The real IPCC AR5 draft bombshell – plus a poll

Take a look at Figure 1.4 from the AR5 draft (shown below). The gray bars in Fig 1.4 are irrelevant (because they flubbed the definition of them), the colored bands are the ones that matter because they provide bounds for all current and previous IPCC model forecasts, FAR, SAR, TAR, AR4.

Look for the surprise in the graph.Ā 

IPCC_Fig1-4_models_obs

Here is the caption for this figure from the AR5 draft:

Estimated changes in the observed globally and annually averaged surface temperature (in Ā°C) since 1990 compared with the range of projections from the previous IPCC assessments. Values are aligned to match the average observed value at 1990. Observed global annual temperature change, relative to 1961ā€“1990, is shown as black squaresĀ  (NASA (updated from Hansen et al., 2010; data available at http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/); NOAA (updated fromĀ  Smith et al., 2008; data available at http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cmb-faq/anomalies.html#grid); and the UK HadleyĀ  Centre (Morice et al., 2012; data available at http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcrut4/) reanalyses). WhiskersĀ  indicate the 90% uncertainty range of the Morice et al. (2012) dataset from measurement and sampling, bias and coverage (see Appendix for methods). The coloured shading shows the projected range of global annual mean near surface temperature change from 1990 to 2015 for models used in FAR (Scenario D and business-as-usual), SAR (IS92c/1.5 and IS92e/4.5), TAR (full range of TAR Figure 9.13(b) based on the GFDL_R15_a and DOE PCM parameter settings), and AR4 (A1B and A1T). The 90% uncertainty estimate due to observational uncertainty andĀ  internal variability based on the HadCRUT4 temperature data for 1951-1980 is depicted by the grey shading. Moreover, the publication years of the assessment reports and the scenario design are shown.

So let’s see how readers see this figure – remember ignore the gray bands as they aren’t part of the model scenarios.

I’ll have a follow up with the results later, plus an essay on what else was found in the IPCC AR5 draft report related to this.

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beng
December 14, 2012 12:11 pm

IPCC model forecasts, FAR, SAR, TAR, AR4
And the upcoming forecast, FUBAR.

December 14, 2012 12:12 pm

I am amazed that ipcc have included this. But of course it is only in the draft. There is plenty of time for them to “adjust” the data and have a more “model friendly” graph in the final submission.
What?
Cynical?
Me?

richardscourtney
December 14, 2012 12:15 pm

Anthony:
The “committed warming” which was predicted by the AR4 is apparent on the graph. /sarc off
Richard

Olaf Koenders
December 14, 2012 12:21 pm

It appears they now have to be HONEST? Oh the horror.. I wonder how many billions they scoffed down to give us this conclusion? They can’t hide anymore.

Urederra
December 14, 2012 12:22 pm

when you see experimental data error bars larger than the error bars in the models, you should know that something it is really, really wrong.

Sun Spot
December 14, 2012 12:22 pm

Observations don’t match any of the IPCC model forecasts !! Plus the graph shows no observed warming for the last 15 years.

Jimbo
December 14, 2012 12:24 pm

Will this graph be in the summary for policy makers?

kwik
December 14, 2012 12:25 pm

No noble hockey-sticks?

Barry L.
December 14, 2012 12:26 pm

What I find surprising it that from 2000 to 2012, the Observed temperature trend is negative, where the models all predict a positive trend.
Even more surprising is that the latest temperature from 2012 is below all of the model forecasts.

December 14, 2012 12:32 pm

If you look carefully you will find the curve from 1990 first going up an then down. We will continue to fall. Global cooling is here7

Bryan A
December 14, 2012 12:33 pm

How does the to date 2012 data compare? The two blips appear to represent the 2011 data without the error bar range added. The same error bar range added to the 2011 data would throw the top of the bar to just within the bottom of the model range. but if 2012 is lower still, then a further cooling trend might be indicated

temp
December 14, 2012 12:36 pm

Seems SAR is about the only report even bothering to care about.
FAR is a joke its margins are massive.
TAR and 4th both have huge margins and of course at best the data is at the very very bottom of the huge margin.
Wasn’t SAR the report where they walked back a good bit from FAR and put alot more natural effects into the argument?
I really don’t see how they can post this in the final draft… it completely destroys 3 of the 4 reports and makes the “new” research look worse then the “old” research.

December 14, 2012 12:37 pm

If you look carefully you will find the curve from 1992 first going up an then down. We will continue to fall. Global cooling is here.

Gary Pearse
December 14, 2012 12:39 pm

With the benefit of hindsight, 5 years ago (AR4) and 10 years of flat trend at 0.4, they are projecting a rise to from 0.6 to 0.95! by 2015. Since 2007 to 2012, they essentially have remained flat and below the projected “red”. The observed looks like there has been no statistical warming since 1995 and this despite the Hansen temperature record step-up “forcing” done to break the 1930s temp records. No wonder there is so much gnashing of teeth, loss of sleep and nastiness among the warmaratti.

Roy UK
December 14, 2012 12:40 pm

16 votes (compared to 196) see “In the middle of the model scenario ranges” or above??? Looks like the warmunists don’t like what they see.
Not one of the warmunists see what I can see? Admittedly I am not a scientist, and I am sure I must be missing something that must be obvious to these people. Please tell me what I am missing.
But they quote the IPCC incessantly, and now they are going to have to cope with this bombshell. My guess is they will be over here in their droves getting paid 10c a pop to vote on the poll. And maybe 20c to post their scientific explanation as to why my eyes are wrong.
PS I did not get paid my 20c from “Big Oil” for posting this comment.

JW
December 14, 2012 12:40 pm

Since the question is what do the readers think of this, I’ll give my interpretation — pointing out the obvious maybe.
I guess the observed is the global temperature derived from the surface temperature record. I’m not certain of the term “whiskers”, but I think it refers to confidence interval “bars” on the observations. The caption uses the term “range” and I think that means any observed value that falls outside of the colored bands cannot be accounted for by a particular model. Based on this, the graph says that all models are severely overpredicting the observed, and that many of the observed represent “impossible” values for the models.
Those conclusions are counter to the entire premise of the IPCC, so there must be something I’m not getting.
First post for a long time reader. Great web site.

Ray
December 14, 2012 12:41 pm

kwik says:
December 14, 2012 at 12:25 pm
No noble hockey-sticks?
——————–
I see a hockey stick but it is not going up… the handle us going flat on the right…

Dell from Michigan
December 14, 2012 12:42 pm

So the actual temps have been far lower that the model projections…..
Sounds to me like Hansen, Mann, Gore, et al, haven’t added enough “adjustment” yet???
Or perhaps the lack of NHL hockey this year has caused a dramatic drop in the hockey stick????
;>P

James
December 14, 2012 12:44 pm

But…But…2012 is the hottest year EVAH!…
*whisper* in the U.S. (well some states anyway…)

R. de Haan
December 14, 2012 12:44 pm

I’ll have Burt Rutan have a look at it (LOL)

David, UK
December 14, 2012 12:55 pm

It doesn’t take a genius to see at a glance that most of the observations are either within the lower grey band or within the lower model estimates.
So WTF were eleven voters (at the time of this comment) actually seeing when they voted for “Above the model scenario ranges?” Duh? Any one of the eleven care to comment?

Theo Goodwin
December 14, 2012 12:56 pm

It is a good thing that Rawls shared the report. The graph above would never have made it into that report. Consensus, anyone?

wikeroy
December 14, 2012 12:59 pm

R. de Haan says:
December 14, 2012 at 12:44 pm
“Iā€™ll have Burt Rutan have a look at it (LOL)”
Let Gjaever, Moerner and the rest of the realists have a look too! (Double LOL!!!)

Bruce Cobb
December 14, 2012 1:00 pm

Imagine the cognitive dissonance this graph must create in the Warmist mind. They will have “explanations” for it of course: “Aerosols from increased industry in China, for example, are increasing planetary albedo, and the deep oceans are concealing some of the warmth”, is what they may claim. “This lull in the warming is only temporary”, they’ll assure themselves. Then, they will go full-bore into their favorite litany of “ice caps melting, storms getting more severe, more floods, droughts, fires, and the piece de resistance, the mother of all “proofs” we are now suffering the catastrophic effects of manmade warming, Sandy.

December 14, 2012 1:01 pm

The relationship had between infringements upon the natural water vapor cycle (supported by Tsunami debris affect upon Arctic Sea Ice changes) and near surface temperature feedbacks has clearly not been adequately investigated (Atmospheric Drying/ Ocean surface energy displacement >700meters). …Atmospheric Rivers increase ice sheets and their storage process rates for heavier atmospheric gases….. Are the idiots bullying the rest with a system wide micro-economic leach that requires ignoring actual causality? …All I have is a kite, but my answer is Yes they are.
Ocean originating ash fall disruption of water vapor cycle during Ice Age events would explain rapid desertification……

Bill Illis
December 14, 2012 1:01 pm

IPCC working group vote in January 2013 – “Be it recommended that this graph not be shown and a whole bunch of other made-up ones with a line going up be shown in its place” – 11 vote Yes; 1 Abstention and 2 votes No – therefore IPCC working group votes 110% in favor.

mark wagner
December 14, 2012 1:02 pm

10 of the 22 years have observed temps lower than any/all of the models. huh.

David L. Hagen
December 14, 2012 1:03 pm

1) Temperature plateau
IPCC shows NO warming for 15 years from 1997 to 2012.
2) “ANNUAL temperature change” of ~ 0.35 C/YEAR = 3.5C/decade!!!
IPCC states as “Observed global annual temperature change, relative to 1961ā€“1990, is shown as black squares “.
i.e. a ROFLOL editing error only 1700% too high. It should probably read “temperature difference averaged annually.”
3) Global cooling
IPCC shows a massive cooling of ~ -0.18 C from 1990 to 1992 or -0.9 Deg C/decade for the SAR scenario design. i.e. > -450% BELOW the IPCC’s mean of model trends of +0.2 C/decade.
4) Ignoring climate persistence
The conventional standard deviation of uncertainties shown (gray) is probably only half of the total Hurst – Kolmogorov Standard Deviation measured in the ice cores. See
Markonis, Y., and D. Koutsoyiannis, Hurst-Kolmogorov dynamics in paleoclimate reconstructions, European Geosciences Union General Assembly 2010, Geophysical Research Abstracts, Vol. 12, Vienna, EGU2010-14816, European Geosciences Union, 2010. Presentation slide 10.

December 14, 2012 1:08 pm

The IPCC models are failing to reproduce the temperature (despte the 2-sigma error bars) because are severely failing to reproduce the large natural multidecadal oscillations that are likely astronomically induced. As shown in my paper.
The astronomical based model I propose agrees far better with the temperature:
http://people.duke.edu/~ns2002/#astronomical_model_1
And properly reconstructs the temperature before 2000!
Because my paper is published and peer reviewed, and the IPCC is supposed to take into account all scientific literature, not just the AGW literature, may somebody write them and ask them to add a figure with my model just in case it may work better that their GCMs?

richard
December 14, 2012 1:12 pm

Far, a long long way to run,
Tar, a needle pulling thread,
Sar, a
damn, can’t make it work

Peter Miller
December 14, 2012 1:13 pm

This is definitely an inconvenient chart which will be omitted from the final homogenised version, as it clearly demonstrates the pointlessness of the IPCC.

mib8
December 14, 2012 1:15 pm

Oh the weather outside is frightful,Ā 
But the fire is so delightful,
And since we’ve no place to go,
Let It Rain! Let It Rain! Let It Rain!
with apologies to Sammy Cahn & Jule Styne 1945

David L. Hagen
December 14, 2012 1:15 pm

5) Actual 2008 & 2011 temperatures BELOW/OUTSIDE the uncertainty ranges of AR4.
I.e. the AR4 model projections are trending way too hot relative to actual global temperature evidence. This very likely shows large unaccounted for Type B standard uncertainty.
Compare Nicola Scafetta’s 2012 model which is now predicting far better temperature trends from 2000 than IPCC AR4. At the bottom of the page see Scafetta’s expanded graph since 2000 showing IPCC’s rapidly rising global warming vs Scafetta’s harmonic projection compared to actual temperatures updated monthly.

Kasuha
December 14, 2012 1:15 pm

With this alignment, all they need to do is to tone the prediction down a bit to about values of SAR – and they’re good again for about next five years unless we get really significant cooling.

johninoxley
December 14, 2012 1:16 pm

Obviously the observed anomolies need severely beaten with a hockey stick to make them conform to the wack job models. My apologies to other wack jobs out there, but and a very big but, you are not in the same league as these so called “scientists”. Thankyou all for my little rant. I for one have had enough of these rentseekers.

Latimer Alder
December 14, 2012 1:17 pm

The problem with them not now showing the graph in the final report is that they will need to have a semi-plausible scientific reason for doing so. Enough people have seen the draft to make a big noise about it.
It is not obvious what that the reason they could advance might be.

Beta Blocker
December 14, 2012 1:18 pm

Regardless of what the actual trend line for observed temperatures might indicate upon casual examination of this graph, as long as the upper values of the measurement error bars generally fall within the lower boundary of the aggregated four-model prediction zone — i.e., the zone defined within the colored areas of the graph, ignoring the portion which is gray — the claim will be made that “the climate model predictions have been verified in all major respects.”

Jeff Norman
December 14, 2012 1:19 pm

It appears the error bars on the “measured” temperatures are larger than the range of modelled results.

Chris B
December 14, 2012 1:20 pm

Oddly the models seem to predict a greater rise in temperature just at the time the temperature actually stopped rising and started gradually dropping. Nostradamus was better.

Michael Schaefer
December 14, 2012 1:21 pm

Well, as I see it, there’s a flat line in the observed global trends from 2000 on – like in “flatline”.
May we call the IPCC-members Flatliners now? Please!

Martin C
December 14, 2012 1:28 pm

Hmmmm, If the colors are for model forecasts, what did they put in the AR4 model that caused the 1992 dip, when SAR and TAR DONT have that (obviously FAR couldn’t, because it was prior to 1992).
Looks to me like Mt. Pinatubo cooling. So then that wouldn’t be MODEL FORECAST, that would be OBSERVED DATA. And why then wouldn’t the AR4 band dip, or at least, stay level, from about 2000 to 2007, to coincide with the OBSERVED data?
Is there an estimate, model or otherwise, for future temps, in AR5? Shouldn’t there be . . ?

Michael Schaefer
December 14, 2012 1:28 pm

David, UK says:
December 14, 2012 at 12:55 pm
David, there’s nothing a reasonable amount of mind-altering substances can’t fix.
Like the Irish say: “Reality is a misperception caused by lack of alcohol!”
Air do shlĆ inte!

David L. Hagen
December 14, 2012 1:29 pm

6) The 2011 data is missing the “whisker” error bounds.
7) The term “bias” for Type B standard uncertainty is NOT standard terminology and is recommended against by NIST

Robert M
December 14, 2012 1:31 pm

And that chart is with ADJUSTED data. They are cheating and still losing. I wonder how that makes them feel.
Of course the money keeps rolling in, that must be comforting for them.

Tim Clark
December 14, 2012 1:38 pm

“Barry L. says:
December 14, 2012 at 12:26 pm
What I find surprising it that from 2000 to 2012, the Observed temperature trend is negative, where the models all predict a positive trend.
Even more surprising is that the latest temperature from 2012 is below all of the model forecasts.”
More importantly, the latest temperature is even below the 2 sigma error bands of all the model forecasts.
It’s worse than we thought!!!!!!
Sorry, couldn’t resist.

kim
December 14, 2012 1:42 pm

We are cooling, folks; for how long neither kim nor the IPCC knows.
=================

Rosco
December 14, 2012 1:43 pm

Steven Goddard has many posts demonstrating that James Hansen has changed the temperature data in recent publications from the ones he published before 2000.
The “revised” versions eliminate the previous record years of the 1930s US – the dust bowl years – in favour of the current period.
“What’s happening to our climate? Was the heat wave and drought in the Eastern United States in 1999 a sign of global warming?
Empirical evidence does not lend much support to the notion that climate is headed precipitately toward more extreme heat and drought.”
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/hansen_07/
Factor that, plus an urban heat island effect into the above graph and the models are even further out compared to “real” data before adjustment which reduces the past and increases the present.
I also wonder how many “cool” monitoring stations simply ceased supplying data when the Soviet Union collapsed and if that had any impact on global averages.
They still have a long way to go before honesty prevails.

Lawrie Ayres
December 14, 2012 1:44 pm

Imagine if those beyond reproach media outlets put this graph on their front pages and lead stories. Rioting in the streets perhaps? More likely discussion by “experts” (read warmist robots) explaining it’s only the draft prepared by a low ranking junior who has now been counselled.

u.k.(us)
December 14, 2012 1:53 pm

Play time is over.
The world economy has tanked.
Nobody can afford the “green” vision anymore.
Give it up, history might be kinder.

December 14, 2012 1:59 pm

let me get this straight. somebody wants me to look at draft chart that has an error in it
ignore the error and focus on a different part of the chart that may or may not be accurate.

Bill
December 14, 2012 2:00 pm

As Urederra says “when you see experimental data error bars larger than the error bars in the models” you know you’re in trouble.
If the error bars are 0.2 C per year, then how in the hell can they make these “high confidence” statements? It seems the only time they use large error bars on the data is when they want to show that they “really do fall in the 67% C.I.” or some such nonsense. The rest of the time the average temp./anomaly of the entire planet is quite accurate I’m sure.

MarkW
December 14, 2012 2:03 pm

There’s one other thing that I see. No warming since around 1997.

MarkW
December 14, 2012 2:10 pm

Peter Miller says:
December 14, 2012 at 1:13 pm

Are you saying that what we have here is … An inconvenient Truth?

Roger Knights
December 14, 2012 2:12 pm

I hope the next version of the chart includes the dots for 2012. They should be available in a couple of months.
I assume 2013 will be (thanks to ENSO) a cool year, relative to the 21st century average. At that point, a few months after the release of AR5, the chart will start looking REALLY embarrassing.

December 14, 2012 2:13 pm

I doubt that this chart will be allowed to go through as is. especially as it’s now been highlighted here. The presentation will change so as to be on message.
Regardless of how futile a gesture Mosher believes it to be the AR5 needs to be scrutinised so as to make sure the information within is getting to as wide an audience as possible but also explained in a manner that people may understand.
No doubt this could be spun in a way that the IPCC are happy with. they will no doubt say “look, the observations all fall within the area of one of the models therefore all our models are performing as expected”.
These things need to be explained in simple terms for the simple man and got out in media that the simple man reads. The fact that error margins so wide as to outdo the tales of old fishermen (it was THIS big, honest ) are introduced so that the displays are more convenient to the message needs to be explained.
I was having a conversation with my friend and oft business partner about the anthropogenic issue as I drove back from racing at the weekend. It’s never come up before but he looked at me as though I was mental as I tried with difficulty to explain that what he believes is not what is happening. All he could keep saying was “why would they do this” and “but everyone agrees, I read it all the time”
These are the people that need to have the facts explained to them but it needs to be done in in a manner that they can comprehend.
Having this AR5 draft on from WG1 where all the science that will be relied on is laid out is a good thing because now people with the skill set can plan ahead how they will counter the summary for policy makers when it arrives and falls down on the science it will claim supports it.

DirkH
December 14, 2012 2:16 pm

Urederra says:
December 14, 2012 at 12:22 pm

“when you see experimental data error bars larger than the error bars in the models, you should know that something it is really, really wrong.”

I disagree. This is the result that is to be expected when somebody tries to predict the behaviour of a chaotic system over long timescales using a wrongly initialized, limited precision simulation (that is not even capable of simulating the relevant processes correctly, but that’s not a necessary condition).
The mathematical definition of chaos tells us that such an endeavour MUST fail. I am satisfied to see the expected failure. The math is right.

December 14, 2012 2:18 pm

Considering the graph of AR4 predictions and the observed temperature wiskers post AR4:
http://www.despair.com/consistency.html
“Consistency: Its only a Virture, If….. ”
Click the link to see the punchline and visual.

u.k.(us)
December 14, 2012 2:20 pm

Steven Mosher says:
December 14, 2012 at 1:59 pm
let me get this straight. somebody wants me to look at draft chart that has an error in it
ignore the error and focus on a different part of the chart that may or may not be accurate.
================
Nicely sums up the “warmist” methodology šŸ™‚

tango
December 14, 2012 2:21 pm

the poll, I had a brain explosion and voted for above model we all know the right answer its below. I hang my head in shame i should enter politics

Roger Knights
December 14, 2012 2:25 pm

I bet the IPCC won’t put THIS chart on the cover of its AR5 report!
(As it did for the hockey stick in its TAR).
It’ll be fun to see the final-draft version, which presumably will have the AR5-scenario included.

cui bono
December 14, 2012 2:27 pm

Are we sure the graph isn’t Mannian (ie: upside down)?

Bill Illis
December 14, 2012 2:29 pm

I have my own version of this chart which I keep up-to-date and post up every now and again (monthly numbers rather than obscure dots and bulloney ranges).
Hadcrut4, Hadcrut3 to October 2012, the average of RSS/UAH to November 2012 versus all these IPCC/Hansen forecasts.
Its not that the forecasts are wrong, the theory must be instead.
http://s12.postimage.org/kbtrs0oul/IPPC_vs_Obs_Nov_12.png

Rud Istvan
December 14, 2012 2:33 pm

It behooves one to check axes. This was normalized to 1990. But the reported anomaly in 1990 was greater than 0.3C shown here, in all IPCC reports. Read the climate change chapter in The Arts of Truth. Even though this chart ‘admits’ less warming than model predictions, it is still lipstick on a pig. The true divergence from past IPCC statements is substantially greater.
Not that points like experimental error bars are greater than model error (illogical unless only models reflect ‘reality’) and the estimated experimental temps are biased high by homogenization and UHI from station siting problems, are not also zingers. Put it all together correctly and one has a rather resounding refutation of the IPCC. Good that this got out in the leaked draft, because IMO would not have made final cut otherwise. Still might not.

HaroldW
December 14, 2012 2:36 pm

From the abstract of Frame and Stone 2012:

In 1990, climate scientists from around the world wrote the First Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. It contained a prediction of the global mean temperature trend over the 1990ā€“2030 period that, halfway through that period, seems accurate.

The FAR prediction is the pale orange region on the graph.

MattS
December 14, 2012 2:38 pm

@Steven Mosher,
What error? Be specific. Show your work.

Roger Knights
December 14, 2012 2:38 pm

zootcadillac says:
December 14, 2012 at 2:13 pm
These things need to be explained in simple terms for the simple man and got out in media that the simple man reads.

Like page 1 of the Daily Mail!

MattS
December 14, 2012 2:41 pm

Illis,
You should put Hanson’s best case scenario (I forget if that would be A or C) on the chart. I believe that the current observations would be below even that.

Mario Lento
December 14, 2012 2:42 pm

@Steven Mosher:
I have not read much from you lately. Could you provide some balance here? I would like to have your take on what’s happening. Could you give us a summary? As I say, I learn more from being wrong than being right. Please please give us some insight!

Roger Knights
December 14, 2012 2:43 pm

PS: I meant by the Daily Mail reprinting the chart above the fold on page 1 tomorrow–and periodically thereafter. (It should insert “estimated” dots for 2012.)
Here’s the caption: “Worth a million of the IPCC’s words”

manicbeancounter
December 14, 2012 2:45 pm

The “actual” figures are provided by Hansen’s NASA GISS, where reality is adjusted constantly. It probably more than coincidence that the adjustments bring the reality into line with for forecasts. In what other area would somebody be allowed, unchallenged, to provide the analysis that verifies their own theory?
Businesses auditing (and deciding the accounting standards for) their own accounts perhaps? Pharmaceutical companies evaluating the efficacy of their own products, with test standards they themselves determine? Within business, people deciding the criteria for expense claims, and signing off (unchecked) their expense claims? In every case there are strong conflicts of interest. We should recognize this in climatology as well.

Editor
December 14, 2012 2:47 pm

HADCRUT will probably come in at about 0.45 for 2012. (Last year was 0.40C).

December 14, 2012 2:47 pm

beng says:
December 14, 2012 at 12:11 pm
IPCC model forecasts, FAR, SAR, TAR, AR4
And the upcoming forecast, FUBAR.
==============================================================================
Or, regarding what the models predicted and what was actually observed: SNAFU.
(Or maybe it should be: SNMAFU?)
(“M” for Models.)

ursus augustus
December 14, 2012 2:51 pm

I have an evolving sense that some of the major non western UN nations have let it be known that they think this AGW alarmism is utter crap and that the IPCC had better get itself back to reality with AR5. Hence the figure on global tempetrature, the recognition of solar influences via incoming ionizing radiation etc and the virtual dismissal of the link to extreme climate events.
It will be interesting to see a list of the contributors to AR5 and see whether there are as many eco rent seekers involved as distinct from actual scientists as has been the case in the past.

Roger Knights
December 14, 2012 3:00 pm

I hope that in five years the chart might deserve the sarcastic caption, “Hockeystick!”–with the blade pointing downwards.

Editor
December 14, 2012 3:01 pm

Anthony
The graph would look great on a sweat shirt ( much too cold for a t shirt) and provide a great present whilst acting as a useful reminder of what the graph looked like prior to being amended in the final version of AR5
Tonyb

December 14, 2012 3:01 pm

This looks to be very interesting. However, I have noted that there are some questions about whether the issue of solar forcing has been correctly interpreted:
http://motls.blogspot.co.nz/2012/12/ipcc-ar5-not-acknowledging.html
In light of this, I hope that commentary on AR5 will proceed cautiously, and within the context of the overall presentation in the report. However, I look forward to the essay, Anthony.
http://newzealandclimatechange.wordpress.com/2012/12/15/the-ipcc-ar5-leak-why-do-the-ipcc-object/

December 14, 2012 3:10 pm

The global temp graph looks like HadCru, not GisTemp? Hansen is at odds with the IPCC?

Myke
December 14, 2012 3:12 pm

I definitely see the 11-year solar cycles being reflected in the observed temps: 1992-2003 (consistent rise) 2001-2012 (flat-line) and 2010+ (beginning of drop).

clipe
December 14, 2012 3:12 pm

Where have I seen that graph before? Hmm…
Oh yes, Spring skiing at Whistler will be a thing of the past!
http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b331/kevster1346/wolframalpha-20120118164548020.jpg

Jimbo
December 14, 2012 3:18 pm

What we are seeing is the defeat of a religion. Observations trump theory every time.
They are now at the corner of the room they painted. It should be over soon, again. šŸ™‚

Atomic Hairdryer
December 14, 2012 3:24 pm

Re Bill Illis says @ December 14, 2012 at 1:01 pm

therefore IPCC working group votes 110% in favor.

Surely that should be fervor? No uncertainty there.

Green Sand
December 14, 2012 3:26 pm

O dear Mr Watts, I do trust you are not going to descend into exploring the many shades of grey previously explored by the elite?

Roger Knights
December 14, 2012 3:27 pm

Another caption for the chart: “Onward and Oopward”

Jimbo
December 14, 2012 3:32 pm

This graph reminds me that
“Snowfalls are now just a thing of the past”
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/snowfalls-are-now-just-a-thing-of-the-past-724017.html

John M
December 14, 2012 3:33 pm

I don’t have to vote, since I depend on folks who are a lot smarter than I to determine what to think.
For example, these guys…
http://www.climatespectator.com.au/commentary/have-climate-change-projections-come-true
Obviously, the brilliant climate scientists are spon-on, here and always.
You guys just have to account for the proper “adjustments”.
You know, science advances and is self-correcting…as in, when myself is wrong, I corrects myself and then I claims myself was right all along.

Chuck Nolan
December 14, 2012 3:34 pm

tango says:
December 14, 2012 at 2:21 pm
the poll, I had a brain explosion and voted for above model we all know the right answer its below. I hang my head in shame i should enter politics
————
No way. You already failed the number one test……….
Never admit a mistake! Lie. Lie. Lie
cn

Go Home
December 14, 2012 3:37 pm

From the chart, it is now obvious why the super storm that hit the east coast this year was so devastating and out of the norm. We should feel lucky that we have not had one of those each of the last 15 years.

jim
December 14, 2012 4:01 pm

I posted a modified version of Fig. 1.4 that removes the gray bars and removes the “hindcasts” so that all bands start at their publication date to show the actual IPCC predictions:
http://www.sustainableoregon.com/ipcc_predicts.html
Thanks
JK

December 14, 2012 4:06 pm

The original caption is too long, and yet at the same time fails to convey enough information. I suggest a caption contest. My entries are:
“You Want To Spend Six Trillion On What?”
and
“Consensus of Dunces”

Werner Brozek
December 14, 2012 4:10 pm

2012 in Perspective so far on Six Data Sets which was not shown.
This is followed by the 2011 value which is slightly lower in all cases.
Note the bolded numbers for each data set where the lower bolded number is the highest anomaly recorded so far in 2012 and the higher one is the all time record so far. There is no comparison.

With the UAH anomaly for November at 0.281, the average for the first eleven months of the year is (-0.134 -0.135 + 0.051 + 0.232 + 0.179 + 0.235 + 0.130 + 0.208 + 0.339 + 0.333 + 0.281)/11 = 0.156. This would rank 9th if it stayed this way. 1998 was the warmest at 0.42. The highest ever monthly anomaly was in April of 1998 when it reached 0.66. The anomaly in 2011 was 0.132.
With the GISS anomaly for November at 0.68, the average for the first eleven months of the year is (0.32 + 0.37 + 0.45 + 0.54 + 0.67 + 0.56 + 0.46 + 0.58 + 0.62 + 0.68 + 0.68)/11 = 0.54. This would rank 9th if it stayed this way. 2010 was the warmest at 0.63. The highest ever monthly anomalies were in March of 2002 and January of 2007 when it reached 0.89. The anomaly in 2011 was 0.514.
With the Hadcrut3 anomaly for October at 0.486, the average for the first ten months of the year is (0.217 + 0.193 + 0.305 + 0.481 + 0.475 + 0.477 + 0.448 + 0.512+ 0.515 + 0.486)/10 = 0.411. This would rank 9th if it stayed this way. 1998 was the warmest at 0.548. The highest ever monthly anomaly was in February of 1998 when it reached 0.756. One has to back to the 1940s to find the previous time that a Hadcrut3 record was not beaten in 10 years or less. The anomaly in 2011 was 0.340.
With the sea surface anomaly for October at 0.428, the average for the first ten months of the year is (0.203 + 0.230 + 0.241 + 0.292 + 0.339 + 0.351 + 0.385 + 0.440 + 0.449 + 0.428)/10 = 0.336. This would rank 9th if it stayed this way. 1998 was the warmest at 0.451. The highest ever monthly anomaly was in August of 1998 when it reached 0.555. The anomaly in 2011 was 0.273.
With the RSS anomaly for November at 0.195, the average for the first eleven months of the year is (-0.060 -0.123 + 0.071 + 0.330 + 0.231 + 0.337 + 0.290 + 0.255 + 0.383 + 0.294 + 0.195)/11 = 0.200. This would rank 11th if it stayed this way. 1998 was the warmest at 0.55. The highest ever monthly anomaly was in April of 1998 when it reached 0.857. The anomaly in 2011 was 0.147.
With the Hadcrut4 anomaly for October at 0.518, the average for the first ten months of the year is (0.288 + 0.209 + 0.339 + 0.526 + 0.531 + 0.501 + 0.469 + 0.529 + 0.516 + 0.518)/10 = 0.443. This would rank 9th if it stayed this way. 2010 was the warmest at 0.54. The highest ever monthly anomaly was in January of 2007 when it reached 0.818. The anomaly in 2011 was 0.399.
On all six of the above data sets, a record is out of reach, but 2012 will be slightly warmer than 2011.

Birdieshooter
December 14, 2012 4:14 pm

I learn as much from what is not said by the warmists as I do from the skeptics at these times. And this time is a doozy

December 14, 2012 4:16 pm

Further to my last comment about the solar forcing question, this is from New Scientist:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn23005-leaked-ipcc-report-reaffirms-dangerous-climate-change.html
“Climate scientists are lining up to debunk this claim, and to explain that the bloggers have simply got it wrong. ā€œTheyā€™re misunderstanding, either deliberately or otherwise, what that sentence is meant to say,ā€ says solar expert Joanna Haigh of Imperial College London.
Haigh says that if Rawls had read a bit further, he would have realised that the report goes on to largely dismiss the evidence that cosmic rays have a significant effect. ā€œThey conclude thereā€™s very little evidence that it has any effect,ā€ she says.
In fact, the report summary reaffirms that humanityā€™s greenhouse gas emissions are the main reason for rising temperatures. It goes on to detail the many harmful effects, from more frequent heatwaves to rising sea levels.”
I suggest an urgent review of this question, as it is potentially a distraction from your ‘bombshell’ and the ‘dirty weather’ question:
http://newzealandclimatechange.wordpress.com/2012/12/15/the-ipcc-ar5-leak-why-do-the-ipcc-object/#comments

Rosco
December 14, 2012 4:16 pm

A lot of people say things like – the IPCC models are failing to reproduce the temperature – and ascribe various reasons for this.
Perhaps some one should tell them the Sun doesn’t actually shine 24 hours a day at one quarter power.
Perhaps some one should tell them that the temperature response of that part of the Earth in actual sunlight at four times the averaged “insolation” is significantly more than minus 18 C.
Perhaps some one should tell them that they can only exclude the Sun’s insolation if they accurately calculate the maximum “blackbody” temperature response of that part of the Earth which is actually receiving insolation – which of course they haven’t because they believe the Sun shines 24 hours a day at one quarter power.
Perhaps some one should tell them that the data from the Moon indicates the Sun CAN heat to more than minus 18 C and that it takes a long time for temperatures to decrease when radiating to space is the only cooling method.
Perhaps some one should tell them that their science is BS!!

Rosco
December 14, 2012 4:17 pm

By “them” I meant the IPCC – may not be clear in above post.

Mike Smith
December 14, 2012 4:35 pm

Jolly hockey sticks chaps! It’s worse than we thought. Temperatures are as flat as a pancake.
How much did we spend based on those forecasts? Oops.
These people are profoundly insane.

December 14, 2012 4:37 pm

No fraud button in the poll. So why vote? I sure couldn’t bring myself to vote for anything ‘in relation’ to IPCC falsehoods.

herkimer
December 14, 2012 4:44 pm

The divergence between the predicted and observed curves will become even more pronounced as the observed curve starts to dip and head to 0.2C BY 2030. If IPCC does not acknowledge that they have made a serious error both in science and temperature forecast, the validity of their entire report will be suspect with such a glaring error. The sooner they acknowledge their mistake the sooner meaningful dialogue and research can star which involves the sun in a major way

michael hart
December 14, 2012 4:51 pm

I think it’s worth asking the question:

“What sort of Journal would publish a paper parading such predictions with these kind of confidence-limits, based on this data?”

Go Home
December 14, 2012 5:06 pm

Reuters report on the draft release…
“LONDON (Reuters) – International climate scientists are more certain than ever that humans are responsible for global warming, rising sea levels and extreme weather events, according to a leaked draft report by an influential panel of experts.”
Sorry, no chance of winning this in the media. Glaciers in NY are needed.

mpainter
December 14, 2012 5:08 pm

Fifteen years (soon sixteen) without warming has left pie on the face of the climate modelers. They hope desperately for a resumption of warming but it will not happen for a decade or more, if at all. It is now getting comical. The true believers are starting to spit and snarl about “stolen documents” and “interfering with science”. Makes great music.

E.M.Smith
Editor
December 14, 2012 5:23 pm

We need this fixed, fixed now!!! It MUST be MORE EMPHATIC and HOTTER!!!!
Thus will be the Hysteric Annual Report… and the Definitely Excessive extension to it and then the HOTTER Annual report… thus leading to the….
HAR DE HAR HAR!!!

December 14, 2012 5:25 pm

How noble to cherry-pick the start date to show the predictions in the poorest possible light. They should align the bands at 1992-and-a-half so the observations sit more nicely within the coloured stripes.

clipe
December 14, 2012 5:25 pm

clipe says:
December 14, 2012 at 3:12 pm
Where have I seen that graph before? Hmmā€¦
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/17840119-post4.html

DaveA
December 14, 2012 5:27 pm

I find it hard to choose one of those 3. I would say generally at the lower end of the model ranges.

DavidG
December 14, 2012 5:32 pm

Enter the Landscheidt Eddy [sorry, it has already been decided by the solar astronomy community -mod] Minimum and two newly cold decadal cycles in play by 2020; It should be interesting to see how that plays out.

geoff C3
December 14, 2012 5:51 pm

Computer models on climate? anyone recall the true saying GI =GO Garbage in garbage out.

Kev-in-Uk
December 14, 2012 6:04 pm

Mosh is seemingly getting worse with these drive by unsubstantiated remarks. Come on Steve,what are you really trying to say? Maybe you want to be more warmist in your attitude – but at least retain some scientific integrity! Your comment is nothing more than handwaving snark IMHO……

Bob
December 14, 2012 6:13 pm

Anthony says, ” Mosher will have to wait for the final ā€œsanitizedā€ report, since heā€™s now gone from lukewarmer to warmer positions on many things.” Yes, he folded like a cheap camera. Notice his transition from cowardly lukewarmer status to full blown warmista ever since the election. He’s looking for something.

December 14, 2012 6:15 pm

Go Home says:
December 14, 2012 at 5:06 pm
“Sorry, no chance of winning this in the media. Glaciers in NY are needed.”
Couldnā€™t agree more. When so many Homo sapiens fail such a simple intelligence test as this most obviously is, then you start to question the sagacity of giving ourselves the name ā€œwise oneā€. I shake my head at the temerity of all the ā€œparrotsā€, those that can repeat a thing without ever understanding it.
It is what has hardened me into being in this for the genus now. Not the species.
To get to this place you need but ponder:
ā€œAn examination of the fossil record indicates that the key junctures in hominin evolution reported nowadays at 2.6, 1.8 and 1 Ma coincide with 400 kyr eccentricity maxima, which suggests that periods with enhanced speciation and extinction events coincided with periods of maximum climate variability on high moisture levels.
state Trauth, et al (2009) in Quaternary Science Reviews (28 (2009) 399ā€“411).
In terms of ā€œbeing in it for the genusā€, one does tend to wonder if letting such zealots have their way might actually be the correct thing to doā€¦ā€¦
You do see all the ironyā€™s here, donā€™t you?
Yeah, go ahead, strip all the climate security blanket you want from the half-precession cycle (1/2P) old late Holocene atmosphere. Itā€™s not nice to fool with Mother Nature. Would you really want to be guilty of impeding the onset of the next ~90ky ice age? Five of the last six interglacials have each lasted about 1/2Pā€¦ā€¦..
By so doing, those that the obvious eludes may find themselves committed to sustainability, their ownā€¦..
Not that the heathen devil gas would be to blame. It takes thousands of years for CO2 levels to begin dropping during and after a LEAP into a glacial.
So be ever thoughtful of both facts and predictions before leaping to a conclusion. It was in fact a LEAP that terminated the last interglacial, the cold Late Eemian Aridity Pulse which lasted 468 years and ended with a precipitous drop into the Wisconsin ice age. And yes, we were indeed there. We had been on the stage as our stone-age selves about the same length of time during that interglacial that our civilizations have been during this one.
Sirocko, et al, 2005, A late Eemian aridity pulse in central Europe during the last glacial inception, nature, vol. 436, 11 August 2005, doi:10.1038/nature03905, pp 833-836:
ā€œThe onset of the LEAP occurred within less than two decades, demonstrating the existence of a sharp threshold, which must be near 416 Wm2, which is the 65oN July insolation for 118 kyr BP (ref. 9). This value is only slightly below todayā€™s value of 428 Wm2. Insolation will remain at this level slightly above the inception for the next 4,000 years before it then increases again.ā€
There just isnā€™t anything like having such a natural fly land in your climate change soup.
Thanks Alec!

Mario Lento
December 14, 2012 6:21 pm

Come on Kev-in-UK… I really want to hear what he has to say. Not that I disagree with any of your posts – I like them! But we need to be welcoming to the people who disagree so we can learn what their arguments are. I love sitting in front of a liberal crowd of people who argue that we must do something about “Global Warming”. The more I hear and understand, the more powerful my rebuttals will be. It’s fun even though my wife, who agrees with me, squirms a bit when I preach from fact and truth.

pokerguy
December 14, 2012 6:22 pm

Mosher is absolutely predictable. When things aren’t going his way he gets increasingly snarky, and increasingly cryptic.

Werner Brozek
December 14, 2012 6:30 pm

SkepticĀ says:
December 14, 2012 at 4:16 pm
ā€œThey conclude thereā€™s very little evidence that it has any effect,ā€ she says.
In fact, the report summary reaffirms that humanityā€™s greenhouse gas emissions are the main reason for rising temperatures.

Had you stopped after the first sentence, one may have been inclined to verify what you said. Of course, even if it was verified that what you said was true, and it certainly could be the case, then it does not necessarily follow that their conclusions were accurate.
But the second sentence seems way off! Temperatures have not risen for 16 years (at least on RSS), so why should we pay any attention to greenhouse gas emissions? Perhaps the sun is more important than their conclusion indicates.

Alan Clark
December 14, 2012 6:32 pm
Tsk Tsk
December 14, 2012 6:35 pm

The chart’s mushy. I think it says observations have now breached the 95%CI. Tell me that’s so. I want an early xmas present!

Steve
December 14, 2012 7:46 pm

“My God. Do you know what this means? It means that this damn thing doesn’t work at all!”
Doc Brown [Back to the Future]

thingadonta
December 14, 2012 8:16 pm

Ah yes, but its all going into the deep oceans, where they have 1 measurement per squillion square kms, which will be adjusted upwards, flattened out, and whatever else is necassary.

December 14, 2012 8:48 pm

@ richard
Far, a long long way to run,
Tar, a needle pulling thread,
Sar, a model that is dead…
does that work?
@ Robert M: And that chart is with ADJUSTED data. They are cheating and still losing. I wonder how that makes them feel.
That’s what I want to shout out–why aren’t all these references to each of the Tar Sar and Far–Giss, Met and so on, charts and temps all shown with a disclaimer? Disclaimer: this chart uses “adjusted” temps. Note: this chart uses raw data. We need a disclaimer on each posting.
Yes Rosco, we KNOW this is happening: Steven Goddard has many posts demonstrating that James Hansen has changed the temperature data in recent publications from the ones he published before 2000.
The ā€œrevisedā€ versions eliminate the previous record years of the 1930s US ā€“ the dust bowl years ā€“ in favour of the current period.

We should refer to it often in the post–not only in the comments…just my frustrated opinion.

Catcracking
December 14, 2012 8:51 pm

Let’s not delude ourselves into thinking that facts matter or that the Administration, Lisa Jackson.the MSM. the Academies, etc will back off their goal of reducing carbon emissions in any way whatsoever.
There are already numerous examples of many irrational and delusional practices in the the organations lised above. Anyone who thinks otherwise needs to be reminded of the attitude toward the $16 +trillion (and quickly growing) debt which has been amassed in the US in addition to debt in other institutions such as California and other Countries in Europe.
I seriously doubt these facts will affecr the agenda for renewable fuels, carbon tax, electric cars,etc. Facts don’t seem to matter anymore about very much.

Roger Knights
December 14, 2012 9:12 pm

maxberan says:
December 14, 2012 at 5:25 pm
How noble to cherry-pick the start date to show the predictions in the poorest possible light. They should align the bands at 1992-and-a-half so the observations sit more nicely within the coloured stripes.

Hey, it’s their chart!

TomRude
December 14, 2012 9:16 pm

http://news.yahoo.com/ap-gfk-poll-science-doubters-world-warming-080143113.html
“Thomas Coffey, 77, of Houston, said you can’t help but notice it.
“We use to have mild temperatures in the fall going into winter months. Now, we have summer temperatures going into winter,” Coffey said. “The whole Earth is getting warmer and when it gets warmer, the ice cap is going to melt and the ocean is going to rise.”
He also said that’s what he thinks is causing recent extreme weather.
“That’s why you see New York and New Jersey,” he said, referring to Superstorm Sandy and its devastation in late October. “When you have a flood like that, flooding tunnels like that. And look at how long the tunnel has been there.”
Paraphrasing Frasier: “Good Night Mosher, Science has left the building!”

December 14, 2012 9:17 pm

Catcracking says:
December 14, 2012 at 8:51 pm
“Facts donā€™t seem to matter anymore about very much.”
The really sad part of that is it really does state the case! The very fly that landed in the climate change soup……

John West
December 14, 2012 9:42 pm

Lord Monkton and I agree. The best way to deal with climate change … if any, is to adapt after the fact. It’s much cheaper than trying to control the work of the sun and the ocean currents etc.
MUCH CHEAPER and far more effective since we would be dealing with a known quantity.

Steve Garcia
December 14, 2012 10:20 pm

Essentially, it is not looking good for how reliable the consensus “97% agreement” argument stands up.
At the same time, the main claim of humans being the cause isn’t covered by this. Unless we recognize – and point out in the strongest terms – this as showing that there is no causal connection between the rising CO2 and the temps.
Steve Garcia

December 14, 2012 10:22 pm

Henry@werner
Thks for ur post. Hadcrut 4 looks a bit out. 2007 is too high? – u must admit that you can see my parabolic curve now from 1992 going up reaching max 1998 and now curving down. Earth energy store empty now. We will drop 0.3 from now until 2020 and it will not stop cooling until at least 2035…..

James
December 14, 2012 11:11 pm

@daybyday
Perhaps:
Far, a hockey stick is born
Tar, the sands are full of dread
Sar, a model that is dead.
And that brings us back to Doh! Doh! Doh! Doh!

paulbaer
December 14, 2012 11:20 pm

I find it depressing but not surprising that a significant part of the audience here believes that since this chart shows that (not a polling option) most of the recent data lies in the lower part of the predicted envelope (and most of the early data lies below the envelope primarily due to Mt. Pinatubo), this information shows that the IPCC has been wrong, and they further believe that the IPCC will delete (or would have deleted if not leaked) this data from the final report.
Unlike the vast majority of the posters here, the IPCC WGI authors are scientists, and do in fact think that facts matter. The projections are a matter of record, and the observed temperatures are also published. Putting them together is the obvious thing to do and – OMG – that’s what they ACTUALLY DID. In a draft that was published for review by anyone able to type a URL and download a PDF (and sign a non-disclosure agreement, whether or not they intended to abide by it).
One might also be worried that, even though the temperature has risen less than projected, impacts, like melting artic ice, have arrived faster.

Simon
December 14, 2012 11:44 pm

And yet the warmists still maintain that the models correctly predicted the climate! A rather difficult position to maintain now, but they’ll continue trying with all the same lame excuses. Just watch.

December 15, 2012 1:28 am

All major data sets including my own see the negative trend now, i.e cooling from 2002
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:2002/to:2012/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:2002/to:2012/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:2002/to:2012/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:2002/to:2012/trend/plot/rss/from:2002/to:2012/plot/rss/from:2002/to:2012/trend/plot/gistemp/from:2002/to:2012/plot/gistemp/from:2002/to:2012/trend/plot/hadsst2gl/from:2002/to:2012/plot/hadsst2gl/from:2002/to:2012/trend
For the next 8 years we will be cooling at the maximum rate:
http://blogs.24.com/henryp/2012/10/02/best-sine-wave-fit-for-the-drop-in-global-maximum-temperatures/
We will continue cooling until ca. 2038/
Amazing. I wonder how long you all and the ipcc will finally pick up on the fact that they have always been looking at the wrong parameter…..

Kelvin Vaughan
December 15, 2012 1:37 am

HenryP says:
December 14, 2012 at 12:32 pm
If you look carefully you will find the curve from 1990 first going up an then down. We will continue to fall. Global cooling is here7
It’s looking good for your theory!

Oatley
December 15, 2012 1:49 am

Well, we’ll, well.
Me wonders what science EPAwill cite now?

December 15, 2012 1:51 am

Please look this eye opening graph:
http://www.volker-doormann.org/images/down3.gif
Since CO2 has increased from ~370 ppm to ~395 ppm the average global temperature has decreased ~0.05 centigrade.
V.

Galvanize
December 15, 2012 2:24 am

Anthony,
You say ignore the grey bands, yet the lower grey band shows the best predicitive outcome of all the data on the graph.

Geoff Sherrington
December 15, 2012 3:02 am

Jimbo says Dec 14 “Will this graph be in the Summary for Policy Makers?”
Not quite clear. the SPM is at http://www.stopgreensuicide.com/SummaryForPolicymakers_WG1AR5-SPM_FOD_Final.pdf,
but with placeholders for figures. Apologies if you’ve already found this. Time differences a half a world away.

richardscourtney
December 15, 2012 3:03 am

paulbaer:
Your post at December 14, 2012 at 11:20 pm indicates that you ‘Need to go to Specsavers’ (i.e. your eyesight is faulty).
It says in total

I find it depressing but not surprising that a significant part of the audience here believes that since this chart shows that (not a polling option) most of the recent data lies in the lower part of the predicted envelope (and most of the early data lies below the envelope primarily due to Mt. Pinatubo), this information shows that the IPCC has been wrong, and they further believe that the IPCC will delete (or would have deleted if not leaked) this data from the final report.
Unlike the vast majority of the posters here, the IPCC WGI authors are scientists, and do in fact think that facts matter. The projections are a matter of record, and the observed temperatures are also published. Putting them together is the obvious thing to do and ā€“ OMG ā€“ thatā€™s what they ACTUALLY DID. In a draft that was published for review by anyone able to type a URL and download a PDF (and sign a non-disclosure agreement, whether or not they intended to abide by it).
One might also be worried that, even though the temperature has risen less than projected, impacts, like melting artic ice, have arrived faster.

The graph shows that all (yes, ALL) previous ‘projections’ of global warming were exaggerated.
If you can’t see that then you really do need new spectacles.
Those of us who have been involved in the production of previous IPCC reports know it is likely that the IPCC would delete the graph from the final report. If you don’t know that then – for example – I suggest you look-up the infamous ‘Chapter 8’ scandal.
Many who frequent WUWT are scientists. But it does not require a “scientist” to understand the graph.
The IPCC is a political and NOT a scientific organisation. To give you a clue about this, read its title: it is the InterGOVERNMENTal Panel on Climate change. Each statement in each IPCC Report is approved by representatives of governments. The IPCC Summaries for Policymakers (SPMs) are approved and published first and the IPCC so-called scientific reports are then amended to not-refute the SPMs prior to their publication.
Personally, I would not have leaked the AR5 after peer review but before political amendment. However. on the basis of previous behaviour of the IPCC, I can and do understand how others could think the leak was a moral imperative. Sometimes science is more important than politics.
And there is no reason to worry about “melting arctic ice”. Arctic ice is reducing but Antarctic ice is increasing. There is no reason of any kind to think AGW has anything to do with either of these phenomena.
Richard

December 15, 2012 3:08 am

Henry@Kelvin & Volker
thanks. It is good that we measure temps. in Kelvin….
I note from Volker’s graph that even though, according to my (own) measurements of maxima (energy-in), global warming started around 1950 (as seen from the top of the atmosphere), the cooling from the 1900-1950 period carried on until into the early seventies. Generally speaking, it seems there is a 2 decade lag on the difference in what is happening/changing on top of the atmosphere compared to what is happening/changing at our front door (energy-out).

December 15, 2012 3:25 am

paulbaer says
Unlike the vast majority of the posters here, the IPCC WGI authors are scientists, and do in fact think that facts matter.
henry says
you are insinuating here that we are not scientists and that we are misrepresenting the facts. please do elaborate? which ones?
What is undeniably true is that the “green” industry has become one of the biggest in the world. Even my pension money is in it. And it is all a waste. There is no global warming. We are cooling. and we will continue to cool for a long time to come.
http://blogs.24.com/henryp/2012/10/02/best-sine-wave-fit-for-the-drop-in-global-maximum-temperatures/
The scientists involved with the GH scare have for years enjoyed the privileges of flying around the whole world and seeing exotic places for their conferences and write rubbish scare reports on melting ice and endangered species due to “global warming” when in fact the world follows natural warming and cooling cycles.
they will not give up those privileges for as long as they can.
But I think that the truth will overtake them soon. Global cooling is happening now and as time goes on, it will accelerate, as means will catch up with maxima that have been falling since 1995

Beth Cooper
December 15, 2012 3:50 am

So does the leak mean the IPCC won’t be able ter hide the decline?

DJ
December 15, 2012 4:48 am

As pointed out earlier about the observed temperatures being adjusted or not, if they are adjusted (incorrectly, and upwards), then it’s worse than we thought. Divergence from the model projections invalidates the models even more.

DirkH
December 15, 2012 4:49 am

paulbaer says:
December 14, 2012 at 11:20 pm
“Unlike the vast majority of the posters here, the IPCC WGI authors are scientists, and do in fact think that facts matter. ”
But they surely don’t think the rules of statistics matter to what they call their science. Otherwise they wouldn’t ignore them all of the time.
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2012/12/10/do-temperatures-have-a-mean/

DirkH
December 15, 2012 4:52 am

Galvanize says:
December 15, 2012 at 2:24 am
“Anthony,
You say ignore the grey bands, yet the lower grey band shows the best predicitive outcome of all the data on the graph.”
Okay, Galvanize, what’s the definition of the grey band?

DirkH
December 15, 2012 4:56 am

TomRude says:
December 14, 2012 at 9:16 pm
“ā€œThomas Coffey, 77, of Houston, said you canā€™t help but notice it.
ā€œWe use to have mild temperatures in the fall going into winter months. Now, we have summer temperatures going into winter,ā€ Coffey said. ā€œThe whole Earth is getting warmer and when it gets warmer, the ice cap is going to melt and the ocean is going to rise.ā€”
Ok, Coffey is 77 and argues with his own anecdotal evidence, so I will counter that with my own anecdotal evidence: Here in Germany we used to have freaking cold winters with a lot of snow in the 70ies, and balmy snowless winters in the 80ies and 90ies. Now we’re back to the freaking cold ones. (for four winters in a row now; seemingly worsening (earlier starts)).
Coffey is thereby refuted; having erroneously assumed that “the whole Earth” is doing what he observes in his neighbourhood.

DirkH
December 15, 2012 5:03 am

Skeptic says:
December 14, 2012 at 4:16 pm
“Further to my last comment about the solar forcing question, this is from New Scientist:”
“Skeptic”, even the New Scientist can’t make it warm. Climate scientists meet reality; reality does what it always does with a bunch of superstitious believers.

jc
December 15, 2012 5:37 am

It occurs to me that here we have a graph stating Oficially what the longest “decline” or “pause” in temps. needs to be before falsifying the AGW speculation. Since from individuals this has consistently changed to suit the agenda thus creating needed confusion, this might be useful. The above is apparently a synthesis of all learned positions so presumably incorporates the position of even those whose visionary insights might be considered extreme by most within the priestly class.
With no actual numbers it is not possible to be exact but it looks, for example, that taking 1990 as Observed Reality, that it cannot be the case that the temperature will decline by about 0.15 degrees over 5 years to 1995 since the Models Will Not Allow It. Similarly, it cannot decline by more than about .05 over 10 years. This somewhat awkward since 1998 to 2008 shows that amount of decline, so the Collective Knowledge teeters on the edge of Oblivion.
Since these parameters incorporate “internal variability” there is no way out from this: this reflects the full comprehension of climate possessed by the Initiates.

Steve Jones
December 15, 2012 5:43 am

This cannot be right, surely. The 97% of all scientists agreeing with the cAGW position, and that the science is settled, cannot possibly be wrong. I think the doom-monger species of climate scientist is going to start dying out very rapidly. Those that switch position will become the true deniers as they desperately try to rewrite their past.

jayhd
December 15, 2012 6:09 am

paulbaer says:
“Unlike the vast majority of the posters here, the IPCC WGI authors are scientists, and do in fact think that facts matter.”
You don’t have to be a “scientist” to recognize BS. I am an accountant, a practicing CPA at one time, now semi-retired. When performing audits on nationwide government programs, I had to be very knowledgeable of statistics – especially how they could be manipulated and how they could be based on erroneous data (States receiving Federal grants and aid did their best to ensure their error rates stayed below the thresholds for sanctions). Anyway, I learned a thing or two about reading graphs and their underlying data. You can believe what you want about the integrity of the so-called scientists who advocate AGW, but I’ve seen enough examples of their work here at Watts Up With That and elsewhere to conclude they have no integrity, wouldn’t know a “fact” if it bit them on their a$$, and for the most part are not scientists.

Kev-in-Uk
December 15, 2012 6:33 am

Galvanize says:
December 15, 2012 at 2:24 am
..You say ignore the grey bands, yet the lower grey band shows the best predicitive outcome of all the data on the graph….
what a load of tosh – the grey band is the 90% uncertainty and internal variabilty error range based on Hadcrut4 dataset (which itself is different to Hadcrut3!)
It is quite clear to anyone with half a brain, that the observed temps are mostly been in the lower end of any predicted ranges, and currently well, well below reasonable predicted ranges!

See - owe to Rich
December 15, 2012 6:40 am

Werner Brozek: thanks for posting your chosen 6 datasets, as it allows us to compare HadCRUT4 with 3.
All: please note that HadCRUT4 is 0.03K higher than HadCRUT3 in 2012 so far. The CRU have managed to adjust things upwards a bit with the recent introduction of ‘4’, supposedly by including the polar regions. Personally I don’t believe they can measure those well enough to be worth the paper printed on, and in any case if I am given a global anomaly for the latitudes in which people actually live, then I am happy.
So personally, I intend never to use HadCRUT4, as it is just playing in to the warmists’ increasingly desperate hands.
Rich.

John West
December 15, 2012 6:46 am

@ Skeptic
It’s typical misdirection from the alarmists. The point is they don’t admit the various ways the energy from the Sun varies and minimize any solar effect usually by pointing at TSI. Just the admission that solar activity isn’t just TSI is a victory for us, albeit a small one. Personally, I think the UV variance has a higher likelihood of explaining most of the “global average temperature” variation.
OT @ John West
Hey John West, this is John West. How many of us could there be? I may start adding “in NC” if you’re not in NC.

Kev-in-Uk
December 15, 2012 7:21 am

currently – 96% have voted that the graph shows below prediction. with over 2700 votes.
Now, If we could just get that to 97%, and a few more votes, we’d be on a par with the oft quoted 97% figure quoted by alarmists!

John Blake
December 15, 2012 7:31 am

Why is “voodoo science” Rajendra K. Pachauri still presiding o’er the IPCC? Better yet, why is there still an IPCC? And again– who needs this grotesque gang of thuggeries jovially referred to as “UN”? By the inexorable Rule of 36, we project that by c. 2018+ this miserable farce will have joined its hangdog predecessor, and good riddance to ’em both.

December 15, 2012 8:20 am

John West says
Personally, I think the UV variance has a higher likelihood of explaining most of the ā€œglobal average temperatureā€ variation.
Henry says
You got that right. it follows as a result of seeing the development of the maximum temperatures,
http://blogs.24.com/henryp/2012/10/02/best-sine-wave-fit-for-the-drop-in-global-maximum-temperatures/
To explain weather cycles, before they started with the carbon dioxide nonsense they did look in the direction of the planets, rightly or wrongly.See here.
http://www.cyclesresearchinstitute.org/cycles-astronomy/arnold_theory_order.pdf
To quote from the above paper:
A Weather Cycle as observed in the Nile Flood cycle, Max rain followed by Min rain, appears discernible with maximums at 1750, 1860, 1950 and minimums at 1670, 1800, 1900 and a minimum at 1990 predicted.
(The 1990 turned out to be 1995 when cooling started!)
Please note: indeed one would expect more condensation (bigger flooding) at the end of a cooling period and minimum flooding at the end of a warm period. This is because when water vapor cools (more) it condensates (more) to water (i.e. more rain).
Now put my sine wave next to those dates?
1900- minimum flooding : end of warming
1950 ā€“ maximum flooding: end of cooling
1995 ā€“ minimum flooding: end of warming
So far, I do not exclude a gravitational or electromagnetic swing/switch that changes the UV coming into earth. In turn this seems to change the chemical reactions of certain chemicals reacting to the UV lying on top of the atmosphere. This change in concentration of chemicals lying on top of us, i.e. O3, HxOx and NxOx, in turn causes more back radiation (when there is more), hence we are now cooling whilst ozone & others are increasing.
Hope this helps a few people.

Ron B,
December 15, 2012 8:36 am

[Wait] until The Team “adjusts” the data and rewrites the draft. I bet will this all disappear.

December 15, 2012 8:44 am

its all within the boundaries of expectation;
please refer to the nature and science publications on the BBC climateprediction.net project;
see this link to my webpage (in english):
http://www.zeeburgnieuws.nl/kv_media_buitenland.html#climateprediction
regards
martin van etten http://www.zeeburgnieuws.nl

Editor
December 15, 2012 9:02 am

MattS says:
December 14, 2012 at 2:38 pm

@Steven Mosher,
What error? Be specific. Show your work.

I think he’s referring to the 2nd sentence of the post, The gray bars in Fig 1.4 are irrelevant (because they flubbed the definition of them)….
He doesn’t have to show his work – it’s a drive-by comment with snark.

Steve Oregon
December 15, 2012 9:13 am

Attention!
The Elvis Observations have left the Projections Building.
Elvis warming has deceased.
Yet for years alarmists will continue claiming they have seen the Elvis warming reappear in various locations.
The preserved collection of alarmist claims will go down in history has the largest misrepresentation in human history.
It’s been so wide, so deep, so delusional, so deliberate and so dishonest that nothing can or will ever excuse or forgive the offenders.
When I think about the accompanying attitude displayed at RealClimate and ClimateProgress by their principal persuaders, punishment can be the only response.

Neil Shirtliff
December 15, 2012 10:16 am

Every model shows a consistent increase in temperature except the latest, AR4, which seems to have been rigged to match the temperature declines from 1990 to 1992. Is this what the model really predicted? If so, they must have done some strange twisting of the model parameters to get that unlikely output.

mpainter
December 15, 2012 10:27 am

paulbaer says: December 14, 2012 at 11:20 pm: “Unlike the vast majority of the posters here, the IPCC WGI authors are scientists, and do in fact think that facts matter.”
Well, now, do these would-be scientists really believe that “facts matter”? I disagree. I believe that they are trying hard to ignore the “fact” that their global-warming models have been falsified by the temperature record of the previous fifteen years.
paulbaer, many who visit and comment here are better scientists than what the IPCC can offer, and better informed about climate matters, as well. Most of the IPCC scientists have the handicap of trying to make faith substitute for science, and their work reflects that.

herkimer
December 15, 2012 10:31 am

During the last 5 centuries there have been at least 4 major past climate periods where reduced global air temperatures , reduced ocean SST and reduced solar activity[ three or more consecutive low solar cycles in a row] have happened concurrently, namely 1650-1710, 1790-1830, 1880-1910 and our current period 2000-2012. There were other periods even earlier, but the records become poorer the further back one goes.
The first three periods were well before the industrial era so CO2 was not a factor. Only during the 2000-2012 period was there increased man made greenhouse gases. Yet even here the global temperatures are dropping while greenhouse gas levels are rising. So co2 levels cannot account for the temperature changes. The common element with all four cases is the interaction between reduced solar cycle, the ocean cycles and the atmosphere. Any new IPCC report that does not acknowledge that there is an obvious correlation between the sun, the oceans and atmosphere, the mechanism of which is not fully yet understood is out of date and does not even begin to properly address the issue of climate change. It has also become clear that the Enso cycle plays a significant role in the climate cycles of our planet. During the cooler periods there is only one strong or global climate altering El Nino per decade. During the warmer period like 1970-2000ā€™s there were two. To say that the sun plays a minor climate forcing role is like saying; the brain plays a minor role in controlling the body. How the climate scientists of IPCC allow this scientific nonsense to go on during their watch should be the subject of a public enquiry.
1.

December 15, 2012 10:41 am

Martin van Etten says
http://www.zeeburgnieuws.nl/
henry says
volgens my begryp(en) jy (jullie) er nog helemaal niks van:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/12/14/the-real-ipcc-ar5-draft-bombshell-plus-a-poll/#comment-1173832

Gary D.
December 15, 2012 11:01 am

Re: James says:
December 14, 2012 at 11:11 pm
Applause

December 15, 2012 11:35 am

Beth Cooper says:
December 15, 2012 at 3:50 am
Henry@Beth
loved the song. very funny

December 15, 2012 11:40 am

If you look at the model ensemble for SRES A1B used in AR4, you will find that the observations lie within the 95% credible region of the ensemble, and hence there is no model-data inconsistency. There is a plot of this ar realclimate here
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2012/02/2011-updates-to-model-data-comparisons/
If there is any doubt that this is correct, you can do what I did, which was to download the model runs and the observations (the links are given in the RealCLimate article), and you should be able to reproduce the plot, as I did, without any difficulty.
It is therefore rather a surprise that the draft AR5 report should contain a graph that implies that the observations are inconsistent with the AR4 model projections when that clearly isn’t the case.
It seems to me there are two possibilities:
(i) The IPCC don’t understand their own AR4 projections
(ii) The interpretation of the graph given in this blog post is incorrect.
I know which I think is more likely. I’ll wait to see the final document when it becomes available, I rather suspect that the text for the relevant chapter will make it clear (my guess would be that the uncertainty relates to the uncertainty in only the forced climate change, as there have been similar misunderstandings about this sort of thing from figures in the AR4 report).

December 15, 2012 12:51 pm

henry@dikranmarsupial
i think we crossed swords before at the SS site (which is heavily censored.)\
Here you are again on my site…,
Can I just point out to you here and now that all major data sets including my own (from 2000) see the negative trend now, i.e cooling from 2002
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:2002/to:2012/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:2002/to:2012/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:2002/to:2012/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:2002/to:2012/trend/plot/rss/from:2002/to:2012/plot/rss/from:2002/to:2012/trend/plot/gistemp/from:2002/to:2012/plot/gistemp/from:2002/to:2012/trend/plot/hadsst2gl/from:2002/to:2012/plot/hadsst2gl/from:2002/to:2012/trend
For the next 8 years we will be cooling at the maximum rate:
http://blogs.24.com/henryp/2012/10/02/best-sine-wave-fit-for-the-drop-in-global-maximum-temperatures/
We will continue cooling until ca. 2038/
Amazing. I wonder how long you all and the ipcc will finally pick up on the fact that they have always been looking at the wrong parameterā€¦..

J Martin
December 15, 2012 12:55 pm

Landscheidt Eddy [sorry, it has already been decided by the solar astronomy community -mod] Minimum

Unofficially decided by a xenophobic and US solar community that no one has ever heard of. The world is larger than the just the USA.
Landscheidt ( a German) predicted the minimum in 1983.
Eddy (an American) concluded the sun is a variable star, he did not predict the forthcoming minimum.
Landscheidt predicted the minimum in the 1980s.
Eddy’s name can be used another day for something else.
The minimum should not be named after random deserving people. The finest scientist the US has ever produced, Richard Feynman, a man who was deservedly respected Worldwide would be a fine candidate to have something named after him. But he didn’t predict this minimum.
Since Landscheidt predicted the minimum and was the only person to do so, it should rightly be named after him.
I shall continue to use the name Landscheidt as I am sure many others will.
REPLY: Jack Eddy, discoverer of the Maunder Minimum is a “random [un]deserving people”? Wow, are you out of the loop. Use it all you want, but you still don’t get to make the call on the name of the next minimum, the professional solar science community does that. I and the mods will continue to correct use of Landscheidt here where appropriate. – Anthony

paulbaer
December 15, 2012 1:02 pm

re: Mpainter says:
“Well, now, do these would-be scientists really believe that ā€œfacts matterā€? I disagree. I believe that they are trying hard to ignore the ā€œfactā€ that their global-warming models have been falsified by the temperature record of the previous fifteen years.”
No, actually they’ve been trying quite hard to understand why the system has been behaving as it does. Skeptics seem to want to believe that since the temperature trend has not matched the CO2 trend, that CO2 can’t be responsible for the warming that we have seen. Mainstream climate scientists, whose models include well-documented physical characteristics of CO2 and other GHGs (recall that the existence of the greenhouse effect is not in question here), have to ask the questions, what has been the energy balance during that period, and what should we expect in the future as CO2 continues to rise? Furthermore, the fact that measured temperatures are in general on the low side of what has been predicted does not “falsify” the models, although it does suggest that they are far from perfect. If temperatures were uniformly outside the predicted range, which they are not, that would suggest that they are very wrong. But that’s not even what this graph shows.
“paulbaer, many who visit and comment here are better scientists than what the IPCC can offer, and better informed about climate matters, as well. Most of the IPCC scientists have the handicap of trying to make faith substitute for science, and their work reflects that.”
This, I doubt, at least as far as WGI goes (I agree that there are experts involved in WGs II and III who are not necessarily that knowledegable about the climate system itself). I’d be interested in (1) a count of all practicing scientists who post here (in total and on average), (2) what kind of science they practice, and (3) any evidence that these scientists are “better informed about climate matters).
If there are such scientists posting here, I would be interested in having them join in an effort to point out which of the non-scientist postings about climate science are blatant nonsense, which is many if not most.
–Paul Baer

davidmhoffer
December 15, 2012 1:22 pm

dikranmarsupial says:
December 15, 2012 at 11:40 am
If you look at the model ensemble for SRES A1B used in AR4, you will find that the observations lie within the 95% credible region of the ensemble
It seems to me there are two possibilities:
(i) The IPCC donā€™t understand their own AR4 projections
(ii) The interpretation of the graph given in this blog post is incorrect.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Or, there could be a third possibility, which is that you don’t understand what RC published. From the caption above the graph:
“Everything has been baselined to 1980-1999 (as in the 2007 IPCC report) and the envelope in grey encloses 95% of the model runs.”
Enclosing 95% of the model runs and being within the 95% credible region are two rather different things. But I like the RC graph. It implies that the error range of the models is so large that the serve no practical purpose at all. Thanks for pointing that out.

December 15, 2012 1:35 pm

Note that in the corresponding figure from AR4 (Figure TS.26.), several of the observations lie outside the coloured wedges for the FAR, SAR and TAR projections as well.
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/fig/figure-ts-26.jpeg
Which further suggests that this blog article has merely misinterpreted the figure from the AR5 figure, and it actually isn’t much a bombshell afterall.
REPLY: Let’s see, we have a poll with thousands of people that seem to agree with the premise of observations being lower, and a handful dissenters like yourself. Just wait till part two, then your anonymous opinion will be worth even less once you read that part. Now run along to the Sekrit SkS clubhouse and tell everyone to watch for the next post. – Anthony

richardscourtney
December 15, 2012 1:43 pm

dikranmarsupial:
In your post at December 15, 2012 at 11:40 am you say

It is therefore rather a surprise that the draft AR5 report should contain a graph that implies that the observations are inconsistent with the AR4 model projections when that clearly isnā€™t the case.
It seems to me there are two possibilities:
(i) The IPCC donā€™t understand their own AR4 projections
(ii) The interpretation of the graph given in this blog post is incorrect.

Actually, you have omitted the obvious reality; i.e.
you are deluded when you imagine the graph shows anything other than the models exaggerate warming.
It seems likely that your delusion is induced by spending too much time on the climate porn blog which you linked.
Richard

mpainter
December 15, 2012 2:14 pm

dikranmarsupial:
Tell it to Gerghis et al.

Troll
December 15, 2012 2:19 pm

The poll is nonsense, it has to do with an obvious fact. It’s rhetorical. Exactly the type of poll one could expect to find at WUWT.

Go Home
December 15, 2012 2:21 pm

dikranmarsupial,
Thanks for your post and link to realclimate.
“It seems to me there are two possibilities:
(i) The IPCC donā€™t understand their own AR4 projections
(ii) The interpretation of the graph given in this blog post is incorrect.”
Could there not be another explanation,
(iii) Real climate graphs are wrong?
Using the 95% range from their graph is a whole lot of wiggle room. You could flat line the temperatures from 1980- 2010, showing zero warming and still fall within that 95% range.
I will agree with this…”The IPCC donā€™t understand”

Kevin Kilty
December 15, 2012 3:29 pm

If a person treats the colored bands as control limits for a process, and the black squares as observations meant to monitor the process, then the trend we see in the black squares is either unbelievably unlikely or the assumptions underlying the creation of the colored bands (climate modeling) is faulty. Period.

RustyIron
December 15, 2012 3:52 pm

Quick! Somebody tell the Arctic to stop melting!

richardscourtney
December 15, 2012 4:01 pm

RustyIron:
Please explain why anybody would want the Arctic to stop melting.
Richard

December 15, 2012 4:40 pm

Figure 1.4 above is not in the Draft. Also note that the draft correctly stated “In summary, the globally-averaged surface temperatures are well within the uncertainty range of all previous IPCC projections, and generally are in the middle of the scenario ranges.” That is what the actual data show— the opposite of what Rev. Watts stated it states.
REPLY: Sorry, you’re dead wrong, either because you can’t research properly, or because you are being purposely mendacious. Given the “Rev.” label you applied, let’s go with mendacity.
It is in fact in chapter 1 on page 39 of 55 pages in the PDF document, which you can see for yourself here.
http://climatefailfiles.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/ch1-introduction_wg1ar5_sod_ch01_all_final.pdf
And I made no statement, I gave readers a choice to vote on what they thought about it. Again, your assertions fail, but with no damage to you, since like many, you hide behind the veil of anonymity, too timid to put up your name to your words.
– Anthony

D Bƶehm
December 15, 2012 4:58 pm

Troll,
Kudos for picking a perfect screen name.
.
Desertphile,
The IPCC says:
Estimated changes in the observed globally and annually averaged surface temperature…”
See anything wrong with that statement? They speak of the “averaged surface temperature” and observed global temperatures in the same sentence. They are not the same thing. Therefore, the Draft did not “correctly” state anything.
If the IPCC’s models were right, the debate would have been over long ago. It is because the IPCC’s models are wrong that the debate continues. The IPCC/alarmist crowd [same-same] can not accept the fact that the planet is deconstructing their wrong-headed belief system.
Sixteen years and counting…

higley7
December 15, 2012 5:16 pm

Er, how at this time are there 71 people who think the temp is ABOVE the predictions. Can we get their names and make sure they never have to make any real decisions? They clearly would have trouble telling night from day.

Go Home
December 15, 2012 5:17 pm

Desertphile
“Figure 1.4 above is not in the Draft. ”
I see, so you do not want it to be in draft because it is quite devastating to your understanding of global warming. But if it were, you would owe Mr. Watts an apology and you will have to reconcile your AGW views going forward
Well I found it in the introduction which I just downloaded. So I am sure Anthony is awaiting for your apology, or will you just disappear.
Go Home

Raymond
December 15, 2012 7:14 pm

Is there somewhere a specification for those models? Some data and software that I can download and run on my PC?
Hmmm….

Werner Brozek
December 15, 2012 8:46 pm

HadCRUT4 in 2011 was 0.40. In 2012, it will be about 0.45. So when the 2012 square is added later, the top square will be touching the lowest colored green line.

RobertInAz
December 15, 2012 9:36 pm

Just a few random comments:
– Lucia discussed whether current temperature fell within the CMIP3 models used for AR4 error bounds here when addressing whether temperatures were rising faster than predicted. http://rankexploits.com/musings/2012/trends-relative-to-models/. Here is the entire CMIP3 spaghetti chart which shows some model runs below current temperatures. http://www.climateviews.com/Climate_Views/Download_Articles_files/poster2.pdf.
– Here is one projection graph from AR4 http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/figure-10-4.html. It has +- 1 standard deviation error bounds that look like they overlap current temperature. This has the individual model runs: http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/figure-10-5.html.
– Lucia also discusses the AR5 data here: http://rankexploits.com/musings/2012/new-projections/. Interestingly, it looks like fewer runs are below current temperature trend than for AR4.
I’ll close by saying that a distressing number of posters are using broad brush terms to challenge the integrity of the many many scientists participating in the IPCC process. This is just wrong. Remember that the politicians have the final say in the contents of the final report.

December 15, 2012 9:52 pm

Rusty Iron says
Quick! Somebody tell the Arctic to stop melting!
Richard says
Please explain why anybody would want the Arctic to stop melting.
Henry Rusty Iron & Richard
After analyzing all results from 47 weather stations (randomly chosen but balanced by latitude and 70/30 @sea and inland) , when I look at the maximum temperatures, I find a beautiful relationship of the speed in warming /annum against time like as if somebody threw me a ball. From those results I was able to compile a best fit (this is not the same as a model!)
http://blogs.24.com/henryp/2012/10/02/best-sine-wave-fit-for-the-drop-in-global-maximum-temperatures/
If you can read graphs you will see that within perhaps a number of solar cycles we are also most prominently on a 88 year solar cycle, looking at energy-in, i.e. that what is coming through the top of the atmosphere. In 1995 we started with the cooling part of that cycle.
From that graph it also follows that the end of the previous warming period was around 1900 but it seems that looking at energy out (means) there is a ca. 2 decade delay.
see also my comment here:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/12/14/the-real-ipcc-ar5-draft-bombshell-plus-a-poll/#comment-1173871
So basically, to answer your question, the arctic ice is now as it was in 2012-88 = ca. 1924.
Now look at the story making headlines back then?
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/03/16/you-ask-i-provide-november-2nd-1922-arctic-ocean-getting-warm-seals-vanish-and-icebergs-melt/
read the actual newspaper article from Nov. 1922.. Sounds familiar? We are now almost 17 years from when it started cooling (as evident from energy-in, i.e. maximum temps.)
So I have to tell Richard that the north west passage opening up is not going to happen. From 1922 to 1945 all the ice that was reported melted in 1922 came back again. For me, it is sure that in the next two decades all arctic ice will come back.
I would not invest in oil or gas drilling there now….
He that has ears listens…..

davidmhoffer
December 16, 2012 3:32 am

RobertInAz;
Iā€™ll close by saying that a distressing number of posters are using broad brush terms to challenge the integrity of the many many scientists participating in the IPCC process. This is just wrong. Remember that the politicians have the final say in the contents of the final report.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
If science is being over ruled by politics, it is the duty of the scientist to resign and publicly state their reasons for doing so, as many scientists have already done. Failure to do so is to be complicit in a crime. If your conjecture is correct, then the brush should paint them twice, heavily, with tar.

Lars P.
December 16, 2012 5:08 am

It looks like a new consensus is being formed. 95% of people looking at the models versus reality graph agree that models exaggerate the trend…
Let me paraphrase Neil Armstrong from the alleged faked moon landing:
A small poll for a blog, a giant leap for mankind in understanding current climate change models and the faulty predictions derived.

jlkinsella
December 16, 2012 6:34 am

Regardless of the absolute temperatures measured since they can be off for numerous reasons, the slope of the actual temperatures is not significantly different than zero (assume any errors in measurements are random). Ignore the magnitude of the actual data and where it falls in the figure in comparison to the models at any particular point. Ever climate model predicts a slope greater than zero over the same period even for their “minimum predicted slope.”
All the models fail because they do not predict a range of slopes with a slope of zero. This does not mean that there is no AGW since there could be a confounding variable either not considered in the models or not given enough strength in the models. We can assume that an AGW influence exists, but its influence can be negated by other factors. Regardless of the reason for not predicting a slope of zero in any of the models, the models fail and need revisions to uncover the missing variable(s).

mpainter
December 16, 2012 7:45 am

Paulbauer: December 15, 2012 at 1:02 pm
====================================
Your comment well reflects the basic problem. The faithful try every way to make CO2 the evil villain of climate change and are utterly incapable of considering the possibility that their cherished AGW theory is fundamentally wrong.
ā€œtheyā€™ve been trying quite hard to understand why the system has been behaving as it does.ā€
And they have had no success in this effort. They are trying to patch up a fundamental failure. I say ā€œwould-be scientistsā€ because they fail the first test of science: the ability to adjust theory to accommodate observations.
This is the problem of science by faith, when science is made to serve ideology.

mpainter
December 16, 2012 8:25 am

RobertInAz says:
December 15, 2012 at 9:36 pm
Iā€™ll close by saying that a distressing number of posters are using broad brush terms to challenge the integrity of the many many scientists participating in the IPCC process. This is just wrong. Remember that the politicians have the final say in the contents of the final report.
================================================================
There can be no question that the IPCC is under the control of those whose motivations are none too nice. To be a part of this reflects on the individual scientist, whose participation imparts a legitimacy to a corrupt purpose. And donā€™t forget that many, many IPCC scientists are in league with those of corrupt purpose as a matter of ideological expedience.

RobertInAz
December 16, 2012 8:54 am

mpainter says:
December 16, 2012 at 8:25 am

If science is being over ruled by politics, it is the duty of the scientist to resign and publicly state their reasons for doing so, as many scientists have already done. Failure to do so is to be complicit in a crime. If your conjecture is correct, then the brush should paint them twice, heavily, with tar.

IMHO, the reality behind the process is more complex. (1) Non-skeptic scientists may not be aware of the many problems with the IPCC process. If you read some of their CVs, many certainly don’t appear to have the time to hang out here at WUWT. (2) Even if they have concerns about the IPCC process, their particular specialty may be uncontroversial. (3) And even if they disagree with the final result, their review comments will be published by the IPCC and they may feel an intellectual obligation to participate in the process to the bitter end rather than bail. I read about a study long ago examining how people who resigned were perceived compared to those who soldiered on working for change within. Both our legitimate approaches. It would be arrogant for any of us to presume our choice is appropriate for all.
mpainter says:
December 16, 2012 at 8:25 am

There can be no question that the IPCC is under the control of those whose motivations are none too nice. To be a part of this reflects on the individual scientist, whose participation imparts a legitimacy to a corrupt purpose. And donā€™t forget that many, many IPCC scientists are in league with those of corrupt purpose as a matter of ideological expedience.

I strenuously disagree with the characterization of “…many, many IPCC scientists are in league with those of corrupt purpose as a matter of ideological expedience.” Even the worst possible characterization of the climategate emails limits the bad actors to a small number. There is simply no evidence that many, many scientists are in league with the corrupt IPCC. There may still be policy advocates as IPCC authors, but I would not characterize them as scientists. Finally the term “IPCC scientists” is a little misleading. There are a large number of AR5 authors, most of whom are scientists – the authors are not paid by the IPCC to include their travel expenses to attend the review sessions.

RobertInAz
December 16, 2012 9:00 am

Ooops – the first
mpainter says:
December 16, 2012 at 8:25 am should be
davidmhoffer says:
December 16, 2012 at 3:32 am

December 16, 2012 9:20 am


I think heā€™s referring to the 2nd sentence of the post, The gray bars in Fig 1.4 are irrelevant (because they flubbed the definition of them)ā€¦.
He doesnā€™t have to show his work ā€“ itā€™s a drive-by comment with snark.”
The point is rather simple. This post is a disaster. It’s titled the real bombshell. Then the author tells us to ignore part of the chart because it is “flubbed” But directs us to pay attention to another part of the chart. Seriously. Use your heads people. If I told you that I had a chart from a draft of anthony’s next paper and I show you that chart and ask you to ignore a part of that chart because its been flubbed, but to pay attention to another part of that chart what would you say?
Im betting you’d say it was only a draft and wasnt important

Kitefreak
December 16, 2012 9:32 am

Beth Cooper says:
December 15, 2012 at 3:50 am
Thanks for that. This is, indeed, cheering news. There’s no hiding it this time, tree ringers.

theduke
December 16, 2012 9:43 am

Mosh: It seems to this less-than-fully-informed observer, that the point of the post is to show that the projections of the climate models used by the IPCC largely over-estimated the actual warming that occurred and that they are outside the error bounds. Do you disagree with that?
It also suggest that much policy and its implementation was based on the projections and that it may have wasted a lot of money as a result.
I’m sure you will correct me if I’m wrong. hehehehe

December 16, 2012 9:57 am

Steven Mosher says
Im betting youā€™d say it was only a draft and wasnt important
Henry says
the point that is being made (by the skeptics) here is similar to that of David’s:
“it is the duty of the scientist to resign and publicly state their reasons for doing so, as many scientists have already done. Failure to do so is to be complicit in a crime.”
How can this be a crime, you ask?
we have the example of the farmers in Anchorage who all had crop failures this year because of the increasing cold. According to my records of two weather stations there temps. dropped by more than 1K since 2000. However, as far as I know, nobody has told those poor farmers it will not get any better. So, they are planting again for next year, wasting their money…They really should be told (by now) to head south.
You can see from the graph at the beginning of this post that we are on a parabolic curve that went up from 1992 to 1998 and that we are now curving down.

Kevin Kilty
December 16, 2012 10:15 am

There is no disaster in this post. Watts makes a valid point. Although I haven’t looked at reasons for the gray (90%) uncertainty bounds being “flubbed” as Watts says, I am going to assume the IPCC contributors knew what they were doing when they set those limits. That being so, we can look at the gray regions as being control limits on a Statistical Process Control (SPC) chart. The colored regions are also control limits, but they are more difficult to decipher as such, and we could view them as a target region that the climate process is supposed to achieve assuming that the models are worth their salt.
A limit of 90% means that observations should by chance land outside these bounds one time in every ten. However, a consistent pattern of change within control limits is also very unlikely on such a chart and here we see a consistent drift of observation across the control region toward the lower 90% limit. In industry we’d stop the process to investigate at this point, because the process as modeled is what sets the control limits. In science the analogous decision is to perhaps scrutinize the modeling process at this point because it appears to be wrong.
I think the point made by Watts is perfectly reasonable and clear.

Mario Lento
December 16, 2012 11:14 am

@ Mosher: The gray bars show with 90% certainty that the temperature will NOT be in that zone. You understand that this information from the IPCC is being put together for policy makers (dumb ass politicians) to run our lives with. Basically, using those bars to show that the IPCC is right is intellectually dishonest. You know this, right?
When your kid comes home from school and argues that he got 90% of the answers wrong on the test, does that prove he/she was somewhat aware of the subject matter? Are you suggesting that the 10% has a significant positive value that should be considered?

theduke
December 16, 2012 11:39 am

I have a post in moderation, posed as a question to Mosh, which basically covers the same ground as the post by Kevin Kilty, although without the obvious expertise he possesses. Perhaps the mod is protecting me from embarrassing myself. LOL. If so, he can delete the post. Regardless, I’m interested in my old comrade Mosh’s (starting at ClimateAudit in 07) response to Kevin.

mpainter
December 16, 2012 12:51 pm

RobertInAz says: December 16, 2012 at 8:54 am
You have mistakenly attributed to me the first quote, which is anotherā€™s comment.
Concerning your response to my own quote:
mpainter: ā€œ many, many IPCC scientists are in league with those of corrupt purpose as a matter of ideological expedience.ā€
And others besides those IPCC authors. In general, there are many scientists whose first interest is to feed a propaganda mill for the purpose of generating a general world-wide panic. Their motivation is primarily ideological and political. Your comment seems to limit such motivation to the notorious circle of the Climategate episode. I do not, but rather I include all who are in sympathy with the aims of those discredited by Climategate, as I feel they share the same purpose. They are many, and they have joined with the corrupt IPCC controllers in generating a dubious science for propaganda purposes.
For those who wish to disassociate themselves from such tar, it is easily accomplished. Simply form an association of themselves and publicly repudiate the more discreditable aspects of IPCC. They have not done so. I wonder why.

Catherine Verngreen
December 16, 2012 8:23 pm

michael hart says:
December 14, 2012 at 4:51 pm
I think itā€™s worth asking the question:
ā€œWhat sort of Journal would publish a paper parading such predictions with these kind of confidence-limits, based on this data?ā€
Simple, Mike. Nature and Science would compete for the honour!
Cathy

Don Monfort
December 16, 2012 10:03 pm

I used to look forward to finding a Mosher comment with eager anticipation of learning something. Since he became equipment manager-mascot for Muller’s BEST team, it seems he just wants to kick sand in the faces of his old homies. What has happened to that boy? On one thread he is bashing Willis and on another Anthony. Will he turn on Lucia and Steve Mc. next? Stay tuned.

December 16, 2012 11:11 pm

I think a more important question, is how do they find these so called scientists that,ignore all other scientific disciplines, only to take an obvious complex system like the earths climate, and narrow it down to the least likely smallest least influential component (co2), take a few decades of temperature readings and claim the sky is falling. The geologic record is clear,its readable, and precise. It show no influence by co2 on temperature increases, quite the contrary 286 – 360 million years ago Average global temperatures in the Early Carboniferous Period were hot- approximately 20Ā° C (68Ā° F). However, cooling during the Middle Carboniferous reduced average global temperatures to about 12Ā° C (54Ā° F),.this is comparable to the average global temperature on Earth today! Similarly, atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the Early Carboniferous Period were approximately 1500 ppm (parts per million), but by the Middle Carboniferous had declined to about 350 ppm — comparable to average CO2 concentrations today! Earth’s atmosphere today contains about 380 ppm CO2 (0.038%). Compared to former geologic times, our present atmosphere, like the Late Carboniferous atmosphere, is CO2- impoverished! In the last 600 million years of Earth’s history only the Carboniferous Period and our present age, the Quaternary Period, have witnessed CO2 levels less than 400 ppm, To the consternation of global warming proponents, the Late Ordovician Period was also an Ice Age while at the same time CO2 concentrations then were nearly 12 times higher than today– 4400 ppm, This is a completely opposite effect and shows co2 decreasing as the period warmed. Ice core samples, also indicate co2 follows heat increase not precedes it. Every physical science professional knows the difference in trying to cherry pick minimal time frames to geologic time, and how important it is to truly see cause and effect,. Although cycles of glaciation are believed to occur in response to solar input variations like the Milankovich Cycle and Precession of the Equinoxes (changes in the earths orbit due to preccession , another important factor is the rearrangement of continental landmasses over geologic time by the processes of continental drift. So when you look at all the data, chart the ice ages and warming trends, it shows an obvious uniform pattern every 100,000 years we have an ice age, followed by 10 to 20 thousand year warming trends, every single record shows the same thing, interestingly enough Milakovitch, and his then theory mathematically proved this only later to find the ice core samples conferred. Earth’s climate is complicated and influenced by long term and shorter term events. some are major influences and some are minor. and there are so many that have a much greater impact than GHG (green house gases) Water vapor is by far the most abundant greenhouse gas, accounting for about 95 percent of Earth’s greenhouse effect, and manā€™s contribution to it is insignificant. Anthropogenic (man-made) CO2 contributions are responsible for only about 0.117 percent. Now if what geologists say is true, that we are always coming in and out of an ice age with only short warming intervals of 20,000 years, and its been 18,000 since the last ice age, if co2 were shown to cause heat and temperature increases we should be pumping as much as we should into the atmosphere, we will not survive another ice age.

DanW
December 16, 2012 11:33 pm

It seems that the IPCC is becoming more and more moderate, while the alarmist blogosphere is becoming ever more radical. Look for the alarmists to dump the IPCC in the near future.

Chris Shuker
December 17, 2012 12:20 am

I have a couple of points that haven’t been made:
9 of the 10 warmest years on record have occurred since 2000. There may not have been a warming trend over the last 10 years but the decade is consistently warmer than those before it.
Everyone is quick to point out 2012 and 2009 is particularly cool but 1998 was particularly warm. If 1998 wasn’t there then your arguments would have less weight. Of course, 1998 is there but it was also a record El Nino year and El Nino has a warming effect on global temperature.

richardscourtney
December 17, 2012 3:40 am

Chris Shuker:
Your post at December 17, 2012 at 12:20 am says in total

I have a couple of points that havenā€™t been made:
9 of the 10 warmest years on record have occurred since 2000. There may not have been a warming trend over the last 10 years but the decade is consistently warmer than those before it.
Everyone is quick to point out 2012 and 2009 is particularly cool but 1998 was particularly warm. If 1998 wasnā€™t there then your arguments would have less weight. Of course, 1998 is there but it was also a record El Nino year and El Nino has a warming effect on global temperature.

ā€œHavenā€™t been madeā€? Warmunists make those silly ā€“ and meaningless – talking points at every opportunity. It is their attempt ā€˜to clutch at strawsā€™ now global warming has stopped for 16 years.
Firstly, look at the above graph. Delete 1998 data and it makes no difference to the fact that there has been 16-years (and counting) of no discernible change in global temperature (at 95% confidence)
Secondly, the most recent temperatures being among the highest is meaningless. The Earth has been warming from the Little Ice Age (LIA) for centuries and since long before the industrial revolution.
A person walking up a hill is at his highest when walking across its top. Similarly, the global temperature is not rising as it was, but it is still higher than it was.
The natural rise from the LIA was not continuous: it included periods of no discernible rise. The present period of no discernible change in global temperature (at 95% confidence) will end. Then, either the global temperature will continue to rise towards the temperature of the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) or fall towards the temperature of the LIA.
But the present period of no global temperature change is important in terms of assessing the climate models. The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reported in 2008

Near-zero and even negative trends are common for intervals of a decade or less in the simulations, due to the modelā€™s internal climate variability. The simulations rule out (at the 95% level) zero trends for intervals of 15 yr or more, suggesting that an observed absence of warming of this duration is needed to create a discrepancy with the expected present-day warming rate.

The present 16-year (and counting) period of no discernible change in global temperature (at 95% confidence) shows the climate models are wrong.
Richard

December 17, 2012 4:41 am

[snip – Geoff, I’ve banned you before for your over the top remarks, and let you back in against my better judgment – this time, with this ugly comment it is permanent, beat it, zealot. – Anthony]

December 17, 2012 5:12 am

Richar S Courtnay wrote: “there has been 16-years (and counting) of no discernible change in global temperature (at 95% confidence)”
However, there is no discernable change in the rate of warming (at “95% confidence”) either, as the confidence interval on the observed trend includes both zero AND the long term trend. Thus on the basis of the observations alone, there is little *statistical* reason to conclude that there has been a change in the rate of warming.
Statistical hypothesis tests are not summetrical; the lack of a statistcally significant OLS trend does not mean that it is safe to conclude that the underlying trend actually is flat. The assymetry in the test is to introduce an element of self-skepticism, so if your hypothesis is that there has been warming, you start off will a null hypothesis that the trend is flat (i.e. the thing you don’t want to be true), and only procede to make a claim ON THE BASIS OF THOSE OBSERVATIONS ALONE iff the null hypothesis can be rejected. If you want to claim that there has been a pause in the warming (and that the apparent hiatus is not just an artefact of the noise), then you need to start with a null hypothesis that you don’t want to be true (e.g. that the trend is actually the same as the long term trend) and see if that null hypothesis can be rejected.
“The present 16-year (and counting) period of no discernible change in global temperature (at 95% confidence) shows the climate models are wrong”
This is not correct, because (a) the statistical test has too little statistical power for the lack of a rejection of the null hypothesis to be surprising and (b) because the climate models predict that such occasional periods of little or no warming will occurr every now and again and (c) the observations lie within the spread of the model predictions for SRES A1B and hence there is no statistically significant discrepancy between the models and the observations.

richardscourtney
December 17, 2012 6:03 am

dikranmarsupial:
Your post at December 17, 2012 at 5:12 am is such a mish-mash of logical errors that it would require a book to correct it all. I will address its main errors.
You say,

Richar S Courtnay wrote: ā€œthere has been 16-years (and counting) of no discernible change in global temperature (at 95% confidence)ā€
However, there is no discernable change in the rate of warming (at ā€œ95% confidenceā€) either, as the confidence interval on the observed trend includes both zero AND the long term trend. Thus on the basis of the observations alone, there is little *statistical* reason to conclude that there has been a change in the rate of warming.

I will ignore your multiple mis-spellings of my name and address the fallacious guff which I assume you are copying from some propaganda blog such as RC or SkS.
A difference to the discernible rate of change has occurred and the “long term trend” is not relevant to consideration of it. I spell this out for you as follows.
Take 16-year periods and consider the confidence with which one can assess their rate of change. The three most recent 16-year periods show no trend discernibly different from zero at 95% confidence. And the recent 16-year period shows no discernible change at 90% confidence, but the previous two 16-year periods do show a positive trend at 90% confidence.
Clearly, the global warming discernible at 90% confidence stopped 16-years ago.
Which, of course is not evidence that there has been no global warming over the last 16 years, but it IS evidence that the warming has changed in such a manner that the ability to discern it has reduced. This could be because the variabilty of the data has increased (it has not) or the rate of warming has reduced.
So, the rate of warming has reduced and there is no discernible warming at 95% confidence over the last 16 years.
And your guff about lack of statistical certainty concerning the models is plain wrong.
As the quotation I provided states, in 2008 NOAA said the models RULE OUT a period of 15 years with no discernible warming at 95% confidence. The most recent 16 years provides a period longer than 15 years with no discernible warming at 95% confidence.
That shows the models are wrong according to the modellers own criteria. Live with it.
You clearly do not understand the Null Hypothesis and you attempt Trenberth’s trick of reversing it. To avoid others being misled by your misrepresentation, I again explain the matter.
The Null Hypothesis says it must be assumed a system has not experienced a change unless there is evidence of a change.
The Null Hypothesis is a fundamental scientific principle and forms the basis of all scientific understanding, investigation and interpretation. Indeed, it is the basic principle of experimental procedure where an input to a system is altered to discern a change: if the system is not observed to respond to the alteration then it has to be assumed the system did not respond to the alteration.
In the case of climate science there is a hypothesis that increased greenhouse gases (GHGs, notably CO2) in the air will increase global temperature. There are good reasons to suppose this hypothesis may be true, but the Null Hypothesis says it must be assumed the GHG changes have no effect unless and until increased GHGs are observed to increase global temperature. That is what the scientific method decrees. It does not matter how certain some people may be that the hypothesis is right because observation of reality (i.e. empiricism) trumps all opinions.
Please note that the Null Hypothesis is a hypothesis which exists to be refuted by empirical observation. It is a rejection of the scientific method to assert that one can ā€œchooseā€ any subjective Null Hypothesis one likes. There is only one Null Hypothesis: i.e. it has to be assumed a system has not changed unless it is observed that the system has changed.
In the case of global climate no unprecedented climate behaviours are observed so the Null Hypothesis decrees that the climate system has not changed.
Importantly, an effect may be real but not overcome the Null Hypothesis because it is too trivial for the effect to be observable. Human activities have some effect on global temperature for several reasons. An example of an anthropogenic effect on global temperature is the urban heat island (UHI). Cities are warmer than the land around them, so cities cause some warming. But the temperature rise from cities is too small to be detected when averaged over the entire surface of the planet, although this global warming from cities can be estimated by measuring the warming of all cities and their areas.
Clearly, the Null Hypothesis decrees that UHI is not affecting global temperature although there are good reasons to think UHI has some effect. Similarly, it is very probable that AGW from GHG emissions are too trivial to have observable effects.
The feedbacks in the climate system are negative and, therefore, any effect of increased CO2 will be probably too small to discern because natural climate sensitivity is much, much larger. This concurs with the empirically determined values of low climate sensitivity.
Empirical ā€“ n.b. not model-derived ā€“ determinations indicate climate sensitivity is less than 1.0deg.C for a doubling of atmospheric CO2 equivalent. This is indicated by the studies of Idso from surface measurements
http://www.warwickhughes.com/papers/Idso_CR_1998.pdf
and Lindzen & Choi from ERBE satelite data
http://www.drroyspencer.com/Lindzen-and-Choi-GRL-2009.pdf
and Gregory from balloon radiosonde data
http://www.friendsofscience.org/assets/documents/OLR&NGF_June2011.pdf
Indeed, because climate sensitivity is less than 1 .0deg.C for a doubling of CO2 equivalent, it is physically impossible for the man-made global warming to be large enough to be detected (just as the global warming from UHI is too small to be detected). If something exists but is too small to be detected then it only has an abstract existence; it does not have a discernible existence that has effects (observation of the effects would be its detection).
To date there are no discernible effects of AGW. Hence, the Null Hypothesis decrees that AGW does not affect global climate to a discernible degree. That is the ONLY scientific conclusion possible at present.
Richard

Reply to  richardscourtney
December 17, 2012 8:30 am

Richard writes:
“It is a rejection of the scientific method to assert that one can ā€œchooseā€ any subjective Null Hypothesis one likes. There is only one Null Hypothesis: i.e. it has to be assumed a system has not changed unless it is observed that the system has changed.”
I’m afraid you have not got the story right here Richard. There is no statistical reason why a null hypothesis has to be restricted to a no-change baseline. The null hypothesis tells you the base case that you consider random samples as being drawn from. In this case we are interested in the slope coefficient of a regression of temperature anomaly on year number. Repeated drawing random samples of size 16 from an uncorrelated (zero slope) population generates a sampling distribution of slope coefficients and the position of the sample data within that distribution gives you the probability of a value exceeding the observed slope (assuming a one-tailed test). The test proceeds from there. Of course for a standard case like this the results are tabulated so no need to conduct the random number experiment yourself.
However there is no reason why a non-zero correlation (remembering the almost equivalence between the correlation and the slope coefficients) should not be postulated and set up as a null hypothesis – Fisher’s z-transformation serves for the simple case. So if one had a strong expectation based on external evidence that the slope coefficient ought to be .01K/yr, then it is possible to set this up as the null hypothesis and construct a test accordingly. A study of UHI might be a climatological contextfor performing such a test, another might be if you had a prior expectation based on solar radiation. No statistician would rule the test invalid if that’s what you did, nor any peer reviewer tell you you were breaking the rules of the scientific method. A no-change baseline is already implicitly rejected in a way if you choose to perform a one-tail test implying you have already ruled out the possibility of one of the signs of the change.
Of course there is a confusing factor here, that the “y” variable has its own correlation structure but this can in most cases and to adequate accuracy be accommodated by adjusting downward the value of n used in the test.

mpainter
December 17, 2012 6:07 am

dikranmarsupial
scientific gobbledegook will get you nowhere on this blog. You are speaking nonsense and you are about to discover why marsupials are extinct on every continent except Australia. It has to do with their intelligence.

December 17, 2012 6:13 am

Sorry mpainter, I am happy to engage in a rational discussion of science (something that I find very interesting), but I am not in the least interested in an exchange of rhetoric or insults; there is too much of that sort of behaviour on climate blogs and it gets nobody anywhere.
REPLY: Oh please. Dude, we can read what you write at other blogs, so kindly, stop making a hypocritical fool of your with such faux moralistic protestations – Anthony

December 17, 2012 6:13 am

henry@dikranmarsupial
(earlier on in the thread)
Amazing. I wonder how long you all and the ipcc will finally pick up on the fact that they have always been looking at the wrong parameterā€¦..
dikranmarsupial says
“because the climate models predict that such occasional periods of little or no warming will occurr every now and again (sic)”:
henry said
(earlier on the thread)
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/12/14/the-real-ipcc-ar5-draft-bombshell-plus-a-poll/#comment-1174204
your name must be
dik..ranmarsupial
not being able to read graphs
Henry says
please do continue to ignore the obvious
we will be cooling,
and all the old arctic ice will be back in 2 decades
mark my words.
\
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/12/14/the-real-ipcc-ar5-draft-bombshell-plus-a-poll/#comment-1174568

December 17, 2012 6:43 am

[snip – Geoff, I’ve banned you before for your over the top remarks, and let you back in against my better judgment – this time, with this ugly comment it is permanent, beat it, zealot. – Anthony]
A bridge too far Anthony….expect a backlash.
REPLY: Oh, nice….threats. How mature. All because you and your friends insist on calling a long term solar minimum that hasn’t been called yet and name that hasn’t been approved by the solar science community. I don’t call it “the Eddy Minimum” in day to day comments because it is premature. You however call it the “Landschiedt minimum” at every opportunity you get to the the point of being annoying. I point out when you and your friends call it the “Landscheidt minimum” is wrong when:
A. It hasn’t happened for certain yet, (one solar cycle does not a grand minimum make).
B. It hasn’t been officially named yet.
C. The solar science community has taken up the idea to name it for Jack Eddy, discoverer of the Maunder Minimum.
Do you listen to yourselves? This is zealotry. – Anthony

mpainter
December 17, 2012 7:04 am

dikranmarsupial
Come, come, you are too obvious. You will find no marsupials on this blog to swallow the obsfuscations which you try to pass off as science. You do not seem as a sincere type who wishes to engage the issues, and your pretenses fool no one here. Go back to Skeptical Science. That’s where you feel comfortable and it’s where you belong.

Philip Shehan
December 17, 2012 7:30 am

This scientist who is used to interpreting such graphs sees 19 data points and experimental error bars within the model bands and three outside the bands. There are no error bars given for 2012 but unless they are unusually small 2012 will fall inside the bands. Climate models do not forecast unpredictable (and short term) effects such as volcanic eruptions and el nino /la nina events. Points below the band are 1996, and 2000, each corresponding to la nina years, as are 1999 and 2008 which are just inside the band. The point above the band is the 1998 el nino year.

Gail Combs
December 17, 2012 8:51 am

Chris Shuker says:
December 17, 2012 at 12:20 am
I have a couple of points that havenā€™t been made:
9 of the 10 warmest years on record have occurred since 2000. There may not have been a warming trend over the last 10 years but the decade is consistently warmer than those before it….
________________________________
Only if you use ‘Adjusted’ data.
The length of the arctic Melt season link
The fall (October) Northern Hemisphere snow cover link
For the USA
The 1990 -2000 decade is close to the average for the 20th C but the 1970’s are way colder link 1 and link 2
The number of daily US temperature readings over 40C, recorded at all 595 HCN stations continuously active since 1900 shows the above climate boundry graph is not ‘off’ link
So does the US Heat Wave Index link
All the ‘corrections’ to the actual temperature data are UP for recent data and DOWN for past data. link 1 and link 2 and link 3

December 17, 2012 8:54 am

Philip Shehan says
Climate models do not forecast unpredictable (and short term) effects such as volcanic eruptions and el nino /la nina events. Points below the band are 1996, and 2000, each corresponding to la nina years, as are 1999 and 2008 which are just inside the band. The point above the band is the 1998 el nino
Henry
Philip, if you look carefully at that graph you will be able to see a parabolic curve developing from 1992 up until 1998. After reaching the top in 1998 it has started to curve down.
All major data sets see a cooling trend developing from 2002.
see here:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:2002/to:2012/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:2002/to:2012/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:2002/to:2012/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:2002/to:2012/trend/plot/rss/from:2002/to:2012/plot/rss/from:2002/to:2012/trend/plot/gistemp/from:2002/to:2012/plot/gistemp/from:2002/to:2012/trend/plot/hadsst2gl/from:2002/to:2012/plot/hadsst2gl/from:2002/to:2012/trend
My own data set also showed these parabolic curves, all three, for maxima, means and minima,
with very high correlation coefficients, (but also very high current cooling rates)
therefore, in the end I settled for an a-c curve
http://blogs.24.com/henryp/2012/10/02/best-sine-wave-fit-for-the-drop-in-global-maximum-temperatures/
So everything that you see happening is natural and predictable. We will continue to cool at the highest rate for the next 8 years and temperatures will continue to fall until ca. 2038.
Sorry pal.

Ryan
December 17, 2012 9:12 am

Shame they didn’t show the whole period back to WWII, because then it would be clear that for the last 25% of the time when CO2 has been pumped into the atmosphere in significant quantities the tempereature has not been rising, despite the fact that this last 25% of the period is when 30% of all the CO2 increase occurred.
With a failure to correlate of that magnitude most scientists would have the good grace to admit that their theory was fatally flawed.

Gail Combs
December 17, 2012 9:14 am

Since when has the Null Hypothesis had anything to do with the IPCC?

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was established by the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in 1988 to assess the scientific, technical and socio-economic information relevant for the understanding of human induced climate change, its potential impacts and options for mitigation and adaptation.
http://www.ipcc-wg2.gov/

That humans are mucking up the climate is taken as the given and the IPCC goes on from that ‘Law” There is no room for any testing of a Null Hypothesis because human induced climate change is reality to them and therefore there is no reason for a Null Hypothesis. This has been the ongoing fight from day one.
This is why the citing of the IPCC as an ‘Authority’ would be a ROTFLMAO laugh if they did not have so much power and the consequences were not so devastating for mankind. The Sheeple believe we have spent billions studying the climate and investigating the various factors that could drive the climate when no such action has occurred.
Only the money and the number of people in positions of power that are involved has kept CAGW from becoming a bigger scandal than Bernie Maddoff or Enron.

December 17, 2012 9:16 am

richardscourtney, firstly I apologise for having mispelled your name.
Your write “The three most recent 16-year periods show no trend discernibly different from zero at 95% confidence.” I agree, however, my point is that those same trends are not discernablly different from the long term trend either at the 95% level of significance. Thus the statistical analysis is equivocal, it doesn’t rule out the possibility that the trend is really flat, but it doesn’t rule out the possibility that there has been no change in the underlying rate of warming either. Thus, if the only evidence for a hiatus were the observed trend, it would go against normal scientific practice to claim the existence of a hiatus without statistically significant evidence.
“The Null Hypothesis says it must be assumed a system has not experienced a change unless there is evidence of a change. ”
Well quite, if we apply that to the *rate* at which the system has been warming, then the null hypothesis should be that the *rate* has not changed. The choice of null hypothesis depends on the claim you wish to test in performing a significance test. It should essentially be the opposite of what you wish to claim.
The null hypothesis should be the hypothesis that goes against our experimental hypothesis; if you want to assert that there has been a hiatus (i.e. the rate of warming has declined) then the null hypothesis should be that the rate of warming is unchanged. That is how statistical tests are used in science, to enforce self-skepticism, only allowing a claim to be made if you can demonstrate that the alternative is not supportable (i.e. the null hypothesis can be rejected).
Essentially, the observations are quite noisy, and a 16 year window is not long enough to be able to distinguish with any great confidence whether there has been no warming (or even some cooling), or whether the warming has contunued at the same rate, or (less likely) even above the long term rate. This is clearly demonstrated by the confidence interval on the estimated trend.

richardscourtney
December 17, 2012 9:19 am

maxberan:
Thankyou for your post at December 17, 2012 at 8:30 am. It begins

Richard writes:

ā€œIt is a rejection of the scientific method to assert that one can ā€œchooseā€ any subjective Null Hypothesis one likes. There is only one Null Hypothesis: i.e. it has to be assumed a system has not changed unless it is observed that the system has changed.ā€

Iā€™m afraid you have not got the story right here Richard. There is no statistical reason why a null hypothesis has to be restricted to a no-change baseline. The null hypothesis tells you the base case that you consider random samples as being drawn from. In this case we are interested in the slope coefficient of a regression of temperature anomaly on year number.

Sorry, but I have ā€œgot the story rightā€.
The misunderstanding is explicit in your statement that says

There is no statistical reason why a null hypothesis has to be restricted to a no-change baseline.

Indeed, there is such a ā€œreasonā€: otherwise, there could not be a Null Hypothesis.
The ā€œno changeā€ applies to the system behaviour.
And all of your examples agree with my expression of the Null Hypothesis.
Some systems behave randomly. The appearance of, for example, a cyclical behaviour within the randomness would be a change.
Other systems exhibit cyclical behaviour, and loss of that cyclicity would be a change.
Gain or loss of correlation between parameters of a system is a change.
Indeed, you describe such a case when you say

However there is no reason why a non-zero correlation (remembering the almost equivalence between the correlation and the slope coefficients) should not be postulated and set up as a null hypothesis ā€“ Fisherā€™s z-transformation serves for the simple case.

Etc.
All your examples demonstrate the difficulty of statistical determination of a change in some systems. They do not dispute my statement of the Null Hypothesis in any way.
Richard

Reply to  richardscourtney
December 17, 2012 10:24 am

Say you wanted to see if your town followed some rule that you had read based on a large scale study of the link between UHI-induced slope (of temperature v time) and population. Based on the study you had a baseline expectation for what the slope ought to be if it followed the rule – say it was .001K/yr – and you had a 50 year time-series temperature data for your town from which you could calculate its slope, say it was .002K/yr.
The null hypothesis in that case would be the .001K/yr prior expectation and this would form the basis for the test. You would construct the sampling distribution of slopes obtained by random drawings of size 50 from a population whose slope was 0.001 and from the probability beyond the .002 point judge whether it was in accord with the rule or not. No statistical regulation disobeyed, no scientific method principle breached, a fully kosher procedure.
And the null hypothesis was not a no-change case, it postulated a change or a non-zero slope (or equivalently, correlation coefficient). This was precisely what you said was disallowed with your point about “no subjectivity” and “no change” and, because it is allowed, why I said you had got it wrong.
Did you look up Fisher’s z- transformation – it is about testing whether an observed correlation coefficient could derive from a population of arbitrary (not necessarily zero) correlation so bang on what you said couldn’t be done? It’s especially relevant as the slope coefficient of a regression is a simple linear multiple of the correlation coefficient so what goes for the one goes for the other.
The above example is a lot simpler than the current case where we are testing whether the models could derive from a population based on the observations. Also we have additional information about the uncertainty in the observations which we would also wish to build in. We also have a distribution of models so the test would be looking at the overlap between the distribution of the models and the null-hypothesis distribution based on the observations. But the basic principle remains and the simple truth applies – a null hypothesis is not limited to a null change case.

mpainter
December 17, 2012 9:24 am

Philip Shehan
Let me put it to you like this: Do you agree that there the record shows no warming these past sixteen years?
Perhaps you would explain for us why the data points require experimental error bars. What experiment? These appear as a device to fuzz over the fact that the models are refuted by observations, and thus give an opening for someone to say:
“This scientist who is used to interpreting such graphs sees 19 data points and experimental error bars within the model bands and three outside the bands. There are no error bars given for 2012 but unless they are unusually small 2012 will fall inside the bands. Climate models do not forecast unpredictable (and short term) effects such as volcanic eruptions and el nino /la nina events. Points below the band are 1996, and 2000, each corresponding to la nina years, as are 1999 and 2008 which are just inside the band. The point above the band is the 1998 el nino year.”
Now, please point out the model that has forecast sixteen years without warming. Also, please tell us what you think of all the panic talk about future climate disaster, “tipping points”, and suchlike propaganda which is based on the extreme warming forecast by these models, and whether such models show any reliability.
Also, please tell us what CO2 mitigation steps should now be undertaken, and whether the vast expenses involved in these models were justified, and whether a carbon tax is justified.
Thanking you in advance for your contribution here.

richardscourtney
December 17, 2012 9:28 am

dikranmarsupial:
I am replying to your post addressed to me at December 17, 2012 at 9:16 am.
I will restrict my discussion of the Null Hypothesis to interaction with Max Beran. He has often disagreed with me over many years and I respect him, his arguments and his opinions whether or not I agree with them. Also, his great mathematical knowledge and ability are known to me.
Your post ignores the importance of the 16-year period of no global warming discernible at 95% confidence. I again repeat that the climate modellers said their emulations “rule out” periods of 15 or more years of no global warming discernible at 95% confidence. This is a falsification of the models according to the criterion specified by the modelers.
The models are wrong. Live with it.
Richard

D Bƶehm
December 17, 2012 9:30 am

dikranmarsupial,
I agree with most of your comment. However, the climate Null Hypothesis is not as you have explained it. The Null Hypothesis states that nothing unusual or unprecedented is now occurring. All current climate parameters have been exceeded during the Holocene, when CO2 levels were much lower.
The Alternative Hypothesis ā€” that rising CO2 is causing an unprecedented acceleration in global warming ā€” is wrong. Not only is there no acceleration in global warming, but as you acknowledge, the warming has stopped for the past sixteen years.
The Null Hypothesis has never been falsified. Nothing unusual or unprecedented is occurring. The planet is recovering from the LIA along the same long term rising trend line, and within the same long term parameters, with no acceleration in global warming. Conclusion: rising CO2 has no measurable effect.

December 17, 2012 9:47 am

richardscourtney, it is unfortunate that you are unwilling to participate with me in a discussion of this issue as it could have been very productive. I would be interested to read the NOAA report you mention, can you give me a full reference so I can look it up?
However, the point I was making has nothing to do with whether the models are correct or not, but on whether there is statistically significant evidence for a change in the rate of warming. It is easy to demonstrate that there isn’t becuase the confidence interval for the trend includes both zero and long term rate. Thus it is an error to claim that there has been a reduction in the rate of warming, just as it was an error to claim that there had been an increase in the rate of warming in say 1998. Those that want to claim there is statistically significant evidence of a reduction in the rate of warming need to wait until the confidence interval on the trend no longer includes the long term rate.

December 17, 2012 10:00 am

D Bƶehm The hypotheses discussed in my post have nothing to do with AGW, just about what we can infer about the rate of warming from the observations we have for the last 16 years, and this is entirely independent of what is causing any warming that may or may not be happening.

richardscourtney
December 17, 2012 10:05 am

dikranmarsupial:
Your post at December 17, 2012 at 9:47 am asks me

I would be interested to read the NOAA report you mention, can you give me a full reference so I can look it up?

The statement is in NOAAā€™s ā€˜State of the Climate Reportā€™ for 2008.
It can be read at
http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/cmb/bams-sotc/climate-assessment-2008-lo-rez.pdf
The statement under discussion is in a box on page 23.
It says

The simulations rule out (at the 95% level) zero trends for intervals of 15 yr or more, suggesting that an observed absence of warming of this duration is needed to create a discrepancy with the expected present-day warming rate.

Richard

davidmhoffer
December 17, 2012 10:11 am

dikranmarsupial;
Those that want to claim there is statistically significant evidence of a reduction in the rate of warming need to wait until the confidence interval on the trend no longer includes the long term rate.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
You are changing the basis of the argument. This isn’t the point. The point is that the official literature as endorsed by the IPCC maintained that the warming effects of CO2 plus feedbacks were so pronounced that it would be impossible for them to not be easily distinguished from natural variability over a 15 year period. Well, here we are at 16 years, you can argue all you want that the data is insufficient to show a reduction in warming trend (or vice versa) but what you CANNOT argue is that the effects of CO2 are strong enough to stand out from natural variability.
So arguing that warming has or hasn’t stopped isn’t the point. The point is that CO2’s direct and feedback effects are insufficient to differentiate them from natural variability, and as a consequence, we may assume that the order of magnitude of these effects has been grossly over estimated.

December 17, 2012 10:19 am

Richard, thank you for the link, it will be interesting to see how it differs from Easterling and Wehner, which apparently comes to the opposite conclusion.
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2009/2009GL037810.shtml

December 17, 2012 10:41 am

diketc says
Those that want to claim there is statistically significant evidence of a reduction in the rate of warming need to wait until the confidence interval on the trend no longer includes the long term rate.
Henry says
I looked at all the data from a random sample of 47 weather stations, from all over, balanced by latitude and 70/30 @sea and inland. (longitude does not really matter since earth makes its regular daily and yearly circles and we are looking at all results averaged for the years)
The plot for the acceleration / deceleration of warming/cooling (in degrees K/ tĀ² ) appears to be natural looking, symmetrical, like the curve of a thrown object.
For those that did not read the relevant part of my report, I quote it here for you:
Method
The (black) figures you are looking at in the tables below (allow some time to load up), represent the average change in degrees Celsius (or Kelvin) per annum, from the average temperatures measured during the period indicated. These are the slopes of the least square fit equations or ā€œ linear trend-linesā€ for the periods indicated, as calculated, i.e. the value before the x.
The average temperature data from the stations were obtained from http://www.tutiempo.net.
I tried to avoid stations with many missing data. Nevertheless, it is very difficult finding weather stations that have no missing data at all. If a monthā€™s data was found missing or if I found that the average for a month was based on less than 15 days of that monthā€™s data, I looked at the average temperatures of that month of the preceding- and following year, averaged these, and in this way estimated the temperatures of that particular monthā€™s missing data.
Results
We note from my 3 tables below that Maxima, Means and Minima have all turned negative (from warming to cooling) between 12 and 22 years ago. The change in signal is best observed in that of the Maxima where we can see a gradual decline of the maximum temperatures from +0.036 degrees C per annum (over the last 38 years) to -0.016 (when taken over the last 12 years).
If we plot the global measurements for the change in Maxima, Means and Minima against the relevant time periods, it can be shown that the best fit for each of the curves is given by a polynomial of the 2nd order (parabolic fit).
Namely, for maxima it is
y= -0.00006 X2+ 0.00480X -0.06393
rĀ²= 0.997
Update
I have added a few more stations, (including Washington DC) which gave me rĀ²= 0.998
The speed of warming/cooling for maxima now is 0.036 from 1974 (38 yrs), 0.029 from 1980 (32 yrs), 0.014 from 1990 (22 years) and -0.016 from 2000 (12 years).
For means, it is
y= -0.0001 X2 +0.0064X ā€“ 0.0778
rĀ²= 0.959
For minima, it is
y= -0.00008 X2 + 0.00408X ā€“ 0.04178
rĀ²= 0.985
Using the maxima plot, we note that at 0 (zero) when there was a turning point, i.e. no warming or cooling, we find x=17 years. From this sample of weather stations I can therefore estimate with high accuracy that earth received its maximum energy input from the sun via the atmosphere during 2012-17=1995.
(if we are tempted to look at the root of same binomial on the other side, i.e. when global warming started, we find 68, suggesting that the global warming cycle started officially somewhere in 2012-68=1944. UPDATE: I realized this result is speculative, as I do not have any real measurements from 1944-1973 but we are using an approximation from a probable plot. However, I did realize since some time ago that the plot I was looking at is really like an a-c wave. I have subsequently been able to determine that the best sine wave for this plot would be one with a wavelength of 88 years. That would mean that the beginning of warming started somewhere around 1995-44=1951. That means we are now on a cooling curve until ca. 1995+44=2039.)
It can also be shown that the nature of the graph for means is one that lags a bit on the graph for maxima: earth has a store where it keeps its energy and a lot of that energy only comes out a bit later. Although the plot for means with rsquare 0.959 is still impressive, showing there is a definite relationship, I would not use it to determine the roots to give me the actual time when earth reached its maximum energy output (i.e. when it was the ā€œwarmestā€). However, I would generally agree with the available datasets like RSS, Hadcrut3 and Hadsst2 that that must have been a few years after 1995.
end quote
Now let us look specifically at these data:
The speed of warming/cooling in degrees K/ annum for maxima now is 0.036 from 1974 (38 yrs), 0.029 from 1980 (32 yrs), 0.014 from 1990 (22 years) and -0.016 from 2000 (12 years);
now, do any plot that you like with it, i.e. binomial, linear or natural log or whatever and tell me that the curve fit that you get is not statistically significant?
Finally, I want to say that this exercise of mine is definitely repeatable, don’t you (all) think?
(I am thinking of the lazy buggers and so-called “climate scientists” in the universities who could utilize the people in their classes to do -this very simple- applied practical statistical work)

richardscourtney
December 17, 2012 10:46 am

dikranmarsupial:
Your post at December 17, 2012 at 10:19 am says in total

Richard, thank you for the link, it will be interesting to see how it differs from Easterling and Wehner, which apparently comes to the opposite conclusion.
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2009/2009GL037810.shtmlYour post at December 17, 2012 at 9:47 am asks me

Pardon?!
That paperā€™s Abstract says in total

Numerous websites, blogs and articles in the media have claimed that the climate is no longer warming, and is now cooling. Here we show that periods of no trend or even cooling of the globally averaged surface air temperature are found in the last 34 years of the observed record, and in climate model simulations of the 20th and 21st century forced with increasing greenhouse gases. We show that the climate over the 21st century can and likely will produce periods of a decade or two where the globally averaged surface air temperature shows no trend or even slight cooling in the presence of longerā€term warming.

The paper is pay-walled so I have not read it, but the phrase ā€œa decade or twoā€ is ambiguous in the Abstract. It could mean ā€˜periods of 10 to 20 years durationā€™ or ā€˜one or two periods each of 10 years durationā€™.
Either interpretation does not give confidence in the paper because such ambiguity in the Abstract implies it was approved by ā€˜pal reviewā€™: why not say ā€œmultiple periods of up to 10 yearsā€ or ā€œperiods of up to 20 yearsā€?
Also, the Abstract admits it is ‘damage limitation’ against reports in “websites, blogs and articles in the media” but makes no mention of e.g. the 2008 NOAA statement.
Frankly, I do not intend to pay to read such a paper.
Richard

December 17, 2012 10:57 am

This question at stats.stackexchange.com (a site for asking questions related to statistics where the answers are voted on by other users, many of which are experienced statisticians) might be of interest:
http://stats.stackexchange.com/questions/12461/how-to-specify-the-null-hypothesis-in-hypothesis-testing
The answer with the most votes begins “A rule of the thumb from a good advisor of mine was to set the Null-Hypothesis to the outcome you do not want to be true i.e. the outcome whose direct opposite you want to show.”

richardscourtney
December 17, 2012 11:10 am

Max:
Your post addressed to me at December 17, 2012 at 10:24 am provides an illustration concerning a hypothetical town and says

And the null hypothesis was not a no-change case, it postulated a change or a non-zero slope (or equivalently, correlation coefficient). This was precisely what you said was disallowed with your point about ā€œno subjectivityā€ and ā€œno changeā€ and, because it is allowed, why I said you had got it wrong.

No!
I thought I had explained this in my previous reply to you.
THAT IS A ā€˜NO CHANGE CASEā€™.
The system was said to be experiencing ā€œa non-zero slopeā€ so the system behaviour was that ā€œslopeā€.
Similarly, an object may be in free fall. The Null Hypothesis says the object will continue to fall under acceleration due to gravity and deceleration due to drag. A change from the Null Hypothesis occurs when the object hits the ground. The fact that the objectā€™s change of height with time (i.e. vertical velocity) had ā€œa non-zero slopeā€ does not prevent the system behaviour being ā€œa no change caseā€ until the object hits the ground.
And you ask me

Did you look up Fisherā€™s z- transformation ā€“ it is about testing whether an observed correlation coefficient could derive from a population of arbitrary (not necessarily zero) correlation so bang on what you said couldnā€™t be done? Itā€™s especially relevant as the slope coefficient of a regression is a simple linear multiple of the correlation coefficient so what goes for the one goes for the other.

I am aware of it but I did not refresh my memory by looking it up: If I did then I am certain my understanding would still be bettered by your superior knowledge and understanding.
I agree that it is a good analogy of determination of whether the global temperature change has experienced a significant change. But, again, I fail to see how this example alters the truth of what I said about the Null Hypothesis.
In conclusion, I recognise that we are discussing on a blog for the benefit of others as well as ourselves. Hence, it is important to debate in words so others can understand. However, in this case, I would not object if you wanted to add mathematical expressions to define what you intend by your words because it is possible that may avoid us ā€˜talking past each otherā€™.
Richard

December 17, 2012 11:27 am

Richard, having read the paper again (Easterling and Wehner), they do mean a period of a decade or two, but the experimental results are based solely on decadal periods, so that line in the abstract is indeed not well supported. Note that the NOAA report does cite Easterling and Wehner on page 23, so it is clear that NOAA consider the paper to be of good quality and directly relevant to the topic we are discussing.
Having read the relevant pages of the NOAA report, I find the conclusion is based on the analysis of only one model (HADcm3), so while a 15 year period of little or no warming is inconsistent with HADcm3, that does not mean that it is inconsistent with all models, nor of the CMP3 ensemble used in the IPCC AR4 WG1 report. I think it is an overstatement to conclude that all models are invalidated on that basis. It could well be that HADcm3 under-estimates natural variability.
A more recent paper on this topic is Santer et al (http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2011/2011JD016263.shtml), which IIRC uses the CMIP3 model ensemble and draws the conclusion that 17 years is the required period to expect to be able to identify warming. So I suspect the difference lies in whether you analyse one particular model, or whether you analyse the ensemble that the IPCC actually used. However, regardless of the exact time period, it is pretty clear that the observations are very much at the lower end of what can be considered plausible, given the CMIP3 A1B model projections, so if the planet is not warming then there will soon become a point where there can be no equivocation.
If the aim is simply to falsify the models, then that is very easy, all you have to do is to look at the decline in Arctic sea ice extent, which has been significantly more rapid than any of the models plausibly predict. All models are wrong, but some are useful (GEP Box).

mpainter
December 17, 2012 11:32 am

dikranmarsupial
So you link to a paywalled study to support a point. And no, your next link is of no interest. Go back to your marsupials and please stay there.

December 17, 2012 11:41 am

Henry says
now, do any plot that you like with it, i.e. binomial, linear or natural log or whatever and tell me that the curve fit that you get is not statistically significant?
Henry says
sorry, that should have been
now, do any plot that you like with it, i.e. binomial, linear or natural log or whatever and tell me that the curve fit that you get, i.e. the curve going downwards, showing a cooling trend, is not statistically significant?

December 17, 2012 11:44 am

BTW, google scholar is quite useful for finding copies of papers that have been made available to download for free (e.g. pre-prints). Easterling and Wehner’s paper can easily be obtained this way.
http://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar?hl=en&q=Easterling+and+Wehner

richardscourtney
December 17, 2012 11:59 am

dikranmarsupial:
At December 17, 2012 at 11:27 am you say

If the aim is simply to falsify the models, then that is very easy, all you have to do is to look at the decline in Arctic sea ice extent, which has been significantly more rapid than any of the models plausibly predict. All models are wrong, but some are useful (GEP Box).

Agreed!
The models say that accelerated warming ā€“ so ice loss ā€“ should occur in both polar regions. But
1.
The Arctic shows more ice loss than the models indicate:
partial model fail.
2.
The Antarctic shows ice GAIN:
complete model fail.
Conclusion: the models are useless.
But I have known they are useless ā€“ and why they are useless ā€“ since 1999.
I have explained this repeatedly on WUWT and it seems I need to copy it again. For example, I wrote the following post on the thread at
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/08/02/aerosol-sat-observations-and-climate-models-differ-by-a-factor-of-three-to-six/#comment-711396
Richard
****************
Richard S Courtney says:
August 2, 2011 at 6:46 am
Friends:
The article quotes Penner saying:
ā€œThe satellite estimates are way too small,ā€ said Joyce Penner, the Ralph J. Cicerone Distinguished University Professor of Atmospheric Science. ā€œThere are things about the global model that should fit the satellite data but donā€™t, so I wonā€™t argue that the models necessarily are correct. But weā€™ve explained why satellite estimates and the models are so different.ā€
Hmmm. Let us consider what we know about how the models incorporate climate sensitivity and aerosol effects.
None of the models ā€“ not one of them ā€“ could match the change in mean global temperature over the past century if it did not utilise a unique value of assumed cooling from aerosols. So, inputting actual values of the cooling effect (such as the determination by Penner et al.
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2011/07/25/1018526108.full.pdf?with-ds=yes )
would make every climate model provide a mismatch of the global warming it hindcasts and the observed global warming for the twentieth century.
This mismatch would occur because all the global climate models and energy balance models are known to provide indications which are based on
1.
the assumed degree of forcings resulting from human activity that produce warming
and
2.
the assumed degree of anthropogenic aerosol cooling input to each model as a ā€˜fiddle factorā€™ to obtain agreement between past average global temperature and the modelā€™s indications of average global temperature.
More than a decade ago I published a peer-reviewed paper that showed the UKā€™s Hadley Centre general circulation model (GCM) could not model climate and only obtained agreement between past average global temperature and the modelā€™s indications of average global temperature by forcing the agreement with an input of assumed anthropogenic aerosol cooling.
The input of assumed anthropogenic aerosol cooling is needed because the model ā€˜ran hotā€™; i.e. it showed an amount and a rate of global warming which was greater than was observed over the twentieth century. This failure of the model was compensated by the input of assumed anthropogenic aerosol cooling.
And my paper demonstrated that the assumption of aerosol effects being responsible for the modelā€™s failure was incorrect.
(ref. Courtney RS An assessment of validation experiments conducted on computer models of global climate using the general circulation model of the UKā€™s Hadley Centre Energy & Environment, Volume 10, Number 5, pp. 491-502, September 1999).
More recently, in 2007, Kiehle published a paper that assessed 9 GCMs and two energy balance models.
(ref. Kiehl JT,Twentieth century climate model response and climate sensitivity. GRL vol.. 34, L22710, doi:10.1029/2007GL031383, 2007).
Kiehl found the same as my paper except that each model he assessed used a different aerosol ā€˜fixā€™ from every other model. This is because they all ā€˜run hotā€™ but they each ā€˜run hotā€™ to a different degree.
He says in his paper:
ā€One curious aspect of this result is that it is also well known [Houghton et al., 2001] that the same models that agree in simulating the anomaly in surface air temperature differ significantly in their predicted climate sensitivity. The cited range in climate sensitivity from a wide collection of models is usually 1.5 to 4.5 deg C for a doubling of CO2, where most global climate models used for climate change studies vary by at least a factor of two in equilibrium sensitivity.
The question is: if climate models differ by a factor of 2 to 3 in their climate sensitivity, how can they all simulate the global temperature record with a reasonable degree of accuracy. Kerr [2007] and S. E. Schwartz et al. (Quantifying climate changeā€“too rosy a picture?, available at http://www.nature.com/reports/climatechange, 2007) recently pointed out the importance of understanding the answer to this question. Indeed, Kerr [2007] referred to the present work and the current paper provides the ā€˜ā€˜widely circulated analysisā€™ā€™ referred to by Kerr [2007]. This report investigates the most probable explanation for such an agreement. It uses published results from a wide variety of model simulations to understand this apparent paradox between model climate responses for the 20th century, but diverse climate model sensitivity.ā€
And, importantly, Kiehlā€™s paper says:
ā€These results explain to a large degree why models with such diverse climate sensitivities can all simulate the global anomaly in surface temperature. The magnitude of applied anthropogenic total forcing compensates for the model sensitivity.ā€
And the ā€œmagnitude of applied anthropogenic total forcingā€ is fixed in each model by the input value of aerosol forcing.
Thanks to Bill Illis, Kiehlā€™s Figure 2 can be seen at
http://img36.imageshack.us/img36/8167/kiehl2007figure2.png
Please note that the Figure is for 9 GCMs and 2 energy balance models, and its title is:
ā€Figure 2. Total anthropogenic forcing (Wm2) versus aerosol forcing (Wm2) from nine fully coupled climate models and two energy balance models used to simulate the 20th century.ā€
It shows that
(a) each model uses a different value for ā€œTotal anthropogenic forcingā€ that is in the range 0.80 W/m^-2 to 2.02 W/m^-2
but
(b) each model is forced to agree with the rate of past warming by using a different value for ā€œAerosol forcingā€ that is in the range -1.42 W/m^-2 to -0.60 W/m^-2.
In other words the models use values of ā€œTotal anthropogenic forcingā€ that differ by a factor of more than 2.5 and they are ā€˜adjustedā€™ by using values of assumed ā€œAerosol forcingā€ that differ by a factor of 2.4.
So, each climate model emulates a different climate system. Hence, at most only one of them emulates the climate system of the real Earth because there is only one Earth. And the fact that they each ā€˜run hotā€™ unless fiddled by use of a completely arbitrary ā€˜aerosol coolingā€™ strongly suggests that none of them emulates the climate system of the real Earth.
In summation, all the model projections of future climate change are blown out of the water by the findings of Penner at al.
Richard

Jeff B.
December 17, 2012 4:52 pm

Does this mean we can remove Hansen and Schmidt from the government payroll and get back to some serious science? Let’s build our Thorium future.

December 17, 2012 4:58 pm

Geoff Sharp says:
December 17, 2012 at 6:43 am
[snip – Geoff, I’ve banned you before for your over the top remarks, and let you back in against my better judgment – this time, with this ugly comment it is permanent, beat it, zealot. – Anthony]
A bridge too far Anthonyā€¦.expect a backlash.
—————————-
REPLY: Oh, niceā€¦.threats. How mature. All because you and your friends insist on calling a long term solar minimum that hasnā€™t been called yet and name that hasnā€™t been approved by the solar science community. I donā€™t call it ā€œthe Eddy Minimumā€ in day to day comments because it is premature. You however call it the ā€œLandschiedt minimumā€ at every opportunity you get to the the point of being annoying. I point out when you and your friends call it the ā€œLandscheidt minimumā€ is wrong when:
A. It hasnā€™t happened for certain yet, (one solar cycle does not a grand minimum make).
B. It hasnā€™t been officially named yet.
C. The solar science community has taken up the idea to name it for Jack Eddy, discoverer of the Maunder Minimum.
Do you listen to yourselves? This is zealotry. ā€“ Anthon

The backlash will be in the form of a campaign against you on this topic of the “Eddy Minimum” that you and Svalgaard are pushing. This website has not agreed with your agenda to take the naming writes away from Landscheidt who is excepted by most to be the person most deserving. There was a lot of opposition to your proposal in your article http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/06/13/online-petition-the-next-solar-minimum-should-be-called-the-eddy-minimum/ and a previous article on your blog the majority suggested Landscheidt even though you provided no option for his name.
You do not even have support on your own blog, yet you try to whitewash your own views through. You have a cheek calling me the zealot.
If I am banned you will need to remove my sunspot count comparison graph on your solar reference page.

Jane R
December 17, 2012 9:29 pm
December 17, 2012 9:37 pm

Those “IPCC model forecasts” are not forecasts (aka predictions) but rather are projections. Though climatologists often conflate projections with predictions, they are different concepts.

Mario Lento
December 17, 2012 11:06 pm

@Jane:
Jane R says:
December 17, 2012 at 9:29 pm
Great graphic on this! http://www.skepticalscience.com/graphics.php?g=47
+++++++
Jane that new red line which starts below average at the start and stripes right to the max of today… and still the new red line shows cooling of 0.5C over the past 15 years!

December 18, 2012 1:33 am

Richard says
In summation, all the model projections of future climate change are blown out of the water by the findings of Penner at al.
Henry says
Myself and others here have clearly established that there is no scientific basis for man made climate change. Hence, we should concentrate on the observation of the natural processes that dominate the weather.
IMHO I think we only need to do a best fit for the actual observed differences in temperatures,
like I have done here :
http://blogs.24.com/henryp/2012/10/02/best-sine-wave-fit-for-the-drop-in-global-maximum-temperatures/
By looking at the curve of Anchorage just below the averaged “global” curve, you can see that each weather station has its own sine wave but the wavelength of 88 years stays the same.
The difference between the heights of the tops and lows of the curves of each weather station depends largely on the make up of the chemicals lying on top of the atmosphere directly above it.
Note that almost all major data sets show an uptrend from about 1925, which, in actual fact, is not in contradiction with my particular sine wave fit. Namely, before 1925 the global temp. record is a bit murky. In those days they had not even realized that thermometers, once manufactured, need to be re-calibrated every now and then…..So, basically, we do not have a reliable (global) base line for global temperature until a few decades after 1925.
In this respect, it is clear that my results show that we are going to cool. My results should be confirmed by others asap. This natural climate change which can thus be predicted from each particular weather station may bring more rain and more cold and snow at certain places and/or less at others. Those farming at the colder high latitudes or risky areas should be warned to take their farming elsewhere….
Now that is what climate science is supposed to be for.

richardscourtney
December 18, 2012 3:40 am

Terry Oldberg:
At December 17, 2012 at 9:37 pm you say

Those ā€œIPCC model forecastsā€ are not forecasts (aka predictions) but rather are projections. Though climatologists often conflate projections with predictions, they are different concepts.

I agree.
A prediction is a scientific term.
It is a forecast (or hindecast) which can be compared to reality to discern if the method which generated it displays forecasting skill. Thus, a prediction can be used to determine faults in the understandings which formulate the method that generated the prediction, and this enables faulty understandings to be amended. Predictions are made by all scientific disciplines; i.e. physics, chemistry, biology, etc..
A projection is a pseudoscientific term.
It is a forecast (or hindecast) which can be used for political purposes. If a projection fails to forecast reality then the projection is amended post hoc as a method to avoid criticism of the political objective. Projections are made by all pseudoscientific disciplines; i.e. astrology, palmistry, ‘climate science’, etc..
Richard

Philip Shehan
December 18, 2012 4:48 am

mpainter says:
December 17, 2012 at 9:24 am…
In your response to your questions to me.
What date are you selecting for the start of the 16 year period? If you mean starting from 1996, and look at mean data for the data sets Hadcrut3, Gistemp, UAH and RSS there is warming at the rate of 0.1 C per decade. If you cherry pick the extreme southern summer el nino yers of 1997/98, there is slight but probably not statistically significant warming trend. If you start in 1999, there is again an upward trend of 0.1 C per decade. The highly specific cherry picking of the el nino southern summer years to make a claim of no warming is totally unscientific.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/wti/from:1995/to:2013/plot/wti/from:1996/to:2013/trend/plot/wti/from:1998/to:2013/trend/plot/wti/from:1999/to:2013/trend
On the use of error bars: No measurement is exact. Measurement errors are classified as ā€œsystematicā€ or ā€œrandomā€ (I wonā€™t bother here explaining the difference), and if different measurements are combined to give data points, the errors must be summed. The point is that the true number can only be said to lie within a range of values to a certain degree of statistical confidence, not necessarily that quoted as the ā€œheadlineā€ value.
In published data, errors are not just given graphically, tables of data must also contain the error range. A manuscript submitted without the conficence limits would be rejected.
Note that even without the error bars, most of the data points lie within the projection bands, albeit at the low end of the range.
By definition, climate models do not specifically project any periods of no warming, low warming, or extreme warming due to unpredictable future occurences such as the 1998 el nino year or la nina years or the mount Pinatubo eruption. Predictable variations such as solar cycles will make upward and downward contibutions superimposed on the long term upward trend due to accumulation of greenhouse gases. The job of the models is to projects long term (ie multidecadel) trends where such short term influences average out. Every climatologist (or other scientist for that matter) knows that there will be variations in the long term trend. It is a statement of the bleeding obvious.
I do not know what specific ā€œtipping pointsā€ or ā€œpanic talkā€ you are referring to but they are entirely irrelevant to the question posed by Mr Watts: ā€œSo letā€™s see how readers see this figureā€
Ditto your question on CO2 mitigation.

Lars P.
December 18, 2012 5:04 am

Hm, I wonder what do the 2% who see the observed temperature above the model scenario ranges smoke?

Graham W
December 18, 2012 5:18 am

About these models. OK, so there’s no empirical evidence for CO2 being the primary cause of global warming…but in fairness, how can there be? You can’t very well make an experiment where you have two Earths, one control Earth where the CO2 levels are kept the same, and another Earth where CO2 levels are increased, observe the temperatures over time on both, and say “hey presto, there’s your evidence” either way, when you get the results.
So along comes modelling. Well, it actually seems quite logical in principle. You can’t physically have two Earths, so you try to create a computer model to simulate the climate, then run projections of future climate and see if it correlates as time passes. Then if the projections correlate with reality, there’s your empirical evidence. It’s not actually a bad idea, let’s face it.
Two problems/questions with how this has all panned out:
1) Surely the time to alarm and disturb and harangue everyone about cutting CO2 emissions was AFTER the experiment was completed. Once the models with CO2 as the primary driver gave projections that correlated with reality, over a significant enough time period that rules out any “accidental” correlation…i.e. once there was empirical evidence.
2) As far as I understand it there’s a list of forcings that go into the models, in order of their perceived significance (I could well be wrong here so correct me if I am)…why weren’t any models set up with forcings in a different order, just in case they’d got something wrong? i.e. have CO2 as a lower level forcing than it was run at. Then we could be sitting here now looking at various different “projections vs. reality” graphs from the IPCC report. We could say “CO2 didn’t pan out very well as the primary driver, let’s see how this other one turned out”…etc etc.

Bob Layson
December 18, 2012 5:41 am

The complete giveaway is the need to point to anything and everything but the thermometers. Desperate CAGWers scream about the manifest effects of something when they need only flourish the evidence of the instruments in the sceptics faces.

Bill
December 18, 2012 6:58 am

With error bars that large on the observed temperatures, one can do a pretty good linear fit and get a fairly small slope with zero being within the realm of possibility. If temp.’s had not dipped in 1992 due to Pinutabo, the slope would be even smaller for the last 22 years. As I noted earlier, they only seem to use such large error bars when they want to show that the models extremes are still “close” to the actual temp.’s The next 10-15 years will be very interesting. Nature will tell us which side has been closer to the truth all along. What will hurricane and tornado data look like? Once we have been following arctic ice for 40-45 years instead of 30, what will we see? The ocean cycles appear to be 30 and 60 years so again having more than 30 years of satellite and modern instrument data will be interesting. We’ll know how significant cosmic rays and clouds are and we’ll see what kind of solar minimum we may be in and what its effects are.
Just be patient (or one might say scientific) and we’ll have better numbers and be closer to the truth. Even if natural variability and random events turn out to be a much bigger factor than supposed now, we may know a bit more about that too.

December 18, 2012 6:59 am

Graham W says
Surely the time to alarm and disturb and harangue everyone about cutting CO2 emissions was AFTER the experiment was completed.
Henry says
I am most interested to hear from you what experiment you are referring to.
I certainly could not find the balance sheet that I was looking for?
http://blogs.24.com/henryp/2011/08/11/the-greenhouse-effect-and-the-principle-of-re-radiation-11-aug-2011/

December 18, 2012 8:14 am

richardscourtney:
Thanks for the support! That forecasts are made by the IPCC climate models implies the existence of a statistical population, for a forecast is a consequence of an inference of the outcome of an event in this population. For the IPCC climate models, however, there is no such population. Conflation of the term “prediction” with the similar sounding term “projection” popularly yields the false conclusion that predictions (aka forecasts) are made when they are not.
That forecasts are not made by them has the result that the climate models provide no information to policy makers regarding the outcomes from their policy decisions. 100% of the information that policy makers think they have in making policy is fabricated through conflation of predictions with projections plus related equivocations from climatologists. For further information on the role of the equivocation fallacy in climatological arguments, bloggers could review my peer reviewed article at http://judithcurry.com/2011/02/15/the-principles-of-reasoning-part-iii-logic-and-climatology/ .

Philip Shehan
December 18, 2012 8:42 am

In response to comments above:
It is true that we cannot conduct a “two earth” experiment, but this kind of problem occurs in many areas of science which are more observational than experimental, eg astrophysics and studies of the origin of the universe, evolution, continental drift etc. But they are backed by observations matching a sound understanding of physical and chemical principles.
The physico-chemical properties of greenhouse gases have been known for over a century, and climate models accommodate this knowledge in addition to what is known about other climate forcing factors.
There is empirical evidence for CO2 as a forcing factor in that past temperature changes can only be matched to theory by including what is known about the effects of CO2 in the forcing calculations.
At what point will this experiment of adding CO2 to the atmosphere and observing the results be declared ā€œoverā€? For most climate scientists the experiment has been running long enough (since the effects of the industrial revolution became evident) for the effects of greenhouse gases to be known to a high degree of probability. Certainly we will have a clearer picture in twenty or thirty years, but if the climatologists are correct, the time will be long past for remedial action to be taken.
There is indeed a range of uncertainty in the forcings which is why the model projections are represented by a band between upper and lower bounds. A significant source of uncertainty lies in the effects of feedback loops which amplify or diminish the direct effects of greenhouse warming, eg the effect of increased water vapour in the atmosphere with global warming (positive feedback) and increased cloud cover (negative). This is the well known ā€œsensitivity ā€œ question.
Global temperatures rely in part on thermometers placed sparsely around the globe and latterly on satellite measurements. There are differences in the data sets reflecting these uncertainties. Hadcrut data for instance has been criticised as having less data from the more rapidly warming polar regions.
The error bars in the figure in question for global temperatures are in a range of less than 0.2 C.
Henry P wants to cherry pick data from 2002. To show the kind of fun and games you can have with this, consider the following:
The trend from1979 (when the data sets used for Wood For Trees begin) to the present is significantly upward, the line from 1979 to 2007 is even steeper. So the line from 2008 to the present must be really downward right?
Well no, trend from 2008 to the present is the steepest of the lot!!!
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/wti/from:1979/to:2013/plot/wti/from:1979/to:2013/trend/plot/wti/from:1979/to:2007/trend/plot/wti/from:2008/to:2013/trend
The point is you can cherry pick to prove anything. The correct procedures is to take the longest relevant view. Can henry fit ins 11 yaer solar cycle to the data from 1979, since the onset of global industrialization in 1850?
http://www.skepticalscience.com/pics/AMTI.png

December 18, 2012 9:25 am

Philip Shehan says
Henry P wants to cherry pick data from 2002. To show the kind of fun and games you can have with this, consider the following:
The trend from1979 (when the data sets used for Wood For Trees begin) to the present is significantly upward, the line from 1979 to 2007 is even steeper. So the line from 2008 to the present must be really downward right?
Henry says
The point to you that I made to you earlier:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/12/14/the-real-ipcc-ar5-draft-bombshell-plus-a-poll/#comment-1175645
is that you have to see a parabolic curve which reaches its top (if you look at means) in ca. 1998.
clearly you do not understand what a parabolic fit is.
Or perhaps you do no not want to understand it.
it is your choice.
Whatever choice you make, remember the Truth has habit of finding its way back to people.

Graham W
December 18, 2012 9:31 am

Henry P, the results so far for the experiment I’m referring to can be seen in the graph from the draft IPCC AR5 we’re currently discussing in this post on WUWT. In other words, the results of that experiment are (so far) that the models have incorrectly projected temperatures when using CO2 as the primary driver for climate. To further clarify, my points were:
1) Why all the alarm and appeals to the general population to reduce CO2 emissions before the results of “the experiment” (as defined above and in my original post) were in? If they’d waited until now, they would have no reason at all to be sure that CO2 emissions were going to result in an increase in temperatures. It seems like they don’t (necessarily), is the point I’m making! But we’ve all been told to worry about our “carbon footprint” etc, since the beginning.
2) If they had set up additional models in the first place, with *different* forcings set to “most significant”
rather than just always assuming CO2 would be the most significant no matter what anyone else said to the contrary, they could have produced a number of different series of projections. One of those alternate series of projections, from a model using an alternate forcing – a forcing other than CO2 – as it’s primary driver of climate, made in the past, may have matched the subsequently observed temperatures better than “the CO2 one”. It seems to me that “the CO2 one” is all anyone is ever interested in working with. What I was saying was, we could have been sitting here now looking at various graphs, similar to the one we’re discussing now, but of models that don’t base everything on CO2 as well as the ones that do. That would have given us a more complete picture, surely? Basically, many climate scientists seemed to put all their eggs in the CO2 basket, and now that observations aren’t matching what was projected
, they effectively need to redo everything from start, when if they’d had the foresight to include the possibility that CO2 might not be the “be all and end all” control switch of climate, they could have run a whole host of different projections using other forcings as the “main one” in their models (still with the CO2 forcing in there, but set to have a much lower level of influence, perhaps)…AT THE TIME. From the beginning. And we could have been seeing the results of that now. In other words they could have been objective, but chose not to be. And yes I guess I am being “Captain Hindsight” here, but something to consider for the future perhaps?
Sorry if I explain this terribly, I hope someone can see what I’m blathering on about.

Tzo
December 18, 2012 11:08 am

“Ignore the grey bands”
LOL.
Yes, ignore everything that doesn’t fit your argument. That’s a solid method for a rational argument.

December 18, 2012 11:32 am

GrahamW says
Sorry if I explain this terribly, I hope someone can see what Iā€™m blathering on about.
Henry@GrahamW
there never was ANY such experiment, excepting those that were carried out more than 100 years ago by Tyndall and Arrhenius, i.e. the so-called “closed-box” experiments. To this day, even Al Gore tries to sell these stupid experiments and they are still being taught at schools as gospel truth.
However, if you are able to figure out the various truths that I am stating here,
http://blogs.24.com/henryp/2011/08/11/the-greenhouse-effect-and-the-principle-of-re-radiation-11-aug-2011/
you are OK.

D Bƶehm
December 18, 2012 12:08 pm

Philip Shehan says:
“There is empirical evidence for CO2 as a forcing factor in that past temperature changes can only be matched to theory by including what is known about the effects of CO2 in the forcing calculations.”
Ah, the old Argumentum ad Ignorantium fallacy: “Since I can’t think of anything else, then global warming must be caused by CO2.” LOL!
There is no testable, falsifiable “empirical evidence showing that āˆ†CO2 causes āˆ†T. That is simply an assertion. If there was testable, falsifiable evidence showing that āˆ†CO2 caused āˆ†T, WUWT readers would have been hit over the head with that putative “empirical evidence” for the past five years. There are only Shehan’s “calculations” which are certainly not empirical evidence. “Calculations” are what run models, and climate models are always wrong. That is simply because they assume that CO2 has a measurable forcing effect. It does not.
The only cause and effect relationship between CO2 and temperature is that āˆ†T causes āˆ†CO2. True empirical evidence confirms that CO2 does not have the claimed effect. Therefore, all funding to ‘study climate change’ and related wastes of taxpayer funds must be terminated. Too much taxpayer money has already been wasted on the phony AGW scare.

richardscourtney
December 18, 2012 12:54 pm

Tzo:
Your post at December 18, 2012 at 11:08 am says in entirety

ā€œIgnore the grey bandsā€

LOL.
Yes, ignore everything that doesnā€™t fit your argument. Thatā€™s a solid method for a rational argument.

O Wise One, please enlighten me as to what the grey bands indicate, why that should be taken into account, and what taking them into account says about the model “projections”.
I await your illuminating exposition with bated breath.
Richard

Gail Combs
December 18, 2012 1:23 pm

Graham W says: @ December 18, 2012 at 9:31 am
…..If they had set up additional models in the first place, with *different* forcings set to ā€œmost significantā€ rather than just always assuming CO2 would be the most significant no matter what anyone else said to the contrary, they could have produced a number of different series of projections. One of those alternate series of projections, from a model using an alternate forcing ā€“ a forcing other than CO2 ā€“ as itā€™s primary driver of climate, made in the past, may have matched the subsequently observed temperatures better than ā€œthe CO2 oneā€. It seems to me that ā€œthe CO2 oneā€ is all anyone is ever interested in working with….
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
That was never ever apart of the mandate and that is why it was never done.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was established by the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in 1988 to assess the scientific, technical and socio-economic information relevant for the understanding of human induced climate change, its potential impacts and options for mitigation and adaptation.
http://www.ipcc-wg2.gov/

Graham W
December 18, 2012 2:25 pm

Well that’s ridiculous Gail. Not saying that I don’t believe you, saying I think that’s ridiculous…you can make as many model predictions as you like, it’s not like we don’t have the computer power. Why not run thousands, millions of future projections with every conceivable combination of forcings at different levels of influence over the model output, different interactions, etc….then just see what happens in the future. Keep all the projections in a giant database. 30 years time, run the observed measurements over the preceding years into some cross-referencing thing, it picks out the projection that has the best fit to that climate change over the period, then that’s pretty good evidence that this chosen model, with its combination of forcing a (maybe CO2 right as the least influential lol) is the current best understanding of the climate. Then you build from there. In the meantime still investigate for any new forcings and improve on existing knowledge etc.
Don’t just say its got to be CO2 as the main thing, that’s it, no other configuration can be accepted…just silly. Isn’t it?

Reply to  Graham W
December 18, 2012 4:28 pm

Graham W
Rather than that model which offers the best fit, I suggest that what is needed is that model which conveys the maximum possible information to policy makers about the outcomes from their policy decisions. Though they offer relatively good fits, today’s IPCC models convey no information to policy makers thus being useless for the purpose of regulating the climate.

Philip Shehan
December 18, 2012 3:28 pm

D Bƶehm says:
December 18, 2012 at 12:08 pm
“Ah, the old Argumentum ad Ignorantium fallacy: ā€œSince I canā€™t think of anything else, then global warming must be caused by CO2.ā€ LOL!”
No. That is entirely wrong. It is as invalid as the argument:
“Ah, the old Argumentum ad Ignorantium fallacy: ā€œSince I canā€™t think of anything else, then global warming must be caused by solar activity and volcanic eruptions.ā€ LOL!”
The understanding of climate involves many factors of which CO2 is just one. They must be combined to match theory with observation. Modelling the data using only calculated impact ofsolar activity and volcanic eruptions since 1850 does not match the temperature data. Modelling using only calculated impact of anthropogenic greenhouse gas and sulphate aerosols does not match the data. Only combining all four factors major factors gives a good match to the data.
The fact that WUWT readers have been hit over the head with this kind of combination of empirical evidence combined with theoretical understanding and still wish to deny that it exists is indeed a source of concern. ( I await sophisticated argument along the lines that the published data I cite on this is reproduced on the skeptical science website so it is therefore rubbish.)

Werner Brozek
December 18, 2012 3:47 pm

Philip ShehanĀ says:
December 18, 2012 at 4:48 am
What date are you selecting for the start of the 16 year period?
Since I did not see a response by mpainter, I will do my best. He said: ā€œDo you agree that there the record shows no warming these past sixteen years? ā€œ That can only mean the most recent 16 years from the present day. At least three data sets show no warming for the last 16 years when rounded to the nearest year.
1. HadCrut3: since April 1997 or 15 years, 7 months (goes to October)
2. Sea surface temperatures: since March 1997 or 15 years, 8 months (goes to October)
3. RSS: since January 1997 or 15 years, 11 months (goes to November)
See the graph below to show it all.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1997.25/trend/plot/rss/from:1997.0/trend/plot/hadsst2gl/from:1997.1/trend/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1997.25/plot/rss/from:1997.0/plot/hadsst2gl/from:1997.1
However in view of the significance of the 16 years lately, I would like to elaborate on RSS. The slope for 15 years and 11 months from January 1997 on RSS is -4.1 x 10^-4. But the slope for 16 years and 0 months from December 1996 is +1.3 x 10^-4. So since the magnitude of the negative slope since January 1997 is 3 times than the magnitude of the positive slope since December 1996, I believe I can say that since a quarter of the way through December 1996, in other words from December 8, 1996 to December 7, 2012, the slope is 0. This is 16 years. Therefore RSS is 192/204 or 94% of the way to Santer’s 17 years.

Reply to  Werner Brozek
December 18, 2012 4:35 pm

Werner Brozek:
However, the argument for no warming is based upon unsupportable assumptions of linearity, normality and independence.

mpainter
December 18, 2012 3:52 pm

Philip Shehan
Thank you for your response. The problem of a trend line I put as one of the last sixteen years, i.e., the interval from late 1997 to present. I see you kindly provided other intervals. Another was helpfully provided by HenryP, which showed a cooling trend. The issue is this: how reliable are the climate models, and is sixteen years of observation a long enough interval to judge their reliability. You seem to argue sixteen years is of inadequate duration for such judgement. This seems an untenable position, because you have to argue why sixteen years is too short a time. I welcome your argument, however. I quote you:
“By definition, climate models do not specifically project any periods of no warming, low warming, or extreme warming due to unpredictable future occurences such as the 1998 el nino year or la nina years or the mount Pinatubo eruption.”
I can go you one further and say that by definition climate models project warming and nothing else. The reason, of course, is that climate models are devised to project warming and nothing but warming, and are incapable of forecasting any period of cooling or lack of warming, such as the last sixteen years. This is the essential failure of climate models: they are rigid contrivances designed to project a warming trend indefinitely into the future, and could not forecast cooling if you submerged them in liquid nitrogen. So, one does not need the last sixteen years to judge the reliability of climate models when one understands that climate models are incapable of nothing but warming projections. I think that every climate modeler realizes this. Do you?
I note that you claim ignorance of the panic talk of future climate disaster, “tipping points” and CO2 mitigation schemes. Most curious that you should be interested in climate issues and be unaware of this. Insofar as the relevance of such, it has to do with the reliability of climate models, because if the forecast ability of these contrivances is as poor as the record of the last sixteen years shows, then the world has been had. Thank you for your attention

richardscourtney
December 18, 2012 3:59 pm

Philip Shehan:
I was in process of answering your mistaken post at December 18, 2012 at 3:28 pm when I noticed that you intend to copy any reply to SkS.
Hence, you will not get a reply from me or from anyone else who makes rational comments about the climate because none of us would want to be associated in any way with that climate porn site.
Richard

D Bƶehm
December 18, 2012 4:09 pm

Philip Shehan says:
ā€œSince I canā€™t think of anything else, then global warming must be caused by solar activity and volcanic eruptions.ā€
Wrong on several levels.
First, I never mentioned either solar activity or volcanoes. I don’t think we have a handle on what exactly caused the LIA or the [entirely natural] recovery from the LIA. You certainly don’t know for a fact.
Next, you presume that CO2 causes global warming, but you have no empirical measurements proving that it does. It might. But I am a measurements type of guy. If it can’t be measured and tested, it is hardly science. At best, CO2=AGW is an untested conjecture. As for catastrophic AGW, don’t be silly.
Next, you say: “The correct procedures is to take the longest relevant view.” And then you once again post that phony SkS unattributed, handmade chart. If you have to depend on nonsense like that to try and win a debate, you lose.
Here, I’ll show you real long term charts, based on real data. They clearly show that the recovery from the LIA is along the same long term trend line, with no recent acceleration. In fact, global warming has stopped for the past decade and a half. If CO2 caused measurable global warming, then temperatures would have begun to accelerate long ago. But they haven’t.
Since the long term global warming trend has not accelerated, despite a large increase in CO2, the only reasonable conclusion is that CO2 does not have the claimed effect. Sorry about your conjecture.

mpainter
December 18, 2012 5:08 pm

Terry Olberg says:
“….though they offer relatively good fits, todayā€™s IPCC models convey no information to policy makers thus being useless for the purpose of regulating the climate.”
==================================================================
Regarding this “purpose of regulating the climate”, are you feeling well?

Reply to  mpainter
December 18, 2012 5:41 pm

mpainter:
I’m feeling fine. A number of governments are attempting to regulate the climate through curbs on CO2 emissions. Policy makers for these governments need but do not have information about the outcomes from policy decisions. What do you think?

occupyjane
December 18, 2012 6:22 pm

Mario Lento: Surely you agree the trend is up!? There is no ‘new red line’ showing ht etrend over 15 years! And what about the Arctic summer sea ice http://www.skepticalscience.com/climate-of-doubt-escalator-updates.html – why is that melting faster and faster if we are in a cooling trend? The sea ice is even more important than the overall temperature rise as the melting of the permafrost and the release of the massive amounts of methane stored there is one of the tipping points climate scientists are concerned about. Once the ‘methane bomb’ goes off it’s all over Red Rover.

Reply to  occupyjane
December 19, 2012 3:53 am

Trouble with changing horses like you’re doing (OK so its not temperature but just look at what Arctic sea ice is doing) is that you are then exposed to all the other phenomena that might be expected to flow from an amplified ghe but aren’t happening. Why aren’t we seeing more flooding, hurricanes, Antarctic sea ice, amplified mid troposphere tropical heating, relative enhancement of meridional flow component? You can’t retrospectively select variables to support attribution, you have to write them down in a sealed envelope ahead of time and check back later. I write as someone comfortable with the reality of a ghe, even comfortable with an anthropogenic component albeit at the bottom of the range shown on Fig 1.4 of the draft Summary for Policymakers.
Max Beran

Philip Shehan
December 18, 2012 7:00 pm

In reply to above responses
Werner Brozek :
Since for most of 2012 people have been using the “no warming for 16 years” argument, it is not unreasonable to ask whether they mean 1996. But you miss the real point in my posts. Cherry picking dates can give you any trend you like.
mpainter says:
December 18, 2012 at 3:52 pm
Climate models are not designed to project warming and nothing else. The fact that the observed temperatures match the models used in hindcast indicates that they are simply doing what they were designed to do match theory with observation and allow projections of furute observations based on this success. I did not claim ignorance of the subjects you mention, I just stted that they were irrelevant to the point under discussion.
richardscourtney says:
December 18, 2012 at 3:59 pm And I reproduce the post in full
“Philip Shehan:
I was in process of answering your mistaken post at December 18, 2012 at 3:28 pm when I noticed that you intend to copy any reply to SkS.
Hence, you will not get a reply from me or from anyone else who makes rational comments about the climate because none of us would want to be associated in any way with that climate porn site.
Richard”
Right on cue. I wrote “I await sophisticated argument along the lines that the published data I cite on this is reproduced on the skeptical science website so it is therefore rubbish.”
D Bƶehm says:
December 18, 2012 at 4:09 pm
No you did not mention Solar activity and volcanic eruptions. But you can make exactly the same statement about them as you made about the CO2 contributions and it would be equally wrong.
I noted above that climatology is one of those sciences, along with cosmology, evolution and plate tectonics that cannot be done in the laboratory. That does not mean the theories are unsupported by empirical data. If you think my earlier posts in any way indicate that I believe that CO2 is the only factor affecting climate, once again I am peplexed by your level of comprehension.
The figure you refer to is not “hand made”. It uses the observed temperature data. There is no reason whatsover to expect that long term data trend is linear. The data has been computer matched to an equation giving a very good correlation coefficient r squared of 0.84

D Bƶehm
December 18, 2012 7:37 pm

Philip Shehan says:
“No you did not mention Solar activity and volcanic eruptions. But you can make exactly the same statement about them as you made about the CO2 contributions and it would be equally wrong.”
You set up that strawman and knocked him right down, you brave strawman killer, you. That is a perfect example of a strawman fallacy, BTW: quote something someone else never said, then argue with it. The alarmist crowd lives on such logical fallacies. That, and their endless psychological projection.
Regarding your totally phony SkS chart and the numerous links I have posted that flatly contradict it, note that the charts I posted are based upon testable data, while John Cook’s charts are the product of a mendacious cartoonist.
Finally you write: “That does not mean the theories are unsupported by empirical data.”
They are not “theories”, they are merely conjectures. Learn the difference, because words matter. You have never posted any testable, empirical measurements showing that āˆ†CO2 causes āˆ†T. The reason is clear: there are no such testable measurements. AGW is a conjecture ā€” which may be true ā€” but if so it is de minimus. If AGW exists it is only a third-order forcing, and thus it can be completely disregarded for all practical purposes. It is simply too insignificant to matter.

Reply to  D Bƶehm
December 18, 2012 9:08 pm

D Bƶehm
I second your claim that: “They are not ā€œtheoriesā€, they are merely conjectures.” The statistical population and sample from this population that might elevate these conjectures to theories are absent.

Werner Brozek
December 18, 2012 8:05 pm

Philip ShehanĀ says:
December 18, 2012 at 7:00 pm
In reply to above responses
Werner Brozek :
Since for most of 2012 people have been using the ā€œno warming for 16 yearsā€ argument, it is not unreasonable to ask whether they mean 1996. But you miss the real point in my posts. Cherry picking dates can give you any trend you like.

When David Rose wrote his article in October, it is my understanding that he meant Hadcrut4 and that he started from January 1, 1997 and assumed that the remaining months of 2012 would not change the fact that there would be no significant warming when the final numbers for 2012 are in. So the original 16 years were from January 1, 1997 to December 31, 2012. Then we can talk about significant warming at the 95% confidence level or a slope of 0 for 16 years. Hadcrut4 does NOT have a slope of 0, but it does show no warming at the 95% level for 16 years. As a matter of fact, it shows no significant warming for 18 years. The numbers from 1995 to 2013 are 0.097 +/- 0.113. (I realize there are two more months to go, but that will not change much with the ENSO Meter at 0.14.)
Strictly speaking, when one talks of no warming for 16 years, one should mean the most recent 192 months in my opinion.
As for ā€œCherry picking datesā€, it was NOAA that said what it did about the 15 years. We have no choice about the final date. We can only go back 15 years from today to see if NOAA’s statement applies. I was once challenged to prove there was no warming for 15 years. I showed there was no warming for 180 months and was promptly accused of cherry picking a date just before the El Nino! Another person showed a trend for a shorter time and was accused of not going 15 years!
ā€œThere is no reason whatsoever to expect that long term data trend is linear.ā€
Terry Oldberg also mentions the linearity or lack thereof. You both are correct, but take that up with NOAA. They set a ‘goal post’ based on linearity and 15 years or more. Earth ‘scored’ a goal. Do not blame me for just pointing that out.

mpainter
December 18, 2012 8:08 pm

Phillip Shehan; you say
“Climate models are not designed to project warming and nothing else.”
But previously you had said
“By definition, climate models do not specifically project any periods of no warming, low warming, or extreme warming due to unpredictable future occurences” I take this to mean that none of the models are capable of forecasting a trend of no warming or of actual cooling.
These two quotes reveal you as self-contradictory. I put previously “climate models are incapable of forecasting any period of cooling or lack of warming, such as the last sixteen years” I believe that this is correct. Furthermore, there is no expectation that warming will resume this decade, now that the climate models are shown to be unreliable.
The conclusion must be that AGW theory has been refuted by the last sixteen years temperature record and AGW theory cannot be reconciled to these observations.

Reply to  mpainter
December 18, 2012 8:39 pm

mpainter:
The climate models do not forecast. Their “projections” do not match the defintion of “forecasts.”

Reply to  mpainter
December 18, 2012 9:03 pm

mpainter:
Your conclusion that “AGW has been refuted by the last sixteen years temperature record” is incorrect. The statistical sample that would provide for this refutation does not exist.

Gail Combs
December 18, 2012 9:08 pm

occupyjane says:
December 18, 2012 at 6:22 pm
Mario Lento: Surely you agree the trend is up!? There is no ā€˜new red lineā€™ showing ht etrend over 15 years! And what about the Arctic summer sea ice http://www.skepticalscience.com/climate-of-doubt-escalator-updates.html ā€“ why is that melting faster and faster if we are in a cooling trend? The sea ice is even more important than the overall temperature rise as the melting of the permafrost and the release of the massive amounts of methane stored there is one of the tipping points climate scientists are concerned about. Once the ā€˜methane bombā€™ goes off itā€™s all over Red Rover.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>.
OK lets take that one idea at a time.
1.Despite the fact that the global temperature records are ‘adjusted’ they STILL show no upward trend in the last 16 years as D Bƶehm keeps showing.
2. Arctic Ice: “why is that melting faster and faster if we are in a cooling trend?” This could be something entirely different than what you think and be consistent with a cooling trend. Note the recent decrease in the Arctic Melt Season
The short answer is winds and storms:

NASA Examines Arctic Sea Ice Changes Leading to Record Low in 2007
Nghiem said the rapid decline in winter perennial ice the past two years was caused by unusual winds. “Unusual atmospheric conditions set up wind patterns that compressed the sea ice, loaded it into the Transpolar Drift Stream and then sped its flow out of the Arctic,” he said. When that sea ice reached lower latitudes, it rapidly melted in the warmer waters….

2012 NASA:Powerful summer storm in Arctic reduces sea ice
… in early August, a long-lasting and powerful storm pushed through the Arctic….

The long answer is the Bi-polar Seesaw

NASA: – Opposite Behaviors? Arctic Sea Ice Shrinks, Antarctic Grows
While the Arctic Ocean ice cap has diminished over the last three decades, the sea ice cover at the opposite pole of the planet has expanded.
The steady and dramatic decline in the sea ice cover of the Arctic Ocean over the last three decades has become a focus of media and public attention. At the opposite end of the Earth, however, something more complex is happening.
A new NASA study shows that from 1978 to 2010 the total extent of sea ice surrounding Antarctica in the Southern Ocean grew by roughly 6,600 square miles every year, an area larger than the state of Connecticut. And previous research by the same authors indicates that this rate of increase has recently accelerated, up from an average rate of almost 4,300 square miles per year from 1978 to 2006.

The name for this effect is the bipolar seesaw. A new paper suggest that this bipolar seesaw is a key to understanding the length and more important the termination of an interglacial.

Can we predict the duration of an interglacial?
P. C. Tzedakis, E.W. Wolff, L. C. Skinner, V. Brovkin, D. A. Hodell, J. F. McManus, and D. Raynaud
….We propose that the interval between the ā€œterminalā€ oscillation of the bipolar seesaw, preceding an interglacial, and its first major reactivation represents a period of minimum extension of ice sheets away from coastlines.
….thus, the first major reactivation of the bipolar seesaw would probably constitute an indication that the transition to a glacial state had already taken place.
…With respect to the end of interglacials, the MIS 5eā€“ 5d transition represents the only relevant period with direct sea-level determinations and precise chronologies that allow us to infer a sequence of events around the time of glacial inception
….Thus, glacial inception occurred ~3 kyr before the onset of significant bipolar-seesaw variability.
A corollary of all this is that we should also be able to predict the duration of the current interglacial in the absence of anthropogenic interference. The phasing of precession and obliquity (precession minimum/insolation maximum at 11 kyr BP; obliquity maximum at 10 kyr BP) would point to a short duration, although it has been unclear whether the subdued current summer insolation minimum (479Wmāˆ’2), the lowest of the last 800 kyr, would be sufficient to lead to glaciation (e.g. Crucifix, 2011). Comparison with MIS 19c, a close astronomical analogue characterized by an equally weak summer insolation minimum (474Wmāˆ’2) and a smaller overall decrease from maximum summer solstice insolation values, suggests that glacial inception is possible despite the subdued insolation forcing, if CO2 concentrations were 240Ā±5 ppmv (Tzedakis et al., 2012).

Another paper states:

Lesson from the past: present insolation minimum holds potential for glacial inception (2007)
Because the intensities of the 397 ka BP and present insolation minima are very similar, we conclude that under natural boundary conditions the present insolation minimum holds the potential to terminate the Holocene interglacial. Our findings support the Ruddiman hypothesis [Ruddiman, W., 2003. The Anthropogenic Greenhouse Era began thousands of years ago. Climate Change 61, 261ā€“293], which proposes that early anthropogenic greenhouse gas emission prevented the inception of a glacial that would otherwise already have started….

“…Once the ā€˜methane bombā€™ goes off itā€™s all over Red Rover….”
As other have explained that is not a real problem. The arctic has been much warmer than it is now without any ‘Tipping Point’ or really hot temperatures.
Another paper:

Temperature and precipitation history of the Arctic
…..Solar energy reached a summer maximum (9% higher than at present) ca 11 ka ago and has been decreasing since then, primarily in response to the precession of the equinoxes. The extra energy elevated early Holocene summer temperatures throughout the Arctic 1-3Ā° C above 20th century averages, enough to completely melt many small glaciers throughout the Arctic, although the Greenland Ice Sheet was only slightly smaller than at present… As summer solar energy decreased in the second half of the Holocene, glaciers reestablished or advanced, sea ice expanded, and the flow of warm Atlantic water into the Arctic Ocean diminished. Late Holocene cooling reached its nadir during the Little Ice Age (about 1250-1850 AD), when sun-blocking volcanic eruptions and perhaps other causes added to the orbital cooling, allowing most Arctic glaciers to reach their maximum Holocene extent…

This is a graph of the Northern Hemisphere Summer Solar energy vs Temperature for the Holocene.

mpainter
December 18, 2012 10:06 pm

Terry Oldberg says: December 18, 2012 at 8:39 pm
mpainter:
The climate models do not forecast. Their ā€œprojectionsā€ do not match the defintion of ā€œforecasts.ā€
==========================================================================
How Right You Are! Congratulations, you are starting to understand.
The climate models do not forecast because they cannot forecast. They are contrivances meant only to project warming into the indefinite future and are incapable of making forecasts, as Philip Shehan confessed before he saw the trap. He then tried to wriggle out but he was caught on record. And now you are on record, too, showing a fine aptitude for what is taught here.
Isn’t Anthony Watts a fine fellow, to provide this nice blog where you can learn about climate? Stick around, ’cause there’s lots more to learn. Tomorrow we are going to explain why “regulating the climate” is not such a good idea. Don’t miss out!
mpainter

Reply to  mpainter
December 19, 2012 7:40 am

mpainter:
To state that I am “starting to understand” is inaccurate. I published a peer reviewed article on the topic of logic and climatology two years ago in which I pointed out that the climate models did not make forecasts but seemed to do so as a consequence of conflation of predictions with projections on the part of climatologists..

mpainter
December 18, 2012 10:16 pm

Terry Oldberg says:December 18, 2012 at 9:03 pm
mpainter:
Your conclusion that ā€œAGW has been refuted by the last sixteen years temperature recordā€ is incorrect. The statistical sample that would provide for this refutation does not exist.
==============================================================
Gosh, Terry, you are going to have to explain that one for me because I know so little about statistics.

Reply to  mpainter
December 19, 2012 7:35 am

mpainter:
If you were to hold the sarcasm and attempt the proof of a conclusion, perhaps this conversation would lead in a useful direction.

Mario Lento
December 18, 2012 10:39 pm

@occupyjane says:
December 18, 2012 at 6:22 pm
Mario Lento: Surely you agree the trend is up!? There is no ā€˜new red lineā€™ showing ht etrend over 15 years! And what about the Arctic summer sea ice http://www.skepticalscience.com/climate-of-doubt-escalator-updates.html ā€“ why is that melting faster and faster if we are in a cooling trend? The sea ice is even more important than the overall temperature rise as the melting of the permafrost and the release of the massive amounts of methane stored there is one of the tipping points climate scientists are concerned about. Once the ā€˜methane bombā€™ goes off itā€™s all over Red Rover.
++++++
occupyjane: This is what I wrote “Jane that new red line which starts below average at the start and stripes right to the max of todayā€¦ and still the new red line shows cooling of 0.5C over the past 15 years!”
Now let me explain it so even you can understand it. The line that appears when the graph changes, is misleading. The red trend line does not follow convention. It starts below the average at the start in 1970 (to artificially cool the past) and then ends up at the top of the current range (to artificially warm the present). However, if done correctly, it would start and end in the middle of the range from start to finish. If that trend line started at 1970 (in the middle of the range) and then when to the middle of the range in 2000) that would show show a steeper slope from 1970 through 2000 than a proper trendline from 1970 through present. Can you understand this or is it too complicated for you?
We have patience here for people if we believe they are interested in honest debate and seek truth. If this is not your goal, then it’s your loss and you can play with Red Rover or something.

Philip Shehan
December 18, 2012 10:47 pm

mpainter says:
December 18, 2012 at 8:08 pm
I disagreed with your assertion that climate models are designed only to produce warming. That is in no way contradictory to my statment that models are not designed to take into account unpredictable events such as volcanic eruptions and el nino/la nina events.
D Bƶehm says:
December 18, 2012 at 7:37 pm
I set up no straw man. I simply pointed out that your objection to the role of CO2 in climate models applied equally to the role of natural forcings and was equally incorrect. All I can say is go back and read my posts carefully. Your failure of comprehension and capacity to miss the point is beyond my patience to go over again in more detail.

Mario Lento
December 18, 2012 10:51 pm

@Tzo:
Your post at December 18, 2012 at 11:08 am says in entirety
ā€œIgnore the grey bandsā€
LOL.
Yes, ignore everything that doesnā€™t fit your argument. Thatā€™s a solid method for a rational argument.
+++++++
Tzo: You just showed everyone here exactly on a public forum where you level of intelligence is. You make a wisecrack arrogant comment without having the slightest idea of what your words even mean or refer to.
Read some of the post or ask the question before you make such a fool of yourself again. That is my free advice to you, that if taken can only help you in the remainder of your sad life of being so impotent.

RACookPE1978
Editor
December 18, 2012 10:55 pm

occupyjane says:
December 18, 2012 at 6:22 pm
Mario Lento: Surely you agree the trend is up!? There is no ā€˜new red lineā€™ showing ht etrend over 15 years! And what about the Arctic summer sea ice http://www.skepticalscience.com/climate-of-doubt-escalator-updates.html ā€“ why is that melting faster and faster if we are in a cooling trend? The sea ice is even more important than the overall temperature rise as the melting of the permafrost and the release of the massive amounts of methane stored there is one of the tipping points climate scientists are concerned about.

yet when we calculate actual irradiation levels on the water at the time of minimum arctic sea ice (at the equinox during the month of September each year) we find that exposed sea water loses more heat to evaporation than ice-covered sea water. And we find further that – at the very low sun angles all day during the time of minimum sea ice, the exposed water does NOT heat up due to solar energy.
the much-feared “arctic amplification” due to ice loss is a bust: the more ice is lost, the cooler the air above the water becomes. Which, in fact, when you look at the DMI summer arctic temperatures from 1958 through 2012, is exactly what you see.
no increase in arctic temperatures at 80 north despite the increase in CO2 that is feeding plants and increasing growth further south. (A slight cooling trend, increasing actually the last few year as sea ice decreases.)

December 18, 2012 10:55 pm

Werner Brozek says
At least three data sets show no warming for the last 16 years when rounded to the nearest year.
Henry says
Actually 16 years is not that a good yardstick as one solar cycle is 11 years. So by taking it to 16 years you are looking almost at 1.5 solar cycle which is a bit dumb.
better take a look at the past 11 which shows we are cooling:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:2002/to:2013/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:2002/to:2013/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:2002/to:2013/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:2002/to:2013/trend/plot/rss/from:2002/to:2013/plot/rss/from:2002/to:2013/trend/plot/gistemp/from:2002/to:2013/plot/gistemp/from:2002/to:2013/trend/plot/hadsst2gl/from:2002/to:2013/plot/hadsst2gl/from:2002/to:2013/trend
As you know, 1998 was the top of the of the end of the warming period, looking at energy-out.
Looking at energy-in we will continue to cool until at least 2038, but there could be some 3 year lag as well. So we are looking at cooling until ca. 2041. It seems most of the guests on this blog here have no idea what is all still going to come.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/11/19/cooling-in-the-near-future/
But if you count back 88 years you will realize that we have been there before.
http://blogs.24.com/henryp/2012/10/02/best-sine-wave-fit-for-the-drop-in-global-maximum-temperatures/

Mario Lento
December 18, 2012 11:02 pm

W says:
December 18, 2012 at 2:25 pm
Well thatā€™s ridiculous Gail. Not saying that I donā€™t believe you, saying I think thatā€™s ridiculousā€¦you can make as many model predictions as you like, itā€™s not like we donā€™t have the computer power.
++++
Graham what you fail to comprehend is that just guessing and putting in every conceivable combination of forcings into a MODELS THAT WERE DESIGNED TO MEET AN AGENDA will lead to a larger bunch of garbage. If one or more of those matches observations, what conclusions would you come up with? When you get the several results with different forcings to match some observations, what would the results even mean? They would mean that guessing sometimes can correlate with observations. But they would not tell you anything that matters. Even some of the models of the IPCC come close to observations, but those didn’t show what they wanted!

mpainter
December 18, 2012 11:10 pm

Too late Shehan, I have you on record as saying that climate models cannot project anything but a warming trend. You can’t wriggle out now. Besides, the policy makers need to know these things.

Graham W
December 19, 2012 12:40 am

Yes, Mario, you’re right and I agree with you. As I said in an earlier comment, the frustrating thing is that now would now have to redo everything from the start as far as the modelling is concerned. This is because, as you say, the models seem to have the agenda of CO2 is the most important driver, and warming will be the result. All I was saying is that I still believe modelling could be used objectively in some way going forward. Since you obviously can’t do the “dual Earth” experiment but you can attempt to simulate the climate of “an Earth” using modelling (or should I say you might be able too one day?)

Philip Shehan
December 19, 2012 3:44 am

“mpainter says:
December 18, 2012 at 11:10 pm
Too late Shehan, I have you on record as saying that climate models cannot project anything but a warming trend. You canā€™t wriggle out now. Besides, the policy makers need to know these things.”
I wrote no such thing. Please direct me too the alleged comments with time and date.

Gail Combs
December 19, 2012 4:45 am

HenryP says:
December 18, 2012 at 10:55 pm
Werner Brozek says
At least three data sets show no warming for the last 16 years when rounded to the nearest year.
Henry says
Actually 16 years is not that a good yardstick as one solar cycle is 11 years…..
_________________________________________
The 16 years were not our choice it was the choice of the climate scientists as to what they would consider a statistically significant absence of warming.
NOAA

The simulations rule out (at the 95% level) zero trends for intervals of 15 yr or more,suggesting that an observed absence of warming of this duration is needed to create a discrepancy with the expected present-day warming rate.ā€
http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/cmb/bams-sotc/climate-assessment-2008-lo-rez.pdf

Santer, Mears, Doutriaux, Caldwell, Gleckler, Wigley, S. Solomon, Gillett, Ivanova, Karl, Lanzante, Meehl, Stott, Taylor, Thorne, Wehner,. Wentz

ā€œA single decade of observational TLT data is therefore inadequate for identifying a slowly evolving anthropogenic warming signal. Our results show that temperature records of at least 17 years in length are required for identifying human effects on global-mean tropospheric temperature. ā€
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2011/2011JD016263.shtml

December 19, 2012 5:59 am

GrahamW says
would now have to redo everything from the start as far as the modelling is concerned. This is because, as you say, the models seem to have the agenda of CO2 is the most important driver, and warming will be the result
Henry says
if you want to do some fitting or modelling you have to have some sort of known relationship within certain boundaries which you can then extrapolate to the unknown future.
But you cannot do anything if you have no measuring points at all. You cannot calculate that which has never even been measured. This is was the initial AR report (2004) did. They looked at the observed warming versus the increase in the various GHG’s and made an allocation (forcing) based on the noted increase of the GHG. But they never had any actual measurements that would prove a relationship….
It is the worst mistake scientists can make: assume you know the cause of a problem and then trying to work your way back to try and solve it…..
An example is this blue line in this graph
http://blogs.24.com/henryp/2012/10/02/best-sine-wave-fit-for-the-drop-in-global-maximum-temperatures/
which has 4 measuring points that was each an average from 47 samples that make up the blue stretch. From there, you can try to model what the future will look like.
We are cooling and we will continue to cool. Buy some extra cloths. We will drop 0.3 K in the next 8 years. And the curve proves that this is a natural relationship. It was in His design.

mpainter
December 19, 2012 6:41 am

Philip Shehan
Let me see if I understand you correctly, now. You hold that the climate models are not restricted to projections of warming, but also project periods such as the last sixteen years, when there was no warming. Is that your position?

mpainter
December 19, 2012 6:58 am

Graham W says: December 19, 2012 at 12:40 am
This is because, as you say, the models seem to have the agenda of CO2 is the most important driver, and warming will be the result.
===============================================================
This is also my understanding of climate models. They incorporate the AGW theory into a clutch of algorithms which simply makes them contrivances that project an uninterrupted trend of warming as future climate. Obviously this is bunkum, so to cover this scam, the modelers use a special type of modeler-speak, as illustrated by Philip Shehan on this thread. Not everyone is profficient in this tricky dialect, and Shehan is having his problems.

mpainter
December 19, 2012 7:19 am

Graham W says:
December 19, 2012 at 12:40 am
This is because, as you say, the models seem to have the agenda of CO2 is the most important driver, and warming will be the result.
=======================================================================
This is also my understanding. The climate modelers simply incorporate AGW theory into a set of algorithms and thus produce a contrivance that projects an uninterrupted warming trend indefinitely. This result is then presented as climate of the future. Obviously this is bunkum, so to cover up, modelers have devised a special type of speech: model-speak, as exhibited by Philip Shehan on this very thread. This type of speech is somewhat tricky, and Shehan is having his problems with it.
The modelers present the projected warming as the basis for policy decisions, but when confronted with the modelsā€™ failures when tested against observations, they say that the models do not forecast but make projections and that such failures are irrelevant for evaluating projections. Thus model-speak.

mpainter
December 19, 2012 10:57 am

Terry Oldberg says: December 19, 2012 at 7:35 am
mpainter:
If you were to hold the sarcasm and attempt the proof of a conclusion, perhaps this conversation would lead in a useful direction.
==========================================================================
Actually, the burden of proof concerning AGW lies on you. But we both know that you have no proof to offer, nor any evidence in support of AGW theory. Your theory is refuted by observations, in the view of skeptics. Simply put, CO2 goes up but temperatures do not, water vapor does not.
So proceed with your rebuttal, because proof you have not.

Reply to  mpainter
December 19, 2012 11:42 am

mpainter:
In lieu of the underlying statistical population, AGW theory can neither be refuted nor validated.

Graham W
December 19, 2012 11:22 am

@Henry P
I had a look over the links in your last two posts to me and now I understand what you mean. So CO2 also cools the atmosphere by re-radiating incoming sunlight as well as warming it by re-radiating the infra-red reflected from earth. So the overall warming (or cooling) effect will be the net effect of those two interactions. And this balance has not yet been fully determined…so any models incorporating this as yet unquantified effect into their projections cannot produce reliable results…as can be seen in the graph from the AR5. So if more investigation into the balance was to take place, more reliable projections could perhaps be made?
Thanks for the information.

Philip Shehan
December 19, 2012 2:04 pm

mpainter says:
December 19, 2012 at 6:41 am
I take it that, unable to reproduce the alleged statements I requested in response to your assertion “Too late Shehan, I have you on record as saying that climate models cannot project anything but a warming trend. You canā€™t wriggle out now”, you have retracted that accusation.
You now write “You hold that the climate models are not restricted to projections of warming, but also project periods such as the last sixteen years, when there was no warming. Is that your position?”
No. And in view of your rudeness and sneering remarks (mpainter says:
December 19, 2012 at 6:58 am “Shehan is having his problems”) I will not once again restate my position but direct you reread my earlier comments with the assistance of a responsible adult who can help you with your reading comprehension difficulties.

mpainter
December 19, 2012 2:58 pm

Terry Oldberg:
Sixteen years is long enough for anyone to draw conclusions, unless they hate the conclusion. if you dispute this, you dispute the NOAA, which see. Warming will not resume any time soon and cooling seems more likely than warming. The AGW position is untenable.
Philip Shehan
If you understand how the climate models are devised, (and I feel certain that you do) then you know that climate models are contrivances that project warming, and warming only.
Those who advocate that policy be formulated on the product of such a contrivance do the world a disservice, and unconscionably.

Reply to  mpainter
December 19, 2012 4:51 pm

mpainter:
The number 16 is irrelevant to the prospect for validating or falsifiying the model. It is the number of observed events in the sample that is drawn from the underlying population for the purpose of validating or falsifying the model which is relevant. The number of these events is zero. As it is zero, there is not the possibility of either validating or falsifying the model. The 16 years without statistically significant warming is a myth that has been perpetrated through burial of empirically unsupportable assumptions of linearity, normality and statistical independence among the elements of the non-existent statistical population that contains the global temperatures of the past 16 years..

Gail Combs
December 19, 2012 3:53 pm

Terry Oldberg says:
December 19, 2012 at 11:42 am
In lieu of the underlying statistical population, AGW theory can neither be refuted nor validated.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
That is not what the ‘experts’ seem to think.
NOAA

The simulations rule out (at the 95% level) zero trends for intervals of 15 yr or more, suggesting that an observed absence of warming of this duration is needed to create a discrepancy with the expected present-day warming rate.ā€
http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/cmb/bams-sotc/climate-assessment-2008-lo-rez.pdf

ā€”ā€”ā€”ā€”ā€”ā€”ā€”ā€”ā€”ā€”ā€“
Santer, Mears, Doutriaux, Caldwell, Gleckler, Wigley, S. Solomon, Gillett, Ivanova, Karl, Lanzante, Meehl, Stott, Taylor, Thorne, Wehner,. Wentz

ā€œA single decade of observational TLT data is therefore inadequate for identifying a slowly evolving anthropogenic warming signal. Our results show that temperature records of at least 17 years in length are required for identifying human effects on global-mean tropospheric temperature. ā€
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2011/2011JD016263.shtml

Reply to  Gail Combs
December 19, 2012 5:12 pm

Gail Combs:
Apparently these “experts” plugged numbers into a formula and turned the crank without having the wit to question whether the underlying assumptions were supportable by evidence. Based upon this performance I’m inclined to doubt their expertise in the area of mathematical statistics

Mario Lento
December 19, 2012 4:26 pm

@Henry says
if you want to do some fitting or modelling you have to have some sort of known relationship within certain boundaries which you can then extrapolate to the unknown future.
But you cannot do anything if you have no measuring points at all. You cannot calculate that which has never even been measured. This is was the initial AR report (2004) did. They looked at the observed warming versus the increase in the various GHGā€™s and made an allocation (forcing) based on the noted increase of the GHG. But they never had any actual measurements that would prove a relationshipā€¦.
++++++
Well said!! All the technical detailed talk, where these AGW scientists try to confuse everyone with the details, they fail to provide any big picture view and substantiate it.

richardscourtney
December 19, 2012 5:59 pm

Terry Oldberg:
re your post at December 19, 2012 at 5:12 pm.
You are missing the point.
It does not matter what you think. It does not matter what I think.
And it does not matter who is right.
As Gail Combs says, all that matters is what the modelers themselves have said about their models.
In 2008 NOAA defined that 15 years of no discernible warming at 95% confidence could not happen according to the models. As 15 years of such a period neared then Santer et al. stretched it to 17 years.
The recent period of16 years of no discernible warming (at 95% confidence) invalidates the models according to the NOAA criterion.
And if the period extends to 17 years then that that would invalidate the models according to the modelers; i.e. Santer et al..
The modelers built the models and they operate the models.
Either they know what the models do, or they don’t know what the models do
If they know their models and they have defined the criterion to reject the models then the next year is important because they have defined that an additional year of the imperceptible warming (at 95% confidence) would invalidate their models.
And
If they don’t know their models then that invalidates their models, too.
The modelers have dug the hole they are in, and I fail to understand why you are trying to give them a ladder for them to climb out of it.
Richard

Reply to  richardscourtney
December 19, 2012 6:41 pm

richardscourtney:
Would it be sound public policy for us to place the inmates in charge of the asylum?

mpainter
December 19, 2012 7:43 pm

Terry Oldberg @ 4:51 PM:
“The 16 years without statistically significant warming is a myth that has been perpetrated through burial of empirically unsupportable assumptions of linearity, normality and statistical independence among the elements of the non-existent statistical population that contains the global temperatures of the past 16 years”
==================================================================
I think, Terry, that 4 years hence, we need only to insert the figure 20 where 16 is now, if we wish to have your views on the matter. Thank you for your contribution at WUWT.

Reply to  mpainter
December 19, 2012 8:18 pm

mpainter:
If an additional 4 years were to elapse without “statistically significant global warming” this would be as irrelevant as the passage of the previous 16 years.

mpainter
December 19, 2012 9:33 pm

Michael Faraday:
“When I make observations that contradict my theory, I adjust my theory to accomodate those observations. What do you do ,sir?”
We have not been given the reply of Faraday’s interlocutor. Perhaps this fellow was like so many climate scientists: a rigid, doctrinaire theoretician incapable of assimilating observations and accomodating them into his theories. Such scientists never contribute much to the progress of understanding.

December 20, 2012 1:17 am

GrahamW says
So CO2 also cools the atmosphere by re-radiating incoming sunlight as well as warming it by re-radiating the infra-red reflected from earth.
Henry says:
Exactly. You got it. You figured it out. It cools by back radiating some of the sunshine. It warms by back radiating some of the earth shine.
Also, remember: plants and trees need both CO2 and warmth to grow.
So more vegetation (as observed on earth in the past 4 decades, both on land and in the oceans) also extracts energy. So there is also some more biological cooling caused by the CO2…….

December 20, 2012 2:43 am

Mario Lento says
Well said!!
henry says
Thanks.
Actually, there was a spelling error
should be:
This is what the initial AR report (2004) did.
/////////
They applied the relationship deltaT that causes deltaCO2 backwards.
i.e.
More heat + HCO3- (gigatons of bicarbonates in the oceans) => CO2 (g) + OH-
(like the first smoke from a kettle starting to warm up)
was simply put the other way around:
more CO2 causes more heat
.////////
how stupid can you be….
smoking causes cancer, but does cancer also cause smoking?…….

Kelvin Vaughan
December 20, 2012 2:56 am

HenryP says:
December 20, 2012 at 2:43 am
how stupid can you beā€¦.
smoking causes cancer, but does cancer also cause smoking?ā€¦ā€¦.
Eventually at the Crematorium!

December 20, 2012 3:34 am

Yes, 6 annual observations are below the projections, and 5 are above.
The projections tend to be linear, whereas the observations have a definite fluctuation to them.
These fluctuations correspond pretty well with the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, but not so well with the solar cycle: http://greenerblog.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/climate-models-are-they-any-good.html
There is a fair match between the outliers in the graph above and the behaviour of the PDO .
Therefore it looks as if the modellers need to turn up the gain on the PDO, in order to get a better match with observations.
However, since the PDO is an oscillation, it impacts only upon the short term correspondence between models and observations, not on the long term trends, and it is these long term trends which are important to policy makers.

richardscourtney
December 20, 2012 3:51 am

Terry Oldberg:
re your post December 19, 2012 at 6:41 pm
We need to return climate science to being real science before it damages the reputation of ALL science.
The “inmates” ARE “in charge of the asylum”. That is the problem.
Your non sequitur merely demonstrates you don’t understand the problem. Please read my post at December 19, 2012 at 5:59 pm (which you claim to be answering) again because you have failed to understand it.
Since 1999 I have been reporting that the models are bunkum and for much more fundamental reasons than those which you claim. But being right is not the issue here. Getting climate science right is the issue. And your ideas cannot be – and will not be – given any proper consideration until climate science is returned to being real science and not pseudoscience.
You are trying to ensure the “inmates” remain “in charge of the asylum”.
The climate modelers set their criterion for assessing their work. That provides an opportunity to hold them to account. You are helping them to again ‘move the goalposts’ of their accountability. And your work will be ignored until they are held to account.
Richard

Reply to  richardscourtney
December 20, 2012 8:55 am

richardscourtney:
We are in agreement that: a) the inmates (IPCC climatologists) are in charge of the asylum, b) presently, global warming climatology is a pseudoscience and, c) getting climate science right is the prime issue. Thus, it seems to me that it would be well for us explore only areas where our views are apparently not congruent.
Over a period of 13 years, my job was to design and manage a long succession of scientific studies. While in this job, I learned how to design a study whose methodology was without logical error. In the large research institute for which I worked, this ability was unique. It resulted from a command of advanced information theory that I acquired by hiring the person who had made these advances. Among researchers and academics, advanced information theory did not catch on. For this reason, my background in it remains highly unusual.
In viewing IPCC climatology, one facet of it that stands out for derision is that it lacks a statistical population. Without a population, it is impossible for the IPCC climate models to convey information to policy makers about the outcomes from their policy decisions; thus, though policy makers are currently going through the motions of regulating the climate they do so while uninformed of the consequences from their actions. Also impossible is for the models to be statistically validated; the claims that are made by the models are non-falsifiable.
Though these truths are evident to me, they are apparently not evident to IPCC climatologists for they continue to go along the path they have trod for decades. In their failure to reform, a contributing factor seems to be the widespread notion that existing climate models can be tested by comparison of the time rate of change of the global temperature in a selected projection with the time rate of change of the global temperature in a selected global temperature time series.
To make this comparison is to perform an IPCC-style “evaluation.” In IPCC climatology, the idea of “projection” replaces the idea in legitimate science of “prediction” while the idea of “evaluation” replaces the idea in legitimate science of “validation.” In lieu of the existence of a statistical population, it is impossible to perform a validation. It is nonetheless possible to perform an evaluation. In doing so, one must swallow unsupported and unsupporable assumptions of linearity, normality and statistical independence in the elements of a non-existent statistical population. Swallowing these assumptions is something which thus far you have been willing and even eager to do. To do so, however, is to contribute to keeping the inmates in charge of the asylum.

December 20, 2012 6:30 am

grahamw says
So if more investigation into the balance was to take place, more reliable projections could perhaps be made?
henry says
true. but I already did the whole job myself, to satisfy my own curiosity. Key for me was to figure out the amount of heat coming through the atmosphere. If current warming (or part thereof) were due to human release of CO2 or more GHG, one way or another, one would have to see minima rising, pushing up means.
I found the opposite
http://blogs.24.com/henryp/2011/05/06/henrys-pool-table-on-global-warming/
I found it was maxima pushing up means, and minima, not the other way around.
There were a few stations where minima were found moving up faster, like in Las Vegas, but here I found that a desert was changed into a luscious green city within a few decades. Obviously, you will find more heat trapped here by the increase in greenery (due to water being pumped in from afar?).
next, after finding out that it is natural warming pushing up the temps.
I determined the rates of warming/cooling over time
http://blogs.24.com/henryp/2012/04/23/global-cooling-is-here/#comment-211
which ultimately let me to this graph:
http://blogs.24.com/henryp/2012/10/02/best-sine-wave-fit-for-the-drop-in-global-maximum-temperatures/
Therefore, I figure that my own projection is probably the most reliable:
There is no global warming anymore. No matter how much CO2 we will pump up:
We will cool,
by about 0.3 degrees K on the maxima and the means (because earth’s energy store is depleted)
in the next 8 years.
Be aware of it.
Prepare for it. (buy some extra warm cloths)

mpainter
December 20, 2012 9:53 am

Glad to have your thoughts. Actually, these last sixteen years do suffice to refute AGW theory. It is true that the models were invalid to begin with, having made false assumptions and misapplication of principles of physics. But theoretical disputes are inconclusive, and theory stands or falls according to observations. This fundamental aspect of science i.e., testing theory by observations, has been ignored by the AGW crowd. It is high time to put an end to this perversion of the principles of science. Do you not agree?

Reply to  mpainter
December 20, 2012 6:15 pm

mpainter:
Sometimes its possible to resolve a theoretical dispute through citation of the pertinent logical rule or rules. One of the disputes that can be resolved in this way is over the claim that in a recent period global warming was statistically insignificant. This claim violates logical rules. I’d be pleased to take this matter up with you in detail if you would like to do so.

Graham W
December 20, 2012 10:26 am

Terry, could you explain what you mean by IPCC science lacking a statistical population. Excuse my ignorance! Thanks.

Reply to  Graham W
December 20, 2012 7:24 pm

Graham W:
Thanks for taking the time to reply. I’ll intiate my response with a caution. In making an argument, one should avoid use of polysemic terms (terms with multiple meanings) for to use one or more of them is to foster improper inferences. “Science” is a polysemic term, hence should be avoided.
As I use the term “statistical population,” it references a set of statistically independent events. For example, it references a sequence of flips of a coin.
Events are of two types. One of these types is describable by its outcome. The other is describable by its condition and its outcome. The outcome is observable. The condition, if any, is also observable. Conditions and outcomes are both examples of states of nature.
A “prediction” is an extrapolation from an observed condition of an event to an unobserved outcome of the same event in which the outcome is inferred. In this way, the notion of “predictions” references the notion of events in a statistical population.
A “sample” is a subset of the events in a statistical population in which the outcome and the condition (if any) of each event have been observed. In this way, the notion of a “sample” references the notion of events in a statistical population.
That a model has been “validated” signifies that a match has been observed between the predicted and the observed relative frequencies of the various possible outcomes in a sample. In this way, the notion of “validation” references the notion of events in a statistical population.
That a model conveys “information” to makers of policy on CO2 emissions on the outcomes from their policy decisions implies the existence of the events in a statistical population that have these outcomes as properties. In this way, the notion of “information” references the notion of events in a statistical population.
As I’ve demonstrated, under the scientific method of inquiry the underlying statistical population plays a central role. Absent the underlying statistical population, the methodology of a study is not “scientific” under the disambiguation of this term by the courts of the United States. After a diligent four year search, I have discovered no evidence of a statistical population underlying the inquiry by the climatological community into global warming. In the same search, I have uncovered strong evidence of the non-existence of this population.
If, as seems to be the case, the inquiry into global warming has not had a statistical population, this inquiry was not “scientific” under the above referenced disambiguation of “scientific.” If this conclusion surprises you, I suspect this surprise is a consequence from incorporation by climatologists of the equivocation fallacy into their arguments. Under the equivocation fallacy, polysemic terms change their meanings in the midst of an argument with the consequence that improper inferences are drawn.

December 20, 2012 4:59 pm

When you (Terry) write ā€œIn lieu of the existence of a statistical population, it is impossible to perform a validationā€ as you have done more than once, are you using ā€œin lieu ofā€ to mean ā€œin the absence ofā€ or does it have some other technical meaning? I have more to say but need this cleared up in case Iā€™m barking up the wrong tree.

Reply to  maxberan
December 20, 2012 8:20 pm

maxberan:
Thanks for giving me the opportunity to clarify. By “in lieu of” I mean “in the absence of.”

Gail Combs
December 20, 2012 7:16 pm

Terry Oldberg says:
December 20, 2012 at 6:15 pm
mpainter:
Sometimes its possible to resolve a theoretical dispute through citation of the pertinent logical rule or rules. One of the disputes that can be resolved in this way is over the claim that in a recent period global warming was statistically insignificant. This claim violates logical rules. Iā€™d be pleased to take this matter up with you in detail if you would like to do so.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Why do you say that?
Assuming the temperature data is valid and that it has error bars, if the temperature only varies within those error bars and does not go outside those error bars then there is no statistically significant warming (or cooling).
The estimate of error:

…The title of this graph indicates this is the CRU computed sampling (measurement) error in C for 1969. Note how large these sampling errors are. They start at 0.5ƂĀ°C, which is the mark where any indication of global warming is just statistical noise and not reality. Most of the data is in the +/- 1ƂĀ°C range, which means any attempt to claim a global increase below this threshold is mathematically false. Imagine the noise in the 1880 data! You cannot create detail (resolution) below what your sensor system can measure. CRU has proven my point already ā€“ they do not have the temperature data to detect a 0.8ƂĀ°C global warming trend since 1960, let alone 1880….
http://strata-sphere.com/blog/index.php/archives/11420

mpainter
December 20, 2012 7:33 pm

I am glad for your kind offer to explain everything to me but first, I would like for you to respond to Graham W and maxberan, because they raised some important points which I would also like to see addressed.
After that, there are a few comments you made upthread I would like for you to address, if you would, just as a matter of curtesy.
And then, I would be delighted to hear about logical rules.

December 20, 2012 8:22 pm

mpainter:
I’d be grateful if you would restate the upthread points you’d like me to address.

john robertson
December 20, 2012 9:19 pm

Oldberg 7:24 So the science of the IPCC team can not be tested, because they have none?
And snickering about their failures (by their own claims) is irrelevant?
I noticed the disagreement , feel most involved are saying same thing different words.
Boils down to the IPCC is a deliberate scam to regulate people, under the cloak of pretending to gather science about co2 effecting weather.
All statistical claims are moot, cause there is no data as such. Nothing to work with.
I do agree many arguments can be resolved by stopping to define the terms. And that climatology is notable for shifting the meaning of terms. Arguing with the mist in effect.
Or do I miss the thrust of your posting?

Reply to  john robertson
December 21, 2012 8:59 am

john robertson:
It sounds as though we see the situation similarly.

December 21, 2012 2:53 am

Much of my professional life was spent at the boundary of hydrology and statistics and I am not unaccustomed to the pleas from academically trained statisticians telling me that my treatment of the data didnā€™t fulfil the strict requirements of the chosen statistical technique. It was often a case of the best being made an enemy of the good and an insufficient appreciation of the compromises required given the nature of the subject, the availability of the data, and the demands of the client.
The way I look at this population issue is like this. We envisage an all-knowing entity ā€“ the great climatologist in the sky ā€“ with a large sack containing all the annual global mean temperatures that ever were and will be. Every year she reaches into the sack and throws us the number for the year. Bad eyesight or fat finger intervene so different climatologists get the number a bit wrong but not so wrong that the average among them doesnā€™t reveal a pattern when plotted against the year number.
The contents of the sack is the population, the climatologists data constitutes a sample from the population. It may not be a sample in the ā€œsubset of the populationā€ sense but itā€™s a workable stab at it especially given the questionable reality of the numbers in the sack.
The attention of the policymaker is drawn to some worrying features of the pattern so she asks the climatologists what they think the numbers coming out of the sack will look like in 100 years time. Different climatologists come up with different ways of second guessing this but the group with the brightest mathematic and physics credentials (some claiming a personal hotline to she of the sack) reckon they know something about the mechanism underlying the numbers in the sack, not everything, but enough to be getting along with. Armed with this fuzzy knowledge they generate different versions of the future under different assumptions about the modelled process and its inputs. This is summarised as an ever-broadening fan of trajectories somewhere within which the poor policymaker has to decide what her working supposition will be for deciding what to do.
To help further, the intellectual leap is then made that this fan comprises alternative ā€œsamplesā€ B1, B2, B3 etc from the population in the sack and a cottage industry then is created comparing A with the various Bā€™s within their common period as a basis for projection out into the future using the ā€œbestā€ bits of sample B as judged from the comparison.
Obviously there is a mass of missing detail in this ā€œtoy storyā€ ā€“ more variables in the sack, other methods yielding samples C, D etc and their role if any, conditionalities on policy decisions – but I address here the broad methodological principle so I hope we donā€™t get sidetracked into enumerating lacunae as I know them well enough.
Anyway, back to the broad methodological principle: for the life of me I canā€™t see what is so wrong with it as a pragmatic approach to the policymakerā€™s question as to render it meaningless. Indeed how else would one proceed? Something along these lines must be repeated right across applied science and technology where we donā€™t have the luxury of repeated experiments or manipulation. Okay, weā€™re not privy to the contents of the sack (i.e. we donā€™t know the population which seems to preoccupy you so much) and the sampling might fail many of your definition tests, but hypothesis testing can cope with comparing samples through appropriate randomisation. In the context of the compromises and fuzzinesses inherent in environmental sciences and policymaking I cannot conceive that substituting an information theory based approach to the choice between alternative projected futures will make an important difference to using sampling distribution based tests.

Reply to  maxberan
December 21, 2012 9:31 am

maxberan:
Thank you for providing us with an excellent overview of a way of thinking that may be the way of thinking of those climatologists who created the methodology of the inquiry into global warming that is reviewed in the IPCC’s periodic assessment reports. There is something wrong with this way of thinking. This is that a consequence from it is for information to be fabricated. The fabricated information provides researchers with information about the distribution of the elements of the non-existent statistical population. It tells them, for example, that the sample mean of the global temperature varies linearly with the time.
In the worst case, these researchers’ propensity for fabricating information leads them to dispense entirely with identification of the statistical population that underlies those models which are a product of their research. Under this circumstance, it is not possible for the models to convey information to policy makers about the outcomes from from their policy decisions with the result that the research is a total flop. However, through clever use of the equivocation fallacy researchers make it seem to the naive that policy makers are provided with information. This worst case scenario is what we’ve gotten from the climatological community.
By the way, the models that have come to us from the several hundred billion US$ in climatological research are not predictive models. If they were, the elements of the underlying population would be observable and would not be global temperatures.

Graham W
December 21, 2012 6:49 am

Thanks for the clarification. I think I’m starting to understand…though there is a statistical population for each measurable variable of climate eg temperature, humidity etc…there is no statistical population for, say the Greenhouse Effect. So if the models were only basing projections of future climate change based on previous climate change, the results of the projections could be statistically validated or otherwise. But since the models incorporate an unknown, as yet unmeasurable effect (which has no statistical population) into their projections, there can be no statistical validation. In fact it is not a statistical process at all.
So by debating whether there has/hasnt been a 16 year period of no-warming, and whether this falsifies the models or not, in essence we are playing into the hands of the IPCC, by making the false assumption that the models CAN be statistically validated or falsified. When what really needs to happen is for the entire process to be exposed as unscientific for the reasons you have stated, then all arguments of 16 years warming/no warming will be moot. Is this what you’re saying?

Reply to  Graham W
December 21, 2012 9:57 am

Graham W:
That’s not exactly what I’m trying to say. The statistical population that I have in mind would underlie the IPCC climate models if they were predictive models but they are not predictive models and there is no underlying population. Models that are not predictive models are useless for the purpose of making policy on CO2 emissions because they convey no information to policy makers about the outcomes from their policy decisions. The authors of the periodic IPCC assessment reports have covered up this state of affairs through a deceptive use of language that exploits the equivocation fallacy. A principle of logic states that a proper inference may not be drawn from an equivocation but that is exactly what these authors do. An equivocation is a misleading use of a term wherein the meaning of this term changes in the middle of an argument. “Sixteen years with no statistically significant warming” is an improper inference that is drawn from an equivocation.

December 21, 2012 7:37 am

I only needed a sample of 47 weather stations to establish that we are cooling,
http://blogs.24.com/henryp/2012/04/23/global-cooling-is-here/
which ultimately led me here
http://blogs.24.com/henryp/2012/10/02/best-sine-wave-fit-for-the-drop-in-global-maximum-temperatures/
we will continue to cool
until 2040
live with it.prepare for it.
Anyone who says otherwise will be proved wrong.
(you can see the binomial curve in the graph going up from 1992-1998 and now starting to curve down)
To prove we are cooling, see here:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:2002/to:2013/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:2002/to:2013/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:2002/to:2013/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:2002/to:2013/trend/plot/rss/from:2002/to:2013/plot/rss/from:2002/to:2013/trend/plot/gistemp/from:2002/to:2013/plot/gistemp/from:2002/to:2013/trend/plot/hadsst2gl/from:2002/to:2013/plot/hadsst2gl/from:2002/to:2013/trend
all major data sets now say so, just as I had predicted.

Graham W
December 21, 2012 7:49 am

In fact you could even allege that the “16 years of no warming” meme may actually have come originally from the IPCC themselves, it almost seems too good to be true from their perspective…you now have all the “deniers” (their terminology not mine) in essence SUPPORTING this notion that their models can be statistically “proven” or falsified (I know “proven” is probably the wrong word but didn’t know what else to use) – giving credence to a methodology that was not scientific to begin with.

Graham W
December 21, 2012 7:58 am

P.S in my opinion Henry Ps research falls into none of the logical “traps” that the IPCC has…being as how Henry is using actual past measurements only, and using a logical process of looking at the temperature means, minima and maxima to incorporate the Greenhouse Effect into his predictions in a scientific way. Not by just saying “the Greenhouse Effect must be x amount because this is how much we warmed from y date to z date and we know we can ignore this, this and this”. Henry Ps conclusions are more valid than the IPCCs in light of what we are discussing.

Graham W
December 21, 2012 8:19 am

The 16 years no warming…is not a battle the IPCC even needs to win. Even if forced to acknowledge (as they rightly should) that their models are over-estimating, they will simply claim they just need adjusting and will be more reliable in future. If you are accepting a false means by which the effects of these “adjustments” can be statistically confirmed or rejected another 15 years down the line, their lies can only be perpetuated indefinitely using more circular logic and faulty reasoning.

December 21, 2012 10:08 am

Gail Combs:
I may have addressed your question of Dec. 20, 2012 at 7:16 pm to your satisfaction in responding to other bloggers. If not, please respond with a description of the remaining issues and I’ll address them.

December 21, 2012 11:38 am

By putting the Gleisberg solar cycle into a chart, as I have done, (and others can follow and copy??), I think it is possible for me to estimate that all observed warming is natural or very nearly completely natural. Please correct me if you think I am wrong.
Consider the fact that we really do not have a global temp. record to speak of since at least around 1925. In those days they just manufactured thermometers, never realizing that after time they need to be re-calibrated…..I have challenged anyone to bring me the calibration certificates of thermometers used in weather stations from before that time, with no response.
This means that if we look at my chart, which is looking at energy-in
(not be confused with energy-out)
http://blogs.24.com/henryp/2012/10/02/best-sine-wave-fit-for-the-drop-in-global-maximum-temperatures/
we must rather look at the absolute value (positive) of the of the increase in the heat coming through the top of the atmosphere from 1927 (85 years ago) until 1950. This means an increase of ca. 0.037/2 (roughly integrated) x 23 = 0.4 degrees K. In the next period from 1950 to 1995, when records were firmly established we are seeing the warming that everyone started to fear, namely 0.037/4 (roughly integrated) 45 = 0.4 degrees K. From 1995 until 2012 it looks we went down at ca. 0.037/2 x 17 = 0.3
So I have 0.4 + 0.4 -0.3 = 0.5 degrees K up since 1927
now look here:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1927/to:2013/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1927/to:2013/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1927/to:2013/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1927/to:2013/trend/plot/rss/from:1927/to:2013/plot/rss/from:1927/to:2013/trend/plot/gistemp/from:1927/to:2013/plot/gistemp/from:1927/to:2013/trend/plot/hadsst2gl/from:1927/to:2013/plot/hadsst2gl/from:1927/to:2013/trend
there is no “extra’ man made global warming.
But, please do correct me if you think my reasoning is wrong.

Graham W
December 21, 2012 12:09 pm

Terry, by a lack of a statistical population are you referring to global temperatures…in that you cannot directly observe “a global temperature”, since its an average from measurements all around the world? Or is it the measure of a Greenhouse Effect that’s the problem, or is it both things? Or is it all measurements and variables? I understand what you are saying regarding the lack of a statistical population meaning that the reports offer no useful information to policy makers. I’m still just a little hazy on the particulars of what is lacking and why it is lacking.

December 21, 2012 12:45 pm

I am afraid your firm will be in for a rude awakening if it were ever to be approached for advice about future climate (or even current unperturbed climate). I note from the bibliography your background in climatology is limited and suspect strongly that you will discover huge difficulty in screwing (abstracting) from a system with such a vast state space, comprising multiple outputs and processes spanning atmosphere, hydrosphere and biosphere with vastly differing characteristic time and space scales some nice populations that suit the requirements of your treatment ā€“ as you put it ā€œa set of statistically independent eventsā€.
And you demand that the ā€œelementsā€ of this population be ā€œobservable ā€“ again you will be lucky; hardly anything in the natural environment is directly observable, it is almost invariably filtered through some instrument sensor or proxy measurement subject to bias and drift and reparameterised to fit the calculation scheme involving temporal and/or 2 and 3-D spatial extension.
What you call ā€œfabricating informationā€ and perhaps I would recognise as exercising professional judgment, will be no less than what is applied for current climate modelling.
I did not at all recognise what you say about fabricated information telling us that
Expectation(Tbar(year)) = a + b* year
I suppose it might be that post model running the coefficient of year^2 is found to be not significant, or maybe there is a strong pre-disposition for something like this because, despite superficial complexity, a GCM when it comes down to it behaves like a zero-dimension energy balance equation driven by exponentially growing ghg implying linear growth in forcing. But you canā€™t be sure this is the way it will work out and it wouldnā€™t under other scenarios for ghg growth.
I rather fear you fit closely the picture I presented in my previous posting where I charged my statistical theorist with “It was often a case of the best being made an enemy of the good and an insufficient appreciation of the compromises required given the nature of the subject, the availability of the data, and the demands of the client.”

Reply to  maxberan
December 21, 2012 3:54 pm

maxberan:
Thanks for taking the time to respond. My bulleted responses to your comments follow.
*Using proper jargon, one is said to “extract a state-space from a ‘feature space’.” Using available technology, to extract a state-space from a feature space of vast dimensionality is no problem. In the construction of an information theoretically optimal long-range weather forecasting model, Ron Christensen and his colleagues at Entropy Limited extracted a state-space from a feature space that was the Cartesian product of 100,000 features. Each state in the extracted state-space was observable.
*In the practice that I call “fabricating information,” one makes up information. To call it “exercizing professional judgement” is to cover up the unscrupulousness of the referenced professional.
* For the user of the resulting model, fabricating information has the downside that the model fails to validate when tested. Climatologists avoid this embarrassment via a dodge in which they “evaluate” their models rather than “validating” them. These models are insusceptible to being validated because they make no predictions and reference no statistical population. However, few taxpayers, journalists or politicians are aware of the fact that an “evaluation” differs from a “validation” and only the latter is associated with the scientific method of inquiry
Thus, taxpayer money continues to leave the pockets of taxpayers and enter the pockets of climatologists for purposes of pseudo-scientific research.
*The notion of “information” is defined in terms of observables. Thus, when a variable is not observable, one may not obtain information about its numerical value. The vast majority of global temperature values are not observable in the interval in which it is claimed there was no statistically significant global warming because these values were neither measured nor recorded. Thus, these temperature values can only have been been fabricated.
Your closing paragraph amounts to an ad hominem argument for continuing to pump public money into worthless research. This argument is faulty.

mpainter
December 21, 2012 9:49 pm

maxberan says: December 21, 2012 at 12:45 pm
Anyway, back to the broad methodological principle: for the life of me I canā€™t see what is so wrong with it as a pragmatic approach to the policymakerā€™s question as to render it meaningless.
========================================================
Do you advocate that policy decisions be formulated on the product of the GCM’s?

Reply to  mpainter
December 22, 2012 5:56 am

In principle mpainter, yes (asking about my attitude to GCMs), though with due regard to their faults and deficiencies (which amounts to a ā€œnoā€ to whatā€™s actually happened). I donā€™t blame policy makers for wanting answers, I donā€™t blame climatologists for wanting to help; itā€™s what happens after that where the problems arise and blame begins.
To amplify, the greenhouse effect is real and some anthropogenic contribution due to ghgs and land-use change flows naturally from that. Iā€™d be okay with policy makers making policy on the basis of models whose headline output on global temperature was between zero and half a degree change from 1990 to 2012, whose output on precipitation change was zero, and whose derived output on extreme events was zero change. This could be achieved with GCMs by inputting forcings relieved of their unobserved positive feedbacks and not trying to match model with observation with any fluctuations short of 20 years.
The advantage of a GCM (over lower dimensioned energy balance or single variable regression model for example) is that it provides internal consistency between places and across parameters and this property might be important for strategic policy making. However as the changes I can believe are so close to the current situation I suppose you could argue why bother with a model, just use the back data with some mild tweaking which would also preserve internal consistency.
One would hope that the policy makers would react to a sane view of what climate science can reliably provide by way of forecast changes by re-directing their policy making attentions to known problems in the here and now and leaving climate to those charged with adaptation to weather fluctuations like agronomists, flood protection engineers, insurance companies etc etc. I realise there is fat chance of this happening as climate science is such a minor component of what is currently driving their policies. To the shame of those involved, policy makers have no difficulty recruiting compliant climatologists to provide retrospective support for what they want to do for other reasons, nor agents from those weather sensitive sectors latching on to the climate change idea as a profit or greenwash opportunity.
Sorry, long answer to a short question!

mpainter
December 22, 2012 8:37 am

maxberan says: December 22, 2012 at 5:56 am
I realise there is fat chance of this happening as climate science is such a minor component of what is currently driving their policies.
=============================================
Welcome to politics. See what happens when a vehemently disputed science is used to engender public panic and is precipitated into the realm of public affairs, thanks to the AGW hypes. What seems to escape you is that this was all deliberately done in a campaign of long endurance. When in the political arena one wins big, or loses big, and so it is no longer a search for understanding. Thus is science discredited and climate science, especially. Scientific certitude and integrity have been sacrificed to advance the agenda of a political combination, a most powerful and influential component of which is self-interest and profit-seeking. In short, it is the ugliest thing ever seen in science.
What are you willing to do to cure this malignancy?

Reply to  mpainter
December 22, 2012 10:29 am

Sorry, can’t cope with all that mpainter. Too many flips between climatologists leading politicians by the nose and politicians leading climatologists by the nose even in the same sentence. Surprised you say scientific certitude is sacrificed – I’d have thought you would have said the opposite, that it had been invoked falsely.

December 22, 2012 8:43 am

maxbaran and mpainter:
The prospects for building a GCM that is suitable for policy making purposes do not look good. Using available technology, it is possible to build a model that is maximally efficient in its use of information thus conveying the maximum possible information to a policy maker about the outcomes from his/her policy decisions. Using this hypothetical model as a benchmark, one can draw some conclusions about the possibility of controlling the climate through the predictions of a GCM.
An early step in the construction of such a model would be to identify the duration of an event. For avoidance of a waste of capital from premature retirement of power producing facilities, this duration should approximate the lifetime of a power producing facility. For the sake of illustration, I’ll assume that this lifetime is thirty years. Thirty years, then, is the duration of an event in the statistical population that underlies my hypothetical model and is the period over which this model predicts.
The period going back to the year 1850, when the hadcrut3 global temperature time series begins, contains between 5 and 6 statistically independent observed events of thirty year duration each. Experience in building maximally efficient models suggests that the minimum number of events for construction of a predictive model for a complex system is 150. Thus, we are short on observed events by at least 145 events. We will have the minimal number of them in about 4350 years. To be relatively safe, I’ll assume that we’ll need 1500 observed events (a small sample by the standards of medical research). We’ll need another 44850 years to gather the 1495 observed events that we do not already have.
It can be concluded that the temperature record does not presently support control of the climate. For policy making purposes, the outcomes of events vary randomly with respect to the CO2 concentration and all other independent variables. To cover the contingency that escalating CO2 concentrations will produce significant warming, the rational policy response is to prepare to mitigate effects from the warming, perhaps through geoengineering.
There is a possible alternative. If a reliable proxy for the global temperature were to be discovered then perhaps we could extract observed events in large numbers from cores gathered by drilling into geological strata. The resulting model could then be used in the control of the climate.

December 22, 2012 9:50 am

henry says
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/12/14/the-real-ipcc-ar5-draft-bombshell-plus-a-poll/#comment-1179335
henry says (to himself)
there were a couple of errors there,
thanks for pointing that out to me
I will have to think about that again,
in more detail.
mpainter says
….to advance the agenda of a political combination, a most powerful and influential component of which is self-interest and profit-seeking.
henry says
I was just thinking today of how God came into this world as a helpless little baby, completely depending on us, humans, even to survive the whims of powerful dictators, (Herod)
compared to how He must be so great to be able to create life, seemingly going on forever, (at least ca. 500 million years and counting) by putting measures in the sky, so as to control temperatures on earth, for life to be able to continue;
often we want to think as God as being like Superman able to do anything, but we do not want to see Him as a helpless baby, in a manger.
Perhaps it is helplessness that eventually makes us great?;

December 22, 2012 10:06 am

mpainter:
The global warming scam is ugly but it’s not the ugliest. Thirty years ago I witnessed another example of a pseudoscientific study disguised as a scientific study.
I had stumbled into a position that made me the director of this study. Thus, I was in a position to witness this phenomenon from up close and to view the actions of the perpetrators as they happened. I expose this scam in the peer reviewed article at http://www.ndt.net/article/v04n05/oldberg/oldberg.htm.
One of many parallels to the global warming scam is that the perpetrators covered up their work through applications of the equivocation fallacy; this made it necessary for me to disambiguate the language that was used in this field of research before exposing the scam via the above referenced article. For the same reason, I had to disambiguate the language of climatology before exposing the global warming scam in the peer reviewed article at http://judithcurry.com/2011/02/15/the-principles-of-reasoning-part-iii-logic-and-climatology/ .
When I tried to stop the scam in the study that I directed, I met overwhelming resistance from people and institutions holding great power. This scam persists to this day. The strong parallel between the two situations makes me fear that rooting out the corruption of climatology is a major challenge. To succeed, I think, we would have to form a pressure group of great power.

mpainter
December 22, 2012 12:02 pm

correct. I meant rectitude. And so no cure?

Graham W
December 22, 2012 6:38 pm

Let’s just be honest, who really cares? Climatologists play a part. The IPCC plays a part. The UN wants this. The people want that. I can tell you for a fact that 95% of the general population simply doesn’t give a crap. Most people will read what’s in the press i.e for each molecule of CO2 breathed into the atmosphere a child of Africa dies. By driving a car you’re not only destroying the lives of your grandchildren you’re physically raping a cat. The simple fact of CO2’s physical reality is a blight on Nature’s otherwise beautiful womanly face. CO2 is like a dragon’s breath burned across the face of the innocent Thomas The Tank Engine atmosphere. To even question the belief that CO2 single-handedly controls and, to an extent, bullies the Earth’s atmosphere into submission is to suggest that God himself spits in the face of everything your mum holds dear. I dared to read the Guardian the other day for only 3 milliseconds and I was instantly assured that by being anyone but a massively sarcastic denialist of physical reality I must be a satan-jerking fascist dictator beyond the worst excesses of Hitler. By contemplating alternatives to my own disgusting ejection of CO2 into Gaia’s innocent young face as being the be all and end all of all observed climate reality I must be the most loathsome and despicable human being in the history of the Universe.
Basically until that changes, this is all just words.

December 23, 2012 8:26 am

GrahamW says
By contemplating alternatives to my own disgusting ejection of CO2 into Gaiaā€™s innocent young face as being the be all and end all of all observed climate reality I must be the most loathsome and despicable human being in the history of the Universe.
Basically until that changes, this is all just words.
Henry says
You did not get what I have been telling you.
A tiny (helpless) child is also an almighty God.\ and a forgiving God….
we know the truth and can see it coming?
Follow the (obvious) binomial in the graph where we started in this thread
by 2015 we must be coming close to zero?
By that time people will come stand in line to ask questions (from the skeptics) about the coming cold…
– just be ready when that happens….

December 23, 2012 10:55 pm

I think I have corrected my errors…..
By putting the Gleisberg solar cycle into a chart, as I have done, (and others can follow and copy??), I think it is possible for me to estimate for me that all observed warming is natural or very nearly completely natural. Please correct me if you think I am wrong.
Consider the fact that we really do not have a global temp. record to speak of since at least around 1925. In those days they just manufactured thermometers, never realizing that after time they need to be re-calibratedā€¦..I have challenged anyone to bring me the calibration certificates of thermometers used in weather stations from before that time, with no response.
This means that if we look at my chart, which is looking at energy-in
(not to be confused with energy-out)
http://blogs.24.com/henryp/2012/10/02/best-sine-wave-fit-for-the-drop-in-global-maximum-temperatures/
we must rather look at the absolute value (positive) of the increase in the heat coming through the top of the atmosphere from 1927 (85 years ago) until 1950. This means an increase of ca. 0.037/2 (roughly integrated) x 23 = 0.43 degrees K. In the next period from 1950 to 1995, when records were firmly established we are seeing the warming that everyone started to fear, namely 0.037/2 (roughly integrated) x 45 = 0.83 degrees K. From 1995 until 2012 it looks we went down on the maxima by ca. 0.037/2 x 17 = 0.31
So I have 0.43 + 0.83 -0.31= 0.95 degrees K up on the maxima since 1927
I have also determined that the ratio maxima : means that pushed up the means by increasing maxima is 5 : 2
see here
http://blogs.24.com/henryp/2012/04/23/global-cooling-is-here/
So my final result for natural variation due to Gleisberg cycle is 0.95/2.46 = + 0.4 degrees K up on the means since 1927.
now look here:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1927/to:2013/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1927/to:2013/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1927/to:2013/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1927/to:2013/trend/plot/rss/from:1927/to:2013/plot/rss/from:1927/to:2013/trend/plot/gistemp/from:1927/to:2013/plot/gistemp/from:1927/to:2013/trend/plot/hadsst2gl/from:1927/to:2013/plot/hadsst2gl/from:1927/to:2013/trend
there is no ā€œextraā€™ man made global warming?
But, please do correct me if you think my reasoning is wrong.

December 24, 2012 9:57 am

henry says (to himself, seeing as they are all too dof here)
it looks like the warming from 1927 to 2012 is a bit more than 0.4
probably more like 0.5 or 0.6, on average, on the 3 relevant sets.
The difference would mean a considerable % of the warming being due to human influence.
true.
However, I also looked at my own data set again to find that the ratio of warming looking at
maxima : means
is not constant. It appears that in warming periods it is a lot higher than in cooling periods.
So the factor 2.46 that I used in my earlier comment based on my own data set (from 1974-2012) is simply too high.
But I do not have the maxima on the 3 relevant sets and my own set covers too short a time period.
The only data set I have that has maxima and means covered over the whole period 1927-2012 is the CET data set. In due time, I will see if I can work out the relevant factor over the period from that.
I still expect to find that all observed warming and subsequent cooling is and was completely natural.

Reply to  HenryP
December 24, 2012 11:45 am

HenryP:
The conclusion that, in a given period, the time rate of change of the global temperature was either positive or negative is based upon unsupportable premises of linearity, normality and statistical independence among the elements of a non-existent statistical population. I believe I’ve demonstrated this proposition to be true elsewhere in this thread.

December 24, 2012 10:05 am

BTW
this might be interesting for some people;
winter in Holland 1941-1942
-20 degrees C, packs of ice and snow, meters high,
1941-1942 + 88 = 2029-2030
http://www.winter42.wpl
just wait for it: it will come again….
(1941-1942 + 88 = 2029-2030)

Graham W
December 24, 2012 11:30 am

Henry P, my last message was just a joke, really, not to be taken literally. Purely satirical. If you look at my other messages again you’ll see that I’m agreeing with you. In fact I said in one that in my opinion your predictions were more likely correct than the IPCCs. I think that the reason people are quiet is because its an old post now and everyone’s commenting on more recent ones. I don’t think anyone’s being deliberately ignorant. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

December 24, 2012 12:25 pm

terry says
…..was either positive or negative is based upon unsupportable premises ….
henry says
Terry, I do my own research, took my own sample, and then compared my results with the other data sets.
i.e.
http://blogs.24.com/henryp/2012/10/02/best-sine-wave-fit-for-the-drop-in-global-maximum-temperatures/
which came from here;
http://blogs.24.com/henryp/2012/04/23/global-cooling-is-here/
The speed of warming/cooling in degrees K/ year for maxima now is 0.036 from 1974 (38 yrs), 0.029 from 1980 (32 yrs), 0.014 from 1990 (22 years) and -0.016 from 2000 (12 years).
…..just try and plot that for me>? what correlation do you find on a binomial plot for that?
The major data sets see a general upward trend due to natural warming, from 1927, as do I, looking at the relevant sine wave,
but I can also accurately predict the times when the signs changed, looking at the energy coming through the atmosphere. We changed from warming to cooling in 1995. Most data sets see that 1998 was the warmest (due to some lag between energy in and energy out).
We will be globally cooling from 1995 until ca. 2039.
Hope that helps.

Reply to  HenryP
December 24, 2012 9:57 pm

HenryP:
The two of us are defining the term “population” differently. Yours is a set of weather stations. Mine is a set of independent events. Each event can be partially described by a value for the time and a value for the temperature. Virtually all of the elements of this kind of population are missing and thus your assumptions of linearity, normality and independence among the events in my kind of population cannot be validated.

December 26, 2012 7:23 am

Terry, no matter how many factors influence the means, eventually all those factors can only either delay or keep pace with the incoming energy as shown from the Gleisberg cycle. Accordingly we will now cool until 2040.

Mario Lento
December 26, 2012 4:55 pm

If they keep adjusting (cooling) the past, the 20th century will have been an ice age so they can show yet more present day warming – population or not. So maybe though we will be cooling through 2040, the charts will show a warming trend “worse than expected.”

December 27, 2012 10:13 am

Henry says
as stated earlier, I came, from my own results, to a reasonable estimate of an increase of 0.95 degrees K globally on the maxima from 1927-2012,
I have had a look now at CET maxima and found it rising by 0.0105 degree K per annum from 1927 – 2012. A total of 0.89 K from 1927 which confirms the correctness of my estimate.
I also had a look now of the increase of CET means and found it increasing by 0.0088 degree C per annum since 1927. This means the ratio of maxima/means is therefore estimated as 1.19.
This leaves me with an estimate of 0.95/1.19 = 0.8 up on the means which even is 0.1 K higher than the actual observed increase, as here,
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1927/to:2013/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1927/to:2013/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1927/to:2013/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1927/to:2013/trend/plot/rss/from:1927/to:2013/plot/rss/from:1927/to:2013/trend/plot/gistemp/from:1927/to:2013/plot/gistemp/from:1927/to:2013/trend/plot/hadsst2gl/from:1927/to:2013/plot/hadsst2gl/from:1927/to:2013/trend
I think an error of 0.1 is not that bad so all of this leaves me with no warming caused by human beings, as I had suspected, from the very beginning,
http://blogs.24.com/henryp/2011/08/11/the-greenhouse-effect-and-the-principle-of-re-radiation-11-aug-2011/

Mario Lento
December 27, 2012 11:56 am

: What you write about, CO2’s absorbing and radiating as well as photosynthesis’ affect on cooling, is fascinating. Measuring these things (absorption and re-radiation) takes special equipment of course. However, it makes sense that plants require energy to grow. The energy from the sun brings together relatively low energy CO2, H2O and Nitrogen containing compounds and forces them into higher energy storage matter (proteins, starches and sugar) while spitting out low energy Oxygen. Kinetic heat energy energy must be transformed and stored (in the range of 5 to 9 calories per gram) in the matter as potential energy. Thus, plant growth has a cooling effect on the surroundings. If there is a net increase in existing plant matter, there will be a net cooling effect. If there is steady state burning of plants (via consumption or other decomposition) the heat is returned to its surroundings.
An interesting experiment would be to compare two closed systems (aquarium) with the same ingredients and light/heat source. One would contain seeds that could grow the other would contain seeds that have been destroyed so they could not grow. Monitoring the temperature of these different aquariums should show different temperatures.
So the question is: Is earth accumulating plant matter faster?
Mario

December 27, 2012 12:50 pm

Henry@Mario
Earth has been getting a lot greener in the past 4 decades:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/03/24/the-earths-biosphere-is-booming-data-suggests-that-co2-is-the-cause-part-2/
An experiment like you describe could /should be performed to try and quantify the cooling effect caused by CO2 due to the observed increased photosynthesis

Gail Combs
December 27, 2012 1:35 pm

HenryP says:
December 27, 2012 at 12:50 pm
Henry@Mario
Earth has been getting a lot greener in the past 4 decades:….
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Not only has the Earth been getting greener but plant matter is sequestered in the peat=> coal
coal forms when dead plant matter is converted into peat, and peat becomes coal after being subjected to pressure from overlying sediments for long periods of time.
One of the other commenters mentioned that Trenbeth’s energy balance leaves out all the energy that is converted to chemical energy through various reactions including photosynthesis. There is also energy that is stored in the oceans. The over turn or Thermohaline Circulation is something like 1600 years for the Pacific and 350 for the Atlantic (Little Ice Age?)
This is quite interesting because the Dansgaard-Oeschger Events, and Bond Events have a cycle time of about 1500 years….
E.M. Smith has some interesting things to say about these 1500 year events. link All seven threads are worth reading but not before bedtime….
BTW, A belated Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you HenryP.

Mario Lento
December 27, 2012 2:38 pm

@ HenryP and Gail Combs:
Yes – I’ve heard and assumed it was true that we are “greening” and that CO2 is required for this to occur – Greenies seem to be in denial of these truths. The Greenies have again tried to change the meaning of words… suggesting that they are for green, which actually means less real green.
Other words and terms which they have screwed up and have gotten wrong based on real science and real life:
Greenies say:
“Subsidy” – when used to describe tax breaks for oil, (but it really means they pay less of their own money with some tax write offs).
“Subsidy for Green means the same thing as subsidy for oil” – (when actually for Green energy it means to be given money that was not theirs to begin with).
“CO2 – is a pollutant” – (even though it is vital for real greening, which provides us with food and energy)
“Colder is better” – (actually maybe it’s better if you want less life which is part of their agenda).

December 27, 2012 10:54 pm

Henry@Gail
thanks! Wishing you the same and a prosperous 2013!
btw, I suspect you are also from the SH, but I am not sure which country you live in?

Gail Combs
December 28, 2012 1:15 am

HenryP says:
December 27, 2012 at 10:54 pm
Henry@Gail
thanks! Wishing you the same and a prosperous 2013!
btw, I suspect you are also from the SH, but I am not sure which country you live in?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
North Carolina USA. I am also a Chemist – retired and now have a farm.
The wonderful thing about WUWT is you get to ‘meet’ people from all over the world.