Week in review – science edition

Posted on April 25, 2015 by | 389 Comments

by Judith Curry

A few things that caught my eye this past week.

Politics of science

Controversy awaits as House Republicans roll out long-awaited bill to revamp U.S. research policy [link]

Non-scientist Climate Activists in Meltdown as ‘Sceptic’ Bjorn Lomborg Gets Australian Government Funding [link]

Now THIS is scary: How Bill Nye the Science Guy became Obama’s climate guy [link]

In the news

Plants and soils may have been soaking up our carbon emissions, but this is set to change by 2100 [link]

Scientists use drones to get a closer look at melting Arctic sea ice [link]

What do volcanic eruptions mean for the climate? [link]

Deep freeze and sea breeze: Changing land and weather in Florida [link]  …

Thought-provoking piece on why “extinction” isn’t the best way to think about the problems facing various species: [link]

The science of fracking and earthquakes [link]

Piece by Google engineers on why current renewable energy tech won’t do the job of reversing climate change:[link]

Social science

University offering free online course to demolish climate denial [link]

From ‘consensus’ philosopher Lawrence Torcello: Removing the Rubbish: Consensus, Causation, and Denial [link]

Vox: Two political scientists have found the secret to party loyalty, and it’s deeply depressing [link]

A model for collaborative working to facilitate knowledge mobilisation [link]

Insightful reflections on the purpose of scientific journals [link]

New papers of note

New paper finds relationship between natural North Atlantic Oscillation & temperatures of Southwest U.S. [link]

Irreversible desertification in China caused by #climatechange 4.2kyr ago – N Atlantic Cold Event shifting monsoons. [link]

There are two new papers from Wenhong Li’s research group at Duke University, that are creating some buzz:

Comparing the model-simulated global warming signal to observations using empirical estimates of unforced noise

Patrick T. Brown, Wenhong Li, Eugene Cordero, Steven Mauget

Abstract. The comparison of observed global mean surface air temperature (GMT) change to the mean change simulated by climate models has received much public and scientific attention. For a given global warming signal produced by a climate model ensemble, there exists an envelope of GMT values representing the range of possible unforced states of the climate system (the Envelope of Unforced Noise; EUN). Typically, the EUN is derived from climate models themselves, but climate models might not accurately simulate the correct characteristics of unforced GMT variability. Here, we simulate a new, empirical, EUN that is based on instrumental and reconstructed surface temperature records. We compare the forced GMT signal produced by climate models to observations while noting the range of GMT values provided by the empirical EUN. We find that the empirical EUN is wide enough so that the interdecadal variability in the rate of global warming over the 20th century does not necessarily require corresponding variability in the rate-of-increase of the forced signal. The empirical EUN also indicates that the reduced GMT warming over the past decade or so is still consistent with a middle emission scenario’s forced signal, but is likely inconsistent with the steepest emission scenario’s forced signal.  Published in Nature; [link] to full manuscript.

Top-of-atmosphere radiative contribution to unforced decadal global temperature variability in climate models

Patrick T. Brown, Wenhong Li, Laifang Li , and Yi Ming

Abstract. Much recent work has focused on unforced global mean surface air temperature (T) variability associated with the efficiency of heat transport into the deep ocean. Here the relationship between unforced variability in T and the Earth’s top-of-atmosphere (TOA) energy balance is explored in preindustrial control runs of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 multimodel ensemble. It is found that large decadal scale variations in T tend to be significantly enhanced by the net energy flux at the TOA. This indicates that unforced decadal variability in T is not only caused by a redistribution of heat within the climate system but can also be associated with unforced changes in the total amount of heat in the climate system. It is found that the net TOA radiation imbalances result mostly from changes in albedo associated with the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation that temporarily counteracts the climate system’s outgoing longwave (i.e., Stefan-Boltzmann) response to T change. Published in Geophysical Research Letters; [link] to full manuscript

Media reports (mostly on the first article):

JC note:  Once again, I was traveling this past week, so I’m sure there is a lot that I have missed, I look forward to your finds.  Fortunately I have no travel for next 3 weeks.  Unfortunately, I have a big report to finish.  But I have some interesting blog posts lined up for next week, stay tuned.

 

 

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389 responses to “Week in review – science edition”

  1. Mike | April 25, 2015 at 9:25 am |

    Reblogged this on This Got My Attention and commented:
    Lots of news of only folks would pay attention.

  2. AK | April 25, 2015 at 9:43 am |

    Looking at the desertification in China paper, I”m reminded about a recent post at RC about how “new” ideas are received by the scientific community.

    Recently I’ve read claims that some scientists are opposed to AGW but won’t speak out because they fear censure from a nearly monolithic community intent on imposing a mainstream view. Yet my last 10 years of personal experience refute this claim. This story began late in 2003 when I introduced a new idea (the ‘early anthropogenic hypothesis’) that went completely against a prevailing climatic paradigm of the time. I claimed that detectable human influences on Earth’s surface and its climate began thousands of years ago because of agriculture. Here I describe how this radically different idea was received by the mainstream scientific community.

    I’m not sure how “new” this idea actually is, I recall seeing mention of it (in non-technical venues) as early as the ’60’s, but the wave of desertification 6-4,000 years ago seems to have been associated with substantial changes to pastoral economies, and I wonder if the causation involved didn’t operate in both directions.

    • AK | April 25, 2015 at 11:55 am |

      From the linked article:

      A relict channel from the northern lake indicates that outflow before ca. 4.5 ka was directed 30 km north to megalake Dali (Fig. 2 and SI Appendix, Fig. S1). However, a lack of recessional shorelines, the presence of well-preserved terraces, and tributaries containing relict terraces and meander loops that grade eastward to an ancestral Xilamulun River ∼50 m above the current base level (see SI Appendix, Fig. S4) suggest rapid and possibly catastrophic lake level decline, with a switch to east-flowing surface drainage ca. 4.2 ka. An increase in the coarse sand fraction in a lake basin core to the southeast, originally interpreted as a state shift response to a drying climate (10), also suggests a rapid transition to drier conditions by ca. 4.2 ka.

      Narrow V-shaped canyons incised into thick sand and silt deposited by aeolian, fluvial, and lacustrine processes (Fig. 2 and SI Appendix, Fig. S1) indicate that groundwater sapping (14, 15) or seepage erosion (16) by the headcutting Xilamulun River captured the groundwater table and resulted in rapid lake level lowering. This large-scale hydrologic piracy breached multiple drainage divides, permanently diverting water resources into the east-flowing Xilamulun River. The presence of lacustrine sediments east of the lake basins studied suggests that this is an ongoing process, as the Xilamulun River rapidly headcut during the Holocene. Once eastward flow was established the water table dropped ∼30 m to a level where surface flow was unsustainable, and rapid desertification ensued. Continued downcutting further lowered and steepened the water table’s eastern slope, leaving tributaries in our study area, as well as drainages associated with paleolakes to the east, as dry canyons with present drainage from springs at river level and through groundwater sapping (Fig. 2). [my bold]

      Looking at the bolded paragraph, we might get the idea that a continuous, “ongoing process” reached a “tipping point”, where it began to steal drainage in large amounts from Dali Lake, with a positive feedback effect on erosion (as more drainage came through the channels).

      But I’d like to mention an alternative hypothesis: that economic changes in pastoral sheep herding were responsible for multiple events of over-grazing, leading to rapid erosion that completed a process that might have gone on much longer without it.

      The key item here is the selection for woolly sheep:

      Wild sheep were more hairy than woolly. Although sheep were domesticated 9 to 11 thousand years ago, archaeological evidence from statuary found at sites in Iran suggests selection for woolly sheep may have begun around 6000 BC,[13][14] with the earliest woven wool garments having only been dated to two to three thousand years later.[15] Woolly-sheep were introduced into Europe from the Near East in the early part of the 4th millennium BC.

      IOW, use of sheep for wool seems to have started only a few centuries before “ large-scale hydrologic piracy breached multiple drainage divides, permanently diverting water resources into the east-flowing Xilamulun River.”.

      This might well be an example of early, large-scale anthropogenic modifications to the climate, especially considering the potential for changes in evaporation in this area to have impacted the atmosphere’s behavior over the Himalaya/Tibetan Plateau complex.

      • Turbulent Eddie | April 25, 2015 at 1:05 pm |

        Incident solar variation forced by orbital change resulted in big shifts.

        The Southern Hemisphere currently receives 6% more insolation than the Northern Hemisphere.

        During the Holocene Climatic Optimum ( the time of Mesopotamian cultures flourishing ) the situation was roughly the opposite – around a 12% swing from hemisphere to hemisphere.

        Shifting and stretching of the seasons took place.
        The fossil evidence of the wetter Sahara might have been one result.

        Reflect that CO2 forcing, even for a doubling, is
        1.) much smaller and
        2.) much more uniform around the globe.

    • johnvonderlin | April 25, 2015 at 8:24 pm |

      AK,
      I too read that post at RC, as well as almost all the comments. What I found most interesting was that no one pointed out that Mr. Schneider, while agnostic about the researcher’s claim, was entirely per-disposed to accept it. If the researcher claimed he could detect an anthropogenic GH gas effect from just a few tens of millions of our ancestors’ primitive technological advances thousands of years ago, that would seem to strongly support the consensus AGW theory. In fact, with 7 billion of us engaging in a human volcano of CO2 these days, it would also seem to implicitly support CAGW.
      Why the researcher would think his experience of being fairly treated when singing only slightly too loudly from the choir master’s songbook is in any way representative of somebody challenging the consensus paradigm with an out-of-tune offering was a mystery to me. Why no commenters pointed out this obvious difference to the researcher I don’t know.

      • AK | April 25, 2015 at 8:58 pm |

        I too read that post at RC, as well as almost all the comments. What I found most interesting was that no one pointed out that Mr. Schneider, while agnostic about the researcher’s claim, was entirely per-disposed to accept it. If the researcher claimed he could detect an anthropogenic GH gas effect from just a few tens of millions of our ancestors’ primitive technological advances thousands of years ago, that would seem to strongly support the consensus AGW theory.

        Well, from my POV I have doubts. AGW going back thousands of years impels a very different policy perspective than AGW going back a few decades.

        Anyway, I, personally, am not interested in the differences between Ruddiman’s treatment and that of AGW “contrarians”. Or at least, not nearly so much as in his theory of anthropogenic climate change reaching back thousands of years.

        I’ll admit it’s important, but if humans have been touching off major changes to the climate since the end of the last Ice Age, “that changes everything”. (As Bill Gates is said to have said about the Internet.)

        Why the researcher would think his experience of being fairly treated when singing only slightly too loudly from the choir master’s songbook is in any way representative of somebody challenging the consensus paradigm with an out-of-tune offering was a mystery to me.

        Me too. But that wasn’t my point.

  3. Jim D | April 25, 2015 at 9:56 am |

    Also this one. Climate denial fading among broadcast meteorologists. The GMU link also has another more general recent poll on American attitudes to climate change.
    http://blogs.mprnews.org/updraft/2015/04/climate-denial-fading-broadcast-meteorologists/

    • sunshinehours1 | April 25, 2015 at 11:27 am |

      So the honest meteorologists are keeping quiet about the 18 year failure of IPCC theories/models?

      Very prudent. The Climate Inquisitors are evil.

    • David Springer | April 25, 2015 at 11:32 am |

      From the article:

      “It’s very rare to hear ridiculous pronouncements about climate change from TV weathercasters these days, but it was far different just a few years ago. It actually got so bad, that a group called Forecast the Facts took to publicizing some of the most egregious ones, eliciting howls of protests by those who disagreed with the consensus opinion.”

      An organized smear campaign against TV weathercasters skeptical of hyperbolic AGW claimes took place. TV weathercaster criticisms of AGW decreased as a result.

      The news is portrayed as TV weathercasters accepting the science instead of not wishing to be trashed by Forecast the Facts thugs.

      How very typical. The science of global warming is deficient. It survives through organized character assassination of those who talk about its defiency. Isn’t that just precious?

      • Jim D | April 25, 2015 at 11:35 am |

        You probably need to see what the “egregious” ones said before defending them.

      • PA | April 26, 2015 at 10:17 am |

        The global warmers who basically have no evidence supporting their delusional fantasy should be somewhat cautious in claiming other people are misinformed or anti-science.

      • AK | April 26, 2015 at 10:51 am |

        A recent study found that 27% of TV meteorologists call global warming a “scam,” while over half deny that humans are the cause. Communities being devastated by increasingly severe weather deserve to know that there’s a culprit—a warming world and an increasingly unstable climate. This campaign aims to make sure that happens.

        From here. So who’s the “egregious” l1ars here?

      • David Springer | April 27, 2015 at 10:35 pm |

        I can see what the egregious smear campaigns forecastthefacts.org is running but, interestingly, there are no TV meteorologists named or quoted that I could find. http://forecastthefacts.org/weathercaster_watch/ is actually devoid of facts and simply makes the thoroughly rebutted claim that extreme weather events are statistically growing worse.

    • Turbulent Eddie | April 25, 2015 at 1:07 pm |

      Climate denial fading among broadcast meteorologists.

      So does denial include pointing out the evidence?
      That observed temperature trends are less than low end scenarios?
      That ghg forcing peaked two decades ago and appears may well be declining again?

      I get confused on which part of me is in denial and which part is in acceptance.

  4. Canman | April 25, 2015 at 9:59 am |

    From Chris Mooney’s piece about Bill Nye:

    He’s still a jokester — but he’s also become someone who acts a bit like a science gladiator, willing to debate anyone who expressed skepticism about the science of evolution and climate change.

    …

    I’m not a full time climate scientist, but I know enough about it to know it’s not something you should be debating or denying.

    So which is it? “willing to debate” or “not something you should be debating”?

    I’d like to see Bill Nye debate someone like Ross McKitrick about the hockey stick. Nye wrote the foreword the the latest version of Michael Mann’s book.

    • Bad Andrew | April 25, 2015 at 10:21 am |

      I saw super smart Bill Nye get beat by creationist Ken Ham in a ‘debate’ on TV.
      Mr. Nye is a joke, he just doesnt admit it.

      Andrew

      • aneipris | April 25, 2015 at 11:03 am |

        “Now THIS is scary: How Bill Nye the Science Guy became Obama’s climate guy ”

        Obama is without question the most clueless President of my lifetime…which goes back to Eisenhower. Much, much worse than George W. He has an unerring instinct for surrounding himself with loony zealots then takes their word without question. I honestly can’t believe I voted for the guy. Twice. I don’t think I’ll ever trust myself enough to cast a vote again.

      • David Springer | April 25, 2015 at 11:46 am |

        Bill Nye the no-PhD Science Guy.

        Figures that’s where Barry Soetoro got his science education… from a pretend TV “scientist”.

    • ticketstopper | April 25, 2015 at 3:18 pm |

      Nye is a perfect example of a hammer that sees everything as nails.
      He’s melded his intellect with his politics, to the detriment of both.
      I also laughed at how his primary qualifications for where he is now arose from his being a physical lookalike comic.
      It does inform just how credible the “science” part of his public persona is: that of a physical look-alike to an actual scientist.

    • Steven Mosher | April 25, 2015 at 5:15 pm |

      what would be the point of having Nye debate Ross?
      a debate about the HS won’t tell you anything you don’t already know.
      to embarass Nye? he seems shameless to me. To have a heavyweight beat up a featherweight? why not fake wrestling matches? you know the WWF of climate science.

      It strikes me odd that people who make noise about the scientific method continue to call for more rhetoric.. in the form of a debate.

      • Canman | April 26, 2015 at 12:58 am |

        what would be the point of having Nye debate Ross?
        a debate about the HS won’t tell you anything you don’t already know.

        Nye has a big following. Mann and Steyn have made an issue out of the hockey stick. A debate with someone substantial like McKitrick might not tell me anything, but it could be enlightening to Nye’s public or even to Nye.

        call for more rhetoric.. in the form of a debate.

        Rhetoric can consist of bland talking points, but there can be a lot of truth in talking points. There’s the challenge of thinking up good responses to talking points. Without debate there is only rhetoric from one side.

      • Jeff Norman | April 26, 2015 at 5:11 am |

        Steven Mosher sed:

        “you know the WWF of climate science”

        Pretty sure you meant WWE of climate science. Climate science already has a WWF.

  5. AK | April 25, 2015 at 10:00 am |

    I’d rather wait until more people have commented, but don’t want to try to remember everything while I’m reading. Therefore, WRT the “House Republicans roll out long-awaited bill to revamp U.S. research policy” link:

    The bill orders up a host of other studies, including one on how the United States can become a leader in building and operating light sources for materials research, and another on the feasibility of building a national network of pipelines for carrying carbon dioxide (apparently with the idea of pumping it underground to curb climate change). It also calls for studies of exascale computing research, low-dose radiation science, and the effectiveness of DOE’s efforts to commercialize research discoveries. DOE is also asked to examine the possibility of hosting privately owned experimental fusion and nuclear reactors at its national laboratories.

    The CO2 pipelines study is interesting: it looks like an attempt to “keep our options open” WRT capture and sequestration, although it would also support inexpensive roll-out of widespread greenhouse agriculture (with associated water savings) at much higher efficiencies due to low-cost elevated CO2. And it seems to support aggressive R(&D) in nuclear options, in the market-oriented manner preferred by Republicans.

    • David L. Hagen | April 25, 2015 at 8:04 pm |

      Breaking news and analysis from the world of science policy 15 April 2015

      . . .It would bar BER from starting any new climate science research unless it can show it does not duplicate work being funded by other federal agencies. It also asks DOE to cancel any existing climate research found to be duplicative. . . .on the feasibility of building a national network of pipelines for carrying carbon dioxide

      CO2 pipelines would help Enhanced Oil Recovery CO2-EOR

  6. captdallas2 0.8 +/- 0.2 | April 25, 2015 at 10:00 am |

    envelope of unforced noise (eun)

    https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-1blMRN-SQ9Y/VP3hRP3125I/AAAAAAAANGU/3MmXLuNxmn4/w675-h417-no/simple%2Blinear%2Bregression%2B3mma.png

    Happens to be about one standard deviation (+/- 0.29 C)

    http://www.nature.com/srep/2015/150421/srep09957/pdf/srep09957.pdf

    Excellent find Dr. Curry. Who knows, climate science may actually be maturing?

  7. Joshua | April 25, 2015 at 10:01 am |

    I was looking at an article similar to the one above that Judith linked to about party loyalties, that had this same graph:

    http://www.people-press.org/files/2014/06/PP-2014-06-12-polarization-0-02.png

    So consider the theory that emotive and fear-influenced reasoning is disproportionate on one side of the discussion on climate change relative to the other.

    Consider that “skepticism” is highly correlated with political ideology – the political ideology that (along with a greater fear of the ‘threat” from the other side of the ideological divide) promotes fear of (at least relatively):

    Ebola
    Muslims
    Raising the minimum wage
    Death panels
    Gay people marrying each other
    Government debt
    Government
    Marijuana
    The “War on Christmas”
    Academia
    Union and organized labor
    Environmental groups
    Climate McCarthyism
    Neo-Lysenkoism
    Judicial activism
    a lack of religion in our schools
    the separation of church and state

    Of course, the list is much longer than that and of course, we could make s similar list on the other side of the fence.

    The article linked relates to very important considerations that are completely lacking in Andy West’s analysis. That’s why god invented scare quotes, folks – so we could correctly identify “skepticism.”

    • JCH | April 25, 2015 at 10:20 am |

      Still, cold is way more scary than warm.

    • chuckrr (@chuckerenno) | April 25, 2015 at 10:40 am |

      “Of course, the list is much longer than that and of course, we could make s similar list on the other side of the fence.”

      And the list would be just as meaningless without context and the realization that there is no universal agreement on the importance of each issue.
      Do you ever tire of looking for hypocrisy in every thought and action? You do realize every thought or action has some level of hypocrisy?. It’s so easy I guess you’ll never run out of material.

    • Joshua | April 25, 2015 at 10:40 am |

      Thanks, Judith –

      For posting the comment..

      FYI, I’m not unsympathetic to the questions related to moderation – and appreciate your restraint in the face of so many complaints.

      That said….I can’t help but notice the ideological underpinnings of suggestions that you summarily delete the comments of anyone who responds to my comments.

      • curryja | April 25, 2015 at 10:50 am |

        When you are in moderation, and comment that mentions your name is also in moderation, which allows for some balance in this situation.

      • aneipris | April 25, 2015 at 11:07 am |

        Help me out, Joshua. Did I miss some pronouncement on moderation policy? Also, decent of you to thank Judith for her forbearance.

      • Don Monfort | April 25, 2015 at 12:03 pm |

        =========>”Also, decent of you to thank Judith for her forbearance.”

        A transparent tactic and completely insincere. He, he!

      • David Springer | April 25, 2015 at 12:27 pm |

        Your name J O S H U A (spelled with spaces to avoid moderation) triggers moderation of the comment in which it appears. Duh. For someone who thinks so highly of his reasoning skills it’s odd you didn’t figure that out but instead concocted some paranoid delusion that Curry was picking on people who sympathize with you.

        A question emerges from this however. How is it you happened to know that comments in response to your were disappearing? The most likely answer, given the constant display of ethical lapse in your replies, is you have been responding to yourself under different names to mask the percentage of replies you make. What a piece of work you are.

      • jim2 | April 25, 2015 at 1:27 pm |

        PA: nail – head.

    • JCH | April 25, 2015 at 10:48 am |

      Now THIS is scary: How Bill Nye the Science Guy became Obama’s climate guy …

      Andrew has suggested Ken Ham clobbered Bill Nye in a debate. So would you be as scared, less scared, or more scared if Ken Ham became Obama’s climate guy?

      • Bad Andrew | April 25, 2015 at 10:50 am |

        “if Ken Ham became Obama’s climate guy?”

        Why would anyone care about something that hasn’t happened and is not going to happen?

        Andrew

      • David Springer | April 25, 2015 at 12:17 pm |

        Less scared. Ken Ham believes he must answer to God the Creator of all things mentioned in EVERY US state constitution as the source of human rights and liberties. Most people don’t know that every state in the Union acknowledges it. See here:

        http://www.usconstitution.net/states_god.html

        Bill Nye thinks the universe is a big accident without cause or meaning and thus holds no moral absolutes nor does he believe there will ever be any personal accounting of his actions in this life. The thought of no-account people like that being in positions of authority scares me as it should any rational adult with a modicum of critical thinking skills.

    • jim2 | April 25, 2015 at 11:35 am |

      Looks like you made up a list of stuff you believe Republicans, Josh. Some Republican at some time may have mentioned one of those, but that says nothing about Republicans as whole, nor about conservatives either.

      And, you haven’t demonstrated that Dimowits ARE NOT a huge threat to the US as the Constitution laid it out.

      Basically, this is just another bunch of unproven, motivated-reasoning drivel from you, Josh.

    • David Springer | April 25, 2015 at 12:01 pm |

      Judith, if you are cleaning up after Joshhua’s messes please be advised that I didn’t write the following comment:

      http://judithcurry.com/2015/04/25/week-in-review-science-edition-2/#comment-697197

    • PA | April 25, 2015 at 12:40 pm |

      That poll is pretty accurate. Both parties are a threat to the nations well being but the Democrats are the much bigger threat.

    • John Carpenter | April 25, 2015 at 2:56 pm |

      ” The goal is for the students to come out of the course with a stronger understanding of climate science, myth debunking, and the psychology of science denial that’s become so pervasive and dangerous in today’s world.”

      Joshua, this quote is from John Cook for his Queensland University course on demolishing denial. So what about the fear of denial? Would you agree that climate science denial is dangerous in today’s world? Should we be fearing for ourselves because of dangerous denial? Does this not fit as a good example of what Andy West posted on the previous thread?

      • Joshua | April 25, 2015 at 3:25 pm |

        Hey John Carpenter –

        ==> “[1]Joshua, this quote is from John Cook for his Queensland University course on demolishing denial. So what about the fear of denial? [2]Would you agree that climate science denial is dangerous in today’s world? [3] Should we be fearing for ourselves because of dangerous denial? [4] Does this not fit as a good example of what Andy West posted on the previous thread?”

        [1]FYI – I don’t abide by the whole “denial” thing. I think that when “realists” point to “denial” they’re making the same, fundamentally flawed kind of argument as I so often see in these threads. It is a formulation of conclusions (that someone is in “denial” as opposed to just reasoning as they see the evidence) w/o sufficient evidence. Further, the term is incredibly vague and subjective. If it is meant to refer to people who flat out dismiss any risk from BAU w/r/t ACO2 emissions, I think that there is risk involved. Referencing “fear” about risk is kind of tricky also. Part of my whole issue with Andy’s post was the unscientific way that he measures “fear” or emotive qualities and the unscientific approach that he takes to quantifying the impact of “fear” on causing “irrationality.” I don’t dismiss that there is some relationship, but if you’re going to point to the real world to make conclusions about the degree of the magnitude of those entities and their relationship, IMO, you have to set about defining terms and measuring manifestations of phenomena in an empirical fashion. Of course, none of that will be perfect – but seems to me that if someone is serious about making arguments about causation, the should start from the baseline assumption that they should at least attempt to control for their own confirmation biases.

        I fee no I feel no obligation to defend the use of that terminology – so I find it interesting that perhaps you think that I do?

        To the extend that there is some ‘fear of denial” expressed, I think it is reasonable to address whether there is a “danger” implied by a poor approach to risk assessment in the face of uncertainty, where people dismiss that risk for any variety of reasons rather than address the risk head on. Of course, there are other related “dangers,” such as the tendency towards over-estimation of risk in the face of uncertainty.

        [2] I think my answer to [1] addresses that question.(to the extent that I can given that I don’t have any sense of obligation over the notion of “denial.”)

        [3] I think that my answer to [1] addresses that question (to the extent that I can given that I don’t have any sense of obligation over the notion of “denial.”)

        [4]</strong With the caveats I expressed above (about the vagueness of how these phenomena are being defined and measured), sure. I don't doubt that there is a biasing influence of emotive reasoning on the "realist" side of the great climate divide. I see that sort of biasing influence (actually, I think that motivated reasoning is a better conceptualization that encapsulates the biasing influence of emotion) frequently from people who fall into John Cook's camp.

        My argument has always been that these biases exist. What I object to are facile arguments that there is some kind of disproportionality – and that is what I was critical of in Andy's article.

      • John Carpenter | April 25, 2015 at 5:29 pm |

        “I fee no I feel no obligation to defend the use of that terminology – so I find it interesting that perhaps you think that I do?”

        No no, I was not implying that you defend the term. I was just pointing out an example of a fear of danger on the ‘realist’ side, it just happened to be in reference to denial. It could have been anything, but it was denial. I know you would not defend the term..

        I agree the term is vague. As such, to say there is a danger (and by association a fear) of denial is meaningless and really is just a polemic. Cook sees a danger of not addressing CO2 emission because of dangerous climate change. He is convinced it is a dangerous situation. I dont think his methodoloy of expressing this concern is one that will work. I think it has the potential to make communication between differing POV’s worse and as such it may prolong and exacerbate policy stagnation, which is the opposite of what he really wants to achieve. It appears to me the course is nothing more than a vehicle for indoctrinating students to his beliefs on AGW.

        I understand your agrument about lack of disproportionality and I agree wrt to emotive bias, it cuts both ways. I think Andy West acknowledged that as well in both his post and in comments. He just pointed out an apparent contradiction within the realist camp. I didn’t take away the idea he felt it was disproportionately weighted to one side only.

      • Joshua | April 26, 2015 at 11:30 am |

        hey John Carpenter –

        Wrote a response…looks like Judith has moderated it out. Perhaps she’ll let this go through?: Bottom line, not sure how we can reach such different views w/r/t the disproportionality question.

    • Curious George | April 25, 2015 at 3:03 pm |

      I would like to see an analysis of partisan approaches to Ebola.

      BTW, both Democrats and Republicans are right in your graph. Maybe that’s why independent voters now outnumber both parties.

    • Ragnaar | April 25, 2015 at 3:23 pm |

      The conservatives have been on defense for the most part for many years. Trying in general to stop change. While the liberals have been on the offensive. One side sees a threat to stability and the other the threat of, the lack of progress.# I’ll agree conservatives and libertarians have material fear based arguments. With the case of climate change, and perhaps some Luddite job protecting issues, liberals do draw on fear based arguments. With the statement above (#), the roles are reversed. The conservatives say it’s stable enough and the liberals argue it’s not.

    • Steven Mosher | April 25, 2015 at 5:21 pm |

      the pen and the phone are very scary.

      in all seriousness it would be interesting to track the fear as a function of existing political power.

      An easy way would be to ask folks about their fear of the libertarian party.
      on paper we are very scary. not so much in reality.

      • Ragnaar | April 25, 2015 at 6:48 pm |

        Fear of libertarians is the fear of the very unlikely. We have some good ideas, but no one listens to us and they rarely elect or appoint us. I’ve accepted that. What small libertarian things I do, and I am not perfect, involve my business relations with others. If the world doesn’t want to be saved by libertarians, I’ll try not to let that bother me.

      • jim2 | April 25, 2015 at 7:25 pm |

        Legalizing drugs would bring so many benefits to the US. That single set of laws has caused more loss of freedom in the US even than terrorism. Law enforcement is encouraged to take property without a trial in many places. Law enforcement uses drug laws as a reason to spy on citizens and sometime trash the wrong house in a mistaken drug raid. On top of that, the effort doesn’t stop people using drugs. In fact, it just creates drug gangs that profit off the drug laws. Libertarians have a lot of good to offer. It’s unfortunate they can’t get traction.

  8. David Wojick | April 25, 2015 at 10:02 am |

    http://www.co2science.org/subject/m/summaries/inadeqradiation.php

    Sounds like the climate models have numerous gaps and errors that are each greater than the supposed forcing of increased CO2, which makes the models useless as predictors. The part about the modelers selectively not including non-linear (negative) feedbacks that might offset CO2 forcing is especially interesting, also the natural variability of the energy budget on decade timescales.

  9. Wagathon | April 25, 2015 at 10:02 am |

    What sort of public policy would Greece choose now if it had the option, discovering oil and pumping like Norwegians to bring in the green backs or changing the culture to reward productivity through self-initiative and personal responsibility to return their society to economic vibrancy.

  10. AK | April 25, 2015 at 10:15 am |

    The “Removing the Rubbish: Consensus, Causation, and Denial” piece is one of the more blatant examples of dishonest rhetoric I’ve seen lately.

    • Wagathon | April 25, 2015 at 10:39 am |

      True, true., it sounds like the author is paying obeisance to a sort of royal knowledge that the rest of us can never understand but in our ignorance should at the very least, appreciate…

      Responsible reasoning does not justify the rhetorical exploitation of uncertainty; advancement of scientific understanding can be granted despite the acknowledgment of fallibility. As such, to stubbornly require a “proof” that global warming is the result of human activity and that climate change influences patterns of extreme weather — given the ready preponderance of real evidence — merely reduces to an argument from ignorance.

      • justinwonder | April 25, 2015 at 3:19 pm |

        You aether believe what the consensus scientists say without proof or you are ignorant. When have they ever been wrong?

      • rogerknights | April 26, 2015 at 8:50 am |

        Torcello wrote:
        “to stubbornly require a “proof” that global warming is the result of human activity and that climate change influences patterns of extreme weather — given the ready preponderance of real evidence — merely reduces to an argument from ignorance.”

        I don’t think many contrarians “require a proof” of global warming. The usual contrarian attack is to cite facts and articles that tend to undermine or DISprove AGW. Even one major disconfirming fact or study can disprove a theory. Contrarians think they have lots of minor ones.

    • curryja | April 25, 2015 at 10:47 am |

      Charming, isn’t it. Torcello is favorite philosopher of the IPCC ideologues

    • ticketstopper | April 25, 2015 at 3:19 pm |

      Torcello is an amazingly non self-critical moron.
      The audacity of a professor of philosophy defining scientific terminology and acceptance is breathtaking.

    • ...and Then There's Physics | April 25, 2015 at 3:31 pm |

      The “Removing the Rubbish: Consensus, Causation, and Denial” piece is one of the more blatant examples of dishonest rhetoric I’ve seen lately.

      What’s wrong with it? It makes the quite reasonable argument that although science may not work via consensus, that they exist is part of science. It discusses the problems of using the term “proof” when discussing the physical sciences. It discusses correlation/causation issues. It points out that many self-professed skeptics are not behaving like genuine skeptics, which creates an issue with respect to how one might desribe such a group of people. Which bit of it did you regard as “dishonest rhetoric”, and one of the more balant recent examples at that?

      • AK | April 25, 2015 at 3:37 pm |

        What’s wrong with it?

        What I said.

        Which bit of it did you regard as “dishonest rhetoric”, and one of the more balant recent examples at that?

        The parts where it engaged in blatant begging the question. Among other things. Anybody capable of semantic analysis can see what’s wrong with it. I don’t see any point wasting time with nitpicking from people who can’t pretend they can’t.

      • ...and Then There's Physics | April 25, 2015 at 3:39 pm |

        I don’t see any point wasting time with nitpicking from people who can’t pretend they can’t.

        Very convenient. I’m not pretending. I thought it was an interesting post, although – to be fair – I don’t even really understand what this means

        The parts where it engaged in blatant begging the question. Among other things. Anybody capable of semantic analysis can see what’s wrong with it.

        so, maybe I’ve missed something.

      • Carrick | April 25, 2015 at 3:42 pm |

        Steven Mosher does a pretty good job in comments discussing the problems with the use of the word d*nier and d*nialism.

        https://scientiasalon.wordpress.com/2015/04/24/removing-the-rubbish-consensus-causation-and-denial/comment-page-1/#comment-13672

      • ...and Then There's Physics | April 25, 2015 at 3:46 pm |

        Yes, that is a decent comment from Steven Mosher. I’m still not quite getting why the post itself is one of the most blatant examples of dihonest rhetoric seen lately. In fact, the post itself does seem to address the use of the terms in a reasonably balanced way. It seems to me that AK has simply responded in the way that he has because the post discusses the terms, without actually considering what the post actually says.

      • AK | April 25, 2015 at 3:59 pm |

        I’m not pretending.

        OK, I’ll take you at your word. With one example, to start (I’ve got other things going on, and don’t intend to waste my time with massive nitpicking). From the linked article.

        Confusion One: “Consensus has nothing to do with science”

        This erroneous claim plays on the ambiguity of the term consensus. In popular parlance consensus often refers to a simple (or merely popular) agreement. In science, the term is appropriately used when a clear-cut majority of researchers recognize that converging lines of evidence confirm the same conclusion. That is precisely what is meant when we hear that there is overwhelming consensus among scientists regarding human activity as a cause of global warming [3]. Scientific consensus is not a matter of popular opinion. A scientific consensus represents broad acknowledgment among experts that a particular claim bears strong evidential support. Humanity’s collective store of knowledge is increased once a scientific consensus is reached.

        The only thing there’s a “[s]cientific consensus” on is that there’s some (magnitude unknown) human influence on climate. But watch how that “[s]cientific consensus” turns into

        there is overwhelming consensus among scientists regarding human activity as a cause of global warming [3].

        “cause of global warming”, not “possible cause” or “potential cause”.

        Begging the question.

      • ...and Then There's Physics | April 25, 2015 at 4:04 pm |

        AK,
        Call me unconvinced. The “consensus” section was intended to address the claim that “consensus has nothing to do with science”. Well, it does.

        there is overwhelming consensus among scientists regarding human activity as a cause of global warming [3].

        Well, unless you’re interpreting “scientists” extremely broadly, this statement appears true. You may not like that, but I do think that disputing this would essentially be disputing something that is true. I guess maybe one should add “dominant” in front of cause, but that would seem rather nit-picky. So, I’m rather failing to see how this qualifies as begging the question and also fail to see how this post qualifies as one of the most dishonest pieces of rhetoric seen recently.

      • ...and Then There's Physics | April 25, 2015 at 4:08 pm |

        AK,
        In fact, I think your analysis of the post is very poor. Read the full sentence from which you quote.

        That is precisely what is meant when we hear that there is overwhelming consensus among scientists regarding human activity as a cause of global warming [3].

        So, the author wasn’t claiming that this is true, he was using it to explain what is meant when you hear it. In other words, when it is used, it’s pointing out that there is a strong level of agreement – that a consensus exists. This is a reasonable statement, even if you disagree with the existence of a consensus.

      • AK | April 25, 2015 at 4:20 pm |

        So, the author wasn’t claiming that this is true, he was using it to explain what is meant when you hear it. In other words, when it is used, it’s pointing out that there is a strong level of agreement – that a consensus exists. This is a reasonable statement, even if you disagree with the existence of a consensus.

        He was claiming “a strong level of agreement” for a straw man. You’re applying nit-picking analysis to what is, basically, an exercise in rhetoric.

        “[T]he author” was using the so-called “strong level of agreement” on some human influence on climate to support a (tacit) claim to “strong level of agreement” on human-caused “global warming”.

        This is how rhetoric works: most of it is unstated. When you attempt to defend dishonest rhetoric by claiming that they “never said that”, you’re just aligning yourself with its dishonesty.

        Something anybody with an objective viewpoint is already aware of, from reading your posts here or at your blog.

      • ...and Then There's Physics | April 25, 2015 at 4:22 pm |

        He was claiming “a strong level of agreement” for a straw man. You’re applying nit-picking analysis to what is, basically, an exercise in rhetoric.

        No, he was not. I’m going to drop this, but you really should read it again. It doesn’t say what you think it says. If you’re going to accuse someone of using some of the most dishonest rhetoric you’ve seen recently, you should at least have the decency to interpret it as intended.

      • ...and Then There's Physics | April 25, 2015 at 4:25 pm |

        When you attempt to defend dishonest rhetoric by claiming that they “never said that”, you’re just aligning yourself with its dishonesty.

        Something anybody with an objective viewpoint is already aware of, from reading your posts here or at your blog.

        A strong ending there, AK. Is that what’s called dishonest rhetoric? No, not really – “playing the man, not the ball” is probably the right descriptor. Is that what you feel required to resort to? Well done. Nice job.

      • AK | April 25, 2015 at 4:39 pm |

        If you’re going to accuse someone of using some of the most dishonest rhetoric you’ve seen recently, you should at least have the decency to interpret it as intended.

        Intention is in the mind of the beholder.

        A strong ending there, AK. Is that what’s called dishonest rhetoric?

        No. Just “strong”

        […] “playing the man, not the ball” is probably the right descriptor.

        Perhaps. It’s important to realize that there’s more to somebody’s nit-picking arguments than what they’re saying. There’s also the question of whether it’s worth your time listening to reading what they’re saying.

        Given my opinion of your rhetoric, I find myself perfectly (self-)justified in warning readers that you’re just trying to waste people’s time.

        Is that what you feel required to resort to? Well done. Nice job.

        No, I’m just expressing my frustration at having to deal with your dishonest rhetoric when I’ve got better things to spend my time on.

        And, to be fair (which I’d rather not, but…) when I post a comment, there’re limits to how much right I have to complain about having to respond to responses. I just think you’re pushing things beyond what I think is “fair”, although, of course, you aren’t obligated to limit yourself to what I think is “fair”. OTOH, I’m entitled to get snarky when you go beyond my idea of “fair”.

      • Jim D | April 25, 2015 at 4:34 pm |

        AK, he wasn’t talking about the 97% poll. He was talking about the IPCC consensus on the 95% chance of human-dominated influence since 1950.

      • AK | April 25, 2015 at 4:44 pm |

        He was talking about the IPCC consensus on the 95% chance of human-dominated influence since 1950.

        That word “consensus” belongs in “scare quotes”. What “IPCC consensus”?

      • ...and Then There's Physics | April 25, 2015 at 4:46 pm |

        No, I’m just expressing my frustration at having to deal with your dishonest rhetoric when I’ve got better things to spend my time on.

        You think you’ve got better things to do? Let’s see, you make a claim that an article is one of the most dishonest pieces of rhetoric that you’ve seen recently. You then completely misinterpet what is being said in the article – the article did not claim the agreement that there was a strong level of agreement. You then accuse me of using dishonest rhetoric. Okay, you want honest rhetoric? Blast, I just can’t do it!!!! You can probably guess what I would like to say. I, at least, have the decency of not doing so.

      • AK | April 25, 2015 at 4:55 pm |

        Here’s what I quoted:,

        That is precisely what is meant when we hear that there is overwhelming consensus among scientists regarding human activity as a cause of global warming [3].

        Are you trying to claim that I misquoted? Or are you trying to claim that “overwhelming consensus among scientists regarding human activity as a cause of global warming” doesn’t equate to your “strong level of agreement – that a consensus exists”?

        Blast, I just can’t do it!!!! You can probably guess what I would like to say. I, at least, have the decency of not doing so.

        My guess is that you’d like to express your frustration in “curse words” over having made a basic mistake. But perhaps I’m wrong. If so…

      • ...and Then There's Physics | April 25, 2015 at 5:02 pm |

        AK,
        I’m probably wasting my time given that I’ve never had a reasonable discussion with anyone who leads with “dishonesty”, but I’ll have one more go

        are you trying to claim that “overwhelming consensus among scientists regarding human activity as a cause of global warming” doesn’t equate to your “strong level of agreement – that a consensus exists”?

        I’m trying to point out that Torcello’s article makes no claim about the existence of a consensus – strong or not. This should be self-evidence if you read the sentence again. I’ll even provide the context for you

        Confusion One: “Consensus has nothing to do with science”

        This erroneous claim plays on the ambiguity of the term consensus. …….
        In science, the term is appropriately used when a clear-cut majority of researchers recognize that converging lines of evidence confirm the same conclusion. That is precisely what is meant when we hear that there is overwhelming consensus among scientists regarding human activity as a cause of global warming [3].

        In others word, he is addressing the claim that consensus has nothing to do with science and is pointing out that it does and is explaining what it means and then goes one to give an example, i.e., what is meant when you hear someone claim that there is a strong consensus. He very clearly does not make any such claim himself.

        My guess is that you’d like to express your frustration in “curse words” over having made a basic mistake.

        If you think my frustration was over making a mistake (as opposed to being accused of dishonesty) you really do need to improve your interpretive skills. They’re clearly somewhat lacking.

      • AK | April 25, 2015 at 5:22 pm |

        @…and Then There’s Physics…

        I’m probably wasting my time given that I’ve never had a reasonable discussion with anyone who leads with “dishonesty”, […]

        Perhaps I left out a bit (although IMO people should understand). “Dishonest rhetoric” doesn’t just include ly1ing, it also includes the use of all sorts of dishonest tacit connections. For instance, I often use the term “bait and switch” for when somebody’s rhetoric switches between one meaning of a word and another withing an argument.

        I’m trying to point out that Torcello’s article makes no claim about the existence of a consensus – strong or not. […] In others word, he is addressing the claim that consensus has nothing to do with science and is pointing out that it does and is explaining what it means and then goes one to give an example, i.e., what is meant when you hear someone claim that there is a strong consensus.

        Sorry, that simply isn’t true. By offering his example, and putting it into the minds of listeners/readers, he is “going on record”, rhetorically speaking, as embracing the “truth” of his example. This is a common tactic in rhetoric, not valid in “Aristotelian logic” but a standard rhetorical trick. As such, he is responsible for the “truth” of the connection, and if it isn’t valid, he’s engaging in dishonest rhetoric. This is hardly the only example of such rhetorical dishonesty in the linked article.

        He very clearly does not make any such claim himself.

        Yes he does. Not by “Aristotelian Logic” standards, but by “rhetorical standards”. To quote Checkhov,

        If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off. If it’s not going to be fired, it shouldn’t be hanging there.

        Of course, that’s an argument by analogy, but all language is analogy.

      • Joshua | April 25, 2015 at 5:08 pm |

        Compare and contrast;

        First this (AK’s wording):

        “[T]he author” was using the so-called “strong level of agreement” on some human influence on climate to support a (tacit) claim to “strong level of agreement” on human-caused “global warming”.

        Then this – from the article, emphasis mine, please note the emphasis:

        That is precisely what is meant when we hear that there is overwhelming consensus among scientists regarding human activity as a cause of global warming [3].

        And remember how often we hear “skeptics’ that that there is no doubt that almost all “skeptics,” let alone a “consensus” of scientists, agree that the Earth is warming, that ACO2 warms the climate, and that anthropogenic ACO2 emissions are warming the climate to some extent.

      • AK | April 25, 2015 at 6:28 pm |

        And remember how often we hear “skeptics’ that that there is no doubt that almost all “skeptics,” let alone a “consensus” of scientists, agree that the Earth is warming, that ACO2 warms the climate, and that anthropogenic ACO2 emissions are warming the climate to some extent.

        Wow! Here I am talking about dishonest rhetoric and Joshua offers a perfect example.

        My quote specifically highlighted “human-caused ‘global warming’.”, then along comes Joshua with “human activity as a cause of global warming [3].” [his bold]. Perhaps I need to go into details: if “human-caused ‘global warming’” amounts to, say 1%, of the total, does it really count as “a cause of global warming”?

        Again, consider that we’re talking about rhetoric here, not nit-picking “scientific’ details.

      • ...and Then There's Physics | April 25, 2015 at 5:30 pm |

        AK,
        My apologies, I had assumed that when critiquing what someone else has written you had to interpret things in a manner that was consistent with what they actually wrote. I had not realised that you could interpret things in a manner consistent with what you think they wrote (or you think they were meaning), rather than what they actually wrote. Of course, given the latter, you can of course find reason to accuse someone of engaging in dishonest rhetoric. I remember our last exchange where you excused Koonins’ errors on the basis of it simply being rhetoric. In a similar vein you can now accuse Torcello of engaging in dishonest rhetoric by assuming that he was claiming something, despite it being clear that he was not. Good to have cleared that up. I shall have to remember this in future.

        I also now understand this much better

        “Dishonest rhetoric” doesn’t just include lying, it also includes the use of all sorts of dishonest tacit connections.

        Thanks.

      • AK | April 25, 2015 at 5:48 pm |

        I had assumed that when critiquing what someone else has written you had to interpret things in a manner that was consistent with what they actually wrote.

        Well, “what they actually wrote” is actually just a string of letters (and spaces and other punctuation). I’ve done quite a bit of analysis of early Christian literature, and pre-Christian Hebrew writings, and I tend to equate “what they actually wrote” with (at best) what can be reconstructed of the actual string of characters written. Everything else is interpretation.

        So, when I look at some written document, my first question is context. Are they (i.e. is the author) writing to communicate scientific facts or to persuade? If the latter, it’s rhetoric and should properly be analyzed as such.

      • ...and Then There's Physics | April 25, 2015 at 5:51 pm |

        Well, “what they actually wrote” is actually just a string of letters (and spaces and other punctuation).

        Indeed, but there are normally conventions as to how one should interpret these strings of letter, with spaces and punctuation. It appears that our conventions are different. Mine, FWIW, is to do my best to interpret it as it appears that it was intended. Yours may, of course, be different.

      • AK | April 25, 2015 at 6:08 pm |

        It appears that our conventions are different. Mine, FWIW, is to do my best to interpret it as it appears that it was intended. Yours may, of course, be different.

        “[A]s it appears that it was intended.” is in the eye of the beholder. What stands out, in my eyes, is that there are both conscious, and unconscious, “intentions”.

        To put it in (IMO) proper context, when somebody is expressing an opinion in the context of a “worldview” that they consider under “under challenge”, they will probably be trying to convince their audience (readership) of the “truth” of their worldview even while going through the motions of communicating their vision of “scientific truth”.

        J0shua calls this “motivated thinking” (AFAIK) which is a fair term. I don’t usually try to put simplistic labels on it, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t take it into account.

      • ...and Then There's Physics | April 25, 2015 at 6:10 pm |

        I don’t usually try to put simplistic labels on it

        Really? “Dishonest rhetoric” being a complicated label then?

        Okay, this is getting silly. I really do have better things to do than this. I’ve learned something, though.

      • thomaswfuller2 | April 25, 2015 at 9:57 pm |

        Verheggen et al showed that there is a consensus–66% of 1,868 practicing climate scientists think more than 50% of the recent warming since 1950 is attributable to human emissions of CO2.

        No Cook shenanigans, no playing with ‘some of the warming’, just decent questions getting a robust response.

        Plenty of room for nuance, plenty of space for a well-reasoned minority report. But two-thirds of practicing climate scientists pretty much constitutes a consensus.

      • David Springer | April 26, 2015 at 9:27 am |

        Given the risk of reprisal by colleagues and risk of reduced funding for further research a 66% consensus is no consensus but rather a majority created out of a minority by fear. If only 16% of that “consensus” was driven by fear instead of facts it would no longer be even a simple majority.

      • ticketstopper | April 27, 2015 at 7:20 am |

        What’s wrong with a professor of philosophy attempting to define the terms of debate in a scientific discussion?
        Well, let’s start from the top:
        1) Philosophy is not a hard science. Thus Torcello has absolutely no professional background even in the scientific method, much less the actual details of the science in question
        2) Torcello then attempts to create a moral high ground – which is equally idiotic because this is science, not morality
        3) Torcello then goes on to talk about politics with regards to climate science – again delving into another area which he has no background nor training

        Epic Fail in so many different ways.

  11. Jim D | April 25, 2015 at 10:20 am |

    On the Republican proposal for science research. It is odd that they want to cut budgets for climate research when they have been consistently saying not enough is known yet to decide on anything regarding future climate. On second thoughts, it is not odd as they have backed the denial horse.

    • AK | April 25, 2015 at 10:35 am |

      In addition to paring BER’s budget, the bill’s sponsors want program managers to put a priority on basic biological and genomics research and downplay climate research. It would bar BER from starting any new climate science research unless it can show it does not duplicate work being funded by other federal agencies. It also asks DOE to cancel any existing climate research found to be duplicative.

      Sounds to me as though they’re trying to save taxpayers the cost of endless redundant GCM runs. Presumably, running a different model to test the same conditions could easily be demonstrated to “not duplicate work”.

      But it does have the potential to raise consciousness WRT the way so many climate models use the same logic, and test the same built-in preconceptions, for research that the IPCC then treats as different. Which is a good thing. Besides: none of the GCM’s really can be assumed to represent a useful model of reality. They’re too simplistic, and different in other ways.

    • curryja | April 25, 2015 at 10:46 am |

      Much of the NSF and DOE $$ goes to climate modeling. Money from other agencies goes to what I have called ‘climate taxonomy’, which i don’t regard as useful. Getting climate research back on track with suitably allocated funding is a bit challenge.

      Personally, I think keeping the satellite and ocean observing systems is top priority. DOE is developing a new climate modeling system focused on uncertainty quantification, which I think could be interesting. More funds to NSF climate dynamics focused on natural internal variability and sun-climate connections is important.

      I am cautiously hopeful about a new spending initiative for sub seasonal climate predictions (3-6 weeks).

      Will be interesting to see how this one plays out. Note, this is the same committee that i recently testified for

      • John Plodinec | April 25, 2015 at 11:18 am |

        More for weather less for climate modeling and taxonomy – please!

      • scotts4sf | April 25, 2015 at 11:21 am |

        To be fair only a small proportion of DOE and NSF funds go to climate modeling. Much cheaper to sit in an office with a computer terminal than send a ship to the arctic or deploy Argo floats or satellite measurements.

        Those are big ticket observation platforms. Still the models are don’t reflect the observations at this time. The question is are the observations being adjusted to reflect political correctness as accused denier say or is Mosher and Zeke right on homogenization and adjustments.

        Australia BOM will be first to investigate cooling the past. A Republican Congress may do the same here. Lots of controversy but Nature bats last. CA is in drought and megadroughts from 900 to 1300 years ago should be subject to modeling to figur out why. Plus what is Pacific PDO and Atlantic AMO up to. How do we model those.
        Scott

      • David Springer | April 25, 2015 at 12:42 pm |

        Yeah I don’t really have any strong objections to funding earth observation instrumentation. Data is wholesome and innocent in and of itself. Academic climate cogniscenti probably aren’t liking it a whole lot these days as it has become something like the kiss of Judas for their hypothetical model maunderings.

        In other words there is no theory of climate there are only hypotheses which have failed and hypotheses that have yet to be tested. The test is accomplished through observation. I’m all for observation and test (the backbone of science) and letting the chips fall where they may (go where the evidence leads).

      • justinwonder | April 25, 2015 at 3:25 pm |

        Data is good.

        Since all the money comes out of one big bucket, let’s allocate more to flood protection – planning for the weather of the past.

      • PA | April 25, 2015 at 4:04 pm |

        | April 25, 2015 at 11:21 am |
        To be fair only a small proportion of DOE and NSF funds go to climate modeling. Much cheaper to sit in an office with a computer terminal than send a ship to the arctic or deploy Argo floats or satellite measurements.

        Well, about 1/2 billion dollars/year is pretty obvious out of $2.5 billion. I’ll look around and put a number to total modeling budget if no one has it on their fingertips. I’m kind of curious what we are actually paying for.

    • chuckrr (@chuckerenno) | April 25, 2015 at 11:06 am |

      Throwing money into something that has evolved into a political tool is foolish.

      • AK | April 25, 2015 at 1:54 pm |

        You can’t make projections of any use without models.

        But when the models don’t bear any reliable relationship to reality all they’re “useful” for is supporting an agenda desired for other reasons.

        Models have to be improved. Research funding is needed to improve models, because that doesn’t happen by itself.

        Then the “[r]esearch funding” should be used for finding new paradigms for new types of models, not bigger and better versions of the same old useless cr@p.

        A lot of this is just getting better computers because one limit on models is computer power, which is steadily improving.

        Nope. Better computers may be needed for better models, but just reducing the cell size and time interval on existing models is exactly what we don’t need! Save the taxpayers their money. Spend it on something that might be useful.

      • thomaswfuller2 | April 25, 2015 at 9:58 pm |

        Observing the earth is not foolish.

    • Jim D | April 25, 2015 at 11:24 am |

      You can do all the observing you want, but that won’t tell you about climate impacts (food, energy, water, security, weather) over the rest of the century, and this is the knowledge needed for adaptation and mitigation policies. Modeling research is driven by the needs of the policymakers, and observations alone just don’t cut it.

      • David Wojick | April 25, 2015 at 12:05 pm |

        But the so-called impact predictions we are getting are worse than useless, so why pay for them? We have been buying policy-driven scares, not science.

      • Jim D | April 25, 2015 at 12:24 pm |

        If you go to a policymaker and say you won’t use a model, but will give it your best shot at guessing, do you think they will fund you?

      • Turbulent Eddie | April 25, 2015 at 1:28 pm |

        climate impacts (food, energy, water, security, weather)

        I can’t seem to find ANY evidence that any of these categories have had any significant impacts from the warming we’ve observed.

        Food? Not so :
        http://www.fao.org/docrep/005/ac911e/ac911e03.jpg

        Energy?
        As long as green police don’t intervene, most nations have access.

        Water?
        More people mean more groundwater usage, but isn’t global warming supposed to increase precipitation ( nature’s desalination plant )?

        Security?
        Humans will be humans.

        Weather?
        Why would we think weather would change?
        Temperatures have risen slowly, but is that the change of which you speak? Is it a problem? How?

        Speculation is not a good basis for policy.

        Ambiguous intimations need to be specified so they can be verified or falsified.

      • Jim D | April 25, 2015 at 1:43 pm |

        So you are saying none of these will change in the next century under a few more degrees of warming, so no research is needed? This is possibly the Republican congressional attitude too, so you are in good company.

      • David Wojick | April 25, 2015 at 1:32 pm |

        Hopefully not, Jim D, but I do not understand your point. We should be funding trying to understand climate, not green policy guesswork, which is what we are now funding.

      • Jim D | April 25, 2015 at 1:47 pm |

        You can’t make projections of any use without models. Models have to be improved. Research funding is needed to improve models, because that doesn’t happen by itself. A lot of this is just getting better computers because one limit on models is computer power, which is steadily improving.

      • Turbulent Eddie | April 25, 2015 at 1:33 pm |

        Sorry, the chart is of vegetable trends.
        http://www.fao.org/docrep/005/ac911e/ac911e05.htm

        Here are per capita calorie consumption trends:
        for 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, 2015e, 2030e

        World
        2358 2435 2655 2803 2940 3050

        Developing countries
        2054 2152 2450 2681 2850 2980

      • AK | April 25, 2015 at 1:55 pm |

        OOps! Wrong place:

        You can’t make projections of any use without models.

        But when the models don’t bear any reliable relationship to reality all they’re “useful” for is supporting an agenda desired for other reasons.

        Models have to be improved. Research funding is needed to improve models, because that doesn’t happen by itself.

        Then the “[r]esearch funding” should be used for finding new paradigms for new types of models, not bigger and better versions of the same old useless cr@p.

        A lot of this is just getting better computers because one limit on models is computer power, which is steadily improving.

        Nope. Better computers may be needed for better models, but just reducing the cell size and time interval on existing models is exactly what we don’t need! Save the taxpayers their money. Spend it on something that might be useful.

      • Jim D | April 25, 2015 at 2:04 pm |

        While we are waiting for your new paradigm, those are the things to improve. Who knows, perhaps your new modeling paradigm can also benefit from more extensive climate research funding. It is not a reason to cut back.

      • David Springer | April 25, 2015 at 2:00 pm |

        A model IS a best shot at guessing. Observation is how the model is tested. The model failed the test.

        So what do policy makers believe… real climate change measured by physical instrumentation or fantasy climate inside a computer?

      • Jim D | April 25, 2015 at 2:08 pm |

        Do you want to guess with your head or with the aid of a computer?

      • AK | April 25, 2015 at 2:08 pm |

        While we are waiting for your new paradigm, those are the things to improve.

        Nope. Until there are better models to use that power, best not to provide money for it. Else everybody’ll focus on more runs of the same old cr@p.

        Switch the money to something useful, such as network theory in non-linear dynamics. Once better models are available, then we can pay for using them for climate.

      • curryja | April 25, 2015 at 2:10 pm |

        I definitely vote for network theory

      • Jim D | April 25, 2015 at 2:23 pm |

        At least you don’t need funding for network theory, probably just a pocket calculator or a spreadsheet program. Go ahead. No one is stopping you.

      • AK | April 25, 2015 at 2:27 pm |

        I definitely vote for network theory

        From your keyboard to Congress’s eyes! And votes.

      • AK | April 25, 2015 at 2:31 pm |

        At least you don’t need funding for network theory,

        WRONG! Plenty of opportunity to spend money on computing power modeling network theory. For instance, replacing binary connections (is there or isn’t there?) with analog parameters. IMO this is the biggest problem using network theory in any hyper-complex non-linear system. Of course, you’d need some improvements in theory. But you’ll also need plenty of computing power.

      • JCH | April 25, 2015 at 2:33 pm |

        Network theories:

        1. the cool phase of the AMO is coming to save my butt.
        2. negative unicorn feedbacks exist, and are coming to save my butt.
        3. the cool phase of the PDO is going to last decades. Write that down
        4. someday the KimiKamiKaze Wind will come back

      • AK | April 25, 2015 at 2:43 pm |

        Network theories:

        1. the cool phase of the AMO is coming to save my butt.
        2. negative unicorn feedbacks exist, and are coming to save my butt.
        3. the cool phase of the PDO is going to last decades. Write that down
        4. someday the KimiKamiKaze Wind will come back

        You see? This is what most alarmist rhetoric boils down to: making fun of real science they don’t understand. This is why (IMO) people aren’t really interested in supporting the CAGW agenda, no matter what they say they believe.

        The above sort of cr@p will trigger just about everybody’s BS detector, despite not understanding the science. They’ll laugh, but vote against. Even Democratic congresscritters (some of them).

      • Jim D | April 25, 2015 at 3:43 pm |

        What is your best example of network theory applied to the earth system? Yes, I haven’t seen any of this, and can’t picture how it is any use at all. Is it based on correlation=causation, for example, or does it look for underlying physical reasons? How does it account for fluid flows and energy exchanges? How do you extend it beyond its calibration range without physics-based constraints.

      • curryja | April 25, 2015 at 3:48 pm |

        Here are two examples from my colleagues at Georgia Tech:

        Spatio-temporal network analysis for studying climate patterns
        Climate Dyn., 42, 879-899, doi:10.1007/s00382-013-1729-5
        http://www.o3d.org/abracco/climdyn2013.pdf

        Ebert-Uphoff, I. and Y. Deng, 2012a: Causal discovery for climate research using graphical models. Journal of Climate, 25, 5648-5665
        http://deng.eas.gatech.edu/sites/default/files/files/Ebert-Uphoff_Deng_2012_CausalDiscoveryForClimateResearch.pdf

      • Jim D | April 25, 2015 at 3:56 pm |

        This seems to be built on climate models rather than something to be used instead. I doubt AK had that in mind. What is the predictive value of this without models?

      • AK | April 25, 2015 at 4:11 pm |

        This seems to be built on climate models rather than something to be used instead.

        Given that GCM’s are the only tool available, that’s what efforts to go beyond them will start with.

        I doubt AK had that in mind.

        Not entirely. My point is that in order to use network theory effectively, it will be necessary to start with “first principles” and build up models from there. Meanwhile, using network theory with existing models does, at least, provide some ideas.

        What is the predictive value of this without models?

        Models won’t be predictive until they’re much more mature than they are today. Not when it comes to climate.

      • Jim D | April 25, 2015 at 4:22 pm |

        Until we get a few decades further you won’t know that the models aren’t predictive. Some prediction models like Hansen’s 1981 one and Broecker’s 1975 one have been quite good over the three decades that we can verify so far, and their sensitivities were in the same range as the IPCC models still are.

      • Curious George | April 25, 2015 at 3:07 pm |

        Modeling the unknown is the real strength of modeling.

      • PA | April 25, 2015 at 3:13 pm |

        Jim D | April 25, 2015 at 1:43 pm |
        So you are saying none of these will change in the next century under a few more degrees of warming, so no research is needed? This is possibly the Republican congressional attitude too, so you are in good company.

        In 1960 roughly 0.865 GT of “Excess” CO2 were absorbed by the environment.

        In 1985 roughly 1.829 GT of ECO2 (2.2 x 0.865) were absorbed.

        In 2014 roughly 5.114 GT of ECO2 (2.80 x 1.829 or 5.9 times the 1960 CO2 absorption) were absorbed.

        CO2 Environmental Absorption is currently over 1/2 the level of CO2 emissions and is increasing 54% faster.

        What few degrees of warming??? You need CO2 PPM, lots of them, to get a lot of warming.

        You can’t possibly short of an asteroid strike, or the Yellowstone supervolcano, get the CO2 level over 500 PPM. The rate of atmospheric CO2 increase is going to bounce around at the current level for a few years then start declining.

      • Jim D | April 25, 2015 at 3:51 pm |

        CO2 absorption becomes less efficient as it gets warmer. There is a well known reduction in the absorption percentage in warmer years, and there are physical reasons why this happens. You are pinning your hopes on something with the wrong sign.

      • Curious George | April 25, 2015 at 3:58 pm |

        “CO2 absorption becomes less efficient as it gets warmer. There is a well known reduction in the absorption percentage in warmer years,” Link, please.

      • Jim D | April 25, 2015 at 4:04 pm |

        Even Salby noticed this. The derivative of the CO2 change correlates strongly with the annual temperature. It’s the absorption efficiency that is changing with temperature, not the emissions.

      • matthewrmarler | April 25, 2015 at 4:08 pm |

        Jim D: So you are saying none of these will change in the next century under a few more degrees of warming, so no research is needed?

        You have a point, but so does Turbulent Eddie: calls for funding research into future effects of CO2 and warming should be thoroughly grounded on the abundant evidence that CO2 and warming to date have been benign or beneficial. It may be true that the Western pine bark beetles survive winters better than decades ago, but the most disastrous epizootic to hit American forests was the viral infection that wiped out most American chestnut trees and left the rest seriously diseased, and that disaster had nothing to do with temperature or CO2 increase. And so on: the past was not idyllic in the biosphere, and CO2 and warming have been much less influential than natural variation, and have been on the whole beneficial.

      • PA | April 25, 2015 at 4:12 pm |

        What impacts?

        You can’t tell me exactly how much warming was natural or artificial.

        The modeling for CO2 concentration in the atmosphere is outright deluded.

        You need:
        1. Attribution.
        2. Good basis for projecting changes in future attribution.
        3. Accurate model to simulate reasonable changes.

        Until you have that you are just guessing. We don’t have any of it. If the CO2 warming is only going to be 1/4°C by 2100 this whole exercise is a joke.

      • Jim D | April 25, 2015 at 4:25 pm |

        PA, the warming is a natural response to a mostly artificial forcing.

      • PA | April 25, 2015 at 5:08 pm |

        Well… The problem is I believe in CO2 forcing… I just don’t believe the forcing is very strong. I am really interested in what happens by 2020. The CO2 rise will start slowing if it doesn’t get significantly warmer, which means it won’t get significantly warmer.

        I haven’t ruled the AGWers out yet. But any time I try applying a metric to the situation they don’t look good.

      • Jim D | April 25, 2015 at 4:17 pm |

        matthewmarler, you need the perspective that we are only 25% of the way into the warming that BAU leads to. Do we want the other 75% is the question to be asked? And we don’t have parallel periods in history to compare with that state. Maybe in paleoclimate, but not in history.

      • PA | April 25, 2015 at 4:31 pm |

        Jim D | April 25, 2015 at 3:51 pm |
        CO2 absorption becomes less efficient as it gets warmer. There is a well known reduction in the absorption percentage in warmer years, and there are physical reasons why this happens. You are pinning your hopes on something with the wrong sign.

        Nice theory. The rate from 1960 to 1985 was 0.865 * e (t/33.5)

        The current rate is 5.114 * e (t/29) where t is in years.from today.

        The rate of absorption is accelerating. Please pick more competent sources in the future.

      • Jim D | April 25, 2015 at 4:45 pm |

        The years with the fastest rises in CO2 have been El Nino years. 1998 is an especially good example, probably having the largest yearly increase to date.

      • Don Monfort | April 25, 2015 at 5:05 pm |

        I am with jimmy, on this one; 1998 was the warmest year in the modern temp record. We are still waiting for those promised stronger and more frequent El Ninos, so we can top it and get the warming scare back on track. This way too freaking long pause is killing the cause.

      • Jim D | April 25, 2015 at 5:10 pm |

        1998 probably stands out in CO2 because it followed a relatively cold year. It was a jump of 0.4 C in one year. None of the El Ninos since have followed cold years.

      • Danny Thomas | April 25, 2015 at 5:25 pm |

        It almost sounds like CO2 doesn’t cause warming to the extent that is modeled, but instead El Nino’s cause warming. But I dunno. Gonna have to ask JCH. He seems quite adverse to cold, but is all in on warming.

      • Don Monfort | April 25, 2015 at 5:49 pm |

        OK jimmy, I have been doing a lot of re-evaluating lately and I have been persuaded by your tireless annoying proselytizing of the CAGW dogma. I am convinced, but what are we going to do about the rest of the deniers? We can pretend that it’s gotten way hotter since 1998, but we ain’t fooling anybody:

        http://www.wsj.com/articles/matt-ridley-whatever-happened-to-global-warming-1409872855

        How can we prevent the looming failure of the big Paris climate scare junket, jimmy? I know everybody is going to eat, drink have fun and unburden themselves of a little guilt, but that’s not what I mean. It’s the bleak to impossible prospects for meaningful action on CO2 mitigation that I am talking about. What the freak are going to pull this off, between now and December, jimmy? Do we have any tricks left in our old trick bag?

      • Jim D | April 25, 2015 at 6:08 pm |

        Don, first you can wonder: How come, if there is a pause, the 30-year trend ending in 2015 is the same as the 30-year trend ending in 2000? It looks like one line but there are two here.
        http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/from:1950/mean:12/plot/gistemp/from:1985/trend/plot/gistemp/from:1970/to:2000/trend
        Was the pause just an optical illusion? If you think hard enough, you can see how this happens.

      • matthewrmarler | April 25, 2015 at 6:29 pm |

        Jim D: matthewmarler, you need the perspective that we are only 25% of the way into the warming that BAU leads to.

        Support for that claim is pretty porous. But whatever research shows about the “rest of” the warming, the evidence solidly fails to support the hypothesis that the warming up to now has been harmful. If it is bad practice to simply extrapolate the past into the future, it is certainly worse to extrapolate the opposite of the past into the future without substantial evidence.

      • Jim D | April 25, 2015 at 6:48 pm |

        If you think the current climate is fine, why support charging ahead and changing it beyond anything we know? Because if one thing is certain, we won’t remain in anything resembling the current climate. If you are going to support further climate change, you have to have a good idea what you are changing to, otherwise it is just recklessness with the environment. Are the fossil fuels worth that much to you, and would you not even be thinking of alternatives, just in case it starts not to look so good?

      • thomaswfuller2 | April 25, 2015 at 10:00 pm |

        Current modeling is extremely unlikely to inform good decisions regarding mitigation and impact.

        You need a couple of Watsons crunching better numbers.

      • Don Monfort | April 25, 2015 at 10:15 pm |

        You are confused, jimmy. I have stipulated that you have worn me down with your incessant pestering and I am on your side. You have to convince at least one or two other deniers here, if you want to at least pretend that you are doing any good.

        Now you got some conjured up woodfortrees lines there, but everybody knows the alarmist crowd are in a tizzy over the pause and they have written dozens of pal reviewed papers to try to debunk it. The high carbon footprint Paris junket is doomed to failure, unless the best of the alarmist proselytizers step up y’alls game. Matt, Danny, Tom and the rest of them are running all over you, jimmy. Please get it together! What about Paris?

      • Jim D | April 26, 2015 at 11:37 am |

        Regarding the pause, they should have debunked it the way I did. Skeptics have decided to start their trend just after a jump. These cancel, which is why the 30-year trend is completely unaffected by the “pause”.
        Regarding Paris, I know skeptics are very upset that governments are not listening to them and going ahead and making carbon mitigation proposals. It must be very hard for them to be just ignored like that. I see that Heartland are doing a “Hail Mary” mission to the Vatican to try to persuade the Pope. It’s a last desperate stand. I think they will fail.

      • stevefitzpatrick | April 26, 2015 at 8:16 pm |

        Yes JimD, models make projections, but whether those projections are of any use depends on how accurate they are. Observational data is crucial in validation/testing of models.

        The focus of Federal funding ought to be on those areas where there is a clear consensus of a need for for better data…. direct and indirect aerosol effects, continuing (and improving) ocean heat measurements, continuing (and improving) mass balance for Greenland, mountain glaciers, and Antarctica, and cloud behavior (sub grid scale cloud dynamics).

        The current uncertainty in model projections is huge, and worse, the models are in clear conflict with a host of observation based estimates of sensitivity (Otto et al, Lewis, Bjorn Stevens & Stephen Schwartz, Troy Masters, Lewis & Curry, and several others) all of which place sensitivity on the low side of the IPCC plausible range (1.5C to 4.5C), while most models are in the upper part of that range. A factor of two or more in the actual rate of future warming makes a difference in what constitutes sensible policy choices. The more accurate and better the observational data, the more accurate the models will be (constrained) to become, and the more believable their projections. Climate modelers work with some of the fastest computers in the world. More money for computers will not provide the data needed for <100 meter scale behavior of clouds, nor provide information about the true level of aerosol influences. Additional funding should focus on observational data, not more models.

      • Jim D | April 26, 2015 at 10:16 pm |

        One of the uncertainties is the forcing used to drive all the models. Under AR5, the IPCC specified a forcing, which appears to have been overestimated, either through underestimating the aerosol effect or missing solar or volcanic variations. This would explain why all the models were high, but only for the last 15 years, while they were low up to 1998. Or, that could have just been a natural variation that was recently negative but positive in 1998, or a combination of these. Only longer term model projections can be verified. Fifteen years is too short for a climate verification.

      • matthewrmarler | April 27, 2015 at 1:02 pm |

        Jim D: If you think the current climate is fine, why support charging ahead and changing it beyond anything we know? Because if one thing is certain, we won’t remain in anything resembling the current climate.

        First you have to evaluate the evidence regarding the proposition that the climate now is better than it was in the 1800s. Practically all of the evidence supports that proposition, rather than the proposition that the climate has become worse since 1880. Warnings that the near future will be worse than the recent past that are based on the claim that climate has gotten worse are baseless.

        Second, the two propositions that are likely true about the future, given the evidence to date, are: (1) temporal and regional variability will be about as they have been, whether the mean temperature rises or falls. (2) Any warming due to anthropogenic CO2 will take at least a century to become evident in the natural variability, if it occurs at all.

        But back to the first: you and others should not be so quick to disparage large collections of empirical evidence on this and other points. You need to let all of the evidence soak in and weigh in your thinking. The claim that warming since 1880 has been bad got a head start on the empirical evidence, but is being overtaking by a lot of empirical evidence.

      • Jim D | April 27, 2015 at 9:24 pm |

        You may be in agreement with Hansen 350.org on that point. Our current climate is something like a 350 ppm one would stay at. It may prevent ice ages, not have too much sea-level rise, and overall not be too bad. Given that, why go on to 500 and then to 700 ppm at the risk of destroying this optimum?

      • matthewrmarler | April 27, 2015 at 1:22 pm |

        curryja: Here are two examples from my colleagues at Georgia Tech:

        Thank you for the links. It’s a start. As with chaotic models (Ghil, Dijkstra), it will be a long way from there to an accurate, useful model of anything in the climate system. imo

      • Turbulent Eddie | April 27, 2015 at 3:11 pm |

        The derivative of the CO2 change correlates strongly with the annual temperature. It’s the absorption efficiency that is changing with temperature, not the emissions.

        Jim D,

        I’m sure others are getting sick of seeing this chart, but your statements indicate that you are not grasping the data.

        http://csas.ei.columbia.edu/files/2014/12/Fig.-2.jpg

        This is not from me, it’s from that other fellow you should mistrust, James Hansen.

        There is uncertainty from most every measurement, but this data not only doesn’t support your thesis, it greatly contradicts it.

        Since 1960, you might agree, global temperatures have risen.
        During that same time, CO2 uptake has not fallen, it has increased five-fold.

        ENSO years ( 1987 and 1997, anyway ) do appear to have dips in CO2 uptake, but just because ENSOs cause temperature anomalies does not mean that the ENSOs did not cuase the CO2 uptake minima in some way other than temperature. And the fact that CO2 uptake has risen so dramatically marginalizes any temperature effect, at least in the global mean.

      • Jim D | April 27, 2015 at 9:30 pm |

        As a percentage of CO2 emitted, the uptake has not changed fivefold. Where are you getting your numbers? Total uptake has remained in the 40-50% range of total emissions, with annual temperature being a factor in its annual variation, but not much in this accumulated percentage that is hardly changing at all.

      • Jim D | April 27, 2015 at 9:39 pm |

        Perhaps you are saying that because emissions increased fivefold, uptake has too, in which case we agree. As a percentage, that hasn’t been changing much at all in an integrated sense.

      • Turbulent Eddie | April 28, 2015 at 8:32 am |

        As a percentage of CO2 emitted, the uptake has not changed fivefold.

        Annual CO2 emissions are irrelevant to the process that take up CO2.

        Ocean absorption or photosynthesis respond to the local CO2 available.

        As such, it is the concentration of CO2, not emissions which govern uptake.

    • Don Monfort | April 25, 2015 at 12:32 pm |

      jimmy, jimmy

      Do we really need to fund more “research” on how climate change is going to have all sorts of horrible effects on the sex lives of one-eyed ring-tailed Tasmanian woodpeckers? We already know it’s going to be worse than we thought. I’ll write up the paper for free.

      How about funding ten expensive so-called climate models, instead of a hundred? Wait, that would involve weeding them out and we would be left with the ones that most closely resemble reality. OMG! That would be the ones with lowest projected warming!

      And jimmy, if the science is settled, why do the climate scientists need more money? They can go home now. We could spend the money on mitigation and adaptation, or taking care of “undocumented” immigrants.

      • Jim D | April 25, 2015 at 12:38 pm |

        The future is not settled. In fact, it is very unsettled, and the more so with more fossil fuel burning. It is a moving target to figure out what is going to happen. Don’t give up on understanding it though.

      • captdallas2 0.8 +/- 0.2 | April 25, 2015 at 12:39 pm |

        don, ” We could spend the money on mitigation and adaptation, or taking care of “undocumented” immigrants.”

        Undocumented immigrants are really climate refugees that need to be reintroduced to their native habitat. Then we can construct a suitable viewing enclosure along their habitat boundary.

      • Danny Thomas | April 25, 2015 at 12:42 pm |

        Maybe the one-eyed ring-tailed Tasmanian woodpeckers will do better than “projected”!
        Thought-provoking piece on why “extinction” isn’t the best way to think about the problems facing various species: [link]

      • Don Monfort | April 25, 2015 at 1:11 pm |

        You don’t feel the pain of the “undocumented” immigrants, jimmy. They wake up one morning and find themselves in a strange and unforgiving land where they are beyond the care and protection of the lovely governments of their own homelands. You care more about the one-eyed….woodpeckers than you do about the “undocumented” immigrants, jimmy.

        Don’t be a heretic, jimmy. The science is settled. When particle physicists find the Higgs Bosun, they won’t keep spending other people’s money to keep looking for it, fer chrissakes. If climate science is settled, the climate scientists need to move on. They can hook up with that uber thing.

      • JCH | April 25, 2015 at 1:28 pm |

        So far, “the science is settled” is better than a polygraph. An imaginative skeptic could beat it, but is there one?

      • Don Monfort | April 25, 2015 at 3:23 pm |

        Does the little anonymous blog character with the little 3 letter nom de guerre want to pretend that “the science is settled” is not the principal incontrovertible principle of the consensus climate science dogma?

      • PA | April 26, 2015 at 11:11 am |

        Jim D | April 25, 2015 at 12:38 pm |
        The future is not settled. In fact, it is very unsettled, and the more so with more fossil fuel burning. It is a moving target to figure out what is going to happen. Don’t give up on understanding it though.

        Well, we have 55 years demonstrating two trends:

        CO2 absorption in GT (vs time) = 5.114 * exp (t/29) , where t = time from right now.
        CO2 absorption in GT (vs atmosphere PPM) = 0.01* N * ln (N), where N = Cco2- 290

        Both of these trends have been persistent and the absorption is accelerating so they are a conservative estimate.

        It literally does not matter how much fossil fuel we burn. We don’t have enough to burn to significantly change CO2 levels.

  12. cerescokid | April 25, 2015 at 10:58 am |

    The link about Florida and Roger Pielke’s work in evaluating the land use changes is fascinating. His analysis should remind us that the word “natural state” has limited meaning and what has happened to our eco-system from human activities globally over the last several hundred years just complicates the disentanglement of the sequential changes we have imparted on the environment. The echoes of past feedbacks may still be reverberating and being co-mingled with the new, more fashionable feedbacks.

  13. Pingback: Week in review – science edition | Enjeux énergies et environnement

  14. Jim D | April 25, 2015 at 11:08 am |

    You can read about the first Patrick Brown paper that says natural variability, that they determine ranges +/-0.2 C, can account for the recent pause and that trends over the century are still within the middle IPCC scenario projections.
    Then you can read the Daily Mail headline about this article that climate models are wrong in capital letters which has no bearing on what the article said. Despite the headline, the Daily Mail article itself offers nothing that backs it up and may leave “skeptics” a little disappointed to have been misled by the headline. The disconnect between the blaring headline and either the paper or the article itself is curious. The headline should have said that the pause is within natural variability about the long-term middle scenario warming trend, but that would not have suited their bias.

  15. stevenreincarnated | April 25, 2015 at 11:38 am |

    Wait, what does that paper say? A warming trend from internal variability of 0.2 C/ decade? Why does that number sound so familiar?

    • Jim D | April 25, 2015 at 11:47 am |

      It doesn’t say that. It says that at any given time we could be up to 0.2 C away from the forced temperature which is itself rising.

    • stevenreincarnated | April 25, 2015 at 12:41 pm |

      OIC. I wasn’t replying to your comment tho. If I were I would have used the reply button or at least addressed it to you.

  16. mosomoso | April 25, 2015 at 11:41 am |

    Interesting that Torcello, for all his insistence on clarity of concepts, is happy to base his pompous discourse around the all but meaningless slob terms “climate change” and “global warming”. He does append the word “anthropogenic” the first time, but after that it’s wink-wink mode.

    And who is supposed to doubt that a “warming world” will cause “extreme events”? How else can you get any extreme events but by variations, especially of temps? (Though if he wants really extreme drought he should try some of that global cooling you get with Bond Events, LIAs and the like.) Of course, to carry his message Torcello is relying on the assumptions and conditioning associated with what used to be plain English expressions and common notions about weather and climate. Why define and refine when you can just push buttons?

    Perhaps there are souls on this earth who doubt that climate changes and the globe warms, but for me they are like those elusive creationists I never get to meet. (I went through a conservative Catholic education during the 1950s and 1960s and only glimpsed creationism through watching the movie Inherit the Wind at age 15.)

    The first alarmist who is prepared to name the cause for alarm exactly and consistently will grab my attention, if not my agreement. Meanwhile, I feel perfectly justified in dismissing immediately those who use the terms “climate change” and “global warming” in the usual slack, manipulative way. They bet on a one-horse race then challenge me to bet against. Good try, warmies.

    By the way, what is it about “ethicists” and patronising, misanthropic windbaggery?

  17. ristvan | April 25, 2015 at 12:18 pm |

    The Google engineers piece is interesting. They convinced themselves that none of the existing (and subsidized) renewable grid solutions ‘work’. They could have read Planning Engineers posts here and saved themselves a heap of effort.
    They conclude the dream would be distributed dispatchable generation. Google was a major investor in Bloom Energy (solid oxide fuel cell usingna perovskite rather than platinum catalyst, with self reformation of natural gas for the hydrogen.) Put some at HQ campus. Sounded good on paper. Bloom has now lost over 1.2 billion of venture money. From an emissions standpoint, gas is better used firing CCGT having a higher net efficieny. From an economic standpoint, Bloom should have accessed the summary of Europe’s $ multibillion SOFC 1990’s initiative (standard platinum catalyst). Fundamental reliability/lifetime problems, which Bloom has rediscovered.

    • justinwonder | April 25, 2015 at 3:29 pm |

      One of the big Bloom (and fade) investors – Vinod Khosla – is busy fighting California law to keep people out of his beach.

      The technology may prove useful someday.

      • ristvan | April 25, 2015 at 5:03 pm |

        If there is a hope for SOFC, it is Redox Power Systems spun out of U. Maryland in 2012, a year after Google threw in the towel. They are at 650C rather than 900C (and aiming for 400C). Use much cheaper cerium and bismuth ceramic oxides. The temperature difference alone solves a lot of problems. They also claim their thin nanopowder ceramic solves the ‘cracking’ problem and that they will be able to guarantee 10 year life. What lab stuff and technical papers exist look solidly promising. First commercial product this year, with a $5 mil DARPA E grant to test commercially in a Microsoft server farm starting end of 2015. Initial product is a 25kw/box running net 60% efficiency off natural gas.

      • ristvan | April 25, 2015 at 5:39 pm |

        Forgot to add that Bloom is about 50% net efficiency by comparison. Simply more thermal loss at the higher temperature.

    • matthewrmarler | April 25, 2015 at 4:15 pm |

      ristvan: They could have read Planning Engineers posts here and saved themselves a heap of effort.

      The paper was published in Nov 2014. Besides, they put their name on it wheres planning engineer posts anonymously. Their effort was worthwhile.

    • stevefitzpatrick | April 26, 2015 at 8:42 pm |

      ristvan,
      Throwing a $billion away to figure out what any 2 day study would tell you is… well… nuts. Google serves a useful purpose in making a vast amount of information easily available. Studying the painfully obvious and making investments based on wild-eyed fantasies is not what they do well.

  18. Salvatore del Prete | April 25, 2015 at 1:57 pm |

    There would not be so much climate denial if the main thesis of AGW theory had come to fruition which is the lower tropical tropospheric hot spot.

    The point is AGW theory said by now that a DIRECT clear correlation between CO2 increases and the tropical tropospheric temperature profile /water vapor profile would have taken place by now. Verified by a lower tropical tropospheric hotspot.

    That is the heart of this theory which said in no uncertain terms this would be taking place.

    Until the data clearly shows a lower tropical TROPOSHERIC hot spot resulting from CO2 concentration increases this theory is wrong. It is not even evolving.
    I mean if only a few years have gone by I would say maybe not enough time has elapsed but we are going on decades of time and still what this theory has called for is still not evolving. How much time does it take to say something is not right?

    In the meantime it is business as usual in the tropical troposphere profile seems to keep correlating to ENSO. CO2 concentrations neither here or there in having any temp/ water vapor impacts on the tropical troposphere profile as called for by AGW theory.

    This is just one of the reasons why climate deniers are alive and well.

    • rogerknights | April 26, 2015 at 9:10 am |

      I thought it was the UPPER tropical tropospheric hotspot that was the fingerprint of AGW?!?

  19. Danny Thomas | April 25, 2015 at 2:08 pm |

    From the article: “Furthermore, the afterlife of the Benveniste affair suggests that once research has been published, it is often difficult to discredit its findings convincingly. In fact, Benveniste’s research is still cited by homeopaths as evidence for the efficacy of their approach. Homeopaths generally see Maddox’s efforts to call the results into question as evidence of a conspiracy to silence the findings rather than a serious undertaking. In many ways this parallels the famous story of Andrew Wakefield’s 1998 paper in The Lancet, which claimed a link between vaccines and autism; even now that the Lancet has withdrawn the paper, many observers believe its claims. Revoking the “scientific authenticity” bestowed by publication in a specialist scientific journal, it turns out, is no easy task—even with a debunker as passionate as John Maddox on the case.”

    http://remedianetwork.net/2015/04/24/high-dilution-homeopathy-and-the-purpose-of-the-scientific-journal/

    Of note, the term “climate science debunker” has a ring to it!

  20. ulriclyons | April 25, 2015 at 2:26 pm |

    “New paper finds relationship between natural North Atlantic Oscillation & temperatures of Southwest U.S.”

    Naturally, as positive NAO is associated with La Nina.

  21. jim2 | April 25, 2015 at 2:59 pm |

    WTI on Friday closed above $57. This despite the fact that the inventory build was greater than expected. This is attributed in part to the ongoing hostilities in Yemen and partly to the belief that US shale production will be decreasing soon. And, the Saudi’s are producing to beat the band.

    Medium term factors include Mexico is opening its oil industry to outside investment and participation. This should up production and make Canada-US-Mexico a formidable force in oil production.

    • justinwonder | April 25, 2015 at 3:37 pm |

      Unthinkable in 1975. It makes me wonder what might be unthinkable today but real 2055.

      Predictions are difficult, especially about the future.

    • ristvan | April 25, 2015 at 6:29 pm |

      Been following this, major security issues in Mexico will slow that down. Canada Athabascan dilbit needs >$100/ bbl for new capacity. Existing capacity will continue to produce since much sunk cost. With the rig count halved, the inventory of ~900 drilled unfracked wells could run down in as little as 6 months, and for sure decline curves at a halved rig count will reduce shale oil production by about 40% in 18 months plus minus the drilled unfracked inventory. I am going very long on farthest out futures. Plus, derivative more risky fracking stock stuff (some might not make it). Have not seen a commodities play this sure in over a decade.

      • jim2 | April 26, 2015 at 8:08 pm |

        From the article:
        …
        In the 33-page lawsuit obtained by Breitbart Texas, the plaintiffs provide a glimpse into how the Gulf Cartel made business difficult for the manufacturing plant called Thermo Fisher. Cartel gunmen would often enter the plant waiving machine guns and terrorizing the employees.

        Gulf Cartel gunmen would also enter the plant to hide vehicles, including tractor trailers with unknown cargo, or they would go into the plant to hide from authorities, the lawsuit revealed. The Gulf Cartel also stationed lookouts around the plant which made the investors and employees very uncomfortable.

        The issue of cartels harassing international companies is not just limited to the border. This past Easter, a group of highly coordinated cartel gunmen stormed a Canadian gold mine and managed to make off with 7,000 ounces of gold concentrate. This represents about a month’s worth of production for the mine and has a value of $8.5 million. The brazen robbery became public when Rob McEwen, the CEO of the company that bears his name went on TV to talk about the robbery.
        …
        http://www.breitbart.com/texas/2015/04/25/us-companies-investing-in-mexico-regularly-harassed-by-drug-cartels/

    • jim2 | April 25, 2015 at 6:47 pm |

      I have a few of the shale companies that have lesser debt levels. Been positive (profit) on those for a couple of months.

    • Curious George | April 25, 2015 at 7:22 pm |

      Never underestimate external factors, like the proud Greeks finding it too painful to pay their debt. Google “greek finance” for an interesting reading.

      • jim2 | April 25, 2015 at 7:28 pm |

        I’ve followed that a good bit. It’s democracy in action. The people want their free government handouts, but the taxed don’t want to pay. They end up electing people that promise to keep the gravy train rollin’, but there’s no mo’ gravy.

      • justinwonder | April 26, 2015 at 1:22 am |

        What do get when everyone wants a freebie but nobody pays taxes? The problem with Eurosocialism is that eventually you run out of German money. I sure do miss Ms. Thatcher …

  22. scotts4sf | April 25, 2015 at 3:51 pm |

    As I recall off the top of my head, US had 27 Billion in reserves in ’75, Saudi Arabia 160 billion. No 42 billion and 265 billion ea.
    Scott

  24. climatereason | April 25, 2015 at 4:05 pm |

    Interested in the volcano link.

    I have had !any arguments with r gates as he insists that eruptions cause cool weather whereas invariably historic records show that the cold weather appears to start years before an eruption then recovers soon after it has erupted.

    I now read that co2 emissions commence well before an eruption starts as the magma starts to build up.

    Where does the co2 that is emitted from a volcano actually
    Come from?

    Secondly if the co2 emissions do get ejected several years before the actual eruption, perhaps the total amount of co2 from a volcano is much greater in total than we realise.

    Tonyb

    • ristvan | April 25, 2015 at 5:17 pm |

      A partial answer only. The three main volcanic gasses are H2O, CO2, and SO2. Proportions vary by volcano. As a general rule of thumb, basaltic eruptions (seaflow spreading [Iceland], mantle plumes [Hawaii]) are relatively SO2 rich and CO2 poor. Subduction zone volcanos (Pinatubo, St Helens) are relatively CO2 rich and SO2 poor. Subduction CO2 comes mostly from recycling carbonate rock. ‘Cement kilns’ on Mother Nature’s grand scale.
      Increase in CO2 pre-eruption is a result of the hot magma rising ‘the last miles’, further cooking whatever sedimentary carbonate rock strata exist around a volcano ‘pipe’ of either type.

    • Pat Cassen | April 25, 2015 at 5:57 pm |

      Tonyb – The most thorough, recent discussion of volcanic (and related) CO2 fluxes that I know of is:

      Deep Carbon Emissions from Volcanoes.

      Lots of info there.

  25. Mark Silbert | April 25, 2015 at 4:35 pm |

    GWPF has announced that:

    Top Scientists Start To Examine Adjusted Global Warming Figures – See more at: http://www.thegwpf.com/top-scientists-start-to-examine-adjusted-global-warming-figures/#sthash.wWbDzelJ.dpuf

    This should be interesting.

    • PA | April 25, 2015 at 5:19 pm |

      “Top Scientists Start To Examine Adjusted Global Warming Figures “

      About frickin’ time. I downloaded all the USHCN summary data last year and will diff it on the anniversary. The last time I did this dead data was moving a couple of hundredths of a degree over the course of a year. The only way to stop global warming is to fire the people doing the adjusting.

    • ristvan | April 25, 2015 at 5:26 pm |

      Yes. They asked for submissions. I suggested they examine the many examples given in essay When Data Isn’t in my ebook.there is a lot more out there, but essay attempted an overview up through mid 2014. Done some more work since using the surface starionss project CRN 1 (a possible post, maybe) suggesting GISS does a reasonable job of UHI adjustment for big cities, but a horrible job otherwise, contaminating CRN 1 by homogenizing using poorly sited CRN 3-5.
      Still a tempest in a teapot. What matters is roughly post 1950. So for half that period there is the better coverage satellite observations of UAH and RSS. And for model hindcast tuning and pause falsification, the satellite data alone suffices.

      • Mark Silbert | April 25, 2015 at 6:18 pm |

        Rud,

        Unfortunately the media tend to ignore the satellite data when it tells a different story than the surface thermometers. Also most people kinda understand sticking a thermometer in the air and writing down the reading as opposed to what has to be done to extract temperature from satellite data. My view is that dealing with the thermometer record is a necessary evil that can’t be avoided.

    • Mark Silbert | April 25, 2015 at 6:11 pm |

      One of the scientists on the panel is from Los Alamos National Lab in New Mexico. I am volunteering to crunch numbers if they want help.

    • Steven Mosher | April 25, 2015 at 7:06 pm |

      their terms of reference suck
      their deadline for submission is too short.
      10 page limit really?
      submit multiple submissions if you exceed 10 pages? wtf?
      no requirements that submissions deliver code.
      no deadline for the group to come to conclusion.

      Roman’s on the team of experts so there is some hope.

      no commitment to actually deliver a report. For example, its been almost three years since Watts 2012 was posted on the internet.. still waiting on that data to be released..

      that said, I may whip something out for them.

    • Steven Mosher | April 25, 2015 at 7:12 pm |

      here is the remit:

      The following questions will be addressed.

      Are there aspects of surface temperature measurement procedures that potentially impair data quality or introduce bias and need to be critically re-examined?

      How widespread is the practice of adjusting original temperature records? What fraction of modern temperature data, as presented by CRU/GISS/NOAA/BEST, are actual original measurements, and what fraction are subject to adjustments?

      Are warming and cooling adjustments equally prevalent?

      Are there any regions of the world where modifications appear to account for most or all of the apparent warming of recent decades?

      Are the adjustment procedures clearly documented, objective, reproducible and scientifically defensible? How much statistical uncertainty is introduced with each step in homogeneity adjustments and smoothing?

      ###################

      my bet is that they will never deliver a report. the last question is a ton of work, if it is done right.

    • David L. Hagen | April 25, 2015 at 9:51 pm |

      Top scientists start to examine fiddled global warming figures

      The panel is chaired by Terence Kealey, until recently vice-chancellor of the University of Buckingham. His team, all respected experts in their field with many peer-reviewed papers to their name, includes Dr Peter Chylek, a physicist from the National Los Alamos Laboratory; Richard McNider, an emeritus professor who founded the Atmospheric Sciences Programme at the University of Alabama; Professor Roman Mureika from Canada, an expert in identifying errors in statistical methodology; Professor Roger Pielke Sr, a noted climatologist from the University of Colorado, and Professor William van Wijngaarden, a physicist whose many papers on climatology have included studies in the use of “homogenisation” in data records.

      Their inquiry’s central aim will be to establish a comprehensive view of just how far the original data has been “adjusted” by the three main surface records: those published by the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (Giss), the US National Climate Data Center and Hadcrut, that compiled by the East Anglia Climatic Research Unit (Cru), in conjunction with the UK Met Office’s Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction. All of them are run by committed believers in man-made global warming.”

      For this the GWPF panel is initially inviting input from all those analysts across the world who have already shown their expertise in comparing the originally recorded data with that finally published. In particular, they will be wanting to establish a full and accurate picture of just how much of the published record has been adjusted in a way which gives the impression that temperatures have been rising faster and further than was indicated by the raw measured data.

    • Ron Clutz | April 26, 2015 at 4:43 pm |

      Here’s an overview of my submission to the Temperature Data Review Project.

      I did a study of 2013 records from the CRN top rated US surface stations. It was published Aug. 20, 2014 at No Tricks Zone. Most remarkable about these records is the extensive local climate diversity that appears when station sites are relatively free of urban heat sources. 35% (8 of 23) of the stations reported cooling over the century. Indeed, if we remove the 8 warmest records, the rate flips from +0.16°C to -0.14°C. In order to respect the intrinsic quality of temperatures, I calculated monthly slopes for each station, and averaged them for station trends.

      Recently I updated that study with 2014 data and compared adjusted to unadjusted records. The analysis shows the effect of GHCN adjustments on each of the 23 stations in the sample. The average station was warmed by +0.58 C/Century, from +.18 to +.76, comparing adjusted to unadjusted records. 19 station records were warmed, 6 of them by more than +1 C/century. 4 stations were cooled, most of the total cooling coming at one station, Tallahassee. So for this set of stations, the chance of adjustments producing warming is 19/23 or 83%.

      https://rclutz.wordpress.com/2015/04/26/temperature-data-review-project-my-submission/

  26. Ragnaar | April 25, 2015 at 4:40 pm |

    “Patzert sees the Blob as a precursor. The last time it appeared – in 1997 – it was followed within months by one of California’s wettest El Nino winters ever. Indeed, satellite data reveal an unusually large mass of warm water in the equatorial Pacific, the trademark of El Nino, is now moving toward the Americas.” http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/Respect-the-Blob–It-may-bo-301012381.html
    How could it lead to a large El Nino? I’d guess it’ll drift South to the equator. Warming the East ENSO region and collapsing the trade winds. Is this the script for repeating the 1998 regime change? In my readings trying to figure out what’s going on with the PDO, I found some support for a persistent high in the vicinity of the blob with lighter winds, less upwelling and less North to South transport of sea water. Is the system slowing before a shift? I think that a large El Nino may be in the cards. Following that, the PDO will restart its cool mode or shift to warm or, be indeterminate. The best case would be no step shift up in GAT following the El Nino, and a continuation of the cool PDO phase. The PDO may run as a clock without regard to moderating changes. It may react to increasing temperatures and attempt to moderate them moving more warm water North and cool water South. How to reconcile the blob with the recent high PDO readings? One way is to call it an anomaly or noise. Another is to call it a dragon king. The second line quoted above raises for me that possibility. I am reminded a phrase Ellison uses, Tremendous energies cascade through powerful subsystems… Another possibility is the blob is a normal enough part of the PDO, that is the index is fine as it is, not needing a special blob adjustment.

  27. Joshua | April 25, 2015 at 5:28 pm |

    So in the This Is Too Perfect category w/r/t Andy’s disproportionality in the fear and emotions that detract from rationality….and the objections in this thread to my suggesting that conservatives have their own emotional and fear-based rhetoric…..

    C’mon Judith – let it get past moderation:

    Is Obama Arming Iran for a Secret Reason?
    By Jeannie DeAngelis

    When Barack Obama was elected in 2008 the general consensus was that the new president was brilliant — with nothing but hearsay to back up the claim. The Obama myth was that America’s 44th president was the “smartest man in the room,” a brainiac too “intelligent for Republicans to understand.”

    […]

    But then again, according to his apologists, for people of average brainpower the president’s blueprint for remedying unemployment, calming turmil in the Middle East, and soothing racial unrest may just be too conceptually complex for mere mortals to grasp.

    For instance, this Earth Day, in an effort to instruct Americans on the deteriorating condition of the environment, Obama’s superior intellect convinced him it was wise to burn 9,000 gallons of jet fuel flying aboard Air Force One to the 1.5 million-acre Everglades National Park in Florida to talk about climate change.

    […]

    The “as we know it” warning was a bit odd coming from a guy who is single-handedly destabilizing the world’s precarious nuclear balance. Obama, who is all but placing a nuclear bomb into the hands of a terrorist state, probably should be less concerned about the Everglades and more concerned about the disappearance of Israel “as we know it.”

    But he’s not.

    Instead he’s focusing on the pressing issue of climate change and global warming. And while the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran is terrifying to some, based on his previously established level of intellectual acumen, there may actually be a method to what appears to be another example of Obama’s madness.

    Surely the president is well aware that U.S. government computer models predict that even a small nuclear war anywhere on the planet could trigger “unprecedented” global cooling. With global warming the culprit, cooling, however it’s accomplished, would provide a quick fix for the guy in need of a boost in the polls.

    Sure, a small-scale nuclear war would cause global cooling, further reduction of the ozone layer, and harmful ultraviolet radiation. That, in turn, would usher in death, disease, and drought due to things like lack of rainfall.

    But ultimately mass starvation and plague could deliver positive results, particularly for the growing problem of overpopulation. Then, in due time, as millions die off, the president’s credibility would be greatly improved among organizations concerned with controlling world population, like the U.N., and his legacy as a transformative leader would be secured.

    If Iran lobbed a nuke at Israel, smoky, dusty, ashy high-carbon clouds would block the warmth of the sun. That, coupled with radioactive fallout, would usher in a “nuclear winter” capable of instantly stopping the destructive heating trend Obama so passionately believes is wreaking havoc in places like the Florida Everglades.

    […]

    Either way, for many — including the entire nation of Israel — the perplexing question for a long time has been: why is a U.S. president helping the Iranians acquire an atomic bomb? The thought of it didn’t seem to make much sense.

    […]

    Could it be that Barack Obama’s long-term goal is to help Iran acquire the nukes necessary to finally put an end to global warming?

    I took some stuff out, but you really should read the whole thing. It really is just that good:

    http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/04/is_obama_arming_iran_for_a_secret_reason.html

    • ristvan | April 25, 2015 at 6:49 pm |

      Joshua, some polite suggestions.
      First, your comment relates to a previous thread, not this one. Wrongly placed. Second, scrounging up any old ‘stupid’ opinion to make your point is horrible due diligence. Wrongly posted on a serious science/policy blog.
      Please go elsewhere, where your meager obfuscation talents might be better appreciated.

  28. matthewrmarler | April 25, 2015 at 6:09 pm |

    In case any of you are interested in why I occasionally write disparaging comments about RealClimate, here are two of my posts that were recently suppressed.

    BEGIN
    39 Dan:For goodness sake, read the peer-reviewed science re: climate change

    Most of my reading has been peer-reviewed papers and recommended texts (e.g. Principles of Planetary Climate by Raymond T. Pierrehumbert). I often cite them when I post here.

    38 Barton Paul Levenson: BPL: You heard it here first, folks! Saturation vapor pressure doesn’t increase with temperature! 150 years of physical chemistry and radiation physics are all wrong!

    The actual vapor content of air in the atmosphere is almost never equal to the amount calculated using the C-C approximation. And measured water vapor pressure is almost never equal to the saturation water vapor pressure calculated from the C-C approximation. The idea that “Saturation vapor pressure doesn’t increase with temperature” is a misrepresentation of what I wrote, entirely made up by BPL. All I wrote is that the mathematical relationship does not accurately describe any relationship measured in the atmosphere. If anyone has some evidence that the mathematical relationship is accurate, post it here so I can download it. Is misrepresentation/misquotation one of the cognitive deficits leading to denial?

    END

    I put them on the RealClimate page devoted to this: University offering free online course to demolish climate denial [link]

    The first is my response to a simple insult. The second is my response to a misrepresentation of something that I wrote. BPL’s misrepresentation was put up, not my response to it. RealClimate has good posts, such as the post by Dessler on the iris effect (my comment to that merely got filed in the borehole), and links to good papers. But their discussions usually end with a superficial or positively ignorant put-down to which science-based reply is not permitted. In my opinion they are exceedingly uncomfortable about aspects of climate science, and in denial about uncomfortable facts. They are not reliable on the subject of scientific research into the relationship of anthropogenic CO2 to climate change.

    • curryja | April 25, 2015 at 6:30 pm |

      Well, its tough trying to hang out with the ‘cool kids’

    • Jim D | April 25, 2015 at 7:03 pm |

      Matthew Marler, your statement may have been deleted for being wrong. Clausius-Clapeyron is an extremely accurate thermodynamically derived relation that predicts at what temperature cloud condensation will occur.

      • curryja | April 25, 2015 at 7:08 pm |

        Jim, your statement is not correct? First, Clausius-Clapeyron is not sufficiently accurate determination of saturation water vapor pressure in the atmosphere for use in weather climate models (see chapter 4 in my text Thermodynamics of Atmospheres and Oceans, if you have it). The CC equation (or more accurate versions) predict saturation vapor pressure as a function of temperature. CC does not by itself predict what temperature cloud condensation will occur.

      • Jim D | April 25, 2015 at 7:28 pm |

        That is just nitpicking. It is like saying the atmosphere does not behave like a perfect gas, which it does to a good approximation. The corrections made to thermodynamically derived quantities are minor empirical ones which don’t mean that the CC theory is wrong. Also, the value of the saturation vapor pressure is a critical piece for knowing when condensation will occur, not by itself, but if it is wrong, you won’t get the right answer.

      • jim2 | April 25, 2015 at 7:31 pm |

        This is just another example of an incomplete understanding. Radiation physics is a very important part of the model, but not the only part. C-C is part of the model, but isn’t the only part. A single part can’t explain what happens. You have to 1) know what ALL the parts are and 2) know how they interact.

        (Some) Climate scientists seem to continually fall into this trap of basing conclusions on incomplete science.

      • matthewrmarler | April 25, 2015 at 7:36 pm |

        Jim D: . The corrections made to thermodynamically derived quantities are minor empirical ones which don’t mean that the CC theory is wrong

        You made that up. Nowhere has the C-C relationship been shown to be reasonably accurate in a measured atmosphere.

        My comment was not deleted because it was wrong. Had it been wrong there would have been no need for it to be so grossly misquoted. A simple reference or link to evidence would have clearly won them the argument.

      • Jim D | April 25, 2015 at 7:41 pm |

        Matthew Marler, C-C gives you a curve for saturated vapor pressure as a function of T. Measured curves follow this extremely closely. It is about as accurate as an idealized theory gets.

      • Curious George | April 25, 2015 at 8:04 pm |

        “It is like saying the atmosphere does not behave like a perfect gas, which it does to a good approximation.” To quote Gavin, “If the specific heats of condensate and vapour is assumed to be zero (which is a pretty good assumption given the small ratio of water to air, and one often made in atmospheric models) then the appropriate L [latent heat of water vaporization] is constant (=L0).”

        A consequence of this approximation is that the amount of heat transferred from tropical seas to the atmosphere by water evaporation is overestimated by 2.5%. You may have a stomach for it, I do not.

      • curryja | April 25, 2015 at 8:13 pm |

        For surface evaporation from the ocean, you need also to correct the saturation vapor pressure for salinity. 10 years ago, most climate models didn’t do this (no idea if they are fixed at this point).

      • Jim D | April 25, 2015 at 8:17 pm |

        Minor effect. I am sure if you look at the climate with this small change, it will not differ much. You still have the tropics warmer than the poles. The ocean will still circulate the same way. Convection is far from an ideal thermodynamic process, and this amounts to minor twiddling with it.

      • curryja | April 25, 2015 at 8:22 pm |

        Well, you’ll just get the clouds wrong (esp ice clouds) and the surface evaporation wrong. Not a good thing when water vapor feedback is the name of the GHG warming game.

      • Jim D | April 25, 2015 at 8:29 pm |

        Wrong to what degree compared to other uncertainties? This is why I say minor. Some climate models probably do have the latent heat variation. Can you pick them out by their results? No, because many other things in the model are equally important and just as variable from model to model.

      • curryja | April 25, 2015 at 8:32 pm |

        Last time I looked at any climate model code, I cringed over the approximations in the thermodynamics. Small systematic errors in long integrations could be the cause of a water vapor feedback that is too high. Fixing this stuff would be pretty simple, but they stick with the approximations that are ~okay for weather prediction models.
        Note, last time I spoke with Pierrehumbert, he was concerned about similar things, notably approximations made in the moist adiabatic lapse rate.

      • captdallas2 0.8 +/- 0.2 | April 25, 2015 at 8:09 pm |

        jimd, “Matthew Marler, C-C gives you a curve for saturated vapor pressure as a function of T. Measured curves follow this extremely closely. It is about as accurate as an idealized theory gets.”

        Provided you have the correct T and that T is in the higher accuracy range of C-C and you have the right estimate of the degree of saturation which would depend on the moisture available and that pesky absolute T again, C-C with associated “parameterization” would put you in the ballpark. A ballpark can be pretty large though. So you would likely have to do some tuning to get things close enough for government work.

        http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2012MS000154/pdf

        If most of the models start off with a cold T, then most of the models would over estimate warming. Since convective triggering is also one of those “gotstahave” the real T functions, models that start cold would tend to over estimate warming.

        Just explaining how C-C is supposed to work doesn’t mean the models can make it work, C-C is a limited simplification that happened to have been expedient back in the day.

      • Jim D | April 25, 2015 at 8:23 pm |

        C-C is the thermodynamics of mixed-phase equilibrium. If you would prefer to disregard it, fine. It turns out to be useful for some very practical things, not just climate models, when you have two phases of a substance in contact with each other. Ask an engineer.

      • Curious George | April 25, 2015 at 8:23 pm |

        There is a process of water evaporation, whose rate depends on a wind speed, a water salinity, surface layer mixing, etc. The error I pinpoint is a 2.5% error in a heat contents of 1,000 tons of evaporated water.

      • Jim D | April 25, 2015 at 8:31 pm |

        Let’s say you get the surface albedo off by 1%. That is a much larger effect than the one you are talking about in terms of energy.

      • Pat Cassen | April 25, 2015 at 8:24 pm |

        Matthew, JimD –

        Are arguing about two different things?

        Matthew – Nowhere has the C-C relationship been shown to be reasonably accurate in a measured atmosphere.

        Perhaps you mean that the atmosphere is generally not saturated, as this figure illustrates:

        Measurements of water vapor in the atmosphere.

        But the figure also shows that, minor adjustments aside, C-C represents quite accurately the saturation envelope (and that saturation does indeed occur).

      • captdallas2 0.8 +/- 0.2 | April 25, 2015 at 8:35 pm |

        Jimd, ” It turns out to be useful for some very practical things, not just climate models, when you have two phases of a substance in contact with each other. Ask an engineer.”

        It is useful for somethings, some things not so much. Goff-Gratch is the one I used though, larger temperature range, PITA to impliment back in 1984 on a 8086 desktop using supercalc. Arden Buck is the new kid in town with a temperature range of -80C to 50C. The ends are always the issue with ideal models. If you can deal with +/- 5% or so at a critical point no problem. Climate models are looking for a lot small variation over a huge range of temperatures.

      • Jim D | April 25, 2015 at 8:48 pm |

        Goff-Gratch is an empirical measurement-fitting version of C-C. Climate models also may use something similar. At their base, they are representing C-C thermodynamics, no less so for being empirical.

      • Curious George | April 25, 2015 at 8:45 pm |

        Jim – I am concerned with an imbalance of energy between water and atmosphere. It may have something to do with albedo; please elucidate.

      • Jim D | April 25, 2015 at 8:54 pm |

        The albedo of water can be 8 or 9%. That difference of 1% is much larger for column energy budgets than the small latent heat variations you are talking about. This would be important in coupled models where the ocean temperature absorbs the solar flux. So, from just that perspective you are barking up the wrong tree.

      • Willard | April 25, 2015 at 8:46 pm |

        > Last time I looked at any climate model code […]

        When was that?

      • captdallas2 0.8 +/- 0.2 | April 25, 2015 at 8:58 pm |

        pat cassen “But the figure also shows that, minor adjustments aside, C-C represents quite accurately the saturation envelope (and that saturation does indeed occur).”

        Super-saturation occurs as well. It is the limits that you have to watch. For example liquid topped clouds which have super cooled super saturated water in a layer on the top of the cloud. Every estimation has it sweet spot range, mixed phased clouds are out side of C-Cs sweet spot along with most of the arctic regions.

      • Curious George | April 25, 2015 at 9:11 pm |

        I am afraid you did not elucidate much. Clearly you don’t care whether energy stays in the ocean or is transferred to the atmosphere; what phenomena are you modeling?

      • Jim D | April 25, 2015 at 9:17 pm |

        Then I wasn’t able to understand your question. Was it about coupled models?

      • captdallas2 0.8 +/- 0.2 | April 25, 2015 at 9:19 pm |

        JimD, “Goff-Gratch is an empirical measurement-fitting version of C-C. Climate models also may use something similar.”

        I believe that is lumped into parameterization. Goff-Gratch, WMO_Goff or any number of other versions just handle the larger temperature ranges with a bit more accuracy which would reduce some of the needed parameterization. There doesn’t appear to be a great way of doing things so any reduction in initial error would be useful.

        The biggest deal though is still getting the T right.

      • Jim D | April 25, 2015 at 9:28 pm |

        As I mentioned to CG, yes, getting T right requires an accurate albedo, not just for the surface but clouds too. That is the first-order problem, not how exactly you approximate the saturated vapor pressure or latent heat.

      • Curious George | April 25, 2015 at 9:40 pm |

        Jim D – let me apologize; my comment was not about C-C or T. It is simply that the heat needed to evaporate 1 ton of water in a CAM 5.1 model is a constant, correct at a freezing point, but 2.5% too high at 25 degrees C (or 3% too high at 30 C), a surface sea temperature in tropical seas. That’s where most of sea water evaporation on this planet happens. If you believe that overestimating an energy available to a hurricane by mere 3% is negligible, you are entitled to your opinion.

      • Jim D | April 25, 2015 at 9:54 pm |

        Seems that would require more energy to produce a given evaporation, so it may underdo evaporation by 3%. If the other factors like wind speed and wave effects were known to within 3%, this would be an issue. As it is, I doubt that the wind is accurate to 3%, especially with poorly resolved hurricanes.

      • matthewrmarler | April 25, 2015 at 10:53 pm |

        Pat Cassen: Perhaps you mean that the atmosphere is generally not saturated, as this figure illustrates:

        Measurements of water vapor in the atmosphere.

        But the figure also shows that, minor adjustments aside, C-C represents quite accurately the saturation envelope (and that saturation does indeed occur).

        Here is what I wrote: The actual vapor content of air in the atmosphere is almost never equal to the amount calculated using the C-C approximation. And measured water vapor pressure is almost never equal to the saturation water vapor pressure calculated from the C-C approximation.

        To back up even further: when I first mentioned that the amount of water vapor can not be known accurately, BPL directed my attention to the Calusius-Clapeyron, evidently not knowing that it is an approximation to the rare case of saturation.

        As the sun rises in the midsummer central Pacific or US Midwest, and the surface water vaporizes, rises to the mid-upper troposphere, condenses to form rain clouds and rain — no model accurately models the water vapor at any place or any time. In quiescent conditions with little airflow or cloud cover, there is a linear relationship between model total column vapor and measured optical thickness — that is the closest I have seen. That isn’t so useful in the usual conditions farther from equilibrium.

      • matthewrmarler | April 25, 2015 at 11:06 pm |

        Jim D: Seems that would require more energy to produce a given evaporation, so it may underdo evaporation by 3%. If the other factors like wind speed and wave effects were known to within 3%, this would be an issue. As it is, I doubt that the wind is accurate to 3%, especially with poorly resolved hurricanes.

        Indeed, you would be hard-pressed to show that anything is known accurately enough to calculate the sensitivity of the dynamic climate to doubling of CO2 concentration. How exactly that shows that the C-C relation is accurate enough would take some more work.

        You do not actually know any of this, do you Jim D? You make it up as you go along?

      • Jim D | April 25, 2015 at 11:39 pm |

        Certainly hard to get the precision required to make this 3% an important issue. It would be a great situation to be in if the GCMs were only off by 3% and this corrected it, but more likely it is a red herring.

      • Curious George | April 25, 2015 at 11:25 pm |

        Jim, as I said earlier, I am not concerned about the rate of evaporation. I am concerned about the energy (latent heat) of 1 ton of evaporated water vapor. I don’t care if it has evaporated in one hour or in 8 hours; it carries an energy – called latent heat – which it releases again – when condensing. A fifth grade physics. If it is to complex for you to understand; I’ll be glad to elucidate.

      • Jim D | April 25, 2015 at 11:36 pm |

        If it releases it around 0 C, the latent heat is accurate. If it is colder, it would be too little. On average the release would not be so far from 0 C. Besides, I don’t think GCMs can get rainfall/condensation accurate to within 3%, so this issue is moot until they do. Check with Gavin if GCMs get rainfall within 3%.

      • Carrick | April 26, 2015 at 12:05 pm |

        Jim D, if you have no experience with numerical solution of complex systems of differential equations (as seems apparent ), you probably should stay quiet about the relative effect of different approximations in the model solution.

        A 3% physics error can get amplified by feedbacks in the model and yield a much bigger absolute error in the model solution. You just can’t hand wave and say this error is small.

        If you want to see how big 3% is, total anthropogenic radiative forcing is about 1.6 W/m2, which compares to about 340 W/m2 for the mean solar forcing. That suggests anthropogenic radiative forcing 0.5% of the mean solar forcing.

        Based on your naive handwaving arguments, we need not concern ourselves with anthropongenic forcing either, at least in relation to other errors in the model. I’m pretty sure this wasn’t what you were trying to argue.

      • Jim D | April 26, 2015 at 12:32 pm |

        I am saying these errors, which average to much less than 3% when you consider all temperatures, are not first-order errors. I think GCMs don’t get the global rainfall within 10%, and that reflects a larger condensational energy difference than this latent heat variation. Some GCMs are biased high and some low, so this uncertainty is part of what is seen in their spread. Some probably account for the latent heat variation too. This is why I say it is a red herring.

      • matthewrmarler | April 26, 2015 at 1:00 pm |

        Jim D: I think GCMs don’t get the global rainfall within 10%, and that reflects a larger condensational energy difference than this latent heat variation.

        It is unusual, to say the least, to read that condensational energy differences and latent heat variation are different from each other. If the error in modeling rainfall exceeds 10%, then the error in estimating climate sensitivity is considerably greater than the absolute value of the sensitivity estimate itself, and even the sign of the sensitivity, given climate as it is, is not known.

        You have written quite a lot of nonsense on this thread. It might be time for you to review and study hard your knowledge base.

      • Jim D | April 26, 2015 at 1:07 pm |

        I made the opposite point to the one you reflected. Rainfall results from condensation which depends on latent energy. The latent energy release is therefore proportional to rainfall. This is well known and should not surprise you so much.

      • matthewrmarler | April 26, 2015 at 1:24 pm |

        Jim D: The latent energy release is therefore proportional to rainfall.

        I appreciate your clarification, but that is not what you wrote. With that clarification, how much will the transfer of heat from the surface to the upper troposphere increase as the Earth mean surface temperature increases? Rainfall is expected to increase 2% – 7%, with the higher estimates from empirical regression estimates and the lower estimates from GCM runs.

      • Jim D | April 26, 2015 at 1:40 pm |

        I assume you mean 2%-7% per degree of warming. The latent heat flux would have to increase in proportion. But that is just obvious from energy conservation. It is not just the upper troposphere, because condensation occurs in the whole troposphere, more at lower levels.

      • Curious George | April 26, 2015 at 4:46 pm |

        For a sense of proportion, the average Earth surface temperature is approximately 300 K. One percent of it is 3 K, or approximately 6 F. For an accuracy of 1 F, your total error should better be less than 0.1%.

      • Carrick | April 26, 2015 at 8:13 pm |

        Jim D:

        I am saying these errors, which average to much less than 3% when you consider all temperatures, are not first-order errors.

        I understand your claim, but my guess is you are wrong here:

        Three percent effects that are associated with modeling errors don’t typically scale linearly, especially when you look at the time evolution of the system.

      • Jim D | April 26, 2015 at 10:53 pm |

        More important for cloud condensation is what formula they use for saturated vapor pressure, and those are typically functions fitted quite accurately to measured values, so condensation therefore implicitly allows for latent heat variations with temperature in models like the GISS one.

      • matthewrmarler | April 26, 2015 at 10:15 pm |

        Jimd D: I assume you mean 2%-7% per degree of warming. The latent heat flux would have to increase in proportion.

        Thanks for the correction. That was the way I calculated it, proportional to the increase in rainfall rate. However, with cloud formation and rainfall, most condensation occurs in the mid-to upper troposphere. The warm, moist air rises in a column surrounded by descending cool, dry and denser air. Although the rising column does lose some heat to the descending toroidal surround, the water vapor does not condense before the air reaches a high altitude and cools by expansion. A relatively brief account is in Thermal Physics of the Atmosphere by Ambaum.

      • Jim D | April 26, 2015 at 10:39 pm |

        Condensation occurs from cloud base up. Cloud base is typically only 1 km above ground even for deep thunderstorms. Also because of the near-exponential way that saturated vapor pressure depends on temperature, more condensation occurs at warmer temperatures. This is where C-C comes in, as a way to define the saturated vapor pressure of rising air which determines how much condenses at each height. The net heating peak is however, in the mid/upper-troposphere more because of heat transport than condensation there.

      • captdallas2 0.8 +/- 0.2 | April 26, 2015 at 11:23 pm |

        JimD, “More important for cloud condensation is what formula they use for saturated vapor pressure, and those are typically functions fitted quite accurately to measured values, so condensation therefore implicitly allows for latent heat variations with temperature in models like the GISS one.”

        There are still a lot of holes in that statement. The thesis I linked to by Andrew Barrett focused on just one type of cloud that is not modeled well at all. http://www.april-network.org/~gc903759/phd/ABarrett_Thesis.pdf

        What he recommends is using RHice instead of RHwv in the model parameterization. There is not a huge difference between RHice and RHwv at -20C, but that one change drops their model sensitivity from about 3 C to about 1.6 C per doubling. That is just a parameterization i.e. a SWAG instead of considering all the micro-physics which is just a touch beyond your average climate model.

    • Mike Flynn | April 26, 2015 at 9:47 pm |

      Jim D,

      Anything which is only approximately correct may be useless in the context of attempting to model a chaotic system, as arbitrarily small variations in input may lead to large changes in output of unknown direction and magnitude.

      Chaos is a world unto itself. Unpredictable, apparently disorderly, seemingly random, but often displaying beauty and scale invariance based on an absurdly simple equation. The Mandelbrot set is one such example.

      The main problem with climate models of any type is that their outputs are not useful in any practical sense, but you may have evidence of benefits which have escaped me to date.

      • Jim D | April 26, 2015 at 10:23 pm |

        Decadal variability is chaotic. A human forcing of 0.4 W/m2 per decade is still in the noise for one decade, but when you get to 6 W/m2, that is a different climate well outside the range of current climate variability. When summer temperatures change by four standard deviations, you notice. It is a signal well above the noise by then.

      • Mike Flynn | April 26, 2015 at 10:56 pm |

        Jim D,

        What you have said appears to be of no use in any practical sense.

        Did you accidentally leave something out? I’m not sure what you are trying to say about the difficulties of usefully modelling a chaotic system.

        Are you of the opinion that climate is not chaotic, and disagreeing with the IPCC, or accepting that it is, but that it is possible to predict the output of a chaotic system?

        It seems that projecting historical data with a straight edge is just as likely to be accurate as a very expensive climate model. Have you any evidence to the contrary (not including guesses about the future)?

      • Jim D | April 26, 2015 at 11:00 pm |

        However chaotic a boiling pot of water is, you know when you apply heat it warms up, and you can calculate that net warming without knowing what every bubble is doing. It’s like that.

      • justinwonder | April 27, 2015 at 12:23 am |

        The earth is not a pot of boiling water – that is a bogus analogy.

      • Jim D | April 27, 2015 at 1:05 am |

        In the end it is the energy budget that determines what happens. The chaotic part is mostly just internal redistributions of energy. The boiling pot analogy helps you to separate what is ultimately important to earth’s temperature from relatively smaller internal variations that self-cancel over longer time scales. Energetically, doubling CO2 is equivalent to a 1% solar increase, which is 15-20 times the change in a sunspot cycle, and even those cycles are detectable.

      • justinwonder | April 27, 2015 at 2:12 am |

        JimD

        “In the end it is the energy budget that determines what happens.”

        I totally get it.

        “The chaotic part is mostly just internal redistributions of energy.”

        That is the part that counts. What is going to happen where I live? It is not good enough to say it ‘s going to get hot somewhere and cold somewhere else. Lives are lived locally. The theories and models don’t give us anything useful.

        “Energetically, doubling CO2 is equivalent to a 1% solar increase, which is 15-20 times the change in a sunspot cycle, and even those cycles are detectable.”

        So what? We have had CO2 concentrations of up to 7000ppm in the phanerizoic and life continued on.

        So, what exactly is going to happen other than silly policies that will make people miserable?

      • Mike Flynn | April 27, 2015 at 4:58 am |

        Jim D,

        If you increase the heat input to a pot of boiling water by 100%, the temperature doesn’t change, as far as I know.

        So it’s not like that, at all. Maybe you might care to address the questions, rather than proposing possibly misleading and physically incorrect analogies.

        Do modellers really believe that the boiling point of water increases with increasing heat input? How much heat is needed to raise the boiling point of water to 120C? I believe that water at STP boils at 100C, but I would appreciate your correction if I’m mistaken.

      • maksimovich1 | April 27, 2015 at 5:40 am |

        “Energetically, doubling CO2 is equivalent to a 1% solar increase,

        In the last three months TSI has reduced by around 60wm^2 at true earth a decrease of around 4%.

        http://lasp.colorado.edu/lisird/sorce/sorce_tsi/index.html

      • Curious George | April 27, 2015 at 5:14 pm |

        “The chaotic part is mostly just internal redistributions of energy. ” Exactly. That’s why a 3% error in latent heat matters.

      • Jim D | April 27, 2015 at 9:00 pm |

        Mike Flynn, yes, there is a difference between a simmer and a boil, and you also lose the water more quickly with a higher heat input. Think about where the energy goes when you turn the heat up. With the earth system more vapor for sure, or maybe you disagree in both cases.

      • Jim D | April 27, 2015 at 9:06 pm |

        This is a common analogy between weather and climate. The climate changes regardless of the exact details of the weather (chaotic part). The pot gains energy regardless of what the convection in it is doing in detail.

      • Jim D | April 27, 2015 at 9:11 pm |

        maksimovitch, in the course of the year the solar variation is many percent due to the elliptical orbit, but the tilt is even more important, which is why we have winter and summer and that doesn’t depend on the distance. However, if you increase the sun by 1% for a century, there would be a warming of several degrees globally averaged.

      • Turbulent Eddie | April 27, 2015 at 10:25 pm |

        In the end it is the energy budget that determines what happens. The chaotic part is mostly just internal redistributions of energy.

        Not so.

        The ‘Lapse Rate’ feedback ( evidently another fail ) is modeled to occur because of ‘internal redistribution of energy’. Circulation matters to how much energy goes to space.

        If there were zero convection, the surface would warm to be much hotter ( much more so than for doubling CO2 ) to achieve radiative balance. But the real atmosphere overcomes the greenhouse obstructed radiance from the surface by moving heat via convection instead.

        Now, I’ve run a radiative model on global atmospheres and the effect of doubling CO2 is positive and fairly consistent regardless of the variations that circulations impose – FOR THAT PARTICULAR ATMOSPHERIC SOUNDING. But that’s not a ‘fair fight’ because the atmosphere will respond, so considering only the radiance without knowing how circulation responds is still a guess.

        Further, models have to make stuff up in parameterization. Little non-linear misunderstood errors in these fabrications can compound in unknown ways.

        Further, it doesn’t appear that the models can even get the temperature right and that one would think would be the easiest part.
        Which spaghetti strand is correct? None of them:

        http://www.ipcc.ch/report/graphics/images/Assessment%20Reports/AR5%20-%20WG1/Chapter%2001/Fig1-04.jpg

      • Jim D | April 27, 2015 at 10:42 pm |

        TE, the lack of the hot spot, which would have been a negative feedback by the way, is probably because the continents and Arctic are warming so much faster than the tropical oceans. This is one of the transient aspects that was not predicted so well, like the rapid loss of Arctic sea ice. The transient climate is full of surprises because of its sensitivity to when tipping points get crossed. It seems that the loss of summer Arctic ice is one tipping point that we are half way through already, perhaps the Gulf Stream has one in store, or Greenland, or an Antarctic ice shelf, or something unprecedented in the Pacific. Who knows? It is hard to know which the next domino to fall will be, but we are pushing hard.

  29. Ragnaar | April 25, 2015 at 6:16 pm |

    On the East Pacific Blob:
    “We’ve definitely entered a warm phase,” said Nicholas Bond, climatologist for the state of Washington and the scientist who coined the “blob” nickname. “The question now is, how long is it going to last?”
    “…Mann wrote in an email to The Times this week that he wasn’t prepared to declare the arrival of a warm phase just yet. “It’s premature to say,” Mann wrote.
    Matt Newman, a climate scientist at the University of Colorado, studies the underlying processes that drive the PDO and says the blob doesn’t fit the pattern.
    He believes the warm mass of water is better explained by a stubborn region of high pressure parked over the northeast Pacific Ocean — the so-called ridiculously resilient ridge.
    The ridge has affected wind and current patterns in a way that prevents the upwelling of deeper, colder and nutrient-rich waters, he said.
    He also questioned the connection between PDO phases and the likelihood of El Niño events.
    “I tend to take the view that most of the year-to-year changes in El Niño are due to chance,” Newman said.
    At Scripps Institution of Oceanography, climate researcher Dan Cayan said he was “cautiously pessimistic” over what the blob signaled about the future.
    “There’s no doubt that this anomaly in sea surface temperature is very meaningful,” Cayan said. “But it’s hard for me to say that we’re going to see a repeat performance of the ’77-’78 experience in California, where the dry spell was broken.”
    http://www.latimes.com/science/la-me-wetter-days-20150419-story.html
    Varied opinions. I noticed ’77-’78 above.
    http://www.skepticalscience.com/images/Temp_with_synchronisation.gif
    What is it we are looking for? A dragon king.

    • Salvatore del Prete | April 25, 2015 at 6:26 pm |

      Newman will be wrong. The cold phase of the PDO has at least another 20 years to go.

    • Salvatore del Prete | April 25, 2015 at 6:36 pm |

      The people that are in support of AGW theory do not consider past data, come to their own ridiculous conclusions based on nothingness, ignore all data that does not agree with their beloved theory, and or say it is inaccurate, wrong or contrived.

      This is the most incompetent group I have even come across and they are oblivious to reality always trying to promote their soon to be obsolete theory and clinging to any source or thought that might keep their theory alive.

    • JCH | April 25, 2015 at 8:00 pm |

      What causes the warm phase of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation? It’s not understood. What does the warm phase of the PDO look like with ACO2 at 400 ppm?

      Maybe it looks like the blob.

      Wind Sailors killed by the blob.

      http://cdn.grindtv.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/17159783142_055e1cd148_b.jpg

      • PA | April 25, 2015 at 8:45 pm |

        There must be a lot of jellyfish per square mile in the coastal ocean.

        If that is one jellyfish every couple of square meters (200,000 per square mile).that looks like about a 60+ mile swath of jellyfish.

        Well, we will see about the blob. The blob came from the western Pacific.

      • JCH | April 25, 2015 at 8:59 pm |

        They were also reports about sea lions dying off California, and the Salmon forecast I saw was bad. Time will tell.

      • Ragnaar | April 25, 2015 at 9:33 pm |

        Almost everything causes the warm phase of the PDO in that it contributes to it or cannot overcome the other factors causing it. An index like the S&P 500 includes a large number of companies? What causes it to rise? Many things. Can the government control it? It can try. I feel like I am watching the PDO and considering my future, same as the watch the S&P 500 index to see how much money I have.

      • Ragnaar | April 25, 2015 at 9:47 pm |

        The sea life seems to be effected though jellyfish often wash up on shore. Their sensitivity can be interpreted as fragility and/or an indication of how successful the oceans have been at maintaining livable conditions over millions of years.

      • JCH | April 25, 2015 at 9:53 pm |

        I would say they do not really know what causes the phases of the PDO, but blocking upwelling really cold and really nutritious water would be near the top of my list, but I’m just a dummy.

      • Jim D | April 25, 2015 at 9:59 pm |

        I heard that it is one of the dangers of rapid warming that the ocean develops a warm surface layer that just can’t sink. This not only affects the ecology, but limits the CO2 uptake.

      • JCH | April 25, 2015 at 10:05 pm |

        ENSO and the PDO were basically discovered because of how they impact marine life. ENSO a very long time ago; the PDO not very long ago at all, though I would not be surprised if tribes that fished for salmon knew about it.

      • Ragnaar | April 25, 2015 at 10:12 pm |

        This diagram though a guess and an average:
        http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/ctl/images/belt.jpg
        made me consider if the upwelling in the North Pacific is enough to matter?

      • jim2 | April 25, 2015 at 10:15 pm |

        Yes, ocean currents will come to a halt. Of course they will.

      • Ragnaar | April 25, 2015 at 10:49 pm |

        “This publication described the origin of the Blob, showing that it was the result of persistent ridging (high pressure) over the Pacific.  The high pressure, and associated light winds, resulted in less vertical mixing of the upper layer of the ocean; with less mixing  of subsurface cold water to the surface.  Furthermore, the high pressure reduced horizontal movement of colder water from the north. Straightforward and convincing work.”
        http://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2015/04/media-miscommunication-about-blob.html
        Mass explains that the some of what the scientists said, is different from what the headlines said. So the sea life may go through booms and busts based upon the average rate of upwelling.

      • curryja | April 25, 2015 at 11:07 pm |

        thanks for this link

      • matthewrmarler | April 25, 2015 at 11:24 pm |

        Jim D: I heard that it is one of the dangers of rapid warming that the ocean develops a warm surface layer that just can’t sink.

        What is the increase in the surface water evaporation rate, and how is it computed?

      • Jim D | April 25, 2015 at 11:32 pm |

        matthewmarler, the surface air would warm just as much, so the evaporation would not increase or decrease just from this.

      • Ragnaar | April 26, 2015 at 12:01 am |

        Another comment on the blob:
        http://science.nasa.gov/media/medialibrary/2001/06/27/ast28jun_1_resources/jetstream.gif
        I’ve found little on warm PDO or cool PDO jets. So going with a La Nina jet, there seems to have been some locking into the lower map configuration. It shows the High in about the right place for the blob. The nice meander may have something the do with the Rocky Mountains that is geographical features. I think the polar jet will have to curtail its meandering ways with a PDO shift. I am open to the fact that this could happen quickly but with some tilt of the PETG in the correct direction. I’ll go out on a limb and suggest, the tilt of the PETG crosses a threshold where on one side there are predominant meanders.

      • Ragnaar | April 26, 2015 at 12:11 am |

        Left something off my above comment. We may see a binary situation comparing the two maps. We can imagine cartoon like, a switch is thrown and the weather changes. Teleconnections where communication paths set up transferring information along the jet stream. Of course the jet drifts and moves but it may have preferred paths.

      • JCH | April 26, 2015 at 12:17 am |

        If you want to know what caused the blob, I suspect it’s called the warming phase of the PDO, and I do not think anybody knows what causes them.

        People seem intent on finding that the blob is not the warm phase of the PDO.

        So when did the last warm phase begin, and was it similar to today?

        Looks like it got its big kickoff in the mid-1970s. What happened then? For one thing, the 1975-1976 California drought.

      • Ragnaar | April 26, 2015 at 4:59 pm |

        JCH:
        So when did the last warm phase begin, and was it similar to today?
        Francis doesn’t seemed to have changed the story since this:
        http://icons.wxug.com/hurricane/2011/francis_amplification.pnga
        In light of the years of roughly 1978 and 2008, what do we see? From ’78 to ’98 there’s strengthening to a peak and then a decline to roughly the ’78 numbers. Assume the threshold is 15 for Winter and Fall. Since ’98 it’s been dropping or remaining the same, assuming Francis would have mentioned a reversal of the situation. I am also assuming we need a change in the jet stream to accompany a warm PDO, to a more zonal flow. Lately we seem to be retaining the La Nina Pacific jet above. We do not know the causes of the phases of the PDO and I haven’t seen a lot of theories suggested. If it turns to warm we’d get more of the zonal flow which would retain more heat in the tropical regions. A more zonal flow can occur with a higher PETG. One way to get that is with a recovery of the Arctic sea ice. The polar jet seems to be a function of the PETG with zonal flow with high values and meridional flow with low values. So it may not be possible to get a zonal flow until the Arctic stops venting heat. So using the Francis plot and assuming things haven’t changed much since it ended we’d have to get a return of the zonal flow to something like that in 1978.

      • JCH | April 26, 2015 at 5:58 pm |

        There is a confusion of warm phases and cold phases with respect the direction of the global mean temperature. The temperature anomaly starts going up at about the same time the PDO index starts going up, and the anomaly starts going down at almost the same time the PDO index starts going down. It started going down in 1980 to 1985, and the GMT completely diverged from it – because of ACO2. The 1998-to-2000 talk is a fundamental misunderstanding.

        The PDO has given less and less assistance to ACO2 between 1803ish and 2006, when makes its brief foray into negative territory. And it was not until then that the King Oscillation exerted any visible effect on the temperature trend – the pause.

      • JCH | April 26, 2015 at 5:59 pm |

        Should be 1980ish to…

      • Jim D | April 26, 2015 at 6:04 pm |

        The last two PDO peaks were 1935 and 1985, so if you go by cycles, we won’t reach the next peak until 2035.

      • JCH | April 26, 2015 at 6:15 pm |

        1940ish to 1980s, call it 42 years peak to peak. 1983 plus 42 equals 2025ish

        In a hurry, it takes around 13 years to drop to the bottom or climb to the top. The recent drop was prolonged – 1983ish to 2006ish, which could mean its ascent will be abrupt. Or not.

      • Ragnaar | April 26, 2015 at 6:20 pm |

        Correction to my above
        In light of the years of roughly 1978 and 2008
        Should be:
        In light of the years of roughly 1978 and 1998

      • Ragnaar | April 26, 2015 at 11:56 pm |

        This is the link that has me assuming we have a predominately wavy Pacific Polar jet, (Francis):
        http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/weird-winter-weather-plot-thickens-as-arctic-swiftly-warms/
        One of the maps at the above has a nice blob making jet with the High near the Gulf of Alaska.
        “The wavier state of the jet stream also causes more mixing of warm and cold air in the Northern Hemisphere.”
        http://skepticalscience.com/jetstream-guide.html
        It’s this mixing that is my hope for moderate temperatures and that SkS is right about what I quoted. Not sure the view is an accepted one. Warm humid air heading North to where some heat will go up and out through the TOA. I am not saying the jet can’t switch, but Francis seems to think the lower PETG causes it to be wavy and I am agreeing with her.
        Here’s something related to the PETG:
        https://knowledgedrift.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/global-versus-equatorial-versus-arctic1.png
        I think the idea is that low values of the PETG are a negative feedback. In 1942, the Arctic was reeled back in, that’s about a Tsonis regime change year.

  30. Salvatore del Prete | April 25, 2015 at 6:46 pm |

    Joel, this is the data ,this is what it shows, and the evidence for what is s

    http://www.sciencemag.org/content/337/6096/809.summary

    Below, is a quote from the article, NASA satellite data shows a decline in water vapor.

    The quote is radiosonde data shows that upper atmosphere water vapor declines with warming.

    Now data from the Patriot Post Article called, Evidence That Demands a Verdict shows quite clearly two items of data of importance one being there has been no warming in the tropical atmosphere at the 12km level or 18 km level and that all the deviations in the tropical troposphere atmosphere temperatures are correlated with the temperature deviation in Nino region 3.4.

    Data also showing thus far no lower tropospheric hot spot has materialized.

    What the data is saying if one tries to incorporate all of this, is first of all it appears that the temperature in the tropical troposphere is correlated to ENSO. When ENSO in an El Nino phase the temperature in the tropical troposphere increases and vice versa with no long term change in the temperature of the tropical troposphere overall. In addition radiosonde data is indicating that water vapor concentrations are inversely correlated with the temperature of the atmosphere and from the article I posted it said one of the ways in which water vapor may get into the stratosphere outside of the tropics is via convection. Then in addition, with data still showing no tropical tropospheric hot spot here are the objective conclusions that have to be drawn based upon the data.

    The conclusions I take away from all of this is first the temperature of the tropical troposphere is controlled by ENSO not CO2 and that the concentrations of water vapor irrespective of if water vapor is or is not inversely correlated to the temperature of the upper atmosphere is not tied into CO2 concentrations..
    In addition it looks like sea surface temperatures(PDO) /convection may have much to do with the amounts of water vapor which eventually reach the stratosphere all of which destroy AGW theory which said the amounts of water vapor which will reside in the tropical troposphere will be DIRECTLY tied into the strong positive feedback between CO2 and water vapor which would result in two distinct trends developing in the tropical troposphere which would be a steady increase in water vapor which would be in tandem with a steady increasing temperature trend in the tropical troposphere which would be more pronounced with altitude relative to the lower levels, and that this steady increase in water vapor /temperature trend which would be evolving would cause a tropical tropospheric hot spot to evolve, due to an ever increasing negative lapse rate.

    Data however shows no such negative lapse rate trend evolving and no correlation between CO2 and the tropical tropospheric temperature profile, nor no correlation with CO2 and tropical troposphere water vapor profile. Instead data shows the temperature characteristics of the tropical troposphere seem to be correlated with ENSO ,and indicate in the case of water vapor (according to radiosonde data) an inverse relationship to temperature all things being equal, but this could be obscured by convection changes in the tropics due to sea surface temperature changes and atmospheric circulation changes all of which AGW theory does not address to any degree whatsoever when it comes to the temperature profile and water vapor profile of the tropical troposphere.

    In conclusion not only does the resultant tropical hot spot as called for by AGW theory not appear but data shows in addition the reasons why it does not appear are because it is not CO2 which governs how the tropical tropospheric temperature/water vapor profile may evolve but rather it is ENSO phases and sea surface temperature changes (PDO phases) along with convection changes in the tropics due to atmospheric circulation changes, that govern the tropical troposphere temperature/water vapor profile.

    This all showing that the central theme of AGW theory which is a strong positive feedback between CO2 and water vapor resulting in a tropical tropospheric temperature/water vapor profile which would give rise to a tropical hot spot is not correct.

    Reply

  32. ulriclyons | April 25, 2015 at 6:50 pm |

    “Vox: Two political scientists have found the secret to party loyalty, and it’s deeply depressing.”

    Same here, many Green voters and a few Green candidates that I have spoken to, are mainly mobilsed against UKIP by gutter press libel like calling them racist. And not one of them, had read the Green Party energy policy, not even the first paragraph, and that includes the candidates. I have the screen shots to prove it.

  33. jim2 | April 25, 2015 at 6:51 pm |

    From the article:
    …
    Last month, we are told, the world enjoyed “its hottest March since records began in 1880”. This year, according to “US government scientists”, already bids to outrank 2014 as “the hottest ever”. The figures from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) were based, like all the other three official surface temperature records on which the world’s scientists and politicians rely, on data compiled from a network of weather stations by NOAA’s Global Historical Climate Network (GHCN).

    But here there is a puzzle. These temperature records are not the only ones with official status. The other two, Remote Sensing Systems (RSS) and the University of Alabama (UAH), are based on a quite different method of measuring temperature data, by satellites. And these, as they have increasingly done in recent years, give a strikingly different picture. Neither shows last month as anything like the hottest March on record, any more than they showed 2014 as “the hottest year ever”.
    …

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/11561629/Top-scientists-start-to-examine-fiddled-global-warming-figures.html

  34. RiHo08 | April 25, 2015 at 7:10 pm |

    Controversy awaits as House Republicans roll out long-awaited bill to revamp U.S. research policy [link]

    “Clarification, 16 April, 3:11 p.m.: The proposed funding cut to DOE’s renewable energy programs has been clarified; it amounts to about one-third of the 2015 level.”

    Really no clarification needed. Super computer science, that is, using supercomputer output as experiments and evidence and peeking into the future will be down, eventually. There are still modelers heading agencies with fancy names who will be able to transfer funding from one Federal pocket to their own as the imbedded bureaucrats will do modeler’s bidding for another year and a half. It will be the big, non-duplicative climate research science that will eventually have to go before Congress, being sure not to turn off the committee hearing room’s air conditioning and opening the windows on a mid-summer’s night dream. They will be forced to ask for funding and have a very long and detailed plan on how to spend that money.

    For the next funding cycle, coming back to Congress, if modelers have made wild and unsubstantiated prediction, (sorry, projections), will find the request unfunded. Can modelers survive being unfunded one or maybe two presidential terms?

    Our State is allowing bake sales again after the First Lady’s school nutritional debacle. Maybe modelers can hold bake sales for their super predictions?

    At some point after 2016, science agency administrators, appointed or not, will have to make decisions about funding research or supporting IPCC. At this crucible, my guess is that most science administrators (excluding the POTUS current cabal) will opt to mosey on down the science trail than follow the comedic advocacy bunco artists.

    • PA | April 25, 2015 at 7:38 pm |

      Well, there is really no point in running long duration computer simulations with models that are misparameterized or funding that amount of computer time.

      That is just needlessly burned computer time for work that will have to be repeated when the models are corrected.

      When the models correctly reproduce the pause, that will indicate they are getting closer to “prime time” ready.

      So all they need is a little funding for testing and tuning.

    • JCH | April 25, 2015 at 8:26 pm |

      The scientist for RSS completely disagrees.

      The satellites are obviously doing something wrong with respect to the surface air temperature.

      How do satellites explain the sudden spike in mean sea level in 2014 and beginning of 2015? It’s rolling through the 7s in no time:

      http://www.aviso.altimetry.fr/fileadmin/images/data/Products/indic/msl/MSL_Serie_MERGED_Global_IB_RWT_GIA_Adjust.png

      • curryja | April 25, 2015 at 8:29 pm |

        interesting, noaa site doesn’t show the big seal level spike
        http://www.star.nesdis.noaa.gov/sod/lsa/SeaLevelRise/

        nor does the U. Colorado group
        http://sealevel.colorado.edu

      • Curious George | April 25, 2015 at 8:51 pm |

        Do I understand correctly that your scientist does not want to be quoted? Publish and perish.

      • jim2 | April 25, 2015 at 9:00 pm |

        JCH may have appended data from his bathtub to the chart.

      • JCH | April 25, 2015 at 9:02 pm |

        It’s on the RSS website.

      • AK | April 25, 2015 at 9:02 pm |

        The satellites are obviously doing something wrong with respect to the surface air temperature.

        The data doesn’t match my theory, it must be wrong.

        Or, as my father used to quote: “it’s well known this can’t happen”.

      • JCH | April 25, 2015 at 9:05 pm |

        This is NASA to the end of 2014:

        ftp://podaac.jpl.nasa.gov/allData/merged_alt/preview/global_mean_sea_level/GMSL_TPJAOS.jpg

        You can see the initial spike.

      • JCH | April 25, 2015 at 9:21 pm |

        Judy’s thugs are in play. This one is going to be fun. It’s a spike.

        My house was built in 1929, so yes, I have a gigantic green bathtub.

      • PA | April 25, 2015 at 9:26 pm |

        Well…

        AVISO is apparently plotting a couple months ahead of other services.

        The satellite altimetry vs tidal gauges is one of these interesting topics. The satellites should report the same sea level rise as the aggregate of the tidal gauges. They don’t.

        The addition of an arbitrary 0.3mm/year in 2011 just because sea levels weren’t rising fast enough, would make a suspicious person suspicious.

        About choice of reference, choice of geoide, compensation for measurement issues, compensation for the fact that everything is moving in 3 dimensions, etc.

        Calibration is a complicated game. However the result should compare to the tidal gauges, much like new weather instruments should be compatible with the old instruments and not require a lot of guessing on how much and which way they are off by data adjusters.

      • JCH | April 25, 2015 at 9:45 pm |

        First, the AVISO data matches my theory amazingly well. Too well. I’m just a dumb cowboy. There’s no way I could be this right.

      • Salvatore del Prete | April 25, 2015 at 10:07 pm |

        It is you JCH who is doing something wrong with your evaluation of the data. You are in denial of any data that does not support AGW theory.

      • PA | April 25, 2015 at 10:23 pm |

        JCH | April 25, 2015 at 9:45 pm |
        First, the AVISO data matches my theory amazingly well. Too well. I’m just a dumb cowboy. There’s no way I could be this right.

        We’ll see. I’ll make a note.

      • ristvan | April 25, 2015 at 11:46 pm |

        On SLR, see essay PseudoPrecision. Check the latest satellite design spec (cited in the essay). Which produces this up/down variance. GIGO.

      • cerescokid | April 26, 2015 at 7:52 am |

        A new business Photoshop Graphs

      • PA | April 26, 2015 at 7:59 am |

        ristvan | April 25, 2015 at 11:46 pm |
        On SLR, see essay PseudoPrecision. Check the latest satellite design spec (cited in the essay). Which produces this up/down variance. GIGO.

        0.3 mm of SLR is imaginary. About 1.0 appears to be PP or some other cause. The steric and melt contributions can be computed and aren’t what is observed by satellites – but they do match the tide gauges. The tide gauges are 200-220 mm/115 years= 1.7-1.9 mm/year

        This is like any of the climate measurement problems. Give the groups involved 1 year to close the loop on the estimates or cut their funding.

        If the SLR is 1.7-1.9 mm/year there is no reason to lie and claim it is 3.2 mm/year. If the SLR actually is 2.8 or 2.9 (it can’t be 3.2 because 0.3 is imaginary) they need to explain why the tide gauges and computation from melt/steric don’t match their number. There doesn’t seem to be a physically obvious or possible justification for the satellite SLR.

        If you punish stupidity by cutting funding you get less stupidity.

      • JCH | April 26, 2015 at 8:51 am |

        The graphs were made by AVISO and NASA. They were not faked by me.

        Judith Curry raised the only reasonable issue, which is none of the other groups showed a spike in their graph. I explained why I thought that is the case. Their graphs end on December 31, 2014, or earlier; AVISO uses 2015 data.

        PA looked and confirmed that AVISO used 2015 data.

        I have no idea whether or not the other groups typically lag this long before updating. Perhaps they’re double checking the data. Based upon OHC and SST in 2014, it’s plausible there’s an acceleration as AVISO is showing it tear through the 7s – currently 7.8 in a big hurry. Could be through the 8s by August.

        Almost all of data agrees with my theory, which is nature is a pansy, the leading pansy being the AMO, and ACO2 kicks major butt. The only data that doesn’t is the satellite SAT, and those boys really need to get to work and fix those clunkers.

      • cerescokid | April 26, 2015 at 9:12 am |

        .”Almost all of data agrees with my theory, which is nature is a pansy.”

        Now, I got a D in Botany, so I am no expert, but are you sure it is not a petunia?

        I like your metaphors. They bring it all down to the common folk like me.

        Meanwhile, back at the ranch, you do realize that Wada et al, has identified .8 mm/yr from groundwater abstraction as part of the mix. Lets see what CU etc come out with in the next few months. There were a few who got their bloomers in a twist from the sudden drop in 2011 which didnt continue so give it a few years to see if the trend continues. Personally, I am looking forward to the Arctic and Greenland data for the rest of this decade. That may be interesting.

      • JCH | April 26, 2015 at 9:31 am |

        There was a conversation here about Wada when it came out.

      • Turbulent Eddie | April 27, 2015 at 12:38 pm |

        The data doesn’t match my theory, it must be wrong.

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

    • JCH | April 25, 2015 at 8:45 pm |

      I don’t think they have 2015 data in their analysis yet, or if the do, it’s just those points they use.

    • jim2 | April 26, 2015 at 8:13 am |

      JCH – The Boulder link does use 2015 to Feb. The plot Dr. Curry linked is the one with seasonal signals removed so that the underlying trend is easier to spot.

      • JCH | April 27, 2015 at 1:40 pm |

        I think I mentioned that 2015 data, if it is there, is the little data points that are, well, shooting straight up.

      • jim2 | April 27, 2015 at 8:09 pm |

        JCH – Dr. Curry’s link does have the 2015 data and it IS NOT shooting straight up. The chart she linked shows DE-SEASONALIZED data. I’m shouting because you seem to have a seeing problem.

      • JCH | April 27, 2015 at 8:27 pm |

        2014.7051 65.820
        2014.7323 57.971
        2014.7594 60.677
        2014.7866 67.284
        2014.8137 68.724
        2014.8409 65.253
        2014.8680 64.982
        2014.8951 59.368
        2014.9223 61.601
        2014.9494 70.758
        ================
        It was edited in Feb, but this is the data they link.

    • JCH | April 27, 2015 at 1:38 pm |

      The only data that does not match my theory is UAH and RSS, and the scientist for RSS says the data that does match my theory is more accurate.

    • micro6500 | April 27, 2015 at 3:42 pm |

      Salvatore,

      Satellite data is the only reliable data.

      No, not really, but what’s published as temp series is so processed, and focused on average temp, it’s easy to hide whatever they want.

      For instants, surface stations show that while indistinguishable from 0.0F, it does cool a little more at night than it warmed the day before (-0.004F)1940-2013 (30 of the last 34 years have been negative).

  36. Joseph | April 25, 2015 at 10:19 pm |

    Here is my science question that someone might be able to help me with. If the climate is more chaotic than predictable wouldn’t enhancing the greenhouse effect through CO2 emissions possibly cause more chaos and unpredictability because you are artificially destabilizing the system by adding energy?

    • ...and Then There's Physics | April 26, 2015 at 4:09 am |

      No, because – as you probably realise – that it is chaotic means that we can’t model it and, therefore, the models must be wrong. Once we reject the models (which we have to do given that the system is inherently chaotic) it becomes obvious that it is self-limiting and that climate change, therefore, presents no dangers. Clear now?

      • Turbulent Eddie | April 27, 2015 at 12:29 pm |

        No, because – as you probably realise – that it is chaotic means that we can’t model it and, therefore, the models must be wrong

        Almost sounds like you’re getting it.

        Predictability is the delusion the entire exercise has been operating under from the beginning.

      • David Wojick | April 27, 2015 at 6:11 pm |

        What you say is basically correct, ATTP, but somehow I do not think you realize this. Chaos is a powerful form of stability, because the system stays within the strange attractor. The price of this stability is the intrinsic unpredictability of its behavior within these limits. So what it does is oscillate in a random looking fashion within limits and this is just what we see in the climate data; unpredictable oscillation within limits is the standard pattern of most climate data on all scales.

    • JCH | April 26, 2015 at 6:13 am |

      If you poke a normal angry beast with a stick, maybe, but a complex and chaotic angry beast is usually soothed by being tormented with a big stick. Much like rubbing a crocodile’s belly will put it to sleep, poking a chaotic angry beast with a stick makes it putty in you hands. Think nonlinear beast becoming cooler, less hostile, and full off kind and gentle surprises like cheap energy for people making $2 a day and suntans on Canadians.

      • ...and Then There's Physics | April 26, 2015 at 6:31 am |

        Maybe the next generation of climate models should involve lots of crocodiles and climate modellers with sticks?

      • JCH | April 26, 2015 at 6:48 am |

        Crocodiles are linear. You poke them they eat you.

      • David Springer | April 26, 2015 at 9:12 am |

        …and Then There’s Physics | April 26, 2015 at 6:31 am |
        Maybe the next generation of climate models should involve lots of crocodiles and climate modellers with sticks?

        ====================================================

        That would be a lot cheaper than satellite-borne instrumentation and the modelers can pencil-whip the crocodile data so it says what they want just like what they do with everything from tree rings to ARGO so I think it’s a very good idea – same quality conclusions at a lower cost.

        In the real world outside academia where we don’t have the luxury of being consistently wrong and keeping our jobs at the same time that’s called a win-win situation.

        Thanks for playing.

    • jim2 | April 26, 2015 at 8:10 am |

      Joseph – If climate were predictable, the many climate models running on some of the very best supercomputers available and using the very best climate theory we have would have predicted the pause. They didn’t. There’s your answer.

    • PA | April 26, 2015 at 8:20 am |

      Global warmers have this tipping point theory.

      This is why all the lying about the MWP. If the MWP was warmer we aren’t near a tipping point yet, so the MWP must have been colder – so they say. The sea level was 6 inches higher during the MWP. We aren’t at a tipping yet.

      The last Interglacial was about 2°C hotter. No sign of a tipping point there. The early part of this interglacial was warmer – no sign of a tipping point there either – in fact the only nasty tipping point in the last 2 million years is that things can get drastically colder.

      The “More CO2 will make us roast like barbecued chicken” theory appears to be a story designed to scare small children without a factual foundation.

    • AK | April 26, 2015 at 9:18 am |

      If the climate is more chaotic than predictable wouldn’t enhancing the greenhouse effect through CO2 emissions possibly cause more chaos and unpredictability because you are artificially destabilizing the system by adding energy?

      Perhaps (IMO). It can’t be ruled out. Although IIRC warmer epochs tend to be more stable, according to the paleo record. But that record is lucky to record inter-annual variations. Changes to weekly/monthly weather patterns (such as blocking highs) AFAIK don’t resolve.

      IMO there is a greater CO2 risk from direct destabilization of the ecology than via climate, but similar risks exist for land use changes, over-grazing, over-fishing, whaling to the point that many species are extinct or threatened with it, and other human activity. Probably including things we haven’t thought of yet.

      What are we going to do? Shove humanity (or some tiny surviving fragment of it) back into the stone age to avoid risks that might happen, and that we can probably adapt to even if they occur? Or focus on advances in technology that will make adaptation easier?

    • ulriclyons | April 26, 2015 at 10:25 am |

      “..wouldn’t enhancing the greenhouse effect through CO2 emissions possibly cause more chaos and unpredictability because you are artificially destabilizing the system by adding energy?”

      Increased greenhouse gas forcing is supposed to make the Arctic and North Atlantic Oscillations increasingly positive, it has done a lousy job of that since 1995. What strikes me most though is that the AO&NAO through 2009-2013 reached daily negative values not seen since previous solar minima. Which suggests that warming the globe a degree by whatever means makes little difference to such natural variability.

    • Ragnaar | April 27, 2015 at 3:32 pm |

      http://www.seagrant.umn.edu/newsletter/2008/05/images/graph.jpg
      How about we consider an airplane? In is unstable at lower and higher engine energy outputs. At lower speeds it will stall. At very high speeds it also becomes less stable in that structure failure is possible for instance with wind shear. Sudden up or down drafts can stress the wings beyond their limits. Our ideal plane can fly both slow and fast. It has a flat operating speed distribution. We want to be able to fly a lot faster than our take off and landing speeds. A high performance plane generally has a tight distribution and is less stable. It is more sensitive to small changes in engine power, more likely to tip over. Is the climate a fighter or a stable transport airplane?

    • matthewrmarler | April 27, 2015 at 5:07 pm |

      Joseph: If the climate is more chaotic than predictable wouldn’t enhancing the greenhouse effect through CO2 emissions possibly cause more chaos and unpredictability because you are artificially destabilizing the system by adding energy?

      Maybe. It has been proposed that increased CO2 will increase the contrast between drought years and wet years, and increase the contrast between cool years and warm years.

  37. Mike Flynn | April 26, 2015 at 1:35 am |

    Joseph,

    Possibly. Possibly not. Who knows?

  38. John Costigane | April 26, 2015 at 3:50 am |

    Judith,

    Good to see the Republican House aiming to impact science funding for the better. Your testimony added much to their argument for change. The consensus has enjoyed broad but support.but how will it fare as its supporting pillars are dismantled?

  39. richardswarthout | April 26, 2015 at 9:12 am |

    PA

    “The “More CO2 will make us roast like barbecued chicken” theory appears to be a story designed to scare small children without a factual foundation.”

    One fact, not heard much, is that the added warmth driving the hysteria is a matter of higher lows; surface temperature differences between night and day, between seasons, and between latitudes are getting smaller. Might be beneficial – dunno.

    Richard

  40. matthewrmarler | April 26, 2015 at 1:16 pm |

    Here are some more comments that went into the bore hole:

    BEGIN

    40 Radge Havers: I’d invite you, for example, to check out one of your borehole buddies in particular (the well known single-named troll) and ask youself if that’s really the kind of company you want to be keeping.

    I read and write here, at ClimateEtc, and at WUWT. I am little concerned with company and much concerned with recommendations for further reading. Rob Ellison in particular (I do not know if that is to whom you refer), recommended a book by Henk Dijkstra, titled “Nonlinear Physical Oceanography”, which I bought and read much of. I recommend it, and another by the same author titled “Nonlinear Climate Dynamics”. I download and read most papers to which I see links.

    But at the end of the day the issue still haunting the political sphere is: is there AGW and should we be concerned about it?

    Also, with reference to CO2-induced warming, will any of the proposed remedies have beneficial effects? I am in favor of keeping the debate alive, because there is plenty of evidence in the scientific literature that the warnings of future danger from future CO2 have been exaggerated.

    Comment by MatthewRMarler — 24 Apr 2015 @ 11:17 PM

    46, Brian Dodge: If a=b, it is also true that b=a; or, from the same reference, “The fact that all known substances in the two-phase region fulfill the Clausius-Clapeyron equation provides the general validity of the 1st and 2nd laws of thermodynamics!” Accusing scientists of having a (religious) belief in water vapor feedback is equal to saying the faculty of MIT is just a bunch of religious zealots. – See more at: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2015/04/an-online-university-course-on-the-science-of-climate-science-denial/comment-page-1/#comment-628999

    What I wrote is that no model accurately models the distribution of the water vapor in the actual atmosphere. C-C provides the equilibrium water vapor pressure, but the system is never in equilibrium, and the C-C relation almost never accurately represents the water vapor content of the actual atmosphere. I began with this: I forecast that along the way the student will learn that it is “scientific” to have a strong belief in a positive water vapor feedback; but that it is some cognitive defect to have an equally strong doubt. – See more at: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2015/04/an-online-university-course-on-the-science-of-climate-science-denial/comment-page-1/#comment-628999

    If we drop the word “belief”, then I maintain that it will be taught that it is a cognitive deficit of some kind to doubt the possibility of positive water vapor feedback, but not a cognitive deficit to doubt the possibility of a negative water vapor feedback, though the evidence concerning the water vapor feedback (including cloud cover changes) is full of holes.

    Comment by Matthew R Marler — 26 Apr 2015 @ 12:40 AM

    END

    They post misquotations and insults, but do not consistently quote exact language or address specific liabilities in the knowledge base. They do not like interchanges which clearly point out their errors or limitations.

    • Jim D | April 26, 2015 at 1:45 pm |

      Perhaps you are conflating C-C theory with the constant relative humidity assumption sometimes referred to (e.g. Arrhenius). While the constant RH assumption uses C-C, it is not C-C, but an additional assumption. C-C is solid thermodynamics.

      • Turbulent Eddie | April 27, 2015 at 11:37 am |

        Arrhenius = erroneous?

        The water vapour capacity of air limits but does not determine the water vapour content of air.

        Ascending air means increasing relative humidity due to lapse rate.
        But, ascending air also means decreasing RH due to precipitation.

        Descending air means decreasing RH.

        Motion of the atmosphere in all directions determines the location of water vapour and it’s not clear that the simplistic assumption of constant RH holds.

        Indeed, the top of the troposphere is modeled to have close to zero warming.
        So the top layers of the troposphere would have no change in RH, but the atmosphere moves, so this layer descending to the lower levels would have a decrease in RH compared to a no CO2 atmosphere.

      • Jim D | April 27, 2015 at 9:19 pm |

        The atmosphere’s water vapor content is temperature limited. Raise the temperature and the water vapor eventually rises to its new limit, but there is a transient period due to the ocean delay. The ocean acts as an infinite reservoir of vapor in contact with the atmosphere. Only the colder temperature parts of the atmosphere keeps more from being in the atmosphere because it condenses and falls out.

      • Turbulent Eddie | April 28, 2015 at 8:18 am |

        Raise the temperature and the water vapor eventually rises to its new limit

        No.

        Here is today’s mean relative humidity from 850 to 500 millibars.
        http://weather.unisys.com/nam/init/nam_rh_init.gif

        Large areas closer to zero than to saturation.

    • David Young | April 27, 2015 at 2:37 am |

      Welcome to Real Climate Matt. You must remember that the sponsor of this thread is Mann with it seems Cook as his right hand man. Both are in my view pretty much hopelessly biased and unfair as a matter of course

  41. Danny Thomas | April 27, 2015 at 8:40 pm |

    “This does not mean that these extreme events are “caused” by climate change; rather, it means they were made more likely to occur in a statistical sense. (The difference is crucial in climate science circles.) And for even more rare events, the likelihood would be even higher, says Fischer. “A general tendency we see is, if we pick even higher thresholds, if you look at 1 in 10,000 days, 1-in-30-year events, which we can do at least for hot extremes, the increase becomes even bigger,” he says.”
    http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2015/04/27/study-global-warming-has-already-dramatically-upped-the-odds-of-extreme-heat-events/

  42. Danny Thomas | April 28, 2015 at 3:57 pm |

    http://www.livescience.com/50649-antarctica-dry-valleys-water-life.html

    “urther research may reveal that coastal regions are important nutrient sources for Antarctica’s iron-depleted seas, she said.”

    leading to?

  44. Danny Thomas | May 4, 2015 at 3:54 pm |

    OT except reference that “warming waters” may cause greater occurrence, but on topic for earlier discussion (Rud, et al) on hypoxia and wondering if this may relate to “What’s going on in the Atlantic” post: So covering all those bases: http://www.biogeosciences.net/12/2597/2015/bg-12-2597-2015.pdf