I am very interested in the CO2 lagging temperature claim that was made by various scientists in Martin Durkin’s Great Global Warming Swindle.

I have been searching the web for Ice Core data so I can check the claim myself. I managed to get some data that had a 250 year sample interval for CO2 but I had to use temperature data from a separate core.

When I processed the data there did appear to be a lag but it was far from conclusive. Can anybody point me to site where I can find high resolution CO2 and temperature data or alternatively a peer reviewed scientific paper that can shed some light on the issue.

REPLY: Welcome, no rules broken. Folks can we help Mr. Harper find what he is looking for?

It is incomprehensible to me that anyone purporting to be a scientist would consider withholding data, methods, algorithms, code, or operating manuals from public scrutiny.

And what is this nonsense I read above about data being “withdrawn”? I think we are going to need to archive it in the future and make sure it remains available for the scrutiny of any interested/disinterested parties in perpetuity.

Does any of this seem familiar?

A lot of money lost for little, if any, return.

The one aspect of the AGW/Climate Change debate that baffles me the most (well, maybe baffles is not exactly the correct word) is that Chris and those who share his views rarely, if ever, present solutions, only “I’m right and you’re wrong”, I’m right, and I can’t believe how stupid you are”, etc. My guess is that Chris is young enough that he doesn’t remember predictions of world famine, depletion of resources, global economic collapse, “The Population Bomb”, new ice age, and on and on.

I’ve been in countless blog discussions about this issue. Inevitably the discussion drifts toward: “OK, if the situation is as bad as you claim, how do we fix it?” And invariably, aside from CFL’s, Hybrid vehicles, windmills, solar panels and carbon taxes, the AGW Alarmist side produces mostly “crickets”. The most interesting question (to me) that is NEVER answered by the Alarmists is, “if we would do EVERYTHING you suggest, how much would it reduce the average global temperature?”

Forcing climate arguments and hypotheses to meet high standards will be a hardship for “realclimateorg” style thinkers, but it is necessary, if climatology is ever to “grow up” and become a real science.

I know this is a one-sided response since the welcome mat has been pulled out from under you. However, so be it.

Why the animosity towards Anthony? On his own time he has been primarily investigating the accuracy of the American surface station record. Based on what I have seen from his photo records, in my field of engineering if I found the functional equivalent of significant UHI biases in the temperature records, problems with the types of thermometers employed, etc. just in the U.S., I would have no confidence making any policy proscriptions to my clients based on what is increasingly looking like poor scientific background documentation. And if, as a result of Anthony’s efforts, we can legitimately question the actual magnitude of the U.S. temperature rise since the Little Ice Age (pre- and post-1940), then many of the other issues such as radiative forcings, sea level records, etc. will have to re-evaluated to determine what, if any, temperature change is due to anthropogenic influences. And if human influence decreases as a proportion of the entire temperature change, then determining actual human influence becomes more difficult given the confidence intervals in the records. And the sketchy temperature record outside the U.S. (Russia, China, etc.) makes accurate global temperature projections even more difficult. Yet the costs for “doing something about CO2″ don’t change. So the bang for the buck on the U.S. achieving any meaningful reduction in its contribution to GW may drop precipitously. A lot of money lost for little, if any, return.

But this whole discussion on the science ignores the socio-geopolitical issues that will make any significant anti-AGW campaign crash within a decade. China produces as much CO2 as the U.S., but only 1/4 per capita (ignoring the U.S. forest CO2 sink which will probably decrease with time). If the U.S. reduced our per capita CO2 emissions by half by 2050 at a horrific cost in economic growth, China will still increase its per capita CO2 emissions by 5-10% per year based on data from the last few decades, and by 11% per year based on the last decade. That means that per capita China CO2 emissions will probably double by 2020 and equal the U.S. per capita number. That number will double again by 2033, and double again by 2050. The Chinese alone will be producing 4 times the per capita CO2 the U.S. number by 2050. And the Chinese, Indians, Brazilians, and others have said they have no intent to cut back their economies until they have matched the U.S. level of economic wealth. Do you honestly think that the American electorate will allow the government to enact anti-GW policies that will put us at such an economic, military and geopolitical disadvantage vis a vis the Chinese? Won’t happen.

Anthony I was re-reading the Tamino posts and came across where Tamino says he doesn’t post links to denialist propaganda sites. Well I tried to post these “denialist propaganda” site links and he never post them. LOL look at the sites. Now those are a denialist propaganda sites.

http://ulysses.jpl.nasa.gov/education/Ulysses_Wallsheet.pdf
http://gammaray.nsstc.nasa.gov/colloquia/abstracts_summer06/presentations/Hathaway.pdf
http://lwsscience.gsfc.nasa.gov/TRT_SunClimate.pdf

I do NOT understand why, if a Class 1 site requires a heat source to be 100m away, while a Class 2 site is defined as having a heat source (building, driveway, etc.) between 30m and 10m away, yet no bias is assigned. It does not say “OC bias”, it just says nothing on the subject one way or another. This seems illogical.

They make no comment whatever what they mean by =>. They never say how much >.

BASED ON THE ABOVE, treating CRN2 violations as 0 bias and CRN3 violations as 1C for low, med., and high estimates, here is a recalculation:

For 482 stations

Low: 1.99 Revs
Medium: 2.90 Revs
High: 3.81 Revs

(1 Rev = 1K warm bias)

But in your earlier post on the matter, it reads “=> 1C”. Since a Type 3 violation is heat source nearer than 30m but outside 10m, there would seem to be a wide range of variability, so for now I am going for now with the “=> 1C” interpretation.

Also, do you think a CRN violation might also include cooling bias? If so, how much?

And what is the NOAA version of the high range for the violations? I would really, really like to know that!

CO2 is actually rising in rate, and decline in natural sinks only makes for more concern. CO2 accumulates, and lasts a considerably long time in the atmosphere, with a good amount removed in decades, still more removed in centuries, but at least a fifth of it staying around for tens of thousands of years. There is no plausible way of reconciling the magnitude, rate, and isotopic signatures of the CO2 rise with natural variability, and this has been known for decades. See Suess (1965) paper for instance.

Philip, there are many good references on natural and anthropogenic variabiltiy, and today’s attribution of climate change, and how it relates to today…some good ones include

http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=10139
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/~nathan/pdf/hegerletal_jclimate_clivar.pdf
https://e-reports-ext.llnl.gov/pdf/315840.pdf
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/309/5732/284
http://www.climatescience.gov/Library/sap/sap1-1/finalreport/default.htm
http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/ccr/publications/meehl_additivity.pdf
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/reprint/104/10/3713.pdf

Declaring jihad on the surface stations is not going to change infrared radiative physics, ice loss, sea level rises, satellites, etc. It is hard to do justice to the vast literature on this, which has evolved over decades, with foundations set back in the time of Fourier and then Arrhenius and others. If the science is substantially flopped on its head, it is going to come from honest scientists, with expertise and real data, not people like Roy Spencer and Tim Ball, who are known for everything but that. Sorry, if calling such people out, as well as the lies they throw out in the laymen community doesn’t make me friends, then so be it.

Stan,

????? It was an analogy, I never said anyone here said that specifically. As for my approach, I’m sufficiently convinced that a handful of people, generally ones without expertise in their field, are confusing a lot of people. They know people do not read documents like those presented above, but rather youtube and the vast blogosphere. It is very easy to write bad arguments, and get away with it, when people are not required to properly document their claims, with scientifically sound information (like solar and PDO), and when you can twist facts around like the points about water vapor, CO2 lag, (solar and PDO), etc.

Have to go now, Glenn Beck is on, can’t wait…

MODERATORS REPLY: “declaring jihad”? I find that statement insulting. I surmise then you don’t care about accuracy in temperature measurement. Let it be known henceforth that Chris Colose has no interest in finding out the true value of the surface temperature record, but would rather utter political statements as a substitute for such knowledge.

Mr. Colose, since you starting posting here, you’ve made some good scientific contributions to the discussion, but at the same time you have been rude and condescending to me and to others. I don’t much like your characterization that the work I and the volunteers are doing is in any way like “jihad”. Because I have expectations of respect for others in the exchange, and since you don’t seem to offer any level of respect for anyone’s opinion other than your own, thus, your welcome is worn out.

Your and others reflexive dismissal of these and other documented problems in the best climate network in the world, make me and others wonder who are the frauds in this debate.

I stopped wondering a long time ago when stories of 30 meter sea level rise within 100 years, 40,000 species going extinct every year, Food, water and oil about to run out (for the past 40 years) are bandied about as fact.

On CO2 trends I have seen lately that CO2 is trending downward, this could be due to the strong La Nina. The cooler waters seem to be allowing more CO2 to be dissolved. I agree that even if man made CO2 stopped today it would have little or no impact. I do think market forces will have a greater impact on man made CO2 in the near future with oil at $100.00 a barrel. Higher prices will force more efficient energy production.