Week in review – science edition

by Judith Curry

A few things that caught my eye this past week.

In the news

4 reasons the Atlantic hurricane season has been so quiet and is likely to stay that way: [link]

Total US catastrophe losses (weather-related and total) in 1st half of 2015 “far below” average says @MunichRe –>  [link]

A Chilling Update on the Ticking Seismic Bomb off the Pacific Northwest Coast” [link]

Men marry multiple wives to beat drought [link] cue claims that climate change will turn us all into bigamists

Met Office’s @markpmcc dispels those myths about Heathrow record high temp being untrustworthy [link]

Dr Roy Spencer: “New Pause-Busting Temperature Dataset Implies Only 1.5 C Climate Sensitivity” [link]

It’s July. Why on Earth Is There Still Snow in Boston? [link]

University of Reading finds climate change has helped end South Sahara droughts, [link]

“Physicists Predict Rapid Fall In Solar Activity” [link]  …

There is now also a raw data version of the @BerkeleyEarth land surface temperature dataset. [link]

 

New papers

Yet one more reason that warming oceans matter: scientists find surprising reason for faster Arctic meltdown [link]

Variations in mid-ocean ridge CO2 emissions driven by glacial cycles [link]

New paper: W Antarctic glacier “Ice mass loss (2003–2014) was approximately [10 times] smaller than between 1995–2003 [link] …

New paper finds trees absorb more solar radiation under cloudy skys vs. clear skys [link]

New paper finds models underestimated Earth’s evapotranspiration COOLING by 24% over 12 years. [link]

Sun’s activity controls Greenland temperatures [link]

Model performance re:US temps: “Trend rate in simulated data seriously overestimated. This result is unsatisfactory.” [link]  …
New paper:Biased thermohaline exchanges with the arctic across the Iceland-Faroe Ridge in ocean climate models [link]

New paper finds land-surface uncertainties important for prediction of 2003 Europe hot summer [link]

New paper: “After > decade of soil moisture deficit, tropical rainforest trees maintain photosynthetic capacity” [link] …

New paper:Vertical downward transport of anthropogenic carbon to deeper ocean could play leading role in carbon cycle [link]

“German Geologist: “Sea Level Rise Lagging Behind Projections” …No Detectable Acceleration!” [link]

“Dendroecology suggests that NOT everything is caused by climate change” [link]

About science

Hubert Lamb:  Ways of knowing climate. Climate model obsession”obscures past&present debates about which types of climate knowledge are important” [link]  …

 

Can public engagement stunt academic careers? [link]   …

 

293 responses to “Week in review – science edition

  1. Well, I love the approach of Dr. Roy Spencer: Embrace your opponent’s claims, follow the logic, and show how that yields a diametrically opposed conclusion to the one they are seeking.

    Naturally, such analysis can not stand, as it is opposed to the collective wisdom, but I for one enjoy the futile attempt.

    • “I enjoy the futile attempt.”

      Futile in the sense that it’s not going to win the climate war any more than a single bullet, no matter how well aimed, can end an actual war. But that doesn’t mean we won’t prevail eventually. In fact, there’s little doubt that we will.

      I’d say we’re already winning. Ever notice how people almost never change their minds in the direction of alarmism. Or at least, I’ve not seen it. It’s almost always the other way, with individual alarmists slowly seeing the light.

  2. “Total US catastrophe losses (weather-related and total) in 1st half of 2015 “far below””

    Realclimate types often argue (I think wrongly), that because fossil fuels are in the interests of Big Oil/Big Energy (wrongly because these folks have the ability to push out any form of energy they want, and expanding the percentage of GDP dedicated to energy can improve their position), consider that insurance companies have something to gain by proving their losses are on account of non-rate payer’s activities. That is, the Automobile driver in California costs the New Orlean’s home-owner, and so CA drivers are on the hook for Insurance company payouts. Certainly, the insurance companies are interested in this angle.

    • Fifty percent of all auto accidents in Los Angeles are hit and run:

      http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/02/10/us-usa-losangeles-hitandrun-idUSKBN0LE2Z120150210

      Pay up!

      If you like your borders you can keep them.

    • I read the link. “Far below” looked more like “about equal”.

      Which means that if this keeps up for the second half of 2015, this year will have had double the average catastrophic losses of the past five years.

      It’s also worth noting that such losses have been increasing dramatically over the past half century.

      • David Springer

        WTF are you talking about, Pratt? First line of the report:

         Insured losses in US totaled $8.2 billion – far below 2000 – 2014 average loss of $11.2 billion (Jan-June)

        Farther down it confirms that worldwide losses are far under the Jan-June average for the past 30 years.

        Were you having a senior moment or just being dishonest in having not noted that all comparisons were Jan-June?

      • It is meaningless to compare insurance payouts for events in the first six months of 2015 with those of earlier years because the biggest payouts for 2015 have yet to be made. More meaningful is number of events shown on page 5 of the report: 80 for 2015 (Jan-Jun) vs. an average of 70 for 2000-2014 (Jan-Jun).

        It can take quite some time before actual insured losses have been determined, see for example the time frames in this article:

        http://www.nj.com/politics/index.ssf/2015/03/fema_to_reopen_142000_claims_by_hurricane_sandy_ho.html

        Unless there is some profound reason why the insured cost per event turns out in the end to be dramatically less than for 2000-2014, the combination of more events for 2015 (Jan-Jun) and the rising cost of everything since 2000 does not look good for the insurance industry.

      • Vaughan writes-
        “It is meaningless to compare insurance payouts for events in the first six months of 2015 with those of earlier years because the biggest payouts for 2015 have yet to be made. ”

        The same data source appears to be comparing reported losses to date vs. losses reported at the same point in the prior year. Your argument has no merit.

      • The same data source appears to be comparing reported losses to date vs. losses reported at the same point in the prior year.

        Very unlikely. It would be so much extra effort to do so (instead of simply reporting the insured losses for those periods) that they’d have made a point of saying that they’d gone to the extra effort.

      • Vaughan- They would just be able to look at the data from the same period in the prior years.

      • Easy for you, difficult for them.

  3. As an ecology minded person I have felt that over the last decade more and more people, especially younger people, have taken the position that trying to fix any one thing for any one species is useless because until we stop climate change, nothing else matters. Further there is no point studying any problem because its all due to climate change. I have come across this attitude in everything from sea turtle conservation to black bear management. Given the tone of the dendrology article, it would appear I am not the only one getting this feeling. Maybe this is why climate change is so popular. It is the ecological equivalent of “determining root causes for complex problems”, the best excuse going for doing nothing about a bad situation.

  4. Danny Thomas

    Re: Dr. Spencer. Gotta love the term “Karlized”.
    Better than my “pause in the pause of the pause” due to Nieves.

    • I guess Karlized with replace enHansened.

    • David Wojick

      Karl has created a real problem for the consensus movement, where he is a leader. Do they continue to try to explain the pause or follow his lead and use his adjusted data? If he is ignored it may hurt his authority. If some follow him the movement is divided.

      • I have no problems with new temperature data sets. Those sets rather emphatically show that adjusting temperature series remains a work in progress.

        As long as these sets show significant differences and none are refuted by methodology errors, I think that papers that use temperature series might have to do sensitivity studies. We need to be on the look out for those authors who might use that data set that makes their conclusions significantly better.

        I just posted at Brandon’s blog asking Victor for status on benchmarking temperature data sets.

      • I am curious whether the Karl et al data set is in greater or lesser agreement with CMIP 5 climate models temperature trends.

        The longer term trends between our existing observed data sets appear to remain in reasonable agreement and give long term trends significantly less than almost all the models.

        Whatever happen to the initial view that these 15 or so year trends mean little in light of the natural variability. There seems to be a big to do about noise – and it comes from all sides of the AGW debate.

        Further has the Karl data set been shown to be significantly different than the other existing data sets – and particularly over the past 15 or so years?

    • Steven Mosher

      Karlized.

      Nothing like personalizing a technical debate. It brings such clarity.

      • Don Monfort

        Yes, declaring that the debate is over brings clarity.

      • “Nothing like personalizing a technical debate. It brings such clarity.”

        Like it’s not personalized now.

      • “Nothing like personalizing a technical debate. It brings such clarity.”

        Adds to the theater.

      • Danny Thomas

        Steven,
        Well, if proven to be correct, I’d expect Dr. Karl to take is as a term of endearment.
        If not, eh, not so much. Personally, I’m leaning Nieves.

      • Steven Mosher: Nothing like personalizing a technical debate.

        Now you object to naming things after people in science? “Winsorized”, “Pasteurized”, “Einstein summation convention”, etc?

      • Steven Mosher

        Yes, declaring that the debate is over brings clarity.

        name that fallacy boys and girls

      • Steven Mosher

        “Steven,
        Well, if proven to be correct, I’d expect Dr. Karl to take is as a term of endearment.
        If not, eh, not so much. Personally, I’m leaning Nieves.”

        There is no PROVING CORRECT.

        You have the data you have.
        you have various choices and methods
        Those yeild a range of answers.

        None is provable correct.

      • Danny Thomas

        “There is no PROVING CORRECT.”
        Okay, so why should anyone bother “doing their own damn science” as they (whomever they are) cannot be correct nor can they be incorrect.

        And Steven Mosher is equally as correct as Danny Thomas as Jim D and AK and Peter Lang and Capt. D as Rud and Tony and Dr. Curry and so on?

        Why is there a big debate?

      • Steven Mosher

        “Steven Mosher: Nothing like personalizing a technical debate.

        Now you object to naming things after people in science? “Winsorized”, “Pasteurized”, “Einstein summation convention”, etc?”

        problem is Spencer didnt NAME anything.. see nonce.

      • Steven Mosher

        ““Nothing like personalizing a technical debate. It brings such clarity.”

        Like it’s not personalized now.”

        I like this defense. next time Obama violates the constitution I will say
        no problem he has done it before

      • Steven Mosher: problem is Spencer didnt NAME anything.. see nonce.

        I expect that lexeme to be used frequently, for example to mean “Adjusting good measurements to conform more closely to bad measurements”. Sort of “complementary” to empirical Bayesian estimation in hierarchical models.

      • Steven Mosher

        Danny

        ““There is no PROVING CORRECT.”
        Okay, so why should anyone bother “doing their own damn science” as they (whomever they are) cannot be correct nor can they be incorrect.

        wrong. go read the relativity of wrong. There is more correct
        and less correct. more wrong and less wrong.

        http://chem.tufts.edu/answersinscience/relativityofwrong.htm

        SECOND: there may be correct but there is no PROVING
        correct as in a formal proof.

        And Steven Mosher is equally as correct as Danny Thomas as Jim D and AK and Peter Lang and Capt. D as Rud and Tony and Dr. Curry and so on?

        Again wrong. Saying that there is no PROVABLE correct, does NOT entail, that all attempts to be correct are equal.

        Why is there a big debate?

        There isnt.There are people who believe in global warming view and there are people who mis understand that view and call it a debate.
        There really isnt a debate. Once there was, but thats over.

      • Danny Thomas

        Steven,
        I’m plenty comfortable with the relativity of correctness I disagree with your perceptions of it’s use. If one puts forth a theory 180 degrees opposite of another it’s as close to being proven incorrect as can be done using the term in general conversation. In the context you’re suggesting there is no such thing as “absolute” proof and I get that. Why you chose to pick this nit I do not understand as when you try to correct me by stating my thinking/application is wrong then in fact your application is also wrong.
        Either Karl or Nieves is more “wrong” than the other. That is where the debate is so for your words: “There isnt.There are people who believe in global warming view and there are people who mis understand that view and call it a debate.
        There really isnt a debate. Once there was, but thats over.” Well………your wrong (see your own definitions above).

      • Steven Mosher

        “I expect that lexeme to be used frequently, for example to mean “Adjusting good measurements to conform more closely to bad measurements”. Sort of “complementary” to empirical Bayesian estimation in hierarchical models.”

        Your expectation does not change the facts.
        and Karlize is not a lexeme.

        if you looked at walk, walks, walked, walking,
        then WALK would be the lexeme… a basic unit of meaning

        best to stick to your knitting,

        If I wanted to make your argument…. the better thing to say is that
        karlize is akin to bowdlerize. See? karl removed things that were offensive. much better argument.

        in science naming things tends to be honorific, so you probably should have selected bowdlerize as your example.

        thank u for playing

      • It looks like Mosher gave willy a day off.

  5. The transient sensitivity from the data can be shown by plotting CO2 with temperature and matching the gradients. This match is 1 C per 100 ppm and corresponds to an effective transient sensitivity of 2.4 C per doubling. I am not sure what Spencer is doing different, and maybe someone can explain.
    http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/mean:12/from:1950/plot/gistemp/mean:12/from:1950/plot/esrl-co2/scale:0.01/offset:-3.3

    • Maybe it is because Spencer decided to ignore land and the poles that were warming twice as fast. He doesn’t say why, but that is not how you compute sensitivity.

      • We care about the temperature where we live. Few live at very high latitudes.

      • Land, however. Isn’t ERSST just oceans?

      • Also, if he is redefining sensitivity to his areas, he can’t compare it to CMIP5 global values, can he?

      • I suppose he used oceans but that’s Okay by me. Regional sensitivity would be interesting to look at.

      • Maybe it is because Spencer decided to ignore land and the poles that were warming twice as fast.

        Check the Arctic for three decades:
        http://climatewatcher.webs.com/Stadium1975.gif

        Now check the Arctic for the last decade:
        http://climatewatcher.webs.com/Stadium2005.gif

      • Jim D: Maybe it is because Spencer decided to ignore land

        It’s the depth-weighted average ocean temperature change. He wrote that straight out.

      • He said it but then compared to CMIP5 which is apples to oranges without stating that. It could easily mislead someone.

      • JimD, “He said it but then compared to CMIP5 which is apples to oranges without stating that. It could easily mislead someone.”

        “If I run the model (available in spreadsheet form here) with the same radiative forcings used by the big fancy CMIP5 models (RCP 6.0 radiative forcing scenario), I get a temperature increase that roughly matches the average of all of the CMIP5 models, for the 60N-60S ocean areas (average CMIP5 results for the global oceans from the KNMI Climate Explorer):”

        You can mask 60s-60N tos(temperature ocean surface) on knmi.

      • CMIP5 has land and the poles, while Spencer does not. There is a difference in effect even if you mask them out in CMIP5.

      • JimD, “CMIP5 has land and the poles, while Spencer does not. There is a difference in effect even if you mask them out in CMIP5.”

        Masking means cutting out. If you mask 60S-60N tos you would be excluding land and poles.

      • The limited ocean surface temperature is not independent of these other areas that add up to almost half the surface area.

      • JimD, “The limited ocean surface temperature is not independent of these other areas that add up to almost half the surface area.”

        Doesn’t really need to be independent. If you are comparing SST observations to SST model estimates. And I believe it is closer to 35% than 50% of area.

        The good thing about SST and masking to 60S – 60N.is that you can compare absolute temperatures from which you can estimate an effective energy.

        http://climexp.knmi.nl/data/icmip5_tos_Omon_modmean_rcp60_0-360E_-60-60N_n_+++.png

        http://climexp.knmi.nl/data/iersstv4_0-360E_-60-60N_n.png

        The model mean runs about a degree lower than the observations 60S-60N. If you include more of the polar regions you get into more sea ice versus ocean uncertainty.

      • Is Spencer using an ocean world as an approximation to the real world (I don’t know), and wouldn’t CMIP5 be a better approximation because at least it has these other surface types and atmospheric and ocean flows, weather, latitude variation, etc?

      • JimD, “Is Spencer using an ocean world as an approximation to the real world (I don’t know)..”

        That particular simple energy balance model he is using is ocean with heat uptake (to 2000 meters).

        http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/Spencer-Braswell-2014-APJAS1.pdf

        It really represents the majority of energy so if you want a “global” surface temperature sensitivity you would need an amplifying factor for anomaly which doesn’t represent energy all that well.

      • @Ragnaar: Regional sensitivity would be interesting to look at.

        Agreed. Take the region to be the surface of Venus. Sensitivity should be around 400 °C/doubling of CO2.

        If that seems a tad high it’s because doubling the CO2 in Venus’s atmosphere would raise its troposphere from 60 km to 120 km, since most of Venus’s atmosphere is CO2. (A bit less if compression is taken into account.) Venus’s surface temperature is determined largely by its lapse rate of around 7 °C/km. Assuming the troposphere remains at around 220 K despite the rise in altitude of 60 km, the extra altitude of the troposphere will add 7*60 = 420 °C to the surface temperature.

      • David Springer

        The surface of the rocky crust on Venus is so well insulated that internal heat is being felt at the surface. If you dig down 10 kilometers into the crust on the earth it gets as hot as the surface of Venus. Neither temperature is due to the greenhouse effect above but rather from the well insulated molten core of the planet below it. Duh.

      • @DS: The surface of the rocky crust on Venus is so well insulated that internal heat is being felt at the surface.

        By SB Venus’s surface radiates some 15,000 W/m2 upwards. You are proposing that this is the amount of heat leaking through Venus’s well-insulated crust.

        If you dig down 10 kilometers into the crust on the earth it gets as hot as the surface of Venus.

        Quite so, and 0.08 W/m2 leaks through Earth’s well-insulated crust. How do you account for nearly 200,000 times as much heat leaking through Venus’s crust as through Earth’s crust?

        There is furthermore essentially no seismic activity in Venus’s crust (no ocean ridges or volcanoes) as well as a lower thermal gradient than for Earth’s crust, making the upward flux through Venus’s crust likely to be considerably less than 0.08 W/m2, a far cry from the 15,000 W/m2 required by your explanation of the high surface temperature of Venus.

        Neither temperature is due to the greenhouse effect above but rather from the well insulated molten core of the planet below it.

        You appear to be confusing lapse rate with greenhouse effect. My calculations made no reference to the latter.

        Venus’s temperature profile as shown here

        http://www.astro.wisc.edu/~townsend/resource/teaching/diploma/venus-t.gif

        is almost a straight line from 33 km to 58 km, at respective temperatures of 450K and 260K. This gives a lapse rate of (450 − 260)/(58 − 33) = 190//25 = 7.6 °C/km.

        Apparently temperature on Venus is better understood on WUWT than on CE (though Steve Goddard repeated Rich Townsend’s mistake of using two points too close together to accurately estimate lapse rate)

        Doubling Venus’s CO2 will raise the troposphere by some 60 km (actually a bit less if pressure is taken into account). Assuming the tropopause remains at 220 K, this will add 7.6*60 = 450 °C to the surface temperature, less when pressure is considered.

      • vp, “By SB Venus’s surface radiates some 15,000 W/m2 upwards. You are proposing that this is the amount of heat leaking through Venus’s well-insulated crust.”

        At close to 100 atmospheres of pressure and 99% CO2 I don’t think you can use just radiant physics. The temperature at the surface is about 462 C. If you have a boiler operating at 462 C, the radiant heat loss is often negligible at one atmosphere in a standard atmosphere. Adding standard insulation to inhibit convection would reduct the majority of the heat loss and then a radiant barrier with low specific heat capacity can add to that. If your radiant barrier has a high heat capacity, it just gets hot. What do you estimate the R-value of a super-critical CO2 insulation blanket to be?

      • I brought up regional sensitivity as a more meaningful metric. Yes, the polar regions might do back flips but I don’t live there. We might say the sensitivity of the CONUS over the last 10 years is near zero, even though CO2 causes warming. There will objections to saying this but it was the outcome. Could be 4.0 over the next 10 years. What a farmer wants to know is what’s likely to happen? They’ve learned 10 year stretches of no change is possible with rising CO2 levels. It’s like knowing the World GDP growth rate or unemployment rate. If my product has a local market I want to know the local growth rate and unemployment rate. We pick our information sources. World or local? Maybe when global warming can’t find traction, it’s because people care about their situation. Don’t give them World information. They don’t wish to buy that. Raise their property taxes 15%, that gets their attention. What I want is the climate forecast for Southwest Minnesota.

      • Doubling the volume of CO2 in Venus’s atmosphere would double the troposphere’s height? Please explain.

      • @cd: If you have a boiler operating at 462 C, the radiant heat loss is often negligible at one atmosphere in a standard atmosphere. Adding standard insulation to inhibit convection would reduct the majority of the heat loss and then a radiant barrier with low specific heat capacity can add to that. If your radiant barrier has a high heat capacity, it just gets hot. What do you estimate the R-value of a super-critical CO2 insulation blanket to be?

        Say, cd, why don’t you and David Springer come to some agreement and then get back here? Right now you and he are so far apart on what CO2 does on Venus that arguing with the two of you in tandem is like the Mexican police trying to reconcile sparring druglords.

      • @vdv: Doubling the volume of CO2 in Venus’s atmosphere would double the troposphere’s height? Please explain.

        That was based on the naïve idea that if you had 3 oz of fluid in a container and added another 3 oz, the height would double. I eagerly await your more sophisticated analysis.

      • @Ragnaar: What I want is the climate forecast for Southwest Minnesota.

        I’ve been starting to realize that’s all David Springer wants too, mutatis mutandis.

        The IPCC assessment reports probably don’t have much to offer either of you there. What you want is just too granular for climate science to be of much help.

    • When has anything he has ever said or done mattered? You think the honesty of RSS exposes him for what he is?

      • David Wojick

        RSS uses model driven adjustments, so is unacceptable. UAH is the gold standard.

      • Their own NCEP temperature data does not verify the data NOAA keeps touting. It is much closer to what the satellite data suggest.

      • According to NOAA’s own NCEP data, June is 6th warmest since 2000 ,exceeded by 1998,2002,2005,2006,2007.

        How is that to be reconciled?

      • You think the honesty of RSS exposes him for what he is?

        Can you be specific?

        RSS & UAH analysis methods are very similar and the basic point – the ‘free’ troposphere is not warming as fast as the surface – is corroborated by both.

        The UAH 6.0 analysis supposedly has either a subset or main data set that uses only the near nadir samples, meaning even better correlation between MSU and RAOB data are possible, giving us even higher confidence in the MSU data.

        Now, the ‘free troposphere’ may not be warming as fast as the surface, because large parts of the surface ( the Eastern Pacific ) have been actually cooling since the MSU data series started:
        http://climatewatcher.webs.com/SatelliteEraMap.gif

        That might be a transitory state or something longer term.
        But in either case, it is not something that was modelled to occur:
        http://climatewatcher.webs.com/SatelliteEraModel.gif

      • UAH is the fools gold standard, I’ll give you that.

      • Steven Mosher

        “RSS uses model driven adjustments, so is unacceptable. UAH is the gold standard.”

        The last change appears to have brough the “gold standard” in line with RSS…

        if RSS is unacceptable then anything close to is wrong.

      • Funny how the serious question I presented about NOAA’S own data NCEP not supporting what they are putting out from their manipulated data sources.

        Go figure ,must be that blind faith.

      • You are in denial ,the NCEP(noaa’s own data ) data does not support the data they are putting out.

        Do you understand? Apparently not.

      • According to NOAA’s own NCEP data, June is 6th warmest since 2000 ,exceeded by 1998,2002,2005,2006,2007. How is that to be reconciled?

        Easy.

        1. Monthly temperatures are meaningless because they fluctuate at random. You need a minimum of a five-year average before such comparisons are meaningful.

        2. Since you didn’t give the URL of where you found the data, you could say anything you like and no one could contradict you.

    • David Wojick

      Jim D, your matching method seems to assume that the temp change is entirely due to the CO2 change, which no one asserts.

      • Yes, which is why it is an effective sensitivity. CO2 is about 80% of the forcing with other GHGs and aerosols adding into the mix. The correlation is evidence for the dominance of CO2 and that the other forcing is proportional to it. The skeptics are saying that even though this fits so well, AGW is still almost certainly wrong when it explains this. They are put in a tight corner when it comes to the data and theory agreeing this well.

      • David Wojick

        I thought in AGW land use changes were supposed to account for about a third of the warming. If so then even in AGW your method is way off.

      • David Wojick

        Why would the other GHG forcings be proportional to the CO2 increase, much less land use changes? What is this, back of the green envelope science? Do you really claim that we can derive CO2 sensitivity by comparing two curves? In that case we can eliminate the USGCRP $2.5 billion budget budget. Problem solved by Jim D. Where do we send the Nobel?

      • Landuse changes also change the CO2, so it is included. Deforestation is an important contributor to CO2. Reforestation is part of the solution.

      • @DW: I thought in AGW land use changes were supposed to account for about a third of the warming.

        CDIAC data has land use changes holding steady at around 1.5 GtC/year. (Around 1990 it was as high as 1.9 GtC/yr, but by 2005 had dropped to below 1.5 GtC/yr.)

        CDIAC shows fossil fuel emissions (including cement) as 6.13 GtC/yr in 1990, rising to 9.86 GtC by 2013.

        So in 1990 the fraction was 1.9/(6.14+1.9) = 0.24 or about a quarter. So your figure of a third might have been true in 1970 or 1980.

        Today however it would be around 1.5/(10+1.5) = 0.13, closing in on an eighth.

      • David Springer

        So aside from being off by a marginal amount what Vaughn is struggling not to say is that Wojick is correct in saying that a significant fraction of ostensible global warming (at least 24%) is due to land use changes instead of CO2 emissions.

      • Yes, 24% in 1990, as I said. Or did you overlook the 1990?

        Today, 13%. Or did you overlook my last paragraph?

    • The transient sensitivity from the data can be shown by plotting CO2 with temperature and matching the gradients. This match is 1 C per 100 ppm and corresponds to an effective transient sensitivity of 2.4 C per doubling. I am not sure what Spencer is doing different, and maybe someone can explain.

      ENSO.

      I’m not making any claims about veracity, but here’s how he got there:

      Spencer: “The climate sensitivity I used to get this result was just over 2.5 C for a doubling of atmospheric CO2, which is consistent with published numbers for the typical climate sensitivity of many of these models.”

      “Finally, let’s look at what happens when we put in the observed history El Nino and La Nina events as a small radiative forcing (more incoming during El Nino, outgoing during La Nina, evidence for which was presented by Spencer & Braswell, 2014) and temporary internal energy exchanges between the mixed layer and deeper layers:”

      “Now we have reduced the required climate sensitivity necessary to explain the observations to only 1.3 C, which is nearly a 50% ECS reduction below the 2.5C necessary to match the CMIP5 models.”

      • He claims to have an energy balance model, but ignoring the land makes it not a balance model of any kind. Much of the emitted part of the balance is from the land warming when you actually do a global energy balance.

      • Danny Thomas

        Jim D,
        Is there an attempt here to indicate we’ve got ALL factors included in the analysis? (Sorry, but not a buyer today).
        “The scientists calculated the amount of light reflected by the clouds and determined that “it ends up being a 60 percent increase in cloud droplets throughout the year, doubling in summer, when the phytoplankton are most active, translating to a 4-watt-per-meter-squared increase in reflected sunlight, and 10-watt-per-meter-squared increase during the summer,” McCoy said.” (http://www.livescience.com/51598-marine-aerosols-clouds-climate-change.html)
        http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-07/dnnl-hcg070215.php

      • Danny Thomas

        And further: “Given the SAL is most common during hurricane season, research has been done on how it can affect the development of tropical storms and hurricanes. According to NOAA, here are some of the potential impacts to tropical development caused by the SAL:

        – The dry air can create downdrafts (sinking air) around the storm, which may result in the weakening of tropical systems.
        – Strong winds associated with the SAL can contribute to increased vertical wind shear, which makes the environment hostile for tropical development.
        – The role dust plays in tropical storm and hurricane intensity is not known, however some research says it may impact cloud formation.

        http://www.weather.com/science/weather-explainers/news/saharan-dust-africa-caribbean-gulf-of-mexico

      • He claims to have an energy balance model, but ignoring the land makes it not a balance model of any kind.

        Oceans have a large heat capacity and as such, store energy.
        Land and atmosphere don’t store so much energy:
        http://assets.climatecentral.org/images/uploads/gallery/4_23_15_Gallery_2015EarthDayOceanHeat.jpg

        There may be more for you to quibble with as to the relationship between ENSO and net radiance. The 97/98 event did seem to have a large surplus of net radiance, but given the uncertainty of the measurements there’s uncertainty in any such model of sensitivity.

      • Without the complete system, he has no predictive capability. He is a step behind Arrhenius in this respect.

      • Hi jim

        Still hoping for a reply to this when you asserted that the media was ignoring AGW

        http://judithcurry.com/2015/07/15/decision-strategies-for-uncertain-complex-situations/#comment-718617

        Tonyb

      • tonyb, that reply is on the Sidhartha thread.

      • Jimd

        It’s unlike you to evade things so I will just assume I can’t see the reply. Could you please do a link to it?

        Thanks

        Tonyb

      • Without the complete system, he has no predictive capability.

        A big thing that’s missing from the complete system is the oceanic heat content of the polar regions. Argo doesn’t sample there because of the ice, but supposedly the ice capable Argo floats are deploying soon.

        The polar regions are where most of the coldest ocean waters are generated, of course, and it’s that water which penetrates deepest into the deep oceans.

        I am curious as to whether there is a cycle of oceanic heat content beneath the sea ice, similar to the Bond cycle of heat content beneath glacial ice. When sea ice is thin, OHC declines because of less ice to insulate. Colder ocean leads to ice accumulation. But the thicker ice prevents heat loss – OCH accumulates until it is sufficient to melt the ice again.

        The Bond Cycle for glaciers is about 10,000 years for kilometers thick ice.
        Sea ice is one the order of meters, not kilometers, which, if congruous, would make for a decadal scale fluctuation of sea ice. And that appears to be what we see in the Arctic.

      • Jimd

        But America is not the world or even a leader in climate matters seeing as they never even signed up to Kyoto. In the rest of the developed world tthat did sign up and are suffering the consrquences of expensive energy over dependent on renewables, the media and other outlets are on overdrive on the subject making the paper fatally flawed in its basic premise.

        Earlier this week I stayed at an art hotel specialising in outdoor sculpture.

        Last years winner was about climate change and several other of the art pieces on current display Had climate change as their theme.

        Upon starting home, on the way we dropped into a famous garden. Two separate boards discussed climate change.

        This morning I took a walk along our sea front which has some thirty sculptures made from recycled materials. The theme of the entire summer exhibition is about caring for the planet and climate change.

        On yesterday’s radio was a drama programme about climate change. Today there was an interview.

        This has just been sent to businesses about adapting

        https://www.theccc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/6.736_CCC_ASC_Adaptation-Progress-Report_2015_FINAL_WEB_070715_RFS.pdf

        The paper was fatally flawed in its belief that not enough attention is being paid to climate change. There is wild overkill on the subject in developed countries other than the US and some here may disagree with your statement that America is lagging behind.

        Perhaps our Aussie friends here might like to tell you whether or not there is a conspiracy of silence on climate change over there.

        It was a very poor paper. Surely you must realise that instead of defending it?

        Tonyb

      • Lewandowsky was mostly probably talking about American blogs, but maybe there were Australian ones too. There is this anti-consensus undercurrent in America that you don’t see in Europe. It is extremely inflamed by the issue, seeing it as just another progressive plot of some kind instead of for the science that it is. We are on one of the more moderate blogs, but try WUWT, especially the commentaries against the latest science that quickly descend into namecalling. Try Monckton’s interviews recorded on right-wing radio. This is what Lewandowksy pointing at, and is likely why the political bias here is more against action than in Europe.

      • richardswarthout

        Tony

        Didn’t the last UK election bring to fore a new and surprising knowledge that the voters do not support the climate policies they have endured? And didn’t the new government take actions to change the policies?

        Richard

  6. About the only arrow left in the global warming quiver is sea level rise and that doesn’t seem to be changing much.

    “German Geologist: “Sea Level Rise Lagging Behind Projections” …No Detectable Acceleration!” [link]

  7. “Glacial cycles transfer ∼5×1019 kg∼5×1019 kg of water between the oceans and ice sheets, leading to accumulation and ablation of kilometres of ice on the continents and sea-level change of ∼100 m.”
    A glacial is putting 100 meters from 2/3s of the surface, someplace else. The work involved to do that seems large. Yes it’s cold, but there’s also a lot of potential energy in the ice sheets. Assuming it took heat/work to move all the stuff, the melting would seem to release potential energy, friction I guess, releasing the heat/energy. While water may not have much friction heat it can still do work carving out ice as a meandering river carves its banks. The question is are the ice sheets a quirk of nature of little importance or an example of a defensive life protecting earth?

  8. David L. Hagen

    Prepare for The Really Big One
    Kathryn Shultz has written a superb gripping technical article:
    The Really Big One“An earthquake will destroy a sizable portion of the coastal Northwest. The question is when.”
    I had not a clue when hiking the NW coast.
    Highly recommend before going to the Pacific Northwest.
    Recommend to all friends and family in the region.

    • The scary thing is it is overdue, based on thousands of years of evidence about its average frequency.

      • Scary?

        I have lived in the NW for 27 years. Have not lost one night’s sleep worrying about the Cascadia subduction zone quake.

      • There are some people thinking ahead, however, because it is now illegal to build hospitals and schools in the inundation zone. They put the risk at 1/3 in 50 years.

      • Jim,

        I put the risk of my being dead in 50 years at 1/1.

    • West of I-5 would take a 120 meter tsunami.

      LA is mostly below 175 feet (53 meters).

    • If you want something to worry about, check into the Yellowstone super volcano.

      The USGS has quite a lot of information. In the final analysis, it may be a question of “If she blows, she blows!”

      No point worrying, really.

      • I expect most of the fury will be gone by the time it gets to the east coast.

        Blast damage or flying rocks are unlikely. West of the Mississippi and downwind might be a little more challenging.

      • PA,
        Harry Turtledove has an interesting series on the Yellowstone caldera blowing.

        The east coast might not get hit by direct effects but indirect ones would likely be a mother. Start with food supply. Add weather impacts – it would make those old projections of nuclear winter seem like a spring day. Then there would be the refugee problem. Haven’t even gotten to economic impacts from half the country gone.

      • Mike Flynn,

        The article claims the Cascadia earthquake could be “the worst natural disaster in the history of North America.” I believe a Yellowstone super volcano would eclipse a Cascadia super earthquake in this category.

        The part I found cool was that the duration of an earthquake correlates with its magnitude.

    • I would be building deeply submersible high-performance concrete shelters with submarine hatches (or really thick revolving doors), tied to anchors with steel cables and kept from tipping during the earthquake by splayed steel I-beam legs.

      • David L. Hagen

        How about robust covered miniature lifeboat? aka an Ark?

      • I’m east of I-5 in WA, though west of it in Oregon. I doubt in either case a tsunami would make it past the Coast Range.

        The earthquake impacts would be a different story.

        I worked at the nuclear plant on the Columbia River NW of Portland. Critics wanting to shut it down kept bringing up the subduction zone quake, which the plant was not designed for. I knew they were clueless. The one place I’d want to be during such a quake is at the plant. Not only was it better designed than anything in the city, it also stood a better chance of surviving than the dams up river.

        What the clueless ones never seemed to grasp is that should such a quake hit Oregon, most the the city of Portland would be rubble and fire, at least until the Columbia River tsunami swept through to put out the fires and wash many of the bodies out to sea. And those of us working at the plant would have been standing on the bluff watching all go down river past us.

    • David L. Hagen

      Cascadia Region Earthquake Workgroup
      http://www.crew.org/
      How Cascadia Is At Risk: Societal Exposure to Future Earthquakes
      Cascadia Subduction Zone Earthquakes: A Magnitude 9.0 Earthquake Scenario Update, 2013 Cascadia Region Earthquake Workgroup
      Without Warning

      Without Warning! Tells the story of Cascadia High School student, Angie as she must go rescue her little sister after a Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquake. This publication is a partnership between the Oregon Office of Emergency Management and Darkhorse Comics. It was funded by the Cascadia Region Earthquake Workgroup (crew.org) and is available for free by downloading. It is perfect for reading on mobile devices and can be freely shared.

      Brannon, Brittany Ann, “Faulty Measurements and Shaky Tools: An Exploration into Hazus and the Seismic Vulnerabilities of Portland, OR” (2013). Dissertations and Theses. Paper 1410.

    • I posted a link to this in last weeks; science in review.

      Seriously David, you going to tell people be careful about coming to the PNW?

      If something like this occurs or if the Yellowstone caldera blows the US is truly hosed. Just as if the Icelandic trio go, so is Europe.

      For me the take away is that it would be far wiser to expend resources on hardening infrastructure against such titanic scale natural events than spending money worrying about the possible (but by no means certain) impacts of climate change.

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

  10. Valentina Zharkova’s presentation at the National Astronomy Meeting about the study of solar dynamo’s and prediction of a grand minimum leading to global cooling created quite a stir in social media. There were numerous articles attempting to destroy her credibility. It was a brutal media display.

    • http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/07/16/scientists-dispute-ice-age-warnings/30257409/

      We’re living in a time when human activity has created so many emissions of heat trapping gases in the atmosphere that that effect is now swamping the effects of these cycles of sun energy hitting the earth,” he said. “Because of the human-driven effect on the climate we’ve seeing now, the importance of the sun dynamic is somewhat diminished relative to what people are doing to the climate system.”

      We’ll see. The Nature Journal study (0.2 W/m2 for 22 PPM) would infer that Gaven’s heat trapping gases are only causing about 1 W/m2.

      https://cbdakota.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/tsicompositeicecap.jpg

      Maunder Minimum conditions would drop the TSI about 1 W/m2.

      The “strong forcing” advocates view solar variation as a footnote. If it starts cooling (raw temperatures) we will know they were wrong.

    • I saw it too. The main argument in our local weather network was that even it it were true it doesn’t matter because the little ice age was just a local weather event only affecting a small area of Europe and was only due to a 1C rise which is no where near enough to offset climate change temperature increases. They also said in her work she never once even mentioned climate change, and her work was being misused by those who promote the myth that climate change isn’t happening. Talk about contortions!

      • “…the little ice age was just a local weather event only affecting a small area of Europe…”

        If one excepts the rest of Europe, all of Asia and all of Africa. And both Americas. Plus the rest.

        I find it handy to track down articles written a bit before Green Blob squashed curiosity about the natural world. Here’s one, no big deal, but good for a browse and you don’t get the sense of Dominican inquisitors hovering:
        http://ruby.fgcu.edu/courses/twimberley/envirophilo/tyson.pdf

        There’s even a respectful reproduction of the original Hockeystick…though it looks a little odd among the non-doctrinal stuff.

      • Fulltime

        “…They also said in her work she never once even mentioned climate change…”

        The deity must always be acknowledged – every anthropologist and speech writer knows that. Gaia be praised and may we be cleansed of our sins by the wrath of her climate. Amen.

      • David L. Hagen

        The Little Ice Age had a major impact on society!
        e.g., see:
        The Little Ice Age: How Climate Made History 1300-1850 Paperback – December 24, 2001 by Brian Fagan

        The Little Ice Age tells the story of the turbulent, unpredictable, and often very cold years of modern European history, how this altered climate affected historical events, and what it means for today’s global warming. Building on research that has only recently confirmed that the world endured a 500 year cold snap, renowned archaeologist Brian Fagan shows how the increasing cold influenced familiar events from Norse exploration to the settlement of North America to the Industrial Revolution.

        London held “frost fairs” on the frozen Thames.
        The Thames Frost Fairs

        Between 1600 and 1814, it was not uncommon for the River Thames to freeze over for up to two months at time. There were two main reasons for this; the first was that Britain (and the entire of the Northern Hemisphere) was locked in what is now known as the ‘Little Ice Age’. . . .
        Although these harsh winters often brought with them famine and death, it was the local Londonders – as enterprising and resilient as ever – who decided to make the most of it and set up the Thames Frost Fairs. In fact, between 1607 and 1814 there were a total of seven major fairs, as well as countless smaller ones.
        These Frost Fairs would have been quite a spectacle, full of hastily constructed shops, pubs, ice skating rinks… everything that you would expect in the crowded streets of London but on ice! . . .

  11. Drought and polygamy. One of the silliest articles ever.
    And most disturbing, since describes an alternative form of slavery in India. How about a FF pump plus a long hose to free those women from slavery? Pope Francis, what say? Here lies a truth behind your misguided encyclical.

    • That would make sense wouldn’t it?

    • Curious George

      Prophet Mohammed lived in a desert region. Prophet Brigham Young moved his flock to a desert region. There may be a point there.

      • Deserts are places where people live because they’ve been driven out of everywhere else.

      • bedeverethewise

        Some people live in deserts because the deserts used to be nice places that changed into deserts. Good old fashioned natural climate change. That doesn’t happen anymore.

    • I lived in a tropical rainforest in Africa. Polygamy was all over the place.

      Next argument!

      • As a believer in evolution I can accept that phytoplankton, with their comparatively short life cycles, might rapidly be able to adapt to a change in water temperature of 1-2K. Umm, if the prey population has dropped 40 per cent, shouldn’t the predator population have crashed as well? Shouldn’t atmospheric oxygen abundance have declined remarkably?

        Thanks for the links Ragnaar. Like most of us I have a “narrative” that yields a biased interpretation of all new information but I am trying to keep it honest. The Scientific American article is information I can’t easily explain or discard so I’ll put it on my watch list of things that might change my opinions substantially.

      • Shouldn’t atmospheric oxygen abundance have declined remarkably?

        Doubtful, but it would make sense that the CO2 concentration might have risen since 1950 as a result of this population decline.

        Wait…

      • It seems nutrients from the sea bottom plus sunlight equals phyto-plankton. Maybe we aren’t getting enough upwelling. Can the plankton evolve? Somehow they’ve gone from glacial to interglacial and back many times. They seem to me to be a creature of CO2 as I suppose they like deep ocean upwelling according to the distribution maps. I’d be pleasantly amused if they were involved with the glacial/interglacial transitions and that the plankton eating whales are really in the global climate driving seat.

      • I’d be pleasantly amused if they were involved with the glacial/interglacial transitions and that the plankton eating whales are really in the global climate driving seat.

        Maybe not so amusing when you consider how many species of baleen whales have been driven to extinction, or close to it, by whaling:

        10 of the most endangered whales on Earth:

        Baleen whales

        Also known as “great whales,” these gigantic marine mammals include some of the largest animals that have ever lived — which makes it that much stranger that they eat plankton, tiny sea creatures that are often invisible to the naked eye. They can only subsist on such small morsels because they eat vast quantities at a time, thanks to the “baleen” plates (pictured) they have instead of teeth. Baleen whales take huge gulps of sea water and then force it back out through these filtering mouth plates, keeping any plankton or other food inside to eat. This diet helps them accumulate tons of blubber, or fat, which made them favorite targets of 18th- and 19th-century whalers seeking to boil blubber down into valuable whale oil.

        Why Are Whales Important?:

        When it comes to the environment and the oceans ecosystem whales help regulate the flow of food by helping to maintain a stable food chain and ensuring that certain animal species do not overpopulate the ocean.

        A blue whale for example can consume as much as 40 million krill per day, so you can imagine the impact this would have on stabilizing the aquatic ecosystem if the blue whale species were to become extinct.

        When one species of animal that is important to the food chain dies it allows other species to thrive.

        At first it may appear that other species are benefiting from no longer having to face a predator such as whales, but over time these animals will overpopulate and possibly destroy the population of other species that it feeds on, so whales play an important role in maintaining the balance of the ecosystem by making sure other species do not overpopulate and destroy the species below them in the food chain.

        Even whale poop plays a large role in the environment by helping to offset carbon in the atmosphere.

        Studies have shown that the nutrients in sperm whale poop helps stimulate the growth of phytoplankton which pull carbon from the atmosphere to provide a cleaner and healthier breathing environment for all animals.

      • AK:
        My idea is past whale hunting had an affect on plankton affecting CO2 levels. Remove the whales, krill increases, phyto-plankton decreases. But then krill decrease, and phyto-plankton then increases and so on. While killer whales are the apex predator, adult whales are also kind of one. As with the wolves at Yellowstone, the apex predators made a difference. Standing in for the whales perhaps, we have Pacific salmon, and that led to the PDO. Man is attempting to pull as many fish out of the oceans as legally possible. That may be affecting the plankton.

      • @Ragnaar…

        I’ve been suggesting (in comments) here for years that whaling might have played a part in CO2 increases. I suspect most of the people who read it just dismiss me as a nut. Their loss.

      • @AK: I’ve been suggesting (in comments) here for years that whaling might have played a part in CO2 increases.

        By what mechanism?

        And can you quantify it?

        Around 30% of fossil fuel emissions is being absorbed by each of the ocean and the land, leaving 40% in the atmosphere, in excellent agreement with the observed increase in atmospheric CO2.

        Do you have numbers that support whaling as a source of increasing CO2?

      • David Springer

        Vaughan Pratt | July 20, 2015 at 1:42 am |
        @AK: I’ve been suggesting (in comments) here for years that whaling might have played a part in CO2 increases.

        By what mechanism?

        ———————————————

        The mechanism he described immediately following the quoted sentence.

        Did you not read farther or are you just feeling trollish?

      • David Springer

        Mechanism described in the comment preceding the quoted sentence.

      • My questions were directed to AK, who I was hoping had a better mechanism than the naïve one based on a sole diet of phytoplankton.

        Krill have a much more complex diet as described at

        http://www.bitsofscience.org/krill-co2-plankton-iron-fertilisation-1992/

        The net effect of what krill eat is to increase CO2 uptake by the ocean, not decrease it.

        Unfortunately the krill population has been declining dramatically since 1980,

        http://www.cnn.com/EARTH/9707/06/krill.kill/

        So that effect is being felt less strongly today, and as the former article points out at the end,

        it may also be the Amazon drought as a positive climate feedback and indeed the krill decline that is co-responsible for the acceleration in the CO2 concentration rise – that according to NOAA reached +2.6 ppm in 2010.

        This is the opposite of what Ragnar’s mechanism implies. AK, what does your mechanism imply?

      • Speculating while simplifying, with normal levels of whales, the krill are concerned about eating and not being eaten. With low levels of whales their concern is now eating. The population takes off until it crashes. The key variable may now be upwelling. With normal levels of whales there are two variables, eating and being eaten. So whales would mask the upwelling variable in effect eating increased upwelling. Apex predators may smooth natural variability. When we overfish, krill would become the apex predators in some regards, limiting phytoplankton. It is also interesting that once we got good at whaling and pulling fish out of the sea, it’s warmed. We have a radiative transfer answer to warming. I am considering more life based answers.

      • When we overfish, krill would become the apex predators in some regards, limiting phytoplankton.

        It would certainly be nice to see the current decline in krill reverse, however accomplished.

        Right now however loss of habitat seems a bigger threat to krill than predation, making it unlikely that overfishing will save them.

        It is also interesting that once we got good at whaling and pulling fish out of the sea, it’s warmed.

        Yes. Perhaps WHT could add that to his CSALT model. CSALTW?

      • Vaughan Pratt
        I am just taking the Yellowstone Wolf reintroduction which covered a limited area, and trying to apply that to krill.
        Whale – Wolf
        Krill – Elk
        Phytoplankton – Vegetation
        http://www.bitsofscience.org/wordpress-3.0.1/wordpress/wp-content/uploads//yellowstone-wolves-species.jpg
        The lack of Wolves led to dominance of the Elk which stressed/altered the vegetation. After watching that Yellowstone video I placed a higher value on Wolves. I think Nature keeps recycling the same rules. What happened in Yellowstone happens on other scales.
        “It would certainly be nice to see the current decline in krill reverse, however accomplished.”
        Controlling krill with whales to allow the phytoplankton to thrive.
        “Perhaps WHT could add that to his CSALT model.”
        And create a new index.

      • One difference from krill is that elk are <a href="http://www.fs.fed.us/database/feis/animals/mammal/ceel/all.html"<"habitat generalists" which makes them less vulnerable to habitat loss. Decreasing ocean pH isn’t something krill can go somewhere else to avoid.

    • It is an important thing for progressives to flaunt any alternative lifestyles, so hence the otherwise banal story.

    • ristvan,

      re: Drought and polygamy… it could explain something about Southern California ====>

  12. Don Monfort

    Mosher on his vacation last summer:

    http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=97d_1437192529

    It’s as close as he gets to the K-Pop girls.

    • Wow! I didn’t even know about kpop girls! I do now. I need to go grab a math book so I can settle down a bit.

      • Just to be clear, I’m talking about the kpop women vocal and dance artists. As that late, great philosopher Richard Pryor once said, “I ain’t dead yet.”

      • Steven Mosher

        Stick to the wholesome nostalgic variety.
        nobody does it better. nobody comes close.

    • Steven Mosher

      He is not bad.
      Google around and check out 360 videos for kpop. watch on your phone, kinda slick.

      Better than K-Pop is K drama. A typical series might run 50 episodes
      or so. I prefer the historical variety its fun to see how 6 entrires in the Annuals can turn into 50 hours of story.

      The methods of torture and execution are especially interesting. Turns out
      you would get sent into exile ( typically to an Island ) and then down the road the King or the government would sent you a nice letter saying
      “please drink the poisen, have a nice day”.. And folks followed out their duty.

      Sometimes they would come back to the palace to have a sip

      • Curious George

        The story of Socrates comes to mind. Athenians never change.

      • My wife and I are currently watching Save Our Family.

        That doctor has a tough choice – does he stay with the hot rich girl, whose parents hate him, or with the hot poor girl who works in the hospital cafeteria and rents a room (with 8 kids she’s taking care of) from his parents.

        Maybe he should relocate to a desert and get to keep both of them.

      • Steven Mosher

        I am watching
        http://www.dramafever.com/drama/4708/Hwajung/

        Story of Ghwanghea and Injo

        Fascinating period of Korea history

      • Looks interesting.

        We saw the one about the Crown Prince who helped save the country from the Japanese while playing off the Ming Chinese and Mongols. Something about face reading in the title. Based on real people.

        There is one going now about some famous Admiral, but it comes on late. Perhaps I need to come into the 21st century and down load them rather than watching on KBS World channel on Comcast.

    • Looks like the train station, not the airport.
      And what’s wrong with K-pop girls?

  13. As regards the Heathrow record temperature as far as I am concerned what is more at question is using such a site in the first place for taking reliable temperatures let alone using it as a basis for a record temperature.

    Here is the position of the Heathrow sensor

    http://weather.gladstonefamily.net/site/search?site=EGLL&Get+information=Get+information&lang=en

    Its actually a bit closer to the perimeter fence.

    Records have been compiled here only since 1948, since when Heathrow has grown exponentially from a small RAF basis with a few small buildings in a semi rural location, to a huge piece of concreted infrastructure with numerous large buildings, any amount of vehicles and housing development right up to the perimeter fence.

    As far as the temperature itself goes, it was by no means a record everywhere in the UK. The heat was caused by a short lived plume of heat coming from Morocco and Spain and mostly affecting the Central and Eastern part of the country. Here in the South West we were wandering around in light sweaters wondering what all the fuss was about.

    These heat plumes are fairly rare and therefore don’t always get captured by instruments or observers. They don’t fall into the category of heat waves due to their short lived nature but are either heat bursts (very short lived) or flash heats.(lasting several days) Taking these into account the extent of natural variability is far greater than we currently imagine.

    Here is a well authenticated one from Portugal in 1949 during a heat wave which enveloped most of Europe and probably reached 100F in England although 2003 is quoted as the first time this happened.

    http://archives.chicagotribune.com/1949/07/08/page/4/article/portugal-gets-slight-relief-from-heat-wave-that-killed-20

    The temperature is said to have risen some 50F in two minutes then abated.

    I hope to be writing an article on this shortly

    tonyb

    • Was – it – ever – about – the – science – ? – ?

    • Having watched the golfers at St Andrews all bundled up and shivering yesterday and today I’m sure they would have appreciated that heat plume a little bit. The Open always has a few surprises. Wearing mittens and a ski mask in July on a golf course makes you want to take up lawn bowling.

      • @bts: Was – it – ever – about – the – science – ? – ?

        Quite right, Beth. The prevailing sentiment here on CE has never been about the science, Judith’s best intentions notwithstanding.

    • Steven Mosher

      homewood was wrong.

      start with THAT history rather than changing the subject.

      • The subject is heathrow so who is changing the subject? It is allowed to develop week in review subjects otherwise we would all be constantly repeating things. How this is less on topic than k pop is intriguing.

        Tonyb

      • Hi Tony
        I hope while you are commenting here, you got your ears to the BBC2. I ‘made’ many of those from the early 80s onwards.

      • Mosher, please visit WUWT and Eschenbach’s new post on Heathrow. Then get back. We always knew Berkeley folks were reality challenged. Station 100600 ‘adjustments’, and all that. Just not how much. Sure you want to provide that ‘paleoproxy’ yardstick for the rest of us who can evidently do the ‘three Rs’?

      • Steven Mosher

        I did rud.
        More conjecture.
        Download all one minute data from airports.
        Get arrival and departure times.
        Try to find a plane landing heat induced signal.

        After u fail let us know.

        Look at the ground safety manuals for jet aircraft.
        Look at the exhaust temperature profiles.

        Then get back to me.

        That said hottest day records are stupid.

    • Never get between a warmie and his tarmac.

      • +1. Especially new, black tarmac. Heathrow N resurfaced 2014.

      • Steven Mosher

        That is a good test case rud.

        How large a jump will new tarmac create?

        Seriously. It’s a good test case. Write a paper.

      • richardswarthout

        Mosher

        The assumption that jet aircraft exhaust contributes insignificantly to airport temperatures may be a valid assumption. However, the runways at large airports like Heathrow are constructed with massive amounts of concrete. The runways are much thicker than highways and all that concrete is an excellent heat sink, probably the best in London.

      • I know the BoM is keen on those expanses of asphalt. We have a very long climate history in my region, but if you go to the usual Elders/Weatherzone BoM info sites you will now get our airport records, which date only from 2000. And you will get nothing else, unless you know where to look in the central BoM records. 2013 is now our “hottest” year with a mean max 0.6C hotter than 2013 at the old site. (Never mind, all our nine 26+C years were between 1910 and 1919!)

        Pity, because our main rainfall records are fascinating. While max/min temp is so often just an indicator of how much wind/cloud came, stayed or went in a day, precipitation does tell quite an accurate story.

        What’s our region’s rainfall story? Just about all our driest months and years lie well back in the past, with many records set in the 19th century.

        But if you are interested in wettest/driest since 2000…it’s at your fingertips!

        At the airport.

      • And that’s climate science BOM style, folks.

      • One is often invited to take up objections with the BoM itself. That’s akin to inviting someone to go surfing in a trough of molasses. You’ll likely sink away, and you certainly won’t get anywhere.

      • Steven Mosher

        “The assumption that jet aircraft exhaust contributes insignificantly to airport temperatures may be a valid assumption. However, the runways at large airports like Heathrow are constructed with massive amounts of concrete. The runways are much thicker than highways and all that concrete is an excellent heat sink, probably the best in London.”

        No doubt. so what?

        The only question is does this cause a descernable signal in temperature series. That question remains unanswered.

        I am skeptical that U can find the signal. There is good physical theory that says there may be a signal. No definitive study on the matter.

        Its simple to compare airports with non airports. In Japan You will find that airports are COOLER than surrounding stations. Go figure.

        But if the runways were resurfaced in 2014 as Rud asserts.. then
        go ahead.. prove a case..

      • Msh

        I see that Zeke posted a study on airport temperatures over at lucias some 5 Years ago.

        http://rankexploits.com/musings/2010/airports-and-the-land-temperature-record/

        You make frequent comments and Nick Stokes weighs in with his own study

        Tonyb

      • Good link climatereason. That kind of illuminates things. Why? Horizontal hot air becomes rising air. A local weather system low drawing in the surrounding air which may have descended from cooler altitudes. Negative feedback.

      • Steven Mosher

        yep tony

        You will note the date.
        Subsequent to that I found a MUCH MUCH better source for airports

        the GHCN Metadata wasnt good enough.

      • It is generally accepted that plowed fields absorb sunlight and create updrafts. Tarmac probably does the same. Airports like to cut down trees and clear as much space as they can. So we’d have vertical and horizontal flows. Does tarmac and plowed earth lead or lag the Spring warming cycle as compared to vegetation covered ground? I’d say the sunlight drives the cold out of the earth, it’s being absorbed. There may be hourly and seasonal variations because of an early absorption phase and latter emission phase.

      • Here you go
        Easterly facing grass, concrete and asphalt, then sky. Clear skies all morning, taken at ~11:45 am

        https://micro6500blog.files.wordpress.com/2015/07/july20th2015.png
        93-94F Grass.
        110F Concrete.
        125F Asphalt.
        6.7F clear sky.
        Oh 80F air temps.

  14. “Physicists Predict Rapid Fall In Solar Activity”

    It has already fallen considerably. There is a very specific planetary progression that orders the solar cycle including the solar minima that occur roughly every ten solar cycles. It shows this minimum to be shorter like Dalton and Gleissberg (1880/90s), and to be mainly effecting SC 24 and SC 25, and recovering in SC 26.
    Dalton and Gleissberg both had the coldest run of years in CET (more frequent and stronger negative NAO/AO, and a doubling of El Nino frequency) roughly between the sunspot maxima of the first two weak cycles, which what I expect to be happening from later this year through to 2024.

    • My reply to solar predictions is no theory has been proven to be correct thus far so we do not know what the future holds for solar activity although if I had to guess I would say prolonged minimum solar conditions thru at least 1/2 of solar cycle 26.

      • What I have identified hindcasts the exact cycles that are weakest in every past solar minimum, so I am confident that it will map the future with the same precision.

  15. “Sun’s activity controls Greenland temperatures”

    “The ice cores showed that for the past 2,000 years changes in Greenland temperatures have generally followed any temperature shifts occurring in the Northern Hemisphere.”

    Not so. In the 8th century Greenland was particularly cold, while Europe was as warm or warmer than recent decades, and then Greenland was much warmer during the cold Dark Ages period ~380-540 AD. The opposite happened around 1200 BC, which is erroneously called the Minoan Warming, that was a very cold-dry period for the mid latitudes that finished the Minoans off with most Mediterranean cultures as well as the European Neolithic culture.

    “When the sun’s energy output increased, there was a bigger drop in Greenland’s temperature compared to the change in average temperature across the Northern Hemisphere.”

    Which contradicts this sneaky earlier piece:
    “Scientists have sought to understand why Greenland cooled during the 1970s through the early 1990s while most of the Northern Hemisphere experienced rising temperatures [as a result of greenhouse warming].”

    So they giving it that the Sun cooled the Arctic but CO2 warmed everywhere else. That’s a big joke as increased CO2 forcing should increase positive NAO/AO, and that will cool the Arctic too just like a stronger solar signal will.

    “Because the oceans take a long time to heat up or cool down, the temperature changes in Greenland lagged 10 to 40 years behind the high solar activity, showing up from the 1970s through the early 1990s, according to the new study.”

    No they don’t, for example look at summer 2012, the deep negative NAO warmed Greenland and reduced a lot of sea ice. The low in the solar signal was then and not decades before, it all works at the scale of weather, the lags are weekly to seasonal. It’s then a matter of how the positives versus negatives accumulate over time. The last two summers have seen positive NAO and Arctic cooling. I made long range solar based forecasts for the weeks that would happen, and predicted a relative increase in sea ice extent on that basis.

    And they have the AMOC back to front. High solar gives positive NAO, which gives a fast AMOC. Low AMOC events occur during negative NAO episodes:
    http://www.rapid.ac.uk/

  16. “New paper finds land-surface uncertainties important for prediction of 2003 Europe hot summer”

    That’s funny as the the last quarter of 2002 was extremely wet. There was primarily a short term solar reason for the heat of summer 2003, that is also predictable.

  17. When could this El Nino end and how quickly ?
    Or is it expected to go until September.

  18. David Springer

    Still snow in Boston. Maybe a glacier is starting!

  19. CLIMATIC THRESHOLDS -needs to be brought out and is not being addressed. The question is will any climatic thresholds be reached? Answer is unknown at present.

    CLIMATIC THRESHOLDS – which AGW apparently does not embrace, because the forecast they have put forth through their useless models have not only predicted a warming trend from now to 2100 but they have predicted it to be gradual, and steady. This is not how the climate changes. Rather when the climate changes, Ice Core data CLEARLY shows it is in a step fashion not gradual. In other words the climate does not transition into another climate regime in a gradual fashion but in a step fashion.

    The upshot of all of this is what I say below which is the essence of how the climate changes which does not seem to be comprehended by mainstream climatologist which is par for the course.

    My statement below is most important.

    Climatic Thresholds are always present in the climate system and slight differences in the degree of magnitude change /duration of time in the item or items causing the climate forcing could make the difference between a climatic threshold in the climate system being brought about or not ,which in turn will make all the difference in the world of the x climate out come.

    This is why AGW enthusiast, the climate changes in a STEP fashion not gradually.

    As I have said we have a convergence of climatic items which are phasing together which eventually are going to bring the climate into a cooler regime in a step like down turn (when /if thresholds are reached ) superimposed likely upon a jig/saw up and down temperature trend in the meantime (with or with out thresholds being met) with a slightly down bias.

    These climatic items which are showing a convergence to bring the climate to a colder trend are as follows:

    Solar Variability- weakening.

    Geo Magnetic Field – weakening.

    Milankovitch Cycles – on balance more favorable for cooling in contrast to 8000 years ago.

    Land/Ocean Arrangements remaining highly favorable for cooling.

    Ice Dynamic- S.H. could become favorable for cooling.

    The above is the big picture in the climate dynamic.

    For the refined picture of the climate dynamic one has to look at earth intrinsic climatic items.

    Which on balance should favor cooling some being moderated by prolonged solar activity . If the following are indeed moderated by solar activity this will make the case for cooling due to prolonged minimum solar conditions much stronger and much more likely.

    Clouds increasing.

    Volcanic Activity increasing.

    Meridional Atmospheric Circulation trend increasing.

  20. This situation with the sun is three fold .

    The first part of the equation is what will be the degree of magnitude change in the various solar parameters and how long will that duration be.

    The second part of the equation is how sensitive will the climate of the earth be to changing solar parameters.

    The third part of the equation is are there thresholds that could be reached in the climate system due to changing solar parameters?

    The answers are not known so it will be a wait and see game.

    • Salvatore, I appreciate the knowledge you bring about solar. Out of curiosity; do you know of C. de Jager, Ph.D.? If so, how prominent Is he relative to solar research? If you don’t know him that answers my question too.

  21. Climatic thresholds are out there and what has to be appreciated is, if a climatic item or items change enough they could bring the climate to a threshold which will give a completely different climatic outcome from a minor further change in the item causing the climatic forcing to begin with.

    HERE IS AN EXAMPLE

    Take an item exerting a force which is able to bring the temperature of a pool of water from 40f to 33f ,nothing dramatic happens. However if the item exerting the force increases so that it can cool the pool of water a further 2f a threshold is reached you have ICE, and a completely different outcome.

    Now if we did not know about 32f being the freezing mark for water there would be no way in hell we would be able to say in advance the forcing causing the temperature of the water to drop was going to make it cross a threshold (the freezing point) and cause an entirely different outcome.

    I think the same can be said about the climate and a given force or forces on the climate in that if they change to a degree of magnitude/duration of time that is extreme enough they could bring the climate to a threshold which will give an entirely different climate result.

    This is why when the climate changes to another regime it is in step fashion ,rather then in a slow gradual transition fashion.

    This is also why it is next to impossible to predict an eventual climatic outcome, small changes can result in a big difference when thresholds start to be neared, and are crossed.


  22. According to NOAA’s own NCEP data, June is 6th warmest since 2000 ,exceeded by 1998,2002,2005,2006,2007.

    How is that to be reconciled?

  23. http://icecap.us/images/uploads/Screen_shot_2015-04-02_at_4.30.55_AM.png

    To my points showing intrinsic earth bound climatic factors are in control of the short term or refined climatic changes , those being superimposed upon the large picture climatic factors which I mentioned in my earlier post.

    CO2 is a non player and is a response to the climate not a driver of the climate.

    • I want to add, look at the aerosol optical thickness in the above diagram post 2000. It is non existent ! AGW saying that is the reason for lack of warming is shown to be another falsehood.

  24. http://www.rt.com/news/273169-solar-cycle-ice-age/

    Exactly and it is just not Solar, it is the weakening of the Geo magnetic field , more favorable Milankovitch Cycles , Land Ocean Arrangements and the S.H. Ice Dynamic that seems to be developing.

    These are going to enhance solar effects.

    • This is another reference to Valentina Zharkova’s presentation as mentioned previously. This article however is one of the few I’ve seen that doesn’t publicly try to humiliate her, or at best describe her as naive.

      • The original abstract was only about the sun, and it is only journalistic embellishments/misinterpretations extending it to cold winters on earth, like the above, that have brought attacks to the authors. As astronomers they said nothing about earth’s climate that I saw and should be left out of it.

      • Jim, actually she did have a follow-up response to the editorials where she commented on climate:

        “Zharkova maintains that her research was not intended to make assumptions about the effects of solar variation on climate — only to lay out predictions about the solar activity itself. “What will happen in the modern Maunder Minimum we do not know yet and can only speculate,” she says. On the other hand, she adds, her gut assumption is that temperatures will drop as they did 370 years ago. The reason, she says, is her belief that the sun is a bigger influence on earthly climate than the effects of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. “I am not convinced with the arguments of the group promoting global warming of an anthropogenic nature,” Zharkova says… http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2015/07/14/no-earth-is-not-heading-toward-a-mini-ice-age/

      • She also admits that is not an area she is expert in, and so can’t make any definitive statements. It is true that skeptics will invoke authority on anyone who is a scientist even if they don’t now climate science, so that is why this went so far.

  25. http://www.solen.info/solar/polarfields/polar.html

    North Polar Field staying close to neutral for a very unusual amount of time .

  26. Russian scientist says solar wave theory explains global warming and cooling and, an ice age is in the offing…?

    “We found magnetic wave components appearing in pairs, originating in two different layers in the Sun’s interior. They both have a frequency of approximately 11 years, although this frequency is slightly different, and they are offset in time. Over the cycle, the waves fluctuate between the northern and southern hemispheres of the Sun. Combining both waves together and comparing to real data for the current solar cycle, we found that our predictions showed an accuracy of 97%,” said Zharkova.

    • David L. Hagen

      Prof Valentina Zharkova
      Department of Mathematics and Information Sciences
      Northumbria University UK
      Shepherd, Simon, Zharkov, Sergei and Zharkova, Valentina (2014) Prediction of Solar Activity from Solar Background Magnetic Field Variations in Cycles 21-23. The Astrophysical Journal, 795 (1). pp. 46-54. ISSN 1538-4357
      Mini-ice age possible in 2030s

  27. richardswarthout

    Thought this article should be shared; for the curious.

    How Time Got It’s Arrow

    http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/blogs/physics/2015/07/how-time-got-its-arrow/

    Richard

    • Lee Smolin is an interesting character, from the Wikipedia page for Lee Smolin:

      “Smolin’s 2006 book The Trouble with Physics explored the role of controversy and disagreement in the progress of science. It argued that science progresses fastest if the scientific community encourages the widest possible disagreement among trained and accredited professionals prior to the formation of consensus brought about by experimental confirmation of predictions of falsifiable theories. He proposed that this meant the fostering of diverse competing research programs, and that premature formation of paradigms not forced by experimental facts can slow the progress of science.”

      • richardswarthout

        Justin

        I first read of Smolin many years ago on the topic of Loop Quantum Gravity; he was one of the original collaborators. As I recall LQG was a competing theory with string theory and Smolin was expecting that an upcoming experiment in outer space would determine the winner; don’t think it worked out.

        His book “The Trouble With Physics” sounds like a worthwhile purchase. I may order it tomorrow along with some other books I have in mind.

        Richard

  28. Where is the hand-wringing and rending of garments? Russian science predicts the return of the ice age in just 15 years (see above). Are Western catastrophists of the government-education complex so specialized that the hypothecated immeasurable increase in the temperature of deep sea waters is the only cause for climate alarm?

  29. When /if these low average solar parameters are attained or at least approached this is when the climate will show a more definitive down trend. How much is hard to say(duration will play a key role/lag times ) but I do believe at the very least the temperature trend for the globe will be down and the atmospheric circulation will be much more meridional in nature.

    During the maximum of solar cycle 24 these values have not been approached but were prior to the solar cycle 24 maximum, but at that time sub- solar activity had really only just begun (post 2005) so not enough sub- solar years were present in my opinion.

    This time however, if these low average value solar parameters come about there would be over 10 years of sub-solar activity in general which should result in a greater climatic impact.

    Oceans causing lag times, but the unknown is how much of a lag time?

    THE CRITERIA

    Solar Flux avg. sub 90

    Solar Wind avg. sub 350 km/sec

    AP index avg. sub 5.0

    Cosmic ray counts north of 6500 counts per minute

    Total Solar Irradiance off .15% or more

    EUV light average 0-105 nm sub 100 units (or off 100% or more) and longer UV light emissions around 300 nm off by several percent.

    IMF around 4.0 nt or lower.

  30. Pingback: Heathrow Hijinks | Watts Up With That?

  31. What a joke what is said below when you think of all the BS coming from AGW theory.

    She also admits that is not an area she is expert in, and so can’t make any definitive statements. It is true that skeptics will invoke authority on anyone who is a scientist even if they don’t now climate science, so that is why this went so far

  32. From Joe Bastardi , which is exactly spot on.

    Joe Bastardi ‏@BigJoeBastardi · 5m5 minutes ago  Jersey City, NJ
    How does it not bother ANY METEOROLOGIST or CLIMO person in nation that the data with the course grid and readjusted temps trumps NCEP?

  33. Jim D /JCH explain it?

    Joe Bastardi ‏@BigJoeBastardi · 8m8 minutes ago  Jersey City, NJ
    So, to the Weather Channel, are NCEP temps based on most reliable input calculate every 6 hours wrong? RSS, UAH too?

  34. According to NOAA’s own NCEP data, June is 6th warmest since 2000 ,exceeded by 1998,2002,2005,2006,2007.

    How is that to be reconciled?

  35. The news may already be written years out with just a few substitutions to articles that have appeared over the last few years –e.g.,

    The planet experienced its coldest year on record in 2030, according to a new report released Thursday, which confirms that land temperatures and sea surface temperatures all reached historic levels last year.

  36. Plankton?
    http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/Science-Notebook/2015/0718/How-tiny-plankton-brighten-the-clouds-over-Southern-Ocean
    “…these microscopic creatures supply half of the planet’s oxygen.”
    Is this explaining why the Southern Hemisphere refuses to warm?
    Phytoplankton Population Drops 40 Percent Since 1950
    http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/phytoplankton-population/
    “The tiny organisms, known as phytoplankton, also gobble up carbon dioxide to produce half the world’s oxygen output—equaling that of trees and plants on land.”
    I suppose their point is we are killing the plankton with warmth. Might be that the warmth is caused by some mixed up predator/prey cycles. We could just assume it’s us and move on. Why isn’t the heat killing the plankton in the SH? How does half our oxygen compare to the difference between 280 and 400 ppm?

  37. Are you animal,
    vegetable or what? Plankton
    currently adrift.

    -Haiku-Post-Linnean.

  38. “4 reasons the Atlantic hurricane season has been so quiet and is likely to stay that way.”

    1. Global warming
    2. Climate change
    3. Global change
    4. Climate warming

    The absence of an increase in climate catastrophes is consistent with CAGW, aka Globalclimatewarmingchange.

  39. From the icecap.com web-site which I am in full agreement with.

    Australian Scientist, Dr. David Evans remarked “As we head to the UN meeting in Paris 2015 where global bureaucracy beckons, a sharp cooling change appears to be developing and set to hit in the next five years. Yet consortia of five-star politicians are not preparing for climate change, only for global warming. Around the world a billion dollars a day is invested in renewable energy, largely with the hope of changing the weather. Given that 20% of the world does not even have access to electricity, history books may marvel at how screwed priorities…of ‘bureaucratized science’ were”.

    Do I believe it? Yes! When I taught in college in the cold late 1970s, I had a panel in the second Northeast Storm Conference (now in its 41st year) on factors in climate. The panel included MIT’s Hurd ‘Doc’ Willett, who showed how the sun’s cycles (22 years, 180-200 years and others) affected the climate. He predicted then a cool down starting in the 1990s. I have published peer reviewed papers that showed how though the sun’s detectable brightness (called irradiance) only changed 0.1% over most 11 year cycles, there were amplifying factors that greatly increased the sun’s affect on climate on decadal and century scales (everyone recognizes earth sun orbital parameters affect our days, seasons and the longer term cycles of glaciation it is all the other time frames that try to ignore).

    These amplifiers include ultraviolet radiation that varies 6 to 8% in the 11 year cycle and produces heat from ozone chemistry in the high atmosphere in low and middle latitudes, geomagnetic activity that causes the ionization heating and displays called the ‘aurora’ and also the solar wind modulated galactic cosmic rays that affect the amount of cloudiness (and through that, solar heating) we experience. All of these have been shown from empirical evidence to produce more warming when the sun is active and less when it is quiet.

  40. If you notice there is no answer that is being given as to why NOAA’S own data NCEP does not support the data they put out.

    Silence as I figured would be the case.

  41. The question remains which is NOAA’S data NCEP does NOT agree with the data they put forth to the public. Why is it this is happening?

    • Steven Mosher

      NCEP is model output.
      In my experience its not the best out there

      • I expected that kind of an answer from you Steven, coming from your perspective.

        Time will tell.

      • Steven Mosher

        Ask me what I use day in and day out.
        its not NCEP.
        been there done that… it was lousy

        U cant even find the data sources for NCEP

        U have never used it. U dont know what it is.

    • Steven Mosher

      the NCEP MODEL OUTPUT..

      guess what.. NCEP uses a physics model that uses the c02 effect.

      • Guess what NCEP data does not show year 2014 as being the warmest not even close.

      • I HAVE THE SAME QUESTIONS!

        Joe Bastardi ‏@BigJoeBastardi · 23h23 hours ago  Jersey City, NJ
        How does it not bother ANY METEOROLOGIST or CLIMO person in nation that the data with the course grid and readjusted temps trumps NCEP?

        Bastardi ‏@BigJoeBastardi · 23h23 hours ago  Jersey City, NJ
        So, to the Weather Channel, are NCEP temps based on most reliable input calculate every 6 hours wrong? RSS, UAH too?

      • David Springer

        At other times Mosher argues that all data is estimated from a model. In this case, because it’s convenient, he argues that model output is not data.

        You don’t get to have your cake and eat it too.

  42. As can clearly be seen from their own data(NCEP) year 2014 is not even close to being the warmest year yet that is what they claim when they put forth the manipulated data.

    NCEP data confirms what the satellite data has to say.

  43. NOAA’S public data is all manipulated and I for one do not even consider it as a viable source.

  44. “The ice cores showed that for the past 2,000 years changes in Greenland temperatures have generally followed any temperature shifts occurring in the Northern Hemisphere.”

    Not only does this nonsense fuel the fallacy of Arctic Amplification, but virtually all sceptics swear blind by it, despite given evidence showing the complete reverse. GISP2 shows that it was warm in Greenland during the cold Dark Ages of the 4th to early 6th centuries, and the coldest part of GISP2 for the last 2000 years in the 8th century:
    https://diggingintheclay.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/3500years.png

    was the warmest part of the MWP for Europe, and was likely warmer than recent decades:
    http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v6/n5/images_article/ngeo1797-f2.jpg

    https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/esperetal2014b.jpg

    How many more years is everyone going to ignore this?

    • Judith Curry, how about a responsible and intelligent reply to this. The problem appears to be that people have latched onto the single broad spike in GISP2 around 1000AD, and said oh look its was warm in Greenland in the MWP without actually checking when the mid latitudes were warmest in the MWP, and neglecting to scrutinise the rest of the data series before 1000AD. There were in fact some very cold episodes in the late 10th and early 11th centuries in the temperate zone when GISP2 shows it so warm.

      • Ulric

        Personally, I can’t see why people place so much reliance in Greenland ice cores as being representative of the globe or an accurate representation of climate. They are a very coarse sieve through which annual and decadal changes easily fall as with tree rings and varves.

        King Alfred was supposed to have received a trader from Northern Norway around 890AD who spoke of Iceland and it was around that time when Iceland was settled. Greenland was settled some decades later all of which suggests an improving climate around that time.

        However there is earlier (fragmentary) evidence of settlement by Gaelic monks .Intriguingly some Roman coins were also found in Iceland although it is pure conjecture as to how they got there

        http://www.strangehistory.net/2014/12/16/roman-coins-iceland/

        Which suggests that the fourth to 6th centuries were also warm but that is as much conjecture as the reliability of the ice cores and the belief in them as being indicative of a wider area.

        I agree that an article on GISP would be very interesting.

        tonyb.

      • Tony, I would not wish to be disrespectful especially to you, as I have already expressed how priceless your work for providing weather history for my research. But you are talking around what I have shown above. The coldest point on GISP2 for the last 2000yrs was also the warmest in Europe for the last 2000yrs. That temperature differential was even more severe around 1200 BC.

      • Ulric

        I am not talking around it. I am not necessarily disagreeing with you either.

        I am saying that I currently view ice cores in the same way as I do tree rings.

        I do not see how they are globally representative, represent the short term weather phases or are necessarily representative of climate viewed in longer terms.

        I am perfectly open to being persuaded of their merit and the significance of the peaks and troughs. Consequently it would be interesting to see a well argued paper on the subject here at CE

        tonyb.

      • I’m sure the GISP2 series must be of some value at multi-decadal scales, as are frost rings in tree rings. What I am challenging is the most fundamental claim that “changes in Greenland temperatures have generally followed any temperature shifts occurring in the Northern Hemisphere”. The data at a number of points shows that mid latitude regions temperatures such as Europe, which is the gold standard region for the MWP and LIA, move fully in opposition to temperatures in Greenland.

      • Tony, look at this scale, you are the person most familiar with UK temperatures. Around 1540, cold on GISP, warm in the UK. The much colder 1560’s, warm on GISP. The very warm 1610’s, cold on GISP. Maunder does dip down overall on this series, but look at the detail of the warmer early 1650’s, around 1666, and that very warm spike in the coldest part of Maunder on CET at 1686, all turning colder on GISP. Then note the large drop in GISP from the late 1690’s to ~1730, that’s going the opposite direction to the largest rise on CET. The coldest part of Dalton also shows as warm on GISP:
        http://www.whatcomexcavator.org/uploads/7/0/7/6/7076754/4156397_orig.png

      • And of course the very cold 1836-1845 on CET, within 0.01°C of 1807-1817 in Dalton, showing even warmer on GISP. It then gets a bit messy in the late 1800’s on GISP where the temperature differential is not so clear.

      • Ulric

        I am not necessarily disagreeing with you, just saying it is unproven, as Gisp raises many issues.

        However, look at figure 2 from my article

        http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/08/16/historic-variations-in-temperature-number-four-the-hockey-stick/

        As a coarse 50 year sieve the paleo proxies have some merit, but the annual and decadal temperatures fall right through them, making people think climate is more stable than it really is, when really it fluctuates substantially over the short term.

        It would be interesting to place figure 2 over the Gisp data so we can see how they match up.

        Tony Brown

      • “As a coarse 50 year sieve the paleo proxies have some merit, but the annual and decadal temperatures fall right through them..”

        Well they would where they are moving in opposition, like Europe and Greenland patently do. Any comment on Europe versus Greenland in the 8th century?

        “It would be interesting to place figure 2 over the Gisp data so we can see how they match up.”

        Maybe just GISP and CET so you can see the regional temperature differential that I have noted.

      • “However there is earlier (fragmentary) evidence of settlement by Gaelic monks .Intriguingly some Roman coins were also found in Iceland although it is pure conjecture as to how they got there

        http://www.strangehistory.net/2014/12/16/roman-coins-iceland/

        Which suggests that the fourth to 6th centuries were also warm but that is as much conjecture as the reliability of the ice cores and the belief in them as being indicative of a wider area.”

        Its hardly “as much” conjecture.

        the reliability of ice cores is testable.
        The probable dates for the ‘coins” is not testable.
        and their authenticity is even in question.

        https://www.academia.edu/6358362/Roman_coins_in_Iceland_Roman_remnants_or_Viking_exotica

      • Mosh

        I used words like conjecture six times in that short piece which must illustrate scepticism or lAcknowldgement of ack of proof. What about linking to an ice core article that provides testable evidence of ice core veracity.? As I say, I haven’t closed my mind to heir accuracy its just that to date I have not seen anything convincing.

        Tonyb

      • tonyb
        “Two mile long time machine” is a book written prior to the current craze re derivations of data and theory.

        It is a good read.
        Scott

      • correction, “two mile time machine, ice cores, abrupt climate change and our future”

        come to think of it. maybe part of the current craze.
        Still good read.
        Scott

      • tony

        you have 5 coins in iceland. 3 of which the AUTHENCITY is questioned.

        Do you have any question that the ICE cores are authentic? you doubt they are real ice? doubt they were taken from england?
        doubt that information about temperature can be extracted?

        The two “theories” or fables of how the coins got there are wildly different.

        Those theories can never be tested. never.

        Now ice cores. Go read the literature. Start now. When you think you have found a problem that rises to the level of uncertainty in the tales of how coins may have gotten to Iceland, publish. that critique.

        put another way the very expert who wrote on coins has serious doubt.
        you as a non expert compare your doubt about ice cores to his doubt about the coins.

        DK much

      • Mosh

        I have read at least half a dozen papers, several very thick books and attended a lecture about ice cores. I am unconvinced. You seem to be however so how about linking to the specific data that convinced you?

        Then we can talk about seeding the area of California you live in with a few roman coins and artefacts and see if we can create a new historical sensation. the Romans colonising California has a ring to it.

        Tonyb

      • Scott

        Thanks for that. For those interested here is a lInk to the book

        http://www.amazon.com/The-Two-Mile-Time-Machine-Climate/dp/0691102961

        Hmm, it’s quite expensive but I would point out its my birthday next month….

        I think I saw this on the tv when it first came out.i am on board with the idea of continual dramatic climate change. I will see if I can find a copy or borrow it

        Tonyb

      • Typical, you all end up splitting hairs and neglect discussion of the overwhelming points that I have made. It goes on and on and on going nowhere because none of you are listening except for Salvatore.
        It doesn’t look like Judith has the courage to say anything either.

      • It makes perfect sense and it is to be expected that the temperature data for Greenland and Europe should be in opposition to one another due to the atmospheric circulation patterns that come about.

        When a cold period is upon us the atmospheric circulation is such that the AO /NAO tend to be negative which results in warmer then normal temperatures in Greenland and the Arctic in general while colder temperatures prevail in Europe and N. America.

        The ice core records show this to indeed be the case.

      • To recap, in the last 2000 years, GISP2 shows Greenland at its coldest, and proxies show that Europe was at its warmest, simultaneously through the 8th century.
        GISP also shows Greenland during the cold Dark Ages period of the 4th to early 6th centuries, being as warm as around 1000 AD.

        Staring you in the face there is the evidence that convention has the polar see-saw effect upside down, and leads to the conclusion that increased forcing of the climate cools the Arctic region through the Holocene, at all scales.

        That’s a big embarrassment for AGW central, but virtually every sceptic in sight would rather defend the illusion that temperatures of the northern frigid and temperate zones move in unison. That’s a tragicomedy of epic proportions.

  45. O/T Prof Curry but I am not sure where to put this – fantastic post by A Chemist In Langley all about RCP8.5 and how it is most certainly NOT the ‘Business as Usual’ scenario from the IPCC. Great info:

    http://achemistinlangley.blogspot.ca/2015/06/on-rcp85-and-business-as-usual-scenario.html

    • Danny Thomas

      Looks like a very good place to post. Interesting links to follow included and will do so.
      Thanks for the link.
      Will be interesting to see the feedback from the activist side.

  46. Yesterday, July 18, San Diego county received a little more than an inch of rain, making July 2015 the rainiest July in recorded history for the county. Today we received 2 more inches.

  47. Temp data. NCEP first has a finer grid, secondly it agrees with satellite data.

    That is more then enough to say NOAA’S data to the public is not only adjusted but manipulated.

  48. It makes perfect sense and it is to be expected that the temperature data for Greenland and Europe should be in opposition to one another due to the atmospheric circulation patterns that come about.

    When a cold period is upon us the atmospheric circulation is such that the AO /NAO tend to be negative which results in warmer then normal temperatures in Greenland and the Arctic in general while colder temperatures prevail in Europe and N. America.

    The ice core records show this to indeed be the case.

  49. Air temps are under 12′ deck westerly facing.

  50. From the article:

    The volume of Arctic sea ice increased by around a third after an unusually cool summer in 2013.
    Researchers say the growth continued in 2014 and more than compensated for losses recorded in the three previous years.
    The scientists involved believe changes in summer temperatures have greater impacts on ice than thought.
    But they say 2013 was a one-off and that climate change will continue to shrink the ice in the decades ahead.

    http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-33594654

  51. Best applied description of hysteresis loop bifurcation graph I’ve seen, by Colose:
    http://www.skepticalscience.com/What-would-a-CO2-free-atmosphere-look-like.html#43173
    Seems he’s saying ice albedo is inherently unstable or bistable and that CO2 is used to navigate the loop. We could substitute or add factors to CO2 if we don’t think ice albedo is the only answer.

  52. catweazle666

    Re: “Global warming does what Live Aid never could”.

    The article clearly states Rising greenhouse gases caused rains to return to the region south of the Sahara, from Senegal to Sudan, boosting crop yields since the 1990s and helping the population to feed itself without relying on foreign donations”