by Judith Curry
A few things that caught my eye this past week.
Good food for thought on “intellectual & institutional mashup” of forest & #wildfire management realities. [link]
Mars wobbles its way out of an ice age [link]
Crocodiles and Palm Trees in the Arctic? New Report Suggests Yes. [link]
Current Atmospheric Models Underestimate The Dirtiness Of Arctic Air [link] …
NGeo: Is the recent decline in Atlantic Overturning a recovery from earlier invigoration? [link]
Thermohaline instability and the formation of glacial North Atlantic super polynyas at the onset of Dansgaard-Oescher warming events [link]
Permafrost warming in parts of Alaska ‘is accelerating’ [link]
Cliff Mass: Real world data disputing earlier springs in the northwestern USA [link] …
Greenhouse gas emissions from lakes & inland waterways may be 45% greater than previously thought: [link] …
Important paper shows that our knowledge of CO2 spectroscopy and radiative forcing is robust < 1% error [link] …
Scientists Improve Maps of Subsidence in New Orleans [link]
New paper finds Greenland ice sheet flow has decelerated over the past 9000 years [link] …
El Nino has devastated reefs, but there’s reason for optimism. Palau’s Improbably Healthy Coral Reefs [link]…
Six recent papers demonstrating solar influence on climate [link]
How the boundary layer can control the efficacy of climate forcings in warming/cooling the surface [link] …
Strongest El Nino in nearly 20 years ends: Australian weather bureau [link]
Terrific infographic: The Changing American Diet [link]
How and Why Scientists Fudge Results, and What We Can Do About It [link] …
Good essay by John Fyfe on the 21st century global warming slowdown [link]
“…if microbes convert injected carbon dioxide to methane…it would defeat the purpose of sequestration.” [link]
The Plan to Avert Our Post-Antibiotic Apocalypse [link]
Nasa reveals why sea ice in Antarctica has INCREASED while the Arctic melts [link]
Brainpickings: Against Self-Criticism – wonderful read on how our internal critics enslave us and how to break free [link]
Lowering the Bar: Does diagnosis always mean disease, or does it sometimes mean opportunity? [link]
1959 Paper Shows Most Warming Occurred Before 1945 …Arctic Warmed 7.7°C, Sea Level Rose 8 mm/yr!! [link]
Jonathan Foley: Remembering the stories of nature [link]
Camille Paglia: Today’s College Students Worship Authority and That’s Destroying American Universities. [link]
Too much politicitization on #climate or not enough? [link]
Arctic set for record-breaking melt this summer. [link]
Fabius Maximus: Are we choking the oceans with plastic? [link]
Australia scrubbed from UN climate change report after government intervention to avoid damaging tourism [link]
Unprecedented? Central England Warming Of 1692 – 1737 Twice As Fast As Late 20th Century Warming! [link]
Look to gray rhinos to anticipate a black swan [link]
Good article on the complexities of the GMO debate [link]
Pingback: Week in review – science edition – Enjeux énergies et environnement
“Mars is warming so rapidly the entire planet is emerging from an ice age, according to new research published Friday in the journal Science.”
Is an increases in Earthly atmospheric CO2 the cause?
This is an interesting admission of the natural variations in the climates of all planets, aside from man-made CO2.
This report in Science confirms the critics of AGW dogma by Professor Curry and a few other brave souls.
Future progress may depend on our ability to steer the climate debate out of the current left-vs-right political debate: https://ethicsalarms.com/2016/05/28/comment-of-the-day-a-brief-message-from-the-ethics-bunker/
Note that “rapidly” in this context (Mars) means over a period of hundreds of thousands of years. Global warming since 1970 (Earth) is over a period of half a century. That’s a factor of more than a thousand in rate of increase.
If you accelerate from 0 to 60 mph in 4 seconds you are merely pressed firmly into your seat. If you accelerate a thousand times faster you’re dead meat.
The only differences you see between Mars and Earth in the latter part of the 20th Century are changes measured in a few ppm of atmospheric CO2?
If you accelerate a thousand times faster you’re dead meat.
============================
then why don’t we die in the morning when the temperature warms up thousands of times faster than projected for global warming?
and why don’t we die in the spring when temperatures warm up hundreds of times faster than projected for global warming?
and why don’t we die when stepping into the house in winter time, and temperatures warm up billions of times faster than projected for global warming?
the answer is simple. life on earth is adapted to dealing with change, and in point of fact is adapted to take advantage of change.
case in point, human beings. our civilization did not appear until temperatures warmed up 10 thousand years ago.
where would we be today if people living 10 thousand years ago had acted to prevent the very rapid global warming that occurred at the end of the Younger Dryas? Warming much greater and much faster than anything projected for current global warming.
There is nothing unusual about the post 1970 warming. Greater and faster warming occurred three hundred years ago, while the earth was recovering from the little ice age.
Wasn’t 78/79 the coldest winter in US history?
Meteoroligist Paul Douglas in a new post is convinced that global warming has changed the weather God created… “Whatever happened to normal weather? Earth has always experienced epic storms, debilitating drought, and biblical floods. But lately it seems the treadmill of disruptive weather has been set to fast-forward. God’s grandiose Symphony of the Seasons, the natural ebb and flow of the atmosphere, is playing out of tune, sounding more like a talent-free second grade orchestra, with shrill horns, violins screeching off-key, cymbal crashes coming in at the wrong time. Something has changed..”
hmmmm, interesting perspective..
We will know even more by 5777.
An over supply of earthquakes may be next? You never can tell.
According to Job, it is because all weathermen piss him off.
O, one more thing, according to Noah, he is not keen about this stuff either.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/sex/the-death-of-vanilla-sex-how-britain-got-raunchy/
Anyway today we live in the age of Post Modern Science, so don’t feel bad OK?
But lately it seems the treadmill of disruptive weather has been set to fast-forward.
==================
what has changed is that there was no world wide reporting of weather back when the bible was written. people only knew about storms and floods that happened locally.
though even the bible tells us there was a pretty bad flood around the time of Noah, that was even worse than New Orleans and Katrina. global warming must have been really bad back then, to melt all the ice and raise the sea levels and flood all the land.
The abstract:
This is enough to disqualify all the IPCC-sponsored, GCM-based AGW alarmism. Not only cannot “multiple climate forcings” be linearly combined to determine anything but garbage, but the same applies to “feedbacks”. Combined with each other and with “forcings”.
“This is enough to disqualify all the IPCC-sponsored, GCM-based AGW alarmism. ”
Not likely. There isn’t much curiosity about “physics” in the IPCC circle, they focus on fat tails which is a bit like a unicorn, extremely low probability but difficult to disprove.
Yep.
The alarmists kinda took Occam’s Razor and turned it on its head.
http://muslimsi.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/quote-occam-s-razor-no-more-things-should-be-presumed-to-exist-than-are-absolutely-necessary-i-e-the-william-of-occam-372636.jpg
Easy to disprove if you look at real data, hard to find support in the media.
“Current Atmospheric Models Underestimate The Dirtiness Of Arctic Air [link] …”
Seems like climate models underestimate about everything except temperature.
There is only one thing about climate models that is known for sure, They don’t work right.
RE: Too much politicitization on #climate or not enough?
Behind a paywall, but from looking at the abstract and the part of the introduction one can see in the free preview, it looks like this is another one of those “scientific” studies by the ‘engineers of consent’ on how best to sell ice to the Eskimos.
It is, of course, the skeptics who are guilty of having politicized the science.
CAGW Inc., whose motives are as pure as the driven snow, is interested only in finding and evangelizing sure truth.
The article on CET warming 1692-1737 includes a comment and link on the correlation of CET to the global indices. Multidecadel smoothing of CET gives r=0.96
A couple of years ago, after eyeballing the charts, I anticipated this answer and tried using my hunch in a dialog with a global temperature expert (I believe it was one of the BEST guys), to no avail. Perhaps now there would be a different outcome.
Here is the link to the CET-global correlation derivation:
http://www.climate-lab-book.ac.uk/2015/what-have-global-temperatures-ever-done-for-us/
Richard
RF forcing uncertainty. Good to see such a detailed examination. The Sky Dragon position that CO2 is not a GHG does the skeptical position no good. The big climate science issues are attribution and sensitivity, not IR forcing.
Insolation is a genuine forcing, since it introduces a power source for the climate system that thermalizes the surface. One has to stretch the physical meaning of the word, however, to call atmospheric back-radiation a “forcing;” it represents merely the recirculation/storage of thermal energy, rather than an external source of such That distinction is usually lost by those who have little scientific concept of Hamiltonian systems.
It isn’t the “atmospheric back-radiation” (in a planetary sense). It’s the reduction in outgoing IR. This fits the definition of “forcing” just as well as a change to insolation.
The atmosphere radiates IR. More IR reaches the surface when there are more GHGs in the atmosphere.
An increased IR energy flux to the surface is every bit as much of a forcing as it solar irradiance.
Alas, the standard gospel of “climate science” preaches simplistic aphysical notions of “forcings” that don’t conserve energy flux through the system.
Any increase in atmospheric IR opacity is demonstrably an impedance/storage effect and NOT a genuine forcing, which is necessarily independent of the state of the system. Unlike genuine forcing, upwelling LWIR and the attendant back-radiation to the surface are physically inseparable, both being a manifestation of the temperature of a particular LOCAL layer and not the systematic energy flux. It is only in the NET radiative flux–not the DIRECTED flux densities–that energy conservation is preserved. And since more GHGs in the atmosphere also increase its radiative cooling, it is utterly foolish to consider their effect a forcing.
BTW, I don’t intend to waste Memorial Day weekend debating shibboleths.
Semantic sleight-of-hand. More (low) clouds also produce an “increased IR energy flux to the surface”. One typically orders of magnitude larger.
“Forcing” is a myth.
AK wrote:
““Forcing” is a myth.”
Do tell.
I think helicopters have the best lift capability in cold climates. Does this help explain how a 150# lizard with wings could fly?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quetzalcoatlus
Or was the Earth, a warm and humid Eden, all year round? What do the AGW scientists give as the best answer?
“Alas, the standard gospel of “climate science” preaches simplistic aphysical notions of “forcings” that don’t conserve energy flux through the system.”
Really? Says who?
“Any increase in atmospheric IR opacity is demonstrably an impedance/storage effect and NOT a genuine forcing, which is necessarily independent of the state of the system.”
This makes even less sense.
Forcings don’t depend on the atmospheric concentration of GHGs???
David Appell,
You wrote –
“Forcings don’t depend on the atmospheric concentration of GHGs . . . “
Firstly, forcings is a climatological word. Physics uses force in a strictly defined sense. Climatology imposes no such restraint on its jargon – forcing being one such instance.
Secondly, although you were presumably trying to be sarcastic and/or gratuitously offensive, you were actually stating the truth, albeit unknowingly.
CO2 provides no heat. It does not raise the temperature of anything at all. It absorbs EMR, and warms as a result. Remove the heat source, it cools down. Any EMR it absorbs is not then available to heat anything else – the Earth’s surface, for example.
In the absence of sunlight, the surface cools, CO2 concentration notwithstanding. Over the last four and a half billion years, the Earth has cooled, CO2 concentration notwithstanding.
No greenhouse effect at all.
Cheers.
You’ll probably have to wait for a while, I seem to be bumping into my moderation limit.
Nor am I sure it’s worth my while trying, if this is what you think:
But see here: https://judithcurry.com/2016/05/28/week-in-review-science-edition-43/#comment-786608
For the concept of “forcing” to have a coherent referent, several unwarranted assumptions are required, including that the planetary system has some sort of “equilibrium” with negative “feedbacks” to maintain it.
Also, that the “forcing” on a local scale can be added/averaged to produce anything other than garbage at a planetary scale.
As with most myths, there’s some sort of truth behind the myth. But the truth is much more complex than the myth, and doesn’t admit to the same sort of simplistic “understanding” that the myth does.
On the lighter side…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVkxaNfgBco
have a good one.
Mike Flynn wrote:
“You wrote — Forcings don’t depend on the atmospheric concentration of GHGs…”
Wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong. Wrong.
I’ll give you a chance to correct yourself before I prove you wrong.
Go ahead and take a stab at it.
Mike Flynn wrote:
“Physics uses force in a strictly defined sense….”
For crying out loud. Obviously climatologists are not using the word “force” in a dp/dt sense.
So what? Try to keep up with at least the basics….
when your opponent quibbles about operational definitions, then you know that they know nothing.
here is how you know a skeptic knows nothing and is unwilling to learn.
1. they try to use philosophy to judge science ( watch for Popper references)
2. they appeal to Feynman, Einstein, Galileo etc
3. They Just ask questions and demand cites and links
4. They “question” definitions
These are all common tactical moves regardless of the issue, they are stupid pet tricks.
Steven Mosher: “These are all common tactical moves regardless of the issue, they are stupid pet tricks.”
A bit like some – but by no means all – of the common tactical moves used by second hand temperature database salesmen then, eh Steven?
Tough spot, Steven? Teach me about the 5 Tops. Please don’t roll over this time…
1. they try to use philosophy to judge science ( watch for Popper references)
So, the religious don’t seem to like proof or evidence either.
What does that say about global warming advocates?
2. they appeal to Feynman, Einstein, Galileo etc
Hmmm…
The religious didn’t like Galileo either. Is there a similarity?
As for Einstein, seems to me that the thought experiments were valuable, as later borne out by measurements. So I’m on board with the gullibles that the though experiments of models have value.
3. They Just ask questions and demand cites and links
Hmmm… the religious don’t like being questioned either. More similarity?
4. They “question” definitions
What exactly do you mean by “question”? and by “definitions”?
The simple question put to Steven, was why the 5 Tops in our recent (420K years) history when Antarctic high temperatures peaked, followed by highs in CO2 and then the tops in Dust at last. I don’t know the answer and I asked Steven, for the explanation and once more he does not respond with is very uncommon of him. He knows everything as he likes to point out daily. Defining the reasons for the 5 Tops is hard, we all understand…
Steven, these people all need to know the horrible truth now!
http://www.nist.gov/pml/wmd/
Drop them a line or two…maybe?
Persuading people who are oblivious of the fact that a graybody which absorbs only 161W/m^2 of insolation (according to Trenberth et al.) cannot steadily sustain heat transfer rates greater than that seems a hopeless task.
Despite the misleading treatment of back-radiation as an additional forcing, such an energy-preserving transfer rate can be obtained as the sum of moist convection (97W/m^2) and a NET upwelling radiative heat transfer, which is far from the indicated upwelling blackbody emission (396W/m^2). It should be apparent that ANY arbitrary pair of oppositely-directed radiative intensities resulting in a NET flux of 64W/m^2 (as opposed to Trenberth’s 396 – 333 = 63W/m^2) would conserve energy flux through the system, whereas the treatment of back-radiation as a forcing would require an additional–non-existing– power source.
Back-radiation is patently the result of thermal energy storage, not of its production.
“when your opponent quibbles about operational definitions, then you know that they know nothing.”
This coming from the man who was fond of explaining to anyone who would listen that in our world measurements are always just estimates… something like that.
Hey sailor, got about a trillion?
It’s just hilarious. All measurements are estimates. That’s why great finish carpenters (masters of accuracy) avoid using rulers like the plague. There are ways of estimating that are more reliable than measuring. When they do measure, it’s measure twice, cut once… cause a measured-once stick of wood is walkin’ talkin’ carpentry disaster waiting to happen.
I thought they measured using the first double measured board cut, for their model. AGW likes to measure everything twice and then take their best guess. You are definitely on the right track though.
AGW science calls them whatever they will but you are trying to apply the tolerances of a Cryogenic Pump, to the weather. Vostok is a perfect observation point, no one was watching as it did all its work alone.
There is a problem with the Mlynczak et al. paper linked above, “Important paper shows that our knowledge of CO2 spectroscopy and radiative forcing is robust < 1% error".
The radiative transport calculations through the atmosphere seem to be correct and of the necessary fidelity to determine RF *if used with similarly accurate surface emission spectra*. The paper uses the graybody assumption for surface emission (Eq. 3), which is used by all the CMIP5 models (understandably b/c much of the earth approximates a graybody curve and a spectral emission profile would be intractable in large simulations). The graybody assumption is the source of their error.
The problem is that one-third of earth's land area–desert–does not emit in a Planck-like profile. Small quartz particles emit a unique pattern in which a much larger fraction of its radiation is contained in the atmospheric window (8-13 micron band and to a lesser degree the 20-25 micron band). These bands have very little overlap with the carbon dioxide absorption bands. This results in a dramatic increase in energy lost to space. Passive cooling technology based on this effect is currently being developed at Stanford and UT-Austin. It's also related to why your windshield will condense and freeze water before the rest of your car.
Depending on the mass fraction of quartz and particle size, the error in amount of energy retained in the atmosphere by desert emission can be over 50 W/m^2. This value will not be affected (much) by a doubling of CO2. Disregarding this effect introduces two errors of interest. First, it pulls the clear-sky RF values reported in the Mlynczak paper down by ~ 10%. Second, it affects the parameterization of CMIP5 models which incorrectly retain 3-5 W/m2 (global area-averaged) in the atmosphere.
The graybody assumption is fine for most of the planet, but not for desert. Acknowledging this doesn't invalidate CO2 radiative forcing, it just indicates that it's a little lower than we thought. But, as the author of the papers published this week on cloud formation said: "the highest values [of climate sensitivity] become improbable."
Understanding what happens within 1% with a molecule that is 1 in 10000 in the atmosphere is outside of 99.99% of what happens.
Atomic and molecular spectra can be measured very precisely in a laboratory, and this has been done for well over 100 years by spectroscopists.
The calculations of the effects of pressure broadening and Doppler shifts are also straightforward.
The radiative transfer part of climate change is actually among the best known parts of climate change, because it’s the most amenable to fundamental physics. Today the uncertainly mostly is in the carbon cycle and associated feedbacks.
This is how you win with Physics on your side, David. Skeptics bring out their cannon the Old LHC at last, just for Steven… in looks like?
http://www.express.co.uk/news/science/674557/Has-climate-change-been-disproved-Large-Hadron-boffins-cast-shock-DOUBT-on-global-warming
Finally, we got some value from the damn thing.
The discovery of the Higgs boson proved the value of the LHC, and sealed the Standard Model.
Aerosols do not fall under “radiative forcing.” They reflect sunlight.
This is one paper. One paper rarely proves anything in science. Let’s see how this particular bit of science plays out…. No matter how it does, it does not affect the radiative forcing from GHGs. Trees have been around for a long long time….
Is global forestation declining or increasing? It’s been increasing in the US. What about the world?
As you have been so fond to point out, it is only the little things that count.
How about another one, David?
http://www.globalwarming-sowhat.com/warm–cool-/cosmic-rays–clouds-0500.pdf
This makes two.
Arch: Svenmark’s ideas have simply not gained traction in the scientific literature. They are speculation at best.
A model found that changes in cosmic rays are two orders of magnitude too small to cause such changes in clouds:
“Can cosmic rays affect cloud condensation nuclei by altering new particle formation rates?,“ J. R. Pierce and P.J. Adams, Geophysical Research letters, v36, L09820, 6 PP., 2009.
Even if Svensmark is ultimately proven correct — and there are still several steps in the hypothesis to be proven — it does not alter the heat-trapping properties of heat-trapping anthropogenic molecules like CO2, CH4, N2O and others.
In 2011 the CERN CLOUD people wrote:
“This result leaves open the possibility that cosmic rays could also influence climate. However, it is premature to conclude that cosmic rays have a significant influence on climate until the additional nucleating vapours have been identified, their ion enhancement measured, and the ultimate effects on clouds have been confirmed.”
http://press.web.cern.ch/press/pressreleases/Releases2011/downloads/CLOUD_SI_press-briefing_29JUL11.pdf
Arch Stanton and David Appell
This may be a better link to the LHC work
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/05/earth-s-climate-may-not-warm-quickly-expected-suggest-new-cloud-studies
By the way, it mentions a second study.
I am going to stick with Cosmic Rays, wouldn’t you know?
Appell, maybe you should read your gospel harder with regard to forcings. Albedo change is a forcing. Anything which changes the energy balance at the tropopause is considered a forcing. I fart in your general direction and that is also a forcing.
https://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch2s2-5-4.html
“2.5.4 Radiative Forcing by Anthropogenic Surface Albedo Change”
“Atomic and molecular spectra can be measured very precisely in a laboratory”
No doubt.
But the Sun, the Earth and its atmosphere are not in a laboratory, we do not live in a controlled experiment.
That has implications that I fear are beyond your ability to grasp.
Terrific infographic: The Changing American Diet [link]
Grains are good; fat is bad, that is, until yesterday, when we found out that grains are bad and fat is good. Well, not really “we”, just the consensus food fad scientists found out that the glycemic nature of grains was high and contributing to people becoming obese and diabetic. The mechanism for grains leading to a rapid rise in blood glucose from eating grains with a concomitant rise in insulin and storage in cells as fat…this has been known for a very long time.
The fat story is another one of those cult belief systems prevalent amongst do-gooders and consensus establishers redirecting government funding from nutrition to telling big corporations what to do and not do. Big corporations of course are bad, and your organic vegetable gardens are good.
If you go back a bit, prior to WW II, 6 people collected and reported and made recommendations on all the science that was available at the time to determine what nutrition was necessary for soldiers in combat; workers in the factories making war materials, and in the building trades when the decision was to relocate new industrial might in Middle America with the impending two front war (East Coast and West Coast).
And then there were the mass starvation survivors from WW II who were now available for study on primary nutrients and re-feeding.
And then there was an intense nutritional assessment effort for infants and children in 3rd World war torn countries like the break away country of Biafra. The studies demonstrated all the ways children were conceived in, born to mothers with, raised and then died of malnutrition and its aftermath.
A wealth of data, and yet, the Boomer’s drumbeat of: grains are good and fat is bad.
Today, we have a similar data base on people dying from the effects of energy starvation, yet, there are eminent consensus scientists who go on and on about sea level rises at some future date whereby tens of millions will perish living in low lying regions of the world. Today, there are 100’s of millions of people dying every year from the effects of energy starvation. This starvation occurs whereby calorically dense foods are not produced nor available, hence, malnutrition becomes the permissible route to poor immune system function, enhancing host vulnerability to otherwise treatable diseases: Tuberculosis, malaria, measles, polio, diarrhea, diphtheria, whooping cough, and on and on.
All the smarty pants who have been commenting about the correct way to do science, and, the only people worthy of criticism are those who provide an alternative theory, just don’t get it. Science, as evidenced by this food flip-flop, is ruled by those in the consensus in that particular industry, which would be comical if consensus thinking didn’t waste so much money and lead to such tragic consequences.
I got a little huffy, I guess.
Netflix has a ‘Sugar’ show, just released ( look in new releases, I guess ).
It tells the tale of a dentist treating kids ( with lots of cavities from sugar ). She was in Colorado where a sugar company went out of business and Colorado State University kept all the records from the company. Among them, she found lots of ‘secret’ marketing documents from the industry at large. It turns out, the industry was also funding – Ancel Keys – the ‘fat is bad’ guy.
One of the most valuable pieces of advice I was given when starting a diet a while back was “bread is sugar”.
Study about the polarization of studies on the effects of salt on diet, https://www.mailman.columbia.edu/public-health-now/news/science-salt-polarized-study-finds
“There are two almost distinct bodies of scholarship—one supporting and one opposing the claim that salt reduction in populations will improve clinical outcomes,” says Johns. “Each is driven by a few prolific authors who tend to cite other researchers who share their point of view, with little apparent collaboration between the two ‘sides.’” – See more at: https://www.mailman.columbia.edu/public-health-now/news/science-salt-polarized-study-finds#sthash.YbUsMSTf.dpuf
And relevant to our good Blog woman’s favorite contention. “Decision-makers often must choose a course of action in the face of conflicting, uncertain evidence,” says Trinquart. “Both the misuse of uncertainty and the exaggeration of certainty can shape the outcomes of public health decision-making processes.”
“All the smarty pants who have been commenting about the correct way to do science, and, the only people worthy of criticism are those who provide an alternative theory, just don’t get it. Science, as evidenced by this food flip-flop, is ruled by those in the consensus in that particular industry, which would be comical if consensus thinking didn’t waste so much money and lead to such tragic consequences.” – RiHoo8
It looks to me that food science is working as science in general works. Theories are advanced, evidence is gathered, papers are written, and over time those theories are challenged with new theories or new evidence or different results that alter the original theory. Just being skeptical is not good enough. You do have to advance something new, different or alternative in order to make an impact. Just saying it’s all BS gets you nowhere.
As for consensus’s, they happen. It appears to me some are emergent over time while others are manufactured. My guess is the emergent types tend to last the test of time while the manufactured types tend to fail. It’s human nature to not want to be wrong. It’s human nature to be biased toward your own research results. Some scientists are better than others at controlling for their bias. It depends on what motivates them. Power, money, fame, prestige, or curiosity, interest, passion and the advancement of knowledge.
Well, they are misrepresenting fat so they can throw their greasy missiles at climate science. Blog science is proceeding in its usual creepy political way. Since January 2015, I have lost around 50 pounds by eating a low-fat diet… mostly at McDonalds. I could have done the same thing by eating a high-fat diet at McDonalds. The high-fat techniques are unpleasant… lots of upchucking and spitting of pounds of chewed-up, partially digested french fries and Big Macs.
John Carpenter
Timing is everything, whether by a comedian and the rhythm of his/her punchline, a political leader at the right time in the right place, or data available to scientists to address a theory. It is to the latter, that I speak.
The food data was known from the 1920’s onward. Remember “bomb” calorimetry from organic chemistry? Infant nutrition from Ross Labs and many others?
What was the criminality about the fat is bad agenda, was the substitution, ignoring, and manufacturing of “data” to serve “modern society and its dietary behavior is more than wrong.” Further, such eating is causing heart disease and, as others got into the field, other diseases social illnesses.
McDonalds became the poster corporation for “junk” food.
Well, as Sportin’ Life refrained: “It ain’t necessarily so. The things that your libel to read in the Bible, they ain’t necessarily so.”
So it is with the fat story. As a nod towards having to make up some portion of the calories in the diet, carbs became King. What could be more natural and organic, saving the animals and “healthy” than eating a loaf of bread, and, lots and lots of green leafy vegetables. Voila! The 10 grams a day of fat diet. Except of course, people were still dying of heart disease and a host of other maladies including, cancer! which is running through the talk shows today. BTW, more cancer as we get older, more mistakes the cancer surveillance makes as our immune system weakens.
Now, the world’s population is getting “fatter” and diabetic even in places where “beef is bad” (India). Their diet? wheat and more rice (now found to contain lots and lots of Arsenic!)
The agenda against fat had a weak argument back in the 1950’s, sidestepping all the data that said fat was good, at least most of the fats. And, funds that further explored the fats and what makes fat “good”, became at first scarce, then dried up altogether.
Science, that is, data carefully collected, assessed could not get a mention in the “important” journals. Everything against the agenda that fat is bad, was marginalized. Even the “cooking” of meats and fatty foods became prescribed. And yet, the “Mediterranean” diet stood starkly out as a high fat diet with lots and lots of people living long lives over the last 3000 years. Nothing new, just, evidence that fat is bad mantra is wrong.
The fat is bad agenda has spawn trillions of dollars in wasted efforts and behaviors. The 6 people who came up with nutritional recommendations, now known as Recommended Daily Allowances, were correct: Eat a 1/3rd, 1/3rd, 1/3rd balanced diet: meat, veggies, carbs, and, don’t forget that glass of wine.
Bon Appetit
Well, they are misrepresenting fat so they can throw their greasy missiles at climate science. Blog science is proceeding in its usual creepy political way. Since January 2015, I have lost around 50 pounds by eating a low-fat diet… mostly at McDonalds. I could have done the same thing by eating a high-fat diet at McDonalds. The high-fat techniques are unpleasant… lots of upchucking and spitting of pounds of chewed-up, partially digested french fries and Big Macs.
Good for you.
There was the professor in Kansas that lost weight by eating nothing but junk food ( twinkies, fritoes and the like ). Pretty much sugar and fat but very little protein. The rub was he ate only 1800 calories worth. So there’s something to be said for just calorie restriction. But it’s not linear or black and white.
I lost weight on low carb and didn’t suffer side effects from it. On the contrary, I found fats and proteins more satisfying and so, easier to stick with it. I might have been eating fewer calories also, but don’t know, and that’s the beauty of it – because I wasn’t counting calories, only avoiding carbs. But whatever works for anyone is fine.
I do think fructose is in a separate category because of tooth decay, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, and hormonal disruption.
My method is simply to eat what I desire and work outside as much as I can, so far so good.
RiHoo8, I really don’t see anything you wrote that disagrees with what I said. Over the course of time, science corrects itself. Whether there is any kind of parallel between climate science and food science is yet to be seen. However, examples of failed theories in one discipline does not mean the same thing is happening in the other. It takes additional science to refute or support the existing. Just pointing out that theories can be wrong and cause problems does not change our current understanding of climate science. Pointing out advocates have agendas for certain policies does not change our current understanding of climate science. Saying the system is rigged does not change our current understating of climate science. You have to bring new information to the table to change the dialogue.
John Carpenter –
+ many
And I wish you good luck with convincing people with your argument.
And dude — mostly at Micky D’s?
I just try to eat from the three major food groups every meal: salt, sugar, and grease.
Joshu-a, I’m skeptical I will convince anyone. I’m certain most have made up their minds. I think a consensus of denizens would agree.
See what I did there?
There is nothing new in the Mediterranean Diet: high fat.
“You have to bring new information to the table to change the dialogue.”
I am afraid that you choose to ignore what is current information.
Please tell me why you don’t view the Mediterranean Diet as anything other than an oppositions view to the 10 fat gram diet?
I don’t advocate one diet plan over another. What I do see is that there are plenty of mouths yapping about the truth of their viewpoint, you included.
“I don’t advocate one diet plan over another. What I do see is that there are plenty of mouths yapping about the truth of their viewpoint, you included.” – RiHoo8
I have not been advocating for a single truth. I have said nothing about preferred diets. What I said is you have to bring new INFORMATION. That means if you find something new about old existing theories (diets) that was not previously understood or known and it changes the dialogue, then you are contributing to the advancement of knowledge (science). It does not have to be an entirely new theory (diet) put up for examination. It’s not only what works, it’s why does it work. Most science is about figuring out the why.
I just try to eat from the three major food groups every meal: salt, sugar, and grease.
Throw in caffeine, nicotene, alcohol, chocolate, and green chile, and you’ve got something there.
John Carpenter
” You have to bring new information to the table to change the dialogue.”
The new information is as old as the hills: climate is variable, and, for the time being, unpredictable.
Climate Science got off on the wrong foot, studying man’s impact on climate instead of studying what causes climate variability. Once that was known, then man’s impact, if any, could be determined.
You don’t seem to get it. That there is a radiative effect of the so-called green house gases and they play some sort of role in climate, there is an additional background of natural variability that has to be first looked at, and then understood, first. Otherwise, you’re just making things up.
For anyone interested,
I recently used a radiative transfer code on a number of scenarios, the results of which are available in this post:
Global Warming in the Context of Glacial Cycles
There are a number of assumptions and caveats ( most importantly using the same temperature/humidity/cloud profiles throughout ). But I compared scenarios of: the Eemian, the LGM, the HCO, PreIndustrial, 2010, and 2100 ( with 2xCO2 = 800ppm ).
Most of what I found was well known already: Doubling CO2 leads to radiative forcing somewhat evenly across all seasons. The glacials and inter-glacials were the result of changes of seasonal extremes of radiance, not the global annual average.
But I believe it is instructive to consider these scenario differences in context of on another ( always recalling the assumptions and omissions of these scenarios ):
https://turbulenteddies.files.wordpress.com/2016/05/range_cold.png
I believe the most important aspects are the changes in the gradients of net radiance. These changes indicate very little change in the strength or range of either the jet streams or the ITCZ compared to paleo variations.
That can be seen in this comparison of NH gradients of radiance for the scenarios:
https://turbulenteddies.files.wordpress.com/2016/05/gradient_nh.png
And in the gradient of extratropical net radiance between the NH and SH:
https://turbulenteddies.files.wordpress.com/2016/05/gradient_hemispheres.png
Another interesting aspect is this: During the LGM, the NH gradient was strongest in the annual mean, but also varied the least from winter to summer. Also, during the LGM, the gradient between the hemispheres varied the least. To the extent that variation of the jet stream gradient and of the inter-hemispheric gradient determine the wanderings of these features, the constraint of the LGM gradients is consistent with the desertification of the LGM.
Similarly, the wider ranges of gradients during the Eemian and the HCO are consistent with the more vegetated land masses during those times.
One big uncertainty is of sea ice decline. As a last scenario, I ran the Double CO2 scenario with NO sea ice ( neither Arctic, nor Antarctic ) as a contrast to the 10% removal of all sea ice I used for Double. Removing all sea ice does predictably increase net radiance.
Removing sea ice and ice sheet donuts around Greenland and Antarctica promotes more snowfall on land which rebuilds the land ice. The warm times are natural and normal and necessary to rebuild the ice on land. The cold times are natural and normal and necessary to deplete the ice on land. That is why there must be cycles of warm and cold and not a meandering along the average.
New paper finds Greenland ice sheet flow has decelerated over the past 9000 years [link] …
That makes perfect sense. The orbit changes have moved 40 watts per meter squared of solar input out of the North above 60 degrees and moved it into the South below 60 degrees over the past 9000 years. The North has less snowfall and less ice flow because it needs less cooling. The South has more snowfall and more ice flow because it needs more cooling. This is a regulated system. Just like the AC system in a house, the AC comes on and runs as long as necessary to push temperature below the set point, in the case of earth, below the temperature that the Polar Oceans freeze and stop or decrease snowfall.
I can’t follow the link because I don’t subscribe to that website.
+1
Repost with further enhanced figure
The following press release should make you wonder about how advanced Neanderthals had gotten before they were reduced to living deeply in underground caves as the one found in France. Also to what extent they had evolved to before they were once again relegated to such abodes and had to compete with the rise of “modern man”. This bodes very strongly on how “modern man” can survive a “super” freeze and carry many of our current advances to the next cycle and compete with the next onsault of “warmies”!!
http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-neanderthals-cave-structures-20160525-snap-story.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neanderthal_extinction
http://pages.swcp.com/~jmw-mcw/Curry_Neanderthal_176000ybp.jpg
Judith,
Hope this article doesn’t cause you to have to rewrite your forthcoming article on clouds. Punchline is apt “It’s a beautiful mechanism for trees to control their environment.”
Article http://www.nature.com/news/cloud-seeding-surprise-could-improve-climate-predictions-1.19971
Nasa reveals why sea ice in Antarctica has INCREASED while the Arctic melts [link]
Sea Ice in Antarctica has increased because the ocean warmed, reduced the sea ice and ice sheets, and that allowed more snow to fall on land and now it flows faster and does more cooling.
“Mars wobbles its way out of an ice age”
Interesting. For a decade many have said that Mars’s warming means the Sun is increasing in irradiance and that’s also why the Earth is warming.
Despite what satellites at L1 show about solar intensity.
“Global warming on other planets has made billions of planets unable to host life, making it a lot harder to find aliens.” How I love Science!
Pure speculation that has nothing to do with AGW.
Perhaps The Daily Caller should not be included in a science edition.
When I read the link headline on Arctic Crocodiles and Palm Trees, my initial reaction was: “Yeah, right. During the Cretaceous!!” Then I discovered it was another speculative model.
George Devries Klein,PhD, PG, FGSA
How would you get a handle on past climates WITHOUT a model??
Don’t trust fossils. IPCC models are much more trustworthy.
From a COMBINATION of isotopic geochemical, mineralogical, sedimentological, stomata density on leaves,and paleontological evidence for openers. A very large literature exists on this.
George Devries Klein, PhD, PG, FGSA
George, you still need a model to utilize that data.
In science, ALL calculations are done via models. Ever single one of them.
Dave, I think you are confusing ‘Model’ with ‘Hypothesis.’
George Devries Klein, PhD, PG, FGSA
” I think you are confusing ‘Model’ with ‘Hypothesis.’”
It is necessary to create a model to test any hypothesis.
All calculations in science are done via models. All of them, even back to Galileo.
David can’t distinguish between simple equations like momentum = mv and the crazy complex computer climate models. In his head, they are the same sort of beast. This says a lot about him and his understanding of science.
How do you model a dinosaur bone?
You find a crocodile fossil in the Arctic. Then you create a model saying crocodiles never lived in the Arctic – or maybe not. David Appell, I really have a trouble following you. Why a model?
“Why a model?”
Because ever single calculation or conclusion in science depends on a model.
If you disagree, show me one that does not. I will show you why you are wrong.
Ok David, I’ll bite. Let’s take the acceleration of gravity measured at 32 ft/sec/sec. What model is involved?
“Ok David, I’ll bite. Let’s take the acceleration of gravity measured at 32 ft/sec/sec. What model is involved?”
That model assumes
1) you’re at the surface of the Earth
2) the Earth is spherical
3) there is no air resistance
4) there is no graviational attraction from other bodies — notably the Sun and Moon, and maybe Jupiter.
5) the object is falling with a velocity very small compared to the speed of light
6) the object is uncharged and unmagnetized
Need I go on?
If assumptions are models then we quickly reach an epistemologic absurdity, David. Reality itself is no more than a model in our brains.
Of course we all know you are absurd so that’s par for the course I guess.
Just what do you think a model is, besides assumptions?
You proposed g=32 ft/s^2.
Should everyone accept that model?
What about those trying to keep satellites in orbit? After all, it’s well known that the Earth is not exactly spherical. It’s more pair-shaped…. An enormous amount of physics has been done on calculating the Earth’s gravitational field in the absense of sphericity…in order to keep satellites in orbit. I know, because as an undergraduate I was lucky enough to have a professor who introduced us to all this, calculating gravitational field deviations via perturbation theory. It was among the best physics I ever learned….
Again, you’re conflating reality with a model. Epistemology with science.
Which do you want to discuss I’m fluent in both and know the difference between the two.
What is “reality?”
And how would you know it if you saw it?
Show me one — just one — physics conclusions that does not depend on a model.
You cannot.
Define “model” for me, David, as you are using it. You seem to have gone far beyond the generally accepted definition of the term which distinguishes between models of reality and direct observation or reality. As I wrote before if we get into philosophy (epistemology) then yes, an argument can be made that all knowledge is based upon a mental model of reality. The universe itself is then no more than a model. It’s models all the way down. I however am relying on the generally accepted definition of scientific modelling. Note the part “all models are in simulacra”. This is critical because once we step into epistemologic definitions then our brains hold the entire universe and all knowledge “in simulacra” and our dialog here becomes absurd and you guilty of reductio ad absurdum.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_modelling
Overview
A scientific model seeks to represent empirical objects, phenomena, and physical processes in a logical and objective way. All models are in simulacra, that is, simplified reflections of reality that, despite being approximations, can be extremely useful.
Modelling as a substitute for direct measurement and experimentation
Models are typically used when it is either impossible or impractical to create experimental conditions in which scientists can directly measure outcomes. Direct measurement of outcomes under controlled conditions (see Scientific method) will always be more reliable than modeled estimates of outcomes.
I gave you a classic observation which depends only upon generally accepted concepts and conditions i.e. the acceleration of gravity and you return with commonly accepted knowledge and conditions to call it a modeled result instead of a measured result.
“David can’t distinguish between simple equations like momentum = mv….”
Momentum doesn’t equal mv.
That too is just a model.
“How do you model a dinosaur bone?”
How do you interpret a dinosaur bone without a model?
Got it. Everything in your brain is a model. It this how the word “model” is used to communicate between people?
‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’
George: JUST SHOW ME A SCIENTIFIC CONCLUSION THAT DOESN’T RELY ON A MODEL.
Do so and I’ll admit you are right.
You’re conflating science and philosophy, David. Is the earth and the measured acceleration of gravity on its surface real or just a figment of my imagination? Reality is a model I hold in my head. Philosophically speaking it may be virtual reality and I have no way of knowing. We have to drive a stake in the ground at some point about where models end and reality begins.
From the Fabius Maximus piece:
“…Charles J. Moore (heir to oil wealth, now an environmental activist)…”
Like billionaire Tom Steyer and so many shills for Big Green, he acquired the piety…but kept the wealth.
(Should be fun to see which billionaire green mullahs go back to the black once the price comes out of the toilet.)
Steyer is human too, just like us. Greedy, inconsistent, imperfect.
Is it better to make a billion dollars on oil and seek to solve climate change, or to make a billion dollars on oil and pretend it’s all a hoax?
Steyer isn’t greedy just because he made billions, and very recently, from the Australian and Indonesian coal booms. (Too recently to be credible, perhaps? He does have a flair for keeping his fossil-fuel earnings remote and his activism domestic. Earn global, preach local?)
Tom’s just sensational at keeping a straight face when he opposes Keystone, rather like Warren Buffett, whose choot-choots are presently carting the Canadian oil the expensive way. That mix of theatre, comedy and moralising is just what you often have to do in business.
But I do wish Tom hadn’t tipped so much money into the Clinton Foundation. Bill and Hill…now those two really are greedy.
There isn’t an honest case to be made against Keystone XL?
Not if you enjoy always having hot water in your bathtub.
We need energy. That doesn’t mean it has to come from burning carbon.
“There isn’t an honest case to be made against Keystone XL?”
Not really, the oil sands will be used if the price is right and they can either be transported by a state of the art pipeline to a highly regulated refinery or wander off into the China zone. NIMBY is about the only case to be made against and I wouldn’t call that honest.
NIMBY isn’t honest?
Are you willing to give up your BY to whoever wants it?
Are you?
Let the Canadians built a pipeline to the west coast through their own country.
Why should a Nebraska farmer have to give up his land so a corporation can make more money?
It must be easy to win arguments when all you have to do is call the other side dishonest.
You may have missed my point, David. Liquids are moved much more efficiently through plumbing. Look around you and see.
Sure. But it’s not very efficient for the Nebraska farmer, is it?
“NIMBY isn’t honest?” If you want a product but aren’t willing to make its production safe enough for your back yard, yes, it isn’t honest.
Personally, I would love legislation that will retroactively tax out sourcing that increased pollution and human rights violations. You know refine exactly which pockets we pick if we are going to start picking pockets. Bernie has an issue with hedge fund billionaires so it might be fun to pick a few with green political motives as well :)
I am not sure of a number of things when discussing points of law, however, I would be surprised if he did not wet his beak so to speak and I believe pipelines such as the one being talked about is buried though I am not sure about the finished depth. The purpose of the authority is best use and it’s democracy at work. Go get em Tiger.
“It’s not very efficient for a Nebraska farmer?”
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/01/12/who-s-opposed-to-north-american-oil.html
Aging pipelines are a much more serious threat than new state of the art pipelines. I believe it would be part of an infrastructure consolidation and upgrade policy.
Democracy has already spoken. The pipeline was denied.
A buried pipeline is even worse — harder to observe and maintain.
“Aging pipelines….”
Are you willing to give up your backyard so a large corporation can make even more money?
It’s Canadian oil. Canada has plenty of space for a pipeline to a port.
“A buried pipeline is even worse — harder to observe and maintain.”
technology tends to advance. You can consolidate a number of products in a single pipeline and monitor it very well nowadays. Amazing stuff. Coating the inside of the pipeline with HDPE also allows mixing in hydrogen which could be one of those energy of the future things.
“You can consolidate a number of products in a single pipeline and monitor it very well nowadays.”
How?
You still have to dig the things up after they start leaking. Over one of the best acquifers in the world.
“How?”
By pumping them. Germany is still reliant on natgas but is considering hydrogen in the future so they were building for it. All crude pipelines are mixed products to begin with so there is no problem adding natgas with its associated liquids to the flow. Since these products cost money and clean up costs mo’ money, they are pretty anal about keeping track of things.
From the article:
…
here’s a saying in the auto industry that hydrogen is the future of transportation and always will be. It’s a scam as far as I can tell because the energy equation is terrible. People will say that hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe, but it’s abundant out there in the universe not here. We live on a planet where hydrogen is super reactive — it’s bound up into everything. It’s bound up into water, wood and everything else. They only way that you get hydrogen requires you to pour energy into it to break it from the chemical bonds. Electrolysis is the most common method. You put electricity in water and it separates it, but you are pouring energy in order to make hydrogen, and then you have to compress it and that takes energy, and then you have to transport it to wherever you actually need it, which is really difficult because hydrogen is much harder to work with than gasoline or even natural gas — and natural gas is not that easy.
…
https://tech.slashdot.org/story/16/05/23/1541225/tesla-co-founder-says-hydrogen-fuel-cells-are-a-scam
jim2, “here’s a saying in the auto industry that hydrogen is the future of transportation and always will be. It’s a scam as far as I can tell because the energy equation is terrible.”
As straight hydrogen it will probably never happen, but with F-T or something more efficient it will have its price point.
Steyer is a great example along with Gore and Decaprio of the classic AGW alarm poser. Worse, like Gore he profits from his alarmism and (like Gore and Decaprio) lives the life he condemns.
As many have said: “when those who keep insisting that AGW is an emergency start behaving as if it IS an emergency, I’ll start considering that they may be right.”
Steyer only divested from coal when he was caught continuing to pile up profits off a substance he said should not be used as an energy source.
Maybe his profiteering was not real but was just a lucrative ‘model’.
We already use hydrogen as a fuel. Just not atomic hydrogen much because the tiny molecular size makes it too hard to transport and store. It sure burns nice though! Usually we use it bound to a carbon atom to make it easier to handle. We call these hydrocarbons. I understand one carbon atom and four hydrogens is a very popular arrangement. So is twelve carbon atoms and twenty-three hydrogens and lets not forget the extremely popular, especially in the US, eight carbon plus eighteen hydrogen. Possibly the most favorite of all time since the stone age is two carbon six hydrogen and just for fun one oxygen.
“If you want a product but aren’t willing to make its production safe enough for your back yard, yes, it isn’t honest.”
It’s about abandoning your backyard to a large corporation, not (quote-unquote) making its production safe.
And there is no guarantee pipelines are safe. At all.
Why can’t the Canadians put a pipeline through their own country?
It is starting to sound David, that you could not feel safe with a box of Crackerjacks?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_pipeline_accidents_in_the_United_States_in_the_21st_century
“Federal data: As oil production soars, so do pipeline leaks,” Chicago Tribune, 5/22/15
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/ct-oil-pipeline-leaks-20150522-story.html
Then they pay a huge fine and clean the whole mess up to meet government standards. Where’s the beef?
They never really clean it up. See the Exxon Valdez accident. See the Gulf of Mexico disaster.
Both are messes still.
Besides, that carbon needs to stay in the ground, lest we warm the planet even more.
To stop the Exxon Valdez accident from ever happening again, stop selling booze. Good luck?:o)
Exactly — accidents happen. And they will continue to happen. And they will happen along the Keystone XL pipeline, too. Count on it.
David Appell. You are such a chicken little. Did you know there are natural oil seeps in the GOM? Nature provided those and nature can deal with them. There is no significant damage left over from that spill today. Get over it.
From the article.
…
A 2003 study by the National Research Council and a 2009 report by oil spill expert Dagmar Schmidt Etkin indicate that between 560,000 and 1,400,000 barrels per year (1,534 to 3,835 barrels per day) seep into the Gulf of Mexico from natural sources. Dozens of natural seeps have been identified off the coasts of Louisiana and Texas, some in the region of the Deepwater Horizon site.
…
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6552
So, what are you and the family doing nest week? Spending time together outdoors is always a good first choice. God Bless, Arch
And given the fact that we don’t even know of all the seeps, this is probably an underestimate. You are just anti-cheap energy, anti-jobs, anti-economy, and anti-human.
“There is no significant damage left over from that spill today.”
“Though the oil has mostly disappeared from view, many Alaskan beaches remain polluted to this day, crude oil buried just inches below the surface.”
– The Atlantic, 3/24/14
http://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2014/03/the-exxon-valdez-oil-spill-25-years-ago-today/100703/
What about natural seeps, David? Do you want Obummer to spring the RICO act on Mother Nature? Right.
“There is no significant damage left over from that spill today.”
“The sound’s coastal ecosystem is permanently damaged. Thousands of gallons of Exxon Valdez oil still pollute the beaches; this oil is still toxic and still hurting the ecosystem near the shore.”
– CNN, 3/25/14
http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/23/opinion/holleman-exxon-valdez-anniversary/
“Seeps are generally very old and flow at a very low rate. The material that flows out is still very often toxic, but organisms some that live nearby are adapted to conditions in and around seeps. A few very unique species of animals are even able to use the hydrocarbons and other chemicals released at seeps as a source of metabolic energy. In addition, rather than being made up entirely crude oil, the material flowing from seeps is often heavily biodegraded by microbial action deep beneath the seafloor.
“In contrast, the production, transportation, and consumption of oil by humans generally results in relatively short, high-volume inputs of oil and refined hydrocarbon products in places that have never experienced significant exposure to these chemicals and so do not have many natural defenses to them.”
— WHOI, http://www.whoi.edu/oil/natural-oil-seeps
“Did you know there are natural oil seeps in the GOM?”
Do you know that natural seepage rates don’t come anywhere near the gushers like the Deep Horizon spill, which was relatively concentrated?
It’s not concentrated any more. The period of time it was concentrated is very small compared to the time since the spill.
Anyway, the seeps have been happening for millenia. The emit oil continuously 24/7. The total over a century is mind-boggling.
“Anyway, the seeps have been happening for millenia. The emit oil continuously 24/7. The total over a century is mind-boggling.”
Did you read what WHOI wrote, or not?
Accidental leaks are far more concentrated than seepage leaks. That means far more damage.
The BP oil spill leaked about 4 million barrels, all from one spot.
That’s 640,000 m3, or the same as the water flowing over Niagara Falls (all three) for nearly 6 minutes.
“It’s not concentrated any more.”
So is the radiation from Hiroshima.
Like the oil, it did its damage when it WAS concentrated.
And the seeps emit about 10 million barrels every 10 years. So what? Get over it.
Nature heels itself. It’s over.
Heals, not heels.
“And the seeps emit about 10 million barrels every 10 years.”
Do you understand the concept of a concentrated spill, as opposed to those that occur over a large area?
“Nature heels itself”
For climate change, that heeling period is about 100,000 years.
“The Long Thaw: How Humans Are Changing the Next 100,000 Years of Earth’s Climate,” David Archer (University of Chicago), 2008.
http://press.princeton.edu/titles/8719.html
Do you understand the concept that after a long period of time, the damage is healed? You seem to be milking it for all its worth.
“Do you understand the concept that after a long period of time, the damage is healed?”
And what of the damage in the meantime?
Just write it off so you get cheap oil?
Clearly you do not understand that your “healing time” for climate change is 100,000 years.
That long enough for you? Your and my carbon emissions are changing the climate for the next 4,000 generations — all for a century of maybe two of cheap oil. Has there ever been a higher level of greed than this?
I’m sure that 100,000 year number is rock-solid science. Right.
“I’m sure that 100,000 year number is rock-solid science. Right.”
In what way are you qualified to judge that work?
What in particlular do you disagree with of the science published by Archer and others?
David. After this number of years since the Valdez, any oil left over from that will also be left over from natural oil seeps. You simply don’t have a leg to stand on. As to the 100,000 year nonsense, no one can predict or project what will be happening then, not even an Einstein. You are such a shill. If you believe anyone can predict anything 100,000 years from now, you are one of the biggest suckers of all time. And then this, from the article:
…
This work originally came about because of claims by government scientists that petroleum hydrocarbons in seafloor sediments of Prince William Sound (PWS) came from the spill. These petroleum hydrocarbons were shown in 1993 to be related to oil seep areas east of PWS and not to the oil spill and that inputs of the natural background predated the 1989 oil spill. Recently, further claims followed that coal, not oil formed this natural hydrocarbon background in PWS and that our conclusions were wrong. This required additional field and lab work in 1999 to see if these claims were true. The 1993-1999 oil seep field programs collected samples of seep oil and shale to fully understand the sources of hydrocarbons that form the natural baseline in the region affected by the oil spill. Through hydrocarbon fingerprinting of these samples, mathematical least-squares analysis of the results and chemical mass balance constraints, we found that that eroding Tertiary petroleum source rocks and residues of associated seep oils are the dominant sources of the hydrocarbon background rather than area coals or residues from the Exxon Valdez oil spill.
…
http://www.bowdoin.edu/faculty/d/dpage/alaskan_oil/
“Why can’t the Canadians put a pipeline through their own country?”
They have them already and they are expanding. The amount of oil flowing through Canadian pipelines in 2014 is expected to double by 2017.
“why can’t the Canadians put the pipeline through their own country”
Because we want to use it for our own shale oil. Only Phase 4 is contentious because it opens up US shale oil reserves. The fact that Canadian shale oil goes through US refineries for value-add to our economy is icing on the cake and good for reducing emissions because our refineries are A) cleaner than Chinese refineries and B) don’t require burning fuel to transport crude across the Pacific before refinement.
Thanks for asking.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/43/Keystone-pipeline-route.png/220px-Keystone-pipeline-route.png
http://www.yalibnan.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/oil-shale-basins-USA.jpg
“The Long Thaw: How Humans Are Changing the Next 100,000 Years of Earth’s Climate,” David Archer (University of Chicago)
Yeah, that sounds sketchy.
The CO2 uptake rate keeps increasing, so CO2 forcing won’t last very long.
And there were thousands of years of the HCO which isn’t changing earth’s climates today.
Further, orbital cycles will continue to occur as they always have, making human influence a moot point.
Always fun to exaggerate though. Unless you’re after the truth.
“The CO2 uptake rate keeps increasing, so CO2 forcing won’t last very long.”
Actually it’s been relatively flat, absorbing more than natural emissions for now, but there is no guarantee it will stay this way. When I’ve talked to carbon cycle scientists they say they just do not know, and fear this could change in the future.
It will take ~100,000 years for our carbon emissions to work their way out of the atmosphere and ocean via silicate weathering.
And it takes very little extra to overcome Milankovitch forcings, which are very small and change very slowly.
Today’s carbon pollution is essentially forever.
Someone needs to make up his mind.
opluso, I don’t think you may have see my question, put to you earlier about whether you consider yourself a skeptic? Science marches on you know. A simple yes or no for posterity and maybe to prove validity.)
opluso?
Yes David, opluso… but I like your interest. Do you believe God?
David had a shot at the top 3%, instead it is clear he is still running with the 97% & we all know what that means.
It will take ~100,000 years for our carbon emissions to work their way out of the atmosphere and ocean via silicate weathering.
If that were the only way to remove 100 ppmv of CO2 from the atmosphere in order to get it back down to the level in the first half of the 20th century, your point might be relevant to something. The azolla event in the Turgai Sea 50 million years ago reduced CO2 at a rate of 100 ppmv in less than 30,000 years. An area of azolla 100 times larger could do the same job in 300 years. 100,000 years is absurd.
Vegetation today absorbs 120 GtC of atmospheric carbon per year, which comes to about 500 ppmv per year. Even if vegetation absorbed a mere 0.2% more over the next century than over the previous century it would only take a century to remove the extra 100 ppmv we’ve added so far since the early 1900’s.
“The azolla event in the Turgai Sea 50 million years ago reduced CO2 at a rate of 100 ppmv in less than 30,000 years”
Is that supposed to be a joke?
We’re supposed to hope that some very rare event saves us?
Do you know how quickly the PETM *added* CO2 to the atmosphere?
Pratt wrote:
“…at a rate of 100 ppmv in less than 30,000 years”
Do you realize today’s rate of positive change is about 1000 times faster???
“Vegetation today absorbs 120 GtC of atmospheric carbon per year, which comes to about 500 ppmv per year. Even if vegetation absorbed a mere 0.2% more over the next century than over the previous century it would only take a century to remove the extra 100 ppmv we’ve added so far since the early 1900’s.”
I’m sorry to say, but this is a very bad calculation.
You have ignored the natural emissions into the atmosphere.
Want to try again?
@DA: Do you know how quickly the PETM *added* CO2 to the atmosphere? … Do you realize today’s rate of positive change is about 1000 times faster [than the Azolla Event]???
Yes to both. The PETM was orders of magnitude slower, I don’t understand why you even bring it up. Putting the ball back in your court, do you realize that your projection of 100,000 years to bring CO2 back down is about 3 times slower than the Azolla Event, and about 100 times slower than if Earth’s vegetation increased by 0.2% during this century?
@Vaughn:
Today atmo CO2 is increasing ~10^4 times faster than it in the (one-off) Azolla Event.
And you haven’t even cited a source for that claim.
Vaughn: You’re also wrong about the PETM.
It saw average carbon emissions of about 1 GtC/yr.
About 10% of today’s rate of increase.
Far far larger than the Azolla event.
Half the anthropogenic CO2 emitted each year is reduced in that same year.
How come it doesn’t take a lot longer than that, David?
What’s unique about the second half of the annual emission that it would take thousands of years to sink?
In any reasonable analysis the sink rate of aCO2, once the annual emission stops, would be the same as the accumulation rate when the emissions were in progress.
The sink behavior we observe where half of aCO2 emissions are removed each year despite a growing rate of emission each year, is typical of equilibrium systems driven farther and farther from equilibrium. As the system is driven farther out the force acting to return it to equilibrium grows stronger. Thus we observe a constant sink rate (50%) despite an increasing amount of emissions.
The flip side of an equilibrium system is that once the force acting to keep it away from equilibrium ceases the system will return to equilibrium at the same rate it was driven out. Therefore aCO2 resident in the atmosphere above the equilibrium point of 280ppm will be sunk at the same rate it accumulated or about 100 years.
“What’s unique about the second half of the annual emission that it would take thousands of years to sink?”
Show your data. I have little-to-know idea what you are talking about.
Insult me again and I’m done with you.
“In any reasonable analysis the sink rate of aCO2, once the annual emission stops, would be the same as the accumulation rate when the emissions were in progress.”
False.
Only about 50% of man’s carbon emissions are currently being absorbed by nature.
So, since I now get the last word…
If nature absorbs 50% of annual aCO2 emission each year the $64,000 question is why, if the aCO2 emission stops, would the sink that was absorbing it suddenly slow so much that it takes thousands of years to sink the excess accumulated in 100 years?
The reasonable answer is that it will take as long to sink the excess as it did to accumulate it. The data seems to be that before human emissions began CO2 sources and sinks were in equilibrium at 280 ppmv. Human emission drove the system out of equilibrium and the sink rate has increased in response. The sink rate has not increased fast enough to keep up with aCO2 emission but rather only fast enough to sink 50% of annual emission.
CO2 sinks are not passive with fixed capacity. In the absence of further emission then why would the sinks suddenly slow down by orders of magnitude? That makes no sense whatsoever. The system will return to equilibrium at the same rate it was driven out once the driving force is removed.
Unilateral declarations of victory now? How cute.
I too shall declare victory!
“The reasonable answer is that it will take as long to sink the excess as it did to accumulate it”
Why is that “reasonable?”
What law(s) of physics says this is reasonable??
“CO2 sinks are not passive with fixed capacity. In the absence of further emission then why would the sinks suddenly slow down by orders of magnitude?”
Why do you think the sinks are slowing down?
How long is the natural cycle that removed CO2 from the atmosphere & ocean?
It’s ~100,000 years.
Why should that change?
You cannot answer any of these questions.
“The Long Thaw: How Humans Are Changing the Next 100,000 Years of Earth’s Climate,” David Archer (University of Chicago), 2008.
http://press.princeton.edu/titles/8719.html
Actually it’s [ the uptake rate ] been relatively flat
No, it’s been increasing:
http://csas.ei.columbia.edu/files/2014/12/Fig.-2.jpg
It will take ~100,000 years for our carbon emissions to work their way out of the atmosphere and ocean via silicate weathering.
Uptake appears to be mostly a function of concentration:
http://climatewatcher.webs.com/Uptake.png
Now, as concentration were to decline, it would seem likely that uptake would decline with it ( because there would be less to take up ). So getting to zero is a nice hypothetical exercise used to exaggerate. Getting back to 1/e would occur within decades.
Vaughan Pratt, “If that were the only way to remove 100 ppmv of CO2 from the atmosphere in order to get it back down to the level in the first half of the 20th century, your point might be relevant to something. ”
I enjoy going back to some of the old RC posts for a laugh, you know back when blog science was real science because it was run by real scientists :)
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/03/how-long-will-global-warming-last/
Arch Stanton:
Sorry I missed your earlier question. I’m a skeptic, which means (to me) that I apply evidence-based observation and logic to come to conclusions. If your question was in reference to belief in the gods of any religion, the short answer is “no”.
opluso, That is what our test anticipated. The ‘I believe God’ question is just a tool to clarify skeptics from deniers. Thank you for your quick response, you are a skeptic, not a denier. According to my poll results everything is tracking the prediction.
As you all may know, I believe God. The test is over and the constant results speak volumes I think.
Captdallas — Re: “…old RC posts…”
Your link refers to Mr. Appell’s source material for the 100k residence time of CO2 claim. Yet even that paper doesn’t agree with Appell’s blanket assertions:
The scientific literature… all this doubt, zippo literature:
The models presented here give a broadly coherent picture of the fate of fossil fuel CO2 released into the atmosphere. Equilibration with the ocean will absorb most of it on a timescale of 2 to 20 centuries. Even if this equilibration were allowed to run to completion, a substantial fraction of the CO2, 20–40%, would remain in the atmosphere awaiting slower chemical reactions with CaCO3 and igneous rocks. The remaining CO2 is abundant enough to continue to have a substantial impact on climate for thousands of years. The changes in climate amplify themselves somewhat by driving CO2 out of the warmer ocean. The CO2 invasion has acidified the ocean, the pH of which is largely restored by excess dissolution of CaCO3 from the sea floor and on land and, ultimately, by silicate weathering on land. The recovery of ocean pH restores the ocean’s buffer capacity to absorb CO2, tending to pull CO2 toward lower concentrations over the next 10,000 years. The land biosphere has its greatest impact within the first few centuries, which is when CO2 peaks. Nowhere in these model results or in the published literature is there any reason to conclude that the effects of CO2 release will be substantially confined to just a few centuries. In contrast, generally accepted modern understanding of the global carbon cycle indicates that climate effects of CO2 releases to the atmosphere will persist for tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of years into the future.
The scientific literature… all this doubt, zippo literature:
Some people claim that an ice age is at hand, in spite of observed trends.
Others claim slowing CO2 uptake, in spite of observed trends.
There’s not much difference behind either claim.
Even if this equilibration were allowed to run to completion, a substantial fraction of the CO2, 20–40%, would remain in the atmosphere awaiting slower chemical reactions with CaCO3 and igneous rocks
I’d say this model is faulty because observations clearly differ ( increasing rates of uptake, not decreasing ).
The model is clearly missing something(s), probably biomass both on land and in ocean, but maybe also polar cold water uptake.
But the 20-40% is about what I was arguing: 1/e
Considering zero, which is probably not desirable anyway, is just a way to hyperventilate and gravitate toward the extreme.
But we’re used to that.
“Someone needs to make up his mind.”
100,000 years is basically forever, in any practical way that matters.
That’s what the Bible says.
DA:
I found it funny that you first stated carbon cycle scientists “do not know” and then asserted it will take 100k years (“via silicate weathering”, as if that were the only possibility). Keep up the humor, gallows and otherwise. Quite enjoyable.
David Appell, i am curious as to what drove you here with so many bad ripostes. Most very technically unfounded, but taking too long to refute here–my ebooks suffice. So why do you adventure into areas where you are always scientific toast? Ignorance, or hubris?
You’ve been going non-stop for 12 hours from 5:30pm to 5:30am with no end in sight. It doesn’t appear you’ve even taken time off to stuff any food into your fat face. Istvan was curious about what’s driving it. I suggested chemicals and it seemed a bit much for caffeine and nicotine. Feel free to give an alternate explanation.
Desperation?
Appell went non-stop for 12 hours all through the night 5:30pm to 6:30am.
Evidently only Curry placing him in moderation brought it to a halt.
I’d guess the stimulus for that manic display was chemical in nature.
Ap.pell went non-stop for 12 hours all through the night 5:30pm to 6:30am.
Evidently only Curry placing him in moderation brought it to a halt.
I’d guess the stimulus for that manic display was chemical in nature.
@MF: CO2 provides no heat. It does not raise the temperature of anything at all. It absorbs EMR, and warms as a result. Remove the heat source, it cools down. Any EMR it absorbs is not then available to heat anything else – the Earth’s surface, for example.
Everything you say here is correct except the second half of your first sentence, which is no more logical than inferring by the same reasoning that a parka cannot raise your skin temperature.
CO2 doesn’t absorb any heat radiation???
What piece of ancient parchment did you get that from?
@DA: CO2 doesn’t absorb any heat radiation??? What piece of ancient parchment did you get that from?
What piece of Climate Etc. did you get that from? Certainly not from me, nor from Mike Flynn, who wrote “[CO2] absorbs EMR, and warms as a result.”
Dyslexia would go a long way to explaining the rubbish you write.
David Appell,
You claim to be a journalist. You don’t appear to be able to actually comprehend basic English. When you wrote – “CO2 doesn’t absorb any heat radiation???”, were you trying to respond to something I actually wrote?
Maybe you can’t understand “CO2 provides no heat”? Or were you referring to something you wished I had written, rather than what I actually wrote?
If you are not making a fortune as a journalist, I might be able to help you to understand why. Let me know if you want some free advice.
Cheers.
Vaughn, CO2 warms by absorbing heat (IR) radiation, not by emitting electromagnetic radiation.
This is baby phyiscs you should have learned in high school.
“CO2 warms by absorbing heat (IR) radiation, not by emitting electromagnetic radiation.” Not obvious. Needs a lot of work. Can you really neglect IR radiation emitted by CO2? Baby physics tells us that a molecule which absorbs a radiation can also emit it.
CO2 also warms by bumping into other energetic molecules i.e. kinetically. That’s “baby” physics too. Yet you failed to mention it, Ap-pell. What’s up with that?
Ap.pell
“CO2 doesn’t absorb any heat radiation??? What piece of ancient parchment did you get that from?”
CO2 also emits radiation. Kirchoff’s Law. A good absorber is a good emitter. So CO2 cools the atmosphere as much as it warms it.
The real greenhouse generator is liquid H2O. Shortwave radiation from the sun penetrates scores of meters below the ocean’s surface at the speed of light to be eventually absorbed and thermalized by impurities in the water. H2O is completely opaque to thermal radiation and its conductivity sucks. So to remove the thermalized solar energy at depth the water must be mechanically transported to the surface where it releases the energy mostly by evaporation, a smaller fraction by radiation, and about a tenth by conduction. Downwelling IR, the purported mechanism of atmospheric GHG warming, is absorbed in the first few microns of ocean surface. All the energy absorbed by such a thin surface film does not warm the water below it simply drives evaporation to higher rate without warming the H2O at all because the heat is carried insensibly as latent heat of evaporation where it is eventually released thousands of feet higher up in the troposphere where the radiative path to space is much lower and greenhouse gases beneath it are an impediment for the energy returning to the surface.
Once it is understood that greenhouse gases have little effect over the ocean it becomes quite evident why model predictions and observed warming diverge by so much. They greatly overestimate ocean warming in the tropics and underestimate warming over solid dry surfaces including ice where evaporation doesn’t play such a large role in energy transport through the vertical column.
Write that down.
Vaughan Pratt,
Your reference to a parka might be seen as yet another Warmist attempt to deny, divert, and confuse. How about keeping to the subject at hand – CO2?
If you are trying to say that surrounding yourself with CO2 will raise your temperature when you stand in the Sun, I would suggest you are confused. Take away the Sun, and the temperature drops. No CO2 heating to be found.
As to parkas, wrapping a corpse with a parka raises its skin temperature not at all. It continues to cool. Just like the Earth, really, or a freshly made cup of tea!
CO2 is a pretty rotten insulator in any case. This is probably why parkas are not hermetically sealed and filled with CO2, and vacuum flasks contain nothing at all between their silvered surfaces.
If you feel like quoting something I’ve actually written, and pointing out where I’m wrong, I’d appreciate it more than the Warmist lateral arabesque which you are attempting to perform (rather poorly, in my view).
Cheers.
Mike: CO2 absorbs infrared radiation.
There isn’t the slightest bit of doubt about this.
Appell
Go study Kirchoff’s Laws of radiation.
CO2 absorbs and radiates energy!
Pratt is sticking to the subject. CO2 acts an insulator, like a parka. The difference is that CO2 is selective in that it has very low impedance to shortwave energy from the sun and much higher impedance to thermal radiation from the solar-warmed surface.
The mistake made by Pratt and others is that the insulating effect over a deep body of water is negated by evaporation due to water’s complete transparency to shortwave and complete opacity to longwave. The so-called back radiation from GHGs is completely absorbed in the first few microns of ocean surface. Rather than impeding thermal radiation, as it does over solid dry surfaces, all that energy absorbed by a vanishingly thin film of water drives evaporation higher without raising the water’s temperature. The energy is then carried insensibly through the dense GHG layer overlying the ocean and released high in the atmosphere where there is much less radiative impedance upward to space and much more impedance back to the surface through the underlying, denser layer of GHGs.
Once it is properly understood that GHG warming has little effect where the surface is wet much or all of the time and much greater effect over dry surfaces (including ice, which is more frequent with increasing latitude) then observations all fall into place nicely and GHG warming is reduced to about a third of the catastrophic values predicted because only about a third of the earth’s surface isn’t ocean surface.
The real generator of greenhouse warming is the ocean not the atmosphere. Shortwave energy from the sun penetrates at the speed of light tens of meters below the surface eventually thermalized by impurities which aren’t transparent to it. Liquid H2O is completely opaque to the thermalized solar energy, water’s conduction is very poor, and the absorption distribution is such that warmer water is nearest the surface so convection is limited. The only way for the solar heated water at depth to give up the thermalized solar energy is mechanical transport to the surface where it leaves primarily (and insensibly!) by evaporation, secondarily by radiation, and a small amount (<10%) by conduction.
All surface temperature observations are explained by this and it also explains the divergence between model predictions and observations. Global warming by GHG is largely limited to dry land surface. That is what is observed and that is what is predicted by the physical description of I provided above. It's hands down the best explanation for what we observe and science is about the best explanation.
“The Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) has weakened substantially over the past decade. Some weakening may already have occurred over the past century, and global climate models project further weakening in response to anthropogenic climate change.”
IPCC models give increasingly positive AO/NAO with increased GHG’s, that would speed up the AMOC.
“IPCC models give increasingly positive AO/NAO with increased GHG’s, that would speed up the AMOC.”
The IPCC doesn’t make models.
They do no science at atll.
They assess science, only.
The AMOC is expected to slow:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2016/05/amoc-slowdown-connecting-the-dots/#more-19382
Everything is a model including the IPCC itself. The model assumes the IPCC is composed of people. The model assumes they have a charter. The model assumes they have an organizational structure. The model assumes they operate on the planet earth. And so on and so forth.
It’s models all the way down.
You’ve just been hoist by your own modeled petard. ROFL
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch10s10-3-5-6.html
No, the IPCC is an organization.
They assess science, they don’t do any science.
Clearer now for you?
“It’s models all the way down.”
Yes, it is — and you have failed to prove otherwise.
You make this very easy…..
ulric: I don’t click on links unless you tell me why I should do so — what it proves.
David – of course I didn’t prove anything. Proofs exist in math. Science is about best explanations. You didn’t prove anything either yet you seem to believe you did. You’re very confused.
“How the boundary layer can control the efficacy of climate forcings in warming/cooling the surface”
quote: “Indeed, despite the well-established rapid warming in the Arctic, the polar regions were the last part of the globe for which there was a successful detection and attribution of the recent warming to anthropogenic-enhanced greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations.”
Increased GHG’s are completely the wrong sign for Arctic warming, because Arctic warming is negative NAO/AO driven. Only the decline of solar forcings since the mid 1990’s can account for the increase in negative NAO/AO since then.
“Increased GHG’s are completely the wrong sign for Arctic warming, because Arctic warming is negative NAO/AO driven”
Ridiculous.
Arctic sea ice melt has conributed about 25% above CO2’s forcing:
K. Pistone, I. Eisenman, and V. Ramanathan (2014). Observational determination of albedo decrease caused by vanishing Arctic sea ice. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 111, 3322-3326.
Ridiculous that Arctic warming is blamed on increased CO2 when that is modeled to increase positive NAO/AO:
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch10s10-3-5-6.html
“Six recent papers demonstrating solar influence on climate”
Disappointing that none have looked at correlations between the solar wind and the NAO/AO, both with trends and at the noise level. In comparing sunspot cycles to North Atlantic sea surface temperatures, the phase of correlation inverts from warm to cold AMO modes. With solar cycles generally in phase with monthly/annual AMO in its cold mode, and anti-phase with the AMO in its warm mode. The recent cooling of the AMO around SC24 sunspot maximum follows that pattern.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/esrl-amo/from:1880/mean:13/plot/sidc-ssn/from:1880/normalise
Solar irradiance [enegy delivered] has been on a declining trend since the 1960s.
Graph here:
http://spot.colorado.edu/~koppg/TSI/
You refuse to believe that there is any energy delivered by the solar wind?
If you think any significant amount of energy is propogated by the solar wind — and, since 1850, some big extra amount to account for modern warming of about 1 C — then prove it. With data.
If you think amount of energy is all that matters; that it all goes into some big smushball addition…
Oh wait! That’s about where your understanding of the science stops.
I answered your question “Do tell” last night, but was in moderation. It’s out now. But if your understanding of the science is no better than Flynn’s, it’s probably a waste of time engaging with you.
Looks like it has been on a rising trend since the beginning of the industrial revolution and reached a sustained high plateau in 1950 that persisted through to the present.
How long does it take the earth to reach equilibrium with that sustained plateau, David? Given the global ocean, not the atmosphere, is the big Kahuna when it comes to heat reservoirs, how long will the ocean continue warming before equilibrium is reached?
It would seem you’ve been hoist on your own petard yet again.
http://spot.colorado.edu/~koppg/TSI/TIM_TSI_Reconstruction.jpg
Looks like it has been on a rising trend since the beginning of the industrial revolution and reached a sustained high plateau in 1950 that persisted through to the present.
How long does it take the earth to reach equilibrium with that sustained plateau, David? Given the global ocean, not the atmosphere, is the big Kahuna when it comes to heat reservoirs, how long will the ocean continue warming before equilibrium is reached?
It would seem you’ve been hoist on your own petard yet again.
David, absolute changes in TSI don’t explain much and the little it does is accounted for well enough in IPCC forcing graphs IMO. What isn’t acknowledged is the power distribution by frequency within total TSI. That changes a great deal depending on solar magnetic activity which can be gauged by proxy through sunspot count. During periods of high activity, high energy regions of the spectrum (UVB for instance) increases in power up to 10% with commensurate decreases in visible and near infrared. Total solar power remains little changed. With your physics background you should be able to appreciate the difference in how and where the changed power spectrum effects atmospheric physics. UVB is largely absorbed by the stratospheric ozone layer changing its chemistry. Those changes in chemistry in turn may have domino effects downstream, such as high altitude cloud formation. It for certain has an effect on lower layers of the atmosphere and surface where UVB energy cannot reach.
I’m not saying what effect it may or may not have on surface temperature but it certainly warrants more attention than it is receiving thus far. Pretenders to knowledge of atmospheric physics like Mosher don’t seem to understand at all that the power spectrum of solar energy matters at all. To him a watt of radiant energy is a watt of energy regardless of the form it takes. For an ideal black body that it is of course true that a watt is a watt regardless of frequency but the earth is far from an ideal black body and frequency matters in that case.
Sunspots don’t determine solar energy delivered — solar irradiance does.
And it’s been declining since the 1960s…..
http://spot.colorado.edu/~koppg/TSI/
David,
Your link goes to a blog with the Kopp & Lean paper with a blog note that ‘The TSI Climate Data Record now spans 36 years. Instrument offsets are unresolved calibration differences, much of which are due to internal instrument scatter (see Kopp & Lean 2011).’
The spread of measured TSI is huge for the exacting purposes to which it is put, so large that mathematical wizardry of a high order is needed to pull it together into a single time series of TSI.
In my time, I have done some adventuresome combinatorial extravaganzas. Never would I have reached the pinnacles of simplification shown in that graph from Kopp & Lean.
Rather, I would have sacked any of my scientific staff who attempted to pull it on me. I have been using it as an example of how poor climate science can get, since I first saw it 4-5 years ago.
Geoff
Geoff, total solar irradiance has been measured for a few hundred years.
And it has been slowly declining since the 1960s…..
How was TSI measured prior to the space age, David?
It’s more accurate to say TSI has declined very slightly since 1960 but remains on a plateau that is an all time high for the past 400 years. About one watt higher now than at the beginning of the industrial revolution. Anthropogenic forcings are estimated to be a net of about 1.5 watts. So forcing from TSI is about 66% as large as net anthropogenic forcing.
I’m not making this up. This is all data blessed by the IPCC, dude. I can argue this shi*t better than you taking my data from exactly the same source. That’s because you don’t know the data (nor the physics) nearly as well as I do. If you haven’t caught up with me by now you probably never will. So shut up and pay attention.
http://lasp.colorado.edu/home/sorce/files/2011/09/TIM-TSI-Reconstruction1.jpg
Correlations don’t create heat.
The Arctic is warming becuse of AGW. Because the loss of Arctic sea ice is a serious positive forcing on temperatures there.
The feedbacks to reduced Arctic sea ice extent are visibly negative, as minimum extent reduced from 2007, the Spring maximum extent increased, until the summers of 2013-14 where the Sept minimum was greater than since 2007, so the rebound to the following Spring maximum was not as strong:
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.anomaly.arctic.png
“The feedbacks to reduced Arctic sea ice extent are visibly negative”
False, Totally, absolutely false.
Ever hear of the ice-albedo feedback?
Pistone et all found that the disappearance of Arctic sea ice is equivalent to about 25% of global CO2’s forcing:
K. Pistone, I. Eisenman, and V. Ramanathan (2014). Observational determination of albedo decrease caused by vanishing Arctic sea ice. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 111, 3322-3326.
http://eisenman.ucsd.edu/papers/Pistone-Eisenman-Ramanathan-2014.pdf
Look, a theory that albedo is less with reduced sea ice extent does not invalidate the observed negative feedback behaviour of inter-seasonal sea ice extent, nor does it prove that the albedo has actually reduced. Because, a) you have not considered the increased cloud cover in the warmer Arctic, and b) you have not considered that humidity events that are a major cause of Arctic warming episodes, will absorb solar near infrared and inhibit solar warming of the surface.
This study says Arctic cloud cover increased from 2000 to 2004, note the seasonal range:
http://www.earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/ArcticReflector/arctic_reflector4.php
And no one is mentioning that water vapour has absorption bands in the near infrared.
David Appell writes: “loss of Arctic sea ice is a serious positive forcing”
This is incorrect. The following map shows net surface heat flux from 70N latitude to the pole. Note that the greatest outgoing heat flux is over open ocean and decreases as ice cover increases.
Thus when ice cover diminishes net outgoing surface heat flux increases. The IPCC’s definition of forcing is anything that causes a change in radiative balance at the tropopause. A positive forcing causes more energy to be retained and a negative forcing causes more energy to be lost. Arctic sea ice loss is a negative forcing. It results in a net increase in outgoing energy. If the entire arctic were ice free it would be a much more efficient radiator.
Write that down.
http://www.colorado.edu/geography/class_homepages/geog_5241_f09/media/Class_Notes/week_2.pdf
page 16
http://i.imgur.com/AEsevcO.png
David Apple writes: “loss of Arctic sea ice is a serious positive forcing”
This is incorrect. The following map shows net surface heat flux from 70N latitude to the pole. Note that the greatest outgoing heat flux is over open ocean and decreases as ice cover increases.
Thus when ice cover diminishes net outgoing surface heat flux increases. The IPCC’s definition of forcing is anything that causes a change in radiative balance at the tropopause. A positive forcing causes more energy to be retained and a negative forcing causes more energy to be lost. Arctic sea ice loss is a negative forcing. It results in a net increase in outgoing energy. If the entire arctic were ice free it would be a much more efficient radiator.
Write that down.
http://www.colorado.edu/geography/class_homepages/geog_5241_f09/media/Class_Notes/week_2.pdf
page 16
http://i.imgur.com/AEsevcO.png
What, no one wants to argue with textbook physical geography and oceanography?
Clowns like Ap.pell think they know a lot and really don’t know crap. What kind of physical science illiterate does it take to not realize that ice is an insulator and water exposed to the frigid arctic sky loses heat a lot faster than ice covered water? Maybe I’m being harsh. They think the dark surface of open water absorbs more solar energy than it loses when the sun isn’t shining. That’s still pretty ignorant of earth’s heat budget. Above forty degrees north latitude the surface is a net emitter of energy and the vast majority of that is from ice-free ocean surface. Like duh.
Take some relevant science classes, Ap*pell. Whatever you think you learned in physics isn’t serving you well.
Soon’s new paper takes an exhaustive look at the question of solar and temperature and presents a well defined correlation. globalwarmingsolved.com/data_files/SCC2015_preprint.pdf
Ref the 1900-1950 era historic climate observations, a group of us in Australia has invested several years of part time hobby work in the comparison of official records from that era to today’s homogenised make-believe. Most, not all of us, are scientists, some quite senior in relevant topics like meteorology at doctorate level plus years of hands on experience. One study at
http://joannenova.com.au/2015/03/historic-documents-show-half-of-australias-warming-trend-is-due-to-adjustments/
was spearheaded by Chris Gilham. There are more.
The summary of our work about Australian temperatures is that we can see about 0.4 deg C of warming for Australia from say 1900 to 2010, when the official claim is about 1 deg C. That is a significant difference.
One figure supports global warming here, the other rejects it.
We have not invented, created or cherry picked our figures. Most of our historical data comes from the highly-respected, official Commonwealth of Australia Yearbook, dates like 1953 covering the earlier 50 years; and more from CSIR, the national science house, before they became today’s CSIRO. These were the accepted official figures pre-1950, in the 1950s era. They had already been quality controlled for outliers etc before then.
I have given this type of note to Steven Mosher several times. He has not made any response that I can recall. It is pretty hard to argue about a comparison of some of the best official data sets available at the respective times. It gives Mosh a problem because it conflicts with his favourite BEST modelling. We don’t use models. We just use the best available official data of the time.
So, I read with interest that similar claims can be made about other places, Maybe we have not seen enough study of historic data. It is hard to argue with measurements of glacial retreat in the early 1900s, it is hard to argue against our comparisons.
Please give us some feedback. I don’t have a horse in the race. My driving interest is, as usual, to try to get the best scientific answer that the data can support. Here it is about Australian temperatures, which of course impact heavily on Southern Hemisphere compilations.
Geoff.
When will we see your claims in a peer reviewed journal?
It won’t ever. You can’t even get data from these guys. Worse than mann.
“You can’t even get data from these guys.”
You can’t get any from you, either.
All you produce is rehashes of other peoples’ data, Mannipulated using your specious AlGoreithms in order to prop up ‘The Cause’.
catweazel
+1
“All you produce is rehashes of other peoples’ data, Mannipulated using your specious AlGoreithms in order to prop up ‘The Cause’.”
Actually not.
There are 40,000 stations.
You can get all of it.
If you DID get all of it, you’d see that the correction algorithms dont do ANYTHING to raw data.
Its all still there.
Even after homogenization, 15000 stations have no adjustments.
“Even after homogenization, 15000 stations have no adjustments.”
In other words, 25,000 stations have been
Mannipulated“homogenised”.Er, quite.
“It gives Mosh a problem because it conflicts with his favourite BEST modelling. We don’t use models. We just use the best available official data of the time.”
Huh?
1. I remain skeptical of all claims that some version of official data is “best”
that is the blind spot of skeptics. they think there is something you can
call a best record. There isnt.
2. That lack of skepticism leads you to make unwarrented claims.
3. As far as data sources go, if the data is available on a ftp with a DOI or some sort of description of how it was processed then we can use it.
4. if you have addition data, go ahead and submit it to ISTI or publish it.
and no excell sheets posted on a web page will not cut it. make a proper archive. publish the dataset using peer review.
you know.. do science
Steven,
You seem to have a rail track of procedures that all should obey. I have an open mind and an open way of handling information.
The issue here is not if I have a certain way to present some public data, through certain outlets, typefaces or whatever, whether freshly peer reviewed or not. That is wayside baggage..
The issue is, how come you did not know about these many temperature sets when you were sourcing BEST input data?
Here is my suggestion.
The sources are public and they are listed in the Jo Nova piece that I referenced.
You can get them in a few minutes. Try to incorporate this official, public data into BEST and report back on any difficulties.
You would not want people to think that BEST missed some interesting, even important data when being compiled, would you?
I am not making a claim that the data are good, better or best” as we used to say. I noted that they were the official, accepted, reviewed, published data that was the best available at the time it was made public.
Cheers mate
Geoff
Geoff,
“You would not want people to think that BEST missed some interesting, even important data when being compiled, would you?”
Let’s check. Please name just one station where you think you have data (which years?) that BEST has missed.
Nick Stokes, Rutherglen Research station. The record for this pristine Australian station goes back to Nov 1912. Aus Bom station 082039. WMO 95837. BEST 151882. Just check how far back BEST goes. January 1965.
“Steven,
You seem to have a rail track of procedures that all should obey. I have an open mind and an open way of handling information.”
1. If you have Monthly data go ahead and put it on an FTP so anyone
can get it.
2. Make sure you provide documentation.
3. From everything I’ve seen the source data was not monthly
4. From everything Ive seen there was no description of how the
data was collected and compiled. QC etc
The issue here is not if I have a certain way to present some public data, through certain outlets, typefaces or whatever, whether freshly peer reviewed or not. That is wayside baggage..
1. No actually I dont care about typeface
2. Review is important, for example, the author purported
to have copied, manually copied, from a written source
Other groups have transcribed written records. Go look how
they do it. First you DONT have one person transcribe. Go
look at the ” old Weather” data rescue project. basically, if
you cant OCR the data and you have to manually transcribe
then you have multiple people transcribe the records. This is
Just basic. Then you compare the manual transcriptions and look
for differences. Jeez
3. You are purporting to create a record. Proper producres and documentation MATTER.
“The issue is, how come you did not know about these many temperature sets when you were sourcing BEST input data?”
1. Assumes facts not in evidence. There are many sources we dont use even though we know about them. To provide monthly updates with no human intervention the code looks at PUBLIC OPEN INVENTORIES. So there are THOUSANDS of stations we dont use because the data is not publically open, or it is random files scatter on web pages.
2. The archive has to be stable. That is month to month it better not be moving or changing URLs
3. There is a place for you data where other folks will maintain it.
It would suggest ISTI, But in reality the excel files are junk.
you have monthly averages over a variety of time periods.
Like Average Jan temperature over the 6 years,, or over these
45 years. basically useless for compiling a MONTHLY SERIES.
you can well imagine what would happen if we started sourcing random excel files posted on web pages. Imagine if some warmist clown posted Their version of australia.. and we just took them at their word.
“Here is my suggestion.
The sources are public and they are listed in the Jo Nova piece that I referenced.
You can get them in a few minutes. Try to incorporate this official, public data into BEST and report back on any difficulties.”
1. I’ve looked at them before. Not very useful data
2. The most interesting data is MONTHLY TIME SERIES
This allows us to test our method out of sample.
3. XSL formats in the way you did it make it very hard to ingest
please refer to Hadley Wickams commentary on TIDY DATA
or consult a database expert. NORMALIZED tables are best
4. Dont use XLS, use CSV or some other regularly dilimited file
Understand that every month we have to recheck and re ingest data
in case the source changes. With your XLS file I would have to
download it every month, open it, reorganize it, out put it so that
it could be ingested by the ingest process.
5. Last I looked at the excel it was only ANNUAL AVERAGES over
varying time periods. Pretty much useless.
6. Its NOT official data. The spread sheet is PURPORTED to be
a transcription by a single individual of a book. There is no
evidence for the process he went through, any quality check he did
etc.
7. There is no metadata. The process of deconflicting multiple
sources of the same data depends on METADATA. the files
have no metadata.
You would not want people to think that BEST missed some interesting, even important data when being compiled, would you?
1. Actually I get emails from people all the time asking me to add
data. One guy in florida wanted me to add his mothers temperature data that she had taken all her life. One researcher has dozens of arctic datasets that were never included. Some people send me links to data that has been rescued. Every one of them understands what you dont. Its import for this data to be vetted, reviewed, and properly archived so that it survives. I tell them to submit to ISTI.
at some point then in the future ISTI will have a bunch of data we dont use. That’s a GOOD THING from a cross validation standpoint.
2. From what I saw last time I looked the data on the site wasnt very interesting.
I am not making a claim that the data are good, better or best” as we used to say. I noted that they were the official, accepted, reviewed, published data that was the best available at the time it was made public.
Cheers mate
Geoff
1. Understand our goal. Our goal is to build a CONTINUOUS record of MONTHLY temperatures. ( daily too )
2. If you have monthly series then we can always look at incorporating it.
3. We also need metadata. without metadata the series will FAIL the first data cleanse step.
Geoff a great example of what we dont ingest is Enviroment canda data.
About 7K stations
1. They are all in separate CSV files
2. “scraping them” is a nightmare and breaks constantly. I once wrote an R package to do it. It was a nightmare.
3. Over time they will probably submit the data to a published archive
either GHCN or ISTI.
Rud
% This file contains a station summary listing for a temperature
% station in the Berkeley Earth database. This station is identified as:
%
% Berkeley ID#: 3816
% Primary Name: RUTHERGLEN POST OFFICE
% Record Type: TAVG
% Country: Australia
% Latitude: -36.05497 +/- 0.00005
% Longitude: 146.47830 +/- 0.00005
% Elevation (m): 169.00 +/- 0.05
% # of Months: 226
%
% IDs: ghcnd – ASN00082038
% ghcnm – 50194895001
%
% Sources: Global Historical Climatology Network – Daily
% Global Historical Climatology Network – Monthly v2
% Global Historical Climatology Network – Monthly v3
First record 1903
% This file contains a station summary listing for a temperature
% station in the Berkeley Earth database. This station is identified as:
%
% Berkeley ID#: 151882
% Primary Name: RUTHERGLEN RESEARCH
% Record Type: TAVG
% Country: Australia
% Latitude: -36.10470 +/- 0.00005
% Longitude: 146.50940 +/- 0.00005
% Elevation (m): 175.00 +/- 0.05
% # of Months: 548
%
% IDs: ghcnd – ASN00082039
% gsod – 958370-99999
% usaf – 958370
% wmo – 95837
First record 1965.
The Australian BOM Shows its records starting in 1913. However, we do not INGEST from the Australian BOM. Look at the web page and see if you can figure out why.
IF the BOM submit their data to GHCN ( Daily or Monthly ) or GCOS then it would be on our ingest list. The stuation is the same with Environment Canada. They have files on line we dont ingest. We basically Ingest Archives..
So there are two possibilities
A) the BOM have not submitted the data to GHCN
B) They submitted it and the data dropped on the floor when we ingest and merge.
That said, if the site has records for 193 to 1965, then we can
A) use our method to correct the records
B) use the records of out of sample testing
ristvan,
“Nick Stokes, Rutherglen Research station. The record for this pristine Australian station goes back to Nov 1912. Aus Bom station 082039.”
You don’t need to dig around in old CSIR docs for that. As you cite, the data is online at the BoM.
ristvan,
Rutherglen Research famously had a break in about 1965 – I still don’t know what all that fuss was about. I think the earlier record appears as part of the Corowa composite, which is also in GHCN. Corowa is just across the river.
“It gives Mosh a problem because it conflicts with his favourite BEST modelling. We don’t use models. We just use the best available official data of the time.”
:I am not making a claim that the data are good, better or best” as we used to say. I noted that they were the official, accepted, reviewed, published data that was the best available at the time it was made public.”
This is pretty funny.
1. There are monthly sources available at the time the book was compiled.
2. the book is a SECONDARY SOURCE ( they add up months of data into years)
Geoff, you can’t even make the argument that the book is the best source available at that time, because it was compiled from primary sources. You’d have to COMPARE the primary source and the secondary compilation to even start to make the argument.
What you see here is geoff playing a game.. he wants to use the distinction Model versus Data, cause he thinks ( unskeptically) that one is naturally better than the other. Second, he assumes but never shows that his spreadsheet Conflicts with our Model. That’s funny. He’s never done the comparison. To do the comparison CORRECTLY you’d have to run the code. Last I checked he never downloaded the code.
And finally blast from the past… I believe that Geoff was one of the people on CLimate audit who suggested Krigging. Go figure
So now Geoff attacks models.
what did he say before
“https://climateaudit.org/2010/08/19/the-first-difference-method/#comment-240062
What did skeptics say before?
https://climateaudit.org/2010/08/26/kriging-on-a-geoid/
https://climateaudit.org/2010/08/26/kriging-on-a-geoid/#comment-240360
And he explains how krigging can be used to interpolate.
So, it should come to no surprise to skeptics that we actually read what they wrote.. and tried their ideas.
Guess what?
using industry standard approaches works. Just like skeptics thought it would
Geoff,
I don’t think you have any evidence that there is data there unused by BEST, or ISTI, or GHCN daily, or even monthly. Gilham’s is one of those really dumb articles that laboriously looks through some old records, and says, these are different to ACORN. Or GHCN adjusted. Of course they are. That is what adjustment means. What is dumb is that they don’t check with the existing, published, GHCN unadjusted, or ISTI, or BEST unadjusted. Those people have not missed those records.
Gilham’s first dataset is Melbourne since 1855, per CSIR. Now GHCN Daily has this; I have depicted the (summer) records here. I have checked many of the day maxima against old newspapers; they are identical (after F conversion). The claims about CSIR and Yearbook data are nonsense. Those are just climate normals – there is no monthly or annual data to be found. You can find that data in BoM records; all of those have been considered by GHCN, BEST etc.
Nick
A while back I gave all our raw australian data to some guys investigating the australian adjustments.
We dont ingest from the BOM because they use a menu system for selecting stations and that would require some nasty scraping code.
So if the BOM has not parked the data at GHCN we wont see it.
That said, as you note the old book they transcribed ( Poorly I should add )
has only climate NORMALS.. pretty much useless
David,
The work was extensively peer reviewed when it was gathered. These are the official Australian figures. Why do you see a need for peer review, before you have had time to read the work, other than to parrot standard warmist rebuttal number XYZ? You are not being scientific, you are being political. You can play that game alone, thanks.
Geoff.
You clearly do not understand the meaning of “peer reviewed.”
It does not mean reviewed by you.
Until your work is reviewed by experts with independent eyes, it means nothing. And maybe not even then.
David,
If you have got yourself in a rut that makes you think that way, then I guess you are a casualty of the publish or perish mentality.
Why would peer review be need when the complexity does not go much beyond subtracting one official number from another to show a difference? Kindergarten arithmetic now needs peer review, you think?
I have asked for feedback on this work. Are you going to give it, or are you going to try to stem the flow by the boilerplate objection process that you use. That boilerplate is so much not needed. We need to do real science, not talk about how it is communicated, n’est ce pas?
Geoff
PS: It’s not your subtractions that are the problem. It’s your assumptions.
Speaking of boilerplate…
David, In ancient times if your prophecy did not work out right like you said on your paper, your peers were expected to make your career feel rocky immediately; if you get my drift? Why do you think we can’t expect that type of quality control and verification process today? Quality science has surely suffered as a result. I know that this is how the Bible was written, error no trial… but at this point in time it seems appropriate somehow. From what you have written is sounds as though you may have attended well established church recently. High five David.
Geoff.
The problem is simply more than subtracting one column from another column.
Reading through what the guy did you have these issues.
1. He consulted a published book of climate normals
2. It looks like he entered the data manually into a xls spreadsheet
That presents the following problems.
A) we can’t quickly check his transcribing.
THIS is how folks do that sort of work
http://iedro.org/data-rescue-process/rescue-data/
B) Supposedly these printed complilations come from Monthly sources
1. We need the sources.
2. Next THOSE sources have to be compared, merged, deconflicted
with GHCN and possible the BOM ( but we dont use the BOM unless they submit their data to GHCN. or provide a stand alone
database file.
So here is the thing. As a reviewer I have to fail his work. Sorry.
if you want to help please visit this site
https://blog.oldweather.org/
“The work was extensively peer reviewed when it was gathered. These are the official Australian figures.”
err no.
1. the spreadsheet is a PURPORTED “copy” or transcription of what is in a book.
2. the book purports to be a compilation of monthly records.. but done for
large periods: Like average Jan temp for 1899-1912.
So.. you have
A) the original temperature
A2) the figure written down by the observer
A3… some other records
A4) the compilation of these records into long periods published as a book.
A5) an excel spreadsheet that purports to have been made by
copying A4
A6) an uploaded spreadsheet.that purports to be a copy of A5
What folks want is A2 and A3.
why? because its foolish to trust A4 in isolation and so really foolish to trust A5 and not really worth downloading A6.
See skeptics are never skeptical enough.
Steven,
Nick,
Let’s skip the dancing, the foreplay and go straight to the groin.
Using the Yearbook/CSIR data shows that for Australia compared to now, for the 20th century, about 0.5 deg C of warming is missing, by our simple analysis. So simple it is hard to get it wrong.
That questionable 0.5 C is present now in all large temperature/time series products. It makes claims of 1 C of Australian global warming seem credible. It causes uncertainty to widen in ECS/TCR analyses.
The crux (or crutch, as some would spell) of the problem is why this difference exists. We say it is created by adjustment.
If I had to accept the adjustment, I would ask you both the general question of how the best Australian meteorologists and climate scientists of the 1950s and before made mistakes over and over hundreds of sites, in such a systematic way that adjustment cures all, as you seem to say.
That is not being kind to earlier scientists and their quality control measures, especially as you both seem unable to say precisely what errors were made.
Can you tell me why I should accept and trust the modern, adjusted story when all reasons I can see point to the 1950s data being good?
(As noted before, it is hard to deny measurements of glacier retreats when there are photos and measurements from the era before GHG are supposed to be having a warming effect. Yet some researchers don’t seem to incorporate such observation in their syntheses. I don’t have to show you these photos any more than I have to point you to the CSIR/BOM data.)
Geoff
Geoff,
“Let’s skip the dancing, the foreplay and go straight to the groin.
Using the Yearbook/CSIR data shows that for Australia compared to now, for the 20th century, about 0.5 deg C of warming is missing, by our simple analysis.”
This has nothing to do with Yearbook/CSIR. It’s just a standard gripe about adjustments. You’d get the same result if you compared currently published adjusted and unadjusted figures.
And the thing is, there is a reason why homogenisation is required. We go round and round with this, with people asserting from nowhere that adjustments are just a fiddle, without ever bothering to find the reasons. Remember the ballyhoo of the GWPF report. The top scientists never even attempted to write a report. There is nothing in it.
Nick,
While you dismiss this as a “standard gripe about adjustments” I view it as a post-adjustment test of the adjustment process. This work is important because it gives reason, data and logic to claim that the overall adjustment process is of equal magnitude to the pre-adjusted data change. Roughly 0.5 C of raw change, also 0.5 C of adjustment.
At that magnitude, one cannot avoid the need for a re-examination of the adjustments,their rationale, their (demonstrated?) bias of direction, precisely what it was that this earlier generation of scientists got allegedly so wrong.
It is so unscientific to shrug it off as a standard gripe. You should know that I tend not to raise a matter that does not need attention. Some man- years of study of Australian data, thoughtfully and without bias, cannot be shrugged off. It is too big a discrepancy no matter which way it is sliced and diced.
Geoff.
As a layman who has avidly followed the debate, I have a simple question. As I understand that,utilizing basic principles of physics, the warmists claim that there should be a hot spot in the equatorial troposphere. Everything I have read suggests there is none and in fact there appears to be the reverse. Have they provided a satisfactory explanation for why is the case, or that the physics assumed are incorrect?
Science has proved that assumed physics are normally, always, incorrect, I have found, how about you David?
SN, the tropical troposhere hotspot is in the CMIP5 models. Those run hot. One reason is they overstate the water vapor feedback, essentially because of faulty convection cell parameterization (the attribution problem). That results in a modeled hotspot where none exists in reality.
Hi Rud,
O/T: Do you know of an estimate of the premature deaths/year globally attributable to coal fired electricity generation. I believe it is around 500,000/year but I need to reference an authoritative report or peer reviewed paper.
Peter Lang,
My friend I told you about whose husband is a nucelar scientist sent me these two articles:
Nuclear plants, despite safety concerns, gain support as clean energy sources
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/01/business/energy-environment/nuclear-plants-despite-safety-concerns-gain-support-as-clean-energy-sources.html?emc=edit_th_20160601&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=34089217&_r=0
Fossil-Enviro Alliance Wins Anti-Nuclear Victory in Illinois
http://www.environmentalprogress.org/big-news/2016/5/31/fossil-enviro-alliance-wins-anti-nuclear-victory-in-illinois
Peter,
If you don’t follow Michael Shellenberger you might want to consider it. Here’s his twitter page:
https://twitter.com/shellenbergermd
Here’s his latest story. He’s following the money, which is always a rather revealing exercise. Behind the anti-nukes are powerful commercial interests.
CLEAN ENERGY IS ON THE DECLINE — HERE’S WHY, AND WHAT WE CAN DO ABOUT IT
http://epillinois.org/news/2016/5/1/why-environmentalists-changed-their-mind-on-nuclear
http://epillinois.org/news/2016/5/1/why-environmentalists-changed-their-mind-on-nuclear#comment-2668853777
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f5d3026d04cc1cabd719607ad50865763c3b4d5831dbebb7e0580aecbe5ca9ac.png
The hotspot term can be misleading.
The hotspot term can be misleading. It’s more like amplification. All the models say warming should be stronger in the troposphere than at the surface. Within that, modeled warming is stronger in the tropics than outside – but the tropics are a pretty big place! Also, this amplification should occur no matter the cause of the warming – it’s not a ‘fingerprint’ of greenhouse gases.
The observations have always shown troposphere trends (from balloons since the 1950s and satellites since 1979) as less than the surface. Possibilities:
a) The satellites / balloons understate
b) Surface datasets overstate
c) Something is wrong with our understanding of atmospheric physics
As for whether the modeled/predicted hotspot is due to the lapse rate feedback, or the water vapor feedback, or something else… I don’t know enough to explain.
By the way, if a mod could delete my previous comment…
a) The satellites / balloons understate
Probably not, because both tend to agree, and also agree in other regions ( cooling in the stratosphere, maxima in the Arctic, tropics ).
Not only would the the observations have to be wrong, they have to be erroneous for the upper tropics, while correct elsewhere.
http://climatewatcher.webs.com/HotSpot2015.png
b) Surface datasets overstate
Also not likely because the surface ( and lowest level ) obs appear to be consistent both with other data sets as well as models.
c) Something is wrong with our understanding of atmospheric physics
Perhaps there’s a:
d) Something is wrong with the models, namely the physics that’s known and understood, but poorly parameterized or resolved.
\
If you examine the graphic below, there’s no hot spot since 1979, when satellite measurements began. However, in the lower left panel, the plot of radiosonde data since 1958 does indicate somewhat of a hot spot. So it could be a matter of variability. Also, the Eastern Pacific has a cooling trend since 1979. If one considers the radiosonde data but excludes the Eastern Pacific, there is also a slight hot spot. But no hot spot as modeled since 1979.
Broken Window Fallacy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window
Does everyone know about this and understand how it applies to renewable energy? We often here the climatariat gospel about how renewable energy creates jobs. It actually destroys more jobs than it creates. That is unavoidable when something more expensive replaces something less expensive. The reason why is explained by the broken window fallacy. Substitute coal mines for windows for a case in point.
Brad Keyes is an amazing comic talent who can really slice and dice the climate debate:
https://cliscep.com/2016/05/28/forecasting-the-facts-the-dark-history-future-of-the-climate-debate/
Agree canman. Here is my synopsis of his best shots IMO:
https://rclutz.wordpress.com/2016/05/29/brad-keyes-climatism-fortune-teller/
Constraints on climate sensitivity from space-based measurements of low-cloud reflection
An information-theoretic weighting of climate models by how well they reproduce the measured deseasonalized covariance of shortwave cloud reflection with temperature yields a most likely ECS estimate around 4.0 K; an ECS below 2.3 K becomes very unlikely (90% confidence).
All they showed is when there are less clouds it’s hotter. I can tell you that for less money.
The real issue is whether diminished cloud cover causes the water to heat up, or hot water causes cloud cover to diminish. Of course in the real world both things happen and the effect can be difficult (or impossible) to disentangle. The authors essentially sidestep this issue and fail to cite several papers on it by Spencer, Forster, Masters.
Actually, we’re not sure hotter water causes cloud cover to diminish. But we’re sure diminished cloud cover causes water to heat up. So the sentence should read ‘in the real world one thing happens for sure, the other might happen’.
OHC mostly goes up… the layers go up and down.
I’d be more impressed if the models didn’t all get the monsoon effect wrong, all in the same direction. The models are extremely simplistic relative to the real system, and if the parametrizations are systematically wrong, their results are worse than useless.
“the temporal covariance of low-cloud reflection with temperature in historical
simulations with current climate models correlates strongly (r = 0:67) with the models’ ECS. Therefore,
measurements of temporal low-cloud variations can be used to constrain ECS estimates”
The climate models which demonstrably have no clue as to either the evolution of temperature or ECS are used to “constrain” ECS to absurdly high values…
The problem is not clouds. You are captured by the fairy tale that, “Incoming SW radiation is converted to LW radiation by the surface and greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere absorb the LW surface emission warming the planet”.
The problem with that is that surface LW radiation in the fundamental bending CO2 bands is extinguished by about the height of surface thermometers. Gone. It no longer exists. CO2 just does that. It would much rather dance than spit photons (me too).
Yet satellites see CO2 radiance in the lower stratosphere in those very same bands. Can’t be surface photons. Long gone.
THIS, is the real problem with the models.
gynosperm, well put, There is also the matter that error ranges in measuring the dominent IR radiative compounds, ie H20, clouds, aerosols is an order of magnitude higher than estimates of CO2 activity. From Murray Salby’s new textbook:
From section 8.7.3 pg 260: “The accuracy of GCMs is reflected in the skill with which they simulate the TOA energy budget: the driver of climate. By construction, GCMs achieve global-mean energy balance. How faithfully the energy budget is represented locally, however, is another matter. The local energy budget forces regional climate, along with the gamut of weather phenomena that derive from it. This driver of regional conditions is determined internally – through the simulation of local heat flux, water vapor, and cloud. Symbolizing the local energy budget is net radiation (Fig. 1.34c), which represents the local imbalance between the SW and LW fluxes F0 and F ↑(0) in the TOA energy budget (8.82). Local values of those fluxes have been measured around the Earth by the three satellites of ERBE. The observed fluxes, averaged over time, have then been compared against coincident fluxes from climate simulations, likewise averaged. Figure 8.34 plots, for several GCMs, the rms error in simulated fluxes, which have been referenced against those observed by ERBE. Values represent the regional error in the (time-mean) TOA energy budget. The error in reflected SW flux, Fs 4 − F0 in the global mean (8.82), is of order 20 Wm−2 (Fig. 8.34a). Such error prevails at most latitudes. Differences in error between models (an indication of intermodel discrepancies) are almost as large, 10–20 Wm−2. The picture is much the same for outgoing LW flux (Fig. 8.34b). For F ↑(0), the rms error is of order 10–15 Wm−2. It is larger for all models in the tropics, where the error exceeds 20 Wm−2.
The significance of these discrepancies depends on application. Overall fluxes at TOA are controlled by water vapor and cloud (Fig. 1.32) – the major absorbers that account for the preponderance of downwelling LW flux to the Earth’s surface. Relative to those fluxes, the errors in Fig. 8.34 are manageable: Of order 10% for outgoing LW and 20% for reflected SW. Relative to minor absorbers, however, this is not the case. The entire contribution to the energy budget from CO2 is about 4 Wm−2. Errors in Fig. 8.34 are an order of magnitude greater. Consequently, the simulated change introduced by increased CO2 (2–4 Wm−2), even inclusive of feedback, is overshadowed by error in the simulated change of major absorbers.
Ron,
Thanks for that. I wasn’t aware Murray Salby had a new book. In a sense we are talking about the same thing.
It is very difficult to determine at what altitude the complete extinction of surface IR photons in the fundamental bending CO2 bands occurs. There is always some “leakage” (per Robert Brown) in the form of collisional emission resulting from what is really surface energy, but these collisional emissions must run the same gamut again and the lapse rate further reduces the probability with increasing altitude.
According to MODTRAN there is zero signal in these bands at 100 meters and only a ragged approximations until 5 km where you begin to see the characteristic planck “flat spot” with the signature 667.4 spike:
https://geosciencebigpicture.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/modtran-co2-only-100-meters.png
https://geosciencebigpicture.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/modtran-5km-280v400ppm-co2.png
I take this to mean that there is essentially a zero transmission “shell” in the atmosphere between some few meters and 5km where surface energy is extinct.
Above this new and locally variable energy from ATMOSPHERIC absorption of solar near IR and UV by ice, water, water vapor, and ozone is kinetically lighting up the CO2 bands.
Yes, Salby talks about the boundary layer in a similar vein. You can access Salby’s book here:
http://notrickszone.com/2016/05/13/salby-sees-little-co2-driving-mechanism-skeptical-view-of-co2-science-is-in-fact-textbook-science/
One of the reasons that CO2 uptake may have increased so much in the last 60 years is the increase in biomass ( land vegetation and ocean phytoplankton are documented ). Presumably, increased CO2 and increased temperatures have fostered this growth.
So, if humans reduce CO2 emissions, and consequently reduce CO2 concentrations, will this result result in a mass die off?
Something to think about.
More time and more good news:
http://www.carbonbrief.org/ocean-conveyor-key-sluggish-antarctic-warming-study-says
It reminds us that there are at least 3 kind of circulations.
Surface to various atmospheric heights
Ocean surface to its depths
Horizontal, such as gyres
I admit to it, it is a coincidence, even an incredible coincidence . Requires at least three independent verifications.
Judith: IMO, your article on GMO is full of hot air. The truth is that there is nothing “natural” about the foods we were eating before genetic engineering became possible. Those foods were the end product of an uncontrolled and unregulated breeding program – purely accidental for many millennia and then directed by deliberate crosses between different species (and probably deliberate addition of mutagens to speed up evolution). All plant and animals are in a constant evolutionary battle against other species that are trying to eat them. Plants in particular contain toxins that discourage or harm insects and animals that feed on them. When we breed crops by traditional means, we are playing genetic roulette and possibly introducing or amplifying levels of a naturally-occurring toxin. The varieties of crops grown by organic farmers without the use of man-made pesticides almost certainly contain more of these naturally occurring toxins than those grown with the use of pesticides. (Likewise, pure man-made ammonium nitrate has safety advantages over manure as a fertilizer.)
Genetic engineering has introduced traits into crops that would be unlikely to be produced by conventional [also unnatural] breeding programs. We have a much better idea of how the crop has been changed by genetic breeding techniques and they undergo testing to demonstrate that they are safe – certainly safer than crops breed by traditional methods, which apparently haven’t cause problems in the past. (Could the current obesity epidemic be the result of a trait that entered the wheat we grow fifty years ago?)
Let’s label GMO crops: “Bred by targeted introduction of useful traits and tested for safety under FDA supervision” and conventional crops “Bred for superior traits by random crosses between poorly characterized species and not tested for safety.” What would knowledgeable customers buy? Only big companies can afford to test their new crops for safety and activist think everything produced by big business is bad.
Society has been taught that natural is good and man-made is bad. In truth, there are risks and benefits to both. In general, the risks of man-made materials have been studied more carefully and their hazards (which are usually small) are widely publicized. Roughly one out of twenty experiments will – purely by chance – produce a p value indicative of a “significant” hazards. The quest for absolute safety – the precautionary principle – is going to halt all progress.
What is so hard about putting a label on any package contains a GMO product? You know, the old ‘keep the public informed’ PSM kinda thing. Package it, and they will buy.
Arch wrote: “What is so hard about putting a label on any package contains a GMO product?”
Nothing. What is hard is deciding what to put on the packages without GMO products. How about “Grown with Pesticides” for crops that are treated with pesticides to prevent damage from insects. Crops genetically engineered to express BT need less or no pesticides. Just because we are accustomed to the dangers associated with pesticides and have tolerated them for decades doesn’t mean that citizens shouldn’t be informed that the food they are eating was sprayed with pesticides. Organic crops should be labeled “Grown in Sh1t”, if they were fertilized with manure? Food poisoning from organic foods grown with “natural fertilizer” is certainly a risk.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-ecoli-beansprouts-idUSTRE7552N720110606
Individual customers have difficulty determining risk. In general, we rely on government scientists to tell us what is relatively risk-free and what is not. If they don’t think a “GMO” warning or a “Grown in Sh1t” warning or a “Grown with Pesticides” warning informs customers about significant hazards, the box you buy doesn’t – and shouldn’t – come with a warning.
The only reason GMO is an issue is that modern-day Luddites want to stop all progress – especially provided by big business – and reverse the industrial revolution. Everything man-made is bad – vaccines, medicines, cheap reliable energy from fossil fuels or nuclear – and everything natural is good – manure, herbal remedies, zika virus, coffee (with dozens of known carcinogens) and the plaintiff’s bar.