I’m waiting for May global land + ocean temperature data to be published from Hadley Climate Research Unit, at which time I’ll also show a comparison to GISS.
Since I did pretty well at guessing what RSS May data value would be, guessing 0.05 to -0.15°C, and having it end up at -.083°C, I’m going to put forth one for CRU.
My SWAG for HadCRUT is between +0.10 and +.0.17°C
Here is April 2008 from HadCRUT at 0.25°C
Click for a larger image
Reference: HadCRUT3 anomaly data which can be found here
description of the HadCRUT3 data file columns is here
Tom,
Regarding this statement:
“People don’t ignore an upward trend in their average body weight just because their weight fluctuates day to day.”
The upward trend in body weight is a summation of the “noise” in the system. If you want to maintain your body weight, you can’t see a 5 lb increase as noise, and just ignore it. It is the same in the atmosphere. The noise are clues to the summation of all the factors that are causing the temperture at a moment in time, yet we want to discard it, when it does not fit into our preconceived notions of what it should be.
It is much easier to reach a conclusion if we can pick and choose which things are signal, and which are noise. But it usually does not result in a correct conclusion, unless the noise ends up cancelling out, instead of contributing to the signal.
Ralph S,
While Akosofu’s paper is interesting, it has not been published in a peer reviewed journal that I can tell.
Tom: There is a thorough and lively discussion of tropical troposphere prediction accuracy here:
Tom, we already know the Models’ prediction accuracy is very bad. Nuancing, as in playing with the meaning of “consistent with” or saying the Models don’t really “forcast”, or shifting place and timeline goalposts, or “correcting” data, won’t cure it. Actually employing the Scientific Method is the only way out.
Philip_B wrote: The Forcings theory says a steady increase in a forcing produces a steady increase in temperature. CO2 is steadily increasing, while monthly and annual temperatures go up and down by large amounts.
Philip, “the Forcings theory” does not in fact claim to include all factors affecting temperature. It does not claim to predict temperature with absolute accuracy at the scale of month, year, or even decade. The theorists do not claim that measured global temperature always will increase smoothly even when the models’ predictions are of smooth increases merely because the models do not include random factors.
Instead, the theories and associated models predict there will be a long-term upward trend in temperature that will exist in conjunction with other variations in temperature–both random variations and non-random variations. The theories don’t specify what those other variations are, but that in no way means that the theories claim the absence of other variations.
So empirically confirming the theory does not require that temperature precisely match the predictions no matter how short a timescale you choose. Instead, confirming the theory is done in the same way as confirming the predictions of any theory in any scientific field: By judging whether the prediction is met “well enough” when noise is filtered out. There are some statistical tools to help make that judgment, but ultimately the judgment comes down to personal standards of evidence. Personal standards of evidence always take into account an assortment of factors, such as the presence of converging lines of evidence (e.g., whether there is a physical, causal, explanation for the predicted effect; whether the effect was predicted before the observations were made, or was theorized while looking at the observations; whether the predictions are based on models of physical processes or are purely statistical fitting to observations).
Perhaps part of the confusion in our conversation is that you think random variations always are uniform–that every random increase will be followed shortly by an equally large random decrease. That is not what “random” means. Instead, a uniform random distribution is uniform only in “the long run,” where there is no absolute definition of how long “the long run” is. There are quite precise and formal definitions of “the long run” in terms of probabilities, though. That’s a topic addressed by the field of inferential statistics.
Tom…. Your response of my response.
[“We’re back in the realm of statistics: Prediction at large scale (e.g., global average temperature) can be accurate despite less accurate prediction at any few given areas in a smaller scale (e.g., tropical troposphere temperatures).”]
Righhhht!…. So now large scale dubious and adjusted surface temp data is more acceptable, whilst modern Radiosonde and Satellite data is not?
Also… The AGW proponents can’t have it bothways and allways…. The scattering of Bristle cone pines that Manne used for his temp proxies would come under the title of ” a few given areas” then…. ‘eh?
Look, the thing is they are being tested on their own statements…. They said that TT temp would rise as CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere rose and in accordance with their Climate computer predictions….. Now that they are found wanting. They wish to change the goal posts.
This happened also with Manne’s Hockey stick. It also happened when CO2 was found to lag Temperature rise in the ice core records.
There comes a time when they must admit that the AGW hypothesis, as it stands, needs rejecting and climate processes and driving influences reevaluating….
Obviously humans have an impact on environments…. It is the significance of that which is to be determined…. And that would seem to be relatively benign, when that system is the global Climate. CO2 will effect plants well and climate insignificantly.
We should be rejoicing….. not weeping.
Tom, you forgot to add the most important personal standard of evidence for AGWers: if the end result fits or at least doesn’t contradict the AGW hypothesis then it is accepted as further proof, and if not, then it is conveniently downplayed or ignored.
Cripes Tom, talk about circular reasoning. “look at the warming trend since the Mauder Minimum and since we know that the sun had no impact on the cooling then you can clearly see that the sun has no effect on temperatures.”
“Just go to RealClimate and it will all be explained to you.” What a pantload. For one thing, RealClimate moderates comments prior to their appearing, and so there can be no such thing as a “lively debate” there any more than such a debate was likely in the “Supreme Soviet.”
The reason the troposphere temp is so important is that it is a prediction of alarmists like Gavin at RealClimate. If it is missing, then either the theory is wrong about how AGW works, or the warming is from other causes.
Or are you saying, Tom, that it is impossible for the warming to have been from other sources, and therefore, despite the fact that the troposphere warming is an order of magnitude below preditions, the theory is still right. On account of “data matching the theory is only important to skeptics,” to paraphrase your response.
I can wait five years and see what happens to temps. I don’t think that the level of fear whipped up by the alarmists can wait five years for global warming to restart.
By the way, if that warming trend hadn’t appeared at the end of the LIA, Europe and North America would be coping with glaciation, and probably mass starvation right now, if not reduced to post apocolyptic bands of hunter gathering.
Yorick, don’t use quote marks to enclose words I did not write. You may paraphrase as long as you leave out the quote marks.
There are some statistical tools to help make that judgment, but ultimately the judgment comes down to personal standards of evidence.
Wrong. Unless the judgments you are talking about are “ultimate” only in the sense advocated by the niche philosophy of Subjectivism. Iow, applying your logic, there are no objective standards. Again, only by accepting and following the practices involved with the Scientific Method are we all going to best get through the unavoidable interaction we have with the real world.
Oh, oh, oh, J. Peden….
Up to now I have refrained from making snide remarks, but my parting remark on this blog will be: Capitalizing “Scientific Method” doesn’t mean you understand it.
Reply: Keep it civil folks~jeez
“So the limiting factor is only how much room is available in the air, which is determined primarily by the air temperature.”
Let me see if I’ve got this right then… The higher the air temperature, the more the evaporation so the more water vapor there is, and the higher the temperature, the more water vapor the air can hold so the less precipitation there is, relatively, all things being equal, and the more water vapor, the more UV absorption and so the higher the temperature, the higher the temperature, the more the water vapor and so on…
I would suggest that the very fact we’re around to discuss this very strongly suggests that things simply don’t happen that way, and that there must be very large negative feedback mechanisms at play.
When the day comes that the AGW scientists make all of their data, methodology, algorithms, source code etc freely and publicly available for independent scrutiny – when that day comes then I’ll be more inclined to listen to what they say with less of a pinch of salt.
OTOH, if they’re right then I would suggest that we can meet all our energy needs by simply building some high glass towers, pump them full of CO2 and water vapor, and just sit back and watch the turbines spin. 😉
Oops – that should have read, “IR absorption”
With the Hadcrut SST in at .221 it would be unusual ( not impossible) for Hadcrut 3 to be lower than that so I forecast it to be .280.
I am going to miss Tom. I had no idea what the RealClimate postion was, nor had I any idea of the contents of the IPCC report until he came here and quoted them for us. Boy, that changes everything.
“So apparently Hathaway believes that “greenhouse gases” would keep Earth warm no matter what the Sun does. I hope he is simply being “politically correct” in order to protect his career and that he doesn’t really believe that.”
Hathaway is a NASA solar phycisist and he is now on his fourth guess as to when Solar Cycle 24 will start. He originally claimed that SC 24 would be the biggest in 400 years. Now that it won’t even get started, the odds of that look longer and longer. I wouldn’t give his predictions much credit.
KuhnKat (23:10:48) pondered:
“I’ve read about this computation [logarithm-based] any number of places. What I haven’t seen is any kind of data on exactly how far along the log scale we are in relation to how much value the current CO2 doubling should have. I always see bald statements that this is what it is.
I have seen a couple of denialist presentations that put us much further along. They claim that the CO2 is saturated already and it has little additional effect.
Can you, or anyone else, help me out with that??”
I haven’t seen anyone answer this, so I’ll jump in despite not being completely comfortable with it.
The equation you’ve seen is merely an approximation, I suspect someone looked at some experimental data and said, “Gee, that’s pretty close to a logarithmic relationship.” The equation doesn’t fit well for very low or very high CO2 concentrations.
It all comes from the main window in the spectrum that CO2 blocks – there’s enough CO2 in the atmosphere to block nearly everything in the window, so adding CO2 just affects the edges. Before the window saturated, somewhere in the first 100 ppm of CO2, I believe, then small changes affected absorption over the entire window. Those days are long gone, and may never have existed.
This is the key thing that convinced me that CO2 can’t explain all the warming. Well, that and Joe D’Aleo’s correlation between ocean currents and temperature.
I have more description and line art at http://wermenh.com/climate/science.html
Clarifying question: When the Earth warms, which I believe it has (and is cooling a bit now) even though the data may have questionable components to it, what part of the warmth comes from a still hot-core warm planet Earth and what part comes from the Sun’s warmth being held in under a blanket? Someone somewhere had this data.
Second question: Do any of the models have a cooling scenario or is that simply discarded as an impossibility? The blanket consists of several insulating components, all of which can break down under the right circumstances. If GW modeling is Science, it certainly seems blind to all other possiblities. At the very least, shouldn’t they try to incorporate cooling into the computer model, instead of just suspending the model till it stops cooling?
Your blog’s homepage shows postings up to June 10th. I can only find the newer posts by opening the bees and sunspots post and finding the Next Article link to get the newer articles one at a time. Opera 9.5, IE7, and firefox 3 were tested. — John M Reynolds
REPLY: I’ve seen that with some connections, it may be an upstream cache issue, there is nothing I can do about it.
Pam,
I have not seen it addressed here, perhaps because I am a late arrival, but apparently the basic differential equations in some climate models are wrong.
More info at: http://www.dailytech.com/Researcher+Basic+Greenhouse+Equations+Totally+Wrong/article10973.htm
others, is this article true?
Pam,
I have not seen it addressed here, perhaps because I am a late arrival, but apparently the basic differential equations in some climate models are wrong.
More info at: http://www.dailytech.com/Researcher+Basic+Greenhouse+Equations+Totally+Wrong/article10973.htm
others, is this article true?
Although I am not sufficiently knowledgeable to fully understand the details of the paper this is exactly the scenario I found when I started using an existing elastoplastic strain calculation with indeterminate bend rates on a relatively modern computer. I found several problems with transition points and end conditions which cast doubt on the whole theory.
However when I went back to the original work I found that several third order variables had been omitted to simplify the calculation on the grounds that they had no real effect in the range of results which were then being considered.
It was only when these variables were reinstated that the results started to match the theory over the extended range of parameters.
If, as seems reasonable, the boundary conditions for CO2 warming were simplified to make the calculation easier for the range of condition then being considered then using the same formulae when going well outside the original assumed parameters could well be a serious error.
I think this is the original paper which caused Miklós Zágoni to change his mind
http://met.hu/doc/idojaras/vol111001_01.pdf
Mike Bryant issues a challenge to all climate models…
Please publish Earth’s monthly temperatures for the next twelve months. This should be no problem whatsoever since one hundred years is well within possibility.
Mike Bryant