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559 Comments
WAYYYYYY off topic
Today I googled an old mentor. Everest Riccionne. Found him on Wiki. He was quite a contrarian.
As young engineers we all got our dose of Boyd.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Boyd_(military_strategist)
here: http://www.d-n-i.net/second_level/boyd_military.htm#discourse
M.Simon you will like this. others too I suspect
Click to access intro.pdf
So….. Steven Mosher is one of the ColonelJohnBoydists.
Could it be that instead of using a general circulation model of one kind or another, the behavior of CO2 in the atmosphere could be modeled as an OODA loop?
As for Everest Riccionne, I would expect he is as opinionated about AGW as he is about everything else.
Ref 1 Interesting. Could Gore have read Boyd? I was think solar with a Mars calibration standard, but Boyd’s ideas are very relevant to this political/science discussion.
REf 1 To develop a climatological shock and awe campaign, doubt must be placed on the credibility of the Nobel laureate commander using disparaging quotes by known allies (James Hansen, paraphrased: Gore wanted me to overstate the global warming potential.) Tree ring proxy minimization followed by solar inequities could be used to stun the loyal. The early onset of winter will effectively freeze the opposition creating a spring 2008 window of climatic opportunity to reverse hockey stick the dazed opposition.
RE 3.
Yes OODA loop was our mantra. Riccione was a funny bird. A peacock accually. He wore the finest italian
suits to work ( a craveat some days) And he used to feed me Boyd stuff every chance he got. Somewhere
here abouts I have some of his papers. His big deal was Kinematic Stealth. Essentially supercruise.
he also had an adversion to radar and did this wonderful Boydesque history of medieval jousting. armour gets
heavier, spears get longer, horses get slower. Light and fast was his mantra ( LWF mafia and all)
RE 3. Scott. Looks like everest lives on!
http://www.strategypage.com/militaryforums/6-27904.aspx
That stuff so so classically him. Here’s the Funny thing. Even on YF23 he moaned about the same
stuff. But he was always kind to me and didnt mind my stupid questions.
RE 6. who woke the swede up? Hey Steffan did you finaly get to listen to the Tom Waits
i posted for you?
Clever, Steve M., limiting Unthreaded #21 to 666 posts. It is a devil of a thread, I suppose; Unthreaded in general I mean. The National Post article about Gore’s Nobel was pretty interesting to read. I agree with Larry; that is not something I had considered. Gore shouldn’t want a focus on his film right now after the UK ruling. People will be watching just to see the errors, and how much gets trounced as a result. Strange how worms turn.
Mark
#8 Moshie…I’m downloading it now in this moment…
You don’t seem to sleep much…SM snipped ex6 due to
joke about genus perspective? Mark T’s post will
stay?? More about GISS RURAL RAW OVERVIEW: State-,
region-,altitude-,landuse- etc…That would take
more than 2 months…
#9 Mark T
If the ruling is followed then teachers showing AIT to their pupils are required to explain the ‘inaccuracies’ in the film. Given that most teachers nowadays in the UK are scared to do anything that might remotely be construed as illegal, I expect that the recent ruling will mean that AIT will only be shown in to a small percentage of pupils in UK schools. This on the face of it looks good as AIT is undoubtedly the most egregious, distorted piece of eco-propaganda to have ever been produced. IMO though, post the court ruling I’d prefer the film to be shown to young students in UK schools so that they can judge for themsleves (after their teachers have explained the post the court ruling) just how much eco-terrorism it contains.
Regards
KevinUK
Mr Justice Burton’s judgement, on Al Gore’s AIT is availlable, is on line here . It runs to some 17 pages of legal argument.
I haven’t looked at it in detail yet but seem to be some interesting points that haven’t been included in the press and blog coverage.
One of the witnesses called by the government was Dr Peter Stott of the Hadley Centre, a scientist who has a well documented position on global warming and who could hardly be described as being objective and well balanced on the subject. A BBC report in March described him as ‘Manager of Understanding and Attributing Climate Change’. Sounds like a rather political kind of job.
Re #11 KevinUK
The judgment gives details of what the guidance notes must be. See link in #12
>> On short time scales internal variability rather than external forcing dominates the climate system. Smoothing the data to damp this inherent noise reveals that temperatures are continue to rise.
There was external solar forcing that resulted in the step up in 1998. You make an anwarranted assumption when you draw a single trend line. There is no actual noise in the satellite data, since it’s already a geographic global average. Also, the atmospheric time constant is very short (temps rise rather rapidly when the sun rises). Therefore, external solar forcing does affect atmospheric temperature on short time scales.
>> What physical principal is smoothing revealing in the case of the temperature data that is not also applicable to the sine wave?
Stan is so right. Noise is actually an external source of static-like variability, which has nothing to do with either the system inputs or the characteristics of the system. We have every reason to believe that our data is representative of system inputs and system characteristics. For example, the moon is not introducing noise into the temp measurements. Weather might introduce error caused by insufficient sampling, but the global averaged satellite data eliminates this. Smoothing simply distorts the actual signal.
>> The whole basis of oxygen isotopes to proxy temperature is very much more shakey
I see, can you elaborate?
#14
Gunnar, I hate to break it to you, but even the satellite data have an uncertainty. In addition to this instrumental error, there is internal variability in the climate system, such as El Niño, in which oceans, with a much longer memory than the atmosphere, play a large role.
>> but even the satellite data have an uncertainty
Of course, all instrumentation has error, never said it didn’t. I did say that satellite data does not have atmospheric weather induced sampling error, because it’s a world wide geographic average. It’s a logic error to say “no instrumentation is perfect, therefore we may as well choose an inferior instrument over a superior one.”
>> there is internal variability in the climate system, such as El Niño
Which if not caused by solar forcing (jury is still out), is still a characteristic of the system, and not noise to be smoothed out.
>> which oceans, with a much longer memory than the atmosphere, play a large role
So, what you said (“On short time scales internal variability rather”) is not correct.
Some factors:
external solar forcing affects atmos temps very quickly
long term solar trends affect climate long term
solar forcing affects oceans, which may affect temps short term, and may take a long time to affect climate
enso events are medium term, and are either externally forced or a characteristic of the system (internal dynamics)
These are some of the factors that affect the temperature, and there is no noise that needs to be eliminated. I think by “noise”, you mean weather, but this is exactly what the satellite data avoids with a global geographic average.
steven mosher says: October 14th, 2007 at 7:26 pm ,
Thanks for that. I have been a fan of Boyd’s ever since I saw the OODA loop described in terms of a Naval Battle. I can still see the picture in my mind. The Navy was the first service to use computers to speed up its OODA loop, because at the time they started doing it computers weighed tons. I designed an interface to the NTDS shipborne computers for a piece of comms gear. I hope they have a much better interface these days. It was clunky. Plus the modem used for intership communications was a nightmare. Upper sideband and lower sideband on the same channel for starters.
What we have to do is get inside the Hockey Team’s OODA loop.
Speaking of which, Boris is commenting on one of the blogs I post at. Same old drill. No answers. Just “read Hansen”. He has been silent since I asked him to describe actual procedures for my laymen readers. I also put out the call to release ALL the data and programs. Seems like there is no RTFM answer for that. Heh.
RichardT,
I find it odd that you should object to data that comes solely from a computer.
Where do you think any of the AGW projections come from?
Sorry, I didn’t mean to be rude….
As far as Dr. Gray: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_M._Gray
Needless to say, RC doesn’t like him much! 🙂
The Real Climate website published a critique of the key points in one of Gray’s papers. They argue that Gray’s work is fundamentally wrong because most of his pronouncements on climate change and its causes are based on ‘fundamental misconceptions on the physics of climate'” http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/04/gray-on-agw/
Kevin (11) – this legalese is very significant:
What that tells me is that the judge would have considered blocking distribution had the material not already been distributed, but since it had already been distributed, he doesn’t have to authority to order them to return or destroy it, nor does he have the authority to block the showing. What I read from that is that the disclaimer that he ordered was the most that he had the legal authority to do, and he probably would have done more if he had the legal authority. Contrary to popular belief, judges don’t have carte blanche.
Richard T. (16) and Gunnar (#14),
There was a considerable discussion with Gunnar about all of the problems with satellite data radiance conversion to temperature
on another thread. There I asked 5 very specific mathematical questions about the errors in separate steps of the conversion process and Gunnar did not answer a single one. And yet here he is right back again claiming that satellite data is accurate. Hello, is anybody home?
Jerry
Something else significant:
In other words, the plaintiff’s attorney didn’t even bother to challange anything in IPCC RP4. He was able to find this many contradictions between AIT and RP4. It would have been impossibly long and expensive, but I would have loved to see RP4 challanged in court; at least the SPM.
>> There I asked 5 very specific mathematical questions about the errors in separate steps of the conversion process and Gunnar did not answer a single one
Jerry, you presented a straw man argument in the guise of 5 questions. I answered:
>> And yet here he is right back again claiming that satellite data is accurate. Hello, is anybody home?
Jerry, perhaps, “is my critical thinking cap on” is a better question. I did not make any claim about the absolute “accuracy” of satellite data just now. I did say that the satellite data has an inherent weather-eliminating advantage, which makes it superior. The fact that you think microwaves are affected by clouds really confirms that you are guessing. Thou dost protest too much.
KevinUK, I agree. The best offense against propaganda is a clear exposition of how it works. I.e., when egregious errors are pointed out, rational minds immediately wonder “why lie?” Granted, children to not necessarily have the most rational minds, and certainly they have not gone through the rigors of the scientific method until high school (there’s some introduction earlier, but I don’t recall giving it serious consideration till I got to high school), but they are also smart enough to detect a lie when it is clearly exposed. My boss’ son was shown AIT in one of his high school science classes (not sure which one since high school tends to separate out several distinct sciences, e.g. chemistry, biology, etc.). He thought it was junk, irrespective of his opinion on GW (which was not relayed to me). Of course, his dad is an engineer full of skepticism on the subject, which certainly could have colored the son’s pre-conception going into watching the film.
Mark
Since this is where we’re supposed to come to vent, I won’t soil the Sargasso thread with this, but they shouldn’t grant PhDs to scientists without a course in English composition. Over on that thread, I asked to clarify something, and I get an answer like “I never said that”. I don’t think the problem is my lack of understanding, I think the problem is their dense writing style. If I can learn how to read legalese, I can learn to understand anything, but scientificese seems to be specifically designed to be vague and evasive. These people should be forced to write a business memo to a group of MBA managers, and if they can’t write to that audience, their communications should be considered nonresponsive.
And no, I’m not buying the excuse that it’s too complicated.
Most scientific papers seem to be written in a style that is confusing on purpose. It’s like there’s a paragraph worth of information but it goes in as a couple of pages that have to be (distilled? parsed? examined?) in order to find out what’s really being said. That’s even true for op-eds, it’s just well…. Clunky?
I think the wording and length are such to convey the feeling there’s some facts being given, when in reality is there’s just a guess going on. So to obfuscate that uncertainty, we get all
the obtuse language, lots of passive voice, convoluted logical structure, and vague statements that can be interpretated in a variety of ways. That’s why we have to ask so many clarifying questions all the time, and often get non-answers.
That’s my 3 pesos.
#12 and 13 TonyN
Thnks for the link to the judgement. It does eg the uestion what would have happened if a concerned parent and school governor had not brought this case to court. For example
“Mr Milliband said:
‘The debate over the science of climate change is well and truly over, as demonstrated by the publication of today’s report by the IPCC’ [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change]. ‘Our energies should now be channelled into how we respond in an innovative and positive way in moving to a low carbon future. I was struck by the visual evidence the film provides, making clear that the changing climate is already having an impact on our world today, from Mount Kilimanjaro to the Himalayan mountains. As the film shows, there is no reason to feel helpless in the face of this challenge. Everyone can play a part along with government and business in making a positive contribution and helping to prevent climate change.’
Mr Johnson added:
‘With rising sea temperatures, melting icecaps and frequent reminders about our own ‘carbon footprints’, we should all be thinking about what we can do to preserve the planet for future generations. Children are the key to changing society’s long term attitude to the environment. Not only are they passionate about saving the planet but children also have a big influence over their own family’s lifestyles and behaviour. Al Gore’s film is a powerful message about the fragility of our planet and I am delighted that we are able to make sure that every secondary school in the country has a copy to stimulate children into discussing climate change and global warming in school classes.'”
”
In particular Alan Johnson’s quote of
“Children are the key to changing society’s long term attitude to the environment. Not only are they passionate about saving the planet but children also have a big in fluence over their own family’s lifestyles and behaviour.”
Now if this isn’t blatent abuse of poltical office, I don’t know what is. Essentially, as with smoking since we can’t get the parents to pay attention, we will indoctrinate their childeren instead in the full knowledge of the power of ‘pester power’.
Having read the judgement now in full (thanks to TonyN’s link), I am now disappointed. The only changes intoduced as a result of the judgement are fairly minor changes to the Guidence Notes which now must acomply the film and which must explicit mention the ‘errors’ within the film. As a regular vsitor to this blog I’m also disppointed in the following content from the judgement.
“The Film advances four main scientific hypotheses, each of which is very well supported by research published in respected, peer-reviewed journals and accords with the latest conclusions of the IPCC:
(1) global average temperatures have been rising significantly over the past half century and are likely to continue to rise (“climate change”);
(2) climate change is mainly attributable to man-made emissions of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide (“greenhouse gases”);
(3) climate change will, if unchecked, have significant adverse effects on the world and its populations; and
(4) there are measures which individuals and governments can take which will help to reduce climate change or mitigate its effects.”
These propositions, Mr Chamberlain submits (and I accept), are supported by a vast quantity of research published in peer-reviewed journals worldwide and by the great majority of the world’s climate scientists.”
I like many who visit this blog would disagree with all the four points above and in particular the refence to scientific consensus (‘great majority’) and the claim that ‘the science is settled’. As I’m learning more and more each day as Steve M, Anthony Watts and MrPete continu eto audit the so called ‘peer reviewed’ work, the science is far from being settled.
Regards
KevinUK
West Coast US …. ongoing mid winter synoptics. Vague hints at a “Halcyon Days” event, of sorts, during part of next week …. we’ll see.
I agree with #4 re-written:
There are measures related to pollution and land-use which individuals and governments can take which would have various positive or negative effects on climate change.
Which is both fairly obvious and fairly meaningless, like saying:
There are various actions individuals and governments can take to a glass of water, such as boil it, freeze it, drink it or pour it down a drain.
So. How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?
RE 19. Napoleon’s corporal solves this issue
RE 10. I dunno Steffan, sometimes maybe
he doesnt get the swedish good humour. Its Dada on ice.
Hope all is well for you.I hope to take
a visit to your neck of the Ice in the coming year.
If I’m so lucky you must promise to show me around.
Why not put temperature probes x number of feet into the ground, which would eliminate weather too.
KevinUK #21:
The question before the judge was effectively narrow: does the film go beyond the science (which was accepted, sadly, as being contained within the IPCC report) and in doing so, move beyond the scientific into the political.
The law has to have a body of scientific knowledge from which to make a comparison. You can imagine the bunfight that would have ensued had each side been able to introduce any paper it liked. It’s not perfect but it’s not bad. The timing is especially exquisite vis-a-vis the Nobel Prize thing now extricating the arch-exaggerator (and that’s putting it politely) with the IPCC.
Re 19: I am reminded of my own complaint when I visit my wife’s relatives and have the damnedest time trying to understand them, while they seem perfectly capable of understanding each other. “Why can’t they just speak plain old English?” I ask my wife. To which my Argentine bride responds: “Why don’t you just learn to speak Spanish?”
Re 19: I am reminded of my own complaint when I visit my wife’s relatives and have the damnedest time trying to understand them, while they seem perfectly capable of understanding each other. “Why can’t they just speak plain old English?” I ask my wife. To which my Argentine bride responds: “Why don’t you just learn to speak Spanish?” Somethings are easier said than done.
33, I think the plaintiff’s attorney played it very well. He just picked easy to understand question where either:
1. AIT contradicted IPCC RP4, or
2. AIT made claims that were completely unsubstantiated (i.e. polar bears).
It would have been difficult for the judge not to rule the way he did. There are literally hunderds of other issues that he could have brought out in the suit, but then we would have ended up in a pissing match between expert witnesses. This way it was crisp, clean, and bulletproof, and still was sufficient to require the disclaimer, and give Gore a black eye.
#6 Philip (and others):
A quick reality check on your claim that “there has been no upward change in global mean surface temperature since 1998, I can only assume that the trunkation is performed to hide data inconvenient to the AGW hypothesis.”
http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-warming-stopped-in-1998.htm
In order to investigate this coastal stations thing I looked at running OpenTemp with all stations vs. non-coastal stations. Very little difference in trend (0.02 degC/decade):
But, it takes alot to be designated “Coastal” as shown by the yellow x’s in the map below. So I tried opentemp with a couple of modified boundaries to leave out coastal stations. I tried “Boundary A” and “Boundary B” below with 250km averaging distance. The idea is to look at warming trend for non-coastal stations versus all stations.
Results:
Conclusions: Not much difference when coastal regions are left out, unless you disclude a huge chunk of the country ;). I still need to get a better understanding of how opentemp calculates it’s cell area for cells that lie on boundary.
Note: Used all 1221 stations in analysis. Used 250km averaging distance
#12:
Creepy. A British blending of Marxism and Monty Python.
I think better are the French inspired global warming propaganda phrases such as “Post-Normal Science”
#38 Clayton B:
Please re-post over in the USHCN #3 thread. I have some ideas to help with the analysis, but it’s better to talk about it over there…
37, holy cow. I’d get snipped for an accurate description of that. Deservedly, too. Holy unbelievable, Batman!
37, and the comments are even nuttier. Is it possible to pass drugs around on a blog?
Check out Rabett Run (sorry, I cannot tell you what it is at risk of getting snipped again)
John V #19,
I don’t believe that you really accept the argument in your link. The argument presented is kind of a “weekend a Bernie’s” trick. You prop up a trend that may well have dissipated post 1998 through the use of long term trends. It is circular argumentation to create a graph that is rhetorical in nature. There is nothing magic about long term smoothing., especially when solar trends shifted downward about that time, and SST temps have cooled slightly.
BTW, Am I wrong or did Steve M, as one of the thousands of scientists who contribute to the IPCC, win a share of the Nobel Peace Prize? Do you get to add a Nobel Prize bug to your site?
yorick, I don’t understand.
If you follow the link and scroll below the page break there is a linear trend of the global monthly temperature anomalies from 1998 to 2007. The trend is +0.16C per decade. Let me repeat, the line of best fit from 1998 to 2007 trends upwards. The trend does not depend on anything prior to 1998.
When you wrote “prop up a trend that may well have dissipated post 1998 through the use of long term trends”, perhaps you were looking at the “5 Year Moving Average” plot instead of the “Line of best fit” plot.
Re my 34-35, to a Re 19, which is now 25: Why do post numbers on this blog change so often that Re’s no longer make sense? Are snips added back?
yorick, I thought I should confirm the graphs myself.
I downloaded the yearly global temperatures from GISTEMP from here:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.A2.txt
The global annual temperature anomalies from 1998 to 2007 are:
1998 0.57
1999 0.33
2000 0.33
2001 0.48
2002 0.56
2003 0.55
2004 0.49
2005 0.62
2006 0.54
A best-fit line through that data gives a global trend of +0.19C/decade. Try it for yourself.
I am sorry I got into an argument based on surface temps to begin with. You make whatever claim you wish to regarding that morass of judgement, interpretation, and fudgery. In tropospere and near surface ocean temps, the trend is down.
Good catch JohnV.
The funny thing is they use a 5 year moving averaged CENTERED. Essentially an
Acasual filter. yes it’s getting warmer, but using this 5 year centered MA is just
chartsmanship.
At some point we need to get back to those fault scarps that sadlov
says he sees in the early record. Those years when the year over year is 1-2C.
Somewhere here I charted the year over year ( YEARx-YEARx-1) and The swings, as you can
well imagine were wild ( and yes wilder than the filtered SST)
HOWEVER, I see to recall that the range of the swings was definitely a function of TIME.
That is, more fault scarps in the early century ( as Ocean warming catches up to air temps)
THEN a period ( say 50s-80) were the Ocean rate of change and air rate of change where reaching
equallibrium. In tis period the changes were less radical.. fewer fault scarps. THEN comes the
period when air temps take off again. Lets say late 70s an on. Here too you see fault scarps.
I didnt compare the magnatude of the early faults to the late faults..
REF: 42, Could that be the definitive venue for the debate?
RE: #32
David, some researchers are doing the opposite by linking soil temperatures to weather and climate. For example, S. A. Isard, R. J. Schaetzl, and J. A. Andresen, Soils Cool as Climate Warms in the Great Lakes Region: 1951-2000, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, Vol. 97, no. 3, September 2007, pp. 467-76.
I would be interested in any comments you might have regarding the approach taken by these researchers.
Pretty lame. If a modern American wanted to quietly communicate anti-Semitism s/he would use the term “neocon”, like Brits sometimes use “Zionist.” “Cosmopolitan” has no such nuance in USA.
re 41. There should be a thread called MOSH PIT. Instead of snipping threads or deleting them
they should just be put into the Moshpit and randomly numbered, so that people would fight each other
for no good reason and be utterly confused. [ this post has been sent to the mosh pit] 10 posts enter
one post leaves. Something theatrical.
re 42. Is it the scott johnson thing? I let it sit for a couple days and then
said something nice. I havent seen if he let it pass. It wasnt a kidney stone
of a comment so he shoulda let it in.
RE 47. Well Johnsen uses cosmopolitan in a midwestern way. In the Midwest we got the slammed by
the East coast folks who claimed to be “cosmopolitan” they even named a drink after it.
So when person in Minnesotta says “cosmopolitan” he is likely being sarcastic.
47 not only that, Powerline could hardly be called antisemitic. I mean, for crying out loud! What’s that Israeli flag on the sidebar all about? I think the bunny got into something.
>> In tropospere and near surface ocean temps, the trend is down.
You are correct.
We’ve had more than a few discussions regarding the use of acausal filters in here as I recall. I fully appreciate the fact that John V has been largely using trailing filters (correct me if I’m wrong). They make more intuitive sense. In general, I think the final conclusion was that the use of acausal filters for depictions of data is probably not bad per se, but to use them for computation purposes should be discouraged.
Mark
yorick,
What is your source?
#26 Mark T.
I have actually been using centred 5-year averages and trailing 20- or 22-year trends for plots. My original reason for using centred averages was for comparison against GISTEMP centred averages.
#27 Kenneth:
I agree. Due to the large year-to-year variability short-term trends are hard to justify. I only brought it up because of Philip’s assertion in #6.
Of course, this brings me back to the 1934 vs 1998 debate (USA lower 48) and why it does not matter. Longer-term averages and trends are what define climate.
Not to beat the bunny to death, but the term “Cosmopolitan fraud” (always with a capitalized “C”), appears to be a legal term, though I’m having difficulty finding details. It seems to be a type of white-collar crime.
Certainly if you’re comparing results from one data set to another you’d need to replicate the original methods, so I cannot complain. Interesting that you chose to use the trailing filters for display, however. My original argument was that some sort of trailing filter should be used in all cases, computational or graphical, though I did grudgingly accept that for graphical purposes an acausal filter is not inherently “bad.”
Mark
#30 Mark T:
After thinking about it for a bit, I agree that trailing averages and trends are preferable. They’re also easier since I use Excel for plotting and it has built-in features for trailing averages. I will switch my future plots to trailing averages.
GISS give both figures. RAW and 5 year centered. I never understood the 5 year centered approach
It made no sense to me. ( except it allows you to clip the last two years of data)
1. You could understand why a current year should be filtered or “carry” the signal of previous
years.
2. I could not understand why a future year temp should filter a current year?
#2 makes no sense. It is not filtering for the purpose of processing gain, it is filtering for pretty
charts.
3. Excising the LAST TWO years of a record while utilizing the first two years makes no sense
in light of the doubt about 1880 records.
GISS provide the raw unsmoothed data next to the 5yr centered smooth. So you all have a choice.
John V.
To further muddy the waters, 1998, El Nino. 1999, 2000 Equally large La Nina. So you should really start with 2001, or half way through 2000. But then even I think that’s cherry-picking and isn’t long enough for any validity. It’s probably enough to start a control chart, though. A CUSUM or EWMA type chart should pick up any future trend fairly quickly. I have one on the UAH LT NoPol series that looks like it might be breaking downwards. Time will tell.
RE47, a FIRO buffer, fer sure.
# 45
Ann,
It’s better if we relate soil temperatures with weather and climate because soil temperatures depend almost completely of the incident Solar Energy. The opposite idea, that the CD heats the soils is ridiculous.
Re: #29
But that gets us back to trends over what time periods and over what regions and localities. And then going deeper what do those climate changes mean in terms of beneficial and adverse conditions. I get confused about whether I will have to pay a CO2 emitter or receive compensation from an CO2 emitter when the trial lawyers get involved.
Gerald Browning
Is Conrath, B.J. 1972 the relevant reference to the method for extracting temperatures from the satellite data? I see the mention of “a reference profile in the neighborhood of the actual profile” and “either no solution or an infinite number of solutions” but I haven’t tried to follow the math all the way through to see if you always have to have a close reference profile. Still, it seems like a big step to go from what I can follow in the paper to some linear combination of measurements with fixed constants that seems to be the method actually used.
34, I don’t think it’s as simple as a weather/climate dichotomy. What is ENSO, for example? It’s too long to be weather and too short to be climate. But it is very real and tangible.
I don’t think that climate is as well defined a term as John seems to imply. And I don’t believe that there’s a generally agreed upon definition, either. It’s more of a fuzzy concept.
KevinUK #27
What stuck me about the four hypotheses that the judge refers to as ‘persuasively set out’ is that they are interlinked. Take out the first one and they all fall down. This really points up the importance of Steve M’s present interest in historical temperature.
The only issue that I have with the first half of the judgment (as far as I’ve got on a busy day) is the attempt (para 19) to make a distinction between scientific and political disputes over climate change. I think anyone who has followed Climateaudit and its dark fanatical twin, Realclimate, over the last few years must realize that no such distinction exists. The warmers are waging a ruthless battle to dominate public opinion, and for them the science is just ammunition. This is bad for the helpless civilians – the public – who are being caught up in the conflict. It is terrible for science which, in the long run, is likely to be blamed for collateral damage in the form of economic lunacy and perversion of democratic processes as illustrated by your quotes from Milliband and Johnson.
Nice countries don’t do brain-washing do they?
#35 Larry:
I am not claiming to define climate. I am only saying that climate is *not* a single unusual year.
Reply to Lockwood and Fröhlich – The persistent role of the Sun in climate forcing
Svensmark and Friis Christensen 3/2007
http://www.spacecenter.dk/publications/scientific-report-series/Scient_No._3.pdf/view
Troposphere temps don’t really show a trend since the late ’80s except for the ’98 El Nino
Near Surface Ocean Temps show a cooling since the early ’90s.
From the paper
I got into an argument with tamino over at RealClimate. Their response seems to be to go back to the surface temps and make their stand there.
JohnV,
From the link you posted:
Someone should explain to the author of that page that and El Nino effect was in fact in play this past winter. How could the author make such a blunder?
John 36, I completely agree. It’s not even clear to me that a decadal trend is climate. Century, yes. Half century, ok. Quarter century? Iffy.
Yorick:
There’s conflicting evidence. I don’t think it’s clear that Lower Trop is not warming since the 80s.
e.g.
http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/t2lt/uahncdc.lt
(But then this shows the Tropo in the tropics warming much slower than globally, which is inconsistent with the GCMs.)
RSS shows the opposite!
I think Larry put it best, 25 years is meaningless in the scheme of climate.
#38 Aaron Wells:
You’re right about El Nino. I registered and left a comment about the mistake.
#22 The assertion that 2005 was warmer than 1998 is not true according to the CRU.
Only the Northern Hemishpere has shown some very slight warming. The temperature in the Southern Hemishpere is dropping like a stone. (relatively).
Tony, you’re talking about the world of reality. Judges have to operate in the world of the law. They have to make those distinctions, even if they don’t really exist. And if they don’t, they’re leaving themselves open to appeal, which is something no judge wants. So they have to play that game that way.
He really didn’t have any latitude. I can’t find anything to criticize about the way the judge ruled or the way the plaintiff’s attorney approached it, even if that meant ruling that that sky is green. That’s just the way the law works, and in general, the plaintiff got what he was after, and Gore got pw3ned. Anything better than what happened really wasn’t in the realm of possibility.
# 55
Tony N.,
Name one nice country.
shs, thanks for the dataset. I was going more by eyeballing the graphs provided by Svensmark and Friis-Christensen.
I have a new computer, and I guess it is time to put Excel on it. Regardless, I don’t see any huge trend from the late ’80s in your data either, but I am not prepared to go to the matresses over the differences seen by eyeballing tables and graphs.
JohnV, I have a question.
Considering that the trend for the Southern Hemisphere is unmikstakenly downwards, do you believe that CO2 is a non-mixing type gas in the atmosphere … I mean, is it concentrated differently in the South and North?
Or … could it be that the European switch to Diesel has produced so much black soot that absorbs more sunlight that it skews the Northern Hemisphere temperatures?
#44 Bruce:
I believe that the global climate is very complex. I don’t know the answer for the recent cooling, but the end of solar cycle 23 could play a part (the timing seems about right).
I don’t understand why you say that “the trend for the Southern Hemisphere is unmikstakenly downwards”. The plot you linked shows a pronounced upward trend since ~1910 except for a ~10 years of cooling from ~1940 to ~1950. The recent downward trend is not unlike the minor downward trends starting ~1960, ~1970, ~1980.
Googling climateaudit.org brings up this description of the website: “Through the use of proxy data, statistics, as well as commentary and discussion, Steve McIntyre tries to show how human induced global warming does not add up.”
There are no meta tags that use these phrases in the source of the html. There are several other ways a site description can be picked up or automatically generated. There are ways to fix a site description that is incorrect.
I don’t think it is possible to know how that phrase was created, but , it does not look like something that Steve McIntyre would approve of.
Just thought I would bring it to the attention of Steve and the new webmaster.
JohnV #46,
Hes talking about the data here
Look at the southern hemisphere for the last 6 years. ENSO has been mostly positive for that time and there shouldnt be cooling during that time. There have been no volcanoes during that time either.
RE 285. Whenever you send mail out your header has your IP. So if you sent mail to Mann and he
knew enough he could click the right options and get your IP. Most people dont look at the verbose
header but it gives all the info you need to know. So I hear.
Talk about either spirialing out of control or unexpected consequences; the “Dollar Auction”:
I don’t like the Iraq analogy, but you get the drift.
RE 289. Sunk costs. pot committed.
Sorry to be Off Topic but… Did I really read this right on RC? By Gavin S and M Mann commenting on AIT
“We also know that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, and that the carbon cycle feedback is positive (increasing temperatures lead to increasing CO2”
Re: Soils Cool as Climate Warms in the Great Lakes Region
They sampled at forest sites and found a soil cooling trend 1951-2000. No indication the warming air temps over the same period they cite were also at forest sites. The obvious interpretation is forests are experiencing a cooling trend and the observed warming temperature trend is due to local factors at the (non-forest) temp measuring sites.
Re: 79 Larry
I wasn’t really criticizing the judge. As you say he probably did the best job he could within the limits of legal conventions and the outcome far exceeded my expectations.
The nine points that the judgment identifies in AIT as being alarmist, unfounded or both would all be familiar to most readers of this blog and they would know that they are the product of political manipulation of dodgy science or no science at all. Yet it is only when a worried parent brings a case against a government department that an impartial assessment by a non-scientist exposes the political spin that lurks behind these claims and the matter is settled. It seems to me that the judge was signaling that there are areas into which he could not go and that these need the same treatment. It’s a pity that it was not done overtly but in that subtle way so beloved by lawyers when they want to say rather more than a literal reading of the words conveys.
What kind of situation do we have when scientific research has become so contaminated by politics that it takes High Court proceedings to get at the truth? Do we have to wait for another, similar court action, if there ever is one, to clear some more ground?
Climateaudit has made a huge contribution to the global warming debate by questioning and debunking dodgy research methods and long may it continue to do so. But how many members of the general public whose views on climate change were radicalized by the Hockey Stick know that the statistical methods that underlie it are a sham? Court proceedings involving governments and world-class politicians are news; seemingly arcane disputes about scientific methodology seldom are. The decisions of courts persist unless they are overturned by more litigation; scientific controversies are all too soon forgotten.
Judge Burton’s judgment seems to me to be fair and wonderfully lucid. Oh that the IPCC, which is intended to make the same kind of impartial and dispassionate judgments, could learn from him. They are supposed to be the advocates of reason who set a standard of impartiality for the climate science community. Apparently we have to look elsewhere for sound judgments, and if the only recourse is the law, then how long will it take and how much harm will be caused in the meantime?
Sorry to be so long-winded but I feel that this case could mark a turning point if others can build on it. The law may not be a good way to correct the misrepresentation of science but in this case it may be the only means to do so in a way that is both authoritative and highly visible to all.
Re #80: Nasif Nahle
Fair point, but we all have to keep trying don’t we, or the politicians get out of hand.
Re# 3
CO2 cannot be used in any global circulation model as these are restricted to the behaviour of physical phases.
Air is a single phase of which CO2 chemically is part of, but CO2 does not behave as a separate phase, just as neither do O2 and N2. Air is a single gas phase at the PT conditions at the surface of the earth. The only other physical phases present in air are aerosols and water vapour which, whether in solid, liquid or gas state, has some peculiar physical properties.
Dick Lindzen reckoned we don’t really understand cloud formation – that is an understatement.
So any CGM that treats CO2 as a distinct physical phases as an independent variable is pure junk science.
#90
Unless you tell us how you read this statement, your question is impossible to answer. But it looks correct.
If you ever wondered whether real climate science was more about politics and self-justification than honest scientific inquiry, read gavin’s and Mann’s latest on http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/10/convenient-untruths/
Words fail me.
#85 Kristen Byrnes:
That’s the same graph I was looking at.
I took a *guess* at a possible cause for the reduced warming and subtle cooling (look at the moving average line, not the single years as they often spike up and down). Do you have an explanation?
#74 Aaron Wells:
I posted a comment on the site last night, and the text has now been edited. That was easy.
#96
Try buying a bigger dictionary if you want to let us know what is wrong with this RC link.
re: 99 (richardT)
What is wrong with the gavin and Mann RC article? It is rhetorical word play and political justification? Look at the great job Steve McIntyre and co are doing here auditing the records, and the so called real scientists waste their efforts on stuff like this. What’s next? Some weirdo in Germany makes a ludicruous notion in some non peer-reviewed journal and RC are quick to put him in his place as a representative of the denialists, while continuing to ignore the real skepticism, falsification inquiry and audition.
RC are more interested in discussing crackpots, political connotations, climate rhetorics, than engaging in a serious debate with the real skeptics.
That is why I personally lost faith in them. I can’t trust people who dodge open debate on the central questions.
The rhetorical (not scientific) post defending Gore is just symptomatic of what’s going on in there.
Compare Climateaudit.org to Realclimate.org which has more scientific debate, inquiry…?
And we have dedicated amateurs, the guys on the “other side” are supposed to be the “real” deal, but they surely are hiding it well.
That’s what is wrong with the post, just symptomatic of the larger picture.
Happy with this explanation? Or do I still need a bigger dictionary?
JohnV, clearly the Souther Hempisphere is cooling since 1998. [snip]
98, are you alleging that the Judge erred? Would you recommend an appeal? I’m sure Mr. Gore (or the school system) could afford an appeal. Why do you think they’re not appealing? If Gavin and Mann are right, an appeal should be a slam-dunk.
306, the centennial profile for CO2 is completely different from the profile for temperature. Look at the curves. A correlation with CO2 wouldn’t be anything like a correlation with temperature unless they smoothed the temperature curve so extremely that all that’s left is a linear increase (which is essentially what CO2 does).
#100 Bruce:
Ah, it’s too bad that Steve McIntyre snipped the insulting part of your comment. Oh well.
Let’s get to your point. I never said that the Southern Hemisphere wasn’t cooling (a little bit, since 1998). I merely said that the cooling is not unlike many other cooling periods this century. Each of those was followed by a return to the general warming trend. Do you have reason to believe this one will be different? Please enlighten me.
Obviously cherry-picking dates is not a good thing, but I’m going to give it a try. Bruce and others like to use the 1998 temperature spike as the starting point for any temperature trend. I’m going to look at the SH temperature trend starting a couple of years before or after 1998 (linear trend, deg C per century, from http://cdiac.esd.ornl.gov/ftp/trends/temp/jonescru/sh.dat (to end of 2005)):
2000-2005: +1.68
1999-2005: +1.82
1998-2005: -0.59
1997-2005: -0.53
1996-2005: +0.04
What the heck, here are a few more years for fun:
1995-2005: +0.26
1994-2005: +0.77
1993-2005: +0.99
1992-2005: +1.26
So, let’s recap:
Philip said there was no global warming since 1998 and implied that scientists were cutting off the plots intentionally to hide data they didn’t like. I demonstrated that the trend is actually warming since 1998. Bruce (and others) changed the subject to the Southern Hemisphere only. Cherry-picking 1998 as the starting point does show cooling there. Choosing almost any other starting year shows warming. Oh, and minor cooling trends have been seen before but they have always been followed by a return to the warming trend.
Bruce, do you have anything to add?
John V. is totally correct about the trends. Almost any period you pick is warming. What a person infers from that are totally separate issues (meaning and worth of the number, cause of the warming, what to do about it, proper amount of urgency) but the truth is the truth.
As Buddenbrook said, “I cant trust people who dodge open debate on the central questions.” This isn’t some simple yes/no clearly defined issue.
On an earlier subject, I posted something that I think is very much applicable in this matter of global warming and the debate over it:
RE95, Yes I agree. RC is promoting the New Mannian Math.
In NMM, 9=0.
#99
Rebutting the “weirdo from Germany” and other “crackpots” is undoubtedly a chore, both for readers, and I presume, writers, but is valuable in that the crackpots’ flawed arguments are exposed.
You write that the latest Gore post is “rhetorical (not scientific)”. Please substantiate that claim. Take one of the “error” and deconstruct what RC wrote to prove your argument is not merely rhetorical itself.
JohnV,
The CRU says this is the global temperature over the last 5 years:
2003 0.465
2004 0.444
2005 0.476
2006 0.422
2007 0.437
Flatline from 2003 to 2007. A slight cooling.
No rise.
As for the Southern Hemisphere
2003 0.371
2004 0.299
2005 0.329
2006 0.288
2007 0.254
Almost back to 0.0.
Ok. let me fair to Mann and Gavin:
They wrote about one ‘error that is not an error’:
“Pacific island nations needing to evacuate Much of Tuvalu is only a few feet above sea level,
and any sea level rise is going to impact them strongly.
The impacts are felt in seemingly disconnected ways – increasing brine in groundwater,
increasing damage and coastal erosion from tides and storm surges,
but they are no less real for that. The government of Tuvalu has asked New Zealand to be ready
to evacuate islanders if needed,
and while currently only 75 people per year can potentially be resettled,
this could change if the situation worsened.
In the movie there is only one line that referred to this:
“That’s why the citizens of these pacific nations have all had to evacuate to New Zealand”,
which is out of context in the passage it’s in, but could be said to only be a little ahead of it’s time. ”
So. They don’t construe this as an ERROR. Apparentlay and error requires MORE than one line.
As they put it:
“Overall, our verdict is that the 9 points are not “errors” at all
(with possibly one unwise choice of tense on the island evacuation point).”
UNWISE CHOICE OF TENSE? hmmm
? raises the question?
Would you want gavin or the Mann as a judge in your case.?
If this is their Judgement of no ‘error’ would you want them as judge?
would you want them as a film critic?
would you want them teaching english?
Let start: Gavin and the Mann ( G&M)
describe AIT as a movie combining a an obsfucation, a straw man and a false dilemma.
THEY WROTE:
“First of all, “An Inconvenient Truth” was a movie and people expecting the same depth from a movie
as from a scientific paper are setting an impossible standard.”
It was a movie, yes; however, it was screened and won an academy award as a documentary.
Rules for a documetary:
“1. An eligible documentary film is defined as a theatrically released non-fiction motion picture
dealing creatively with cultural, artistic, historical, social, scientific, economic or other subjects.
It may be photographed in actual occurrence, or may employ partial re-enactment, stock footage, stills,
animation, stop-motion or other techniques, as long as the emphasis is on fact and not on fiction.”
FACT not fiction. So describing it as a “movie” is really an obsfucation of the issue. The issue
is the film presents itself as a documentary, won an award as a documentary, the pretext of which is
that the film be a presentation of FACT not fiction. FURTHER, the court case centers around using
the film as instructional material. Finally, no one, not the least UK law, suggests that the film should
have the depth of a scientific paper. This is a G&M at their strawMANN best. NOBODY expects AIT to have
the depth of a scientific paper. That is NOT AT ISSUE. The issue is simple. The film is a documentary.
It is being used for instructional purposes. Is it factual? or are there errors? Even errors of
“tense” ( It is not warming! that’s an error of negation! not a real error)
The bottom line on this is relatively obvious. G&M are not film critics. They don’t know what a
documentary is. It’s a SPECIES of movie. Not just a movie. A movie that DOCUMENTS facts. Further,
G&M are not logicians. No logician would make the strawman argument like they did. Further, they are
experts on the relevant UK law. Funny, how climate scientists try to take on so many roles.
Im superclimateman.
But lets continue:
G&M: “In the movie there is only one line that referred to this:
“That’s why the citizens of these pacific nations have all had to evacuate to New Zealand”,
which is out of context in the passage it’s in, but could be said to only be a little ahead of it’s time. ”
Gore said: they ( PLURAL NATIONS ) HAVE HAD TO EVACUATE.
G&M construe this as:”possibly one unwise choice of tense on the island evacuation point”
Do you want G&M as your judge? THEY CANT EVEN THE GRAMMAR RIGHT! it’s not the TENSE that
is wrong. ITS THE VERB AND THE TENSE. AND ITS THE PLURALITY OF THE SUBJECT.
As G&M write: “The government of Tuvalu has asked New Zealand to be ready
to evacuate islanders if needed”
So, Tuvalu has ASKED (verb) New zeeland to be ready.
GORE SAYS: nations have been EVACUATED.
And the climate scientist qua flim critics, qua experts on UK law, qua judges, qua
linguists describe this as POSSIBLY one UNWISE use of tense? TENSE?
Mosh pit is tense.
I posted this (by mistake) yesterday on another thread, but wanted more feedback if possible. This was my post:
Thanks for any thoughts.
Btw, SteveSadlov, since you are always so interested in these things, COS finally switched into “autumn” mode and Pike’s Peak was covered in snow yesterday. There’s still plenty left, too. 🙂 My morning drive across Woodmen (yesterday it was across Research) is pretty cool when the mountain has snow on it. MrPete knows the view, it is quite nice.
Mark
I’m sure glad I’m not enrolled in Climate Science 101 somewhere, because I think I would surely get an F. I just can’t seem to understand or agree with the most basic principles. Since water vapor is a strong greenhouse gas, shouldn’t it provide “back-radiation,” thereby causing more heating in humid areas? Well, it does not. The hottest areas on Earth are ALL in the dryest areas. I’ve revised my little spreadsheets that demonstrate this by adding some data and applying a “weighting factor” for surface heating. There is a quite high correlation between temperature and the product of insolation, humidity, and this weighting factor (R2 = 0.84), with 156 locations that include Alaska, mainland USA, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and Guam. It sure looks to me like water exerts a negative feedback on temperature.
Re: #95: Buddenbrook
Thanks for the link – I read the RC post with increasing glee. I know that bore-hole analysis has rather gone out of fashion but there seem to be some palaeoclimatologists who have not yet learned that if you are deep in a hole then its time to stop digging. Attempting to defend the indefensible really wastes credibility fast.
The reference to one unwise choice of tense on the island evacuation point seems to sum it all up. What does it matter if theres a bit of confusion between a fact and a bit of speculation dressed up as a fact. Same thing arent they really?
Mosh,
Recall that Gore had a scientific adviser for the movie. His name is Jim Hansen. Have you noticed the deafening silence from Hansen during the past week or so?
RE108, Mosh you aren’t past tense. And we hope you won’t be soon.
BTW the sun has gone super quiet, so much so that an “All Quiet Alert” has been issued.
http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2007/10/15/all-quiet-alert/
Yesterday I watched the Interplanetary Magnetic Field hit zero for a couple of hours. Solar wind is slow and low density too. Bring on the GCR’s
Algore said that nations HAD evacuated to NZ.
Gavin and MANN call this: getting the tense wrong. ( grammarians they)
The 10K Tuvaluins have ASKED NZ to plan for an evacuation.
Gore got the tense wrong?
http://www.tuvaluislands.com/news/archives/2006/2006-02-21.htm
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=38695
Obviously the film was not peer reviewed
Mosher, is that really the best criticism you can make of An Inconvenient Truth?
The judge found that “Gore’s presentation of the causes and likely effects of climate change in the film was broadly accurate”. Does an error regarding evacuation of Tuvalu and other small Pacific islands change that?
109, JZ: I think you will find that this is primarily an agnostic site. Most here simply don’t know whether AGW is an important issue, and they are testing the hypothesis. But so far, the batting average for the AGW studies that have been audited is very, very low.
For anyone that wants to review the verbage in AIT, here is a transcript done by Greg Hoke:
http://www.hokeg.dyndns.org/AITruth.htm
Again, I say, if the judge erred, appeal the decision. You have a right to your day in court, Drs. Schmidt and Mann. You should demand your right to justice. You shouldn’t allow some truck driver to subvert the settled science.
103:
See 114.
John V, 116. As I said before, that was to make his decision appeal-proof by making his ruling narrow. He had to say that to prevent an appeal based on the claim that he was disagreeing with anything other than the very narrow points enumerated. If you know anything about how the law works, you’d realize that.
117 Jae: Understand about this being agnostic. I think that defines a skeptic in this instance. I think that an honest, open, objective analysis of the data would be welcomed by the general public. Based on all I (as a layman) hear, see, and read comes from those who have accepted the “consensus” view that AGW is real, and that a global crisis is at hand unless we all drastically alter our lifestyles and spend trillions of dollars to fix it. Based on what I read here and on a few other ‘skeptic’ sites, many of you in science aren’t yet convinced.
If so, I think the scientific community represented here has a responsibility to convey those views to the general public.
Larry, so you’re saying that he actually wanted to say lots of bad things about AIT but couldn’t? That’s convenient.
It’s probably more appropriate to look at what he did say than guess at what he wanted to say.
#120 jae,
My guess from before was that the reduction in solar activity may explain the cooling trend.
Do you have some reason to believe that solar activity will not increase?
123, I can’t read the judge’s mind. I don’t know what he wanted to say. But that was said to clarify the scope of the ruling. You have to do that. In fact, if memory serves me correctly, the plaintiff’s attorney basically made the same claims and clarifications. He had enough sense not to go any further out on a limb than he needed to to get the desired ruling.
Unlike in climate science, you have to prove your assertions in court, or run the risk of appeal. And the word “prove” actually means something in court.
If you believe the predictions regarding solar cycles 24 and 25, there is no reason to believe that solar activity is going to reach the level seen in the last few decades, for many decades to come.
I thought I’d take a quick look at the official web page for Tuvalu to see how the evacuation is coming along.
This is apparently where it all started:
http://www.tuvaluislands.com/news/archived/2003/2003-07-19.htm
And again:
http://www.tuvaluislands.com/news/archives/2006/2006-05-26.htm
And now they want 80 billion $
http://www.tuvaluislands.com/un/2007/un_2007-09-29.html
Lets see, with 10,000 inhabitants, that’s $8,000,000 for every islander. Sure beats the lottery as long as the Tuvaluan government doesn’t take an “administrative fee”.
Meanwhile over on New Zealand’s climate blog:
http://nzclimatescience.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=14&Itemid=1
A tide gauge to measure sea level has been in existence at Tuvalu since 1977, run by the University of Hawaii It showed a negligible increase of only 0.07 mm per year over two decades It fell three millimeters between 1995 and 1999. The complete record can still be seen on John Daly’s website: http://www.john-daly.com>www.john-daly.com
JohnV
Lower solar activity = cooling
Higher solar activity = CO2 = Magic!!!
123, Let me clarify something. In a trial, like in a battle, you don’t want to make things any more complicated than you have to. To actually start calling into question the general thrust of the movie would have involved a whole different type of trial, involving expert witnesses, and dog-and-pony shows, and would have gone on for literally years. Mr. Dimmock couldn’t afford that. It just wasn’t in the realm of the possible. So they adopted a strategy that achieved the desired result without going down that path.
That’s what you have to do when you’re dealing with the law, and you don’t have deep pockets.
JZ Smith, you said: “I understand Mr. MacIntyres mission for this site as auditing the data and methods of the mainstream AGW arguments, but there are many of us science-challenged skeptics who would really like to see an unbiased, objective review of the science on both sides of this issue dumbed-down to our level.”
I think I can explain it, kinda. There are multiple things going on that get talked about as if they were one. There’s no way to make it really simple, because it’s not a thing. So.
1. The subject is an interdisciplinary one, involving much more than simply “climate”. This is what causes issues like what constitutes a “climate scientist”. Does a statistician investigating the validity of the data and the graphs and so on involved part of climate science? What about if he goes out and samples tree rings? How about an expert on geology investigating something? Computer modeler?
2. I believe since nothing is really very clear, and so much is conjecture of systems that we don’t fully understand the inner workings of (much less their relationship to other systems that we don’t fully understand the inner workings of) that the literature can’t help to be confusing. It’s difficult to try and make some point about a little piece of it and try and correlate it to the rest at the same time.
3. A report that has “We’re not sure, it’s not clear, but this is what we think is going on because of X Y and Z” Won’t sell. Perhaps it’s that trying to wrap everything up so it seems to be clear makes it hard to read. Perhaps it’s just the system that creates the people doing the work trains them to write in such a mannner. Maybe all that and more.
4. How does one settle an argument over what type of ice cream is better?
I believe that by the most part, reading this blog and discussing things here is the closest you’ll get to “an unbiased, objective review of the science on both sides of this issue ” Because there isn’t two sides to this issue. There’s just 3 ways of thinking about the same issue. The 2 extremes and everything in the middle between them.
This reminds me of politics in general; there’s the far left, the far right, and everything between them, they blend at times, and they change.
#103 >> I demonstrated that the trend is actually warming since 1998
In the satellite data, there is a .6 deg drop in the global average since April of 98. 98 is not cherry picking, since 98 is a step up, it’s interesting to see what’s happened since that step up. It’s logically invalid to draw one trend line since the beginnning of time, and claim that it is evidence of any hypothesis.
Your reasoning appears to be:
premise: it’s getting warmer
conclusion: AGW is true.
non AGW: analyze more factors, they explain warming
pro AGW: None, ad-hominem
pro AGW: it’s been warming since 98
non AGW: actually, it’s been cooling
pro AGW: oh, that’s because of natural factors, like solar cycle, ENSO. You’re cherry picking
non AGW: If so, see our first response “analyze more factors”. If we can’t say it’s cooling because “natural factors” caused it, then you also need to take “natural factors” out, and then draw a trend line
#111 >> It sure looks to me like water exerts a negative feedback on temperature.
Phew, I was hoping that the data I gathered each day for the last 13,000+ days would be confirmed.
#122 >> If so, I think the scientific community represented here has a responsibility to convey those views to the general public.
Exactly how?
122, JZ:
It is very hard to be convinced when Steve Mc is showing such serious flaws in the major “reconstructions.” About the only things left to convince anyone are the global climate models, and I don’t think many people here have much faith in them. It is very important to recognize that it has been hotter than now many times in the last million years, suggesting that the recent warming may have a natural cause. That, alone, should cause any “layman” to question the AGW hypothesis. See this site for more on this (go to the link, then to subject index, then to M for Medieval Warming Period).
RE #103
I’m interested in knowing what the trend is from 2001-2007 and how does this compare with the satellite data? With all the controversy surrounding the surface temperature network, how can we rely on it? Are satellite data more reliable? Isn’t it true it’s no warmer now that it was in 1982 or 1988? At least that’s what I can glean from the data.
#124, John V. link
It will increase, just like it did after the Maunder Minimum.
In fact JZ, I think the site I linked to in 132 is EXACTLY what you are looking for. All the articles there are easy to understand and are written for the layman. If anyone can read 20 of those articles and not have some doubts, then I think they are seriously biased.
>> showing such serious flaws in the major reconstructions.
Yes, but that only deals with seriously deficient premise and conclusion indicated in #131. Just because there was a MWP does not mean that AGW is false.
136, Gunnar: I agree, FWIW.
lol, when it’s hot, and it rains, it gets cooler. Wow! 😀 (Well, at least until it stops raining, the sun comes out, and the water evaporates, making it feel hotter than it was before it rained because of the increased humidity)
I read some of the legal opinions on the case, and some news stories in conjunction with the move/the peace prize. It certainly seems the judge, for the purposes of the trial, had to accept the basic truth of the movie from the standpoint of the IPCC. I am of the opinion, based upon my assessment of the information I’ve seen, that the judge knew his boundries, understood them, and implemented based upon his assessment of the limits of his power. I agree with mosh ( yet again 🙂 — Gavin and Michael have no business talking about matters of UK law or court proceedings. Funny that those who dismiss somebody doing climate statistics as not qualified, and they turn into ‘superclimateman!’, powerful beings of infinite wisdom qualified to opine on any subject that is even remotely linked to climate. That post over at RC, as I read it, was appologetic spin. What else do you expect? They have their viewpoint, and the write according to it. Nothing wrong with that, nonthing wrong with noticing it.
On the flip side, no, that’s not ‘the best’ mosh can do (rather snarky thing to say) it’s all that needs to be done, tear apart 1 of them. I don’t have the inclination, nor feel it’s needed, to go over all 9 in the same manner G&M did. Clearly they did, which is why I put no stock in it. You can argue either way. The fact is, just like G&M have their agenda, and implement it, so did Gore in the movie. The issue in the case was not if the movie was a documentary. But was it? Yes. A one-sided one, crafted a certain way. Complaining or arguing about it is a waste of time, as far as I’m concerned. That’s a political piece, and that’s what the judge found. That’s the issue. Political? Court says yes, based upon the issue, UK law, and the judge’s interpretations of it all. Political? Nothing wrong with that, nonthing wrong with noticing it.
Steve Mc: If you are still collecting info. on tree line movements, here’s an article.
135 Jae, I just saw your link and will check it out. Thanks. Most of the “alarmists” I run into first question the credentials of anyone who doubts to “truth” of AGW, then dismiss anything that is not “peer reviewed”. How does a layman deal with that?
We could have another ice age and the AGWers would say it was because global warming causes temperature extremes!
I am curious as to why climatologists are starting to call even the smallest rotation a hurricane. I noticed this while watching the weather news. It was something I had never witnessed before. Usually they call it a tropical depression or tropical storm or “something that may develop in the Atlantic to watch.” My guess is that the hurricane season isn’t living up to their biased predictions and reputations are on the line. Either way, one should note that the data is skewed starting around this year or last.
>> question the credentials of anyone who doubts to truth of AGW, then dismiss anything that is not peer reviewed. How does a layman deal with that?
Point out that it’s a logic fallacy: argument by authority. “Peer review” is merely a mechanism for science magazines to perform some Q& A. It’s not authoritative, and no substitute for the scientific method. Wegman showed that AGW peer reviews operated as a clique.
JZ: Nearly all the stuff on that site IS from peer-reviewed literature.
#128 Bruce:
You can see the 11 year solar cycle very clearly in the temperatures. It is overlaid on the general warming trend. Let me know if you can cherry-pick an 11-year period that shows cooling in the last 30 years.
I’ll refer you to another link showing the divergence between solar activity and temperature in the last 30 years:
http://skepticalscience.com/solar-activity-sunspots-global-warming.htm
True, Gunnar. “Proving” AGW false is no more possible than “proving” it true. Indeed, the former is more difficult without miraculous intervention (i.e., someone steps up and tells us our entire existence has been created by some alien race and f(x) is the formula for our planetary climate).
Mark
Disappearing Polar Bears and Permafrost: Is a Global Warming Tipping Point Embedded in the Ice? – House Science committe hearing 17 October (may be webcast)
141, That’s not hyperbole. One of the claims out there is that GW will cause a rapid meltoff of Greenland ice, which will dilute the water, and shut down the thermohaline conveyor belt, which will plunge Europe (and only Europe) into a new little ice age. There’s just no end of possible disaster scenarios that can be imagined.
Gunnar:
1998 is not cherry picking? Are you kidding?
I won’t even try to argue with that since it’s ridiculous.
What would you say if I choose 1975 to 1998 as my reference warming period?
jae: As you probably know, team-think is such that co2science.org is just junk-science as far as they are concerned, because it doesn’t come at this from their viewpoint (IMO, that’s what makes you a denier; you don’t have their world view and/or you don’t come to the same conclusions they do. Quite egotistical if you ask me)
gunnar: Sure, but that’s rather the issue, isn’t it? Just because there was a MWP does not mean that AGW is false. Sure. Even if there was an MWP, it doesn’t make AGW true. Okay. AGW can be true or false with or without an MWP, no? If so, the point is meaningless.
Is there anyone who thinks that living things don’t affect their environment in some way? (Termites come to mind) (or monkeys) (wildebeast anyone?) So what does “AGW” mean?
You get ’em dude.
This is a great site, you guys offer great information. Thanks!
A small experiment.
Err, John V, 145: you forgot this one!
JZ, hope we’re helping. You might want to spend some time at RC, Rabett, Tamino, Motl. Go back and read some of the things at Pielke Jr and Sr sites. Poke around WCR, co2science, wikipedia and
junkscience. (Links to most all in the left sidebar)
Helpful resources include http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/gcag/gcag.html and http://www.wgms.ch/ There are a lot of links over at wikipedia in the global warming article (and if you read the page history and discussion page for it, that’s where the interesting insights are)
Good luck.
jae, I find it interesting over there at that site, they go into cosmic rays without ever talking about the magnetic field, as far as I could tell scanning it.
Some very ugly stuff here …. especially certain subtleties …. for example, the manner of allusion to a certain blue and white standard. Judge for yourselves.
#154 jae:
What is your point?
The article you linked shows an 11-year cycle of cosmic rays that correlates well with an 11-year cycle of temperature. The correlation was made by removing the linear trend of 0.14C per decade. So, if cosmic rays explain the 11-year cycle, what explains the trend?
158: What trend?
JohnV,
And the 11 year cycle has always been exactly the same? No variation at all?
How come only one hemisphere responds?
John V: What explains the Roman Warm Period, Medieval Warm Period, Little Ice Age, etc.? CO2?
# 90
Phillip_B
The results were obtained from physical modeling, not from sampling in situ. They compared their models with the results from other researches. We must consider the numerous physical, chemical and biological phenomena that can disrupt or change the conditions of the O, A and E -and sometimes B- horizons.
Re. Soil Temperatures. They do seem to be able to diverge quite dramatically from air mean temps and for quite a few years, when measured at the same location. For example in the data from Armagh Observatory Ireland. http://climate.arm.ac.uk/calibrated/
The soil temps bumbled along with the air quite happily for 60 years then diverged strongly for ten years or so in the 1970’s, with the soil getting warmer. They put this down,tentatively, to a very dry period in the weather, which might make sense as the specific heat capacity of, for example, dry sand is only one tenth that of water.
>> Proving AGW false is no more possible than proving it true
I don’t agree. There are a series of logical steps that must be true, in order for the AGW C02 theory to be correct. If one of these steps is shown to be incorrect, the hypothesis is falsified.
>> 1998 is not cherry picking? Are you kidding?
You’re not understanding my point, which is more abstract. Does one conclude scientific relationship based on correlation alone (wet sidewalks cause rain), or does one establish a scientific relationship and use logic/SM to seek the truth, using correlations only to provide hints as to where to look. Whereas you approach the problem with the logic in #131, so you think simply showing an upward trend is sufficient. This is obvious from every one of your posts here. I assert that this logic is insufficient. I assert that there are many factors that determine the temp. If you claim that Man is affecting the temp, then you must do far more than demonstrate an upward trend. You must analyze these other factors. Like someone said, start witht the null hypothesis: Man is not significantly warming the environment. Prove that wrong.
pro AGW: claimed that man dominates environment, claimed that 98 was caused by AGW, claimed that solar effects are negligible.
non AGW: If so, then how do explain cooling since april of 98.
You can’t without admitting that there are significant natural factors. If you admit that, you must admit that they caused the warming in the first place. And since your whole reasoning is limited to that described in #131, there is no AGW argument.
>> AGW can be true or false with or without an MWP, no? If so, the point is meaningless.
My point is not meaningless. It shows that worrying about whether there was an MWP or not is meaningless.
Jae:
At least read the article that you linked:
“The second graph removes El Nino, volcanoes and a linear warming trend of 0.14°C per decade. With the warming trend and other “confusions” removed, the negative correlation between cosmic rays and temperature is very high.”
Jae:
There are many things that can affect climate, as you know: orbital variations, solar cycles, greenhouse gases, etc. Nobody’s denying that. The strongest argument for AGW is that nothing else adequately explains the warming we’ve seen since the mid-1970s.
Lots of people are going to jump in with their favourite hypothesis — save yourself some time and look it up at http://www.skepticalscience.com first.
Bruce:
What are you talking about?
No, every cycle is different. The cycles are clearly visible on the plots that started this whole thing (Northern and Southern hemispheres):
As I said above, many things can affect temperature including solar cycles and greenhouse gases. They are not mutually exclusive.
Gunnar:
Wrong.
Those who argue against AGW have many different arguments. Usually it starts with “there is no warming”. Then it moves onto “the warming is natural”. After that comes the politics that I don’t care to get into.
The “there is no warming” argument is sometimes aimed at the surface temperature record. I have been looking into that. I won’t repeat my results again because that will start a whole new topic.
The only period where I could have a chance of proving that wrong is from 1975 onwards. I would start by looking at all the known non-AGW sources of warming. None of them appear to be explain the 30-year warming trend.
Coincidentally, Tamino’s newest post mirrors what we’re talking about here.
He probably says it much better than I could.
False framing, false progression. A mirrored projection of the evolution of warmer/funding defense mechanisms. Seek therapy. 😉
After reading Tamino’s post (link above), it looks like I was wrong to say the solar cycle is clearly visible in the temperature history, at least from 1975 onwards. Oops.
Actually, Tamino’s first graph looks amazingly like the recent smoothed temperature graph. Starts low, rises, then dips a bit, then rises again, then starts to dip again. Hmmm…
Mark
This is the funny concept invented by RC to explain away the ice core record that Gore pushes. If this were true, that would mean the physics of the atmosphere change over time. Plus, once CO2 takes over, how would temperature _ever_ drop again without a CO2 drop first (which never happens)?
Somebody needs to study how feedback actually works.
Mark
RE: #142 – what you said ….
JohnV
Does that explain the 1930’s too?
It seems to me that the burden is on the AGW crowd because they are predicting abnormality or deviation from historical trends, not the other way around. The problem is that the nature of climate itself is deviation. What is normal?
1. Are modern temperature trends within historical bounds that predate industrial times? This is what is being Audited.
2. If AGW predictions do not come to fruition, yet the climate is inline with historical bounds, then what does that say about AGW?
3. If AGW predictions describe something within historical bounds, and this does come to fruition, then nothing is proven.
What David said. The “you don’t have an alternative theory” argument is a red herring. The “we don’t understand the climate” possibility has to also be on the table. Just because we haven’t yet established that the earth is round doesn’t mean that it’s flat.
Bruce:
No, it does not. The 1930s were warm (in the USA lower 48) primarily for reasons other than AGW.
Larry and David:
The “we dont understand the climate” possibility is and always has been on the table. The IPCC has increased their confidence in AGW from “the balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate” in the second assessment report (1995) to “most of (>50% of) the observed increase in globally averaged temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely (confidence level >90%) due to the observed increase in anthropogenic (human) greenhouse gas concentrations” in the fourth assessment report (2007).
>>>> AGW can be true or false with or without an MWP, no? If so, the point is meaningless.
>> My point is not meaningless. It shows that worrying about whether there was an MWP or not is meaningless.
Not your point, the point of if there was an MWP or not. So I agree.
179, correction. The report for policymakers (written by non-scientists several months ahead of the body of the report) states those confidence levels. The numbers themselves were made up by non-scientists.
#166 >> Wrong.
Yet, you provided no support for this assertion. To dispute this, you would have to show some evidence for AGW besides an increasing temperature. Your statements about the “usual arguments against AGW” is not only irrelevant, it’s a straw man, since I do not claim that it’s not warmer. I will even stipulate that 98 was warmer than 38. I think that’s obvious, since 98 was truly global, whereas 38 was probably local. However, I say it’s irrelevant, since the logic of #131 is insufficient to support the hypothesis. Try to support your assertion above.
>> The only period where I could have a chance of proving that wrong is from 1975 onwards. I would start by looking at all the known non-AGW sources of warming. None of them appear to be explain the 30-year warming trend.
The process of elimination is flawed, since there is no way to quantify the other effects. You need to think of something that must be true, if and only if the AGW hypothesis is correct. You might start by clearly identifying each step that leads from Man to warmer environment. Then, try to prove that each step is true. Then, think of things that would be true, if AGW was not correct. Then, try to prove that these are not true. Welcome to the SM.
>> it looks like I was wrong to say the solar cycle is clearly visible in the temperature history, at least from 1975 onwards. Oops.
I knew you would retract this rash statement of yours. What you originally said is correct. But as a proponent of AGW, you cannot admit this.
#173, Mark T, great point and an amazing quote. A = NOT A.
Really, they’re trying to state that CO2 switches from cause to effect, even though it never precedes temperature. What gives CO2 such predictive powers to cause something that precedes it? What gives CO2 the ability to switch from cause to effect? Certainly feedback CAN cause something to switch from cause to effect if there really is some non-linearity that drives it’s feedback gain, however, once this happens, the principle of causality dictates that it must begin to lead, something we never see.
Mark
#171
“Might” — that was the whole purpose of it. Gore “saying” the relationship was complicated was like a TV huckster’s quickly flashed fine print disavowal. He didn’t have to use the graph, but with the emotional/visual power of hockeystick graphs he couldn’t resist.
Where’s the “science” on that? All that is was reflexive excuse making/spinning from the warmers for Gore’s graph-lie. That they spend so much time on that is an example of how they are locked into Gore’s narrative. Isn’t it, or shouldn’t it, be “generally accepted” that any communication about climate change from the British Government be tagged with a warning the British government has a conflict of interest in that they profit from “green taxes” and are hoping to realize carbon exchanges in London?
> The only period where I could have a chance of proving that wrong is from 1975 onwards.
> I would start by looking at all the known non-AGW sources of warming.
> None of them appear to be explain the 30-year warming trend.
The question perhaps is not so easily settled,
because if in the climate-system there were a big thermal inertia,
then the effects of a large, say, “sun-output increase” could be delayed as much this or that climate-modeler should like…
Now something as a big thermal inertia – and/or more complex integrating mechanisms – should surely exist because
1. otherwise the 11-year solar cycle would be easier to be found in the temperatures record
2. in any case a big southern oceans “thermal inertia” seems the only possible AGW-explanation for the delayed warming of southern hemispheres compared to the northern one.
Also add here the negative role of sulfate aerosols, assered but not well quantified, and one has as many “free variables” as needed to prevent dismissing a lot of possible theories,
only on the basis of the 1975-2007 temperatures record.
#179
It’s Gore-based science. Not unlike Marxist apologism, another pseudo-science.
Unfortunately for the quieter warmers who reject Gore’s apcalyptic ecoevangelism, his Nobel Prize will make it harder for them to disassociate.
John V., if one is really concerned with trends, then one would see the trend line starting at ‘not quite fitting the agenda’ in the first IPCC publication to ‘fitting the agenda’ in the current publication. That alone should be a red flag. This should tell people to look at the situation with more skepticism, not less. Audit the data, the process, the funding, and the agendas involved. Of course, then you have all those who say “but what’s the harm in being on the safe side and doing something now, just in case?” This plays up there with “but what about the children?”
Gunnar:
When I said “wrong” I was referring to your statement that I “think simply showing an upward trend is sufficient” to prove AGW. Obviously it’s not sufficient.
The IPCC has followed those steps. I am not going to repeat them all for you. The balance of evidence is strongly tilted towards AGW being the dominant forcing in the last 30 years. I wish it wasn’t but it is. You seem quite confident, so disprove it.
I still think that the solar cycle is very clear in the temperature trend. It looks like it can’t be found from 1975 onwards, but to me it’s still easy to see in the earlier temperature record. Do not presume to know what I can and can not do. As I have said, there are many things that influence climate including AGW.
Mark T:
It’s actually pretty simple. Warmer temperatures (due to solar variation or orbital changes, for example) release CO2 from previously frozen areas. The CO2 causes a greenhouse effect, which further increases the temperature, thereby causing more CO2 to be released. It’s called a positive feedback loop.
A light-hearted analogy:
Comments from you, Gunnar, Bruce, etc are like the ambient temperature in this thread. Comments from me are like CO2.
First comes a comment from you, Gunnar, Bruce, etc.
That comment causes me to respond.
My response causes more comments from you.
Your comments cause more responses from me.
etc.
My responses (CO2) were initially the effect of your comments (temperature) but are now the cause.
Why do you say it never leads? Why does the temperature keep going up? Solar cycles and orbital variations are insufficient to explain the large temperature swings in the distant past.
David:
On one hand there’s the argument that IPCC is jumping to conclusions. On the other hand there’s the argument that their slowly increasing confidence in the science of AGW is evidence of a conspiracy.
Larry —
That’s a very important point. The “Syntheses” or “Executive Reports” of 3ar and 4ar often seem to misrepresent or highlight extremes of what is in the body of the report. Recall the NAS report, they did that in extremis. I predict the 4ar final will be a doozy, and in this internet savvy era when accountability is more easy to enforce, lots of scientists supposedly part of the IPCC will publicly disaccociate themselves from the summary, or the assessment as a whole. They better because resumes full of unquestioning AGW support may look good now, but when the carbon game crashes, as it must, it will look like black marks.
JohnV
They were warm in Greenland too.
What reasons? Not one of them is occurring now?
Please be serious in your answers for a change. I do like a laugh now and then, but its getting tiresome.
By the way, it was warm in the Antarctic in the 30s/40s too.
Any ideas? Cars? SUV’s?
JohnV
It didn’t after the 1930s/1940s for many decades.
Got any theories?
John v.-
No, it’s evidence of modern marketing.
Well, let’s not forget that there is no temperature “trend” since 1998 (although CO2 steadily increases). But climate science “moves on,” saying “just you wait and see, this is but a brief pause.” Maybe so, but my best guess is that the Sun will soon show us what really runs the climate.
Bruce, please quit taking everything I write out of context.
When I said “Why does the temperature keep going up?” it was in the context of paleoclimate temperature changes.
You keep grabbing warm periods from the past. That’s fun and all, but so what? There are many natural climate forcings — I am not saying otherwise.
I’m getting lots of questions thrown at me. How about an answer for the warming trend since 1975. Anyone?
As I have said many times, I don’t want AGW to be true. But I don’t get to choose what’s true.
jae:
The question of warming since 1998 has already been answered. The trend from your cherry-picked year of 1998 is +0.19C per decade. More than the average trend from 1975 onwards. That’s where this all started. It doesn’t matter how many times you repeat a false claim — it’s still false.
John V: Maybe you can tell me how this greenhouse gas theory works. Why is it hotter in the Desert Southwest than in the soggy Southeast, or even Guam, where there is five times as much greenhouse gas in the air (water vapor). If the radiation-based calculations were true, I should be sizzled in Atlanta, GA, not Daggett, CA. I submit that IR radiation from GHGs have very little to do with temperatures. The air and oceans simply store heat for awhile; they do not add any. Of course CO2 is heavier than water and doesn’t change phases; so it acts differently. It probably helps store a little more heat. But not much, IMHO. And there certainly is no positive water-vapor feedback mechanism from additional CO2. So I see no devastation coming from OCO, maybe 1 degree C, which is a good thing.
John V.,
1. The IPCC is a political organization.
2. Scientists, like journalists, should not behave as activists. It is a conflict of interest. It is fine for activists to point to scientific work, but not for scientists to behave as activists.
3. The UN, like many many AGW promoting scientists, have a secular progressive world view. Scientists get paid by government, must keep the funding going, work in a liberal university environment, etc. I strongly believe that you’d find evidence for this if you did a survey.
4. Scientists should be their own worst skeptics, yet many AGW scientists seem to behave in the opposite fashion.
5. Orwellian tactics such as calling people deniers, etc., shows quite clearly that an agenda is involved.
6. A major movie is pushing the agenda and being shown in schools, etc.
7. The green party, WWF, the Sierra Club, Earth Day, etc., should tell you that the environment has been being used by secular progressives for some time to push their agenda.
Given all of the above reasons, why shouldn’t one be skeptical?
Bruce:
Warming in the early part of the century was likely not caused by AGW. It was likely increases in solar output which flattened mid-century. The same can not be said for warming from 1975 onwards.
jae:
Ah, your hotter-in-dry-places theory.
Some possible reasons why wet places are cooler:
– humidity leads to clouds, which block the sun
– clouds lead to rain, which evaporates, and evaporation is endothermic
– ground cover differences (desert sand absorbs more heat than vegetation)
re 193
john read Nasif’s work at Biocab.org. He does a great job of presenting his ideas on AGW. His work shows it’s the sun. I wish the other side would do the same
194, John V: LOL, that is because of two very LOW temperature years. Take them out and see what happens. Or add one more 0.33 for 2007, and see what happens. We just might have another 0.33 in 2007. Then what will you say?
#196 David:
Politically, I am much closer to your world view than you probably think.
Science can not be dismissed based on the politics of the scientist.
John V:
This is what Dr. Lindzen calls the “lassitude” argument. He finds it “hardly compelling” as science. I agree with him. You can’t impose massive changes on how humans interact with their environment based on what is clearly speculation.
The fact that you would characterize that as their “strongest argument” reveals– I think unintentionally on your part– how weak their scientific arguments are.
But John, water vapor is a greenhouse gas, just like OCO. So why doesn’t an increase in water vapor cause an increase in temperature, in the same manner that the IPCC says OCO does?
#201 John V., I agree totally with that statement. Science can not be dismissed based simply on the politics of the scientist. However, skepticism is a very healthy thing where science is concerned. Why is it a dirty word?
jae:
The appearance of a cooling trend is only because of one unusually high temperature year.
I’ll trade you 1998 for both 1999 and 2000. Let’s look at the trends without those years:
1996-2006: +0.25C / decade
1997-2006: +0.18C / decade
2001-2006: +0.12C / decade
Heck, I’ll even let you keep 1998 and I’ll remove 1999 and 2000:
1996-2006: +0.19C / decade
1997-2006: +0.11C / decade
1998-2006: +0.02C / decade
Would you still like to claim a global cooling trend since 1998? Please answer directly.
#204 David:
Skepticism is not a dirty word. The problem is that it has been claimed by those who refuse to even consider AGW. Healthy skepticism cuts both ways.
OK, now try 2002-2006. It has flattened out, man.
JohnV. In our planetary history, there has never been a causal relationship between CO2 change and temperature change. CO2 increase does not cause temperature increase. SteveM has been asking for ages for a Peer reviwed proof that CO2 does, and how exactly, but none has been forthcoming, please let’s have one from you. Please talk to a Geologist.
You say that the influence of the Solar Cycle is not evident in the temperature record since 1975, but you seem to miss the whole point of SteveM’s “where’s Waldo” series. The surface records (that you have been so quick to endorse) have been falsified. There is no record of meaningfull surface temperature increase in the Continental US, or Brazil, or anywhere that SteveM has Waldo’d so far. Why not take the trouble to read the where’s Waldo’s?
The satellite records, which in their original state showed no tropospheric warming, have also been changed to match the doctored Surface Temp records. I expect those changes will be audited someday. I wonder how someone smart enough to produce a climate model overnight (slight exageration) cannot recognise the above.
#206: John V.,
The greenhouse theory has been in science textbooks for a long time. Before the IPCC was even formed, I’d heard time and time again how Venus is earth’s sister planet and how it suffers from the greenhouse effect. I would hardly consider this ‘not considering it.’ There’s a difference between considering it and forming a whole government committee around it, making an alarmist movie about it, calling skeptics ‘deniers,’ vilifying corporations, giving a Nobel Peace prize and Oscar for promoting it, etc.
jae, this is getting silly.
Admit you were wrong about the 1998+ trend.
For everyone’s amusement, here are the 2002+ trends:
2002-2006: +0.03C / decade
2003-2006: +0.10C / decade
2004-2006: +0.25C / decade
2005-2006: -0.80C / decade
You should base your argument on 2005 to 2006. You could win that one.
As a signal processing engineer, I fully understand what a positive feedback loop is. What is impossible is clearly exposed in your rather simple exposition here. CO2 increases, causes the temperature to increase, which causes more CO2, yadda yadda. Good idea so far. However, the increased CO2 as a forcer dictates that temperature cannot decrease any longer. The historical record indicates that the temperature decreases all on its own, in spite of increased/increasing CO2 (the realclimate arm-wave here is that there is some sort of 5000 year lag, but you cannot see this in any of the 650k year charts). This means that CO2 is NOT the forcer they claim, otherwise the temperature would necessarily continue to rise. CO2 does not have any mechanism to “turn itself off” at some point, either.
This thought comes from a VERY POOR understanding of feedback.
Mark
RE 116 JohnV. I have no critcism of AIT. It’s a movie
Reread my posts. My post pertains to G&M defenses of AIT. I have not seen AIT. I do not
intend to see it. I’ve read the entire script.
Acording to G&M, according to the transcript they linked, gore said
“nations have evacuated”
They describe this error as POSSIBLY an error of “tense” noting that ONE nation has asked New Zeeland
to prepare for evacuation.
As a fair man, as a fair juror, as a sage judge of the truth, as a speaker of english.
is this possibly a grammatical error of tense?
“Hansen murdered children ” ( this is a mere error of verb.). Hansen helped children is more correct.
Hold on, guys. Except for a small handful of notable outcasts, nobody is denying the greenhouse effect. But the greenhouse effect by itself gives a climate sensitivity of ~1C/doubling. It’s the feedback part of that that supposedly brings things up to 3C, and it’s the 3C that’s in question, as it should be. It’s basically postulated.
Oh, and btw, in order for their version of things to work, the gain on the feedback term would have to be greater than 1, which results in a pole in the right half of the s-plane, which means an unstable system with exponential divergence. What we are seeing is not exponential, but linear, implying a gain term of less than one, which ultimately stabilizes on its own.
Mark
[snip – I deleted the post and this response. This kind of exchange is very disappointing.]
John, this is getting silly, and I admit there is a “trend” 1998+, but I don’t think it means anything. And you better check your data for 2002-06. I get (0.003)*2 = 0.006, not much trend there. And if we get a 0.35 anomaly for 07, your decadal “trend” goes to 0.006. I give up.
RE: #216 – this site is indeed agnostic and presenting any evidence of any kind is welcomed assuming it is done in good faith.
RE 211. Good one JohnV.
Guys, cherry picking the temp record is a fool’s errand. If you have a methodology that
can objectively determine the climate trends since the begining of the instrumented period
and explain those trends in a physical model that is subject to independant testing
Stand up……
Ok.. seeing that no one stood up. what next?
a MONKEY can see sections of the temp. record that exhibit regularity, increasing or decreasing.
Heck a single brain cell of most creatures can detect that. It’s beside the point. It’s tea leaves.
It’s chicken bones. It’s bible code. Without a testable physical model you nothing but hunches.
JohnV
No doubt. Yet the rise in temperatures are very similar and went higher than the supposed rise in the 1990s.
Solar output peaked in 1950. It didn’t flatten then. But I’ve never seen any evidence it was higher in the 1930s than in the 1990s.
Are you just making stuff up now?
Why not? Maybe more sunlight reached the ground.
“A new NASA study has found that an important counter-balance to the warming of our planet by greenhouse gases sunlight blocked by dust, pollution and other aerosol particles appears to have lost ground.
The thinning of Earths sunscreen of aerosols since the early 1990s could have given an extra push to the rise in global surface temperatures.”
The “extra push” may have been the only “push” going on.
Re#136, Gunnar:
Technically you are right. However, existence of MWP points out to couple of interesting things:
1. Current warming is not unprecedented in last 1000 years.
2. Speed of warming in 20 century is not unprecedented in last 1000 years.
3. Current Arctic ice receding and deglaciation is not unprecedented in last 1000 years.
4. There is (are?) natural factors aside of antropogenic CO2 which could drive climate as hot as it is today.
5. There is (are?) natural factors aside of antropogenic CO2 which could drive climate warming as fast as it happen in last 50 years.
6. There is (are) natural factors which terminated MWP and forced Earth to LIA.
7. Feedback factors (water vapor, albedo, etc.) did not tripped climate in run-away mode during MWP.
7. Warming during MWP did not produce weather catastrophes; moreover, warming was beneficial for humankind.
The list could go on and on.
Agreed (sigh).
214, if the gain is between 0 and 0.5, it will do what they’re claiming, resulting in a gross feedback between 0 and 2, respectively. If the feedback gain is 1, the system goes instable. If the feedback effect is on the order of 3, as implied by the IPCC, the gain would have to be 0.67. Remember the geometric series? 1/(1-x) = 1+x+xx+xxx… It just blows up when the gain goes to 1.
Re 193: quote Im getting lots of questions thrown at me. How about an answer for the warming trend since 1975. Anyone? unquote
Oil spill and surfactant pollution from the surging industrial production is winning the fight against sulphate production. Sulphate particles which generate low level cloud and fog are not enough to outweigh the loss of salt particles suppressed by the surface smoothing caused by pollution of the ocean surface. Low level cloud amounts fall. The SSTs rise. Warm seas warm the globe.
OK, it’s a hand wave. But so is conventional climate science. I bet if you plug my oil sheen theory into the models you could make them produce the profile of, for example, WWII. Try to explain that period — rising NH SSTs and simultaneously falling CO2 levels — by the CO2 AGW theory. I will watch you knot yourself with interest.
I’ve made predictions. I’ve even explained the rising humidity levels (no particles to cause the moisture to rain out).
Re 197: quote Warming in the early part of the century was likely not caused by AGW. It was likely increases in solar output which flattened mid-century. The same can not be said for warming from 1975 onwards. unquote
Nope. Oil sheen. Read Kipling’s Knights of the Joyous Adventure. In the last 150 years we’ve doubled the amount of oil on the ocean surface.
Re 181: quote 2. in any case a big southern oceans thermal inertia seems the only possible AGW-explanation for the delayed warming of southern hemisphere compared to the northern one. unquote
Nope. The oil sheen/surfactant effect will break down at a certain wind speed. The southern ocean is windier than the north. Also, the amount of oil spill/surfactant discharge is lower in the south and thus the ocean will naturally produce more hygroscopic nuclei. It’s not a ‘delayed warming’. It’s not warming. It still has its 30% stratocu cover.
“We know what causes this” is a continuing theme — I cannot express how much it waves a red flag to those, like me, who cannot see the words ‘the only possible explanation’ without thinking of another one.
Sometimes I feel like Aesop’s bat. Just pointing out my obvious alternative cause for the global temperature rise (AGW! Oil! Cars!) is enough to kill a thread on Open Mind.
The temperature profile for the atmosphere does not match the predictions of the models running the CO2 AGW hypothesis. Could someone please tell me what my theory — reduced albedo caused by loss of low level cloud — would do to it? Does it match better? At least I won’t have to jigger the SSTs to make the models fit the land temperatures.
i walked last week on the shores of the North Sea. You can hear the roar of the waves, the rattle of the shingle as it draws back across the beach. Listen to the end of the noise. Just before the next waves breaks there is a hiss, the hiss of millions of bubbles breaking, each one sending 300 sub-micron particles into the air. On the coast the particles are born, there is nothing that man can do to halt them. But out at sea, that’s a different story. I’ve stood on the slopes of Mt Teide and seen miles and miles of smooth ocean, corrupted by the sewers of Santiago de la Cruz. Beyond the pollution you can see the whitecaps. Within, the ocean is blank, oily, unproductive.
JF
That’s how we do science?
There is not a cooling trend using the available surface temperature station data. The trend that exists is linearly positive but without the customarily used limits for statistically significance. People not should exaggerate trends in either direction as it can cause confusion and silly arguments that seem to last forever and not increase our knowledge base one iota.
228, actually, there’s a long history going back to Arrhenius, and it was a problem, then it wasn’t, and it took the feedback hypothesis (plus some other hokus-pokus) to make it a problem again. Without feedback, there’s no way the SPM authors could have stretched the science into any kind of problematic scenario. Of course, that wouldn’t have slowed Gore down.
Unthreaded should me renamed the Mosh pit.
just sayin
JohnV puts up with a ton of crap. It’s a 10 versus 1 fight when
he states his opinion.
1. He’s never hid his identity unlike others.
2. He never questions anyone politics.
3. He fesses up when he makes mistakes.
4. he does good work.
I think you all need to take some of that stuff into consideration.
#228 David
Of course the Warmers invented this part cos they couldn’t get the numbers up high enough otherwise. The way they portray it, CO2 is a very dangerously unstable compound, if someone were to spill any, it could lead to the destruction of Creation.
#225 Julian Flood
Now that really does alarm me, Why isn’t WWF/Greenpeace etc going on about that?
RE: #231 – That’s why I’m on the fence. There are positive contributions, thus far …
Re#164, JohnV:
You gotta be kidding. Try this one:
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=2049#comments
Note, that it is MEASURED phenomena of re-distribution of heat energy between ocean/atmosphere system (when you are talking about warming, you mean atmosphere exclusively, right?), unlike theoretical estimations of GHG effects.
Nobody could pick linear trend from 1958 to 2006 without warming. GHCN put it at 0.18 C per decade, HadCRUT3 at 0.14 per decade, Upper-Air Radiosonde at 0.08 C per decade:
http://www.co2science.org/scripts/CO2ScienceB2C/data/temperatures/temps.jsp
Flat temperatures of 1965-1975 and 1998-2007 represent bottom and top of this oscillation. Hence importance of stalled temperatures of last 5-7 years. This is falsifiable hypothesis with prediction abilities. We will see how emerging negative PDO will drive global temperature in near future.
This is why Svensmark excluded linear trend from 1958 (I doubt cosmic ray penetrating into troposphere were measured for longer period) to demonstrate that tropospheric cosmic rays do drive global temperature. And if rays drive temperature in short term, it will drive it in long term. It does not mean that his cosmic ray hypothesis should account for all other climate forcing and oscillations. This is falsifiable hypothesis with prediction abilities. We will see how diminishing solar activity will drive global temperature in near future.
False analogy, but nice try. Comparing the human body’s reaction to lead is not anywhere even close to relevant when discussing the planet’s reaction to CO2.
Mark
It’s rather difficult to have an intelligent conversation sometimes, isn’t it?
>> I think simply showing an upward trend is sufficient to prove AGW. Obviously its not sufficient.
Ok, sorry I misunderstood.
>> Guys, cherry picking the temp record is a fools errand. If you have a methodology that can objectively determine the climate trends since the begining of the instrumented period and explain those trends in a physical model that is subject to independant testing
steven, you have it backwards. You cannot start with an a-priori assumption that there is a linear trend, whether AGW or something else, and then draw that trend, and say, eureka, there it is. To illustrate, let’s take it to the extreme (which is always a good way to evaluate a concept). Imagine that we had accurate temperature records going back 1 million years. And say we get it into our head that the earth is slowly heating up, due to alien tampering. And then we draw a million year trend line, and say eureka, it’s the aliens.
Hey, Mark.
The analogy was meant to show that things can have large effects even in small concentrations. That was the issue at hand.
Have a good one.
John V,
You browbeat another poster for cherry picking for trend calculations, while you cherry pick your temperature series. jae’s claim is not false. The 2005>1998 pattern in the GISS record is unusual among global temperature series. This pattern is contradicted by the Jones CRU surface series, the UAH satellite record, and the RSS satellite record. What’s more, averaging into Jan-Dec means (arbitrary from a climatic standpoint) reduces the 1998 peak, which occurred in winter.
Regarding 1998, it is well-known that the temperature spike that year was associated with an El Nino event. It is also well known that conditions steered toward El Nino following 1976, peaking in the 1990s. Do you think the this common behavior with the temperature curve was just a coincidence?
Jesper:
I’m not going back into the 1998 morass, but I’m curious why you think I cherry pick my temperature series. I’ve been trying hard not to and have had many discussions about it in the USHCN threads.
My choice of stations (rural CRN12) was recommended by others as the best stations.
I’ve started cutting off the historical data in 1900 because of a lack of stations (arbitrary but consistent).
SteveMc’s post about my 2006 results was a misunderstanding as I did not have 2006 results.
Is there something else?
Nasif #161
You are right about the paper primarily being about validating their model. However, the interesting bit is the soil and air temp divergence.
I still maintain, the obvious explanation for the divergence, is the soil temperatures are from forests and the air temperatures are not. Which indicates forests are cooling, whereas sites closer to human activities tend to be warming.
Which brings me back to my point that if there is some global temperature trend (as opposed to the statistical average of a bunch of local effects) the signal should be clearest in (relatively) pristine locations like forests remote from human activities.
RE 238. Jesper, I don’t think it’s accurate to accuse JohnV of cherry picking anything in the
temp. series we have been looking at. We all know the game. JohnV has been absolutely open in his
selection of data, publishing of data, and discussion of results.
steven mosher re An Inconvenient Truth:
When friends and family ask me about the movie, I tell them it’s generally correct but has some exaggerations. Like most documentaries it’s more like an essay than an encyclopedia.
Real Climate’s original review of the movie is close to my assessment:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/05/al-gores-movie/
I think their current defense of AIT has to be considered in the context of many news articles that focus only on the 9 “errors” and ignore the “broadly accurate”.
I have a question about El Nino. I do not understand how or why it is often described as a cause of warmer temperatures. I know the Pacific warming causes atmospheric warming, but what causes the Pacific warming? The energy has to come from somewhere.
The sun, perhaps?
Mark
Boris,
Yes, there are a lot of small things in our atmosphere, including airplanes and birds. Both of which absorb heat.
I’m still waiting for the o-zone hole to close up now that we’ve banned the use of CFCs. How much of the recent warming was due to the anthropogenic o-zone hole enlargement (AOZHE).
Realclimate’s hypocrisy is duly noted, thanks. I’m sure you remember them focusing on the couple errors in TGGWS, right? The big difference here: TGGWS was changed to correct errors, not so for AIT. AIT’s 9 errors aren’t just exaggerations, either.
Mark
Immaterial. Tiny amounts of things in the body have large effects for entirely different reasons. The planet’s response to a change in CO2 is not even remotely similar, not even in scope. It is still a false analogy. Had you chosen some other physics analogy, perhaps, but not this.
Mark
Ref: 243 Does the energy have to come from some where or is the energy just not transferred elsewhere? It is weather.
#249: Weather is the attempted balancing of energy imbalance. Energy comes from the Sun, tidal forces, the movement of the earth around the Sun, etc. Notice that the transition periods, spring and fall, are the most volatile.
It is described as a source of global warming because it is. The correlations between ENSO and global temperature are strong, and significant beyond any doubt, with El Nino leading by ~6 months. This can be shown with confidence because ENSO (unlike CO2) has lots of high-frequency variability – many large wiggles which can be matched with the temperature curve over our available record.
Primarily El Nino acts to spread heat from the Western Pacific warm pool to the rest of the tropics and the rest of the globe. The energy of course comes from the sun. Energy is constantly cycling through the system, entering mainly via the tropics and spreading to higher latitudes. El Nino enhances this spreading, producing the strong correlations with globally-averaged temperature. There is no reason to assume that dynamics stop playing a role on longer time scales.
The longer the 1998 record stands, the stronger the dynamical hypothesis becomes in comparison to CO2. The data will tell the tale. If you are unaware of the other temperature records I mentioned which show 1998 as a standout year, you should check them out. If this all turns out to be a bunch of hysteria over a little 20 year El Nino jag, the repercussions should be entertaining, to say the least.
captdallas2:
If the global average temperature rises due to El Nino, then the energy has to come from somewhere outside the system.
I just looked it up at Wikipedia because I’m impatient. Warm surface water displaces the cold water that is usually found in the Eastern Pacific. The warm water heats the air.
Jesper:
Thanks for the detailed answer.
FYI, it was an honest question about El Nino with no ulterior motives.
John V. I disagree, if there is reduced storm activity heat is not transferred as efficiently as when there is increased storm activity. There are weather cycles independent of forcing variables. Then there are weather cycles dependent of forcing variables. El nino and la nina have cycles that may or may not follow other normal forcings like solar. Such is weather, chaotic isn’t it.
Re #243 John V here’s my view:
The key is the enhanced upwelling of cool water in the Eastern Pacific caused by La Nina. In a multidecadal period dominated by La Nina there are more episodes of increased cold upwelling, somewhat cooling the global surface temperature. In a multidecadal period dominated by El Nino there is less of this cold upwelling and thus a relative warming.
Over the longer haul it balances out. ENSO affects temperatures on interannual and multidecadl timescales, but not on multicentury timescales.
Marine stratiform cloud cover may also be affected by ENSO and play a role through a rather complicated and arguable mechanism.
ping – rebooted computer which has had a WordPress comment freeze for about 12 hours
I disagree quite strongly. If you match up the temperature record against the CO2 record on a year to year basis, the fit is very poor.
On the other hand, solar/cosmic rays and UHI contamination together are a much better fit.
#248, Jesper really explains this well.
#252 >> enhanced upwelling of cool water in the Eastern Pacific caused by La Nina
Or put another way: La Nina is a term used to describe the effects of enhanced upwelling of cool water in the Eastern Pacific. The currents are the result of Mechanical Work performed by the sun on the planet earth.
>> Marine stratiform cloud cover may also be affected
Based on a paper I read on this, I would strengthen that to say that the ocean directly controls and dominates the atmosphere above it.
JohnV writes:
1) I have only met one or two skeptics who meet this condition. Why do you insist on mischaracterizing the position of those you disagree with?
2) The same attitude is demonstrated by many who push AGW. They declare that since the models have already proven that CO2 is capable of generating the warming that we see, that therefore there is no need to even think about other possible causes.
The only problem with this theory is that if it were true, then temperature increases should start accelearting when CO2 starts increasing.
They don’t.
This theory does not explain how temperature drops also precede CO2 rises. Indeed, there are instances where temperatures start to drop, while CO2 is still rising.
JohnV
You still haven’t answered a simple question.
If the 1930s/1940s weren’t caused by CO2, and were natural, why not the 1990s where the highest temperature is still no higher than 1934.
Its natural. As I’ve posted, more sunlight reached the earth in the 1990s (according to NASA).
Why do you need some bizarre out there CO2 theory?
This is the pole in the right half of the s-plane problem. It results in an exponential divergence (which may or may not oscillate), i.e. an unstable system.
Mark
I should add, as CO2 content increases, its gain term necessarily decreases since there is a limited amount of power to “trap.” Therefore, if the gain started out at less than 1, it will always be less than 1.
Mark
re 240. I have no issue with AIT. I have no issue with “broadly accurrate.”
I DO have an issue with scientists stepping outside their realm of expertise to
judge that a material error is “possibily an error of tense”
Now, If Gavin or Mann screened the movie and gave Gore the thumbs up prior to release.
We have another issue.
Imagine that I said “Greenland has melted” would you describe this as a possible error
of Tense? No, you’d call it a mistake or error. I’d correct it, we would move on.
Since Gore and AIT have become iconic almost sacred, these face saving reasonable acknowledgments
are nearly impossible. Be cautious of the saints you choose.
258
US, maybe; Globe, no.
259
Cite?
MarkW and Bruce:
I don’t have the time or energy today.
I’ll make a couple of points and then you can have the last word.
Bruce, 1934 and 1998 are only comparable for the USA lower 48 — do not confuse that with the global temperature trend where the 1990s are much warmer than any other time in the last century.
MarkW, it’s possible to be skeptical but still believe that the balance of evidence supports AGW. That’s where I am. Will you allow me to call myself a skeptic? Will you consider the possibility that AGW is real and could cause major problems? If so, then you are welcome to use the term for yourself as well.
MarkW, try matching the CO2 trend for the last 30 years to the temperature trend for the same period. Apply a 5- or 10-year smoothing. The match is excellent. The solar cycle and cosmic ray trends explain the short 10 year cycles very well but do not explain the underlying warming trend. Let me repeat again that I am not denying the existence of natural forcings.
The problem is that the previous 30 years it is a negative correlation. Physics rules do not change on a whim. IF CO2 is the forcer, then it was then as it is now. I’ve already pointed out that increasing CO2 means decreasing effect, which naturally means decreasing gain, so this switch is not possible purely from an increase in CO2. The 30-year correlation is spurious.
Mark
I agree that CO2 will cause some warming. Have never said otherwise.
I disagree that there is any evidence that AGW could cause major problems. To date there has been 0.6C warming. Of which some portion is caused by things other than CO2. (Depending on who you listen to, those other things account for somewhere between 1/3rd and 90% of the warming. I lean closer to the 90% side.)
Against the potential problems, there are many potential benefits for enhanced CO2. So even if all of the worst case scenarios come about, it is still farm from clear that on net, the problems caused by warming, exceed the benefits caused by CO2 and warming.
—————–
applying a 10 year smoothing to a 30 year record?
Sounds more like you are looking for a way to distort the records rather than a way to compare the records.
Mark, 259. I responded to that in 222. It’s not necessarily instable, it’s only instable if the gain is >= 1. That’s assuming no time lags, of course. That’s just a simple instantaneous response model.
Then why doesn’t water vapor cause some warming via the same mechanisms as OCO?
Re 224 quote Nope. Oil sheen. Read Kiplings Knights of the Joyous Adventure. In the last 150 years weve doubled the amount of oil on the ocean surface.
Thats how we do science? unquote
You could always watch apples fall in a Lincolnshire orchard if you prefer.
Perhaps you don’t have your Complete Works of Kipling to hand. In the Knights OTJA the heroes save their ship by breaking a pot of whale oil and riding out the storm in the smooth pool. It won’t change the swell, of course, but, intrigued by what the tale says about wave dynamics, you will read up how waves are formed at all scales and understand something about how oil/surfactant pollution changes albedo, reduces mechanical mixing, decouples the wind from the water surface. You may even come across a reference to cloud cover reducing downwind of oil spills and ponder the coincidence of CO2 rise and the switch from natural to mineral oils in about 1850.
And it’s a good story. So, not a bad way to start doing science.
Re 229: Why doesn’t Greenpeace do something about ocean surface pollution? I don’t know, but I suspect that their attention is fully engaged by wrong science elsewhere.
JF (off to pick apples)
Mark T:
Here’s a quick summary of climate models including and excluding AGW:
Click to access ar4wg1faq-9-2.pdf
It would appear that there are many climate forcings, and AGW has only become dominant since the mid-1970s. That has been my point all along. I would be interested in any similarly thorough studies that explain the warming since the mid-1970s from only natural causes. Please do not include anything that removes the trend to find a fit — that would only demonstrate that short term cycles exist (and I agree that they do).
Now I really need to get to work…
What do you want me to cite, standard control theory texts? If feedback creates an output that drives itself, it is BY DEFINITION exponentially increasing, and thus an unstable system, which is their very definition.
Mark
RE 269.
JohnV you seriously cant suggest that those charts mean anything.
One issue in particular. In the US, in the place with the best kept records and the MOST DENSE
distribution of stations we se the 1930s as high as the 90s. And we see these curious adjustments
that cool the 30s. Why cool the 30s? Think about fitting a model using only natural forcings.
If the 30s are warmer, then the natural forcings ne to be a bit higher…
Now, look at the ROW. The warming of the land record in these charts is .8c or higher. Yet all
of this warming occurs where the spatial distribution is pitiful.
I think C02 warms the planet. I don’t buy these modelling efforts With and Without C02 forcing.
I’ve tweeaked way to many models and tweaked way too many datasets to buy sloppy charts like those.
I get the approach. The devil is in the details.
That’s actually been my point. If the gain is >= 1, it is exponentially increasing, otherwise, it is stable and will simply converge with no “tipping point,” which is what we are seeing IF we assume CO2 is the current forcer. I.e., we would have more cause for concern if there was some exponential rise in temperature, but we don’t. It simply fluctuates around as if there are actually several oscillators at play.
However, their description actually defines an exponential relationship, by stating that CO2 starts out as an output, then becomes the forcer.
Mark
#270 Mark T. see #266 Larry or #222 Larry
Don’t forget to consider the logarithmic effect of CO2 on temperature and the finite supply of CO2, both of which can stop an exponential increase. I have some experience with control systems too.
re 273 et al
Isn’t all of this arm waving showing the pointlessness of all of these assertions, predcitions, scenarios … when the models are unproven and likely useless. Where is the math?
RE: #241 – Innately, the equatorial current in the Pacific tends to pile up warm water in the nook formed by SE Asia and Austrailia. This also results in semi persistent low atmopheric pressure over the area of this so called “West Pacific Warm pool.” Periodically, the low pressure relaxes enough that the fragile balance of forces is overcome, resulting in a gravity wave carrying waters from the warm pool, against the normally prevailing east to west ocean circulation, clear across the Pacific to the Americas. The resulting disruption results in an El Nino. The energy is constantly stored in the warm pool. Think of it as a large capacitor. Think of the conditions leading to an El Nino outbreak as the invocation of a discharge circuit.
273 contd:
NASA designs the Space Shuttle, Mars Rovers etc. NASA makes fundamental design errors (polite word for blunders) that cause loss of mission, loss of life, loss of space craft …
NASA designs a climate model.
273, since we’re talking about feedback, the logarithmic effect of CO2 is irrelevant, but the logarithmic effect of H2O is quite relevant. That would argue that feedback gain should decrease as temperature goes up, since the stated mechanism for positive feedback is through increased water vapor.
To be completely realistic, you have to superimpose the exponential-like vapor pressure curve on the logarithmic radiative curve, to get the more-or-less linear overall feedback curve. That might be an interesting exercise for someone with the real vapor pressure curve handy.
steven mosher:
As I said before, “I would be interested in any similarly thorough studies that explain the warming since the mid-1970s from only natural causes. Please do not include anything that removes the trend to find a fit that would only demonstrate that short term cycles exist (and I agree that they do).”
See any correlation between CO2 and Temp?
Where is the Peer reviewed paper showing the proven theoretical basis, and calculations for the IPCC’s assertions about CO2, the one SteveM has asked for on many unthreadeds?
RE 278.
Good. Here is my. I’ve searched high and low for the data to back those charts up.
1. I dont know the studies are fair or complete or thourogh.
2. I do ‘know’ that the model runs are calibrated to HadCru. Hadcru, I believe, has a
higher global anomaly than GISS.
That would be an intersting check we havent done.
Essentialy, if HadCru is adjusted to have a lower 1930s and higher 1990s, THEN when you run
Model calibrations against it, to make it fit you have to turne down the natural forcings and
tune up the Anthro forcings.
Ideally I think the temp record should be an independent piece of data not controlled by
NASA or HADLY, both of which have Global models.
Ideally, something like Opentemp would be the standard. An OpenStandard. Anyway,
I’ve alsways found those charts fascinating and compelling, but the backup is No where to be found.
Maybe I’ll Look on the IPCC site again
#279,
All you have to do is apply the right statistical methods, things like a 10 year average on 30 years of data, and you can make anything match anything.
Major miss on the part of the NWS:
DISCUSSION…AS HAPPENS IN THIS PART OF THE COUNTRY HEAVY RAIN HAS
OCCURRED THIS MORNING AS BANDS OF SHOWERS FORMED OVER THE NORTH BAY
AND MOVED SOUTH…WITH CLOUD TOPS ALL OF 8K FT…AND CLOUD TOP TEMPS
ONLY 0C. RAINFALL RATES HAVE BEEN AS HIGH AS .50 IN/HR. JUST
AMAZING TO SEE…WITH THE WARM RAIN PROCESS BEING VERY EFFICIENT.
APPEARS THAT A JET MAX OVERHEAD HAS INCREASED THE VERTICAL VELOCITY
WORKING WITH LOW LEVEL MOISTURE TO CAUSE THE HEAVY SHOWERS. WITH
WATER VAPOR IMAGERY INDC CONTINUED FLOW OF MOISTURE AS WELL AS A
WEAK VORT HAVE CONTINUED THE SHOWERS FOR THE REMAINDER OF THE DAY.
The forecast was for a chance of drizzle or a sprinkle due to dirty ridge. In general, in this CWA, for the past couple of years, the NWS has overplayed ridges, offshore wind events and other warm things, and underplayed jet streaks, inside sliders, Siberia Expresses and other cold things.
Steve, sincerest apologies if this is old news. I looked around and hadn’t seen a mention of this yet.
Hansen has a new draft paper out that claims a long-term 6 degree sensitivity for doubled CO2. Yep, SIX degrees.
Paper is here:
Click to access East-West_070925.pdf
It also is an apologist for third-world CO2. To wit: A pie chart of “1751-2006 Accumulated Emissions by Country“. :sigh:
John V.,
If you consider only the last 37 years of the climate history, you’ll misinterpret the data and probably you’ll think that the current state of climate is due to human activities. However, if you consider the history of climate for the las 1000 years of climate history, you’ll find that it’s natural, including the increase in the density of atmospheric CD.
I don’t like to promote my own articles. As always, I wrote this article strictly adhered to peer reviewed papers:
Slash dot (yeah I know) has a link rich short post on current solar trends along with some predictions:
http://science.slashdot.org/science/07/10/16/1735258.shtml
My bet? Little Ice Age coming. Reason – Al Gore’s hubris. The Nobel Peace Prize guys always pick the overripe. Of course my estimation is as political as Al Gore’s science. FWIW. Actually I have more science on my side than Al Gore has on his.
283, I can’t tell if that’s peer-reviewed. It looks like another Hansen op-ed in the form of a scientific paper. It’s not in a journal (that I can tell). And it certainly contains things that aren’t science (i.e. a call to action).
Don’t know if anybody has commented on this article:
http://nzclimatescience.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=141&Itemid=1
RE:#282 – Well, it hit a few minutes ago. Without being too dramatic, it was very strange. It was almost as if the jet stream nearly touched the ground – certainly, it was down pretty low. Now while I completely discount the notions of “The Global Superstorm” the idea of rapid cooling is something that I would not want to take of the table just now. Something is up. I can tell, something is not right. And the more I look at it, that “something” may have nothing to do with AGW, it may be a much stronger force. I hope I am wrong in this intuition. I really hope I am wrong.
283, BTW, what I find really dishonest about that pie chart is that he shows the US as a single entity, and intersperses European countries with Japan and India to conceal the fact that the EU taken as a unit emits more than the US. I don’t think that was an accident.
This really developed very quickly. Something is not right.
# 290
Steve,
Perhaps it is La Niña effects? Winter is delaying again in these latitudes.
283, I also find that data EXTREMELY suspect. They’re basically saying that the ROW didn’t burn ANY coal or oil until 1900, and China didn’t burn ANY coal or oil until 1930. That’s preposterous.
Let alone that the accumulated numbers, even if they were true, don’t mean anything useful.
RE: #291- La Nina is definitely a factor. Consider also PDO phase change (from positive to negative) and completely quiet Sun (as of a few days ago, no sun spots and a helio magnetic minumum). The solar cycle is going quite long, the next one may be very weak. Again, I hope my concerns are nothing … however, I cannot personally rule out another Maunder.
La Nina is still going strong according to the Oct. 15th map.
#284 Nasif Nahle:
Obviously natural forcings were dominant for the past 1000 years. It’s only been in the last half century that anthropogenic GHGs have begun to dominate the natural effects.
I’m willing to be convinced otherwise if anybody can provide a coherent, consistent, and complete model for natural forcings causing the warming of the last 30 years. I’m looking for something that explains the linear trend of ~0.16C/decade since the mid-1970s, not something that removes the trend to demonstrate correlation with cyclical variations.
277, Larry:
But…increased water vapor does not cause a positive feedback. It causes a negative feedback, methinks.
#295 Everyone should correct me if I’m wrong, but I think a lot of people here will tell you that the observed secular warming since 1970 is an artifact of urban heat contamination and that once the Anthony Watts’s of the world are done auditing the temperature record, natural forcing will be sufficient to explain the variation.
#297 Geoff Olynyk:
Urban heat island and micro-site effects are almost certainly real and potentially significant. However, thanks to the work of Anthony Watts and his Surface Stations volunteers we have been able to show that NASA’s GISTEMP does a good job of correcting for it in the USA lower 48. It remains to be seen how well GISTEMP works for the rest of the world.
References:
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=2124#comment-144287
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=2124#comment-147569
John V. writes,
My problem is imagining how El Nino increases average global warming as sometimes asserted here. That is, why does moving a body of warm water, or warm air for that matter, increase the average global temp? I see how the average global groundstation records of countries like the US abutting the Eastern Pacific would show increases…but wouldn’t those of the mid-Pacific, say Micronesia, show decreases? Is imagining an AGW during El Nino years a mistake biased by the reality there are more ground stations on the heavily populated Eastern Pacific rim than in the mid-Pacific?
There have been a few short answers here. One hints at relative increases in storm cloud production. Another speaking of heat storage, like a capacitor. For this one I can guess perhaps warm water stored pre-El Nino in the Mid Pacific is deeper with less climatic interaction than when washed back into continental shelves, the deeper waters nudged closer to the surface. But that’s a guess. If anyone could point me to a text explaining how El Nino increases AGW I would be appreciative.
BTW, do the satellite records show increased AGW during El Nino? If not, El Nino does not increase AGW.
RE: #299 – More zonal polar jet stream results in fewer intrusions of cP (and to an extent, mP) air into mid latitudes, resulting in globally warmer average temps.
Correct me if I am wrong, but doesn’t more heat imply more evaporation, more water vapor, and therefore more rain? More humidity leads to high pressure areas, more wind, and more and larger storms. This includes more and larger hurricanes (because hurricanes are just energy imbalances being balanced). More evaporation, means more cooling. More rain means more cooling. More rain and more CO2 means more plant growth, which means less CO2. How much CO2 gets dissolved in rain water? Doesn’t water vapor take the heat away from the CO2, simply because it has a higher heat capacity that may not have been saturated? Shouldn’t water vapor be the bigger player here? Don’t almost all of these new technologies that are being developed to replace the internal combustion engine emit water vapor?
Also, the Warm Pool is not in the mid Pacific, it is in the far Western Pacific, near SE Asia. Under ENSO Neutral to Negative conditions, you can actually note a higher MSL in the area. When that is the case, they get really nervous in Bangkok during monsoon season. Bottom line is, that’s a lot of warm water built up into a semi permanent “storm surge” which, when allowed to sluice out, tweaks the weather / climate world wide.
Follow the Money:
I was confused about El Nino too. I get it now. The atmosphere warms by “borrowing” heat from the ocean when warm surface water displaces a cold surface current. The net energy (atmosphere and ocean) does not increase.
Here’s a statistical concept: s*** happens. It’s entirely possible over that short a timescale for essentially random numbers to do that. I don’t even want to get into why. We can’t explain all of the minor ups and downs of the more distant past, so what’s so special about the past quarter century? We haven’t even established that the numbers are statistically significant, much less that the underlying processes are deterministic.
301: I think you are part right part wrong. Higher temps and humidities lead to lower pressures, I think.
Follow the Money:
By definition, El Nino does not increase AGW. El Nino is a natural cycle, there’s nothing anthropogenic about it.
301, the amount of water in the atmosphere at any given time is determined by atmospheric conditions. Any excess ends up in the oceans. You can’t supersaturate the atmosphere.
Larry, s*** happens is exactly how I feel about single year anomalies like 1934 (in the USA loer 48) or 1998 (worldwide). I am much less comfortable with applying it to a 30-year trend.
According to the data I have, average RELATIVE humidity in July never exceeds 88 percent. And this is in Barrow, AK!. Guam avg. is 86. Of course ABSOLUTE humidity in Barrow is only 5.6 g/m3, whereas it is 21.4 g/m3 in Guam.
A small iceberg has been seen recently ….. not off of New Zealand …… off of South Africa.
#307: Correct, but doesn’t more heat just speed up the existing process / water cycle? It seems to me that the evaporation in the hotter hemisphere would push to rain in the cooler hemisphere, just as the warmer water in the hotter hemisphere gets moved to the cooler water in the cooler hemisphere. In the almost worst case scenario, both ice caps would be melted and you’d have 100% humidity everywhere.
John, #306
OK, take it away from the GW debate, and call it average global temperature. BTW, I think the “A” in the acronym AGW commonly signifies “average” not “anthropogenic”
Future weather, not climate.
The Daily Express of Oct. 17th has a feature on 3 “killer storms” which Piers Corbyn predicts will hit the UK between now and the end of November (Oct 26-Nov 1, Nov 8-13, Nov. 24-28), with the last worse than 1987 and vying with the tempest of 1703.
“But other forecasters have questioned Mr. Corbyn’s forecast. The Met Office said: “Some very wet and windy weather during the autumn and into winter is not all that unusual. As the nation’s weather forecaster, the Met Office continually monitors the likelihood of severe weather and will take steps to warn people where appropriate.””
In other words, they haven’t currently got a clue how to forecast the end of November. But has Corbyn? Back in June I saw a forecast of his for a double storm 2-3 weeks later, which was right on the money, but unfortunately I didn’t have any sight of what his far off predictions were for the notorious July 20th.
So I’ll be watching this period with great interest. What I can’t understand is how he predicts the weather from the sun when the darn thing is spotless.
Of course, if some of these severe storms occur, the Met Office will say “We expect more severe storms with global warming”…
Quick switch of topic: I’ve enjoyed, since June, watching Sadlov see weather arrive which is 2 months earlier than it should be; I’m just wondering what he will make of warm April weather arriving next February?
Rich.
It got that far? Another piece of evidence for global cooling.
I just posted a very interesting graph of Earth’s albedo at http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/
Seems to have larger effects than CO2 forcing in watts/sq meter
Link is to Plot of CO2 v Temp last 600 million years. Hope something shows.
Re #318 Watts:
Hey, nice timing, see my article under “Climate Insensitivity”, which was asking questions about albedo (not that you’ve answered them directly).
Rich.
#288, getting a bit melodramatic, aren’t we? You’re like an anti-AGW alarmist. SteveS, no ice age is imminent. Nothing is wrong. It’s just weather. I know you’re not used to it in CA, but welcome to what we experience all the time. I’m reminded of the time, back in the 80s, I was in a So Cal grocery store. Suddenly, everyone left their carts and ran to the front of the store. A bit panicky and thinking they sensed an earth quake or something, I hurried to follow. I found everyone at the front, watching the rain fall. “We don’t see it every day, you know”.
#297, you are not wrong. I can explain it with solar irradiance alone for goodness sake.
#299 & #303, FTM, JohnV is right. In reality, the thermodynamic state of the earth is far more than the thin atmosphere that we normally obsess about. It consists of the components Land, Ocean, and atmosphere. The mass of Earth’s atmosphere is 5.3 x 10^18 kg, only .378% of the oceans. The sun is basically pulsing the earth periodically. These energy pulses are far more powerful than what the atmosphere reflects, but they are aborbed by land and sea. The sun not only sets in motion large currents, but also causes the conveyor belt of currents to alternate between warmer or cooler, depending on the current strength of the pulses. Depending on how long the water takes to flow around the ocean, we experience thermal energy released from a strong solar cylce thousands of years ago.
>> BTW, do the satellite records show increased AGW during El Nino? If not, El Nino does not increase AGW.
I think instead of AGW (anthropogenic global warming), you mean temperature?
# 295
John V.,
May be Classic Physics, Quantum Mechanics, Th¨¨ could convince you? There are many coherent, consistent and complete explanations of nature forces acting on Earth’s climate. To see them, look a bit off RC team ideas… 😉
# 328
Steve,
You’re correct. I apologize. However, in my # 325 I was referring to John V. post # 317. Sorry.
#325: Not just pulses, but the rotation of the earth around its axis and around the Sun. The dark side is cooler, the winter hemisphere is cooler. Tidal forces also come into play, etc.
# 327
Follow the Money (FTM),
AGW is for Anthropogenic Global Warming. There is not an “averaged” Global Warming. 🙂
# 331
David,
I agree! However, my post # 325 does nothing to do with what Steve and you are dealing with.
BTW, I would add Interstellar Cosmic Rays coming into play.
Steve McIntyre,
With due respect (this is not a phishing letter), could we talk a bit on astrophysics, cosmic clouds, Solar System orbital patterns, etc. on this unthreaded?
Well now I know! Though I see elsewhere on the web the abbreviation is used with “average” sometimes. I picked the mistake up from one of these..
Tell that to the IPCC! “Average global warming” is a commonly spoken/written measure.
249 John V. For the ENSO question here is a data set you may what to plot. It is a proxy set for Australian rainfall. It doesn’t prove anything one way or the other, but you might like to compare the cycles. Who knows they may teleconnect. I couldn’t find a good western South America set for comparison. As for how El Nino would warm global temperatures, the majority should be due to the reduced cold water up-welling which allows the Pacific to warm (that’s a SWAG).
# 336
FTM,
I know and I’ve written them, but they keep at using those puzzling terms.
I’m looking for a reason to spend trillions because of a trend of ~0.0C since the mid 1930’s (In the USA).
I’m also looking for a reason to spend trillions because of a trend of ~0.02C/decade since the early 1940’s (In the Southern Hemisphere) … which by the look of the last 5 years may approach ~0.0C.
Re 318, on the subject of watts/sq m., Real Climate wrote up my paper at the June Lavoisier conference and complained I was using MODTRAN to disprove AGW. This is the link: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/10/my-model-used-for-deception/ I don’t understand people who are miffed that they are not allowed to post on Real Climate, all you have to do is publish stuff that annoys them. And what annoys them is telling in where they are taking hits amongst their believers. To save typing, following is my post on that blog:
“Even the Devil can quote scripture for his purpose – The Merchant of Venice. Thankyou for putting the MODTRAN facility together. We would be in the dark on the true extent of the log effect otherwise. And you are right, after that comes the climate sensitivity. What I like about Idsos number is that it is derived from observations of nature, not models, which, no matter how diligently they are assembled and attended to, might leave something out, and thus be wrong, and lead us astray. Anyone who doesnt like Idsos sensitivity figure might care to read his paper, and determine where he went wrong. I dont think you can, so his number stands. If you are true seekers of wisdom, this you will do.”
Of course they didn’t attempt to prove Idso wrong on 0.1 degrees per watt. If Idso is right, the whole AGW game is over and we can all go home. Some time ago, the one known as Jae on this blog made a couple of observations of nature that were similar to Idso’s. So this is a humble request to Anthony Watt to look at Idso’s paper and use his knowledge of physics and climate, and natural curiosity, to determine its veracity. The Idso paper is available on Warwick Hughes’ site at: http://www.warwickhughes.com/blog/?p=30
Please do not prove Idso wrong before I give my next paper, on Monday, as I like to speak with plenty of conviction.
RE 329: I liked the way the little turd claimed Modtran was his. Heck we used Modtran and
Lotran back in the early 80 to make nasty stuff that broke stuff and killed people.
Nasif
“I know and Ive written them, but they keep at using those puzzling terms.”
You know just about everything, has there been a discussion here about 4AR’s volcanic studies? I find them puzzling too. In Box 10.2, with a little elaboration in Chapter 6, the AR suggests “warming” in the past 1300 or so is confirmed by the “historical record”, tree ring proxy studies, ice cores and studies of temperature effects of recent vulcanism (like Pinatubo) which “confirm” doubling CO2 sensitivity between 1.5 to 4.5C. I find the latter on first take a strange result.
#328 Bruce:
Are you using an estimate of the costs of solutions to argue that the problem is not real?
There are three conversation we could have:
1. Is AGW real?
2. What are the consequences of AGW at a particular level?
3. What are the costs of preventing AGW at a particular level?
The first is entirely scientific and is independent of the second and third.
The second and third depend on the first and add ethical, political, and economic complications.
We were talking about the first.
JohnV (and anyone else) in #316 Plot of CO2 v Temp over the last 600 million years. where is the correlation between CO2 and Temp?
JohnV
What problem?
A 0C rise since the 1930s in the USA?
A miniscule rise in temperature in the Southern Hemisphere since the 1940s that may approach 0 in a year or 3?
The warming in the non-USA Northern Hemisphere may be all about data fudging, and not about real warming at all.
What is the exact problem you wish to solve by spending trillions of dollars?
MarkR,
I don’t see much of a correlation over 600 million years. Something else must have been forcing the temperature for much of that time.
How’s the correlation for the last 400 thousand years?
And yes, I know that temperature generally leads CO2.
Bruce,
You can cherry-pick dates and regions but you are still avoiding my question:
What caused the warming over the last 30 years?
Satellite and surface measurements both show the warming.
Steve McIntyre and Anthony Watts probably accept it as real.
I do not “wish to spend trillions”. I wish to discuss the science of AGW.
John V first let me thank you for your contributions to CA. Second, I’d like to offer a few thoughts about the warming since 1975.
I have no particular problem with the view that AGW has affected global temperatures in recent decades but I think it is not the sole, and perhaps not the dominant, reason for the warming.
I focus on what I believe is a reasonable proxy for tropospheric temperature. It is a thing called geopotential height, which is how high one has to go to reach a certain pressure surface. If the troposphere warms then the geopotential height rises.
Here ( link ) is the 500mb global geopotential height time series since about 1950 (red line). The 500mb surface has about half of the atmosphere below it and half above it.
What it shows is a trendless-to-slight-cooling of the troposphere from 1950-1975. Then, quite suddenly, the troposphere warmed (expanded, causing the geopotential height to rise). Then it remained trendless until the mid-1990s, at which time it underwent a second large (but slower) warming (expansion).
To me, AGW would have a mostly monotonic appearance, while the step changes that this record shows appear more natural.
What could cause such step changes? Maybe atmospheric changes induced by the PDO phase change in the mid-70s and something similar in the Atlantic in the mid-90s. I see the atmosphere as a heat exchanger capable of rapid changes of a few watts per square meter. The surface (mostly ocean) responds much more slowly.
AGW could indeed be at work in the background, but to me the rapid changes appear to be the fingerprints of natural phenomena.
CO2 sensitivity is between 1.0C to (let’s pretend) 6.0C per doubling of CO2.
The history of earth’s temperature versus CO2 levels suggests the real sensitivity level is about 1.0C to 1.5C per doubling.
This number is REALLY what the global warming debate should be about. If it is only 1.0C per doubling, by the end of the 21st Century we will have reached the first doubling plateau and temperatures will have increased 1.0C. Big Deal. That increase is probably a good thing. Over the next thousand years, we might reach the next doubling level and temperatures will have increased 2.0C (we will run out of fossil fuels long before then so in fact we will not reach the 2 doublings level.)
Or let’s say James Hansen is right, that the sensitivity is 6.0C per doubling. Well, by the end of the 21st Century, Greenland and Antarctica will have melted substantially. Over the next millenium, there will be no ice left.
Of course, if James Hansen is right about the 6.0C doubling level, temperatures should have increased by about 3.0C already. Temperatures 540 million years ago should have been about 25C warmer than today.
So Hansen is wrong, the actual history of temp versus CO2 indicates the sensitivity is 1.0C to 1.5C per 2XCO2 which indicates that global warming will not be a problem.
Here are a few charts where you can do your own math on the history of Temperature versus CO2 over the past 540 million years.
http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Image:Phanerozoic_Carbon_Dioxide_png
#335 JohnV. Your suggestion that:
Is no doubt correct, but you offer no explanation why for the past 600 million years CO2 was not the dominant temp forcing, but just recently it has become a tigerish “forcing”, and a devilish “feedback” component to boot.
As you accept, there has been no correlation over 600 million years. No causation over the last 400 thousand years. No meaningful temperature increase trend anywhere over the last 30 years. Please see SteveM’s Waldo series where it is becoming evident that the surface temperature record is a complete shambles, the SST record also because of wrong adjustments for a fictitious change from “bucket” based sampling, the satellite record has been fiddled with. Watts Galleries excellent work showing the US surface temp data record is not fit for climate measurement purposes. Yet we are being told that we are close to, or past a calamitous global tipping point in runaway chain reaction temperature increases because atmospheric CO2 has reached the dizzy heights of 375 parts per million, when in fact the CO2 level has been anywhere between 7000 PPM and less than 375 PPM, but the temp has not gone out of the 12-22Deg C boundary.
We really cannot be taking trillions of dollars a year away from the poor, the sick and the starving, on the basis of these absurd and unsubstantiated AGW allegations.
#329 & 330
For anyone who cares SSI developed MODTRAN.
#336,
Who says that there’s been any significant warming in the last 30 years? I know you’ve done heroic work here on the ground based measurements and you deserve credit for it. But it sure doesn’t look like anything reliable with the massive quality control problems, lack of calibration, and the corrections, especially the corrections, that are as big or bigger than the effect. I’ve never seen a reliable experiment where the corrections are more than 10% of the effect, yet we’re supposed believe the ground based thermometers. And not an error bar in sight. That’s an act of faith, not science.
How come everyone is ignoring my challenge about GHGs? I really want to know why an increase in water vapor (a very strong GHG) doesn’t increase temperature at a given latitude and elevation. If MODTRAN, HITRAN, etc. calculations have anything to do with temperature, you should be able to show that increasing water vapor increases temperature at the same latitude and elevation. I’ll bet you can’t do it. Consider a clear day in Miami (or Guam or Puerto Rico, if you like) compared to a clear day in Tonopah, NV. Tonopah will always win. Why is that?
RE 341. Its the desert dude. of course it wins.
As I’ve said many times, I’m not interested in people opining on whether or not action should be taken on AGW. You can discuss that on usenet. Please only talk about science. And I wish that people would argue less. I try to encourage people to comment on articles or literature. I’m more interested in that than in free-for-all discussions going over the same topics.
JohnV
Speaking of cherry-picking … using the mid 1970s as a baseline is the ultimate in cherry-picking. Right?
Its gotten warmer than the bottom of the Little Ice Age because thats what happens when Earth returns to temperatures that are higher than the coldest period in the last 1000 years.
And, after an Ice Age, historically it has warmed until the next Ice Age.
RE: #318 – I replied earlier but it got snipped. It was not snarky or rude, Steve M simply did not like the content. I’ll see if I can figure out how to respond to you without getting snipped.
LOL, but WHY? Think about it. And it’s not only the desert!
Bruce, MarkR, Paul Linsay, et al.
Our host has asked us to move on and my enthusiasm is gone. I’m out.
#238 Philip_B:
I second your explanation for the divergence between soil and air temperatures. However, an aim in this study (p. 470) was to determine spatial patterns and interpret them in light of the processes that created them. Although they found “no strong spatial or temporal trends” in mean annual temperatures during the fifty year period (1951-2000), they begin the article with a statement that historical air temperature data series indicate the Great Lakes region has been warming over the past few decades, especially in the spring and winter (p. 467). In addition, the increase in wintertime temperature they detected is important to their explanation.
They contend that soil cooling is largely dependent on snowpack thickness and persistence and is related to warming. They state, “Under warmer climatological conditions in winter, lake-effect snowfall amounts tend to decrease and incidences of melting increase, leading to thinner snowpacks overall. Thick, persistent snowpacks insulate the soil from subfreezing atmospheric conditions, but when they are thin or absent, soils can cool rapidly and deeply, especially in late winter and spring.” (p. 472)
Their conclusion (p. 474) further emphasizes this, “The correspondence between decreased wintertime soil temperatures (especially in snowy areas and in snowbelts) and increased wintertime air temperatures for the same areas points to a response mechanism that has set up across the Great Lakes. During warmer winters there tends to be less lake-effect snow and less snow in general and the snow that falls melts faster and sooner. Thinner snowpacks are poorer insulators, allowing soils to release heat to the atmosphere faster and more completely, thereby cooling to a great extent. This cooling trend is most apparent, and of the greatest magnitude, in areas where soils are normally insulated from the cold winter air temperatures (in the snowbelts).”
However, these conclusions are drawn without presenting any snowpack data or analysis. They state, “Climatological snowpack data are notoriously unreliable, with many missing data in the individual series, which thwarted our attempts to establish a statistical relationship between soil and air temperatures, and snow cover thickness and/or continuity. Nonetheless, it seems highly likely that increasing wintertime air temperatures across the region (Figure 3) have led to decreased incidence of thick snowpacks, or even continuous but thin snowpacks, which in turn has caused soils to cool, based both on inference and on our knowledge of the soil-atmosphere system.” (p. 472)
Perhaps this interpretation is correct, but two of these authors, using what appears to be much the same data, offered a somewhat different explanation for cold soils in a 2005 article (Schaetzl, Knapp, and Isard, “Modeling Soil Temperatures and the Mesic-Frigid Boundary in the Central Great Lakes Region, 1951-2000, Soil Science Society of America Journal, Vol. 69:2033-40). They write, “Because snowpacks persist in the spring, they keep the soils in those regions cold for longer periods of time than occurs in non-snowbelt areas by (i) insulating the soils from warm air that occasionally advects into the region in spring and (ii) periodic additions of cold snowmelt water. These two factors, coupled with the cold air associated with Lake Superior, lead to persistence of cold soil temperatures long into spring, in areas of the northern UP. A similar pattern occurs in southern Michigan, and again is associated with the Lake Michigan snowbelt; warm-up in spring is delayed and the date of the coldest soil temperature occurs later in spring.”
Unless I am misinterpreting these explanations, it seems the authors are attributing the pattern of cooling soils to disappearing snowpacks in one instance and persisting snowpacks in the other.
An argument from authority is not a logical fallacy. It’s just not very convincing. A position supported by an argument from authority cannot, however, be dismissed out of hand. Of course, that assumes that the authority quoted actually does support the position. For example, I’ve seen people, Pielke, Jr. for one, who used the NAS and/or Wegman reports on MBH to claim that MBH were completely vindicated by those reports.
Regarding #269 (currently)Permalink: http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=2200#comment-149489
JohnV writes:I would be interested in any similarly thorough studies that explain the warming since the mid-1970s from only natural causes. Please do not include anything that removes the trend to find a fit that would only demonstrate that short term cycles exist (and I agree that they do).
I’m not sure whether these count as “similarly thorough”, but if you haven’t already, I recommend you peruse Nir Shaviv’s blog (and publications), especially these:
http://www.sciencebits.com/CO2orSolar
http://www.sciencebits.com/OnClimateSensitivity
http://www.sciencebits.com/CosmicRaysClimate
http://www.sciencebits.com/FittingElephants
I can’t evaluate whether his physics are correct. But his arguments are clear and well-referenced, and I think it’s worth your time.
On an unrelated note, I’d like to express my thanks for your work on OpenTemp and my admiration for the generally civil and fact-based posts you write here.
On an additional unrelated note, I must confess that I’m puzzled why you have faith in GISS for ROW. Your own efforts seem to clearly indicate that CRN45 stations are bad. And since ROW lacks the CRN123 stations required to correct the CRN45s… But I guess we’ll see how that plays out over time.
James:
Thanks for the links. I’ll check them out.
Paired-station comparisons that I’m working on show rural CRN4 stations trending very closely to rural CRN12 and rural CRN123 stations. The CRN5 stations show ~0.3C more warming over the last century, which is admittedly a lot. If I assume the worst case that the entire ROW has nothing but CRN5-equivalent stations, the century warming would still be ~0.5C and the half-century warming would be ~0.4C.
I think it’s unlikely that all or even most stations around the world are CRN5-equivalent. Like you said though, we’ll have to wait and see.
I’m also way too tired — I hope this makes sense.
Steve McIntyre.
http://www.john-daly.com/forcing/forcing.htm
sorry for late post for #21. is this something like what you were after??
if not, have another Starbucks!!
regards.
Re: #340
More correctly, a joint effort: MODTRAN developed and maintained by SSI and the US Air Force Research Laboratory (Berk et al., 1999; Acharya et al., 1999).
One thing I note about people who support the AGW hypothesis. They readily admit that in all of the historic records, there is no match between CO2 and temperature, but then they always declare, lets forget the big picture, look at this 5, 10, 20, year stretch. There’s a good match here. Unless you can explain it with something else, I’m going to conclude that right now, for the first time in history, CO2 has become the primary driver of climate.
Anna Lang, thanks for the detailed explanation. It happens that years ago I lived in a Great Lakes snowbelt area in upstate New York. The relationship between air temperature and snowfall isn’t simple. For example the most intense snowstorms tend to occur early in the winter when the lakes are still relatively warm. I’d question the direct relationship they propose between temperature and lake effect snowfall without good supporting data.
#349 >> An argument from authority is not a logical fallacy. Its just not very convincing.
you seem to think that “logical fallacy” means that the assertion is false. That’s not correct. A logic fallacy means that the reasoning is faulty. Conclusion does not follow logically from premise. An argument from authority IS a logic fallacy. It’s not just “not very convinving”, it’s not convincing at all. The conclusion may still be correct.
Pretty god article today in the WSJ by a respected scientist:
Global Warming Delusions
#357 Joe B
Thanks for finding this very good article. It is balanced, clear, concise and precise.
re 353.. go back further to the father of modtran. lowtran
I’ve got a 5-speed tran, does that count?
Johnv
I never understood why the last coolest year is considered the baseline. Why not the last hottest year before 1998?
Wouldn’t it be more interesting to figure out why it warmed in the 1920s-1940s? If you chose 1934 as your baseline, then 1998 was just a return to the 1934-like peak and now is cooling again.
If you actually figured out why it warmed in 20s/30s/40s, then maybe that theory would explain the 1990s.
PDO?
http://www.nwfsc.noaa.gov/research/divisions/fed/oeip/ca-pdo.cfm
Limiting things to “only natural causes” requires a half-answer. A better question would be “from non-GHG causes.” The issue of soot is significant (largely due to James Hansen himself) but readily dismissed when it comes to explaining warming trends in the 20th century.
Bruce,
I will repeat again — the warm 1930s only occurred in the USA. Globally the warming up to the 1940s is readily explained by increasing solar output. The trend of increasing solar output stopped c1940. The temperature treds and solar output trends diverged c1970.
I am not choosing 1970 as the starting point because it was cold in 1970. I am choosing it because that’s when temperature diverges from the solar trend that was dominant earlier in the century. AGW is the most common explanation for this divergence. Do you have another explanation?
Solar Reference:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/solar-activity-sunspots-global-warming.htm
Somebody is going to bring up the poor correlation of yearly data against CO2 trends. Remember that the time constant for CO2 forcing is on the order of 5-30 years, so other factors (weather, El Nino, volcanoes, etc) dominate on shorter time scales.
Michale Jankowski:
Thanks for the PDO link. I’m still educating myself on all the climate cycles.
Bruce:
Since you like to focus on peak temps, why don’t we look at the global peaks?
From http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.A2.txt:
Single year:
1944 –> 0.21C
1998 –> 0.57C
Difference –> 0.36C
Five Year Average:
1942 –> 0.10C
2004 –> 0.55C
Difference –> 0.45C
MarkW:
Uh, no. The 600 *million* year plot you gave shows little correlation. It appears that other factors are dominant on the 10e6 year time scale. At 400 *thousand* years there is a strong correlation.
AGW was not significant millions, thousands, or hundreds of years ago because there were no anthropegenic emissions. Are you arguing that the greenhouse effect is not real?
JohnV
As I’ve pointed, it also occurred in Greenland and the Antarctic. And Canada. How many times do I have to refer you to the CRU paper on Greenland temperatures.
Are you claiming (because of your previous statement) that only the USA got more Solar Output?
Do I have to refer you again to the NASA paper about more solar energy reached the Earth in the 1990s?
I guess thats your religion and you plan to stick to it.
RE: #318 – OK, let me try this. Hopefully I won’t get snipped this time. My concern is about the lack of serious consideration of the impacts of potential cold futures. For example, another Maunder. This dovetails well with some of Pielke Sr’s ideas about adaptation and contingency planning.
JohnV
Let me get this straight. You think there was an increase in solar output in the 1930s that ended in the 1940s. You also think the Country with the best temperature record (The USA) warmed up. But you also think other countries did not warm up.
Do you think that the other countries did not warm up because:
A) The solar output only increased over the USA?
B) The other countries temperature record keepers didn’t notice
C) The other countries records have been Hansened.
RE: #346 – You’re right, it’s not only the desert. However, it is the area dominated by the Pacific High.
With the exception of certain fog gaps.
RE: #361 – Interesting baselines might be things like 1870 – 1935, 1915 – 1940, 1930 – 1950.
John V, the reason why I was interested in the temperature data is mainly because of the argument that you’re discussing here. If one used the U.S. temperature history as a target to be explained against the forcing factors, you’d get a different impression of the relative role of solar and CO2 than using the ROW data. Right now the only data that we’ve worked through in detail is the U.S. data. There are substantial differences in data quality and methodology between the U.S. and the ROW – something that I observed long before we got into the HAnsen stuff.
In the absence of a convincing explanation of why the US history is so different, you’d have to take the US and ROW histories as alternative possibilities and see what happens against the forcing models. You’d probably get quite different sensitivities if you used US data – a high solar forcing coefficient and a low CO2 forcing coefficient. Some studies by George Reid along these lines were rejected by IPCC 1AR and 2AR because they had different “efficiencies” for solar and CO2 forcing – but this is a stone that needs to be turned over.
370: No, the effect is even present when comparing areas east of the Rockies.
RE: #363 – Cherry picking. You arbitrarily picked what appears to you to be the onset of an abnormality. It’s not agnostic.
RE: #375 – But perhaps for similar reasons? I tend to fixate on the Pacific High because it’s my hood. There are actually several similar features between 20 and 40 N, all aroud the world. In atmopheric circulation, these are the subsidence zones. Interestingly, Sargasso is the mother of all areas similarly affected.
JohnV
If you use sunspot activity as an indicator of solar output, the 20’s-40s received less energy than 1950/1970 (by a huge margin) and less (by a smaller margin) than 1980-2000.
It may be that aerosols kept us cooler in the 1990s than we would have been if solar output caused the temperature rise in the 1930s-40s and in the 1990s.
Scientists have recently discovered several decades long cycles in the weather patterns.
The 30 year “trend” that JohnV is concerned is less than 1/2 of a PDO cycle. It’s almost a full AO cycle.
Until we have watched the “weather” for 2 or three PDO and AO cycles, it’s impossible for us to declare what is, and what isn’t natural.
SS: The only cherry-picking was to pick low vs high humidity locations at nearly the same latitude and elevation (to keep solar radiation constant).
JohnV,
That wasn’t my plot, so get off your high horse.
My point still stands. You are the one declaring that since you personally can’t think of anything else that might be causing the recent warming, therefore it must be CO2.
You are enough of a scientist to realize how poor such reasoning is.
The chart in question shows quite definitively that CO2 has little to no correlation to climate. You are the one trying to prove that for some reason, CO2 has become more powerfull in the last 100 years, so that now it is doing something that it has never done before. It is up to you to come up with something a little stronger than “I can’t think of anything else, so it must be CO2”.
Not everyone agrees with your assertion that solar changes are incapable of explaining the recent warming.
The numbers that you are refering to only cover visible light output of the sun. In recent years there has been a substantial increase in UV output.
The numbers that you are refering to do not cover any input from changes in cosmic rays.
I know, I know, you’ll come back with and declare that since the link between cosmic rays and clouds haven’t been proven, they must be ignored.
Well the link between CO2 and climate hasn’t been proven yet either.
On the model level, there is at least as strong a relationship between CR’s and clouds as there is between CO2 and temperature.
At least there is a statistical relationship between cosmic rays and clouds.
As the aforementioned chart shows, there is no statistical relationship between CO2 and temperature.
MarkW, Bruce, SteveMc, Steva Sadlov, et al:
I will be away from my computer for the afternoon. I will try to respond after doing some research this evening.
JohnV,
Nice strawman you have built there.
I reference CO2, you change the subject to AGW.
Please deal with the question I wrote, not the one you want to answer.
RE: #376 – OK, here I will go down the list of the dry locations and make some short comments:
1) Daggett – Utterly dominated by Pacific High, plus rain shadow
2) Phoenix – Pacific High
3) Medford – Mixture of rain shadow and Pacific High
4) Sacto – Pacific High with minor rain shadow
5) Yakima – Rain Shadow plus some impacts of tendency of highs to form and go stationary over Great Basin and Eastern Columbia Plateau
6) Pendleton – ditto
7) Dodge – Rainshadow / Chinooks
8) Pierre – Ditto
9) N. Platte – Ditto
10) Scottsbluff – Ditto
11) All other ones in Tx – Ditto
I would also note that the ones ascribed to the Great Rocky Mountain Wave (rainshadow / Chinooks) also tend to be in places that get stationary highs, not at the level of the Intermountain West, but more than places east of 90W.
Bruce,
I’ve seen papers that show that the 30’s were warm in other parts of the world as well. I’ll try to find them again.
Does anyone remember when the Solar Max satellite was launched? I distinctly remember reading that it had found an increase in solar output.
Somehow I doubt that Solar Max was launched in 1940.
#375 was a response to John V.
On the 400K year scale, CO2 lags temp by 600 years. CO2 does not cause any temperature change. I bet there is a correlation between when your oven is switched on and when dinner is ready, but perhaps in your house, the dinner cooks itself before the oven is switched on.
The evidence is clear. Historically CO2 change didn’t produce temperature change, and it still doesn’t now.
JohnV,
The only conclusion that I can draw from your 366 post, is that you believe that CO2 that is released by man, somehow acts differently from CO2 that was in the atmosphere 600 million years ago.
The conversation with JohnV is interesting but it is getting a bit edgy, don’t you think?
I will repeat again the warm 1930s only occurred in the USA. Globally the warming up to the 1940s is readily explained by increasing solar output. The trend of increasing solar output stopped c1940. The temperature treds and solar output trends diverged c1970.
first of all, take a look at figure 3 in this recent study.
Click to access 0706.0385v1.pdf
the Lockwood study couldn’t see the forest for the trees, as they were analyzing only the last few solar cyclces which were all part of a grand maxima stronger than any in the last 9000 years.
second, Dr Wilson disputes their conclusions as they used PMOD data instead of ACRIM, and by measuring the minimums, the solar trend is still slightly upward.
Click to access Lockwood_and_Frolich_Review.pdf
Sorry, in #376 I typoed and should have written “#374 – But perhaps for similar reasons? …”
JohnV,
How about US peak temps.
1924 to 1934 -> 2.0C rise
1988 to 1998 -> 0.91C rise
Shouldn’t a 2.0C per decade rise interest you more?
How about:
1946 = .71C above mean
2005 = .71C above mean
60 years later -> same temperature
Why is the USA temperature (the best record in the world) so different from the rest of the world?
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.D.txt
#329 David Archibald
I did post something on a different sensitivity derivation from Idso, under Modelling -> Climate Insensitivity, but no-ne has responded so it’s either uninteresting or it’s been overlooked there. Anyway this
link might help to find it. Basically, I derive 0.185C per W/m/m on the basis of black body sT^4 calculations (v. Idso’s favourite 0.100).
But you should bear in mind that this is before any feedbacks, positive or negative, have been applied.
Rich.
Come on Marks, you guys aren’t even understanding the argument yet.
Of course CO2 causes a temperature change. It is a greenhouse gas, proven through observation and experiment. Do you think your evidence proves CO2 is not a greenhouse gas?
It doesn’t behave differently, but its behavior is more important now, since natural forcings are flat.
Actually, this has never been proven anywhere except a glass jar. Steve has an open question for a derivation of the actual relationship which has not been forthcoming. It is simply assumed.
Mark
re: #387, aka comment 150,000! MarkR
Congratulations on getting comment 150,000. I wonder how Steve Mc ranks in terms of blogs getting 150,000 comments, not to mention having 2200 threads?
It’s been observed, Mark T, despite Steve not having been able to find a source to his satisfaction.
I agree with John V. that if we’re looking at when solar diverged, that’s a fair year to choose; what reason do you want to choose for which year to pick? Roll some dice or something.
Anyway, I think the deeper point is that not only are there many explantions for “the warming” but probably the primary driver (besides the energy from the sun, the motion of the earth, and water in the form of both vapor and clouds) is pollution, both in the ground (warms) or in the air (cools). And even given that, it seems to depend more on our cities and farmland than it does on some gas like CO2 in any case.
All that said, there is no doubt the measured trend is rising. Of course, there are factors like the measurements themselves, the margin of error of them, and the lack of comparing them to the relative humidity in place. But it’s certainly growing numerically as a trend, pretty much regardless of what you pick as a base period.
But then you have to ask, will reducing our production of CO2 stop it? I don’t think that’s clear at all, in fact, given the effects of pollution and land use, I doubt it. But even still, then the question needs to be asked, do the harmfull expected effects outweigh the beneficial expected effects? (Taking it for granted the expecations are correct in the first place…) Then we move to the cost/benefit analysis. So half of this isn’t scientific at all (only the warming and the cause effect is) But since pollution and land use are indeed caused by humans, there is no doubt this is “AGW”, regardless if CO2 is involved or not. Why even discuss it?
Then, if discussing the science of it, if it’s not CO2, what is it? (Ignoring human causes) Less of a magnetic shield against cosmic rays? Increased solar output? More efficient release of warmth from the oceans? Larger tilt of the Earth during summer? Ocean salinity? Random chance? More rain? Less rain? More clouds? Less clouds? How do you model these things?
Regardless: Is the idea of some global average temperature meaningful? I tend to say no. If no, none of the rest matters. If yes, there are still a lot of questions to be answered as brought up above.
As I’ve said before; I don’t care what the answer is, I just want to know what it is. I doubt I ever will, because I tend to think of this along the lines of this: I know there’s a finite number of grains of sand on a beach at a given instant of time. I’ll never know what that number is, which is fine, because it’s not really important to know the answer.
I had commented earlier on the NWS’s miss yesterday here on the West Coast. It seems that the models they use (GFS, NAM, EURO, etc) tend to underestimate cold things and to overestimate warm things. For the past 3 days, they have been progging what is advertised as a major double barrel high pressure event, slated to result in temps 10 – 15 degrees above normal, late Sat through mid next week. This will be interesting to observe. The past few of these which they hyped, were actually realized as either one day bone fide double barrel jobs (which of course meant, only one warm day, and with peak temps not very impressive) or even dirty ridges that never overcame zonal flow at all. It stands to reason that if GCMs understimate cold things (and the impacts of convection and clouds on the atmopsphere) that their faster reaction cousins, the meteo models, may be similarly afflicted.
Joe B, what Daniel Botkin says is of no importance, HE’S A DENIER!!!!!
😀
Boris, it’s not either/or. It’s quantitative. Y’know, like you need numbers. Those county things that you count with. The magnitude of the climate sensitivity depends on the feedback, and the feedback physics is quite primitive.
What do you mean by “solar diverged”?
1) It was lower in the 90s than in the 30s? Evidence?
2) The satellite record shows “divergence”? Well … sure. The 1930s satellite record is spotty.
3) ?????
Sam, a key comment from Botkin:
Some colleagues who share some of my doubts argue that the only way to get our society to change is to frighten people with the possibility of a catastrophe, and that therefore it is all right and even necessary for scientists to exaggerate. They tell me that my belief in open and honest assessment is naïve. “Wolves deceive their prey, don’t they?” one said to me recently. Therefore, biologically, he said, we are justified in exaggerating to get society to change.
>> time constant for CO2 forcing is on the order of 5-30 years
What’s the physical explanation for that?
#368, SteveS, sorry to be dismissive before. You are right that a Maunder situation would be far harder to deal with than a few degrees of GW. However, I’m confident that Man is so adaptable that it would not be a disaster. In fact, with the tremendous prosperity caused by freedom, the situation would be far better than in the dark ages. But I don’t think there is any evidence for a sustained solar down turn.
Boris,
The natural forcings aren’t flat. BTW, can you explain why a factor of 10 increase in CO2 had no observable affect on temperature a couple of million years ago. But a 70 to 100% increase today is going to cause a 2.5 to 5.0C increase?
Boris,
Where has it been observed? Computer models don’t count.
# 393
See-owe to Rich,
The constants can be changed randomly because there is not a standardized conceptualization of all of them. The values of emissive power, absorptive power and total emittancy change with temperature and pressure, not the opposite. The thermal capabilities of a system do not change the temperature, but the temperature changes the thermal capacities of that system. Could we be talking about a reversible process or not?
I have obtained a value of radiative forcing by CD of 0.01 W/m/s
¦¤ T = ¦Á (Ln [CD current / CD standard]) / 4 (¦Ò) (T^3)
Q = E (¦Ò) (T^4)
E = Q / (¦Ò) (T^4)
Q = 0.0009 (0.000000056697 W/ m^2*K^4) (313.65^4 ¨C 303.85^4)
Q = 0.0000000000510273 W/m^2 K^4 (1154027978.9675 K^4) = 0.059 W/m^2
E = 1154027978.9675 K^4 (0.000000056697 W/m^2 K^4) / 0.059 W/m^2
E = 0.059 (W/m^2) / 65.43 (W/m^2) = 0.0009
Heat absorbed by CD = 0.059 W/m^2
Heat emitted by CD = 0.059 W/m^2
Which denotes a more than “natural” equilibrium.
¦¤ T ¡Ò0-1 = ¦Á (Ln [CD current / CD standard]) / 4 (¦Ò) (T^3)
¦Á = 4 (¦Ò) (T^3) / (Ln [CD current / CD standard])
For example,
¦Á = ¡Ò0-1 [4 (0.000000056697 W/m^2*K^4) (T^3)] / (Ln [381 ppmv / 280 ppmv])
¦Á = 3.7671 (W/m2 *K) / 0.308 = 12.231 W/m2*K.
Is 12.231 W/m^2 K the real magnitude of ¦Á? No, it has been exaggerated because the empirical data was not taken into account and I considered ad arbitrium the ¡°standard¡± for CD concentrations, and the blackbody temperature like the “standard” temperature, not the real standard temperature. I took another flawed value, the change of temperature, for which I considered was the unit.
SS: I think you are missing the point. Why is there no positive feedback from the major greenhouse gas (water)?
Jae,
There is an “inconvenient” positive feedback for water vapor, but it is too large as to be considered for AGW final goals… 😉
Bruce, the point is, pick a year, any year.
RE: #408 – You already named one of the reasons at your site. H2O in the atmosphere hinders insolation. The other factors are of course convection and, somewhat related, the fact that, although condensation may release heat, precipitation does not. A precipitating cloud cools the surface and therefore results in negative feedback. The most extreme examples of this are cold cells in the wakes of certain cold fronts.
A-ha moment – a precipitating cloud is a down drafting cloud, late in its life cycle. A unique case of subsidence that is neither warm nor dry.
What tenfold increase would this be?
In the atmosphere. You do know that models are based on observations, right?
They are? Enlighten us.
It seems to me that Ocean convection would drive warmer water to cooler water at a constant pace, and thus also work as a heat sync for the atmosphere. Sometimes this heat can get trapped in transition and lead to Hurricanes, which help dissipate the heat. Other times it can build up and cause El Nino type effects to dissipate the heat. Does anyone know how concentrated CO2 is at the tops of Hurricanes or thunderclouds? Does anyone know whether a Hurricane changes speed or height at night time vs. the day? Just wondering…
Sam Urbinto:
I thought there was a reason for 1975 or 1977 or 1979 or whatever. A claim of solar divergence.
No evidence?
You know what I would like to see? A well documented climate model, that is well audited. Then plug in the data up to 1924.
Does it predict a 2C rise in the next 10 years?
Then plug in the data up to 1934. What does it predict then?
1) Another 2C rise?
2) A 4C rise?
3) A slow drop to the mid-1970s?
4) Something else?
Until the model explains the 1930s-70s, it is bogus.
>> Wolves deceive their prey, dont they? one said to me recently. Therefore, biologically, he said, we are justified in exaggerating to get society to change.
This is the “Might makes Right” morality, commonly espoused by criminals, mafiosos, nazis, etc.
>> Why is there no positive feedback from the major greenhouse gas (water)?
Because water evaporates down low, and condenses up high, thus transferring a huge amount of energy away from Earth. Therefore, water has a large negative feedback. C02 merely slightly slows down heat transfer coming in, and going out. Since it is more transparent to incoming radiation than outgoing, it raises the daily minumum more than it lowers the daily maximum. Therefore, it serves to increase the average slightly. It would not result in hotter days.
If there was no water vapor, and if there were oceans, but no oceans, there would be a slight positive feedback (yes, that’s what I meant, read it again). I’ll explain. The huge negative feedback of water vapor would completely overwhelm the possibility of a slight positive feedback of C02. However, the possibility of a slight positive feedback for C02 depends on the existence of oceans, since oceans are the main source of outgassing C02 when it gets warmer. But the existence of oceans means that oceans dominate the thin atmosphere, from a heat transfer point of view. In other words, the temp of the oceans controls the atmosphere, not the other way around. Therefore, no positive feedback for C02.
The logic of the “greenhouse effect” is invalid. To explain the average temperature of earth, one need only look at the air pressure, as Nasif as shown conclusively. The temperature of Venus at an altitude that corresponds to 1 atmosphere is about the same as earth’s average temperature.
>> drive warmer water to cooler water at a constant pace
The currents are the result of mechanical work being performed by the Sun. Therefore, during the solar maximum, more work is done.
Boris,
The charts of CO2 concentration have been given several times. CO2 concentrations in the past have been as high as 4000 to 5000ppm. That’s 10 times the increase we are talking about here.
That the atmosphere has warmed is not in doubt. How much it has warmed is, but that’s not the issue we are discussing.
That you claim this warming is caused by CO2 we are all aware, but it has not been proven to be the case.
Please look up the meaning of “circular arguments”.
No, the models are not based on observations. The models are based on equations run inside a computer.
Some people claim that the output of the models match observation, but that is not the case either.
395:
Does anyone have a reference for this glass jar experiment?
NSIDC still quote the Hansen (recent years being warmest on record) data on their web site, as a key reason that proves ice melt in NH caused by AGW. Serreze says you can “clearly see the signal”, but doesn’t explain how or why!
I have tried to find the data on Southern Hemisphere ice extent on their website but cannot find it, even though I know they must have it. I can only find the Northern Hemisphere ice extent info.
Has anyone compared Venus at Mars atmospheric pressure to see if it matches Mars’ temperature? Doesn’t distance from the Sun matter?
417: Forget about condensation and rain for a minute and think about the following situation: You have a clear day in July, both in the desert and in extremely humid Puerto Rico. The desert (even at 30 degrees N. Latitude!), is hotter. If the water vapor in Puerto Rico caused all the “greenhous gas radiation” that is posited, then it should be hotter in Puerto Rico. Why is this?
>> Doesnt distance from the Sun matter?
Apparently, not nearly as much as I thought. My favorite theory prior to Nasif’s analysis was that Solar radiation was the main driver. I guess I had a blind spot, since as soon as Nasif showed that Venus, even though it has twice the SI, and all that C02, the temp was about the same at the same pressure, I suddenly realized that this explains why other planets with far, far less SI still have warmer temperatures than would be expected from SI alone. Perhaps SI only determines the swings around the average. Of course, water on the mythical planet of origin does regulate temperature as well, but perhaps doesn’t change the average.
We definitely need to check Mars. Nasif?
#423: If you were to go under a shady tree in the desert, it might be cooler than going under a shady tree in Puerto Rico. This has to do with direct radiation vs. trapped heat. Water traps heat and keeps it around. At night, Puerto Rico would be hotter than in the desert.
John V
have you considered that it is the rising CO2 that actually moderates the temperature rise and helps to STOP an exponential temperature rise?? If you consider the time lag in CO2’s rise it may just be the opposite to what the snip would have the world belive.
(I’m a contrarian investor)
regards.
425: No, I’m talking about temperatures taken in shade. I’m also talking about NHI (Nature’s Heat Island) effects. Water does decrease dirunal variations by storing heat for awhile, but the AVERAGE temperature in the desert is still higher, since the dry bare surfaces absorb even more heat.
>> If the water vapor in Puerto Rico caused all the greenhous gas radiation that is posited, then it should be hotter in Puerto Rico. Why is this?
The obvious answer is that “dem geenhas gasses aint all theys cracked up to be”. More subtle point perhaps: how do the nightime lows compare? Based on the reasoning in #417, only lows would be affected. I would imagine that the night time low in the desert is lower than in the humid place. If the night time temp in the humid place got below the dew point, you would have condensation, which would release a lot of heat, masking the greenhouse effect. So, if we imagined that it didn’t get that cold, then the humidity would still slow heat transfer to space, therefore it would be warmer in the humid place than the dry desert, which releases it’s higher heat quickly into space.
To clarify #417, I do believe there is a greenhouse effect, greenhouses are proof it works. I’m just saying that the idea that it explains why the avg temp of earth is 33 degrees higher than some invalidly obtained “expected temperature” is invalid.
Correction to 427: It was incorrect for me to say that the surface stores more heat. Obviously, the water is storing more heat, but most of it is the latent heat of vaporization, not sensible heat. What I meant to say is that more sensible heat is generated in the desert. That is one reason why water exerts a negative feedback. Another is because water vapor is lighter than air and is therefore buoant. And then, of course, water forms clouds, producing even more negative feedback effects on average.
#427: Are we talking average over the summer or winter or year round, 24 hour? If I were to do a study on atmospheric CO2 greenhouse, I would 1) measure temperature in the dry desert in the shade, and 2) shoot an infrared (or whatever) laser upwards towards a target high in the sky and measure loss (or down from the sky towards a ground based target).
It can be demonstrated easily that the only thing that causes the “greenhouse effect” in greenhouses is the limit on convection that the glass provides. Radiation is not somehow “trapped” in a greenhouse, as is commonly believed. If I provide the reference for this, I would probably get snipped.
Bruce, well, there is some reason for picking year X, but that doesn’t make the reasoning for doing so true or valid (or false or invalid) I’m saying it doesn’t matter what the reason is, what the claim is, or the truth or untruth. I have no reason to doubt or take it on other than face value, given the reputation of John V. But even if it didn’t start varying then, it still doesn’t matte. So why would I waste time trying to find some evidence of it? I would guess that, given that this is climate science, you can find evidence of both, and then argue over the evidence interminably, and I have absolutely no desire whatsoever at all ever to get into such an argument, regardless of what I think is the truth, assuming there are ‘two sides’ to it and not more. If I wanted to argue about some opinion or the other, I’d go over to RC or Rabett or Tamino.
If you pick some 30 year period as the base, any year from 1880-1975, I don’t care (1975 would give us the most recent base period, of course, a good enough reason as any) and (if you’re not at the ends of course) and the anomaly is lower before and higher after no matter what you do, that would prove something, no? If you do that for each 10 year period (or whatver), change the base from 1880-1975 and you don’t get that trend, please share that with us. It would be interesting.
I think I’ve made it perfectly clear I believe the trend is up but at the same time I question the value of using the trend to determine anything, or the meaning of some global average yearly air temperature index in the first place. I also believe that a lot of glaciers are receding. So on and so forth. I question the meaning of any of it, and I don’t think anyone at all “on either side” has proven it does matter. But hey, whatever floats your boat. (water I would guess…) 🙂
#431: The test for this is simple. Measure the temperature within two greenhouses side by side, one made with glass, the other with a transparent material that lets the em waves through.
433: Yes, KCl or NaCl greenhouses will let the IR through, whereas window glass will not. But you have to cover both greenhouses with window glass to account for the fact that about 44% of sunlight is in the IR region (something else which seems to be ignored by the establishment).
I wonder whether the primary reason that the planet is 33 degrees warmer is because of the heat storage (and gradual release) by the oceans. The atmosphere loses heat VERY fast, even when it has a lot of water vapor.
Sam
1904 to 1934 -> +1.76C
1941 to 1971 -> –0.71C
1968 to 1998 -> +1.52
1974 to 2004 -> +0.3C
1975 to 2005 -> +0.9C
Which pair is evidence of AGW in the USA?
#435: 33 degrees warmer than what? I agree that the Ocean plays a big role, probably the biggest. One can verify this by checking against Mars and Venus, both of which have CO2 atmospheres and no Ocean. Use the moon to calibrate, as it doesn’t have much of an atmosphere and is similar distance from Sun as earth.
Look, I’m totally ‘agnostic’ about this. I don’t care what the answer is, I just want to make sure we’re talking about the same thing.
Is that the trend for 1880-2005 based upon the chosen base period (eg, the 1880-2005 trend is +1.52 C if you use ’68-’98 as the base period), or is that the anomaly trend over the 30 period you’re specifying from the commonly used base period of 1960-1990/1970-2000?
Regardless if that’s the 30 year anomaly or not (which is not what I’m talking about, I’m talking about the base period), I stand by the sentiment that the idea of a “global mean temperature” being something meaningful probably makes what any of those numbers means a moot point.
Regardless if that’s the 30 year anomaly or not (which is not what I’m talking about, I’m talking about the base period), I stand by the sentiment that the idea of a “global mean temperature” being something meaningful probably makes what any of those numbers means a moot point. Or if it can’t talk, a mute point.
437, David: I think the 33 degree figure is used to describe the difference that the atmosphere makes, but I think it is really the total “warming” produced by both the atmosphere and the oceans; and I’ll bet most of it is from the oceans.
RE: #423 – in Puerto Rico, there is lower insolation due to the humdity. Furthermore, the photons that do reach the ground have more water (in the soil and in plants) to evaporate / transpire – both those processes cause cooling. And finally, the air there is denser and as a result has a higher heat capacity. All those things result in PR being cooler than Blythe, even on a sunny day. We are both saying the same thing. The notion of increased water vapor being a positive feedback is bogus. It is a negative feedback.
Global Warming alarmists in the pay of Big Wind.
See Oct 18th post.
>> It can be demonstrated easily that the only thing that causes the greenhouse effect in greenhouses is the limit on convection that the glass provides. Radiation is not somehow trapped in a greenhouse, as is commonly believed
Actually, that’s a mythical busted myth. In reality, stopping convection is merely a pre-requisite for a greenhouse, not the cause. Build the greenhouse out of brick, and a greenhouse you will not have. Myth busted. The cause is that the radiation passes through the glass, but the IR radiation coming back does not escape easily. Btw, the atmosphere also does not have convection with it’s surroundings.
Come on dude, a greenhouse works by harnessing the awesome power of the devil and putting it to work for your plants.
>> 33 degrees warmer than what
Let’s forget that, it’s invalid anayway. The figure 33 deg lower than our avg temp was calculated with invalid assumptions. It’s the pressure that determines the avg temp.
Gunnar, comparing brick to glass is absurd and you know it. You could try the experiment comparing a glass greenhouse to one made of KCL outlined above and see that I’m correct. They will both have the same temperature, despite the fact that KCL is transparent to IR (and visible light); whereas, glass is opaque to IR.
jae, hogwash. I didn’t think anyone actually doubted the greenhouse effect itself. I won’t discuss it any further.
443: The Oct 15 article is even better. It sounds like Dr. Gray has the same sort of problems with IPCC that Steve Mc has with some of the formost climate scientists.
Er, I don’t deny the greenhouse effect; it is the way some people think it works that I deny. And I think I can prove it easily. (I have a very small reservation, however, since I have not actually done it myself. Yet.) And I don’t think the “greenhouse effect” in the atmosphere works the way many people think it does, either. The atmosphere may act as insulation, in a way, but it is a really poor insulation. It is sort of like thin fiberglass insulation without a covering to stop convection.
Change of subject. Dr. Botkin. What a tremendous guy. He and some of those advised by him on their thesis work inspired the more positive environmentalist attributes I now have. We were part of a certain subculture during a magical and memorable time. That subculture now has a divergence problem, but I digress. It’s good to see someone who helped me to grow, now getting wide recognition. SCIENCE!!!!!
Re 393, thankyou very much. I think that 0.1 degrees per 100 ppm holds. It is important not to use the language of the enemy, that is to talk in terms of the temperature effect of a doubling. We should be grateful for any atmospheric CO2 increase we can get.
Please….
Mark W:
I apologize for responding to you instead of MarkR. It was an honest mistake and shouldn’t be a big deal. It’s tough to keep track with 5+ people coming at me.
AGW was a poor choice of words (by me) because I was in a hurry when trying to describe what’s different now than in the distant past. Allow me a little time tonight to explain my understanding more clearly.
Bruce:
I said:
And your response was:
You are either intentionally or mistakenly misrepresenting my comments (again).
Here is what I was talking about:
The global warming from ~1900 to ~1940 tracks solar irradiance well (it actually lags, probably because of oceanic thermal inertia). From 1940 to 1970, the solar irradiance and the global temperature levelled off and declined slightly. After ~1970 the global temperature began increasing while the solar irradiance remained the same.
There was a temperature spike in the USA48 in the mid-1930s. I hope to have time to look at that later tonight.
Re Greenhouse Effect:
I’ll just quote from Wikipedia (emphasis added):
“The greenhouse effect is the process in which the emission of infrared radiation by the atmosphere warms a planet’s surface. The name comes from an incorrect analogy with the warming of air inside a greenhouse compared to the air outside the greenhouse.”
“The term “greenhouse effect” is a source of confusion in that actual greenhouses do not warm by this same mechanism (see section Real greenhouses) even though popular expositions often imply they do, e.g. the EPA.[3]”
The greenhouse effect is not the same as what happens inside a greenhouse.
I completely agree with Gunnar:
Looking at global temps from millions of years ago doesn’t tell you much because you have a weaker sun, tons more volcanism and other things that make the comparison’s difficult (not to mention that the data about forcings is not very good). You would agree that you can’t say anything about CO2 without knowing all other climate conditions, right?
Now, as to CO2’s well known IR trapping properties., you are right to say that they have been shown in experiments. The first experiments theorized that bands would be absorbed by H2O long before CO2 had a major effect. But, when you look at the IR bands at low temperature and low pressure, you see them sharpen up. What appears to be saturated at surface temperature and pressure is actually a series of discrete lines, with plenty of space for IR to be absorbed. So the bands aren’t saturated at all. Notice that more and better observations of the upper atmosphere (as well as better instrumentation) led to this discovery.
Now, the different layers in the atmosphere affect the way CO2 absorbs the IR, and the situation gets quite complex, quite fast, which is why computers are brought into model the absorption. There is an extremely high confidence in radiation codes, principally because independently derived codes are in agreement. In fact, you can download various radiation codes if you want.
So CO2 is a greenhouse gas. There is no doubt about this, just like there is no doubt that H2O is a GHG.
458 John V. While the Solar and Temperature in the plot may not track well near the end, would the sustained higher solar irradiance be enough to trigger climate change? The reduced/stopped Pacific up-welling during El Nino has to be a significant amount of energy. With fairly constant higher irradiance and reduced pacific ocean thermal properties you would get weird weather. The 1987 to 1990 northern Europe two to three degree C jump would be weird weather, not CO2 related I would think.
If the same temp/solar lag applies on a solar down turn, there should be about a two to three year lag. Over the next couple of years we should see a fairly significant global temperature drop. If the sun stays quiet, it could be very significant.
Jae:
Change the metrics (MJ instead of degree C), and most likely you will see water vapor positive feedback.
Compare heat content of atmospheric column (in MJ) over 1 m^2 surface of dry desert and wet tropics. Due to huge specific heat capacity of water vapor heat content of wet air will be higher than dry air, yet this will not be translated in temperature of air (which matters most). That is one of few reasons why IPCC fixation on air temperature to describe climate warming or cooling is misleading.
Sam Urbinto:
Average yearly global temperature IS poor parameter to describe warming or cooling, mostly because it does not take into account oscillations of heat transfer rate from oceans to atmosphere. However, if averaged over, say, one hundred years, when oscillations of ocean heat transfer to atmosphere more or less equalizes, it does tells a story about Earth climate. It is the case of ice core proxies of atmosphere temperatures over geological time scale.
#460: Has anyone attempted to shoot an infrared laser from high altitude down to a ground based target and measure attenuation and compare it with lasers shot using other frequencies (say, at around midnight along the same angle as the sun would be during the day)? Just curious…
#316 MarkR:
I am trying to have a closer look at the graph of phanerozoic CO2 and temperature that you provided. One interesting thing I found is that the CO2 trend is from GEOCARB III — a NASA GCM based on carbon-cycle and geochemical models. There are proxy trends available but they are not qualitatively different.
Reference:
http://www.brighton73.freeserve.co.uk/gw/paleo/500millionfig.htm
http://www.brighton73.freeserve.co.uk/gw/paleo/paleoclimate.htm#600,000,000years
Excerpt from the second link:
“Although there is a good overall correlation between CO2 and temperature over the past 500 million years, and it is likely that other factors besides CO2 play an important role over these very long time scales. A prime candidate factor is continental drift. In the case of the late Ordovician, a huge supercontinent known as Gondwanaland lay over the south pole, and climate models suggest that this would result in glacial conditions even with very high atmospheric CO2. The mid-Mesozoic warming may also be related to continental drift, although in a more complicated way it may be that there was an increased difference between the temperatures of the tropics and the poles.”
I have downloaded the GEOCARB III CO2 data but I can’t find the temperature data. I would appreciate a link if you (or anyone else) have one.
Re#458:
Brilliant, John V. Best illustration ever that Hansen&Jones near surface temperatures are junk. No wonder Lokwood got divergence between solar activity and climate a-la-IPCC.
#461 captdallas2:
I believe that would require a positive feedback mechanism, and I don’t believe there is one for such a short time scale and small increase in irradiance. If the relatively constant irradiance from 1940 onwards is causing the current warming, then why was there a lull in the warming from 1940 to 1970?
If it was only for 3 years, I would agree that it was weird weather. Climate is longer term by definition.
460:
LOL, but H20 doesn’t seem to be ADDING any heat to the system. Can you explain that? I can: convection rules; radiation does not.
DANG, I should have said that H20 doesn’t add any TEMPERATURE to the system. It does add heat (although most of it is latent heat and doesn’t matter to my comfort level).
459:
LOL. If you think Wiki is the source of all knowledge, you need to think about it. The SUN warms the planet’s surface; the AIR helps retain some of that heat, for a brief time. The OCEAN stores much more heat.
RE: #469 – One of the tremendous misconceptions that I have encountered debating people at RC and elsewhere has been the idea that if you evaporate water at the surface, take it away and up, then condense it into clouds, then you inevitably warm the troposphere, net, net. The other misconception is that clouds inevitably retard outgoing IR more than they retard incoming photons from the Sun. Both of these are only partially true. The former is only true for clouds that lack substantial vertical development. If they are taller than a certain level, then a good bit of the latent heat is released at such an altitude that it will escape to space very quickly. As for clouds exacerbating the Greenhouse Effect, that is only true for high and certain middle stratiform clouds. Thicker mid level and most low level clouds block so much incoming photonic flux that it is a simple non quantitative observation to confirm their net cooling effect. The same goes for highly vertically developed clouds.
467 John V. Well, I am not all that confident in the temperature from 1985 onward. I do think there is at least 0.1 degree positive bias. I have a few thoughts on positive feedbacks mainly albedo change. I will dig around a get back to you.
RE: #471 – Here is some personal experience. Used to, in younger days, rent places near the beach in both SoCal and SF. If high fog (aka coastal stratus) came in prior to mid afternoon, it would block out so much of the sun that night would be quite chilly even with the clouds trapping whatever IR perhaps as cool as or cooler than a clear night following a clear day. If high fog did not come in until late afternoon or early evening, the night might actually be warmer than a clear night following a clear day.
please note. I did not start this fight.
re 464. Not as far as you know. hehe.
re 458. REconstructed irradience? I hope they didnt use the temp record to reconstruct it.
Just kidding. ( sourceof the chart would be cool. I’m not a sun nut like some, just curious )
Here is what I found on RC. When I went there with one argument I got 52,000 different
arguments in return. Words are like that. And you can never answer them all. Its a Many v. One
fight. It does sharpen one’s skills. I gotta head out to the Far east, when I get back I’ll
update my OpenTemp and we can see where things are.
RE: #399 – Reno NWS is not hyping the ridge as much as Monterey NWS. They also note cooler expected lows than during an Oct double barrel event back in 2003. I will score card it.
re 478. hey captain typhoon, Any problems in ROC over the next several days
RE: Botkin – RC and their rabble are going off on him. None of them have a friggin’ clue that they are literally eating one of their own. Or not. That crowd are quite different in some ways from the enviro crowd I hung with during the early 80s. While I admit that I have parted ways with the enviro crowd to an extent, as I encounter more voices such as Botkin, Lomborg and of course many here, I view it more and more as a great schism of the Environmental Movement.
RE: #481 – There is a blob near Saipan and another near the Philipines, neither of which has amounted to much. This late in the season, even if something from way down there between 15 and 20 north were to take a track toward Taiwan and Japan, by the time it got there, it probably would only be a rainmaker with wimpy winds.
What is a “reconstructed irradiance”?
Does that just mean “visible light” instead of total energy?
Sunspot activity, a reasonable proxy of energy emmitted from the Sun shows no significant difference between the 1930’s and the 1990’s. In fact, it was slightly lower.
“Sunspot activity has been more intense and lasted longer during the past 60 to 70 years than at anytime in more than eight millennia.”
“http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/sunspot_record_041027.html”
JohnV,
Please explain your claim the suns energy was lower in the 1930s than in the 1990s.
Re 483. Ok Thanks.
Tamino has a chart that kinda looks similar.. no source cited
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2007/10/16/many-factors/#comments
John V an article on two natural oscillations (PDO, AMO) and the 1975 temperature rise is here .
re 458. Hey JohnV when I get back maybe we can revisit that Tamino two box formulation
and the diffrences between SST anomalies and Land anomalies. I also think there might
be something there for S Sadlovs fault scarp concerns.. Later
# 485
Bruce,
Solar Irradiance:
1900 = 1365.6216 W/m^-1
1930 = 1365.9159 W/m^-1
1970 = 1366.2036 W/m^-1
1990 = 1366.5499 W/m^-1
2006 = 1367.4212 W/m^-1
Reconstructions could change the distribution of intensity. However, Solar Irradiance is increasing. Lockwood’s work is biased.
An interesting article on the cause of Mars & Earth Climate Change at NatGeo
#476: Yes, I know. It was a silly question. I’ve always thought the best way to study something was to eliminate variables. Proxies and such are so full of variables as to be ridiculous. The moon albedo approach that I learned about while reading this blog is a similar approach, but uses visible light.
# 484
Bruce,
Read here an illustrated explanation about the recovery of Solar Irradiance data.
Bruce:
I believe you are quoting Usoskin, 2005 (http://www.mps.mpg.de/dokumente/publikationen/solanki/c153.pdf). That paper also goes on to say (in the conclusions):
“Note that the most recent warming, since around 1975, has not been considered in the above correlations. During these last 30 years the solar total irradiance, solar UV irradiance and cosmic ray flux has not shown any significant secular trend, so that at least this most recent warming episode must have another source.”
USA48 vs World Temperature Trend
The instrumental temperature trend for the USA lower 48 (USA48) and the temperature trend for the world are markedly different during the 1900s. The USA48 is warmer during the 1930s and cooler from the 1960s to 1980s:
These differences cause a lot of debate, particularly since the USA48 is the best studied region in the world. As Steve McIntyre says:
Fair enough.
I have high confidence in the GISTEMP USA48 temperature trend. Thanks to the work of Anthony Watts and the Surface Stations volunteers we have been able to identify the best rural stations (with CRN site quality ratings of 1 or 2) and build an independent temperature trend from these stations. The results matched GISTEMP very closely. I have also included the rural CRN3 stations and found that the match to GISTEMP continues to hold.
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=2124#comment-144287
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=2124#comment-147568
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=2124#comment-147569
So, if we accept that the USA48 temperature trend is essentially correct, there are two possibilities for the differences between the USA48 and the world:
A. The USA48 trend is truly different than the world trend
B. The GISTEMP world trend does not match reality (errors match the difference between USA48 and the world trend)
(or some mix of the two)
I believe that A is correct for a couple of reasons.
First, there is anecdotal evidence that the USA48 was warm in the 1930s (dustbowl, etc). I do not know of similar anecdotal evidence for large portions of the rest of the world.
Second, climate is regional (as I have been told every time I produce a temperature trend with a limited number of stations). It seems reasonable to me that a small area (USA48, 2% of earth’s surface) could have a different trend than the total.
To test this hypothesis, I decided to look at regions of the USA48 and compare them to the total USA48. If there is substantial variation in the trends in this well known region then there is little reason to suspect otherwise for the world.
I am using the rural stations with CRN site quality ratings of 1, 2, or 3 (the CRN123R set). My first step was to split the USA48 into three sections; west, central, and east. I did this by dividing equally by longitude. The map below shows the distribution of stations in each section:
I ran OpenTemp on each of these regions to generate temperature trends from 1900 to 2006. The plot below shows the difference of each section trend from the total USA48 trend (calculated using all CRN123R stations). For comparison, the difference between USA48 and the world is also shown.
The magnitude of the difference between USA48 and the world is similar to the magnitudes of the differences between USA48 regions and the USA48 total. That is, regional variation in USA48 is similar to USA48 vs world variation.
Of course, this does not mean that the world temperature trend is correct, but it does mean that the differences between the USA48 and the world are not unusual. The differences can be explained by regional climate variation. The differences are not significant.
So, without evidence to the contrary I will continue to believe that the world trend is broadly correct.
Sorry, the link I gave you is for imaging reconstruction. Reconstructions of Solar Irradiance is here.
Bruce, you may actually have been quoting Solanki (2004?) from the Max Planck institute. The ironic thing is that my graph above (#458) is from the Max Planck institute:
http://www.mps.mpg.de/en/projekte/sun-climate/
I have not found the original paper but here’s a BBC article about it:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3869753.stm
An excerpt (emphasis added):
Dr Solanki is presenting a paper on the reconstruction of past solar activity at Cool Stars, Stellar Systems And The Sun, a conference in Hamburg, Germany.
He says that the reconstruction shows the Maunder Minimum and the other minima that are known in the past thousand years.
But the most striking feature, he says, is that looking at the past 1,150 years the Sun has never been as active as it has been during the past 60 years.
Over the past few hundred years, there has been a steady increase in the numbers of sunspots, a trend that has accelerated in the past century, just at the time when the Earth has been getting warmer.
The data suggests that changing solar activity is influencing in some way the global climate causing the world to get warmer.
Over the past 20 years, however, the number of sunspots has remained roughly constant, yet the average temperature of the Earth has continued to increase.
Some other references for solar activity:
http://www.pmodwrc.ch/pmod.php?topic=tsi/composite/SolarConstant
http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Image:Sunspot_Numbers_png
http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Image:Solar_Cycle_Variations_png
Steve Mosher,
Thanks. I was struck by this quote from one of the comments:
Thanks to Nasif as well.
Knowing the existence of the Dalton and Maunder minimums, I am amazed that any theory about why there is some warming (somewhere outside of the USA and Souther Hemisphere) totally ignores the enrgy coming from the Sun because of susnpot activity.
Bruce:
I don’t believe I made that claim.
I said that solar activity was increasing through early 1900s (to about 1940) but has been level (ie. fairly constant) since then.
Bruce:
I don’t know of any theory that ignores the energy coming from the sun. The article you quoted says SN “reaches values of 60 since 1900 and 76 since 1944”. That is, SN is relatively constant since 1944 but temperature is not. The strong correlation between SN and temperature ended ~1975. So, what’s different now?
I almost forgot. My archive for #491 is available here:
http://www.opentemp.org/_results/20071018_CRN123R_TRI.zip
JohnV,
I said that solar activity was increasing through early 1900s (to about 1940) but has been level (ie. fairly constant) since then.
JohnV,
That would depend where you are.
The last 7 Sunspot peaks are higher than the one in 1930. The last 6 are higher than the one just before 1940.
The lowest peak occurred in 1970, a few years before the big dip in temperatures that caused the “ice age panic”.
And the lowest one since 1970 is just after 2000 matching the Southern Hemisphere cooling.
JohnV,
Your graph of USA48 regions shows only one that is slightly warmer (in the 90s) than the 1930s/40s/50s.
Thats the West. (And it isn’t any warmer than 1905)
Wouldn’t that region be the one with the most urbanization since 1930?
Would you not agree the other 2 regions show cooling since the 1930s/40s/50s peaks?
Thanks. I’ll cherish that graph!
Bruce, how come the two sunspot peaks that came after 1940 were larger yet occurred during a cooling phase. You can’t just pick the ones that fit and ignore the ones that don’t. Actually the solar cycle fingerprint is pretty obvious in the temperature record:
but its pretty clear that its not the dominant forcing. And I’m a greenhouse skeptic, BTW.
Dave Dardinger. #396 Congratulations must go to SteveM and the group of very knowledgable Posters (among whose number I do not include myself). 150,000 comments and 2200 threads indicates a substantial body of work produced almost entirely by himself, at least until recently. Personally I am pleased to see that there are now a number of very able co-contributors as well. It is remarkable how the internet has enabled the rapid and intense focusing of brain power on what could be thought to be very specialised areas of enquiry.
Please explain your claim the suns energy was lower in the 1930s than in the 1990s.
that was me quoting Usokin 2003 at Tamino’s site
you seem to think this quote negates solar factor in recent years
yes the most recent cycles have been fairly constant, but they are still part of the highest grand maxima for 11000 years, ie the sun is still very bright and hot. If I turn up the gas enought to boil water and leave it there, does it continue to boil and evaporate? When I turn off the gas how long does it take for the water to reach room temperature. AGW theory wants it both ways for CO2, it can lag temp increases by 100s of years or cause them instantaneously, but solar must be in lockstep with the “mean global temp record” or it is dismissed. The various solar forcings postulated include a lot more than just heat. For instance, the magnetic field from the sun is currently 5-10 times stronger than during the Maunder. That means it’s blocking cosmic rays more effectively than in 100s of years. If the cloud formation theory is correct, what do you think a 10% reduction (33% of the postulated planetary albedo of 30%) cause to global temps if said reduction lasted for 50 years?
another quote from Usokin
.
JohnV. #461 Sorry I only have the same as you, the names on the chart. Also, there are a lot of “mays” in your post, you’d think that someone would have looked into it a bit more thoroughly?
JohnV. #489
John, imagine if the temperature record for the last century had been doctored. Where would that leave your argument? Please give this some consideration. I can see that you are genuinely seeking a satisfactory answer to the climate question. I refer you back to my post #339 for a summary of where things seem to have gone wrong.
Alan Woods #498 The temperature charts you link to now seem very likely to be very incorrect. The temperature record is the subject of ongoing analysis by SteveM and others, see Where’s Waldo etc.
#497 Bruce:
The graph you are referring to is the *difference* between regional and overall temperature trends for the USA48. It is clearly labelled and described as such.
Here is the graph you want. It shows the 5yr trailing average temperatures (relative to 1996-2005) for each of the regions and the overall USA48:
Note that only the central region shows a peak near 1940 that is close the peak near 2000.
And the lowest one since 1970 is just after 2000 matching the Southern Hemisphere cooling.
and currently cycle 24 is late to the party.
The grillmaster is turning off the gas.
MarkR:
Your argument is retreating into conspiracy. I will not follow you there.
I will tread carefully and try not to be too inflammatory here. The largest error identified so far is ~0.15C for the USA48 after 2000. That is substantial and important and SteveMc should be congratulated for helping to improve the temperature record. However, it had marginal effect on the global temperature after 2000 (~0.003C).
Until such time as substantive errors are found in the temperature record, you can not claim that it is “very likely to be very incorrect”.
#503 windansea:
If solar activity drops substantially, the warming trend will lessen and may even switch to a cooling trend. That says nothing about AGW. They are distinct (but not mutually exclusive) climate forcings.
If solar activity drops substantially, the warming trend will lessen and may even switch to a cooling trend. That says nothing about AGW. They are distinct (but not mutually exclusive) climate forcings.
I agree, and also think the solar factor has been underestimated, while GHG factor overstated. The next couple cycles if very low, may provide a good test.
JohnV,
You know … if you graphed from 1930 to 2005, you might think that the 70s were cool and that we were finally returning to normalcy in 2005.
How about a chart of average temperatures per region.
Not one 0 based. The actual average temperature for the year.
John V. #504 Compare your chart in #502 with the linked chart in #498. Can you not see there is something wrong?
You have already “imagined” in #487
Re: #359
I went back as far as LOWTRAN 2 (couldn’t find anything on LOWTRAN 1) via google and states:
Corporate Author: AIR FORCE CAMBRIDGE RESEARCH LABS, L G HANSCOM FIELD MASS
Re: #509
Sorry, the link didn’t make it: http://stinet.dtic.mil/oai/oai?verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=AD0763721
I’m sure many of you have seen news reports about Pacific islands about to be drowned by ever-rising sea levels. Of course, some, if not all, are myths. I came across a particularly blatant example in last Tuesday’s Daily Telegraph (a leading UK newspaper).
It concerns the island of Niue in the south Pacific. The heading:
‘Stop global warming before we sink’ pleads Pacific micro-state.
The caption of the accompanying photo states that the island could disappear in a matter of decades. As soon as I looked at the photo alarm bells started to ring. It shows the island’s coastline: rocks, cliffs and terrain rising far above sea level. A quick check at Wikipedia shows that the island ascends to a healthy 60 meters above sea level. Ironically the Telegraph’s offices are located at a height of just 20 meters above sea level. If the caption is right then I suggest they start looking for new office space, fast!
Finally I checked the PSMSL database ( http://www.pol.ac.uk/psmsl/datainfo/ )
For a number of south Pacific locations I found an average rate of about 1.2 millimeters per year over the last 100 years or so with no sign of any more recent acceleration. Taking a higher value of 2 mm/year, it will take 30,000 years for the island to vanish beneath the waves. Enough to stretch the patience even of Al Gore!
I have emailed the editor of the Daily Telegraph stating that, unless they can demonstrate scientific proof of their report (highly unlikely), I will expect them to print a reasonably prominent correction. If there is no satisfactory response within a week I will lodge a complaint with the Press Complaints Commission. I’m sure all of you agree that such blatant distortion should not go unchallenged.
for what it is worth the ten highest temperatures recorded at Observatory Hill Sydney are
14Jan 1939 45.3 Deg C
1 Jan 2006 44.2
13Jan 1896 42.5
27Jan 1960 42.4
20Dec 1957 42.2
8 Feb 1926 41.9
21Dec 1953 41.9
31Dec 1904 41.9
4 Jan 1942 41.9
25Nov 1982 41.8
the vast majority of these high temperatures were recorded before Sydney became a concrete jungle.
Dave
Re 511, Chris Wright
Applause – go for it !
Your 2006 is wrong.
#501 >> Where would that leave your argument?
I previously made the clear point (#131) that the logic being asserted is insufficient. I think JohnV agreed with that, and denied that all his postings are in fact based on this slim premise. Yet, all his postings are still based on this faulty logic.
#504 >> Your argument is retreating into conspiracy
I don’t think MarkR is asserting a conspiracy. I think he’s agreeing with my point in #131. It’s a thought experiment. Imagine if you don’t have the rising temperatures. What case would you make for AGW. What other evidence is there? What experiment has demonstrated the effect? Why not build an enclosure, duplicating radiation and C02 levels? Try it with C02 and without.
#505 >> If solar activity drops substantially, the warming trend will lessen and may even switch to a cooling trend. That says nothing about AGW.
Actually, that would mean that the C02 effect is significantly less than solar cycles. That would mean that C02 cannot cancel out a solar cycle, which are fairly minor disturbances. That tells us a lot. Solar cycle TSI variations are able to explain +/- .5 degrees. That’s just slightly less than we’re seeing. When we consider that several factors are like waves that add and subtract, it’s clear that we are well within normal variation. On the ocean, waves occasionally combine to create a rogue wave. Imagine folks on a boat in the water with 3 foot waves. Then, a 5 foot wave comes along, and one guy asserts without logical support that an obscure element in the ocean is causing the waves. His only reasoning: a bigger wave came.
You guys are here furiously discussing whether there was a 5 foot wave or not. Drawing graphs that greatly exaggerate the wave size, showing variations to the 1/100 of a degree. Next, you will display anomolies on an IMAX screen. Ever try looking at the absolute numbers with the x-axis at zero celcius? It’s basically flat. Your only reasoning: a bigger wave came.
#508 MarkR:
Please explain what is wrong.
#502 shows a chart of GISTEMP global and USA48 temperatures, shifted to 1996-2005 period to highlight differences between the trends.
The link in #498 is HadCRU hemispheric and global temperatures shifted to 1961-1990 reference period.
This won’t work unless you can also simulate the temperature and pressure of the upper atmosphere.
#516 Gunnar:
The argument for AGW is that it explains the recent temperature trend where other known causes can not. It’s the divergence between the actual temperature trend and the trend that can be explained otherwise. It’s a theory that has been tested and found to have predictive capabilities.
You added the word “significantly” without any justification.
Yes, but not for the temperature increase in the last 30 years.
By your argument, maybe we should plot the temperature relative to zero kelvin and the solar irradiance relative to zero as well. If I do that both lines (solar and temperature) look flat and nothing can be learned.
#507 Bruce:
The problem is the divergence between known explanations (other than AGW) and the temperature trend. Start your plot anywhere you want. Be sure to look at the *globe* not the USA48. It’s *global* warming.
For what reason? Would you like to prove that there are different climates in the USA48? Don’t bother because it’s obvious.
I was demonstrating that the difference between USA48 and global trends is not significantly different than the difference between regional trends in USA48.
>> This wont work unless you can also simulate the temperature and pressure of the upper atmosphere.
Why, how does the hypothesis depend on the temp and pressure of the upper atmosphere? Please specify the hypothesis in clear text. You must know it, since you were able to answer this question with this answer. How does the effect depend on the temp and pressure of the upper atmosphere?
#520 Gunnar:
Wikipedia is your friend: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_effect
Here’s the pertinent quote:
A more realistic picture taking into account the convective and latent heat fluxes is somewhat more complex. But the following simple model captures the essence. The starting point is to note that the opacity of the atmosphere to infrared radiation determines the height in the atmosphere from which most of the photons are emitted into space. If the atmosphere is more opaque, the typical photon escaping to space will be emitted from higher in the atmosphere, because one then has to go to higher altitudes to see out to space in the infrared. Since the emission of infrared radiation is a function of temperature, it is the temperature of the atmosphere at this emission level that is effectively determined by the requirement that the emitted flux balance the absorbed solar flux.
>> explains the recent temperature trend where other known causes can not
Readers: please note that JohnV did not engage the thought experiment, but just repeated “a big wave came”. As I’ve said before, process of elimination is faulty, because we cannot quantify the other effects, nor model dynamics. Your invalid premise is that there should be a direct correlation between the current solar cycle and the current temperature.
We have explained to you that the solar cycle is pulsing the earth and that the oceans are absorbing energy on the current conveyor belts. Ocean bottom water is also periodically exposed to lava. Complex ocean currents of varying temperature are flowing all over earth and transferring and absorbing heat with the atmosphere in periodic waves. These dynamics, plus many more, are adding and subtracting, so your premise is invalid.
>> You added the word significantly without any justification.
This is rich, you talking about lack of justification. It is justified. We’ve been spouting C02 for quite a while, big increases lately, but temps are still at .2 above the average.
>> Yes, but not for the temperature increase in the last 30 years.
Sure it does, since you aren’t considering long term dynamics, and you aren’t considering all components of solar output.
>> By your argument, maybe we should plot the temperature relative to zero kelvin and the solar irradiance relative to zero as well
That’s how the physical world sees it! That’s reality!
>> nothing can be learned
No, one can learn a lot from that: perpective rather than exaggeration and over extrapolation.
Actually the argument is that the recent temperature rise must be CO2, because nothing else explains the rise.
We have nothing that shows us what the CO2 rise ought to be.
The models? Don’t make me laugh.
History, shows just the opposite.
#508 MarkR:
I was avoiding jumping to conclusions. Showing that the difference between USA48 and global trends is not significant is not the same as showing that global trends are correct. It only shows that the argument of USA48 being different than the globe is not significant. Better evidence is required to assert problems with the global temperture record.
You imagined that the “temperature record for the last century had been doctored”. The term “doctored” has connotations of fraudulence. Was it your intent to imagine fraudulence, or did I misunderstand?
JohnV,
I see you are still trying to pretend that the only radiation that comes out of the sun, that affects the earth’s climate, is the visible and infrared.
Additionally, you are over simplifying. You are taking everything in isolation.
Does the visual light output of the sun, by itself, explain the temperature record? No.
Does PDO/AO oscillations by themselves explain the temperature record? No.
Etc.
Then you conclude, that since nothing else explains the record, then it must be CO2.
Despite the fact that never in the history of this planet, has CO2 been a driver of climate.
MarkW:
When referring to CO2 vs temperature rise, you said:
Are you suggesting that rising CO2 causes cooling?
#521, JohnV, that text does not say that it has to be low pressure to work. Modelling the atmosphere is difficult, but that’s irrelevant. The greenhouse effect does not depend on that complexity, nor on low pressure.
JohnV,
Are you trying to be funny, or are you trying to be pedantic.
Read in context, the meaning is painfully obvious.
That is, history shows us that CO2 is not a climate driver.
>> Are you suggesting that rising CO2 causes cooling?
It very well could, although I think it’s negligible. It’s a reasonable hypothesis. C02 retains heat both coming and going. The IR portion of the solar radiation would be affected by any IR absorbing element in the atmosphere. I think even the IPCC report says that the sign of anthropogenic effect is unknown. However, the graph in #316 implies that both the temp and C02 level are abnormally low right now.
From Spencer Weart’s great resource:
JohnV
I thought that the name changed to Climate Change when they realized it had stoppped warming after 1998?
I also deny that I think the *globe* is warming. There is evidence the Southern Hemisphere is cooling. There is evidence that the USA and Greenland never warmed more than the 1930s/40s.
I’m also sad you ignored my request:
“How about a chart of average temperatures per region. Not one 0 based. The actual average temperature for the year.”
Charts like:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/gistemp_station.py?id=425724580002&data_set=1&num_neighbors=1
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/gistemp_station.py?id=425724560002&data_set=1&num_neighbors=1
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/gistemp_station.py?id=425726880000&data_set=1&num_neighbors=1
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/gistemp_station.py?id=425745500040&data_set=1&num_neighbors=1
Damn that CO2 … its so selective in what it warms! (or doesn’t)
RE 529. Gunnar, although C02 is off limits as a discussion here, can you explain your position
that C02 “retains” heat both coming and going? My sense was that it was a bandpass filter of sorts
allowing certain wavelengths in and obscuring or delaying certain wavelengths out. The net effect
is a retention of heat.
Gunnar, pressure affects density, so it will affect IR absorption for that reason.
#530, Boris, it seems to me that C02 forming into bands would reduce the effect, since there are openings for the radiation to get through. However, if you believe the effect depends on low pressure, then reduce the pressure in the enclosure. Of course, there would be no water vapor in there, since this is a controlled experiment. This would ensure that the C02 effect is not masked by water vapor.
Therefore, I still don’t understand why AGW proponents have not constructed an experiment IF you are actually interested in the truth. Building a 10 million or 100 million dollar experiment is certainly financially justifed, given that Norwegians alone have lost 1 billion USD to Kyoto.
>> My sense was that it was a bandpass filter of sorts allowing certain wavelengths in and obscuring or delaying certain wavelengths out
Yes, that’s right, but it’s not unidirectional. C02 absorbs IR frequencies, but there is IR frequency in solar radiation. I’m looking at the solar radiation spectrum, and I see that C02 is affecting incoming SI at around 2000 nm.
Re#487, One problem with that analysis is that we know the climate of different regions of the US48 are substantially different from one another because of location terrain, etc, as I imagine they are in other land masses of comparable size. Combining them should balance out those differences to some degree and make the trends comparable to other areas of comparable size.
We also know that natural variability affects things regionally. But once again, the larger the scale of land mass, the more this variability should be dampened.
And…
Re#502, Your regional chart of the US48 based on 5-yr trends shows consistency in trends, just not magnitude. The regions seem to be moving up-and-down relatively in lock-step fashion time-wise. This, however, differs greatly from the US48 vs ROW of #497, where warming in one and cooling in the other is frequent.
#534, yea, so a lower pressure means less C02, therefore, less greenhouse effect. I don’t see how that prevents and experiment. If the hypothesis is that it happens in low pressure, but not standard, then we’ll just reduce the pressure in the enclosure.
Gunnar:
Regarding your “thought experiment”.
Let’s pretend that I choose to think the earth is the centre of the universe. All of my daily observations show that celestial objects rotate around the earth, so I’m confident that I’m right.
Then one day you demonstrate some observations that don’t match my theory. You suggest that the earth is actually rotating.
I could argue that maybe there are some mysterious long-term cycles that explain the non-conforming observations.
You argue that your theory of the earth orbiting the sun and rotating on its axis explains observations. It’s simple, internally consistent, and requires no mysterious and unknown cycles.
The moral of the story:
When there is a known phenomenon that explains observations, and when it can even make accurate predictions (see GISTEMP predictions from the late 1980s — the “most likely” case instead of the extreme cases), there’s good reason to believe it’s correct. As I’ve asked many times, I’m willing to be convinced it there’s another theory that can explain the temperature trend of the last 30 years. The best 30 years of measurements. The period where observed temperatures deviated from all known causes other than AGW.
Bruce:
You’ve cherry-picked dates and regions, and now you’re reduced to cherry-picking individual station records to argue against a global trend? Seriously?
MarkW:
Thanks for clearing up my misunderstanding.
Historically temperature has led CO2. I see causality there. That is, rising temperature leads to increased CO2 in the atmosphere. That confirms a positive feedback.
I do not know of any previous times where CO2 has risen before temperatures. I also do not know of any previous time where CO2 increased 30% spontaneously.
Since the greenhouse effect is real — the only debate is over its magnitude (refer to any number of references — google “greenhouse effect”). So, the current CO2 rise will increase temperature. The only debate is how much. The postive feedback demonstrated by CO2 lagging temperature in the past will increase the temperature rise.
Pardon if this has already been linked. If you take the inconvient truths out of Inconvient Truths, there is nothing left, LOL.
Maybe the operative words here are “known causes.” I suspect there is still a lot that is unknown relative to climate, especially since there has been no consistent correlation between CO2 levels and temperature.
JohnV
Hey, you are the one who wouldn’t post a simple graph of the regions temperature. I was just giving examples of what I’d like to see.
As for “cherry picking” … I clicked on the gistemp map at random and picked rural stations with a long record with data up to 2006 and 2007.
Those are the first ones I found.
Still … your AGW theory doesn’t explain why the Southern Hemisphere is cooling, or why Greenland/Anarctica/USA (and others I’m sure) have never matched the temperatures in the 30s/40s.
I will remind you that the Southern Hemisphere is only .2C above the temperature in 1941.
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/climon/data/themi/s17.htm
I’m amazed you have the gall to keep using the term “global”!
Its a very “magical theory” that seems to want us to spend trillions to fix a problem that is amazingly selective in where it causes a slight amount of warming which is most likely caused by the warming that always happens after we come out of an ice age – and stops when the next ice age is on the way.
You do “believe” in ice ages? Or were they caused by a drop in CO2?
>> requires no mysterious and unknown cycles
These cycles are not mysterious. ENSO events have been observed for quite some time to affect atmospheric temperatures. I remember that you just finally understood them in this thread thanks to the great explanation from someone.
There is no reason to explain anything, since there is no hint of abnormality. Pretending that anyone is smart enough to quantify all other natural effects is silly. You claimed in #363 that the “time constant for CO2 forcing is on the order of 5-30 years”. I asked why and you did not answer. What is the physical mechanism with C02 that results in a time constant of 5-30 years?
The C02 effect is far more mysterious. Why does it affect one hemisphere and not the other? You claim that it is now dominating, yet it’s not strong enough to cancel out the solar minimum. It is your explanation that is shrouded in mystery and faith. No clearly defined hypothesis, no experimental evidence, no scientific method.
>> Historically temperature has led CO2. I see causality there. That is, rising temperature leads to increased CO2 in the atmosphere. That confirms a positive feedback.
Causality from data correlations? And I believe wet sidewalks cause rain. However, it’s amazing that anyone would write “confirms a positive feedback”. That would only be true if C02 significantly warms, and if the effect doesn’t saturate, and isn’t completely cancelled out by water.
>> where CO2 increased 30% spontaneously
Please don’t get me started.
>> your AGW theory doesnt explain why the Southern Hemisphere is cooling
Or why numerous other planets are warming:
http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/2007/05/08/neptune-news/#more-241
Rising temperature releases CO2 and this is proof of a positive feedback?
I do not see any such proof.
I certainly do not see any proof of any mechanism by which CO2 could ever be the main climate driver. Which is what you are proposing for modern temperatures.
I excercise, which causes me to sweat. Therefore sweat causes excercise.
JohnV,
If as you claim the sun has been constant for the last 30 years, please explain why all of the planets measured recently, are warming.
#550 MarkW:
It could be a coincidence. A coincidence that repeats with every ice age cycle.
MarkW and Gunnar:
Since satellite measurements have shown that the sun’s output has not been changing, there must be another reason for other planet’s warming. Are you implying that the warming of other planets must mean the sun’s output is increasing, despite measurements to the contrary?
Michael Jankowski:
Thanks for the reasoned response to my comments. Let me try to answer some of your questions.
That’s true, but consider the scales and distribution of the regions involved in the different comparisons:
– USA48 regions are about 0.7% of global surface area and are adjacent
– USA48 total is about 2.0% of global surface area (3x USA48 regional area)
– Global total is 50x USA48 surface area
Also, USA48 climate is primarily temperate or arid with a bit of mediterranean and mountain. The world includes a mix of polar, temperate, arid, tropical, mediterranean, and mountain climates. That is, the range of USA48 climates is small compared to the range of world climates.
Reference:
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/education/data/climate/index.html
That’s a valid point. I’ve looked into it a little more deeply.
First I checked the R^2 coefficient between the pairs of trends:
USA All vs…
…USA48 West: 0.550
…USA48 Central: 0.892
…USA48 East: 0.763
…Global: 0.566
The correlation between the USA48 trend and the global trend is no worse than the correlation between the USA48 West regional trend and the USA48 total trend.
I also plotted histograms of the 5-year temperature differences:
Again, the USA48 vs World differences are similar to the USA48 region vs total differences.
I believe my conclusion that the USA48 vs world differences are not unusual still holds. The difference between the USA48 and world trends can not be used to declare the world trend is wrong. (There may be reasons to declare the world trend is wrong, but this is not one of them).
Gunnar,
You are asking lots of questions but giving no answers. I have been asking one question again and again:
What is the cause of the recent warming trend if not AGW?
The sun is obviously a very imporant driver of climate. There is a great correlation between the solar output and global temperature since medieval times. The maunder minimum was caused by a decrease in solar output.
But suddenly, in the last 30 years, the temperature trend has deviated from the solar output trend. It has deviated fom the expectations of ENSO, PDO, volcanic eruptions, and all other known cycles. If you remove the linear trend over the last 30 years, you can see the other known influences. The linear upward trend over 30 years is the mystery. Please explain it to me.
JohnV,
Do I take it then that you really don’t know what it takes to constitute proof?
Your argument takes on this form. A follows B, there for A caused B.
If you can’t spot the logical fallacy there, there’s nothing I can do to help you.
JohnV,
Just what satellites are you talking about. SolarMax has measured an increase in solar output over the last 30 years.
Positive feedback: the fact that warming at the interglacials releases CO2 is only proof of positive feedback if that additional CO2 actually accelerated the melting of the ice, which has not been proven at all.
#545 Bruce:
Let’s put a linear trend on your chosen years (1941 to 2006) from the data set you reference. For fun let’s look at my chosen years as well:
Southern Hemisphere trend:
1941-2006: +0.79C per century
1975-2006: +1.25C per century
Which SH cooling are you talking about? The SH has actually been consistently warming since ~1960. Look at the graph you posted. Think about the trend, not the peaks. Explain the trend.
I don’t think this has been proven.
The solar issue is a worthwhile topic. At some point, I hope to get to it and properly assess the literature and properly collate the relevant data. Right now, the bandwidth here is being monopolized by a few people, none of whom has done this. If any of the protagonists can provided provide a proper assessment, then I’ll start a thread on the topic. In the meantime, I’m getting complaints about noise levels so I’m going to close the Unthreaded for a while.
John V – you are aware, I hope, that a number of paleo records strongly suggest that atmopheric CO2 concentration has actually lagged temperature. Now in the current case, given the rapid upward spike, I will concede an anthropogenic contribution to the rise in concentration. We are actualy in uncharted territory, since we don’t really know that 2X CO2 will lead to 2.5 (or any other particular) deg C rise. We have forced CO2 to lead, will temperature follow, and if so, in what way?
Don’t forget the pirate population!
graph
“You may be interested to know that global warming, earthquakes, hurricanes, and other natural disasters are a direct effect of the shrinking numbers of Pirates since the 1800s. For your interest, I have included a graph of the approximate number of pirates versus the average global temperature over the last 200 years. As you can see, there is a statistically significant inverse relationship between pirates and global temperature.”
link to full article from Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster
7, they got it backward. Pirates keep the planet cool. It’s all Jefferson’s fault.