by Judith Curry
Climate Change Science: Fact, Fiction & the Unsettled
I have been invited by the Society of Petroleum Engineers to present a webinar (next Thursday).
This presentation is part of the SPE’s Webinars and Online Education Series:
Take yourself to greater depths right from your desktop with SPE Webinars and Online Education. Join our industry experts as they explore solutions to real problems and discuss trending topics.
Overview of my webinar:
Climate change is a popular topic in today’s society. It is difficult to go a day without hearing something about it in the media. Let’s take the emotions out of the equation and learn from the world renowned scientist, Dr. Judith Curry, about the science behind climate change.
We will come away from this webinar with a better understanding of the following:
• the history of climate and climate science
• the facts, fiction, and the unsettled aspects of climate science
• key climate studies
• recent developments
• influence humans and the petroleum industry have to impact the climate
My draft presentation is here [SPE climate 2016]. It is a 60 minute talk; I’ve used about 2/3 of the slides before (the rest are new or updated).
I would appreciate any comments/suggestion, I need to submit my final presentation Tuesday nite.
Moderation note: Please keep your comments on topic, related to the overall presentation or individual slides.
Update: Thanks a ton to everyone who provided comments (here and via email). The comments were very helpful, and I’ve been able to accommodate many of them.
The final presentation is here in pdf [SPE Curry final] and ppt [SPE Curry final]. To those of you who give presentations on this topic, please feel free to use any of my slides.
Perhaps… if the next President is not, Ms. Clinton.
I think it is likely that even Clinton might modify the Clean Power Plan. Either change the level of emissions allowed, or change the implementation timeline. Although I’m not a fan of hers, I think she will govern more pragmatically and be more willing to listen to the states concerns.
As former Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton would say, the hope for enlightened governance that you provide to us really require a willing suspension of disbelief.
EPA is an independent agency, like the Federal Reserve. The President has no executive power over it, other than appointing the Administrator, subject to Congressional approval. The Pres has no legal say in EPA enforcement or regulatory actions, and certainly cannot abolish EPA, although he or she can ask Congress to do so. Not likely since EPA is written into thousands of pages of laws and at least a hundred thousand pages of regulations, not to mention having an annual budget of many billions of dollars.
There is a Constitutional issue as to what the 100+ independent agencies are independent of, but that is a different matter, one no one wants to touch because of the Federal Reserve. The concept was originated in order to keep the Central Bank out of political control. People who talk about abolishing EPA have no idea what they are talking about.
We know of at least one former W. VA coalminer who believes a President Hillary would most surely “put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business.”
There is extraordinary precedent over the last 7 years for the president to act in ways that clearly violate the Constitution. The next president can do nearly anything he wants.
Even the FCC, which isn’t a single-administrator agency, has proven subject to Obama administration dictates on the “net-neutrality” issue. The chairman went around for months pledging not to regulate the Internet like a utility and then did a 180 after the White House called.
” People who talk about abolishing EPA have no idea what they are talking about.”
And yet, it remains the people who hold the inherent political power in this country.
“Not likely since EPA is written into thousands of pages of laws and at least a hundred thousand pages of regulations, not to mention having an annual budget of many billions of dollars.”
The EPA may very well be written into thousands of pages of legislation, but not law. Legislation is no more law than the map is the territory, the word the thing defined or a picture of Kim Kardashian is actually Kim Kardashian. To make matters worse, a map is no more effective than its accuracy, a word is no more effective than its clarity, and with pictures, well, a picture paints a thousand words, but photoshopping may add a few more words to it. If legislation were actually law, judicial review, as
“controversial” as it may be, could never stand.
It really doesn’t matter how many pages that administrative agency has been written into, nor does it matter how much their annual budget is, these are not reasons to keep the agency. Congress not only has the authority to pass legislation, they have the authority to repeal it as well. Dismantling the EPA may not be easy, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be done, just not done by those who only do it the easy way.
Jean Paul Zodeaux,
The Warmists believe the fix is in, and they can lord it over the public with their unelected technocrats and judges.
One can only imagine their surprise when “that great gorilla in the political jungle” finally awakens from his insouciance.
Second slide: The U.S. is leading global efforts to address
the thethreat of climate change. the is repeated twice.
thx
On conflict of values slide:
“mitigate” is misspelled as “mitgate”
maybe she’s referring to a Romney scandle
Judith,
Great outline, great information and great set of slides. With the SPE, you should generate a welcome response and support. Don’t change a thing!!
I’ll be emailing you to get permission to use some of your slides in talks I give on climate change in Guam. You have some excellent ones there.
George Devries Klein, PhD, PG, FGSA
Thanks George, feel free to use any of my slides
Dear Dr. Curry
I believe it is time to realize and to tell that we enter a new climate paradigm because we now have coincident declining AMO / Atlantic cooling and the steep decline in TSI with further decline in Cycle 25 starting 2020. Together these multidecadal oscillations will cause a significant and sudden long term lowering in temperature. I have a brief detailed account for your consideration. How to send it?? The subject is taken up by GWPF.
Regards
Peter Harris
retired engineer
Peter, I can e reached via email curryja at eas.gatech.edu
Thanks message just received will do! Peter
http://www.rigzone.com/news/oil_gas/a/144367/Rigzone_Polls_Readers_Veer_Toward_Conservative_Platform_Support_Trump
http://i.imgur.com/2tPSS4d.png
When you ask if the warming since 1950 is unusual and show the CET record rather than the global record on that slide, some might think you are trying to downplay what the warming really looks like, or even to fool the less informed in your audience. The question refers to the global temperature so it should be displayed with a global temperature.
Do you have a global temperature record that goes back to 1650?
Any global temperature will do. Is the warming since 1950 unusual? Boom.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/mean:120/mean:240/plot/gistemp/mean:120/mean:240
Thanks for showing that the rise from 1910 to 1940 is similar to the post 1950 warming, how does that show that post 1950 is unusual? best to look at a longer time series.
But the current rise is three times as much and still going strong today.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/mean:120/mean:240/plot/gistemp/from:1985/trend:240
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/plot/gistemp/from:1910/to:1945/trend/plot/gistemp/from:1980/to:2015/trend
It’s close enough for government work.
20th Century CO2/Temp summary:
Beginning of century, not enough anthropogenic CO2 to matter, temp increases, naturally.
Mid century, CO2 starts rising enough to matter due to massive industrialization, temp drops a little bit.
End of century, CO2 continues to rise. Temp increases at a rate similar to the early natural temperature increase.
And I don’t think you know what 3 times means.
Since 1960, the temperature has risen three times as much as it did in 1910-1940 and not stopped yet. Also 75% of the emissions have occurred since 1950, accompanied by 75% of the temperature rise since pre-industrial times.
Jim D nice cherry picking by extending smoothing. How about something straightforward that doesn’t hide the pause. http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1910/to:1940/trend/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1970/to:2000/trend
Two least square plots, both meeting the 30 year minimum for climate trends. Look awfully similar. Always be suspicious when presentations are overly complicated.
Jim D, I’m just eyeballing the first graph you posted. To me, it looks like 1910-1940 is roughly 0.3 or 0.4C, The post 1950 rise looks to be 0.4 to 0.5C. Now you could say, well, 0.3 is close to 0.2 and 0.5 is close to 0.6 so, 0.2 x 3 = 0.6. My scientific background prevents me from doing things like that.
Jim D: “But the current rise is three times as much and still going strong today.”
No it isn’t.
Stop making stuff up.
Dr. Curry:
Please retain the CET graph. It shows what really happened to temperatures over the longest time span possible. I am concerned that historical global temperature sampling is so sparse and of unknown quality that global estimates over time are suspect. Additionally, the arguments for radiative forcing imply they would apply to one area just as they would apply to the whole earth on the average over time.
Dave Fair
Ya just use CET and infill.
Skeptics blather on about the small number of stations. .they blather on about extrapolating ..
And then the regard CET as the shroud of turin. And infer the whole world from a single patch of land…
Too funny like yamal61.
Mr. Mosher:
As always, I suggest you go back to wandering in your little weed patch. Even your attempts at smarmy are weak. You may want to actually think about the ideas I am trying to briefly convey, reducing the verbiage Dr. Curry must wade through.
CET uses known methods to estimate air temperatures in a known area continuously over a lengthy time period; it is not global warming “gospel.” Are you arguing that CET is invalid as a method for determining the general sweep of global temperatures over long time frames? Are you arguing that CET has become less reliable beginning mid 20th Century? Are you arguing that early records (pre-early to mid 20th Century) used by the surface data providers are not sparse and of unknown reliability?
Oh, yamal61? I don’t set out to deceive.
As a minor issue, it concerns me that data providers mix land air temperature estimates with ocean water temperature estimates when calculating global average temperatures. Post-1970’s satellite and radiosonde estimates of the bulk atmosphere response would seem to be better methods of determining global response to radiative (and other) forcings over time. ARGO-era ocean heat content (OHC) estimates might provide a check of their reasonableness as they relate to overall global warming. The reliability of OHC estimates pre-ARGO will always be suspect. This is another reason I like CET to look at decadal variations.
You assume I have problems with the number of temperature recording stations and methods for extrapolating data. Not so; I take a longer view of scientific debates. The validity of data adjustments will be determined by use of the satellite, radiosonde and ARGO (and better) devices going forward. The Jones, Schmidt and Karl era will fade rapidly, whatever the course of global warming. Mr. Mosher, your data weed patches will go away. “You can’t fool mother nature.” Or adjust her.
Dave Fair
I agree Mosher. All the evidence is highly questionable. We do not yet know that there has actually been any global warming. The satellites suggest almost none, and they too are questionable. So as yet there is still nothing to explain, much less to fear.
Dave Fair.
Read what u wrote.
1. U think the current network is too sparse and so suspect.
2. Therefore you want to focus on a single ststion.
Too funny.
Jim D
An eyeball impression shows fairly strong correlation of CET to Global.
Richard
Jim D
The following link demonstrates the correlation; the CET has more variation than global, which is expected when comparing regional temperatures to global.
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/229814/surface_temperature_summary_report.pdf
Richard
The replacement graph is no better. It purports to be from 21 cities and goes back to the 1600’s. How many of those cities go back even before 1800? It is not stated, and it is still not global, just Europe. How about showing global land temperatures, and asking if the warming since 1950 is unusual with that background?
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/crutem4vgl/mean:120/mean:240/plot/crutem4vgl/mean:12
Dr. Curry,
I suggest numbering your slides (making feedback easier). Regarding the slide titled: Concerns about the Paris Agreement. Under Technical Feasibility I believe nuclear could certainly address the power issue. Over slightly longer time scales, nuclear-driven production of liquid fuels such as dimethyl ether could impact the transportation sector.
good point about technical feasibility. i added ‘politically acceptable’ to the list of challenges. Agreed that nuclear could address the power issue
And isn’t is interesting that nuclear (unlike wind) actually could replace fossil fuels? And isn’t it interesting that the petroleum institute audience would be more receptive to that fact than Greenpeace?
Remind you’re audience that, “politically,” we’re all just waiting for the warm to care about warming. That they don’t is… informative.
Nuclear could easily replace coal and gas for power generation. It would have a hard time replacing oil in its primary application, transportation fuel. Possible in ocean shipping, unlikely in rail without converting most rail to electric, extremely unlikely for road or air.
Schitzree, nuclear would be better positioned to address transportation fuel than wind or solar.
There are nuclear ships now, there have been plans for nuclear aircraft.
Finally, the comment you and I both are responding under notes that nuclear power can be used to produce liquid fuels for smaller vehicles. That’s what happens when you have inexpensive, reliable, clean electricity- you can start looking at ways to make it transportable like batteries or liquid or gas fuels.
There are nuclear powered ships now, which is why I said is was possible for shipping. But even now they are mostly used by ships that need a lot of power and have long refueling ranges, like submarines, aircraft carriers and ice breakers.
As for aircraft, it’s become nearly impossible to get approval to build nuclear power plants these days. How likely is it that anyone would be able to fly a nuclear powered plane over populated areas without people going in nuts.
And while turning electricity (from any source, nuclear, solar, wind, ect.) Into hydrocarbon fuels is technically feasible, it would be happening already if it was economically feasible. Once fossil fuels actually start getting harder to come by and the price of alternative energy gets cheaper this will become a reasonable option, but that time won’t be soon.
Judith,
I have limked to a brief which supports the need to realize the new climate paradigm: An imminent multidecadal cooling:
https://app.box.com/s/xk5knr3tb4o7qhyy90elaefmvo11ws1q
Regards
Peter Harris
retired engineer
“the growing
threat of climate change could define the
contours of this century more dramatically than any other.”
If there is uncertainty, then “could” become “may.”
Through out the presentation, enumerate the uncertainty. Confidence intervals and all the rest needs to be displayed. Otherwise it appears as a He says, She says type of presentation.
If there is a risk, what is its likelihood? unmeasurable? too broad an interval that hasn’t been quantitated? if there is too much uncertainty then state that.
If the model runs show “cooling” but these runs were believed to be not plausible and subsequently eliminated this also speaks to uncertainty, leaving the caveat of why some model runs are excluded to the imagination of the audience.
Who is your target audience? Do these members, can these members live uncertainty? and unknown future?
Re: Whether the warming since 1950 has been dominated by human causes
No, there is no scientific disagreement on this really.
What is the scientific agreement on what caused the warming from 1910 to 1940?
What a strange claim, David. So the attribution problem has been solved! Can you point to where and when that happened? Nonsense.
Whether the warming since 1950 has been dominated by human causes
No, there is no scientific disagreement on this really.
1. Note he doesnt claim the problem has been solved.
2…he asserts there is no Scientific disagreement on the dominance
of humans.
3. dominance is taken as >50% of the warming.
4. Scientific– means actual published science.. not blog arguments.
5. Saying you disagree is not a scientific disagreement.
6. His claim makes perfect sense. he is probably refering to the broad consensus 90+% of working, published scientists agree about mans dominance. This is reflected in their papers, the record of science.
7. you will find a few hold outs.. there are always some.
consider Oliver Manual
David: You are correct, the attribution problem has not been solved and it is unsolvable. Therefore, it falls to professional judgement and the human exaflop computer to sus it out.
That’s men’s work. I suggest you retire to your salons for some stimulating jibber-jabber over bourbon and a fine cohiba.
There is warming in the pipeline, logically leading to an attribution >100%, but the penny has not dropped for the skeptics yet.
Poor Mosher,
All these years and he still hasn’t learned the difference between science and scientists.
HIs argument that science is whatever wins a majority vote of those people with the strongest conflicts of interest should make any intelligent person weep. Let’s hope we can keep him away from classrooms.
Jim D,
There certainly is no denying the strength of your religious faith.
Just logic and observations, no faith required.
There is warming in the pipeline.
But the heat in the pipeline appears to be flowing out of the atmosphere, not into it.
Maybe you didn’t notice that the ocean heat content has been rising for a few decades which is a sure sign of a positive imbalance throughout.
Stanton..
tell it to the judge
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2016/may/11/coal-made-its-best-case-against-climate-change-and-lost
There is a Consequence to relying on weak arguments for skepticism.
Stephen Mosher,
There you go again, confusing science with lawyering.
https://s3.amazonaws.com/lowres.cartoonstock.com/law-order-judge-innocent-innocent_until_proven_guilty-guilt-court-ear0914_low.jpg
“Just logic and observations, no faith required.”
Jim,
Logic cannot prove that logic is true. We take it upon faith that logic is true. In regards to observation, belief in its efficacy also requires a certain amount of faith. First, there is observation paradox, but logic abhors paradox. Then, of course, there are the problems that come with observation bias, cargo cult science, observational bias, and processing bias. Efforts can be made to minimize the bias, but some faith is required.
Regarding logic, “skeptics” hold two contradictory ideas together.
1. Positive imbalance (Lewis endorses this) implies forcing is greater than warming.
2. <50% manmade warming (Curry endorses this) requires warming greater than forcing.
They have to figure out which one to discard, because they can't both be true.
“Regarding logic, “skeptics” hold two contradictory ideas together.”
This is a logical fallacy, not a great way to demonstrate how you use logic.
JimD, “They have to figure out which one to discard, because they can’t both be true.”
Yes they can, the assumption of a perfectly zero imbalance or “ideal” equilibrium is a bit of a stretch. With the maximum solar irradiance in the SH which has the majority of the ocean surface that can be exposed to solar, a small imbalance is perfectly logical. Not only logical but consistent with the precessional cycle generated hemispheric seesaw. And in case you have forgotten, the models suck at getting the difference in the hemispheric SSTs.
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-McTKLvKtMIA/Vb0On8LUb2I/AAAAAAAAN5w/oQy3J5Uc7Oco8K4Rj-G88jU6pM4XYldRQCCo/s800/30N%2B60N%2Btos%2Bersstv4.png
They underestimate NH SST and overestimate SH SST which should be a gut check for someone actually curious.
The imbalance isn’t small. It is up to a third of the CO2 forcing if you read Lewis’s estimate. A positive imbalance implies all the warming and more come from the forcing, that is >100% attribution, and a large gap from <50%, but they hold both these to be true.
JPZ, you can call it a logical fallacy to hold two contradictory ideas together, but perhaps it is worse than that. Is self-contradiction classified as one of the logical fallacies?
JimD, “The imbalance isn’t small. It is up to a third of the CO2 forcing if you read Lewis’s estimate. A positive imbalance implies all the warming and more come from the forcing, that is >100% attribution, and a large gap from <50%, but they hold both these to be true."
The overall imbalance is roughly 0.6 +/- 0.4 Wm-2 and the precessional imbalance should on the order of 0.3 Wm-2 or about half of the overall imbalance. Of course to figure that out you need a kick butt ocean model and to consider the irradiance at the ocean surface based on local TSI/pi() like you would if you were designing a solar pond. I believe that there has been a recent paper of issue with the crude "global" TSI/4 cludge. Oh wait, those papers are by the younger crew that are feeling somewhat disenfranchised by the "noble cause" elite.
“JPZ, you can call it a logical fallacy to hold two contradictory ideas together, but perhaps it is worse than that. Is self-contradiction classified as one of the logical fallacies?”
Gee whiz, Jim;
You just keep deflecting. Your logical fallacies were the strawman argument you made. I get that you placed quotation marks around the word “skeptics”, but I shouldn’t have to explain to you that this is not what skeptics do. Your strawman was also just a deflection from the reality that using logic requires the faith that logic is true, and observation also requires faith, but you responded with a red herring.
Here is the SH extratropics btw. Impressive miss around 1920 wouldn’t you say?
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-12MPXUYsN3o/VzaDkTkrnOI/AAAAAAAAOW4/d1glNc4aqlUUvAITCU1jLer9Jxc0RJqVQCCo/s719/sh%2Bsst%2Bversus%2Bmodel.png
JPZ, you are the one deflecting. You can’t hold two contradictory statements as true. I showed the two statements they hold true. What else do you need?
captd, all I can say is, huh? Which of those two statements I listed are you saying is true, or is it both? It is very hard to tell from what you have written. Simply (1) true/false, (2) true/false.
“JPZ, you are the one deflecting. You can’t hold two contradictory statements as true. I showed the two statements they hold true. What else do you need?”
No, I am not deflecting. I entered this thread to speak directly to your claim that there was “no faith required”. Faith, at the very least, a little faith, is required.
JimD, both can be true and are likely true, though the exact percentage isn’t easily determined.
It comes down to which side has the logical arguments that hold together and which contradicts itself. It is a direct answer to that. “Skeptics” is in quotes because they don’t really even think human-dominated warming (AGW) is possibly true, but I can’t use the other word for them because it hurts them. Skepticism is allowing for the truth of a statement but needing more convincing. What we find instead is definitive nature-dominated warming (anti-AGW), which is not just skepticism, but some pretend form of it that I would label “skepticism”.
captd, no, they can’t both be true because one implies >100% (all and more in the pipeline), one implies <50%, which is denial of the "most" statement. They are in direct contradiction in quantitative terms, and there is no overlap.
JimD, ““Skeptics” is in quotes because they don’t really even think human-dominated warming (AGW) is possibly true>
Now you are babbling. You mentioned two skeptics, Lewis and Curry, and what you thought were conflicting “beliefs.”. Having a positive imbalance and having about 50% of that imbalance due to something other than forcing included in climate models is quite possible. According the Rosenthal et al. 2013, after correcting a few miscues, the tropical Pacific has been warming for centuries.
JimD, “captd, no, they can’t both be true because one implies >100% ”
Nope, that is based on the assumption of equilibrium over a relevant time frame. Nothing wrong with assuming equilibrium, but all assumptions should be revisited because they are assumptions not facts.
“It comes down to which side has the logical arguments that hold together and which contradicts itself. It is a direct answer to that.”
I didn’t ask the question you seem to think I asked. Indeed, I didn’t ask any questions, instead refuting your claim that “no faith (is) required”.
““Skeptics” is in quotes because they don’t really even think human-dominated warming (AGW) is possibly true, but I can’t use the other word for them because it hurts them.”
There must be more choices for you than “the other word”. Would calling “them” Natural Climate Change Advocates, or Alternative Climate Change Advocates be hurtful or out a violation of policy? Also, at least subconsciously, you appear to recognize that I am not “them”, which further demonstrates my point that when you respond to me you are just deflecting.
“Skepticism is allowing for the truth of a statement but needing more convincing.”
I disagree, science begins with the null hypothesis, of which the skeptic is fully aware of. Far from allowing for the truth of any statement, the skeptic begins by assuming the statement under investigation is false until demonstrated otherwise. The statement under investigation requires a significant amount of evidence before the null hypothesis can be rejected.
The skeptic also understands that a failure to reject the null hypothesis does not necessarily make the statement false, but this is different than “allowing for the truth of it”. Further, even if the null hypothesis has been effectively rejected, the null hypothesis is not a guarantee of truth.
In terms of “burden of proof”, that belongs to the person making a positive claim, not to the skeptic who has made no claim other than assuming the null hypothesis is in effect until demonstrated otherwise.
“What we find instead is definitive nature-dominated warming (anti-AGW), which is not just skepticism, but some pretend form of it that I would label “skepticism””
Just another red herring. Logic is not a perishable skill, but it is certainly a skill. Keep working on that, Jim.
captd, the “relevant timeframe” is the one we measured. The fact that the imbalance remains positive after a whole degree of warming shows that, however fast it happened, the forcing increased faster, and we still have some way to go. This is why it is >100% however you want to define your timeframe. We are in heat debt. Warming is owed. The ocean delays but can’t prevent warming. The logic is: the imbalance is positive: therefore the forcing change has exceeded the warming: therefore there is more warming due: therefore the warming is >100% due to the forcing.
Just because they collaborated on a paper or so doesn’t mean they’re responsible for each others’ opinions.
Besides, the “energy imbalance” you’re talking about is a very tiny fraction of the total energy entering and leaving then Earth system. A tiny change in cloud activity would count for more.
Your notion that there’s some sort of “energy balance” in the Earth system in the first place is entirely unproven: you’re taking it on faith. And logic based on faith based garbage produces garbage. GIGO.
What makes you think they believe it’s impossible? I’ll grant you there are some who think that way, but you can’t hold them all responsible for what any of them says.
Come to think of it, I suspect this is betraying your essentially collectivist nature: everybody who disagrees with you is in some big conspiracy to “deny” the “truth” you have faith in.
Nope. Skepticism is allowing that a statement may be true, but also may not be true. You seem to assume that anybody who doesn’t share your faith in the (C)AGW religion believes it’s false but are going through the motions of keeping an open mind.
But really, it’s your mind that’s closed. Closed to the fact that your “science” is hoooey.
This is certainly a plausible explanation for the “warming” since 1970. The people you’ve actually named (Lewis, Curry) have simply allowed that it may have some responsibility along with AGW, and while they may have best guesses what the relative proportions are, they haven’t expressed any certainty.
IOW, since they don’t share your faith in CAGW, they must be disciples of the devil.
In the last two years 306 scientists must have watched this but only one open minded scientist had time to leave a comment.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZ7IEUBUe4s
I only hope you are sitting down and have another hour to burn, Jim D?
AK, your position that the energy balance is unimportant for understanding climate change is an unusual one. I have not seen you criticize Lewis who uses imbalance as one of his parameters in his ECS estimates, or Lindzen and Monckton who also use the energy balance equation without questioning it. If you want to go down the energy balance is unimportant rabbit hole, you need to be consistent about it, and criticize all those who use it.
Regarding skepticism, it leans towards denial/”skepticism” when it says that the central IPCC ECS estimate is unlikely to be true rather than just saying the uncertainty range is broader. It shifts the bell curve and even narrows it, rather than broadening it.
I’ve repeatedly said the “equilibrium climate sensitivity” is a myth. I’ve never said anything pro or con about the Lewis papers, or Monckton, and my only comment ever about Lindzen was regarding a statement in a 1997 paper that CO2 was “saturated”, which I criticized. (Although I’m not sure he meant it the way it came across to me.)
As for “energy balance”, the phrase includes the assumption (denotatively AFAIK) of a negative feedback that keeps it in place absent “perturbations”. No such “feedback” has been demonstrated to exist at a planetary scale, and the assumption that one does, at least on time-scales less than glaciational, is unwarranted.
Many factors influence the amount of radiant energy leaving the Earth at TOA, many (the majority IMO, although it’s tentative) not influenced by whatever difference there is between incoming and outgoing.
One of the most important components of this “balance” is the amount of outgoing shortwave reflected by cloudy air. This is the 9000lb elephant in the room, and is driven by so many other factors, on so many different time-frames, that trying to establish an “energy balance” on any sub-millennial time frame is ridiculous.
And what do we have to justify such assumptions? A few decades of satellite measurements that can only tell us how things have changed, Nobody really knows whether it adds up to an “energy imbalance”. That was one of the assumptions going into the use of those measurements.
And that’s begging the question.
P.S. AFAIK Nic Lewis’ calculations (including the Lewis&Curry papers) are all based on starting with some IPCC-sanctioned calculations and making some tweaks to demonstrate the results. No endorsement of the IPCC-sanctioned starting assumptions was implied, IIRC.
Most people would agree that if the sun increased its strength by 1% (equivalent in forcing to doubling CO2), the earth would warm noticeably and fairly quickly. We even see the relatively minuscule forcing changes of the 11-year cycle in the temperature record. Trying to detach forcing from the temperature record is a ploy doomed to failure by looking at facts.
Hardly equivalent. Just because the supposed total energy is the same doesn’t mean the effects are the same.
Just because very small changes have a (roughly) linear effect (to the extent that they do, which isn’t that much) doesn’t mean larger changes will.
It’s only failure to those who are begging the question.
Humans are responsible for warming since 1850. Black Carbon maxed out around 1910 or so. Apparently, it’s warming influence is helped by sulfate so the tree fires and Cro-Magnon bar-b-ques are not as effective as old king coal, London Fog, black lung.
Neither side cares because deniers are pro pollution and pro coal and the alarmists don’t like it because it pushes CO2 control knob TCR/TCS even lower.
Horst,
Is Emmanuel Goldstein one of those evil deniers?
Well, there was a 54-year pause in warming…
Not sure why you would say that.
http://www.cee.mtu.edu/~nurban/classes/ce5508/2008/Readings/Bond07.pdf
opluso: Great paper, thanks. You are right. I must have conflated (when I pulled that factoid out of my…) the BC deposition in Greenland peaking in 1910 see Figure 13 below:
http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/10/7017/2010/acp-10-7017-2010.pdf
Your link in Figure 6 shows North American BC emissions (likely to impact Greenland) peaked in 1925 before declining. Since the rest of the world continued to increase total emissions, perhaps this increase has had a disproportionate effect on Arctic Sea Ice.
“2015 was striking as ‘warmest year,’ since there had been very little warming after 1998”
Really?!? The “pause” has been discounted. There has been warming. But I guess it depends on your definition of “very little”…
David, denying the pause is as silly as denying the 2015 high. We all need to look at the numbers in a scientifically unbiased manner.
The numbers should be created in a scientifically unbiased manner.
There was additional warming through 2005, which is what, seven years after 1998…
Hide the incline!
Dr. Curry. I know you don’t have a lot of time, but take a look at this comment and the one after. This is the sort of alarmism, and I haven’t seen much that is this extreme, that needs to be put into a rational context.
https://judithcurry.com/2016/05/07/week-in-review-science-edition-40/#comment-783644
Thank you, Professor Curry, for your work.
Please cite the 2015 paper by Professor Valentina Zharkova et al on Sun’s weakening magnetic field in solar cycles 21-23,
http://www.nature.com/articles/srep15689
and news reports of an imminent “Little Ice Age,” “Ethics Crisis” and “Irregular heartbeat of the Sun driven by double dynamo.”
JC linked this article on the Presidential thread:
If Clinton, and even more so Sanders, get their way, Petroleum Engineers and other oilfield workers run the risk of winding up like this:
http://i.imgur.com/5qin1h4.png
So petroleum engineers have a great deal of skin in this game.
As a petroleum engineer myself, these are the items included in Clinton’s platform that caught my eye and that threaten the jobs of oil field workers:
Clinton and Sanders are completely unhinged. They say things that are just as detached from reality, if not even more so, than Trump.
For instance, both gasoline and oil consumption are now growing at a very rapid clip. Reversing this trend would be quite a gargantuan taks, but reducing oil consumption by a third in the next 10 years? What are the chances of that?
http://i.imgur.com/nhSOnWW.png
http://i.imgur.com/ws8gy59.png
To show just how remote from reality Clinton is, her campaign representative then says, “For better or worse, Clinton resists the call for policy moonshots.”
GS:
Big, practical differences between Sanders and Clinton on this topic.
And it should be noted that the fossil fuel industry grew rapidly post-2009 despite growing climate activism. The collapse in market prices led to the loss of jobs and corporate bankruptcies. Perhaps we should blame Capitalism rather than Clintonism or Climate fears?
opluso,
The collapse of oil prices was caused by oversupply, which was caused by this:
https://i1.wp.com/1.bp.blogspot.com/-JmrdxMxAE_Q/Vmnb0NMXeKI/AAAAAAAAGB0/vTDVDZHHisI/s1600/Top-US-Shale-Oil-Fields-Production-JAN-2016.png
And this:
https://i1.wp.com/i.imgur.com/kcpLOSM.png
And yes, it does offer an indictment of some types of capitalism.
Here’s how Sismonde de Sismondi, one of the first apostates among Adam Smith’s disciples, put it:
So is Clinton in Sismondi’s camp? Or is she in the “oppose machinery” camp along with the more fanatical and extreme Warmists?
It seems to me she’s straddling the fence.
opluso,
If we look at Clinton’s track record, as opposed to her campaign rhetoric, I’d very much puts her in the Sismondi camp.
When shale drillers run out of places to drill in the United States, Clinton already has her sights set on new places to drill, and she’s alread worked dilligently to put the legal framework in place for that to happen:
Here’s what Clinton incorporated are after:
http://www.ogj.com/content/dam/UOGR/volume-1/issue-1/z1305UOGRmex01.jpg.scale.LARGE.jpg
There’s no inability to think ahead and use long-range planning on the part of Clinton.
Glenn: These are the types of posts I truly appreciate.
Thanks!
GS:
Hey, that’s cheating!
Pages 26-27 need an explanation. Page 26 shows different curves by name, but doesn’t say which are models, which are observations, and which are based on paleo-climate.
” would appreciate any comments/suggestion, I need to submit my final presentation Tuesday nite.”
I would be honored if you find this work useful in your webinar. It shows that the correlation between surface temperature and cumulative emissions is spurious. Here is the link to the download button.
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2725743
The options for mitigation should (IMO) include an outline of Ramanathan’s climate policies that includes traditional air pollution controls to reduce BC and O3. These are short-term climate forcings that also impact human health. It buys time to let technology catchup.
http://www-ramanathan.ucsd.edu/climate/mitigation4.php
A slide discussing problems with energy technology development
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/02/23/bill-gates-the-impatient-optimist-lays-out-his-clean-energy-innovation-agenda/
Hi, Judy. The slides look good. Just a couple of notes. On slide 2, it is generally acceptable (even desirable) to capitalize the first word in a quotation if it begins a sentence, even if the quote is taken from the middle part of a sentence. Slide 17: looks like there is an extra leading decimal for each of the numbers in red (current sea-ice anomalies). For slide 35, I find it really drives the point home to separate out into 2-3 slides, with the first showing the last ~300 years, the second the last ~8000 years, and then the last slide showing 20,000+ years. Slide 36: the period generally goes inside the quotation marks. Slide 45: maybe “or cement?” Slide 46: there’s an extra space in “don’t.” And needs a period to match the JC quotation? Slide 48: I think there are two spaces before “Wrong” and before “For.” Also in most places you removed the last period for bullet point items, but not on this slide. (Compare to previous slide, and slides, e.g., 44, 41, 31.) Good stuff!
Thx Ted
According to Ken Stewart the UAH V6 data shows there has been no global warming for 18 years 9 months. This includes the April 2016 update from Dr Roy Spencer.
And there has been a slight cooling in the south polar region since Dec 1978.
https://kenskingdom.wordpress.com/2016/05/09/the-pause-update-april-20 16/#comments
I wondered why you give disaster numbers only back to 1995. Since 1980 the number of natural disasters do seem to have risen, according to the source you give (UNIDSR)
http://www.preventionweb.net/files/20120613_ClimateDisaster1980-2011.pdf
and also the well known Munich Re graphs (e.g. here .http://www.preventionweb.net/files/44281_19802014paketworldusde4zu3.pdf)
I suspect that cost thresholds and changes in reporting frequency account for some of the increase but I think you might be asked about your choice of graph.
Hi Ruth, good point. 1980’s was a big lull period. If you go back further in time, 1930’s, 1950’s, and even 1970’s had big losses (big spike in 1970 with massive losses from tropical cyclone that struck India.
I think I am going to leave out this figure all together.
One central issue which is not addressed and has profound consequences for the argument, is the difficulty of lowering GHG emissions. It is only economically catastrophic and politically revolutionary if it will take an emense effort to accomplish. If it is fairly easy to do, than no great catastrophe and no great urgency. The US hit its maximum output of GHG in 2007 and has been haltingly going down hill since then. https://www3.epa.gov/climatechange/ghgemissions/usinventoryreport.html
Even the world has not increased its GHG output for 2 years.
If our conversion from coal to natural gas which has barely started has already accomplished so much, then a rapid decline at least as far as the US is concerned is not only doable, but is easily affordable. Try stating these facts in a discussion about climate change and witness the blank stares.
Michael Scott,
The problems is that, as seems to be the case in all human affairs, all sorts of paradoxes enter the picture, which complicate making it “fairly easy to do.”
For instance, you say, “The US hit its maximum output of GHG in 2007 and has been haltingly going down hill since then.”
Here’s the rub: The main reason for the precipitate decrease in GHG emissions since 2007 was the Great Financial Crisis, which hammered US energy demand.
Is it worth collapsing the world economy in order to cut GHG emissions?
http://i.imgur.com/vJSMhRw.png
Then you say:
Here’s the rug: The extremist fanatics want to ban fracking, the technology which unlocked the natural gas which has flooded the North American market and driven natural gas prices into the basement.
If it was simply do to the recession, it would have at least approached its high by now. The fact that a recession would have had this dramatic an effect is also an effective argument. Here is a graph of both the US and the EU, which has an even more dramatic curve.
https://i2.wp.com/rhg.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/fig1.gif
As to natural gas, well that is a different argument. If one were of a conspiratorial mind, one might think that the believers saw this and ginned up an attempt to stop it. I don’t I think it is a conspiracy, just a rabid reaction to anything positive about fossil fuels.
Presentation by Solitaire Townsend Co-founder and Chief Executive of Futerra Sustainability Communications on BBC
“TOWNSEND: I was making a speech to nearly 200
really hard core, deep environmentalists and I played
a little thought game on them. I said imagine I am the
carbon fairy and I wave a magic wand. We can get rid
of all the carbon in the atmosphere, take it down to
two hundred fifty parts per million and I will ensure
with my little magic wand that we do not go above
two degrees of global warming. However, by waving
my magic wand I will be interfering with the laws of
physics not with people, they will be as selfish, they
will be as desiring of status. The cars will get bigger,
the houses will get bigger, the planes will fly all over
the place but there will be no climate change. And I
asked them, would you ask the fairy to wave its
magic wand? And about 2 people of the 200 raised
their hands.”
Michael Scott said:
Well actually the effect the GFC had was minor in comparison to the effect the recesson of the early 80s had.
http://i.imgur.com/Q9AKzjp.jpg
Here’s an interesting article you might enjoy. The author seems to agree with you, that the health of the general economy is not a very good predictor of energy demand:
Part of the effect is the growing disconnect between GDP and consumption https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/docs/explaining_us_petroleum_consumption_surprise_final.pdf
But more to the point is the effects of coal vs natural gas static.berkeleyearth.org/pdf/climate-impacts-of-coal-and-natural-gas.pdf
Released today by the EIA
U.S. energy-related carbon dioxide emissions in 2015 are 12% below their 2005 levels http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=26152&src=email#
http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/images/2016.05.09/main.png
” Many of the changes in energy-related CO2 emissions in recent history have occurred in the electric power sector because of the decreased use of coal and the increased use of natural gas for electricity generation. “
Sidenote: As your graphic shows, people who blame climate advocates for the loss of coal jobs have an incomplete view of the matter. Natural gas has several advantages over coal (powerplant costs, environmental compliance, price/btu) so it is a natural progression.
And most folks have forgotten that there was an earlier shift in the coal industry that started the decline in eastern jobs. The shift from high-sulfur to low-sulfur coal (from eastern to western sources) tolled the death knell of the eastern coal industry in America.
opluso,
Do you think Clinton’s panering to the environmentalists, taking credit for events which she had nothing to do with bringing about, had something to do with engendering this “incomplete view of the matter”?
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/cartoons/images/2016/05/11/gary_varvel_gary_varvel_for_may_11_2016_5_.jpg
– people can associate very different things with resilience (the term is actually difficult to define precisely)
– antifragility is basically identical with learning, it’s a limited resource that’s already extensively used.
– both imply accepting to live with higher volatility. That’s a wise idea but runs contrary to what everyone wants for his future because higher volatility reduces your chances to survive/thrive. Politicians can’t sell this.
– higher redundancy implies using less usable resources. Another political nonstarter.
– educate people about the expectable volatility and that it’s ultimately unavoidable. This might increase political stability/cultural discipline, both necessary to get the society somewhat intact through volatile times.
Re slide, “Concerns about the Paris Agreement” (In-country legal, political & economic issues): If agreement “nonbinding”, surely all compliance is voluntary? But there is a difference between the positions of developed and developing countries. Therefore I suggest this redraft:
“nonbonding agreement and exemption of developing countries (70% of emissions) from any reduction obligation ensures emissions will continue to rise”
Apologies – “nonbinding” not “nonbonding”.
thx
Slide 3:
Is it fair to say that the IPCC says
Human-caused climate change is dangerous?
I just downloaded the AR5 synthesis report. ‘Danger’ only occurs twice, once in a box in the middle of the report and once in an annex at the end.
Syntheses report makes this statement:
“Continued emission of greenhouse gases will cause further warming and long-lasting changes in all components of the climate system, increasing the likelihood of severe, pervasive and irreversible impacts for people and ecosystems.”
= ‘dangerous’?
I love the “you find what you shine a light on” slide.
There are various quotes along the lines of if you look hard enough for evidence to support something, you will find it.
Lots of other good stuff in there too, for example
“The climate change problem and its solution have been vastly oversimplified.”
Judith,
I’ve come late to this party. The presentation slides are excellent. For me they are a walk down memory lane – summarising the best of the best from the past 8 years or so on CE.
I noted a typo in the 2nd slide (other’s have probably already pointed it out):
Also, Slide 27, you have median ECS from observations as 1.6 and 1.5. I thought the most recent figure Nic Lewis presented on CE recently was 1.74.
thx for catching this
As the ocean has warmed, polar ice has melted, and porous landmasses have subsided, global mean sea level has risen by 8 inches (20 centimeters) since 1870. The rate of sea level rise is faster now than at any time in the past 2,000 years, and that rate has doubled in the past two decades.
http://media.mnn.com/assets/images/2016/02/sea-level-rise-1880-2014.png
This graph shows Jevrejeva 2008 remains all alone on your point despite additional studies:
http://www.realclimate.org/images//haysl21.jpg
What does it look like when you throw up your 400K Sea Level rise plot? Do you have a chart that will show us the Sea Level Rise Rate, that covers the same time frame? Thank you for all your help on this matter.
Lol. And your point?
I know you have this 2K year old plot but is that enough? You still think, 1/2,250,000 is enough data to show you the past weather of the Earth? Seems like a stretch… Whenever did the weather start anyway, the record must show, right?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_level_rise#/media/File:Phanerozoic_Sea_Level.png
The answer is yes.
I had no idea.
I’ve noticed that you have no idea.
https://www.e-education.psu.edu/earth103/sites/www.e-education.psu.edu.earth103/files/module10/Phanerozoic_Sea_Level.png
Maybe I should go to a warm beach while I can still enjoy it.
Whatever floats your beach towel.
thx for this. I like Jevrejeva since it goes back further in time. I will try to figure out if I can merge your diagram with mine
I compared the numbers for jevrejeva 2008 on my plot (pulled directly from their paper) with those in your figure; they don’t agree at all in magnitude (generally agree in phasing). Looks like real climate prepared that plot? or is it published somewhere? Thx
I think RC created the graphic with the results of multiple studies.
Jevrejeva 2008, in which they state 1920-1950 was the fastest rate:
http://i60.tinypic.com/s4qj6f.jpg
more specifically:
Fig 2 Rates of sea-level rise calculated from the curves in Fig. 1. To calculate the rate of increase, sea level curves were first smoothed with a filter of half-width 15 years and then differentiated. Graph: Klaus Bittermann.
We find that the forecast using the CW11 and KE11 data is in very good agreement with the data, while the one using the JE08 data overestimates the rise, as we found in section 2.1 above. This is not due to the additional data coverage over 1700–1880 AD but rather due to the rapid rise right up to 1960 in these data, which happens to coincide with the end of the calibration period and which is not found to this extent in the CW11 data. We assume the CW11 data are more accurate in this respect due to their better global averaging procedure, which reduces the spurious decadal noise related to spatial under-sampling by the tide gauges [16].
I am sure this has been recognized by many before, but the fit between second graph and the AMO is quite stricking. http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/esrl-amo/from:1880/mean:120
http://i.imgur.com/zvAEsTY.png
thx
Is not the statement that “The models are based on the laws of physics” misleading. I have always heard that the amount of warming in the models resulting from the increase in CO2 is not enough to match the historical record, and that to match the record the effect of CO2 has to be multiplied by and additional factor of two. The explanation given has always been that the increase in temperature resulting from the increase in CO2 causes an increase in the amount of water vapor which results in more warming than CO2 alone. This means that the models are affected more by statistics than physics.
Excellent point.
My take is that the models are made for those in love with theory.
Therefore they are heavy on theory, but lacking in empirical evidence and validation.
This lecture you might find of interest if you haven’t already heard it:
I agree that the statement that the models are based on the laws of physics leaves too much out. Models use parametrizations for processes that occur on too small a scale to be modelled ‘based on the laws of physics’. The assumptions associated with these parametrizations are where the uncertainty in model accuracy originates.
Perhaps something about chaos could be added to communicate the intractability of modelling the climate.
The greatest uncertainties probably come from processes that are not even considered, not from those that are paramerterized.
“The greatest uncertainties probably come from processes that are not even considered, not from those that are paramerterized.”
Too funny.
Which processs are not considered ( unicorn farts?)
How did you determine the amount of uncertainty in a process that is not considered?
That’s the problem with people who don’t remember past surprises. They assume they’ve though of everything this time, so there won’t be more.
I’d say there are implications to the skin effect, the fact that IR is absorbed within the first few hundred microns of the ocean (and lacustrine/riverine) surface while shortwave solar takes meters to absorb. Of course, given that I’m an amateur and nobody in the “peer-reviewed” literature has discussed such an effect, it obviously doesn’t count.
There’s also a whole host of biological “feedbacks” that haven’t been included in the models (AFAIK), and that nobody has much clue whether they’re important enough to make a difference.
Statistically: if there are a hundred factors that might be important game-changers, and each has only a 1/30 (3.3%) probability of being important, what’s the chance that not even one of those factors is important?
I think you have part of Minnett’s theory backwards.
Observations are remarkably consistent with Minnett’s physical process, so I suspect he’s very very correct.
Nope.
The comment stream I linked to includes a link to his original article at RC.
The mechanism I described is completely consistent with observations, and like the skin effect itself, won’t be seen (if it’s there) until somebody looks for it.
Highly doubtful. Why did it take him NINE YEARS between when he had the data organized enough to produce a column at RC, and the paper you linked to?
And have you actually read the abstract of that paper? Notice how much speculation there is:
Clearly they don’t understand what’s going on. They’re just guessing (as they admit right in the abstract).
Based on purely social principles, the fact that it took so long to publish these results in a “peer-reviewed” venue suggests to me that they discovered something so different from their ideologically-based expectations that they had many years’ work to rationalize it. With guesswork.
The surface warms… you can run, but you won’t hide.
Sheer sophistry and veiled threats: you clearly have no science to offer.
Mosher, “Which processs are not considered ( unicorn farts?)
How did you determine the amount of uncertainty in a process that is not considered?”
A doubling of CO2 should cause about 4 Wm-2 of impact which is about 1% of the overall atmospheric effect. That makes CO2 “enhancement” a second order effect, “all things remaining equal.” So if you want to find processes not considered, a good place to start would be with brain farts before you get into unicorn farts. Like “if CO2 is 10% less potent than expected”, the response will likely be 30% less than projected because of fairy tale world feedback assumptions. Like wise if an expected positive feedback happens to be neutral or negative, the impact of that could be 3 or more times larger than expected.
Take temperature series adjustments, a tenth of a degree of fiddling right now is about 10% of the overall observed impact. If that fiddling happens to be biased high, the eventual impact would be 30% lower than expected. I believe that could have a value in the trillions of dollars.
The surface warms is a common part of descriptions of the GHE. Usually near the end. It took nine years because it’s unnecessary. Would be nice, but the surface warms, so why bother? Most oceanographers are not going to bother with it. It’s Minnett’s pet.
captain…
tell it to the judge
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2016/may/11/coal-made-its-best-case-against-climate-change-and-lost
There is a Consequence to relying on weak arguments for skepticism.
Mosher, “… hasn’t stood the test of time.”
That would be retire or expire. Of course they could have fought a better battle. Personally, I think a retro active carbon tax on corporations that outsourced production to less regulated nations and claim to be “green” will be a result, just to put a little “alarmist” skin in the game. “Necessarily more expensive” and “we will bankrupt them” could be entertaining on appeal.
Steven Mosher,
There you go again, confusing science with lawyering.
https://cherokeecountytexas.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/cartoon.jpg
No Glenn.
You forget the skeptics claim that the science is not fit for making policy.
tell it to the judge
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2016/may/11/coal-made-its-best-case-against-climate-change-and-lost
There is a Consequence to relying on weak arguments for skepticism.
Stephen Mosher,
The argument is that pseudoscience is not fit for policy making.
And if you believe that sure scientific truth is to be found in the courtroom, then do I ever have a nice piece of ocean front property in Arizona for you.
http://i.imgur.com/tBlwCkR.jpg
Physics is not pseudoscience, and anybody going into a courtroom with that argument is gong to deservedly get their butt kicked by somebody who can make all the butt kicking calculations in his sleep.
JCH,
So you, just like Mosher, believe that some unelected administrative judge should be the arbiter of sure scientific truth?
“Physics is not pseudo-science.”
It can be. See here for an example:
http://principia-scientific.org/
Now that physics will be able to tell us all how the world acts and works and you show everything in your videos… why I even heard and saw gravity for the first time on TV just the other day. Now I would like to know why all our invisible stuff doesn’t just fly apart like it did the first time? Today we know everything except what will be next. Pluto may have a heart but it’s not big enough to ever be a planet.
JCH,
So you, just like Mosher, believe that some unelected administrative judge should be the arbiter of sure scientific truth?
Glenn,
It is rather unfortunate, but the Daubert standard, which is case law for federal courts and at least half of the states, has made judges the gatekeeper of what is “truly scientific knowledge”. The remaining states rely upon the Frye standard, which is no better in terms of dealing with this monster called catastrophic climate change.
Science by fiat. That has Mosher written all over it.
Beats having some numbskull tea party favorite like a Clarence Thomas make the ruling.
Not really.
Jean Paul Zodeaux said:
That’s true.
But it’s also important to not mistake a single battle for the war. As the old saying goes, “Church ain’t over ’till the fat lady sings,” and the fat lady isn’t even walking towards the pulpit yet.
The courts don’t have a great track record when it comes to being arbiters of science. Remember the Ft. Worth judge who freed a teenager who killed four people while drinking and driving based on the expert testimony of a psychologist?
Teen avoids jail with affluenza defense
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AoY1ARr7dp4
One must recall that the judiciary also convicted John Thomas Scopes for teaching evolution.
http://i.imgur.com/0YTImoc.png
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVD4TjxnJ0M
Judicial opinions have never been absolute, nor is it the courts that have the last say. The last say, ultimately, is the people’s.
“Beats having some numbskull tea party favorite like a Clarence Thomas make the ruling.”
The Daubert standard means people like a Clarence Thomas, and a John Roberts, and a Ruth Ginsberg, and a Elena Kagan are the gatekeepers to what is “truly scientific”. Unless, of course, the SCOTUS declines to consider a lower court ruling, then the Daubert standard means a “numbskull tea party favorite” or a green party favorite are the gatekeepers.
“One must recall that the judiciary also convicted John Thomas Scopes for teaching evolution.”
Actually, a jury convicted Scopes and he was fined $100. However, Clarence Darrow, Scopes attorney, appealed and the conviction was overturned by the Tennessee Supreme Court. I suspect, Darrow lost on purpose in order to get the case into a higher court to establish some real precedent. I’m not suggesting Darrow didn’t give Scopes the zealous defense he wanted, I suspect this is the case, because it appears as if Scope purposely incriminated himself so the case would go to trial.
I do not disagree with you that the people are ultimately the final arbiter, and it is a truism that people get the government they deserve. However, don’t give up on the judiciary, they can and do (sometimes) act as a wall of defense for the people against one of the other two, or both encroaching branches.
To Mosher’s credit, I don’t think he is making any threats, veiled or otherwise, when he states: “tell it to the judge”, the link he keeps linking is about how Coal lost a case, that Mosher has said several times, could have been won.
“The courts don’t have a great track record when it comes to being arbiters of science.”
I agree, but perhaps you are already aware that CEI has won a major victory against the RICO20 gang. CEI was granted discovery earlier this week. GMU was forced to release the emails they claimed didn’t exist:
http://tomnelson.blogspot.com/2016/05/rico20-emails.html
As you stated, the war is a long game.
This is an excellent presentation and I believe balanced presentation on what we know and can say about climate change and the risks it poses. It should be included in the Common Core program with what we are programming our primary and secondary children on climate change. My granddaughter who is a 2nd grader recently told me she learned all about global warming in school and how man is causing the earth to become a disaster. We are where we are today in large part because, as you note, the charter and mandate laid out by the UNFCC made the declaration that humans / manmade greenhouse gases are the primary cause of global warming / climate change and called for use of the precautionary principle “… to anticipate, prevent or minimize the causes of climate change and mitigate its adverse effects … (and) lack of full scientific certainty should not be used as a reason for postponing such measures…” (UNFCCC Rio Convention, 1992). In describing how we got to where we are today, one interpretation of this is: if science is the horse and policy is the cart, the momentum of the “climate movement” (as a result of the UNFCCC mandate) has caused the cart to lead the horse, the policy to lead the science. It also gave rise to significant political momentum shaping the discourse and hindered healthy debate on the science, with policy frameworks based on hypotheses that should have been, and still need to be, questioned and tested more thoroughly before casting in concrete.
Excellent presentation. Since the audience is petroleum engineers, I would add a slide explaining the RCP logic, how the cases were developed with target forcings, which were derived from earlier studies, and show them the slide which shows oil production in zigajoules for RCP8.5.
At this point you may wish to drop a comment such as “looks like the IPCC thinks “business as usual” for the oil industry means doubling production from today’s level by the 2070’s, their suggested production cuts seem to be based on the belief that you can produce in excess of 160 million barrels of oil per day in the far future” and watch their reaction. :-)
I agree.
The amount of oil production the RCP8.5 says is needed to fry the planet is way more than what even the most optimistic in the oil business believe is possible.
Here’s ExxonMobil’s projection, which is well below the IPCC’s 160 million BOPD prediction:
http://i.imgur.com/b1Of8K6.png
And here’s OPEC’s projection, again well below the IPCC’s 160 million BOPD prediction:
http://i.imgur.com/IV1JvjC.png
+1
Judy, A minor point on slide 27. AR5 didn’t give 6.0 C as the 95th percentile for ECS. It said, with “medium confidence”, that ECS was “very unlikely” to exceed 6 C, which means that there is a less than 10% probability of it exceeding that level. The IPCC use of uncertainty language is non-standard, but I think most peple would interpret that statement as implying 6.0 C was a 90th percentile. If they had thought the probability of exceeding 6 C was 5% or less, they would have said “extremely unlikely”, as they did for below 1 C – which you, I think rightly, show as the 5th percentile.
Also, in slide 26 I wonder if it might be better to include the Figure 10.20b ECS PDFs graph from AR5 rather than Figure 9.20 from AR4? However,it is not as clear.
Good luck with the presentation!
Slide 16: “Northern Hemisphere paleoclimate
surface temperature reconstructions”
This does not jive with reconstructions (Lachniet 2014, Steponaitis et al 2015)
[IMG]http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2014/140502/ncomms4805/images_article/ncomms4805-f6.jpg[/IMG]
Judith
Bearing in mind how many scientists and institutions- such as the British and Dutch Met offices-believe that CET is a good, if not perfect proxy for global (or at least NH) temperatures it is surely right to use them within the context of Hubert Lambs comment on reconstructions that ‘we can understand the tendency but not the precision.’
The ‘shape’ of the climate can therefore be discerned, including the remarkable centuries long general rise. This means that both Hadley and GIss should be viewed as staging posts on the temperature curve and not starting posts..
In my article on the LIA
https://judithcurry.com/2015/02/19/the-intermittent-little-ice-age/
I provided a number of charts, including the individual CET seasons. Until the 1990’s the 1730’s were the warmest decade in the CET record, made all the more remarkable by the extreme depths it has ascended from, which dwarfs the current rate of warming. This caused Phil Jones to admit in 2006 that natural variability was greater than he had hitherto believed.
tonyb
One thing that seems lacking in most discussions/presentations on climate is the specific details associated with adjustments to global temperature data sets.
What is the impact of those adjustments on global temperature anomalies?
What vetting process do proposed adjustments go through?
Who ultimately approves them?
Who validates their accuracy after the fact?
From my shoes it appears that the adjustments to several of the global temperature data sets have a near doubling affect on reported global temperature anomalies. Is that the real AGW in the room?
Yep.
The endless “adjustments,” “corrections,” and “restructucturings” of the empirical data don’t exactly lend much credibility to the process.
The Soviets were the absolute masters at this. As Hannah Arendt noted,
Yep, they must have no justifiable reason for the adjustments so they make them up to fool everybody into believing in the global warming hoax. This does seem to be a common theme.. I think Dr. Curry’s group think” rationale is more plausible but again it’s more in the realm of fantasy due to the lack of evidence.
Joseph, If we can believe the numbers from nasa, we will soon be homesteading on planet GP-714…
http://www.express.co.uk/news/science/668945/NASA-Chance-of-life-being-out-there-boosted-as-every-star-has-at-least-one-planet
once we overcome that speed-of-light thing. There is nothing that ten generations of scientists will do, once they put their minds to work.
Here Glenn
Look at the trend for RAW
then look at the trend AFTER adjustments
https://bobtisdale.files.wordpress.com/2016/05/figure-1.png
Stephen Mosher,
From the post you lifted the graphics from:
And you were saying?
Remember when you were young and knew everything, Steven?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/05/10/canadian-teenager-discovers-ancient-mayan-city-lost-in-jungles-o/
That was a very long time ago. Who knew you could do this and be right? Kids, go figure.
“For the post-1998 or post-2001 slowdown in global warming, the adjustments have increased the global warming rates in all datasets….”
And you know what is HILARIOUS about that??
Post 1998 we have the GOLD STANDARD, SKEPTIC APPROVED
temperature stations!!!! the climate reference network
And….. wait for it…..
The ADJUSTED BAD STATIONS match the RAW GOLD STANDARD
Stations..!!!
TOO FUNNY
It must feel good when you can see the last fact, proves your new hypothesis. This is what modern science can do when you scare a twelve year old by suggesting that 2012, may be the end of the world.
The presentation could use Tisdale’s above plot to address the question of the adjustments which is one of the more popular topics of the skeptics. Overall would this be good or bad? It could also be remarked that these data sets show warming of less than 1 C per century.
Or, you could explain to them that the first 50 years of data show the GMST was cooling at: slope = -0.00108732 per year.
And, that the last 50 years of data, including the paws-up pause, show the GMST warming at: slope = 0.0173983 per year.
“The presentation could use Tisdale’s above plot to address the question of the adjustments which is one of the more popular topics of the skeptics. Overall would this be good or bad?”
I will repeat my advice to skeptics. there are really good arguments against the alarmism of CAGW. These arguments exist INSIDE the science summarized by the IPCC. These positions exist INSIDE the consensus on the core science.
For as long as I have been involved in the debate ( 2007) skeptics have tended to focus on attacking the science from the outside.
1. They try “philosophical” attacks typically misusing Popper. Hint:
no philosophy of science ever changed science.
2. They try political attacks aiming at scientists motives.
3. They try to deny the core physics ( c02 is not a green house gas)
4. They focus on the wrong issues or tangents
a) the temperature records
b) paleo papers
The problem is you cant really debate the science from the “outside”. You end up defending yourselves against charges of den*ilism, conspiratorial
ideation, incompetence, etc..You’re not galileo
meanwhile, inside the science, there is a robust debate about climate sensitivity and a debate about how much harm could be caused and how best to address it. But skeptics ( Nic Lewis is an exception) are for the most part stuck outside (by choice) throwing pebbles at 100+ year institution. So they waste their time and effort claiming conspiracies, they waste their time and effort trying to disprove known physics, and they have missed the opportunity to debate the real questions:
1) how much warming will c02 cause?
2) who will benefit and who will be harmed?
3. What if anything can we do.
Instead they spend countless hours demanding that only “raw” data is worthy.. only to discover ( cause they never looked) that the raw data shows MORE WARMING.
They had a chance to debate. Nic Lewis was the only one smart enough to take a paper that was already ACCEPTED by the IPCC and use the methods in that paper to show that ECS was toward the low end of the spectrum. That is, he understood how to occupy a place inside of the debate and make an impact on the course of the discussion.
Judith and Nic have shown you guys the right wedge issues.
1. Its not the temperature record, they use the accepted data.
2. they dont deny c02 is GHG
3. They dont claim with certainty that ECS is low.
Anyway, I see all this fantastic brainpower being wasted on tangents
and inconsequential aspects of the argument. The problem is this:
If you’ve spent years claiming “fraud” or crap like that, spent years denying known physics, nobody is going to listen to you when you decide to join the real debate.So you are stuck forever on stupid. In contrast Nic Lewis could still be making credible arguments about ECS for the next 20 years.
Early on looking at the temperature record ( actually reading papers and working with data ) it became clear that there was one area of uncertainty worth arguing about. one area with some leverage.
The same condition exists for ECS. Most skeptics look at ECS of 1.5 to 4.5C and they say “OMG the numbers havent changed in years.. no progress, Bad science!” Nic saw Opportunity.
But to get impact you actually have to do work. you actually have to join the debate.
JCH:
It’s seems both of us are using time frames to make our point. Using the longer run of data above portrays the temperature as having stability I’ll say because of the massive thermal storage of the oceans. Using the last 50 years portrays the temperature as agile with less stability. I think it’s both.
Queue Mosher to say the adjustments don’t do anything anyway.
Or que him to say they are “conservative” adjustments that make the Real Warming less than it actually is.
Or some other clownish something.
Andrew
I’ll say nothing.
Here is bob Tilsdale’s picture.
worth 1000 words
https://bobtisdale.files.wordpress.com/2016/05/figure-1.png
I recite my mantra. All adjustments should be upward because ACO2 is the turned-up control knob.
So so far all the adjustments are wrong.
Those graphs say it all.
Whoever or whatever threw that temp-rise switch after 1910 (Big Paraffin?) should be on trial, right alongside those sea-level bumpers (Big Tallowl?) back in the late 1700s.
Of course, we may have to dig up the stiffs for the trial, like they did with Pope Formosus.
mosomoso,
It is pretty remarkable how easily the narrative can be changed, depending on where one decides to draw the lines.
http://i.imgur.com/3Pfuj1q.png
The narrative is largely arbitrary, the same as with the famous Rorschach drawings.
http://ocw.covenantuniversity.edu.ng/courses/brain-and-cognitive-sciences/9-00sc-introduction-to-psychology-fall-2011/personality/discussion-personality/lec16_diss_img2.jpg
As Hannah Arendt noted in The Human Condition, Descartes proclaimed that nature, “however complicated, must always be expressible in alebraic formulae.”
This meant that now “phenomena could be saved only in so far as they can be reduced to a mathematical order,”
The mathematical operation did not reveal “true being,” but “reduced the data to the measure of the human mind, which, given enough distance, being sufficiently remote and uninvolved, can look upon and handle the multitude and variety of the concrete in accordance with its own patterns and symbols.”
“Under this condition of remoteness every assemblage of things is transformed into a mere multitude and every multitude, no matter how disordered, incoherent, and confused, will fall into certain patterns and configurations possessing the same validity and no more significance than a mathematical curve.”
“It certainly does not offer a confirmation of the human mind, of its capacity to surpass the senses in perceptivity or of its adequateness as an organ for the reception of truth,” Arendt concludes.
“The modern reductio scientiae ad mathematicam has overruled the testimony of nature as witnessed at close range by human senses.”
If we draw the lines as I have in black, there’s not even correlation, much less causation, of the warming with CO2 emissions.
https://gailtheactuary.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/world-energy-consumption-by-source.png
I need to correct what I said above in regards to Kyle Swanson. I was wrong. I misrepresented what he wrote. I didn’t think it through. Sorry. High climate sensitivity implies high climate variability is what I should have wrote. If that’s true I think it has some interesting implications which I talk a bit about here: https://chaosaccounting.wordpress.com/2016/05/11/climate-variability-and-climate-sensitivity-are-flip-sides-of-the-same-coin/
Maybe Jim D or SM will weigh in, but I don’t think that high climate sensitivity means there will necessarily be wide swing in natural variability. There could be, but I think there could also not be. But, if a system has a lot of natural variability, then it is sensitive to radiative forcing and would have a high climate sensitivity.
JCH:
We’ve seen it’s sensitive to changes in surface and near surface ocean temperatures.
JCH, yes, some kinds of natural variability can tell us a lot. The 11-year solar cycle only changes the forcing by +/-0.1 W/m2, but even that is clearly seen in the temperature record, and it is only 5% of what doubling CO2 does to the forcing.
Well, we’ve seen it’s very sensitive to both. Since the mid 1980s, a declining PDO index, which is usually accompanied by a similar decline in the GMST, failed to cause the usual decline in the GMST. Instead there was a flattening once the PDO index dove into negative numbers… bottomed out. When the PDO went positive, the GMST took off like a rocket. That is a system that is very sensitive to both natural variation and ACO2, and with ACO2 being the hated control knob. Resists going down; goes up like crazy… all the way to 2100.
I think it’s argued to be like this:
The climate is sensitive to changes. If it was not, all the charts including long time frames would show horizontal lines. That it is sufficiently sensitive causes natural variability. The PDO went negative over a decade ago for some nonrandom reason. As we don’t know what that reason was, we could call it a cycle. Call it natural variability as many have, or noise. If there was a pause, the climate was sensitive to something that offset CO2. If there is a current acceleration, it’s still sensitive to something complimenting CO2 or if you prefer, can no longer hold CO2’s effects back. If we allow variable sensitivity we then allow variable natural variability. We change the control variable as we did, and the reaction is a tiny fraction of what is expected. It that case studies are done looking at large circulations to explain that. Those circulations too are claimed to be sensitive to changes. Cooling circulations were caused by CO2. Or some claim it’s a background of noise and cooling circulations will certainly reverse. A background of noise means the climate sometimes is not sensitive to changes, but I claim it is. Or it might mean its sensitivity is variable and sometimes hypersensitive. Variable natural variability might be this:
The Indian Pacific Warm Pool mostly sits there insensitive to anything. Its natural variability goes dormant. As the pool builds it becomes more sensitive to factors that would collapse it and start an El Nino. It does collapse and likewise the natural variability is let out and observed because the IPWP was highly sensitive to changes for a time. The ENSO region has variable natural variability because of variable sensitivity.
I would just add the gem from A Tsonis, which is it is the change in direction of an index that determines positive and negative impacts on the GMST, not simply negative and positive index numbers. Negative PDO index numbers predominated starting in the 2000s, and that is when there was a hiatus, but the PDO’s drag on the GMST started when the PDO changed direction. That is one of Tsonis’s most important contributions. The PDO index changed directions in the mid 1980s, and it has been dragging down the GMST ever since, which is why CS is going to be higher than most think.
“One thing that seems lacking in most discussions/presentations on climate is the specific details associated with adjustments to global temperature data sets.
A) “What is the impact of those adjustments on global temperature anomalies?”
1. Looking at the Trends over the LONGEST period, the effect of adjustments to ocean and land temperature datasets, we find this:
Adjustments COOL the trend.
2. here is a skeptics version of something I’ve been telling you guys
for years
https://bobtisdale.files.wordpress.com/2016/05/figure-1.png
B: What vetting process do proposed adjustments go through?
1. It depends on which series you are talking about.
a) Hadcrut uses data that are adjusted by INDIVIDUAL COUNTRIES
b) NOAA do there own adjustments using a algorithm that has
been verified many times.
c) GISS use NOAA adjustments and add their own adjustments
for UHI
d) Berkeley Earth use a data driven purely algorithmic approach.
The algorithm has been double blind tested and verified.
2. The code for NOAA and Berkeley has been available for years
for people to review, criticize, improve. These codes and others
were tested in a double blind study.
3. SST adjustments are also documented in papers. I havent seen any
code, however
4. if you dont like adjustments, just you raw data. The global warming trend is HIGHER for raw data and the ECS estimates are also higher.
Who ultimately approves them?
See Above. Many NWS do their own adjustments. You can use that
data or get their raw data.
Who validates their accuracy after the fact?
See Above
From my shoes it appears that the adjustments to several of the global temperature data sets have a near doubling affect on reported global temperature anomalies. Is that the real AGW in the room?
Change your shoes. The adjustments DECREASE the warming
https://bobtisdale.files.wordpress.com/2016/05/figure-1.png
Mosher,
Demonstrate that impacts of warming are a significant problem (in units of consequence, e.g. $)
Demonstrate that mitigation policies are liely to deliver net benefits over this century.
Steven Mosher,
Just like the rest of the climatariat, you have this uncanny way of cherry-picking whatever evidence allows you to win an argument, while ignoring that evidence which might hurt your argument.
You, like all the climatariat, are a master at custom tailoring facts to fit your preconceived notions.
For instance, here’s the closing from the post you lifted those graphics from:
The part about “For the post-1998 or post-2001 slowdown in global warming, the adjustments have increased the global warming rates in all datasets” somehow gets bowdlerized from your telling of things.
Go figure.
“Demonstrate that impacts of warming are a significant problem (in units of consequence, e.g. $)
Demonstrate that mitigation policies are liely to deliver net benefits over this century.”
Too funny. no demonstration necessary.
You don’t get to decide.
You dont get to ask for proof or evidence or demonstrations.
you are not a policy maker.
start with this
https://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/wg2/WGIIAR5-Chap2_FINAL.pdf
Glenn.
All that matters is the long trends.
That determines sensitivity.
Next. Skeptics now have to own their lies.
The lie that all adjustments go one way.
The lie that half of the warming is due to adjustments.
The lie that adjustments are the biggest fraud in science.
We can have a reasonable discussion of the technical details. But not as long as skeptics cling to these lies.
It would have been smarter for skeptics to argue the uncertainty of adjustments or to do a better job of it.
Those ships sailed.you missed the boat.
Mosher is becoming more and more intellectually dishonest, and more and more irrelevant. He’s in denial about the relevant issues and incessantly trying to divert debate to irrelevancies. Here’s an example of strawman arguments and ignoiring the relaanat issues, two of the ‘10 signs of intellectual dishonesty‘ (https://judithcurry.com/2013/04/20/10-signs-of-intellectual-honesty/)
Mosher is desperate. He knows he’s lost, yet he’s desperately trying to justify his beliefs like a flat earther.
Steven Mosher,
Your arguments are very lawyerly, but not scientific.
They are tantamount to those made by an attorney defending a perp who has been caught in flagrante delicto — on camera, for instance.
Have you ever considered taking off your lawyer’s hat, and putting on a scientist’s hat?
It’s hot.
What can we do about it?
Depends on climate sensitivity. If it’s low, not so much. If it’s high we can write our name in the temperature record by controlling CO2. Tisdale’s plot suggests the adjustments lower climate sensitivity using 1880 as the start date.
Sensitivity is the flip side of natural variability said Swanson. Lower sensitivity implies higher natural variability.
The bend up around 1950 means what? We can say it’s hotter with an exclamation point. What can we do about it? Using the data back to 1880, less than we thought, and more of the bend up was natural if these people know what they are taking about.
Glenn Stehle (5/11/16 7:33 am post):
Your lawyer analogy concerning Mr. Mosher is pointed in the right direction. I view him as “wandering in the weeds” of data and throwing out masses of mostly irrelevant or trivially true facts. His past suggestion that skeptics focus on analysing the minutia related to TCS/ECS in engaging and countering alarmists is laughable. Wars are won at the strategic scale, with tactics in support.
Using satellite, radiosonde, ARGO, drought and rain data in all-out assaults on model “projection” failures should be most fruitful. Reducing the target to 1.5 degrees C is, in part, a response to the tsunami of model failures.
Modelers must suspect that TCS/ECS will come down. A problem is that they would then be required to somehow finesse past abuses of aerosol levels. They were allowed to miss temperature ups and downs, while making semi-plausible excuses about data uncertainty and model spreads. Any continuation of the 21st Century plateau (or even slight warming) will ruin them.
Dave Fair
One of those days again. The below was posted to the wrong thread:
https://judithcurry.com/2016/05/09/new-presentation-society-of-petroleum-engineers/#comment-783919
Judith You say ” The climate change problem and its solution have been vastly oversimplified.”
In fact the opposite is the case. The establishment, including yourself . continue to used a methodolgy which is not fit for purpose.
Harrison and Stainforth say in: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/eost2009EO13/pdf
“Reductionism argues that deterministic approaches to science and positivist views of causation are the appropriate methodologies for exploring complex, multivariate systems … where the behavior of a complex system can be deduced from the fundamental reductionist understanding. Rather, large, complex systems may be better understood, and perhaps only understood, in terms of observed, emergent behavior. The practical implication is that there exist system behaviors and structures that are not amenable to explanation or prediction by reductionist methodologies … the GCM is the numerical solution of a complex but purely deterministic set of nonlinear partial differential equations over a defined spatiotemporal grid, and no attempt is made to introduce any quantification of uncertainty into its construction … [T]he reductionist argument that large scale behaviour can be represented by the aggregative effects of smaller scale process has never been validated in the context of natural environmental systems .”
The bottom up numerical modelling approach is inherently of no value for predicting future temperature with any calculable certainty because of the difficulty of specifying the initial conditions of a sufficiently fine grained spatio-temporal grid of a large number of variables with sufficient precision prior to multiple iterations. For a complete discussion of this see Essex:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvhipLNeda4
and for a detailed discussion see Section 1 at
http://climatesense-norpag.blogspot.com/2014/07/climate-forecasting-methods-and-cooling.html
Earth’s climate is the result of resonances and beats between various quasi-cyclic processes of varying wavelengths. It is not possible to forecast the future unless we have a good understanding of the relation of the climate of the present time to the current phases of these different interacting natural quasi-periodicities which fall into two main categories.
a) The orbital long wave Milankovitch eccentricity,obliquity and precessional cycles which are modulated by
b) Solar “activity” cycles with possibly multi-millennial, millennial, centennial and decadal time scales.
The convolution of the a and b drivers is mediated through the great oceanic current and atmospheric pressure systems to produce the earth’s climate and weather.
After establishing where we are relative to the long wave periodicities to help forecast decadal and annual changes, we can then look at where earth is in time relative to the periodicities of the PDO, AMO and NAO and ENSO indices and based on past patterns make reasonable forecasts for future decadal periods.
Following this approach, forecasting future climate trends with useful accuracy for advising policy makers becomes reasonably straight forward using only the millennial and 60 year periodicities. See Fig 1 and the discussion and forecasts at
http://climatesense-norpag.blogspot.com/2016/03/the-imminent-collapse-of-cagw-delusion.html
The key point in predicting the future is the recognition of the millennial temperature peak and change of trend from warming to cooling seen in the RSS and Hadcrut 4 data in Figs 5 an 5a.
Your presentation should include the idea of multiple working hypotheses and provide an outline of the methods and forecasts presented above. Feel free to use any of the Figures linked above, I would suggest that everything is neatly summarized in Fig 1.
I repeat ” Following this approach, forecasting future climate trends with useful accuracy for advising policy makers becomes reasonably straight forward using only the millennial and 60 year periodicities. See Fig 1 “
Here is Fig1 for convenience
https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-X9orQfYkWxk/VuNLIThwaxI/AAAAAAAAAc8/GvSoOrUQN2AC9LMJ-C0EWFwv5L5-OYTsw/s1600/cyclesFinal.jpg
Figure 1 above compares the IPCC forecast with the Akasofu paper forecast and with the simple but most economic working hypothesis of this post (green line) that the peak at about 2003 is the most recent peak in the millennial cycle so obvious in the temperature data.The data also shows that the well documented 60 year temperature cycle coincidentally peaks at about the same time.
How do you get graphics to display in the comments?
http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2014/140502/ncomms4805/images_article/ncomms4805-f6.jpg
Ah, there. Lachniet’s 175k year reconstruction showing the warming trend starting 1,600 years ago, which coincides with changes in human populations, changes in plant populations, species shift, etc, etc , etc,/
It is impossible for any model to compute a global average temperature from sparse periodic temperature measurements (see GISS website giving weather station data and discussion of 1D climate models used!). The natural cycles and fine-scale oscillations (on the order of a century or two) shown in ice core data interpretations are greater or on the same order of the claimed rise in global average temperature of about 1 degF since 1950. Computing an average temperature for any period of time at any given location requires integration of a continuous temperature reading over time. There’s the first bad assumption in any average temperature calculations or predictions in any model, amongst many! Temperatures close to urban centers may be simply a function of people density – look at the difference in temperature on the surface of any Walmart parking lot compared to a nearby forest! Also, ice core data shows that CO2 level increases follow temperature increases by one or two hundred years, not the other way around. There is no evidence that a 100 ppm increase in CO2 has any significant greenhouse effect. The simple experiment showing it, by measuring the equilibrium temperature difference in two tanks exposed to same amount of radiation, with one tank having a 100 ppm higher CO2 concentration, doesn’t seem to exist! Of course that result depends on the composition difference including the other components resulting from the method used to increase CO2. For example, if the tank with less CO2 had more water vapor, it should have a higher equilibrium temperature, because water vapor is the most abundant and powerful greenhouse gas.
Oil reserves & global warming
Since you are addressing the Soc. Petroleum Engineers, I suggest addressing discussions of the amount of CO2 generated by using most of the known oil reserves (recoverable at a given price, technology.)
See especially publications by Tad Patzek Prof., Petroleum Engineering, Univ. Texas at Austin.
Lois K. and Richard D. Folger Leadership Professor and Chairman of the Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering Department at The University of Texas at Austin.
SPE Distinguished Member, 2013.
Physical Limitations on Mining Natural Earth Systems
Tad Patzek, Petroleum & Geosystems Engineering, UT Austin
22nd International Conference Oil-Gas AGH 2011, Cracow, June 10
especially slide 24/26
Patzek, T. W. “Exponential growth, energetic Hubbert cycles, and the advancement of technology,” Arch. Min. Sci., 53(2), p. 131–159, 2008.
Fig. 13 multi-Hubbert analysis of US oil production. (excluding tight oil.)
Views on peak oil and its relation to climate change policy
More Growth? An unfeasible option to overcome critical energy constraints
and climate change
The future of oil: Geology versus technology
“Climate models represents the atmosphere, land surface,
the ocean and the cryosphere on thousands of gridpoints in
the atmosphere and the ocean. The model is based on
the laws of physics.”
Laws of physics?! Dr. Curry, you should think about this. You are talking to engineers now and not climatologist. Greenhouse gas effect does not exist in engineering textbooks.
Jennifer Lopez’ butt is based on the laws of physics too. But if you want to know how hot it is science cannot say that’s a matter of personal opinion.
+2
“Greenhouse gas effect does not exist in engineering textbooks.”
First you need to understand radiative transfer
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0521834902/ref=rdr_ext_tmb
or talk to these guys
http://www.geminor.com/
or read this
http://www.amazon.com/dp/3527408363/ref=rdr_ext_tmb
if you find any mistakes, write your own textbook
Steven Mosher,
What does these links show? Nothing relative to engineering applications. See for example Perry’s Chemical Engineers and Mark’s Standard Handbook for Mechanical Engineers. These books summarize actual engineering applications. Greenhouse gas effect does nor exist in these books. No engineer uses greenhouse gas effect and radiative forcing in equipment design.
“What does these links show? Nothing relative to engineering applications.”
1. Wrong. First read the textbooks.
2. My co workers and I used this physics to design
a) stealth aircraft
b) IR seekers
c) covert communications equipment
d) elecro Optical sensors.
3. The same codes are used in weather forecasting. without
these codes the forecasts are horrible.
See for example Perry’s Chemical Engineers and Mark’s Standard Handbook for Mechanical Engineers. These books summarize actual engineering applications. Greenhouse gas effect does nor exist in these books. No engineer uses greenhouse gas effect and radiative forcing in equipment design.
1. Sorry but it happens daily.
2. For radiative forcing see and LBL model.
Judith.. probably 3-5 luke warmers in the bunch
;http://www.bitsofscience.org/real-global-temperature-trend-climate-sensitivity-leading-climate-experts-7106/
1. Piers Forster, ” just shy of 3C”
2. James Hansen,” 3C + or – 0.5C for a 4 W/m2 doubled CO2 forcing.”
3. Gavin Schmidt, ” 2.5 and 3 deg C ”
4. Alan Robock, “3 K ”
5. Michael Mann, “between 3C and 4C (say, 3.5C).”
6. Ken Caldeira, “3 C per CO2-doubling.”
7. Stefan Rahmstorf, “Short answer: 3 °C.”
“I even think the IPCC uncertainty range of 1.5 – 4.5 °C is too wide, I personally say 2 – 4 °C.”
8. Chris Forest, “3.3C .”
9. Gabriele Hegerl,
“I suspect it’s under 3 and over 2. My gut range is 2.2 to 2.8. ”
10. Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, 3°C + small delta.
11. Jonathan Gregory,
“It’s a good question but I don’t place any confidence in gut feelings, so my answer would be the likely range of the AR5. ”
12. Drew Shindell, 2-4.5C for the most credible papers.”
13. Andrei Sokolov, climate sensitivity specialist at MIT
“I’ll say it is 3.5C per CO2 doubling.”
Lukewarmers, my foot. More like model-addicted fortune tellers.
Jesus, might have called that idle worship?
my foot too
you forget who defined and promoted the term Lukewarmer..
Now just who do you think could forget Jesus, Steven? Only a denier.
Who can forget?
Rev 3:16 So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.
I am a layman and don’t know diddley, really about climate science (that’s why I come to CE). If we compare Lewis/Curry to Schmidt’s 2.5 C and use BAU emission estimates — don’t they come out pretty close time wise? In the big picture of time we think we might have, how many more years does Curry/Lewis give us versus Schmidt (low end) — 30 years, 40 years, . . . What?
4.5C Drew Shindell
4.0C Michael Mann
4.0C – Stefan Rahmstorf
4.0C Jonathan Gregory,
3.3C for Chris Forest
3.0C Piers Forster
3.0C James Hansen
3.0C Gavin Schmidt
3.0C Alan Robock
3.0C Ken Caldeira
3.0C Hans Joachim Schellnhuber
2.8C Gabriele Hegerl
————————————-
2.0C IPCC AR4 next few decades
1.8C IPCC AR4 best estimate low scenario
————————————-
1.8C Highest observed 30yr surface trend since 1910 (C/century)
1.7C Correlation of Temperature & CO2 Doubling for the satellite era
1.5C land ocean average trend for the satellite era
1.3C RATPAC 850 through 500 mb trend for the satellite era
1.2C MSU LT average trend for the satellite era
1.1C SST average trend for the satellite era
0.7C MSU MT average trend for the satellite era
Hegerl is closest, but no winners with ‘The Price is Right’ rules.
Just goes to show how popular insanity can be widely accepted without people thinking.
Oh yeah,
0.0C Deniers.
Deniers appear to be wrong, but wrong by about the same amount as the higher end above.
dont be a tool.
Anything outside of 0.7 to 1.8 C/century or C/doubling is imaginary, not real.
The amazing thing is all the estimates entertained that even exceed the unglued Hansen.
@Turbulent Eddie,
Until CO2 effects can be reliably and quantitatively linked to ocean circulation, cloud and aerosol effects, nothing is imaginary. including the 0.0C of the Deniers.
Oh, one other red flag about the list, – the striking digit bias.
Except for Hegerl and Forest, the numbers end in .0 or .5
Weather forecasters suffer from this same bias.
The presence of digit bias indicates lack of information upon which the ‘forecast’ is made.
“Anything outside of 0.7 to 1.8 C/century or C/doubling is imaginary, not real.”
Again, more settled science from skeptics.
1. you cherry picked the high values for every scientist. Silly since
we can read what they wrote.
2. You try to use bogus analysis of short time series (satellite era)
to bolster your claim.
The range is around 1.5 to 4.5C.
Your best bet is to publish something that narrows the range
Until CO2 effects can be reliably and quantitatively linked to ocean circulation, cloud and aerosol effects, nothing is imaginary. including the 0.0C of the Deniers.
We don’t have to wait.
The era of rapidly rising GHGs began with the reconstruction after WWII.
That’s more than 70 years.
It is reasonable to ask why one would expect different responses than what we have observed.
Also, it is something that occurred to me that deniers of warming actually are believers in climate change. They believe climates will somehow change in to produce negative temperature feedback.
While clouds can and do act as heat reservoirs and clouds do likely fluctuate, there’s not a particularly good reason to believe that either top of the atmosphere radiative forcing, nor global temperature will change climate factors much. Why? Because CO2 forcing is relatively uniform, constant and global. It is gradients, not global average that determines motion and distribution of heat within the ocean/atmosphere system.
Eddie, what is it you think that we have observed? For example, UAH says the atmosphere did not warm 1978-1997. The surface statistical models say it did and that is the purported warming that AGW is based on. What then is the observation? Warming or no warming?
1. you cherry picked the high values for every scientist. Silly since
we can read what they wrote.
No, most offered a single value.
If they offered a range, they’re accountable for the high end.
Your smart phone weather app doesn’t give you a forecast temperature range, it gives you an estimate, because a range will not occur, only a single reality that we’re trying to predict, right?
2. You try to use bogus analysis of short time series (satellite era)
to bolster your claim.
As you know, if you use a longer time period ( say 1945 ) and you’ll find even lower rates and responses, not higher. There’s no magic period, but starting with the satellite era includes MSU in addition to RAOB, Surface and SST.
The range is around 1.5 to 4.5C.
Your best bet is to publish something that narrows the range
Reality is narrowing that range.
BTW, what does that range even represent anymore?
The meaning has changed over the years.
RCPs:
https://www.agclimate.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Scenario-Series-2-Figure.jpg
So the high end century rates really aren’t about uncertainty of response, but about the range of emissions scenarios.
Unfortunately all debate participants of global warming abuse uncertainty when it suits them.
We do know that economic and demographics trends of this millennium so far indicate RCP2.6 more than RCP8.
“The surface statistical models say it did and that is the purported warming that AGW is based on. ”
1. AGW is not “based on” the surface observaations. It is based on
physics.
2. The surface observations Support that theory.
” For example, UAH says the atmosphere did not warm 1978-1997.”
The Satellite record matches the surface record through May of 1998
during the MSU period. After the switch to AMSU, the records
diverge.
“What then is the observation? Warming or no warming?”
1. wrong question.
2. there are observations.. plural.
a) observations of STT, direct
b) observations of SAT, direct
c) observations of the bulk atmosphere– indirect.
3. Depending on which time period you choose and which observation
series you choose, you will see various amounts of warming.
4. The uncertainty in the theory is NOT whether warming will occur
The uncertainty is WHEN it will occur (the lag), WHERE it will
occur, and how MUCH will occur in various times and places.
That part of the science is very uncertainty. You have conflicting
evidence from observations and from models. That implies
More science before one can draw conclusions
Mr. Mosher’s above post pretty much sums up my observations over the last number of months of the climate wars: Absolute incoherence (And maybe chemical use by some warriors.). Most combatants act like my wife’s chickens; scratching up and flinging random facts in search of the elusive nuggets of truth. One of the few real gems I came across was a “Basta!” comment awhile back. I also have had enough of the scratching.
I’m old enough and financially secure enough such that the politicians cannot ruin the global economy fast enough to affect my family materialy. Given the obvious trajectory of human emissions of CO2, I’ll probably live to see the fearful “doubling.” The totality of the evidence I discern indicates the climate at that point will be about the same as it has always been post-Little Ice Age.
So, I leave you to your incessant squabbling and pecking; they have become a waste of my time. I will continue to follow Bob Tisdale (and his tip jar), as he is one of the few sane and sensible practitioners. His cogent posts and books slice right through to the heart of the issues.
“So long, suckers”
Dave Fair
Eddie, what is it you think that we have observed? For example, UAH says the atmosphere did not warm 1978-1997. The surface statistical models say it did and that is the purported warming that AGW is based on. What then is the observation? Warming or no warming?
When you start to consider warming you are confronted with what period to use. And it can be a trap, because a different starting or stopping time will give you a different trend, which can become a bias of choice. The world didn’t begin in 1979, but that’s the first complete year of MSU and what I tend to focus on because of multiple data sets available.
So I think 1979 through the present is a reasonable trend. The old rule of thumb was/is 30 years, and the satellite era is not 37 plus. All the data sets above indicate warming. So, yes, 0.0C appears incorrect.
“So I think 1979 through the present is a reasonable trend. The old rule of thumb was/is 30 years, and the satellite era is not 37 plus. All the data sets above indicate warming.”
The rule of thumb for 30 years has nothing to do with the calculation
of TCR or ECS.
at 30 years when you compute a climatology each month has 30 samples. the variance starts to get smaller such that the bias you impart by choosing a baseline is minimized. Jones (climate gate email) also
justified the choice by arguing that all natural cycles were less than 30 years. but he did include a side not about a 35 year cycle..
The point is this: Theory holds that
A) there are natural cycles
B) they average out.
C) excess heat can be stored temporarily
So, you want to pick a time Frame that is as long as possible to avoid
A) picking a start date and end date that align with peaks and troughs
of natural cycles. See Nic Lewis’ approach.
B) misdiagnosing the transient response because of sequestered
heat or released heat…
As an example. you dont want to start in the dip of La Nina and end with the peak of El Nino.
if you want to do a complete job you can just do the calculation for all possible start and end dates.
you cherry picked the high values for every scientist
erm James Hansen 3.0°C
One of the points I listed above is the highest observed 30 yr trend.
I believe it was the thirty year period from 1975 through 2004, or thereabouts. There’s a good reason for this – the cooling period from 1945 through 1975 ended about then, so assuming the cooling from 1945 to 1975 was ‘natural’, the trend since 1975 represents a high water mark for warming, because 1975 marked the end of cooling.
1975 through the present indicates a trend lower than 1975 through 2004, so that 1.8C per century represents the greatest rate ( of trend ).
As for natural variability, as I noted above, the 1.5 to 4.5 or so range is NOT what natural variability is likely to be, but rather is the natural variability for the range of all emissions scenarios. Those scenarios impose a range greater than natural variability.
Natural variability in the models indicates somewhere around +/- 0.5C/century:
http://www.met.reading.ac.uk/~ed/bloguploads/tas_ipcc_control1.png
And indeed, that’s what the individual scenario runs indicate also:
https://www.agclimate.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Scenario-Series-2-Figure.jpg
So if you say, well, the range is 1.5 to 4.5, understand that 300% ( +/- 1.5C instead of +/- 0.5C ) of the uncertainty implied is not natural variability at all.
“AGW is not “based on” the surface observaations. It is based on physics.”
To say AGW is based on physics is not strictly true. AGW is based on a combination of physics, at least one swag (that the retained heat energy due to increasing CO2 concentrations is distributed in such a way that only surface temperature and not the lapse rate changes), and at least one simplifying assumption that may or may not be reasonable (that the temperature profile wrt altitude is monotonic).
“To say AGW is based on physics is not strictly true.”
Actually it is true.
The rate of warming caused by AGW and what happens as a result (climatewise) is not based on physics but assumptions.
Ah, but there is science, and there is “science”, and they are more than slightly different.
When it is related to climate, it is assumed we are referring to the latter.
“To say AGW is based on physics is not strictly true.”
Actually it is true.
So how does the physics explain cooling in the presence of increased C02, which happens all the time?
Andrew
@Rob Starkey
“Actually it is true.”
I’m interested in knowing what you base this assertion on. I don’t consider swags as physics and when people say “the physics says [such and such]” they are typically not including simplifying assumptions that may or may not be reasonable.
“erm James Hansen 3.0°C”
Since Hansen didnt give a range like 2-4, but rather 3C+- he choose
the 3C. guess he couldnt do the math to perpetuate his misrpresentation in that case.
But seriously whats to be gained by citing 4C for Ramsdorf
when he writes 2-4C
Seriously, you dont advance your case by doing silly things, wrong things,
when doing the RIGHT THING advances your case!
When Gregory states NO NUMBER explicitly and refers to the IPCC range, what POINT is there in saying that he wrote 4C?
Seriously?
When Mann says 3.5C what point is there is discrediting yourself by claiming 4C for him? Seriously? you want your side to look less credible than Mann? Seriously?
You will not magically end this debate by misrepresentation, especially when the science is moving in your direction!
You want to make a contribution? Lop off some of that High tail.
Dont play stupid games by trying to push your opponents into that space.
“So how does the physics explain cooling in the presence of increased C02, which happens all the time?”
The basic physics depict what would happen in a simple system if CO2 were added.
The actual “climate system” is not a simple system and is impacted by other factors that offset the impact of the co2 over short term periods. (“short term” in terms of the planet’s climate may seem very long term to humanity)
Remember- the basic physics does not show that dangerous warming will ever occur as a result of additional CO2. Those conclusions are based on adding additional “guesses” to the basic physics.
Mosher, “The range is around 1.5 to 4.5C.
Your best bet is to publish something that narrows the range”
I believe that has been done and is being done. Now we just have to wait a decade or three for the curmudgeons to retire or expire, which is the scientific way right?
Rob Starkey,
“The actual “climate system” is not a simple system”
You’re telling me that the physics explains a system that doesn’t exist.
Indeed it doesn’t. So why do people keep pretending it does?
Andrew
“Since Hansen didnt give a range like 2-4, but rather 3C+- he choose the 3C. guess”
erm
Hansen (1988) 4.2°C
Hansen (2005) 4°C
Hansen (2013) 4°C (citing Hansen, 2005)
Dr, cure thyself.
too funny captain.
keep trying. one or two papers wont narrow the range..
keep working
mosher, “keep trying. one or two papers wont narrow the range..”
Quite true even though it should only take one. “But the point stands, that the IPCC’s sensitivity estimate cannot readily be reconciled with forcing estimates and observational data. All the recent literature that approaches the question from this angle comes up with similar answers, including the papers I mentioned above. By failing to meet this problem head-on, the IPCC authors now find themselves in a bit of a pickle. I expect them to brazen it out, on the grounds that they are the experts and are quite capable of squaring the circle before breakfast if need be. But in doing so, they risk being seen as not so much summarising scientific progress, but obstructing it.
There’s a nice example of this in Reto Knutti’s comment featured by Revkin. While he starts out be agreeing that estimates based on the energy balance have to be coming down, he then goes on to argue that now (after a decade or more of generating and using them) he doesn’t trust the calculations because these Bayesian estimates are all too sensitive to the prior choices. That seems to me to be precisely contradicted by all the available literature, which demonstrates that so long as absurd priors are avoided, the results are actually remarkably robust. Our own Climatic Change paper, Salvador Pueyo, Aldrin and the other papers above all use a wide range of different priors based on a range of different arguments but still arrive at very similar answers (at least, similar enough in the context of the hypothetical “long tail” for the pdf of climate sensitivity)! It looks rather like the IPCC authors have invented this meme as some sort of talismanic mantra to defend themselves against having to actually deal with the recent literature.” James empty blog
Once those obstructionists…er. climate scientists retire or expire, things might return to “normal” science. Until then there are plenty of old guard ready to pump out a new high estimates to offset the new work. Perhaps using balloon-o-mometers :)
Another pity comment from that blog post, ” The list of pollees in the Zickfeld paper are largely the self-same people responsible for the largely bogus analyses that I’ve criticised over recent years, and which even if they were valid then, are certainly outdated now. Interestingly, one of them stated quite openly in a meeting I attended a few years ago that he deliberately lied in these sort of elicitation exercises (i.e. exaggerating the probability of high sensitivity) in order to help motivate political action.”
Science inspired to motivate political action? Whoda thunk it.
First of all Rolf assumes that the observed warming (whatever that means) is due to the CO2 rise, which is not known to be true and is probably very false. Then he (and his respondents) seem to assume that sensitivity equals what will happen, which is wildly false. Sensitivity is merely what might happen if there were no other causes (such as solar and ocean forcings) nor effects (such as neglected negative feedbacks).
Sensitivity is at best a misleading abstraction. Given that the concept assumes some sort of CO2 control knob it is wrong, so using it is a fallacy.
“First of all Rolf assumes that the observed warming (whatever that means) is due to the CO2 rise, which is not known to be true and is probably very false”
More science by assertion.
In 1896 we predicted that increasing c02 would increase the planets temperature.
A> c02 increased
B) the planets temperature increased.
The null ( C02 has zero effect) doesnt look so good in light oof the evidence.
Sure, Something lese could have caused the warming. Unicorns, leprechauns, Jupiter, But until a testable alternative is proposed,
science WILL proceed with its working hypothesis. Despite jeers from the bleachers.
First of all Rolf assumes that the observed warming (whatever that means) is due to the CO2 rise, which is not known to be true and is probably very false.
I was reading things that I posted a long, long time ago.
I was kinda embarrassed. I have a background in meteorology, and as such, I tended to focus on surface conditions, and temperature is one of those surface variables. But energy has three modes of transference: convection, conduction, and radiation. The surface is strongly moderated by two of the three energy transfer processes ( convection & radiation ).
However, I owe a lot to discussions of global warming in the years since. One of those points is this: the only significant means by which earth loses the energy it receives is radiation to space.
Convection, storms, winds, evaporation, etc. are all very important at the bottom of the atmosphere. But the changes due to these processes all tend toward zero at the top of the atmosphere. At the top, only radiation transfers to balance, and things, such as the increase in GHGs tend to impose a surplus of energy in the atmosphere.
Now, some changes in the atmosphere can change the rate earth emits.
The ‘Hot Spot’ is supposed to increase the efficiency with which earth radiates. But think about that – if you argue that warming won’t occur because the atmosphere changes, you are arguing for climate change to accomplish that.
I think the converse is true. Earth will warm, but the climate won’t change much, because global average temperature doesn’t determine the motion of the atmosphere, gradients do. And radiative forcing, while a likely source of warming, doesn’t appear to change the gradients much.
tell it to the judge
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2016/may/11/coal-made-its-best-case-against-climate-change-and-lost
There is a Consequence to relying on weak arguments for skepticism.
“There is a Consequence to relying on weak arguments for skepticism.”
Mosher has resorted to thinly veiled threats.
Yay Climate Science.
Andrew
TE:
Your last sentence appears to set up a testable hypothesis. Can you recommend any literature on the topic?
Andrew, The consequence is simple.
You LOSE a winnable court case
What is the point you may ask, Steven?
http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-obamacare-court-ruling-20160512-snap-story.html
Check and balance, will soon overcome your fear and greed. Your side is now all about the other losers that are still Left.
opluso,
The peer reviewed literature on the subject seems to center around the papers of Francis and others by Barnes written about here.
As for the blog reviewed literature, I ran a radiance model to demonstrate to myself what would happen in certain scenarios and wrote about it here at which you are welcome to throw rocks.
I’ve got another set of runs coming soon which I think will interest you.
There are always consequences to putting idiots on the bench. Just as there are consequences to putting dishonest incompetents in the White House or at the EPA or on the IPCC.
TE: Many thanks.
Re: court cases … The threshold for accepting the science in court is actually rather low and it is almost inconceivable that a court would reject the physics. More important to the average judge’s perspective, IMO, is the media hype of hypothetical harms from climate change.
Nevertheless, most of the court action is related to expanded interpretations of statutory authority and governmental obligations under the law. Those legal levers would be a logical concern for skeptics but even when Republicans held all three branches of the US government you saw little effort (beyond rhetoric) dedicated to draining the regulatory swamps.
TE ‘s work on “global warming” (yes) vs “climate change” (maybe not) is a potentially useful dichotomy from which to build a case for rejecting plaintiff demands to mitigate/prevent harmful climate change through immediate government action.
Too Funny.
The defense for peabody didnt even call the best witnesses!
Malpractice if you ask me.
Is there no time/space to say anything about the South Pole and Greenland ice caps?
Update to the main post: Thanks a ton to everyone who provided comments (here and via email). The comments were very helpful, and I’ve been able to accommodate many of them.
The final presentation is here in pdf and ppt . To those of you who give presentations on this topic, please feel free to use any of my slides.
Was “here” supposed to be a link?
sorry, go to main posts for the links
Links work… sort of… sometimes… in theory.
That comment is why you have accreted so many loyal denizens. You are our force multiplier.
Highest regards.
May you find a way to communicate the ethical issues involved in basing government policies on the consensus glued together with grant funds: https://ethicsalarms.com/tag/valentina-zharkova/
I enjoyed the slide show. Hope we can hear the presentation as well.
why the best models….22/56…
because if you have a way to know what models are the best ones…
most recent…most detailed
For your next long-form presentation, Dr. Curry, you may wish to consider adding slides explaining RCPs 2.0, 4.5, 6.0 and 8.5, whether RCP 8.5 is realistic in the circumstances, and the consequences of relying on RCP 8.5 alone for forecasts of future impacts without comparison to other RCPs.
Sorry to be late to the party.
Slide 18 is mislabeled. It says “Sea Ice Extent (European Arctic)”. It is actually Russian Arctic, which is mainly Asian.
Source of the data: http://nsidc.org/data/g02182
It has a graph on the coverage.
Perhaps for future talks.
Do you find the claims of global warming potential (GWP) for various ghgs suspicious? Have you been puzzled that CO2 which can absorb terrestrial radiation at only 15 microns (pressure etc. broadening spreads this to about 14-16 microns with peak at 15) is considered to have greater GWP than water vapor which can absorb radiation at hundreds of different wavelengths?
The EPA erroneously asserts GWP is a measure of “effects on the Earth’s warming” with “Two key ways in which these [ghg] gases differ from each other are their ability to absorb energy (their “radiative efficiency”), and how long they stay in the atmosphere (also known as their “lifetime”).” https://www3.epa.gov/climatechange/ghgemissions/gwps.html
This calculation overlooks the fact that any effect the ghg might have on temperature is also integrated over the “lifetime” of the gas in the atmosphere so the duration in the atmosphere cancels out. Therefore GWP might not mean what you think. It is not a measure of the relative influence on average global temperature of ghgs on a molecule basis or weight basis.
The influence on average global temperature of a ghg molecule depends on how many different wavelengths of EMR the molecule can absorb. Water vapor molecules can absorb hundreds in the wavelength range of terrestrial radiation compared to only one for CO2.
A consequence of this is CO2 has no significant effect on climate as demonstrated at http://globalclimatedrivers.blogspot.com
“Water vapor molecules can absorb hundreds in the wavelength range of terrestrial radiation compared to only one for CO2.” – Dan Pangburn
Ummmmm. Wrong. Not sure you have any idea how IR energy interacts with molecules based on that statement.
Perhaps you overlooked the rotational bands: “water vapour spectrum indicates almost total absorption from 0–500 cm–1,
followed from 500–1300 cm–1 by a host of weak rotational bands.” is from http://www.warwickhughes.com/papers/barrett_ee05.pdf
More at https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/atmosphere/publications/2009-IUPACwaterI-JQSRT-110.pdf
Wikipedias version of the precautionary principle is two sided:
“The precautionary principle (or precautionary approach) to risk management states that if an action or policy has a suspected risk of causing harm to the public, or to the environment, in the absence of scientific consensus (that the action or policy is not harmful), the burden of proof that it is not harmful falls on those taking an action that may or may not be a risk.”
I may also be suspected that the policy propounded by united nation may cause harm to the public, by increased energy costs and by malallocation of resources.
The Book, I am still reading talks all about signs and wonders but it is best if you just walk it Faith.
+1
…in the absence of scientific consensus… is where the wiki definition begins to go off the rails…
The consensus science of global warming is a lot like menudo soup. Literally, menudo is beef tripe and hominy in a seasoned broth of boiled bones. Metaphorically and figuratively, menudo may conjure up notions of something offal and nasty in the opinion of some– but, their prejudice is not the reality of all–e.g., for others, menudo is steeped in cultural significance.
The consensus science of global warming is like another type of Menudo too.
Ricky Martin spent his adolescent years playing the role of the perfect teenager, forced to conform to Menudo’s squeaky clean image.
http://i.imgur.com/zM6d8ai.png
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zc8XIrNfRKg
Imagine going from that to the Vida Loca:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8F55puGHIs
While the rest of the culture seeks liberation, climate scientists seek to enchain themselves to their dogma.
Here’s Ricky Martin with his husband Carlos Gonzalez Abella and their two children, Matteo and Valentino, smashing the cultural icons.
http://rollingout.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Ricky-Martin-and-partner-Carlos-Gonzalez-Abella-with-twins-Matteo-and-Valentino-300×187.jpeg
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The problem we have in the West these days is that so many enjoy the fruits of what others do without appreciating what they do.
I will again ask the question: Is there timeline analysis which compares Lewis/Curry to Schmidt’s 2.5 C and/or other sensitivity perspectives (e.g., what seems to be a consensus ~3 C)?
If no such analysis exists, then another question:
For laymen trying to understand timelines of different sensitivities to emission scenarios — is there any inherent problem in using the 2 and 3 degree graphs at Skeptical Science?: http://skepticalscience.com/climate-best-to-worst-case-scenarios.html
They are wildly wrong. SS plots power and energy on the same graph which shows they don’t understand the physics. CO2 has no significant effect on climate.
Dan: So Lewis and Curry in developing their estimate of sensitivity don’t understand physics?
Dan Pangburn: SS plots power and energy on the same graph which shows they don’t understand the physics.
Where was that?
I did not see that on the graphs at http://skepticalscience.com/climate-best-to-worst-case-scenarios.html.
Segrest says:
A blatant strawman from repetitively dishonest Segrest.
Segrest is as irrational and illogical as Mark Jacobson and the loony woman next to him on stage.
matthew – Figure 1 at https://www.skepticalscience.com/solar-activity-sunspots-global-warming.htm shows “solar irradiance”, a measure of power on the same graph as temperature (or temperature change) a measure of energy
Peter – Thanks for exposing Segrest.
POWERING EARTH 2050: Is California’s 100% Renewable Strategy Globally Viable?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kh7aaW8Leco&feature=youtu.be
No petroleum engineers in this debate. But it is interesting. It is a good example of the irrationality, religious fervour and misrepresentations the renewables advocates use. Unbelievable.
Mark Jacobson ( and some nutter) versus Michael Schellenberger and one other. Crowd seem to be mainly renewables believers.
Schellenberger spoke and argued clearly, rationally.
The Leftists may do more preaching than teaching but they have taught all of us one thing for certain: that while the actual cost of wind may be astronomical, the subsidized cost of wind makes it such a cheap alternative that we save enough money in the future to fund free lunches for all, today!
Sorry, wrong article.
I read the presentation and for the most part I like it. One thing I especially like is including the concept of “thrivability” in the part about the conflict of values.
But I do think there is one area that is not addressed. That is geoengineering or direct human control over the climate. Caution should certainly be used when approaching the subject, but I really get irritated when I hear it asserted that “cutting CO2 emissions must be done first”. Maybe it’s even true, but this assertion is not a proven empirical fact. There is nothing unscientific or immoral about considering and weighing the potential risks and rewards of geoengineering, although it may be politically incorrect.
Cutting CO2 emissions down to zero looks absolutely futile to me. It not only looks like it will be economically and politically undoable, but it is not even clear that it would solve the climate crisis, if indeed it is a crisis. I have my own hobbyhorse of freezing CO2 and storing it in Antarctica (see https://canmane.wordpress.com/ ). It may be quixotic and impractical, but I have calculated (and I may have flubbed it) that taking 100 pmv of CO2 out of the atmosphere and storing it as ice or snow would require about 200 cubic miles. This would be a huge undertaking, but does not look like something that is completely out of the realm of possibility over a period of say half a century.
False claims of a 97% consensus — along with the ridicule and violent opposition to scientific skepticism — is proof that, evidently, the theory of AGW is false:
Judith Curry
I was reviewing some notes and then looked again at your slide show and I didn’t find anything about:
Abrupt Climate Change; i.e., those, at least historical events where climate changed abruptly? I saw a mention of volcanoes but I didn’t see items related to: “Past events include the end of the Carboniferous Rainforest Collapse,[2] Younger Dryas,[3] Dansgaard-Oeschger events, Heinrich events and possibly also the Paleocene-Eocene thermal maximum.[4] (Wiki)
Are you going to mention that there were abrupt climate changes, maybe unrelated to volcanoes, etc?
Just wondering.
Excellent point. Abrupt climate change is invariably ignored by the warmists. The modellers can’t model it so they ignore it and don’t want to talk about it? The social scientists and arts graduates ignore it because it spoils their message and propaganda.
What is needed are pdfs for:
1. time to start of next abrupt climate change
2. direction of change (warming or cooling)
3. duration of the change
4. total magnitude of change
5. rates of change
Then policy analysis would have some useful information to use.
They also need the damage function (expected damages per degree of change), probably emissions scenarios and total carbon that could eventually be extracted and burnt.
Climate scienists have spent most of their research effort over last 30 years focused on historic temperature changes and trying to make upo a story that it is all the fault of humans instead of researching what is relevant for policy analysis.
Maybe ask Steven, he might tell you the full story of the old Vostok ice cores?
In temperature reconstructions the long view elucidates.
Craig Loehle and Hu McCulloch 2000 year reconstruction
based on multi-proxy palaeotemperature records ( but not
suss tree rings) and Tony Brown’s historic reconstruction
of the CET data.
While CET is less coarse-grained and shows weather
variability within warming and cold periods, the two studies
correspond well, and as has been noted, historical events
of political unrest and regional crop data records also
cross reference with both studies… So different from
those ‘Pause’ papers.
https://curryja.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/clip_image0028.jpg
Ms. Judy,
I am a retired Petroleum Engineer. I worked in all subfields of the “upstream business”: petroleum geophysics, petroleum geology, reservoir engineering, drilling and completions, production engineering, surface facilities (conceptual studies, engineering, construction, installation, commissioning, operations and even de-commissioning). Most of my colleagues hold only a BS, some MS few PhD’s. I think it would be useful to clarify and re-state a not so well known fact among all PE’s that per IPCC’s report(s) only some half of the warming since 1950 is due to human activities (the rest being attributed to climate variability?). Now, of that half, hydrocarbon fuels usage(oil and Nat gas) accounts for some40- 50% max (please feel free to correct this)? the rest being attributed to coal, industrial usage (like cement), agriculture (incl. bovine), etc. This break down would greatly improve our overall, admittedly simplistic understanding of how SMALL a contributor to AGW our business really is.
Victor Adams,
Good points of clarification. I’ll add a few:
1. Even if human caused GHG emissions from fossil fuels are causing say 70% of 50% of the recent warming (which is controversial), so what? Is that doing more harm than good? We just don’t know. It’s clearly reducing both the consequence and probability of an abrupt cooling event in the near future (which with out our emissions could happen any time).
2. What are the impacts of warming or cooling? What are the net costs and benefits? We just don’t know. All we have are innuendo, CAGW advocacy and beliefs.
Reblogged this on I Didn't Ask To Be a Blog.
Disagreement: “Whether the warming since 1950 has been dominated by human causes”
There is very little disagreement on this one.
Harry, you should want to get out more and hang with us, being the bigger crowd we have some disagreement but this is what skeptics do. Admitting that your side was the ’cause’, would be a good first step for you to take.
In Christy’s graph on slide 25, it appears that the Russian model INM-CM4 could be tested as a possible statistical outlier. Then, if INM-CM4 is rejected from the group as an outlier, and the average of the model runs is recalculated, that big red line representing the average will likely hockey stick (or knee jerk? :-) ) upward… which strengthens your point on growing divergence. (I am assuming INM-CM4 is the purple/magenta dashed line that touches the avg 3 satellite observation data blue box at 2015.) Thanks for your presentation.
See comments by John Christy and Ken Haapala in yesterday’s May 15, 2016 TWTW under A Climate Model That May Work re: Russian INM-CM4 model. http://www.sepp.org/twtwfiles/2016/TWTW5-14-16.pdf
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