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.
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).