Reader Dave Andrews offers this in comments:
Here’s an interesting comment from Willem de Lange over on Climate Audit ‘Ice Ages#2′ thread:
“One of the reasons I got annoyed with the IPCC when I was involved, was an almost universal dismissal of the contribution of natural forcing to the observed warming – particularly the role of decadal-scale climate variability such as the PDO. In discussions with one of our Nobel Peace Prize winning meteorologists back in the 1990s, their position was that the greenhouse effect had overwhelmed natural variability and it just would not be possible for the PDO to switch.”
PDO flipped, possibly soon now, AMO. Plus, solar cycle 24 where are you? Climate Modelers, retune restart jumpstart rebuild your engines.
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Is it just a coincidence that the PDO Index went negative about the same time as the sun’s geomagnetic averaged planetary index dropped. Curious.
I was poking around in the PDO Index directory and noticed the similarity in the shifts.
http://jisao.washington.edu/pdo/PDO.latest
Why do we keep seeing graphs from the syndicate ending in 2000 or B4?
Hmmmm. Hmmmm. Has it ever occurred to anyone the that the model simulation has it right and the observations are wrong? #B^1
And, considering the state of the wicket (i.e., the surface stations), I am only half-kidding!
Speaking of annoyance, your readers may start getting annoyed of my rants on aerosols. One has to ask, in the graph above, what is the assumed level of aerosols in the “natural factor” simulation. Did they increase over time, decrease, or held constant? What happens to the simulation if the assumed level of aerosols are cut in half, or even by two-thirds. Would it not be nice to see the impact of aerosols on these models? However, I suppose that would be too much to ask. Seriously, how hard did the modelers try to explain the recent warm-up with “natural factors”. Did they do one run (like the one above) and said, “Oh well, that didn’t work, must be CO2 / climate sensitivity causing the warming trend.” I noticed the right side of the graph shows a volcano and the sun. Was man-made aerosols considered as well? Or is that not “natural”?
It somewhat reminds me of the old quote “Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising.” Disappointing to see the scientific method thrown out by so many during the past 10-15 years.
Well, the one unnatural factor we know about that helps explain some of the warming is bias – in the instrumentation (quality control), in the science (peer-pressure to go along to get along with the current paradigm), in the political sphere (hidden agendas), and in the media (a mixture of the other three motivations. The influences of bias need as much investigation as the physical parameters if we hope to get better predictions of future climate.
Obviously, the model and reality are 2 different planets. Good ol’ Terra (reality) and Bizarro World (model).
That graph seems to suggest that the model runs only included solar and volcanic forcings. As well as PDO, AMO an ENSO, what about clouds? What about water vapour? What about the lack of dust? Suggesting a divergence from nature with only two factors is wrong.
John M Reynolds
LOL!
“…it just would not be possible for the PDO to switch.”
What did I say yesterday about arrogant, pig-headed, obstinate scientists who think they know it all?
How sweet it is!
Sometimes computer modelers have a tendency to think that if the model doesn’t match reality then reality must be wrong. 🙂
IMHO – if we could solve the div / curl / vorticity problems at the edges of jet streams in the meteo models, it would unstick a log jam, and much better GCMs would likely also result.
How about climate modelers “scrap your junk engines”.
In my view they all belong on the scrap heap.
It now seems the science is not settled, and additional measurements and modeling are required to provide useful future scenarios of climate trends. Fortunately, the always-prescient NASA is on top of this requirement, with their most recent job posting in the May ’08 issue of Optics and Photonics News (an Optical Society of America/ Institute of Physics trade rag)-
“NASA Goddard Space Flight Center is looking for innovative scientists to fill up to ten new staff scientist positions. These new positions will support our exciting science program that spans the earth sciences. The positions support the design and development of new space observational techniques and instruments, including data analysis algorithms, assimilation of data into numerical methods, the conduct of basic earth sciences research, and application of our findings in support of national needs. We plan to hire only the best scientists, making our choices based on the priority areas of expertise listed below, coupled with the strengths and interests of the candidates.”
Areas of expertise that are of interest include:
-atmospheric aerosols
-atmospheric composition
-atmospheric water cycle
-carbon cycle
-climate modeling and analysis
-oceanography
-polar climate change
-terrestrial water cycle
-weather and short-term climate
Fortunately (in my opinion), there seems to be a renewed interest in gathering data and improving observational capabilities in most of these positions.
I am an ecologist specialising in land use issues and at times advising some of the largest UK landowners on conservation issues – however, in my not-so-distant past I had cause to analyse various ocean and atmospheric dispersion models (in relation to toxics) – and served on numerous committees and commissions (at levels varying from UK government agencies up to UN level). I am therefore no stranger to modellers getting things seriously wrong – and my critique of the UN’s ocean modelling and pollution prevention paradigm was published in 1993 in the peer-reviewed literature.
Over the past 3 years I have undertaken my own analysis of the IPCC’s role and the background science of ‘global warming’ (240 pages). It will come as no surprise to this blog that I have concluded the IPCC models are seriously in error – nor will my reasoning as to how this debacle could have come about.
My analysis is available to download at http://www.ethos-uk.com for a small fee or free to those who email peter.taylor@ethos-uk.com requesting free access. A summary is available (free download).
I would be very keen to have feedback on this report – which will be regularly updated.
Peter Taylor
This PDO flipping scenario (followed soon by the AMO flipping(?) is simply breathtaking. And I don’t talk in superlatives.
The big question, at least in my mind, is what triggers these events? Is sun spot activity the trigger? How does this flip measure up to others vis-a-vis sun spot activity?
Just thinking….
Jack Koenig, Editor
The Mysterious Climate Project
http://www.climateclinic.com
I need to understand what the word “forcing” means. I keep reading it and it looks like a familiar word and I keep blowing right on by it.
But I now have to admit my pride and my error have kept me from understanding that I have no idea what it means in this context.
And it occurs to me that I need to do some research on the word “settled”, since that seems not to be what I thought it was.
Settled science: more hurricanes. Or fewer.
Settled science: warmer as carbon dioxide increases. Or colder.
Settled science: more rain. or less.
Larry Sheldon, Don’t you understand the AGW alarmist textbook? All of the science IS settled:
More hurricanes AND fewer
Warmer as carbon dioxide increases AND colder
more rain AND less
We all should tune in to Al Gore more often so we can learn the proper montra.
Larry Sheldon @ur momisugly 11:44:54 — I can only offer a layman’s idea of the meaning of “forcing” in this context. So far as I can tell, they mean something which will change the course of whatever is being measured. I think of it sort of like inertia in the sense that whatever is measured would have tended to keep going in the same direction without some force to change it. Maybe that’s how they came to use the term “forcing” to name the effect of things like CO2 on temperatures. (If I’m way off base on this, someone tell me, please.)
And while we are having what looks like proper spring weather (T-storms, rain, wind) I noticed that York county, not far from here, has got freeze warnings up.
And there are winter weather warnings up for western Nebraska, Kansas, clear down into the Texas Panhandle.
And the squirrels are on the bird platform packing it away like it was November.
Wonder what they know that I don’t.
jmrSudbury, you absolutely nailed it. Not to mention that solar is in this case TSI and maybe a bit of UV-Ozone interaction.
Evan Jones (08:12:10) :
“Hmmmm. Hmmmm. Has it ever occurred to anyone the that the model simulation has it right and the observations are wrong?”
One thing I like about snowfall reports during a cooling climate is that station siting issues have no impact on the storm. Well, outside of intercepting a little snow before it reaches the ground.
Especially when it snows in places where it hasn’t snowed in living memory. Individual reports aren’t too useful, but when reports form in from around the world then it’s harder to sweep under the bush. Here near Concord NH my 128″ covered several the bushes.
The poor raspberries next to the parking area didn’t handle 7′ of snowbower pile very well.
I tracked down a link to the graph from Hadley (below, note ppt) and it’s attributed to Stott et al.
The claim we can accurately model natural climate variation and hence determine how much warming is anthropogenic is farcical.
All the model shows is that climate models cannot model the Earth’s real climate. And that’s it all shows.
And I’d add that extending the series to 2008 would show the observed returning to the modelled level. So not only can’t the model explain the warming, it can’t explain the recent cooling either.
Cargo Cult Science
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/presentations/briefing-2001-07/model-evaluation.ppt
Note the backpedaling beginning, even in the major “science” journals.
I’m wondering if someone has been tracking all those scientists who have in the last several years promoted the idea it would never cool for any significant period, but there would always be a constant even rise in temperatures? That would be most interesting homework assignment.
The modelers are already out in force claiming their newest Frankensteins are now simulating the current and apparent coming ’10 year’ cooling; “see, we were right all along”. Trenberth is also riding backwards at Olympic speeds explaining (paraphrased) “nobody said it would always warm”.
Ok, so according to IPCC hockey stick, that they refuse to remove there are no natural variations during the last 1000 years or so that has cuased more than a few tenths C of warming/cooling. Now all of a sudden there are natural variations that cause more than 0,5-1C degrees of cooling resulting in no increse of global temperatures. This is based in we have had no increse in 11 years so far and wont see any increse in another 7 years, 18 years in total roughly.
How come the natural variations have become so dominant in the last 10 years while they where not in the last 1000 years? (hockey stick diagram)