The source? “Possible artifacts of data bias in the recent global surface warming hiatus,” published this week in Science, by long-time global warming alarmist Tom Karl et al.
Abstract:
Much study has been devoted to the possible causes of an apparent decrease in the upward trend of global surface temperatures since 1998, a phenomenon that has been dubbed the global warming “hiatus.” Here we present an updated global surface temperature analysis that reveals that global trends are higher than reported by the IPCC, especially in recent decades, and that the central estimate for the rate of warming during the first 15 years of the 21st century is at least as great as the last half of the 20th century. These results do not support the notion of a “slowdown” in the increase of global surface temperature.
Proper first impression response (though I confess it didn’t dawn on me first thing): “These results do not support …” does not entail that no other results do. I could study the colors of cats’ eyes in my neighborhood and conclude, “These results to not support the notion of a ‘slowdown’ in the increase of global surface temperature.”
That conclusion would be true. But it would also be irrelevant to the question whether “the pause” is real.
Imagine for a moment that you’re investigating the question, “Is there an elephant in the house?” It’s a 9-room house. Each of eight investigators finds an elephant in a different one of eight rooms. Eight rooms, eight elephants. But one investigator finds no elephant in the bathroom. Would you conclude from his finding, “No elephant in the house”?
So the crucial, first question we should ask is, “Do other results support the notion of a ‘slowdown’ in the increase of global surface temperature”? And the answer, we shall find, is, “Yes.”
But I’ll go there in a moment. First a quick list of early critiques of Karl et al.’s article. Within a day or two of its appearance, the following critical articles had already appeared:
- The most technical so far (not surprising granted the author, my friend) Ross McKitrick’s “A first look at ‘Possible artifacts of data bias in the recent global surface warming hiatus’ by Karl et al. Science 4 June 2015. Ross begins (perhaps having thought of the point I just made about “These results do not support …”) by listing eight datasets that do “support the notion of a ‘slowdown’ in the increase of global surface temperature” (HadCRUT [land surface and ocean], HadSST [ocean surface only], NCDC [land surface and ocean], GISS [land surface and ocean], RSS satellite [lower troposphere], UAH satellite [lower troposphere], and, together in the final graph, Ocean heat content 0-2000 meter [Argo floats] and NOAA SST estimates) and provides nice graphs of all seven. Then he points out all kinds of statistical and data-quality problems in the article and concludes:
Are the new K15 adjustments correct? Obviously it is not for me to say – this is something that needs to be debated by specialists in the field. But I make the following observations:
* All the underlying data (NMAT, ship, buoy, etc) have inherent problems and many teams have struggled with how to work with them over the years
* The HadNMAT2 data are sparse and incomplete. K15 take the position that forcing the ship data to line up with this dataset makes them more reliable. This is not a position other teams have adopted, including the group that developed the HadNMAT2 data itself.
* It is very odd that a cooling adjustment to SST records in 1998-2000 should have such a big effect on the global trend, namely wiping out a hiatus that is seen in so many other data sets, especially since other teams have not found reason to make such an adjustment.
* The outlier results in the K15 data might mean everyone else is missing something, or it might simply mean that the new K15 adjustments are invalid.
It will be interesting to watch the specialists in the field sort this question out in the coming months.
- Likely to be the most troubling to the climate alarmist establishment (because she’s the least identified as a “denier”) so far is Judith Curry’s “Has NOAA ‘busted’ the pause in global warming?” She points out that the datasets on which Karl et al. rely have greater uncertainties than others that they purport to correct. She then writes, “My bottom line assessment is this. I think that uncertainties in global surface temperature anomalies is substantially understated. The surface temperature data sets that I have confidence in are the UK group and also Berkeley Earth. This short paper in Science is not adequate to explain and explore the very large changes that have been made to the NOAA data set. The global surface temperature datasets are clearly a moving target. So while I’m sure this latest analysis from NOAA will be regarded as politically useful for the Obama administration, I don’t regard it as a particularly useful contribution to our scientific understanding of what is going on.”
- Patrick Michaels, Richard Lindzen, and Paul C. Knappenberger take on Karl et al. in “@NOAA’s desperate new paper: Is there no global warming ‘hiatus’ after all?” They begin with what ought to be an obvious point but in our innumerate society (and it’s amazing how many scientists, even, are innumerate, not in that they don’t know how to do complicated math but in that they forget basic math principles, like statistical significance levels, especially when forgetting serves their purposes): “The main claim by the authors that they have uncovered a significant recent warming trend is dubious. The significance level they report on their findings (.10) is hardly normative, and the use of it should prompt members of the scientific community to question the reasoning behind the use of such a lax standard.” Then they point out various weaknesses in the reliability of the data on which Karl et al. rely. They conclude, “… even presuming all the adjustments applied by the authors ultimately prove to be accurate, the temperature trend reported during the “hiatus” period (1998-2014), remains significantly below (using Karl et al.’s measure of significance) the mean trend projected by the collection of climate models used in the most recent report from the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). It is important to recognize that the central issue of human-caused climate change is not a question of whether it is warming or not, but rather a question of how much. And to this relevant question, the answer has been, and remains, that the warming is taking place at a much slower rate than is being projected.”
That’s an important point. The climate models are the only grounds for fearing dangerous manmade warming. The eight more commonly used datasets show that they grossly exaggerate CO2’s warming effect. Karl et al.’s fiddled–er, reconstructed–dataset only shows that they somewhat less grossly exaggerate. That’s not exactly a ringing vindication. It still leaves us with no rational basis to fear dangerous warming, and so no rational basis for policy to mitigate it.
- Bob Tisdale and Anthony Watts take on the new study in the aptly titled “NOAA/NCDC’s new ‘pause-buster’ paper: A laughable attempt to create warming by adjusting past data.” In addition to pointing out all kinds of uncertainties about the datasets on which Karl et al. rely–uncertainties much greater than those that show the “pause”–they point out that Karl et al. choose 1951 to 2012 and 1950 to 1999 as the reference period against which to compare the period of the alleged pause. But of course, there was significant global cooling going on in the 1950s through early 1970s–enough to cause panic about a coming ice age. As Tisdale and Watts say, “If NOAA would like to revise their estimates of future global warming to reflect the more benign warming rate of 0.1 deg C/decade from 1950 to 1999, it would be a big step toward their coming to terms with reality.” Right. That would be essentially cutting IPCC’s estimates of CO2-induced warming by a third, which would put NOAA and Karl et al. solidly in the camp of–horror of horrors!–AGW deniers!
- The Global Warming Policy Foundation chimes in with “Reports of the death of the global warming pause are greatly exaggerated.” (Hat tip to Mark Twain.) The article summarizes “Key pitfalls” of Karl et al.’s paper thus: “The authors have produced adjustments that are at odds with all other surface temperature datasets, as well as those compiled via satellite.” “They do not include any data from the Argo array that is the world’s best coherent data set on ocean temperatures.” “Adjustments are largely to sea surface temperatures (SST) and appear to align ship measurements of SST with night marine air temperature (NMAT) estimates, which have their own data bias problems.” “The extend of [sic; They extend?] the largest SST adjustment made over the hiatus period, supposedly to reflect a continuing change in ship observations (from buckets to engine intake thermometers) is not justified by any evidence as to the magnitude of the appropriate adjustment, which appears to be far smaller.” Then they expand on those in eight numbered points and conclude: “This is a highly speculative and slight paper that produces a statistically marginal result by cherry-picking time intervals, resulting in a global temperature graph that is at odds with those produced by the UK Met Office and NASA. Caution and suitable caveats should be used in using this paper as evidence that the global annual average surface temperature ‘hiatus’ of the past 18 years has been explained.”
- Not to be left out, the inimitable Lord Christopher Monckton weighs in with “Has NOAA/NCDC’s Tom Karl repealed the laws of thermodynamics?” He begins with a humorous rehearsal of a Congressional committee hearing at which both he and Karl were expert witnesses and he had shown that global average temperature had actually been falling for the past eight years, which Karl contested but the data showed true, and that hurricane frequencies hadn’t risen in 100 years, which Karl challenged, whipping out a chart that to his horror showed that Monckton was indeed wrong–they actually hadn’t risen for the last 150 years. The history is entertaining, and I can vouch for its general accuracy–I was there, as another expert witness. Then Monckton zeroes in on the topic suggested by his title. Even assuming Karl et al.’s temperature reconstruction is right, the resulting scenario is that the ocean near-surface temperatures rose at a rate that would require considerable movement of heat into that region from above or below, but neither the troposphere nor the deep ocean showed sufficient warming to be the origin of that migrating heat. Hence, for Karl et al.’s scenario to be accurate, we must assume, as I shall here try to summarize as concisely and simply as I can, that heat radiated, both upward and downward, from cooler to warmer masses, which conflicts with the laws of thermodynamics.
Meanwhile, what seems to me about the most obvious response is this: We should keep comparing apples and apples as much as possible.
The most reliable global temperature data from 1979 to the present come from satellites. They are least subject to local contamination, sample change or inadequacy, and variation in method and instrumentation over time. And they show, as Monckton points out in “El Nino strengthens: the Pause lengthens,” that “For 222 months, since December 1996, there has been no global warming at all (Fig. 1). This month’s RSS temperature – still unaffected by a slowly strengthening el Niño, which will eventually cause temporary warming – passes another six-month milestone, and establishes a new record length for the Pause: 18 years 6 months.”
By the way, keep in mind the psychological effect of the WSJ headline: “Study finds no pause in global warming.” That sounds so conclusive!
But had WSJ reported on the last-cited article, which appeared at essentially the same time as NOAA’s, it could have run the headline “Study finds pause in global warming.”
Indeed, WSJ could have run the two stories exactly parallel to each other on the same day.
No single study settles a matter.
And finding no elephant in the bathroom does not mean there’s none in the living room.
This paper is so far out there that it contradicts the IPCC AR5 (Box 9.2). It says that all the other organisations have misread their thermometers for the last 20 years.
It’s way out there.
I note the Guardian (quite alarmed as media outlets o) has only printed one story on this paper. They aren’t doubling down.
Corrigendum: “quite alarmed as media outlets go”
Just for accuracy, the Guardian actually carried two items. The main article had a couple of thousand comments, with the usual suspects tearing into anyone who dare question the methodology of the paper. The general tenor was of uncritical euphoria that the hiatus dragon has been slain. Typical guardia readership stuff. The other item was a blog column by John Abraham, which is approaching 400 comments in a similar vein to the main article.
In contrast, The Times carried a relatively short column by their Science Editor. Comments in single figures, but all rubbishing the paper.
Correction: over a thousand comments (not ‘a couple of thousand’)
When the Guardian see’s the egg dripping from their faces, you know that the paper is doomed.. Their caution wont last long however, they will be forced to play the game soon by their UN masters.
The Guardian has a new editor which may explain a degree of caution. What is more notable in the Guardian are the readers comments in CiF which have become semi-deranged in their desperation to support the global warming religion, no matter how ludicrous the proposition is.
Some people are like that. Not long ago, a warm-monger was abetting a sexual predator because he once headed the IPCC.
“””””….. * The HadNMAT2 data are sparse and incomplete. K15 take the position that forcing the ship data to line up with this dataset makes them more reliable. …..”””””
“Sparse and incomplete” (data) is a colloquial euphemism for the more scientific terminology; “Fails to conform to the Nyquist criterion for the validity of sampled “data”.
That means, it isn’t “data” at all, it is simply “aliasing noise”, and therefore cannot be processed to recover the original function. OK, so you aren’t interested in recovering the original function, (so why bother taking sparse and incomplete samples of it). Well how do you expect to be able to operate on such samples to obtain any statistically valid output. Such sparse and incomplete data, doesn’t even rise to the level where even as mundane a statistical item, as an average is calculable. It only requires the under-sampling to be “sparse” by a factor of two, for the average to be unrecoverable, as the aliasing noise spectrum folds all the way back to zero frequency. (which is what the average is).
So I put the BS stamp on their “sparse and incomplete ” stabs in the dark.
Playing darts in a bar, will tell them as much as their faux “sparse data”.
MCourtney
You say
Yes, to emphasise your important point and for the benefit of those who do not know, Box 9.2 is on page 769 of Chapter 9 of IPCC the AR5 Working Group 1 (i.e. the most recent IPCC so-called science report) and is here.
It says
GMST trend is global mean surface temperature trend.
A “hiatus” is a stop.
And this from the IPCC that is tasked to provide information supportive of the AGW hypothesis.
Richard
Too many climatologists have become cosmetologists, getting rich by hiding the truth
Amazing, and just in time for the next round of climate “talks”
They reached back into the past to make the pause go away, eg: “We have to find a way to get rid of the Medievel Warm Period”.
It needs to be repeated often: This paper is about establishing a new data product. That is, it is focused solely on the errors and inadequacies baked into the HadNMAT2 data product. And if this paper is held as legitimate, it does not speak to global warming as such: It is a refutation of all previous uses of HadNMAT2. Despite what the authors would like to claim, their paper cannot speak to overall global warming when it is solely and strictly a refutation of — and a creation of a new — single data product amongst many.
Much like the ‘ensemble averages’ of GCMs used by the IPCC, we have an ensemble problem with the data products. They cannot, quite obviously, all be the most accurate. So we’re faced with either refuting all but a single data product or refuting any that are inconsistent with the experimentally demonstrable correctives employed in the Karl paper, or refuting the Karl paper — and the validity of peer review along with it.
If this is unpalatable, and I suggest that it is, then the gold standard in Climate Science is to take an unweighted ensemble average of the data products to produce the data product. And that ensemble average, and all its ranges, is then the only valid input to apply to various GCM runs.
And, of course, it remains that if they can’t get the ensemble average of data products to produce a trend that doesn’t straddle nought, then there is no manner in which to claim that there is any warming at all from within the standard practices — valid or invalid — of Climate Science.
It is pure fraud and they know this.
If the media is looking for short and sweet quotes the one above by Judith Curry is pretty succinct. If the media was not filled with lazy idiots, they might post a quote from a PHD who feels this paper has questionable if any useful scientific value.
Slice and dice it however you desire, it is just more propaganda. The left is great at telling a lie over and over until it becomes the truth and, unfortunately, they have the most megaphones. Then add to this the fact that the average IQ is 100, by definition, and you get what we got.
And worse. Half the people are below average.
“Slice and dice it however you desire, it is just more propaganda.”
An earlier generation used the phrase, “No matter how thin you slice it, it’s still baloney.”
Dr. Beisner,
Thanks for this posting, I personally need to look at it closer to get the full details. I enjoy many of your articles..
I have read several of the other posts on this subject which you reference..
What I think the skeptics need however is a Management Digest type “story” that can be more easily easily read and understood by a broader audience to make sure the skeptic message gets out. I personally distribute many of the blogs from WUWT to a number of friends and colleagues and I can tell you if the article is too detailed it will be lost even by Engineers who may not take the time to wade through all the details. The management digest is useful in addition to the detailed analysis do so well on WUWT.
We are not going to win the war unless we can boil the message down better. I communicate with an individual who is in the media on TV and he tells me the message needs to be simpler and clear.
Thanks again for your efforts
One problem is that there are so many issues with this paper that it is hard to boil it down.
Well, then, here’s my super-brief reply to Karl et al.:
Proper first impression response : “These results do not support …” does not entail that no other results do.
Imagine for a moment that you’re investigating the question, “Is there an elephant in the house?” It’s a 9-room house. Each of eight investigators finds an elephant in a different one of eight rooms. Eight rooms, eight elephants. But one investigator finds no elephant in the bathroom. Would you conclude from his finding, “No elephant in the house”?
So the crucial, first question we should ask is, “Do other results support the notion of a ‘slowdown’ in the increase of global surface temperature”? And the answer is, “Yes.”
Then one points to the datasets in the graphs McKitrick provided.
No single study settles a matter.
And finding no elephant in the bathroom does not mean there’s none in the living room.
Oh it’s worse then that. They originally did find an elephant in the 9th room. Only after removing the elephant they proclaimed there were no elephants in the house.
Hey Richard! Actually, they found the elephant. But then, the investigators went back and examined the search results of an earlier searcher, one who had been disqualified after a vision test revealed that he was legally blind; his search (unsurprisingly) had revealed no elephant. Using the disqualified evidence as a guideline, the more accurate reports of elephants were then “adjusted” to remove any sightings.
NOAA is despicable.
In New England, the NOAA created cod crisis was exacerbated by an out of the blue, out of sequence, trawl study that no one expected.
The Enviro infected agency is intent on destroying the nations independent fishermen utilizing bad data, presented by computer models that are the same as the climate models. Junk.
The warming in the Gulf of Maine that peaked in 2012, was never considered in the models, which would have shown redistribution of the iconic stock.
Naturally, enviro kooks have used this bogus info to fuel their anti fishing agenda, while the ENGO infested bureaucracy has used emergency regulations to finish off the New England groundfish fleet.
To read this article about NOAA’s position is not surprising. What is, is how they get away with this.
A Tale of two pictures – NOAA and Enviros have it all wrong on Gulf of Maine Cod!
http://fisherynation.com/34174-2
Two decades ago I went to a American Fisheries Society meeting in Halifax, when the press was pushing overfishing of cod, but there was at least one paper on the current/temperature changes. Every fisheries crash has had significant environmental, usually temperature, changes, which does not necessarily negate the importance of fishing predation.
The fisheries crises go way back. In Texas the sports/commercial fishing resource competition heated up after WWII, leading to 1970s state produced computer models blaming the commercials, resulting in transfers and running off of questioning biologists. In the 1990s I was involved with the “blackened redfish” fiasco in Louisiana, both cases rammed through like Obamacare, in Louisiana more difficult because of a more protective constitution with better biologists. These were deemed old school and behind the times, but one learned modeling, however. In both states the accepted models ignored natural variation, particularly important to the now always named red drum, with good evidence of strong influence from freshwater. The Mississippi River floods of the 1970s produced large year-classes in Louisiana, for example. In a brief stint with the Scientific Committee of the Gulf Fisheries Council I learned about the more sophisticated models, again, in the case of red drum and red snapper, emphasizing fishing effects. Particularly troubling was the Council, probably with difficulty understanding the models, placing their responsibility on the Scientific Committee, who mostly accepted. The bad science argument has always been that we cannot control natural variation, but can catches, justifying ignoring the former.
The fisheries literature is gradually catching up with these problems, including a paper on Louisiana oysters I co-authored (Gulf of Mexico Science, 2011 (1):1-12). It got a response published in the Royal Society (2012 B, 279:3393-3400) calling us, and a few others, “skeptics,” an honor to a scientist, and “…seeking to end the debate…” We are not sure what the debate connection was, since neither the facts nor conclusions were refuted, but it probably has to do with the current interest in using oysters to sequester nitrogen. Like carbon dioxide, nitrogen has been demonized, so stated by a student of the anaerobic areas around the world (Estuaries, 2002, 24(2b):782-796). These facts suggest the same phenomenon as occurring in climate science, and the science of oyster sequestration is naive, to say the least.
Old wooden boats were burned in Scotland to prevent their returning to commercial fishing (Maritime Life and Traditions, no. 7, May, 2000, p. 2 ). The only popular coverage of other viewpoints of the old Gulf situation I know of was an article in Texas Monthly, and a short book, “Wetland Riders. ”
So, they come up with all sorts of ideas to explain the pause, when none pass scrutiny, in desperation, they go back and change the data. So simple, why didn’t someone think of it before……..
Because you have to be desperate.
This is a high risk strategy. The paper admits the science was never settled and even the basic measurements are subjective.
It needs a brave politician to stake their carer on that.
Or a safe one. There are no shortage of them, at least in the US.
I see. There was 18 and a half years worth of data that they claimed was true. Anyone saying the GISS data graph in 2009 was of questionable validity would have been crucified for doing so. Now one paper that did not even use the accepted 5% “p” value routinely used in science, states they were all wrong and the people of the world are suppose to send another $8 billion a year to these pseudooscientists for their bogus research. Sorry, I don’t buy it. This sounds more like the ministry of information in the George Orwell novel “1984” changing history every day to suit Big Brothers’ needs to control the sheeple. It seems satellite data is the most reliable global data. Use of surface data is full of problems, errors, data manipulation, adjustments, and a constant stream of new problems demanding more and more adjustments. if a drug company submitted an NDA to the FDA and then went back to redefine the baseline measurement after the study was completed they would be blackballed by the FDA forever. It is time to blackball NOAA and GISS.
Per IPCC AR5, CO2 added a radiative forcing between 1750 to 2011, 261 years, of about 2 W/m^2. Solar ToA is 340 W/m^2. IPCC says clouds have radiative forcing of -20 W/m^2, ten times the effect of CO2.
1) Mankind’s contribution to atmospheric CO2 between 1750 and 2011 is a wild ass guess.
2) The water vapor cycle runs the climate, not CO2.
3) IPCC’s GCMs don’t work.
How much simpler does it need to get?
But, but, but…… radiative physics!! Oh, the HUMANITY!!!
“1) Mankind’s contribution to atmospheric CO2 between 1750 and 2011 is a wild ass guess.”
But it’s a Really Big Number, and most people are innumerate, so…
IPCC only regard Solar Irradiance and volcanic aerosol to be natural forcing agents. And then states:
“Satellite observations of total solar irradiance (TSI) changes from 1978 to 2011 show that the most recent solar cycle minimum was lower than the prior two. This very likely led to a small negative RF of –0.04 (–0.08 to 0.00) W m–2 between 1986 and 2008.”
and:
“The RF of volcanic aerosols is well understood and is greatest for a short period (~2 years) following volcanic eruptions.”
and:
“There is very high confidence that industrial-era natural forcing is a small fraction of the anthropogenic forcing except for brief periods following large volcanic eruptions.”
Clouds, water vapor or H2O isn´t even regarded as a natural forcing agents. Even if the effect is an order of magnitude greater (20 W/m^2) than the postulated effect of CO2 (2 W/m^2). And no doubt they are natural and the global cloud cover averages around 0.68 … ref Wikipedia.
Ref.: The contribution from Working Group I – to the 5´th assessment report by IPCC
Chapter 8 Anthropogenic and Natural Radiative Forcing. Page 662.
As formulated by Roy W. Spencer in “The Global warming blunder “:
“When I asked for the evidence that positive feedbacks really exist in nature, I would be told that satellite observations showed that there was, on average, less cloud cover over the Earth in unusually warm years. Therefore (the argument went) the warming caused less cloud cover, which allowed more sunlight in, which enhanced the warming. This observation was given as an example of positive feedback in nature. But something bothered me about this explanation. How did the researchers know that the warmer temperatures caused a decrease in cloud cover, rather than the decrease in cloud cover causing the warmer temperatures? Well, it turns out they didn´t know.”
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/uah/from:1997/plot/uah/from:1997/trend:1997
Do we tell messrs Spencer and Christy to go hang it out the window?
Before any of you make an attempt at an inane comment, I would like to remind people that the two satellite datasets are not direct records of temperature anomalies. We DO have a meta set of direct recording of the temp anomaly, and it is here (before HadCRUt3 was ended):
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/wti/from:1997/plot/wti/from:1997/trend:1997
I say yet again, there is only a single data set showing no warming, RSS. Now, if you want to cling to that set, given that it isn’t a direct recording of temperature, then go ahead. Personally, I see a divergence occuring here on wuwt, those that want to start using the crazy reasoning used on skepticalscience and realclimate, and the rest of us who would rather proceed with caution. Moncky boy’s continuing use of RSS always makes me feel uneasy about his threads here.
Oh, and essential reading, I think:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2011/07/on-the-divergence-between-the-uah-and-rss-global-temperature-records/
Continuing to put faith into something (anything) should be treated with great caution. Life experience seems to show that it can come back and bite you in the bum. If RSS discovers that the flatling is spurious, what would RSS’s followers say then?
Define flat.
To what statistical significance?
With respect to what I wrote above: If any cherry picking of a data product is spurious — then every cherry picking of a data product is spurious. That includes no simply Monckton, but every model run by Climatologists that doesn’t include every data product. This is not simply True if RSS decides to refute its own past construction, but even if it doesn’t. The same holds for every data product in use.
But if every data product is a valid estimation by reasonable people, then it’s not cherry picking but a legitimately bounded difference of scientific opinion. In which case there is neither anything wrong with Monckton’s use or any of the other Climatologists.
In the light of this latter case then, the response to your question is: Make a data product that doesn’t show warming and then cherry pick it. This is wholly legit within the best practices of this scientific discipline — no matter what anyone else may think about the usefulness of it. Especially as it permits any and every data product to be utilized without regard to, well, anything. Any new data product can cite papers that are unpublished, data that is not publicly accessible, destroyed by a fire, eaten by dogs, or what have you.
But regardless of which case is chosen, then any contender — with any ideology — need only demonstrate a data product that is marginally defensible regardless an absence of source data or experimental validation of the adjustments used. Even if that answer is to use raw data without adjustments at all. Or to adjust it up, down, sideways, or into the shape of Thomas Jefferson’s signature.
Unless Climate Science decides on a single data product that is well vetted by argument, experiment, and replication — or just uses the raw data as a ‘push’ — then any and every data product in existence or yet to exist is just as valid. And consistent with Climate Science the refutation or old predictions, data, or models do not change conclusions whatsoever.
So should any skeptic, say Lord Monckton, endeavour to himself to refute a data product, revise it with new an unverified adjustments, that are not experimentally replicable, and are base on citations to unpublished work, to demonstrate anything he wants — then it does not alter any of his part or future statements on the subject. Nor does it invalidate them.
At least, so long as Monckton is making use of the best practices of Climate Science.
Jquip, thank you for your reply. I’m not stating that cherry picking is spurious (ie, fake), I’m saying that RSS’s data set MAY TURN OUT TO BE spurious (fake). I have nothing against cherry picking as long as it’s reasonable. I have no trouble in accepting an 18-year period, none at all, but anything less than 10-12 years is just plain silly – in climate terms. As I say, my beef is in trusting RSS – when it isn’t a direct recording of temperature, and is subject to certain conditions that are rather worrisome. Anthony’s continued allowance of Monckton to use RSS for his articles here is up to him (Anthony), but as I said, this could easily come to bite us all.
Yeh, I understand your concerns. But there’s two problems. The one is that since the raw data is observational rather than experimental — then there’s nothing for it but to trust the raw data. We’ve done the same thing since antiquity with regard to phases of the moon and such not. Though, historically or hysterically, we’ve had a habit of demanding a large number of observers over large periods of time.
But otherwise everyone has to “trust” the data products. It’s not precisely like any of the scientific bodies or institutions have fallen all over themselves getting the raw data out there and accessible to the public. And that is a definitive scare-quote “trust.”
If you wish to be extraordinarily careful of radiosonde data then — both with and without correctives — it establishes a nearly uniform coverage of the globe. That is, there is no ‘manufactured’ data via interpolation. There can and will still be adjusted data, I think we can be sure of that. But it does provide a useful sanity check to values given elsewhere, even if all the satellite data sets are adjusted to oblivion.
Or even if they attempt to embark of the modern shell game to avoid estimating trend directly from the data, but to adjust, infill, and otherwise manufacture counterfactual and fictitious temperatures from which a trend is estimated.
Monckton using best practices of climate science? You are kidding, right? The fake “lord” Monckton is a fraud and because you folks agree with him he’s credible? I can understand why you would find his views attractive but “best practices of Climate Science?” Nope.
No wonder nobody who actually knows about science takes what happens at this site seriously.
I dare you folks to read this carefully:
https://bbickmore.wordpress.com/lord-moncktons-rap-sheet/
@Neal F. Heidler
A factual post, which will be ignored by those who seem not to care about L of M’s dissembling…whether it’s about his own resume, or his pseudo-science.
The new version of UAH also shows no warming.
Hadcrut also showed no warming from 2001 to 2014, which the Met Office has confirmed.
The El Nino in the last year has inevitably left a slight uptick, but the trend is still statistically insignificant
Paul, yes I am in total agreement that it is insignificant statistically, but it’s still a trend up. It isn’t flat, it isn’t down, it is up.
Cooley…that slight ‘up’ – that is also within natural variability. So, the increased CO2 emissions have accounted for…..nothing.
An el nino year does not make a trend, any more than a la nina proves a cooling trend.
This was what the UK Met Office said in 2013:
The start of the current pause is difficult to determine precisely. Although 1998 is often quoted as the start of the current pause, this was an exceptionally warm year because of the largest El Niño in the instrumental record. This was followed by a strong La Niña event and a fall in global surface temperature of around 0.2oC (Figure 1), equivalent in magnitude to the average decadal warming trend in recent decades. It is only really since 2000 that the rise in global surface temperatures has paused.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/media/pdf/q/0/Paper2_recent_pause_in_global_warming.PDF
The pause, at least upto the 2014 el nino , is real and we should not be afraid to keep repeating the fact.
kokoda, I agree entirely. Despite a massive CO2 ‘forcing’ surface temps have hardly risen at all. It makes a nonsense of the idea that CO2 will cause devastation across the globe.
Paul, I love your website (visited it quite a number of times), but what I’m arguing about is the use of RSS. Despite its flaws, I would rather look to HadCRUt4 (actually, I would rather HadCRUt3, but we’ve lost that). I am deeply unhappy about using satellite data when that data could very certainly turn out to be deeply flawed, as it doesn’t directly measure temperature. HadCRUt4 was showing a pause, now it isn’t. Hopefully, a La Nina will represent a return to a ‘pause’. We’ll see.
Are you saying that the statistically insignificant warming is still significant enough to show an upward trend? I thought that was the point of of “significance” in relation to data?
color me confused big jim…
You are applying what Jamie Whyte, in his book by the same name, calls ‘bad thoughts’. It is statistically and scientifically insignificant. But it’s still up (and I’ll come to that in a moment).
Here in Britain, we have some black actors complain that they (black people) are not being represented ‘enough’ on TV and in British films. However, it is a bogus argument. Black people here in Britain make up only 3% of the population. Maybe TV programmes should be peppered with black actors, and they are. Their number is rather insignificant, but they should still be there – but not in the number that these black actors want because then they would be over-represented. Is the cost of repair after a hurricane a ‘significant’ amount? Yes, and no. $1 billion worth of damage is a lot of money. But divided by the population of Florida, it is only $50 each.
Now, back to my first paragraph: No matter what (significance or non-significance), if this green line
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/wti/from:1997/plot/wti/from:1997/trend:1997
turns downward, then there isn’t a single person on here (including me and you) who would argue that it is insignificant. Do you see? Statistically it would be insignificant, but in reality, it would be hugely significant. Enjoy the rest of your weekend.
thanks for your response.
I was thinking…..(always trouble)
is it significantly insignificant or insignificantly significant?
The Ghost Of Big Jim Cooley: “It is statistically and scientifically insignificant. But it’s still up (and I’ll come to that in a moment).”
Breathtaking! That takes disingenuousness to a whole new level.
The linear fit appears to be about 0.1C/decade, well below the IPCC models, with the slope of the linear fit being very sensitive to the start point of the fit. My eyeball’s see a baseline rise to 2002, with a roughly flat line from 2002 to the present, though my eyeballs were trained on broadline NMR relaxation data and not climate data.
One of the things that I have learned from fitting the NMR is that plotting the residual between the fit and the raw data is critical to judging whether the fit makes sense or not. This presupposes that one has a good model of the various component for the time series of temperature data to separate out the effects of the PDO, AMO, etc versus temperature rise from increasing CO2.
This is an important point which needs to be emphasized. At 0.1 C/decade, it will be 100 years before we reach the 2 C warming limit that the IPCC has set. This is hardly catastrophic warming.
I’m going to make [an inane] comment. CO2 is Plant Food.
But you didn’t. You made a 100% factually-correct one.
Yes, ‘inane’ is descriptive, since your comment says nothing, one way or another, about CO2’s role in the greenhouse effect.
The Republican Congress should make NOAA’s entire FY 2016 budget contingent upon the immediate construction of a Soviet style,50 foot tall bronze statue of Trofim Lysenko at the entrance to their Silver Springs campus.
If there are now a greater number of buoy measurements and the buoy measurements are known to be colder than ship measurements then that needs to be accounted for. I don’t find the study controversial. Unless…….
Hey! It maybe warming,
There maybe no pause.
But shorts are the attire .
I prefers, Not furs.
Of course, the abstract and press release could have said:
“Global warming found to be much less than originally feared”
I wonder why they did not say that!
What it’s saying is that the heat was not hiding in the deep ocean after all….
…and NOAA can not measure temperatures in real time, only retroactively
I would be hitting them with that
Karl is a certified gatekeeper of the Cassandra climate alarmists. From his testimony in 2006 to congress here a some money quotes;
“What does the future hold for hurricane activity? In the near term, it is expected that favorable conditions for Atlantic hurricanes will persist for the next decade or so based on previous active periods.” OOOPPS!
That one didn’t work out so well.
“Satellite measurements now confirm a significant increase in atmospheric water vapor consistent with theoretical expectations given the rate of observed atmospheric warming during the past several decades. ”
Oh well he didn’t know NASA’s NVAP study would prove him wrong Vonder Haar et al 2012
This guy talks out both sides of his mouth throughout his testimony. Citing increased drought in the Western US yet acknowledging droughts have lasted for decades in the past and that modern times are wet compared to the not to distant past.
And here is the money quote. “The report does, however, acknowledge there are still uncertainties in the tropics, and this is primarily related to data from weather balloons. There is uncertainty as to whether scientists have been able to adequately adjust for known biases and errors in the data, especially in the tropics where many developing nations struggle to routinely launch weather balloons and process these measurements”
So he now uses a very uncertain SST data set to emphatically state there is NO pause. The man has no conscience.
“Proper first impression response (though I confess it didn’t dawn on me first thing): “These results do not support …” does not entail that no other results do. I could study the colors of cats’ eyes in my neighborhood and conclude, “These results to not support the notion of a ‘slowdown’ in the increase of global surface temperature.”
That conclusion would be true. But it would also be irrelevant to the question whether “the pause” is real.”
#################################
well duh? the title of the article is circumspect. POSSIBLE artifacts. The bottom line is you make aseries of choices about which data to use and how to process it. You present those choices and defend them.
Other experts in the field will take their time to assess the impact of your choices and the soundness of your method. Like all studies it will not be the final word..The onus, however, is on other people to demonstrate what kind of answers you get with other choices, other data, other methods. Criticizing the choices is never enough.To date no one has done demonstrated anything wrong with the Karl approach.
You read Lots of words.. but no demonstration. As for the ” reality” of the pause, it isnt real. The pause results from choices in data, choices in methods. its not “out there” independently existing of our choices.
I’ve never seen a solid defense of it’s existence. I’ll assume it doesn’t exist until its proven otherwise.
If reality exists only as a consequence of the choices we make, then we’re no longer talking about Physics, but Sociology. And while you like the word ‘onus’ the onus is on Karl to demonstrate that his results are consistent with reality. Which is a really odd notion as his results are specifically about constructing reality. Both in the inaccessible present and the inaccessible past.
But consistent with your preferred notions and argumentation: No one has proved that the pause is false. Or even that global warming is true. These are just artifacts of the choices made by others. So I’ll award you points if your professed Skepticism isn’t hypocritical.
As otherwise you’re just a zealot selling your brand of snake-oil for monetary or ideological purposes.
+100
Jquip, reality only exists when you measure it.
I should have added, “apparently”.
Wrong way round, Mosh.
You need to find evidence of a warming trend, not the absence of one.
If the choices are shown to be ill-concieved, then I don’t see why criticizing them is never enough. I think it was Ross Mckitrick who said that experts in the field will judge the validity of the adjustments. He is right. If the adjustments are not valid then the result is not valid. I don’t understand why the lack of showing what results are obtained from different choices renders a criticism irrelevant.
Hi Steven,
For something that doesn’t exist, there sure is a lot of care and effort to get rid of it. Karl’s paper would indicate that there is indeed a ”pause” and has been there up until … eh, this paper adjusted it away. I suppose the big question now is, how valid is the Karl paper? Just how solid is it? Does it actually say more about how unsettled the science is?
It reminds me of the adverts for a ”New and improved” product. To me I always felt that this was admitting how crap the previous product was, though they had no problem trying to flog that up until now. No thanks. I’ll wait till they get it right.
Eamon.
The idea that available data has been interpreted, until now, by AGW alarmists with a cooling (or less warm) bias is laughable!
If there had been any way to interpret data for the past few years as disastrous, we would have been inundated with it.
We all expected this. There is absolutely no way, the Paris circle jerk, could proceed while the world remained within a 18+ year pause. It had to go (for the narrative)… so it did. Just like the MWP and the LIA… they have to go. I just hope it doesn’t drive any realists to violence and extreme activism. Stay cool – my Brothers. GK
Fascism’s last stand!
Cat craking: The AGW crowd lost a long time ago. It ain’t warming or cooling, and the weather is not changing from the normal (normal in human life terms being assessed in the 1000’s of years). So no, you or I or any alarmist or skeptic will not see any significant changes in anything concerning climate.in our lifetimes. Even Mosher, Zeke, Anthony or Steven Goddard, Obama, Blatter, The Pope ect none will experience any change in climate. LOL
taking the world by storm?
I think few ordinary people had any idea of the ‘pause’
most have only noticed the ‘warmest year ever’ headlines
many who see this story may think to themselves ‘I never knew there was even a question’
thus begin to ask more questions
the warmists have bothered to very publicly explain away something that they heretofore vehemently proclaimed nonexistent
seems like a clue
and just when I thought this subject could get no crazier
John. Sounds like the Streisand effect in play here.
yes exactly, thanks, I had not heard of that
Am I missing something?
the warmists have now made ‘pause’ a legit part of the debate
oops…
Anyone who bothers to reply/discuss Anything Mosher writes re climate is an absolute cretino (hink about it).The man is an English major, those are his educational qualifications. (check Internet if you want). It the way he thinks/analyses its obvious to me anyway the man is totally unsuited to research anything related to climate.
And what are your qualifications, granted by an academic board, that establish that you can judge the man on what he is capable or incapable of doing?
His own arguments will either be valid or invalid. Each one to itself.
Dr. Doolittle, I presume?
“He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past.” George Orwell. The sequence of this logic should have been written thus:
“He who controls the present controls the past. He who controls the past controls the future” because first one needs to take power in the present to be able to rewrite history, or in this case climatic records, so that then one would be able to take hold and control the future by continuously changing the past according to the present needs thus controlling the people’s minds and assuring continuance of power over the proles.
The Karl et al. paper is fatally flawed but that doesn’t mean that eventually the slight warming could not recommence.
But at what rate?- its minuscule so far over 355 years according to the Central England Temperature linear fit of 0.26 Deg per Century from 1659 to 2014. No cherry-picking with this long record and lets face it, its insignificant and of no ‘catastrophic’ consequence.
http://s1167.photobucket.com/user/OSlope/media/1659%20to%202014%20CET.jpg.html
Incidentally on that graph shown above I would challenge anyone to show me the influence of CO2 on the temperature. But I hear someone saying but see the temps lie above the line after 1990. But then so do they between 1700 and 1750 and during the 1800’s when there would have been no significant influence.
Judith Curry has an excellent article:
http://judithcurry.com/2015/06/04/has-noaa-busted-the-pause-in-global-warming/#comment-709175
Again, keep pushing the RSS and UAH datasets as those being most reliable. Buy media time to concisely refute Karl Krap – let’s face it folks, the media isn’t going to suddenly change their stripes from Team Obama to Team Balanced.
Luboš Motl has some common sense observations here:
http://motls.blogspot.com/2015/06/karl-et-al-hiatus-killer-is-research.html
Would somebody please tell me how this changes anything about the current model incoherency? I mean the gap between the present global temperature and what the models average predicted, in the present reality.
If Karl’s paper is accepted as valid, then it is a statement that we don’t actually yet know how to compute a global temperature — past or present. And thus, all of Climate Science is impeached. But if it is rejected, then the pause necessarily exists as we can compute a global temperature — past of present. And thus, all of Climate Science is impeached.
The solution to this will be to trot out Karl if an outgroup mentions the pause. And ignore it and the pause otherwise.
again +100
From that perspective, they’re in double jeopardy, jquip. They really need an “unprecedented” spin in the press and a “Consensus” of the spellbound to “make it go away” now.
Dawg, if you read through the RealClimate thread noted here in a post by Middleton you’ll see that they’re already doing this. For Gavin’s part he begins by stating the obvious — that these are data products and there are no ‘global temperatures’ but ‘global temperature estimates.’ Stating that the NCDC paper is meaningless as the other data products all largely agree with one another. This is the defense of the credibility of Climate Science[1] — including the new paper.
He then goes on a strategic withdrawal with respect to NCDC. He substitutes ‘temperature’ for ‘temperature estimate.’ He tries to bargain with desired ends by noting that the lowered overall trend should be acceptable to skeptics — over an above the raw data. That the skeptics haven’t put forward their own data products (new models) — because data products are superior to data apparently. And that the zero is such a minor number that small changes can move a trend value away from it trivially, ergo the hiatus is trivial — despite that the same is true of every number in the real line.
So there we have it: The NCDC refutes skeptics, even though it means nothing to Climate Science. Because the other Climate Science models refute NCDC.
But mark well that Gavin is permanently on the record as stating that we have no manner in which to measure global temperature. And with it then, there is no validity in speaking of a trend established from numbers that were manufactured, rather than dealing with the raw data directly.
[1] Note he claims these are statistical products. But of course, the normal things you would find with statistics — error bars and density functions — are still in absence. This makes his defense a confession: They have no empirical results, or any plans of such, by which they validate their data products. That they are still tinkering with them endlessly.
This “study” is not directed at weather and climate professionals. It is directed at the MSM, UN cheerleaders, members of Congress, the Beltway, and the so-called “Low Information” crowd. The timing of this study’s release is obvious.
Exactamento! And in that sense, the “study” is a rousing success for the warmist camp. Whatever the holes that can be poked into it, it’s already too late. The damage has been done.
The pressure will keep mounting all the way to the Paris Climate Conference. The warmists have deep pockets and know how to orchestrate a powerful disinformation campaign.
It will take a lot of underground resistance from discreetly skeptical climate negotiators to make sure that nothing binding comes out of Paris.
I’ll say it may be a joke, a spoof by some of the NOAA’s disgruntled researchers, fed-up with everlasting ‘corrections’ .
Wishful thinking?
Few weeks ago all of the British media was reporting on benefits of large amounts of chocolate consumption, soon to find out it was a send-up by a journalist dr.med.
Since one can’t tell any more what is reality form a ‘joke’, from now on I am using my own ‘corrected’ data, anyone is welcome to it
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/CRUTEM4-F.gif
with the accompanying data file . It is free, so don’t expect a refund, but do take apt note of the graphs’ legend.
Muddy up the water some more and the press declares a brand new breakthrough. Started with Nixon, then Clinton and has now become a basic damage control tactic, now most recently applied to science by the flailing desperate alarmists.
Am I premature, or is this excuse #53?
The best analogy I can think of is this: you don’t know you’ve caught a fish until the fish realises they are caught and start struggling to get free.
This is nothing more than a very dim fish whose been caught for years but has been so dim witted that they’ve only just realised they are caught hook line and sinker.
Reblogged this on Centinel2012 and commented:
OK here is the deal Looking back 4 or 5 thousand years there appears to be a cycle of ups and downs ranging around 1,000 to 1,100 years with a swing in temperatures of around 1.3 to 1.4 degrees C. Then there is a shorter cycle of 60 to 70 years with a swing of temperature of .3 to .4 degrees C. Lastly there is warming from CO2 which when modeled properly using a logistics curve (sensitivity value of around .7 to .9 C per doubling of CO2) will give an increase in temperature of between 1.1 and 1.2 degrees C but it peaks at between 800 and 1,000 pppm at that value and at 400 ppm we have already realized about a 1/3 of that amount so CO2 can only add .75 additional degrees C even at CO2 levels well over 1000 ppm.
When these three items are properly alined, based on historic data going back 2,000 years, a model that matches NASA-GISS month values using a running 12 month average very closely can be constructed and it shows there will be a slight pause that will last until 2035 when a different alingment of the cycles will again cause temperature to go up. The model uses 1650 AD as the base year with a world temperature estimated to be around 13.5 degrees back then. The model works because it correctly uses the three observed movements in global temperature. Unfortunately since these movements greatly exceed human life times they can be ignored by politicians that use the hysteria that they generate to get laws that give them power over the people. All this is for COP21 at the end of the year.
E. Calvin Beisner,
Thank you for this post.
Much appreciated.
This is more than a scam. It is the responsibility for lack of preparation people on the harsh winter. Summer temperatures are used. Meanwhile, the drop in temperature of the North Atlantic (AMO) causes severe winter in the eastern US and Europe. Atlantic will be less active in the winter.
Solar activity is falling.
Thanks, Dr. Beisner, for your clear words.
It is very difficult to rewrite climate history. NOAA did not succeed.
Those that reject Science are now in another state (or ‘fit’ might be more accurate) of rationalization — their main argument — the faux ‘pause’– has been once more discredited –but that won’t stop them from using it again.
I very much doubt that warrenlb is capable of rejecting science, for the simple reason that he doesn’t understand science, or even know what it is.
Referring to a “faux pause” is the height of ignorance. Many others, including the recent head of the IPCC acknowledge that global warming has stopped. Just a couple of many:
Dr. Jochem Marotzke – 19th November 2009: ”We don’t really know why this stagnation is taking place at this point.”
The ‘stagnation’ continues, six years after Marotzke’s admission.
And:
Dr. David Whitehouse: Statistically speaking it is accurate to say that according to HadCrut3 the world’s temperature has not increased for the 16 years between 1995 and 2011, though many prefer the more conservative ten years post-2001. This is not a ‘sceptical’ claim just a straightforward description of the data.
And:
Question: Do you agree that from 1995 to the present there has been no statistically-significant global warming?
Dr. Phil Jones: “Yes, but…”
Yes, but. There are no ‘buts’! Global warming has either stopped, or it hasn’t. Even Nature admits global warming has stopped.
Who to believe, warrenlb, or real scientists?
I see that warren is still trying to define “science” as being anything that agrees with his religion.
MarkW
I see that warren is still trying to define “science” as being only that which agrees with his religion, as written from on high by the anointed priests of his religion in the holy papers of his religion.
So you see Science as religion (and presumably your religion you call science?)
warrenlb, so your contention is that the faux doesn’t give you pause. That you agree wholeheartedly with Gav, that this demonstrates that falsity of the hiatus. Then you must certainly agree that every data product that shows the faux ‘pause’ is scientifically proven to be false. That they all must be scrapped as nasty myth. And that every bit of work, prediction, or model based on them must go the way of phlogistons. That this is part of the self-correcting method of science.
And that we should speak not one more word about any political goals based on provisional knowledge that has now been proven to be inappropriate. That is: Everything the IPCC has ever produced.
If you have the stones to actually embrace Science and falsifiability, then I’ll question your judgement in accepting this new paper. But I will applaud you roundly and justly for valuing knowledge over utilitarian ideological end goals.
I embrace the science and scientific findings of all the scientific institutions on the planet, including this paper by NOAA. Are you saying they’re wrong and you’re right?
Well, I’m glad you embrace all scientific findings. But it’s not about me, NOAA is stating that they’re right and all other data products are wrong. And as we know that you embrace scientific findings, that you also then embrace this proof from NOAA that every other data product is false and therefore no longer valid science. This is necessary if you are to state that the pause doesn’t exist. But it also means that all work derived from those false data products is reliant on false inputs. That is, all previous conclusions arising from false inputs are — themselves — no longer valid. Provably. And we need to start over from scratch.
That is the consequence of stating that NOAA is right about this. Completely aside from whether they in fact are or are not.
You say
“.. this proof from NOAA that every other data product is false and therefore no longer valid science. This is necessary if you are to state that the pause doesn’t exist. But it also means that all work derived from those false data products is reliant on false inputs. That is, all previous conclusions arising from false inputs are — themselves — no longer valid. Provably. And we need to start over from scratch.”
You expect anyone to accept this unsupported fallacy? You’ve provided no data or reasoning to demonstrate your claim.
warrenlb says:
I embrace the science and scientific findings of…
…of everything you agree with, and you arbitrarily reject everything you disagree with.
You are the quintessential cherry-picker. No one cherry-picks more flagrantly than you do. It would be embarassing, but your eco-religion blinds you to how you are perceived by others.
Ten days ago there was a growing list of Warmists who were openly admitting that global warming has stopped (using words like “hiatus”, “pause” and various other synonyms for stopped).
Well, that was getting out of hand, and we could almost hear the Narrative shift gears. The new talking point went out to the Green Congregation: “Global warming never stopped!” Those are your new marching orders, and like a good little parrot you’re emitting that new pseudo science.
So from now on no one in the alarmist crowd will admit that global warming has stopped. It was bad enough trying to keep the public worried over a tiny 0.7º wiggle in temperature, over a century. What if people started repeating the fact that global warming stopped almost twenty years ago? Even worse, what would happen in only 18 months, when the “hiatus” is 20 years old?
Can’t have that! The whole house of cards might collapse. So your new marching orders are: DENY that global warming has stopped! Maintain and reinforce the Big Lie. It worked for Hitler, didn’t it?
“The extend of [sic; They extend?]…”
The sic should be “The extent of…”, not “They extend of…”
Tyrants depend on a Big Lie . The biggest anti-life lie I can conceive is that the molecule which is the 1 = 1 partner with H2O in forming the backbone of carbon based life is Satan .
Too true .
I want to see the audit trail from our distance to and spectrum of the Sun to the spectral map of our sphere to our best estimated mean temperature . The Planck function and its integral StefanBoltzmann put absolute constraints on the radiative balance between our 2 spheres ( considering a control surface surrounding Earth & its atmosphere ) . The divergence theorem then requires that the mean for the interior ( minus any internal source ) must equal the mean calculated for that surface .
It takes about half a dozen APL expressions to implement these functions and this geometry . So I have .
The simplest case , just adding up all the energy impinging on a point in our orbit , which gives the temperature of a uniform gray , flat spectrum , ball . Our estimated surface temperature is about 3% warmer than the ~ 276.3 to ~ 280.9 from ap- to peri- helion of a gray ball ( assuming a Solar temperature of about 5780K ) .
This whole fraud is over a variation of about 0.3% , just 3%8 the annual variation , but I have yet to see a quantitative explication of even that 3%
Furthermore , Venus’s surface temperature is 225% the gray body temperature in its orbit . These basic , experimentally verifiable , computations show that James Hansen’s claim that this extreme solar heat gain is due to a runaway greenhouse effect is quantitatively absurd by an order of magnitude . Yet he has never been called on it . ( Well , I guess I am . Show me the equations ; I’ll implement them and see if they make sense . )
These are the essential , classical , experimentally verifiable — even at a highschool level , relationships which must be groked and are not superseded when one moves on to a class in NavierStokes .
I don’t know if Hansen calculated Venus’s runaway greenhouse effect, or not, but here is a peer-reviewed paper that did:
S. I. Rasoonl & C. de Bergh (1970). “The Runaway Greenhouse Effect and the Accumulation of CO2 in the Atmosphere of Venus”. Nature 226 (5250): 1037–1039. Bibcode:1970Natur.226.1037R. doi:10.1038/2261037a0. PMID 16057644.
Comments?
Venus’s problem is that it was too close to the sun, and therefor the water in [its] atmosphere from [its] formation never had a chance to precipitate out.
Had the Earth been in the same orbital position as Venus, it would look the same as Venus.
Had Venus been in the same orbital position as the Earth, it would look as Venus does today.
That alone is sufficient to explain the difference.
BTW, if you are going to compare planets, please explain why Mars is so cold, despite the fact that it has 100 times as much CO2 in it’s atmosphere as does the Earth.
I’ve given the essential argument above . Most “climate scientists” don’t seem to even understand orthogonal function decomposition and why the flat spectrum , gray , body temperature is as fundamental a value as the use of Kelvin temperature itself . I go thru the computations in my Heartland presentation linked at http://cosy.com/Science/HeartlandBasicBasics.html .
I’ve heard Gore give mouth time to radiative balance but I see no evidence that many “climate scientists” appreciate it as inviolable quantitative physical law . To put it colloquially , most don’t appear to know how to calculate the temperature of a croquet ball under a sunlamp .
If there is some way to get around the divergence theorem , it should be able to be stated in at most a few testable equations . I have Zero interest in any non-quantitative verbiage .
& DB , it’s not an issue of Venus being closer to the sun . The gray body temperature factors that out leaving just , essentially , the ( 4th root of ) ratio of the planet’s absorptivity wrt the Sun’s spectrum to its emissivity over the whole spectrum ( the planet’s absorptivity == emissivity at each wavelength ala Kirchhoff-Stewart ) to determine the solar heat gain ratio . There is no material spectrum within an order of magnitude extreme enough to generate Venus’s parameters . It must have internal , geothermal , heat and the net heat flow must be outward , not inward .
MarkW , Like the Earth and Mercury , Mars is within a few percent of its orbital gray body temperature . The fundamental relationship is that the temperature of a body , holding its spectrum as seen from outside constant , is directly proportional to the temperature of the source and inversely proportional to the square root of the distance to it . Here’s a graph :
http://cosy.com/Science/AGWpptSBplanetTemps.jpg
The nature link will not help unless you have a login pass (or lots of money) but NASA – bless their hearts – provide a free copy:
http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/1970/1970_Rasool_DeBergh_1.pdf
The paper is 1970 vintage . I have not seen any ongoing citations of it so cannot judge whether as a contribution to understanding the Earth situation it has stood the test of more recent research . Nevertheless interesting parts to it , even some geochemistry. Thanks Warren.
mikewaite , Scanning the R&B paper I don’t see that it addresses the radiative balance which determines the temperature of a planet which can be accounted for by energy absorbed from the sun . It has only the most primitive statement of the expression for radiative balance which assumes a black spectrum in the IR — which is in the wrong direction to explain Venus’s temperature . And it does not consider that that needed ratio is over 25 to 1 , and given Venus’s extreme albedo , that is an order of magnitude beyond any known material spectrum .
Then it totally word waves any derivation of temperature at the surface . And it is patently irrelevant because only a couple of percent of incident solar energy reaches Venus’s surface . I think , all tho I see no computation , that all these assertions of increasing heat simply as a function of depth in the atmosphere involve a lot of double counting of energy .
I can look at SB or Planck and find the equations and their derivations and experimental verification w/o any reference to any planet . And then I can apply those equations to the particulars of a planet . Where is a ( now days open on the web ) textbook which goes thru the supposed physics independently of application to any particular planet ? I don’t even know a source , other than my own , for the equations for radiative balance between arbitrary source and object spectra .
Bob Armstrong,
Correct. The Venus question has repeatedly been put to bed. climate alarmists won’t even pay attention to the fact that Venus is considerably closer to the Sun.
The Venus question rarely comes up any more, because there are far too many arguments refuting the Venus/Earth comparison. A keyword search for “Venus” will get anyone started who might be interested. They will see that the CO2 argument is nonsense.
Lot of straw men arguments in this article – they are easy to spot. I can list some of them out if anyone cares, it has been discussed many times before.
Translation: I know I can’t refute anything, but I’ll pretend that I’m too important to be bothered and hope that nobody catches on.
Mr. Bob Armstrong.
…
What percentage of the surface temperature on Venus is due to atmospheric effects (radiative) and what percentage is not?
That’s a good question . You know the equations ? I’ll implement them in succinct executable notation .
Venus is a much larger planet than Mars, and has a more condensed atmosphere because of its higher gravity. Higher pressure; higher temperature.
Show me the equations .
Does a fully compressed scuba tank sitting in the sun come to a higher temperature than an empty one next to it ?
So you are saying that when you pump up your bicycle tyre the heat it generates is forever maintained?
Because it is under pressure?
Venus’ atmospheric pressure does not cause it’s high temp. In a mind-experiment that creates it’s atmosphere instantaneously then it would …. but it does not maintain it. Same with your bike tyre … it cools.
Also Venus may be nearer the Sun than Earth but it’s albedo is ~3x less than that of Earth (Bond) with only 10% of Solar insolation warming it.
Makes a big difference.
The ave temp of 464C is caused by CO2.
http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/venusfact.html
“The ave temp of 464C is caused by CO2.”
That’s no explanation .
The extremely low albedo wrt the sun is why it is impossible for its surface temperature to be explained in terms of the energy it absorbs from the sun . To get that > 25 to 1 ratio in absorptivity to emissivity to create the 2.25 ratio of surface to gray body temperature in its orbit , it would have to be an order of magnitude more reflective , less emissive in the IR than aluminum . And there is no substance which fits the bill .
Venus must have very substantial internal , ie , geothermal , heating .
That NASA fact sheet , btw , lists its grossly misnamed “black body” temperature based on the calculation for same step function spectrum which produces the ubiquitous 255K meme for Earth , but shows its utter uselessness .
Black-body temperature (K) 184.2 254.3 0.724
The only value useful in computations is the gray body , flat spectrum , temperature calculated from the total incident energy density via Stefan Boltzmann .
Toneb says:
Also Venus may be nearer the Sun than Earth but it’s albedo is ~3x less than that of Earth
Is that why Venus is the brightest object in the sky, after the sun and moon?
The hypothesis that CO2 is the entire cause of Venus’ high temperatures cannot withstand scrutiny. To find out why, see here and here and here and here and here.
Venus is hotter than Mercury and Mercury is closer to the sun than Venus
Yep , much hotter . Did you see my graph above : http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/06/06/noaa-study-takes-world-by-storm-no-global-warming-pause/#comment-1956104 ?
It is impossible to explain that temperature by the energy it absorbs from the Sun . And it only takes what should be undergraduate computations of radiative balance which should be required in any curriculum claiming to award degrees in “climate science” .
The fact is, the HEADLINES in the mainstream media were all about how the pause doesn’t exist. Boom.
End of story. Since 90% of all liberals believe we are roasting to death even in winter, this soothes them and prepares them to attack anyone pointing out these obvious lies, that ‘we are going to roast to death’ and thus arm the robbers who want to tax thin air so they can collect trillions in taxes on energy.
And this is why the fraud is happening and relying more and more on blatant lies.
It’s primarily an “income redistribution” plan; theft legislated by the UN, whose leaders have been involved in numerous financial frauds and global anti-environment scams.
It’s always been an evil plan, and deception is essential – it’s a game, and it’s sponsored by the same people who sponsored the PR that instigated all US war involvement this century.
We should start a lottery on the date thermometer bans become the focus of government hysteria that replaces gun bans.
And the MSM buys in.
http://www.weather.com/news/weather/video/climate-change-hiatus-an-illusion
The more this research paper is promoted the more damage it does to NOAA and the IPCC. Even my school teacher brother-in-law was too embarrassed to defend it during our regular climate “biffo”. All you have to do is ask, “who’s right, the IPCC and 100’s of scientists who have identified the pause, or NOAA who has gone back and adjusted figures to make the pause disappear?” Enough confused sheep and the whole flock panics.
This is known as a ‘teachable moment.’
Does anyone remember last week, when we had an 18 year hiatus?
I miss that hiatus already.
But can anyone clarify for me.
Did Karl create the upward trend from 1998 by reducing the warming trend from the 1980’s to 1998? Is that what happened? If not, then please ignore the following:
Because I distinctly remember thinking, when I first came across skeptical talk related to temperature record tampering – that if they were fiddling the historical temps downward and the current temps upward, then at some point they would press against the limits of what they considered to be permissible adjustments – and then, especially with more accurate modern instrumentation and wider coverage, nature would be forced to show herself.
What are they going to do if the “hiatus” continues through until 2030? Would they tell us that they now realize that the 1998-2015 hiatus was actually a period of cooling, so that they can call the 2015-2030 hiatus a warming period?
Now, it seems possible that EVEN IF we found ourselves in a world of perpetual hiatus, it would be feasible to create an ongoing warming trend – by continually depressing the warming trend of the past. This could be done every 15 years or so, so that we would at all times be told that we live in a world of ongoing warming, whilst the century would end at more or less the same temperature as when it began.
(P.S. I don’t actually expect any more hiatus. I didn’t expect this one. But who knows?)
As another aside, has it occurred to anyone that Karl et al. have by reducing the trend of the 1990’s and the 1998 peak warming, expressed doubts about the seriousness of global warming in the 1990’s.
This effectively makes them global warming skeptics.
Quite specifically, they are suggesting that the extent of global warming recognized for the 1990’s by the IPCC was and is still exaggerated.
Doesn’t that make them Global Warming Deniers?
But jokes aside, this does seem like pure comedy now. We surely can’t go on borrowing claimed warming from the past to create trivial upward trends for the present. Can we?
Is that what these people have been reduced to?
If I have misunderstood the precise nature of the so-called “correction” then excuse my rant.
The more you borrow past time (to add to your graph) then the ‘increasing’ line becomes longer, and this gives you (or rather, Karl) the position statement you are looking to make. What surprises me is that I can’t see anywhere what this does to ‘per decade’ rise. anyone?
“Hydrogen-containing polar molecules like ethanol, ammonia, and water have powerful, intermolecular hydrogen bonds when in their liquid phase. These bonds provide another place where heat may be stored as potential energy of vibration, even at comparatively low temperatures. Hydrogen bonds account for the fact that liquid water stores nearly the theoretical limit of 3 R per mole of atoms, even at relatively low temperatures (i.e. near the freezing point of water).”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_capacity
Only the oceans are able to accumulate heat, thanks to an unusual properties of water. Their heat capacity is huge. With ocean circulation cycles we have the type of AMO and PDO. They are mainly regulate the temperature in the northern hemisphere.
And your point is?
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/wti/from:1979/plot/wti/from:1979/to:2011/trend/plot/esrl-amo/from:1880/plot/esrl-amo/from:1979/to:2011/trend/plot/wti/from:2010/trend/plot/esrl-amo/from:2010/trend
The average difference surface temperature the North Atlantic in AMO cycle is about 0.5 degrees C. Is it enough?
It is remarkable that the trend of temperatures in the North Atlantic so quickly turned away.
http://weather.gc.ca/data/saisons/images/2015060700_054_G6_global_I_SEASON_tm@lg@sd_000.png
“For it is always possible to find some way of evading falsification, for example by introducing ad hoc an auxiliary hypothesis, or by changing ad hoc a definition. It is even possible without logical inconsistency to adopt the position of simply refusing to acknowledge any falsifying experience whatsoever. Admittedly, scientists do not usually proceed in this way, but logically such procedure is possible”
Spot on – formulated by Karl Popper in “The logic of scientific discovery”.
Here’s a plan.. somewhat off topic and probably not possible (or is it)
Launch a few satellites to look back at earth day side and night side with wide spectrum radiation detectors and measure the radiative energy coming from earth and compare that with the radiative energy being added by the sun and presto energy balance??
what are the problems with this? accuracy? cost?
sorry if this post is out of place but its gotta be better than guessing with a bucket and a thermometer
Re: “The extend of [sic; They extend?] the largest SST adjustment made over the hiatus period…..”, I would guess “the extent”. I base this on other postings where “extend” is often written instead of “extent”, and the fact that “extent” appears to make sense here.
Apologies if this has already been covered; I have not read the other comments yet.
IanM.
When the history of the 20th century is written, the names Tom Karl and Sepp Blatter will be mentioned in the same sentence as examples of the same contemporary phenomenon, of the workings of organisations that were untouchable political totems “too big to fail”, blindly trusted until discovered to be riddled to the core by corruption and dishonesty. Ten million dollars was the going rate for a world cup, and is probaby also about the price on a result-U-like paper like Karl et al. 2015, served up as an hors d’oevre for the Paris carve up of political and tax raising power.
I think people should realize that this “study” is more of an act of political gamesmanship than actual science. Yes, behind the scenes, there will be dozens if not a hundred critiques that scientifically and mathematically refute this exercise in statistical malfeasance. And everyone of them will be ignored by both the media and the Climate Gatekeepers. The state of science is really that bad.
I will simply predict what is going to happen over the next months to few years, and you should already know this is how it is going to go:
Karl15 will form the starting point/support for “adjusting” all the other data sets that still show the pause. By 2020, the pause will be gone completely in all the data sets. All of them.
What would you recommend we do about it? Leave a known bias in the data or correct the data for the bias?
Dear Mr. Watts,
As you might imagine, my views about our paper and our motives are somewhat different than yours. To explain why, I should start by explaining my views on what science is and how it works.
Here https://www.youtube.com/… is a 14 minute TEDxAsheville talk I gave in January on What is Science. While I can’t do justice to a 14 minute talk in a single sentence, the bottom line is that science is the result of tests.
So let me give you two examples from our paper. One of the new adjustments we are applying is extending the corrections to ship data, based on information derived from night marine air temperatures, up to the present (we had previously stopped in the 1940s). As we write in the article’s on-line supplement, “This correction cools the ship data a bit more in 1998-2000 than it does in the later years, which thereby adds to the warming trend. To evaluate the robustness of this correction, trends of the corrected and uncorrected ship data were compared to co-located buoy data without the offset added. As the buoy data did not include the offset the buoy data are independent of the ship data. The trend of uncorrected ship minus buoy data was -0.066°C dec-1 while the trend in corrected ship minus buoy data was -0.002°C dec-1. This close agreement in the trend of the corrected ship data indicates that these time dependent ship adjustments did indeed correct an artifact in ship data impacting the trend over this hiatus period.”
The second example I will pose as a question. We tested the difference between buoys and ships by comparing all the co-located ship and buoy data available in the entire world. The result was that buoy data averaged 0.12 degrees C colder than the ships. We also know that the number of buoys has dramatically increased over the last several decades. Adding more colder observations in recent years can’t help but add a cool bias to the raw data. What would you recommend we do about it? Leave a known bias in the data or correct the data for the bias? The resulting trend would be the same whether we added 0.12 C to all buoy data or subtracted 0.12 C from all ship data.
You are, of course, welcome to share this with your readers (or not), as you deem appropriate.
Regards,
Tom [Peterson]
Since there are so many enough to leave buoy. Specialized vessels is less.
Here is an idea… if the data is flawed… get new data!
Should this comment, apparently by one of the Karl et al. paper’s co-authors, be elevated to the lead post, or made a new post of its own? /Mr L
Tom P says:
What would you recommend we do about it? Leave a known bias in the data or correct the data for the bias?
I would recommend providing a link to all data, raw and adjusted, along with methodologies used, etc. Isn’t that called transparency?
It’s always good to hear a PhD in theology willing to discuss methodology with the world’s leading climate scientists. I guess your preferred hypothesis is that when Earth starts to bake in a +3°C warmer world, God will come to save all of us.
KC,
What makes you think global temperatures will rise 3ºC? Global warming stopped many years ago, and there is no indication that it will resume.
I think the main take-away from the paper seems to be that even the authors see less than a 1.2c warming over a century . NOT alarming .
A “3 degC warmer world” has not yet been proven to involve a net disease or disaster. The previous Interglacial, the Eemian, in fact had a “3 degC warmer world”. But for good measure and a mere $10 Billion, I will assemble a bunch of scientists who will “prove” by using the same method as did the “mainstream” Climate Scientists in the ipcc, that a “3 degC warmer world” will bring about the nearest thing to Heaven on Earth possible! I hope you are looking forward to a Tropical Climate complete with mariachi Boys and Girls Gone Wild?
Remember Mann’s ‘hockey stick” graph? The IPCC published it in its report. The global warming alarmists still accept it as valid and reliable, including Mann himself, who is a legend in his own mind. Don’t worry about its flaws that resemble scientific fraud.
The global warming alarmists also accept as valid and reliable, Cook’s 97% consensus paper. Don’t worry about its sub-standard methodology that resembles malfeasance to achieve a desired outcome.
Now we have the Karl et al paper claiming the temperature hiatus has not happened, and again the global warming alarmists accept it as valid and reliable. Again don’t worry about all the holes in this paper that are so conspicuous, the paper is close to falling apart.
Oh well … it just goes to show what some people are prepared to believe in, all in the cause of their flawed global warming doctrine.
This is absolutely comedy gold…. ”
“The second example I will pose as a question. We tested the difference between buoys and ships by comparing all the co-located ship and buoy data available in the entire world. The result was that buoy data averaged 0.12 degrees C colder than the ships.”
So we adjusted the non-ship data up.
Why not adjust the ship data down ?
As obviously measuring buckets is going to be more accurate……. /scar
Absolutely amazing.
Can we look forward and imagine what adjustments will be needed if the pause continues for another 10 years?
Suppose the next 10 years turn out to be much like the last 10 years.
Or the next 20 like the last 20.
They’re gonna need a bigger boat load of adjusting.
What will their new episodes look like?
Flashback 2012; NOAA’s Karl: Satellite, ocean instrument data should show ‘same kind of a trend’
https://youtu.be/pKGH1egZ3Wk
Interviewed in 2012, NOAA’s Tom Karl says to ‘trust the fact but always question an assertion.’ ‘Multiple observing systems,’ such as satellites and ocean instruments, should show the ‘same kind of a trend’.
TOM KARL: “Michael Faraday probably said it best, ‘I could trust the fact but always question an assertion.’ What’s important for today’s scientist is to be able to separate fact from assertions. And, one way we do that is we have multiple observing systems trying to measure different variables, different essential climate variables across the planet. So we have satellites in the sky. We’ve got some satellites that circle the earth every ninety minutes. Some that remain in a position, geostationary satellites. We have instruments that are on top of the ocean. We have instruments that profile the ocean. They actually are autonomous instruments. They go down and sample down to 2000 meters temperatures and salinity in the ocean… So, different scientific teams take a look at this data. They analyze it in different ways. And, when they do this we compare whether or not we are seeing the same kind of a trend with different scientific teams looking at these observations differently. When people do that and they come up with similar answers, then we have lots of confidence in the fact that what we’re seeing is a fact and not an assertion. Anytime one new finding comes out what scientists like to do, can we repeat that.”
London, UK
2012
dbstealey:
Ah, some “science” from Steven Goddard I see. The same referred to by Anthony in this post below I believe:
Anthony Watts (Comment #130003)
June 6th, 2014 at 8:00 am
I took Goddard to task over this as well in a private email, saying he was very wrong and needed to do better. I also pointed out to him that his initial claim was wronger than wrong, as he was claiming that 40% of USCHN STATIONS were missing.
Predictably, he swept that under the rug, and then proceeded to tell me in email that I don’t know what I’m talking about. Fortunately I saved screen caps from his original post and the edit he made afterwards.
See:
Before: http://wattsupwiththat.files.w…..before.png
After: http://wattsupwiththat.files.w….._after.png
Note the change in wording in the highlighted last sentence.
In case you didn’t know, “Steve Goddard” is a made up name. Supposedly at Heartland ICCC9 he’s going to “out” himself and start using his real name. That should be interesting to watch, I won’t be anywhere near that moment of his.
This, combined with his inability to openly admit to and correct mistakes, is why I booted him from WUWT some years ago, after he refused to admit that his claim about CO2 freezing on the surface of Antarctica couldn’t be possible due to partial pressure of CO2.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/200…..a-at-113f/
And then when we had an experiment done, he still wouldn’t admit to it.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/200…..-possible/
And when I pointed out his recent stubborness over the USHCN issues was just like that…he posts this:
http://stevengoddard.wordpress…..reeze-co2/
He’s hopelessly stubborn, worse than Mann at being able to admit mistakes IMHO.
So, I’m off on vacation for a couple of weeks starting today, posting at WUWT will be light. Maybe I’ll pick up this story again when I return.
So we are meant to believe the “science” that this anonymous Blogger has invented for the physics of Venus’ atmosphere: such as – because the ideal gas Law ( PV=nRT ) then it follows (sic) that as T rises then so does P.
Well yes – if the gas is in an enclosed vessel !!! Venus’s atmosphere isn’t though, is it!
And from there he proceeds to argue that there is no GHE on Venus.
I’m sorry but the credibility of this site gets destroyed by posting up and defending the sort of thing that Anthony refers to above (he must, as he, like me, is a Meteorologist). He dumped Goddard in 2010 as being “wronger than wrong” and “he swept that under the rug, and then proceeded to tell me in email that I don’t know what I’m talking about”.
YET he is correct about Venus?
If he were a peer-reviewed or even a “pal” -reviewed climate scientist he would be laughed out of court and rightly so.
Ask Anthony.
Toneb,
Trying to drag me into your ad hominem rant? Why? You’re just deflecting from the issue.
You’re avoiding all the links I posted except for SG’s. There were several, from several different sources. Whatever your complaints are, they do not address the fact that the temperature on Venus cannot be explained solely by the greenhouse effect. As I wrote:
The hypothesis that CO2 is the entire cause of Venus’ high temperatures cannot withstand scrutiny.
Did you miss the word “entire”?
And of course, if there is such a gigantic greenhouse effect, why does it stop at Venus? Mars’ atmosphere is over 95% CO2, yet Mars is pretty chilly.
Speaking of not withstanding scrutiny, you’d better re-think your position. I personally never argued that there was no GHE on Venus (and I never wrote anything about frozen CO2). So drop the fixation on your nemesis, and explain why the GHE doesn’t work on Mars.
‘I could study the colors of cats’ eyes in my neighborhood and
conclude, “These results do not support the notion of a
‘slowdown’ in the increase of
global surface temperature.”
____
that blog really is
Cream – Sitting On Top Of The
World
____
One summer day, she went away;
Gone and left me, she’s gone to stay.
She’s gone, but I don’t worry:
I’m sitting on top of the world.
All the summer, worked all this fall.
Had to take Christmas in my overalls.
She’s gone, but I don’t worry:
I’m sitting on top of the world.
Going down to the freight yard,
gonna catch me a freight train.
Going to leave this town; worked and got to home.
She’s gone, but I don’t worry:
I’m sitting on top of the world.
Songwriters: CHESTER BURNETT
____
Thanks – Hans
Baldur von Schirach, last words: what was wrong with me.
I think the US a great nation.
Unstoppable: Denzel Washington.
Whats wrong with, now.
plain asking, Hans
____
mod – I see the problem.