By Joseph D’Aleo, CCM, AMS Fellow
INTRODUCTION
The US congress sub-committee on Energy and Commerce Committee held hearings on whether to restrict in some way the EPA’s regulatory authority relative to greenhouse gas emissions.
There were 7 scientists invited to testify. Three of the four who argued not to restrict the EPA played a key role in the last IPCC report (and will also in the next one) and generally started with the position that IPCC science was sound and there was a consensus of all real scientists.
In the attached analysis we take a look at the IPCC based science. We are going to ignore all the many ‘gates’ that were uncovered like the Himalayan glaciers, Amazon rain forests, how many real scientists there were who authored the key summaries and all the issues as to whether the summaries truly reflected the scientific information in the chapters and despite claims to the contrary, how a significant percentage of citations were not peer reviewed.
We will not attempt to address the issues of sensitivity for CO2 or solar and cloud and water vapor feedbacks relative to the models. We will also ignore the many model shortcomings – like inability to forecast regional patterns, ocean oscillations, etc. Each of these alone discredit the consensus ‘settled science claim.
We will focus on how actual data compares to the consensus science, model based virtual world view of climate.
We will look at some of the major findings, assessments or model predictions from the IPCC and other national climate centers and NGOs, that we believe have failed and let you decide then whether or not the their science and model projections should be the bedrock onto which we build public policy.
The ten issues:
1. Warming is said to be unprecedented and accelerating. It is neither.
2. Global warming is not GLOBAL
3. Winters would grow increasingly warm
4. The entire Northern Hemisphere would experience less snow and snowcover
5. The arctic oscillation (AO) would become increasingly positive, aiding in the warming
6. Global warming would lead to a permanent or semi-permanent El Nino
7. Atmosphere will warm faster than surface (because that is where the heat trapping gases are).
Enlarged. Balloon data for actual 100-300 mb from 20S-20N from NOAA ARL Angell (anomalies relative to base period 1968-1977) compared to models forecasts of warming 20S-20N 100-300mb. Note the cooling observed where models suggest most GHG warming. This is similar to depictions from Singer etal NIPCC 2007 and others.
8. Record highs and heat waves are increasing
9. Sea levels are rising at an increasing, alarming rate
10. Droughts and floods will worsen
We have actually made a list of 30 such ‘failures’ or ‘shortcomings’, but decided to focus on the first ten.
See the analysis part 1 and part 2.
Oh no!!!!!
Global Warming causes earthquakes, aaand locks tectonic plates so they don’t move!!!
It is a travesty that it is the hidden heat that causes this:
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2011/03/18/global-warming-stopped-earthquakes-before-it-caused-them/
10!
That’s a nice round number and a rather large one in the context of hypothesis testing.
My 9th grade science teacher told me 1 was enough.
Since the acceleration of anthropogenic carbon dioxide began around 1945, sixty five years seems like a pretty good time to wait for a look back at the record. Even any slow feedbacks would have had decades to do their dirty work. — John M Reynolds
Dang, they show the proper graph, but miss the years? HadCrut shows slight cooling 2001- 2011.17. 2002-2009 shows a rather significant cooling….. http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:2002/to:2009/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:2002/to:2009/trend
Got through the first one, much spankage.
The unfudged, unadjusted, unadulterated numbers tell an unambiguous story, and that is that the CAGW wrong. When will people begin to see this incontrovertible FACT?
I excuse all politicians and Greenies from answering this query as it would prove to be detrimental to their collective cranial integrity.
IF Scientific Consensus is the correct way to the question, then let’s look back to the time when the “Scientific Consensus” said that the sun went around the Earth. At that time, only a few dared to question the “Consensus” of the majority. I would hate to think what would have happened if all agreed that, “The Debate is over!” and they stopped trying to find a better answer.
Reality and truth does not care how people vote or believe, it is what it is. We are left to search for the answer and the person person who comes up with something may not be correct.
Bob Diaz
7. The atmosphere should warm faster because the moist adiabatic lapse rate drops with temperature, i.e., in warmer air there is more water vapor that condenses as the air rises, and this slows the cooling you get when it expands from the lower pressure.
Check Lindzen’s testimony page 18-19 for the view of a skeptic on this issue:
http://democrats.science.house.gov/Media/file/Commdocs/hearings/2010/Energy/17nov/Lindzen_Testimony.pdf
“The resolution of the discrepancy demands that either the upper troposphere measurements are wrong, the surface measurements are wrong or both.”
My guess would be the troposphere measurement. Instrumentation on weather balloons isn’t perfect, and you only need to be off by 20 meter altitude or so to ruin the trend.
I read the whole thing.
Absolutely terrific.
Inhofe should get a copy.
Thanks for that.
Hrmmm..
Won’t they just move the goalposts again? They call it “Climate Change” now, for a reason…
If we see colder winters with more snow, and more “year without a summer”, it’s climate change.
Advancing glaciers, more snow… climate change.
A global temperature anomaly in the negative, and getting colder… climate change.
It’s much easier for the public to swallow the above than if you replace “climate change” with “global warming”, and that’s why the name change: It allows them to claim any weather or temperature change or trend is “climate change”. An early spring? Climate change! a late spring? Climate Change! An average spring? Compare it to a non-average one in the past and call it climate change.
Of course, they’re still stuck with saying CO2 is heating the planet. Sort of… I’m seriously predicting that, within two years, they’ll switch to claiming it’s cooling the planet and putting us at risk for a new ice age.
Like the article, but the way a couple of the bullets on your list are presented is sorta confusing. Looks like in some cases you are intent on debunking your own views. ??Or is it just my own reading in-comprehension.
jmrSudbury says:
“Since the acceleration of anthropogenic carbon dioxide began around 1945, sixty five years seems like a pretty good time to wait for a look back at the record. Even any slow feedbacks would have had decades to do their dirty work.”
That is a point I continually try to make. A ≈40% increase in CO2 is a very significant rise. If CO2 would lead to runaway global warming as predicted, we would have certainly seen very significant warming by now, and the temperature would be closely tracking the rise in CO2. But it doesn’t.
In fact, on a global scale over the past decade, there is an inverse relationship between the rise in CO2 and temperature. And as we see here, rises in CO2 follow rises in temperature, therefore CO2 is a function of temperature, not a significant cause.
The planet has been warming, in fits and starts, since the LIA, at about 0.35°C per century. The current patterns, trends and parameters of the current warming since 1850 are indistinguishable from the past, when CO2 was much lower. According to empirical observations, there is simply no global evidence that CO2 makes any difference at all. And as Prof Richard Feynman points out, if a hypothesis disagrees with observations, it’s wrong. Therefore the CO2=AGW conjecture is wrong.
Arizona CJ says:
March 21, 2011 at 2:35 pm
The Climate Change alarm began prior to 1900, when thermometers became widespread. Each time the cycles change, so does the nature of the alarm.
Cold, Hot, Cold, Hot and now back to Cold again.
And, just like previous episodes of climate alarm, give them a few more years for reality to sink in, and it will be Global Cooling causes Coming Ice Age all over again.
Anyone know if Markey or Waxman were actually at the testimony. ?
A regression against a calendar date will give you about the same results as Joe gets with his regression against Co2, a non parametric correlation coefficient of about 0.4. Of course both have failed rather badly since 2000 and failed during the cooling into the last AMO bottom in the 1970s. But you can never get too careful, you know. Outlaw calendars.
Excellent report. The data presented are more credible as early indicators of the onset a new ice age than as indicators of global warming.
@Smokey
“The planet has been warming, in fits and starts, since the LIA, at about 0.35°C per century.”
Really, the whole planet?
Can you actually prove it based on a proper amount of observations alone? Backed up by proxy data?
The mix and match and ad hoc patching of statistical data from poor to worse to fairly good to a multiple of different types of hardware all assumed stellar, later manipulated based on everything from looney assumption to qualified presumptions, proves nothing but its own statistical context (and the green looney tone propaganda. )
First order of business should have been to compile proper statistical data without mixing and matching and manipulating as you please, where each set are supposed to fully, or in part, back up all the other respectively to confirm the real world, all taking into account such things as technological advances and population growth and subsequent growth of villages, town and cities. Out all that a somewhat proper statistical average could’ve been computed, at least per each technological period, going backwards. Such simple, but probably very tedious work, has yet to be done, instead we’re supposed to believe a few eccentric kook’s measurements from cities like London proper to mean proper global average from those times in 1750’s through 1850’s and beyond to such a point in time where things got a bit more industrious (I freely disregard the present day proxy kook’s garbage, since they obviously can’t manage their data properly, let alone do statistics it would seem.)
Fortunately I did not find.
The word moon.
In the report IPCC 4.
The links Part 1 and Part 2 don’t work for me.
Arizona CJ says:
March 21, 2011 at 2:35 pm
You must have a great spot there in The “Zone” to hide from the loonies, so you may have not had a chance to keep up. We left “Climate Change” some short time ago, zoomed past “Climate Disruption” and are now in Climate Chaos.
I understand that the new name for global warming/climate change/climate disruption is Climate Unpredictable/Weather.
Thanks from the heart to Joseph D’Aleo and Anthony Watts. You are doing more to protect the Marketplace of Ideas than anyone else.
Never forget: “If simulations were hypotheses then dreamers would predict.”
More on these topics.
Sea levels rise is decelerating.
http://theinconvenientskeptic.com/2011/02/determining-the-true-acceleration-of-sea-level-rise/
Snow Coverage
http://theinconvenientskeptic.com/2011/03/snow-coverage-update-winter-of-2011/
Now the station data isn’t even detecting the ENSO events….
http://theinconvenientskeptic.com/2011/03/new-mystery-with-the-station-temperature-data/
I don’t usually comment on here, but Thomas commented “Instrumentation on weather balloons isn’t perfect, and you only need to be off by 20 meter altitude or so to ruin the trend.”
I wouldn’t have a problem with this except for one thing – massive numbers of repeats of the experiment are being conducted, every day, for 50 years, and so if there were errors of 20m altitude on an occasional instance it would surely be overwhelmed by the rest of the observational data.
With regard to decreasing tropospheric absolute humidity: would you care to comment on catastrophic-anthropogenic-global-warming proponents’ contention that stratospheric humidity is increasing and that this is a particularly important contributor to the greenhouse effect? (Given what must be the low partial pressures at those altitudes, that contention doesn’t sound too plausible to me, but I’m a layman.)
This is a very useful and important paper which brings together the science well. Unfortunately the language is “scientific” and is a bit hard to follow. I would recommend that someone with a literary or journalism background do some editing as this could be a very powerful document.
It would also be very good to start with a summary.
I have copied below a few extracts form the text below where there were superfluous commas or phrasing could be improved.
See the downtrend in the temperatures in the layer where the greenhouse warming is modeled the greatest!
UK Met Office under int4ense public
coldest December in more than 40 years, the German Weather Service (DWD) said. See report here. The average temperature in December was 4.3 degrees C below the past records on average, the DWD said. People have never seen such a freezing December since 1969.
The bitter cold was mainly stuck in the north and east
For the first time since 1981, all people in every place of the country celebrated “a white Christmas” together in this December. In western Poland, the city of Poznan had a snowfall total of 58 inches.
Snowcover for the hemisphere has been increasing the last 45 years with records abounding the last 4 years. A new record was set for this December/January this past winter, last year ranks 2nd for that period. 1977/78 was third, 2007/08 fourth.
For the entire winter, 2009/10 was top, 1977/78 second and 2010/11 third greatest, 2007/08 not far behind.
After the fact, scientists scurried to find an excuse
the coldest air furthest south, as we saw in
from surface to 500mb shows most the tropical atmosphere has over ten times the water content of the polar and middle latitudes.
Also tropospheric relative and specific humidity has significantly declined since ‘safe CO2 levels’ of 1948, 2) atmospheric
Global teleconnections are most similar to the late 1950s, 1960s and 1970s when frequent snowy cold winters caused the world to increasingly think an ice age was coming.
THE ARCTIC BLAMED
In Europe, the heavy snow was attributed to global warming induced reduction in arctic ice and warmer North Atlantic and arctic waters, which was said to produce
temperatures, more snow with a suppressed storm track in the United States and cold and
– Gore and a atmospheric scientist from the Mauna Loa Observatory foresee a permanent El Niño
multidecadal scale, flip flops of ocean temperature patterns in the Pacific Basin, a pattern known as the Pacific decadal Oscillation. .
UAH and RSS in a positive way
congress in 2000, climate change
Meehl etal opined based on models
nighttime temperatures are most affected by urban heat island
increasing at an alarming rate, at or above the
Eric Rignot has also again with models has again made the claim that increasing
with a only a brief pop with the El Nino of 2009/10).
due to the arctic oscillation, above normal is still below zero F in most areas.
“Models show more heat, data doesn’t.”
…pretty much sums it up, doesn’t it? Thanks, Joe, great post & contribution!!
Most intersting– and some of the points you’ve raised are reasons why I am partially skeptical (25%) of the AGW theory. Never the less, I am 75% convinced in the reality of AGW (note: there is no “C” in front of that). It seems you’ve cherry picked your data rather nicely, and to be sure, the last decade has not seen the kind of increases we’d seen the previous two, though even still, overall, the decade of 2000-2010 was the warmest on instrument record AS A DECADE. And it is this decade to decade time scale that we’ll should see the effects of AGW. Even though the decade of 2000-2010 was the warmest on record, it really was the first half of this decade that we saw the most warming, with the second half flat to cooler. Could the very quiet sun and two rather intense La Nina’s have played a role? Certainly.
One thing that Joe also failed to mention for some reason were the many nightime record temps set in the U.S. and around the world in 2010. Joe also failed to mention that warmer night time temps were one of the GCM model predictions when factoring the additional CO2. Also of course, that the Arctic Sea ice continues a long-term decline, and was a one of the model predictions, and we’ll likely see a summer minimum this year approach 2007’s historic low, or it could even fall below that.
So the reality of what’s been happening this past decade (even though as a decade it was the warmest in record) is much more complicated than what some would like to paint it. There are of course natural variations in climate and the second-half of the last decade saw a combination of natural events (cool phase of the PDO, 2 large La Nina’s, deep and long solar minimum) etc. that caused some short-term cooling, but then in 2010, we get one EL Nino, and suddenly that year is challenging 2005 as the warmest on instrument record. Wow, just from one El Nino? I think this chart:
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/news/20110113/509983main_adjusted_annual_temperature_anomalies_final.gif
It is well worth looking at for anyone who (like me) isn’t 100% committed one way or another to the AGW issue. AGW skeptics will use a variety of techniques to explain away the last 100 years of warming, but I find none of them fits completely until CO2 is factor in, and this is precisely what the GCM’s show. And after looking at that chart, have a look at this one:
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.anomaly.arctic.png
How could the Arctic not continue down as we have the warmest water in 2,000 years entering the Arctic Ocean:
http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110127/full/news.2011.52.html
and this one:
http://climate.rutgers.edu/snowcover/chart_seasonal.php?ui_set=nhland&ui_season=2
This graph of spring NH snow cover (not the winter snow cover!) tells you more about the direction of NH warming. The trend is down down down, just as forecast by GCM’s.
My honest gut feeling (while I admit to being a partial skeptic) is that the current natural variations in the short-term (cool phase of the PDO, strong La Nina’s a few years apart, long and deep solar minimum, etc.) are somewhat masking the effects of AGW and make it easy for certain skeptics to attempt to make a case that AGW simply not happening, but an honest appraisal of all the data and a look at the bigger picture still seems to show that it is.
If 2010-2019 is cooler as a decade than 2000-2009 I could change my mind to become more skeptical of AGW, or if, as Joe Bastardi keeps insisting, that the Arctic sea ice begins to show a serious rebound in this time frame, I could also begin to change my mind.
Mike Hulme (University of East Anglia) – “only a few dozen experts,”
http://www.probeinternational.org/Hulme-Mahony-PiPG%5B1%5D.pdf
75 scientists is not a consensus
http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2010/12/30/lawrence-solomon-75-climate-scientists-think-humans-contribute-to-global-warming/
R.Gates, I appreciate your comments about supporting evidence for AGW, but I can’t get past one point – it only takes one failed prediction to falsify a theory.
If the models are predicting things that aren’t happening, then the models are wrong. It doesn’t matter if they are predicting things that are happening – the fact that at least one of their predictions is wrong means that the models are wrong. That is, the underlying assumptions they are using to make those predictions must be wrong in at least some respects.
It’s possible that some parts of the model are right (for example, that CO2 is warming the planet – I’m not agreeing, just hypothesizing that the models have that correct)), but other parts are incorrect (such as feedbacks). Since their conclusions, including the push for drastic measures to prevent catastrophic temperature rises, and the consequences of those rises, are based on the total sum of all the parts, invalidating parts is sufficient to invalidate the conclusions.
>>
7. Atmosphere will warm faster than surface (because that is where the heat trapping gases are).
. . .
However, greenhouse theory and IPCC models predict the lower troposphere should be warming 1.2 times faster than surface, not slower. This data suggests that either greenhouse theory is incorrect and/or that NOAA’s surface temperature data has been contaminated – e.g. by its treatment of factors like land use changes or urbanization.
We believe both are true.
<<
This is the primary fingerprint of GHGs. If the atmosphere isn’t warming faster than the surface, then any surface warming is NOT due to GHGs. (Notice I’m not saying that the atmosphere must be warmer than the surface.) This is simple physics of the GHG model. You can’t hide the warming either. Lack of warming in the atmosphere means there can be no corresponding warming of the surface due to GHGs.
Hansen and company are shooting themselves in their collective feet. By trying to show more surface warming via a doctored surface record, they are actually removing any connection to GHGs.
Jim
Smokey
“That is a point I continually try to make. A ≈40% increase in CO2 is a very significant rise. If CO2 would lead to runaway global warming as predicted, we would have certainly seen very significant warming by now, and the temperature would be closely tracking the rise in CO2. But it doesn’t. ”
You cannot merely look at C02.
1. you got the units wrong. if you want to look at at C02 and temps you have to turn
C02 into a FORCING. since the relationship between ppm and FORCING is
not linear, you are really making a fundamental mistake. the forcing values
are available, simply pull the data that is fed into any GCM.
2. there are MORE FORCINGS than C02. so you really need to look at all the other positive and negative forcings. Again, I can point you to the sources that will help you understand this.
3. Because of the lag between the forcing and the response ( think about hitting the gas pedal down to the floor when you are at a stop light) you also need to take care about the temporal dimension.
Lions and tiger and bears, oh my!
Graeme W says:
March 21, 2011 at 7:21 pm
R.Gates, I appreciate your comments about supporting evidence for AGW, but I can’t get past one point – it only takes one failed prediction to falsify a theory.
If the models are predicting things that aren’t happening, then the models are wrong. It doesn’t matter if they are predicting things that are happening – the fact that at least one of their predictions is wrong means that the models are wrong. That is, the underlying assumptions they are using to make those predictions must be wrong in at least some respects.
It’s possible that some parts of the model are right (for example, that CO2 is warming the planet – I’m not agreeing, just hypothesizing that the models have that correct)), but other parts are incorrect (such as feedbacks). Since their conclusions, including the push for drastic measures to prevent catastrophic temperature rises, and the consequences of those rises, are based on the total sum of all the parts, invalidating parts is sufficient to invalidate the conclusions.
_____
I personally believe that the GCM’s are simply not good at trying to get every little detail correct in a chaotic system– we’ve simply no way to really do it. Those who would like to pick a year, or even 5 years out of a longer term trend a say “see, we’ve falsified your theory of AGW” are simply cherry-picking and really doing themselves a great disservice.
In no way has the AGW been “falsified” simply because it hasn’t predicted every little detail. It’s like trying to predict it will rain and then tell me when and where the first raindrop will stike the sidewalk in front of my house. If you’re pretty sure it will rain (i.e. the GCM’s generally have it correct that the 40% increase in CO2 since the 1700’s will cause warming) then it is the long-term trends I would expect them to get correct. Joe say they’ve missed the mark (over the short term) but I feel he’s cherry picking to the extreme to prove his point.
But I’m at least being honest after looking at all the data over the longest term (i.e. the past century) and saying, yep, it’s been warming, and yep, 2000-2009 was the warmest decade on instrument record, and yep, 2010 was close to or tied for the warmest year on instrument record, and yep, Arctic Sea ice continues to decline, and yep, the water moving in the Arctic is the warmest in 2,000 years, and yep, Greenland is losing ice mass. To not acknowledge these longer-term trends and to try and look at a period in time over just a few years when we’ve had a few really good La Nina’s and a solar minimum that was the deepest and longest in a century and cool phase of the PDO is a tad bit myopic in the least…again, if the Arctic Sea ice begins a true longer term reversal and starts to show a sustained period of year-to-year growth, and the decade of 2010-2019 is not warmer than 2000-2009, I’ll be the first person adjusting my 75% conviction in AGW downward…
I am still wondering how there can be a consensus when many (maybe most) have doubt or just disagree. When did “consensus” get defined as “those that agree with me”?
Since Anthro-Global Warming is actually more like a religion, I guess it doesn’t surprise me how wrong its predictions are. Predicting something useful is actually hard, and is the hallmark of a sound theory. AGW has more in common with Astrology (I am not meaning to be sarcastic, I am serious). Predict enough things in enough ambigous ways and something is gonna stick. That’s how fortune cookies work! I wonder if there is “consensus” on fortune cookies?
Just after I heard of the terrible Japan earthquake I thought to myself, “I wonder how long until someone ties that to AGW”? The answer was the next day. Why does ANYONE take this serious anymore?
R. Gates says:
March 21, 2011 at 5:37 pm
The Earth has warmed out of Ice Ages and Little Ice Ages, then cooled into Ice Ages and Little Ice Ages innumerable times, and CO2 has risen and fallen like a dog running ahead/behind/beside in all cases.
http://www.robertb.darkhorizons.org/TempGr/Vostok.JPG
The CO2 multiplicative forcing GCMs cannot handle predicting climate nor weather, therefore they are of little value. They are certainly not a basis to trash whole economies.
But look at this graph’s red line:
http://www.robertb.darkhorizons.org/TempGr/HADcrut3gl.JPG
The Anomaly plus the average global temp added on (which gives you the correct perspective of how much warming since 1850. Easily accounted for by taking into consideration the urban heat islands, where most lnad temperature data now comes from.
The bottom line is that it is warmer in our cities, but not outside of them.
If the present .7C warming over the last 100 years worries you, go live in the country.
“Graeme W says:
March 21, 2011 at 7:21 pm
R.Gates, I appreciate your comments about supporting evidence for AGW, but I can’t get past one point – it only takes one failed prediction to falsify a theory.”
R.Gates, Graeme is right, what you call cherry picking is actually the scientific method. You really should check this out and contrast the scientific method with, say, democracy. The warmists would have you believe that the new scientic method is consensus so are trying to destroy not just our economic well-being but also the scientific basis of society that has been building for a few hundred years. You seem capable of seeing through that. Try harder.
steven mosher says:
“You cannot merely look at C02.”
Ah, but CO2 is the explicit basis for the entire “carbon” scam.
The AGW conjecture claims that “carbon” [by which the illiterati mean carbon dioxide, a trace gas] will cause runaway global warming and climate catastrophe. However, there is no evidence for that belief. None at all.
If you have real world evidence of global damage specifically attributable to CO2, I’d love to see it. No one else seems to be able to provide any such evidence. But as a scientific skeptic, I’ll keep an open mind.
R.Gates, I understand what you’re saying, but I can’t find documentation that defines what is climate. Therefore, what is the ‘correct’ timeframe over which to evaluate climate theory?
You’ve implied a century is appropriate, and I can accept that, but that means that we’ll have to wait until late this century to see if the models are accurate (you can’t judge on the past century because the models are not predicting the last century – they are using the past century as input into their predictions). The models have made some short term (less than twenty year) predictions, some of which are true and some of which are not. Is that enough to judge their effectiveness? From what you’ve said, the answer is no, so the ‘successes’ are no more a judge on their accuracy than their ‘failures’.
I can appreciate your view that another nine years will be enough to determine if they are accurate, but you’ve given yourself some wriggle room. Would you be interested in refining that? From my understand of AGW theory, as CO2 levels rise, the CO2 forcing should dominate the climate and result in an upward trend in temperatures. If the rate of increase slows down, while CO2 increases at around the same rate, would that not also invalidate AGW theory?
To put numbers on it, if the rate of temperature increase over a twenty year period is more than 20% lower than more than rate for previous 20 years, would that invalidate AGW? Or, if you like, if the rate of increase over the most recent 20 year period is more than 20% lower than the maximum 20 year increase rate over the last 60 years, would that invalidate AGW?
The rate of increase over the last 10-15 years has been well below the maximum rate observed in the instrument history. How much longer would a lowered rate of increase need to run for before AGW is invalidated?
did anyone read and check I just spend a few minutes on number 1
“1. Warming is said to be unprecedented and accelerating. It is neither.
Satellite and surface data shows no warming for 15 years despite CO2 increases ..”
There are several problem with this.
A. there are no citations for the claim.
B. the evidence produced doesnt address the issue. they show two graphs
1.UAH Monthly from 1995 (15 years) with NO TREND calculation
2 hadcrut from 2002 with a trend. thats not 15 years.
So, lets take a look at the actual evidence for the past 15 years.
first, the claim:
“Satellite and surface data shows no warming for 15 years despite CO2 increases ..”
Now, the data. Satellite
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:1995/to:2010/plot/rss/from:1995/to:2010/trend/plot/none
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/uah/from:1995/to:2010/plot/uah/from:1995/to:2010/trend/plot/none
In this paper, the writer neglected to plot the trend line. which shows a warming trend of course.
Now the surface: for the last 15 years
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1995/to:2010/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1995/to:2010/trend/plot/none
As you can see the claim of the text, that there is no warming for the past 15 years, really isnt supported by the data. the chart of UHA that they include in the report, doesnt show the trend. the trend is positive. the chart of the surface is not for 15 years.
More serious, however, is the failure to understand or properly quote the actual claims of AGW theory. Look, you cannot prove a theory wrong when you start by mis stating it’s positions:
1. Warming is said to be unprecedented and accelerating. It is neither.
the writer needed to SOURCE THESE CLAIMS. that means find the piece of science which says this and then FAIRLY represent the claim. Then and only then can you start the job of deconstructing it. and when you deconstruct it, make sure your charts are better than those you criticize.
Further on my last post, I’ve been thinking on a couple of the items that R.Gates gave as why he considers AGW as a probability (75% likely, if I’ve understood his use of percentages correctly).
Arctic ice loss. The problem here is that this is not really a prediction of AGW. The ice loss has been documented as starting around the 1950s… which is well before the models were written. All they’ve done is report a continuing trend. Any model that simply continues current trends without assuming anything about CO2 would report the same thing. As we don’t know what started the trend down in the 50s, we can’t say it was CO2 that was causing it, or even that CO2 is continuing it. The trend has been going on too long for CO2 to be the culprit. It could be argued that CO2 is allowing the trend to continue, but that’s conjecture until we identify the cause for the trend’s start in the 50s.
Global temperatures. Yes, the temperatures have risen over the last century, but that trend started well before CO2 levels started to rise. Models that predict rising temperatures are reporting trends that started well before CO2 levels started to rise significantly. CO2 clearly didn’t start the temperature trend rising, so models did not predict this – they are just predicting that the trend would continue to rise. We don’t know why the temperature started to rise in the first place, so we don’t know if CO2 is the reason the trend has continued. Without an explanation of what started the rise in the first place, we can’t say what is maintaining the rise.
So, on these two points the models are simply predicting that pre-existing trends would continue. In neither case (arctic loss or temperature increases) is there any positive acceleration detectable from rates that started prior to significant CO2 increases. Indeed, it’s quite possible (probably even, at say 75% likelihood if I had to pick a figure) that the temperature increase rate has been decreasing in recent times (last twenty years).
“You cannot merely look at C02.”
Smokey you are wrong. When you try to understand what drives the temperature there are about 10 forcings that you have to look at. C02 is JUST ONE. To be sure it is argued that it is one of the most important. it gets all the press. but DO NOT confuse that with the math. When you want to explain all the ups and downs in the temperature you need to look at all the forcings. thats WHY you cant simply draw a chart of temperature and overlay the WRONG chart of C02 ( you used ppm for gods sake, that is so wrong its laughable )
###########
I don’t think you will find a good quote in the science that claims a runaway global warming. we dont become venus. So, you have a strawman here.
The effect of tyndall gases is fundamental physics. we know that more GHGs lead to warmer surface temps, not colder temps. Lindzen knows this, spencer knows this, christy knows this, Willis agrees, Anthony agrees, and Monckton agrees. GHGs cause warming not cooling. They do this by raising the effective radating height of the atmosphere, thus delaying the release of energy back to space.
The question of global DAMAGE is vastly different from the question of what happens when we double the IR opaque gases in the atmosphere. When we increase the gases in the atmosphere that are opaque to Ir transmission the effective result is a delay in the release of energy back to space. otherwise known as warming.
You’ve used a space blanket. that super thin blanket covered with a trace amount of reflective coating. How does such a thin little blanket keep you warm? Well, that silvery stuff doesnt hold heat… so its not that.. it slows down the heat lost via radiation. Now that’s a simple metaphor of sorts for you, but the atmosphere is full of gases which collectively retard the return of radiation back to space. The ‘thicker” the screen, smaller the windows, the more slowly the radiation returns to space. So think of it this way, it doesnt hold heat, it doesnt transfer heat back to the surface, it slows the release of energy back to space. More GHGs means a more opaque screen. that means a slower release of energy back to space. that means a slightly warmer surface.
the question is HOW MUCH warmer. Put your skepticism on THAT LEVEL and you will join the skeptics (like lindzen) who understand physics.
John F. Hultquist says:
March 21, 2011 at 1:59 pm
10!
That’s a nice round number and a rather large one in the context of hypothesis testing.
My 9th grade science teacher told me 1 was enough.
Politicised pseudoscience has the properties of the undead. AGW will need to be,
[1] Stabbed through the heart with a stake made of Aspen,
[2] Doused with holy water,
[3] Have it’s head cut of with a silver shovel that has been used to dig graves on consecrated land.
[4] Be dismembered, with the body parts placed in sacred urns.
[5] Take a head shot from a shotgun at close range.
[6] Be buried at midnight, during the full moon at a lonely crossroads, while a breeze swirls dead leaves nearby.
[7] Be forgotten and never spoken of again.
G
It’s like shooting fish in a barrel. Global Warming is based on a whole lot of nothing.
steven mosher says:
March 21, 2011 at 10:19 pm
Steve I think Smokeys point is that co2 is getting all the blame for any perceived warming and thereby being taxed by our respective governments. And on both counts very wrong.
Graeme says:
March 22, 2011 at 12:03 am
or [7] international AGW remembrance day. Lest we forget.
I have found Jo Nova’s ‘Sceptics’ Handbook’ the most practical information resource for dealing with silly ‘consensus’ arguments. It’s available on her website, Jo Nova (see blogroll on WUWT sidebar) and it comes in a number of languages. Easy to download and wonderfully down-to-earth.
RBates: “Most intersting– and some of the points you’ve raised are reasons why I am partially skeptical (25%) of the AGW theory. Never the less, I am 75% convinced in the reality of AGW (note: there is no “C” in front of that).”
Well if you’re partially sceptical about the AGW theory you are probably alone on these threads. There isn’t the slightest doubt that increasing GHG will increase temperature, the doubt is to what extent, and how catastrophic it will be. If you believe totally in the AGW hypothesis that says there will be positive feedbacks giving 1-5C to 4-5C increase in GATA but you don’t believe it’s going to be catastropic, then you haven’t got a dog in this fight. And you certainly haven’t read the IPCC FAR, which is replete with stories of upcoming catastrophe.
“The question of global DAMAGE is vastly different from the question of what happens when we double the IR opaque gases in the atmosphere.”
Smokey appears to have gotten under your skin Steve, of course the question of damage is different from the increase in GHGs, that’s a given. But the increase in temperature arising form the increase in CO2 (why was his/her use of ppm laughable, that’s what is normally quoted as tipping points etc. Don’t understand) is forecast to have severe and dire affects on the environment according to the IPCC so that’s damage isn’t it? If there’s no damage there’s no argument and the forcings that produce our climate/temperature become an academic interest rather than a politicial one.
Surely it is clear to all reasonably unbiased scientists that this analysis falsifies most, if not all the currently operating AGW models. It brings together much data, many that have been published separately over the years. This is just the treatment that our politicians should be forced to read. Even if not scientifically educated, they should find it reasonably easy to understand. Unfortunately I fear that their scientific advisers will never recommend they take the trouble to do so, as it is they who have advised their masters to accept the consensus view for so long.
Steven Mosher,
You have forgotten one thing is that IF the process works one way, it can also work the other of reflecting more solar radiation than what would penetrate into the atmosphere.
As the earth splits open, it releases all the heat from the core, thereby contributing to even more warming!
Inescapable Conclusion: It’s worse than we thought.
Steven Mosher
No claims of runaway temperature? What is the term tipping point intended to mean?
Making the claims that the models are so complicated, and that other forcings are almost as important, or nearly as important, or whatever, doesn’t do anything but obfuscate. You are aware that the GIS, Hadley temps are contaminated by UHI, you are also aware that, other than in the cities, virtually no other meteorological sites are showing warming, and the Argus ocean buoys are not showing an increase in heat content. So what is it about the obviously broken models that keeps you defending them?
R Gates,
Whilst reports like this from NASA, tout ice loss, the researchers are now starting to hedge their bets on prediction.
“While this provides one indication of the potential contribution ice sheets could make to sea level in the coming century, the authors caution that considerable uncertainties remain in estimating future ice loss acceleration. ”
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/earth20110308.html
Looks like they’re about 25% sceptic like you. ( ;<}
Two more years to the global tipping point, then unstoppable cooling. 4 to 1 odds eh?
rbateman says: March 21, 2011 at 3:02 pm
Arizona CJ says: March 21, 2011 at 2:35 pm
The Climate Change alarm began prior to 1900, when thermometers became widespread. Each time the cycles change, so does the nature of the alarm.
Cold, Hot, Cold, Hot and now back to Cold again.
And, just like previous episodes of climate alarm, give them a few more years for reality to sink in, and it will be Global Cooling causes Coming Ice Age all over again.
To be historically correct, CO2 warming was introduced to explain the failure of the camp century cycles prediction of cooling (what are they look at Wikipedia .. JOKE!! Cause it’s not in Wikipedia.)
What happened, was that they detected some cycle in some ice cores. They then said this showed we would get cooling. The cooling failed to materialise, and to explain the lack of cooling, they postulated a new force … CO2 warming, and the rest is history.
So, CO2 warming will never be disproven. Like the Camp Century Cycles a greater force will be found to be causing the climate to go the other way.
So, e.g. if they predict 0.3C/decade warming, and they find -0.2C/decade cooling, this will be taken as absolute proof that there is a new force equivalent to -0.5C/decade … and because all such proofs only escalate limited only by the bounds of human gullibility, this force will itself be a massive and escalating climate cooling effect.
Then a few years later, when it starts to warm again, by e.g. 0.2C/decade, there will be an even greater god in climate science whose 0.7C/decade,
etc., etc. etc. etc. limited only by the gullibility of those who listen to them!
Graeme W says:
March 21, 2011 at 10:16 pm
Further on my last post, I’ve been thinking on a couple of the items that R.Gates gave as why he considers AGW as a probability (75% likely, if I’ve understood his use of percentages correctly).
Arctic ice loss. The problem here is that this is not really a prediction of AGW. The ice loss has been documented as starting around the 1950s…
____
Reply…uh, CO2 started rising beyond it’s 800,000 year range in the mid-1700’s with the onset of industrialization. GCM’s did not look at the ice loss starting in the 1950’s to project sea ice loss but actually programmed the rise in anthropogenic CO2 that has been going on for several hundred years into the modesl, and found that polar amplification and sea ice loss would be a consequence of this rise. Yes, CO2 has begun rising much faster this century with worldwide expansion of industry and the global growth in the use of fossil fuel burning cars & trucks, etc., but the rise started back in the 1750’s.
Perry says:
March 22, 2011 at 6:17 am
R Gates,
Whilst reports like this from NASA, tout ice loss, the researchers are now starting to hedge their bets on prediction.
“While this provides one indication of the potential contribution ice sheets could make to sea level in the coming century, the authors caution that considerable uncertainties remain in estimating future ice loss acceleration. ”
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/earth20110308.html
Looks like they’re about 25% sceptic like you. ( ;<}
Two more years to the global tipping point, then unstoppable cooling. 4 to 1 odds eh?
______
What is pretty certain is that we'll see an ice free summer Arctic this century and equally as certain that the cause will be due to the 40% increase in CO2 since the 1700's. Polar amplification of the AGW is one of the consistent forecasts as seen in the GCM's, and we've seen it, and will continue to see it.
steven mosher says:
March 21, 2011 at 9:54 pm
did anyone read and check I just spend a few minutes on number 1
“1. Warming is said to be unprecedented and accelerating. It is neither.
Satellite and surface data shows no warming for 15 years despite CO2 increases ..”
There are several problem with this.
A. there are no citations for the claim.
B. the evidence produced doesnt address the issue. they show two graphs
1.UAH Monthly from 1995 (15 years) with NO TREND calculation
2 hadcrut from 2002 with a trend. thats not 15 years.
So, lets take a look at the actual evidence for the past 15 years.
first, the claim:
=============================================
A. None is needed. This is commonly held view. It doesn’t matter who said it or when.
B. My ten year trend is every bit as valid as your arbitrary 15 year trend. I don’t know when or why it is accepted that 15 years holds any more meaning than 10 or why 30 years holds some magical value, but my arbitrary values are just as meaningful as anyone else’ and so too, is this refutation to CAGW.
How long, I wonder, before the alarmist/warmists/eco-lunes/eco-fascists start wearing pendants shaped like wind-turbines/bird-shredders in order to ward off the evils of global warming.
steven mosher said March 21, 2011 at 9:54 pm”
“‘So, lets take a look at the actual evidence for the past 15 years.”
Steven, given the inherent characteristics/variability of the temperature data sets, can you please share your opinion as to the validity of using a 15 year time line to establish a trend, regardless?
R Gates said;
“Reply…uh, CO2 started rising beyond it’s 800,000 year range in the mid-1700′s with the onset of industrialization…’
Surely only a fraction of the already tiny amount of post 1750 co2 is still in the atmosphere? Most has gone into sinks including the ocean. I thought it was only post 1950 co2 that was making any significant contribution.
tonyb
It seems to be taken as a given that anthropogenic CO2 production has only been of real consequence since about 1945. That is certainly true if one looks only at the way that motor vehicles have proliferated over the intervening years. Those of us old enough to remember 1945 (and earlier years) can recall the pall of smoke that overhung every industrial city in those days. Smoke from domestic chimneys added appreciably to the general fug that overhung the land. My guess would be that the steel furnesses of Sheffield in, say, 1956, when I worked there briefly, belched out more pollutants than all of that city’s vehicles do today. Virtually every industrial process was coal fired of course. We hide the evidence better these days but massive CO2 production would have begun before my grandfather was born.
Couldn’t help notice a few AGW believers still pushing the CO2 angle. Perhaps these guys can explain this: For more than 55 million years, Ellesmere Island in Canada’s high Arctic remained in one place while the world around it changed. Fifty-five million years ago, verdant forests grew at 75° North latitude. These wetland forests, comprised of species now primarily found in China, grew on an alluvial plain where channels meandered back and forth and periodic floods buried stumps, logs, and leaves intact. Today the forests are preserved as coal seams that outcrop on the edges …of modern Ellesmere Island, where there are no forests, and the tallest vegetation grows less than 15 cm high. Large parts of the area are polar desert, subject to intensely cold and dark winters and minimal precipitation.
Now this is a time span worth considering – before SUVs, oil sands, and filthy humans to mess up the scene – a century isn’t even a blink in time – this is before AGW and their spiritual advisors found a new way to make money off the rest of us. You can’t just up and decide from this century or that century when to start your climate experiment without understanding the historical earth. Until and unless the AGW side explains all the previous ice ages and warm periods throughout earth history all the hockey sticks in Canada isn’t going to convince anyone until we know WHY these events happened in previous history. That is not skepticism that is reality!
tonyb says:
March 22, 2011 at 10:50 am
R Gates said;
“Reply…uh, CO2 started rising beyond it’s 800,000 year range in the mid-1700′s with the onset of industrialization…’
Surely only a fraction of the already tiny amount of post 1750 co2 is still in the atmosphere? Most has gone into sinks including the ocean. I thought it was only post 1950 co2 that was making any significant contribution.
tonyb
____
Don’t know if your kidding or not, but regardless, the effects of CO2 are cummulative and nonlinear (i.e. chaotic). Essentially anthropogenic CO2 is much like a human-created CO2 volcano which started to erupt around 1750 and continues to erupt today, and perhaps hasn’t even seen the peak of it’s eruption if you measure it by the gain in ppm of CO2 per year. The issue is: how sensitive is the climate to this eruption which is spewing more CO2 into the air than at anytime in the past 800,000 years?
Steve Mosher says:
“The question of global DAMAGE is vastly different from the question of what happens when we double the IR opaque gases in the atmosphere.”
# # #
But the question of global DAMAGE caused by CO2 is the central argument, isn’t it? The evidence-free assumption that a rise in CO2 will cause global harm, runaway global warming, tipping points, climate catastrophe, etc., is the stated rationale for the “carbon” scare. But since it is now clear that there is zero evidence showing that CO2 causes any global harm, after a significant 40% increase, then at what point would you propose that evidence of such putative global harm will appear? A rational person would look at these facts and sensibly conclude that the CO2=CAGW conjecture is simply wrong.
The fact that the endlessly predicted harm from CO2 has never happened is a serious threat to those who enjoy the 6 – 7 billion taxpayer dollars lavished on the “carbon” industry every year.
You know the Climategate emails better than most, so you are aware of the underhanded methods used by Mann and his clique to keep scientific skeptics from being published, even if it means they have to “re-define peer review.” They threaten climate journals to toe their CAGW line, and worry that even one person at a journal might actually see both sides of the question. It is crystal clear that they have an agenda, and use a thin veneer of science to cover it up. Skepticism is at the heart of the scientific method; you don’t see a problem with their actions?
Also, I have never stated that CO2 has no effect on temperature. My position has always been that the effect has been greatly exaggerated. If it were significant, it would be easy to show measurable evidence of the effect of CO2 after a 40% increase. But there is no such evidence. The entire CO2=CAGW edifice is based on computer models, circular pal reviewed papers, and questionable proxies.
CO2 simply has too small an effect on temperature to measure, so these climate charlatans hide out, and they hide their data. And when they have no data, as the Harry_Read_Me programmer admits, they simply fabricated years of data to support their agenda.
Other areas of science are starved of money because the climate scare has sucked up so much funding. And it is all based on the debunked belief that CO2 [“carbon”] will cause runaway global warming. But the planet itself has falsified that belief, which is why I keep asking for evidence of global damage due to CO2. That is the central question in the entire debate. Since there is no global harm, there is no credible reason for the “carbon” scare, and the enormous burden that mitigation of a non-problem would put on society.
The rational, evidence-based conclusion is that CO2 is both harmless and beneficial. More is better. The runaway global warming scare has been repeatedly falsified; the climate clique led by Michael Mann depends upon deceit, trickery, and the outright refusal to disclose their data, methodologies, metadata and codes for falsification: a basic requirement of the scientific method.
If their data and methods withstand scrutiny, I will accept that they have a cause for action. But the fact that the ringleader and his clique fight tooth and nail to avoid the requirements of the scientific method makes it clear that their claims are based on smoke and mirrors.
Finally, I enjoyed your woodfortrees graphs, and I agree that the trend for the past 15 years is up [although most of the rise is natural]. But most of the past decade looks like this:
click1
click2
click3
See? Anyone can play the woodfortrees game.☺
Ken Harvey says:
March 22, 2011 at 11:13 am
It seems to be taken as a given that anthropogenic CO2 production has only been of real consequence since about 1945.
____
No one knows that and I certainly don’t think it is “taken a a given”. The effect is cummulative, so as soon as CO2 rose outside the range seen over the past 800,000 years the cummulative effects would be in play. The only real scientific way of know would be to have an identical earth and use it for the control model, and then begin to slowly begin to add CO2 as we’ve done and note the differences. This is essentially what GCM’s attempt to do, but of course, their model earth’s cannot possible incorporate all the complexity and interconnections, though they are pretty darn complex and of course require super-computers to work. Regardless, they are the best model we’ve got thus far and will only get better and better, and I do feel strongly that they’ve got the trends correct, though will never get the details right nor the potential chaotic tipping points.
Wil says:
March 22, 2011 at 11:19 am
Couldn’t help notice a few AGW believers still pushing the CO2 angle. Perhaps these guys can explain this: For more than 55 million years, Ellesmere Island in Canada’s high Arctic remained in one place while the world around it changed. Fifty-five million years ago, verdant forests grew at 75° North latitude. These wetland forests, comprised of species now primarily found in China, grew on an alluvial plain where channels meandered back and forth and periodic floods buried stumps, logs, and leaves intact. Today the forests are preserved as coal seams that outcrop on the edges …of modern Ellesmere Island, where there are no forests, and the tallest vegetation grows less than 15 cm high. Large parts of the area are polar desert, subject to intensely cold and dark winters and minimal precipitation.
Now this is a time span worth considering – before SUVs, oil sands, and filthy humans to mess up the scene – a century isn’t even a blink in time – this is before AGW and their spiritual advisors found a new way to make money off the rest of us. You can’t just up and decide from this century or that century when to start your climate experiment without understanding the historical earth. Until and unless the AGW side explains all the previous ice ages and warm periods throughout earth history all the hockey sticks in Canada isn’t going to convince anyone until we know WHY these events happened in previous history. That is not skepticism that is reality!
____
Wil,
Your argument fails on a logical basis. We don’t have to know all possible cause and effects of everything regarding earth’s climate to understand a specific chain of cause and effect that AGW is concerned with. The same effect can be produced by multiple causes, so you don’t have to understand all those causes to study the effects of just one potential cause. Specifically, we know that CO2 is a GH gas, and we know that humans have caused it to increase to levels 40% higher than they’ve been in the past 800,000 years. This is the only cause we need to concern ourselves with in asking the essential question of the entire AGW debate: How sensitive is the earth’s climate to the 40% increase in CO2 since the 1700’s?
We don’t have to know what caused all other ice ages, glacials, interglacials, snowball earths, hothouse earth’s, or any such thing to look at this specific relationship. Studying those past periods certainly might give us clues, but we don’t have know every detail about them to study the specific question asked above.
@R “40%” Gates:
“What is pretty certain is that we’ll see an ice free summer Arctic this century and equally as certain that the cause will be due to the 40% increase in CO2 since the 1700’s. Polar amplification of the AGW is one of the consistent forecasts as seen in the GCM’s, and we’ve seen it, and will continue to see it.”
+++++
GCM’s predict absolutely everything so I am unimpressed with talk of polar amplification. Blunt CO2-science calls for equatorial atmospheric amplification heating the oceans! Not much of that to be seen anywhere.
Warm water entering the Arctic: well that water was not heated by a heat-retaining CO2-enhanced atmosphere, was it? No known mechanism for it, is there. Bit of a spanner in the works, that.
So what caused the ice-free Arctic in the years 900-1100 when the Siberian Inuit people moved rapidly East across the northern edge of Canada, wiping out the Clovis Culture and established fishing settlements on the north shore of Greenland? Their permanent homes are presently permanently ice-bound. Bit of a spanner in the AGW-GCM works, that.
And what caused the ice-free Arctic Ocean that the Vikings sailed in when they circumnavigated Greenland in the 1200’s? Was it perhaps the 800,000 year constant CO2 level or some forcing we don’t yet know about? [Think: ‘Sun’] Another spanner in the works, that.
What lies at the core of CAGW is an unceasing, mind-boggling denial of reality.
If the poles cool, and it appears they are going to, a new fiction will be written about how it was all predicted by the GCM’s. Giant fortune-Cookie Maker’s:
“Someone you know may secretly admire you!”
“Today’s temperature is not tomorrow’s.”
Can’t miss.
R. Gates, please help me understand your statement that “the effects are cumulative”. Do you mean heat? If you do, would that not also be the case for heat trapped by any other means? If I follow your logic, we should not be cooling. At all. All the heat of the past El Nino’s since CO2 started to rise, should still be here, overwhelming any La Nina cooling. The temperatures should not be noisy. At any station. If there is any noise at all, as in one is cooling, another should be rising to drown it out. And the one that is cooling must have an error in it.
Smokey says:
March 22, 2011 at 11:42 am
Hear, Hear! Smokey did it again!
Steve M,
increased GHG’s lead to warming … agreed, in a labratory of course … but does more CO2 mean there are more GHG’s in the atmosphere ? please cite the GHG data on a global scale … please don’t forget to include ALL GHG’s not just CO2 …
I find it interesting that we accept the CO2 measurement from a single location (which happens to be sited next to a huge volcanic CO2 emitter) for the entire planet …
R. Gates says:
March 22, 2011 at 11:59 am
“We don’t have to know what caused all other ice ages, glacials, interglacials, snowball earths, hothouse earth’s, or any such thing to look at this specific relationship. Studying those past periods certainly might give us clues, but we don’t have know every detail about them to study the specific question asked above.”
Certainly you don’t have to know, but it might make the science of the climate just a little easier to understand, and the effects of nature more accurately quantified. The problem with trying to study a chaotic system in isolation is that you can’t isolate it. Since you can’t isolate it, and your models don’t correctly predict future behavior, it’s clear that ignoring past strange attractors is no way to remotely predict future trajectories.
Wall Street has been carefully tiptoeing around Mandelbrot in the same way. Long tailed distributions have interesting behaviors in that tail section. 2008 was a marvelous case in point.
In long term Meteorology, LTM, the first thing to do is to establish valid measurements, validate historical records, and correlate prior LTM Cycles. It’s about the data, real data, not models. If the UC Berkley work doesn’t revisit UHI effects in current measurements, then they won’t have met the second criterium. Fixing poor data acquisition is a prerequisite for good science. For LTM to be good science, it must be built upon measurements and methods that we all can trust.
Smokey
I will note that you have abandoned your argument about C02 and its effect on temperatures.
“But the question of global DAMAGE caused by CO2 is the central argument, isn’t it? The evidence-free assumption that a rise in CO2 will cause global harm, runaway global warming, tipping points, climate catastrophe, etc., is the stated rationale for the “carbon” scare. ”
No its is not the CENTRAL argument. The central question is this:
GIVEN that more GHGs cause a warmer world, What is our best estimate of
A. the trajectory of emissions for the future
B. the trajectory of temperature.
THEN come the questions of impacts.
Up until now, many people have been unwilling to grant that GHGs will cause warming. So, I like to start at that beginning. Will you or will you not Join
Lindzen, Christy,Spencer,Monckton,Watts,Eschenbach, et al, and grant that More GHGs means a warmer world and NOT a cooler world?
On the record.
or do you have some scientific theory that will explain how an opaque atmosphere leads to a cooler world?
Finally, to return to your questions about C02 and temp. SteveF did some nice charts
First. when you plot C02 as you did you make some horrible mistakes. Its time for you to own those errors. Here is SteveFs plot of FORCINGS
http://i51.tinypic.com/2mg70cg.jpg
You cannot plot C02 ALONE. you cannot plot C02 as a ppm. you MUST use FORCING. the forcing is expressed in watts. watts of forcing. The chart above shows you all the positive forcings ( there are also negative forcings like aerosols)
Then, what does theory tell you? theory tells you if you increase the external forcing, the temperature will respond. It will go UP, not DOWN. the world will get warmer, not colder. Thats the “trend” OVER TIME. month to month, year to year, decade to decade to decade we will see perturbations about this trend. Volcano here, el nino there, but over time, the trend will be up. So, lets see how that looks. change the forcing, what happens to temperature:
http://i51.tinypic.com/2j43qmg.jpg
And so the question is: whats the relationship between C02 ppm and the FORCING it produces.
RGates, then how can you explain 1940 to 1970 and 1998 to 2011. It doesn’t fit in to the CO2 record while it does fit in to ocean changes.
R. Gates says: Your argument fails on a logical basis. We don’t have to know all possible cause and effects of everything regarding earth’s climate to understand a specific chain of cause and effect that AGW is concerned with. The same effect can be produced by multiple causes, so you don’t have to understand all those causes to study the effects of just one potential cause. Specifically, we know that CO2 is a GH gas, and we know that humans have caused it to increase to levels 40% higher than they’ve been in the past 800,000 years. This is the only cause we need to concern ourselves with in asking the essential question of the entire AGW debate: How sensitive is the earth’s climate to the 40% increase in CO2 since the 1700′s?
We don’t have to know what caused all other ice ages, glacials, interglacials, snowball earths, hothouse earth’s, or any such thing to look at this specific relationship. Studying those past periods certainly might give us clues, but we don’t have know every detail about them to study the specific question asked above.
——–
Thanks for your response. On the contrary, logically, if we do not understand either the cause of an ice age nor the cause of succeeding warm periods, and many warmer than today, we are missing extremely important data of previous cause and effect. In essence because both ice and warm periods each have a scientific cause, yet unknown, how can any of us possible rule in or out which is which. The best scientific information currently available also indicates much higher CO2 values on historical earth, CO2 which I might add is a red herring to begin with possibly causing to many of us to inherit tunnel vision at the expense of a much larger picture. For instance, how would any of us even suspect what a possible mini ice age would look like let alone a hot period, its duration, historically, or its tipping point either way.
It is more than evident modern climate experiments are much too short a time frame, highly questionable at best, and in its infancy incapable of arriving at accurate predictions. Current predictions are no better than throwing darts blindfolded. Sagan had it correct: “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.”
By that standard the AGW community has indeed failed this challenge.
R Gates said
“Don’t know if your kidding or not, but regardless, the effects of CO2 are cummulative and nonlinear (i.e. chaotic).”
The point I was making was that the amount of Co2 emitted from 1750 was miniscule until more modern times.
http://c3headlines.typepad.com/.a/6a010536b58035970c0120a7c87805970b-pi
Are you saying that ALL of it emitted since 1750 has remained in the atmosphere since then? None has found its way into sinks?
tonyb
R. Gates says:
March 22, 2011 at 7:14 am
“What is pretty certain is that we’ll see an ice free summer Arctic this century and equally as certain that the cause will be due to the 40% increase in CO2 since the 1700’s. Polar amplification of the AGW is one of the consistent forecasts as seen in the GCM’s, and we’ve seen it, and will continue to see it.”
Your terminology is improving. You used the word ‘forecast’ rather than ‘predict’. However, forecasts are extrapolated from the simulations not seen in them. As regards your use of the word ’cause’, I am afraid that is unjustified. If you know that CO2 causes a particular effect then you have the physical hypotheses that can be used to predict that effect. Do you have them?
Crispin in Waterloo says:
March 22, 2011 at 12:03 pm
“So what caused the ice-free Arctic in the years 900-1100 when the Siberian Inuit people moved rapidly East across the northern edge of Canada, wiping out the Clovis Culture and established fishing settlements on the north shore of Greenland?”
____
Much of what you wrote is pure gobble-dee-gook, but this bit about the Inuit’s wiping out the Clovis culture in 900-1100 is very interesting considering the Clovis culture died out during the Younger Dryas period about 11,000 years before the date you gave.
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clovis_culture
Other gooble-dee-gook points you made (which didn’t happen):
There was never a totally ice free Arctic that the Viking’s sailed. Yes, there as a period of lower ice extent and milder temperatures, but the first ice free Arctic ocean during the time that humans have been humans is coming up in the next 20-80 years…so stay tuned for that.
It is highly questionable the the Vikings even were able to completely circumnavigate Greenland, even though the temperatures were warmer for a period. See:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/vinland/
If the waters entering the Arctic are now the warmest in 2,000 years, that would mean they are warmer than the time the Vikings were travelling there. Specifically, it appears the waters have warmed greatly these past two decades.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/01/110127141659.htm
Where’s all this warmth coming from if things are supposed to be cooling over these past 10-15 years?
Consensus is the rule and ignorance is abound. Nothing new.
Scientific instrumentation awarded to the lowest bidder in turn produces inferior equipment resulting in erroneous data. Erroneous data is then manipulated and poorly developed algorithms are applied. Data is used as evidence in order to propagate ideology.
In other words, “garbage in, garbage out”. Is this type of information important? Put it into perspective.
Observation, hypothesis, testing, and proof. This leads to Truth!
A falsifiable claim that has been proven to be accurate…
Have You Heard The Awesome News? Judgment begins May 21, 2011. In fact, the Bible guarantees it! http://bit.ly/aHmn99
Joseph D’Aleo,
I am greatly impressed with the energy you pour into the discussion. Many, including me, are re-vitalized.
Thanks for the article; it has caused a good discussion here.
John
Steven Mosher says:
“I will note that you have abandoned your argument about C02 and its effect on temperatures.”
I don’t know how you assumed that, but it’s not correct. As I wrote in my post above yours: “I have never stated that CO2 has no effect on temperature. My position has always been that the effect has been greatly exaggerated.” Maybe you missed that part.
And the central question must be whether CO2 will cause global damage, as has been repeatedly predicted, or whether the putative danger has been vastly overstated and hyped to support a political agenda.
So far, the lack of evidence of any global harm from CO2 indicates that it is a harmless trace gas. So unless and until the rise in CO2 is shown – with testable, measurable evidence – that it is actually a problem, then funding for the endless climate “studies” of global warming needs to be eliminated:
With $6 – 7 billion being wasted every year on global warming grants, studies, and Muslim outreach, NASA doesn’t even have the spare change to fund the Kepler space telescope for one more year.
Orbiting telescope Kepler is 1.4 metres in diameter, and in only 3 years it has discovered 68 Earth-sized planets around nearby stars, 54 of them in habitable orbits, plus hundreds more. But NASA doesn’t have $16 – 20 million to spare to keep Kepler operating for a fourth year. That is just one of the many failures of valuable science projects that results from the ongoing, evidence-free, money burning CAGW scam.
Now I know why I am still amused at this site. D’Aleo trying to find fault with scientists! What a travesty.
That was a good post, R. Gates and thoroughly debunks any “scepticism.” I don’t really think that you have any scepticism on this question. That was all put to rest a decade ago but a few deniers – they are not sceptics – still profit from their misrepresentations.
As for the criticism of your post that it takes only one failed prediction to make it wrong; it does not. And the reality is that there are no failed predictions. All ten are garbage and the product of a fevered mind.
If the committee had listened to the scientists instead of the fakes (they are fakes) there would not be any discussion of this at all.
Hired guns are not credible.
REPLY: and who pray tell, are the “hired guns” you speak of? – Anthony
Once again, I must ask R. Gates for clarification as to his statement regarding “cumulative”. What is cumulative? The heat? The anthropogenic CO2? What is cumulative? Your contention has mathematical correlates. Your statement can be tested. What is your mathematical equation for this accumulation?
Amused. says:
March 22, 2011 at 8:43 pm
Please accept my wonderment for having posting the most incredible dribble I have ever read on WUWT.
Pamela Gray says:
March 22, 2011 at 9:27 pm
Once again, I must ask R. Gates for clarification as to his statement regarding “cumulative”. What is cumulative? The heat? The anthropogenic CO2? What is cumulative? Your contention has mathematical correlates. Your statement can be tested. What is your mathematical equation for this accumulation?
______
Pamela,
Your question has come up often, and though I’ve answered before, I respect your inquiry and will attempt a simple explanation. One first has to start with the notion that the climate and weather both exhibit spatio-temporal chaos. They are, in the final analysis chaotic in nature. One has to understand that chaos does not mean random, but I’m sure you know this.
At any rate, we know, from ice-core data that the climate system is capable of going through very rapid changes with seemingly the slightest nudge. This is fairly new thinking (less than 20 years) as it used to be assumed that it took long periods of gradual changes to move the climate. We now know this is not the case.
But now, with this groundwork, let’s look at the how the cummulative effects of CO2 could cause a change in climate. I’ve used the analogy of a sandpile before when talking about a rapid change in climate and cumulative effects, and I think it is quite appropriate. You could use this sandpile analogy with the slow astronomical changes seen in Milankovitch cycles or with the slow anthropogenic increases in CO2– either one is appropriate as they both are effective because of cumulative changes, but because we are dealing with a chaotic system, those cumulative effects can happen rather suddenly. So in the sandpile analogy to look at these sudden changes brought about by cumulative effects, imagine you’re building a sandpile one grain at a time– slowly the pile starts to grow and everything seems fairly static. Then, at some point, with just the addition of one single grain, the sandpile collapses. This is because you reach a tipping point where the cumulative systematic friction of the entire pile is overcome by the delicate balance with gravity. So too, the earth’s climate can change with a cumulative effect over time suddenly changing the entire system to a new energy regime. CO2, as a GH gas, added each year by human activity is like a small grain of sand added to the pile. Some tipping point will inevitably be reached with CO2, and really, the only question is where that tipping point is– i.e. how sensitive is the climate to the addition of CO2 that humans are creating.
Really kind of points up the relationship between “hysteresis” and “hysterical,” doesn’t it?
Amused says:
“That was a good post, R. Gates and thoroughly debunks any ‘scepticism.’ ”
“Amused” doesn’t understand the scientific method. Skepticism is a requirement of the scientific method; it cannot be “debunked.” It can only be overcome with observation and evidence. The fact that there is no evidence showing any global harm due to CO2 confirms the scientific skeptics’ position that CO2 is a harmless trace gas.
Next, R Gates says:
“Some tipping point will inevitably be reached with CO2, and really, the only question is where that tipping point is…”
The black cat fallacy again. Gates is convinced that there is a black cat in his dark bedroom. But when he turns on the light… there is no cat.
There is zero evidence of any CAGW “tipping point” occurring. But that doesn’t stop the endless predictions of a mythical tipping point waiting right around the corner. Baseless predictions of tipping points keep the alarmist crowd all wound up. It’s their version of “This time it’s different.”
Smokey,
You’d do well to understand the quote:
“The dose makes the poison.”
As we’ve repeated over and over and over and over again, CO2 WITHIN A RANGE is just fine, both within your bloodstream and in the atmosphere. Go outside that range, and things that are not so friendly to current ecosystems (or the health of your body) will begin to happen.
Next, you apparently really still don’t understand how chaotic systems work, or grasp the fact that from Milankovitch cycles (which are gradual changes that bring about big changes) or CO2 levels, little tiny changes keep adding up eventually come to a point where suddenly the system tips and jumps to an entirely new energy regime. Ice Core data proves this is the case for our climate. Now using the image of a sandpile where you are adding one grain at a time to the pile and you do this for a long time until suddenly, you add just one grain and the pile collapses as the systematic and interrelated frictional forces are nudged just enough in the right direction by that one additional grain that the system begins to move rapidly into an entirely new state. The tiny increases in CO2 over the past few hundred years are like these grains of sand in the sandpile. And no model, and no currently (or perhaps ever) available math can predict when a simple sandpile will collapse– only that it WILL eventually if you keep adding grains of sand, and so to, no GCM can predict exactly when some tipping point will be crossed by adding CO2…only that eventually it will change the climate and warming is one of the ways.
By the way, a little side note that may interest some here– I keep using the metaphor of a sandpile and grains of sand when speaking about CO2 increases in the atmosphere over the past few hundred years, and it is interesting to note that in both the increasing frictional forces between grains of sand in a sandpile as the pile grows, and with the GH effects of CO2, the effects are logarithmic. Some have used the notion of the logarithmic effect of CO2 as “proof” that some maximum point of warming will be reach, but what they are not considering is the idea of the system reaching some threashold or tipping point where that smooth logarithmic rise suddenly jumps to a new level. We see this in all chaotic systems, with the problem being that there is no mathematical way to predict where that jump will occur. My point is, that something being logarithmic in effect, is not in and of itself indicative of the relationshiop of that effect to the bigger system or the possibility of tipping points if the system is chaotic.
Except in the south.
>>
R. Gates says:
March 22, 2011 at 11:59 am
Your argument fails on a logical basis. We don’t have to know all possible cause and effects of everything regarding earth’s climate to understand a specific chain of cause and effect that AGW is concerned with. The same effect can be produced by multiple causes, so you don’t have to understand all those causes to study the effects of just one potential cause. Specifically, we know that CO2 is a GH gas, and we know that humans have caused it to increase to levels 40% higher than they’ve been in the past 800,000 years. This is the only cause we need to concern ourselves with in asking the essential question of the entire AGW debate: How sensitive is the earth’s climate to the 40% increase in CO2 since the 1700′s?
<<
(I disagree with your 800,000 year statement, however . . . .) One effect that has to happen is the warming of the atmosphere. GHGs absorb energy–that’s how they work. Everything in the universe that absorbs radiant energy gets warmer, except the Earth’s atmosphere. If the atmosphere doesn’t get warmer, then it can’t heat the surface. It’s basic physics. Why the atmosphere doesn’t get warmer when GHGs are increasing is an interesting question that needs an answer.
If action A causes action B and action B causes action C, then we can say with confidence that action A causes action C. If increasing GHGs are action A, atmospheric warming is action B, and surface warming is action C, then there is no way to claim action A causes action C, because you don’t have action B. “Your argument fails on a logical basis,” to quote from someone you may agree with.
The models don’t give you any leeway in this matter. If the atmospheric warming isn’t at least 120% of the surface warming (my model says it’s more like 130% to 160%), then GHGs aren’t the culprit.
Jim
Jack Greer says:
March 22, 2011 at 8:27 am
steven mosher said March 21, 2011 at 9:54 pm”
“‘So, lets take a look at the actual evidence for the past 15 years.”
Steven, given the inherent characteristics/variability of the temperature data sets, can you please share your opinion as to the validity of using a 15 year time line to establish a trend, regardless?
##################
The document refered to a LACK OF WARMING IN THE PAST 15 YEARS
consequently, I looked to see if they backed up their claim. IN the first case they presented 15 years of data with no trendline. That is wrong. So I corrected that. When you look at the trend it is positive. The second chart showed 8 years of data. 8 years of data does not support a claim made about 15 years. So I corrected that. Again, we see a positive trend.
The question you have is entirely different. My question was “did these guys do a good job presenting their case?” Answer? No. The failed to cite a source that established the claim they were refuting and they failed to support the claim they were making.
Now, acknowledge those mistakes. When you do, then I will know that we can have a conversation.
To your question about 15 year trends.
“Steven, given the inherent characteristics/variability of the temperature data sets, can you please share your opinion as to the validity of using a 15 year time line to establish a trend, regardless?”
You can use any time period you like, provided you account for the uncertainties. A 15 year trend is a 15 year trend, plus or minus an uncertainty. The uncertainty will be higher than the one you get for 30 years. There is no mystery in this. There is a different question and that question is this: what does AGW predict for trends?
The trends are small enough ( .2C decade) and the noise and weather variability is high enough, that looking at short terms trends will not give you much insight. Sorry, thats the math. It will give you insight IF and ONLY IF the short term observed trend is wildly out of bounds. Currently, the short term trends ( say the past 10 years or so) are bordering on being “out of bounds” with prediction, that is outside a 95% CI. If the current temps hold or decrease, then we will have a couple of choices:
1. Find those elements of the system that are not being modelled correctly
2. Call it a rare event.
Nobody is happy with #2, but rare events ( rare warming or rare cooling) do occur.
Why? dunno.. that drives you back to #1.
So if the current trajectory continues or it gets cooler, then the solution or the approach will be to understand the problem better. It could any number of adjustments need to be made to models. If I build a model of car and I predict that slamming on the brakes will stop the car in 65.75 feet, and I test that and find that
the car stopped in 72 feet. I do NOT conclude that slamming on the brakes doesnt stop cars. I look at way I modelled tires.. did I account properly for the friction? for the way the friction changes due to increased temperatures? to the way the tire patch changes as I brake? I refine my model.. I get 67.75 feet. Brakes still stop cars. The heat of the tires still matters… Did I consider the wind? argg I have to go model that.
So you get the idea. Models are always wrong. because they are not reality. And controlled tests… are always limited.
Jim Masterson
” If the atmosphere doesn’t get warmer, then it can’t heat the surface. It’s basic physics. Why the atmosphere doesn’t get warmer when GHGs are increasing is an interesting question that needs an answer.”
that is not how the effect works. Energy is returned to space in one and only one way:
Radiation. The same way it came it. When we add GHGs to the atmosphere we make it optically “thicker”. The energy which wants to return to space via radiation has to fight through a finer and finer mesh of “windows”. This results in a delay in surface cooling.
The thicker the atmosphere, the longer the delay. The longer the delay, the less cool the surface can become. The surface isnt warmed, its cooling is delayed. You see that when you look at changes in the diurnal range.
>>
steven mosher says:
March 24, 2011 at 1:25 pm
that is not how the effect works. Energy is returned to space in one and only one way:
Radiation. The same way it came it. When we add GHGs to the atmosphere we make it optically “thicker”. The energy which wants to return to space via radiation has to fight through a finer and finer mesh of “windows”. This results in a delay in surface cooling.
The thicker the atmosphere, the longer the delay. The longer the delay, the less cool the surface can become. The surface isnt warmed, its cooling is delayed. You see that when you look at changes in the diurnal range.
<<
Then you disagree with Kiehl and Trenberth 1997? KT 97 is the basic GHG model. The atmosphere returns energy to the surface. It has to, or the surface can’t supply that 390 W/m². If delay makes it easier for you to understand, then fine. GHGs narrow the atmospheric window. In return, the atmosphere absorbs more outgoing radiation. It then radiates both upward and downward–but more downward. The downward radiation adds to the surface energy total which raises its temperature. If you have a different model, then please describe it for us.
One definition of optical depth is -ln(direct radiated/surface radiated).
For KT 97 it is -ln((40 W/m²)/(390 W/m²)) = 2.277.
Does that agree with your numbers?
Jim
This post reminds me of Michael Crichton’s novel, State of Fear, which I just finished reading. At the end of the Kindle edition are several talks he gave on the subject. I found them to be as interesting and entertaining as the book itself. Here are some quotes from those:
“I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you’re being had.”
“Let’s be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics.”
“There is no such thing as consensus science. If it is consensus, it isn’t science. If it is science, it isn’t consensus. Period.”
“Today, one of the most powerful religions in the Western World is environmentalism. Environmentalism seems to be the religion of choice for urban atheists. Why do I say its a religion? Well, if you look carefully at the core beliefs, you will see that environmentalism is in fact a perfect 21st century remapping of traditional Judeo-Christian beliefs and myths.”
“The fact is, an environmental movement is not very effective if it is conducted as a religion. Religions think they know it all, but the unhappy truth of the environment is that we are dealing with incredibly complex, evolving systems, and we usually are not certain how best to proceed. Those who are certain are demonstrating their personality type, or their belief system, not their state of knowledge.”