Questions on the evolution of the GISS temperature product

Leif Svalgaard (18:29:54) :
Actually, it’s the upward convection of warm moist air that helps out with cooling, not the raining part.

“REPLY: Well, Mary I’ll point out that you spend a lot of time on this blah blah blog. – Anthony”
To explain:- I see a lot of smokescreen, straw men and some innacurate/misleading statements from many posters, the ‘Blah Blahers’.
There are other posters, the real skeptics as well as yourself, that question and present other possible mechanisms (whether theories or data collection/analysis). These are the people that I read and participate in this blog for.
I’m sorry if I gave the impression that I though this blog was irrelevant, it was not intended, you know I have a lot of respect for your work and for many of the ‘regulars’. I do think this is a valuable blog. As recent events have shown anything that helps data accuracy has to be good. The ‘Blah Blahing’ was directed at those who delight in deconstruction and who contribute nothing of substance to the debate.

Leif Svalgaard (20:36:42) :
These changes are not ‘tiny’ compared to changes in solar activity [which are tiny indeed]. The change in insolation due to orbital changes are significant, of the order of 50 W/m2, or 50 times larger than the change of TSI over the solar cycle. So, they certainly affect the set-point of the rain thermostat.
Leif, are you referring to Milankovich cycles here, or some other orbital changes? I was under the impression that the Milankovich forcing was tiny- much less than 1w/m2 over the globe.

Leif:

It must be me that is too dense. Doesn’t anybody get what I’m trying to say? You don’t ;like the AGW ‘mechanism’ [bad physics, voodoo, etc], but what is your mechanism for climate change? or are you ‘deniers’ saying that the climate don’t change?

I think that’s a bit unfair.
The AGWers, with all their massive resources and taxpayer’s money, cannot say for sure which direction and by how much the climate is changing or how it’s changed in the past – much less what it’s going to be doing just a year into the future, let alone a century. But they expect us to come up with an alternative mechanism to explain ..er ..what exactly?

Peter (10:28:28) :
Where does the heat “go” when it rains? Is it radiated out into space?

Smokey: “The burden of proof is on the alarmists, and their proposed AGW hypothesis — not on the accepted paradigm that the climate is well within normal historical parameters.”
You’re confusing two separate issues here.
1. Challenging AGW.
2. Claiming that climate is within normal historical parameters.
You can do (1) without doing (2). But when you do (2), you are making a positive claim, and that claim can legitimately be challenged.
In claiming that the burden of proof only goes one way, you are trying to privilege one point of view due merely to longevity. But science doesn’t work like that. A positive claim can be challenged.

Sorry leif, here we go again!!!!
But the article names Anthony.
November 21, 2008
Global Warming? Bring it On!
By Gregory Young
The argument propounded by the dubious United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report on Anthropogenic (human-induced) Global Warming (AGW) is willfully fraudulent. The report has been vigorously and critically undermined, scientifically denounced and found wanting from both notable scientists here and abroad.
In spite of this fact, it is likely that the new U.S. Democratic Congress and Administration will once again proclaim that they know better than we do about such things. Get ready for them to move surreptitiously under the guise of Global Climate Control in an effort to enhance their own legacies and pocketbooks. To be sure, the Left hears nothing but their own incestuous voices, despite the voices of clarity and reason that abound around them. And there are many, many distinguished dissenters against the charade of AGW.
Take for instance the Founder of the Weather Channel and eminent Meteorologist John Coleman who has stated:
There is no significant man made global warming. There has not been any in the past, there is none now and there is no reason to fear any in the future. The climate of Earth is changing. It has always changed. But mankind’s activities have not overwhelmed or significantly modified the natural forces.
Through all history, Earth has shifted between two basic climate regimes: ice ages and what paleoclimatologists call “Interglacial periods”. For the past 10 thousand years the Earth has been in an interglacial period…. [where] the Earth warms up, the glaciers melt and life flourishes. Clearly from our point of view, an interglacial period is greatly preferred to the deadly rigors of an ice age. Mr. Gore and his crowd would have us believe that the activities of man have overwhelmed nature during this interglacial period and are producing an unprecedented, out of control warming.
Well, it is simply not happening. Worldwide there was a significant natural warming trend in the 1980’s and 1990’s as a Solar cycle peaked with lots of sunspots and solar flares. That ended in 1998 and now the Sun has gone quiet with fewer and fewer Sun spots, and the global temperatures have gone into decline. Earth has cooled for almost ten straight years. So, I ask Al Gore, where’s the global warming?
There is an abundance of solid data to back these conclusions up. For example, new measurements from the NASA/ESA spacecraft Ulysses show that the sun’s current period of low activity goes beyond an extended dearth of sunspots. Solar activity has dropped to the lowest levels since recording began some 50 years ago. Current experts, such as Veizer, Shaviv, and most recently Svensmark et al., and Patterson, suggest that changes in the output of the sun caused the most recent climate change. They convincingly argue that increased cosmic radiation acts as a catalyst for cloud formation in earth’s atmosphere. This, in turn, leads to a general cooling of the world’s climate if the pattern persists.
Ironically, during the 1970s while some (including NASA’s James Hansen) were hysterically promoting the schizoid fears of a new ice age hitting the world in a few decades, a new frenzy over Global Warming and Climate Change was just beginning at Scripps Ocenaographic Institute in San Diego, CA. It was started by one of their most esteemed scientists Roger Revelle, the father of Oceanography. His work correlated the increases in carbon dioxide, CO2 (a laboratory defined greenhouse gas) to atmospheric warming. Revelle later moved to Harvard and encouraged his students, including Al Gore, to rehash the data.
Since then the research methods have clearly gotten out of hand. Many avenues of research have proven repeatedly useless. Even Roger Revelle understood that there were greater variables at play than the trace gas of CO2.
Before he died, Revelle gave interviews and wrote letters stating that CO2 and its greenhouse effect did not warrant extreme countermeasures. He told Omni Magazine, in March 1984, that “CO2 increase is predicted to temper weather extremes” — not cause them. One cannot argue that CO2 was a causative factor — especially since CO2 was apparently following temperature trend — not moderating it. It seems none of his followers, Gore in particular, heeded his words.
There is a huge problem with the idea that Carbon Dioxide, or CO2, is a globally polluting gas, much less one that causes climate change and global warming. Even though some data seemed to initially substantiate the AGW thesis, these ideas were later proven to be wrong. (Those derived from ice core data were especially damning.) Australian Climatologist Dr. David Evans has done yeoman’s work on this issue.
Often forgotten in the argument is the fact that CO2 is only a trace component of the atmosphere. For every million molecules of other gases in the atmosphere (such as nitrogen, oxygen, and hydrogen), there are only 385 molecules of CO2.
It is a fact that atmospheric concentrations of CO2 have varied widely over geological time. The peak was estimated to be some 20-fold higher than at present (+6,000 ppm) — and the low about 200 ppm below today’s. (Everyday office air concentrations often exceed 1,000 ppm CO2.)
Meteorologist John Coleman perspicaciously asks:
How can this tiny trace upset the entire balance of the climate of Earth? How can a trace element possibly be the cause of systemic Global Warming? It can’t. That’s all there is to it; it can’t…. Carbon dioxide does not cause significant global warming.
Increased levels of CO2 has more likely benefited all life forms on the planet, summarizes Coleman. Many other scientists have come to the same conclusion.
Robinson, Robinson & Soon, in their cogent 2007 published research paper found here, provided empirical evidence that invalidates AGW alarmists hypotheses. They also found overwhelming support for the general benefits that are derived from natural global warming.
Here is the summary of their findings:
1- A review of the research literature concerning the environmental consequences of increased levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide leads to the conclusion that increases during the 20th and early 21st centuries have produced no deleterious effects upon Earth’s weather and climate. There are no experimental data to support the hypothesis that increases in human hydrocarbon use or in atmospheric carbon dioxide and other green house gases are causing or can be expected to cause unfavorable changes in global temperatures, weather, or landscape. There is no reason to limit human production of CO2, CH4, and other minor green house gases as has been proposed.
2- Predictions of catastrophic global warming are based on computer climate modeling, a branch of science still in its infancy. The empirical evidence – actual measurements of Earth’s temperature and climate – shows no man-made warming trend. Indeed, during four of the seven decades since 1940 when average CO2 levels steadily increased, U.S. average temperatures were actually decreasing.
3- Increased carbon dioxide has, however, markedly increased plant growth. Predictions of harmful climatic effects due to future increases in hydrocarbon use and minor greenhouse gases like CO2 do not conform to current experimental knowledge.
4- While major green house gas H2O substantially warms the Earth, minor green house gases such as CO2 have little effect…. The 6-fold increase in hydrocarbon use since 1940 has had no noticeable effect on atmospheric temperature or on the trend in glacier length.
5- Solar activity and U.S. surface temperature are closely correlated…., but U.S. surface temperature and world hydrocarbon use are not correlated.
6- We also need not worry about environmental calamities even if the current natural warming trend continues. The Earth has been much warmer during the past 3,000 years without catastrophic effects. Warmer weather extends growing seasons and generally improves the habitability of colder regions.
7- Human use of coal, oil, and natural gas has not harmfully warmed the Earth, and the extrapolation of current trends shows that it will not do so in the foreseeable future. The CO2 produced does, however, accelerate the growth rates of plants and also permits plants to grow in drier regions. Animal life, which depends upon plants, also flourishes, and the diversity of plant and animal life is increased.
Dr. Michael Griffin, the new NASA Administrator, looks at climate change in a refreshingly contrarian fashion. He has stated:
To assume that [climate change] is a problem is to assume that the state of earth’s climate today is the optimal climate, the best climate that we could have or ever have had and that we need to take steps to make sure that it doesn’t change.
There are other fundamental objections to the AGW theory:
(1) The infamous “Hockey Stick” statistical debacle, nicely summarized here, effectively cherry-picked data from tree rings to estimate temperature change over the past 1000 years. The report erroneously declared that the largest increases in world temperature occurred in the 20th century. These results could not be reproduced by anyone. The U.S. National Academy of Sciences (NAS) later found the statistical methods first employed inappropriate and the findings bogus.
(2) The reported NASA temperature data glitch discovered by Canadian Computer Analyst Steve McIntyre that wrongly kicked all temperature records up several tenths of a degree was a severe setback for AGW modelers. This software “failure” was overseen by one of AGW’s fiercest proponents, the notorious Dr. James Hanson. NASA’s GISS and Hanson have recently come under fire again for poor data collection methods and questionable accuracy.
(3) As recently presented in American Thinker, Lord Monckton competently summarizes for us that many of the highly publicized AGW “facts” are simple documented anomalies of natural climate cycling — designedly misrepresented for the cause of AGW.
To wit: The Oceans are not catastrophically rising nor are they warming. In fact, the oceans have been cooling since 2003. The Snows of Kilimanjaro are not melting but ablating because of friction due to a cooling atmosphere and natural cooling trends. The world’s 160,000 glaciers are not suddenly receding, but appear to be re-advancing, including those ice shelves in Antarctic and the polar ice sheets, all of which cycle regularly in ice mass. Lord Monckton, a science-journalist, provides even more evidence here.
(4) Finally let us not forget the astute investigation of automated weather stations by US Meteorologist Anthony Watts. Watts painstakingly discovered that a large fraction of the nation’s 1,200 stations have been wrongly sited in man-made heat-absorbing centers. (Examples include locations on rooftops, on slabs of heat absorbing concrete, next to air conditioners, diesel generators and asphalt parking lots, even at sewage treatment plants. Some are located in areas experiencing excessive nighttime humidity, and at non-standard observing heights, including one actually sinking into a swamp.) Watts’ discovery profoundly undermined the veracity of historical temperature data documented in the United States — data that had been used by AGW proponents.
There are three indisputable and fundamental facts that were wantonly ignored in the UN’s IPCC sham of a report. The UN breathlessly but insidiously “forgot” to include the specifics that:
(1) The Earth has largely benefited by past warming cycle’s and that these previous “warmings” had nothing to do with man’s activities. These earlier natural cycles were not catastrophic events; they were, in fact, beneficial to all life forms. They provided warmer and longer growing seasons, more areas available for crops, etc. We know, for instance, that Greenland was once green, that Eric the Red planted and grew grapes in what is now Nova Scotia, Canada, that the Romans planted grapes in England, etc.
(2) Solar/Sun Spot activity is the originator of most climatic change and most weather patterns on Earth. It is king. There is no larger factor of influence. CO2 influence is negligible and pales in comparison. CO2 follows the trend of temperature; it does not cause it.
(3) Subordinate to solar activity alone, atmospheric water vapor/cloud formation and movement is the largest known variable that influences temperature changes in the atmosphere of the earth, and the earth’s oceans. Water vapor in the atmosphere is around 1000-10,000 times as important as atmospheric CO2.
These three quintessential and pivotal factors are not even discussed in the UN’s IPCC report. This exclusion should raise a red flag in any intelligent mind. That’s why so many of us are yelling from the rooftops about the absurdity of the report itself!
Instead of a true and open discourse, we see the daily dribble from the MSM and various liberally usurped science journals, dishonestly and falsely alleging a “consensus” when there is none.
Indeed, arrayed against the arcane burlesque of the United Nations IPCC with its politically selected 2500 Scientists, of which a core group of 600 exists, and a relatively small number of mediocre “scientists” here and there across the American landscape who have suddenly found notoriety or grant money in the global warming cause, are 31,072+ legitimate and viable scientists (of which I am one) who signed the American Petition Project declaring the Global Warming Hypothesis bogus found here, here and here. We openly refute the UN’s conclusions.
Here’s the Petition Statement we dissenters signed in opposition:
“We urge the United States government to reject the global warming agreement that was written in Kyoto, Japan in December, 1997, and any other similar proposals. The proposed limits on greenhouse gases would harm the environment, hinder the advance of science and technology, and damage the health and welfare of mankind.
“There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth.”
Let me assure you that we’re not in good humor, nor take it kindly to be slurred and ridiculed by taking the other side in this debate. And our numbers are still growing. Indeed, we’re angry that the vast majority of American Scientists will not be heard by the media. We’re dismayed over the fact that the Global Warming fiasco has become politically popular and expedient to those left-wing politicians and power-brokers whose sole aim is to literally tax everything with a carbon footprint and give them control over all life, hidden within their PC guileful pretence to save the planet. They wish to save no one but themselves.
And the tide turns further. Of the 2500 originally aligned scientists and putative authors of the UN’s IPCC report some 500 are no longer faithful to Big Al’s errand. Many of these scientists discovered that their individual findings and comments were willfully misrepresented. All participant conclusions were unilaterally changed to adhere strictly to the United Nations objective of building support for world taxation and rationing of industrially useful energy. Since the original IPCC report (and there have been some 4 others now formally issued), the defecting 500 scientists have issued public statements challenging global warming. Approximately 100 of these scientists are now open defectors. Others are currently suing the UN for the misuse of their good names and research. It is difficult to see why a thinking person would even consider the IPCC report as legitimate.
The entire IPCC process is but obfuscation by the secular and atheist Left. It has allowed the Left to conflate the vanity of secular opinion with scientific and/or moral truth. There is an easy and immediate remedy for their debacle. Will Rogers stated it simply: “When you are in a hole … stop digging…. Please!”
Dr. Gregory Young is a neuroscientist and physicist, a doctoral graduate of the University of Oxford, Oxford, England. He is currently involved with a privately funded think-tank engaged in experimental biophysical research.
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