UPDATE#2 I finally found a graph from Professor Akasofu that goes with the text of his essay below. I’ve added it above. You can read more about Akasofu’s views on climate in this PDF document here. (Warning: LARGE 50 megabyte file, long download) The two previous graphs used are in links below.
UPDATE: Originally I posted a graph from Roger Pielke Jr. see here via Lucia at the Blackboard because it was somewhat related and I wanted to give her some traffic. As luck would have it, few people followed the link to see what it was all about, preferring to question the graph in the context of the article below. So, I’ve replaced it with one from another article of hers that should not generate as many questions. Or will it? 😉 – Anthony
THE IPCC’S FAILURE OF PREDICTING THE TEMPERATURE CHANGE DURING THE FIRST DECADE
Syun Akasofu
International Arctic Research Center
University of Alaska Fairbanks
Fairbanks, AK 99775-7340
The global average temperature stopped increasing after 2000 against the IPCC’s prediction of continued rapid increase. It is a plain fact and does not require any pretext. Their failure stems from the fact that the IPCC emphasized the greenhouse effect of CO2 by slighting the natural causes of temperature changes.
The changes of the global average temperature during the last century and the first decade of the present century can mostly be explained by two natural causes, a linear increase which began in about 1800 and the multi-decadal oscillation superposed on the linear increase. There is not much need for introducing the CO2 effect in the temperature changes. The linear increase is the recovery (warming) from the Little Ice Age (LIA), which the earth experienced from about 1400 to 1800.
The halting of the temperature rise during the first decade of the present century can naturally be explained by the fact that the linear increase has been overwhelmed by the superposed multi-decadal oscillation which peaked in about 2000.*
This situation is very similar to the multi-decadal temperature decrease from 1940 to 1975 after the rise from 1910 to 1940 (in spite of the fact that CO2 increased rapidly after 1946); it was predicted at that time that a new Big Ice Age was on its way.
The IPCC seems to imply that the halting is a temporary one. However, they cannot give the reason. Several recent trends, including the phase of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), the halting of sea level increase, and the cooling of the Arctic Ocean, indicate that the halting is likely to be due to the multi-decadal change.
The high temperatures predicted by the IPCC in 2100 (+2~6°C) are simply an extension of the observed increase from 1975 to 2000, which was caused mainly by the multi-decadal oscillation. The Global Climate Models (GCMs) are programmed to reproduce the observed increase from 1975 to 2000 in terms of the CO2 effect and to extend the reproduced curve to 2100.
It is advised that the IPCC recognize at least the failure of their prediction even during the first decade of the present century; a prediction is supposed to become less accurate for the longer future.
For details, see http://people.iarc.uaf.edu/~sakasofu
* The linear increase has a rate of ~ +0.5°C/100 years, while the multi-decadal oscillation has an amplitude of ~0.2°C and period of ~ 50-60 years, thus the change in 10 years is about ~ -0.07°C from the peak, while the linear change is about ~ +0.05°C.
To the point–and barbed.
There seems to be a typo in the professor’s zip code, which is given as “Fairbanks, AK 9977507340”. Should it actually be 99775-7340? (I.e., should the 6th digit, a zero, actually be a hyphen?)
Errr… Excuse me if I’m wrong but from these pictures, isn’t the trend of measured temperatures exactly in line with the predictions of the IPCC ?
I think Mr Akasofu gave the quite unsettling impression that the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, has serious quality problems concerning their staff members. According to his very strange view of IPCC model runs he seems to believe that actually each realisation, each IPCC ensemble member is wrong since it doesnt correspond to the computed temporal and ensemble mean curve.
Individual IPCC model runs compute even slightly negative decadal trends at the beginning of he 21 century http://www.scienceblogs.de/primaklima/2008/07/die-mar-von-der-beendeten-erwarmung-und-den-modellen-die-etwas-vorhersagen.php.
According to Dr. Akasofu they were “wrong” since they do not correspond the flat mean slope of all model runs. A bizarre misunderstanding for a scientist at least.
That is very much what I said some nearly a year ago in this article:
http://climaterealists.com/news.php?id=1302
I agree with Flanagan that the pictures are not particularly helpful. I have seen better diagrams illustrating the point elsewhere.
Like Flanagan, I’m puzzled by the tone. Referencing chart ‘b’, I see that IPCC 1990 wildly exaggerated the temperature change, but IPCC 1995 and 2001 seem to have underestimated it. If the trend of the last ten years continues another twenty or thirty, then perhaps 1995 and 2001 will also be shown to be exaggerations, but that is speculation at the moment.
I’m surprised to see that IPCC predictions are this accurate.
So, Whatts up with not caring about the economy? Low and corrupt ecomomies is what leads to war which then messed the environment in the first place. All wars since the inception of our country but mostly with the very agency that was self created not by the voters, to prevent economic problems the Federal reserve bank has led to war pollution. How many tons of bomb material and debris did explode in Iraq? Lets get real, if we had the creation of money following REAL PRODUCTION in work then the environment would not have to be exploited a million times over to catch up with electronic numbers or fiat currency non work bubble output. All scientists, please do the math, and then lets focus on being honest and good citizens and quit the diversions. What we need is a restructure of the entire financial system not give them more power to do the same, and a great book to go over is one titled “From Phantom Wealth to Real wealth Agenda for a New Economy.” It says to bring banking to the local level instead of outward to the same players on WallStreet et al.
Flanagan (08:21:43) :
Err, No
The jagged lines ( that are trending flat 2000 on) are “measured”, the straight lines are IPCC predictions.
Being from Alaska, I’m sure Dr. Syun Akasofu is in the employ of big “Ice”…
Hmmm I wonder why the graphs stop in 2007…
1. Why does anyone expect a dynamic, multivariate system to display linear increases?
2. What use are linear plots even as an ‘average’?
3. Is it more important to farmers to have accurate 10 year predictions than accurate 100 year ones?
4. Do I note from the sea level plots that the IPCC is predicting about a 25cm increase in 100 years? How many places will be wiped out if THAT is true?
At least this article notes two superimposed drivers of temperature change:
i. Exit from little ice age.
ii. Oceanic variations.
The most interesting question arising out of that is: for how much longer will the rise in temperature due to ‘exit from little ice age’ continue? If there is a strong concensus on that, will it not provide an alternative theory as to the likelihood of future temperature projections?
Flanagan (08:21:43) :
Errr… Excuse me if I’m wrong but from these pictures, isn’t the trend of measured temperatures exactly in line with the predictions of the IPCC ?
The observed sea level rise even exceeding the IPCC’s predictions…
Moderators: I’ve clicked the link at the end of the article. The author’s homepage shows the correct zipcode, which was the one I had guessed (above). The sixth digit, the zero, should be changed to a hyphen.
Off topic, Eco-terrorists planning protests with anarchists in London
I’m not quite seeing his point – it looks like temperatures are increasing exactly in line with the 95/97/01 IPCC estimated trend lines.
That AND that sea levels are rising faster than 95/01 would predict.
So what is the basis for his statement? I am missing something?
All I ever see is global temperature projections (and sea level). Since we moved from “global warming” to “climate change” we should get some more detailed projections from these models. Someone claims to have them. For example, the recent claim that the Amazon is going to dry up and disappear is a regional projection that includes more climate factors than global temperature. There are a lot more of these dire claims that need to be closely examined.
Flanagan
Surely these are all predictions and the good Doctor has forgot to put in the actual real world temperatures? Or perhaps he thought he was Dr Mann for a moment and has put in two different data sets?
TonyB
I’m not sure I understand you, Mr. Hoffmann. Hasn’t the IPCC made predictions based on the ensemble means?
“”” Flanagan (08:21:43) :
Errr… Excuse me if I’m wrong but from these pictures, isn’t the trend of measured temperatures exactly in line with the predictions of the IPCC ? “””
What data are you looking at Flanagan ?
The temperature graphs that I see above look rather weird.
Why in 1990 would the IPCC choose a starting point for their “trend line” that doesn’t match any of the 1990 observations, let alone some mean of them. And if it did, then the exaggeration of the 1990 predictions would be even more dramatic, and would come close to hitting the 1998 el nino peak at least according to GISS data..
Why don’t they plot these graphs on a scale that depicts the entire range of earth surface temperature extremes; that is numbers that have actually been measured somewhere, sometime on earth.
The significance would look quite different on a vertical scale of about 150 deg C, which is that extreme range; and even a 130 deg C range of extremities is reached essentially every single year; and likely all of it can be present on even a single day.
Doesn’t make a few hundredths of a degree seem of any importance at all.
George
“The high temperatures predicted by the IPCC in 2100 (+2~6°C) are simply an extension of the observed increase from 1975 to 2000”
And that is the main problem I have with all this “global warming” hype.
Imagine you are a “critter” that has a life span of about 12 hours. Imagine you are born at dawn. As temperature begins to climb, someone takes that rate of climb and projects it going forward for 24 hours and announces with great alarm that within 24 hours the habitat will be drastically different. And it is the fault of some primary “thing” in the critters’ culture such as energy consumption. So everyone gets scared and decreases their consumption of energy, productivity falls, everyone is poorer. But the rise in temperatures suddenly seems to level off and your children experience a completely different world. They were born at noon. All they can remember in their experience is steady to falling temperatures. Someone projects that rate of change forever into the future … and decides they will all be frozen soon.
And then we come to winter ….
Since the “blame” for this warming is CO2, I suggest a graph of the CO2 ppm be overlayed to see how that compares with the IPCC predictions and the temperature data. I think that would show how while the IPCC predictions follow CO2 the actual temperatures do not.
Am I missing something? From the graph it looks like 2000 observed temp is at 0.1, and 2006/7 is at 0.3. Is this not an increase (even though it’s just 2 cherry-picked dates, but the author does state “global average temperature stopped increasing after 2000”). It sure looks like an increase of temp, with overlaid natural variability.
Likewise, from the graph, sea level seems to be increasing, with some natural variability. Of course, a decade is not “climate”, but what’s going on here?
I have to say, I’m really not sure what the graphs are getting at. I have to say that, unless I’m missing something fundamental, (which wouldn’t be the first time!) I agree with Flanagan’s summation. Someone help me out..?
To ” Tom in Florida” –
> I suggest a graph of the CO2 ppm be overlayed to see how that
> compares with the IPCC predictions and the temperature data.
Well, if CO2 were a tremendously good temperature forcer, and the only driver of temperature on the planet, then I suppose you could expect a exact matching trendline. But, hasn’t anyone told you that the climate is a complex system? After many decades of observations, then removal of noise, a comparison may show a good correlation, or it will show the correlation is not there. But not on a short time frame. Sorry.
Georg Hoffmann (08:24:48)
So, what gives you comfort in averaging an ensemble of numerical solutions to an ill-posed, unstable set of coupled partial differential equations?
The observed sea level rise even exceeding the IPCC’s predictions…
I think one of Moerner’s big points was that the IPCC cherrypicked naturally subsiding areas while studiously avoiding nearby uplifting areas.
This dynamic makes sea level difficult to judge, even by satellite.
(No, I do not know who is right or who is wrong in this aspect of the debate.)
Mike Bryant:-)
Did not the Met Office play this game a little while ago when claiming the temperature trend was still up in a couple of news papers, picked up on Bishop Hill Blog also, noting that the last year on the published graph was barely half-way thro’ 2007, with 2008 nowhere to be seen? Could this be another example of “chartmanship”, getting the trend you want by picking start & finish dates?
I’ll leave it to you cleverer chaps to mull over.
HAGWE!
These graphs do not show what is being claimed. Why they end in 2006 is also a mystery. Perhaps try again?
Here is an amazing article from the financial world about how screwy correlations caused our problems today.
http://www.portfolio.com/business-news/2009/03/03/Formula-That-Killed-Wall-Street?page=3#page=3
errr , supporting flanagan.
the 2001 and 2007, obviously do not count. Predict something after it occurs (relatively time scaled) is duh stuff.
Climate predications have to run for at least 10 years. And can anyone explain me why 1995 is wrong?!?
Georg Hoffmann,
The charts on your link point to a monthly resolution forecast from the MPI AOGCM model. Can you provide a link to where the base data is.
And Dr. Akasofu and the chart above are just using linear trends for illustrative purposes. I’ve haven’t seen the IPCC provide a monthly or annual resolution forecast going out only five or ten years that could be tested against actual temperature measurements. So one is just left with the X.XC per decade predictions.
Folks here is an amazing article about spurious correlations and how that helped to take down the entire financial world. Reading about this reminds me strongly of the computer modeling in climate.
http://www.portfolio.com/business-news/2009/03/03/Formula-That-Killed-Wall-Street?page=3#page=3
M.A.DeLuca says:
Ahhh, yes, the soft bigotry of low expectations. I guess organizations sucking on public money get a pass no matter what they produce.
We are expecting a graph of the last ten years: From 1998 to 2008. Please make one and post it above those IPCC’ s.
Yet Another Pundit (09:26:02) :
“For example, the recent claim that the Amazon is going to dry up and disappear is a regional projection that includes more climate factors than global temperature. There are a lot more of these dire claims that need to be closely examined.”
If it keeps raining as last years the amazon river will become a big interior lake. :). Last but not least (for the IPCC scientists): Hotter means wetter not the other way round.
“The observed sea level rise even exceeding the IPCC’s predictions”
IPCC AR4 predicts 18 to 46cm rise per century. Actual sea level rise during last 50 years oscillates between 2-3mm/year, thus linear extrapolation yields 20-30cm/century.
What is driving the LIA “linear” recovery trend, if not the sun activity?
Flanagan:”Errr… Excuse me if I’m wrong but from these pictures, isn’t the trend of measured temperatures exactly in line with the predictions of the IPCC ?”
You’re excused Flanagan, rebaseline the observational sets to pass through 0 at 1990 and see what you get……..
Leif “The observed sea level rise even exceeding the IPCC’s predictions…”
Leif, when I did my limited university science, professors cared about things like error, significant digits and so on. The sea level chart shows a rise of 4 milimeters???????? Did you glance at the Maldives post and look at some of the pictures of the instruments (tide guages, mounted to beat up docks) etc.
Looks like a plus or minus 10 cm to me.
The temperature graph is unfortunate. There are too many lines. But at least we know the IPCC projections are straight.
Which brings me to my question. Why did the IPCC report of 2007 “forecast” back to 2000? Yet their report of 1005 and of 2001 “forecast” back to 1990.
And the 2007 forecast seems parallel to, and above, the other forecasts. So it will never intersect and have a common year of origin. What can that mean?
The 1995 report seems, at first, the best forecast. (By 2001 and 2007 more observations were available and it is not surprising they forecast close to a best fit from 1990. Because they aren’t forecasts at all.)
So if the 1995 line is best what does it tell us? It tells us the IPCC was not faked out by the dip of 1991 to 1994. They stuck to a projection of rising temperatures and for one reason or another came out about right for 1991 to 2007.
Forecast about the future. Present findings about the past.
Funny how the models and global warming always stops at 2007.
1995 is quite acurate. or is it not? something published in 1995 (so probably prepared in 1993/4, is actually right on the marked. Or is it not?
This stuff is emboldening gavin…
Dennis Wingo (10:10:59) :
Folks here is an amazing article about spurious correlations and how that helped to take down the entire financial world. Reading about this reminds me strongly of the computer modeling in climate.
http://www.portfolio.com/business-news/2009/03/03/Formula-That-Killed-Wall-Street?page=3#page=3
—————————–
As Li himself said of his own model: “The most dangerous part is when people believe everything coming out of it.”
Wow, that is pretty amazing. Someone pass this along to Mr. Obama please.
Jakers (10:01:21) :
To ” Tom in Florida” –
> I suggest a graph of the CO2 ppm be overlayed to see how that
> compares with the IPCC predictions and the temperature data.
Well, if CO2 were a tremendously good temperature forcer, and the only driver of temperature on the planet, then I suppose you could expect a exact matching trendline. But, hasn’t anyone told you that the climate is a complex system? After many decades of observations, then removal of noise, a comparison may show a good correlation, or it will show the correlation is not there. But not on a short time frame. Sorry.
Jakers you apparently only read the first half of my post (what you quoted).
The second half said : “I think that would show how while the IPCC predictions follow CO2 the actual temperatures do not.”
You said :”Well, if CO2 were a tremendously good temperature forcer, and the only driver of temperature on the planet, then I suppose you could expect a exact matching trendline”
The only matching trend line I would expect is CO2 increases and IPCC predictions for obvious reasons. I did not expect, and said so, any matching trend lines for CO2 increases and real temperature. Just wanted to show that IPCC predictions follow CO2 increases but real temperature does not, ergo, IPCC does not predict the real world.
Juraj V. (10:23:03) :
There isn’t a LIA “linear” recovery trend. It’s difficult to understand why Dr. Akasofu would suggest such an odd notion. Although the temperature record is sparse through the 19th century, the data indicates that the earth had “recovered” from the LIA by the mid 19th century so that the period from 1850 – 1900 was pretty flat temperature-wise:
e.g. the UK Hadcrut temperature record:
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/temp/jonescru/graphics/nhshgl.png
likewise the solar contribution to the LIA had more or less “recovered” early in the 19th century.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sunspot_Numbers.png
And in any case the “recovery” from a period of cold (like the LIA) should not have a “linear” trend. It should be broadly hyperbolic. It would only appear linear over a period of a hundred years or more if the climate system had an extremely slow response time to changes in forcings (since a hyperbolic “recovery” will appear linear in its early stages at times significantly shorter than the time constant defining the shape of the hyperbolic). That would be rather scary since it would indicate that we had a very large warming from the enhanced CO2 forcing still to come (i.e. extremely delayed by the slow response time of the climate system).
The contents of the post and the temperature graph do not match. The IPCC data shown is in decent agreement with the data. Further there is a deeper flaw in the premise that the IPCC “model” was designed to predict the data exactly.
The IPCC curves, of that is what they really are, would be based on ensemble means, of a number of different models. If they are going to be depicted accurately should contain some bounds to reflect the uncertainty that the IPCC recognizes is implicit in their models due to the chaotic nature of climate, and the different model approximations, and uncertainty in the forcing parameters.
The premise of the post would seem to be a straw man argument, because the IPCC models do not claim to provide short term predictions, but rather a nominal trend and uncertainties.
I am surprised that a professor of science at a university would make such a flawed argument. I suspect that some internal emotion has clouded his ability to recognize
how incorrect his point is.
foinavon:
Since you’re promoting ‘scary,’ why don’t you pinpoint for us exactly where in the pipeline that hidden heat ‘still to come’ is hiding?
It’s not under my bed, I’ve already looked there. And it’s not in my sofa either, but I did find some loose change under the cushions.
foinavon (10:50:33) :
There isn’t a LIA “linear” recovery trend. It’s difficult to understand why Dr. Akasofu would suggest such an odd notion. Although the temperature record is sparse through the 19th century, the data indicates that the earth had “recovered” from the LIA by the mid 19th century so that the period from 1850 – 1900 was pretty flat temperature-wise:
Of course, the PDO was in it’s negative phase during the timeframe 1850 – 1900, which, like today would have the potential to stop temps from rising. Ergo, we could still be recovering from the LIA. On average from the 1900’s, the PDO has been dominantly positive and could account for rising temps since then.
Graph
Flanagan:
No.
Paul S (09:13:13) :
Off topic, Eco-terrorists planning protests with anarchists in London
“groups not seen since the 1990s, such as direct action exponents Reclaim the Streets and the Wombles, were re-forming and planning activity.”
OH NO! Not the WOMBLES! RUN! HIDE!
http://1.2.3.12/bmi/carbonchallenge.typepad.com/Wombles.jpg
Anyone know how Jim Hansens protest went in Coventry yesterday? I noticed it was the only cold cloudy day all week…
tallbloke (11:12:55) :
OH NO! Not the WOMBLES! RUN! HIDE!
I have to say, how any anarchist group called the Wombles can be taken seriously is beyond me. I mean, what are they going to do? Pick up litter and take it home?
I’m somewhat befuddled by the concept of “recovering” from the Little Ice Age, what on earth does that mean? Are we not dealing with purely physical processes which require a cause as well as an effect? What caused the LIA to end and the earth to warm thereafter? It didn’t just happen by magic.
The article says one of the causes of of increased average temperatures has been “a linear increase which began in about 1800”. That is not a cause, it is an effect. What he is actually saying is that temperatures have increased because they have increased. It is complete nonsense.
re: sea level changes.
The 1990 IPCC forecast was much too high. Why is the base 1992? Has this graph been adjusted for 1990 to 1992 rises?
In 1995 they seem to have merely forecast a continuation of rate for the prior two years. This forecast proved too low.
But in 2001 they get the slope about right. It only looks low because 1992 is the year of origin. And in 2007 their slope again agrees well with the past, with the 1992 origin still making it look too low.
Overall the IPCC “forecasts” the past well when given enough data. And if the future is much like the past – as it has been after 1995 – they correctly foresee that too.
Joking aside. IMO those -evanm being one – who cite the difficulty of precisely measuring sea level change are correct. And Dennis pointed out that being right about the past isn’t forecasting.
Dennis also cited the article about how the financial industry misused and misunderstood a formula and used it to justify wild speculation.
The formula relied upon the past to forecast the future. For those who choose dead trees as media the article is also in the current Wired magazine.
Foinavon 10 50 33
Please tell me why you believe the concept of a single global temperature has any meaning, let alone one going back to 1850 based on tiny numbers of constantly changing, unreliable stations. I would really enjoy hearing a good explanation. Thank you
Tonyb
Smokey 11 03 22
That loose change is mine
Tonyb
Another global temperature trend line began well before the advent of the first SUV: click
The climate’s natural fluctuations always cycle around, and revert to its natural long-term trend line. There is no place in the historical record for CO2 to have a noticeable or measurable effect.
The AGW/CO2 hypothesis fails once again.
FatBigot (11:19:59) :
I’m somewhat befuddled by the concept of “recovering” from the Little Ice Age, what on earth does that mean? Are we not dealing with purely physical processes which require a cause as well as an effect? What caused the LIA to end and the earth to warm thereafter? It didn’t just happen by magic.
There is the consideration of perspective to take into account here. We have been in recovery since the ice age some 11,000 years ago, cause still to be really determined. Since then the earth has been warming.
The question might not be what caused the recovery of the LIA (as this was already happening as above) but what changed to cause the LIA itself. If that makes sense.
Why would you post a graph that ends in Dec. 2006?
That’s over 26 months, ago.
REPLY: I used one from Lucia’s website to give her a traffic boost. Yes it’s a bit dated but my time this mornign before work was limited. Feel free to offer up another one that shows the same things that is up to date or quit your whining. – Anthony
Paul S (11:17:28) :
I have to say, how any anarchist group called the Wombles can be taken seriously is beyond me. I mean, what are they going to do? Pick up litter and take it home?
Jim Hansen’s protest in Coventry yesterday was organised by that well known and feared desperado anarchist group Christian Aid. No word on how many attended.
Here he is posing next to a mock grave in the bombed out cathedral
http://www.zimbio.com/pictures/Z_ltgztP91v/Protests+Held+Climate+Change+Day+Action/rt7__jtmH8m/James+Hansen
What is it with this guy and his morbid fascination with death and WWII?
Smokey [11:03:22] sez: “…exactly where in the pipeline [is] that hidden heat ’still to come’ hiding? It’s not under my bed, I’ve already looked there. And it’s not in my sofa either. But I did find some loose change under the cushions.”
Smokey, we’ll be checking everybody’s lunchbox on the way out. I already checked the trash. All I found was a rusty old stapler used to attach graphs where they don’t belong, a tattered book of pathetic ad hominem arguments, and a kayak in good condition except for some external scratches and a few spatters of what looks like red paint on the inside. Anyone want to claim these?
Here a graph with the Y axis graduated at 1°C steps:
0° C ——————————————————
This one is by far, more realistc.
Paul S (11:39:03) :
No, the Earth warmed up to around 7000 years ago as we “came out of” the last glacial period. Since then the Earth has cooled a tad if anything until the start of the 20th century.
We know very well why the Earth cam out of the ice age between 15,000-10,000 years ago. Google “Milankovitch cycles”.
FatBigot (11:19:59) :
I’m somewhat befuddled by the concept of “recovering” from the Little Ice Age, what on earth does that mean?
Study this image:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Vostok-ice-core-petit.png
After we came up from the last ice age,we are on a nice flat top that is varying +/- 1C about a stable temperature. We are coming out of one of those “small” variations that have occurred the last 10000 years .
It is not magic, and it does look like clockwork, but I do not think anybody can answer your why.
TonyB (11:26:24) :
Yes, the notion of a “single global temperature” is indeed silly. However that’s not how the Earth’s global temperature trends are assessed. The temporal temperature trend is determined as a temperature anomaly which can be assessed with a reasonable reliability even back to the mid-19th century given sufficient reliable continuous and overlapping temperature records.
Have a look at the UK Hadcrut website, or the NASA Giss website to learn how the temperature anomaly is determined.
Tallbloke.
If Hansen had only been born 45 years later, he would have made an awesome Emo.
Ok, so here is how I understand this.
Rain is caused by water evaporation, yes?
Increased temperature increases evaporation, yes?
At what point does water vapor saturate, and drop again as rain or snow?
If the atmosphere begins to saturate with water vapor, snowfall increases, right? Could this be the mechanism that causes the ice ages? I don’t have time to look and see if ever ice age has a temp. spike before it, but I am interested to know if it is possible that rising temps cause more snow to fall, which would reflect more sunlight.
Of course, I am majoring in business, not science, so a good answer from one of the scientist types around would be helpful.
Thanks.
Re: Tom in Florida
Yes, the IPCC temperature trend follows CO2 – that is, up. But it’s supposed to model climate (that is, over several decades), not short term weather variability (climate noise) such as the high and low outlier years. So you still have to observe over many decades, and do a long-term running average to clear out the noise. That’s why the IPCC publishes it as a linear trend (like degree/decade), as opposed to some of the individual models.
foinavon (12:09:15) :
No, the Earth warmed up to around 7000 years ago as we “came out of” the last glacial period. Since then the Earth has cooled a tad if anything until the start of the 20th century.
Oh, it cooled off a tad. Does this mean the 20th century isn’t the warmest in 7000 years? So why are we [you] so worried about current warming if we have been naturally warmer in the past? Care to wave your arms a little more?
We know very well why the Earth cam out of the ice age between 15,000-10,000 years ago. 11000 years is within that range…
Google “Milankovitch cycles”.
I’ve read all about them thanks.
Possibly the most amusing thing you can observe is how the Guardian hypes up every protest and then when nobody shows up the Guardian doesn’t report on how things went.
If enough petit fascists turn up at the G20 protests the Guardian will hail them as ‘the voice of the people’.
foinavon (12:09:15) :
the Earth warmed up to around 7000 years ago as we “came out of” the last glacial period. Since then the Earth has cooled a tad if anything until the start of the 20th century.
Missing a bit of climate history out there foinavon. From the very warm holocene optimum temps fell and then recovered to the warmer than now Roman Optimum. Then fell before recovering to the Medieval warm period, then fell to the little ice age. Then recovered and wimbled along until 1910. We’re not sure how much warmer the medieval warm period was than now, but the general trend has been downwards for 9000 years until this day.
Smokey 11 03 22
A friend of mine found God down the back of his sofa. Came as quite a shock. I wondered where he was hiding. I’ll ask my mate if he’s found any missing heat. I mean, it’s got to be somewhere.
Paul S (11:10:52) :
Not really Paul. The PDO seems to have become an unverified catch-all explanation! There are several ocean oscillations and one can’t just choose the PDO to “explain” temperature variations for convenience. What about the AMO, for example? If you chose the AMO to “explain” the temperature trend of the past 150 years you’d come to a different conclusion altogether.
If the ocean oscillations are assessed in relation to their overall effects (not just the PDO) there isn’t really a large net effect [***]. LIkewise analysis of the PDO itself indicates that its contribution to temperature variations is small [*****]
[***] Hoerling M et al. (2008) What is causing the variability in global mean land temperature? Geophys. Res. Lett. 35, L23712
Abstract: Diagnosis of climate models reveals that most of the observed variability of global mean land temperature during 1880-2007 is caused by variations in global sea surface temperatures (SSTs). Further, most of the variability in global SSTs have themselves resulted from external radiative forcing due to greenhouse gas, aerosol, solar and volcanic variations, especially on multidecadal time scales. Our results indicate that natural variations internal to the Earth’s climate system have had a relatively small impact on the low frequency variations in global mean land temperature. It is therefore extremely unlikely that the recent trajectory of terrestrial warming can be overwhelmed (and become colder than normal) as a consequence of natural variability.
[*****] Chen, Y. et al (2008) The spatiotemporal structure of twentieth-century climate variations in observations and reanalysis. Part II: Pacific Pan-Decadal VariabilityJ. Climate 21, 2634-2650
(p. 2648) “Our PDV mode in both ST datasets has an extremely small global mean amplitude (~0.02K) because of cancellation between regional positive and negative anomalies, and in fact is of opposite sign in GISTEMP and ERSST.V, indicating that its global mean impact is negligible. For comparison, a typical ENSO event has a global mean temperature impact around +/- 0.1K.”
and:
(p. 2636) “As shown in Fig 1, because the PDV signals in high and low latitudes are out of phase and thus offset each other, the global mean temperature change (Fig 1, top) associated with the PDV phenomenon is in the range of +/- 0.02 K, which is negligible compared with the approximately 0.8-K value of GW trend mode and the approximately +/- 0.2-K value of the ENSO phenomenon”
(n.b. “PDV” is a designation of the PDO that comprises the full Pacific basin)
Foinavon
You’ve just confirmed my point when you said;
“reasonable reliability even back to the mid-19th century given sufficient reliable continuous and overlapping temperature records.”
‘Reasonable’ and ‘sufficient reliable’ are worlds away from the precise fractional temperatures that we are asked to believe we have access to, which to achieve came from someone looking at a temperature recorder-ie a thermometer.
not an anomaly .
Tonyb
foinavon (12:59:10) :
Not really Paul. The PDO seems to have become an unverified catch-all explanation!
Bit like CO2 and warming…
foinavon (10:50:33) : said
There isn’t a LIA “linear” recovery trend. It’s difficult to understand why Dr. Akasofu would suggest such an odd notion. Although the temperature record is sparse through the 19th century, the data indicates that the earth had “recovered” from the LIA by the mid 19th century so that the period from 1850 – 1900 was pretty flat temperature-wise:
According to the RURAL Armagh observatory it appears linear.
http://i446.photobucket.com/albums/qq187/bobclive/armagh_air_temp2.jpg
Paul S:
“Bit like CO2 and warming…”
Game, set, match.
Foinavon, quoting a GWr: “Abstract: Diagnosis of climate models ”
I would suggest Models be included in cell phones software (of course after the “games” icon)
Smokey (11:03:22) :
I’m not “promoting” “scary” Smokey. Please read posts more carefully. Dr. Akasofu is “promoting scary” if anyone is. He seems to be suggesting that we are still “recovering” from the LIA. Moreover he asserts that we’re still in the “linear” phase of the “recovery”. That does seem pretty scary since it indicates (according to Akasofu) that the Earth’s temperature takes centuries tro come to equilibrium with a change in forcings. That would indicate that we still have a large amount of warming still to come from the enhanced greenhouse forcing from raised greenhouse gas levels.
“In the pipeline” refers to the heat (or surface temperature which is of more specific interest) that accrues at equilibrium once the elements of the Earth’s climate system have fully responded (come to equilibrium) with the enhanced forcing. It contrasts with the “transient response” which is the warming so far, on the way towards the equilibrium response. Analysis of the Earth’s temperature response to enhanced greenhouse forcing in the past indicates a temperature response of the order of 3 oC of warming per doubling of enhanced CO2. However this indicates that the Earth’s surface temperature should come close to equilibrium with the enhanced forcing on the timescale of several decades (with a very slow ocean response to achieve full equilibrium). Akasofu is suggesting that the Earth’s response to enhanced forcing occurs much more slowly. That’s pretty scary since it suggests a temperature response to enhanced forcing significantly larger that 3 oC per doubling of [CO2]. Let’s hope that Akasofu has got this wrong too!
Smokey (13:11:14) :
Paul S:
“Bit like CO2 and warming…”
Game, set, match.
Lol, thank you gentlemen. Here in the UK it is that time on a friday night when the pub is calling. I shall rejoin you later for the next stage of the tournament.
Here’s a nice page on pleistocence sea temperatures and ice ages to be going on with.
http://ethomas.web.wesleyan.edu/ees123/iceages.htm
Paul S (13:06:29) :
Not really Paul. The effects of ocean currents on surface temperature have been studied in detail and their effects analysed (see abstracts in [foinavon (12:59:10) ], for example). One can’t understand the surface temperature anomalies for the past 150 years in relation to invented effects of a single ocean oscillation, when the evidence indicates that the ocean oscillations en masse have litte net effect.
On the other hand the greenhouse effect is pretty well understood and the contribution from raised [CO2] is quite well characterized (not prefectly ‘though!). So our basic physical understanding of surface responses to enhnaced atmospheric forcings, together with empirical data from past relationships between [CO2] and temperature indicates that the Earth responds to enhanced [CO2] with a wartming near 3 oC. One can take everything we know about the contributions to the Earth’s surface temperature (solar, greenhouse, volcanic, oceans, aerosolic…) and interpret the historical record with a reasonable reliability. It just doesn’t work if one attempts to interpret everytihn in terms of a since ocean oscillation that we know categorically can’t have made mucxh of a contribution!
It’s all about the evidence, Paul…
foinavon (10:50:33) : said,
There isn’t a LIA “linear” recovery trend. It’s difficult to understand why Dr. Akasofu would suggest such an odd notion. Although the temperature record is sparse through the 19th century, the data indicates that the earth had “recovered” from the LIA by the mid 19th century so that the period from 1850 – 1900 was pretty flat temperature-wise:
According to the Amagh RURAL observatory the trend looks linear.
http://i446.photobucket.com/albums/qq187/bobclive/armagh_air_temp2.jpg
Feel free to offer up another one that shows the same things that is up to date or quit your whining. – Anthony
Ouch. 🙁
Nope I too don’t get it. The graphs show quite a good correlation between IPCC 1995+ predictions and measured temperature.
On the other hand, the measurements don’t seem to match (by eye) with the monthly plot since 2002 (blog pimp!)
@ 42125
Of course. And each ensemble member does not correspond to the mean.
In Akosofus logic that means each member of the ensemble is falsified. This is completely screwed logic.
@Illis
http://www-pcmdi.llnl.gov/ipcc/about_ipcc.php
publicly available.
Each member of the ensemble fails Akasofus test against the mean. That should tell you something how sensible such an approach is.
Simple scientific test to flaw climate model predictions could be as: if linear fit gives x years’ decreasing temperature trend, model predictions can be regarded as flawed. So, what value would you give to x? I would say that 15 maybe is enough (now there can be found 11-year decreasing trend 1998-2008 from all other datasets except GISS).
Protestors using children as shields
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23665011-details/3%2C000+police+on+alert+for+sand-pit+protests+to+block+summit/article.do
“Senior police sources say the protesters plan to bring children to play in the giant sand pits, making it impossible for officers to use force to remove them.”
Ah right I think I see; the graphs include GISS which is rising much faster than Hadley, and the black line is presumably the average of the various measurements.
It still looks like the 2002-2007 ‘stop’ in warming could be simply ‘regression to the mean’. 2008’s anomaly is just an anomaly.
As an interested layman I also had concluded that there was a linear trend with a multi-decadal oscillation overlain. But my examination of the data suggested the trend started in 1900, not 1800, and was closer to 1 degree per century than half a degree per century. I blogged all this six weeks ago. So I have two problems with Dr Akasofu’s arugments.
1 – I can’t see the justification for going back to 1800, and doing so seems to halve the trend estimate.
2 – He doesn’t offer a casual explanation for the trend. If you take it from around 1900 there is a clear casual explanation – carbon emissions from coal, followed by carbon emissions from oil.
I think that is the key challenge for climate skeptics – what is the cause of this ‘natural warming trend’. There is a competing causal explanation being offered – to knock it down, you need to offer something with genuinely explanatory and predictive power.
Wombles?!! Are you referring to Jim Hansen… or Jim Henson?
Paul S (12:43:03) :
Not really Paul. The evidence indicates that the Earth’s surface may have reached a maximum temperature (for the pre-20th century Holocene) somewhare around 7000 years ago. The temperature maximum was a result of Milankovitch cycles that were a bit more optimal for N. hemsphere warming that now:
e.g. http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/globalwarming/holocene.html
Otherwise the evidence indicates that the temperature has been dropping very slightly overall since then until the mid-19th century/beginning of the 20th century. However, despite the fact that we’re in the relatively early days of enhanced greenhouse-induced forcing, the evidence indicates that we’re already warmer now than during the warmest period of the Holocene. I can direct you to some of the scientific literature on this. A decent-ish summary can be found on Wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Holocene_Temperature_Variations.png
I didn’t say that the 20th century is “the warmest in 7000 years”. Read more carefully if you can. The evidence indicates that we’re likely warmer now (late 20th/early 21st century) than in the last 7000 years. Of course the evidence is somewhat limited concerning temperatures further back in time than a couple of thousand years. But if we’re going to make interpretations based on science we may as well look at the evidence! In terms of the subject of this thread, it’s not really possible to make a case that the warming of the last 150 years is the result of Akafosu’s “linear” “recovery” from the LIA (with PDO contributions)….it just doesn’t accord with the evidence..
foinavon (12:59:10) :
Not really Paul. The PDO seems to have become an unverified catch-all explanation! There are several ocean oscillations and one can’t just choose the PDO to “explain” temperature variations for convenience. What about the AMO, for example? If you chose the AMO to “explain” the temperature trend of the past 150 years you’d come to a different conclusion altogether.
AMO is warm for the time period
ENSO is overall neutral for the time period
Fast forwards to today, PDO cold, AMO warm, ENSO neutral, 10 years static to declining temps. Correlation (not implied causation!)
[***] Hoerling M et al. (2008) What is causing the variability in global mean land temperature? Geophys. Res. Lett. 35, L23712
Abstract: Diagnosis of climate models reveals that most of the observed variability of global mean land temperature during 1880-2007 is caused by variations in global sea surface temperatures (SSTs). Further, most of the variability in global SSTs have themselves resulted from external radiative forcing due to greenhouse gas, aerosol, solar and volcanic variations, especially on multidecadal time scales. Our results indicate that natural variations internal to the Earth’s climate system have had a relatively small impact on the low frequency variations in global mean land temperature. It is therefore extremely unlikely that the recent trajectory of terrestrial warming can be overwhelmed (and become colder than normal) as a consequence of natural variability.
1) Paper is dismissed due to the use of climate models. Unreliable data
2) Abstract states “Our results indicate that natural variations internal to the Earth’s climate system have had a relatively small impact on the low frequency variations in global mean land temperature.” This is nonsense. Think LIA, Roman Optimum, ice ages etc etc where clearly natural variation had a significant impact.
3) Abstract states “most of the variability in global SSTs have themselves resulted from external radiative forcing due to greenhouse gas, aerosol, solar and volcanic variations” Also nonsense. Oceanographers are still getting to grips with the way SST’s vary. If oceanographers (experts in their field) are having trouble with this, how can a climate scientist understand it?
[*****] Chen, Y. et al (2008) The spatiotemporal structure of twentieth-century climate variations in observations and reanalysis. Part II: Pacific Pan-Decadal VariabilityJ. Climate 21, 2634-2650
(p. 2648) “Our PDV mode in both ST datasets has an extremely small global mean amplitude (~0.02K) because of cancellation between regional positive and negative anomalies, and in fact is of opposite sign in GISTEMP and ERSST.V, indicating that its global mean impact is negligible. For comparison, a typical ENSO event has a global mean temperature impact around +/- 0.1K.”
and:
(p. 2636) “As shown in Fig 1, because the PDV signals in high and low latitudes are out of phase and thus offset each other, the global mean temperature change (Fig 1, top) associated with the PDV phenomenon is in the range of +/- 0.02 K, which is negligible compared with the approximately 0.8-K value of GW trend mode and the approximately +/- 0.2-K value of the ENSO phenomenon”
Study is based on the 1990’s shift of the PDV and surmises the effect of SST’s vs the troposphere temperatures is minimal. However, given the timing of the release of this study (late 2007), the work being carried out and, yet again, based on unreliable climate models, I doubt they have given sufficient time to see the true effects upon publication. That’s just a personal opinion of course. All in all, I think these papers have been chosen to defend a tenable position. Also a personal opinion.
TonyB (13:04:07) :
An anomaly is the result of a whole series of thermometer readings. Have a look at the UK Hadcrut or US NASA Giss to learn how the temperature anomalies are determined. There are extremely detailed papers available that outline the methodologies. They aren’t attempting to determine the Earth’s “global temperature”. It’s a fallacy to consider that temperature anomalies are measures of the earth’s ” global temperature”.
My personal faith (as a Sun guy) that we’re ten years into the ~30 year cooling phase before the next ~30 year warming phase isn’t bolstered by the graph.
I have to come down on Flanagan(08:21:43) ‘s side. The curves look like unexceptional bobbing around the projections. Ignoring the willful
HansenizedHomogenized GISS curve, which underplays 1998 and overplays 2005, the current downward drift could easily be just a another oscillation around the predictions.The sea level chart proves only that if the IPCC has a forte, it isn’t sea level . SL rise continues along at the usual pokey 3.2mm/yr, though it looks to be levelling in the past 3 years. Average since the ice age ran around 10mm/yr, so we’d have to exceed that rate if we’re to realize the promised huge rises by the end of the century. Even at that rate, a snail could outrun the encroaching shoreline.
tallbloke (12:54:04) :
That’s an odd scenario. There isn’t a single paleotemperature reconstruction that suggests that the MWP was within 0.5 oC of current temperatures even in the Northern hemisphere where the MWP was predominant. And we’re likley in the very early days of enhanced greenhouse-induced warming:
Wikipedia has a decent depiction of the science:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:1000_Year_Temperature_Comparison.png
or for a fuller analysis:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/recons.html
“Roman Optimum”? I don’t know that one. Can you give me a scientific source please….
Anthony
I am puzzled by this post. The graphs immediately under the heading of the post were prepared by Roger Pielke Jr and first published on Lucia’s web site on 2 April 2008 – nearly 12 months ago. The graphs are not included in Syun Akasofu’s very detailed and comprehensive paper, which runs to over 50 pages, but he does seem to be getting a lot of flak about them in some of the comments above. Is the post misleading or am I missing something?
Mike Bradbury
Paul S (13:53:09) :
You don’t present any evidence for your PDO “notion”. Nor does Akasofu for that matter. When shown some of the science on the subject you assert that it’s “nonsense” (no evidence for that assertion) and make a couple of other unsupported asertions that you at least admit are “personal opinions”.
That’s fine. However in my personal opinion these issues should be addressed in relation to scientific evidence and not unsupported assertions even if these are from apparently distinguished scientists.
Incidentally Chen et al 2007 is based on measurements of sea surface temperatures and isn’t from “models”. One should at least look at a paper before attempting to trash it!
Am I missing something? I’m really puzzled. I’ve read Akasofu’s excellent original material, and the graphs he uses are far clearer detail than the two here, and from many different areas and disciplines; all together are suggestive of a continuing recovery from the LIA. He really convinced me. This article, without Akasofu’s full backup of evidence, seems to say very little.
However, I take issue with Akasofu on one issue. Though we do not know the mechanisms (the TSI link is too weak), both commonsense and correlation suggest an oscillating solar power has to be ultimately behind all global temp. changes (after subtracting UHI and buffering of fluctuation due to oceanic thermal inertia translated into ocean currents). We know that CO2 can lag temperature by 800 years, which time lag appears to correspond to the long thermohaline cycle; however Akasofu does not allow for a longer term solar oscillation that, while still allowing LIA recovery, may have started to go downhill towards another LIA. Think annual: August (February in Australia) is hot but the sun has already started to dip.
Akasofu’s updated paper is a large pdf file, slow but worth waiting for IMO.
That is a contradiction in terms.
As is the NOAA link.
Sorry, foinavon, but you need to understand that YOUR links are just plain not credible.
Rob (13:34:31) :
Very nice Rob. However that’s one location on earth. One can’t interpret global temperature from one spot!
In any case the Armagh data doesn’t really accord with Akasofu’s interpretation. After all Akasofu has the supposed “PDO effect” mixed in. The very nice Armagh data you link to has the warming oscillations apparently out of phase with the PDO (e.g. warmest excursions in Armagh centered around 1950’s when the PDO was in its negative phase and coolest PDO excursion centred around 1920 and 1980 when the PDO was supposed to be positive.)
Something’s wrong Rob! Either Akasofu has messed up, or your Armagh data is not giving a proper representation of global temperature.
(a bit of both most likely)
The argument that we are merely seeing a recovery from the Little Ice Age is not sufficient. The Earth is gaining heat; therefore, there must be an energy imbalance. Increasing solar radiation? Decreasing cloud cover? Increasing greenhouse effect? Those are valid explanations; “recovery” is not.
“I think that is the key challenge for climate skeptics – what is the cause of this ‘natural warming trend’. There is a competing causal explanation being offered – to knock it down, you need to offer something with genuinely explanatory and predictive power.”
Why does CO2 lag temp?
And, foinavon, if you are not after a global temperature, what sense does it make to net the ocean effects?
“Then recovered and wimbled along until 1910. We’re not sure how much warmer the medieval warm period was than now, but the general trend has been downwards for 9000 years until this day.”
I do not understand the above to be true. My understanding is that each warming has been *cooler* than the one preceeding it. We have been in a general cooling trend for at least the last 2 to 3 thousand years.
foinavon (13:31:18) :
foinavon (13:52:49) :
Not really, foinavon. On both accounts.
“Smokey, we’ll be checking everybody’s lunchbox on the way out. I already checked the trash. All I found was a rusty old stapler used to attach graphs where they don’t belong,”
Hey, is that my red Swingline?
Foinavon
You must be well aware of this paper
http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/2008/02/11/a-2000-year-global-temperature-record/
and well aware of the work of the medieval society who have accumulated dozens of studies of the period.
You must also be perfectly aware of the Roman optimum. If not you can go on an interesting walk with Prof Hunt following in the footsteps of Hanibal over one of the high level Alpine passes used by the Romans (and Hanibal) which would now be impassable.
Do you still believe in the authenticity of Dr Manns hockey stick and the spaghetti derivatives?
Tonyb
From one of the abstract foinavon gives (12:59:10) :
“It is therefore extremely unlikely that the recent trajectory of terrestrial warming can be overwhelmed (and become colder than normal) as a consequence of natural variability.”
English is not my mother’s tongue, but the above is poor English right?
Are Hoerling et al saying that it is “extremely unlikely” that the warming trend could become lower than “normal” (however they define that) as a consequence of internal climate variation/natural variability?
The article is an attribution study using GCM’s like the one referred to in this report, right?
http://www.climate.noaa.gov/cpo_pa/cdep/pdf/AttributionReport2005.pdf
These guys seem “extremely” eager to convey a certain message:
“However, the reproducibility of 2005 warmth, for both sea surfaces and terrestrial surfaces, occurring in this vast suite of climate simulations indicates that elevated global averaged temperatures were very likely a consequence of changing atmospheric chemical composition.”
I wonder what the cold year 2008 and the cooling trend 2001-2008 was “very likely” a consequence of? I’m sure they have an idea.
Rob (13:34:31) :
You must have a different Armagh to the data I picked up:
http://img13.imageshack.us/img13/6884/oxfordmonthlymean196119.jpg
This is a plot of many UK temps and Hadcrut3v
Armagh is the curve standing above all the rest until a sudden change downwards in 1876. Other than this it follows all the other humps and bumps pretty well!
Ie. There is a definite increase from 1980 onwards.
Note that the plot stops short of full data only because the 10 year average becomes invalid 5 years from the ends. NO OTHER Reason
bill
foinavon:
“‘Roman Optimum’? I don’t know that one.”
Really! I’m astonished! You’re the google-cut-paste internet expert on all things climate. At least you pretend to be. So I’m surprised you aren’t playing the expert here, and finding something like this chart — which I’ve had on my HD for a long time: click
There are countless references to the Roman warm period. You’ve really never heard of it?
OK, then there’s this chart: click. You’ll notice that the Roman Optimum, which tracks the rise and fall of the western Roman Empire, starts around 200 B.C. and ends around 400 A.D.
Then there’s this chart: click, which clearly shows that the climate fluctuates around a long term trend line, regardless of anthropogenic CO2 — which has no discernible effect [if it does, please point it out].
Since you said “it’s all about the evidence,” maybe you could pinpoint exactly where the evidence is for all that hidden heat. I want to see your [real world; not modeled] evidence with my own eyes. Show us where that hidden heat is in the pipeline. And no cut ‘n’ paste abstracts, please, you’re the one making the claim. I want to hear from you where that hidden heat is lurking.
Show it to us.
foinavon: “That’s an odd scenario. There isn’t a single paleotemperature reconstruction that suggests that the MWP was within 0.5 oC of current temperatures even in the Northern hemisphere where the MWP was predominant.”
The non-tree ring, non-hockey team reconstruction by Loehle perhaps.
http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/2008/02/11/a-2000-year-global-temperature-record/
foinavon:
In case you don’t know the ‘Medieval Warm Period Project’ of CO2 Science:
“Our Medieval Warm Period Project is an ongoing effort to document the magnitude and spatial and temporal extent of a significant period of warmth that occurred approximately one thousand years ago. Its goal is to ultimately provide sufficient real-world evidence to convince most rational people that the Medieval Warm Period was: (1) global in extent, (2) at least as warm as, but likely even warmer than, the Current Warm Period, and (3) of a duration significantly longer than that of the Current Warm Period to date.”
http://www.co2science.org/data/mwp/mwpp.php
foinavon
Have you heard about Anthony’s surface stations project
http://www.surfacestations.org/
or click projects at the top of this website. After reading a little maybe you would not be so sure about the GISS numbers.
If you are into reconstructions checkout http://www.climateaudit.org/.
Maybe you will not be so sure about wiki recons after a little research.
Alternatively I should be totally disregarded just as you disregard tallbloke.
foinavon (14:26:17) :
Paul S (13:53:09) :
You don’t present any evidence for your PDO “notion”. Nor does Akasofu for that matter. When shown some of the science on the subject you assert that it’s “nonsense” (no evidence for that assertion) and make a couple of other unsupported asertions that you at least admit are “personal opinions”.
That’s fine. However in my personal opinion these issues should be addressed in relation to scientific evidence and not unsupported assertions even if these are from apparently distinguished scientists.
I’ll agree to disagree.
Incidentally Chen et al 2007 is based on measurements of sea surface temperatures and isn’t from “models”. One should at least look at a paper before attempting to trash it!
I’m sorry, I thought that the co-author Michael Bosilovich worked for the Global Modelling and Assimilation Office at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Centre at the time of publication. Maybe he didn’t bring his expertise into the paper after all.
Niels A Nielsen (15:06:17) :
That’s not a very scientific example Niels. Lohle put his analysis in a non-science magazine. Unfortunately he didn’t understand the manner in which paleotemperature analyses are set with respect to a common standard date. So 1000 BP (“Before Present”) means before 1950 (and not before 2009). That convention has to be used since “Present” is continually changing.
That’s the sort of basic error that is picked up in peer review in a proper scientific journal. However since Loehle though that the temperature proxy data he was manipulating went up to the present (ie. now), and in fact it went up to 1950, he essentially missed out the last nearly 60 years of warming. So his analysis doesn’t actually show a warmer MWP than now.
Loehle did republish with a correction. However his data doesn’t now indicate a warmer MWP than now.
There are a number of other basic problems with Loehle’s study that we could discuss….
http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/2008/02/11/a-2000-year-global-temperature-record/
Good reconstruction. Shows the 200 year dip in temperatures from the 6th century Krakatoa explosion induced global dimming.
Smokey (15:04:11) :
Smokey, those are just unattributed pictures. Where do they come from? Could you link each picture to a scientific paper so that we could see how they are derived? What data is used and how it is assessed and so on. Does it correspond to global or hemispheric temperatures….?
some of us here are skeptical Smokey! We want to see the evidence…
Rob (13:34:31) :
You must have a different Armagh to the data I picked up:
http://img13.imageshack.us/img13/6884/oxfordmonthlymean196119.jpg
This is a plot of many UK temperatures and Hadcrut3v
Armagh is the curve standing above all the rest until a sudden change downwards in 1876. Other than this it follows all the other humps and bumps pretty well!
Ie. There is a definite increase from 1980 onwards.
Note that the plot stops short of full data only because the 10 year average becomes invalid 5 years from the ends. NO OTHER Reason
Niels A Nielsen (14:54:20) :
It depends on what you mean by “attribution study”. It uses empirical data of the sort described in the other abstract I showed in my post to assess the potential contributions of internal variations in the climate system (especially ocean oscillations) to surface temperature variations.
I hope you would agree that if one is goint to assert a contribution of a particular ocean oscillation (e.g. the PDO) to long term surface temperature trends, one should make some effort to establish the quantitative contribution of the oscillation to the trend. Is it large enough to have a significant effect? Or not?
The data I’ve cited address this essential point. In general the scientific data I’ve come across indicates that (i) the individual ocean oscillations (PDO, AMO, ENSO, etc.) do not in themselves provide sufficient coherent persistent asymmetry to result in significant long term contributions, and (ii) that if one assesses all the oscillations, these tend to cancel in their overall effects in anything other thsn the shortest term (see papers cited in my post above)..
I have not seen Akasofu present any quantitative assessment of the contribution of the PDO, even though he asserts a significant contribution. The same goes for the few other individuals that assert such a contribution.
It’s all very well to assert that something has a contribution. But we really want to see the evidence…
Foinavon said
“An anomaly is the result of a whole series of thermometer readings. Have a look at the UK Hadcrut or US NASA Giss to learn how the temperature anomalies are determined. There are extremely detailed papers available that outline the methodologies. They aren’t attempting to determine the Earth’s “global temperature”. It’s a fallacy to consider that temperature anomalies are measures of the earth’s ” global temperature”.
Thank you Foinavon, I am aware of the meaning of the anomaly and how it is worked out. At some point way back in the process someone has collected temperatures. At some point they will work out averages and trends and at some point an anomaly will be produced, but that doesnt get away from the fact that it was derived from a temperature and will end up as a global mean temperature such as here
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporate/pressoffice/2007/pr20070810.html
The global mean temperature stated is 14.54C. My only point is that we can not possibly state what is already a meaningless concept to that degree of accuracy back to 1850.
Tonyb
TonyB (14:46:09) :
Foinavon
Loehle put his analysis in a non-science journal and so his fundamental error [see foinavon (15:25:34) ] wasn’t noticed until it appeared. He messed up. He thought BP meant “before present”, when in fact the convention is that BP means “before 1950”. So he missed out all the warming of the last nearly 60 years.
The “medieval society”? Can you refer us to their scientific publications?
Smokey (15:04:11) :
Not really Smokey. Google is pretty good I agree! However science in general is published in scientific journals. That’s the source for scientific data (that’s where scientists, policymakers and their scientific advisors source their information). That’s generally where I look too.
Dr. Akasofu is asserting stuff that doesn’t accord with the scientific data. That’s fine…it’s a free country! But if we want to understand these issues we should be skeptical of unsupported assertions, especially if we want to understand well-informed policymaking….
I admit it. I have all that missing energy stored in my house, in the closet under the basement stairs. I wrapped it up in duct tape. I was hoping no one would notice it was missing…I take little sips from it in the morning; it’s better than coffee! Does this mean you want it back now?
The facts of the matter are that all IPCC predictions post the 1998 El Nino peak are wildly wrong.
And I really wish people wouldn’t mix up hindcasts (of known data) with forecasts, as both graphs above do.
And of course the Warming Believers are suitably impressed by how accurate the hindcasts are. Sigh!
Also bear in mind that pre-1998 there were 2 large volcanic eruptions which had a measurable cooling effect on the averages. Absent these eruptions, the post 1998 cooling would be more pronounced.
Rob (13:34:31):
You must have a different Armagh to the data I picked up:
This is a plot of many UK temps and Hadcrut3v
Armagh is the curve standing above all the rest until a sudden change downwards in 1876. Other than this it follows all the other humps and bumps pretty well!
Ie. There is a definite increase from 1980 onwards.
http://img13.imageshack.us/img13/6884/oxfordmonthlymean196119.jpg
Note that the plot stops short of full data only because the 10 year average becomes invalid 5 years from the ends. NO OTHER Reason
Foinavon:
The evidence indicates that we’re likely warmer now (late 20th/early 21st century) than in the last 7000 years. Of course the evidence is somewhat limited concerning temperatures further back in time than a couple of thousand years. But if we’re going to make interpretations based on science we may as well look at the evidence!
Not really foinavon. As several others have pointed out, there is plenty of evidence that the Roman period was warmer than now. Even the 1930’s were about as warm. The medieval period saw warmer times too, evidenced by the varieties of barley grown in Scotland as well as records from China and elsewhere.
You seem to be willfully ignoring a lot of stuff recently. This is a bad sign. You need to be serious about correctly assessing scientific evidence.
Paul S (10:00:25)
I agree with you and Flanagan. The temperatures are misleading because of the baselines for the observed measurements are set above the 1990 IPCC base line, a common tactic of the deceivers.
As for sea level rise, IPCC projections in 1995 & 2001 and did not use the satellite data in their models, from which the observed data is taken for the charts, while the 2007 report did (notice the omission). The satellite data which started from 1993 and had some early calibration issues that took time to be corrected, likely delaying it’s acceptance by modellers, and now show a much higher increase than the 2 mm per decade increase (3 mm/decade) that was used in the earlier models. So it’s an apples and oranges comparison.
But you have to consider who produced the charts (open the link). The use of these charts for this article is not helpful.
Foinavon: Asking about Roman Optimum. See, among others:
http://personal.inet.fi/tiede/tilmari/sunspot5.html#historic
TonyB (14:46:09) : said
Foinavon
You must be well aware of this paper
http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/2008/02/11/a-2000-year-global-temperature-record/
and well aware of the work of the medieval society who have accumulated dozens of studies of the period.
You must also be perfectly aware of the Roman optimum. If not you can go on an interesting walk with Prof Hunt following in the footsteps of Hanibal over one of the high level Alpine passes used by the Romans (and Hanibal) which would now be impassable.
Do you still believe in the authenticity of Dr Manns hockey stick and the spaghetti derivatives?
—————————————-
You can perhaps add the excavation of the Viking burial site in the permafrost in Greenland.
Older sites along the coast are also in danger. As the Arctic warms up, archaeologists fear the frozen turf that covers Qeqertasussuk, a 4,500-year-old settlement where evidence for the earliest settlement of Greenland was found, may be melting. Gronnow–who excavated the remote site for the first time in the 1980s–is headed back this summer, and he is not optimistic. “I’ve been working in Greenland for 30 years now,” he says. “I can see with my own eyes how it has changed.”
If you Wicki Permafrost you will see two men using a jackhammer, I think we have a little further to go before we reach the temps of the Viking era.
http://www.archaeology.org/0903/etc/climate_change.html
Paul S (15:18:41) :
Fair enough. You are happy to accept unsupported assertions that don’t accord with the scientific evidence. That’s fine…
Read the paper Paul. The analysis is based on the empirical sea surface temperature covering the Pacific basin (termed the PDV or “Pan-decadal Variability”). In part of the analysis the contribution of ENSO was removed to isolate the contribution from the entire Pacific decadal variability. I expect that’s where Dr. Bosilovich’s expertise was employed.
Incidentally, in general one needs to be specific about criticisms of models. After all Dr. Akasofu’s assertion of a post LIA temperature trend resulting from a “linear recovery” overlaid by a “PDO oscillation” is a model. It’s just a model without empirical or theoretical evidence or parameterization.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with models. Ultimately it’s all about the evidence. Chen et al, and Hoerling et al, and all the other science published in the scientific literature is supported by evidence. Akasofu’s assertions are not….
foinavon:
“Smokey, those are just unattributed pictures.”
Not really foinavon. Apparently your cognitive dissonance has impaired your reading comprehension.
At the bottom of the central chart it states: Chart prepared by Climatologist Cliff Harris & Meteorologist Randy Mann”.
And the chart above was from greenworldtrust, as anyone can see by clicking the link. And Mr. Helmand would certainly be miffed if you claim his link is unattributed.
And your verifiably wrong statement…
…was refuted as reported in the World Climate Report, CO2 Science, and other sources linked by several other posters. Putting your hands over your ears and shouting, “LA-LA-LA-LA!!” is a clear example of cognitive dissonance in action.
Presuming that just because you believe there are no studies contradicting what you said, doesn’t mean there are no studies, as we’ve seen right here.
+ + + + + + + + + +
What’s left of foinavon’s credibility took another hit here when he said he’d never heard of the Roman Optimim.
Those IPCC graphs are of the kind of the Hockey Stick, because of the scale used. These do not worth discussing about them.
The minimum scale to be used it should be the minimum difference of temperatures we can truly feel. Does anybody can feel a difference of 0.1°C?
foinavon (10:50:33) :
Huh? I could see exponential “decay” climbing to the average level.
What are the asymptotes of the hyperbola? If we’re heading on an increasing rate for a vertical one, then we’ll reach a time when the temperature zooms to infinity. If we’re heading for one at an angle, then we’ll reach a period of steady climb. Oh, perhaps you’re talking about one much like my exponential example above when the average level is the asymptote we’re approaching.
A hyperbola isn’t defined by a time constant, that term is generally used only with exponential growth and decay and is related to the amount of time required for something to reach 63% of its final value.
Nope, that sounds like the slope of the recovery will get steeper and steeper.
CodeTech (14:36:09) :
Why’s that CodeTech? The Wikipedia article is just a compliation of studies published in the scientific literature. We could each easily find each of the original studies and inspect these.
If you’ve got a criticism you need to be a bit more specific!
smokey,
The real worry is the long term cooling trend shown on one of your links. It seems that for most of the last 4000 years temperatures have been higher than for the last 1000.
As for Foinavon, I’m still trying to figure out how you compute an anomaly from a mean without at some stage computing the mean. Gibberish!
Smokey (16:20:36) :
.
Yes but where’s the data from Smokey? Which scientific study/studies determined and compiled it and where is it published? I could show you a chart “prepared by somebody and someone else”, but we wouldn’t be able to assess its realiability/accuracy without recourse to the original published data.
and the same goes for the chart from “greenworldtrust” and your “Mr Helmand”.
Blogs and web sites Smokey. If we’re skeptical we really want to see data that is of sufficient quality to be publishable in the scientific literature….We’ve already looked at one of the sources linked by other posters (Loehle’s). But that’s demonstrably incorreect and was based on a misunderstanding by Loehle of the conventions concerning putting all paleotemperature data on a common temporal scale. That’s what happens if one attempts to create/cherrypick analyses that conform to a preconceived view. It’s likely to be flawed..
..far better to access the science in the cientific literature…
Mike McMillan (14:07:43) :
Even at that rate, a snail could outrun the encroaching shoreline.
That was the best smile Ive had all day. 🙂
If you adjust out the effect of the natural ocean cycles and then take into account the Urban Heat Island (which Phil Jones just resurrected for us) (and the poor siting which Anthony has demonstrated) and if you assume at least half of the other “adjustments” made to the temperature record were made in “error”, …
… the temperature rise over the last 140 years falls to a low 0.05C per decade.
The models, in not accounting for the effect of at least ocean cycles and UHI secondarily have over-estimated the warming which has occurred by more than 66%.
Now let’s see if any of the modelers on this thread can prove this statement wrong (because they should know it is right).
TerryBixler (15:10:47) :
Terry, I responded to tallbloke here: [foinavon (14:17:41)]. Everyone seems to be responding to my posts, so it’s difficult to keep up, but I’m certainly not disregarding tallbloke (heaven forbid!).
The scientific data tends to cast doubt on the basic assertions of the climateaudit blog. That particular storm in a teacup has been dragged through the blogosphere for 10 years, but the issue seems to be pretty settled in the science. The “wiki recons” is not a “wiki reconstruction” at all of course! It’s a compilation of paleoreconstructions available up to around 2005/6 I believe). One could add a couple more to that compilation now. The point is that each of those reconstructions is a study published in the scientific literature (as the citations to the discrete studies by the graphed compilation indicates)…
There is indeed an odd disconnect between the text and the graphics used as illustration. Dr Akasofu’s thesis is that the IPCC predictions have failed, yet the supporting charts are from this paper published by Roger Pielke in Nature Geoscience which actually found that …
Figure 1a compares the IPCC 1990, 1995,
2001 and 2007 temperature predictions (its
‘best estimate’ for the realized emissions
scenario) with observational surface (NASA,
UKMET) and satellite (UAH, RSS) data. The
observations fall between the best estimates
presented by the IPCC in 1990 and 2001,
which is consistent with the conclusions of
Rahmsdorf et al.
Rahmsdorf et al is this paper which concluded …
Overall, these observational data underscore
the concerns about global climate change. Previous
projections, as summarized by IPCC, have
not exaggerated but may in some respects even
have underestimated the change, in particular
for sea level.
Rahmstorf is Professor of Oceanic Physics at Potsdam University. Here are his publications.
Roger Pielke (Jr) is a Professor of Environmental Studies at the
University of Colorado and Director of the CIRES Center for Science and Technology
Policy Research. His views on climate change are nicely summarised in this testimony
Nothing in this testimony should be interpreted as contradicting the assessment of climate change science provided by Working Group I of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).4 The IPCC has concluded that greenhouse gas emissions resulting from human activity are an important driver of changes in climate. And on this basis alone I am personally convinced that it makes sense to take action to limit greenhouse gas emissions.
Doesn’t quite add up does it? I mention only in passing that Dr Akasofu has no academic credentials or publications whatsoever in the field of climate science.
foinavon
“That’s what happens if one attempts to create/cherrypick analyses that conform to a preconceived view. It’s likely to be flawed..”
Like certain temperature estimates?
Maybe you know, you seem to be a smart fella/gal.
1) Why does temperature rise precede CO2?
2) Why net the ocean effects to the mean instead of their individual climate areas?
3) When does the extra water vapor in the atmosphere saturate the atmosphere to the point it can’t hold anymore? And then what happens?
Nope. The notes say that one piece of data came from an individual (so apparently you can’t easily “find” it) and that one of the studies in the source article did not have data in a format which could be easily processed.
foinavon:
foinavon me boy, your original statement was that I had posted ‘unattributed pictures.’ I showed with the attributions that you were wrong. I pointed out that the sources were right in the links, and I quoted them to you. I answered your question.
But now you’re asking for something entirely different: the original data that was used to produce the charts. That’s not the question you originally asked, is it? You’re a game player.
foinavon, I’m not playing a fool’s game with the King Of The Moving Goal Posts. You do this all the time; asking a question, and then when it’s clearly answered, asking another, different question, ad nauseum. You never man-up.
And you never answer any uncomfortable questions put to you, do you? No. On that score you keep your tail tucked firmly between your legs, and change the subject.
I’ve repeatedly asked you to personally point out [without using your usual google-fu cut ‘n’ paste of hastily searched abstracts] exactly where in the climate “pipeline” is the hidden heat you claim is hiding there. Where is it, exactly? And why haven’t satellites, Argos buoys, or radiosonde instruments indicated where your fantasy heat is “waiting in the pipeline” to emerge and cause runaway global warming? Where, exactly, is this heat hiding? Show it to us.
But you never answered that question. Instead, you play your games, avoiding giving answers when cornered — and always moving the goal posts when someone else solidly refutes one of your claims. It’s your M.O.
I’ve answered your question. Now it’s your turn to answer mine: Where, exactly, is that spooky heat hiding in the climate pipeline? Provide strong empirical [real world] evidence, please, not your usual opinion, or the results of always-wrong models.
The ball, as they say, is in your court.
Foinavon,
Wikipedia is not reliable enough to cite as a source in a college paper. Remember the journalist who was shocked to discover he was involved in the JFK assassination? Ask a college professor why it is not considered reliable.
Excellent summation by Syun Akasofu.
The IPCC is wrong both in it’s claim of the cause of warming and in it’s predicted temperature trend.
Smokey (17:25:43) :
foinavon is exactly right about the link you posted that purports to show global temps going back to 2500 BC- the website gives only the vaguest allusion as to where the data comes from: “Many factors were studied to arrive at their conclusions, such as sea-surface temperatures in the oceans, particularly in the Pacific (El Nino and La Nina), dendrochronology (tree rings), volcanic cycles, tidal cycles, solar ‘sunspot’ cycles, lake bed data, core samples, human migrations, ancient writings and so forth.”
You wouldn’t accept that level of explanation in a paper published by Mann or Hanson; why do you accept it for this source????
And the “heat in the pipeline” isn’t “hiding” somewhere. The oceans warm up a lot slower than the atmosphere, so an equilibrium temperature won’t be reached until the oceans warm up.
Anthony: thanks for the update, because the original post was VERY confusing.
GISS takes an odd track at the end of 2003. It takes a strange turn at the beginning of 2006.
“And the “heat in the pipeline” isn’t “hiding” somewhere. The oceans warm up a lot slower than the atmosphere, so an equilibrium temperature won’t be reached until the oceans warm up.”
So, the heat will transfer from the atmosphere to the ocean, cooling the atmosphere and heating the ocean?
foinavon, Loehle wasn’t shown to me “wrong” he issued a correction to his original paper with only slight (and immaterial) changes to his conclusions. Just going to the paper and scroll down to “Correction to…”
John Philip, Roger’s paper was flawed (at least for temperature) because he was eyeballing an anomaly, not looking a the actual trend. Rhamstorf, who you hold up as some pinnacle of greatest, did the same thing. Perhaps you should trying following the work of David Stockwell in trying to understand what it is Rhamstorf did?
http://landshape.org/enm/category/reviews/rahmstorf/
At any rate, Lucia over at the Blackboard, a believer in AGW, has been looking at recent data and concluded that the IPCC’s projections are to high. Check it out:
http://rankexploits.com/musings
Also, Roger’s personal views of his and others own work is irrelevant. And so are doctor Akasofu’s-after all, James Hansen is an Astronomer.
Should say “Akasofu’s credentials” You really are engaging in pathetic ad hominem, though, which is why I jokingly respond in kind.
foinavon (13:18:30) :
Analysis of the Earth’s temperature response to enhanced greenhouse forcing in the past indicates a temperature response of the order of 3 oC of warming per doubling of enhanced CO2.
Foinavon, there is no doubt that you are a worthy, able and knowledgeable proponent of AGW but you appear to be unable to resist inserting the above cited gratuitous assertion in a number of your posts. Since the amount of feedback from increased atmospheric CO2 concentration is not well understood, the assertion, especially where it is not germane to the subject, weakens the thrust of your posts. Nevertheless, even when I do not agree with you, I value your willingness to come here and do battle in a dignified manner.
Ohioholic (17:11:03) :
foinavon
“That’s what happens if one attempts to create/cherrypick analyses that conform to a preconceived view. It’s likely to be flawed..”
Like certain temperature estimates?
Maybe you know, you seem to be a smart fella/gal.
1) Why does temperature rise precede CO2?[/quote]
The question has an unspoken assumption that this is always the case, but it has not always been the case, only sometimes.
The reason this has been observed in the Malinkovich cycles, was because periodic changes in orbital tilt kicked off a warming cycle in the northern hemisphere due reduction in albedo.
The CO2 emissions were of increased temperature, and but also produced a further increase in temperature, based on the evidence of the 400,000 year Vostock Ice core data, and modeling of these effects.
In fact CO2 emissions by huge numbers of volcanoes in Siberia produced a global warming event which robbed the oceans of oxygen and caused mass extinction at the end of the Permian Era 250M years ago.
Today’s increase in CO2 stems from human industrial activities, rather than emissions of natural sources under the influence of warming as in the past 400,000 years.
“2) Why net the ocean effects to the mean instead of their individual climate areas?”
]
This seems like foolish question. If your objective is to estimate the global average temperature change, you need to average the temperature changes over the entire globe.
“3) When does the extra water vapor in the atmosphere saturate the atmosphere to the point it can’t hold anymore? And then what happens?”
I don’t understand the point of this question?
There is a relation between maximum vapor pressure and temperature, which increases about 7% per degree celsius. When that point is reached you form clouds.
When the water drops in the clouds get big enough it rains.
Regarding heat “in the pipeline” see this:
http://climatesci.org/2009/03/05/is-there-climate-heating-in-the-pipeline/
The answer would appear to be “No”. Cheers.
“So, I’ve replaced it with one from another article of hers that should not generate as many questions. Or will it? 😉 – Anthony”
I liked the other one. It raises eyebrows about GISS–which is something I like. I don’t know why folks are confused. WattsUpWithThat??
Could you leave the the new on up and put the others ones back up?
“Just Want Truth… (18:08:20) : GISS takes an odd track at the end of 2003. It takes a strange turn at the beginning of 2006.”
Confusing? I hope this wasn’t taken that I was confused. I was noticing a strange track in GISS. It takes a noticeable departure from where it had been tracking. Anyone with some experience in math and graphs should have been able to see it too.
BTW, regarding the wiki paleo spaghetti graph-the claim that such studies are independent confirmation of one another is false. They share large amounts of the same proxy data, and small cadre of coauthors, tending to favor the same methods. Anyway, if you actually followed CA, you would know that, rather than just saying “the scientific evidence is against CA” that 1. CA has dealt extensively with the issue of the “alternative” reconstructions and 2. CA takes no position on the issue of MWP versus recent, just points out flaws in the methodologies and justifiable changes that could alter the conclusions. I don’t understand the resist to this, given that greater variability in past climate offers an excuse to make models more sensitive, making AGW worse. Plus, the insistence by many that it “doesn’t matter”.
When I look at the graph I see some tendency toward a 4 year periodicity. 1981, 1985, 1989, 1993, 1997, 2001, 2005, and coming up 2009.
No analysis, just eyeball observation.
Apologies to anyone who was confused by the first graph and a double apology for not being able to replace it until about 9 hours later. I tend not to monitor WUWT from the office anymore since it takes valuable time away from running my business.
A new one has been posted that is more relevant. Dr. Akasofu did not include any with his essay, and in my attempt to help out Lucia with some traffic boost (hoping the curiosty would lead people there) I created just a bit too much confusion.
– Anthony
Chris V (17:59:31), get up to speed. Read the thread. What foinavon wrote was: “Smokey, those are just unattributed pictures. Where do they come from?”
So I pointed out the attribution that was in the links. That is where they came from, understand? I answered the question foinavon asked.
Then, rather than answering my question [which you certainly didn’t answer either — read the question again], foinavon as usual moved the goal posts, completely disregarded my question after I’d answered his question… and started asking other questions. Then you decided to play monkey-pile. So you can understand it if I’m not playing tag-team with the two of you.
I will be more than happy to answer any questions — after foinavon [that’s not you, is it?] gives a full, complete and straightforward answer to my previous question.
[guidance for foinavon: Chris V’s opinion was a non-answer, because it provided no real world evidence of some mysterious new hidden heat source lurking in a newly invented ‘pipeline’, which has been missed by satellites, radiosonde balloons, and the Argos deep sea buoys.
A non-answer like that is, of course, unacceptable. If you can, provide solid, empirical and falsifiable evidence of a newly discovered heat pulse hiding somewhere, and show us exactly where it is. Provide verifiable measurements showing its existence. As we know, that “hidden heat” conjecture is a brand new hypothesis, and as such it must prove itself. Currently, it exists only as unfounded speculation. To skeptics, it is just another “black cat in a dark room” fallacy: when the light is turned on, there’s no cat in the room and there never was.]
Anthony,
That is a great graph! It shows at a glance the inaccuracy of the IPCC’s
predictionsprojections.I just came back to find your new chart. Much better. I hope others who got side-tracked by the previous charts come back and have another look.
Thanks, John
“Tom in Florida (09:38:40) : Since the “blame” for this warming is CO2, I suggest a graph of the CO2 ppm be overlayed to see how that compares with the IPCC predictions and the temperature data. I think that would show how while the IPCC predictions follow CO2 the actual temperatures do not.”
Excellent Tom. This would help those who are confused about what Mr. Syun Akasofu is saying.
While the replacement graphis works better than the earlier one, I would recommend the one Dr. Akasofu has in his 3/19/09 paper here:
http://people.iarc.uaf.edu/~sakasofu/pdf/two_natural_components_recent_climate_change.pdf
It tells the story a lot better.
….was refuted as reported in the World Climate Report, CO2 Science, and other sources linked by several other posters.
—
I call your BS: This from the “blog” you insult:
.Medieval Warm Period Record of the Week
Was there a Medieval Warm Period? YES, according to data published by 684 individual scientists from 400 separate research institutions in 40 different countries … and counting! This issue’s Medieval Warm Period Record of the Week comes from Lake Chen Co, Southern Tibet, China. To access the entire Medieval Warm Period Project’s database, click here.”
So I guess you feel you can ignore 400 research papers since those were merely “summarized” in a blog by two PhD’s you disagree with.
—
Your description of “thousands of years of gradual cooling followed by (today”s) sudden warming IS the hockey stick graph that has been proved to be utterly false. Deliberately falsified, more accurately. The combined “spaghetti graphs” you call out have been falsified and are themselves highly biased: don’t use them as a reference before people who know the truth.
—
You claim that a 1000 year study is “invalidated” by a change in reference point of BP is foolish: If nothing else that changes the dates by (at most) 50 years. But the TEMPERATURES that were greater in Europe and worldwide during the ENTIRE 950-1150 period were greater than today’s temperatures. Glaciers (today) STILL have not melted back to the points where they had receded (without CO2’s effect) in the 1000-1200 year time frame. Glaciers even earlier had receded even more: The prehistoric caveman walking across the Alps who died and was trapped under an advancing glacier had been walking on bare rock exposed about 6000 BC. Only now was the rock re-exposed. Where was man’s influence then?
What we see today is a 3/4 (approximate) degree drop from about 150 AD until the year 750, then a rise of 3/4 degree up until 1100 AD, then a drop of 3/4 of one degree from 1100 AD until about 1650, then a rise of about 3/4 degree from 1650 through 1850 through today. Superimposed on that cycle is a 70 cycle of about 4/10 of one degree. So today’s temperatures cycle on a rising plane towards a (potential) high about 1/4 of degree more than today, then a loooooong drop from that peak until about the year 2400.
And your much-feared but very precious CO2 does nothing but increase the amount that every plant, every tree, and every coral worldwide needs to live. Today, plants (food, fuel, fodder, and fertilizer) grow up to 27% MORE due to higher CO2 levels.
My question to you is: What are YOU going to do to increase plant growth for the good of your children as we go through the next cold spell? (That cold spell has started – the Arctic ice is now third highest (below only 2008 and 2001 in extent from being highest ever recorded.)
Where was man’s influence on climate between 50 and 300 AD coming from? Campfires?
You have “claimed” that total ocean variations cancel each other out – so there is no ocean influence. But that is NOT true: Today’s temperatures in a 70-year cycle EXACTLY mirror the ups and downs of the PDO and AMO. Mythically creating a PDV does not erase that pattern.
It is you – an AGW believer – who must somehow show why temperatures decreased between 1930-1940’s peak DOWN to the low in 1972 while CO2 was rising, then climbed between 1972 and 1998 while CO2 was rising, then fell from 1998 to 2009 while CO2 was rising.
It is you – an AGW believer – who must show why temperatures have risen and fallen at a 950 year cycle since 1000 BC through today’s warm period. In ONLY 27 years of that 3000 year period have both temperatures and CO2 risen at the same time. 27 years out of 3000 years is not much to base a 3 trillion dollar tax (waste of money) on that will kill people by denying them affordable energy.
Your “Wikipedia” authority is a manufactored source (falsely) by an AGW extremist who deliberately edits out opposing thoughts and facts he does not want the world to see.
Your GISS authority is on record at trials and protests enciting people to civil disobedience and sabotog and criminal acts to deny people energy at affordable prices. Is “he” to be trusted? His “numbers” have been manufactored from real temperatures recoding devices that only meet code 25% of the time. Worse, he manipulates those numbers to falsely RAISE all recorded temperatures by averaging even rural values (non-urban heat zone areas) by extreme heat-affected city temperatures. But he refuses to release his original temperatures, their actual corrections, and the final values to audit. (Some “scientific” method – or deliberate coverup. His (Hansen”s) Global models are programs cobbled together from old routines that come from original DOS machines, but have never been checked. When checked closely (Mann, etc.) each AGW publication has been shown to contain false and misleading data. (Gore and the IPCC worst of all.)
GISS and HADCRUT are biased, inaccurate government sources supported and manned by AGW extremists who have an agenda, and whose liveihood DEFPENDS utterly on maaintaining their AGW lies. Their governments now WANT that bioas and those lies continued to create three trillion in new taxes. But you claim they are valid sources for a 1/2 of one degree increase in temperatures that is ONLY based on their own temperatures?
You claim “scientific” review and “scientific papers” only count – but refuse to acknowledge the bias (and flat out lies and coverups) in the AGW review process that prevent funds and publication time to people who oppose your (incorrect) views.
Their is NO point in your screed, and no single paragraph in your numerous letters above that carries any piece of information that has been shown true and unbiased. it all repeats points from an AGW creed – each point of which has been falsified by contradictory research. Or more often, real research and real values.
That was Figure 2b in the paper, by the way.
Smokey-the “hidden heat” thing isn’t really new. Ever hear of “commitment” warming? You know, warming that’s supposed to occur in the future even if forcings are frozen at present levels? Its supposed to hide in the oceans, then come out when its safe(no, I mean when enoguh time has passed). Well, it isn’t doing so (see the link I posted above).
I have posted this graph before, but I was not confident about why it showed such low global warming numbers. In the last month or so, the different questions involved became more clear.
First, the water vapour numbers show there is very little positive water vapour feedback to the warming caused by increased GHGs. Humidity levels are not rising at all with the recorded increase in temperatures. There has been a few recent studies which struggled to confirm this feedback but it is just spin, the base data collected does not support it.
Second, the negative impact on surface temperatures from Aerosols does not seem to be ocurring. The theory seems reasonable but the locations that should be affected by Aerosols the most, are not showing its effects at all. They are rising at a faster rate than the non-Aerosol-affected regions.
Third, the large UHI impact in the surface temperature measurements has finally been confirmed by the original author of “there is only a neglible UHI”.
Fourth, the global warming researchers are now finally examing the natural variation in the climate mostly caused by natural ocean cycles as well the Sun. Why have temperatures declined recently? Well, there is actually natural variation in the climate from a variety of different sources, mainly the oceans. The temperature measurements from 1976 to 1998 or 2006 were driven up by natural variation which has since moved those same numbers down.
So, here is what the satellite temperature measurements tell us about global warming (with no UHI, or poor siting or non-existent Aerosols impact or ocean cycles affecting the numbers).
0.725C per doubling of CO2 or a few tenths more to go.
http://img7.imageshack.us/img7/8838/rsslogwarming.png
Anyone who wants to post this chart somewhere else is free to do so. I will back it up.
Thanks deadwood for that link. The conclusion says it all:
This conclusion states in a very polite way that the IPCC used bad science, and that the current climate is within normal parameters. Therefore, no extraordinary action is necessary.
Careful smokey, its not “official” science! 😉
timetochooseagain (18:29:36)
Here is a completely independent temperature reconstruction for the last 2,000 years:
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2008/2008GL034187.http://www.geo.lsa.umich.edu/~shaopeng/publicat.html
It’s the first paper on that list.
It uses borehole temperatures and geothermal gradients to calculate the temperature history. the results show a midieval warm period cooler than today, and pretty much agrees with the “spaghetti graphs”.
“tallbloke (11:49:13) : James Hansen… What is it with this guy and his morbid fascination with death and WWII?”
Don’t look for something deep in what he does. I have a feeling he isn’t a ‘deep’ person. Think sophomoric — you’ll come closer to an answer.
Just Want Truth-actually, and rather interestingly, CO2 emissions (and concentrations?) have supposedly gone up even faster than IPCC projections assumed and we ~still~ got less warming. What a jip!
Thanks Smokey, I was going to post the conclusions but you beat me to it.
And yes, he was being VERY polite.
Ohioholic (17:11:03) You asked “ When does the extra water vapor in the atmosphere saturate the atmosphere to the point it can’t hold anymore? And then what happens?”
Your questions is phrased as though the atmosphere is a sponge. This is not a good idea and just leads to confusion. Have a look at the “Bad Clouds” page here:
http://fraser.cc/ Then follow the menus (left side) from Teaching > Bad Science > Bad Meteorology > Bad Clouds
Smokey wrote:
[To Foinavon [snip], to Chris V….and now Eric….]
“A non-answer like that is, of course, unacceptable. If you can, provide solid, empirical and falsifiable evidence of a newly discovered heat pulse hiding somewhere, and show us exactly where it is. Provide verifiable measurements showing its existence.”
Any of you chaps….Foinavaon, Chris V, or Eric can man-up enough to provide a verifiable answer to the above question??
CHRIS
Norfolk, VA
Smokey (18:37:16) :
I guess me and foinavon will just have to disagree with you about what constitutes an “unattributed picture”.
By the way, I said there wasn’t any heat “hiding” somwhere. Anytime I’ve heard the phrase “there’s more heating in the pipeline” said by some climate scientist, the explanation they give is that the oceans warm much more slowly than the atmosphere, so for a given CO2 concentration, the atmosphere will continue to warm until the oceans “catch up”. Only then will a new equilibrium temperature be reached.
You can find some of the “real world” evidence here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specific_heat_capacity
Note the difference in the specific heat of water and air. Of course, there is also the fact that circulation between the shallow and deep oceans is very slow.
PS- I didn’t (and don’t) expect you to answer why you unquestionably accept that temp reconstruction back to 2500 BC, even though you have absolutely no idea how the graph was made! (I already know why).
Apologies to anyone who was confused by the first graph
At least I can quit whining, now.
Chris V. definitely interesting, but the issue is pretty darned complex and I don’t know enough about this particular paper to assess its claims. I am dubious of multiproxy studies, to be honest, even Leohle’s, because the data are sparse, uncertain, have dating errors (with the exception of stalagmites and tree rings), and may not really be corresponding to the variable in question (indeed, tree ring are plague by that problem, and by a problem of potential non linear growth responses). Not all of those critiques, perhaps even none, apply to that paper, but some of them definitely apply to some in the spaghetti graph. Of course, I could inundate you with single proxy studies reaching the opposite conclusion, but I won’t. You’ll probably dismiss them as not agreeing with one another on timing (the MWP being “incoherent” or something-as if that mattered). Plus, I don’t wish to burden you with a load of heavy reading. One more thing-if the spaghetti graph studies are bad (I’m sure you think this a big if-I don’t) then you can’t really use them to back up that one study as valid-and you would making a circular argument anyway because you called in that study to back ~them~ up. Just a warning.
Chris V. (19:18:15) :
Your link doesn’t work. Please try again. I’d like to see independent verification that the MWP was cooler than now.
Yes….tried the link as well.
Please show verification that the Mideval Warm Period maxima were lower than today.
Wanna see it…..
Chris
Norfolk, VA
There are several ocean oscillations and one can’t just choose the PDO to “explain” temperature variations for convenience. What about the AMO, for example? If you chose the AMO to “explain” the temperature trend of the past 150 years you’d come to a different conclusion altogether.
For the mid 70’s – 2001 period it may have been a bit of a group grope: The PDO, IPO, AO, AAO, NAO, and AMO all flipped from cool to warm from 1976 – 2001.
“timetochooseagain (19:20:30) : What a jip!”
Ya, i feel so short-changed. If these carbon taxes go through i will literally be feeling change in my pockets. The cash will be gone.
evanmjones (20:19:54) :
What’s the group doing now?
On the other hand the greenhouse effect is pretty well understood and the contribution from raised [CO2] is quite well characterized (not prefectly ‘though!).
But what is not well understood at all is the CO2 positive feedback loop mechanism postulated by the IPCC. And that’s where the great majority of that 3.5°C 21st Centry warming we are to expect comes from.
The AquaSat seems to be telling us that not only does it not exist, but what feedback there is is actually negative (more study required).
CO2 persistence is also a key issue and in great dispute.
rephelan (19:56:16) :
“Chris V. (19:18:15) :
Your link doesn’t work. Please try again. I’d like to see independent verification that the MWP was cooler than now.”
oops- try this one:
http://www.geo.lsa.umich.edu/~shaopeng/publicat.html
first paper on the list.
What’s the group doing now?
Well, as we know, the PDO has gone rogue. And it looks as if the AO and NAO may be wavering. (And the IPO usually follows the PDO.) The rest are still in warm phase, so far as I know.
The PDO is the biggest deal because that is believed to influence whether El Nino or La Nina has the upper hand.
foinavon (10:50:33) :
That would be rather scary since it would indicate that we had a very large warming from the enhanced CO2 forcing still to come (i.e. extremely delayed by the slow response time of the climate system).
————————-
As I understand it, the question still tabled is ….
…. where is this heat hiding currently ??
tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock
timetochooseagain (19:47:51) :
There are lots of uncertainties in the proxy temperature reconstructions. But when you get essentially the same result using two completely independent methods (that look at entirely different phenomena) it does lend credence to the conclusion.
It doesn’t “prove” it, of course; both could be wrong, and have gotten the same result by coincidence (unlikely, but not impossible).
But it does shift the burden of proof a bit.
Well, I see others have answered during my unexpected absence, but let me reiterate.
Wikipedia is NOT a credible source for anything, but especially not AGW information. This is because AGW entries are heavily censored by an individual who admits (and is proud) to having an agenda.
Interesting that people who mistrust “government” for almost everything else willingly consume doctored (oh, sorry, “adjusted”) temperature numbers without complaint. Well, as long as said numbers seem to confirm what they believe, anyway.
The new chart is much clearer, although I get what the problem was with the other one, this one is easier to show others.
Also what is not understood is why CO2 was stable at three or more times present levels for say the 200 million years of the Triassic, Jurassic & Cretaceous periods. The fossil record seems to show that life on Earth was extremely healthy at the time.
Seven times in the last million years the Earth has warmed from Ice Ages to warmer than now.
The idea that the Earth’s climate will ‘run away’ to Venus horror meltdown drama seems unlikely. Indeed I find it a good indicator of whether the person proposing it is adult enough to be responsible for rational considered opinions.
His “numbers” have been manufactored from real temperatures recoding devices that only meet code 25% of the time.
11%, actually.
Less than that if you go dragging the HO-83 flap into it.
And, yes, I am still waiting for someone to explain to me why SHAP would be a positive adjustment.
It uses borehole temperatures and geothermal gradients to calculate the temperature history. the results show a midieval warm period cooler than today, and pretty much agrees with the “spaghetti graphs”.
But what about the literature and the archaeological evidence?
Re “Heat in the Pipeline”
I’ll repeat- there is no heat “hiding” in the ocean, waiting to unleash itself on the atmosphere. Nobody is saying there is.
The ocean is a big heat sink, that absorbs heat very slowly. So some of the energy that would otherwise be warming the atmosphere is going into the ocean.
You don’t have to agree with this idea (if you don’t believe that the specific heat and mixing time for the ocean are much greater than for the atmosphere, then go for it!) but that’s what Hansen et al are referring to when they say there is more “heating in the pipeline”.
Chris V. (20:28:14) :
Thank you. I actually had that one from another source already, so now I’ve read it twice. The discussion of heat flux is really quite beyond me but there were a few points in the paper that stuck out:
1. It is not presenting any new data or clarification of methods;
2. It was written specifically to reconcile their earlier publications with the IPCC 2007 report;
3. They appear to be claiming that their results are consistent with the instrumental record, which Anthony Watts’ Surface Station Project seems to be showing is badly flawed, and various proxy records which have been criticized in great detail on their own merits (e.g. bristlecone pines).
I’d have to learn far more about Prof. Huang’s science that I really want to address the adequacy of his temperature reconstructions, but it sure looks like another set of proxies that correlate well with another set of semi-discredited proxies. Not a smoking gun.
“For the mid 70’s – 2001 period it may have been a bit of a group grope: The PDO, IPO, AO, AAO, NAO, and AMO all flipped from cool to warm from 1976 – 2001.”
I wish more people would realize that. These cycles have their own periods but as is prone to happen from time to time throughout history, all of this went into their warm phases at roughly the same time. When you have several signals “beating” against each other, you sometimes have cycles where they add together, and sometimes where they cancel.
“Interesting that people who mistrust “government” for almost everything else willingly consume doctored (oh, sorry, “adjusted”) temperature numbers without complaint. Well, as long as said numbers seem to confirm what they believe, anyway.”
People tend to find easy to believe things that validate their own positions. But there are sometimes other reasons. It could be social. Maybe all of your friends or all of the people you “admire” are obviously on one side of the issue. One might take the same side as to “fit in” better and not be ostracized (or even lose their job or funding these days). There is a lot of intimidation at both the professional and social levels these days to “believe”.
Hansen seems to believe that science is a democratic process and whoever convinces the majority of the population becomes the source of “truth”.
So how’s that li’l La Nina, gal, doing down in the Pacifico? She going to make it till Summer?
Anthony, I love the new graph. And now, lulled to sleep by the chanting of a certain poster, I’m off to bed.
Bob Shapiro (13:52:14) :
Wombles?!! Are you referring to Jim Hansen… or Jim Henson?
Drat! No Post-Of-The-Day award!
Smokey (17:25:43): “But now you’re asking for something entirely different: the original data that was used to produce the charts. That’s not the question you originally asked, is it? You’re a game player.”
Ideological enthusiasm is impairing your cognitive abilities, Smokey. Here is foinavon’s original question (15:29:31):
“Where do they come from? Could you link each picture to a scientific paper so that we could see how they are derived? What data is used and how it is assessed and so on.”
So foinavon asked not only for attribution but also for any supporting studies and the data. Therefore, your claim: “That’s not the question you originally asked, is it?” is false.
Man up, admit you are wrong, and apologise for misleading the reader.
rephelan (21:28:03) :
“It is not presenting any new data or clarification of methods.”
It’s a new, detailed analysis of existing data- not sure why that’s an issue?
“It was written specifically to reconcile their earlier publications with the IPCC 2007 report”
Not quite- their earlier work was low resolution look at a very long time period. It wasn’t designed to show recent, short term temperature changes (although some people interpreted it that way). The new study was designed to look at the more recent (and more contentious) small scale changes- like the MWP.
Is there anything wrong with scientists focusing on contentious issues in science? Do you apply the same sort of criticism to other temperature reconstructions (like Loehe’s) that reach opposite conclusions?
“They appear to be claiming that their results are consistent with the instrumental record, which Anthony Watts’ Surface Station Project seems to be showing is badly flawed, and various proxy records which have been criticized in great detail on their own merits (e.g. bristlecone pines).”
I haven’t seen any quantitative analysis showing the temperature reconstructions (eg GISSTEMP) to be “badly flawed”. Perhaps we will have that once Anthony W. does his analysis using only the best stations. But right now the only attempt (that I am aware of) was by John V. over at CA a couple of years ago, and he got the same results as GISSTEMP.
As for the proxy data- yes, there is some controversy. I think the only way to really solve issues like that is to compare different, independent proxies.
I find it strange that you interpret an agreement between two entirely different methods, relying on entirely different physical principles, to be evidence that they both are wrong, rather than they both are right!
“Not a smoking gun.”
Didn’t say it was. It does add weight to one side of the argument though.
Brendan H …Foinavon…the burden of proof is on YOU to show the warming. SHOW IT. SHOW US.
Man up. Show us the money and the evidence. You have yet to do so.
Chris
Norfolk, VA
Show the dang evidence.
Where is it?? Show it.
“foinavon (15:54:23) : Dr. Akasofu is asserting stuff that doesn’t accord with the scientific data.”
I don’t see assertions from Syun Akasofu. He is presenting data. He is not ‘asserting stuff’. He also presents known variability. You claim he does not. You claim he ‘asserting stuff’.
What is the ‘stuff’ you think he is ‘asserting’?
BTW, I have debated people just like you for almost two years. What usually happens when ask this kind of a question is I get answers like “the literature is unanimous in AGW”, “there is a consensus”, “the science of anthropogenic warming is well know”, etc.
Please do not give answers like this as they would not be answering the question I asked.
I want to know the specifics on the ‘stuff’ you see Syun Akasofu presenting and how it is not science.
Chris V. (21:19:47) :
Re “Heat in the Pipeline”
I’ll repeat- there is no heat “hiding” in the ocean, waiting to unleash itself on the atmosphere. Nobody is saying there is.
The ocean is a big heat sink, that absorbs heat very slowly. So some of the energy that would otherwise be warming the atmosphere is going into the ocean.
You don’t have to agree with this idea (if you don’t believe that the specific heat and mixing time for the ocean are much greater than for the atmosphere, then go for it!) but that’s what Hansen et al are referring to when they say there is more “heating in the pipeline”.
—–
OK. ??? So there is a constant level of “heat in the pipeline” – according to Hansen (who would never lie for the sake of his cause or his funding or his power or his influence – nor call for others to lie or destroy things for the sake of his cause.
So, from 1900 until 1940, while CO2 didn’t increase and temperatures increased 3/10 of one degree, all this heat “in the pipeline” went towards heating the atmosphere (and ocean temperatures/levels/currents/etc anything else did not measureably change.)
And, from 1940 until 1972, while CO2 increased steadily and temperatures declined 4/10 of one degree, all this heat “in the pipeline” went towards heating the oceans (and ocean temperatures did not measureably change.)
And, from 1972 until 1998, while CO2 increased steadily and temperatures increased 1/2 of one degree, all this heat “in the pipeline” went towards heating the atmosphere (and ocean temperatures did not measureably change.)
And, from 1998 until 2009, while CO2 increased steadily and temperatures declined 2/10 of one degree, all this heat “in the pipeline” went towards heating the oceans (and ocean temperatures did not measureably change..)
And …..
So – now everybody who has a stake in wanting a part of that three trillion in energy taxes is claiming that – for some reason – all this “heat in the pipeline” is going to “go into the oceans” for the next 20 – 30 years – then (for some unexplained reason) “global warming is coming back with a vengeance” ….. At (just by coincidence of course – because Hansen would never lie or call for anyone to lie or commit crimes in support of his beliefs or change old temperature data that didn’t support his beliefs) just about the same time and the same cyclical pattern that the PDO and AMO and the sun follows, the ole global warming “heat in the pipeline” is going to flip-flop (for some some mysterious reason) and the temperatures and the CO2 are both going to increase.
What pipeline? Where is the pipeline? What is the pipeline? How is it measured? How the energy exchange flip-flopping from one direction to the other – without being able to be measured by anything? Why is the “pipeline” energy exchange flip-flopping? This “pipeline” Hansen believes in is large enough that it is changing the temperatures and water and soil over the entire globe (and Venus, and Mars, and Jupiter, and Saturn, and even Pluto and Charon) – and it is changing direction every 33 years – but it cannot be measured nor defined.
Other than as a “pipeline” that changes direction every 33 years ….. While CO2 either increases, or decreases, or stays the same, Hansen’s ole “pipeline” somehow just keeps on flip-flopping every 33 years.
If the flip-flopping energy exchange IS the PDO and the AMO and the other ocean currents, then why is Hansen worried about CO2 levels – by HIS “measurements” THEY have no measureable effect – except on Hansen’s funding, his travels, his interviews with the media, his influence over government, his power over international policy, his ability to kill innocents from poverty – poor food, endless work, and unaffordable housing, food, water, and medical care.
The only thing I see flip-flopping is the sun – and Hansen doesn’t want to believe the inconvenient truth that the sun is flip-flopping! It would be an inconvenient truth if the sun were flip-flopping every 33 years wouldn’t it? Because, if the sun were flip-flopping every 33 years – or every 950 years – or in any other cyclical pattern it would be an inconvenient interruption in his power, influence, and belief system wouldn’t it?
Devastating. Will it even phase those who wish to control us through manufactured crises? Doubtful.
Personally, I am getting a bit tired of statements like “energy imbalance” or “equilibrium”. Folks, we are talking about weather and climate here, there is NO such thing as an “energy balance” or an “equilibrium”, never has been, never will be! Man, I’m tired of reading such stupidity.
FatBigot (11:19:59) wrote:
“I’m somewhat befuddled by the concept of “recovering” from the Little Ice Age, what on earth does that mean? Are we not dealing with purely physical processes which require a cause as well as an effect? What caused the LIA to end and the earth to warm thereafter? It didn’t just happen by magic.”
Here’s an uneducated guess: If the (unknown) cause of the LIA were removed, then the earth would recover to its normal temperature not instantaneously, but over many centuries, as the oceans gradually warmed and glaciers retreated. The cool oceans would act as a drag on the recovery, IOW.
Anthony
Just a suggestion, but when you update a blog like you have done here, with a new graph, could you include the date & time you did the update in the update message below the new graph. If you did that, it would be possible for readers to go straight to comments that relate to the updated graph, rather than having to sift through all the messages, looking for where the current start. Thanks
foinavon (10:50:33) wrote:
“There isn’t a LIA “linear” recovery trend. It’s difficult to understand why Dr. Akasofu would suggest such an odd notion. Although the temperature record is sparse through the 19th century, the data indicates that the earth had “recovered” from the LIA by the mid 19th century so that the period from 1850 – 1900 was pretty flat temperature-wise.”
See Akasofu’s article on the recovery from the Little Ice Age, here:
http://people.iarc.uaf.edu/~sakasofu/little_ice_age.php
All I see in the CC debate is obsessive scientists acting like young students to fit curves and lines to dodgy data to match it to the conclusion that they’ve already reached. All I see in the data is variation of temperature over time with or without CO2 and not a shred of evidence anywhere showing that we are at risk of catastrophe due to increasing CO2 levels in the atmosphere. The hockey stick effect that would insupport this would appear to be absolutely discredited now. All I see is ant [snip] of trivia and the gross misinterpretation of the big picture. I am far more impressed by the views of the more independent who show that the AGW theory is nothing more than that, that CO2 may not even be a greenhouse gas or that our understanding of how greenhouse gases work in such a complex environment is very sketchy.
Unfortunately though I realise that the issue is politicised and there will be no changing of minds. I have written to my MP and the response bore that out.
foinavon
You asked me for some cites re the MWP. When you have read those below I have several hundred more over at the thread I ran on Climate audit I can point you to.
I can also walk you through the climate references of the Byzantine empire AD 380 to 1453 and we can go into much more details on the Roman warm period (the western empire of course not the eastern one centred on Constantinople) (with thanks also to Max).
Loehle + McCulloch (2008): “The mean series shows the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) and Little Ice Age (LIA) quite clearly, with the MWP being approximately 0.3°C warmer than 20th century values at these eighteen sites.”
Both Loehle and Moberg show a distinct MWP, followed by a LIA; Moberg shows medieval temperatures “similar” to those of today while Loehle shows these to be slightly higher than today.
On his ClimateAudit site Steve McIntyre has made an interesting comparison of Loehle’s methods and findings with those of Moberg.
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=2403
Soon + Baliunas (2003): “A review of more than 200 climate studies led by researchers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics has determined that the 20th century is neither the warmest century nor the century with the most extreme weather of the past 1000 years. The review also confirmed that the Medieval Warm Period of 800 to 1300 A.D. and the Little Ice Age of 1300 to 1900 A.D. were worldwide phenomena not limited to the European and North American continents. While 20th century temperatures are much higher than in the Little Ice Age period, many parts of the world show the medieval warmth to be greater than that of the 20th century.”
A few other studies showing a MWP warmer than today in various parts of the world:
Bartholy et al. (2004) – Hungary
Blundell + Barber (2005) – Scotland
Chuine et al. (2004) – France
Dahl-Jensen et al. (1998) – Greenland
Esper et al. (2002) – Pakistan, Kirghistan
Fleitman et al. (2004) – Oman
Gray et al. (2004) – North America, Europe Middle East
Holmgren et al. (2001) – South Africa
Hu et al. (2001) – Alaska
Kitagawa and Matsumoto (1998) – Japan
Luckman + Wilson (2005) – Canada
Munroe (2003) – North America
Yadav + Singh (2002) – India
Yang et al. (2002) – China
Zhang et al. (1998) – China
How the climate cooled and hastened the collapse of the Western Roman empire is also interesting. Fancy walking Hanibals route over the Alps with me?
Tonyb
Now I’m schocked!
The initial figures were showing projections of the IPCC from 1990, 1995, 2000 till today. The graphs were showing a quite good agreement between the projections and temperatures (as has been noted). Now what do I see?
The figure has now been changed… The new one is using a projected rate for the 2000-2100 period and magically displaces it to the 1980-2008 period to show that it is not “correct”? What is the point in using a projection for the future to model the past?
REPLY: The original graph is linked right below it. Here is the reason I changed graphs. In the original graph, some people were confusing part B (sea level) with temperature and drawing erroneous conclusions from that instead of following the link and reading about it. You yourself apparently missed it too, referring only to temperature in your posts. – Anthony
Vibenna wrote:
“I think that is the key challenge for climate skeptics – what is the cause of this ‘natural warming trend’. There is a competing causal explanation being offered – to knock it down, you need to offer something with genuinely explanatory and predictive power.”
The earth could just wobble naturally, without being pushed, due to its internal delayed reactions and feedback loops and heat sinks, etc. Along this line, Richard S. Courtney wrote (within the past week in a thread not yet cataloged by Google):
“The climate system is seeking an equilibrium that it never achieves. The Earth obtains radiant energy from the Sun and radiates that energy back to space. The energy input to the system (from the Sun) may be constant (although some doubt that), but the rotation of the Earth and its orbit around the Sun ensure that the energy input/output is never in perfect equilibrium.
“The climate system is an intermediary in the process of returning (most of) the energy to space (some energy is radiated from the Earth’s surface back to space). And the Northern and Southern hemispheres have different coverage by oceans. Therefore, as the year progresses the modulation of the energy input/output of the system varies. Hence, the system is always seeking equilibrium but never achieves it.
“Such a varying system could be expected to exhibit oscillatory behaviour. And, importantly, the length of the oscillations could be harmonic effects which, therefore, have periodicity of several years. Of course, such harmonic oscillation would be a process that – at least in principle – is capable of evaluation.
“However, there may be no process because the climate is a chaotic system. Therefore, the observed oscillations (ENSO, NAO, etc.) could be observation of the system seeking its chaotic attractor(s) in response to its seeking equilibrium in a changing situation.”
Ummm the Huang et al paper ends with the following:-
“The reconstructions show the temperatures of the mid-
Holocene warm period some 1–2 K above the reference
level, the maximum of the MWP at or slightly below the
reference level, the minimum of the LIA about 1 K below
the reference level, and end-of-20th century temperatures
about 0.5 K above the reference level. All of these amplitude
estimates are, as with the timing of these episodes,
generally consistent with amplitudes estimated from other
climate proxies as summarized by Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change [2007].”
So if my tags worked then the bold type indicates the authors believe the MWP was indeed warmer than present.
Paul S. wrote:
“All in all, I think these papers have been chosen to defend a tenable position.”
Didn’t you mean “untenable”?
I’ve replaced it with one from another article of hers that should not generate as many questions. Or will it? 😉 – Anthony
Who’s monkcton? 🙂
in any of these pictures, the match between data and trend depends a lot on the starting point in x (=time) AND y (=temperatures) coordinates.
i would rather just try to find data intervalls where the slope given by the ipcc matches the trend in measured data. the only period that supports this trend was approx. between 1993-2002.
any other and particularly any longer period does not support this high trend.
data after 2002 also strongly refutes the ipcc trend.
(all comments under the (false) assumption, that there is a linear trend, as projected by the ipcc)
John Philip wrote:
“Dr Akasofu has no academic credentials or publications whatsoever in the field of climate science.”
Well, he’s a professor of geophysics, which impinges on climatology (a fledgling science that is too big for its britches and could do with some cross-disciplinary input). His books (and presumably also his papers) deal with the northern lights, the solar wind, the magnetosphere, and the troposphere. (Here’s the Amazon link to his titles: http://www.amazon.com/s/qid=1237628312/ref=sr_pg_1?ie=UTF8&rs=1000&sort=relevancerank&unfiltered=1&rh=i%3Astripbooks%2Cp_27%3AAkasofu&page=1 .) So he’s not “off the reservation” the way he would be if he were a microbiologist or something. He’s been dealing with the sky and its layers.
Here’s more about him, from an extract from his home page at http://people.iarc.uaf.edu/~sakasofu/
Dr. Syun-Ichi Akasofu, IARC Founding Director and Professor of Physics, Emeritus, was the the director of the International Arctic Research Center of the University of Alaska Fairbanks from its establishment in 1998 until January of 2007. … He has been professor of geophysics since 1964. Dr. Akasofu has published more than 550 professional journal articles, authored and co-authored 10 books and has been the invited author of many encyclopedia articles. …
Dr. Akasofu’s auroral work has earned national and international recognition. … [A long list of awards and honors follows.]
As Director of the Geophysical Institute (1986-1999), Dr. Akasofu concentrated his effort on establishing the institute as a key research center in the Arctic. … Upon his retirement in 2007, the University of Alaska Board of Regents officially named the building that houses the International Arctic Research Center the “Syun-Ichi Akasofu Building” in recognition of “his tireless vision and dedicated service to the university, the state, and country in advancing arctic science.”
Probably been posted. Probably most significant data to kill AGW just hot off the press!Graig Loehle shows the acean buoys were right after all and boosted from more rcent dat OCEANS ARE COOLING since 2003
http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/2009/03/the-ocean-really-is-cooling/
Going right back to Akasofu’s subject, he talks about (1) a linear increase in temperature since 1800 and (2) decadal variations overlapping an overall linear increase. I don’t need to project from this picture into the future, to see that it has a good fit from 1800 up to the present. But you need to see his clearest pictures to get interested. So for those who baulk at the pdf, I’ve uploaded two pics:
The trend that first caught Akasofu’s interest
Decadal variations on this trend
Personally I think Akasofu caught an uptick on a long sinusoidal solar curve – but we need the evidence of ALL the known overlapping solar cycles to be more sure of that. What Akasofu does show is that the IPCC science is inadequate. And he does it well, with some of the best science writing I’ve seen. He deserves to be read in the original.
Regarding the hockey stick, here’s Monckton’s long paper describing the shenanigans behind protecting it from criticism and “verifying” it, followed (pages 16-29) by summaries of 21 published papers that provide evidence of warming during the MWP. (Ten papers deal with Europe and the North Atlantic, eleven scientific papers address the period elsewhere on the planet.) Each summary occupies about half a page and contains a graph that illustrates key data points.
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/monckton/what_hockey_stick.html
Why do the predictions start about 0.15deg.C below the actual measured temperature for 1980. If they commenced from +0.41deg.C (the 1980 anomoly) rather than the apparently arbitrary +0.26deg.C, then the disparity between the predicted and the measured anomolies would be much larger.
AGW is officialy over since 2003
Craig Loehle has analysed the data from only the profiling floats for ocean heat content from 2003 to 2008. In a paper recently published in the journal Energy and Environment he has concluded that there has been ocean cooling over this period.
timetochooseagain (18:21:56),
Thanks for that link, which seems to put to rest the question of hidden “heat in the pipeline”.
Brendan H (22:08:52)
This is probably what you would call an “unattributed picture”: click, because there is no explanation. But the source in the address bar shows where it came from.
However, when a chart has written in the corner: “Chart prepared by Climatologist Cliff Harris & Meteorologist Randy Mann”, then I assume someone [foinavon in this case] is deliberately running interference by saying “those are just unattributed pictures.”
It’s easy to find out where the charts came from. Demanding that someone else must jump through an endless series of hoops, when they could do the search themselves, is an obstructing tactic. They are not interested in knowledge, but rather in sidetracking the debate.
Same situation with “Could you link each picture to a scientific paper so that we could see how they are derived? What data is used and how it is assessed and so on.” That is unreasonable, since the questioner has the resources and can find out for himself. And no doubt if those questions were answered, there would be still more questions.
That’s the problem with some folks: they never answer the questions put to them by others, they just answer a question with another question. Their tactic is to ask endless follow-up questions in an attempt to avoid the obvious conclusion. For instance, I’m still waiting for an answer to the hidden heat [although an actual climate scientist has answered that question in the link @18:21:56.]
There is a lot of genuine skepticism over the constant assertions made regarding tipping points, heat in the pipeline, runaway global warming, etc., etc.
If the believers in these alarming situations would simply answer straightforward questions, it would be a big help in getting to the truth of the matter. But some folks would rather obstruct the debate than find answers, I suspect because the answers would be uncomfortable. Thus their deliberately obstructionist tactics.
Hmm. Well that’s replaced the graphs with one that looks more comfortable if you’re that way inclined, but that’s a bit naughty. The new graph is mostly a comparison of an old – nearly twenty years old – IPCC prediction with Hadley’s temperature record isn’t it? ie he’s specifically chosen the two most ‘extreme’ to make a point?
The AR4 simulations match temperature quite well, which they should since they were run in 2007, but what are they doing on the graph?
Somewhat OT, and probably a dumb question…but I’ll ask it anyway.
When I make ice cubes…the measured volume of the frozen water is larger than the unfrozen water. Same thing happens when I freeze gallon jugs of water to place in a cooler for a long trip. Always have to dump a little out to make room for the expansion when it changes state.
It is consistantly pointed out here that when oceans cool, they contract, and sea levels drop. So does this mean that as the temp drops, the water contracts, until at some magic point, just before it solidifies, it expands? 🙂
JimB
softestpawn,
The new graph replaced the old graph because of some complaints about the old graph. Now there are complaints about the new graph. Is there a graph that would keep everyone happy?
I wonder what happened to Mary Hinge? I thought that she would be jumping in here for sure…
JimB (03:36:38) : So does this mean that as the temp drops, the water contracts, until at some magic point, just before it solidifies, it expands? 🙂
Yes. At about 4C water is at it’s most dense. Either direction from there it expands. It expands a lot as ice.
Yes, too, this is a fairly odd behaviour. Were it not for this behaviour, rather than the deep oceans and lakes being a livable 4c (for fish at least…) they would be frozen blocks of ice at 0 C or less.
“This situation is very similar to the multi-decadal temperature decrease from 1940 to 1975 … it was predicted at that time that a new Big Ice Age was on its way.”
Too bad, that they started their predictions too late in the cycle. They learned their lesson, however, and when the next thirty-year cycle was underway they hit the prediction business HARD. Global Warming has been all the rage since about 1988. Now that the more recent thirty year warming is over what will they do? The change of terminology to Climate Change or Climate Chaos was too late since they are still trying to save a “warming” that is demonstrably NOT happening. Maybe they will change the computer forecasts but then say that even modest warming will be catastrophic, or perhaps, that the warming caused the cooling and that some very good computer models predicted an impending ice age all along… why didn’t we heed their warning?
What a tangled web…
David–
On that particular graph, I just added the slope of the IPCC curves and the to compare to what Monckton did.
But, generally speaking, when you fit a regression, you often solve for both a slope and intercept. The intercept doesn’t force the line through the single data point at the very beginning– it minimizes the rms of errors. The line just doesn’t go through the measured value in 1980.
JimB (03:36:38) :
It is consistantly pointed out here that when oceans cool, they contract, and sea levels drop. So does this mean that as the temp drops, the water contracts, until at some magic point, just before it solidifies, it expands? 🙂
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water
“The maximum density of water is at 3.98 °C (39.16 °F).[9] Water becomes even less dense upon freezing, expanding 9%. This causes an unusual phenomenon: ice floats upon water, and so water organisms can live inside a partly frozen pond because the water on the bottom has a temperature of around 4 °C (39 °F).”
At 4C (3.98) water can coexist with ice, the magic point. At 0C it freezes solidly.
JimB
The magic point is +4 deg C for fresh water and close to +3 C for sea water I think. When it gets colder it expands again.
I thought there was no such thing as global average temperature?
Chris V-regardless of the soundness of the concept of heating in the pipeline, the newest OHC data shows no increase of late. If heat is building up, then somehow its been totally missed. The alternative is that something ate it (aerosols? Solar? Dunno). But as of right now, I stick with RP Sr. At present, there is no heating in the pipeline. Also, don’t think I’ve conceeded the point on that proxy paper just yet. I’m soliciting comments as we ramble on. 🙂
CodeTech (20:44:39) :
“Wikipedia is NOT a credible source for anything, but especially not AGW information. This is because AGW entries are heavily censored by an individual who admits (and is proud) to having an agenda.”
OT example of above: Movie Soylent Green described as a dystopian science fiction movie depicting a future in which global warming and overpopulation lead to depleted resources on Earth.
Book published in 1966 and movie made in 1973 pre-dated AGW scare and contemporary reviews didn’t mention global warming.
JimB
Yes as the water changes states from liquid to a crystalline solid it expands. Additionally it adsorbs more heat to make the state change.
Sorry. Proper link to Soylent Green
Could anyone explain to me, how is the positive feedback of water vapor and clouds increasing heat content of oceans when temperatures are actually falling?
The AGW theory explains that the increase of CO2 increases the global temperature that then results in more water vapor, a greenhouse gas that accelerates the warming. But measurements show that the temperatures go down. How do the climate models take falling temperatures into account?
oops, +3C is wrong, check here:
http://www.csgnetwork.com/h2odenscalc.html
Odd decision by the science blog of the year – to pull a graph published in a respected academic journal, in favour of one self-published by the reliably entertaining Christopher Monckton on the grounds that it ’caused confusion’. To quote lucia …
Do I think Monckton’s graph is a fair representation of the IPCC trends and their uncertainties? Nope.
Very odd.
REPLY: John, you yourself complained about the first one, citing “There is indeed an odd disconnect between the text and the graphics used as illustration. “. In the original graph, some people were confusing part B (sea level) with temperature and drawing erroneous conclusions from that instead of following the link and reading. I noticed even you did not pick up on that.
The real issue is that you simply don’t like anything on this blog, and you exist here only to criticize. Well no more, you can’t have it both ways. – Anthony
Robert A Cook PE: “The only thing I see flip-flopping is the sun – and Hansen doesn’t want to believe the inconvenient truth that the sun is flip-flopping! It would be an inconvenient truth if the sun were flip-flopping every 33 years wouldn’t it? Because, if the sun were flip-flopping every 33 years – or every 950 years – or in any other cyclical pattern it would be an inconvenient interruption in his power, influence, and belief system wouldn’t it?”
Believe or not HE DOES: See
SOLAR-PLANETARY-CLIMATE STRESS, EARTHQUAKES AND
VOLCANISM
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19900066907_1990066907
Robert Cook, Here is the link:
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19900066907_1990066907.pdf
JimB (03:36:38)
Cooled fresh water contracts until it reaches 4C and then it starts to expand until it reaches 0C at which point it freezes. This change of phase is accompanied by about 10% increase in volume. Consequently ice floats on water.
Salt water have a different freezing temperature (~ -2C for oceans) and behaves differently (subject to salinity)
I took a closer look at the Central England Temperature (CET) records. Clearly the English climate does not reflect the world but it does have some interesting features. For instance the heating rate for the last thirty years is 4.7°C/century which is of course much higher than any of the global anomaly reconstructions. I calculated the temperature anomaly in the data for all 350 years and subtracted off the long term warming trend of 0.26°C/century. Looking at the rates of change in temperature as well as the deviation from the long term trend line it showed that todays (last 30 years) rapid rise in temperature is no big deal compared to history of the record and the deviation from the baseline was higher in the early 1700s than today. Something that also showed up in my analysis than I cannot explain is that the monthly deviations for minimum temperature as been greatly reduced in recent years. The maximum deviations have remained fairly constant but the minimums have gone from around -5°C to around -3°C. The minimum temperatures in the deviation analysis data also occurred in the mid to late 1800s. If that held for the global records the data of 1850 for the GISS records may have just started during a cold time and not reflect a true long term trend.
See http://web.me.com/wally/Site/Wallys_Climate_Blog/Entries/2009/3/19_Central_English_Temperatures.html or click my name for details.
JimB
It is consistantly pointed out here that when oceans cool, they contract, and sea levels drop. So does this mean that as the temp drops, the water contracts, until at some magic point, just before it solidifies, it expands? 🙂
—
Yes, that is what happens. Without that small expansion immediately at freezing, water would still turn to ice – but settle at the bottom of ponds and freshwater lakes. Since the top surface is then constantly exposed to the sub-freezing temperatures of the air, it (the top surface) would subsequent;y freeze and settle out. Eventually, the whole pond/lake/river would freeze solid, killing all fish and any animals in the water.
Since mammals and amphibians are said to be descended from fish, the prospects of much life higher than microbes would be diminished considerably – at least on most areas of this planet.
Smokey:
“If the believers in these alarming situations would simply answer straightforward questions, it would be a big help in getting to the truth of the matter. But some folks would rather obstruct the debate than find answers, I suspect because the answers would be uncomfortable. Thus their deliberately obstructionist tactics.”
I believe this is due to several reasons. Many of my friends who are very liberal, when really pinned to the wall with facts, will ultimately state that the actually don’t care if a) the earth is warming, and b) if that warming is caused by humankind. They fully support the “fight”, because it advances and supports many other things that they believe are “good”. Many of them know that there is no real science to back up the claims. They understand now that the predictions are nothing but a constantly moving target, and they themselves have adopted this same tactic. When pressed on ice sheets, they quickly move to sea level, when pushed on sea level they quickly move to rain forests, and on and on.
That’s why fighting this with rational discussion based on factual science is completely ineffective. There’s simply so much other crap piled onto this discussion, and there are so many things in here for ALL of them, it’s really created a new phenomenon….”Green Pork”. Forget about a bridge to nowhere…come up with a project, and if you can wrap it in green, it’s a sure bet.
JimB
Can someone explain why it is meaningful to compare the IPCC’s estimates of future trends from AR4 to past trends tarting from 1980 to the present?
What is this comparison supposed to show? It is not obvious to me.
VG (01:54:15) :
Probably been posted. Probably most significant data to kill AGW just hot off the press!Graig Loehle shows the acean buoys were right after all and boosted from more rcent dat OCEANS ARE COOLING since 2003
http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/2009/03/the-ocean-really-is-cooling/
————
Does this unify both sides of the “pipeline” debate on this thread ??
The heat has been coming out of the “pipeline” since 2003 and, not surprisingly given its source, has been a damp squib !!
…… or is there another secret “pipeline”?
Is there a graph that would keep everyone happy? Fortunately no.
How else will we continue to debate and to gain insight.
Off Topic and anecdotal I know but……. Closest major town, Hull England.
We have had ponds in our garden for 24 years and this year is the lastest we can remember that our frogs have spawned; that is today 21st. March. Previous years it has been late February early March but we haven’t kept detailed records; we never thought we might need them, wish we had now though.
Because we regularly have to rescue frogs from the jaws or paws of local cats we were beginning to think that we had a CATastrophe on our hands (pun intended).
“The AGW theory explains that the increase of CO2 increases the global temperature that then results in more water vapor, a greenhouse gas that accelerates the warming. But measurements show that the temperatures go down. How do the climate models take falling temperatures into account?”
This is the point of one of my questions earlier. If warming increases water vapor, when the winter season comes, snow increases. When snow increases, solar energy is reflected. Tada! Cooling. Seems like a natural mechanism to me. Again, I will stress that I have no scientific training, being a business major, but that is what I like to call layman’s logic. Question is, does it work?
Rats, posted too early. We had 21 days of below average temperature in Ohio. Some of this was well below average, especially with wind chill taken into account. Coldest winter we’ve had in a while. Of course, we’ll have to see how summer goes to see how this works, but if I am hypothesizing correctly, admittedly a very simple hypothesis, it should be an average summer. The problem I see is that when winter comes back, we have yet even more snow. which shrinks summers time span. Could the increased water vapor be the explanation for expanding Alaskan glaciers and new ice in the Antarctic? Sure. Does this negate global warming? We only have one way of finding out, since IPCC doesn’t want to accept the fact that temperature may be a self-regulating thing. I worry that we, as a society in general, may be so locked into warming that we are caught napping when it actually gets colder and food supplies suffer.
REPLY: Wind chill does not count in climatic records. – Anthony
JimB (03:36:38) : You ask: “So does this mean that as the temp drops, the water contracts, until at some magic point, just before it solidifies, it expands?”
Water is the strangest chemical you will ever encounter!
Ans: There isn’t actually any magic involved, but water reaches its maximum density at almost 4 dC (degrees Celsius), just below that actually. As it gets colder than that point it increases in volume by about 9%. The expansion will cause things to crack if the water is confined. When not confined, it floats, otherwise our lakes would freeze from the bottom up.
This has numbers and some text.
http://www.simetric.co.uk/si_water.htm
This has a lot more but I haven’t read it all –diagrams, pictures, etc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water
Eric, thanks for answering, but the condescending tone is really unnecessary. Not everyone who is interested in weather/climate has scientific training in the field, and discussion is my learning tool. I chose this website to discuss on because the people on warming friendly websites don’t like questions, and are always condescending/rude when they are asked. People here tend to be more friendly. Thank you moderator….
In regards to #2, the gentleman I was asking that question of submitted that the concept of global temperature was silly, and that anomalies are the unit of measurement. I was simply confused as to why you would average one thing, but not look for an average on the other. Seems like comparing apples and oranges to me.
In regard to #3, see one of the above posts for what the point of that question was.
JimB (03:36:38) :
“It is consistantly pointed out here that when oceans cool, they contract, and sea levels drop. So does this mean that as the temp drops, the water contracts, until at some magic point, just before it solidifies, it expands?”
Going back to my old science training, it actually expands just as it solidifies. Hence, ice always floats on the water (lower specific density). The reason is the crystalline structure that forms of ice (think of snowflakes) which geometrically allows less molecules in the same amount of space. Make sense?
Ohioholic (07:48:51) : Yes, I can understand cooling, but how does Dr Hansen create the warming that is supposed to be pipelined into the oceans to be released later?
What kinds of physical mechanisms are there to make considerable amounts of heat to be stored when CO2 levels increase but temperature does not ?
Smokey, Roger (heh, and Anthony obviously) changing the graph to one that “looks better” doesn’t change the data behind the graph. We’ve no reason to suppose the first graphs at Lucia’s (sp?) site are wrong; just because they’re not shown here any more doesn’t suddenly stop them contradicting the article.
And the new graph is suspect for cherry picking.
It shouldn’t be down to “finding” a graph to “keep people happy”. It should be down to comparing the data with the hypothesis, and in this case the data doesn’t appear to support the hypothesis. Maybe some more explanation is needed, or maybe the hypothesis has failed.
Either way is fine, but ignoring apparently inconvenient data is rather poor. I enjoy visiting this site because it has a (fairly, usually) good approach to keeping things scientific; I’m hoping it’s not about to become a refuge for climate change ‘deniers’ with as strong a set of beliefs as the ‘deluders’.
REPLY: The original article had no graph, but I like to help people visualize, so I thought I’d provide one.. The main reason I switched them later was because many people were looking at part b of the original graph (still linked under the new graph) and thought it was a plot of temperature, but in fact it was sea level. So rather than perpetuate that mistake people (who were too lazy to follow the link) were making, I chose this new one, also from Lucia. The idea of using Lucia’s graphs from her blog had to do with a complaint she made on her blog of having so little traffic, so I thought I’d help her out by driving some to it. Unfortunately many, like yourself, ignored that and drew conclusions. If you’ll read Lucia’s post on it, you’ll notice that she questions the graph and applied some of her own trend lines to it. Feel free to imagine all the nefarious motives on my part you want, but it’s a simple case of “no good deed goes unpunished”. – Anthony
Foinavon,
If Andrew Dessler manages to publish is work on water vapor forcings in a matter of a couple month and Spencer is over 7 month trying to have is paper publish on overall negative feedback for increase temps, although if pushes the same argument for water vapor but actually goes further, does it makes you somehow uncomfortable about “demanding” peer review papers to accept arguments, or not?
REPLY: Wind chill does not count in climatic records. – Anthony
Does it affect the temperature recorded by the surface stations? I am just curious about a whole bunch of stuff, and now that I have time in between class sessions, I can ask a couple questions.
Not that I wasn’t reading while class was in session, though. I may have to borrow the ‘A’ from your name to hold up my GPA. May have missed one thanks to reading the discussions here. Good stuff. Just didn’t have time to jump into any of it with questions. 🙂
TonyB
Tony, why is it even been argued if MWP was temp higher or lower than today? What sense does that makes?
Only question is: was it real! Because if it was, then who cares about slight higher or lower. What the hell makes those temps go up and down!
Eric (18:21:50) :
The reason this has been observed in the Malinkovich cycles, was because periodic changes in orbital tilt kicked off a warming cycle in the northern hemisphere due reduction in albedo.
The CO2 emissions were of increased temperature, and but also produced a further increase in temperature, based on the evidence of the 400,000 year Vostock Ice core data, and modeling of these effects.
Eric mistakes hypothesis for fact in making this assertion. The fundamental forcing of CO2, possibly modifed by an unknown feedback factor, is still unknown. So the role of CO2 in ice age cycles is still in the realm of conjecture.
Foinavon
People are what they are. There is no point on trying to “convince people of” because that is not what this is all about here. – AGWr are “cause people”, therefore arguments are build around the need to serve the “cause”. Most people here are “principle people”, continuously trying to pinpoint principles of arguments that can be use to assess whatever reality.
Foinavon, a very resourceful person, is a brilliant “cause person” and couldn’t care less about principles — cause has to prevail, in the logical boundaries of acceptable truth, the boundaries of not being totally dishonest with himself,.
What I would really like to know, using a roger pielks jr weapon, is:
Foinavon, what can happen in the next 5 to 10 years, to make you start to seriously doubt that increase CO2 will create a set of forcing events that will drive global warming above 1C per century?
PS: question serves to any AGW here!
Thank you
“Roger Knights (01:45:25) : John Philip wrote: “Dr Akasofu has no academic credentials or publications whatsoever in the field of climate science.” ”
John Philip wrote this? This says more abut John Philip than it does about Syun-Ichi Akasofu.
I always have this question for the John Philips of the world :
Is James Hansen a climatologist?
It’s fair to postulate the inverse. What can happen in the next 5-10 years, to make me an AGW believer?
Note: we live a pivotal time: PDO is negative, sun is quite, and something seems to be stabilizing temps…
a. If in the next 5 years Artic Ice depletion reaches a value between or less the 2007and 2008 values.
b. Some key papers are proven wrong: Dr Spencer current 6wm1k negative feedback from satellite data is proven wrong, Wentz work on increase Temp correlates to increase precipitation is disproved, etc.
c. A further 3 years increase temp (over 0.6C anomaly) out of the next 5 years.
d. Discovery of a clear, unequivocal hotspot in tropics troposphere.
John Philip (05:42:59) :
You linked to a very long winded response to Christopher Monckton. You guys put up bigger smoke scenes for those you fear more.
” John Philip (05:42:59) : ”
You point people to the APS. I have always had a question about the APS statement on climate change. I have never got an answer from anyone. Maybe you can answer it. The APS says this :
“Greenhouse gases include carbon dioxide as well as methane, nitrous oxide and other gases.”
http://www.aps.org/policy/statements/07_1.cfm
My question : Why isn’t H2O in the list?
H2O makes up 95% of greenhouse gases. All others combined only make up 5%. Why do they strain out the gnat and swallow the camel?
Robert A Cook PE (18:49:49) :
“GISS and HADCRUT are biased, inaccurate government sources supported and manned by AGW extremists who have an agenda, and whose liveihood DEFPENDS utterly on maaintaining their AGW lies.”
I agree. Anyone who believes that in the past or present that they have or can accurately measure the earth’s surface temperature and use it to make predictions must live on another planet! It’s a sad commentary when political oriented scientists play number games that can adversely affect the lives of people.
I wonder what satellite measure under these conditions:
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/category.php?cat_id=7
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/category.php?cat_id=8
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/category.php?cat_id=12
Why foinavon isn’t worth the time
(1) he handwaves away any study or analysis that does not involve the closed circle of current peer-review in certain favored publications.
(2) he speaks in generalities (the oceans ‘en masse’ don’t matter) while demanding specifics from others.
(3) he has uncritical faith in any study which uses climate modeling to obtain results. Not all models are the same, as demonstrated by the spaghetti graphs, therefore some of the assumptions and underlying physics differ–some substantially. Yet he never questions the underlying assumptions of the climate model used in the studies he cites. This is especially important in attribution studies and temp projection (climate sensitivity).
(4) he misinforms on basic issues. For example, he claims ocean cycles cancel out but ignores the fact that whatever cancelling out there may be depends on the time period in question for the major oscillations and whether they are in sync or not. Another, he claimed information and analysis is available for the temp records. Of the two major long-term records only GISS has released any info on its methods at all and that only after much prodding. There is little if any information available on CRU.
In both instances above, he speaks through his hat as if he is an authority on something we know nothing about. He is bluffing. This leads me to believe that most everything he throws out is also a great big bluff.
The Maldives, being very close to the equator and surrounded by ocean, seems like an ideal place for both solar and wind power. But try that in Michigan. As I look out the window I see that its overcast with little direct sunlight and the wind ain’t blowing. That’s frequently the case here. How would you do wind or solar here?
Jim B (@ 6:50:52)
That is one of the best explanations I’ve read on the state of the AGW debate. I not only know a number of such people — I’m related to a couple. My sister, after once suggesting to me that “An Inconvenient Truth” was all one needed to know about the subject of AGW, threw up her hands and told me she was comfortable with her life and didn’t need to know any more than she already knew, and simply didn’t want to talk about it any more when I pointed out a half dozen glaring errors in AIT.
Ron de Haan (09:42:10) :
“I wonder what satellite measure under these conditions”
I wonder how the RSS measurements are adjusted for these types of conditions?
Well, this graph is much superior for attempting to ascertain the truth. It includes the temperature data for 24 more recent months.
The first chart cut off just as the PDO was turning negative, and the sun was going quiet. The FIRST rule of Science HAS to be to use the most accurate, up to date, data.
Sigh. This blog is way to busy for me to keep up. For stress reducing reasons, I won’t comment anymore.
I am not sure which methods you talking about, but there is quite a lot of discussion on this over at CA. My understanding is that most of paleo reconstructions are not independent at all, despite their claims to the contrary.
I personally have much more trust in archeological and historical records regarding ancient temperatures, and those are pretty clear.
Olimpus Mons (08:38:29) : said
“TonyB
Tony, why is it even been argued if MWP was temp higher or lower than today? What sense does that makes?
Only question is: was it real! Because if it was, then who cares about slight higher or lower. What the hell makes those temps go up and down!”
Its all to do with the thorny question of whether this current warmish period is unprecedented. It is clearly not, we have been this way climatically many times before and we continually provide the evidence for that.
That it does matter becomes obvious when you see the effort being used to discredit the past. DR Mann said ‘the medieval warm period is an outdated concept’ and uses lots of tax payers money to try and minmise it.
It would help everyone if they just acepted this warmish period is nothing extraordinary and explain to us why this time its different to previous warm periods. To do that they then have to explain chapter and verse exactly how doubling co2 creates a temperature increase of up to 4.8C and demonstrate that all the related exotic feedbacks that produce this increase are anything more than theories.
Tonyb.
Wally (06:06:03) :
You talked about CET. I have posted so many times here on this subject and produced long pieces -satirical and straight- pointing out the tiny increase in todays temperatures over periods back to the 1700s (which are supposed to be in the LIA.) I also analysed all the months to demonstrate that some months have become a little warmer (winter not surprisingly-although perversely the warmest CET winters are all before the 20th century) and some cooler, but the warming of the winters from the LIA is the only reason for the tiny overall average increase.
My main conclusion would be that this is an incredibly weak recovery from the LIA and can be entirely explained by minor natural variations. If it is due to co2 that gas is an exceptionally weak driver.
If you think any of these items may be helpful for your very good climate blog I will be happy to email them.
Tonyb
I thought I had corralled the pipeline heat in my closet under the stairs, but I just found it clogging up the loo. There’s something in the pipeline, that’s for sure.
I am confused by Foinavon’s posts. He still seems to believe that global warming is directly linked to increasing levels of CO2 as a result of man’s indiscrimate use of fossil fuels.
So far the raw data that I have seen, extending over millenia rather than a single century, appear to show that CO2 is what we actuaries would call a “lagging idicator” of temperature rise – it follows rather than leads. But I am doubtful about some of the proxies and also the accuracy of some of the measurements.
However based on historical data, if the current global cooling spell proves to be anything but an anomaly I would expect to see CO2 levels stabilise and then fall of their own accord. Of course the climate change fanatics will then put the reduction in the CO2 levels down to the actions taken by governments to reduce “manmade” CO2.
John B, but it does not matter to any rational person if it was higher or not. Just the existence of should cast doubts over agw to any sane person.
Before anyone comments on Dr. Akosofu’s article, they need to read his complete paper on recovery from the little ice age. It is accessable from his webpage. He is a very respected mainstream scientist, and does first class research as others have noted above. I would like to see what some of the AGW folks can criticize about the entire arguement he makes.
Ohioholic (07:53:24) :
Rats, posted too early. We had 21 days of below average temperature in Ohio. Some of this was well below average, especially with wind chill taken into account. Coldest winter we’ve had in a while. Of course, we’ll have to see how summer goes to see how this works, but if I am hypothesizing correctly, admittedly a very simple hypothesis, it should be an average summer. The problem I see is that when winter comes back, we have yet even more snow. which shrinks summers time span. Could the increased water vapor be the explanation for expanding Alaskan glaciers and new ice in the Antarctic? Sure. Does this negate global warming? We only have one way of finding out, since IPCC doesn’t want to accept the fact that temperature may be a self-regulating thing. I worry that we, as a society in general, may be so locked into warming that we are caught napping when it actually gets colder and food supplies suffer.
But shouldn’t you take into account the previous summer (oh and perhaps the winter before that…. ad infinitum)?
Lucia
Many thanks for explanation.
Chris V:
Thanks for your link at #20
The first one I pick up at in the list says:
————–
Geophysical Research Letters vol 24 1997
Late Quaternary temperature changes seen in world-wide continental heat flow meausurements.
Huang, Pollack, Shen
Abstract:
Analisis of more tan six thousand continental heat flow meausurements as a function of depth has yielded a reconstruction of a global average ground surface temperature history over the last 20.000 years. The early to mid Holocene appears as a relatively long warm interval some 0.2-0.6 K above present-day temperatures, the culmination of warming that followed the end of the last glaciation. Temperatures were also warmer than present 500-1.000 years ago, but then cooled to a minimum some 0.2-0.7 K below present about 200 years ago. Although temperature variations in this type of reconstruction are highly smoothed, the results clearly resemble the broad oulines of the late Quaternary climate changes suggested by proxies.
————
The results show a Medieval Warm Period warmer than today, and pretty much disagrees with the “spaghetti graphs”. Not too bad for Akasofu, either.
MikeF (11:06:22) :
I was referring to the temp reconstructions calculated using borehole temperatures/geothermal gradients as being independent from the more traditionally used tree rings, etc. I provided a link for the borehole temperature stuff earlier in the thread.
Why does this site show the highest readings since 1998?
http://discover.itsc.uah.edu/amsutemps/execute.csh?amsutemps+001
Re the new graph at the top of the post-
does anyone know which temperature anomaly is plotted on that graph? Is it some sort of composite of the “big four” (GISS, HADCRU, UAH, RSS)? (I tried scienceandpublicpolicy.org, but I can’t open the relevant paper.)
I ask because none of the individual anomaly graphs have a 1.05 degree anomaly for 1998 (as is shown on that graph). It almost looks like Monkton arbitrarily chose the lowest point on the graph (1985) as the baseline.
Sorry, but when I see data being manipulated in a way that serves no apparant purpose, i get a little suspicious!
Tallbloke
I walked down to the demo from the lab.
Lovely spring day in Coventry so no ‘Gore’ type effect.
The may have been 300 – 250 there, all pretty polite, and looked like a awayday for the retired.
Nice 30minute break while the GC was working.
soil (12:57:00) :
did you read the 2008 paper at the top of the list I linked to? that explains everything.
the 1997 study was low resolution, covering 20,000 years. the 2008 study study was high resolution, covering only the last 2000.
schnurrp (05:19:01) :
this is not a very important point, but since I love Soylent Green (the movie, not the food) I have to correct you.
The greenhouse effect was a rather important part of the world conditions (hot and polluted) that were the backdrop to the movie. The greenhouse effect and global warming were mentioned or alluded to by the characters several times. In one scene, Edward G. Robinson mutters “damn greenhouse effect!”
And everybody sweats a lot. 😉
Save the shark: “Brendan H …Foinavon…the burden of proof is on YOU to show the warming. SHOW IT. SHOW US…You have yet to do so.”
I was dealing with the entirely different issue of a poster who failed to comprehend written English.
Presumably, the warming you refer to is ocean warming. Here is an article with links to scientific papers that show warming over a 50-year period, much in line with atmospheric warming.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/06/ocean-heat-content-revisions/langswitch_lang/in
Smokey: “What data is used and how it is assessed and so on.” That is unreasonable, since the questioner has the resources and can find out for himself.”
Now you’re changing the goalposts. I take your point about sourcing data, but providing a link to a study can’t be too much effort.
“For instance, I’m still waiting for an answer to the hidden heat [although an actual climate scientist has answered that question in the link @18:21:56.]”
I’m not sure of the source of the phrase “hidden heat”, but it seems to be a misnomer. The oceans have warmed but at a slower rate than the atmosphere, so I’m not sure why the heat is supposed to be “hidden”.
Maybe OT but there’s a very cool spot in Siberia in Feb 2009
(data from GISS, shown on Climate4you). Have they turned off the steam pipes?
Completely off topic but worthy to be discussed:
http://www.universetoday.com/2009/03/20/ozone-success-story-nasa-video-of-enviro-action-that-worked/
Wally (06:06:03) :
The CET is a notorious UHI complex, I would be surprised if temps did NOT rise.
Ohioholic (07:59:06) :
Anomalies are an obfuscation. foinavon tries to say that we don’t measure temperatures but the anomaly is just a temperature deviation from a mean over a period of time.
S/he is trying to be clever by admitting that global temperature is a farce then saying they don’t use global temperatures, rather anomalies and that of course IS valid.
DaveE.
Presumably, the warming you refer to is ocean warming. Here is an article with links to scientific papers that show warming over a 50-year period, “”much in line with atmospheric warming.””
So…..the heat goes directly into the ocean? No pipeline? Which is it?
Olimpus Mons (12:25:30) :
John B, but it does not matter to any rational person if it was higher or not. Just the existence of should cast doubts over agw to any sane person.
We’re not talking about ‘rational’ people It has to be ‘proved’ to be at least as warm, (which it likely was,) to discount this current warming as unexceptional.
DaveE.
Robert Austin (08:41:10) :
wrote,
Eric (18:21:50) :
“The reason this has been observed in the Malinkovich cycles, was because periodic changes in orbital tilt kicked off a warming cycle in the northern hemisphere due reduction in albedo.
The CO2 emissions were of increased temperature, and but also produced a further increase in temperature, based on the evidence of the 400,000 year Vostock Ice core data, and modeling of these effects.”
Eric mistakes hypothesis for fact in making this assertion. The fundamental forcing of CO2, possibly modifed by an unknown feedback factor, is still unknown. So the role of CO2 in ice age cycles is still in the realm of conjecture.”
The greenhouse theory explains why the earth is 32C cooler than its radiation temperature. Without it, the nightime temperatures would be much colder. The basic explanation is 150 years old, and since the late 1950’s spectroscopic measurements have refined it to be one of the most accurately understood mechanisms that acts to set the atmospheric temperature. This makes it more than a conjecture, it is a scientific theory accepted by climate researchers.
A 2008 survey by Roger Pielke et. al. of climate scientists who published in the past year showed that ,
http://climatesci.org/2008/02/22/is-there-agreement-amongst-climate-scientists-on-the-ipcc-ar4-wg1/
“4. Almost all respondents (at least 97%) conclude that the human addition of CO2 into the atmosphere is an important component of the climate system and has contributed to some extent in recent observed global average warming.”
When there is that level of unanimity about a scientific theory, it is more than a mere conjecture or a hypothesis.
Eric:
Ah, and there’s the rub.
“To some extent” can easily be equal to the ratio of anthropogenic CO2 to natural CO2: click
Since presumably these scientists are aware that natural activity emits about thirty three times as much CO2 as human activity emits, then they are probably responding on the assumption that while human activity causes some very minuscule warming, it can be completely disregarded as a concern.
Oh, and you’re not the first to attempt to promote the AGW/CO2 hypothesis to a theory. That promotion fails, unless you can falsify the current and long standing theory of natural climate variability. Good luck with that.
David Jones (12:38:54) :
But shouldn’t you take into account the previous summer (oh and perhaps the winter before that…. ad infinitum)?
Well, when you put it that way, it’s actually some nice climate we’re having, huh?
Brendan H (13:58:58) :
You’re quoting something I don’t think I ever said. It doesn’t look like something I would write. Please show me where it is. Thanks.
Re: Chris V. (22:45:27) :
I was really hoping someone else would take this up before I got back tonight. You will recall that in my earlier post I cited three reservations:
1. It is not presenting any new data or clarification of methods;
2. It was written specifically to reconcile their earlier publications with the IPCC 2007 report;
3. They appear to be claiming that their results are consistent with the instrumental record, which Anthony Watts’ Surface Station Project seems to be showing is badly flawed, and various proxy records which have been criticized in great detail on their own merits (e.g. bristlecone pines).
1. It is not presenting any new data or clarification of methods
I may have been a bit too (unjustifiably) emphatic here, however, none of the data is new and a full page of their five page paper is dedicated to a restatement of their papers HPS97 and HPS00, essentially telling the readers of this paper what they should have been able to deduce from the previous papers.
Of 18 cited references, 11 of them are to their own papers. I do not know if that large a percent of self-citations is unusual, but it does indicate that much of the argument is addressed in more detail there. You can accept their current interpretation or go back and read the original sources and judge for yourself.
The Integrated Reconstruction section does not appear to provide enough information to reproduce their work One would have to go back to their earlier work to understand the methodologies e.g.
“The century long trends from HPS00 were based on 616 borehole temperature profiles from six continents. As the T-z database has grown, updated century long trends have been estimated by others [e.g., Pollack and Smerdon, 2004; Huang, 2004], but for the purposes of this paper the small differences are inconsequential.”
“q(z) is the empirically determined variation of heat flux with depth z as reported in HPS97,”
I would also suggest that if the “small differences” are consequential enough to be mentioned in the paper, it would have behooved the authors to discuss why they were inconsequential.
I should point out that this discussion in no way impugns or invalidates their methodology or conclusions. They may have gotten it right. I’ll have to defer to others on the scientific merits.
2. It was written specifically to reconcile their earlier publications with the IPCC 2007 report;
One can often judge the true intention of an author by simply noting the number of lines he devotes to a topic. 25% of this paper was spent addressing the controversy generated by the IPCC reports and the MWP in particular. The following selections give the flavor of that 25%:
The reconstruction of past climate provides a useful context for discussions of contemporary climate change. The Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2007, chapter 6] addresses this topic … We have contributed to the development of the paleoclimate record as reconstructed from geothermal data in many publications [e.g., Shen and Beck, 1991; Huang et al., 2000; Huang, 2004; Pollack and Smerdon, 2004] including the discussion by Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [2007]…. The reconstruction of climate over the past one to two millennia has not been free of contention, because of its relevance to assessing the significance of 20th century global warming … We did not anticipate that a comparison of late 20th century and Medieval Warm Period temperatures would later become a contentious issue.
3. They appear to be claiming that their results are consistent with the instrumental record, which Anthony Watts’ Surface Station Project seems to be showing is badly flawed, and various proxy records which have been criticized in great detail on their own merits (e.g. bristlecone pines).
“The transient anomaly to a depth of 300 m is generated with a forward model that drives the surface with the 20th century instrumental record (land only) and the 16th through 19th century temperature trends from HPS00”
If I read that sentence correctly, much of the reconstruction is based on a model that uses 20th century surface temperatures…. Exactly the issues we are documenting here. I also get the impression that those same 20th century surface temperatures are being used to calibrate the model, which would explain the high degree of correlation. To suggest, as you did, that
“I haven’t seen any quantitative analysis showing the temperature reconstructions (eg GISSTEMP) to be “badly flawed”. Perhaps we will have that once Anthony W. does his analysis using only the best stations. But right now the only attempt (that I am aware of) was by John V. over at CA a couple of years ago, and he got the same results as GISSTEMP”
is merely disingenuous.
What I am suggesting is that when another study comes along to validate or confirm models and hypotheses that are being shown to be flawed, it is the new paper that should be regarded with a certain amount of suspicion.
Regarding Soylent Green: it is a common convention in the movies, or was, to inject some topical humor. John Ford, for example was always doing that. I saw Soylent Green shortly after it came out. The audience laughed at Robinson’s remark. You see, we KNEW that a new Ice Age was on its way.
As for that [self-snipped] chart. It would have been a lot better to let Dr. Akasofu supply his own chart. Lucia’s chart was used to illustrate a point that Lord Monkcton had been trying to make. Lucia is not a rabid admirer of his Lordship.
By the way, Anthony, where did Dr. Akasofu’s post come from? Is this a guest post?
Ron de Haan:
That link disgusts me. I commented on it, wondering how long my comment will stay there.
I despise these self-righteous idiots who actually believe they stopped the destruction of the ozone layer. These are the same chest-thumping neanderthals who believe that things we do now will “save the world” from gobal warming… watch for it, because you’re going to see a lot of it.
Yet another thing I used to believe in until I learned something about it.
Excellent deconstruction, rephelan.
The authors still cling to the current inbred, outdated and corrupt peer-review process, rather than daring to slug it out online — where it’s obvious they’d get demolished for their zero-sum paper.
What new knowledge have they added? It’s pretty clear the answer is zero. Yet they still get published simply because they’re in the good ol’ boy clique, and they wrote all the right buzz words.
Olimpus Mons (09:07:08) :
It’s fair to postulate the inverse. What can happen in the next 5-10 years, to make me an AGW believer?
Note: we live a pivotal time: PDO is negative, sun is quite, and something seems to be stabilizing temps…
a. If in the next 5 years Artic Ice depletion reaches a value between or less the 2007and 2008 values…
Olimpus Mons, I think you are setting the Arctic ice depletion goalpost much too to the current minima as the satellite record does not appear to go back before 1979 ( a short 30 years). Anecdotal evidence shows the Arctic ice extents to go through cycles with historical ice extents quite possibly as low as present minima.
Eric (15:43:45) :
Robert Austin (08:41:10) :
wrote,
Eric (18:21:50) :
“The reason this has been observed in the Malinkovich cycles, was because periodic changes in orbital tilt kicked off a warming cycle in the northern hemisphere due reduction in albedo.
The CO2 emissions were of increased temperature, and but also produced a further increase in temperature, based on the evidence of the 400,000 year Vostock Ice core data, and modeling of these effects.”
Eric mistakes hypothesis for fact in making this assertion. The fundamental forcing of CO2, possibly modifed by an unknown feedback factor, is still unknown. So the role of CO2 in ice age cycles is still in the realm of conjecture.”
The greenhouse theory explains why the earth is 32C cooler than its radiation temperature. Without it, the nightime temperatures would be much colder. The basic explanation is 150 years old, and since the late 1950’s spectroscopic measurements have refined it to be one of the most accurately understood mechanisms that acts to set the atmospheric temperature. This makes it more than a conjecture, it is a scientific theory accepted by climate researchers.
A 2008 survey by Roger Pielke et. al. of climate scientists who published in the past year showed that ,
Your stating that the mechanism is most accurately understood is just plain wrong. Not only is there a range of thought on the warming effects of atmospheric CO2 by itself (the amount of warming hypothesized by the doubling of CO2), there even less agreement, and by that token, solid science to show what feedback would be engendered by the presence of the major greenhouse gas, H2O. Sorry, you can pile up your scientists like cordwood but we are still at the hypothesis stage.
http://climatesci.org/2008/02/22/is-there-agreement-amongst-climate-scientists-on-the-ipcc-ar4-wg1/
“4. Almost all respondents (at least 97%) conclude that the human addition of CO2 into the atmosphere is an important component of the climate system and has contributed to some extent in recent observed global average warming.”
Appeal to authority. You should know by now that skeptics have been whacked with the cudgel of authority many times and just bounce back. Just let us look at the data and the science.
When there is that level of unanimity about a scientific theory, it is more than a mere conjecture or a hypothesis.
Unanimity does not make hypothesis into theory. Hypothesis becomes theory by being repeatedly challenged scientifically and standing the test of time. AGW most certainly does not fit this criteria. On the contrary, there seems to be a concerted effort to prevent the challenging of the hypothesis.
Smokey (19:16:58) :
Thank you. I agree with you that the peer-review process has become dysfunctional… as for the Huang et al paper, I don’t know whether it would be demolished or not. It needs to be replicated and analyzed, just like the two Jeffs have been doing to the Steig et al Antarctic paper. What I am tired of is having posters hype some paper as being “The One” – the skeptic crowd is latching on to
Falsification Of The Atmospheric CO2 Greenhouse Effects Within The Frame Of Physics
Authors: Gerhard Gerlich, Ralf D. Tscheuschner
as being “The One” as well. I’m paying a high price for my youthful disinterest in science and have a very steep learning curve to to overcome. The context and structure of the Huang et al paper tell me that it is probably not a block-buster that I have to research to finally reach enlightenment.
The de-politicization of science and restoration of ontellectual integrity would be a wonderous thing.
that was supposed to be “intellectual integrity” …. I suppose ontological integrity would be a nice thing, too
Smokey: “You’re quoting something I don’t think I ever said.”
The quote included your quote of foinavion. Check back to my (22:08:52) and you will see that I have included the time of your previous quote, namely Smokey (17:25:43). My apologies if that wasn’t clear.
Ohioholic: “So…..the heat goes directly into the ocean? No pipeline? Which is it?”
The term “pipeline” is clearly a metaphor which refers to the fact that the oceans warm up more slowly than the atmosphere. I’m no climate scientist, but as I understand it, the oceans are warmed by the sun and will keep warming until an equilibrium point with the atmosphere is reached.
Clearly, if the atmosphere is also warming, the atmosphere/ocean equilibrium point will be higher than if atmospheric heat were stable or declining, and because the atmosphere acts as a blanket, a warmer atmosphere helps the oceans to retain more heat.
In that case, the phrase “in the pipeline” would refer to a process of delayed warming.
rephelan (18:30:36) wrote:
I may have been a bit too (unjustifiably) emphatic here, however, none of the data is new and a full page of their five page paper is dedicated to a restatement of their papers HPS97 and HPS00, essentially telling the readers of this paper what they should have been able to deduce from the previous papers.
In scientific papers, it’s pretty standard to discuss the results/methods of previous work in the same area. I don’t see what that has to do with the accuracy of their current research.
Of 18 cited references, 11 of them are to their own papers.
Reconstructing atmospheric temperatures from borehole temperatures is a bit of a niche field- there just aren’t many other scientists doing it.
The Integrated Reconstruction section does not appear to provide enough information to reproduce their work One would have to go back to their earlier work to understand the methodologies e.g.
They provide the source of all their data (it took me less than a minute to find the borehole records on the web), and they provide the references where their methods are described. There’s more than enough information in that paper for anyone who understands terrestrial heat flow to redo their work. Why turn a 5 page paper into a 20 page paper, when all the relevant methodology is easily available in their references?
I should point out that this discussion in no way impugns or invalidates their methodology or conclusions. They may have gotten it right. I’ll have to defer to others on the scientific merits.
Agreed.
One can often judge the true intention of an author by simply noting the number of lines he devotes to a topic. 25% of this paper was spent addressing the controversy generated by the IPCC reports and the MWP in particular. The following selections give the flavor of that 25%….:
What do you think their true intentions are?
They appear to be claiming that their results are consistent with the instrumental record, which Anthony Watts’ Surface Station Project seems to be showing is badly flawed, and various proxy records which have been criticized in great detail on their own merits (e.g. bristlecone pines).
ALL proxies have to be calibrated against modern temperatures in some way, so your criticism is equally valid for those proxy reconstructions that show a MWP that is warmer than today. If you think that the modern temperature record is significantly flawed, then you have to throw out all the proxy temperature reconstructions.
Or maybe you would prefer they compare their results to UAH, rather than HADCRU?
http://cce.890m.com/giss-vs-all.jpg
Not much difference between them- certainly not enough to change the conclusions of this study.
“The transient anomaly to a depth of 300 m is generated with a forward model that drives the surface with the 20th century instrumental record (land only) and the 16th through 19th century temperature trends from HPS00”
If I read that sentence correctly, much of the reconstruction is based on a model that uses 20th century surface temperatures…. Exactly the issues we are documenting here. I also get the impression that those same 20th century surface temperatures are being used to calibrate the model, which would explain the high degree of correlation.
See previous response.
To suggest, as you did, that
“I haven’t seen any quantitative analysis showing the temperature reconstructions (eg GISSTEMP) to be “badly flawed”. Perhaps we will have that once Anthony W. does his analysis using only the best stations. But right now the only attempt (that I am aware of) was by John V. over at CA a couple of years ago, and he got the same results as GISSTEMP”
is merely disingenuous.
Maybe- but it is also correct. Showing pictures of some poorly sited temperature stations is one thing; demonstrating that those poorly sited stations are significantly skewing the global temperature anomalies is another.
What I am suggesting is that when another study comes along to validate or confirm models and hypotheses that are being shown to be flawed, it is the new paper that should be regarded with a certain amount of suspicion.
I don’t agree that the other proxy reconstructions are necessarily significantly flawed (though they certainly might be). Remember, there are 2 sides to that particular argument.
Besides, I believe the criticism of the bristlecones is that they are not good temperature indicators, not that they indicate some other temperature trend. If that criticism is correct, then you would have to throw out the bristlecone studies because they don’t tell you anything about temperature, and can’t be used as positive or negative evidence for any particular trend. In that case, you are left with judging the borehole temperature stuff on it’s own merits.
But if you think that the surface temperature records (along with the satellite temperatures, since they agree pretty well with the surface temperatures), are flawed, you really have no way of judging the accuracy of ANY proxy.
For the record, I have no idea whether Huang et als temperature reconstruction is right or wrong. I just know that it uses a completely independent methodology, and is in agreement with the others that show a MWP cooler than today.
CodeTech (18:40:41) : said
“Ron de Haan:
That link disgusts me. I commented on it, wondering how long my comment will stay there.
I despise these self-righteous idiots who actually believe they stopped the destruction of the ozone layer. These are the same chest-thumping neanderthals who believe that things we do now will “save the world” from gobal warming… watch for it, because you’re going to see a lot of it.
Yet another thing I used to believe in until I learned something about it.”
I used to just accept we have saved the ozone layer until a few things happened last year that made me contact Cambridge University and the Max Planck institute. There is obviouisly some concern and disbelief that things havent been fixed. Have you any other information you can link me to so we dont hijack this thread?
tonyb
You can propergandaall you like radicals BUT YOU ARE LIARS ,PROF WANG WHO WAS DOING THE STUDY FOR THE IPPC HAS BEEN FOUND TO BE FRAUDULANT IN HIS REPORT AND IS BEING INVESTIGATED ,ITS A BIT LIKE THE 500,000 SQ KM OF MELTED “ICE REPORTED BUT WAS FOUND AFTER IT WAS CHECKED ON GOOGLE ,A SCAM IS A SCAM ,NO MODEL CAN PREDICT THE FUTURE WEATHER CYCLES ITS IMPOSSIBLE ,C02 IS NOT EVEN A POLLUTANT YOU MORONS ,ITS ALL ABOUTTRYING TO CONTROL US AN CHARGE US A FORTUNE FOR POWER WHICH THEY WILL OWN BUT MAKE US PAY TO BUILD ITS A JOKE ,THERE IS NOT ONE BIT OF EVIDENCE THAT PROVES C02 HAS ANYTHING TO DO WITH WEATHER ,IN FACT IT HAS A 800YR LAG BEHIND IT IN MODELS AND IT TAKES THOUSANDS OF YRS FOR YCLES TO CHANGE ,NOTHING YOU CAN DO WILL CHANGE ANYTHING YOU NITWITS ,WASNT IT FLANNERY WHO SAID PUMP SULPHER INTO THE ATMOSPHERE WITH JET FUEL?SURE WAS ,I MEAN WHAT KIND OF IDIOT WOULD SUGGEST THAT ?? KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK AND EXPOSE THESE FRAUDS .
Reply: Your comments are appreciated, but there is no need to use all caps. Thanks. ~dbstealey, mod.
Brendan H (21:35:40) :
‘In that case, the phrase “in the pipeline” would refer to a process of delayed warming.’
Ohioholic: It’s like saying the “check” is in the mail.
Re: Update #2
Anthony, instead of Akasofu-san’s
http://people.iarc.uaf.edu/~sakasofu/pdf/recovery_little_ice_age.pdf
report, he has a newer variant that is only 50 MB and is date 3/19/2009, see
http://people.iarc.uaf.edu/~sakasofu/pdf/two_natural_components_recent_climate_change.pdf
(1) The Recovery from the Little Ice Age
(A Possible Cause of Global Warming)
and
(2) The Multi-decadal Oscillation
(The Recent Halting of the Warming)
(2) is PDO.
It has the same image that you used, see figure 2b. I haven’t compared the two closely, but did print out the new one to read in my copious free time. 🙂
REPLY: Thanks I kept trying to download the first one and got timeouts. I don’t know why his PDF’s are so large. – Anthony
More Malthusian junk science from the Guardian today relying heavily on James Lovelock and eugenics. It is so full of factual errors that I don’t know where to begin.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/22/environment-population-conference-britain
The subtext of the whole article can be summed up like this “Cut your carbons, accept population control and Green politics otherwise lots of coloured people will be living next door to you!!”
Talk about exploiting xenophobia to advance a political agenda.
The article then ends with a bunch of numbers to make people feel that we are exploiting the planet’s resources well past sustainable levels.
TonyB (00:59:55) From this article: Journal of Physical Chemistry, 2007, DOI: 10.1021/jp067660w
“scientists can no longer account for 60 percent of the observed ozone depletion. Although it is still thought that chlorine based catalytic reactions are the major cause of ozone depletion, we no longer have a strong link between theory, experiment, and observation.”
This question is for foinavon and anyone who’d like to reply:
Why have we been relying on climate models for policy before those models have been proven?
Ie. if today we’re debating whether the IPCC scenario-casts are coming true or not, then even if they are, why did we start making policy in Kyoto back in 1997? I thought the whole point about science was that you rely on evidence, like evidence that your models’ predictions come true.
Regarding this article again
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/22/environment-population-conference-britain
Note the eugenicist creed, only young healthy foreigners should be allowed into a country. All the rest should be sent away.
I can’t help but raise a Godwin here but the Nazis treated Jews like that. Healthy ones in the factories, and the rest…
foinavon (12:09:15)
“We know very well why the Earth cam out of the ice age between 15,000-10,000 years ago. Google “Milankovitch cycles.”
While I’m somewhat of a novice that doesn’t seem very likely, particularly the first part about “We know very well”. It sounds to me like hand waving and more “Trust me, I’m right on this.”, and “the science is settled”.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles#Problems , especially the part about Effect Exceeds Cause.
If the Malinkovitch Cycles are so well know, perhaps you can predict the start of the next Ice Age for me. Will it start in the next 100 years, 1000 years, or 10,000 years?
MikeEE
I neglected to remark about this at The Futre at the bottom of the Wikipedia article on Milankovitch Cycles. This seems to say it all!
“Two caveats are necessary: that anthropogenic effects and that the mechanism by which orbital forcing influences climate is not well understood.”
MikeEE
” tallbloke (11:49:13) :
Here he is posing next to a mock grave in the bombed out cathedral…
What is it with this guy and his morbid fascination with death and WWII? ”
This keeps puzzling me, too, all those creepy references to “deniers’ and death trains and so on. I couldn’t see any connection whatsoever.
I presume Hansen’s preferred association of imagery is supposed to go like this: WWII – fighting fascism – I am fighting the good fight – therefore anyone who disagrees with me is a fascist.
Or something.
Chris V (13:22:40)
Re the new graph at the top of the post-
does anyone know which temperature anomaly is plotted on that graph? Is it some sort of composite of the “big four” (GISS, HADCRU, UAH, RSS)?
As I read the paper, it says the data is HadCRUT3: referencing http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/hadleycentre/obsdata/HadCRUT3.html.
On checking the link, I find it has been moved to:
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climatechange/science/monitoring/hadcrut3.html
On a quick eyeball, the graph given by Dr Akasofu and copied to the head of this post agree with the source data.
Ric Werme (16:29:40) :
foinavon (10:50:33) :
Yes, “exponential decay climbing…” is more explicit. But it’s difficult to describe a rising exponential decay in a single word, and an exponential recovery looks quite like a hyperbola. So I said “broadly hyperbolic”.
The point is that a hyperbola (or a rising exponential decay) tends to an asymptote but appears linear in its early stages. If, according to Akasofu, we are still in the linear phase of the recovery form the LIA (and Akasofu is quite explicit about this as can be seen by reading page 2 of the document that is linked to in the top article of this thread), then the Earth has (according to Akasofu) an extremey slow response to a change in forcing. That would support a very large climate sensitivity to enhanced [CO2], likely much larger than the 3 oC of warming per doubling that is the mid range of likeihood from a load of other analyses.
It’s not obvious what the asymptote is since Akasofu doesn’t give us any indication of what the relevant forcings are that gave us the LIA. If one takes the assumption (for example) that the LIA was a combination of reduced solar output combined with a suppression of the Meridonal Overturning Circulation that resulted in reduced heat transfer to the high Northern latitudes (there’s evidence for each of these), then the asymptote would be the surface temperature that accrues at equilibrium under conditions where the solar output isn’t suppressed and neither is the MOC.
“I’m no climate scientist, but as I understand it, the oceans are warmed by the sun and will keep warming until an equilibrium point with the atmosphere is reached.”
When do we reach the equilbirium point? Temperature is constantly in flux. This is sort of like looking at supply and demand, and deducing that since supply outstrips demand, prices should go down. That is the general concept, but since the economy as a whole is constantly in flux, such neat scenarios are hardly ever realistic. Is the price of the good being driven up by outside forces? Is the temperature of the ocean tending towards the atmospheric temperature, or the other way around?
Ohioholic (17:11:03) :
Sometimes it does, and sometimes it doesn’t. Of course, since CO2 is a greenhouse gas, a temperature rise always follows a CO2 rise, all else being equal. Some of the catastrophic warming events in the deep past were the result of temperature rises that resulted from massive release of CO2 (and other greenhouse gases) into the atmosphere.
Not quite sure what you mean. Obviously, if one wants to assess the effects of ocean oscillations on global temperature, then one really needs to consider the oceans en masse. For example if the Gulf Stream is suppressed somewhat (as seems to have happened during the LIA), there will be a reduction in heat transfer to the high Northern latitudes. However that doesn’t mean that the cooling of the northern oceans constitues “global cooling”, because the Southern oceans will warm somewhat since less heat is being carried to the high Northern latitudes. In other words without independent evidence that changes in the PDO (say) can themselves result in significant global scale temperature changes, one can’t make acceptable interpretations about its influence on global temperature. After all, if we were to choose the AMO record (say) to interpret global temperature changes we’d come to a completely different conclusion. It’s a bit like trying to assess the global temperature from the record of temperature in Central England…
That’s quite well understood. The saturation level of air as a function of temperature and pressure is known. When the water content exceeds the saturation level, the water will condense in the form of clouds and perhaps rain/snow. Supersaturation effects might apply and nucleating species (e.g aerosols or ocean salt) can affect the saturation levels.
Robert Austin (18:21:01) :
My statement isn’t gratuitious since it’s a simple statement of fact! I didn’t say that the climate senstivity is 3 oC, but that the scientific evidence indicates a climate sensitivty of the order of 3 oC.
I don’t think there’s much doubt about that. A few months ago this subject was comprehensively reviewed in Nature Geoscience with dozens of analyses discussed [***]. The evidence supports a climate sensitivty of around 3 oC, with very little likelihood that it’s below 2 oC. The upper limit is rather less well constrained.
Discussion of the climate sensitivity was entirely germane to my response to Smokey who was asking about heat still to come (“in the pipeline”!). It’s also germane to one of my criticisms of Akasofu’s notion of a “linear recovery” from the LIA. If we’re still in the linear phase of a relaxation from whatever forcing caused the LIA then (according to Akasofu) the Earth must respond very slowly indeed from forcings, and this indicates that the climate sensitivity to enhanced CO2 must be high (likely higher than the top value of the 95% confidence limit of 4.5 oC). I don’t think the climate sensitivity is as high as Akasofu considers it (by implication) to be….in any case the evidence doesn’t support Akasofu’s analysis.
btw, I don’t consider myself to be a “proponent” of AGW. I’m a proponent of good science and honest and competent appraisal of evidence. If the evidence were to support the interpretation that CO2 isn’t a greeenhouse gas and that it doesn’t have a significant effect on the Earth’s equilibrium temperature then that would be fine. I’m curious about the nature of the evidence that supports alternative views and that’s why I occasionally stop by here!
[***]Knutti R and Hegerl GC (2008) The equilibrium sensitivity of the Earth’s temperature to radiation changes Nature Geoscience 1, 735-743.
Abstract: The Earth’s climate is changing rapidly as a result of anthropogenic carbon emissions, and damaging impacts are expected to increase with warming. To prevent these and limit long-term global surface warming to, for example, 2 degrees C, a level of stabilization or of peak atmospheric CO2 concentrations needs to be set. Climate sensitivity, the global equilibrium surface warming after a doubling of atmospheric CO2 concentration, can help with the translation of atmospheric CO2 levels to warming. Various observations favour a climate sensitivity value of about 3 degrees C, with a likely range of about 2-4.5 degrees C. However, the physics of the response and uncertainties in forcing lead to fundamental difficulties in ruling out higher values. The quest to determine climate sensitivity has now been going on for decades, with disturbingly little progress in narrowing the large uncertainty range. However, in the process, fascinating new insights into the climate system and into policy aspects regarding mitigation have been gained. The well-constrained lower limit of climate sensitivity and the transient rate of warming already provide useful information for policy makers. But the upper limit of climate sensitivity will be more difficult to quantify.
“Not quite sure what you mean. Obviously, if one wants to assess the effects of ocean oscillations on global temperature, then one really needs to consider the oceans en masse.”
Is this not comparing two different things? You use anomalies for temperature, gathered from multiple sites, but net the oceans? Wouldn’t it make more sense to include Pacific anomalies with data gathered from that area?
The Earth’s climate is changing rapidly as a result of anthropogenic carbon emissions
But it isn’t. All we’ve got it urban climates changing and much of everything else is within the range of natural climate variability.
All the fearful far-fetched stories about birds migrating, ocean acidification, ice pack melting etc are just bad reporting from politically motivated journalists, bad scientific conclusions based on faulty methods, lack of understanding of natural variability, or short term observations where the researchers have jumped to premature conclusions.
I liken them to End Times prophecies that were made by people who didn’t understand the world they lived in or/and had ulterior motives behind their words.
foiavon,
If the oceans are no longer warming, then we have already reached the equilibrium temperature response from the increased GHG forcing which has occurred to date.
Considering the fact there does not seem to be water vapour feedback as well, a low sensitivity would be expected.
GHG forcing operates at the speed of light and speed of quantum physics. The greenhouse effect is just a 12 hour delay (give or take a few minutes and give or take the seasonal changes) in the time it takes photons from the Sun to escape into space. (It might actually be a 36 hour delay, but the same point is still made).
If those photons are not being absorbed into the ocean, then yesterday’s photons have already left the Earth and equilibrium is already here. Increased CO2 just meant it took an average 12 hours 1 minute for the photons to escape rather than the 12 hours it took before.
The sensitivity therefore is lower than the article you linked to and most likely around 1.0C to 1.5C and there is no long-term equilibrium to come.
Maybe somebody should start using a “time delay calculation” to constrain the sensitivity estimates.
Just Want Truth… (23:25:58) :
Akasofu is asserting without evidence that the warming of the last 100-odd years is the result of a natural “linear” “recovery from the LIA” (and overlaid by the effects of natural fluctuations). He doesn’t give any evidence for that assertion, nor does he make any effort to explain what the nature/mechanisms of this “linear recovery” is.
He hasn’t published this work (it’s essentially unpublishable as an unsupported notion). He has deposited a long account on his web pages. Inspection of this doesn’t give us any clues as to scientific support for a “natural linear recovery”, or its mechanism(s). On the contrary Akasofu merely asserts that one should naturally assume such a thing:
Akasofu (p 23): “It is natural to assume by glancing at Figure 1a that there was, as a first approximation, an almost linear increase in the natural temperature of 0.5°C/100 years from 1880.”
and:
“It is not the purpose of this note to attempt an accurate estimate of the gradient of the linear change or explore causes of natural changes.”
Other than that he presents a lot of local temperature reconstructions
Ohioholic (09:05:06) :
It’s the same isn’t it Ohioholic? For assessing the global temperature change you use a compilation of anomalies gathered from around the world to construct a quantitation of global scale change.
Likwise if one is interested in the effects of ocean oscillations on the global temperature record, it makes sense to sample all of the oceans, and not base interpretations on a single ocean basin.
Isn’t that obvious? Of course there is a difference in that the temperatures are assessing a response (global surface temperature changes), whereas the ocean oscillation analysis is assessing a potential contribution to the global surface temperature change. The point is that if there is a redistribution of ocean heat due to changes in ocean circulation such that one ocean basin warms a bit while another cools, one needs to decide whether we’re interested in global scale or local effects. There may be no nett contribution to global surface temperature, even if analysing only one basin (the warmed one, say) might inadvertently lead us to a different interpretation.
Olimpus Mons (08:35:59) :
Scientific publishing isn’t a free ride OM! One has to have a valid analysis supported by the evidence you present. There are lots of papers that don’t get published because they’re simply not good enough. All scientists have papers rejected. In general, one get’s over ones anger/annoyance/dissapointment, and puts the hard work in to address the criticisms of the referees, or one rewrites the paper and sends it to a somewhat “lesser” journal. In general one doesn’t whine about it on the web!
Dessler’s paper was pretty good I thought. They had analysed 5 years of satellite tropospheric and temperature data to assess short term changes in humidity as a result of short term changes in temperature. It has a good set of data over a five year period, the analyses are valid, justifiable and self-consistent, and the interpretations supported by the data.
I don’t know about the other paper you’re discussing.
MikeEE (05:58:35) :
The evidence indicates that the natural orbital cycles are expected to give us a very long Holocene. So no next ice age for 20000 years or more:
J Imbrie, J Z Imbrie (1980). “Modeling the Climatic Response to Orbital Variations”. Science 207 (1980/02/29): 943–953.
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/207/4434/943
Berger A, Loutre MF (2002). “Climate: An exceptionally long interglacial ahead?”. Science 297 (5585): 1287–1288.
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/297/5585/1287
Jeremy Thomas (07:44:41) :
thanks- so Monkton’s graph shows the HADCRU temps.
Did he say why he shifted the baseline? (I still can’t open the paper).
Maybe there is a good reason for him doing that, but I can’t come up with one.
It seems to me like a rather dumb thing to do- it only sows confusion!
Chris V.:
Since you can’t open the paper, this is probably what you were referring to in shifting baselines:
click
vs:
click
The reason, of course, is that the first CO2 graph is so scary when it goes up at almost a 45° angle. It’s alarming!
Chris V. (22:24:46)
This is my last post on the subject. If you would like to interpret that as victory over a Neanderthal opponent, feel free. There is no point trying to refute a blizzard of straw-man arguments presented in a sophomoric manner. I’m going to leave you with one little last thought. You wrote:
“ALL proxies have to be calibrated against modern temperatures in some way, so your criticism is equally valid for those proxy reconstructions that show a MWP that is warmer than today. If you think that the modern temperature record is significantly flawed, then you have to throw out all the proxy temperature reconstructions.”
I am frankly skeptical that any temperature “signal” of .1, .5. or even a whole degree can be teased out of proxy data. One does not need to compare numeric values. Think ordinally rather than numerically. I know that the MWP was warmer than today (whether the modern instrumental temperature record is flawed or not) because ancient tree lines are much higher than they are today and entire settlements are being excavated out of sites that were under the ice not too long ago. These, too, are proxies, but they are based on direct empirical observation rather than statistical manipulation and models. I’ve read the Huang paper. It’s interesting but unconvincing. If I’m unconvinced because I’m too ignorant to evaluate quality data, I guess I’ll just have to live with it.
In case nobody noticed, I have located the correct graph for Akasofu’s essay as well as the original paper where it appears. His paper’s PDF was so large that it refused to load until I had upgraded my Adobe reader. His graph appears in the PDF, but seemed to be well hidden from search engines (perhaps due to size) and with the double whammy of PDF reader failure and no good pointers from search engines, it took me awhile to find it.
The original essay was sent to me by email from an interested acquaintance, but contained no graph. Word to the wise. Always bundle your graphs and test essay in the same document.
– Anthony
“Isn’t that obvious? Of course there is a difference in that the temperatures are assessing a response (global surface temperature changes), whereas the ocean oscillation analysis is assessing a potential contribution to the global surface temperature change. The point is that if there is a redistribution of ocean heat due to changes in ocean circulation such that one ocean basin warms a bit while another cools, one needs to decide whether we’re interested in global scale or local effects. There may be no nett contribution to global surface temperature, even if analysing only one basin (the warmed one, say) might inadvertently lead us to a different interpretation.”
Perhaps, if you are after a global temperature, this is true. But, I had thought that you yourself dismissed the notion of a global mean as silly. Summer in one part of the world is winter in another. On the same day, you can break a record for heat and a record for cold. Wouldn’t the ocean temps contribute differently in these two scenarios? So, the ocean can contribute one way to one anomaly, and one way to another. Knowing that, I don’t understand why you wouldn’t attribute the ocean anomaly to it’s respective temperature anomaly and go from there.
Anthony, that new graph is much more illustrative of the point. I understand the original reason for posting the other graph, I have friends also. This one hammers the point much better, though, much less confusing.
foinavon (08:51:57) :
Perhaps I has a little snarky in calling your 3 degree clmate sensitivity as gratuitous but it does seem to be part of your boilerplate text. On the other hand, your prolific postings recently probably require some boiler plate text so as to prevent carpal tunnel syndrome.
I perused the Knutti R and Hegerl article that you referenced. It seems to be the old radiative balance equation leading to the feedback factor being adduced from climate models being trained to replicate recent historical climate. Then they delve into into trying to tease out greenhouse forcing from paleoclimate data. A substantial limitations section and finally the “obligatory” policy implications section.
While the article may lay out the “consensus” amongst climate scientists as to the range of climate sensitivity to doubling of CO2, there is nothing here that moves this agreed sensitivity range beyond the hypothesis stage.
The real problem is that scientists are being stampeded into coming up with hard answers while the science is in its infancy.
You say that you are not an AGW proponent but you seem to be a loyal and uncritical defender of the “majority consensus” so you appear to be a proponent to us. Then again, maybe you are just playing devil’s advocate, just to keep us on our toes. Anyway, I enjoy your posts even if I don’t always agree with them.
Dr. Akasofu’s graph posted by Anthony reminded me of Leebert’s graph: click
The IPCC’s wildly overstated projections are based on smoke and mirrors and do not withstand scrutiny.
rephelan:
You’re a faster learner than I was.
foinavon (10:08:48)
Perhaps you didn’t read the abstracts (I don’t have a membership so I can’t get the papers). Clearly, this isn’t settled. The first paper you link says the current 6,000 year cooling trend will continue for another 23,000 years and the other thinks the warm trend — and over time warm is a rarity — MAY continue for another 50,000 years.
I think you’ve oversold the certainty by a wide margin.
All in all, that’s kind of scary … much more so that having the climate warm by a couple of degrees…maybe not for me or my children, but for humankind.
MikeEE
Robert Austin (11:11:59) :
Fair enough Robert. I have to say your easy dismissal of Knutti and Hegerl (“the old radiative balance equation”) reminds me of my father’s dismissal of football (“a load of guys chasing a ball”). The radiative balance equation(s) do have the merits of a sound physical basis and pretty good physical and empirical support.
I actually find the paleodata pretty convincing. There’s a clear relationship between paleotemperature and paleoCO2 levels right through the last near 500 million years ….glaciations seem to be linked to greenhouse gas concentration thresholds…..major catastrophic warmings linked to extinctions are rather closely linked to tectonic events resulting in large greenhouse gas releases…and so on…To my mind there’s abundant evidence that supports these interpretations.
So clearly CO2 does have an influence on the Earth’s equilibrium temperature; the question is how much. And if we’re going to address that question we may as well address the evidence.
Anyway, I’m not trying to convince anyone. But I find it interesting occasionally to engage with contrary opinion and to assess its evidence. I have to say it often seems to be rather contrived. After all on this thread we have Dr. Akasofu asserting (without evidence) that the Earth has undergone a slow natural temperature recovery from the LIA that is still in it’s linear phase, indicating an extremely slow response of the climate system to changes in forcings, and Bill Illis [(09:20:28), and apols for referring to you in third person Bill], asserting that the oceans equilbrate with enhanced greenhouse forcing in 12 hours.
Clearly these are entirely incompatible assertions, and neither is compatible with real world evidence. If we’re going to address these issues I personally think we should engage with the evidence, even if we don’t like it very much!
OK foinavon me boy, why don’t you point out that “clear relationship” over the past 500 million years for us: click
MikeEE (12:15:58) :
foinavon (10:08:48)
That’s not quite right Mike. The Imbrie and Imbrie analysis of 1980 consider that the next glaciation won’t appear for at least 25000 years (it’s a bit of a dense paper, and it seems they postulate a cold period in around 25000 years but the next glaciation won’t be until around 55000 years from now). The “cooling trend” refers to the very slow cooling that started around 6-7000 years ago.
That analysis is reasonably well supported by more recent analyses. T. S. Ledley [Geophys. Res. Lett. 22, 2745 (1995)] calculate we have another 60000-70000 years of Holocene……J. Oerlemans and C. J. Van der Veen [Ice Sheets and Climate (Reidel, Dordrecht, Netherlands, 1984)] calculate the Holocene interglacial lasting another 50000 years…the Berger and Loutre summary I linked to describes evidence supporting a Holocene lasting another 50,000-odd years….and so on…
so there does seem to be a reasonable unanimity in the calculations based on the known orbital properties of the earth which underlies the glacial-interglacial cycles…the Holocene has get several tens of 1000’s of years to go.
The paleoclimate temperatures are better explained by a CO2 sensitivity between 1.0C to 1.5C per doubling.
http://img440.imageshack.us/img440/3291/co2tempgeotnc8.png
Here is another explanations of the paleoclimate.
These are the continental positions of the 4 major ice ages in last 620 million years.
Snowball Earth – 620 million years ago
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/15/SnowballGeography.gif
Ordovician Ice Age – 440 million years ago
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9b/MiddleOrdovicianGlobal.jpg
Carboniferous Ice Age – 300 million years ago.
http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~rcb7/300moll.jpg
Last Glacial Maximum
http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~rcb7/Pleistmoll.jpg
How about a really hot period like the Permian hothouse climate. Can you imagine what the temps were like at the equator of Pangea. How much desert do you think formed in the mid-latitudes? (Note that literally the entire Siberian craton in northwest of this graph turned into one big volcano 251 million years ago which probably lead to the Permian extinction.)
http://www.scotese.com/images/255.jpg
Smokey (13:06:59) :
That graph you’ve linked to is a poor example of an assessment of the relationship between Earth temperature and CO2 levels. In fact there isn’t any CO2 data there at all. The “CO2” graph is a model (RA Berner’s) of CO2 calculated according to knowledge of weathering rates, continental locations and so on. It’s a very nice model. But if we want to assess what the true relationships are between CO2 and earth temperature in the deep past, we should be looking at real proxy CO2 data.
Oddly, although whoever created that graphic, has cited Pagani et al, s/he hasn’t actually included Pagani’s proxy CO2 data….likewise s/he has erased the uncertainty ranges from Berner’s model, and left out the actual CO2 values. So, for example, Berner’s model determines a value for atmospheric CO2 in the range 2500 – 10,000 ppm at 500 MYA.
One should be skeptical of that sort of thing Smokey.
And there is a more essential problem with the analysis you’ve shown. Where are the data points? This is an obvious consideration in assessing the relationships between temperature and greenhouse gas concentrations, wouldn’t you say? One can only really assess this where there are contemporaneous paleo proxies for temperature and CO2. What one cannot do is to take the data from proxies that may be many millions of years apart and just draw straight lines between them, and then infer that all of the intervening values have been defined.
Where contemporaneous paleoCO2 and paleotemp proxies are available, there is quite a strong relationship between paleoCO2 and paleotemperature. Much of the data up to around 2005 is reviewed by Royer:
D.L. Royer (2006) “CO2-forced climate thresholds during the Phanerozoic” Geochim. Cosmochim. Acta 70, 5665-5675.
In the last few years, a large number of additional studies have strengthened this relationship:
R.E. Carne, J.M. Eiler, J. Veizer et al (2007) “Coupling of surface temperatures and atmospheric CO2 concentrations during the Palaeozoic era” Nature 449, 198-202
W. M. Kurschner et al (2008) “The impact of Miocene atmospheric carbon dioxide fluctuations on climate and the evolution of the terrestrial ecosystem” Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 105, 499-453.
D. L. Royer (2008) “Linkages between CO2, climate, and evolution in deep time” Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 105, 407-408
Zachos JC (2008) “An early Cenozoic perspective on greenhouse warming and carbon-cycle dynamics” Nature 451, 279-283.
Doney SC et al (2007) “Carbon and climate system coupling on timescales from the Precambrian to the Anthropocene” Ann. Rev. Environ. Resources 32, 31-66.
Horton DE et al (2007) “Orbital and CO2 forcing of late Paleozoic continental ice sheets” Geophys. Res. Lett. L19708 (Oct. 11 2007).
B. J. Fletcher et al. (2008) “Atmospheric carbon dioxide linked with Mesozoic and early Cenozoic climate change” Nature Geoscience 1, 43-48.
…and etc.
Anthony:
I noticed and am grateful. I’m also grateful for your suggestion to upgrade the Acrobat Reader. I thought I had the latest, but after the download said “done”, the paper wouldn’t display. I’ve got it now, but Lord, I hate technology.
foinavon:
I haven’t seen you address the topic of the post. IPCC models are wrong, observed data doesn’t indicate the exponential increase seen from IPCC models. In fact, with the MDO thrown onto the trendline, it looks pretty reasonable. Wattsupwiththat?
Sure, Dr. Akasofu hasn’t stated what the mechanism for recovering from the LIA was, so perhaps you could enlighten us as to what that mechanism is? If not, will you then contend that we are still in the LIA, since there is no explainable mechanism to end it?
foinavon as usual tries to re-frame the argument. Recall that his original unsupported claim was that there is “a clear relationship between paleotemperature and paleoCO2 levels right through the last near 500 million years.” The fact that it isn’t true doesn’t matter to Mr. foinavon.
foinavon now claims that the “graph you’ve linked to is a poor example of an assessment of the relationship between Earth temperature and CO2 levels. In fact there isn’t any CO2 data there at all.”
Not really foinavon.
The chart was extracted from data provided in a peer-reviewed publication reported in the journal Science, to which I subscribed for over twenty years. But for the sake of argument, let’s pretend foinavon is right, and not just being an obstructionist.
In that case, here is another chart that generally tracks the same ebb and flow of CO2 over the same general 500 MM year time span: click
Just as over short time spans, there is no cause and effect between rising CO2 levels and subsequent rising temperatures over long time spans.
Will still another CO2 chart convince everyone that rising CO2 does not cause, and never has caused, runaway global warming — or even triggered steeply rising planetary temperatures?
The answer is that such a chart will only convince those with an open mind. But those suffering from cognitive dissonance [CD] have, by definition, tightly closed minds. Since their minds are already made up, any facts contrary to their beliefs are dismissed out of hand, while being argued incessantly. This is in contrast to skeptics, who simply say, in effect: “show me,” or “prove your assertion.” A belief system is not necessary to be a skeptic.
On the other hand, those afflicted with CD have their egos inextricably intertwined with their personal belief system. Thus, they can not admit that their beliefs are wrong, no matter how many contrary facts are presented, without damaging or destroying their egos.
Many proponents of the AGW/CO2 hypothesis have begun to display signs of cognitive dissonance. As evidence accumulates that their hypothesis is wrong, they have simply become more adamant in their denial of reality. Any contrary facts presented only bring on incessant argument, and a constant re-framing of the original argument to suit the needs of their beliefs.
The famed psychologist Leon Festinger, who developed the original concept of cognitive dissonance, conducted numerous studies of the phenomenon. People became afflicted with cognitive dissonance because their belief system had become a central part of their identity; and therefore, of their very self. Any facts that were found to be contrary to their personal belief system were seen as an attack upon the self.
That explains why people suffering from CD are so resistant to any outside information that is contrary to their beliefs — even when that outside information has a completely rational basis, and their own belief system does not.
Festinger’s book, When Prophecy Fails, relates the account of a group of doomsday believers predicting the world’s imminent demise — even going so far as giving the particular date the world would end.
When the world didn’t end on the expected date, the true believers did not admit that they might have been wrong about their hypothesis. Instead, they became more, not less, convinced that they were right. They became even louder and more intense, and they proselytized even more aggressively following the failure of their world view.
Rather than admit that their doomsday hypothesis [e.g.: global warming] was wrong, they re-framed their argument [e.g.: climate change], and simply re-set the date the world was to end.
No matter what reality shows the rest of us, those afflicted with CD will become more and more extreme and illogical in the defense of their failed hypothesis. Because they can not admit that they were wrong. As CO2 rises while the uncooperative planet cools, those suffering from cognitive dissonance simply dig in their heels and become ever more adamant that their falsified beliefs are correct, and that the world is wrong.
In this instance, since global warming didn’t accelerate as predicted, we are now being told that global warming causes global cooling; that an enormous amount of hidden, undetectable heat is being held in some ill-defined “pipeline,” waiting to spring out at a mysterious, undefined “tipping point,” and trigger runaway global warming.
The fact is that spokespersons for the AGW/CO2 hypothesis would be traitors to the human race because of their profligate waste of resources if the AGW/CO2 hypothesis was correct [Al Gore’s five mansions; the IPCC’s partying on wine, brie and lobster in Bali, etc.]. But that conundrum is not real to those afflicted by CD. They don’t give it a second thought, because the gross waste of resources and the partying of others doesn’t directly affect their personal egos. CD sufferers simply have a blind spot when that type of behavior is pointed out.
To paraphrase George Orwell, those suffering from cognitive dissonance accept that black is white, down is up, evil is good — and global warming is causing global cooling. And they will never admit that they are wrong about their beliefs.
Smokey wrote:
“But those suffering from cognitive dissonance [CD] have, by definition, tightly closed minds. Since their minds are already made up, any facts contrary to their beliefs are dismissed out of hand, while being argued incessantly. This is in contrast to skeptics, who simply say, in effect: “show me,” or “prove your assertion.”
“Any contrary facts presented only bring on incessant argument, and a constant re-framing of the original argument to suit their beliefs.”
As always way to CALL IT LIKE IT IS, Smokey. You are like a damn good BIRD-DOG ON THE HUNT and don’t ever lose track. Roof roof ROOF!
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
foinavon and Smokey,
A few months ago, I also charted up Pagani’s and Berner’s CO2 estimates over the past 67 million years versus the high resolution temperature estimates from Zachos (thanks to foinavon for forcing me to do so a few months ago).
Once again, I think foinavon will have cognitive dissonance.
http://img172.imageshack.us/img172/2464/tempvsco267m.png
One of these days, I’ll extend this farther back in time but I’m not sure we have good enough temperature and CO2 data going back that far as compared to the very high resolution numbers from Pagani and Zachos in the recent (back to the dinosaurs) past.
foinavon-
Back before the super continent Pangea started to break up during the Cretaceous (about 150 million years ago), the layout of the earths land mass was very different than today. Do you know if there is any evidence for different CO2 sensitivities when the layout and location of the continents were different?
You seem to have good access to the science journals, so I thought I’d ask.
Foinavion:
Question: what are the proxies for CO2 in each of those papers you have brought into the discussion, and if there are better ways of measuring CO2 via proxy, is there a chart that shows an updated plotting of CO2 and temps over the earths recoverable history?
Ohioholic: “When do we reach the equilbirium point?”
I guess it’s at the point when we reach equilibrium.
More technically, it’s when the climate system has fully responded to CO2-induced warming. Clearly, as with supply and demand, it’s probably not possible to reach full, stable equilibrium.
But to continue the analogy, supply and demand are usually tending towards equlibrium, and all else being equal, prices will fall when supply outstrips demand and vice versa.
Interesting. Can you draw a supply/demand curve for CO2 warming? Or is this speculation?
Smokey (03:03:59) :
“Interesting. Can you draw a supply/demand curve for CO2 warming? Or is this speculation?”
No Smokey, it’s wishful thinking.
Chris V. (19:42:22) :
foinavon-
Back before the super continent Pangea started to break up during the Cretaceous (about 150 million years ago), the layout of the earths land mass was very different than today. Do you know if there is any evidence for different CO2 sensitivities when the layout and location of the continents were different?
Good question. I was thinking along similar lines on reading Bill Illis (14:21:06) comments in which I assume Bill is ascribing the dominant cause of glaciations to continental locations. Obviously the location of significant continental land over one or both poles does make the sustained build up of low latitude ice more favourable, and so I expect that the greenhouse gas thresholds will be higher for minimizing glaciations with large land masses at/near the pole(s).
Clearly the greenhouse gas concentrations are important. For example around 303 MYA greenhouse gas levels were highish (~1500 ppm) and the Earth was warmish….300 MYA greenhouse gas levels had dropped to around 400 ppm and there was a very significant glaciation. The continents didn’t move much in the intervening period. Likewise 266 MYA CO2 levels were low (400-ish ppm) and the Earth was cold….265 MYA greenhouse gas levels seem to have risen to around 2000 ppm and the Earth was warm. Again the continents didn’t move significantly during that period.
The other consideration is the solar constant which was considerably weaker in the past (by around 4% in the late Ordovician about 450 MYA, compared to now). The sun is getting progressively warmer. So it’s considered that the thresholds for glaciations were 2500-3000ish ppm of CO2 in the late Ordovician (i.e. above around that level of greenhouse gas, significant glaciation was unsupportable), whereas now the threshold for glaciation is considered to be of the order of 500 ppm.
I’m not sure about a more specific answer to your question. I’ll have a look see tonight and if I discover anything relevant I’ll post it tomorrow…
Brendan H (23:34:52) :
Unless there is an outside force, in my example a price floor. In temperature, well, we just don’t know, do we?
Foinavon, one also has to take into consideration the development of fresh water sources that feed into various parts of the oceans. It takes a while for these sources to become significant fresh water dumps (river bed erosion, collection, etc). One such example of this effect is the theory that ice ages can expand, retreat, then suddenly expand again due to plugging and unplugging of fresh water sources that send a rush of fresh, cold water into conveyor belt oceanic currents, causing a re-advance of glaciation.
foinavon:
I see you posted here today, and I was just curious if you could also find and post tomorrow the mechanism responsible for ending the LIA so that we can exclude it from the present warming? Thanks.
foinavon (05:46:16) :
…whereas now the threshold for glaciation is considered to be of the order of 500 ppm…
Oh, were it to be true that man could avoid the next ice age by pumping up atmospheric CO2 to over 500ppm. I hope you are correct, foinavon, for mankind’s sake but it just sounds just too good to be true.
What is instructive about Smokey’s diagnosis of foinavon’s cognitive dissonance – is its clinical accuracy. In clinical cases of CD, a subject becomes ever more uncomfortable as the magnitude of dissonant cognition increases. There are then predictable reactions exhibited to reduce the discomfort:
1) Changing cognitions: If two cognitions are discrepant, a person can simply change one to make it consistent with the other. Or a person can change each cognition in the direction of the other.
2) Altering importance: Since the discrepant and consonant cognitions must be weighed by importance, it may be advantageous to alter the importance of the various cognitions.
3) Adding cognitions: If two cognitions cause a certain magnitude of dissonance, that magnitude can be reduced by adding one or more consonant cognition.
In the case of foinavon, he initially utilizes the first method 1) – changing or reframing the argument to question the validity of the CO2 graph, claiming it does not contain “CO2 values, data points, contemporaneous paleo proxies,” etc.
Foinavon then utilizes the second reaction 2) – altering the importance of the dissonant congnition: “What one cannot do is to take the data from proxies that may be many millions of years apart and just draw straight lines between them…”
Finally, foiavon uses the third reaction 3) – adding consonant cognitions, by listing references to recent “studies” that are duly consonant with his belief system (i.e. paleo CO2 drives temp).
In the art of argumentation if your opponent says a driver is negligent because he ran over a person, you say yes, but he’s only slightly negligent because he could have run over two or three people. Cognitive dissonance, argumentation, bait and switch. All tactical approaches to altering perception of fact. Mr. foinavon amply demonstrates his programmatic refusal to accept evidence disproving his belief in AGW. That’s cognitive reality.
Al Gore tried to sell the [repeatedly falsified] notion that a rise in CO2 causes a rise in temperature. BZ-Z-Z-ZT!! *WRONG*
As we now know, CO2 rises follow temperature rises, sometimes by centuries. Al played games with his CO2/temp chart, and he was caught.
This peer-reviewed data chart shows that there is no causation between a rise in CO2 and a subsequent rise in temperature: click
And this entirely separate chart, based on different peer-reviewed data, supports the data in the first one: click
More recent historical charts [including Gore’s] show the same thing: rises in CO2 follow rises in temperature.
Since cause can not precede effect, a rise in CO2 can not cause a preceding increase in temperature. What actually occurs is that a rise in temperature triggers a subsequent rise in CO2 — just as opening a warm beer will emit much more CO2 than opening a cold one. When the oceans warm, CO2 is emitted.
And thus the AGW/CO2 hypothesis goes down in flames.
Al Gore tried to sell the [repeatedly falsified] notion that a rise in CO2 causes a rise in temperature. BZ-Z-Z-ZT!! *WRONG*
Sssshhhh, there’s a consensus
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consensus_reality
Consensus reality refers to the agreed-upon concepts of reality which people in the world believe are real (or treat as real); anyone who does not agree with these is sometimes stated to be “in denial… living in a different world.”
In the novel 1984, Orwell’s protagonist, Winston Smith, wonders if the State might declare “two plus two equals five” as a fact; he ponders whether, if everybody believes in it, does that make it true?
Yes, if Al Gore says there is a consensus of scientists who believe two plus two equals five, then it is so.
Smokey (18:05:27) :
Yes, in general where there are contemporaneous paleoproxies (i.e. paleoproxies for CO2 and for temperature that are temporally matched), there is a broad correspondence between the two, with cold periods associated with low [CO2] and warm periods associated with high [CO2]. One can identify greenhouse gas “thresholds” for cold periods or those with widespread glaciations. Due to the stronger solar constant as we move forward in time, greenhouse gas thresholds for glaciations become progressively lower (with a weaker solar output, higher greenhouse gas levels were required to prevent cold/glacial periods in the past). See papers cited in [foinavon (14:30:06) ]
No that’s incorrect. Whoever prepared your “chart”, didn’t include any CO2 data in it whatsoever (it’s output from a model). Whoever prepared your chart cited a Pagani et al Science paper, but chose not to put Pagani et al’s CO2 data in the chart. One only has to look at Pagani’s paper and your chart to see that’s the case…I can’t see any reason to pretend otherwise.
O.K. that’s a bit better. It’s still Berner’s CO2 model, but at least whoever prepared it has put back Berners uncertainty ranges. You can now see what I meant when I said [foinavon (14:30:06) ]:
“likewise s/he has erased the uncertainty ranges from Berner’s model, and left out the actual CO2 values. So, for example, Berner’s model determines a value for atmospheric CO2 in the range 2500 – 10,000 ppm at 500 MYA”
Your new chart shows some of the actual CO2 paleoproxy data, which is better still. You can see that it goes up and down quite a bit, and even though it broadly fits within the Berner envelope, the envelope of Berner’s model is so broad that at at most periods it encompasses atmospheric CO2 values that are compatible with both warm and cold (even significantly glaciated) periods.
What your new chart doesn’t show is any of the contemporaneous proxy temperature data or proxy data for general glacial/cold periods. Where this proxy temperature data is contemporaneous with the paleoproxy CO2 data there is a broad correspondence, with cold/glacial periods generally corresponding to low CO2 levels and warm periods corresponding to high CO2 levels. This now encompasses a large amount of data described in the scientific literature. I gave a list of several of these in my post above [foinavon (14:30:06) ]
foinavon (16:21:49) :
About that chart, and the topic of this thread.
Why does the IPCC appear to be wrong?
What natural mechanism ended the LIA, and how do we account for it’s continued presence, or lack thereof?
Sorry to be persistent, but I haven’t seen you address those topics that started this thread yet.
And, broad question for anyone here, why does the cold part of MDO appear to be getting larger?
Pamela Gray (06:29:18) :
Yes that’s true. In general those processes seem to be associated with events within the “modern” glacial period (last several 100’s of 1000 years and possibly more). So, as long as there are polar ice sheets and saline conveyor currents, there is the possibility of melt water pulses stopping or slowing down the main flow of heat from the equator to the high Northern latitudes. That seems to result in a bipolar “see saw” where the attenuation of Northerly heat transport from the equator (cooling North Atlantic) results in compensatory warming in the Southern latitudes (e.g. [***]). These might have occurred to lesser extents during the Holocene too…
I have been referring to the evidence that broadly speaking there seem to be “thresholds” of greenhouse gas concentrations below which significant glaciation is possible (e.g. the glaciation we are in now with very significant polar ice). Over very long time scales these thresholds drop as the solar constant has increased through time. However in general there is a broad correspondence between greenhouse gas levels and Earth temperature right throughout the last 500 million years when contemporaneous CO2 and temperature proxies are identified. Obviously within glacial, cold, warm or hot periods other factors than greenhouse gas concentrations can modulate the temperature on various timescales (e.g. Milankovitch cycles, or the D/O events characterised by the meltwater pulses you describe). The positions of the continents are important as Chris V and Bill Illis have indicated, as are the patterns of ocean currents…
[***] Barker S et al (2009) Interhemispheric Atlantic seesaw response during the last deglaciationNature 457, 1097-1101
Abstract: The asynchronous relationship between millennial-scale temperature changes over Greenland and Antarctica during the last glacial period has led to the notion of a bipolar seesaw which acts to redistribute heat depending on the state of meridional overturning circulation within the Atlantic Ocean. Here we present new records from the South Atlantic that show rapid changes during the last deglaciation that were instantaneous (within dating uncertainty) and of opposite sign to those observed in the North Atlantic. Our results demonstrate a direct link between the abrupt changes associated with variations in the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation and the more gradual adjustments characteristic of the Southern Ocean. These results emphasize the importance of the Southern Ocean for the development and transmission of millennial-scale climate variability and highlight its role in deglacial climate change and the associated rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide.
foinavon:
You must be ignoring my question. Why is that?
Foinavon, I have two questions for you:
1. Do you see how your contention that CO2 is a major driver is a similar argument to the Sun being a major driver of weather pattern variation? Your own posts bring up much stronger drivers than CO2. My posts, as I am not a believer in either the Sun or CO2 being a major driver, tries to focus attention on the much stronger (and longer term) drivers of weather variation that can last for decades, even past 6 decades.
2. Could you consider playing a bit of semantics with me and consider that we are, really, talking about weather pattern variations with regional affects (regardless of our differences as to what causes that) and that climate change is a parameter of our Earth that has to do with plate tectonics and axial wobble and tilt, IE address change?
Ohioholic (16:44:28) :
I don’t think the IPCC is wrong. The original figure that accompanied the top article, showing a comparison of recent climate simulations overlaid wth the recent temperature anomaly trend, showed that the simulations are broadly consistent with the temperature evolution. It indicated also that the IPCC projections have slightly underestimated the sea level rise which has increased at a rate somewhat faster than projected. The current picture that replaced the original one is rather fanciful. (I’m not going to repeat the points I made upstairs! [e.g. foinavon (09:20:28) ])
As far as the LIA itself, the evidence seems to support a combination of reduced solar output:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sunspot_Numbers.png
together with reduction of heat transport to the high Northern latitudes[***],
with some volcanic contribution (can’t find a reference at hand).
Since we can measure the solar output and the Gulf Stream density, either directly, or by proxy, we know that these have long “recovered” from the conditions that pertained during the LIA. The most likely cause of the end of the LIA is perhaps the relative stabilisation of solar output near modern levels. Presumably changes in the strength of the main Ocean conveyer currents, such that an intensification in its strength enhanced heat transfer to the Northern latitudes, were important. The ultimate cause of each of these isn’t known I think
[***]Lund DC et al (2006) Gulf Stream density structure and transport during the past millennium Nature 444, 601-604
Abstract: The Gulf Stream transports approximately 31 Sv ( 1 Sv = 10(6) m(3) s(-1)) of water(1,2) and 1.3 x 10(15) W of heat(3) into the North Atlantic ocean. The possibility of abrupt changes in Gulf Stream heat transport is one of the key uncertainties in predictions of climate change for the coming centuries. Given the limited length of the instrumental record, our knowledge of Gulf Stream behaviour on long timescales must rely heavily on information from geologic archives. Here we use foraminifera from a suite of high-resolution sediment cores in the Florida Straits to show that the cross-current density gradient and vertical current shear of the Gulf Stream were systematically lower during the Little Ice Age ( AD 1200 to 1850). We also estimate that Little Ice Age volume transport was ten per cent weaker than today’s. The timing of reduced flow is consistent with temperature minima in several palaeoclimate records(4-9), implying that diminished oceanic heat transport may have contributed to Little Ice Age cooling in the North Atlantic. The interval of low flow also coincides with anomalously high Gulf Stream surface salinity(10), suggesting a tight linkage between the Atlantic Ocean circulation and hydrologic cycle during the past millennium.
Given ample opportunity to respond, I must conclude that there is no viable mechanism, within the consensus, that we can explain that ended the LIA. This, of course, does not mean it didn’t happen. In turn, this allows Dr. Akasofu to use this unexplained, but observable mechanism. Yes? From that we can see that his point still stands. Which means that your original complaint is rendered moot.
foinavon (09:20:28) :
“Akasofu is asserting without evidence that the warming of the last 100-odd years is the result of a natural “linear” “recovery from the LIA” (and overlaid by the effects of natural fluctuations). He doesn’t give any evidence for that assertion, nor does he make any effort to explain what the nature/mechanisms of this “linear recovery” is.”
Neither, sir, do you. But since it happened, we can’t ignore it, can we?
That’s funny. I post, and there is your reply. Moderator! Stop that post!! 🙂
From where I stand, they do appear to be wrong. The increase they have been calling for is not in the observations.
On the topic of measurements and such, how do we sort out the anthropogenic CO2 from natural CO2 releases? Also, I have seen figures that claim what a certain country puts out in CO2, and I can even calculate my carbon footprint. How is it this precise?
“The most likely cause of the end of the LIA is perhaps the relative stabilisation of solar output near modern levels.”
So, the models have taken into account solar variability as well?
foinavon, tell me how sunspot numbers would add to the LIA. The Sun’s irradiance, the direct heating of Earth’s surface as the heat passes through our atmosphere, as well as bounced back heating from the greenhouse affect reflecting that heat back to the surface, has not changed to the degree that it would cool the Earth so much that the affect would rise above even tiny noise from Earth’s temperature variations during ice ages or tropical warming. Your source is not exactly the epitomy of irradiance knowledge. Site another one please.
Well, I checked back almost eight hours later, and foinavon is still trying non-stop to convince anyone who will listen that CO2 will cause runaway global warming. Despite all the empirical evidence to the contrary, I might add: click
So who are we supposed to believe? foinavon? Or our lyin’ eyes?
FYI, there’s no factual [ie: non-model based] evidence that refutes my post of @12:14:19. Rises in CO2 follow increases in global temperatures — and all the pontificating and citing of unread abstracts in the world won’t change that fact.
As stated above: since cause can not precede effect, a rise in CO2 can not cause a preceding increase in temperature. Are we all on the same page on that?? [Well, except for foinavon, who thinks CO2 makes temperatures shoot up]. click
What actually occurs is that a rise in temperature triggers a subsequent rise in CO2 — just as opening a warm beer will emit much more CO2 than opening a cold one. When the oceans warm, CO2 is emitted. Once again the falsified AGW/CO2 hypothesis goes down in flames.
Tough luck foinavon, me boy. The planet clearly disagrees with you and your always-inaccurate computer models. You’re backing the wrong horse.
Robert Austin (08:43:13) :
foinavon (05:46:16) :
“…whereas now the threshold for glaciation is considered to be of the order of 500 ppm…”
Oh, were it to be true that man could avoid the next ice age by pumping up atmospheric CO2 to over 500ppm. I hope you are correct, foinavon, for mankind’s sake but it just sounds just too good to be true.
It is not even laughable. Here we are almost at 400ppm and rising and the PDO’s etc are bringing the the global temperatures to stasis and possibly a slide down. CO2 cannot defeat the PDO and it wil stop and ice age?
Ohioholic: “In temperature, well, we just don’t know, do we?”
Now you’re sounding like Donald Rumsfield and his “unknown unknowns”. Didn’t help him much either.
That aside, the appeal to ignorance is a logical fallacy.
Smokey (19:17:19) :
Not really Smokey. Not sure where you got that from. I’m being quite specific on this thread….you seem to be engaging in contrived hyperbole for effect! The point is that if we’re interested in events in the past and want to understand causal factors and so on, one should engage with the evidence. Policymakers and their scientific advisors are not going to take much note of Dr. Akasofu’s unpublished and unsupported assertions. They’re going to assess the scientific evidence in its entirety. We may as well too!
No, the evidence doesn’t support that assertion. Oddly enought you’ve based much of your conclusions about past CO2 levels on a model (without apparently realizing that the Berner CO2 plot you’ve shown isn’t actually data). If one actually looks at paleoCO2 data and assesses these in the light of contemporaneous evidence from paleotemperature (or for signatures of a respectively cold/cold/warm/hot Earth), there is a general correspondence between CO2 and Earth temperature (high CO2 warm/hot…low CO2 cool/cool). Obviously since the solar output weakens steadily as one goes into the past, the CO2 concentrations required for warm/hot are lower now than several hundred million years ago…
It’s certainly not true that CO2 follows temperature….it can do of course. Analysis of the glacial-interglacial transitions indicates that changes of global temperature of around 6 oC recruits an equivalent of 90 ppm of CO2 from ocean and terrestrial sources (i.e. the approx 6 oC of temp rise result in slow CO2 rises from around 180 ppm to 270 ppm over around 5000 years). That’s around 15 ppm per oC of temperature rise. The changes of many 100’s and 1000’s of ppm of CO2 in the deep past are certainly not the result of changes in temperature! For example there’s rather good evidence that many of the extinction events in the past were associated with major tectonic events that resulted in massive release of greenhouse gases (not just CO2) and strong greenhouse warming, ocean anoxia and so on (e.g. [***]). In these cases warmin g followed raised CO2.
[***]Wignall P (2005) The link between large igneous province eruptions and mass extinctions Elements 1, 293-297
Abstract: “In the past 300 million years, there has been a near-perfect association between extinction events and the eruption of large igneous provinces, but proving the nature of the causal links is far from resolved. The associated environmental changes often include global warming and the development of widespread oxygen-poor conditions in the oceans. This implicates a role for volcanic CO2 emissions, but other perturbations of the global carbon cycle, such as release of methane from gas hydrate reservoirs or shut-down of photosynthesis in the oceans, are probably required to achieve severe green-house warming. The best links between extinction and eruption are seen in the interval from 300 to 150 Ma. With the exception of the Deccan Trap eruptions (65 Ma), the emplacement of younger volcanic provinces has been generally associated with significant environmental changes but little or no increase in extinction rates above background levels.”
anna v (21:33:11) :
That’s not quite right anna. The PDO isn’t “defeating” CO2. The temperature statis of the last few years has occurred during a period when the warming trend of nearish 0.2 oC per decade would be expected to result in 0.05-0.08 oC of warming. That’s the amount of suppression of warming that has resulted from the fact that the sun has descended to the bottom of the solar cycle, the strong La Nina we had in the 2007/2008 season and any putative cooling resulting from some negative PDO indices. Despite the coincidence of cooling contributions 2008 was still a pretty warm year (“top ten”!). One can’t make all-encompassing conclusions from a few short years of observations when it’s well understood that interannual variations inherent to the climate system can easily give rise to fluctuations of a couple of 10th’s of a oC.
Brendan H (22:50:32) :
Hmmm. Okay, first of all it is generally true that we do not know all the factors that go into climate, but we can have 99% certainty of Hansen’s models? Which do appear to be wrong…
Second, you live your life in the climate you have, not the climate you want to have. ;P
Given the pattern of coastal increase in ice and snow, especially along the Atlantic shores, my theory is that the LIA was caused by a rare, somewhat synchronous, or perhaps rolling, cycling of oceanic oscillations to cold phases in both hemispheres. Once the phases started cycling out of cold sync again, things slowly, and in different parts of the globe (as they did while freezing up), began to thaw due to warmer currents. We do know this: in large temperature swings, cold temperatures do not invade our poles. The temperatures there, invade us. The only way that happens is if the jet stream loops more often into lower latitudes. Is this the cause? That may happen when trade winds blow hard, and in its spiraling back flow, pushes the jet stream into higher latitudes. The jet stream becomes more turbulent with deep loops and large breaks, allowing arctic temperatures to invade us. Plants die, cold water holds onto its bubbly, CO2 decreases. When the trade winds die down, the back flow has less strength, the jet stream becomes more continuous with fewer loops and breaks, the Arctic air stabilizes around itself, and we get warm wet pineapple belt on-shore flow that flies straight over us. The deserts bloom, warmer water frees itself of the bubbly, tree rings expand, CO2 rises.
I check back twelve hours later, and foinavon is still claiming that rises in CO2 do not follow temperature increases. Now he’s arguing with anna v. [“That’s not quite right, anna.”]
So, not really, foinavon, me boy. Give it up, you’re flat wrong, and as usual your disingenuous M.O. is to talk around the facts. Not even your AGW/CO2 global warming cohorts are still arguing that CO2 doesn’t follow temperature. It’s only you now.
I’ve provided plenty of charts proving that CO2 follows temperature, and only you completely disregard their veracity.
And of course, if you have any formal education in the hard sciences, you would certainly have let everyone know. You’ve certainly been asked about it often enough by others. Hiding out puts you in league with Mr. “D” in Science Al Gore, the politically-appointed UN/IPCC, and the rest of that notorious global warming ilk.
So once more, as everyone else here knows: Rises in CO2 follow temperature rises. I’ve posted numerous charts, based on peer-reviewed data, which show this to be a fact.
You have done nothing to overcome that assertion. Nothing. In other words, your position has been falsified. CO2 is not the culprit, no matter how much you wish it were so.
But I do have some sympathy for your plight, which is caused by irreversible cognitive dissonance. You have wired around your On/Off switch. You cannot accept simple facts. Your self, your ego, is way too tied up in believing, in the face of all evidence to the the contrary, that a minor trace gas is gonna getcha. And you try incessantly, for many hours each day, to convince everyone that CO2 is going to get us all. No doubt, you wander the streets of your village with a sandwich board saying the same thing.
Pamela Gray (18:30:20) :
Irradiance (TSI) correlates with sunspot numbers and in fact sunspot numbers can be utilised in one method of reconstructing TSI :
Balmaceda L. et al (2007) Reconstruction of solar irradiance using the group sunspot Adv. Space. Res. 40, 986-989.
Abstract: We present a reconstruction of total solar irradiance since 1610 to the present based on variations of the surface distribution of the solar magnetic field. The latter is calculated from the historical record of the Group sunspot number using a simple but consistent physical model. Our model successfully reproduces three independent data sets: total solar irradiance measurements available since 1978, total photospheric magnetic flux from 1974 and the open magnetic flux since 1868 (as empirically reconstructed from the geomagnetic aaindex). The model predicts an increase in the total solar irradiance since the Maunder Minimum of about 1.3 Wm(-2).
Other TSI reconstructions also indicate a small reduction in TSI during this period:
e.g. Wang YM, Lean JL, Sheeley NR (2005) Modeling the sun’s magnetic field and irradiance since 1713 Astrophys. J. 625, 522-538
Since the TSI seems to have been reduced during that period, then the solar contribution to changes in global temperature during the LIA would have been a cooling one. It wouldn’t have been large. The solar cycle has about a 1 W/m2 max to min variation, and this gives a temperature response of the order of 0.1 oC. However this is a damped response since the sun cycles faster than the earth’s climate system can come to equilibrium. A persistent reduction of 1 W/m2 might give 0.2-0.3 oC of global cooling, and that would certainly be significant in the context of the total cooling during the LIA.
Likewise studies of proxies for cold periods during the LIA (e.g. glacial advance) show a correlation with other other proxies of solar output (e.g. 14C production) :
G. Bond et al. (2001) Persistent Solar Influence on North Atlantic Climate During the Holocene Science 294, 2130-2136
abstract: Surface winds and surface ocean hydrography in the subpolar North Atlantic appear to have been influenced by variations in solar output through the entire Holocene. The evidence comes from a close correlation between inferred changes in production rates of the cosmogenic nuclides carbon-14 and beryllium-10 and centennial to millennial time scale changes in proxies of drift ice measured in deep-sea sediment cores. A solar forcing mechanism therefore may underlie at least the Holocene segment of the North Atlantic’s “1500-year” cycle. The surface hydrographic changes may have affected production of North Atlantic Deep Water, potentially providing an additional mechanism for amplifying the solar signals and transmitting them globally.
G. C. Wiles et al. (2008) Century to millennial-scale temperature variations for the last two thousand years indicated from glacial geologic records of Southern Alaska Global and Planetary Change 60, 115-125
This paper shows that glacial advance and retreat is temporally correlated with solar output as indicated by 14C isotope production/sunspot/TSI reconstruction.
So I don’t think one can rule out some contribution from changes in solar output to the LIA
Is foinavon a solar expert too?
foinavon,
How about if you give us access to this huge database of science papers and abstracts you have.
You are quoting from Advanced Space Research, Science, and Global and Planetary Change and that is just in your last post.
There must be an occassional paper which shows up in your database with a title that says “oops, once again, our climate models are off by more than 50% ” or “yes, we fudged the numbers again but it was for a good cause”.
foinavon’s database is google. Prove me wrong, foinavon. Post your database right here, right now.
foinavon is using the tired old troll tactic of attempting to overwhelm us “lesser” intelligences with his superior intelligence and command of stuff like – your 500M year chart doesn’t have 500M data points affixed, so it must be wrong.
Gentle people this is a virtual troll at work who follows a programmed agenda to “delay, defer and deny.” It is taught in class. It is an old tactic based on obfuscation. However take note that nearly all of foinavon’s citations are from “model” studies. A more accurate phrase is “computer simulation.” Computer simulations are the vain attempt of the alarmists to hide real science under a pile of obfuscationary geek talk. The hope is they’ll bore us all to death and we’ll knuckle under and pay their ransom demand.
Not on my watch.
foinavon:
Irradiance (TSI) correlates with sunspot numbers and in fact sunspot numbers can be utilised in one method of reconstructing TSI :
Of course! It must be the sun! Sounds vaguely familiar.
Again, if IPCC models can’t predict past climates (they came out too warm, if memory serves), why can they predict future climates?
Ohioholic (13:43:28) :
The climate models actually do a good job of simulating past climate (at least for the past century or so).
http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/wg1-report.html
Page 60 in the Technical Summary shows a good comparison of model results versus actual temperatures going back to about 1910.
Naturally, those with a vested interest in computer models will claim they are good at predicting the climate. But the proof of the pudding is in the eating.
No computer model, not a single one, predicted the severity of this past N.H. winter.
Chris V.
The models build in about 1.2C increase from GHGs and about 0.4C of negatives to match up to the temperature records.
Now I know these numbers add up to 0.8C which is higher than the current increase in temps from 1900 of about 0.5C but the models are currently far off the actual temperature trend.
So, there should be two conclusions from this. The models are currently far off actual temperatures and they applied a number of fudge factors to make the GHG theory match up to temperatures in the hindcasts.
Since you made this claim, I imagine you haven’t seen these two charts.
http://img183.imageshack.us/img183/6131/modeleghgvsotherbc9.png
http://img25.imageshack.us/img25/478/modeleextra.png
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/findstation.py
If you stop counting 54 stations in Russia, it may get a little warmer. How many are in Siberia?
Smokey (15:45:09) :
Is my statement incorrect? You can go to the link I posted and judge for yourself, if you wish.
But I agree with you that climate models don’t predict the weather very well. But then again, they’re not designed to.
58 scenarios, 14 models. 812 actual observations. 1 a day for two and a half years, roughly. Forgive me for being skeptical. There is a huge yellow patch around a red line that is the mean of 812 observations. It resembles a blind man playing darts.
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/station_data/
Ok, the other link did not work. Use this one and click on Russia. Count the dropouts from 90 and before. There is a lot.
Bill Illis (16:14:34) :
I have seen those graphs before. I’m a little confused about what they actually are showing, but I do have some comments (of course! 😉 )
For this graph: http://img25.imageshack.us/img25/478/modeleextra.png
Where did the projected trend (the green line) come from? The modelers normally do an ensemble of runs, and then plot their projections as a range of long-term trends. (Dr. Akasofu’s figure at the top of this post gives a good idea of how the modelers typically present their projections). That trendline should really be a range of trends.
Secondly, the trend seems to start at the monthly temperature for January 2004. Plotting the trend starting at a specific monthly temperature value is clearly wrong, because there is so much month to month variability in temperatures. If the graph had started that trendline, say, nine months earlier, the projected temperature to today would be 0.1 degree lower. I think that graph should extend the trend line from something like a five or ten year smoothed line, or maybe a ten year trendline, ending at January 2004, rather than the monthly value for January 2004.
Thirdly, the graph is comparing a projected long term trendline (plotted incorrectly) to monthly temperatures. In the temperature record, monthly temps fluctuate by several tenths of a degree above and below the long term trend, and they will continue to fluctuate about the long term trend line in the future. The long term trendlines are not meant to predict the month to month or even year to year variability. Again, it would be more accurate to compare the projected trends to long term smoothed data or trendlines.
Finally, even doing all that, 5 years of data is not enough time to establish any meaningful long term trend- just look at the short term temperature fluctuations in the historic temperature record.
Guess my point would be that their global temperature is not right. Their baseline is too low for the data, too.
foinavon (09:46:09) :
Balmaceda L. et al (2007) Reconstruction of solar irradiance using the group sunspot Adv. Space. Res. 40, 986-989.
Our model successfully reproduces three independent data sets: […] the open magnetic flux since 1868 (as empirically reconstructed from the geomagnetic aaindex). The model predicts an increase in the total solar irradiance since the Maunder Minimum of about 1.3 Wm(-2).
Reproducing the rise in the open flux deduced from the aa index speaks badly about the model, because said rise didn’t occur: http://www.leif.org/research/Reply%20to%20Lockwood%20IDV%20Comment.pdf
The increase in TSI was very likely much smaller, like 0.5 W/m2.
Chris V.
All the data from the charts comes from here.
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/modelE/transient/climsim.html
And frankly, I have to credit to gavin and Hansen for putting up this page because it is by far the best climate model explained website on the net.
The simulations provided ended in 2003 (which is why the projection starts in Jan 2004) and I just pulled apart the different components of it and then extended those components to 2013. Nothing magical or untoward.
There is a couple of things which could change what I have done.
First, the solar forcing estimate could have been reduced by about 0.1C from what is included in this extention. With the state of the Sun recently, I imagine GISS has reduced this forcing by 0.1C now but I haven’t specifically heard them say they were doing so yet so it not included. If they did, I wouldn’t have a problem with it, it seems to be justified.
Secondly, the Aerosols component is flatlined. It had been more-or-less flat for about five years up to the end of 2003, but the Asian brown cloud could potentially increase the negative forcing that the models build in. On the other hand, the rest of the world Aerosol emissions like in the US, Europe and Russia have fallen which should offset any increases from Asia. [Personally, I think the theory on Aerosols is way off because the specific regions which should have been most affected by Aerosols have actually increased in temperature faster than anywhere else so if anything, they got the amount right but they got the sign wrong. Aerosols actually increase temperature or they have no effect.)
So there you have it. The models have too much GHG impact built-in and they matched up the historical temperature record by fudging negative components in.
Even things like the Volcano impacts do not match up with what has actually happened. The Pinatubo volcano is the closest match but even GISS Model E starts building in the impact 1 full year before the volcano actually happened. I have no idea why.
I guess I could go on, but one needs to go through a process like this to begin understanding how it plays out.
Just offhand, anyone notice that the area of observed temps around WWII is a decent spike?
Ohioholic,
Around WWII there was a major spike in CO2 and temperature, as recorded in over 90,000 CO2 measurements by Beck, et al. Check out Beck’s website here: click
“Presentations” is a good place to start. Click on the images. The site takes a little getting used to. The lower right corner of the images has notations such as: M – 1, etc. Click on those, too – and in the images that come up.
You will see that the figure of 280 ppmv for CO2 is not a long-term stationary figure, as some would have us believe. And the scientists [some internationally esteemed scientists, such as J.S. Haldane] who took those 90,000+ CO2 readings were far more meticulous than many scientists today, as they did it voluntarily, with no grant money to angle for.
Thanks for the ride in the wayback machine Smokey. 🙂
Also, for foinavon and Chris V., exactly where should our climate be headed? Up or down? This is an important question, because down too far, and life on this planet is in danger, up too far, and the same. We have a very fragile existence, to be sure. I take it, from your views thus far, you think we should be colder. Why is that?
Ohioholic, I think you’ve misconstrued the message: foinavon and Chris V. are coming from the position that CO2 is driving the climate hotter, not colder.
The opposing position [and it appears to be the position of most everyone else] is that CO2 has a slight warming effect, which is overwhelmed by other climate forcings; furthermore, that any additional increases in atmospheric CO2 will have a smaller and smaller [ie, logarithmic] effect, and can therefore be dismissed as inconsequential.
If I am wrong and the posters you mentioned now believe that the planet is getting colder, then since they have both taken the position that CO2 warms the planet, they should argue that we should ramp up fossil fuel burning, and especially coal use, post haste. There’s not a moment to lose, because cold kills.
In reality though, I think you’ve misunderstood their message.
And regarding Dr. Beck [why the ‘wayback machine’? Beck is very current, and he will personally answer your emailed questions], this page shows where we’re heading. Maybe the two posters in your comment above now accept Beck’s view, huh? It certainly makes more sense than Hansen’s apocalyptic alarmism.
No, that was an obscure (maybe) reference to Rocky and Bullwinkle. The tone of your post had the feel, on the first read, of one of the skits Sherman and Mr. Peabody used to do. Not an insult, I just try to impute voice inflections when I read online for some odd reason.
As far as my post to Chris and foinavon, I meant that I think they believe our climate would be better for humanity if it was colder. That is the general feel one gets from the tone of their posts. It is also nonsense.
Ohioholic,
Well, I can tell I’ve been at this too long today. I completely missed your meaning. It’s bedtime for Bonzo!
Growing up with Bullwinkle, I should have caught the inference. And of course, a few outliers believe a colder world is better; that’s what makes a market!
But in fact a balmier, somewhat warmer clime is most desirable. Hawaii and the Caribbean come to mind.
Take your pick, folks. It’s your choice: Hawaii, or Siberia? Fossil fuels, or windmills? Modern day medicine, or mud huts? Maseratis, or mules? Great grandkids, or death under forty? Cheap home heating, or cap ‘n’ trade? Steak, or mud grubs? Low taxes, or $Trillion deficits? A chance to get ahead in life, or equally poor? Cheap gasoline? Or Euro style mopeds? Freedom? Or coercion?
Let them know what you want! click
Ohioholic: “Okay, first of all it is generally true that we do not know all the factors that go into climate but we can have 99% certainty of Hansen’s models?”
I’m not sure that we are being asked to have 99 percent certainty in Hansen’s models. In any case, the fact that we may not know everything about climate does not necessarily invalidate what we do know. Furthermore, our degree of certainty depends on the quality of the known evidence, not the quality of any unknown evidence.
Speaking of the “appeal to ignorance”:
1. foinavon (09:20:28) wrote:
“Akasofu is asserting without evidence that the warming of the last 100-odd years is the result of a natural “linear” “recovery from the LIA” (and overlaid by the effects of natural fluctuations). He doesn’t give any evidence for that assertion, nor does he make any effort to explain what the nature/mechanisms of this “linear recovery” is.”
2. This was the first form of an “appeal to ignorance” as described by Wikipedia:
The two most common forms of the argument from ignorance, both fallacious, can be reduced to the following form:
* Something is currently unexplained or insufficiently understood or explained, so it is not (or must not be) true.
* Because there appears to be a lack of evidence for one hypothesis, another chosen hypothesis is therefore considered proven.
3. Therefore, in response to foinavon, Ohioholic quite reasonably wrote:
“Neither, sir, do you. But since it happened, we can’t ignore it, can we?”
Roger Knights (22:39:58) :
Roger, we can’t use semantics and “logical fallacy hunting” to assess the validity of postulates/assertions. It’s science, so it’s all about the evidence.
If we’re interested in the LIA and the evolution of the Earth’s temperature since the LIA, it doesn’t help our understanding to be told by assertion that the recovery is a natural linear trend with some fluctuations superimposed. We’d like to see some evidence that might support this assertion. Akasofu doesn’t show any (his web site work makes similar unsupported assertions accompanied by a large number of local temperature reconstructions).
Those statements don’t constitute an “appeal to ignorance” of course, since I am neither saying that Akasofu’s hypothesis is necessarily false because it’s an evidence-free assertion, nor that another hypothesis must therefore be true. Those conclusions can only be made in relation to evidence. When we do this we can say that Akasofu’s hypothesis is unlikely to be true since it doesn’t accord with the evidence (ONE; see just below), and other interpretations of the LIA and its recovery are more likely to be true because these are supported by the evidence (TWO, just below).
ONE: If fact we know that if one considers global temperature reconstructions (rather than pulling these apart and making a selection of local ones as in Akasofu’s work), the temperature evolution doesn’t really look like a basic linear trend at all:
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/temp/jonescru/graphics/nhshgl.png
Additionally the evidence doesn’t support the notion that internal variations in the climate system can give rise to oscillations of the amplitude Akasofu postulates (see for example data cited in [foinavon (12:59:10) :]).
TWO: On the other hand the scientific evidence supports contributions from changes in solar output, changes in ocean heat transport to high Northern latitudes, and volcanic activity to the LIA. Since we can monitor these either directly or by proxy, we can see that the recovery from the LIA was likely complete by the middle-late 19th century. You can see some of the evidence that supports this interpretation in my response to Ohioholic here: [foinavon (17:51:44) ], and with a bit more detail on the solar contribution, here: [foinavon (09:46:09) ].
One of the reasons we prefer not to consider interpretations on scientific matters based on unsupported assertions or semantic arguments is that these are subjective and can often be used to misrepresent the issue at hand. Publishing the data in the scientific literature is a means of showing (to the scientist him/herself, apart from anyone else!), that interpretations are reliably supported by evidence. One might have though that Dr. Akasofu would publish his interpretations if they had a reliable evidence base….
Leif Svalgaard (19:12:01) :
O.K., that’s interesting, thanks. Do you consider that the “reproduction” of the rise in open flux that didn’t actually occur, precludes the reliability of their TSI reconstruction? I used a reduced value from Balmaceda et al.’s 1.3 W/m2 anyway, much in line with the interpretation of Wang, Lean and Sheeley[***]. What do you think about their reconstruction?
[***]Wang YM, Lean JL, Sheeley NR (2005) Modeling the sun’s magnetic field and irradiance since 1713 Astrophys. J. 625, 522-538.
Roger Knights, you’re feeding the troll. [That’s OK, I do it too — it’s just too easy].
After watching Leif (19:12:01) TKO foinavon for misrepresenting TSI by almost 300%, I’m surprised f showed his face again in this thread. No shame for being deconstructed. But notice that he didn’t acknowledge his misrepresentation, or thank Leif for the helpful correction.
So the M.O. is still the same: when refuted, ignore it and move the goal posts to a different location. Because if Leif is right, then the solar forcing argument pretty much goes away.
Finally, the pertinent question asked by Bill Illis @10:42:39 was completely ignored. It is a question central to this debate: “How about if you give us access to this huge database of science papers and abstracts you [supposedly]have.
“You are quoting from Advanced Space Research, Science, and Global and Planetary Change, and that is just in your last post.
“There must be an occassional paper which shows up in your database with a title that says ‘oops, once again, our climate models are off by more than 50% ‘ or ‘yes, we fudged the numbers again but it was for a good cause’.”
Any high school graduate can use google to search with keywords in order to sound as if he has advanced degrees in the relevant fields. But foinavon passes himself off as uber-knowledgeable in just about all climate related fields.
When he does it, though, he comes across like the conniving “perfesser” in Huckleberry Finn.
So I added to Bill’s comment:
As usual, no response to an uncomfortable question; foinavon hid out from answering.
It’s an important question. Why? Because like Huck Finn’s putative professor, the AGW/CO2 alarmists are running a scam. If, in trying to get at the truth through the give and take of debate, someone is shown to be off by close to 300%, and what’s left does not support their argument, then a reputable debater would concede the point. Instead, foinavon continues the discredited solar argument, ignoring Leif’s correction completely, and attacking Dr. Akasofu in a trumped-up argument.
This goes to the heart of the question: are foinavon, Leif and Akasofu intellectual equals? Or is foinavon akin to Huck Finn’s perfesser, running a scam by using his typical obstruction tactics and pretending he has a legitimate background and database?
So again, foinavon: post your database for everyone to see. Here. Now. Otherwise it’s clear that obstruction is your tactic, and google is you only real education on the subject.
Right, perfesser?
I can’t believe this thread is still active.
Smokey presented this broad reconstruction of the known history of CO2 measures. This chart look, with some variation, is much like all the charts showing the CO2 / temp records I’ve ever seen, including my brief time as a geology major. Foinavon wrote that this chart is incorrect. I asked, if this chart is incorrect, then what is the current broad understanding of historical CO2 / temps. He has presented a rebuttal which features studies of very specific time series, snapshots, if you will, of various bit in time where there may be strong correlation between CO2 and temps. But this does not answer the question: has all this study of paleoclimate history rewritten and invalidates the old CO2 / temp series, and where is the new chart showing this new understanding? Keep in mind that that would be a true scientific breakthrough, since the CO2 levels for any epoch is embedded within the rock.
BTW: Fionavon – Though we disagree on this topic, I appreciate that you are not one of the typical AGW flame throwers. That gets so boring. You present a well thought out and rational argument to support your POV…. even if your wrong!!! 🙂
“Those conclusions can only be made in relation to evidence. When we do this we can say that Akasofu’s hypothesis is unlikely to be true since it doesn’t accord with the evidence (ONE; see just below), and other interpretations of the LIA and its recovery are more likely to be true because these are supported by the evidence (TWO, just below).”
If you take 10,000 years of climate data randomly from what we know about the planet, what kind of climate are you likely to come up with? Is it like it is now, or is it cold and icy?
foinavon,
cite
I imagine you have seen how I’ve reconstructed Hadcrut3 global, tropics, northern hemisphere and southern hemipshere temperatures using just the ENSO, AMO and the southern AMO (which reproduces the temperature trend twice as good as any climate model) and,
… the linear trend which is left over is basically Akasofu’s proposition (I assigned it to GHGs but Akasofu could be right instead).
One of these days, I have to assume you are going to accept some other evidence (you seem too intelligent to just keep ignoring it – maybe that is what this whole thing is about – the evidence points to a conclusion which is half-way between there is no global warming to there is dangerous global warming – if one can just stay focussed on half of the evidence, it seems to confirm the side one wants to stick with – but the conclusion is in the middle – we should just be arguing about which side of the middle the answer is on).
Smokey (08:03:10) :
You need to relax a bit Smokey. There are at least two TSI reconstructions in the literature that attempt to determine the solar irradiance at the time of the LIA [see my post Foinavon (09:46:09)]. That of Balmaceda determines a (reduced) value of 1.3 W/m2. Wang et al determine a value of 1 W/m2. I stated that the TSI reconstructions give a value of around 1 W/m2. (There may be others). Leif Svalgaard suggests that those values are too high.
That’s fine isn’t it. There is pretty good evidence for a solar contribution to the LIA. We all know that changes in solar output have actually been small over the last few hundred years, at least in terms of the TSI, and the effect of the solar contribution is likely to have resulted in a rather small effect on global temperature (likely a few tenths of a degree at most most, during the LIA). The temperature reconstructions indicate that the reduction in global temperature at the coldest period of the LIA was of the order of half a degree averaged over the N. hemisphere. So we’re really back where we started. The scientific evidence supports a combination of reduced solar output, changes in currents transferring heat to the high Northern latitudes and volcanic activity for the LIA.
As for thanking Leif for his comment, I posted that almost an hour before you posted your outpouring, but the moderators have chosen to hold my post back for some reason! Oh well….
Reply: Moderation sometimes happens in fits and spurts. Don’t take it personally ~ charles the moderator
Not to provide evidence that I think Foinavon is right (I think he is wrong regarding his efforts to implicate the Sun in any way that is measurable above the noise), but I have to say that the internet is also my source. And because the journals now think they all have cash cows on their shelves, they are charging the very tax payers who supported their study, for a look-see at the full text. I search in vain for full texts, and only occasionally find them. Otherwise, its just the abstracts I get to read. Just like foinavon. I can’t call the kettle black.
“The temperature reconstructions indicate that the reduction in global temperature at the coldest period of the LIA was of the order of half a degree averaged over the N. hemisphere.”
So we are still dangerously close to icing over.
Yes Pamela, of course, we all use the internet. My comment was made to follow up on Bill’s question regarding the amazing data base that is always being put forth as foinavon’s Authority — but which is, no doubt, simply comprised of quick google searches, and is not some private font of knowledge.
Other commenters have pointed out on a number of occasions that foinavon’s citations often refute what he claimed they said when he cited them. In those cases it’s obvious that nothing was read beyond the abstract.
Since answering the [repeatedly asked] data base question is studiously avoided, I think we all know there is no such special knowledge or data base. So why not finally admit that it’s only a quick ‘n’ dirty keyword search?
Rather than get sidetracked by endless citations which may or may not be relevant, the central questions in this entire debate should be clearly answered:
Will an increase in a minor trace gas cause runaway global warming? Outside of highly questionable computer models, explain how that could happen.
Is there a “tipping point”? If so, explain where it is.
Can climate alarmists provide strong evidence that the AGW/CO2 hypothesis explains reality better than the long accepted theory of natural climate variability? Remember that the burden is on those promoting the AGW/CO2 runaway global warming hypothesis — not on skeptics questioning this scary new hypothesis.
Is a colder world preferable to a warmer world, all other factors being equal? Explain how that works.
All the peripheral issues that are constantly being argued are raised in order to sidetrack and obfuscate primary questions such as those listed above. Constantly interjecting quibbling peripheral issues is a tactic. Whether he has any higher formal education or not, no doubt foinavon is intelligent. But so was Joe Stalin, who also used similar tactics. Is that what we want? Or do we want clear answers to the central questions surrounding the AGW/CO2 hypothesis, without getting deliberately sidetracked?
Ohioholic (20:09:53) :
Also, for foinavon and Chris V., exactly where should our climate be headed? Up or down? This is an important question, because down too far, and life on this planet is in danger, up too far, and the same. We have a very fragile existence, to be sure. I take it, from your views thus far, you think we should be colder. Why is that?
If i had my druthers, I’d prefer that the worlds climate stay within the range it’s been for last few hundred years or so. Our cities, agriculture, water-supply infrastructure, etc. have all been built within those limits. Higher sea levels will not be very good for coastal cities and low-lying countries; changed climate and precipitation patterns will probably not be good for our agricultural areas and water supply.
Significant climate changes either way (warm or cold) would not be good, simply because we have a large civilization with a massive infrastructure designed to live within todays climate.
PS- Sherman and Mr. Peabody had the wayback machine. 😉
Ohioholic (20:09:53) :
Oops- you knew Sherman and Peabody had the wayback machine.
Whatever your knowledge of climate, you certainly know your cartoons! 😉
“Significant climate changes either way (warm or cold) would not be good, simply because we have a large civilization with a massive infrastructure designed to live within todays climate.”
That’s the crux of the problem, isn’t it? I tend to think we will be able to adapt better to warmer climes. Our current hysteria over 1oC is absurd. Earth has shown much more violent tendencies in climate change, for which we should prepare.
Pick a city nearby to where you live now where the average temperature is 1.0C higher than your city – call it City X.
(Remember we have already seen at least one-third of the warming projected so 1.0C is the most left to go).
So your city will have the climate of City X. In my case, City X is only 45 minutes away and there is no disaster there currently. In the 80 or 90 years it takes to get to the temps of City X, nobody in your city will even notice the change.
Ohioholic (15:14:28) :
Earth has shown much more violent tendencies in climate change, for which we should prepare.
Yes. As someone has said “the earths climate is an angry beast”. I’d rather not poke it.
Bill Illis (16:09:03) :
Pick a city nearby to where you live now where the average temperature is 1.0C higher than your city – call it City X.
(Remember we have already seen at least one-third of the warming projected so 1.0C is the most left to go).
So your city will have the climate of City X. In my case, City X is only 45 minutes away and there is no disaster there currently. In the 80 or 90 years it takes to get to the temps of City X, nobody in your city will even notice the change.
The IPCC projections are for a lot more than an additional 1C – look at the graph at the top of the page.
Even if temps only go up by another 1C, I still might be a bit worried if I lived somewhere close to sea level (like Bangladesh or the Netherlands), or somewhere where water supplies were already severely stressed (like the SW US or the Middle East).
“Yes. As someone has said “the earths climate is an angry beast”. I’d rather not poke it.”
You assume you can get close enough. It will smell you coming. The fact of the matter is, our combined input to the climate is not as important as our response to climate’s input on us.
More likely, Foinavon is a trojan horse.