By Girma Orssengo, PhD
In his Caltech commencement address in 1974, Professor Richard Feynman advised students the following:
“Details that could throw doubt on your interpretation must be given, if you know them.” [1]
Using the global mean temperature (GMT) data from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, the Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change (IPCC), in its Fourth Assessment Report of 2007, reported to the world “accelerated warming” of the globe. [2]
Identifying whether the GMT data shows accelerated warming is extremely crucial because the IPCC claims this accelerated warming is caused by CO2 emission from human use of fossil fuels. As a result, use of fossil fuels that has protected the naked animal from the freezing winter, sweltering summer, backbreaking drudgery, or in general allowed the naked animal to live life as a human is now being blamed for warming the planet. Most governments have made the extremely bizarre declaration that the CO2 you exhale, plants inhale, and forest fires and volcanoes naturally release is a pollutant, and they are putting a price on it.
The accelerated warming claim by the IPCC is accepted by most of the world’s scientific institutions, governments and media.
In this article, following Feynman’s advice, an alternative interpretation of the same GMT data is provided that throws doubt on the accelerated warming interpretation of the IPCC.
This alternative interpretation was also used to estimate the GMT trend for the next two decades, which shows global cooling from the GMT peak value of about 0.45 deg C for the 2000s to 0.13 deg C by the 2030s.
IPCC’s Interpretation of the Global Mean Temperature Data
The accelerated warming interpretation of the GMT data by the IPCC is shown in Figure 1, and the caption for the graph states:
“Note that for shorter recent periods, the slope is greater, indicating accelerated warming.” [2]
IPCC also states:
“Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising global average sea level” [3]
In this article, an alternative interpretation to IPCC’s for the same GMT data is given. This alternative interpretation demonstrates that the current 30-years warming is just a warming phase of a 60-years cooling and warming cycle. As a result, we should not panic with “widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising global average sea level” because that is what happens during the warming phase of the globe, and the snow and ice will form again during the cooling phase of the globe in the next two decades.
The conclusion of this article is similar to that made by NASA when science used to be only about the truth:
“…in the early 1970’s, because temperatures had been decreasing for about 25 to 30 years, people began predicting the approach of an ice age! For the last 15 to 20 years, we have been seeing a fairly steady rise in temperatures, giving some assurance that we are now in a global warming phase.” [4]
Alternative Interpretation of the Global Mean Temperature Data
For the alternative interpretation of the GMT, the same data used by the IPCC from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia was used, and it was assumed to be valid.
In an interview by Roger Harrabin of the BBC [5], Professor Phil Jones stated: “Temperature data for the period 1860-1880 are more uncertain, because of sparser coverage”. As a result, the GMT data before 1880 were excluded in this article.
To produce the alternative interpretation of the GMT data, the following points were addressed:
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Does a line or a curve passes through all the GMT peaks?
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Does a line or a curve passes through all the GMT valleys?
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Do the lines or curves that pass through the GMT peaks and GMT valleys converge, parallel or diverge?
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How does the slope of the global warming trend line for the whole data compare to the slopes of the lines or curves that pass through the GMT peaks and valleys?
All the above questions are answered in a single graph shown in Figure 2.
In Figure 2, the GMT was at its peak in the 1880s, 1940s and 2000s, and a single straight line (not a curve) passes through these GMT peaks, indicating no acceleration of GMT peak values with increasing years. The line that passes through the GMT peaks is labeled as Upper GMT boundary line.
In Figure 2, a single straight line (not a curve) passes through the GMT valleys, indicating no acceleration of GMT valley values with increasing years. The line that passes through the GMT valleys is labeled as Lower GMT boundary line.
Figure 2 also shows that the upper and lower GMT boundary lines are parallel (not diverging), indicating no change in the GMT swing between the two boundary lines with increasing years. The magnitude of this constant vertical swing is about 0.5 deg C for the last 130 years.
Finally, Figure 2 shows that the upper and lower GMT boundary lines are parallel to the long-term global warming trend line for the whole data from 1880 to 2010, which has a global warming rate of 0.06 deg C per decade.
The most important observation in this article is that the upper GMT boundary line passes through all the GMT peaks, the lower GMT boundary line passes through all the GMT valleys, and these lines are parallel. It was also found that the line that bisects the vertical space between the two GMT boundary lines is nearly identical to the long-term global warming trend line of 0.06 deg C per decade for the whole data. This result indicates that, for the last 130 years, the GMT behaved like a stable pendulum with the two GMT boundary lines that are 0.5 deg C apart as the end points of the pendulum’s swings, and the long-term global warming trend line of 0.06 deg C per decade as the pendulum’s neutral position. As a pendulum with a constant swing does not have a “tipping point”, the claim of a climate tipping point is a science fiction, made by those who unfortunately make their living by scare mongering.
Here is a question to climate scientists: In Figure 2, why has the GMT touched its upper boundary line only 3-times, every 60-years, but has never crossed it for long in the last 130 years?
In Figure 2, although the upper GMT boundary curve is a straight line for the relatively short 130 years data, in a longer time scale, it is part of a very long curve that contains the Little Ice Age, Medieval Climatic Optimum, Holocene Maximum, etc.
Relationship Between Global Mean Temperature Peak And Valley Values
In Figure 2, in order to find the relationship between the 1880s peak and the 1910s valley values, instead of considering the complex path the annual GMT took between the two points, a simplified but equivalent path of an instantaneous global cooling swing of -0.5 deg C followed by a steady warming of 0.06 deg C per decade for 30-years along the lower GMT boundary line was considered. As a result, in the 30-years cooling period from 1880 to 1910, the change in GMT = -0.5 + 0.06 x 3 = -0.32 deg C. Therefore, the GMT valley value for the 1910s may be estimated from the GMT peak value of –0.27 deg C for the 1880s as:
GMT valley value for the 1910s = GMT peak value for the 1880s – 0.32 = -0.27 – 0.32 = -0.59 deg C
This value is shown as (1910, -0.59) in Figure 2.
Similarly, in Figure 2, in order to find the relationship between the 1910s valley and the 1940s peak values, instead of considering the complex path the annual GMT took between the two points, a simplified but equivalent path of an instantaneous global warming swing of +0.5 deg C followed by a steady warming of 0.06 deg C per decade for 30-years along the upper GMT boundary line was considered. As a result, in the 30-years warming period from 1910 to 1940, the change in GMT = 0.5 + 0.06 x 3 = +0.68 deg C. Therefore, the GMT peak value for the 1940s may be estimated from the GMT valley value of –0.59 deg C for the 1910s as:
GMT peak value for the 1940s = GMT valley value for the 1910s + 0.68 = -0.59 + 0.68 = +0.09 deg C
This value is shown as (1940, 0.09) in Figure 2.
Note that the above relationships (decrease in GMT by 0.32 deg C during the global cooling phase and increase by 0.68 deg C during the global warming phase) were established based on the data before mid-20th century, before exponential increase in human emission of CO2. Next, these relationships are used to estimate the GMT peak and valley values after mid-20th century.
GMT valley value for the 1970s = GMT peak value for the 1940s – 0.32 = 0.09 – 0.32 = -0.23 deg C
This value is shown as (1970, -0.23) in Figure 2.
GMT peak value for the 2000s = GMT valley value for the 1970s + 0.68 = -0.23 + 0.68 = +0.45 deg C
This value is shown as (2000, 0.45) in Figure 2.
As shown in Figure 2, there is excellent agreement between the above estimates and the observed GMT peak and valley values. The same relationships were used to estimate GMT peak and valley values before and after mid-20th century, and this shows that there is no evidence of accelerated warming in the GMT data. The challenge to climate science is to explain why the GMT peak and valley values are related by such simple linear relationships.
Further, as the above relationships were valid for the last 130 years, it is reasonable to assume they will also be valid at least for the next 20 years. Therefore, the GMT prediction for the 2030s valley value is as follows:
GMT valley value for the 2030s = GMT peak value for the 2000s – 0.32 = 0.45 – 0.32 = +0.13 deg C
In summary, as shown by the data in Figure 2, the GMT has a cycle that consists of 30 years cooling by 0.32 deg C followed by 30 years warming by 0.68 deg C. The magnitude of the warming is greater than the cooling because the warming of +0.18 deg C (=0.06 deg C/ decade x 3 decade) every 30 years modifies the cyclic cooling and warming swing of 0.5 deg C, by decreasing the magnitude of the cyclic cooling but increasing that of the warming by 0.18 deg C.
Cherry Picking
Anthropogenic global warming advocates always accuse skeptics of cherry picking. A working definition of a cherry picker is one who makes conclusions based on comparison of oranges to apples. Let us see who is the greatest cherry picker.
Regarding the GMT, an example of comparing oranges to oranges is to compare one global warming phase of a given duration with another global warming phase of the same duration.
A valid example of identifying whether the GMT data shows accelerated warming is to compare the change in GMT during the recent warming period from 1970 to 2000 with the previous warming period from 1910 to 1940, which are of the same duration. As shown in Figure 2, for both periods the change in GMT is about 0.68 deg C. As a result, there is no acceleration in the recent warming period compared to the previous one.
Another valid example of identifying whether the GMT data shows accelerated warming is to compare the change in GMT during the recent cooling-followed-by-warming period from 1940 to 2000 with the previous cooling-followed-by-warming period from 1880 to 1940, which are of the same duration. As shown in Figure 2, for both periods the change in GMT is about 0.36 deg C. As a result, there is no acceleration in the recent cooling-followed-by-warming period compared to the previous one.
In summary, the GMT data for the last 130 years does not show any evidence of accelerated warming due to human emission of CO2. This is because the cyclic cooling & warming swing of 0.5 deg C shown in Figure 2 is obviously natural; and the persistent global warming of 0.06 deg C per decade is also natural, because it existed before mid-20th century, before widespread use of fossil fuels, as it is this warming that caused the 1940s GMT peak value to be greater than that of the 1880s by 0.36 deg C (=0.06 deg C/decade x 6 decade). Interestingly, the GMT peak value for the 2000s is also greater than that of the 1940s by the same 0.36 deg C.
In the ClimateGate emails, there are statements confirming these GMT peaks for the 1880s and 1940s:
“Indeed, in the verification period, the biggest “miss” was an apparently very warm year in the late 19th century that we did not get right at all.” [7]
“Here are some speculations on correcting SSTs to partly explain the 1940s warming blip.” [8]
The “accelerated warming” interpretation by the IPCC shown in Figure 1 was based on the comparison of the global warming rate of the recent warming period with the global warming rates of longer periods that consist of this warming period and previous cooling-followed-by-warming periods. As the global warming rate for the current warming period is necessarily always greater than those of all the other longer periods with greater denominators, the IPCC was comparing oranges to apples.
As a result, the Nobel Peace Prize winning IPCC is the greatest cherry picker.
Unfortunately, the unsubstantiated IPCC’s accelerated warming claim is supported by almost all of the world’s scientific institutions, governments and media.
Shame on the 21st century’s scientific establishment for letting the IPCC and its supporters successfully convince the world of anthropogenic global warming, the biggest scary story of our life time, without any evidence of accelerated warming due to human emission of CO2.
What Would Have Indicated Accelerated Warming In The GMT Data?
In Figure 2 a shift in climate to an accelerated global warming would have been indicated if the upper GMT boundary line had been a curve with an increasing positive slope with increasing years, or the upper and lower GMT boundary lines had been diverging with increasing years.
Fortunately, as the data in Figure 2 shows, the upper GMT boundary line is a straight line having, interestingly, the same global warming rate of 0.06 deg C per decade as the global warming trend line for the whole data. Also, the upper and lower GMT boundary lines are parallel, showing no change in the magnitude of the GMT swing with increasing years. As a result, the vertical cooling or warming swing of 0.5 deg C between the two GMT boundary lines is cyclic and is therefore natural.
However, there is evidence of a persistent but natural global warming of 0.06 deg C per decade.
What Future Observation Will Confirm Anthropogenic Global Warming?
In its Fourth Assessment Report, The Physical Science Basis, the IPCC stated:
“For the next two decades, a warming of about 0.2°C per decade is projected for a range of SRES emission scenarios. Even if the concentrations of all greenhouse gases and aerosols had been kept constant at year 2000 levels, a further warming of about 0.1°C per decade would be expected.” [9]
A GMT increase in the next two decades of 0.2 deg C per decade as projected by the IPCC, as shown in Figure 3, to a value of about +1.0 deg C by the 2030s, means that the GMT will stop to behave like a stable pendulum, and the magnitude of its swing will start to increase from its constant value of 0.5 deg C for the last 130 years. This also means that the slope of the upper GMT boundary line will increase from its constant value of 0.06 to 0.2 deg C per decade. If this happens, the climate will have shifted and we skeptics should accept anthropogenic global warming.
However, as shown by the data in Figure 2, for the last 130 years, the GMT behaved like a stable pendulum with the two GMT boundary lines that are 0.5 deg C apart as the end points of the pendulum’s swings, and the long-term global warming trend line of 0.06 deg C per decade as the pendulum’s neutral position.
What the IPCC’s projection of 0.2 deg C per decade warming in the next two decades means is that in a pendulum demonstration by Feynman shown in Figure 4, if he pulls the pendulum away from its vertical neutral position and releases it starting just in front of his body (representing the 1880s GMT peak), the pendulum will return to its initial position in front of his body and reverses its direction and swings away from him, as the GMT did after the 1940s peak. However, when the pendulum approaches him the second time (representing the 2000s GMT peak), its swing will suddenly increase and hit our hero.
That is farfetched. After the two previous peaks of the 1880s and 1940s, the GMT returned to its neutral position and moved towards its lower boundary line before the warming phase restarted. This pattern should repeat after the 2000s GMT peak, because the upper GMT boundary line has never been crossed for long, as shown in Figure 2, for the last 130 years.
What Future Observation Will Disprove Anthropogenic Global Warming?
In the next two decades, if the GMT swings from its current peak towards its neutral position and then reaches the lower GMT boundary line to a value of about +0.13 deg C in the 2030s as shown in Figure 3, the whole world will agree with the late Professor Harold Lewis’s characterization of anthropogenic global warming:
“It is the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen in my long life as a physicist.” [11]
In my case, I will replace the word “physicist” with “engineer”.
References
[1] Cargo Cult Science by Richard Feynman
[2] IPCC: “Accelerated Warming”
[3] IPCC: “Warming of the climate system is unequivocal”
[4] NASA Facts, Global Warming, NF-222
[5] BBC News, Q&A: Professor Phil Jones
[6] An alternative Interpretation of GMT Data (hadcrut3vgl.txt)
[7] Climategate email regarding the 1880s GMT peak
[8] Climategate email regarding the 1940s GMT peak
[9] Projections of Future Changes in Climate in the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report
[10] Richard P. Feynman, Six Easy Pieces
[11] Hal Lewis: My Resignation From The American Physical Society
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Girma Orssengo
Bachelor of Technology in Mechanical Engineering, University of Calicut, Calicut, India
Master of Applied Science, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada
Doctor of Philosophy, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia
===============================================================
Brilliantly put. So, come on Alarmists: knock this down. Give it your best shot.
This study made me wonder…
I’m curious if there’s anyone who has wondered how the IPCC/AGW approach and analysis to the study of climate would be considered under the principles put forth by W. Edward Deming. Not the science itself, mind you, but the compilation, treatment, and dissemination of the results. Surely the influence of selective data manipulation and inclusion into “peer reviewed” papers is not dissimilar to how he would show how management could input into an otherwise decent system and cause it to become worse.
What I keep seeing is things getting worse and worse (It’s Worse than we thought!), and wondering if it isn’t a case of PIO…or Pilot induced Oscillation? Again, not the science itself, but the way the science is being handled.
Girma, your very nice article takes another approach, but corroborates many of the central points made in my own analysis of the 130-year trend in global surface air temperature, published on WUWT awhile ago.
The periodically positive slope of the 60-year cycle you mention appears to be responsible for the entire perception of accelerated warming during the last quarter of the 20th century. There’s virtually no sign of a CO2 signature in the global surface air temperature record.
Einstein, Popper and Feynman would never have been able to make the “team”. They refused to play by the rules of consensus and agenda.
This pattern of a 60-year cycle and a relatively constant rise overall is probably fairly correct, to a certain degree. We have to remember that we are warming out of the Little Ice Age, which followed the Medieval Warm Period. There are obviously larger cycles afoot and the two cooling ocean cycles and the quiet Sun may cause one of these larger readjustments. We obviously will not keep warming with a 60-year cycle and will cool at some point, particularly as there is no reason not to expect another ice age at some point.
The bigger picture shows that the Holocene Optimum, Minoan Warm Period, Roman Warm Period, Medieval Warm Period, and Modern Warm Period have each had successively lower peak temperatures. It’s a downward trend—not good.
A neat evisceration of the consensus viewpoint.
As regards that long term background trend of 0.06C per decade we have to look elsewhere than AGW and the most likely cause is shifts in the level of solar activity as shown over the period 1600 to date with a 1000 year peak to peak cycling.
Additionally that fits with the steady background increase in CO2 as shown by the Mauna Loa records which are clearly responding to a long term trend. Shorter term effects other than the seasonal signal being suppressed. I think that suppression is due to oceanic inertia smoothing out the effects shorter than the 1000 year peak to peak solar cycling but the seasonal signal is strong enough to overcome that suppression of intermediate level variations.
I think we have to get used to the idea that atmospheric CO2 levels vary naturally by substantial amounts over a 500 year period and that for whatever reason the ice cores and other proxies fail to record that degree of variability.
Plant stomata data comes a lot closer to the reality than does ice core data but even the former may well not fully record what goes on.
I am anticipating that the full paper anticipated from Murry Salby shortly will point in the same direction.
The oceans should be looked at as a powerful set of lungs breathing CO2 in and out in tune with solar variations that are heavily amplified by chemical (not radiative) changes in the upper atmosphere resulting in significant changes to surface air pressure distribution, cloudiness, albedo and the rate of solar input to the oceans.
The only reason we have a temperature inversion up through the stratosphere at all is chemical processes involving UV and oxygen so it is likely that small changes from tropopause upward will have a significant effect on the entire global energy budget. The temperature of the stratosphere is intimately connected to the patterns of surface air pressure and therefore the size and positiion of all the climate zones.
We do however need to invert the generally assumed temperature effect of solar variations on the stratosphere otherwise we cannot achieve the observed shifts in the surface air pressure distribution as I have explained elsewhere.
As Joanna Haigh said recently:
“our findings raise the possibility that the effects of solar variability on temperature throughout the atmosphere may be contrary to current expectations.”
For a multitude of observation based reasons I think she may well be right.
Thankyou Dr Orssengo. Another brick in the wall.
Unprecedented in its simplicity, and irrefutable in its conclusion. Brilliant.
Girma Orssengo, PhD says:
One of the big differences between scientists and engineers is that engineers have to pass an ethics exam. Every time an engineer predicts something, his/her license is on the line. I would dearly love to be able to file a complaint with an agency that licenses scientists. Sadly, such an agency or such a license does not exist. ;-(
(Notwithstanding the above, I do realize that it is a scientist’s job to speculate. In light of that, I request that the humor impaired please refrain and abjure from reading the above post.)
If we have descendants, they will look on the late 20th century and early 21st as a bizarre and tragic time of utter lunacy, when almost every branch of science ferociously pursued blatantly obvious lies and instantly disprovable nonsensical theories, abandoning all previous clear understandings.
Only biology and geology have been comparatively exempt from the mass hysteria.
This 33/66 cycle was well known in the ’30s, as I’ve pointed out here at least 33 times. Maybe 66 times!
Bets can be placed on Intrade as to what the temperature in 2019 and 2014 will be like, here: https://www.intrade.com/v4/markets/?eventClassId=20
The amount of new science in the last 6 months has basically blown CAGW out of the water (ironically). The question is, will IPCC 5 reflect this or continue with the propaganda?
Hang ’em high and let ’em swing (slowly, in the wind).
Well done, Girma – keep up the good work.
Love your work Girma.
Love to see how it fits on the super cycles – but reliable data is a problem
So the temperature is going to start dropping to Little Ice Age levels again?
We’re doomed.
I question the leadership, of any entity that would disregard this statement:
“Most governments have made the extremely bizarre declaration that the CO2 you exhale, plants inhale, and forest fires and volcanoes naturally release is a pollutant, and they are putting a price on it.”
======
Make no mistake, this weakness has been noted by the competition, and will be exploited.
The extent, remains to be seen.
I used to read in disbelief and sometimes anger at the torturing of the data into admitting that it needed to be cooler than was actually measured in the first half of the last century. I can laugh now, as it really shows the Warmista to be the gang that couldn’t shoot straight. If only they’d tortured the data into admitting temperature was flatlining for 50 years, THEN they could have claimed an acceleration.
commieBob says:
“One of the big differences between scientists and engineers is that engineers have to pass an ethics exam.”
There are other differences, too.
Really nice piece — from one B.Tech. (IIT, Bombay, EE) to another!
Are the vectors rotating clockwise or counter clockwise on the pendulum?
Smokey says:
August 19, 2011 at 7:00 pm
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I had a feeling your link would show a LEGO car, nice!
What sort of analysis is this? It is truly weird to fit a model with no justification and expect it to be in any way related to reality.
Dr. Orssengo-
Have you ever met an engineer that believes the AGW nonsense, or that you can have a study where you use one set of data for part of the results and another set of data for the rest? Or, how a trace gas which increases in concentration by 100 ppm or.0001% of the whole atmosphere could irreversibly warm the planet?
Richard Nixon was onto something when he spoke of a “silent majority” The propagandists can only get away with saying things like “the vast majority of scientists” if the millions of rational educated people who understand the scientific method don’t speak up. Thank you for presenting a post that was clear and not overly technical so that those of us in differing disciplines could understand the argument well enough to explain it to someone else.
Dr. Elliott Althouse
Down up, down up…….. 30 years or so. High correlation to sun cycles.
Wonder how shorter wavelenth cycles impact longer orbital Milankovitch cycles?
Earth system response to longer term Milankovitch forcing appears to match best at ~45 north. The why I think is complicated.
The idea that shorter term cycles alter tropical heat balances makes sense.
How might the two fit together?
Is CO2 a driver or a feedback, and can a back seat or front seat role for CO2 change over time?
Dr. Orssengo, this is a very good, cogent analysis. Major compliments for a clear explanation with excellent graphics. I also like your initial caveat, “. . . the same data used by the IPCC from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia was used, and it was assumed to be valid.”
That brings me to my point, assuming the data are valid. We know that the data were adjusted and manipulated to show lower values in roughly pre-1970 and warmer values post-1970. In essence, the data were manipulated to impart a slight positive trend. That alone likely accounts for the increase of 0.06 degrees Centigrade per decade. Without that deliberate adjustment, the data would likely show zero warming at all. The un-adjusted data could very well show a cooling trend, which would coincide with the evidence now before us all.
This quote:
…although the upper GMT boundary curve is a straight line for the relatively short 130 years data, in a longer time scale, it is part of a very long curve that contains the Little Ice Age, Medieval Climatic Optimum, Holocene Maximum, etc.
————
Is complete nonsense. There is no “very long curve” containing all these points, unless you are talking about a very wiggle, very un-curvy curve full of lots of ups and downs, reflecting lots of different forcings at various times, affecting the climate in various ways, sometimes in complete opposition to each other. The actual record looks more like this, non-curve:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/pubs/ipcc2007/fig614.png
So the simple pendulum notion is perhaps only valid in the most coursest of fashions, reflecting the Milankovitch cycle. Under this long-term forcing, we should have passed our peak temperatures back in the Holocene optimum, as that’s when optimum solar insolation took place, but something has broken the rhythm of that Milankovitch cyclical pendulum, and it seem now the planet is headed for warming that will soon exceed the Holocene optimum, and perhaps any interglacial in the past 800,000 years, and hence scientists are looking at temperatures during the periods when CO2 was ar levels closer to today, namely the mid-Pliocene:
http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/2010/2010_Lunt_etal.pdf
http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v3/n1/full/ngeo736.html
http://nora.nerc.ac.uk/14866/
Certainly it would be nice if (outside of Milankovitch forcing) the earth’s climate followed some simple pendulum like rhythm, as climate scientists could just turn out the lights and say they got the simple climate pendulum figured out…but sorry to say, it just isn’t that simple.
RoHa says:
August 19, 2011 at 6:47 pm
So the temperature is going to start dropping to Little Ice Age levels again?
We’re doomed.
——–
Even with a Maunder type minimum, the earth of 2011 far different in atmospheric composition than the earth of the 1600’s. A new “little age age” is quite unlikely.
Superb, Dr. Orssengo, thanks!
Thank you for an excellent article! However the diagram with the acceleration vector is not correct. At the low point, the string pulls up with the same force that Earth pulls down. Therefore the net force is 0, therefore the acceleration is 0 at the bottom of the swing. If the mass were stopped at the bottom of the swing, it would not start accelerating up. According to Newton’s second law, F = ma, if the net force is 0, the acceleration is also 0. For a more accurate animation of the acceleration of a pendulum, go to:
http://www.walter-fendt.de/ph14e/pendulum.htm
Then click on acceleration and start.
Werner Brozek (physics teacher)
R. Gates says:August 19, 2011 at 8:08 pm
This quote:
…although the upper GMT boundary curve is a straight line for the relatively short 130 years data, in a longer time scale, it is part of a very long curve that contains the Little Ice Age, Medieval Climatic Optimum, Holocene Maximum, etc.
————
Is complete nonsense. There is no “very long curve” containing all these points, unless you are talking about a very wiggle, very un-curvy curve full of lots of ups and downs, reflecting lots of different forcings at various times, affecting the climate in various ways, sometimes in complete opposition to each other. The actual record looks more like this, non-curve:
That’s only after they tried to rewrite history, the IPCC original, and accepted for decades, by decades of research looked like this: http://i39.tinypic.com/bgemm9.jpg
Craig Loehle’s ‘anything but treering’ proxy reconstruction follows the same curve:
http://i56.tinypic.com/2zsn3gz.jpg
The Holocene has been cooling overall according to what the government posts on science websites, and most everything I’ve read over the past fifty years.
http://i45.tinypic.com/2yo1hsy.jpg
RoHa says:
August 19, 2011 at 6:47 pm
At some point, the slope will roll over, and descend into another ‘Little Ice Age’.
There are myriad numbers of these ‘cycle blips’ in the Vostok and Greenland cores.
What the bigger question is: When will the Interglacial roll off the hill and into the next “Ice Age”.
The mild slope we inhabit now, as well as the inevitable mild downslope, of Minor fluctuations is nothing compared to the Vee shaped canyon wall that leads from Interglacial to Ice Age.
R. Gates says:
August 19, 2011 at 8:08 pm
“Certainly it would be nice if (outside of Milankovitch forcing) the earth’s climate followed some simple pendulum like rhythm, as climate scientists could just turn out the lights and say they got the simple climate pendulum figured out…but sorry to say, it just isn’t that simple.”
=======
Explain that to the GE shareholders.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1850/to:2011/mean:12/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1850/to:2011/mean:12/plot/none
If the GMT as charted in fig2 including trend lines were the stock market, it would be perfect for making lots and lots of money.
Maybe the AGW crowd are not so stupid after all.
What was that old adage again…oh yes make the trend your friend.
Another arrow in the elephant.
Incidentally, this analysis is similar to that of Syun-Ichi Akasofu, who draw a graph of a warming phase of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, which has a 30-year cycle, superimposed on the rebound from the Little Ice Age. Here’s a link to “Two Natural Components of Recent Climate Change,” (as a 50-Mb PDF):
http://people.iarc.uaf.edu/~sakasofu/little_ice_age.php
More recent:
On the recovery from the Little Ice Age, Syun-Ichi Akasofu
Natural Science,
Vol.2, No.11, 1211-1224 (2010), doi:10.4236/ns.2010.211149
http://klimabedrag.dk/attachments/article/395/NS20101100004_10739704.pdf
polistra says:
August 19, 2011 at 6:13 pm
This 33/66 cycle was well known in the ’30s
Looking at Figure 2 it seems that a 33/66 cycle would be a more accurate pendulum swing. It would not change the 0.06dC per decade trend. It would, however, have the second cycle in the dataset ending in 2012 rather than 2000. This would also indicate that the next cooling phase is 2013 through 2036.
Oops – bad math, sorry : next cooling pahase 2013 through 2046
R. Gates: There are more things than Milankovitch that influenced the historical climate record. I’m not convinced we’ve even reached a Holocene peak interglacial. For example, why were sea levels so much higher circa 120 kyr BP?
The assumption made by Hansen that tectonic continental/ocean basin configuration hasn’t changed much enough in the last 60 million years to affect earth climate more than CO2 is pretty weak. If that were true, why didn’t Antarctic glacial build-up start until ~ 35 Myr BP? Also, there is evidence of pretty substantial climate changes in the mid-Pliocene – not so long ago. What caused that? Perhaps some oceanic exchange between the Atlantic and Pacific? Rising mountain ranges elsewhere?
The geologic record contains some pretty convincing evidence of climatic cyclicity. Unfortunately that same record cannot tell us much about what happens on shorter (decades to centuries) time spans. So, I think it is premature to rule out shorter term cyclic drivers as well as other geographic changes to the system.
We need a better model of what’s really going on.
The paleo evidence does not point to CO2 as a driver of past climate change. The only things that do point to CO2 as the driver of future climate change are hypothetical (aka GCMs). One big hypothetical is system sensitivity to CO2….. a that value is surely not set in stone, nor conclusively proven.
Usually the Warmistas are reluctant to give us
any falsification criteria for their AGW doom-scenarios
(which are notoriously replete with every kind of bad outcome).
They’re usually quick to cite this or that meteorological event
as bolstering their case, but reluctant to accept anything as weighing against it.
But the esteemed R. Gates just declared
that a new Little Ice Age is quite unlikely.
Finally, something that disproves AGW!
We’ll hold you to it.
I can think of another one, though: CO2 levelling off.
Pat Frank says:
August 19, 2011 at 5:32 pm
Girma, your very nice article takes another approach, but corroborates many of the central points made in my own analysis of the 130-year trend in global surface air temperature, published on WUWT awhile ago.
The periodically positive slope of the 60-year cycle you mention appears to be responsible for the entire perception of accelerated warming during the last quarter of the 20th century. There’s virtually no sign of a CO2 signature in the global surface air temperature record.
……………………………………………………………………………………………………
the positive slope in the 60 year cycle is the long term warming that has been occurring since the last ice age. what i am finding in my studies is rather simple. the earth and its systems are all in a phase of sign wave. if we extrapolate the graph out to several thousand to hundred thousand years you would find a sign wave or oscillation of the warmth/cooling trends.
the fact that the upper and lower limits are plotted along the trend and do not deviate, indicates that CO2 can not be the driving factor in warming… that man has very little impact on the system as a whole.
can he be dirty.. Yes. Can he change land use… Yes. but these are merely temporary disruptions that wont slow the natural flows nor will it speed them up.. i tend to think of man as the millions of ants on a huge ball. he has presence but ultimately not the might to change the ball..
R. Gates: Your linked articles and papers are based on modelling, not observations. Try this as a real-world study:
Lindzen & Choi 2011 http://www-eaps.mit.edu/faculty/lindzen/236-Lindzen-Choi-2011.pdf
steven mosher says:
August 19, 2011 at 9:05 pm
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1850/to:2011/mean:12/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1850/to:2011/mean:12/plot/none
=========================
Um, is this supposed to pique ones curiosity, or just warm ones cockles with winter ensuing.
It is absolutely routine to analyze data before coming up with an hypothesis that explains the data. It is also absolutely routine to demonstrate via an analysis of the data that a given hypothesis is wrong without having to come up with another hypothesis. In other words: “I have no idea what’s going on but the data set shows that your hypothesis is wrong”.
What the Dr. Orssengo’s analysis shows elegantly and clearly is that global warming is not accelerating. The 130 year data set is much better explained by a slow linear warming trend with a constant amplitude oscillation superimposed on it than it is by accelerating warming. Please re-read the following:
It is useful to show that the data set is explained by a regular oscillation superimposed on a linear trend without having to understand the mechanism behind it. The article does exactly what it says it does.
R Gates – can you demonstrate how the IPCC chart is valid and does not demonstrate a complete misunderstanding of data analysis?
Girma Orssengo has given a clear indication of the major effects moving through the recorded global temperature for the last 130 years.
What has happened before that, and what may happen in the future are subject to different degrees of uncetrainty.
However I am most interested to hear if you can explain how the trends shown by the IPCC have any validity.
One of the things I learned in getting a degree in Economics is that it is taken as given that Economic and Sociological trends are cyclical. This makes people comfortable. Neither is true, although sometimes they are. Or appear to be.
One of the things I learned, in my mathematics and physics classes, was that there are a hell of a lot more cycles out there than humans are comfortable with. Because everything seems to revolve.
While it is easy to assert that the GMT increase of 0.6 deg C per decade is a rebound from the Little Ice Age, there is also interest in the way energy flows or accumulates to achieve this style of change. The geometry of Milankovitch cycles is plausible, even compelling. But, if the globe is warming over the centuries, what is warming it (don’t say, as someone said to me before, “the Sun, stupid”). When the globe cools over centuries, what mechanism is cooling it? (The Sun again, stupid?). One can be tempted to imagine a reservoir of energy operating on a record like that shown in http://i39.tinypic.com/bgemm9.jpg but it is not precisely described in literature I have seen.
And this is assuming that known fakers’ data hasn’t been faked by the fakers!
Alarmists have painted themselves into the corner.
Werner Brozek says:
August 19, 2011 at 9:02 pm
Thank you for an excellent article! However the diagram with the acceleration vector is not correct. At the low point, the string pulls up with the same force that Earth pulls down. Therefore the net force is 0, therefore the acceleration is 0 at the bottom of the swing. If the mass were stopped at the bottom of the swing, it would not start accelerating up. According to Newton’s second law, F = ma, if the net force is 0, the acceleration is also 0. For a more accurate animation of the acceleration of a pendulum, go to:
http://www.walter-fendt.de/ph14e/pendulum.htm
Then click on acceleration and start.
Werner Brozek (physics teacher)
Werner, Your link only mentions tangental acceleration, and at the bottom of the swing tangental accelleration is indeed 0. But angular acceleration is at a maximum. Accelleration, by its most basic definition, is change in velocity by change in time. At the bottom of the swing the speed is at a maximum, so is not changing, but the direction is changing rapidly, so the pendulum is accellerating. The force required to provide this acceleration is the tension in the pendulum shaft, so the diagram at the top of this article is correct.
For a practical experiment go up in an aircraft and perform a simple loop. Notice just where the g force on your body is the greatest.
I look forward to seeing the results of the CLOUD experiment at CERN. Certainly Svensmark will also be interested.
Wow! Dr. Orssengo, this is a brilliant and simple analysis of the temperature data. It leaves me wondering why I have not seen this in print before. Comparing the acceleration of temperature in the last two recorded temperature cycles should give us an indication of external forcing factors over the same period. Well done!
Physics is phun
Tempachure swings like a pendulum do
Greenies on bicycles, two by two
East Anglia’s shabby, the tower of Big Ben
The rosy red cheeks of the jerks in UN
I appreciate the above analysis of Dr. Orssengo’s, and see it as a good alternative hypothesis to that put by the IPCC. However, until one of these hypotheses/models is validated (i.e. makes a prediction that comes true over a climate period), then I don’t see how we can differentiate the GMT record from a random walk, and the whole system as being chaotic/unpredictable.
Try taking a 6-sided die, and replace 6 with 0.3, 5 with 0.2, 4 with 0.1, 3 with -0.1, 2 with -0.2 and 1 with -0.3. Then, starting at zero, roll the die and move up or down the number shown and place a dot. After 130 throws of the die (corresponding to the 130 years from 1880) the connected dots may trace out a similar pattern to the GMT record. Obviously, the die represents a discrete random variable (RV), whereas the GMT record is a continuous RV, but a similar exercise could be carried out using the RAND function in Matlab, on a calculator etc.
Until there are validated predictions I’ll continue to assume it’s a chaotic system.
alternate last line…
The insuff’rable cheek of the jerks in UN
This article is spot on. The history of Physics shows that data should really always be analysed without any preconceptions. The temperature data actually fit very well to a slow logarithmic temperature rise (presumably due to CO2), along with a natural 60 year oscillation whose cause is not understood plus smaller 11 and 9 year terms. This fit to the data then predicts little further warming until after 2030.
Dr Orssengo:
You say,
“The accelerated warming claim by the IPCC is accepted by most of the world’s scientific institutions, governments and media.
In this article, following Feynman’s advice, an alternative interpretation of the same GMT data is provided that throws doubt on the accelerated warming interpretation of the IPCC.”
The IPCC assertion of “accelerated warming” in the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) is a blatant fraud obtained by use of a statistical trick imposed on a graph published in the AR4 and that you copy above as your Figure 1.
It is Figure 1 from FAQ 3.1, and is on page 253 of the WG1 section (i.e. the section by the IPCC’s purportedly scientific working group) of the AR4. It also has prominence in the AR4’s ‘Summary for Policymakers’ (SPM).
THIS GRAPH WAS NOT SUBMITTED FOR PEER REVIEW PRIOR TO PUBLICATION OF THE AR4.
The IPCC AR4 uses this graph to justify its key – and blatantly misleading – statement in the Summary for Policymakers (SPM) of AR4 that says; “The linear warming trend over the last 50 years is nearly twice that for the last 100 years”.
But this statement was not in the drafts provided for peer review. It was inserted into the final draft of the report and that final draft was only submitted to government representatives for comment. The Chinese Government suggested that it should be deleted and pointed out that
“These two linear rates should not compare with each other because the time scales are not the same”.
But this valid comment was ignored.
It is not surprising that this key statement was not submitted for peer review because it is extremely misleading.
The published graph (presented above as your Figure 1) shows the slope over the last 25 years is significantly greater than that of the last 50 years, which in turn is greater than the slope over 100 years. This is said to show that global warming is accelerating. It is important to note that this grossly misleading calculation is in chapter 3 of WG1 and also in the SPM that states, “The linear warming trend over the last 50 years is nearly twice that for the last 100 years”.
Thus, policymakers who only look at the numbers (and don’t think about the different timescales) will be misled into thinking that global warming is accelerating.
Of course, the IPCC could have started near the left hand end of the graph and thus obtained the opposite conclusion!
The 40-year trend from 1905 has a slope of 1.46 degrees per century, and the 100-year trend has a slope of 0.72. The trend in the early part of the 20th century is twice that of the whole century.
Clearly, the fact that the early part of the century has a higher trend than the century does NOT indicate the trend is decelerating. And, for the same reason, “The linear warming trend over the last 50 years is nearly twice that for the last 100 years” does NOT indicate the trend is accelerating.
It is very clear that in this case the IPCC has grossly – and deliberately – misrepresented the data.
Your analysis is good, but is not needed to show the IPCC claim of “accelerated warming” is wrong. All that is needed is to show how the IPCC deliberately misrepresented the data.
Simply, the IPCC claim of “accelerated warming” is a demonstrable lie.
Richard
The pendulum example is a simple illustration. Now try describing the excursion of a pendulum with several hinges in it corresponding to such factors as precession of Earth’s axis, precession of Earth’s orbit, solar cyles, ocean cycles (influenced on long time scales by tectonic movements), the solar system’s galactic orbit, and yes, maybe even dynamic co2 levels & cloud cycles. That would make the calculations of the three body problem look like child’s play. Try graphing out y = sin x + sin2x + sin 3x.
steven mosher says:
August 19, 2011 at 9:05 pm
////////////////////////////////////////////////
Steven
You did not explain the point you were seeking to make,unless it was, of course, to confirm that the rate of change (warmin) in the latter part of the 20th century was not quite as great as the rate of change (warming) seen between about 1910 to 1940 and that you therefore agree that in the temperature data set you post, there is no discernable signal of CO2 induced accelerated warming.
Girma
A very nice article.
I see Pat Frank has referred above to his own study, which although mathematically based was in general agreement with my own historically based article carried here;
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/05/23/little-ice-age-thermometers-%e2%80%93-history-and-reliability-2/
i think the only thing we need add to Girmas article is that overlaid on this very broad periodicity of 60 years or so are perturbations which throw the cycles out of norm. We saw it in the LIA and the MWP. As far as the LIA goes it would appear that we can trace a general upwards trend in regional warming (I dont believe in the accuracy of a ‘global’ temperature) that dates back to around 1600/1610-that is to say the depths of the LIA were around that time.
Interleaved with the broad characteristics of a climate that has been generally warming for 400 years, we can trace substantial areas that have been cooling for at least thirty years. These ‘cooling’ stations represent aroiund 30% of the total number of stations used in the record. So ‘global’ warming is a misnomer.
I am inclined to think that even during the LIA and MWP there were regions that were contradicting the general prevalent warming or cooling trend of the time.
It is important that we recognise that the GISS and CRU records merely plug into the end of a long warming trend, they don’t heralf the start of it.
tonyb
Maybe I’m just nitpicking, but the animation shows an acceleration vector that is never zero in magnitude. That cannot be. Acceleration is zero when velocity reaches its max when theta is 0°.
People should let acronyms be out of use for at least 100 years before they reuse them for another purpose. GMT Greenwich Mean Time really!
A nice analogy, except that this pedulum has multiple cords with varying degrees of elasticity. The suspension points, while close together, move asynchronously giving rise to a large number of harmonics.
Thanks for an excellent, clear analysis, Girma. As with all ‘engineering’ posts, feet firmly on the ground.
It will be interesting to observe the potential effects of a quiet sun over the next 20-30 years. Will the slope actually flatten or even decline? Fascinating and I only hope I’m still around!
Where I live over the last decade there has been anincrease in the mean temperature. That’s not because maximum temperatures are rising but because we are getting more hot days and less cool days.
As a corollary, a pendulum through time simply carves out a sin curve–a form seen in all of the temperature records over the various period lengths (resolved into their individual components through Fourier transform). None are abrupt; none require catastrophic adjustments or tipping points.
Excellent article, Dr. Orssengo.
Thank you, Dr. Orssengo. A clear and elegant analysis of the data, and I’ve already printed it off as a pdf for future use in berating the simple-minded. Using the same data that’s supposed to scare us all into submission makes it that much sweeter.
@Orssengo
“the persistent global warming of 0.06 deg C per decade is also natural, because it existed before mid-20th century, before widespread use of fossil fuels,”
This claim that the underlying trend is natural is not supported by your reasoning. Human production of CO2 has been rising exponentially since the beginning of the industrial revolution and because its ability to absorb LWIR falls off exponentially the end result is pretty much exactly what you see – a linear rise in surface temperature.
Failing to properly take into account the LWIR absorptive properties of CO2 at different concentrations is a common enough mistake but there’s no excuse for it other ignorance of the physics involved. The mistake you made negates the point you were trying to make.
While it’s not proven that anthropogenic CO2 since the beginning of the industrial revolution has caused a 0.06/decade rise in surface temperature the physics involved do indeed predict it. It follows quite nicely the predicted 1C rise per doubling of CO2.
The problem for climate alarmists is that 0.06/decade, especially when it is concentrated in higher latitudes, is no cause for alarm and in fact is quite beneficial for as long as it can be sustained. The alarmisn is and always has been about the so-called “water vapor amplification” that turns a 1C per doubling of CO2 into a 3C rise per doubling. A 3C rise is not supported by either the underlying physics nor by actual observation. Water vapor amplification appears to be no more than urban legend that just won’t die because the alarmist community has too much vested in it to let it go.
All this talk of pendulums is dragging up frustrated memories of trying to simulate an elliptical integral on an analog computer almost 40 years ago in an engineering dept. lab.
Hmm, maybe I can get funding to build analog GCMs ….? It can’t come out any more wrong than the digital ones and the answer always returns to zero when I turn the lights off.
P Gosselin
The acceleration has two components. One is the radial acceleration directed towards the centre of rotation of the pendulum. The second is the tangential acceleration directed along the path of the ball of the pendulum. It is these two components that change from zero to maximum. The acceleration itself is never zero, because when one component becomes zero the other component becomes maximum. For example, at the vertical neutral position, the tangential component is zero but the radial component is at its maximum.
Dave Springer says:
August 20, 2011 at 5:39 am
Dave, can you show me this “linear rise in surface temperature” since the beginning of the industrial revolution?
I thought not.
Interpretation of the Global Mean Temperature Data as a Pendulum
Posted on August 19, 2011 by Anthony Watts
By Girma Orssengo, PhD
“This alternative interpretation was also used to estimate the GMT trend for the next two decades, which shows global cooling from the GMT peak value of about 0.45 deg C for the 2000s to 0.13 deg C by the 2030s.”
Girma Orssengo,
for a climate forecast we can make use of heat frequencies in the spectrum of temperatures or proxies for some 5000 years back in time. Most of the frequencies are related to the celestial bodies, and can be used to simulate the temperature for the next 1000 years.
http://volker-doormann.org/gif/ghi_had_w.gif
High frequency temperature anomalies can be simulated using the faster bodies like Mercury and Venus, and terrestrial long time climate forecast need slow moving objects like some plutinos.
Some peaks, like the heat of 1940 or 1998, fits not with the solar functions, and my have other causes.
Because of no known mechanism the strength of the single functions must be set by empiric work.
However, coherence of the celestial functions with the terrestrial climate data suggests that it seems more successful to take live geometries for the forecast than a simple ascending rectangle function out of the mind but with no basis in the solar system.
V.
Bravo, a very comprehensive analysis.
I think the 0.6degC per century rise illustrated in this analysis, is just part of a longer trend taking in the Holocene Optimum, Minoan Warm Period, Roman Warm Period, Medieval Warm Period, along with their corresponding cool period, culminating in the Little Ice Age, which we are (or were?) coming out of. No CO2 is needed to explain this phenomenon, in fact, it can’t.
What I don’t think would be in dispute is this ~30year warm/~30 year cool “cycle”. I think if we could identify what underlies that, it would be a major advance to our knowledge. There is no apparent driver of it, the closest correlation with it is ocean cycles, but what drives them? Is it yet another homeostatic mechanism (like Willis’s thunderstorms, or melting sea ice), and if so, what is the trigger?
Dave Springer:
At August 20, 2011 at 5:39 am you dispute the statement of Dr Orssengo that says:
“the persistent global warming of 0.06 deg C per decade is also natural, because it existed before mid-20th century, before widespread use of fossil fuels,”
by asserting:
“This claim that the underlying trend is natural is not supported by your reasoning. Human production of CO2 has been rising exponentially since the beginning of the industrial revolution and because its ability to absorb LWIR falls off exponentially the end result is pretty much exactly what you see – a linear rise in surface temperature.”
Say what!?
Of course Orssengo’s conclusion is supported by his reasoning. And you point to no flaw in his reasoning.
Instead, you assert – with no suppoting evience – that the “Human production of CO2” is the cause of the rise. That is a classic fail in your logic. The mere fact that something can be ascribed to be the cause of an effect is not a reason to suppose it is the cause.
It matters not one jot whether or not “Human production of CO2 has been rising exponentially since the beginning of the industrial revolution” when there is no evidence that this has affected the behaviour of the climate system.
Indeed, Orssengo’s argument is a clear statement of the null hypothesis; i.e. there is no evidence of a change to the system so the only scientific assumption is that the system has not changed.
Show a flaw in Orssengo’s work or say nothing because it is better for you to be thought to be a fool than for you to post something that proves you are a fool.
Richard
Bill H says:
August 19, 2011 at 9:59 pm
“the positive slope in the 60 year cycle is the long term warming that has been occurring since the last ice age”
Nonsense. The modern interglacial began some 10,000 years ago. A 0.06C/decade rise in temperature during that time would be 60C. In fact the total rise is about 6C and most of that took place at the beginning of the interglacial period driven by positive feedback from high albedo ice turning into low albedo rocks and liquid ocean surface. The transitions between glacial and interglacial periods are rapid with relative stability in between the transitions.
Simple physics of rising CO2 in isolation predicts a surface temperature increase of about 1C per doubling. There is no credible argument to the contrary. The argument is over whether that modest amount of warming is somehow amplified by a concommitant increase in atmospheric water vapor. There is no credible argument to contradict the rise in water vapor. The argument is solely about whether the increase in water vapor will cause further rise in temperature. There is no empirical data that supports the water vapor claim. What the actual evidence shows is that as water vapor increases so does cloud cover and the higher albedo of cloud cover vs. rocks and ocean surface exposed to clear sky negates the greenhouse effect of the higher vapor concentration.
Without positive feedback from water vapor there is no cause for alarm from rising CO2. It’s absolutely essential to the alarmist community and the myriad cottage industries and political power grabs associated with alarmism that the mythical water vapor amplification be accepted as something real otherwise the whole house of cards they’ve built comes tumbling down. The actual temperature data is, for alarmists, an ill wind that is blowing no good. As they search in vain for the missing heat I laugh at their folly and hold out the hope that it teaches the world what happens when good science turns into consensus driven, cargo cult, bandwagon, ideological pseudo-scientific dogma.
Girma Orssengo
Compliments on showing the long term temperature trend with the oscillation around the mean.
Christopher Lord Monckton further analyses the rising trends compared to IPCC’s “accelerated warming”. See: Open Letter to Chairman Pachauri Dec. 18, 2009 SPPI.
Monckton shows that the opposite accelerated “cooling” conclusion can be obtain by a similar statistically erroneous selection of end points.
Monckton shows three periods with similar warming trends: 1860-1880, 1910-1940, 1975-1998. This trend analysis shows a similar 60 year cycle, complimenting your long term min/max analysis.
Gima
thanks for your data exploration. There are indeed many possible patterns underlying the temperature variations.
It should be recognised that you are trying to prove a preconcieved idea of periodicity,and that the result is conditioned on your assumptions of boundary lines, how you have decided to construct these lines and the time period considered. I do not think that these lines have any physical significance. Rather, they could be seen as intuitively established confidence limits in a linear regression of temperature versus time.
First you start out to solve the question whether this boundary is a line or a curve. You come up with a line (without analysis), but an infinite number of curves could also have been chosen depending on how you define peak and vally values. You have not provided an objective definition of these values, they rest entirely on an a priori assumption of periodicity and a linear boundary curve. Furthermore, you are subjective in establishing the slopes of the boundary lines and the years of max/min values. For example, the lower line should have a slope of about 0.005 to intersect or enclose all data points, not 0.006 (based on Hadcrut3 data)..
So when you ask the climate scientists why the line only intersects the data 3 times I would answer: because you have decided so, from a combination of the time period investigated and your selected linear model..
Cherry picking? well, try to start your analysis in 1878 and see what happens. Your upper line will have a slope of 0.004 (passing through 1878 and 1998), not 0.006, and the periodicity analysis falls apart.
Keep up the explorations …. cheers
@Dave Springer at August 20, 2011 at 5:39 am
“. . . the LWIR absorptive properties of CO2 at different concentrations is a common enough mistake but there’s no excuse for it other [than] ignorance of the physics involved.”
I’ve repeatedly seen/read that the physics of CO2 absorbing infra-red electromagnetic radiation is a settled science. My question for you, then, is how does one explain the fact that CO2 does not warm many of the measured locations in the long-term temperature record (i.e. since 1900)?
Does CO2 pick and choose which cities to warm, and which to pass over? The temperature records for many cities in the USA show zero warming, even when using the adjusted and manipulated HadCRU data. At the same time, nearby cities show substantial warming.
Would you, or anyone else, please explain this curious behavior of CO2, that is, how does it know which locations to warm, and which to ignore? As cases in point, Abilene, Texas (USA) shows a cooling trend of -0.019 degrees Centigrade per decade, while the nearby city of San Antonio, Texas (USA) shows a warming trend of +0.07 degrees Centigrade per decade. Abilene is a mere 200 miles to the north of and about 50 miles west of San Antonio. Both are away from the ocean, on the central plains of Texas.
Another pair of cities that show the same long-term disparity is Fresno, California (USA), which is warming at +0.073 degrees Centigrade per decade, and Sacramento, California (USA), which is cooling at -0.029 degrees Centigrade per decade. Sacramento is approximately 150 miles north and west of Fresno, both are modest cities in California’s large inland valley.
Plots of temperature trends for each city, since before 1900, are available at
http://sowellslawblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/usa-cities-hadcrut3-temperatures.html
Physics must be impartial, if it is truly physics. As we know from proper science, only one example is required to disprove a hypothesis. There are many, many examples of adjacent cities where one warms, and one either is static or is cooling.
As to the 60 year cycle of climate, Dr. Scafetta has discussed this issue in a peer-reviewed paper last year, and Anthony also devoted a thread to it: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/10/13/scafetta-on-60-year-climate-oscillations/ , please read the original paper and the beautiful graphs thereof.
The most important thing about the 60 year cycle is that it is not merely an observation based on the recent data, for example, of the last 130 years. The ancient people of China had observed this pattern over 2,000 years ago, and even assigned this periodicity in their calender systems. Dr. Scafetta is smart enough to catch this old wisdom and tried to interpret it using a modern astronomical view (he believed the 60 year cycle is associated with the orbital periods of Jupiter and Saturn), and even developed a model of coupled oscillators to describe this behavior (same pendulum analogy as Dr. Orssengo used).
In short, I recommend those interested in this topic read or reread Scafetta (2010), and it surely will deepen the discussion of this topic.
Reference: http://www.fel.duke.edu/~scafetta/pdf/scafetta-JSTP2.pdf
R. Gates says:
August 19, 2011 at 8:28 pm
“A new “little age age” is quite unlikely.”
Wonderful! Thank an industrial smokestack for it.
Richard S Courtney says:
August 20, 2011 at 6:17 am
Don’t put words in my mouth, Dick. This is what I wrote. I’ll emphasize the bits that were obscured from your vision as your knee jerked level with your eyeballs:
“While it’s not proven that anthropogenic CO2 since the beginning of the industrial revolution has caused a 0.06/decade rise in surface temperature the physics involved do indeed predict it. It follows quite nicely the predicted 1C rise per doubling of CO2.”
Correlation is not causation. Duh. But it’s still correlation and demands an explanation. A natural rise of 0.06C is not sustainable otherwise we’d be stewing in our own juices after a thousand years of it. Neither is that rise sustainable by anthropogenic CO2 emission because there simply isn’t enough economically recoverable fossil fuel to burn to keep up the exponential growth in anthropogenic emission.
RockyRoad says:
August 20, 2011 at 5:53 am
“Dave, can you show me this “linear rise in surface temperature” since the beginning of the industrial revolution? I thought not.”
Think again. It’s in the OP, figure 2. Spelled out as well as graphically illustrated. Did you even read the article? I thought not.
You cracked me up completely! Now I have a mess at my work station, to clean up… thxs. GK
jens raunsø jensen
Cherry picking? well, try to start your analysis in 1878 and see what happens. Your upper line will have a slope of 0.004 (passing through 1878 and 1998), not 0.006, and the periodicity analysis falls apart.
The upper GMT boundary line does not depend on the starting year, 1880 in Figure 2. It only passes through all the GMT peaks. The periodicity analysis is independent of the start and end years. Here is the data that shows the GMT touched its upper boundary line only 3-times, every 60-years, but has never crossed it for long in the last 130 years.
http://bit.ly/qUEanL
The most important point is that the trend line for the whole data was found to be parallel to the upper GMT boundary line. It is the upper GMT boundary line that was drawn first.
The line that passes through the GMT peaks decides the global warming rate, not the start or end years.
You make a good point. We all love to rag at the warmists, however they are only doing what advocates do. The real problem is the silence of the many knowledgeable people who are letting all these issues slide.
Advocates make very poor scientists. Therefore it is important for skepticism to remain vocal and persistent. For the protection of society, it is unfortunately necessary. GK
With due respect, Dr Orssengo, you’re only an engineer so what would you know about it?
I sincerely hope, btw, that I don’t need to include that first line in [sarc] tags. Anyone who can’t see the sarcasm in it is suffering a severe sense of humour failure and probably believes in catastrophic AGW anyway, in which case I don’t mind offending them 😛
As for the main post above, perhaps it takes an engineer’s brain to see nice, simple, practically-useful, patterns (the type that Nature tends to favour, at least on a real-world scale) where the Climate Scientists – no other type counts, doncha know – use super-computers and $$$ research grants to search for intricate, theoretically interesting, but no-damn-practical-use ones?
Roger Sowell says:
August 20, 2011 at 6:29 am
@Dave Springer at August 20, 2011 at 5:39 am
“. . . the LWIR absorptive properties of CO2 at different concentrations is a common enough mistake but there’s no excuse for it other [than] ignorance of the physics involved.”
————————————————————————————————-
I’ve repeatedly seen/read that the physics of CO2 absorbing infra-red electromagnetic radiation is a settled science. My question for you, then, is how does one explain the fact that CO2 does not warm many of the measured locations in the long-term temperature record (i.e. since 1900)?
——————————————————————————–
Weather vs. climate. Geographical features. Land use changes.
I can’t say I’m entirely satisfied with the robustness of the instrumental record but I’m not overly concerned about it because the record, such as it is, disputes all claims of catastrophic warming. A 0.06C/decade rise in temperature due to anthropogenic CO2 is no cause for alarm becaues in order for it to persist anthropogenic CO2 emission must keep increasing exponentially and that is clearly not possible given the finite nature of economically recoverable fossil fuels. The whole alarmist case is based upon water vapor amplification and there is no signature of that amplification in the instrument record. So why should I dispute a record when that very record, such as it is, ruins the case for catastrophic anthropogenic global warming?
“Jantar says:
August 20, 2011 at 12:53 am
Werner, Your link only mentions tangental acceleration, and at the bottom of the swing tangental accelleration is indeed 0. But angular acceleration is at a maximum.”
“P Gosselin says:
August 20, 2011 at 3:41 am
Maybe I’m just nitpicking, but the animation shows an acceleration vector that is never zero in magnitude. That cannot be. Acceleration is zero when velocity reaches its max when theta is 0°.”
Thank you for the correction Jantar! P Gosselin, I initially thought what you did, but Jantar is correct. There are indeed two different accelerations going on simultaneously, although I do not recall seeing them represented this way in a single diagram. First of all, there is the acceleration due to gravity represented by the equation F = mg or in the case of a pendulum, F = mgsinx. So the greater the angle, the larger the tangential acceleration. And this is indeed 0 when the angle is 0. However there is another force equation for centripetal acceleration which is F = mv2/r, so the greater the speed in a circle, the greater the centripetal acceleration is. And the animation shows a smooth transition between these two different types of accelerations.
@John Brookes, I agree that the square-wave does appear to come out of nowhere, and with only 1,5 cycles (so far), its a bit of a stretch to assume that it is anything other than coincidence.
I understand that the pre-1880 data may be somewhat unreliable, but suspect that this was used as an excuse to drop it as its inclusion would spoil the nice straight lines. Going back to one of the original Feynman quotes, this data should probably have been included in the analysis.
Simple graphical analysis has its place, and this particular analysis is much more reasonable then the IPCC increasing slope analysis, but if there really is a 60 year cycle superimposed on a linear trend, some fairly simple fourrier analysis should show this.
This looks like a very promising alternative analysis of the data, but, IMHO, needs a bit more work.
Germa defines
/—////
Anthropogenic global warming advocates always accuse skeptics of cherry picking. A working definition of a cherry picker is one who makes conclusions based on comparison of oranges to apples.
———–
No. This I’d not the definition of cherry picking.
Cherry picking is when you promote isolated fragments of data as representing the entire situation.
Like promoting outlier scientific papers as being correct while disparaging papers that tell you things you don’t want to hear,
Or like plotting a graph that starts at 1998 and finishes now so the record 99 el niño can be used to fake a cooling trend.
This point looks like it’s straight out of strawman land.
@Dave Springer says:
“Wonderful! Thank an industrial smokestack for it.”
_______
Yes, blame it on the evil smokestack. Of course, *you* don’t use anything made in or with electricity from one of those factories… oh wait, you ARE using the internet so you must be supporting those evil smokestacks… now what would that make you? Hmmmm, hypocrite maybe?
paulhan says:
August 20, 2011 at 6:07 am
“I think the 0.6degC per century rise illustrated in this analysis, is just part of a longer trend taking in the Holocene Optimum, Minoan Warm Period, Roman Warm Period, Medieval Warm Period, along with their corresponding cool period, culminating in the Little Ice Age, which we are (or were?) coming out of. No CO2 is needed to explain this phenomenon, in fact, it can’t.”
Perhaps. Given the dire effect on agriculture that a repeat of the LIA would engender I believe the salient question with regard to AGW is not “Is it too much?” but rather “Is it enough?”.
I hope it’s enough but I fear that it isn’t.
Fact: The earth has been in an ice age for the past several million years.
Fact: The Holocene interglacial (past 12,000 years) is statistically quite old and overdue for an ending.
It’s cooling I fear not warming. The earth blooms from pole to pole and stays that way for tens and hundreds of millions of years at a stretch with atmopspheric CO2 at the high end of its range of some 2000ppm or more. The indisputable testimony of the geologic column leaves no doubt about the relationship between CO2 and primary production in the food chain – more is better and current level is dangerously low which perhaps explains, at least in part, the perpetuation of the Quaternary ice age.
KD says:
August 20, 2011 at 7:43 am
@Dave Springer says:
“Wonderful! Thank an industrial smokestack for it.”
_______
Yes, blame it on the evil smokestack. Of course, *you* don’t use anything made in or with electricity from one of those factories… oh wait, you ARE using the internet so you must be supporting those evil smokestacks… now what would that make you? Hmmmm, hypocrite maybe?
—————-
You misunderstand me. I firmly believe that anthropogenic CO2 emission is a good thing. It probably lengthens growing seasons in the places most in need of longer seasons, it definitely increases plant growth rate, and it definitely decreases fresh water requirements per unit of plant growth. What’s not to like about it? Rising sea level? Piffle. It isn’t rising fast enough to make it a concern. Neutralizaton of ocean pH? More piffle. It neutralizing fast enough for highly adaptable ocean life to adjust to the changes. For every organism that suffers from a more neutral ocean pH there will be one that benefits from it. Again the geologic column is indisputable testimony that the biosphere thrives under far higher atmospheric CO2 concentration than we have today.
Philip Peake
I understand that the pre-1880 data may be somewhat unreliable, but suspect that this was used as an excuse to drop it as its inclusion would spoil the nice straight lines. Going back to one of the original Feynman quotes, this data should probably have been included in the analysis.
The line that passes through the GMT peaks decides the global warming rate, not the start or end years.
The most important point is that the trend line for the whole data was found to be parallel to the upper GMT boundary line.
It is the upper GMT boundary line that was drawn first.
Werner Brozek says:
August 19, 2011 at 9:02 pm
Thank you for an excellent article! However the diagram with the acceleration vector is not correct.
——
The animation is correct. The body is following a curved path. Therefore it’s subject to acceleration and the string tension is suppling an extra force beyond that needed to counteract gravity,
David Springer,
The 3C rise from a doubling of CO2 is hardly “urban legend”, except of course among skeptics. There are many fast and slow feedbacks in addition to water vapor that are part of this. Suggest you do a bit more reading on this subject before mouthing such nonsense, maybe beginning here:
http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v3/n1/abs/ngeo724.html
http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/2010/2010_Lunt_etal.pdf
http://www.publish.csiro.au/?act=view_file&file_id=CSIRO_CC_Chapter%202.pdf
@ Dave Springer:
“Weather vs. climate. Geographical features. Land use changes.” referencing why adjacent cities have different long-term temperature trends.
They are too close together to have different weather, and certainly have the same climate.
The geographical features are nearly identical – both on the Texas plains, or both in the California central valley.
Land use changes – Sacramento and Fresno are both medium-sized cities, similar growth. No dissimilarity there. San Antonio has grown much larger than Abilene did, and that is the point. Urban Heat Island effect should not be trumpeted as evidence of CO2-induced global warming. That part is, indeed, very bad science.
Any other explanations for why adjacent cities have opposing long-term temperature trends?
The entire basis for CO2-induced global warming is false. CO2 cannot play favorites. It’s not that smart.
David Springer said:
” A 0.06C/decade rise in temperature due to anthropogenic CO2 is no cause for alarm becaues in order for it to persist anthropogenic CO2 emission must keep increasing exponentially…”
———-
More nonsense…on several levels. But to take the most obvious of the lot, have you never heard of hysteresis? Begin here:
http://www.seas.harvard.edu/climate/seminars/pdfs/Wu_etal_GRL2010.pdf
R. Gates says:
August 19, 2011 at 8:28 pm
“Even with a Maunder type minimum, the earth of 2011 far different in atmospheric composition than the earth of the 1600′s. ”
Thank you for the new Gatesism. I will add it to my growing list.
Now, what is it exactly that you mean by “far different”?
Gates says:
“The 3C rise from a doubling of CO2 is hardly ‘urban legend’, except of course among skeptics.”
Gates is deluded. Real world observations show that the 3°+ rise is complete nonsense: click
Scientific skeptics are the only honest kind of scientist, and Gates is no skeptic. He is a true believer in the IPCC and Algore’s alarmism. The real world doesn’t affect his belief system.
Girma
(sorry for misspelling your name in my earlier comment).
it is allowed to learn 🙂 !
You are cherry picking! (or lets put it more amicably, avoiding a sensitivity test of your decision to start in 1880). Contrary to what you say, the upper line does depend heavily on the starting year. Try what I suggested earlier, and start in 1878, only 2 years before you start. Your periodicity analysis falls apart. Which is not surprising. Do you think that a periodicity of 60 years can be identified in a very simple “statistical analysis” covering a period of 130 years ?
And there is nothing very interesting in what you refer to as the main finding, that you can construe (near) linear boundary lines in a linear regression, near-parallel to the regression line, This is what is called confidence lines in regression analysis. You could have constructed an infinite number of curves in stead of lines as boundary “lines” (but you did not check that), was it not for the fact that you a priori (are you aware?) decided to construct a line, and thereby effectively defined the meaning of boundary curve and peak and vally values.
Your analysis lacks scientific rigour, which is required even in data explorations. What you have demonstrated is, that a subjective analysis based on eyeballing may claim, that the temperature curve could (I say could) have a periodicity in the time interval from 1880. This is no “nail in the coffin”, as some of the responses would seem to suggest.
Pls note that I am not saying that there is no periodicity hidden in the temperature curve. Others (eg Scafetta) have argued convincingly for that. I accept this as one among other potential factors determining the temperature variations on earth, including ENSO and anthropogenic factors.
My recommendation, if you want to pursue the analysis further, is:
1) define what you mean with boundary curve and peak and vally values.
2) do a sensitivity test of your methodology: (i) period of record, vary the length of record and starting/ending year; (ii) identification of peak and vally values/timing.
regards
Tom in Florida says:
August 20, 2011 at 8:34 am
R. Gates says:
August 19, 2011 at 8:28 pm
“Even with a Maunder type minimum, the earth of 2011 far different in atmospheric composition than the earth of the 1600′s. ”
Thank you for the new Gatesism. I will add it to my growing list.
Now, what is it exactly that you mean by “far different”?
————
40% more CO2, 30% more NO2, 300% more CH4….for starters. All strong GH gases.
“40% more CO2, 30% more NO2, 300% more CH4….for starters. All strong GH gases.”
And all are still minuscule trace gases that don’t do what is claimed, as Hansen’s failed predictions show.
Dave Springer:
Re your post at August 20, 2011 at 7:04 am that is addressed to somebody named “Dick” but is obviously aimed at me.
I did not “put words in [your] mouth”: I qouted you verbatim. And you admit that correlation is not causation.
Your complaint at me is as wrong as your complaint at Orssengo’s work. In both cases you assert that a logical argument based on undisputed fact must be wrong because it fails to confirm your opinion.
I can only quote from my post that you claim to be answering;
“Show a flaw in Orssengo’s work or say nothing because it is better for you to be thought to be a fool than for you to post something that proves you are a fool.”
The same applies to your response to my comment.
Richard
How about Columbia, Missouri (USA), compared to its neighboring city, St. Louis? These cities are approximately 100 miles apart east to west, with Columbia also 10 miles to the north. Yet, Columbia shows almost zero warming at +0.01 degrees Centigrade per decade, while St. Louis shows ten times that amount at +0.11 degrees Centigrade per decade.
CO2 cannot possibly be that smart, and that accurate in targeting St. Louis while completely ignoring Columbia.
Real physics does not work that way. The entire concept of CO2 acting as a “global warming” agent is demonstrably false. All it takes to falsify a hypothesis is one example. There are many, many examples in the warmists’ own data.
Smokey says:
August 20, 2011 at 9:00 am
“40% more CO2, 30% more NO2, 300% more CH4….for starters. All strong GH gases.”
And all are still minuscule trace gases that don’t do what is claimed, as Hansen’s failed predictions show.
——–
Now for more non-science from Smokey. Yes, GH gases do exactly what the solid physics tells us they do…keep the earth far warmer then we’d be without them. But if we’d had a planet without such “minuscule” trace gases, I’d gladly pay for a ticket to send you there.
R. Gates:
Your post at August 20, 2011 at 9:11 am is nonsense. It says, in total,
“Smokey says:
August 20, 2011 at 9:00 am
“40% more CO2, 30% more NO2, 300% more CH4….for starters. All strong GH gases.”
And all are still minuscule trace gases that don’t do what is claimed, as Hansen’s failed predictions show.
——–
Now for more non-science from Smokey. Yes, GH gases do exactly what the solid physics tells us they do…keep the earth far warmer then we’d be without them. But if we’d had a planet without such “minuscule” trace gases, I’d gladly pay for a ticket to send you there.”
The issue is NOT whether GH gases “keep the earth far warmer then we’d be without them”.
There are two pertinent issues; viz.
1.
At August 19, 2011 at 8:28 pm you asserted:
“Even with a Maunder type minimum, the earth of 2011 far different in atmospheric composition than the earth of the 1600′s”
and when called on that you cited the percentage changes in trace gases that are in the parts per million. Such minute changes do NOT amount to a “far different … atmospheric composition”.
2.
Has the increase to those trace gases had any discernible effect on climate and is there any evidence that further such increases would affect climate? And the answer to both those questions is a resounding, NO!
Richard
jens raunsø jensen
The approximate peak values are fixed
(1880,-0.27), (1940, 0.09) & (2000, 0.45)
The line the passes through these points is fixed in space and is given by
Upper GMT boundary line = 0.006(Year-1880)-0.27
For the period 1880 to 2010 data, the global warming rate of the upper GMT boundary line is nearly equal to the global warming rate of the trend line. However, for the period 1850 to 2010 data, the two values are different.
http://bit.ly/o994Qu
In trend calculations, we cannot arbitrarily choose start and end years especially for cyclic data. The trend must be calculated from one peak (1880s) to another peak (2000s). If you chose another period, the global warming rate of the upper boundary line and the trend line will be different as shown above.
Besides, according to Phil Jones the data before 1880 are uncertain.
Gates, post your billing address, because I’m accepting your offer to pay for a ticket.
Venus doesn’t have a ‘minuscule’ trace gas — it has an atmosphere with more than 96% CO2. But it has no ‘greenhouse gas’ warming. None at all. Its temperature is entirely explained by its closer proximity to the sun.
So your pseudoscience-based CAGW belief system takes yet another fatal hit. Not that it will make any difference to a cognitive dissonance-afflicted true believer. A new global glaciation could be upon us, with mile thick glaciers descending on New York, Cleveland and Chicago, and you would still be arguing that a harmless and beneficial tiny trace gas is gonna getcha. You’re Harold Camping, version 2.0.☺
moderator,
it seems to me that you are mixing comments from other discussions into this discussion, and that some comments for this thread has been placed in other threads … jens
[Reply: Moderators do not have the ability to do that. ~dbs, mod.]
Girma,
your answers to my comments leads me to reinforce my earlier observation: it is allowed to learn! Try to apply basic scientific principles to your analysis and you will hopefully see the problem and possibly alternative, more scientific approaches.
regards
I think this wonderfully simple model can be tested much earlier than 2030. I have suggested in other threads that a variety of “worst-in-the-last-50yrs” weather events reported in recent years(fires, floods, tornadoes, melting ice [subs surfacing at the N Pole in the 1950s], snow storms and seasonal snow fall, rainfall, droughts, etc.) can be generally forecast by looking back this period of time for what happened then. Maybe the worst in 50 years instead of 60 years is because of the 0.06/decade actual warming trend. Anyone like to look at the major weather events of 50 – 60 years ago and predict what we have these days and to come
LazyTeenager says:
August 20, 2011 at 7:40 am
“Like promoting outlier scientific papers as being correct while disparaging papers that tell you things you don’t want to hear,”
Scientific papers don’t form a continuum, so using the word “outlier” doesn’t make sense.
Refusing the conclusions of the AGW computer modeling papers is perfectly reasonable, as the models have shown no predictive skill. Future models might, but the current models don’t.
Show predictive skill and your models might be taken seriously.
Perhaps the most important part of Dr. Orssengo’s post here is to show some of the futility of using GMT to identify both an accelerated warming and its cause, mankind’s production of CO2. This post shows a cyclic temperature trend riding the back of a linear trend. But what if the linear trend is, itself, a longer cycle that is difficult to distinguish from a linear trend in this particular epoch? This could in theory show decelerated warming accelerated warming, and so forth.
I really think viewing temperature records themselves as supply fingerprints to indict AGW is just a fool’s errand.
“supplying” rather than “supply”, of course.
@ jens raunsø jensen
Dr Jensen I assume?
I respectfully suggest that your criticism of Girma’s approach, particularly based on the question of chosen starting year, is in error. The fact is, for any analysis of any finite data set, start and end points must be selected. In the absence of any clues to the contrary, arbitrary points (such as 30, 50 or 100 years) have to be chosen but, if there’s evidence available to suggest more appropriate points, then this should be taken into account.
The Eyeball, Human, Mk1, is still one of the most sophisticated tools available for spotting the existence, if not the exact nature, of a pattern in data. Girma’s use of this highly sensitive tool has identified a fairly obvious cycle within what’s considered (even by the AGW fraternity) to be the most reliable sub-set of the data.
Now, the fact that there may be no established mechanism in the literature to create a pattern seen by the Mk1 eyeball doesn’t mean that the pattern doesn’t exist. It’s at least as likely to mean that we haven’t found the mechanism yet. Man has observed that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, on a fairly regular basis, since he first walked the earth. Yet he didn’t know why until quite recently. Does that mean that the sun didn’t rise and set in all those preceding millennia?
Having identified such a (likely, although admittedly not proven) pattern, Girma’s logic in basing subsequent reasoning on the period of that pattern is absolutely correct. What is described above as “bounding values” is not, as you claim, merely a confidence interval any more than the peak values of an AC voltage are confidence intervals. Using your logic, the voltage coming out of my wall socket is 0 volts, but with a confidence interval of +-339.4V. Forgive me if I don’t stick my fingers in there to test the 0V !
LazyTeenager says:
August 20, 2011 at 7:40 am
„Cherry picking is when you promote isolated fragments of data as representing the entire situation. … Or like plotting a graph that starts at 1998 and finishes now so the record 99 el niño can be used to fake a cooling trend. „
The inversion of Cherry picking is to ignore valid connections between functions.
http://volker-doormann.org/images/solar_fig_3.gif
http://volker-doormann.org/gif/ghi_had_w.gif
http://volker-doormann.org/gif/ghi12x_vs_sst.gif
I think the point is whether there is a basis for valid connections between functions. It is impossible to show relevant correlations in one graph. That does not mean Cherry picking.
In the case of terrestrial climate there are many different sources of global heat, and all these sources must be a separate point of research. Climate is not to be hacked by linear functions or cycles labeled by years.
In general I think there is no need to write down a simple genius world formula for the terrestrial climate; in opposite, the complex nature of climate has to understand step by step. Nature does not need theories but recognition of nature.
Climate research including the solar system and some ky or some 1000 ky is a complex thing, not to be explained with the magic EXCEL or one cycle in years.
V.
Lots of naysayers today. The 60 year ocean cycle is understood enough to be the main driver of short-term climate change. Indeed, a proper statistical study will start at a low-point or high point in this sequence and describe the trend in this matter correctly. Since the swings as described in this article are natural, its very hard for “physics evidence” to trump “simple observational evidence.”
Indeed, we have a condundurm. We have about 120 years of good data to analyze and with 60 year cycles, this limits us. We have 1880 – 1940. And we have 1940-2000. (years are just approx might you). But this natural as I call it warming we have seen is steady. The study shown here proves this, or that at the very least that humans have nothing to do with it since the warming is steady as she goes as shown.
I don’t see how people can debate that this is a fact. If the warming is not natural, then why did temperatures drop from 1940-1970 when CO2 was rising? Either CO2 drives the climate or it does not, and I think that half the years show a negative correlation between CO2 levels and temperatures should be enough to make people realize that CO2 does not “drive” the climate.
The fact is, more then likely the greenhouse effect is over-estimated in the physics equations which balance with a problem inside of them. Otherwise, wouldn’t the models be correct? Have any of the models predicted the last 10 years of no warming? This is the issue that I see, is that physics that balance an energy balance and for some reason those equations are wrong and yet are still used. I am not saying they aren’t correct in some places, but if something is wrong somewhere, you normally scrap the entire physics and start over and get it right. This needs to be done and should have been done 10 years ago when evidence pointed to them being incorrect in the first place.
And let me add, none of the complaints against this very well written article go towards the heart of the matter, or the assertion that I think is the most damning for warmists.
That is that the slope of the warming has not changed since 1880. If CO2 is a factor, this slope should have been increasing all along, and it hasn’t. These small details are the key here. I along with most sceptics fully believe that CO2 probably plays a role in the climate just like any other part of the system. The fact that we argue is that the scale of said involvement is over-stated. This should come as no surprise as we have seen zero evidence to support conclusions that the greenhouse gases actually drive climate as much as claimed.
Indeed, if over the next 10-15 years we see a drop as predicted in temperatures, would this mean that the warmists will admit they are wrong and that we are correct in our trend analysis?
Dave Springer says:
” Human production of CO2 has been rising exponentially since the beginning of the industrial revolution and because its ability to absorb LWIR falls off exponentially the end result is pretty much exactly what you see – a linear rise in surface temperature.”
Either Mr. Springer does not know when the industrial revolution started or he does not realise that Human production of CO2 was not neglible before the industrial revolution or he does not understand how quickly an exponential series tends to infinity. He may have a good point but he spoils it with his loose use of language.
R. Gates says:
August 19, 2011 at 8:28 pm
Even with a Maunder type minimum, the earth of 2011 far different in atmospheric composition than the earth of the 1600′s. A new “little age age” is quite unlikely.
===============================
OK, great Oracle of WUWT, what about the next big one ? How many ppm do we need to put in the atmosphere to avert that ??
Let us know how you do the calculation too.
Richard S Courtney says:
August 20, 2011 at 9:31 am
R. Gates:
Your post at August 20, 2011 at 9:11 am is nonsense. It says, in total,
“Smokey says:
August 20, 2011 at 9:00 am
“40% more CO2, 30% more NO2, 300% more CH4….for starters. All strong GH gases.”
And all are still minuscule trace gases that don’t do what is claimed, as Hansen’s failed predictions show.
——–
Now for more non-science from Smokey. Yes, GH gases do exactly what the solid physics tells us they do…keep the earth far warmer then we’d be without them. But if we’d had a planet without such “minuscule” trace gases, I’d gladly pay for a ticket to send you there.”
The issue is NOT whether GH gases “keep the earth far warmer then we’d be without them”.
There are two pertinent issues; viz.
1.
At August 19, 2011 at 8:28 pm you asserted:
“Even with a Maunder type minimum, the earth of 2011 far different in atmospheric composition than the earth of the 1600′s”
and when called on that you cited the percentage changes in trace gases that are in the parts per million. Such minute changes do NOT amount to a “far different … atmospheric composition”.
2.
Has the increase to those trace gases had any discernible effect on climate and is there any evidence that further such increases would affect climate? And the answer to both those questions is a resounding, NO!
Richard
_____
Then Richard, please explain past interglacials, as the forcing from the minuscule changes in Milankovtich insolation are not enough in and of themselves. Enter positive feedbacks from increasing CO2. This is where those skeptical of the power of CO2 sort of fall flat on their faces. In other words, if CO2 did not increase as the Milankovitch cycle increased its insolation, the world would not warm nearly enough to bring about the temperature difference we see from the coldest part of the glacial period to the warmest part of the interglacial. It is only the increase in
CO2 as a positive feedback that can give the added forcing to warm the world up to the temperatures seen in the interglacials. This “minuscule” little trace gas is pretty potent stuff.
philincalifornia says:
August 20, 2011 at 12:34 pm
R. Gates says:
August 19, 2011 at 8:28 pm
Even with a Maunder type minimum, the earth of 2011 far different in atmospheric composition than the earth of the 1600′s. A new “little age age” is quite unlikely.
===============================
OK, great Oracle of WUWT, what about the next big one ? How many ppm do we need to put in the atmosphere to avert that ??
______
There are many next “big ones” ahead, covering many different things…to which are you referring?
Solomon Green says:
August 20, 2011 at 12:34 pm
Dave Springer says:
” Human production of CO2 has been rising exponentially since the beginning of the industrial revolution and because its ability to absorb LWIR falls off exponentially the end result is pretty much exactly what you see – a linear rise in surface temperature.”
Either Mr. Springer does not know when the industrial revolution started or he does not realise that Human production of CO2 was not neglible before the industrial revolution or he does not understand how quickly an exponential series tends to infinity. He may have a good point but he spoils it with his loose use of language.
_____
There are many things Mr. Springer appears not to realize, or perahps he does realize them, but chooses to ignore them. Either way, you are correct in that his language is “loose” (very kind way of putting things), and his points are more than spoiled…they are nonsense.
Solomon Green says:
August 20, 2011 at 12:34 pm
Dave Springer says:
” Human production of CO2 has been rising exponentially since the beginning of the industrial revolution and because its ability to absorb LWIR falls off exponentially the end result is pretty much exactly what you see – a linear rise in surface temperature.”
“Either Mr. Springer does not know when the industrial revolution started”
Generally considered to be around 1750.
“or he does not realise that Human production of CO2 was not neglible before the industrial revolution”
It was generally carbon neutral before the industrial revolution. The English were burning charcoal obtained from wood. Might have been a few natural gas lamps lighting the streets a bit earlier but most people were using whale oil or candles for lighting back then. It was the invention of the steam engine and the insatiable appetite for fuel for the boilers (anthracite) that really kicked things off in the fossil department. Sure there’s archeological evidence of anthracite use dating back to the Roman Empire, and burning peat (technically a fossil fuel) where it was available there but those are exceptions to the rule. The human population was also far smaller in the more distant past – that has grown exponentially too and traditional sources of fuel (wood mostly) became insufficient.
” or he does not understand how quickly an exponential series tends to infinity”
Or you don’t understand that the time base can make an exponential series stretch out quite a while before it goes vertical. A doubling of fossil fuel consumption every 50 years is an exponential expansion. With a small starting value it’ll go on for centuries before the growth curve crosses over the diagonal.
“He may have a good point but he spoils it with his loose use of language.”
This is a blog not a math class. I suspect you’re still attending those…
R.Gates
I realize you’re a legend in your own mind. If you can put that aside long enough to actually point out what I wrote you think is wrong and why then I’ll take your criticism seriously. Otherwise, go pound sand, loser.
benfrommo says:
August 20, 2011 at 12:06 pm
That is that the slope of the warming has not changed since 1880. If CO2 is a factor, this slope should have been increasing all along, and it hasn’t
========================================================
Not only increasing Ben….
If CO2 was driving temperatures, every time temperatures were decreased or flat lined….
…..when whatever caused that was over
….temperatures would jump back to the precious trend line, and continue from there
not start a new trend line like nothing had happened
What the temperature chart shows is that even though CO2 has increased…
…CO2 is not driving temperatures
R. Gates says:
August 19, 2011 at 8:28 pm
“Even with a Maunder type minimum, the earth of 2011 far different in atmospheric composition than the earth of the 1600′s. A new “little age age” is quite unlikely.”
No doubt there were plenty of morons staring into their crystal balls during the Medieval Warm Period that it would last forever. They were wrong. What makes you different from them? Certainly not any rigorous data. Your crystal ball have some kind of authenticated track record? ROFLMAO
So, R. Gates… you’re telling us that CO2 increases after temp increases? Who knew?
Pardon, but not only are you making a skeptic’s point, but you have fallen back to the last rampart of the indefensible; the exclusionary principle.
“And let me add, none of the complaints against this very well written article go towards the heart of the matter, or the assertion that I think is the most damning for warmists.”
I owe the author an apology if the main point of the article was that the past 50 years has seen no acceleration in warming trend that has been ongoing since the beginning of the industrial revolution. That’s pretty obvious from a casual glance at the temperature record. The author is FAR from the first person to notice the imprint of the Atlantic Multi-Decadal Oscillation on the instrument temperature record for crying out loud. If the main point was pointing out the obvious then I don’t see the point. We already noticed.
If his main point was that the warming trend is natural then I have nothing to apologize for because he did nothing to substantiate that point.
“That is that the slope of the warming has not changed since 1880. If CO2 is a factor, this slope should have been increasing all along, and it hasn’t.”
No it should NOT have been increasing. The growth rate of anthropogenic CO2 emission from fossil fuel happens to match pretty closely the decreasing rate at which CO2 can absorb LWIR. Combine an exponential expansion in CO2 emission with an exponential contraction in its ability to raise surface temperature and you get a linear ramp, which is exactly what we see.
Dave Springer says:
August 20, 2011 at 2:14 pm
R.Gates
I realize you’re a legend in your own mind. If you can put that aside long enough to actually point out what I wrote you think is wrong and why then I’ll take your criticism seriously. Otherwise, go pound sand, loser.
_______
David Springer said:
” A 0.06C/decade rise in temperature due to anthropogenic CO2 is no cause for alarm becaues in order for it to persist anthropogenic CO2 emission must keep increasing exponentially…”
______
Again, you seem to have dodged the issue of hysteresis and longer-term feedbacks. I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt that you actually don’t understand what these are, but your assertion that it will take continued exponential growth of CO2 emission for warming to persist is utter nonsense. The climate has not yet found a new thermal equalibrium point, so even if humans suddenly stopped adding the vast amounts of CO2 we are, it would be many decades before such a point would be reached. So on the point of requiring “exponential growth” of CO2 to continue for warming to continue, you are unmistakenly, undoubtedly, unreservedly wrong. A big enough error that you could easily pound sand with it.
Luther Wu says:
August 20, 2011 at 2:23 pm
So, R. Gates… you’re telling us that CO2 increases after temp increases? Who knew?
Pardon, but not only are you making a skeptic’s point, but you have fallen back to the last rampart of the indefensible; the exclusionary principle.
_____
Luther,
If you really want to understand the science, then study the science. CO2 reacts to the slight warming brough about by Milankovitch cycles as a positive feedback. There are 2 primary modes for these positive feedback, both involving the oceans. One is outgassing, and the other is the decrease in phytoplankton activity that accompanies a slightly warming world. Both of these lead to positive feedback loops that only accentuate the slight nudge given by Milankovtich cycles. Suggest you read:
http://www.publish.csiro.au/?act=view_file&file_id=CSIRO_CC_Chapter%202.pdf
For starters…
reply to: Edim says: August 20, 2011 at 7:15 am
Edim, thanks for that video clip! Fun with pendulums – and of course, fun in large part (at least for me) because things like this certainly make one think and are highly relevant to the issue at hand. Not to mention being simple, elegant, real world visual representations of theory that would take a boatload of space to graphically represent in 2D format. :0)
R. Gates says:
August 19, 2011 at 8:28 pm
“the earth of 2011 far different in atmospheric composition than the earth of the 1600′s”
An increase in CO2 from 0.003% to 0.004% of the atmosphere is far different? Really?
Oooooooooooooooooookay.
Your opinion has been duly noted!
R. Gates says:
August 20, 2011 at 1:54 pm
philincalifornia says:
August 20, 2011 at 12:34 pm
______
There are many next “big ones” ahead, covering many different things…to which are you referring?
=========================
Well (disregarding what I believe was a typo), you said little as in “ice age”, so the “big” referred to the next big ice age. Sounds like you’re going to take this one on then ?
R. Gates says:
August 20, 2011 at 8:57 am
Tom in Florida says:
August 20, 2011 at 8:34 am
R. Gates says:
August 19, 2011 at 8:28 pm
“Even with a Maunder type minimum, the earth of 2011 far different in atmospheric composition than the earth of the 1600′s. ”
Thank you for the new Gatesism. I will add it to my growing list.
Now, what is it exactly that you mean by “far different”?
————
Your reply: “40% more CO2, 30% more NO2, 300% more CH4….for starters. All strong GH gases.”
I gotta give you credit, heaping Gatesisms upon Gatesisms is a great way to avoid the question.
Now why don’t you post the actual figures in PPM so that one can actually see if the atmosphere is “far different”. Of course if you do, it will not be “far different”. Nice try.
Philip Peake
Even though Phil Jones said the data before 1880 is uncertain, you want it to be included. Okay, here it is.
http://bit.ly/qVOW9E
This clearly will not change the conclusions of the article.
At least it is satisfying that we are not arguing about what the data says in the last 100 years.
Philip, your criticism would have been valid if Phil Jones had not said the data before 1880 is uncertain.
philincalifornia says:
August 19, 2011 at 6:59 pm
“If only they’d tortured the data into admitting temperature was flatlining for 50 years, THEN they could have claimed an acceleration.”
As a lawyer friend of mine is fond of saying, the problem with torture is that it can induce the prisoner not only to sing, but also to compose.
Dave Springer says:
August 20, 2011 at 5:39 am
“While it’s not proven that anthropogenic CO2 since the beginning of the industrial revolution has caused a 0.06/decade rise in surface temperature the physics involved do indeed predict it. It follows quite nicely the predicted 1C rise per doubling of CO2.”
Case in point. The “physics” give you a model. Parameterization of that model is what gives you numerical predictions. And, the parameters can be tuned to give you whatever answer you want.
Smokey says:
August 19, 2011 at 7:00 pm
“There are other differences, too.”
May be NSFW!
paulhan says:
August 20, 2011 at 6:07 am
“What I don’t think would be in dispute is this ~30year warm/~30 year cool “cycle”. I think if we could identify what underlies that, it would be a major advance to our knowledge. There is no apparent driver of it, the closest correlation with it is ocean cycles, but what drives them? Is it yet another homeostatic mechanism (like Willis’s thunderstorms, or melting sea ice), and if so, what is the trigger?”
Random forcing exciting a particular resonant system mode is sufficient. Lack of a known source is not sufficient to negate the hypothesis, and such dynamics are hardly rare or unusual. To negate the hypothesis, it is necessary to show that no such source can or does exist. Good luck on that!
Dave Springer says:
August 20, 2011 at 6:17 am
” A 0.06C/decade [LINEAR] rise in temperature during that time would be 60C.”
Fixed that for you. Who you think is arguing such a phenomenon, I have no idea.
“Simple physics of rising CO2 in isolation predicts a surface temperature increase of about 1C per doubling. There is no credible argument to the contrary… Without positive feedback from water vapor there is no cause for alarm from rising CO2.”
And, NEGATIVE feedback from other sources would establish a credible argument to the contrary.
R. Gates says:
August 20, 2011 at 8:06 am
“David Springer,
The 3C rise from a doubling of CO2 is hardly “urban legend”, except of course among skeptics. There are many fast and slow feedbacks in addition to water vapor that are part of this.“
And, those additional feedbacks are poorly quantified (not really, but even non-skeptics acknowledge this at least) thus transforming your categorical imperative of 3C warming into nebulous speculation.
Tom in Florida says:
“Now, what is it exactly that you mean by ‘far different’?”
It’s typical alarmist exaggeration. The atmosphere has changed maybe by one part in ten-thousand. To Gates, that’s “far different.” To sane folks, it’s practically identical. To the biosphere, it’s all good.
@ Dave Springer:
Dave, as I read it the main point of the article is that the past 130 years or so (the relatively reliable record) has shown no acceleration of warming. As you say, many of us have noticed this and it is blindingly obvious if you look at the data in graphical form.
But the article presents that in a slightly different way, which might help to make it clear to some who haven’t seen it – whether because they haven’t looked or because they’ve taken the orthodoxy’s scary statements about accelerated this-that-and-the-other on face value.
One of the hallmarks of a good teacher is their ability to present the same concept in a multitude of ways, every presentation increasing the chance of any given individual “getting it”. When people have that “get it” moment is when they actually start to understand rather than accepting as rote learning. As a group, that’s what the sceptical community do rather well, helped by the wide ranging backgrounds they come from!
Compare and contrast with the orthodoxy’s methods of vilifying, scaring and threatening as a means of persuading people to “accept” and refusal to grant air-time to anyone other than official, certifiable, Climate Scientists or their Slebrity apostles.
As for whether or not the 0.06 deg / decade is natural, I agree that the article doesn’t really present anything to support that. However, that figure is (I believe??) within what even the orthodoxy accept would be possible from nature and is certainly well below what they claim is the incontrovertible signal of anthropogenic involvement.
steven mosher
Your graph: http://bit.ly/nGReJV
Here is the equivalent graph containing the whole data from 1850.
http://bit.ly/nimJnK
The above graph shows the selection of the starting year does not change the conclusions of the article: the global warming rate of the upper GMT trend line is equal to the global warming rate for the trend line for the data from 1880 to 2010.
When calculating the trend line the start and ends must correspond to similar position in the cycle. Peak to peak (1880s to 2000s), or valley-to-valley. Otherwise, the trend value will be incorrect.
R Gates:
At August 20, 2011 at 9:31 am you say to me:
“Then Richard, please explain past interglacials, as the forcing from the minuscule changes in Milankovtich insolation are not enough in and of themselves.”
Oh! So you admit you were spouting nonsense and want to change the subject. Fine. It is a significant improvement that you have started to admit that the posts you provide here are nonsense.
The explanation you demand of me is simple. The Milankovitch Cycle changed the state of the chaotic climate system and so the system switched to its other main strange attractor. Greenhouse gases played no part in this.
Indeed, greenhouse gas concentrations have been tens of times higher than now during ice ages so clearly they play no significant part in the transition from glacial to interglacial state..
Richard
Bart says:
“May be NSFW!”
I have to agree… if you work in downtown Tehran for an Islamic ayatollah.☹
Dave Springer says:
August 20, 2011 at 6:17 am
“Nonsense. The modern interglacial began some 10,000 years ago. A 0.06C/decade rise in temperature during that time would be 60C. In fact the total rise is about 6C…”
——————————————————————————
Bad on my part…. a mistake i wont live down for a while… LOL…
my point was simply that the ebb and flow of a sign wave will zero every 180 and 360 degrees. if the zero line is actually on a positive slope, in this case a 0.006 Deg C slope, the actual long term trend over thousands of years will be warming with internal highs and lows. the time span is of great importance.
To all who are suspicious of why I excluded the data from 1850 to 1880 in Figure 2, please replace that figure with the following, which starts from 1850
http://bit.ly/qVOW9E
This graph shows the starting year does not change any of the results discussed in the article.
[Change noted. Robt]
Edit note: “GMT will stop to behave ” GMT will stop behaving
_______
The pendulum predicts a repeat of the ’70s and ’80s in the ’30s and ’40s. The AGW ‘trend’ predicts more of ’98 or hotter. The GCR hypothesis suggests/predicts fairly severe cooling.
Markers have been placed. Let’s wait and see which is closest.
———————————————————————————————————————-
To all who are suspicious of why I excluded the data from 1850 to 1880 in Figure 2, please replace that figure with the following, which starts from 1850
http://bit.ly/qGcD9M
This graph shows the starting year does not change any of the results discussed in the article.
———————————————————————————————————————-
Tom in Florida says:
August 20, 2011 at 3:08 pm
R. Gates says:
August 20, 2011 at 8:57 am
Tom in Florida says:
August 20, 2011 at 8:34 am
R. Gates says:
August 19, 2011 at 8:28 pm
“Even with a Maunder type minimum, the earth of 2011 far different in atmospheric composition than the earth of the 1600′s. ”
Thank you for the new Gatesism. I will add it to my growing list.
Now, what is it exactly that you mean by “far different”?
————
Your reply: “40% more CO2, 30% more NO2, 300% more CH4….for starters. All strong GH gases.”
I gotta give you credit, heaping Gatesisms upon Gatesisms is a great way to avoid the question.
Now why don’t you post the actual figures in PPM so that one can actually see if the atmosphere is “far different”. Of course if you do, it will not be “far different”. Nice try.
_____
I understand that skeptics want to downplay the effects from CO2 by trying a paint it is “merely” a trace gas, as though the raw ppm take away the actual effects we get from greenhouse gases. It is actually quite amazing they are so potent for being such a small overall part of the atmosphere…but we all should be quite glad for that potency…up to a point.
Smokey says:
August 20, 2011 at 3:27 pm
Tom in Florida says:
“Now, what is it exactly that you mean by ‘far different’?”
It’s typical alarmist exaggeration. The atmosphere has changed maybe by one part in ten-thousand. To Gates, that’s “far different.” To sane folks, it’s practically identical. To the biosphere, it’s all good.
____
More non-science from Smokey…or is that non-sense. Earth 2011 does not equal Earth 1600. If you haven’t the background to understand the significant differences in atmosphere, oceans, biosphere, etc. then only many long hours actually reading some science books can help you.
R. Gates says: “Earth 2011 does not equal Earth 1600.”
================================================
and thank goodness……..1600 was the Little Ice Age and the climate has been getting a little warmer ever since………..
“From 1400 into the 19th century, there were 24 winters in which the Thames was recorded to have frozen over at London; 1408, 1435, 1506, 1514, 1537, 1565, 1595, 1608, 1621, 1635, 1649, 1655, 1663, 1666, 1677, 1684, 1695, 1709, 1716, 1740,, 1776, 1788, 1795, and 1814”
Richard S Courtney says:
August 20, 2011 at 3:55 pm
“Indeed, greenhouse gas concentrations have been tens of times higher than now during ice ages so clearly they play no significant part in the transition from glacial to interglacial state.”
I’ve heard that before but never bothered looking into its origin because it sounded too much like urban legend. As usual I was right.
http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/earlyice.htm
The date for the beginning of one of the three great ice ages in past billion years was wrong by 10 million years. High concentrations of greenhouse gases end ice ages. They begin with low concentrations.
It’s people like you who get us honest brokers of CAGW skepticism labeled as deniers. Not everything the climate boffins say is wrong. Most of it is fairly accurate. The biggest blunder, and the only one of any real concern, is water vapor amplification that makes a reasonable and probably quite accurate 1C surface temp increase per CO2 doubling into a 3C-5C increase in surface temp. There’s no empirical evidence to support that effect, lots of empirical evidence that says otherwise, very little in the way of reasonable physics for theoretical support, and quite reasonable theoretical physics that explains actual observations. They’ve built this huge house of cards and water vapor amplification is a pillar of support. Remove that one card and the whole thing comes tumbling down.
R. Gates says:
August 20, 2011 at 2:45 pm
“If you really want to understand the science, then study the science. CO2 reacts to the slight warming brough about by Milankovitch cycles as a positive feedback. There are 2 primary modes for these positive feedback, both involving the oceans. One is outgassing, and the other is the decrease in phytoplankton activity that accompanies a slightly warming world. Both of these lead to positive feedback loops that only accentuate the slight nudge given by Milankovtich cycles. Suggest you read:
http://www.publish.csiro.au/?act=view_file&file_id=CSIRO_CC_Chapter%202.pdf
For starters…”
=============
What if all I want to know is the ROI on all the windmills my taxes are paying for?
This is where the push-back is coming from, not your fevered dreams of feedback loops.
R. Gates says:
August 20, 2011 at 6:18 pm
“More non-science from Smokey…or is that non-sense. Earth 2011 does not equal Earth 1600. If you haven’t the background to understand the significant differences in atmosphere, oceans, biosphere, etc. then only many long hours actually reading some science books can help you.”
More vacuous hand waving from Gates. You’re wrong because I say you’re wrong and I can’t help you because only many long hours of study can correct your ignorance.
Spare us, Gates. I’ve forgotten more science that you ever knew.
So Gates, I’m still waiting for some actual data to support your claim that another LIA is “unlikely”.
How unlikely? The earth is in an ice age, clueless one. It’s return is “likely” inevitable according to climatology, sooner rather than later. That return will make the LIA look like a vacation in the Carribean in comparison. And you have the unadulterated hubris to say that even a taste of it is unlikely. You are so far removed from reality it’s hard to imagine how you manage to feed yourself.
Girma says:
August 20, 2011 at 6:10 pm
“To all who are suspicious of why I excluded the data from 1850 to 1880 in Figure 2, please replace that figure with the following, which starts from 1850”
I’m suspicious of any temperature chart that doesn’t go back 500 years such that it includes 250 years of industrial age to compare with 250 years of non-industrial age for comparative purposes. 30 years farther back doesn’t help because that’s STILL in the industrial age. Comprende, amigo?
R. Gates says:
August 20, 2011 at 6:12 pm
Tom in Florida says:
August 20, 2011 at 3:08 pm
R. Gates says:
August 20, 2011 at 8:57 am
I understand that skeptics want to downplay the effects from CO2 by trying a paint it is “merely” a trace gas, as though the raw ppm take away the actual effects we get from greenhouse gases. It is actually quite amazing they are so potent for being such a small overall part of the atmosphere…but we all should be quite glad for that potency…up to a point.
You mean the potency of CO2 to drive temperature as shown by the completely horizontal regression of CO2 levels and temperatures, over the phanerozioc:
http://img801.imageshack.us/img801/289/logwarmingpaleoclimate.png
Potency indeed! Note that the red and brown lines are the models, the blue dots are the data – choose which world you wish to inhabit.
Bill H says:
August 20, 2011 at 5:54 pm
“Bad on my part…. a mistake i wont live down for a while… LOL…”
“A while” in blog time is approximated by the time it takes for an article to scroll off the front page. 🙂
Joe Horner says:
August 20, 2011 at 3:30 pm
“One of the hallmarks of a good teacher is their ability to present the same concept in a multitude of ways, every presentation increasing the chance of any given individual “getting it”.
The presentation didn’t look particularly different to me from innumerable others pointing out the same thing. The AMDO riding on a linear uptrend of 0.06/c decade is very old news. How did it appear different to you?
“As for whether or not the 0.06 deg / decade is natural, I agree that the article doesn’t really present anything to support that. However, that figure is (I believe??) within what even the orthodoxy accept would be possible from nature and is certainly well below what they claim is the incontrovertible signal of anthropogenic involvement.”
This is the predicted signature of CO2 rise in isolation from pretty basic physical properties of the gas. About as complicated as calculating the R-Factor of attic insulation and what it means for how much energy it takes to heat or cool the building.
The same effect can certainly be produced by other means but that necessarily includes explaining how CO2 is having no effect when simple physics says it should. That’s the more difficult part of making the non-anthropogenic argument. Occam’s Razor also comes into play here. Big time. The simplest explanation for that trend is that humans are emitting CO2 in large enough quantity to easily account for the recent measured rise and the rise in CO2 easily explains the rise in temperature. Any other argument I’ve seen is more complex and sounds contrived which immediately raises a red flag in my mind. The simplest explanation isn’t always correct of course but it usually is and that’s why Occam’s Razor gets the respect it does.
Richard said:
“Indeed, greenhouse gas concentrations have been tens of times higher than now during ice ages so clearly they play no significant part in the transition from glacial to interglacial state.”
That’s clearly fallacious. The fact that some ice ages had (much) higher concentrations of GHGs than our current interglacial period does not show that transitions from glacial to interglacial states are not a function of GHG concentration. Nor does it show that GHG concentration plays “no significant part” in transitions. At most it shows that those transitions are not solely functions of GHG concentration. But no one claims that they are. The transitions are functions of GHG concentration and other factors.
@Joe Horner (con’t)
That said, I think the salient point about natural climate change is that stuff happens naturally that easily dwarfs the effect of anthropogenic CO2 and that these changes happen so frequently and so unpredictably in many cases that anthropogenic global warming becomes background noise in comparison. It’s that very thing that makes it nigh onto impossible to quantify how much anthropogenic effect is really there. The anthropogenic signal to natural noise ratio is very very poor.
R. Gates says:
August 20, 2011 at 2:45 pm
“Luther,
If you really want to understand the science, then study the science. ”
____________________________________________
I’ll use a sarc tag, next time.
@Girma — well, as I suspected your graph with the early data included (http://bit.ly/qVOW9E) isn’t quite so clean a story, is it?
I am prepared to be convinced that the early data has problems, and that it may well be valid to discount it, but I (personally) need a bit more on why, and why 1880 is suddenly ok but 1879 was not — just because Phil Jones said so, doesn’t carry as much weight as it might have done at one time 🙂
If it were me, I would have left the data on the graph, but grayed out (or something) with a decent explanation of why it was being ignored – it DOES need explanation, otherwise the charge of cherry picking is just too easy to make.
As it happens, I think you are right on all counts, but I like to play devil’s advocate from time to time 🙂
Philip Peake (aka PJP)
Thank you.
I agree.
Surely what Bill meant was “since the little ice age.”
Dave Springer says:
August 20, 2011 at 7:20 pm
So Gates, I’m still waiting for some actual data to support your claim that another LIA is “unlikely”.
How unlikely? The earth is in an ice age, clueless one. It’s return is “likely” inevitable according to climatology, sooner rather than later. That return will make the LIA look like a vacation in the Carribean in comparison. And you have the unadulterated hubris to say that even a taste of it is unlikely. You are so far removed from reality it’s hard to imagine how you manage to feed yourself.
————
The forcing from anthropogenic CO2 and related feedbacks is far more potent then the relatively minor forcing that may have initiated the LIA (most likely of solar origin). Milankovitch rules the long-term climate, and the fluctuations of sun, had, until recently, ruled the medium-term and shorter-term fluctuations in climate (Including DA events, Bond events, etc.), but human activity has changed all that. Earth 2011 does not equal Earth 1600. don’t look to the Holocene Optimum to see where we’re likely headed in the next few centuries, but rather the mid-Pliocene approximately 3 million years ago:
http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v3/n1/abs/ngeo724.html
Dave Springer says:
August 20, 2011 at 7:10 pm
Spare us, Gates. I’ve forgotten more science that you ever knew.
—-
Well, I guess that would explain the large amount of clearly fallacious “science” you spew. You’ve simply forgotten.
Dave Springer
From the data from the carbon dioxide analysis center (http://1.usa.gov/of3hxw) , from 1880 to 1940, annual human emission of CO2 increased from 0.9Gt to 5Gt, by 5.6 times. The corresponding increase in GMT was 0.36 deg C.
From 1940 to 2000, annual human emission of CO2 increased from 5Gt to 25Gt, by 5 times. The corresponding increase in GMT was the same 0.36 deg C. Mind you, in the second period, the CO2 from the first period is still in the atmosphere.
As a result, the effect of human emission of CO2 on GMT is nil.
(revised)
Dave Springer
From the data from the carbon dioxide analysis center (http://1.usa.gov/of3hxw) , from 1880 to 1940, annual human emission of CO2 increased from 0.9Gt to 5Gt, by about 4Gt. The corresponding increase in GMT was 0.36 deg C.
From 1940 to 2000, annual human emission of CO2 increased from 5Gt to 25Gt, by 20 Gt. The corresponding increase in GMT was the same 0.36 deg C. In the two period, the human emission of CO2 increased by about 5-times.
As a result, the effect of human emission of CO2 on GMT is nil.
Dave Springer says:
August 20, 2011 at 7:44 pm
“This is the predicted signature of CO2 rise in isolation from pretty basic physical properties of the gas. About as complicated as calculating the R-Factor of attic insulation and what it means for how much energy it takes to heat or cool the building.”
http://hidethedecline.eu/media/RoyGreenhouse/Gravity%20Rules%20the%20Greenhouse%20EffectV2_R.%20Clark_9.27.10.pdf
Explains why the calculations as you present them do not hold water. Or should that be heat? 🙂
If the CO2 questions were that simple, why is it not showing in observations? Simplifications of inputs to climate models has resulted in unreal forecasts. GIGO
(This is coming from the hemisphere that has cooled ~. 4°C in the last ten years, and a locality that has had six snowfalls in the last 30 years, three of which have been in this winter)
Girma,
It seems that you are not understanding the points about scientific approach I have raised in my previous comments. You continue to try to prove a preconceived idea with an ill-concieved methodology, rather than question and test that idea more rigourously..
You can not prove the existence of a 60 year periodicity in 130 years of data. Furthermore, the fact that the temperature curve may be represented by a linear approximation (which I think should not be done, given the known non-linearity of the data as I discussed in a previous post here) can not rule out any contrubution of GHG-effects, as you categorically do in a comment above at 12:03 am.This is unscientific nonsense, and does not contribute to a more balanced view of the roles of natural and anthropogenic forcings..
You have now extended the graph to include data from 1850 and claims that nothing changes. Well, if you do not want to see it, you can not see it. But let’s try again.
First, tell me what is the peak year in the period 1850-1900? you claim 1880 (but did not tell us why; cherry picked?), but following your approach I could just as well claim any year during 1850-1890. How did you find that the peak year was in 1880 and not in 1850?
Likewise, which year is the valley year in the period 1950-1975? you claim 1970 (without explanation), I could claim any year during 1950-1975. What makes your claim more valid than my claim?
Secondly, you forgot (?) to extend the linear regression when you extended the graph. The linear regression of T v. time covering 1850-2010 is relatively poor and with a slope of about 0.0042, far from your 0.006 for 1880-2010 and now clearly different from the slopes of your socalled boundary lines. The lines are no longer parallel. Am I correct?.
In other words, your claim/assumption of a 60 year cycle as the dominat signal during 1850-2010 has no clear support in the data, at least not with the kind of analysis you are doing. Do you agree with that?
regards
Dave Springer says:
August 20, 2011 at 7:44 pm
“The same effect can certainly be produced by other means but that necessarily includes explaining how CO2 is having no effect when simple physics says it should.”
One word: feedback. Done.
“Occam’s Razor also comes into play here.”
Occam’s razor is not an excuse to end further investigation because you have an idea which appears superficially to explain the phenomenon, and be simpler than anything else you can imagine. If we hewed to that line, we would still be living in the Dark Ages, praying to God (the simplest of all explanations) to spare our crops, vanquish our enemies, and heal our sick and wounded.
“The simplest explanation for that trend is that humans are emitting CO2 in large enough quantity to easily account for the recent measured rise and the rise in CO2 easily explains the rise in temperature.”
And, the simplest explanation for how presents end up under the Christmas Tree is Santa Claus.
“Any other argument I’ve seen is more complex and sounds contrived which immediately raises a red flag in my mind.”
Prima facie complexity sometimes has that effect on people:
What seems complex and contrived to you may appear simple to another, and vice versa. Most people have less difficulty imagining gravity as a perpetual “force” with constant flux emanating from a mass, so that it naturally decreases inversely proportional to the surface area of a given sphere surrounding it, than they do seeing it as a warping of space and time due to the mass. But, those who are clued in to differential geometry, Pseudo-Riemannian manifolds, and the implications of the speed of light as the universal speed limit find the latter explanation to be much simpler and more satisfying.
Knowing what I do of feedback systems, your explanation appears complex (though you apparently do not realize or comprehend the complexity of the planetary regulatory system it demands) and contrived to me.
“The simplest explanation isn’t always correct of course but it usually is and that’s why Occam’s Razor gets the respect it does.”
Rubbish. Occam’s Razor does not hold that the simplest explanation is usually the correct one. It says that, of two or more explanations with equal explanatory power, the simplest is to be preferred. Others posting here have pointed out where your explanation fails to account for several observations. It is therefore, ipso facto, not equal.
“Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler.”
– A. Einstein
jens raunsø jensen says:
August 21, 2011 at 1:51 am
“You can not prove the existence of a 60 year periodicity in 130 years of data.”
You cannot prove the existence of anything. But, you can make logical inferences based on certain axiomatic principles. And, you can certainly determine that the existence of a ~60 year periodicity is much more likely than not given a span of time containing two full cycles and an apparently high signal to noise ratio. Covering your eyes and denying it, however strenuously, isn’t going to change that.
Get real.
Dave Springer:
In a post at August 20, 2011 at 3:55 pm I accurately and correctly wrote:
“Indeed, greenhouse gas concentrations have been tens of times higher than now during ice ages so clearly they play no significant part in the transition from glacial to interglacial state.”
And you have responded with your post at August 20, 2011 at 6:53 pm which claims it is “an urban legend” that atmospheric CO2 concentrations were tens of times higher than now in an ice ages. And to prove it was an “urban legend” you provide a link to a single report of a single paper that says;
“Previous studies suggested that this particular ice age happened during a time that should have been very warm, when volcanoes all over the earth’s surface were spewing carbon dioxide (CO2) and other heat-trapping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
With CO2 levels as much as 20 times higher than today, the late Ordovician period (460-440 million years ago) wasn’t a good time for growing ice.”
But, that paper reporting a single finding of low atmospheric CO2 concentration is not a measurement, is not even a proxy measurement, but it is an inference from a proxy measurement of something else!
And it does not show the “previous studies” are wrong.
The reported paper is a separate study that examined limestone sediments from three sites “and determined that there was a relatively large amount of organic carbon buried in the oceans — and, by extension, relatively little CO2 in the atmosphere — at the same time.”
On the basis of that you claim that it is an “urban legend” that greenhouse gases were much higher in the ice age. And on the basis of that you say to me;
“It’s people like you who get us honest brokers of CAGW skepticism labeled as deniers.”
Clearly, you are good on slurs but poor on facts.
And your post proves you are not an “honest broker” but you are a fool.
Richard
Smokey says:
August 20, 2011 at 4:27 pm
“I have to agree… if you work in downtown Tehran for an Islamic ayatollah.”
Ah, then, you’ve met my boss?
GIRMA, says…”From the data from the carbon dioxide analysis center (http://1.usa.gov/of3hxw) , from 1880 to 1940, annual human emission of CO2 increased from 0.9Gt to 5Gt, by about 4Gt. The corresponding increase in GMT was 0.36 deg C.
From 1940 to 2000, annual human emission of CO2 increased from 5Gt to 25Gt, by 20 Gt. The corresponding increase in GMT was the same 0.36 deg C. In the two period, the human emission of CO2 increased by about 5-times.”
Both you and Dave make the same mistake Hansen made, talking about emissions, instead of CO2 levels. Assuming CO2 sensitivity to be consistent, what were the atmospheric changes during these two periods, what percentage of a doubling occured?
Brian:
At August 20, 2011 at 7:47 pm you dispute my correct and accurate statement that said:
“Indeed, greenhouse gas concentrations have been tens of times higher than now during ice ages so clearly they play no significant part in the transition from glacial to interglacial state.”
By asserting;
“That’s clearly fallacious. The fact that some ice ages had (much) higher concentrations of GHGs than our current interglacial period does not show that transitions from glacial to interglacial states are not a function of GHG concentration. Nor does it show that GHG concentration plays “no significant part” in transitions. At most it shows that those transitions are not solely functions of GHG concentration. But no one claims that they are. The transitions are functions of GHG concentration and other factors.”
OK. If it is “fallacious” please explain how
1.
the insignificant contribution of much higher contributions of greenhouse gases did not cause transitions from glacial to interglacial states
but
2.
increase of the even more insignificant contribution of the increase of greenhouse gases to their present level did cause transition from the last ice age.
Do the “other factors” vary that much?
If they don’t then my statement is true.
If they do then there is no reason to consider the insignificant effect of the greenhouse gases so my statement is true in that case, too.
Richard
Very good, Bart. If your boss decides to saw off your head Daniel Pearl-style, I promise to send a condolence card.☹ Maybe I can get Anthony to sign it.☺
jens raunsø jensen
Secondly, you forgot (?) to extend the linear regression when you extended the graph. The linear regression of T v. time covering 1850-2010 is relatively poor and with a slope of about 0.0042, far from your 0.006 for 1880-2010 and now clearly different from the slopes of your socalled boundary lines.
For any cyclic curve that has a warming trend, to find the warming trend the initial year must be at similar position on the cycle as the final year. Otherwise, the trend calculation will be wrong. In our case, since the final year is the current GMT peak, the initial year must also be a GMT peak. That is why I have not extend the linear regression when I extended the graph.
Here is the main result:
http://bit.ly/qGcD9M
The upper GMT boundary line is a straight-line for 160 years. The GMT touches but not crosses this boundary line for long throughout the temperature record. However, the IPCC says there is further warming of 0.2 deg C per decade in the next two decades.
Is that rational?
How could something that has not happened in the last 160 years going to happen in the next twenty years?
jens raunsø jensen
Likewise, which year is the valley year in the period 1950-1975? you claim 1970 (without explanation), I could claim any year during 1950-1975. What makes your claim more valid than my claim?
That is a good question.
Do you think the “accelerated warming” claim of the IPCC is valid?
We agree the climate is a complex system.
To find a rough approximation of what is going on in this complex system simplification has to be made. In figure 2, the duration from the 1880s peak to the 1910s valley is 30 years. The duration from the 1910s valley to the 1940s peak is 30 years. I assumed this 30 year to be a repeating pattern.
Using this assumption, I found a GMT estimate for the 1970s of –0.23 deg C and for 2000s of 0.45 deg C, which are excellent approximation of the observed values. The assumption is valid because the approximations are valid.
That is what I do as an engineer every day: Find a valid approximation of reality.
Girma,
I rest my case. You have no inclination to question yourself or to answer my questions.
You start your post with a quotation from the famous Professor R Feynman:
“Details that could throw doubt on your interpretation must be given, if you know them.”
Either you do not know of such details (which I have been advising you about) or you think that this principle should not apply to your work. You are violating this principle (and other basic principles) in your post.
have a nice day … jens
Girma says:
August 20, 2011 at 5:59 pm
“To all who are suspicious of why I excluded the data from 1850 to 1880 in Figure 2, please replace that figure with the following, which starts from 1850 .. This graph shows the starting year does not change any of the results discussed in the article.”
Girma, the results are results from two mathematic functions without any base in the real nature of heat flow.
Since 1976 it is well known from J. A. Eddy that the sun’s oscillations are fixed in terrestrial samples like 14C which show correlation with the temperature proxies.
http://volker-doormann.org/images/solar_fig_1.gif
These oscillations are valid for more than 8000 years.
In this graph taking your selectetd time interval a result is shown from real solar system oscillations using the NASA ephemerides:
http://volker-doormann.org/gif/ghi6_vs_hadcrut3_.gif
OK, some heat peaks like the global heat peak around 1940 are still not explained, but one can see, that there are time coherent correlations recognizable coming from REAL oscillations in the solar system.
However, it is written, ‘Numquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessitate’ (Plurality must never be posited without necessity). That implies the unspoken logic, if there are many heat frequencies present, it is necessary to keep them alive; linear functions kill the dynamic life of our climate.
V.
jens raunsø Jensen
Here is the detrended data for both gistemp and hadcrut3.
http://bit.ly/emAwAu
This result clearly shows the approximate 60-year cycle in the GMT data.
Assuming the data is correct, I accept what I see.
Dave Springer,
Actually man was farming for millenia before the advent of the industrial age and the following quote from Wikipedia may enlighten you
“At the same time, agriculture has been shown to produce significant effects on climate change, primarily through the production and release of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide, but also by altering the Earth’s land cover, which can change its ability to absorb or reflect heat and light, thus contributing to radiative forcing. Land use change such as deforestation and desertification, together with use of fossil fuels, are the major anthropogenic sources of carbon dioxide; agriculture itself is the major contributor to increasing methane and nitrous oxide concentrations in Earth’s atmosphere”.
The assumption that until the industrial revolution human production of CO2 was carbon neutral is necessary to support most climate models but is unproven and almost certainly false.
I do not wish to enter into a dispute with Mr. Springer as to how quickly an exponential series tends to infinity. I am sure that his knowledge of mathematics trumps my Master’s degree from one of the world’s top uiniversities in the subject.
Incidentally, I tend to agree with Leigh, Benoit Mandelbrot and Edward Lorenz that until proved otherwise climate is probably a chaotic system.
Girma:
You understate your case when at August 21, 2011 at 3:27 am you say;
“However, the IPCC says there is further warming of 0.2 deg C per decade in the next two decades.
Is that rational?
How could something that has not happened in the last 160 years going to happen in the next twenty years?”
The only prediction (i.e. not “projection”) of the IPCC is much more wong than you say.
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.
A RISE OF 0.2°C OVER THE LAST 10 YEARS WOULD HAVE BEEN OBVIOUS FROM THE DATA.
So, for the IPCC prediction to be true then the global temperature must rise by a staggering 0.4°C now and stay at that 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 over the next 10 years is at least an incredible 0.24°C.
And to meet the IPCC prediction at a linear rate then the required rise over the next ten years is 0.8°C (or 0.48°C at very minimum).
Richard
Thanks Richard.
AGW is really, really bad science. When is it going to blow up? Or will it just imperceptibly disappear like the morning fog?
Jens
How come I attempt to answer your question but you ignore mine?
Do you accept the “accelerated warming” claim of the IPCC?
Thank you for the non-abusive discussion from your side.
Take care.
Girma
To R Gates,
Your statement of “40% more CO2, 30% more NO2, 300% more CH4” actually plays out as increases of 110 ppm for CO2, 53 ppb for NO2 and 1170 ppb for CH4.
Now if you want to argue that those numbers are the causes of global warming then do so. In my experience, anyone who constantly uses percentages to argue their point of view is doing so to appeal to emotions rather than facts. But once again you obviously realize the facts would get in your way.
Why continued warming of 0.2 deg C per decade of the IPCC contradicts recorded GMT pattern is shown below:
http://bit.ly/omzALZ
You shall not cross the upper GMT boundary line for long!
Girma:
At August 21, 2011 at 5:05 am you ask me:
“AGW is really, really bad science. When is it going to blow up? Or will it just imperceptibly disappear like the morning fog?”
In my opinion, AGW will fade away as the ‘Acid Rain’ scare did: that scare did not “blow up”, but nobody now remembers it unless reminded of it. Indeed, I think the AGW scare has started to fade away.
The process of AGW’s demise began at Copenhagen two years ago when its ‘life-blood’ of political support began to be curtailed, and the attempts at CPR by AGW’s supporters can be seen as the progressively more desperate attempts to promote it (e.g. the recent daft peer-reviewed publication suggesting AGW risks invasion by aliens from space).
Richard
commieBob
Yours is an excellent answer to the question raised.
http://bit.ly/p3Bjwv
Thank you very much
@Solomon
“I do not wish to enter into a dispute with Mr. Springer as to how quickly an exponential series tends to infinity. I am sure that his knowledge of mathematics trumps my Master’s degree from one of the world’s top uiniversities in the subject.”
I’m pretty sure that my 35 years of experience as an engineer trumps whatever you think you learned in a classroom.
You completely ignored my devastating point that an exponential expansion of anthropogenic emissions starting from a low number that doubles every 50 years isn’t going to approach infinity after just five doublings. Put your awesome math skills to work and tell me the value of two to the fifth power.
You continue to not understand what carbon-neutral means. If a farmer clears a forest for agricultural use the carbon in the trees enters the atmosphere through either decomposition or combustion. Unless he’s spread a herbicide over that land or otherwise transformed it from forest to desert other plants quickly take up the atmospheric carbon from the trees and incorporate it back into plant matter. This is called the carbon cycle. Did they teach you about the carbon cycle in math class? Evidently not. Maybe you should have taken some more natural science courses.
Fossil fuels are a different animal. This is carbon that was stored many millions of years ago and once released won’t be taken back up into the same long term form of storage for millions of years.
The other flaw in your reasoning about anthropogenic emissions of CO2 due to land use change aside from it being carbon-neutral is that even if it isn’t carbon neutral the human population in 1700 prior to the start of the industrial revolution was 600 million more than ten times fewer than today. Ten times fewer people means ten times less agriculture required to feed them.
So no matter how you slice it or dice it, no matter the mechanism, anthropogenic influence on the environment has grown exponentially with an approximate doubling every 50 years more or less beginning with the industrial revolution.
The following charts are illustrative. Take note that I actually provide data to make my points whereas you just make empty misinformed claims. Work on that.
Population growth since 1750
http://www.eoearth.org/files/118301_118400/118325/620px-Figure_1_long-term_population_growth.JPG
Atmospheric CO2 since 1750
http://www.climate.unibe.ch/~joos/images/sres_jan99/co2_history.gif
You can lay the above curves on top of each other and without a label you couldn’t tell them apart.
Here’s the kicker. Modtrans chart of CO2 thermal absorption coefficient versus concentration in the atmosphere. This curve was discovered the good old fashioned way by laboratory experiment in the 19th century.
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/co2_modtrans_img1.png
Note that this curve is essentially the reciprocal of human population growth and concommittant rise of atmospheric CO2 in the industrial era. You probably learned what a reciprocal is in university math class (if you didn’t learn it in the fifth grade like I did) but what you evidently didn’t pick up very much of is the properties of various materials and more specifically the radiative transfer properties of CO2.
QED
By the way, Mr. Solomon Green, I did a google scholar search in the area of engineering, computer science, and mathematics.
Your name didn’t turn up.
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?as_q=&num=100&btnG=Search+Scholar&as_epq=&as_oq=&as_eq=&as_occt=any&as_sauthors=solomon+green&as_publication=&as_ylo=&as_yhi=&as_sdt=1&as_subj=eng&as_sdtf=&as_sdts=44&hl=en&num=100
My name however does show up:
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=author%3Adavid+author%3Aspringer+dell+usa&btnG=Search&as_sdt=0%2C44&as_ylo=&as_vis=0
You still wanna play the credentials game, Mr. Solomon? Credentials are meaningless. Science is all about the best explanations for natural phenomena. Nature phenomena are not influenced by credentials and neither are the explanations. The scientific method contains no reference to credentials in the description. So let’s not go there because you’re going to lose that game to me in any event.
Haha –
I saw a really good young earth sciences guy on YouTube a couple of years ago, where this oscillation popped into his head, right in the middle of it, and he mused on it and said something about “I may have found something there.”
I wonder if this is his work, or if Dr. Girma Orssengo beat him to it. I have no idea what Orssengo looks like, but might recognize the presenter from then. He was not talking about these peaks and valleys and such then, but it might have turned into that once he got to looking into it. The presenter mentioned a sine curve. And a sine curve is very close to a pendulum in its trace over time.
Aha! Perhaps it is him. At http://tiny.cc/fjkwd is a post entitled “Lines, Sines, and Curve Fitting 9 – Girma.” The opening sentence, in fact, says:
followed by some equations. “Line + sine.” That is the idea that the presenter had. Dr Orssengo here is saying it quite differently. But a sine curve following a sloped line is exactly what all this is. See that link.
It is a VERY clear overall presentation here, although at one point I did get confused about one point being made in the text.
Dave Springer
In the following post
http://bit.ly/pwm2zb
The comment was:
“That is that the slope of the warming has not changed since 1880. If CO2 is a factor, this slope should have been increasing all along, and it hasn’t.”
You reply was:
No it should NOT have been increasing. The growth rate of anthropogenic CO2 emission from fossil fuel happens to match pretty closely the decreasing rate at which CO2 can absorb LWIR. Combine an exponential expansion in CO2 emission with an exponential contraction in its ability to raise surface temperature and you get a linear ramp, which is exactly what we see.
Dave, your response requires numerical justification.
The growth rate of human emission has not been constant. It was nearly flat before 1940s. But started to accelerate only after 1940s. For the periods 1880-1940 & 1940-2000 the change in GMT was an identical value of about 0.36 deg C (Figure 2 of this article). However, the emitted CO2 in the second period was about 860Gt, and it was 160Gt in the in the first period (http://1.usa.gov/of3hxw). Note also that the 160Gt emitted in the first period is still in the atmosphere in the second period.
Dave, please explain, using a numerical example and the above GMT and CO2 data or any other referenced data, if human emission of CO2 was the cause for change in GMT, why it has not changed in the second period compared to the first period?
Mr. Springer.
I am impressed by your credentials. I submit. Mine are not nearly as impressive. But before you dismiss my intervention out of hand you may care to browse a brief article which I published some years ago.
http://www.theactuary.com/actuary/feature/2091378/financial-modelling-look-closer
Should you not wish to waste your time you might like to ponder on just one remark quoted in that article. When the famous mathematician Georg Cantor propounded the law of conservation of ignorance he observed that a false conclusion once arrived at and widely accepted is not easily dislodged and the less it is understood the more tenaciously it is held.
I believe Cantor’s observation applies to the AGW hypothesis.
R Gates,
“The forcing from anthropogenic CO2 and related feedbacks is far more potent then the relatively minor forcing that may have initiated the LIA.”
The forcing from anthropogenic CO2 and ASSUMED related feedbacks is far more potent then the relatively minor forcing that may have initiated the LIA. There, I’ve correct that for you.
Vince Causey says:
August 21, 2011 at 12:17 pm
R Gates,
“The forcing from anthropogenic CO2 and related feedbacks is far more potent then the relatively minor forcing that may have initiated the LIA.”
The forcing from anthropogenic CO2 and ASSUMED related feedbacks is far more potent then the relatively minor forcing that may have initiated the LIA. There, I’ve correct that for you.
The forcing from anthropogenic CO2 and ASSUMED related positive feedbacks from water vapor is far more potent/equally potent/slightly less potent than/far less potent than the absolutely major – and completely unknown and (deliberately) not researched – forcings that definitely, absolutely initiated the Medieval Warming Period, Little Ice Age, and Dark Age, and Roman Warming Periods.
There, I’ve corrected that correction for you. 8<)
Unless Sir Gate can define those "forcings" mathematically, physically and geo-chemically ?????
Richard – It’s quite easy to see why your claim is fallacious. (You claimed: greenhouse gas concentrations have been tens of times higher than now during ice ages so clearly they play no significant part in the transition from glacial to interglacial state.)
Consider any function with more than one variable (e.g. gravitational force is a function of the product of the masses and the inverse of the square of their distance). It would be fallacious to argue as follows: “One time, the gravitational force between two masses was far lower than 100 Newtons when the masses were 100 meters apart. But another time, the gravitational force between two masses was far higher than 100 Newtons, even though those masses were 10 times further apart! Therefore, distance plays no significant part in determining whether the gravitational force between two objects is less than, as opposed to greater than, 100 Newtons. After all, the first pair of masses were 10 times closer together, which would supposedly increase the force by a factor of 100; and yet the force was less than the second pair of (very distantly separated) masses! Clearly, distance didn’t make a difference.”
Pretty fallacious, no? And yet structurally analogous to your argument (I trust you see the analogy, but would be happy to explain if necessary).
You say that if “other factors vary that much,” then “there is no reason to consider the insignificant effect of the greenhouse gases.” But that is analogous to saying (in my example above), “if other factors vary that much, then there is no reason to consider the insignificant effect of distance.” That’s false. If one holds fixed the other factors, then varying distance (or GHG concentration) obviously can play a significant part in changing the gravitational force (or GMT).
So, again, the mere fact that GHG concentration was 10 times higher without a corresponding change to an interglacial state does not show that GHG concentration plays no significant role in such state transitions.
Dave Springer says:
August 21, 2011 at 8:18 am
You can lay the above curves on top of each other and without a label you couldn’t tell them apart.
(Snort) hardly. But, so what if it were true? Post hoc ergo propter hoc is your mode of argument. The curves as presented (perhaps we should say, constructed, i.e., cobbled together, processed, extruded, and pounded into a finished product – more in a little bit) are similar, therefore your point is proven. Sorry, Dave. That’s just not so. It might be the case if these were somehow unusual curves which rarely took such a form independently in nature, but that is not the case. Such slowly varying behavior over a truncated time interval can be caused independently by all sorts of independent low frequency phenomena.
One problem you (and many others) are having here is one of perspective. If you saw a short term similarity between two unrelated graphs of some given physical quantities, you would generally shrug your shoulders and say, “oh, well, it was a transient event, and so likely coincidental.” You look at these two graphs, though, and you say to yourself, “hey, that looks similar over a long period of time, so it’s no coincidence.” But, if humans lived 10,000 years, and you were as advanced on that age scale as I assume you are on our usual one, you would be back to saying, “oh, well, it was a transient event, and so likely coincidental.” Geologic and climatic time scales are quite long.
Oh, you say, but look at the inflection at about 1950! It occurs in both series. Therefore, there is a relationship, ha! But, modern CO2 measurements have only been collected since 1958, and all you are seeing there is the smoothed mismatch between the old records and the new. And, there are LOTS of other squiggles and transient events which clearly ARE NOT shared between the series.
In one sense, the presence of the inflection in both series can be seen as correlated, in that the post-WWII baby boom happened to coincide with the return to prosperity, which made it possible to allocate resources to collect such samples. But, clearly, this does not describe a causal relationship. Indeed, this is almost a perfect illustration of the old saw that correlation does not equal causation.
Your case is superficial, and lacking rigor. That the curves bear some resemblance to one another is necessary for your thesis, but it is not sufficient (to confirm it).
“Note that this curve is essentially the reciprocal of human population growth…”
It is essentially nothing of the kind. Humans are not bacteria, and human population growth is not exponential. Neither is CO2 concentration.
RACookPE1978 says:
August 21, 2011 at 1:23 pm“…
Unless Sir Gate can define those “forcings” mathematically, physically and geo-chemically ?????”
He can’t because they don’t exist. Unfortunately for the CAGW conjecture, CO2 levels follow temperature, not the reverse.
Bart says:
August 21, 2011 at 11:16 pm
“blah blah blah”
Of course correlation isn’t causation. But it’s still correlation and demands an explanation. I gave you an explanation. You failed to provide any alternative explanation which could be assessed to see if it better fits the facts. I mean to say sure, there are other explanations. Maybe it’s propaganda in support of invasion plan by little green men from Mars who want to weaken our economic and industrial resources before the mothership arrives. The point is that without you being specific in an explanation no one can determine whether yours is superior. Science is about arriving at the best explanation for natural phenonema. When multiple explanations exist we rely on tried and true tools like Occam’s Razor to determine which is most likely. So give me an equally or more simple explanation to explain the correlation between exponential human population growth, exponential growth of fossil fuel combustion, growing amount of atmospheric CO2, and exponential decline in LWIR absorptive capacity with rising atmospheric concentration. I wish you luck but you’re going to need more than just luck.
R Gates,
“The forcing from anthropogenic CO2 and related feedbacks is far more potent then the relatively minor forcing that may have initiated the LIA.”
What was the forcing that initiated the LIA? Sure you must have it well quantified in order to know its potency as compared to anthropogenic CO2, right?
Interglacial periods have a life expectancy around 10,000 years. The current interglacial is 11,500 years old. That’s the climatology.
Forcings don’t really play a role although a major volcanic eruption could well be the straw that breaks the camel’s back when other factors are lined up. When orbital precession lines up the closest approach to the sun in the northern hemisphere winter and at the same time axial precession is at the point of least tilt is when conditions are set up. This causes the difference between summer and winter average temperature to decline. See, you only need below 32F for snow to accumulate. A colder winter doesn’t cause more snow to accumulate so temperatures much below 32F is overkill for snow accumulation. But with summer temperatures every degree over 32F increases the melt rate. So warmer winters and cooler summers is what gives ice and snow the advantage.
Currently the earth’s closest approach to the sun is in the beginning of January which is just a few weeks from the precise middle of NH winter. So at this point in orbital precession we have about 1% more NH insolation in near the middle of winter and 1% less near the middle of summer. Note that this IS NOT a change in “forcing” but rather just a change in the seasonal distribution of the same annual average forcing. Axial tilt is currently 23.4 degrees and the extremes are 22.1 and 24.5. The tilt is declining. Less tilt causes less seasonal temperature variation. The conditions are ripe for an end to the Holocene interglacial, climatology predicts it soon, and the conditions for ice gaining the advantage are improving as axial tilt continues to decline and orbital precession comes closer and closer to the precise middle of NH winter.
Now, show me using rigorous data and calculations how the forcing from anthropogenic CO2 is sufficient to stave off the climatological end of the Holocene interglacial and further, given that the glacial triggers will continue growing stronger for the next few thousand years, how can we sustain anthropogenic global warming long enough to get over the hump to the side where every year lessens the strength of the triggers instead of increasing them.
So you see, the way I see it, any major volcanic event that lowers the earth’s average temperature for a few years could be the trigger that ends the current interglacial period. If anthropogenic warming ups the temperature I consider that be an increased margin of safety against the day when a major volcanic eruption occurs. In the meantime increased CO2 appears to have the decidely beneficial effect of lengthening growing seasons in higher northern latitudes that need longer growing seasons, it increases the rate of plant growth throughout the growing season, and decreases the fresh water requirements per unit of plant growth. Trying to limit CO2 emission is insane for anyone armed with all the facts.
Dave Springer says:
August 22, 2011 at 8:29 am
“Science is about arriving at the best explanation for natural phenonema.”
No. Science is about arriving at rational explanations for causal mechanisms. It may involve proposing hypotheses which have not yet been proven, but those hypotheses do not have the force of established fact.
“I gave you an explanation.”
You gave me a narrative. Science does not grade on a curve. Whether other explanations exist or are more plausible or not, yours does not get a passing grade unless it
answers all the questions.
“…exponential human population growth…”
It isn’t growing exponentially. This can be established by a cursory look at your plot.
“…exponential growth of fossil fuel combustion…”
It isn’t growing exponentially. Get the data and plot it and its differentials. And, remember that the derivative of an exponential function is an exponential function.
“…growing amount of atmospheric CO2…”
Temperatures have been rising. CO2 concentration is positively correlated with temperature. CO2 is also stored in a large variety of reservoirs, and can be exchanged over long time scales.
“…exponential decline in LWIR absorptive capacity with rising atmospheric concentration.”
This one is based on valid, closed-loop experiments. But, so what? CO2 absorption is merely a part of the overall planetary temperature regulation system. A robust regulatory system, which I propose the Earth’s temperature regulation system is, will slough off such perturbations inversely proportional to the feedback gain. The overall effect can be very small, or even nil if there are integrating elements within the loop.
I could give you more in-depth explanations, but you wouldn’t understand them. A little knowledge, such as you have, can be a dangerous thing – like a teenager first coming to grips with the larger world, it makes you think you know everything. When you have gathered enough experience, you realize how much there really is to know, and you become more cautious about proclaiming omniscience. I would say more, but I don’t want this to devolve into a sneering competition such as you had with Mr. Green. I will just end with, keep your eyes open, and watch what happens.
Disputing a modest amount of global warming caused by anthropogenic GHG emissions is SO like Scientific Creationism arguments trying to dispute the age of the earth.
In both cases there are multiple independent lines of evidence supporting the generally accepted cases. In each instance there are unlikely but possible alternative explanations for each line of evidence. So the Scientific Creationist must present possible but unlikely explanations for why the earth could be only 10,000 years old and make different arguments for many independent lines of evidence. Typical explanations include the speed of light not being constant, huge global castrophes that vastly increase sedimentation rates, radically changing rate of continental drift, and so forth. Each counter argument is possible but unlikely. The kicker is that each time you have to add another unlikely explanation it has a multiplicative effect making the all the counter-arguments being true exponentially less and less likely. It’s the same way with anthropogenic global warming. You to impeach multiple independant lines of evidence and each additional impeachment that becomes necessary makes the argument as a whole greatly decline in credibility. The simplest explanation is usually the correct one. The simplest explanation for all the lines of evidence that say the earth is 4 billion years old is that earth is indeed 4 billion years old. The simplest explananation for why the independent lines of evidence that CO2 doublings cause a 1.0C degree in surface temperatures is because a CO2 doublings do indeed cause a 1.0C rise in surface temperature. Other explanations are highly contrived and hideously complex ranging from unlikely mistakes in theoretical physics to data tampering to mistakes in ice core proxies and bad balloon soundings and satellite records and urban heat islands and so forth. Far too many impeachements are required for the total argument to remain plausible. Friar William of Occam is spinning in his grave.
Dave Springer says:
August 22, 2011 at 9:43 am
Disputing a modest amount of global warming caused by anthropogenic GHG emissions is SO like Scientific Creationism arguments trying to dispute the age of the earth.
I agree, but then I believe that most thinking “skeptics” accept this. Having wrested the tiller away from the IPCC and their activist scientific team after Climategate, the CO2 affect on warming has been declining down to its probable real level. A series of independent observations and calculations seem to have put the doubling down to around half your 1C figure – but it could rebound to halfway in between to 0.7 or so. How many more doublngs are likely? maybe 1 more and then economics will likely favour alternative fuels anyway. For some reason, activists believe we have to drastically rearrange society to solve such problems. Cold-hearted economics will continue to do the trick.
Dave Springer says:
August 22, 2011 at 9:43 am
“Disputing a modest amount of global warming caused by anthropogenic GHG emissions is SO like Scientific Creationism arguments trying to dispute the age of the earth.”
Today, we dine on red herring. Afterwards, guests may relieve the stress of their overburdened bellies by visiting the vomitorium to indulge themselves in the always fashionable emetic, repetition ad nauseum.
Girma,
Thank you for your very clear and timely article. It will be useful in my enjoyable ongoing face-to-face discourse with my associates on dissecting the cause of the failure of the IPCC’s CAGWist presumption of aCO2 as the only significant cause of climate shifts in the mid to late 20th century and early 21st century.
Question – Do you see a significant increase this year in the number of papers/articles/posts that are simply showing the IPCC AGW scientific assessments did not and should not conform to actual climate observations? Or am I just imagining that the frequency of their occurrence is increasing significantly?
John
John
The truth finally wins.
They have completely ignored the cyclic nature of global mean temperature, and it is just a matter of time that nature will expose them.
@dahuang August 20, 2011 at 6:43 am
This study shows evidence of cyclicity, but doesn’t prove that these cycles are real, in a scientific way. If they predict and predict successfully, they will be shown to be incorporated into our scientific thinking. If they do not, then they will not prove that cycles don’t exist – only that this concept of cycles doesn’t work.
Falsifiable! We may actually be able to construct a falsifiable climate model. The Chinese did, all those years ago.
These cycles need to be the central skeleton of at least ONE climate model. And that model should be projected forward to 2100, with all the decades in between. Since it is cyclical in its claims, we should be able to verify the correctness of it all along the way. It is not necessary that it’s every aspect be understood, though that would surely be desirable.
When the early claims that the observed warming was caused by human and only human activity (and, it turns out, only by human CO2 activity, THIS is exactly the kind of natural causation that needed to be ruled out.
That such studies have come about is good. Good that they are actually being done at all. Bad, that it took this long. Bad, that blame was asserted before such studies’ were done and results were in. 30 years after global warming was declared, this kind of stuff shouldn’t only just now be being studied.
CAGW doesn’t come close to real scientific method. It doesn’t come up to primary school scientific method. Something as basic as this study looks at – where was the paper back in the 1980s that ruled this out? How can these people call themselves scientists?
Feet2thefire
Thanks very much.
That is also my question.
I think AGW is a political movement with pseudo science as its cover.
It is pseudo science because it claimed “accelerated warming” when non exists.
manacker
http://bit.ly/pIzwGv