the standard 95% level that people use,” Professor Jones told BBC News.
“Basically what’s changed is one more year [of data]. That period 1995-2009 was just 15 years – and because of the uncertainty in estimating trends over short periods, an extra year has made that trend significant at the 95% level which is the traditional threshold that statisticians have used for many years.”
Since that BBC article, 2011 was cooler than 2010, and by your ranking graph, one of the cooler years of the 21st century. Thus should not Phil Jones be contactingthe BBC again with his data recalculated, to show ‘not significant’
one rule for climate scientists? (this does seem a silly game to play with stats)
Ideally the full temp dataset should be shown, (ie HAdcrut 4) but as both the Met Office, and Jones can choose starting points, they do not have much complaint when others do..
It is worth mentioning that the rate of per decade warming, stated here, is about currently HALF that required to hit 2C by 2050, and that perhaps Judith Curry has a piont about the models. Soon we wil find where 2012 sits in the ranking of warm years.
If Jones felt able to recaluclate with one additional year, why not 2011 (and then 2012) which I expect will merely confirm no significance, and that the ‘pause’ has extended
The Ranking Graph is here:
http://metofficenews.wordpress.com/2012/10/14/met-office-in-the-media-14-october-2012/#comment-264
The central issue is that skeptics are deliberately choosing start points that *barely* fail 95% significance. *barely* means the result is unstable. With the addition of more monthly data the significance can easily dance above and below the 95% mark several times.
With addition of more data the error bars on the trend shrink which is why scientists recommend using long periods to calculate trends and skeptics abhor the idea because it doesn’t give them the result they are after. So you might well find with the addition of 2011 and 2012 the warming since 1995 is still significant, despite both years being cooler than 2010.
“If Jones felt able to recaluclate with one additional year, why not 2011 (and then 2012)”
Because he was only exposing the fragility of the skeptic claim. He’s done it now, we all know (should) realize that cherrypicking a point that *barely* fails 95% significance is a fools game.
Also if he did keep announcing whenever it dropped below or rose above 95% significance he would be accused of changing his mind constantly by the know nothings who read the Daily Mail, etc. They don’t understand statistics. They think trends should be set in stone. If Jones keeps coming out saying “now warming since 1997 is significant…now it’s not…now it is” people will think he’s flip-flopping. I saw that exact response when he corrected the record about warming significance since 1995.
It’s better to just let the skeptics stew in their own ignorance than join in. If they want to imagine warming since 1995 being at 92% significance means global warming has stopped, they are beyond help.
I was brought up to believe in the Principal of Parsimony; never believe a complex explanation when there is a simple one available. Just about all the empirical data we have, strongly suggests that all the changes we have ever observed, have been caused by natural variations, and adding CO2 to the atmosphere has a negligible effect on anything. This latest data just adds to the list. The most likely driver of climate is, of course, changes in clouds. As Roy Spencer has estimated, a change of +/- 2% in cloud extent is all that is required to explain all the temperature varitions we have seen. And we cannot measure cloud extent to anything like this accuracy.
What the empirical data shows is that temperatures have been rising ever since the LIA. There is no sign that this trend has changed in any way. So, it seems safe to assume that the future will exhibit the same sort of trends as the past. Since we have had reasonable records, the trend has been around 0.06 C per decade. There have been periods when the trend has been considerably greater than this, and periods when it has been considerably less. Every time one trend persists for some years, then the other trend arrives, and the overall trend stays the same.
This is precisely what has happened recently. In the latter part of the 20th century, there was a trend of rise of global temperatures that was greater than the average of around 0.06 C. This was, wrongly, interpreted by the proponents of CAGW as a sign that CAGW was real. Now we are observing the trend to a rise of temperature that is considerably less than 0.06 C per decade. Situation normal. If the past is a guide to the future, this is exactly what we should expect.
The simple notion as to why sea ice in the Arctic and Antarctic are negaively correlated, put forward by Svensmark, is that more clouds cause the majority of the earth to cool; except in Antarcica, where the albedo of the ice is so high, that more clouds cause warming.
Changes in clouds are by far the simplest explanation of what is happening with global temperatures. This pause in temperature rise that we are now discussing, is merely a little more in formation that supports this hypothesis. Just look at
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/compress:12/plot/gistemp/compress:12/detrend:0.1/offset:-0.075/plot/hadcrut3vgl/scale:0.00001/detrend:-0.83/offset:-0.35/plot/hadcrut3vgl/scale:0.0001/detrend:-0.83/offset:-0.9/plot/hadcrut3vgl/scale:0.0001/detrend:-0.83/offset:-0.64/plot/hadcrut3vgl/scale:0.00001/offset:2/plot/hadcrut3vgl/scale:0.00001/offset:-2
Fairy tales are simple:
Gtimm’s Recovery from the LIA
What a load of total crap.
Why do you say so?
When did the LIA end? It’s an arbitrary guess. When did the conditions that caused the LIA end? I would say it was when CO2 ppm began recovering to ~280 ppm. The recovery began in the late 1700s and ended in the early 1800s. What would the natural events have looked like subsequent to that? Approximately like the dashed red line (a lake region in Scandinavia).
JCH, you write “When did the LIA end? ”
That is irrelevant to my argument. We do not have good data going back to the LIA. We only have good data since around 1850. My detailed discuassion only starts around 1850. So, please, let us discuss what has happened subsequent to around 1850.
Call it recovery from the interruption of the recovery from the little ice age, since you are so technical. 1816 and 1900 were little recovery interruptus moments.
JCH,
Thanks. It seems that the auditing sciences is having a turn of faith:
> The idea that present temperatures are “unprecedented during the past several centuries” was definitely not original to the Mann hockey stick, as this view dated back to at least Hubert Lamb and could be said to be a consensus view.
http://neverendingaudit.tumblr.com/post/33641595222
Seems that all these hurly burlies might not have been about “unprecedented”.
JCH you write “What a load of total crap..”
As I have observed many times, fair enough. I have never claimed that what I write is totally scientifically accurate. I have made mistakes in the past. I will make mistakes in the future. I hope to learn from my mistakes.
You say whay I write is “total crap:” Then what I would like to know is WHY is it total crap? You ought to have some science on which to base this statement. What is this science? Where I am wrong? And in some detail, please, if you are going to be credible.
Jim
Excellent summary!
Girma, Will you be able to update all your graphs and predictions based on the new HAD/CRU4 data? I know that it is a lot of work, and I cannot possibly do it, but it would be nice if it happened, as HAD/CRU3 is likely to be discontinued next year.
Jim
I will do that.
This stuff is best left to Bart R, but here’s my stab.
Jim
As requested, here is the climate pattern since 1850 according to HADCRUT4, GISTEMP and HADCRUT3.
http://bit.ly/V19Im8
Girma, Many thanks.
Jim
The GMST is approaching the central long-term trend line and within five to ten years it should move below it.
JIm
Here is an improved one that includes RSS MSU, and UAH NSSTC
http://bit.ly/S0otl3
Jim: In the latter part of the 20th century, there was a trend of rise of global temperatures that was greater than the average of around 0.06 C. This was, wrongly, interpreted by the proponents of CAGW as a sign that CAGW was real. Now we are observing the trend to a rise of temperature that is considerably less than 0.06 C per decade. Situation normal.
Jim, you are supported by the following paper:
Wu et al.
On the time-varying trend in global-mean surface temperature
…we showed that the rapidity of the warming in the late twentieth century was a result of concurrence of a secular warming trend and the warming phase of a multidecadal (~65-year period) oscillatory variation and we estimated the contribution of the former to be about 0.08 deg C per decade since ~1980.
http://bit.ly/PDBWyZ
IPCC’s 0.2 deg C per decade warming is a transient one and the true warming rate is only 0.08 deg C per decade, just slightly greater than the long-term trend. IPCC mistakenly assumed the warming trend from 1970 to 2000 to be a change in the trend from the long-term trend. That is wrong. The 1970-2000 warming is the warming phase of the multidecadal oscillation. When this oscillation moves to its cooling phase, there will be little warming or a slight cooling during the period from 2000 to 2030 like that happened after 1880 and after 1940.
.
Jim Cripwell
I agree that what you have written makes sense, even if JCH has had difficulty understanding (or explaining) it.
Max
Max, You and I agree that the proponents of CAGW refuse to discuss our science on Climate Etc. I am going to see if JCH can stay out of a discussion this time. He opened the door, and I hope to keep it open. If he doesn’t respond by tomorrow morning, I will start a new discussion, and see if I can, somehow, persuade him to join in, in a proper scientific way.
I may not be a proponent of CAGW, but being a “warmist” and a true skeptic in the broad sense I’ll gladly discuss any theories.
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HadCRUT1, HadCRUT2, HadCRUT3, HadCRUT4, HadCRUT5, … these climate modelers are just shameless. They can never escaped their GIGO land, pathetic. We, the pathetic tax payers pay the price and these shameless modelers get the grants and funds continuing their GIGO business.
Having momentarily been involved on professional public relations, I can only suggest having a friendly University Press Office photographer come around and take a series of head shots showing you smiling with intelligence in front of climate graphs or a whiteboard full of teaching notes. Have these put up on the University web site, especially in your faculty and personal page, with a ‘free use’ copyright notices.
The Press Office should/could use them next time it sends out a press release about your work, thus ensuring that they are in the newspapers photo archives.
Better picture. Short hair is more becoming IMO. I bet she could turn some heads with makeup and a slinky dress. :-)
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/langley/images/content/144757main_rn_curryflyer250.jpg
I could probably turn heads with a little makeup and a slinky dress. Though maybe not for the same reasons.
Ahem.
A relevant tweet:
@MichaelEMann UK Met Office debunks latest Judy Curry/David Rose #climatechange #disinformation tag team effort: http://t.co/zkYtwOLF
12:42 PM Oct 14th from web
That the 17-, 18-, 19-, … 30-year etc trends are up, does not alter the fact that the 16-trend is flat. Simple fact, not spin,
The real question is : how many years of non-increase is significant? 20? 30? …
> how many years of non-increase is significant?
10 more than however many there were at the time of asking.
Your assertion is wrong-on-the-facts Latimer Alder! :wink: :smile: :grin: :lol: :!:
Science and engineering (S&E) nowadays rests upon
threefour mutually-supporting pillars:• physical theory, and
• computational simulation, and
• experimental test, and
• observation of nature.
In practice, the S&E community arrives at consensus when all four pillars strongly support the same conclusion. In particular, the reality of AGW is strongly supported by all four pillars … hence the modern consensus that “AGW is real.
In contrast, AGW denialism rests upon *NO* rational pillars at all:
•
physical theoryis *DENIED*, and•
computational simulationis *DENIED*, and•
experimental testis *DENIED*, and•
observation of natureis *CHERRY-PICKED* to serve ideology.Whenever denialist cognition combines with short-sighted neoconservative market fundamentalism, the resulting toxic belief syndrome is called neodenialism.
Summary Neodenialist belief systems vehemently reject all four pillars of modern science. :shock: :roll: :shock:
Yah see Latimer Alder (and Bob Tisdale, Jim Cripwell, Dave Springer, Peter Lang, et al)? It’s not complicated! :wink: :smile: :grin: :lol: :!:
@AFOTBS
I tried to make some sense of what you are saying, but as usual it was really just like paint thown at a wall. Those who want to see something profound can probably do so.. but to the rest of us it’s just a confused mess.
But three things puzzle me:
1. What in general terms am I supposed to be ‘denying’? And what is your evidence that I am ‘denying’ it?
2. What specific ‘experimental tests’ am I supposed to be ‘denying’? And what is your evidence that I am ‘denying’ it?
3. What was the purpose of the link to an interview in an American magazine I have never heard of with somebody I have never heard of?
LOL … Latimer Alder, it is surprising that you are unaware that your opionions posted here on Climate Etc are uniformly consonant with the Lyndon LaRouche ideology! :wink: :smile: :grin: :lol: :!:
Better perhaps would have been a link to Chris Monckton’s interview with the LaRouchites … but that interview has been “disappeared”. :roll: :roll: :roll:
Fortunately, the Aussies have retained a PDF of Monckton’s nutty interview with the LaRouchites.
Summary To predict what Latimer Alder, Peter Lang, Anthony Watts, and Chris Monckton will post tomorrow about climate-change, study what Lyndon LaRouche is posting today! :wink: :smile: :grin: :lol: :!:
Neodenialist climate-change cognition is a fascinating topic, eh Latimer Alder? :wink: :smile: :grin: :lol: :!:
@AFOTBS
Who the f..k is Lyndon LaRouche?
@AFOTBS
You have failed to answer my first two questions.
Here’s a reminder
1. What in general terms am I supposed to be ‘denying’? And what is your evidence that I am ‘denying’ it?
2. What specific ‘experimental tests’ am I supposed to be ‘denying’? And what is your evidence that I am ‘denying’ it?
Look forward to your detailed and substantiated answers.
Fan,
You might notice that Soclates can’t even figure out that your quote of him might provide evidence for what he’s asking:
> Realists look at what real measurements tell us about actually happens in the world. This used to be called ‘the scientific method.
This editorial comment denies actual but yet unnamed scientists of using the scientific method.
This editorial comment deniers these handwaved scientists to use real measurements.
VeryTall might be happy to notice that this editorial comment presumes his favorite: Soclates’ empiricism.
Real data, real theories.
Real men.
Real men like Soclates can’t get no satisfaction:
http://neverendingaudit.tumblr.com/post/33362796798
@willard
More gibberish from you. The virus has got you bad.
Dear Soclates,
If you find one I’ve written that doesn’t make my point clearly and directly, please point it out and I’ll be happy to clarify for you and/or rewrite if needed.
@willard
You’re going to be in for a lot of rewriting, mon brave.
Let’s start with this one.
http://judithcurry.com/2012/10/13/week-in-review-101312/#comment-254752
Was there a point? If so what was it? Why did you not simply state it rather than set the readers off onto a chase round the blogosphere?
Please rewrite the post clearly and directly – as you have promised.
More later after supper.
@willard
This one could do with starting again I think
http://judithcurry.com/2012/10/08/whats-the-best-climate-question-to-debate/#comment-252407
Remember…clear and direct
Example
‘The cat sat on the mat’.
Simples!
LOL it’s simple Latimer Alder!
• Lyndon LaRouche is America’s version of Chris Monckton!
• Chris Monckton is Latimer Alder from a parallel universe!
:wink: :smile: :grin: :lol: :!:
Dear Soclates,
The point of the first comment you wish being explained is this: I was reporting that the Auditor believes that there is a consensus (!) since at least Lamb that we live in times we could qualify as “unprecedented”.
Don’t you find this flabbergasting, Soclates?
***
Was this point that tough to grasp, Andrew Adams?
***
The second comment’s quite obvious enough as it is. Perhaps we ought to ask Andrew Adams or Joshua what they take from it. In any case, for the sake of reciprocity, I’ll wait till you answer my question I asked you twice:
Do you think that H2O is by itself wet?
Besides, I’ve already underlined two sentences from you on this very thread that were neither clear, nor direct.
fan.
“1. What in general terms am I supposed to be ‘denying’? And what is your evidence that I am ‘denying’ it?”
I am sorry, insistence I do not see where you have answered these questions in a direct straightforward way.
For your benefit I will supply my criteria for direct and straightforward.
A) A list of what he is denying would be direct and straightforward.
B) pointing to what others say is neither direct nor straight forward by this definition.
Second. he asked for evidence that he is denying it. I take the charitable assumption that he means what he says and he is looking for evidence.
In this regard I would count quotes by him as evidence.
You are free to argue with this account of what it means to be direct and straightforward and divert the dialogue.
Huh Fan?
I read the interview. What in gods name are you talking about?
Wait Here are some things that clarify Monkton’s position.
http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA282890
topic WLA 93
LOL … the above link points to a video that really clarifies “Monckton’s position”, not only with regard Monckton’s denialist views regarding climate change, but also Monckton’s startling claims to cure disease! :wink: :smile: :grin: :lol: :!:
Steven Mosher
You’re denying that you’re denying.
Or, at least, you’re denying that fan is correct in saying that you’re denying.
And I agree with you.
But I’m not denying that I said I thought you were denying that fan is correct in saying that you’re denying.
[Where are the smileys?]
Max
Mosher,
It did not take me long to conclude that discourse with fan is a waste of time. He never directly answers questions, he offers opinions on topics he clearly is not knowledgeable about, he almost always posts links that appear to have little to do with either the topic of discussion or even the point he is trying to make (which leads me to believe he isn’t trying to make one, just trying to exhibit how clever he is to the rest of us less enlightened types) and uses emoticons at a rate which gives one reason to believe he gets a royalty or possess the mindset of a 14 year old girl in the body of a middle aged man.
I can respect someone like lolwot, because he at least is serious. fan does little for us to conclude he is serious in the least. I have no respect for the crap he usually posts.
The graph of the last 15 years (180 months) exactly.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/last:180/plot/hadcrut4gl/last:180/trend/plot/hadcrut4gl/last:180/trend/detrend:0.048
This is using the correct database (HadCrut4gl) and exactly 15 years as the article describes.
The trend is a positive 0.032C/decade. What qualifies as a “significant” trend is a matter of opinion I guess but 0.3C/century probably doesn’t make the cut for “significant” in very many opinions.
The headline says 16 years
As the article states Phil Jones in 2009 said ‘Bottom line: the “no upward trend” has to continue for a total of 15 years before we get worried.’
So I graphed exactly the last 15 years. Don’t shoot the messenger.
Now I’d like to know what I’m supposed to be worried about. I should think no global warming for 15 years should be something to be happy about. That Phil would worry about global warming stopping speaks volumes about his real concern i.e. he doesn’t give a flying f*ck about the globe actually warming he only cares about the fear it can drum up to push the green agenda forward.
Don’t be a schmuck. Wake the f*ck up.
Physical theory is “denied” because it’s not been borne by the real world, Joy. You act as if this theory were somehow written on stone tablets and then delivered down from the mountain top.
Computational simulation, Fan…’simulation’ a foxy word, means ‘feign, ‘pretend to be’, ‘act like.’
Climate models used by the IPCC aren’t able ter simulate the coupled ocean /atmosphere processes involved in El Nino and La Nina events. Bob Tisdale points out that the models ‘cannot match the sea surface records that show how often and how strongly ENSO events have
occurred since 1900.’ *
*Bob Tisdale Who Turned On the Heat.’
You should read his book, fan.
What I find most amazing about climatologists, and even more so about climate bloggers is how certain they are about everything. Yet, there are so many polarized conclusions at the far ends of the spectrum that one must wonder how they can all think they have the answer. There is a tremendous amount of ego expressed in this blog. Too many assertions. Quite a lot of put-downs. Why be nasty? And woe to anyone who admits he or she doesn’t understand. It seems to me that a little humility in this field would go a long way. A lot of humility would be even better. I have been studying climate change intensely for the past eight years, reading many hundreds of published papers and correlating and coordinating information, and I have reached the conclusion that in regard to the basics, we still don’t know what is going on. There are too many contradictory factors. Our attitude ought to be: “let’s study this thing together and try to understand it a little better” rather than two sentences that claim “I know it all and you’re a dope”.
As to the picture, it was awful. Judith should post a better one. I agree with the guy who said: “I bet she could turn some heads with makeup and a slinky dress.”
Donald, I once posted as “A fan of *MORE* civilised discourse,” didn’t have much effect. I’m also a fan of humility – hey, no one is more humble than me!
And I’m a fan of not commenting on personal appearance, good, bad or indifferent.
Nature’s beauty is universal:
________________________
http://i46.tinypic.com/303ipeo.png
+
http://i49.tinypic.com/wwdwy8.png
=
http://i48.tinypic.com/2v14sc5.gif
(slow animation of preceding pair)
“Where it’s all a blur,
you are the hard line.
In the disorder,
you are the peace sign.” — Lights “Peace Sign”
A group of alarmists and skeptics are sitting round a table arguing in 1998. In front of them is the surface temperature data since 1980. The temperature trend from 1980 to September 1997 is 0.012C/year, 0.21C warming in total. The alarmists predict this warming will continue over the next 15 years (to August 2012). The skeptics disagree and say the warming will stop after 1997.
The Alarmist Prediction: 0.44C warming from 1980-2012
The alarmists expect the warming to continue over the next 15 years, so they predict a continuation of the 1980-1997 trend, which will result in a total warming of 0.44C from 1980-2012.
The Skeptic Prediction: 0.21C warming from 1980-2012
The skeptics think the warming will stop after 1997 so think the total warming from 1980-2012 will be the same as it already is from 1980-1997. So they expect 0.21C warming from 1980-2012.
2012: The results are in
0.52C warming from 1980-2012.
Who was more correct, the alarmists who predicted only 0.44C warming, or the skeptics who predicted just 0.21C? How can people seriously consider the idea from the Daily Mail that warming has stopped since 1997?
lolwot | October 15, 2012 at 9:36 am | Reply
“The skeptics disagree and say the warming will stop after 1997.”
Linky?
I ask for a link because those skeptics were very near correct as shown by the corrected graph (you failed to break out the after-1997 trend) and I want to know who they are. They would be the GO TO guys about what’s going to happen next. Never argue with success. ;-)
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1980/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1980/to:1997.7/trend/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1980/to:1997.7/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1997.7/trend/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1997.7/trend/detrend:0.048/plot/none
your graph is wrong. Your lines don’t extrapolate the 1980-1997 warming.
Here I’ve done it for you
The warming well matches a continuation of the 1980-1997 warming.
And here is the skeptic* prediction
Which one fits the data best? A continuation of the 1980-1997 warming, or an end to warming in 1997?
*hypothetical skeptics. In reality climate skeptics were busy denying the 1980-1997 warming in 1998. It wasn’t until years later they were forced to accept the world had warmed.
No no. My graph matched the ostensible claim (still waiting for you to tell me which skeptic(s) made the claim) that warming would stop in 1997. If we pretend that the world didn’t exist prior to 1997 and graph what global temperature did just since that time then these skeptics were pretty much spot on. Maybe you just misunderstand the claim, God knows you misunderstand just about everything else…
“(still waiting for you to tell me which skeptic(s) made the claim”
are you kidding? The daily mail article which is the subject of this very thread makes the claim. Also every time a skeptic claims there’s been now warming since 1997 they make the claim.
It’s simple: if there’s been no warming since 1997 then all the warming since 1980 should have happened from 1980-1997. But it didn’t. In fact most of the 1980-present warming happened since 1997.
so that is half the rate of per decade warming required to hit 2C by 2050..
2C by 2050 is above the upper end of IPCC projections….
“0.52C warming from 1980-2012.”
1.56 C per century
– lower than Hansen Scenario C
– lower than the IPCC4 best estimate for the ‘Low Scenario’
Chalk one up for the luke warmers.
actually it’s slightly higher than scenario C. Implies a lukewarming (?!) climate sensitivity of about 3C per doubling of CO2..
Since 1979, less than Scenario C, and declining.
Yes, luke warming. RSS is at 1.3 C per century.
The lowest limit of ‘possible’ IPCC trends is 1.1 C per century.
There is warming, just not a lot.
Now we’re going to disguise our cherry picking as hypotheticals?
It seems the climate cognoscenti are no better at logic than they are at statistics.
Besides, I thought the party line was that CAGWers don’t make predictions?
lolwot, you keep using words like “catastrophe” and “prediction,” and they’re going to come and take your decoder ring away.
“The data confirms the existence of a ‘pause’ in the warming.”
Statistically speaking, such a claim should only be made if there were sufficient evidence to reject the null hypothesis of warming having continued at the previous rate. In statistics the null hypothesis is that which you want to disprove, so if you want to show there has been a pause, you need to show that it is sufficiently unlikely that the observations could arise as being the result of random variation superimposed on a continuing warming trend. This concept of assuming that you are wrong (i.e. being required to show that the alternative explanation is implausible) is an important safety valve to stop scientists making claims that are not supported by the evidence.
I have yet to see a climate skeptic demonstrate statistical significance for this assertion. I would be very grateful if Prof. Curry could provide one.
Why? When a statistically significant trend is proven is typical at the change point into a different trend. Kinda like closing the barn after you lost the live stock.
The greatest system inertia is the most likely predictor of future trends which is really the name of the game.
http://redneckphysics.blogspot.com/2012/10/how-would-you-predict-future.html
Now that inertial Judas goat has proven past predictive ability that would indicate it could also have future predictive ability with in reason. The trend of the predictor in this case is ~33 years and its fluctuation, annual and inter-annual, is small in comparison to the other data of similar length.
why? becuase when a scientist says that the data confirms something, then that ought to mean that the evidence for that assertion is strong enough that it should at least pass an appropriate test for statistical significance. If not, it is opinion, rather than science, and should be presented as such.
Then you obviously miss the point. Statistical significance is often a forensic statistic, “the trend died, Jim”. So determining a trend of 0 +/- 0.2 in noise of +/- 1.0 can only be done after the fact. That cuts both ways as Judith noted.
No, if you make a cliam, the onus is on you to establish statistical significance. Science has been that way for a long time, and experience has shown it to be an effective way of doing things.
dr b
We know that there has been a pause in warming, because the thermometers have stopped going up. Boring, I know. Quite possibly because natural variations have swamped the CO2 effect of the IPCC gospel, hard to tell in time slices if less that 30 years. But then no claims have been made to the contrary about that, so don’t quite see your concern.
If I roll a die six times and roll 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, does that mean my die has mysteriously gone from being biased high to biased low, or is it just a statistical fluke? Probably the latter. The point of statistical significance tests is to help guard against mistaking a statistical fluke for a meaningful event. In the case of temperatures, temperatures can stop going up without that meaning that warming has stopped, simply because the thermometers only measure the temperature of the surface and not e.g. deep ocean temperatures. Much of the variability in temperatures is due to things like ENSO which redistribute heat between the atmosphere and oceans. This means if you cherry pick a start date which commences at a very strong El-Nino, it isn’t difficult to engineer an apparemnt pause. You would be fooling yourself if you thought it meant anything though.
Kinda like picking a period of say 1950 to 2005 out of a 150 year record which likely 25% of is unreliable and proclaiming that 0.8 is a statistically significant trend after smoothing the data to remove most of the signal?
Sorry capt, but if the evidence for a claim doesn’t pass the significance test, you shouldn’t make it. End of story. If it does pass, that doesn’t mean that it is necessarily true, just that there is reasonable support from the data to justify making the claim, and you can argue what it means.
The bottom line is that if Prof. Curry wants to assert that there has been a pause, the onus is on her to demonstrate that the claim at least passes the sanity check of a statistical significance test.
“Sorry capt, but if the evidence for a claim doesn’t pass the significance test, you shouldn’t make it. End of story.” Agreed :)
Kinda like climate models, huh?
sorry life is to short. The observations are consistent with the models,
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2012/02/2011-updates-to-model-data-comparisons/
When this is no longer the case let me know. There is one area where the models are definitely falsified by the observations though, which is that Arctic sea ice is dissapearing *faster* than the models can explain. Ironic really.
OK, so a 16-year hiatus in warming is consistent with the models.
Is there a limit to this period though – and if so what is it ? – or is there no period of divergence at all that can falsify them?
Erica, yes, the models are *currently* consistent with the data, but if the “pause” continues, eventually the models will fail the test of consistency. IIRC this problem was addressed by a paper by Santer, which said that *at least* 17 years of data would be required in order to expect the models to fail the test if they were wrong. However, that assumes that the start date is randomly chosen (rather than cherry picked in hindsight). Sorry to have the caveats, but that is due to the way frequentist statistics works.
The best test is to see if the observations lie outside the 95% spread of the model runs. If they are inside, the model and obs are consistent, if outside they are not. You can judge from the figure in the realclimate article what sort of observations you would need for that to happen, and it isn’t that long.
I should however point out that the observations were closer to the upper error bar of the models in 1998, but would skeptics be happy to use that as evidence (at the time) that the models were too conservative? I suspect not, in which case it is somewhat hypocritical to make quite so much fuss about the current ‘pause’.
The bottom line is that you only make a claim when the evidence on which you base the claim passes a test of statistical signficance, where the null hypothesis is the thing you want to disprove. This is scientific practice 101 and the climate debate would be more productive if it were followed more rigorously.
Okay,
http://rankexploits.com/musings/2012/arima11-test-reject-ar4-multi-model-mean-since-1980-1995-200120012003/
It appears the fatal flaw is inability to anticipate natural variability.
http://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/bibliography/related_files/jrt9502.pdf Seems the redhaired stepchild of climate science, the ACC, shouldn’t be neglected. An ~150 year diffusion rate might cause a little internal oscillation in a climate system.
considering that, http://redneckphysics.blogspot.com/2012/10/how-would-you-predict-future.html
The confidence of the model mean is not the same thing as the spread of the model runs, which is the correct test for consistency of the models.
However this is just a rhetorical exercise on your part to evade the key point which is that the evidence for Prof. Curry’s assertion doesn’t pass the test for statistical significance.
I believe you are now splitting hairs.
“The flawed assumption behind the orthodoxy was that natural variability is merely ‘noise’ superimposed on the long term trend. The natural variability has been shown over the past two decades to have a magnitude that dominates the greenhouse warming signal. It is becoming increasingly apparent that our attribution of warming since 1980 and future projections of climate change needs to consider natural internal variability as a factor of fundamental importance. ”
The 44-64S trend is primarily natural variability and has a statistically significant impact on climate. With now known long term variability, the cherry pick of 1950 to present is about the same as the cherry pick of the article, poor science.
Again you are trying to evade the point that Prof Curry has made a claim for which the evidence is not statistically significant. It is a pity that so many discussions about climate are spoiled by such rhetorcial devices. Sorry, as I said life is too short to indulge such behaviour.
No, I am agreeing with Dr. Curry that natural variability is statistically significant. You seem to think it is a “Claim” when it appears to be a reality.
Then you probably think that Trenberth screwing the Energy budget by 20 Wm-2 was not statistically significant because it doesn’t impact your flawed logic or that Trenberth’s estimate of 0.9Wm-2 imbalance with +/- 0.18 magrin of error was a valid statistic.
It is hard to see the obvious when your mind is cluttered with invalid confidence intervals.
Dr BHD, I don’t mind using such an ensembly as long as you realize that it indicates that I can use about 0.3C/century estimate for the dates shown. This does not change any of the underlying math, nor probabilities, but does indicate why persons noticing this would wonder why use all the runs of the models that were kept and made it versus what the IPCC wrote up and how they wrote it up.
OK, so a 16-year hiatus in warming is consistent with the models.
Erica, yes, the models are *currently* consistent with the data,
That is total BS
technical comments
Hadcrut4, methodologically speaking, is the worst method of the lot
so i would not take its results seriously unless I compared them with more standard methods ( ie kriging )
Steven,
Several things surprised me a little with the BEST application of kriging. And now you’ve mentioned the topic again. So this is a good time to throw out a couple of comments/questions.
Certainly one of the notable pluses of kriging is that it provides local estimates of spatial error. Yet a different approach was taken. Not calculating error maps when kriging in these circumstances–global and spatial temperature estimation–seems strange; though optional it seems a natural for this problem. Is there a technical story behind this or perhaps a simple matter of priorities given the magnitude of the overall BEST implementation task? Perhaps a practical decision to go with the isotropic correlation was the basis for not undertaking error maps which might be sensitive to anisotropy? Curious about thinking involved.
Were clustering effects looked at to any extent? While kriging itself does in part handle clustering, e.g., see Mo and Ed, variograms (or correlation functions) may be very sensitive to clustering in the data. And the variogram/correlation function is used in the kriging portion. Again, just curious.
Anisotropy in the correlation function (correlogram?) was not incorporated in the calculations in the current calculations, although that prospect was not ruled out for future calculations. Has the view of incorporating anisotropy evolved any in recent time?
The mathematical supplement is still very much an overview document. Will there eventually be more detailed documentation on the implementation as a part of the record? verification and validation package?
A cursory examination (less than a couple of hours) of the US info in site_detail.txt revealed a small number of low-hanging fruit ‘errors’ in the file suggesting little actual QA of the data has taken placed. The problem with the errors [appearing to be things like run-of-the-mill original in source, data entry, cut and paste, etc.] is not that a single digit anywhere in your calculations will change, but that the data appear to have been accepted and processed with little review–an all too common fact of life. Looking down the road, I suspect you folks need to address QA formally at some point–the level to be determined by the degree of acceptance you hope to achieve.
I have to add that after the cursory examination of a small portion of the data, reflecting how to process that much data, thinking of things like variography anisotropy, and kriging in on the surface of the globe,etc., … and using interpreted code? … well you folks are gluttons for punishment. It was a lot to take on.
“Some [‘deeply flawed’] climate scientists, such as Professor [‘deeply flawed’] Phil Jones, director of the [‘deeply flawed’] Climatic Research Unit at the [‘deeply flawed’] University of East Anglia, last week dismissed the significance of the plateau, saying that 15 or 16 years is too short a period from which to draw [‘deeply flawed’] conclusions.”
I must add my voice to the chorus of ‘skeptics’ with regards to the picture.
Say whatever you will about the planetary climate, Dr Curry – That picture is AWFUL.
And I am so sorry to learn that,
“That photo is Joe Romm’s favorite, he uses it when he is trying to discredit me in some way.”
On the other hand,
“I bet she could turn some heads with makeup and a slinky dress.”
certainly bring the focus back onto your scientific credentials.
Everyone should know by now – If you really want to focus on the integrity of science, you need to do up a tee-shirt.
Beer optional.
oh look it’s the planet wrecking crew
Looks like doggy somehow lost the W in Norwegian. Maybe he ate it.
Or maybe that was the R he ate? ;-)
David
Naw. It’s cause he lives in the land of No-way.
Max
Good one!
In 1929 another bunch of folks (also based in Atlanta, Judith) came up with
“THE PAUSE THAT REFRESHES”
to market their Coca-cola product.
Is this current “pause” in global warming
“THE PAUSE THAT REFOCUSES”?
Max
good one :)
That was back when they made coca-cola with actual coca extract and rum was illegal. Go figure.
Manaker,
you must be referring to the folks who are going to save the polar bears.
Of course they do have a financial stake in polar bears surviving. Those guys are featured in some of the best liked commercials Coca-Cola has put out.
I regret not buying the gel.
=========
Knowing as much as we do about the UHI effect, GCMs are Climatology’s version of Hubble’s bad mirror. Because of the entrenched failure of vested interests in politico-academia to admit that the data is corrupted, admit the plateau and admit to the historical record of climate change over the last 10,000 years shows that Climatogy is to science as Scientology is to religion.
Marvelous metaphor. Have we the space ship to reach the stricken experiment? Cap’n Stormfield’s for hire, I hear, and what a guide!
===========
Thanks but I do fear we’ve got pilots like Cap’n Charlie Allnutat the wheel awho already know the truth and don’t give two schitts an a VP that Clint Eastwood likens to “a smile with a body behind it.”
GCMs that former VP Al Gore plays with and contort into gross postures like plastic dolls have been fabricated by government-funded scientists to justify fears of runaway global warming and disastrous climate change.
The concept of an average global temperature is itself not any different than the built-in fundamental flaws of the Hubble Space Telescope’s bad mirror.
The ‘pause’ plainly says climate models are presently inadequate on decade plus time scales.
But additional analysis is needed to say (1) why, (2) what difference does it make to equilibrium climate sensitivity, and (3) what difference does that difference make to policy? Dr. Curry is raising such questions on this site. It would be more useful to think about them and attempt to address them factually than to attack one another personally over minutia.
My own answers are: (1) (a)natural variability is underappreciated, certainly ocean oscillations over the past half century, plus solar variability before then, (b) GCM positive humidity feedback is overstated because UTrH is declining rather than constant and UTsH is overestimated by 6-10%, both perhaps because precipitation, especially intense tropical precipitation, is understated; (2) ECS is more likely 1.9 (range 1.5-2.1) than 3, so future AGW is overstated significantly [four different approaches to showing that]; (3) since CO2 comes from fossil fuels, looking at fuel availability and possible needs for future fuel conservation to support GDP and population gives other motives (and other solutions) than AGW for advisable directional economic and societal policy. That is why Dr. Curry invited Dr. Rutledge from CalTech to give a talk at GT.
CO2 is a green house gas. Tyndall showed that in 1859. The questions are not whether it can cause warming, but rather how much and so what. Those questions can be tackled using critical thinking and a little bit of effort to educate oneself about simple basic facts.
“CO2 is a green house gas. Tyndall showed that in 1859. The questions are not whether it can cause warming, but rather how much and so what. Those questions can be tackled using critical thinking and a little bit of effort to educate oneself about simple basic facts.”
I wonder how long it will take to let go of this one. At least, some warmists are realizing that CO2 is not the knob and can be easily overwhelmed. Next step: to question whether CO2 can cause warming. Then, science can move on.
The greater question appears to be if natural cooling mechanisms like what froze Europe and North America a few hundred years ago is waiting in the wings to freeze our dumb asses again and whether our CO2 emissions can make it potentially less catastrophic if and when it happens again. And it happened last when the sun was very very quiet. Quiet just like the sun has become in the past decade. Scary quiet. Like the eye of storm. An ice storm that is for the northern hemisphere. Watch the beloved-by-the-warmists precautionary principle fly out the window when it’s ice knocking at the climatology door.
It is correct that the “pause” is evidence that the models are not suited for making projections over a decade or more.
It is also clear that this raises serious questions about uncertainties regarding attribution, which should be answered before any further model-based projections are published by IPCC
But, away from the science itself:
I hear a sound…
Is it the sound of “tables being turned”?
Or is it the sound of “goalposts being moved?”
Max
Reblogged this on evilincandescentbulb and commented:
Knowing as much as we now do about the corruption resulting from UHI effects, General Circulation Models fabricated by government-funded scientists to justify fears of runaway global warming and disastrous climate change are Climatology’s version of the built-in fundamental flaws of the Hubble Space Telescope’s bad mirror.
Pic be damned! JC’s been hanging on to the idea of science being what science should be for something like 10 years during a time when her field was substituting consensus for observation and doctrine for science. Given this article and the growing crescendo of “The emperor is NAKED” it may be approaching time for a bottle of decent Scotch.
There’s another historical signal that’s been missed in this debate. It’s the sin wave of people championing a “belief” in the absence or even contradiction of observational support. The curve of the idea rises steadily until the weight of it’s inherent fallacy begins to overtake it’s enthusiastic inertia. It subsequently falls and falls hard taking people and reputations with it.
It is very rare that an entire iteration of this curve would exist in a lifetime. It’s a wonderful thing to see.
I agree with this. I’ve been saying for a long time that CAGW will keep the social scientists (most of whom have drunk the kool-aid themselves) busy for years. In my view, CAGW will be to future generations as the Salem witch trials are to ours. Our grandchildren will be shaking their heads in disbelief.
”
Our grandchildren will be shaking their heads in disbelief.
”
Yes – but not for the reasons you think.
”
In my view, CAGW will be to future generations as the Salem witch trials are to ours.
”
Funny you should say that. Have you ‘skeptics’ finished burning Phil Jones at the stake yet? How goes the Michael Mann torturing? Did he confess?
Hey crusher crew!
Show a little responsibility as pet owners, will yah? I mean, like, what are you thinking when you “unleash” your “Hiveprick the Nerdvegan” flea-bag to run loose in this blogospheric neighborhood making “messes” on whatever front-lawns his mutt-butt happens to wander?
Probably you “crusher crew” wankers think ol’ “Hiveprick” is a problem for us “little guys”. You know, like how you big, important, scare-mongering, hive-bozo smarty-pants are just way too busy trying to resuscitate your brain-dead, flat-lined CAGW scam to bother yourselves with a mere peasant expectation that you keep your mangy beast on a leash and pick-up all his “crapola”, yourselves, with your own pooper-scooper.
Typical greenshirt sense of self-importance, entitlement, and privileged exemption from the rules everyone else is expected to follow.
And, oh by the way, why don’t you eco-flakes just let your little CAGW con die a dignified death, for Pete’s sake? I mean, like, if nothing else, the clownish extremities of your last-stand defense of your CAGW hustle only sensitizes us helots to your “guerilla war” duplicities and makes your next big rip-off that much harder to pull-off.
Regardless, pick up “Hiveprick’s” doo-doo yourself. O. K.?
Mike for the win!
Damn. I can’t believe someone beat me to the pooper scooper joke genre…
mike,
better to ignore the guy than resort to uncivil name calling. That’s one of WEB’s tactics.
I agree, jbmckim, “Pic be damned ! JC’s been hanging on to the idea of science being what science should be for something like 10 years during a time when her field was substituting consensus for observation and doctrine for science.”
Her contributions to climatology are like Mozart’s to music !
Talents bestowed by a divine Force to battle the Ego
See: http://omanuel.wordpress.com/about/#comment-1292
And: http://omanuel.wordpress.com/about/#comment-1369
jbmckim:
”
It’s a wonderful thing to see.
”
That’s for sure!
I look forward to the day when important scientists from all over the internet run blogs just like Dr Curry’s.
Think of it:
We can call the results of all research that produces anything of significance “consensus”, and the convergence of expert opinion on any topic “doctrine”.
There will be naked emperors EVERYWHERE you look!
BTW – There is never a bad time for bottle of decent scotch…
I have this theory about evaluating people based on whether or not you would have a drink with the person and not whether or not you agree with their opinions.
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The scientific community would come down on me in no uncertain terms if I said the world had cooled from 1998. OK it has but it is only 7 years of data and it isn’t statistically significant.
http://bit.ly/XdYbgB
Now it is double of the 7 years with little warming. Is 14 years still not significant?
if the sulfate hypothesis is right, then your prediction of warming might end up being wrong. I think we have been too readily explaining the slow changes over past decade as a result of variability–that explanation is wearing thin. I would just suggest, as a backup to your prediction, that you also do some checking on the sulfate issue, just so you might have a quantified explanation in case the prediction is wrong.
Otherwise, the Skeptics will be all over us–the world is really cooling, the models are no good, etc. And all this just as the US is about ready to get serious on the issue. We all, and you all in particular, need to be prepared.
http://bit.ly/V25i8S
I read the article and then went to review the data (http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcrut4/data/current/download.html) to try to understand some of the discussion. The article’s title seems to indicate that there was a report that was “quietly released” and maybe I missed it but I just see the data. The discussions about the data don’t seem to contradict the major conclusions of the IPCC or the other studies done by MET (that supports IPCC findings). The article generally wasn’t useful.
Climate change is such a complex and interesting topic the pure science is mind numbing and once you add the political, social and economic aspect of it, it becomes hard to reach conclusions that can be translated into action for the benefit of humanity.
So basically what I gather from this blog is that the time frame indicated by the article is not enough to make the statement “global warming stopped 16 years ago”.
The New Millennium “Pause” (i.e slight cooling)
Out of five global temperature records, three show global cooling since the start of the new millennium (January 1, 2001)
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:2001/trend/plot/gistemp/from:2001/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:2001/trend/plot/rss/from:2001/trend/plot/uah/from:2001/trend
-0.03C/decade (HadCRUT4)
-0.07C/decade (HadCRUT3)
-0.05C/decade (RSS)
One shows no change:
0.00/decade (GISS)
And one shows a warming trend:
+0.06C/decade (UAH)
If we simply take the average, this was cooling of -0.018C/decade.
We saw CO2 concentration at Mauna Loa go up from 370 to 392 ppmv, which should have caused temperature to rise from the GH effect by +0.27C over the period (using the mean value of IPCC 2xCO2 CS = 3.2C and the logarithmic function.
This equals an expected theoretical warming rate of around +0.2C/decade (as IPCC also projected in AR4).
What happened?
Max
Climate change happened, the real climate change, not the Orwellian one.
Max:
It’s even worse than you think:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/from:2010/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:2010/trend/plot/rss/from:2010/trend/plot/uah/from:2010/trend
What happened?
Yes, that’s where we’re heading.
When temperature goes up, people say it is worse.
When temperature goes down, people say it is worse.
Dr. Phil Jones thinks it is a disaster that we don’t have a disaster.
I guess he sees that without a disaster, the money will diminish.
Yes, Trenberth is already complaining that climategate caused a loss of funding.
Ol’ “Hiveprick” is
My elk-hound name
And carbon-cons
My flea-bag game
And little me
Is mascot to
The geeks assigned
The “crusher crew”
A one-trick schtick
Earns me my chow
That’s on command
Go all bow-wow
But mine is not
Your normal bark
But rather more
A brain-dead snark:
A carbon tax
Or you’ll all die!
Fork over now
Or your kids fry!
And then I’ll throw
Into the mix–
The whiteboys got
Us in this fix!
And if the rubes
Suspicions nurse,
I’ll goose ’em with–
It’s gotten worse!
Of course, I know
It’s all flim-flam
But hey! My chow
Rides on this scam
Poor ol’ Nor Dog
The dog what had four eyes.
Two eyes before
Two eyes look aft.
One day two rabbits
Jumped and laughed,
One in front,
One abaft.
Poor ol’ pooch,
Tore after each.
==============
ok,
this is pretty funny.
Mike’s is funny, mine’s just sad.
============
It was mike’s ditty I was referring to.
I’m guessing the sadness of yours has something to do with the subject matter.
Personally, I like dogs. Even though they sometimes crap on the carpet and chew up stuff.
Hound dog
If’n Ah wuz U, away up yonder in No-way, Ah’d be skeered lookin’ at them g’raffs too.
Max
Now that is just silly!
0.02C cooling from 2001 to 2012 is tiny.
Considering the start of the period was elevated by a run of El Ninos and the end was suppressed by a run of La Ninas, that alone can explain it. Yet remember the period started with a solar maximum (~2003) and ended with long and deep solar minimum. In short we should have had more cooling from 2001-2012 than observed.
Here are two possibilities, neither comforting to the staunch climate skeptic:
a) The spotless deep and long solar minimum has had zero cooling effect.
b) The spotless deep and long solar minimum has a strong cooling effect but the 24ppm CO2 rise over the period was strong enough to counter the potency of the solar minimum cooling.
Patience lolwot. You will see the cooling after ~2015.
what is that prediction based on?
Solar cycle frequency.
11 years? Why didn’t the recent solar minimum cause any cooling?
It did. Wait and see what happens after the solar cycle 24 plateau.
global cooling due to the shrinking sun
Simples, really, lolwot. TSI varies only 0.5%, so your(our) recent solar minimum had minor, probably indistinguishable, effect. The real solar cause of major climate effect is…..well, come back after the pause that refreshes our sponsors, this story is breaking, but someone’s got to pay the bills.
================
“0.02C cooling from 2001 to 2012 is tiny.”
Does anyone seriously believe we can determine global average temperature to within hundreths of a degree at any given time, let alone a trend with such precision over mutliple years?
Anyone?
I mean, I understand that the temperature series are the frame of reference for the debate. And I can understand why CAGW advocates would accept such statistics as meaningful without discussion.
But skeptics too? et tu manacker? (And not just manacker, every other skeptic arguing about these numbers.)
It is one thing to accept such numbers for the sake of argument, but I don’t see any qualifiers suggesting skepticism of the GAT figures themselves. Arguments about UHI, TOB, proximity to bodies of water, etc. all raise good questions about the accuracy of the published trends. But they take for granted, or at least do not dispute, the precision.
Who here (among the skeptics) really thinks that we can determine the global average temperature (all levels of atmosphere, sea, and land combined) with anything remotely approaching such precision – today? How about 50, 100, or 1,000 years ago? And if you can’t, how the hell do you plot a graph showing a “pause,” let alone a trend showing a “drop” of tenths of degrees, over any period of time?
A pause? Cooling since 1998? Color me skeptical that we know either way.
A vicious scrum has been holding temperature and discussion at midfield for most of this period.
=============
lolwot
Logically, there is a third possibility for the observed small cooling, when the climate models all projected strong warming, which you omitted:
c)The GHG effect has been grossly overestimated by climate models
N’est-ce pas? No es verdad?
Max
“The Daily Mail has actually altered the temperature values for September 1997 and August 2012 to fit their story. They are both depicted and drawn as being exactly 0.5C.”
That is incorrect. The data on the graph starts in 10/1997 (0.553 C). The axes labels are incorrect, giving the impression that the data starts in 1/1997.
But if you produce a graph of the data in excel and overlay it on the graph on the Daily Mail website the two overlap well.
I would speculate that they made the graph originally starting in 1/97 and then cherry picked the start month, but forgot to fix the axis.
0.553C is the second data point on the graph. The first is exactly on 0.5C, but HadCRUT 9/1997 was 0.475C not 0.5C
You can’t get from 0.475 to 0.553 without passing through 0.500. It’s “just” cherry picking.
0.553C is the second data point on the graph. 0.5C is the first. There is no 0.475C plotted.
Take a piece of graph paper. Make a dot at .475. Make a dot at .553. Draw a line between them.
Now take a straightedge and a razor and cut the paper from top to bottom, where the line crosses .50. Label the horizontal axis at the left edge of the paper as 9AM, October 20, 1997.
It’s just a visual aid.
Dr Curry: And while I am griping, why did he have to use that photo that makes me look like a gorgon
“Eye of the tiger”, Professor Curry. You look more like Gen. U.S. Grant surveying Confederate lines. (hm, in Georgia maybe that does strike you as Gorgon-like. How about Chris Evert returning serve.) I liked the photo immediately I saw it.
This discussion will become more interesting if the “apparent non-warming” continues for 3 more years.
Nothing important depends on the labeling of the horizontal and vertical axes. But while we are discussing red herrings, it would have been better if the plot line had been finer.
So you think comparing Curry to a fat, bearded, alcoholic civil war general is some kind of compliment? I bet you don’t get laid much.
Rofl.
We need her; she fights.
=========
David Springer: So you think comparing Curry to a fat, bearded, alcoholic civil war general is some kind of compliment?
On rereading, I find that all I wrote was that she looked more like Grant than like a Gorgon, somewhat fainter praise than what I intended. Grant’s photo’s show an alert, steely-eyed grim determination. Probably I ought to have edited that out and gone with the Chris Evert comparison. As I wrote, I liked the picture of Dr. Curry the first I saw it. No on “Gorgon”, yes on “determination to succeed.”
Grant was not even close to being fat in the civil war time frame.
MattStat
If you’re up-to-date on Civil War history, you’ll know that it wasn’t US General Grant the folks in Georgia remember with horror, it was General Sherman, who burned a corridor from Atlanta to Savannah.
(Judith Curry is decidedly better-looking than either of them, even in a less-than-flattering photo.)
But you’re right that it “will become more interesting if the apparent non-warming continues for 3 more years” (reaching Ben Santer’s 17-year time span required to be statistically significant).
IF that happens (and that’s anyone’s guess) I predict that the 17-year goalpost will be moved.
I also predict that not too many folks will be listening anymore.
Max
‘We dam’ near licked you. If I’d been feeling better we would of licked you’. Spoken by General U.S. Grant just as he surrendered his sword to General Lee @ Appomattox.
H/t James T.
=========
“Nev’ mind about me” said Grant, helping himself to a second, “I can take it or let it alone. Didn’ ya ever hear the story about the fella went to Lincoln to complain about me drinking too much? ‘So-and-So says Grant drinks too much,’ this fella said. ‘So-and-So is a fool,’ said Lincoln. So this fell went to What’s-His-Name and told him what Lincoln said and he came roarin’ to Lincoln about it. ‘Did you tell So-and-So I was a fool?’ he said. ”No,’said Lincoln, ‘I thought he knew it.'” The General smiled, reminiscently, and had another drink. “That’s how I stand with Lincoln,” he said, proudly.
H/t JT.
=====
I forgot to add. The photo of Dr. Curry compares favorably with the photo of Dr. Jones. Say you’re choosing up sides for volleyball or debate, whom would you choose? Dr Jones looks like he isn’t there.
Yeah. For a while after Climategate, he wasn’t.
But he has popped back.
Ya can’t keep a good guy down, they say…
Max
A good man is hard to find.
=========
The current “apparent non-warming” has lasted longer than the “apparent warming” had lasted when Hansen et al sounded their alarm, and the date of the beginning of the “apparent warming” had been cherry-picked ab initio. The problem is that it takes less information for humanity to sound an alarm than it does to reduce the alarm that has been created.
There’s been over 0.5C warming since 1980. Hard to pretend it hasn’t happened.
Yeah but most of it happened suddenly. The mother of all El Ninos in 1997/1998 made global temperature go up and it didn’t come back down. No one knows why. Models are worthless except to tell us it’t not in the model because they can’t duplicate ENSO or PDO with gradual accumulation of CO2. Smart people know that. Or at least they should with one quick glace at HadCrut4 global 1979-present.
Troposphere temperatures did come back down after 1998’s El Niño, but ocean heat content continued to accumulate. ENSO and the PDO do not create energy in the climate system.
up and down
R Gates,
That’s an interesting hypothesis in your first sentence. If I can paraphrase; you seem to say that whilst the atmosphere was cooling, the higher thermal inertia oceans were warming. As an engineer familiar with heat transfer and stuff, I find this puzzling but am interested to learn. Is there any chance that you could elaborate please?
Your second sentence; no probs.
Gatesy if ocean heat content continued to accumulate I think this means the oceans got warmer. Warmer oceans hold less CO2. CO2 released by oceans goes into the atmosphere – thats a bad thing because now it can heat the ocean that has just released it and then that loop just keeps on keeping on and we are all dead? Seriously, why have we never had a death spiral from warming oceans? It is acknowledged that CO2 lags warming by about 800 years. The historic increase has never led to re-warming. There is something wrong with the theory.
Dolphin, yes that “death spiral” was kind of my point earlier. How can a ONCE-OFF increase in air temp to where it has been for the last 16 years, have resulted in ONGOING ocean temp increases during that time?
Bob Fernley-Jones,
A greater amount of heat is released from the oceans on a global basis during El Ninos, and this of course raises tropospheric temperatures, and temporarily causes a small dip or even just a flattening to the overall long-term rise in ocean heat content. Simply take a look at the last 40 years of ENSO behavior and compare it to ocean heat content, and you’ll see OHC flatten or dip a little after an El Niño. That energy was transferred to the atmosphere, and then of course some of it then went out into space and tropospheric temperatures came back down. But overall, since temperatures have been generally rising in the atmosphere due to the external forcing of additional greenhouse gases, the thermal gradient between ocean and atmosphere has become less steep and the oceans have been accumulating energy. This will continue so long as greenhouse gases continue to accumulate and some equilibrium point is once more reached whereby the oceans are storing energy at the same rate they are losing it to the atmosphere. ENSO is an internal oscillation of the Earth’s overall energy system, that when taken over the long-term does not add any energy to the overall system. It takes an external forcing on the system to do that, such as the rise in greenhouse gas concentrations. Now the character of ENSO may in fact change with the external forcing along with other parts of the climate system.
Dolphinlegs,
Your statement about the concentration of CO2 in the ocean would be true if the atmosphere was not accumulating more CO2 (and other greenhouse gases). A great deal of the additional CO2 from anthropogenic activities has gone into the ocean, vastly overwhelming any outgassing from higher ocean temperatures. We know this is the case as we have hard data showing the changing PH of the ocean from it taking up some of the extra CO2.
Dolphinlegs
In addition to the response by R. Gates regarding CO2 absorbed by the oceans, which has been measured by some spot pH measurements until ARGO came along in 2003, there is the additional CO2 absorbed by the biosphere (plants, soils, etc.), which has not been measured at all but is suspected to have increased as plants have responded to higher atmospheric CO2 concentrations.
About half of the CO2 emitted by humans “remains” in the atmosphere, and this percentage is decreasing as atmospheric concentrations increase.
Where the “missing” CO2 is going is largely unknown and has not been corroborated with any conclusive empirical measurements, although there are many hypotheses out there – one of which is that it is mostly going into the ocean. I am personally skeptical that this hypothesis is correct.
While latest ARGO measurements do not show a warming of the ocean since 2003 and there are no good measurements prior to that, it is logical to assume that the ocean has warmed along with the observed late 20th century atmospheric warming. And a warmer ocean would hold a bit less CO2 than a cooler one, as you pointed out to R. Gates.
So I do not believe there is an answer yet for the “missing” CO2 – and to the question why this percentage has increased.
Max
Max said:
“While latest ARGO measurements do not show a warming of the ocean since 2003.”
____
Again, decidedly untrue. Why to you persist in spreading this kind of misinformation?
RGATES
If prior to the last 16 years oceans were accumulating energy because atmospheric temperatures were rising (due to additional greenhouse gasses), thereby reducing the ocean-atmosphere thermal gradient,
why would they have continued to accumulate for the last 16 years when atmospheric temperatures were not rising (despite additional greenhouse gasses) ?
lolwot
Yeah.
And there was a statistically indistinguishable warming cycle from ~1910 to ~1944 (before there was much human CO2). Hard to pretend that didn’t happen, either.
Max
Actually it’s easy to pretend that didn’t happen. That’s before satellite records. Someone who only accepts satellite records will not accept the world warmed from 1910 to 1944.
OMG 0.5C? panic time for lolwot
@lolwot
‘There’s been over 0.5C warming since 1980’
Wow!
Temperatures have gone up from 288.1K to 288.6K in thirty two years.
And I keep on trying to find all the real observed things that have happened as a consequence. Lets see.
1.Sea level has gone up by about three inches…just like it has in the thirty two years before that and the thirty two before that….
2. There are a lot more polar bears to eat the native populations
3. …..i can’t find a third
Any suggestions?
There’s been over 0.5C warming since 1980. Hard to pretend it hasn’t happened.
But none since 1997. Hard to pretend it has happened. Doesn’t stop pc wingnuts trying though.
It has happened! About 0.08°C.
R Gates
thanks for the reply but what about the longer historical position?
By longer-term position I take it you mean a longer-term forcing on the climate which is of course the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere which will tend to restrict the flow of energy from ocean to atmosphere to space and thus accumulate it in the ocean. In short, the greenhouse gases make the thermal gradient between ocean and space (the ultimate source and drain for the flow of heat in the Earth system) less steep, and so the oceans accumulate energy. Once greenhouse gases stop rising, the system will eventually come back to equilibrium, and the final greenhouse gas concentration will determine the equilibrium temperature of the oceans such that they then accumulate the same amount of energy as they are releasing and the temperatures level off.
Dolphinlegs
Add to R. Gates’ explanation:
“all other things being equal”
(which they aren’t)
Max
Sorry I di not make myself clear. In my earlier post I asked abut the 800 year lag between rising temperatures and rising atmospheric CO2 over geological time. My question is why the increase in CO2 did not cause the oceans to warm further and emit more CO2 and so on? The death spiral if you like.
On the other point you appear to be saying that oceans can warm and be a net absorber of CO2 at the same time and this is what has happened in the recent past?
Dolphinlegs,
Natural feedback processes have been overwhelmed by the rapid growth in atmospheric greenhouse gases. Even if the greenhouse gases stopped increasing today, it will take quite a while for the system to reach equilibrium again. The rock-carbon cycle (through rock weathering) and the take up of CO2 by the oceans are just some of the natural ways the system balances out CO2. Excess CO2 eventually winds up as limestone in the bottom of the ocean to be naturally sequestered, but obviously this takes tens of thousands of years, and the current 40% spike in CO2 levels over long-term Holocene averages has happened in just a few hundred years. The system has been overwhelmed and can’t really keep up, hence temperatures will continue to rise over the long-term.
R Gates
I have come to the conclusion that with the huge natural variabilty we can see through history with Co2 at 280ppm (apparently) and that there is no change in the amount of variabilty with co2 at close to 400ppm., that temperature sensitivity to co2 concentrations has probably peaked somewhere around the 280/300ppm mark.
Do you believe in the logarithmic curve? If so at what point do YOU think that temperatures will show little reaction to increasing co2.
tonyb
Thanks Mr Gates. Problem is there is no evidence that natural feedback processes have been overwhelmed by what you claim to be rapid growth in greenhouse gases. Thanks for your time. You are one of the better mannered and more reasonable proponents of AGW which puts you in a very small class. The science is not on your side however.
Regards
tonyb, “I have come to the conclusion that with the huge natural variabilty we can see through history with Co2 at 280ppm (apparently) and that there is no change in the amount of variabilty with co2 at close to 400ppm., that temperature sensitivity to co2 concentrations has probably peaked somewhere around the 280/300ppm mark.”
It doesn’t look like CO2 peaked, but that feedbacks to CO2 peaked. One of the largest feedbacks is snow/ice melt and the water vapor that melt provides. It expands the moist air envelop. Basically, the main water vapor feedback is limited by areal expansion and soil moisture. Once the land surface areal feedback limit is approach, the ocean surface limits begin to dominate. Since the average temperature of the oceans is higher and increased temperature increases latent cooling, the sensitivity of climate to CO2 forcing changes to the lower 0.7 to 1.1 C per doubling range of the oceans.
Very interesting system of feedbacks and limits.
Tony,
I do believe in the basic logarithmic effect to increasing CO2 concentrations, but measuring how that translates into a final equilibrium temperature (once CO2 stops rising) is not so easy as we all know. What we need to consider is the nature of nonlinear responses in the climate system and specifically bifurcation points (aka tipping points) where thresholds are reached and the system moves into a new mode of operating. We are seeing such point in the Arctic IMO, and this will alter the warming curve for the planet as we approach the ice free summer Arctic condition. Thus, along that logarithmic response curve will be these bifurcation points whereby the system jumps off the curve to follow a new trajectory. Also, do keep in mind the other greenhouse gases that are affecting the overall alteration of the thermal gradient between the oceans and space.
R Gates
The [natural] system [of sequestering CO2] has been overwhelmed and can’t really keep up, hence temperatures will continue to rise over the long-term.
Only if the warming effect of mankind’s CO2 in the atmosphere is not overwhelmed by natural forces – and we still have precious little understanding of this.
Bottom line: the “no upward trend” has to continue for a total of 15 years before we get worried.
They are worried that it is not bad, like they promised.
It is very clear that they are not really worried about the temperature of earth.
They are worried that their Climate Alarmism has been busted.
It snows more when oceans are warm and it snows less when oceans are cold. Put this in the Climate Models and then they will likely work just fine.
I do suspect that Dr. Curry is already doing this.
Take co2 out of the climate models and then they will work even better.
Dr Curry – I think I saw that photo on my Post Office wall. ;-)
This post is predictably crowded with fools putting straight lines on geologic data to prove their pre-concieved conclusions to one peanut gallery or another. The unceasing seriousness and earnest pontificating makes me want to puke in my mouth, but I laugh instead.
No wonder you became a regular so quickly. You fit right in with the clowns, huh? Dumbass.
Your “sunny” post below confirms you have terminal projection disorder. You have absolutely no idea that *everyone* recognizes that your posts are inelegantly regurgitated talking points from Lord Monkton of Brenchley.
@howard
‘your posts are inelegantly regurgitated talking points from Lord Monkton of Brenchley’
I have absolutely no idea if this is ture or not, but assume for the moment that it is.
Why would this be relevant? Are you at liberty to ignore them because they are ‘talking points’? If so, what is a ‘talking point’ and how does it somehow get not ‘talked about’?
Or is it the mere mention of Chris Monckton’s name that means you can ignore it?
Please explain – I have never understood why being a ‘talking point’ is seen by some as an awful condemnation and a reason for avoiding the issue.
I don’t pay any attention to Monckton so that means he and I are independently arriving at the same conclusions. That’s not terribly surprising given Monckton’s notoriously keen intellect and our common British heritage.
Howard,
Yr: “This post is predictably crowded with fools…”
And with a “dog” too–I’m thinkin’, Howard, of everyone’s favorite “elkhound”, of course. In fact, all you hive-bozos need now is a pony an’ you’ll have a real show on your hands.
And Howard, your “terminal projection disorder” (always with the wannabe-sucker-punch, jejeune psycho-jabber aren’t you, Howard?) “crack” has made Mr. Milquetoast proud, I’m sure. But regular human beings who have a life?–well, their reaction is more along the lines of “Who is this creep-out, anyway?”.
Jeez, what a crashing, moronic bore you “crushers” inflicted on this blog when you brought on board that Howard dork-ball weirdo guy of yours (I’m guessing he’s a fan-find). Thanks guys!
Thanks for the props my brutha. You and your pals are the hive: projecting again. I’m sorry you were stunted during your enlightenment phase. Tell it to your shrink, blame your ex-wife, who cares.
I snap it off in Fan and Joshua and Mosher too. AGW is real the “C” part is unknown, likely bollocks. You are teamed up with the WUWT putz’ into curve-fitting and linearization of chaotic dynamical systems. You are just the idiotic extreme from the chicken little club.
Hey Howard,
I want to keep my response to you, like, all civil and intellectual and all, and, most especially, I want it to be, in some small way, worthy of those supreme high standards you impose on your own discourse and which I can only admire and imperfectly aspire to but never match:
“YO MOMMA!”
Howard
The most intelligent thing you’ve said here, so far.
Max
This blog alas
Hive-bots infest
And Howard ranks
The crushers’ best
Been Looking for
A platitude?
The mother-lode
Is this hive-dude
Your pleasure is
In comments trite?
On Howard count
To get it right
But that’s not all
There’s even more
Ol’ Howard is
A crashing bore!
In other words
This Howard clown
Is quite enough
To wear you down
Thanks for nothing, crushers!
Howard’s laughs
Never end
See the punchline
Round the bend.
BURMA SHAVE
==========
kim,
The crushers have their tag-team and we have ours. Ditty-mongers rule!
Dance:
I think I’ve finally got Howard figured out:
Consider the lay of the land. The CAGW scam is imploding big-time which imposes on the hive a desperate struggle to salvage what they can from the whole fiasco in anticipation of a re-groupment on behalf of their next, inevitable, make-a-buck/make-a-gulag, rip-off scheme (the hive-bozos are always up to something).
And the hive has (as it has always done) expended vast resources identifying not-too-bright, usually momma’s-boy, vulnerable, needy, usually geek-ball kids (the socially-competent, smart kids, who can think for themselves, spotted the CAGW hustle long ago and decided they wanted nothing to do with these hive creep-outs); brainwashing the same to believe in the CAGW scam, in the classroom, since Kindergarten; and then recruiting those same, amazingly stupid tykes, as they entered puberty, as cannon-fodder for “the cause.”
But now the hive’s investment in “youth” is at risk as the CAGW con becomes so exposed that even a snot-nosed, brain-dead hive-brat can’t avoid the “uncomfortable” truth of the fraud–and the disillusioning realization that he/she has been used by the lefties (duh!). And the lefties need the kid-contingent for their next “BIG-THING”, whatever that might be.
Enter Howard to save the day! Howard–the new, take-no-prisoners, painfully-whiteboy-jive-talkin’-wannabe, surfer-creep-who-is-ike-really-popular-with-a-certain-type-of-thong-clad-cutsey-beach-bunny-(Eli-up!), like-outta-nowhere, teeny-bopper-smart-mouth “voice” of “youth.”
And Howard’s pitch?:
“Sure our hive-masters screwed us whiny, self-absorbed, childish snots over to the max, but that’s just because they are all a bunch of ol’ white-guys just like Lord Monkton and that WUWT guy and all. So you see, fellow hive-abused morons, it’s really all just a generational issue and all. And so my fellow, useful-idiot lads and lasses, don’t get thinking, in the depths of your despair, that joining the “winners” of the climate wars–the guys who were right all along–is the way to go!
Rather, my easily exploited, obscenely immature borthers and sisters, stay the course and have faith that the hive will get its future scams right–after all the neo-class-enemy-ol’-whiteboys have been fully purged, of course, from the hive by the empowered, man-hater victors of the hive’s recent back-stabbing power-play. I mean, like, think about it, guys–it’s either that or get a real job, you know. ”
So look for a future hive-scam with a definite, ol’-whiteboy-phobic, youth-profile to it. And who know?–maybe Howard will appear as one of its Philosopher-King, Cull-Master leading lights.He certainly seems to be auditioning for the part on this blog, undoubtedly, with the encouragement of his betters.
Nice try Mike. I’ve been a sceptic from Day One. There is no doubt about radiative physics of CO2, H2O and CH4. The medieval warm period was real IMO and Mann erased it with his BS hockey stick. The GCM’s don’t do ocean cycles, clouds nor aerosols very well, so they are of limited use.
I agree with much of what Dr. Curry is doing, cannot stand the realKlimate cherry-pickers, don’t believe the short-term sensitivity papers by Spencer and Lintzen, I think Isaac Held is a reliable source on modeling, I admire the great work of McIntyre but cannot stand his focus on personality wars, I appreciate Watts surface stations and am nauseated by all of the other pseudoscience he provides a forum for.
The world is not monochromatic.
Howard,
You know, Howard, when you’re not trying really, really hard to be a horse’s-ass, you come across as a pretty reasonable guy with a point or two to be made. Hope all your future comments are of the quality of your last–if so, I look forward to your future contributions with pleasure, for what that’s worth. .
The sun has entered a record breaking quiet period. When this has happened in the past northern hemisphere got very cold i.e. Daltan and Maunder minimums. The precautionary principle, if anyone actually believed it, would now dictate we prepare for a repeat. At the very least don’t do something so stupid as to make heating fuel more expensive, the atmosphere cooler, growing seasons shorter, crops less drought tolerant, and atmosphere less fertile for plants by lowering CO2 emissions. Are you people nucking futs?
Record breaking quiet period? More quiet than the Maunder? Are you sure?
And how much did volcanic activity affect that period?
Is volcanic activity different now than then? If so, why? If there’s no particular reason then we can’t expect it to be different going forward.
We’re probably not at a Maunder Minima but it’s hard to tell because records are poorer then because, well because observatories were frozen and Europe was starving.
From wiki:
“The Dalton Minimum was a period of low solar activity, named after the English meteorologist John Dalton, lasting from about 1790 to 1830.[1] Like the Maunder Minimum and Spörer Minimum, the Dalton Minimum coincided with a period of lower-than-average global temperatures.”
If volcanism is the cause and it’s just a conicidence that all three temperature minima were accompanied by sunspot minima it would be a quite the conincidence to say the least. More likely there’s a magnetic connection between the iron rich molten core of the planet and the sun’s magnetic field that causes more or less volcanos than volcanism just lining up for no reason, eh? Precautionary principle still should rule in any case because it’s a slam dunk that no warm periods ever lined up with grand solar minima.
David, you write “We’re probably not at a Maunder Minima”
No, we are centainly nowhere near to a Mazunder type minimum. This minimum had it’s lowest temperatures around 1685. Sunspots disappeared around 1645. If Livingston and Penn are correct, then sunspots will not disappear until around 2020. So, no, we are nowhere near a Maunder type minimum……….YET.
The answer is that we don’t know whether it was volcanoes or Cheshire Cat Sunspots that caused the cooling @ the Maunder Minimum. Both correlated, perhaps neither causal, possiby even both caused by a mutual other cause. The isotope records is ambivalent and doesn’t resolve the question. The Maunder Minimum sunspots were ‘large, sparse, and primarily Southern Hemispheric’.
Why primarily in the Southern Hemisphere?
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Meh, I use ‘both’ when there are three phenomena, the volcanoes, the cooling earth, the sunspots changing magnetic strength. You may speculate at will as to causal connections among them.
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KIm, you write “The Maunder Minimum sunspots were ‘large, sparse, and primarily Southern Hemispheric’.”
Do you have a reference for this? I have both of Maunder’s papers, published in 1890 and 1922, and I can find no statement that the sunspots during the minimum were anything like universally large. There is mention of two large spots in 1660 and 1671, but also mention of small spots. Yes, sunspots were sparse and primarily in the Southern Hemisphere, but large. Where does this come from?
aw, c’mon, Kim.
We know it was because the hadn’t invented SUVs yet that the folks froze and starved during the Maunder Minimum.
Max
Wow, there is hope for Max. If they had spewed enough ACO2, they could have avoided the LIA. That’s right. Max gets a gold star.
Jim, my source was Leif Svalgaard. On a blog comment. It’s probably at his site, somewhere, or he’ll answer you.
Max, as a joke, long before I got involved in the climate curiosity, I told people a decade ago that we should salute the Brave Soccer Moms, dare-devilling through the front lines of the Carbon Wars with their Suburban Assault Vehicles. Little did I know then, and less do I know now.
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Leif Svalgaard,
Of solar disposition,
Informs the ignorant
And tramples the speculative
Underfoot,
Squeezing out the essence
In angry ferment.
============
The last graph on this link suggests that a deeper low than the Maunder could be on the cards.
OK they didn’t extend the graph to 2100, but you can see that the two largest curves didn’t coincide, but delivered the Maunder, but this time round, the two largest curves will coincide (by eyeball) at about 2100 thus delivering a deeper low than the Maunder.
Since I like Mediterranean temperatures I rather hope that this doesn’t turn out to be the case.
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2012/09/20/how-the-temperature-datasets-tell-us-extra-co2-has-little-effect/
If beggars had horses they’d ride ’til it warmed.
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Steven Mosher | October 15, 2012 at 1:55 pm |
“Huh Fan? I read the interview. What in gods name are you talking about?”
If fan talks about anything in someone elses name there’s 95% certainty that he’s lying about that person.
Dr Curry,
Great article and thanks for standing up for objective climate science. But effective communications of science with newspapers, in your efforts to portray a fair view, means you should send along your own favorite photo. Thanks tall bloke for the little video clip. Judith, you look great to all on the sidelines cheering on your crusade to shove climate science back to objective anlysis of data and away from political agendas.
Scott
Life is difficult to understand for those who believe the packaging to be as important as the content.
As William Shakespeare explained in “All the world’s a stage”:
“All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:”
“The Force” that made our elements, birthed the world, and sustains all life had a more important task for Professor Curry than being another contestant in another beauty contest.
Thank you, Professor Curry, for playing your role so well !
http://omanuel.wordpress.com/
http://omanuel.wordpress.com/about/ . . .
http://omanuel.wordpress.com/about/#comment-1369
Good article by GWPF
http://www.thegwpf.org/the-mail-on-sunday-and-the-met-office/
That is very good, Judith. It makes several good points. It is one thing for commenters on a blog to fudge the truth, but scientists and the agencies they work for should play fair.
You don’t make a big deal out one data release when it shows what you want it to show and then next time release it quietly when it shows less warming. The point about giving the error bars on the trend lines and being sure to be clear about whether it is significant is also a good one.
It was only in the last few years that Santer and others showed that you would need a stretch of 15-17 years without warming before it was necessarily significant. To pretend now (as some on this blog seem to) that they knew all along it is not unusual to have 15 years without warming is indeed being economical with the truth.
IPCC AR4
HADCRUT4’s 0.03 deg C per decade warming is below IPCC’s range from 0.15 to 0.3 deg C per decade warming.
As a result, there is no confidence in near-term projections.
The GWPF of course includes highly experienced policy-makers and policy advisers, the kind of people who I hoped would be invited to the RS workshop.
It’s kind of sad when an organization (GWPF) stating the obvious about the temperature record, which has been available and up to date from RSS and UAH all along, is considered “good” by one of the world’s top climatologists. Every point made by GWPF is one I made here months earlier in more detail. They hinted at but missed the alarming decline in global average temperature since 2010 for example which I’ve pointed out on many occasions will be the death of us all if it continues or accelerates for much more than a decade.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/last:33/plot/rss/last:33/trend/plot/rss/last:33/trend/detrend:-0.4
This trend, down 0.4C in the 33 months since January 1, 2010, is a whopping -1.45C per decade. It will wipe out all the warming since 1880 in about 5 years and plunge us back into another Little Ice Age in 20 years. Should we wait another 12 years before we start to worry?
Interestingly this steep decline started when we noticed the sun had gone uber quiet. We should probably begin to worry real soon now that Svensmark is the man who got the story right and unless the sunspots return real soon now we’re in for a world of hurt. Cold is something to be alarmed about. Warm isn’t.