by Judith Curry
A few things that caught my eye this past week.
The only critique of my testimony that i’ve encountered (beyond tweets from Mann and Colose) [link]. I’m being attacked for thinking volcanoes and the sun could be important (wasn’t volcanoes and the sun Gavin Schmidt’s explanation for the pause in a paper published last year?)
Excellent discussion of climate and other effects of big volcanoes [link]
3D Cryosat tracks winter sea ice [link]
BBC News: Warning over aerosol climate fix [link]
Russian temperatures “warmer & drier than present” fr 7500-5000 years ago [link]
Model Fail: Iceberg Armadas Didn’t Cause North Atlantic Cooling [link]
“An Honest Climate Scientist: Hans von Storch.” [link]
What’s going on in the Pacific?
This topic probably deserves its own post, but no time right now, here are some relevant links.
New Scientist: Mystery blob in the Pacific messes up weather and ecosystems [link]
The Pacific Ocean may have entered a new warm phase – and the consequences could be dramatic [link] . Chris Mooney (and some scientists) think it is the PDO, but I think it is something else.
Two new journal publications that I find significant on the Pacific:
Pacific sea surface temperature and the winter of 2014
Dennis Hartman
Abstract: It is shown from historical data and from modeling experiments that a proximate cause of the cold winter in North America in 2013–2014 was the pattern of sea surface temperature (SST) in the Pacific Ocean. Each of the three dominant modes of SST variability in the Pacific is connected to the tropics and has a strong expression in extratropical SST and weather patterns. Beginning in the middle of 2013, the third mode of SST variability was two standard deviations positive and has remained so through January 2015. This pattern is associated with high pressure in the northeast Pacific and low pressure and low surface temperatures over central North America. A large ensemble of model experiments with observed SSTs confirms that SST anomalies contributed to the anomalous winter of 2014. [link] to abstract
Additional details are given in this weather.com article, which argues for a new mode of variability in the Pacific.
Decadal modulation of global surface temperature by internal climate variability
Aiguo Dai, John Fyfe, Shang-Ping Xie, Xingang Dai
Abstract. Despite a steady increase in atmospheric greenhouse gases (GHGs), global-mean surface temperature (T) has shown no discernible warming since about 2000, in sharp contrast to model simulations, which on average project strong warming1, 2, 3. The recent slowdown in observed surface warming has been attributed to decadal cooling in the tropical Pacific1, 4, 5, intensifying trade winds5, changes in El Niño activity6, 7, increasing volcanic activity8, 9, 10 and decreasing solar irradiance7. Earlier periods of arrested warming have been observed but received much less attention than the recent period, and their causes are poorly understood. Here we analyse observed and model-simulated global T fields to quantify the contributions of internal climate variability (ICV) to decadal changes in global-mean T since 1920. We show that the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation (IPO) has been associated with large T anomalies over both ocean and land. Combined with another leading mode of ICV, the IPO explains most of the difference between observed and model-simulated rates of decadal change in global-mean T since 1920, and particularly over the so-called ‘hiatus’ period since about 2000. We conclude that ICV, mainly through the IPO, was largely responsible for the recent slowdown, as well as for earlier slowdowns and accelerations in global-mean T since 1920, with preferred spatial patterns different from those associated with GHG-induced warming or aerosol-induced cooling. Recent history suggests that the IPO could reverse course and lead to accelerated global warming in the coming decades. [link] to abstract
Washington Post has an article on the paper The Pacific Ocean has been slowing global warming down – that could be about to change.
Misc topics of interest
Interesting study on risks of groupthink: [link]
Victoria Stodden: “How Computational Science is Changing the Scientific Method” [link]
Is this “new” regime in the Pacific part of the stadium wave? If not, should it be incorporated?
Okay. Let’s call it the stadium wave eraser.
Science evolves, it doesn’t come down from the mount via the Voice of God, as the warmistas seem to believe.
I much prefer Warmunista as it has a theme song;
test
p-values banned from scientific journal Basic and Applied Social Psychology. This is interesting given the data torture we see routinely in climate science. The more stories like these, the more I believe the lack of statistical skill among scientists is significant. It might be good to impose a good number of advanced stats courses on PhD-level students. More than now at least.
From the article:
…
These methods, referred to as null hypothesis significance testing, or NHST, are deeply embedded into the modern scientific research process, and some researchers have been left wondering where to turn. “The p-value is the most widely known statistic,” says biostatistician Jeff Leek of Johns Hopkins University. Leek has estimated that the p-value has been used at least three million scientific papers. Significance testing is so popular that, as the journal editorial itself acknowledges, there are no widely accepted alternative ways to quantify the uncertainty in research results—and uncertainty is crucial for estimating how well a study’s results generalize to the broader population.
Unfortunately, p-values are also widely misunderstood, often believed to furnish more information than they do. Many researchers have labored under the misbelief that the p-value gives the probability that their study’s results are just pure random chance. But statisticians say the p-value’s information is much more non-specific, and can interpreted only in the context of hypothetical alternative scenarios: The p-value summarizes how often results at least as extreme as those observed would show up if the study were repeated an infinite number of times when in fact only pure random chance were at work.
…
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/scientists-perturbed-by-loss-of-stat-tool-to-sift-research-fudge-from-fact/
Thanks for the link. This is a very important development, particularly outside the climate debate.
jim2 – The more stories like these, the more I believe the lack of statistical skill among scientists is significant.
That has been my experience. A few expounding opinions based on exposure in physical sciences and ‘regulatory’ environmental work…
1.) Doing statistics correctly in a real exercise in discipline.
2.) Doing statistics correctly requires much deeper knowledge of the subject than most scientist have.
3.) Diagnostics and awareness of underlying assuming assumptions seem to be orphans.
4.) Communicating statistical results in rigorous language and clearly at the same time can be very difficult–a distraction from the ‘science’ for the authors.
5.) IMO the p-value is is easier to handle in a rigorous discussion, particularly for scientists…after all statisticians say the p-value’s information is much more non-specific, and can interpreted only in the context of hypothetical alternative scenarios: The p-value summarizes how often results at least as extreme as those observed would show up if the study were repeated an infinite number of times when in fact only pure random chance were at work.
6.) The use of hypothesis testing in the regulatory world is extensive. Also my experience has been that regulatory agencies attempt to provide guidance in statistical methodologies–including assumptions involved , choice of appropriate methodology, diagnostics. The material is much more extensive (in volume and depth) than the meager material I was exposed to in my scientific training. However,it is also clear to the researcher/consultant in the regulatory arena that hypothesis testing is not the sole approach to uncertainty.
The problem is not the ‘p-value’ per se, but the user’s knowledge and facility and certainly there are many dark corners and as-well-as heavily trafficked areas where that is the problem. Also I think that as mentioned near the end of the article education is part of the solution–along with use of other, non-statistical approaches to handling uncertainty. Still “Most researchers do not care about the details of statistical methods”.
—–
The thrust of the article is greater than just ‘p-values’ and your opening sentence:
p-values banned from scientific journal Basic and Applied Social Psychology.
may be misleading to any denizens who jump quickly. To wit:
In apparently the first such move ever for a scientific journal the editors of Basic and Applied Social Psychology announced in a February editorial that researchers who submit studies for publication would not be allowed to use a common suite of statistical methods, including a controversial measure called the p-value. [mwg bold]
Thanks for posting the link. It is very interesting and has some good discussion.
Regards,
mw
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Another part of the curriculum should be reading the historic book Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds by Charles MacKay. The last 200 years show no change in human nature and the manipulative exploitation of ignorance.
Each week, MIT has a review of top “Technology Stories”. This week, several articles piqued my attention:
Methane Capture for electricity generation in Africa (Rwanda, Congo).
Chances are 50% for another Chernobyl nuclear disaster before 2050.
RE methane article.
” For both Rwanda and the eastern DRC, which face crippling power shortages and limited options for expanding their electric grids, that could be an economic game changer, supporting new industries and offering a chance to alleviate searing poverty.”
Looks like, contrary to what some warmistas hold, cheap energy is the key to the mitigation of poverty.
I have to wonder how much the nuclear study scientists tortured the data, perhaps because they don’t truly understand statistics. Maybe they didn’t, but until it is audited by a person or group knowledgeable of statistics, as well as the other methodologies used in the analysis, the study has to be taken with a huge grain of salt.
Thanks for posting these interesting articles.
I agree with Jim2 on “Chances are 50%”, particularly statistics. (I had posted here on mortality rates before, but not other columns. That post noted mortality rate of 0.5 per year.) I downloaded the paper trail here and will review it when I have time.
In particlar, I want to see the range of time from which the stats were calculated. The statistics used should account for the learning ramp of design, construction, maintenance and operation since EBR-1 in Arco (EBR = Experimental Breeder Reactor). I would also like to know whether “Red October” was included.
I have been following nuclear power for some time, since a high school assignment to write a piece that would be front-page news. The teacher chewed me out for my proposed subject. I wrote on it anyway; the teacher was displeased when I handed it in. Within two days, the local paper had a banner headline announcing EBR-1 had gone live. (Oversimplified: a breeder reactor makes more fuel than it consumes.)
Wikipedia contributors. “Nuclear Reactor Accidents in the United States.” Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia, February 21, 2015. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Nuclear_reactor_accidents_in_the_United_States&oldid=648161768
“The United States General Accountability Office reported more than 150 incidents from 2001 to 2006 alone of nuclear plants not performing within acceptable safety guidelines. According to a 2010 survey of energy accidents, there have been at least 56 accidents at nuclear reactors in the United States (defined as incidents that either resulted in the loss of human life or more than US$50,000 of property damage). The most serious of these was the Three Mile Island accident in 1979. Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Plant has been the source of two of the top five most dangerous nuclear incidents in the United States since 1979. Relatively few accidents have involved fatalities.”
Right. If TMI is our greatest concern of nuclear, then we should be building nuclear reactors to beat the band.
Immediately after Chernobyl the UN estimated hundreds of thousands of deaths from cancer were coming as a direct result. In 2005, twenty years after the accident the WHO attributed 56 deaths and 4000 possible early graves to come. In 2010 at the 25th anniversary Global Research published a study here in the WHO news archiveto narrow down the number to 985,000 deaths. (I’m not sure about significant figures.)
Ron Graf,
Can you please refer me to where you read the figure of 985,000 deaths?
Another Russian anomaly, 75 deaths in a hydro facility.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Sayano–Shushenskaya_power_station_accident
Peter, re: Global Research projects 985,000 Chernyobl deaths. My apologies. This was supposed to be the second link.
Ron Graf,
As I suspected, the 985,000 comes from a group of anti nukes and the site you’ve quoted says this about itself:
I’d take more notice of the WHO, and the 20 years of surveys and analysis they’ve done, than this sort of anti-nuke propaganda.
Planning Engineer,
I have an excellent power point slide presentation of the Russian hydro plant accident. It was prepared by the Brazilian consultants who reviewed the accident. It’s very many photos, before during and after the accident from many locations in and around the dam and power station. Text explaining what’s-what and what happened is added step by step as you go through the slides. If you want me to send it to you, write to me via Judith, and I’ll email it to you.
Well, reading about Chernobyl is kind of interesting.
1. In 1982 reactor #1 partially melted down.(it was restarted).
2. In 1986 reactor #4 was entombed in concrete.
3. In 1992 reactor #2’s turbine caught fire and the reactor was shutdown.
The last reactor #3 was shutdown in 2000.
There is 0 (zero) chance of another Chernobyl.
Segrest,
No matter how you look at it, that’s simply anti-nuke scaremongering. Why was Chernobyl a disaster? On what basis? Compared with what? How does it compare with other accidents and long term impacts of other technologies? How does it compare with the thousand or so lives lost in airline accidents every year?
Do you realise that on any objective basis, the actions taken that were responsible for most of the cost of the accident would not have been taken
Do you have any idea what you are talking about. You say you are an electricity planning engineer, yet you don’t even know that nuclear power is the safest way to generate electricity. So any other technology causes more fatalities per TWh of electricity supplied.
The RBMK was a late Gen 1 reactor with a graphite core.
There was 1 Chernobyl in what is an obsolete design as of 2000.
SInce 1957 there has been one Chernobyl. All the gen 1 reactors are pretty much history.
That is 57 years.
In 35 years there is a 50/50 chance? With more modern designs?
It is pretty dubious – it took a act of God and lots of human stupidity to create Fukushima. If TEPCO had diversified some of the support systems Fukushima would have never happened.
To me this looks like scaremongering plain and simple.
The only wild card is the Indians. The indians are a little crazy when it comes to plant operation. Reading reports of some of their reactor issues is a little disturbing. If I lived in Pakistan or Bangladesh I’d be a little worried.
For the US there really isn’t any worry. Even if India blows up a plant it will have negligible impact on the US. The radioactivity almost has to go around the world once to get to Britain. or Europe so they are ok, and the Japanese have gotten used to radioactivity by now..
PA,
I agree with most, but I think you need to change your explanation of this part:
There isn’t any significant worry for any one. Nuclear is orders of magnitude safer than other technologies that can provide most of our electricity. Changing from coal to nuclear power world wide would save over a million lives per year (as long as it does not raise the cost of electricity).
Nuclear plants cannot have a nuclear explosion. It is impossible. So using the term “blow up” is misleading and supports those employing scaremongering tactics.
Radioactivity from a plant accident has negligible effect when compared with the contamination from chemical industries, fossil fuels, and manufacture of solar panels (on a properly comparable basis per TWh of electricity supplied through life).
Even if a cruise missile blew up used fuel canisters, the effect would be small and limited to an area with a couple of kilometres. The radioactive pieces would be easily found and cleaned up (compared with the difficulty of cleaning up chemical contamination).
Peter Lang | April 18, 2015 at 9:39 pm |
PA,
I agree with most, but I think you need to change your explanation of this part:I agree with most, but I think you need to change your explanation of this part:
For the US there really isn’t any worry. Even if India blows up a plant it will have negligible impact on the US. The radioactivity almost has to go around the world once to get to Britain. or Europe so they are ok, and the Japanese have gotten used to radioactivity by now.
Well, gee. A couple of issues.
1. While the Indians worry me it is almost impossible to slag reactors aka Fukushima without God’s help. I may have credited Indians with more destructive potential than they actually have. I’ll see if I can find out enough reactor details to place an upper limit on their destructive potential.
2. Chernobyl and TMI are examples of problems that can be fixed by mandatory jail time or capital punishment. If you execute people for touching the safety systems on an active reactor a number of problems are solved..
What is interesting is there really hasn’t been a major reactor incident due to mechanical failure.
3. The Fukushima incident didn’t really endanger anyone but the Japanese and if they had taken iodine tablets it wouldn’t have endangered the Japanese. 98% of the radioactivity was Iodine 131 and that was gone in about 2 months. The farm crops were safe after a year. A couple of people got over 50 mS. So far nobody died from radiation but well over 15,000 died from stress.
The anti-nukers have killed far more people than the radioactivity ever will and should be charged with many thousands of cases of involuntary manslaughter, with sentences to be served consecutively.
The way to stop the scaremongering is with stiff jail sentences.
PA,
Thanks. I’ll add:
Instead of a worst case scenario, perhaps you could show most likely probability and pdfs. We have 60 years of operation, 15,000 reactor years of experience and large data bases of the major accidents in the energy chains. So the information is available, well documented and well researched. The NewExt project within ExternE, is one excellent authoritative source: http://www.externe.info/externe_d7/ See a chart I linked here: What is risk? A simple explanation http://bravenewclimate.com/2010/07/04/what-is-risk/
http://bravenewclimate.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/accidents_energy_chains.jpg
Agree.
This posted on April 8, 2015:
Five Surprising Public Health Facts About Fukushima http://theenergycollective.com/breakthroughinstitut/2214691/five-surprising-public-health-facts-about-fukushima
Peter Lang | April 18, 2015 at 11:50 pm |
PA,
Thanks. I’ll add:
I’ll see if I can find out enough reactor details to place an upper limit on their destructive potential.
Most of the Indian reactors are some variant of a CANDU reactor. They really don’t have a “hard” failure mode (something that could cause problems outside the local area).
This is good because the plant workers “punk” each other by doing things like putting tritium in the plant water cooler.
They have a couple of breeders but only the brand new thorium based breeder is commercial sized. Difficult to evaluate risk with no history and a sample size of 1.
Segrest,
Can you tell me the external cost of fatalities caused by wind, solar and nuclear power per TWh of electricity supplied? If you can’t, ask me. I’ll provide you with some authoritative figures and sources for your edification.
If your can’t, I’d suggest you should:
1. withdraw your comment
2. refrain from all further anti-nuke propaganda
3. acknowledge that the basis for your advocacy of renewable energy is unsupportable by evidence, and
4. on the basis of available evidence, renewable energy probably has only a small to negligible role to play in reducing global GHG emissions,
5. those advocating for renewable energy are either ignorant, or willfully misleading the populaton, or cultists who couldn’t care less about the damage they are doing to economies and therefore to human well-being.
As a side note fun on Belarus and Ukraine (the homes of Chernobyl):
http://www.wcrf.org/int/cancer-facts-figures/data-cancer-frequency-country
6 United States of America 318.0
46 Belarus 218.7
Belarus has 2/3rd the cancer rate of USA and the Ukraine doesn’t even make the top 50, and they are both in the top 10 in per capita smoking (the list consists of Greece and some Soviet Republics)..
And now the bad news about Chernobyl:
http://www.unscear.org/unscear/en/chernobyl.html
The Chernobyl accident caused many severe radiation effects almost immediately. Of 600 workers present on the site during the early morning of 26 April 1986, 134 received high doses (0.8-16 Gy) and suffered from radiation sickness. Of these, 28 died in the first three months and another 19 died in 1987-2004 of various causes not necessarily associated with radiation exposure.
…
in Belarus, Ukraine and the most affected Russian regions and drank milk with high levels of radioactive iodine. By 2005, more than 6,000 thyroid cancer cases had been diagnosed in this group, and it is most likely that a large fraction of these thyroid cancers is attributable to radioiodine intake.
Bottom line:
A couple of dozen proven dead from Chernobyl, despite having a large cohort whose exposure was close to or vastly exceeded LD 50.
HI PA,
Yes. I’ve been following all this since the time of the accident. I was in Canada at the time and was getting daily reports. I’ve followed the authoritative studies, such as the ‘Chernobyl Project’ since.
The official figures project 4000 fatalities over 70 years as a result of the radioacitve contamination leaks from the accident. Last time I saw the figures the total confirmed attributable to date is about 60. There would also be some others. However, the 4000 is a projection using the LNT hypothesis. This is now recognised as overestimating the effects of radiation at low doses. I understand that the best guess of the long term total effects of radioactive contamination from the Chernobyl is in the order of low hundreds – much less than 4000.
“Radiation the Facts”
http://home.comcast.net/~robert.hargraves/public_html/RadiationSafety26SixPage.pdf
I’m not a biologist so I will defer to smarter people.
But the last time I looked at this every cell in the human body has to repair over 1 million DNA breaks a day. The machinery is pretty good at this. At low levels radiation seems to stimulate the repair mechanism.
Below 50 ms/Y there isn’t demonstrated evidence of harm. The Health Physics Society had a position paper on this that I’m sure they got a lot of grief on.
Between 50ms/y and 2 S/y is a gray area. It depends on method on intake,the compound, and the biological half-life.
But short term intense exposure is going to overwhelm the repair mechanisms and is fundamental different than low level background radioactivity.
Normal background radioactivity is generally 1-13 mS/y. The US average is 3-3.6 mS/y. Denver is around 6 mS/y.
The only critique of my testimony that i’ve encountered (beyond tweets from Mann and Colose) [link]. I’m being attacked for thinking volcanoes and the sun could be important (wasn’t volcanoes and the sun Gavin Schmidt’s explanation for the pause in a paper published last year?)
Well, the earth is 4,540,000,0018 years old.
For 4,549,999,953 years volcanoes, solar warming, geological changes, and natural variation were in general an adequate explanation for the change in temperature. We didn’t blame cave men for burning campfires and causing the interglacial.
Since 1950 110% of the temperature change was due to CO2. Gee, why aren’t the old standbys good enough any more?
110% of the temperature change from 2000 to 2015 is damn close to zero. This is unexpected if CO2 was the dominant climate influence in the 20th century.
4,540,000,0018 – how many is that?
“4,540,000,0018” should have been 4,540,000,018.
Thank you for reading and noticing.
How can there be volcanoes and geologic events before the earth was born?
4,540,000,0018 years ago the cause of climate was natural variation.
Some days the lava was a little hotter, some days the lava was a little colder.
Occasionally there was rain (pieces of the impactor that didn’t become part of the moon) but it was a hard rain (and a little rocky).
Regarding winter sea ice, some more context is available.
This year’s NH sea ice extent (Arctic plus nearby seas) is down. And so we’re getting the warnings about the Arctic “death spiral” and starving polar bears. It turns out that most of the difference between this year and last comes from less ice in Okhotsk and Barents.
Okhotsk, Barents, Who Cares?
Heraclitus (535 BC – 475 BC) famously said, “No man ever steps in the same river twice.” The same can be said for anyone sailing in these seas.
https://rclutz.wordpress.com/2015/04/18/okhotsk-barents-who-cares/
Arctic Ice Extent/Area is an irrelevant measure of anything. The winter extent was low because some “who cares” ice in the Pacific didn’t form.
http://psc.apl.uw.edu/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/schweiger/ice_volume/BPIOMASIceVolumeAnomalyCurrentV2.1.png
Arctic Ice volume is where the action is. Ice volume in the Arctic is up. Unless currents/storms flush an above average amount ice into the Atlantic the summer ice extent should be high.
pppppaaaaa: Ice volume in the Arctic is up
Ice volume in the Arctic shows no deviation from its multidecadal downward trend. A brief acceleration (much hyped) was followed by a regression to the mean trend. Revisit the issue a decade hence.
matthewrmarler | April 18, 2015 at 1:45 pm |
pppppaaaaa: Ice volume in the Arctic is up
Ice volume in the Arctic shows no deviation from its multidecadal downward trend. A brief acceleration (much hyped) was followed by a regression to the mean trend. Revisit the issue a decade hence.
That statement is provably incorrect. The trend is being dynamically updated and the current level is more than 2 standard deviations over the 2010 trend line.
https://profmandia.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/piomas-e1296829130171.png?w=700
Looks like nuclear is making progress despite the Luddites.
From the article:
…
Cameco Corp., Canada’s biggest uranium producer, would reap a revenue windfall once a sales agreement is finalized with India, while boosting employment in its home province, Saskatchewan’s premier said.
A deal would be “huge,” yielding hundreds of millions in revenue and supporting jobs in the mining sector, Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall said in an interview with Bloomberg News on Friday. He was asked to comment on a possible agreement by Saskatchewan-based Cameco to provide uranium for nuclear power.
…
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-04-10/looming-india-uranium-deal-huge-for-saskatchewan-premier-says?cmpid=yhoo
What an inventive use for a seized Greenpeace money.
California has more water than is widely publicized.
From the article:
…
How to fix California’s drought problem
…
A dilapidated city park was remodeled with cisterns below, as were medians along broad boulevards that were themselves underwater during heavy rains. The result was a system, using ancient Roman technology (see photo above), that captures 8,000 acre feet of water each year, about twice what the entire city consumes, solving the flooding problem and creating a source of fresh water for thousands of residents. The investment also gave the city a new park with ball fields and picnic grounds and higher adjacent property values.
Read MoreInvesting in the world’s water crisis: Ex-NFL star
But could something this simple be the solution for a thirsty state that is getting hotter, growing faster, and producing more food crops than ever before? According to the National Weather Service, the average annual rainfall in Los Angeles for the past 100 years is about 14″, more than enough to serve the needs of the region and then some.
During the decade from 2003 to 2012, we had wet years of nearly 38″ of rain and dry ones of less than 4″, but the average was still just under 14″, meaning there is no drought in the most populous region of the state.
…
http://www.cnbc.com/id/102581700
Jim2,
This commentary seems to be nonsense. Sun Valley has 81,000 people. 4,000 acre feet (half of the 8,000 Terry claims is twice the usage) is about 1,280,000,000 gallons. that’s about 40 gallons a day per person. That is an unbelievable figure. Nowhere in Southern Cal is that a reality, especially not in the San Fernando Valley
Much worse, her 8,000 acre feet figure seems to have been made up too. The pdf of the Watershed projects below (some $157 million worth) has nothing like that figure when I total the various projects up. In fact I didn’t even get to 1,000. By the way that cost is enough to buy more than 1,000,000 acre feet of water under normal circumstances. A drought answer? I’ve got to say no, unless I can see some real facts, not made up wishes.
http://dpw.lacounty.gov/adm/sustainability/docs/EnvISIonAwards_SunValleyWatershed.pdf
John, looks like a good catch. I didn’t realize how much water 8,000 acre-feet is!
Sun Valley has a variety of water management projects, but all these together don’t appear to add up to anything close to 8,000 a-f.
Nevertheless, water management is probably a better long term solution than de-sal plants.
Sun Valley water projects:
http://www.sunvalleywatershed.org/
Maybe it is supposed to be 800 acre-feet for all the projects. Here is some info.
http://www.watershedhealth.org/Files/document/880_WatershedWise_V15_3_web.pdf
In some circles this may be true but unfortunately, among Left-thinking people — as good a glimpse as we can get from the writing-rabble on that side of the political divide — there was substantial blowback among all the gadflies of legitimate scientific scrutiny concerning testimony that, We don’t know…
All of the government-education enterprise that is built around global warming alarmism is that, if we can know anything, we know humanity’s influence on the climate has been the dominant factor in global warming since 1950 and that if we continue to increase our emissions we are all doomed. The failure to acknowledge that simple fact is the very definition of a skeptic.
Cracks are appearing in your arguments making AGW a “Liberal vs. Conservative” issue. Senator Lindsey Graham is one of the most conservative folks on the face of this planet.
https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=10153124803739454
There are many Conservatives who (1) Just hate Liberal Approaches to AGW (carbon taxes, cap & trade, Federal REPS), (2) Come to CE trying to learn some science and believe Dr. Curry is a “Good Faith” Skeptic; (3) Are stumbling though trying to find some “common ground” on AGW.
Could “Fast Mitigation” be an example of “Common Ground”? It will be interesting to read her follow up to this (hopefully) next week.
Stephen, Conservative smack talk radio doesn’t like nor consider Lindsey Graham a conservative, in fact they generally dislike him.
SS, I’m not exactly sure your characterization is correct.
I’m not a conservative, more of a libertarian/anarchist, and he looks like a moderate at best to me.
The first article I found googling him:
http://downtrend.com/donn-marten/rino-stampede-lindsey-graham-to-explore-2016-white-house-bid
“RINO Stampede: Lindsey Graham to Explore 2016 White House Bid”
RINO is not code for politically conservative.
ordvic — Here is the problem for the GOP, where President Obama and the Democrats “own” this issue among the U.S. Public. Its the only issue where the GOP is not competitive in trust:
http://www.pewresearch.org/files/2014/11/FT_Obama_Issues.png
Well (as people might know), I’m a RINO! Maybe Kim can ZING me and make me laugh as I retreat back into my corner.
Stephen, I agree with you there. I think that is why Obama is pushing the issue. It may also be the reason it’s been reported that Hillary wants to use it as a big campaign issue even though it’s at the bottom of issues people care about.
Stephen Segrest: Here is the problem for the GOP
On the other hand, the problem for Obama and the Democrats is that voters consistently rank “climate change” as among the least important problems (15th out of 15, for example). Obama and the Democrats try to confound “climate change” with all of the environment, and confound “climate change” with CO2.
Stephen Segrest: Could “Fast Mitigation” be an example of “Common Ground”?
Let me start with the case against, by asking a rhetorical question: Is there even one “believer” in AGW who is in favor of massive construction projects to increase flood protection and irrigation? How about new construction to protect American Atlantic Coast cities against storm surges and heavy rainfalls? As many as, oh, 15% of “believers” in AGW who support such construction?
Perhaps I mistakenly substituted “adaptation” for “mitigation”, and you really did mean “Fast Mitigation”. Is there any such thing as “fast” mitigation?
matthewrmarler | April 18, 2015 at 2:28 pm |
Stephen Segrest: Here is the problem for the GOP
On the other hand, the problem for Obama and the Democrats is that voters consistently rank “climate change” as among the least important problems (15th out of 15, for example). Obama and the Democrats try to confound “climate change” with all of the environment, and confound “climate change” with CO2.
There is an opportunity here but I’m not sure the Republicans are smart enough to take it.
I would viciously attack the CO2 is bad meme. Video of plants growing with 0 PPM, 280 PPM, and 560 PPM would be nice.
Use pictures of the air in Peking and some US city. ” We are burning the same fossil fuels, but the US is burning it responsibly.”
A position of transition to nuclear and other sources in a gradual way to reduce reliance on fossil fuels labeled “responsible environmentalism” would be a good niche to aim for.
2.
pppppaaaaa, I don’t think that will work. Obama has the bully pulpit and the press will just ignore the Republicans. If I were they I’d just ignore that issue and promote the other issues where they have the advantage.
matthewmarler: Matthew, “Fast Mitigation” is a science term used for the reduction in short-lived climate pollutants of smog, methane, HFCs, and black carbon. I believe Dr. Ramanathan coined the term as a mitigation strategy.
Stephen Segrest:“Fast Mitigation” is a science term used for the reduction in short-lived climate pollutants of smog, methane, HFCs, and black carbon.
Thank you.
The video does not reveal a crack in making AGW a liberal vs concervative agenda, Graham is a moderate, and merely says that the Republicans need to show that they are pro-environment; he is not addressing AGW. Pro-environment has never been confined to the Liberals, although liberals have taken it to extremes. Once again Stephen shows he doesn’t understand the conservatives and the tea party. He fails to consider that there are several categories of conservatives, many of which discount religion as a factor. He doesn’t accept that the tea party is a grassroots movement, not a party, a movement that advocates personal freedom and the US Constitution; a movement unrelated to any particular religious belief. Many conservatives, and many blue collar democrats consider themselves Reagan Conservatives, a category into which I fall. A category that believes national policies should give priority to economic growth.
The von Storch post is new, but the referenced interview was posted by Der Spiegel in 2012. And von Storch’s assumption that IPCCAR5 would deal honestly with the pause proved wrong. They buried it. Essay Hiding the Hiatus.
“An Honest Climate Scientist: Hans von Storch.”
The troubling thing is climate scientists have such a credibility problem that they have to label the honest ones so you will know.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/apr/17/abbott-government-gives-4m-to-help-climate-sceptic-set-up-australian-centre
Australia has made what seems to be a brilliant move – they are bribing climate scientists to be honest.
Given the high costs of bad policy based on bad advice, bribing scientists to be honest might very cost effective.
The University of Western Australia (my Alma Mater) has just started a think tank on the subject of economic cost/benfits of varying policy options under the chairmanship of Lomberg, which has been given funding of $AUD4million, much to the anger of Tim Flannery and the greenies.
I am pleased to see some serious funding given to this question, because this has been a much neglected and maligned area of economic research, and that my old university is the venue for this important work.
In the Stodden talk, she says the code and data of the climate modelers is open. That is news to me.
Bill Maher had another commentary on Republicans and climate yesterday.
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/maher-gopers-prostitutes-to-donors-by-denying-climate-change/
This belongs in the Week in Review – Comedy edition, not the science edition.
He addresses the Republican “science” or lack thereof and the previous global cooling scare that is often raised. Galileo is also mentioned.
Flaws in Democrat Science (the quick list):
1. Haven’t bounded ECS to +/- 10% despite 27 years of funding.
2. Haven’t shown CO2 mitigation will actually be net beneficial.
3. Haven’t shown CO2 at expected levels (to mid 550 PPM) is net harmful.
4. Haven’t shown warming up to 1°C in 21st century (the likely amount) will be net harmful.
5. Haven’t shown CO2 is responsible for over 1/2 of 20th century warming.
6. Haven’t explained over 1/2 20th century warming.
7. Think adding less than 1/10,000 more carbon to the ocean annually will make a moderately alkaline ocean acidic. This claim is just goofy on its face.
A case can be made that reducing CO2 will cost us a lot, to cost us lot, it could be the equivalent of shooting ourselves in the foot with a gun and bullet we purchased.
And the contrast he made with the Newsweek article was this quote from Huckabee. As Maher puts it –
Or as Mike Huckabee remembers it, ‘All the literature at that time from the scientific community said that we were all going to freeze to death.’”
Again, this belongs in the comedy bin, or maybe the dust bin.
As does the quoted Huckabee remark, but unfortunately Huckabee was being serious.
Is he running for anything? I know I wouldn’t vote for him.
Jim 2: “This belongs in the Week in Review – Comedy edition, not the science edition.”
Unfortunately 97% of the populace get their science information from comedians or ideologues or comedian-ideologues.
Jim, I believe the phenomenon of alarmism dates as far back as mammal herd leaders alerting danger and herd reaction. And it did not stop with those Neanderthals of he 1970s.
JD, the basic flaw in your post is the assumption that Bill Maher has good enough judgment and sufficient common sense to be worth listening to.
He pointed out the that the global cooling scare was one Newsweek article (and perhaps those who quoted it). Prove him wrong. It is an interesting point. He pointed out that Galileo was the scientist, and what he was overturning was caveman views, not a scientific consensus. Both valid points, even from a comedian.
Jim D,
C.I.A. http://www.climatemonitor.it/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/1974.pdf
Peer reviewed: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/173/3992/138.short by a NASA scientist
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_cooling
WaPo: http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/washingtonpost_historical/doc/147902052.html?FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:FT&type=historic&date=JAN%2011,%201970&author=Washington%20Post%20Staff%20WriterBy%20David%20R.%20Boldt&pub=The%20Washington%20Post&edition=&startpage=&desc=Colder%20Winters%20Held%20Dawn%20of%20New%20Ice%20Age
And a compilation: http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2012/04/top-scientists-government-agencies-and-publications-have-for-over-100-years-feared-an-ice-age.html
Was it either a consensus or a prediction? No, as Maher said, it was speculation by a few that made for an interesting magazine story for a short time, never to be followed up by other stories. This is different from the current situation, just in the scale of numbers of articles and some saying they are already feeling impacts.
Jim D,
“Was it either a consensus or a prediction?” I’d say it was more than an article in Newsweek as you suggested Bill Maher (that renowned climate scientist, but he makes me laugh) stated. And, it was a misread of the understanding of the global climate system by a subset of scientists of the era. Just like there are learning pains and misreads today.
You asked for proof that it was more than a Newsweek article. Proof supplied.
He said this to contrast with what Huckabee remembers, and that is often echoed here, which was that all the literature at the time was about another ice age.
Jim D,
I wouldn’t say “all the literature” (didn’t read it then), but I would say most of the mass media. Catastrophe sells and CO2 being the bad guy was much lower on the radar. Did you read the peer reviewed article’s abstract from Dr. Rasool’s article or the wiki offered? It was well more than one article in Newsweek and had legs.
Maybe as a comedian he is entitled to hyperbole, but politicians should not be. Anyway, it is quite possible that many people will only have seen this one article on it, and/or various derivatives of it in newspapers.
Jim D,
True. Or, it could be that there are varying definitions of “the literature”.
You must be young.
The posters here haven’t properly characterized what was happening.
Global cooling was a adjunct to the “Nuclear Winter” meme and was being deliberately promoted as a backdrop to “nuclear winter” theory as the SALT treaties were being negotiated.
Once the treaties were signed – and enough time passed for people to forget the cooling claims – they switched to global warming.
Today’s lying about CO2 warming is because a few fat cat rich billionaires and environmental extremists want to eliminate fossil fuels in the US prematurely, and don’t care how it damages the economy. They are only going accelerate what is going to happen anyway, at great expense.
There was one benefit of all this banter:
http://www.livescience.com/12996-regional-nuclear-war-effects-global-cooling.html
A regional nuclear war would stop global warming.
Jim D: He pointed out the that the global cooling scare was one Newsweek article (and perhaps those who quoted it). Prove him wrong.
Are you serious? Did Newsweek make it all up, or did they cite reputable scientists? This claim that it was a single tertiary source has been debunked lots of times. Perhaps you’d be content to reread early Holdren, early Ehrlich, and early Schneider, for a tiny sampling? Do we really have to do it again?
He says Newsweek quoted some scientists, not a consensus, that were just speculating not predicting. It makes for a good magazine article.
My neighbor was in the first wave in the genome work. One day we watching the kids play in the street, and I told him I had read about some genetic scientist in Time, and he said that’s where useless theories and their scientists go for their last hurrah.
pppppaaaaa –
Thanks for that, bro. It’s nice to see these reminders that despite protestations to the contrary, conspiratorial ideology is alive and kicking in the “skept-o-sphere.”
Jim D: He says … .
JCH, ‘That’s where useless theories and their scientists go for their last hurrah’. Does that go for National Geographic and the Ice Sheet melts as well?
NAT Geo is like Playboy – good pictures.
Joshua | April 18, 2015 at 2:37 pm |
pppppaaaaa –
…
Thanks for that, bro. It’s nice to see these reminders that despite protestations to the contrary, conspiratorial ideology is alive and kicking in the “skept-o-sphere.”
Well, I get a little tired of the lie-through-your teeth left after a while. Because they believe, in their somewhat underused minds, that they are right and their opponents are wrong, this makes it fair for them to use any tactic and lie several of their body parts off.
Having observed protests in DC it is pretty obvious who the astroturfers are, they bus their grass in, hand out premade signs, and teach the grass to sway in unison in Lafayette Square before wandering down to Pennsylvania Ave..
It is no sillier than the “Fat Cat” meme of the left who protest the skeptical forces spending millions when they are spending billions. Who knows it might even be right. I can’t think of a good justification for destructive global warming policies. They are stupid and irrational. Might as well go long with conspiracy theory.
I guess Jim D means there wasn’t a contrived 97% consensus for the cooling predictions. Ahhhh, how climate science has progressed!
Jim2,
It certainly wasn’t 97%, but it wasn’t “just a Newsweek article” either.
Image didn’t post :http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7d/PeerReviewedPapersComparingGlobalWarmingAndCoolingIn1970s.jpg
Wally Broecker coined the term global warming and made one of the first predictions in 1975 too. It holds up remarkably well. He also tried to predict natural variability based on Greenland Camp Century cycles, which was a bit off but helped to explain the flat trend at the time.
Jim D | April 18, 2015 at 5:49 pm |
Wally Broecker coined the term global warming and made one of the first predictions in 1975 too. It holds up remarkably well. He also tried to predict natural variability based on Greenland Camp Century cycles, which was a bit off but helped to explain the flat trend at the time
The earth is a heat engine and the atmosphere is the working fluid.
Some of the climate efforts amount to measuring the temperature of the R-134a at various points in the system and trying to guess the temperature of the passenger compartment.
“He pointed out the that the global cooling scare was one Newsweek article (and perhaps those who quoted it). Prove him wrong.”
Poven wrong. Yet you, Jim D, attempt to deflect from that. You apparently were a Maher beleiver and are not prepared to call it what it is: more Maher BS.
Pitiful.
As I linked below, the Republicans are still widely using that Newsweek article even today, possibly even more than anyone emphasized it at the time.
> Republicans are still widely using that Newsweek article even today.
Not only Republicans (GaryM’s RINOs included), but Denizens to this date.
Using old theories is as fun as using old expressions of incredulity. God knows engineer-minded people are good them. For starters, here’s Sir William Preece, chief engineer of the British Post Office:
Sometimes, one feels Judy’s has been written in 1876, and we simply rewrite it.
The cooling story demonstrates the lack of understanding of climate that prevails to this very day.
Jim D,
I remember it being a subject taught to me when I was in middle school
in the mid-70’s and I remember seeing it in the Science News journal I subscribed to in college in late 70’s. So, it was not just one story. It was a decade long series of speculations from a handful of climate scientists that got picked up in the media. Was it as pervasive as today’s warming story?
No. There were many fewer climate scientists back then and much less money available for it. But, it was a widely believed scenario. Even Stephen Schneider believed it and hyped it a bit and wrote a preface for a book on it. Then a few years later, he changed his mind and moved to a new “scary story” that was also a climate catastrophe. Funny, how it is never a small or medium scale problem but always the end of the world.
Bill1984, When I relayed personally remembering reading about us about to fall into an ice age in my 4th grade Weekly Reader Willard or Joshua, I get them confused, said I had a data set of one. That is true but at least you and I don’t need to vet our data source.
Stephen Schneider changed his mind because he made a miscalculation that resulted in allowing the cooling effect of pollution to overwhelm the enhanced greenhouse effect.
Just like today some people in error think natural variation is overwhelming the EGHE.
JCH | April 18, 2015 at 10:32 pm |
…
Just like today some people in error think natural variation is overwhelming the EGHE.
That isn’t entirely accurate.
People believe some combination of:
1. Natural variation and a weakening in solar forcing (which leads to a decrease in its 3-4 times water vapor multiplier) is overwhelming the EGHE.
2. The EGHE is actually a UGHE.
March has the 3rd warmest oceans and 2nd warmest land, which makes it the warmest March in the NOAA record. Natural variation is getting its butt kicked. The cold phase of the PDO is being offset by the cold phase of the AMO, which has triggered a natural cold eraser in the NW Pacific.
Without knowing the % of articles in the 1600s that concluded a geocentric or heliocentric solar system, we can’t evaluate today’s evidence on global warming.
Thanks for that insightful spurt of bilge, Josh.
> It was a decade long series of speculations from a handful of climate scientists that got picked up in the media.
Then I’m sure you, Ron, or Danny can produce evidence of that series, Bill.
There’s no rush.
JCH –
http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/UAH_LT_1979_thru_March_2015_v5.png
http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/Accum_Trend.png
The current trend is 1.4 C/century
Anybody who thinks an alarm was issued in the 1970s makes me highly skeptical they know what an alarm is.
Did your weekly reader ever explain alarms? Human beings are so reluctant to react to alarms that fire marshals are insisting on building alarms that are so loud and unpleasant people have to flee the building to get away from the alarms. They have to do this because many people will stay inside and burn to death.
Some old alarms that don’t really work:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmGCDVKQgyk
Now:
False alarms harm response.
Here’s an article on the author of the often-quoted Newsweek 1975 story with a link to the story itself, a short 1-page article buried deep in the magazine.
http://www.dailyclimate.org/tdc-newsroom/2014/01/newsweek-global-cooling-reporter
Yep. An article buried deep in the mag.
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/207/4434/943.abstract
http://geology.gsapubs.org/content/3/12/695.abstract
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17799300
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17790893
While not a “consensus” there was discussion and way more than just a Newsweek article. Time and WaPo had them to and I’m sure you’re aware of L. Nimoy’s TeeVee show.
Guessing you’re too young to not have lived it like many did.
Jim D, If I prove that the article you linked is so poorly researched it might as well be completely false would you admit you would need to begin to question MSM reports as slanted at least about global warming? Take my challenge, please.
Oops. Danny blew it for me. I’ll have to wait for your next article link.
Sorry Ron! My bad. Took me about 10 minutes to find 4 more scientific articles and I’ve left out 3 as suspect as the 1975 N.A.S. as they stated climate was unpredictable before indicating they “thought” cooling was coming. And ya know Jim D always does his research.
And Danny, a miniscule amount compared with what is being claimed.
JCH,
Claimed by whom? Peterson, 2008 says 7 cooling and 42 warming peer reviewed. One by someone at Nasa (guess they’re not considered worthy when it comes to climate in your view?). So some 14%. There was Newsweek, Time, WAPO, and a L. Nimoy teevee show. It was enough to be noticable. So I’ve done my bit. Please show me Newsweek, WAPO, Time and a teevee show on the global warming side prior to 1980. Then we can compare how the information was disseminated. (And I’m still leaving out N.A.S. from 1975)
> http://www.sciencemag.org/content/207/4434/943.abstract
Yep. A paper from 1980, cited more than 2,500 times. That’s some very solid evidence of that seventies scare, Danny.
A review here:
http://scienceofdoom.com/2013/10/13/ghosts-of-climates-past-part-three-hays-imbrie-shackleton/
Guessing you must be new here [1].
[1]: http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/you-must-be-new-here
Willard,
Same challenge for you as for JCH at end of here: http://judithcurry.com/2015/04/18/week-in-review-science-edition/#comment-695140
(Show me articles in Newsweek, Time, WAPO, and a teevee show on global warming prior to 1980 and then we can discuss comparison of how the information was disseminated vs. global cooling). I’m new here, so I’ve not yet done this for an apples to apples.
> Same challenge for you […]
Wait until you are able distinguish between an article written in 1970 and in 1980 before issuing challenges, Danny.
Beware your wishes.
Willard,
Bruce Banner becoming the INCREDIBLE HULK and shirt ripping? That’s seems so unlike you, but I’ve read somewhere there are no rules in Climateball.
It’s easy, just one article each in Newsweek (not asking for a cover, buried on pg 65 is fine), Time, WaPo, and one little bitty teevee show on gobal warming prior to 1980. Then we can discuss how the two were disseminated.
Thanks Willard!
The two periods are not comparable. One does not say anything worthwhile at all about the other. The ice ages scare kids. The hills immediately to the west of my classroom window were formed by the edge of a glacier in the last ice age. they were saying then it was thousands of years away. We still got scared enough to work on adaptation.
JCH,
They are completely compatible, and here’s why. It’s not about the science but instead about why folks can be skeptical.
There are some 100 M folks over 50 in the U.S. alone (+/- 30%?). These are the group that “heard” about the coming ice age. This is why I’m asking for the equivalent amount of media coverage w/r/t G.W. as that comparison would be of interest for evaluating. One doesn’t have to know by personal example that sticking one’s hand in the fire will burn, but by that being taught to us. It’s a matter of trust. So while Peterson (2008) may have evaluated the scientific literature it doesn’t go far enough. It should have (or we should) look at the distribution via mass media. That would be a better discussion. If it were the same “volume” as the coming ice age it would be conflicting messages. If less, the ice age would predominate. If more, then it’s a better argument for the warm side.
There seem to have been conflicting messages. We also have this
“We now have incontrovertible evidence that the atmosphere is indeed changing and that we ourselves contribute to that change. Atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide are steadily increasing, and these changes are linked with man’s use of fossil fuels and exploitation of the land. Since carbon dioxide plays a significant role in the heat budget of the atmosphere, it is reasonable to suppose that continued increases would affect climate”. Carbon Dioxide and Climate: A Scientific Assessment. NAS. (Known as the Charney Report). This appeared to be a consensus position of the established climate scientists as of 1979. It was not controversial back then as far as I know, and they say many of the same things as today’s climate scientists do.
> It’s easy.
Indeed it is, Danny, e.g.:
http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/washingtonpost_historical/doc/146556146.html?
What’s the title of the article, again, and do you think that your being obnoxious will turn me into your monkey?
***
First, it was the guru trick. Now, it’s the monkey trick. You sure are a natural for ClimateBall, Danny.
Hi Willard,
Thank you. That’s one. I can wait for you to supply the rest.
There may not have been an overwhelming number of papers published on the subject, but the field was a lot smaller then. A lot smaller. As a percentage of papers published, I wonder what it would be?
ThomasWFuller2,
The Peterson paper says 42 warming, 7 cooling in peer reviewed. So +/- 14% cooling. My curiosity is how each was propagated thru mass media as that’s where most folks acquire their information.
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
Let’s try this!!!
Dear denizens –
==> “So while Peterson (2008) may have evaluated the scientific literature it doesn’t go far enough. It should have (or we should) look at the distribution via mass media. ”
Does anyone have the breakdown of what % of publications in the 16th century supported a geocentric model for the planetary system versus a heliocentric model?
I can’t make up my mind about climate change until I have those numbers.
Danny
I have been a bit surprised in this thread to read the downplaying of the 1960’s and 70’s global cooling scare. I have collected a lot of historical material on the attitudes during this era.
Lamb, Mitchell, Budyko, Ladurie etc etc -major climatologists-all believed in it and produced a lot of research.
As Budyko himself says (who seems to have subsequently changed his mind about cooling as did Lamb-as scientists should do when new evidence comes to light) in his book “The earths climate past and future’ pages 148 ;
‘it was generally accepted that a tendency towards climatic cooling appeared during the last few decades; since the sign of temperature fluctuations changes relatively rarely, the scientists concerned with climatic change almost UNANIMOUSLY (my capitalization) believed that the temperature would continue to decrease in the near future…Lamb 1973 mentioned that more than 20 forecasts of the early 70’s concerning climatic change predicted a cooling trend in the next few decades, but (then) indicated a lack of sufficient scientific grounds for these forecasts and two years later obtained the FIRST (my capitalization) evidence of a possible climatic change towards warming.”
(The temperature cooling can be seen in the Willett/Mitchell curves of the time)
Budyko continues;
‘in the 1940’s the warming trend was overcome by a cooling trend which intensified in the 1960’s and in the mid 60’s the mean air temperature of the Northern Hemisphere (once again) approached the level of the cold seasons of the late 1910’s .”
To summarise, here is what seems to have happened; As you know there was a very substantial warming from the 1920’s to 1940’s. This reversed itself. By 1962/3 the dropping temperature made Callendar himself doubt his greenhouse theory. Budyko, Lamb and an almost ‘unanimous’ agreement of climate scientists believed we were heading into a significant cooling phase . Lamb eventually pointed out in 1973 that the cooling was not sufficiently long lived to be a scientifically meaningful climatic trend of at least 30 years. The widespread scare of cooling changed into a scare of warming as temperatures started to recover. I would say the main thrust of articles and discussion was from the 1950’s and 1960’s and early 1970 period. By the mid 70’s ideas had changed so it is pointless for others to look at that period and then claim that cooling was not an issue-as by then fears had cooled!
Here are a couple of additional links and a quote;
“The second important group analysing global temperatures was the British government’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia, founded by Lamb in 1971 and now led by Tom Wigley. Help in assembling data and funding came from American scientists and agencies. The British results agreed overall with the NASA group’s findings — the world was getting warmer. In 1982, East Anglia confirmed that the Northern Hemisphere cooling that began in the 1940s had turned around by the early 1970s.
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/20ctrend.htm
Also see;
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/GISSTemperature/giss_temperature2.php
You have no doubt seen the CIA document of the period that also spelt out the cooling meme in great detail?
tonyb
Lol. How the heck can you under downplay 14% when it vanished to zero soon after its big climax in Time and Newsweek?
The warming scare will subside just like the cooling one did.
The issue is not that not that the cooling alarm of 1969-1973 makes us more skeptical about warming. It’s that we’re more skeptical about alarms. Just like there are industries that feed off our planet’s natural resources there are industries that feed off our emotions. Tabloid journalism used to be called yellow journalism in the early 20th century before that it existed since before civilization. Stirring emotions about doom feeds political support and strength — it’s been used by religions and cults since people could talk. What seems ironic is that Bill Maher is hip to religious psychology and hip to alarm-ism. But his faith in liberalism allows him to counter a point about the cooling scare with zero research of his own. He claimed there was just one 1970s article. He could have checked Wikipedia to see more. In his 1968 book The Population Bomb, (which took full advantage of doom alarmist psychology to sell millions of copies,) Paul R. Ehrlich writes a clever hedge on competing cooling-warming doom scenarios : “…At the moment we cannot predict what the overall climatic results will be of our using the atmosphere as a garbage dump.”
BTW, Wikipedia is mostly sanitized of climate science skepticism. If one searches ice ages there is ten pages of dense facts including ice core evidence without mentioning that the ice core resolution shows CO2 following temperature instead of vise versa. I am thinking that important clue was not missed by accident.
Climategate described in Wiki was a desperate smear of a good scientist as seen here: “The final analyses from various subsequent inquiries concluded that in this context ‘trick’ was normal scientific or mathematical jargon for a neat way of handling data, in this case a statistical method used to bring two or more different kinds of data sets together in a legitimate fashion.[34][35] The EPA notes that in fact, the evidence shows that the research community was fully aware of these issues and that no one was hiding or concealing them.[36]”
Ron –
==> “The issue is not that not that the cooling alarm of 1969-1973 makes us more skeptical about warming.”
I take it that’s the royal “we” that you’re using?
==> ” It’s that we’re more skeptical about alarms. ”
Yes. The fears in the 1500s about ships sailing off the edge of the earth makes me more skeptical about alarms, ergo, I am unconcerned about the risk of harmful climate change due to ACO2.
Climate science isn’t immune to false hypotheses. Skepticism is the order of the day.
From the article:
…
There is increasing concern that most current published research findings are false. The probability that a research claim is true may depend on study power and bias, the number of other studies on the same question, and, importantly, the ratio of true to no relationships among the relationships probed in each scientific field. In this framework, a research finding is less likely to be true when the studies conducted in a field are smaller; when effect sizes are smaller; when there is a greater number and lesser preselection of tested relationships; where there is greater flexibility in designs, definitions, outcomes, and analytical modes; when there is greater financial and other interest and prejudice; and when more teams are involved in a scientific field in chase of statistical significance. Simulations show that for most study designs and settings, it is more likely for a research claim to be false than true. Moreover, for many current scientific fields, claimed research findings may often be simply accurate measures of the prevailing bias. In this essay, I discuss the implications of these problems for the conduct and interpretation of research.
…
http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.0020124
Jim2,
Thanks for this link. See it’s been cited over 2700 times. Very interesting study.
> Skepticism is the order of the day.
It always was. As a Boeing once said, after having seen the flight of the 247, a twin engine that holds ten persons:
You have to remember, the public had no internet in the 70’s. They would not have seen scientific papers unless they made a trip to their local university library. All they had were magazines and newspapers. How many articles about global cooling did people see in those? Was it on the TV news or documentaries? This gauges the public concern, not what was in journals or even government reports and committee meetings. We have much more access today than anyone did then and you have to allow for that in deciding what people’s attitudes were to cooling. The cooling from the 50’s to the 70’s was barely perceptible in the temperature record (and by the way there were only rough estimates of a global temperature then), and today is attributed to aerosols and natural cycles. It was still warmer than the early 20th century and probably all of the 19th. I was in England at the time and we had some of our hottest summers to date in the mid-70’s, and I don’t think anyone was talking about cooling. People might have been talking about the next Ice Age as an inevitable part of the Milankovitch cycles, but not as something that was happening soon or that should cause immediate alarm.
Joshua | April 19, 2015 at 11:04 am |
Yes. The fears in the 1500s about ships sailing off the edge of the earth makes me more skeptical about alarms, ergo, I am unconcerned about the risk of harmful climate change due to ACO2.
When the policy that a problem justifies – precedes the problem – and the first and only research actually try and empirically measure the effect lags scientific declaration of the problem by 30 years, what does that tell us…
It should be pointed out that normal people who are honest and have integrity do empirical observation. They carefully measure the change in low level IR in response to a gradual increase in CO2. After several repeated studies confirming the finding, scientists would examine the effects this additional forcing could have. If the analysis found that the effects were worrisome some more studies would be done and if potential problems were identified it would become a policy question.
That the global warmers did this in reverse provides all the information we need about their honesty and integrity.
PA –
==> “That the global warmers did this in reverse provides all the information we need about their honesty and integrity.
Yes, I understand.
What other explanation could there be for scientific views (of the majority of experts in the area) that differ from yours?
What more information could you possibly need about their honesty and integrity?
And don’t forget – some people are alarmed about walking under ladders, ergo, we don’t even need to consider the state of the science anyway. Why bother with all that evaluating the science on the merits of the science nonsense to start out with? We can save time by just reverse engineering from people’s views on highly complex matters to judge their honesty and integrity.
But back to the topic at hand: The fact that some scientists in the 70’s thought there might be a trend of cooling is all we need to know about ACO2 emissions (let alone the honesty and integrity of the scientists who held those views).
As Danny pointed out, the global warming papers outnumbered the cooling papers by a significant margin (and turned out to be right), so if they had a consensus process back then, it would have been, correctly as it turns out, focused on future warming since when it has become 0.5 C warmer. They are no less right now than they were then. Today’s skeptics will go the way of the few coolists of the 70’s.
Jim D, Willard, Joshua, et al,
First, my thanks to Jim for stating my point well. The internet didn’t exist back in the pre-historic days of the 70’s. So those of us ancient enough to have lived then received our information via “old school” media of teevee, newspapers (ya’ll remember them?), magazines, and the like. So the point of how the “coming event” (cooling or warming) was portrayed is quite significant in this discussion. Having shown evidence that the coming ice age was portrayed in major publications and teevee as well as scientific literature is good reason (accuracy aside) to understand WHY folks perceive this issue in a skeptical fashion. I’ve asked for the equivalent mass media portrayal (the only portal available to the general public—-some 100 million folks now!) of the “coming global warming” and Willard provided ONE article. This is a matter of understanding WHY folks are not jumping on any bandwagon no matter the preponderance of evidence and no matter which direction. Simply, fool me once……………..
Thanks to Tony B for a UK perspective. And to Joshua, evidence is evaluated based on prior understanding and experience, no matter how badly you may wish it to be otherwise.
As Jim2 states:”The cooling story demonstrates the lack of understanding of climate that prevails to this very day.” And I’ll go further that it also is a basis for evaluation of any following “catastrophic” projections thru a filter of “been there, done that”. So those not comfortable with an understanding of the point of view just must not have had the experience themselves.
Based on their input, I’m supposing Ron Graf and PA perceive it the same way. Thanks to you also.
So lacking further evidence it follows to this observer that A) Bill Maher was wrong (although I find him quite funny), B) some 100 Million Americans being “skeptical” based on the prior evidence from interaction with “climate projections” are acting quite reasonably.
Still open to how mass media portrayed GW in the same time window for a fair comparison. I’ve done my part, it’s on ya’ll from here.
Regards,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/13/AR2009021302514.html
George Will with an itemized history of the global cooling articles.
http://www.populartechnology.net/2013/02/the-1970s-global-cooling-alarmism.html
Another shopping list.
Global cooling was widely discussed during the 1970s. Any claim that global cooling wasn’t is widely discussed is dishonest and deserves a:
http://b-i.forbesimg.com/theapothecary/files/2013/12/pantsonfire.gif
rating.
Maybe you can also rate Mike Huckabee’s quoted statement then. Was he just misremembering the 70’s or has he been sold a bill of goods by current-day skeptics?
Jim D,
Thought you’d find this of interest: http://hdr.undp.org/sites/default/files/boykoff_maxwell_and_roberts_j._timmons.pdf
“Studies have found that the public learns a large amount about science through consuming mass media news (Wilson 1995). In what are conventionally regarded as ‘developed nations’, many polls have found that television and daily newspapers are the primary sources of information (Project for Excellence in Journalism 2006). For instance, a United States (U.S.) National Science Foundation survey of U.S. residents found that television remains the leading source of news in most households
(53%), followed by newspapers (29%) (National Science Foundation 2004). In another U.S. poll that asked ‘where did you get your news yesterday’, participants most frequently also cited television (57%), followed by newspapers (40%), radio (36%) and internet (23%) (Pew Research Center for People and the Press 2006).1
In ‘developing countries’ and more specifically in rural areas, radio has
been a principle medium through which climate change news is communicated (Luganda 2005).2
“Many factors contributed to the initial rise in coverage in 1988”
Looks like a shift occurred +/- 1975 to GW
Found this: http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/news-events/george-kukla-contrarian-climate-scientist
Also played with this, but could not get it to function with dates: Vanderbilt’s online Television News Archive
Danny –
We’ve already clarified the point of disagreement. To wit:
==> “And not that much has changed since then. ”
What else needs to be said? I think that the state of the science is significantly different. Therefore, erroneous interpretation of a very different body of scientific evidence, with very different research and analytical methodologies, is not instructive for evaluating the current evidence using current methodologies.
I see the arguments presented by “skeptics” otherwise as fallacious. IMO, such arguments undermine the validity of scientific approach of those “skeptics” who make such arguments. When I can’t evaluate technical arguments being made, I look for other factors to help me evaluate probabilities. Watching people embrace clearly fallacious arguments, IMO, is information. It isn’t conclusive, but it’s information.
Joshua,
““And not that much has changed since then.” I think you should ask Jim2 what he means by this. Here’s my interpretation as I pointed out to you in a previous post. GHE is a solid theory, laboratory testable. What has progressed, but is no where near “settled” (and hasn’t been since the 1970’s) is the nuts and bolts of the the climate system. Including: sensitivities, albedo, polar ice, oceans, winds, water vapor, geology, geography, volcanoes, aerosols, etc., etc. and especially their interactions. Progress does not mean understanding, so to me Jim2’s comment makes sense. Can you quantify otherwise as to where we were on the scale of understanding in the 70’s vs. today? If not, maybe it’s your fallacious argument that’s……well………fallacious? (not quite accurate).
Danny –
You’re just compounding the problem!
==> “What has progressed, but is no where near “settled””
As I already said to you, that is a non-sequitur. The condition of the science being “settled” is a straw man anyway, but it has nothing to do with whether is is valid to use erroneous interpretations of evidence in the 70’s to inform us about interpretations of the state of today’s science.
And this:
==> “Can you quantify otherwise as to where we were on the scale of understanding in the 70’s vs. today?”
Just builds on the fallaciousness.
Very different evidence exists today that is evaluated with very different analytical tools. It isn’t meaningful to evaluate today’s evidence and methodologies on some sort of scale relative the evidence and methodology of the 70’s.
You should evaluate the validity of the state of today’s science by evaluating the validity of today’s science.
Seems like we’re just repeating ourselves. It seemed in the previous thread that there was nowhere else to go with this, but since you addressed a comment today to me along with a couple of others, I thought I’d spell out again my perspective. The problem with your more recent comment is that like the other night, it fails to address the points that I made and makes points that, IMO, are basically irrelevant.
I imagine that you think that your response was on point, so not sure where else there is to go here. I guess we should just drop it, eh?
Joshua,
I cannot tell if you’re ignoring the point that I’m making or not. To reiterate, I’m not “evaluating” science today based on “erroneous” science of the 1970’s. I’m talking about “trust” within the science community. That community told me and 100M others in the US alone (and Tony B, but not heard yet from Australia or elsewhere) the cooling was coming. Today, you’ll just have to forgive that there is past experience on which the unsettled science of today is viewed when today’s science has in fact put forth inaccurate projections based on that unsettled science. If you chose to ignore this in your understanding of skeptics, that’s your choice. Having this experience personally I can understand folks reluctance.
If you drove your car head on it to a wall in the 1970’s would you not think twice before doing the same thing today, or based on the “new” science of seat belts and air bags (we had mom’s arm to protect us then) are you gonna give it a try today? Let me know how that works out for ya! Sarcastic, yes, but trying to get you to understand the perspectives setting the science aside.
You can set this aside if you chose, but I’m seeking how the topics were portrayed in the “internet” of the day which was mass media. From what I see, climate was discussed little, cooling some up to about 1975 or so, then warming after. We were given diametrically opposite “projections” within a short time frame. In one breath ya’ll are stating the science has built since the late 70’s today. This leaves out the perspective of just a few years earlier the same building blocks of science was telling of cooling.
Sounds like you’re a global cooling science denier, by the way. Good on ya!
Jimd
Have you got a link to your mike huckabee reference? Thanks
Tonyb
Tony B,
Should be within this link: http://judithcurry.com/2015/04/18/week-in-review-science-edition/#comment-694885
I repost.
And the contrast he made with the Newsweek article was this quote from Huckabee. As Maher puts it –
Or as Mike Huckabee remembers it, ‘All the literature at that time from the scientific community said that we were all going to freeze to death.’”
How many exhaustive IPCC reports did we have on “global cooling?”
Joseph,
Not an apples to apples. IPCC didn’t exist in the early 70’s.
So where do you stand today on cholesterol? Are you skeptical? http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/02/10/feds-poised-to-withdraw-longstanding-warnings-about-dietary-cholesterol/
This is the point I’m trying to make. Healthy skepticism on both sides is……..well………healthy.
> Healthy skepticism on both sides is……..well………healthy.
Exactly. Witness Ken Olson, an engineer who co-founded DEC:
Incredibilism, vintage 1977.
Danny, why do you think we didn’t create something like the IPCC back in the 70’s to look at “global cooling?”
Joseph,
Tony B gave a very thorough answer. I’ve been working so delayed. But I do wish to note you have a wonderful propensity to ask questions yet are not so good at responding to those posed towards you.
Joseph
The whole of this document on global cooling of the 1970’s is interesting but the history on pages 27 and 28 demonstrate that this was the beginning of the events that led to the IPCC
http://www.climatemonitor.it/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/1974.pdf
CRU under the leadership of Hubert Lamb was also established in 1972 and fostered international cooperation on climate in a number of programmes that indirectly led to the IPCC . Lamb himself was a proponent of cooling until data later in the 70’s demonstrated his earlier concerns were unfounded. I linked to his work on this earlier in this thread
The met office started cooperating with CRU in 1989 and the Hadley centre was established the following year. The IPCC did not spring fully formed but evolved as a result of closer International cooperation arising from the work of various bodies emanating from the cooling concerns of the 1960’s and 1970’s
Tonyb
I was outside for a while enjoying warming. I will try to catch up.
Jim D “You have to remember, the public had no internet in the 70’s. “
Many of my friends and I delivered newspapers before and after school because EVERY home received either the morning or evening paper, some both. Most every home had stacks of new magazines. And we had TV news (that was mostly trusted). Thank you PA for doing the research to get the itemized list of cooling articles for those skeptical that history can repeat itself and has a tendency to do so without education (and having been there seems to help). Bill Maher could have done it but comedians exaggerate for humor effect so it would be silly for accuracy. Their profession is based on common perception. And they can create it too. Thus they can skewer a candidate’s political career or drive policy. No truth, facts or journalistic ethics are required.
Joshua: “And don’t forget – some people are alarmed about walking under ladders, ergo, we don’t even need to consider the state of the science anyway.” (sarc)
I think you make a great point that people historically and still are easily led by superstitions, taboos and conformity. A good scientific mind looks at all beliefs knowing they must be compensated for and kept from confounding truth.
Jim D: “Today’s skeptics will go the way of the few coolists of the 70’s. “
The skeptics are making the opposite argument. We are saying the warmers will eventually go the way of the coolists. Some of us actually saw the coolist go the way of the warmists inside a decade, as Danny pointed out. Paul Erlich was ready to either way in a heartbeat.
Joseph: “Danny, why do you think we didn’t create something like the IPCC back in the 70’s to look at “global cooling?”
If there had been another two decades of the slightest decline in GMST you can bet your bottom dollar that the IPCC would be have an iceberg as their logo and making sure that every school child get’s taught about the horrors of an ice age. Crop failures and famine from frost would be the images presented. I saw the Ice age headline in my freakin 4th grade Weekly Reader in 1970.
All this said. I believe that man is responsible for the rise from 260ppm to 400ppm and that it will likely peak at 800ppm before declining. I believe CO2 is a GHG and is a factor in GMST. What I am not skeptical about is the power of technology advance through science (if were preserve it). On the contrary, I think it likely that the youth of 2115 will be touched by our fears for them. They will laugh at our predictions of doom like some laugh at sailors of 1491 worried about sailing off the edge of the world. They will also have their fears of doom spouted by scientists that are much more daunting than any we can imagine. But they will do fine.
Regarding the future perspective, they will also laugh that some thought there was no way to replace fossil fuels at a reasonable price when a few decades later, these will be in rapid decline due to new technologies, some as yet unforeseen. Much can happen in just a few decades, as we know from experience, especially with the inclination to improve the way we do things. Targets for 2050 may look tough with today’s technology, but given a few decades, they could be a breeze.
> The whole of this document on global cooling of the 1970’s […]
There’s this note on the title page:
Who wrote that study?
Willard,
That’s a very good question. How about you doing some leg work yourself and contributing? I personally have asked you to do so and you did, in your favor, offer the one link. Then I followed with much more even that which contradicted me as it indicated the time frame before GW outpaced GC was nearer to 1975, not 1980. Or, are you soley in this for the “Climateball”?
Ron Graf | April 19, 2015 at 6:40 pm |
Bill Maher could have done it but comedians exaggerate for humor effect so it would be silly for accuracy.
Umm. I am somewhat mystified.
People are apparently getting news and policy analysis from comedians.
This would never occur to me. I like to get information from people who are operating in their area of core competency.
Bill Maher is an english major who got through college by selling pot.
I don’t see where he has any core competency on many of the issues he covers that don’t involve crime and spelling errors.
Maher and Stewart have a similar approach, known as satirical humor. It is largely built on actual quotes from Republicans put alongside things that contradict them in the real world. It hasn’t made them any more careful what they say, but does show them up a bit to the audiences of these shows. While not news per se, it serves as a kind of reality check and shows that there are other people who look at those quotes in the same way.
I don’t know how you can be so sure of yourself, Ron.
Tony, did they or did they not create something like the IPCC in 70’s to to comprehensively study “global cooling”? If not, why not?
> How about you doing some leg work […]
The monkey trick again.
I’m not the one who claims anything about that document, Danny. Seems that you’re the one for whom this document seems to indicate something. But what exactly, you don’t seem to tell, since you don’t quote anything from that document or even comment on it. What is this document supposed to prove exactly, Danny?
As if linkdropping sufficed in this case. But which case? Citing this document does not cohere with your new “but the newspapers” stance. How is that document relevant in your quest for that 70s scare in the media, Danny?
Also note, dear Danny, of this possible double bind that your whole charade may lead:
(B1) If scientists never change their minds, they dogmatically indulge in group think or whatnot;
(B2) When they do, that means what they say is unreliable, which means they break our trust in them;
Both prongs lead Denizens to doubt the climate scientists’ INTEGRITY ™.
Except, of course, when the Denizens’ favorite climate scientists change their minds, which proves that they are true scientists, or when they stick to their guns in face of all the brainwashed establishment that has no INTEGRITY ™.
Double binds like these are important for the way Denizens like your very sorry self play ClimateBall ™, dear Danny.
Willard,
Lot’s of word you wrote there. My eyes must fail me ’cause all I can see is “I can’t”, “I just can’t”, “I don’t wanna”. It was your question Mr. W, why oh why would you expect me to do YOUR work for YOU? I don’t care. That the CIA had it done is sufficient for my purpose, and it still says “global cooling”.
Climateball, back in your court.
Jim D: “Much can happen in just a few decades, as we know from experience”
Jim, you know from our past discussions that we are complete agreement on this. I think it is an important point that alarm skeptics can be so because they are futurists. Here is a list that shows famously poor vision about future technology of their own field of invention. I think Willard referenced the IBM quote in this string.
Jim D: “While not news per se, it (Maher and Stewart) serves as a kind of reality check and shows that there are other people who look at those quotes in the same way.”
Actually he purports to be a reality check. But it is no more reality than Seinfeld. It is a caricature of reality that we can recognize and relate with. There is a difference. A colonel of truth is not truth, especially in complex systems like economic enterprises, climate science and politics.
Joseph | April 19, 2015 at 7:11 pm |
“If there had been another two decades of the slightest decline in GMST you can bet your bottom dollar that the IPCC
‘I don’t know how you can be so sure of yourself, Ron.’ ”
What I meant was that if cooling scientists did not get knocked down by actual warming but the opposite happened there certainly would be global concern about cooling, especially if it was being caused by anthropogenic emissions. If cooling occurred, for example, from SO2 (and it was low-water soluble like CO2) and lingered I would be very concerned. We are vulnerable, in fact, to an ice age.
Here is partial list of imaginable perils we face (remember, be optimistic):
Alien Attack (unfriendly contact)
Artificial Intelligence (robotic takeover)
Cosmic Collision (once in 10,000 year event happen now)
EMP (solar mass ejection destroys all electronic items)
Famine (any cause)
Financial Collapse (like famine from multiple risks)
Final Satan-God Confrontation (second coming – Damian 666)
Gamma Ray Burst (there’s one we are looking down the barrel of now)
Genetic Engineering (loss of human and Earth identity)
Grey-Goo (self-replicating nanobots consume the Earth)
Natural Super-Virus
Nuclear War (escalating to complete surface inhabitability)
Nuclear Winter (limited exchange)
Nuclear plant meltdown (China Syndrome)
Overpopulation (famine-war-warming-social breakdown-viruses)
Super-Virus (artificial)
Super-Virus (natural)
Wholesale Social Breakdown (after any of above – militias to zombies)
Here is partial list perils I lived through:
China Syndrome (1976 Three Mile Island Accident Harrisburg, PA))
Jupiter Effect (earthquakes due in 1980 from conjunction of planets)
Nuclear War (Soviet exchange was avoided)
1984 (though we are not out of the woods yet)
Mayan Calendar End
Y2K (global simultaneous computer crash)
> That the CIA had it done is sufficient for my purpose, and it still says “global cooling”.
Where does it say “global cooling,” Danny, and how does that suffice for which purpose, again? I thought your point was more old skool than that:
http://judithcurry.com/2015/04/18/week-in-review-science-edition/#comment-695325
I don’t think by “the like” you imply what CIA had done. Speaking of which, have you noticed that this “study” only implicated its author, and that your “the CIA had it done” is contradicted by what we can read on the very first page of the study?
You still have lots of homework to do before playing monkey with other Denizens, Danny.
Willard,
Read pg 7.
“Early in the 1970’s a series of climate anomalies occurred.
The WORLD’S (my caps) snow and ice cover increased by at least 10 to 15 percent.
In the eastern Canadian area of Arctic Greenland, below normal temperatures ………………..
Then drought and flooding anomalies (I’m not gonna put any more work in to typing all this as you’re putting in none)
Then a reference to fallen civilizations and Bryn Mawr tying those falls to cooling events.
Then discussion of climate nuts and bolts.
Then pg. 12 a reference to fig. 3 “shows the most dangerous effect of the global cooling trend” referencing changes in “atmospheric circulation and rainfall” (see above where I didn’t bother to type out all of pg. 7)
Then pg. 15 “Because of the global cooling trend……….”
Then pg. 16 “Scientists are confident that unless man is able to effectively modify the climate, the northern regions ……..will again be covered with 100 to 200 feet of snow. This will occur within the next 2500 years they are quite positive……….” may occur soon but that’s open to speculation.
Then pg. 24 references impacts of a 1C temp drop.
Then bottom pg. 25 discuss impacts of a return to LIA.
Then:”While the CIA overall came down on the side of the “global coolers”, cooler heads called for a new research plan (The Wisconsin Plan) which came to be known as the National Climate Plan (June 1974). NAS, NSF and NOAA became the lead agencies. Soon the 1980s happened, global warming took center stage, and the scientific infrastructure was in place and has served us since. Thank you, CIA.” from :http://www.lternet.edu/node/64883
I rest my case.
> I think it is an important point that alarm skeptics can be so because they are futurists.
Incredibilism is the opposite of futurism. See for instance T.A.M Craven, a navy engineer:
Vintage 1961, an engineer was incredulous regarding one of the media Danny considers old skool.
Danny, I am trying to focus on the state of science and what the view really was concerning any future “global cooling” crisis. I found this article that I think will give you some perspective on these issues.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/01/the-global-cooling-myth/?wpmp_tp=1
Joseph,
Thank you. I’ve read it. And many associated, and his site. My point is not the accuracy of the thinking of the early 70’s it’s why there are those of us skeptical (with good reason based on having had this experience) now. How those on the strictly AGW side cannot grasp that skepticism comes naturally as a result of having been warmed of a coming cooling leads me to think that it’s that many on that side didn’t have this experience on which to base hesitancy for acceptance. Apparently, I’m only making sense to those with that shared personal experience. I’m not at all making a case for the accuracy of the threat of global cooling, only making a case for good reasons folks base evaluation of the current “alarmism” on past experience with like “alarmism”. Does this not make any sense to you at all? Jim D shows signs of understanding.
Danny, I certainly disagree that a short-lived blip of minority alarmism in the 1970’s has any parallel to the continual cautions on emissions put out by a scientific majority since at least 1979.
Is that what I said?
You call it “like” alarmism when it is nothing of the sort.
Jim D,
Is that what I said?
Danny, just to clarify, was your cooling fear back then from increasing sulfates and acidification due to those, or was it from a faster than expected glaciation cycle? In other words, what were you thinking?
Jim D,
I had no idea. I’m no science guy, and only am stating that which was offered in the media which was indicating “global cooling” and more alarmist “a coming ice age”. So, now hearing much more in the media and from friends has led me to look at the current frenzy in more depth as I’m skeptical based on that past experience. I’m learning, not knowledgeable, not totally ignorant. And apparently not explaining well my basis for coming in to this with a skeptical nature. That’s an open and honest of an answer as I can give.
So the answer to what were you thinking is “not much”. If you were really worried about cooling wouldn’t you have been curious as to how quickly it would happen and what, if anything, could mitigate it?
> I rest my case.
Which case, Danny? That’s not related to your “point” about old skool media. All it shows is that uniform guys tend to think about scenarios, possible and impossible alike. Heck, they even do simulations, and simulations involve modulz not unlike those Denizens find stoopid.
Nevertheless, your citation indicates what may be one possible “case”:
http://www.lternet.edu/node/64883
That case is a bit more convoluted than saying that there’s at least one report in which “global cooling” appears, Danny. Don’t you think? The expression “global cooling” appeared in the lichurchur.
If you don’t know Bruce Hayden, you should check the archives of the Volokh Conspiracy. His comments over there will help you to rest lots of “cases” like this one.
What is the sound of one black helicopter flapping?
Willard,
“Which case, Danny?”
C.I.A. equaled global cooling. Nuf said!
Danny.
“Joseph,
Thank you. I’ve read it. And many associated, and his site. My point is not the accuracy of the thinking of the early 70’s it’s why there are those of us skeptical (with good reason based on having had this experience) now. How those on the strictly AGW side cannot grasp that skepticism comes naturally as a result of having been warmed of a coming cooling leads me to think that it’s that many on that side didn’t have this experience on which to base hesitancy for acceptance. Apparently, I’m only making sense to those with that shared personal experience. I’m not at all making a case for the accuracy of the threat of global cooling, only making a case for good reasons folks base evaluation of the current “alarmism” on past experience with like “alarmism”. Does this not make any sense to you at all? Jim D shows signs of understanding.”
Here is your argument.
1. In your past, in your personal experience, you remember being warned
of cooling.
2. The science that warned about cooling, is now warning about warming.
3. You argue that it is “natural” to be skeptical of the warming based on the fact that the science changed.
That argument doesn’t follow. It’s a really bad argument. I’ll just deal with one aspect of it.
I look at those facts and I see the opposite. I see science correcting itself. There is nothing “natural”, as you argue, about your skepticism. View as a whole we see the history of science as moving from incomplete explanations of the world to more complete explanations, never perfect, just better over time. According to your argument any time a science changed you would be forced to be skeptical of the new science, as science got better and better you would “naturally” have more and more skepticism. If you want to put weight to the history of science, then you should have the opposite reaction than the one you have.
Why do I see the science correcting itself? Well, in the 1970’s you had observational evidence that showed cooling. Despite this you had over 40 papers predicting warming, while less than 10 ( 7 I think) predicted cooling.
correcting fringe views is the normal business of science. In short your appeal to the “naturalness” of your skepticism is the faith you need to challenge. There is nothing natural about it. If a science moves from 7 of 50 papers cooling to 0 of thousands of papers, that is evidence for belief in the science. It’s shown itself to be open to contrary opionion ( in the 70s) and over time the contrarian view loses. We had the debate on global warming. contrarians lost. move along.
Steven,
While I appreciate a reasoned response, I disagree. It took a skeptical eye to lead to the Wisconsin Plan. It took a skeptical eye to evaluate the CIA (that secretive agency) and move forward leading to creation of multiple agencies:http://www.lternet.edu/node/64883. It took a skeptical eye to change the thinking on cholesterol. Every day, in medicine, it takes skeptical eyes to advance the sciences and invent new instrumentation.
Sometimes it’s not:”correcting fringe views is the normal business of science.” but it’s the “fringe views” that are leading to “correcting” the standing science. (Is salt good for you? Coffee? )
I don’t agree that my argument is at all what you’ve stated in your 3 details. What my argument is (from the beginning) Bill Maher is inaccurate. We need to know what “Literature” Mike Huckabee is referring. (Scientific vs. Mass media and if mass media we need to know the volume of that “literature” oriented towards cooling vs. warming in that time frame)
I was taught the moral of “fool me once…………” and along with some 100M others here I felt like the “global cooling” scare was the first “fooling”. Based on this it make sense to me that I, and others like me, are reluctant to accept the entirety of the AGW theory especially when portions have been proven inaccurate.
(It’s good to have you back)
> C.I.A. equaled global cooling. Nuf said!
Said about which point or which case, Danny, what does it mean to “equal”?
Here’s what the Hayden says:
http://www.lternet.edu/node/64883
Of course he claims that the “CIA overall came down on the side of the “global coolers””, that’s not evidenced by the study. You know why, Danny?
Here’s why:
That’s from the first page of the only piece of evidence you have, Danny.
Nuff said indeed.
Willard,
I can neither confirm nor deny……………………
Interesting that you chose to quote from the link I provided, and yet ignore this:”While the CIA overall came down on the side of the “global coolers”, cooler heads called for a new research plan (The Wisconsin Plan) which came to be known as the National Climate Plan (June 1974). NAS, NSF and NOAA became the lead agencies. Soon the 1980s happened, global warming took center stage, and the scientific infrastructure was in place and has served us since. Thank you, CIA.”
What’s that first sentence say Willard? Just the very first one. To make it easy let’s say the first 13 words. What’s that say?
Now I’ll admit the entire link says more than just that, but that you chose to ignore that and yet ask me to rely on your quote from the same page won’t happen.
Nuf said!
Danny
I have made a couple of longer comments on this thread each separated by numerous responses. In case you didn’t see it, here is the first;
http://judithcurry.com/2015/04/18/week-in-review-science-edition/#comment-695231
The literature of the time suggested a cooling phase that was of concern. The peak period for this was ending by the early 1970’s as science corrected itself and people like Lamb and Budyko were able to see the observational evidence start to point to a warming phase. Cooling is what the scientists of the time were saying up to that point which got relayed to the MSM.
There are bound to be more papers citing warming than cooling from the mid 70’s onwards because that is where science had taken us, but that still leaves the fact that prior to this period there was a very genuine and widely held belief in cooling as noted by Lamb, Budyko, Ladurie and those cited by the CIA report.
This reinterpretation of history is intriguing. It happened with the downgrading of the MWP/LIA and their substitution by a climate that was virtually static. It happened during the 1920/40 warm period which seems to have been downgraded and also seems to be happening with the cooling scare that fizzled out in the early 1970’s.
tonyb
Tonyb,
I’ve seen your comments.(Working my 3 long days so check in sporadically).
I’m a bit baffled. Am I the only one who’s had the experience where someone told me something, changed their mind, and so I’m skeptical of their position?
Right now, I’m quite skeptical of: climate, coffee, salt, cholesterol. I’m also starting to wonder if “skeptics” aren’t just wired differently than AGW/CAGW “acceptors”.
> Interesting that you chose to quote from the link I provided, and yet ignore this: “While the CIA overall came down on the side of the “global coolers”
Here’s how I ignored it so much that I said:
http://judithcurry.com/2015/04/18/week-in-review-science-edition/#comment-695645
That’s a very interesting “interesting” you got there, Danny.
First, you ignore that the study does not substantiate Hayden’s claim pretty much, which I believed involved men in black and black helicopters. Second, you ignore that this study is not the official storyline from the CIA, as I said a few times already.
However, what’s most interesting is that your “interesting” comment seems to indicate that your “point” and your “case” is now evolving beyond the mere use of “cooling” in a CIA study.
Please, do tell us more about this case, Danny.
The truth is out there.
Willard,
Since you’re so worldly and knowledgeable about “the truth” please share. We’d all love to hear it! (or at least I would).
As I read “not necessarily representing” it could mean it does or it doesn’t. How are you choosing to accept it? I’m quite obviously not the only one who see’s that it just might be.
(Direct, specific answer please I’m done if you won’t)
What an amazingly long sub thread.
The seventies global cooling projection was based on that current temperature trend, aerosols and orbital forcing. Some still “blame” the 1988 to 2000 warming on the clean air act, halocarbons and tada, orbital forcing. If you use the SST peak in ~ 1940-1944, there has been about 0.3 C of “global” cooling and about 0.3 C of “global” warming.
http://climexp.knmi.nl/data/iersstv4_0-360E_-90-90N_n_1941:2015.png
Because of the slower than anticipated warming since the Kyoto/Montreal Protocols, (that would be 1998 for Kyoto and 1987 for Montreal), Lu blames combined halocarbon reduction and cosmic ray influences.
“Cosmic-Ray-Driven Reaction and Greenhouse Effect of Halogenated Molecules: Culprits for Atmospheric Ozone Depletion and Global Climate Change”
and scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory think “Volcanoes ARE cooling Earth: Aerosols from small eruptions have reduced global temperatures and tropical rainfall”.
0.3 C of cooling inspired global cooling thoughts. 0.3 C of warming inspired global warming thoughts. But at least we can now eat pork and it can be cooked medium rare :)
Mosher –
Nice conceptualization. The same applies to when “skeptics” cherry-pick occasions like plate tectonics and stomach ulcers when the “consensus was wrong.”
There has been attention paid to the red blob (that is now more of an orange blob) but I haven’t seen much discussion to the overall sst anomaly. I’m looking at the map and mentally calculating in a color breakdown of Blue, Lt Blue, Yellow, Orange and Red. I’m seeing more Blue than Red and more Lt Blue than Orange with maybe a little less than half being normal yellow. The central and Southern Atlantic seems to be mostly anomolously cold as does the whole southern oceans. Why is there no discussion of the blue blob of the atlantic and how there seems to be more cold than warm? Or is there?
http://www.ospo.noaa.gov/data/sst/anomaly/2015/anomnight.4.16.2015.gif
You can look at the 2014 annual average anomaly map, and it is the NE Pac that stands out. What you have plotted above is a snapshot of one day.
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/nmaps.cgi?sat=4&sst=3&type=anoms&mean_gen=0112&year1=2014&year2=2014&base1=1951&base2=1980&radius=1200&pol=rob
Well that is 2014. If you look at all of the 2015 sst anomaly it is not all that different from the snapshot above.
It is how long lasting and large this anomaly is that makes it news. Whether it is part of a new warming cycle is another thing. Perhaps the skeptics who believe in cycles will now expect it to warm 0.3 C in the next 15 years, like it did in the last warm phase.
Jim D, I suspect the ocean warming has continued, I just wonder if it is wanning?
The blue blobs REALLY stand out. I also wonder why no press for those.
Resuming is a better word.
Those blue ares are set aside for future warming. As in, this summer.
As I mentioned elsewhere here , Rahmstorf recently talked about the blue blob off Greenland, but the skeptics took that subject off course into the small paleo part of the paper, which was not the main subject. It is interesting because it could be an AMOC slowdown. It has persisted on and off since the 1970’s, but got more intense lately.
Since I follow the sst fairly religously and noticed the w pacific red blob before it was openly discussed. I just wonder if im ahead of the curve on a possible shift? Although I wouldn’t dispute it appears we may be headed for an El Nino.
The western red blob is a huge bulge of warm water that is blown to the W.P, especially during a La Nina but also during ENSO neutral. That is pretty much the default configuration of the equatorial Pacific.
It puts the slosh in WHT’s sloshing, which I believe he borrowed from Trenberth.
On persistent blue mini blob south of Greenland, that’s Abrupt Climate Change, or, I guess, the best it can. Nothing like the good old Younger Dryas days when ACC could kick your butt.
Jim D: , Rahmstorf recently talked about the blue blob off Greenland, but the skeptics took that subject off course into the small paleo part of the paper,
I seem to have missed that, or forgotten it. Could you please resupply the link?
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2015/03/whats-going-on-in-the-north-atlantic/
Jim D: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2015/03/whats-going-on-in-the-north-atlantic/
Thank you.
You’re welcomed!
http://climateaudit.org/2015/03/28/rahmstorfs-first-trick/
http://climateaudit.org/2015/03/29/rahmstorfs-second-trick/
http://climateaudit.org/2015/04/01/rahmstorfs-third-trick/
I think the skeptics are not disputing the cooling off Greenland and its relevance to the AMOC, but they only raise some peripheral issues as to whether this is an unprecedented temperature difference between that area and the northern continents, which is rather off the topic of the more interesting question of what has been happening in the North Atlantic recently.
McIntyre is questioning several methodological points.
He is not questioning the cooling in the 20th century.
Actual measurement do dispute that the AMOC is slowing, however.
The red blob in the NE Pacific might be a change in the local upwelling:
https://nsidc.org/sites/nsidc.org/files/images//thermohaline_nasa.jpg
Is that caused by a change at the surface or in the attributes of the water upwelling?
I don’t think actual measurements dispute the AMOC is slowing. I think reconstructions of the AMOC dispute that it has been doing anything other than speeding up for the previous 250 years, however. It’s about time it slowed down and put the global warming boogie man back in the closet.
Steve R. Not seeing the catastrophe.
http://moocs.southampton.ac.uk/oceans/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2014/02/RAPID-300×212.jpg
Fig. 3: Ten-day (colors) and three month low-pass (black) time series of Gulf Stream transport
(blue), Ekman transport (green), upper mid-ocean transport (magenta), and overturning transport
(red) for the period 1 April 2004 to 1 October 2012. A dashed black line shows the mean
annual cycle for the AMOC. Positive transports correspond to northward flow.
http://moocs.southampton.ac.uk/oceans/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2014/02/RAPID-300×212.jpg
The link for the AMOC charts.
http://moocs.southampton.ac.uk/oceans/2014/02/17/the-rapid-project-monitoring-the-atlantic-meridional-overturning-circulation-amoc/
It wasn’t catastrophic when it slowed down from the MWP to the LIA either. It was just colder.
This is since 2011.
According to NOAA the oceans were the 3rd warmest in the instrument record. They spent much of last year at 1st warmest. Last March, on the way to the warmest year in the record, the oceans were 5th warmest.
The NH is at a record pace; the SH is 5th warmest.
SB – 3rd warmest for March 2015
Thanks for that perspective. I still wonder if the trends have shifted in 2015?
The NH warming is at a record pace, and the AMO dropping like a rock. Its influence over global temperatures is just amazing. Exactly where is the North Atlantic?
ordvic – I don’t know if you’ve done it, but it’s edifying to go back through the maps you’ve posted and compare them with the SAT/GMT record and ENSO ONI.
Like – this is still a very weird El Nino. I think the Australians have it right. It hasn’t started yet.
It looks to me that the NA is a mixed bag? There is red along the US Atlantic coast, the Caribbean coast, and the noreastern arctic. There is a blue blob south of Greenland with the rest yellow.
JCH, I follow these maps at least weekly that is why I have these questions. Just looking for clarification I guess.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/UAH_LT_1979_thru_March_2015_v5.png
The anomalous blue blob south of Greenland was the subject of the Rahmstorf paper that the skeptics did not like because it could indicate something unusual going on with the AMOC.
Edith Turbo assured me the worm had turned on SSTs because of the seasonal shift negative, but in March it made its traditional shift upward, so I doubt the SST trend will do anything other than March on into record territory. We’ll see.
Ask JCH,who I believe is very expert on these things.
Ask me what?
Sorry JCH. I was the first to respond to Ordvic but I should have included his question in my comment: “Why is there no discussion of the blue blob of the Atlantic and how there seems to be more cold than warm? Or is there?”
I noticed that you have been commenting on the current anomalies and thought you would have an opinion. Clearly you found the string after my early reply had been pushed down here.
I also see your comments from many years past about AMOC and AMO in archives. Do you think that the AMOC is weakening? Is there a special site where you list your predictions on ENSO and SST? If you can successfully predict I saw a page on Tallbloke’s site for logging predictions. I honestly think this is a worthwhile exercise as talk is cheap otherwise. You clearly have invested many many hours and might be very expert. You and others should get recognition. Of course, if your predictions are false, well that’s the stakes.
Trenberth is staking himself on an “imminent jump” in SST here.
False predictions have mostly continue to fade and be forgotten while successful predictions can be pulled out as evidence. I think a prediction log is a great idea. My hat is off to Tallbloke.
amazing. thanks for the link
“Was this all down to one volcano? Not entirely; nothing in the climate has a single cause.”
Well ya coulda fooled me!
“Excellent discussion of climate and other effects of big volcanoes [link]”
In reference to the PDO being in a warm or cold phase is somehow tied into how effective AGW theory is, amounts to nothing more then baseless claims being made once again by AGW enthusiast based on speculation.
Data has shown global temperatures have always responded to the phase of the PDO , regardless of the so called greenhouse gas effect or lack of it. By attributing the control of global temperature to the phase of the PDO , AGW enthusiast are just saying it is natural processes that not only control the climate but govern how effective the GHG effect is.
Below I make that point but try to show that the reason why the GHG effect is not being realized is due to one fundamental flaw in AGW theory which has nothing to do with the phase of the PDO, but the over estimation they make between the positive feedback relationship between CO2 and water vapor. The fact that the extensive lower tropical tropospheric hot spot is no where to be found is a testament to this, and this is why the theory is failing ,and not because of the phase the PDO is in.
MY CASE FOR WHY THIS THEORY IS FAILING.
AGW theory is flawed and that is the reason why all the predictions this theory has put forth about atmospheric processes are failing or have yet to be realized. From the extensive lower tropospheric tropical hot spot to a more zonal atmospheric circulation pattern evolving in response to GHG’S ,to more El Nino’s in response to the lower tropospheric tropical hot spot to begin with. I also think they initially were saying the PDO phase would respond to the GHG effect and not the other way around, due to the fact if nothing else when an El Nino regime dominates (as AGW calls for) the PDO is in a warm phase. Even the trends in the amounts of OLR to space are in question as well as the trend in stratospheric temperatures this theory has called for. If this theory were correct I would think by now all that they have called for would by now either be in place or at least be evolving in that direction. That however is not happening.
Getting back to why this theory is failing.
The theory has calculated the relationship between CO2 and water vapor wrong and this in essence destroys the theory.
Water vapor having a much stronger positive feedback or tie in with sea surface temperature in the lower levels of the atmosphere, while also having a much stronger relationship with precipitation processes in the upper atmosphere then it does with CO2. Further this is supported through observational data which suggest this is the case.
In addition the ozone concentration and the influence it exerts in all of this has a negative feedback association with water vapor and this probably plays some kind of a role in the scheme of things.
This is the essence as to why AGW theory is failing and what makes this even more revealing is the natural items that effect the climate have yet to really lock into a long protracted cold mode in any significant way(and yet global temperatures still have not risen for some 18 years) but this should be changing in the very near future ,contrary to what some are saying, which is wishful thinking. The PDO is not going to save your flawed theory. It has always had spikes of warmth while in an otherwise cold mode and the warm blob may or may not will run it’s course off the N. American West Coast, but it is not a consequence of global warming but rather recent ESNO /pressure anomaly events.
Once solar activity approaches my low average solar parameters and the primary and secondary effects associated with these values , and the AMO/PDO lock more consistently into a cold phase(yes the PDO is in a spike of warmth in an otherwise cold phase), and ENSO starts featuring more La Nina’s ,AGW theory should become obsolete by any objective manner. This should all take place long before this current decade ends.
I already think enough data/evidence is in presently to make this theory obsolete but apparently many are not yet ready to concede to this fact.
The data does make the case as far as I am concerned that a greenhouse gas effect does exist. It just is not as powerful as some believe it is due to the lack of a water vapor /CO2 strong positive feedback. In addition the evidence is out there that the two main greenhouse gases those being CO2 and water vapor are a result of the climate rather then the other way around. That is what the data is showing.
Given that, the GHG effect is going to follow the climate and not govern it, as we proceed forward into this decade.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/03/06/nasa-satellite-data-shows-a-decline-in-water-vapor/
Data that supports my case in the above post.
You might want to read that article again, as it show that over the entire atmosphere, water vapor is actually increasing.
And relative humidity decreasing.
Both of which are positive feed-backs to the warming we are experiencing.
Stratospheric water vapor decreasing is also part of the CO2 global warming theory, but I’ll leave that to you to figure out.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/specific+humidity
First off you need a definition of what specific humidity is.
Next you need to learn how to read. From the article page 5.
.specific humidity in g/kg of moist air at 400 mb (8 km) is shown in Figure 6. It shows that specific humidity has declined by 14% since 1948 using the best fit line.
SH400mb
Figure 6. Specific humidity at 400 mb pressure level
In contrast, climate models all show RH staying constant, implying that specific humidity is forecast to increase with warming. So climate models show positive feedback and rising specific humidity with warming in the upper troposphere, but the data shows falling specific humidity and negative feedback.
bobdroege it is you who need to figure things out. Why you are at it explain what happened to the lower tropical tropospheric hot spot?
Look,
I am not disputing specific humidity is decreasing in the upper atmosphere, but I didn’t mention specific humidity, did I?
But the increase in the lower atmosphere is more than the decrease in the upper atmosphere.
The climate models do not show relative humidity as constant, they are programmed that way as a simplification, to ease the amount of calculations.
And the tropical hotspot was modeled at 2x pre-industrial CO2, are we there yet?
Look,
I am not disputing specific humidity is decreasing in the upper atmosphere, but I didn’t mention specific humidity, did I?
That is what it is all about.
No you are wrong this theory at the very least called for a hot spot to be at least in a developmental stage if not in place by now ,in response to increasing CO2 concentrations /positive water vapor feedback scenario.
There is as of today zero evidence of this. Zero.
Dr. Curry,
I’ll bite. What do you think it is?
“The Pacific Ocean may have entered a new warm phase – and the consequences could be dramatic [link] . Chris Mooney (and some scientists) think it is the PDO, but I think it is something else.”
Argh. Never mind. I was going thru in order.
Look at the peaks: 1940ish and 1980ish – 40ish years peak to peak. On a fast track, it takes 10ish years to scale a peak or to drop to the bottom of the trench. On a slow track it takes about 30 years.
2012 minus 1980 is 32 years. 32 years of declining PDO trend. Time for a rebound?
So in 2012 I predicted we were heading headlong to a PDO peak. Lucky guess? Guessing is all I’m capable of, but here it is.
But no, there’s some other reason for the Pacific coast of the United States and Canada to be red hot. Stay tuned. Good bet. AGW had nothing to do with it. It’ll be natural. The best thing to do will be to adapt. Predicting spots is easy.
Really need to start proofreading my links.
Try this.
JCH,
Ah. That makes a bit more sense. :-)
Did you read thru the weather channel link?
JCH,
Predicting spots may be easy for you, but I’ve never been to the USSR.
Broken Link: Interesting study on risks of groupthink: [link]
http://ggweather.com/enso/pdo.jpg
As the data shows counter spikes of warmth in a cold PDO mode and spikes of cold in a warm PDO are the norm.
If this is the “science edition” then you should remove the Economist article on Tambora. It has statements like this:
I’m not sure if there is a single true statement in any of that, and without a single reference it’s not possible to determine what might be the basis for their claims … hardly scientific. See my post entitled Missing the Missing Summer, for actual measurements of the lack of effect of Tambora on real-world temperatures. Yes, there’s lots of apocryphal stories of the type bandied about by the Economist about the claimed horrors of Tambora, but there’s very little hard data to back it up.
Regards,
w.
I look for an 1816-17 dip in the last 20 proxy reconstructions I’ve looked at and have not yet seen a dip. Either is very short lived dip or weaker than the historical reputation. Krakatoa 1883 was during the temperature record but I still see no pronounced dip but Krakatoa was figured to be less than one third the power of Tambora.
Computer models run after the eruption but before these effects became visible captured the effects reasonably accurately (though they had a tendency to overestimate the cooling). This is one of the best reasons for thinking that such models capture the workings of the climate quite well.
the literature suggest otherwise [Driscoll 2012]
Observations show a lower stratospheric and surface response during the following one or two Northern Hemisphere (NH) winters, that resembles the positive phase of the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO). Simulations from 13 CMIP5 models that represent tropical eruptions
in the 19th and 20th century are examined, focusing on the large-scale regional impacts associated with the large-scale circulation during the NH winter season. The models generally fail to capture the NH dynamical response following eruptions. They do not sufficiently simulate the observed post-volcanic strengthened NH polar vortex, positive NAO, or NH Eurasian warming pattern, and they tend to overestimate the cooling in the tropical troposphere. The findings are confirmed by a superposed epoch analysis of the NAO index for each model. The study confirms previous similar evaluations and raises concern for the ability of current climate models to simulate the response of a major mode of global circulation variability to external forcings.
The inability to evolve climate states ( dissipative structures) is a significant constraint in the models.
“The study confirms previous similar evaluations and raises concern for the ability of current climate models to simulate the response of a major mode of global circulation variability to external forcings.”
And yet NOAA is estimating TCR from studying model simulations of volcanic forcing here. And here is the author to explain his (Isaac Held’) study in his blog here.
The speculation of AGW read below. Groundless claims based on no data.
That’s because climate scientists are increasingly pointing the finger at a cool phase of this oscillation to explain an apparent “pause” or “slowdown” in the warming of the planet’s surface (although not the deep oceans!) since around the year 2000. And if this argument is correct, it’s not good news for anybody. For with the PDO now apparently switching back to a warm mode, it would mean that global warming could soon burst forth again, as heat temporarily sequestered in the oceans reemerges into the atmosphere.
MY REPLY MORE BS!
Decadal modulation of global surface temperature by internal climate variability
Aiguo Dai, John Fyfe, Shang-Ping Xie, Xingang Dai
No re-estimate of AMO necessary?
Hi Matt. What is your take on this?
http://judithcurry.com/2015/04/18/week-in-review-science-edition/#comment-694834
Jim2, This is kind of amazing. The p-value is one of the most used statistical values that I see in medical research. I imagine this change will have significant effect in climate research if heeded. Thanks.
Even in lowly BS level chem classes, we learn about p values. Even in business stat courses, they teach it.
Statistics is a large area of quicksand it appears.
No re-estimate of AMO necessary? – Mathew Marler
This seems to be another IPO paper, and I’m kind suspect of them as it tries to gloss over that the natural variation folks blew it in 1980.
But I do think the only way to save the AMO as a player would be to move it to the Pacific Ocean.
Here is a blog post where I predict that the PDO should enter its positive phase some time in next three to five years.
http://astroclimateconnection.blogspot.com.au/2015/04/will-pdo-turn-positive-in-next-few-years.html
This prediction was made some time in either 2008 or 2009:
http://astroclimateconnection.blogspot.com.au/2009/10/upper-graph-shows-pdo-reconstruction-of.html
http://astroclimateconnection.blogspot.com.au/2013/10/just-reminder.html
interesting, i’m intrigued by LOD connections, LOD seems to match up very well with the stadium wave.
I am honestly struggling to think of anything less useful than LOD. Ocean modes effect it, but so what, it is not driving the ocean modes.
The intriguing issue is that LOD may in part be driven by geological processes
Judith,
Please forgive me, as I know that most of the following is old knowledge for you. I am just posting it to clarify a few issues that might not be common knowledge to some of the members of your community. Sorry about the length.
There are three different regimes for variations in LOD that need to be considered;
Regime 1 Variations in LOD 5 years – decadal time scales
For periods more than 5 years, variations in LOD of the solid Earth are associated with variations in the rotation rate of the Earth’s core.
I believe that reason for these long term variations in LOD are explained by figure 1 in the following blog post:
http://astroclimateconnection.blogspot.com.au/2013/10/connecting-planetary-periodicities-to.html
If you plot the rate of change of the Earth’s Length of Day (LOD) [with the short-term (< 5 years) atmospheric component removed] against time [starting in 1962] you find that there is a ~ 6 year periodicity that is phase-locked with the 6 year period that it takes the lunar line-of-nodes to re-align with the lunar line-of-apse.
NB: The pro-grade precession of the lunar line-of-apse once around the Earth with respect to the stars takes 8.8504 Julian years (J2000) while the retrograde precession of the lunar line-of-apse once around the Earth with respect to the stars takes 18.6000 Julian years (J2000). Hence, the lunar line-of-apse and the ascending node of the lunar line-of-nodes will realign once every:
(18.6000 x 8.8504) / (18.6000 + 8.8504) = 5.9969 Julian years
Regime 3 Deviation of LOD from the long-term millennial/centennial slow down of the Earth's rotation rate of 1.7 ms/century.
My post above explains the connection between peaks in the absolute deviation of LOD from its long-term trend and peaks in the asymmetry of the Sun's motion about the centre-of-mass of the solar system. This aspect of LOD's interaction with the Earth's atmosphere and oceans is completely different from those described in regime 1 and 2.
This interaction seems to take place through the large scale patterns seen in the atmospheric pressures and sea-surface temperatures of the North Pacific Ocean ( as represented by the PDO and NPI indices).
It is important to realize that the synchronized changes in the LOD and Solar asymmetry parameters proceed those of the PDO by 8-10 years. So the former can be used to predict the latter.
Regime 2 Variations in LOD greater than 5 years – decadal time scales
For periods more than 5 years, variations in LOD of the solid Earth are associated with variations in the rotation rate of the Earth’s core.
I believe that reason for these long term variations in LOD are explained by figure 1 in the following blog post:
http://astroclimateconnection.blogspot.com.au/2013/10/connecting-planetary-periodicities-to.html
If you plot the rate of change of the Earth’s Length of Day (LOD) [with the short-term (< 5 years) atmospheric component removed] against time [starting in 1962] you find that there is a ~ 6 year periodicity that is phase-locked with the 6 year period that it takes the lunar line-of-nodes to re-align with the lunar line-of-apse.
NB: The pro-grade precession of the lunar line-of-apse once around the Earth with respect to the stars takes 8.8504 Julian years (J2000) while the retrograde precession of the lunar line-of-apse once around the Earth with respect to the stars takes 18.6000 Julian years (J2000). Hence, the lunar line-of-apse and the ascending node of the lunar line-of-nodes will realign once every:
(18.6000 x 8.8504) / (18.6000 + 8.8504) = 5.9969 Julian years
Regime 3 Deviation of LOD from the long-term millennial/centennial slow down of the Earth’s rotation rate of 1.7 ms/century.
My post above explains the connection between peaks in the absolute deviation of LOD from its long-term trend and peaks in the asymmetry of the Sun’s motion about the centre-of-mass of the solar system. This aspect of LOD’s interaction with the Earth’s atmosphere and oceans is completely different from those described in regime 1 and 2.
This interaction seems to take place through the large scale patterns seen in the atmospheric pressures and sea-surface temperatures of the North Pacific Ocean ( as represented by the PDO and NPI indices).
It is important to realize that the synchronized changes in the LOD and Solar asymmetry parameters proceed those of the PDO by 8-10 years. So the former can be used to predict the latter.
Ian
I’m not able to comment on the adequacy of your work, but I find it interesting to have yet another possible influence on our climate. Thanks for sharing.
ulriclyons, “I am honestly struggling to think of anything less useful than LOD.”
And right behind LOD is Geomagnetic field fluctuation right?
http://www.livescience.com/38083-earth-core-day-length-pattern.html
Ian Wilson:
“Solar asymmetry parameters proceed those of the PDO by 8-10 years. So the former can be used to predict the latter.”
What the PDO does has nothing to do with “Solar asymmetry parameters” occurring 8-10 years earlier. So there is no point in suggesting an association.
curryja | April 19, 2015 at 7:27 am |
“The intriguing issue is that LOD may in part be driven by geological processes”
The issue is whether LOD drives anything else. Dead fish only swim the tide, comes to mind.
…swim *with* the tide
captdallas2 0.8 +/- 0.2 | April 19, 2015 at 7:53 am
“And right behind LOD is Geomagnetic field fluctuation right?”
Does the tail wag the dog?
ulric, “Does the tail wag the dog?”
No, but a wagging tail is a sign the dog might not bite.
Judith, I am sorry but the post at:
Ian Wilson | April 19, 2015 at 2:55 am |
is the bung post that went haywire because I included a “less than” and a “greater than” sign in th etext. The net effect is that for this particular post it completely jumbled the text.
I tried breaking the post up into three parts based on the three different regime in order to reduce the overall length of the individual posts and to correct the original problem :
Regime 1 Variations in LOD less than 5 years
Regime 2 Variations in LOD 5 years – decadal time scales
Regime 3 Deviation of LOD from the long-term millennial/centennial slow down of the Earth’s rotation rate of 1.7 ms/century.
You appear to have deleted the post for regime 1 and replaced it with the original erroneous post. I am sorry for the complete botch-up on my part.
Is there any chance that post at 2:55 a.m. can replaced by the one that actually talked about the Variations in LOD less than 5 years?
Ian – congratulations.
Is the PDO supported by physics, or mainly by statistics? Wikipedia has “The PDO is not a single physical mode of ocean variability, but rather the sum of several processes with different dynamic origins.”
I think this is a very good question. When Hansen gave his 1988 talk to congress, the PDO did not really exist. Now Hansen discusses it as one of the causes of the pause. Like ENSO, it was sort of discovered by fishing. They often talk about it’s relationship to ENSO, and ENSO is the one with the high horsepower engine.
They say this animal, a purple sail, is stacking up on west coast beaches by the billions – possibly a result of warm water with fewer upwelled nutrients:
http://voices.nationalgeographic.com/files/2014/08/jellyfosh-boom-ashore-01.jpg
JCH
“They” say it might have been due to a cold snap killing off one of their predators and that they had to cuddle together more for warmth leading to a population explosion.
Of course if your “they” is right it looks like global warming is leading to more life being formed, not less.
Would make beautiful blue thongs though
JCH, “They say this animal, a purple sail, is stacking up on west coast beaches by the billions – possibly a result of warm water with fewer upwelled nutrients:”
They stack up on our beaches with a prolonged south wind. The sails that Portuguese Man-O-Wars have tend to be a factor.
The PDO is an ocean-wide pattern in the sea-surface temperatures in the North Pacific. In the positive PDO phase, sea surface ocean temperatures (SST) in the north-eastern tropical Pacific are warmer than normal, while the SST in the north-western far north Pacific are colder than normal. During the negative phase of the PDO the pattern in the SST’s are reversed.
Some skeptics try to confuse every one by putting up paper-tiger arguments and then whacking them down with a stick. They say that the PDO has nothing to do with SST – even though you specifically tell them that it is not directly related to SST but to the ocean wide patterns that are seen in the SST’s of the North Pacific. Other go to the original definition and try to confuse every one with technical terms [e.g. EOF’s] as though they are the only ones who know what these terms mean.
For years I read how solar had little to do with the LIA and it had more to do with volcanoes. Now it’s being said that volcanoes have little to do with the hiatus. So which is it? Fitting the facts with the paradigm I guess.
Here is another blog post which asks the question:
IS THIS A PLANETARY SIGNATURE IN OUR CLIMATE SYSTEM?
http://astroclimateconnection.blogspot.com.au/2013/07/is-this-planetary-signature-in-our.html
What the post concludes is that there is a remarkable match between the phase and period of Jupiter-Saturn conjunctions and oppositions and the bi-decade cycle in the winter North Pacific Index (NPI index). This match is best between the years of 1947 and 1991.
It is also apparent that groups of three bi-decadal cycle in the Winter NPI index are nested in phase inside a penta-decadal cycle of roughly 55 years in length. You can see one complete penta-decadal cycle starting with a Jupiter-Saturn opposition in 1922 and ending three Jupiter-Saturn oppositions later in 1981.
Amazingly, the Sun’s motion about the Barycentre (i.e. center-of-mass) of the Solar System undergoes one orbital loop from one Jupiter-Saturn conjunction (or opposition) to the next every 19.86 years. Each orbital loop of the Sun about the Barycentre rotates by roughly 120 degrees with respect to the stars, compared to its previous orbital loop. Hence, it takes three orbital loops (i.e 3 x 19.86 = 59.6 years) for the Sun’s Barycentric motion to rotate once with respect to the stars.
This means that solar inertial motion (SIM) about the Barycentre mimics the three bi-decadal cycles nested [in-phase] inside a longer penta-decadal cycle. The synchronization between these two phenomenon is quite remarkable and suggests that there may be an underlying physical link.
“What I did do was to estimate the irradiance variation on a decadal timescale arising from variations in the Earth-Sun distance brought about by Jupiter and Saturn. On a timescale of 30 years or so, that variation is about 1.5 per cent, which induces a variation in irradiance on Earth of 3 per cent, namely about 40 Watts per square metre. So Bailey’s calculated 28 Watts per square metre over a particular interval of very roughly comparable yet rather shorter duration is quite plausible.”
Not sure of the accuracy of the above. A varying Earth/Sun difference could set a pace if 3% is enough of a difference. 3% of 15 C is 0.45 C however using Kelvin we’d have about 288 K and about 9 K of variation which doesn’t seem right. However if it is right, Earth is capable of withstanding large input variations at times retaining heat and at other times emitting as much as possible. It may switch between the two, and those would be our regime changes
With further reflection, the percentage change would mostly even itself over the course of one year. It would seem possible to get a colder than normal Winter in one spot, followed by a warmer than normal Summer as the Sun hardly moves during the six months it takes the Earth to get to other side of the Sun. The Sun would be further/closer, Winter/Summer for a time. I wouldn’t say it just all evens out.
“The synchronization between these two phenomenon is quite remarkable and suggests that there may be an underlying physical link.”
The synchronization is poor as it starts drifting out after four 9.93yr steps, and the mechanism for the NP index would be operating at the scales of weekly weather.
http://research.jisao.washington.edu/pdo/PDO.latest
I think this is just a warm spike in the PDO but if it should turn out not to be the transition to a warm PDO would have started at the very end of year 2013.
Well,
The interesting thing is the peak of the coldest solar cycle is over. The earth is a heat engine. Someone turned down the burner a little.
We’ll see. I tend to believe that the natural cycles are a rebalancing after a change in solar output. If the sun is in cool mode for a cycle or two the natural patterns should do something different.
The sun cycle is not much of a player in this. Upwelling can hide globe warming. No upwelling, no hiding global warming.
If upwelling can hide global warming, it can hide global cooling as well. Just sayin’.
Upwelling brings up cold water to the surface, where it becomes part of the GMT temperature measurement. It is caused by winds. Along the equator the winds quickly blow the warming surface waters – that sun and the GHGs never quit their daily duties – to the Western Pacific, where it mounds up. The warm layer gets so deep much of it is no longer included in the GMT. So it hides heat in the west, leaves a frigid layer on the surface of the east. Not really hiding much cooling.
Well, gee.
The global warmers say the sun is irrelevant.
The sun worshippers think the sun drives climate (with natural cycles).
I eagerly look forward to the next 15 years. Somebody is right. If it is a blend – we are in for 15 years of samo samo.
But samo samo isn’t going to get us catastrophic warming – ever.
No, I said the solar cycle is not much of a player in what is going on – the direction of the trend of the GMT.
JCH | April 18, 2015 at 6:05 pm |
No, I said the solar cycle is not much of a player in what is going on – the direction of the trend of the GMT.
Well, the one study that actually measured downward long wave got 0.2 W for a 22 PPM change or F = 3.49ln(C/C0).
For the 90 PPM change from 1900 to today (310 to 400) that is 0.24°C.
Warmunists like to claim it has warmed 1°C since 1900. I like to let them claim that. That means that the sun caused 0.76°C of post 1900 warming and is 3 times the influence of GHGs.
So I guess we will have to agree to disagree.
So, JCH, it’s good to know all that heat sequestered in the oceans will never affect the climate again. Thanks for that.
http://weather.gc.ca/saisons/sea-snow_e.html
The data shows significant cooling in the Atlantic of late along with the Southern Ocean being at or below normal which in turn is tied into the growth of Antarctic Sea Ice.
An observation which is needed to be mentioned.
This is in line with what Kern et al attribute to the apisidal precession.
WTI briefly this week leapt above $57/bbl. It is still around $56. The contango is now about $6 from $7 last week and $10 in recent, previous weeks.
US oil production is still increasing somewhat and the inventory build was about 1 million bbls, under the anticipated ~3 million bbls. The Saudis have upped their production by ~600,000 bbls in the last few weeks, but total OPEC oil production is down. Apparently traders are anticipating a decline in supply which will push up prices.
Still, $20-30 WTI isn’t off the table, but it’s anyone’s guess at this point.
“I’m being attacked for thinking […] the sun could be important”
I even get that from sceptics. I had solar based forecasts up for Arctic outbreaks from 7 Jan 2014 for 7-8 weeks, from 10/11 Nov for 2 weeks, from 26 Dec for 3 weeks, from 5 Feb 2015 for 1 week, and from 18 March for 3 weeks.
Folks,
The whole CO2 thingy is solved anyhow so we can all go home: http://www.newseveryday.com/articles/13981/20150417/berkeleys-artificial-leaf-photosynthesize-global-warming-good.htm
Like natural leaves, it uses sunlight to power bacteria that reduce CO2, and later synthesize it into chemicals including… and pharmaceutical drugs.
Yup, that is a California invention all right.
You mean it’s THCo2?
If they’re plants, I guess they don’t inhale!
I worked on a mainframe design where one of the instructions (mostly used for the disk allocation schemes) was Test Hash Code. The instructions were listed by 3 letter acronym.
curryja | April 18, 2015 at 2:01 pm | Reply
interesting, i’m intrigued by LOD connections, LOD seems to match up very well with the stadium wave.
Yes and no. LOD change appears to have strong links to the N. Atlantic area
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/EGMC.gif
(East geomagnetic component Y (one of three XYZ coincident with the coordinate system axis) is from number of N.W European stations)
Correlation between LOD and East component fades out at the lower latitudes and the longer longitudes. There is a degree on negative correlation in the central Pacific but no significant time delay.
Further more, here it can be seen that there is a relatively good correlation of AMO to the Y, which is at its strongest at 60N, with the AMO trailing by about 10 years.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/Arctic-GmEC.gif
Secular change in the Y component is combination of changes in the Earth’s field itself and those caused by solar magnetic activity.
Spectral analysis of both solar and geomagnetic field reveals a common periodicity of around 22 years (Hale cycle), but geomagnetic has also a strong 16 year periodicity, only found to any extent in the Himalayan monsoon and the Arctic temperatures.
Interference/cross-modulation of these two components generates a waveform remarkably similar to the AMO
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net//SUN-AMOa.gif
For more (controversial) details see link
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/SUN-and-AMO.htm
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2015/04/18/no-underlying-global-temperature-increase-for-20-years/
For JimD,
Not science, but politics………aw, what the heck: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/04/17/steyer-nonprofit-owns-stake-in-green-energy-investment-firm/
(Self interests anyone?)
Are you saying that people who believe that climate change is happening should not invest in green industries? I think it is fair for him to put his money where his mouth is, which happens to also be on the side of the science and the government.
The point is they have a vested interest. Like someone with stock in a early car company trying to ban horses from cities for sanitary reasons.
They might be trying to do right, or they might be trying enrich themselves at the public’s expense.
Jim D,
Nope. I think folks who want to invest wherever they want to invest they should. But as we discussed on the other thread, money influencing political oversight in which one just happens to be invested is self interest related. No matter which side. So if it’s okay for one side to do it, in America, it’s equally okay for the other wouldn’t you say? I would.
He is comfortable enough with the science to help to promote it. Unlike the Kochs who claimed not to know the science well enough to participate in any debate with Steyer. Even many oil companies are starting to invest in green projects. What do you infer about them other than that they can also see the way things are going?
Jim D,
I think “energy” companies should invest in “energy”. As a stakeholder, no matter the company (entity) the stakeholder expects the entity to look out for the best interest of their investors. I can argue that what Steyer is doing is just fine, but again it’s equally fine for others (Koch) to do the same when they have a vested interest. It’s why folks invest. Do you chose to vote against your interests, financial or otherwise? Do you expect others too?
Danny, yes if your vested interest depended on a flat earth, you would promote flat-earthism, and hopefully buy off enough congressmen to do the same. We can see through this type of thing on the basis of the science itself.
Jim D,
Yes if your vested interest depended on a alternative energy, you would promote alternative energy, and hopefully buy off enough congressmen and governors, to do the same. (And it’s still self interests all around). No clean hands, Jim D. No clean hands. The “moral” case that it’s okay to buy one’s way in the legislative/executive process as it’s based on “the correct science”? Hmmmm. Interesting. Shouldn’t we then have an earth/ironworks company owner buying their legislature’s influence to outlaw (or at least increase the cost of doing business) of cement companies? After all, there’s that CO2 thingy.
This is the fundamental problem with being able to affect elections with money. Steyer happens to have the scientists on his side, and can use that, but the opposition don’t have that luxury, and it looks just self-serving rather than humanitarian. Like I said before, it is the game that they have to play. Steyer would survive whichever way this goes, but the Kochs are fighting for their future.
Jim D,
So based on this, because the science supports it, you’d advocate that a competitor (earth, iron, steel, even wood) to cement should do the same as Steyer is? Just making sure I understand.
They can make a case about carbon pollution that also happens to not help their competitor. The cement people may want to downplay the reality of GHG effects or call the scientists liars to help themselves in that rivalry.
Invest directly, and don’t use the power of money to influence politics. Or don’t complain when others do the same.
http://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/2015/0418/Why-Apple-is-buying-36-000-acres-of-forest
“Are you saying that people who believe that climate change is happening should not invest in green industries?” So far they have been investing in green subsidies, and I object to that.
Yes, business people tend to like the government to invest in their industry. What are you going to stop them?
For now I an objecting. I don’t think it is fair when people put my money where their mouth is. You may have a stomach for it, I don’t.
Whatever the renewables industry might contribute to politicians is dwarfed by what fossil fuel interests give. But I am all for reforming campaign spending and being skeptical of vested interests. But unfortunately we have to live with system we have.
Joseph,
On this:” But I am all for reforming campaign spending and being skeptical of vested interests.” we agree fully.
I’m curious about what was actually done by Dai et al. From their methods it is apparent that what they call the internal climate variability is actually the detrended deviation of a scaled GCM modelled global temp series from each grid point actual temperature. This assumes that the models correctly reflect the forced global temperature (once they have been scaled to deal with the failure to accurately reproduce temp increases over the period).
That PC2 of the spatially integrated series of residues is correlated with PC1 of the global GISS is interesting, but probably just tells us about the spatial deviation of actual temps from their mean.
[I note I need to change my nom de plume to satisfy WordPress, “Once was HAS” limited to the required lower case and no spaces was the best I could think up]
If you go to the person symbol on your WP bar and Account Settings, you can change your public display name to anything.
Ta
As an afterthought on my earlier comment, why don’t they characterise this for what it is, an evaluation of GCMs; why don’t these studies routinely hold out data to test relationships against; and why do they imply conclusions that go well beyond what they actually did: “Recent history suggests that the IPO could reverse course and lead to accelerated global warming in the coming decades”?
Judith Curry:
Interesting study on risks of groupthink (LINK).
Since the link is broken, I decided to go fishing and find something that you might have had in mind:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/15/opinion/sunday/the-rise-of-the-new-groupthink.html
The risks of groupthink were in the suppression of the creativity process, best observed in people who are introverted; i.e. live in their minds, and need to be “alone” when working on a particularly challenging portion of research. Groupthink is centered upon a collective experience with suppression of invention by consensus building of the members.
We needn’t go much further than observe that IPCC, having a consensus building UN mandate, prima facia would suppress innovation, and, more importantly, combat altering the consensus meme by active blockading contrary data, or, what is perceived as contrary. By necessity, this leads to gatekeeping by the “luminaries”, group self-censureship, and stagnation or even ossification of the science so that no one else wants to go into the area. This is precisely what has been happening to climate science as the brightest physicists and mathematicians choose pursuits not so encumbered with political burden as is the case for climate science. Would anybody use their just minted talents go into an area of science which has been proclaimed: “the science is settled.” Thank you political types: Gore, Obama, etc. and the current gatekeepers/luminaries/editors/journals and Federal funding power brokers.
Now where did I just read that?
Now where did I just read that?
Confession:
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/why-not-enough-people-are-working-on-climate-change-in-india/articleshow/46965264.cms
No one is perfect.
Unknown unknowns …
So many variables yet
so much certainty by some,
seemingly oh so secure,
though they stand
so precariously upon Earth’s
egg-shell crust,
above a seething core,
a magma crater about
which we don’t know much.
So many unknowns,
so much certainty by some,
seemingly oh so secure,
though they stand
so short-sightedly peering
out through a cloud-haze ,
within a wheeling cosmos,
a mysterious chaos about
which we don’t know much.
And yet,
They will still fight the good fight,
To the last drop of blood in our bodies!
Groupthink is just a part of human nature – most people prefer consensus. Being a stem person by nature, when I worked in high tech I would often take the contrarian position in order to come up with robust solutions. Among technical people this was no problem. Among nontechnical people – project managers, admins, dept. mgrs., etc – it was a big problem. My manager had to coach me to “pick my battles”. Over time, I learned to just let some obviously false statements pass unchallenged if they were not important.
Conversely, it is true that reserved and less assertive people will allow aggressive people to dominate brainstorming or problem solving sessions. I learned that it is important to get private feedback, ideas, and proposed solutions offline to prevent the aggressive from dominating the process and the followers going along just to achieve consensus on a quick solution.
RiH008
I forgot to say “I agree”. :)
Victoria Stodden: “How Computational Science is Changing the Scientific Method” [link]
Re scientific method – can be oberved and tested.
Tuning large climate models with numerous variables to little data have become self delusionary in the name of science.
Sometimes ‘settled science’, isn’t.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/crime/fbi-overstated-forensic-hair-matches-in-nearly-all-criminal-trials-for-decades/2015/04/18/39c8d8c6-e515-11e4-b510-962fcfabc310_story.html
Interesting melt about to start in the Arctic, or not start.
Will show if the piomass is more reliable than I thought.
Basically the ice is very thick but has unusually low surface area spread.
Based on the former one would expect/demand a slow melt this year.
The few times people Neven/Anthony haver called it it has gone into reverse on their predictions.
So I will do a Neven and not call the result and not even cross the fingers.
My feeling is the extra heat out in the pacific is being matched by extra cold at the poles.
angech2014 | April 19, 2015 at 7:55 am | Reply
Interesting melt about to start in the Arctic, or not start.
Will show if the piomass is more reliable than I thought.
Well, Dr. Curry, a respected climate scientist, made a point a while back that ice extent is the combination of weather effects and the amount of ice displaced by currents into the Atlantic.
http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/hycomARC/arctic.html
You can watch the ice move to and fro and disappear around Greenland in the Navy ice GIFs.
This makes it a bit risky to predict arctic ice extent.
However I will make the bold prediction that arctic sea ice volume in 2020 will be higher than today. So there.
Ice age scare. Here is a collection of articles, including one from the CIA and a book on the subject. (From Steve Goddard’s web site.)
https://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/1970s-ice-age-scare/
These comments were inspired in part by this statement in the science section of your weekly review on April 18th:
“… I’m being attacked for thinking volcanoes and the sun could be important (wasn’t volcanoes and the sun Gavin Schmidt’s explanation for the pause in a paper published last year?)”
I hate to tell you that I also regard it as a weak point because Schmidt is simply ignorant of what he is talking about. This annoyed me and I should have responded to him then so let me elaborate about it. First, not one of the climate models he uses has been able to duplicate the well known structure of the pause. He has no idea what is happening but insists on a bogus explanation nevertheless. I am particularly puzzled by his use of the sun. I have checked the sun spot cycles for the last century and found no correlation with global temperature. Beyond that, he is also ignorant of the fact that this is not the first time a pause has happened. Unfortunately he is not alone. I proved that in the eighties and nineties there was a pause that lasted from 1979 to 1997. Figure 15 in my book [1] shows it clearly but it has been ignored by the “community” of self-important “climatologists” for the last 5 years that it has been out. They just don’t do their homework. While on this subject there are other important things in the book that are also being ignored. Volcanoes that Schmidt invokes are most clearly distinguishable by their “volcanic cooling” shown in global temperature records. I hate to tell you but every one of these “volcanic” coolings is nothing more than a misidentified La Nina valley. That is because the global temperature curve that looks like a sawtooth is nothing more than a concatenation of El Nino peaks, with La Nina valleys separating them. If an eruption coincides with an El Nino peak a La Nina valley is guaranteed to follow and is grabbed by self-appointed “volcanologists” as volcanic cooling from the eruption. Example: Pinatubo. If, on the other hand, the eruption coincides with a La Nina valley, it is followed by an El Nino peak and none of that “volcanic” cooling can be seen. Example: El Chichon. It has gotten so bad that the known dates of eruptions are now hard-coded into climate models and are used to display theoretical volcanic cooling sites from that. As a result, El Chichon, which in real life is followed by an El Nino, is shown as being followed by a non-existent cooling in these models. This is not just wrong, it also leads to drawing wrong conclusions of what global temperature is doing. Read the Pinatubo section in the book with comprehension to understand what is going on. Someone ought to take a small part of that two billion dollars that Obama has gifted onto climate researchers and clean out these non-existent coolings from official temperature sources. Other things that have been ignored by “mainstream” climate scientists include the nature of ENSO (an harmonic oscillation of ocean water from side to side in the Pacific), false temperature rise in the eighties and nineties that is shown initially in HadCRUT3 (and later in in GISSTEMP and NCDC also), and the cause of Arctic warming. The latter is due to a change in the flow pattern of the North Atlantic currents at the turn of the twentieth century. There was nothing but slow, linear cooling in the Arctic for two thousand years before the century began. This section of the book was later expanded into a journal article [2]. If all that sounds contrarian it is because I insist on scientific truth being more important than expert opinion.
[1] Arno Arrak, “What Warming? Satellite view of global temperature change.” (CreateSpace, 2010)
[2] Arno Arrak, E&E 22(8):1069-1083(2011)
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2015/04/18/no-underlying-global-temperature-increase-for-20-years/
As on can see by this data both ENSO and volcanic activity contribute to the global temperature trends independently of one another.
From the linked articles:
“For with the PDO now apparently switching back to a warm mode, it would mean that global warming could soon burst forth again, as heat temporarily sequestered in the oceans reemerges into the atmosphere.”
“Researchers think that a long-lasting weather pattern called a high-pressure “ridge” deflected winds that stir up cool waters from the deep and bring cool air and water from high latitudes.”
I think the first quote is less correct than the second one. Maybe it’s wind driven upwelling of cool water. During the negative phase of the PDO the energy goes into heating the cooler surface water. If it’s sequestered anywhere, it’s near the surface where it mixed with the cool water. During the warm phase, this deep ocean to surface transfer may slow. Others here have mentioned when it’s warmer, the hydrological cycle speeds up. Just what the doctor ordered. I don’t see the warming as bursting forth, it just doesn’t have to contend with the cooler water. What could be causing a transition to a warm PDO?
“One of the most important and mysterious events in recent climate history is the climate shift in the mid-1970s. In the northern hemisphere 500-hPa atmospheric flow the shift manifested itself as a collapse of a persistent wave-3 anomaly pattern and the emergence of a strong wave-2 pattern. The shift was accompanied by sea-surface temperature (SST) cooling in the central Pacific and warming off the coast of western North America.”
So:
1978 begin wave-2 pattern
1998 begin wave-3 pattern – long slow North South meanders
2014 begin wave-2 pattern
It may be that the wave-3 pattern helps the PDO sustain negative if it helps the North Pacific Gyre move warm water North and cool water South.
More that seems to indicate the jet stream is indicative:
http://www.srh.noaa.gov/jetstream/tropics/images/el_vs_la_jetstream.jpg
I am wondering if the jet stream is controlling the North Pacific upwelling? If we think of El Nino or La Nina predominate conditions indicating the predominate jet stream.
Ragnaar, Are you making a prediction? It seems a few are looking for a jump (.2 C) within a year. What is you Vegas spread?
Ron Graf:
67% chance of being under plus 0.2 C for the next year. The current and recent high PDO values are worrisome.
At Realclimate, Gavin Schmidt has a new article on getting non-traditional views published, as he has an example of his own which was his idea of anthropogenic effects on climate even before fossil fuels.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2015/04/a-scientific-debate/
Actually not Gavin, but Bill Ruddiman.
Ruddiman, has lots of theory. All interesting. Too bad it is all settled.
Plows, Petroleum and ?? built up the start of agriculture as delaying the next ice age. He wrote convincingly of ice age timed by the orbital mechanics and delayed by rice growing.
Scott
http://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-west-coast-sardine-season-halted-to-stave-off-overfishing-1429149949
What’s the skinny on the West Coast sardine fishery? Anyone know the science on this–all the journalism I see is very vague about causes. Some say overfishing, others say cycles, still others blame it on temperatures. Anyone know anything beyond what the journos are dishing out?