This is a repost from Lansner’s website, since Tamino aka Grant Foster won’t allow it to be discussed on his own website, I thought I’d give a forum for discussion here. – Anthony
| The real temperature trend given by Foster and Rahmstorf 2011? |
| Posted by Frank Lansner (frank) on 17th December, 2011 |
(whoops, I’m not allowed to link to this article at Taminos site… I’ve never written on Taminos site, but he seems to know not to let me write – Frank)
Fig1. Foster and Rahmstorf recently released a writing on ”The real global warming signal”.
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2011/12/06/the-real-global-warming-signal/ The point from F&R is, I believe, debating to counter the “sceptic” argument that temperatures has stagnated during the last decade or more. Since this is an essential issue in the climate debate I decided to investigate if F&R did a sensible calculation using relevant parameters.
Hadcrut global temperatures do have a rather flat trend these days:
Fig2. It is possible to go back to 1 may 1997 and still see flat trend for Hadcrut temperature data, so this data set will be subject for this writing:
Can F&R´s arguments and calculations actually induce a significant warm trend even to Hadcrut 1998-2011?
F&R use three parameters for their corrections, ENSO, AOD (volcanic atmospheric dimming) and TSI (Total Solar Irradiation).
“Objection”: TSI is hardly the essential parameter when it comes to Solar influence in Earth climate.
More appropriate it would be to use the level “Solar Activity”, “Sunspot number”, “Cloud cover” “Magnetism” or “Cosmic rays”. TSI is less relevant and should not be used as label.
Fig3. FF&R has chosen MEI to represent EL Nino and La Nina impacts on global temperatures. MEI is the “raw” Nina3,4 SST that directly represents the EL Nino and La Nina, but in the MEI index, also SOI is implemented. To chose the most suited parameter I have compared NOAA´s ONI which is only Nina3.4 index and MEI to temperature graphs to evaluate which to prefer.
Both Hadcrut and RSS has a slightly better match with the pure Nina 3,4 ONI index which will therefore be used in the following. (Both sets was moved 3mth to achieve best it with temperature variations).
Fig4.
After correcting for Nina3,4 index (El Nino + La Nina) there is still hardly any trend in Hadcrut data 1998-2011. (If MEI is chosen, this results in a slight warming trend of approx 0,07 K/decade for the corrected Hadcrut data 1998-2011).
Fig5. I then scaled to best fit for SATO volcano data set. For the years after 1998, there is not really any impact from volcanoes, and thus we can say:
There is no heat trend in Hadcrut data after 1998 even when corrected for EL Nino/La Nina and volcanoes.
However, this changes when inducing Solar activity, I chose Sun Spot Number, SSN, to represent the Solar activity:
Fig6.
To best estimate the scaling of SSN I detrended the Nino3,4 and volcano corrected Hadcrut data and scaled SSN to best fit. Unlike F&R, I get the variation of SSN to equal 0,2K, not 0,1 K as F&R shows.
Now see what happens:
Fig7.
F&R describes the Solar activity (“TSI” as they write…) to be of smallest importance in their calculations. However, it is only the Solar activity, SSN, that ends up making even the Hadcrut years after 1998 show a warm trend when corrected. On Fig7 I have plotted the yearly results by F&R for Hadcrut and they are nearly identical to my results.
So, a smaller warming from my using Nino 3,4 combined with the larger impact of Solar activity I find cancels out each other.
ISSUES
For now it has been evaluated what F&R has done, now lets consider issues:
1) F&R assume that temperature change from for exaple El Nino or period of raised Solar activity etc. will dissapear fully immidiately after such an event ends. F&R assumes that heat does not accumulate from one temperature event to the next.
2) Missing corrections for PDO
3) Missing corrections for human aerosols – (supposed to be important)
4) Missing corrections for AMO
5) F&R could have mentioned the effect of their adjustments before 1979
Issue 1: F&R assume that all effect from a shorter warming or cooling period is totally gone after the effect is gone.
Fundamentally, the F&R approach demands that all effects of the three parameters they use for corrections only have here-and-now effects.
Example:
Fig8.
In the above approaches, the Nino3,4 peaks are removed by assuming that all effects from for example a short intense heat effect can be removed by removing heat only when the heating effect occurs, but not removing any heat after the effect it self has ended.
Now, to examine this approach I compare 2 datasets. A) Hadcrut temperatures, “corrected” for Nina3,4 , volcanoes and SSN effects as shown in the above – detrended. B) The Nino3,4 index indicating El Ninos/La Ninas and thus the timing of adjustments. (We remember, that the Nino3,4 was moved 3 months to fit temperature data before adjusting):
Fig9.
After for example “removing” heat caused by El Ninas during the specific El Nino periods, you see heat peaks 1 – 2 years later in the “Nino3,4” corrected detrended temperature data.
That is: After red peaks you see black peaks..
This means that the approach of systematically only removing heat when heat effect is occurring is fundamentally wrong.
Wrong to what extent? Typically, the heat not removed by correcting for Nina3,4 shows 1-2 years later than the heat effect. Could this have impact on decadal temperature trends?
Maybe so: In most cases of El Nino peaks, first we have the Nino3,4 red peak, then 1-2 years after the remaining black peak in temperature data that then dives. But notice that normally the dives in remaining heat (black) normally occurs when dives in the red Nino3,4 index starts.
This suggests, that the remaining heat from an El Nino peak is not fast disappearing by itself, but rather, is removed when colder Nino3,4 conditions induces a cold effect.
In general, we are working with noisy volcano and SSN corrected data, so to any conclusion there will be some situations where the “normal” observations is not seen strongly.
Now, what happens is we focus on periods where the Nino3,4 index for longer periods than 2 years is more neutral – no major peaks?
Fig10.
Now, the detrended Hadcrut temperature “corrected” for Nina3,4, Volcanoes and SSN – black graph – has been 2 years averaged:
The impact of El Ninos and La Ninas is still clearly visible in data supposed to be corrected for these impacts. Since this correction by F&R is their “most important” correction, and it fails, then we can conclude that F&R 2011 is fundamentally flawed and useless.
Reality is complex and F&R has mostly seen the tip of the iceberg, no more.
More: Notice the periods 1976-1981 and 2002-2007. In both cases, we a period of a few years with Nino3,4 index rather neutral. In these cases, the temperature level does not change radically.
In the 1976-81 period, the La Ninas up to 1977 leaves temperatures cold, and they stay cold for years while Nino3,4 remains rather neutral. After the 2002-3 El Nino, Nino3,4 index remains rather neutral, and temperatures simply stays warm.
Issue 2: Missing corrections for PDO
Quite related to the above issue of ignoring long term effects of temperature peaks, we see no mention of the PDO.
Fig11. Don Easterbrook suggests that a general warming occurs when PDO is warm, and a general cooling occurs when PDO is cold. (PDO = Pacific Decadal Oscillation). That is, even though PDO index remains constant but warm, the heat should accumulate over the years rather than be only short term dependent strictly related to the PDO index of a given year. This is in full compliance with the long term effects of temperature peaks shown under issue 1.
Don Easterbrook suggests 0,5K of heating 1979-2000 due the PDO long term heat effect.
I think the principle is correct, I cant know if the 0,5K is correct – it is obviously debated – but certainly, you need to consider the PDO long term effect on temperatures in connection with ANY attempt to correct temperature data. F&R fails to do so, although potentially, PDO heat is suggested to explain all heat trend after 1979.
I would like to analyse temperature data for PDO effect if possible.
Fig12. PDO data taken from http://jisao.washington.edu/pdo/PDO.latest
To analyse PDO-effect we have to realise that PDO and Nino3,4 (not surprisingly) have a lot in common. This means, that I cant analyse PDO effects in a dataset “corrected” for Nino3,4 as it would to some degree also be “corrected” for PDO…
More, this strong resemblance between Nino3,4 and PDO has this consequence:
When Don Easterbrook says that PDO has long term effect, he’s also saying that Nino3,4 has long term effects – just as concluded in issue 1.
Fig13. Thus, I am working with PDO signal compared to Hadcrut temperatures corrected for volcanoes and SSN only. The general idea that heat can be accumulated from one period to the next (long term effects) is clearly supported in this compare. If PDO heat (like any heat!) can be expected to be accumulated, then we can se for each larger PDO-heat-peak temperatures on Earth rises to a steady higher level.
Fig14. Note: in the early 1960´ies, the correction of volcano Agung is highly questionably because different sources of data concerning the effect of Agung are not at all in agreement. Most likely I have over-adjusted for cooling effect of Agung. On the above graph from Mauna Loa it appears that hardly any adjustment should be done…
Scientists often claim that we HAVE to induce CO2 in models to explain the heat trend. Here we have heat trends corrected for volcanoes and SSN, now watch how much math it takes to explain temperature rise after 1980 using PDO:
Fig15. “Math” to explain temperature trend using PDO. Due to the uncertainty on data around 1960 (Agung + mismatch with RUTI world index/unadjusted GHCN) I have made a curve beginning before and after 1960. For each month I add a fraction of the PDO signal to the temperature of last month, that is, I assume that heat created last month “wont go away” by itself, but is regulated by impacts of present month. This approach is likely not perfect either but it shows how easy temperature trends can be explained if you accept PDO influence globally.
(In addition I made some other scenarios where temperatures would seek zero to some degree, and also where I used square root on PDO input which may work slightly better, square root to boost smaller changes near zero PDO).
Now, how can PDO all by itself impact a long steady heat on Earth?? Does heat come from deep ocean or??
Fig16. It goes without saying that SSN and PDO (and thus Nina3,4 as shown) are related.
Is it likely that PDO affects Sun Spot Numbers? No, so we can conclude that Solar activity drives temperatures PDO which again can explain temperature changes on Earth.
Suddenly this analysis has become more interesting than F&R-evaluation, but this graph also shows that F&R was wrong on yet another point: Notice on the graph that we work the temperatures “CORRECTED” for Solar activity… But AFTER each peak of SSN we see accumulation of heat on earth still there after “correcting” for solar activity. Thus, again, it is fundamentally wrong to assume no long term affects of temperature changes. This time, temperature effect can be seen in many years after the “corrected” Solar activity occurred.
Conclusion: PDO appears Solar driven and can easily explain temperature developments analysed.
Thus perhaps the most important factors to be corrected for – if you want to know about potential Co2 effects – was not corrected for by F&R 2011.
Issue 3: Missing corrections for human aerosols – that are supposed to be important
It is repeatedly claimed by the AGW side in the climate debate that human sulphates / aerosols should explain significant changes in temperatures on earth.
When you read F&R I cant stop wonder: Why don’t they speak about Human aerosols now?
http://www.manicore.com/anglais/documentation_a/greenhouse/greenhouse_gas.html
Fig17. In basically all sources of sulphur emissions it appears that around 1980-90 these started to decline.
If truly these aerosols explains significant cooling, well, then a reduced cooling agent after 1980 should be accounted for when adjusting temperature data to find “the real” temperature signal.
F&R fails to do so.
Issue 4: Missing corrections for AMO
AMO appears to affect temperatures in the Arctic and also on large land areas of the NH.
Fig18. In fact, the temperatures of the AMO-affected Arctic is supposed to be an important parameter for global temperature trends, and thus correcting for AMO may be relevant.
The AMO appears to boost temperatures for years 2000-2010 , so any correction of temperatures using AMO would reduce temperature trend after 1980.
F&R do not mention AMO.
Issue 5: F&R could have mentioned the effect of their adjustments before 1979
F&R only shows impacts after 1979, possibly due to the limitations of satellite data.
Fig19. “Correcting” Hadcrut data for nino3,4 + volcanoes it turns out that the heat trend from 1950 is reduced around 0,16K or around 25%. Why not show this?
I chose 1950 as staring point because both Nina3,4 and SATO volcano index begins in 1950.
Conclusion
F&R appear seems to assume that temperature impacts on Earth only has impact while occurring, not after. If you heat up a glass of water, the heat wont go away instantly after removing the heat source, so to assume this for this Earth would need some documentation.
Only “correcting” for the instant fraction of a temperature impact and not impacts after ended impact gives a rather complex dataset with significant random appearing errors and thus, the resulting F&R “adjusted data” for temperatures appears useless. At least until the long term effect of temperature changes has been established in a robust manner.
Further, it seems that the PDO, Nin3,4 and Solar activities are related, and just by using the simplest mathematics (done to PDO) these can explain recent development in temperatures on Earth. The argument that “CO2 is needed to explain recent temperature trends” appears to be flat wrong.
Thus “correcting” for PDO/Nina3,4 long term effect might remove heat trend of temperature data all together.
Solar activity is shown to be an important driver PDO/Nino3,4 and thus climate.
Finally, can we then use temperature data without the above adjustment types?
Given the complexities involved with such adjustments, it is definitely better to accept the actual data than a datasets that appears to be fundamentally flawed.
Should one adjust just for Nino3,4 this lacks long time effects of Nina3,4 and more it does not remove flat trend from the recent decade of Hadcrut temperature data.
“Given the complexities involved with such adjustments, it is definitely better to accept the actual data than a datasets that appears to be fundamentally flawed.”
Oh no, we must use the datasets that support alarmism. /sarc
Nice job debunking this data fudging, cherry picking, dogma bolstering, predetermined nonsense.
Thank you. It appears that it is really just childs play to take this paper apart.
I know Tamino thinks he is a great thinker in his own mind, but a great statistician, he is not.
The first time I read that paper I thought what rubbish. Your analysis verifies that thought process.
How in the world do these folks get this junk published??????????????
Natural variation and climate cycles explained:
1971
Alarmists: There’s an ice age coming!
Skeptic: Looks like natural variation, not a long term trend….
Alarmists: Blasphemer! Ice Age! We’re all going to die!
1991
Alarmists: The world is heating up at an unprecedented rate!
Skeptic: But you just said….
Alarmists: CO2! CO2 is causing unprecedented warming!
Skeptic: OK, forget the ice age then, it STILL looks like natural variation, not a long term trend…
Alarmists: Blasphemer! Tipping point! We’re all going to die!
2011
Skeptic: You know, looking at the last 10 to 15 years, it doesn’t seem like there’s been anymore warming….
Alarmists: Natural variation! Itz hiding the warming!
Skeptic: Hiding the warming? Where?
Alarmists: Blasphemer! The warming is hiding in the bottom of the ocean where we can’t measure it, and/or being masked by aerosols, and/or being hidden by natural variation! We’re all going to die!
2031
Alarmist: There’s an ice age coming!
Skeptic: Looks like…never mind, I know where this is going. We’re all going to die. I for one, because a) I/m old and b) I’m sick to death of listening to alarmism.
The desperation among “The Cause” is starting to show. What is the purpose of these “adjustments”? Lets take the logic to is, well, logical conclusion. If he isn’t coming right out and saying it, the implication is (he might be saying it, I don’t now, I don’t read his site because I find it is generally nothing more than a warmanista echo chamber) that if he removes sources of natural variability, then we more accurately “see” warming caused by their beloved CO2. But we have a problem with that. First of all, I notice the first graph of “adjusted” temperatures only goes back to 1980. How convenient. Have “Tamino” show a graph of his “adjusted” temperatures across the entire temperature record and see what it looks like then.
We also know this to be a load of poppycock because there is absolutely no way that climate can be so sensitive as to rise so much from 1980 to 2000 from just the amount of CO2 change in that time. These adjustments say nothing. Well, actually, what they say is “if things were different, then they wouldn’t be the same”. As you point out, ENSO impacts can last for years. Tisdale has shown this on his site. It takes a while for heat to migrate to the poles. Adjusting global temperatures in response to an index something like EMI is rather nonsensical. For example, during a La Nina there will be a good bit of warm water pushed westward. When the trades slacken, that water “sloshes” back across the Pacific. ENSO anomalies are fundamentally trade wind anomalies and these impact the movement of surface water. It takes a while for that warm water pushed up against China to make its appearance off the coast of Japan. But I have a feeling his entire point falls apart dramatically if he extends his graphs earlier to, say, 1900.
And as you point out, I agree that these “adjustments” are not necessary and really don’t show anything. ENSO impacts can not be precisely quantified from one event to the next because so many other variables are involved. TSI is “sort” of a sunspot proxy but not a very good one, as you say, why not just use sunspots? But even then there can be up to a 10 year lag between a major change in solar activity and significant changes in the polar regions. So the solar changes are not evenly distributed across the planet at all latitudes at the same time.
Look, I am not a specialist in the field of ocean circulations or solar impacts on the oceans but I DO know enough to realize that history shows a lag between such things as solar cycle duration, AMO, PDO, and MEI and their full climate impacts at higher latitudes. He seems either to be way out of his depth on the climate impacts of the things he is adjusting for or he believes his primary audience doesn’t know any better and will simply take his word for it. So it might be either a lack of competence or a lack of integrity, not sure which.
These adjustments seem nonsensical and appear to be simply “trying” different “tricks” to get a result that looks like the one he wants and he plasters over it with a lot of words he hopes nobody really understands. At least that is what it looks like to me in this case.
OMG! This is a published paper? Which journal published this? Who reviewed it? Was this published in one of those “open” journals where the author basically pays for it to be published like some sort of academic vanity press?
Let’s see:
Received 27 September 2011
Accepted for publication 16 November 2011
Published 6 December 2011
Holy cow, that was fast. Received on the 27th and accepted 19 days later. That’s some fast peer review! Ok, now lets have a look at the publisher Environmental Research Letters. Aha! Just as I suspected:
Gee, I wonder how much it cost them to get this published:
So maybe $1600 bucks. He should have just stuck to publishing it on his website.
The vanity academic press where the author pays. $1600 is a rather cheap one. Many are up to $5000.
Who would have thought the sun has something to do with climate, and solar activity for that matter?
s/
The Pacific will always be more affected by the sun since it fills more of the equator than the Atlantic.
Whether this is due to direct absorption of varying levels solar radiation, changing levels of cloud cover along the equator as modulated by cosmic rays, changes in circulation patterns or some combination of the three is a subject I find very interesting.
It is as clear as day that it is part of a mechanism that dominates the global temperatures.
Is it possible to use their wrong arguments and prove that the MWP and LIA did not have any unusual temperatures? So if we, hypothetically speaking, remove all solar influences and PDO affects, etc. from the MWP and the LIA, then then temperatures would be adjusted to being flat for the last 1000 years until 1945. And where would we be if we extend this to removing all Milankovitch cycles over the last 600,000 years?
Camburn: “How in the world do these folks get this junk published??????????????” Remember that old saying, “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know.”; in climate science it seems this is the rule as Climategate clearly shows.
crosspatch – you obviously don’t understand academic publishing at all. Vanity academic press? Get real. Look the journal up in “Journal Citation Reports”.
“Objection”: TSI is hardly the essential parameter when it comes to Solar influence in Earth climate.
More appropriate it would be to use the level “Solar Activity”, “Sunspot number”, “Cloud cover” “Magnetism” or “Cosmic rays”. TSI is less relevant and should not be used as label.
Really? Total solar light energy is not relevant? What a curious remark – it should at least be a major factor. As I recall from reading Foster and Rahmstorf, they tried TSI, sunspot number, and a few other proxies for solar influence – with no significant differences. Have you actually run the numbers???
Tamino has, by the way, published his R code for these computations. I would be fascinated by your computations showing their results incorrect…
The really bad part of this article, unfortunately, is the piecemeal approach of attempting to account for TSI, then ENSO, then volcanic. Singleton regression of this approach will inevitably mis-account for various factors that are acting at the same time. I’m afraid Frank Lansner is not demonstrating any actual knowledge of time series analysis in this post.
I do, incidentally, agree that an aerosol factor/proxy would be very interesting and informative to include – and I’ve recommended the same to Tamino. But, as it stands, this is a very worthwhile paper on examining and accounting for multiple internal climate variations and forcings, in order to identify and isolate any warming trend outside ENSO, volcanic activity, and insolation effects.
If Frank Lansner feels he has a better approach, I would suggest he write it up and submit it to a journal.
So publish this. Please. Why leave it in a blog????
Lanser or Lansner? (Line 1)
Crosspatch: Received 27 September 2011
Accepted for publication 16 November 2011
Published 6 December 2011
Holy cow, that was fast. Received on the 27th and accepted 19 days later.
What happened to October?
Regression with only a subset of the known influences (and, of course, none of the unknown influences) should give
1. a wrong weighting for the influences used
2. a wrong “corrected” signal.
Beyond that the authors write:
“The warming rates are now in even better agreement, and it remains the case that none of the differences are statistically significant.”
The authors know very well, that satellite lower troposphere trends should instead be very different from surface based trends and about 40% higher. Their very different result then confirms, that either their computation is false or climate model predictions are false or both.
The authors should also make a statement explaining how this got published so quickly witrh such a very obvious inconsistency.
juanslayton says:
December 17, 2011 at 9:16 pm
Crosspatch: Received 27 September 2011
Accepted for publication 16 November 2011
Published 6 December 2011
Holy cow, that was fast. Received on the 27th and accepted 19 days later.
What happened to October?>>>
It was in the raw data. Crosspatch used the adjusted data.
sheesh, you’re correct, I forgot October!
Facepalm.
Because the variation is rather small and it is noisy. It gets lost in the noise of other sources of TSI variation. In this case it is probably acting as a general solar activity proxy. But cycle length would probably be a better one though you can’t go by that either because the impacts of solar length are not felt at all latitudes at the same time. Tropics might feel the difference during the cycle. Poles might feel the difference 10 years lagged. South pole might experience it differently than North pole. Places in between will be different, too.
“TSI is “sort” of a sunspot proxy but not a very good one, as you say, why not just use sunspots?” – you’ve got that entirely backwards. Sunspot numbers are a sort of TSI proxy, but not a very good one. Why would you want to use those instead of the actually measured amount of energy received by the Earth from the Sun? Perhaps because you are so desperate to find flaws in an analysis that contradicts your preconceived ideas that you simply don’t care about what actually physically makes sense?
There are some REALLY BAD open academic press out there. There have been real cases of machine generated gibberish being accepted for publication.
You might have a look at this:
http://www.dcscience.net/?p=4873&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=open-access-peer-review-grants-and-other-academic-conundrums
Here is some wishful thinking, complete with awful spelling:
“F&R assume that temperature change from for exaple El Nino or period of raised Solar activity etc. will dissapear fully immidiately after such an event ends.”
Here is the truth:
“Since the natural influences can have a delayed effect on temperature, the regression allowed for a lag between the value of any of the three factors and its impact”
List if “predatory” academic “vanity press” organizations:
http://metadata.posterous.com/83235355
“The authors should also make a statement explaining how this got published so quickly witrh such a very obvious inconsistency.”
Ha ha. Yes. Good one.
Masturbation is to sex what adjusted data is to science.
“List if “predatory” academic “vanity press” organizations”
Perhaps my eyes are failing me but I can’t see IOP Publishing on that list. Please point out exactly where it is.
KR@8:56
IF you actually read the jounals of repute, you will know that TSI is an extremely small variation.
Gamma rays have a much wider variation, as do UV rays etc…etc.
The methodology of this paper in question, and wow……is it in question…….is so bad that my high school senior thought it was junk science when she read it.
She could smell a pile of …….driftwood…….I do think most thinking folks not only smell this, but the odor is as raucous as the conclusion of this op ed piece of no scientific value.
My major problem with it is they only use their technique back to 1980. I suspect it will fall apart if they attempt a longer series. Also, most of this appears to be about adjusting more modern temperatures upward than anything else. Fundamentally they are saying that temperature rise is solar driven and not CO2 sensitive! Because what they are doing is showing temperatures rising as solar cycles were short, they remove major El Nino and La Nina events (removes noise from the trend) and then at the end of the record, adjust temperatures upward when solar activity drops off.
What they have done here is basically shown that the change in temperature trend is solar driven and has nothing to do at all with CO2!
KR@8:56
The analysis of multiple forces acting in concert, yet trying to show their cause and effect on temperatures is so noisy that to conclude anything of value is so laughable that it is……..junk.
Rahmstorf’s last few publications have been so shoddy that they have totally debased his scientific potential as an analysist of climate science causes, effects and outcomes. I actually feel sorry for the poor fellow. Normally scientists get better, in this case he is getting worse as he clutches at straws that are hollow like straw.
crosspatch – get real. “Environmental Research Letters” is not one of those journals and you know it.
KR says:
December 17, 2011 at 8:56 pm
Are you saying all three components used by F&R (ENSO, AOD and TSI) have to be applied collectively for the desired heat impact to appear? The impact of each of these three components (at least some of it) should be seen when each is inspected individually; it doesn’t matter what amount of R code Mr. Grant has generated for his “adjustments”. And it shouldn’t require time series analysis to come to any conclusions, especially when Lansner has shown that F&R insist heat events have no lasting impact; everybody knows that’s illogical.
And will Mr. Grant’s R code somehow show that “CO2 is needed to explain recent temperature trends”? According to Lansner, that requirement appears to be flat wrong.
Sounds good to me. Unless you’ve got some solid evidence to the contrary, this pretty much skewers F&R. And you can toss your reliance on CO2 into the trash bin. Besides, how long have these “adjustments” to the temperature record been going on? Oh, you say long enough to keep the scam going to ply for more grants? That’s how it looks from here, too.
(Would you think Mr. Grant, who won’t even allow discussion of this alterate view, ever agree to such a paper being published–and he is typical of those “reviewers” you’re suggesting Lansner submit his paper to? Anymore, it’s far more important to get information out like this to the general public in a blog like WUWT than let 3 nay-saying “reviewers” prevent logical discussion from happening.)
When the data does not cooperate, re write the data! LOL
What I am finding odd is why he published with Foster. Well, it doesn’t matter. In about 10 years time this is all going to be moot anyway.
If we should look at corrected temperature trends instead of the real observed trends, as F&R stated, all the temperature graphics and tables from the IPCC reports should be adjusted, and the IPCC conclusions should be assessed then against this consistent adjusted data. Now F&R changed the rules unilateral and random from 1997.
Further the predicted alarming effects on the human race of global warming will only be significant for the real measured temperature, not the by F&R reconstructed temperature. So, what the cause is, the actually stopped temperature rise in the 1999-2011 period is then good news for all of us. I never heard the alarmist moderate their alarm-warnings.
I find the whole concept hilarious that “if it wasn’t for the La Nina cooling, we’d be warming”
I mean sure, try to remove volcanic events, but dont remove effects of the climate itself.
There is every chance that either La Nina’s or El Nino’s will become more prominent in a warming world and not stay relatively static in their proportions.
So removing their influence is turning something that is measured and real into something that is artificial and essentially useless without the additional information of how we can expect those effects to change in a warming world.
ENSO is not neutral up-and-down, as Bob Tisdale shown. Warm water from frequent El Nino events in recent decades spread around the world. Maybe also North Atlantic, which SST record gives the shape to the global record, is kind of aftereffect of ENSO.
So, has the Team already explained the 1910-1940 warming?
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1910/to:1945
I say the 1975-2002 warming was exactly a replication, run by the same natural variations, namely oceanic oscillations going on in 60-year sine wave cycle.
KR
On TSI: Its just the labelling of the Solar activity I find odd.
TSI normally varies beteen 1365 and 1366 W/m2…
The cloud cover on Earth varies 10% synchronously with variations on the sun, that is the area of the Earth that is covered with clouds varies 3% synchronously with the Sun.
“TSI” was also used by IPCC in AR4 2007 in this graph:
http://hidethedecline.eu/pages/posts/ipcc—a-historical-graphic-45.php
TSI was the ONLY factor mentioned governing temperatures on Earth, and it was shown to be tiny in comparisons with human influences.
Naive as I am, I thought that this symbolic denial of Svensmarks Cloud theory was a little yesterdays news.
But then in 2011 F&R stil use the TSI label , apparently ignoring that TSI is a minor factor, indirect mechanisms – like Svensmark showed – matters more.
K.R. Frank
Dennis Nikols says:
December 17, 2011 at 9:53 pm
Masturbation is to sex what adjusted data is to science.
___________________________________________
As in more enjoyable?
Or all the self-abuser/science-abuser can find?
Some analogies are good. Dis is a good one.
So, neither the warmist scientists nor the sceptic scientist/bloggers can agree on the solar influence regarding global temperature.
Yet the sun “goes down” and it instantaneously gets cooler, it shines and heats noticeably in the equatorial and neighbouring latitudes, has little effect at the poles, it has 11 (~) year sunspot cycles and other longer term cycles also measurable as influences on global temperature, yet it is ignored as a factor in the gloal temperature equation.
It is the prime mover, and any variation in its UV or other heating influences will certainly have a direct effect on Earth. These include magnetic storm and wind effect variations detectable as variables on earth.
Its distance and incidence angles are direct variables.
This might have significance:
“It is true that, as the alarmists say, since 1961 the average level of TSI has been approximately level if one averages out the peaks and troughs from solar cycles 19 through to 23.
However, those solar cycles show substantially higher levels of TSI than have ever previously occurred in the historical record. (Solar cycle #24 is noticeably less in effectiveness).
Because of the height of the TSI level one cannot simply ignore it as the IPCC and the modellers have done.
The critical issue is that having achieved such high levels of TSI by 1961 the sun was already producing more heat than was required to maintain a stable Earth temperature. On that basis alone the theory of AGW cannot be sustained and should now die.
Throughout the period 1961 to about 2001, there was a steady cumulative net warming effect from the sun. The fact that the TSI was, on average, level during that period is entirely irrelevant and misleading.”
Any actual warming, not due to man-made surface heating, can be thus explained.
And currently there is a significant reduction in solar influence, prompting claims of a possible cold period. (Supported by a measurable lessening of global temperatures.)
Does this make sense?
I also experienced difficulties yesterday when trying to upload the following comment on Taminos open mind page (yes ! this is indeed what it is called); the comment never appeared:
The paper and result of Foster and Rahmstorf (FR) is in my view questionable on the following main grounds: the T-records are non-linear, and the time period considered is too short compared with the number of variables/parameters estimated.
1. In the introduction of the paper it is stated: “The warming trend since that time (1979) is at least approximately linear”. However, significant step changes in mean temperature regime are widely identifiable in station and global level temperature records around 1987/88 (say 80% of European stations) and 1997/98, and most scientists seem to agree on a hiatus in warming (i.e. near constant T) for the last 10-15 years. The step change model gives a significantly higher R2 than a simple linear model (at least in the cases I have studied, incl. the global T-curves). These step changes in T-regime are obviously linked somehow with extreme ENSO events. The T-records during the period is thus most appropriately considered to be non-linear.
2. Failure to recognise these steps by the linear model used by FR – although I miss an explicit statement in the paper of the math of the total model for an in-depth analysis – will as far as I can see effectively include this major “ENSO signal” in the time trend parameter of the FR model. The time trend does therefore not represent the “real global warming signal” as claimed by FR (I assume FR interprets this as the anthropogenic global warming). The time trend parameter represents a warming signal mainly caused by non-linear natural processes in the period.
3. FR fits 4 parameters (plus 3 lags, 7 parameters ?) to only 32 data points, whereas it is a general statistical recommendation in multiple regression analysis that the number of observations should at least be about 10 to 20 times the number of independent variables/parameters, to avoid unstable solutions. The degrees of freedom in the FR analysis are marginal, and the statistical robustness of the result is therefore in any case questionable.
Regards …. Jens
KR says:
December 17, 2011 at 8:56 pm
Really? Total solar light energy is not relevant? What a curious remark – it should at least be a major factor. As I recall from reading Foster and Rahmstorf, they tried TSI, sunspot number, and a few other proxies for solar influence
In all current climate models, TSI is used as one of the forcings. But that underestimates the real influence of the sun: The about small change in direct total energy does hide the 10% change in UV and other higher energy waves. The change in UV has a huge influence in the lower stratosphere, including changes in ozone formation, ITCZ and jet stream position followed by changing cloud/rain patterns. Not to mention other mechanisms that influence cloud amounts on short and long term. That further drives ocean heat content as heat buffer, including that solar energy penetrates the surface several tens of meters, while backradiation IR from GHGs is absorbed in the upper fraction of a mm of the oceans, leading to direct reradiation/reflection or evaporation. Thus pure TSI as forcing neglects the differences between the different forcings. 1 W/m2 solar change is not equal to 1 W/m2 caused by GHG changes… See further:
http://climate.envsci.rutgers.edu/pdf/StottEtAl.pdf
TSI can be used as a rough proxy of solar activity in general. They probably should have used some other indicator such a sunspot counts or solar wind speed or cycle length or something. Cycle length doesn’t have the resolution needed, though. But what is interesting is that what the paper really says is that in a period of high solar activity, temperatures rise. If we then go into a period of weak solar activity (lower TSI) and use that TSI to adjust temperatures back up, we see the trend continue up. In other words if they were to invert the solar adjustment and run the time series starting much farther back into the past, they might show a pretty flat temperature trend. What these calculations seem to have done is continued the temperature rise by adjusting recent temperatures upward in order to compensate for the drop due to the change in the solar cycle. To put it another way, had we continued with short solar cycles, we probably would have seen continued warming.
As the period from 1980 was a pretty active period, the warming seen during this time is pretty consistent with the response seen at other times on the past when we had active solar periods. And since it was an active period, the “average” TSI used is actually pretty high in a historical context. Had they run the series starting much earlier, the period of 1980-2000 would have been a very active period, much above average, and that would have resulted in the temperatures of that period being adjusted downward.
Jennifer – Perhaps because you are so desperate to find.an analysis that agrees with your preconceived ideas that you simply don’t care about what actually physically makes sense?
FTFY. Someone was bound to do it. Maybe they already have as Anthony’s science news outlet is read by many thousands of people daily and some of us sit silent until prodded into participation by obvious bias or such like.
You should read a few of those emails from your chosen dogmatists. You know, the ones where they show the collusion involved in their particular mode of “science” including the warping of journal’s output, reviewers and editors. Many are available here. (I am being pointedly polite. Really, I think you are probably incapable of seeing the mote for the plank – are you a “climate scientist?)
Frank, thank you for this debunking. Fortunately it will receive far more exposure, examination and comment here amongst scientists than in the place where it would only cause dissonance amongst the believers.
Far more.
TimTheToolMan says:
I find the whole concept hilarious that “if it wasn’t for the La Nina cooling, we’d be warming”
You really couldn’t make it up, could you?
If it wasn’t for my lack of money, I’d be rich. So by removing the influence of my spending, hey presto, I’m actually rich!
The whole idea of using “corrections” for ENSO, ADO, etc in order to measure “global warming” is assinine. Those are nothing more than components of the earth’s energy budget. If the metric that you are using to measure your “global warming” does not account for those components inherently, then you are using the wrong metric, as your metric is not global.
You gotta hand it to these scammers. First they try to impute a gentle warming to co2 – fair enough – at the time it was a plausible conjecture. But then the warming stops so they have to come up with something. I know – the heat is hiding somewhere where we can’t detect it. Somehow it managed to get past all those argo monitors.
As the skeptics continued to beat them over the head with this patently absurd argument, out comes their latest wheeze. Lets take some new parameters – enso, aod etc and twiddle the dials until out pops a temperature trend that closely resembles the last decade.
So we are now being told – you can forget actual thermometer readings of actual temperatures. They don’t count anymore. You have to take the temperature with a thermometer, then add one La Nina, subtract an El Nino, multiply that by one AOD divided by a TSI. Then you see, the rising trend appears just like we predicted. What’s that you say? If you add cloud cover into the mix temperatures go down? If we included PDO and AMO it goes down even more? And what happens if we hindcast the whole twentieth century? Who cares! We’re only interested in adjusting the apparant non warming.
Does remind me of some paper by Parker et al a few years back. They just couldn’t accept that radiosonde measurements showed no warming and “adjusted” those with wind shear figures. Wind shear, as everyone knows, is a much more accurate thermometer than, err, a thermometer.
I tried commenting on the Tamino site which, in a parody of Orwell’s novel ‘1984’, is called ‘Open Mind’.
I was immediately struck by the fact that none of the comments there were controversial. They always agreed with whatever brilliant article Tamino had written, beginning with such phrases as “Brilliant analysis’, ‘Super exposisition’, ‘Well done’ etc. Now, being a cat, I easily vomit, and there is only such much of that twaddle that I can stomach..
I quickly found out why this is so. Any controversial or critical comments are of course censored. But it is worse than that! – if that is possible. Tamino actually edits your comments to make them say what HE wants, and then replies to the bits he thinks he might have a clever answer to!
Personally, I can’t see the point of a site like that. A site where sycophantic sheep just chant “Four legs good, two legs bad”. Nothing can be learned there. The only surprising thing is that some people, presumably of very low self-esteem, still bother to go there.
First, one of the obvious errors in the opening of Frank Lansner’s post: He writes, “MEI is the ‘raw’ Nina3,4 SST that directly represents the EL Nino and La Nina, but in the MEI index, also SOI is implemented.”
This is wrong. The MEI does not use NINO3.4 SST anomalies; it uses NINO3 SST anomalies, but the NINO3 SST anomalies are only one of 6 variables used to denote the frequency, magnitude and duration of ENSO events.
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/enso/mei/
Frank needs to do his homework better.
Let’s take a look at a couple of Frank’s issues with Foster and Rahmstorf (2011). His first issue is “F&R assume that temperature change from for exaple El Nino or period of raised Solar activity etc. will dissapear fully immidiately after such an event ends. F&R assumes that heat does not accumulate from one temperature event to the next.”
With respect to ENSO, Frank’s issue overlooks the most obvious error with Foster and Rahmstorf’s use of an ENSO index in their regression analysis. ENSO indices do not represent the process of ENSO. ENSO indices only represent its local effects on the equatorial Pacific, or in the case of the MEI, its effects on the tropical Pacific. This is discussed and illustrated in detail in the 2-part post “ENSO Indices Do Not Represent The Process Of ENSO Or Its Impact On Global Temperature”. See here:
http://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2011/07/26/enso-indices-do-not-represent-the-process-of-enso-or-its-impact-on-global-temperature/
And here:
http://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2011/08/07/supplement-to-enso-indices-do-not-represent-the-process-of-enso-or-its-impact-on-global-temperature/
So yes, like many other authors before them, Foster and Rahmstorf (2011) misrepresent the process of ENSO by attempting to remove its wiggles from global temperature with the MEI. The authors either misunderstand ENSO or they are attempting to mislead their readers.
I’ve been trying to come up with an analogy about attempting to use an ENSO index to represent the impacts of ENSO on global surface temperature and so far I’ve come up with: it’s like trying to give the play-by-play for a baseball game from only an overhead view of home plate, or it’s like trying to give a traffic report for the entire Los Angeles basin from one downtown L.A. traffic camera. Anyone else have an analogy? Kim?
With respect to solar, Foster and Rahmstorf (2011) assume a 0-month lag and use regression analysis to extract a solar signal from the global temperature data. This might be applicable for land surface temperature data and for TLT over land, but it does not address the thermal lag of the oceans. The lag has been studied for decades and the debate about lags still rages on, with estimates ranging from months to decades. Foster and Rahmstorf (2011) clearly overlook this in their paper.
Frank Lansner’s second issue was,” 2) Missing corrections for PDO.”
There is no correction for the PDO. The PDO does not represent the Sea Surface Temperature of the North Pacific. This has been discussed ad nauseum here at WUWT. Frank Lansner cites Easterbrook. Also, I discussed the errors in Easterbrook’s assumptions about the PDO in this post:
http://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2011/06/17/comments-on-easterbrook-on-the-potential-demise-of-sunspots/
Frank Lansner’s fourth issue: “Issue 4: Missing corrections for AMO”
Yup, Foster and Rahmstorf (2011) missed that. The AMO according to RealClimate accounts for “some, but not all, of the high-latitude warming observed in the late 20th century.”
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/11/atlantic-multidecadal-oscillation-amo/
Frank Lansner says: “TSI normally varies beteen 1365 and 1366 W/m2…
The cloud cover on Earth varies 10% synchronously with variations on the sun, that is the area of the Earth that is covered with clouds varies 3% synchronously with the Sun.”
Please identify which cloud cover dataset you’re referring to. I know of no cloud clover dataset that “varies 10% synchronously with variations on the sun.” That sounds like a fabrication.
I objected to the analysis based on the ‘uncertainty of the solar input’. This resulted into a spat with someone called Tamino, to whom I promised to meet and personally extract an apology.
Only ‘good thing’ that came out of it was that
secretive Tamino is Grant Foster himself .
The biggest threat to biased scientists and junk science are not skeptics, it is time.
By ‘corrected’ they mean ‘fiddled to fit the theory’.
One additional point: the “climate (dynamical” system is highly non linear: you cannot just add or substract effects and palying with moving averages is deadly mislaeading.
In such a complex “dynamical” system, there are no longer “partial” causes neither effects, due to multiple, direct and indirect, posiitve and negative feedbacks. The only cause that can be detected without ambiguity is the movement of planets and “alien vistors” (meteottes, etc) in the solar system, that can hardly be considered as resulting from anthropogenic CO2, volcanoes, ocean fluctuations, solar spots, etc. But the symmetric can be true, if one considers basic rules of astrophysics and geophysics. And no scientific evidence is able to contredict this, so far.
This is an easy simple lesson of logic and modesty to teach to the carbo-centrists alarmists, I guess. It is indeed a total lack of modesty to think, as is done in primitve religions, that making offrands (understand penalizing our development and welfare by carbon taxes and other market mechanisms), to mother GAIA (the Earth) will make her more “conciliant” with the irresponsible human polluters and destructors of the Planet some are claiming we are.
Time slip? Missing time? (Cue in spooky music.)
I believe that the sun is the dominant determinant of our climate, followed by local factors, e.g. volcanism.
However tonight I am swayed by the ice age predictions of Robert W Felix, who seems to account quite well for current weather and climate phenomenae.
Are not the major evolutionary epochs but a scrambling of life between ice ages ?
Whilst humanity will survive and adapt to whatever happens to it, it behoves us to prepare for untoward circumstances.
Looking at the ‘big picture’, i.e no detailed analytical skills required, the next ice age is a matter of time away.
Where are we more likely to live than die ? I’m thinking Australia.
Nice work over at “Open” Mind Bomber_the_Cat
There’s no concept that they may be in error. Hey for all I know 0.03902% of the atmosphere that is CO2 rising by 0.0002% per year may have the consequences they are claiming in it’s name.
It’s just that I doubt it and I am taking the time and effort to find out the truth.
What they are not understanding is that surrounded by the inputs of a myriad of other variables Climate Science is not as clear cut as 2+2=4
Now if they could entertain that thought for just one second without resorting to hurling personal abuse then maybe just maybe
In the meantime I won’t be going back
Take Care
Dave
M.A.Vukcevic says: “Only ‘good thing’ that came out of it was that secretive Tamino is Grant Foster himself .”
This was evident after the first round of Climategate emails.
There’s no such thing as an average temperature across locations. It’s a logical fallacy. You can validly derive an average across time … monthly mean, yearly mean, etc … for one location, but the mere act of finding a spatial average assumes that all locations are responding to the same influences. Using that average to find global influences is circular reasoning.
The global-influence assumption needs to be proven first, by separately examining long-term trends at several long-term well-calibrated stations. But we already have those long-term trends, and they are completely inconsistent. Some go up over the last 100 years, some go down, some are about flat. Even neighboring areas are inconsistent. There is no global trend, so you can’t begin by assuming any global influence.
Just try a few of these:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/temp-and-precip/time-series/index.php?parameter=tmp&month=9&year=2011&filter=12&state=45&div=10
ROTFL! Funny, sad, and true at the same time.
Another satisfied customer at Tamino’s ‘Closed Mind’. Well stated.
Have most scients been on mind bending drugs at university?
Fine detail: a useful review of some shoddy data adjustments in the posted paper
Big picture: a succinct and informative summary in the comments by davidmhoffer on December 17, 2011 at 7:24 pm
Spoken like General Kutuzov.
I dont know why you bother to discuss anything written by Mr Ramstorf, Hansen et al etc…,and give him ANY scientific respectability as none of these guys deserve any. idem for AW desire to be part of IPCC *apologies to AW but thats how I feel about this(
Frank Lansner, you wrote in the post, “F&R use three parameters for their corrections, ENSO, AOD (volcanic atmospheric dimming) and TSI (Total Solar Irradiation). ‘Objection’: TSI is hardly the essential parameter when it comes to Solar influence in Earth climate.More appropriate it would be to use the level ‘Solar Activity’, ‘Sunspot number’, ‘Cloud cover’ ‘Magnetism’ or ‘Cosmic rays’. TSI is less relevant and should not be used as label.”
That’s nonsense. TSI, which you object to, and sunspot numbers, which you used, vary in synch. All you have to do is convert them to anomalies and standardize them to see the relationship.
http://i39.tinypic.com/15n9a8k.jpg
The correlation coefficient is 0.96.
And how is cloud cover a measure of the influence of solar variability on earth’s climate? Cloud cover is obviously a measure of cloud amount, not solar variability. Your grasp of reality is lacking.
Nice analysis Frank.
Not using the AMO is the most important problem in the Foster and Rahmstorf paper, among others.
The paper was about removing “the impact of known factors of short-term variability on temperatures” (quote) from 1979 to 2010, so that we could see how much global warming that was forced by GHGs actually happened.
The AMO is another important “known factor of short-term variability” and Tamino knows that full well. He has written enough about it and worked with the data enough.
The AMO cycle is responsible for at least half of the residual warming (from GHGs) that Tamino found. (And Tamino knows that and that is why he left it out of the paper). It is actually statistically independent of the other forcings so it is its own source of natural variability.
The AR5 ZOD states (chap 10 All Attributions, p18):
“In summary, while the trend in global mean temperature over the past decade is not
significantly different from zero”, folllowed by a long list of the usual suspect explanations as to why this shouldn’t have any effect on the belief in AGW.
If the IPCC at this stage can accept the lack of warming and yet carry on with the Cause, why is it so important for Foster and Rahmstorf to deny it?
The way I see it Tamino has constructed a non-physical model that delivers a near-linear trend. There’s nothing principally wrong with doing that; if the result informs us in some useful fashion, we can still later go and find out why it works. Now, the purpose of a trend is to inform us about the future, so the key question is, does his model have predictive skill? In other words, obviously the time series from 1979 to now give a beautiful quasilinear trend because he made it so, but that doesn’t say anything about the future.
So, what I want to say is his computations are devoid of a physical basis, and they are a posteriori numerology; and he didn’t even validate his model by separating the available data into a training set and a validation set, so he didn’t even run a hindcasting test.
If his model worked out in the future, there would be this ominous “hidden” quasi-linear rise in temperatures, with some “natural variation” added that masks it… obviously, the moment the “natural variation” dropped to zero, temperatures would then magically return to the previously hidden quasilinear trend. But there’s no physical mechanism that could explain that – where would the energy for this come from (or go to), and more importantly, why.
One would have thought that the involvement of a high-ranking IPCC scientist like Rahmstorf would have served as a quality control; Rahmstorf should be an expert in modeling.
Fitzcarraldo says:
December 18, 2011 at 4:10 am
“I dont know why you bother to discuss anything written by Mr Ramstorf, Hansen et al etc”
It’s fun.
Seems to me like science is doing its job.
I saw this sort of thing to a lesser degree doing medical research years ago. I made a terrible error once by pointing out a fairly fundamental control not done in a published Nature paper by a senior Professor, which would completely alter the conclusions if the result were not as hoped. My career wasn’t helped by doing so. That’s life……
This looks like a usual situation of ‘need a paper published, where can I get it published?’
This paper does what perhaps the referees should have been doing first time around. Namely raising a large number of issues for the author to address prior to publication.
I hope the scientists continue to probe qualitative and quasi-quantitative relationships between solar output and oceanic parameters, as that will, in my judgement, be key to future understanding of climate cycles.
One thing which appears to be absolutely clear: even those who believe in major solar impacts on climate can’t agree whether it will get warmer or cooler the next 50 years. Which does kind of imply that putting our political eggs in one basket isn’t the way to go…….
If El Tamino is to be believed, then Trombe walls do not work.
Clearly, that is not the case. Mine works wonderfully.
Well done, Frank.
It is clear that we need a much longer period than a few decades before we will see any real trends
Bob Tisdale: Ad nauseAm
This is a classic problem in the falsification of hypotheses. You always have to choose between whether the experimental observation really does falsify, or whether to invoke ad hoc explanations, which is what Foster does. Its ‘really’ warming, and the only reason we get these odd measurements is that other things are happening to distort them.
The classic case was the motion of the planets. They ‘really’ were circular and the earth ‘really’ was the center of the universe round which everything rotated, its just you needed a few extra circular epicycles to make it all fit.
In the end, what destroys this stuff is overall credibility.
Code and data are available through http://tamino.wordpress.com/2011/12/15/data-and-code-for-foster-rahmstorf-2011/ – there’s no direct mention of that in the comments of the main post.
Frank Lansner on Foster and Rahmstorf 2011
Posted on December 17, 2011 by Anthony Watts
The point from F&R is, I believe, debating to counter the “sceptic” argument that temperatures has stagnated during the last decade or more.
I think they still have done a linear fit for the temperatures for the time interval from 1979 to 2010. For the headcrut3 data this results to y = +0.01372 * year – 27.38
Since this is an essential issue in the climate debate I decided to investigate if F&R did a sensible calculation using relevant parameters.
Hadcrut global temperatures do have a rather flat trend these days:
Yes, but that is irrelevant because it is a different time interval.
Finally, can we then use temperature data without the above adjustment types?
Yes. But the relevant point in climate science is not a linear fit of 0.01372 °C per year in the time interval of 1979 to 2010; the relevant point is to explain with scientific methods and physics all relevant effects which are written in these temperature spectra. It has absolutely no scientific value to create a linear fit, if there is no scientific base for linearity. Morover it is a crime to make such linear fit, because it destroys the truth of reconstructed global temperature data for other objects.
We can use temperature data in comparison with other data. Sea level and/or solar tide spectra:
http://www.volker-doormann.org/images/sealevel_vs_abc.gif
An Excel command to calculate a linear fit is not really an scientific analysis; an analysis may be as example a frequency analysis of the temperature spectra in respect to the non sinus functions of the synodic couples in the solar system.
If this comparison shows that relevant solar tide effects appear time coherent as well in the terrestrial temperatures (over two millennia or in the 60s of the last century) and in the global sea level oscillation, then there is no doubt, that there IS a strong relation between the Sun and the terrestrial climate.
Straw man
The straw man fallacy is when you misrepresent someone else’s position so that it can be attacked more easily, knock down that misrepresented position, then conclude that the original position has been demolished. It’s a fallacy because it fails to deal with the actual arguments that have been made.
All arguments presenting a ‘linear fit’ are straw man fallacies, which should lead to the increasing CO2 idol.
V.
Old joke but it applies here. An FBI agent, a CIA agent, and an LAPD officer are arguing about which agency is the most competent. They see a rabbit and decide to find out who is the fastest at catching the animal. The FBI man goes after it first. He returns with the rabbit ten minutes later. They let the rabbit go. It’s now the CIA man’s turn. He comes back with the rabbit in only five minutes. Finally, the LAPD officer goes on his hunt. Time passes. Five, ten, fifteen, thirty, forty minutes… The first two agents begin to look. Deep inside the woods, in a clearing, they come upon the LAPD officer. He has a bear tied to a tree and is beating on it. He keeps yelling, “Admit you’re the rabbit! Admit you’re the rabbit.”
They can torture this data all they want, but it won’t turn a flat temperature trend into a rabbit.
The temperature consists of a 1/2 ° C warming superimposed on a 60 year sine wave caused by ocean cycles like the PDO.
Ant on sine wave
#Least squares trend line; slope = 0.267218 per year
http://tiny.cc/r7g2c
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/sine:10/from:1950/to/plot/sine:10/from:1988/to:1992/trend
By choosing the year 1978 as the start year they only include the warming cycle of the sine wave and not the cooling portion. They are like the ant.
To eliminate the effect of the sine wave you must take one integer cycle.
If you do this the warming is 1/2 ° C per century and is of interest only to climatologists.
.
Thank you Anthony for going to the trouble of wading through what most of us wish we had the time and patience to do when we realize that such nonsense doesn’t pass our ‘smell test’.
Bob Tisdale says:
December 18, 2011 at 2:40 am
Please identify which cloud cover dataset you’re referring to. I know of no cloud clover dataset that “varies 10% synchronously with variations on the sun.” That sounds like a fabrication.
It looks like around +/- 1-2% change in cloud cover inversely correlated with the 0.1% change in TSI over a solar cycle… See Fig, 1 in http://folk.uio.no/jegill/papers/2002GL015646.pdf
Not bad what a small change in direct solar energy can do (or indirect via…). Anyway, a change of +/- 1% in average low cloud cover at the right place on earth represents several W/m2.
weibel says: “Bob Tisdale: Ad nauseAm”
Thanks. Spelling error acknowledged.
Oh, BTW, recently I stumbled across this Spiegel page showing regional temperature increases in Germany over the last decades… and a decrease in cloudiness! (relative increase in sun hours: second last line)… Funnily, arch-warmist Spiegel is waffling on in the text about CAGW without noticing the consequences of the data they themselves show…
http://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/natur/0,1518,700267-14,00.html
Here’s a global map showing decrease in cloud cover from 1984 to 2004… source seems to be GISS so I’d treat that data with caution.
http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/2006/01/11/jumping-to-conclusions-frogs-global-warming-and-nature/
Ferdinand Engelbeen: Thanks for the link. The low level cloud amount data ends in 1999. If memory serves, low cloud cover no longer follows.
It is curious that F & R would ignore literature that clearly shows a 10 to 20 year delay between group sunspot number and temperature reconstructions from ice cores However it is only recently that solar scientists like Lockwood have now recognized the importance of top down solar forcing on a change in jet stream patterns as the NAO changes phases. The return of negative winter NAO two ywars ago along with the slowing of the Atlantic conveyer belt, decline in AMO and the buildup in arctic ice volume are likely the result of a solar decline that began after 1990. Can not these slowly changing patterns of atmospheric and ocean circulation phases not simply be treated as positive feedbacks to the small decline in TSI?
Sorry Frank but literacy counts. if you can’t spell or use Spellcheckm your work loses credibilty.
Ferdinand Engelbeen: Yup. Memory had served me well. With a more recent update, the ISCCP low cloud amount data is no longer inversely related to Solar:
http://i42.tinypic.com/2hfq5fp.jpg
Sorry Frank but literacy counts. if you can’t spell or use Spellcheckm your work loses credibilty. I think you mean credibility, Spen.
Bob Tisdale says:
December 18, 2011 at 8:11 am
Ferdinand Engelbeen: Thanks for the link. The low level cloud amount data ends in 1999. If memory serves, low cloud cover no longer follows.
From memory, there were different data series from different satellites, some (a military satellite) still following the correlation, others not. But I did find a few interesting articles by Nigel Calder:
http://calderup.wordpress.com/category/3c-falsification-tests/ about the different datasets and
http://calderup.wordpress.com/2010/05/03/do-clouds-disappear/ where he describes the effect of Forbush events and
http://www.dsri.dk/getfile.php3?id=290 a reaction of Svensmark on the allegations of Peter Laut on data manipulation in Svensmark’s articles…
I have no idea who is right here, but I have the impression that the Svensmark hypothesis must be killed with all means…
Volker Doormann says:
December 18, 2011 at 6:51 am
You must be joking. A linear fit is just as valid as any other fit. You’re not part of the IPCC that refuses to be subject to FOIA yet says using a linear fit is a crime, are you? That’s about as hypocritical as it comes, sir. And please, what is this “truth of reconstructed global temperature dta for other objects”?
There are so many “relevant effects” that contribute to climate that if the overall impact can be determined for a reasonable time period to be represented with a linear fit, that really carries more information than resolving all “relevant effects” into their own special “fits” as “climate scientists” are wont to do. Look, people live in a world that’s the sum total of all your “relevant effects”, they don’t really care what the various components are doing. These components of which you speak don’t individually impact their crops, their snowpack, their vacation scheduling or anything else they do. They don’t individually impact ice at the poles, either.
But it does appear that these “relevant effects” are what “climate scientists” have been using to make all sorts of interesting adjustments to the temperature (for example, “can’t find my data and I won’t show you my methodology” Phil Jones, or “won’t (even under threat of law) show you my data and can’t find my methodology” Michael Mann) that have most likely foisted some sort of self-serving scam on the global population in the guise of science and in servitude to the UN to thrust a global government on an unsuspecting and trusting Earth. (These two aren’t “scientists”; they are “climate scientists”; “scientists” are open about their data and methodology; “climate scientists” are not–they have a lot to hide, and if you don’t believe me, reference CG1 and CG2 resource materials.)
So shame, shame, shame on these charlatans. If they have valid concerns regarding the climate, let Michael Mann open up all his data, emails, methodologs, etc., and let Phil Jones do the same. I’m suspecting they’d be tossed into prison as a consequence and charged with this real crime of which you speak.
Sorry Frank but literacy counts. if you can’t spell or use Spellcheckm your work loses credibilty.
Only amongst those who have such low understanding of the content that their only possible interface with the subject is via the spelling of the words used to communicate it.
And who cares about them? Most of them can’t even spell “credibility” even with WordPress’s built in spell checker, let alone know how to interpret that concept correctly.
Three “i”s, BTW.
The visual inspection of the F&R figure depicting the rate (C/decade) of the analyzed datasets one thing appears absolutely clear (independently from any judgment on the methods used). This relates to the huge error bars (no mention whether it is SD or SEM) particularly after 1998. The uncertainty level is so high that I bet the trends will be no longer significant. Another possibility is that the data in their last portion may not be normally distributed. Thus it would be interesting to understand which kind of statistics was used.
I am missing something?
Carlo
Nigel Calder warns of possible issues with ISCCP cloud cover data sets.
http://calderup.wordpress.com/2011/10/05/further-attempt-to-falsify-the-svensmark-hypothesis/
Bob Tisdale, not even at christmas time you can write politely.
I wrote in a comment that variations in cloud cover was 10% and that this corresponded to an area of 3% of the Earth.
You call this a “fabrication” ?
Even if I remembered wrong, such an accusation is realy unfair, nothing new.
Now, take a look at the coud cover variation:
http://www.climate4you.com/images/CloudCoverAllLevel%20AndWaterColumnSince1983.gif
Taken from Climate4you.
I may be wrong, but I think not. And either way: There is no need for such bad tone.
Have two fundamental problems with the paper and usually most climatology papers.
1) No clear indication other than “trust me” the other things I tested are pretty similar”. Either present them so we can judge or STFU (sorry)
QUOTE:
We characterize the ENSO by the multivariate el Ni˜no index, or MEI (Wolter and Timlin 1993, 1998).8 For volcanic influence we use the aerosol optical thickness data from Sato
et al (1993), or AOD.9 To characterize the solar influence on temperature we use the total solar irradiance (TSI) data from Fr¨ohlich (2006). To test whether the results might be sensitive
to these choices, we also did experiments characterizing el Ni˜no by the southern oscillation index (SOI) rather than MEI, characterizing volcanic aerosols by the volcanic forcing
estimate of Ammann et al (2003) rather than the AOD data from Sato et al, and using monthly sunspot numbers as a proxy for solar activity rather than TSI. None of these substitutions affected the results in a significant way, establishing that this analysis is robust to the choice of data to represent exogenous factors.
=======================
2) The parameters calculated typically have a range of 100% if not more and some even pass across 0. Traditionally (science and engineering not sociology) the latter should be dropped or a better model engaged. The former (the range) says to me that when we apply the parameters back into the independent variable the calculated values would have such a broad haze around observed values to be totally meaningless for any further analysis. The best conclusion to draw is that these are interesting juvenile efforts or they are only being published because they further the story line. Science it is not.
Frank “TSI is less relevant and should not be used as label.”
Bob Tisdale: That’s nonsense. TSI, which you object to, and sunspot numbers, which you used, vary in synch.”
Yes, Bob we ALL know that…!
But why use TSI as label when oscillations here are themselves are certainly not the best explanation for Solar effect on Earth climate?
Both approaches, Lansner’s and Foster and Rahmstorf’s, suffer from the same weakness: they mix ‘forcing’ indices such as solar (TSI, sun spots, cosmic radiation) and volcanoes which are clearly independent of the dependent variable (temperature) with others (MEI and other oscillation indices) which are dependant, to an unknown degree, on the same ‘forcing’ indices and on the dependent variable itself.
As both pairs of authors have shown, by a judicious choice of indices and analysis you can prove whatever you want. I’m sure that some people using the PDO, which goes back to 1900, could even produce a hockey stick.
“Frank Lansner’s second issue was,” 2) Missing corrections for PDO.”
Bob: “There is no correction for the PDO.”
Do global temperature warm in preiods of warm PDO´s?
I´d say yes.
So is it bulletproof science from F&R not to consider that the present heating trend occurs during warm PDO?
I think not.
And Yes, I MENTIONED Don Easterbrook. No more. Is that a crime?
Off topic, but with the death today of Vaclav Havel the Czech President, the world has lost one of the few statesman to keep an open mind on climate change.
To Ron Maley:
You write: “As both pairs of authors [Lansner and F&R] have shown, by a judicious choice of indices and analysis you can prove whatever you want. ”
What did I “proove”:
I just concluded the obvoius: THINGS ARE COMPLICATED! 🙂
They are not?
K.R. Frank
Spen says:
December 18, 2011 at 8:39 am
“Sorry Frank but literacy counts. if you can’t spell or use Spellcheckm your work loses credibilty.”
Frank is Danish, and English is not his first language. What is your excuse?
Bob, T.
Here it appears more clearly, Cloud cover – surprisingly – varies synchronous with cosmic rays:
http://www.theresilientearth.com/files/images/Cosmic_rays_and_cloud_cover-marsh.jpg
On the above graph, variations are 2,5% and the point is (!), that this magnitude of variation is not found ind TSI data.
“Personally, I can’t see the point of a site like that. A site where sycophantic sheep just chant “Four legs good, two legs bad”. Nothing can be learned there. The only surprising thing is that some people, presumably of very low self-esteem, still bother to go there.”
Couldn’t agree more. I refer to them as the intellectually undead. Truly as terrifying an army of brain dead zombies as you care to imagine…
It is astonishing that the general HadCru profile could end up, after “adjustments” to look like F&R 2011. At what point does data manipulation become data creation?
If most subsets do not show, in general, the combined trend, then there is no overall trend, there is just a mathematical artefact.
The large must reflect the small; in structural geology we use this principle to determine strike and dip of the hills around us from smaller, accessible outcrops. It doesn’t work when the larger picture is simply the jumble of multiple, disconnected events. So it is with the global climate: if the overall trend doesn’t show up in the smaller places, there is no connected, coherent cause. Just historical, chronological association.
In the discussed F & R 2011 “deconstruction”, enough presumed non-connected elements have been removed that one wonders what really has been left. The assumption is that all the deleted elements are outside effects; if they are not exterior, non-connected events, the result is not indicative of anything.
The world according to the Gaia-ists, is an interconnected, self-correcting, self-serving place of causes and effects bouncing back and forth. Harmony is the goal. Physics, as well as metaphysics, can be said comfortable with this concept. So to strip out a lot may simply find the net result of all sorts of changes and changes to changes. It is not necessarily to find it initial causative phenomena.
Look to the NIWA adjustments a smaller scale example of what I am talking about. Look at the original 7-station data, then look at the combined, homogenized, corrected and adjusted result. Either the original, 2009-era, NIWA unofficial-official record or the 2011 released official-official record (as they are identical). Do we see an underlying theme or a combination of changes of underlying, mutually interacting causes when we compare the initial station trends to the combined? Clearly not.
F&R 2011, along with similar GISTemp, careful, statistically correct, clean “trends” makes me suspicious of what has actually been uncovered (not “discovered”, note). All are based on the assumption that there are non-interacting, non-self-correcting or reinforcing effects. Only then can a flat record be pulled into a climb of terrible proportions.
High-level computers, a doctorate in statistical manipulation theory, and the backing of multi-billion dollar industries and politico-social pressure groups is what it takes to find 0.7C of temperature rise globally over the prior 40 years AND see that the biosphere is about to implode. If this is not a description of an obsessive-compulsive drive riding on a generalized anxiety-guilt, determined to show that we are bad people in need of redemption prior to acceptance by a disapproving Father – well, I don’t know what it is if it is not such a disappointing portrayal of the (alleged) smartest and kindest of men and women on the planet.
If all this hard work and self-flagellation energy had been directed towards assisting the impoverished and abused creatures of the world since 1988, what a great world we would be in today! Imagine if Al Gore had taken 100 million of his 300+ million and created model villages in Central America or Africa instead of buying ever-expanding suits and massage “therapists”. Imagine if Michael Mann had used his data skills to seeking the basis of sub-prime mortgage viability? (Actually, that is a big picture: his work is best on barely discernible images, where he-said-she-said actually has more importance than what was said.)
The data, the data, the data. Does it really say anything any more?
Bob Tisdale says:
December 18, 2011 at 3:31 am
M.A.Vukcevic says: “Only ‘good thing’ that came out of it was that.”
This (secretive Tamino is Grant Foster himself- MAV) was evident after the first round of Climategate emails.
Hi Bob
No, it was not evident to me, and possibly to some others. His foul mouth language on the RealClimate blog, was subsequently deleted, with number of other posts, so are some from Daniel Bailey of ‘Sceptical Science’.
That’s nonsense. TSI, which you object to, and sunspot numbers, which you used, vary in synch. addressed to Frank Lansner
It would be wrong to conclude that the solar influence on the land temperature always changes in synch with the sunspot record, as this 300 year record shows:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/SLT.htm
sometime it does, on the other hand more often it does not.
Ferdinand Engelbeen, nice to hear from you 🙂
You write:
“I have no idea who is right here, but I have the impression that the Svensmark hypothesis must be killed with all means…”
EXACTLY
I dont care if they just use a slightly wrong label for Solar Activity, no, THIS slighlty wrong labeling is SO symptomatic of Svensmark Solar theory denial!! THATS EXAXTLY THE POINT.
At any means, “we cant have anything crediting Svensmark”, this is sickening,m and thats why I pointed it out, thankyout 🙂
I believe I have a definitive test to determine if CAGW is real. Thought experiment: imagine putting a kettle on to make tea in a place where the electrical current is not very constant and subject to brief interruptions. The water will warm at various rates over time and occasionally will cool during low power or interruptions. Let us assume that the low power or interruptions are not sufficient to prevent reaching the boiling point eventually (hot enough for tea – why waste six times the energy of heating from room temperature to 100C to make it boil at 100C?) over as many minutes or hours as needed. Now, before it reaches 100C, we could do all kinds of adjustments based on the variable energy input, heat losses, volume of evaportated water, changes in air pressure, relative humidity, breezes coming in the window… and make models of when or if it will achieve 100C and even estimate when it will boil if this appears to be what is likely to happen. Some will add a factor that retards reaching the BP because the kettle is or isn’t being watched. Now how many different answers are we likely to get from the scientific community – many on both sides of the question of achieving the boiling point or not.
Now since we are assuming it will reach 100C, then all we have to do is wait. Forget all about adustments of hundredths of a degree and just watch the thermometers that we have properly checked out for accuracy – use two of them, wait a year, 5 years if necessary – the longer you wait, the more likely it is unlikely to reach the boiling point in some meaningful time.
Rahmsdorf is the same nut case that generated the study claiming that sea level rise is accelerating at a dangerously high rate, when any fool can look at the entire satellite era sea level data and see that it is decelerating. Of course, Tamino, knowing how vulnerable the teams, and especially Rahmsdorf’s, nonsense are, is not about to let anyone comment seriously on it on his site. But, for the life of me, I can’t understand why anyone wastes their time with Tamino any more.
Frank Lansner says: “Do global temperature warm in preiods of warm PDO´s?
Frank, the PDO does not represent the Sea Surface Temperature of the North Pacific. There is no mechanism through which the PDO can warm or cool global temperatures. The only reason people think it must play a role is the units it’s displayed in. Those units appear to be comparable to ENSO, but they’re not. The PDO data has been standardized.
The fact that global temperatures warm during periods with positive PDO and cool during periods of negative PDO is a coincidence that is dependent on another variable, and that variable is ENSO. I believe we’ve had this conversation before.
Frank Lansner says: “But why use TSI as label when oscillations here are themselves are certainly not the best explanation for Solar effect on Earth climate?”
Why? Because TSI is the measure of total solar irradiance at the top of the atmosphere.
Frank Lansner says: “Now, take a look at the coud cover variation:
http://www.climate4you.com/images/CloudCoverAllLevel%20AndWaterColumnSince1983.gif”
Where’s the solar proxy on the graph, Frank? Your claim was that cloud cover varied synchronously with solar.
Frank Lansner says: “Here it appears more clearly, Cloud cover – surprisingly – varies synchronous with cosmic rays:
http://www.theresilientearth.com/files/images/Cosmic_rays_and_cloud_cover-marsh.jpg”
My request was, Please identify which cloud cover dataset you’re referring to. This you have not done. The reason I made the simple request is ISCCP low cloud amount data is not inversely related to Solar:
http://i42.tinypic.com/2hfq5fp.jpg
“How in the world do these folks get this junk published??????????????”
As the climategate emails have shown again and again and again, the hockey team controls the publication process. You don’t think that Mann could have gotten three different papers published, all using upside down Tiljander data, if they didn’t control it, do you?
That is a major problem with all sorts of data, not just clouds. In this case the angle in which the satellite views the Earth changed so the amount of clouds it can see changed. I see one researcher “adjusted” the data and I haven’t looked at the adjustment process but generally I tend to be skeptical of “adjustments” if they are done by the person producing the paper because there is a natural tendency for things to come out in a desired way due to various confirmation biases. If the researcher were to hand the data off to someone else, explain the viewing angle problem, and have that third party who has no stake in the result perform the adjustment (say a physics or math major) then I might give it higher weight in my opinion.
But this is going to increasingly become a problem as our current fleet of satellites age out of useful life. Currently there is no budget and are no plans to replace many of them so our data streams from satellite observations will be in decline over the next couple of decades. NOAA, for example, has no plans to replace many satellites and NASA doesn’t appear keen to use their budget to replace them.
The bottom line is that I am not really convinced we have data of high enough quality to say. One would THINK it would be rather easy to create an overall composite of Earth’s cloud cover. All one would need is an instrument that we land on the moon that looks at Earth. The orbital differences are easily calculated so “corrections” for differences in distance, etc. are easy to compensate for. No “station keeping” required and it can use a nuclear power source to operate for decades. Moon would make a great Earth observatory that would be cheaper in the long run. I don’t know why we don’t use it.
I am not suprised F & S did not want to mess with the AMO. The detrended north atlantic SST index is the last pillar of AGW. Bob Tisdale has demonstrated that it accounts for the majority of SST and OHC increase over the last thirty years. It took about 12 years from the begining of the last significant solar decline starting in 1959 to the onset of negative AMO in 1971. The recent drop in AMO may be real and lasting.
http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/images/bfly.gif
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/AMOPDO.jpg
Frank Lansner says: “But why use TSI as label when oscillations here are themselves are certainly not the best explanation for Solar effect on Earth climate?”
Bob Tisdale says: “Why? Because TSI is the measure of total solar irradiance at the top of the atmosphere.”
Suppose for a moment that TSI was 30 watts SW and 70 watts LW and then a year later it was 40 watts SW and 60 watts LW. The “TSI” would be constant at 100 watts, but the difference in the way energy from the sun interacted with the climate of earth would be substantively different.
richcar1225 says:
December 18, 2011 at 11:06 am
The recent drop in AMO may be real and lasting.
I would say most likely
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/theAMO-NAO.htm
Folks, on the matter of spelling:
Too plus too ekwals fore.
Anyone how would like to falsify this claim based on the spelling is welcome to try.
crosspatch says:
December 18, 2011 at 11:05 am
“..problem as our current fleet of satellites age out of useful life. Currently there is no budget and are no plans to replace many of them..”
There was no shortage of budget when the CAGW game was on. I’ve noticed that when data on sea level changes, Tropo T changes, ice changes, etc weren’t going the way the establishment liked, they began having problems with the satellites and had no plans to replace them.
Hi Bob!
Thankyou for a very nice comment, and actually its nice to hear what you have to say like this.
You Write:
“Frank, the PDO does not represent the Sea Surface Temperature of the North Pacific. There is no mechanism through which the PDO can warm or cool global temperatures. The only reason people think it must play a role is the units it’s displayed in”
I dont think that the strong connection between PDO and climate trends are dependant on PDO being a SST variable. Why do you think that?
In my writing i show data strongly suggesting that PDO eventually is Solar driven. This to me makes PDO interesting.
The timing – 1978 – of PDO switch cold to warm happens to match temperature trends nicely.
And similar fairly good timings are seen earlier too.
Bob: The parrallel well timed switches of climate trends and PDO, do you think that happens randomly?
(I have never heard a sceptic speak against the important role of PDO like this before , but ok, I dont read all.)
K.R. Frank
@KR ““Objection”: TSI is hardly the essential parameter when it comes to Solar influence in Earth climate.
More appropriate it would be to use the level “Solar Activity”, “Sunspot number”, “Cloud cover” “Magnetism” or “Cosmic rays”. TSI is less relevant and should not be used as label.”
Actually, it doesn’t matter a lot if you look over time. It only matters at the wavelengths where the energy is absorbed. If they had included the TSI in the infra-red or the TSI in the UV (which effects the upper stratosphere) I could agree that TSI is a valid variable to look at. But lumping everything together into one big TSI is hypothesizing that all the wavelengths go up and down together. Sadly the sun does not work like that.
Frank Lansner says: “Here it appears more clearly, Cloud cover – surprisingly – varies synchronous with cosmic rays:
http://www.theresilientearth.com/files/images/Cosmic_rays_and_cloud_cover-marsh.jpg”
BobT :”My request was, Please identify which cloud cover dataset you’re referring to. This you have not done.”
Bob.
I have explained several times why the “Svensmark-denialistic” use of TSI by F&R offends me.
I then gave you a link to a relevant graphic from “theresillientearth” that seems to back up this tiny tangent of my article. Thus I have shown that i did NOT “fabricate” anything.
So you should now withdraw this accusation as your first priority.
Where Resillient Earth got the graphic from you ask?? I think its Svensmark 2003, but this graphic is simply all over the net, and its just so much faster to check it out yourself where they have it from than wait for me doing that.
Here its mentioned by Alan Cheetham that runs Appinsys:
http://www.appinsys.com/globalwarming/gw_part6_solarevidence.htm
Im not going to repeat more on this tiny tiny tiny tangent of this article that you pursue so energetic as if it was essential to the critic of the F&R article. (? ? ?)
Frank Lansner says:
December 18, 2011 at 11:17 am
In my writing i show data strongly suggesting that PDO eventually is Solar driven. This to me makes PDO interesting.
I did some initial search into possible causes of the North Pacific Oscillations (where PDO is calculated) a found evidence which strongly suggests that direct solar connection is most unlikely.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/PDO.htm
This is in contrast to the other oceanic oscillation, the AMO where the an indirect solar link is the most likely. When eventfully I get to it I will explain in more detail.
Bob:
In this writing from Svensmark and colleagues from DANISH tech univ 😉 they show the relationships I mentioned.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1468-4004.2007.48118.x/pdf
and
http://folk.uio.no/jegill/papers/kkk_asr_2004.pdf
Now, can we move on to the 5 F&R issues of my writing?
You have critisized one of these, Issue 2, PDO.
When i see data working together as I show in fig 14-16, then I the role of PDO is supported, not proven.
PDO is an indicator for which areas in the North pacific are cold and which are warm.
If it happens, that this pattern seems to affect climate is it then not relevant to consider PDO?
I think Nigel Calder, courtesy of F Engelbeen, has the most helpful evidence for both Frank Lansner and Bob Tisdale. In this article (FE’s second ref) Calder shows
(a) the “consensus” is all too ready to do the Warmista – foul play to discredit Svensmark
(b) the issue of cloud measurement is fraught with problems
(c) but taking PROPER account of the effects of Forbusch incidents clearly, unequivocally, demonstrates that there is a link between GCR and clouds
Ron Manley says:
December 18, 2011 at 10:02 am
“Off topic, but with the death today of Vaclav Havel the Czech President, the world has lost one of the few statesman to keep an open mind on climate change.”
Ron, are you confusing him with (quote from NYT) “his political nemesis, the longtime prime minister — and now president — Vaclav Klaus” ?
Hi Vukcevic!
Thankyou for input, I will check out yourlink!
Howver, does not this data comparison tell you that the Sun actualy appears to be the driver of PDO?
Why else the (stunningly!) nice timing?
K.R. Frank
Hi Vukcevic!
wops…
heres the graphi that appears to show Solar driving of PDO (+ temperature…)
http://hidethedecline.eu/media/AREAL/Fig16.jpg
K.R. Frank
PDO, I believe, is mainly a wind driven oscillation but I am having a bit of a chicken-egg issue. It is the ENSO / PDO connection that is giving me fits. Does one cause the other? If so, which one activates the other? Or are they both a product of a third thing? PDO is a toughy for me. When we have a negative PDO we tend to have more La Nina events than En Nino but are those events caused by the PDO or is the PDO a reflection of them or is there some third process that causes both?
In their paper, Foster and Rahmstorf reveal either a lack of understanding of or a distain for the scientific method of inquiry by presenting models that are neither statistically validated nor susceptible to statistical validation. Models of this kind lie outside science.
Re: various – On using TSI as a representative for solar activity:
If UV, magnetic field, cosmic ray impacts, etc. are correlated with sunspots and/or TSI (whether positively or negatively), multiple regression of the various components will show the time-correlations thereof. If changes such as these are driving the climate, some statistically significant correlation should be determinable. I’ll note that in Foster and Rahmstorf 2011:
“To test whether the results might be sensitive to these choices, we also did experiments characterizing el Ni˜no by the southern oscillation index (SOI) rather than MEI, characterizing volcanic aerosols by the volcanic forcing estimate of Ammann et al (2003) rather than the AOD data from Sato et al, and using monthly sunspot numbers as a proxy for solar activity rather than TSI. None of these substitutions affected the results in a significant way, establishing that this analysis is robust to the choice of data to represent exogenous factors.”
For this type of multiple regression sign does not matter, just matching + or – correlated changes over time.
Now, if (for example) UV or cosmic ray influence is not time-correlated with the sun-spot cycle, it would be well worth running this experiment with indexes for those. I believe Tamino is providing his R code and data – by all means go to it, and please let everyone know what the statistical significance is.
—
Engelbeen – “…pure TSI as forcing neglects the differences between the different forcings.”
Given that this is a correlation analysis, not modeled effects based upon some a priori value of forcing efficacy (as per http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch2s2-8-5.html, for example), the strength of the correlations should give the efficacies. So it’s not neglecting the differences, but rather helping establish just what those differences are.
KR says:
December 18, 2011 at 1:22 pm
the strength of the correlations should give the efficacies. So it’s not neglecting the differences, but rather helping establish just what those differences are.
The problem of these efficacies is that all are based on the results of models. Hansen e.a. found an efficacy of 0.9 for solar (compared to CO2), but if you look at the Stott e.a. paper I refered to, that could be as high as 2.0 for the HadCM3 model (at the cost of the efficacy of CO2 itself: down to 0.8 in that case). That is within the constraints of the HadCM3 model, like in the case of the testruns with a fixed influence of human aerosols. If you let that loose, then solar even might be more important.
The influence of aerosols (and clouds) are most problematic in current models, besides internal variability (like ENSO, PDO, NAO, AO,…). One can halve the influence of CO2 from 3.0°C/2xCO2 to 1.5°C/2xCO2 simply by reducing the uncertain influence of human aerosols ( (even the sign of the “cooling” may be wrong, as the influence of black/brown aerosols may be more important). See:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/oxford.html
In both cases, the fit over the past century is as good. but the projections over this century change tremendously:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/oxford_2100.jpg
Good! This will shut them up.
Terry Oldberg says:
December 18, 2011 at 1:13 pm
“In their paper, Foster and Rahmstorf reveal either a lack of understanding of or a distain for the scientific method of inquiry by presenting models that are neither statistically validated nor susceptible to statistical validation. Models of this kind lie outside science.”
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/12/17/frank-lansner-on-foster-and-rahmstorf-2011/#comment-836134
F&R are right. You should not apply statistics to computer model runs that are just behaving as they are programmed to behave. It is hard to calculate confidence intervals based on confidence intervals of the observations of the input data and parameters. In theory you could try with Monte Carlo methods and running large number of runs, but you still have large aggregated computing errors due to lack of precision.
crosspatch says: “…but I am having a bit of a chicken-egg issue. It is the ENSO / PDO connection that is giving me fits. Does one cause the other? If so, which one activates the other.”
The PDO lags ENSO according to the paper Zhang et al (1997), which was the first one to use Principal Component Analysis to pull the PDO out of the North Pacific SST data. In Zhang et al (1997), the PDO is known as NP.
http://www.atmos.washington.edu/~david/zwb1997.pdf
And in Newman et al (2004) found the PDO lags ENSO:
http://courses.washington.edu/pcc587/readings/newman2003.pdf
Also, the first sentence of the Conclusions of Newman et al (2004) reads, “The PDO is dependent upon ENSO on all timescales.”
And here’s a graph I created just in case Frank Lansner wants to continue arguing about the PDO. It includes the First Principal Component of detrended North Pacific SST anomalies, which is basically the PDO, and it includes the First Principal Component of detrended NINO3.4 SST anomalies. But in it, I have not standardized the data. The PDO isn’t even close.
http://i42.tinypic.com/10wtp2f.jpg
I was thinking of writing another post about the PDO, with just that graph. Please let me know if that helped put things in perspective.
Perhaps a better way of saying what I tried to say earlier in the thread:
Crosspatch (Dec. 18, 2011 at 2:08 pm):
Thanks for understanding! To expand upon this topic, authors on all sides of the controversy over AGW are guilty of the same offense as Foster and Rahmstorf.
Over a period of 13 years, my job was to design and manage scientific inquiries. Absent the description of a statistical population, an inquiry did not merit the descriptor “scientific” for without description of the population none of the models that came out of this inquiry would be susceptible to being statistically validated. Thus, in the design of an inquiry, the first order of business was to describe the statistical population. However, after the expenditure of US$100 billion on their inquiry into AGW, climatologists have yet to identify this population! The climatologists of the IPCC express a high level of confidence in CAGW though the only basis for establishing confidence would be a sizeable sampling of observed events drawn from the inquiry’s statistical population and in the 2007 report of Working Group I, these climatologists describe no such population!
Yes, thank you. So now it seems obvious to me that PDO and ENSO seem to be reflections of trade wind behavior. In the Bush, Philander paper I referenced earlier, they seem to show evidence if increased trades during the LGM pushing the “cold tongue” much farther West and cooling the equatorial Pacific (which, by the way, probably resulted in a moderation of temperatures in the Indian Ocean to something warmer than they might have otherwise been). Now the question is “what drives the trades?”.
Maybe there’s a clue in here, someplace:
http://www.john-daly.com/sun-enso/sun-enso.htm
which I will read after I play some catch with my boy.
Oops, that reference to Bush/Philander 1999 was in another thread. This is the paper I was referring to:
http://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/bibliography/related_files/bush9901.pdf
I got my threads mixed up. That’s probably because I see a tie-in to both of them where you have circulations in wind that may well be driven by changes in solar activity / insolation / clouds / etc. and these, in turn, cause sea surface changes which then, in turn, change precipitation and temperatures in other areas of the globe. Tropical continental regions probably saw the LGM manifest as a major change in precipitation with little noticeable change in temperatures, or not enough change in temperature to impact the local fauna/flora but changes in rainfall and even in CO2 levels (mix of C3/C4 plants) might have had a bigger change. In the higher latitudes, a slight change in wind or ocean circulation can have a huge impact. This would be particularly so in regions that rely on these things to moderate what would otherwise be a pretty cold location.
Ferdinand Engelbeen says:
December 18, 2011 at 1:56 pm
The problem of these efficacies is that all are based on the results of models.
Only partly true. It was true for the Stott e.a. test with 10 x solar and 5 x volcanic, which allowed them to have a better look at the correlations with the temperature data. But as they said, that is clear in the first halve of the previous century, where solar is the main driver, but for the second halve, one may have an offset between solar and CO2, as the first remains high and the other increases. And as I showed, there is a huge offset between the effect of aerosols and CO2, without changing the overall correlation that much. Both the Stott e.a. HadCM3 runs and the EBM program I used take heat accumulation in the oceans into account, which causes a more gradual warming/cooling for a sustained change in forcing.
My impression is that F&R did only look at the direct correlation with solar forcing without taking into account the effect of heat accumulation in the oceans…
Engelbeen, you write:
“My impression is that F&R did only look at the direct correlation with solar forcing without taking into account the effect of heat accumulation in the oceans…”
-exactly, thats “issue 1” / could not agree more.
K.R. Frank
M.A.Vukcevic says:”It would be wrong to conclude that the solar influence on the land temperature always changes in synch with the sunspot record, as this 300 year record shows:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/SLT.htm”
That was not the topic of discussion.
davidmhoffer says: “Suppose for a moment that TSI was 30 watts SW and 70 watts LW and then a year later it was 40 watts SW and 60 watts LW. The “TSI” would be constant at 100 watts, but the difference in the way energy from the sun interacted with the climate of earth would be substantively different.”
davidmhoffer, do you have data to support you supposition?
Gah! Wriggly lines again. I’m sure they are bad for the environment.
We’re doomed.
(Does multi-modal mean some sort of sound and light display?)
Hi Dr.Lansner
Annual data I plotted in this graph
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/PDO.htm
either de-trended or difference calculated (delta PDOdriver/delta time interval) give a signal which looks convincing and it has physical mechanism, which appears to shuffle heat around pacific, with Kuroshio current being main ‘agent’ of activity.
http://jisao.washington.edu/pdo/pdo_warm_cool3.jpg
crosspatch:
As far as I can see it, it is difficult to dis-untangle the ENSO and the PDO which on annual bases appear to be strongly correlated, but in the long term the ENSO has its own local driver, the Equatorial currents circulation regulator, which again appears to be independent of the solar input http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/SOI.htm
Two are interlinked, but since heat comes from the equator and is moved across Pacific either equatorially or pole-ward, then the ENSO has to be principal player, while two drivers as shown in my links act in a push-pull arrangement resulting in the Pacific oscillations as we know them.
I am currently extensively into the North Atlantic, and once that is done, I will write a bit more about Pacific, but principle is the same. One huge difference is that the N.A. has continuous heat exchange with the Arctic ocean, cause of the N.A. SST oscillations –the AMO, which does not happen in the Pacific, further more very strong circumpolar current tends to isolate Antarctica from the Pacific heat loss, thus making Antarctica less volatile than the Arctic.
Solar input is esential, since it provides not only heat energy, but powers huge Pacific currents, but solar cycle modulation as such, I would assume is not strong enough to cause such powerful oscillations.
Many may disagree with the above assertions, but those are conclusions I came to on the bases of the available data; to underline the point, the data comes first, and any hypothesis has to concur.
The term “correction” seems to dominate much of the writings, diagrams and comments we’re looking at here. As someone who routinely downloads published data and then analyses them (not going into detail about this here) I want to know /exactly/ how one transforms Nino 3-4, or PDO values, or SSN or in fact /any/ other type of observation into a temperature correction (units are presumably degrees C) which is not necessarily the unit in which the correction data were measured and/or published. Am I being dreadfully thick about this? If so please put it down to pre-Christmas fare and liquids! I do want to be absolutely clear about this so that I can follow a sensible route through the analyses.
Currently I am involved in an exchange of emails with the British Met Office regarding their graphical interpretation of the HadCrut3 data over the last 30 years or so. Their “smoothed” plot shows very rapid warming right up to its conclusion, whilst the individual year data – which they also show – are obviously stationary. This is readily confirmed by doing the stats of course. They say that their 21 point Gaussian smooth is what they believe in, and this is what comes out. I have asked whether it is a method chosen to show that warming is still occuring. They say “No”. Shall have another try after the holidays!
I think that the idea behind the original paper is a useful one, and one that does deserve more attention, and more considered thought, and not simple dismissal.
Attributing temperature changes over the last century to man made vs natural causes is to me a vital part of the whole discussion.
Unfortunately, in many regards there is a paucity of good raw data, and when there are cycles that such as the PDO that run for 60 years or so, it is clear to me that analysis needs to go back to at least the start of the 20th century, but the data is not always there. My main concern with the original paper that it is over too short a period to shed any new light on the question. The paper deals pretty much with a time period where the PDO is in one state, and if it had included the fairly widely accepted term of log (P/P0) for CO2, rather than the time based coefficient, I think it would have been more instructive.
I really wish that we had a better understanding of the PDO and ENSO, and what triggers the changes and determines the cycle length. It is clear these associate with weather, but are these drivers, or are we merely measuring a response, or is it a response to a response. i.e. sun warms ocean, ocean currents change, weather changes? I feel that until we can reliably predict these cycles, and we can ‘weather forecast’ the sun, we really can’t say anything about the future climate, or how CO2 or other potential man made climate change factores fit into the picture. These are important questions, and we risk wasting trillions of dollars, and so lower living standards if we make bad choices.
I worry that the “science is settled”, together with the GFC will see a reduction in basic measurements such as satellite temperature measurements (land, sea and atmosphere), the argo robots, and cloud cover and the type of cloud cover. Cloud cover is the perfect example where key raw data is virtually unavailable for long enough to tell us anything very useful. Good science can only be done with good measurements, and I fear that we are entering a period where the records will now start to diminish, rather than improve, all because the “science is settled”.
Anyway, I hope this type of research continues, over more useful time periods, including more parameters, and using more fundamental measurements. Lack of consistent, reliable and continuous data will be a significant stumbling block.
Frank Lansner writes: “I dont think that the strong connection between PDO and climate trends are dependant on PDO being a SST variable. Why do you think that?”
Frank, over decadal time spans, the PDO is inversely related to the Sea Surface Temperature of the North Pacific North of 20N.
http://i52.tinypic.com/15oz3eo.jpg
And that means, if the PDO is rising, then the North Pacific Sea Surface Temperatures are falling, and since the North Pacific is included in the calculation of Global Surface Temperature, it means that the contribution of the North Pacific to Global surface temperatures has decreased.
And that further means your continued belief in the PDO is unfounded. And that’s all you’ve got is a belief. You have not shown any mechanism through which the PDO could raise and lower global temperatures; you’ve only expressed belief.
Frank Lansner says: “In my writing i show data strongly suggesting that PDO eventually is Solar driven.”
What part of your post and which illustration show this? I cannot find anything you’ve written or any graph that strongly suggests that the PDO is Solar driven.
Frank Lansner says: “Bob: The parrallel well timed switches of climate trends and PDO, do you think that happens randomly?”
No. You obviously failed to read and understand my earlier reply to you. The PDO and Global Surface Temperatures are both responding to ENSO. ENSO drives the PDO and ENSO drives Global Surface Temperatures. There is no mechanism for the PDO to drive surface temperature, but with ENSO there is. Why are you having such a hard time understanding something so basic?
Frank Lansner says: “I have never heard a sceptic speak against the important role of PDO like this before , but ok, I dont read all.”
I have been writing posts about the PDO for years. Those posts discuss what the PDO represents and what it does not represent. Many of those posts have been cross posted here at WUWT. There is no important role played by the PDO. It is an unfounded assumption created by those who do not understand the PDO. And it is prolonged by people who want to believe in the PDO, like you.
Frank Lansner says: “In this writing from Svensmark and colleagues from DANISH tech univ 😉 they show the relationships I mentioned.”
Your link to Svensmark et al paper is password protected. That does not help anyone who is trying to follow your comment. Try another link please.
Your Kristjansson paper is no longer supported by the ISCCP low cloud amount data. I referred you to a comparison graph of the more up-to-date version of the cloud cover data in an earlier comment. Here it is again:
http://i42.tinypic.com/2hfq5fp.jpg
You can download the data from the KNMI Climate Explorer and attempt to prove your point, but the data will not agree with you.
Bob Tisdale says:
December 18, 2011 at 3:05 pm
davidmhoffer says: “Suppose for a moment that TSI was 30 watts SW and 70 watts LW and then a year later it was 40 watts SW and 60 watts LW. The “TSI” would be constant at 100 watts, but the difference in the way energy from the sun interacted with the climate of earth would be substantively different.”
davidmhoffer, do you have data to support you supposition?>>>
Yes. Any textbook on radiative physics ought to have plenty of references. In fact, the entire field of AGW theory rests on the DIFFERENCE between how CO2 interacts with SW versus LW. If you are suggesting otherwise, may I direct you to Mssrs Stefan, Boltzmann and Planck. You may as well have just asked for references that prove calculus is real.
Lansner’s critiques of Foster & Rahmstorf 2011 from other other bloggers:
1. Lansner dislikes the use of MEI to represent ENSO & TSI to represent solar variation instead plumping for SOI & SSN respectfully.
2. Lansner duplicates the F&R 2011 results graphing the underlying temperature trend, this is despite his solar having twice the effect & his ENSO nigh-on zero effect! [IMPOSSIBLE in real world situations. Bears no resemblance to reality]
3. Lansner raises these questionable objections. The impact of ENSO (that had no effect in his analysis) is now wrong and invalidates the F&R 2011 study. So now we stand on his quicksand muddled viewpoint with the laws of physics changed. Folks in this world view – gravity would not work!
4. The correction for the all-important PDO which is the cause of the 1979-2000 warming? Now this is where muddled calculations go from bad to worse. The warming Lansner had graphed 2000-10 earlier now disappears!
5. Lansner fits a PDO-generated curve slap onto the underlying temperature trend (now missing the ENSO correction that had no effect – tsk tsk laws of physics broken right HERE,
6. This now demonstrates the process that the PDO is now driven by SSN! IMPOSSIBLE! For those who do not understand the science should go back to reading at this point least the laws of gravity are now changed forever and Galileo’s observations were wrong and bad science becomes good science. White is now black and black is now white.
7. Did F&R 2011 ignore anthropogenic aerosols (a man-made forcing)? Are they not very significant to temperature? It really begs the question?
8. Choose the historic drop out of certain data that becomes unknown or uncertain. Criticise one whilst not the other. (This is about before 1979 (before the TSI data began), F&R 2011 totally ignored YET Lansner stops at 1950 where he too runs out of data.
9. Lansner then concludes boldly, The idea of CO2 induced warming over the last 30 years is “flat wrong”. .
The true skeptics will also take issue with Lansner. To put it bluntly – are we really doing nothing at all to our climate? And any good common sense man or woman should be careful right here – what do you really want right now? I know – I just want it to all go away. But we all know about causes right or wrong. Some will always push wheel barrows up hill despite all the evidence that you do not need to do that any more! It’s begun and there is nothing you can do about it.
davidmhoffer says: “Yes. Any textbook on radiative physics ought to have plenty of references.”
Let me rephrase my question as it relates to my statement to Frank Lansner that you commented on, to TSI, and to your supposition. Over the course of a solar cycle, do longwave and shortwave radiation run in synch with TSI? Keep in mind that the basis for my argument with Frank was that he said TSI was a poor proxy for solar variability but that sunspots were okay, even though.they vary in unison and have a correlation coefficient of 0.96. Then he went off on some tangent for misdirection.
Just piping in on PDO: RTFW (read the ******* wiki).
“The prevailing hypothesis is that the PDO is caused by a “reddening” of ENSO combined with stochastic atmospheric forcing.[2]”
Lucy Skywalker: Thanks for the link. It still does not justify Frank’s statement that cloud cover data makes a better solar proxy than TSI, which is how this conversation started.
Everyone should understand that one can use this methodology (not Tamino’s bias-selected one but the basic principle) and provide a very good reconstruction of global temperatures.
Some of us were doing this kind of reconstruction long ago. Now even Tamino and the UK Met Office are doing the same.
Let’s just get it right and answer the BIG QUESTION (because that is what this it is all about), how much does GHG/CO2 increases ACTUALLY increase temperatures. Pick your choice – rely on climate models or rely on the real actual earth climate.
Bob Tisdale says:
December 18, 2011 at 5:05 pm
davidmhoffer says: “Yes. Any textbook on radiative physics ought to have plenty of references.”
Let me rephrase my question as it relates to my statement to Frank Lansner that you commented on, to TSI, and to your supposition. Over the course of a solar cycle, do longwave and shortwave radiation run in synch with TSI?>>>
No, they do not. Itz been a while since I read papers on the subject, so sorry, but I don’t have links handy. That said, sunspots are in general cooler than the rest of the surface of the sun, yet large numbers of sunspots are associated with a slightly higher TSI. How can that be?
The answer is that while the sunspot itself is cooler than average, the “rim” of the sunspot is much much hotter. The resulting average results in a slightly elevated TSI. However, the sunspots themselves are cooler, and hence emitting at a longer wavelength, and the rims of the sunspots are emitting at a shorter wavelength. The mix of wavelengths follows the sunspot cycle very closely with the amount of SW increasing pretty much in synch. Since SW penetrates the ocean easily while LW doesn’t, high sunspot counts would clearly result in higher Ocean Heat Content.
In fact, if one considers the Argo buoy data, the decline in OHC follows the decline in sunspot activity. I believe I’ve seen papers as well detrending SST and the match to sunspots ive startling, but again, that’s going from memory and I’d have to go hunting for the specific papers.
No, they do not. >>>
To be more clear…
The shortest wavelengths such as UV increase, the longer wavelengths also increase, and the range in the middle decreases. The result is that none of these ranges follow TSI because the average of all them tends to cancel each other out. But with a highly active sun with large numbers of sunspots, while TSI may be only slightly elevated, the mix of high, mid and low frequency emissions changes out of proportion to the change in TSI itself.
Hence my comment regarding 40w SW 60 w LW being the same “average” as 30 and 70, but completely different effects. Are those the right ratios? I doubt it. I chose the numbers for illustrative purposes.
Frank Lansner: Somehow this discussion has drifted from my original comment to you. In it I quoted what you wrote in the post, which was, “TSI is hardly the essential parameter when it comes to Solar influence in Earth climate. More appropriate it would be to use the level “Solar Activity”, “Sunspot number”, “Cloud cover” “Magnetism” or “Cosmic rays”. TSI is less relevant and should not be used as label.”
To you, TSI is wrong to use, and sunspots are okay. I provided a graph that showed that TSI and sunspots are highly correlated.
http://i39.tinypic.com/15n9a8k.jpg
They basically vary in unison, and this indicates that it would have made no difference to the results of Foster and Rahmstorf (2011) if they had used sunspots in place of TSI. It also means that you could have used TSI for your wiggle matching in place of sunspots and still come up with the same wiggles.
You said that TSI was wrong, but “Solar Activity” was okay. TSI is one of the indices of solar activity. Sunspots are another.
You said that TSI was not “the essential parameter when it comes to Solar influence in Earth climate”, and you said that “cloud cover” was okay. But cloud cover is not a measure or a proxy for solar variability. You provided me links that showed an agreement between low cloud amount and TSI, BUT in your post you said that TSI was “less relevant and should not be used”. So how is TSI relevant to one side of your argument (clouds) but not the other (Earth’s climate)? Your logic is as faulty as your hypotheses. Also, if TSI does agree with low-level cloud amount, you’re still forgetting mid-level and high-level cloud amounts, all of which impact the amount of sunlight that reaches the Earth.
I have some questions from a layman:
First, “F&R use three parameters for their corrections, ENSO, AOD (volcanic atmospheric dimming) and TSI (Total Solar Irradiation).”
If the Pacific Ocean has an effect on global temperature, then it would seem logical that so would the Atlantic Ocean. Does it then make sense that F&R would not also factor in the Atlantic? Also, it would seem reasonable to wonder if the only effect on global temperature that the Pacific has it through the ENSO, or is there more?
It seems to me that what F&R is using is all “estimates” insofar as they are estimating what the effect of each of the parameters they’ve chosen is on the overall global temperature. Then, they estimate what is left without the estimated warming of ENSO, AOD, and TSI and that is then estimated to be the effect of atmospheric CO2. Is my understanding correct?
Carrick says: “The prevailing hypothesis is that the PDO is caused by a “reddening” of ENSO combined with stochastic atmospheric forcing.[2]“
In other words, the PDO is an aftereffect of ENSO and is also influenced by Sea Level Pressure.
If MEI is a (lagging) solar proxy, wouldn’t the inclusion of TSI simply be adjusting for solar twice?
I mean, I don’t think it has been firmly established exactly WHY we see these things in correlation with solar changes, but the fact that they do can be accepted.
That TSI varies with solar activity isn’t disputed. The thing is that TSI itself probably isn’t the cause of major changes in climate, at least not changes to the degree we have seen over the past 1000 years.
It would be like witnessing a shooting. You hear a loud bang, you see the person fall, and you come to the conclusion that loud noises kill people. That would be an invalid conclusion. But coming to the conclusion that when you hear that noise, someone might be hurt is a valid one. The noise doesn’t hurt them but the noise happens at the same time as the thing that hurts them is happening.
Yes there is a change in TSI, no, I don’t believe that variation is enough to explain what we see so the variation in TSI is something else that is happening at the same time as what it is that causes major climate variations. Sure, could be GCRs. Might be several different things working together.
I don’t say I know exactly what the mechanism is but I believe we are at a point where we can say that there certainly is something going on there.
Bob Tisdal;
http://lasp.colorado.edu/sorce/news/2010ScienceMeeting/posters/Poster%20Presentations/Poster_Morrill_comparing_MgII.pdf
Here is one of the papers I mentioned having looked at some time ago. There are others as well, but the general drift is the same. There are specific frequencies of solar flux that vary considerably with sunspot activity. Some frequencies are correlated, and some anti-correlated. Point being what I was trying to get at earlier. While TSI may vary within a given range, it is very possible, and even likely, that given frequency bands vary in much larger ranges. This changes everything from ionization of oxygen to ozone, breaking up of ozone, depth of penetration into the oceans, and, I’m guessing, penty of other factors too.
Hence, if one tracks TSI only, one is not looking at the full picture. Sunspots on the other hand, are what seem to drive the fluctuations in energy flux at various frequencies, both those that are correlated, and those that are anti-correlated. I’d think one could get some better clues as to what drives what by correlating against sunspots rather than TSI, but I think that’s still being to broad. One would need to break down the various frequencies and consider how each band not only fluctuates, but how that specific band interacts with the TOA on down to the depths of the oceans.
They didn’t use nino3,4 index, they used MEI.
A first-base analysis would have been to replicate their methods and sources to check. I assume you did this and found no discrepancies?
You have chosen different data to examine the issue. Such choices must have a sound physical basis. One can match any number of ocean/atmosphere oscillating patterns to temperature data and find some correlation, but we should always be wary of curve-fitting and conflating correlation and cause. For instance, you suggest Atlantic SSTs (AMO) lead global temps – but that is not the case – AMO phase shifts follow global temperatures. (This also appears to be the case for high-frequency variation)
And why on Earth (pun intended) would you choose sunspot numbers and “solar variation” (whatever that means) over TSI? TSI (‘Total Solar Irradiance‘ by the way) measures the changes in solar output directly, from space, every few hours, daily. This is a much tighter metric of the sun’s radiant energy changes than sunspot numbers. And if you’re going to posit clouds and cosmic rays as influences within solar variation, then you should include that in your analysis, rather than just picking sunspot numbers (for whatever reason).
In any case, your review doesn’t find flaws in F&R because it uses different metrics, and the crux of the matter, your rationales for the metrics you use instead, is weakly supported, IMO.
Rhys Jaggar says:
December 18, 2011 at 4:58 am
One thing which appears to be absolutely clear: even those who believe in major solar impacts on climate can’t agree whether it will get warmer or cooler the next 50 years.
Sorry, but to know that even those who believe in major solar impacts on climate can’t agree whether it will get warmer {or cooler} the next 50 years, you must have a knowledge about it. And because it seems, that you have no knowledge about it, it is
not absolutely clear appearance on that thing.
There is never a clearness on no thing. You never can speak of evidence for no thing.
“Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.”
(Ludwig Wittgenstein)
BTW. If one knows the
functions of the major solar impacts on climate then he is able to talk about the climate in the next 50 years.
V.
davidmhoffer: Thanks for the link. You wrote, “I’d think one could get some better clues as to what drives what by correlating against sunspots rather than TSI…”
Back to the discussion at hand: since 1979, Sunspot Numbers and TSI are highly correlated.
http://i39.tinypic.com/15n9a8k.jpg
My point with Frank was that it would make little difference to the outcome of Foster and Rahmstorf (2011) if they had used Sunspot Numbers instead of TSI. All Foster and Rahmstorf (2011) were trying to do was reduce the flattening of the surface temperature record in recent years. And it would have made even less of a difference to Frank Lansner’s visual comparisons if he had used TSI instead of Sunspot Numbers, since all he was doing was wiggle matching.
crosspatch says: “…but I am having a bit of a chicken-egg issue. It is the ENSO / PDO connection that is giving me fits. Does one cause the other? If so, which one activates the other.”
If both are results symptoms of a Sun-driven mechanism the timing of which is first is not essential.
Some times PDO peak appears slightly before ENSO, sometimes the other way around:
http://hidethedecline.eu/media/AREAL/Fig12.jpg
My impression is that SOI driven La Ninas may lead to ENSO-before-PDO, and sometimes when SOI appears not to be main driver of La Nina (like june-december 2011), PDO comes first and appears like a “driver” roughly speaking.
->We actually have still stronger La Nina conditions now, but these could not have been predicted using SOI, but do show some “sence” when you look at PDO. So now it seems we have colder waters from North (and South?) not “created” around the pacific, but just piling up near the Pacific looking like a normal SOI driven La Nina, but its not.
The exciting thing right now is, that NOW finaly the SOI index is growing, ON TOP of waters apparently maintained cold by cold PDO waters. This give opportunity for a rather cold La Nina in the coming months. Exciting!
K.R Frank
Correction:
“So now it seems we have colder waters from North (and South?) not “created” around the pacific EQUATOR, but just piling up near the Pacific looking like a normal SOI driven La Nina, but its not.”
“Objection”: TSI is hardly the essential parameter when it comes to Solar influence in Earth climate.
———–
Seriously. Now skeptical about changes in the solar output affecting earth temperatures.
How many of you guys actually swallow this nonsense?
Look it’s really simple. The sun warms the earth. Climate scientists know this but they also know the energy output of the sun is nearly constant. So small changes in solar output produce only small changes in global temperature.
The F-and-R paper removes the influence these small TSI changes so the effect of other things is easier to identify.
Crosspatch/Vukcevic
To my comment December 19, 2011 at 1:34 am
“Some times PDO peak appears slightly before ENSO, sometimes the other way around”
Vukcevic lower graphic http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/PDO.htm
shows this more clearly than my graphic. Thankyou Vukcevic.
K.R. Frank
This means that the approach of systematically only removing heat when heat effect is occurring is fundamentally wrong.
———-
Probably. But then, as far as I understand it, F-and-R did not do this, they use a phase difference as an adjustable parameter.
Guys I suggest you go to the primary source first and then compare it with what Frank says. This will give you a much better idea of whether Frank has the faintest idea of what he is talking about. Taking Frank’s word on this is likely a mistake.
M.A.Vukcevic says: December 18, 2011 at 12:19 pm
“PDO, I believe, is mainly a wind driven oscillation…”
My hunch is, that AO in periods of lower Sun activity allows winds to reach further South due to the smaller differences in pressure over a South-north line. Its simply easier for winds to travel from the Arctic south during lower Sun activity.
This might reach the northern Pacific with colder air and thus lower SST on the very most northern Pacific waters which in turn flows south east and finally is piled up at the Equator.
This is just a hunch.
K.R: Frank
barry
I made the compare with both Nino 3,4 and MEI: No difference, the graph is based on MEI as it should be though. But you are correct, it should say “MEI” in the text.
K.R. Frank
Barry:
“A first-base analysis would have been to replicate their methods and sources to check. I assume you did this and found no discrepancies?”
Yes, I did that. Also, see fig 7 , its rather close to what you are looking for.
I found that Nino3,4 was best choice and explained why, and i found that their Solar correction was too low. I explain that these two differnces has opposite effects and thus cancels out each others effect on trend. This is why Fig 7 is rather close to what you rightfully seek.
K.R. Frank
Frank Lansner: In an earlier comment I wrote, I cannot find anything you’ve written or any graph that strongly suggests that the PDO is Solar driven.
I found the graph you’re referring to. You specifically cited it in your December 18, 2011 at 12:46 pm to Vukcevic. There you wrote, “heres the graphi that appears to show Solar driving of PDO (+ temperature…)
http://hidethedecline.eu/media/AREAL/Fig16.jpg”
You have too many variables on that graph so let’s look at only the PDO data and sunspots. I’ve tried to scale the sunspot anomalies to what you’ve shown, and I’ve scaled the PDO by the same factor of 0.2 that you used:
http://i40.tinypic.com/s3euso.jpg
Visually, there is little relationship between the two datasets, and this is confirmed with a correlation analysis. The correlation coefficient for them is 0.012. You can’t get much worse than that. Here’s the comparison with the data smoothed with a 13-month running-average filter. It confirms that there is no visual relationship between the variations in sunspot numbers and the variations in the PDO:
http://i44.tinypic.com/2e1txqa.jpg
And earlier I had noted that I had written a number of posts that discussed what the PDO was and what it wasn’t. Here’s my Introduction to the PDO. It would be a good place for you to start:
http://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2010/09/03/an-introduction-to-enso-amo-and-pdo-part-3/
And here are a couple more:
http://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2010/09/14/an-inverse-relationship-between-the-pdo-and-north-pacific-sst-anomaly-residuals/
And:
http://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2011/06/30/yet-even-more-discussions-about-the-pacific-decadal-oscillation-pdo/
Have a Merry Christmas, Frank.
From the introduction of Faster Tramline’s piece..
This widespread temperature increase is corroborated by a range of warming-related impacts: shrinking mountain glaciers, accelerating ice loss from ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica, shrinking Arctic sea ice extent, sea level rise, and a number of well-documented blah blahs..
Surely this is all just pure BS. Sea level would sky-rocket if even a tiny part of Greenland melted, never mind Antarctica. Add on thermal expansion and sea-level rise would be hugely more than the poxy little 3mm/yr that it’s recently been – and its gone precisely nowhere for the last 2 years by some accounts.
So you know they’ve done sweet FA real research and know exactly what their conclusions would be just by reading the intro. Then you skip to the end and guess what, shock horror, you see a fantastically perfectly fuzzy line moving inexorably upwards along with veiled use of the word ‘anthropogenic’ Wouldn’t the pair of them be better employed playing Space Invaders or Bubble Shooter with their computers than pumping out this hopelessly biased dross?
Oops, excuse my poor speeling up there, BS is not my first language 🙁
Barry,
1) The dataset I subject to further analysis on fig 7 totaly matches the F&R dataset (!)
Therefore further analysis of this dataset per definition is not vulnerable to how I got it, do you understand this?
Even if I did it using numerology or by reading from their graph. IFIF my (better!) dataset had been different from theris, i would have had to use theirs, but thats just not the case and i like better to work with a good dataset!!!!!
2) your considerations TSI vs. SSN etc. do have some logic i respect (!) but your conclusions are ….
I makes NO difference what so ever if i had used SSN or TSI or one of the other Solar parameters to make the kind of considerations I do:
http://hidethedecline.eu/media/AREAL/Fig16.jpg
So, yes i realise some good points you have (!) but your massive conlusions appears without hollow, almost agenda like.
K.R. Frank
And Barry…
Bob Tisdale actually come with some arguments against my PDO “issue”..
But take a look at the issues I point out in F&R:
”
1) F&R assume that temperature change from for exaple El Nino or period of raised Solar activity etc. will dissapear fully immidiately after such an event ends. F&R assumes that heat does not accumulate from one temperature event to the next.
2) Missing corrections for PDO
3) Missing corrections for human aerosols – (supposed to be important)
4) Missing corrections for AMO
5) F&R could have mentioned the effect of their adjustments before 1979
”
Is there just ONE of the issues that I point out that you actually address?
Camburn says:
December 17, 2011 at 7:13 pm
Thank you. It appears that it is really just childs play to take this paper apart.
I know Tamino thinks he is a great thinker in his own mind, but a great statistician, he is not.
The first time I read that paper I thought what rubbish. Your analysis verifies that thought process.
How in the world do these folks get this junk published??????????????
_____________________________________
Phil Jones & Micheal Mann were the reviewers? I would put in a but I am afraid that could be the actual case.
Hmm it looks like wordpress removed my sarcasm tag from the above
Should read:
I would put in a (sarcasm tag) but I am afraid that could be the actual case.
Hi Bob Tisdale, i see a lot of comments on the PDO , interesting, thankyou very much, i will return to you on this.
I have no intension of demanding PDO considered from F&R if not relevant, but i hope that if I dont agree with you on this, you wont take it too bad 🙂
Roger Knights says:
December 18, 2011 at 3:17 am
crosspatch says:
December 17, 2011 at 9:30 pm
sheesh, you’re correct, I forgot October!
Facepalm.
Time slip? Missing time? (Cue in spooky music.)
_____________________
Time needed for banks to verify and transfer funds???
You’re still discussing “Climategate” here? After – at least – 5 different organisations, including the 2 houses of parliament in UK, the Congress in the US, and 2 scientific organizations found out that every single allegation of the “sceptics” was complete rubbish?
You must be pretty desperate.
William Martin says:
December 18, 2011 at 3:23 am
I believe that the sun is the dominant determinant of our climate, followed by local factors, e.g. volcanism.
However tonight I am swayed by the ice age predictions of Robert W Felix, who seems to account quite well for current weather and climate phenomenae…..
Where are we more likely to live than die ? I’m thinking Australia.
____________________________
If you are worried look at a map/info for the last Ice Age.
Map for North America: http://www.esd.ornl.gov/projects/qen/NAL2215.gif
Text: http://www.esd.ornl.gov/projects/qen/nercNORTHAMERICA.html
However a “Little Ice Age” in which we have the upper range of the grain belt lowered esp. in Canada and Russia, two big grain producers, and a change to a drier climate. (Cold = Dry) (Warm = Wet) will impact food production and food prices.
That is what makes me so angry about all this dancing around wasting billions/trillions of MY tax dollars on this idiocy instead of advancing something usable like thorium Fission/FUSION technology that would make desalinization for irrigation economical in places like California.
OH and this idiocy is also funded by MY tax dollar since WWF, Greenpeace and others get a large chunk of their dollars from government.
GRRRRrrr IF I want to make donations to an NGO it should NOT be at the point of a GUN!
Frank Lansner says: “I have no intension of demanding PDO considered from F&R if not relevant, but i hope that if I dont agree with you on this, you wont take it too bad :-)”
I won’t take it bad, but you would be illustrating an inability to accept what is presented by the data. And if that was the case, then your belief in the PDO would be unfounded based on the evidence.
Kelvin Vaughan says:
December 18, 2011 at 3:50 am
Have most scientists been on mind bending drugs at university?
_______________________________________
If it is in the USA the answer may well be YES.
1. Most work is actually done by grad students and the prof sticks his name on their work.
2. Children given Ritalin to control hyperactivity could be permanently brain damaged, it was claimed yesterday. Research suggests the controversial ‘chemical cosh’ drug raises the risk of depression and anxiety in adulthood.Ritalin alters the brain’s chemical composition so that it has a lasting effect on mental health, US scientists believe. Because these changes take place while a child’s brain is growing, they could cause irreversible damage….
3. In 1996, 10 percent to 12 percent of all American schoolboys were taking the addictive Ritalin.
4. The 700% increase in psychostimulant use that occurred in the 1990s justifies concern about potential overdiagnosis and inappropriate treatment of child behavior problems… from the early to mid-1990s the rate of ADHD treatment (i.e., school-administered Ritalin) among white boys in Baltimore County elementary schools was over 15%….
5. As many as 20 percent of college students have used Ritalin or Adderall to study, write papers and take exams, according to recent surveys focused on individual campuses. A study released this month by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia found that the number of teenagers who admit to abusing prescription medications tripled from 1992 to 2003, while in the general population such abuse had doubled….
I know your question is tongue in cheek but the answer has some very real problems associated with it.
…in 1973, psychiatrists were giving amphetamines to volunteers in order to observe their reactions. The reactions frightened researchers, who noted that several of the subjects expressed “a desire to kill” or to do something “bad or destructive.”
RITALIN AND VIOLENCE
School Shootings Linked to Psychotropic Drugs Such as Ritalin: http://www.antidepressantsfacts.com/2000-05-16-School-Shootings-Psychotropic-Drugs.htm
One parent of a teenage murderer [16-year-old son, Jared] and those who knew him reported major personality changes after taking Ritalin. (http://familyrightsassociation.com/bin/white_papers-articles/drugging_our_children/)
JohnWho – Regarding F&R, you are essentially correct.
They actually regressed upon _four_ components – ENSO, volcanic activity, TSI, and the 12-month annual cycle since 1979 (30+ years) and for 5 different sets of temperature records (the entirety of the satellite records, by the way, which started in 1979) – a multiple regression identifying correlations. They ran the computations with a variety of different lags, looking for the best match of correlation and lag for the full set of components in each temperature record.
What was left afterwards was a linear ramp (best fit residuals indicate it’s linear), with greatly reduced variations, which they identify as the ‘global warming’ signal. Given the statistics of that remaining linear increase, it shows statistical significance for increase over periods as short as 6-7 years.
JackK says:
December 19, 2011 at 4:58 am
“You’re still discussing “Climategate” here? After – at least – 5 different organisations, including the 2 houses of parliament in UK, the Congress in the US, and 2 scientific organizations found out that every single allegation of the “sceptics” was complete rubbish? ”
No Jack, people here are discussing Frank Lansner on Foster and Rahmstorf 2011.
Apart from that you are perfectly correct. investigatory panels in the UK have found no fault with the ‘climategate’ scientists.
In the UK, Muir Russell was commissioned by the University of East Anglia to inquire about the emails, but didn’t even ask Jones whether he deleted the emails. Muir Russell “explained” to the Parliamentary Committee that, if he had done so, he would have been asking Jones to admit misconduct.That a panel commissioned to inquire about misconduct should refuse to grasp the nettle of actually inquiring about misconduct is unfortunately all too typical of these sorry events
http://climateaudit.org/2011/09/02/nsf-on-jones-email-destruction-enterprise/
Then we had the ‘Science Appraisal Committee’ chaired by Lord Oxburgh, who also happened to be chairman of the Carbon Capture and Storage Association and the wind energy company Falck Renewables. Just before his appointment he went on record to say “..what we don’t want to see is in two years’ time the government simply becoming bored with climate change after we’ve invested a lot of our shareholders’ money”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2005/jun/15/energy.greenpolitics
The noble Lord Oxburgh found nothing wrong either, although he did admit to the Parliamentary Committee that he hadn’t looked at the ‘science’, nor the emails.
So you may conclude that the scientists were exonerated or, as I do, may think that these Inquiries were more corrupt than the science they were supposed to be investigating. It’s up to you.
On the subject of Clouds
If anyone has missed this: Global Warming as a Natural Response to Cloud Changes Associated with the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) by Roy W. Spencer, Ph.D.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/research-articles/global-warming-as-a-natural-response/
A different way to get at “Cloud Data” Earthshine
href=”http://www.hindawi.com/journals/aa/2010/963650/”<The earthshine observations reveal a large decadal variability in the Earth's reflectance [7], which is yet not fully understood, but which is in line with other satellite and ground-based global radiation data… (Note the sunspot cycle is ~ 11 years so is close to “Decadal” over a shot time span)
Heat enters the “Earth Energy system” at the tropics: (I think we all agree with that)
Tropical cloud cover (1983 to 2011) vs Global surface temp (HadCRUT3) http://www.climate4you.com/images/HadCRUT3%20and%20TropicalCloudCoverISCCP.gif
And Leaves the “Earth Energy system” at the poles:
Cloud cover over Arctic 1980 to 2005 (increase) http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/detect/climate-clouds.shtml
So it may not be the overall amount of cloud cover but a shift in the position of cloud cover, especially over the oceans.
This older document is interesting because it tells you how bad the older cloud data for the oceans really is.
Bob,
There is no mechanism through which the PDO can warm or cool global temperatures. The only reason people think it must play a role is the units it’s displayed in.
No, the reason is PDO~-NPI, which is a SLP index, and pressure differences certainly can warm or cool. In fact all the model you need is the integral of (PDO+0,5) http://virakkraft.com/PDOint-SST.png and then of course dT is very much like the PDO http://virakkraft.com/Hadcrut-deriv-PDO.png
ma vucevic
Re AMO
You have done a lot of fine work investigating AMO and what drives it and what correlates with it including NAO,GMFz and ARCTIC TEMPERTAURES . Have you looked at the effect of various currents discharging into the North Atlantic at Labrador Sea and into the Sub polar Gyre.? Currents like the HUDSON CURRENT which discharges into the DAVIS Strait . I think the cooling starts here first but also the TRANSPOLAR CURRENT could have an effect?. ARCTIC temperatures seem to lead AMO and NAO and I think ARCTIC temperatures in turn are affected by these cold curents coming from the Arctic
Bob Tisdale : “There is no mechanism through which the PDO can warm or cool global temperatures” , you say…
That’s a bold statement!!!
Cold PDO comes with pattern with cold waters along a very long coast line, that is a huge land area can be affected by winds from colder waters. Land areas do not have the same buffer effect on temperatures as ocean has, and therefore when colder winds meet land a larger proportion of the earth potentially can be cooled down.
And there are more mechanisms indeed that makes things much more complicated than to come with such a black-white statement.
You could turn it around: What is the odds that one distribution of temperatures has EXACTLY the net effect on glbal temperatures as a very different distribution? Statistically this chance is ZERO, so the question is entirely :
HOW MUCH does a very different heat distribution affect Earths avg. temperature?
You start sounding as if PDO is “settled science” and there is 2500 scientists with your viewpoint etc…
I will check out more of your comments on PDO…
K.R. Frank
Bob Tisdale says:
December 19, 2011 at 12:32 am
davidmhoffer: Thanks for the link. You wrote, “I’d think one could get some better clues as to what drives what by correlating against sunspots rather than TSI…”
Back to the discussion at hand: since 1979, Sunspot Numbers and TSI are highly correlated.
http://i39.tinypic.com/15n9a8k.jpg
My point with Frank was that it would make little difference to the outcome of Foster and Rahmstorf (2011) if they had used Sunspot Numbers instead of TSI.>>>>
Understood. I wasn’t aware that SSN followed TSI that closely. Regardless, that being the case, then I see neither being all that valuable other than as broad indicators. If we are to build an understanding of how the climate is affected by variances in solar activity with any degree of precision, then reducing the solar flux to either a TSI number or an SSN makes little sense to me. The components of the TSI mut be broken down and measured as individual components based on their physical properties in respect to interaction with the earth atmospheric, land, and ocean systems.
Bob: On Ocean winds over land:
A new writing of mine including exactly the ocean winds from West over USA rocky mountains and the effect this has on temperature trends, is in the middle of peer-review process right now 😉 .
So by now I dare say that these changes in ocean temperature winds over land are not to be ignored.
You can see a preview if you like.
Bob writes:
“I’ve tried to scale the sunspot anomalies to what you’ve shown, and I’ve scaled the PDO by the same factor of 0.2 that you used:
http://i40.tinypic.com/s3euso.jpg
Visually, there is little relationship between the two datasets, and this is confirmed with a correlation analysis. “
Bob I think your card is so beautiful it should be on a Christmas card!
But honestly I think the relationship is VERY clear..!
I think I why you don’t see what I see:
>>You don’t expect that the heat from one Solar peak should accumulate to the next! <<
In stead look at it this way: For every STRONG Solar cycle, PDO rises to higher level.
You could not wish for at better and more visible relation ship.
The same appears in the fig 16 in my article above, as you notice, but I think its easier to see due to the strongly averaged thick grey curve that take away noise better:
http://hidethedecline.eu/media/AREAL/Fig16.jpg
Solar cycles with “juice” seems to bring about longer term rise in PDO and apparently this is accumulated in temperature.
And a Merry Christmas to you!
@crosspatch says:
December 18, 2011 at 8:26 pm
“That TSI varies with solar activity isn’t disputed. The thing is that TSI itself probably isn’t the cause of major changes in climate, at least not changes to the degree we have seen over the past 1000 years.”
Thankyou my hero, you said it better than me.
@Gail Combs:
“And Leaves the “Earth Energy system” at the poles:
Cloud cover over Arctic 1980 to 2005 (increase) http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/detect/climate-clouds.shtml
So it may not be the overall amount of cloud cover but a shift in the position of cloud cover, especially over the oceans.
”
Interesting inputs, thanks!
@Bob T: You gave some links to you PDO writings, i will have a look.
Bob.heres “THE GRAPH” (a more simplified version of fig 16 above) that shows obvious relation between
SUNACTIVITY / PDO / accumulated heat in hadcrut temperatures :.
http://hidethedecline.eu/media/AREAL/TheGraph.jpg
This should be on every magazine cover tomorrow…
Frank Lansner , in response to my statement, “There is no mechanism through which the PDO can warm or cool global temperatures”, you wrote, “That’s a bold statement!!!”
Only someone who does not understand the PDO would think it was a bold statement. But you have proven numerous times to everyone reading this thread that you have no understanding of what the PDO represents. Yet another example: In response to graph I provided you…
http://i40.tinypic.com/s3euso.jpg
..you wrote, “You don’t expect that the heat from one Solar peak should accumulate to the next!”
Frank, the PDO does not represent heat. The PDO does not represent temperature. Why can’t you understand that?
You wrote, “Cold PDO comes with pattern with cold waters along a very long coast line, that is a huge land area can be affected by winds from colder waters……..”
But the North Pacific and the PDO spatial pattern in the North Pacific have two sides, Frank. And Western and Central portion of the North Pacific (that opposes the eastern portion) is larger than the Eastern portion that runs along the west coast of North America. Yes, it is well known that variations in the land surface temperatures along West Coast of North America agree with the variations in Eastern North Pacific Sea Surface Temperatures, but it’s also just as well known that the variations in Eastern Asia land surface temperatures vary with Western North Pacific Sea Surface Temperatures, so your argument is incomplete (because you’re only looking at one aspect of the PDO) and is therefore faulty.
You wrote, “And there are more mechanisms indeed that makes things much more complicated than to come with such a black-white statement.”
Frank, here’s another black and white statement. The standardization of the PDO gives it the appearance of a major short-term oscillation, something comparable to ENSO. But the PDO is not comparable to ENSO. The standardization of the PDO is one of the reasons that someone who does not understand the PDO, like you, argues about it. To standardize the PDO, one divides the “raw” PDO data by its standard deviation. Using monthly HADISST data to reproduce the PDO, the standard deviation of the 1st Principal Component of detrended North Pacific SST anomalies, north of 20N, is 0.127 deg C. The reciprocal of 0.127 is 7.8. In other words, the “raw” PDO data is multiplied by a factor of 7.8 to standardize it. So the relative importance of the PDO is greatly exaggerated through standardization. And that’s why you think it’s important.
And you wrote in your most recent comment, “You gave some links to you PDO writings, i will have a look.”
Good-bye, Frank. I’ve spent too much time dealing with you on this thread.
Here same graph, a little better focus on PDO, and now the simple PDO-estimated temperature is shown, SSN just indicated:
http://hidethedecline.eu/media/AREAL/PDOSSN.jpg
This should make a difference one shold think…
Dr. Lansner
Thanks for the new graph, since the first one you referred to as a reply to my post, wasn’t very clear. However despite new clarity there is no visually observed correlation of any significance.
Here I show the same principle applied to the North Atlantic, North and Equatorial Pacific and found following:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/AP.htm
Of course you or any climate or oceanographer scientist are free to dismiss it, until all data has been published, but that will happen in due course.
Frank Lansner says: Bob.heres “THE GRAPH” (a more simplified version of fig 16 above) that shows obvious relation between SUNACTIVITY / PDO / accumulated heat in hadcrut temperatures:.
http://hidethedecline.eu/media/AREAL/TheGraph.jpg”
Thanks for making it clearer. Your graph clearly illustrates that the PDO is not driven by Solar. Sunspots precede the PDO from 1950 to the early 1960s. Then the variations in the PDO come before the Sunspots from the early 1960s to the mid 1970s. And after 1980, they are about 180 degrees out of phase.
Good bye, Frank.
If there is dangerous planet destroying climate warming going on I should have been able to observe this through my 60 years of life, without the aid of statistical acrobatics.
However the weather world out of the window appears much the same as it has always been.
Bob Tisdal; “Good-bye, Frank. I’ve spent too much time dealing with you on this thread.”
Please remember this in the future, no one asked for your “Settled science” with no room for any dissenting voices. No one ask for your time nor your incredible arrogance.
Absolutely incredible.
I am mystified by two charts in Foster & Rahmstorf: the “raw” data and the “adjusted” data (respectively, http://tinyurl.com/rawTamino and http://tinyurl.com/adjTamino). The “raw” data shows five widely spaced lines rising roughly in parallel; the “adjusted” data shows the lines all bunched up atop each other. (For example, in 1980 the difference between low and high values of the raw data is over 0.6 degree Centigrade; for the adjusted data the difference is less than 0.1 degree.) What kind of “adjustment” can do this?
NeedleFactory – “The “raw” data shows five widely spaced lines rising roughly in parallel; the “adjusted” data shows the lines all bunched up atop each other. … What kind of “adjustment” can do this?”
They offset the five records in Figure 1 so that you could see the differences:
“Annual averages of the monthly data from all five sources are shown in figure 1. All have been set to the same baseline (the entire time span, January 1979–December 2010), then offset by 0.2 C for plotting.”
Chris Carthew says:December 18, 2011 at 3:50 pm
I think that the idea behind the original paper is a useful one, and one that does deserve more attention, and more considered thought, and not simple dismissal.
Hi Chris. I am in agreement. If the F&R paper has merit (and on the face of it, stripping out short term climate influences on some basis seems an entirely reasonable approach), it provides a falsifiable mechanism against which to test the AGW hypothesis. The F&R methodology is documented and reproducible. It can be applied on an identical basis for data going forward. If AGW is correct, the F&R derived trends should continue (with minor arguments about slope). If temperature were to flatline or go down under F&R, AGW theory will have some explaining to do.
Fearless prediction: in ten years time temperatures will be ~0.16C higher in all tested data sets under the unchanged F&R method.
Ammonite, in response to Chris Carthew, you wrote, “Hi Chris. I am in agreement. If the F&R paper has merit (and on the face of it, stripping out short term climate influences on some basis seems an entirely reasonable approach), it provides a falsifiable mechanism against which to test the AGW hypothesis.”
Actually F&R (2011) does not have merit, it is not a reasonable approach, and it cannot be used as a test of the hypothesis of AGW. There are two significant problems with F&R (2011), which I described in an earlier comment. I’ll replay them here.
The most obvious error with F&R (2011) is their use of an ENSO index in their regression analysis. ENSO indices do not represent the process of ENSO. ENSO indices only represent its local effects on the equatorial Pacific, or in the case of the MEI, its effects on the tropical Pacific. This is discussed and illustrated in detail in the 2-part post “ENSO Indices Do Not Represent The Process Of ENSO Or Its Impact On Global Temperature”. See here:
http://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2011/07/26/enso-indices-do-not-represent-the-process-of-enso-or-its-impact-on-global-temperature/
And here:
http://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2011/08/07/supplement-to-enso-indices-do-not-represent-the-process-of-enso-or-its-impact-on-global-temperature/
So yes, like many other authors before them, Foster and Rahmstorf (2011) misrepresent the process of ENSO by attempting to remove its wiggles from global temperature with the MEI. The authors either misunderstand ENSO or they are attempting to mislead their readers.
With respect to solar, Foster and Rahmstorf (2011) assume a 0-month lag and use regression analysis to extract a solar signal from the global temperature data. This might be applicable for land surface temperature data and for TLT over land, but it does not address the thermal lag of the oceans. The lag has been studied for decades and the debate about lags still rages on, with estimates ranging from months to decades. Foster and Rahmstorf (2011) clearly overlook this in their paper.
Frank Lansner: A closing thought, a suggestion. As discussed, there is no mechanism through which the PDO can vary global surface temperature. You still don’t want to accept that, but the PDO is basically an aftereffect of ENSO. The warming or cooling in the eastern North Pacific is a response to the El Niño or La Niña events, as is the opposing cooling or warming in the west and central North Pacific. The only reason those patterns have different time periods is because the North Pacific Sea Level Pressure impacts how long the “ENSO-like pattern” persists in the SST anomalies there.
And now to my suggestion, instead of using the PDO in your “simple PDO-estimated temperature”, use the following NINO3.4 data. It will provide a much better fit with global surface temperatures from 1910 to 2007 with the right scaling factor:
http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/catalog/climind/TNI_N34/index.html#Sec5
If you want to add the the more current data after 2007, Trenberth and Stepaniak used HADISST NINO3.4 data until 1981 and Reynolds OI.v2 SST data afterwards, and they used 1950-79 as the base years.
Then the work starts. Then you have to explain how and why that works.
Enjoy your holidays.
M.A.Vukcevic
You write:
“Dr. Lansner
Thanks for the new graph, since the first one you referred to as a reply to my post, wasn’t very clear. However despite new clarity there is no visually observed correlation of any significance.
Here I show the same principle applied to the North Atlantic, North and Equatorial Pacific and found following:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/AP.htm ”
I love this “Dr Lansner” 🙂 keep it up! No, im a full time software programmer for Novo Nordic where I started out makeing programs using parameters as Oxygen, pH, sugar contents, CO2 , temperature etcetc. to control when to give “food”, how to change temperature etc.
This because im a Chemical civil eng. From Danish Tech Univ of education.
I really enjoy your graphs, but could you help me a little? I think you have probably given links earlier, but i would like to know the nature of the graphs, can you give me a link to that?
Then, the new graph of mine:
http://hidethedecline.eu/media/AREAL/PDOSSN.jpg
Challenges are huge in terms of natures complexity and even quality of some of the data sources used (Hadcrut). Im not saying -at all – that Sun is the only driver in connection with PDO. And also, perhaps Magnetic field do a better job, I have to investigate that.
The well known “climate shift” in 1978 when we went from cold PDO to warm PDO seems initiated not by the Sun (SSN).
BUT!
As highlighted here
http://hidethedecline.eu/media/AREAL/PDOSSN2.jpg
there is a pattern of larger Solar peaks boosting the PDO index – or so it seems.
YES, there is a phase “mismatch” ot you could say that the response in PDO from the great Pacific ocean takes time, true.
But does this make the pattern go away?? No, obviously not.
At least, to claim out of the blue like Bob do that there is no connection! Period! .. this has NOTHING to do with real science. You HAVE to stop and wonder when you see patterns between SSN, PDO and temperatures. Bobs bold claims that he “knows” all this is a coincidence has nothing to do with science – even though we have later phase in PDO than SSN!!! Patterns like these certainly do NOT appear like random noise, obviously.
In the next link here:
http://hidethedecline.eu/media/AREAL/PDOSSN3.jpg
I have used a thick black line to show what appears to be the part of PDO that is not Solar related, at least not directly. Its seems that the Pacific itself has oscillations. Surprising? No , not at all.
Hi Bob, I just see your last comment now, thankyou very much, enjoy your holidays too!
K.R. Frank
Bob Tisdale – “With respect to solar, Foster and Rahmstorf (2011) assume a 0-month lag and use regression analysis to extract a solar signal from the global temperature data. This might be applicable for land surface temperature data and for TLT over land, but it does not address the thermal lag of the oceans.” (emphasis added)
Actually, F&R tested all lag values from 0 to 24 months, and reported the values that gave the best correlations. Claiming that they “assumed” a value is quite incorrect, as even a cursory read of the paper shows.
KR says: “Actually, F&R tested all lag values from 0 to 24 months, and reported the values that gave the best correlations. Claiming that they “assumed” a value is quite incorrect, as even a cursory read of the paper shows.”
I did read the paper. Regardless of whether the tested 0 to 24 months, the assumption is the lag of the Sea Surface Temperature in response to variations in Solar fall into that range. But since you don’t like assume, I’ll revise my comment to read:
With respect to solar, Foster and Rahmstorf (2011) used a 0-month lag and use regression analysis to extract a solar signal from the global temperature data. This might be applicable for land surface temperature data and for TLT over land, but it does not address the thermal lag of the oceans. The lag has been studied for decades and the debate about lags still rages on, with estimates ranging from months to decades. Foster and Rahmstorf (2011) clearly overlook this in their paper.
And if you like, I’ll ammend the last sentence to read, Foster and Rahmstorf (2011) clearly overlook this in their paper by limiting their investigation of lags to 0 to 24 months.
Hows that?
Bob Tisdale says: December 20, 2011 at 2:44 am
Ammonite: … F&R provides a falsifiable mechanism against which to test the AGW hypothesis.”
Bob Tisdale: Actually F&R (2011) does not have merit, it is not a reasonable approach, and it cannot be used as a test of the hypothesis of AGW.
Seasons greetings Bob. Your principle disagreement appears to be that ENSO indices do not adequately represent ENSO. That’s your area of expertise and certainly not mine. Maybe data mining or dumb luck caused all 5 F&R derived series to end up with the same degree of linearity and slope, but I’m betting it represents the transient response of longer term climate signals. Ten years, +0.16C and a free set of steak knives 🙂 We’ll see how it turns out.
Carlo Napolitano says: December 18, 2011 at 9:28 am
The visual inspection of the F&R figure depicting the rate (C/decade) of the analyzed datasets one thing appears absolutely clear… This relates to the huge error bars particularly after 1998.
Hi Carlo. The error bars relate to the trend estimate from the date in question to then end of the data series. So, for 1998 there are 13 (or so) points left with which to form a trend estimate and this is less certain than forming the same estimate from 1990 (for example). As the number of data points remaining decreases the error bars necessarily increase. This is not an indication of a problem with the F&R process.
It is impossible to remove ENSO from global data using only this region the indicies is derived from. Even if you used the surface SST’s instead for this region. It is like subtracting the temperature change of an area the size of UK from the global temperature and saying this has corrected global temperatures removing the UK. Energy moves around the world and doesn’t stay in one place. To remove ENSO correctly the peaks and troughs from ENSO on global temperatures have to be removed completely. This is so far impossible with no one able to do this yet because for example, removing at the moment/near it occurs just moves it to a later period in the data set. Therefore this demonstrates the ENSO has a ongoing affect years later. I have tried this before and got the same results.
Matt G, you write:
“Therefore this demonstrates the ENSO has a ongoing affect years later. I have tried this before and got the same results.”
Hi Matt! Im happy that you put your finger right on the most important spot, happy that this message comes through. And im sure I am FAR from the first person to get the idea, that heat accumulates. it is not removed the instance you remove the heatsource – also when it comes to the Earth.
K.R. Frank
Ammonite (December 19, 2011 at 8:38 pm):
When you say that the F&R paper ( http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/6/4/044022/pdf/1748-9326_6_4_044022.pdf ) “provides a falsifiable mechanism against which to test the AGW hypothesis,” I don’t believe you are correct. Falsifiability implies reference by the paper to a description of the complete set of statistical events whose outcomes shall be compared against the predicted outcomes in testing the hypothesis but I don’t find such a reference in the paper. If there is such a reference, please provide a quote.
Hi all..
Checkout this full temperature reconstruction from 1900 and foreward using only
ONE temperature given as start point, and then either
1) PDO data or
2) Nina3,4 data.
In both cases it appears easy to reconstruct temperatures similar to Hadcrut:
http://hidethedecline.eu/pages/posts/temperature-reconstructions-from-pdo-and-nino34-250.php
K.R. Frank
For the ENSO doubters, check out the Nino 3.4 Index versus Water Vapour levels since 1948.
Water Vapour, of course, is about 75% of the Greenhouse Effect of 20C (taking clouds into account properly).
One cannot conclude anything other than the ENSO runs the climate.
http://img52.imageshack.us/img52/5716/ensotempsvstcwvnov11.png
Terry Oldberg says: December 20, 2011 at 3:02 pm
Falsifiability implies reference by the paper to a description of the complete set of statistical events whose outcomes shall be compared against the predicted outcomes in testing the hypothesis but I don’t find such a reference in the paper.
Fair call. I am pushing a point. The underlying temperature trend is up, consistent with AGW theory. Given increasing CO2 (and absence of a large change in a known forcing) the trend should continue if CO2 increase is the current dominant climate driver. If the F&R adjusted series fell to 2000 levels (for example) it would constitute strong counter evidence. I won’t be holding my breath.
Hi Bill Illis!
I understand fully your points and the weight of that graph you show. Very intersting, now I know what to fiddle with between Christmas and New year….
Merrry Christmas all!
Bill, what data source did you use for precipitation?
K.R. Frank
Frank Lansner says:
December 21, 2011 at 12:38 am
———–
NCEP Reanalysis – total column water vapour. (25 mms or 1 inch in a given column of atmosphere or 25 kg/m2 – it cycles through the atmosphere 40 times per year or each 9 days).
Some people have problems with the NCEP renalysis dataset because it is not showing the rise in water vapour levels that the theory predicts. They prefer to use the shorter time-lines of other datasets. However, when you match up the different datasets with NCEP, you will find they are almost exactly the same. People are just starting their data in a La Nina and ending in an El Nino and they say “look at rising water vapour trend, not what the NCEP is showing”. But if they took NCEP over the same timeline, it shows exactly the same thing. Over the long-term, there is little trend and the ENSO controls its overall variability.
All climate data and all climate papers need to take into account what the ENSO is doing to their data in the period they are studying. Some would prefer to cherrypick a period that starts in a La Nina and ends in an El Nino without talking about how the ENSO affected that data. Very common actually.
You can get to the data here (site might be down today). Lots of data is available here. Spend some time figuring out how to use it.
http://nomad2.ncep.noaa.gov/ncep_data/index.html
You question the reason that F&R omit recent Sulphur Dioxide emissions and speculate that it is because this would explain recent record temperatures etc, however as Smith et al (2011) – [http://www.atmos-chem-phys.org/11/1101/2011/acp-11-1101-2011.pdf] found, anthropogenic SO2 emissions have risen in the last decade and thus could go some way to explaining your perceived neutral forcing.
Hi Bill, Thankyou very much
WATER is a nuclear bomb for AGW.
The whole feedback theory is based on the idea that there should be more water in the air now, but there is not:
http://hidethedecline.eu/pages/posts/feedback-positive-ndash-rdquowhat-makes-co2-heat-dangerousrdquo-29.php
(I took NOAA data from a WUWT article earlier)
And IF AGWers , the hard core, realy believed in greenhouse a gas disaster around the corner, why don’t we see water-in-the-atmosphere graphs everywhere? When it is much more potent and abundant than CO2?
However, if it’s true that more water in the air comes from heating (sounds fair!) then the missing water obviosuly – just like tree proxies etc. says: This heating is not at all as strong as claimed.
K.R. Frank, and thank you
@Manoffireandlight
Thanks for input!
1) In smiths new 2011 writing he gets an uptik in SO2 emissions around 2002-2005 mainly driven by Chin, but still from around 135 GgSO2 in 1980 down to around 117 in 2005.
2) In fig 8 you see an illustration of Smith 2011 with 12 other studies.Most of these other studies shows stronger decline in SO2 1980-2000 than Smith 2011.
3) For some reason Smith 2011 is the only source for SO2 data after 2000 and after 2005 there is none. This makes data after 2000 dependant solely on Smith 2011 that already shows weaker decline than the other studies.
-> My opinion : I would like to see more studies of data after 2000 before concluding too much.
Even so, there appear to be a “consensus” of a decline 1980-2000 larger than the uptik in Smith 2011 for the years 2002-2005.
YES: Whatever the Truth on SO2 after 1980, I find it dodgy that the AGW side – here F&R – are so “sure” on the So2 effect when it is used to explain cooing 1940-75, and then “forgets” to mention this “large” SO2 effect in a study like F&R 2011.
One can only guess howcome. F&R do not think SO2 is important to explain the 1940-75 cooling?
The Chinese development suggests that SO2 might reach above 1980 level in the future though.
K.R. Frank and thankyou for input.
Bob Tisdale – “Foster and Rahmstorf (2011) used a 0-month lag and use regression analysis … The lag has been studied for decades and the debate about lags still rages on, with estimates ranging from months to decades… Foster and Rahmstorf (2011) clearly overlook this in their paper by limiting their investigation of lags to 0 to 24 months.”
I would rather strongly disagree with what you are apparently implying in that text – F&R found a 0 month lag for satellite temperature records to show the best match, and a 1 (one) month lag for surface temperature records. That was what came out of the data, not out of an assumption on their part.
That said, it is quite reasonable to consider longer lag times. I’ll point out that Tamino has listed the all ‘R’ code and data for the F&R 2011 paper on his blog (http://tamino.wordpress.com/2011/12/15/data-and-code-for-foster-rahmstorf-2011/), and it would therefore be quite straightforward to extend this analysis to longer lag times. The ‘R’ software itself is freely available (http://www.r-project.org/).
I would be very curious to see if you found that there was a significant correlation response to TSI or other of these exogenous influences at lags >24 months, in particular if such correlation was stronger than the 0/1 month TSI lags for the satellite/surface records.
—
I’ll note that (in my personal opinion) F&R 2011 is simply an analysis of whether the major contributions of known, large sources of temperature variability (ENSO, volcanic aerosols, TSI) can be extracted from the temperature record, and how that affects the statistics without those exogenous factors. They certainly don’t claim that those are the only factors influencing temperature – just that they are known major ones. And, given the linear nature of the remainder as shown by the statistics of the residuals, additional influences over that period (such as human aerosols) would have to be (or add up to be) either linear in nature for the last 30 years as well – or very small in effect.
Hi KR
Thankyou for input!
As I read you, you are basically saying that F&R are close to reality so their results can be used with a reasonable confidence?
1) One of the basic problems I see is to what extend heat in oceans is accumulated.
For example, if you remove Nino3,4 (see fig 5) and Volcanoes (SATO) you still have a long flat trend in Hadcrut from around 1999 till today. So its only the timing of SSN that happens to flatten out the trend curve. Thus, things are delicate indeed.
In Fig 16 we see several examples that temperature rises and reaches new higher level around 4-5 years after solar cycle peak. Since SSN alone did the trick of removing the Hadcrut flat trend, a 4-5 years delay in temperature peaks can easily be essential for “flat trend or not” after 1998.
Please if you can look at fig 9 & 10 and the explaining text. There is not that data to conclude if heat is accumulated for long time or not. In far most cases, temperature trends changes when new “stimuli” occurs and muddy the picture. Data vaguely suggests that heat is preserved for many years to a significant degree.
2) IF PDO either to some degree drives temperatures or perhaps a symptom or result of natural occurring temperature changes, then it is very hard to say how much of the warming trend after 1978 is the “normal” warming seen during warm PDO phase in the period.
3) Sulphates: If the AGW side in the debate strongly believes that aerosols is a valid explanation for the long cooling 1940-70, these has to be very potent indeed. Therefore I see no justification for not using up to data Sulphate data in such as F&R. Remember there is supposed to be a large effect of these aerosols already at more moderate changes 1940-50-60.
4) AMO: The Arctic and its Arctic amplification is certainly affect by AMO, and so is large parts of NH land areas, not to mention the north Atlantic itself. This effect is also likely to be on the full 1980-2010 trend.
So IF there is not a significant heat accumulation effect that might itself maintain the flat trens after 1998, and IF it has NO SAY that 1980-2010 occurred during warm PDO, and IF aerosols played a significant role 1940-60 but NOT after 1980, and IF AMO Arctic warming for some reason should not be relevant…. THEN F&R has a point. I find all 4 IF´s here to be unlikely.
But this is speculation to a degree where the F&R results are no more than just results after removing certain short termed influences, and assuming no long term heat accumulation.
Imagine that sceptic writers put out a paper so deeply dependant on such a row of unlikely assumptions.. Im sure AGW would not buy that either.
K.R. Frank
Frank Lansner you say that HadCRUT is flat after 1999 after adjusting for ENSO 3.4
Okay, but don’t you see then if you account for the solar cycle too it won’t be flat anymore? it will be upwards?
That is unless the solar cycle has negliable almost zero contribution to global temperature. Do you really believe that to be the case? Otherwise I don’t understand how you can disagree with Foster’s point that the warming is still ongoing.
It doesn’t matter whether it’s PDO or AMO. The point is it’s still ongoing when ENSO and solar cycle are adjusted out. That means it cannot be argued that the “warming factor” has “stopped since 1999”.
Foster isn’t the only one to find an impact from the solar cycle. Camp and Tung find an impact of the solar cycle of about 0.18C on the surface record, which considering low low and long the recent minimum has been suggests that the sun really could explain why an ongoing warming since 2001 has been negated.
Ultimately though I don’t you agree that the argument that a flat hadcrut since 1999 means CO2 isn’t causing warming depends on assuming zero cooling from the Sun over this period? And that is a very very bad assumption.
I believe that is touching the point F&R were making.
“The impact of El Ninos and La Ninas is still clearly visible in data supposed to be corrected for these impacts. Since this correction by F&R is their “most important” correction, and it fails, then we can conclude that F&R 2011 is fundamentally flawed and useless.”
Useless? No. Even correcting it partially is better than leaving it uncorrected.
(and arguments that warming has stopped because HadCRUT is flat from X are leaving it uncorrected)
nomnom says:
“Even correcting it partially is better than leaving it uncorrected.”
No, it is useless except as warmist propaganda.
Hi Nomnom!
You wonder if I dont see that the change of trend post 1998 is due to Solar cycle (I here use SSN).
In the article and in my comment just above yours
Frank Lansner
December 21, 2011 at 3:17 pm
I write exactly that its only the timing of SSN (Solar cycles) that “does the trick”, removes the flat trend after 1998, and that this shows how “delicate” (vulnerable) this removal of flat trend is to other parameters. And then i comment from this basis further on , so if you could read that comment, and then you are very welcom to ask further questions.
Thankyou for input!
K.R. Frank
you haven’t answered the question. are you claiming the recent solar minimum had zero cooling effect? because thats the only way the trend stays flat.
you appeal to a 4-5 year lag, but correlation analyses find far smaller lags. plus of course you aren’t highlighting that therefore the argument that global warming has stopped since assumes a 4-5 year lag in solar cycle impact. thus it is not fact that hadcrut shows warming stopped since 2001,its assumption. and not a good assumption either.
KR says: “I’ll note that (in my personal opinion) F&R 2011 is simply an analysis of whether the major contributions of known, large sources of temperature variability (ENSO, volcanic aerosols, TSI) can be extracted from the temperature record, and how that affects the statistics without those exogenous factors.”
ENSO is not an exogenous factor and it cannot be extracted through linear regression using an ENSO Index.
http://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2011/07/26/enso-indices-do-not-represent-the-process-of-enso-or-its-impact-on-global-temperature/
ENSO is a process that periodically discharges heat to the atmosphere during an El Nino and that redistributes the warm water created by and leftover from the El Niño poleward and into adjoining ocean basins during the La Niña that follows an El Niño. La Niña events also recharge part of the warm water that was released during the El Niño. Occasionally, La Niña events “overcharge” the Pacific Warm Pool, as was the case during the 1973/74/75/76 and 1995/96 La Niña events. The 1973/94/75/76 La Niña provided the initial “fuel” for the 1982/83 Super El Niño and the multi-year 1986/87/88 El Niño. The 1997/98 El Niño was fueled by the 1995/96 La Niña. The 1986/87/88 El Niño raised Sea Surface Temperature anomalies for 67% of the global oceans about 0.1 deg C, where it remained relatively flat until the 1997/98 El Niño bumped it up another 0.14 deg C, where it again remained relatively flat until the 2009/10 El Nino.
http://bobtisdale.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/4-row.png
The Sea Surface Temperature anomalies for the other 33% of the global oceans have actually dropped over the past 30 years.
http://bobtisdale.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/3-east-pac.png
With respect to solar forcing, let me clarify my comment. While F&R (2011) may have found that a zero lag provides the best fit for their multiple linear regression, it does not disprove that the actual lag is much longer. The lag found by F&R simply adds to the long list of solar lags that range from, now, 0 months to decades.
Enjoy your holiday.
Nomnom, you write: “are you claiming the recent solar minimum had zero cooling effect? because thats the only way the trend stays flat.”
Nomnom, in the article + in the comment I mentioned + in the comment to you I state that the removal of the flat trend after 1998 depends entirely on the Correction of Solar effect.
And at no time did I claim that the recent solar minimum have zero effect.
Lets refresh what issues I mentioned concerning the F&R article:
1) F&R assume that temperature change from for exaple El Nino or period of raised Solar activity etc. will dissapear fully immidiately after such an event ends. F&R assumes that heat does not accumulate from one temperature event to the next.
2) Missing corrections for PDO
3) Missing corrections for human aerosols – (supposed to be important)
4) Missing corrections for AMO
1-4 all have potentially long term trend-effect on the entire 1980-2010. 2-4 mostly points to a cooling of 1980-2010 trend if implemented. That is, whatever the last decade shows, the general trend 1980-2010 may be more or less gone. We just don’t know. The reader of F&R do not have a chance to know this.
Then, on top of this, comes the complexity (chaos): Both El Nino, La Nina and Solar effects appears to have continuous effect for few or many years after peaks.
See fig 10: After the 2002 El Nino, we have rather neutral Nino3,4 and the temperature appears rather stable 2003-7 when no large La Nina or El Nino appears and changes the temperature.
And then, yes specifically the Solar effect on temperatures may have a part of its effect delayed up to 4-5 years, see fig 16. And yes, this might very well – to some degree – blur out the Solar effect on a short decadal trend, not fully take it away, if that’s your question.
@ Bob, Thanks for input.
K.R. Frank
@Bob Tisdale
By the way, Bob, I wont come with strong statements on final PDO-effects pro or contra. At least first I need time to study all relevant writings on the subject.
But I would like for you to think of a potential mechanism related to the PDO:
First as mentioned,
PDO =>
Colder waters nears coasts all the way from Kamtjatka to Mexico =>
Colder temperatures in coastal areas of mostly mountains.
This I mentioned, and this is not driving temperatures, just statistically give a colder avg temperature.
However, colder winds over land may prolong snow-season, and there you have a albedo based temperature driving mechanism for a start.
(Also, I´d like to know more about the AO – PDO relationship.)
K.R. Frank
Here a link to Alan Chethams Appinsys.com where he describes PDO and its effects on land temperatures, glaiciers and snowpack in land areas from Alaska to California.
http://appinsys.com/globalwarming/PDO.htm
Here PDO vs snowpack NW USA:
http://appinsys.com/globalwarming/PDO_files/image007.jpg
K.R. Frank
Frank Lansner says: “But I would like for you to think of a potential mechanism related to the PDO”
The east Pacific cooling that we’re seeing right now is the product of the La Nina, Frank. The PDO is an aftereffect of ENSO
@Bob, “The PDO is an aftereffect of ENSO”
Yes they are definitel related, and to some degree they show the same. That is, you can just as well say: “During a period of numerous La Ninas, the world will cool” or during cold PDO the world will cool. Its a bit same same, but both statements require that temperatures accumulate from one year to the next – and this part is really the most important in my view.
This year, it seems that PDO came first.
We even had a record: -2,33,K PDO november 2011!!
The coldest PDO since 1956..! and then NOW after months of cold PDO conditions only now SOI wakes up , indicating a “normal” SOI-La Nina east-west mechanism to start out.
PDO : its funny how very different people describes and understand the PDO on the net!! And im sure that your work with PDO is in the heavier end, and thus your conclusions likewise.
As I read your point you are saying, Yes there are some effects from PDO, but since it is started by ENSO, this is an ENSO effect – if I understand you correct – and this would make logic, if true.
SST/PDO : At skeptical science (wops i read skeptical science!!) they decribe PDO as a Northen pacific SST compared to global SST. The difference between Northern Pacific SST and global SST. This of course makes the PDO not entirely a “SST”, but since global SST varies much les than Northern pacific SST, I think the SST fingerprint in PDO is certainly there.
K.R. Frank
Frank Lansner says: “Yes they are definitel related, and to some degree they show the same. That is, you can just as well say: ‘During a period of numerous La Ninas, the world will cool” or during cold PDO the world will cool…'”
Good bye, Frank. I have explained the problem with your logic to you numerous times on this thread. I do not think it is a language barrier that’s preventing you from understanding.
Frank Lansner says: “At skeptical science (wops i read skeptical science!!) they decribe PDO as a Northen pacific SST compared to global SST. The difference between Northern Pacific SST and global SST. This of course makes the PDO not entirely a “SST”, but since global SST varies much les than Northern pacific SST, I think the SST fingerprint in PDO is certainly there.
Good. Now you’re misunderstanding what SkepticalScience wrote, and since they don’t understand the PDO, you’re misunderstanding misunderstandings.
The following is how the PDO is calculated:
Nathan Mantua of the University of Washington and JISAO, in an email, described the process used to calculate the PDO. And it is a process:
“The full method for computing the PDO index came from Zhang, Y., J.M. Wallace, D.S. Battisti, 1997: ENSO-like interdecadal variability: 1900-93. J. Climate, 10, 1004-1020.
“They labeled this same time series “the NP index” (see their figs 5 and 6). The steps are listed below, and files described below can be found at: ftp://ftp.atmos.washington.edu/mantua/pdofiles/
“Data used:
* monthly 5×5 Hadley Center SST 1900-93
“Method:
1. create monthly anomaly fields for all grid points
2. create a monthly mean global SST anomaly time series for all months, 1900-93, using gridpoints specified in file grid.temp.glob_ocean.977
3. create a “residual SST anomaly” field for the North Pacific by subtracting out the global mean anomaly from each North Pacific grid point in file grid.N_Pac_SST.resi.172 (20N-65N, only in Pacific Basin) for all months and locations
np_resi(mo,loc)= np_ssta(mo,loc) – global_mean(mo)
4. compute the EOFs of the North Pacific residual SST anomaly fields, and ignore all missing data point (set them to zeros)
5. the PDO index is the leading PC from the above analysis
6. for PDO index values post 1993, project observed ‘North Pacific residual SST anomalies’ onto the leading eigenvector (what we call the ‘PDO pattern’ of ssts) from the EOF analysis done in step 4. We now do this with the Reynold’s and Smith Optimally Interpolated SST (version 2) data.”
###
A link to the referenced Zhang et al (1997) paper is here:
http://www.atmos.washington.edu/~david/zwb1997.pdf
KR
You write to Bob Tisdale:
“I’ll note that (in my personal opinion) F&R 2011 is simply an analysis of whether the major contributions of known, large sources of temperature variability (ENSO, volcanic aerosols, TSI) can be extracted from the temperature record, and how that affects the statistics without those exogenous factors. They certainly don’t claim that those are the only factors influencing temperature – just that they are known major ones.”
KR, Why did F&R call te article
”The real global warming signal”.
?
People out there certainly gets the impressions that they think they have the “real” temperatures here.
Bob.. So now we discuss If I have misunderstood sceptical science…?
I wrote:
“a Northen pacific SST compared to global SST. The difference between Northern Pacific SST and global SST. This of course makes the PDO not entirely a “SST”, but since global SST varies much les than Northern pacific SST, I think the SST fingerprint in PDO is certainly there.”
Skeptical science wrote:
“The phases are associated with changes in sea surface temperatures (SST). “ …
“It is important to note that the “monthly mean global average SST anomalies are removed”; hence this index actually describes the “anomalous anomaly” of the North Pacific with respect to the global ocean.”
So lets move on.
I have stated clearly that I have to read more about PDO, since this is slightly complex, but most of all because there are so many opinions on what PDO is.
Therefore I have NOT come with strong statements on what PDO is, which I now repeat, because for some reason you still insist to “correct” me on this somehow.
However I have written few soft statements on PDO:
Even if PDO was made by N U M E R O L O G Y, as you very well know, the PDO trends are very similar indeed to the Nino3,4. The largest difference being the stronger short nino3,4 peaks are not that strong in the PDO index:
http://hidethedecline.eu/media/AREAL/Fig12.jpg
And so I wrote that the situation of cold PDO is similar to a situation of “cold Nino3,4”, that is, a period of many La Ninas.
Is that so wrong that it justifies more personal insults from you, you think?
Then you actually write some interesting background on PDO origin – which I have not had the time to go through myself before yet – and its intereting.
But If I comment anything, im sure you will find a reason to write something personally unpleasant, so im not tempted to comment further, Bob.
K.R. Frank
Please tell me that this thread of Frank Lansner’s was posted 106 days too early…