Jo Nova writes:
Prediction: Warming trend until year 2000, then very cold.
Visit Steven Goddard’s blog to read the full news story.
Their work fits in reasonably well with the Syun Akasofu graph posted here for the world to see:
Jo Nova writes:
Prediction: Warming trend until year 2000, then very cold.
Visit Steven Goddard’s blog to read the full news story.
Their work fits in reasonably well with the Syun Akasofu graph posted here for the world to see:
Gosh, no computer model. No wonder nobody believed them.
Leona Marshall Libby (1919 – 1986) was a founder of high-energy physics. She was also known as a pioneer in nuclear energy technology, and she discovered cold neutrons and researched isotope ratios. She was one of the only women who worked on the Manhattan Project, the project that created the nuclear reactor and built the first atom bomb.
Read more: http://www.answers.com/topic/leona-marshall-libby#ixzz1O0TPyXjv
It looks like Louise J Pandolfi is still alive. Though there seems to be many people of the same name. I can’t realy tell which one is the Louise of the article.
May I remind everyone that if climate has 1/f type noise – which effectively means that rather than “random noise pulses” it has “random changes in state” causing a semi-permanent offset in temperature, the result will be a noise signal dominated by low frequencies or long term variation. A particularly noticeable affect of this dominance of the low frequency noise, is that these long term variations can easily appear to be some kind of cycle or worse (for very long-period noise greater than the sample period) it can appear to be a trend.
Unfortunately, I failed to find anything on statistical analysis of 1/f noise which would provide a suitable test whether an apparent cycle was statistically significant – so there is no straightforward way to assess whether such apparent cycles are significant. My guess is that you have to quantify the variation in the frequency spectrum (i.e. do a Fourier transform and look at the frequencies) and then use standard statistics to determine whether the size of any one particular frequency is statistically significant.
Real Science promotes real science…
Observations trump models…
Nature 261, 284-288 (27 May 1976) | doi:10.1038/261284a0; Received 4 August 1975; Accepted 18 March 1976 – Isotopic tree thermometers
Leona Marshall Libby*, Louis J. Pandolfi†, Patrick H. Payton†, John Marshall, III‡, Bernd Becker§ & V. Giertz-Sienbenlistparallel
“Evidence is summarised here that trees store a record of atmospheric temperature in their rings. In each ring, the ratios of the stable isotopes of hydrogen and oxygen vary with the air temperature prevailing when the ring was formed. We have shown that the temperature records in three modern trees seem to follow the local mercury thermometer records, and have found that a Japanese cedar indicates a temperature fall of approx1.5°C in the past 1,800 yr.”
It would be interesting to see the 1800yr chronology.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v261/n5558/pdf/261284a0.pdf (beyond summery blocked by paywall)
As I said on JN, this is sort of similar to Don Easterbrook’s ideas.
And I hope its not correct, because places such as the UK are going to have big problems because their energy systems are, quite probably, no longer robust enough to cope with the massive winter energy demands required if there is a drop of 3-4 degrees. (due to too much reliance on expensive, inefficient and inconsistent alternatives)
Addendum to the 1/f comment above. The statistical test, will vary depending on whether the cycle you are assessing is believed to be a stable single frequency, or whether it is a semi-chaotic cycle (like the sunspots) which vary. Obviously the former is a single frequency, whereas the second is a range of frequencies. This doesn’t fundamentally change the test except in the latter, the test is whether a range of frequencies have a “signal” that is significantly greater than would be expected from the general variation found in the signal.
So Tree rings are acceptable for temperature reconstructions?
O/T but Search engine Bing has a very cold picture showing today
http://www.bing.com/
Probably due to record cold in Darwin: http://pindanpost.com/2011/06/01/record-cold-co…nda-heating-up/
That was the way real climate science was going at the time but a group of well funded state supported astrophysicists (and other miscellaneous non climate scientists) mostly involved in the space race via an overfunded NASA decided that there was a new ice age on the way and thus impliedly did not accept that there would be a late 20th century warming spell.
They hijacked climate science, ignored all that had gone before and went on about the imminent ice age that human aerosols were to cause.
Then, when the older guys turned out right and the late 20th century warming began those very same non climate scientist types wouldn’t admit any error, continued to sideline real climate science and flip flopped to human induced global warming from CO2 emissions.
Then the older guys turned out right again as that warming trend stalled from around 2ooo so again the charlatans refused to acknowledge error and turned their attention to political influence, misinformation and social pressure to cover up their failures for as long as possible. Or at least until their pensions were secured.
That will be the epitaph for climate science in the late 20th century.
Hoser says:
June 1, 2011 at 12:20 am
Gosh, no computer model. No wonder nobody believed them.
Says it all, really. Well said that chap or chapess!
It was warmer at the end of the last Ice Age than it is today. It was wamer in the Bronze Age than it is today, it was warmer in the Roman Warm Period than it is today. It was warmer in the Medieval Warm Period than it is today. The last four Interglacials going back almost 500,000 years, were warmer than today. Looking at the ice-core data, temps peak at the end of the Ice Age, & tail off for the next 10,000-15,000 years or thereabouts. What we are seeing, possibly, is the recovery from the Little Ice Age (up-tick) which is looking more & more like a global event. The last Icae Age ended c12,000 years ago, Interglacials only last betweeen 10,000-20,000 years, with a typical periodocity of say 15,000 years. The last four Interglacials appear to have ended with a global temperature up-tick, before decending into prolonged cooling. It looks like we’re livling on borrowed time, yet some claim we won’t enter another Ice-Age for between 50,000-100,000 years, yet I cannot find any peer-reviewed info to support such a claim. Is it a case of a Pythonesque phrase of “statin the bleedin obvious”, we are likely on borrowed time folks!
These guys certainly seem to have nailed the short-term temperature trend long before the fanatics got hold of it all! This greenism certianly smacks of accord with Marxist Socialist philosphy, “we’re all going to die but lets all die on equal terms with the poor, the unemployed, the sick, etc!” They do seem to miss the point somewhat IMHO.
jcrabb says:
June 1, 2011 at 12:51 am
So Tree rings are acceptable for temperature reconstructions?
They always have been, so long as you don’t go splicing them with observed temps when they don’t produce the trend that your preconceived ideas dictate.
“jcrabb says:
June 1, 2011 at 12:51 am
So Tree rings are acceptable for temperature reconstructions?”
Only when used isotopically 😉
You’ll get both the MWP and the LIA when you do though, so it’s not really considered mainstream as far as “Real” climate scientists are concerned.
How did we get from the real science being done in the 70’s to the current mess?
RE: jcrabb: (June 1, 2011 at 12:51 am)
“So Tree rings are acceptable for temperature reconstructions?”
Perhaps, if based on the isotopic chemistry of each ring rather than its growth rate.
Prediction: Warming trend until year 2000, then very cold .
Another failed prediction it seems. According to UAH (and GISS, HadCrut, RSS, Uncle Tom Cobbley & all) the decade immediately following 2000 (i.e. 2001-2010) was the warmest on record (by ~0.2 deg).
Still, we mustn’t forget about the lags.
I would be interested to know if isotope analysis of the Briffa data was done. Briffa was only interested in ring width and density. It would be informative to compare that methodolgy to that using isotopes.
Friends:
Libby made her prediction in 1979 which was before much of climate science was usurped by AGW pseudoscience.
In 2000 I made a similar prediction before the ‘stasis’ in global temperature that has since occured. I have repeatedly posted my prediction in many places including here on WUWT and on Jo Nova’s excellent blog. My prediction was:
The climate seems to vary in cycles that are overlaid on each other.
One cycle seems to have a length of ~900 years and gave us
the Roman Warm Period (RWP)
then the Dark Age Cool Period (DACP)
then the Medieval Warm Period (MWP)
then the Little Ice (LIA)
then the Present Warm Period (PWP).
Another cycle seems to have length of ~60 years and gave us
cooling prior to ~1910
warming from ~1910 to ~1940
cooling from ~1940 to ~1970
warming from ~1970 to ~2000
cooling from ~2000 to the present.
If these cycles continue then either
(a) cooling – or no warming – will continue until ~2030 when global temperature will resume warming towards the maximum levels it had in the RWP and the MWP
OR
(b) at some time before 2030 global temperature will start to cool towards the minimum temperatures it had in the DACP and the LIA.
Richard
We’re making the planet lush and green with our CO2.
CO2 is plants best friend.
CO2 is plant food.
Go Green by producing CO2.
Why we haven’t turned these slogans into and ad campaign is beyond me.
Thanks for the best science forum on the Internet Anthony.
An interesting post and the prediction may well turn out to be astute. We need to see what the next 30 or 40 years bring.
The comment on tree ring data is particularly telling. “TREE RING SIZES have long since been interpreted as rough indicators of climatic conditions for any year – a wide ring suggesting ample supplies of water and nutrients, along with benign temperatures….”
Note that they state that they are rough indicators. Note also that they say that ring size reflects water and nutrients. They do not suggest that ring size is simply a factor of temperature and as we all know one of the important nutrients for plant/tree growth is CO2. It is a pity that some have sought to promote ring size as simply a temperature metric and this has overreached the relevance and accuracy of tree ring data as a proxy record.
Anthony,
I wonder if there are any/some statistical “fits” in ring dating with the
Libby & Pandolfi, 1974, study, “Temperature Dependence of Isotope
Ratios in Tree Rings” using oak trees where:
at:
http://www.pnas.org/content/71/6/2482.full.pdf
and the very non-proprietary, unpublished, Irish oak ring information
taken by Mike Baillie, et al., of Queen’s University, Belfast, now in
the hands of Doug Keenan.
@stumpy says:
June 1, 2011 at 1:43 am How did we get from the real science being done in the 70′s to the current mess?
I was a research geochemist when Libby was publishing in the 1970s and she was well-known. Note that she worked for Global Geochemistry Corp, a private venture. So was mine. We did none of our work on government grants. Au contraire, we paid government employees to conduct research. This in one probable reason for the change in quality. Another is the softening of the brain that comes with being ordered to direct your research to counting frogs instead of counting fission particles, as happened at Australia’s modest atomic research facilities. That is, the greening of science has produced negligible benefits and quite a few losses.
If you are in a situation of whether you have a lasting job or don’t, whether you will eat well or poorly, whether you do good unencumbered research or poor ritualistic research, whether you are paid well or poorly — depending on the skill of your productivity (read “the profit motive” if you wish) — you will do better work in most cases. Ah! Accountability.
@ John Finn,
There is a certain amount of irregularity in the cycles, and the text does say “severe cold snap after 2000” that could mean, like, real soon !
We are on the plateau… let’s all hope that we don’t fall off the edge in the next couple of years !! Let’s hope the text is wrong.
I would MUCH rather it went up a degree or so, than what is suggested in the text.. that would be disasterous for many nations.
John Finn says:
June 1, 2011 at 2:07 am
Prediction: Warming trend until year 2000, then very cold .
Another failed prediction it seems. According to UAH (and GISS, HadCrut, RSS, Uncle Tom Cobbley & all) the decade immediately following 2000 (i.e. 2001-2010) was the warmest on record (by ~0.2 deg).
Still, we mustn’t forget about the lags.
Your sarcasm is smarter than you are.
Anyway, who would expect the decade marking the culmination of a 300 year recovery from the little ice age to be anything but the warmest on record? Duh.
Brace for another cold NH winter everyone.
Gosh! As other posters have already mentioned, those wonderful scientists did their research without enormously powerful computers to create the magic models that are now more important than data from observations, research which also points up how dishonest and plain unscientific the Mannian splicing of data was. This story points up everything that went wrong with climate science after it was hijacked by the Marxists, who must have seen Erlich and his like-minded alarmist colleagues as willing fools and manna from heaven.
Coldest autumn in Australia since 1950:
http://www.bom.gov.au/announcements/media_releases/ho/20110601.shtml
@- Scottish Sceptic says:
June 1, 2011 at 12:36 am
“May I remind everyone that if climate has 1/f type noise – which effectively means that rather than “random noise pulses” it has “random changes in state” causing a semi-permanent offset in temperature, the result will be a noise signal dominated by low frequencies or long term variation.”
This would only be credible if the changes in climate were energy neutral.
They are not.
To get warming or cooling requires a change in the energy balance, you can’t get a warming without getting more energy from somewhere, either as an increased input from solar/alberdo changes or decreased emissions from emissivity changes in the surface/atmosphere.
While ‘weather’ systems and ocean storage can cause some short-term dissociation between climate and energy balance the 1LoT prevents the climate from performing a random walk through all possible conditions, – or any long-term trend.
Spector says:
June 1, 2011 at 1:48 am
RE: jcrabb: (June 1, 2011 at 12:51 am)
“So Tree rings are acceptable for temperature reconstructions?”
Perhaps, if based on the isotopic chemistry of each ring rather than its growth rate.
See this old post
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/06/13/surprise-leaves-maintain-temperature-new-findings-may-put-dendroclimatology-as-metric-of-past-temperature-into-question/
based on this paper
http://www.sas.upenn.edu/earth/pdf/nature07031.pdf
Trees are great for chronology, mostly worthless for thermometry.
Apologies, I slipped up in a post above. It was Pandolfi who worked for Global Geochemistry Corp, a private venture. Libby was at Uni of California. She was the second wife of Willard Libby, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for pioneering radiocarbon dating. So I showed a moment of bad memory recall, resulting in a wrong statement, for which I apologise. My hypothesis about private enterprise in the earlier post is consequently weakened in this example, but not in the general sense.
I wonder what grants were available then ? none no gravey train in those days
The Syun Akasofu graph looks in the ballpark. Solar output and world temps are controlled by the breadth and depth of grand minima. The PDO also playing a big role on a 60 year cycle that is connected with the low solar output cycle when it counts.
The next 1000 years will not have grand minima like the golden period experienced during the Little Ice Age, so world temps will stay warm overall if we manage to escape the oncoming ice age.
As noted above Australia has experienced its coldest autumn since the 1950’s with very high rainfall to boot. The Northern Hemisphere should brace itself but it may be a little early to predict with the AO/AAO and ENSO pattern still not obvious.
Spangled Drongo
Kiwis have nicked your heat. Warmest May in NZ since records began http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10729346
Thats weather for you!
The following two statements are not incompatible:
1. Warming trend until year 2000
2. The decade immediately following 2000 (i.e. 2001-2010) was the warmest on record.
(Think of a climber reaching a plateau.)
Kamchatka is still pluming away… and there are other things rumbling. Grimsvotn is quiet for now, hopes it stays that way.
http://bigthink.com/blogs/eruptions
jcrabb: Trees can be used for temperature reconstruction, but not in the manner used by Mann et. al. Material from the tree ring samples was tested for isotope ratios and from that temperatures were deduced. Mann et. al. used tree ring widths, which as any botanist will tell you is not a reliable indicator of temperature alone.
tallbloke says:
June 1, 2011 at 3:02 am
Your sarcasm is smarter than you are.
Anyway, who would expect the decade marking the culmination of a 300 year recovery from the little ice age to be anything but the warmest on record? Duh.
Well it seems Drs Libby & Pandolfi would – since that’s what they predicted.
Brace for another cold NH winter everyone.
Oh I see – it’s the ‘NH winter cycle’ . Just checking the UAH record, though, I notice that the average 2010/11 winter period (Dec-Jan-Feb) temperatures were slightly higher than the mean 1981-2010 winter period. Brrr!
Andy G55 says:
June 1, 2011 at 3:01 am
@ John Finn,
There is a certain amount of irregularity in the cycles, and the text does say “severe cold snap after 2000″ that could mean, like, real soon !
It could mean anything and almost certainly will in time.
Roger Knights says:
June 1, 2011 at 4:21 am
The following two statements are not incompatible:
They are in the context in which the prediction was made, i.e. “then very cold”.
1. Warming trend until year 2000
2. The decade immediately following 2000 (i.e. 2001-2010) was the warmest on record.
(Think of a climber reaching a plateau.)
This particular climber is still going up since the UAH trend for 2000-2010 is still positive. The fact that the trend is only slightly positive can be explained by the transition from solar max to solar min (~0.1 deg) over the past decade and the 2 La Nina events at the back end of the 10 year period.
John Finn,
The small warming trend is the same trend from the LIA.
Pardon my ignorance, what caused the little ice age in the Syun Akasofu graph?
John Finn says:
According to the Syun Akasofu graph we may have another 10 years or so to wait for an answer.
I’m surprised that (at least in my short tenure as a reader of WUWT) this is the first discussion of oxygen isotope thermometry. It has been reliably used for some time in the Geological sciences. And it covers the gamut of oxygen-containing things like trees, corals, and bones….oh my! Yet no real mention from “climate” science. But maybe it’s
theirmy short sampling period. Oxygen isotope ratios can be used for as long a record as one chooses if DSDP (deepsea drilling project) cores are analysed…and I’m fairly certain that this has been done. Why no mention? Hmmm. It’s kind of like why we hear from James Cameron on deep sea issues instead of Robert Ballard….Well, over at Jo Nova’s, they answered your alter ego by illustrating the temps from 2001/2011: http://woodfortrees.org/graph/hadcrut3vgl/from:2001/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:2001/trend
A little off topic, but I would ask for help here. My sister is in the middle of a fight with a school principle who just had an eco-group do a school-wide presentation on global warming and told all the kids to reduce their carbon footprints and tell their parents to do so. I told my sister to tell the principle the school need to teach the kids critical thinking and some one needs to ask how much the mean global surface temperature will be reduced by their efforts? I told her to tell them it would be ZERO. But I am looking for someone who might have done some basic calcualtions to prove just that.
John Finn says:
June 1, 2011 at 4:47 am
Oh I see – it’s the ‘NH winter cycle’ . Just checking the UAH record, though, I notice that the average 2010/11 winter period (Dec-Jan-Feb) temperatures were slightly higher than the mean 1981-2010 winter period. Brrr!
That’s not what I see when looking at the global view. What data are you looking at?
izen says: June 1, 2011 at 3:06 am
@- Scottish Sceptic says:
June 1, 2011 at 12:36 am
“May I remind everyone that if climate has 1/f type noise –
This would only be credible if the changes in climate were energy neutral.
They are not.
To get warming or cooling requires a change in the energy balance, you can’t get a warming without getting more energy from somewhere, either as an increased input from solar/alberdo changes or decreased emissions from emissivity changes in the surface/atmosphere.
All I’m saying is that global temperature measurement shows a variation consistent with 1/f^n noise. This noise could be caused by a number of factors:
1. Changes in the distribution of heat so that e.g. the surface heat is distributed into ocean currents
2. Changes in heat flow to the earth’s surface from space
3. Changes in heat flow to the surface from the inner core.
4. There are also sampling variations due to the absence of complete sampling.
I’m not sure what you mean by: “This would only be credible if the changes in climate were energy neutral.” — it is credible because I am describing the changes to a signal rather than trying to attribute any meaning to it. It reality most systems tend to 1/f type noise at low frequencies, so this isn’t exactly saying anything fundamental.
The earth’s temperature variation is consistent with 1/f^n noise, the cause is unclear as is the case with all noise models because they create a model which allows us to model the system without knowing how each and every variation is caused.
However, the model can tell us things like: if this is the type of noise, then you will appear to get cycles and trends which are purely the result of random noise variations.
Good posts John Finn, actual data instead of unsubstantiated belief that global temperature has declined in the last decade.
Tom Harley says:
June 1, 2011 at 12:38 am
“Observations trump models…”
You can say that again. So I said it again for you.
@- Smokey says:
June 1, 2011 at 5:08 am
“The small warming trend is the same trend from the LIA.”
The indicated period on the graph you link to is when there are significant gaps and uncertainties in the CET record, the apparent ‘rapid’ warming between 1700/1730 may be an artifact of changing measurement methodology – or even a UHI effect ! -grin-
But what is the CAUSE of the warming from the LIA?
In most interglacial periods the temperature falls pretty consistantly after the first couple of thousand years, it does not rise and approach the post-melt maximum.
John Finn says:
June 1, 2011 at 4:47 am
tallbloke says:
June 1, 2011 at 3:02 am
Your sarcasm is smarter than you are.
Anyway, who would expect the decade marking the culmination of a 300 year recovery from the little ice age to be anything but the warmest on record? Duh.
Well it seems Drs Libby & Pandolfi would – since that’s what they predicted.
They were a solar cycle early, not bad considering how far ahead of events their prediction was.
Oh I see – it’s the ‘NH winter cycle’ . Just checking the UAH record, though, I notice that the average 2010/11 winter period (Dec-Jan-Feb) temperatures were slightly higher than the mean 1981-2010 winter period. Brrr!
The lag you don’t believe in has kept things warmer since 2003. Come 2013-15, the effect of the solar slowdown will really start to bite.
You can call that a prediction.
Dave Wendt says:
June 1, 2011 at 3:19 am
“Trees are great for chronology, mostly worthless for thermometry.”
Isn’t the case for this paper that the rings are being used as a calendar and the isotopic mix as a thermometer? In which case this is no different from ice cores, lake sediment and other proxies; and probably is their equal or better for the more recent past?
The flurry of posts from John Finn is because he has only just recovered and been able to start typing again after putting his hand into a pot of water that had been boiling – but he’d turned the heat off 30 seconds previously and it should have instantly dropped to room temperature. 😉
If people would start the stupid graphs at 1700, you can see the stair steps easier………..
Really a remarkable forecast! …”Those were the days my friend….” they lasted until progressive ideology and politics began to meddle in science.
What a mad, mad world!, where occident wants to become communist and the orient has chosen our rational and free way of life.
Izen,
The rapid warming after 1700 can’t be a UHI effect, because it cooled down after that. Next, you say:
“But what is the CAUSE of the warming from the LIA?”
That’s the question, isn’t it? But the answer can’t be CO2, because the industrial revolution began in the mid-1800’s. Here’s an answer from someone who knows more than you and me put together – doubled and squared:
Yes Sceptical, nothing like a little data:
http://rankexploits.com/musings/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/Since20011.jpg
The sound of Briffa and Mann going under the bus.
So far, last 10 years don’t look like a terrible cold snap to me. In fact, where i live it has been unusually warm, and except for two last hella bitter winters no cooling is observed. More than that, subjectively the weather here has warmed significantly during 2000s, especially late spring and summer, despite global temps staying the same.
Here – eastern europe.
Oh drats. I forgot about the html tags. Oh well.
Me parents told me that last few years weather patterns resembles that of 60s and early 70s, except summers are hotter and subjectively drier a bit. Kinda makes me think about PDO…
Bob B:
At June 1, 2011 at 6:15 am you write and ask:
“A little off topic, but I would ask for help here. My sister is in the middle of a fight with a school principle who just had an eco-group do a school-wide presentation on global warming and told all the kids to reduce their carbon footprints and tell their parents to do so. I told my sister to tell the principle the school need to teach the kids critical thinking and some one needs to ask how much the mean global surface temperature will be reduced by their efforts? I told her to tell them it would be ZERO. But I am looking for someone who might have done some basic calcualtions to prove just that.”
The appropriate answer is to point out that the IPCC has admitted that nobody knows what the effect would be but it is probably zero.
Chapter 2 of the report by IPCC Working Group III the IPCC in the IPCC Third Assessment Report (TAR) says;
“Most generally, it is clear that mitigation scenarios and mitigation policies are strongly related to their baseline scenarios, but no systematic analysis has published on the relationship between mitigation and baseline scenarios.”
This statement is in the middle of the Chapter and is not included in the Chapter’s Conclusions. Failure to list this statement as a conclusion is strange because this statement is an admission that the assessed models do not provide useful predictions of effects of mitigation policies. How could the predictions be useful if the relationship between mitigation and baseline is not known?
Also, the only valid baseline scenario is an extrapolation from current trends. The effect of an assumed change from current practice cannot be known if there is no known systematic relationship between mitigation and baseline scenario. But each of the scenarios is a claimed effect of changes from current practice. So, the TAR itself says the scenarios are meaningless gobbledygook.
But then one needs to assess the underlying assumption of the cause of the putative warming which the mitigation scenarios are claimed to address.
The underlying assumption of the IPCC scenarios is that “committed warming” results from energy being stored in the oceans. This energy gets released to the atmosphere in later decades and induces the “committed warming”. So, the total warming increases at a higher than linear rate with time as both “committed warming” and ‘instant’ warming increase.
Therefore, initiation of a mitigation has no discernible effect for some time. The mitigation reduces the relatively small ‘instant’ warming and reduces the energy going into the storage in the oceans but does not alter the “committed warming”.
Then, as decades pass, the ‘instant’ warming continues to be reduced and – importantly – the reduced input to the store of energy in the oceans reduces the “committed warming” and so the mitigation becomes discernible.
However, this “committed warming” seems to have vanished (Trenberth says this is a “travesty”).
Section 10.7.1 titled ‘Climate Change Commitment to Year 2300 Based on AOGCMs’
in the Report from WG1 (i.e. the “science” Working Group) of the most recent IPCC Report (AR4) can be read at
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch10s10-7.html
It says:
“The multi-model average warming for all radiative forcing agents held constant at year 2000 (reported earlier for several of the models by Meehl et al., 2005c), is about 0.6°C for the period 2090 to 2099 relative to the 1980 to 1999 reference period. This is roughly the magnitude of warming simulated in the 20th century. Applying the same uncertainty assessment as for the SRES scenarios in Fig. 10.29 (–40 to +60%), the likely uncertainty range is 0.3°C to 0.9°C. Hansen et al. (2005a) calculate the current energy imbalance of the Earth to be 0.85 W m–2, implying that the unrealised global warming is about 0.6°C without any further increase in radiative forcing. The committed warming trend values show a rate of warming averaged over the first two decades of the 21st century of about 0.1°C per decade, due mainly to the slow response of the oceans. About twice as much warming (0.2°C per decade) would be expected if emissions are within the range of the SRES scenarios.”
So, the IPCC says “The committed warming trend values show a rate of warming averaged over the first two decades of the 21st century of about 0.1°C per decade”.
n.b. That is “committed warming” that will occur because of effects in the past.
And the effect of increase to atmospheric CO2 since 2000 is expected to double that rate of warming to “About twice as much warming (0.2°C per decade)”.
But there has NOT been a rise in global temperature of “0.2°C per decade” or of “0.1°C per decade” for the first of half of “the first two decades of the 21st century”. Indeed, there has been no discernible rise and probably a slight fall.
So, for the IPCC prediction to be true then the global temperature must rise by a staggering 0.4°C now and be sustained at that higher level for the next 10 years. This would be more than half the total rise over the previous century, and only a member of the cult of AGW could think this is a reasonable expectation.
Indeed, if one accepts the lower limit of the “uncertainty assessment” of “-40%” then the required immediate rise needed to be sustained for the next 10 years is at least an incredible 0.24°C.
And if the needed rise from now were linear it would need to increase global temperature by 0.8°C over the next 10 years (or at minimum by 0.46°C).
Nobody really thinks such rises are likely.
In summary, the claimed effects of ‘mitigation policies’ , ‘carbon footprints’, etc. are completely meaningless and should be disregarded. It is much better to look at the observed climate cycles and to see what range of climate effects they imply people should prepare for.
Richard
This prediction also fits with that of Professor Don Easterbrook, who (IMHO, correctly) identifies that big body of water just to the West of the US as the source of much of the world’s climate. Interesting to note that this prediction – and the one by Easterbrook – accurately predicted what we’re experiencing now – heating until ~2000, then cooling. Maybe these folks looking at the PDO and geologic records aren’t so batty? They certainly seem more accurate than the esteemed “Climate Scientists” in the CRU and other ivory towers…
“When she and Pandolfi project their curves into the future they show lower average temperatures from now through the mid-1980s”
How dare they use CURVES! Everyone knows climate only changes in straight lines that can be projected centuries into the future./ sarc
Oh I see – it’s the ‘NH winter cycle’ . Just checking the UAH record, though, I notice that the average 2010/11 winter period (Dec-Jan-Feb) temperatures were slightly higher than the mean 1981-2010 winter period. Brrr!
This statement shows the folly of averaging temperatures.
Avg: 34
Observations of 30, 30, 30, 30, 30, 60 = Avg of 35
Even though you are below average 5 out of 6 times, you can still average higher. Climate wise, this would tell you next to nothing about what you expect on a given day’s weather. Unless, of course, you can show how you got 60 by using some sort of model, like something that would predict weather. But those models don’t take CO2 into account, so there is a problem here.
Tree rings can work, hide the decline can’t.
Yes Bob B, good cherry-picking of observations. I can do that to. From NOAA. January 2000 temperature anomoly, .29 degree C above 20th century average. January 2010 temperature anomoly, .60 degree C above 20th century average. From this we could conclude a .31 degree C increase in global temperature has happened between 2000 and 2010.
stumpy says:
June 1, 2011 at 1:43 am
How did we get from the real science being done in the 70′s to the current mess?
Ecological Overshoot, of course: too much wealth = too big of an ecological niche for the camp-robbers, rent-seekers, and such = The Rise of the Parasites!
OK S. says:
June 1, 2011 at 6:13 am
Well, over at Jo Nova’s, they answered your alter ego by illustrating the temps from 2001/2011: http://woodfortrees.org/graph/hadcrut3vgl/from:2001/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:2001/trend
No they didn’t on 2 counts
1. I’ve never posted at Jo Nova’s and
2. I was citing the UAH record because, like every good sceptic, I know this is superior to the GISS or HadCrut surface records.
Richard S Courtney, “However, this “committed warming” seems to have vanished (Trenberth says this is a “travesty”).”
Not at all what Trenberth said. Just as with your misunderstand of what the IPCC said about a Tropospheric hotspot, you have this wrong. Your misunderstanding about the IPCC was pointed out numerous times to no avail, so there seems to be no reason to explain about Trenberth except to say you do not understand what he was talking about.
Just like the IPCC and AGW intelligentsia “predictions”, hmmm?
Bob B says:
June 1, 2011 at 6:15 am
A little off topic, but I would ask for help here. My sister is in the middle of a fight with a school principle who just had an eco-group do a school-wide presentation on global warming and told all the kids to reduce their carbon footprints and tell their parents to do so.
You might also have your sister consider asking the teacher what s/he is doing to reduce his/her own “carbon footprint”, apart from propagandizing children. Perhaps the teacher should put her own lifestyle up for scrutiny?
If that’s the article I think it is (sorry the memory is getting rusty) then I remember reading it and taking pause. This was in the early or mid 80s, when I still lived in the Southland. Strangely, I hopped on the Gorian train from the late 80s into the early 90s and sort of forgot about it. Prophecy.
Sceptical, Lucia picked 2001 many years ago to be out of a LaNina trough and had risen back up. Your choice of 2000 is surely a cherry picked date.
OK, it was not that exact LAT article but a follow on one with similar content ~ 1984. In any case – wow.
Very interesting. My neighbor just harvested approximately 60 acres of fir. So, being curious Sam, I wondered as I wandered upon his property what the tree rings look like on the fresh stumps so neatly cut. They all (the ones I looked at) showed slow growth in the last 10 to 12 years. The previous rings show rapid favorable growth for approximately 20 years, then the sudden and obvious change. hmmm. 🙂
sceptical says:
June 1, 2011 at 9:41 am
Not at all what Trenberth said. Just as with your misunderstand of what the IPCC said about a Tropospheric hotspot, you have this wrong.
The hotspot isn’t there and neither is the committed warming. CO2=CAGW hypotheses are not falsifiable in practice, and therefore they are not scientific hypotheses. CO2=CAGW cultists will simply not let them be falsified, which makes them no more than meaningless statements, exactly like the kind of conspiracy theories put forth elsewhere, which appear to make factual statements, but whose adherents will simply not allow to be falsified by any empirical of factual state of affairs. In the case of ipcc Climate Science we are all essentially talking about its Religious Dogma, because that’s the way ipcc Climate Science handles its “science”.
What do you want to believe, the politicians or the data?
Bob B, perhaps Lucia cherry-picked 2001 because it was one of the warmest years on record, which would show in itself the idea that global temperatures declined after 2000 as ridicules.
Smokey says:
June 1, 2011 at 8:03 am
Understanding what Lindzen says would be a small step for Mann, but a giant leap for Mankind. After all the propaganda I mean.
haha!
sceptical:
At June 1, 2011 at 9:41 am you assert to me:
“Not at all what Trenberth said. Just as with your misunderstand of what the IPCC said about a Tropospheric hotspot, you have this wrong. Your misunderstanding about the IPCC was pointed out numerous times to no avail, so there seems to be no reason to explain about Trenberth except to say you do not understand what he was talking about.”
No!
You are telling porkies.
Above, my only mention of Trenberth was at June 1, 2011 at 8:43 am where I wrote:
“However, this “committed warming” seems to have vanished (Trenberth says this is a “travesty”).”
In its context, my statement is in complete agreement with a ‘Climategate’ email Kevin Trenberth wrote on Oct 14, 2009, at 10:17 AM, to Tom Wigley. That entire email says:
“Hi Tom
How come you do not agree with a statement that says we are no where close to knowing where energy is going or whether clouds are changing to make the planet brighter. We are not close to balancing the energy budget. The fact that we can not account for what is happening in the climate system makes any consideration of geoengineering quite hopeless as we will never be able to tell if it is successful or not! It is a travesty!”
So, my post explained that the “committed warming” is heat that has gone into the oceans but seems to have vanished (my post cited one of several pieces of evidence that it has vanished, but others include ocean cooling and reduction to ocean expansion).
Trenberth’s ‘travesty’ email says, “we are no where close to knowing where energy is going”.
Then, what I said about the ‘hot spot’ is is that it is predicted by the IPCC to be a unique effect of “well mixed greenhouse gases”.
The most recent so-called scientific Report from the IPCC is the AR4 and it explains the ‘hot spot’ in Chapter 9 from WG1. The pertinent Section is
9.2.2.1 Spatial and Temporal Patterns of Response
And it can be read at
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch9s9-2-2.html
The Section summarises the matter in Figure 9.1.
Anybody can check that what I said is true by clicking on the link.
Sceptical, you and John B need to raise your game. Your lies are no substitute for my referenced facts.
Richard
@ Scottish Skeptic:
You have an excellent idea about using Fourier analysis to deconvolute the noise from the signal. I used the technique to improve signal to noise ratios for my analytical instruments and achieved an order of magnitude improvement in my detection limits.
Unfortunately in the ‘real world’ there can be multiple types of noise present simultaneously. In the Fourier space these sources must be discriminated using a multivariate linear least-square algorithm to ‘fit’ the explainable noise spectra. Anything remaining is either signal or a novel source of noise, or a combination thereof.
Computationally a Fourier Transform is VERY cumbersome if the data is not an equally spaced set (in proper space) of 2^n data pairs.
Realistically, the requirement for equally conditioned data is also difficult to meet, so ‘bad’ data points contribute disproportionately to the residual variance.
Climatological data is currently unable to provide large enough data sets to allow such an analysis to produce meaningful statistics.
Her book is worth reading “Past climates : tree thermometers, commodities, and people”
sandyinderby says:
June 1, 2011 at 7:22 am
Dave Wendt says:
June 1, 2011 at 3:19 am
“Trees are great for chronology, mostly worthless for thermometry.”
Isn’t the case for this paper that the rings are being used as a calendar and the isotopic mix as a thermometer? In which case this is no different from ice cores, lake sediment and other proxies; and probably is their equal or better for the more recent past?
For the isotope ratios in the tree rings to encode a record of the ambient temperature in which the tree grew, the tree’s foliage must be at or very close to that ambient temperature, as it is almost entirely responsible for the tree’s interaction with the atmosphere. The Hellicker paper showed that, rather than following the ambient, the foliage, thru various physical mechanisms, maintained itself within a much narrower range. Thus whatever the isotope ratios in the tree rings suggest, they lack a physical connection to the true temp of their environment.
RE: spangled drongo says:
June 1, 2011 at 3:03 am
Coldest autumn in Australia since 1950
===========================
Look at this from the perspective of the MJO. Sort of frightening for the NH. The “fun” may continue for quite a while.
Dave Wendt:
I am writing to ask for explanation of a comment you made at June 1, 2011 at 11:52 am. Please note that my query is genuine because I am not a biologist.
You say;
“For the isotope ratios in the tree rings to encode a record of the ambient temperature in which the tree grew, the tree’s foliage must be at or very close to that ambient temperature, as it is almost entirely responsible for the tree’s interaction with the atmosphere. The Hellicker paper showed that, rather than following the ambient, the foliage, thru various physical mechanisms, maintained itself within a much narrower range. Thus whatever the isotope ratios in the tree rings suggest, they lack a physical connection to the true temp of their environment.”
I do not understand that.
The growth of a tree trunk in a year (i.e. a tree ring) incorporates oxygen isotopes in atmospheric CO2 that the tree absorbs through its leaves. The tree controls the temperature of its leaves but I am not aware that it controls the temperature of its trunk.
I do not understand how the isotope ratios absorbed from the air and incorporated into a tree’s trunk are affected by the temperature of the leaves.
Please explain more fully.
Richard
here’s another non computer forecast ttp://www.agwnot.blogspot.com/
Sceptical–what a dumb statement.
All talk of recovery from LIA may be off the mark. According to longest temperature record we have available (CET), LIA recovery took less than 50 years, in order for the temperatures to move more or less sideways for the next 250. Only in the recent couple of decades or so (but even that appear to be short lived), CET surpassed the1740s,
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/CET.gif
I am equally sceptical about any of regular multidecadal oscillations, be it 30, 60 or whatever years. Any regularity if there is one would have to come from a long term feedback loop or the orbital parameters; no such have been identified above the annual except for the Milankovic cycle.
Clear evidence that AGW science has made us dumber.
RE: Dave Wendt: (June 1, 2011 at 11:52 am)
“Thus whatever the isotope ratios in the tree rings suggest, they lack a physical connection to the true temp of their environment.”
That is probably true, however if the goal is an estimate of average global temperature, then this data may be useful. If the isotope ratios are fairly uniform from tree to tree, then they are probably good data. On the other hand, if this data is highly variable then it is probably of little value.
Met office has just issued monthly numbers for May (CET).
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/May.htm
Re: my post above
I do not see any LIA recovery since early 1700s. As far as cycles (30, 60 etc years) apparent pattern is more random then regular.
Ian W says:
June 1, 2011 at 7:23 am (Edit)
The flurry of posts from John Finn is because he has only just recovered and been able to start typing again after putting his hand into a pot of water that had been boiling – but he’d turned the heat off 30 seconds previously and it should have instantly dropped to room temperature. 😉
Lolz. 🙂
I find it odd that people are only now rediscovering Leonora Libby. If it wasn’t for the great Bob Mullikan she wouldn’t have become a physicist and worked for Enrico Fermi. The days BM (Before Mann) when science had great people before this current dark age.
Ian W says:
June 1, 2011 at 7:23 am
The flurry of posts from John Finn is because he has only just recovered and been able to start typing again after putting his hand into a pot of water that had been boiling – but he’d turned the heat off 30 seconds previously and it should have instantly dropped to room temperature. 😉
But in this case it doesn’t seem to have cooled at all. In fact, according to at least 3 sources, it’s got warmer. However this is largely irrelevant since the prediction is (or was) :
Warming trend until year 2000, then very cold .
Note it doesn’t say “then start cooling” or even “then stop warming” it says “then very cold”. Though it’s possible my concept of “very cold” may be different to that of others. Tallbloke’s definition of a ‘cold’ winter seems to be one that is slightly warmer than the 1981-2010 average winter.
vukcevic says:
June 1, 2011 at 2:11 pm
I do not see any LIA recovery since early 1700s. As far as cycles (30, 60 etc years) apparent pattern is more random then regular.
Hi Vuk, I think the last NH winter may have given a clue why the CET record may not be a good guide for even NH temps during a solar slowdown. Last December’s CET record dropped to LIA lows but the AO strongly turned positive in Jan which saw a change in the jet stream shape that protected the UK and western Europe for several months. At the same time the rest of the NH was under snow and ice.
Smokey says:
If we don’t know what caused the little ice age, how can we be sure that what caused it is now working opposite in effect to warm us as depicted in the Syun Akasofu graph?
sceptical, I believe that Lucia is using data from 2001 on because the model predictions were effectively published in 2001 via the IPCC report.
Hence data post 2001 could be used to verify the predictions, while data prior to that time would only be confirming a hindcast.
In other words, there is at least a prima facie reasoning behind the chosen starting point. Your example is a true cherry-pick in that you picked a random timeframe to illustrate a pre-conceived idea.
If you wish to dispute the use of data from 2001 on then feel free to come up with your version of Lucia’s analysis, complete with logical reasons behind the steps you have taken.
John Finn says: “I’ve never posted at Jo Nova’s…”
No one said you did. Your off-the-mark responses, including the one above, are not inconsistent with your being unable or unwilling to actually read the comments.
Richard S Courtney says
Is this really what Trenberth said? I would interpret this to be a comment about how well we can measure the system. That any attempt to geoengineer would have the problem in that we could not determine if it is working or not. He’s not saying the heat has vanished at all, he’s saying that it can move about a lot and they wouldn’t know.
Richard S Courtney says:
June 1, 2011 at 12:30 pm
I’m not a biologist either. I’ve based my assessment on the Hellicker and Richter paper and the WUWT post about it that I referenced earlier in the thread as well as some further searches I did at the time the paper came out which seemed to support what they said. As I understand the theory of isotope proxies in tree rings prior to H&R, the isotope ratios which are the basis of the proxy, are established by the temperature at which photosynthesis takes place in the tree’s foliage, which was assumed to mirror the ambient temp. H&R asserted that the foliage actually maintained itself around a target temp of 21C, which challenges the logical premise of the proxy.
I haven’t Googled H&R for some months, but up until late last year there were no works that contradicted it. The history of the paper is an interesting bit in itself. When the paper was published there was a lot of references to it for 2-3 weeks, then it just seemed to disappear down the memory hole. The last time I checked, one of the few later references in the Google search was actually a comment of my own from another old thread from here. I seem to be just about the only person who still remembers it, but I’ve brought it up quite a number of times in the last 3 years and no one has ever jumped in to tell me why my interpretation is incorrect.
Gotta run, hope that helps.
Essentially these old “claims/prediction” fits well with the pattern that Girma Orssengo found as well here http://pathstoknowledge.net/2010/10/18/investigating-the-climate-of-doom; see points (2) and the linked articles.
Projecting the Orssengo linear+cyclic pattern forward simply says what these older claims say as the assumption, keep replicating the patter from the past forward.
Also it seems similar to what Piers Corbyn does his analysis: looking at weather patterns from the past and projecting them forward using the current observational data as a pattern matching template to pick which of the past patterns to project forward.
It would be good to see Girma Orssengo update his analysis with the more recent data observations.
pete, “I believe that Lucia is using data from 2001 on because the model predictions were effectively published in 2001 via the IPCC report.”
Which model predictions are you refering to? The IPCC also used models in previous reports.
Bob B., ditto.
sceptical,
The IPCC’s model predictions are wrong
Walter:
I begin by asking you and ‘sceptical’ to discuss the issues I raised instead of your attempting to hide my points by concentrating on a comment I added in parenthesis. My request is forcefully put because your dispute of that minor comment is spurious.
Your comment at June 1, 2011 at 6:13 pm is mistaken. It takes Trenberth’s words out of context and then misrepresents them.
I quoted the entire email from Trenberth to Wigley in my rebuttal of ‘sceptical’ at June 1, 2011 at 10:53 am. To save others needing to find it, I copy it here.
Kevin Trenberth on Oct 14, 2009, at 10:17 AM, to Tom Wigley:
“Hi Tom
How come you do not agree with a statement that says we are no where close to knowing where energy is going or whether clouds are changing to make the planet brighter. We are not close to balancing the energy budget. The fact that we can not account for what is happening in the climate system makes any consideration of geoengineering quite hopeless as we will never be able to tell if it is successful or not! It is a travesty!”
He begins by asking;
“How come you do not agree with a statement that says we are no where close to knowing where energy is going or whether clouds are changing to make the planet brighter. We are not close to balancing the energy budget. ”
The remainder is exposition of those opening statements.
But your post provides selective quotation: it deletes those two opening sentences, quotes the remainder, and then accuses me of misrepresenting what Trenberth said because I refered to the sentences you deleted!
And the “geoengineering” mentioned in Trenberth’s email is the mitigation policies (i.e. alterations to future global temperature) that I described in my post t(at June 1, 2011 at 8:43 am) which mentions Treberth.
As I said in that post:
“Chapter 2 of the report by IPCC Working Group III the IPCC in the IPCC Third Assessment Report (TAR) says;
“Most generally, it is clear that mitigation scenarios and mitigation policies are strongly related to their baseline scenarios, but no systematic analysis has published on the relationship between mitigation and baseline scenarios.”
When Trenberth says;
“The fact that we can not account for what is happening in the climate system makes any consideration of geoengineering quite hopeless as we will never be able to tell if it is successful or not!”
he is explaining
(a)”why no systematic analysis has published on the relationship between mitigation and baseline scenarios” (i.e. “we cannot account …”)
and
(b) why that is important (i.e. “we will never be able to tell…”
Richard
Dave Wendt:
re. your post at June 1, 2011 at 6:59 pm
Yes, that does “help”. Thankyou.
Richard
Geoff Sharp says: June 1, 2011 at 3:34 pm
…………..
Hi Geoff
I agree, CET is only good for the North East Atlantic, while its west coast is usually very different. There is a good reason for this. The N.A. drift current splits into 2 parts, one carries on into Arctic the other swings westwards towards South Greenland and Labrador. It is variable ratio of these two ( (this is what my project -NAP is about) that drives the strength of Icelandic low in the winter, affecting path of jet stream and the associated weather patterns.
I’m still waiting for someone to compile all the thousands of records set all over the world the past two years for precipitation (liquid and frozen), cold temperatures and record low maximum temperatures.
It’d be nice to have to numbers as proof to debunk the “warmest decade” baloney.
John Finn says:
June 1, 2011 at 3:29 pm
Ian W says:
June 1, 2011 at 7:23 am
The flurry of posts from John Finn is because he has only just recovered and been able to start typing again after putting his hand into a pot of water that had been boiling – but he’d turned the heat off 30 seconds previously and it should have instantly dropped to room temperature. 😉
… it’s possible my concept of “very cold” may be different to that of others.
That must be why you got your fingers burned.
Tallbloke’s definition of a ‘cold’ winter seems to be one that is slightly warmer than the 1981-2010 average winter.
I’m not the one who started cherry picking quarter years out to try to prove a point.
You are.
I know that what counts is the ocean heat content and next up the southern hemisphere SST. Both of which have been falling gently for a long time now. Even if you go from the trough of the La Nina following the ’98 super el Nino to the peak of the 2009-10 El Nino, you’ll still get a negative slope of a linear regression of SH SST over the 2000-2010 decade.
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/hadsst2sh/from:1998/plot/hadsst2sh/from:2000/to:2010/trend
That plus Peter Berenyi’s analysis on my blog leads me to think the XBT-ARGO splice is still way wrong despite a recent downward ‘correction’.
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2010/12/20/working-out-where-the-energy-goes-part-2-peter-berenyi/
You’ve been had mate.
As regards the AO it varies considerably in the short to medium term and has always shown positive spikes in multidecadal periods of negative AO and negative spikes in multidecadal periods of positive AO.
However on multidecadal (and probably even more so on multicentennial timescales) it does appear to show some correlation with the level of solar activity:
http://www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/AO_NAO.htm
It is trending more negative with the newly less active sun, was more positive when the sun was active through cycles 21 to 23 and was a little less positive during weaker cycle 20.
I have always contended that the top down solar effects on the atmosphere are modulated by bottom up effects from the oceans which accounts for such variability on short to medium timescales and an apparent failure of the solar correlation unless one looks at the longer timescales.
That variability plus oceanic modulation also brings into play the potential for CET temperatures to be unrepresentative of northern hemisphere temperatures as a whole though I would argue that CET diversions from northern hemisphere temperatures are usually temporary and ocean induced as Vuk points out.
The UK is a bit of a special case because our weather can swing wildly between warm south westerly dominance and bitter north or north easterly dominance depending on the positions of the loops in the jetstream. Such swings can occur whether there is a global warming or a global cooling trend. They are driven by the ever changing interaction between the top down solar effects and the bottom up oceanic effects.
However during a global warming trend (positive AO) the jets are more often north of the UK so the potential for bitter north and north east winds declines just as we saw during the late 20th century warming spell.
When the globe is cooling (negative AO) the jets become more meridional/equatorward with broader, deeper, more prolonged looping which generates more frequent cold spells in the CET.
The USA responds more directly to average northern hemisphere temperature changes because the effects of the west to east air flow progression are reduced by the barrier of the Rockies and so the central and eastern USA is less affected by changes induced by oceanic behaviour. The weather of the USA to the west of the watershed however is directly and very closely related to oceanic effects.
So, currently, I am waiting to see whether the continuing low level of cycle 24 will correlate with a generally negative AO (more negative than the period 1970 ish to 2000).
If cycle 24 stays lower than cycles 21 to 23 but yet the AO for the whole period of the cycle matches the positivity of the late 20th century then I would accept that as a falsification but that is currently not looking very likely.
Richard S Courtney says
I selected the last two for brevity. Even with the first two sentences included he does not claim the warming vanished as you suggested when you say:
Saying that we can’t trace the heat throughout our global system is quite different to saying that it vanished.
Walter:
I repeat my strong request that you address my points and stop knit-picking an aside I made in parenthesis.
But, to establish fact instead of your imagings at June 2, 2011 at 3:16 am, I point out that Trenberth did NOT say, as you claim;
“we can’t trace the heat throughout our global system”.
He said;
“we are no where close to knowing where energy is going”.
The energy is supposed to be “going” into the oceans to induce “committed warming”. But it is not in the oceans and it is not observed anywhere else.
I stated;
However, this “committed warming” seems to have vanished (Trenberth says this is a “travesty”).
That statement is correct.
Now, address what I wrote instead of making erroneous quibbles.
Richard
Hi Richard S Courtney,
You sound a bit angry and I apologise if I have upset you, but I still don’t agree with your interpretation of Trenberth’s use of the word Travesty.
I have since googled about and found a report by Trenberth:
http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/Trenberth/trenberth.papers/EnergyDiagnostics09final2.pdf
In the introduction he says:
He is not saying the heat has vanished, he is saying we do not have sufficient capability to track it.
Richard S Courtney says:
June 2, 2011 at 4:05 am (Edit)
Walter:
I repeat my strong request that you address my points and stop knit-picking an aside I made in parenthesis.
Richard, trying to get co2 driven warming believers to discuss ocean heat content this late in the AGW argument is like trying to discuss stuffing and cranberry sauce with turkeys before thanksgiving.
Anyway, this covers it:
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2010/12/20/working-out-where-the-energy-goes-part-2-peter-berenyi/
No ‘missing heat’, just a duff theory.
Tallbloke:
Thankyou for that link. It is an excellent summary of the ‘ocean heat’ issue that I had not seen before.
As you say;
“No ‘missing heat’, just a duff theory.”
That agrees with my post at June 1, 2011 at 8:43 am which concludes saying;
“In summary, the claimed effects of ‘mitigation policies’ , ‘carbon footprints’, etc. are completely meaningless and should be disregarded. It is much better to look at the observed climate cycles and to see what range of climate effects they imply people should prepare for.”
I would have been grateful for any genuine disagreement with that post, but I am annoyed at the knit-picking of an aside which I put in parenthesis.
Again, thankyou.
Richard
Bob B says:
Surely you do the calculations first, before telling them what it would be, otherwise it sounds like you are just fishing around for the answer you want rather than using a scientific approach.
Walter:
Use whatever sophistry you like, and pretend whatever you want to.
You have made no attempt to critique what I wrote but have chosen to advocate your spin about an aside I put in parenthesis. What I said in that aside is correct, but ‘So What?’ My argument remains intact whether or not what I said in that aside is correct.
And, yes, I am “a bit angry”. You have chosen to carp on about that aside and, thus, have inhibited proper discussion of what I wrote. As Willis might say, that angryfies my blood.
Richard
I’m not the one who started cherry picking quarter years out to try to prove a point.
You were the one who suggested bracing ourselves for “another” cold winter. Are you now saying your comment was completely irrelvant?
jorgekafkazar says:
June 1, 2011 at 5:05 pm
John Finn says: “I’ve never posted at Jo Nova’s…”
No one said you did. Your off-the-mark responses, including the one above, are not inconsistent with your being unable or unwilling to actually read the comments.
Wht no comment about the UAH v HadCrut records. Tell me this how much longer are the readers of this blog going to continue to cite the “fraudulent” CRU record to support their pet theories.
Richard S Courtney says:
Richard, again, sorry for having to highlight what seems to be another problem for you.
After insisting I address your other remarks, I did some more hunting about and noticed the IPCC definition is different to your description.
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/tssts-5-1.html#box-ts-9
They are suggesting that it takes a while for the oceans to warm given a specific amount of GHG. Because the CO2 stays in the atmosphere for many years afterward it continues to warm the planet even after we’ve stopped adding more CO2.
Whilst you may be right about there potentially being heat in the ocean’s depth that can resurface later, this is not the source of “commited warming”.
Do you even realise that you just made no effort to counter my quotation of Trenberth, when he explicitly states that we lack the capacity to monitor the system adequately enough, then you declare yourself as being correct again, then criticise me of ignoring you! Pot Kettle!
Bob B, the graph here also shows the difference expected between some various scenarios and a “commited warming”. The difference is not zero.
Richard, a question:
If temperature bounces back before 2020 and the “committed warming” prediction comes true, would you accept that the prediction was valid and AGW wins?
By your logic, you should. But if that did happen, I would say to you, “We just got lucky. Solar output picked up, and there was an El Nino, you know, that sort of thing. If those things had held off until a year or two later, you would have won”.
Of course that is ridiculous. Why? Because, as always, it’s the trend that matters. The last few years have bucked the trend, which is why that prediction might look far-fetched. The real issue here is that AGW proponents are contending that the trend is still there, masked by short term variability. You are contending that the trend has stopped , or at least slowed.
Walter,
You are right! Trenberth’s “missing heat” and the IPCC’s “committed warming” are not related. I hadn’t spotted that. The missing heat is thought to be somewhere already, we just don’t know where. Committed warming is the expected future warming due to already accumulated CO2. Different thing altogether.
Though I fear we may get accused of nit picking.
John
Walter:
Your points are spurious.
You say to me:
“Do you even realise that you just made no effort to counter my quotation of Trenberth, when he explicitly states that we lack the capacity to monitor the system adequately enough, then you declare yourself as being correct again, then criticise me of ignoring you! Pot Kettle!”
Of course not! That “quotation” was a justification, but assuming it is true then it still agrees with what I wrote in the email you claim to be replying where I said;
“The energy is supposed to be “going” into the oceans to induce “committed warming”. But it is not in the oceans and it is not observed anywhere else.
I stated;
However, this “committed warming” seems to have vanished (Trenberth says this is a “travesty”).”
That is right because
1. The heat is supposed to be going into the ocean.
2. Several independent pieces of evidence show it is not in the ocean or anywhere else.
3. Trenberth says; “we are no where close to knowing where energy is going”.
4. The heat taken into the ocean is said to cause “committed warming”.
5. The absence of heat in the ocean means the “committede warming” does not exist; it is absent, it has vanished, it has disappeared, it has followed he Oozlum Bird, etc.
6. So, “It is a travesty!” that “we are no where close to knowing where energy is going” equates to “It is a travesty!” that the “committed warming” has vanished.
Now you have googled and found an isolated statement that you have taken out of context and you want me to be sidetracked onto that? No way, Hose!
However, I will point out one thing and leave it to you to see where you are wrong.
Your quotations says;
“If the concentrations of greenhouse gases and aerosols were held fixed after a period of change, the climate system would continue to respond due to the thermal inertia of the oceans and ice sheets and their long time scales for adjustment. ‘Committed warming’ is defined here as the further change in global mean temperature after atmospheric composition, and hence radiative forcing, is held constant.”
The GHE occurs in the atmosphere to warm the air. So, “does thermal inertia of the oceans and ice sheets” mean
(a) the air warmed by the GHE gets further warmed by the “the oceans and ice sheets “?
or
(b) “the oceans and ice sheets” get warmed by the air warmed by the GHE?
Richard
Of course fourier analysis can’t analyze any periodic oscillations with a period of more than 1/2 the sample length.
However, a FFT can be easily done even if your sample is not of a 2^N length.
The way to do that is this:
First determine a line (y = mx+b) connecting the first and last datapoint of the sample.
Subtract that line from the sample and remember the m and b for later.
This makes the sample start and end with zero.
Pad the dataset out with zeros to the next larger 2^N length.
Do the FFT.
Convert the real and imaginary frequencies from cartesian to polar coordinates, which will give you phase angle and amplitude.
If the data is noisy, calculate the mean value of the amplitudes of the dataset and set all amplitudes below the mean to zero. This will get rid of most of the random noise (but not 1/f noise) and you should see any frequencies of oscillations above the noise threshhold.
Do an inverse FFT of the result and add your original linear corrector back in.
Now you can correlate the original sample set with the inverse FFT result and see what trends there are.
You can also correlate in the frequency domain the amplitudes between 2 datasets and so on. For example if you look at the amplitude spectrum of SSN and compare it to the amplitude spectrum of for example surface temp data, and if there are spectral peaks at the same frequencies there is a correlation, independent of the time lag or phase.
In general, and signal processing is my daily bread, I don’t understand why time series data in climate science is not analyzed much more in the frequency domain as analyses in the time domain are always frought with problems.
John B. says:
The real issue here is that AGW proponents are contending that the trend is still there, masked by short term variability.
No, John, the real issue here is that CO2=CAGW Climate Scientists are, 1] still going to be “begging the question” as to the cause, if the trend up resumes, while, 2] they are also still the ones who are refusing to let their “theory” be falsified by any empirical event so far, and who also, 3] will not even name any kind of falsifying or challenging event or data whatsoever that would cast doubt upon their theory; when, 4] at the same time still not acceding to using real, scientific method and principles, science in their work – or even mentioning that they should!
In other words, again the real issue here is that CO2=CAGW Climate Scientists are the exact same kind of “conspiracy theorists” elsewhere who will simply not let their “theory” be rebutted by any event or process, such as the practice of real science: which means that their “theory” actually makes no statements at all about the real world!
The Climate Scientists, enc., just want to be able to keep repeating the words involved with CO2=CAGW [“tenets”, according to the PNAS itself] in order to bring about either some kind of personal gratification for themselves, the continued flow of funds to them requiring the official repetition of the words as strictly political “science”; or in order to bring about the control of others for their personal benefit, as in the case of their paymasters.
Come on, John B., is being “useful” to those ends really what you want to spend your life on?
KLA said “In general, and signal processing is my daily bread, I don’t understand why time series data in climate science is not analyzed much more in the frequency domain as analyses in the time domain are always frought with problems.”
I think the reason may be that the main forcings and feedbacks in which are interested are not cyclic. Milankovitch cycles are too slow and solar cycles have too little effect (except as a background) to be of much interest in climate research. Volcanic, aerosol, cloud and GHG effects are not cyclic. AGW purports that the latter are the major effects, so does not concentrate on the cyclic effects.
I could be wrong…
Richard said: “The GHE occurs in the atmosphere to warm the air. So, “does thermal inertia of the oceans and ice sheets” mean
(a) the air warmed by the GHE gets further warmed by the “the oceans and ice sheets “?
or
(b) “the oceans and ice sheets” get warmed by the air warmed by the GHE?”
I thought the GHE worked primarily be re-radiation, whereby the downward portion of it heats the land and oceans.
Is that not correct?
@JPeden
The CO2=CAGW hypothesis CAN be falsified, just not as easily as you might like to think. A couple of cold years won’t do it, but enough of them will. Do you not think climate scientists have thought about it? (No need to answer that, I know what you will say)
A quick Google turned up this interesting discussion between Roger Pielke Jr. and someone called lucia:
http://rankexploits.com/musings/2008/what-weather-would-falsify-the-current-consensus-on-climate-change/
It’s rather long, but it appears to discuss a proper statistical analysis of what would constitute a falsification of AGW. Quite an interesting read. THAT is what I call being a real skeptic!
BTW, I know nothing about the blog it appears on, though I suspect many here will. I cannot verify what they are saying, but it at least looks like they are talking about it in the right terms.
John B says:
June 2, 2011 at 11:49 am
I thought the GHE worked primarily be re-radiation, whereby the downward portion of it heats the land and oceans.
Is that not correct?
No. Downwelling longwave can’t penetrate the ocean surface by more than its own wavelength. The GHE works by raising the altitude at which radiation to space occurs.
This might help: http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2011/06/02/what-caused-global-warming-in-the-late-c20th/
RE: coturnix19 says:
June 1, 2011 at 8:32 am
Something has certainly been happening in the Humid Subtropical climate zones during recent years. Those zones seem to fly in the face of what is going on in many other climate zones. We see the same thing here in the US. A majority of the US population lives in or just poleward of that zone. Due to that, our media and popular culture imagine “global warming” to have set in but in reality it is an effect limited to a single climate zone.
John B says:
June 2, 2011 at 12:17 pm
The CO2=CAGW hypothesis CAN be falsified, just not as easily as you might like to think. A couple of cold years won’t do it, but enough of them will. Do you not think climate scientists have thought about it?
Yes, the noble ipcc Climate Scientists have indeed thought about the problem of “falsification”, John, as it relates to their statements/theory/hypotheses, and that’s exactly why they specifically avoid stating what would falsify their theory, easily or not! In other words, why bother to start doing real science, when you intentionally haven’t done any of it yet, for the exact purpose of escaping such inconvenient problems as “falsification” of your claims?
Specifically not doing real science allows ipcc Climate Scientists to keep their own CO2=CAGW Propaganda Operation’s Conspiracy Theory going in spite of its confrontations with the real world, where their statements simply don’t apply as to what is objectively the case, i.e., they are linguistically and scientificallly meaningless.
For god’s sake and the children’s, snap out of it, John! You are enabling – not quite Hansen’s “destruction of creation” – but at least the propagandistic perpetration of crimes against Humanity!
Stephen Wilde says:
June 2, 2011 at 2:00 am
You may actually be getting into a mechanism that “turns on and off” the glacials and interglacials. Always likening things to electronics as I am wont to do, I envisage a MOSFET. There are “gates” that turn on and off much greater effects than the gate signal itself. “Something” flips the switch when we move from an interglacial to a glacial and vice versa.
John B says:
Well said. Trying to look for cycles in phenonomon known to be non-cyclic would be an impossible task. Good luck to those that try – it’s human to try to find patterns in things by quite frustrating in this case.
Richard S Courtney says:
Again you are misusing the term “committed warming”. See previous post for the proper definition.
How do you know?
Can you please cite this evidence?
I googled, found Trenberth’s paper and quoted most of the Introduction.
Thermal inertia means that because the ocean has a lot of mass, it take a long time to warm up.
A good analogy is that the ocean is a big pot of water on a small gas fired stove. The stove is set to 280, and the water is at, say for example sake 10 degrees and at equilibrium state, meaning the heat going in currently matches the heat going out.
Now turn the stove from 280 to 390. The water will eventually rise from 10 degrees and settle at a new equilibrium state of 12 degrees (for example sake), but it doesn’t do that instantaneously. It takes time.
So too the ocean takes time to warm up to a new forcing, even if we stop emitting CO2, the current level will stay there for many years (akin to keeping the stove at 390).
Whilst the CO2 remains, the ocean will continue to warm until the new thermal equilibrium is reached. That is “committed warming”.
The answer is “(b) “the oceans and ice sheets” get warmed by the air warmed by the GHE”
In addition to that, the ocean is obviously not all exactly the same temperature. There are spots both colder and warmer than average. As you point out there may be additional heat that has been transferred deeper into the ocean where little monitoring is performed. This is warming already performed.
Thanks Tallbloke.
On the link to your own blogsite, you say “Downwelling longwave radiation from greenhouse gases (mostly water vapour, plus co2) can’t penetrate the ocean surface beyond it’s own wavelength. This is well known physics. But the assumption has been that the warming of the surface by this longwave ‘back radiation’ is ‘mixed down’ into the ocean. This is incorrect. ”
So, it looks like I’m just parroting the “incorrect” assumption as per “well known physics”, but you prove it wrong. So it looks like its not only climate scince that’s BS, but some of physics too. Wow! I had no idea that so much of science was is such a state.
You then go on to say, “However, I’ve done the calcs … This isn’t going to make a big enough difference to account for the amount that the ocean warmed from 1980 to 2003.” And then conclude “Late C20th Global warming was caused predominantly by the Sun, not human emitted co2”. So, it was the Sun. Not CO2, but also not cosmic rays, volcanoes, or anything else.
And you make a testable prediction, “The current small recovery in temperature following La Nina will be short lived, and global surface temperature will fall again, dropping to below January 2008 levels sometime in the next 6-10 months. …” but, “If the prediction fails, it isn’t a fatal blow to my hypothesis … ” Now I’m pretty sure I’ve heard AGW being accused of that sort of thing, but I guess it depends who is making the claim.
What do the rest of you think about Tallbloke’s alternate hypothesis?
Richard S Courtney says:
June 2, 2011 at 5:55 am
Tallbloke:
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2010/12/20/working-out-where-the-energy-goes-part-2-peter-berenyi/
Thankyou for that link. It is an excellent summary of the ‘ocean heat’ issue that I had not seen before.
As you say;
“No ‘missing heat’, just a duff theory.”
Richard, you are very welcome. Happy to help. I’m convinced Peter Berenyi has nailed it. Please post the link around elsewhere.
Cheers
Rog
@JPeden,
Roger Pielke jr. would appear not to agree with you. He seems to think that IPCC claims are falsifiable. He engages in a conversation with “lucia” about how much data, showing how much cooling (or non-warming) would be required to do that. This is real skepticism, not just “make stuff up and call people names”.
John
John B says:
June 2, 2011 at 4:47 pm
Roger Pielke jr. would appear not to agree with you. He seems to think that IPCC claims are falsifiable.
Of course CO2=CAGW is falsifiable! I’m instead saying that its proponents simply will not let it be falsifiable or falsified in practice, which makes the ipcc Climate Scientists’ “theory” not a scientific theory. It’s Dogma, at best, and critical to the Propaganda Op. which CO2=CAGW Climate Science is, because it appears to be a real scientific theory.
Just because an apparent statement has the form of a factual statement, this does not mean that its author treats the statement as though it is factual. Climate Science is not real science. If it had the same stated or implied words put together as hypotheses which attend to, roughly, “CO2=CAGW”, and acted like real science, including allowing its stated hypotheses to be seriously challenged and falsified, it would be real science, but it doesn’t.
tallbloke says:
Can you explain why you think the penetrated longwave radiation doesn’t reduce the amount of cooling from the ocean to the atmosphere? I would have thought the radiation loss to the surface of the ocean depends upon the temperature of the two bodies; that the heat flow is dependant upon the temperature of the surface and the temperature of the molecules below the surface.
Not really, there is a leap from “This is incorrect.” to “I’ve done the calcs” and no real explanation for why. I am still new to this so please bear with me, as I see it, if you’re getting more longwave radiation penetrating the surface of the ocean, then it really doesn’t matter how high/low the CO2 is, additional energy is getting in.
I am missing your understanding of how a thicker (higher) blanket of CO2 cannot produce greater warmth in the ocean.
Are you able to provide an explanation of this and your numbers that you calculated.
Thanks,
Walter.
This item was fun. I found the exact same article on my local paper for the same date January 1 1979.
JPeden said: “Of course CO2=CAGW is falsifiable! I’m instead saying that its proponents simply will not let it be falsifiable or falsified in practice, which makes the ipcc Climate Scientists’ “theory” not a scientific theory. It’s Dogma, at best, and critical to the Propaganda Op. which CO2=CAGW Climate Science is, because it appears to be a real scientific theory.”
So falsify it! But please don’t try and argue that simply saying “oh no it doesn’t” or pointing at a picture counts as falsification. Pielke and Lucia are clearly aware of this. So is Lindzen, which is why he quoted a research paper when he said “Recent work (Tsonis et al, 2007), suggests that this variability is enough to account for all climate change since the 19th Century.” (linked by Smokey on another thread) That would be falsification, if it held up to scrutiny. The problem for Lindzen was that the Tsonis paper does not support that claim. It actually concludes:
“The standard explanation for the post 1970s warming is that the radiative effect of greenhouse gases overcame shortwave reflection effects due to aerosols [Mann and Emanuel, 2006]. However, comparison of the 2035 event in the 21st century simulation and the 1910s event in the observations with this event, suggests an alternative hypothesis, namely that the climate shifted after the 1970s event to a different state of a warmer climate, which may be superimposed on an anthropogenic warming trend.”
You can call Tsonis et al “clowns”, as Smokey did on another thread, but that doesn’t help Lindzen.
AGW is falsifiable, whether the IPCC admit it or not. Just go do it. The guy that proves we don’t need to reduce carbon emissions will be a dead cert for a Nobel prize!
John B,
Thanx for all your novice comments. They help to keep traffic high here at the internet’s “Best Science” site. But really, when you post nonsense like: “However, comparison of the 2035 event in the 21st century simulation and the 1910s event in the observations with this event, suggests…”, you are appealing to the false authority of a computer modeler. Speculating about a simulation for 2035 is just more computer model nonsense. But I guess when models are all you’ve got, that’s the hand you’re forced to play. Meanwhile, the disconnect between CO2 and temperature continues to get wider, to the consternation of Algore’s sycophants.
You have admitted before that you are far from up to speed. If Prof Lindzen [or Tsonis] says he made a mistake, then I’ll agree with you. But they haven’t, and you’re hanging onto a minor quibble like a drowning man clings to a popsicle stick. After 600,000+ reader comments, you’re the only one who cares. Better get another sock puppet to support you on that issue. And face the fact that the planet itself is falsifying the failed CO2 conjecture, and that other temperature correlations do a much better job than CO2.
Your CO2=CAGW conjecture has been falsified [whether you accept it or not] by Planet Earth – the ultimate authority. So, do we believe what the planet is saying? Or do we accept the anti-science fixation of evidence-free lunatic believers in their debunked runaway global warming fantasy? Me, I go with planet earth.
Tallbloke:
Please try not to be dragged in to a discussion of the GHE with John B.
Some people who know and/or understand little contribute to discussion with a view to learning, but the likes of John B contribute with a clear intent to obfuscate any debate.
I made the error of attempting rational debate with him/her/them on another thread. John B ‘homes in’ on a side-issue then ignores all evidence and logic but makes assertions and demands that prevent rational debate of the main point of a thread.
Richard
Smokey, you said, “you are appealing to the false authority of a computer modeler”. But it wasn’t ,b>me appealing to that authority, false or otherwise, it was Lindzen. And you are appealing to Lindzen’s authority. Irony piled upon irony.
Then you said, “Or do we accept the anti-science fixation of evidence-free lunatic believers in their debunked runaway global warming fantasy?” All you have to do is substantiate that claim and you’ve won. You’ll save the world from the costs of reducing carbon emissions and bag yourself a Nobel prize along the way. That is what a true skeptic would be trying to do.
I’m off on my holidays. See you in a week or so.
John
Richard S Courtney says:
“John B ‘homes in’ on a side-issue then ignores all evidence and logic but makes assertions and demands that prevent rational debate of the main point of a thread.”
Exactly right.
Appealing to a legitimate authority is not a false argument. John B should look it up. Prof Lindzen, whom he hates and fears, is the world’s preeminent climate authority. Dr Lindzen heads the atmospheric sciences department at MIT – arguably the finest engineering school on the planet.
If John B had any evidence of global damage due to CO2, he would have posted it by now. He tried once, but that pathetic attempt was easily debunked, since computer models are not evidence. So now he tries to re-frame the debate onto peripheral quibbles. He needs to admit that he’s decisively lost the CO2=CAGW argument [if not… where is the global damage?], so he’s finally reduced to nit-picking. Jon B reeks of desperation, but he keeps digging his hole deeper. Typical for the alarmist crowd, which wouldn’t understand the scientific method or skepticism if it bit ’em on the butt.
Not only is that LOL funny, but it is about the best description I have ever heard for the increasingly common tactic of inane nitpicking by the climate cult groupies.
Clearly they are like turds circling the drain.
Walter:
I write to state that I am refusing further discussion with you and to explain that decision.
I have concluded that your intent is deliberate deflection of debate onto trivia as a method to prevent rational debate of the subject of the thread which – I remind – in this case is climate cycles.
A clear example of why I have reached this conclusion is provided by your most recent post (at June 2, 2011 at 4:21 pm) to me.
It quotes me saying;
“The energy is supposed to be “going” into the oceans to induce “committed warming”.
…
But it is not in the oceans ..”
Then asks me:
“How do you know?”
But I had recently answered that at June 1, 2011 at 10:53 am where I wrote:
“So, my post explained that the “committed warming” is heat that has gone into the oceans but seems to have vanished (my post cited one of several pieces of evidence that it has vanished, but others include ocean cooling and reduction to ocean expansion). ”
Clearly, your intention is to argue in cycles as a method to inhibit discussion of climate cycles.
Richard
Walter says:
June 2, 2011 at 9:03 pm
tallbloke says:
No. Downwelling longwave can’t penetrate the ocean surface by more than its own wavelength. The GHE works by raising the altitude at which radiation to space occurs.
Can you explain why you think the penetrated longwave radiation doesn’t reduce the amount of cooling from the ocean to the atmosphere? I would have thought the radiation loss to the surface of the ocean depends upon the temperature of the two bodies; that the heat flow is dependant upon the temperature of the surface and the temperature of the molecules below the surface.
Keeping it simple, all the longwave the ocean radiates goes into the atmosphere, whereas a significant proportion of the downwelling longwave is reflected straight back into the atmosphere (incident angle). Also, because the longwave can’t penetrate more than it’s own wavelength into the ocean, a relatively large amount of energy is being concentrated into a very thin layer. This will cause prompt evaporation of some molecules of water, which lowers the temperature of the surface through the absorption of energy from surrounding molecules and the longwave radiation as the evaporating molecules must acquire the latent heat of evaporation. More energy leaves the ocean in convection and evaporation than by radiation.
Rather than getting hung up on impossible to resolve arguments about ‘skin temperature’ and the ease or difficulty with which subsurface oceanic energy gets out, it is wiser to simply consider the flux across the boundary at short distances above and below the surface. That flux is around 65W/m^2 from ocean to air.
Although considered in vacuuo the radiative balance between ocean and atmosphere seems simple, it isn’t, because evaporation and convection effects are intermingled with the radiative effects. I have no problem accepting that a thickening of the atmosphere which entails an increase in the altitude at which it radiates to space will cause the ocean to cool more slowly. My contention is that this effect is nowhere near sufficient to explain the increase in ocean heat content in the late C20th, partly because the effect of increased back radiation on the ocean surface isn’t as big as the current wisdom thinks it is.
Then there are the other issues affecting the height at which radiation to space takes place at. The Sun going quiet seems to have caused the shrinking of the thermosphere by 30%. What effect does that have on the TOA balance?
Diminishing solar activity levels correlate with diminishing upper atmosphere specific humidity. What effect does that have? A bigger opposite sign effect than an increase in the atmospheric concentration of co2 from ~o.o28% to 0.039% I’ll should think, given the billions of tons of water in the atmosphere.
Over to you.
Bob B says: June 1, 2011 at 6-15 am.
I am looking for some basic calculations re reduction of global surface temperature.
Hi Bob,
A paper “Surface reflectance and conversion efficiency dependence of technologies for mitigating global warming” http://www.solartran.com.au/RENE3976.pdf
is a bit technical but has some simple diagrams which may be useful.
Tallbloke:
We seem to have been side-tracked onto discussion of sea surface energy interactions.
Sadly, I have failed to resist the temptation to join in the side-track because I spent the three years (i.e. 2000 to 2003) living on a boat while attempting to quantify energy interactions at sea surface.
Nobody knows what really happens in a quantifiable fashion.
My study was confounded by an effect of humidity that it discovered. This effect was as follows.
Ripples are structurally different from waves and exist on water surface including the surface of waves. They travel across water surface, and they have cross-section approximating a sine wave so they have peaks and troughs. I discovered that a cylinder of air (which I called a ‘tube’) rolls along in each trough. This ‘tube’ is in intimate contact with the water surface so becomes moisture saturated. This saturation affects evaporation from water surface into each ‘tube’ that fills each trough of each ripple. And the troughs total nearly half of ocean surface. Thus, the ‘tubes’ affect energy loss by evaporation from about half of total ocean surface.
The effect of the ‘tubes’ is complex.
The degree of the tubes’ effect depends on the average lifetime of a ripple: if ripples are short-lived then the effect will be small but if they are long-lived the effect will be large (because the degree of their average saturation depends upon their average lifetime). But the average lifetime of ripples is not known and it varies with sea state.
Energy loss by evaporation is a major source of heat loss from ocean surface. My discovery of the ‘tubes’ prevented me quantifying the various heat exchange mechanisms at sea surface.
I provided a Report for the project’s sponsor and it includes a suite of different models I devised that could each be justified according to available data, but they gave such differing predictions of ‘sea surface energy interactions’ that the models were useless (choose your model and you could get an indication of almost anything you wanted to assert).
The work was a commercial contract and the Report has commercial confidentiality so I cannot cite it and my several requests to publish it in the public domain have been refused. I regret this because I have selfish reasons to want the work published in the public domain.
However, none of this alters your statements in your excellent post at June 3, 2011 at 4:14 am . Indeed, it emphasises your point that the issues are not simple.
And I apologise if this feeds the trolls who keep trying to side-track this thread.
Richard
Richard S Courtney says:
Sorry you seem to be mixed up. I checked, the only link in your post is http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch9s9-2-2.html and it says nothing about wether the heat in the oceans has “vanished”.
You were the one that strayed away from cycles and onto ocean heat. Since then you’ve been incorrect about the term “comitted warming”, Trenberths use of the word “Travesty” and about knowing whether or not the heat remains somewhere in the ocean.
I understand completely.
Walter:
You say;
“I understand completely.”
Assuming that is correct, it gives me great pleasure to congatulate you on what seems to be a ‘first’ for you.
Richard
Walter,
I’m starting to figure out how Smokey and Richard work. They make bold claim “X”, and cite “Y” and “Z” as evidence. You point out that they are mistaken about “Z”, which calls into question their conclusion. They then say, “but I was talking about X, why are you nit-picking about a sideline?”
There has to be a name for this approach. Any suggestions?
Really must go now.
John
tallbloke says:
Firstly, thanks for taking the time to respond. I am genuinely interested, although sceptical of all ideas put forward in forums. 😉
I take it then you don’t accept this version of the Earth’s energy budget?
http://www.windows2universe.org/earth/climate/warming_clouds_albedo_feedback.html (half way down – Global Heat Flows)
Also, with regards to “significant proportion of the downwelling longwave is reflected”, I thought longwave radiation is only reflected by a few materials (such as Aluminium, Gold). Do you have more information on this?
OK, I’m a bit lost here (and yes it’s most likely my brain rather than your explanation) but if the flux is 65W/m^2 from ocean to air, then are you saying the ocean is always losing heat to the air? I would have thought the heat flux, assuming a equilibrium state, would be zero. If that were the case wouldn’t we be seeing thermal contraction rather than expansion?
Great! It’s nice to have some common ground. 😉
This is news to me, and as such the sceptic side of me comes out. Do you have information on this. Sorry to be asking so many questions, but it is nice to get answers. Like any scientist, if a theory is to stand, it must undergo scrutiny.
Sorry I have no idea. I can ask the tricky questions but you are better equipped to answer I think.
I’m guessing that depends on how great the humidity is affected. But hasn’t the solar activity diminished over the past 30 odd years whilst temps continue to climb?
John B says:
June 3, 2011 at 12:22 am
JPeden said: “Of course CO2=CAGW is falsifiable! I’m instead saying that its proponents simply will not let it be falsifiable or falsified in practice, which makes the ipcc Climate Scientists’ “theory” not a scientific theory. It’s Dogma, at best, and critical to the Propaganda Op. which CO2=CAGW Climate Science is, because it appears to be a real scientific theory.”
So falsify it!
Certainly by now, I don’t see any need to even assert it!
Btw, you really fell into that one, John, the predictability of CO2=CAGW Cultists and Propagandists being what it is and all…Did you notice that you simply provided another example which supported my hypothesis about CO2=CAGW “science”?
– By now, “We’re all Chinese!”….rational, wise, and underdeveloped!
John B:
“I’m starting to figure out how Smokey and Richard work. They make bold claim “X”, and cite “Y” and “Z” as evidence. You point out that they are mistaken about “Z”, which calls into question their conclusion. They then say, “but I was talking about X, why are you nit-picking about a sideline?”
There has to be a name for this approach. Any suggestions?”
I cannot give a name to what you assert is “how Smokey and Richard work” but there are several for your assertion. The following are a few.
Lie, falsehood, misrepresentation, defamation.
Richard
John B says:
June 3, 2011 at 12:22 am
The guy that proves we don’t need to reduce carbon emissions will be a dead cert for a Nobel prize!
Well, then chalk up another one [at least!] for Gore and ipcc Climate Science! Wow, after all of that gov’t funded “science”, etc., they’ve proven that even they can’t make a truly scientific case for CO2=CAGW, while also very generously stimulating the scrutiny and [negative] scientific feedback helping to show that “climate change” remains natural, as per usual, and that a confirming and skeptical Peer Review as actually construed by real, scientific method and principle, science works!
But they’ve likewise also managed to help quell the psycho-deranged, anti-evolutionary, Totalitarian drive for Post Normal Science where “perception is reality” and “might makes right”, so their additional efforts towards freeing the World from its anti-individual slavery – with its commensurate “equality” and “sustainability” – should also not go unrewarded!
Of course, if any doubt remains about the validity of ipcc Climate Science’s CO2=CAGW “theory” and “method”, my services are still available, and at a very reasonable price, to have scientists “prove” that the burning of fossil fuel to produce energy will necessarily eventuate in the closest thing to Heaven on Earth possible! Even for Polar Bears!
John B says:
Avoidalism? Ignoralism? Dummyspitalism? Desperatalism? Idunnoism?
It does make it difficult to sort out the true sceptics from those just wishing to confuse people.
Walter,
I’ve got a thicker skin than that. And it does appear that I’m confusing you. Here, let me help:
Scientific skeptics have nothing to prove. It is the promoters of the repeatedly falsified CO2=CAGW conjecture who have the onus of showing – primarily through empirical evidence and accurate predictions – that their conjecture remains standing after all attempts to falsify it have failed.
But their conjecture is falsified because it can not make accurate predictions, and the real world is falsifying it.
When you don’t have the facts on your side, call names. Yeah, that’ll work.☺ Feel better now, Walter?
Smokey says:
Why not? If I made a statement saying that there is or isn’t heat somewhere, I’d expect people would want evidence to support my comment.
When Richard S Courtney states “But it is not in the ocean”, he should be prepared to show evidence to support that statement.
In this article we have a scientist making a prediction that it would get 1-2, or maybe 3-4 degrees cooler. It may well do if the IPCC science is wrong. So far, the data we have does not show anything near that kind of cooling.
I’m sorry Richard S Courtney has sore feelings, but to go off and sulk is pretty childish behaviour. When I get corrected, I have no problem admitting I was wrong. To do so means I get to learn something new.
Graphs without explanations does not make for good science but I’ll take a guess that you’re expecting CO2 levels to match temperature over a time period of 8 years. This seems to be a strawman argument because I can’t see any climate scientists, from the IPCC or otherwise, suggesting that there should be such a link over such a short time period.
The obvious problems with your analysis (that I can think of):
1. You’ve assumed all changes to surface temps are due to CO2.
2. You’ve assumed the radiative force from CO2 will immediately come into equilibrium.
3. You ignore known causes of surface temperature changes and hence you do not compensate for their effect.
Walter:
I am not sulking.
I have stated the evidence repeatedly. It is:
1.
The ‘committed heat’ has not cause the temperature rise the IPCC predicted that it must (i.e. the ‘committed heat’ has vanished).
2.
The oceans are cooling so the ‘commited heat’ is not in them (i.e. the ‘committed heat’ has vanished).
3.
Ocean expansion has reduced (i.e. the ‘committed heat’ has vanished).
You have not challenged any of this evience; indeed, it is irrefutable.
Instead, you keep refusing to face the evidence and you go round in circles while making false allegations.
I have done with you. That is NOT sulking. It is disdain.
Richard
Walter,
Since you’re fixated on 8 years, here is a chart that provides much closer corellation to temperature over a much longer time frame.
True belief is a funny thing, it makes you see things that just aren’t there, like a connection between rising CO2 and rising temperature. But as most of us here know, CO2 follows temperature on all time scales, from 5 months to hundreds of thousands of years.
Further, the biosphere is currently starved of harmless, beneficial CO2. More CO2 is good. Much more CO2 is better.
Those are facts, which all true believers will reject because of their cognitive dissonance. But undecided folks reading this and clicking the links will see that the “carbon” scare is simply trumped-up pseudo-science. That’s the value of the “Best Science” site: both sides post their facts and opinions uncensored, and the thousands of daily readers then make up their minds. That’s why the silly runaway global warming fantasy is running into rough sledding. There’s no evidence for it. It was just a scare tactic all along.
Richard S Courtney says:
Writing a sentence is not the same as producing evidence. All you continue to do is say that you are right, without reference to any links to scientific evidence to support your statement.
Again you misuse this term. As mentioned this earlier when I linked to the IPCC’s explanation for the term.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/06/01/old-prediction-may-fit-the-present-pattern/#comment-672395
You may like making up your own definitions, but it would help further discussion if you could stick with the generally accepted one.
Now again you SAY the oceans are cooling, but you haven’t provided ANY evidence to support this.
The ocean would need to contract in order to support your claim that it has lost heat.
Perhaps I should adopt your logic. I AM A BILLIONAIRE!! Nope, didn’t work.
Please supply evidence in your next post.
Disdain, without evidence. 😉
Smokey says:
I said 8 years because that’s what you were showing in your graph. No fixation on short term cherry picked periods on my behalf. 😉
Great, but you’re still flogging a strawman argument. You still fail to account for all other forces, or understand that a direct relationship is not what climate scientists would expect.
Can you please support your claim with evidence? I’d be particularly interested in how more CO2 is better for the oceans and what “science” you have that dismisses the acidification effect.
Walter:
I offer you some kindly advice.
You should give up. An effective troll disrupts debate. This debate has ended so at this stage there is no point to your introduction of pseudoscientific nonsense such as the putative ocean ‘acidification’.
So, give up. You have lost every argument and impartial observers can see you lost them. You cannot retrieve this situation by trying to start another irrelevant argument.
Richard
Richard S Courtney says:
The debate ended? Well then it did so without you providing evidence to defend your claims.
As for ocean acidification, the “science” would disagree with you.
http://scholar.google.com.au/scholar?hl=en&pq=punitive&xhr=t&q=ocean+acidification
Smokey’s claim that more CO2 is better is easily countered by looking at the effects it has on the ocean, without complicated discussions on how greenhouses gases work.
As for your calling me a Troll, that’s a laugh! Repeatedly I have wanted to engage further into the discussion and if they are off topic, it is only because tohers had led the discussion there.
Time and time again you fail to present evidence to support your argument whereas I have when I demonstrated how your use of the term “committed warming” and “Travesty” were incorrect.
So please, in your next post supply EVIDENCE to defend your previous claims rather than just repeating a claim of victory.
Walter says:
“Smokey’s claim that more CO2 is better is easily countered by looking at the effects it has on the ocean, without complicated discussions on how greenhouses gases work.”
I refer Walter to these articles, which thoroughly deconstruct the seawater pH scare:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/06/19/the-electric-oceanic-acid-test
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/01/10/ocean-acidification-chicken-of-the-sea-little-strikes-again
Walter also says [to RSC]: “So please, in your next post supply EVIDENCE to defend your previous claims…”
There is plenty of empirical evidence presented in those articles and in the following comments. More CO2 is better for the biosphere, including the oceans. Even quadrupling atmospheric CO2 would not significantly lower pH, due to the almost infinite buffering capacity from calcium compounds. The whole ocean pH scare is just more baseless alarmism, as those articles and comments show.
Walter wants evidence, he gets loads of evidence. But when we ask for evidence of global harm due to “carbon”… *crickets*
Walter says:
June 3, 2011 at 6:40 am
I take it then you don’t accept this version of the Earth’s energy budget?
http://www.windows2universe.org/earth/climate/warming_clouds_albedo_feedback.html (half way down – Global Heat Flows)
The guy who constucted that cartoon (Kevin Tenberth) doesn’t accept it any more, so why should I? He knows that his ‘missing heat’ means it is wrong. Miskolczi and Zagoni say his atmospheric window is too small.
Also, with regards to “significant proportion of the downwelling longwave is reflected”, I thought longwave radiation is only reflected by a few materials (such as Aluminium, Gold). Do you have more information on this?
Reflectivity depends on emissivity (about 0.983 for water), trying to find out how much the angle of incidence affects reflection isn’t easy, because all the papers I can find discuss the downwelling longwave as ‘diffuse’ and seem to just assume that only the reflectivity due to emissivity needs to be accounted for. Incoming shortwave from the Sun certainly is affected by angle of incidence, so I’d like to know at what wavelength ‘it doesn’t matter’ any more.
OK, I’m a bit lost here (and yes it’s most likely my brain rather than your explanation) but if the flux is 65W/m^2 from ocean to air, then are you saying the ocean is always losing heat to the air? I would have thought the heat flux, assuming a equilibrium state, would be zero. If that were the case wouldn’t we be seeing thermal contraction rather than expansion?
We were discussing the longwave flux, not the overall heat flux. According to the Kiehl-Ternberth cartoon, the difference between downwelling and ocean emitted longwave is ~65W/m^2. There are measurement problems.
My contention is that this effect is nowhere near sufficient to explain the increase in ocean heat content in the late C20th, partly because the effect of increased back radiation on the ocean surface isn’t as big as the current wisdom thinks it is.
This is news to me, and as such the sceptic side of me comes out. Do you have information on this. Sorry to be asking so many questions, but it is nice to get answers. Like any scientist, if a theory is to stand, it must undergo scrutiny.
I will get around to presenting my calcs on my blog. Part of the reason for the unrealistic splice in the OHC data between XBT and ARGO at 2003 is due to unrealistic numbers before 2003, which I think were calibrated to the theoretical co2 forcing and failed to account for extra insolation due to reduced tropical cloud cover.
Diminishing solar activity levels correlate with diminishing upper atmosphere specific humidity. What effect does that have? A bigger opposite sign effect than an increase in the atmospheric concentration of co2 from ~o.o28% to 0.039% I’ll should think, given the billions of tons of water in the atmosphere.
I’m guessing that depends on how great the humidity is affected. But hasn’t the solar activity diminished over the past 30 odd years whilst temps continue to climb?
Yes, but not as much as previously thought if Dr Leif Svalgaard is correct about the overcounting of sunspots during the Waldmeier era. I think he is correct, because I have supporting evidence for his contention from another dataset independent of his (different physical basis). Also, just because the peak amplitudes dropped doesn’t mean overall levels of solar activity dropped. The solar cycles in the late C20th had shorter than average minima between them, and the upramps and downramps of the cycles were very steep. The average sunspot number stayed much higher than the longterm average for several decades. Also, if my hypothesis is correct, the equilibrium value for the ocean was exceeded during the 1934-2005 period, so the oceans were accumulating solar heat even as the cycle amplitudes fell slightly.
Walter:
OK. To stop your false accusations that I have not provided “evidence”, I cite the following.
I said;
1.
The ‘committed heat’ has not cause the temperature rise the IPCC predicted that it must (i.e. the ‘committed heat’ has vanished).
I fully explained this with a reference, a quotation and a link above at June 1, 2011 at 8:43 am .
The explanation begins by saying;
“Section 10.7.1 titled ‘Climate Change Commitment to Year 2300 Based on AOGCMs’
in the Report from WG1 (i.e. the “science” Working Group) of the most recent IPCC Report (AR4) can be read at
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch10s10-7.html
It says:
“The multi-model average …”
Etc.
I said;
2.
The oceans are cooling so the ‘commited heat’ is not in them (i.e. the ‘committed heat’ has vanished).
At June 2, 2011 at 5:37 am Tallbloke provided a full explanation of the ARGO data. That explanation clearly shows the oceans are cooling in recent years and provides an explanation for the “adjustment” needed to make those direct measurements agree with earlier measurements .
I said I agreed with the contents of his link when I replied at June 2, 2011 at 5:55 am. That statement of agreement is my presenting the evidence for o’ocean cooling’ you say I have not.
I said;
3. “Ocean expansion has reduced (i.e. the ‘committed heat’ has vanished).”
You responded with the fatuous comment that ;
“The ocean would need to contract in order to support your claim that it has lost heat.”
Firstly, I made no such claim: I said the additional heat of “committed warming” is not in the oceans. Do you really think I am sufficiently stupid as to debate a ‘straw man’ presented by a troll? I assure you that I am not.
Anyway, the oceans have had a fall in sea level since 2004; see
http://www.argo.ucsd.edu/global_change_analysis.html
I only make this post to overcome your ‘big lie’ technique of repeating a lie in hope that observers will believe it.
You have been given evidence but have ignored it and you have repeatedly claimed you did not have it.
Go away. You are a nuisance.
Richard
Richard,
How many more times do we need to explain it to you? “Committed warming” means warming that has yet to happen, due to already accumuluated CO2. Tenberth’s “missing heat” is an inablity to trace warming that is supposed to have already happened. Even if Trenberth’s heat really isn’t there, the two concepts are unrelated. This is explained in mainstream texts and has been linked to several times here. You need to clear up your misunderstanding, then we can discuss the issue of the admitted near flatlining of temperatures over the last few years.
John (Yes, me again. Just having a quick look from vacation)
John B:
I have repeatedly explained the matter above. The fact that you do not understand it is not my problem.
Your problems are:
1.
You need to explain why the “committed warming” has not resulted in the predicted temperature rises if – as you claim – ” “Committed warming” means warming that has yet to happen, due to already accumuluated CO2.”
I say that lack of warming shows the “committed warming” has vanished: it has.
And
2.
You need to explain how that “committed warming” has not gone into the oceans: it has not and Trenberth says this is “a travesty”.
Enjoy your holiday and stop posting nonsense which prevents others enjoyment of the present interglacial.
Richard
John B says:
June 5, 2011 at 7:46 am
Richard,
How many more times do we need to explain it to you? “Committed warming” means warming that has yet to happen, due to already accumuluated CO2. Tenberth’s “missing heat” is an inablity to trace warming that is supposed to have already happened. Even if Trenberth’s heat really isn’t there, the two concepts are unrelated.
They are related. They both depend on an unrealistic water vapour feedback which is unobserved, unphysical, and UNfulfilled.
Tallbloke:
Yes, of course you are right when you say of “Committed warming” and Tenberth’s “missing heat”;
“They are related. They both depend on an unrealistic water vapour feedback which is unobserved, unphysical, and UNfulfilled.”
But there is a more fundamental relationship.
The AGW hypothesis says increased atmospheric GHG concentration increases IR back radiation to the surface. The hypothesis asserts that this back radiation causes surface warming which has two effects; viz.
1.
The warmed surface warms the air
and
2.
The warmed ocean surface warms the oceans.
Point 1 is an almost instantaneous effect (the GH effect occurs at the speed of light). Hence, it cannot contribute to “committed warming” from one year to subsequent years.
I agree with you that Point 2 is probably wrong and is certainly overstated, but here I am considering the IPCC version of what they think is reality.
The ocean warming of Point 2 establishes a new thermal equilibrium between air and ocean. There is a lag (of several years) to obtain this equilibrium because net energy (from back radiation) is absorbed in the oceans until equilibrium is achieved. Upon achievement of the equilibrium then the air temperature is raised and, importantly, the air/and oceans obtain zero net energy exchange as a result of the increased atmospheric GHG concentration.
So, until equilibrium is achieved the oceans absorb more energy from the air and this is why there is “committed warming”. When equilibrium is achieved then the oceans continue to absorb more energy but they also emit more energy back to the air: in other words, “committed warming” is increase to energy from the oceans in response to previous IR back radiation to the surface.
Simplisticly, “committed warming” is heat of the IR back radiation to the surface that is stored in the ocean until it is later released to the air.
Trenberth’s “missing heat” equates to missing “committed warming” and, therefore,
it is not surprising that the “committed warming” has vanished when Trenberth’s “missing heat” exists: they are the same thing.
Richard
Richard,
excellent and clear analysis as always, thankyou. The issue has been discussed extensively on my blog, and this one will run and run. Stephen Wilde has a new post up there which posits physical reasons why the back radiation isn’t going to heat the oceans, all input welcome. I think it is an interesting argument he has put forward, and welcome expert opinion on it.
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2011/06/05/stephen-wilde-the-setting-and-maintaining-of-earth%E2%80%99s-equilibrium-temperature/
If the air had been heating the ocean and getting the ocean to heat the air more, wouldn’t the rate of heat loss to space have been observably increasing? There agin, given the uncertainty of TOA observations, being three times the claimed signal, I suppose not.
Peter Berenyi’s analysis on my blog which you liked shows it is likely the TOA balance went negative in the last six years. The question is: Is this an indication of a lack of ‘committed warming’ from co2, or the result of lowering the height of radiation to space or reduced humidity in the upper atmosphere due to low solar activity? (shrinking of thermosphere and correlation of 300mb specific humidity to solar activity levels).
Either way, the AGW proponents are caught between a rock and a hard place, because even if it is the latter, natural variation is stronger then they have concluded, and that means less of an effect from co2 than they have claimed.
The sooner they recognise this, the more quickly we can escape from rhetoric at loggerheads, and return to realistic scientific debate.
Indeed, the global mean temperature pattern is cyclic with a slight overall warming of 0.6 deg C per decade:
http://bit.ly/cO94in
ELEMENTARY ARGUMENT AGAINST AGW.
Here is the global mean temperature anomaly (GMTA) for the last 130 years.
http://bit.ly/iUqG8I
Let us define two periods:
Period 1=> 1880 to 1940
Period 2=> 1940 to 2000
From the above graph, the approximate increase in GMTA in the two periods:
Period 1=> 0.4 deg C
Period 2=> 0.4 deg C.
From the above result, the rate of change of GMTA for the 60-years period before and after 1940 are nearly identical.
Girma says:
June 6, 2011 at 2:44 am (Edit)
Indeed, the global mean temperature pattern is cyclic with a slight overall warming of 0.6 deg C per decade:
http://bit.ly/cO94in
ITYM 0.06C/decade
Richard, “Simplisticly, “committed warming” is heat of the IR back radiation to the surface that is stored in the ocean until it is later released to the air.”
Nope, that is not it. Another subject you are confused about and become hostile when others try to explain it to you. Thank you though. You are helping me come to a fuller understanding of why people are “skeptics”.
Tallbloke:
Thankyou very much for the link you provide at June 6, 2011 at 12:03 am to the article by Stephen Wilde on your blog.
I especially liked the statement from you in the comments which said:
“So Stephen’s way of separating these top down and bottom up influences is the sensible, pragmatic way to go for now.”
I agree. Oh, how I agree! And I commend the article by Stephen Wilde that your link provides to everybody: it contains much food for thought.
Richard
PS Moderators, if you are reading this then I commend copying the article in Tallbloke’s link as an item for WUWT.
Smokey says:
Firstly, articles aren’t a very good substitute for peer-reviewed science. They may contain all kinds of poor science whereas peer-reviewed science is less likely to do so.
So what exactly from this article do you claim deconstructs ocean acidification? The peer-reviewed science it refers to says in the abstract http://www.agu.org/journals/gl/gl1002/2009GL040999/ “Global ocean acidification is a prominent, inexorable change associated with rising levels of atmospheric CO2. …. Future mixed layer changes can be expected to closely mirror changes in atmospheric CO2, with surface seawater pH continuing to fall as atmospheric CO2 rises.”
This report is evidence supporting ocean acidification.
You’ll need to be more specific about your claim that debunks acidification.
Again I start to examine this article but it falls apart under scrutiny.
Your article says:
So what does Orr et al., 2005 say:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v437/n7059/full/nature04095.html
Whoops, doesn’t support your argument one bit. Perhaps you need to be more selective about what science you wish to quote rather than listing a couple of articles.
I scroll a little further in your article to this:
Looks like real science for once, I think to myself, let’s look closer.
Well, it’s about Phytoplankton, not the entire biosphere as you claim. Not even all Phytoplankton, just one species, Emiliania huxleyi, grown i a lab.
Not impressed by your evidence so far, but let’s continue anyway. The conclusions seems opposite to what most science has found, what possible reasons could that be? Is all other science on acidification wrong and this one right? Possibly, I admit, but taking a quick look at the “Responses to this article” section is all that is needed to see how science panned out.
A response by Thomas J. Goreau says
The original authors do not contend this point saying “Consequently, we agree that an important further step will be to assess the role played by nutrient limitation (iron, nitrate, phosphate) in influencing the phytoplankton physiological response to elevated CO2 levels.”.
So you say, but when we actually start looking at the evidence, as I have done above, then it doesn’t help your claim that “More CO2 is better for the biosphere, including the oceans.”.
It is poor science to simply cite one paper, even worse one that represents just one species and claim that the entire planet is now safe. Worse is to ignore the large amount of science that shows that there is an ocean acidification problem.
Even looking at the previous article is enough to give numerous links to other citing papers. Here’s a few quotes from their abstracts.
These are all quotes from research citing the paper listed in your article. Not quite the picture of bliss you make it out to be.
Looks like another strawman argument to me. I’d imagine there’d be more things than just temperature influencing growth rates.
Here’s some more evidence for you to ponder.
http://e-atlas.org.au/content/declining-coral-calcification-great-barrier-reef
I already showed there was plenty of evidence to show how CO2 is harming the planet.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/06/01/old-prediction-may-fit-the-present-pattern/#comment-673866
And above I added some more. Have fun! I look forward to seeing more of your “evidence”.
sceptical:
Your response to my explanation consists of :
“Nope, that is not it.”
That is not a useful response.
Why do you think “it is not”? What do you think it is? And what error do you see in my explanation?
I enjoy discussion with those who disagree with me because I learn from it (especially when I am shown to be wrong). But I am annoyed by bigots who merely reject what I say because their prejudices rule their thoughts (e.g. see my reponses to Walter and John B above). My annoyance at you is ‘on hold’ until I see your responses to my questions.
Richard
Richard S Courtney says:
Not good enough Richard. Your citation does not support your claim.
The same thing over and over and over again without bothering to read what I have said, or you simply are unable to comprehend. I honestly cannot tell which. Either way it’s fairly certain you will continue to repeat yourself so until you address my earlier comments, I will simply direct you back to this post http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/06/01/old-prediction-may-fit-the-present-pattern/#comment-672395 .
Tallbloke’s link to ARGO data is only showing the upper 700m as depicted by the Argo floats. The ocean is on average (according to wikipedia) 3,790 metres deep!!! Your data only covers a small fraction of the entire depth. You do not measure the entire ocean. Argo float cannot go under ice so they also miss all water beneath the arctic. Guess what happens to an argo float as the water circulates – it move with it!! Amazing, yes they capture data in the same area of water over and over again.
Just like surface temperature gives us a thin slither of insight into the heat around our planet, so too the Argo data is a limited view of the ocean heat. It cannot show what the entire ocean is doing, none-the-less I think it is a great tool but it should be used in conjunction with all other evidence.
As the Argo team say: “The global Argo dataset is not yet long enough to observe global change signals.”. Richard S Courtney obviously disagrees with the people that make them!
Also, seeing how you like short term cherry picking, you may wish to take a look at what the Argo data is starting to do according to “skeptic” Bob Tisdale.
http://i51.tinypic.com/20k62yq.jpg
I think you might be sufficiently stupid enough to say contradicting things like, “the oceans are cooling” and “thermal expansion has reduced”.
No it hasn’t.
http://sealevel.colorado.edu/files/current/sl_ib_ns_global.pdf
You need to learn the difference between sea level and steric sea level.
And if yu did want to argue that it was steric sea level you meant to say, then perhaps you could even acknowledge that a second study disagrees with you, as shown in the very same graph you present, and detailed further on the very same page.
http://www.argo.ucsd.edu/global_change_analysis.html#steric
Just being skeptical of a skeptic’s “science”. 😉
Walter:
No! I am merely fed up with a troll’s behaviour.
I repeat; go away! You are a nuisance.
Richard
Walter says:
June 6, 2011 at 7:00 am
you may wish to take a look at what the Argo data is starting to do according to “skeptic” Bob Tisdale.
http://i51.tinypic.com/20k62yq.jpg
Hmmmm, ARGO data. Where can I download it unadjusted by NODC?
Guess I’ll have to use the Loehle graph for now. He was good enough to send the data on request. Unlike Josh Willis who has studiously ignored my emails.
http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/loehle_ocean-heat-content-blog-300×189.jpg
And yes Walter, I know it is data to 700m. The ocean below that level doesn’t change a lot. And yes Walter, I’m aware of the german study which wrung an infintesimal warming trend out of the 2000m data. If NODC can manage it with the 700m data, why not?
But it’s desperate stuff. *must*save*the*hypothesis* at all costs.
What they don’t get is that energy is rising from the deep now it can get out of that increased atmospheric window and low thermosphere. It’ll keep the lower troposphere warm for a while, especially with that low level water vapour keeping the atmospheric opacity constant to please comrade Miskolczi, now that the solar correlated upper atmosphere specific humidity has diminished.
But eventually, even the most committed warmist will give up searching for the ‘missing heat’ hunting the snark and other trivial pursuits and learn to live with a failed theory.
Make it easy on yourself. Abandon it now.
Richard S Courtney, I think you would be better served to find for yourself what is meant by committed warming. Based on your previous posts, including to Walter, people trying to offer you information on these threads are met with disdain. Until you are willing to learn about what you write, there is no reason to go further than to say you are wrong. Perhaps Mr. Watts would be kind enough to write a post explaining committed warming so that you, and I imagine many more, of his loyal readers would not be so confused.
Walter says:
June 6, 2011 at 5:30 am
“We show that 10 of the 18 species studied exhibited reduced rates of net calcification and, in some cases, net dissolution under elevated pCO2. However, in seven species, net calcification increased under the intermediate and/or highest levels of pCO2, and one species showed no response at all.”
======================================================
Walter, that one came from my house, so I might be a little help with it….
The levels tested were from ~400 ppm CO2 to 2850 ppm. Only the highest level impacted calcification. Reduced rates means it slowed, but not that it stoped. No conditions were met for carbonates, and the species that lost calcium matrix also need carbon to fix calcium. No allowances were made for carbonates/buffering at all, which would occur in nature but not in the lab.
You can read more here without the paywall:
http://nvcc.edu/home/cbentley/geoblog/2009/12/variation-in-calcification-among.html
sceptical:
OK, so at June 6, 2011 at 3:25 pm you admit that you do not know what you are talking about.
You claim my explanation is somehow in error but you do not know what that error is. Well, I can enlighten you: the error you believe MUST exist (although you do not what it is) has as much reality as the “heat” which Trenbereth says is “missing”.
My annoyance is no longer on-hold.
Richard
tallbloke says:
June 5, 2011 at 1:38 am
Trenberth’s paper suggests that you are wrong.
http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/Trenberth/trenberth.papers/EnergyDiagnostics09final2.pdf
Trenberth’s homepage suggests that you are wrong.
http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/trenbert.html
Trenberth’s statement regarding the use of the Travesty term suggests that you are wrong.
http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/Trenberth/statement.html
“It stems from a paper I published this year bemoaning our inability to effectively monitor the energy flows associated with short-term climate variability. It is quite clear from the paper that I was not questioning the link between anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions and warming, or even suggesting that recent temperatures are unusual in the context of short-term natural variability.”
At least in the near infrared range there is reflectivity on water. This photo was taken with a Hoya 52mm RM72 Infrared Filter so it’s letting in a lot of light at wavelengths not absorbed by CO2.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/orangebread/246328969/lightbox/
Pretty all the same!
I would suggest that for your peer-review paper, you get some firmer science than just a guessing the angle of incidence. I expect you already consider that though reflected visible light passes back through the atmosphere and into space, by contrast reflected IR would be absorbed. I hope you already account for this in your calculations.
No doubt, unlike some people I wouldn’t jump to any conclusion about the sign (+ve/-ve) regarding measurement problems. 😉 I look forward to seeing your calculations along with your “cartoon”.
As I said before, if you wish a theory is to stand, then it must undergo scrutiny. You can’t expect people to just “trust me I did the calcs and everything I say is valid”. The sceptic alarm in me goes off when I hear this.
And if you could put it into a peer-review paper that would give it greater credibility. Is that likely to happen?
R. Gates says:
June 5, 2011 at 11:17 am
I’ve never mentioned “de-developing” anywhere in my posting. Not sure where you get this from. As far a China and India go…together they make up nearly a third of the world’s population. They’d darn well develop as they’ve got a lot of hungry mouths to feed.
Then we both agree with China and India’s decision about what is the real disease threat to the World, lack of development and not CO2; and I will agree that you are no longer scaremongering and don’t want anyone to de-develop via controlling CO2 emissions.
Peace, at last!
Walter says:
June 6, 2011 at 5:23 pm
Trenberth’s statement regarding the use of the Travesty term suggests that you are wrong.
Well, he’s not going to admit it in public, but I think in his heart he knows the jig is up.
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2011/2010JC006464.shtml
The global heat content (HC) change estimated from the temperature change rates below 3000 m was 0.8 × 10^22 J decade−1; a value that cannot be neglected for precise estimation of the global heat balance.
I may have misinterpreted their fig1 but it looks to me like there is an order of magnitude error in the abstract.
I am not interested in publishing my work in journals which have shown such a blatant disregard for the scientific method, and having them hide what I have to say behind a paywall where no-one will read it. It’s true that I need to tighten up my stuff and when I think I’ve reached a good overall understanding of the important climate processes, I will embark on that. Thanks for your helpful criticisms.
tallbloke says:
The publishing into journals IS the scientific method that ALL scientists use to advance our scientific knowledge. What you say will not be hidden depending on where you choose to publish.