New paper finds climate models are getting worse rather than better
Via the Hockey Schtick: A paper published today in Geophysical Research Letters finds that the latest climate models are performing even worse than the earlier generations of climate models in predicting
“…both the mean surface air temperature as well as the frequency of extreme monthly mean temperature events due to climate warming.”
The author hypothesizes the reasons for this are that attempts in the latest generation of models to reproduce observed changes in Arctic sea ice are causing “significant and widening discrepancy between the modeled and observed warming rates outside of the Arctic,” i.e. they have improved Arctic simulation at the expense of poorly simulating the rest of the globe. The paper adds to hundreds of other peer-reviewed papers demonstrating the abject failure of climate models.
The paper:
Emerging selection bias in large-scale climate change simulations
Kyle L. Swanson
Abstract:
Climate change simulations are the output of enormously complicated models containing resolved and parameterized physical processes ranging in scale from microns to the size of the Earth itself. Given this complexity, the application of subjective criteria in model development is inevitable. Here we show one danger of the use of such criteria in the construction of these simulations, namely the apparent emergence of a selection bias between generations of these simulations.
Earlier generation ensembles of model simulations are shown to possess sufficient diversity to capture recent observed shifts in both the mean surface air temperature as well as the frequency of extreme monthly mean temperature events due to climate warming. However, current generation ensembles of model simulations are statistically inconsistent with these observed shifts, despite a marked reduction in the spread among ensemble members that by itself suggests convergence towards some common solution.
This convergence indicates the possibility of a selection bias based upon warming rate. It is hypothesized that this bias is driven by the desire to more accurately capture the observed recent acceleration of warming in the Arctic and corresponding decline in Arctic sea ice. However, this convergence is difficult to justify given the significant and widening discrepancy between the modeled and observed warming rates outside of the Arctic.
Hilarious – they’re curve fitting a few natural variations, poorly, then claiming the models validate their theory.
The weather models were really a model way of siphoning tax dollars to alarmists. Now we see desperate sandbagging.
And of the actual 0.12-0.16 C increase between 1990 and 2012, how much of it has occurred since 1998?
None? Really?
It was all between 1990 and 1998 you say? Really? Wow. That is really different from what I was told was going to happen.
Are the modelers, for all their apparent skill, just projecting the 1990-1998 rise with a ruler and sending an invoice? And all the rest is noise? Maybe they should tilt the ruler down a bit to the lower right.
What is that sound, anyway? Is that someone riffling wads of $100’s?
Now, THAT’S an “inconvenient truth”……..
Arctic,” i.e. they have improved Arctic simulation at the expense of poorly simulating the rest of the globe.
LOL
The summer Arctic ice melt isn’t caused by atmospheric warming. As the Arctic is an ocean, there are no surface air temperature measurements. The claimed Arctic warming is extrapolation from nearby and not so nearby land stations.
Much of the “Arctic warming” is only because of how reduced sea ice cover is handled — for those melted-out places they compare SST (melted) with ice temperature (unmelted) which is usually a few degrees offset for ordinary thermodynamic reasons, but on their charts it’s magically 4 degrees warmer all of a sudden! You see that in the Arctic anomaly charts with the huge “warming signal” right at the ice edge, but it’s just the usual apples & oranges nonsense.
Today’s climate models have more “please factor”, that is, the authors when they submit their papers, fold their hands, scrunch their eyes, and think “please please please please” will the temperatures go up at last. More “please”s of late. 🙂
… that the latest climate models are performing even worse than the earlier generations of climate models in predicting…
Isn’t that what they should do? /sarc
What do they expect when there had been no warming for the last sixteen years?
No surprise. That’s what happens when “scientists”, or purported scientists, unlike real scientists, lead with the Conclusions and not the Data.
Trenberth and pretty much all of the warmist posters here are supremely guilty of this, and have that part of the brain that can assimilate this concept missing.
Just wait and see ……
They cannot significantly correct the models until they get rid of their primary assumption, ie that CO2 is the main climate driver.
Lesson number one in grand funding. You will be more likely to get a follow on grant if your first study shows that things are much more urgent than all previous studies have shown. The projection down on the important axis of the urgent/important space need not be considered but orientation of the vector of your grant should be parallel to that of some social hysteria of the moment to guarantee the follow-on.
The Arctic is IPCC-considered a “smoking gun”, with the observations there a harbinger of the globe. If, as some think, including me, there is much more regional than global to what’s going on, this creates a fundamental error if the Arctic looks any different from the rest of the world – either warming or cooling. It is not an error that can be fixed without revising all of the prior profiles and projections which would then knock down the upper end Scenarios. Which is the entire threat base for CAGW politics and energy strategy.
What a pickle.
The real worry in my mind is that no one or very few skeptical sites including this one, are not emphasizing enough, is that there is NO global warming currently so that all the scary stories, extreme events, ice melting, predictions, models and AGW stories in the media etc are all BS cheers
If the computer models are inconsistent with global temps (ignoring other parameters like precipitation patterns), then there’s a simple and obvious solution to the problem.
(Regular WUWT readers already know the answer, but we’ll pause for newer readers to ponder the question…)
“Adjust” the global temperature readings! Again.
Surely, if you have a model and tuning it to more accurately reflect one observed feature makes it worse at recreating other observed features, that tells you that there’s something fundamentally wrong with your model rather than just a tuning problem?
They have an out you know. All they have to admit to is that after a certain point, CO2’s effect as a greenhouse gas diminishes greatly, and that point is now reached; and this is why the warming stopped. But then, if they admitted this, then they would be denying their basic premise. Hmmmm, there are other greenhouse gases to pick on, surely. How about methane or nitrous oxide… do I hear a bid for ozone?
We’ve been illustrating and discussing for a couple of years how poorly climate models simulate, by categories:
1. Sea surface temperatures:
http://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/category/model-data-comparison-sst/
2. Land-ocean surface temperatures:
http://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/category/model-data-lost/
3. Land surface air temperatures:
http://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/category/model-data-comparison-lsat/
4. Precipitation:
http://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/category/model-data-comparison-precipitation/
Nice of Swanson to note it as well.
If they modeled ocean oscillations they could get back on track. The AMO has led to the loss of sea ice while the PDO-ENSO was responsible for the warming. Note “was”, the temperature is now cooling since the PDO went negative.
Why does this not surprise me?
I’ve looked at 2nd diff of CO2 , where a constant represents an quadratic increase. This is probably quite realistic since a quadratic is similar to an exponential and a paper a couple of years ago found quadratic may be a better representation.
Now since it is temperature that drives rate of change of CO2 by oceanic out-gassing I plotted this up with d/dt(SST)
http://climategrog.wordpress.com/?attachment_id=233
Now that kind of fast response time puts a serious question mark over the idea that CO2 remains in the ocean for 100’s if not 1000’s of years , which is the basis of current thinking in climatology.
Despite residence times derived from post war C14 decay times indicating a 1/e residence of about 5 years.
There’s just so much of the basic theory that does not match observation (or at least did not match until they changed the observations to fit ) it really is not a mystery that nothing works.
So if you created a reasonable model that more accurately described the behavior of the majority of the globe, and then had to add unknown heat to ocean currents to melt the Arctic (to match observations), then you might be on the verge of some actual science. The next logical question might follow logically.
Or not.
One can only hope for so much.
Hmmmm, there are other greenhouse gases to pick on, surely. How about methane or nitrous oxide… do I hear a bid for ozone?
—————
Only one gas is taxable, and that is CO2.. No other emission fits the bill.. They have been back filling global warming from day one with LOL shenanigans, and they know it..
So dont think for a second that this is about doom or warming, because its not.. Its about working with the only thing that will work, and that is of course bribery.. There is no plan B.. its CO2 or back to chaining themselves to trees or carping on about the ozone layer..
Lets face it there is no money in simply opposing everything.. Big green has gotten so big that they need to tap into our tax base in order to continue to grow..
There is great pressure on these NEW AGE SOCIAL science GURU”S that call themselves climate scientists.. They have to make sure to fund the politics that they represent.. The snake has eaten its own tail, a perfect circle.
“….indicates the possibility of a selection bias…”
Rhoda R says:
May 16, 2013 at 3:47 pm
They cannot significantly correct the models until they get rid of their primary assumption, ie that CO2 is the main climate driver.
Rhoda has this right. I would expect that, by now, the hockey team, safe from prying eyes and on their home laptop, would have tried a model with CO2 having a vanishingly small effect. Has anyone tried this? Perhaps it would be a poor representation of reality but it would have sure showed some prediction skill over the past couple of decades simply by having a lower slope.
Holy sh!t Batman, as if boiling oceans wasn’t enough, Mount Everest is melting:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/16/mount-everest-melting-climate-change_n_3285971.html
Huffington Post too, not Comedy Central, ooooh errrr …. !!!
It happens.
Bob Tisdale says:
We’ve been illustrating and discussing for a couple of years how poorly climate models simulate….
How well do they simulate CO2 concentration ???
I’ll bet that’s just a hard coded input and the model does note even model out gassing and how it varies. If they do I would be interesting to compare to reality:
http://climategrog.wordpress.com/?attachment_id=232
http://climategrog.wordpress.com/?attachment_id=233
I really get tired of calling these guys “scientists” let alone “climate” ones. They are nothing more than useful edjits,who happen to have found a way of feathering their nests,with taxpayer money. They are about as much about science,as the former USSR was about freedoms for the plebes.
Here, this is one thing I bet they don’t get out of the models:
Rate of change of atmospheric CO2 in the middle of the Pacific matches AO index.!
http://climategrog.wordpress.com/?attachment_id=231
Still trying to work out what the hell that’s about myself.
Now does that mean AO is driving global CO2 variation or is this a case of common cause?
Temperature would seem likely but , although similar, it is not where near as correlated as these two are to each other.
No problem, just a few more supercomputers paid by hapless taxpayers will do it. And the full court press of climate political science can erase the actuals from the discussion all together. That way we will just have a consensus of diverse models all moving up and competing to be the most up for notoriety and funding attention.
If climate models warm the Arctic without considering the 2 main drivers – AMO and black carbon – the output can’t be anything else but rubbish.
It would be useful to have the table from Dr Ira Glickstein’s chart above as a ‘standalone’ illustration … it has a powerful message.
(IPCC Assessment Report Year/IPCC Predicted Temperature Increase/Actual Temperature Increase).
The climate models are manufactured for one purpose only, financial extortion.
We compare the global warming movement to that of religion. But in all fairness to most religions they don’t force you to believe, don’t force you to participate and don’t force you to pay up.
Climate change is the fraudulent use of science to extract money from the masses on an involuntary basis. We are now slaves to white collar criminal climate scientists and their cohorts.
This is interesting in light of the cook misrepresentation. As he tries to prove what everyone believed in years past, the climate continues to betray him in the present time period.
I wonder how Cook and his SkepSciBots would characterize this paper?
In reply to the paper’s assertion that:
“Climate change simulations are the output of enormously complicated models containing resolved and parameterized physical processes ranging in scale from microns to the size of the Earth itself. Given this complexity, the application of subjective criteria in model development is inevitable. Here we show one danger of the use of such criteria in the construction of these simulations, namely the apparent emergence of a selection bias between generations of these simulations.”
William:
A very complex climate model that does not include the specific forcing function (solar magnetic cycle modulation of high level clouds and low level clouds) that is causing the high northern latitude warming cannot be ‘tuned’ to correct the fundamental error. The IPCC’s general circulation models are fundamentally incorrect. There are two fundamental errors:
1) The tropics resists (negative feedback)
forcing changes by increasing or decreasing cloud cover in that region to reflect more or less sunlight off into space. This negative feedback inhibits, limits the effect of greenhouse gases warming.
2) The 20th century warming pattern, where the majority of the warming occurs at high latitude northern latitudes, matches the warming pattern of Dansgaard-Oeschger cycle or the more sever type of D-O cycle the Heinrich event. The D-O cycle is repetitive, correlating again and again with a solar magnetic cycle change. There is no correlation of the past D-O cycles with CO2 changes. The past D-O cycles where not caused by CO2 changes in the atmosphere.
Greenland ice temperature, last 11,000 years determined from ice core analysis, Richard Alley’s paper. The D-O cycles are obviously apparent throughout the interglacial period. The late Gerald Bond was able track 23 of the D-O cycles through the interglacial period and into the glacial period. Gerald Bond and others found that is correlation of solar magnetic cycle changes with each and every D-O cycle.
http://www.climate4you.com/images/GISP2%20TemperatureSince10700%20BP%20with%20CO2%20from%20EPICA%20DomeC.gif
The majority of the 20th century warming was caused by solar magnetic cycle modulation of low level and high level cirrus clouds. If this statement is correct, as solar cycle 24 is an abrupt slow down of the solar magnetic cycle, the planet will anomalously cool. (Anomalously cool, as there will be no explanation as to why the planet is cooling, although likely some scallywags will point out this pattern of warming and cooling has occurred cyclically before and is called a Dansgaard-Oescheger cycle. At this point in time the public might ask whether climate scientists were aware of the D-O cycles (the D-O cycles have been known to have occurred for roughly 20 years) and why did they not consider the possibility that the 20th century warming was a D-O cycle.)
It is difficult to imagine how the warmist climate scientist would response to anomalous cooling which invalidates the extreme AGW theory. Let’s wait and get back to this rhetorical question.
Variations in ion formation and charge bias about the earth caused by changes to solar magnetic cycle changes modulate low level cloud formation and high level cirrus cloud formation. Low level clouds cool the planet by reflecting sunlight off into space. High level cirrus clouds (the wispy type clouds) warm the planet by the greenhouse house effect of the ice crystals in the cirrus clouds. An increase in ions cause an increase in low level clouds, longer low level cloud lifetimes, and due to the increase in water droplet size an increase in low level cloud albedo.
An increase in ions causes larger ice crystal size in the cirrus clouds which cause the ice crystals to drop out of the cirrus clouds.
Therefore due both of the above mechanisms an increase in ions in the atmosphere cause the planet to warm and a decrease in ions cause the planet to cool. The geomagnetic field when it is a current strength limits ion modulation of clouds to high latitude regions.
The albedo of the Antarctic ice sheet is less than low level clouds so an increase in low level clouds over the Antarctic ice sheet results in warming not cooling due to warming effect of water or ice crystals in the cloud.
In the winter the Antarctic ice sheet is roughly -60C to -80C on the surface of the ice sheet so there is little water vapor to form cirrus clouds (the Antarctic sheet region removed from the coast has an year average temperature of around -45C due to latitude of the ice sheet and its high elevation. The Antarctic ice sheet is roughly 3 miles thick 15,000 feet and has covered all but the highest mountains on that continent). The arctic sea ice and Greenland Ice sheet are warmer therefore there is sufficient water vapor to enable cirrus clouds to form.
The solar magnetic mechanism that starting in around 1995 to remove ions from the earth’s atmosphere biases the GRACE satellite which is dependent on the altitude variations of the GRACE satellite which are assumed to be due to mass changes on the planet. The charge imbalance on the earth’s surface relative to the ionosphere biases this measurement.
CyroSat satellite measures ice sheet thickness by determining the time delay for a radar signal bouncing off the ice sheet. The measurement technique is not effected by charge differential between the earth’s surface and the ionosphere. Hence the CyroSat satellite finds that height of the Antarctic ice sheet is increasing not decreasing.
http://en.mercopress.com/2012/03/31/height-of-antarctica-ice-sheet-increasing
Height of Antarctica ice sheet increasing
In a press release ESA announced that the measurements from their 2010-2011 campaigns show the height of Antarctic ice to be an average of nine centimetres higher than the measurements obtained during the 2008-2009 campaigns.
ESA says these findings not only provide good news from the ice sheets, but also show the effectiveness of the CryoSat missions.
The abundance of ice presents a more reflective surface with which to bounce radar signals. The length of time it takes to receive these signals once they are sent determines the height of
the ice.
While conducting these tests ESA found that the measurements from their 2010-2011 campaigns show the height of Antarctic ice to be an average of nine centimetres higher than the measurements from their 2008-2009 campaigns.
To corroborate the ESA findings, scientists from the Alfred Wegener Institute of Polar and Marine Research, the german scientific organization located in Bremerhaven, also took separate measurements of the blue ice region.
By analyzing each set of data the scientists were able to determine the changes in height of the ice for three different periods.
According to the ESA press release, there was a five cm drop of the height of Antarctic ice from 1991-2000 that continued until 2008. ESA does not yet have information explaining why the ice height has increased, but are encouraged at the possible upward trend.
Meanwhile… south of the Arctic Circle:
URGENT – WINTER WEATHER MESSAGE…CORRECTED
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE ANCHORAGE AK
410 PM AKDT THU MAY 16 2013
…LATE WINTER STORM TO AFFECT AREAS SOUTHEAST OF THE ALASKA RANGE
FRIDAY EVENING THROUGH EARLY SATURDAY AFTERNOON…
COLD AIR FROM THE NORTH AND PLENTY OF MOISTURE FROM THE GULF OF
ALASKA WILL COMBINE OVER SOUTH CENTRAL ALASKA ON FRIDAY. THE
RESULT WILL BE WEATHER MORE TYPICAL OF WINTER…WITH SIGNIFICANT
SNOWFALL NEVER BEFORE SEEN THIS LATE IN THE SEASON.
http://forecast.weather.gov/showsigwx.php?warnzone=AKZ101&warncounty=AKC020&firewxzone=AKZ101&local_place1=Homesite+Park+AK&product1=Winter+Weather+Advisory
http://pafc.arh.noaa.gov/pubfcst.php?fcst=WWAK81PAFC
I’m sure some crackpot alarmist will claim, that since the models aren’t performing as they should, ‘signficantly higher temperatures than the models predict also cannot be ruled out’.
Oh I’m sorry, but they have already said this somewhere.
But they did also catergorically state, that lower climate sensitivity (i.e. <1.5C for doubling C02) can be ruled out, which is of course, by Murphys Law of Climate Alarmism (whatsoever is ruled out is more likely to occur), is what is actually occurring.
BELOW SEE:
Acme University, School of Climatology — (projected) 50 Year Reunion Nostalgia Video “Modelling’s Golden Age: You Can’t Say We Didn’t Try”
[and try and try and tune and tinker and try SOME MORE — (head shake) give it UP, you fools]
http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=wile+e.+coyote+and+road+runner&view=detail&mid=9B1B45499CA41929EB0D9B1B45499CA41929EB0D&first=101&FORM=NVPFVR
To Jay:
You wrote: “Only one gas is taxable, and that is CO2.. No other emission fits the bill.. They have been back filling global warming from day one with LOL shenanigans, and they know it..”
Bzzzt. Wrong. Didn’t you hear? Pachauri wants you to stop eating meat (all that methane
that cows produce!) See:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/09/07/pachauris-at-it-again-shun-meat-he-says-but-what-about-the-buffalo/
And if you MUST eat meat, eat kangaroo (so much less methane-intensive!) See:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/08/080822-kangaroo-meat.html
Pretty soon, methane will be taxed heavily. And since natural gas is methane,
it’s a two-fer. The extreme-green climate folks can tax natural gas SO heavily,
suddenly wind and solar will be competitive! All of us will be forced to “go green”,
one way or another.
“…the latest climate models are performing even worse than the earlier generations of climate models…”
—
That just proves the science was settled back when Al Gore said it was settled. They had no business making adjustments to settled science. /sarc
Gary Pearse says:
May 16, 2013 at 5:33 pm
They cannot significantly correct the models until they get rid of their primary assumption, ie that CO2 is the main climate driver.
Rhoda has this right. I would expect that, by now, the hockey team, safe from prying eyes and on their home laptop, would have tried a model with CO2 having a vanishingly small effect. Has anyone tried this? Perhaps it would be a poor representation of reality but it would have sure showed some prediction skill over the past couple of decades simply by having a lower slope.
——–
That would be Hansen’s Scenario C. It assumed NO CO2 emissions after the year 2000, which could also be looked at as increased CO2 having a very small marginal effect. Surprise, that’s the model that current temperatures are running closest to.
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2013/05/16/even-with-his-most-recent-cheat-hansen-cant-get-above-scenario-c/
There is a small error in the labeling on the graph. The two dots following the very warm 2010 are actually 2011 and not 2012 as apparently indicated.
“… they did also catergorically state,… ”
Thingo Donta (at 7:59PM), even imbibing, you make excellent sense!
How long will it be before alarmists claim that model predictions becoming less accurate is actually proof of global warming. (what isn’t?) That’s because one of the attributes of Climate change is to make climate “less predictable.” Here is a sampling of past headlines that seem to make that point:
boomantribune.com: “Weather Less Predictable. Thx Climate Change”
priceofoil.org: “The effects of climate change are already being felt all over the planet as weather systems are becoming less predictable”
Daily Kos: “Consequences of Global Warming Make Weather Disasters Less Predictable”
mnn.com: “Climate Change… could make India’s monsoon season less predictable in the future”
I guess it’s time to add “global warming makes scientific predictions about the climate less accurate” to the list of things it causes. I think the list of things caused by global warming is approaching infinity.
“The summer Arctic ice melt isn’t caused by atmospheric warming. As the Arctic is an ocean, there are no surface air temperature measurements. The claimed Arctic warming is extrapolation from nearby and not so nearby land stations.”
Hmm,
Wrong. people always forget satillites and bouys and think that GISS is the only record.
there is tons of air temps
here is a sample
http://iabp.apl.washington.edu/pdfs/tm_2_04.pdf
http://iabp.apl.washington.edu/publications_datareports.html
http://iabp.apl.washington.edu/data_satemp.html
Here is some more
http://iabp.apl.washington.edu/AirT/VarFig.pdf
Note how the air temp over melting ice is relatively constant at 0C. every wonder why that is?
On ever-changing models: Oh the humanity!
All that modelling is trying to fit the exponential curve to 1975-200X warming trend. It does not fit before, neither after.
Eliza says:
May 16, 2013 at 4:15 pm
The real worry in my mind is that no one or very few skeptical sites including this one, are not emphasizing enough, is that there is NO global warming currently so that all the scary stories, extreme events, ice melting, predictions, models and AGW stories in the media etc are all BS cheers
For me the emphasis should be that they knew this all along and were lying that it was warming and the warming was getting worse.
This shows the cynical manipulation by erstwhile science bodies turned to fake fisics propaganda.
17 years of deliberate fraud during which time countless draconican legislation put into place damaging to non-cartel businesses and detrimental to the general population’s economic and social well being.
These are charlatans not scientists, ignorant of the science or knowingly manipulating the science their reputations caused by climate change at best already a joke will continue to get worse than we thought possible.
Greg Goodman says:
May 16, 2013 at 5:07 pm
I’ve looked at 2nd diff of CO2 , where a constant represents an quadratic increase. This is probably quite realistic since a quadratic is similar to an exponential and a paper a couple of years ago found quadratic may be a better representation.
Now since it is temperature that drives rate of change of CO2 by oceanic out-gassing I plotted this up with d/dt(SST)
http://climategrog.wordpress.com/?attachment_id=233
———————–
Greg, there’s an interesting correlation in your graph up to about 2000, but what’s going on after that? Suddenly the lines seem to become independent of each other. Any thoughts on that?
Perhaps they should try different models for different zones. Each zone has its own rules.
As I noted above, the IPCC general circulation models (GCM) cannot be tuned to correct a fundamental error in the model. The 20th century warming was primarily in the Northern Hemisphere and primarily in high northern latitudes of the Northern hemisphere. This specific warming pattern occurs cyclically in the paleo record and is called a Dansgaard-Oeschger cyclic.
The past D-O cycles were not caused by CO2 changes.
The recent increase in atmospheric CO2 was not predicted to cause warming in the high Northern latitude regions of the earth.
The AGW mechanism predicts that most of the warming should occur in the tropics where there is the most long wave radiation emitted off to space. This has not occurred as tropical region cloud cover increases or decreases, to resist forcing changes, by reflecting more or less short wave solar radiation off into space.
The IPCC general circulation models (GCM) assume the planet amplifies (positive feedback) the AGW forcing change rather than resists (negative feedback) the forcing change. If the planet resists the AGW forcing change (negative feedback) the warming due to a doubling of atmospheric CO2 will be less than 1C.
It is known that the D-O cycles correlate with solar magnetic cycle changes. The D-O warming and cooling cycle is caused by solar magnetic cycle changes. The solar magnetic cycle changes in turn cause a change in the amount of planetary cloud cover low level and high level clouds (cirrus) in higher latitude regions of the planet. There is an interesting series of papers that have been written to explain how the solar cycle changes modulate planetary cloud cover and explain why the effect is different in different regions of the planet. For example, the change in planetary cloud cover is different in the Arctic region than the Antarctic (see my above comment for details.)
The following is a paper that notes there is cyclic variation of North Atlantic temperatures that correlates with solar magnetic cycle length. As the paper notes is a delay in the cooling of 10 to 12 years.
Solar magnetic cycle 24 is the special solar change that causes the cooling phase of a Dansgaard-Oeschger cycle.
As most are aware the magnetic field strength for some unexplained reason is decaying linearly. Due to this change the magnetic ropes that form at the solar tachocline (the solar tachocline is the name for the narrow region in the sun that separates the radiative zone from the convection zone) and then float up to the surface of the sun to form sunspots on the surface of the sun are becoming weaker (less magnetic field strength) and are now starting to be torn to pieces by turbulence as the pass through the solar convection zone. Extrapolation this change the sun is predicted to be spotless in 2017.
The Arctic region cooling is predicted to be the most severe in the winter and the spring. There is now observational evidence that temperatures in the high Arctic have started to cool.
http://arxiv.org/abs/1112.3256
Solar activity and Svalbard temperatures
The long temperature series at Svalbard (Longyearbyen) show large variations, and a positive trend since its start in 1912. During this period solar activity has increased, as indicated by shorter solar cycles. … ….The temperature at Svalbard is negatively correlated with the length of the solar cycle. The strongest negative correlation is found with lags 10 to 12 years.
These models show that 60 per cent of the annual and winter temperature variations are explained by solar activity. For the spring, summer and fall temperatures autocorrelations in the residuals exists, and additional variables may contribute to the variations. These models can be applied as forecasting models. … …We predict an annual mean temperature decrease for Svalbard of 3.5 ±2C from solar cycle 23 to solar cycle 24 (2009 to 2020) and a decrease in the winter temperature of ≈6 C. …. ….A systematic study by Solheim, Stordahl and Humlum [15] (called SSH11 in the following) of the correlation between SCL and temperature lags in 11 years intervals, for 16 data sets (William: solar cycles), revealed that the strongest correlation took place 10 to 12 years after the mid-time of a solar cycle, for most of the locations included. In this study the temperature series from Svalbard (Longyearbyen) was included, and a relation between the previous sunspot cycle length (PSCL) and the temperature in the following cycle was determined. This relation was used to predict that the yearly average temperature, which was -4.2 C in sunspot cycle (SC) 23, was estimated to decrease to -7.8 C in SC24, with a 95% confidence interval of -6.0 to -9.6C [15]. SSH11[15] found that stations in the North Atlantic (Torshavn, Akureyri and Svalbard), had the highest correlations.
William: The following is the Latitude and longitude of Svalbard (Longyearbyen)
78.2167° N, 15.6333° E Svalbard Longyearbyen, Coordinates
As most are aware based on an analysis cosmogenic isotopes the sun in the 20 th century was in the highest solar magnetic activity in 8000 years and the period of highest activity has the longest in 11,000 years. Following this extreme high period of solar magnetic cycle activity there observational evidence that the solar magentic cycle has been interrupted. This specific pattern inn solar magnetic cycle changes is (assuming I understand the mechanisms) what causes a Heinrich event. A Heinrich event is a D-O cycle that is followed by a geomagnetic excursion. (The first phase observed is the normal cooling of a D-O cycle that is then followed by the restart of the solar magnetic cycle. It is the restart of the solar magnetic cycle that caused the geomagnetic excursion which in turn causes the long term severe cooling of the planet, both hemispheres. How the restart of the solar magnetic cycle affects the geomagnetic field is dependent on the orbital parameters at the time of the restart of the solar magnetic cycle.)
http://cc.oulu.fi/~usoskin/personal/nature02995.pdf
Unusual activity of the Sun during recent decades compared to the previous 11,000 years by S. K. Solanki, I. G. Usoskin, B. Kromer, M. Schussler & J. Beer
Here we report a reconstruction of the sunspot number covering the past 11,400 years, based on dendrochronologically dated radiocarbon concentrations. We combine physics-based models for each of the processes connecting the radiocarbon concentration with sunspot number. According to our reconstruction, the level of solar activity during the past 70 years is exceptional, and the previous period of equally high activity occurred more than 8,000 years ago. We find that during the past 11,400 years the Sun spent only of the order of 10% of the time at a similarly high level of magnetic activity and almost all of the earlier high-activity periods were shorter than the present episode. Although the rarity of the current episode of high average sunspot numbers may indicate that the Sun has contributed to the unusual climate change during the twentieth century, we point out that solar variability is unlikely to have been the dominant cause of the strong warming during the past three decades.
William: The authors of the above paper only considered total solar irradiation TSI which is not the major mechanism by which the sun modulates planetary temperature in Northern Atlantic regions. The mechanism is modulation of low level and high level clouds. There are another set of specialists who have almost worked out the details as to how the sun modulates planetary cloud cover. I will when there is unambiguous cooling present a summary of the research and fill in what I believe is the last and key missing mechanism.
Greenland ice sheet temperatures last 11,000 years. This is a graph from Richard Alley’s paper that shows temperatures on the Greenland ice sheet. The D-O cycle is clearly evident. As noted there is no correlation in Greenland ice sheet temperatures and atmospheric CO2 levels in the past. The warming of the Greenland Ice sheet observed in the 20th century was not caused by the increase in atmospheric CO2. The warming was caused by the solar magnetic cycle change and is the same mechanism that caused the past D-O cycles.
http://www.climate4you.com/images/GISP2%20TemperatureSince10700%20BP%20with%20CO2%20from%20EPICA%20DomeC.gif
Perhaps climate scientists should work for a living and get outside to get that much needed data instead of playing on their computers.
The natural decline of a bureaucracy overrun with rent-seekers. They don’t have to provide a service to live high on the hog, so they don’t. This is getting amusing.
Nature 1, BS 0. My wish in life is to see the whole fraud being taken down and the rent seekers and political manipulators getting their just deserts, although most people for some reason do not approve of the punishment fitting the crime. Remember, the climate conspiracy is beyond high treason, The official punishment for plain boring old high treason is for men, to be hung ,drawn and quartered, for women, to be burned at the stake.
Greg Goodman says:
May 16, 2013 at 5:50 pm
Here, this is one thing I bet they don’t get out of the models:
Rate of change of atmospheric CO2 in the middle of the Pacific matches AO index.!
http://climategrog.wordpress.com/?attachment_id=231
[…]
Now does that mean AO is driving global CO2 variation or is this a case of common cause?
——————————————————————————————————————-
Or does it mean that third category of explanation that people (especially climate scientsists) seem to forget – sheer blind coincidence?
Looking at you link, my eyes (like everyone elses, hard-wired to find patterns) say “too good for a fluke” but it’s my brain’s job to over-rule them and allow that possibility (however slight) until its ruled out.
cotwome quotes a weather forecast for “snowfall NEVER BEFORE SEEN” this late in the season.
Surely, this must be some new usage of the word “NEVER” (even in all caps!) Perhaps it would only take a brief perusal of anecdotal weather reports from 100 years ago or thereabouts. Or perhaps the writer has never seen it before. Maybe it means never before seen since Alaska has been a State (because it didn’t matter before then?)
Either way, the whole “never before seen, ever in the history or prehistory of humanity” meme is getting a bit old. Maybe they could spice it up with a popular movie image or a picture of a cute cat.
shepherdfj says:
May 16, 2013 at 4:30 pm
“They have an out you know. All they have to admit to is that after a certain point, CO2′s effect as a greenhouse gas diminishes greatly, and that point is now reached; and this is why the warming stopped. But then, if they admitted this, then they would be denying their basic premise. Hmmmm, there are other greenhouse gases to pick on, surely. How about methane or nitrous oxide… do I hear a bid for ozone?”
If they could change us all over to worrying about our Nitrous Oxide footprint, they would be “laughing” all the way to the bank!
This is not the first time that modelling has encountered “An Inconvenient Truth”.
Tim Flannery, Robert Manne and The Australian Broadcasting Commission really should wisen up to themselves.
The important point to take home is that because there are more climate models today than there were 10 years ago, and they all say the temperature is rising, then there is a consensus which is becoming stronger. Any errors or problems in the models will be averaged out by sheer weight of numbers and we can trust the consensus result.
If I can get enough people to tweet 1+1 = 3, then eventually we will have a consensus and we can lobby government for funding to encourage action to account for this Hyper Addition Phenomena, which is caused at least in part by man-made-global warming.
What the models builders ignore is that they, the model builders are one of the inputs to the model. The models are not predicting the future – that is very difficult to do. What the models are actually predicting is what the model builders believe the future will be – that is a much simpler problem.
The model builders believe the models are correct because the models are telling them what they already believe to be true. If the models were actually able to predict the future, the model builders would not believe the results, and would “fix” the models.
Think about it. You are a model builder and believe that increasing CO2 will lead to increasing temps. You run your model and it shows otherwise – it predicts declining temps. You will immediately think your model has a problem and will adjust it. However, what if in reality the model was correct, that temps will decline? You have just broken your model for the “mistake” of successfully predicting the future.
Thus, few if any models have any hope of predicting the future, because unless the future coincides with what the model builder believe the future to be, the model build will “fix” the model so that it coincides with his/her belief. Thus, building model to predict the future is near hopeless, because the model builder’s themselves get in the way of the validation process.
John Law says:May 17, 2013 at 4:56 am
[…]
If they could change us all over to worrying about our Nitrous Oxide footprint, they would be “laughing” all the way to the bank!
Imminent Banning of Viagra and Cialis. Helps with population control too! /sarc
cotwome says:
May 16, 2013 at 7:34 pm
Meanwhile… south of the Arctic Circle:
URGENT – WINTER WEATHER MESSAGE…
Since we are almost 2 months into spring when do we get rid of the “Winter” in storm warnings. Heck we are 2 weeks from meteorological summer.
Does this get a name?
And in news just in:
Hansen is partly right. The ‘warming has not stalled’. In that he is correct because the warming is over, finished, kaput.
ferd
‘The model builders believe the models are correct because the models are telling them what they already believe to be true. ‘
Wrong. You’ve never worked as a model builder. Or if you have, you didnt know what you were doing.
@ Steven Mosher says: May 17, 2013 at 11:36 am
‘The scientists believe the cAGW hypothesis is correct because the models are telling them what they already believe to be true. ‘
I think ferd would approve.
Computer models are simply implementations of numerical methods to solve mathematical equations, which are themselves reprentations of physical processes that scientists believe to be true. Some are done poorly e.g. NASA/GISS Model E…
@ William Astley….several days In this post, http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/05/10/why-reanalysis-data-isnt-2/#comment-1303136, I made a comment in response to another comment regarding a graph that shows sst changes from 1955 to present, along with 3 volcanic events. lgl had said no one can look at Figure 4 and see any effect on sst from the eruptions. So…..”If you look approximately 6 years out past each eruption, the graph shows a large upward heat spike on the surface:ICOADS SST line. That spike following all three eruptions gains approximately 2.5C from the point where the ICOADS line crosses the eruption event to the peak of the ICOADS line 6 years out. Is this just a coincidence?” -That is my first thought followed by this after Greg Goodman stated that he had mentioned this 2 years earlier……..
goldminor says:
May 12, 2013 at 2:53 pm
@ Greg Goodman…then the likely interaction should have something to do with a diminished cloud cover over the ocean at 6 years out? Could the fallout of the last particles draw other particles out of a region of the atmosphere and so lead to a clearer than normal atmosphere for a period of time?……..What I didn’t say and should have added is ‘What if the fallout of the volcanic debris changes the charge of the atmosphere?’. A change that could make the atmosphere transparent or more transparent than it would normally be to some wavelength of incoming.
Then this was my final thought…..”Couldn’t this be the smoking gun for why temperatures rose so high above average in the first place? Global warming has been volcano-induced. For what ever natural forces were in play, with a {slight boost?} from CO2, was then amplified by this volcanic aftereffect. So you have a ‘hot’ sun and a Windex clear atmosphere for it to penetrate and cause { add to} the great El Nino of 1997/98. All of the heat from that event has been dissipating ever since. Isn’t that why the extra warmth in the northern Atlantic encompassed so much of Greenland as well as warming Europe for the 10 years after 1998?”. The Pinatubo event, in particular, strikes with perfect timing to where the 6 year suspected atmospheric effect coincides with the solar rise after the {bottom of the} minimum. In the first 2 earlier volcanic events the 6 year effect coincided with the top of the solar max. Wishful thinking overall on my part. Although, it sure looks like a potential suspect for the warming.
Justthinkin says:
I really get tired of calling these guys “scientists” let alone “climate” ones.
Personally I like “climatologist”. Kinda reminiscent of “Scientologist”
There is a divergence problem here, too, as we know, but not one they can apply “Mike’s Nature trick” to. Really, the two divergence problems smell of the same problem: assumptions. This paper seems to address assumptions and the collective “We Want Warming!” meme – a herd mentality applied to the assumptions.
By this time, some of the modelers should have some iterations telling them their assumptions are not holding true anymore and should have at some point built in some weighted, automatically-popping-in (currently) lesser assumptions. The question has to be, “Why not?” Do they individually not want to be the first to break the assumption logjam? Is that why the now older and out-of-date assumptions keep on being used?
The current non-rise/flattening out is as long or longer than the previous rise upon which the models were being written during the ’80s and ’90s, so there really isn’t a lot of excuse for not revising the code and/or the assumptions.
If skeptics were stupid enough to linearly regress the post-1998 flattening and apply a straight-line regression, the skeptics could project a year 2100 temperature. But they aren’t that dumb: they know it will up-turn at some point and down-turn at others, so a straight linear projection out that far would be, well, just silly.
Steve Garcia
@TonyG – That is actually pretty funny.
Suggestion to Anthony: Should skeptics make a Climategate ‘based on real life’ movie? If so, should Tom Cruise play Michael Mann? Subtitled “Mission Improbable” perhaps…
Steve Garcia
@frank K. May 17, 2013 at 12:24 pm:
To be real scientific models the models need to be based on “physical processes that the scientists” KNOW “to be true.” I’ve said here before that when that is the case, they are real models (i.e., NOT GIGO). When the model is done re an area NOT known for sure to be true, when the inputs are merely assumptions, there has to be a distinction made about the model.
All models are not necessarily representations of real physical processes. It is up to the modeler(s) to inform the audience (in ALL output graphs and tables) of any processes or “constants” which have been assumed.
Steve Garcia
feet2thefire says:
May 17, 2013 at 1:36 pm
Models are (and will always be) mere representations of reality – sometimes crude representations. And, unfortunately, most climate models are mixtures of all different kinds of physical models – atmospheric dynamics models, ocean circulation models, sea ice models, radiation models, aerosol and atmospheric chemistry models, etc. So they end up being HUGE computer codes which are both highly coupled and highly NON-LINEAR. Non-linear means that there is NO guarantee that a meaningful numerical solution is possible for a given set of initial/boundary conditions.
Yet, we see press release after press release where modelers are using their “projections” to scare people about climate change…and that is flat-out WRONG.
Steven Mosher says:
May 16, 2013 at 9:31 pm
“Wrong. people always forget satillites and bouys and think that GISS is the only record.”
The problem with all those nice buoy records is that those buoys tend to be fairly peripatetic, that is they don’t stay in one place for long. It’s hard to do a temperature database when your thermometers are doing a daily site relocation. For instance, if you go to NOAA’s North pole webcam site
http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/gallery_np.html
Then scroll down to the line ” weather records” and click thru the annual records you’ll find drift maps for the installations, which were usually placed within a degree of Lat 90 N, but the majority ended there duty somewhere between Lat 65 to Lat 70 off the East coast of Greenland.
Whoops! The correct line is “weather data”
BTW, the folks at NOAA are in a predictive mood again in re Arctic sea ice
http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/index.shtml
May 17, 2013
Arctic nearly free of summer sea ice during first half of 21st century
“There is no one perfect way to predict summer sea ice loss in the Arctic,” said Wang. “So we looked at three approaches that result in widely different dates, but all three suggest nearly sea ice-free summers in the Arctic before the middle of this century.”
James Overland of NOAA’s Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory and Muyin Wang of the NOAA Joint Institute for the Study of Atmosphere and Ocean at the University of Washington, recently published a paper in Geophysical Research Letters which looked at three methods of predicting when the Arctic will be nearly ice free in the summer.
They predict a nearly ice free summer arctic before 2050, sooner than many previously thought. The term “nearly” ice free is important as some sea ice is expected to remain north of the Canadian Archipelago and Greenland.
“Rapid Arctic sea ice loss is probably the most visible indicator of global climate change; it leads to shifts in ecosystems and economic access, and potentially impacts weather throughout the northern hemisphere,” said Overland. “Increased physical understanding of rapid Arctic climate shifts and improved models are needed that give a more detailed picture and timing of what to expect so we can better prepare and adapt to such changes. Early loss of Arctic sea ice gives immediacy to the issue of climate change.”.
Learn more from the NOAA press release
http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2013/20130412_arcticseaice.html
“potentially impacts weather throughout the northern hemisphere,”
They are spreading the usual FUG (fear uncertainty and guilt). Figure 2 here http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/store/10.1256/qj.03.91/asset/200513160608_ftp.pdf?v=1&t=hguv5azq&s=104a88cf239f598e99f594c655ff8bf831c42934 shows the contribution of feedback from baroclinicity which is partially created by the ocean-ice boundary. But there was always an ocean-ice boundary which is now shifted in some cases. The idea that a shift in baroclinic zones would impact weather more than trivially is ludicrous. It is mostly the other way around, the weather patterns including cyclones dictate the baroclinic zones with the exception of a minor amount of feedback to Rossby wave activity.
The global temperature is the equilibrium temperature at which incoming and outgoing energy balance. The climate model projections are based on the incoming energy being constant and the temperature rising because of increased atmospheric insulation from CO2.
OLR measurements show that this is not the case with a net increase in OLR of over 2W/m^2 since 1980 (consistent satellite measurements)
Since TSI has only decreased overall since 1980 the only possible explanation for the increase in OLR is reduced albedo which in turn could only result in a reduction in cloud cover.
Project Earthshine has provided a measure of the Earth’s albedo demonstrating a decrease in albedo to 1997 and an increase since which matches the global temperature perfectly.
All that is needed to make the climate models work is to replace the fabricated CO2 forcing parameter with an albedo forcing parameter and then calibrate the model with an appropriate climate sensitivity factor.
Since CO2 is still increasing but the global temperature has been decreasing since 2002 as long as the CO2 forcing parameter with its unidirectional forcing is in place the models will always produce warming.
On the other hand with albedo changing from decreasing to increasing in 1997 a model based on this parameter will provide a match to observed global temperature changes.
This of course will only help with the short term projections because the longer term global temperature cycles are dependant on factors other than albedo or even CO2.
Could it just be that as was said a quarter of a century ago the geological disturbances in the Arctic area initiate the global changes by altering the ocean currents. After all the climate scientists never took any account of geological effects of biological CO2 cycles in their models which is why real computer modellers had such contempt for them..