The RSS Microwave Sounder Unit (MSU) global temperature anomaly data has been published this morning by RSS (Remote Sensing Systems of Santa Rosa, CA).
For March 2008 it has moved a little higher, with a value of .079°C for a change (∆T) of 0.081°C globally from February.
2008 1 -0.070
2008 2 -0.002
2008 3 0.079
RSS data here
Reference: RSS data here (RSS Data Version 3.1) click for larger image
The interesting news is the divergence between northern and southern hemispheres, and the plunge seen in the continental USA. I’ll have more on that coming up.
Curiously, at almost the same time the BBC has published an article today headlining: Global temperatures ‘to decrease’
On a related note:
Lucia over at The Blackboard just posted a very well done analysis that takes ENSO into account in falsifying the IPCC AR4 projection of +2.0C/century. Here is her graph showing IPCC AR4 projections compared with observations and best fit trend:
Click for larger
And already the BBC has altered the headline. Decreasing global temperatures was too strong; now global warming has only ‘dipped’.
==================================
I want to see the UAH, by my calculations, we should see the trend move from 0.14 C to 0.13 C within in the next month or two. It’s a small victory but it shows most of the last 30 years is not an alarmist rate of warming and the rate is lowering not increasing.
Shame the only temperature measurement taken as gospel is Hansen’s GISS, and Anthony has shown us all just how accurate the GISS really is.
Well the warmies will be relieved. However, with the renewed absence of sun spots, and cycle 24 still not ramping up, I think it is safe to assume that the temperatures will be droping in the next few months.
Small error in your second paragraph: 0.079 – 0.016 = 0.063 not 0.061
I hope you don’t get the impression that I don’t enjoy these posts. They are great!
John M Reynolds
REPLY: Thanks for pointing out the typo, all fixed now.
Just based on anecdotal evidence, ie the incredible cold spell throughout the world, I find these claims highly improbable and more than likely fraudulent. I’ll be anxiously awaiting UAH readings and Anthony’s take on it all.
Jack Koenig, Editor
The Mysterious Climate Project
http://www.climateclinic.com
Hi,
Anthony here is David Stockwell’s chart on the divergence of NH and SH, also his thread at CA.
http://landshape.org/enm/march-2008-temperatures/
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=2961
Correct global temperature anomaly acording to RSS are
2008 1 -0.070
2008 2 -0.002
2008 3 0.079
It seems you have read the January and february values from the UAH table.
A thought I have had for some time is how the temperature has changed in some semi regular cycle.
For example 1979-1998 it had a saw tooth shape with up to ~0,8C peak to peak that ended with a strong El Nino.
From 2000 this pattern seems to have disapeared and is now replaced with a downward pike pattern the repeats itself every 20th month or so.
I wouldn’t be surprised if next big temperature drop will happen near the end of 2009.
A new pattern in the sea oscilations emerging that will rule the short time climate shifts for the next decades?
REPLY: Oh today is messed up in a lot of ways. I’m fighting a cold, plus fighting a new WordPress upgrade at the same time. Who does major software updates affecting hundreds of thousands of people on a FRIDAY? So I’ve been quite distracted dealing with it, some things broken, lots changed/missing. I redid all the graphs to fix the error, thanks for pointing it out.
After that story in the Australian, I am interested in the “other side’s” take on the Aqua Satellite, but that one interview and a noncomittal 2005 article from NASA is about all I can find on it.
Now I’m not so sure about the headline change. Icecap claimed it changed, but I still see ‘decrease’ not ‘dip’.
======================
The BBC article blames La Nina for the drop in temp. There’s no mention of solar.
In Trenberth’s “The Evolution of ENSO and Global Atmospheric Temperatures” (2000), they state “It shows that for the 1997-98 El Nino, where N34 peaked at about 2.5 dec C, the global mean temperature was elevated as much 0.24 deg C…” (The referenced ENSO index in the study appears to be ONI based on the peak of 2.5 deg C.) The coefficient of ONI to global temperature would be 0.096 if we divide global temp response (0.24) by ONI (2.5). Assume the Trenberth correlation and the coefficient are correct. Between Nov 2006 and Jan 2008, ONI has dropped 2.6 deg C (1.2 minus -1.4). Multiply the 2.6 deg C drop in ONI by the 0.096 coefficient and the decrease in global temperature attributable to the change from El Nino to La Nina would be 0.2496 deg C. Yet on this index, global temperatures have dropped 0.629 deg C. Either the Trenberth correlation of ONI to global temperature is flawed or there’s something else driving the decrease in temperature. A five-year lag between solar and global temperature falls into line if the secondary solar max for solar cycle 23 is considered.
This could get interesting over the next four to five years.
Anthony,
I do a lot of stock chart analysis, and climate data are surprisingly similar to stock charts. Using simple resistance and support lines, one can identify an ongoing trend since 1979 of about .12 C/decade. We just about touched the support line at -0.1 in February. It seems to hit the support line about every 4 years, so if this was a stock I held, I would expect it to drop a little more by the end of 2008, and then rebound,… or not. If temperatures were to drop past the support line, say below -0.1, that would mean a trend reversal… bad sign for a stock! Given that it has been constantly well above the support line for the past 15 years, I’d say it’s been overbought, and due for a correction.
But that’s just speculation of course… If I was that good at analyzing charts, I would be a lot richer…
REPLY: Well if it does do a trend reversal, I expect Gore will get a margin call from a lot of folks.
And BTW, it’s still snowing here in Montreal. This winter simply doesn’t want to end!
The NH/SH divergence is interesting and of course completely contrary to GHG theory.
It’s either a land/ocean difference (oceans warming less than land) or a seasonal effect (winters warming less than summers or cooling more if you like).
The upcoming SH winter should be interesting. The last 2 winters in Australia have been cool and that was without a La Nina.
McGrats / Jack Koenig:
“Just based on anecdotal evidence, ie the incredible cold spell throughout the world, I find these claims highly improbable and more than likely fraudulent. I’ll be anxiously awaiting UAH readings and Anthony’s take on it all.”
Check out http://www.remss.com/msu/msu_data_monthly.html?channel=tlt and click on anomaly. Very toasty in an area that’s just next to the cold and messy winter in China. Apparently northern China is in a severe drought, dry soil may be one factor in letting the temperature rise (and fall), but it is an impressive arc of big warmth.
1.2″ of snow this AM near Concord NH. I’m down to a foot or so of snow. April snow isn’t too unusual. April snow on top of 12″ on the ground is.
Anthony better get well soon so he can post something cogent. Does anyon have good pointers to synoptic and upper air wx charts for the last month in Asia?
My guess is the satellite is undergoing “adjustments” to be less skeptical.
Sorry to hear you are under the weather, Rev. Hope you are feeling better soon.
Thanks for the link Ric. The graphic shows the “toasty” anomoly centered over China, parts of Russia, and a couple of “Stans.” But isn’t “global warming” supposed to be universal? If so, than this is still another contradiction (or the rest of the world is a contradiction) to the Pogie’s claims. Considering China and Russia’s political agenda, I would say these temperature were very suspect had they not been recorded by satelyte.
Jack Koenig, Editor
The Mysterious Climate Project
http://www.climateclinic.com
Francois,
Thanks for doing the stock chart analysis. I suggested it about a month ago on this board (got one negative response). Since I don’t know how to do them myself, I was hoping someone would pick up on it. Please revisit this on occassion throughout the year. 2008 should be an interesting year.
Anthony,
On his blog Climatescience, Roger Pielke Sr has offered the most complementary blog about your efforts with the weather stations and the siting problems. OT but it was a very nice plug for you.
Bill
I don’t know if anyone else already posted this (I can’t quite keep up with the new comments in every post), but I saw an article on Universe Today titled “There is No Sun-Link with Global Warming.” I thought this crowd might want to know about it if they hadn’t seen it already.
REPLY: I’ve seen the Sloan paper. There are issues.
1) In the paper’s conclusion:
On the surface it seems the time scales of the effects they looked at and what Svensmark proposes are vastly different. They are looking at Forbush decrease for the signatures, but they are short period events (hours/days) compared to the much longer GCR modulation by long period changes in the suns’s magnetism, which is said to be the driver.
It just seems disconnected. Maybe I’m missing something, but it seems to me that you can’t draw a conclusion about something that operates on timescales of years to short period events lasting hours or days.
2) In the interview Sloan gave to BBC he said:
Now I don’t know if he was misquoted or not, but particle bursts/CME’s (and resulting Forbush decrease) from the sun are an entirely different thing than GCR modulation by the suns magnetic change over a long period.
Asked to comment, Svensmark said in the BBC article:
If Sloan was looking for correlation between charged particle bursts instead of GCR’s I’d have to agree with Svensmark. We’ll see how it all shakes out. Maybe the BBC just did another crappy job of reporting a science interview and that’s not what he said at all, but it sure seems odd.
Here’s another paper that looks at the much larger view of GCR modulation:
http://www.griffith.edu.au/conference/ics2007/pdf/ICS176.pdf
Kim
It did change and several took note of it but appears to have been changed back to original headline. One British skeptic commenter noted:The text has been changed as well – it no longer refers to the forecast of a new record temp within 5 years, at the end with: “probably associated with another episode of El Nino.” Looks as though the Ministry of Truth have been busy!
Will remove comment.
Joe D;Aleo Icecap
Anthony,
I don’t think there is anything unusual about the RSS data showing a significant difference between N and S hemispheres. I’ve been studying the differences on the HadCRU data set for a while now and noticed that the N Hemisphere has been warmer. My first thought was that it was a problem with the temperature stations in the land record (of which I am sure is a part of it) but I checked the Hadley SST data and found that the oceans in the N Hemisphere are also warmer than in the south.
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/hadsst2nh.txt
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/hadsst2sh.txt
On a different note, I guess ATMOZ has ended his short effort to be open and honest. After his little April Fools stunt, intended to bring you ridicule, failed miserably.
After we learned that he was using 13-year-old metadata to analyze current temperature stations.
After we learned he is actually a student at the famous Arizona parking lot station when he tried to lead people to believe that he is a climate scientist.
He went back to moderating posts.
Tonight he wrote a post poo pooing Cryosphere Today, I responded with a post telling him how useful it is to me. For instance I pointed out how there was an Antarctic sea ice maximum last year at the same time there was a sea ice minimum up north, also how the ice up north has recovered and that both poles have over a million square km more ice now than at the same time last year. I also pointed out how NASA studied the sea ice minimum and found out it was caused by winds. I also pointed out how the Wilkins ice shelf is in one small area of Antarctica where ice is not accelerating, and that it collapsed after a series of storms. I also pointed out how the Larsen Ice shelf sits on an active volcanic formation, something ignored by the scientists and Al Gore.
He deleted my entire post. This is the same tactic that Gavin Schmidt uses at Real Climate. Gavin’s excuse is that he only deletes posts that accuse him of beating his wife etc. But hey, this is climate science and the debate is settled!
REPLY: Hi Mike, The only thing I could say is that we are all human.
I’ll bet if you write it again he’ll put it up.
We all have our foibles, our hot buttons, and our blind spots. Science has always fallen victim to human failings, more so lately. But I believe that science is also self-correcting. Nature will be the final arbiter of the correction process.
Re: Lucia’s Review of NOAA MEI and Temperature
Recently I had looked at measures of MEI. I observed a basically bimodal-type trend. It occurs to me that you and Basil may be able to apply a higher level of analysis than I can.
My simple approach was to:
1) Obtain the MEI down load to a spreadsheet. In my case I had to do a series of cut and paste to get it into a column format.
2) I determined the average of the entire set of MEI.
3) In the spreadsheet calculate the monthly Cumsum of deviation from average.
4) Plot the monthly Cum sum versus date.
The plot showed a significant (to me) shape of nearly continuous decline from Jan 1950 to May 1976 and a nearly continuous increase from May 1976 to Jul 1998. Since Jul 1998 a decrease then increase but no continuous pattern. This looks like a case for the H-P Filter.
Oh, that’s very funny Joe. It’s hard to keep a story straight when it is disintegrating before your eyes. The dissonance is deafening.
========================================
Anthony,
I sent three emails to Richard Black filled with complaints about his trashing of Svensmark. My first email had Svensmark’s phone number and email address in it and I berated Black for not bothering to contact him before he filed the story. Happily, Black called Svensmark up and rewrote the story. Probably a hundred other people did the same so I take no credit.
Your point number 2 above was one of the points I made. I wonder how many others made the same. He doesn’t have much respect for his audience does he?
REPLY: Thank you John for the info and the effort. I don’t know that Black has a lack of respect for his audience but I suspect he has the same ills as many other reporters of our age: lack of due diligence and making certain claims are well researched.
Or, nothing out of the ordinary has occurred over the last 100 years.
Forgive me for asking the probably well covered question, but it’s been on my mind for a few weeks now. Since many are notiing this divergence of the NH vs SH temp anomalies, do we have a case that world temps, as presented, favor NH vs SH – in other words, when we take an average of peak high temps, do we get a higher ratio of NH highs vs SH. Hope I’m asking this right – had a bottle of wine 2night (Rex Goliath Cab Sav) and not thinking clearly.
@Ric Werme
I agree with you.
In Europe we’ve had a mild winter – though not as mild as last winter. Western Russia has also had a very mild winter, and Siberia hasn’t been that cold this winter. So I don’t believe there is any fraud and major errors in the temp statistic. It’s about at, or even a little lower, than what my gut feeling told me. Indeed in our blogs we have a tendency of raving about cold anonalies, and ignoring warm ones. The warmists of course do just the opposite. I don’t put much weight on these anecdotal cold blasts that occur here and there.
Everyday I’ve been checking the following website for a few years now.
http://www.findlocalweather.com/weather_maps/temperature_north_america.html
I recall Siberia being much colder last year, and Canada being warmer.
It almost seems that the cold air mass at the top of the globe has shifted this year, likely due to El Nina.
@Robert Vick,
I can’t imagine there being a connection between the Sun and the earth’s climate, do you?
After all the temperature of the Earth’s atmosphere is about +14°C.
Without greenhouse gases (mainly water): it would be -18°C.
And without the Sun: it would be -273°C.
So, as you’ll appreciate, the Sun, and any variations therein, have little impact on the earth’s climate.
The following is how I view the impact of manmade CO2 emissions:
1. Earth without sun:
-273°C
2. Earth with sun and no greenhouse gases:
-18°C
3. Earth with sun and H2O vapour only:
+4°C
4. Earth with sun, water vapour and 100ppm CO2:
+11°C
5. Earth with sun, water vapour and 200 ppm CO2:
+13°C
6. Earth with sun, water vapour, 300 ppm CO2, methane etc.
+13.5°C
7. Earth with sun, water vapour, 380 ppm CO2, methane etc.
approx. +14°C
Questions:
1. Add another 100 ppm C02, and what will you get?
(Not much I’d say, certainly not more than 1°C )
2. Change the sun’s activity, and what is possible?
I would argue several degrees change.
I think anyone who claims the sun is playing no role on the earth’s climate is truly smoking some really potent something.
REPLY: Thats a simple to comphrehend way of visualizing it. Thanks.
I recovered an earlier version of BBC story with the “Global Warming” headline from Google Cache and sent it and a now current copy to Anthony in the Microsoft Web Archive Single File MHT format. When is very interesting is that the date/time stamps of both versions of the story are identical.
Version #1
Page last updated at 00:42 GMT, Friday, 4 April 2008 01:42 UK
Global warming ‘dips this year’
Version #2
Page last updated at 00:42 GMT, Friday, 4 April 2008 01:42 UK
Global temperatures ‘to decrease’
Unless we can capture images of the BBC “news stories” as they are generated we have no way of knowing how many altered realities the Ministry Of Truth is producing. The date/time stamps are forgeries.
Try your own recovery with this URL and compare it to the current page.
http://64.233.169.104/search?q=cache:JngdkduFPPgJ:news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7329799.stm+site:http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7329799.stm&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7329799.stm
Whenever you find something interesting on the Internet be sure to same a copy using the IE “Save As” option and select the MHT file format. Try it with the above URL’s.
Try this Microsoft Live search which shows both versions of the story but only returns the current one.
http://search.live.com/news/results.aspx?q=Global+warming+%27dips+this+year%27&go=Search+News&mkt=en-us&scope=&FORM=LIVSOP
I no longer trust Google and would strongly recommend that several unrelated search engines be used.
Mike
REPLY: I agree, Google has issues, so make a screencap or HTML save of interesting stories
If I may point out a few things that I have not seen posted here,
1 Our Solar System at this time is approaching the Galactic Equator, (2012)
2 Our Solar System and Galaxy (Sagittarius Dwarf Galaxy) is about to enter and be absorbed by the Milky Way Galaxy.
3 Our 240 million year orbit around the Milky Way Galaxy is about to finish.
4 Reports that Uranus and Neptune have had polar shifts (they are magnetically conjugate planets)
5 A reported growth of dark spots on Pluto
6 First time observations of Auroras on Saturn
7 The abrupt large scale growth of Uranus magnetosphere intensity
8 The change in light intensity and light spot dynamics on Neptune
9 Doubling of magnetic field intensity on Jupiter ( based on 1992-2007 data)
10 A series of Martian atmosphere transformations a cloud growth in the equator area and unusual growth of ozone concentration, higher surface temp.
11 A first stage atmosphere generation on the moon where growing natrium atmosphere is detected that reaches 9,000 km in height
12 The after effects of Solar Cycle 22 especially as a result of fast coronal mass ejections ( CME’s) of magnetized solar plasmas
13 Increased radiation material and ionized elements and components that have entered into our atmosphere.
Our Solar System is not stationary in space, and like traveling from the Arizona desert to Peking there is a difference. We are at present entering into a period of galactic changes, the gravitational structure and inter galactic atmosphere that we are passing through has no history or calculus.
The good news is that the infinitesimal point of Co2 that us humans are releasing into the atmosphere is the cause of all this ‘Global Warming’
11
Mike Rankin,
If you have EXCEL, I can send you a sheet with a macro to change the row/column data into column data. I broke down and coded that because otherwise, repeating these things is just too much of a pain in the neck.
(I need to learn to formalize the script into an add-in and make it available. But what with teaching myself statistics, and posting, well… 🙂 )
MIke C:
The difference between NH and SH temperatures correlates with the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation.
http://tinypic.com/fullsize.php?pic=23mn96c&s=3&capwidth=false
The same data smoothed
http://tinypic.com/fullsize.php?pic=mafpm0&s=3&capwidth=false
REPLY: Thanks Bob, I was going to do this, but you saved me the trouble.
I am a retired experimental particle physicist. I have been working with computer models and comparing predictions to data since 1966, as a graduate student.
This thread is interesting as it concentrates on the data and projections of this measure of ” global temperature”. I would like to present here a wider range of disagreement of data with the IPCC model outputs, a disagreement that for any physicist who is familiar with computer models, would send the IPCC models back to the drawing board.
I started reading this subject last November and have spent on average an hour a day on this.
I did not have any particular bias on warming. I had believed the “consensus” business, that was tooted subliminaly, and was looking into alternate solutions, for example seeding intentionally the atmosphere with aerosols to control the amount of energy coming in, ( a suggestion in the 90’s by Tailor of the atom bomb) rather than impose hardship on economies with CO2 cutbacks. Also on the feasibility of damming up Gibraltar to keep the water levels in control.
I was surprised when I looked at the last IPCC tables that the huge predictions of inundation by Gore that caught the interest of the media( I have a summer cottage by the sea) turned out to be 20 to 40 cm in a century. The sea goes down 40 cms every winter here. I started getting a fishy smell. Reading more carefully and critically I found that the claims of the IPCC report were all computer simulations used as real data. I was appalled at the bad use of scientific methods to disseminate a political point of view: Using comparison between models as if they were data, not testing the models on data not used to extract the parametrisations, obfuscating plots with multiple model predictions so that the eye would think that the models fit the data In addition use of bad data from unchecked locations etc.
I have come to three clear points where there is disagreement between the IPCC models and the data, even if we ignore all the sloppy use of data and models as explained above, and accept IPCC models at face value.
1) The ice age record shows that for the past ten cycles of cold to warmth CO2 lags the heat rise by 800 or more years. This means there is no innate atmospheric mechanism ( a la CO2greenhouse) that will precipitate heating from a small increase:the curves would have locked step immediately as far as the accuracy of the measurements go. The models are modeled on years and decades, not aeons.
2) The global temperature the past ten years is flat statistically, whereas the CO2 curves are climbing at the same and worse rate. There has not been any great increase in volcanic activity or dust storms that has been reported, and thus the ostensible correlation and “projection” becomes nonexistent.
3) The lack of what the IPCC itself calls the greenhouse signature, (plots in
http://nzclimatescience.net/images/PDFs/devansco2.pdf)
is deadly for the greenhouse model. The core of the greenhouse model is that the higher atmosphere traps heat and radiates it back to the ground, and the plots of IPCC models show this happens only with CO2 feedbacks included.
(Greenhouse Signatures (IPCC AR 4, 2007, Appendix C)
The real data show no heating in the upper atmosphere. (Observed Warming (US CCSP 2006 p.116 fig. 5.7, confirmed by more
measurements published in 2007)
Here is also a peer reviewed measurement ( for those who harp on peer reviews), which I consider deadly for the IPCC models: decadal temperature trends of the last thirty years, comparison of satellite data and IPCC models:
http://www.nsstc.uah.edu/atmos/christy/2007_Dougless_et al.pdf
The disagreement of IPCC models with data is irrefutable.
How can one believe the projections of models for the future when the data falsify the basic premise of the CO2 feedback greenhouse model : higher temperatures in the upper atmosphere ?
I think particularly point 3 should make everybody pause and reexamine recommendations to policy makers, otherwise science is turning into a farce.
This should be extra ammunition to stop this AGW stampede before it does more damage and causes more deaths in the third world than any global warming would.
I like everyone’s analysis here and esp. Francois’ stock analogy. D’Aleo had a post here a couple weeks back including a equatorial temperature profile. All the ‘cold water’ riding above normal temps deep.
The strong January trend has to be followed by a remix, a restoration to equilibrium. Given continued low solar insolation I’m betting on another healthy drop towards fall, especially given the cool Southern Ocean.
If there isn’t a line at Vegas, what are they waiting for? This is a business opportunity!
Sorry, that is Edward Teller who suggested jets be equipped with gadgets that would release appropriate aerosols to compensated for the warming.
If I believed in anthropogenic global warming I would be all for this solution.
REPLY: Anna, thank you for your discourse here. I’d also point out that Dr. Teller may very well single handedly be responsible for the demonization of coal.
Astute readers may recall that Dr. Teller was on the board of the U.S. Atomic Energy commission in the early 70’s. The goal of the agency was peaceful use of atomic energy, i.e. nuclear power plants. Teller was aware that the Soviet Venera 4 probe had penetrated the Venus’ atmosphere in 1967 and showed it was mostly CO2, and that among other factors led to the role of CO2 being figured into the “greenhouse effect”.
Teller wanted to push for more nuclear power in the USA, CO2 became a tool to accomplish that. Readers may recall that in the mid to late 1970’s there were a series of magazine ads in major U.S. magazines that had a picture of a lump of coal. The gist of the ad was “coal is dirty, it produces CO2 and soot, harming our atmosphere. Nuclear power is the clean fuel”. If I recall correctly, they were paid for by the Atomic Energy Commission.
So if my memory serves me correctly, it appears the CO2 movement may have been started in part, due to a U.S. Government funded advertising campaign.
I’ve been searching for that ad, and have been combing old magazine sources for it. If anyone can find a copy, I’d be very grateful.
I am not going to defend the Media, but I can understand their rush to print or voice. In todays quick response and short memory society if you can be first to report you get the story if you make a mistake or are incorrect no one will remember for the most part. and you can retract on page 44. The point is that the demand for quickness has out weighted the demand for accuracy and the demand for political correctness has out weighted the demand for scientific correctness. For this reason we should be avid readers and not trust just one source. It would seem that it will get some folks in hot water one of these days if the ice dosen’t get them first.
This is why many people have moved to the internet to get their news and science. We can no longer trust the printed media to get it right. (even the peer reviewed media) On another blog I am always accused of being a denier while I am not. My point is that the earth may be warming for the past 100+ years but the recent data indicates that it isn’t now. Also I don’t know the cause but do doubt that it is mankind. One of the questions I ask is should we get rid of all CO2? I have been told yes and then I ask how long we would last with out any CO2 and have to explain that starvation would happen very quickly with out CO2. They don’t understand that their polutant is necessary for life on this planet that all live here is bassed on carbon and CO2 is necessary.
Just My 2 cents
Bill
PS Venting a little too lol
I’ve been trying to find out the answer to this question for a while now and it sort of fits in with this story so I’ll ask it here!
How does El Nino / La Nina change the “Earth’s temperature”? No new energy enters the system as they are normal weather cycles which don’t correlate with increase solar / geothermal output. Therefore any energy released from the oceans must have been there originally and was simply stored away from our thermometers.
Is it not therefore correct to say that any “Earth’s temperature” increase / decrease caused by El Nino / La Nino is simply an error caused by us not being able to record temperature properly and, furthermore, that this gives us a better idea of how large error bars should be on the temperature record?
Alan Chappell
Interesting. But I would argue these galactic time scales are several hundred leagues above the time scales us humans are acquainted with.
Chartist type analysis of the stock market (also known as “technical analysis”) has been discredited for a long time. You can find a good debunking in Malkiel’s “A Random Walk Down Wall Street.”
To me, the more interesting question is whether climate modeling by the likes of James Hansen is, at bottom, any better than technical analysis of the stock market.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_citation
patience
Anna v had a link where you could find an article of Dr. John Christy’s testimony to congress. I found an excellent video of a talk by Christy which includes similar material. The Q&A session at the end Christy is attacked (personally) by some IPCC AGW supporters. I was really impressed by Dr. Christy’s calm demeanor, candor and patience in the face of hateful opposition.
to dreamin:
Technical analysis is discredited and an important tool for all profitable traders of financial markets. Rather technical analysis is merely an application of basic economic principles, like supply and demand.
I have a standing bet with a colleague that I can predict global temperatures more accurately using solar activity and technical analysis then the IPCC models.
The wikipedia link was accidently inserted.
Irony: an encyclopedia article about scientific citation flagged for lacking citation.
Bob Tisdale,
Thanks Bob, that makes sense since it’s the Atlantic that is mainly responsible for heat transport to the N. Pole
Anthony,
Okie dokie, reposted.
@Anthony
Thanks for the helpful analysis. Not being a climate expert, I try to do the best I can to understand the arguments on each side but with something this complex I like to have some more informed opinions to help.
Which Saggitarius dwarf galaxy? The one on the far side of the galactic core from our solar system (about 70k ly away, the Saggitarius Dwarf Elliptical Galaxy), or the one 4 million miles away (Sagittarius Dwarf Irregular Galaxy).
The way you typed this makes it seem like our solar system lies within the Saggitarius galaxy and not the Milky way. If that’s what you’re saying, you’re dead wrong.
As for all the other things. I can only say we’re been seriously studying the rest of the planets for a VERY short time, therefore anything we know about them cannot be said the be unprecedented because we have zero reliable history beyond 30 or 40 years.
“1) The ice age record shows that for the past ten cycles of cold to warmth CO2 lags the heat rise by 800 or more years. This means there is no innate atmospheric mechanism ( a la CO2greenhouse) that will precipitate heating from a small increase:the curves would have locked step immediately as far as the accuracy of the measurements go. The models are modeled on years and decades, not aeons.”
This was the red rag for me also. The ice core data shows a strong correlation between temp and CO2, with temp leading CO2. QED there is a strong positive feeback from temp to CO2. But the system is continuously oscillating, it is quasi-harmonic. It is therefore simply not possible for there to be a significant feedback from CO2 to temperature. If there was then there would have been a vicious circle of feedback and we would have moved to snowball earth or venus the first time the mechanism worked. If CO2 did influence temp, then the best you could hope for is a bistable system with dramatic changes to stable long lasting extremes. QED any feedback from CO2 to temp must be negligible.
I agree wholeheartedly with the other points noted. I also have a degree in physics, and find it noteworthy that we “deniers” are largely composed of physicists and meteorologists. In both cases people for whom the data is absolute. Mechanisms and models are secondary.
Unfortunately, as I have said before, if we want to kill AGW properly we need to find positive data proof of the solar mechanism. Cosmic rays and UV have been suggested. We need to look for a big change in UV, cloud cover, etc that shows a clear step change linking the step change in solar activity to the recent step change in temp. Until we find this proof, we will be ignored.
Bill, in the minds of the bleevers, that makes you a denier. Sorry!
James S (08:46:46)
“How does El Nino / La Nina change the “Earth’s temperature”? No new energy enters the system as they are normal weather cycles which don’t correlate with increase solar / geothermal output.”
I am not a climate scientist but I am a physicist, so I will give it a go:
Climate is chaotic : many dynamical systems contribute to its creation, ocean, land , atmosphere, clouds, trade winds, and of course over all the SUN. The great majority of the energy on earth is from the sun( a bit from the hot magma in the interior). Ocean stores energy not only thermally but also as currents and plants, the same is true for the atmosphere and the land . Heat into kinetic energy and plant energy. Think of a bowl of soup. You can set up currents in it that continue moving long after you remove the spoon. The currents in the ocean have patterns driven by various other dynamical features which I would have to research to understand, but the energy is coming from the sun.
I would think that El Nino and La Nina modify the air currents which then modify the cloud cover which then affects how much of the heat from the sun becomes temperature or is stored in some way or is reflected back into space.
The error bars on the temperature record have to do with the accuracy of the thermometers. It is the interpretation that is affected by the dynamics that produce the temperature.
Frank,
Thanks for the video link!
On stock markets and technical analysis…don’t get me started. Let’s just say that the analogy between temperature trends/cycles and stock prices is pretty weak. Stock prices tend to follow a random walk. If we think temperature follows a random walk, then why are looking for causes, whether solar or anthropogenic, or whatever?
If “technical analysis” of temperature trends should do a better job of predicting future temperature than GCM’s or AGW hypotheses, that doesn’t saying anything good about technical analysis. It just says something unflattering about GCM’s or AGW hypotheses.
Basil
Argh! That should have read “4 million light years…)
Nope, didn’t work.
Basil and Anna V.
1 – I thought missing data. Data exist.
2 – I thought lacked mathematical treatment to the data. There are mathematical tools appropriate.
3 – does not have a model.
A light year here, a light year there; pretty soon we’re talkin’ big distances.
============================================
Anna v,
I’m a physicist too, and I so agree with you! I thought that by looking at the primary literature (peer-reviewed papers), I would find the evidence, the smoking gun, the proof… but just the opposite happened. The more I looked, the less I found!
We physicists are used to compare data and theory. If the theory doesn’t fit the data, it’s no good. Climate science is just the opposite: if the data don’t fit, it’s because the data is bad… The models are never compared with the real world, they’re compared between each others! When you actually find comparisons of models with real world data, the discrepancies are so huge you wonder why they don’t throw the model into the garbage bin.
About CO2 and temperatures, some may be interested in my paper on the subject (http://arxiv.org/abs/0802.3130). Yes I know it’s incomplete etc etc but nevertheless, nowhere else in the literature do you find a model linking the fluctuations of CO2 uptake and temperature. I’m still working on this, but the answer is not in physics, it’s in biology! It is the biosphere that regulates CO2, both on land and in the oceans. And we’re just beginning to understand the myriad of processes at play. None of which are included in GCM’s by the way. But whichever way you look at it, CO2 does not seem to have such a big influence on temperatures. If you start with the picture where temperatures drive CO2, and not the opposite, you actually find that a lot of things fall into place.
Re the notorious “pollutant” CO2, this is just my two cents, but we have just received some information through the post re renewable energy from the Energy Saving Trust (UK-based NGO). About renewable energy sources, they say, and I quote: “… they produce little or no carbon dioxide (CO2): the harmful gas that’s one of the biggest causes of climate change.”
If all carbon dioxide was removed from the atmosphere, I’m sure we would find out swiftly just how “harmful” it actually was. Unless we quickly managed to learn how to subsist without plant life…
I would have to agree, just logically. Makes perfect sense in the CO2 lags temp situation. The warmer it gets, glaciers recede, animals multiply. Plants also multiply and increase in vigor, therefore you’d have more plants aspirating CO2 at night, and also when they die.
Anthony said:
“Teller wanted to push for more nuclear power in the USA, CO2 became a tool to accomplish that. Readers may recall that in the mid to late 1970’s there were a series of magazine ads in major U.S. magazines that had a picture of a lump of coal. The gist of the ad was “coal is dirty, it produces CO2 and soot, harming our atmosphere. Nuclear power is the clean fuel”. If I recall correctly, they were paid for by the Atomic Energy Commission.
You’re right about Teller, but about the same time England’s newly minted Prime Minister (Lady Thatcher) was urged by her advisor, Lord Tickell, to use coal caused CO2 as a “bogie man” in creating alleged runaway atmospheric Armageddon. Tickell, the “Goofy Gore” of England, propelled his environmental stature, Thatcher was catapulted onto the world stage, and the coal unions (who vigorously opposed Thatcher’s elections) were “punished” and all but dismembered. This was really the start of the “greenhouse gas destroying our planet” scare mongering.
Anthony said:
“So if my memory serves me correctly, it appears the CO2 movement may have been started in part, due to a U.S. Government funded advertising campaign.”
For the life of me, I can’t figure out who came first: Thatcher or the AEC.
Jack Koenig, Editor
The Mysterious Climate Project
http://www.climateclinic.com
If greenhouse gases warm the earth’s climate, you would expect more warming where there is more GHG.
There is more than twice as much ocean in the SH than the NH, consequently water vapour levels are substantially higher (on average) in the SH.
Why then is the SH on average 1.9C cooler than the NH? And in summer, when the GHG effect is at its strongest, a huge 5.4C cooler?
http://profhorn.meteor.wisc.edu/wxwise/AckermanKnox/chap14/climate_spatial_scales.html
I sort of understand the answer to this question. It’s because surface temperatures measure warming (as in heat gain to the Earth system) by assuming fixed water vapour.
In reality, changes in water vapour have much larger effects than heat gain (forcings). And all we are doing with the surface temperature is measuring the amount of water vapour in the atmosphere.
James S said:
How does El Nino / La Nina change the “Earth’s temperature”? No new energy enters the system as they are normal weather cycles which don’t correlate with increase solar / geothermal output. Therefore any energy released from the oceans must have been there originally and was simply stored away from our thermometers.
James, you’ll find a fascinating article on the subject here http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Study/WarmPool/
Jack Koenig, Editor
The Mysterious Climate Project
http://www.climateclinic.com
Many geologists and other earth scientists also have problems with AGW. My doubts are driven by my understanding of Quaternary/Holocene climatic history.
My understanding of physics is OK for Newtonian and Quantum physics, but not at the level of most graduate students of physics. As a practitioner of empirical science however, I bristle at models that don’t match the real data.
This has been the case with the AGW climate models. I somehow doubt that this will improve if the modelers continue to seek validation rather than understanding.
What really annoys me though are thousands of government funded derivative studies based on models that have consistently not conformed to reality. This is not science. It is divination – tea leaf reading – entrails.
Quote: Basil
“If ‘technical analysis’ of temperature trends should do a better job of predicting future temperature than GCM’s or AGW hypotheses, that doesn’t saying anything good about technical analysis. It just says something unflattering about GCM’s or AGW hypotheses.”
That is the purpose of the demonstration.
Those who debase technical analysis of finanical markets generally misinterpret its purpose and disregard its proven application.
My Dear Jeff Alberts,
Perhaps your reading material contains references to Buck Rodgers, I am pleased that you enjoy.
But the references that I posted above are from the Russian Academy of Sciences, which if you have the time you can read at http://www.tmgnow.com/repository/global/planetophysical.html.
The translation from Russian to English is not as good as the translation into German. The paper by Dr. Alexey N. Dmtriev and associates, will assist you in understanding the above posting.
Closer to home there is’ Science’ the issue of May 11 2007 ref. Merav Opher Astrophysicist. Also a very interesting read.
Historical note;
the oldest scientific references we have to the sun arrive from the Mayas the Mayan calendar starts on the 11 August 3114 BC and finishes on December 21st 2012 we are still working on a better system, but as yet have not got one.
They worked it out that when Jupiter and Saturn are aligned on the same side of the sun, solar activity is at its minimum. When on the opposite sides the solar activity is at its maximum.
And if you want to no more about 21 December 2012 there are a million possibilities on the internet .
Enjoy
Alan
Anna V – Do you know my brother Crispin Williams who is a particle physicist leading a team at CERN? I tried to get him to look at the data of this site for his opinion but he simply told me to trust the BBC and look at the melting glaciers and trust the models! I am pleased to have found your analysis which I have copied to him. Thank you.
Francois
I read your work.
Fascinante.
His model is perfect.
I think we can apply the same analysis of Anthony and Basil. l = 14400.
Can concerned the initial CO2 concentration.
Lucia has written an Excel macro. I use linux, so I’ve written 4 short scripts to parse out the row/column text files into a 2 column date/temp format. This should be usable in linux, unix, Cygwin, Solaris, etc. GISS and Hadley are harder, RSS and UAH are easier. In alphabetical order…
Download it here as a PDF file
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2008/04/wdnes-script.pdf
GACK! WordPress re-formatted and wrapped my scripts. Anthony please either kill the post or re-format. I apologize for the mess.
REPLY: I can’t do much, its formatted to a column. I made a PDF, and a download for you in the previous comment.
Francois
I’d add CO2 predictions for several climate scenarios. Just in case the sun is teasing AGW skeptics :). By the way you won my heart by bringing up Wegner et al. 2004.
If you don’t publish it someone else will beat you. Might as well be you to get the credit for the observation. It is about three years overdue already.
Best Wishes
Alan, I see a lot of gobbledegook in that link you posted. Some garbage about natural disasters increasing 410% since 1963, yeah, right. Let’s see the references for those numbers. None are provided in those pages. Gratuitous assertions are a dime a dozen.
As for 2012, I’ll leave the end of the world nonsense to the crackpots.
Julian Williams in UK (18:06:17) :
“Anna V – Do you know my brother Crispin Williams who is a particle physicist leading a team at CERN? I tried to get him to look at the data of this site for his opinion but he simply told me to trust the BBC and look at the melting glaciers and trust the models! ”
I am sorry, no. I have not been at CERN since 2003, and by that time it was just for meetings :).
Do not blame him. As I said, I used to think in the same way because I had a basic trust that scientists do not manipulate data. I would accept the regurgitations of the media without further thought. It was when I started looking for alternative methods of affecting global warming than CO2 budgets that I got into the nitty-gritty and saw the whole farce. I spent a lot of time trying to make sense of the IPCC physics working group report, 800 and more pages of it.
Francois (13:10:42) :
I downloaded your paper. I do not have much time the next days since I have visitors, but I will look it over carefully. Looks promising.
Have you taken volcanoes into account? I have posted a link on the other thread about the number of volcanoes etc. There would be peaks of CO2 during volcanic eruptions.
Alan Chappell wrote:
“They worked it out that when Jupiter and Saturn are aligned on the same side of the Sun, solar activity is at its minimum.”
Completely wrong! Jupiter and Saturn were aligned at the same side of the Sun in 2000 (more exactly, their heliocentric conjunction occurred on June 22 of that year), yet in 2000 solar activity reached its maximum, not a minimum.
Moreover, the Jupiter-Saturn conjunctions occur at mean intervals of 19.86 years. Hence, if the mentioned statement was true, the sunspot cycles would have a lenght of 19.86 years, not 11 years.
Anna V : what you are doing is very important because you have the background to give credibility for the case against overstating the CO2/Global warming theory. I expect as a scientist you are used to being rigorous and honest and upfront so it may come naturally to you to stand up and tell others plainly that the models do not stand up to scrutiny.
You must understand that the political momentum behind the case for CO2 has now built up into and almost unstoppable force and the politicians are not going to be happy that “the consensus” in the scientistic community does not exist, so it is only through very forceful, vocal and creditable opposition that the bandwagon will be turned around. The political reaction against scientists who stand up against the CO2/Global Warming theories will be nasty and ruthless.
But you must get your message out because the EU laws for producing set percentage of biofuels are very damaging to the lives of millions in the poorer nations because such laws are contributing to the rising prices for basic foods like rice, and pockets of rioting are already breaking out in many places across the world. It is also causing de-forestation as the biofuels industry begins to move into the rainforests to make big bucks serving the EU quoter systems.
I have a feeling the GW issue will surface in the American elections too, and it is driving the flames of anti-Americanism in Europe (Personally I think the EU are jealous of the US)
The referendum in Ireland is also focusing almost entirely on the need for global responses against CO2 build up, (as if giving more power to unaccountable bureaucrats will save the planet). Lithuania are seeing their self sufficiency n energy challenged by bogus CO2 targets the people in that poor country are seeing their prospects of a more comfortable life taken away from them.
This momentum reaches right down through the political classes into the media and comedy shows, only a few days ago there was a sketch about how stupid it is to pretend there is a case against the CO2/Global theories. It was really a vile crude tarring of people who have the courrage to stand up against the political consensus of idiots who follow every fad like sheep, and in a way it was wicked.
I think there is a connection between the lessening of democratic accountability in our political institutions as they meet the challenges of globalisation and the lessening of well-mannered debate.
One of the few ways of cutting through this debate is for people across disciplines in the scientific community to simple say the global warming models are bad science
My brother has been working with the Italian team at CERN for twenty years and is head of a project called Alice (I think).
Isaaac Asimov said that if you held the earth in your hand, and then carefully wiped away the oceans, rivers and lakes, you would be left with a sphere that is much smoother than a billiard ball. We think that the ocean is so huge because we are so tiny.
Everest and the deep ocean trenches are mere imperfections on our home sphere.
There is much less lag in ocean temperatures than anyone believes. The sun is active and El Ninos flourish, warming earth and sea alike. The sun is quiet and La Nina, the ice queen, moves in.
Anyone who watches the animations of La Nina can see this cooling taking place. The earth and her oceans cool and warm depending on what our heat source, the sun, does.
I’m waiting for the physicists to tear the above announcement apart…
Jeff Alberts
I think my valuation of your intelligence was right after all, you should go back to you Buck Rodgers comics,
When one of the most respected Professors of the Russian Academy of Sciences with over 400 published papers is all, how did you say “garbage , gobbledygook” I cannot but think that he who passes such criticisms is an idiot. But perhaps I am wrong and you really are intelligent, in that case I apologize.
But then, looking through you posts on this blog I can only see continuous ignorance.
or pronouncement, rather…
I heard something interesting on ABC radio news last night. The reporter was talking about the big fight in Kansas over coal fired power plants. The comment that i found surprising…. “Coal plants produce CO2, which SOME scientists believe causes global warming.”
Was I hearing things?
Alan C., Jeff A.:
I believe Alan is confusing the expected collision of the lovely Andromeda (M31?) and the Local Group, headlined by our home Milky Way, in 2or 3 billion years. Following some hundreds of millions, the two are expected to coalesce into an irregular.
Pierre AKA scoffer:
The G&T paper anna v. referenced casts doubt, rather persuasively, on Svante Arrhenius’ calculations re: the 33 degree Celcius contribution to a ‘global temperature’. The AGW TSI and GHG calculations are really useful only for middle-school (years 7-9) science class heuristics.
anna v
In a nutshell (a couple of sentences), exactly what “nitty gritty” made you realise it’s a “whole farce”? Just curious.
Wow the physicists are coming out of the woodwork….me too! 20 years ago and without much knowledge I had accepted the AGW idea. I taught an energy and the environment seminar a few yearsback wich force me to delve into the primary literature. Shocked is the best way to describe my reaction. Lik the others mentioned, the disconnect between the data and the models/conclusions is beyond anything I’ve ever seen.
My small contribution: some of the statistical analysis being applied by people here are interesting. For my own amusement I’ve been keeping a record of local high temperatue anomoly for about 10 years now. My idea was to get enough data and apply an FFT. I could see in the raw data “beats”, etc. and the initial FFT shows frequency components of several weeks to a couple of years with the largest “harmonic” around the 15 month interval.
Anyone tried an FFT with global temp data? I guess I could do a lit. search, but I figure te people here are tuned into this area.
REPLY: Yes, several people have been able to find signals using FFT in HadCRUT surface temp data.
A 410% increase in natural disasters since 1963?
Well….. When did the first satellites go up, which were able to show hurricanes we usually never saw?
When did electronics become sensitive enough, to pick up on disturbances we were not aware of?
I’m betting, as in other areas, that the vast majority of the ‘increase’ in disasters, is just an increase in the ability to Report on what has always been.
So, Jeff, alan may well be right- but for the wrong reasons 😛
Just my two cents.
btw, alan, your hubris is showing. Did not Anthony speak of this to you about a score of times, some weeks ago?
I have been looking at solar flare data and have noticed a within year beat, not quite matching 6 months. The short term temperature graphs show beats but are far more complex. The solar flare data could be considered the “treatment” and is much easier to interpret because we are looking at a single or near single mechanisms, IE solar flare signal strength and number. Short term temperature fluctuations are complex (seasonal tilt, biosphere mechanisms, long term solar affects, etc) and are dirtied by calibration problems. This data would be considered to be the combined effects from which we want to extrapolate just the short term solar signature.
This leads me to consider that temperature fluctuations need to be scrubbed of the components that affect it from long term solar trends, oceans, cloud cover, dust, CO2, etc. Flare data (which appears much smoother anyway) can be left as it is.
I have only worked with filters that cancel random noise that is bigger than the signal I want to see above and below that small signal, or filters that narrow a sharply gated frequency band on either side. What sorts of filters could be used to scrub “internal” temperature fluctuations one known component at a time?
I would like to see a series of smoothed graphs with several kinds of filters used to tease out these various known contributers, possibly finding a smoothed temperature graph that appears to be affected by unknown contributers. My curiosity is that would this smoothed graph of unknown contributers appear as a lag behind solar flare data?
(Gary G) Otter
” btw, alan, your hubris is showing,” You got the wrong alan, I am Alan and I sell flowers. I have never criticized anyone on this site, I ask questions, leave compliments, add my 2 cents, but when a professional critic starts on me I am old enough to reply.
addendum:
Maybe the data doesn’t need to be smoothed at all. Maybe what we want to do is filter out certain cyclic peaks that are thought to have been caused by a volcano here and there, seasonal temps, etc. We could also cancel out random peaks that fall outside a cyclic pattern. Just brainstorming here.
lol, well, he’s not right because there’s no proof of such an increase, only an improvement in our ability to detect, as you said. Doesn’t make him right, just means he’s touting invalid numbers.
Pierre Gosselin (aka AGWscoffer) (07:42:03) :
“anna v
In a nutshell (a couple of sentences), exactly what “nitty gritty” made you realise it’s a “whole farce”? Just curious.”
In my post on the 5th april ” anna v (04:58:43)” I condensed my pov to the deadly, in my opinion, disagreements of the IPCC models with real data.
Now by nitty gritty I mean looking at the “evaluation” ( that is data not included in the adjustment of parameters) figures and trying to decipher data and models. Systematically a multitude of model runs are overimposed like a diffuse cloud around data curves. This fools the eye as if it is an error bar, and not disagreeing projections. If one follows a model line consistently one sees that some fit somewhere and are very bad in other places, but the optical illusion is that more or less there is a fit. Now this is nasty. Raised my hackles.
It is very simple to fit a posteriori any data given enough parameters. Take Fourier transforms, as an easy example. One does not need many orders to fit any function adequately for the eye. There is no predictive power in this though, otherwise Fourier functions would be the theory of everything. That is about the level of of the IPCC models with the many explicit and hidden parameters.
I was also disturbed that in order to fit 1000 year data, they had to massage the data to fit the models. I am speaking of the (in)famous hokey stick graph and the miraculous disappearance of the middle age warming period. Procrustean logic.
These are just the tip of the iceberg.
When I was a graduate student, back in the beginning of the 60’s I had to prepare a lecture for the institute on a paper given to us as an exercise. When I finished the lecture an older mathematician took me aside and advised me: the lecture was good, but try not to make it so clear next time, not everybody has to understand everything!! That is the feeling I got perusing the hundreds of pages of the IPCC reports. Obfuscation.
Julian Williams in UK (05:04:45)
Yes, there is an ALICE experiment for the LHC. My group had joined the CMS experiment.
A main reason I am trying to speak up is because of the foreseen hardship that will be imposed on the poor of the world by all this CO2 budgeting. The tragedy will be greater if the solar predictions materialize after all this budgeting. I live in Greece, and I am trying my best to spread the knowledge that there is no consensus and the research should go on.
Francois’ riff on CO2 uptake, ocean biology etc, did remind me of this fascinating little snippet on Science Daily.
Entitled “Startling Discovery About Photosynthesis: Many Marine Microorganisms Skip Carbon Dioxide And Oxygen Step”, it turns out these little creatures don’t absorb CO2, but O2.
How many is ‘Many’? Well, these here organisms are only the dominant phytoplankton species, and then only about in about half of the marine environment. Move along. Nothing to see here….
The money quote:
“This discovery impacts not only scientists’ basic understanding of photosynthesis, but importantly, it may also impact how microorganisms in the oceans affect rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide.”
Ya reckon?
BTW Error bars …. anyone?
Pierre Gosselin
“After all the temperature of the Earth’s atmosphere is about +14°C.
Without greenhouse gases (mainly water): it would be -18°C.
And without the Sun: it would be -273°C.”
Excellent. Bon mon ami 🙂
Mike Chappel, are you telling us that we are all going to die?
And whether oil is solely biotic in nature.
” Robert Wood (16:14:00) :
BTW Error bars …. anyone?”
If this includes my comments above, error bars on data are important because they determine whether there is any meaning in fitting a theory to data. If the theory fits the data because the error bars of the data have been massaged to such large numbers that the theory can dance a tango within, the exercise is meaningless. It just says that the theory is not inconsistent with the data. Such a theory has little predictive power, and certainly not the predictive power given to the (in)famous hockey stick plot, and to the apocalyptic pronouncements of the IPCC that want a CO2 straight jacket imposed on the world. It means that the science is open to lots and lots more of data gathering with smaller error bars before any meaningful statement about the future can be made.
and here is global warming made simple for those asking
http://www.weatherquestions.com/Roy-Spencer-on-global-warming.htm and the role of the precipitations systems.
Looks like so far 2008 is running at an anomaly really close to 0. It will take an extreme warming event (El Nino) to get 2008 into the top 10, IMO. A record breaking year is absolutely out of the question.
Piggybacking my last comment, I quickly glanced at the overall anomalies for the first 3 months for the past several years. It looks like Jan-Mar ’08 is colder worldwide than any Jan-Mar since 1997.
Make of that what you will, but that’s what the data says.
The Grand Poobah of AGW, addresses the media.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080407/sc_afp/usclimateenvironmentnasa_080407051048
The tide is turning, and he has to ‘con’vince the faithful, to remain calm, and ignore the man behind the curtain.
Another “beautiful theory” is about to be destroyed by a “nasty little fact”.
I guess my link was too long. Here is a shorter link, that shows more of the Al Gore propaganda machine in action:
http://news.yahoo.com/i/1539
To the untrained eye, they have the appearance of news reporting.
It makes me want to break out in song. I just can’t decide between “We don’t get fooled again” or “Baby it’s cold outside”.
I like a nice round number – 100 comments!
Thank you anna v. The hockey stick, this attempt to revise history, and the process taken to produce and have it published is what told me they had nothing, and thus had to resort to making things up.
Russ, Anthony etc.
Having read Hansen’s latest comments, we really need to think about opening up an online Charlatan Hall of Fame, with Gore and Hansen being the main exhibits.
REPLY: Science is self correcting, I’m sure that they’ll be corrected soon.
Reading the link I already gave above http://www.weatherquestions.com/Roy-Spencer-on-global-warming.htm
started me on the following thoughts and link between Spencer’s observation of “cause versus effect”
“This cause-versus-effect role of the Earth’s natural greenhouse effect is an important distinction. I mentioned above the common explanation that the Earth’s “energy balance results in a roughly constant globally-averaged temperature”. But I believe that this has cause and effect turned around: It is more accurate to say that “Heating by the sun causes weather, which in turn generates a greenhouse effect that is in proportion to the available sunlight”. Unless we understand the processes that limit the Earth’s natural greenhouse effect to its present value, we can’t hope to understand how mankind’s small, 1% enhancement of the greenhouse effect will change global climate.”
and the observation by Gerhard Gerlich and Ralf D. Tscheuschner,
http://arxiv.org/pdf/0707.1161, that the greenhouse effect as pushed by IPCC models is not compatible with the second law of thermodynamics.
I do not think that anybody is disputing that it is the atmosphere that is keeping temperatures in livable numbers on earth, and that humidity and other “green house ” gases play a large role in this. But I do not think there exists a physicist that will go against the second law of thermodynamics.
So there is a paradox.
When there are paradoxes it means that wrong use is being made of available information. In language, it means that two levels that should be held separate, are being confused. A statement from a meta language has been incorporated in the language. It is how the old pardox is resolved: A Cretan said all Cretans are liars. So he was lying, therefor all Cretans are not liars. But if he was telling the truth, then all ….” by setting the Cretan making the observation at a metalevel of the Cretans being observed.
Further I have been thinking of heat pumps with respect to modeling the climate. The way Spencer is describing it, it is like a normal air conditioning heat pump that keeps a steady temperature in a room by doing work, either cooling or heating. In the standard green house model there is no work foreseen. All energy is in watts per meter and is supposed to be balanced like a checkbook. Nevertheless there is enormous energy from the incoming of the sun,( 235 watts/m2) that is stored as kinetic energy in oceans and air, and phase transition energy as in precipitation and evaporation. So it is very simplistic to say 235 in 235 out. These stored energies must be what are providing the “work” to keep consistent with the second thermodynamic theorem, and keep the earth much cooler than it would be if it saturated in humidity. And these are not in the IPCC models in a dynamical way.
anna v,
I’ve looked at the G&T paper several times and find it a bit bizarre. To paraphrase an old movie, I don’t think the 2nd law means what they think it means. For another take on what they did, have a look at http://arxiv.org/abs/0802.4324 – “Proof of the Atmospheric Greenhouse Effect” by Arthur P. Smith.
Ian (14:42:44) :
Yes, it is full of german professor english and perambulating, but the basic observation about the second law on “green house” is simple: Two reservoirs, surface, R1 with temperature T1 and Top Troposphere R2 with T2, T1>T2 unequivocally. To transfer heat from R2 to R1 work must be done, the same as cooling with a refrigerator , or a room on a hot day. Conductivity, reflectivity, insulation,radiation rate etc enter in determining how much work is needed to keep a specific temperature T1 in R1, not on whether work is needed.
I have looked at the Smith paper. He does not treat the second law of thermodynamics, nor in his presentation is the enormous amount of sun energy stored as kinetic energy treated ( he says he does not want to enter the full scale general circulation models) . Maybe if I look at it more carefully I will find where the paradox enters . I suspect it is in treating radiation partially classically and partially expecting quantum mechanical behavior but I have not located the spot. ( energy levels and absorption reemission are quantum mechanical).
The second law paradox in this atmospheric greenhouse model remains.
So it must be that it is mixing up semantics and uses analogies from incompatible frameworks.
Take the particle/wave paradox. It is a paradox when it (our brain) mixes two physics representations, the classical statistical mechanics and motion, and quantum mechanics which by its invention contains as a meta level the untangling of the paradox .
I’ve not read all comments, but have not noticed any about the plausibility of treating the earth as a closed system (with zero sum energy balance). It seems to me that the earth’s self-contained radio thermal source precludes such treatment. From the deepest drilling depths to the uppermost atmosphere there is a temperature difference of about 113 degrees C over a distance of about 13 kilometers. The gradient within the earth is of the order of 9 degrees C per kilometer. The flow of heat from within the earth to the atmosphere would seem to be something to be reckoned with.
The Grand Poobah of AGW, addresses the media.
Good LORD! He is giving “’round the twist” a whole new meaning. (He has departed the realm of science entirely. He is beginning to give Gore a run for his money.)
Talking of Hansen, Anthony will love the March GISS:
+0.67C (from 0.26).
I remain Speechless. I bet Anthony won’t. Have a field day on it Anthony!
REPLY: Yes I saw it earlier today. Part of the problem with GISS is the way they format their raw data, which is totally different than the other 3 metrics, and makes it difficult for my plotting program to read in.
So, there is lots of manual work involved. Does anyone know of a simple way to take the left to right tabular column format that GISS uses and convert it to a more data friendly format like HadCRUT, UAH, and RSS use?
Here is the GISS raw data link
Here is the UAH raw data link
The GISS Feb to Mar temperature change is the largest one month change in the entire record based on my macro search.
Why is there such a disparity between UAH/RSS and GISS? This appears quite absurd.
Could it be heat sinks (etc.) compromising the surface stations?
UAH/RSS are satellite measurements of MW proxies and measure troposphere, not surface. GISS gets the (corrupted) surface stations.
Ian re: anna v’s 2nd law:
Even if AGW theory were able to dodge the 2nd law back-radiation would fail to produce warming of the surface.
Since Hottel (1942) the emissivity of CO2 at STP, at either 300 or 3000 ppm, has been experimentally determined to equal its absorptivity at 9*10^-4.
Asphalt’s emissivity is above 0.9 or 1000 times greater and most solids greater than 0.1. If measurement begins with the two at equal temps, the earth will always radiate heat away faster than the atmosphere can heat the surface.
If memory serves, the emissivity of gaseous H20 is about twice that of CO2.
Here is my R code for reading GISS files.
readGISS<-function(source="data/GISS.txt",temps=2:13,plot=T) {
f<-read.table(source,fill=TRUE,skip=10)
f<-f[f$V1 %in% 1880:2007,]
d<-as.numeric(t(as.matrix(f[seq(1,length(f[,1])),temps])))*0.01
ts(d,start=1881,frequency=12)
}
Well… You guys got me into a whole lot of trouble today. I made the mistake of printing out the RSS Temperature Data and hanging it on my notice board… I thought it might calm some of the loonies in the office down… you know… still a few years left before Armageddon and all that…. Stupid me… I may as well have tattooed a swastika on my head!!!!
I was informed by my Gen Y staff member that she considered this a personal attack on her and… aww… it just gets too nuts after that…. she then went off to a sustainability dinner with the rest of the staff… that I didn’t get an invite to because I’m a “Climate Change Denier”… I’m the only one in the whole place that has actually done something about reducing greenhouse gas emissions!!!!!!
You know what… I’m beginning to hope the whole thing is real…. let ’em all burn….
In the words of Mugatu…”Am I taking crazy pills or something!!!!”
REPLY: Next time try hanging garlic cloves.
Anthony
Apart from writing code I can only make one suggestion as to how you could make it a bit easier to convert the GISS data.
Excel has a wonderful function called OFFSET. It allows you set up row or column of numbers that can be used as a reference to say convert rows to columns and vice versa… Have a look in Excel help. I hope this helps….
REPLY: Thanks I’ll check that out
I wonder if it has ‘dawned’ on the sun worshippers yet that in the past two hundred years when, just by pure coincidence of course, both carbon dioxide and global temperatures have been increasing in tandem there have been several dips in temperature? Yet that was not the end of global warming, so why should anybody have ‘faith’ that the ‘end is nigh’ now?
Another half baked theory about the rise in global warming bites the cosmic dust.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7352667.stm
<<>>
REPLY: You are right about “half baked”. This study citing “Forbush increases” as benchmark for looking at cosmic ray increases is flawed. This is a short term solar event, with different energy particles mostly involved. What Svensmark proposes is a long term cycle that modulates super high energy GCM’s.
Obviously you never read the paper, you are just tossing things out.
I never mentioned Svensmark nor that some people once thought that the moon was made of cheese.
However this ‘long term’ cycle of Svensmark is just tossing things out as well.
“Anna, thank you for your discourse here. I’d also point out that Dr. Teller may very well single handedly be responsible for the demonization of coal.”
That is quite silly. The release of mercury, heavy metals, acid rain, and other factors beyond CO2 have done enough to give coal its (deserved) image as a ‘dirty’ source of energy. Plenty of environmentalists hae been after it. One factoid I remember from the 1970s that remains true is that more radioactive material is emitted from coal plants than nuclear, by a huge factor. Think radium and beyond.
but if you are into conspiracy theories, one funny thing: The “Coal is Dirty” campaign in Texas that was opposing new coal plants in recent years was underwritten by the owners of …. the natural gas power plants.