by Judith Curry
I can envisage an irony of history where climatology enters a period of crisis and loses its central place in public discourse about climate change, thus opening up discursive spaces for pragmatic options to deal with the problem. – Reiner Grundman
I just spotted this article by Reiner Grundman at Die Klimazwiebel entitled The coming crisis of climate science? Good article, a recap of recent highlights in the MSM and the IPCC’s dilemma over the pause, problems with climate models, etc. I found the last sentence in his article to be irresistible. I hope that it is prophetic.
Update: just spotted something else of relevance Amid uncertainty, climate scientists blame mankind for global warming. The article claims that the word ‘uncertainty’ is used 42 times in the 31 page Summary for Policy Makers. Uncertain T. Monster is appreciative of the token acknowledgement, but most unhappy over the highly confident conclusions. Can someone count the occurrence of ‘uncertainty’ in the AR4 SPM?
Or evening opening up the whole argument to the blasphemy that climate isn’t a problem?!?!???!?!??
Regards
Mailman
“Increasing in Confidence”
Since 1988.
“99%” is so so “80’s”!
Oh Fan !!!
Aren’t other outcomes more probable, Judith Curry?
Indeed, isn’t that second statement *already* today’s well-validated scientific reality, both theoretically and observationally? Aren’t appropriate discursive spaces *already* opening up?
Summary The dogs of consensus denialism are barking furiously, and yet the caravan of climate-change science is advancing steadily. As is both necessary and good!
Your analysis may be convincing to some if you had not conveniently forgotten some essential facts. Our understanding of the climate has not advanced more than very marginally, and even then in only some peripheral areas, in the last 25 – 30 years despite billions having been spent on research. I can’t think of any other area of science where such obvious lack of progress and understanding has resulted over such an extended time period.
This suggests that the ‘science’ as practiced by those influential climate scientists who have been involved in this field has been taking us down a blind alley. This should not normally be possible in any field of science over such an extended time period but it is my suspicion that this has prevailed as a result of the ‘gate keeping’ practiced so successfully by the high priests of this field of science, aided by the flawed IPCC process.
your last sentence is insightful, stay tuned for my next post which addresses this issue
Lots of people are now running with the results of Kosaka and Xie
Y. Kosaka and S.-P. Xie, “Recent global-warming hiatus tied to equatorial Pacific surface cooling,” Nature, 2013.
See Tamino’s post:
https://tamino.wordpress.com/2013/09/11/seasonal-nino/
You will find several simple models of the climate, using the ENSO signal to match the wiggles, and then deduce the underlying trend:
This is Kevin C:
http://skepticalscience.com/pics/two_box_enso.png
This is Icarus:
http://images.sodahead.com/profiles/0/0/2/0/7/6/2/8/5/2bmvsgissrsquared-117883512421.png
Understanding of the climate and earth sciences is incremental as it is with lots of sciences.
jbenton2013
To your insightful comment I would add that there is a hierarchy of first division high profile climate scientists who have been held in awe by their peers and more especially by those not perched on the top rung. In consequence the papers and processes of the top group have not been held to account in the manner they should have been
The game should have been up for the IPCC when tree rings were elevated from a useful dating mechanism to a worldwide method of determining climate to fractions of a degree. The author should have been laughed at not lauded.
Then other exotic -but equally unlikely- proxies were used to support the tree people which also did not reflect the real world but some smoothed modelled averages based on 50 year snapshots.
That doesn’t mean that there hasn’t (or won’t be) some AGW but Co2 appears to be but a small passenger in a large and crowded coach and not the driver.
tonyb
WebHubTelescope
I was referring to serious scientific research and you bring me John Cook and Tamino, two amateur gatekeepers. You have inadvertently confirmed my point precisely.
As for the Kosaka and Xie paper, I am far from convinced there is much of merit there for supporters of the ‘consensus’. It has already been sufficiently dissected and found wanting by several sources that it is unlikely to merit more than a passing reference in six months time, but I am prepared to allow the authors sufficient time to rebut the many criticisms, assuming they can of course.
Correct. Many of our recent advances have been finding out what we don’t know and alternate explanations for “the pause”. It’s not like we are getting the ECS down to an extra significant figure so that we know it more precisely. Papers are saying that it could have been high by 50%.
You seem to confuse the meaning of the word “fact” with opinion. Because all what follows in your comment is just opinion. Your opinion.
Bill
You are quite correct, and in fact it’s the case that the new suggested lower levels of ECS under 2 degrees C are commensurate with the professed levels of 25 – 30 years ago, ie before we began to take a detour into the upper reaches. So in actual fact it’s likely from recent evidence that the science in this field regressed for an extended period, something scientific historians may well consider the causes of in future analysis.
Jan Perlwitz
You failed to back your comment up with a list of the major breakthroughs in climate science that has taken place in the last 25 – 30 years. I’m looking forward to the list.
“…the high priests…” – jbenton
Phrases of this sort are usually associated with individuals mired in their own dogma and projecting.
Michael
I’ll defer to your superior knowledge.
Though it is a good way to get a pat on the head from Judith……”high priests”, “dogma” in relation to the IPCC, all work.
Bonus points for telling her that she is considered a heretic.
Again Michael I’m going to have to defer to your superior knowledge, since I had overlooked these subtexts when writing my post.
And Nic Lewis is not an amateur?
WebHubTelescope
You’re becoming tiresome. The term used was “amateur gatekeepers”. I didn’t think it worthy to consider them climate scientists, particularly Cook.
@jbenton2013:
I do not have the burden to back up anything, since I haven’t made any assertions about facts regarding this issue. You are the one who has made assertions about alleged facts. You even explicitly said your assertions were facts. You obviously confuse opinion and judgement statements, which are purely subjective, with facts.
Can I just ask when ENSO was discovered and whether or not that was more than 25-30 years ago or not?
That is just the first thing off the top of my head, I am sure I could come up with more examples.
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/summary.htm
Telescope writes :”Lots of people are now running with the results of Kosaka and Xie”
Keep hope alive Web, as long as you can. Meanwhile, the narcissism inherent in the alarmists’ reaction to unfriendly developments is stunning.
Jan Perlwitz
Ah I see. I say climate science has not progressed in any meaningful way in the last 25 – 30 years, you say I’m wrong and cannot even offer one major area of progress let alone the list I was looking for, but now you claim you are still right. I think most reasonable people will rightly assume you are talking nonsense.
@jbenton2013:
This is not what I said. I said your assertions are opinion and judgement statements, which are purely subjective.
Mere opinion and judgement statements can’t be factually right or wrong. As such, they also principally aren’t refutable. And your argumentum ad populum doesn’t change that.
If I give you a list of what I think important advances are in climate science for the last 25 to 30 years, you will dismiss all those items. Then I will have stated my opinion and judgement, and you will have stated your opinion and judgement. But how could be decided who is “right”? It’s just two opinions clashing.
NH Winters colder compared to other seasons perhaps:
http://tamino.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/nhem_smooth.jpg
What do you think it means WebHubTelescope? In my cartoon climate model that’s where the heat goes, to the Winter Hemisphere, on its way out the door. At first the Winter Hemisphere may show a temperature rise with all the new heating passing through. When the temperature falls off, as the graph indicates now what? Possibilities I can think of: The heat flow volume has dropped. The Winter NH is better at throwing off heat than before (less insulation?). The Winter NH is cooling due to other causes.
‘We construct a network of observed climate indices in the period 1900–2000 and investigate their collective behavior. The results indicate that this network synchronized several times in this period. We find that in those cases where the synchronous state was followed by a steady increase in the coupling strength between the indices, the synchronous state was destroyed, after which a new climate state emerged. These shifts are associated with significant changes in global temperature trend and in ENSO variability. The latest such event is known as the great climate shift of the 1970s. We also find the evidence for such type of behavior in two climate simulations using a state-of-the-art model. This is the first time that this mechanism, which appears consistent with the theory of synchronized chaos, is discovered in a physical system of the size and complexity of the climate system. Citation: Tsonis, A. A., K. Swanson, and S. Kravtsov (2007), A new dynamical mechanism for major climate shifts, Geophys. Res. Lett., 34, L13705,
“This should not normally be possible in any field of science over such an extended time period but it is my suspicion that this has prevailed as a result of the ‘gate keeping’ practiced so successfully by the high priests of this field of science, aided by the flawed IPCC process.”
My father (whose skepticism forced me to look more closely at AGW) has an excellent perspective on this: Usually none of this matters because scientific progress is self correcting. If a rocket scientist gets it wrong the rocket may crash or wander off course or fail in some other way. Oh dear, what a shame. Well, we’ll get it right next time round. Predicting climate change is not rocket science. It’s much, much more difficult.
In the context of conducting due diligence studies as the basis for forming policy, rather than a mere assessment of the science such as the IPCC performs, which is framed to look at the issue in a very narrow way.
Web,
Then why are the people who dismiss Nic Lewis as an amateur, often so willing to reference Tamino, Cook, Lewandowski and others who are just as amateur and in many cases lacking in experience or stature in other fields?
You, who are also an amateur, at least have expertise in another field. Nic Lewis has expertise. Check the moderator list of SkS and the backgrounds of many barely stand up to even the amateur tag.
Nic Lewis has far more expertise on the issue of climate sensitivity, which is arguably at the heart of the climate science debate, than scores of climate scientists that publish on broad topics of climate science and its impacts, who know very little about attribution and sensitivity.
I see you are a fully paid up acolyte of the Global Warming Cult, which has GIGO as its motto. Being a cult that means it is a case of “Garbage In Gospel Out.”
Unfortunately, most climate models have the same GIGO, that and the fact they usually have pre-determined results is why they are such bad and inaccurate predictors of the future.
It would be telling to compare models that have AGW built into them with ones that don’t, but no true skeptic will touch that with a 10 foot pole.
Is it a fact that they have pre-determined results and do you have any evidence what so-ever for that assertion?
Let me check, yes my dues are paid in full. Lifetime member, rank Senior space cadet. Borg division.
Bob,
I am not anti-model. However they are not free from criticism. Even then, I believe it is possible to over look the criticisms and address what I consider to be a bigger problem. And that is how some have used them. Whether you call them predictions or projections, it is undeniable that people have used GCM’s as the basis for claims and policy action that are far beyond the performance capabilities of the models. It may be that only one a relatively few of the scientists do so, but that doesn’t explain why no one calls them on it.
I am not sure if it is disturbing, sad, or even funny, but the common practice of taking a GCM output and using it in some other modeling exercise – say the expected migration of Andean bird populations in response to climate change induced habitat changes – has almost as much in common with science fiction as with science research.
Such research does not expand our knowledge, especially when observations don’t match up with model predictions, as in the Andean birds case. It is of little practical benefit, as it is simply a projection and therefore not reliable enough to base policy on, as in the case of future rainfall conditions, impact to forest fires, agriculture and a host of other items. It is at most a luxury. Performing an exercise in what if. As a rich society we can perhaps afford such a luxury. What we cannot afford is people believing this is hard science, not an exercise, and using it to achieve policy goals. Doing so is no different than betting your house payment on who will win the Super Bowl, based on running Madden NFL a thousand times on your x box.
Timg56,
You pretty much missed the point of my post.
Your example of using climate models to predict or project Andean bird migration routes would be an example of using models far beyond their demonstrated usefulness, but I would still have to read the paper and you did not provide a cite.
For me, the models are only another piece of evidence that continued unabated use of fossil fuels will be detrimental to society as a whole and the sooner we figure out how to get off them the better.
That why I asked to compare models with AGW against those without.
Which are better?
Which gets closer to the observed temperature profile?
It ain’t even close.
Again the question for me is how close do you expect the model to observed temperatures to match.
No one says, and this is more telling than anything, if you don’t put a metric on it you have no quality. You have no quality then you have no argument.
Or everyone can keep saying that the models suck, but what I want to know is by how much.
again crickets
Bob,
looks like we agree. I agree that if people are going to criticize models, they should provide metrics.
It appears you agree that climate model projections are not a valid input for modeling other fields.
‘In each of these model–ensemble comparison studies, there are important but difficult questions: How well selected are the models for their plausibility? How much of the ensemble spread is reducible by further model improvements? How well can the spread can be explained by analysis of model differences? How much is irreducible imprecision in an AOS?
Simplistically, despite the opportunistic assemblage of the various AOS model ensembles, we can view the spreads in their results as upper bounds on their irreducible imprecision. Optimistically, we might think this upper bound is a substantial overestimate because AOS models are evolving and improving. Pessimistically, we can worry that the ensembles contain insufficient samples of possible plausible models, so the spreads may underestimate the true level of irreducible imprecision (cf., ref. 23). Realistically, we do not yet know how to make this assessment with confidence.’
http://www.pnas.org/content/104/21/8709.full
For mathematical reasons they have post determined results.
‘AOS models are therefore to be judged by their degree of plausibility, not whether they are correct or best. This perspective extends to the component discrete algorithms, parameterizations, and coupling breadth: There are better or worse choices (some seemingly satisfactory for their purpose or others needing repair) but not correct or best ones. The bases for judging are a priori formulation, representing the relevant natural processes and choosing the discrete algorithms, and a posteriori solution behavior.’
‘ ice-mass loss’
Arctic, Antarctic or both?
Both.
James Hansen – wrong about global temperatures (http://www.see.ed.ac.uk/~shs/Climate%20change/Climate%20model%20results/over%20estimate.pdf), wrong about sea level (http://sealevel.colorado.edu/content/continental-mass-change-grace-over-2002%E2%80%932011-and-its-impact-sea-level), wrong about polar ice (http://www.clim-past-discuss.net/9/1/2013/cpd-9-1-2013.html), wrong about hurricanes (http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/2013/09/updated-major-hurricane-drought-figure.html), wrong about tornadoes (http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/cmb/images/tornado/clim/EF3-EF5.png), wrong about droughts (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277379113003156), wrong about more extreme weather (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/grl.50880/abstract)
Not a great track record, eh, FOMD?
Chunk L – wrong about everything http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/
There’s something wrong.
http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/LymnaandJohnson2013OHCA_zps703732d0.png.html
“There remain substantial issues over balancing the global energy budget: achieving closure (Kevin Trenberth)”
“Budget closure is achieved in several studies, but only within uncertainties, which are still very large. What interdisciplinary work is need to obtain more information on uncertainties, and ideally, to achieve improvement?”
– Clivar/ESA Scientific Consultation Workshop July 3-4, 2013
In your comment, you have failed to present the statements by James Hansen and proof of source for them, which supposedly have been proven wrong according to you.
There sure is something wrong
Ocean warming from 2004 to 2011:
0–1800 m 0.56 W m-2
-Lyman and Johnson 2013
We know there was warming in ARGO numbnut.
It is all consistent with CERES/MODIS.
http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/CERES_MODIS-1.gif.html?sort=3&o=98
Nice chart in that article, I can’t tell which temperature series is being compared to the models. Looks like Spenser’s but I can’t tell.
Yes that chart is interesting.
People should remember what the observational temperature record looked like when James Hansen made some of his earlier studies [1].
http://img818.imageshack.us/img818/1636/s6l.gif
Note the long extended “hiatus” or “pause” in the observed temperature prior to the date that this paper was published, way back in 1981. Follow the arrow up to the current “pause”.
As Clint Eastwood would say “Do you feel lucky?”
[1]J. Hansen, D. Johnson, A. Lacis, S. Lebedeff, P. Lee, D. Rind, and G. Russell, “Climate impact of increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide,” Science, vol. 213 (4511), pp. 957–966, 1981.
BTW, I have no dog in this fight other than as a person interested in the earth sciences.
I don’t know Web. When I look at that chart and read the caption, it states that the projection is from the slow growth scenario (I assume that refers to slow growth of Co2), and that the effect of other gases is not considered, yet there is still a divergence from the predicted warming, despite the fact that Co2 levels have been rising at a high rate. If I am reading it incorrectly, I am sure I will be corrected.
Hansen made his projections back when no one really cared. That was back in 1981, while a really long stretch of fluctuating but level temperatures was in effect. Because of the log sensitivity of CO2, the strength of the forcing function was still there, yet hidden by natural variations.
For some reason people seem to care more now. I would too, but not because of climate change. There is the little problem of depleting high-grade fossil fuel supplies.
Earth scientists such as Curry seem not to worry about that compounding issue but all her colleagues, such as Muller, Hansen, Pierrehumbert, etc, take it very seriously.
The ECS is about 3C and the fossil fuel reserves are declining. Time to get in gear and join the rest of the world in transitioning off of fossil fuels. It’s a no-brainer decision.
Pause could be ENSO
Barnes its temp that’s not rising as fast as expected, CO2 continues to rise and is now over 400 ppm.
Thanks Peter, that was my point. I believe Web was using this as an example of how Hansen correctly predicted the pause in an early model, but it looks to me like the model failed in a couple of respects, but I may not be interpreting his comment correctly.
Did you look at the ECS that Hansen used on his projection?
That was 2.8C, and that value is still operational, even with this “pause” in effect. He was considering the ocean’s heat sink in his calculations back then as well.
That is what the observational data is still showing and all that one needs to do is look at Curry’s BEST paper and see how her team mapped a 3C climate sensitivity to the land temperature data.
Ah – the anti-IPCC pearl-clutching is getting sillier by the day…
Whitehouse didn’t get it last year:
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2012/12/20/fake-skeptic-draws-fake-picture-of-global-temperature/
McKitrick doesn’t get it now:
http://blog.hotwhopper.com/2013/09/is-climate-disinformer-ross-mckitrick.html
Hyper-ventilating fake skeptics everywhere you look.
What does a “fake sceptic” look like? It’s a sub-species i’m not familiar with.
But deniers…
“and looses its central place”
loses
“…thus opening up discursive spaces for pragmatic options to deal with the problem.” – Reiner Grundman
Assumes facts not yet in evidence.
Climate change was touted as a made-made CO2 trace gas problem looking for a solution but some people are now saying that CO2 trace gas is not a problem and climate science are stuck with a solution looking for a problem.
Git out the hemlock.
A solution for which people & what problem, again? Weather, we know it or not.
A reduction in manipulated hysteria might permit rationality and pragmatism to rule? What a radical idea!!
More headaches for Webby and FOMacalculia.
dennis adams,
see the link above http://judithcurry.com/2013/09/19/quote-of-the-week-2/#comment-382511
And I should add, just for Denise: “Well, do ya, punk?”
Say it again, Sun?
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/science/Solar-activity-drops-to-100-year-low-puzzling-scientists/articleshow/22719807.cms
Where did Spot go?
Webby
“You talking to me?”
Yet more alarmism?
Prepare for the “skeptics” to descend with their calm and dispassionate demeanor.
After all, we know just how much “skeptics” hate them some alarmism.
Joshua, AGW skepticism is alarmism, after all. Skeptics protest (alarm) against the central dogma of climatology (A-CO2-GW) because it’s destructive to science and environmentalism.
Joshua,
Get a job. It’s for your own good. ;)
Andrew
Any chance for new material? The skeptics vs “skeptics” skein is hard to stay interested in.
Thanks for reading, tim.
I can’t tell you how much it means to me.
Then this means you plan on introducing new topics?
Climate scienceas presented by the IPCC has relied on the voracious appetite for heat of the CO2 molecule. Yet they have never explained how that happens. Clearly specific heat provides no explanation. The only other possibillity is the vibration modes of the molecule, yet these are never examined theoretically or experimentally.
Is the IPCC trying to perpetrate some kind of bluff?
Utter rubbish.
You rubbish yourself, Jan Perlwitz.
The very definition of “climate change” they are given to use is “AGW”.
Try weaseling yourself out of that
@thisisnotgoodtogo:
I replied to the assertion “Climate scienceas presented by the IPCC has relied on the voracious appetite for heat of the CO2 molecule.”
It’s utter rubbish. To what claims supposedly made in what scientific publications of climate science presented by the IPCC does this assertion refer?
Your assertion, The very definition of “climate change” they are given to use is “AGW”.
is utter rubbish too. And since you haven’t presented anything, except a rubbish claim, I do not need “to weasel” out of anything.
Jan, why are you doing this to yourself?
Look here at the definition:
http://unfccc.int/essential_background/convention/background/items/2536.php
“2. “Climate change” means a change of climate which is attributed directly or indirectly to human activity that alters the composition of the global atmosphere and which is in addition to natural climate variability observed over comparable time periods. ”
and here, Jan:
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/press/role_ipcc_key_elements_assessment_process_04022010.pdf
“The role of the IPCC…representatives of all 194 IPCC member countries. Its role as defined in the “Principles Governing
IPCC Work ”is“ to assess on a comprehensive, objective, open and transparent basis the scientific, technical and socio-economic information relevant to understanding the scientific basis of risk of human-induced climate change…”
@thisisnotgoodtogo:
No, this is not the definition of “climate change” used in climate science presented by the IPCC. It says on top, For the purposes of this Convention:
It’s just the definition of the word how it is used in this specific convention.
human-induced climate change is such climate change that is induced by human activity. There is nothing in this phrasing from which follows AGW was the definition of “climate change”, since it doesn’t exclude that there was also climate change caused by other factors than human activity. Your assertion implies climate science dismissed any other causes for climate change on Earth. This assertion is just absurd. If it was true whole chapters of the IPCC report would be meaningless, e.g., the one that deals with paleo-climate change.
Jan Perlwitz said: September 19, 2013 at 5:43 pm |
@thisisnotgoodtogo:
“Look here at the definition:
http://unfccc.int/essential_background/convention/background/items/2536.php
“2. “Climate change” means a change of climate which is attributed directly or indirectly to human activity that alters the composition of the global atmosphere and which is in addition to natural climate variability observed over comparable time periods. ”
No, this is not the definition of “climate change” used in climate science presented by the IPCC. It says on top, For the purposes of this Convention:
It’s just the definition of the word how it is used in this specific convention.”
Jan, which specific “convention” other than UNFCCCC, counts?
Are you trying to use the word in a diffrent way than this?
wiki
“The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change … is an international environmental treaty negotiated at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED)….June 1992. The objective of the treaty is to “stabilize greenhouse gas….prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system”.[2]
The treaty itself set no binding limits…Instead, the treaty provides a framework…
The UNFCCC was opened for signature…May 1992, after an Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee produced the text of the Framework Convention as a report…It entered into force on 21 March 1994. As of May 2011, UNFCCC has 195 parties.
The parties to the convention have met annually from 1995 in Conferences of the Parties (COP) t….In 1997, the Kyoto Protocol was concluded and established legally binding obligations …
One of the first tasks set by the UNFCCC ….establish national greenhouse gas inventories of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and removals, which were used to create the 1990 benchmark levels…. Kyoto Protocol and for the commitment…
The UNFCCC is also the name of the United Nations Secretariat charged with supporting the operation of the Convention, with offices in Haus Carstanjen, Bonn, Germany. From 2006 to 2010 the head of the secretariat was Yvo de Boer. .through the parallel efforts of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), aims to gain consensus through meetings and the discussion of various strategies.”
Yes, Jan, THAT “convention”
It’s the whole ball of wax, Jan
Jan Perlwitz said:
[quote]“The role of the IPCC…representatives of all 194 IPCC member countries. Its role as defined in the “Principles Governing
IPCC Work ”is“ to assess on a comprehensive, objective, open and transparent basis the scientific, technical and socio-economic information relevant to understanding the scientific basis of risk of human-induced climate change…”
human-induced climate change is such climate change that is induced by human activity. There is nothing in this phrasing from which follows AGW was the definition of “climate change”, since it doesn’t exclude that there was also climate change caused by other factors than human activity. Your assertion implies climate science dismissed any other causes for climate change on Earth. This assertion is just absurd. If it was true whole chapters of the IPCC report would be meaningless, e.g., the one that deals with paleo-climate change.[/quote]
Thank you for pointing out how foolish it was to do.
Obviously it’s stupid but just as obviously it can be used effectively in rhetoric by the unscrupulous.
Then it makes sense that they can say “slowdown in warming” rather than “not warming at all”.
Now just because you’ve showh how stupid it was, does not mean that you’ve rebutted my point that it is the given definition and is the given job of IPCC to assess as per the literature.
Sorry, but that it what is given.
You can only insist that it doesn’t make sense.
That’s what the Dutch suggested; a needed IPCC change in that policy to match what must actually be done in practice and is done…and the definiton used sometimes and ignored at others?
Oh, yes, Jan.
Jan P Perlwitz: Please be more specific.what is rubbish: that the IPCC blames the CO2 molecule or my assertion that they do?. That the IPCC does blame the CO2 imolecule is evident by their campaign against fossil fuel and emission of CO2.
thisisnotgoodto go: you are missing my point, the IPCC’s failure to explain their own theory.
It is unfortunately true that not all contributors think before they write
Bob Droege: Your mention of quantum mechanics is getting close vto the point. See my website underlined above.
Jan Perlwitz said
“It’s just the definition of the word how it is used in this specific convention.”
Yers, Jan, that specific “convention” and it’s also just the definition of the word how it is used in this specific “panel”: The Intergovernmental “Panel” on Cimate Change.
Yes, it is a just a specific panel, as the other is just a specific convention.
Jan,
Maybe you guys at NASA GISS can get back to the original purpose NASA GISS was formed, until hijacked by the nutcase Jim Hansen, which was to perform basic research in space sciences in support of GSFC (Goddard Space Flight Center) programs. You clowns are wasting our tax dollars.
How climate skeptics define climate change, it’s as simple as ABC: Anything But CO2.
Climate skeptics become particularly irate that Jan has come in and wrecked their silly argument about how the IPCC defines climate changes. As Jan points out climate change is used throughout the IPCC report in reference to both natural and anthropogenic causes.
Perhaps skeptics are just confusing the overwhelming evidence that humans are warming the Earth, ie the fact that humans are causing climate change with the definition of climate change.
Never examined theoretically or experimentally?
I have a little red book you should read, it has pictures, I can’t remember the exact count but it was in the teens, pictures of nobel prize winning scientists honored for their work on quantum mechanics, which was the assigned text for that class.
Or you could just buy one and try it yourself.
http://www.coherent.com/products/?790/DIAMOND-CO2-Lasers
” Can someone count the occurrence of ‘uncertainty’ in the AR4 SPM?”
15 times in 18 pages.
Yes, but highly confident conclusions.
dont ask willard to count
Ask Moshpit instead:
http://judithcurry.com/2013/09/14/nic-lewis-on-the-uk-met-office-on-the-pause/#comment-381100
As long as it’s not questions or answers, he should be fine.
Willard can tell the difference between plural and singular
he posed many questions. I began by answering 1
And then I asked
“Does willard acknowledge that his numbered question was answered?”
Willard responded:
“Recount the questions, then recount the answers.”
Please note, I started with your first question. Then I asked if you acknowledge that I had answered THAT question.
Your response was non responsive and you suggest that I count all the questions. I know there are more. I just want to see if you can acknowledge that the FIRST one was answered
You cant count. and you cant tell singular from plural
Bad willard. no fruit cup for you.
Let’s add the sentences preceding were misrepresenting question:
Now please re-read Moshpit’s grammar lesson.
***
And yes, Moshpit’s mansplanations misrepresented the questions.
And now you can see what the freaking tablet did. The first occurrence of “were misrepresenting” spreplaced “the”. And this time I’m using the Dolphin browser.
The most absurd count is the number of times that Saudi Arabia raised objections in IPCC review documents.
Another fave count is the number of members in the SkyDragon scout troop, or the current count of crackpots in the CE climate clown list.
So the “uncertainty” has increased from 15/18 to 42/31, which is from 0.833 to 1.355 “uncertainties” per page, a 63% increase in uncertainty density and a 180% increase in absolute uncertainty.
BTW, “discursive space” is when you get in somebody’s space and curse and diss them, just like rap battle but without necessarily rhyming anything. If done on a stage with a microphone on a tall stand or pole, it’s called a “polemic” (pronounced pole-mike).
Good one, George.
Then Judy’s Da discursive space par excellence.
Judith, in that 2nd article, they say the previous version mentioned : “”uncertainty” or “uncertainties” 42 times over 31 pages, according to a final draft obtained by Reuters, a comparable rate to 26 mentions in 18 pages in 2007.”
”
Can someone count the occurrence of ‘uncertainty’ in the AR4 SPM?
”
I love the smell of word-count textual deconstruction in the morning.
Smells like victory!
BUT – You have to be scientifically rigorous about this sort of thing.
Synonyms.
So – Don’t forget to count these:
ambiguity
ambivalence
anxiety
concern
confusion
distrust
mistrust
skepticism
suspicion
trouble
uneasiness
unpredictability
worry
and these:
bewilderment
conjecture
contingency
dilemma
disquiet
doubtfulness
dubiety
guesswork
hesitancy
hesitation
incertitude
inconclusiveness
indecision
irresolution
misgiving
mystification
oscillation
perplexity
puzzle
puzzlement
qualm
quandary
query
reserve
scruple
vagueness
wonder
lack of confidence
questionableness.
Don’t forget to send all the numbers to David Rose.
He might even quote them accurately.
Good idea, Reverend.
Let’s get extensional, extensional.
I wanna get extensional.
Let’s get into extensional
Let me hear your AR4 talk, your AR4 talk
Let me hear your AR4 talk
But Donna….
What is the insinuation here? Why don’t you do it yourself?
”
What is the insinuation here?
”
No insinuation – Dr Curry has been very clear about this:
More uncertainty = better science.
From which it follows:
Declaration of complete ignorance = the best possible scientific theory.
Easy. So easy that you don’t even need to cherry-pick any data.
See: Politics: “plausible deniability”.
Keep thinking that Rev Jeb. You don’t have enough relevance left for it to matter.
Dr Curry on the other hand …..
First sentence from the intro:
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-spm.pdf
It might be tough to admit progress without acknowledging past uncertainties. Not what we’re looking for, but that’s a start.
Also, ask yourself if it’s possible to have estimates that are certain.
The other sentences from the first paragraph:
Our emphasis.
Roaming through the skeptic blogs now shows in a very hard edged way that a big time blowback against the climate warming profession and in particular the climate models and all that catastrophic climate science that was so often and so arrogantly asserted and claimed to be “unchallengeable” and was “proven” by the output of the climate models, is well and truly underway.
The levels of sarcasm, cynicism and viperous commentary now being expressed and directed at any global warming, catastrophe predicting, totally model reliant climate scientist who has the arrogant temerity to claim that some new climate phenomena he / they have uncovered, preferably, as usual, one that can be morphed into some sort of potential disaster in the making, which has been “proven” by their “models”, is in line for a very solid working over in the skeptic blogs.
And the skeptic blog denizens, after all these years, increasingly have the background and an arsenal of data to support their scathing criticism of so much that now supposedly now passes for climate science.
The increasingly heated and sarcastic commentary on the skeptic blogs when yet another climate warming science paper claims yet another phenomena is explained and “proven’ by the climate model outputs is making this lot of Climate Etc’s smart but very highly opinionated, forthright and for some, not particularly tolerant, denizens look quite mild by comparison.
The skeptics feel they owe the catastrophic warming cult believers one hell of a lot for the years of vicious attacks, the denigration, the spitefulness, the threats, occasionally frighteningly deadly, and the sheer viciousness of some many global warming cult believers towards any skeptic, no matter how scientifically qualified, who copped the full bucketload from the cultists if they dared at all to question the claims of the global warming alarmist cult.
The one outstanding point is that the realisation is seeping in all over that the entire 3/4’s of a trillions dollars worth of effort and expenditure and the immense social and personal costs and the trauma and industrial cost that so many countries have endured in the name of “saving the planet” was all based on nothing more than a bunch of unverified, unvalidated and unproven climate models and nothing else,
No observations of real climate events that could unambiguously be separated from entirely natural climate variations and caused by global warming has ever scientifically and without any smidgin of doubt whatsoever proven as being due to increased CO2 emissions.
Climate science and in particular climate modeling and it’s proponents are the ones who must bear the ultimate blame for the extremism that was and still is such a feature and characteristic of the CAGW meme.
Climate modeling will invariably be set back a decade and perhaps much, much more as the skeptic’s anti-climate modeling fervour backed now by ever more examples of catastrophic climate science claims and supposedly rock solid climate modeled predictions coming completely unstuck. is now a theme that is seeping into the national political consciousness and media of so many former warmist science supporting and climate catastrophe fearing countries.
The fervour of the skeptics in wanting to see the back of and the wiping out of the extremist catastrophe predicting climate science certainly matches the fervor of the climate alarmists of a decade ago.
And like the alarmists fervor of then, the skeptics are now reaching into the inner sanctums of governments everywhere as the politicals and their bureaucrats don’t want to be caught supporting and throwing money at an increasingly unpopular cause which has already cost so many of their populace so much.
Revenge will be sweet indeed for a whole group of skeptics out there if climate science or at least it’s lavish funding is just simply and completely stopped which I think has a good chance of being the case within the next few years..
And there goes many a lavishly funded university climate department and many a reputation and loss of access to high places and a rapid coming down to earth for many a researcher who calls himself / herself a climate researcher. All that along with the cessation of many a Green’s project and many a publicity seeking protest and many a research project with “climate warming” somewhere in the title and many a carpet bagging renewable energy scheme whose sole purpose was to be extracting lavish handouts from the public purse at the maximum rate achievable.
All that along with the elimination of the massive subsidies to the so called and highly inefficient renewable energy industry in all it’s lavishly tax payer funded variations .
In short the probable elimination of an entire industry, the so called renewable energy industry, it’s entire existence founded and based entirely and purely on government mandated handouts and subsidies.
The Czechs have just canned and abandoned all their renewable energy subsidies. The Poles have done it. The Spanish have got rid of most of their subsidies as they are broke..The Dutch of all people are cutting right back,
.The Germans are thinking about it with the Poms not far behind.
T Boon Pickens has just ruefully admitted he lost his ass, ie; a very large slice of that 2 billion dollar fortune he had made,previously, on wind turbines
The global warming alarmists and cultists ruled by the sword of the journals and the predictions of the climate models .
Now they are about to die by the sword particularly if a couple of major journals also fall over,a good possibility, and the climate models as those modeled predictions quite spectacularly fall over despite huge doses of spin trying to say otherwise,vented by the climate alarmist establishment to the media and the public.
If those skeptic blog tea leaves are right it is a case of close the doors and sneak away into the outer climate science darkness for the catastrophic global warming climate and climate modeling science and it’s adherents and groupies .
You had your chance as scientists.
You blew it big time with your extremism, your arrogance in that YOU, those catastrophe predicting climate warming scientists thought and regularly intimated that they were THE experts who knew what had to be done and they had no hesitation in informing the politicals what should be forced onto the public to get them to conform YOUR own personal beliefs, dogma and climate ideology.
Yep! Those tea leave predictions don’t look too good for future climate alarmist science and it’s adherents at all.
Perhaps you had better hope they are as accurate as your climate models.
The bonus is of course, they only cost a few cents a cup and five minutes of time to make a prediction and are just as useful as the mega million dollar climate models.
The End
“The levels of sarcasm, cynicism and viperous commentary now being expressed and directed at any…climate scientist… ” – ROM
You having been paying much attention.
That’s been standard behaviour for the ‘skeptics’ for many years.
For having paid too much, attention…
“We are an intergovernmental body and we do what the governments of the world want us to do,” he said. “If the governments decide we should do things differently and come up with a vastly different set of products we would be at their beck and call.”
Michael.
Lookout Tom, the black helicopters are coming!
If so Michael, then they are coming for you.
They don’t like being mocked. More worrisome, they now have little brothers – black drones – who are more than happy to do the job and let their older brothers stay home and take it easy.
What a drivel. And utterly delusional.
Jan P Perlwitz
Can you tell me if your view of historic climate coincides with the stated belief of the Met office?
“Extract “Before the twentieth century, when man-made greenhouse gas emissions really took off, there was an underlying stability to global climate. The temperature varied from year to year, or decade to decade, but stayed within a certain range and averaged out to an approximately steady level.”
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climatechange/policymakers/policy/slowdown.html
Thank you.
tonyb
The link is dead. I can’t verify the quote, or examine the context of the quote.
But I found this on the UK Met Office website:
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate-change/guide/climate
Things are quite simplified in there for the public, but not principally wrong.
Jan
Thanks for your reply. It used to be there as I have quoted it several times over a number of years. Presumably it can be found on the wayback facility.
tonyb
Jan
Here we go I found it
http://web.archive.org/web/20101229165808/http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climatechange/policymakers/policy/slowdown.html
So, do you agree with the segment I highlighted? I have always assumed that the Met office followed Dr Mann’s 1998 paper in as much that was the source of the notion of limited climate variability through the ages .
tonyb
Thanks. I think the quoted statement is a bit imprecise, since it doesn’t say to what time frame it refers. If the statement about the pre-industrial variability of the globally averaged surface temperate refers to the time frame of human civilization I agree with it, based on the scientific evidence known to me. Global climate has been relatively stable as long as there has been human civilization. I very much doubt the quoted statement refers to the whole geological past of Earth, or to a time frame reaching back further than even the Holocene.
Why? Do you know any evidence to the contrary regarding climate variability?
*temperature
Jan,
Agree that it is drivel, but it is that peculiar form of Aussie drivel that somehow has infected the denialosphere.
Massive amounts of projection as the Aussie larrikins lash out to mock authority while at the same time acting like wounded birds who have had to bear the brunt of whatever slights they imagine has been laid onto them.
It’s actually quite comical when you think abut it.
Crocodile Dundees clutching their hankies while trying to ward off a case of the vapors.
Hah, hah, ‘averaged out to an approximately steady level’. And we pay these Perlwitz’s with public money?
=======================
Jan
I have carried out several examinations of Dr Mann’s work. Here is the latest
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/08/16/historic-variations-in-temperature-number-four-the-hockey-stick/
Figure 5 in particular is interesting as it demonstrates the almost steady temperature cited by the Met office (as evidenced by Mann and other spaghetti paleo reconstructions) overlaid with real world Decadal CET and glacier movements over the last 3000 years.
I am intrigued that a steady temperature managed to produce so many glacier advances and retreats (solid blue line at top of page equals retreat, solid blue line at bottom equals advance.)
The paleo reconstructions are a very coarse sieve of approximately 50 year smoothed points leaving the fine grain of real world annual and decadal temperature to fall through. Our climate has been highly variable not fairly steady.
I will be extending this to other regional data sets other than CET. The problem is with getting hold of raw regional data and the actual data used by Dr Mann in his hockey stick. Perhaps you can help with the latter? Thank you
tonyb
I think the skeptics get louder in correlation to breaking records like the warmest 12 months in US history (news in just now). It seems they collect on these blogs to comfort each other when these things happen. It is quite understandable. We’ll see more of this with the next warm record during the “pause” too. It is a way to disengage from the reality going on around them.
Muller: nine years ago.
“Suppose, for example, that future measurements in the years 2005-2015 show a clear and distinct global cooling trend. (It could happen.) If we mistakenly took the hockey stick seriously–that is, if we believed that natural fluctuations in climate are small–then we might conclude (mistakenly) that the cooling could not be just a random fluctuation on top of a long-term warming trend, since according to the hockey stick, such fluctuations are negligible. And that might lead in turn to the mistaken conclusion that global warming predictions are a lot of hooey. If, on the other hand, we reject the hockey stick, and recognize that natural fluctuations can be large, then we will not be misled by a few years of random cooling.”
The full article is still online here:
http://www.technologyreview.com/news/403256/global-warming-bombshell/
Thanks for bringing this up, i had flagged this also
Mosher, exactly! We could have 2 deg C cooling over this century and the CO2 sensitivity could still be positive and high. Climate changes with or without humans. That’s lesson one for consensus climate scientists. Otherwise, it’s basic education.
What is the scientific evidence that suggest a global cooling of 2 deg. C over this century could happen with non-negligible probability (even with a high climate sensitivity to CO2!)?
Steven Mosher,
thanks for another good article link. Always useful to keep perspective.
An anology is in chemistry when modeling reaction rates and bond angle or spin influences. One starts with simple models of unclomplex reactions and when the results adequately explain and reproduce observations, one can move to more complex and faster reactions.
Scott
Steven Mosher
Re: “then we will not be misled by a few years of random cooling.”
But how will Muller distinguish between “random”, climate, and solar? Contrast Koutsoyiannis et al. differentiating solar-earth orbital drivers (Milankovitch cycles) from climate persistance and that from “random” Gaussian noise. See especially Fig. 9 of:
Markonis, Y., and D. Koutsoyiannis, Climatic variability over time scales spanning nine orders of magnitude: Connecting Milankovitch cycles with Hurst–Kolmogorov dynamics, Surveys in Geophysics, 34 (2), 181–207, 2013. Corrected Preprint
Speaking of gatekeeping, see Koutsoyiannis’ Prehistory: Rejection by Geophysical Research Letters and by Nature Geoscience
Huh,
The question of attribution isnt even raised. What he is arguing is something different. See if you can figure it out rather than coat-racking your typical crap onto the discussion
Pretty good Steven Mosher.
“…if we believed that natural fluctuations in climate are small–then we might conclude (mistakenly) that the cooling could not be just a random fluctuation on top of a long-term warming trend, since according to the hockey stick, such fluctuations are negligible.” – Mullen.
Hockey Stick = Small natural variability a)
Broken Stick = Large natural variability b)
Pick one
Given your above choice, explain any current pause in Atmospheric Temperatures
a) The trend has flattened, perhaps CO2 is not the driver we thought it was
b) Perhaps CO2 is not the driver you thought it was
In the case of a), it looks like a ‘commit’.
I commit to this answer, and may have to hold to that commitment in the future, or explain why I think it was and/or is wrong.
We still don’t know, as the pause may end next month, and it is a Hockey Stick, or looks more like a Hockey Stick.
Indeed, ackowledging a bigger MWP would help us dismiss da paws.
To Rom…You are a great writer. You especially captured my sentiments in chapter 5. I hope Judith will read it all and perhaps consider using it as a guest blog.
To Mosher…We could also say, “we should not be misled by a few years of random WARMING.”
I totally agree. This is why one should look at longer time periods, like the 1970ies, not just a short time intervals like the one since 1998. The warming trend in the near surface temperature since the 1970ies is highly statistically significant (8 standard deviations or more). So it’s highly probable that the trend over this time period hasn’t just been random. But one can extend the period back to 1880. Whatever time period is chosen, the trends are all highly statistically significant. So, the probability is low these trends were just random events over the time periods.
How about comparing the trend now to Hansen’s trend from the 1988 Congressional Hearing?
Would that do?
Would that to what? What is “Hansen’s trend” with respect to the topic? The talk here was about the randomness of observed warming.
The estimated warming trends of the observed near surface temperature since 1988 is statistically significant still with more than four standard deviations according to the three major analyses of the global near surface temperature (GISTEMP, NOAA, HadCRUT4).
Here is what Phil Jones, Director of the Climate Research Unit, and IPCC author, stated when asked the following question in 2010:
Q: Do you agree that according to the global temperature record used by the IPCC, the rates of global warming from 1860-1880, 1910-1940 and 1975-1998 were identical?
Jones:
“Temperature data for the period 1860-1880 are more uncertain, because of sparser coverage, than for later periods in the 20th Century. The 1860-1880 period is also only 21 years in length. As for the two periods 1910-40 and 1975-1998 the warming rates are not statistically significantly different (see numbers below).”
“I have also included the trend over the period 1975 to 2009, which has a very similar trend to the period 1975-1998.”
“So, in answer to the question, the warming rates for ALL 4 periods are similar and not statistically significantly different from each other”.
So the 1975 to 1998 warming rate when CO2 levels were exploding has the same warming rate as 1910-1940 when people were not driving their SUV’s around. Hmmm. Whatever could that mean?
SGW, this graphic of the three nearly identical rates of temperature rise ought to be the iconic exemplar of recent climate, rather than the Piltdown Mann’s Crook’t Hockey Stick. And to think that Phil Jones heself told us so.
================
If you want to make an argument do so. I am not going to reply to some insinuation, guessing what you exactly want to say.
Jan,
Even Joe public could deduce my point. The homeless guy with the “will work for food” sign could figure it out.
And while we’re at it, why not look at the 30 year cooling period from the 1940’s to the 1970’s. People are up in arms at the current warming haitus of almost 17 years, but we had a cooling period of 30 years when CO2 values were also rising drastically. What did physicist Richard Feynman say? 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.
And lastly, and completely off topic. I have a beef with NASA GISS. You work there. The original purpose NASA GISS, until hijacked by the nutcase Jim Hansen, was to perform basic research in space sciences in support of GSFC (Goddard Space Flight Center) programs. My tax dollars are being wasted. Now that he is gone, maybe some sanity can return to that agency and they can repair the damage done to the fine reputation the agency once had, and return to its original function. And while they are at it, they can fix the modifications Hansen performed on the historical surface temperature records that artificially cooled the past.
Fortunately, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what three nearly identical slopes mean. It means that the CO2 effect by that metric is, wait for it, ‘indistinguishable from zero’. H/t Jim Cripwell.
Temperature rose at the same rate three times in the last century and a half, and only in the last of these times was CO2 also rising. This may well be the grandest example yet of the Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc logical fallacy.
There is little wonder that Jan P. Perlwitz cannot face this, this stark graph, handwritten on the wall.
=====================
of course.
Check out this latest missive from Pachauri:
IPCC chairman dismisses climate report spoiler campaign
Rajendra K Pachauri says ‘rational people’ will be convinced by the science of the forthcoming blockbuster climate report
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/sep/19/ipcc-chairman-climate-report
That article refers to an earlier article in Guardian
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/sep/04/scientists-overhaul-un-climate-report-ipcc
Many scientists behind the AR5 report seem to agree that writing such reports is not the wisest thing to do.
How many are “many” and how do you get to such a statement?
Perhaps I read the article with bias as I happen to have that view in spite of the fact that I consider the AR4 WG1 report rather well balanced.
I would, however, be genuinely surprised if the scientists mentioned in the article (Wuebbles, Stocker, Trenberth, and Weaver) would be the only ones having either clearly such views or at least willing to consider alternatives seriously.
The few scientists that I know personally and who have been IPCC authors do also agree that the work load is large and rises thoughts on the value of that in comparison to the outcome.
AR5 will certainly contain new material and modified conclusions, but does it contain anything that really changes the basis for decision making. The interval between successive reports seems to be too short for changing much but at the same time too long for keeping the IPCC maintained information up-to-date.
Thanks for explaining.
I personally haven’t come to an opinion yet on this.
“Blockbuster” climate report? I think Pachauri is confusing his novel “Return to Almora with the AR5 report. Although there are similarities. Both are fictional. Return to Almora is #1,256,412 on Amazon’s best sellers ranking, whereas the previous AR4 report is ranked #1,045,843 (People fork out 68 bucks to buy that crap?)
German view at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/10321173/Germany-industry-in-revolt-as-green-dream-causes-cost-spiral.html
What climate change? Fewer people than EVER believe the world is really warming up
People in the UK are beginning to challenge the Wizard of Oz and ask serious questions.
Wonder when pollsters will wise up to ask the real questions – like
Has it warmed since the Little Ice Age?
Has it warmed for the last 15 years?
actual data shows that earth does warm and cool and warm and cool and warm and cool
The real question is why did natural variability, which always caused this warming and cooling suddenly stop and get replaced by this new strange and not well understood CO2 sensitivity.
Unfortunately, Judith, you’ve missed the critical assumption that he should not make. Here’s a proper statement:
I can envisage an irony of history where climatology enters a period of crisis and loses its central place in public discourse about climate change, thus opening up discursive spaces for pragmatic options to determine if there is a problem.
Reiner Grundman is making the exact same mistake the IPCC made—both he and the IPCC assumes that there is a problem. For a person discussing the importance of uncertainty such as yourself, Judith, this is a huge oversight … what happened to your uncertainty about that very important question?
Suddenly, you and Reiner are 100% sure that a problem exists … and that’s a huge problem.
w.
Exactly!
‘Climate Science’ assumes AS AN AXIOM that anthropogenic CO2 poses an existential threat to the entire planet and its biosphere and that ‘something has to be done right away’ to snatch humanity back from the jaws of disaster.
The climate science nomenklatura and the politicians who fund them are locked in a symbiotic relationship by which the politicians provide the funding for the climate scientists and the climate scientists produce models which prove that anthropogenic CO2 is destroying the planet and our fate is sealed unless the (funding) politicians take control over all human activity that produces CO2 as a byproduct.
Most of the articles on this site, including those from Dr. Curry, accept the axiom that we have a CO2 problem and go from there. There is heated discussion over the magnitude of the problem, the timing of the impending disaster, and the remedial actions to be taken, but by and large it is accepted, no matter WHAT Jim Cripwell says, that there IS an anthropogenic CO2 problem and that we need to ‘solve’ it.
Show me the data (Actually, never mind showing me the actual data, because I wouldn’t know what to do with it.) that unequivocally backs out the effects of anthropogenic CO2 on the climate, then convince me that those effects constitute a problem begging a solution. Sea level has been rising at a rate of a millimeter or so a year for the last few hundred years and now, thanks to anthropogenic CO2, it has risen 8 mm–total due to all causes–in the last ten years? Scary.
The Greenland ice sheet, all 3e6 km^3 of it, is losing ice at a rate of around 2e2 km^3/yr, meaning that we can project that it will totally disappear in only 15,000 years if we don’t DO SOMETHING. That is enough to raise sea level by a little less than a millimeter per year, every year for the next 15,000 years. And ALL because of anthropogenic CO2, right? If not, how much IS caused by anthropogenic CO2 and how would we be better off if that portion were zero? Show your work. And how much would we be willing to pay for that benefit, in cash, lifestyle changes, and sacrifices in personal autonomy? (Or would we be better off if the ice cap actually GREW every year?)
The Arctic ice sheet is melting in summer and sometime in the future may melt enough so that ships will be able to transit the Northwest Passage. Disastrous. I suppose, based on the horror at the prospect expressed by ‘climate science’. How much would I pay, how much would I restrict my driving, and how much would I lower my house thermostat in the winter and raise it in the summer to prevent it? Speaking only for myself, zero, for all the above.
Ad infinitum.
So back to agreeing with Willis: FIRST, convince me, based on actual observed climate rather than outputs of models that were written to confirm an axiom, that we in fact HAVE a ‘climate problem’, whatever the cause. THEN convince me that you understand what drives variations in the climate, both currently and in the past, and that you are able to back out all non-anthropoligic influences on the climate and confirm that not only do we have a climate problem, the problem is caused anthropogenic CO2 and would not exist ABSENT anthropogenic CO2. Once you have done that, propose actions to ameliorate the problem and convince me that the actions you propose to remove human influence on the climate will not have ‘unintended consequences’ far more unpleasant than the climate changes that we will experience if we ignore the whole climate change problem and simply get on with our lives.
Or, climate science can continue to do what is has done for the last 20 years: take no interest in convincing me of anything and, working symbiotically with the politicians, simply proclaim the existence of the problem and dictate, ex cathedra, the actions that I WILL take to ‘solve it’–or else. See: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_OBAMA_CLIMATE_CHANGE?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2013-09-20-03-25-32
Bob Ludwick
• PUBMED shows us 4,382 scientific articles specifically associated to the MESH category “consensus”, and
• there never was a Middle Age “consensus” that the earth was flat!
Question Are there no fact-checkers at The Australian?
In regard to climate change, it is easy for readers/voters to verify
• focusing upon decadal times-scales is wrong-headed, and
• there are solid reasons to expect that the surface-temperature ‘pause’ has already ended.
Conclusion When assessed by criteria that are rational and historical and objective and quantitiative and verifiable, the IPCC5 conclusions are looking impressively solid!
Dear FanofMoreDelusion;
Let’s see. Do I accept the delusional ramblings of an unknown blogger? Or do I concur with the reasoned approach of a world renowned scientist? Wow! So hard to choose!
It’s a tough choice, SkepticGoneWild!