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We have had a lot of snow and cold since October.
It is a really good time to read pope’s climate theory, again, if you have and consider the possibilities.
It may also be a good time to watch or read “Being There” again, as it alludes to the level of discourse that fake skeptics are involved in.
HAP is the skeptics’ very own Chance the Gardener
I have yet to see HAP praised as being a visionary.
Indeed I have complained about gross oversimplifications of a system the size and complexity of the Earth’s climate. Much as I have complained about webby’s egregiously simple minded curve fitting.
Springer seems to be enchanted by HAP’s visions.
The problem with fake skeptics is they don’t actively criticize any of the 50+ crank theories that make the rounds here. When pressed they will say one shouldn’t respond to trolls. But that’s just an excuse since they actually appreciate the FUD.
It is all so obvious when you understand how the right-wing noise machine operates.
Krackpots = noise
Noise = FUD
FUD = good
Maybe if the fake climate scientists hadn’t hyped the then-current warming, they wouldn’t find the current cooling so painful.
WebHubTelescope (@whut) | May 19, 2013 at 8:43 am |
‘The problem with fake skeptics is they don’t actively criticize any of the 50+ crank theories that make the rounds here.”
I criticize yours, Dr. Pukite. The problem with fake anonymous alarmists is they don’t recognize themselves as cranks,
Is warming, irrespective of the cause, good or bad? How doe we know? How god or how bad? How doe we know?
Bjorn Lomborg and Richard Tol, say any warming we do get will be more good than bad for most of this century. http://www.lomborg.com/sites/default/files/Congress_testimony_April_2013_3.pdf
If they are wrong, why are they wrong?
Ellison and Pukite appear to be jealous. :-)
When the temperature gets warmer than the peaks of the Roman and Medieval Warm periods I will then consider it is possible that CO2 might be a tiny bit responsible. You would need that kind of data to support the alarmism. The sky is not falling. We are on track with the extra snow that always falls to end a warming.
Except that summer NH snowcover continues to decline, and natural feedbacks have been overwhelmed by the human carbon volcano, and we are seeing shrinking glaciers overall across the planet…but other than these little details that completely refute your theory, you might be right.
R Gates
Glaciers have been shrinking since 1750 and shrank again in the 14/and 1500’s and were in general retreat 800 to 1200AD. another retreat 300BC to 350AD and another around 700Bc.
Warm cold warm cold. Its what has happened throughout history. Today is not unprecedented
tonyb
tb, that’s the ‘for how long even kim doesn’t know’ part of ‘We are cooling, folks’.
=========
Hi Tony,
Wow Tony, NASA, NOAA, NCAR, NSIDC, and the rest could have saved all that money they’ve spent on supercomputers and just hired you to give that simple answer: Today is not unprecedented.
Maybe surprisingly I happen to agree with you, but we see this “not unprecedented” climate from different perspectives. It is “not unprecedented” because the climate has indeed cooled and warmed and cooled and warmed for billions of years, but it is not a random walk. Chaotic systems are not random systems. Else, why study climate at all?
Every cycle of warming and cooling has actual forcings involved and the current warming of the planet is no exception. (Yes, the planet is still warming, just the troposphere has temporarily flat lined). From Milanokovitch cycles to volcanoes and greenhouse gas levels, the value of supercomputers over you or me is that we can’t possibly hold an entire planet’s climate with all the dynamics and all the feedbacks in our head even work it out on a personal computer. The trillion-dollar questions become, why is the planet warming this time? How warm will it get? What will it mean for the current forms of life on Earth? And what if anything should we or can we even do about it?
Kim,
By “we” you mean troposphere, or you personally?
R gates
As well as not being unprecedented the climate today is not even unusual if you think of climate in hundreds and thousands of years rather than merely decades. Your last fish study covered four decades. I posted details of pilchards coming and going in this neck of the woods for a thousand years.
You then mentioned shrinking glaciers and I gave you the dates of advances and retreats over thousands of years.
Our best and most sincere efforts show that we have been this way before in the last thousand years and prior to that in roman and Minoan times. All with co2 at around the level of today.
That would seem to demonstrate that co2 appears to have a limited effect beyond 300ppm or so and the natural variability we can observe over the centuries, for whatever reason is the main climate driver.
Tonyb
Tony,
The issue is not at all whether the present climate is unusual, it’s whether the climate will soon evolve to an unusual one that does also cause a lot of damage.
As we cannot know the future climate we may at best try to figure out the range of potential futures and then to study further what should and what can be done.
Tony said:
“Our best and most sincere efforts show that we have been this way before in the last thousand years and prior to that in roman and Minoan times. All with co2 at around the level of today.”
______
Yes indeed! The Earth has been this warm before, thousands of times. The essence of true climate science is to answer why for EACH time, and remarkably as we do so, we see that just as there are multiple ways you can get from point A to point B, there are multiple ways (combinations of forcing agents) for the climate to reach this temperature (either starting from a higher or lower temperature).
When we start to look at each time, we see patterns of similar and dissimilar forcings. When two things appear to be the same but are actually caused by different forcings…now that makes things interesting and understanding those differences leads to an even larger understanding.
Unless you are suggesting that just because the Earth has had similar temperatures before with greater or lessor CO2, that we ought not to try to understand how this time could have its own unique set of forcings.
Once more, climate is NOT a random walk.
Pekka Pirila,
Yes. that is reasonable. However, while you say that now, you are clearly not interested in a sensible debate about what should and what can be done. \Why is that? It seems you simply want to support the sort of nonsense policies the Loony Left advocate, such as:
– carbon pricing
– renewable energy (subsidised and mandated by government fiat)
– international legally binding agreements with penalties for breaches of undertakings
– etc.
Last time I tried to discuss this with you, you advocated scientists direct how to redesign the policy development processes. My eyes roll at such a thought. You are clearly not in the slightest interested in discussing pragmatic, realistic policies – policies that could be achieved in the real world.
So, I am left again wondering why you make these types of generalised, motherhood statements, but avoid expanding on them pursuing them to logical conclusion.
Peter,
Earlier experience on “sensible debate” on actual choices has been so bad that I’m not interested in entering such debate. I find regularly the arguments from both sides highly unsatisfactory. Those who promote strong policies or rapid introduction of renewable energy do not appreciate enough problems inherent in that, while those who oppose such actions do it in too absolute terms.
Proposing that the truth is somewhere between the extremes leads too rapidly to failing discussion. It does not work in threads that grow rapidly to hundreds comments on highly variable subjects. Searching for best balance must be done in more quiet surroundings taking time to ponder on appropriate formulation. That can be done on net, but not here.
It’s also important to understand that only general principles are universal, concrete conclusions depend heavily on local conditions. I understand best the conditions of a Northern country like Finland that has long cold winters with very little sunshine and short summers with long days. I can learn about other conditions but I don’t know them as well.
I don’t know enough to tell what’s the best policy in each case, I believe that those who choose the policies don’t know any better. I cannot tell what’s the policy they should choose but I believe that it’s possible to perform better analysis in support of the policy choices. In that analysis more weight should be given on understanding the consequences of the alternative choices in real world where new decisions are made all the time, and no decision is the last one.
Pekka Pirila,
Like so many of your comments, this one is a pile of waffle of the type used by politicians – arm-waving, avoidance and obfuscation. However, one paragraph worth responding to is this:
I agree with you on this. Can you suggest one or more websites where climate policy is discussed “in more quiet surroundings taking time to ponder on appropriate formulation.“? This is a genuine question.
About a website I can immediately say only that I had once the idea of starting exactly such a site, but it turned out that keeping it going requires more than I could produce.
After writing those postings that are there, it would have been necessary to really work on the issues collecting material from relevant papers, and probably add some deep own points. Alas, I didn’t make that. (I have some other very different activities that take quite a lot of time as well, and often much more. Those fluent in Finnish can easily find out, what they are.)
Pekka,
I have read the posts on your site. And yest it is an enormous job to run an successfully maintain a site. BraveNewClimate tried, but gave up because of the adversarial nature of politics involved. So I am genuinely interested if there are any sites that do encourage and allow constructive debate on climate policy. You said:
Are you speaking hypothetically, or do you know of sites where it can be done?
Peter,
I’m using the word ‘only’ to tell that sites like Climate etc seem to make such discussion impossible were I would be dig deeper. I don’t know any site that has such discussion. I have seen several starts, but don’t know about a single success.
To get a site working several knowledgeable people should contribute regularly. Scientists like Tol would be very valuable. These issues are well suited to open discussion where both scientists and practitioners contribute. Few of the essential arguments require deep technical knowledge but all are conceptually difficult. The difficulty is in attracting the best people to contribute as some of the issues appear to really need contributions from the best.
Pekka Pirlia,
OK, so you don’t know of any sites. yes I already agreed it is difficult to run a site well.
However, scientists may make a minor contribution but certainly cannot make much of a contribution to policy development. It’s a totally different skill set. Scientists have little knowledge of or experience in policy analysis and policy development. They are the wrong people to have a major role in such a forum if we want to make progress on how to develop policy that can be implemented, sustained and achieve the desired outcomes.
This is why I was trying, on a previous thread, to think about the requirements of policy if it is to succeed, e.g.:
1. The policy must have a high probability of achieving the requirements (the specified outcomes.)
2. To be able to be implemented it will need to be able to demonstrate it provides benefits (e.g. economic or other benefits) almost immediately and throughout the duration of the policy for all countries and most people in each country.
Do you agree or disagree with one or both of these, and if you disagree, why do you disagree?
Don’t let Gates’ cherry picking mislead you. NH snow cover 12-month running mean is very near the average in the past 43 years. 2012 was 24.6 million square kilometers while the 43 year average is 24.9 million square kilometers. In other words it’s barely 1% below the average. Furthermore NH snow cover exploded upward at the end of 2012 and continued into 2013 which justifies Pope’s “right on track” remark.
I encourage everyone to examine the data themselves.
2012 report:
http://climate.rutgers.edu/snowcover/files/Robinson_snowdata2012.pdf
Rutger’s Global Snow Lab home page:
http://climate.rutgers.edu/snowcover/index.php
This year will be telling. I noted Pope’s prediction of major snowfall last year and like any objective observer should do I waited to see whether it came to pass or not. It did. April and May especially this year are far above normal. One successful prediction does not a theory make but I’m a fair guy so I’m giving credit where credit where credit is due and will continue note Pope’s success or failure. His theory is plausible IMO but the proof of the pudding is in the tasting.
The Rutgers data does show that when it does snow more it does make a difference.
NOAA data does show that it snows more when the oceans are warm.
This condition will persist for some years to come because you cannot warm the oceans quickly.
Ice Volume will increase for years to come and then after that the ice will advance for years to come into the next little ice age.
I did mean to say You cannot cool the oceans quickly. They will stay warm and open the Arctic for years to come and cause more than enough snow to replace what melts every year in the warm season.
Pekka
The issue IS (largely) whether or not the present is unusual, else the hockey stick would not have become the icon it did.
I am very happy for people to discuss radiative physics and the future climate state, but to continually invoke the past as a hockey stick as support and validation for their theories of the future demonstrates that perhaps they are not as sure of their case as they claim
tonyb
Tony,
Hockey stick is irrelevant. It was not the reason for the worry and it’s not an important piece of evidence.
For me the only relevant logic is:
1) The possibility of severely damaging climate change was presented based on physical understanding of atmosphere.
2) The likelihood and severity of potentially damaging changes must be estimated using all methods available, and policy decisions must be based on that as well as on the understanding of other consequences of these policies.
Most specifically attribution of past changes is of no separate significance. It’s one part of the evidence, but nothing more than that.
The range of potential futures has already been figured and been acted upon. The results have been trillions in waste, with more to come, even if we stop the silly stuff now. One example: Dismantling wind power (because it sucks) will involve maybe fifteen percent of the manufacture and installation costs, and that’s if you leave lots of concrete and wire lying about.
Let’s hope we don’t go through a chilly spell and find it doubled up by some volcanic action. By far, this is the most likely global climate catastrophe. Though one should not wet the bed about it, a long and dirty eruption like Laki will shut down aviation and cripple much agriculture. And a Laki, a Tambora or a Krakatoa is not a remotely “figured” thing. It will come. Not discussed much, of course. The political and tax potential is low. Maybe worse than low, if you know what I mean. Might make all those solar panels look even sillier and shabbier and more impotent.
Tony, when Laki went off (and kept going off) there were only birds and insects using air space. I wonder what a world without aviation would be like. We’ll find out. Odd that in an age of climate alarms, few care. Lewandowsky can get money for his childish blather, while the main world volcanology bodies beg for funds. Decade Volcanoes projects are still, as I am told, unfunded by the UN. Imagine that. Doesn’t anybody care about climate change?
mosomoso ,
The study of volcanoes is important. Not too long ago, the highly-regarded Conservative Republican Booby Jindal wanted to cut off volcano monitoring:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/03/23/jindal-vs-palin-on-volcan_n_178120.html
That’s what we are faced with.
Indeed, WHT, you get conservatives wanting to save pennies that could be spent well…and those on the left who spend trillions on trash.
I’m sure humanity will survive the next big eruption, or eruption series. Europeans, for example, can use the recent experience of 2009 to prepare. One can do a lot about SO2, transport, communications, food stocks etc. But we know just from this year what a bit of cyclical chilling can do to Northern India.
When volcanic problems come, whether as particulates or gases or political/financial collapses, I think expressways, dams, refrigerant gases, nukes, petroleum, coal power and many other naughties of the noughties will be seen as the blessings they truly are. That’s if we have them, and have them in good shape.
Pekka Pirila,
That statement is clearly disingenuous. It was clearly used as a major propaganda tool to scare the world into action to prevent catastrophic climate change.
It is by far the most important symbol that caused EU, Australia, New Zealand and other countries to implement carbon pricing systems.
Peter Lang
If our politicians knew that todays temperatures are neither unprecedented nor even unusual if you look at centuries rather than decades, I wonder how many of them would be enacting the policies they are in order to cut carbon?
For R Gates to admit we have seen these temperatures thousands of times in the past and for Pekka to say that is irrelevant, is to highlight the disconnect between what remains a theory that is backed up by alarms and false representations of our past climate, rather than an uncontested fact.
tonyb.
Peter,
My comment was on the logic that I consider relevant concerning real climate in contrast to the public perceptions about climate. I wrote my comment to make this point as everybody knows that the HS has become a symbol in the political battle. It was used by those who promote strong policies and it’s weaknesses are used even more by those who oppose such policies, a questionable symbol has overshadowed a lot of science.
Pekka Pirila,
In two recent comments you have used the term ‘strong policies’. For example:
What do you mean by ‘strong policies’? Do you mean policies like the following are strong policies:
– international agreements to targets and time tables?
– UN taxes (for example on financial transactions) to make it possible to tax the rich countries and pay money to the corrupt poor countries?
– global carbon pricing schemes?
What would you mean by policies that are not “strong polices”? Would this include the policies like I advocate, such as:
– removing impediments that are preventing the world getting access to low-cost, low-emissions alternative to fossil fuel energy?
– ‘No regrets’ policies
– Freer trade and freer markets?
In short I am trying to understand what you mean by ‘strong policies’ versus weak policies or whatever is the opposite of ‘strong policies’
Serfs remember the
Medieval Warming Period
with somethin’ akin ter pleshur.
Serfs remember the
Little Ice Age
with somethin’ approachin’ terror.
We’re told by our betters …
William Stanley Jevons et al,
that pesky :: cheshire grin ::
sunspots comin’ and goin’
affect success and failure of
crops. English serfs remember
wheat prices fifteen ninety-five ter
sixteen ninety correlatin’ with
ol’ sol’s sun-spot activity.
A serf
Yes, Beth, in the MWP grapes could be grown in England. In the LIA grapes could be grown in England. Even today grapes can be grown in England.
A duck walks into bar and asks bartender if he has grapes.
The bartender replies ” no, we do not have grapes, this is a bar, not a grocery”
The duck repeats his visit to the bar to request grapes three days in a row, and the annoyed bartender finally loses his temper and says “look you silly duck, if you come in here asking for grapes again I will nail your beak to this bar.”
The next day the duck returns and asks the bartender “do you have nails.” The bartender replies ” no, we do not have nails, this is a bar not a hardware store.”
“Well, then,” says the duck, “do you have grapes?”
MaxOk
Why don’t you stick to jokes in future. That Duck one was funny.
tonyb
‘Of the Domesday vineyards, all appear to lie below a line from Ely (Cambridgeshire) to Gloucestershire. Since the Book covers all of England up to the river Tees (north of Yorkshire), there is therefore reason to think that there weren’t many vineyards north of that line. Lamb reports two vineyards to the north (Lincoln and Leeds, Yorkshire) at some point between 1000 and 1300 AD, and Selley even reports a Scottish vineyard operating in the 12th Century. However, it’s probably not sensible to rely too much on these single reports since they don’t necessarily come with evidence for successful or sustained wine production. Indeed, there is one lone vineyard reported in Derbyshire (further north than any Domesday vineyard) in the 16th Century when all other reports were restricted to the South-east of England.
Wine making never completely died out in England, there were always a few die-hard viticulturists willing to give it a go, but production clearly declined after the 13th Century, had a brief resurgence in the 17th and 18th Centuries, only to decline to historic lows in the 19th Century when only 8 vineyards are recorded. Contemporary popular sentiment towards English (and Welsh) wine can be well judged by a comment in ‘Punch’ (a satirical magazine) that the wine would require 4 people to drink it – one victim, two to hold him down, and one other to pour the wine down his throat.
Unremarked by most oenophiles though, English and Welsh wine production started to have a renaissance in the 1950s. By 1977, there were 124 reasonable-sized vineyards in production – more than at any other time over the previous millennium. This resurgence was also unremarked upon by Lamb, who wrote in that same year that the English climate (the average of 1921-1950 to be precise) remained about a degree too cold for wine production.’
Not a temperature index – but consilience rules.
Chief
You have to bear in mind as well that for several centuries the British owned many parts of France including Bordeaux, which had an impact on British vineyards
Wine from Bordeaux or wine from Yorkshire? Hmmm. Tough choice.
tonyb
+1 to Beth and a :) for TonyB’s wine choice dilemma!
Even a serf may learn something new everyday,
Two new words,’oenophile’ and ‘consilience’. The first,
we serfs have no notion of, the second we experience
often…
and hey, Max_OK. yer can tell a joke )
Peter Davies, thx fer the +1.
Can’t work out whether I prefer the feeling power
of doling out “+1s’ ” meself when I had the franchise
or whether I’d sooner the sop ter vanity when i
receive one meself.
Beth tcg
“The Design Matrix: A Consilience of Clues” by Mike Gene
Good book. I read it maybe 6 years or so ago.
http://www.amazon.com/Design-Matrix-Consilience-Clues/dp/0978631404
Chief Hydrologist | May 19, 2013 at 3:11 am said: ” Lamb reports two vineyards to the north (Lincoln and Leeds, Yorkshire) at some point between 1000 and 1300 AD”
Hubert Lamb was promoting: ”nuclear winter for year 2000; because of CO2 dimming effect”,
he wasn’t any different con artist, than you are
(re-post from something I posted on another thread yesterday)
Another 97% consensus report based on crowd-sourcing thousands of climate science papers. There is what they call a consensus gap between what the public think the percentage is and what it really is (97%). If this perception gap was closed, they suggest policies would be much easier to enact.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tom-zeller-jr/climate-change-study_b_3285245.html
The work by John Cook is also presented at Skeptical Science
http://www.skepticalscience.com/97-percent-consensus-cook-et-al-2013.html
and the ERL paper with a video abstract by John Cook is here
http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/8/2/024024/article
Jim D writes “Another 97% consensus report based on crowd-sourcing thousands of climate science papers.”
What I cannot understand, and this goes back to my training in Physics 101, is why there is any need for establishing what people THINK. In physics, the only thing that matters is what the empirical data says. And since the empirical data does not show that CAGW exists, who cares what 97% of some group of people think?
These aren’t just “people”, they are the scientists whose job it is to think about these types of problems, gather data, and examine each other’s work. Like if you want to know whether a drug is dangerous, you go to the people who studied it.
One also has to wonder why there would be any need for establishing that people THINK when they can’t READ: the 97% is about AGW, not CAGW, unless I missed one of Baseball Jim’s rule in his unwritten book.
The bottom line is that the public don’t know what the scientists think. What the scientists, as a whole, think is very clear, warming is largely AGW. The public hear some of the vocal 3% and think that there is a large number of those people within the climate science community, which can be defined to be only a few thousand people worldwide who publish on these subjects. This misperception is largely due to the various media and blogs they tend to follow, and some media debates and political briefings are forced to balance every view equally with a dissenting one. This doesn’t help the perception to be correct. For a correct perception you would need 30 AGW scientists to be heard for each dissenter.
Survey finds 97% of climate science papers agree warming is man-made
Overwhelming majority of peer-reviewed papers taking a position on global warming say humans are causing it
That is only because the did not print the many papers that disagreed and they ignore the actual data which does disagree.
When a peer-reviewed consensus clique gets headed down the wrong road, there is no way for them to go back or turn. It is like horses with blinders on.
Willard,
“Baseball Jim” is good but I like the “Cripwell Criteria” better because it better describes the similarities to CalvinBall Rules.
Perhaps as a compromise we could use Calvinball Jim instead for Cripwell’s moniker?
You don’t find 97% on climate Etc agreeing with them.
Dr Curry is not 97%
Roy Spenser is not 97%
Fred Singer is not 97%
and on and on and on.
97% only exists inside the clique
willard, you write “the 97% is about AGW, not CAGW, unless I missed one of Baseball Jim’s rule in his unwritten book.”
My bad. I agree that AGW is real. It does not surprise me that 97% of scientists think AGW is real; I would be one of them. What I disagree with is that CAGW is real, and I misread what Jim wrote.
I am not sure this is a case of Calvinball, which was my inspiration for ClimateBall in general:
http://neverendingaudit.tumblr.com/tagged/ClimateBall
Baseball Jim always say more of the same, while appealing to some unwritten rules about CAGW, observations, measures, falsification, and whatnot.
Say it ain’t so, willard.
=======
CAGW is not a scientific term, so this study was about AGW. CAGW is more to do with social and ecological impacts. You could argue that CAGW follows from AGW because if humans are responsible for most of the 1 C committed rise so far and the emitted CO2 increases by a factor of 3 or 4 in the 21st century over that in the 20th, that would be maybe 3 C more, which some would assume to be catastrophic in its effect on global society and ecosystems. So there is a logical connection between AGW so far causing CAGW in the future.
Short of Caesar the Helvetti’s end may well have been less catastrophic and more seaside.
=========
Jim D, you write “CAGW is not a scientific term, so this study was about AGW. ”
I agree. But if CAGW is not a scientiic term, then AGW is a vague, ill-defined term. It covers everything from CO2 causing a negligible rise in global temperatures, to CO2 causing a catastrophic rise in temperatures. Hence my misinterpretation of what you wrote. We need to differentiate bewteen CO2 causing a negligible rise in global temperatures, which I wholeheartedly endorse, and CO2 causing a catastrophic rise in temperatures, which I claim is a hoax. Hence we need two terms, whatever these might be.
> But if CAGW is not a scientiic term, then AGW is a vague, ill-defined term.
In Baseball Jim’s unwritten book such logical exists, perhaps.
As a factual claim, here’s a figure that should the claim that “AGW is an ill-defined term” into perspective:
http://ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/figure-2-1.html
Popper had something interesting to say about definition games.
Yes, they are.
If pharmacologists worked like climatologists do, they’d never examine a single case history involving use of the drug in question.
yguy, paleoclimate is the “case history”. It has all happened before and is well understood.
> If pharmacologists worked like climatologists do […]
they’d be working on a planetary scale.
No, that’s the history of the patient without the drug (human added CO2); and if there’s any reason to believe its effect has been significant, it has not been presented to this layman.
It has all happened before and is well understood.
yguy, you need to go to Skeptic Skool. The other skeptics have an idea about the difference between weather and climate and probably can take you aside and give you a quiet word about your statement. You only damage your cause by equating these after they have spent so much time saying weather is not climate.
While I certainly understand your need to adopt a condescneding manner, I am of course aware of the difference – which is obviously a red herring WRT the truth value of my assertion, since the same physical laws apply in both cases.
yguy, when people bring up that we can’t forecast weather for a certain period, so how can we project climate for a century, it shows a level of misunderstanding that is so frustrating. I thought the denizens here were past that stage, but I guess we get newbies that we just have to deal with.
To reinforce Jim Cripwell’s point
97+% of practising homeopaths believe that homeopathy works
97+% of members of the Catholic Curia believe in transubstantiation
97+ % of drunk drivers think they are fit to drive
97+% of suicide bombers believe they will be rewarded with 72 virgins in heaven….
Climatology is unique in that I can think of no other ‘science’ that feels it has such shaky foundations that it needs to parade itself in this way.
As Jim C. says, any real science should be all about the empirical data, not about the scientists.
But Feynman put it better
‘“It doesn’t matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn’t matter how smart you are. If it doesn’t agree with experiment, it’s wrong’
….
Latimer,
+100
You nailed it. You have a great ability to ‘cut through’ with clarity.
“97+% of practising homeopaths believe that homeopathy works”
So you accept that 97% of climate scientists accept AGW?
You even EXPECT it right?
Okay, well out there a lot of the public think climate scientists disagree on AGW. So irregardless of WHY you think climate scientists agree, it would be a good idea to let people know they they DO.
Right?
Perhaps you can convince the public that the agreement on AGW is because of corruption or a conspiracy. But I doubt they will accept that.
“Climatology is unique in that I can think of no other ‘science’ that feels it has such shaky foundations that it needs to parade itself in this way.”
It’s not unique.
http://ncse.com/taking-action/project-steve
This kind of parade happens whenever the public are being misinformed that there is huge disagreement on a subject among scientists when there isn’t.
I don’t know who the hell you people think you’re kidding. If any of this were “well understood”, people would be making accurate weather predictions 2 years in advance instead of 2 days.
Really! Fifty Years ago, Ewing and Donn Predicted that the Earth would Warm More, That the Arctic Would Open and that the Snow would fall to put a lid on Temperature. That was Accurate fifty years in advance, actually sixty.
Funny you should put neo-darwinian evolution in the same bucket with climate science as sciences that “parade” themselves.
The parade is because they’re both soft sciences based on just-so stories with fanatic ideologic followers anti-religionists and anti-humanists respectively. There’s a large degree of overlap between the two ideologic categories. Welcome to the “culture wars”. It’s not a war about science. Science is a pawn in this war. It would be funny except that legitimate sciences that bring you things like cell phones and antibiotics are getting their reputations degraded by association. Isn’t that just precious?
Jim D | May 18, 2013 at 12:29 pm |
These aren’t just “people”, they are the scientists whose job it is to think about these types of problems, gather data, and examine each other’s work. Like if you want to know whether a drug is dangerous, you go to the people who studied it.
______________
JimD, some time ago over 97% of the scientists whose job it was to think about these types of problems thought the world was flat. You clearly would have been a true believer in that day.
Albert Einstein: “No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong.”
Is it really so hard to understand that the volume of those saying something is right don’t make it so?
I think not. Global climate is merely an aggregation of weather states, wherefore the understanding of one is inseparable from the understanding of the other.
Better you than me. :)
Setting aside the lack of precision in this claim, I would point out that the weather guy often gets it right as well; but if there is any reason to think that should be taken as indicative of comprehensive understanding of the phenomena he is observing, I have no idea what it might be.
If you read it Cook et al merely show that almost no one claims that humans have no possible influence on climate. That would be an incredibly strong claim so no one makes it. This result is true but irrelevant to the debate where the issues are 1) whether there is a significant influence and 2) whether if there is it is dangerous enough to justify public action? Claiming that these scientific and policy debates do not exist is ridiculous.
That the debate is so poorly framed gives pause to the notion of directed narrative. Well, it makes a great laugh line.
============
They also claim that the public don’t even know that simple fact, which is important to understand.
Climate science, with its absurd clownish gesticulation into politics, and politics’ slapstick response, have made themselves ridiculous. Those boys can’t point bones worth popping open the Shinola can for.
===================
> If you read it Cook et al merely show that almost no one claims that humans have no possible influence on climate. That would be an incredibly strong claim so no one makes it.
And yet they still have found ABSTRACTS (n/t Eli) who claimed it, if we stand aside that David Wojick’s contraposition could very well be a caricature.
Really? Are you sure about that? Or is this another one of those there are no true Scottsmen lines of argumentation?
Joshua, I have never seen a scientific paper that concluded that humans have no effect on climate. UHI is well established so local urban climates are clearly affected. But there are a great many papers that point to various natural contributions to climate variations, weaknesses in the models, etc. Cook counts none of these as skeptical so he has simply missed the point of the debate.
Jim D, keep in mind that you and I are both part of the public. The public is not a person so it does not know or not know anything. Different people know different things.
I’m heartened to know there is a consensus that humans are causing climate change. It means the consensus has the psychological maturity of an egocentric child – who thinks that everything that happens around them is caused by them.
I wish I could find a consensus on:
1. the purported physical mechanism of purported greenhouse warming
2. the need for proper experimental evidence to demonstrate the yet-to-be-agreed purported physical mechanism
3. that the scientific method has nothing to do with consensus of scientists
blouis79, wikipedia says “psychological maturity” is the ability to respond to the environment in an appropriate manner. How does being a part of a consensus mean a person lacks this ability?
In Ancient Times, it was known that Earth was Round and that the Earth did orbit around the Sun. Later, this knowledge was destroyed and hidden away by the peer-reviewed consensus group that took over and said the Flat Earth was the center of the Universe. In that time, no papers that disagreed were accepted by the clique. We now know Papers that disagreed did exist and we do know that they were rejected by the Flat Earth Peer-Review Clique.
Climate Science is it its Flat Earth Phase. Nothing that disagrees gets accepted by the CAGW Clique.
Science is always Skeptical. If 97% of a Clique says exactly the same thing, it is not really Science.
” If 97% of a Clique says exactly the same thing, it is not really Science.”
97% of scientists say the world is round. So it isn’t?
97% of scientists say the Earth orbits the Sun. So it doesn’t?
97% of scientists don’t say the earth is round. Once something is known, a consensus of scientists is no longer needed to cram it down everyone’s throat. When the consensus is used as a weapon, you know what they say is not known.
From “Aliens Cause Global Warming” – A lecture at the California Institute of Technology (17 January 2003) given by Michael Crichton
“97% of scientists don’t say the earth is round.”
Sure they do and if enough people were denying that someone would publish a study to demonstrate it.
lolwot | May 19, 2013 at 7:09 am |
” If 97% of a Clique says exactly the same thing, it is not really Science.”
97% of scientists say the world is round. So it isn’t?
97% of scientists say the Earth orbits the Sun. So it doesn’t?
______________
Actually I believe the accurate statement is that the *empirical experimental evidence* shows that the Earth is round (including direct observation of that fact from space” and that it orbits the Sun. This is why your 97% of scientists “say” those two things. The have observed the results themselves.
How many have observed, directly, AGW or CAGW?
Here’s a great contemporary example: http://www.cifar.ca/ancient-shorelines-ice-sheets-stability
This study shows that ancient shorelines were *not* caused by seal level rise due to melting ice sheets. Now unless I’m mistaken, 97% of climate scientists believe that melting ice sheets are what caused the sea level rises of the past.
I have to think, given the low response rate to surveys (which isn’t so unusual for scientists; the only surveys with high response rates in the sciences involve Star Trek or Olivia Wilde) that other means of measuring consilience ought be examined.
Influence of papers analyses, which have a fair pedigree, seem to indicate that even with a lively and concerted effort (such as we see in WUWT, the Idso’s sites, corporate-sponsored ‘reports’, policitally motivated funding and de-funding and legislation, activist blogs, etc.), a remarkable failure of denialism to penetrate very deeply, or to staunch the flood and wide acceptance in published, peer-reviewed science, in textbook selection, in course curricula, and in thesis papers of the mainstream ideas of AGW.
Human influence is so widely accepted as to be fully normative, and papers that diverge from this view have a steep hurdle to overcome and not much influence in general.
Global warming is accepted fact. Papers diverging from this view are utterly ignored, except where anyone takes the time to destroy them.
Extreme weather due human influence is little-challenged, and the challenges perfunctory or largely dismissed out of hand.
The question of 97% acceptance is pretty much obsolete by now. New questions of new consilience, new consensus questions, are arriving and becoming important. Do try harder to keep up.
I have indicated elsewhere, the skeptics need their own journal (even if just an online one, which must be cheap) so that they can put their best case(s) forwards without fear of editorial control or tough peer review. I suspect this has been considered, but then they figured they’ve got nothing worthy yet.
I believe that John Cook getting the attention of Obama has punctured the equilibrium of the climate change skeptic crowd. The skeptics at WUWT are complaining that Cook has not properly tabulated “consensus” (and as a nit, that the WaPo made a mistake).
Does everyone know that WUWT is considered the number one science blog in the world? That is what you call consensus, in a sarcastic sense.
WUWT a science blog ?
When I see the acronym “WUWT,” Mad Magazine’s Alfred E. Neuman comes to mind saying
WUWT, me worry?
You hadn’t heard? The CONCENSUS is that it is the number 1 science blog in the world for the third time, according to the Weblog award committee and the voting public:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/03/24/weblog-awards-wuwt-wins-for-the-third-time/
Not only that, but like 13 of the top 17 of the nominated blogs were of the skeptical climate science theme. Is that enough consensus for everyone?
Webbie
‘Consensus’ with two ‘s’s. From the same root as ‘consent’.
Not
‘Concensus’ with two ‘c’s ..which – if it existed – might come from ‘census’ – L ‘censere’ – to assess. But it doesn’t.
Another of your not quite right ideas – like your Cyclopean fixation on ‘peak oil’ as the sole prism through which anything anywhere to do with energy must be viewed.
on purpose, did you not see how I spelled it in the last sentence?
The census establishes the concensus — contrary to what is voted on.
BTW, what’s with your obsession on the pH of the ocean? Is that all you know? Is that the prism in which you view climate science through?
I don’t respect you, you don’t respect me, get over it, LattieBot.
WUWT is a science blog? Really, I would not have thought that at all. Did this same group select Faux News as a science news channel?
The problem is in the term “science blog”. Blogs are not science. Blogs are globally networked graffiti. Write that down.
Springer, You have not frequented the fine mathematics blogs, such as Terry Tau’s blog http://terrytao.wordpress.com/
Or John Carlos Baez’s fine math/physics blog http://johncarlosbaez.wordpress.com/
The writers on these sites realize that they can keep a running conversation with their readership and use that to improve their publication and presentations. I dare you to go on Tau’s blog and suggest what he is writing is “networked graffiti”. Your mistaking equation markup for gang tags says more about your level of awareness.
The only issue amongst the info-hungry masses is that these blogs tend to be less active, because it takes ,,,, work … to come up with new stuff. I used to blog every day but gradually decided to only blog when I had enough material to unload a deeper research analysis tract. Suffice to say, that really drops the number of readers.
Pukite you inferred something I did not imply. Graffiti can be bad or good or anything in between. Try to keep the knee jerk responses to a minimum. And in case you’re wondering I decided that since you address me by my real last name I’m going to address you by yours which only seems fair.
> I believe that John Cook getting the attention of Obama has punctured the equilibrium of the climate change skeptic crowd.
It even made Chewbacca growl:
http://rankexploits.com/musings/2013/on-the-consensus/
Bart V weighted in:
> Another example of an apples to oranges comparison is [Chewbacca] comparing the number of explicit and quantified endorsements to the sum of explicit and implicit rejections.
http://ourchangingclimate.wordpress.com/2013/05/17/consensus-behind-the-numbers/
The Erynies recurse, yet again.
I think Chewie can become the new Kristen Ponder the Maunder for that crowd. He’s young and fresh enough, and people seem to like him. A lack of credentials compensated by good rhetorical debating skills can take you a long way in those circles.
Thanks for the compliment WebHubTelescope. I’m glad that people like me despite my lack of credentials, and I’m happy to see you acknowledge I have good rhetorical debating skills. Maybe if you didn’t focus on credentials so much, people would like you, or you might develop some rhetorical debating skills. But then, maybe you’re not young or fresh enough.
I guess you can’t help it you didn’t grow up with this as an influence.
WebHubTelescope (@WHUT) | May 18, 2013 at 1:21 pm |
“I think Chewie can become the new Kristen Ponder the Maunder for that crowd. He’s young and fresh enough, and people seem to like him.”
I think he’s a passive-aggressive blog slug myself. To which “people” do you refer? As far as Kristen Byrnes she seems to be a nice kid compared to say Lindsey Lohan with fine potential but I wouldn’t cite her on any scientific matters.
I’d make two points. First, the success of WUWT and other sites that present counter arguments shows that science is not the most important input to policy development. The people and what they believe is the main input to policy development. If the people are not persuaded that the policy is appropriate, the policy will not succeed. That is what is happening with carbon pricing in EU and with green energy schemes world wide. And the reason it is happening is because people are rational and appropriately sceptical. they want to be able to weigh what they are told by authority against what independent thinkers think. (i.e. most people; a sizeable proportion of the population is gullible and accepts whatever they are told from on high)
Second, We should be appreciative that there is some balance for the government funded propaganda outlets (such as IPCC, EPA, etc). And, whereas IPCC and the government funded climate research institutes and scientists have virtually unlimited funding to support their propaganda (supported by effectively unlimited funding to do research steered by government policy, group think, and herd mentality), the climate blog sites like WUWT are run on a shoe string budget. We should be very grateful for them.
It’s worth considering where we’d be without sites like WUWT. Our only sources of info would be IPCC, the advocacy sites like ‘RealClimate’ and ‘Skeptical Science’, ‘The Conversation’, and the advocacy bodies like the Royal Society, NAS, Australian Academy of Sciences and advocacy journals like Nature, Science and the rest of them.
You make good points.
But even more worrying to me is that without the sceptical blogs the only Quality Control mechanism we would have for any of this stuff would be ‘peer review’ – a mechanism so fundamentally flawed as to be laughable.
Like the old saying goes ‘you get exactly what you pay for’. And the budget for peer-review is zero.
The finest illustration of the complete failure of this system came from Phil Jones – Director of CRU and publisher of over 200 papers testifying before Parliament. according to Fred Pearce in the Guardian – no ‘sceptic’ or ‘denier’ he –
‘The most startling observation came when he was asked how often scientists reviewing his papers for probity before publication asked to see details of his raw data, methodology and computer codes. “They’ve never asked,” he said.’
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/cif-green/2010/mar/01/phil-jones-commons-emails-inquiry
200 papers and nobody has even bothered to look at his code? What sort of QC is this?
Jones himself has said that he passes papers ‘if they feel right’. Hardly a high bar – and incredibly subjective.
And it seems that the entire academic research industry is very reluctant to criticise another’s paper once it has been published. No surprise there…when the act of publication is the objective for which one gets reward ans status, rather than it being shown to be right, it is in everybody’s (bar the public’s) interest to keep the publication gravy train rolling smoothly along.
And my favourite other illustration is the ill-fated ‘Gergis et al’ paper from last summer.
Having been passed by ‘peer review’ and everything else that academia felt necessary, it was announced by press release with great fanfare and no little hubris as a Southern Hemisphere hockey stick. Three years and over $A300,000 were spent on it. The authors were so confident of their work that they felt able to write:
‘ This is commonly referred to as ‘research’. We will not be entertaining any further correspondence on the matter.’ to Steve McIntyre. (Not, in retrospect, a wise move)
The paper was launched. Despite all the academic reviews it sank after just a few days in the blogosphere. The wreck has not been located and no salvage operations are underway.
See
http://joannenova.com.au/2012/06/300000-dollars-and-three-years-to-produce-a-paper-that-lasted-three-weeks-gergis/
http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2012/6/7/another-hockey-stick-broken.html
Peer- review? A completely discredited and inadequate mechanism.
Thank &deity. for the blogosphere to keep the ‘sciency charlatans’ in check.
Latimer Alder,
Another excellent comment. Thank you. It is such a good comment I posted on ‘The Conversation’ in full. [but it will probably be deleted by the moderator – comments that are not clearly in support of the CAGW emergency are not welcome on ‘The Conversation“.
For those who don’t know, ‘The Conversation‘ is an academics web site in Australia. It is funded by universities and only academics can post articles. But only the loony Left post. The editors all have a background in journalism and activism for socialist causes.]
For Bob Droege. It is still far too early to be able to look at the data, and say anything sensible about what minimum Arctic ice conditions might look like this September. But there are some straws in the wind. The Nenana Ice Classic might be on course to set an all time late break up of the river. See http://www.nenanaakiceclassic.com/. The latest date on record was 1964, May 20th; but that was a leap year. The Danish data of temperatures north of 80 show below average. If there is to be a very low value of minimum, it is this part of the Arctic Ocean that needs to lose more ice than last year. See http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/meant80n.uk.php
Who knows what will happen, but it might just be that when we look back with 20/20 hindsight in October, we might see these straws as being signiicant; but on the other hand, we might not.
Go Baby Ice Metric, Go!
=============
Jim that was a load of nothing.
Last year
“The average arctic sea ice monthly extent for September 2012 was the lowest observed in the satellite era at 3.6 million square kilometers, based on National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) estimates—50 % lower than the 1979-2000 average of 7.0 million square kilometers.”
You’re projecting what?
Steven, you write “You’re projecting what?”
I am projecting nothing at all. I am hoping that these signs that I mentioned are going to be a portent of things to come. Whether they will be, we wont know until next Spetember. But I certtainly hope my guess of a minimum of 4.8 msk turns out to be somewhere close to the truth
Jim
“Spetember. But I certtainly hope my guess of a minimum of 4.8 msk turns out to be somewhere close to the truth”
So you are guessing a MINIMUM of 4.8 for extent or area?
last years minimum extent was 3.48
last years minimum area was 2.23
Steven, you write “So you are guessing a MINIMUM of 4.8 for extent or area?”
Yes. Bob and I have a bet. His number is 1.8 msk; mine is 4.8 msk. There are 8 figures from denizens of CE altogether. Do you want to add yours?
And the tripod at Nenana is still standing as of early this am.
How are climate contrarians (deniers and skeptics) like deadbeat dads?
Deadbeat dads are men who decide to have kids, then don’t stay around to pay for the consequences.
Climate contrarians decide CO2 should rise to levels never experienced by modern man, knowing they won’t live long enough to pay for any consequences.
Today’s climate contrarians may be tomorrow’s climate deadbeats.
How is Max_OK like a liberal?
==========
He’s a broad-minded pragmatic caring person with vision.
He’s not a self-centered “everything is all about me” person. No sir, he’s not one of those Ayn Randy sociopaths. Nor is he a sexist homophobic xenophobic ethnocentric bigots.
In a few words, he’s as good as a person can get.
humble too. dont forget that MaX Ok
“Instead of loving what you think is peace, love other men and love God above all. And instead of hating the people you think are warmongers, hate the appetites and the disorder in your own soul, which are the causes of war. If you love peace, then hate injustice, hate tyranny, hate greed—but hate these things in yourself not in another.”
What?
The scary thing is Max_OK is not kidding. Oh he’ll say he is if pressed, but he’s not. News for you Max, liberals are as self-seeking and self-deluded as everyone else. Perhaps more so. People who see themselves as enlightened goodsters are particularly dangerous.
Mosher thanks for the advice. I believe it’s very good advice. I didn’t know who’s advice you were quoting, but I found it’s Thomas Merton in his book New Seeds of Contemplation. I’ll give it a look.
Lewis Carroll’s Alice said ” I give myself very good advice but I very seldom follow it.” I try to do better than Alice, but frequently don’t.
simple Harold.
never trust anyone who claims he is not self centered while that person at the same time makes negative characterizations of others. The malady is called projection. Or, if Max spots it, he’s got it. Most selfless people don’t spend the energy diagnosing flaws in others. For a taste of how they think, I provided Merton.
pokerguy said on May 18, 2013 at 9:08 pm
“The scary thing is Max_OK is not kidding. Oh he’ll say he is if pressed, but he’s not.
“People who see themselves as enlightened goodsters are particularly dangerous.”
______
pokerguy, I was kidding when I said I was “as good as a person can get.” I’m not even as good as I can get.
I take it you don’t see yourself as an “enlightened goodster,” and therefore don’t consider yourself particularly dangerous. Do you see yourself as the opposite, an innocuous unenlightened no-goodster?
Mosher<
So, clearly noone should ever take any notice of you, eh Mosher?
Humour alert! even I could appreciate it!
Well we now know at least one person in the world loves Max. Max loves Max. That’s a start, I suppose.
Steven Mosher | May 18, 2013 at 8:09 pm |
Merton is always an interesting source.. though I must guess he would have been uncomfortable quoted in this manner simply to criticize the writings of another.
“Today will never come again.”
Peter
“So, clearly noone should ever take any notice of you, eh Mosher?”
I think you missed part of the logical chain. I don’t claim to be free of self centered ness. My suggestion was that you shouldn’t trust somebody who
1. makes a claim of not being self centered and
2. makes that claim while making negative characterizations of others.
As I havent done (1) your comment seems a bit off the mark.
like a good number of folks here who havent achieved sainthood I don’t make the claim that Max makes about being free of self centeredness.
I forgive your stupidity. go in peace.
The legacy of more CO2 is and will be that green things grew better with less water.
But not with more heat. Illiterate farmers know that simple fact, but pollution advocates have trouble grasping it.
The funny thing about deadbeat “dads,” using the term dads loosely? The vast majority of them, and I have chased many for the children and women they have abandoned, think the government should pay to support and raise their children.
Now just what political persuasion do you think sees government as responsible for supporting people? What type of ideology sees the government as the solution to every problem, particular those they created themselves?.
You get one guess. Unless you’re a progressive, then you can have five, and you still won’t get it.
+1
I live under one of those regimes. But hopefully for only another 4 months … :) :)
Australia has a deadbeat nanny.
GaryM, I only need one guess. My guess is you want me to believe you know how deadbeat dads vote.
Now, Gary M, it’s your turn to guess. Do you guess:
A. I believe you know.
B. I don’t believe you know.
If a deadbeat dad is a politician he could be Republican or Democrat. The only one that comes to mind, however, is ex-Rep. Joe Walsh, a Republican. If I recall correctly, he also was a Tea Party guy.
I don’t know how deadbeat dads in general vote, but my guess is those who are white likely vote Republican, and those who are Afro-American or Hispanic likely vote Democrat.
I would expect climate deadbeats, on the other hand, to be mostly Republicans and Libertarians.
So how does Max differ from a space cadet?
‘A person who leads people to believe they are from a different planet or dreaming of ancestry in other areas of the universe. The person does not respond when directly spoken to, performs odd food rituals and displays complete disregard for commonsense. A space cadet is not necessarily refering to a person of low intelligence or a heavy drug user, but rather a person who typically focuses on all aspects of life except the one currently at hand.
This is sometimes portrayed by testing the properties of wooden door hinges and the current coefficient of drag, by accelerating the door into the closed position at a high rate while leaving any room. This will often awaken, startle or confuse normal inhabitants of the planet earth, but will appear oblivious to the cadet. When ascending or descending a staircase, a space cadet will tend to forget that the gravitational constant of earth differs from that of their home planet and will give the impression or a much larger moving mass. The area of the voice box “pharynx” also appears to differ from that of a normal specimen, causing words to be miss pronounced such as sold-her, instead solder.
The exact origins of a space cadet are unknown but rumor has it that their home planet was destroyed due to pollution caused by poor house keeping. Following this disaster they proceeded to disperse themselves throughout the universe and litter the gene pool. Space cadets are known for their poor skills in common sense areas such as coordination, food preparation, basic cleaning and processing simultaneous coherent thoughts. Examples of some of these thoughts include wanting the dress as another space cadet with a cancerous appendage attached to themselves or ignorant phrases such as “grow a p*nis”.’ urban dictionary
FAKE SKETICS? Wow, that is profound given the topics of the past two weeks.
Judith put the basis of a great discussion on the table this week with the essay by Dr. L. Bengstsson. It was an essay beyond even these startling points that address AGW uncertainty:
1). “The tropics are a crucial area as it is here where the greenhouse effect is largest. During the period 1979-2012 for which we have reliable observations, the warming of the lower tropical troposphere, 20°S – 20°N, has only got about a third of the warming compared to what is predicted by present climate models”.
2). “The warming trend by the models is about 3 times larger than the observations”.
3) “There is no simple explanation to this, except that the planet is capable to get rid of the heat more effectively than in the models. This can be due to errors in handling the clouds or that the water vapor effect is overestimated and that in reality the atmosphere is losing heat to space in regions of very dry air that is not well represented in models. Alternatively more heat is effectively transported into the depth of the oceans. However, the observational records are clear and the global warming is proceeding much slower than generally is anticipated”.
FAKE SKETICS. WOW.
Cut to the chase. There must only be one important perspective.
Sounds to me that here is something new at play. Science is finding a normal footing and showing a backbone. If a climate scientist (Bengstsson) with gravitas in the AGW community and in the higher ranks of meteorological science can speak honestly, “why should anyone have trouble listening”? Courtillot’s comment- “there is a third pillar of physics” which he argues is important to those of that understand numbers and scientific investigation seems relevant to what is being said by Bengstsson.
It is a most interesting human reaction, when a self professed scientist of the highest order dives on a petard called “Settled Science”.
GarryD
http://youtu.be/rORiooCvMac Bill Mckibben is starting a campaign to divest from fossil fuel. Colleges like Swarthmore have formed a pretty militant group of students demanding the college divest from fossil fuel. http://collegeinsurrection.com/2013/05/swarthmores-descent-into-madness/ http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/05/13/are-wind-turbines-killing-off-the-whooping-crane-population/ What is clear is that these anti #fossil fuel students have not been informed about the devastation green energy has on the environment.
People have the power, to quote Patti Smith.
WEB,
Of course they do!
Never had a problem with anyone with consistent values. Admitting that there are things in climate that they do not actually understand is usually a sign of intelligence? Of course there is hubris?
Someone with gravitas in AGW hierarchy, constant in their AGW beliefs and able to admit that there is uncertainty is a different scientist. They have brains, character and “stones”.
Do you not agree?
Ocean heat follows net TOA flux quite closely. That would seem fairly obvious. Instead of a slow evolution to equilibrium there is cooling and warming as TOA radiant flux shifts substantially seasonally to decadally at least.
http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/Wong2006figure7.gif.html?sort=3&o=108
This makes it impossible to detect small signals from greenhouse gases against a substantial background variability.
‘The top-of-atmosphere (TOA) Earth radiation budget (ERB) is determined from the difference between how much energy is absorbed and emitted by the planet. Climate forcing results in an imbalance in the TOA radiation budget that has direct implications for global climate, but the large natural variability in the Earth’s radiation budget due to fluctuations in atmospheric and ocean dynamics complicates this picture.’ http://meteora.ucsd.edu/~jnorris/reprints/Loeb_et_al_ISSI_Surv_Geophys_2012.pdf
Energy moves from the oceans to the atmosphere – simplistic and misguided nonsense notwithstanding. The input from the sun varies with cloud changes predominantly – but more or less heat moves between the oceans and atmosphere depending on sea surface and atmospheric temperature.
This is simple 2nd law stuff – but there seem quite a few areas where cognitive dissonance kicks in with the AGW space cadets. I quote lots of science – NASA, the IPCC, The Royal Society, the NAS, dozens of individual scientists. There are complexities that go well beyond baby radiative physic and the fabrication of a false consensus. None of the complexities of real world science seem to register.
‘What we can see in academic support for climate change is an emotional zeal combined with a highly developed form of abstract thought that is not very healthy, especially when it is combined with a strong sense of self-interest. What I am arguing is that academic abstraction makes academics more prone to millennial aspirations and the belief that they can save the world.
In his recent book on millennialism, Richard Landes argues that millennial movements become more extreme the more they fail, and it will certainly be the case that this is what happens with the climate change lobby. Empirical evidence will have little effect on their views and they will cling to the faith for as long as possible. As this faith is founded on their models, they will come more and more to rely on the models and ignore the real world. And they will become more determined to impose their views on any recalcitrant unbeliever.
The zeal with which academics pursue their defence of climate change is a reminder that many of them are more interested in imposing their views on the wider population than they are in allowing for freedom of speech and expression.’
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/model-academics-tend-to-be-driven-to-abstraction/story-e6frg6zo-1226645474666
They seem to have given up on indefensible AOS and have taken refuge in much simpler models. Horrendously so in some of the most egregious cases.
Chief, I e-mailed the Melluish article to Judith as highly relevant to CE.
Good comment, Chief.
On the 2013-05-18, at 09:20 (presumably Central Time), was published at Lucia’s an op-ed entitled Better way to remove the effect of “non attribution papers, asking for Denizens to unite and contribute:
> What could someone do guesstimate the effect of excluding totally irrelevant papers?
http://rankexploits.com/musings/2013/better-way-to-remove-the-effect-of-non-attribution-papers/
Go Team!
I noticed the geniuses over there arguing over numbers. One claiming that 12,000+ papers have been evaluated, whereas another is claiming that is a lie since the number is actually 11,991.
Teamwork is a little off. Probably due to jealousy over a scene-chewing youngster.
willard (@nevaudit) | May 18, 2013 at 6:16 pm |
Pretending, for a moment, a world where intellectual discourse follows the principles of frugality and efficiency in framing questions.. why would anyone waste so much discussion on such unprofitable ends?
We can know to a mathematical certainty the point in time at which net human CO2 forcings passed that tipping point from negigible to influential. That happened about 1955, when the signal of the Hale cycle on global mean temperature vanished after a century and a half of reliable correlation, never since to return.
By that measure, we do not need to contemplate temperature level or temperature change at all, until and unless we see the correlation of solar signal and GMT re-emerge. Until the point where the sharp stick of human Forcing falls so low as the global climate system has the number of large Forcings reduced by one to the number of large Forcings under which it sustained itself for many millions of years, the global climate system will operate with more extremes of the events that compose climate, which is to say weather patterns.
If a drunk driver crashes into a school bus, do we expend so much clucking of tongues over attribution of how much fault lay in the beer or the tequila or whatnot? Drunks don’t belong behind the wheel. CO2 emission above 1950 level adds one too many Forcings.
Attribution is a stake only in matters of tort, of assigning payment from the wrongdoer to the victim. If this discussion is intended to lead to payment from carbon consumers to weather victims, go ahead. So long as you’re willing to enforce judgment at the end of it.
Otherwise, this discussion is pure distraction from the point.
Warming is not the issue. One extra Forcing in the system is the issue.
Mok,wht,rg good to see a bunch of well accredited climate scientists give wuwt the recognition of being a top science blog by appearing and commentating in this blog. Well done and thank you.
Q What have rg, tamino and cook have in common
A truth in naming .
Summer northern hemisphere snow cover declining .? Hardly
Nattural variabilty being overwhelmed ? I thought it was currently overwhelming the “Signal”
GLaciers pass
THat tripod and CAGW both looking on very thin ice!
there were only two periods in thr 20th century when global temperature rose consistentiy: 1910 to 1940 and 1970 to 2000 and none in the 21st. Until we understand this behaviour we ate in no position to forecast future temperature anb the part played by CO2. If CO2 were rhe consisrent culprit thrn surely rhid would show up in the cross-correlation between CO2 and temperaturs but the IPCC nrver published this function. Why not? They don’t understand climate. See my website underlined above.
Consensus building by consensus:
It’s true: 97% of research papers say climate change is happening
http://theconversation.com/its-true-97-of-research-papers-say-climate-change-is-happening-14051
Today, the most comprehensive analysis of peer-reviewed climate research to date was published in the journal Environmental Research Letters. Our analysis found that among papers expressing a position on human-caused global warming, over 97% endorsed the consensus position that humans are causing global…
The paper:
Quantifying the consensus on anthropogenic global warming in the scientific literature
http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/8/2/024024
I’m finding it really hard to believe there are scientists who could possibly think like that – that proving consensus is part of the scientific method.
(Sorry – I found Jim D | May 18, 2013 at 12:10 pm
posted on this paper above – didn’t manage to find it by search on titlle)
The issue is that the public can’t quantify the consensus percentage even close to correctly. A journal paper may not help that, and Barack Obama tweeting it certainly will just cause opposition heels to be dug in.
I don’t understand why skeptics don’t get together somehow and commission a respected polling company to do a statistically valid survey… and finally give the world a number that accurately reflects the current thinking of the science community. Most people just laugh at me when I suggest that, even skeptics, something I honestly don’t understand..
Yes it would be expensive, but there are plenty of skeptics who should be be willing to donate. It should be doable with enough publicity, especially if we could get H.I. or some such organization involved. And no it wouldn’t be easy to organize, and yes it would be a difficult survey to design, and no it wouldn’t be believed by the alarmist public, but all those reasons seem insufficient.
Some things are just self-evidenlty worth doing…or so it seems to me.
What would be interesting is if they got together and ran a climate journal, putting in all their papers that were rejected by the scientific-society-run journals. Then they would be able to put their best case forwards without resorting to blogs where they have to mix with the loony wing.
blouis79
Did you see this:
http://rankexploits.com/musings/2013/on-the-consensus/
and this:
http://www.staatvanhetklimaat.nl/2013/05/17/cooks-survey-not-only-meaningless-but-also-misleading/
On the 2013-05-10, at 16:22, presumably CDT, was published at Lucia’s an op-ed with the title Happy Hour: Time to Play!, under two tags: data comparisons and politics:
For more detailed instructions about how one could have had more fun, please refer to the original op-ed.
LOL … this week’s contrast between the savvy engineers on Slashdot and the slogan-shouting on WUWT has been pretty hilarious:
When it comes to willful stupidity and/or slogan-shouting and/or distracting quibbles and/or purposeful mendacity … folks here on Climate Etc sure know where to find abundant examples!
hmm
you need lessons in harajuku
‘We analyze the evolution of the scientific consensus on anthropogenic global warming (AGW) in the peer-reviewed scientific literature, examining 11 944 climate abstracts from 1991–2011 matching the topics ‘global climate change’ or ‘global warming’. We find that 66.4% of abstracts expressed no position on AGW, 32.6% endorsed AGW, 0.7% rejected AGW and 0.3% were uncertain about the cause of global warming. Among abstracts expressing a position on AGW, 97.1% endorsed the consensus position that humans are causing global warming.’
‘Recent scientific evidence shows that major and widespread climate changes have occurred with startling speed. For example, roughly half the north Atlantic warming since the last ice age was achieved in only a decade, and it was accompanied by significant climatic changes across most of the globe. Similar events, including local warmings as large as 16°C, occurred repeatedly during the slide into and climb out of the last ice age. Human civilizations arose after those extreme, global ice-age climate jumps. Severe droughts and other regional climate events during the current warm period have shown similar tendencies of abrupt onset and great persistence, often with adverse effects on societies.
Abrupt climate changes were especially common when the climate system was being forced to change most rapidly. Thus, greenhouse warming and other human alterations of the earth system may increase the possibility of large, abrupt, and unwelcome regional or global climatic events. The abrupt changes of the past are not fully explained yet, and climate models typically underestimate the size, speed, and extent of those changes. Hence, future abrupt changes cannot be predicted with confidence, and climate surprises are to be expected.
The new paradigm of an abruptly changing climatic system has been well established by research over the last decade, but this new thinking is little known and scarcely appreciated in the wider community of natural and social scientists and policy-makers.’ http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=10136&page=1
Did you see the affiliations of these people in the Cook et al ‘study’. If we believe them – 97% of climate scientists are well behind the current scientific paradigm. This makes climate science dinosaur science before it has got out of the nursery.
An alternative view is that higher CO2 concentrations and a slightly warmer planet may lift us out of the zone where the climate shifts abruptly.
CO2 concentrations have been near the lowest in the planet’s history for the past few million years. And during that time the climate has shifted abruptly with very large amplitude changes. Each cooling has been particularly sever for life. Conversely, warming has been great for life. life loves warmer (and more CO2).
The case has not been made that warming is bad.
The middle frame of James Hansen’s Figure 1 here cato.org/publications/policy-analysis/humanity-unbound-how-fossil-fuels-saved-humanity-nature-nature-humanity shows how much more volatile the climate has become as the planet has cooled by 3 C over the past 5 million years.
I posted the wrong link. The correct link is:
The middle frame of James Hansen’s Figure 1 here http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2011/20110118_MilankovicPaper.pdf shows how much more volatile the climate has become as the planet has cooled by 3 C over the past 5 million years.
I don’t think the case for warming has been made. The 2.58 million years of the Quaternary period is characterized by glacials/interglcials posited to be combination of orbital eccentricities combined with tectonic uplift or the closing of the Isthmus of Panama. This sets the conditions for runaway ice feedbacks. In the 8.2ky event and the Younger Dryas – meridional overturning circulation is thought to be involved.
I don’t think adding instability to a deterministically chaotic is a recipe for stability.
I don’t predict. Prediction is indeed impossible. We are in a cool multi-decadal mode which can be seen in global ocean and atmospheric indices. Beyond that who knows.
Try this – http://www.ucl.ac.uk/~ucess21/00%20Thompson2010%20off%20JS%20web.pdf
Chief,
Thank you for the link. It looks interesting. I’ll read it tomorrow.
Peter Lang
In Hansen, Sato 2011, I note that Hansen uses 4 W/m2 as the forcing for doubled CO2. This was the established value circa 1992, which was later supplanted by 3.7 W/m2 circa 1999, with the latter value being acknowledged in 2006 to still be too high – should be ~ 3.6 W/m2. Using the more correct value, Hansen’s 2XCO2 sensitivity is 2.7.
Further, due to rapid albedo changes, climate sensitivity (not 2XCO2) is much higher when calculated over the transition from LGM to interglacial than if it is calculated based on difference in temp and Milankowitch forcing between Eemian and Holocene interglacials when albedo is less volatile.
The current climate is an interglacial. Then, perhaps, the climate response to forcing under the conditions of the present would be most germane in a climate sensitivity calculation which is intended for use in near term forecasting.
Chief Hydro said: (for the millionth time, with great certainty)
“We are in a cool multi-decadal mode which can be seen in global ocean and atmospheric indices”
Except for the fact that by the largest measures of the actual accumulation of energy in the Earth system (yes, ignoring the rather feeble and low inertia troposphere) shows that Earth has been accumulating energy for many decades, in perfect lock-step with the accumulation of GH gases:
http://tinypic.com/r/3313wja/5
A cool phase of the PDO, or AMO will not cause energy to stop accumulating, but simply alter the ocean-atmosphere exchange of that accumulating energy. The TOA balance will keep showing accumulation until such time as GH gases stabilize and some reasonable Earth system equilibrium is reached, which will take a few centuries once GH gases stabilize.
‘The top-of-atmosphere (TOA) Earth radiation budget (ERB) is determined from the difference between how much energy is absorbed and emitted by the planet. Climate forcing results in an imbalance in the TOA radiation budget that has direct implications for global climate, but the large natural variability in the Earth’s radiation budget due to fluctuations in atmospheric and ocean dynamics complicates this picture.’
http://meteora.ucsd.edu/~jnorris/reprints/Loeb_et_al_ISSI_Surv_Geophys_2012.pdf
We are in a cool mode Gates – http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=8703
And these things do seem to change the energy budget. Indeed the data shows that all recent warming was cloud change.
‘In summary, although there is independent evidence for decadal changes in TOA radiative fluxes over the last two decades, the evidence is equivocal. Changes in the planetary and tropical TOA radiative fluxes are consistent with independent global ocean heat-storage data, and are expected to be dominated by changes in cloud radiative forcing. To the extent that they are real, they may simply reflect natural low-frequency variability of the climate system.’ AR4 3.4.4.1
I don’t think this is equivocal at all – clouds are observed where they should be. You have seen this before but insist on your space cadet narrative rather than evidence.
In line with CH’s comment I have also the impression that the relative roles of variability in the TOA balance and variability in the net balance between oceans and atmosphere are far from clear.
Both are linked to ocean modes as these modes do certainly affect also clouds. Neither of these balances can be measured well enough to fix the relative sizes of these effects.
blueice2hotsea
@ May 19, 2013 at 12:22 pm
Noted and thank you.
On 2013-05-17, at 15:33, an important discovery has been reported at Lucia’s under the title Nir Shaviv: One of the 97%:
> I don’t know why one is classified as “No Position” and the other as “Implicitly minimizes/rejects AGW”. Still, neither of these papers is in the 97%.
http://rankexploits.com/musings/2013/nir-shaviv-one-of-the-97/
The tags are: Data comparisons.
No politics, this time.
Let’s say we can establish that for each 100 ppm we add to the atmosphere, it will warm to an equilibrium level of 1 C extra. Now, for a cost-benefit analysis you have to account for long-term rising fossil fuel costs as it gets depleted or harder to mine, so we save this money just by weening off fossil fuels and onto renewable or nuclear sources. On the other side, do we evaluate damage or the cost of prevention of damage which may be lower. How do we weigh mitigation against adaptation and resilience-building? Even with no mitigation, or especially with no mitigation, these other two costs come to the fore and have to be planned for. There is no free path, and the cost goes to three things: (1) mitigation, (2) resilience, (3) adaptation. How this pie is sliced depends how much we want the climate not to change, how much change we consider is OK for adaptation to handle, and how much we can afford for resilience.
We only save money – and maximize global productivity – is the alternatives are cheaper. Now this is indeed possible. Here’s some ideas.
http://judithcurry.com/2013/05/16/docmartyns-estimate-of-climate-sensitivity-and-forecast-of-future-global-temperatures/#comment-322897
http://www.salon.com/2013/05/17/revenge_ego_and_the_corruption_of_wikipedia/
Thanks.
Who’s surprised?
=====
On the 2013-05-02, at 21:14 CDT, an open letter is published at Lucia’s:
http://rankexploits.com/musings/2013/dear-john-i-have-questions/
Tag: Data Comparisons.
Title: Dear John. I have questions.
Our introduction to nuclear energy as the destroyer of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6 & 9 Aug 1945, rather than as the sustainer of life and the source of energy that could allow the continued evolution of humans, probably caused mankind’s irrational response to a resource he must learn to use, . . . or perish.
Climate sensitivity based on the instrumental records
By Girma Orssengo
I have done the analysis as you suggested. Here is my final result, which shows the linear relationship between Secular GMST (after the multidecdal oscillation has been removed) and the logarithm of the CO2 concentration.
http://orssengo.com/GlobalWarming/ClimateSensitivityOfOnePointThreeDegC.png
From the above graph, the slope of the linear relationship for the period from 1974 to 2004 is
k = dT/(ln C2 – ln C1) = (0.31 – 0.06)/(ln 377 – ln 331) = 0.25 / ln(377/331) = 0.25 / 0.130 = 1.923
From k = dT/(ln(C2/C1)), for doubling of CO2 we have
k = CS/ln 2
Therefore CS = k * ln 2 = 1.923 * ln 2 = 1.923 * 0.693 = 1.3 deg C for doubling of CO2
still not even wrong.
1. you must use all forcings. Temperature responds to many forcings
you have to use them all, not just 1.
2. ECS is defined as the total response after the system reaches
steady state.
Lets do a simple example.
You want to calculate the response in a cars speed to the application
of a horsepower forcing. Suppose I gave you data showing
the cars speed over time.. 0mph, 10 mph, 30mph, 65mph..
and told you that 150 Hp was applied.
can you calculate an accurate system response?
What questions should you ask?
1. were there other forcings in play? drag, friction, headwind etc. If yes, then you cannot simply calculate the response to horsepower because
during the period of study other forcing played a role.
2. had the car stopped increasing in speed? had it reached steady state?
attempts to derive climate sensitivity from the observational record have to adress these two questions. You have not.
With respect to all forcings one complication is that we do not have well
constrained estimates for aerosol forcing.
For example: we might say that the forcing from C02 from 1800 to today
is on the order of 2 watts, but we are uncertain about how much negative forcing there has been from aerosols? -1 Watt? by analogy thats a huge headwind. You cant measure the effect of horsepower very well when your single test run had a huge headwind. You will need to address that uncertainty.
Next comes the issue of system inertia. That’s not very well constrained either. What this means is that your estimate has big fat error bars and they are not symetric. put another way, you’ve estimated a lower bound for TCR.
“Steven Mosher | May 19, 2013 at 12:34 am | Reply
ECS is defined as the total response after the system reaches
steady state.”
But there has to be a steady state (equilibrium) at the beginning, too.
The CO2-concentration started to climb around 1775, after being around 280 ppm for a long time. But the temperature was already climbing then (coming out of the Little Ice Age) so there was no equilibrium in 1775 either.
Fortunately, the additional warming commitments at the beginning and at the end more or less cancel each other, so we may neglect them to get an idea about sensitivity & the instrumental record..
“you’ve estimated a lower bound for TCR”.
No, he has not.
If you look at http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/tar/wg1/345.htm
Fig. 9.1, and if we ignore the fact that the IPCC numbers are twice the real ones, Girma has estimated T70 to T140, which is similar to ECS, but about 1.5 times TCR.
Thanks Steven.
I’m not sure where you get your ECS definition Mosher but the IPCC defines ECS as:
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/syr/ar4_syr_appendix.pdf
Thanks for that link. That is perfect for explaining TCR vs ECS.
The land temperature reaches ECS fairly quickly while the ocean lags due to the Fickian sqrt(time) heat sinking response.
So if we look at proportional warming of land versus ocean we see this same factor of ECS=1.5*TCR
http://theoilconundrum.blogspot.com/2013/05/proportional-landsea-global-warming.html
And so if we use DocMartyn’s approach to measuring sensitivity for land temperatures (using BEST), we get ECS=3.1C for doubling of atmospheric CO2
http://img197.imageshack.us/img197/2515/co2sens.gif
Girma is way off because he is “not even wrong” as Mosh put it.
WHT
No. Land vs Sea is the green curve vs the red curve; after 500+ years they show the same value.
What Mosher does not understand (or see) is that the green curve in year 0 starts horizontally and then is bent upwards, but in year 70 it starts (and stays) with an upward slope. There is no additional warming commitment in 0, but there is one in 70. So if there is no added CO2 in 0, temperature will stay the same. But in 70 (and 140) it will go further up.
According to IPCC TCR is not land, but GLOBAL.
The Land-only data tells one what the ECS will be well before the global temperature will. That is the point.
Web, BEST returns a climate sensitivity of 2.25. You are clearly wrong on your non-fitting fit in your graphic.
You are not a ‘climate scientist’, so you can’t just make this stuff up you know.
DocMartyn, re: land temp sensitivity
1980-2010: CO2 ppm goes from 337 to 388, CRUTEM4 or BEST land temperature rises ~0.84, sensitivity is 4.2 C per doubling. I don’t think this rise rate is sustainable for land because it is warming twice the rate of the ocean, and eventually the ocean will put the brakes on it, but no sign of that yet.
Even the BEST folks got close to 3C on their own data. That’s according to what Mosh verified a while ago.
It would be nice to know what we all did wrong.
springer what part of run to equillibrium do you not understand.
Here is a clue. download the results from the 2X C02 runs.
write down what you see.
then write down this
http://i42.tinypic.com/112d5oj.png
@ Girma:
“Therefore CS = k * ln 2 = 1.923 * ln 2 = 1.923 * 0.693 = 1.3 deg C for doubling of CO2.”
If you assume that you understand and have ‘calibrated out’ ALL factors that affect the climate OTHER than CO2.
Do you and have you?
Bob Ludwick
Of course he has not. It cannot be done, at least not yet.
We know temperatures, and we know CO2-concentrations.
Now we ask the question: IF everything else averages out, what would be the sensitivity? To THAT question the answer is 1.3°C.
Alexey Buergin
Yes. “All other things being equal” 2xCO2 CS = 1.3C. (Girma)
“Consensus” aficionados (like Webby) would tell Girma, “Tsk, tsk, you forgot about the looooong time to reach equilibrium; ya gotta multiply that by at least 1.5x.”
This is a red herring IMO, because no one can determine how long the so-called “equilibrium” takes to happen (if at all), so it looks to me like a theoretically posited fudge factor.
But let’s add in another 0.6C to cover this. So we are at 1.9C.
But wait! (As they say in the TV sales pitches.)
Several solar studies suggest that around half of the past warming can be attributed to the unusually high level of 20th C solar activity (highest is several thousand years), whereas IPCC had attributed only 7% of the past warming to solar, conceding at the same time that its “level of scientific understanding of natural (solar) forcing is low”.
So that gets us back down to around 1.3C for the 2xCO2 climate sensitivity at the magic equilibrium.
And Girma is right.
Max
Manacker
Girma uses the Temperatures T1 and T2 and the concentrations C1 and C2 at the points in time t1 and t2.
If he is supposed to wait until t2+500years for eqilibrium, then, using C1 and C2, he can only start with T at t1+500years because there was no equlibrium in t1 either.
Fortunately the warmings more or less cancel each other.
Alexej Buergin
A very good point.
If we have a “500-year pipeline” it will essentially hold the same amount of “missing heat” in 2013 as it will in year 2100 (as long as we keep putting heat into the magic pipeline about as fast as it is coming back out again).
So it is the TCR that should be used to estimate future projections of warming, not the ECS.
At any rate, the new paper on the new thread has pretty much validated Girma’s estimate.
http://judithcurry.com/2013/05/19/mainstreaming-ecs-2-c/#more-11727
Max
What is unprecedented or unusual about last 30-40 years of the global climate change is number of delusionists telling us that humans have or could change it.
Not many London residents in last couple of years, despite of the +2C UHI effect, suffer of such delusions any more.
Does any one know what happened to the “open Mind” blog?
It is has been inactive for a while.
looks like he is doing nothing.
this explains its all
Statement: CO2 is killing the planet.
Response: Then stop exhaling it.
Let me bring this out as a new piece. At Latimer Alder | May 19, 2013 at 12:51 am |
Quote “As Jim C. says, any real science should be all about the empirical data, not about the scientists.”
I have been trying to argue this point with people like Steven Mosher and John Carpenter. I have got nowhere on Climate Etc. because Steven claims that there is no categorical difference between estimates and measurements. In other words, if I interpret what he claims correctly, estimates of climate sensitivity are merely somewhat inaccurate measurements.
I think this is a load of scientific nonsense, but until the warmist denizens on Climate Etc. agree that there is a complete difference between measurements and estimates, we cannot have a proper scientific discussion on this subject.
I knew it was just a matter of time this old chestnut was rolled out again. Some things you can be certain about.
http://judithcurry.com/2013/04/20/10-signs-of-intellectual-honesty/#comment-314354
Only problem here is Mosher and I never argued the science is about the scientists. It’s ok Jim, we know you learned from Searle in Physics 101 what a measurement is. Keep hangin on to that.
John, you write “Keep hangin on to that.”
I intend to.
Interesting. John repeats an argument that repeating arguments is intellectually dishonest. At the risk of being repetitive myself I say to John “physician, heal thyself”.
Not a repeat Dave, just validation that what I predicted came to pass.
John Carpenter
Jim Cripwell is not alone in his observation that “measurements” and “estimates” are two different things.
“Measurements” are defined actual physical measurements based on real-time observations or reproducible experimentation. This is “empirical evidence”, which can be used to either corroborate or falsify a hypothesis (Feynman, Popper).
“Estimates” is sort of a loosey-goosey expression that encompasses everything from “wild-ass guesses” to posits based on “expert judgment” to model “experiments” based on theoretical inputs to calculations using actual physical measurements as a part or all of their bases.
There is very little “wiggle room” in the expression “measurements”.
There is a helluva lot in “estimates”.
And that is the key difference, which Mosh has been trying to fog up in his exchange with Cripwell.
If I can understand this, I’m sure that you are able to comprehend this basic difference between the two.
Right?
Max
I’m sorry I mentioned it. Are you boys trying to bore me to death arguing about it again? It might work because the measurement/estimate handbag fight was as boring as boring gets.
Max, an estimate is a type of measurement. It maybe more loosey-goosey, but it is a measurement. An estimate is not a WAG. An estimate is based off of prior measurements made or measurements made in a similar fashion. A WAG is a total stab in the dark with no idea at all. Not the same thing. I will admit an estimate is a type of guess. Measurements are more accurate than estimates… Estimates are more accurate than guesses.
You may not like the idea that I press Jim on this issue. Fact is, I have little faith in the estimates made for CS to CO2. I believe we are well on the minus side of the 3.0. Perhaps even at the min of the error given. But the physics is real, CO2 forcing warms the planet, not cool it. There is more CO2 in the atmosphere now than has been in a long time due to burning of fissile fuels. We are observing warming over the long trend. The difference between Jim and me is Jim doesn’t think we should even consider if this is a problem. I think we need to consider it. I am not alarmed by it though. It wouldn’t hurt to find energy alternatives that can handle the load we need. It wouldn’t hurt to having adaptive strategies and plans if the concerns end up being more real than not. Many people are concerned. Jim’s solution to their concern is to ignore it because CS ‘appears to be zero’. How does this mollify their concern? How do you move to a broader solution to the problem if you ignore there is a potential problem? How will his ideology get people working to a common goal? IMO it won’t. He gets the label of ‘denier’ by the majority of the people looking at the problem and gets pushed out of the way. Is that what we want for Jim?
manaker
Start here where Nic Lewis Does
http://i42.tinypic.com/112d5oj.png
There is your method. so much for his argument that there is No method.
What’s a smarter argument?
Take Willis’s argument or Judiths argument, that this method
assumes there is no temperature dependance.
THAT is smart argument. Cripwells arguement, ” There is No method” is just dumb. I want skeptics at the table. I want to hear there best arguments and see if we can reason together. So, you see Willis argument or Judiths argument and its a tough argument to counter.
Thats a good thing. Tough arguments make for sounder reasoning.
Now, look at the quantities in those equations
Delta Temperature. Do you want to argue like cripwell does that we have no measurements of temperature? or do you want to take Anthony’s strong argument that the temperature measurements are biased? Which argument do you want to take to battle? Cripwell or Watts. One claiming we are ignorant as rocks about the universe, or the other making specific arguments about bias. And look at the other terms, delta forcing and ocean heat content.. do you want to thrown in with cripwells insistence that we are utterly ignorant, or would you rather discuss the difficulties of figuring out what each of these terms is.
at some point if you actually want to join the debate there are certain folks on your side you have to pat on the head and keep on the bench.
Mosh and John
Sure, there are “measurements” (a whole bunch of them).
They tell us:
– the globally and annually averaged land and sea surface temperature anomaly has risen in fits and spurts on a roughly 60-year warming and cooling cycle since 1850 with an underlying warming trend of around 0.6C per century
– two statistically indistinguishable warming cycles occurred from ~1910 to ~1940 and ~1970 to ~2000; in between there was a 30-year period of slight cooling, and since 2001 we are again seeing a period of slight cooling which may or may not become another 30-year cooling cycle
– atmospheric CO2 has risen since measurements were started at Mauna Loa in1959; prior to this we have data from ice cores indicating a steady rise since 1750; most recently the rise has been exponential at a rate of around 0.5% per year
– estimates made by CDIAC tell us that human CO2 emissions from fossil fuel use have risen steadily since 1750
– there is very little correlation between the CDIAC figures and the atmospheric CO2 concentration on a year-to-year basis, over the longer term it appears that around half of the CO2 emitted “remains” in the atmosphere with the balance disappearing into the biosphere and oceans; the percentage remaining in the atmosphere has diminished by around 1% per decade since Mauna Loa measurements started
– we also have laboratory determinations of the IR absorption capability of CO2 (and other GH gases)
So much for the measurements.
To “glue this all together” and come up with a theoretical 2xCO2 temperature response at some arbitrarily defined “equilibrium” takes estimates including some “expert judgment” plus some WAGs.
And that is the point where the rational (or scientific) skeptic says (citing Feynman), “show me the empirical evidence that your hypothesis is true”
And that is where actual physical measurements or results of actual reproducible experiments are required to satisfy this rational skeptic.
And, so far, these are missing.
That is the point made by Jim Cripwell, as I understand it.
And all the rationalizing about measurements requiring estimates and estimates requiring measurements and the two being practically interchangeable isn’t going to change this.
So, instead of rationalizing, try to satisfy Jim Cripwell’s very tough criteria to support the IPCC CAGW hypothesis (as outlined in AR4).
It isn’t impossible.
It just takes more effort and maybe some thinking outside the box.
It will not be satisfied simply with more model runs.
And the underlying danger is that it may end up falsifying the CAGW premise.
Max
“I have got nowhere on Climate Etc. because Steven claims that there is no categorical difference between estimates and measurements. In other words, if I interpret what he claims correctly, estimates of climate sensitivity are merely somewhat inaccurate measurements.”
You’ve got that wrong. Your argument appears to be this.
Measurements are categorically different from estimates, and since we have no measurements of sensitivity, we know nothing about it.”
My argument is this. There is no categorical difference between measurements and estimates, as both come with uncertainty and its
the uncertainty in our knowledge that is important. So, rather than founding your argument on the unsupportable grounds you do, you would be better off focusing on the actual uncertainties involved in calculating sensitivity. See DocMartin for example. And I will end with another analogy which should make the point I am making clear.
The other night I went to the races. The track was a short oval. The cars were pretty damn fast. I want to know how fast they were going.
That is, I wanted to compute the ratio Distance/Time
But, I could not go out on the track to measure it with a ruler. but there where was a jeep in the infield, and a longbed dodge, both of which I have owned. Using those as a reference or proxy, I figured the track was around 1/3 of a mile, well I figured it was actually larger than a 1/4 mile but less than 1/2 mile. That gave me distances of say 1200 feet to 2500 feet as boundaries on the distance. Plus as you watched the cars go around the track it was clear that they took different paths and would travel different distances. and that even if I know the distance around the track exactly, I wouldnt know the distance they travelled exactly.
so I had my numerator lets say 1200 to 2400 feet
Next I had to figure out the time. I tried several methods. I didnt have a stop watch, so I just counted 1 mississippi. the cars finished laps in around 12 secs. I timed my heart beats and then I counted heartbeats.
came out around 12 sec. I tried looking at my watch and the track at the same time.. around 12 seconds.
with those two crude measurements I can calculate the speed.
Call them estimates, Call them crude measurements. I can calculate the ratio.
Now, one can look at this and say “Mosher you didnt measure, you only estimated, you therefore know nothing. Until you measure, its not science! and if its not science its not knowledge”
Really, do I really know nothing about the speed of these cars unless I measure according to your defnition. Well, I know their speed isnt zero and I know that its less than the speed of light. I know that taking no measurement whatsoever. And based on my proceedure I can say that The speed is more likely to be greater than 65 mph than it is to be less than 65. and more likely to be less than 135 mph than it is to be more than that.
Put another way, your whole approach of “attacking” the notion of sensitivity from the perspective that it isnt “measured” really misses the point. The point is we have methodologies for calculating the metric. Those methodologies are varied and the accuracies are varied, yet they nonetheless constrain our ignorance. We know certain things are ruled out without knowing the exact truth of the matter. So it is with sensitivity. Sensitivity is the ratio of Change in temperature over change in forcing. The figures that we have for the numerator and denominator are not point figures. They are ranges. Those ranges constrain our ignorance.
Yeah, brainycardic, I suspect he knows all that. My view is that he is using the large uncertainty and the unsupportable range of climate sensitivity estimates, plus the detail of possibly imperceptible(immeasurable) AnthroCO2 effect, to bring forcefully the perfectly manifest point of ‘Where’s the Beef?’.
====================
+.9998997998
Steven, you write “The point is we have methodologies for calculating the metric.“
Sorry, Steven, you are talking utter nonsense. There are NO methodologies for CALCULATING climate sensitivity. None whatsoever. There are only ways of ESTIMATING climate sensitivity. When you make a measurement in physics, you automatically get an accuracy. I learned that in Physics 101. When you make an estimate, you have no idea what the accuracy is. And that is only one of the fundamental differences between measurements and estimates. There are others. But until we can agree that measurements and estimates are fundamentally different things, then we cannot have any sort of scientific dialogue.
JCH, error bars, please!
You estimated the lenght and measured the time.
“When you make a measurement in physics, you automatically get an accuracy.”
Really, how do you suppose you get that? Does it come from the sky?
“When you make an estimate, you have no idea what the accuracy is?
Really? None whatsoever? I estimate the mass of my dog to be 20 lbs by lifting her and comparing to the 25 lb bag of kibble i just bought at the store. I can tell the bag is a bit heavier. You say I have no idea what the accuracy is. I know I’m not off by 50 lbs… I know I’m not off by 25 lbs…. I can pour out half the bag of kibble and compare which is lighter, the dog or the bag. I determine the bag is lighter at half full. Half the bag is about 12 to 13 lbs. So I know my estimate is good between 25 and 12 lbs. I know I’m accurate within that range. I know I have an upper and lower bound to my estimate. So I have determined an accuracy to my measurement. I know I would be wrong to say my dog is 50 lbs and I know I would be wrong to say she is 5 lbs.
John, you write “Really, how do you suppose you get that? Does it come from the sky?”
Evidently you have never studied Physics 101. If anyone produces a number in physics and does not give a +/- value associated with it, then it is not a measurement. When we did a practical physics experiment in Cavendish labs, if you produced a numeric answer with no +/- you automatically got 0 out of 100. If you gave a +/- which was wrong, you could still earn up to 95 out of 100. It is fundamental to the way in which measurements are made that you must get a +/- value at the same time as you get a numeric result. If you dont understand this, then you have never studied physics.
Honestly, the nonsense that some people write on Climate Etc.
Jim
“Sorry, Steven, you are talking utter nonsense. There are NO methodologies for CALCULATING climate sensitivity. None whatsoever.”
###########################
well, you are wrong. sensitivity is defined as the change in temperature divided by the change in forcing. calculate the ratio.
the methodology is called division. it exists.
there are other methodologies as well. People use them. They exist.
###################################
” There are only ways of ESTIMATING climate sensitivity. When you make a measurement in physics, you automatically get an accuracy. I learned that in Physics 101. When you make an estimate, you have no idea what the accuracy is.”
1. You do not automatically get an accuracy when you make a measurement in physics.
2. When you make an estimate you also have accuracies. It is not
true that you have no idea what the accuracy is. I estimate that
you are 6 feet tall. I have no measurement of your height whatsoever.
I am certain that my estimate is accurate within plus or minus 4 feet.
That is, I am certain you are not less than 2 feet tall and not more than 10 feet tall.
So right there you have failed to establish a difference in KIND and your have failed to define a MATERIAL difference.
“And that is only one of the fundamental differences between measurements and estimates. There are others. But until we can agree that measurements and estimates are fundamentally different things, then we cannot have any sort of scientific dialogue.”
Sorry, for the purpose of defining what we know there is no categorical or material difference. You have not established that there is. You have appealed to authority rather than to science.
Steven, you write “Sorry, for the purpose of defining what we know there is no categorical or material difference. You have not established that there is. You have appealed to authority rather than to science.“
You are wrong, but I am not going to continue this fruitless discussion. I am not going to search back 60+ years, and try to remember what the textbooks said in physics 101. I am NOT appealing to authority, I am using what is in the standard textbooks in physics.
OK, so we got it!
Based on “estimates”, incorporating a thin slice of actual physical observations, plus a dash of “expert judgment”, adding in a splash of “wild ass guesses” regarding natural forces and a pinch of subjective interpretations of dicey proxy data taken from carefully cherry-picked periods in our geological past, all cranked through a climate model using questionable parameterization, we know the answer:
The “climate sensitivity” at some arbitrarily postulated “equilibrium” some date in the far distant future, to a doubling of CO2 in our atmosphere lies somewhere between 0 and 4C.
Eureka!
(Now let’s all go back to sleep.)
Max
Mosh
Your “race track” example is simply another failed attempt to fog up the real difference between “estimates” and “measurements”.
You KNOW this difference, but just don’t want to admit it to Jim Cripwell.
So you present one lame rationalization after another.
Give up on this one, Mosh, and move on.
You are just making yourself look stupid (and I know damn well that you aren’t).
Max
Jim
Appealling to textbooks? really? did you measure the accuracy of those textbooks?
Oh, here is another method for calculating sensitivity.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/05/19/new-paper-shows-transient-climate-response-less-than-2c/#more-86575
Max
of course there can be differences between estimates and measurements, but none of those differences matter with respect to the issue at hand. That issue is : do we have an understanding of sensitivity.
Is our ignorance bounded or is unbounded.
Jims point is that if we have no “measurements” that we know nothing.
He’s wrong. And I think I am doing him a favor by pointing him at better arguments he could make.
Put another way. Who makes more sense to you. Doc Martin who takes a stab at coming to an understanding, Dick Lindzen who takes a stab at coming to an understanding, Nic Lewis who takes a stab.. or
Jim Cripwell who says. Its not measured. Who precisely do you think is moving toward knowledge, toward understanding, and who is stuck in a faulty memory of what he thinks he learned in physics 101?
“You’ve got that wrong. Your argument appears to be….”
When you see words like that, they are the first pieces of straw in a straw man soon to be appearing near you.
When someone wants to actually engage in a fair and honest argument, they quote the words, then argue with what was actually said. They don’t mis-paraphrase the comment, redefine some of the words therein, and presto chango, show how stupid the point no one ever made is.
Yaaawwwnnnn.
But hey, when y’all are done with showing how measure and estimate are the same, maybe you can settle the issue of the “C” in CAGW; the difference between global warming, climate change and climate disruption; and just what precisely the meaning of the word “is” is.
Mosher says.
sensitivity is defined as the change in temperature divided by the change in forcing. calculate the ratio.the methodology is called division. it exists.
A primitive assumption at best.
The obvious problem is a response theorem on a fluid,ie where solutions (to the equations) are both rare and special,and in physical systems infinite.
Ore would assume that the solution would be an irrational number,rather then a rational number.
Steven Mosher | May 19, 2013 at 4:47 pm |
Jim
“Sorry, Steven, you are talking utter nonsense. There are NO methodologies for CALCULATING climate sensitivity. None whatsoever.”
###########################
well, you are wrong. sensitivity is defined as the change in temperature divided by the change in forcing. calculate the ratio.
the methodology is called division. it exists.
there are other methodologies as well. People use them. They exist.
_______
So, as easy as simple division? I thought there were lags in the system and one needed to wait until equilibrium to see what the final delta T was. When exactly does equilibrium occur? How do we know? How do we measure change in forcings? How do we measure change in T? So if I measure forcings and T at my home today, and then tomorrow I’m good to go, right?
Jim, you made the claim that you _automatically_ get an accuracy when you make a measurement, while when you estimate you don’t. How does the accuracy just _automatically_ appear in measurement? Where does it come from? You know it doesn’t come from thin air. You know I know it doesn’t come from thin air. All of us with science backgrounds have learned error analysis and know that. Heck, I’ve taken specific courses on error analysis. So the question I am asking is not one of ignorance on the topic of accuracy. It is a question on ‘how do we arrive at the accuracy?’ What is the process by which we determine accuracy? How do we get that +/- part? You have correctly stated that including error is fundamental to measurement. I gave you an example of how you can determine error on an estimate. Mosher has provided an example of how to determine accuracy of an estimate. How is the process of determining error of an estimate different from determining error of a measurement? If you take this task seriously, you will find that there really is no difference between the two and you will find that estimation is a type of measurement. You will also find a measurement does not _automatically_ deliver an accuracy.
K scott
“So, as easy as simple division? I thought there were lags in the system and one needed to wait until equilibrium to see what the final delta T was. When exactly does equilibrium occur? How do we know? How do we measure change in forcings? How do we measure change in T? So if I measure forcings and T at my home today, and then tomorrow I’m good to go, right?”
Jim’s argument is that there was NO METHOD. your argument is the method I suggested has uncertainties and assumptions.
Hint: I agree with you and disagree with Jim.
here. from Nic Lewis’s latest paper
http://i42.tinypic.com/112d5oj.png
You see: multiplication, division, and subtraction. a method
exists. Now, you have uncertainties in the quantities, but
That is entirely different from saying that NO METHOD EXISTS.
You see the tning is Jim Cropwell doesnt want to learn the details. You do. Doc Martin does. manaker does, Heck even GIRMA understand what kind of problem this is and the tools one uses to diminish our ignorance. Cripwell, his head in the sand and he;s stuck on saying
false things like sensitivity is both unmeasurable and indistinguishable from zero.
Look at Nic equations. you yourself can tell why Jim is wrong
@maksimovich
Yes, it is a primitive assumption to assume that division exists as a method. lets just call it multiplication, use recipricols and agree that multiplication exists.
if you want to calculate something start here
http://i42.tinypic.com/112d5oj.png
Mosh
Agree with you that “we” know more than nothing about 2xCO2 climate sensitivity.
Also agree with you that “we” should be making a stab at defining this more closely – especially with real-time physical measurements or reproducible experimentation.
But I also have to agree with Jim Cripwell that CAGW as outlined by IPCC in its AR4 report has not (yet) been corroborated (or falsified) by empirical scientific evidence (Feynman, Popper), and hence remains an uncorroborated hypothesis.
Look at it this way: Cripwell is not being an obstructionist; he is simply setting a very tough and stringent stipulation that must be fulfilled before CAGW is corroborated. This is a challenge – not a roadblock.
Max
On the Motivations of Alarmism
Alarmism over climate is of great benefit to many, providing government funding for academic research and a reason for government bureaucracies to grow. Alarmism also offers an excuse for governments to raise taxes, taxpayer-funded subsidies for businesses that understand how to work the political system, and a lure for big donations to charitable foundations promising to save the planet. Lysenko and his team lived very well, and they fiercely defended their dogma and the privileges it brought them.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204301404577171531838421366.html
NPR’s Alan Cheuse called ”Odds Against Tomorrow” a “brilliantly conceived and extremely well-executed cli fi novel…a knockout of a book.” AND IT IS. BUT we wo\nder why in all 300 pages of Odds Against Tomorrow, you won’t see the phrase “climate change” once. Not even the dialog of characters or the narration/
RICH said to NPR reporter that that was intentional on his part as cli fi novelist:c
SO MY QUESTION TO FRIENDS HERE
1. What is your take on this strange remark by Mr Rich, that “I think the language around climate change is horribly bankrupt and, for the most part, are examples of bad writing, really. And cliche — ‘climate change,’ as a phrase, is cliche. ‘Global warming’ is a cliche.”?
2. What would your reaction be as a counter quote?
3. And if you had the chance to meet Rich face to face , what would your response be to that quote above to him face to face or by email or tweet?
DANNY BLOOM ASKS
According to the LA times John Cook, owner and HNSIC (head non-scientist in charge) of Skeptical Science, is an evangelical Christian.
http://articles.latimes.com/2011/jan/05/nation/la-na-scientist-climate-20110105
I’m not going to hold that against him but I’d like to hear how some anti-religion bigots that babble here (especially @WHUT) have to say about that. LOL
Gotta have amusing ironies to keep the Gods in an uproar in the clouds.
==========
Like to learn about Climate Science?
Prerequisites:
No prior knowledge or science background are required
http://www.rigb.org/contentControl?action=displayEvent&id=1455&gclid=CLj3isDIorcCFdIPtAodQ2UAXA
@ Pekka Pirila:
I agree that having a calm, reasonable discussion about climate change, its causes, its impacts, and policies that should be taken in response, if any, is highly desirable.
I would also point out that the logistics of such discussion are non-trivial when the going in position of one side is that anyone who questions THEIR side should prosecuted for ‘crimes against humanity’. And tout de suite, too.
Bob Ludwick
J. Martin said:
“Temperatures have plateaued and so if human co2 induced warming is steadily rising, then background natural cycles must be cooling at the same rate as human induced warming is increasing.”
______
Hmmm, seems everyone is so content to pass this meme on. By “temperatures” you are referring of course to the highly variable, low thermal inertia tropospheric temperatures of course, There are much better ways of measuring the energy imbalance of the Earth, far more reliable ways that can filter out short term natural variability that the troposphere is so subject to. These four charts tell the real story of the continual, constant, warming of the planet for the past 30+ years as measured by the much higher thermal inertia energy reservoirs of the ocean and cryosphere. This warming has been caused by the continual growth of GH gases. There has been no pauses in warming as GH gases never sleep:
http://tinypic.com/r/3313wja/5
Hi Gates
Do I detect you are sidetracking your CO2 powered high speed express train to a goods marshalling yard ?
Please explain that Vuk. My point was only that the Earth system has been steadily accumulating energy in lock-step with the accumulation of GH gases, and that the continual meme that focuses on the highly variable troposphere is a weak attempt to mask the larger energy accumulation that is occurring in the system. GH gases never sleep and the energy accumulation in the system has not stopped for many decades. There has been no actual pause in the warming, but only the pause in the troposphere that many seem to like to focus on.
Gates
All of that is gobbledygook nonsense; few molecules of CO2 can’t warm the rest of atmosphere not to mention 1000 times greater heat capacity of oceans. Now be a sensible chap and calculate how much heat energy your CO2 needs to contain to warm world oceans by 1C, and what its temperature needs be at the start and where it would need to end up.
Total mass of the Earth’s atmosphere is = 5.15x10E18 kg
Total mass of the atmospheric CO2 is = 2.06x10E+15kg
Total mass of top 100m of world oceans water is = 3.6x10E16kg
On heat capacity of CO2 and water and their mass you are 17×1000 =17,000 times short. of energy content required , and that is if none of the energy went into surrounding atmosphere either.
R gates
Vuk asks a good question regarding The heat energy needed to raise world ocean temps from abyssal to surface by 1 c
Tonyb
vuk’s conceptual model is wrong if he thinks the heat capacity of the CO2 is doing the warming rather than its radiative effect. A better analogy is how clouds keep the surface warmer at night. You don’t need to know the cloud’s heat capacity for this, only its effectiveness of emission of longwave radiation.
Vuk,
Your conceptual framework for how GH gases work is quite askew. Suggest you really spend some time here:
http://scienceofdoom.com/roadmap/co2/
Please do read all 8 parts of “An Insignificant Trace Gas?”, and then we might have an intelligent conversation about this.
Regarding the ocean and it’s long-term accumulation of energy- get this: CO2 is not warming the ocean, but controls the flow of energy from ocean to atmosphere. The net flow of energy is from ocean to atmosphere, and thus, it is both physically and thermodynamically impossible for atmospheric CO2 to warm the ocean– but it does dictate the flow of energy from the ocean to that atmosphere, and we’ve seen that energy accumulate in perfect lock-step to the CO2 accumulation in the atmosphere….hence the term “control knob” for CO2. CO2 is not the heater for the ocean (that would be the sun), but rather, it is the “control knob” for controlling the flow of that heat from ocean to atmosphere and eventually back to space..
R gates
I think vuk is aware that co2 does not heat the ocean. His question was regarding the amount of heat needed to raise the oceans temperature by 1c.
The draft of Ar5 mentioned that the abyssal warming was accepted and quantifiable but when I,as an ‘expert reviewer’ asked them for the papers that Substantiated this and have figures they could not come up with them despite my Formally asking three times.
I look forward to the paper that provides the calculations showing how much energy is needed to raise ocean temperatures by 1 c and it would also be interesting to know how it managed to evade the sensors nearer the surface
Tonyb
Oh yes, another case of my dog eat my previous homework about the CO2 raditive forcing.
It is indeed case that oceans warm the atmosphere, move atmospheric pressure, but knob is not puny CO2 but the ocean currents’ volume and velocity, thermo-haline circulations. All energy comes from the sun and stored into oceans. This energy flux is nearly constant, but the ocean currents regulate how much energy is radiated back and how much moved poleward.
Ocean currents not CO2 are in charge!
Jim D
Clouds are made of H2O molecules, else known as water, and have much larger heat capacity than the CO2 molecules, i.e. can store lots more of energy, part of which is radiated downwards.
Tony,
Based on Vuk’s comment, where he said:
“Now be a sensible chap and calculate how much heat energy your CO2 needs to contain to warm world oceans by 1C.”
I’m not so sure he does understand that CO2 does not warm the oceans, else why would he ask this silly question?
Overall, the key to understanding the ocean-atmosphere is not how much energy is entering the ocean (primarily from solar SW), for that is dictated largely by clouds and solar output variations, but rather, how much energy is leaving the ocean, considering that some 30% of the energy in the atmosphere at any given time came directly from the ocean.
Thus, if the atmosphere is cooling or warming over a given period of time, and solar and volcanic activity has been constant, the only other option is the flow from the ocean changing, We see this on a short-time frame with ENSO, and longer multi-decadal time frames with the PDO and AMO.
R gates
Do you have an answer to the question?
The IPCC couldn’t supply the paper with the calculation but I have more faith in you
Tonyb
vuk, it is not the heat capacity that matters for radiation, it is the temperature. Having a low heat capacity the CO2 is at the same temperature as the surrounding air and radiates at that temperature while the O2 and N2 don’t. This is where it matters when you double the CO2 molecules because that doubles how much they radiate, which is a large fraction of clear-sky downward radiation.
Doubling CO2 may increase the downward longwave flux by 3 W/m2 at the surface. 3 W/m2 can heat 100 m of water by 2 degrees per decade.
Every single sentence that mentions the heat capacity of CO2 as an influential factor in this thread is total non-sense. The heat capacity of CO2 has no influence on anything. The only important role that CO2 has is transferring energy between the atmospheric gases and IR radiation.
When a photon is absorbed by a CO2 molecule, the energy is transferred in nanoseconds to N2 and O2 of the atmosphere.
Every CO2 molecule that emits a photon has received the required energy only nanoseconds earlier from N2 and O2 of the atmosphere.
Because CO2 stores only 0.02% of the energy in the atmosphere, it’s heat capacity is irrelevant.
“My point was only that the Earth system has been steadily accumulating energy in lock-step with the accumulation of GH gases”
However, it doesn’t. The whole point about identifying natural variation is because the system is wobbly in the past, where there was no change in CO2 levels. Working out if we are living during fast rising temperature due to a rise in atmospheric GHG’s or just sitting on an unusual bit of wobbliness is important.
We know that during the last 10 years the last bunch of GCM failed in epic proportions; the temperature has been almost flat and GHG concentrations have risen.
The heat in the pipe argument is put forward by people who have never lived in a home with dimmer switches.
DocMartyn,
Based on the broadest measured energy accumulation in the Earth system the system has continued to accumulate energy very steadily for over 3 decades at least. Your “wobbly” system is confined to the low thermal inertia troposphere, which gets at least 30% of its energy directly from the oceans. But as these charts quite readily display, the higher thermal inertia oceans and cyrosphere have been accumulating energy in lock step with rising GH gases, without a “pause”:
http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=3313wja&s=5
Tony, please refine your question. How much of the ocean do you want to raise 1C…down to what depth?
Also, think of outflow from the ocean, not inflow. There is more than enough solar energy hitting the ocean to raise water temps quite dramatically IF the rate of flow to the atmosphere slows down as it does on many different cycles.
R Gates
I am looking at the whole ocean. here is a definition
http://www.windows2universe.org/earth/Water/temp.html
tonyb
Tony, you might enjoy reading this post on ocean energy content from a few years back on WUWT:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/04/06/energy-content-the-heat-is-on-atmosphere-vs-ocean/
R. Gates the whole three decades of heat acquisition by the oceans argument is bollocks. Quite plainly, we do not have a temperature series longer than 5 years to measure 0-700m. Moreover, the whole point of an ocean heat oscillation means we expect heat to be very over the course of 60 year. If you believe that making up data to show what the ocean temperature was, before it was measured, is a sign of straw grasping.
R Gates
Its early here and I haven’t had my coffee yet, but your link seems to be saying that ocean heating is a complete irrelevance?
“If you were to transfer enough ocean energy directly to the atmosphere to create 4 degrees of atmospheric warming, how much would that change the average temperature of the Earth’s water?
“Would you believe – 0.001 Degrees C of ocean temp change? The left side pancake wouldn’t look any different in Fig 1! Hell, it wouldn’t change if we were in another oceanic current inspired ice age — think about that.”
tonyb
Doc Martyn said
“If you believe that making up data to show what the ocean temperature was, before it was measured, is a sign of straw grasping.”
Precisely, SSTs are virtually worthless before the 1960’s because of the way the very sparse data was gathered and deeper ocean measurements practically non existent.
Ocean heat may or may not have been increasing over the past 30 years but that tells us nothing at all of the broader sweep of history.
tonyb
JimD
The total mass of water vapor in the atmosphere is 1.2 × 10E16 kg.
Total mass of the atmospheric CO2 is = 2.06x10E+15kg
Mass of water vapour is more or less constant, but its mass is 60 times greater than that of the CO2.
Water vapour heat capacity = 1.851 kJ/kgK
CO2 heat capacity = 0.735 kJ/kgK
It follows that total radiative energy from water vapour is about 150 times greater than that of CO2.
All those numbers are totally irrelevant as I wrote above.
The radiative energy from water vapor is more than from CO2, but both have infinitely more than from O2 and N2, and the CO2 part is quite significant, so that a doubling effect is a few W/m2 which is a lot of Joules into the ocean over time.
Vuk
I read somewhere that the amount of water suspended in the atmosphere as clouds or falling precipitation was equivalent to a 4cmsea level rise.
Don’t know how that affects Your calculations but that’s a lot of water
Tonyb
Seems high. Does it include water vapor?
=======
It’s about 2.5 cm including all the vapor. By far most of that is vapor.
It is 2-3 centimeters, most of that as water vapor.
Jimd
I suspect the amount of water captured in the atmosphere varies according to overall temperatures and this in turn relates to periods of droughts and sustained rainfall on the ground
I’m not sure how relevant the factoid is but it’s sure interesting to know that such a vast amount of water is suspended above our heads
Tonyb
There is a global variation. The average over the tropical oceans is nearer 6 cm.
Rain drops keep falling on our heads…
Gates and Jim D
I am not wasting any more of my time with this nonsense, effect of CO2 by all accounts is minuscule, either what water vapor can do, or compared to oceans downward or upward heat flux.
When you are caught of having deeply false ideas your reaction is to not waste your time.
It would be better for economizing your time to stop creating all that nonsense and start to learn at least the simplest realities of physics.
You are right, it was a waste of time. Think about radiation before arguing next time.
Vuk,
You were horribly wrong about SSW’s and now you’re caught with this weak understanding of CO2 forcing to face up to. Where exactly did you study physics?
I was taught physics by an ex-Russian Academy of Science professor, in the same lecture theatre where Milankovic gave his tutorials, overlooked by a statue of Nikola Tesla. At that time volcanoes were considered far stronger atmospheric factor (as I suggest to be initiators of the SSW) rather than the dust stirred by Chinese yaks on the edge of Goby desert.
Also at the time CO2 was considered a beneficial gas, not a doomsayers’ vehicle to extract more money from taxpayers, and what is worse turn the third world countries into even bigger poverty.
If you wish to know more about climate change, but I sincerely doubt, than study the
NaturalVariability
Good day to you.
Pekka Pirilä | May 19, 2013 at 3:41 pm |
Every CO2 molecule that emits a photon has received the required energy only nanoseconds earlier from N2 and O2 of the atmosphere.
Indeed it is nanoseconds, but Hansen tells of 16 year CO2 delay factor!
And what might be your CO2 emitted photon, wave or a particle?
Have you heated up tube of CO2 gas and done the split beam test?
Is there anything worth writing or reading in the your comment?
Why to write such rubbish even when you have nothing to tell?
Pekka Pirilä & Jim D
Do the numbers on radiation, you know mass & mol, you know Planck’s constant, lambda and the speed of light, then come back and compare.
Saying Svante Arrhenius did it a hundred years ago is not good enough.
I shall ignore the insults, well known method of a debate looser.
Arrhenius is history. He got something right and something wrong. Scientist of his time understood many things, but we do not believe any single issue of science based on trust on those scientists.
What we know presently about the role CO2 has on the radiative energy transfer is based on laboratory measurements performed over many recent decades and perfected many times during that period. The information specific to CO2 or any other molecule of interest can be found from databases like the HITRAN database maintained at Harvard university. The empirical data is also understood theoretically through quantum mechanical calculations of the CO2 molecule.
How CO2 absorbs and emits IR is well known, and so is the transmittance of IR in the atmosphere, and how CO2 affects that. It does have very important influence over some limited ranges of wavelengths, most significantly on the low wavelength side of the 15 µm absorption peak of CO2 (An the center of the peak the absorption is so strong that little changes, but on the low wavelength side the effect is significant).
The other essential component in understanding CO2’s influence is the overall picture of the atmosphere pioneered by Manabe and Wetherald in 1966 and further developed by many since that time.
Ok, that is far more civilised attitude, but you still have failed to calculate the energy radiated downward.
If scientist like Dr. Roy Spence or the Nobel prize winner Freeman Dyson do not accept the CO2 radiative calculations, I don’t see why I should take your word for it, when you are not even prepared or capable to quote any numbers let alone do calculations.
In addition classic gas physics says the effect is negligible, and there are far more powerful natural causes that could, may and most likely do produce the effect under consideration.
Ok, that is far more civilised attitude, but you still failed to calculate the energy radiated downward.
If scientist like Dr. Roy Spence or the Nobel prize winner Freeman Dyson do not accept the CO2 radiative calculations, I don’t see why I should take your word for it, when you are not even prepared or capable to quote any numbers let alone do calculations.
In addition classic gas physics says the effect is negligible, and there are far more powerful natural causes that could, may and most likely do produce the effect under consideration.
Vuk,
What makes you think that Spence would not accept CO2 radiation calculations. My impression is that all well known skeptical climate scientists agree on these calculations. Their skepticism is not about these well known basics, but on further factors and mostly on feedbacks.
The basic radiative calculation is done for an atmosphere fixed to a given state and repeated in model calculations, when this state changes. The disagreements concern the changes in the atmospheric state, not the radiative calculation of a given state.
I have not found Dyson’s thoughts relevant. I have read some of his comments and found them uninteresting. He has apparently never spent the effort needed to learn enough about the atmosphere to make relevant remarks. Being a physicist is not enough without that extra effort.
Have you done calculation of the energy quantums transfers between N2, O2 and CO2 and back, and what is feedback equation you used to calculate total energy increment?
If not, than it is a bit hypocritical to criticise a Nobel scientist who spent years working at Institute for Energy Analysis in Oak Ridge and took up Albert Einstein’s chair at Princeton.
Vuk,
There are very many good physicists. One Nobelist known on work in a very different field 50 years ago cannot be taken as an authority. If your were willing to trust authorities, you would have a very different view on climate change.
I haven’t done those calculations myself (I was closest to such calculations when my roommate at University of Helsinki Theoretical Physics Research Institute did quantum mechanical calculations of molecular structures while I was studying elementary particles), but I have much stronger reasons to believe in a wide range of results that competent scientists have obtained and other competent scientists verified in many different ways.
In science a single paper or a single scientists does not count very much, but results confirmed independently by several scientists using different approaches are very reliable.
vukicevic, there are online tools like MODTRAN for these radiative transfer calculations. They account for the radiation observed very well, and you can go in and change CO2, H2O, temperature, soundings, and investigate the effects for yourself. As I said, doubling CO2 increases the surface downward IR by 3 W/m2, and it comes from this type of code.
here is a nice paper for Vuk,on the importance of electromagnetic phenomena on atmospheric processes such as tropical cyclones.
Interesting is the use of the dissipative structures (in this case friction)
http://www.nonlin-processes-geophys.net/20/293/2013/npg-20-293-2013.pdf
You are diverting debate again, btw Dyson is not only one, Nobel prize winner for physics Dr. Ivar Giaever resigned from APS over the group’s promotion of man-made global warming fears and there are many other highly respected scientists, prize winners or not. We also know of the All Gore’s and tiny fraction of a Nobel Prize for Dr. Mann.
You said you’ve done calculations of energy transfer, but you will not show your calculations, you talk of feedback calculations but will not quote the equation, without considerable energy available to the strong feedback no additional warming.
I judge your contribution to the climate science by what I read here, and I am far less impressed by it than you are by Dyson’s statements.
At least when I talk about climate and its natural variability, which I think is by far strongest component of current warming in the North Atlantic basin, I show my graphs, all based on the current data from Met Office, NOAA and NASA, and there dozens of such graphs, all supporting the Natural variability case.
If you wish to understand the current climate change, go and study what is going on in the Nordic Seas, not far from your homeland. You will find it far more satisfying than repeating ‘ad nauseum’ highly suspect hypothesis that is about to disintegrate in a puff of CO2.
Vuk,
Who is diverting discussion jumping to something else, when forced to give up on one point?
Who is cherry picking authorities finding two very old physicists out of thousands?
Deciding what to think about my contributions based on what I have written more widely is the right approach. I apply the same to you. Finding out that you don’t understand the most basic physics at all, but are still ready to argue on that was certainly most revealing in that. So was also your choice to refer to Dyson and Spence without any knowledge on what they think on that point.
Pekka
I never claimed I am an expert on physics, even less on quantum mechanics, or for that matter not an expert on anything else.
However, there are many who claim that they are, and are not, there are many who claim they are, and actually are. If a climate scientist or commentator belongs to this last and distinguished group and claims that the 400ppm CO2 is existentially critical for the biosphere, including the humanity that caused it, then they either suffer from serious delusions, or let’s be blunt they do it for some kind of ulterior motivation.
My graphs (some junk, some informative, lot totally irrelevant and one or two spoofs) are here: http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/Contents.htm ,
I’ll look forward to see your ‘CO2 feedback equation (you claim you calculated) with amplification, phase shift and time constant parameters, until then you stick to the CO2 armageddon, I will pursue natural variability, time will tell who is wrong, looks like much sooner than many expected.
I have not persuaded many, or even any, but it appears to me with the all expertise you profess, you are not doing much better; at least our exchanges have provided some good laughs for the onlookers.
Good day to you.
Vuk stated;
This is a very important revelation and it substantiates my claim that many of the kranks who comment here are doing it as a prank.
The key to a prank is never to admit that one is not serious, and when that admission is made, one can no longer can one blame it on anything else but intellectual dishonesty.
Vukcevic has violated the Coast2CoastAM unwritten rule analogous to The Fight Club — Do not mention that this is all being done as a joke.
Webby you’re in need of urgent collimation, otherwise you might be OK.
On the 2013-05-09, presumably at 15:08 CDT, Survey Privacy Plugin was published at Lucia’s:
The only tag is politics.
different ways to combat global warming
http://heatisland.lbl.gov/publications/global-cooling-increasing-world-wide-urban-albedos-offset-co2
Steven
In London we have about +2C of urban factor, I think MetOffice calculates +1.5 for the CET area, it is second half of May and we are still cold. In my back garden Tmax was 13C couple of days ago, a pleasant January’s day temperature for SW London.
We are entering a new annual temperature regime, CO2 or no CO2.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/CET-Dmax.htm
As Nic Lewis writes in Bishop Hill, these people
Alexander Otto, Friederike E. L. Otto, Olivier Boucher, John Church, Gabi Hegerl, Piers M. Forster, Nathan P. Gillett, Jonathan Gregory, Gregory C. Johnson, Reto Knutti, Nicholas Lewis, Ulrike Lohmann, Jochem Marotzke, Gunnar Myhre, Drew Shindell, Bjorn Stevens, and Myles R. Allen
did a much more complicated study that Girma or DocMartyn did and got as a result: ECS=1.6°C (+/- can be looked up there)
Sorry. They got 2°, the 1.6° were Lewis’ from last December.
Note what they got for TCR. That is what Doc is actually calculating
True dat, Mosh.
Mosher still did not get it. ECS goes from equlibrium to equlibrium. TCR goes from equlibrium to end of measurement. There never was an equlibrium during the last 250 years.
And it is silly to compare the numbers. Here we have people from the vicinity of the IPCC. They are climbing down. Of course they still prefer to stay as far up as they can. I trust Lewis/December.
Don’t make up stuff alexej
Now that the cat is out of the bag…
Another paper on sensitivity with non scientist Nic Lewis in the author list.
What do these 13 guys know about Nic talents that Joshua and John Cook dont.
http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/vaop/ncurrent/index.html
A large list of suspects for Willard to background check. Bjorn Stevens had a nice poster on issues with the K&T energy budgets. Gabi Hegerl is a neat co-author for Nic. Friederike E. L. Otto had a nice paper on asking better questions if you want straight answers. Not familiar with most of them though.
The Auditor has some nice things to say about some of these people.
***
My comment will be limited: Nic’s climate work are big realisations indeed, so big realisations that I’m sure he won’t believe that comparing this qualifier:
with this other one:
http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2013/5/19/new-energy-budget-derived-estimates-of-climate-sensitivity-a.html
would amount to any kind of negative publicity.
Congratulations to Nic!
I need to go look for some of the traps I laid for people when they were criticizing Nic.. hhmm I think there was one like “how many IPCC authors have to publish with Nic before you take him seriously”
I suppose Connelley will come along an apologize for his slanders, maybe Joshua.. although I doubt it. Maybe FOMD.. doubt it. BBD?
Crap I hinted at these papers long ago and he still wants to characterize lukewarmers as some kind of stealth political ploy, same with MT, same with willard. Wonder if Cook will slam these authors like he slammed Nic. doubt it. Luke warmers are the 94% with 3% kooks on either side of us.
Steven Mosher, ” Luke warmers are the 94% with 3% kooks on either side of us.”
Well, now that the mean value of “sensitivity” has been reduced (using Bayesian, “expert” prior analysis) , that puts me at borderline kook. Hell, a few more papers and I might be mainstream.
CD Says using Bayesian, “expert” prior analysis.
using same said Bayesian analysis Hannart proved that climate sensitivity is irreducible and hence random.
The beauty of this definition, Cap’n, is that you have no say in this:
http://rabett.blogspot.ca/2013/05/the-past-is-prologue.html?showComment=1368892149069#c8789461888827794689
Seems that the Humpty Dumpty argument in philosophy of language is being promoted as a political trap.
http://johnmacfarlane.net/135/humpty.html
its quite true willard.
If, for the purpose of classifying abstracts, I define that middle ground as I did, then you don’t get to challenge it. you simply don’t. how would you even begin to challenge it. Like Cooks categorization it is merely a construct. You can offer a different construct, but thats about it
captain.. unless you deny the radiative effects of C02 its hard to be in a kook camp. Maybe I should re construct the lukewarmer consensus around TCR as opposed to ECS.. heck we might even get Girma in the big tent..
here is the point. the kooks at either end of the spectrum have been able to marginalize the great middle with various forms of moral outrage.
The Lukewarm Church’s main value should be as a Poe.
That people talk about this Poe in all seriousness shows how almost inbred identity politics can be.
I’m sure Cap’n won’t mind the ostracism if he’s being sold that it might help castigate all the Greenies, Warmists, Watermelons, or worse.
Just the good ol’ hedging strategy from our good ol’ libertarian masterminds.
Willard,
Poe is one of my favorite poets.You have to admit it is quite funny to be an extreme middle of the roadist.
now with bloomberg and others arguing for resiliency ( adaptation to humpty dumpty ) victory is almost complete..
Knutti is boss of the climate institute of the ETHZ (Swiss Institute of Technology Zurich, where Einstein once worked) and an IPCC lead author. So we can wonder if this gets to Stocker (University of Bern where Einstein once worked) and influences AR5.
Then there are the ‘lukewarming coolers’, a tribe in spite of myself.
==============
http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2013/5/19/new-energy-budget-derived-estimates-of-climate-sensitivity-a.html
Annan says the range for ECS in the paper is 1.3 to 3C.
If he redid his Bayesian method, it would be lower now. Ain’t climate science great, if you don’t know, take a poll.
The most likely value of equilibrium climate sensitivity based on the energy budget of the most recent decade is 2.0 °C, with a 5–95% confidence interval of 1.2–3.9 °C. …
JCH,
Annan says a bit more than that:
http://julesandjames.blogspot.ca/2013/05/a-chink-of-light-at-end-of-tunnel.html
James, of course, is just discovering what Moshpit knew all along.
And the beauty of it is that James belongs to a tribe without having nothing to say about that.
willard, everything thing I know I learned at the knee of the great and powerful poolboy, bender.
And Bender Bending Rodríguez is one of the reason why I’m here, now.
That and hockey.
hockey. best sport ever
BBC article on paper
A bit too late, but still interesting:
Piping Bitumen Without the Use of Diluents
An overview:
https://www.innocentive.com/ar/challenge/9932959?cc=Nature9932959
It would be interesting to compare the prizes with the benefits that can represent.
Auditors also ought to ask if the OSLI publishes financial reports.
Some may find this post at Neven’s on “The Four Charts that Really Matter” to be of interest, especially if you find yourself oddly fixated on the troposphere:
http://neven1.typepad.com/blog/2013/05/the-four-charts-that-really-matter.html
Nice Job R. Gates.
I would have gone with sea level rise as one of the five. :)
He does nice work don’t you think. I thought his piece on SSW was great. For the longest time I thought, what is Gates blabbering about in all these comments about SSW. When he finally put it together in a long piece I was– damn, that’s some good work.
Doc,
You perhaps ask the question because you know the sampling was more sparse the further you go back and there were calibration issues with the old XBT floats. We of course have over 3000 ARGO floats today, and on the past had hundreds to thousands of older floats or shipboard measurements at various times. Fortunately our ability to use other multi-proxy at multi-site data has helped to give us higher confidence as to the general accuracy of the older ocean heat content information. Though there is definitely greater uncertainty on the oldest of the data, it is not so uncertain that we have any large doubt about either the trend or the general range of energy gain for the ocean down to 2000m of about 0.5 x 10^22 joules per year over the past 30+ years. Here’s just one example of other, proxy data that helps to confirm the general accuracy of the older float or thermometer and bucket measurements:
http://phys.org/news/2013-05-fish-thermometer-reveals-long-standing-global.html
Overall, while the uncertainty bands widen with ocean heat content data the further we go back (as with all data), I would be shocked if the actual heat content increase down to 2000m varied greatly from the general trend line of about 0.5 x 10^22 joules per year.
Tell me how many sensors they had to measure the temperature of the oceans in 1980, 1990, 2000 and 2010.
See my response above.
my question above got some answers re welcome, the more the merrier and maybe one day Nat will chime in too, he should!
1. What is your take on this strange remark by Mr Rich, that “I think the
language around climate change is horribly bankrupt and, for the most part,
are examples of bad writing, really. And cliche — ‘climate change,’ as a
, is cliche. ‘Global warming’ is a cliche.”
DANNY BLOOM ALL READERS OF ODDS AGAINST TOMORROW
SOME ANSWERS SO FAR:
1. ”***(I believe that global warming/climate change is a hoax, but I don’t know who Rich is and the only “Odds Against Tomorrow” I ever heard of was a lousy movie of the same name of the 1960s. ”– Burt Prelutsky, LA radio host)
2. A. in NYC, who used to work for the NY TIMES, says: ”Well, I don’t really know the book, but on the face of it, it seems Rich is trying to stake out some territory of his own on the subject. Climate disruption might be a better phrase, or more precisely, climate related disruption, as the latter could also refer to social instability as the result of, aka Syria……related to this, see Tom Friedman’s column in today’s paper. I think he (Rich) is on to something in as much as the effects of climate change are nuanced. layered and varied, while for the most part the phrase elicits knee jerk positions on both sides of the debate rather than allowing for a more thorough understanding of the many manifestations of what is happening. To that end, I though Friedman’s column today on Syria was a wonderful step in that direction in that it connected the dots, which has certainly for me, not been connected previously. The more people can see it as something they have a stake in, rather than sides of a scientific debate which breaks down along political lines, the better. It really has to do with interconnectedness…….”
3. A writer in Forida [AWIF] tells me in longform reply: : — ”I do not believe that the language around climate change is really cliche by the raw definition of the word. I think what Alan is getting at is that there is a generally negative atmosphere around the topic in general, in particular in the United States. If you are pro-climate change then the overall sentiment is that you are a liberal tree hugger, which is where the true problem lies. There are plenty of liberals who drive oversized SUVs, and likewise many conservative people who drive fuel efficient cars (preserving the true, original roots of conservativism. To wit: The Amish and Mennonites are the epitamy of conservatism yet they have virtually no carbon footprint.)”
”The great tragedy of our time is that liberals are not truly liberals any more, and conservatives are also no longer conservatives. By definition, a liberal person seeks to be free from the constraints and shackles of anything that controls their lives. For example if you free yourself from the deathgrip of a drug addiction, you liberate yourself from the tyranny that the substance held over your very life. The same can be said for dependence on oil and gasoline. We are free to drive wherever we want, but at the same time we are enslaved to the car-centered lifestyle, and by extension are controlled by this addiction to being able to drive wherever we want. We are free and trapped at the same time.”
”Traditionally conservatism’s roots were based on rugged individualism and personal reliance on their own industry. Driving an SUV or a monster truck does not make you conservative, but the exact opposite. You simply become *that much more* dependent on fuel for your everyday needs. When you depend on your own power to sustain your life, you become stronger and independent. Growing your own garden, biking to the store or work instead of driving, learning how to do and make things for yourself are all examples of traditional conservatism. Today, conservatism has been replaced with raw capitalism, which is fine but let’s call it what it is. A Conservative has a more pleasing ring to it than a Capitalist, which sounds selfish and narcissistic.”
”The Native American tribes were the pentultimate Conservatives. They were able to survive for several millenia using nothing more than what nature gave them. They were rugged and self-reliant, and depended on precisely nobody at all but themselves.”
”Today, mentioning the word Conservative invokes a somewhat pale visage of an overweight caucasian barreling down the road in their Escalade, hoping that the fracking industry will save their sedentary and fuel-dependent lifestyle. See the difference? The true essence of a Conservative has been lost to time, forever. ”
”So, Conservative is not interchangable with a modern Capitalist. If you are Conservative, you are self-reliant and free from reliance on other things. If you are a Capitalist, you believe in doing things simply to make a profit. Most Capitalists today are not truly Conservatives in the truest essence of the word, but they like to hide behind this title because it has generally positive overtones to it.”
”Getting back to the idea of climate change is a cliche. It really is more of a politically incorrect argument today. Just the fact that we are even still debating whether or not climate change is even real proves that it is destined to become the greatest story of the 21st century. Nobody wants to really talk about it. Nobody wants to really do anything about it. The scientists throw up more Powerpoint graphs showing ominous Curves Of Doom, year after year, and what changes? The journalists create heart-tugging documentaries showing retreating glacier termini and dying polar bears year after year, saturated with moody piano tracks and tear-inducing violins, and what changes? ”
”Nothing changes. Absolutely nothing at all.”
the importance of electromagnetic phenomena on atmospheric processes such as tropical cyclones.
http://www.nonlin-processes-geophys.net/20/293/2013/npg-20-293-2013.pdf
Thanks Maksimovich
I had a quick read, it is useful contribution to real science, taken with some of NASA’s findings of couple of years ago opens another avenue of research. Solar outside TSI, electromagnetic and geomagnetic events do appear to show good correlation even if not directly affecting the climate change. Link to one of my early findings: http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LFC20.htm
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-05-19/manhattan-heat-deaths-seen-rising-20-in-2020s-as-climate-warms.html
I really don’t expect to live in Manhattan any time soon.
So I don’t expect to be one of the ~290 Manhattanites killed by the carbon-burning choices of people in any year in the near future. As Manhattanites tend to consume less CO2E than the US average, they may have a reasonable complaint, but that’s hardly my personal issue. And after all, 290 people a year is a remarkably low death rate for something that is entirely preventable, foreseeable, and even economically beneficial to avoid.
Lomborg would suggest it’s better for Manhattanites to put their time and energy into curing AIDS or bullets.
Throw in 1.4m of sea level rise, (adjusted locally to 2m for Manhattan), and the cost of dykes and pumps, and you still might prefer as a Manhattanite to focus on cures for bullets or AIDS.
Non-fatal heat-related illness and air-conditioning costs? That’s starting to add up to something. Heat smog and food price rises due climate-induced habitat drift? That’s getting up there.
Mostly, the sense that as a Manhattanite someone from Ohio is laughing all the way to the bank over your misery, that’s what I’d imagine would drive someone nuts in Manhattan in 2080. Or worse, that the coal-country carbon profiteer would’ve made every bit as much money — possibly even more — without causing Manhattan the least grief but preferred the course of action that just plain hurt Manhattan out of spite.. Well, actually, that type of regional malice someone from Manhattan in 2080 might understand.. Especially if there’s been a recent remake of Deliverance.
Do these fantasies play out in your head all the time?
Chief Hydrologist | May 20, 2013 at 4:58 am |
I wouldn’t know.
I try to avoid the contents of my own head as much as possible.
What does a double mastectomy have to do with global warming? Nothing. But don’t let that stop you from trying to get an extra reader or two by bringing Angelina Jolie into the CAGW debate.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/toddessig/2013/05/19/will-angelina-jolie-help-end-climate-change-denial-and-help-the-republican-party/
(By way of the inimitable Mark Steyn at NRO.)
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/348768/only-connect-mark-steyn
Check out this op-ed in WaPo by Lamar Smith, Chair of the U.S. House Committee on Science, Space and Technology
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/lamar-smith-overheated-rhetoric-on-climate-change-hurts-the-economy/2013/05/19/32cb6d94-bda4-11e2-97d4-a479289a31f9_story.html
He attended the Congressional hearing where I testified, some of my points seem to have stuck
He quotes a study (Knappenberger) where if the US stopped emissions now, it would save the global temperature by 0.08 C at 2050 and 0.17 C by 2100. This seems low even though they used a 3 C sensitivity. By my own estimate the US at the current rate would add 40 ppm to the global CO2 by 2100 which would contribute 0.4 C (at 1 C per 100 ppm).
http://tcktcktck.org/2013/05/james-hansen-global-warming-has-not-stalled/52097
I find Lamar Smith’s reasoning specious and at best hypocritically self-serving.
40,000 jobs from Keystone XL? In the USA?! That’s pure bullpucky.
Show me those jobs. Name the people who will have them. Who will employ them? Who their paying customers will be? How long those jobs will last? What their retirement savings plans and health plans will be?
The only job I see out of Keystone XL is snow job.
All the tarsand extract that would be carried by Keystone XL could be carried right now to US domestic markets. Tarsand drives down domestic US oil price at the pumps, as things stand. That drives Canada and its foreign tarsand producers nuts.
The goal of Keystone XL is to get tarsand bitumen extract to the coast of Texas where it will be either refined cheaply and shipped offshore, or not refined and shipped raw offshore. This will drive the domestic US price of oil at the pumps toward the world price. You don’t have to believe me. You can do the math yourself.
The jobs Lamar Smith talks about are transitory, low-skill, or offshore. What Lamar Smith is really after is government revenues from the sale of royalties to corporations. It’s just a tax grab.
Everything in Lamar Smith’s overheated rhetoric is spin, spun, or spanner. He throws monkey-wrenches into plain text reading of what is certain and knowable. He promotes trivia and inconsequentialia into key talking points while ignoring or lying about substantive issues. He makes up stuff. He is, in short, a bad human being.
Shame on him.
thin green line.. na
http://www.nature.com/news/why-we-are-poles-apart-on-climate-change-1.11166
Or perhaps people are poles apart bacause some people draw conclusions with insufficient accurate information to support their position. Now thos same people are looking for obtuse reasoning as to why their conclusions were rejected.
What exactly were the benefits of mitigation actions and when would we be able to verify that the action was justified?
Which people are poles apart?
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/28d54536-bd7b-11e2-a735-00144feab7de.html#axzz2TrFev3PT
Yes, I know, this will be painful for some at the outset.
But bear with it as long as possible.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zv_ci5uqrNk
Chief said:
Chief’s problem is that he thinks everyone else is stupid and nowhere near his level of knowledge.
Not true – the NAS got there well before I did. http://judithcurry.com/2013/05/18/open-thread-weekend-18/#comment-322904
I stand on the shoulders of unicorns – you stand on the shoulders of gerbils. Shame on you.