Climate Audit

sonicfrog

Hey, someone who’s got the resources should design a “Climate Jester” T-shirt!

Steve McIntyre

“Better A Jester than Adjuster”

Hansen et al 2001 describes:
a) the gist of the adjustment;
b) a jest of an adjustment
c) just an adjustment
d) a joust with a jester

Steve McIntyre

Jesters is a common name for touring squash teams.

Steve McIntyre

Climate is an important element in the plot of Shakespeare’s King Lear, the gist of which climateaudit will expound in the interests of liberal education with little jest or adjustment. (King Lear was on the curriculum of Ontario high school seniors in 1965.)

The following is taken from here.

King Lear, a dotty 80-year-old ruler of ancient Britain, announces that he will retire from the throne and divide his kingdom among his three daughters: Goneril, Regan and Cordelia. The foolish, self-centered old man declares (in Act I, Scene I) that the daughter who loves him the most will receive the biggest share of his property. Then he will live with each daughter in turn, one month at a time. The avaricious Goneril declares that her love for her father knows no bounds:

…………………Sir, I love you more than words can wield the matter;
…………………Dearer than eye-sight, space, and liberty;
…………………Beyond what can be valued, rich or rare;
…………………No less than life, with grace, health, beauty, honour;
…………………As much as child e’er loved, or father found;
…………………A love that makes breath poor, and speech unable;
…………………Beyond all manner of so much I love you.
…………………(Act I, Scene I, Lines 56-62)

…….Regan says Goneril comes up short, declaring “I am alone felicitate in your dear highness’ love” (Lines 77-78). Lear is much pleased.

…

Goneril and her husband, the Duke of Albany, first host Lear. In time, the eccentric old man and his entourage vex her. After Lear strikes Goneril’s steward, Oswald, for scolding his jester, Goneril says,

…………………By day and night he wrongs me; every hour
…………………He flashes into one gross crime or other,
…………………That sets us all at odds: I’ll not endure it:
…………………(Act I, Scene III, Lines 3-5)

She tells Oswald to ignore Lear and his entourage, since he is now an “idle old man” (Act I, Scene III, Line 16) who has relinquished his authority. If he does not like the treatment he receives, she says, then he can move to the castle of Regan and her husband. There, she says, he will receive similar treatment, because Regan and she are of a like mind in their view of how to deal with the pesky old man.

Meanwhile, Kent presents himself in disguise to Lear in a room in the castle, saying he wishes to serve the king:

…………………I can keep honest counsel, ride, run, mar a curious tale in telling it, and deliver a plain message
…………………bluntly: that which ordinary men are fit for, I am qualified in; and the best of me is diligence.
…………………(Act I, Scene IV, Lines 34-37)

Moments later, a knight tells the king he is no longer regarded with affection by Goneril, Albany, and their servants. Oswald enters and Lear, apparently regarding him as a tool in Goneril’s plan to mistreat the king, insults and slaps him. For good measure, the disguised Kent trips Oswald, then pushes him out of the room. The king’s jester comes in just then and recites a little speech for Lear and Kent, a speech which seems to contain more wisdom than Lear and Kent realize:

…………………Have more than thou showest,
…………………Speak less than thou knowest,
…………………Lend less than thou owest,
…………………Ride more than thou goest,
…………………Learn more than thou trowest,
…………………Set less than thou throwest;
…………………Leave thy drink and thy whore,
…………………And keep in-a-door,
…………………And thou shalt have more
…………………Than two tens to a score.
…………………(Act I, Scene IV, Lines 31-140)

TAC

SteveM: Post #9 reminds me of Charles Austin Beard’s comment that all of history can be reduced to four lessons:

– The bee fertilizes the flower it robs;

– Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad with power;

– The mills of God grind slowly, but they grind exceedingly small;

– When it is dark enough, you can see the stars.

BarryW

Re 10

No, no. You missed the boat .. er point. Isn’t it all about feelings? They feel good about themselves so it’s not a waste of money. Didn’t Gavin say feelings are more important?

Re 9

I think the line from Macbeth is appropriate to Hansen’s rant:: “It is a tale told by an idiot, signifying nothing”

Steve McIntyre

“”Portions of a radio performance of the play King Lear on BBC Radio 3 in the UK were used by John Lennon in The Beatles’ song “I Am the Walrus”, starting at about the halfway point, but most audible towards the end and during the long fadeout. Lennon added the BBC audio (live as it was being broadcast) on a whim during mixing of the track. The character Oswald’s exhortation, “bury my body”, as well as his lament, “O, untimely death!” (Act IV, Scene VI) were interpreted by fans as further pieces of evidence that band member Paul McCartney was dead.”” Wiki

DWPittelli

Dear Mr. McIntyre,
Love your work. I got involved in a blog swarm at an AGW site that appears to be more alarmist-leaning. Since I invoked your name (indeed, the fight started when I defended you from the claim of having done nothing to forward climate science except for an “insignificant” temperature correction) I thought I should mention it to you.

I was quite amazed how AGW alarmists will pretty much assume that one is in league with Satan and doesn’t know that CO2 impedes infrared emissions, if one says anything critical of Mann or Hansen et al, or anything supportive of a critic such as yourself. Anyway, I don’t know the etiquette of linking to an opposing site, but I am pretty sure the argument was not in their favor. I hope I have not written anything bone-headed you would not want to be associated with.

http://tamino.wordpress.com/2007/08/17/hemispheres/

DWPittelli

If the skeptics are jesters, perhaps alarmists are the high priests of our time. I have come to believe that AGW alarmists take the claim of essentially stable preindustrial temperatures (and no Medieval Warm Period) as holy writ to be defended because it means the warming of the last century is such an anomaly that it must be caused by man.

Actually the debate has moved beyond this, since most serious people agree that CO2 increases should be expected to have increased temperatures by about 0.6C, and that temperatures probably have increased by about that much.

What is in question now (re the potential looming crisis) is instead the extent to which global temperatures are driven by positive or negative feedbacks. When AGW alarmists figure out that 1,300 years of stable pre-industrial temperatures would actually be significant evidence against the strongly positive feedbacks they need to realize their apocalyptic scenarios, they will embrace temperature reconstructions showing the MWP and other pre-industrial variations in temperature.

jae

re: 12: SteveMcI: My apologies, my post @ 12 was not complete or gracious. I will buy the tickets and give you room and board. And my wife is a gourmet chef. Cheers!

Steve Moore

RE #16:

“Climate Jesters,” what a cool name for a band.

Yep, they could open for Reverend Anthony’s Screeching Mercury Monkeys:

http://www.norcalblogs.com/watts/2007/08/hey_im_a_reverend.html#comments

And that’s the gist of that jest….

Ian McLeod

Since we are having some fun tonight, I couldn’t resist.

“Lord, what fools these mortals be!”
From A Midsummer Night’s Dream (III, ii, 115)

This famous line is uttered by Puck, the mischievous spirit known for household pranks, to Oberon, Puck’s master and King of the Fairies. A series of comical events have occurred in the play: Helena loves Demetrius; Demetrius loves Hermia; Hermia loves Lysander, and he loves her in return. In fact, they have run off to be married, as Hermia’s father prefers that she wed Demetrius. In an amusing twist, Oberon feels sorry for Helena and orders Puck to put a magic love oil on the eyelids of the sleeping young Athenian man, meaning Demetrius. Puck mistakenly puts the oil on Lysander’s eyelids instead, and when he wakes and sees Helena, he falls madly and passionately in love with her. Before falling to sleep, Lysander had sworn his eternal love for Hermia, stating that he would die when he stopped loving her. Now he awakes, enchanted, and immediately declares his love for Helena, and regrets all the time he spent with Hermia. As everyone goes off to chase everyone else in this confusion of love, Puck makes his famous comment on the human condition.

I thought this crazy mixed up scene reflects the AGW’ers confusion as each sacred cow is demolished.

Geoff Sherrington

JESTING.

Please pardon 2 consecutive posts, but we work through the night in Australia when many others are asleep and not on CA.

Steve, you must have had Milton in mind when you started this:

“Haste thee nymph and bring with thee
Jest and joyful jollity,
Quips and cranks, and wanton wiles,
Nods and becks and wreathed smiles.”

Makes you feel younger?

But I fear that the present circumstances call on John Dryden 1631-1700, when we know not what the weather was like in England. There are two quotes from Absalom & Achitophel (1681):

“A man so various that he seemed to be
Not one, but all mankind’s epitome.
Stiff in opinion, always in the wrong;
Was everything by starts, and nothing long.
But, in the course of one revolving moon,
Was chemist, fiddler, statesman and buffoon.”

A little after the above climatologist reference to the moon, we have another:

“In squandering wealth was his peculiar art:
Nothing went unrewarded, but desert.
Beggared by fools, whom still he found too late:
He had his jest, and they had his estate.”

Prescient words which could be applied to several unnamed people in the current context.

Another subject if I may? Several people in various threads are asking about Sth hemisphere land temp trends from remote places like Macquarie Island, 1500 kn SE of New Zealand. If you want this badly enough, please let me know and I’ll try to get it. Sorry to be off-thread, but trying to catch all.

(I still maintain that “denier” is a measure of the fineness of stockings, mmmmm. Lovely.)

Geoff.

Rob

#14

“… and that my liege is how we know the world is shaped like a banana” Sir Bedivere to King Arthur, Holy Grail (M.Python).

PeterS

@3 I like the T-Shirt idea. It may need a slogan too though. Can I suggest:

LIFE’S A GAS!
Climate Jesters

Gary

Following up on #24, its time to start building a play list for the “Climate Jesters” and “Rev. Anthony’s Screeching Mercury Monkeys”. Here are two suggestions:

1. Eve of Destruction
2. Hot Hot Hot

steven mosher

Shakespeare? from a McIntyre, son of a carpenter. ( This is not a religious comment)

While I eschew wikipedia, it has a nice entry on the jester

In societies where the Freedom of Speech was not recognized as a right, the court jester – precisely because anything he said was by definition “a jest” and “the uttering of a fool” – could speak frankly on controversial issues in a way in which anyone else would have been severely punished for, and monarchs understood the usefulness of having such a person at their side. Still, even the jester was not entirely immune from punishment, and he needed to walk a thin line and exercise careful judgement in how far he might go – which required him to be far from a “fool” in the modern sense.

Other things
…..As late as 1968, however, the Canada Council awarded a $3,500 grant to Joachim Foikis of Vancouver “to revive the ancient and time-honoured tradition of town fool”.[2][3]

Steve McIntyre

“could speak frankly on controversial issues in a way in which anyone else would have been severely punished for”

Ay, there’s the rub. That’s what makes the climate priests so angry. Mocking the clergy – blasphemy.

Gary

Play list addition: “Fool on the Hill”

steven mosher

RE 37.

As a fully trained and certified deconstructionist, I find the irony of Hansen’s
use of the figure of the jester rich and creamy.

One of the principal tactics of deconstruction is to show how a text works to
undermine itself. The King makes proclaimations, and upon closer examination
his proclaimations are self indicting. So Hansen, who has whined about being silenced,
itself a claim that self immolates upon refelection, now casts himself in the role of the King
who cannot trifle with jesters: those who expose the king.

kim

Grant the Gaia the Gorgeous the Grand
To Know
Is all ye need.
=============================

Dennis Gebhardt

Dear Steve – You are doing good work on the temperature issue(s) associated with GW. Don’t give up. There are few who have the ability to make a case such as you are doing.

I am a consulting hydrogeologist and have been working in western N. American for 37 years. I do investigations for groundwater, surface water, and have been an expert witness in state and federal courts many times.

I knew something was up with the GW crowd quite some time ago. I lived and worked in Alaska during the early 1980’s. In 2003 I read a news article by Seth Borenstein for Knight Ridder which tried to give the impression that Alaska was suddenly warming. The writer used some different sources as proof of warming, in particular, assertions that all the glaciers were in retreat and that the yearly avg. temps rose 5 degrees since 1960.

One of the experts cited (so-called) was Deborah Williams–formerly the “Chief Interior Department Official for Alaska” (whatever that signifies) during the Clinton Administration. Ms Williams was quoted as saying “Alaska is the melting tip of the iceberg, the panting canary.” Presumeably she knew this from looking at the terminus of a few glaciers.

Eventually, the Alaskan Climate Research Center (ACRC) provided data that showed no such increase took place. There was a 2.4 degree jump in 1976-77 which they thought was due to a circulation realignment in the Pacific Ocean. If you look at the temperature record for Fairbanks Alasks from 1980 it looks like serious cooling is going on now.

Traveling around AK I could see examples of glaciers which were rapidly moving forward, receeding, or just stagnant within a matter of a day’s travel. As to the idea that one warm year could cause all kinds of response from the State’s glaciers is preposterous. However the media sure ate it up with gusto.

That kind of set the pattern for GW advocates who had a little scientific claim. They go to somewhere kind of exotic like Alaska or the N. Pole and after seeing a glacier that is receeding or open water at the pole at midsummer, rush breathlessly to inform the world that “sure enough” we have seen “GW.” This is lapped up by the new media and fed to the public. This kind of drivel should be seen for the weak evidence that it is but alas, the lack of scientific understanding is a disgrace which allows anybody to make almost any claim and have it repeated until it is taken as a fact from repetition.

In my work I have occasion to establish climate records in support of hydrogeolgic investigations. From my experience, the government weather stations are unreliable for anything but broad trends due to urban heating, inaccurate equipment, incorrect elevation information, gaps in the record, and other factors. Multiplying these problems by the existing stations throughout the world you have a world temperature which cannot be interpreted to plus or minus 5 degrees if even that good. The third world stations would not be useful at all. Certainly they couldn’t be mixed in with the other stations which have a higher quality of record-keeping. Probably there are only 5-10% of records outside N. America and Europe which are reliable.

And the heat island effect is most pronounced in the urbanizing areas of N. American and Europe. These growth areas have had the most disturbed and relocated weather site locations too.

If I had to give expert testimony about the reliability of world temperature records, or a selection of them, I would have to use a very wide parameter to avoid being laughed out of the court.

If you would like some information about the actual versus perceived recession for Nisqually Glacier let me know. This is a Mt Rainier glacier which GW devotees love to drive by and lament how horrible the effect of GW on glaciers is. There has been extensive scientific study from the 1880’s of this glacier though, which indicates it is just a normal glacier for the area in which it is located.

Well, I’ve rambled on too long. Keep up the good work. Dennis G.

SteveSadlov

RE: #45 – Here are some of my favorites:
– Going to a relatively recent road / grade cut, or excavation, to take footage of “permafrost melting”
– Similarly, footage of undermining / subsidence / heaving due to development over permafrost – depicted as “due to AGW”
– Portrayal of sea ice surface ponds as “open water” (my favorite one of this genre is the UK swimmer who went into one of these near the NP, in order to claim “I swam at the NP due to GW”)
– Supposedly neutral accounts spoken by Innuit who claim “the climate has changed” – similar situation with residents of Churchill on Hudson’s Bay – no profit motive in the more marginal, struggling, impoverished Arctic communities (typically ones that did not get the luck of the draw in terms of resources) in telling people from the lower 48 media orgs what they want to hear …. none whatsoever /sarc
– Here’s one here in Cali that should have ski operators up in arms – the media’s constant harping to the effect that “the ski season has gotten shorter” (even though it has not) which has resulted in most skiers prematurely ending their season each year. If you don’t bother to check conditions, you won’t know there is still snowpack. The ski operators cannot afford to put up “we still have snow” billboards in Spring, so, they simply struggle painfully in silence, as their business diminishes. Great for me – no crowds – but very sad.

Aileni Noyle

I have seen Global Warming… a Primrose in November!
Actually,I kept temperature records on our island for twelve years and I have nothing to report.

Richard deSousa

Re #37: “Laugh, it drives them crazy.” David Wojick

MarkW

Leon,

Can you present any proof that these so called tipping points exist?

Earle Williams

Re #53

MarkW,

You should check your irony detector mate. Leon was quoting our favorite climatologist for context. Nothing to see here…

Frank K.

Re: #45

Dennis G. – Thanks so much for your post. It is good to hear from knowledgeable people such as yourself. I for one would love to hear more about the history of the Nisqually Glacier.

“From my experience, the government weather stations are unreliable for anything but broad trends due to urban heating, inaccurate equipment, incorrect elevation information, gaps in the record, and other factors.”

You hit the nail on the head here. It amazes me that the folks over at NASA/NOAA appear to have little interest in the quality of the climate monitoring stations, outside of asking the government for more money to fund more research. At some point, it would be interesting to see how much money gets poured into the U.S. climate research and monitoring infrastructure every year versus what we actually get for that money…

Kenneth Fritsch

Since I cannot say better what Shakespeare and his following rewriters have said already, I will take an analytical tact to what Hansen hath wrought as he speaketh about jesters.

What I find here is a failure to appreciate the true aim of Hansen in his joust with jesters. Surely a man with his reputation and learning would be aware of the role that the jester played in times past and thus we must search deeper for the true meaning of his comments. We contrarians, deniers, nit pickers, just plain puzzle solvers and others who tend to overreact to the raw output of climate science must allow for the “adjustments”. Some of you do appreciate the immediacy of the AGW problem while others of you will never see it, but nonetheless you all are tending to look for perfection on the first go round and forgetting that getting the, or at least a, message out is important and that the refining “adjustment” can always be made later and/or in due time. Right now we need the lessons of the tragedy as told by the climate bard, Hansen.

What I see from Hansen on “adjustment” is that he gives the doubters full value and credit for making their points in classical jester form. What we have overlooked is his references to the profit-for-the-moment motives of the greedy energy executives, and here is the kicker, with their all consuming control over the doubters and assorted fellow travelers. We are controlled to the extent that our jestering is not to the truth, although we see it as such, but to fossil fuel powers and gods.

In attempting to understand the “adjusted” message of Hansen, I see, as I saw the overreactions to communism (as an anti-communist myself) in the past and that was the urge to blame most of our ills on anything connected even remotely to the bad effects of communism and give it a power that it did not or could not possess. So on further analyses perhaps Hansen’s “adjustments” will need still further “adjustments”, but I suspect that, at least, my “adjusted” version of Hansen’s jousting with the jesters will play better with his choir.

Jack

I am sure you are decent fellow who believes strongly and passionately that AGW is a scientific fact. You will be hard-pressed convincing few on this blog if that is your aim,

but if that is your aim,

It’s not. I occasionally visit here and respond here when I see errors in reasoning and opinions which seem to be based on a limited knowledge base. I know what I know, and what I know probably won’t influence others who think they know more than me, whether or not that’s true. It has just struck me that the contretemps caused by Steve’s discovery of the NASA error has a lot of people logically miscontruing and mistakenly extrapolating, and also not seeing the forest for the trees.

windansea

when AGW meets real estate values:

Los Angeles Times published an article explaining why the city council of Santa Barbara has been prevented from painting a blue line across the city to mark how high the water will be if you believe Al Gore’s prediction that global warming will make the oceans rise by 23 feet. The idea was not defeated because people realize that Gore’s prediction is silly and wrong, but because a realtor threatened a law suit based on the argument that property values below the line would fall.”

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-blueline26aug26,1,5947765.story?ctrack=5&cset=true

windansea

I occasionally visit here and respond here when I see errors in reasoning and opinions which seem to be based on a limited knowledge base.

old chinese proverb “man who brag about his knowledge base usually not well endowed”

also not seeing the forest for the trees

insert Hockey Stick joke here

.

Don.W

Re:66

Wow. This thread began with highbrow haiku’s and degraded to mediocre rap pretty quickly.

I’ll give it a 7 Steve because it’s got a good beat and I think I can dance to it!

Word

Jo Calder

As this is a jesting thread, the thought crosses my mind, is the temperature record usufruct?

It might be worth plotting the positions of the major players on the flow chart. Bonus points for using miracle get out in good faith.

Severian

This site and Anthony’s site are doing a lot to actually prove man made global warming. UHI induced warming rather than CO2. It seems to me that if people really did care about a few degrees warming, they would have been calling for reducing UHI by using certain building materials, etc. Even if it is only a local warming, warming is warming right?

Bingo, I’ve been of this opinion for some time now. CO2 driven global warming is not the main problem, it’s an insignificant, uncontrollable distraction from what we should be concentrating on. UHI effects have been demonstrated to be real, and can definitely alter local microclimates (and in this case the size of that “micro” climate can be large, just think of the increasing industrialization and urbanization of the US Southeast). You can’t pour concrete and plant air conditioners like daiseys and not have an effect on how hot it feels around you. And finding ways to moderate that effect, to improve the livability of heavily urbanized areas wrt temperature seems a very valid and useful area of investigation to me. More trees, changes in regional land use, and such are all excellent subjects for investigation to help moderate local temperature islands.

Unfortunately, all of this concentration on a trace atmospheric gas and focusing on global reorganization and carbon trading ponzi schemes is distracting from real issues like UHI and sucking up funding that would be better spent elsewhere. Unfortunately for us, though, addressing regional and local climate issues is not conducive to reorganizing the world, supporting anti-capitalist and socialist principles, and punishing wealthy Western cultures, which seems to be more important to many of the AGW crowd than either science or sound environmental policy.

So, we waste time and effort on things we have no control over and ignore things which we might be able to have a real, beneficial, cost effective impact on. I believe that, with respect to the climate, the goal should be to think and act locally.

Jack

The fact that it is warming is not evidence that positive feedbacks have the upper hand. It is merely evidence that there is a factor causing warming. Nobody has ever denied that CO2 will cause some warming. In fact before either negative or positive feedbacks can kick in, there has to be some change in the base temperature.

Which there is (a change in the base temperature), or do you have another explanation for the current melting trend of the Arctic sea ice?

I notice that you did not attempt to deal with my arguments as to why I believe that negative feedbacks dominate, you just reaserted your claim that positive feedbacks must dominate.

I didn’t see an argument. All I saw was this:

The amount of warming that we have seen to date is less than would be expected from a world with zero feedbacks, of any kind.

There is already a demonstrated and observed feedback of water vapor caused by global warming. Minschwaner and Dessler 2004, notably, and a couple others. As I described, melting Arctic sea ice is another positive feedback. So this is not a world with zero feedbacks.

steven mosher

SteveS,

If you like to Ski and if they ever open Dyer Mountain

http://www.dyermtn.com/

You can use my cabin there, I’ll give you the CA discount

steven mosher

RE 74.

What the heck what she talking about south africa for?

They should have thrown her in rehab based on blond baysian bimbo priors.

I’d say she was dumb as rocks, but…. finish the joke.

jae

73, Jack: Then please explain to me why the average July temperatures in low-elevation locations in the desert southwest are about 3 degrees C higher than southeast locations at the same latitude. Where is that water vapor feedback? I think water in all its forms exerts an overall NEGATIVE feedback and buffers changes in insolation (and radiation from CO2, if it is significant).

jae

62, Derek: that IS a good read.

jae

46, Jack: please read the article linked in 62.

windansea

Nailed me; I’m actually Miss Teen South Carolina.

so that’s where you hide that knowledge base

actually she’s quite pretty, but not much of a rack to store a knowledge base

small rack, small sack same dif

do you have another explanation for the current melting trend of the Arctic sea ice?

do you have another explanation for the current increasing trend for Antartic sea ice?

http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/topstory/20020820southseaice.html

the trend in Artic sea ice melting is based on less than 30 years of satelite coverage, climate science is based on at least 30 year increments.

there is anecdotal evidence of previous actic ice meltdowns
in recent history.

and then there’s that pesky medieval warming period

MarkW

Jack,

You do a very good job of ignoring what other people write, no wonder you believe in AGW.
I pointed out to you a known fact, that being, melting ice in the arctic is NOT a strong positive feedback, it may not even be a positive feedback because of increased cloud cover, yet you continue to spout your mantra that melting ice is a positive feedback. You don’t even acknowledge the argument I presented, you just keep repeating your mantra as if it were some kind of mystical phrase that can change reality to match your beliefs.

windansea

Jack should take the advice upthread and head over to unthreaded #19 with his knowledge base

this is just a jester thread

unthreaded has killer whales that don’t just slap you around with their tails

if your numbers are wrong you get crunched

PeterS

@ 59 Kenneth Fritsch

Since I cannot say better what Shakespeare and his following rewriters have said already, I will take an analytical tact to what Hansen hath wrought as he speaketh about jesters.

Forsooth, what intemperate analytics of our climate bard are these?
Jousters jest that he, in adjusting, doth add injusting?
And, in trying to get his gist, we find we cannot ingest?
Why, ’tis easy to deduce the gist of his well-chartered lines . . .
– Our lord doth adjust, and by his adjusting shall our unfair clime be known.

Bob Meyer

I just got back this thread and I can’t believe that the play list is missing “Hot Stuff” (Donna Summer), “Fever” (Peggy Lee) and “Great Balls of Fire” (Jerry Lee Lewis). I included the original artists because some younger people may not know the classics.

RomanM

…and one more for the play list: A Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight. Even in 1896, they were already aware of UHI effects!

TAC

“Blinded by the Light” (M. Mann’s Earth Band). It is not the greatest song — way too loud, too much repetition, incomprehensible lyrics — but kids love it and perhaps some of its lyrics will appeal to us CA folk, like:

Mama always told me not to look into the eye’s of the sun

followed by

But mama, that’s where the fun is

😉

PaddikJ

Jack/Jacqueline,

Keep repeating “There is a positive feedback in the Arctic Ocean, there is a . . .” and maybe it will come true. But whatever you do, don’t apply or think about any basic thermodynamics, or worse, actually crunch numbers. That might interrupt your train of (wishful) thought and allow reality to leak in, and with it some unsettling notions like “Hmm . . . do a few fractions of a degree either way in lower TS temps really indicate enough total heat to cause the changes in sea-ice cover we’ve been seeing? And since the Arctic is cloudy so much of the summer, maybe soot or more polar bear poop on the ice don’t really have much to do with it either. Gosh, maybe it takes ocean currents to transport that much heat, and . . . hmm . . . Hey! Shouldn’t someone be looking into this?”

My Jest:

Me-thinks the Goracle doth ingest too much (and surely not in jest)

Ugh. Pretty lame, but it’s late & I’m tired.

‘Night all.

KevinUK

#92 Sam

“One of the most dangerous places in the world is the hospital, do you know how many people die in them?”

You must be a regular visitor to Numberwatch as thats just the kind of quote JEB would use.

KevinUK

jae

Jack: Most people here believe there has been some warming. Hope you have not forgotten that we still may simply be coming out of the Little Ice Age. It could be AGW, or it could be natural. What caused the Medieval Warming Period and the Roman Warm Period?

Steve McIntyre

#102. JAck, one of the worst defences of MAnn’s hockey stick that I’ve heard is the common one: if Mann’s hockey stick is wrong, the situation is actually much worse than people think. In that case, people who are worried about AGW should be even more angry with Mann. If the situation’s worse, then we should know about it.

Personally, I think that one of the difficulties in presenting AGW in a policy sense is that IPCC and others get involved in too many extraneous arguments and never focus on their “best” argument – whatever that is.

BTW, Jack, if you can provide me with a clear exposition of how to get to 2.5 deg C form doubled CO2, I’d appreciate it. I mean this quite literally – I’m looking for a good reference, not denying that one exists or saying that one is impossible.

Jack

So, Jack, are we to understand that you mean to say that any increased warmth in the present climate is caused by anthropogenic emissions of CO2?

No.

MarkW

Jack,

When was that statment taken, was it before or after the NASA study that found that increasing cloud cover almost completely compensated for the decrease in ice coverage?

MarkW

Let’s see if I have this right.

We have no idea what caused the Minoan, Roman, or Mideival warm spells.

But since the current warming, which is still less than any of these three coincides with a rise in CO2. CO2 MUST be responsible for most if not all of the current warming.

DOes that pretty much sum up your position?

Jack

one of the worst defences of MAnn’s hockey stick that I’ve heard is the common one: if Mann’s hockey stick is wrong, the situation is actually much worse than people think. In that case, people who are worried about AGW should be even more angry with Mann. If the situation’s worse, then we should know about it.

I’m not quite sure what you mean here. Certainly I’m concerned by how errors (which happen in any human endeavor, not just science) that had to be fixed distracted from the improving scientific understanding of the issue. Unnecessary defenses of prior methodologies slowed down the refinement process and provided more fodder for doubters to exploit. In other words, admit mistake(s) were made and do it better the next time. But there was also an amplification effect from some sectors regarding the actual impact of the errors on the overall understanding.

I think that one of the difficulties in presenting AGW in a policy sense is that IPCC and others get involved in too many extraneous arguments and never focus on their “best” argument – whatever that is.

Do you mean surface station siting? (Sorry.)

In a complex system, like Earth’s climate, it’s clearly difficult to clearly distinguish the important from the extraneous. In my mind, the best argument is the Keeling curve and radiative physics. But it’s a complex system: first-order effects get modified by 2nd, 3rd, and 4th-order responses to those effects.

if you can provide me with a clear exposition of how to get to 2.5 deg C form doubled CO2, I’d appreciate it. I mean this quite literally – I’m looking for a good reference, not denying that one exists or saying that one is impossible.

Who do I look like, the Wizard of Oz? As far as my limited knowledge goes, the direct effect of doubling CO2 is around 0.8-1.2 degrees Centigrade. The rest is acquired via positive feedback, most notably from increased relative humidity. I don’t think the main picture has changed a lot from Manabe and Wetherald 1975. They got 3.5 C with a very, very, very… simple model.

Quote from Weart: “The model with increased CO2 had more moisture in the air, with an intensified hydrological cycle of evaporation and precipitation. That was what physicists might have expected for a warmer atmosphere on elementary physical grounds (if they had thought about it, which few had). Actually, with so many complex interactions between soil moisture, cloudiness, and so forth, a simple argument could be in error. It took the model computation to show that this accelerated cycle really could happen, as hot soil dried out in one region and more rain came down elsewhere. The Manabe-Wetherald model also showed greater warming in the Arctic than in the tropics. This too could be predicted from simple reasoning. Not only did a more active circulation carry more heat poleward, but less snow and ice meant more absorption of sunlight by ground and sea.”

Fast-forward to 2007, and the estimates are still between 1.5 and 4.5 C, with 2-3 C the common midrange.

Bob Meyer

Paul Lindsay,

Sorry, I missed your link to “Hot Stuff”. You’re right, it should be the theme song!

Sam Urbinto

KevinUK, I’ve been there to numberwatch, but just a couple of times (from links).

Jack, #106 if the signal goes away, it goes away. If it doesn’t, it doesn’t. I don’t really have an opinion one way or the other. Some do. That’s great. Any direction, as long as it’s not all the way to the end of the line. Helps us all think and understand.

Steve, 116: I don’t think anyone can give you a step by step on this. I think somebody would have. All you’re going to get is “the models say” would be my opinion. Mainstream derivation or not.

SteveSadlov

I am deeply suspicious of various claims by certain ecologists and biologists regarding changes in onset of spring. I am a careful observer of the land I own, including its flora. Generally speaking, coming to leaf varies significantly across a given individual, let alone multiple individuals. Depending on how you take your data, and what criteria one uses for “onset of spring” you could get dates all over the map. This would be a classical case for doing Gage R & R / MSA, in this case, focussed on differences in observer technique. It is highly doubtful that year after year the same observers have been used for such studies. Huge cherry picking opportunities abound. Also, there are some outright “gotchas.” Allow me one example. In my neck of the woods, about every 10 years or so we will get a really obvious “false spring” where a warm spell mid winter tricks plants into behaving like it’s spring. Typically, such incidents are followed by a disaster wherein there is a frost and die back. Would one still count that as “onset of spring?” I wouldn’t. I’d throw such years out. But let’s say, as I imagine is the case here, such years are counted. In a short period such as a few decades, you could pick things in such as way that your time frame has maybe one more “false spring” in its second half. Crunch the numbers and voilla! “Earlier onset of spring recorded in Podunk Region over 50 year period.”

Jack

Steve Mosher:

If you want to discuss methodologies, then you have to look at the papers. The paper referenced was a compilation of a variety of studies that all show a similar ecological response (in the expected direction) to the same proposed cause. I.e. warming. “Unprecedentedness” here is not the issue, the ecological trends consistent with the proposed active causative mechanism are the issue.

Let’s lay the cards on the table. Is the world warming, or not?

“This correlation does not necessarily imply a causal connection.”

And careful scientists always say something to that effect for studies like these. But let’s say this in brief.

1. You propose that something is happening, and have data to indicate that it probably is.
2. You then propose 50 different effects that would probably happen in response — if the “something” is indeed happening.
3. You then go out and observe all 50 different effects are actually happening.

Your next step (emphasis on your) is to propose an alternative cause that would also induce all 50 observed effects which has equal or better explanatory power than the initially proposed cause. This step is, of course, fundamental to hypothesis testing — try to refute your premises.

Go ahead — find a better cause. Make my day. (Labor Day, actually.)

Jack

I am deeply suspicious of various claims by certain ecologists and biologists regarding changes in onset of spring.

And if remote sensing of earlier spring greening (link) and later reddening (link) is consistent with earlier thaws and later freezes (link), what then?

jae

Your next step (emphasis on your) is to propose an alternative cause that would also induce all 50 observed effects which has equal or better explanatory power than the initially proposed cause. This step is, of course, fundamental to hypothesis testing — try to refute your premises.

Can’t resist.

Uh, the SUN? It has at least “equal or better explanatory power than the initially proposed cause.” Face it, Jack, we just don’t know. As Steve McI noted, we seem to be lacking a good physical explanation. Thus, we are left with only a bunch of computer models, which in my mind have been falsified by the lack of a rise in temperature in the past 9 years.

Gunnar

#106 What caused the Medieval Warming Period and the Roman Warm Period? Natural variability

That’s suspiciously vague. It’s like “what caused him to die”, answer: end of life. Unless you can be more specific, you really have no idea of what the answer is. Care to elaborate?

#110 I have only seen one who is willing to say that there may no man induced warming

It’s not me. Everyone who maintains 98.6 as a body temperature warms the atmosphere.

#112 I think I am beginning to detect a pattern here.

It looks like about every 1000 years, Man messes the environment up. Man also warms the environment up every 11 years.

Larry

121, the logical error you’re making is assuming that there a cause. There might be a cause, there might be 2 causes, there might be 23 causes. The fact that you have a theory constructed of duct tape that when stretched enough ways with models with too many adjustable parameters that have been shown to be inconsistent kinda sorta fits data that’s of questionable accuracy doesn’t demand an alternative neat, pat answer.

It’s juvenile to expect a neat, pat answer. And it’s certainly not required.

Steve McIntyre

Please stop the jibing. If you want to comment on a specific study or ask Jack for references, then do so. But please don’t argue like on usenet.

Steve McIntyre

#122. I know this function, but that doesn’t discuss feedbacks and isn’t a top-to-bottom detailed derivation.

Larry

He said right there that it was simply a curve-fit to the model. The formula is a way to condense the model results into a closed form. Not an unusual method, but impossible to audit.

Except for the quadratic term, it’s Arrhenius’ formula, which is 100 years old. The 4.996 number is different.

Jack

When was that statment taken, was it before or after the NASA study that found that increasing cloud cover almost completely compensated for the decrease in ice coverage?

Compensation is NOT the same as a positive feedback mechanism. If you can reference the study I can look at it.

Jack

Uh, the SUN? It has at least “equal or better explanatory power than the initially proposed cause.”

See the full response starting “Considering…” in #106.

D. Patterson

Re: #122, #134

Does anyone have references to claims about what the temperature results are supposed to be on each of the increases beyond the first doubling of CO2: example, 380ppm + 380ppm + 380ppm + 380ppm + 380ppm + 380ppm + 380ppm + 380ppm + 380ppm + 380ppm? Are the temperatures supposed to result in a linear, logarithmic, exponential, or irregular increase?

Sam Urbinto

[snip – too argumentative and offtopic]

Gunnar

[snip – nope]

Steve McIntyre

#140. Jack, I am famliar with Modtran and Hitran calculations. Can you tell me where, for example, how they show that lapse rates don’t change under increased CO2?

An engineer wouldn’t say – go look at Modtran. So I guess the answer is that you don’t know. Don’t worry – I haven’t gotten a good answer from anybody yet.

What is particuarly annoying for me is that in the scoping of AR4 I suggested that they include a proper derivation of CO2 impact.

I’m beginning to think that one of the main divides is that climate scientists have no idea what an engineering study looks like. They are only familiar with little articles in journals (or literature reviews.)

This thing cries out for an engineering study.

Sam Urbinto

148 PaddikJ Very similar to a 1 year ice melting a month early trend. OMG, run! Yeah.

Steve, your 147 probably does some to explain why you (and others) get so much pushback. This is a very complicated, multi-discipline issue, where in order to get anywhere, everyone has to row the boat together. No room for egos, territory, unclear or inexact language or concepts, etc. But people have chosen sides, not understanding what they don’t understand. I usually have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about when you get into the deep math. I don’t let it bother me. Some people no doubt think this is some sort of contest, or that they know how to do everything.

Gunnar

>> They won’t be calling anyone jesters ever again.

Yes, but will they return their grant money and pay back the people who got soaked for 1 billion dollars for Kyoto? What did Hansen know and when did he know it?

Gunnar

>> then challenge those in the pro-AGW community

Let’s not be so naive. And you think they haven’t done so in all this time because… why?

Jack

So I guess the answer is that you don’t know.

I agree.

I’m beginning to think that one of the main divides is that climate scientists have no idea what an engineering study looks like. They are only familiar with little articles in journals (or literature reviews.)

I agree.

Jack

Oh, and maybe you can tell us (or maybe the paper does) how they know about ice thickness.

I don’t think they know. The paper concerns the positive feedback of melting sea ice in the Arctic. The result is the effect on sea ice thickness; after getting a prediction from the model, then they could check it against measurements, if any can be found.

Steve McIntyre

#158. There’s no point trying to tell the AGWers how to become engineers. That’s not how it works in building a mine or refinery or an automobile. People who are trained as engineers – people who don’t turn their noses up at details – examine what the scientists did. Engineers know how to write engineering reports. IT makes a lot more sense to hire qualified people to write engineering reports than unqualified people like Hansen, Mann, Schmidt or whoever. In a company situation, the scientists would be obliged to assist the engineers in whatever way possible, rather than flouncing off in a snit when scrutinized.

jae

152:

I’m sure Dr. Curry and/or Dr. Pielke could find someone — or some team of people — within their respective institutions to take up this challenge.

I wouldn’t be so sure…

Scott-in-WA

161 / 162

It’s appears that the basic explanation resides in computer codes which can’t be translated to normal language.

Not so. The people who wrote those codes have concepts in mind which are constructed upon AGW theory and upon AGW implementing processes, e.g. C02 and forcings.

The problem for those trying to understand what was done in the models is that the theories and the implementing processes were ytanslated directly from the code writer’s mental thoughts into computer code without the all-important step of being documented and reviewed up front in a theoretical -basis requirements document and a software application design document.

Putting your requirements and your designs down on paper before you start constructing your car or your airplane or your wind farm or your nuclear power plant is the first key component of the engineering life cycle process. This is no less so for well-engineered software. You start with requirements and concepts and move on from there fleshing out the details as you go, with proper review and input along the way from the subject matter experts.

The first step here is to outline the requirements. As the customer who is asking for the paper, Mr. McIntyre is the one whose job it is to specify his expectations for the paper. To do so in a way that improves his chances of getting the product he wants, he has to have some more-or-less comphrehensive understanding of the overall topic himself, to some adequate level of depth, and he has to be willing to lay out his specifications for what he wants in some adequate level of detail.

Creating a topical framework outline would be the proper first starting point for implementing an engineering philosophy and approach in producing the desired reference paper. The ball is in Mr. McIntyre’s court to do so,

Steve McIntyre

It’s appears that the basic explanation resides in computer codes which can’t be translated to normal language.

The issue, as I’ve discussed in replication posts, is that short verbal descriptions are seldom adequate to represent what code actually does, and in the case of Team climate science, thus far never adequate. The purpose of archiving source code, as discussed by Gary King or McCullough and Vinod, is to document all the details that otherwise are a total of waste of time trying to guess and make replication far more difficult than it should be.

PaddikJ

Jack says on September 1st, 2007 at 12:29 am, ca. 157

I don’t think they know. The paper concerns the positive feedback of melting sea ice in the Arctic. The result is the effect on sea ice thickness; after getting a prediction from the model, then they could check it against measurements, if any can be found.

Could anyone say it better?

If you don’t know volume/mass, you don’t, to coin a phrase, know Jack.

steven mosher

re 163.

Fine. The requirements for the software and documentation including final reports shall conform
to Mil-std 2167A/T

That will do.

Scott-in-WA

Give me a break. I’m one person doing this as recreation. I cannot believe that nobody else in the world is capable of doing this.

Mr. McIntyre, your bio indicates you are a former mining man. Having spent twelve years myself as an engineer in the mining industry before moving into nuclear, I should think that a mining man would possess sufficient gumption to write a concise topical outline which should at most cover about three pages, two for the topical outline itself with a third page describing the critical review criteria and the quality assurance standards to be applied.

I’d be happy to comment on any proposed specs, but it’s not my job to produce them. I’m not an engineer either though I know what engineering studies can look like.

Unless you describe in at least some limited detail what it is you are expecting — three pages should suffice — then your requests for an up to date reference paper are essentially equivalent to “Bring me a rock.”

Steve McIntyre

#172. I don’t know of any off hand. Companies usually keep engineering reports private. But I’m sure that there are some somewhere. An engineering study for a problem of this consequence would probably be at least 1000 pages and look very different than IPCC literature review. My original query is for something that is not even as substantial as an engineering study – something about 30-100 pages that contains and vouches for the relevant calculations.

Larry

173, they’re usually not very sophisticated, but public utilities very regularly commission engineering studies which end up in the public domain. Perhaps some sort of study on a major city’s wastewater system, or something along those lines. The Army corps may also have something that may be a template.

Admittedly not the same level of sophistication and rigor as they would do for the private sector (although they probably charge a lot more for it).

steven mosher

Here is hansens FIRST attempt at sensitivity

Click to access 1981_Hansen_etal.pdf

Steve McIntyre

Hansen tells us that he won’t “joust with jesters”, as presumably he’s too busy adjusting to have time for jousting. We by contrast have lots of time to jest with adjusters.

It appears that Hansen was not simply busy adjusting and I apologize for any misunderstanding. It turns out that, in addition to his adjustment activities, he was also busy wining, dining and answering “niggling” questions from Lehman Bros. Maybe he gave them some tips on adjusting. Or maybe on GAAP.