The latest IPCC report will not bridge the ideological divide on climate change so it is up to governments to find the sensible centre. – Warwick McKibben
The Australian media continues with thought provoking articles on climate change. This week, there are two good articles in Australian Financial Times, which are unfortunately behind paywall. These two articles provide a good summary of the issues that policy makers need to grapple with in responding to the the IPCC report and addressing climate change. Here are some excerpts:
Why the pause? IPCC report is unconvincing
These reports underpin a now vast industry in research grants, environment lobby firms and advisory businesses of all types.
The reports also provide the basis for billions of dollars in trading climate credits, many thousands of well-paid government jobs in climate bureaucracies, and an enormous green energy industry.
The IPCC report was never going to undermine the science on which all this funding floats, with the various leaked drafts of this key report remaining bullish on global warming. But early reports indicate that it will explain away the troublesome and widely acknowledged 15-year pause in temperatures.
But the existence of the pause is now too widely known for any sleight of hand in the report so the IPCC and its band of supporters will be in damage control mode for some time.
Anyone who has dealt with forecasts produced by experts with impressive credentials in any field, or who knows anything about the inglorious history of forecasting, would not be surprised by a forecast in such a young field being wrong in the short term. The idea is for scientists to pick themselves up, dust themselves off and take another look at the theory.
Climate scientists, however, cannot afford the luxury of admitting even a minor failure. A vast industry depends on the IPCC forecasts.
The global warming industry will not be seriously hampered by any official acknowledgement of the pause by the IPCC or anyone else.
But to survive the industry needs temperatures to move upwards once more, as further claims the heat is going into the oceans will look like excuses, rather than explanations.
Good policy cuts out the climate extremists
Some people will argue [that the IPCC AR5] supports the view that a climate crisis is approaching and a major restructuring of the global economy at whatever cost should be undertaken. Other equally intelligent and passionate people will argue the report is finally a recognition of the failure of climate models to predict a levelling of temperature changes that is currently being observed, and thus proving the entire body of climate science wrong.
In reality the underlying report will likely show a small evolution of knowledge since the previous assessment report that was published in 2007. It hopefully will reinforce the reality that policy should not be based on the belief that mankind can predict the future with any precision.
Despite the enormous uncertainty surrounding climate change, there are two facts that are unchanged. The first is that carbon dioxide emissions continue to rise – and at a faster rate than predicted in early IPCC reports. The second is that no one knows, with any degree of certainty, how the climate will respond nor what the ultimate economic and social consequences might be. Unfortunately it is the extreme views that tend to dominate policy debate – but both extremes are likely to be wrong.
Good public policy is not about picking the policy that works best if you have the right model of the world – it is about designing policies that generally work well and that work least bad in all circumstances. Not doing anything about climate change, if it turns out to be real and dangerous, needs to be balanced against the consequences of severely damaging the world economy if climate change does not emerge as a real threat. The potential costs of both extreme policies might be very high.
JC comments: The MSM has been relatively silent on the AR5 so far; perhaps next week will provide some thoughtful analyses. Even the twitter discussion has been pretty boring. In the meantime, for entertainment value, see Michael Mann’s article The new IPCC climate change report makes deniers overheat, which includes this gem:
On the other hand, serial climate disinformer Judith Curry, in a commentary for the same outlet five days later, announced:
Consensus distorts the climate picture.
And don’t miss David Rose’s latest installment on the pause in the Sunday Mail: Met Office proof that global warming is still ‘on pause’ as climate summit confirms global temperature has stopped rising. This article documents the AR5 sidestep of the pause.
A week or two ago,
Sea ice was all the rage,
Now the ice has gone and come,
So now they turn the page.
Global degrees flatten out,
Climbing not at all,
Leaving many awash with doubt,
Time to shake the Magic 8 Ball!
It’s sea level rise,
Manhattan under 15 feet of water,
That will be our demise,
If not this, why bother?
Good job. Almost to Kim’s level and you even provide rhymes.
The latest IPCC report will not bridge the ideological divide on climate change so it is up to governments to find the sensible centre. – Warwick McKibben
Extremes in opinion:
1) Global warming is beneficial because it mostly occurs in the winter, over land, in the higher colder latitudes where milder winters are welcomed. Concommitant fertilzation of the atmosphere with CO2 is a boon to agriculture for another benefit. Plus all the other benefits of cheap energy from fossil fuels vastly outweighs the downside of sea level rise and ocean acidification.
2) Catastrophic global warming will cause widespread death and destruction.
The middle ground is that global warming is of no consequence either good or bad. This is the defacto policy position to date for most of the world. Wait and see is the order of the day and business as usual while waiting. Thanks to both “the pause” and “Climategate” for making the climate bedwetters impotent at least for the nonce. As to who’s right we’ll know in another ten years if warming stays stalled or sooner if it does not. No pressure.
Not with a boil, with a shiver.
===========
“Wait and see is the order of the day and business as usual while waiting.”
I wish this were the “order of the day”. It isn’t.
Business as usual, for the last 13 years means spending 1.6 trillion dollars on useless windmills and solar panels that achieved no emissions reduction.
I shudder when thinking what “doing more for the climate” could mean.
jacobress | September 29, 2013 at 2:11 pm |
“Business as usual, for the last 13 years means spending 1.6 trillion dollars on useless windmills and solar panels that achieved no emissions reduction.”
Nonsense. Windmills and solar panels are producing the energy expected of them and exactly the emissions reductions expected of them. The unwashed masses, which must necessarily include you for making such a clueless statement, were misled. It certainly isn’t the first time. Back in the 1960’s when I didn’t know any better I and many others were led to believe that nuclear power would be so cheap we’d no longer be getting billed for electricity. Engineers may have deceived themselves at the time, I don’t know.
Engineers today have not been deceived by what wind and solar can deliver. The cost and performance is known to the proverbial nine nines. Emission reductions are also quite well characterized but at least you got that part right – there has been no significant emission reduction.
Wind and solar are not the most efficienct means of energy production by a long shot but they do what they were designed to do and are far from useless. The $1.4 trillion is probably right including all solar panels and all windmills ever made but they will pay for themselves over their service life so there’s nothing wasted other than what’s called “opportunity cost” i.e. it would have been better to use the money to build more efficient power plants instead.
I shudder when thinking what “doing more for the climate” could mean.
The windmills and solar panels produce intermittent energy which is difficult to integrate into the grid, they require conventional backup, and cause fossil fuel stattions to work in an inefficient manner (i.e. to burn more fuel for the same amount of current produced). They also require extra payments to gas power plants to stand by and be ready for backup.
The amount of emissions saved is minuscule.
Windmills and solar panels are absolutely incapable of supplying the huge amounts of energy needed. The little they do supply is far, very far, from the goals of emission reductions needed (as the IPCC says) to save the planet. This is not climate science, it is engineering, and a simple matter with no uncertainties and unknowns.
In other words – they are a total waste of money.
Oh Magic 8 Ball does climate change?
“Sure!”
Shake, shake, shake, Did we make it change?
“Ask me later.”
Shake, shake, shake, Are we doomed?
“I doubt it.”
Perhaps ‘MSM’ has been relatively silent because MSM is relatively taking the time to read the actual published summary, having the experience of being burnt badly by unreliable, know-nothing ‘sources’ and so-called ‘leaks’ with misinformed propaganda and lies?
Have you contacted the reporter you misled about the IPCC process for handling Uncertainty?
And _why_ have you never taken the trouble to inform yourself on the actual IPCC guidelines on handling Uncertainty, if you have objections to it?
Or, you know, apparently ever read a book by a mathematician or statistician on the topic?
Why are mathematicians or statisticians relevant to understanding uncertainties of physical phenomena and their measurement?
If you don’t know what physical process causes A (say the “pause”), a mathematician won’t help.
> Why are mathematicians or statisticians relevant to understanding uncertainties of physical phenomena and their measurement?
Very good question.
I’m sure mathematicians like David Young or statisticians like MattStat appreciate the thought, jacobress.
jacobress | September 29, 2013 at 10:29 am |
willard is being unhelpful.
A mathematician, statistician, or even computer scientist can express with rigor in formal notational language the meaning of what one says about Uncertainty, and thereby fully qualify and quantify claims so they may be validated and verified.
As it stands now, I’ve never seen Dr. Curry make an actually valid statement about Uncertainty. And I’ve scoured her writings looking for it.
You can’t verify what isn’t valid.
Of course, the reason why Nic’s opinions are important is because he’s an independent climate scientist (for the last 5? years, I believe). In that way, he overcomes the irrelevancy of his (20?- 30?- year mathematical background).
> As it stands now, I’ve never seen Dr. Curry make an actually valid statement about Uncertainty.
Hiring a logician might help.
Perhaps David Wojick, as he claims being one?
Valid statements
“X et al. take issue with our statement “The high likelihood of the imprecise ‘most’ seems rather meaningless.” Whereas X et al. disagree with our statement, the InterAcademy Council Review[1] of the IPCC seems to share our concern: “In the Committee’s view, assigning probabilities to imprecise statements is not an appropriate way to characterize uncertainty.” While this passage from the IAC Review was cited in our original manuscript, we repeat it here for emphasis. Assigning a ‘very likely’ likelihood to the imprecise ‘most’ is not an appropriate way to characterize uncertainty.”
There are more.
Theories.
1. Bart R really didnt scour Judiths writings
2. Bart R doesnt recognize valid statements about uncertainty
3. Bart intends to quibble.
4. Bart made an honest mistake and will own it.
There are a ton more. This could be fun. I predict quibbles.
Mathematicians can audit the mathematics and statistics used in climate papers. They cannot asses the uncertainty of physical processes.
That is – they can if they have a good grasp of physics, but not in their quality as mathematicians.
Uncertainty is a formal concept, jacobress, e.g.:
http://www.stanford.edu/group/uq/uq_home.html
Please leave the old Italian rag in its chest.
Uncertainty does not include ignorance, so polish up the Italian flag
“As it stands now, I’ve never seen Dr. Curry make an actually valid statement about Uncertainty. And I’ve scoured her writings looking for it.”
should be
As it stands now, I’ve never seen the IPCC make an actually valid statement about Uncertainty. And I’ve scoured their reports looking for it.
Bart R | September 29, 2013 at 11:15 am |
“willard is being unhelpful”
That’s redundant. In other words willard is being willard.
> Uncertainty does not include ignorance [.]
Of course it does, unless you’re a platonist and pretend to have direct access to truths. Uncertainty is more or less ignorance you can quantify.
Anyway, I had in mind the word “uncertainty”, like in the title of this op-ed:
http://judithcurry.com/2010/11/28/waving-the-italian-flag-part-i-uncertainty-and-pedigree/
There was an unanswered comment from Lazar in that thread.
***
And since you’re here, Judy: when will you answer Richard Betts’ question?
Willard, I assume that you realize that CE averages about 500 comments per day, is approaching a total of 1 M comments. If you are expecting me to keep track of and respond to all of these comments you will be disappointed. If you want me to respond to something, you might start by providing a link to the thread and the text of the comment, then i might manage to spot it, and I might bother to respond.
willard’s audited himself into the weeds, and the logs he’s rolling have long jaws and sharp teeth.
=============
If Richard Betts asks you a direct question, I expect you to notice it, Judy.
I can also understand that you may have missed it.
It’s OK.
***
Now, will you answer that question?
You can ask TonyB to remind you of it, if he’s still around.
Steven Mosher | September 29, 2013 at 11:41 am |
You say these statements are valid. What is our test to prove your claim; are we to take your word for it that these statements are valid?
Or are we to require the statements be made with rigor in some formal, that is formulaic, notation, and check the statements for validity?
No formalism, no rigor, no validation test, no validity.
See how that works?
Dr. Curry’s statements may pass tests for validity some day. But they have not yet been put into any form where they could be subject to formal tests of validity. Until Dr. Curry explains herself with equations and, where possible, numbers, she hasn’t explained her ideas at all.
You want to help Dr. Curry? You’ve got some chops as a computer programmer. Write out her claims in machine-executable form, and run them against data.
Yeah, sure, just try to get rid of the Urbane Hype Effect.
===================
Willard
Now you are being lucid. Why didn’t you explain the background before you started accusing me of being dishonest and going into the realms of fantasy with talk of climate balls and an in audible no?
So this is about you thinking that Judith evaded a question asked by Richard betts and that I was in some mysterious way complicit in it?
Unfortunately I have not the slightest memory as to what the question was but I will go and see if I can find it and will post it.
Then you can apologise for accusing me of being dishonest.
Tonyb
Bart
“You say these statements are valid. What is our test to prove your claim; are we to take your word for it that these statements are valid?”
Bart, your claim was that your scoured her writings. Now I have a stack of Judiths papers. I’m doubting that your statement was valid or truthful.
I’m also doubting that you even read her online comments. So I picked the first post that referred to a published piece that you might have access to. It contains a statement that is, on its face, valid.
Kind like the sky is blue is valid. Your response, having made an claim about scouring her writing and finding nothing, is rebutted. You can argue, that the sky is not blue, I encourge this. It will be fun. Every valid argument, you know, starts with a premises, not in mid air, with things known to be true or accepted as true. So, read what Judith wrote.
Here is a hand. If you need help with last sentence try google.
#################################
Or are we to require the statements be made with rigor in some formal, that is formulaic, notation, and check the statements for validity?
No formalism, no rigor, no validation test, no validity.
See how that works?
###############
Yes Bart I see how that works. Your argument is valid.
Strangely it is thesame argument Judith made
” assigning probabilities to imprecise statements is not an appropriate way to characterize uncertainty.”
Essentially you are making Judiths argument. So, if your argument for formalism is valid, then judiths arguement that the lack of formalism in the IPCC was problematic, then she has made your valid argument.
See how that works?
###################################
You want to help Dr. Curry?
You just did by making her argument and undermining your own Go figure.
Dear Willard,
Richard Betts would email Judith Curry if he had a question he wanted answered, dummy. Even I email her and she responds so fast it’s like she has a computer implant in her brain. Nobody in their right mind would expect her to notice a question on her blog. Of course nobody ever accused you of being in your right mind did they? :-)
… first assume a spherical cow.
Disclaimer: I am a mathematician.
+1 for spherical cow
Big Dave might need to brush up his pragmatics.
Richard Betts would make an effort to have his question answered only if it matters enough to him. Considering that it’s only David Rose fumbling the ball yet again, there may not be any reason to inquire furthermore. If Richard Betts was Judy’s PR agent, he might have emailed her.
Perhaps Big Dave might too, if he still recalls the question.
TonyB,
I took the liberty to respond to your 2:51 comment on the proper comment thread and the proper thread:
http://judithcurry.com/2013/09/28/ipcc-diagnosis-permanent-paradigm-paralysis/#comment-390109
Hope you don’t mind.
Steven Mosher | September 29, 2013 at 4:02 pm |
Cute rhetorical tricks don’t produce formalism. Going from formalism to statements intended for reading by laypersons? That’s awesome, where it produces clarity.
Making criticisms of formal arguments while skipping the middle step of expressing your own criticism formally? Not cool, not clear, and not possible to validate.
I’d be glad to provide a formal criticism of Dr. Curry’s formal case on Uncertainty, if she ever makes it. Until then, Dr. Curry’s claims on Uncertainty in others’ work, having never been rendered formally, are invalid.
Her statements about pets and children? Those I am sure are valid.
Her Uncertainty Monster? Remains a fable until expressed as an equation and tested against data.
Uncertainty does not include ignorance, so polish up the Italian flag
On the other hand, ignorance does decrease uncertainty.
I did think, more with each release of IPCC reports, that they really do not understand climate.
Now with this latest release, I know that they don’t even suspect.
“Perhaps ‘MSM’ has been relatively silent because MSM is relatively taking the time to read the actual published summary”
Well, there’s a first time for everything.
cirby | September 29, 2013 at 10:42 am |
Fool them once, shame on you. Fool them three times a week for twenty years, shame on, shame on, .. uh.. ain’t gonna be fooled again.
To paraphrase George W. Bush.
Bushisms are now known as “Bart R moments”. Write that down.
In 8 years as president he made 8 gaffes in public speaking. That’s not a high rate of occurrence.
The national news shows had reports on it as well as CNN, I find calling that relatively silent wrong.
Bart,
Lets take a particular issue, one that Judith has been discussing for some time. The Attribution of more than 50% of all warming in the past 60 or so years.
Read chapter 10. Tell me if you can follow the steps of the calculation.
you cant. no one can. The steps are not given. There is no transparency, as the IAC recommended. In fact if you read the chapter you’ll see arguments that 100% of the warming is human caused.
I think the attribution argument is less important than Judith. I think the sensitivity argument is more important. But there too there is no checkable accounting of how the numbers were calculated.
I think with the planet at stake, with large of sums of money in the balance, with lives in the balance, that folks who think that science has something to add to the decision would agree that a proper accounting of the numbers is important. I don’t expect scientists to agree on everything, but they should agree that you show your work.
“I think the sensitivity argument is more important.
Sensitivity seems to me to be the whole ballgame. That there is apparently so little in the new report on this subject in the context of lowered sensitivity estimates is to be polite, a major mistake and in my view prima facie evidence of bad faith on the part of the IPCC. .
Good points Steven. I’m with you: if you want me to agree with your assertions yon have to show your work.
I’m not holding my breath.
Sensitivity and attribution are functionally two sides of the same coin.
=============
kim is right. The only way to know if you are right on sensitivity is if you can determine what portion of any warming is attributed to CO2.
And I agree with pokerguy that sensitivity is the whole ballgame. It is nonsense to posit sensitivity as a parameter. It is the ultimate output of the models for CAGW policy purpose. It seems to me that if “climate sensitivity” doesn’t take into account all other aspects of the climate, including other forcings and feedbacks not to mention initial conditions, is meaningless.
Frankly, if a climate sensitivity value is entered as a parameter in a GCM, it seems to me that makes the whole process flawed. You don’t create a model to find out the effect of X, by telling the model in advance what that effect is. Unless of course you get all the other parameters right, then try various values X for and compare them to actual data to test which value is correct. But we know the modelers reject any kind of validation as even being possible, and they’re not capable of modeling the rest of the climate accurately anyway, so…
Steven Mosher | September 29, 2013 at 11:29 am | Reply
“I think the attribution argument is less important than Judith. I think the sensitivity argument is more important.”
That is clumsy grammar. You’re comparing the importance of arguments to the importance of a person.
‘less important than Judith (does). I blame the I-Phone, a convenient, and handy, innocento to blame.
=================
Steven Mosher | September 29, 2013 at 11:29 am |
Link to chapter 10, please?
Was it AR4, which came out before IAC’s recommendations? Or AR5’s, because I don’t have access to anything from AR5 more up to date than WG1 SPM?
I agree with the premise that a proper accounting is important. Can you help that process along by providing citations?
Bart R | September 29, 2013 at 2:23 pm |
Steven Mosher | September 29, 2013 at 11:29 am |
Link to chapter 10, please?
#########################
http://www.stopgreensuicide.com/Ch10_attribution_WG1AR5_SOD_Ch10_All_Final.pdf
I agree with the premise that a proper accounting is important. Can you help that process along by providing citations?
#############
of course. See the bibilography, ( there are a bunch of papers that should get more attention than stuff like Marcott or Salby … IMHO)
Hmm Jones and Gillet stuff which I am reading now.
interesting to see some of the challenges they had with the sheer enormity of the data.
The interesting bits are the papers that show 100% of the warming due to humans, which is kinda more in line with our ( very very limited ) results.
My sense in reading through it all is that there may be a better argument or better presentation of the argument.
Ideally It would be great to have a living document that adressed the key issues.
Chapter 1 Observations
Chapter 2 Paleo
Chapter 3 Sensitivity
Chapter 4. Attribution
‘Proper accounting of the numbers is important.’
Even a serf can understand this… given what’s
at stake and $$$$$$$$$$$$$$
Steven Mosher | September 29, 2013 at 11:29 am |
Yes, I can follow the steps for determining attribution in the section labeled 10.1 Insert.. even without the graphics.
I think it’s a slightly inferior method, but its results are consistent with better methods, and the steps are clearly set forth, with the level of transparency recommended by the IAC so far as I can tell having read both the IAC recommendations and the scant parts of the second draft of AR5 WG1 Ch10 needed to discover your account of it is inaccurate.
As for 100% of warming attributed to humans, in a multi-car pile-up, the drunk driver who crossed the center line and made the first head-on impact is the one I attribute 100% of the fatalities to, absent evidence of unusual complications. Heck, I can even attributed 100% of the same fatalities to the bartender and to the manufacturer if the driver was clearly too drunk to drive when he left the bar and the car had faulty brakes without diluting attribution to the driver. How is this unlike that?
“Perhaps ‘MSM’ has been relatively silent because MSM is relatively taking the time to read the actual published summary, having the experience of being burnt badly by unreliable, know-nothing ‘sources’ and so-called ‘leaks’ with misinformed propaganda and lies?”
Not.
Where is the evidence that it has been relatively silent?
Especially when we consider that “MSM” is almost always a subjective determination.
Especially when we consider that much of the news relative to the IPCC report has been ongoing for week previous, due to leaks.
Especially when we consider that to a large degree, the newest report is not significantly different than previous reports.
Is it too much to ask that people provide evidence for their conclusions?
A middle ground policy??
A middle ground between spending 1.6 trillion dollars (that have already been spent) to acheive zero emission reduction – this is the “do nothing option” – and between spending maybe three time as much, to achieve the same result (zero emission reduction) ??
No, we need no stinking “middle ground”. We need sanity.
Gross World Product (GWP) is $71 trillion per year. So let’s say 25 years of building out wind turbines and solar power (it’s been longer as I recall driving past a big wind turbine installation in southern California 36 years ago but let’s say 25 years). That’s 25×71 or $1775 trillion. So $1.7 trillion represents 0.1% of GWP.
That’s a lot of money still if it were wasted. It WAS wasted as far as achieving any significant reduction in CO2 emission but it all paid for itself by producing electricity nonetheless. The only waste is what’s called opportunity cost. There was an opportunity to use the same funds to build, say, combined cycle natural gas generating plants. Those would have produced a better return on invested capital (ROIC).
Well, if you buy a product that you don’t need, because you already have one – then it’s wasted money. If you buy a new phone, but can’t sell the old one because the new one works only intermittently – you have wasted you money.
Especially if you pay for green electricity 2, 3, or four times the market rate, and install gov. mandates and subsidies and feed-in tarifs.
Compared to the name I was called in a comment on one of my YouTube videos yesterday, you should be pleased with “serial climate disinformer”, Judith. In fact, “serial climate disinformer” has a nice ring to it.
the ‘serial’ part links to ‘serial killer’, sort of like ‘holocaust denier’, don’t you think? grounds for a lawsuit maybe? seems to me to be at least as strong as Mann vs. Steyn
You may also like:
http://climateaudit.org/2012/07/01/lonnie-and-ellen-serial-non-archivers/
Go for it! He has besmirched your scientific credentials and tried to sully your reputation. Petulant children need to be disciplined and shown that there are negative consequences for their actions.
But remember, you have apparently “taken the crown as the most debunked person on the science blogosphere” http://rankexploits.com/musings/2010/most-debunked-x-in-y/
Is there any reason to take Mann more seriously than Romm?
What country was Mann’s piece published in. This could be fun.
it shows up in several places, has been republished with permission by several venues. So I think we can pick :)
And how about twitter, lots of interesting accusations about me on twitter
This blog could be more informative, more climate science and less sociology.
I dont know how anyone can defend Mann for anything he has ever done or said. A discredit to climate scientists and to science itself.
One thing for sure, Judith, I am not going to dress up like Scott Mandia, in a Super Mandia costume…
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/caped_climate_crusader1.jpg
…and ask for funds to cover your legal expenses. Not with my ancient potato-like body resting on two stilts for legs. No way.
Enjoy your weekend.
well darn, where are my friends when I need them :)
You might have trouble proving damages. Being attacked by Mann is more likely to improve your reputation.
I think Appell is into ‘cereal’ abuse
McKibben uses “sensible” and “government” in the same sentence. Yikes!
M. Mann’s disrespectful language says a lot about him and the climate scientists who refuse to sanction him. Then there is his dodgy math!
I wonder if anyone will notice what is missing in the latest report: what they got wrong in the last report and a detailed explanation of what they learned.
Then there is the fuzzy statement regarding the CO2 multiplier effect of water vapor. That’s progress?
“M. Mann’s disrespectful language says a lot about him and the climate scientists who refuse to sanction him.”
Boy is that a good point, especially WRT to those who refuse to distance themselves from such comments.
Speaking of media reports on the IPCC – I thought this was the best I’ve seen in a while:
http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2013/09/ipcc-climate-change-report
Would that more folks involved would take such a balanced approach.
Joshua
interesting article
apropos of nothing, but the article was headed ‘Babbage science and technology.’
From my house I can see the house where the Babbage family lived in the early 1800’s.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Babbage
tonyb
tony –
Did I tell you that I can see Russia from my backyard?*
Need any advice on foreign policy?
* yes, I know that that she didn’t actually say that.
In ’08 Sarah Palin said words to the effect of ‘I’m not one to blame all of global warming on Man’. And now, Obama can see Russia from the Oval Office.
================
they and you seriously need a lesson in logic
“Global warming is, then, continuing unabated in the watery world.”
There isnt a shred of science that supports this conclusion in anything other than a speculative manner.
Still, all the extra heat implied by higher radiative forcing has to go somewhere.
Note the word implied.
” That only leaves one other heat sink: the deep oceans below 700 metres, where it could be locked up in the deep oceans without affecting other parts of the climate.”
Note, they dont even consider the option that the extra heat could be lost to space.
Next
“In fact, vasty deeps are a plausible candidate to explain the pause in surface air temperatures. The trouble is that measurements deep down, while improving, remain patchy. ”
Note the word, plausible and patchy
Lastly
“But at the moment, this conclusion remains tentative.
Global warming is, then, continuing unabated in the watery world”
################################
Seriously Joshua, you liked the message, but your really didnt investigate the logic.
A implies B, but we cant find B, we looked in the usual places and didnt find B. Therefore B must reside at location X. But we dont know about location X. Therefore the B continues unabated in X
Talk about confirmation bias. I mean seriously.
Its one thing to say
A) the heat may reside in the deep ocean. Lets instrument that and find out.
Its another thing to say.
B) The heat has to reside in the deep ocean ( otherwise we are wrong )
Mosh
You made an exceptionally interesting comment to me here
http://judithcurry.com/2013/09/27/95/#comment-388617
My reply is under it. I think this would make an excellent article for the denizens here to chew over. How about submitting it to Judith?
Tonyb
Kind of like if I thought I know your opinions better than yo know your opinions? Or that I have a window into your soul?
Agreed, the speculative nature should have been more explicit. On the other hand, the word “then” is a conditional, referring to the previous paragraph.
True, they don’t consider that option. The statement is that only one heat sink would be left available, which seems to be a fair statement. Getting lost into space would not seem to be a “heat sink.” But not stating possible and obvious counterarguments is, I agree, insufficient.
????
Yes, and those words are entirely appropriate, and the lack thereof is the problem that I see in the rhetorical overreach that predominates on both sides of the debate. So I am confused as to why you’d have me note those word as an implied criticism. Use of such terms is exactly what I think is missing – well, along with when people criticize the use of such words, as if they are somehow inappropriate, kas I often see in the “skept-o-sphere,” (you know, the whole “wanting your cake and eating it to” aspect of the “skept-o-sphere” in approaching acknowledgement of “uncertainty.:”)
I like the message in that it was balanced, not in the sense that it might be perfect or fully comprehensive. As such, criticism is valid and should be part of the discussion. Failure to acknowledge imperfection is part an parcel with the communicative problems.
Tony Let me see if I can explain why, with RSM, the estimate of the past can theoretically change with more information about the present.
See this post
http://climateaudit.org/2008/06/28/hansens-reference-method-in-a-statistical-context/
at the heart of Hansens method is picking the longest station as the base against which a bias or offset of calculated for other overlapping series.
So, in the case where a long station ends and then a shorter station becomes the longer station as time goes on, the shorter station can become the base station.
Think of Leif’s work on sunspots and selecting various “spines” for reconciling various data streams. In hansens method there are reference stations. These are not records of a single station but combinations of stations over time.
A simple example. Take two stations
A and B and C located within 10km of each other
A goes from 1850 to 1970
B goes from 1970 to 2013
C goes from 1960 to 1975
In a CRU type system they will check for how many complete years
the series has in 1950-1980. If they choose a 20 year cut off then series
A will stay and B and C will be dropped.
For that location you wont have any knowledge of the temps from 1970 to present.
In a GISS type system
A and B and C will be combined into a reference station, provided there is enough overlap between the stations. As you add data to B the
value of the reference station in the past could change relative to other stations. Understand we are calculating anomalies here, so if your base changes then the anomaly relative to the base changes.
That’s one reason why we dont work in anomaly
In systems like Jeff Ids, Tamino, Nick Stokes And BEST, we use all the imformation at the same time.. If you look at steven Mcintyres approach you’ll see another way of doing that.
Steven,
As much as I respect your opinions, I do disagree with you on the importance of ocean heat content as a valid overall metric of Earth’s energy imbalance and I also the quality of the data we have from recent studies on OHC.
Four questions to ponder:
1) At any given time, what percentage of global tropospheric energy (in any form of course) do you think has come directly from the ocean?
2) How do changes in the rate of flow of energy from ocean to troposphere affect tropospheric temperatures? i.e. An x% reduction or increase will decrease or increase tropospheric temperatures by x degrees C.
3) What natural variability factors affect this rate of flow? (Such as ENSO)
4) What anthropogenic factors might affect this rate of flow and/or those factors of natural variability?
R Gates.
I should have been clearer. I’m quoting the article that Joshua cites.
I’m not addressing my views but rather the structure of their argument.
The facts may be different, but their chain of reasoning doesnt support what they assert
Mosh
Your additional reply to me just illustrates what an interesting topic this is. Altering temperature records in the manner you suggest has a fundamental mpact on the perception of the past climate. We could see that Dr Hansen cooled the temperatures from the 1940’s from the value in his 1988 hearing to when the giss material carried the data.
Cooling the past based on information gathered years lwhich punter intuitive, which is why I do urge you to combine your two posts to me in a manner tha could then be submitted to Judith as an article
Tonyb
Tony,
The issue is to document all the causes I would need all the prior data sources and the prior code.
All I can do now is talk “theoretically” about the properties and pitfalls of various approaches. So, for example, in theory, newer information can in RSM effect the past fields. SHOWING THAT HAPPENING is another kettle of fish. Not gunna happen.
Plus I’ve beat my head against the wall trying to explain to folks that the standard methods of geo statistics are better than the methods invented by Jones and Hansen. The only people listening are young graduate students, and they dont need to be convinced, they wonder why everyone thinks applying a proven method is a controversy.
People keep accusing hansen of cooking the books and its just sad. There is only so much time I have and to really do a great debunking
would take a huge amount of time. The best debunking I know
Is replicating his answer with a different method and diferent dataset.
I know of nothing more devastating to the claim that he cooked the books than the work Ive done with many different methods.. all of which confirm his results.
mosh
no one is accusing Hansen of cooking the books.(or at least I wasn’t)
Merely that the original temperatures he cited had cooled by the time they reached Giss. It needs to be explained why and at present it looks to be a model/computer based explanation whereby some new algorithm changes the past.
It would be interesting to run your comments past the denizens many of whom will have the statistical experience to be able to carry on a lively debate.
No one is suggesting this need be a time consuming article-90% is already there in your answers it just needs structuring in a manner that suits an article format. I’m not going to push you. I appreciate you have other fish to fry. But perhaps these are the tastiest?
tonyb
I’ll repeat
The “causes” of the change can be ANY or ALL of the following.
1. Changes in data
2. Changes in algorithms
3. New data that can, theoretically, change estimates of the past.
You’ve focused on 3 which is the most speculative.
My point is this.
The fact of a change does not imply cooking the books.
That’s a very narrow argument. To ascertain the various components
( 1 2 and 3 ) I would have to do a ton of work.
Yeah, with a title like “It’s Still Our Fault” one can only expect a “balanced” article. Careful, your bias is showing.
Seems to me that the sub-title was meant to paraphrase the IPCC report. A such, I’d say that it is an accurate sub-title.
Perhaps some might think that characterizing the article on the basis of an ambiguous sub-title, rather that on the specifics of the analysis presented, could be suggestive of confirmation bias.
Sub-title? The one in the much larger font is the sub-title?
Your bias is truly showing. Either that or you are in denial.
Oops. Right you are. It was the title. I should have checked.
The point still stands, however, about the title being a paraphrase and not meaningful in relation to the content of the article.
Joshua
It should have simply provided this quote from the IPCC about climate sensitivity which I think is one of the most significant aspects of the report instead of obliquely and clumsily trying to get at what they did not do.
…”No best estimate for equilibrium climate sensitivity can now be given because of a lack of agreement on values across assessed lines of evidence and studies”.
Dennis –
I think that the quote is meaningful, and should have been discussed.
However, the article does contain related discussion:
Steven,
I seem to remember several SSW (Sudden Stratospheric Warming) events in the last few years. Perhaps some of the missing heat escaped via this poorly understood atmospheric phenomena. I’m pretty sure global climate models don’t include it and the shear size of the energy transfer is enormous and very fast.
I suspect the increased CO2 not only warms, but increases the efficiency of heat transport poleward. The fine tuning can be regionally elegant.
=======
I dunno. Understand that skeptical fairy tales about the heat escaping to space have less supporting data than non skeptical fairy tales about heat being hidden in the depths.
So, supposing it escapes in one place or another is fine. The next step would be testing that supposition.
http://www.salon.com/2013/09/26/study_everyone_hates_environmentalists_and_feminists_partner/
Jasper Carrott – Nutter on the bus
Josh, unfortunately, I can’t read it as I’ve reached my limit of free Economist articles and don’t wish to subscribe (I got the print edition then online access for many years, but not recently. In passing, I was short-listed for a job at The Economist in 1964, but didn’t get it.) Perhaps you could convey the highlights.
Here is an official summary of the IPCC meeting that presents many of the issues discussed in plenary, which countries spoke on each side, and how each issue was decided. For example, inclusion of the key word “assumptions” at the beginning of the SPM was voted down. (This is telling but not surprising for an advocacy group.)
http://www.iisd.ca/vol12/enb12581e.html
Is it an ‘extreme view’ to suggest that the contribution from man-made CO2 emissions to climate change is minor or even insignificant? If so, then I must be an extremist. The problem is, if sceptics hold up their hands and say ‘Look, we accept that CO2 may have some role to play in climate change, but we don’t agree that it will result in catastrophic warming’, the warmists and the trillion dollar green industry will just blink and carry on as normal, justifying their excesses on the ‘precautionary principle’ which allows for action when a consequence cannot be proved or disproved conclusively, scientifically, even though the probabilistic interpretation of recent climate change has moved very firmly away from assigning anthropogenic influences as dominant. Only rapid global cooling and/or a dramatic advance in scientific understanding is going to derail the green gravy train in my opinion.
Jaime, Not quite. No government is going to reduce the usage of cheap fossil fuels, especially coal. So CO2 levels are going to go on rising, and we are going to measure what happens.
Sounds like we can expect an estimate or guess for climate sensitivity from you. With workings of course.
A calculation with loads of bias either way is better than no calculation at all.
Jim, your statement that “No government is going to reduce the usage of cheap fossil fuels, especially coal” is untrue. It has already happened in Australia, and various new regulations mean that coal-fired power stations (particularly those using brown coal) can no longer raise finance for repairs, modifications or expansion. Our coal exports are increasing (we are happy for others to use our coal and generate emissions) but I think it is declining here (come in, Peter Lang?), and government has made further growth non-viable. Cheap and plentiful energy was one of Australia’s comparative advantages, that has been destroyed over the last six years, and energy-intensive industries have declined, potential projects have been shelved or abandoned. Our extractive industries have expanded (but in many cases Australia is now the highest-cost source, again because of government policies, and sovereign risk, never previously an issue, is now a concern), but domestic user industries have declined.
New US clean-air policies on coal plants just going into effect next year will also make it difficult to expand until they figure out how to keep the CO2 from entering the atmosphere. This is progress we would not have seen without the IPCC reports, I expect.
This is also interesting.
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/plugged-in/2013/09/25/market-forces-have-been-hurting-coal-long-before-the-epas-co2-rules/
Australia is land of wonderful coincidences.
There is a little place called Echuca where the average annual temperature faithfully followed the solar magnetic cycle for nearly 100 years.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/Echuca.htm
If you are a serial climate disinformer, would that make Mikey a serial climate comedian?
You can see the end of this coming. If the world doesn’t start warming again by the time the next IPCC report is written around 2019, no one will be paying it any attention at all. I, too, noted the lack of coverage in the big media, and it is easy to explain- the alarmists are already in disrepute with the general public. Another 5-6 years, and they are done.
“The Australian media continues with thought provoking articles on climate change.” – Judith
Like the The Oz last week, that Judith was praising one day, and it was having to apologise the next for getting it’s reporting on the IPCC hopelessly wrong.
“On the other hand, serial climate disinformer Judith Curry, in a commentary for the same outlet five days later, announced:”
I can kind of sympathise with this view. The UK tabloid, the MoS, had a big 2 page spread on the shocking news (Headline – The Great Green Con) that the IPCC had to halve the reported 20th C warming – of course they had it all horribly wrong. And what was centre stage (visually) of the piece – a picture of their favourite climate scientist, Judith Curry.
When you are the poster-girl for the serially wrong, it might suggest its time for a pause and reflection.
Then, in what would possibly look to Michael Mann like instant confirmation of his comment, in the very next sentence, Judith recommends a piece by the same guy who was responsible for the MoS train-wreck mentioned above – David Rose.
Doesn’t willard have some expression about poisoning the well and then complaining that the water’s been poisoned?
Perhaps pointing out Rose’s inaccuracies and hyperbole even as you point to what you think is informative about his reporting (assuming you think it is informative) might be closer to “engineering quality) bridge building?
It is rather remarkable to me just how much the reactions to the IPCC fit the descriptor of same ol’ same ol.
Why do engineering quality bridge building, when the real activity is flying kites?
Or red meat throwing, eh?
“how much the reactions to the IPCC fit the descriptor of same ol’ same ol.
Since the report is, by unanimous consensus, just same ol, same ol, it would be extremely unlikely that the reaction will be different.
Shirt ripping, Joshua.
jacob –
No real disagreement there. The report does not seem crafted with an intent to change the reactions. If it were, it might be written differently.
So, then, it would seem that those who have an intent of changing something, rather than perpetuating Jell-o flings, would consider studying the impact of past Jell-flings and consider different actions.
Maybe, at least, a different flavor?
Are you referring to this, Michael?
> The Rupert Murdoch-owned The Australian, the country’s only national newspaper (besides the business-focused Australian Financial Review), reported in the introduction to a page one story earlier this week that “over the past 60 years the world has in fact been warming at half the rate claimed in the previous Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report in 2007.”
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/planet-oz/2013/sep/18/climate-change-ipcc-sceptics-leak-report-murdoch
Links top rants.
Pardon my rant.
Judith.. burn her ..
Joshua,
This was shirt ripping.
The White Night gallops in……
AR$ SPM: “AR4(2007) : “Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations.”
AR5 SPM: “It is extremely likely that more than half of the observed increase in global average surface temperature from 1951 to 2010 was caused by the anthropogenic increase in greenhouse gas concentrations and other anthropogenic forcings together.”
So what AR5 really says is that up to half of the observed warming from 1951 to 2010 is quite likely caused by natural processes. This is reflected in the lower limit of 1.5C for ECS. I suggest that this is also part of the reason why their most likely value for ECS has been mysteriously dropped. It have worked out rather too close to 2C for comfort.
Instead they write: “No best estimate for equilibrium climate sensitivity can now be given because of a lack of agreement on values across assessed lines of evidence and studies.”
“These reports underpin a now vast industry in research grants, environment lobby firms and advisory businesses of all types.”
Which is somehow lost on my green friends who continue to insist that the “denialists” are reaping huge financial rewards from the fossil fuel industry for the spreading of carefully calibrated misinformation. Of course the warmists are all selfless idealists working tirelessly for the good of mankind.
“”No best estimate for equilibrium climate sensitivity can now be given because of a lack of agreement on values across assessed lines of evidence and studies.”
Still, they know very precisely that we must burn only another hal trillion ton carbon and no more, because that is exactly what will keep us below 2 deg warming.
> hal trillion and no more
I’d rather say hal zillion, to better express uncertainty.
The IPCC said so herself: no more that half a trillion ton carbon.
Sorry to have omitted that “f” at the end of “half”
Maybe we can do reverse engineering and calculate from this certain and unambigous number (half a trillion ton carbon) what the ECS is. That would be “another line” of evidence !
“On the other hand, serial climate disinformer Judith Curry, in a commentary for the same outlet five days later, announced:”
Judith, If you called Mann that, he’d sue you. Not that I’m suggesting you do as it’s far from your style…or really most sane people’s style.
Don’t feed the trols.
Why does anyone bother with what Mann says ?
“Why does anyone bother with what Mann says ?”
Because, improbably enough, he’s still regarded as a credible, even heroic figure in some quarters.. Personally, I think the guy needs heavy medication, but that doesn’t mean he’s not dangerous. To the contrary.
“But to survive the industry needs temperatures to move upwards once more, as further claims the heat is going into the oceans will look like excuses, rather than explanations.”
And what does industry do, when industry needs something to happen?
And what do politicians do when they need certain government-produced numbers to go a particular way?
The intersection of the answers to those two questions will be an important area to monitor in the near term.
money to buy true love.
The rich countries of the northern hemisphere and [two countries] in the southern hemisphere.
Are only interested in maintaining their beautiful toys in orbit. Your fantastic submarine operations.
The money spent to date. It spends the same amount to keep the military / industrial complex.
The extra cost was because of the need to subsidize the green industry. Being a good investment. considering. not spending resources against the Red [always more aggressive].
Somewhere. experts in war games. with its excellent programmers. Several supercomputers. The creations of various scenarios.
soon
The Empire Strikes Back
===============.
M. Mann …. who?? ..
Needs just a bit more rhyme and rhythm, but a good start.
===========
And here I thought rhyme was declasse in modern poetry?
Judith,
Mann’s reference to you being a “serial climate disinformer” is a clear demarcation of the road ahead for you in the short-term, and 5 or 10 years from now one of you will have less credibility as a expert on climate, as both the true importance (or lack thereof) of “the pause” and the validity of the IPCC will have resolved themselves. As I said yesterday, you will either ultimately be seen as a hero for righting the ship of honest climate science or a side note “rogue wave”.
Rgates
If this were a credibility race with ten fences where would our restive riders be on the course? Have either of the horses pulled up lame or run off the course?
tonyb
Rgates
I meant respective riders but restive is probably better.
tonyb
Tony,
The game is still afoot, and we’ve probably crossed fence seven or eight. But there are water hazards as well (i.e. This whole business of ocean heat content). Globally, this year will probably rank in the top 10 warmest both land and sea, with near record warmth in several higher latitude regions, and extreme weather continues to make headlines. Even of we hang around on this “plateau” for a few more years, with the next big El Niño, the “pause” will be interesting only to those studying ocean to atmosphere energy transfer.
Rates
Who is in the lead. Is dr Mann still on his horse or has he fallen off?
Can I recommend you read two people regarding extreme weather.The first is me, obviously. :)
I am ploughing my way back through tens of thousands of weather observations back to the 11 th century when they mostly become mystical rather than rooted in fact. We are living in benign times. The extremes in the past were far worse than today. The most notable features are immense storms, but more generally flooding on a colossal scale caused by months or years of heavy rain.these caused terrible famine.
The second person, apart from lamb of course is John Kington who goes through several hundred years of extreme weather in his book ‘climate and weather.’
Curiously both of these worked for CRU and Phil jones himself has identified the 1730’s as around as warm as the 1990’s and that natural climate variability is greater than was previously believed
Tonyb
You are making the most of this metaphor Tony…well done!
Judging who is in the lead is a matter of perspective of course and deciding what the actual race is. There are probably several races. There is the race to win the public perception of climate change and the race to win political power through the change in policymakers perception and finally, there is the race to actually understand this complex thing called Earth’s climate and the ongoing human impacts on it. Mann is certainly still in all three races and far from falling off his horse. The final leg of the race will be what the climate dishes up for people to experience in their everyday lives. A benign period will make it hard to convince, even if AGW is actually headed toward CAGW and likewise a very extreme weather period will aid the cause of the CAGW crowd, even if it has nothing to do with AGW.
Rates
But how can you those who call the current weather ‘extreme ‘ know it to be so if they do not have the historical knowledge to compare it with the past.?
Tonyb
Agree that historical context is important, bit only to scientists and not the average person on the street. If they experience the “worst storm ever” ever more frequently, as illogical as their sentiment is, it will make an impact. Conversely, of they experience years and years of great weather, then any talk of AGW will only be met with shoulder shrugs or “if this great weather is part of AGW, then bring it on!”
R. Gates still takes the Piltdown Mann seriously. We’ll pause for a moment from the sponsor before the kick-off.
====================
This is absolute nonsense. If temperatures begin rising markedly tomorrow, and continue for a thousand years, that will not make the hockey stick any less dishonest. That will not make the bloviating about undefined certainty by the IPCC any less grandiose or unfounded. That will not make the glaciers gone in 2035 any less stupid. Nor the conflicts of interest among the IPCC poobahs vanish into thin air.
Dr. Curry’s consistency on the issue of integrity will never resonate among the rabid acolytes of CAGW, no matter what future temps do. Nor does her reputation among those who have not drunk the kool aid depend on tomorrow’s temps.
It is funny now, but is going to become much less so as time goes on, how warmists are more than ever hoping for catastrophic rises in temperature.
That should read “will not make hide the decline any less dishonest.”
The hockey stick as originally published was not dishonest, just horrifically bad science.
Heroism isn’t, or shouldn’t be conditional. Courage is courage, and J.C. has plenty. And I don’t care what the climate ultimately does, Mann will always be a paranoid, self-serving,, dishonest man who should properly be regarded as a disgrace to his profession.
I would not deny that Judith is brave, but so was Don Quixote. Time will reveal if her windmills were actually dragons. Way too early to tell, but in the meantime she will face the onslaught of perceived insults from Mann et al. who all believe will equal fervor in the reality of their dragons.
R. Gates gains points for historical insight and perspective. But why did they bet on fear and guilt instead of Ol’ Stewball?
====================
“…but so was Don Quixote.”
Point taken re courage, rg. However your analogy to Don Q. doesn’t hold imvho, because Judith is not aligning herself with any particular climate outcome. She’s arguing that claims of near certainty are unwarranted given what we know and what we don’t know. .
However this turns out, reasonable people it seems to me should be able to agree that an *increase* in confidence on the part of the IPCC given the divergences, is unwarranted (to be polite).
I would suggest that the IPCC and its “consensus” process is Judith’s windmill/dragon. The level of certainty they give at 95%, is only a dragon dropping. She wants to slay the dragon, and since Mann et al. Have proudly ridden that dragon to win their Nobel prize, Judith’s attempt to slay it represents a metaphorical attempt of castration of Mann et al.
I think its the IPCC and consensus playing Don Quixote. It is they who look at something mundane and unthreatening (gradual post glacial warming), and see a terrifying, fire-breathing CAGW dragon.
But if memory serves, the Don did not receive federal grants, tenure, and free trips to Cancun for his delusions.
Gary,
We each have our own dragon/windmills…that’s part of the timeless message of Don Quixote. May we each be so fortunate to also have our own Sancho Panza to keep us grounded.
“May we each be so fortunate to also have our own Sancho Panza to keep us grounded.”
+ bazillions
R Gates
“Mann’s reference to you being a “serial climate disinformer” is a clear demarcation of the road ahead for you in the short-term, and 5 or 10 years from now one of you will have less credibility as a expert on climate, as both the true importance (or lack thereof) of “the pause” and the validity of the IPCC will have resolved themselves. ”
I’d have to agree. Given that we are close to a solar max, thats something on the order of .1C in Judiths Pocket.
Still given a bet, I would not bet on the pause continuing or ending.
That’s somewhat embarassing.
Steven,
Nor would I make such a bet, however, regardless of the pause, I think the odds are slightly better than even that 2010 – 2019 as a decade is warmer than 2000-2009, and probably even better odds that 2020-2029 is warmer still. Of course some Dalton minimum or dual cool PDO/AMO combo or big volcano could tip us to cool for a bit. It’s all quite interesting.
Mosher, what are your grounds for uncertainty and how sure are you that you are unsure?
We obviously must use the Precautionary Principle and apply scientific standards to women drivers; essentially we must remove their drivers licences, for their own good.
“Driving affects ovaries and pelvis, Saudi sheikh warns women”
Al Arabiya
Saudi women seeking to challenge a de facto ban on driving should realize that this could affect their ovaries and pelvises, Sheikh Saleh bin Saad al-Luhaydan, a judicial and psychological consultant to the Gulf Psychological Association, told Saudi news website sabq.org.
Driving “could have a reverse physiological impact. Physiological science and functional medicine studied this side [and found] that it automatically affects ovaries and rolls up the pelvis. This is why we find for women who continuously drive cars their children are born with clinical disorders of varying degrees,” Sheikh al-Luhaydan said.
Saudi female activists have launched an online campaign urging women to drive on Oct. 26.
More than 11,000 women have signed the oct26driving.com declaration that says: “Since there are no clear justifications for the state to ban adult, capable women from driving. We call for enabling women to have driving tests and for issuing licenses for those who pass.”
Sheikh al-Luhaydan urged these women to consider “the mind before the heart and emotion and look at this issue with a realistic eye.”
“The result of this is bad and they should wait and consider the negativities,” he said.
http://english.alarabiya.net/en/variety/2013/09/28/Driving-affects-ovary-and-pelvis-Saudi-sheikh-warns-women.html
Now no scientist would be biased toward misogamy, in he same way no climate scientist would be biased toward alarmism.
“…it is up to governments to find the sensible centre” I can’t tell if this is insanity raised to the power of incompetence or vice versa. Seems like the result is the same in either case though.
“…it is up to governments to find the sensible centre”
They have already found it. They have spent 1.6 trillion dollars on solar panels, windmills and biofuels, achieving zero emissions reduction.
Jacobress wrote:
“I shudder when thinking what “doing more for the climate” could mean.”
Once again, The Onion, “America’s Finest News Source”(R)(TM) has the answer you seek.
http://www.theonion.com/articles/scientists-look-onethird-of-the-human-race-has-to,27166/
“The second is that no one knows, with any degree of certainty, how the climate will respond nor what the ultimate economic and social consequences might be.”
Well if this turns out to be true the IPCC report is simply useless as a policy document.
ignoring ”the pause” they have proven that they don’t have any shame, or respect for anybody, including for themselves
Can’t deny that.
========
From the PoS … er MoS Rose article.
“However, not only does the report deny the importance of the pause, it makes a firm, short-term forecast that it is about to end – claiming that the period 2016-2035 will, on average, be 0.3-0.7C hotter than 1986-2005.
That, said Prof Judith Curry, head of climate science at the Georgia Institute of Technology, is a high-risk strategy: ‘The IPCC has thrown down the gauntlet.’
Should the pause continue, she said, ‘they are toast’.”
This IPCC projection is basically an extrapolation. The last 30 years warmed by 0.5 C, so this projection says the 30 years between around 1996 and 2026 will be centered on 0.5 plus or minus 0.2. This looks like they are playing it safe by not predicting an acceleration, but Judith calls it “high-risk”.
They use 20-year averages. This is how 20-year averages look relative to the trend line.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1970/mean:240/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1970/mean:12/trend/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1970/mean:12/trend/offset:0.1/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1970/mean:12/trend/offset:-0.1
They pretty much hug it, and no pause in sight. Extrapolation looks safe.
As the webster keeps saying – the pause is caused by natural variation in the Pacific. They are betting against a continuation of at least a 1000 year pattern. It is not merely high risk but myopic.
Myopic would be looking at a 17-year trend (that starts just after a major step) instead of a 30-year one.
‘What happened in the years 1976/77 and 1998/99 in the Pacific was so unusual that scientists spoke of abrupt climate changes. They referred to a sudden warming of the tropical Pacific in the mid-1970s and rapid cooling in the late 1990s. Both events turned the world’s climate topsy-turvy and are clearly reflected in the average temperature of Earth. Today we know that the cause is the interaction between ocean and atmosphere.’ http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/08/130822105042.htm
The 1998/2001 climate shift is of immense significance. The current regime starts at 2002. Not understanding the nature of abrupt change means that you don’t understand the climate system at all. You have a wholly inadequate theoretical framework with which to understand why these periods are significant or what they imply about the decadal trajectory of climate.
Seriously – we have 23 years of warming in the last 68 for a reason.
myopic would be extending it to 18-19 years a period influenced by volcanic disturbances and a solar minimum (not dissimilar to the recent due to instrument error)
On of the authors of the report, Xie, is saying that
Y. Kosaka and S.-P. Xie, “Recent global-warming hiatus tied to equatorial Pacific surface cooling,” Nature, 2013.
maksimovich, so I extended it to 1970 to avoid these issues while keeping it in the period when CO2 was already rising fast. Half the CO2 we have added has been since 1980.
a period b4 the clean air acts in the US and Europe
maksimovich, a lot of “skeptics” have completely ignored the shielding effect of aerosols without which the CO2 effect would have been larger. Based on what happened in the 60’s to 70’s I think we would have been 0.4 degrees warmer now without the aerosols.
I searched for “wall” in an attempt to find if this had been posted, didn’t find it. If this guy gets a vasectomy because of “climate change,” he should sue the IPCC later. It is scary that some people think this way.
“‘No children, happy to go extinct’, tweets weatherman after grim climate-change report made him cry (now he’s considering a vasectomy)
Eric Holthaus, who used to do weather for Wall Street Journal, was reacting to Friday’s findings from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
Scientists found in the report that it was ‘extremely likely’ that humans are causing warming trends
Holthaus said he has decided not to have children in order to leave a lighter carbon footprint, and has considered having a vasectomy
He tweeted on Friday ‘no children, happy to go extinct’
The weatherman also said he is committed to stop flying as ‘it’s not worth the climate'”
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2436551/A-weatherman-breaks-tears-vows-NEVER-fly-grim-climate-change-report.html
I’m thinking a lobotomy might be more appropriate for the symptoms.
On second thought, if all men who think like this would get a vasectomy, the world would become a better place.
:-)
How long can the pause last? Can it last for ever?
CO2′s alleged voracious appetite for energy can only be satisfied in two ways: kinetic and vibrational energy. We can forget kinetic, because it is no worse than O2 or N2 and it is less than 1% of the atmosphere. The answer has to be in the vibrational modes, of which there are many. When CO2 leaves the cylinders of your car or the furnace of the power station it is over 1,000C – very hot and most of, if not all. of its vibrational modes will be excited. When it exits the tail pipe or chimney it is still very hot and we would expect it to rise in the troposphere as a plume of hot gas passing its heat to the N2 and O2 as it rises. As it rises in the troposphere (like a hot air balloon) it can more readily radiate its heat into space, because the atmosphere above is thinning. So what proportion of heat is radiated into space, instead of heating our planet?. As the CO2 cools, density increases, it will fall again, maybe having used up all its excitation modes, it can no longer heat the planet. So this simple but apparently little understood chain of events may not be such a threat?
So this explanation of CO2′s behavior in the troposphere can explain the pause. So long as the hot, new proportion of CO2 from exhaust or chimney remains below the present level the pause will continue. Note that this new metric of CO2, if accepted, focuses not on total CO2, but on the proportion of new hot CO2 in the atmosphere. This proportion is being renewed continuously from vehicle exhausts and chimneys.
The IPCC has been unwilling to engage in debate on their climate models or on alternatives from other scientists. They have increased their confidence in their own models from 90% to 95%. But they say they started their work with ‘settled science’ So how could they improve confidence?
AB, when the uptick of 10 years peaked on surface temps there was no end to the calls to regulate and tax carbon under the most preposterous of AGW claims. Now we have this idiotic term called the “Pause” which is so pregnant with falsehood and agenda from the same parties.
Warmists made their junk science bed, models were “settled science” and higher co2 makes the world warmer. Like “gravity”. Now, as stupid as it always was they must lie in the bed. The “Pause” means the observable failure of the consensus and is as insulting an invention of Newspeak as you can find. Until solid evidence is provided it’s all natural variability and that’s what it should be called which is why it isn’t. Dr. Curry is supporting the convention which is appalling.
The IPCC has been unwilling to engage in debate on their climate models or on alternatives from other scientists. They have increased their confidence in their own models from 90% to 95%. But they say they started their work with ‘settled science’ So how could they improve confidence?
Ignorance improves confidence. That is easy.
It is not that they don’t know, they don’t even suspect.
How long can the pause last? Can it last for ever?
The Roman and Medieval Warm periods show how long a warm period will last and how a warm period always ends.
As the hunters become hunted I can only think that this “centerism” and Dr. Curry herself only represent the parties to be sent to the rail-car to negotiate the best terms possible after total defeat. That the mistakes of 1918 aren’t repeated we should make sure the entire structure of “settled science” authoritarianism is purged and destroyed.
AGWs wasn’t naive 60’s Gaea worship at work all these decades, it was dyed in the wool Greenshirt fascism that lives for another day.
“Good public policy is not about picking the policy that works best if you have the right model of the world – it is about designing policies that generally work well and that work least bad in all circumstances”
Well, that’s one of the most damning view of policy I’ve ever seen. It’s “least bad.” Maybe it’s right. Policy is grit in the oil.
Also, Michael Mann’s ad hominem attack:
“Career fossil fuel-industry apologist Bjorn Lomborg, in Rupert Murdoch’s the Australian, wrote on 16 September:
UN’s mild climate change message will be lost in alarmist translation.
On the other hand, serial climate disinformer Judith Curry, in a commentary for the same outlet five days later, announced:
Consensus distorts the climate picture.
So, make up your mind, critics: is it a “mild message” or a “distorted picture”? Consistency, they might well respond, is simply the “hobgoblin of little minds”, after all – but in reality, that’s only if you ignore the foolishness.”
Personally, I think Mann’s PO’d that they are walking back from his paleo reconstructions (certainly in no small part to Steve McIntyre’s analysis), but really, Dr. Mann, reconcile models outside of the 95% certainty level with your consensus now being 95% certain? It’s OK, it’s merely tens or hundreds of billions of dollars in error, that could have saved lives by providing food instead of government subsidized ethanol, but seriously. Don’t call the kettle black, especially when it’s multi-hued.
By all means, let us not settle on the “sensible middle”. The Warmists are far, far too wrong for that. Half-way to their wrong position is still very wrong.
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