Hearing: Data or Dogma? Promoting Open Inquiry in the Debate over the Magnitude of Human Impact on Earth’s Climate
US Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.
Dr. Curry ask to respond to “denier” charge from Sen. Markey, and cites IPCC in her testimony. Steyn spars with Sen. Markey while Markey acts like he’s an authoritarian on the issue.
More video to follow.
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“Steyn spars with Sen. Markey while Markey acts like he’s an authoritarian on the issue.”
Oh, Markey is definitely an authoritarian, just not an authority. Typo or truth? 🙂
+1, maybe plus a lot more.
This is politics not science.
Markey was there to school Judith Curry in science? And then he uses 97% of scientists and calls her a denier!!! Markey has no idea that majority rule is not part of the scientific method and his warmest year on record is only 135 year record and the difference between the warmest year and the 10 th warmest year is just over one tenth of a degree. . I especially thought his scolding his grandparents for coming late to America was the sign of nasty arrogance by a person who really didn’t know what he was talking about but instead was using talking points.
Unbelievable: foaming at the mouth Senator denies science.
At 3:33 of this video, watch the spittle foam on Markey’s lips as he babbles about ocean warming intensifying the amount of water in the air.
Ocean warming…that’s a good one.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/07/21/deep-oceans-are-cooling-amidst-a-sea-of-modeling-uncertainty-new-research-on-ocean-heat-content/
All that talk of yotta Joules obscures the fact that the ocean has warmed in the past decade or two the ocean has warmed what, maybe 0.02 C???
The biggest thing it shows is that ocean heat accumulated at 0.5W/m^2, but direct forcing from CO2 was 1.9W/m^2. So 74% of the direct forcing was rejected to space. Sensitivity is 0.26x, not 3x.
21 degrees warmer at that ..
I think that is one of the seven signs? Boiling oceans and stuff?? 🙂
That was the most telling moment of the entire exchange when he was visibly foaming while spitting out his careless lies.
Well you don’t actually need ocean warming to get more water in the atmosphere.
And that is a key point that ” skeptics ” need to keep in their mind.
Remember that the amount of water vapor (H2O) that the atmosphere (air) can hold, depends on the Temperature of that ATMOSPHERE. It does not directly depend on the Temperature of the water (ocean).
The Temperature of the water (ocean) does affect the ability of the ocean to supply more water to the atmosphere, but so long as the relative humidity is below 100%, then the air is capable of holding more water if it can get it.
Now we all (most of us) do believe that the CO2 and other GHG absorption of outgoing LWIR radiant energy does ultimately result in ATMOSPHERIC warming, and therefore can lead to more water in the atmosphere.
Where a mental block can occur, is that it is not at all apparent just how a warmer ATMOSPHERE (at least to me), can lead to a warmer ocean.
Conduction and convection in the atmosphere, would seem to be barred by the second law from the net transfer of HEAT (noun) energy to the ocean which is often at a higher Temperature than the air.
Downward LWIR radiation would all be captured in the top 5-50 microns of water surface, and lead to higher evaporation, which would actually cool the surface thin layer. So it is not at all clear that a warmer atmosphere can warm the ocean, by transferring atmospheric energy in any form to the ocean water. But increased evaporation is possible without warmer water, when the atmosphere is unsaturated as to relative humidity.
Now I am NOT claiming that a warmer ATMOSPHERE can NOT warm the ocean.
It is just not clear to me how that might work except in some special sort of circumstances.
Now if the ocean does warm up by whatever means, then that of course should lead to greater atmospheric water. But it doesn’t have to warm up. to create cloud feedback cooling on the surface.
G
My point being, that a warming atmosphere is not indicative of Kevin Trenberth’s mysterious missing heat hiding in the ocean. It ain’t there at all, if the ocean doesn’t in fact warm in response to atmospheric warming.
g
Humidity at many levels are also falling…ie less water in atmosphere.
Finally! Someone other than myself points out that CO2 emitted LWIR CANNOT influence anything but INCREASED evaporation rates which, as you said, actually cools the body of water.
Has anyone done a desktop experiment on this? Meaning reasonably rigorous, not a Bill Ney greenhouse effect style experiment.
Exactly George. The ocean is where AGW drowns in the first few microns. Every combined SST & land temp chart “proving” AGW is meaningless because LWIR/CO2 can’t heat water. Karl’s study levers SST to erase the pause, but this only disproves AGW and affirms the sun and natural climate variability.
Climate science makes the Myan rituals look like empirical studies. It truly is mind boggling how 30,000 people can spend the people’s money hunting unicorns and drinking expensive wine while cheered on by millions of useful idiots.
george e. smith,
What happened to the temperature of the water when it first absorbed the IR?
Since you’ve ruled out DWIR from the atmosphere as an ocean heating mechanism due to limited penetration distance, one wonders why kinetic energy transfers from atmospheric gas molecules bouncing off the surface are not similarly limited.
tomcourt,
Yes:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/09/why-greenhouse-gases-heat-the-ocean/
Thank you for pointing out that the air temperature hasn’t risen AND that you failed to read a proofed, double verified and peer reviewed paper about how evaporation actually works…
FTOP_T writes: “LWIR/CO2 can’t heat water”
That’s not true, even sort of. CO2 doesn’t heat water, but IR does. Water absorbs IR very efficiently. Any IR that makes it though the troposphere will be absorbed by the ocean and also by any other water on the planet’s surface exposed to it. Water absorbs infrared radiation.
What you’ve written is a mistake.
But global atmospheric humidity at all levels has declined since abt 1983.
The point is that Markey is blaming oceans being 21 degrees warmer.
I actually cannot believe he said that , AND that nobody went “21 DEGREES!!!! GOOD LORD!” in response.
I realize that there are more immediate things to be worried about.
Unfortunately, the undercover erosion of the values that most people are used to is taking place with many of these social justice groups. Here’s a link, not meant to scare you but to give you a sense of gravity as to their organization, affiliations and desires.
Consider ISIS acute and these guys a chronic illness.
http://www.wrongkindofgreen.org/
@Brandon,
That link is propaganda. The experiment measured clouds (which hold latent heat from evaporation) as a proxy for CO2 heating. Didn’t measure temperature change, but “forcing” and then claimed they “proved” that since cloud cover holds heat, CO2 can heat the ocean.
Typical climastrology, big on conjecture with little to no empirical evidence
@bartleby
No IR is absorbed in the first few microns and can only enhance evaporation. Look at a graph of evaporation and skin temperature profile. The only way to heat the ocean is by SW which can penetrate at depth.
LWIR “heating” the ocean is pseudo-science. Physics won’t allow it.
Fill a thimble with water (representing 5 micron layer of water) heat it to any temperature you like, put a thermometer 1 meter deep in your pool. Now pour the thimble in your pool and record the temperature change. Do this every day for a year under all different weather conditions. Let me know the day when it causes a 1C temp change. Show your work and write back when you are done.
George,
Conduction, convection, radiation, evapotransportion, and even back radiation, do NOT add net energy to the ocean (heat transfer is up if the air is cooler). However, the effect of the back radiation is to act as a partial radiation insulation, and slow loss of radiation net energy transfer up, resulting in the absorbed sunlight heating the ocean to a slightly higher temperature to restore balance of input sunlight to net energy transport up. It is actually more complicated than just that, as the lapse rate and location of radiation to space also enter the balance equation.
FTOP_T,
Clouds are better LW absorbers than clear atmosphere, as such they are also better LW emitters. Sounds like a good proxy and an elegant experimental protocol to me.
http://www.realclimate.org/images/Minnett_2.gif
Vertical axis of that plot is in units of K, which is temperature.
Where’s your empirical evidence in support of your conjecture?
Oh, and I’d really been enjoying this subthread for the lack of name calling on both sides.
George says: “Conduction and convection in the atmosphere, would seem to be barred by the second law from the net transfer of HEAT (noun) energy to the ocean which is often at a higher Temperature than the air.”
FTOP_T says “LWIR/CO2 can’t heat water. ”
The laws of physics seem to say that IR cannot heat the ocean directly.
brandon posts a link that seems to explain this connundrum.
The hypothesis is that the IR heats the very thin surface layer, which reduces the temperature gradient accross this thin layer. The layer acts as an insulator, slowing the transfer of heat from the deeper layers to the atmosphere. It is simple to understand that if this occurs, then all else being equal, the ocean will be warmer than it would have been if it lost more heat to the atmosphere. The IR does not heat the ocean dorectly, but it affects the heat flux resulting in more heat staying in the ocean, and therefore a warmer ocean.
Is this mechanism plausible? Yes indeed. They did an experiment showing more IR led to lower temperature gradients and therefore reduced heat flux.
Does this prove that increased CO2 heats the ocean? Indeed not. What it does prove is that warmer oceans as a result of increased CO2 are consistent with the laws of physics. The objections about IR only penetrating the surface few microns is not proof that CO2 cannot result in warmer oceans.
FTOP_T then says “The experiment measured clouds (which hold latent heat from evaporation) as a proxy for CO2 heating. Didn’t measure temperature change, but “forcing” and then claimed they “proved” that since cloud cover holds heat, CO2 can heat the ocean.”
This is wrong. the experiment doid not “measure” clouds (whatever that would mean). They measured incident IR (or IR in). The clouds simply provide a variation in the IR. Since the experiment was intended to study the effects of IR, it does not matter if the source is clouds or CO2. They measure temperature of the surface, and temperatur below the surface. From the surface temperture the calculated IR out. the difference between IR in and IR out is the IR forcing. The question is, is there a relationship between IR forcing and temperarture gradient? If there is, then this is evidence supporting the hypothesis that IR forcing can reduce the heat flux from the deeper ocean. Hence anything that increases IR forcing, such as CO2, may lead to warmer oceans.
The measurements revealed there was indeed suchg a relationship, and thus the mechanism is plausible.
I do not know what FTOP_T thinks they measured, but it was actually something different, and has nothing to do with latent heat. They very much did not find just that the surface was warmer when there were clouds.
seaice1,
That is my exact understanding of the mechanism.
It really should not be controversial for all parties here to accept that DWSR from the sun is the primary energy input for the entire planet, including the oceans.
Especially when one considers another implication of limited LW penetration in water relative to SW : it precludes radiative energy loss at depth but not radiative energy gain at depth. That means ocean temps are very sensitive to change in net energy fluxes (radiative, sensible and latent) at the surface.
Bingo.
That’s what the positive slope of the regression line in the plot is suggesting.
I’ve been waiting for someone to point out that the absolute y values of the data points on the plot are overwhelmingly negative, indicating net cooling across the skin layer.
They didn’t find at all that the surface was warmer when there were clouds, they found that the temperature gradient across the skin layer was lower as net DWLR increased. I should have been more clear about that in my previous post, you did a much better job of it.
In sum, the lower the temperature gradient across the skin layer, the lower the rate of heat loss — exactly as written in your opening paragraph.
@Brandon
I understand the experiment focused on isolating DWLIR and using clouds (water vapor) as the variable GHG to measure.
The study also concedes that CO2 at 2w/m has 1/50 the potential DWLIR of the actual GHG “measured” (water vapor) at 100 w/m
The experiment derived a .002 slope change between skin surface temp and 5cm. Let’s assume the experiment could actually uncover this trace signal, which I doubt.
First, why didn’t they calculate the impact out for CO2 based on this proxy? To calculate CO2 as the variable, we would divide by 50 and derive a slope of .00004.
Since the most significant cooling mechanism of the ocean is evaporation, what would have more impact, a .05% change in relative humidity or CO2?
It is funny how CO2 warms the ocean always devolves into “it slows cooling”
I also enjoy discussions withou ad hominem as well. Although when it comes to the blatant falsehoods of Mann and others, no quarter is given.
Thanks, George. A couple of points. First, you say:
george e. smith December 9, 2015 at 1:59 pm
While you are free to speak for yourself, you are not authorized to speak for all of us or even “most of us”. I see no EVIDENCE that increased levels of CO2 “does ultimately result in ATMOSPHERIC warming” as you claim, and if there were such evidence, the climate debate would be very, very different.
Easy. The transfer of heat from the ocean to the atmosphere is a function inter alia of the ocean-air temperature difference ∆T. If ∆T goes down, say because of a warmer atmosphere, then heat loss from the ocean to the atmosphere will also drop.
And in turn, this will leave the ocean warmer than it would be with a cooler atmosphere.
Now, I’m not making any claims about the likelihood of any of this. I’m just saying that a warmer atmosphere can also lead directly to a warmer ocean, despite the fact that the atmosphere is cooler than the ocean.
w.
Correction.
The experiment is calculating a slope in w/m2 of .002.
Thus CO2 could theoretically reduce the .1 difference in skin layer to 5cm by .008 with .004 being attributed to AGW. I am suspect that this signal could be derived on a perfectly flat ocean surface, let alone a turbulent one.
The title of the article is “Why greenhouse gases heat the ocean” That is not defensible from this experiment
FTOP_T,
I can only guess, and my first one is that extending the results of one in situ experiment to the entire globe across all local weather conditions wouldn’t yield very robust results.
FWIW, that’s 4 W/m^2 for the change in CO2 from pre-industrial times, so 1/25.
Pretty sure the answer is that the percent change in relative humidity wins that one. What’s the relevance to the topic of whether DWLR affects ocean temperature?
Perhaps you could point out where I wrote “CO2 warms the ocean” or “it slows cooling” because I’m not finding either.
Willis,
What sort of evidence would you need to see?
Braided line
St Croix pole
Shimano Saragosa
Number 9 hook.
Medium drag
Markey blamed the Boston snow on increased moisture due to global warming. This was totally debunked by empirical evidence (they melted the snow and determined precipitation was only slightly higher than normal). It was a massive snowfall in depth due to amplification from extreme cold which causes very dry and very deep snow like Boston saw.
Mann and Trenberth supported this absurd theory ( Markey literally spewed) in the press and Joe Bastardi called them out on it. I guess if you can misrepresent Nobel credentials, spreading other falsehoods is chump change.
Just like the 97% meme, these climate crackpots never have to admit their lies only repeat them.
FTOP_T writes: “Markey blamed the Boston snow on increased moisture due to global warming.”
Taken out of context it’s difficult to really understand this comment, however assuming global warming actually existed, which according to our satellite instruments is not true, then it might actually be responsible for increased precipitation, both as rain and as snow.
But you have to show warming first, which hasn’t been done.
http://weatherworksinc.com/Your-Guide-to-Snow-Ratio
Snow has a ratio caused by temperature. The Boston snow had a 30:1 ratio. Scientists actually melted it. They also looked at total precipitation and it was only 20% higher than normal. It’s called empirical evidence. The colder it is the higher the ratio. Boston got a lot of snow because it was COLD!!!
Trenberth and Mann claimed it was caused by warm air in the Atlantic in WaPo. They are either incompetent or purposely misleading the public. Markey regurgitated this falsehood.
The leading IPCC scientists are anti-science. Sad.
The precipitation in Virginia has been somewhat below average this year. More some places and less others are a sign of natural variation. You can’t have it both ways and call both proof of global warming due to human activity.
Judith Curry, you are my hero! Thank you for standing up to these idiot (putting it nicely) politicians. What I don’t understand is how Senator Markey does not understand how HE is the one denying science. Just unbelievable. Thanks to Scientist Curry for letting him show us how stupid he is.
X 100!!!!
Game. set. match Louise.
A politician attempting to school a scientist on science. What is wrong in that picture.
Come before our inquisition and dare to deny our religion.
Markley is a textbook example of the phrase “You just can’t fix stupid”. Always has been.
Ed Markey has been Co-Chairman of the GLOBE International Commission on Climate & Energy Security. Globe has close links with the Club of Rome whose Co-President, Ashok Khosla, is a member of Globe International and President of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). It has become a de facto unofficial world government, whose members agree measures on behalf of the UN and then take those measures back to their own countries and seek to enact legislation to implement them.
Scroll down the page to see Ed Markey as Co-chair with his Chinese counterpart:
http://globelegislators.org/about-globe/25-globe-international
“Without the burden of formal governmental negotiating positions, legislators have the freedom to push the boundaries of what can be politically achieved. GLOBE’s vision is to create a critical mass of legislators within each of the parliaments of the major economies that can agree common legislative responses to the major global environmental challenges and demonstrate to leaders that there is cross-party support for more ambitious action. All major government policy decisions should be consistent with climate change goals.”
Whatever the conduct of the senators, at least the US Senate still manages to hold openly controversial hearings like this. This would be unthinkable in the parliaments of most other countries.
Not when Harry Reid was in charge.
Good point. However, here in Canada there was none of that even with the Conservative Party in charge.
@Michael Palmer:
Actually, there was (not sure if there still is, under the “new regime”, though) It was known as the Canadian Senate Committee on Energy,the Environment and Natural Resources. Back in 2011, I actually had a link to the full video on a Cdn gov. site via this post.
Ross McKitrick was one of the presenters and, in my books he’s always worth a listen.
Alas, sometime in the last four years, the Govt of Canada, in its infinite wisdom, decided to relocate the full video beyond the reach of anyone’s mouse, notwithstanding (ain’t that a Great Canadian word, eh?!) that which can be found via:
http://senparlvu.parl.gc.ca/Guide.aspx?viewmode=4&categoryid=-1&eventid=7941&Language=E#
But all is not lost, thanks to the foresight of Tom Harris who had uploaded McKitrick’s (approx 10 minutes of) testimony to the ‘tube:
If we could go back in history to be a fly on the wall during during the Spanish Inquisitions, I bet we would see the same spittle-flecked zealotry from the bishops as we now see from Sen Market et al.
And both the religious zealots and the agw zealots have just as much evidence, logic and practicality supporting them,
Here you are …time travel –
https://youtu.be/Tym0MObFpTI?t=318
I just finished watching this segment. Ed Markey is a FRACKING moron. The Steyn-Curry double-teaming of Markey was AWESOME!!!
Ed Markey obviously suffers from the same left wing Ed Syndrome as the two Eds in the UK, who did not have a clue about climate science, relied on sound bites and caused such huge economic damage:
Ed Milliband – previous Labour Party leader and architect of the UK’s disastrous Climate Change Act, and
Ed Davey – previous Liberal Democrat Minister of Climate Change.
When people are clueless about a subject, they tend to rant to try and hide their ignorance, which is what I saw in the video clip, a classic case of cluelessness.
Peter Miller:
You say
Really? The “two Eds” merely continued what Margaret Thatcher had started and her Conservative (Tory) Party had continued.
Adoption of the “UK’s disastrous Climate Change Act” was supported by the Tories and only three Members of the Commons voted against it. Also, the Tories are the present UK government and they don’t intend to repeal the Act.
Ed Davey was the Minister of Climate Change of the Tory/Liberal coalition government and the Liberals were the minority Party in that Government; i.e. the Tories with Liberal support appointed Ed Davey as the Minister of Climate Change.
So, according to you, Margaret Thatcher and the Tories “obviously suffers from the same left wing Ed Syndrome as the two Eds”. In reality you are trying to mislead American readers into thinking that the UK has similar ‘left v. right’ division about ‘climate change’ as that which uniquely exists in the US. In fact there is not a ‘left v. right’ division about ‘climate change’ in the UK.
Richard
Markey is still mad about not getting the pot of gold carbon tax passed, aka pot of gold and redistributive wealth fund. Obama pledged to continue the fight after the bill was pulled. Only white hot phone lines to congress stopped the bill. They still smell blood (money) in the water after that episode.
Scientist make the mistake of thinking that truth will out. Sadly, rhetoric has much more influence on what the public believes than truth does. Politicians need not be expert in anything but rhetoric. I watched much of the hearing and it did not go nearly as well for truth as one might have hoped.
Rhetoric, and the well funded influence which determines which rhetoric gets heard. I’m still not sure how many decades it will be until this is flushed out of middle school text books. And that process won’t begin until this thing is blown wide open. It has some cracks now, but geez… it’s going to take the NOAA or NASA getting busted to gain that kind of traction.
All politicians care about is the opportunity for corruption and graft. In other words, show me the money.
Markey won’t learn because he is an ideologue. He chaired the committee asking Alan Greenspan, former Federal Reserve Chair, what happened to cause the 2008 crash. Greenspan simply said, my model was wrong. When asked how long he had used the model Greenspan replied 40 years. The IPCC models are pushing 30 and equally wrong.
Markey is the tool who pushed the Obama Admin to release oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in 2011. He pressed the Bush admin repeatedly to stop filling the SPR in 2008. Markey has repeatedly in the past demonstrated he is a socialist who believes Government should control the energy market in toto.
Markey won John Kerry’s senate seat when Kerry became SecState. A classic case of going from bad to worse.
Much of the high power academic support for CAGW/CO2 can be found in the group known as the Intellectual Elite of the Boston area. Markey’s old 7th district is well aligned with those folk.
If you pick apart his talking points and compare to the NGOs and elite school groups statements they often have the same content and flavor.
A major giveaway is his attempt to link natural variability to being blinded by allegience in God at 2:35.
This is a classic undercurrent in the Intellectual Elite battle with the GOP.
Wow … natural variability was sneakily converted to God-made by Markey.
You could tell by the cadence of his delivery that he KNEW what he was doing.
He knew what he was doing… He just didn’t know anything about the science not written into his talking points.
Ah yes, the “talking points”.
Much like Benghazi, it would be worthwhile to see who prepares the talking points for various politicians.
It would be worthwhile to see the cross connections of the reviewers and the origination of the messages.
“Like Gallileo. He said “No, the science, the science..”
Gallileo shot himself in the foot by not leaving it as a scientific theory but trying to make it theological as well ie. What God said in the Bible.
If I remember rightly (and I do) Galileo was arguing against the consensus and “settled science”.
Note well that Galileo was exonerated in…. Wait for it! 1967. You can see that the “revolution” that every one is expecting to overturn the Synod of Climate Bishop’s could be a long time coming.
Actually Galileo brought it on himself not by the science but in his writing where the official church view was expressed by a character named ‘Simplicio’ which was felt to be mocking the Pope. Up til then his long time friend, Urban VIII, had protected him, once he did this he was in trouble.
Phil,
Thanks for bringing some historical fact on Gallileo. I’ve always thought it is one of the most misrepresented pieces of history we hear so often. It wasn’t that he was challenging the consensus regarding the science, it was his perceived challenge to the authority of the Church and the Pope.
Supposedly Gallileo was a rather disagreeable fellow and regularly pissed of his contempories.
2:35
What an a$$ole Markey is. BUT he managed to divert the argument away from IPCC, which he couldn’t defend to something he could by appealling to authority.
An appeal to authority is only a convincing argument to the feeble minded.
That’s his target audience.
The overwhelming consensus of Scientific witnesses (100% of climate scientists) agreed that the satellite was the best temperature measurement and that it showed no warming in 18 or so years.
For some reason the alarmists don’t seem to like that consensus. I just can’t understand why they’ve gone off consensus so quickly.
” I just can’t understand why they’ve gone off consensus so quickly.”
I would venture to say because they realized they ‘cannot get there from here.’ [Blows the agenda.]
Two people in the exchange were accurately quoting scientific evidence, one was misquoting from his hymnal. Sane objective folks would have no difficulty identifying each, but the members of the choir will just keep singing along.
Someone had to present the dogma, Bishop Markey was the one on this day.
Paraphrase….
“40% of the warming in the 20th century was from 1900 to 1950 before CO2 was a factor”
Great fact. Just need to keep repeating the facts. Stick to the data, avoid $hit slinging contests.
Amazing the insults to such a distinguished scientist. Can’t stoop to that level.
To make the warming still continue they are adjusting the data to make those years even cold, thus making the warming continue, but then they are still saying most of the warming happened before when CO2 was a factor. Even when trying to save themselves they are dooming themselves.
I think Steyn rattled Markey.
He was equally overbearing and willing to interrupt.
Sorry guys. Markey came off very well and got the best of Prof. Curry… when he brought up the “warmest year” issues she should have asked if he knows what El Nino is and the effect t had on temperatures in ’97-98… maybe that was implicit in her mention of natural factors but it was so vague that there was no impact. She should have challenged him on the data series as well, since ’14 was not the hottest in the satellite record.
Steyn acted like a blowhard and was all over the place.
Markey came across as an arrogant jerk. Watching him smear one of the most distinguished climate scientists in the world as a “denier” was one of the most arrogant and contemptible things I’ve seen in many years. He’s nothing but a latter day Joe McCarthy.
You’re tone deaf. 2014-15 as the hottest years is probably the only climate news the public knows about. It was a Home run for Markey and there was no answer from Curry. She was caught on her heels. Sorry.
Ive never understood why McCarthy gets such a bad rap when he was right. Shame so many people fall for the lies, as they do now regarding
The planet has been warming for at least 19,000 years, to the benefit of humanity. A lack of “hottest years on record” would suggest a possible reversal of the trend, which would truly be a disaster for much of the planet’s population.
Sarastro is correct. Even though Markey comes off as arrogant, he got the air time and his warmest year line and unusual warm water – cause of heavy snow line is what the media and casual observers are most likely to remember.
Think about it this way. Markey comes off as a clown to most of us. Yet the voters in Mass continue to elect him every term. The average voter is the target audience and unless they are predisposed to a low opinion of Markey, they were not all that certain to take away from the exchange that he was punked by Judith and mark Steyn.
Markey came off as the twit he is. He never responded to Curry and as far as I could tell, never got her name right either – “Dr. Titly?” Forsooth. He demonstrated unswerving avoidance while making blanket, unqualified assertions. In fact he tried to level some of the same “faith” arguments against Curry that sceptics level at the AGW faithful.
See response above to Dick
His lunch may have been excessively liquid.
Don’t you mean he blew Markey all over the place?
Kudos to Steyn for his support of Curry.
What Markey said about her wasn’t on the video but she wanted to respond. He said, “I didn’t ask you a question.” in an attempt to shut her up. Steyn jumped in and the rest is what we heard and saw.
(Markey reminded me of a less confused but no more knowledgeable Joe Biden.)
Markey drove home the climate news of the year and Curry had no answer (Steyn mindlessly flailed)… To the average American Markey was on point and Curry was left stammering. That was obvious to any impartial observer.
You may have missed where she pointed out that NOAA acknowledged that the “warmest year on record” had a 32% confidence level (68% chance of being wrong) and that NOAA’s error bars were clearly not broad enough. She also pointed out that the HadCRUT reconstruction did not agree with NOAA as to the warmest year on record.
This strawman was shot down several times by Curry and Steyn at various points in the nearly 3 hour hearing.
sarastro92-
The average American won’t ever see the video, nor will many impartial observers. Nor does the average American really care if global temps were hundredths of a degree warmer. Climate change falls almost dead last among American concerns, and the only group that American’s trust less than scientists right now is politicians. So Barkey will be ignored.
Aphan
The average American or any other average citizen will not see or be interested in the hearing. This is fortunate. If they were following all this stuff agw might be a concern instead of last on their list of worries. It is, however important to keep blasting and calling out politicized science at such hearings, to the press, to academia to your neighbours etc. I have had some success talking to people who raise the topic as if it were a foregone established finding. Most never think to question it but are happy to hear it disputed.
I, and almost all other regulars on this blog “follow this stuff” and AGW is the absolute last thing on my list of worries.
So, sarasota, you seem to think that scoring points is more important than telling the truth.
IOW you are just another push-the-narrative-at-any cost-proglodyte.
Tell me, how do YOU or Markey or anyone else make the “warmest on record” claim without acknowledging that the global records using uniform measurements taken by calibrated instruments in orbit have been yielding data only since 1979?
Please produce standardized temperature data taken all over the planet before then.
PLEASE tell us how all those multi-ton dinosaurs survived on a cooler earth, just for starters.
Then explain the Minoan, Roman, and Medieval warming periods, the latter being something Mann said he had to “get rid of”.
EXPLAIN! Right here>>>>
Or just STeffU.
As for Steyn: he was a witness, yet he put Markey on the defensive, making him answer rather than be the interrogator.
I DON’T BELIEVE claims that 2014-15 was “the warmest ever”… but Curry did not have an answer. That’s obvious.
In the video clip presented a US Senator made a claim about climate that is widely repeated and believed by most people and Prof Curry did not dent that claim. And that’s unfortunate, because the clip could be played before wider audiences, and it appears that the Claim that ’14-15 are the warmest on record could not be refuted in any convincing manner by a prominent skeptical scientist.
I hope this clip is dead and buried… but it was not a good performance in front of a mainstream audience. I have a nose for politics and journalism and that’s my judgement.
To claim its not the hottest year ever, Dr. Curry would have had to open a can of worms. Namely the manipulation of data. THIS is public!!!!! Dr Curry can not in a few moments that she is allowed list ALL of the information the public needs to see the truth. Making he statement with out having the time to carefully lay out the information would merely reinforce The “U.S. Senators claim. In stead Mr Steyn was able to step in and show that said Senator was lacking in the knowledge of the local history of the State he was elected to represent.
Perhaps the next step should be a audit in to whether or not the good Senator has the education level to be part of the relevant committee. (I loathe such tests but for goodness sakes please know local history.)
michael
Not going to argue how it came across to the less informed just a suggestion if someone asks you in the future.
The best estimate of how the global temperature has changed comes from satellite data from 1979. Two different groups have employed them and both show a pause for 18 years. Prior to further adjustments in 2015, all temperature records showed that the warming over the past 18 years that was too low to be consistent with alarmist claims rather than zero.
Could also add
Nobody denies that the globe warmed last century after a period that was once referred to as the Little Ice Age but the rate of warming in the second half was no greater than for a few decades in the first half, and now its much less. It doesn’t need to cool to debunk claims that the world is well on its way to catastrophic warming.
Robert B… too bad you weren’t responding to Markey’s assertion in the Senate sub-committe. Your answer is more convincing than the one that was given. Which is exactly my point.
Some of you really need to read and not shoot from the hip.
It also might help to step outside your normal viewpoint (no matter how correct you think it is) and look at it from other points of the compass. That is what sarastro is doing. Doesn’t mean they agree with Markey’s position.
Bottom line is that Markey’s comments are more likely to be dissemenated and heard than those of Steyn and Curry from this particular exchange.
And before anyone decides to show their ass, my first comment in this thread was that I couldn’t watch the clip to the end because I couldn’t take any more of listening to Markey. I personally think the clown is anti-American and couldn’t pass a high school science test.
Had Curry responded to the stupidity about the “warmest ever,” the discussion – such as it was – would have descended into dueling data sets. Worse there is a methodological problem and the problem of methods employed. Markey is a lawyer and as such is well trained in how to debate substanceless issues. He can’t argue substance or science and was quite transparent in avoiding it. He could and did recast Curry as “antiscienc.” She could and did challenge his knowledge and every question she posed about his knowledge was avoided. Markey relied for his assertions on the adjusted NOAA Surface Stations data. Curry did not bother to assert that the satellite data disagrees, nor did she point out that the “adjustments” are trivial, falling within the estimated error of the actual measurements. What she exposed without overtly embarrassing Markey was that he had no familiarity with any science associated with climate, nor the major issues that really drive scepticism.
Even Curry probably does not have a good handle on how justified the “adjustments” were, so expecting to debate that with Markey would be pointless. There is no necessary reason to question “adjustments” to new data derived from new types of instrumentation. It is unlikely that an unmonitored electronic device will perform in precisely the same fashion as an historic instrument, producing data directly comparable to historic data. The outstanding problem is the purported adjustments to the historic data itself. That has no rational, methodological justification; it is what it is. Even the so-called TOD adjustment, which is broadly accepted, has a weak methodological foundation since it cannot be demonstrated that every record has the same necessary “bias.” The adjustments depend upon assuming and then estimating an unknowable but pervasive bias in the historical data. This is far too subtle for a Senate hearing.
So, sarasota, you seem to think that scoring points is more important than telling the truth.
IOW you are just another push-the-narrative-at-any cost-proglodyte.
Tell me, how do YOU or Markey or anyone else make the “warmest on record” claim without acknowledging that the global records using uniform measurements taken by calibrated instruments in orbit have been yielding data only since 1979?
Please produce standardized temperature data taken all over the planet before then.
PLEASE tell us how all those multi-ton dinosaurs survived on a cooler earth, just for starters.
Then explain the Minoan, Roman, and Medieval warming periods, the latter being something Mann said he had to “get rid of”.
EXPLAIN! Right here>>>>
Or just STeffU.
As for Steyn: he was a witness, yet he put Markey on the defensive, making him answer rather than be the interrogator.
Anna,
You are pissing on the wrong tree. Sarastro is simply referring to perceptions and since most of us understand this is not about science but policy and politics, perception is truth when it comes down to what policies get enacted.
Well its the hottest year on record.. if you ignore the 9000, of the last 10000 years or so..
By the pre-hearing demonstration, the Democrats earned Steyn’s disdain and he gave it to them.
That said. I totally agree Markey had them on their heels with the warmest year meme.
Dr. Curry should have said “with the error bars in the heavily adjusted data, it would be scientific malpractice to declare any year in the last 100 as warmest. In the 1930s the U.S. Experienced more 100+ days and the Great Dust bowl. Stating warmest year, month, day on record given the dramatic changes in measurement approaches makes a true scientist bristle or biffa like they are sitting on pine cones”
Too many words
Most brains like major spoken themes to be made in 30 words or less.
How about ….
Senator Markey, you are scaring people and you should be ashamed. Recent temperatures are within the normal range of man’s time on earth.
That is a jab to the throat. Boxes the opponent in to have to defend both his intention and then explain a faulted position. It’s like boxing.
Agreed Knute,
Although remember much of this is to be put in the record. A backhanded slap at Mann by weaving scientific malpractice, questionable temperature custodianship, and the pine cone witchcraft into her response would have been epic.
Also, you protect against the next warmist year claim. But I do agree your response is direct and confrontational of his scare tactic.
I totally understand the need to memoralize for the record. That’s typically what your statement is for.
I’m also fine with introducing lines of evidence in the level of detail you suggest, but remember its a show and each showman has a different style.
Markey is easily baited because he shows the strategy of the bully who thinks he already won. Hubris, arrogance and all that. Supposedly, one of the best strategies with the bully is the immediate throat punch to his intent which he has to defend, then you take him in baby steps to each successive science based line of evidence. The pros try to keep the lines of evidence for the theme (this temp is part of the natural variability) to 3 and pound them over and over again.
It’s you who drag him down the slippery slope, not he who gets to pontificate.
The GOP could get an awful lot of mileage out of a weekly “for the record” tabletalk thru the committee.
They don’t do this, so I figure they aren’t THAT serious about the attacking posture. Presidential prize is the key … IMO
markey-
When you were born, decades ago, you were very short and not very smart.
Yesterday you were the tallest you have ever been. Today you are the tallest you have ever been.
If your height continues to increase at the historic rate, in 2030 you will be nearly 10 feet tall.
Yesterday you were the stupidest you have ever been…
sarastro92,
I can agree that Curry didn’t reply very effectively to the “warmest year” crapola.
In a free-for-all like that, it’s hard to consistently punch your points.
You go on to profess to be endowed with a “nose” for politics and journalism and I cannot claim to be astonished that a fellow human extols his own acumen in a blog comment. However, I didn’t find that a convincing factor in any of the arguments you make.
Speaking of which, there was actually only one argument and you seemed to think a blend of repetition, condescension and personal insult would adequately make your case. That didn’t really work for me. Maybe it did better with ‘the common man’.
As I said, IMO, Markey won a few points on that one angle; mostly, he was out-punched by our duo but noTKO.
In case you forgot: In a professed democracy it’s always a good idea to convince the average voter … Curry missed on this one and should use this as a learning moment to prepare better next time. In a public forum sometimes a quick succinct answer is required to be effective. That’s what we want, no?
Sorry that little bit of advice is so offensive to your brittle sensibilities. The stakes are high enough for this to matter.
That is why, in a professed Democracy, scientists don’t (as a rule) run for political office. They are, typically, not good at verbal jousts, in large part because they have to simplify complicated issues into answers people with IQ’s south of Bostons average mean winter temperature can understand.
Instead what we have for statesmen are empty suits filled with hot air to give off flourishes of oratory with the odor of a wet phart and the value of the residue left in their underwear. Markey gave us his best Brian Williams impersonation in that video and did not come off believably for anyone paying attention.
But, to your point, it is fair to say that the slack jawed post 1990 public school student with internet access would give him the thumbs up for that nonsensical outburst.
“Sorry guys” No need to apologize. You are entitled to your opinion.
You clearly watched the wrong video
After watching that display, I wouldn’t vote for Markey for dog catcher. The man is an arrogant ass, a grotesque ideologue and a disgrace to the U.S. Senate.
It’s clear that Markey (a lawyer with no scientific training) thinks he knows more about the climate than a distinguished climate scientist like Dr. Curry.
My hat’s off to Professor Curry and Mr. Steyn for standing up to the jerk, instead of simply getting up and walking out of Markey’s kangaroo court of the absurd.
Steyn was awesome. What I found amazing was that Dr. Christy remained silent while his “baby” the UAH data set was being torched. I’m sure there is never enough time in these kinds of hearings, but man that had to be difficult for him to listen to.
Why ?? If you’ve got the raw numbers that tell the story, you don’t need to defend them. You just watch all the bent arrows that miss the point.
John Christy is one of my personal heroes; and also author of the other piece of the climate Rosetta stone.
I think it is the January 2001 issue of Geophysical Research Letters. You gigglers can correct me if I mis-remember.
Prof Christy reports on about 20 years of simultaneous oceanic air Temperatures (at + 3 meters altitude), and oceanic near surface (-1 meter depth) water temperatures, as recorded by some floating oceanic buoys, starting circa 1980.
That 20 years of data, showed that oceanic air and water Temperatures are not the same; they do not track each other, and they are not correlated.
I forget which way the air and water Temperatures differed (read the paper), but the fact that they don’t correlate means that prior to about 1980, ALL of the oceanic Temperature data, that was previously recorded from a bucket of water, going back maybe 150 years, is bovine scat, and is uncorrectable, because of the lack of air water correlation.
You can’t fix that 150 years of total rubbish, which we recently learned they largely just made up in the first place. A perfect GIGO problem.
The air over Hawaiian water today, may be over California next week, so why on earth would anybody ever believe that water and air should reach thermal equilibrium.
The other piece of the climate Rosetta stone, is the Wentz et al paper from SCIENCE, July 1 2007; ” How much More Rain will global warming bring ? ” Which points to how cloud feedback works to regulate the surface Temperature. (measured data; NOT models).
g
FYI. Curry thinks that the BEST data series is the Gold Standard. Last week she wrote exactly that. She doesn’t talk much about the satellite data.
We’ll be getting our paper out before too long. Anthony and the team. Dr. Curry seemed quite amenable to the concept of Heat Sink Effect and microsite.
And, as Mosh of BEST said right here in this forum, siting “is a good issue”. Because its effect is systematic.
Therefore any significant heat sink effect turns homogenization from Uncle-H into the H-bomb. By definition.
“You’re tone deaf. 2014-15 as the hottest years is probably the only climate news the public knows about. It was a Home run for Markey and there was no answer from Curry. She was caught on her heels. Sorry.”
Tone deaf? Surely you jest. It’s tone – exactly that – of which I’m speaking.
Watch it again. Malarkey managed to personify arrogance and pretentiousness as he (a non-scientist) impatiently and condescendingly lectured a distinguished climate scientist about climate science. That’s about as tone deaf as I’ve ever seen it.
Malarkey was rude and bullying, talking past (and sometimes over) a witness who was present at the invitation of the committee. (Most well-brought-up ten year olds would probably think, “He shouldn’t talk to her like that.”) In the process, Malarkey also trampled on Senate rules of decorum and civility. His boorish and ill-mannered behavior is exactly what most fair-minded and sensible people are going to remember, not his BS rant about the “warmest year ever, blah, blah, blah.” Sorry.
“What I found amazing was that Dr. Christy remained silent while his “baby” the UAH data set was being torched.”
That’s because he was told before the hearing that he had no right to interject, only to respond to questions. That’s why more GOP attendees were needed, to ask him to respond to his critics.
At the end, Dr Curry was making a point about the membership of the meteorological society but I’m not clear what is was. It sounded like she said %52 of the members said it was majority human caused. I’d like to know where she was going with her argument.
I think it is along the lines of ONLY 52% are of the opinion that the majority of the post 1950 warming is attributable to humans.
48% said man had little or no part in the current warming .. IE the science is not settled
“This is the warmest year ever recorded.. etc.. etc..”
Disappointing that Curry let him get away with these repeated claims.
Actually – I think Dr Judith Curry is letting this idiot Markey hang himself with his own petard – you just have to take a slightly longer view.
Do remember guys – not only do we have time on our side (the pause will become the norm given another decade or so!!!) but we also have the idiotic arrogance of the likes of Markey that will ultimately show themselves to be the Proctologists Dream to the population that we already know them to be.
In some ways – it is undeniably fun to challenge them now.
In other ways it will be enormously satisfying to haul them up before some sort of tribunal to explain just why so much taxpayers money was wasted.
As I understand there’s another 2 weeks for written Q&A.
You’re exactly on point Ian. In the court of public opinion “the hottest year” is climate news people know and understand, and Curry a) conceded the point as “True” … that’s debatable; and b) said nothing about El Nino.
Markey won. That’s unfortunate. Curry was not prepared.
sarastro: when did Curry say “true”. to Markey’s “warmest ever” claim? Stand and deliver!. I say you’re an effing liar.
Abject nonsense.
She clearly addressed this point when Cruz asked a follow-up question.
Markey was spewing so much horseschist, that no one could have addressed all of it in one answer.
Curry’s response was to ask how much of the current warming is natural variation. That implies that she agrees that there IS record-shattering warming (the satellite data say otherwise, of course).
The “natural variation” was vague and made no impact. If Curry had mentioned El Nino, that would have done the trick. So she blew it… Markey’s assertion was left unchallenged.
sarastro92:
I make no comment on American politics because I am not an American.
People considering your point are ‘talking past’ each other, so I write in hope of helping discussion of your point saying
The arguments about who “won” exist because who “won” depends on
(a) what winning is considered to be
and
(b) over what time scale winning is seen to occur.
Markey clearly “won” in terms of immediate ‘point scoring’ that would convince uninformed onlookers. Such ‘point scoring’ is the business of politicians seeking votes so it is no surprise that an elected US Senator is better at it than a professional scientist and a journalist.
But few uninformed voters will have (or will) see Markey’s performance in the Senate Hearing and, therefore, that “win” is not significant.bold
The Senate Committee Members clearly have less expertise than Judith Curry and they know it. They will assess the points of Markey and Curry and see that Markey had no answer to the “38%” point made in rebuttal by Curry. This will be recorded in the Committee’s Report. Therefore, in terms of the Committee’s Report, it can be expected that Curry will be seen to have “won”.
The Committee’s Report of its findings is the important (because influential) outcome of the Hearing and, therefore, it is probable that Curry had a significant “win”.bold
Rapid response answers to unexpected assertions may not be the ideal answers that would be provided were preparation time available to consider the ‘best’ answer. In this case, the probably ‘best’ answer would have been similar to:
“Yes, it was originally claimed that last year was the ‘hottest on record’ but that was soon retracted. It is now agreed by all that there is a ‘two to three’ probability that 2014 was not the hottest and, for example 1998 was hotter. There is no dissent from this consensus. And some people think this year will be hotter than last year because of the temporary strong El Nino. However, it remains to be seen if this year will be hotter than last. If it eventually it is determined that 2015 was hotter than 2014 then we will still have to wait to see if that determination will fail scrutiny as last year’s determination did”.
In addition to agreeing Markey’s assertion while refuting it, the suggested answer states that the person providing the answer has more knowledge and expertise than Markey while using Markey’s own tricks of appeals to authority and consensus and introduces the issues of data validity and natural variation from ENSO.
Some such reply to Markey’s assertions of ‘record years’ could have been prepared if there had been warning of them. Importantly, a similar reply can be presented if Markey’s assertions are repeated.
Richard
I find it astonishing you keep going to this. A respected scientist is verbally abused by an arrogant politition that won’t stop running his mouth long enough to hear a responce and you are all up about Markey winning. Mark put him in his place and you don’t seem to see that. People like you are what’s wrong with climate science. Facts get in your way so you point to meaningless things to redirect. Come up with something or stop cluttering up this forum.
John C:
It seems you did not see the same video as everybody else.
Richard
Richard,
Even fewer people are likely to read the Hearing report than watch it on Cspan or Youtube. Then there is the secondary effect of how it gets reported in the media. So if Markey “scored” points on this exchange, he in effect did win. Because it is all about politics, not science. Meaning you were not the audiance, the American votoers were. Along with those in the media (or those who like to use the media) who get off on thinking they can influence how those voters choose.
timg56:
Thankyou for your clear and rational comment on my above post. It goes to the heart of my point about “what winning is considered to be”.
Your point is mostly about how American politics works. As I said, I am not willing to interfere in American politics by addressing it here because I am not an American. That is not evasion: it is courtesy when posting to an American blog.
My point is about tactics in a public forum. I have some experience at that (e.g. in each of five successive elections I was elected as the National Vice President of a TUC-afiliated Trades Union).
I think you may want to read – and possibly comment on – my post below in this thread that is here.
Richard
I find it quite strange that no one there didn’t take the senator to task over his 97% claim.
It’s been debunked so many times that even mainstream media is very hesitant to use it anymore.
Only a fool or a liar would risk using it in a serious debate, simply because it so easily blows up in your face.
The “science” in the 97% figure is social science not climate. Curry and Steyn avoided arguing a science – such as it is – in which they have no expertise. It was really a smart move since Markey was walking his own plank and apparently doesn’t know it.
seem to me that both Dr. Curry and Steyn had a difficult time completing a statement as Markey just kept stepping on them. I’m sure that both would have been more on point not being constantly interrupted. The inquest is not at all interested in science nor truth.
Steyn debunked it at least once as did Curry.
If they took them time to debunk it evey time the Democrats repeated it, they wouldn’t have had time to say anything else.
Did that congressman arguing that Boston’s record-breaking snowfall was caused by man-made climate change really say that the ocean water was 21 degrees above normal? Oh yes he did!
I thought I heard that too! Did he miss a decimal point? Could this be checked out?
I think he said that the air over the ocean was 21 degrees above average.
More please. This exchange between a well-informed and able scientist plus and author with a belief backer dramatically shows the intransigence, ignorance and duplicity of the warmist position. Thank God for open government.