Can I recommend that contributors to Unthreaded conversations use the message board instead?
Update: Several people have reported problems seeing CA properly or posting comments. Apparently this is something to do with corrupt cookies in your browser. Deleting the ones relating to climateaudit.org appears to fix the problem
Climate Audit 
775 Comments
SteveMC.
Click to access 2002_Hansen_etal_2.pdf
Dont know if you’ve read this one. Different definition of BAU. also, interest chart
compariing observations versus model predictions.
Yes, please come over and use the message boards! They’re swell.
Would it be possible to add pages to these threads. These 200+ post topics makes checking new posts a bit cumbersome.
No, not really. The pages thing is at the message boards.
test
Oh, jolly good.
re 2. permanent linkage to BB ?? is where?
Far OT: My neighbor made it into orbit Thursday without a hitch. He’ll be making two, possibly three, space walks as they transfer the European science package to the ISS. We’re all excited for him.
I’ll check the bad cookie thing the next thing it gets dark here, but I have so say that I am (you should pardon the expression) skeptical.
It (the site) comes and goes with out me doing anything explicit with cookies. (The best test will be to see if both computers in use here behave the same way.)
Steven Mosher:
Try casting your eyes to the left hand column of the blog, just below the “CA Tip Jar”. Is it tough to spot now?
re 10. I stay away from tip jars. My uncle was a Mohel
re 10. I stay away from tip jars. My uncle was a Mohel
I have a question about tree ring proxy data … in general. How hard is it to accumulate data re (past climates) vs. (past climate vs. present climate)? In other words … can we fairly easily go back and tell something about a past climate (i.e., it was this hot on average during “x” time) vs. running from the past to the present and stating something about the trend? Does my question make sense? Thanks for any info.
John A — comment posting trouble is definitely not cookie-related (deleting cookies didn’t help; server reboot did). Not sure about the viewing part either, although cookie-deletion at least was a workaround.
Eric: using certain proxies, one can look at a period and say it was approximately a certain temperature and compare that to the present (for example, pollen data or tree line, or etc), but often these proxies are integrals of 100+ yrs of data (e.g. lake pollen samples) rather than annual so it is apples vs oranges.
JohnA, checked five minutes ago and your comment was still up at DeSmogBlog. Maybe he hasn’t woken up and fired up a weed-whacker yet.
eric mcfarland, there are many oral and written historical records from Europe and Asia detailing warmer times and colder times. Recently wood, dated back a thousand years or so has emerged from beneath retreating gliciers in Greenland, Switzerland and North America. This alone would lead anyone with an analytical mind to realise that, at that time, the glacier end was higher by a significant distance to have permitted trees to have grown and the be overwhelmed by the advancing glacier. Simple logic clearly then leads on to the idea that the average temperature was higher then than it is now. On the other hand, tree-rings are clearly not solely related to temperature, but are affected by any number of other factors, such as soil moisture levels, cloud cover, CO2 fertilisation, damage from grazing animals or fire and so on.
And, noting that a core is done in only a small proportion of the tree’s circumference, it is also worthwhile to take a look some time at a cut down tree. Any tree.
Just looking at a piece of wood right beside me, the centre ring (oldest) is way off centre, so a core drilled to the geometric centre of the tree would have rings that, a, did not reach the oldest wood, an, b, would be apparently getting wider as the core goes through them at an angle instead of perpendicularly. The other point is that any given ring can vary quite dramatically in width as you follow it round the tree, but the distortion is not the same for all rings, as some are wider in different areas than others. In short, I wouldn’t trust tree rings to do anything other than cook my food or hold up my roof.
On the colder side of the scale, during the Little Ice age, there are various record showing that, for instance, major river and harbours in both North America and Europe were regularly frozen over for long periods in the winters, while the crop growing seasons were short and unproductive, in short, nasty.
John A – Re your update on access. Explorer was telling me on Friday that the website was unavailable, it allowed access briefly yesterday morning, then claimed you were down again for the rest of the day. Right now Explorer is allowing me access.
During all this time Netscape gave me access to Climate Audit with no problems at all. I have deleted no cookies over this period. I DO have Google integrated into Explorer as a default search engine, but use Netscape unmodified.
#16, tony,
Yep, this is a very fundamental objection to tree rings as thermometers. There’s a very nice annotated picture somewhere on this site that shows Michael Mann holding up a tree section with the Medieval Warm Period on one side and the Medieval Not-So-Warm Period on the other.
16, 18: This is not a valid criticism. It is the RELATIVE ring width within a core that is important, not the absolute width.
jae, actually it appears to be valid even for relative ring widths. With the Almagre samples, through multi-sampling of individual trees, we observed extraordinary and uncorrelated variability over time for a single tree.
If growth at a particular time in a particular tree can vary by 400% for different samples, one must ask how confident one can be of the overall record — even if the averaged values are relatively smooth.
The global coolness is continuing into February. The latest Hovmoeller plot of global temperature anomaly is here . (December 1 is at the top of the figure and February 8 is at the bottom. Antarctica (90S) is on the left while the Arctic (90N) is on the right. The colors represent temperature anomaly.)
While the Northern Hemisphere is getting the press coverage it’s the polar regions of the South that catch my eye. The Antarctic is cooler this year than last year at the same time.
Recomended statistical reading . he should be on the blog roll
http://wmbriggs.com/blog/2008/02/09/how-to-look-at-the-rss-satellite-derived-temperature-data/
#22 Steve:
I have just visited Prof. Briggs’ site and I entirely agree. His classes must be a hoot. He also looks like he is one of those academics who worked the fields before entering the groves and therefore brings both a grounded and technical skepticism to his work. He has an unusual but highly relevant background for looking at Climate Science issues. Great find! I have a dim recollection of his name popping up earlier?
Re #21
It would be more informative if you included the graphic over the previous year at least.
Rather and confusing and disorganized though.
Re #24 Phil, here it is ( link ). Note that the ERSL graphics generator changes color schemes (versus #21), but the information content remains the same.
Phil #23
I am not sure I understand your point.
bernie, #23, Isn’t this the same W. M. Briggs who “came out” recently after he was included, unbeknownst to him, in Senator Inhofe’s list? I seem to remember a very interesting article from him, first found on IceCap, but the full article is here,
http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/1309
Good article, too.
This 7 day anomaly plot from NOAA shows the coolness ocurring in Antarctica, northwest North America and southern Asia right now.
http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/map/images/rnl/sfctmpmer_07a.rnl.html
Not surprisingly, the Siberian temps are way above normal (even though it has been -40C there all winter) (ie. the global temp fudge factory.)
re27. Phil was referring to himself.
Tony:
Thanks for the reference: I had not seen this article. It is the same person. In the article Prof. Briggs does a good job articulating the dilemma of going public in this debate. One of the things that Steve McIntyre has done extremely well is to keep the discussion pretty civilized and objective. Occasionally things get out of control as one side or the other launches a verbal and ad hominem rocket. We are then subjected to a short period of fire and counter-fire until a grown up appears. It is largely a shame since I find Dr. Curry’s and Dr. Wilson’s commentaries tremendously useful. It is one thing that separates this site from RealClimate.
Hi all,
I am the Briggs that Bernie spoke about: I wrote the piece that appeared in the National Post, too. Phil, #25 is probably right about disorganization. I can’t even remember where I left my wallet. So read at your own risk.
Bernie sent me an email, so I thought I’d give an introduction: I’m a weather/climate/medical/forecasting statistician in New York City. Don’t often post here, but do read. Steve McIntyre’s doing a fantastic job.
Thanks,
Matt
#32 Matt… I had a look at your blog earlier as a result of seeing the links here. Fantastic stuff. The Canada Free Press article linked above articulated my thoughts entirely. Thanks!
20, MrPete: I didn’t realize that. Was it true for many of the trees? If so, the tree-ring crowd have even more problems with their science.
jae…
yes — that’s Steve’s discussion comparing recent core samples with Graybill’s of the exact same trees.
Here is a set of plots for many of the trees, allowing visual comparison of multiply-cored trees.
Here is Willis’ plot of just tree #4 — certainly not the largest intra-tree divergence.
And here is Steve’s extensive discussion of the (in)famous Tree #31 — with radically different growth at the edge vs center of the bark (in a mostly-stripbark tree, which is the dendro’s have traditional favorite).
These examples demonstrated vividly why stripbark is deprecated as a data source for climatology.
Jae and MrPete, #34 &35,
My local arborist once explained to me how the growth of a tree is determined by the root system. You can selectively kill a branch by killing the root that feeds it. All the neighboring branches will carry on just fine. I would guess that the same sort of thing is probably happening with the ring widths. Each section of the ring is fed by its own group of roots. Some get more water and nutrients than others producing differential growth around the circumference. There’s no reason that this pattern can’t change over time since it depends on random events external to the tree.
Re #27
An example:http://wmbriggs.com/blog/2008/02/06/has-atmospheric-co2-decreased-a-different-way-to-look-at-co2-changes/
Check out the second graph, then “Click the image for larger version”, the vertical scale changes (and is no longer linear) but the graph doesn’t!
Perhaps he’s taken logs as mentioned in the text but not indicated on either caption, which scale is the correct one?
This text suggests that it is a log plot:
“First concentrate just on the Mauna Loa regime. The rate of change has been over-plotted by a simple regression line, which fits rather well (I’ll spare you the formal statistical tests: but trust me). That is, the model of exponential acceleration of CO2 into the atmosphere is well supported over this range.”
OK,but then in the next para:
“To explain that further: suppose, every year, the exact same amount of new CO2 is added to the atmosphere. The graph for that would then be a straight line on our plot, which is roughly the case for the dates 1750 to 1800″
No that would be a linear plot, an exponential would be the same percentage added/year.
Hence my comment (figure numbers and annotation would help too).
One problem with discussing AGW is that no single critical study deals a death blow. SteveM chops up the hockey stick, another study addresses sea level rise, Watts shows the surface stations are a mess and getting worse, another shows the models are unstable. Each of these diverse topics must be digested to grasp the big picture. In contrast, a simple sound bite (“its the CO2 stupid”) summarizes the AGW position, and any single topic per above can be ignored as not definitive.
We also need to teach briggs how to change his blog nickname from “administrator” to “William” or whatever he’d like to use. 🙂
Lucia:
Briggs’ signature is Matt!
Phil:
You are right. Matt will enjoy with us guys!! 🙂
Phil, #37, you’re right in part. The thumb-nail displayed the CO2 axis in log units (regularly-spaced ticks), but the main shows a log scale (take a look at the ticks, they are spaced irregularly to reflect the log scale). I left the thumb-nail like that originally because it was hard to read that small; but to avoid confusion, I have made both graphs the same.
So both were (are) log plots, just one showed log units (log(ppm)), the other a log scale in regular units (ppm).
If, then, a new amount of CO2 is added every year, say 3 ppm, so that two years ago it was 294 ppm, last year 297 ppm, and this year 300 ppm, then this would indeed look like a straight line on a log chart. The unit would be log(3 ppm), but still a straight, horizontal line. And if the amount of new CO2 was accelerating at an exponential rate, as it appears to do in the Mauna Loa regime, then that would appear to be a straight line on the log plot too.
But you’re right I haven’t figured out how to make figure captions: I can’t get the text to stay under the pictures! Nor have I learned hot to change my name, etc. Still new at this…
Briggs
i say this again for steveMC. put briggs on the blogroll please
i say this again for steveMC. put briggs on the blogroll please
Bernie– I mean his signature at his own blog. The “name” inserted by WordPress is “admin”. Then Matt types “Briggs” at the end of his comment. He can get wordpress to know he’s “Matt” or “Briggs”, so all his comments don’t start with “admin”.
Matt– I’ll email you on the name change thing! I can include screenshots so you can see what’s what inside WordPress.
For blogs, put as much legend/ caption information on the graphic itself as possible. It would look crummy in a publication, but it’s good at blogs because sometimes you want to insert images in comments over here. If the legend information is in the image, you don’t lose it.)
Phil is correct that the text describing your CO2 results was confusing.
Nevertheless, the slope discontinuity in the CO2 measurements just at the point of transition between measurement method “A” and measurement method “B” was interesting. That seemed to be the important point, and it comes out clearly without any narrative.
You could show the graph and say nothing more than:
“Look! Hey, why in the world should there trend for CO2 change dramatically just when the measurement method changed?”
Of course, that could have happened. But it does look odd.
I’m fooling around beyond the pales of Taboo City, but the marvelous pair, Gerlich and Tscheuschner, weigh in at comment #975 of Andy Revkin’s AGU thread on his blog, DotEarth. You might enjoy their input.
===============================
re 46. aphorists always fool around.
Did anyone catch this last night?
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/emeraldcity/2008/02/six-degrees-cou.html
just horrible.
46 kim
Which thread? There are quite few. Can you be more explicit?
Pat, it’s the one dated 1/24/08 entitled ‘Earth Scientist Express Rising Alarm over Warming Globe’ and headlined with a red and frightening map.
It’s the hockey team in open field, at last. Enjoy.
==============================
Pat, I think the answer to Kim’s riddle is found on Dot Earth in the lenthy Earth Scientists Express Rising Concern Over Warming thread:
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/01/24/earth-scientists-express-rising-concern-over-warming/#comment-10354
Pompous Git says: “What’s unprecedented is that the LIA was the first catastrophic climate change that failed to bring about the downfall of a civilisation” I have two suggestions, one, be careful of asserting negatives. Two, look to China, and no, I don’t have time to go searching up links to refute snarky blog comments, jut be aware that ou are leaving yourself open for a smackdown on that one. Also, you should wonder why your argument needs the old, “exagerate the other’s argument, then dismiss their agument as an obvious exageration”.
Great concern about the warming world in 2007 (linked above.)
However, 2007 was the year of the great cool-down.
Satellite temperatures declined by 0.62C from January 2007 to January 2008.
NCDC global land and ocean temperatures declined 0.65C over the past year.
(January 2008 was the coldest month since November 2000 and February 1994 before that. I note that January 2008 temperatures are lower than the December 1925 temperatures.)
ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/anomalies/monthly.land_and_ocean.90S.90N.df_1901-2000mean.dat
Re: 54
John Lang
Check out the GISS Land/Ocean record at
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata/GLB.Ts+dSST.txt
this shows a 0.75 deg fall (i.e 0.87 -> 0.12) between Jan 2007 and Jan 2008.
Kim, harold
Thanks, I found it. Lots of arm-waving, on both sides.
Re 55
Based on your reference Jan 2008 was not only colder than last January but was the coldest in 20 yrs (1989)! Alert the media!
Folks, the forum now has many threads. By not going there you are missing out.
RE: “What’s unprecedented is that the LIA was the first catastrophic climate change that failed to bring about the downfall of a civilisation”
The ghosts of the House of Bourbon heartily disagree.
And we should not forget the witch processes north of Alpes, which sometimes depopulated whole counties and took place in the coldest years
Re Bourbons – I loooked at the temps and it seems that France and central Europe was quite warm around 1780-90, in the times of the French revolution. Good weather for assembling on the streets.
re 58. Why do I feel like a trip to the forum would be like Moshpit the insult dog
visits the stars wars convention
“built from parts by lesser nerds”
How many other regular readers are checking Climate Audit thirty times a day in anticipation of Mr. McIntyre’s report on his Georgia Tech visit?
All of us.
====
Mad Dogs and Englishmen.
================
Ken, since comments are closed on the GT thread. I’m not commenting on anything being hopelss, I’m just saying that human nature is such that people are basically selfish and cold. Not that we shouldn’t try, but that we have to realize what is and deal with it, rather than what if or how we think it should be. I wouldn’t spend my time here if I didn’t care at all. Not trying to upset you, just illustrating a point based upon what you said rather than directed at you personally.
The correct expression of what Pompous Git said IMO would be:
“cold conditions of LIA have not prevented emergence of agricultural and industrial revolutions in W. Europe at the end of 18 century”:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Agricultural_Revolution
Summers were not cold at the end of the 18th century, LIA was a winter phenomenon.
See Chuine and De Bilt:
http://home.casema.nl/errenwijlens/co2/errenvsluterbacher.htm
(oops, 17th century…)
The State of the Canadian Cryosphere SOCC website is undergoing testing. They have a weekly updated status of the Current Arctic Sea Ice Extent with an associated Sea Ice Extent Anomaly Map (both updated weekly).
Interestingly, Prague temperatures in the Klementinum Jesuit College , No. 1 in the very center of the city have been almost the same around 1790 as they are today. Of course, building of the Prague center was finished then, but the total No. of inhabitants was about 80000, whereas now it is cca 1.2 million.
#57 BarryW and the rest of you…In “fact” it “was” in place 40
of the 129 years IF you are to believe GISS which you NTS
are not ….
Regarding recent temperature trends, part of the story may be cloud cover (or lack of it). Here is the global OLR (“Outgoing Longwave Radiation”) Hovmoeller plot. Generally speaking, the warm colors (green, yellow, red) represent unusually low cloud cover while the blues represent unusually high cloud cover.
Note the clear skies in the Arctic last summer (= ice melt) and the clear skies this winter (cooling). Antarctica has been recently cloudy, which, in summer, helps keep things cool.
Water vapor variability matters. If the variability is random it may not matter much, but shifts in weather patterns which affect average (and the timing of) cloud cover would affect surface temperature, in my opinion.
Speaking of European temperature histories, someone should post Central England Temperature and the Armagh Observatory, for comparison with Prague…Maybe that somebody is me?
Steve M, please read this when you get back!
Hello everyone,
The email correspondence I am having with a NASA manager is still on going; he’s a very nice person; and I really appreciate him taking the time to write to me (about the links provided here: NASA Global Warming Q&A-link and the concern that the link to blog RC is given to the public as a reference for “more information” on those pages)
He says one point I made regarding the NRC’s (NAS) report about Mann’s “hockey stick” was a fair and valid one. He says he plans to instruct the editor of the website to add that to the list of links provided asap. He says they were remiss in not also linking to that particular report.
Just wanted you all to know. One small step… 🙂
#38 Craig,
Still, few people realize that the real thing that matters for AGW is attribution. And fewer still realize how dodgy the attribution studies are. Just like one would like a clear exposition of how one comes up with the “standard” value for CO2 forcing, one would also like to see exactly how they come up with an attribution of so much warming exclusively to GHG’s. Just like Steve is asking: an engineering quality document, with clear, quantitative arguments supported by data.
I think there would appear the truth behind all this: it’s CO2 because “we can’t think of anything else!”
re 74:
where can the prague monthly time series (including pre-1880) be downloaded?
I’ll compare it then with Hohenpeissenberg and Vienna.
here
http://www.wetterzentrale.de/klima/tprag.html
done
[snip- please, this is policy not science]
#79
Very nice, Hans, but the linked page is not entitled Klementinum, this is airport Ruzyne, which, on the other side, is not run since 18th century, so that the data origin is rather confusing.
I just found a supplementary material of Klementinum yearly average temperatures in Excel from 1775-2006:
More “extreme weather consistent with global warming,” I guess…cold records falling in Minnesota http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080212/ap_on_re_us/cold_weather .
“Minnesotans for Global Warming”, in case you missed it.
Hans, please add Armagh and CET if you can:
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/hadleycentre/CR_data/Daily/HadCET_act.txt
Click to access 445.pdf
(I know Ireland and England aren’t “Central European” but we could perhaps be putting together a very interesting compilation of European data sets here.)
Re: #66
Sam, not to worry. I personally would credit Steve M for trashing all the comments from the GT thread and starting over by concentrating on the questions and reactions of the GT students to the seminar and informal sessions. That’s my selfish view of the matter.
No matter what the intellectual level, I think that thread pointed to the fact that people like to mix it up when given the opportunity. In my family that happens not infrequently, but no one holds grudges or takes it very personally.
Re: #84
I wouldn’t count on it. A few years ago I was at my sons’ home in MN and as I was walking down to the lake on an early (and beautiful day in my estimation) December morning, I would greet the people I saw with a hello and isn’t this a beautiful day. Invariable they would reply that there wasn’t enough snow and that it needed to be colder for ice fishing. I think the perspective of Minnesotans and Illinoisans on GW might differ even though I think I see some beneficial effects from it on growing season in MN for their crops – or perhaps it is better genetics.
That was a funny video and I think my son and his family would laugh at it also.
Klementinum.
Sounds like one of those materials you are always reading about in comic books.
“Our found that if he wrapped himself in Klementium he could …”
Quatloo bets on 2008 GLOBAL temperature anomaly??
I say .23C
89, what’s the base year/period?
Steve No 89
As measured by whom ? CRU, GISS, NOAA the simpsons?
I think 0.157 as shown by the HadCRU3 dataset. Not Hadcru3V
We’ll use the treemometer in my yard. I think it’s a plum treemometer.
Ah, sure.
Okay, I guess whatever number it is they happen to make up this year, any of them.
Larry
It’s a tree-mermometer,don’t you know 🙂 and plums don’t work very well without major trimming/adjustment
From what I’ve heard, tree-mermometers don’t work too well until you’ve picked all the cherries off (and then they can tell the temps of a cherry pie 1200km away).
RE all you clowns too numerous to name and too inconsequential to insult individually—
( waaa)
I Guess .23C 2008 anomaly.
1. GLOBAL land sea anomaly.
2. GISS.
(Side bet: Hadcru at .15C)
We can press bets on the back nine after Junes numbers are posted.
So, bet the over/under or bet that you can get closer than me. my good friend Bender is the
mediator of all betting disputes.
Oh ya, LUCIA has already made her bet with her lumpy parameter model.
All bets in Quatloos only, no carbon credits allowed.
I come in on the lower side of that. 50,000 quatloos it’s +.18
However, if, as I think, the monthlies go back up towards around .5 where they usually hang out, then it’ll be on the high side at around +.4 So it all depends on what you think the monthly values will do.
How about a side bet on February being higher or lower than January? 1000 quatloos it’s higher at .18
Are we doing higher/lower and for those correct, closest to the value? Or is it just who’s the closest to the actual value, regardless of guesses.
Now to put these in climate science terms, it’s very extra exteremely super likely that next year’s anomaly will be ~+.2 C +/- 5.0 C
Yes! I have made my bet. January is looking grim for me.
Too bad I made my bet *before* I got volcano data and realized I should add a temperature shift to my fit due to the arbitrariness of the zero temperature and zero forcing baselines. My horse might not be lagging the others quite so much. Though, who knows? Maybe he’ll catch up in August.
(I’d propose a sidebet, but it would be too rude and get zambonied.)
RE 98.
Feb 2008 will come in higher, feb 2008. Carnack says Feb 2008 will come in at .22C
on the bets, the over/under is really just to get a sense of what people expect from
jan. ( we have about 128 data points on the difference between annual and january)
Guesses about the exact year end figure are the most interesting and like last years
hurricane betting game.
Anyway. I think the real CA competition should be on GUESSING The year end anomaly,
closest to the hole wins
So You guess .18C GISS. global land ocean.
re 99.
Just kidding Lucia, you can of course bet on the 2008 temp anomaly with or without
your model. Use whatever tea leaves guide your course.
We wont hold you to your lumpy model, you can guess a fresh.
Sam is in for .18C
Moshpit is in for .23C
I’ll close estimations in a week or so.
Hadcru, I think, guessed .37 on their basis ( 60-91) which would be .47 in GISS land.
So, not to tempt you with guessing higher than me, but ……
4 bets on the table: GISS global land sea anomaly for 2008.
Lumpy: .7C
Moshpit: .23C
SamU: .18C
Hadcrew: .47C ( .37C WRT to 1960-1991.. )
No bets accepted after I cut the betting off!
Oh, heck, I bet 0.30 C. It’s gonna be a cool one, but not as cold as 09 🙂
lucia
Spoken like a true climate scientist! Don’t forget the aerosols…..
0.23 is pretty ambitious. Me sez 0.31. 7500 quatloos.
REcap.
Lumpy .7C
Hatcrude: .47C
Larry .31C
Jae: .3C
Moshpit: .23C
SamU: .18C
Negative seven. I’m serious. Pat, what about the “empirical corrections” and “flux adjustments”? 😉
Okay, more seriously, .34
Don’t feel bad, Lucia, you couldn’t have seen that Big La Nina coming. And a PDO shift, to, apparently!
If Hans isn’t going to do those graphs over with Armagh and CET, maybe I will…
If the monthly numbers go back to where they’ve been usually, .47 for gistemp could be correct. It all depends on if the month to month figures continue to get lower/stay the same or not.
The question is, does Feb start to go back up, hang around .2 land or keep going down? As you can see from one one my BB posts, every month in 1977 was up from the same month in 1976 and almost all in positive territory. However, every month in 1982 but 1 was down from the same month in 1981. In general however, a move from 1 month to the next is usually not more than .4 and most often in the tenths of a degree.
So if Feb is like Dec 1980 to Jan 1981, Feb would be at +.49 If it’s like Nov to Dec 2007, Feb would be at +.05 If it’s like Dec 2007 to Jan 2008, Feb would be at -.15 No way to tell, except the anomaly hasn’t been in negative territory since Feb 1994, Sep-Nov 1992 and Nov 1988. Besides those, going back to 1980, 1985 had 2 months, 1984 3 months and 1982 2 months.
It’ll be interesting to see. I’m still putting it around .2 but? *shrug*
I’ll predict an anomaly of -0.2C after a VEI4+ eruption in the next 4 months. BTW wheat futures are probably a good proxy for temperature predictions. In the Year Without a Summer after the Tambora eruption the price of oats in New England went from 12 cents a bushel to 90 cents. Oats being the primary ‘fuel’ for horse drawn transportation.
@Pat Keating–
True. Although in my post predicting the year’s values, I did say I was working on adding the volcano data to my lumped parameter model. But still, I figured really couldn’t wait to bet on 2008 temperatures until July and call that fair, now could I?
I like aerosols. That’s how volcanos cool down the place. Seemed to work back when they were exploding regularly. Then… they stopped for a while….
0.15
Make sure your over zealous volcanoes aren’t overdoing it!
http://sciencebits.com/FittingElephants
111, I like aerosols, too. but I prefer gel. I don’t like those messy sticks, though.
I’m all in. The current exchange on these 5 bars of gold-pressed latinum should be just under 23,000 quatloos.
GISS Global Land-Ocean at 0.26C
What is driving the global temperatures lower right now (the past 12 months more precisely) is the La Nina conditions in the Pacific (just like El Nino drove temperatures up in 1997 and 1998 and the later half of 2006.)
The current La Nina pattern is still very strong although I think there has been some weakening over the past two weeks but then strenthening again in the latest snapshot of February 11th.
The global temps are going to follow the development of La Nina. Some weakening lately does not mean temps will increase. Historically, global temps lag the El Ninos / La Ninas and when the ENSO decides it is going to flip to neutral, vast amounts of heat/cold are dumped into the atmosphere very quickly.
The 1997-98 El Nino peaked in December 1997 but global temps did not peak until April 1998.
So I’m predicting continued cooling for another three months at least. Temps will rebound up about 3 to 4 months after the ENSO switches to neutral (which could happen very rapidly now with the slight weakening evident.)
Here is some information to help those making 2008 global temperature anomaly predictions 🙂
First, here is a plot that indicates the lag between ENSO (Equatorial Pacific ocean temperature known as “ONI”) and global temperature. There is something around a three to six month lag between a change in ONI and a corresponding change in global temperature.
Next, here is the current NOAA ONI forecast (right plot). The January global temperature is probably responding to ONI cooling of last fall (say, Sept-Oct). There was cooling after that period, in say Nov-Dec, which is possibly “in the pipeline” and yet to appear in the global record.
Also of interest is the projection of 2008 ONI, which forecasts a moderate La Nina throughout most of 2008. Other forecasts show a continuation of La Nina, but as a weak to moderate one.
I quickly note that skill in forecasting ENSO six months out is rather poor, especially at this time of year.
So, if ENSO is the only factor affecting 2008 temperature (this assumes a minimal role for volcanoes, the sun and the Atlantic) then I think a reasonable bet is a continuation of the January anomaly thru the year. The cooling “in the pipeline” in the first quarter offsets some possible warming late in the year, as La Nina fades. That would be quite a cool year indeed.
Good stuff David S.
Didn’t realize the lag was that long.
I would put zero credibility into the NOAA ENSO forecast. Last January they predicted the chance of a La Nina developing at 1%.
10 days later, ENSO had already switched into a La Nina pattern.
OK I’ll join in the betting fun. Lets say .38C.
For those of you who haven’t read Tamino’s recent post, any 2008 GISS (Global Land/Sea)figure less than about .39C(eye balling his chart- scroll down to the 4th Chart in the link) puts him 1 leg towards becoming a “non believer”.
The link didn’t work? Here goes again.
Unless people give a reason for making any prediction, I don’t see the purpose of throwing predictions around. Without a reason, even if a prediction is right, so what?
BTW we’ve really had a lot of snow in Toronto this winter. Another snowstorm last night. Someone said yesterday (and I don’t know whether this was right) that this was the most snow since 1965. It seems like the most snow while we’ve lived at our present house (since 1981). I remember shoveling what seemed like a lot of snow as a teenager, but didn’t trust the memory; maybe there was a reason for this memory after all.
#120 Steve, I think that at least for some of those posting ‘predictions’, this is exactly their point, predicting the future is impossible and a random number plucked out of thin air is just as likely to be correct as that provided by the ‘experts’. At least thats my view. And my prediction is 0.21.
LiveScience was prepared for comments about today’s snowy and chilly weather with an article titled:
How Global Warming Can Chill the Planet
I’ve noticed a rhetorical disconnect between AGW true believers and sceptics during debates. For the AGW advocates, there is an edifice all of which ties together and paints a picture of future warming. If you don’t understand this picture you are either obdurate or paid by big oil. For sceptics, it is a question of the details: how much warming, how fast, what consequences, what cost to mitigate (as in risk assessment studies). When you look at the details, the edifice (big picture) starts to look rather shaky. But this look at details appears to be nit-picking by AGW advocates. Thus both sides are talking past each other.
Bingo, Craig; the ‘big picture’ is an illusion, but I think Andy’s had a revelation. Here’s hoping.
======================================================
Is it possible we are experiencing a “climate shift” similar to that of the mid 70’s??
It is Coool in Southern OZ. More like Autumn.
Steve:
You might be referring to Anthony’s Post about Northern Hemisphere Snow Cover (can’t link directly to it)
here:
http://icecap.us/index.php/go/joes-blog/january_2008_northern_hemisphere_snow_cover_largest_anomaly_since_1966/
By the way, Craig, I know what you mean. I’ve always thought of it in similar terms.
RE 120 SteveMC. I should have clearer, but perhaps not. Hansen estimating yearly figures
when months are missing was the context. Now in hansens case you have gaps and you fill in the
gaps. How do you fill in those gaps? How accurate is your infilling. So part of me wanted to
see if I only had 1 month could I guess the year? How well could I guess the year. For all
the years since 1880 what is the difference between Annual for year X and Jan Year X. Then I
played around with Dec Jan. That is, If we Know DEC 19X0 and Jan 19X1, how well can we predict
the whole of 19X1. Or, if we know DJ how well can we predict Feb. And then If we have a DJF
( with F infilled) how well can we project the whole year? That’s what I was playing with
when the notion of a contest entered my mind. Plus the context of markets versus models for
projecting futures.. So there was a point, just hidden from view
While I cannot say we’ve had a “lot” of snow in COS, we have had a lot of days in which it snowed. There has been snow on the ground for over 2 months straight, and it’s supposed to snow again tomorrow. A bunch of little 1-3″ mini-storms keep shuffling through. Last year we had a bunch of big blizzards early, but not a lot else. I can’t say what “normal” is given the wide variability I’ve seen in the 5 years I’ve been here. All I know is that the skiers are raving. Of course, I’m not skiing yet due to school-work :(…
The mountains have been getting snow 2 out of 3 days and most (except the Summit County region) are either near their yearly averages already (Wolf Creek, Aspen, Vail, Crested Butte) or well over their yearly averages (Steamboat in particular and Monarch). The Summit County mountains (Breckenridge, Copper, Keystone) are ahead of “normal,” but not by a lot. Steamboat and Monarch will probably break 400 inches in the next week or so, and Wolf Creek is poised to push 600 if it keeps up as it has. The three snowiest months in Colorado are February, March and April, btw. The resorts don’t record any snowfall after they close (usually), typically early to mid-April, but the weather does not abide by that schedule and they usually get snow well into May, sometimes June.
Mark
Btw, if anyone wants to check resort averages, forecasts, and link to their websites, go to snowforecast. That’s where I’m getting my information on averages which is probably more reliable than the marketing spin you get elsewhere… 🙂
Mark
In fact, I think Craig (124) hit the nail squarely on the head. It all comes down to the precautionary principle, and your understanding of it. If you really believe the PP, then the details don’t matter. And if the details don’t matter, pretty soon the facts don’t matter. And here we are. Craig, that’s exactly what’s going on.
#123
Have a look over at RC. A similar post has arrived. Their models have always said that the antartic will cool with global warming.
132, then why do they say in the next breath that the antarctic ice sheets are going to melt?
RE 118. That was my other motivation.
Lumpy:.7C
Hadcru: .47C
Geoff: .38C
Andrew: .34C
Larry: .31C
Jae: .3C
Earle: .26C
Moshpit. .23C
PaulM: .21C
SamU: .18C
GregF: .15C
The approach will be will Tamino fail the first leg. I bet he does. Looking at how
DJ predicts annual, I’d bet even money at less than .38C.
I’ve gotten used to the members of the team rewritting history. First they adjust the temperature record to better match their predictions. Now they are adjusting their predictions to better match what is actually occuring.
The other thing they do is point out that there are many models, and the predictions of the models vary widely. So widely, that no matter what happens, one of the models predicted it. Which they take as proof that the models in general, are accurate.
Re 124
The problem is that AGW proponents see the skeptics in the same light as skeptics in other areas (some that aren’t discussed here) where the skeptics attempt to discredit the accepted science or facts by critiquing minor points or using studies that show different results from main stream research by non mainstream researchers or amateurs. Using that criteria I can see where the AGW proponents would show distain for the denizens of sites such as this. Conversely, AGW proponents appear to skeptics as “true believers” in the Eric Hoffer sense who are unwilling to look at any data which does not conform to their belief system, nor appear willing to ensure that the science is robust.
Global warming killed the Loch Ness monster
Mark T (#130):
Use of the resort snowfall records seems like a good idea. I scrolled through a few of the major Colorado resorts to see if they keep any history of monthly or yearly averages of snowfall. It would be interesting to compare current accumulations with previous years for the same period. I didn’t find what I was hoping for. I suppose they have a reason to inflate their totals, but what the heck…
I’ll note that Wolf Creek shows an impressive “465 natural inches” for their annual average; and even if that’s inflated, it appears this year is extraordinary, with a “year-to-date…433”, and a “current summit base of 161” (13.4 feet) as of Feb 13. March is traditionally Colorado’s “wettest”, so it would seem likely that 2008 will be some sort of a record-setter. I didn’t spot any tables or histories that might give one an easy apples to apples comparison for previous years / months. As I said, it would be nice to see how last January ranks against Januaries of 2000; 1995; 1990; and on back.
I e-mailed Wolf Creek and a few other resorts to ask if they keep such data.
My personal observation is that it’s been much wetter than normal in the state for the last few years. I recall vague details of summer backpacks as a kid, including the Maroon Bells circuit, a trip I’ve done a half-dozen times now over a period of summers. Two summers ago, my wife, daughter and I did the same trip together, and we were slogged through mud the whole time. The upside of all the moisture was that the wildflowers were terrific. When we got back, I e-mailed Dr. John Hart, a researcher at the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory, out of Gothic, with an inquiry about the rains. He reinforced my expert opinion (very wet) with:
So there is the Colorado curmugeon’s tourist report, unencumbered by any statistical logic whatsoever. You’ll have to deal with either mud or snow if you come here. Might as well stay home. (Kidding)
“We have always been at war with Oceana”
Bill, once, perhaps a year or two ago, I stumbled upon a website that keeps yearly totals, but I don’t recall where I found it. I think snowforecast reports a 20 or 30 year average, so they may at least know where the data are located. The “marketing” numbers are definitely inflated, but I don’t believe Wolf Creek’s 465 inches falls into that category. As I recall, when I did the average oh so long ago it was definitely in that neighborhood.
However, this year will have a hard road to match the 30 year record since I remember it being close to, or maybe even over 600″ (I remember thinking “WOW, that’s like Utah totals!” which are in the 600-700″ range sometimes). What was really striking was that the variance in Wolf Creek’s yearly totals is very large, a few hundred inches on either side of the average. They had only 350″ inches last year but 540″ the previous year. Steamboat tends to be a bit more consistent, as are the Summit resorts, but they’ve been in a drought (all of North-Central CO, actually) the past several years so gauging what really happens is likely difficult.
Of course, 10″ of Colorado snow is vastly different than say, 10″ of St. Louis snow. The former can be removed from your driveway with a broom, the latter requires heavy equipment. 🙂
Mark
PS: Originally a St. Louis native, now a Colorado Springs resident for life…
Here is the global skin temperature anomaly, as shown on a time/latitude plot. Time progresses downward.
Of interest is the progressive cooling of the Southern Hemisphere, perhaps getting primed for a dingwaller of a southern winter. The Northern Hemisphere looks as cool as January – so far.
– Jessica Jolly, Wolf Creek Ski Area marketer, evening e-mail. That would put them at fifth deepest snowfall for the last 32 years. March yet to come.
Wonder if Klaus Wolter, meteorologist with NOAA, is still predicting a “dry winter” like he did last month? (Rocky Mountain News).
Spencer Weart at RC says
I wonder how that reconciles with Hansen’s Scenarios A and B ( link ) .
Arctic & Antarctic seasonal Smoke & Mirrors
Back when the Arctic was melting this past fall, the media was full of alarmist stories on the subject. Then … it all disappeared for awhile, and almost imperceptibly an “Ant” was inserted in front of the “Arctic”. The Antarctic horror stories are now peaking as the seasonal Antarctic melt approaches the minimum.
Eyeballing the graph at arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu, ice levels in the Arctic now seem to have surpassed last years levels, and we still have 2-3 weeks of freezing left to go in the Arctic.
I’m not sure if anyone noticed this other than me, so I thought I’d mention it.
Every storm they get is another 2-3 feet. Not just March to come, the remaining two weeks of February as well… sheesh.
It’s killing me that I can’t get down there. Of course, I’m not prepared for deep powder like Wolf Creek is seeing, either. I don’t have the skis nor the practice in anything that deep.
I tend to ignore that publication… Actually, I tend to ignore almost all news if I can help it.
Mark
See: http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/people/klaus.wolter/SWcasts/
No money back guarantees…eh!
One thing I’ve been wondering about. Why is it, according to the CAGW’ers, that because of the oceans, it takes decades for CO2 to affect the climate, yet changes in solar output show up almost immediately?
Don’t you see, David? Spencer Weart knows what the climate will be like in 2013 becuase he posted from then! Its all so obvious now! 😉
This is perhaps the most disturbing post I read at RC (#88): http://www.realclimate.org/?comments_popup=529
What do people think of the Sherwood et al. 2005 paper? Is this a legimate concern? If so it seems insane to allow people with vested interest in AGW to manage the data.
143, then it’s not global, is it?
149, Gavin’s argument boils down to “if you have an open mind, you have to accept circular reasoning”. Open minds are overrated.
To paraphrase:
“Would you be prepared to except measurements made to match models as new evidence that the models were correct all along? If not, your a close minded simpleton unwilling to worship the great gods known as models, and I have no time for you.”
That’s just ridiculous! This kind of screwing around really reduces ones confidence in the logic skills of those we are supposed to trust. Whats going on here?
It’s like these modelers have put circular tracks on the ceiling and won’t understand when the train won’t stay up there.
============================================
They are really adjusting the measurements to fit the models?
This is truly Orwellian.
I used to fly for a living. I can imagine the conversation on the flight deck. “Look, we’re flying too low, if we stay at this height we’ll crash. Quick, adjust the altimeter so it says we’re flying 2000 feet higher.”
Unbelievable…..
I’m hearing certain candidates criticize others for a lack of imagination. I wonder how long before Gavin starts using that one?
Nah. They’re looking more closely at the data. What’s wrong with that?
[snip]
Boris says:
Nothing if they weren’t ignoring the much bigger problems with the surface record.
Boris, let’s turn that around. It the data fit the models perfectly the first time, would that mean there’s no reason to take a “closer look at the data”?
I think you always want to recheck the data, Larry, but particularly when you have a dataset that sticks out.
Then why are the team members so eager to check the satellite data, rather than the ground based network data?
Re#143, well duh to Spencer that the Antarctic is cold in both reality and models. One could say the same about heat and a lack of precipication in reality and models in, say, the southwestern U.S…so why is every heat wave and drought in that region blamed on global warming? The same can be said of any number of climate parameters in any number of areas. History has told us that region X is cold vs mild vs hot, dry vs wet, prone or free from flooding, prone or free from hurricanes, etc. That doesn’t prevent any such representative event in these areas from being blamed on global warming.
Results like these http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-02/osu-atd021207.php raise serious questions. Simply dismissing them and saying, “Well, Antarctica is still cold in the models,” is pretty weak. Having a whole RC post about it is absurd.
Let’s say Spencer’s oven stops working. He calls a repairman, and after a nice bill, the repairman says it works fine. Spencer sets the dial to 450 degrees, and the best it can warm up to is 250 degress. Spencer calls the repairman and says, “You didn’t fix my oven! I set it to 450, and it only gets up to 250!” Can the repairman just brush him off and say, “The oven’s fine. 250 is hot.”
Get the records right. Get the models right. And stop crying when someone points out a problem.
It’s interesting to analyze statements by the CO2 brigade, often at RC, as folk have done here.
But perhaps more fun is to guess what they’re going to say next. I think we should have a competition, and I nominate Moshpit as the organizer (I’d love to do it but don’t have the same street cred and will be away for a week).
Anyway, here’s my shot.
“They” will say, “Ah the surface record is cooling, but we’ve been campaigning long and hard and the message is obviously getting through for people to cut back on their energy consumption (just look at those lo-bulbs flying out the stores). So, the UHI effect must be diminishing as a result of that, which means we’re over-compensating for it on the adjusted temperatures, so we’d better reduce UHI allowance, raise the temperature record (and then they’ll fit the models).”
No, that’s just too far-fetched…
Bagsy loads of quatloos if it ever comes true though. Or if I win the competition…
Rich.
It always astonishes me when measured data is considered wrong or suspect when it doesn’t agree with models that have not been properly V&Ved. Have these people lost their minds?
From my read of that article and others, I have the following understanding.
Antarctica is large.
It is surrounded by large tracts of ocean and oceans are a buffer which will absorb a lot of heat. This will delaying the climate signal for decades after it is apparent over large land masses.
Because it is so large, the climate signal will not be uniform for the entire region.
Different regions are affected by different climate patterns, such as ocean circulation patterns and winds, resulting in some areas warming (West Antarctic) with other areas cooling (central).
Some areas have received more precipitation (west and south), while others have recieved less, resulting in no net increase overall. Precip has increased over the areas that are warming, and has decreased over the very cold areas.
Ozone depletion was at its peak in 1997. This will result in less warming in the stratosphere, which will mean that any signal from global warming is masked.
Climate models are not able to project conditions in the Antarctic very well because there is little coverage there and so not much data.
The science of the ice sheets and their relationship to other climate patterns is not well known and so the models do not account well for Antarctica.
Even so, the models did predict cooling, which is in line with the facts.
Perhaps someone can correct my understanding if I am wrong, but it seems as if this was predicted and we have a fairly good understanding of why.
Actually, that should be 2006 for the ozone depletion being at an all time high.
re 164
I predict the Antartic will cool. This is in line with the facts. When do I get my publication in anture and my Nobel prize. Unfortunately valid predictions are more difficult than that
Hmm. I don’t know if the models actually predicted cooling, given that ozone depletion has likely altered the SAM they would not have been able to account for that. The point Weart is making is that skeptics say all models predicted polar amplification, which isn’t really true for the Antarctic once models started including more realistic southern oceans.
Susann #164,
Susann, which models? look at the the two images at the top of the recent post Equal area projections. They are titled Scenario A and Scenario B. These are the mother of all climate models. Look at them. Both scenarios predict Antarctic warming as their strongest signal, by far. They are wrong. Wrong in magnitude and wrong in sign. In other words, as wrong as you can get. Yet I have seen vigorous defences of Hansen’s models, because certain parts have been more correct. If you take the models as a whole, each area of the world will either: A) Warm B) Cool C) Stay the same. Once the results are in, the modelers say, See!
I don’t know if you will call this a correction, but here goes: This was predicted less than any other scenario, but all scenarios were predicted, i.e. warmer, colder, and no change and they (we) have no idea why.
And also wrong in place – the Arctic in both Hansen’s scenarios warms much less than Antarctic.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudoscience
Susan, correct me if I’m wrong but it is my understanding, that the stratosphere should cool because of AGW. This seemed to happen, but since about 1995 RSS shows a flat line for the stratospheric temperature.
Am I the only one eagerly awaiting SteveMc’s GT trip report? Especially after all the accusations in the GT visit thread?
Do not send to know who all await. Measure your patience synodically, not sidereally. He’ll turn to the task, as we orbit impatiently.
===============================================================================
#164,
So if the models anticipate a lag in AGW for the Antartic, when precisely will we see warming there? From what I can see, the Antartic hasn’t warmed more slowly, or remained neutral, but in fact has cooled during the last 20 years.
Another problem with AGW models, is the tropical tropesphere. The IPCC predicts that the tropical tropesphere should see a definte AGW foot print (somewhere between 12000-18000 ft). This has failed to materialize. Once you subtract the Antartic and the tropics, non-AGW causes for recent warmth (esp in the NH) can explain much of the anomalies we’ve seen in the temperature trend.
As far as I know the GCMs cannot account for large ocean/atmospheric oscillations (if they do, they do a very poor job). It is these oscillations that drive short term weather and medium term climate oscillations.
Susann,
In your post 164 you have pointed out a huge flaw in the RC argument.
(but interestingly you don’t seem to notice this!)
Antarctica “is surrounded by large tracts of ocean and oceans are a buffer which will absorb a lot of heat. This will delay the climate signal”.
But in fact it is the peninsular (surrounded by ocean) that is warming most,
and, as you say, the central areas (far from the ocean) are cooling.
So the observations are the wrong way round from the RC ‘explanation’.
RE#164,
Which models predicted cooling?
http://igloo.atmos.uiuc.edu/IPCC/IMAGES/sresa1b.tas.sh.1900-2100.timeseries.jpg (IPCC AR4 model spaghetti)
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/ANTARCTIC/GCM/comp.changes.tempdiff.2010-2029.html (IPCC AR3 5-model composite)
The model is quicker than the mind.
======================
#176—Yeah, which models did predict cooling?
Indeed, this AGW has a name that does not have any ambiguity to it—GLOBAL–if the models and/or the actual data do not reflect GLOBAL changes, then we cannot call it GLOBAL Warming anymore.
And since when did the models show, rather than claim, regional accuracy?
=========================================
The models are tuned to fit the data. For an excellent example of the quality of a data source used to adjust the models to reality, see http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2008/02/14/how-not-to-measure-temperature-part-51/
176:
predicted or predict? The second link is 2010-2029. Hard to tell what’s going on in the spaghetti graph.
In any case, the models could not predict changes in the SAM. This is a regional rather than a global problem and it’s likely related to ozone depletion.
SAM=Southern Annular Mode
Didn’t Gavin just get through telling us that models don’t do regional forecasts, but their global forecasts are beyond question?
So suddenly ocean cirrculation patterns both exist and matter? Holy cow, is this a breakthrough? Nah, just a handwave. And as I recall, in ability to predict the behavior of ocean circulation patterns is a global, not regional pattern. Likely related to Ozone depletion? WHy wouldn’t ozone depletion be included in the models already?
We’re at a solar mininimum and ozone is dropping. Who’d a thunk it?
184:
Your snarky tone aside, yes ocean circulations “matter.” The models may have accounted for ozone depletion, but you need observations to see how ozone depletion would affect climate.
So why aren’t the observations done?
They are now.
You always need observations for curve fitting. Yeesh!
Per NASA web site They will need at least 50 yrs of observations to try to find patterns.
Re #181,
Take your pick, or take both. After all, Spencer said: “a cold Antarctica is just what calculations predict and have predicted for the past quarter century”
Maybe I’m not seeing this right, but:
At what point does “regional” become “global”?
What percentage of the earth must be considered before we reach global values?
Steven Mosher, are you still taking bets? Put me down for 0.41 C – that would still make 2008 hotter than any 20th century year (except 1998) in the GISS record, and yet leave it the coldest since 2000. And as we head up to the next solar max in 2012 here’s my guesses for those:
2009: 0.55
2010: 0.65
2011: 0.75
2012: 0.80
I fully expect not to see us break the 1998 spike for lower troposphere (RSS/UA numbers) until at least 2012.
Susanne
#164 Your post was a sarcastic joke, yes?
Arthur # 193
I hope you are not putting many quatloos on your guesses, could be very expensive !!
Clearly, we need a blog betting script so everyone can start out with some number of quatloos, and lock in their bets (all in quatloos.)
I’m going to stick with “Lumpy” even if I know the equation is missing physics, and can’t catch ElNino/LaNina’s.
BoM’s ENSO statement from Feb 13th,
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/enso/
Although the BoM gives this caveat to the model predictions
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/ahead/ENSO-summary.shtml
The cynic in me says the reaction of the modellers to the poor job the GCMs did of predicting the current la nina, is to predict the accuracy of their models will decrease.
I see Algore is fear-mongering again, telling people to invest in climate friendly companies (maybe like those started by the firm he co-founded and sits on the board of?) and trying to prey on the subprime mortgage fears http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1713749,00.html?xid=feed-yahoo-top-linkbox
Re#196, BoM makes me laugh. One of my first experiences on RC was disputing some claims a poster had found about their part of Australia, made by the BoM. The BoM’s own data didn’t support their claims. Even when I linked to graphs created by the BoM website from BoM data, they still wanted to stick by the BoM claims.
Aren’t the BoM 3-month projections for temps and precip regularly made fun of by Warwick Hughes, or has he stopped than endeavor?
Mark W (#185),
The “forecast” for this winter and spring in the Rockies was for a mild dry winter. Well we have had more snow in the Rockies than in the last decade and they are worried about flooding in the spring.
The forecast was based on La Nina. Oops. Could it be the solar minimum?
Jerry
We’ve also had record Feb snow in Toronto already with half the month still to go.
The La Nina still has legs. This mornings Pacific equatorial anomaly shows another region of cool water (blue) making its way towards the surface.
But, warmer water is accumulating in the western Pacific ( link ). Sooner or later that heat enters the atmosphere, but not yet.
Here is a north-south profile of the western Pacific, which shows the accumulating warm water. One thing I wonder about is whether that warm subsurface water ever mixes with cooler water from lower depths, thus delaying the release of that heat.
My guess is that this La Nina still has six months to run, especially if the cool-phase PDO sticks around.
At one time I estimated that the increased El Nino activity at the time of the last PDO shift (circa 1976) raised global temperature 0.10 to 0.15C simply from the increase in El Ninos. If the PDO has shifted back to a cool phase then we may see a drop, on average, of that same magnitude.
Re: #198 & 199
We had snow in San Diego county—unprecedented stuff—yesterday. This event was totally missed by every weather-caster and -service forecast. Just another one of those unforeseen and chaotic “weather” (not “climate”) events!
I like to use this map of SSTs to see the La Nina. As of Feb. 14, there is a small very cold pool of more than -4.0C from normal which we haven’t seen in this La Nina yet.
The 30 day anomaly of surface temps shows that La Nina has finally hit North America with the pattern expected (didn’t happen earlier this winter.) The puzzling aspect of this La Nina is the impact on southern Asia which has been extreme to say the least with snow staying on the ground in southern China for several days as far south as 25 degrees (lower than Florida). Antarctica has also been much colder than normal for the entire southern summer season.
http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/map/images/rnl/sfctmpmer_30a.rnl.html
7 day anomaly here. Even more extreme for North America and southern Asia.
http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/map/images/rnl/sfctmpmer_07a.rnl.html
RE: #42
However, if you do plot the CO2 data on a log plot, the line is not straight. It curves upward. The best empirical fit for the annual average data is an exponential function with an exponent that increases linearly with time.
Looking at a model tuned to give certain results, it’s hardly surprising it would match.
On the other hand, 3 untuned models, A higher B lower and C the same, it’s hardly surprising one would match.
Sometimes they run for the ICE, other times they run towards it, hunh? 🙂
Oh. And don’t feed sarcastical ironical trolls, btw.
Re: henry says:
February 15th, 2008 at 12:51 pm
How about ‘spread over all hemispheres’? North, South, East, West?
Would 71% satisfy you? Without UHI? And only one dodgy correction to correct back? It’s the oceans.
The oceans are warming at .14 deg/decade. Interestingly enough, the first, spaghetti, graph at post 176 looks as if it had converged on… well, look at that. All you need to do to predict what has been going on (yes, that construction is deliberate) is draw a straight line from 1910 to 2010. That’s what the boiled-down graph would show.
I bow to no-one in my admiration for Anthony Watts and his efforts, but he is looking at a tiny corner of the temperature record. If the ocean records for the last hundred years are looked at, we see a simple linear story, not related to CO2 output in any obvious way — in fact, for the 1939/45 period the temperature bounces up while CO2 in the atmosphere goes down.
I could have produced the boiled-down spaghetti graph for…lessee, one sheet of paper, pencil, ten minutes of broadband access to the web, use of ruler, wear and tear: to you, $US500 million. Kerching!
I wonder what it really cost?
JF
Steve Mc
I don’t know how often you check the CA Forum, but take a look at this request.
(This guy seems way to polite for posting it over there, but what do I know about polite?)
Change point analysis and climate trends
ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/papers/200686ams4.3mmfree.pdf
steven moscher– I edited my comment to give you credit for naming Lumpy :). I’m staying mostly out of certain blog spats until Monday. The reason should be obvious then. 🙂
Lucia serves up Rabbett Stew
Lucia I posted this at ATMOZ. You can search here for the history of Rabbett
with Kristin Byrnes. Judith also played a role and came to her defense.
So. I am not objective with respect to that man.
Here is what I posted on ATmoz, he has been pretty good in letting things through
and even rescued a post of mine that was lost.
In any case, I wrote this over there. again, in case it doesnt get through.
( I’ve also had trouble at ELi’s place since I pointed a trivial error to him..
touchy bunny he )
On to post:
“Lucia has some more on the topic, which Dr. Pielke will enjoy.
First, off Atmoz kudos to you for posting dissenting opinions.
Now, on to Lucia:
http://rankexploits.com/musings/2008/spatial-variations-in-gmst-eli-rabbett-vs-dr-pielke-sr/
Rabbett stewed.
While it’s easier to pick on Kristin Byrnes I think Rabbett might have his hands full here.”
Rabett does not appear to understand that to do series expansions on functions, one must first identify the function to expand…
http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSL1655946520080216
Damn Global warming…
Anyone done an analysis of temp record v smog?
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0091-6765%28200106%29109%3C389%3AROTLLF%3E2.0.CO%3B2-6&size=LARGE&origin=JSTOR-enlargePage
It does make it a little easier to calculate the derivative if you know what the function is.
A world-reknowned climate scientist who doesn’t understand first-semester calculus? Shocking.
If I hadn’t lost all my quatloos on the dynamical core bet, I’d send you 10.;-)
David Warren has a marvelous article in today’s Ottawa Citizen with a ‘Modest Proposal’ about global warming.
===========================================
Sometimes a mistake is just a mistake, sometimes it’s something less straightforward. I hate to admit it, but I’ve used advanced math and science to shut down disagreement with something I was doing simply because the person I wanted to shut down wasn’t knowledgeable and could be browbeaten into submission with fancy math. I had a case where I was doing research and the overall head of the area was a Dilbert “pointy haired boss” with a mechanical engineering background, who kept trying to interfere with our project, asking idiotic questions and forcing us to waste time trying to do things that would not work due to his complete lack of understanding of the project and the technology. I shut him down in meetings with viewgraphs with lots of math and energy state diagrams just to make him go away. It’s often done in climate science too I believe, as part of the “we’re the authorities so go away you non-specialists.”
I was just reading Pielke et al’s very accessible Unresolved issues with the assessment of multidecadal global land surface temperature trends article and a thought struck me – which may simply reflect my ignorance. Given (a) the vicissitudes of measuring surface temperatures, (b) the equations are really about the heat content of the land-ocean-atmosphere system and ( c) that we are interested in the change in temperature/heat content, why wouldn’t we measure the temperature at say a standard 10′ below the surface. Granted there would be some lags and complications, but wouldn’t the sub-surface measure be a more robust measure and better equate to what Pielke et al suggest for the oceans? Pielke et al summarize:
I guess I am assuming that an increase in surface temperatures would be reflected monotonically in the sub-surface temperature.
Bernie: I think the reason one doesn’t measure 10′ below the surface are
a) It’s difficult to maintain and read lots of sensors 10′ below the surface.
b) The didn’t do it back in 1880 anyway, so we wouldn’t have a continuous record. (That makes it impossible to detect warming since 1880 using these measurements.)
c) No one has a specific interest in those temperatures. In contrast, air temperature interests loads of people for many reasons separate from climate change. (This means the measurement do double duty.)
d) No matter what temperature you pick, it will only be a proxy for dH/dt — the rate of change in heat content on the surface of the planet.
So, picking 10ft below the ground as a standard doesn’t really solve any problem.
In some sense, the difficulty Dr. Pielke is describing is, from the empiricists point of view “What are the minimal error bars if we use data set ‘A’ to learn a particular thing ‘B’?”
Many people here are statsiticians, so they are used to just taking l ots of data and assuming that as the number of data N-> infinity, the uncertainty goes approaches zero. But that is not necessarily so if either
a) the data doesn’t match what you wantto measure. (H isn’t precisely T) or
b) The equation you use to calculate “B” from data set “A” introduce errors.
I’m not sure why Atmoz or Mr Rabett are upset about Pielke discussing the uncertainty. These discussions are standard in science.
Severain: Tsk, tsk. 🙂 You will eventually need to visit Eli’s post to see his “blizzard” of math, and then see my response.
Can I just say that measurements have been taken below ground for many years. Normally at 30cms, 40cms, 50cms and 60cms. Much below 60cms and there is little or no seasonal signal and was therefore set as the lower limit. Sadly, I cannot for the life of me remember who or where.
lucia:
Thanks for the response. Perhaps I wasn’t clear, because clearly the continuity of the existing surface records has important value. My question was more on a matter of principle than of practicality: Are the sub-surface temperature measures better than the surface temperature measures? My thought is that if so then it may provide some indication as to how we might treat the surface temperatures – somewhat like Dr. Pielke et al’s suggestion about Tmax rather than Taverage. Presumably some proxies are better than others?
Armagh and a couple of other Irish locations have soil temp measurements going back to the start of the 20th C. There are location moves. In particular the move of the Valencia site from the island to the mainland may be more significant than the short distance would indicate, because of the effect of the Gulf Stream on Valencia Island. I was there many years ago with a friend whose family was from the island and I recall temperature differences between the island and the mainland was a topic of conversation.
http://climate.arm.ac.uk/calibrated/soil/soilT_Garcia-Suarez_2005.ps
Note, postscript file. Google will give you a text version.
Stephen (#218), does no seasonal signal mean no signal?
Re 217 Lucia.
If you think like an engineer then you have to side with Pielke. Measure the heat content
of the ocean.
1. It’s 70% of the planets “surface”
2. It’s a natural filter of high frequency stuff
@Bernie– My answer to your question is a resounding: Beats me!
@steven moscher– If we could only measure one thing– ocean or atmosphere– there are points in favor of measuring the ocean temperature. But, being an engineer,who actually likes to think about experimental design, I’d would have to defer judgement until I knew more about the climate.
Filtering high frequency information is a double edge sword. We can learn a lot by analyzing both the high frequency and low frequency information. And then there is the pesky issue of expense.
If expense were no object, we’d measure both the atmosphere and the ocean, at many levels, and constantly. (The electricity required to support the data ac system might be enough to supply the needs of a small country.)
re 224. dont weasel out of my question.
You have one sensor. where do you place it
@steven mosher– 224.
Dang! Now I know how the ARM science team felt at meetings my husband organized! They’d all try to persuade him their instrument was “the one”, and he’d tell them to get in a room together and prioritize. (Needless to say, some people’s instruments were low priority.)
Hmmmm…. Hmmmm….
I go for AIR.
I prefer unfiltered. That way, I can potentially get information out of volcanos eruptions, diurnal variations etc.
But mind you, I then start doing a lot of math to estimate how much the ocean temperature lags using whatever I can possibly concoct. And I point out precisely what Pielke Sr. says: picking one temperature or the other results in a bias one way or the other.
The global coolness is continuing through mid-February, as indicated here . With the equatorial Pacific temperatures continuing at their minimum value, and with another region of anomalously cool water about to surface and with the typical three to six month lag of global temperatures behind ENSO I think the first half of 2008 is shaping up as a cool one.
I’ll venture far out on the limb and suggest that the first half of 2008 may average zero (based on UAH/RSS values).
I am now 46, statistics tells me I have a good chance to die before 2050. And with me the majority of world population.
AGW is not lethal in 2050, that’s why IPCC extended their scenarios to 2100.
50 years wasn’t scary enough.
For those who thought the Hockey Stick had been retired, here it is being skillfully played by Duane Waliser, JPL Principle Scientist in a recent lecture at about 9 minutes into the game.
Predicting Climate Change: Removing the Mystery
Bernie #221
Little or no seasonal signal. It means that the variation in temperature month to month becomes very small. Go deeper and it disappears into annual and decadal change. Other problems were at times of flood (flood plains mostly) or frequent heavy rain. Significant Water penetration can mask the ‘normal’ signal.
Eg in the severe UK winter of 1962/3 frost penetrated to the 30cms level and significant change was noted beyond the 60cms mark but at lower levels the change was very small but noticable. Unfortunately, though I know this info exist I have no idea where it might be now.
Bernie
Click to access 6741170.PDF
This paper gives a simple explanation of difficulties etc.
The Canadians did it here (ground measurements that is). The UK never sees variations like this I think?
http://irc.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/pubs/cbd/cbd180_e.html
Sorry Bernie wrong button
Stephen:
Many thanks for the references. I will look and get back to you.
I am not sure about you but I certainly do remember that winter of 62/63 when we had snow on the ground for 6 weeks in London no less. I am sure it was even worse up North. I was but a lad still in shorts as part of the school uniform!! It makes my knees ache thinking about it. They cancelled a hell of a lot of football games as well.
The water issue that you mention is potentially huge complicating factor.
I just posted this at RC on their new hurricane thread, and am sharing it here in case it does not show up there:
“Steve McIntyre and I looked at the spatial distribution of trends in tropical cyclones in the Best Track dataset in a paper presented at the 2007 AGU. The entire increase in the basin occurs east of 69W. Landfall in the western part of the basin is very highly correlated with activity in that region (our slide 10), as would be expected.
So explaining trends requires explaining what happens in the far eastern part of the basin. if you are going to rely on Holland (2007) then there are several other interesting patterns to be explained (our slides 12-14).
Our powerpoint presentation can be viewed here:
http://www.climateaudit.org/pdf/agu07.hurricane.ppt“
Isn’t a quatloo of sufficient value to buy a star system? You guys are way to rich for my blood.
RE 234. DR. RP Jr.
At one point I consider starting a site dedicated to “banned at RC”
Where you could automatically cross post your RC posts…
re 225. Air? Now, I like the argument of wanting to sample the air
because of volcanoes. That is very sly.
I liked oceans because of the “natural” filter of high frequency
signals..
At one point I compared the volitity of SST anomales to Air temp Anomalies
It was intersting…
It’s around here somwhere. You could see the Air lead the ocean on temp gain,
Then the air cooled, the Ocean had interia, overshoots,…
Dang I have that graph somewhere… I did it when Tamino was talking about Schwartz.
I need a secretary
Steve,
Just one quick comment about IPCC related to what you said about relying on it or not. For the piece of work that I just completed on the carbon cycle, I found four papers on reconstructions of CO2 based on stomatal frequency analysis. All those reconstructions go against the common view of an ultra-stable, low CO2 concentration. Well, none of them, absolutely zero, are referred to in the IPCC chap.7. They are not mentioned at all. I’m not talking here about fancy pet theories of dyed-in-the-wool skeptics from Exxon, I’m talking about mainstream scientists publishing in peer-reviewed mainstream scientific journals. So the reader gets the impression that there is no alternative view, that all measurements agree. You’ve seen the same thing with the chapter on paleoclimate. If the IPCC report were truly an objective assessement of the state of the science, it wouldn’t be like that.
I stand by my position that there is something awfully wrong with the community of climate scientists. Inviting you was a nice thing to do, but aknowledging that they have a problem separating the science from the politics would have been better.
224, Mann has the answer to that. You put it in the “sweet spot” in California (where the bristlecones grow) that teleconnects to the world. According to Mann, you only need one temperature measurement for the entire world, right in that place.
#10 Andrew: A good place to start identifying literature on the relationship between CO2 and stomatal density is: http://www.co2science.org/scripts/CO2ScienceB2C/subject/s/sdco2proxy.jsp
If you find a good and recent review article send me an e-mail at igoklany at cox dot net. Thx.
Tamino is writing about PCA
yorick
Except for the problem that the temperatures are plunging now in both the land and sea in the Southern Hemisphere and the SST even in the Northern Hemipshere.
HADSST2 has NH January 2008 down .235C from Jan 2007.
SH is down .269C.
SH December land was down .293C
January land temps will probably show similar drops. We’lls ee in a few days.
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/
Maybe you don’t understand what spurious means?
Hadley’s global anomaly value for January is out: +0.04C
Maybe you don’t know what irony means.
JEG’s latest blog that contains the response to TCO summarized by AlanB in #35 here contains what looks to be an interesting paper by Brohan et al. Apparently the paper supports the notion that global temperature can be measured within +/- .05C with 95% confidence. Is this really true? Has the Brohan paper been reviewed here previously?
Bernie– The ±0.05C claim matches NASA GISS’s stated uncertainty interval for their published anomalies. Unlike normal calibrations which are performed against an actual standard, it is impossible to verify in the most usual way, which would be comparing to a calibration standard.
I want to see how the author/s choose to explain their claim of an accuracy measured within +/- .05C with 95% confidence with instrumentation at least 10 times to 150 times less accurate where observational stations exist and no samples whatsoever where observational do not even exist. It remains to be explained how a global temperature can even exist in an open physical system subject to as yet substantially unmeasured and unknown inputs, intra-exchanges, and outputs of matter and energy.
I want to see that explained too. The more Anthony Watts and his group look at the surface stations, and the more Steve and others look at the data “correction” algorithms and data, the more this entire effort looks like trying to align a laser cavity to a quarter of a wavelength of light using a yardstick (oops, make that a meter stick).
In all my experience in science and engineering, I have never, ever, seen anything like this. Accuracy and repeatability of our instruments and measuring methods were paramount, and always bounded the certainty with which we claimed our measurements were accurate. The idea of using a system that has plus or minus 1 deg or even 5 deg of accuracy to predict tenths (or as recently mentioned in the Jan temp anomaly) hundredths of a degree just boggles my mind.
I know that our host, quite rightly, wants to limit the angry tone of posts here, but personally, I am both angered and deeply insulted by activities such as this. I consider it an affront to the way I was taught to practice science.
Has anyone ever done, or is it even possible to do, a frequency domain analysis of the measurement noise of the surface temperature record? I’d really be curious to see if there is a significant 1/f noise component. I find it hard to believe there isn’t. IIRC, the presence of 1/f noise means that the precision eventually decreases as the number of measurements averaged increases.
Exactly; and it is global warming killing us all! If we just stopped it, we would be immortal.
How can an open physical system subject to random and infinite actions, reactions and interactions on a real-time second to second basis be summarized as a single number even for one component (atmosphere at a given layer, land, sea, wind, insolation…) much less how they all interact with each other? The concept itself is illogical and nonsensical. For instance, we could estimate the total amount of energy received from the sun, but unless we could discretely measure it before it enters the atmosphere, over the entire lit side of the planet, say with sensors every meter, we don’t have any quantifiable measurement. We have an estimated average that would be helpful for conceptualizing how much energy was entering the system, but not “a global energy supply of X WM2″ nor do we know how the estimation is interacting with the atmosphere at any given location or altitude etc.
Just take atmosphere. 5 feet (when sited properly) from the ground into the troposphere, sampled min/max temperatures of the daily temperature where the sensors happen to be (and as we’ve seen, whatever happens to be near them or not), covering some amount of area, mainly using equipment designed for telling people the weather, that is reported in 1 degree increments. These decimals are only a by-product of averaging the daily mean into months and combining stations in a grid and combining grids to the globe. You do that enough times, you get these small numbers. You know, like multiplying a number by .5 and the answer by .5 and so on. It doesn’t take too long to get to 0.000244140625, but what does that number mean? Nothing, it’s just a reflection of divinging by half.
As far as the actual temperature readings, I still only have accuracy of 1 degree. If I combine 3 and 2 and get 2.5; I’m not down to 1/2 degree accuracy on the readings; I still don’t know if I was combining 2.1 with 3.4, or 2.4 with 2.8 if I’m rounding to the closest degree.
Or if that 2 and 3 averaged to 2.5 are actually 2.9 and 3.9 if I’m truncating. So the average of the two figures are 2.5 or 3.4, I’m still not measuring in tenths of a degree. Even if the readings are accurate, unbiased, and tmean is the best reflection of the situation. That’s a lot of ifs especially given the number of CRN345 in the USA and the sparse stations (of what quality?) in most of the world.
Am I the only one who hears the “Drums Along the Mohawk” type rumblings of a blog war as Tamino begins his multipost exploration of PCA and (I am presuming here) a defense of the hockey stick? I am putting in an order for popcorn.
Tamino is using ice out dates for various lakes around New England as his proxy. I live on a lake, and can suggest at least one source of pink noise in that scenario. What keeps the lake from freezing over, once it has cooled to the right temp, is wind. The lake can be ready to freeze, but if the winds come up, the ice is broken up. This year for example, the lake froze over for miles twice but left small areas of open water. Both times, ironically, the approach of a cold front brought such high winds that the ice was broken up. This shortened the amount of time that the final sheet was frozen, thinning it by several inches, with little to do with temp. The other aspect is ice out, ice out happens when wind blows the weakened ice off the lake. If a strong wind comes up, it can take a thicker sheet of ice off of the lake. No wind, the ice sits for many days longer until it becomes a thin skim of slush which a light breeze can remove.
The pink noise comes from, for example, ocean oscillations that change patterns of windiness in the spring or early winter. These changes could affect ice over and ice out dates over many years, indpendent of temp. I am curious whether Tamino is going to account for pink noise, or is going to use the Mann excuse that the data is only affected by white noise.
Sam, error and significant digits are other areas not well understood by climate science.
Can anyone help me out? I have read the relevant part of the blog on MBH, the “hockey stick”, MM papers etc. My understanding is the the criticism is improper usage and application of PC analysis, not PC analysis itself. Is this correct?
SM- PC analysis is one relatively small aspect of the criticism although it has received a lot of attention. It’s really only one part of the statistical methodology.
#254 (Peter): You are right. MBH usage of “PC analysis” in the tree ring index reduction is no PC analysis at all. Tamino’s post, apart from advocating the correlation based PCA (I hope he’s doing that for illustrative purposes only), is excellent! It will be interesting to see what follows.
PC analysis is one way of assigning weights to proxies. Is it the “right” way? It depends. IMO it is vitally important to look at what weights you end up with. If you end up with Graybill bristlecone chronologies being heavily weighted, then you have to examine whether these have a unique ability to measure world temperature. People spend far too much time trying to show that one particular method is “right” and too little time checking whether the answer makes any sense.
Steve- Over at RC Urs Neu has a few questions on our AGU Powerpoint. I’ve summarized those that you can best answer in my reply to him, which I repost below. Do you have the answers to #1 and #4 conveniently available?
“Hi Urs, thanks for these comments. A few replies.
1. These figures in particular are discussed in some detail on Steve McIntyre’s blog here:
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=1000 Our comment referred to the entire dataset, and not any starting point within that dataset. I’ll email Steve for the summary statistics.
2. I urge caution in looking at a graph and then picking starting and ending points for analysis. You are right that there are changes in the basin starting around 1970 and also around 1995. One could eyeball the chart and suggest similar changes that happened around 1900 and 1930 as well. Why did these occur? I don’t think there is a single satisfactory explanation that accounts for trends in spatial distribution, overall frequency, and observational uncertainties. There are I think several competing arguments that by themselves may help to explain the observed data. Given multiple valid explanations, further appeals to the data probably cannot resolve the existence of multiple competing models for what has been observed. One of the things Steve and I have done by highlighting trends in spatial statistics is highlight another factor that might help to judge between competing explanations. A lot of attention has been paid to over trends in the basin, but very little by comparison has been devoted to explaining trends in location of observed changes. Whatever the ultimate explanation, the vast majority (I’d say all) of the observed increase in activity has occurred far out to sea. Is this observations? Climate change? both? I don’t know, but any satisfactory explanation will account for these patterns, and I’m sure you’d agree.
3. The Figure showing change in median longitude refers to both aircraft and satellite. The change is even larger if one places the breakpoint at 1944.
4. I’ll ask Steve on the shipping figure source.
5. While I don’t disagree with you that future landfall rates may very well be higher than over the past 100 years, and certainly over the period 1970 to present, I do find your argument for such a possibility to be pretty unconvincing. Over the period of record US landfalls have exhibited remarkable stationarity. This provides no guarantee of the future, of course, but surely we must have a reason to expect more landfalls if we are to argue – as you have – that a “strong increase” is of equal probability (“not more likely” you said) to a continuation of stationary landfall statistics. I think that our ignorance is quite a bit larger than this, and I’d submit the hurricane seasons of 2006 and 2007 as evidence of that.
The good news is that most policy makers don’t need to know the answers to these issues to be better prepared for future hurricane impacts. However, if I was in a business that tries to finely manage catastrophe risk, I’d have the distinct feeling of being in a casino with no understanding of the odds of winning the various games.”
I read somewhere here that PC analysis was developed for assigning weights to variables, not proxies. Is this wrong? Can proxies be considered as a type of variable?
corrupt cookies?
How evil.
Will they go after the brownies next?
God forbid they should try to corrupt one of our innocent Ding Dongs.
Steve: Yes, proper weighting of appropriate methods; and does the answer make sense.
Peter: Handwaving about the law of large numbers. Not that it bothers anyone who uses such a false significant digit argument that max/min/mean temperatures are not random independent identically distributed variables with a finite expected value.
Although I suppose one could argue that ignoring temperature is gambling with our future, and that makes temperature liking rolling dice. Hey, it’s a climate science analogy.
Yorick: As I’ve maintained, water, powered by sunlight and moved by wind, is weather, becomes climate; not just under consideration is some vague concept of an average global temperature driven by GHG.
Another scenario: The wind blows away snowcover, which lets sunlight through the ice. The water underneath heats, but can not get out. If the lake is shallow enough compared to the number of hours and strength of the sunlight, the water underneath will melt the ice.
Yes, they are. Each is a separate observation of a variety of factors that control tree growth. Contained within those observations are the “sources” that PCA is attempting to extract. PCA is not a whole lot different than eigenvalue decomposition. The problem is that the “results” are not labeled as coming from any particular source without some post-hoc correlation work or a-priori knowlege of the sources. Correlated input sources corrupts the results even further and we know well that several of the controlling factors for tree growth are correlated.
The analog to worlds that make more sense (in terms of the word “variable”) would be separate antenna elements in a phased-array, an area in which PCA is used widely (though not explicitly described as such).
Mark
I agree though that Tamino’s post looks excellent. I am wondering if he is going to get into the philosophy behind the approach and the inherent traps.
The wind blows away snowcover, which lets sunlight through the ice. The water underneath heats, but can not get out. If the lake is shallow enough compared to the number of hours and strength of the sunlight, the water underneath will melt the ice
A big snowstorm right after the ice has set up will insulate the ice, keeping it from thickening too. And a foot of snow can melt in a singe rainstorm, a foot of ice, in my experience, takes weeks of sunlight and above freezing temps. I would think though that snow events migh come under the heading of “white noise”, — ba dum bump.
When the ice sets clear though, it is beautiful. I was fishing earlier this winter on clear ice and a sunny day, and you could see the fish throught the ice as you reeled them in. I guess it might be one of those “you had to be there” things, but the fish through the crystal clear ice in the sun against the deep blue background of the water were beautiful. I guess my personal experience with this whole phenomenon makes his series compelling to me.
Roger,
An essential factor to consider in the trend of reported hurricanes is the chain of reporting any individual report must successfully traverse until it may or may not reach the data sources being used by current climate scientists.
In the first place, there must be an available observer. Ship registries maintained since the late 18th Century demonstrate there were in fact as many ships or more traveling the high seas in the early 18th Century as there were at any time up to the very late 20th Century and beginning 21st Century. So, there was comparatively little shortage of trained mariner observers traveling the most far flung regions of the Atlantic Ocean in a time when observational reports are few and far between in the data sources in use by current climate scientists. So, if there were plenty of qualified observers in those earlier years, a person may ask what happened to their observations?
The answer is simply that their observations have not been forwarded to the data sources used by current climate scientists. Reports of weather conditions encountered during a voyage were kept in log books. In the earliest periods, log books were often not maintained, and reports of storms are often anecdotal in the literature. As log books became more customary and finally required by law, some log books survived long enough to reach an archive and some did not. Among those log books which survived to reach an archive, some were lost when the archive was damaged or destroyed. Among the log books which have survived, some have had their data about hurricanes and/or other meteorological data extracted, while many more have not been extracted at all. In other words, we have a situation in which the sampling of actual observations of the desired meteorological activity available in the data sources used by current climate scientists is substantially incomplete and not reasonably representative of any but the latest time periods used in certain analyses of hurricane and tropical storm activities. This is already well known and reported as a caution in many of the analyses, albeit in some instances with inadequate concern for improper conclusions. What seems to be neglected, however, is a broad recognition that the problem is more often with having an authority willing to accept observations and forward them intact to present users than it is having observers and useful observations.
As a case in point, there has in the past been a problem with communicating hazardous weather to the National Weather Bureau (NWB) and National Weather Service (NWS). Reports of hazardous weather from unauthorized observers have often been denied access to deliver those reports. In doing a cursory check of anecdotal reports of hurricanes and hurricane like activity during the Second World War, several such historical accounts were confirmed in the HURDAT database, and one or more from U.S. naval warships were unreported in HURDAT. Consequently, there is still an open question of just how much information there is still out there about hurricane activity in the Atlantic Ocean which still has not been extracted from naval log books, merchant marine log books, the radioed reports from the U-boats of the Kriegsmarine delivering vital meteorological reports, NOTMAR (notice To Mariners) and aircraft NOTAM (Notice To Airmen)?
How much of the problem with differences in hurricane frequencies is due to failures in observation versus in failures to collect, archive, extract, report, and analyse? A question which needs to be asked: despite the commendable efforts of Christopher Landsea et al, has the scope of such a problem even been properly understood and accurately quantified?
RE 247. They make a mistake in their estimation of Instrument accuracy, amongts other things
Sam U #250
Sam thanks for doing this temperature work. I made this point some 2 years ago at RC and never saw a reply. Your piece explains what I was trying to say much better than I did at the time.
Merci
Sam Urbinto #250,
I think you may have fallen into the trap of allowing the best to outweigh the good. Just because you can’t do something perfectly doesn’t mean you can’t do it at all. Yes, you throw a way a lot of information and probably introduce bias by calculation of a global average temperature or global average solar energy input or almost any other global climate statistic. But that doesn’t mean those numbers have no utility.
Sure Stephen, thanks.
I think somebody said the min/max was truncated, if so, that means an actual low of 13.0 to 13.9 (appropriateness of location and accuracy being different issues) would show up as 13, and an actual high of 40.0 to 40.9 as 40, or a tmean of 26.5 I am unsure if tmean is recorded as 26 or 26.5 to average into the 28-31 days. Or if it’s truncated. Or if daily min/max are recorded to more significant digits and then combined as-is, and then tmean is truncated. Then once tmean (whatever it is) is recorded, does anyone record it as a daily anomaly, or is the month always averaged from daily tmean and then the anomaly calculate only from the month in all cases?
Anyway, the concept remains; averaging together anything other than whole numbers will result in more and more numbers after averging them together more and more.
Is anyone aware if actual (measured) min/max temperatures for a location were 13.3 and 40.8 if the tmean would be 26.5, 27.05 or 27 (ignoring TOBS et al)?
Not that 8.1 and 45.9 give us either 26.5 or 27 or anything, or that actual temperatures of 12 and 42 might be incorrectly recorded and give us the same numbers also….
DeWitt; I never said the numbers have no utility. They can. I’m saying is that I don’t trust them to accurately and meaningfully reflect physical reality, nor to do so down to a level other than in entire degrees. Not that they don’t, just that I don’t trust them.
Moot. Temperatures are not random independent identically distributed variables with a finite expected value, so the law of large numbers doesn’t apply to either them or to the anomaly the temperature readings eventually result in.
DeWitt,
On the surface I agree
But, these numbers are then used by unscientific people, and as such get treated in a sometimes dangerous fashion. The non-satellite records all suggest that is still abnormally warm. All of these records are currently between 0 and 0.12 degrees C warmer than a couple of different long term averages. Anyone who was being scientific and truthful would tell you that with the current state of instrumentation that means nothing, but sadly that is not what happens.
We’re not asking for perfection in measurements or anything remotely close to perfection. It’s the AGW paper which is claiming accuracy to a precision of hundreths of a degree Celsius, and not us. Try explaining what percentage of sampling is the minimum necessary to achieve their claimed accuracy and confidence levels. Try providing us with a meaningful definition for the term, global temperature, or the term, global mean temperature, from an IPCC or related source/s. What evidence is there which indicates such a phenomenon can exist and has been experimentally demonstrated to exist to a precision less than one degree Celsius in temperature.
Regarding deletion of messages:
I have seen Steve complain that deleting the contents of a message is time consuming and that just deleting it is much easier for him. If he is using Firefox he could, with the installation of a custom crafted “greasemonkey” script, get an extra image on each post which by clicking it would automatically and in the background delete the content of the message replacing it with an “Inappropriate content deleted” message. This would be a big improvement as I also find it very annoying having incorrect referencing numbers.
I’m sure anyone with a modicum of programming experience could knock this greasemonkey script together. If wanted I could do it myself though it would not necessarily be done promptly (drop me an email if interested).
Hansen makes a short-term climate prediction:
“It is unlikely that 2008 will be a year with truly exceptional global mean temperature,” said Hansen. “Barring a large volcanic eruption, a record global temperature clearly exceeding that of 2005 can be expected within the next few years, at the time of the next El Nino, because of the background warming trend attributable to continuing increases of greenhouse gases.”
Hansen link:
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/feb2008/2008-02-19-092.asp
One of the things that I’ve observed, particularly among the non-scientist/engineering populace, is that they equate number of decimal places with both accuracy and precision (which are not the same thing). I’ve noted that the development of calculators, digital multimeters, digital everything, has made them think that if it’s digital, it’s accurate and precise, which definitely ain’t true. With analog gauges it’s a lot easier for the average person to get an idea of the kinds of imprecision you can easily get measuring something, that’s harder with digital. If you’ve ever used a slide rule, you know more about this than any person, even a scientist, who grew up with only HP calculators.
Well said, Severian
Its good to see Hansen finally including La Nina / El Nino impacts into his predictions.
His intention was to say the big cool-down of the past 12 months was not inconsistent with continued global warming and temperatures will continue increasing when the current La Nina goes away, but what he was really saying is that the ENSO has a bigger impact than was previously included in his models.
So, must be time to come up with another “adjustment” of temperature records – need to add another 0.7C to the trend.
Steve was posting a while back looking for a robust derivation of Climate Sensitivity, and since then I’ve gotten interested in different ways to estimate it empirically, especially using volcanic eruptions.Some (ie Lindzen and Giannitsis (1998), Michaels and Knappenberger (2000), Douglass and (2005)) have gotten relatively low values from eruptions, while Wigley et al. (2005) for instance, uses models to show the opposite. Obviously no man is allowed to be the judge in his own cuase, but I found Michaels’ defense of his approach here:
http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/2005/05/16/determining-climate-sensitivity-from-volcanoes-observations-vs-models/#more-111
to be impressive. It would be interesting, I think, to look into these papers and thi method in further detail here (though again, I’m sure they won’t provide the elusive enginering quality results). I should also mention that Roy Spencer thinks that this approach isn’t right becuase:
I’m really curious as to the validity of these results, and possible input anyone may have.
#274, Severian: I used an old Dietzgen slide rule in an era when every other student was using the newly introduced HP handheld calculators. Since I had to do the math in my head in order to keep track of the decimal point, I was able to catch my errors. The others were punching numbers into machines, and uncritically accepting the results. Almost invariably, I scored higher on quizzes.
==============================================================
Aha!
Kim, in number 278, talks about using a slide rule and how it helped with error correction, that’s a great anecdote, and similar to my experience.
I had an experience in my early work career that made me distrust computer models and such that are not amenable to eyeball “sanity checks.” (That is, can you tell if the output looks reasonable with any degree of accuracy, and even if you can the issue is still there.) I was working on a program where the location of a moving aircraft carrying a new navigation package was compared with the “true” location derived using a Kalman filtered DME setup. Both sets of numbers needed some massaging, but the 5 DME stations required significant computation to come up with a position. We had just made several runs on data, when my buddy came over and said “Does this look right to you?” with a tab run of data. I replied that it was hard to tell, as we didn’t know what the data should look like. He pointed out some anomalous behavior in the decimal places, numbers bouncing around, but it was hard to tell if it was just noise from the DME fit or what. He went off and wrote a program that added 2 to itself 10,000 times, and then divided by 10,000. He came back with a big grin holding a tab run that said the answer to this particular little mathematical exercise was 3.1987, not 2. He then picked up the phone, called the data center, and told them they’d better take the system offline. Turns out the math processor boards were hosed.
I often wonder how many bad decisions were made, and how many design errors occurred, due to people relying on the output of models that were run on that machine before anyone noticed this error.
In the aeronautics industry, we “waste” a significant fraction of our computing horsepower having the processors continually run calculations that we already know the answer to. Get the answer wrong once, and that CPU is shut down. (Everyone’s designs use redundant CPUs) As soon as one of the CPU’s is shut down, the pilot is required to set the plane down at the nearest suitable airport.
MarkW, that’s an excellent example. When people’s lives are at stake, as they are in an aircraft, how could a rational person not do that? Unfortunately, we don’t seem to see the same level of concern in many other disciplines, particularly climate science modeling, despite the fact that the result of their calculations are being used to rationalize decisions that definitely affect people’s lives. I know after that experience I never quite trusted computer simulations again without more validation. That’s also a good technique that could be easily incorporated into other analytical programs, at the beginning and end of a run have a series of complex calculations run that you know the answers to, and check them. Granted this kind of thing doesn’t happens as often now, usually if there’s a processor error the OS crashes, but sometimes not unless you are hitting a particular part of the processors architecture.
I can’t imagine being the test pilot for the first F16, a completely computer controlled fighter that is so unstable it can’t be flown without the computer. Knowing the way programmers write code, that must have been one puckering experience.
steven Mosher in http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=2698#comment-214130 said:
Steven Mosher thanks for the link. The linked paper was about change point analysis for the instrumental global temperatures over the instrumental time period. You have also noted that GISS or was that USCHN or GHCN was going to apply change point in place of all other homogeneity adjustments. I would think that looking for change points in a time series to associate with approximate causes of change would be one thing but pinpointing the change points as precisely as I would assume is needed for homogeneity adjustments might be a whole other thing.
Also thanks for keeping the subject of change point in the posters and readers eyes here at CA. I was hoping that a qualified statistician would take interest in the Watts and team CRN12345 ratings and look for change points. Visually, as noted previously, I estimated some change points in the differing trends between CRN123 and CRN45 stations. That is also a dangerous game if taken seriously in concluding anything. I have downloaded a macro for Excel that does change point analysis and have been thinking of taking that on as a project after I find and analyze some wind shear data.
re 283. USHCNv2 wil use changepoint analysis replacing its earlier process with
this new process…
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/ushcn/
I have the change point excell plug in UC also looked at it.
Menne paper suggests 1964 at a good breakpoint, whereas visually everyone picks1975-79
Help please. I’ve just lifted this from Climate Skeptic. This is part of a thread about the Surface Stations project. I’m not familiar enough with the actual measuring method used by satellites but this smells. So Christie has got it all wrong?
Regards
Paul
Incidentally, it is sad that a skeptic is the only one presenting a good reason (or any reason) why satellite measurements might not be used, but here you guys are:
Satellite measurements that rely on IR heat detection would be necessarily biased against detection of greenhouse warming. As the same intensity of IR light has to escape in order to maintain equilibrium, a full-spectrum reading would result in the same total energy levels. This of course must be balanced against the fact that we know the IR fingerprints of terran emissions, and so changes in the spectrum balance (caused by the fact that a particular greenhouse gas will absorb in a particular spectral fingerprint) will be discernible as changes in heat levels to satellites doing spectral analysis. Spectral analysis would also be able to detect what degree of influence any given greenhouse gas is having, simply by measuring dips within its absorption spectrum.
So, short explanation is, a “dumb” satellite would interpret greenhouse warming as no warming at all. I don’t pretend to know how smart the climate satellites are, but that is one potential major problem in utilizing satellite data.
I don’t believe any of the satellites use IR to measure temperature.
Most of these satellites are multi-spectral…so there are things you can do to remove the artifacts you mention. Pretty easy stuff btw. Its not like you or your information source are the first to think of this. Something to ask Christy about.
#285. The satellites are “microwave sounding units” = MSU. I think that they measure oxygen emissions at 60 GHz. They do not measure IR radiation. The satellite measurements agree with the balloon borne thermometers which use an entirely different technology.
RE 285-289…
Have you seen the DISCOVER site from UAH??…talking
of Christy Here you can get some nice info on
sat MSU temps day by day, only 1-2 days after measured
(Back to Aug 3 1998 you can make nice spaghetti graphs
from 1.0, 4.4, 7.5etc KM up to 40 or so KM. It seems
as the stratosphere is warming at present, not following
AGW rules…We suspect the reference period 20 years
is 1979-1998 , fairly cool one so there is still? quite
some coolness to catch up on…There is also
very detailed tropical cyclone info from all basins
some 8-9 years back. Recommended!
Satellites
Many thanks for the quick comments. I could have looked them up but the erudite bunch that post here are a better and faster source of information.
Regards
Paul
I’m guessing that somebody got confused by the fact that all these hand held and night vision heat sensors do use IR.
Thus an urban myth is born.
A “dumb thermometer” will interpret no warming at all as greenhouse warming under many conditions (e.g., urban heat island effect, poor sighting, etc).
The satellite data has been intensely scrutinized. The various experts who convert the raw data to temps have gotten together on many occasions to try to reconcile their different methodologies. The same can’t be said of the surface record.
Peter #269,
I also believe that the error estimate of +/- 0.05 C in the surface temperature record is much lower than the true error. Averaging only gets you so far. See my post #249 for one reason for this. OTOH, I don’t think the error is as high as +/- 1 C either.
Don’t take the satellite record as gospel. The problem of creating a temperature profile from the MSU data is ill-posed because of sensor bandwidth and noise. That means you have to start with some idea of what the profile is before you can solve the problem. Still, it’s probably less biased than the surface record and has the advantage of more uniform coverage.
While I don’t for a second believe the degree of precision claimed for the global surface temperature, I wanted to mention that though the law of large numbers holds for identically distributed, independent random variables, those are sufficient, not necessary, conditions. The weakest requirement I’m aware of is that the (weak) law of large numbers holds for a sequence of pairwise uncorrelated random variables with mean 0 and finite variances if the sum of the variances divided by n^2 approaches 0.
That is, if Dn^2 is the nth variance: lim(n->oo) [1/n^2 * Sum(Dn^2)] = 0.
That obviously applies to identically distributed, independent random variables, but it also applies to a lot of other situations. Particularly, it applies to a sequence of independent random variables with different distributions if the variances are bounded.
FYP 🙂
Despite a few flubs, and given the difficulties, the teams using MSU to measure temp have done a pretty good job, I’d say.
Snarky, boris, snarky. My beef isn’t with the teams using sat data, but with the people, you know, AGW alarmist’s enthusiastic supporters, who knee jerk that IR sats obviously aren’t capable of really detecting the AGW signal they just know is there without understanding that the sats don’t even use IR.
I think you’re right MarkW, as with the “if there are a lot of decimal places it must be accurate and precise” mistake, I think some people think IR sensors are the only way to measure temperature. I’ve spent a fair amount of time in a previous life working with IR, but it’s been imaging systems (FLIRS). Maybe that’s why I would not have made the initial assumption that the sats relied on IR, at least exclusively. Too many uncertainties between reflection, emissivity, and such.
Forward Looking Infra Red, yeah!!! TADS/PNVS yo
Anywayzes, look.
For example:
Or as they say, when you’re designing bridges, if you’re worried about the 3rd significant digit of tensile strength, you’re already in trouble.
This statement is .0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001% accurate. So it has to be true.
Hey Sam, I did a little work on TADS/PNVS! And the lab where I did a lot of directed energy work did damage threshold testing on it among other systems.
Excellent definitions and examples of accuracy and precision. So, we “know” the surface temp to accuracies of a deg or so, but we’re using that to measure anomalies in tenths and hundredths of a degree. :O Ooooooh K fine.
TADS is old news. Newer systems will turn your lights out from twice the range…of course you won’t be tense ’cause you won’t know its coming.
Polar Amplification (I’ll move this to the message board if it generates any interest)
I think the idea of polar amplification of the enhanced greenhouse effect is based on a mistaken assumption about how radiative heat transfer works. The reasoning is that because there is less water vapor in the atmosphere at the poles, the addition of carbon dioxide to the system causes the temperature at the poles to increase more than in the tropics. In the absence of horizontal heat transfer, this simply isn’t true. In fact, it takes less temperature change at the poles to compensate for a given forcing than it does in the tropics because radiative transmission directly to space is more efficient for lower water vapor content. Why RC doesn’t correct this mistake is beyond me. If I were sufficiently paranoid I would say that it’s because they like to point fingers and snicker at the uninformed hoi polloi.
Of course, there is horizontal heat transfer and that causes the high latitudes to be warmer and the tropics to be cooler. Now most of the models AFAIK predict that the Arctic will warm but the Antarctic won’t change much. My guess is that this is a result of oceanic heat transfer from the Southern Hemisphere to the Northern Hemisphere. The continuous upwelling of cold deep ocean water in the far southern ocean will keep the Antarctic from warming much for a long time to come. However that same flow through a warmer tropics will transfer more heat to the Arctic, melt more ice and lower the albedo causing additional warming, all other things being equal (which, btw, is a highly questionable assumption).
Fire away.
There is also the T^4 law: cold areas warm faster than warm ones.
E is change in forcing
using the derivative of Stefan-Boltzmann:
dT/dE = 1/(4[sigma] T^3)
gets:
dT=[alpha]ln([CO2]/[CO2}orig)/(4[sigma] T^3)
Re#282, Severian:
Some folklore on F16 computer bugs:
http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/3.44.html
From July 2008 the government of British Columbiais is planning to impose carbon tax on combustion of all kinds of “fossil” fuels (supposedly “revenue neutral”). The rates will be 10 CA$ per ton of CO2 equivalent, with yearly increase to 30 CA$ in 2012. Canadian dollar is currently about the same as US.
Comments are welcome at CA BB:
http://www.climateaudit.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=129
World Climate Report – Global Warming: Not So Fast
Chylek and Lohmann, 2008:
Hans #302,
But the forcing isn’t constant. It’s higher in the tropics for the same delta CO2. For example CO2(0)=280, CO2(t)=380. Tropics 20 km looking down constant water pressure. The forcing is 1.82 W/m2. Delta surface T to get equal power emission =0.49 K. Subarctic winter same other conditions: forcing = 0.827 W/m2, delta T = 0.30. With constant RH, the difference is larger.
Does anyone know what happened to Nasif’s website “biocab.org”?
thanks, jim
Re the polar amplification, there is a straight radiative transfer explanation for this:
1) The peak of the planck function (black body emission) is at longer wavelengths for colder temperatures, and hence the 16 micron CO2 band is more energetically relevant at cold temps than warm temps.
2) the 16 micron CO2 band has less overlap with water vapor at cold temperatures, and hence the radiative fluxes in polar regions are more sensitive than tropical regions to an increase in CO2
3) once warming starts and water vapor increases, the above two factors decrease slightly but another one kicks in: as water vapor increases in the dry polar region, the so called dirty window in the water vapor rotation band (around 20 microns) starts to fill in so you get extra warming relative to warmer regions (where the rotation band is already saturated).
I think, also, polar amplification needs to be understood with respect to the base case– which would, in the case of AGW be what would exist without Anthropogenic CO2.
It doesn’t make a lot of sense to criticize anyone for failing to consider what would happen in the absence of convection. Instead, given that the climate of the earth is more or less in the vicinity we’ve seen in the past few centuries (or, if you prefer millenia), then adding CO2 tends to warm cold areas more than the equator, for many of the reasons Judy just said.
Judith #308,
Yes, that’s the standard argument, but you’re leaving out what turns out to be a more important effect. When I plug the numbers into MODTRAN, I see the opposite as I posted above. The forcing from the same change in CO2 concentration is smaller at high latitudes. There is obvious polar amplification during the transition from glacial to interglacial. As far as I can tell, though, it isn’t due to greenhouse.
To see what’s going on, I tried lowering the humidity in the tropics (water vapor scale = 0.01 instead of 1) The radiated power went up from 287.5 to 334.4 W/m2 and the forcing increased to 2.2 from 1.8 W/m2, but the delta T for 280 to 380 ppm CO2 was nearly identical, 0.50 compared to 0.49 K.
After looking at the graphs, the reason becomes obvious. In the tropics, the radiation from the CO2 15 micrometer band is lower intensity (lower temperature) than for the subarctic winter model. Looking at the figures in Grant Petty’s book, that does seem to be the case for observed spectra. A plausible explanation is because the tropopause is at higher altitude and hence colder in the tropics. So the effect of CO2 will always be greater in the tropics than at the poles and polar amplification by greenhouse is a non-starter.
I’m going to post a couple graphs here, since I don’t want people in the other Giss thread to take their eye off the ball while discussing coding issues.
I took the GISS dset-1 data(pre-homogeneity) for all stations carried in their inventory as having data for 2006 or 2007 and divided the stations into three bins. A bin of only US stations. A bin of the rest of the world(ROW). And a subset of the ROW bin of 10S to 10N(10SN). Non-data points were excluded and the mean across stations for each data point was calculated for each year. It’s not area weighted so it wouldn’t reproduce GISS gridded data, but I think it is fairly representative of what’s happening.
Graphing just the seasonal values the bins showed some remarkable differences related to the climate for the season. Below are graphs of the three bins.
The seasonal 127 year trends for the US starting with DJF are 1.33, 0.78, 0.1, and 0.03. Maximum stations in the bin occurred in 1967. A reduction of 1051 stations took place in 2006-2007.
The seasonal 127 year trends for the ROW starting with DJF are 8.07, 4.39, -0.23, and 3.59. Quite astonishing. Maximum stations in the bin occurred in 1985. A reduction of 21 stations took place in 2006-2007
The seasonal 67 year trends for the 10SN bin starting with DJF are -0.07, -0.17, -0.09, and -0.21. Maximum stations in the bin occurred in 1981. A reduction of 8 stations took place in 2006-2007. They are part of the 21 station reduction in the ROW bin.
I ran the trends short of the full time-span due to the paucity of stations earlier. Otherwise the trends would have been unrealistic and more negative. 1941 was when the number of stations in the bin exceeded 30.
Here are my thoughts on the dramatic differences.
I remember my interior bedroom window panes being covered with ice, and frost on the wooden window-sill. We had storm-windows, but no central-heating. That was when I was a kid circa 1950.
Early part of the last century there was little central heating and energy was expensive, so people only heated the areas they were occupying at the time and let the temperature drop in the rest of the building. Occupying interior rooms, the inside of the exterior walls might be approaching the outside temperature. Now it’s whole building heating at a constant 70F, exterior walls at room temperature, and fresh air make-up systems. The incoming air has to be changed often by 40-60F or more and the old warm air gets moved outside. That has to effect the temperature in urban areas. During warm weather the amount the air temperature has to be changed by A/C is quite a bit less, and the heat/air that gets moved outside is not much warmer and some cases cooler than it is outside. Hence, outside temperature isn’t affected as much during warm weather.
After seeing the 10SN graph, I’m of the opinion the only cure for the AGW phenomenon is going back to the way people lived 100 years ago, and I’m not too keen on doing that. 🙂 I’m at a loss concerning the size of the trends in the ROW. But, I sure don’t see CO2 playing any significant part in it.
That’s my two cents.
Note: Here are the spreadsheets for the graphs. Just in case someone wants to check them out. They are three pages each and include an inventory of stations used.
US
ROW
10SN
Forgot to mention. The google didn’t process the graphs that went with the spreadsheets. They are the ones shown above.
DeWitt/Judith/lucia, if you have a few minutes, could you explain to me what drives the tropical upper-troposphere radiative cooling profile as shown here ? I am interested in the region between 14km and 17km, where some property of the molecules reduces the longwave radiative cooling to near-zero.
* what is that property? my limited understanding is that it is temperature-dependent.
* as the tropical upper-troposphere warms, does this “dead zone” (my term for this non-cooling region) also warm and thus begin to radiatively remove heat from the atmosphere? It seems like this, if correct, would effectively increase the volume of air which is radiatively cooling, thus becoming a negative feedback to the tropospheric warming.
Thanks
Here’s the graphs that illustrate the effect:
Yet another example of “the higher, the colder.” I can’t decide if I should be cackling or chortling about this.
If I’m right about this, the implications are fairly stunning. It actually helps the warmers because it’s one less bad prediction they have to defend. OTOH, how can it be that none of the leading lights in the field has ever noticed this? The first question I posted at Pielke, Sr.’s site when I started looking into this whole thing again was about why the South Pole wasn’t warming. Nobody was able to answer the question then either.
Steve McIntyre, you should be able to use this as another sharp stick to poke the IPCC or someone to write a comprehensive report on the derivation of the 3.7 W/m2 figure. If a fundamental misunderstanding of this magnitude has persisted this long, how many others are there? Aren’t the students in the field curious enough to do these quite simple calculations themselves?
Cryosphere site shows ice bridging between Greenland & Iceland. Not common.
Re #312 Bob, any thoughts about that remarkable apparent increase in non-US winter and spring temperature circa 1950?
re #312 DJF is summer in southern hemisphere
David #314,
Remember that the 14 to 17 km range approximately represents the tropopause. That means that temperatures increase as you go up or down from there. My guess would be that causes the region to be in radiative balance for longwave radiation. As the region of lowest temperature, it radiates at a lower rate than the regions above and below but energy transfer is still collision dominated (local thermodynamic equilibrium). A temperature inversion is very stable. I’m not at all clear, though, on how that would change in the event of greenhouse warming. The stratosphere is supposed to cool and the lower troposphere warm and expand. I guess it’s possible that the tropopause would move to slightly higher altitude, but the temperature remain the same.
w.r.t. my posts #301, #310 and #315,
I keep talking about wavelengths in micrometers and posting graphs in wavenumbers (cm-1). The 15 micrometer CO2 band is at 667 wavenumbers. The band at 1000 cm-1 is the 9.6 micrometer ozone band.
Thanks, De Witt. Perhaps 14 to 17km could be described as a broad, diffuse tropopause.
Figure 3c , which shows the contributions of each type of molecule, seems to show that the properties of water vapor, possibly temperature-driven, play the key role in developing this dead zone or faux tropopause.
David,
I presume that had something to due with Europe recovering from the war. I think a large part of the war torn area was better off around 5-6 years after the war than they were before it. At least as far as creature comforts go. Things like central-heating were were likely common to put into new structures.
One thing I noticed was the MAM temperature in the 10SN graph was promoted to warmest part of the year. It was a poor third in the other two graphs. Should almost have expected it, but hadn’t thought about it until I noticed it. The position of the Sun is a big part of everything, I guess.
David #321,
The other thing to remember is that there wouldn’t be a temperature inversion and the resulting tropopause and stratosphere at all if it weren’t for the ability of oxygen to absorb UV radiation and to form ozone in the process which absorbs even more UV. There’s a whole lot of complicated photochemistry involving various oxygen containing species including water that happens in the stratosphere.
Bob Koss – quite a remarkable series of charts. So, winter-time temperatures in non-US, non-high-latitude stations are the only driver of increasing global temperatures.
Either a previously unrecognized significant aspect of global warming (the models are not based on global warming occurring only in DJF) or you have found the smoking gun for where the errors in the global temperature records are.
Bob:
Intriguing graphs. I assume they are the seasonal averages? Did you compare the max and min charts? Are you hypothesizing a significant, prolonged UHI effect? If so, this seems reminiscent of what Ross McKitrick was pointing to.
re 324:
No, non-low-latitude, indeed “global” warming is winter warming in Siberia and Canada.
315:
The land/ocean difference is a big reason. Also, ozone depletion is theorized to have led to changes in the Southern Annular Mode. Solomon, I believe, had a paper on this issue.
Re #322
That (apparent jump in global minimum temperature post WW2) would seem to speak volumes about UHI effects.
Re http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=2698#comment-214950
Bob,
SteveMc said that Waldo is hiding in the ROW, looks like he’s also in the furnace.
Could you break out the data for northern vs southern hemispheres? The other question I have is what does the area from about 23NS or 25NS look like (23 is the tropic of cancer and 25 is about the southern tip of Florida). They would appear to be points where home heating starts to kick in.
Bob, that’s interesting. But to test whether it’s UHI, can you split the DJF ROW graph into rural and urban (for example, just using the population figure)?
#324 John Lang,
I can’t go so far as to say this shows errors in the global temperature record. For the most part they are what they are. It’s the attribution of the cause as being from CO2 that I find incongruous. I don’t see how CO2 could cause such a spatial distortion in the trends.
#325 Bernie,
Yes. It’s the mean of the yearly summation of all station seasonal data as recorded in the Giss records. Giss doesn’t have min/max temperatures available. I’m just using the data points they provided.
The US record above includes over 700 rural stations that were dropped for 2006-2007. That left only about six in the US network capable of being used to adjust urban stations during the past two years. It’s not like they dropped them for poor record-keeping. Close to 20% of them had every annual data point for the last 100 years. Four without a single missing data point in any category. Yet they were dropped. If they want to stop adjusting urban records with nearby rural, they should change the rule not make the rule moot because they have stopped taking records from the rural sources. A large data source is being ignored and I’m trying to find a logical reason for the choices made.
Here are the temperature vs. altitude plots that correspond to the emission plots in #315:
The subarctic tropopause is indeed lower and warmer than for the tropics as expected from physical meteorology. The effect this has on IR emission from CO2 overwhelms the party line effects on why there should be greenhouse polar amplification as quoted by Judith Curry in #308 That also means that Hans Erren’s plot overstated the effect of CO2 on Vostok ice core temperatures.
Q.E.D.
Oops, try again:
re #312
It looks like someone has removed northernly stations as time goes by. Doesn’t that explain it?
Re #314
It’s the influence of Ozone which heats the lower stratosphere. (see fig 3c)
A quick look at global surface temperature through February 20 shows that February looks about the same as January, anomaly-wise. The tropics have cooled a bit while the higher latitudes of the NH may have warmed a bit.
I noted in purple the approximate surface area of the grid sections, as this diagram exaggerates the sizes of the poleward regions.
Severian: Yeah, I figured anyone using FLIR would have. I’ll leave it at Apache helicopter parts repair.
Jaye: The guts of a lot of that stuff gets modernized all the time, so I wouldn’t be surprised if TADS (or anything else involved) isn’t like the newer system too.
Lucia: Just like I said elsewhere; CO2, CH4, N2O, F-gasses HFCs, PFCs and SF6, and aerosol and ozone pre-cursors or acidifiers CO, NMVOC, NOx, NH3 and SO2 Here’s more. So, anthropogenic greenhouse and related gasses and solids from land-use change, fossil fuel burning, and industrial processes.
Bob: Your example of heating houses is exactly one of the many variables often (usually) ignored (oversimplified); the changes related to the positive feedback loop of population and technology, going from 1 billion to 8 billion people, the technology that allowed that to happen, and the number of people upon the technology. Think about scientific research by mail going on a boat back and forth versus videoteleconferencing for example. Or this blog! 🙂
Bruce: Do you think many climate scientists and climate computer modelers factor in the “NH summer vs SH winter / NH winter vs SH summer” variable into the equation?
DeWitt: Right, frequency versus wavelength; I wouldn’t be surprised if some strange things going on are due to mixing them up (as in the false precision with measurements from round numbers doing odd things) Also, yes, not just oxygen and UV regarding ozone and also methane etc, and water vapor; as I’ve said, there’s a lot more going on here than a simple walk in the park. Or over the asphalt around an MMTS station! 🙂
David: Yep, UHI effects; I think they’re perhaps (in conjunction with roads and farming) far and away the largest chunk of whatever’s going on with the temperature samplings that go into the anomaly. So, the trend is, as I’ve said, more a localized byproduct of the measurement areas and the measuring devices (coupled with the combination methods) than it is any kind of global effect.
Bob: Please, use AGHG or methane or nitrous oxide; no use of the c d words! 🙂
Gavin Schmidt directed me to this map of global forcing from doubling CO2. My observation was basically correct, just not original. Radiative forcing is in fact much lower at the poles than in the tropics, and quite a bit lower at the South Pole than the North. Gavin refers to this as “conventional wisdom”. Apparently, a lot of people haven’t got the word yet. The map is quite interesting in that it looks like it is far from trivial to calculate a global forcing figure (which turns out to be 4.12 W/m2) as there is considerable spatial variation in forcing (see below).
Interesting paper on numerical errors caused by rounding:
Click to access Mindless.pdf
It is way more prevalent than people think. It is very sensitive (in some cases) to the range of a given value.
Such errors are hard to find. – Which explains why modelers throw away some runs the attribute results that differ from expected results to model sensitivity to initial conditions.
Why do we operate this way? Well for most things it is good enough and error analysis is very expensive.
Such errors are hard to find. – Which explains why modelers throw away some runs; they attribute results that differ from expected results to model sensitivity to initial conditions.
DeWitt,
Maybe it’s just these old eyeballs of mine, but in the chart you present, the Antarctic is warming. Not cooling. It’s not warming as much as the rest of the world, but that’s not the same as cooling.
M. Simon,
Another problem with rounding errors, is that they accumulate. When you iterate an equation many times, the resulting error is many times what it would be from a single pass.
This is one reason why it disturbs me when I find out that these modeling teams often lack profesional programers.
From today’s Wall Street Journal:
Chilling Effect Global warmists try to stifle debate.
re 312. Bob, can you post the giss Raw data for the whole world. lots of people
asking for that
#338 DeWitt Payne:
I just want to confirm what is plotted in your map.
It seems to show the radiative forcing component from doubling CO2. Is that correct?
If so, it shows that the radiative forcing is lower at the polls. Not that the temperature response is lower.
The map showing the temperature response to CO2 forcing show the familiar pattern of polar amplification. The following is the 100-year response to a 50% increase in CO2:
The blogs are all over an article in today’s National Post by Lorne Gunter, suggesting coming global cooling. Skepticism is starting to accelerate mainstream.
=============================================================
#347 MarkR:
Yes, the map is of model output. As was the map posted by DeWitt Payne. Sorry if that was not clear.
#347
What’s not clear – without a script – is everything. Where’d you get the numbers from? How did you generate the plot?
Re #346
Anyone come across any papers recently by Toggweiler and/or Russell? From the cited article:
This anomalous Arctic warming – far in excess of what the models predict – is something that had been bugging Hansen et al. in their papers over the last 10 years. Interestingly, anomalous warming of the Arctic is something that was observed to occur in the 1930s as well. When I queried the experts at RC about this they admitted that it was a discrepancy that was not understood. On other occasions they have admitted that an extreme “trend” in the arctic could be a product of low-frequency “internal climate variability”.
Bender: It’s model output, so who cares where the data is from?
🙂
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/efficacy/
Anyone with a brain should already know that wind can melt ice, either from the temperature of the air or by bringing in rain or pushing surface water or by friction. Heck, what if the wind picked up a huge sharp mountain or a train and slammed it into an iceberg? Sheesh, I don’t even have a brain, and I brought that sort of thing up a long time ago regarding the glaciers.
John V. et. al.,
Yes, the map (from GISS) is of direct radiative forcing from instantaneous (I assume, it doesn’t actually say) doubled CO2, not temperature change. My educated guess is that it’s output from a global 3D model. (Judith Curry, tell me again how straight forward it is to calculate a global radiative forcing [smiley face here]). I have no idea what errors there might be in the calculation, but at least it is qualitatively similar to the results from MODTRAN.
What I want to bury is the argument that the poles should heat faster than the tropics because radiative forcing is greater at the poles. It isn’t. But that doesn’t mean the poles wouldn’t warm faster than the tropics if the average temperature went up. It is a near certainty that the poles would warm faster because we know that they warm and cool more than the tropics during glacial/interglacial transitions. Also temperatures at the poles are much closer to tropical when there are no ice caps, which is, in fact, most of the time for the last 500 million years. It also seems logical that the Arctic will warm earlier and faster than the Antarctic because, for one reason, the MOC acts as a massive pump to transfer heat from the south and tropics to the north, not to mention the vastly larger quantity of ice in the Antarctic compared to the Arctic that will act as a giant heat sink for thousands of years, at least, while keeping the albedo high. Lower radiative forcing at the South Pole also means there is less heat that needs to be moved to keep the temperature from rising.
So can we please drop the whole “the models are wrong because they predict the South Pole should be warming and it isn’t” thing because they don’t predict that, at least not in the short term. Arguing from erroneous premises is a waste of bandwidth.
bender #349,
If there were a better search function on CA, I’d try to find some of my earlier posts on this topic. Nice to see someone in the scientific community finally picking up on what seemed glaringly obvious to me some time ago. The NoPol data from UAH, which started increasing significantly about 1995 has been showing signs of peaking and may well be trending downward. However, it will take a few more years of data to be sure. Other things to watch are Arctic sea ice anomaly, which should begin to trend upward, and NH temperatures in general to at least increase less rapidly. Here’s the Exponentially Weighted Moving Average (alpha = 0.08) chart of UAH NoPol (combined land and sea) through January 2008:
When this discussion was first initiated about polar enhancement (and radiative forcing and processes) I was surprised to learn that the first papers that came up in a google search talked mainly about processes other than the radiative ones. I thought that Judith Curry had posted (and with a Lucia concurrence) an explanation using differences in emission and absorption bands/lines. Where do we stand on that line of argument? What are the processes that will lead to polar enhancement? And where are we currently in that warming process?
There are changes in albedo that obviously will have a major effect at some point. I have heard of wind influences in the Arctic and also clouds.
#352
But DWP: is this not what Hansen’s model/scenarios A&B predicted back in 1988?
I’m not interested in what today’s models say. They’ve been fitted and re-fitted and overfitted. So of course they fit. One can not argue that the current model fit is because they’ve improved the (untweakable) physics, because at the same time they have tweaked the tweakables.
Here’s a “from first principles” paper that Tom Vonk linked over on the BB that is worth reading. Not a mainstream paper (yet?), but if it’s correct, increases in GHGs can have no effect on temperatures.
bender #355,
Can you tell me why Hansen’s model/scenarios predicted polar amplification? Slogging through model code is not within my current skill set, assuming it’s even available. If he was using an incorrect radiative transfer parameterization (a not unreasonable assumption), then aren’t the results irrelevant for that reason alone?
But does falsifying the results of a twenty year old model accomplish anything useful, especially if you don’t know the source(s) of the error(s)?
Ken #354,
As I replied to Judith, that all sounds good until you actually do the calculations. Then you find that the height and temperature of the tropopause is more important, which seems to have been confirmed by the data from GISS.
As far as the processes that lead to polar enhancement, we know there is polar enhancement based on paleoclimate data like the Vostok ice core data. For glacial/interglacial transitions, there’s the ice/albedo effect. My guess would be that it also involves the heat capacity of humid air in contact with free water. You can pump a lot of heat in without raising the temperature much. Even with no change in the rate of circulation, however, higher heat content will mean more heat moved to the poles where it will raise the temperature there significantly as the water vapor condenses. But the MOC biases heat transfer to favor the NH over the SH, so SH warming is delayed. *sound of arms waving vigorously*
Don’t you need to know location, wind speed and direction, humidity and temperature to know how much energy is in the air and where it’s coming from or not to figure out the actual levels? 70 F with 2 MPH SSW winds at 90% humidity, is not 70 F calm at 20% humidity, nor is it 70 F with 25 MPH winds at 50% humidity.
Or am I missing something here about the weather and how it functions?
jae #356,
Or ever. You can prove that bumblebees can’t fly too. Until someone comes up with a theory falsifying the greenhouse effect that can explain the observed atmospheric absorption and emission spectra and their changes with altitude and temperature, which Nicol doesn’t, I remain unconvinced.
Sam #358,
Yes, if you want to know the weather tomorrow. It is well known that heat is transferred from the tropics to high latitudes because the temperatures in the tropics are lower and temperatures at high latitudes are higher than they would be if there were no heat flow, with a corresponding imbalance in OLWR compared to incoming SWR. I’m pretty sure that temperatures at the poles when there were no ice caps were even closer to tropical temperatures (which weren’t all that much higher than current temperatures, IIRC). So even without detailed information at every point on the globe, the assumption that higher heat input into the tropics will lead to temperatures rising faster at the poles than the tropics does not seem unreasonable to me. As far as mechanism, I admitted to arm waving.
#357
No and no. I wish I could provide a more fully qualified answer. But I can’t.
You can argue that it’s today’s models that need to be tested. How can I disagree? My only counter is that you now have to sit there and wait for 20+ years to get the necessary data. And you know what will happen, ~the year before it’s time to run the test: they’ll have a newer and better model to test. Forever delay model testing – that’s one way to make sure you are never refuted.
The only way to move forward is as Steve M suggests, to have modules that can be slotted in and out of the full model, where the new module’s contribution can be fully accounted for (an engineering quality report on how the output is related to input). That way you can determine how much improvement in model performance is resulting from improved physics vs. new overfitting to the new (more recent) sample data.
It’s a serious problem that they change the physical parameterizations at the same time that they re-tune the non-physical parameters (e.g. aerosol response). You have no idea why your model now seems to perform better than before.
DWP: The point being that just knowing the temperature is only part of the story.
It’s like telling me it’s 65 F outside but forgetting to tell me it’s raining or that the wind is gusting to 40 MPH or that there’s a forest fire. Whatever.
jae,
I skimmed it enough to see where I think he went wrong. I would go to the BB and argue this if I thought it was worth my time. It isn’t. Doing it once at UKWeatherworld was a useful exercise to improve my own understanding. Doing it again would likely be both frustrating and boring.
There is something for everybody here. Global schmobal. Polar schmolar. Can we explain the local differences?
http://igloo.atmos.uiuc.edu/ANTARCTIC/TRENDS/trends.1958-2002.html
#356
This so-called “paper” – can I assume it hasn’t been published, since there are no indications of that anywhere on it?
In my mind “paper” refers to a scientific paper that has been published in the peer-reviewd literature, not a collection of ideas that have been committed to paper.
#365
John V thanks you heartily in advance.
Got anything comparable for model predictions?
bender #362,
Yes, I agree.
Or if they do have an idea why it performs better, they don’t seem to feel the need to tell anyone outside the community.
jae,
A First Course in Atmospheric Radiation, (second edition, paperback). Grant W. Petty, Sundog Publishing, Madison, WI, 2006, ISBN-13: 978-0-9729033-1-3. Or, more detailed for LTE according to Petty: Goody, R.M. and Y.L.Yung, 1995, Atmospheric Radiation: Theoretical Basis (2nd ed., paperback). Oxford University Press, New York, 544pp. (ISBN 0-19-510291-6).
Interesting observation from spaceweather.com,
Found this site which uses automated data collection from weather stations to calculate errors in reporting.
If true this shows that errors in excess of the alleged temp change are happening currently, ie the equipment as used is not fot for purpose.
http://weather.gladstonefamily.net/cgi-bin/wxqual.pl
I wonder how this agrees with the ad hoc aerosol adjustments of the models?
Back to the flux adjustments, I’d guess.
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=2698#comments
I was thinking a direct comparison on a map like the one from the U of I of model predictions would have been most appropriate and I will continue to look. Meanwhile I will provide the link and excerpts from below. (That is my bolding for emphasis in the excerpt below).
I do continue to judge that we do too much with fuzzy images when it comes to discussions like these. The details would certainly indicate that the science is not settled on climate change in the Antarctic regions vis a vis climate models. I also judge that these comparisons of temperature measurements to those predicted by climate models should not be restricted to some average temperature in a geographic area but also explain the more localized differences and particularly so when they are as extreme as we see in Antarctica. The U of I page on Antarctica also listed actual historical temperature trends for seasons and months of the year that showed significant variations.
http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/anttemps.htm
Surprised no one has posted this yet.
Temperature Monitors Report Worldwide Global Cooling
Let’s recap.
Is the anomaly trend rising? Yes.
Are we putting GHG into the air? Yes.
Are the GHG there the ones we put? It would seem so.
Is carbon dioxide about half of those as far as effectiveness? Yes according to the IPCC on radiative forcings.
Are there also solid particulates from the same process? Yes.
What do the solids do? Affect clouds and surface in various ways.
Is the anomaly trend meaningful? Maybe.
Is the anomaly trend accurate? Maybe.
Does the anomaly trend reflect warming? Maybe.
Does carbon dioxide, or any other AGHG, cause most of any warming? Probably not. Impossible to tell in the physical system due to the infinite and chaotic number of variables.
Do land-use changes impact the weather system. Yes.
How much do land-use changes impact the weather system? Unknown.
Are there around 8 billion people alive? Yes.
Do those 8 billion people impact their environment more than 1 billion does? Yes.
Of the glaciers we’re looking at, are the bulk of them melting/shrinking/receeding? Yes.
Why are they melting/shrinking/receeding? Wind, rain, temperature, cloud cover and albedo changes.
There’s the current state of scientific knowledge.
Sam, last I checked, there were under 7 billion people alive (not that it effects your analysis).
February 2008 looks comparable to January in terms of temperature anomaly, so far. The time/latitude plot show February to be a little cooler in the tropics and a bit warmer around the poles.
Bender # 365
Bender I teach students to never dismiss any idea on the grounds alone that it has not been sanctified by some ad hoc procedure .
If they had this attitude , their intellectual world would become very poor and boring fast .
It doesn’t take much time to detect what L.Motl calls crackpots and to ignore them – it shows already on the first page – those are usually people who prove the relativity is wrong , that something contradicts the 2nd principle , that they have found the theory of everything and other revolutionnary discoveries .
The symmetric of crackpots are fossiles who stayed stuck at a fixed evolution level and have an infinite intellectual inertia .
I have read the J.Nicol’s paper that has been linked by somebody who found it on Icecap and can tell you that it is worth reading .
2/3 of it is text book anyway so nothing that could hurt even old timers who only swear by Planck , Beer Lambert or Kirchhoff .
J.Nicol is a physics professor , specialist of spectroscopy and it shows .
He also apparently understands QM what is not what I would say about many people who dissert about radiation transfer but wouldn’t know the difference between a QM harmonic oscillator and a dipolar momentum .
Now the last 1/3 of his paper is interesting – of course he doesn’t falsify the GH effect as generally understood (aka GHG absorb IR) because he knows better – he pushes the known empirical log dependance to its limits and establishes an approximation of the relation between absorption/emission properties of a GHG and the ground temperature .
The argument is of course consistent with observed spectra and has an advantage that under this formulation it could be falsified by experience .
I have seen a few weaknesses in the QM arguments and plan to send comments asked for by J.Nicol as soon as an australian finds me his e-mail .
In my opinion it is not (yet) fit for publication because the text book part should be smaller and the original part bigger .
In any case whether paper or “paper” , it is an interesting and intelligent read even if not so ground breaking like some would see it .
I just did an analysis on all 4 global temperature metrics, UAH, RSS, GISS, and HadCRUT.
http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2008/02/27/a-look-at-temperature-anomalies-for-all-4-global-metrics/
Comments, ideas, welcome.
Damn, don’t those histograms damn?
=======================
Anthony:
To repeat the post I made to your site: Can you spell out for those of us who are slow on the uptake, which anomaly you are referring to. Also doesn’t the difference in the positions of the satellite data series compared to the ground data essentially anticipate what you see in the histograms?
jae, bender, Tom, can we please use the right terminology to avoid confusion. Something that has been written but not published as a paper is generally referred to as a ‘preprint’.
This preprint is not nonsense and cannot be dismissed out of hand as Dewitt tries to do. As Tom says much of it is textbook stuff so I think it has no chance of being published, like the much-discussed G&T preprint on a similar topic. The boxes with extravagant claims in bold are very unscientific. And it’s bizarre that he invites comments at the end but doesn’t give an address or email. It looks like Nicol is a retired prof from James Cook uni.
@374
Are temp anomalies rising? NO
The answer is not yes. Right now they seem to be pointing downward.
#381
Using the right terminology is a good idea, assuming there is consensus on what is “right”.
In my world “preprints” are manuscripts that have been accepted for publication, but not through final printing.
Is this really a “preprint”? That is what I asked. Has it been published? Has it been accepted for publication? Basically: what is the status of this piece? jae did not answer. He dismissed my wanting to know the status of this piece. I’m ok with that. I’m not suggesting everyone dismiss it. I’m just saying that *I* will dismiss it if it hasn’t been accepted for publication. If it were in a different subject area, I might be inclined to read it.
The short answer is status unknown .
Not published to my knowledge . Not ready to be submitted in the present form but that’s only my opinion .
What perturbs me is that he asks for comments at the end and I have several that would either bring this paper in a preprint form or to indicate him a couple of problems that need to be adressed .
Unfortunately he doesn’t give his e mail adress .
Stays that it is a knowledgeable , interesting document , written by an expert and spot on the topic of “climate sensitivity” .
Ah yes … and not hard or long to read .
Re380, temperature anomaly, global, was that not clear from the post? If it wasn’t please let me know and I’ll make it clearer.
I’m not sure what you are referring to regarding “difference in positions”. Can you elaborate?
Anthony (#385), At the risk of appearing really being numb, the global temperature anomaly measured on what basis?
Given that there are four measures, are they tied to their own anomalies or some composite anomaly from all four or some agreed upon standard global temperature anomaly?
As to “difference in positions”, if there is a single global temperature anomaly that all four are compared to, the fact that the satellite measures are below the GISS and HADCrut measures would imply the histograms that you produced. Or have I misunderstood what you are trying to do?
Anthony, do the different sources measure anomalies from a different baseline time-period? The histograms need to have the same baseline to be comparable.
How about “manuscript” for those “papers” that are not accepted for publication or aren’t intended for publication.
Well, forget “manuscript,” since Wiki says it has to be hand-written. Document?
Re386 and 387.
Sorry for the lack of understanding of your question. I have the data adjusted for the same base periods and I’m going to plot that tonight.
re 390. I hate the anomaly method because you constaly have to adjusticate things for diffrent
Anomaly periods.
Some excell weenie should do a HadCru to Giss Anamaly dance adjustment.
re 390. I hate the anomaly method because you constaly have to adjusticate things for diffrent
Anomaly periods.
Some excell weenie should do a HadCru to Giss Anamaly dance adjustment.
my head hurts.
Click to access FUMAPEX_D4.6.fv.pdf
Re: Mosher #392
I calculated using monthly data that to adjust HadCRUT to GISS add .07C to GISS, using annual data add .08 (rounding?)
I also have the annual difference in an excel format, but don’t know how to get it to post here.
Write and I will forward. gmeurer@cinci.rr.com
Greg
Anyone have OpenTemp temperature output by month in the satellite era? I’m curious how it compares to the 4 temp metrics posted over at Watts Up With That.
Hmm, maybe strike that request. After visiting OpenTemp.org I recall that it was US Lower 48 only. Rats! I’d really like to see what just combining exisiting raw data without undertaking any corrections would provide. Well, given the need to combine land and sea it’s not so trivial.
RE 395. Open temp is open. This means
YOU can DO IT.
JohnV can help or I can help.
I will walk you through the steps.
steven mosher, Earle Williams:
I haven’t been following this thread but just way my name mentioned so I thought I’d stop by.
I didn’t do any OpenTemp analyses outside the USA48 because the original intent was to analyze stations of known quality (both urban/rual and micro-site issues). Any analysis on ROW would have the same real and perceived data quality issues as the well-known temp histories.
I’m hoping to find the time to analyze *all* of the urban adjustments. (Steve McIntyre has provided the data files but I need to climb the R learning curve). Both Ross McKitrick and Tamino have requested such an analysis (not to me directly), so the results should be of interest to a diverse group.
Re #397
steven mosher,
Oh, I know I can do it. I’ve a MS Thesis to my credit involving numerical modeling with hand-rolled FORTRAN code. I just don’t look forward to revisiting those nightmares of being stuck in a DO WHILE loop waiting for the right token to set me free! 😀
Mosh, you’re back to the lowercase laidback look, I’m thinking cutoffs and Birkenstocks now?
—
John V,
Thanks for the response. That’s pretty much what I gathered after getting off my virtual duff and visiting your site. Good luck with taking on R!
So is RC dead? Or are they just being extremely heavy handed on the censorship moderation these days? It seems their recent posts are hardly generating any commentary, even from the usual chorus of their mutual admiration society.
John V, if you have questions on R post them here. I will reply if I know the answer. It is a great tool and I commend you for taking the plunge.
bender:
Thanks. I probably won’t have time to look at it until the weekend.
Please read this and ask if it sounds familiar – complex models with a frail grasp on reality leading to disastrously wrong conclusions
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8158
Re: Mike Hollinshead’s post ( http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=2698#comment-218178 )
Here’s the complete list of published articles. Well worth a read:
Part 1: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=7413
Part 2: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=7813
Part 3: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=7876
Part 4: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8032
Part 5: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8158
Part 6: coming
M.Hollinshead # 403
I like that
There are indeed many remarkable analogies all deriving from the same source – the stock exchange , not less than the climate , is a chaotic non linear system that definitely can’t be interpreted like an average + more or less gaussian “noise” .
The only difference is that wrong models at the stock exchange are punished rather fast while in the climate they hope to last to 2100 and beyond .
@Cbone
The no longer run comments snips on the sidebar. Comments dropped dramatically at that time.
Re: #514
Steve, since Margo’s “Truth or Truthiness” blog has been down for a couple of weeks, (at least, I’d noticed when searching to see what her previous qualms were with models/unphysical viscosities around the time of the “math guy” v. “ladies” thing) maybe you could swap her old link with Lucia’s blog? Also, your link to JEG points to his older blog.
Oh, right. Yes, it’s closer to 7 billion; not sure where 8 came from. 8 is around 2024 estimated, 7 in 3 years, 2011
A billion here, a billion there, .8, 1, .5
🙂
Thanks for the correction.
And talk about a hockey stick…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Population_curve.svg
This may be of interest. I attempted to estimate the forcing due to Cosmic Rays (assuming they contribute) using the forcings provided by lucia here:
http://rankexploits.com/musings/2008/what-does-nasa-mean-by-solar-variations-dont-matter/forcings-in-figure/
According to NASA, the irradiance forcing over the solar cycle is .15 W/m2, and accoring to Shaviv 2005, the LACC effect contributes an extra 1.0+-.4 W/m2 over the cycle. So I multiplied the solar forcing by 6.66… and added it in. This is the result:
Radiative forcing with and without Cosmic Rays (Green and Blue, respectively) relative to 1880
Found this 200 year temp record from Greenland. Graphs as a flat line.
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/greenland/qaqortoq.dat
Some others of interest here:
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/greenland/
Some of these remote places have long temp records and probably little in the way of UHI effect etc.
To me the data is unsullied, and there is zero evidence of any appreciable climate change.
MarkR, plotted it. Looks like warm thirties phenomenon, to me at least. I knew that was what I should expect, of course, but still, very cool.
Which makes it stranger still. On the one hand, they say that Greenland and the arctic will show the climate changes first, and on the other hand they say one record doesn’t show a trend (or that this is “local” and the warming is “global”).
Maybe they’ll just pull out “the list”.
Latest thing for unthreaded:
Hardiness Zone Maps from the Arbor Day Foundation, showing changes, including animation:
http://www.arborday.org/media/mapchanges.cfm
Several zones have shifted north…
Australia’s BoM provides lots of nice graphics, but for some reason doesn’t provide a mean temperature anomaly map. The February 2008 max temp anomaly map shows cool anomalies predominated. The min temp anomaly map shows a similar but less marked pattern. So February will be a cold month anomalywise. This is after January 2008 was the warmest Jan on record.
Interesting series on Icecap : The Sky is Falling … by WILLIAM F. MCCLENNEY. A description of his journey seeking the causes of climate change. I have repeatedly observed that geologists are among the most skeptical of AGW.
Mike Rankin, I have observed that as well. My thoughts on this paper are:
1. Always refreshing to get the geological perspective, with the tendency for rational, object look at paleoclimate data. I observe that here.
2. Unfortunately, his assertions about the effect of CO2 are wrong and will be used against him by the usual nasties.
3. The Sociological aspects seemed garbage to me (But I’m right-wing, so I throw out crap that smells remotely like the thoughts of a hippie acid trip. BTW, please don’t use my political leanings against me. I’m just a kid (with a politics blog)).
4. Love his graphs, but did Homo Sapiens really emerge during and ice age? If so, there’s or answer for the adaptation/mitigation question.
5. The graph of geomagnetism matches the idea that Cosmic Rays effect climate
6. Interesting pictures of those coastlines!
Did Homosapiens emerge during an ice age?
We have been in an ice age for at least the last 30 million years, so the answer is yes. I also find it plausible that we are all descended from a small population of humans who survived the mass die off as a result of the volcanic winter from the Toba eruption 75,000 years ago.
Bender #401
Please put Q&A on R onto the BB topic devoted to that subject. I’m learning R too, so will read it there.
Thanks,
Rich.
#416
What is a “voodoo math thing”?
On the McClenney paper: That the current sea level is 100 feet below the peak in previous interglacials is interesting.
Otherwise, his suggestion that human populations evolved by expanding and then declining with the climate is consistent with mainstream evolutionary theory (google island populations). But evolutionary timescales are similar to geologic timescales and not really relevant to the current climate debate, which is about what is going to happen in the next 100 years, not the next 100,000 years.
Human civilization really began when man discovered he could make beer from wild barley in the middle east, wine from rice in east asia and pulque beer from agave in south america. Obviously, someone said, “Hey let’s settle down and make more of this stuff” to which the majority responded, “That is such a good idea, you are the new tribal leader” and the rest is history.
The extent to which climate change impacted those developments is unknown but rice, barley and agave don’t grow well in ice age conditions.
LOL. I should have said “… when someone discovered one could make beer …”
Yes, alcohol predates civilization. Twice I’ve seen a flock of birds getting soused from rotting mulberries.
==========================================================
If people wish to speculate about civilization and such, it would be wise to read articles like this:
Agriculture, female self-reliance, and non-tropical environments.
After all, if men don’t have to be involved after coitus, they would rather not be.
@Richard
Oh? That’s never been my experience. 🙂
So, out of curiosity, does this ean AGW lead to more polygamy? And small wimpy men who can’t or won’t farm? 😦
Lucia:
It depends.
Craig and Hu. I know you worked together on a published paper using “good” proxies. Would it be possible for you to do one on temperature trends using “good” stations?
Re MarkR, #428, I’ll pass, but it sounds like the others at CA (incl Surfacestations) are well on their way to producing a deurbanized temperature index to rival CRU or GISS. I look forward to seeing it, but not to computing it!
Here’s the first look at February 2008 global temperature.
This uses the NCEP reanalysis data, which is a quick-and-dirty view but which correlates reasonably well with the official reports issued later in the month.
Per the initial NCEP reanalysis report, February 2008 was the 28’th warmest February in the period 1948-2008. This is plotted here on a graph showing how recent months ranked versus their respective records.
The plot also shows how the NCDC analysis, due mid-month, ranked.
Per NCEP, February 2008 was:
16’th warmest in NH (20N-90N)
37’th warmest in the tropics (20N-20S)
35’th warmest in SH (20S-90S)
Can you show that either site (Lampasas or Miami) is having a material impact on:
The locale observed trend;
The regional observed trend; or
The global observed trend?
8:
Seems to me that if your feet are in ice and your hair is on fire today, your less comfortable (by all standards) than your were on average over the past 20 years, say, when your feet were not in ice and your hair was not on fire. And, your probably far less comfortable than your neighbors, fellow citizens, and species as a whole who are not enduring those extreme conditions.
I am just wondering if this entire discussion amounts to anything more than nonsense on stilts. If you can’t show impact on the relevant trends, then what have you shown?
#10: “If you can’t show impact on the relevant trends, then what have you shown?”
Two thoughts. First, if there are proposals to spend trillions of dollars (and undercut environmental progress on several fronts) because an observed trend, it is reasonable to ask if that observed trend is based on solid analysis and scientific research. The burden of proof is on the pro-AGW protagonists to show that the trend is real and severe enough beyond a reasonable doubt.
Second, I suspect — but do not know — that the observed trend would be impacted by corrections. Half of the century’s reported increase in temperature came from adjustments — not from observations, and there was very, very little overall adjustment for UHI.
Mr. Stovepipe says:
You miss the point. This is about due diligence and ensuring that major economic decisions are not being made based on analyses which use flawed data.
This process may end up demonstrating that the various algorithms are robust despite the various issues that have been noted. However, if there are issues we better find them now before the costs of bad economic decisions pile up.
Re #6, #10, #11.
If you look up this recent paper, you will see the problem:
McKitrick, Ross R. and Patrick J. Michaels. (2007) Quantifying the influence of anthropogenic surface processes and inhomogeneities on gridded surface climate data. Journal of Geophysical Research-Atmospheres, in press.
The locale/regional/global observed trend is calculated using, in part, these sites. Therefore they do have an impact. As to the magnitude, that wont be known unless the errors from all affected sites are corrected. I’ll stick my neck out here and say with utter certainty that if all the errors are corrected then the locale/regional/global observed trend will either be higher, lower or the same.
I respectfully disagree. The burden of proof should be on those who, substatnial evidence shows, threaten to change the status quo (i.e., the climate that we have enjoyed for ~ the past 10,000 years and in which civilization as we know it emerged).
Is UHI overstated if it is shown that surface data/ trends substantially match satellite recorded data/trends?
What impact has UHI had on the positive trends observed in the arctic and over the oceans?
#13:
Thank you.
Mr. Stovepipe says:
I find it interesting that you choose the 10,000 time frame because there is little evidence that supports the assertion that the current warming period is unprecedented over the last 10000 years. The temperature reconstructions that claim to show this are not statistically sound which means no conclusions can be drawn from them. OTOH, there are statistically sound reconstructions which do support the thesis that prior periods has a warmth comparable to today.
Mr. Stovepipe says:
The manipulations done to the historical sea temperature data are another issue which has been addressed on this blog. If there are issues with the land record there is no reason to believe that the sea surface record is any better.
The positive trends in the arctic are based on very sparse datasets. More importantly, they show strong correlation with ENSO decadal cycles rather than CO2. The temperatures in Greenland in the 30s where as high as today.
Are you claiming that the climate, and temperatures, have been static for the past 10,000 years and that it’s only now due to manmade CO2 that they are threatening to change? You are aware, I hope, that global temperatures have been above this and often far below todays values numerous times over the last 100 centuries, and you can trace the rise and fall of civilizations to the rising and falling temps. Every major warm period aligns with major advances in human civilization, which is not the case for the cold periods.
The 30 day anomaly map (originally linked to by David Smith) as of Feb 29 continues to show more cool regions than warm but the map is less extreme than January.
http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/map/images/rnl/sfctmpmer_30a.rnl.html
The last 7 days anomaly map shows the majority of areas are now above normal.
http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/map/images/rnl/sfctmpmer_07a.rnl.html
La Nina looks like it is continuing to break up with the eastern area above normal now.
From this, I conclude the cooling trend of the past 12 months is now over.
However, one ominous sign is that the solar flux has recently gone below 70 again (which it only did in October and November 2007 at the very lowest point of the solar cycle.) Hopefully we are not actually heading into a Dalton or Maunder Minimum (might have to put the golf clubs back into storage and break out the snow shoes again.)
http://www.dxlc.com/solar/
Are you claiming that the Holocene is a figment of my imagination?
Re #440, John Lang.
The La Nina is predicted by models to last at least until june. The Nino3.4 is still very low, and the average February SOI is at near record levels. I suspect we may see a few more months yet of cooling.
I’m not so sure that Miami and Lampasas are being presented in such a limited light. Rather, it appears that they are whipping boys for certain people who want to create a specific impression — i.e., that the surface data as a whole is unreliable.
Besides, if surface data substantially agrees with satellite data, why persists? Audits should have a meaningful baseline such that immaterial events are not paraded around as proof of something that they are not. I don’t see the baseline being observed in this case. Rather, I see the exceptions being presented as the rule.
Firstly, they measure different things. That GHG theory predicts similar effects in the two sets of measurements would appear to be a good reason to examine the two sets of measurements.
Secondly, the sattelite data is also adjusted and may be adjusted to the surface data and hence the two sets of measurements are not independant. Unfortunately, we can’t directly observe what may be causing the need for the satellite adjustments.
Thirdly, the phrase ‘substantially agrees’ is synonomous with ‘significantly disagrees’.
Mr. Stovepipe:
Perhaps its only a few stations. Perhaps it many more. Without QC, how can anyone know?
While the large number of samples can average out a few problem sites, a large number of problem sites can affect the whole dataset.
We’ll see where this goes when the survey is complete.
Mr. Stovepipe,
It appears that there have been a number of responses to your questions of me, and I do not intend to repeat them. So here are a couple of other thoughts. First, I want to thank you for your mention of “respectfully disagree.” I appreciate efforts to have a civil conversation. Second, when you mention the “status quo of ten thousand years,” I fear that we have such different understandings of climate history that our discussions may lead to frustrations rather than understanding. Nevertheless, it is not my intention to ignore your questions, and I think I can give you a couple of non-repetitive answers. UHI would not be influencing Arctic and sea readings. It could be that whatever is causing the current Arctic trend also caused it 60 years ago and a century ago and longer ago when the Northwest Passage was also sailable. For sea temperature trends, one sentence cannot capture a hundred hours of investigation, but even if we overcome historic inadequacies in collection methods, it appears that sea temperatures go in cycles and many graphs have been misleading when they do not show the cooling trend that occurred before the recent warming trend. It is very tempting to just rely on satellite data — in which case, the trends over the past few decades show very little cause for concern. However, temperatures from satellites are not an easy procedure — they do not measure temperatures directly. Rather temperatures must be inferred, requiring careful calibration and re-examination of numerous assumptions that to into the calculation. Therefore, it does not seem to be prudent to cast aside efforts to get reliable land temperature data.
“Mr. Stovepipe” is actually Eric McFarland, also known as “Mr. Disingenuous” since he has time to run more posts here and pile on more challenges/questions to waste everyone’s time, but apparently no time to finish the list of questions to be submitted to the COOP manager in Phoenix that he promised in the thread on Miami and “another UFA”.
Still waiting on that “Eric”.
My advice now is the same as Mosh’s earlier in that thread: “don’t engage him”
Noted, and well said Anthony.
Our website biocab.org has been disabled for problems from outside our organization. We are rebuilding the site at http://www.biocab.info
Thanks
Mr. Stovepipe:
Perhaps you could provide us with a barrage of evidence for stability (ie, flatness) over the last 10,000 years. I have seen nothing of the kind (except some certain studies which you would be unwise to reference here).
Near as I can tell, your mental picture of the holocene is imaginary.
Steve: Andrew, take a look at Greenland isotopes. In a glacial-interglacial perspective, the Holocene is quite stable.
# 410
Andrew,
And that without taking into account the Cosmic Ray detected by Voyagers in 2005.
Nasif, technically yes, that graph ends in 2003!
Steve:
I actually was just looking at those. Yes of course, you are correct, from a glacial/interglacial perspective variations within the Holocene are small fluctuations. But if we compare changes only within the Holocene to the present, the variations are much bigger than the most recent warming:
http://mclean.ch/climate/Ice_cores.htm
Which contradicts the Stovepipe and his happy flat Holocene.
Mr Stovepipe:
Trends fit to Crut and GISS Met data disagree by 0.16 C a century over long time periods. And these are based on nearly the same thermometer measurements. Recently, the trends between HadCrut and GISS LandOcean differ by 1C/century.
The 1C/century spread is large compared to the IPCC estimate of a mean trend of 2.0 C/century for the next 20 years. The difference is large enough to interfere with our ability to bound the upper and lower bounds of warming based on data in any reasonable period of time.
I should think investigating data issues would be considered worthwhile particulary if we believe in warming. How are we going to convince people warming is continuuing if the uncertainty in measurements is so large we can’t distinguish between the IPCC’s recent predictions and “no warming”?
Certainly, a bold prediction on the cutting edge of climate science. I salute your willingness to tackle this issue with such a statement, which might subject you to scorn and derision in your field. Kudos!
Mr. Whatisthat:
I am Mr. Stovepipe’s attorney. He strongly resents you identifying him with that insufferable cur, Eric McFarland. Please cease and desist from making any further unwarranted identifications or associations with that thoroughly discredited individual.
Mr. Stovepipe sends his regards and thanks you for your cooperation.
Sincerely,
Hoot Owl, Esq.
Steve: Please stop being annoying. It takes up bandwidth. BTW it is my understanding that it is an offence to hold yourself out as an attorney if you are not qualified as one. If you are an attorney, I believe that it is malpractice to hold yourself out as being an attorney for a pseudonymous client if you are actually representing yourself.
I say disbar him.
I assure you that I will not being suing myself for malpractice. In fact, I just signed a full release of all claims with myself in exchange for a ham sandwich.
In any case, point taken … nobody wants to be annoying.
A call for papers from The International Journal of Forecasting that may interest CA readers:
Decision Science News
The Heartland Institute Conference has released its rebuttal to the IPCC scaremongering:
Click to access 22835.pdf
There is a little media publicized “2008 International Conference on Climate Change” being held in New York City March 2-4.
Some ofour contributors are there. Hopefully we can get a report later.
http://www.heartland.org/NewYork08/program.cfm
This is also interesting, strategies for decision making:
Doomsday Called Off
CBC newsworld documentary (2004) – video 43:59 mins
Extremely lucid presentation of the counter AGW argumments.
Essential viewing for those who missed it!
I noticed that folks at Tamino are bashing Steve Mc over the archiving issue.
They are claiming that the archiving requirements never applied to raw data and that all of the processed data presented in the papers by Thopmson et. al. has been properly archived.
I don’t know enough about the topic to understand whether this statement is accurate. It certainly sounds reasonable but I know there is more to it. I tried searching CA but did not find any direct answer. Can anyone help?
If they aren’t archiving the raw data and the methods used for adjusting the data, then they are declaring that we should trust them that the adjustments are accurate.
If that were the standard, why don’t they just publish a summary of the study and tell us to trust them that the rest of the study was properly done.
Character assassins such as Tamino may be successful when there is at least a shard of truth in their diatribes. But defending the indefensible is pointless. All it does is bring attention to the problem. I expect Lonnie Thompson doesn’t want Tamino picking at the scab of his pathetic archiving practices.
For NSF funds the intent is clear:
NSF Grant General Conditions (version from 1995)
To argue that Dr. Thompson is compliant with the letter and spirit of the NSF grant conditions is to argue the indefensible, no matter what clever defense they employ.
Hi
I’m not sure how many people have seen the post on the Message Board part of CA about Beck’s reassessment of the historical CO2 record, but it is a fascinating thread with links to downloads of the Beck paper (2007) as a PDF. As a first time poster (architect married to a very skeptical geologist wife) I was hoping that our host Mr Steve McIntyre might care to comment on the paper and perhaps start a thread on the main board of CA about it. To my eye it blows a big hole in the theory that historic C02 levels were constant at around 280ppm. And if this is blown then the AGW hypothesis starts to wobble more than a little I would think. Interested in any other comments from more experienced people than me.
cheers from Australia
Neil
Steve: The Beck material has been refuted in a number of places and I won’t allow any bandwidth at the blog on this matter.
Cool down under
But warm up north:
oops:
http://www.mercurynews.com/breakingnews/ci_8449896
Steve: The snow seems to have landed in Toronto, where we had record snowfall in February.
Seems that climate studies are not the only area where data goes missing:
Why Can’t a Woman Be More Like a Man?
Hidden away on page 25 of the March 5, 2008 Winnipeg Sun is a headline entitled GREENLAND MELT. The title is deceiving as well as what the short article does not say. At first glance it suggests that the the Greenland ice sheet is getting warmer and could add seven metres to the sea level. This feeds right in to those who are proclaiming that we are doomed. However, if one is really interested, and does not accept all they hear, then you search for the complete NASA study (published in Journal of Glaciology) and read it. Now we find that the total mass of ice in Greenland has actually /*increased*/ in the last decade, while the mass in Antarctica has decreased giving a net world loss. And the scientists have also found that the contribution of melting ice to sea level rise is much less than expected – only /*two percent*/ of the three millimetres a year!
The issue with record snow could be excess relative warmth and moister in the air. You usually do not get so much snow in a cold and dry season … such as Feb.?
Steve: Precip in Toronto is distributed throughout the year. Feb isn’t “cold and dry” per se. There have been other high snowfall years and this year is not an overall snowfall record.
For those who appreciate “mathyness”.
http://ftp.mct.gov.br/Clima/ingles/negoc/proposta.htm
Scrabble,
Experts here are no longer careful with that.
http://www.iltalehti.fi/uutiset/200802287312567_uu.shtml
FMI’s Director General Taalas sayz 1.5 C of the warm winter can be attributed to global warming. (+7 C in 2080, if nothing is done to mitigate AGW)
Dec-Feb temps in Helsinki and Sodankylä:
Taalas is bidding some 0.5C higher than other FMI experts: The warmest winter in Finnish measurement history.
UC
Scandavavia has just had its warmest winter on record due mainly to an upper anticyclone over central europe which has been stuck there virtually the whole of 2007 through feb 2008. The big question is why?
D’Aleo recently went some way to outlineing a reason for this. His paper was on Icecap I think.
Christy on recent trends:
Click to access Twelve_months_of_cooling.pdf
Although its worth noting that if we look at RSS, its actually slight cooling from Jan 1998 to Jan 2008 (not a “climate trend” either, yet). Is Feb 2008 out yet?
The 0.71 from 4-98 to 4-99 was also going from a record breaking El Nino to a record breaking La Nina. The 0.59 drop in the last month comes off of a rather wimpy El Nino, to a La Nina that is not as strong as the 1999 La Nina.
It is a bit curious to have this apparent unseasonal warming in a region that arguably has (let us say) far less UHI than the US — i.e., where the UHI appears to get the most credit and play … or at least in some circles. At the end of the day (vortex or not) the extra heat has to come from some other place … and with La Nina on … it aint likely being pumped in from the South or the Tropics … or at least I would venture to make that argument. But, what do I know … I’m just a man on the street.
What evidence do you have that UHI effects are less there than in the US?
Ever been to Helsinki?
Warwick Hughes’ graph of Helsinki
482:
No. But, I’ve never taken a dip in the Gulf of Finland either.
I’ve only been as far north as Denmark. Good butter … pretty ladies.
It’s a good thing there no no confounding variables in this little mind game…
source
It’s all anecdotal … I know:
http://www.hs.fi/english/article/Climate+change+boosts+eutrophication+in+Gulf+of+Finland+/1135234603147
483:
I take that back … I’ve been to Orkney. Don’t recall the ladies or the butter. But, I do recall that the tea tasted like fish.
The claim “[Helsinki has] far less UHI than the US” is not countered by pointing out nearby areas that have warmed.
487:
Unless I am missing something … my original post was broader than Helsinki.
E.g.:
In any case … one winter doth not AGW make. My comment simply was that it was “curious” … and “arguably”.
This raises an interesting question though: Is there some measure or index for quantifying UHI generally and/or specifically from region to region?
I note that UHI is often discussed and asserted as a cause … but I have yet to see it quantified in any rational or readily measurable fashion.
But, again, I am just a man on the street … what do I know?
http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/features/storm/story.html?id=be9980ed-e93e-4275-8dcf-d8a9668d9332&k=62833
The seasonal forecast for eastern Canada is for temperatures below normal. This year is already the second snowiest year on record with very cool temperatures.
#482: That’s an old version of this graph:
The thin smoothed red line gives an estimate for UHI-adjusted temperatures in Helsinki (Kaisaniemi).
This seems to be a paper worth checking out.
“Runaway greenhouse theories contradict energy balance equations,” Miskolczi states. Just as the theory of relativity sets an upper limit on velocity, his theory sets an upper limit on the greenhouse effect, a limit which prevents it from warming the Earth more than a certain amount.
How did modern researchers make such a mistake? They relied upon equations derived over 80 years ago, equations which left off one term from the final solution.
Miskolczi’s story reads like a book. Looking at a series of differential equations for the greenhouse effect, he noticed the solution — originally done in 1922 by Arthur Milne, but still used by climate researchers today — ignored boundary conditions by assuming an “infinitely thick” atmosphere. Similar assumptions are common when solving differential equations; they simplify the calculations and often result in a result that still very closely matches reality. But not always.
So Miskolczi re-derived the solution, this time using the proper boundary conditions for an atmosphere that is not infinite. His result included a new term, which acts as a negative feedback to counter the positive forcing. At low levels, the new term means a small difference … but as greenhouse gases rise, the negative feedback predominates, forcing values back down.
Click to access vol111001_01.pdf
#492
This is way beyond me. If it says this then surely others have commented or rebutted the arguments? Since the paper looks to be a year old were there any responses in this Journal? Or perhaps this is completely off topic for this blog?
The UAH global temperature anomaly value for February is +0.02C
#492
Lubos says he is going to look at it. There are as yet no other comments showing based on a Google search.
Quick, why doesn’t somebody ask how UHI could possibly get out of being confined within spatial extent, and show how weather patterns couldn’t possibly move it to the poles, nor that fossil fuel use couldn’t possibly get to the poles to land particulates on ice and melt them.
496 Sam
Have they forgotten tele-connections already?
Andrew #478
Can you explain the units on the x-axis?
Soot certainly will help melt ice … but I don’t see how heat from, say, Helsinki could make it to, say, the Arctic (kinetics and magic aside) … where both warming and melting are pronounced. Propose a mechanism? Wind is not a likely culprit in my book.
BTW — what is the name of that big city in the Arctic again?
Gerry Browning and Tom Vonk where are you?
Click to access vol111001_01.pdf
RE 499 brilliant insight. Get much coal for for christmas.
501:
It’s ok not to know. It just seems like UHI gets kicked around a lot … but no one seems to have anything material to say about how it contributes (both dierctly and/or proximately) to the observed warming.
re 502. On the contrary, Jones, hansen, peterson, and parker– climate scientists all–
all deny that there is such a thing as significant UHI. Despite the other climate scientists who argue that our cities are UHI infected and can curb UHI through green roofs, planting trees .. etc etc etc.
I don’t have to explain that contradiction. Sierra Club does. hehe.
I’m not convinced that soot or black carbon will in fact help melt polar ice. At first glance, adding a dark covering seems like it will absorb more heat and allow the ice to melt quicker. A sand or dirt particle will also melt right through snow to the bottom.
But any kind of covering on ice acts as an insulator keeping the “cold” in. In the early icebox days, the ice companies would put straw over the ice they harvested in the winter months and ice blocks could still be used well into the summer and fall.
In colder climates, the ice which melts last is the ice which is covered by the sand spread and dumped over icy roads for traction. The snow and ice which melts last is the snow and ice dumps from municipal snow-clearing which is also covered in sand and dirt from the roads. I have seen them finally completely melting from the hottest days in July.
Glaciers are always covered in dust and dirt and this simply acts as an insulator to keep the glacial ice from melting.
503:
Do they say that there is no such thing as UHI? Such as (enter voice of J. Hansen) “no, your aged grandmother was not cooked by UHI effects, which are the product of an urban myth”?
Or, do they say, (ditto) “no, UHI has no material impact on the historic surface temp. record, notwithstanding the fact that it is a real phenomena and very likely contributed to the cooking of your aged grandmother last summer.”?
I bet it’s more like the latter … which arguably makes sense.
Arguably … that’s just the last of the snow and ice … which tends to be very dirty. Black soot most certainly aids melting as it alters albedo … or at least I would think so.
The updated UAH lower troposphere anomaly plot is here . To me this looks like a normal La Nina pattern. It’ll be interesting to see how this progresses through 2008.
ERIC Pay attention.
Chicagoland. Thousands of square miles of concrete asphalt and buildings. Abosrbs heat. Heat goes up out and over. Makes particulates from cars driving. Wind rain and temperature gradients move both to OTHER PLACES.
End of science lesson.
John Lang:
Ice reflects sunlight, so it doesn’t need insulation. Something on it that lowers the albedo causes it to absorb sunlight. Is albedo lessening creating more heat than soot is insulating the ice? No, because if it’s reflecting all the IR, it doesn’t need insulation.
I know UHI can cause more rain down wind … perhaps up to 40 miles. But, cause the observed warming in the Arctic and over the oceans … I don’t see it. The magnitude is just too big.
I saw Miskolczi speak. Very convincing. He fits empirical data very well, not just theory. I think this falls under “a derivation of the 2.5 deg forcing figure” except he says that figure is much too high.
Eric: no one says UHI is warming the oceans or even the land, just the thermometers. In some areas of the earth it is hard to find a “rural” weather station.
Where do you live? That may seem true because that snow is piled up in large banks by plows and loaders, and compressed into harder ice, but if, and I have done this, you throw an handful of sand, or a rock on a frozen lake, it will melt through till it gets out of the sun, leaving a hole like a cartoon character leaves going through a wall.
Did Steve Schwartz use the Mizcolczi equation?
==========================
It strikes me that the observed warming in the Arctic and over the seas poses a real challenge for the UHI theory, though. As does satellite data which suggest that surface data is not affected by UHI because the satellite data and surface data track — at least for last 30 odd years. Was Nimbus (??) the first weather satellite … at any rate, the dates are ball park correct.
BTW – I think that I am starting to sound like a broken record.
“BTW – I think that I am starting to sound like a broken record.”
Hadn’t noticed.
@Kim-
No Schwartz did not use Mizcolczi. Schwartz approach is different and estimates sensitivity from temperature measurements. He assumed the anomalous forcing is white noise.
Lucia:
Have you unravelled Mizcolczi’s model?
Eric McF, you say:
As always, it is a question of degree. Yes, some parts of the Arctic are warming … but other parts are not. But what does that have to do with UHI? One of the places with the largest measured UHI differentials is Point Barrow, in Alaska, and another one is Fairbanks. So yes, some parts of the Arctic are warming but there is still UHI even in Barrow.
And perhaps you could point to a citation for the claim that the satellite and surface data agree, because that’s part of the problem. Not only do the satellites not agree with the surface data, the surface data doesn’t even agree with itself (do an analysis of HadCRUT vs GISS, it’s ugly).
w.
Bernie–
Nope. But I can tell it’s not related to Schwartz’s! It’s a different sort of thing.
The sort of thing Schwartz did falls well inside my knowledge base. Mizcolczi paper would require me to think … a lot…. And I’m trying to do something else right now, so I’ll let Lubos deal with that. 🙂
Willis–
What do you mean? Hadley and GISS disagree? What’s a 1C/century nominal trend in the difference bewteen GISS and Hadly temperature anomalies over a decade? So what if that’s one half the average trend predicted by the IPCC. In thirty years, I’m sure the errors will all average out. Meanwhile, I say embrace the error bars and just say the agreement is “good”. 🙂
I started a thread over on another website looking at the correlations between two similar systems. System A is intimately connected to system B. However, the connection between system B to system A is unknown. The question of “What would a statistician say?” keeps coming up. Would a statistician from this blog please take a look at what I have done and let me know what mistakes I have made? Whether or not my r^2 values are irrelevant due to my use of averages? Statistically is it even possible to draw any conclusions from this situation? Am I going to get listed on “Bad_Statistics.com?
Here is my analysis so far.
I would like to see that one too. I am not sure that such a citation exists, unless this is a Gavin style 2sigma close enough for agitprop type agreement. I have also read that the satelite data is adjusted so that it agrees better with the surface data, but this was in a blog comment somewhere, so I am not asserting it as truth, just wonder if anybody knows.
#520
IMO Yule’s 26 paper, (often cited by Steve)
Why do we Sometimes get Nonsense-Correlations between Time-Series?–A Study in Sampling and the Nature of Time-Series G. Udny Yule, Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Vol. 89, No. 1. (Jan., 1926), pp. 1-63.
is a good start. Distribution of sample correlation is sometimes very non-Gaussian :
Eric McFarland says:
March 6th, 2008 at 5:27 pm
The surface of the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas is being polluted by the oil industry. I would be interested in the emissivity changes this causes — for example, is there an asymmetry between short wave (incoming) and outgoing (longwave) radiation for ruffled and unruffled surfaces? A smooth surface will run colder quicker as the warmer sub-surface water is not drawn so quickly to the surface and thus retain oceanic heat. Smoothed surfaces warm the ocean. (There was a recent reference to a paper studying emissivity which had a series of graphs of cyclical wind-speed variation. Examine that and explain the interesting notch between 1939 and 1945, a 2m/s increase, pronounced in the NH, smeared in the south — and then please give me the reference, I’ve lost it).
Smoothed sea surfaces produce fewer hygroscopic particles and thus less cloud in the boundary layer. I would like to see the low level cloud cover data for the Bering Strait area in the last forty years.
Barrow: its global warming footprint is huge, up there with multi-million cities like Peking. Not CO2, of course, but in its effect on the ocean surface from the oil industry.
BTW, our host dislikes speculation on causes: I feel this is an error* when confined to the play area that is Unthreaded. Judging by the HADCRUT SSTs and ignoring the Folland and Parker correction, the world has been warming at .14 deg/decade for the last 100 yrs. correcting back to that rate when it strays too far — see the current cooling and the prolonged response to the WWII temperature excursion. (I note with interest that the latest McKitrick calculation begins to come down closer to that level, .17 I believe). When one considers that the ocean surface is 70% of the total area then it seems short-sighted to concentrate only on the land record. Once the notion that the Earth is warming is accepted, but that CO2 is an insufficient cause, then speculation will be the way forward, but not here — this is a narrow focus blog.
Perhaps, Eric, you should take your question to the message board?
JF
*But it is his blog, so I won’t be commenting further.
NASA disagrees, they blame the melting almost entirely on changes in wind circulation patterns.
Not surprised that you don’t want to know this, but a recent paper (McKittrik?) found that at least half of the recent warming is due to UHI.
Wills,
Eric is trying to claim that since the arctic is warming, global warming is real, and therefore UHI is not increasing.
It doesn’t contribute to “warming”, it contributes to a spurious signature of warming in the surface temp, which has been copiously documented. I know this is a subtle idea, but you might try attempting to understand it.
My analysis in Europe shows that UHI ss (i.e. city growth due to urbanisation) hat little effect on the observed annual average temperature in Central Europe. By far the biggest effect on raw measurements is the change of the WMO observation procedure, and subsequent sensor movements in 1950.
I did not investigate the effects of rural land use change in the 20th century, but I expect it to be significant.
climate science has a paper on rural land use changes in New Jersey and it’s impact on climate.
http://climatesci.org/2008/03/07/evaluating-the-effects-of-historical-land-cover-change-by-wichansky-et-al-2008/
@Erik
Actually, GISS and Hadley appear to be saying there is an UHI effect, and it is significant enough to distort the surface temperature record. They think the magnitude is large enough to devise and implement a method to correct for this effect. SteveM is commenting on the efficacy of their method, and its implementation.
re: Andrew, March 7th, 2008 at 8:17 am
In today’s WSJ Science Journal, “Climate Watchers Place Own Big Bet On Alaska’s Thaw”, there is discussion of the Tanana River ice break up and the Nenana Ice Classic. The following statement in the article, with it’s reference to the narcissus, “The crocus and narcissus at the U.K.’s Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew flowered a week earlier than last year — 11 days ahead of their average for the decade and weeks ahead of their pattern in the 1980s.”, for some reason …
MarkW
The Michaels & McKitrick paper isn’t Heat Island per se, as it tests for any socioeconomic signals and attempts to correct for them. Socioeconomic signals would include land use changes in rural areas etc.
The Toronto Globe and Mail is the establishment newspaper in Canada. it has taken onto itself the role of AGW spokesman in Canada. Today, it has a colimn from one of its business columnists about the lack of snow in Europe and the effect that AGW will have on the ski industry. Since this coulmnist is based in Europe, it appears that he is not aware of the current conditions in Canada. The following is a weather warning issued for Saturday. This is one of the snowiest winters in history for Canada. A storm with 30 to 50cm (12 to 18 inches) of snow must disprove AGW if lack of snow in Europe proves it.
..WINTER STORM EXPECTED TO GIVE HEAVY SNOW SATURDAY.. THIS IS AN ALERT TO THE POTENTIAL DEVELOPMENT OF DANGEROUS WINTER WEATHER CONDITIONS IN THESE REGIONS. MONITOR WEATHER CONDITIONS..LISTEN FOR UPDATED STATEMENTS.
A STORM IS CURRENTLY OVER ALABAMA AND WILL PUSH NORTHWARD TODAY GIVING SIGNIFICANT SNOW TO MOST OF SOUTHERN ONTARIO. IT APPEARS THAT THE SNOW WILL COME IN TWO DOSES. THE FIRST ROUND WILL BEGIN AS EARLY AS THIS AFTERNOON FOR SOUTHWESTERN ONTARIO AND NIAGARA THEN LATER TODAY IN EASTERN ONTARIO. WE MAY HAVE A BRIEF REPRIEVE OVERNIGHT INTO SATURDAY MORNING WHERE SNOW MAY BECOME LIGHT AND MORE INTERMITTENT. THE HEAVIEST SNOWFALL IS THEN EXPECTED IN THE SECOND ROUND BEGINNING MIDDAY SATURDAY IN THE SOUTHWEST AND IN THE AFTERNOON OVER EASTERN ONTARIO. KEEP IN MIND THAT THE SNOWFALL DURATION WILL BE ABOUT 36 HOURS BUT THE HEAVIEST SNOW WILL BE SATURDAY AFTERNOON INTO THE EVENING. SNOWFALL WARNINGS HAVE BEEN ISSUED FROM LONG POINT TO THE NIAGARA PENINSULA DUE TO SIGNIFICANT SNOWFALL ACCUMULATIONS OF 15 TO 20 CENTIMETRES WITH THE FIRST DOSE. THESE AREAS WILL LIKELY BE UPGRADED TO A WINTER STORM WARNING DUE TO ADDITIONAL SNOWFALL AND BLOWING SNOW AS THE SECOND ROUND APPROACHES. STORM TOTALS MAY BE 20 TO 30 CENTIMETRES ALONG AND EAST OF A LINE FROM LONG POINT TO THE GOLDEN HORSESHOE THEN TO PETAWAWA. THERE IS POTENTIAL FOR 30 TO 50 CENTIMETRES OF SNOW OVER THE NIAGARA PENINSULA AND PARTS OF EASTERN ONTARIO. AREAS WEST OF THE LONG POINT TO PETAWAWA LINE SHOULD SEE BETWEEN 10 TO 20 CENTIMETRES WITH LESSER AMOUNTS NEAR LAKE HURON AND GEORGIAN BAY. BEHIND THIS SYSTEM STRONG NORTHERLY WINDS TO 70 KM/H ARE POSSIBLE. ON SATURDAY STRONG WINDS COMBINED WITH FRESH SNOW WILL CAUSE BLOWING SNOW TO LOWER VISIBILITIES AND CREATE DANGEROUS DRIVING CONDITIONS. WHITEOUT CONDITIONS FROM HEAVY SNOW AND BLOWING SNOW ARE POSSIBLE SO TRAVELLERS SHOULD BE PREPARED TO CHANGE THEIR PLANS ACCORDINGLY. TOTAL SNOWFALL AMOUNTS WILL DEPEND ON THE TRACK OF THIS SYSTEM AND THE AMOUNT OF MOISTURE AVAILABLE TO CONVERT TO SNOW. THERE IS STILL SOME UNCERTAINTY AS TO THE EXACT TRACK OF THIS STORM. ENVIRONMENT CANADA WILL CLOSELY MONITOR THIS SITUATION AND ISSUE SNOWFALL OR WINTER STORM WARNINGS AS REQUIRED WITHIN THE NEXT 24 HOURS. WINTER STORM WARNINGS ARE ISSUED WHEN SNOWFALL OF 25 CENTIMETRES IS EXPECTED IN 24 HOURS OR LESS..OR WHEN SNOWFALL COMBINED WITH BLOWING SNOW CREATES SIGNIFICANT AND POSSIBLY DANGEROUS WEATHER RELATED HAZARDS.
PLEASE REFER TO THE LATEST PUBLIC FORECASTS FOR FURTHER DETAILS
stan, here are the one-year and ten-year snowcover trends for the Northern Hemisphere. This northern winter has been unusually snowy, on average, especially in the Eastern Hemisphere (China).
Jeepers people:
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/2237157100v1
I’m sure there’s more curent thinking on this too.
Soot … UHI here?
And then … he huffed and he puffed:
Any further detail about that graph in 539? Could you tell us where it came from and how it was drawn?
540:
Just go to the main link and poke around. I am sure that Steve is familiar with the graph and has no material criticism re what it represents. Steve?
re: 540 Yorick
You can find the write-up on the Global Warming Art (?) website:
Description for the image is here
40 miles? 10 miles? 100 miles? Yes, indeed.
Radiation from a steam explosion in Ukraine was found 1000 miles away in Great Britain.
So, no, there’s no way anything could possibly get out of the static UHI zone, never in a millyunnnn years.
Weather patterns in a box, weather patterns with a fox. Weather patterns in house, weather patterns with a mouse. Will you see the wind and rain? Can energy from Denver get to Spain? Would you like to watch the sea? Can you stand up on a pea?
Here’s a real question. Assume, arguendo, that UHI is substantially driving the observed warming. Is that not AGW? And, cause for concern? Perhaps concern enough to curb ggs which trap UHI effects?
[snip – no policy]
Info one the soot paper for you:
http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/2005/04/05/is-soot-not-co2-to-blame-for-the-loss-of-arctic-ice/#more-87
Reference:
Koch, D., and J. Hansen 2005. Distant origins of Arctic black carbon: A Goddard Institute for Space Studies ModelE experiment. Journal of Geophysical Research, 110, D04204, doi:10.1029/2004JD005296.
By the way, the arctic fingerprint doesn’t match.
The relevant issue is obtaining a representative sample. If we could cover the earth’s surface with temperature sensors 50 meters appart that made observations every 6 minutes, there wouldn’t be much need for adjustments or weighting.
If on the other hand, you have (for the sake of comparison) 1,000 US stations, with 500 being located in urban areas and 500 in rural, then an unweighted, unadjusted average wouldn’t make much sense, unless you want to believe that 50% of the US surface area is urbanized.
So in my opinion temperatures recorded in urban areas are okay only to the extent that they are appropriately weighted (for representativeness) in the overall average.
Ah, yes, now you’re talking.
(Actually, it’s a little silly to ask if UHI can get to the poles, don’t you think? There’s no cities there (not really, compared to the NH) so how would the AGHG and particulates from fossil fuels get there if the UHI couldn’t?)
In any case.
I’m not just talking the mega cities, the thousands of square mile metro areas; it’s also all the farmland to feed 7 billionish people and the roads between those farms, and the freeways and railroad beds, and so on. They are all anthro. We have, since 1750, put in “so much albedo” that yes, we are affecting things with UHI.
Leaving aside the questions of the meaning of the anomaly, there is certain to be some part of what people do increasing what energy is converted from the sun. If that’s a net effect overall or not, well, it’s not been demonstrated to my satisfaction one way or the other, although my personal feeling is that it does add heat overall.
So perhaps contrary to popular belief, not only do I believe humans impact the environment, I believe we add heat. Why everyone is so upset about checking to see if the stations are giving us good information, and if the scientists are gathering and processing what we do know correctly, I have no idea. As always, the question is; do we have enough information, and is what we have sufficient to do more than give us a personal feeling? I say no. But I believe there is AGW; how do we measure it? After ingesting the information related to that, I have to say not. Not the way we are. So I’m a suspender not an alarmer or a denier. 🙂
The answer to your question is that tracing back the issues we hit the cause of population and technology as the answer to both fossil fuel use and land-use changes. Then it really becomes immaterial which is how much of what.
So now we can ask the real question. Since we can’t reverse population and technology (short of drastic measures far worse than the effects of even 5 C of warming) shouldn’t we focus on alternative, renewable energy sources and conservation and efficiency? Can anyone reliably say that removing 100 ppmv of carbon dioxide would reduce the warming? I don’t think so, and it logically smacks of a cause/effect postulated simply because of wishing an answer.
#543, Eric:
Ditto to what Mike B said.
I’d point out a large logical hole in your rhetorical conclusion, however. You generously assumed for argument’s sake that most observed warming is the result of UHI [man-made = certainly localized AGW]. That would be cause for concern because it would tend to increase urban power consumption for A/C in the summer, which would tend to increase the market price of energy in general, which would tend to reduce people’s standard of living – especially poor people’s.
There is no stated reason to convince one that urban heat is trapped in a town by GHG five miles up, however. It would seem that the better solutions to reducing the postulated local UHI might be planting shade trees and choosing different surface colors, rather than forcing everybody on Earth to pay higher prices and to waste resources prematurely replacing durable goods and machinery.
The snip of the end section of my post, #531, M. Jeff, March 7th, 2008 at 10:18 am, may be warranted, but without identifying that a snip has been implemented, the meaning of my original post is totally lost. However, I’m not complaining. Because the AGW adherents seem to be in a minority here, it may be in the interests of fairness to snip the skeptics more aggressively.
GHG’s have absolutely nothing to do with UHI.
So even the elimination of anthropogenic CO2 will do nothing to reduce UHI.
The only way to get rid of UHI is to get rid of cities.
I was just walking my dog on my still frozen driveway (will spring never come?) and there was a dried up leaf that had been blown onto the ice by the wind and in the sunshine it melted a leaf-shaped hole into the ice about an inch down. It is not hard to imagine soot particles burning into the ice. If the ice is clear, they will still burn a ways in, rotting the ice, allowing air into areas that would normally be insulated. This is common sense and common experience.
If UHI is pronounced enough to, let us say, inflame the anomaly, and given what we know about the physics of GHGs and the earth energy balance, would that not be cause for concern?
The solution, arguably, would not be to eliminate cities, but to eliminate the gas that traps the heat and prevents it from radiating into space. That would not reduce/mitigate local effects, per se, but would mitigate the global warming impacts, perhaps.
Eric M., thank you for your replies. I think you misunderstand my position, I suspect my writing is not as clear as it might be. Let me attempt to rectify that by restating my beliefs.
1. Is the globe warming? Yes, at least up until 2000, it has been warming at about half a degree per century since about 1650. Since 2000, however, there is no sign of warming.
2. Is the Arctic warming? It is warm compared to 1950 … but not compared to 1930. In addition, the overwhelming majority of the warming happened in a single step around 1976, consistent with the change in the PDO. Since then, there has not been a lot of change. See the Fairbanks or Anchorage temperatures as a couple of many examples.
3. Is there UHI? Undoubtedly. It has been scientifically measured in a variety of places, including Fairbanks and Anchorage. This means that in fact, some parts of the arctic have been cooling since the big jump in 1976.
4. Is UHI “responsible” for the warming as you ask arguendo? No. The world is a large place and the cities are small. What UHI is responsible for warming are our thermometers, which are by and large in areas subject to UHI. In addition, as far as I know, no one has shown that GHGs can “trap” the UHI.
5. Do GHGs warm the atmosphere? In all likelihood yes, but that is not the question in dispute. The question is, how much? The estimates rage from 0.1°K/W-m2 up to 1.5°K/W-m2, with no reduction in the range of the estimates despite thirty years of study.
6. Does soot heat the planet? Likely, but unknown at this point. The problem is, when soot is in the air, it cools the planet, but when it is on the ground, it warms the planet. Unfortunately, the paper by Hansen is a joke. If you don’t see why, I fear there is little I can do to help … but as a first cut at one of many issues with the paper, let me say that NASA showed last year that the reduction in snow/ice albedo was almost exactly balanced by the increase in Arctic cloud albedo over the time frame of the study. For Hansen to totally ignore that study is … well, let me be generous and merely call it typical of his attention to detail. Oh, and as a second cut, note that he claims that the warming due to the change in albedo forcing can be as high as 2.25°K/W-m2 … which he knows, of course, because his model told him so …
The problems with climate science are many. One is the blind faith in untested climate models. I have been writing computer programs for 45 years now, and I know garbage when I see it. The climate models are tinkertoy assemblages, loaded with tunable factors that allow any desired outcome.
A second problem is our abysmally poor understanding of the climate. For example, last week it was announced that one of the main cloud nuclei is … wait for it … bacteria. How long have we been studying this, and we just now find out that bacteria are a major factor in the climate. This points at the third problem, the claim that “the science is settled.” Settled? We are so far from understanding the climate that absolutely nothing is “settled”, not even what clouds are made of.
A problem related to this one is the “trust me, I’m a climate scientist” phenomenon. Sorry, Eric, but at this point I’ve been lied to by PhD holders too many times. I’ve gotten where I don’t trust a word Hansen says. He may be right once in a while, but he’s the boy who cried wolf. I just use him to point me to the truth, by a simple mechanism … whatever direction he’s going, it reduces the odds that the truth will be found in that direction.
Finally, is there a “conspiracy”? Are the scientists deliberately dissembling? Although there is the occasional Mann who breaks the mold, by and large I would say no to both questions. They are just so invested in the idea of AGW that they ignore everything that doesn’t fit their world view.
All the best to you,
w.
PS – the huff and puff chart you refer to above shows about a 1°K/century difference between the satellite trends and the surface trend, with the surface trend being larger. I’m not sure what house you are huffing and puffing to blow down, but surely you don’t think that the graphic shows that the trends are in agreement or that UHI doesn’t exist … or do you?
RE 543. Eric here is some fun stuff to read
We analyze historical (1900-present) and recent (year 2002) data on New York City’s urban heat island (UHI) effect, to characterize changes over time and spatially within the city. The historical annual data show that UHI intensification is responsible for ~1/3 of the total warming the city has experienced since 1900. The intensification correlates with a significant drop in windspeed over the century, likely due to an increase in the urban boundary layer as Manhattan’s extensive skyline development unfolded. For the current-day, using 2002 data, we calculate the hourly and seasonal strength of the city’s UHI for five different case study areas, including sites in Manhattan, Bronx, Queens and Brooklyn. We find substantial intra-city variation (~2°C) in the strength of the hourly UHI, with some locations showing daytime cool islands — i.e., temperatures lower than the average of the distant non-urban stations, while others, at the same time, show daytime heat islands. The variations are not easily explained in terms of land surface characteristics such as building stock, population, vegetation fraction or radiometric surface temperatures from remote sensing. Although it has been suggested that stations within urban parks will underestimate UHI, the Central Park station does not show a significant underestimate, except marginally during summer nights. The intra-city heat island variations in the residential areas broadly correlate with summertime electricity demand and sensitivity to temperature increases. This relationship will have practical value for energy demand management policy, as it will help prioritize areas for UHI mitigation
That’s a good place to start. go get that paper and share it with us.
#553, excellent prose, Willis, thank you. I’ve just figured out Freeman Dyson is not a PhD.
================================
You’ll have to explain this to me … because I am not as smart as you guys.
What I think it shows (at a minimum) is that the UHI impact on recorded temp trends is over stated. Otherwise, there would not be a correlation (fairly close too) between surface and satellite measurements.
We opened our last show with “Albedo Rising” and closed with our experimental (long) bit called “Asynchronous Changes: A Punk Symphony In Three Fits”
Eric, your “huff and puff” chart is about 3 years out of date. Please don’t post links to old data. The numbers have declined by 0.5C since these charts were produced.
http://www.remss.com/msu/msu_data_description.html#msu_amsu_time_series
http://www.atmos.uah.edu/data/msu/t2lt/tltglhmam_5.2
You folks engaging Eric, just a caution/caveat. He is a time sink, aka the never ending story. I wasted over a week of time with him over on the “Another UFA in Arizona” because he didn’t believe we had the right station. Of course that was proven once I contacted the COOP manager after his multi-day delay to do so. His goal here is to confuse, confound, and delay. He is (to use his own description) an “inflamed anomaly”.
We all have better things to do than feed the anomaly.
My best advice, given to me by Mosher on that thread, who apparently isn’t heeding his own advice, (but thats ok I didn’t either) is: don’t engage him. Personally, I think we’ve met him before and this is just a new wrapper.
Watch now as he’ll throw a few fireballs and switch to another persona, such as “Mr. Stovepipe” or perhaps “Inflamed Sierran”.
MarkW says: March 7th, 2008 at 3:55 pm GHG’s have absolutely nothing to do with UHI.
So even the elimination of anthropogenic CO2 will do nothing to reduce UHI. The only way to get rid of UHI is to get rid of cities.
Perhaps a bit of picking at the nit, but part of UHI involves the many vehicles, breathing people, air conditioners, power cables, EMI/RFI, lights, short grass, parks, parking lots, cars and the like that you’d find in a city/metro area. Certainly at the least, the vehicles have something to do with CO2 I’d guess. 🙂 Not to mention the CO2 reabsorbing the IR from the lowered albedo surfaces and so on.
Oh, I did mention it. 😀
The point is there’s a lot of variables here. And the heat goes someplace.
Willis:
4.
I would guess you’re underestimating the contribution of UHI. But maybe not. I don’t think it’s a “no” though.
Anthony’s just kidding. We’re old pals … he’s just a little bit grumpy. Besides Anthony … we did learn that the “move” of that station likely never occurred because the coordinates that you were looking at were for the rain gauge. Silly guy! But that’s Anthony for ya. Oh … yea … Mr. Stovepipe says hello.
Thanks Anthony. I realize what Eric is up to, and although my responses may not matter to him, they might to someone else.
I’ve gained tremendous respect for your work over the recent past with surface stations. The mannner in which you handled Eric’s inquiries in the UFA thread increased my appreciation for the diligence with which you and your volunteers approach their work. You did not waste your time on that thread — you proved once again the value of what you do.
Anthony, thanks for the advice. I engage with Eric, not because I think I can reach him, but because I don’t want other people to be confused by his claims.
Also, you never know what will make a difference in this world. Even Saul had the scales fall from his eyes …
w.
I thought we were having a perfectly rational discussion.
557:
Historic data is often old … by definition.
Christy
This is an absolutely sound statement … and all the more reason to be concerned about further accumulation of GHGs. We can reduce GHGs and soot … but cannot pull land out of crop production … especially with 8+ billion people on the way.
I see PCA has reared its ugly head at Open Mind, I post here a copy of my post for the record.
I was unable to post yesterday, so couldn’t make this announcement on time.
Happy first anniversary of The Great Global Warming Swindle’s airing on Channel 4 in the UK!
This was my first real awakening to the global warming controversy, followed 3 months later by a brilliant exposition by Richard Lindzen at The Institute of Physics in London.
And then I discovered climateaudit.org (and realclimate.org). Thanks for all the fun, guys – and gals.
Rich.
I’ve just been informed that the Cryosphere Today website suffered again some error (?) in February causing a downward adjustment of the sea ice area. That would be 3 consecutive errors of the same sign in the lapse of 1 year. If my math doesn’t fail, the chances of such an event happening randomly are about 12.5%. In IPCC parlance, is that vey unlikely or just unlikely?
Last time I checked, the CT data and algorithms were not publicly available but they are widely used to asses the state of the sea ice cover and often give rise to catastrophic pronouncements. Hard though I find it to believe that a scientific body of a respectable institution such as the University of Illinios can be subject to a marked agenda, everything points to me in that direction.
What’s your evidence that GHG’s are making UHI worse.
Some say that UHI makes the surface temp. records wrong or screwy. Satellite readings appear to trump that argument. Others think that (or at least have insinuated that) UHI may be pronounced enough to actually drive warming globally … even in the Arctic and over the oceans where there are no cities. My point is, if that is so, GHGSs (based on simple physics) would necessarily have to be part of the problem … otherwise the UHI would simply blow away and radiate into space … as opposed to contributing to warming. For my part, I think UHI is way over stated (perhaps even irrelevant )vis-a-vis observed global warming.
While I happen to agree that the “precautionary principle” is a non scientific and luddite approach to public policy issues, I am for limiting essentially political commentary even on an open thread.
#572
Perhaps the political commentary could lead to discussions of the science or lack thereof concerning the cost-effectiveness issues relating to global warming? The AGW mainstream has no limitation on their ability to distribute their political commentary worldwide, so perhaps it is useful to give the skeptics an occasional political commentary outlet on unthreaded?
re 574. Hi Boris. Good to see your smiling face again.
Endorsement From Dr. Katharine Betts,
Associate Professor Sociology, Swinburne University of Technology:
This is a provocative book. Many will disagree with its conclusions, but the dilemma it points to is real and cannot be ignored.
Endorsement From Gordon Graham,
Henry Luce III Professor of Philosophy and the Arts at Princeton Theological Seminar:
Warnings of a pending environmental crisis are no longer the prerogative of solitary prophets. They now reflect the consensus of the scientific establishment. But how radical a change in established political thinking do they require of us? This volume makes a powerful case for the view that taking environmental crisis seriously implies a radical critique of democracy itself, and a willingness to accept government by qualified expertise rather than popular election. If political thinking at its best makes the pressing questions of the day an occasion to revisit cherished fundamentals, then this book qualifies.
Endorsement From Otis L. Graham,
University of California, Santa Barbara (Emeritus):
Arriving at a time when governments, corporations and consumers are bragging about their voluntary emission reduction steps, this book judges current and pending efforts as failures, and moves the discussion to the next phase. For conversion to sustainable societies, liberal democracy must give way to “a form of authoritarian government by experts” which the authors sketch out at the end. This is an argument-moving book, a fresh and audacious contribution to the climate change debate.
Endorsement From Virginia Deane Abernethy,
Emeritus Professor, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine:
The partnership of philosopher and ecologist Joseph Wayne Smith with emeritus professor of medicine David Shearman has produced an analysis that covers the gamut from governance in a liberal democracy to a treatise on banking institutions. The authors conclude that the environmental goods necessary to sustain civilization will collapse unless humanity’s “loving marriage to economic growth” can be sundered.
Description:
Climate change threatens the future of civilization, but humanity is impotent in effecting solutions. Even in those nations with a commitment to reduce greenhouse emissions, they continue to rise. This failure mirrors those in many other spheres that deplete the fish of the sea, erode fertile land, destroy native forests, pollute rivers and streams, and utilize the world’s natural resources beyond their replacement rate. In this provocative book, Shearman and Smith present evidence that the fundamental problem causing environmental destruction–and climate change in particular–is the operation of liberal democracy. Its flaws and contradictions bestow upon government–and its institutions, laws, and the markets and corporations that provide its sustenance–an inability to make decisions that could provide a sustainable society.
Having argued that democracy has failed humanity, the authors go even further and demonstrate that this failure can easily lead to authoritarianism without our even noticing. Even more provocatively, they assert that there is merit in preparing for this eventuality if we want to survive climate change. They are not suggesting that existing authoritarian regimes are more successful in mitigating greenhouse emissions, for to be successful economically they have adopted the market system with alacrity. Nevertheless, the authors conclude that an authoritarian form of government is necessary, but this will be governance by experts and not by those who seek power. There are in existence highly successful authoritarian structures–for example, in medicine and in corporate empires–that are capable of implementing urgent decisions impossible under liberal democracy. Society is verging on a philosophical choice between “liberty” or “life.” But there is a third way between democracy and authoritarianism that the authors leave for the final chapter. Having brought the reader to the realization that in order to halt or even slow the disastrous process of climate change we must choose between liberal democracy and a form of authoritarian government by experts, the authors offer up a radical reform of democracy that would entail the painful choice of curtailing our worldwide reliance on growth economies, along with various legal and fiscal reforms. Unpalatable as this choice may be, they argue for the adoption of this fundamental reform of democracy over the journey to authoritarianism.
HMMM. patrick henry’s words come to mind.
Undisputed facts:
CO2 and temp have a strong positive correlation through time;
C02 is well above any recorded natural level;
The simple physics of GHGs shows that its accumulation leads to warming;
GCM scenarios all robustly project warming scenarios;
Surface temp. readings (showing warming) substantially agree with both RSS and UHA satellite readings;
A host of natural events bear witness to the recorded warming — e.g. retreat of low latitude glaciers, warming in the arctic and over the seas, etc.
The sun is at its solar minimum; and
No other credible and/or material cause has been successfully postulated and maintained in the field of science or otherwise.
*Therefore, the only rational conclusion is that AGW is real and poses a substantial issue of concern in connection with human welfare. I’m not sure how one rationally escapes that conclusion.
The List, holes and all.
==============
#577
Do CO2 levels as recorded in fossils count as evidence?
NYT graphic that shows various estimates of CO2 levels over the last 500,000,000 years:
RE 578. I like the way he tried to sneak in the substantial risk as
“poses a substantial issue of concern in connection with human welfare”
nothing up my sleeve. watch me pull a rabbit out of the hat
M. Jeff:
Thanks. That is a useful graph to show a need to put things in perspective.
And, when did humans start growing crops? Not until we had a stable climate … by all accounts.
Interestingly, agriculture predates the Younger Dryas, the most dramatic period of ‘climate change’ in our current interglacial. So that claim is false.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neolithic_Revolution#Domestication_of_plants
Everything after “simple physics” was wrong, Eric (depending on your definition of solar minimum and “credible material cuase” “maintained” in “the feild of science”)
Here is the run down
1. There is a big issue over the robustness of model predictions. It has not been demonstrated that they are robust, and indeed the 1990 predictions were wrong.
2. Substanial agreement is illdefined. As already pointed out, the surface records disagree with one another. Sattelites allow us to verify only warming since the late seventies, balloons since the fifties. Data before that cannot be verified, so we can’t say for sure if the surface records are correct. Indeed, slight disagreement with the sattelites (which you ignore) is good evidence that the records aren’t perfect.
3. Glaciers aren’t thermometers, they respond to precipitation etc. But you seem to think that we are saying that all warming is UHI. By the way, GHG’s don’t “contribute” to trapping heat in cities. This is a really retarded statement. Again, Oceans have warmed less than the surface (and there are questions about the adjustments made(search CA for “bucket adjustments”)). The Arctic warming is largely due to soot (or the sun if you believe Soon 2005, or oceans if you believe D’ALeo 2008) and the Arctic was warmer in the 1930’s (Polyakov)
4. Solar Minimum? Definition please. We are close to, but either past or not yet at minimum, I doubt we are at it. Also, relevance given recent short term cooling?
5. Nir Shaviv and Henrik Svenmark would doubtless take issue with your questioning their credibility. Typical of retard antiscience postmodern types like yourself, you refer to the “feild” of science as a whole. Holistic garbage. Bleck. Also Tsonis et al. 2007
6. Rationally escaping the conclusion of alarm is easy. From what I have seen, the high sensitivity necessary for catastrophe is increasingly unlikely.
Eric, I have challenged the details of your magnificent edifice. I predict next, based on a theory put forth by another poster here, thaat you will complain that I am splitting hairs, or bickering over details that don’t matter. But, you see the devil is in those details.
Andrew,
Try not to call people retarded.
“Sattelites allow us to verify only warming since the late seventies, balloons since the fifties. Data before that cannot be verified.”
Well, this is true. But the recent warming is most of the warming and you’d expect UHI problems to be apparent more recently rather than 1950.
The cosmic ray hypothesis? Still?
Eric says:
More than anything else, I fear a return of a Maunder-style minimum. I prefer the current temperature regime, well, the one we went through during the last decade of the 20th century. Warm climates are much better for the bulk of humanity than cold ones.
I do not think human activity is yet powerful enough to affect the climate the way AGW supporters claim. The data we have obtained so far does not allow us to distinguish between naturally occurring processes and human mediated ones, and given that over the last few billion years we have seen solar output grow by some 20% or so demonstrates to me that the earth’s climate will not go into thermal runaway.
I will happily admit that I am wrong when and if the data shows that I am wrong, but like Feynman I am skeptical of models with so much parameter tweaking you could fit an elephant into them.
From where I sit, the whole AGW nonsense looks to be politically motivated in order to financially benefit certain people, but that is my own opinion, and will obviously be hotly denied.
I invite you to think for your self and not simply parrot AGW arguments.
This is a hit-and-run posting as I don’t follow the unthreaded segments. FWIW, here are some “Yes-but” responses to Eric’s summary of the indisputables:
**CO2 and temp have a strong positive correlation through time;
Over very long time periods (I think the term is Phanerozoic) the Veizer data did not show this. Over the 430,000-year Antarctic data there are substantial (approx 800 year) lags in which CO2 follows temperature. So the loose visual correlation can’t be used as supporting evidence for a causal relationship from CO2 to T.
**C02 is well above any recorded natural level;
There is no question that humans are emitting lots of CO2 through fossil fuel use. Previous geological intervals had CO2 levels up in the thousands of ppm, so “natural” levels can be higher than the present. But the general point is not in dispute, that CO2 levels in the atmosphere are going up.
**The simple physics of GHGs shows that its accumulation leads to warming;
“Simple” only gets you infrared absorption, and in a controlled experiment that raises equilibrium air temperature. But in a rotating spherical differentially heated fluid subject to bifurcated convection cells, cloud formation, ocean interaction and turbulent dissipation (to name a few), changing the infrared absorption and predicting the change in the surface temperature field does not appear to be simple enough to do from first principles.
**GCM scenarios all robustly project warming scenarios;
Yes but they are parameterized to do so. They predict the bulk of it to occur in the tropical troposphere and they predict Arctic warming to be differentially strong at the surface. Neither prediction fits the observations. (ref’s are in http://ross.mckitrick.googlepages.com/ComplicatingFactors.notes.pdf)
**Surface temp. readings (showing warming) substantially agree with both RSS and UHA satellite readings;
Yes. But the spatial patterns don’t “substantially” agree with GCM predictions for the GHG pattern. The CCSP report was especially clear on this for the tropics.
**A host of natural events bear witness to the recorded warming — e.g. retreat of low latitude glaciers, warming in the arctic and over the seas, etc.
Yes, there are lots of indicators of regional warming over the 20th C. Whether it is unnatural in the paleoclimtic context, and whether it fits the GHG pattern, are the points at issue.
**The sun is at its solar minimum; and
Yes … the point is…? This is referring to the 11-year cycle, not century-scale trends.
**No other credible and/or material cause has been successfully postulated and maintained in the field of science or otherwise.
I think it is more accurate to say that the IPCC downplayed alternate (non-GHG) stories. Of the ones I know about, I dipute the credibility of their work on this. See
Click to access McKitrick.final.pdf
**Therefore, the only rational conclusion is that AGW is real and poses a substantial issue of concern in connection with human welfare. I’m not sure how one rationally escapes that conclusion.
Actually we could concede all the above points and it still wouldn’t prove “a substantial issue of concern in connection with human welfare.” That would require a host of other premises about the size of GHG sensitivity, emission trends, social resilience, the economic consequences of specific regional climatic changes, etc. You can believe in AGW and still conclude it’s not a big problem.
re 584. Not so sure on that one Boris, Most UHI folks say that UHI is a log like response, but
nevermind
The whole UHI issue is largely misunderstood.
Lets sketch out some positions.
1. All the warming is UHI! clearly idiotic. despite the problems in SST and UAH and RSS you’ve
got warming in areas that are not urban hotspots.
2. Half of the increase in the LAND record is UHI. ( ROSS M. type positions)
3. None of the record is UHI infected.
4. UHI is real but lost in the noise.
I figure you for #4.
I’m between #2 ( half) and #4 (lost in the noise)
Ross:
Thanks for your comments. I will certainly take some time to chew on them for a bit and see “what’s what”.
All the best,
Eric McFarland
If you want to do your own math for the sensitivity of Earth’s temperature to a doubling of CO2 over geologic time, here are both over the past 540 million years.
(For CO2 – The Yellow-Orange line GEOCARB III from Berner seems to be the most accepted)
Hint, the math works out to about 1.0C to 1.5C per doubling of CO2.
Re: #450,
Actually, the stability of the Holocene (also observed in the Vostok record) is the interesting point. In the three previous interglacials in the Vostok cores, no such stability was observed. Temperature rose rapidly to a peak and then began to fall. If that same behavior had occurred in the Holocene we would already be well on our way to a new glacial epoch. Ruddiman claims that the current stability was caused by the invention of agriculture, particularly rice cultivation which emits significant amounts of methane.
588:
Yeah, I’d be a 4.
I think it’s plausible UHI could be contaminating the trend more than the orthodoxy thinks, but half the warming is way over the top.
Hot news, here. Christopher Booker, in an article in England’s Telegraph, confuses Anthony Watts with Steve McIntyre about the NASA correction. Find it most easily through RealClearPolitics. Otherwise, it’s a good article about the skeptics’ convention.
======================================
Another big snowstorm hit Toronto.
An amusing comment here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZEMRAWaVr8
We have the Canadian Squash Doubles through this weekend. So I’ve been busy with that. (Didn’t do well myself, but lots of good matches. I was one of the referees for the Open semis yesterday.)
Re #591 Steve M, Toronto is progged to get 3+ inches of precipitation over the next two weeks, with cooler-than-normal temperatures. If that precipitation falls mainly as snow then T will bust the record easily.
Portions of Illinois are forecast to get twice that, approaching 8 inches.
David
I’m in Illinois, just outside Chicago. It’s currently sunny and my yard is almost snow free. (For the first time this year.) I’ll let you know if we get the 8″! (I hope we don’t. We don’t own a snow blower.)
Fascinating stuff … indeed.
I am in Illinois outside of Chicago and we have a forecast for the 50 degree F days Tuesday through Thursday of this week. If Tommy Skilling, the local weather forecaster, missed an 8 inch snow storm he would be crest fallen indeed. Tommy is the super nice and sincere brother of the one who helped bring down Enron.
Of course a big snow storm in this part of the country at this time of the year is easier to take since it can snow 4 inches on Monday and you can play baseball on Wednesday (of the same week and out doors).
re 589. Thats half on the Land record which is 30% of the globe. so… ballpark it at 15% of the whole record.. just outside the error band
How one’s images change over the years: As a younger person I remember my image of Canadians were those of the Black Hawk hockey players from Canada who came primarily from the Canadian plains. I always had this vision of a cold weather hardy young boy playing hockey in the evening on a wind sweep out door ice pond at sub zero temperatures. Than I witness the You Tube reaction of Torontoans to a few inches of snow. Those old images are gone — forever I guess.
The best that I can say (from what I have read) is that the Phanerozoic data (i.e., from deep time) is pretty speculative stuff. The margin of error in the CO2 readings is huge, the methods used for obtaining the readings novel, and the earth/climate conditions fairly non-comparable to today — e.g. continental drift, weak sun, etc. The list goes on and on …. In short, its fascinating and ponderable stuff … but in no way a challenge to the much clearer record that we get from the ice from over the past odd half million years — i.e. CO2 and T have a positive track record.
As for the lag between C02 and T, you can’t conflate the issue and say that it’s all one way or nothing. It’s a trigger/feedback process … with C02 amplifying and, in turn, triggering other feed backs … that combined … explain the overal warming trends that we see in the climate record. But, I expect that you know all of this … so I won’t belabour the point.
So, the basic point stands … notwithstanding the other issues that you raise. GCM scenarios and observations are always in a state of flux and question … that’s why the models are so important … because they make the science scratch its figurative head … and continue to tease and question until the two are resolved or one is rejected and re-framed. It’s nothing new … and is in fact a large part of the success of climate science over the past decades.
re 597. sad but true. The last great americans are no longer canadian. Perhaps the aussies
will replentish the stock.
re 591. Nice tube dude.
Post #584, Ross McKitrick, March 8th, 2008 at 4:16 pm, has been copied to the message board Unthreaded as indicated here:
The cure for GW — so simple?
The question now is who gets the A K?
re 598
This idea of feedback would have measurable consequences. Have these consequences been established in the historical record and in the situation of CO2 concentration and temperature.
Have these consequences been established?
…..And what stops the “feedback”? Why doesn’t it keep warming indefinitely.
Steve Mosher
re March 8 4:41
Could all that non-urban warming be the land use that Pielke Snr writes about? If so you could be closer to your position 1 than you think (unless this is taken into account in position 2).
Regards
John Gorter.
Eric,
If you think that the satellite measurements have corroborated the surface measurements, then you don’t know much about either.
Nobody here has stated directly or indirectly that UHI has heated the globe. In fact the opposite has been stated time and time again.
For once, can’t you deal with what people are actually saying rather than these pathetic strawmen?
Myths and wishfull thinking.
Yes, temperatures rise well before CO2 does. Every single time.
Not even close to be true.
And if the atmosphere were this simple, we would have 100% accurate 3 month forecasts, instead of wild guess 5 day forecast.
The truth is that the while a simple, no feedback model shows the atmosphere warming, in the real world, with multiple, non-linear feedbacks of both signs, we don’t know what affect CO2 will have on the climate.
The models show what the models were tuned to show. Big whoop.
Only after extensive massaging of all three data sets.
The glaciers have been retreating since the end of the Little Ice Age and show no sign of accelerating.
Warming in the arctic is caused primarily by the PDO. Besides, it was warmer back in the 1930’s, prior to global warming.
Sea surface temperatures are even a bigger dog’s breakfast than land surface measurements.
And it’s darn cold at present. Prior to this minima, the sun’s activity was at record high levels.
That’s only true if you do like most alarmists, and simply dismiss out of hand everything except what you want to believe.
re 609, sorrry i wasnt clearer, i sit corrected
Since my comment is gone, I’d like to put forth my main points and try to get rid of whatever material was probably over the line.
Boris, Mosher, the McKitrick & Michaels paper isn’t Heat Island, but “surface processes”. Boris, its half the land trend. Boris, perhaps you could direct me to a “refutation” of the theory that doesn’t rely on misleading statements and inapprpriate data (ie the RC “rebuttal”)?
Christy (a contrarian) is responsible for the UHA … that lines up substantially well with the surface data … and there aint no cities or micro climate effects in space. That’s all I am saying on that.
UHI itself for entire metro areas is extensive. GHG enter the discussion due toall the cars and people clumped in there, and (for example) concrete not only absorbs more heat than the tops of trees do but doesn’t sink GHG. If emissions from vehicles gets into the atmosphere and is moved by weather patterns to other places, why wouldn’t the heat from creating it, and the other created heat from asphalt et al not get moved as well? Plus, if local carbon dioxide levels in a metro area are 500 or 600 ppmv or more, that’s additional absorbtion and re-emission potential. Buildings changing wind patterns and possibly holding the GHG nearby longer. And so on.
Bottom line is that we don’t know the extent of contribution that these large metro areas and everything related to that. (And I include the surrounding roads; toss in farmland and the like while we’re at it.) All that together could be (and probably is) substantial. Maybe 50% +/- 30%. I’d say 10% of the anomaly at the least. And yes, that’s a guess. But I don’t think there’s really anything but guesses.
Eric, “substantial” agreement for 30 years, doesn’t establish perfection for any record longer than that. That’s point one. Point two, models generally predict at least as much warming in the lower troposphere as the surface, usually more. But in fact there is slightly less warming up there than down here. Point three, why do you have a problem with bickering over a few hundredths of a degree? You don’t seem so confident that a substantial portion of the trend won’t go away….Point four, given the issues with the quality of the surface data, the fact that a separate data set measuring something completely different lines up doesn’t make the errors go away.
I don’t know why an amount of 0.3C to 0.4C would be “Over the top” and more importantly it’s not 1/2 of the warming, but 1/2 of the contamination of the data set which is biased towards Urban areas. Saying that the error in a data set that is heavily biased towards urban areas is corrupted by an error that effects urban areas isn’t a huge leap.
Erik:
FIn my opinion, for the purpose of some hypothesis tests, the data are in agreement. For the purpose of other hypothesis tests, they are not. Here’s what a hypothesis test comparing the trend obtained by minimizing the errors and correcting for serial auto-correlation shows for data that’s come in since the IPCC”s most recent projections. To do the test, I averaged over the four data sets.
Since the data from all four groups are in substantial agreement, than you must think we’ll get the exact same results using GISS, Hadley, UAH or RSS. Plus, you’ll like the idea of averaging because it takes out some of the noise due to measurement error.
So, of course, you have not the slightest desire to see if we get different results looking at the data sets individually. Right?
Okay, even half the warming in urban areas is over the top, IMO. An interesting idea might be trying to find a region that has considerable recent urban growth to compare with satellite and surface. I don’t know if satellite temps have this kind of resolution. Also, there’s the problem of comparing surface vs. lower troposphere temps. I doubt such an analysis would be definitive, but it could be interesting.
BOris,
DO you have any evidence that UHI is less? If so present it.
Just repeating over and over again that you don’t want to believe something is hardly scientific.
615:
lucia,
I don’t care which data you use; I’d just say there ain’t nearly enough of it.
And what’s the shaded area?
@Boris
The shaded area are the IPCC’s uncertainty intervals for their projections which they describe in their document discussing their projections.
This is one of the IPCC SRES projections, but it doesn’t matter which you pick to test the near term projections. I super imposed:
1) A line to show the near term trend. (They say in the text the near term prediction is 2.0 C/century, with little difference due to the SRES trend selected.)
2) Purple lines to show the recent trends, based on data. I used Cochrane-Orcut. The dashed lines are 95% uncertainty intervals. Of course, these are very large because there isn’t much data. That’s the way uncertainty works– so you are correct that the current trend is highly uncertain. That’s why I included the 95% uncertainty intervals.
As you can see, the IPCC’s projection, even with uncertainty intervals, does not fall inside the 95% confidence intervals for the data.
I get slightly different results if I use different data sets. However, generally speaking, it appears the IPCC projections are high compared to the recent uncertainty intervals. Of course, the current cold trend could end or it could continue. But for the purposes of testing projections, I’m limiting myself to examining data after the projections were made.
This happens to be what the data are currently showing. It may, of course, change. After all, skeptics have always noted that there may be very long cycles in the climate. If there are, short data sample won’t capture that, and we will be over confident when drawing our uncertainty intervals.
FWIW: The IPCC projections are also a bit high compared to the data trend for 1979- now.
The RSS February LT anomaly is -0.01C.
Again 1/2 of the warming trend would only be 0.3C min and 0.4C max, which is hardly a large number.
1/2 of the warming trend makes it sound grand, mainly because most people think it is mor signifigant than it is, but in real numbers it is actually quite small, near the margin of error.
It has been shown that, I believe, the urbanizing of an area can make a difference at least as much as 0.3C and Anthony Watts excelent work has shown that even the type of paint used can create an error greater than that. I don’t think UHI having an impact of 1/3 of a degree is anyway “over the top.”
This is really a question about the margin of error associated with GCMs. Beyond that, the laws of physics still apply, whether in a fish tank or on the surface of Venus (which is covered in clouds — btw).
I have two questions concerning the assertion that surface temperature records must be correct because they correlate closely with the satellite records.
1. Since we have only had satellite temp records for about 30 years, I would have thought that some portion of that was used to calibrate to the thermometer records. Is this a correct assumption?
2. If you make adjustments to surface temp records where you primarily reduce the temperature values from the years before the satellite records, you can introduce error that will not be detected by simply correlating satellite to surface. Doesn’t Steve M’s analysis of the Peruvian records indicate that at least some of this is happening?
Tokyo #622, Miscolczi rose in the east.
========================
Venus keeps getting brought up, but is such a misnomer and distraction.
venus has an atmosphere of 99.9% CO2 (what is that millions of times more than here), in fact it’s close to the inverse of our atmosphere. And has an atmospheric density 92 times our atmosphere.
The two are not comparable systems.
And the clouds are sulphuric acid and chlorine. Hardly like our clouds.
623 Tilo
It’s necessary to separate satellite data from radiosonde data, which are often lumped together.
The radiosondes are balloons with thermometers onboard, and directly measure the temperature from the surface upwards.
The satellite data is derived by remote sensing, and the conversion of the raw data to temperature is complex and difficult. It is my understanding that they are calibrated from the surface measurements made by Anthony Watts’ little stations, even now.
Re#623,
The tropospheric satellite temps should be warming faster than the surface due to GHG levels. RC admits it here http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=58 (“So while the troposphere does warm as a function of increasing GHGs, the maximum change is not at the surface, but actually in the mid-troposhere”). Christy has a quote here http://www.uah.edu/news/newsread.php?newsID=153 (“Climate models suggest that the troposphere should warm faster than the surface, typically between 1.1 and 1.4 degrees Celsius in the troposphere for every one degree on the surface if this warming is due to increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere”).
So even if the surface record correlates well with the satellite record, the satellite record should be only seen as something above the upper-bound for surface warming. Any excess warming of the surface above that of the satellite is indicative of a problem in accuracy – either with the satellite record, the surface record, or both.
Kim, I started reading the Miscolczi paper and decided that my present career as a worm
farmer was a wise choice. Has he been universally condemned yet?
Venus is an interesting case because it is farther from the Sun than Mercury, yet so very much hotter. As for the clouds, I assume that they still reflect solar radiation all the same. The question of by how much would be an interesting quesiton to have answered.
#626 Pat
Happened to come across this earlier today
http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2008/03/08/putting-a-myth-about-uah-and-rss-satellite-data-to-rest/
Also this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellite_temperature_measurements
Not to get into that again, but tha’s only on average because Venus does have an atmosphere and as such can retain heat, while mercury has almost no atmosphere and so cannot. Much the same way the the mean Surface temperature of the moon is considerably lower than the Earth, yet we are at the same distance from the Sun.
SidViscous, March 10th, 2008 at 1:59 pm says:
Less than 3000 times as much.
630 Steve Milesworthy
OK, thanks for the myth-busting, and enlightenment.
630, 631 Steve, Eric
Now I’m confused again. The wikipedia reference that Eric gave agrees with my previous understanding, that the satellite measurement is NOT a direct measurement, and involves a complex inversion of the radiance data to get temperature.
And the oscar goes to the prevailing laws of physics.
635:
Steve is smarter then me … so I will defer to him. And I mean than sincerely.
Moshe, #628, I don’t know, but in error or not, the meme is spreading. It’s on icecap, American Thinker, and Daily Tech.
====================================================
Fair point.
Yes the physics that a vacuum doesn’t hold as much heat as a gas.
Milesworthy, is a steveM. He’s always lived up to his name. That said. trust but verify
In re Venus:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Venus
Scroll down to “Clounds”.
From Daily a Tech.
Svante Arrhenius was born in 1859. He published “On the Influence of Carbonic Acid in the Air Upon the Temperature of the Ground”, in 1896.
So, who came up with this 200 year old theory back in 1808? Because rounding 112 years to 200 years is rather non-conventional.
645:
It actually goes further back to the Comte du (Something) in the 17ss who fooled around with heat and glass. He must have been a very ornery fellow.
645
Hi, lucia.
I believe some Brit came out with the Greenhouse theory quite a bit before Arrhenius. I don’t remember the details, but they may have been referring to that.
Joseph Fourier … excuse my French:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Fourier
And, the English guy was probably William Herschel:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Herschel
Who also discovered “Uranus” … which name has made me laugh since about 1st grade.
Might be others, but Fourier did the gases thing in 1824. Not 200 but rather closer than 1896 is.
Herschel “discovered” IR, I think someplace around 1800ish.
Isn’t this rather like accusing a baker of getting cake in some fashion (perhaps not to your liking) every time he bakes cake mix?
You need to define what part of the troposphere you’re talking about and you’d need to look at the weighting by height in the satellite record. There’s a lot of overlap (e.g. the TLT channel in RSS includes values up to 10km.)
Re#652,
It would be more like accusing someone of being a hustler who claims to have only played pool a few times in his life but plays like Minnesota Fats when there’s a wager on the game.
GISS Feb data is out.
Here’s the first three of the big four (Jan;Feb)
GISS
land/ocean 0.12;0.26
station 0.31;0.31
UAH -0.046;0.016
RSS -0.08;-0.007
(Last two lifted from Watts Up.)
Venus has 250,000 times more CO2 than Earth and the surface temperature is 435C hotter than Earth.
According to global warming theory, Venus’ CO2 is about 15 doublings more than Earth and its surface temperature should therefore be about 22C to 67C more than Earth versus the 435C it actually is.
So there is no proof for the global warming proposition based on Venus, something else is going on (like a dense Sulfur Dioxide layer which traps all the heat or its atmospheric density of 92 times more than Earth which points to the density of the atmosphere impacting global warming versus the CO2 content – which is a theory posited by several physicists in a recent paper which was linked to here at CA.)
Steve: Enough about Venus here. Take it to the BB if you want to discuss it.
Boris #651,
The y axis on the weighting functions should really be in pressure not altitude, but it does convey well the point that there is substantial overlap between the different sensors and that means the problem of assigning a temperature to a particular altitude is ill-posed. There are an infinite number of temperature profiles that will produce the same readings. It is possible to constrain the range of solutions on the grounds of smoothness. Based on my reading of the weighting function document at the RSS site, though, it appears they rely on the lapse rate for the 1976 standard atmosphere to obtain a solution.
Boris, very interesting post and graphic above. You say:
Last time I looked, the RSS algorithm for the lower troposphere (TLT) still actually had negative values for the weighting at the higher altitudes. Wasn’t much, but the result has to be that cooling in the upper part of the range is interpreted by their algorithm as warming in the lower part. Might explain a bit of the RSS/UAH difference.
Thanks,
w.
The AFP has published another uncritical article about a press elease from the World Wide Fund for Nature in Germany.
So, what is the least amount of ice in the Arctic since 1708, or is such a value still unknown to science?
What is the amount of ice in the Arctic this winter?
D Patterson #657
Rather than use Cryosphere Today, I now prefer to follow the State of the Canadian Cryosphere’s weekly plots of Arctic Sea Ice. The SOCC plots are IMHO more honest. They clearly show the data gap at the North Pole where the satellite does not pass over and so is not able to record. (See POES and AMSU).
“”Dr. Ferenc Miskolczi, an atmospheric physicist, resigned from his post working with NASA because he was disgusted with the agency’s lack of scientific freedom. Miskolczi, who also presented his peer-reviewed findings at the conference, said he wanted to release his new research that showed “runaway greenhouse theories contradict energy balance equations,” but he claims NASA refused to allow him. ‘Unfortunately, my working relationship with my NASA supervisors eroded to a level that I am not able to tolerate. My idea of the freedom of science cannot coexist with the recent NASA practice of handling new climate change related scientific results””
http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips/550481/the-mammoth-global-warming-scam.thtml
Steve, it would be interesting to see Dr. Miskolczi post a thread at CA on his research and experience with NASA, if you and he were willing.
And it was Hansen (NASA/GISS) who complained that the administration is censoring scientists. I wonder who Dr. Miskolczi’s direct supervisors were…
656:
Interesting. If I get some time I’ll look at RSS more closely.
#639
NASA has a special policy now about the right of scientists to speak out. When is the congressional hearing into the censorship of Dr. Ferenc Miskolczi scheduled? Hansen must surely be strongly supporting a full investigation into this gagging of a fellow scientist.
Boris, Willis, all this wouldn’t happen to be related to this would it?
Reference, yes, that’s why Roy Spencer quit. Hmm…Maybe Hansen can take time away from his grand media tour to help out…
Let’s not forget that it was also Hansen who wanted to silence the head of NASA himself!
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07152/790701-115.stm
Yes, Hansen “nearly fell out” of his chair at that remark. There is an interesting chart in Singer’s NIPCC report which shows how the IPCC has been continually downgrading sea level rise. Hansen once asked if he is the only one who thinks a rise of what was it, 600 inches or so, is possible. Evidently so.
Click to access 22835.pdf
Using the National Ice Center, for example, I cannot even imagine any scenario whatsoever by which this winter’s Arctic ice can be characterized as being less than we’ve seen in the past 10 years or 100 years, much less 300 years. Can anyone else see some scenario which the WFF can use as a remote justification for its statement claiming least winter Arctic ice in 300 years or 1708?
re: #665, Andrew, March 11th, 2008, at 7:42 am
S. Fred Singer may be closer to the truth than is Hansen, but the report you reference has a hint of “the science is settled” tone in a few areas. For example, the – and it is not – in the following excerpt.
“I guess I would ask which human beings, where and when, are to be accorded the privilege of deciding that this particular climate that we have right here today, right now, is the best climate for all other human beings.
I would say that there is a pretty strong argument that the Holocene is the mother climate of human civilization — e.g., crops, surplus, etc. We are not trilobites, after all.
Re #666
Certainly since it contains substantially less multiyear ice than measured before.
Can anyone else see some scenario which the WFF can use as a remote justification for its statement claiming least winter Arctic ice in 300 years or 1708?
Given the fact that the amount of multiyear ice in the Arctic has not been measured each year of the past 300 years, the WWF statement and claim cannot be based upon measurements which have never existed. The question then remains, on what basis can the WWF statement possibly be scientifically justified?
I wonder what a warm transition in Siberia would look like? Specifically, I wonder how much methane would be released … and how that would play out in the amplification/feedback cycle? Also, I wonder what such a climatic shift would do to the current bread baskets of the world … and how quickly and effectively civilization would/could adapt whilst also minimizing upheaval and loss? If Siberia went warm, so to speak, I also suspect that sea levels would be high enough to disrupt coastal settlement globablly. I wonder what that would do to trade and habitation patterns? Net-net, I suspect that we would be in for a hell of a ride.
Perhaps a little off-topic, but have you fully analysed the corings from the bcps that you got on your Starbucks trip? If so, could you point out where the results are, or if you haven’t, will you be?
Keep up the good work, and don’t let CA degenerate as some sites have.
Re #670
Your original statement referred specifically to the last 10 years and last 100 years which I addressed. Regarding your question about the last 300 years I made no attempt to justify the WWF statement but since that would take us back towards the Little Ice Age it at least seems plausible (even Loehle claims that it was more than 1ºC colder then).
M. Jeff, yes, Singer has jumped the gun on that one.
Eric, sigh, there’s no pleasing you, is there?
I really don’t see how you could have “addressed” my questions. First, you are talking about multiyear ice in the Arctic. Whereas the article about the WWF statement is talking about seal pups being denied ice formed in that same year and melting in the same year, which implies seasonal ice and not multiyear ice.
Second, I don’t see any information which indicates the Denmark Strait between Greenland and Iceland has frozen or nealry frozen over every year during the past 10 years or the past 100 years as it has reportedly done so this winter. I suppose it is possible for the Denmark Strait to have nearly frozen over this winter while leaving much vaster areas of the Arctic sea unfrozen, but the frozen ice extent in the Denmark Strait this winter and other reconnaisance gives me reasonable doubt it is possible for the Arctic seas to have less total seasonal and multiyear ice than anytime in the recent past, much less anytime in the past three centuries when the Denmark Strait was largely frozen over this winter.
Third, anecdotal evidence from archaeologists and other observers in Greenland in the period 1932-1940 appear to indicate the Arctic was warmer than it is at present and had less ice extent than at present. Such reports and the lack of equivalent ice pack in the Denmark Strait during some years of that decade appear to make impossible any claims that this winter is the least ice extent since that decade.
Fourth, without rechecking sources, IIRC whalers operated in the Denmark Strait in the winter months of some years, and they could not have done so if there was as much sea ice in the Denmark Strait s there has been this winter.
Furthermore, I seem to recall Nova Zemlya and Spitzbergen have had less ice in some winters than they have had this winter.
If so, how can the WWF claim be justified?
I think it’s fairly obvious that’s an “even if – it’s not much” opinion punctuated by an even stronger opinion.
Even if it’s not an opinion, or doesn’t seem like one, it hardly reaches the level of statement of fact than everyone running around acting like AGHG are the only thing in the equation, or even more to the point, talking like there’s nothing but carbon dioxide and it causes warming.
Land-use changes and fossil fuel use, both caused by population and technology, are thought to be responsible for the rise in the anomaly, which we use as a sampled proxy for the temperature, and therefore energy levels. It is thought by some, based upon what I and many others believe to be incomplete, inconclusive and poorly understood science that doesn’t warrent the conclusion, that a lessening of anthropogenically created greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, either from decreased production or removal (or both) will slow or reverse the anomaly trend. This seems doubtful at best, at least to any appreciable degree of success. The science is clearly too uncertain to state that limiting greenhouse gases will slow or reverse the rise in the anomaly, much less anything as radical as ‘removing carbon dioxide will make it cooler’.
I have yet to see any explanation that explains the anomoly – save for GHGs – that does not amount to tosh. Any credible, alternate ideas.
re 677
What explains the MWP and LIA?
You won’t ever “any explanation that explains the anomoly – save for GHGs – that does not amount to tosh””, so long as you continue to willfully ignore and deny the reality in front of your eyes. The fact that the Arctic warms faster is certainly no mystery whatsoever. It is well known that warming of the planet progresses from the equatorial regions towards the poles, due to the nature of the planet’s atmospheric circulation systems. Naturally, the regions most capable of largest swings in temperature gradients must be and are the planetary poles, due to their maximum distances from the regions of the planet with the greatest gains in solar heat energy.
Eric,when you define everything that isn’t GHG’s a priori as amounting to “tosh” of course you won’t get an alternate explanation. You don’t want one.
I have yet to see any credible evidence the anomaly reflects a physical quality in the first place, so your opinion that GHG are the only thing that can “cause” it is meaningless.
And that’s aside from your mistaken idea that if nothing else explains it to your satisfaction it has to be what you consider to be the most likely cause and your assumption there is a causal relationship between the anomaly and any one thing or group of things that we can either determine or quantify.
re: #676, March 11th, 2008, at 1:35 pm, Sam Urbinto
I agree, and didn’t mean to imply otherwise.
I have a question. Today the NYT in “Government Reports Warn Planners on Sea-Rise Threat to U.S. Coasts”,
mentions:
Figure 19 in http://heartland.temp.siteexecutive.com/pdf/22835.pdf shows IPCC 2007 Sea Level rise projection to 2100 of 59 cm maximum value, 18 cm minimum. Would the NYT’s reporting of the 59 cm max, (2 feet), without reference to the 18 cm minimum, be an example of selective reporting?
Re#675
[snip]
Your statement which I addressed was:
.
How the hell is anyone supposed to know that since you neither gave a reference to what you were citing nor identified the organization correctly!
Neither do I but then I don’t see the evidence for it this year either, the current anomaly is below the average and the current area for the Greenland sea is about what the max was last year.
The graphed data on Cryosphere Today does not substantiate that. seasonal ice
Based on a false premise as shown above.
Your recollection appears to be faulty as according to sea ice imagery I can only find one year where this was the case on this date and that was March 2006 which just happened to be the record low maximum during the satellite observation period. The Barents sea ice area has been low for the last two winters and the winter in that part of the world has been very mild this year.
Mine should have read more that it hardly reaches the level of being phrased like a statement of fact that you often hear from those types yammering about AGHG and more narrow subjects are always doing. One of the many reasons I call it ‘the anomaly’ and not ‘the temperature’. I’m not biting on the phrasing, which implies quite heavily (for a reason) that they are the same thing and that we know exactly what ‘the temperature’ is.
I should point out most of us here pretty much know what that means (when we don’t call it the anomaly), but I think we’d also mostly agree that if we always think of things in those terms, they tend to actually become the same thing at least on a subconcious level. And I’d dare say most not familiar with the subject actually think we have measured the temperature and know what it is, not that we’ve gathered an anomaly from samples to use as a proxy.
Besides. It’s the anomaly. Nothing wrong with using correct and specific words.
NYT? Selective? Nah, of course not. They just forgot to put in the word maximum. Simply an oversight on their part.
Sure I do. I’ll wait.
Eric:
There is no credible evidence the anomaly reflects a physical quality in the first place, so your opinion that GHG are the only thing that can “cause” it to rise or fall is meaningless. As well as illogical and naive.
Regardless, the IPCC says it’s fossil fuel use and land-use changes, so if you’re saying ‘It’s GHG’ then you are ‘toshing out’ half of it and going against “the decided science”. And that’s giving you the benefit of the doubt and assuming when you say ‘It’s GHG’ you mean ‘mainly AGHG from fossil fuel use’ and that you’re not ‘toshing away’ everything except for water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide.
Explaining the obvious to Eric 101: What could cause the anomaly to rise?
1. It could be from inaccurate and/or contaminated readings.
2. It could be from unrepresentative samples.
3. It could be from mistakes in the adjusting and/or combining methods.
4. It could be from warming.
5. All of the above.
6. None of the above.
If you consider all those possibilites “tosh” then just continue with your delusions, because seriously, what you say makes no rational logical sense, and contradicts you saying you want an alternate explanation.
But sadly, you still haven’t even gotten to past what the anomaly means. Much less establishing a causal relationship with anything, even in the unlikely situation of #4 being 100% of any anomaly change.
Okay, everyone, feeding time’s over.
Maybe the calibration problems with monitoring of climate may soon be over:
GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 35, L05708, doi:10.1029/2007GL032462, 2008
Monitoring twenty-first century climate using GPS radio occultation bending angles
Mark A. Ringer and Sean B. Healy
published 12 March 2008.
[1] Simulations of radio occultation bending angle profiles in transient climate experiments using a state-of-the-art global coupled climate model show a clear signal in bending angle emerging over the first half of the twenty-first century. The bending angle signal can be related to the predicted changes in the climate over this period in response to increasing greenhouse gas concentrations and is shown to be primarily a combination of three distinct effects: the changing temperature structure of the atmosphere, increased water vapor in the troposphere, and the expansion of the atmosphere due to the warming. Analysis of the predicted trends in the bending angle indicates that the climate change signal in the tropical upper troposphere and lower and middle stratosphere may become distinguishable from natural variability, i.e. ‘‘detected’, after approximately ten to sixteen years of measurements. This suggests that such observations may be one of our best prospects for monitoring the evolution of the climate over the coming decades.
[2] Accurate, global, and stable long-term observations are the key to understanding the changes in climate over the coming decades predicted by the current generation of global climate models (GCMs). These observations will provide direct evidence of the climate’s evolution and will also be essential to evaluate and refine the GCM predictions. GPS radio occultation (RO) measurements possess the necessary characteristics of such an observational record. In addition, their all-weather capability (the measurement is unaffected by clouds, for example), self-calibration (through their traceability to absolute standards) and high vertical resolution mean that they should be capable of providing a climate record that is free from many of the problems associated with both satellite and conventional measurements [Goody et al., 1998].
[3] The RO technique [e.g., Kursinski et al., 1997] is based on the fact that the path of a radio signal propagating between a GPS satellite and a receiver placed on a low earth orbit (LEO) satellite is bent or refracted by the atmosphere. The bending is caused by gradients in the refractive index of the atmosphere, which in turn can be related to gradients in the atmospheric density and water vapor. During an occultation event the motion of the satellites enables the variation of ray bending as a function of minimum ray-height above the surface to be determined. Fundamentally, the RO technique is based on the precise measurement of time delays with atomic clocks. The bending angles are derived from these delays. Bending angle profiles can then be inverted to provide profiles of refractivity, and subsequently pressure and temperature.
GHGs obviously can include land use factors such as agriculture. Nobody said otherwise. The question is, what factor carries the most weight? Substantial evidence points to GHGs … and not to solar fluctuations or cosmic rays, for example. Moreover, substantial evidence points to CO2. There really is no credible dispute … just speculation in other directions.
Having conducted some prelaunch ionospheric soundings and been thoroughly disappointed by some (civilian) GPS failures, I must remain doubtful while hoping the best for the experiments. It is hard to work up a lot of enthusiasm for the technique while knowing the wide and fertile field which the technique will inevitably spawn for adjusters to exclaim their own exclusive authority to control the data and expound upon what adjustments and interpretations are and are not valid with respect to AGW research. I wonder what is proposed to verify and maintain the techinique’s calibrations and accuracy?
Phil., in the graphic you linked to in #683
Do you know of an explanation for Arctic ice to be perfectly steady for the first half of the 20th centruy and then start to drop in 1950. That doesn’t seem to match any of the temperature history I’ve seen. (See here for example.) I asked the same question some time last year when I first noticed that graph at the Cryosphere Today site, but no one could offer up an explanation.
Leif: Sounds great.
But that still leaves the issue with the past, which even according to the IPCC isn’t the best measurements until the late ’70s early ’80s. With the gistemp anomaly moving very rapidly up to the mostly-exclusively and then exclusively positive area during that time and shortly (climate-wise) thereafter, it seems a little too coincidental.
I’ve been thinking of causes.
0. The baseline period basically using readings and methods that make it ill suited to compare to the readings and methods since around 1985. Not qualified to comment, but certainly seems a possibility. Perhaps rethinking the anomalies balanced against 1985-2005 as a base? I don’t know.
1. Anthropogenic greenhouse gases. If we take carbon dioxide as a proxy for them all, and ignore water vapor and clouds, would an increase from 1976-1985 of about 13 ppmv account for it? How about 20 ppmv from 1946-1975? There’s really no huge jump to explain what things did from 1970-1990 with the anomaly. Plus we have to ignore a lot of things. This seems the most problematic, and least scientific.
2. Some long-term cyclical weather event. Perhaps, seems likely.
3. UHI (and everything associated) creating heat that was then moved around. Not a huge spike at one point, but over time, adding 2 billion people (100% increase) of population from 1927 to 1974, and then another 2 billion (50% increase) from 1974-1999? Maybe. I’ve not looked at urbanization much, but it seems more likely than 1 and perhaps even more so than 2. But it’s conjecture.
4. Instrumentation and/or computer power and/or adjustment and combination methods. Since this fairly well coincides with technology increases in general, satellites, digital thermometers, shipping patterns changing, and the like, it seems the most likely.
No doubt things are some mix of those, plus throw in unknown amounts of things like:
5. Something inside the planet.
6. Something off the planet entirely.
7. Something we haven’t thought of at all.
The issue now is, perhaps quantifying these.
Or maybe better, ignoring them all, assuming it’s warming, and trying to figure out how to reduce the effects of 7 billion people, their animals, their technologies, and how they use land.
Leif:
?? I don’t understand. We have no significant warming so far in the 21st century. And even if we did, how do we know what it’s from?
Eric, you’re not following the conversation. I’m not talking about land-use factors that add (A)GHG, I’m talking about surfaces that have lowered albedo than they would in their non-human adjusted states. Farms. Roads between farms. Cities. Suburbs. Roads between cities. Roads between suburbs and cities. Railroad tracks. Parking lots. Malls. Strip malls. Houses. Or even particulates lowering cloud albedo and getting on ice and lowering its albedo.
No evidence points towards GHGs alone. Why. Because they absorb IR? So what. You, nor anyone else, can show how much more heat GHG are absorbing in the system, nor that they are then not offset by pollution, weather and weather patterns (wind, sun, rain, clouds). You can’t show me or anyone else that the anomaly reflects temperature rising or falling in the first place, nor that any temperature rise that does exist isn’t from the land itself and 7 billion people. Or non-human natural.
So am I denying it’s warming? No. I’m saying you can’t prove that it is or not, nor how much. Am I saying the greenhouse gasses aren’t providing an enhanced effect due to human activities? No. I’m saying you can’t prove that they are or not, nor how much. If they are, it’s fairly certainly human induced at the base of the issue from some combination of factors. But you can’t qualify it nor can you quantify it. You can’t show anyone that any effect from GHG, AGHG or non-GHG don’t cancel each other out or aren’t cancelled out by something else in the system.
You can show me models, give me maybes, seems like, probably, most likely, or whatever you want, but the fact is it’s all conjecture. No matter how much you want an answer, saying there’s no other plausible explanation other than carbon dioxide is making it warmer is not an answer, it’s a guess based upon incomplete and unknown information, using a non-established cause/effect relationship.
.1 pH less in a couple of hundred years. Talk about tosh.
Jae: You can’t say we’ve had no significant warming in the 21st century or not. Based upon what? The anomaly? The anomaly trend? Number of people? Addition of AGHG into the atmosphere?
We are producing energy by burning fossil fuel. But I would contend that we don’t know what it’s doing.
I’m an equal opportunity complainer about stating things we just really don’t know and probably never will (or never can).
I’m trying not to lose patience with you. Here goes.
First: There is no real evidence that GHG’s are the primary source of the observed warming we’ve seen. They could be, but they don’t have to be. Endlessy repeating (as you do) that they are the only possible explanation appears to me to be a declaration of blind faith. Indeed, there is significant contradictory evidence, such as the absence of the predicted fingerprints. You can wish it away, but it won’t go away, Eric. So, what evidence do you offer that points strongly in the direction of GHG’s and strongly against CRF, for instance? I’ll wait.
Once again, if you think that there is only “speculation in other directions” take that up with someone else, who is busy “speculating”.
My invitation to Boris and Eric is to offer me a solid refutation of the CRF/Climate link. I’ll give you some trouble for a start: The RC critique that there isn’t a trend looks at the wrong energies and it turns out that looking at the appropriate energies recovers a strong trend.
692 (jae):
The article had this to say:
so, perhaps the technique would make it possible to say where the changes [if any] came from. It seems to me, at least, that any help we can to rectify the miserable situation and the vitriolic debate on current records should be welcome.
696 (leif)
YOu and I both know that solar variability influences atmospheric density, especially in the rarified upper atmosphere. NASA and the science community has known about this for decades. How in the world are they going to differentiate between the two? You cannot tell me (and apparantly they don’t either) that the variation in CO2 concentration can be directly measured and the increase in stratospheric H2O is far more likely to be the result of aircraft operations than global warming.
607 (Dennis): I was just quoting from the paper; not endorsing their ideas. People can go read the stuff and reflect on it as they like. I just found it an intriguing method, and you and I both know that the more cross-checks and ways of monitoring we have, the better.
Andrew,
You wrote:
Can you give a good reference or link to that information (not the RC critique, but the energy discussion)? I’d be interested in seeing it.
Leif:
“The bending angle signal can be related to the predicted changes in the climate over this period in response to increasing greenhouse gas concentrations ”
So the bending angle signal can be related to the “predicted changes”, but not the actual changes? The difference has been large for the 21st Century.
I also wonder what you think about this article Leif.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-09/uosc-cdd092507.php
You seem to subscribe to the theory that while CO2 has not led climate in the past, it has nevertheless been a contributing factor to temperature rise once it started to increase. In this case, deep sea temperatures were increasing 1300 years before CO2 increased. So the question that I have for you is, what kept an increase going for that long before CO2 assisted. And once CO2 assisted, why was temperature eventually able to ignore CO2 and reverse direction while CO2 was still rising? Especially if we use the IPCC climate sensitivity to CO2 forcing of 3C per doubling.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-09/uosc-cdd092507.php
Re #690
Here’s what I know about that data set.
Science Magazine > 3 December 1999 > Vinnikov et al. , pp. 1934 – 1937
“The University of Illinois sea ice group has just revised and updated its data set (6, 13). The most reliable data cover the period since 1953. The recent inclusion of data from the Norwegian Polar Institute added data for the winter months of the 1901-52 period. For the period from 1972 to the present, the primary data source was the digital version of the U.S. National Ice Center (NIC) chart series. The NIC charts, in turn, draw on satellite passive microwave imagery [including the period of continuous coverage by a scanning multichannel microwave radiometer (SMMR) and a special sensor microwave imager (SSM/I) from 1978 to the present], together with other available data from visible and infrared satellite sensors and from any near-real-time aircraft reconnaissance and surface reports. Sea ice extent at the end of each month is estimated as the total ocean area poleward of the sea ice boundary, not taking into account information about its concentration.”
700 (Tilo): how can you say anything about what theory I subscribe to? maybe I don’t subscribe to any? in the sense that I actively ‘campaign’ for it. I ‘accept’ [rather than ‘subscribe to’], for now, the notion of Milankovich cycles combined with distribution of land and sea. I’m sure there are people out there that have ideas about what controls what and what leads what. I may from time to time go along with some of these, but they are just that: ‘ideas’. And one cannot be dogmatic about such. I, at least, am not. One simple idea might be that when the cycles are right, we get warming, driving CO2 out of solution, resulting in more warming [in a non-linear manner, preventing a run-away]. At some point the cycles favor cooling [e.g. aphelion during Northern winter] and the whole thing cools off, until the next warming cycle. One can, and I’m sure people have, put numbers on this and argue one way or another without necessarily becoming hot under the collar. I see no reason, a priory, to discount the novel use of GPS for climate monitoring. Bring it on! and we shall see. In due time, all will be clear, and many of these debates will seem petty.
Lucia’s blog
http://rankexploits.com/musings/2008/ipcc-projections-overpredict-recent-warming/#comments
What a great site, seesm very professional etc whats interesting is that her analysis of NOAA, RSS and UAH which appears to have been checked by the experts (maybe Steve should comment) for 2001 to now shows a -0.9C trend century demonstarting that the IPCC projections are way out at this stage anyway
Eric,
What is this “substantial evidence” that points to CO2?
If you say models, you clearly haven’t been paying attention. They aren’t evidence of anything beyond the tuning skills of the modelers.
If you say arctic, you clearly haven’t been paying attention. The warming is most probably the result of the warm phase of the PDO. The arctic was warmer than today in the 30’s, the last time the PDO was in positive, at a time when CO2 was much lower than today.
So what is it?
Leif,
The problem, as I see it, is that the amount of bending depends on the composition of the atmosphere. Including water vapor.
There’s the rub. We don’t know with any precision amount of water in the entire atmosphere.
Also, do ice crystals defract the same as water droplets, the same as water vapor?
How can land use change be a gas?
That one sentence instantly destroys any and all credibility. Climate models show, geez.
705-707 (MarkW): Having yet another measurement tool to our disposal is not “a problem”. The ‘models’ were only used as a tool to provide scenarios. Like, if the atmosphere change as the models predict, could we detect it with the bending angle technique and the answer seems to be yes. This makes the technique something worth thinking about. It could have been the other way around: somebody proposes a technique. We use the models to create a scenario, then calculate if the changes are big enough to be observed, and when found that they are not, drop the technique. There is no credibility gap here, and no reason for a ‘geez’ reaction. I’m a bit amazed by the many negative comments on this. I would have thought that adding to our arsenal of methods [even if we have to refine, polish, and carefully calibrate them] can only be a positive.
Schlew, this is from the comments on a thread on Nir Shaviv’s website:
~Nir Shaviv
http://www.sciencebits.com/CO2orSolar
If the job is screwing a screw, it doesn’t matter how many hammers I’ve got.
To put it another way, a new tool that suffers from the same shortcomings of your existing tools, is not much of an improvement.
711 (MarkW):
To make such a statement, you must first list the shortcomings of the existing tools, then for each show that the same shortcoming is present in the new tool.
Leif,
I showed two.
713 (MarkW): I assume that you refer to #705:
So, those two are present in the existing tools as well? [A necessary condition for the truth of your assertion].
And the first one is just an expression of ignorance, while the second one is just a question. As to the first, one of the variables that the proposed tool measures is water vapor, so the new tool will diminish the ignorance on that point. As to the second, that could be one of these refinements that could come with the development of the tool into an operational capability.
Leif says:
FWIW, I completely agree. The netgative tone probably results from surprise and from a basic cynicism caused by the many shennanigans exposed here, IMHO. New tools should be very welcome!
re: “no other credible cause for warming” Please see the link to a Scaffetta and West article in Physics Today (with refs to the real literature) which shows how the sun could be causing warming. They also note that when testing gCMs, the modellers define short-term variation as noise and smooth it out before trying to match earth temperature histories, which in fact destroys the solar signal in earth temperatures.
oops:
“http://www.fel.duke.edu/~scafetta/pdf/opinion0308.pdf”
716 (Craig): But also note that the 69% quoted is for ONE of the two TSI reconstructions used. For the other one, it is a much smaller percentage. And for the TSI that I reconstruct: (No?)Century-scale Secular Variation in HMF, EUV, or TSI; AGU Fall 2007, the effect is still smaller. So either the solar effect is very small [with the sensitivity that S&W derive], or the climate sensitivity to such small changes in TSI is much larger than they derive [which it could be; I’m agnostic about this].
I just think Leif’s doing the what if thing and investigating possibilities and weighting them etc without becoming emotionally enamored of every aspect (or even any aspect) of it.
It’s just a topic of discussion not a shrine!
lol If the job is screwing a screw into plaster or soft wood, I can just hammer it in like it’s a nail. If I’m trying to take out a screw because it’s protruding, maybe I can just knock the prodruding part off with a hammer instead. Or how about the forked end of a claw hammer, it might fit into a flat tip screw. Bricklayer’s hammers have a flat sharp narrow part that’s not curved even. Or
this welders chipping hammer maybe.
😀
BTW; land use change can’t be a gas, but it can result in them (or result in not them or a change in them). Changing a high grass to cornfields (or vice versa) or a forest to cattle grazing land (or vice versa) or building a cement plant (or tearing one down and turning it into a large pool that would store water that could become vapor) etc.
But I was talking about lowered albedo as a source of heat, so that doesn’t matter anyway. 🙂
Leif,
Your half right.
The post that you quote has to do with the composition of the atmosphere. Which is not as well known as you seem to think. Especially when it comes to water vapor. Since the composition of the atmosphere affects, to varying degrees, all of the remote temperature sensing technologies. The second is the need to calibrate against GCM’s.
You seem to have an unnaturally high confidence in the output of these beasts.
Knowing something is better than knowing nothing, as long as one realizes the limitations. However the more sources, the more they can be compared to each other to better understand both the thing being studied and the limitations in what we know. As in:
Make observation.
Come up with hypothesis to explain observation.
Gather data by performing experiments and making further observations and tests.
Attempt to find cases where the hypothesis is not true.
When not true, go back and come up with new hypothesis and start trying to disprove it again.
I accept that they may find a significant change in the water vapour content, and this will be useful; but how do they intend to separate the externally forced variability (i.e. climate change caused by CO2) compared to the null hypothesis (i.e. climate change caused by natural variability), bearing in mind that long term persistence in the hydrological cycle is a perfectly valid and rational explanation for 20th century climate variability?
It seems to me they will be able to detect climate change but not separate the two possibilities above with any degree of confidence, so we will be back to square one. Still, more data is more data.
LTP in the hydrological cycle is an interesting beast however; not only does it make AGW more difficult to prove, it also makes it more difficult to disprove. (NB: Using the terms prove and disprove in a statistical context here) This has been taxing me recently, my current conclusion is that I should probably give all this up and become a mime.
720 (MarkW):
I don’t think you got the point of the article, namely to use the models just to generate scenarios to see if the GPS technique could pick up the predicted changes. The answer was “yes”, so the GPS technique can be used to falsify the models if the data doesn’t come out as expected. The models are not used to calibrate anything.
My turn to say “geez” 🙂 no need to comment on my unnatural sides.
For those interested in the second half of this entire subject (Although with a similar obsessed focus on carbon dioxide in many ways)
http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc/land_use/index.htm
Short wikified version
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LULUCF
723 (Spence): asks:
The paper suggest that different causes have slightly different detailed effects in different locations and heights and that those may be used to distinguish the different causes:
If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, walks like a duck, …
But, finally, I’m still amazed about the negative tone of the various comments. How can it be bad to have more ways of attacking a problem [unless you don’t want your boat rocked…]?
I’m surpised anyone’s acting as if moving even slightly away from the party line flips one to the “other side”. Reminds me of something.
Tammy time.
ok I’ve been banned from Tammy’s tawdry trailer.
I tried to apologize for this tammy whine-net reference
He failed to see the signal in the lyrics.
“Sometimes its hard to be a woman
Giving all your love to just one mann
You’ll have bad times
And he’ll have good times
Doing things that you don’t understand
But if you love him you’ll forgive him
Even though he’s hard to understand
And if you love him
Oh be proud of him
‘Cause after all he’s just a mann
Stand by your mann
Give him two arms to cling to
And something warm to come to
When nights are cold and lonely
Stand by your mann”
And he even refused to accept my apology for posting this
Clearly anyone would pick up the teleconnection references and
the proxy in the trees
I hear the cottonwoods whisp’rin’ above
Tammy! Tammy! Tammy’s in love!
The ole hootie owl hootie-hoo’s to the dove
Tammy! Tammy! Tammy’s in love!
Does my darling feel what I feel
When he comes near?
My heart beats so joyfully
You’d think that he could hear!
Wish I knew if he knew what I’m dreaming of!
Tammy! Tammy! Tammy’s in love!
He would not stop barking. Hansen’s bulldog. in action
( yes it’s work safe)
Tammy time.
over and out
Now its hammer time
mohel can’t snip this
Leif,
I’m not arguing that more data won’t be useful; my comment “more data is more data” was actually supposed to be positive (although it may not have come across that way).
But you miss out the importance of two statements – the position of “ten to sixteen years” in the context of LTP in the hydrological cycle. The latter almost guarantees “significant” trends of some sort will be found, and then scientists can play the game of pin the trend on the donkey.
My apologies if they do take LTP into account when doing the stats, but it seems to be a rarity in this field.
@Sam
Wars about religion?
On a thread at Eli’s blog, someone who signed as “T.” criticized me for sounding like…. horror or horrors…. The Pielkes! OMG! (This was the day before Roger Sr. ran my analysis. )
728 (Spence): In my field LTP stands for ‘Lunar Transient Phenomena’. I’m not sure what you mean by the term.
Leif
Sorry about the delayed reply, apparently sp*m k*rm* doesn’t want me to give you an answer 🙂
The definition of the term is in my first post, although I usually indicate the acronym at first use, but didn’t on this occasion (my bad):
LTP = long term persistence which has a specific technical meaning, see here for a nice presentation on the topic (click on “presentation” if the link takes you straight to the abstract)
731 (Spence): The paper works mostly with differences so tends to remove LTP. More specifically:
Looks OK to me. The problem of LTP keeps being re-discovered. The first analysis I know of is from the 1920s in an application to sunspot numbers. You have a daily series of SSNs for a solar cycle [~4000 days]. How many independent data points do you have? 4000? 1000? 200? ??? The surprising answer [to many people] is 20, because when you have high solar activity on a given day, the next day, and the next, etc will also have high activity. Conversely, at solar minimum, there are weeks or months with no spots at all.
And thanks for being positive. I think this new method may have a lot of promise.
I never said that people should not use new tools, nor should they stop looking for new tools.
I was expressing skepticism that THIS new tool will give data that is quantifiably different from the existing, problematic, tools.
Lucia: No, really I meant RC, Open Mind and Rabett run 😀
Lucia, if someone at Rabett Run says you sound like the Pielke’s, its probably becuase you were correct about something!
733 (MarkW): Skepticism based on what? Did you read the paper? Which particular lines give you grounds for skepticism?
Phil. #701
Thanks for the references, but it really doesn’t shed much light on the pre-1950 data. As someone here likes to say, it’s the shaft not the blade that’s important.
And even with the data as presented, it still doesn’t explain why it seems to be so de-coupled from the mid-century temperatures.
Leif, I doubt this message will get through the spam filter, but lets give it a go anyway!
I think you are confusing LTP with classical (autoregressive) statistical methods. They are not the same.
You cannot “remove” LTP from a series or correct for it using lag-1 autocorrelations or differences. These approaches are based on simple autoregressive Markovian models (e.g. AR1). Classical autoregressive models like this are known as “Short-Term Persistent” models, or STP. Applying STP techniques to LTP time series gives misleading answers, as explained in the presentation (in the presentation, I think STP methods are referred to as “classical” statistical methods rather than STP explicitly).
It would be necessary to investigate each series for LTP, but my gut feel for the examples given would be – column ozone data, STP, sun spots, probably STP (although has some potential for LTP but strong 11 year cycles may make checking difficult and moot), SWIR flux, I’d have to read the paper, atmospheric water vapour content, very likely LTP (particularly in the tropics and mid-latitudes, likely to be globally).
Unless the study addressed the LTP issue (i.e. demonstrated LTP was inappropriate, or applied LTP methods), I would remain unconvinced by it, particularly on very short (10-16 yr) timescales. Read the presentation and understand why 🙂
Mind you, highlighting LTP issues may be somewhat demoralising for the team doing the work, so perhaps best not to mention it. This way they will find “significant” trends, they will be happy, the science will self-correct, who loses?
Leif, I’m surprised you don’t see the root causes of the concern being expressed. I expect there is not a regular contributor here who would not wildly celibrate the implementation of a new system and research tool which is genuinely capable of reliably discriminating between climate change caused by anthropogenic activities and climate change caused by natural variability.
The question is whether or not this new technique and system does or does not represent just such a reliable new research tool? Examining the description of the new research project was a cause for dismay, but not because it is a new tool or because it may upset any prejudgements. The cause for dismay is the nature and tenor of the announcment and description of the research project. In times past, a research project underpromised and undersold its goals and objectives, remaining mindful that humility at the outset will understate project shortcomings and highlight exceptional project successes. In this case the descriptions of the research project give the appearance of declaring the success of unproven methods and a large cascade of unproven assumptions about the physical nature and properties of the climate being studied. Having declared the certainty of their methods, scientific assumptions, and certain confidence in what their scientific conclusions must be in regard to the capability of their technique, they have left little or no room for themselves to publicly acknowledge any failures and deficiencies in their methods and assumptions. Given the community’s past experience with certain frequently discussed so-called climate science ressearchers, any research project which may be perceived to be making unvalidated and overly ambitious claims of rectitude is going to come under suspicion and potential criticism. Consequently, what you are seeing as a neative perception is perhaps a negative perception of the actors, their statements, and their methods; and it is not a negative reaction to the availability of a new research tool.
New and scientifically effective research tools are desireable and exciting, new research tools which may potentially obfuscate ineffective scientific research are not desireable and a potential source of concern and dismay.
Given all of the proven scientific problems with the MSU (Microwave Sounding Units) and a variety of other satellite research systems, the community is quite justified in adopting a Missourian’s “Show Me” attitude towards researchers bold enouigh to make bold claims about unproven scientific assumptions, unproven climate properties, and unproven instrumental systems. There were some very bold claims made about the scientific and engineering triumphs of the RMS TITANIC which immediately came to lethal grief for thousands of human lives in its first contact with an iceberg. Now we have unlicensed people attempting to play the role of untrained and inexperienced terraforming engineers with potential lethal affect upon billions of human lives. Given those past experiences, isn’t it only a minimal level of prudence to exercise caution and require rigorous validation of assumptions before the research project leaders proclaim the efficacy of their scientific methods in advance of its implementation?
739 (Patterson): Given the decade-long time for validation it seems to me that there will be ample time to refine the technique and to examine its underpinnings. What irks me is the knee-jerk reaction of the community [many probably without reading the paper]. As no new multi-billion dollar infrastructure need to be constructed we can simply wait for the proponents to prove their case without shooting them down beforehand.
re 729. Lucia just keep doing the math and forget the distractions
Take a look at eli’s page views after he banned moshpit. silly wabbit
every circus needs a side show, why would he ban me?
738 (Spence): I don’t think I confuse the two. There is really nothing new in the paper you cited. Persistence, or rather quasi-persistence, was well-understood ever since Julius Bartels 1935 paper: Random Fluctuations, Persistence, and Quasi-Persistence in Geophysical and Cosmical Periodicities [unfortunately, the paper is behind AGU’s pay-wall]. In any case, LTP or not is not critical to the GPS-method. The data can be analyzed any way one wishes.
739 (Patterson):
The skeptical comments here do not rise to this, but, of course, one would have to do all this correctly, as I’m sure will be done.
A new tool for distinguishing the effects of CO2-induced warming would be good if that tool is used by objective researchers and the data is widely available for everyone to check.
However, if the data from that tool was only available to a Hansen or a Mann, it would obviously be used to prove the global warming case regardless of what the real data indicated. It would also be used to “fine-tune”/discredit the data from UAH and RSS and other global temperature sources.
Our spidey sense of past efforts to discredit non-global-warming-indicated temperature proxies/data sources is what lead to the reaction on this site.
743 (John): And because of the potential for misuse you would be against any attempt to gain new data. No wonder, this debate will go on forever…
Mosher– I made a dramatic video on run-away climate change! video
No Leif, I’m not against it. I think we need to have the ACTUAL answer to the debate.
If the CO2 sensitivity is only 1.0C to 1.5C per doubling, then we should stop scaring the world and scaring school children since global warming will have no real impact in the long-run.
If the sensitivity is 3.0C or 4.5C per doubling, then we should start acting now and we should shut-down coal-fired power plants tomorrow that do not sequester CO2. We should spend trillions of dollars on alternative energies starting tomorrow. SUV’s and transport trucks should be banned tomorrow. Hydro and nuclear energy should be the only energy investments allowed starting tomorrow. Food prices would have to double since simple nitrogen fertilizer and fuel used to harvest crops would impact climate by an unacceptable level. Forget about air travel unless absolutely necessary.
But that is quite a completely different set of responses based on the evidence of how much CO2 results in warming. Hansen’s models are still showing a CO2 sensitivity of close to 4.0C.
I don’t trust the born-again global warming community to force us down an extremely expensive path that will significantly reduce our standard of living as well unless it is truly required. The born-again global warming community has shown that they are prepared to distort the data just to have their beliefs accepted. Any new tool is subject to being monopolized by the community.
In a 4.5C CO2 sensitivity world, even posting to a website like this would be limited to one or two per month given the energy and price requirements. How would anyone be able to check/climate audit the data.
Leif (#742): I am confused by a couple of your statements. First, I assume you are being cavalier when you state that
Along these lines, is the comment on LTP intended to be understood in the same way? As I think you know, it is not the case that Bartels’s [1935] random fluctuations, persistence, and quasi-persistence are the same as LTP. I have read Bartels [1935] — in fact, I have a copy in front of me right now — and LTP is, well, “something else.” I suppose in some sense LTP touches on the Fourier techniques and random walks discussed in Bartels [1935], but focusing on such superficial similarities completely misses the point. (FWIW: LTP is also known by terms like “scaling,” “long memory,” “fractional Gaussian noise,” “fractals,” “self-similarity,” “FARIMA,” “arfima,” and countless other terms, and is often attributed to Hurst [1950] though the mathematical foundation was presented by Kolmogorov [1940]).
Leif, I suspect we are in more agreement than you realise. I don’t understand why you are so defensive.
I agree that the data sounds interesting and valuable to collect. However, the statistical techniques being currently proposed to analyse it look rather stale and poorly chosen. That said, once the data is collected, there will be nothing to stop people analysing it how they wish. Who knows, data of this sort could be used to investigate further the LTP hypothesis, which in my mind would be a much more valuable use of it. Of course, everyone has their own view on what might be valuable.
Agreed. Note I have not claimed it was new. LTP is widely adopted and used in diverse fields today, and has been used in hydrology for decades (as noted also in the presentation). What is peculiar is that it is widely eschewed within the climate community despite the obvious impacts from the hydrological cycle and other LTP processes (such as tropical convection). That was the point of the presentation.
I recognise I am criticising the paper for following the climate science herd in this respect, and that is (to a degree) unfair. But it would be nice to see a little more imagination in the statistical analysis than the usual stale climate science stuff.
You don’t think you confuse the two? You mean you’re not sure? 😉
I don’t have access to Bartel’s full paper, but I have seen a presentation of one of the techniques from it. The one I saw would not handle LTP correctly (although it did have some interesting and appealing features). Maybe there is more to the Bartel paper than I have seen, or maybe there is more to LTP statistical analysis than you realise 🙂
TAC, now what are the odds that we would post those two comments within one minute of each other?
Kolmogorov – I was trying to think of that name earlier, but suffered from a bit of brain fade. Many thanks!
748 (Spence): Defensive? I must have been corrupted coming here 🙂
You can read Bartels’ classic paper here.
The persistence part starts on page 42.
747 (TAC & Spence): granted that progress has been made since Bartels’ paper. My point was [and I think I am correct here] that the gist of both Bartels and LTP is that the error bars or the ‘confidence band’ is wider when you have persistence. And when it comes to verification that is really what we are after. Anyway, it looked to me that even with their ‘crummy’ analysis, there seemed to be a fair chance of discrimination because the effects were not subtle.
746 (John): Of course, I agree with you. The rub is that we won’t get the ACTUAL answer now, as long as we go around in circles on the question. The idea of a ‘Findings of Fact’ is a good one and should be followed up. In a sense I thought that IPCC’s reports were supposed to be FoFs, but this seems not to be accepted.
Leif,
Regarding negativity, we all have our own niches that we get negative about. For example, in your case, I would say that it is planetary influence on the Sun, even though Carl Smith presented quite a strong case, but perhaps lacking a statistical “proof” that you would want. Anyway, I don’t mean to resurrect that here.
The point I do want to make is that presumably the new GPS method is based on detecting changes to the composition of the atmosphere, and in particular the height of the tropopause must surely have the biggest effect on refraction. But why should the new method be more reliable than temperature and pressure and humidity measurements from radiosondes, which are more directly measuring quantities which AGW is supposed to change?
I confess I haven’t actually read the paper, so as usual I’ll not blanche at being corrected. But my take on the idea is: there’s money in global warming research, we have some kit that might conceivably show some sort of modulation against it, and hey it’s a new exotic idea, let’s get a research proposal in…
If I am being sceptical, whilst welcoming any final solution to all our problems, well I thought that was what this site was all about.
Rich.
Leif,
Does the paper contain the method by which the user’s of this instrument are going to calculate the exact composition of the atmosphere, including water, in all of it’s forms, before calculating how much of the change in deflection is being caused by temperature?
This debate kinda reminds me of the way some of the alarmists defend the ground based temperature network. It doesn’t matter that the individual stations have problems. All you need is enough stations, and the problems will average out. By the law of big numbers, if you can get enough bad data, you can cook it into good data.
753-755: Well, I, for one, would welcome a new approach [even if less than perfect], and give it a chance, even if it means that someone [else, gasp] would get a research grant.
Leif, many thanks for posting up Bartels’ paper (whose name I will now try to spell more accurately). I haven’t read it in great detail but scanned the areas of interest to get a feel for what was being addressed.
Bartels nomenclature differs (unsurprisingly) from contemporary statistics, so a quick review of what I think he means by different terms, in particular with reference to the diagrams in figure 22:
“Random” means IID (independent, identically distributed) random numbers
“Quasi-Persistence” means short term persistence, as per conventional autoregressive approaches
“Persistent Wave” means an underlying physical process that we are seeking to isolate from the general variability
None of these topics relate to long term persistence. The differences between the above concepts is that long term persistence is a purely random process, i.e. is not a separable physical process, much like the random and quasi-persistent terms in Bartels paper, but it does not become asymptotic with increasing scale, but rather continues to increase. In this respect, using Bartels method, it may be impossible to differentiate between a long term persistent process and a physical signal (“persistent wave”).
LTP should be viewed as a different class of time series to classical STP serial correlation. It is as wrong to apply STP methods to LTP data as it is to apply IID methods to STP data. You say:
I agree with this point (the error bars are affected), but this is not the only point. The other point is that you must use methods appropriate to the type of time series you are analysing; if you use the wrong methods, you will get the wrong answer. Bartels methods, being designed against an STP concept of randomness, will not yield correct answers in the presence of LTP.
On the plus side, under the LTP hypothesis for climate, the idea of 20th century climate being driven by solar-climate or cosmic ray-climate connections get deposited in the cylindrical filing cabinet 🙂
My original interest in the LTP phenomenon was really inspired by self-similarity in chaotic systems, and the widespread presence of self-similarity in complex natural processes. but since coming to this blog and reading up more, this view has moved on to recognise that LTP can arise from some fairly trivial processes, for example, Vit Klemes’ multiple reservoir example, or Per Bak’s sandpile example. It is interesting stuff, although I recognise that peoples perspective on what is interesting may differ!
Well said. Just don’t be surprised when we analyse all your data differently and draw different conclusions 😉
757 (Spence): Thanks for the clarification. So that I can learn more about it, point me to LTP-analysis of the temperature records that are so beaten on. Or to a comparative paper on what happens when you to LTP and not-LTP. The paper you did post was not informative in this regard.
758 (Spence,me): What I’m getting at is the following:
Using the GPS-method we measure temperature, pressure, and humidity everywhere in the atmosphere every hour for the next, say, 20 years. That gives us some time series to analyze [for many locations, or suitable gridded]. From the analysis we [surmised by the authors, at least] can learn what causes what [assuming we can]. Now, what would be the LTP way of doing the analysis? and why would that possibly alter our conclusions?
Leif, lost a couple of posts again, so trying my spam filter alter ego (although this time around I think the fault was at my end!)
Regarding #758, some examples of scientific assessment on climatological data (historical global temperature) include Cohn and Lins 2005, who presented an analysis of global mean temperature from an LTP perspective, finding LTP present and also finding late twentieth century warming not significant under this assumption. This was followed by Rybski et al 2006, who studied longer records (palaeoclimate reconstructions). The paper confirms the presence of LTP in the long time series, but claimed that these records show that twentieth century warming is anomalous. This, interestingly, shows just how important the “hockey stick” debate might turn out to be! How accurate are these reconstructions?
Koutsoyiannis and Montanari (who authored the presentation I linked to earlier) then wrote the third reference below, noting that some of the reconstructions are not statistically compatible with the temperature record, except Jones 98 and Moberg 05, and when the uncertainty in the estimated distribution parameters are accounted for, the twentieth century warming once again becomes insignificant. I believe in this paper, the authors also make comparison to p-values for conventional statistical methods.
I have some thoughts on #759, which I will share shortly.
References:
1. Nature’s Style: Naturally Trendy, Cohn and Lins 2005
2. Long-term persistence in climate and the detection problem, Rybski et al 2006
3. Statistical Analysis of Hydroclimatic Time Series: uncertainty and insights, Koutsoyiannis and Montanari 2006 (if this leads to abstract, click “preprint”)
757 (Spence):
This is where I have the disconnect. Suppose that I measure the temperature at point x at time t1 and find T1, then at time t2 I measure T2. How can LTP-effects that I clearly have not invoked [just measuring T1 and T2] give me the wrong answer? Now if T2 is 5 degrees larger than T1 and I claim a warming, how can that be wrong because I did not use LTP? Now if the difference T2-T1 was 0.001 degree I would not claim a warming, so somewhere, say at Ti, between 0.001 and 5.000 I would change from saying “no warming” to “warming”. Are you saying that the value of Ti could be ‘wrong’ because of LTP? Or not ‘significant’ in some sense? But significance does not stand alone, but has to interpreted in the whole context of the situation.
Spence,
I found Cohn & Lins interesting, but I didn’t see how Sigma was derived from the crucial parameter d which gives autocorrelation ~ k^(2d-1). That is, what sort of process gives rise to this autocorrelation?
Personally, I prefer to look for physical causes, like the Sun (and volcanoes too), but I feel I ought to understand LTP in case there is some real reason why climate works that way.
Thanks,
Rich.
Exactly. I have 100 stations, all .12 to 4.83 C too high in their readings, and when I average them, I now have good data. 😀
Oh, and I also have a number accurate to a millyun decimal places.
Re #761 Leif,
Yes, I am referring to a statistical interpretation of a climatic series at a certain spatial and temporal scale (surely that much must have been obvious?). Of course you need a physical interpretation or justification – a point which was clearly made in the first presentation I linked to. If we could just pick temperatures out of a hat and argue one is less than the other we’ll get nowhere in understanding climate. But statistical questions demand statistical answers. Climate scientists aim to remove weather “noise”, or what we could call unforced natural variability. So what is weather noise? What distribution does it have? Is it ergodic? Does it exhibit serial correlation, STP or LTP?
If you read my quote carefully, there is a particularly nuance to it. Whilst I advocate LTP as a more appropriate statistical model for certain climatological parameters, my point was quite general. I’m arguing for the adoption of the correct method for a given situation. Wrong model leads to wrong method leads to wrong answer, whether the system or methods are IID, STP or LTP. (Of course, it is possible to get a correct answer from a wrong method, but I hope we’re not into that kind of “science” here).
So how do we select the appropriate model? Serial correlation allows us to reject IID. But STP or LTP? I would stress here that adopting STP as a default, fallback position in the absence of knowledge is definitely not safe, particularly when it comes to complex natural processes. So which ever way we go, we need to be clear whether we are simply assuming one; testing both because we don’t really know; or have adopted one or the other on solid grounds. I note some examples in my reply to Rich below.
It is possible to test for LTP or STP but care needs to be taken here as there is the potential for errors to be introduced this way, particularly for comparatively short series.
#762, Rich,
LTP is simply a property of a statistical model, but there are many physical reasons that can lead to it. One way to look for it is to categorise a process according to the frequency response of the variability. Here I am considering band-limited systems (i.e., systems for which a single sample reflects an average which perfectly removes aliasing from higher frequencies) and over some limited time extent.
f^0 (i.e., variability independent of frequency) systems, termed white noise, exhibit IID, independent random behaviour; i.e. each sample is independent and normally distributed. An example would be thermal noise in a resistor.
f^-1, or 1/f noise (i.e. variability inversely proportional to frequency), termed pink noise, exhibit LTP. This gives you the exponential in the autocorrelation. This can be found, for example, in the form of excess noise in electronic components
f^-2, or 1/(f^2) noise (i.e. variability inverse to the square of frequency), termed red noise, exhibit STP. This is the frequency response of a random walk, or Brownian motion
These are just a few examples, and you can see dependent on the physical process, the behaviour can be quite different, and it would be appropriate to use a different model. You should note also that systems can be a combination of different noise processes, some of which become dominant at different frequencies.
There are plenty of examples of systems that exhibit LTP. It is preferable for a “toy” example that it be tractable (unlike climate) and possible to understand. The example given by Vit Klemes is of a infinite circular cascade of reservoirs, with inflows and outflows to each other. If simple random gaussian noise is added to the system, the reservoir levels are governed by an LTP noise process. When modelling this on a computer, it is found that in fact you don’t need very many reservoirs to get the LTP effect, and this is important with respect to hydrology. Professor Koutsoyiannis also gives a set of conditions which are common in hydroclimatological parameters that give rise to LTP variability from the principle of maximum entropy (presentation, paper).
Incidentally, my interest comes from elsewhere – self similarity in chaotic systems, which may also exhibit LTP. Of course, the idea that weather is chaotic is not controversial and widely accepted amongst climate scientists, which is peculiar given the consequence. I felt the presence of LTP and the chaos in weather made a very nice explanation. Surprisingly, on digging into LTP in depth, those advocating LTP are quick to point out that LTP does not require chaos, and indeed there is no proof (or disproof) that weather is chaotic; identifying LTP as “evidence” for chaos (or vice versa) is not in itself valid. Aspects of chaos (exponential error growth) are of interest with respect to the predictability of climate, as are the behaviours above, of which the clustering effects of LTP variability has very important consequences for predictability. These are independent avenues of exploration.
765 (Spence): The considerations about STP and LTP apply equally well to the current methods [it is the same climate], so my initial problem was why the lack of LTP-methods would make the new approach less good than the current methods that are also normally not treated with LTP. Or, why is lack of LTP-methods a problem for the GPS method but not for what we are doing now? I’m all for treating all data the best we can according to what physical characteristics they have. BTW, Scafetta&West argue [see their Physics Today piece] that the ‘noise’ is not noise, but is a solar flare signal [I’m not sure I agree with that, but I just mention that there is a possibility that the ‘real’ noise is smaller than thought].
Commentary on how IPCC discussions are prepared for digestion by the masses:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080314/COMMENTARY/702895001/home.html
Continued on Unthreaded #32
Please take up the conversation there.
Do you know this new paper:
Improved estimates of upper-ocean warming and multi-decadal sea-level rise
Catia M. DominguesJohn A. ChurchNeil J. WhitePeter J. GlecklerSusan E. WijffelsPaul M. BarkerJeff R. Dunn | 146 VIEWs | 96 READERs 50 BOTs |
I suppose this goes best in this thread:
Further info at amstat.org
I wonder if any Climate Scientists are members of the ASA. Sounds like their kind of journal.
Probably not peer reviewed, though…
Climate Audit again nominated for Best Science Blog
http://2008.weblogawards.org/polls/best-science-blog
Voting starts tomorrow.
Interesting comment by tamino here.
Maybe two taminos roam the WebNets?
Here’s one for Steve McI; Data Analysts Captivated by R’s Power
Steve: Cool
Is there a link between Earth’s magnetic field and low-latitude precipitation?
Some additional info in Danish at Videnskab.dk
In the NAS report panel, page 36, there is a graph extracted from Bradley et al. (1988) which show the temperature anomalies for Northern Hemisphere and for China alone. The two curves match almost exactly – too exactly, I feel. The original paper can be found at
Click to access bradley1987e.pdf
Any opinion on this ? For example : do the more recent curves match as closely ? What about the curve for the US (as big as China, and with much more coverage) ?
Anyone feel up to updating this graphic now that more stations have been classified?