Climate Audit

Andrey Levin

Re#345,346.

“…pathology of people seizing on results because they suit a world-view.”

Actually, carbon dioxide concentrations of 300 ppm over 19 century much better serve concept of AGW than accepted 260.

P.S. Promise not to raise this issue any more.

bernie

bender:
I do see the “slight” trends in the beginning, middle and end of the 1910 to 2004 observation period – but are they real or just me respomding to your suggestion? (10, #328) I also see what could be 11 year cycles. However, what I do not see is a trend in the temperatures that is in anyway sufficient to support the original contention by others that Svalbard is where the predicted amplified warming from AGW can be seen. Moreover the year over year variability of winter temperatures suggests that we would need to see something pretty dramatic to illustrate a HS. Even with 2005, 2006 and 2007 data the trend remains slight – though these last two winters have been very warm.
The point of my observation was the highlighting in the media of a particular example of GW, only to find out that the actual data seems far less compelling. As Steve M has pointed out, Svalbard has come up before and I am working through those earlier strings. Again the media completely failed to suggested what appears in those strings: Svalbard is probably not a good AGW “canary” because of the significant ocean current driven historical variations in temperatures – too much chance of false positives.

My reading of the prior strings paid off – plaudits to those who made it so easy. Apparently the media was
recycling a story from last year. My apologies for those who already have read this stuff. Here is what Willis said about the same data last year at this time. I bolded where he seems to be making the same general point. (Note: What was presented earlier appears to be the same Nordklim data.)

Willis Eschenbach says:

May 30th, 2006 at 2:36 am
Moving from conspiracy theorists back to the subject of the thread, climate at Svalbard, I just tried to post on the thread over at RealClimate. I wanted to ask why my scientific questions were not being answered.

Specifically, I wanted to know why they had not addressed the following:

1) Is the use of a crudely spliced dataset for sigma calculations appropriate?

2) What is the justification for using the 1961-1990 data (or any other subset of the full data) to calculate the sigma for a data point 26 years outside of the subset?

Perhaps Steve Bloom or one of the conspiracy theorists would like to comment on this conspiracy to keep scientific questions off of RealClimate?

It gets worse … or perhaps better. There is another dataset at:

http://www.smhi.se/hfa_coord/nordklim/

Analysis of this dataset and the NOAA dataset above shows that they both are a combined Isfjord Radio/Svalbard dataset, with the Isfjord Radio part of the dataset adjusted and the Svalbard dataset largely untouched, with the exception of a few single month corrections in the Nordklim dataset.

The analysis of the difference between the two records shows that in the Nordklim datasets, different adjustments have been made to several separate periods of the Isfjord Radio record, viz: 1912-1931, 1931-1934, 1934-1940, 1940-1945, and post 1945. These time periods correspond very closely to the changes in station listed in comment #115 above, so I assume that they have taken great care to adjust for each time the station moved or was changed. Neither one is the same as the GISS dataset …

The overall difference between the two datasets’ average and standard deviation was quite small. The change in the trend, on the other hand, was quite large ‘€” the trend in both the NOAA (and Mann/Jones) datasets were over .25°C per decade, while the trend of the Nordklim dataset is .15°C per decade.

So we have three datasets in play. The first is the Mann/Jones RealClimate dataset, which is a crude splice of Svalbard and the Isfjord Radio data. The NOAA dataset is better, with at least a linear adjustment of the Isfjord Radio data. Finally, we have the Nordklim dataset, which has an adjustment for each of the moves, along with individual corrections for a number of months.

Several things of interest. One is that the overall trend of all the datasets is not signifcantly different from zero. Despite being the poster child for global warming … it’s not significantly different from zero.

Next, none of the datasets show the “six sigma event” April 2006 temperature event claimed on the RC site. The real numbers are 3.09 sigma (correctly calculated Mann/Jones figures), 2.87 sigma (Nordclim), and 2.47 sigma(NOAA).

Finally, the Nordklim dataset is by far the most sophisticated splice. The Mann/Jones dataset is just two stations disguised as one. The NOAA adjustment is a straight adjustment of the mean and standard deviation of Istjord Radio, with no monthly corrections. The Nordklim dataset has actually adjusted for each move and change of the Isfjord station, as well as correcting a number of individual monthly records.

And the trend of the best dataset? Remember, this is supposed to be the fastest warming station in the world, at over a quarter of a degree per decade … but the best data we have, the Nordklim data, shows a trend less than 60% of that, at .15°C per decade.
The behaviour of Mann and Jones in this expisode has been nothing short of despicable. Having made a mistake, they refused to state the source of their data (surprise, surprise), refused to discuss an abysmal mathematical error, and now have closed the thread to comments. For shame.

bernie

bender:
I think you are right – we agree. My interest – apart from self preservation – is in how the general public gets at the facts in these kinds of debates, hence checking the media stories like Svalbard and Warming Island. My skepticism is natural and applies to most things, especially those that allow for quantification and, therefore, checking. It is the politicians, fanatics and media types I most distrust – not scientists – up until recently, that is, when some scientists appear to have decided to also play these less admirable roles.

bender

It is the politicians, fanatics and media types I most distrust

… and those evil mining consultants 8)

Murray Duffin

Re: #7 Glacial melting is much more likely to be from increased insolation than from higher temperature. The same could The same could be true of icecaps.

Re: #1 The theory of solar modulation of cosmic rays to affect cloud cover, and therefore surface average temperature is based on the rate of change of sunspot intensity, rather than the absolute peak sunspot activity. Cycle 23 had a peak activity of about 170 with a transition from min of 43 months, for a rate of change on the upside of 4. Cycles 20 and 21 were nearer 5. These three covered the period from 1976 through 2007, the period of greatest warming of the last century. Cycle 23 is bottoming about 6 months later than previously expected, considerably reducing the rate of change on the downside. Consistent with the slower rate of change we have seen a shift from warming to no warming during this downside. Temp has been about flat from 1996 through 2006, with peaks at 1998 and 2005. (In spite of continuously increasing CO2 concentration)
The average sunspot cycle is 11+-2 years. During the 20th century we have seen a series of high peaks and short cycles, giving a high rate of change. Cycle 21 valley to valley was 119 months, cycle 22 ‘€” 115 months, cycle 23 ‘€” 139 months. We now have 2 forecasts for cycle 24 (now starting) of 136 and 146 months. We could split the difference at 141 months, but given the big stretch out on the downside of 23, and the known slowing of the solar conveyor, the 146 months seems more credible. The upside cycle length seems to vary recently between 32 and 35% of the total cycle. If we take 34% of 146 months we have 49 months. We have 2 forecasts of peak sun spot intensity of 90 and 140. If we assume a peak at 115, the upside rate of change would be 2.4, only 60% of cycle 23, or 50% of cycles 21 and 22.
If the solar modulation theory is correct, we are in for a big increase in average low cloud cover, and a measurable global cooling going forward

Stan Palmer

re 7

The poster-worthy risk is that continued melting from moderately warm temperatures will unleash the albedo feedbacks (conversion of ground surface from white to black) that would lead to much stronger warming. I’m not sure there’s proof that that’s happening (I’m no expert), just ample reason to be believe it could. I don’t think there’s much doubt that this is happening, it’s more a quantitative question of when and how much.

I heard exactly teh same thing in the 70s. There were frequent appearances on television by scientists who warned of the dangers of sudden climate change. Albedo change was one such effect that they postulated.

As the world got cooler, there would be longer periods of and larger areas of snow cover. This would reflect sunlight and make the world cooler. As the world cooled, there would be mode snow and a regenerative effect would take hold. There were stories that this would lead to snow persisting in shady spots until the heat of the summer. Eventually these shady patches would be snow covered all year round and the ice would return within years not decades.

Stan Palmer

re 14 and indirectly 7
Stephen Jay Gould warned about “just so” stories explaining evolution. The problem with much that I hear about AGWW is that it is the same sort of collection of “just so” explanations that Gould warned about. The example of albedo change as a positive feedback is a good one. In the 70s, it would hasten the next ice age. Now it could be the cause of a rapid warming.

No one, no one should be allowed to talk about feedback without presenting a mathematical model of the system and its feedback path. If they don’t have that then talk about feedback is just so much arm waving.

bender

Re #16
Baloney. You think I can’t model a positive feedback that runs hot and cold?

Richard Sharpe

12 says:

Glacial melting is much more likely to be from increased insolation than from higher temperature.

It’s not clear to me that this is the case, since ice and snow reflect a reasonable portion of sunlight quite well.

bender

News flash: these models exist.

Lizi K

Bender

If the water based positive feedback occurs….do the models take into account that the water evaoration if endothermic ? Therefore the fist time you have evaporation from CO2 induced feedback, you will have a slight cooling thus negating any feedback loop ? Otherwise why doesnt the earth go into catastrophic H20 feedback each and every year when we have a Norther Hemisphere summer ? The earth as a whole is slightly warmer during Northern Hemi summer because there is far more land in the Northern Hemisphere. I believe this warming is SEVERAL DEGREES – so why doesnt the earth go into a catastrophic H20 feedback every year ? Maybe because there is no H20 feedback loop?

Filippo Turturici

The change of albedo due to decreasing sea ice and land snow is, until now, just a theory, and there is until now no sign of it working.
Indeed, in the Arctic where ice and snow cover significantly decreased in the last years, the albedo is still the same because of increasing cloud cover: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Study/ArcticReflector/arctic_reflector4.html

While, in the Antarctica, the problem has no sense, because sea ice sheet remained the same or ever slightly increased in last decades (and even last years): http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/current.anom.south.jpg

MarkW

RichardT,

Immediately above your post claiming that us skeptics accept stomata data without question, were several posts questioning stomata data.

MarkW

bender,

One big difference between AGW and solar theories. The solar theories fit past data. AGW adjusts past data to fit the theories.

MarkW

#23,

News flash, these models [snip].

Julian Flood

Re: 6 (Nordklim data set), 23 (satellite data)

.12/decade, .13/decade. Un-bucket-corrected SSTs .14/decade. Looks consistent to me. If the models don’t run properly with uncorrected SSTs as input then something must be wrong. No, not with the data…

JF

MarkW

bender,

It’s not up to me to prove how bad the models are. It’s up to the modelers to demonstrate that the models can accurately replicate reality.

This they have failed to do. Over and over and over again.

bender

Humble apologies to CA readership for occupying so much bandwidth in the last few days. (The problem is I detest arm-waving dismissal of avenues of research that could potentially lead to answers. I am impatient to move forward on approaches that give us answers.)

But in reply to Dave Dardinger:
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=1586#comment-110310

The biggest, though not the only, aspect of varying temperature measurements is humidity.

You have hit on something here that the others, to this point, have not. If the GCMs are overly focused on a limited set of output variables (GMT being just one of these), such that they are essentially overfitting their models to these outputs, then one would predict a divergence (that word again) between predicted and observed values for the other variables that are outside their scope of immediate concern. Thus an independent validation of the model fit is possible, if there are other variables that can be used as criteria for judging model performance.

I am surely not the first to recognize this opporunity for an independent validation test. But I wonder if it has been addressed in a substantive way in the primary literature. If the GCMs work well for an idealized parameter (say, GMT) because they are overfit to that parameter, then the lack of fit to some other equally meaningful parameter would put them under suspicion.

The GMers already recognize that their models do a poor job of simulating moist convection, so there’s not a lot of traction on DD’s humidity, I would think. Maybe there are other aspects of the GCM outputs that could be investigated?

As an afterthought, I would like to point out that arm-waving that GMT does not exist is, from my POV, wholly unproductive (zero traction), whereas defining an independent test for GCM robustness moves us all forward.

But let us not discuss this here. As I understand it, John A is setting up a forum for this discussion. There, in the virtual classroom, bender will receive his lecturing, and, most likely, his whipping.

bender

#24 / #37 …

Maybe because there is no H20 feedback loop?

… is an example of unhealthy skepticism. Go ask this question at RC. You will be harshly rebuked for failing to understand some basic aspects of the different effects of GHGs, including H2O, at different heights in the atmosphere; but that’s ok. Go do some reading, get your RC reply, and *then* I will give you my opinion, FWIW.

I would recommend finding a space at CA where such a discussion would fit. I don’t like “unthreaded” because if you’re going to say something useful, it should be appropriately filed. And if there are no threads where a topic fits, that’s a sign that it probably doesn’t belong on the blog. Steve M has said many times over the years that thermodynamics is OT.

Whereas model validation is not OT.

bender

Re #41 Post some links to your (one-sided) conversations at RC and I’ll check them out.

MarkW

#43,

There’s also UHI contamination, or some combination of all three.

bender

Cliff Huston, replying substantively to Willis, who was deleted, would get me deleted. Patience. Let’s wait for John A’s virtual classroom.

bender

Re #47
That lecture’s been given already. Apparnetly you need a detention.

bender

Re #49

the cynical among us fully expect that any data that doesn’t meet the GHG theory will be “adjusted

… or, among the non-cyclinal, that the models themselves will be re-tuned, with no public record of the old tunings.

jae

bender: here.

Dave Dardinger

re: #38 Bender,

The GMers already recognize that their models do a poor job of simulating moist convection, so there’s not a lot of traction on DD’s humidity, I would think.

The trouble is that moist convection and clouds are the primary subjects at issue (other than temperature per se), between warmers and skeptics. We already know that GMers recognize theire problems with clouds and youi add moist convection, so what else is left that would have traction? If we were looking at GMT we could add altitude but we’re assuming that we’re looking for temperature changes rather than absolute temperature and I don’t see that being an issue with altitude.

Albedo is important as a climate issue, but it’s already been pointed out that clouds can substitute for snow and ice, which brings us back to the earlier problem.

UHI, is also important, but warmers refuse to admit that it’s important, so they don’t have any desire to even talk about it, so it has negative traction if anything.

There are some aspects of ocean currents, especially sinking in the polar regions which are important to climate change, but they can take us away from the atmosphere as the major factor, though atmospheric changes to enter into the picture in terms of winds and IR transparency.

Anyway, I can only discuss this today because I’m going to be out of town for two weeks and I don’t know how much access to the internet I’ll have during that time. Probably not very much. Maybe this AutidBlogs thingee will be going by the time I get back.

jae

53: Maybe you did not read very carefully. They answered my question about the math in the equations. Did you not see my questions about why the average temperatures in the arid southwest are higher than they are in the soggy southeast (at same latitude and elevation)?

bender

Re #56: Of course I did. I’m a fast reader. And I know how to search a page for text. What’s your point? Are you sure you understood the answers you got?

bender

Re #59 You aksed the question [paraphrase]: is H2O a positive OR negative feedback? You gave some examples involving east/west, desert/coastal humidity. You were told to unask the question as it has both kinds of effects in different circumstances. If you continue to ask a question that is ill-posed, how do you expect knowledgeable, sensible people to respond?

You had plenty of opportunity to engage people in that thread and you did not do it. Even though you generated a fair amount of discussion. So don’t accuse them of ignoring your question. I think you just don’t like the answer you were given. Just like you don’t like any alternative to solar as an explanation of GW.

Folks, that’s it for the week.

Richard Sharpe

Hmmm, so if I have understood things correctly, solar insolation falling on the sea or other bodies of water, will serve to increase the amount of evaporation. However, that evaporation will then take energy with it from the sea or body of water, thus decreasing the temperature (heat content?) of the water. Much of that energy seems to be lost to space when that water vapor then condenses and falls as precipitation.

Does that water vapor absorb further energy from the atmosphere on its way up or on its way down as precipitation?

DeWitt Payne

Richard S and jae:

I think some grounding in Physical Meteorology might help. I found this site:
http://maths.ucd.ie/met/msc/PhysMet/PhysMetLectNotes/PhysMetLectNotes.html
to be very helpful as a start, particularly the sections on moist thermodynamics and stability. The basic structure of the atmosphere, temperature, pressure, humidity and density as a function of altitude, is determined primarily by the thermodynamics of adiabatic expansion because the thermal conductivity of air is quite low and radiative heat transfer doesn’t have much effect over short distances. Question: do NWP models include radiative heat transfer?

My current understanding is that surface moisture couples the surface temperature more closely to the atmosphere temperature and does result in a lower surface temperature than for a dry surface. Because the latent heat of vaporization of water is so large (the energy from condensing eight pounds of steam at 100C will bring one pound of room temperature water to the boiling point, IIRC) moist air at the same temperature contains more heat than dry air. So the same heat input to a moist surface results in the same heat content, but a lower temperature than for a dry surface. Water vapor, but not CO2, acts as a heat transfer agent by evaporation/condensation. This is known as latent heat transfer. This also results in a less rapid decline of temperature (lapse rate) with altitude for moist air. The lapse rate effect becomes more pronounced at higher temperatures because the vapor pressure of water increases with temperature. So water vapor on the way up transfers heat to the other components of the atmosphere as it condenses and can absorb heat from the atmosphere (although not very much if the atmosphere is already saturated with water vapor and the velocity of the falling drops is probably also a factor) and surface as the condensed droplets fall back down.

The total heat content of air at any given pressure, temperature and humidy can be calculated, but it isn’t trivial. It would be a much better metric than temperature. Ocean heat content would be easier to determine if it didn’t require determining temperature with one millidegree precision and accuracy, not to mention measuring the depth accurately.

DeWitt Payne

Re: #65

Indeed, I didn’t remember correctly. I looked it up and the original reference is 1kg steam to boil somewhat more than 7 kg r.t. water. I really have to stop relying on memory and look these things up.

David Smith

Speaking of water vapor, it’s interesting to look at the water vapor content of the upper half of the troposphere, which is available here . The is a near real-time loop, so it changes constantly.

This view is of the Caribbean, eastern Pacific and southern US. Texas and Florida are near the top while Columbia is towards the bottom.

The popping red and purple dots are strong thunderstorms, which put large amounts of heat and moisture in the top of the troposphere. The white areas are thick moisture, often cirrus (wispy high) clouds. The black areas are relatively dry, cloud-free air which is radiationally cooling and sinking. The brown areas are very dry and sinking.

Some observations:

* the tropical atmosphere is often lumpy, with pools of very high mositure and thunderstorms. These lumps are where cyclones can form.
* the strong thunderstorms, while few, put a lot of white (humid, relatively warm air) into the upper atmosphere, which spreads poleward. Those few red and purple dots are very important to warming the free troposphere.
* much of the planet’s IR escapes through the black and brown areas. The white areas don’t let much IR escape.
* Lindzen says that, as the tropics warm, the red and purple dots become more efficient in precipitating out moisture and so relatively less moisture (weaker white areas) are formed. My anecdotal observations tend to agree with him.
* today (May 22) there are red and purple dots and thick white area near Panama. This is an area of warm, humid air. The white areas above it show air spreading in all directions, with a slight clockwise twist. Think of the purple and red dots as “fires”, creating heat, and the clockwise twist as a chimney ventilation fan turning, removing the heat. This is a situation which favors tropical cyclone formation. In fact, some of the models drift this area to the northwest and then northeast, eventually becoming a tropical storm and bringing much-needed rain to bender in Florida in a week to ten days.

Steve Sadlov

Argh …. fingers … too …. fat…. too….. slow … “night” should have been “nights!” 😉

Carl Smith

I have set up a new blog called “Landscheidt Cycles Research” (thanks to John A!).

On the blog sidebar you will find a link to a page containing links to all the online papers I could find by Dr Theodor Landscheidt, including all the papers on John Daly’s site, and the older papers on the Bourabai Research Institution website.

Also on the sidebar is a link to a page for those who have wanted to look into the cycles Dr Landscheidt was using but did not know how to obtain the position of the the Centre of Mass of the Solar System relative to the Sun for any particular time – I have compiled and uploaded a 6000 year ephemeris using NASA JPL Horizons data that includes the longitude, distance, angular momentum, and torque, every 5 days for the entire period from 3000BC to 3000AD – note that the Centre of Mass of the Solar System is more often called the “Solar System Barycenter” in astronomical circles.

I welcome comments and input from those interested in this material, and would be happy to start pages dealing with various aspects of it.

In coming months I intend to update it with various graphs and other information … however I do not see myself being anything like as busy as Steve M!

Carl.

jae

Carl: that’s a great site. some very interesting stuff!

Steve Sadlov

RE: #54 – I’ll heap another one on here …. brackish water bodies that are not quite oceans and not quite lakes. Certainly, the Baltic would qualify. It would be a good debate to look at the Arctic this way, given its intense stratification. Then, there are the prominent large areas of overriding fresh water elsewhere, such as the wedges off of the Amazon, Mississippi, St. Lawrence, Yang Tze, etc.

At the other end of the spectrum are the extra saline arms of the oceans – The Mediterranean, The Red Sea, the Persian Gulf, the Gulf of California, etc.

I would wager, without taking the time to do an extensive survey, that the models do not account for these very well.

Steve Sadlov

RE: #75 – Since I live in the transition zone between the more heavily floral coastal strip and the great SW deserts I cannot resist throwing in my own observations. Where I live, we get mostly “coastal” weather but sometimes we get an outbreak of interior hot weather. When such an outbreak occurs, it is under the following conditions:
– Very clear skies
– Very high heights
– Intense subsidence
– RH below 20%
– Prior to the summer solstice, at least one month after the equinox
– After the summer solstice, up to one month after the equinox
– Northerly to Easterly wind but less than 10 MPH velocity
– Double or triple barrel high, with centers located just east of Hawaii, over the four corners region and if a triple, one more over the central Front Range.

Now, I have also spent a good deal of time inland, as in, near or in Death Valley. There, the criteria are a bit fewer:
– Clear sky
– High heights
– Intense subsidence
– RH below 20%
– Prior to the summer solstice, at least one month after the equinox
– After the summer solstice, up to one month after the equinox

In other words, not unlike the Sahara, great Western desert in Australia, or the ones along the NW Indian Ocean litoral.

bender

the Atlantic Hurricane Season will be above normal this year’€”showing the ongoing active hurricane era remains strong

Showing?

But any second Boris & Lee will be along with their even-handed treatment to tell us that NOAA’s reading of Mother Nature’s mind is not just accurate, but actually BETTER than real observations.

Paul M

RMS

I know that the RMS threads have gone quiet.

Just so you know that RMS backed down from their decision to use running 5 year averages for hurricane forecasting as a result of pressure from Florida State.

Cheers

Paul

Jan Pompe

#73 #75

Average July temperatures for low altitude locations in the Desert Southwest are higher than those for similar elevations in the very humid Southeast.

Jan Pompe

#77 Steve

I like the way you think ; so how do we quantify it. I’m extremely rusty on my control theory.

Lee

re 80.

aaawww, bender’s flirting with me.

Jonathan Schafer

Has anyone looked through this?

Executive Summary
Human activities increasingly influence all aspects’€”biological, chemical, and physical’€”of the planet on which we live. To better understand what is being affected and how, the scientific method requires us to partition the immense problem at hand into slightly more manageable pieces. One of those pieces is the natural climate variability on which any human-induced change is superimposed. Climate variability, with or without anthropogenic change, represents one of the most fundamental issues of scientific and social interest today. The purpose of the workshop held by the NRC’s Climate Research Committee in September 1992 (at the National Academies’ Beckman Center in Irvine, California) was to define natural climate variability on the time scale of a few human generations. This volume reflects not only the proceedings of that workshop but considerable intervening work, both by the invited authors and their colleagues, and by anonymous reviewers and the book’s editorial committee.

THE CHALLENGE
Natural climate variability on decade-to-century time scales is best defined in terms of the bio-chemical-physical system that must be studied, the principal components of that system, the mechanisms active within each component, and the interactions between components. The main components of the earth system are the atmosphere, oceans, land surface, snow and ice at the surface of both oceans and land, and biota near the interfaces of atmosphere, ocean, and land. The natural mechanisms include radiative transfer, the planetary-scale circulation of the atmosphere and oceans, photochemical processes, and biogeochemical cycles of trace-gases and nutrients. The major interactions between the components of the climate system so defined are given by the exchanges of energy, momentum, water, and trace constituents, which take a large number of specific forms. For instance, ice-albedo feedback affects radiative transfer in the atmosphere and the heat exchange between it and the underlying high-latitude surfaces, and evaporation-wind stress affects the feedback between the tropical atmosphere and oceans.

Our current understanding of the climate system on these time scales is based on insufficient observations and imperfect models. Historically, both observations and models have addressed only one component of the system; the best (but still unsatisfactory) data sets and models are those available for the atmosphere, followed in order by those for the oceans and, more recently, the snow and ice, land surface, and biota. Fortunately, sophisticated global observation systems and model studies are now addressing all these components. Credible results have been obtained with coupled ocean-atmosphere models in the last decade for the interannual variability of the tropical Pacific Ocean and the overlying atmosphere. Similar results for the longer time scales and global components are only starting to become available at the time of this writing.

The community owes much to the remarkable foresight of the individuals and institutions whose persistence is responsible for the sets of long-term observations that are available to us today. Studies of climate variability on the interannual time scale have since been greatly stimulated

How things have changed since 1995 when this was published…:(

Philip B

This analysis of temperature data shows water vapour is the primary driver of temperature changes and can find no effect from increasing CO2 levels. It also finds that modern warming is not caused by an increased greenhouse effect, but by an increase in input energy.

http://www.john-daly.com/barker/index.htm

jae

93:

I would also expect that around similar lattitude and altitude for the two areas the annual averages not to be outrageously different.

You are correct; there is about a 3 degree difference.

Steve Sadlov

RE: #95 – Another thing …. here out West we are generally on the east side of a semi permanent High (the Pacific/Hawaiian High) whereas the SE US (as well as SE Asia) is on the West side of similar semi permanent highs. Look at this in terms of Hadley Cells.

Steve Sadlov

It appears there is a good chance that snowfall will reach north eastern North Dakota over the next 36 hours. Also, a late season snow storm for the southern Rockies is a distinct possibility. No relief in sight for the soggy Great Plains. Cold fronts stacked up all the way to Siberia.

bender

jae, you know darn well GCMs simulate changes in enthalpy. How well they do it is, of course, another question – and we’ve heard modelers admit that moist convection is problematic. But don’t think that by redefining AGW as AGT you’ve gotten rid of the problem. (That is what you’re up to, after all. And that’s why you keep getting the answers you’ve always been getting, starting with RC.) The problem is W, and all the things it causes, including changes in atmpospheric and oceanic flows.

Mark T.

Also, a late season snow storm for the southern Rockies is a distinct possibility.

Hard to tell, but it looks like it is already snowing on Copper Mountain: Jacques Peak.

Mark

jae

bender, maybe I’m off base again, but it appears to me that the AGW is always defined in terms of T, not true W. How do the models end up providing T values from W information?

T J Olson

I can confirm to Steve (#98) and Mark (#102) that if has been snowing on Jacques Peak! Indeed, Summit County, Colorado – as low as 7,000 feet – has had snow day and night since Tuesday; the bottom temps won’t get out of the low 30s until Saturday. (Source: I live here.)

Spring is on hiatus through much of the central Rockies.

jae

bender: I think you can derive temperature from enthalpy by using specific humidity and specific heat values for water vapor and all the other gases. But then there are all those problems accounting for condensation/clouds, and we all know how good the models are at dealing with those issues. It’s beyond my understanding, for sure. All I know is that I am over 90 percent confident that it gets hotter in areas with less water, given the same latitude and elevation. This suggests to me that water vapor does not provide a TEMPERATURE feedback overall.

jae

Main Entry: inⶣorⶲi⶧iⶢle
Pronunciation: (“)in-‘kor-&-j&-b&l, -‘kär-
Function: adjective
Etymology: Middle English, from Late Latin incorrigibilis, from Latin in- + corrigere to correct — more at CORRECT
Date: 14th century
: incapable of being corrected or amended: as a (1) : not reformable : DEPRAVED (2) : DELINQUENT b : not manageable : UNRULY c : UNALTERABLE, INVETERATE
– inⶣorⶲi⶧iⶢilⶩⶴy /-“kor-&-j&-‘bi-l&-tE, -“kär-/ noun
– incorrigible noun
– inⶣorⶲi⶧iⶢleⶮess /-‘kor-&-j&-b&l-n&s, -‘kär-/ noun
– inⶣorⶲi⶧iⶢly /-blE/ adverb

Which definition? All?

Ian Castles

The Summary for Policymakers of the contribution of IPCC Working Group II (“Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability”) was released with great fanfare on 6 April. The press briefing in Brussels said that the process had involved 394 authors, 45 review editors, 4 review cycles and 1183 expert reviewers, and that there had been 45,610 review comments. The IPCC website now provides links to eight regional briefings on the WGII contribution to AR4, as well as to a set of four presentations to a meeting under the aegis of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (12 May) and to a presentation to the 15th World Meteorological Congress in Geneva (15 May). Yet, eight weeks after the launch and the related media coverage, there does not seem to be any sign of the 1400-page report on the IPCC website. Am I missing something? And can anyone tell me, please, how I can get access to a copy of a report that has been approved by 180 governments?

Jonathan Schafer

#113,

Interesting. Have read several papers discussing SST at depth being more important that SST at the surface. Shallow warmth does not appear to lead to increased hurricane count/strength.

The GOM and SE Caribbean appear to be slightly warmer at depth with cooler than 2005 at depth off the coast of Africa. Given that the majority of early season storms occur in the Caribbean and GOM and the slightly warmer waters compared to 2005, I’m not sure I agree with their conclusion about the season getting of to a strong/fast start. Have you seen any projected shear charts for the GOM and Caribbean?

Bob Koss

Re 112

I couldn’t find the technical report either.

I assume the IPCC will procrastinate as long as they can. They want as much time as possible for the gloom and doom of the summary to be touted by the media. I’m sure the summary can’t be an accurate reflection of the technical report.

fFreddy

Bah … definitely …

TAC

There is an article in today’s NYT about a study coming out today in Nature showing that

the eastern Caribbean has experienced several periods, lasting centuries, in which strong hurricanes occurred frequently even though ocean temperatures were cooler than those measured today

The article goes on to say that:

Judith A. Curry, an atmospheric scientist at Georgia Tech, said the new study, together with other recent research on warming and storms by her and others, added to a picture of rising risk and lagging government action on reducing vulnerability of coastal populations in the Atlantic and Caribbean hurricane zone.

😉

Jan Pompe

Don’t know what happened there: continuing: it is also unlikely that the the IR radiation is perfectly . reflected each time (does ‘perpetuum mobile’ ring a bell?). IR gases make up around 5% of the the probabilty of each photon hitting a GHG molecule I should imagine is rather low. Collision with other gas molecules can impart added kinetic energy to them thus loosing energy and they no longer have enough to exite a GHG molecule and won’t be absorbed. To get a proper model the coefficient of lambda*A will have to be empirically determined.

Finally that simple analysis at the top of the page is incomplete since it leaves out the losses of IR (long wave length light) in the upper atmosphere due to scattering and absorption and radiation outwards. The proof that this occurs is the fact that the sky is blue.

Reference

Re: #120

A few more interesting details in this summary

The new research, though, says heat alone is not the only factor in hurricanes, for the atmospheric dynamics caused by El Nino and the African jetstream also play a big role.

In the later half of the so-called Little Ice Age — a mysterious period of sudden cooling which ran from the 16th to the mid-19th centuries — there was a flurry of hurricanes, note Donnelly and Woodruff.

Jonathan Schafer

#119 David Smith,

Thanks for link. Adding it to my bookmarks.

jae

123, tom: Those links are great! At last, the basic physics demonstrating (as far as I can tell) that CO2 cannot be changing temperature significantly. And that the Sun can, and is.

jae

129: The best explanation is in the last link. I haven’t digested it all, yet, because it’s hard to follow, he doesn’t define all his terms, and there are some typos. However, he is demonstrating from first principles (thermodynamics)why CO2 cannot possibly cause much warming and why the Sun must be responsible for most of it. I understand most, but not all of it. I would like to see someone audit it. His bottom line really says it all”

The total solar irradiance incoming to the terrestrial surface is 167 cal (697.04 W/m^2). Considering the mass of air and its thermal capacity, the Earth’s temperature should vary by 0.518 °C, which is exactly the maximum averaged change in tropospheric temperature achieved during the 1990s (in 1998).

If you do not apply heat to the pot, the fababeans never will cook. The Earth would not be warming if the Sun’s energy output (Solar Irradiance) had not increased. Favorably, our Sun is emitting more radiation now than it was 200 years ago, and so we should have no fear of a natural cycle which has occurred many times over in the lifetime of our Solar System.

Heat always moves from places of higher density of heat to places of lower density of heat. Thus states the Second Law of Thermodynamics. In daylight, air is always colder than soil; consequently, heat is transferred from the soil to the air, not vice versa. By the same physical law, the heat emitted by the Sun ‘€”a source of heat- is transferred to the Earth, which is a colder system.

The carbon dioxide capability to absorb-emit heat is much more limited than that of the oceans and the soil; thus, carbon dioxide cannot have been the cause of the warming of the Earth in 1998.

David Smith

The Hadley CRUT3 global temperature anomaly time series is here , updated through April. This is based on surface temperature measurements.

Note that the period of no-global-temperature-rise is now into its seventh year.

Jan Pompe

Re 123 and http://biocab.org/Heat_Stored.html

Earth receives 697.04 W/m^2 of energy from a total of 1367 W/m^2 of incoming energy from the Sun. 14% of incoming heat to Earth is absorbed by air.

So where is the other 35% opf incoming heat going?

#129 Paul,

Where is your problem exactly? The math is just some algebra and arithmetic on formulae developed by other earlier work by scientists working in the field of thermodynamics; if I’ve forgotten the details I google it;-). Apart from the font which I don’t like it seems straight forward. Most non scientist/mathematicians find their problems relate more to tying the math to the physics and what it means to them.

Bob Weber

Re #123 Were does Nahle get 697.68 W/m^2 incoming radiation when everyone else (even Motl) uses the average value of 342 W/m^2?

Bob

Jan Pompe

#136

I think you’ll find the 342 w/m^2 is a world wide average and can be considerably higher or lower depending on lattitude and time of year. I measured nearly 800 w/m^2 around midday one summer in Sydney in an experiment in physics class at uni.

tom

Forgot to include a link to the Novak page

http://nov55.com/hype.html

Steve McIntyre

#139, 140. I disagree with the analysis in this webpage, but don’t want to spend time on it right now. I’ll try to post something more responsible on the topic within a few weeks, but for now, I’d prefer that you don’t try to base any comments here on that source.

Greg F

RE:139
Read some of Novak’s writings and tell me he isn’t certifiable. His critique of relativity is amusing.

Steve McIntyre

Tom, I’m not trying to defend or discuss every “skeptic” argument. I’ve asked people not to discuss Beck and global mean temperature here and Novak is hereby added to the list.

Joe B

This is a pretty fun article:

15 year old girl predicts end of Australian drought

jae

LOL. I hope Kristen takes on Judith next.

MarkW

“very logical mind” ??

Are you part Vulcan or something?

bender

After asking a reasonable question over at RC

I want to understand the issue of structural instabilities. Given that there is some irreducible imprecision in model formulation and parameterization, what is the impact of this imprecision? I’m glad to hear that the models aren’t tuned to fit any trends, that they are tuned to fit climate scenarios. (Do you have proof of this?) But it is the stability of these scenarios that concerns me. If they are taken as reliable (i.e. persistent) features of the climate system then I can see how there might exist “a certain probability distribution of behaviors” (as conjectured by #160). My concern is that these probability distributions in fact do not exist, or, rather, are unstable in the long-run. If that is true, then the parameterizations could be far off the mark.

What do you think the chances are of that? Please consider an entire post devoted to the issue of structural instability in GCMs. Thanks, as always.

Not only did I not get an inline reply, I was then attacked by my friend, Steve Bloom:

Re #232: Along with the rest of the ClimateAstrology crowd, what you *want* is to prove your belief that the models are invalid along with the rest of climate science. It’s an interesting hobby for Objectivists with time on their hands, but as has been proved again and again by the few climate scientists who have braved the CA gauntlet, in the end it’s a complete waste of their time.

There’s more to the exchange if anyone want to follow it:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/05/hansens-1988-projections/#comment-33670

As you would expect, I replied to Mr Bloom at RC, but the reply did not pass.

So, for the record, I post a more substantive reply here at CA, where dialogue is permitted:
1. I’m not a fan of astrology.
2. I am not driven by belief.
3. Invalidating models is the definition of science. It’s not just what *I* do, it’s what real scientists do. Call it what you like – it’s science.
4. I don’t have a lot of time on my hands. Quite the contrary.
5. I’ve not been proven wrong on any issue by any climate scientist. Not Judth Curry, not Isaac Held, not Jimy Dudhia. None of them hasever indicated discontent with their interactions with me.

This attack is disgusting, and RC’s unwillingness to allow me to defend myself, surprising and discouraging. The vitriolic anti-science attitude exhibited by Mr Bloom actually frightens me.

I don’t want to waste bandwidth engaging in a war over what is a simple, honest question. But I think it may be important to document what’s really going on here. Thank you for allowing me to document this exchange, Steve M.

welikerocks

Hello All and Happy Memorial Weekend Americans.
Here in So.Cal its been 4 degrees below normal temps all month!

Have you seen this from Junk Science/Fox News yesterday? Sorry if its been shared already. I looked through the posts first but I might have missed it.

Warnings about global warming may not be dire enough, according to a climate study that describes a runaway-train acceleration of industrial carbon dioxide emissions,” USA Today shrieked this week.

The study authors reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that the rate of manmade carbon dioxide emissions was three times greater during 2000 to 2004 than during the 1990s.

Since increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide levels allegedly are causing global warming, the new study must mean that global temperatures are soaring even faster now than they did during the 1990s, right?

Wrong, according to the most recent data from the U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Climatic Data Center.

By overlaying the atmospheric carbon dioxide trend onto graphs of near-surface temperatures, surface temperatures and ocean temperatures, it is readily apparent that ever-changing global temperatures aren’t keeping pace with ever-increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide levels.

Hot Air Study Melts Global Warming Theory

gdn

12: Glacial melting is much more likely to be from increased insolation than from higher temperature. The same could The same could be true of icecaps.

Precipitation/humidity changes seem a very large factor, at least in regards glaciers. Sublimation is not insignificant if it goes on for long enough, neither is an albedo change from dirty ice to fresh snow. Rain falling will melt snow quite quickly.

Philip B

3. Invalidating models is the definition of science. It’s not just what *I* do, it’s what real scientists do. Call it what you like – it’s science.

Well said. Climate models are theories. We should be testing their predictions by any means possible, not merely seeing if they can produce a rough approximation of the highly questionable mean surface temperature.

bender

Re #161
From another thread, Steve M has already said, in response to this issue:

If one sticks to specific issues with the data and methods and stays away from the abstract arguments, then useful things can be said.

I can’t see where an abstract discussion on the topic gets us any closer to the ultimate goal of audit. If it doesn’t lead somewhere productive, why bother?

There will be time and place to discuss this, in all its aspects … when John A puts his site together.

David Smith

A couple of interesting websites:

Here is a tool that calculates the (TOA) solar insolation at any locale for any day of the year. Plug in a latitude, longitude, year and month and get a table of solar insolation (W/m2) for the days of that month.
It’s neat to look at how sunlight varies at, say, the North Pole, where mid-summer insolation is greater than in the tropics, thanks to around-the-clock sunlight.

And here is a source for GCM output on various atmospheric variables over the next 100 or so years. I assume these are modern, well-regarded models. Things look awfully linear to me.

David Smith

RE #165 Nice find, Bob. I’ll add it to the list. IWIC has some interesting reasoning and pre-season indicators.

Filippo Turturici

On the models: mathematical models do not do scientifical theories. They do just calculations, they can help a lot on precision too, but they are just our slaves and they do just what we tell them to do. So, if my analitical theory gives me e.g. some result from 1.0 to 6.0, numerical theory will not tell me I am wrong: it would just give me more results from 0.99999 to 5.99999; I will be able to look at a 50km square instead of a 5000km square, but on the whole system I will never get different results.
If I modelise a model with -g instead of g, why men should not be able to fly from my calculations?

M. Simon

Did I say something wrong to get my post deleted?

I was under the impression this was an open thread. I was responding to something in another open thread. Perhaps if there are rules you could post them at the top of the thread.

Michael Jankowski

I find it interesting that the models best predictive accuracy is with (mean) surface air temperature, which is giving a misleading impression of warming. Also this from 2001. I wonder how they have done since?

It depends who you ask. Most like to say they do a great job and are getting better and better everyday.

On the other hand, even James Hansen is a little more even-handed. He has a paper in press (abstracts and link to paper here) concerning 1880-2003 simulations using GISS modelE. The long-time NASA/GISS modeling guru says right there in the abstract, “Although there are notable discrepancies between model and observations, the fidelity is sufficient to encourage use of the model for simulations of future climate change.” So he says it’s a model worth of use when it comes to predicting the future.

Within the paper itself, he says it is on the level of other climate models: “Despite these model limitations, in IPCC model inter-comparisons now being carried out, the model used for most of the simulations reported here, i.e., modelE with the Russell ocean, fares at least as well as the typical global model.”

Once again, Hansen suggests that modelE is at least average, if not better than average, compared to other climate models.

So what are these model “limitations?”

“Model shortcomings include 25% regional deficiency of summer stratus cloud cover off the west coast of the continents with resulting excessive absorption of solar radiation by as much as 50 W/m2, deficiency in absorbed solar radiation and net radiation over other tropical regions by typically 20 W/m2, sea level pressure too high by 4-8 hPa in the winter in the Arctic and 2-4 hPa too low in all seasons in the tropics, 20% deficiency of rainfall over the Amazon basin, 25% deficiency in summer cloud cover in the western United States and central Asia with a corresponding 5°C excessive summer warmth in these regions.”

Is that good?

M. Simon

#169 was in slight error. The actual change in enthalpy is about 970 BTU/lb. It takes 180 BTU to raise 1 lb of water 100 deg C

Which means about 5.4 lbs of water from 0 C to 100 C

M. Simon

#174 Steve,

I was responding to something in #10 unthread as I said. In fact I think I read about 70% of that unthread and have been lurking here for the last 6 hours (plus about 4 hours yesterday) looking for urls that would help in a piece I am working on. Found a lot of good stuff! #10 had a lot of semi-political discussions and I felt moved to respond and would have responed in #10 had that been open. I saw a number of folks at the top of this thread continuing discussions in #10 so I figured that was OK.

Well any way glad to help with the steam table stuff. Haven’t done much of that since I was a Naval Nuke 40 years ago. First cut was a little shaky. Error corrected.

BTW click on the Bussard link above and explain how I crossed the line. (you can post any where you like – OT or not). I don’t delete either. Unless you want me to. My e-mail is also on the sidebar. Once I’m sure of your red lines I won’t cross them. I’d like to know though what is extreme about wanting poor people to improve their lot in life? Or not wanting the government to piss away my money? Or believing in voluntary exchange? Contact me. A few e-mail exchanges should solve it. And if this is too far OT, or my first post is, you can delete them. I just wanted to retrieve the post so I could use it at my blog.

As long as I’m going off on a political vein – I have asked a number of bright capable AGW folks (one studied under Feynman) to help with the fusion stuff, since if it works (about a 1% to 10% chance is my engineering estimate – the risk reward ratio is right though) it would eliminate most CO2 production in about 20 to 25 years, not full time effort or even part time effort, anything, including words of encouragement. None of them have yet offered to pitch in, even a little. Which leads me to believe that the desire to eliminate CO2 production is not their real interest. Power and Control is their real interest. By any means necessary. As a number of folks stated in #10. Further corroboration. Isn’t it interesting that a technological solution doesn’t interest them?

Did I mention I’d like to see you go on the attack (so far you are mostly doing defence) by running the correlations between the solar data and the temperature data vs the CO2 data. Not my area of expertise. However, it would be really nice to have some one skilled do the correlations rather than just overlaying graphs. It is not real science unless you have numbers and I haven’t seen any in a couple of days of 10 hours/day looking.

Again thanks!

Ken Fritsch

Re: #175

Bender, in my mind, your post gives a good summary of the potential weaknesses in models as complex as those used for climate and avoids any appearance of looking for conspiratorial leaning motivations. The excerpted comment from your post below covers very well my main concern with these models– from my layman’s observation post. I sometimes think that I have not searched or questioned sufficiently to hear modelers’ concerns about over fitting, etc. If you have any links to modelers expressing these concerns or replying to your questions about theses concerns let us know.

The modelers of good reputation who have posted here and I have read in other places would appear to just assume that their models cannot be over fit without really having formally addressed this potential problem. I find that response not at all reassuring as I have heard similar ones from the developers of obviously data snooped and over fitted stock investment schemes — that have failed out-of-sample.

Modelers that seem uninterested in uncertainty, overfitting, and divergence may not be trustworthy. Even if they are well-intentioned they may not understand the nature of the hypothesis-testing game when it comes to stochastic dynamic systems.

bender

From p. S-3:

A computer programming error was present in the calculation of snow albedo in several of our climate simulations.

Audit the GCMs!

Paul Linsay

#181, SteveM. Actually that’s the sort of thing that Roger Pielke, Sr. harps on all the time, all though he talks about it in the context of the oceans more than the air. The tropics have a lot of water vapor in the air whereas the poles and deserts have very little. Since the specific heat of water is so large, any increase in heat input in the tropics causes much less temperature increase than it would where the air is very dry. So yes, the average temperature could go up with very little increase in energy flux or simply a redistribution.

bernie

Question:
I was thinking about the problem of error bars and uncertainties that are central to much of this work and how to effectively communicate this to the general public. How is the following as a simple metric of the strength of the apparent recent temperature trend: How many years of temperatures equivalent to the baseline temperature would it take for the current trend to become zero? A strong trend would take many years of baseline temperature for the trend to become zero, while a weak trend would take but a few.

bender

Re #183
Well, bernie,
I’ve had one comment before disallowed, and now my reply to Timothy Chase #246 is not showing up:

“The subject of gavin’s post was Hansen’s models from twenty years ago.”

The content of the post is as you describe. However the subject of the post is broader than that; it is the credibility of the Hansen et al approach to climate dynamics modeling. You can redefine the debate as narrowly as you like; the harder you work these semantics, the more it worsens your case.

“Those models proved to be fairly accurate”

Your notion of model “accuracy” is perhaps not as nuanced as it needs to be. With a stochastic dynamic system model containing a hundred free parameters, do you have any idea how easy it is to get the right answer … for the *wrong* reasons? A valid model is one which gives you the right answers … for the *right* reasons. There is much more to model validation than an output correlation test, especially over a meagre 20 years.

If your faith in the model’s accuracy is so strong, then why don’t you just sit back patiently, keep quiet, and let the experts defend it? Then my concern will be proven to be unfounded. Then I will leave, we can stay friends, and all will be well again.

Maybe it will show up. Maybe I’ve said something controversial like “gavin” or “Hansen”, so it temporarily goes in the queue for scrutiny. But if so, why did my pother post never show up? [I did use the phrase “real climate science”. Maybe that triggered something?]

It’s very hard to defend oneself when you have one arm removed while your aggressor still has two.

bernie

Steve:
Makes you wonder why they are soooo defensive. I tell my wife, who owns a store, that when customers come in to return
something and appear to be immediately on the “attack” that this is a sign of defensiveness and a sure “tell” that something is wrong and that they are probably not entitled to a refund or exchange. People can be very transparent.

Jim Clarke

Re 181,182

Yes, this is why I believe that the PDO explains at least half of the observed warming of the 20th century, which has been largely in the high northern latitudes of the globe. When the oceans move heat into the high latititues, there is no need for more global energy to result in a warmer atmosphere.

We already understand the mechanism with strong El Ninos. A deep pool of warm ocean water is spread out over a much larger surface area, resulting in more exposure to the air and a warmer atmosphere. It makes sense that the PDO would have a similar effect, but on a longer, decadal time scale. When the PDO is in its warm phase (like it was for 2/3 of the 20th century) relatively warmer water spreads over the Northern Pacific and into the Arctic oceans, resulting in the observed reductions in sea ice and warmer atmospheric conditions.

As the PDO goes negative in the coming years, cooler surface waters will return to the region, resulting in significant regional cooling, increasing sea ice and gradual global cooling, without any significant change in the total energy flux.

mccall

Less than an endorsement of AGW, found in the following presentation from Dr. Pielke Sr’s blog.

Note slide 11 of 32 from the recent presentation.

Jan Pompe

I saw this a week ago in a local paper (Sydney Morning Herald):

http://newsbreakcafe.blogspot.com/2007/05/global-warming-souther-ocean-around.html

I believe it to be more fear mongering regarding rising CO2 levels. Now given that Ice Core records (Vostok, Greenland and Antarctica) show that there is about an 800 year lag in carbon dioxide levels with respect to global temperature. These records also show a warm period much warmer than today that reaches it’s peak in the 14th century. This is around 700 years ago so shouldn’t we be expecting rising CO2 levels due to oceans giving up its dissolved gases, whose solubility is inversely proportional to temperature, and whose rise we can expect to go on for another 100 years regardless of atmospheric temperatures?

Jim Clarke

Re 191,

Craig,

I think the Cosmic Ray hypothesis has just as much validity as CO2, if not more. When we assume that cosmic rays, increasing CO2 and ocean cycles all played a role in 20th century temperature changes, the dominant factor seems to be the ocean cycles. The fact that both CO2 and cosmic rays should have been causing warming in the mid-20th century, but were overwhelmed by the cooler ocean cycle, reveals the strength of the oceans. (The aerosol argument for cooling does not explain the observations as the cooling was similar in both the northern and southern hemispheres.)

When you do not cherry-pick the data like the IPCC, it becomes obvious that increasing CO2 can not possible amount to more than a degree of warming in the coming centuries.

Gerald Machnee

When I read the comics in the newspaper, I usually go for Dilbert first. Now I have to revise my priorities. I have to check CA daily to see the latest episode revealed by Steve. Soon (if not already, there should be enough material to syndicate a new comic strip.

mccall

Mr McIntyre-

Re: 192 — have you been in communication with Dr Cotton @ CO State U? He got it right when he showed MBH’99 (slide 9), then commenting in slide 11:

the hockey stick and the corrected temperature curve (green line) by McIntyre between 1400 and 1980. The green curve is not intended to indicate the true temperature, but to show the result of a correct use of data.

It’s refreshing that someone actually didn’t attribute the data handling correction, as a reconstruction to M&M.

richardT

#193
The atmosphere transports more heat than the ocean, except in the tropics. Although water has a higher specific heat capacity than air, atmospheric currents are much faster, and are present everywhere. Latent heat increases the amount of energy that is moved by the atmosphere.

Jo Calder

Bender wrote (#197):

If you really want your comments to pass their test, certain phrases need to be avoided.

Try just the one word “bristlecones” against the Fun with Correlations” thread.

MarkR

My pithy: “Whet, no bristelcone?” appeared straight away. Judicious miss-spelling may be the answer also, my fictitious nom de blog.

David Smith

Cryosphere Today’s current ice extent and anomaly plot for the Arctic is here . The lower line shows the anomaly (deficit), which is smaller than at this time in May, 2006. Interestingly, half the regions measured for this calculation are at, or slightly above, normal for this time of year – the big deficit is close to Eurasia.

Antarctica is often ignored when sea ice is discussed, but not here. The chart for the southern polar region is here . Current ice extent is slightly above the 20-year mean. It is also noticeably higher than at this time in 2006.

Globally the ice extent is running about 98.5% of the 1979-2000 mean and, currently at least, that 1.5% gap is shrinking.

Apocalypse: postponed.

Theo Richel

May I draw your attention to this website: http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/92 . Karolinska professor Hans Rosling shows here a completely new way of presenting statistics and I think that this apparently free software could be very useful to Steve and others involved in analysing and presenting statistics from all sorts of sources. I downloaded the large version (200mmb).

Thanks

Theo Richel

MarkR

Mironov Tells Kyoto Experts The World Is Getting Cooler
By Simon Shuster
Staff Writer

MT
Sergei Mironov

ST. PETERSBURG — It was a failure from the start. Russia’s biggest conference on the Kyoto Protocol, which aims to fight global warming, began with a speech from a top official who denied that global warming even exists.

“In reality, the scientific basis for the protocol is fairly weak,” Federation Council Speaker Sergei Mironov told a crowded opening session of the two-day conference Thursday, which drew more than 200 environmental experts and carbon market participants from around the world. “In the opinion of many experts, the emission of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere does not have any effect on the climate.” ……

In fact, a process of “global cooling” is now taking place, Mironov argued, citing several obscure Russian studies to prove it…….

The Moscow Times

Jan Pompe

#211 Richard

You may be right but let me entertain my doubts. It’s not the first time I’ve heard climate alarmist referring into solar source claims as astrology. It may be becoming part of the rhetoric.

bender

Actually, this is the first time I was accused of dabbling in “astrology”:
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=790#comment-43608

Jaye

I’ve been reading some of Pielke’s blog. Bloom is constantly asking Pielke if he is still “part of the consensus” with references to denialist’s mucking up the works. Pielke is polite but somewhat dismissive. Does Bloom need professional help? Shouldn’t he just stop using denialist when what he really means is heretic?

STAFFAN LINDSTRÖM

#208
…208..Old “Luxys” wavelength See the other
thread ISO2000 etc Luxembourg Ville according
to WWF had had 2,0C increase in summer temps since
early 1980ⳳ…
Any CA reader/lurker/contributor check it up!
absolitely, you don⳴ happen to have a recording??
But in fact, some AGW:ers ..correction too
many say very stupid things One working for Swedish
Nat Radio P1 (Must be “neutral”) Last Feb 2 SPM-DAY
told listeners to tell people who were going to
Africa “youⳬl get malaria, 100%” small laugh too!!
So I count these people as working for us now,
getting more and more desperate and mumbo-jumbo-ing…

Michael Jankowski

Does Bloom need professional help?

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a climate discussion board for which he didn’t have a recent post. It’s like he has several dozen sites on his watchlist of favorites and scrolls through waiting for new threads, new comments, etc. I think he’s the climate discussion analog to the people who play online game like “World of Warcraft” constantly and obsessively. Watching the “South Park” mockery of online gaming, I kept relating Cartman to Mr Bloom…

But I think he’s much better and more tolerable than some folks I’ve come across.

Jan Pompe

#217,218

He said you were on your way to becoming one, he couldn’t possibly be wrong, could he?

In any case the ice core temperature looks like a saw tooth to me and I’m planning a little dentistry. If I can remember enough about programming Fourier Transforms. Could run into trouble with Sunspot cycles since they appear to frequency modulated with a 85year cycle. I’ll see how it goes.

jae

182, Paul:

Since the specific heat of water is so large, any increase in heat input in the tropics causes much less temperature increase than it would where the air is very dry. So yes, the average temperature could go up with very little increase in energy flux or simply a redistribution.

Ahh, it’s good to see someone else who notices this fact. Just like the differences between low elevations in the Desert Southwest and the Gulf Coast at the same latitude.

bender

Now they’ve got a block on everything I comment on at RC.
We’ll see if this one makes it through:

Dude, where’s my comment – the one on arithmetic non-independence among the reconstructions shown in the opening figure? Don’t you think it’s a problem?

It’s referring to a fuller comment that I posted earlier that ain’t makin’ it. The thread is “the weirdest millenium”.

Michael Jankowski

In support of my #224, who the hell is this Ian Forrester fool, and how is he able to speak in full sentences?

paul

The human understanding is no dry light, but recieves infusion from the will and affections; whence proceed sciences which may be called “sciences as one would”. For what a man had rather were true he more readily believes. Therefore he rejects difficult things from impatience of research; sober things because they narrow hope; the deeper things of nature from pride and superstition; the light of experience, from arrogance and pride; things not commonly believed, out of deference to the opinion of the vulgar. Numberless in short are the ways and sometimes imperceptable, in which the affections colour and infect the understanding. Francis Bacon (1620)

Follow the Money

New from Alexander Cockburn-

The Greenhousers Strike Back and Out

Karl Schmidt

We had a short rain today that flash evaporated – pavement was hot – rain falling on vegetation doesn’t do this. I wonder if there is any semi accurate number of what amount of land is covered with pavement?

I heard that we now have 5% higher average relative humidity in Wichita than in the ’60s. If my numbers are correct, a 5% humidity change swamps CO2 by about 150 times. I wonder if there is any where to see any more historical records on humidity? Hard to understand how irrigation gets such a complete pass as even a possible contributor in these theories.

There is no occurrence of the word irrigation in Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis, Summary for Policymakers and only a few references in the full report – often expressing it as unknowable.

paul

I recently read Carl Sagan’s “The Demon Haunted World” in which he has a chapter on “The Fine Art of Baloney Detection”. Among the tools are:
Wherever possible there must be independant confirmation of the facts. Encourage substantive debate on the evidence by knowledgeable proponents of all points of view. Arguments from authority carry little weight – “authorities” have made big mistakes in the past. Spin more than one hypothesis, think of all the different ways in which it could be explained. Try not to get too attatched to a hypothesis just because it’s yours. Quantify. If theres a chain of argument, every link in the chain must work not just most of them. Invoke Occam’s razor. Always ask if the hypothesis can be, at least in principle, falsified.

Carl also tells us what not to do: Attack the argument , not the man. Do not argue from authority. Do not argue from adverse consequences. Do not appeal to ignorance i.e; claim that whatever has not been proved false must be true.
Observational selection is banned. Do not use statistics of small numbers. Do not count the hits and forget the misses.

Nasif Nahle

In response to # 134:

AMOUNT OF INCIDENT SOLAR RADIATION UPON EACH PLANET:

Formula:

GPL = QSUN / 4Ï€ (POR)^2

GPL is the amount of incident solar radiation upon the planet.
QSUN is the total amount of energy emitted by the Sun expressed in Watts.
4Ï€ = 12.56637061
POR is the Planet Orbital Radius, expressed in meters.

VALUES OF THE TOTAL INCIDENT ENERGY UPON EACH PLANET:

Mercury = 9.449.43 W/m^2
Venus = 2687.6 W/m^2
Earth = 1405.985 W/m^2 (average)
Mars = 612.55 W/m^2
Jupiter = 52.34 W/m^2
Saturn = 6.59 W/m^2
Uranus = 3.89 W/m^2
Neptune = 1.55 W/m^2
Pluto (Planetoid) = 0.8998 W/m^2

Average of incident solar energy in the Earth during the Aphelion = 1359.02 W/m^2
Average of incident solar energy in the Earth during the Perihelion = 1452.77 W/m^2

In March 2007, the incident Solar Radiation upon Earth was 1367.75 W/m^2, from which 50.01% was infrared radiation.

If this post is inadequate for the administrators of Climate Audit, please, erase it. It is not my intention to continue participating in this forum, but only this time to answer Jan Pompe’s question.

Steve Sadlov

RE: #243 – I lost all faith in even that site when they “adjusted” the past data upward to make the current data look “worse.” And Cryosphere is the best of the bunch. The others are clearly agenda driven. If only there could be total NH coverage along the lines of the Anchorage USNWS Ice Desk. That I’d hang my hat on.

Jan Pompe

#242 Nasif

Thank you,

I’m still not sure it adds up. You say “The total solar irradiance incoming to the terrestrial surface is 167 cal (697.04 W/m^2)” (which is 50.99% of 1367.75W/m^2) and you mention and you mention 14% of incoming absorbed by air. I was wondering since 50.99 + 14=64.99 where the other 35.1% has gone. Now if you are saying saying that only the 50.01% IR radiation (684.01 W/m^2) needs to be taken into account an 14% incoming is absorbed we are left with 588.25 W/m^2 incoming to the terrestrial surface.

Do you see my difficulty am I missing something?

On a subnote I do believe that some other components of the solar energy are absorbed by the surface and air become thermalised and emitted in IR band as the exitation or translation energy decays, so can’t entirely be left out of the equation.

UC

This is just hilarious. RC and uncertainties,

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/05/the-weirdest-millennium/#comment-34017

thks bender for bringing up the subject.

Do the above represent your views …

PaulM

# 248. The latest nonsense at RC is just amazing. The irony of those guys critising somebody else’s temperature reconstruction! I will try and post something there later today.

Steve Milesworthy

#251

Evidence from observations and models suggest the water vapour feedbacks multiply the initial cause of warming 2-3 times – not catastrophic as such unless you live in low-lying land. Though none of the IPCC scenarios take account of unpredictable feedbacks such as big methane releases or mass forest die-back.

They’re only worried about the MWP because people like t’other Steve M and this Beck guy keep bringing it up. I guess if there was evidence for the MWP being warmer than now, there would be research to determine the cause of that warmth, as there is to determine the causes of other paleoclimate changes.

Personally, I am interested in how you could get the massive climate variations of the past without a sensitive climate.

(disclosure: apropos of the link in #248, this post comes from a climate research department, but I am not a climate scientist – just interested)

Michael Jankowski

RE#251, usually the party line response (from a poster, not one of the hosts) is, “Just because it was warmer naturally in the past doesn’t mean we aren’t the ones causing warm temperatures now” – which is a perfectly valid point. But the hosts seems compelled to fight to protect the hockey stick.

Steve Milesworthy

Well I’m not going to get into an argument about temperature trends over one year or in the last decade.

A doubling of CO2 without feedbacks should following basic physics principles warm by about 1C. For model evidence, I’d go with Held and Soden 2006 summary which is basically an evaluation of the feedbacks in the IPCC models.

Click to access bjs0601.pdf

or Soden et al “Global Cooling After the Eruption of Mount Pinatubo: A Test of Climate Feedback by Water Vapor” Science, which reckons 60% of the cooling following this eruption was water vapour related.

I quite like “Large-scale warming is not urban” DE Parker – Nature, 2004, for a clever way of testing that any urban effect is the same on windy as on calm days (so is probably small). Where’s your evidence of a warmer sun?

But I’d really like to know what the forcing that caused the large scale changes in past climate were. Hoffert & Covey “Deriving global climate sensitivity from paleoclimate reconstructions”, Nature 1992 looks at both the (cold) last glacial max and the (warm) mid cretaceous max and finds that a strong positive feedback (from something) is required to produce the apparent sensitivity to climate. I guess there are probably more recent papers than this.

Hans Erren

re 256:

An alternative for Pinatubo is this one.

Climate forcing by the volcanic eruption of Mount Pinatubo
Douglass D. H., R. S. Knox
GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS 32, L05710 (2005)

We determine the volcano climate sensitivity λ and response time Ï„ for the Mount Pinatubo eruption, using observational measurements of the temperature anomalies of the lower troposphere, measurements of the long wave outgoing radiation, and the aerosol optical density. Using standard linear response theory we find λ = 0.15 ⯠0.06 K/(W/m2), which implies a negative feedback of ‘ˆ’1.4 (+0.7, ‘ˆ’1.6). The intrinsic response time is Ï„ = 6.8 ⯠1.5 months. Both results are contrary to a paradigm that involves long response times and positive feedback.

Also more WV should mean more rain which ‘hasn’t been observed.
http://climatesci.colorado.edu/2007/04/05/evaporation-is-equal-to-precipitation-on-the-global-scale-implications-to-the-conclusion-on-a-claimed-increase-of-atmospheric-water-vapor/

MarkW

The problem with the windy day scenario is that it makes so many assumptions about what should happen.
At no point does it try to measure what actually does happen.

Since there are so many other studies that find a very strong UHI, your attempts to hold onto the one study that finds a small one, and declare it, and it alone to be definitive, says much about what is really driving you.

bender

Re #257:
mike would clearly benefit from an open audit model. It would save him from having to speculate on what kind of calculation was done to produce a particular result:

I believe that the authors of the chapter used a smoothing constraint that forces the curves to approach the boundary with zero slope (the so-called ‘minimum slope’ constraint). At least, this is the what it is explicitly stated was done

CA to the rescue, mike. Open data, open code, open books, up-to-date proxies.

UC

#262

Imagine, IPCC provides data and code to reproduce 6.10.b and 6.10.c … mike provides code that computes MBH99 CIs .. Ok, let’s stop dreaming. Combine non-causal filtering with extrapolation of data, add uncertainties from original unsmoothed reconstructions. I know why IPCC won’t release that code.

Steve McIntyre

#264. I’ve just done a post on Mann’s new Divergence Theory – a smoothing artifact in IPCC Fig 6.10. BTW the digital versions of the Figure 6.10 reconstructions are available (I think for all of them although there are a couple of variations.) As UC observes, MBH confidence interval methodology remain a dirty little secret. (However IPCC has just done 2-sigma in the calibration period – a repugnant methodology when you have negligible verification r2 stats.)

Steve Milesworthy

#258

I don’t mean to be rude when I say the study you quote appears to be a bit of a back of the envelope calculation based on some observations. 3D models should do a bit better than this. I also note that the Douglass paper has been disputed by Robock, also in GRL.

#259

I wasn’t talking about CO2, I was talking about climate sensitivity, contributions to which might be similar regardless of the initial cause of warming. The jury is out on 450 million years ago. Note also the sun was about 5% cooler then (as well as their being no trees, continents in different place etc. etc.)

#260

Not sure what you mean. A windy day should be less affected by the UHI than a calm day surely. I don’t know much about UHI I’ll admit; links to other published studies would be of interest. I assume their must be literature on quality control too given that these data are there primarily to inform weather models.

Steve Milesworthy

#261

Lindzen made exactly that argument to the UK parliament – and it is plain wrong. We’ve seen an increase of 270-380ppm. Do the maths and you’ll find ln(380/270)/ln(540/270) is about 0.5, or about 0.5C with a sensitivity of 1 (zero feedbacks). Observed rise is 0.6C in 20th century, despite the fact that ocean temperatures are still lagging.

#263

I don’t buy that argument. The system may or may not be chaotic (I don’t believe any sort of phase change in the state of the climate has been observed though), but the energy to warm the atmosphere has to come from somewhere – it’s not quantum mechanics!

MarkW

#268,

Look up the term “theoretically”. Once you understand the difference between real world data, and theories, then maybe, just maybe, you will begin to understand.

MarkW

If your claims that H20 provides a factor of 2 to 3 amplification, then we should have seen a warming of 1C to 1.5C. While heat does couple to the oceans, the transfer is not that fast. Especially when the oceans have this bad habit of dumping that heat back to the atmosphere at unpredictable intervals.

I’m still waiting for you to provide some evidence, at a competance level slightly above handwaving. That your claim of H2O amplification exists anywhere outside of a few broken models.

paul

Warwick Hughes has posted a piece on Hadley Centre reconstructing historical temperatures for New Zealand. I have asked NIWA to explain why this has occured and await a reply. In the meantime can someone please look at the posting and explain in plain english what Hadley have done and the effects of their changes. Much appreciated.

Steve Milesworthy

#275

I’ll have a look tomorrow, but I’m not really talking about models here. We have observations of a warming atmosphere and a warming ocean (or at least, not cooling). So the heat must come from somewhere.

paul

Am I right in seeing that earlier temperatures have been decreased to show a greater warming in recent times? The CRU2 temperatures seem to show present warming at well below historical highs which are now “gone”. I just can’t get my head around the fact that all these revisions and adjustments are made without some recourse to the implications which then arise from such revisions being used to promote global warming. The word “criminal” springs to mind and yet who do we report this offence to…………the IPCC?

bender

Twice now I’ve tried to thank gavin at RC for squarely responding to my comments, and neither has gone through. But they did let someone else post their thanks:

Gavin,
Thx for addressing bender in a head on fashion. I won’t comment on the tactics others used (funny, most drawn from the skeptics handbag of obsfucation).

Maybe if I slandered myself? …

Anyways, they won’t let me follow up with any kind of defense, so I am left looking like a lame duck. RC is functioning like a kangaroo court. All questions to the self-appointed authorities are labelled by the ignorant hordes as denialist tactics, no matter how valid the questions are. (Even the RC scientists who actually do climate science agree that my questions are valid.) But there’s no getting past the religious fervor of the hordes. My favorite is one reasonably intelligent & informed commenter who nevertheless suggests I’m “anti-scientific”. Any practising scientist would recognize by my approach that nothing could be further from the truth.

From my experience there, it seems no climate scientist is completely sold on the idea that earth’s climate is non-chaotic. All see some potential for that possibility. Even the staunchest AAGWers like Schmidt & Connolley leave room for that sliver of a possibility. If that’s true, then it’s not clear that the numerically stable models are well-posed. If that’s true then it’s likely the parameterizations are in error (there is some irreducible uncertainty). If some of the parameters are in error then, via error propogation (Pat Frank’s bugaboo), some of the others are too. The CO2 sensitivity coefficent is therefore not known with certainty. We need to know what the error bars are on that parameter estimate. If they are so wide that they include zero …

During my discussion with gavin he, unfortunately, resorted to the use of AAGW double standards #3,4 & 5:

3. Meteorological & climatological phenomena are so complex as to be alarming, but on the other hand not so complex as to impede with precise estimation of forcing sensitivity coefficients.
4. Natural rapid climate change is a powerful force to be feared TODAY, but not so powerful as being capable of producing unprecedented warming during the MWP.
5. Admission that “climate is unpredictable” is OK for a lay audience that will be alarmed, not for a scientific audience that will be skeptical of what that implies for GCM parameterization.

These are not quotes of gavin’s. They’re synthesized from AAGWers like muirgeo, gballela posting at CA. It’s handy to have them in a list like that. This way you get to see where there rhetoric descends from.

Warwick Hughes

Thanks for that Paul.
First your 280 question “Am I right in seeing that earlier temperatures have been decreased to show a greater warming in recent times?”
Answer is yes.
Re your 283, lets be very clear, CRUTem3 is LAND ONLY data.
The CRU website,
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/
states in the Table headed “Dataset Terminology”
CRUTEM3 land air temperature anomalies on a 5° by 5° grid-box basis
and
HadCRUT3 combined land and marine [sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies from HadSST2, see Rayner et al., 2006] temperature anomalies on a 5° by 5° grid-box basis

To get back to what I have posted about on my Blog which is LAND DATA only and I do not recalling SST’s ever being referred to in as being a source of adjustments for the land only trends. There are other global datasets to incorp SST’s or combined land/SST.
So when NIWA says, “I have been told there was an inconsistency in the way the Hadley Centre had been calculating NZ temperatures. Both land and sea temperatures had been used”.
This requires the closest and clearest study, taking the first sentence.
Hadley have for many years compiled SST’s we know that.
Jones et al/CRU have for 20 years compiled the land data ending with CRUTem2, which terminates in 2005.
Hadley have now taken this over naming their new global land dataset CRUTem3.
So when NIWA say, “there was an inconsistency in the way the Hadley Centre had been calculating NZ temperatures”.
My opinion is that they really should be saying, “there was an inconsistency in the way Jones/CRU had been calculating NZ temperatures”. Because Hadley have only had the involvement in land data from very recent years, their Brohan et al paper is 2006.
However there is a second possibility I suppose, that NIWA means, “there was an inconsistency in the way the Hadley Centre had been calculating NZ SST temperatures”.
Then in the second sentence from NIWA, “Both land and sea temperatures had been used”. Your question to NIWA was presumably about LAND DATA only and this is very new if it is true that Hadley are being influenced in the land only adjustments by SST trends.
It is always very difficult getting direct information out of these big groups.
However you could ask NIWA to clarify exactly what they mean by “there was an inconsistency in the way the Hadley Centre had been calculating NZ temperatures”. I would restate that you are asking about the LAND ONLY data, not SST data.
Whatever the accurate NIWA reply should be, the facts of my post stand and refer to LAND ONLY NZ trends, where the change from CRUTem2 to CRUTem3 has seen a stunning increase in warming.

Filippo Turturici

From what I know, on Solar cycles, GW and IPCC:
– in the 2007 IPCC’s report, Solar influence for temperature rise was defined as about 0.1-0.2W/m^2, or about 10% of thermal forcing;
– from the lattest astronomic measurements, it should be the triple just in the last years, or about 30% of IPCC’s thermal forcing (someone indeed admitted it,);
– I would give almost no importance to 11-years Solar cycles, if not to determine Nino/Nina as done by Dr. Landscheit;
– it is still not clear what the same IPCC really thinks about Global Warming: once they say that CO2 is responsible for all warming since 1900; once they blame it just for the last 30 years, blaming Sun for 1920-1950 warming;
– anyway, the Solar effect since Little Ice Age is far bigger than stated by IPCC, up to 0.5-1.5W/m^2 (as reconstructed not by Sun spots but by ground’s isotopes and recent satellite data for Solar irradiance);
– we had a sharp rise of Solar incoming power during the first half of XXth century, but the maximum irradiance peak was during the cooling period 1950-70; indeed, a local minimum peak was recorded during the ’70ies; then, during ’80ies and ’90ies, we had two very high peaks, even if second to the peak above; so, Solar activity surely cannot explain all warming but, neither, we cannot say (as ones did) that Solar activity had no role in the last 30 years temperatures; moreover, we do not know well enough (despite whatever IPCC and others may say) the main Earth’s positive and negative feedback, water vapour behaviour, neither we do for aerosols, nor for oceans thermal and CO2-sinking behaviour, so we cannot really say that 1978-1998 warming was not mainly the natural continuation of the previous warming, shortly interrupted by e.g. Earth’s inner feedbacks or other cycles.

MarkW

The IPCC’s stand is pretty much this.

Since the models show that CO2 is responsible for 100% of the warming, we aren’t interested in looking into any other explanations.

MarkW

#289,

Yes, you did little more than handwave.
The difference between what you cited and what I cited is little more than differences in rounding.

Regarding the sun not warming much in the last 30 years. That runs counter to the studies that I have seen.
Regardless, I find it interesting that you are willing to invoke the oceans to explain why the warming is being delayed. Then in the next breath, declare that since the world’s warming is not moving in lockstep with changes in the sun’s output, the sun can’t be responsible. Bit of a double standard there.

As to UHI, two recent studies, one from China, and one from California, found that as much as 80 to 90% of the warming seen in those regions can be explained by increases in UHI. That’s hardly trivial.

You cite one study that finds what you want to see, dismiss the hundreds that find something else. That qualifies as hand waving in my book.

Bob Meyer

Re 281

jae said:

Admittedly, Idsos probably are cherry picking, but, man, they have enough cherries for a BIG pie.

The Idsos aren’t cherry picking their data, they cherry picked their start date of 1930. This was deliberate just as the AGW choice of 1975 was deliberate. I subscribe to their site and they provide a little plotting device that lets you look at any site data over any time period for which data is available. Except on the west coast the data does show cooling in most US sites from 1930 to today.

If you choose start dates other than 1930 most sites show some warming. The points that they are driving home are a) the choice of start date is important and b) the high temperatures of today aren’t all that much different than they were in the 1930s.

Steve Milesworthy

#292

How does it compare with the plotting programme at:

http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/USclimate/USclimdivs.html

I plotted 1930-40 and 1997-2007. The eastern third of the US (latitudes east of Texas) are roughly the same temperature, but the western 2/3rds are 3-5F cooler in the 1930s. (F is their units)

Ghost of z2a

re 282

Bender,

I can now confirm that they do not block based on IP. They let me thank gavin for his treatment
of you ( I knew you would want to) but then in a post 5 minutes later, where i used the same
IP, but a different name ( Betsy Ensley) to thank Mike for calling out the Shell oil Shill,
the post got trash binned. That’s not to say they wont IP block in the future. But in my case
they block snarky things and let the praise of gavin see the light of day.

Hope you are ok with my test. I knew you would want to thank gavin

Philip B

This is probably old ground for you guys, but I am trying to reconcile NASA’s categorical statement from 1997 that there is no warming trend in the satellite data with the current position that it agrees with the surface temperature record.

http://science.nasa.gov/NEWHOME/headlines/essd06oct97_1.htm

What are the adjustments and what are the rationales for them.

I found this, which looks to me like hand waving.

Click to access sap1-1-final-execsum.pdf

Michael Jankowski

RE#298, the UAH results were changed a few times since ’97, I think, due to orbital decay changing the time of observation (I think UAH had a sign wrong somewhere to account for that, which was embarassingly discovered by the RSS folks). The “agreement” comes from higher satellite estimates from RSS and modeling from a few papers by Fu.

Also, it used to be important that the satellite measurements of the lower troposphere didn’t warm as much as the surface, because that’s what teh models said should happen (if not warming faster). So this supported the idea that surface temperature records where biased high due to UHI effects, incomplete coverage, etc. But not all models have this issue anymore. So now even if the sats don’t show as much warming as the surface, it doesn’t matter, because the models now say it’s ok 🙂

jae

299: You need to read some of the other threads concerning UHI and that rediculous 0.05 degree/decade number. And can you explain why Jones will not release his data to the autitors?

Steve Milesworthy

#302

Ah right – found that thread. The .05C/decade figure I was quoting is different to the .05C/century Jones figure. Having worked in IT in two fields of study (astronomy and climate science) can’t say I’m too surprised that a “diskette” from before 1990 has gone awol, you’d probably need to borrow a machine from the Smithsonian to read it anyway.

Why is the .05 figure ridiculous? Yes the UHI is real, but they do adjustments when sites move, so the .05 is presumably the residual effect?

As an aside, one doesn’t worry about the UHI effect in the UK as the 1C rise in just the last 20 years is pretty obvious without looking at a thermometer. Equally, when visiting mountain communities who live near glaciers, the locals are aware of the change. Is it the less sensitive climate of parts of the US that allows people to go on believing their ain’t nothing happening?

Filippo Turturici

#305: I do not know what is my connection problem from home.
What I wanted to say is: or AGW suddenly began in 1998, to become stable in a very short time; or data does not accord to theory (“In theory, one could argue that the computer models are accurate, and that the real measurements have some problem”: in facts, can real world be wrong, or it is more likely that theory is?).

Neil Haven

Re: Urban Heat Island

In an idle moment, I wondered whether the simple dumping of waste heat by humans in urban areas should have a measurable impact on temperature measurements. Just for kicks, I calculated the following order-of-magnitude estimate of the differential effect of human energy use on radiative surface temperature:

Human population density (average world): 1.3 x 10^(-5) / m^2
Human population density (rural): 1 x 10^(-4) / m^2
Human population density (suburban): 2 x 10^(-3) / m^2
Human population density (urban): 1.2 x 10^(-2) / m^2

Total Human Energy Consumption: 424 x 10^(18) J / yr
Total Human Population: 6.5 x 10^(9)
Average Human Energy Consumption: 2 x 10^(3) W

Waste Heat Fraction: 50%

Multiply density x energy consumption x waste heat fraction:

Human Waste Heat Radiation (average world): 1.3 x 10^(-2) W/ m^2
Human Waste Heat Radiation (rural): 1 x 10^(-1) W/ m^2
Human Waste Heat Radiation (suburban): 2 x 10^(0) W/ m^2
Human Waste Heat Radiation (urban): 1.2 x 10^(1) W/ m^2

Average surface radiation (temperature): 240 W (255 K)

Adding human waste heat to the equilibrium values and using Stefan-Boltzmann for a black-body (remember this is an order of magnitude estimate only):

Human effect (average world): negligible
Human effect (rural): ~ 0.025 K
Human effect (suburban): ~ 0.5 K
Human effect (urban): ~ 3 K

The usual disclaimers apply: This is only a back-of-the-envelope calculation. The calculation does not take into account heat convection/mixing (which will have the effect of reducing the above numbers). The waste heat fraction is simply estimated. The calculation assumes all energy is consumed where a person lives. The earth’s surface is not a black body radiator, etc. etc.

However, the orders of magnitude are interesting.

Curt

#308 Neil:

Thanks for those calculations. I’ve been meaning to do those for a while myself, but haven’t found the time. I’ll have to ponder your figures and assumptions for a while, but one quick thought. If I were doing those calculations, I’d use 100% for waste heat fraction. Fundamentally, it all ends up as heat eventually, thanks to 2nd-Law considerations. My car’s engine may produce 25% useful work out of the engine, but the rest of my car quickly turns that into heat due to various types of friction.

I guess there would be exceptions for processes that increase some form of potential energy (e.g. in chemical bonds, or height of water), but these are small in magnitude, and generally that potential energy is turned back into heat again eventually.

paul

Warwick Hughes
I have sent another email to NIWA asking a few more questions of them. I have looked through your blog and have a question for you if I may. What is your opinion of the NIWA tenperature graph? Are NIWA re-writing history?
It appears to me that CRUem2 showed more earlier warming than the NIWA graph.

Neil Haven

#310 Curt,
If I had to bet I’d bet closer to 100% than 50%, as you suggest. I picked 50% so nobody could complain that I was being overly generous with the magnitudes. At any rate, the correct number is in there somewhere — surely within a factor of 2 if you use 50%, probably within a factor of 1.3 if you use 75%.

If you think the basic calculation is sound, I’d be interested in your guesstimate as to how much of a person’s attributed energy consumption occurs within a kilometer or so of his/her domicile. A quarter? Half? More? I’m afraid I don’t know much about modern human energy budgets.

I started trying to do the calculation by trying to estimate the effect of heat energy dumped into materials with certain specific heats, lapse rates, etc. It soon became too messy for me.

Neil Haven

Earle,
Of the 11.7 kW, what fraction do you think gets dissipated near home rather than in the junkyard, at the power station, on the road, etc.?

I really have no good idea myself.

bender

Here is Stan’s comment on “motivated reasoning”:
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=1626#comment-112065

Willis Eschenbach

Carl, you say

(for some reason the link’ button makes the rest disappear in preview!)

After much experimentation, I’ve found that if you go back and put a space immediately after “html=” the lost text reappears in preview.

w.

MarkW

#308,

Don’t forget that the average human puts out about 75W of energy, 24/7.

Joe B

Interesting article:

Models Underestimate
Rainfall

Nasif Nahle

# 326

MarkW,

Yeah… like the saharian dust that “impeded” the formation of hurricanes through 2006.

Earle Williams

Reply to self,

Note that since 1990 the US per capita energy consumption has stabilized. This would have implications on urban adjustments post 1990.

jae

323: More like 100 watts.

Nasif Nahle

# 328

0.26 gal of gasoline produces 2.3 x 10e+7 W of heat. This amount does not include the heat generated by the friction of the movable parts of the motor. Driving a car along12 minutes at a speed of 60 mph, the change of temperature of the surrounding air caused by that amount of heat is of 54.86 °F, which means that if the temperature of a sphere with radius of 3.28 ft around the motor is 89.60 °F, the heat emitted by the combustion of 0.26 gal of gasoline would raise it up to 112.46 °F. Chilling, it is not?

Nevertheless, the heat is dispersed fast, perhaps because it is absorbed by the surface, by the car, or by other air layers due to the turbulence of winds around the vehicle.

I made measurements of the heat of the gas emitted from exhausting tube of cars in movement, cars at four and eight pistons, during 15 minutes of driving on a plain road. I found that the temperature of the gas emitted by a car of 8 pistons is 257.00 °F, whereas the T of a car of 4 pistons is 185 °F. This can vary according to the state of the car, the maintenance of the motor and the mechanical conditions of the motor.

You can check it out to see if my measurments are wrong.

Craig Loehle

This is a comment on the scientific method as it relates to hockey sticks, dendro work, climate models, etc. In experimental sciences, it is standard practice to control for all possible confounding factors. You isolate the system in the lab. If you can’t remove some effect you test it to make sure it only generates noise, not bias. In correlative studies, such as health effects of diet and lifestyle, you try to separate the effects such as smoking vs eating meat vs age vs gender etc etc. This is not easy even with thousands in your sample, which is why we hear conflicting results about what is good for you or how much harm second hand smoke causes. Relative to Divergence and hockey sticks, as soon as it looks like you have a confounding factor it is standard practice to investigate it. It is NOT ok to simply say you think it is anomalous and can be ignored. One removed further from reality is a model such as our daily weather forecast models. These must be (and are) tuned repeatedly with tons of data before they are any good. This has been done for 40 or more years with the weather models. There is no such thing as a weather model derived from first principles which works the first time or is precise. The climate GCM models are even more complex and are run for much longer but have a quite coarse test data set which itself has been aggregated at the grid scale and which does not cover a very long time span or very many conditions. In these models, factors which might compete with CO2 as an explanation (UHI, cosmic ray hypothesis, ultraviolet effects, land use effects) have been rather summarily dismissed based on either no testing or only a couple of publications. If you did a heart disease study and forgot to control for age, race, gender and weight, you would never get it published.

Nasif Nahle

# 334

Jae:

Let me see if I got an error when subtracting the heat emitted by friction, you know, it is not a lineal subtraction because the velocity of metal a-e of heat is higher than that of the air, besides the heat that occupy more microstates on thermal expansion. I think the value is correct, but it will be okay if I repeat the experiment. I’ll have the data available for the next Friday.

James Erlandson

Re 333 Nasif:
For all practical purposes, all of the energy in the gasoline used by an automobile ends up as heat. Waste heat from the exhaust and cooling system; heat from friction in the bearings, gears, tires and brakes; and energy transferred to the atmosphere by aerodynamic drag.

If you park you car on top of a hill, some of the gasoline will be converted to potential energy. Otherwise, all is lost.

jae

334, Nasif: I just re-read your post, and I think I may not have read it correctly the first time. I thought the 2.3 x 10e7 was the total heat value of the gasoline. If not, ignore my comment.

Reference

Hansen censors his boss

“This just continues the confusion and leads the public to think we don’t understand what is happening,” said Hansen.

Chris H

#344 If the average adult eats 2500 kcal per day and isn’t gaining or losing weight all of this energy is going to end up as heat. 2500 kcal/day is around 10000 kjoules/day, which is around 120 watts of energy that needs to be emitted one way or another.

Neil Haven

Earle (328),
Yes. I agree. The point of the exercise is the trend.

IF the calculations are approximately correct, so that the human heat dump could affect observed temperatures by something on the order of a degree; and IF the heat dump is increasing, whether due to population increase or energy use increase or whatever; then it seems (from my armchair at least) that an expected urban bias in temperature reading of ~0.05K over the last century (the Jones figure?) is suspect. Are the calculations off by two orders of magnitude?

Jan Pompe

#344 Bob

310K is average sublingual temperature skin temperature is generally around 305K now try that again.

Gerald Machnee

I have a question about heating of inland lakes. On some threads, there has been discussion of how the oceans are heated. I believe that the opinion was that it is mostly solar radiation which penetrates a number of metres while the air can only warm the surface of the water. In the case of a lake which may be let’s say 20 metres deep, is the heating mostly due to solar radiation or does the air above it contribute significantly? Thanks.

Nasif Nahle

# 323, 331, 334

MarkW, Jae, Bob Weber:

You need a biologist:

Area of skin of average male = 1.78 m^2
Stephen-Boltzmann Constant = 5.6697 x 10^-8 W/m^2
Emisivity of human body = 0.7
Average human body’s Temperature = 309.65 K
Environment Temperature just now = 305.15 K

P = (5.6697 x 10^-8) (0.7) (1.78 m^2) {(305.15)^4 – (309.65 K)^4} = – 37.94 W

That’s the heat transferred from an average human male’s body to the air just now.

The intensity of the heat irradiated by an average human male’s body -just now- is = -20.75 W/m^2

Nasif Nahle

# 323, 331, 334

MarkW, Jae, Bob Weber:

Now, if you’re doing intense work, the heat irradiated will be higher. Driving a bike (at 20 Km/hr) could add up to -45 W or more. When walking, the heat emitted by the human body could rise up to -39 W each second. When calculating the heat transferred by the human body we must to consider the area of skin that is exposed to the environment. The previous calculi (# 353 and 354) were made thinking in a naked body suspended 39.37 in above the surface.

Nasif Nahle

# 356

James Erlandson,

Of course, it’s a very interesting exercise. I’ve taken into account only the skin. That’s what Bob Weber mentioned in his post (#344). The emissivity of skin -0.7- includes sweat. The skin as a gray body has an emissivity of 0.48.

About respiration, the mucous membrane of lungs has the same emissivity value. Evidence on this is that the heat emitted by the mucous membrane of lungs does not cause a temperature higher than 310.65 K, unless your immunological system is fighting against some infectious entity, in which case all your body would emit the excess of the heat. However, the exhaled water vapor and CO2 transfer by convection most of the heat emitted by the pulmonary mucous membranes. The heat transferred by the mucous membrane of lungs and nostrils cannot be more than 75 W because, if it were 100 or more Watts, we would die stewed from inside by hot steam.

Nasif Nahle

# 356

James Erlandson,

Regarding your note about the T of human body, please, reread my post. I wrote:

“Average human body’s Temperature = 309.65 K”, which is the average of the minimum and maximum Temperature (maximum temperature of human body is registered in the rectum, and it averages 310.95 K. The lowest temperature in the human body is registered in the armpits, and it averages 310.05 K). The human body is a heterogeneous thermodynamic system, so we are obliged to handle averages when talking about the whole system. If we need to know the conditions of a specific structure, then we have to emphasize on the thermal capabilities of that particular structure.

MarkR

They call this a consensus?

The series

Statistics needed — The Deniers Part I
Warming is real — and has benefits — The Deniers Part II
The hurricane expert who stood up to UN junk science — The Deniers Part III
Polar scientists on thin ice — The Deniers Part IV
The original denier: into the cold — The Deniers Part V
The sun moves climate change — The Deniers Part VI
Will the sun cool us? — The Deniers Part VII
The limits of predictability — The Deniers Part VIII
Look to Mars for the truth on global warming — The Deniers Part IX
Limited role for C02 — the Deniers Part X
End the chill — The Deniers Part XI
Clouded research — The Deniers Part XII
Allegre’s second thoughts — The Deniers XIII
The heat’s in the sun — The Deniers XIV
Unsettled Science — The Deniers XV
Bitten by the IPCC — The Deniers XVI
Little ice age is still within us — The Deniers XVII
Fighting climate ‘fluff’ — The Deniers XVIII
Science, not politics — The Deniers XIX

They call this a consensus?
Lawrence Solomon, Financial Post
Published: Saturday, June 02, 2007

MarkW

#344,

98.6 is the temperature of the inside of your body, the skin itself is cooler.
Most males wear clothes during at least part of the day. That also insulates.

James Erlandson

Re 366 Nasif: You will find here a number of references that list the emissivity of human skin as 0.98 or 0.99 or 1.

Nasif Nahle

# 367

James,

I think you’ve read them all, because I’ve done it. Most of the articles refers to altered states of the skin by cosmetics, fabrics, clothes, mobile phones, autostereos, etc. Some articles do not refer to human skin emissivity and one of them clearly says that the value 0.98 had been an asumption:

“In reality, the human body does not radiate this much heat.” (I = -447 W/m^2!!! More heat than that absorbed by Earth’s surface!).

Another author says that…

“The emissivity of human skin is higher and it is within 1% of that of a perfect black body…” Well, the emissivity of a perfect black body is 1.0, then the 1% of 1.0 would be the emissivity of the human skin, that is 0.01.

Nature’s article refers to wavebands between 2 μ and 6 μ and that “Such machines …” were “…calibrated against a standard black body.” A standard black body has an emissivity of 1.0, no more.

The second article of Nature says:

“Unfortunately, there is conflicting evidence on the magnitude of Hardy and Muschenheim…” who “…concluded that dead skin should be regarded as a black body (Ñ” = 1). While this conclusion can be justified when Q is the total energy received at all wavelengths (λ) it is not necessarily applicable in the range 2 μet al refers to forced-air warming with upper body blankets. I didn’t find the Ñ” = 0.98 anywhere in the article. However, I found interesting data; for example in no one of their tests there were a heat flux that rose up to 74 W, which is coincident with the emissivity of 0.7.

Think about this: if a man were under the sunbeams and his skin absorptivity-emissivity were 98%, how much heat would his body absorb and what would be his body’s temperature by the amount of heat absorbed? And, what would the heat absorbed-emitted by his body be if he rested on a surface facing up that emitted 181.5 W/m^2?

Now think, if the emissivity of the human body were 0.99 and the air temperature were 50.00 °F, how long the human body could stay in thermal equilibrium?

I cannot blame the 6 billion people living on this planet of being culprit of the global warming just because they “breathe and sweat”. If I wished to find the real cause of this variability, I’d look at the sky, at the oceans, at the Earth’s inner and outer cores, even at the massive pieces of crust that rub one against another. Both, “global warming” and “climate change” are natural phenomena.

Mark T.

Boris said…

Well, it was mostly Mark T, but you did say this:

I’m guessing that you are unaware that warming waters release CO2. This runs counter to your claim that it is completely proven that 100% of new CO2 is produced by man.

So I guess you were arguing that the CO2 increase isn’t 100% manmade. That’s less wrong, I suppose.

The whole discussion is here:

http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=640

This is the thread, btw, in which Boris was asking for a reference that increased temperature results in decreased solubility of CO2 in water. Bender didn’t step in likely because it’s pointless to argue with you. It does get very tiresome to have to repeatedly point people to wikipedia for simple concepts such as this (or how about “every single chemistry textbook that has ever been written”?).

Oh, and yes, it is a function of partial pressure and no, the average CO2 content in the atmosphere is not the partial pressure immediately above the surface of the ocean. It is common knowledge that the increased temperature of the atmosphere results in less net absorption of CO2 by the ocean which can either be seen as increased release, or decreased absorption (contrary to “single track” thought, it is a two-way process, so more of one direction is identical in effect as less in the other). It is also fairly straight out of chemistry text books that increased release (or decreased absorption) will result in an increase of concentration near the surface… what’s being released has to come from somewhere.

Mark