Open thread

Posted on April 12, 2014 by | 366 Comments

by Judith Curry

It’s your turn to introduce topics for discussion.

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366 responses to “Open thread”

  1. Rob Bradley | April 12, 2014 at 4:10 pm |

    It seems that a lot of climate scientists that were vocal a decade ago have gone quiet–sort of edged out of the debate. I wonder what they are thinking now? Some on the ‘skeptic’ side but more on the ‘alarmist’ side (Wigley for one).

  2. A fan of *MORE* discourse | April 12, 2014 at 4:23 pm |

    BREAKING NEWS
    Hansen’s Congressional Testimony

    Climate and Energy:
    Fundamental Facts, Responsibilities and Opportunities
    Congressional Testimony by James Hansen
    13 March 2014

    Science has exposed the fact that we cannot burn all fossil fuels without enormous growing costs that would be borne most heavily by young people.

    So far we have burned about 380 GtC (gigatons of carbon).

    Preserving creation, a planet that continues to look like the one civilization developed on, requires that we limit total fossil fuel emissions to something close to 500 GtC.

    The exact limit is debatable, but there is no scientific debate about the fact that we cannot burn all of the fossil fuels without unacceptable destruction of life and property.

    That means we must phase out coal emissions and leave most of the unconventional fossil fuels, including tar sands, in the ground.

    Hansen’s testimony is a whole lot plainer than the Curry-versus-Trenberth quibble-contest, eh Climate Etc readers?

    Conclusion  The ending of the troposphere-heating pause, and the continued rising sea-level, heating waters, and melting ice — without pause or evident limit — all spell near-term extinction for climate-change skepticism … scientifically, economically, politically, and morally.

    Discussion?

    \scriptstyle\rule[2.25ex]{0.01pt}{0.01pt}\,\boldsymbol{\overset{\scriptstyle\circ\wedge\circ}{\smile}\,\heartsuit\,{\displaystyle\text{\bfseries!!!}}\,\heartsuit\,\overset{\scriptstyle\circ\wedge\circ}{\smile}}\ \rule[-0.25ex]{0.01pt}{0.01pt}

    • Curious George | April 12, 2014 at 4:38 pm |

      The Church has exposed the fact that if you continue sinning you will go to hell.

      • David Springer | April 14, 2014 at 1:40 pm |

        The high priests of the Church of Carbon Sin warn that continued sinning will result in God destroying the earth with severe weather again.

        sigh

        Not even original.

    • Herman Alexander Pope | April 12, 2014 at 4:58 pm |

      Conclusion The ending of the troposphere-heating pause, and the continued rising sea-level, heating waters, and melting ice — without pause or evident limit — all spell near-term extinction for climate-change skepticism

      OOPS, did not happen, is not happening, is not being measured, and god and everyone else knows they are betting the farm on this. The pause is very healthy.
      the five years turned into 7, then 10, then 12, then 15, then 17, now 20 or 30 or 50 or 100 or 300. it just keeps on extending.

      The extinction is overdue for the alarmists, but it is getting much nearer.

    • Tonyb | April 12, 2014 at 5:01 pm |

      Fan

      How can something that happened on march 14th be ‘breaking news.’

      Tonyb

    • Donald Rapp | April 12, 2014 at 5:14 pm |

      Evidently you are actually a fan of no discourse. You think you have the exact facts. There can be no discourse if you have the true answer. Ha ha.

    • manacker | April 12, 2014 at 5:20 pm |

      Fanny

      Yep.

      Hansen is “plainer” than Trenberth or Curry.

      But he is no more knowledgeable.

      So he is really talking though his hat.

      Max

    • michael hart | April 12, 2014 at 7:49 pm |

      “So far we have burned about 380 GtC (gigatons of carbon).
      Discussion?”

      Here’s looking forward to 760 giggetty tons. Cheers.

    • DocMartyn | April 12, 2014 at 8:32 pm |

      Can we have a show of hands or something.
      Does anyone here begrudge the people who have lived from 250,000 B.C. to this very day, for the amount of fossil fuel they have burnt?

    • RobertInAz | April 12, 2014 at 10:02 pm |

      “Discussion?”
      1. The total impact of CO2 remains open to debate.
      2. Reading Hansen papers is like reading my BOEs – the numbers add up but the result is known beforehand.
      3. The status of the pause is currently continued pause. An El Nino might provide a temporary blip, as in 2010, but it will take several years to evaluate.
      BOE is the basis of estimate I create for large software development effort.

    • darrylb | April 12, 2014 at 11:33 pm |

      Fan– please not Hansen again. ( BTW) Who has replaced him?)
      Hansen who stated that a significant amount of NYC would be under water by a half a decade ago has done more to create skepticism by making extremely alarmist statements.
      In doing so the scientific community has lost some degree of credence and respect.
      Most scientists who might be considered skeptics do not doubt that the greenhouse effect is real, they, like me, do not believe according to the balance of observations that it is very significant or quantitatively known.
      The very bad outcome is that the scientific community will not be believed when describing other significant environmental problems

    • Alexander Biggs | April 13, 2014 at 3:09 am |

      Hansen certainly has some strong views, but they don’ bear closer analysis
      Apparently he has not considered the on/off nature of climate change, like what happened at the 1940 singularity. This means that continuous dynamic models just won’t work.It is easy to see why.

      CO2 can only absorb large quantities of heat by exciting its vibration modes. In physics CO2 is not one compound, but many with a large number of different vibration modes. Its absorption (and emission) of IR depends on which modes are excited and that in turn depends on temperature in the atmosphere, principally in the troposphere because that is where most of the CO2 is. So we expect climate to show a series of steps and stairs in temperature like happened in 1940. The excitation modes exist because carbon is a strongly isotopic element. Since 1997 the atmosphere has been in a constant mode so global temperature has been constant. The point is no one knows which modes will be excited in the future and so we cannot predict future temperature and climate.

    • lolwot | April 13, 2014 at 4:07 pm |

      I can well imagine that in 100 years time Hansen will be remembered as a famous scientist much as we remember Darwin today. Maybe his face will even end up on the back of a £10 note.

    • jim2 | April 13, 2014 at 4:29 pm |

      Or, Hansen’s face may end up on a plug nickel.

    • GaryM | April 13, 2014 at 4:50 pm |

      James Hansen will indeed go down in the annals of history – with such luminaries as Martin Fleischman, Stanley Pons and Charles Dawson.

    • Mickey Reno | April 13, 2014 at 5:31 pm |

      Objection. Assumes things not in evidence (ie. a pause, the end of a pause, unlimited heating, unusual sea-level rise, unusual warming of oceans, extinction of skepticism).
      Who do you think is worse at correctly predicting huge disasters, Fan, James Hanson or Paul Erlich?

    • Eunice | April 13, 2014 at 10:21 pm |

      I guess I’ll always remember Hansen as the guy with the failed predictions:

      http://climatewatcher.webs.com/SatelliteEraTemperatures.png

      who said half of all species would go extinct.

    • jim2 | April 13, 2014 at 10:39 pm |

      Hansen has it bass ackwards. Warming, from whatever the cause, will cause more diversity.

    • Scott Basinger | April 14, 2014 at 10:35 am |

      Eunice wrote: “I guess I’ll always remember Hansen as the guy with the failed predictions: http://climatewatcher.webs.com/SatelliteEraTemperatures.png
      who said half of all species would go extinct.”

      You’d figure that someone who is so supposedly smart would learn to shut up instead of saying something absolutely ridiculous like: “The exact limit is debatable, but there is no scientific debate about the fact that we cannot burn all of the fossil fuels without unacceptable destruction of life and property.”

      Seriously? We can’t even get to ALL of the fossil fuels let alone burn them all. WTF is he rambling on about?

  3. Robert I Ellison | April 12, 2014 at 4:44 pm |

    ‘Finally, the presence of vigorous climate variability presents significant challenges to near-term climate prediction (25, 26), leaving open the possibility of steady or even declining global mean surface temperatures over the next several decades that could present a significant empirical obstacle to the implementation of policies directed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions (27).’

    The ending of the troposphere-heating pause, and the continued rising sea-level, heating waters, and melting ice — without pause or evident limit – are all equivocal or – in the case of tropospheric warming – wildly speculative. Non-linear, emergent climate behavior is the new paradigm. AGW is a dinosaur theory destined for the dustbin off history. The new paradigm suggests non warming for decades – heralding the imminent triumph of skepticism. But it also implies a dynamic sensitivity. A wicked problem indeed.

    • R. Gates | April 12, 2014 at 6:48 pm |

      “The new paradigm suggests non warming for decades – heralding the imminent triumph of skepticism. ”
      ____
      A true skeptic would be skeptical of any “imminent” triumph. As there has been 4, 5, 6 or more decades of continual un-paused energy accumulation in the system, some period of “non warming” ahead is highly unlikely. This myopic focus on sensible tropospheric heat as a proxy of the overall accumulation of energy in the system is a dead give-away of a fake skeptic scavenging for the last bit of “anything but CO2” tenuous treads.

    • Robert I Ellison | April 12, 2014 at 7:02 pm |

      It is hypothesized that persistent and consistent
      trends among several climate modes act to ‘kick’ the climate state, altering the pattern and magnitude of air-sea interaction between the atmosphere and the underlying ocean. Figure 1 (middle) shows that these climate mode trend
      phases indeed behaved anomalously three times during the 20th century, immediately following the synchronization events of the 1910s, 1940s, and 1970s. This combination of the synchronization of these dynamical modes in the climate, followed immediately afterward by significant increase in the fraction of strong trends (coupling) without exception marked shifts in the 20th century climate state. These shifts were accompanied by breaks in the global mean temperature trend with respect to time, presumably associated with either discontinuities in the global radiative budget due to the global reorganization of clouds and water vapor or dramatic changes in the uptake of heat by the deep ocean.

      So either the troposphere is not warming or the oceans and atmosphere is not warming. It all depends on dynamic changes to cloud radiative effects.

      e.g. http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/cloud_palleandlaken2013_zps3c92a9fc.png.html?sort=3&o=96

      You misunderstand, misconstrue and misrepresent for reasons I won’t buy into further.

    • Don Monfort | April 12, 2014 at 7:54 pm |

      “As there has been 4, 5, 6 or more decades of continual un-paused energy accumulation in the system, some period of “non warming” ahead is highly unlikely.” Wouldn’t you have said something very similar to that, 15 years ago, gatesy?

      The (highly unlikely) pause is killing the cause.

    • R. Gates | April 13, 2014 at 12:31 am |

      “So either the troposphere is not warming or the oceans and atmosphere is not warming.”
      ____
      First, the troposphere is part of the atmosphere, so your statement is nonsensical out of the gate. But second, the accumulation of energy in the climate system is not relegated to exclusively one part of the system or another. Certainly tropospheric sensible heat is about the weakest and worst way to judge the sensitivity of the full climate system to anthropogenic forcing- a very poor proxy, especially over anything less than decadal averages. The ocean is of course the great repository of climate energy, so it is always best to look there first, as the thermal inertia is also much higher. The ocean is of course the dog that wags the tropospheric tail, and thus, adding it all together, we simply must trace the course of consistent ocean energy accumulation over many decades (without pause), and then through ENSO, we can see little bits of this energy spilling out into the tropospheric dogs tail.

    • Robert I Ellison | April 13, 2014 at 12:49 am |

      Reading the first is enough to get the picture. A trivial quibble followed by the usual tedious spew.

      The stratosphere is nominally – if not recently – cooling – hence the distinction. Either the energy is moving between the oceans and atmosphere – in which case the rate of surface warming is some 0.07 degrees C/decade. Or the world is warming and cooling modulated by cloud radiative effects. The evidence supports the dominance of the former.

      Can’t read English? Perhaps that’s the problem – because there certainly is one.

      ‘These shifts were accompanied by breaks in the global mean temperature trend with respect to time, presumably associated with either discontinuities in the global radiative budget due to the global reorganization of clouds and water vapor or dramatic changes in the uptake of heat by the deep ocean.’

    • Robert I Ellison | April 13, 2014 at 12:49 am |

      Whoops … dominance of the latter …

    • Robert I Ellison | April 13, 2014 at 12:58 am |

      Ah – first sentence – I will get the syntax right eventually.

    • R. Gates | April 13, 2014 at 1:11 am |

      “Either the energy is moving between the oceans and atmosphere…”
      _____
      Energy is constantly in flux from ocean to atmosphere, very strongly in that specific direction, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year on a net global basis. At any given time, at least 50% of the energy in the atmosphere (yes, that includes the troposphere Robert) came directly from sensible and latent heat flux from the oceans– so there is no “either” about it. Energy IS moving between ocean and atmosphere. This is a water planet– the ocean is the dog that wags the tropospheric tail. Fake-skeptics love to follow the wagging of that tail, rather than look at the dog itself. Right now, the oceans are warming at the fastest rate in thousands of years and the Human Carbon Volcano is quite likely the culprit.

    • Robert I Ellison | April 13, 2014 at 1:52 am |

      Again – reading the first sentence and a word here and there suffices. tail… dog… blah… blah… blah….

      We have heard it all before – and it all fails to approach the central issue.

    • Robert I Ellison | April 13, 2014 at 2:00 am |

      ‘Comparisons of global steric height (10) trends based on different gridded fields of Argo in situ measurements show a range of 0–1mm/yr which can be lead back to data handling and climatology uncertainties. Our results show that GOIs derived from the Argo measurements are ideally suitable to monitor the state of the global ocean, especially after November 2007, i.e. when Argo
      sampling was 100% complete. They also show that there is significant interannual 15 global variability at global scale, especially for global OFC. Before the end of 2007,
      error bars are too large to deliver robust short-term trends of GOIs and thus an interpretation in terms of long-term climate signals are still questionable, especially since uncertainties due to interannual fluctuations are not included in our error estimation.’ http://www.ocean-sci-discuss.net/8/999/2011/osd-8-999-2011.pdf

      There is no unequivocal evidence that oceans are rising at all. While some recent warming has been linked to changes in net radiant flux at toa – i.e the missing energy – the increase was all in the SW and this has since disappeared not into the ocean but in more reflected SW.

      The problem with mad narratives is that they are mad.

    • Robert I Ellison | April 13, 2014 at 2:05 am |

      ‘… dramatic changes in the uptake of heat by the deep ocean.’

      He has problems connecting the dots …

  4. Curious George | April 12, 2014 at 4:45 pm |

    As an ex experimental physicist, I like to test my assumptions in extremely simple situations. A very simple situation for a climate modeling would be daily temperature variations in Sahara desert – no clouds, no evaporation, just run the model for 96 hours and see how it compares to measurements. Has anything along these lines been attempted?

    • Pekka Pirilä | April 12, 2014 at 4:57 pm |

      One answer to your question is that weather models do that.

    • Curious George | April 12, 2014 at 5:43 pm |

      Pekka – granted. Why not climate models?

    • Jim D | April 12, 2014 at 5:48 pm |

      Climate models give diurnal and seasonal cycles regionally. This is checked against surface climate data, which is part of the reason they assemble such long-term station data at climate centers. It is clearly important to get the values right before looking for trends in them.

    • blouis79 | April 12, 2014 at 7:39 pm |

      @CuriousGeorge
      I don’t think climate models have been validated against boundary conditions – sanity check that the model could correctly compute temperature over a black sphere for instance.

      GCMs can’t compute paleoclimate cycles either. Too hard for them because they are too complex. Yet they remain unvalidated in all their complexity.

      I think it hurts peoples brains to contemplate the physical possibility that a black sphere in space could have exactly the same radiative equilibrium temperature as a white sphere in space.

      All is takes is for absorptivity to be equal to emissivity at radiative thermal equilibrium. As far as I can figure, this must be true by definition. Oh to be able to do the experiment. Since I don’t have access to space, wondering about a solar cooker at an angle to the sun as an experimental stage to simulate radiation to space. A hole in the side would permit direct radiation of the experimental sphere.

    • Mike Flynn | April 12, 2014 at 8:12 pm |

      blouis79,

      You can get some idea about the difference between equilibrium steady state temperatures and rates of heating by simply doing the following.

      Prepare two or more objects of varying emissivity. A highly polished stainless ball bearing and a similar sized black iron sphere coated with lamp black will probably contain a fair range. Include other objects as you wish.

      Place the objects in a freezer. Leave overnight. Temperatures in the morning will be the same for each object.

      Place the objects in an oven. Set the oven to say, 200C. Leave until all the objects reach the same temperature, then leave a little longer to see if the most absorptive object can become hotter than its surroundings. It can’t.

      Place objects in a pottery kiln or similar. Raise temperature until the walls are glowing a nice shade of orange. Use appropriate crucibles if your objects melt below orange heat. Wait until all the objects are glowing the same orange as the walls. Note that the shiny ball and the black ball cannot be distinguished on the basis of temperature.

      You will note that the object absorbing energy at the greater rate, ceteris paribus, material and so forth, will of course heat faster. This tends to confuse people who don’t understand what is happening. Walking on bitumen or basalt with bare feet is contrasted with white tile or similar. Absolutely correct, completely misleading and irrelevant, of course.

      Similarly misleading thinking applies to the so called greenhouse effect, which of course requires some sort of filter which allows more energy in one direction than the other, whilst not heating as a result of energy absorbed by the filter. Easily made, I suppose, given an adequate supply of the wonder element warmium.

      Warmists will usually go into motorboat mode at this point, saying ” . . . but, but, but, but . . . “. It is good form not to laugh until they are out of earshot.

      Live well and prosper,

      Mike Flynn.

    • blouis79 | April 12, 2014 at 8:29 pm |

      @MikeFlynn

      Of course your experiments demonstrate conduction. But yes, if you can run the ovens and freezers in an internal vacuum to exclude conduction and convection effects, then they would suffice.

      And then is the objects are in a pressure chamber containing gas – eg any GHG – still inside the vacuum of the oven/freezer, then we can demonstrate the effect of GHG on the object temperature.

      Surely someone, somewhere with a physics lab would be interested………

    • Mike Flynn | April 12, 2014 at 9:01 pm |

      blouis79,

      I take your point somewhat, but in a properly designed kiln, for example, the temperatures involved and the kiln’s purpose ensure that the heating elements do not touch the contents to avoid the possibility of undesirable consequences. One of these is unexpected superheating, which can lead to molten material eating through the kiln floor, and escaping the kiln. The point is that radiation is the preferred method of energy provision. Conduction takes place subsequently, at a rate dependent on the physical properties of the object.

      Be careful where you place your kiln!

      As to convection, a properly constructed electric kiln is sealed as well as possible. The internal temperature is designed to be isothermal throughout, but of course varies a bit, due to the fact that heat is extremely hard to trap, and to be forced to go where you want it to. Convection effects are therefore minimalised, as you don’t want your ceramics to be fired unequally.

      I have done CO2 greenhouse heating experiments in a reasonable vacuum, something around 0.005 mbar, and then filled the chamber with CO2. I no longer have access to most of the equipment, but it isn’t all that expensive – under 2,000 AUD or thereabouts. That includes precision power supply for your heat source, high precision temperature sensor target, vacuum pump, chamber etc. Obviously, a few other bits and pieces come in handy.

      I find borrowing better than buying.

      Good luck, and have fun!

      Live well and prosper,

      Mike Flynn.

    • Curious George | April 12, 2014 at 10:35 pm |

      Jim D April 12, 2014 at 5:48 pm:”Climate models give diurnal and seasonal cycles regionally. This is checked against surface climate data.” Link, please? Actually, I am not asking for a calibration, but for a 100-hour forecast. Surely not too much to ask from scientists who routinely run 100-year predictions.

    • blouis79 | April 12, 2014 at 11:08 pm |

      @MikeFlynn,

      Do you have some results of your CO2 greenhouse experiments published somewhere to share?

    • Jim D | April 12, 2014 at 11:44 pm |

      CG, there was a program to test a climate model for weather prediction as seen here for example. Tim Palmer has advocated for more of this type of testing. More often they just look at seasonal mean Tmax, Tmin climate statistics over regions because that is what they are more interested in rather than individual events.
      http://www-pcmdi.llnl.gov/projects/capt/publications/rpt70.pdf

    • Mike Flynn | April 13, 2014 at 12:15 am |

      blouis79,

      Alas, no. Purely an interest where I happened to have access to some equipment that I didn’t own. I achieved qualitative results which indicated to me that replacing a vacuum with something else seems to reduce the amount of radiation impinging on the target.

      For my own satisfaction only. A little like building apparatus subjecting air to intense UV to sterilise it. And water, and a couple of other things. I learnt various things connected with Teflon stickyness, types of UV, chaotic flow in fluids . . . A heap of things that turn simplicity into complexity. At the end of the process, I declined to proceed with further development. I notice there is at least one firm in the US now offering a product which bears the same name I thought of, but it only took 30 seconds to think of it. Another instance of synchronicity, I would think, although patent applications are there for anyone to peruse.

      These days, I find enough diversion without building stuff, and trying to figure out what I did wrong afterwards!

      I have had a look on Google, but all I could find quickly was http://www.physics.ucc.ie/staff/Didfyz%20 paper.pdf – obviously I don’t know how to insert links.

      The description shows the physical setup pretty close to that which I used. I used a precision power supply, and various heat sources, including high temperature quartz halogen lamps for stable highish temperatures. Obviously, the high accuracy temperature measuring device is not attached to the heat source, but placed as far away as possible, within the vacuum chamber.

      You need a stop cock and CO2 etc, but that is pretty straight forward.

      Interestingly, the bench top experiment in the link shows the exact phenomena that I observed, but from a different perspective. Cooling is fastest in a vacuum, from the perspective of radiation emitted from an object. The converse should be true, I guess, and that is what I observed.

      It appears I was right. Have fun, if you’re game!

      Live well and prosper,

      Mike Flynn.

    • Curious George | April 13, 2014 at 12:57 pm |

      Jim D – thank you. Actually that paper describes a methodology for “tuning” models – in a planetary context. I had in mind an extremely simplified situation that could test the physics – especially the radiative physics, as that is the centerpiece of the whole brouhaha.

    • Pekka Pirilä | April 13, 2014 at 1:26 pm |

      CG,

      Climate models are not built to predict or explain small scale phenomena like diurnal variability at a specific location, they should, however, be built to take such effects into account to the degree they affect the climate relevant results. Meteorological weather models are built on the same physical basis (largely the same equations) but in the way that allows them to handle properly short time scales and local conditions. In some cases a climate model and a weather model share a large part of the code, but the grid dimensions and the time step are very different.

      Thus the accuracy of short term weather forecast tell on the understanding of such detail level phenomena, while climate models can be judged only based on results of climatic nature.

    • Curious George | April 13, 2014 at 5:08 pm |

      Pekka – I think physics should be the same for climate or weather forecasts. I agree that in climate models a different set of approximations may be used. However, an approximation comes with an “uncertainty monster” attached to it. Are you aware of a solid uncertainty assessment for a climate model? I am proposing a relatively inexpensive way to do it.

    • Jim D | April 13, 2014 at 5:30 pm |

      CG, I would argue that testing of the physics is done by evaluating the diurnal and seasonal cycles of surface temperature and rainfall in locations like the desert, Arctic, places where people live, etc. In addition you have direct measurements of radiation at the surface and from space that are used to evaluate them with long-term averages. What else would you suggest is needed if they already fit all these well?

    • Pekka Pirilä | April 13, 2014 at 5:47 pm |

      CG,

      The real problems of estimating the accuracy of climate models (or their suitability for some specific tasks) are elsewhere. My understanding is that the worst concern modeling clouds, and modeling oceans. The combined effects where both clouds and oceans are involved are part of that.

      Additional issues arise, when the models are used to determine changes in regional climates including both temperatures and precipitation. There seems to be more trust in some such predictions than in most others. One example is the Mediterranean region, where almost everyone seems to expect hotter and dryer conditions.

    • Curious George | April 14, 2014 at 8:44 pm |

      Pekka – I agree that clouds and convection or turbulence both in the atmosphere and oceans are difficult to model. I am trying to get the modelers to get simpler stuff right. Probably a hopeless task, since even a correct treatment of a latent heat of water evaporation / condensation seems to be above their ability. That’s why I am suggesting a test with no clouds and no evaporation/condensation. A purely radiative environment – plus convection; I don’t know how to exclude it.

    • Curious George | April 14, 2014 at 9:11 pm |

      Jim D – I would argue that it is a wrong approach to optimize too many parameters at the same time – and globally. Let’s take an extremely simple example of a curve fitting by a straight line: y = A*x + B. You have 20 data points. You can easily find A and B to get the best least squares fit for your data points – let’s call them A1 and B1. But let’s say that you can determine a correct value for A by another method – call this value A2. You can then determine a corresponding value B2 for a best fit of y = A2*x + B. The overall fit for your 20 data points is not as good as (A1, B1), but (A2, B2) is preferable, because you know that A1 was incorrect.

    • Jim D | April 14, 2014 at 10:21 pm |

      CG, even the simplest GCMs will tell you that the Sahara Desert is going to be hot without any tuning. They just need the continents in the right place to do that. Climate is very predetermined by the continental layout.

    • Curious George | April 16, 2014 at 11:54 am |

      Jim D – I did not ask if models have Sahara hot.

  5. Centinel2012 | April 12, 2014 at 4:57 pm |

    The trend of what the CO2 forcing value is in the published papers is way down from the Values established in 1979 by the National Academy of Sciences of 1.5 Low 3.0 Expected and 4.5 High that the IPCC still uses. In the last several years it has been under 2.0 degrees Celsius what makes a very big difference in the outcome. Does anyone know why the more current values are not being used?

    • popesclimatetheory | April 12, 2014 at 5:31 pm |

      They don’t use lower numbers because they cannot scare as many people with lower numbers.

    • Bart R | April 14, 2014 at 9:22 am |

      Centinel2012 | April 12, 2014 at 4:57 pm |

      Science isn’t a fashion show.

      The au currant lower numbers are being used, however as confidence in their derivation is lower (that is, no one who knows what they’re talking about puts much stock in the methods used to come up with the lower numbers, since the au currant lower number logic fashionable with those biased toward the bottom end requires more unproven assumptions, allows for more exceptions and does not apply as universally, so is considered less accurate or further from the truth), the lower numbers are used alongside the unfashionable higher confidence range, even though that range is wider and use of that wider range comes at substantial cost.

      Policy and investment planners would love a narrower range. With a wide range, a prudent planner must accommodate the full and sometimes diametrically opposite set of possible outcomes in plans, meaning more must be spent on hedging and insurance, on making infrastructure robust to a wider range of threats, on preparing for a wider range of emergencies, and on investing in a wider range of opportunities each at a lower probability of payoff. Failure to apply this precautionary principle approach to planning means increased odds of being unprepared and thus having to incur the generally orders of magnitude higher cost of being unprepared in the case of policy, and results in lower long term return on investment in the case of business.

  6. jim2 | April 12, 2014 at 5:03 pm |

    Skeptics and Warmists (Tough Minded and Tender Minded).
    From the article:
    …
    1. ‘Pragmatism’ and pragmatism

    When William James published a series of lectures on ‘Pragmatism: A New Name for an Old way of Thinking’ in 1907, he began by identifying ‘The Present Dilemma in Philosophy’ (1907: 9ff), a fundamental and apparently irresoluble clash between two ways of thinking about things. He promised that pragmatism would show us the way to overcome this dilemma and, having thus shown us its importance, he proceeded, in the second lecture, to explain ‘What Pragmatism Means’.

    James’s dilemma is a familiar one: it is a form of the question of how we can reconcile the claims of science, on the one hand, with those of religion and morality on the other. James introduces it by observing that the history of philosophy is ‘to a great extent that of a certain clash of human temperaments’, between the ‘tough minded’ and the ‘tender minded’. The tough minded have an empiricist commitment to experience and going by ‘the facts’, while the tender-minded have more of a taste for a priori principles which appeal to the mind. The tender minded tend to be idealistic, optimistic and religious, while the tough minded are normally materialist, pessimistic and irreligious. The tender-minded are ‘free-willist’ and dogmatic; the tough minded are ‘fatalistic’ and sceptical.
    …
    http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pragmatism/

    • Faustino | April 12, 2014 at 5:34 pm |

      Interesting link at a glance, jim2, will look at it again later.

    • ianl8888 | April 12, 2014 at 8:37 pm |

      “a priori principles which appeal to the mind”

      Actually, these “a priori” principles appeal to emotion … and are extremely rubbery

      Like Jimmy old bean D, the goalposts move constantly

  7. Jim D | April 12, 2014 at 5:34 pm |

    Southern hemisphere 1000-year climate reveals better global picture.
    http://newsroom.melbourne.edu/news/new-southern-hemisphere-climate-data-provides-clearer-global-picture-0

    • Jim D | April 12, 2014 at 5:37 pm |

      Sting in the tail of this article: so long, MWP as a global phenomenon. Good idea while it lasted.

    • Curious George | April 12, 2014 at 5:53 pm |

      This is a press release for a Neukom, Gergis paper in the Journal of Climate Change (probably; no link there). Jim likes to refer to press releases.

    • GaryM | April 12, 2014 at 6:20 pm |

      Oh gee, another statistical re-analysis of proxy data that shockingly confirms that the MWP was local. We don’t know what the “global average temperature” is today with any real accuracy. But with statistics, we can show what the average temperature of the almost entirely oceanic southern hemisphere was, with decadal resolution, over the last 1000 years.

      Proxies of proxies, giving hemispheric average temperatures of 1000 years ago with sufficient accuracy to compare decadal trends between the hemispheres.

      “In 99.7 percent of the results, the warmest decade of the millennium occurred after 1970.”

      Only 99.7%?

      No one knows the average temperature of the southern hemisphere, land, sea and atmosphere, today, let alone 100 or 1000 years ago. But say it with enough certainty, and a nice figure like 99.7%, and the CAGW sheep will accept it as holy writ.

    • Jim D | April 12, 2014 at 6:24 pm |

      GaryM, yet, you will find skeptics talking about the MWP as if it is an established paleoclimate global fact. Looks like you are not one of them, and you should complain to them too. Anyway, this study extends the paleo into the southern hemisphere with more data. More data is good.

    • Robert I Ellison | April 12, 2014 at 6:36 pm |

      Widespead warmer conditions occurred 1000 odd years ago – including in the SH.

      http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2013/04/21/blogs/dotkaufman.html

      Although I doubt that we should expect synchronicity.

      e.g. http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v7/n2/full/ngeo2053.html

    • George Turner | April 12, 2014 at 6:53 pm |

      Southeast Asian, Antarctic, Pacific ocean, and South American paleo studies all confirm the MWP as being global.

      If Neukom couldn’t find it, it’s probably because of the way he selects proxies by curve-matching anything that leaves a record instead of establishing that a particular proxy reflects temperature. I’m surprised stock prices haven’t slipped in to his data set by accident.

    • Don Monfort | April 12, 2014 at 8:01 pm |

      Well jimmy, there’s another paper for the faithful to swallow hook line and sinker. What is it about the inconvenient MWP that you people hate so much?

    • beththeserf | April 12, 2014 at 8:29 pm |

      Reflections of an Anonymous Climate Scientist.

      We do not like the Medieval
      Warming Period, no way, in fact
      Can’t stand it, not one little bit,
      So unappealing and so inconvenient.
      The Little ice Age we’d prefer not
      To be there but less bothersome,
      Its contrasting cold to the Hockey Stick’s
      Warming caused by evil humans. – But
      Medieval Warming Period, be gone!

    • GaryM | April 13, 2014 at 12:42 am |

      Jim D,

      “Anyway, this study extends the paleo into the southern hemisphere with more data.”

      More data? They didn’t generate any data. All they did is an faux epidemiological study on the climate with a tailor made statistical “analysis.”

      Climate science is rarely about new data any more. The biggest headlines are obtained by massaging someone else’s data with dodgy statistics to come up with a new headline.

      The headline is all that matters to the post-modern climate science industry.

    • angech | April 13, 2014 at 12:02 pm |

      Jim D the MWP was local, just all over the world.
      This is no better than Gates saying Australia had a hot year so the whole world must be heating up.
      It beggars belief to imagine that showing one tiny bit of the world for one tiny bit of time could ever invalidate a concept of MWP being global.
      Of course if you look hard enough at the whole world [Gergis graph when it is getting hotter you will be able to find some place that went the other way for a small time that is not proof that the argument is wrong.
      Just like when the whole world is getting cooler for 17 years Cowtan and Way manufacture a Gergis graph [trade marked angech BTW]
      out of thin air and their own matrices
      to show a local bit of the earth [Arctic] is a bit warmer for a few years and say hey the rest of the data for the whole world is wrong
      our model says the data is wrong.
      Weather is local , Climate is general in the context of heating and cooling of the earth and pointing at small abnormalities against a general trend is absurd.
      But don’t worry the Antarctic is going bananas, 1.5million sq K greater and the Arctic will soon be back to zero and we will have more ice on record than at any time in the last 35 years.
      Where will your AGW be then???????

  8. A fan of *MORE* discourse | April 12, 2014 at 6:55 pm |

    BREAKING NEWS
    Mann’s Hockey-Stick Blade Gets Longer
    Hansen’s Climate-Change Science Gets Stronger

    Nature Climate Change
    Inter-hemispheric temperature variability
    over the past millennium
    by: Raphael Neukom et al.

    99.7% of the Southern Hemisphere reconstruction ensemble members indicate that the late twentieth century contained the warmest decade of the past millennium.

    This finding complements well-established evidence for the anomalous characteristics of Northern Hemisphere industrial-era warming.

    Ad here’s the ever-lengthening “Hockey-Stick Blade”

    The Conclusion (affirmed yet again)  The ending of the troposphere-heating pause, and the continued rising sea-level, heating waters, and melting ice — without pause or evident limit — all spell near-term extinction for climate-change skepticism … scientifically, economically, politically, and morally.

    Discussion?

    \scriptstyle\rule[2.25ex]{0.01pt}{0.01pt}\,\boldsymbol{\overset{\scriptstyle\circ\wedge\circ}{\smile}\,\heartsuit\,{\displaystyle\text{\bfseries!!!}}\,\heartsuit\,\overset{\scriptstyle\circ\wedge\circ}{\smile}}\ \rule[-0.25ex]{0.01pt}{0.01pt}

    • Robert I Ellison | April 12, 2014 at 7:18 pm |

      Could it possibly be the warmest in 1400 years?

      http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2013/04/21/blogs/dotkaufman.html

      Then again what really matters is the non-warming – or even cooling – of the next few decades.

      ‘Finally, the presence of vigorous climate variability presents significant challenges to near-term climate prediction (25, 26), leaving open the possibility of steady or even declining global mean surface temperatures over the next several decades that could present a significant empirical obstacle to the implementation of policies directed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions (27). However, global warming could likewise suddenly and without any ostensive cause accelerate due to internal variability. To paraphrase C. S. Lewis, the climate system appears wild, and may continue to hold many surprises if pressed.’ http://judithcurry.com/2014/04/12/open-thread-10/#comment-520887

      Game set and match to sceptics – wishful thinking by FOMBS.

    • George Turner | April 12, 2014 at 8:37 pm |

      Neukom selected his proxies from a vast set of “things that leave records” and declared that the things whose curves somewhat match the curve of 20th century warming must be valid temperature proxies. What that does is narrow down the essentially random data sets into ones that are still random – but tick upwards at the end, so his data set is random signals that only share a final rise. Then he averaged all those, and lo and behold, they all pretty much cancel each other (being random) except for the uptick at the end, which is only there because that was the feature used to select them from the set of random things. That, of course, automatically wipes out everything but the current uptick, and the Hockey Stick is reborn through extreme mathematical and scientific ineptitude.

      You could use the same method to pick “proxies” that matched the MWP or any other period and show that there hasn’t been any climate variation before or since. You could even do it with stock prices for temperature proxies.

    • Jim D | April 12, 2014 at 8:42 pm |

      They showed the LIA too, so…

    • A fan of *MORE* discourse | April 12, 2014 at 9:00 pm |

      George Turner believes “Neukom selected his proxies from a vast set of “things that leave records … this data set is random signals that only share a final rise. “

      Denialism by George Turner, supplemental information by FOMD.

      Of *COURSE* Neukom et al were deliberate fakers, George Turner. `Cuz that’s what *ALL* those scholars do!

      • Darwin cherry-picked his fossil record, and
      • physicians cherry-pick their smoking/cancer data, and
      • virologists cherry-pick their HIV/AIDS data, and
      • chemists cherry-pick their ozone-layer data, and
      • ornithologists cherry-pick their pesticide-data, and
      • historians cherry-pick their bible-authors, and
      • sociologists cherry-pick their abstinence data, and
      • economists cherry-pick their healthcare data.

      Oh d*mn those paleoclimatogists!

      \scriptstyle\rule[2.25ex]{0.01pt}{0.01pt}\,\boldsymbol{\overset{\scriptstyle\circ\wedge\circ}{\smile}\,\heartsuit\,{\displaystyle\text{\bfseries!!!}}\,\heartsuit\,\overset{\scriptstyle\circ\wedge\circ}{\smile}}\ \rule[-0.25ex]{0.01pt}{0.01pt}

    • Mike Flynn | April 12, 2014 at 9:07 pm |

      AFOMD,

      With regard to your list of scholars, would you mind nominating those you consider scientists?

      Once you have excluded the non scientists, we may be able to continue the discussion. In the meantime, I think you are a tad harsh damning all paleoclimatologists. Some of them might actually be using the scientific method.

      What are your views?

      Live well and prosper,

      Mike Flynn.

    • George Turner | April 12, 2014 at 10:17 pm |

      FMOD, Neukom explained in his paper how he selected his proxies, which was by running them through a statistical filter to find data sets whose endings resembled the modern temperature record.

      Interestingly, of Neukom’s 111 proxies, only eight extend through the MWP. Those are three Antarctic ice cores, three sediment cores, and two tree records. Of all those, only two cores look like they show anything but random high-frequency noise, and those two are sediment cores from South America. Ironically, both of those cores come from papers (which Neukom cites) whose authors showed that the MWP was large and distinct in their reconstructions. Here are links to two of the sediment proxies

      Bird’s paper and von Gunten’s paper, the latter of which says:

      Our data provide quantitative evidence for the presence of a Medieval Climate Anomaly (in this case, warm summers between AD 1150 and 1350; ΔT = +0.27 to +0.37°C with respect to (wrt) twentieth century) and a very cool period synchronous to the ‘Little Ice Age’ starting with a sharp drop between AD 1350 and AD 1400 (−0.3°C/10 yr, decadal trend) followed by constantly cool (ΔT = −0.70 to −0.90°C wrt twentieth century) summers until AD 1750.

      So Neukom takes two good proxies that show a booming MWP (even according their authors), averages them with six samples of what is essentially random noise, and declares the MWP to be just local to Europe. And then he casts this chicanery as the result of a massive, hundred plus multiproxy study of everything.

      If he hadn’t done all his smoothing, his data would only show that prior to 1500 AD, temperatures were plus or minus 1.5 degree C different than present, and the past was dramatically noisy.

    • A fan of *MORE* discourse | April 12, 2014 at 10:35 pm |

      George Turner asserts “Of [eight proxies], only two cores look like they show [a Medieval Warm Period]”

      If this were medical data, in which of eight cities, two showed an increased incidence of influenza, and six did not, then researchers would conclude (rightly) that influenza was sporadic, not pandemic.

      Or in the present-day climate-change case, that the whole planet is heating like never before

      That’s common sense, eh George Turner?

      \scriptstyle\rule[2.25ex]{0.01pt}{0.01pt}\,\boldsymbol{\overset{\scriptstyle\circ\wedge\circ}{\smile}\,\heartsuit\,{\displaystyle\text{\bfseries!!!}}\,\heartsuit\,\overset{\scriptstyle\circ\wedge\circ}{\smile}}\ \rule[-0.25ex]{0.01pt}{0.01pt}

    • George Turner | April 12, 2014 at 10:54 pm |

      FOMD, the other six proxies didn’t just not show the MWP, they didn’t show anything else, either. They did not look like good proxies of anything, except perhaps unrecorded cosmic ray bursts. There was one coral proxy that I omitted because its coverage wasn’t nearly continuous, just a few spots here and there, but it also seemed to indicate something during the MWP. The Lake Chala proxy (a lake in Africa) is a record of sedimentation rates, and thus a rainfall and not a temperature proxy, but it too showed dryness during the Roman and Medieval Warm Periods, followed by wet conditions, and now it’s pretty dry again.

      His law dome ice core (dO18) might as well be low-level spurious noise around a flat line, while his Quelccaya ice core show the Little Ice Age, and only the Little Ice Age. Everything else is smooth and flat. His law dome sea ice record shows something, but not the MWP or the Little Ice Age, and in any event is a proxy for Antarctic sea ice extent at law dome, not temperature. If we took Antarctic sea ice extent as a proxy then we can just go ahead and dispense with all this global warming nonsense because the Antarctic sea ice extent is setting records, and we should worry about a coming glaciation cycle. Also, Antarctic sea ice extent variations are extremely regional. While the ice builds in one area it will be shrinking in another, and science has yet to connect that to temperature.

      So that’s three proxies that show a definite MWP, one proxy that shows the MWP as dryness in Africa, and three ice cores which don’t seem to correspond to anything much related to temperature, combined with two tree studies that don’t show much of a trend – ever.

    • Jim D | April 12, 2014 at 11:19 pm |

      George Turner, that warm period was later and did not overlap with the NH one. See Fan’s top link at the beginning of this thread and Figure 3. This is why they say there were no overlaps of MWP.

    • A fan of *MORE* discourse | April 12, 2014 at 11:32 pm |

      Ain’t it remarkable, George Turner, that as we accumulate more-and-more data, and examine climate-change more-and-more globally, that Hockey Stick blades keep getting longer-and-longer, and Hockey Stick handles keep getting flatter-and-flatter?

      It’s almost like the science is saying … James Hansen’s climate-change worldview is just plain common-sense right, ain’t that so?

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    • George Turner | April 12, 2014 at 11:37 pm |

      Jim, Bird’s paper (linked above) shows the peak of the MWP in the Southern Hemisphere occurring from about 900 AD to 1100 AD. When was it occurring up north? I couldn’t zoom in enough on Neukom’s figure 3 to make it out.

      I did find this hilarious:

      “Here, we introduce a new millennial ensemble reconstruction of annually resolved temperature variations for the Southern Hemisphere based on an unprecedented network of terrestrial and oceanic palaeoclimate proxy records.”

      He’s got two, maybe three halfway decent “milleninial” proxies, and only eight total (two of which are from the same site), and then he pretty much multiplied through by zero. Perhaps that is unprecedented. You never know in climate science.

    • George Turner | April 12, 2014 at 11:55 pm |

      FOMD, I see you’re reading the dummy guides. Canadian temperatures unprecedented in 120,000 years, and the Eemian hadn’t even ended yet. Back then Canada had palm trees. Greenland had giant monitor lizards. They obviously stopped their warmest-ever claim near the Eemian to sound slightly less ridiculous to anyone who isn’t a mindless tool.

      Meanwhile, back in the non-fantasy world, the Arctic still has more ice than during the Holocene Maximum that occured 10,000 to 6,000 years ago. sea ice paper.

      Studies of Arctic Ocean sea ice variability extending in time beyond the satellite imagery record available since 1979 (Stroeve et al., 2011) have been carried out using paleo-proxies that provide information about past sea ice conditions. Adding recent results from paleo-sea ice studies to the syntheses by Jakobsson et al. (2010) and Polyak et al. (2010) seem to further support the view that generally less sea ice prevailed in the Arctic Ocean before approximately 6000 years BP (Fig. 4b). For example, using abundance and origin of drift wood and beach ridges (indicating wave activity) Funder et al. (2011) infer a multiyear sea ice minimum along the coast of Northern Greenland between ∼8500 and 6000 years BP, with a limit of a perennial sea ice about 1000 km north of its present position. In the Fram Strait between Greenland and Svalbard, a sea ice minimum is evident in sediment cores from variations of the sea ice proxy IP25 (Müller et al., 2012). However, this minimum appears to have occurred somewhat earlier, at about 6500 years BP.

    • Jim D | April 12, 2014 at 11:58 pm |

      George Turner, the NH warming was in 1000-1100. They show only a small fraction of SH proxies with warming in any part of that, so the one you had appeared not typical.

    • George Turner | April 13, 2014 at 12:10 am |

      Jim. What, their other proxy? It was from Chile and showed the peak warming between 1150 and 1350. The MWP is generally considered to end in 1250, so that one also overlapped. Of their six other proxies, some of them don’t even show the Little Ice Age.

    • Jim D | April 13, 2014 at 12:11 am |

      Its supplementary information is free even if the Neukom article isn’t. This lists proxies used including Bird’s.
      http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/extref/nclimate2174-s1.pdf

    • Jim D | April 13, 2014 at 12:15 am |

      From their Figure 3, there is a coincident cool period that shows up quite well, in addition to the current warm period. The MWP period, not so much, maybe a hint.

    • George Turner | April 13, 2014 at 12:43 am |

      Jim, it only hints at their incompetence, because in the half-handful of proxies they had that even stretched back that far (page 16), the original papers showed the MWP as being as warm or warmer than the present day. Neukom erased that by taking those three or so proxies that showed a signal, mixing them with again as many proxies that showed nothing meaningful – ever, and then swamping those proxies later coverage with a hundred and one proxies that didn’t even cover the MWP.

      So then they go through lots of graphs that would lead someone to think that their proxy coverage has the same robustness and statistical properties over the last thousand years, when in fact it comes down to about three samples. After they finish with all of their manipulations to erase the MWP, sure enough, the huge signals that were there in their two best samples don’t even register in the final graphs of Southern Hemisphere temperatures.

      If your input data doesn’t have an effect on the output and conclusions, is it still science?

    • Jim D | April 13, 2014 at 1:07 am |

      George Turner, OK, so you think they erased the MWP from the SH? Why would they do that when they know other people can check the same data? What do you surmise is their purpose for doing this, or is it just a mistake that none of them or the reviewers realized? Perhaps it is time for a skeptic to now produce a paper that recovers it, because the loss of the global MWP would be a blow, for sure, if confirmed by other work. As with any paleo work, it needs independent confirmation.

    • George Turner | April 13, 2014 at 2:05 am |

      Jim, why would a skeptic need to write a paper that just says “read Neukom’s input data from the already published papers of Bird, von Gunten, and others to see what Neukom’s output would’ve looked like if he hadn’t multiplied through by zero in a desperate and ham-handed attempt to generate a hockey stick, or read Rosenthal’s recent paper on Pacific Ocean temperatures over the last 10,000 years which finds:

      Observed increases in ocean heat content (OHC) and temperature are robust indicators of global warming during the past several decades. We used high-resolution proxy records from sediment cores to extend these observations in the Pacific 10,000 years beyond the instrumental record. We show that water masses linked to North Pacific and Antarctic intermediate waters were warmer by 2.1 ± 0.4°C and 1.5 ± 0.4°C, respectively, during the middle Holocene Thermal Maximum than over the past century. Both water masses were ~0.9°C warmer during the Medieval Warm period than during the Little Ice Age and ~0.65° warmer than in recent decades. [em. mine] Although documented changes in global surface temperatures during the Holocene and Common era are relatively small, the concomitant changes in OHC are large.

      The truth keeps leaking out, which is why Southern Hemisphere temperature reconstructions keep showing the MWP, at least until a warmist figures out new ways to fold, spindle, and mutilate the studies in a giant multiproxy ensemble where all the individual studies get canceled out by things that aren’t valid temperature proxies.

      And the real question is why warmists are so intent on eliminating the MWP. Skeptics realize that the Earth’s climate has always been swinging back and forth, and these swings were largely unrelated to mankind’s development of agriculture, civilization, science, and the Internet. When we popped out of the hunter gatherer past to build the modern world, the previous 10,000 years of climate swings should essentially be random.

      We could’ve got freaky smart at any point on those swings, with a past that was much much colder than present, or a past that was much warmer, and that recent past would have no bearing on the scientific truth of questions about back radiation, aerosols, or stadium waves. Our medieval period could, by chance, have been much colder than present, or much warmer than it really was, and it shouldn’t effect anything about our scientific discourse because that temperature was a random artifact of a constantly changing climate during the random history of a species that was becoming technologically competent.

      But to a group of dire zealots with apocalyptic visions, the truth about the recent past is extremely inconvenient, because they demand action right now,(hopefully during the current grant funding cycle) and who will act if we’re not already passing the peak of any temperatures we have tolerated in recorded history. What if people say we can just wait thirty years before we match the temperatures during the days of yore, when men were men and climatologists left religion to the church?

      Scientifically, past temperature reconstructions are interesting only to the extent that they’re valid. But unfortunately, it’s the invalid reconstructions that can generate all the fame and funding and help motivate legions of followers, so people who are sloppy with math and sketchy with data handling will find a way to fill the niche.

      Thus we have Neukom et al.

    • Jim D | April 13, 2014 at 2:23 am |

      George Turner, I don’t know why they would want to remove the MWP either. It seems to be just what they found happened. In the press release, it was more of a by-the-way statement at the end rather than a central thesis. I picked up on it, because it seemed skeptics like the MWP, so it would be a shame for them if it went away. There may well now be a major effort by skeptics to re-confirm the SH MWP in the right timeframe to match the NH. We can almost expect that, given how much it means to them.

    • climatereason | April 13, 2014 at 3:04 am |

      JIMD

      There is no doubt that the LIA and MWP and other warm and cold periods happened very widely. There is no doubt that temperatures were not continually warm during the MWP, nor continually cold during the LIA. One of the warmest periods -unequalled until the 1990’s- was the 1730’s-the grandfather of all hockey sticks in temperature rise.

      There is no doubt that not all warm or cold periods were synchronous throughout the world. They at times matched or overlapped or were synchronous, but the LIA for example didn’t always happen everywhere at the same time for hundreds of consecutive years.

      In that they have a lot of common with the modern warming period, or is the UK the only place in the world to show dramatic cooling against the trend for the last decade?

      http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcet/

      Clearly however it is not an outlier ;

      http://diggingintheclay.wordpress.com/2010/09/01/in-search-of-cooling-trends/

      so surely the lesson to be learnt is that the modern warming period is not a worldwide synchronous event either ?
      tonyb

    • manacker | April 13, 2014 at 3:06 am |

      Jim D

      I don’t know why they would want to remove the MWP either.

      See:
      http://a-sceptical-mind.com/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-hockey-stick

      Until the 1990s there were many, many references in scientific and historical literature to a period labelled the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) lasting from about AD 800–1300. It was followed by a much cooler period termed the Little Ice Age. Based on both temperature reconstructions using proxy measures and voluminous historical references it was accepted that the Medieval Warm Period had been a period when global temperatures were a bit hotter than today’s temperatures. Until about the mid-1990s the Medieval Warm Period was for climate researchers an undisputed fact. The existence of the Medieval Warm Period was accepted without question and noted in the first progress report of the IPCC from 1990. On page 202 of that 1990 IPCC report there was the graphic 7c (see below), in which the Medieval Warm Period was portrayed as clearly warmer than the present.

      By the time of the second IPCC report in 1995 where for the first time CO2 forcing began to be proposed more prominently as a cause of serious alarm, the Medieval Warm Period was sidelined in the text and narrative. An important way that this was done in the report was to alter the diagram of recent climate history by simply shortening the time period it covered so that it now started after the Medieval Warm Period. All that was shown was the long slow recovery from the Little Ice Age to today’s temperatures, i.e. a long period of increasing temperatures. But clearly this was only a short term solution. The way that the Medieval Warm Period dominated the recent climate graph challenged the basic argument for CO2 forcing which was that the late 20th century climate was some how unique. As Jay Overpeck, an IPCC participant said in his email to Professor Deming, “We have to get rid of the Medieval Warm Period”.

      In order to prove CO2 forcing the Medieval Warm Period had to be eliminated.

      But, despite the fact that the hockey stick was thoroughly discredited (by McIntyre and McKitrick, Wegman and NAS panel under oath), and numerous studies from all over the world using different paleo-climate methodologies, all suggesting a MWP that was a bit warmer than today, IPCC still sticks with its conclusion that “the warmth of the last half century is unusual in at least the past 1,300 years.”

      So that’s your reason, Jim. It’s part of the CAGW sales pitch.

      Max

    • George Turner | April 13, 2014 at 3:23 am |

      Jim, skeptics don’t need to confirm the SH MWP because it was already confirmed in the papers on South American temperatures that Neukom cited – and decided to overshadow and obscure with a paper that claimed to be the first massive SH millennial multiproxy reconstruction, but turned out to use only a few data sets that spanned the period, and then smeared those with noise and buried them under a hundred other data sets that don’t nearly cover the millennium. Most go back only to the 1800’s. Who needed to see any of that recent stuff regraphed?

      I tell you, it is just another attempt by the first world elites to deny the third world and the entire Southern Hemisphere the benefits of a past climate that wasn’t miserable!

      Seriously though, why on Earth would any climatologist include a proxy for Antarctic sea ice extent in this charade when everyone knows that Antarctic sea ice extent cannot possibly be a valid proxy for global temperatures, or else we’d all hear screaming about a coming ice age? The only reason I can think of is that the record was there, it was continuous for the entire millennium, and it would help mask any signal from a valid proxy. There is no defensible reason to have included it. If you look at the graph of it, it doesn’t remotely resemble even a suggested temperature record of anywhere.

      Of course, you could say that about a lot of proxies that Neukom included, many of which just measure rainfall, sedimentation (which increases if it rains a lot, or if it gets dry and erosion gets worse, or if farmers overgraze, etc),or in the case of trees (which make up 40% of his data set), might be mostly measuring dT/dt instead of T/dt, to the extent they’re measuring temperature at all.

      When rainfall changes trees have to readjust their root/crown ratios and other factors, which takes quite a few years, before they reattain their optimal growth rates. If conditions change back, or change further, they have to do it again. So change, stable, change is being interpreted as cold, warm, cold..The result is people who think they can read temperatures to 0.1C in tree rings, in a world where you cannot go down to the lumberyard and identify the source of each board to a 10 mile wide climate zone (which should be possible if ring width is a function of average temperature), and prominent scientists who sue their detractors yet had to hide the decline, which should have confirmed from the outset that the plant scientists were correct in saying that trees can’t be used as a temperature proxy, since they obviously and recently failed at just that.

    • climatereason | April 13, 2014 at 4:16 am |

      Max

      Lets deconstruct that IPCC quote;

      “the warmth of the last half century is unusual in at least the past 1,300 years.”

      Unusual is not the same as ‘unprecedented.’ It has been unusually warm over the last century (in places) but then again it was unusually warm for similar periods up to around 1350 and perhaps in the 1q500’s and early 1700’s. It was probably warmer for long periods prior to 1200 AD and Roman times etc.

      tonyb

    • Don Monfort | April 13, 2014 at 10:53 am |

      George has put jimmy dee on the spot clearly revealing jimmy to be a disingenuous unskilled defender of the alarmist dogma.

    • George Turner | April 13, 2014 at 12:52 pm |

      Don, let me conclude by going back to the FOMD’s original claim with spawned this subthread.

      99.7% of the Southern Hemisphere reconstruction ensemble members indicate that the late twentieth century contained the warmest decade of the past millennium.

      This finding complements well-established evidence for the anomalous characteristics of Northern Hemisphere industrial-era warming.

      Well, the 99.7% claim is obviously false, because only three or four of the study’s ensemble members even cover the past millennium. It should more accurately say “4% of the ensemble members address the question clearly.” Then go on to explain that “the signal from those members was too clear, causing the original authors of them to draw conclusions opposite what we wanted to show, and so we added noise until those signals could no longer be detected.”

      Whereas in most fields of science the struggle is to find a clear, unambiguous signal amidst lots of noise and uncertainty, the Neukom technique is to take a clear signal found by someone else and make it go away, and then trumpeting this as a major accomplishment.

    • Jim D | April 13, 2014 at 1:39 pm |

      Turned into a long discussion, I see. There is good evidence for a global LIA and global recent warming, of course. The MWP may or may not be global, The most recent study says it is a blip as a global average. The SH is 80% dominated by oceans and its variability. So the question comes down to what the oceans were doing. If there was increased solar forcing and a lack of large volcanoes, it is possible to have a warm MWP, so it would prove or disprove nothing in the big picture to have one, which is why I could care less whether it existed, unless we have other data on why or why not, which we just don’t see that far back. The earlier Holocene was even warmer, and that has a mechanistic explanation in terms of the Milankovitch cycles, so the MWP may have marked a pause in the overall Holocene decline trend, as we see from Marcott who showed it that way.

    • George Turner | April 13, 2014 at 8:01 pm |

      Jim D, I refer you to Rosenthal’s recent paper, linked up-thread, which studied Pacific sediments from the North Pacific and near Antarctica and found:

      Both water masses were ~0.9°C warmer during the Medieval Warm period than during the Little Ice Age and ~0.65° warmer than in recent decades.

      Trenberth is desperate to find some missing heat hiding in the oceans (it’s actually hiding in the bottom of my sock drawer), looking for any sign of a fraction of a hundredth of a degree to declare mankind doomed, while Rosenthal tossed up 0.65C of ocean heat – but at the worst time possible for alarmists, smack dab in MWP.

      It actually makes far more sense for the MWP to be a global phenomenon, otherwise we’d have to ponder how one hemisphere could do something completely unrelated to what was going on in the other hemisphere, as if they’re two separate planets.

    • Jim D | April 13, 2014 at 8:22 pm |

      George Turner, there are ways the NH can warm faster, and one is through the loss of sea ice, which is a more important feedback there. We are seeing this asymmetry in warming today. There is asymmetry in the ocean circulation too, with more colder upwelling in the SH, and thermohaline circulation being more northward at the surface. The planet isn’t very symmetric, possibly also in how it warms, which may explain why the MWP has been relatively hard to find in the SH.

    • George Turner | April 13, 2014 at 9:05 pm |

      The MWP wasn’t that hard to find in the SH. All they had to do was go look for it and there it was, and that done, all anyone had to do was read one of the many SH temperature reconstructions that weren’t a massive multi-proxy farce with a mere handful of useful samples that got averaged into oblivion.

      Most notably, geology isn’t separated into northern and southern hemispheres, with virtually unrelated climate histories. I don’t think anyone even brought that up until Mann’s claim that the MWP was just a local European phenomenon got shot down by wider studies throughout the NH, so they decided to try and make a stand in the SH, which is failing miserably, especially since the MWP shows up in all that beautiful ice core data in Antarctica. It’s hard to get more removed from Europe than that.

    • Jim D | April 13, 2014 at 9:57 pm |

      George Turner, if even an amateur can figure it out there must be a strong enough case for a paper on it. Don’t you wonder why this is the first SH reconstruction of the last 1000 years? Were the skeptics caught sleeping again, or is the work really too hard for them? You need to get on their case, get on people like McIntyre to move forwards here, because you just keep getting caught out by these publications and press releases and have to go into damage control mode like this all the time.

    • George Turner | April 13, 2014 at 11:15 pm |

      Jim, don’t be taken in by the idiotic press release. Certainly, the paper was the first SH of the last 1000 years done this year, and it cited numerous papers (and used the proxy data) from only some of those earlier reconstructions.

      Nor was it remotely honest to call it a SH temperature reconstruction of the last 1000 years, because the only proxies it had that went back a thousand years were one from Peru (which showed a booming MWP), one from Chile (which showed a booming MWP), and one from Africa (which showed something of a MWP), two tree samples that showed nothing – ever, one Antarctic sample that only showed the LIA (and not earlier or current warming), one Antarctic sample that showed nothing, and one Antarctic sample that showed sea ice extent that doesn’t correlate to global or SH temperatures.

      So no, I don’t foolishly wonder why this is the first paper, because it’s not, nor do I have to go into damage control mode. That role is now being taken up by Neukom et al, and perhaps whoever let this paper pass pal-review.

    • Don Monfort | April 14, 2014 at 12:36 am |

      You are living in a fantasy world, jimmy dee. You alarmist clowns are the ones in damage control mode. You can pump the dubious papers through pal review and get the press to trumpet alarmist clap trap, but…watch this jimmy…the pause is killing the cause. Billions and billions of the planet’s inhabitants ain’t scared, jimmy dee. You are not going to get your drastic mitigation. You are not going to get any significant mitigation. But you are amusing.

    • climatereason | April 14, 2014 at 4:36 am |

      JIMD

      The NH warming was from around 850 to 1380 AD but with intermittent cooler spells, most notably in the 1200’s.
      tonyb

    • manacker | April 14, 2014 at 5:56 pm |

      Jim D

      The MWP has “been found” all over the globe, by several independent studies, using different paleo-climate methodologies

      Here are some:

      Loehle 2007 rev., Global, 0.15°C warmer than today
      Moberg 2005, Global, same as today
      Rosenthal et al. 2013, Pacific Ocean, 0.65°C warmer than today
      Dahl-Jensen 1998, Greenland, 0.8°C warmer than today
      Johnsen 2001, Greenland summit, 1°C warmer than today
      Zhang 1994, China, Henan, 0.9° to 1.0°C warmer than today
      Zheng 2003, Eastern China, 0.4°C warmer than today
      Honghan 1995, S. China, 1° to 2°C warmer than today
      Adnikari 2001, Japan, MWP warmest in 1300 years
      Kitigawa 1995, Japan, Yakushima Island, 1°C warmer than today
      Cook 2002, New Zealand, no temperature difference given
      Wilson 1979, New Zealand, 0.75°C warmer than today
      Newton 2006, Tropical Ocean. 0.4°C warmer than today
      Keigwin 1996, Sargasso Sea, 1°C warmer than today
      Lund 2006, Bahamas, 0.2°C warmer than today
      Richey 2007, Gulf of Mexico, 1.5°C warmer than today
      Lückge 2005, Coastal Peru, 1.2°C warmer than today
      Goni 2004, Venezuela, 0.35°C warmer than today
      Miller 2006, USA, Sierra Nevada, 3.2°C warmer than today
      Patterson 1998, USA, Lake Erie, Ohio, 0.2°C warmer than today
      Cronin 2003, USA, Chesapeake Bay, 0.15°C warmer than today
      Vare 2000, Canada, Barrow Strait, no temperature difference given
      Rolland 2009, Canada, Southampton Island, 0.9°C warmer than today
      Linderholm 2005, Sweden, 1.5°C warmer than today
      Weckstrom 2006, Finnish Lapland, 0.15°C warmer than today
      Mazepa 2005, Russia, Ural Mountains, 0.56°C warmer than today
      Kalugin 2007, Russia, Altai Mountains, 0.5°C warmer than today
      Schlüchter 2005, Swiss Alps, warmer – no temperature given
      Laroque-Tobler 2010, Switzerland, 1°C warmer than today
      Mangini 2007, Austria, Spannagel Cave 1.5°C warmer than today
      Patzelt 2009, Austrian Alps, warmer – no temperature given
      Martinez 1999, NW Spain, 3.4°C warmer than today
      Abrantes 2005, Portugal, Tagus River, 0.9°C warmer than today

      Hope this helps.

      Max

    • Tonyb | April 14, 2014 at 6:16 pm |

      Jimd

      Of course that wasn’t the first reconstruction of the SH. I have seen a number in the met office library in Exeter. The earliest was around 1935. No doubt BOM have got lots more such reconstructions in their own
      Ibrary.

      Tonyb

  9. Peter Yates | April 12, 2014 at 7:34 pm |

    I have noticed some surprising things about possible relationships between global temperature rise and CO2 rise over the last ~1,100 years. .. However, it is easy to believe these possible relationships have been noticed before, and for some reason have been ruled out as not being related.

    The gap between a change of temperature and a change in CO2 levels is said to be about an average of 800 years. … About 800 years ago the Earth was in the last stages of the Medieval Warm Period (about AD 950 to 1250) — as shown in this graph :- http://c3headlines.typepad.com/.a/6a010536b58035970c0133edf988be970b-pi

    There appears to be a correlation between the increasing temperatures in about AD 950, and the increasing CO2 levels that started about the year 1750. .. (950 plus 800 years).

    If there is any truth in this correlation, CO2 levels should begin to *decrease in the next decades – until about the year 2050. .. (1250 plus 800 years).

    This all seems to be too neat and tidy! .. I wonder where I went wrong.

    • climatereason | April 13, 2014 at 3:14 am |

      Peter Yates

      Yes, this relationship has been noticed many times before. It depends to some extent as to how long it takes for oceans to overturn/periodic cycles and lots of other factors.

      I don’t think I have seen the relationship-or total lack of it -satisfactorily clarified, but someone somewhere must have a definitive answer as the science is settled isn’t it?
      tonyb

    • Ian H | April 13, 2014 at 10:28 pm |

      The 800 year delay debunks the Gorean argument that temperatures in the past were determined by CO2. The delay shows that causation runs the other way. The temperature dependence of solubility of CO2 gives us an obvious physical mechanism; nobody should be surprised.

      However this doesn’t mean CO2 levels today are going to be determined by the temperature 800 years ago. We ARE extracting fossil fuels and adding significant amounts of CO2 directly to the troposphere so we expect that the relationship between CO2 and temperature will be different.

  10. ronhave | April 12, 2014 at 7:37 pm |

    “We must get rid of the MWP.” e-mail says it all.
    The Greenland settlement evidence must be a hoax by deniers.
    The great thing about tree rings is that there are lots of them and we can pick and choose to fit our hypothesis, never mind that they are hopelessly confounded by other variables. Make the multi-variate statistics complicated enough so we can persuade the ignorant and statistically naive politicians and we have it made. We can silence McIntyre and his ilk just by out-shouting them. Endless alarms! Endless funding!
    The null hypothesis, statistical correlation, chi square, etc. We don’t need these simple statistics and these old science rules because the politicians and the public are too ignorant to ask for them. Moreover, the soft-headed liberals (thanks W. James) are too timid to question us because we are “scientists.” So glad I got that PhD and from Yale, no less. Good thing that there aren’t too many hard headed empiricist liberals around. Probably a few, but they won’t dare to speak up until we have had our way, if they ever do. Takes too much guts and sacrifice in the name of science. Who really cares about science, anyway. The NAS doesn’t. The AAAS doesn’t. Why should I stick my neck out and say that the emperor has no clothes.

  11. Alexander Biggs | April 12, 2014 at 7:57 pm |

    I had almost finished this blog when it suddenly disappeared. My blog in the last paper ‘Trembeth ad Curry’ also disappeared, although it was displayed in the regular Climate etc format. What is going on, is my computer or the Word Press editor at fault?

  12. Jim D | April 12, 2014 at 8:15 pm |

    At WUWT, Willis E had a main post asking why MODTRAN didn’t show such high doubling responses as Hansen suggested. Pekka answered there what I would have, which is to place the sensor altitude lower (17-20 km) instead of 70 km, to eliminate the partial canceling effect of the stratosphere. This gives values of 4+ W/m2 for tropospheric forcing due to doubling. No response to Pekka from Willis yet.

    • Mike Flynn | April 12, 2014 at 9:11 pm |

      Jim D,

      I assume your solution is to provide inputs, to a model, which generate the results you desire.

      Is this correct, or have you left something out?

      Live well and prosper,

      Mike Flynn.

    • Jim D | April 12, 2014 at 9:16 pm |

      Glad to explain. The inputs suggested give tropospheric forcing, not tropospheric+stratospheric. It is a more suitable forcing for the surface response.

    • Jim D | April 12, 2014 at 9:22 pm |

      In addition to Pekka, now Nullius in Verba and Berenyi Peter have made the same suggestion to Willis at WUWT. No response yet.

    • Mike Flynn | April 12, 2014 at 9:35 pm |

      Jim D,

      I think I understand. The more suitable forcing gives you the answer you desire. If it doesn’t give the desired answer, it is obviously not as suitable.

      Are there any objective rules which are used to determine which forcings are more suitable, or is it a case of every modeller for himself?

      Thanks in advance.

      Live well and prosper,

      Mike Flynn.

    • Jim D | April 12, 2014 at 9:52 pm |

      Yes, Mike, exactly. It is unsuitable for you to see a larger forcing because you don’t believe in warming, and it becomes harder to defend your position when you see these, so better not to. Glad to help. Don’t think too hard about this. You want to use 70 km, use 70 km. It’s a free world.

    • jim2 | April 12, 2014 at 10:36 pm |

      Willis has responded. And I find his question compelling. Why pick the top of the tropopause when the true TOA is what gets exposed to space. I do realize that the stratosphere is pretty thin, but still, if picking the more true top of atmosphere changes the result, then it isn’t thin enough, is it?

    • Jim D | April 12, 2014 at 11:09 pm |

      Willis agreed that this explains the difference in his numbers. When you add CO2, the stratosphere emits more, while the troposphere emits less. This is just due to the reversed temperature gradient, so above them both, there is some cancellation. The stratosphere responds independently of the surface by cooling, being effectively unconnected to the surface by air motion. The troposphere is very connected to the surface by convection and has a lapse rate fixed by this. The forcing on the troposphere can only affect its temperature by changing the temperature at the surface, so its forcing is more appropriate for the surface energy balance. There are books that explain this all as part of the no-feedback response.

    • Robert I Ellison | April 12, 2014 at 11:39 pm |

      Stratospheric cooling is not allowed for in MODTRAN apparently – hence the difference.

      But what has happened in the stratosphere?

      http://www.arl.noaa.gov/documents/JournalPDFs/ThompsonEtal.Nature2012.pdf

    • Steven Mosher | April 12, 2014 at 11:39 pm |

      Yes
      Pekka nailed it.

      I liked modtran when it was classified.

    • Steven Mosher | April 12, 2014 at 11:43 pm |

      Mike flynn.

      You do not want to question modtran.
      Do not go there

      Doubling co2 gives us 3.7 more watts.

      Get that one point and you will see there is only
      One question worth answering

    • Don Monfort | April 13, 2014 at 12:11 am |

      Mosher correctly points out that the Modtran ship has sailed. No reason to beat that dead horse. We are looking at 3.7 watts. Get used to it. Now what about the positive water vapor feedback BS? What is the number? If anybody has the answer, speak up. And justify your guess.

    • Mike Flynn | April 13, 2014 at 12:39 am |

      Steve Mosher,

      You wrote –

      “You do not want to question modtran.
      Do not go there

      Doubling co2 gives us 3.7 more watts.

      Get that one point and you will see there is only
      One question worth answering”

      More Warmist scare tactics? If I go there and see its just another idealised model which needs to be checked against real, actual, precise equipment before its output can be depended on for critical purposes, will I die from the Curse of the Warmists?

      Well, I’ve gone there. What are you going to do about it? Tell me the world has warmed over the last 15 or 4.5 billion years, perhaps? Ooh, I’m so scared!

      Where are these 3.7 watts you have created? Hiding in Al Gore’s trousers? Lurking in Trenberth’s Magical Missing Heat Repository, perhaps?

      And the one question worth answering? I suppose if you told me what it was, you’d have to kill me. Oh well, maybe another day.

      Thank you for your admonitions. I don’t believe I’ll obey just now.

      Live well and prosper,

      Mike Flynn.

    • dalyplanet | April 13, 2014 at 2:22 am |

      I have seen that Pekka asks very good questions, even if you don’t always like them.

    • manacker | April 13, 2014 at 3:25 am |

      Steven Mosher

      You do not want to question modtran.
      Do not go there

      Doubling co2 gives us 3.7 more watts.

      Sounds like “the science is settled”, Mosh.

      Is that what you’re saying?

      Max

    • Steven Mosher | April 13, 2014 at 3:38 am |

      No max Modtran isnt science. Modtran is engineering.
      we fricken used it to design the B2, F22 and F-35 you putz.

    • Pekka Pirilä | April 13, 2014 at 5:36 am |

      My recent comment at SoD happened to discuss the role of stratosphere in the warming.

    • phatboy | April 13, 2014 at 6:04 am |

      Mosh is right.
      There are plenty of things you can argue, but MODTRAN isn’t one of them.

    • Mike Flynn | April 13, 2014 at 6:25 am |

      Steven Mosher,

      The Modtran I was talking about is a computer program, which saves time by replacing pencil and paper with electronic digital computation, with all its inherent limitations and benefits.

      It produces results defined by the program writers. No more, no less. The sellers indicate the program’s limitations, no doubt to avoid getting sued. If you wish to believe the program possesses mystical properties, good on you. If you find it useful, use it.

      One could ask why the sellers now sell an updated version. What deficiencies have been rectified? Why bother updating the Hitran database? Are calculations based on the old program accurate? If not, how inaccurate are they?

      But you say such questions are not allowed to be asked. I think I understand why, but I don’t wish to embarrass you further. Maybe we should wait for Modtran 10.

      Live well and prosper,

      Mike Flynn.

    • Don Monfort | April 13, 2014 at 10:40 am |

      I am with flynnie, on this one. If you really want to be a full blown denier, then you got to reject MODTRAN.

    • Curious George | April 13, 2014 at 1:15 pm |

      Jim D – “place the sensor altitude lower (17-20 km) instead of 70 km”. I did know we had sensors there. Definitely not at 70 km. If you mean stuff derived from satellite measurements, I may trust it when the CERES 5 W/m2 imbalance is explained satisfactorily. Until then MODTRAN remains an ingenious piece of software without an experimental verification. BTW, how high is the TOA today? Tonight?

    • Pekka Pirilä | April 13, 2014 at 1:46 pm |

      CG,
      “Placing the sensor” refers to a choice done on the web interface of MODTRAN, not to real measurements.

      I explain a little more.

      When CO2 is added to the atmosphere upper stratosphere starts to emit more. It’s temperature is determined by the balance of absorption of solar radiation (mainly UV) and emission of IR. In real stratosphere that leads to a cooling that restores the radiative balance. Thus the emission of IR is the same after the cooling as it was before the addition of CO2.

      Adding CO2 in the MODTRAN calculation does not lead to cooling. Thus the only change is the addition on the emission from CO2. The stratosphere radiates more than it absorbs and is not in radiative balance. This effect distorts the results, when the energy flux is calculated at 70 km.

      The definition of radiative forcing as defined by IPCC is based on the change in the energy flux at tropopause when CO2 is doubled and stratosphere has cooled to reach the energy balance again, but troposphere has not yet warmed. At that time the radiative flux is actually the same at all altitudes from tropopause up, because radiative flux is the only flux and the balance has been reached. The only reason to use the tropopause in the definition is that the calculations are easiest for that. At tropopause the influence of the stratosphere is also smallest. For that reason using MODTRAN looking down at the altitude of the tropopause gives nearly correct results even without adjustment in the stratospheric temperatures. 17 km is just the tropopause altitude for the tropical profile used in MODTRAN. It’s good enough also for other profiles although the tropopause height is lower for the other profiles.

    • Eunice | April 13, 2014 at 1:47 pm |

      It is a good reminder of the questions –

      How much does convection smooth out radiative imbalance within the troposphere?

      How much do eddies smooth out tropospheric warming and stratospheric cooling across the tropopause?

      How much does exchange effect energy imbalance within the stratosphere and across the stratopause?

    • Curious George | April 13, 2014 at 6:28 pm |

      Pekka – thank you for an explanation. I have to meet some friends soon, so I don’t have time to digest your answer. I’ll get to you tomorrow, I hope.

    • manacker | April 13, 2014 at 7:22 pm |

      Steven Mosher

      Great

      And a slide rule was used to design the P-38.

      But that doesn’t make the slide rule infallible from the GIGO syndrome, putz.

      Use your head.

      Max

    • Don Monfort | April 14, 2014 at 12:43 am |

      Max, please do some reading. It is distressing to see you make a fool of yourself:

      https://www.google.com/search?q=MODTRAN+Aerospace+design&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&channel=sb

    • Mike Flynn | April 14, 2014 at 1:10 am |

      Don Monfort,

      Thanks for the search. Setting aside religious fervour, here is an extract from a research paper :

      “2.2.3. ERROR ESTIMATES and VARIABILITY
      The exactness of these tabulated values vary with species and altitude. At their best, they offer approximately 10-30% relative consistency for U.S. Standard Atmosphere conditions throughout the troposphere and stratosphere; exceptions include PH3 which is unmeasured in the earth’s atmosphere. The mesospheric and thermospheric profiles are much less certain and, in fact, are only defined for temperature, pressure, and the following constituents: H2O, CO2, O3, CO, CH4, O2, NO, SO2, OH, and H2O2 . Mixing ratios for the remaining species have been extrapolated from measurements (usually near the stratopause) using a logarithmically decreasing mixing ratio scale height; the onset of such profile extrapolations is marked by asterisks (*) in the tables and figures. This, of course, leads to unsupported estimates of abundance in the upper atmosphere. [The adopted logarithmic extrapolation scheme is a compromise between using either: (a) constant or, (b) constantly decreasing mixing ratios. The former introduces erroneous relative changes between extrapolated species. The latter, while obviously connoting the lack of data, introduces an abrupt discontinuity into the profiles.] The mixing ratios of all extrapolated species are, in any case, very small.
      2.2.4. LIMITATIONS
      Representative profiles do not necessarily resemble in situ environments, leading to constraints on their general applicability. . . . ”

      You may wish to promote a model which bears at best 10 to 30% relative consistency. To a climatologist this would probably be asserted to be 99.9 % accuracy, for all I know.

      I didn’t want to keep going with the limitations. You can read the rest on the site if you want. Suffice it to say, it’s a model, which may or may not represent reality. I wouldn’t want to bet my life on the outputs of this model – would you?

      Live well and prosper,

      Mike Flynn.

    • Don Monfort | April 14, 2014 at 2:16 am |

      I am not promoting anything, flynnie. I know it’s useful. That’s way more than can be said for your uninformed opinions on the subject.

    • Mike Flynn | April 14, 2014 at 2:56 am |

      Don Monfort,

      Mosher tells me to read primary documents. I do. You don’t like the research.

      My opinion? Based on peer reviewed scientific research, I wouldn’t willingly wager my life on a piece of software with severe documented limitations. You obviously would. Good for you!

      If you say the globe is warming, it must be true. As a matter of curiosity, what action are you preparing to take? None? I thought so.

      Live well and prosper,

      Mike Flynn.

    • Jim Cripwell | April 14, 2014 at 9:01 am |

      Mike, you write “My opinion? Based on peer reviewed scientific research, I wouldn’t willingly wager my life on a piece of software with severe documented limitations. You obviously would. Good for you!”

      I suspect that this goes to the heart of the problem. The warmists are calculating something using MODTRAN, but what are they really calculating? Since we cannot actually MEASURE the change in radiative forcing, we cannot be sure what the numerical value is. It could be 3.7 Wm-2 or it could be something else.

      Once again, the warmists are sort of pretending to use The Scientific Method, when, in fact, they are not.

    • Don Monfort | April 14, 2014 at 10:10 am |

      flynnie, flynnie

      I am not taking any action, because 3.7 watts doesn’t scare me. I might even like it.

      If you had any sense, you would accept that adding CO2 to the atmosphere very likely will result in warming. The estimate from the use of the engineering tool not invented by nasty climate scientists, MODTRAN, is as good as we got at the moment. Or do you have a better tool on your little drawing board? If so, you could make a significant amount of money.

    • manacker | April 14, 2014 at 6:36 pm |

      Don Montford

      Thanks for tip, but I’ve read all that stuff.

      The 3.71 W/m^2 could be correct.

      Or it could be wrong.

      MODTRAN does not provide empirical evidence either way.

      And 3.71 W/m^2 translates to a theoretical warming of around 1C for 2xCO2.

      No big deal at all.

      But even more important are the purported strongly positive feedbacks from water vapor and clouds which would triple the postulated 2xCO2 forcing and warming if they were real.

      Spencer & Braswell have shown from CERES satellite observations over the tropics that net overall cloud feedback is likely to be strongly negative, rather than strongly positive, as predicted by the models cited by IPCC.

      Then there is the annoying possibility (based on Earthshine observations) that clouds are acting as a separate forcing by a yet undefined mechanism.

      Then we have Minschwaner & Dessler, who found that the water vapor response to warmer ocean temperatures in the tropics was less than one-fourth that predicted by the IPCC models, which assume a constant relative humidity; IOW the model-predicted WV feedback is grossly exaggerated compared to actual observations.

      Worst of all for the positive feedback hypothesis is the fact that the long-term NOAA radiosonde record shows that specific humidity (i.e. WV content in the atmosphere) decreased since 1948 as global average temperature increased.

      So it appears very likely that the net overall feedback from clouds plus WV is neutral to slightly positive, and we have a 2xCO2 ECS of 1.2 to 1.5C.

      Again, no big deal, because it means we will never exceed the 2C warming above today, where the net effect on humanity of warming turns from being positive to starting to turn negative (Tol study).

      The whole CAGW premise, as specifically outlined in detail by IPCC in its AR4 report (and the portions of AR5, which have been released), depends on strongly positive net overall cloud and WV feedbacks, and the physical evidence does not appear to support these.

      CAGW is a paper tiger, MODTRAN or no MODTRAN.

      Max

  13. DocMartyn | April 12, 2014 at 8:28 pm |

    “A federal court Wednesday ordered the University of North Carolina-Wilmington to promote and give $50,000 in back pay to a conservative professor in what is described as a landmark anti-discrimination case.”

    I wonder if more conservatives will come out of the closet?

    http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/apr/9/court-rules-bias-at-university-of-north-carolina-w/

  14. jim2 | April 12, 2014 at 9:27 pm |

    From the article:
    Oil and Gas
    Ohio regulators halt fracking site, drawing link to quakes
    Friday, 11 Apr 2014 | 12:45 PM ET
    The Associated Press
    …
    State geologists in Ohio have for the first time linked earthquakes in a geologic formation deep under the Appalachians to gas drilling, leading the state to issue new permit conditions in certain areas that are among the nation’s strictest.

    A state investigation of five small tremors in the Youngstown area, in the Appalachian foothills, last month has found the high-pressure injection of sand and water that accompanies hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, in the Utica Shale may have increased pressure on a small, unknown fault, said State Oil & Gas Chief Rick Simmers. He called the link “probable.”

    While earlier studies had linked earthquakes in the same region to deep-injection wells used for disposal of fracking wastewater, this marks the first time tremors have been tied directly to fracking, Simmers said. Five seismic events in March were all part of what was considered a single event and couldn’t be easily felt by people.
    …
    http://www.cnbc.com/id/101576489

  15. Pete Mack | April 12, 2014 at 10:04 pm |

    To do us all a favor, can you link to the “skeptic” sites that most untrustworthy? As you mention in the Scientific American article, most of what they say (90% or more) has already been disproven. Keeping track of that would be a lot easier if a credible source–to both sides of the issue–would make a list.

  16.   D C  | April 12, 2014 at 10:22 pm |

    The IPCC has a political agenda emphasised by Al Gore. It seems every country has failed in its duty of paying due diligence to proper analysis of the physics involved. Climatologists are not physicists. The issue relating to the effect of carbon dioxide is deeply entrenched in the physics of radiative transfer and thermodynamics. Would you go to a medical practice to have your teeth filled? Why then do you consider climatologists (who have very limited knowledge and usually mistaken understanding of physics) to be suitable peers of a physics-related matter?

    For example, one of the problems involves incorrect understanding of the process described in modern statements of the second law of thermodynamics which states that the entropy of an isolated system never decreases, because isolated systems always evolve toward thermodynamic equilibrium, a state with maximum entropy. The process described explains why gravity induces a thermal gradient in any planet’s atmosphere, crust and mantle, just as we see evidence thereof in a Ranque-Hilsch vortex tube which you can read about in the article talk pages on Wikipedia. This thermal gradient would produce surface temperatures about 10 degrees hotter on Earth than we observe, but fortunately water molecules in the atmosphere reduce the magnitude of the gradient so that the supported temperature at the surface boundary is cooler. Studies show this to be the case. If the IPCC were correct about their “greenhouse effect” of water, then moist rainforests would be expected to be about 20 to 30 degrees hotter than dry regions at similar altitudes and latitudes. That is not the case, and so the IPCC greenhouse effect is fiction.

    Another major problem is that the IPCC authors assume that back radiation can help the Sun warm the oceans. But it is well known that back radiation from a cooler atmosphere does not penetrate water, whereas the solar radiation reaches down into the ocean thermoclines. But, the very fact that solar radiation does penetrate several metres into the oceans, means that over 99% of it is transmitted right through the thin surface layer which could be considered perhaps just 1 centimetre in depth. But a black or grey body is not transparent, and, in any event, there is no adjustment in the models and NASA / Trenberth / IPCC energy budget diagrams that reduces the intensity of solar radiation by 99% or more for the 70% of Earth’s surface that is ocean. So they use Stefan-Boltzmann calculations quite incorrectly to “prove” that their combination of back radiation and solar radiation supposedly raises the surface temperature by 33 degrees from an isothermal state. Even that assumption of an isothermal state is wrong because it is not the state of thermodynamic equilibrium with no unbalanced energy potentials. It would have unbalanced energy in that it would have more gravitational potential energy per molecule without any compensating reduction in mean kinetic energy per molecule – that is, without a reduction in temperature at the top.

    Then the IPCC uses 1980’s assertive statements from books which claim there is a runaway greenhouse effect on Venus. Well, the temperature of any location on the equator of Venus falls by 5 degrees at night (so Venus could have cooled right down by now) but it then rises by 5 degrees in the four-month-long Venus day. How does the required energy get into the surface? The radiation from the Sun has been measured and is less than 20W/m^2, whereas about 16,000 W/m^2 would be required to cause the temperature to rise. No radiation from the colder atmosphere can do so.

    Then you may wish to turn your attention to the nominal troposphere of Uranus where it is hotter than Earth’s surface at the base thereof, even though there’s no surface or solar radiation.

    There is no science reviewed by suitable peers which can be correct if it concludes that back radiation from carbon dioxide (one molecule in 2,500 other molecules) is causing Earth’s surface to be warmer than it otherwise would have been.

    In the field of climatology, “science” is blatantly corrupt, as revealed in Climategate emails. There has been no warming since 1998 and this period of slight net cooling will be about 30 years in duration. There is no reason to assume that the long term 1,000 year cycle of warming and cooling by about two degrees will not continue, being regulated by planetary orbits, and it is due to start 500 years of cooling within the next century or so.

    According to Dutch Professor Richard Tol (who has resigned from the Climate Panel of the UN) “The Panel is directed from within the environment lobby and not from within the science.”

    • manacker | April 13, 2014 at 3:31 am |

      D C

      +100

      (Tol is right)

    • beththeserf | April 13, 2014 at 3:38 am |

      ‘The Panel is directed from within the environment lobby and not from within the science.’
      Richard Tol.
      Heh, DC, I’ll raise Max’s +100 by 97%

    • Pete Mack | April 13, 2014 at 2:04 pm |

      The radiation of the sun at 1AU (earth langrange point) is 1362 W/m^2 (within 1 or two watts.) The radiation of the sun at .72 AU (venus orbit) is 2600 W/m^2. This is far more than it would take to get a temperature rise of 5C in 4months. (There are other effects at work.)

      I don’t know where you are getting 20 watts, but it is not something to base a theory on.

    • George Turner | April 13, 2014 at 2:19 pm |

      Pete, only 20 W/m^2 of the 2600 W/m^2 at the top of the atmosphere actually reaches the surface of Venus. The greenhouse effect requires light to be absorbed by the surface so it can be re-radiated, but Venus at high-noon is still pretty dark, about 5,000 lux compared to an Earth equatorial noon of 130,000 lux.

  17. jim2 | April 12, 2014 at 10:39 pm |

    China is getting more and more into fracking. This is a solution to the economic doldrums in Europe as well as other places around the world. Fracking is going to do nothing but get bigger and bigger. It is here to stay.
    From the article:
    China takes on big risks in push for shale gas
    Keith Bradsher
    16 Hours Ago
    The New York Times
    …
    Pump jacks and wells are seen in an oil field on the Monterey Shale formation where gas and oil extraction using hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, is on the verge of a boom, March 23, 2014 near McKittrick, California.
    Getty Images
    Pump jacks and wells are seen in an oil field on the Monterey Shale formation where gas and oil extraction using hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, is on the verge of a boom, March 23, 2014 near McKittrick, California.

    Residents of this isolated mountain valley of terraced cornfields in Jiaoshizhen, China were just going to sleep last April when they were jolted by an enormous roar, followed by a tower of flames. A shock wave rolled across the valley, rattling windows in farmhouses and village shops, and a mysterious, pungent gas swiftly pervaded homes.

    ”It was so scary — everyone who had a car fled the village and the rest of us without cars just stayed and waited to die,” said Zhang Mengsu, a hardware store owner.

    All too quickly, residents realized the source of the midnight fireball: a shale gas drilling rig in their tiny rural hamlet.

    This verdant valley represents the latest frontier in the worldwide hunt for shale gas retrievable by the technology of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. It is a drilling boom that has upended the energy industry and spurred billions of dollars of investment.
    …
    http://www.cnbc.com/id/101577961

    • manacker | April 13, 2014 at 3:57 am |

      jim 2

      All these guys all over the world who are fracking like crazy should check with Webby.

      He knows for sure that they are all fools, because the wells will play out long before they’ve recovered their investment.

      Only Webby knows…

      Max

    • WebHubTelescope | April 13, 2014 at 5:21 am |

      Fracking is like the drunks rummaging about the bottoms of dumpsters looking for Jim2 Beam bottles.

  18. jim2 | April 12, 2014 at 11:59 pm |

    @
    Steven Mosher | April 12, 2014 at 11:43 pm |

    Mike flynn.

    You do not want to question modtran.
    Do not go there

    Doubling co2 gives us 3.7 more watts.

    Get that one point and you will see there is only
    One question worth answering
    *******
    And that question is:
    1) Will H2O feedbacks make the CO2 warming catestrophic.
    2) Will warming be net negative for humanity.

    And, I can question anything I choose.

    • Steven Mosher | April 13, 2014 at 3:36 am |

      And, I can question anything I choose.”

      actually you can’t.

      Can you choose to question your ability to choose to question anything you want?

      And you dont want to question Modtran. you just dont. unless you want to look like more of an dummy

    • Mike Flynn | April 13, 2014 at 4:50 am |

      jim2,

      Back in your box, laddie. You must only ask questions approved by Mosher!

      How many times does Mosher have to repeat himself before you understand? Are you thick?

      On the other hand . . .

      Live well and prosper,

      Mike Flynn.

    • jim2 | April 13, 2014 at 9:42 am |

      @Steven Mosher | April 13, 2014 at 3:36 am |

      And, I can question anything I choose.”

      actually you can’t.

      Can you choose to question your ability to choose to question anything you want?

      And you dont want to question Modtran. you just dont. unless you want to look like more of an dummy
      *****
      I’ve almost never encountered such BS in my life. If MODTRAN is that great and mighty, then we can stop funding climate models right now, as you have deemed MODTRAN the end-all and be-all of climate models. You are so full of it!! And, everyone has figured it out except you. What a crock!

    • Steven Mosher | April 13, 2014 at 2:34 pm |

      “I’ve almost never encountered such BS in my life. If MODTRAN is that great and mighty, then we can stop funding climate models right now, as you have deemed MODTRAN the end-all and be-all of climate models. You are so full of it!! And, everyone has figured it out except you. What a crock!”

      Dope.

      1. MODTRAN is not a climate model.
      2. MODTRAN is a moderate resolution radiative transfer engineering tool.
      3. There are higher fidelity versions called line by line models.
      4. MODTRAN and LBL models answer one TINY part of the physics question.

      Question:

      A) if your take a standard atmosphere and increase the C02 what is
      the instantaneous change in forcing?

      In engineering an IR system we will want to know how changing atmosphere will effect the system. What happens to IR transmission in the tropics? what happens if there is more water in the air? less water? more c02? less C02.
      For engineering a system we are only interested in the instaneous forcing.

      Let me give you an example.

      You have FLIR on a airplane. You want to look down at the earth and see a
      Hot tank. Why? well you need to blow it up. How sensitive does your sensor have to be?

      Well that depends. The IR source on the ground has to be detected at say 30K feet. That IR has to travel through the atmosphere. Say the target is 100 watts per steradian. How many of those watts reach your sensor??

      To calculate this we use MODTRAN or LBL models ( MODTRAN is faster and less accurate ) MODTRAN tells us how the atmosphere interfers with the transmission of IR. We test many different atmospheres. arctic, tropical, standard, desert etc. We even test what happens if C02 increases.

      So MODTRAN is an engineering tool. It just so happens that the physics underneath this tool can tell you that doubling c02 will increase forcing by 3.7 watts. There is no point in questioning physically tested working engineering.
      In fact, you cant question it. You may put a question down on paper, but you cant question it.

      MODTRAN isnt a climate model but the physics used form the guts of the radiative physics in a climate model. It is just one piece of the puzzle

      If you want to see how engineers use MODTRAN I can give you loads of examples.

      Note: men who build things learn what to question. Keyboard Jockeys, like you, think they can question stuff by merely using this symbol “?”
      you can’t.

      here is one example. there are more
      https://www.ida.org/upload/pubssed/ida-document-d-4642.pdf

    • jim2 | April 13, 2014 at 2:43 pm |

      @ Steven Mosher | April 13, 2014 at 2:34 pm |
      …
      1. MODTRAN is not a climate model.
      *******
      Exactly my point, idjit.

    • Jim Cripwell | April 13, 2014 at 2:54 pm |

      jim2, you write “And that question is:”

      You have omitted the first question to ask. How much do global temperatures, or OHC, rise as a result of a change in radiative forcing?

      The answer is, no-one knows. The warmists base their estimates on the assumption that the lapse rate does not change. If the lapse rate changes, no-one has any idea lf how much surface temperatures change as a result of a change of radiative forcing.

    • Mike Flynn | April 13, 2014 at 6:53 pm |

      Steven Mosher,

      If a computer program tells you that if the Earth intrercepts energy at the rate of x watts per unit of area, and interposing an atmosphere of any sort or composition will result in more than x xatts per unit area impinging in the surface, then you are correct. There is no question. Your computer program is giving you an incorrect answer, or the ideas relating to the conservation of energy are wrong.

      This is why no one has yet managed an experiment to demonstrate such an effect. This might even explain why the Earth has cooled over the last four and a half billion years, and will lead you to a reasonable explanation of why the ground cools at night.

      You may continue to believe in the multiplicative energy effects of CO2, or that natural variation causes the energy content of the Earth, out to the near vacuum of outer space, to increase and decrease without breaking laws relating to the conservation of energy, but I don’t.

      All I appear to have on my side is observed fact, science, and a little logic combined with Occam’s razor.

      On your side, your have a broken computer program, and religious fervour.

      I’ll stick with my side. Good luck with sticking to yours.

      Live well and prosper,

      Mike Flynn.

    • Jim D | April 13, 2014 at 7:05 pm |

      Mike Flynn, with the energy the earth receives from the sun, its surface temperature should average -18 C. The fact that it is warmer than this by 33 K is all due to the radiative properties of the atmosphere that insulate the surface. This much is known. Tools like MODTRAN help you to see how the outward radiation at the top is less than at the surface, and how this difference increases with added GHGs for a variety of soundings.

    • Robert I Ellison | April 13, 2014 at 7:12 pm |

      Photons bounce around between the atmosphere and surface. There are only a couple of places where a conditional equilibrium is expected. TOA and at the surface.

      The scattering of IR photons can be directly observed using IR detection through a space based aperture.

      https://www.atmos.washington.edu/~dennis/321/Harries_Spectrum_2001.pdf

    • Mike Flynn | April 13, 2014 at 8:13 pm |

      Jim D,

      You stick with your model, and I’ll stick with my observations. You write :

      “Mike Flynn, with the energy the earth receives from the sun, its surface temperature should average -18 C. The fact that it is warmer than this by 33 K is all due to the radiative properties of the atmosphere that insulate the surface. This much is known. Tools like MODTRAN help you to see how the outward radiation at the top is less than at the surface, and how this difference increases with added GHGs for a variety of soundings.”

      The fact is that the surface of the Earth is mostly not -18C. Given that more than 99% of the interior ranges from glowing red to incandescent white heat, I find this unsurprising. What temperature does Modtran tell it should have been when it was, say, 20C hotter than now?

      If Modtran or anything similarly misused supports some fanciful notion that the Earth should be 33C colder, then I suggest you might look askance at that particular piece of software as a tool.

      Regardless of any of that, as I understand it, the globe has stubbornly refused to warm over the last 17 years, in spite of both Modtran and Mosher’s insistence. Maybe using Modtran on more computers will cause the temperature to start rising due to increased heat generation. Try it and see.

      Live well and prosper,

      Mike Flynn.

    • Jim D | April 13, 2014 at 8:28 pm |

      Mike Flynn, unfortunately for your idea, the earth’s surface temperature is controlled more by the sun (witness daytime, for example) than by conduction upward from the core, by many orders of magnitude. Put that one to bed, and start to get real.

    • gbaikie | April 13, 2014 at 8:32 pm |

      –Mike Flynn, with the energy the earth receives from the sun, its surface temperature should average -18 C. The fact that it is warmer than this by 33 K is all due to the radiative properties of the atmosphere that insulate the surface. This much is known. —

      This is accepted if one believe greenhouse effect is a correct theory.
      This theory called greenhouse effect has nothing to do with an actual greenhouse. As actual greenhouse doesn’t warm because of radiant effect of greenhouse gases.
      And therefore existence of greenhouses and well known effects proves there is mechanism other than greenhouse gases which could warm the earth, thereby disproving the assertion that only greenhouse gases could warm Earth to higher then average temperature of -18 C.

      So a concrete slab, with greenhouse on it, and filled with just oxygen and nitrogen will have higher average temperature,

      Another way to warm something so it has higher average temperature is by
      using a solar pond. Yes it involves water, but mechanism which causes a solar pond to be able, say 30 C warmer, has nothing to do with water vapor.

      In additional they is the Urban Heat Island effect which can cause average temperature to be about 10 C warmer- and again not related to greenhouse gases. You don’t actual need a city to get an Urban Heat Island effect, but rather the effect is merely easily apparent in regard to urban areas. And on global scale there is marked difference in average temperature of ocean and land areas.And large region of land which are warmer or cooler and it has nothing to do with radiant effects of greenhouse gases.

      We also know the greenhouse gas do not cause glacial and interglacial periods. A idea regarding CO2 was it sole causal factor glacial and interglacial periods. We also know that in last 2 to 3 million years has been
      the coolest period in last 100 million years, and this ice box climate is not due to greenhouse gases.

    • Jim D | April 13, 2014 at 8:45 pm |

      gbaikie, you had several things wrong there. No one ascribed the Ice Age cycles to GHGs. At best, they are one amplifying factor of the Milankovitch orbital forcing cycles, along with ice albedo. Second, it is not coincidental that the Ice Ages began at the end of a long decline from high GHG contents 50 million years ago, as the earth naturally cooled too. Warm paleo periods also follow massive volcanic episodes that increase the CO2 level. The CO2-temperature connections are all over the paleo record.

    • Mike Flynn | April 13, 2014 at 8:54 pm |

      Ah. I wonder if a word like oxym*ron throws a comment into moderation, because it contains the word m*ron.

      Maybe Professor Curry could list words that are considered offensive. I know to avoid words such as spec*alised, and a few others, but possibly others might appreciate some guidance.

      Live well and prosper,

      Mike Flynn.

    • Mike Flynn | April 13, 2014 at 9:09 pm |

      Jim D,

      You wrote:

      “Mike Flynn, unfortunately for your idea, the earth’s surface temperature is controlled more by the sun (witness daytime, for example) than by conduction upward from the core, by many orders of magnitude. Put that one to bed, and start to get real.”

      May I point out I merely observe and draw conclusions.

      Once again the absolutely correct but totally misleading comment that the surface temperature is controlled by the Sun. A bit like saying the interior of a hot potato has no effect on the exterior skin, if you expose it to sunlight. Good luck with that assumption!

      Unfortunately, the usual Warmist redefinition of the word controlled surfaces. The measurable influence of the Sun, over any interval, does not extend far into the crust. Maybe 3 to 7 meters, depending on the substrate. The temperatures then rise as one descends towards the centre of the Earth. A bit like saying the interior of a hot potato has no effect on the exterior skin, if you expose it to sunlight. Good luck with that assumption!

      Anyway. My original unanswered query still stands.

      “What temperature does Modtran tell it should have been when it was, say, 20C hotter than now?”

      If you prefer, just pick a figure between current observed temperatures and a temperature above that of the highest temperature at which rock can remain solid, and take it from there.

      A simple question, so a simple numerical answer will suffice – factually supportable by observation if possible.

      Live well and prosper,

      Mike Flynn.

    • Jim D | April 13, 2014 at 10:02 pm |

      Mike Flynn, OK, so now you finally realized we have been talking about surface temperatures where most of us live, not the earth’s mantle. Your question about 20 C made no sense, the way it was phrased. Try again.

    • Mike Flynn | April 13, 2014 at 10:17 pm |

      Jim D,

      I assumed you realised I was talking about the surface crust when I may have mentioned the part which we live on. Maybe not.

      Here’s the question again :

      “What temperature does Modtran tell it should have been when it was, say, 20C hotter than now?”

      In case you don’t understand the “it” I mention is the surface. No tricky Warmist definitions. If you want to define the “it” to be somewhere else, I have no objection, as long as it is within the part of the crust that is measurably affected by the Sun.

      If you need any further clarification, please ask. If not, a simple answer would be appreciated.

      Live well and prosper,

      Mike Flynn.

    • Jim D | April 13, 2014 at 10:22 pm |

      MODTRAN only tells you how much radiation it would emit. It doesn’t predict temperatures because it is one-dimensional. The best you can do with it is iterate to find what surface temperature perturbation restores the TOA radiation to what it was before you added CO2, which is a way to see the feedback effect.

    • gbaikie | April 14, 2014 at 12:13 am |

      –gbaikie, you had several things wrong there. No one ascribed the Ice Age cycles to GHGs. At best, they are one amplifying factor of the Milankovitch orbital forcing cycles, along with ice albedo. Second, it is not coincidental that the Ice Ages began at the end of a long decline from high GHG contents 50 million years ago, as the earth naturally cooled too. —

      I tend to go along with this explanation:

      “Carbon Cycling, Plate Tectonics and Organic Matter Burial
      Most scientists agree that carbon dioxide has decreased over the last 200 million years because of speeding up of the passage of carbon atoms from their volcanic sources into sediments. As we learned in the last section, to lower the CO2 content one needs fresh rocks to provide calcium, and it also helps to bury organic matter.

      Fresh rocks are provided through plate collisions and mountain building, that is, uplift of land and a drop in sea level. On the whole, there has been a trend to make more mountains during the last 100 million years, and especially since the last 40 million years. ”
      http://earthguide.ucsd.edu/virtualmuseum/climatechange2/07_1.shtml

      I think it also has to do with current cold ocean and maybe has to lower levels of biologic activity which accompanies cooler temperatures, And also think cooler global temperature has less weathering. But I think above explanation is dominate factor.
      And accept evidence that seems to indicate CO2 does rises when global temperature rises.

      And Watts Up With That, article: “Dr. Vincent Gray on historical carbon dioxide levels”:
      http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/06/04/dr-vincent-gray-on-historical-carbon-dioxide-levels/
      With graph:
      http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/co2_temperature_historical.png
      Appears to gives the general trend of temps and CO2 over time.

      –Warm paleo periods also follow massive volcanic episodes that increase the CO2 level. The CO2-temperature connections are all over the paleo record.–
      There appears to be some correlation.
      And I think it’s possible that doubling of CO2 may rise global temperatures by 1 C.
      My main problem is with idea that only greenhouse gases cause global warming, and also don’t accept assertion that without greenhouse gases
      the Earth would be -18 C.

      Plus I don’t think causing increasing or decreasing CO2 levels is a good way to change global temperatures.
      And I think there is very cheap ways of decreasing global temperatures, but I also do not support the idea that we need lower global temperatures.
      Or that it’s really a responsibility government, though if people were to give the government such authority, then suppose it would a responsibility of the government [it seems like very poor idea, particularly considering the other responsibilities given to government which are not being addressed effectively.

    • Jim D | April 14, 2014 at 12:27 am |

      gbaikie, the Eocene had CO2 levels above 1000 ppm, no glaciers, forests and reptiles in Arctic areas, sea levels over 100 meters higher. it was possibly 10 C warmer than now. The main difference was the CO2 level which decreased slowly due to weathering and mountain building to levels more like today, while Antarctica glaciated as it dropped to about 600 ppm then Greenland at about 400 ppm. We are undoing much of this CO2 trend within the next century. It’s a coherent picture. High CO2 – iceless hothouse with high sea-levels. Low CO2 – glaciation cycles, moderate ice-capped interludes, low sea-levels.

    • gbaikie | April 14, 2014 at 1:44 am |

      gbaikie, the Eocene had CO2 levels above 1000 ppm, no glaciers, forests and reptiles in Arctic areas, sea levels over 100 meters higher. it was possibly 10 C warmer than now. The main difference was the CO2 level which decreased slowly due to weathering and mountain building to levels more like today, while Antarctica glaciated as it dropped to about 600 ppm then Greenland at about 400 ppm.

      I don’t think main difference was related to CO2. Rather the huge difference was in ocean temperature:
      “Without ice cover at the poles, sea levels were nearly 100 meters higher than today. The deep ocean, which today is near freezing, warmed to over 12°C. ”
      http://www.learner.org/courses/envsci/unit/text.php?unit=12&secNum=4

      So for example what was does arctic look like if the arctic ocean’s deep water is about 10 C?
      Is there a way our current ocean could warm by 1 C within one century?
      No, not possible unless big impactor or very large volcanic activity- and not going to have water as warm within a thousand years. Even Hansen’s fantasy Earth being like Venus does not do this within centuries. There will probably be humans living in a different star system before it’s possible to warm halfway to such temperature.

      –We are undoing much of this CO2 trend within the next century. It’s a coherent picture. High CO2 – iceless hothouse with high sea-levels. Low CO2 – glaciation cycles, moderate ice-capped interludes, low sea-levels.–

      Increase CO2 levels will provide enough food production to world which might reach 10 billion within 86 years. And if there was enough crop production without the added CO2 enrichment, each acre of land produces more crops and therefore less land is needed for growing crops.

      It seems everyone can agree that global temperature is unlikely to rise by 1 C within 50 years, nor are we going to see much rise of sea level, nor melting of glaciers within next 50 years. Also most people should have reached the conclusion that science is not settled and in coming decades we should able to better climate projections, then we have able to do currently.
      Add to the above that we have little control over China policy, and if we had more influence, we would greater interests than China’s massive CO2 emission to be concerned about.

  19. Paul Vaughan | April 13, 2014 at 1:08 am |

    new (2014-04-10) animation of Stadium Wave in SLP (sea level pressure):
    http://s27.postimg.org/46is65usx/MD_Wave_SLP.gif
    phase correlation = 0.975 (background)

    • R. Gates | April 13, 2014 at 1:19 am |

      Oh, the annual cycle in SLP is your idea of a stadium wave? Cool animation but of course nothing about longer-term climate dynamics in these specific animations.

    • Paul Vaughan | April 13, 2014 at 6:45 am |

      That’s not an animation of the annual cycle.

    • Paul Vaughan | April 13, 2014 at 7:58 am |

      R. Gates:

      I advise you to promptly retract the misinformation you’ve advertised (April 13, 2014 at 1:19 am).

      Sincerely

    • jim2 | April 13, 2014 at 9:50 am |

      Paul, what are the units for the legends?

    • WebHubTelescope | April 13, 2014 at 12:14 pm |

      Units?

      Advanced cryptics don’t need units, they get in the way in achieving total obscurity.

    • R. Gates | April 13, 2014 at 2:57 pm |

      “I advise you to promptly retract the misinformation you’ve advertised (April 13, 2014 at 1:19 am).”
      ______
      Glad to, but usually when one asks for a retraction, one gives a reason for it with more specific details. Your very nice animation of averaged SLP over a long-period (detrended, of course) seems to show the annual cycle as it progresses month by month. Very nice animation, and very illustrative, but not much here about a longer-term “stadium wave” behavior, like on decadal or multi-decadal timeframes. If you want a retraction, which again, I am always more than happy to give., you’ll need further explanation for why I should do so, and really, you should have probably provided further explanation along with your nice animations at the start, as is customary for scientific illustrations..

    • climatereason | April 13, 2014 at 3:08 pm |

      Rgates

      Just the person. The IPCC report today says we need to dramatically increase solar power.

      Lets assume you are right about volcano emissions masking the sun/causing a persistent temperature drop during the LIA (obviously purely for the sake of this discussion) what impact would it have on light/solar levels as regards to solar power installations?

      Solar panels here in the UK are proliferating purely because of subsidies as our latitude and general cloudiness makes us unlikely solar powerhouses, especially in the winter when light levels are low and days short.

      Should the LIA type conditions return due to the persistent volcanic emissions levels you believe happened, would that have any measurable effect on the output of solar installations in a country such as ours?

      tonyb

    • jim2 | April 13, 2014 at 4:27 pm |

      WHT – I have to agree that much of Paul’s work has been too lacking in explanation. He might have discovered the Holy Grail of Climate – but no one else would realize it.

    • R. Gates | April 13, 2014 at 4:50 pm |

      “Should the LIA type conditions return due to the persistent volcanic emissions levels you believe happened, would that have any measurable effect on the output of solar installations in a country such as ours?”
      ——-
      The drop in solar I out to the panels would be too small to make a significant difference. One must remember that when SW volcano goes off, the input is dimmed across the entire surface area of the planet. Even all the solar installations in the world would not add up to a tiny fraction of that surface area.

    • vukcevic | April 13, 2014 at 5:01 pm |

      Hi Gates,
      Here is another version of a ‘stadium’ wave you may not have come across, not decadal but a millennial (about ¼ degree/annum), I constructed some years ago, the gear has moved one cog forward since. It is due to diff rotation within Earth’s core.
      http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/MSW.htm

    • Paul Vaughan | April 14, 2014 at 7:59 am |

      repeating the link to the background info:
      http://judithcurry.com/2014/03/29/week-in-review-18/#comment-509657

      quoting from there info crucial to sensible interpretation:

      “animation phase-step increment = (1/16)*wave”

      Wyatt & Curry report:
      stadium wavelength ~= 64 years

      Surely everyone can do the math:
      64 years / 16 = 4 years

      –

      R. Gates:

      Note well:
      1. 64 years ≠ 1 year
      2. 4 years ≠ 1 month
      3. KNMI’s “monthly” indicates record resolution (not animation timestep)
      4. 16 ≠ number of months in 1 year
      5. Stadium (~64 year) SLP Wave =
      http://s27.postimg.org/46is65usx/MD_Wave_SLP.gif
      ≠
      Annual SLP Cycle = http://i54.tinypic.com/swg11c.png (alert: animation hangs on January in some browsers – e.g. Chrome — but cycles properly in others – e.g. Firefox)

      Moving forward, let’s have no contact.

  20. Mike Flynn | April 13, 2014 at 3:47 am |

    Don’t know where to go?
    Don’t know what to think?
    Don’t know what questions to ask?

    Don’t worry! Help is at hand!

    Mosh will tell you where to go!
    Mosh will tell you what to think!
    Mosh will tell you what questions to ask!

    All hail the Mighty Mosh!

    Live well and prosper,

    Mike Flynn.

    • Steven Mosher | April 13, 2014 at 5:24 pm |

      Mike flynn.
      Where to go? Start with primary literature. Then go to the data. Then go to the methods.
      What to think? Think…I need to learn the science I seek to question.
      What questions to ask? Understand that all questions are not created equal. Ask questions that show youve studied 1 and 2.

      It is the same with any discourse. There are stupid questions..avoid asking them. Unless you want to pay tuition. Then there are no stupid questions just paying customers

  21. Mike Flynn | April 13, 2014 at 4:11 am |

    Steven Mosher,

    Is this the grand engineering project you worked on?

    “But cost is not the reason the F-22 has been in the news lately. The Raptor is being talked about these days because its pilots are refusing to fly it.”

    Maybe you worked on the bits that don’t result in pilot deaths.

    Live well and prosper,

    Mike Flynn.

    • Don Monfort | April 14, 2014 at 12:58 am |

      That’s pretty low, flynnie. The problem with the F 22 had nothing to do with the planes design. It was a faulty part in the pilots life support system. The F 22 is a beauty. Can you say air supremacy? Do you have a clue about what that means?

    • Mike Flynn | April 14, 2014 at 1:33 am |

      Don Monfort,

      “After spending seven months in costly research, the Air Force scientific board investigating the F-22 life support system failure has turned in their conclusions. The findings: they have no idea about what’s going on. The USAF’s press release reads like a joke to American taxpayers.”

      I don’t know whether that’s true or not. I believe that the F22 has never flown a combat mission, and was unable to outperform the Typhoon in a dogfight. One of the reasons given was that the sneaky German pilots were outfitted with helmet mounted sights. The cheek of the fellows!

      Apparently from Janes Defense Weekly :

      “Col Pfeiffer went into a little more detail. “In the dogfight the Eurofighter is at least as capable as the F-22, with some advantages in some aspects,” he said. “This is without the helmet. The Raptor’s unique capabilities are overwhelming, but as soon as you get to the merge, which is [admittedly] only a very small spectrum of air combat, the Typhoon doesn’t necessarily have to fear the F-22 in all aspects. We gain energy better than the F-22 when we are slow, for example.”

      No, I don’t have a clue what air supremacy means, unless you mean that making sure enemy pilots aren’t allowed to use the equipment they want ensures air supremacy. You might like to mention the wars that the US won in the last 50 years by imposing air supremacy. Apparently the F22 is superior where the enemy is beyond visual range and can’t be seen. It seems the Typhoon can detect the F22 from 50kms, so maybe all the Modtran based engineering could have been a little more advanced.

      So – low ? I don’t know. You push me, I may push back. Facts are facts.

      Live well and prosper,

      Mike Flynn.

    • Don Monfort | April 14, 2014 at 2:04 am |

      Don’t be silly, flynnie. Those exercises were among aircraft within visual range. Try using your head. How likely is it that the Eurofighter would survive to get into visual range of an F 22? And there are those who disagree that the Euros came out on top in the games:

      http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/the-dewline/2012/08/f-22-vs-eurofighter-bfm-in-ala/

      The Ohio class Trident missile subs have never been used in combat. Do ya think they won’t do the job? They poo poohed the Abrahms, before it was used in combat. The F 22 will sweep the skies if it ever goes up against anything in service or on the drawing boards today.

      Mosher knows the defense aerospace industry and I know the capabilities and uses of air assets. You know squat. You should be quiet now.

    • Mike Flynn | April 14, 2014 at 2:47 am |

      Don Monfort,

      As you didn’t bother reading what I wrote, I will obviously have to agree with you.

      Your future facts trump past facts and observations.

      If the US ever decides to fight in Vietnam, Somalia, Iraq, Afghanistan or Europe it will obviously win.

      If the F22 is ever used in combat, it will obviously sweep all before it, as the US armed forces always do. I surrender!

      Live well and prosper,

      Mike Flynn.

    • Don Monfort | April 14, 2014 at 1:28 pm |

      Unfortunately flynnie, the U.S. military is not in charge of war fighting. It’s the feckless politicians, who own the ambiguous results of various conflicts since WWII. I kept telling them to do it the old fashioned way, flynnie. Roll through the place and leave sufficient destruction to deter the survivors from causing us to come back again.

      You live well and prosper thanks to the existence and sacrifices of the U.S. military in keeping the totalitarian forces at bay. Peace through firepower, flynnie.

  22. A fan of *MORE* discourse | April 13, 2014 at 4:20 am |

    BREAKING NEWS
    Citizen Fury Beats Big Carbon
    Bought-and-Sold Politicians Overruled!
    CRIMINAL GRAND JURY INVESTIGATION UNDERWAY

    Duke Energy appeals judge’s order
    in coal-ash pollution case

    Last year the state Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENUR)sued Duke to enforce what it contends have been water pollution violations.

    Duke and DENR were headed toward a rapid settlement until the Feb. 2 Dan River spill brought the issue to public scrutiny and a federal criminal grand jury investigation.

    Heavens to Murgatroyd! Corrupt politicians colluding with Big Carbon? Public interests harmed? Environment grossly damaged? Corporate denial? Astroturfing-shills busy as h*ll? Who would have thought!!!

    \scriptstyle\rule[2.25ex]{0.01pt}{0.01pt}\,\boldsymbol{\overset{\scriptstyle\circ\wedge\circ}{\smile}\,\heartsuit\,{\displaystyle\text{\bfseries!!!}}\,\heartsuit\,\overset{\scriptstyle\circ\wedge\circ}{\smile}}\ \rule[-0.25ex]{0.01pt}{0.01pt}

    • climatereason | April 13, 2014 at 5:20 am |

      Fan

      You really haven’t quite grasped the notion of ‘breaking news’ have you?Your last link led to a March 14th Piece, this one -interesting as it is-leads to one dated April 3rd.

      tonyb

    • A fan of *MORE* discourse | April 13, 2014 at 5:45 am |

      How pleasant it would be to live in an eternal present, TonyB!

      But until the Dan River Spill is cleaned-up, and the corrupt politicians and/or corporate executives who caused it are indicted, and the unregulated/amoral/globalized economy that fostered it is fixed, the story’s *STILL* breaking, right?

      That’s plain scientific and civic common sense isn’t it TonyB?

      Whereas your quibbles aren’t, eh?

      \scriptstyle\rule[2.25ex]{0.01pt}{0.01pt}\,\boldsymbol{\overset{\scriptstyle\circ\wedge\circ}{\smile}\,\heartsuit\,{\displaystyle\text{\bfseries!!!}}\,\heartsuit\,\overset{\scriptstyle\circ\wedge\circ}{\smile}}\ \rule[-0.25ex]{0.01pt}{0.01pt}

    • climatereason | April 13, 2014 at 6:24 am |

      Good grief Fan, perhaps I should have put in a smiley but you generally spray enough around to corner the market.

      At least I read it ,said it was interesting and only gently chided you for calling it ‘breaking’. An over used phrase.

      I think you need a coffee. Or perhaps you’ve had too much.
      tonyb

  23. Mike Flynn | April 13, 2014 at 4:45 am |

    AFOMD,

    It sounds just like the USA or any number of other countries.

    Corruption. Money. Politicians. Private industry. Government. Pollution. Citizen fury.

    Who would be silly enough to believe that any of this is unusual? I’m not sure what your point is.

    Live well and prosper,

    Mike Flynn.

    • A fan of *MORE* discourse | April 13, 2014 at 5:33 am |

      FOMD posts Citizen Fury Beats Big Carbon

      Mike Flynn doesn’t get it “I’m not sure what your point is.”

      It’s simple, Mike Flynn. When citizens win, more citizens follow!

      That’s why, over the long run, climate-change denialism’s short-sighted selfishness, willful ignorance, juvenile ideology, hidebound cognition, and outright bought-and-sold corruption  ALL CANNOT STAND.

      It is a pleasure to augment your increasingly adult understanding of climate-change, Mike Flynn!

      \scriptstyle\rule[2.25ex]{0.01pt}{0.01pt}\,\boldsymbol{\overset{\scriptstyle\circ\wedge\circ}{\smile}\,\heartsuit\,{\displaystyle\text{\bfseries!!!}}\,\heartsuit\,\overset{\scriptstyle\circ\wedge\circ}{\smile}}\ \rule[-0.25ex]{0.01pt}{0.01pt}

    • Mike Flynn | April 13, 2014 at 6:04 am |

      AFOMD,

      We all know about furious citizens, and what they can achieve. Vietnam, Somalia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Egypt, all show what happens. What’s new?

      As to climate change, weather has been changing for four and a half billion years or so. Climate is a simple average of weather. Climate must change, obviously.

      I’m still not sure how you think citizen fury can change the weather. I’m not saying it’s impossible, I just can’t see a connection. One of us is a bit short on fact or logic. I’m fairly sure it’s not me, but I’m willing to be convinced.

      Live well and prosper,

      Mike Flynn.

    • A fan of *MORE* discourse | April 13, 2014 at 6:46 am |

      Mike Flynn asks “[How can] citizen fury change the weather?”

      It’s very simple Mike Flynn! Citizen fury can’t alter the weather, and yet it *CAN* (and *DOES*) protect the climate (and everything we care about that depends upon that climate)!

      In the short-term, citizen fury can sustain a healthy political climate, and in the long run, citizen fury can sustain a healthy planetary climate.

      It is a pleasure to augment your civic understanding, Mike Flynn!

      \scriptstyle\rule[2.25ex]{0.01pt}{0.01pt}\,\boldsymbol{\overset{\scriptstyle\circ\wedge\circ}{\smile}\,\heartsuit\,{\displaystyle\text{\bfseries!!!}}\,\heartsuit\,\overset{\scriptstyle\circ\wedge\circ}{\smile}}\ \rule[-0.25ex]{0.01pt}{0.01pt}

    • Mike Flynn | April 13, 2014 at 7:02 am |

      AFOMD,

      I’m still not sure what you mean. You say that citizen fury can’t change the weather. I believe that climate is what you get if you average weather over a period.

      If you change the climate, how do you go back and change the weather from which it is derived? I think you’re making stuff up!

      Do you understand the difference between weather and climate?

      It certainly doesn’t appear so, from what you write. In any case, maybe you should educate Nature. She seems to agree with me.

      Live well and prosper,

      Mike Flynn.

  24. Tom Fuller | April 13, 2014 at 4:52 am |

    Well, since Steve is a friend of mine, I’ll second Mike’s motion. All hail the Mighty Mosh.

    I’ll actually second his second thought-live well and prosper…

    Whatever happened to discussions of black soot, suddenly revealed to be the second largest factor in climate change and then completely forgotten?

    • Mike Flynn | April 13, 2014 at 5:18 am |

      Tom Fuller,

      Thanks for your support.

      As to black soot, it’s probably wrapped around the missing heat, to keep it warm. I wondered how they were going to do that. Thanks for pointing it out.

      Live well and prosper,

      Mike Flynn.

    • climatereason | April 13, 2014 at 5:23 am |

      Tom

      Are you still in China?

      I’m mystified as well by the lack of interest in Black soot.

      I first saw a reference to it in regards to the melting arctic in the 1830 period-the US was blamed. Having seen recent footage of arctic glaciers it is clear there is an awful lot of black soot around.

      Is it causing melt or is it immaterial? It would be good to see a follow up.

      tonyb

    • WebHubTelescope | April 13, 2014 at 5:28 am |

      If it is black soot it is further indication of how mankind can influence climate.

      Black soot is also ABCD but not ABC.

    • climatereason | April 13, 2014 at 5:37 am |

      Web

      There is a lot of low hanging fruit we haven’t yet picked. Black soot is the lowest and biggest.

      tonyb

    • Steven Mosher | April 13, 2014 at 5:26 pm |

      Black soot is not a politically popular thing to discuss.

    • Tonyb | April 13, 2014 at 5:34 pm |

      Mosh

      What are the politics behind the failure to discuss black soot?

      Tonyb

    • Paul S | April 14, 2014 at 7:06 am |

      Tom,

      The story about black carbon being the “second largest factor” came from the publication of Bond et al. 2013 (open access). Note that this wasn’t really new – oft-cited GISS modelling data published several years ago also found BC to be the second largest factor by forcing species .

      The important sentence in the abstract for your subsequent question concerning mitigation is ‘…the best estimate of net industrial-era climate forcing by all short-lived species from black-carbon-rich sources becomes slightly negative (−0.06 W m−2 with 90% uncertainty bounds of −1.45 to +1.29 W m−2).’ This was also the case with the GISS forcing: You can see in panel (b) that the net influence of “soot” type sources was zero.

      BC sources also tend to emit other aerosol and precursor species and the net climate forcing of all emissions from those sources is about as likely to be negative as positive. Overall, targeting BC emissions therefore doesn’t come close to guaranteeing any mitigation of warming globally. They find there are some individual source types – e.g. diesel engines – which could be targeted with a likely result of reduced warming but they are also major sources of CO2 anyway. On the basis of source-based global net climate forcing there isn’t then a good case for priority targeting of soot emissions. It’s also the case that these are very short-lived species in the atmosphere, which means mitigation isn’t time-sensitive, as it is with CO2. Health problems associated with these aerosols, both BC and co-emissions, provide a much better argument for reducing these pollutants.

      I would argue that focussing on global net forcing could be misleading regarding climate impact. The small net -0.06 number hides the huge opposing positive and negative influences, probably with differential spatial distributions due to surface albedo (absorbing aerosols more productive over land, reflective aerosols more productive over ocean) and complex influences on clouds and precipitation. There must surely be significant dynamic system alterations due to these large factors which affect/disrupt regional climate regimes, if not global.

    • Paul S | April 15, 2014 at 6:09 am |

      There must surely be significant dynamic system alterations due to these large factors which affect/disrupt regional climate regimes, if not global.

      e.g. http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2014/04/09/1403364111

  25. Tom Fuller | April 13, 2014 at 6:39 am |

    Actually, I’d like some feedback about anthropogenic causes of climate change.

    It isn’t just black soot–deforestation is a major cause of CO2 emissions, declining in the last decade from 24% to about 17% nowadays. Then there is the list of items that Roger Pielke Sr has been informing us about for years–land use, reservoirs, how agriculture changes the albedo of the land.

    I accept that CO2 warms the planet, sometimes aided and abetted by other human factors.

    But my question is, is reducing use of fossil fuels the next right thing to do, even if possible? Would we get more bang for the buck by addressing other issue which are more amenable to concerted activity?

    This is different from ‘no regrets’ policies–I think (am I right?). This is direct reduction of forcings, not increased energy efficiency or fuel use reduction.

    Would planting trees and putting scrubbers in every coal fired generator be a better course of action than capping emissions or taxing carbon?

    It’s an honest question–I don’t claim to know the answer.

    • GaryM | April 13, 2014 at 6:55 am |

      “Would planting trees and putting scrubbers in every coal fired generator be a better course of action than capping emissions or taxing carbon?”

      This assumes that the purpose of “reducing use of fossil fuels” is mitigation, rather than wholesale control of the energy economy. If you start putting scrubbers in coal generators, you will undermine the push to close them.

      Planting trees and other similar initiatives don’t increase the size of the bureaucracy (sufficiently), and don’t generate massive, permanent tax flows.

      If moderate progressives like Tom Fuller actually ran things, you would have politicians like Sam Nunn and John Kennedy proposing all kinds of solutions that would not rely solely on an increase in government. But they don’t. There was a purge of the leadership in the Democrat Party beginning with the McG0vernites in the 1960s. That ship has sailed.

      The Democrat Party, and the progressive parties in virtually all western countries, are dominated by true believing, hard core progressives.

      Forget nuclear, forget scrubbers and planting trees. Only if they start to suffer major losses at the polls will the progressives in power moderate (temporarily) their demands for control of the energy economy.

      For all the talk of the death of CAGW, the Obama administration and most of Europe, including the faux conservatives in Britain, are pursuing their decarbonization polices and crony socialist support for “green energy” apace.

    • mosomoso | April 13, 2014 at 7:56 am |

      In Australia, if you plant or grow trees you have to maintain trees. Me, I love the idea…but for some the responsibility ends at the ribbon cutting ceremony on a miserable piece of regrowth scrub which is destined to be a fire-trap where ferals tear native wildlife to shreds. That carbon has a way of rising from its “sink”.

      I think one can make a case that Australia contributed the most CO2 to the atmosphere in a single day. That distinction was achieved in 1851. Even if it’s not the case, I’d love to know what out-emitted the vast Victorian forests and farmlands on Black Thursday.

      You might think that our Green Betters are now clamouring for aboriginal style cool-burn and back-burn regimes across the continent, so that such unnatural conflagrations are much less likely. Sadly…

      Ah, but the New Class never were that concerned about a few gases or particulates, either from Australian bush infernos or Chinese industry. They’re interested in something else altogether, our New Class.

    • Bob Ludwick | April 13, 2014 at 10:09 am |

      @ Tom Fuller

      “I accept that CO2 warms the planet, sometimes aided and abetted by other human factors.”

      Why?

      We have an unquestionable postulate DECLARING that it warms the planet; we have no empirical evidence that it actually does so.

    • Bad Andrew | April 13, 2014 at 12:31 pm |

      “I accept that CO2 warms the planet”

      Say what you will, but Tom can genuflect with the best of ’em.

      Andrew

  26. Tom Fuller | April 13, 2014 at 7:06 am |

    I must say, it’s amusing to watch the debate from China, where it’s all a non-issue. Here all we talk about is getting rid of coal so we can breathe the air and actually see the polluted water…

  27. Tom Fuller | April 13, 2014 at 7:09 am |

    What would happen to global warming if we found a substitute for cement that didn’t emit clouds of CO during its production?

  28. Tom Fuller | April 13, 2014 at 7:10 am |

    Hiya GaryM

    I’m really not that moderate… more of a fire breathing Fabian… I just don’t want you to get the wrong idea about me ;)

    • GaryM | April 13, 2014 at 7:43 am |

      Tom Fuller,

      If you consider what you write to be fire breathing, I am not sure how to characterize the more, shall we say, vociferous among your fellow travelers.

  29. vukcevic | April 13, 2014 at 8:27 am |

    Lot of Global Warming scaremongery in the British media today.
    As far as Brits are concerned, they know that rise in the N. Atlantic SST (AMO), the main regulator of the local temperatures, has been favourable in the past few decades, but that may not last in the future decades.
    Decadal CET periodograms show remarkable correlation with events below rather than above the ocean, if correct, today’s enhanced GW rhetoric appear to be grossly misguided.

  30. jim2 | April 13, 2014 at 9:12 am |

    Socialism at it’s finest. All in the name of “green” energy. It’s green alright, but not in the way you are thinking.

    From the article:
    …
    Follow the money and you’ll inevitably find out what’s really going on.

    In the case of Clark County, Nevada, rancher Cliven Bundy’s standoff with federal agents from the Bureau of Land Management, the leading explanation has been that he hasn’t paid grazing fees and his cattle threaten endangered desert tortoises in the Gold Butte area.

    But the fact of the BLM bringing in hundreds of armed rangers with trucks and helicopters seemed over the top for protection of a tortoise that has clearly survived despite more than a century of ranching by the Bundy family, and which the BLM had previously been slaughtering with the excuse that it lacked funding to care for the animals.
    …
    Certainly it’s not all of the answer because the BLM dispute with Bundy goes back to 1993, but part of the answer may be that Gold Butte also lies inside what the BLM has called the Dry Lake Solar Energy Zone, part of the federal government’s plan to put solar power plants and factories on BLM-controlled lands in six Southwestern states.

    As part of the plan for the Dry Lake solar zone, any solar developers are expected to pay into a fund to “mitigate” the Gold Butte area. However, the “mitigation” activities can’t take place with cattle grazing in the area. If the mitigation doesn’t take place, no money for the BLM.

    One of the companies interested in building a solar plant on BLM-controlled land is the Chinese firm ENN Energy Group, which wants to build a $5 billion solar facility in the Nevada desert near Laughlin. ENN is represented by lawyer Rory Reid, Sen. Harry Reid’s son. The Chinese firm also wants to build on a 9,000-acre plot in Clark County, where rancher Cliven Bundy is holding off the BLM, and where Rory Reid used to be the chairman of the County Commission.

    According to Reuters, the County Commission voted to sell ENN the public plot of land for $4.5 million, a fraction of its appraised value of $38.6 million.

    Majority Leader Sen. Harry Reid has been one of ENN’s most prominent supporters. According to Reuters, he recruited the company for the project during a trip to China in 2011. Reuters also reports that Reid has tried to pressure the state’s largest power company, NV Energy, to become ENN’s first customer.

    Read more at http://godfatherpolitics.com/15161/harry-reid-sons-solar-power-scheme-connected-bundy-ranch-standoff/#Ufqdsd8DJr0ysZYG.99

  32. jim2 | April 13, 2014 at 9:34 am |

    More warmth will increase species diversity.
    From the article:
    Latitudinal gradients in species diversity
    From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

    The increase in species richness or biodiversity that occurs from the poles to the tropics, often referred to as the latitudinal diversity gradient (LDG), is one of the most widely recognized patterns in ecology. Put another way, in the present day localities at lower latitudes generally have more species than localities at higher latitudes. The LDG has been observed to varying degrees in Earth’s past.[1]

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latitudinal_gradients_in_species_diversity#Spatial.2FArea_hypotheses

  33. jim2 | April 13, 2014 at 10:19 am |

    From the article:
    WASHINGTON — Stepping into a heated debate within the nation’s intelligence agencies, President Obama has decided that when the National Security Agency discovers major flaws in Internet security, it should — in most circumstances — reveal them to assure that they will be fixed, rather than keep mum so that the flaws can be used in espionage or cyberattacks, senior administration officials said Saturday.

    But Mr. Obama carved a broad exception for “a clear national security or law enforcement need,” the officials said, a loophole that is likely to allow the N.S.A. to continue to exploit security flaws both to crack encryption on the Internet and to design cyberweapons.
    …
    http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/13/us/politics/obama-lets-nsa-exploit-some-internet-flaws-officials-say.html

  34. AK | April 13, 2014 at 10:43 am |

    A recent comment on an old thread, which is a blatant lie, BTW, (or at least culpably careless ignorance) has alerted me to the newest attack by the scum among the warmists: charges of plagiarism or violating “fair use”. A key quotation discloses these “people’s” agenda:

    theres no journalism here, just plagiarism, or collusion to sow the internet with a one sided story

    This is, IMO, part of an organized attempt to suppress discussion of subjects these types don’t like.

  35. angech | April 13, 2014 at 12:21 pm |

    for Jim D reposting
    ” the MWP was local,”
    just all over the world.
    This is no better than Gates saying Australia had a hot year so the whole world must be heating up.
    It beggars belief to imagine that showing one tiny bit of the world for one tiny bit of time could ever invalidate a concept of MWP being global.
    Of course if you look hard enough at the whole world [Gergis graph when it is getting hotter you will be able to find some place that went the other way for a small time that is not proof that the argument is wrong.
    Just like when the whole world is getting cooler for 17 years Cowtan and Way manufacture a Gergis graph [trade marked angech BTW]
    out of thin air and their own matrices
    to show a local bit of the earth [Arctic] is a bit warmer for a few years and say hey the rest of the data for the whole world is wrong
    our model says the data is wrong.
    Weather is local , Climate is general in the context of heating and cooling of the earth and pointing at small abnormalities against a general trend is absurd.
    But don’t worry the Antarctic is going bananas, 1.5million sq K greater and the Arctic will soon be back to zero and we will have more ice on record than at any time in the last 35 years.
    Where will your AGW be then???????

    • Jim D | April 13, 2014 at 1:08 pm |

      angech, you will find that GaryM had used the phrase “MWP was local”. I never used those words. There are question marks about whether it appears as more than a blip in a global average since the Neukom paper, but it shows up well in the NH average, which is far from local.

    • Steven Mosher | April 13, 2014 at 1:37 pm |

      “17 years Cowtan and Way manufacture a Gergis graph”

      Huh.
      C&W did no such thing.

      some facts.
      Hadcrut estimate the pole by assuming it warms at the same rate as the rest of the planet. Wrong.
      Giss estimate the pole using the closest data. Better.
      C&W estimate the pole using methods sanctioned by skeptics!

      C&W test their prediction with out of sample data, something skeptics demand.

      Result: C&W is superior to hadcrut

      Further, using berkley data C&W have been able to identify errors in GHCN adjustments.. see their latest.

      using more data and better, skeptic endorsed methods, we see that hadcrut is flawed. Sounds like better science

    • R. Gates | April 13, 2014 at 1:50 pm |

      “…using more data and better, skeptic endorsed methods, we see that hadcrut is flawed. Sounds like better science.”
      —-
      IS better science, but if it what it reveals goes against fake-skeptics preconceived notions it must be rejected by the hives meta-memeplex. For a nice example of the hives swarming behavior, try going over to JoNova’s site a mention the merits of Cowtan & Way. Better wear protection!

    • R. Gates | April 13, 2014 at 1:53 pm |

      “This is no better than Gates saying Australia had a hot year so the whole world must be heating up.”
      —-
      Except of course that Gates never made that statement, so your analogy is wrong from the start.

    • Robert I Ellison | April 13, 2014 at 3:32 pm |

      Santer et al. [2005] presented three possible explanations for this divergence: (1) an artifact resulting from the data quality of the surface, satellite and/or radiosonde observations…

      1. If there is no warm bias in the surface temperature
      trends, then there should not be an increasing divergence
      with time between the tropospheric and surface temperature
      anomalies [Karl et al., 2006]. The difference between lower
      troposphere and surface anomalies should not be greater
      over land areas.
      2. If there is no warm bias in the surface temperature
      trends, then the divergence should not be larger for both
      maximum and minimum temperatures at high-latitude land
      locations in the winter.

      We conclude that the first explanation offered by Santer et al. [2005] provides the most parsimonious explanation for the divergence between surface and lower-troposphere temperature trends, based on recent research suggestive of biases in the surface temperature record. Our findings suggest that the supposed reconciliation of differences between surface and satellite data sets [Karl et al., 2006] has not occurred. http://blogsdev.agu.org/wildwildscience/files/2009/11/2009_Klotzbach_etal6.pdf

      We have increasingly tortuous corrections being made to obsolete datasets – BEST, GISS, HadCRUT – that are used for purposes that they are unsuited to.

    • Steven Mosher | April 13, 2014 at 5:29 pm |

      Ellison.

      Check the coherence between berkeley earth an AIRS surface temps.

      Uah and rss need to get their act together.

    • Robert I Ellison | April 13, 2014 at 6:24 pm |

      The land/ocean divergence in the surface record is a function of variable water availability over land. There is an inherent uncertainty in the surface record as a result that makes the surface temperature records irrelevant to energy content of the atmosphere. AIRS and MODIS skin temperature may one day be relevant to something or other. BEST is obsolete before it is complete.

    • Angech | April 14, 2014 at 12:23 pm |

      Steven you are correct that Way did not use a Gergis graph. I was projecting my dislike of the results he achieved by using an analogy to the famous Gergis cherry picking one being redone by Neukum?? .
      As it is the only model we have it will be useful, as you say all models are useful, in the way it will shortly be proven wrong.
      My dislike is in the way that the model purports to fit accurately in backtracking and sidetracking perfectly in all situations. This unfortunately exactly resembles all stock market and computer programmes sold to the gullible public. Unfortunately when you get better than 97 % concurrence with back fitting my #%^* meter goes onto red alert. Alright to sell stocks and racehorse and roulette programmes but unbelievable in real life.
      If a genuine programme was being used there would be divergences, errors where the wrong horse or stock won or lost.
      In mathematics I expect 100 % accuracy with a formula. In nature and horse racing and stocks I expected unexpected events.
      Please tell me where he has shown you a divergence, anywhere, anytime, please. As far as I am aware all backtracking and filling in elsewhere ie non Arctic has been “perfect”
      I apologise for upsetting you as I feel you are genuinely trying to help and I appreciate that your knowledge of these matters is extensive and that Mr Way is a trusted friend who believes in what he is doing.

    • Angech | April 14, 2014 at 12:28 pm |

      As in it is great UAH and RSS are not perfectly aligned. If they got their act together, as you put it , that would not be data and it would not be science. Thank god that they disagree, that is real, not a Cowtan model of alignment, that is what I keep trying to tell you.

    • Angech | April 14, 2014 at 12:43 pm |

      R Gates “except that Gates never made that statement”
      So, escaping by subterfuge Mr Gates.
      As usual.
      What a weak excuse.
      You expressed the sentiment of that statement numerous times in recent posts. You said, or stated, or commented , or typed or opined ( your choice) about how hot a year Australia has just had.
      You left a very distinct impression, footprint , gist, hint , comment or statement that this was a consequence of AGW.
      Despite it being a local weather event which has happened numerous times over numerous millennia in Australia.
      We cross posted on it
      But admit it? No
      Why not? Beats me.
      It’s your mission statement Mr Gates
      No matter which way you wish to twist it.

  36. Roger Sowell | April 13, 2014 at 2:15 pm |

    My first comment on Climate Etc.

    A series of serious questions: how can similar locations have different warming rates, whether they be adjacent cities/towns, counties, or states? Is CO2 truly that selective, and if it is, how does it know which locations to heat with its heat rays, and which to ignore? Isn’t science impartial, and works everywhere if it works anywhere? Isn’t replication by independent observers key to the verification of a scientific principle? Isn’t a proposed scientific principle falsified by independent experiment and measurement that shows the opposite of the hypothesis?

    The basis for all these questions is the known disparity in warming rates as shown by J. Goodridge for counties in California, and between adjacent states as shown in this post: http://sowellslawblog.blogspot.com/2011/09/us-long-term-temperature-trend-from.html

    Note that Louisiana shows a warming trend of zero, while the adjacent state Mississippi shows a cooling trend of minus 0.7 degrees F per century. Texas shows zero trend, but New Mexico is warming at 0.9 degrees F per century. New York shows warming of 1.2 degrees F per century, while Pennsylvania shows almost zero trend at 0.1 degrees F per century.

    The Goodridge reference is: http://www.scribd.com/doc/67524224/PDF-1996-Goodridge-Comments-on-Regional-Simulations-of-Greenhouse-Warming-Including-Natural-Variability

    • climatereason | April 13, 2014 at 2:26 pm |

      Roger

      I saw your name on the side bar and thought I’ve never seen him posting here before’ read your message and saw that it is indeed your first time. Welcome!

      Verity and myself explored the notion of some places cooling in a generally warming world here;

      http://diggingintheclay.wordpress.com/2010/09/01/in-search-of-cooling-trends/

      One of the curiosities was the fact that adjacent places could have trends going in opposite directions . One of the explanations is likely to be the growth (or depopulation) of one location in relation to another so a UHI effect, but another explanation is also possibly a change in wind direction.

      For example here in the UK we generally get warm westerly winds. If they should turn easterly the weather patterns will be quite different and one formerly dry place on a one side of a range of hills might get more wind and rain whilst the other side a formerly wet place becomes drier and warmer.

      tonyb

    • Jim Cripwell | April 13, 2014 at 2:44 pm |

      Roger, you write ” Isn’t replication by independent observers key to the verification of a scientific principle?”

      Welcome to the madhouse!! I have selected just one of your questions, because, to me, it goes to the heart of the discussion of CAGW. I have been trying to point out for some time that the IPCC and the warmists in general have not followed The Scientific Method, in claiming that CAGW is more that a hypothesis. The reason is simple. You cannot do controlled experiments on the earth’s atmosphere, so there are no actual measurements to support the hypothesis of CAGW. All there is, is hypothetical estimations and the output of non-validated models.

      So it is actually worse than what you have written. There is no valid measurement to support the idea that as you add more CO2 to the atmosphere, it has any more than a negligible effect. So there never can be any replication by independent observers.

    • lolwot | April 13, 2014 at 5:03 pm |

      “how can similar locations have different warming rates, whether they be adjacent cities/towns, counties, or states?”

      Because of
      a) measurement uncertainty
      b) different local climate
      c) different local weather

      “Is CO2 truly that selective, and if it is, how does it know which locations to heat with its heat rays, and which to ignore?”

      Rising CO2 is a powerful source of warming. But under any cause of warming some regions will be seen to warm faster and some slower, even adjacent ones, as per the above (a,b,c).

    • Roger Sowell | April 13, 2014 at 6:30 pm |

      Thanks, everyone. I remain very skeptical of CO2’s abilities. One of the city pairs is San Francisco / Sacramento in California. Only 50 miles apart, there is no warming in Sacramento, but a slow and steady warming in San Francisco. I object to the inclusion of data from urban centers, due to the Urban Heat Island effect. It is simply bad science to include any data that requires adjustment. Those should be excluded, as is done for any outliers. If adjustment is permitted, then why exclude outliers in any scientific effort? To me, good science is done with good data, not with adjusted data.

      The San Francisco / Sacramento temperature plots from HadCRUT3 are found at http://sowellslawblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/usa-cities-hadcrut3-temperatures.html and search for Sacramento.

    • Jim D | April 13, 2014 at 6:45 pm |

      I can’t think of any good reason for gradients in warming unless you compare coastal areas with far inland areas where the coastal warming should be slower, because the ocean warming is slower.

    • Robert I Ellison | April 13, 2014 at 6:58 pm |

      The reason has to do with differing patterns of rainfall and therefore water availability and a different combinations of radiative and latent heat loss. It is a surface record artifact.

      • David Springer | April 15, 2014 at 9:10 am |

        An artifact is (google artifact define)

        2. something observed in a scientific investigation or experiment that is not naturally present but occurs as a result of the preparative or investigative procedure.

        The differences in temperature trends between regions is measured temperatures not something introduced by method or post-processing. It is therefore not an artifact.

    • manacker | April 13, 2014 at 7:04 pm |

      Roger Sowell

      Welcome to the fray!

      Your San Francisco – Sacramento comparison is interesting.

      A couple of years ago, Anthony Watts brought one on WUWT which I plotted, showing two small cities, both near Sacramento: Marysville and Orland. One had very little warming over the past 70 years, while the other showed strong warming. Watts attributed the difference in warming (0.2C per decade) to poor station siting and urbanization.
      http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3479/3257199940_44e746bf6a_b.jpg

      Max

    • David Springer | April 15, 2014 at 9:14 am |

      It’s worse than that, Roger. The entire continental US has not warmed since 1973 despite atmospheric CO2 increasing by 20% during that time.

      http://earthguide.ucsd.edu/eoc/special_topics/teach/sp_climate_change/images/keeling_curve.jpg

      http://www.drroyspencer.com/2012/04/regional-u-s-population-adjustments-to-surface-temperatures-since-1973-still-little-warming/

  37. Dan Hughes | April 13, 2014 at 2:48 pm |

    Steven Mosher said from first principles we can fix the value at around 1.2C per doubling.

    and later said Of course not. It is a derivation from first principles with, of course, assumptions.

    In this case, however, the “assumptions”, instead of providing simplifications for a few accountings in the fundamental physics, reduce those physics to be a basic hypothesis. The hypothesis in my understanding is that radiative energy balance at the top of the atmosphere attains such a state that the sought-for signal can be detected.

    I consider this to be a critically important difference. For assumptions we usually estimate that some physical phenomena and processes are not important relative to the primary phenomena and processes that dominate the system response functions of interest. Further, and most importantly, the assumptions are validated following completion of the analysis. In the present case, it is the hypothesis that is being validated, not the assumptions

    My zeroth-order attempt to state the hypothesis which is employed in the case of climate change is along the lines of;

    The effects of the lack of energy-flux balance within and between the sub-systems of the Earth’s climate systems, and the lack of energy-flux balance at the boundaries of the climate system, which is open relative to energy transport, are such that a signal of the effects of increasing CO2 concentration in the Earth’s atmosphere can be detected within available empirical information.

    Here is a zeroth-order cut at the assumptions that must be applied to some of the fundamental physical principles in order to arrive at the basic hypothesis:

    1. A long-time temporal average combined with a spatial average over the entire Earth captures all important phenomena and processes. None are annihilated by the averaging procedures. This means essentially that no naturally occurring phenomena or processes within the averaging volume and over the averaging temporal scale will affect the system response functions to the extent that these effects are of the same order of magnitude of changes in the response functions.

    2. The states of all phenomena and processes within the averaging volume will remain constant at the initial value as the driving potential for change to the Earth’s climate system changes. This means that none of the very small changes that could act to cause changes that directly affect the system response functions will occur.

    3. The state of radiative energy transport at the top of the atmosphere has been, at some time in the past and will again at some future time, in sufficient balance between incoming and outgoing energy that a signal of the changes in the climate system due to changes in the climate driving potential can be detected. There are no natural driving potentials to make the imbalance in radiative energy transport be zero. Wiggles rule. There will always be a difference between the hypothetical goal and the present state.

    4. There are no spatial heterogeneities of sufficient magnitude to affect the system response functions to the extent that the signal of interest cannot be detected. For examples, the clearly heterogeneous variations within the climate systems with respect to latitude and altitude ( both near the surface and far into the atmosphere ), the heterogeneous nature of land and ocean and ice, and the heterogeneous distributions of results from the changes of phase of water can be neglected.

    5. The accepted chaotic nature of weather, and climate being the average of weather and thus also chaotic, does not prevent energy-flux balances at the interfaces between the sub-systems within the Earth’s climate system. Note that energy-flux balance at the interfaces is required in order for the energy-flux balance at the top of the atmosphere to be attained. To the extent of the magnitude of the imbalances and associated effects on the over-all energy budget for the entire planet relative to the signal that is to be detected.

    6. Utilization of the in-coming radiant energy for natural biological and chemical phenomena and processes and storage in these and other natural phenomena and processes has been correctly assessed. Again shown to be sufficiently less than the signal to be detected.

    All of these assumptions generally relate to natural phenomena and processes that have a potential to occur, that is not evidence that the outcome will be realized. That does not change the issue that the assumptions require validation.

    Clearly, some of these assumptions do not obtain with the GCMs. But that’s a horse of a completely different color and is not considered here.

    Corrections for incorrectos will be appreciated.

    • Curious George | April 13, 2014 at 5:29 pm |

      I have two nitpicks. How do you define a “subsystem of a climate system”? Is a bottom part of a circle a subsystem of a circle? Second, I find a “top of atmosphere” radiative balance a purely artificial construct. There is an energy balance at the height of 10 km, at 20 km, at 30 km, at 40 km, and so on. Probably anywhere in the stratosphere the balance will be mostly radiative. Just using the occasion to criticize some widely used ill-defined terms :-)

    • Curious George | April 13, 2014 at 5:35 pm |

      A second thought of a radiative balance: I can imagine a situation where a planet is heated mostly in tropical regions, some heat is transported by winds or ocean currents to polar regions, and radiated there. So the “balance” is not local. Does the “top-of-atmosphere” height vary with latitude?

    • Mike Flynn | April 13, 2014 at 7:57 pm |

      Curious George,

      I agree. The top of atmosphere is a fiction, incapable of rigorous definition in useful terms. Just as back radiation, the greenhouse effect, forcing and a few other similar items, top of atmosphere is used in an attempt to support the insupportable.

      If the temperature of an object is falling or rising, then it is not in energy balance. As the Earth rotates, the surface temperature is either rising or falling, and there is obviously no energy balance.

      Similarly, the parts of the atmosphere, are either cooling or warming, depending on their movement, exposure to light of all frequencies from all directions, including radiation generated when molecules collide with each other or solid particles.

      Is there energy balance anywhere? If there is, it won’t last long. As the environment changes around it, the matter in question will either be relatively warmer or cooler, and, once again, will either become a net emitter or absorber of energy.

      What about on average? Another not so useful Warmist misuse of a useful word. The Earth’s orbit is not circular. The Earth is not spherical. The atmosphere, like the Earth, is not spherical. Rotation on the axis is irregular. The Sun output is not constant. The whole system is probably ruled by chaos.

      No useful average to be found here. The longest period we know of, is from the Earth’s creation to now. The Earth appears to have cooled on the surface. Therefore the long term average indicates an energy imbalance resulting more energy leaving the Earth system than entering it.

      Global warming due to CO2, transient response, equilibrium response – useless Warmist terms. Everything in the system affects everything else, eventually. How much, and for better or worse, who knows?

      The pressure heights of the atmosphere vary with latitude in general. As an example, the tropopause can be expected to be anywhere from about 20 kms in the Tropics, to about 7 kms at the Poles. The top of atmosphere, whatever it is, would be above these heights. I can think, offhand, of at least four factors that might influence this, and there are probably others.

      Maybe a climatologist will dive in and educate me as to the rest. Or maybe not.

      Live well and prosper,

      Mike Flynn.

    • Robert I Ellison | April 13, 2014 at 8:16 pm |

      TOA is the level at which all energy flux is radiative. It certainly equilibriates over time – conservation of energy – as the Earth moves from cooling to warming and vice versa. The altitude of the satellites certainly is above the top of atmosphere and the measurements are adjusted for altitude. We could rename it as in proximate space to keep Flynn happy – but that seems both unlikely and pointless.

    • Mike Flynn | April 13, 2014 at 8:44 pm |

      Robert I Ellison,

      According to some people like Richard Feynman, all radiation is radiative. I don’t wish to suggest you read, for example, Quantum Electro Dynamics, but if you do, at least we can agree on definitions.

      You write:

      “TOA is the level at which all energy flux is radiative. It certainly equilibriates over time – conservation of energy – as the Earth moves from cooling to warming and vice versa. The altitude of the satellites certainly is above the top of atmosphere and the measurements are adjusted for altitude. We could rename it as in proximate space to keep Flynn happy – but that seems both unlikely and pointless.”

      As you will appreciate, using Feynman’s criteria, all energy flux is radiative. More Warmist misdirection, in my view.

      As I point out, the net energy balance most certainly does not equilibrate over time, otherwise we wouldn’t exist, would we? The world has cooled. It has lost energy.

      Your comment about satellites is possibly naive. How do the sensors know that they are not sensing radiation emitted by atoms or molecules 50 meters below the TOA? Or even 5 kilometers? Do they magically not respond to radiation from the surface, at the bottom of the atmosphere? Given that the TOA by definition is essentially massless, how much energy do you calculate it is emitting?

      You can rename fiction as fact if you wish, of course. It makes no difference to me, and Nature won’t care either.

      Live well and prosper,

      Mike Flynn.

    • Dan Hughes | April 14, 2014 at 7:15 am |

      When applied to the Earth’s climate systems ( or any systems whatsoever ), all of the following statements are correct:

      1. Energy in greater than energy out, energy is conserved.
      2. Energy out greater than energy in, energy is conserved.
      3. Energy in equal to energy out, energy is conserved.

      Relative to number 3. To say, Energy is conserved, therefore energy in = energy out for the Earth’s climate systems :: QED requires qualifications. Extremely extensive, detailed and deep qualifications. Qualifications as in 2 below.

      qualification noun
      1 certificate, diploma, degree, license,document, warrant; eligibility,acceptability, adequacy; proficiency, skill,ability, capability, aptitude.
      2 modification, limitation, reservation, stipulation; alteration, amendment, revision, moderation, mitigation; condition, proviso, caveat.

      btw, what is a synonym for thesaurus.

    • Robert I Ellison | April 15, 2014 at 12:31 am |

      According to some people like Richard Feynman, all radiation is radiative. I don’t wish to suggest you read, for example, Quantum Electro Dynamics, but if you do, at least we can agree on definitions.

      Energy flux in the atmosphere include both conduction and convection. In space it is entirely radiative.

  38. GaryM | April 13, 2014 at 3:49 pm |

    Coulda sworn I posted a link to this article earlier today. It’s hell to get old, but it beats the alternative.

    “Experts estimate that by 2030, global gross domestic product (GDP) could be as much as 4 per cent lower through measures to combat global warming. By 2100, global GDP could be down by as much as 12 per cent.”

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/10763080/UN-green-police-say-ditch-oil-and-change-your-diet.html

    • Bob Ludwick | April 13, 2014 at 5:46 pm |

      @ Gary M.

      “Experts estimate that by 2030, global gross domestic product (GDP) could be as much as 4 per cent lower through measures to combat global warming. By 2100, global GDP could be down by as much as 12 per cent.”

      According to the HuffPo today: “”We know that 80% of fossil fuels need to stay underground in order to avoid a climate catastrophe.”

      Does ANYONE think that if the Anti-CO2 Crusaders get their way that the hit on GDP will be ONLY 12%? Or that the predictable–and predicted carnage will not occur before 2100?

    • Jim D | April 13, 2014 at 6:19 pm |

      GaryM, I am just getting up to speed on the economics in WG3 SPM, but that 12% looks like it is against a background growth estimated to be 300-900% by 2100. Annualized it is about 10% of the GDP growth rate, and that is an upper estimate for the most severe emission-cutting scenario.

    • ianl8888 | April 13, 2014 at 7:58 pm |

      ” … 300-900% by 2100.”

      Plenty of goalposts to move in that range, Jimmy old bean

      Should keep you busy and contented for over 80 years

      Why do you think that a range like that has any credibility at all ? It’s just a wild extrapolation with no credible reference to any known technology for supplying affordable, reliable base load

      Upon such gobbledegook, dilettantes gambol

    • Jim D | April 13, 2014 at 8:06 pm |

      ianl8888, it is tough to make global economic projections over 90 years, probably tougher than making climate ones. I just report what I see. That corresponds to average annual growth rates from 1.2-2.4%, perhaps within the recent range of GDP growth. Anyway, bottom line: even the upper limit of 12% isn’t much to pay for a stabilized climate. I don’t know what all the fuss is about.

  39. GaryM | April 13, 2014 at 4:58 pm |

    Re. the Lovejoy paper by way of WUWT:

    Lovejoy apparently gave a presentation in November 2013 which included the following comment:

    “The statistical hypothesis that the warming is due to natural variability must be statistically tested. The failure to reject this hypothesis gives ammunition to climate skeptics.”

    http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/04/13/earth-to-lovejoy-0-9-c-in-a-century-is-not-huge/#more-107433

    So a “climate scientist” saw a need for a statistical analysis of proxies that would take away “ammunition” from skeptics. And when he did his research, whaddaya know – he “found” just that!

    What are the odds?

    Motivated, tailor made, statistical “science,” don’t leave home without it.

    • lolwot | April 13, 2014 at 5:09 pm |

      A scientist saw a need to clear something up and demonstrate something they already knew.

      It’s a bit like a paleontologist saying “The statistical hypothesis that the fossil record is due to special creation must be statistically tested. The failure to reject this hypothesis gives ammunition to evolution skeptics.”

      Just because the scientist already knows evolution (or AGW) is a fact doesn’t mean they cannot demonstrate it to others.

    • GaryM | April 13, 2014 at 5:20 pm |

      “A scientist saw a need to clear something up and demonstrate something they already knew.”

      He already knew that a statistical analysis of proxies would “show” that natural variation could not be the cause?

      Put another way, he knew in advance he could conclusively disprove, FROM PALEO PROXIES, that any of the recent warming could be attributed to natural variation?

      You are not helping him here.

    • Jim D | April 13, 2014 at 5:37 pm |

      Very few climate scientists who look at the 120-year temperature record think it could be very natural. It’s just obvious from looking at it, but it is also good to quantify it, because a picture isn’t proof in itself (to some).

    • GaryM | April 13, 2014 at 5:56 pm |

      Jim D,

      When someone unpacks their statistical “analysis,” and shows all the assumptions contained therein, I wager you will find another Mannesque procedure that was guaranteed to find the “right” result, regardless of the data.

    • Mike Flynn | April 13, 2014 at 8:27 pm |

      Jim D,

      You write:

      “Very few climate scientists who look at the 120-year temperature record think it could be very natural. It’s just obvious from looking at it, but it is also good to quantify it, because a picture isn’t proof in itself (to some).”

      Apart from the fact that climate science is an oxymoron, in the case of Australia and various bits and pieces under the aegis of Australia, the official temperature record only goes back as far as 1910.

      So anybody looking at 120 years of temperature is either assuming that temperatures on a fair proportion of the Earth’s surface are not necessary, or that they are possibly inaccurate, misleading or both.

      You might like to inform the Warmists of this inconvenient truth. No wonder they are having difficulty interpreting their pictures.

      Live well and prosper,

      Mike Flynn.

    • Jim D | April 13, 2014 at 11:49 pm |

      Mike Flynn, even if Australians didn’t have, or couldn’t operate, thermometers before 1910, you will find that the more interesting parts of the temperature change were more recent than that.

  40. Mike Flynn | April 13, 2014 at 7:04 pm |

    Does anybody that is slightly odd that the CO2 warming effect only operates in such a way that it can’t be experimentally verified?

    I believe that the power of prayer works similarly.

    Maybe Lewandowsky the Ludicrous could conflate the two in an attack of recursive fury.

    Live well and prosper,

    Mike Flynn.

  41. Ed Barbar | April 13, 2014 at 7:27 pm |

    I’m wondering whether anyone has any thoughts on this. Judith quotes .7 mm per year rise in the oceans is on account of depleting ground water resources, according to AR-5. That sounds like a lot of water, presumably mostly from Agriculture. Also, I assume that means it has to evaporate. Given H2O is a greenhouse gas, could that water vapor be contributing to the greenhouse effect? Or is the percent of increased humidity in the noise? Anyone know offhand?

    • John Carpenter | April 13, 2014 at 8:13 pm |

      “Given H2O is a greenhouse gas, could that water vapor be contributing to the greenhouse effect? ”

      That is the amplification part of AGW. Positive feedback of more CO2 in the atmosphere. Models would indicate this is an important part of AGW.

    • Ed Barbar | April 13, 2014 at 9:13 pm |

      thanks for the note but, I’m not talking about the increase in H2O gas on account of a feedback to increased temps from CO2, but on account of fields being irrigated when naturally there would be no opportunity to get water.

  42. Reasonable Skeptic | April 13, 2014 at 7:51 pm |

    As a layman skeptic I have to put ideology aside and provide a means to be proven wrong. I have therefore decided that I need to have one decade of 0.15 Deg C warming to think about getting on board the CAGW bandwagon. That decade plus the recent past will be a long enough time to know whether the pause is real, or the heat is indeed hiding somewhere.

    If they want me to change more rapidly, I need to have an independent body do an audit on the data, the science and the IPCC. (The data being anything seen as relevant such as surface temps, the science being things that are well referenced etc.)

    Both of these are not unreasonable at all. It is a small cost to pay if the warmists truly want to get skeptics to buy in.

    What would get you to buy in?

    P.S. Dr. Curry, keep true…. A truth should never fear a lie.

    • Bob Ludwick | April 13, 2014 at 8:33 pm |

      @ Reasonable Skeptic

      “If they want me to change more rapidly, I need to have an independent body do an audit on the data, the science and the IPCC. (The data being anything seen as relevant such as surface temps, the science being things that are well referenced etc.)”

      You may as well ask for the original, unadjusted raw data. You’ll have the same chance of getting it as you will have in getting an independent audit of the data. In other words, none.

    • Jim D | April 13, 2014 at 8:59 pm |

      The last three decades have exceeded the previous by at least that much. Yes, some skeptics need a fourth decade in a row to be sure, and I think that will seal the deal for others, except the most obstinate ones, too. For most people, three decades is enough already to show that AGW is doing as expected.

    • Mike Flynn | April 13, 2014 at 9:20 pm |

      Jim D,

      Are you saying that the fact that the Earth’s surface temperature is not rising means that it really is? Or is it just that the software says that it should be?

      Or possibly that the fact the Earth has cooled to its present temperature shows that over the longer term it actually got warmer?

      Or maybe that the Earth cooled to a point, and then magically sucked enough energy from some handy dark matter for its temperature to rise again? May I suggest that the past is the past, and the future is unknowable. If you assume it is going to warm by a specific amount in a specific location, with specific effects, and specific action, if taken, will change your assumed effects, then I wish you luck, as usual.

      I have my own assumptions. You can’t specify yours, so I’ll stick with mine. Others may follow your proposed course of section, and I wish them luck also. Just in case they need it.

      Live well and prosper,

      Mike Flynn.

    • PMHinSC | April 13, 2014 at 9:28 pm |

      Reasonable Skeptic | April 13, 2014 at 7:51 pm | Reply
      “I have therefore decided that I need to have one decade of 0.15 Deg C warming to think about getting on board the CAGW bandwagon.”

      The issue isn’t whether temperatures go up or they go down. The issue is whether anthropogenic CO2 is significantly affecting temperature. You are looking at the wrong metric. Despite claims to the contrary there is no data showing anthropogenic CO2 is or has affection temperature.

    • steven | April 13, 2014 at 9:36 pm |

      Jim must get awfully bored at amusement parks where the rollar coasters only go up hill and very slowly at that. I think a minimum of 60 years just to incorporate the natural cycles we know of and there remains questions about cycles extending far longer in time than those.

    • Jim D | April 13, 2014 at 10:06 pm |

      Mike Flynn, simply put, each decade has been warmer than the previous including the 2000’s versus the 1990’s, 90’s versus 80’s and 80’s versus 70’s. Perhaps you just need to read the question again. Glad to help.

    • Mike Flynn | April 13, 2014 at 10:36 pm |

      JimD,

      I won’t even bother asking how you measure the Earth’s surface temperature, because all I’ll get is a heap of a Warmist definitions which don’t actually include the surface, apart from satellite remote sensing, which, although not strictly sensing the Earth’s surface, at least attempts to measure the temperature of objects sitting upon the surface.

      If you want to talk about the Earth’s accurate total energy content, which must rise for the Earth to warm, ceteris paribus, then you might find that no such metric exists.

      Even if you manage to accurately measure a temperature increase, by some miraculous means, of course the magical properties of CO2 may not be necessary at all. May I tactfully point out that there doesn’t seem to be any measured global temperature increase for the past 15 years or more.

      Your theory that three rises over arbitrary periods of 10 years followed by a fall predicts a rise, is odd, to say the least. Why not choose 30 year periods? Or 100,000 year periods? Maybe going back as far as the period when Antarctica was ice free?

      You are right. Reasonable Skeptic asked what would get me to buy in. My answer would be rising temperatures without an explanation not involving the greenhouse effect. Simple enough for you?

      It might help your cause if you avoided bringing fantasy to a fact party.

      Live well and prosper,

      Mike Flynn.

    • Reasonable Skeptic | April 13, 2014 at 11:19 pm |

      I am aware of the limitations of my claim (0.15 deg C warming over the next decade) but I can’t be truly honest unless I can be proven wrong and since I am not a scientist (though I do have one paper as lead author) I wanted to make this simple.

      We have to be open to the possibility that skeptics are wrong. Interestingly enough I have yet to get a warmist to provide a reasonable counter. The ones that did respond never actually required warming to believe in it.

      Cheers, and remember, the truth should never fear alie.

      • David Springer | April 14, 2014 at 5:31 pm |

        Reasonable Skeptic | April 13, 2014 at 11:19 pm |

        “We have to be open to the possibility that skeptics are wrong.”

        No we don’t. Warmists aren’t open to the possibility they are wrong. This is narrative science. You make up a just-so story and stick with it. When in Rome do as the Romans do.

    • Jim D | April 13, 2014 at 11:36 pm |

      Mike Flynn, the skeptics answer their own question about the pause without noticing it when they say natural variability can change temperatures. However, as you average over longer periods, you average natural variability out. I take ten years because that removes ENSO and solar cycles effectively. You can take the last 10 years up to now, and the ten previous years and get a temperature rise of over 0.1 C, despite 17 of these years being in “the pause”. That is because the pause was preceded by a sharp step that is generally ignored by skeptics. A pause preceded by a step is quite a different thing from a pause preceded by a slow-down when it comes to how it affects long-term gradients. Sometimes it really helps to investigate the trends for yourself. Be skeptical of the pause. You may discover this step I speak of.

  43. Mike Flynn | April 13, 2014 at 9:52 pm |

    Reasonable Skeptic,

    I haven’t tried this myself, but one of the commenters said that along any line showing an uptrend in temperatures, one can create a line showing an opposing trend by careful choice of end points. When this is done, it proves that at the points the descending and ascending trend lines cross, the point in time is simultaneously cooling and heating.

    To avoid this conundrum, I choose two trends. One short, the last 17 years, and one long, four and a half billion years or so. Both are supported by reasonable physical evidence, both are simple to reproduce.

    Evidence to support greenhouse gas induced global warming? Not really. Actually none at all!

    Your mileage may vary, of course.

    Live well and prosper,

    Mike Flynn.

  44. Mike Flynn | April 13, 2014 at 10:01 pm |

    SMH. Today. AFOMD will be impressed with breaking news.

    “IPCC report summary censored by governments around the world.

    . . . Some of the economists and scientists involved even considered withdrawing their work entirely, so they could speak without having to toe the eventual IPCC line.”
    Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/world/ipcc-report-summary-censored-by-governments-around-the-world-20140414-zqugm.html#ixzz2yp1AJJlv

    And we’ll all burst into tears if they withdraw their work won’t we? I’m prepared to donate the price of a phone call if one of them wants to call someone who cares.

    Live well and prosper,

    Mike Flynn.

    • Jim D | April 13, 2014 at 10:17 pm |

      Thankfully, only the SPM, not the original report, was censored. This will probably just draw attention to what was censored out which is individual national stats on who is most responsible for emissions and their rise rates.

    • Mike Flynn | April 13, 2014 at 10:42 pm |

      Jim D,

      I’m curious. Why would policy makers ask for a summary for policy makers if they intend to dismiss parts of it summarily?

      Isn’t that a complete waste of money?

      Doesn’t the IPCC have the right to determine what it publishes, or should that be left to the likes of the Bearded Bengali Bollywood Buffoons, or the Climate Clowns and Jugglers troupe? Where’s your sense of fairness and democracy?

      Live well and prosper,

      Mike Flynn.

    • jim2 | April 13, 2014 at 10:45 pm |

      That’s funny. Politics will save us in the end. Go figure.

  45. Robert I Ellison | April 13, 2014 at 10:19 pm |

    The climate system has jumped from one mode of operation to another in the past. We are trying to understand how the earth’s climate system is engineered, so we can understand what it takes to trigger mode switches. Until we do, we cannot make good predictions about future climate change… Over the last several hundred thousand years, climate change has come mainly in discrete jumps that appear to be related to changes in the mode of thermohaline circulation. Wally Broecker

    The earth warms and cools as a result of the interplay between the composition of the atmosphere and the albedo of the planet for the most part – the Sun varying very little and the cooling Earth being both a very minor energy term and one of the more seriously insane assumptions surfacing in the crazy morass that seems to be the trajectory of climate discourse. Moreover – the planet shifts abruptly between warmer or cooler states as emergent behaviour in a complex, dynamic nonlinear system. Climate is wild.

    The troposphere is not warming because more clouds are blocking sunlight or more energy is staying in the oceans over decades. Either means that the surface warming trend is insubstantial. A wild climate implies a mathematically certain risk that climate can shift dramatically in response to an insubstantial stimulus in as little as 10 years.

    How long before the climate puzzle falls into place in the zeitgeist? If ever? In the meantime we can expect more absurdity with a chance of insanity.

    • R. Gates | April 13, 2014 at 11:09 pm |

      “The troposphere is not warming because more clouds are blocking sunlight or more energy is staying in the oceans over decades.”
      ______
      More accurately, The tropospheric sensible heat is highly dependent on rates of sensible and latent heat flux from the oceans, with more than 50% of the energy in the troposphere coming directly from the ocean. ENSO, the PDO, and other ocean cycles cause fluctuations in this rate of flow from ocean to troposphere. It is always strongly from ocean to troposphere, but these cycles cause it to fluctuate. The oceans in turn are highly dependent on net incoming solar that:reaches the Earth, net solar that reaches the ocean surface, and is also net solar that penetrates the ocean surface and is absorbed by the ocean.. Net incoming solar that reaches the Earth is affected by interstellar dust, fluctuations is net output from the sun, and astronomical cycles. Net solar that reaches the ocean surface is affected by clouds, dust, and aerosols. Net solar that is absorbed by the ocean is affected by sea ice..So there are far more variables that can be reasons why the troposphere would not be warming, Being a region of low thermal inertia and relative low energy storage, the troposphere (sensible heat) makes a poor proxy for climate sensitivity, especially considering is so dependent on the oceans. The shortest period of time that one would want to look at tropospheric sensible heat as a proxy for gains or losses in Earth’s climate energy system would be on a decadal average. In doing so of course, we see both the oceans and troposphere have been accumulating energy steadily for the past 40+ years, with the past 10 years being the warmest 10 year period on instrument record for both.

    • Mike Flynn | April 13, 2014 at 11:12 pm |

      Robert I Ellison,

      Maybe you didn’t mean to write that the Earth is cooling, otherwise you would be in the invidious position of agreeing with me. I agree it is cooling very slowly, as evidenced by the measured heat loss from the crust.

      Do you wish to amend your statement, and instead propose that the Earth is heating? Or do you you contend that the Earth is simultaneously heating and cooling? Or maybe in equilibrium, neither heating nor cooling?

      Your statement that climate is wild depends on weather being wild, as climate is the average of weather. I am curious why Warmists make the distinction. Is it because Weatherology doesn’t sound as important as Climatology? More correctly, The Study of the Average of Weather Parametersology. It doesn’t have quite the same ring, does it?

      Absurd, insane, even, to believe the world is not warming. I agree, but there it is. You are the sane one, obviously. Global warming continues unabated. If it makes you feel better, I’ll agree. It won’t change the facts though. They are what they are.

      Live well and prosper,

      Mike Flynn.

    • Robert I Ellison | April 13, 2014 at 11:14 pm |

      Well – I don’t know i it is more accurate. I have given up reading gatesy’s long winded trial narratives. Certainly what I said was accurate enough for the point – for which gatesy is an absurd distraction.

    • Robert I Ellison | April 13, 2014 at 11:37 pm |

      Climate is deterministically chaotic Flynn – as I believe you have said yourself – albeit quite superficially in your case.

      The planet – oceans and atmosphere – is not warming because of clouds I believe. But the other explanation – energy from the Sun lingering longer in the deep ocean – equally means the relevant metric of residual surface warming over the 20th century is insubstantial.

      Clouds from satellites – http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/cloud_palleandlaken2013_zps3c92a9fc.png.html?sort=3&o=96

      Clouds from light reflected from the Earth – http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/Earthshine-1.jpg.html?sort=3&o=128

      Earthshine changes in albedo shown in blue, ISCCP-FD shown in black and CERES in red. A climatologically significant change before CERES followed by a long period of insignificant change.

      A stepwise change in the chaotic climate shift post 1998. It suggests that option 1 is quite likely. It is quite evident as well that means and variances shift on decadal and longer timescales. So it all depends on which period averages are calculated.

      All in all – the usual uninformed fantasies from Flynn conflated with the usual drivel about warmists.

      The planet obviously warms and cools – and not just when the Sun goes down.

    • Mike Flynn | April 14, 2014 at 12:54 am |

      Rover I Ellison,

      Possibly, I wasn’t clear enough. My apologies. In the preceding 30 days, has the planet :
      A) cooled
      B) warmed, or
      C) remained at the same temperature?

      Or maybe it cooled, then warmed, then cooled . . .

      What measurements can you adduce in support of your assertions?

      Chaos may well account for redistribution of energy within the system, but does not seem a likely candidate for creating additional net energy within the system.

      The laws relating to the conservation of energy would seem to rule this out. As to objects on the surface of the Earth raising their temperature year by year for no discernible reason, this might seem to fly in the face of physics.

      But I’m sure you know better. Maybe it will eventually happen. Maybe not. I’ll bide my time. And you, good sir?

      By the way, would you mind answering my questions?

      Live well and prosper,

      Mike Flynn.

    • Mike Flynn | April 14, 2014 at 1:38 am |

      Robert I Ellison,

      Sorry about the typo. Autocomplete tricked me. No offence intended. Woof, woof! Down, boy! Sit. stay. I sound just like Mosh the Mighty!

      Live well and prosper,

      Mike Flynn.

    • Robert I Ellison | April 14, 2014 at 2:06 am |

      That assumes that the question makes any sense at all. It doesn’t – it is pretty much Dunning-Kruger to the Nth degree.

      I only have CERES data to Dec 2013.

      http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/CERES_EBAF-TOA_Ed28_TOA_Net_Flux-All-Sky_March-2000toDecember-2013_zps4dd58aba.png.html

      But it is an annual cycle to do with the difference in land area (and therefore albedo) between the NH and SH. Because these variations are so large – and it is not yet June – I would suggest that the planet is cooling a little since around December. The way to know for sure is to have hugely accurate ocean heat content – which isn’t quite that good or as current even as CERES. I am comfortable with the guesstimate – but it means about as much as anything Flynn says.

      Emergent behaviour results in shifts in ocean and atmosphere – which causes changes in cloud radiative effects. All those links to clouds – and explicit mentions of cloud, albedo and reflected light – and he is still babbling on about energy conservation as if he understood what that even means.

      Warming and cooling – alternately – seems as difficult as walking and chewing gum for some people.

    • Mike Flynn | April 14, 2014 at 2:50 am |

      Robert I Ellison,

      You’re right. The world must be warming.

      I can’t walk and chew gum at the same time, obviously.

      Live well and prosper,

      Mike Flynn.

    • Robert I Ellison | April 14, 2014 at 2:58 am |

      I would suggest that the planet is cooling a little since around December.

      Does he even read the responses or just drivel on regardless?

  46. Peter Lang | April 13, 2014 at 11:11 pm |

    IPCC AR5 WG3

    – Decarbonising (i.e. reducing the carbon intensity of) electricity generation is a key component of cost‐effective mitigation strategies in achieving low‐stabilisation levels. In the majority of low‐stabilisation scenarios, the share of low‐carbon electricity supply (comprising renewable energy, nuclear and CCS) increases from the current share of approximately 30 per cent to more than 80 per cent by 2050 (p.23).

    If that is correct, the only realistic, pragmatic way the world could get to anywhere near 80% low emissions electricity by 2050 is with most electricity being provided by nuclear power world wide.

    And the only nuclear technologies that will be able to supply the vast majority of that are the light water reactors that are commercially available and proven now and the newer ones, especially the Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) that are in advanced stages of design and development, some of which are already in the licencing process. Gen IV may start to make a contribution late in the period, but it will have little effect on emissions reductions by 2050 (but be increasingly important beyond that).

    The other key point is that little progress will be made while nuclear power is more expensive than fossil fuels for generating electricity.

    So, if the CAGW doomsayers want to make progress in reducing global GHG emisisons, they need to lead the way to remove the impediments that are blocking nuclear power from being a low cost option. They need to get Greenpeace, WWF, FoE etc to reverse their hatred of nuclear power. They’ll need to become enthusiastic advocates for nuclear and pretty quickly.

    • Bob Ludwick | April 14, 2014 at 8:24 am |

      @ Peter Lang

      “So, if the CAGW doomsayers want to make progress in reducing global GHG emisisons, they need to lead the way to remove the impediments that are blocking nuclear power from being a low cost option. ”

      Keep in mind that the CAGW doomsayers are also the ‘We Must Establish Sustainability Or Die’ doomsayers, who are preaching that the maximum sustainable population is 1+/- 0.5 billion.
      ,
      Drastically reducing or eliminating fossil fuels, while simultaneously blocking any energy source which has any possibility of replacing them, which the doomsayers are empirically doing, would accomplish a (for them) twofer: snatching the planet back from the brink of thermageddon while simultaneously ensuring that THEY will be able to enjoy living in a sustainable society. (What? You didn’t think that the progressive doomsayers would allow THEMSELVES to be inconvenienced in the process of Saving the Planet and All That Dwell Thereon, did you? Think ‘Smart Meters’.)

    • Bart R | April 14, 2014 at 10:17 am |

      Peter Lang | April 13, 2014 at 11:11 pm |

      In some countries, tax‐based policies specifically aimed at reducing GHG emissions—alongside 
      technology and other policies—have helped to weaken the link between GHG emissions and GDP       
      (high confidence). In a large group of countries, fuel taxes (although not necessarily designed for the purpose of mitigation) have effects that are akin to sectoral carbon taxes [Table 15.2]. The demand reduction in transport fuel associated with a 1% price increase is 0.6% to 0.8% in the long run, although the short‐run response is much smaller [15.5.2]. In some countries revenues are used to reduce other taxes and/or to provide transfers to low‐income groups. This illustrates the general principle that mitigation policies that raise government revenue generally have lower social costs than approaches which do not. While it has previously been assumed that fuel taxes in the transport sector are regressive, there have been a number of other studies since AR4 that have shown them to be progressive, particularly in developing countries (medium evidence, medium agreement). [3.6.3, 
      14.4.2, 15.5.2] 

      The reduction of subsidies for GHG‐related activities in various sectors can achieve emission reductions, depending on the social and economic context (high confidence). While subsidies can affect emissions in many sectors, most of the recent literature has focused on subsidies in fossil fuels. Since AR4 a small but growing literature based on economy‐wide models has projected that complete removal of subsidies to fossil fuels in all countries could result in reductions in global aggregate emissions by mid‐century (medium evidence, medium agreement) [7.12, 13.13, 14.3.2, 
      15.5.2]. Studies vary in methodology, the type and definition of subsidies and the time frame for phase out considered. In particular, the studies assess the impacts of complete removal of all fossil fuel subsidies without seeking to assess which subsidies are wasteful and inefficient, keeping in mind national circumstances. Although political economy barriers are substantial, some countries have reformed their tax and budget systems to reduce fuel subsidies. To help reduce possible adverse effects on lower income groups who often spend a large fraction of their income on energy services, many governments have utilized lump‐sum cash transfers or other mechanisms targeted on the poor. [15.5.2] 

      ..

      Technology policy complements other mitigation policies (high confidence). Technology policy includes technology‐push (e.g., publicly funded R&D) and demand‐pull (e.g., governmental 
      procurement programmes). Such policies address market failures related to innovation and technology diffusion. [3.11, 15.6] Technology support policies have promoted substantial innovation and diffusion of new technologies, but the cost‐effectiveness of such policies is often difficult to assess [2.6.5, 7.12, 9.10]. Nevertheless, program evaluation data can provide empirical evidence on the relative effectiveness of different policies and can assist with policy design [15.6.5]. 

      http://report.mitigation2014.org/spm/ipcc_wg3_ar5_summary-for-policymakers_approved.pdf pp 31-32

      While the language framing the IPCC AR5 WG3 SFP is devoutly socialist, in some places and in some ways refocused through a lens of capitalism, it comes very near the mark; however the bias toward socialist solutions is telling, and we must be wary to avoid falling into the same thinking as got us into this mess.

      Where the scarcity cost of the atmosphere is approximately figured into the price of burning carbon using taxes, we see about 6% to 8% long term drop in use of the atmosphere as an emission dump for every 10% rise in the cost in some cases. That translates in CapitalismSpeak to 125%-167% of the value of revenues from fossil fuels in any nation being stolen from the owners of air. 70% of people emit so little that they would come out ahead by 5% of their annual income or more under a capitalist approach to pricing CO2E emissions. Two thirds of those remaining currently waste CO2E emissions because there is little cost to them for doing so, and could readily switch under current technology with so little cost that they too would at worst break even under CO2E pricing. The remaining 10%? They’re enjoying a windfall equal to 125%-167% of the sales of all fossil fuels in their nation at the expense of the other 90%, because government fails to enforce the capitalist precept of paying for what you use.

      Were the cost of emission based on carbon content implemented economy-wide, then about 84% of the scarcity cost due GHG emissions (CO2 plus methane) would be captured, in effect ending the redistribution of wealth from those who hold an equal share in the air to those who uncapitalistically burn carbon without paying for what scarce, rivalrous, excludable, administrable resource they use.

      At the same time, technology does take up all the slack, and then some. Discounting nuclear as moot (trading one multigenerational quagmire for another), where rather than the IPCC’s suggestions of subsidy and government ‘demand pull’ (ie, subsidy), economies of scale and the benefits of investment in R&D without regulatory impediment blocking entry to markets, we see renewable resource technologies have immense room to become more efficient, and expected as of right now to be over the lifetime of installations lower in cost than any fossil fuel option in the vast majority of cases. http://www.strategy-business.com/article/00087?pg=all

      Nuclear? Sure, in limited cases it’s a viable option. But let’s play some make-believe: remember Chernobyl is in the Ukraine, and the Ukraine is right now in a fight for survival with Russia, which has flagrantly broken the Belgrade Accord, and has faced nothing but tut-tutting from NATO, so what’s to stop the Ukraine from making the Crimea a Chernobyl 2.0 by shipping and dumping Chernobyl’s wastes there or carpet-bombing Moscow with soil from Chernobyl? Could happen, speculatively. Is that what we want to invest more in?

    • markx | April 14, 2014 at 11:17 am |

      Bart R | April 14, 2014 at 10:17 am | says:

      What’s to stop the Ukraine from making the Crimea a Chernobyl 2.0 by shipping and dumping Chernobyl’s wastes there or carpet-bombing Moscow with soil from Chernobyl?

      War is all about logistics. Delivering sufficient tonnages of radioactive dirt to an enemy city would seem to be a less efficient process than delivering modern high explosives.

      For the purposes of discussion, I am looking purely at the transportation problem, and ignoring the rather obvious difficulties that would arise from the inevitable response of the Russian military forces in both scenarios.

    • Bart R | April 14, 2014 at 11:42 am |

      markx | April 14, 2014 at 11:17 am |

      War is all about deception. Conquest is all about logistics.

      The Ukraine doesn’t need to conquer anything, and as they are in a fight for their survival and that’s a whole different kettle of fish. The ‘inevitable’ Russian response is the same either way, unless the Ukraine makes itself such a poison pill as to disincline Russian troops to swallow.

      Let’s face it; Russia has learned from the spinelessness of international responses to the most flagrantly lawless behavior that the world has no mechanism for coping with the foreign adventures of tyrants or their abuses of democracy. As appalling as a Chernobyl slap in the face to the aggressors is, as much as I object to it, there’s no way the math of such an option is going to long go ignored by a terrified and bullied victim nation with no other recourse.

      As for transportation problems, you know which way the prevailing winds over Chernobyl blow, right?

  47. Joz Jonlin | April 13, 2014 at 11:44 pm |

    This caught my eye today. I’m not sure how many here can read this, but it falls squarely in line with IPCC figures and that anthropogenic forcing is to blame for rising temperatures at a confidence level of 99%.

    I seriously doubt this was submitted with a straight face.

    http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00382-014-2128-2

    • Robert I Ellison | April 13, 2014 at 11:56 pm |

      This looks to contain the main points. http://econapps-in-climatology.webs.com/EAIC.conference.22.3.13.pdf

      Do we assume it means there is no natural variation? If so – any natural variation that added to warming in 1976/1998 means that it is utterly wrong. As there was natural warming in the period and natural cooling since – it seems an outlandish result that is being seized on in the predictable way.

    • Jim D | April 14, 2014 at 12:15 am |

      The idea is that the standard deviation of natural variation is 0.2 degrees, the 125-year global temperature rise is four standard deviations, therefore unlikely to be just natural variation or even contain much of it, with that probability.

    • WebHubTelescope (@WHUT) | April 14, 2014 at 12:18 am |

      This is further substantiating analysis of an ECS of 3C and TCR of 2C .

    • Robert I Ellison | April 14, 2014 at 2:35 am |

      Most of the recent (1976-1998) warming was quite natural – it is easy to show this. Most of the early century (1910-1945) warming was quite natural as well – as is generally accepted.

      The reality is the likelihood of no warming – or even cooling – for a couple of decades followed by a climate shift that is likely to revert to a cooling state. The sensitivity is some 1 degree C – but this concept makes very little sense in a chaotic system.

      ‘This non-equilibrium behavior is due to a combination of nonlinear and random e ffects. We give here a uni ed treatment of such eff ects from the point of view of the theory of dynamical systems and of their bifurcations. Energy balance models are used to illustrate multiple equilibria, while multi-decadal oscillations in the thermohaline circulation illustrate the transition from steady states to periodic behavior. Random e ffects are introduced in the setting of random dynamical systems, which permit a uni ed treatment of both nonlinearity and stochasticity. The combined treatment of nonlinear and random e ffects is applied to a stochastically perturbed version of the classical Lorenz convection model. Climate sensitivity is then de fined mathematically as the derivative of an appropriate functional or other function of the systems state with respect to the bifurcation parameter.’

      http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.303.1951&rep=rep1&type=pdf

      The dynamic sensitivity is λ is the following.

      http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/Ghil_fig11_zpse58189d9.png.html?sort=3&o=81

      The actual physical mechanisms are defined in another Ghil quote.

      ‘The global climate system is composed of a number of subsystems – atmosphere, biosphere, cryosphere, hydrosphere and lithosphere – each of which has distinct characteristic times, from days and weeks to centuries and millennia. Each subsystem, moreover, has its own internal variability, all other things being constant, over a fairly broad range of time scales. These ranges overlap between one subsystem and another. The interactions between the subsystems thus give rise to climate variability on all time scales.’

      ‘It is still unclear how the climate on a regional or even global scale can change as rapidly as present evidence suggests. It appears that the climate system is more delicately balanced than had previously been thought, linked by a cascade of powerful mechanisms that can amplify a small initial change into a much larger shift in temperature and aridity (e.g., Rind and Overpeck, 1993).’ http://www.esd.ornl.gov/projects/qen/transit.html

      Tremendous energies cascading through powerful mechanisms. There are many who show little capacity to understand this – or are resistant and unwilling to process this idea for their own motivations. It is nonetheless true.

    • WebHubTelescope | April 14, 2014 at 7:03 am |

      The warming of the past 130+ years has been due to GHGs.
      There have also been many zero-sum oscillatory contributions that cancel out in the long term.

    • RickA | April 14, 2014 at 8:12 am |

      WebHubTelescope:

      Yes – that is why the sea level has risen 120 meters in the last 20,000 years. All those long term trends cancelled out.

    • R. Gates | April 14, 2014 at 10:00 am |

      “Most of the recent (1976-1998) warming was quite natural – it is easy to show this.”
      ______
      Absolutely not. The only way you can even come close is to assume that increasing GHG’s have no effect on so-called internal variability of the climate system, such as affecting the AMO or the PDO. This assumption is of course not founded on science but on wishful thinking by fake-skeptics looking for “anything but CO2” causation in the late 20th Century warming. A desperate and rather ignorant position to take.

    • WebHubTelescope | April 14, 2014 at 2:10 pm |

      All the SOI terms have cancelled out.
      All the LOD stadium wave has cancelled out.
      Most of the TSI variation has cancelled out.
      All of the transient volcanic aerosol effects have dissipated.
      All of the minor Scafetta tidal and lunisolar effects have cancelled out.

      What remains is the relentless upward march of the CO2 warming signal, contributing almost 1.3C of land warming the past 130+ years.

      It is all quite obvious to anyone with scientific awareness.

    • Bad Andrew | April 14, 2014 at 3:14 pm |

      “What remains is the relentless upward march”

      hy·per·bo·le
      [hahy-pur-buh-lee] Show IPA
      noun Rhetoric .
      1.
      obvious and intentional exaggeration.
      2.
      an extravagant statement or figure of speech not intended to be taken literally, as “to wait an eternity.”

      Andrew

    • WebHubTelescope | April 14, 2014 at 3:31 pm |

      What remains is the relentless upward march of CO2 GHG warming, which just so happens to drive the deniers and trolls crazy. It drives them crazy because the analysis is obvious and they have no answer for it.

    • Bad Andrew | April 14, 2014 at 3:37 pm |

      “the analysis is obvious”

      Webby,

      Right. Can you *not* hyperbolize in at least one comment today?

      Andrew

    • Robert I Ellison | April 14, 2014 at 3:47 pm |

      ‘Detection and attribution as well as modelling studies indicate more uncertainty regarding the causes of early 20th-century warming than the recent warming. A number of studies detect a significant natural contribution to early 20th-century warming (Tett et al., 2002; Stott et al., 2003b; Nozawa et al., 2005; Shiogama et al., 2006). Some studies find a greater role for solar forcing than other forcings before 1950 (Stott et al., 2003b), although one detection study finds a roughly equal role for solar and volcanic forcing (Shiogama et al., 2006), and others find that volcanic forcing (Hegerl et al., 2003, 2007) or a substantial contribution from natural internal variability (Tett et al., 2002; Hegerl et al., 2007) could be important. There could also be an early expression of greenhouse warming in the early 20th century (Tett et al., 2002; Hegerl et al., 2003, 2007).’ IPCC

      Although assuming that albedo is constant through shifts ocean and atmospheric circulation is an utter nonsense that makes a nonsense of early 20th century attribution. The pattern of warming – cooling – warming in the 20th century is associated with shifts in ENSO and North Atlantic frequency and intensity – and presumably with cloud changes correlated with SST.

      Anastasios Tsonis, of the Atmospheric Sciences Group at University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, and colleagues used a mathematical network approach to analyse abrupt climate change on decadal timescales. Ocean and atmospheric indices – in this case the El Niño Southern Oscillation, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, the North Atlantic Oscillation and the North Pacific Oscillation – can be thought of as chaotic oscillators that capture the major modes of climate variability. Tsonis and colleagues calculated the ‘distance’ between the indices. It was found that they would synchronise at certain times and then shift into a new state.

      It is no coincidence that shifts in ocean and atmospheric indices occur at the same time as changes in the trajectory of global surface temperature. Our ‘interest is to understand – first the natural variability of climate – and then take it from there. So we were very excited when we realized a lot of changes in the past century from warmer to cooler and then back to warmer were all natural,’ Tsonis said.

      The 20th century saw 2 periods of natural warming – a mid century cooling period – along with early 21st century non-warming at least. The 20th century saw a 1000 year peak in El Nino activity.

      e.g. http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/Vance2012-AntarticaLawDomeicecoresaltcontent.jpg.html?sort=3&o=152

      More salt in the Law Dome ice core is La Nina.

      Late 20th century warming – and 21st century non warming – is dominated by cloud radiative effects. Of course according to gatesy natural variability has ceased and webby imagines – as usual – incredible nonsense.

    • Kristian | April 14, 2014 at 4:03 pm |

      Robert I Ellison | April 14, 2014 at 2:35 am |

      “Most of the recent (1976-1998) warming was quite natural – it is easy to show this.”

      Not ‘most of’ it. All of it. And, yes, it is exceedingly easy to show. In fact, all observational data from the real world system points directly to it.

    • R. Gates | April 14, 2014 at 5:06 pm |

      ‘ In fact, all observational data from the real world system points directly to it.’
      ———
      Wow. A great example of completely fake-skeptical thinking. If you had proof of this (as in actual observational data) then you’d be in line for a Nobel Prize. As you most certainly don’t, perhaps you’ll have to aim lower.

    • R. Gates | April 14, 2014 at 5:28 pm |

      ” It drives them crazy because the analysis is obvious and they have no answer for it.”
      ______

      It is completely memeplex busting. The more the data points to robust amounts of energy being added to the climate system from anthropogenic accumulations of GHG’s, the more it drives the fake skeptics crazy and then, the more absurd their reasoning becomes.

    • WebHubTelescope (@WHUT) | April 14, 2014 at 5:29 pm |

      This is so easy to model the upward march of CO2:
      http://imageshack.com/a/img842/2517/r2f8.gif

    • Robert I Ellison | April 14, 2014 at 5:40 pm |

      Bald assertion and a faked multiple linear regression.

    • Robert I Ellison | April 14, 2014 at 5:41 pm |

      Climate is not linear – which was the point of it all.

    • Kristian | April 14, 2014 at 6:43 pm |

      R. Gates | April 14, 2014 at 5:06 pm |

      “Wow. A great example of completely fake-skeptical thinking. If you had proof of this (as in actual observational data) then you’d be in line for a Nobel Prize. As you most certainly don’t, perhaps you’ll have to aim lower.”

      Wow. Not the tedious alarmist ‘You’re in for a Nobel prize’ argument once again. Bit more rhetorical creativity next time?

      Proof of what, Gates? It’s in the data. I’m just telling it like it is. It’s not like I found something revolutionary here. The data shows exactly when the warming took place, where it originated and how it came forth. We can easily follow its natural progression. No interpretation or a priori assumptions needed. I understand that you’re dogmatically and religiously constrained from seeing what’s right in front of you, but it’s nevertheless there for all to see, if they only bother to. Problem is, no one does. And the Climate ‘Science’ Community does all it can to obscure and divert attention from it.

      It works. The propaganda works. Sadly.

    • lolwot | April 14, 2014 at 6:52 pm |

      Kristian jumps the shark

    • Kristian | April 14, 2014 at 7:01 pm |

      R. Gates | April 14, 2014 at 10:00 am |

      ““Most of the recent (1976-1998) warming was quite natural – it is easy to show this.”
      ______
      Absolutely not.”

      A great counter argument. ‘Absolutely not!’ Not prejudiced, biased, close-minded and dogmatic at all. Off hand dismissal? No way!

      “The only way you can even come close is to assume that increasing GHG’s have no effect on so-called internal variability of the climate system, such as affecting the AMO or the PDO.”

      And you know that it does have an effect on these things of course. Based on the huge amounts of observational evidence from the real earth system showing the causal relationship + CO2 >> whatever, such as …. and … and of course … not to forget …

      “This assumption is of course not founded on science but on wishful thinking (…)”

      No, your assumption that it does is of course not founded on science but on wishful thinking, Gates. It’s your claim that it does have a specific effect on the earth system, meaning the onus is on you to show it empirically, the causal relationship. This has of course never been done and it can’t be done. Hence the use of models and circular reasoning.

      “(…) by fake-skeptics looking for “anything but CO2″ causation in the late 20th Century warming.”

      We’re not looking for it. We don’t have to look for it. It’s right there. You on the other hand are desperate to dismiss everything and anything but CO2 as an explanation for the warming.

      “A desperate and rather ignorant position to take.”

      Indeed. So snap out of it! You’re being laughed at.

    • Kristian | April 14, 2014 at 7:04 pm |

      Thanks lolwot. Any other arguments?

  48. Mike Flynn | April 14, 2014 at 3:12 am |

    Maybe this will help:

    “Aiming to advance weather research and technology and arm U.S. forecasters with better tools, lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives passed the ”Weather Forecasting Improvement Act of 2014” Tuesday. The Congressional Budget Office estimates it would infuse $360 million into NOAA between 2015-2017 , if it passes through the Senate and is signed into law by the President.”

    All you need is money. Simple, really.

    Live well and prosper,

    Mike Flynn.

  49. A fan of *MORE* discourse | April 14, 2014 at 7:57 am |

    BREAKING NEWS
    QUAKERS ISSUE “CALL TO CONSCIENCE”
    Far-right denialists fear/reject Quaker activisim

    Call to Conscience on Climate Disruption
    Friends Committee on National Legislation
    “A Quaker Lobby in the Public Interest”

    Non-partisan faith communities are well-suited to establish the moral foundation for climate action because people of faith care for Creation, express concern for the poor and the least of these, and feel responsible for the well-being of future generations.

    Faith communities seek to heal the divisiveness in our national and political culture, and represent infinite hope during our present hyper-partisan political culture.

    In war, there is “No better friend and no worse enemy” than the US Marines.

    In peace, that maxim becomes “No better Friend and no wiser opponent” than the Society of Friends.

    Quaker History  The TeaParty’s climate-change denialists are lightweight Johnny-come-lately wanna-bees compared to the distinguished multi-century Quaker tradition of effective scientific and political engagement.

    Conclusion  Quaker engagement in climate-change is yet another sign of near-term extinction for climate-change skepticism … scientifically, economically, politically, and morally.

    \scriptstyle\rule[2.25ex]{0.01pt}{0.01pt}\,\boldsymbol{\overset{\scriptstyle\circ\wedge\circ}{\smile}\,\heartsuit\,{\displaystyle\text{\bfseries!!!}}\,\heartsuit\,\overset{\scriptstyle\circ\wedge\circ}{\smile}}\ \rule[-0.25ex]{0.01pt}{0.01pt}

  50. markx | April 14, 2014 at 11:08 am |

    A fan of *MORE* discourse | April 14, 2014 at 7:57 am |

    QUAKERS ISSUE “CALL TO CONSCIENCE”

    Hmmm. THAT was weird!

    • A fan of *MORE* discourse | April 14, 2014 at 11:26 am |

      BREAKING NEWS
      Quakers Issue ‘Call to Conscience
      on Climate Disruption’

      markx is baffled  “Hmmm. THAT was weird!”

      Yah don’t know much about the Society of Friends, eh markx?

      From the willfully ignorant far-rightie denialist perspective, the Friends are just another bunch of corrupt “one-worlder” Nobel-winning activists.

      Students of history, economics, science, and morality know different, needless to say. It’s a pleasure to help lighten your burden of ignorance, markx!

      \scriptstyle\rule[2.25ex]{0.01pt}{0.01pt}\,\boldsymbol{\overset{\scriptstyle\circ\wedge\circ}{\smile}\,\heartsuit\,{\displaystyle\text{\bfseries!!!}}\,\heartsuit\,\overset{\scriptstyle\circ\wedge\circ}{\smile}}\ \rule[-0.25ex]{0.01pt}{0.01pt}

    • markx | April 15, 2014 at 1:32 am |

      Thanks Fanny,

      It may reassure you to know that I have heard reports that the Tasmanian Association of Retired Camel Jockeys similarly supports your worthy cause.

      Regards,
      Mark

  51. Mark Silbert | April 14, 2014 at 11:25 am |

    I have just returned from a 2 week visit to Italy. I have lived and worked in both France and Italy in the past and still have good friends in both countries.
    We spent a lot of our time visiting, eating and drinking with old friends including their grown children. We talked a lot about politics and social issues and change.

    It seems to me that the people of Europe have much to be concerned about these days. The least of their concerns though should be CAGW. However the IPCC and the European governmental, bureaucratic elites in Brussels and in the national capitols are continually trying to divert attention from the real economic and social problems they face by hyping fears about CAGW. Social Democracy at work, promoting sameness of thought and equal, but severely limited, opportunity.

    • A fan of *MORE* discourse | April 14, 2014 at 11:33 am |

      LOL … Mark Silbert, did yer friends give yah practical advice on how America can “tune” ObamaCare to achieve European-quality public-health results (which are considerably superior to US) at Europe-quality cost (far lower than US)?

      \scriptstyle\rule[2.25ex]{0.01pt}{0.01pt}\,\boldsymbol{\overset{\scriptstyle\circ\wedge\circ}{\smile}\,\heartsuit\,{\displaystyle\text{\bfseries!!!}}\,\heartsuit\,\overset{\scriptstyle\circ\wedge\circ}{\smile}}\ \rule[-0.25ex]{0.01pt}{0.01pt}

    • Mark Silbert | April 14, 2014 at 2:43 pm |

      For sure, we, in the USA, have our own issues and problems to deal with that are much more pressing than CAGW as well. Why pick on health care? How about our deteriorating infrastructure, the dumbing down of our educational system and out of control deficits. My impression though is that the Italians and French I talk with seem to accept the slide much more readily than we do in the USA.

    • Rob Starkey | April 14, 2014 at 3:28 pm |

      It is great to live in a place where someone else provides your defense and you can spend more than you earn.

  52. R Gresty | April 14, 2014 at 12:12 pm |

    coming to view CAGW as a General Galtiery approach to hiding problems i.e. problems at home that he didn’t know how to fix so have a war to divert attention.
    EU economic problems that they don’t know how to fix so let create fictitious/irrelevant one to divert attention i.e. CAGW

    Seems to work every time.
    Its my orbit day on Friday 62 times around the sun, I’m just getting to cynical.

  53. aaron | April 14, 2014 at 2:37 pm |

    Correlation of albedo w/ crf, masking for high average ccn aerosols with low variance. Same with upwelling sw radiation. Spatial, over time.

  54. GaryM | April 14, 2014 at 5:23 pm |

    OT but funny.

    A TV ad by the opponent of John Boehner, our weak kneed Speaker of the House. The side effects of “electile dysfunction,” such as “extreme skin discoloration, the inability to punch oneself out of a wet paper bag, or maintain a spine in the face of liberal opposition.” “If you have a Boehner lasting longer than 23 years, seek immediate medical attention.”

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=9A8kq85Umco

    I don’t care who ya are, that’s funny right there.

  55. Robert I Ellison | April 14, 2014 at 5:52 pm |

    ‘Climate simulations suggest that multi-decadal periods of high and low variability in the phenomenon known as the El Niño-Southern Oscillation in the tropical Pacific Ocean may be entirely unpredictable.’

    http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v507/n7493/abs/507437a.html

  56.   D  C o  t t o n  | April 14, 2014 at 7:44 pm |

    The greenhouse conjecture would violate the laws of physics. It is totally wrong.

    My study showing water vapour cools is not hard to replicate. To prove me wrong you would have to produce a similar study proving water vapour warms by about 10 degrees for each 1%, as is in effect claimed by GH advocates.

    The Ranque-Hilsch vortex tube provides evidence of the gravito-thermal effect. You would need to provide contrary empirical evidence.

    You would also need to produce a valid (but different) explanation as to how the necessary thermal energy gets into the Venus surface in order to raise its temperature by 5 degrees during its sunlit hours.

    BigWaveDave considers the gravito-thermal effect (seen in the vortex tube) worth your time thinking about …

    “Because the import of the consequence of the radial temperature gradient created by pressurizing a spherical body of gas by gravity, from the inside only, is that it obviates the need for concern over GHG’s. And, because this is based on long established fundamental principles that were apparently forgotten or never learned by many PhD’s, it is not something that can be left as an acceptable disagreement.”

  57.   D  C o  t t o n  | April 15, 2014 at 12:50 am |

    Joe Postma (PSI author) still thinks that the surface temperature of the oceans (where the thin surface layer is almost completely transparent) is determined by that solar radiation, even though it mostly passes through the thin surface layer of water and down into the ocean thermoclines.

    The temperature of the thin surface layer of the oceans (which plays a primary role in determining mean surface temperatures as measured) is itself determined primarily by non-radiative processes, not by radiation. It’s so obvious that Postma is wrong about this!

  58. maurette | April 15, 2014 at 10:53 am |

    I feel discouraged. All the power is on the alarmist side. More and more Universities have a dedicated and favourable teaching about global warming. More and more governments have some kind of Department of ecology favourable to global warming. The formidable increase in the length of the fifth IPCC report is a formidable defence against any serious investigation of its content.

  60. maksimovich | April 17, 2014 at 9:47 pm |

    The great lakes icecover persists into april.

    http://ice-glaces.ec.gc.ca/prods/CVCHDCTGL/20140414180000_CVCHDCTGL_0007617826.gif