Reposted from The Air Vent
Disproving The Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) Problem
Leonard Weinstein, ScD
April 25, 2009
A theory has been proposed that human activity over about the last 150 years has caused a significant rise in Earth’s average temperature. The mechanism claimed is based on an increased greenhouse effect caused by anthropogenic increases in CO2 from burning of fossil fuels, deforestation, cement manufacture, and also from increases in CH4 from farm animals and other causes. The present versions of the theory also include a positive feedback effect due to the increased temperature causing an increase in water vapor, which amplifies the effect. The combined result are used to claim that unless the anthropogenic increases of CO2 are slowed down or even made to decrease, there will be a continuing rapid increase in global temperature, massive melting of ice caps, flooding, pestilence, etc.
In order to support a theory, specific predictions need to be made that are based on the claims of the theory, and the predictions then need to happen. While the occurrence of the predicted events is not proof positive of a theory, they increase the believability of the claims. However, if the predictions are not observed, this tends to indicate the theory is flawed or even wrong. Some predictions are absolute in nature. Einstein’s prediction of the bending of light by the Sun is such a case. It either would or would not bend, and this was considered a critical test of the validity of his theory of general relativity. It did bend the predicted amount, and supported his theory.
Many predictions however are less easily supported. For example weather forecasting often does a good job in the very short term but over increasing time does a poor job. This is due to the complexity of the numerous nonlinear components. This complexity has been described in chaos theory by what is called the butterfly effect. Any effect that depends on numerous factors, some of which are nonlinear in effect, is nearly impossible to use to make long-range predictions. However, for some reason, the present predictions of “Climate Change” are considered by the AGW supporters to be more reliable than even short-term weather forecasting. While some overall trends can be reasonably made based on looking at past historical trends, and some computational models can suggest some suggested trends due to specific forcing factors, nevertheless, the long term predicted result has not been shown to be valid. Like any respectable theory, specific predictions need to be made, and then shown to happen, before the AGW models can have any claim to reasonable validity.
The AGW computational models do make several specific predictions. Since the time scale for checking the result of the predictions is small, and since local weather can vary enough on the short time scale to confuse the longer time scale prediction, allowances for these shorter lasting events have to be made when examining predictions. Nevertheless, if the actual data results do not significantly support the theory, it must be reconsidered or even rejected as it stands.
The main predictions from the AGW models are:
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The average Earth’s temperature will increase at a rate of 0.20C to 0.60C per decade at least to 2100, and will continue to climb after that if the CO2 continues to be produced by human activity at current predicted rates.
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The increasing temperature will cause increased water evaporation, which is the cause for the positive feedback needed to reach the high temperatures.
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The temperature at lower latitudes (especially tropical regions) will increase more in the lower Troposphere at moderate altitudes than near the surface.
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The greatest near surface temperature increases will occur at the higher latitudes.
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The increasing temperature at higher latitudes will cause significant Antarctic and Greenland ice melt. These combined with ocean expansion due to warming will cause significant ocean rise and flooding.
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A temperature drop in the lower Stratosphere will accompany the temperature increase near the surface. The shape of the trend down in the Stratosphere should be close to a mirror reflection of the near surface trend up.
The present CO2 level is high and increasing (http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/). It should be fairly easy to show the consequences of AGW predictions if they are valid.
Figure 1. Global average temperature from 1850 through 2008. Annual series smoothed with a 21-point binomial filter by the Met Office. (http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadcrut3/diagnostics/global/nh+sh/)
It should be noted that the largest part of the last 150 year increase in CO2, which is blamed on human activity, did not occur until after 1940, so the largest temperature rise effects should have occurred in that time. The proponents of AGW have generally used the time period from 1970 to 2000 as the base line for an indicator of the rapid warming. In that base line period, the average temperature rose about 0.50C, which averages to 0.160C per decade. The claim was then made that this would accelerate due to continuing increases in CO2 level. However if we look at the temperature change from 1940 through 2008, the net increase is only 0.30C. This is due to a drop from 1940 to 1970 and a slight drop from 2000 through 2008. Now the average rise for that period is only 0.040C per decade. If the time period from 1850 through 2008 is used as a base, the net increase is just under 0.70C and the average rise is also 0.040C per decade! It is clear that choosing a short selected period of rising temperature gives a misleading result. It is also true that the present trend is down and expected to continue downward for several more years before reversing again. This certainly makes claim 1 questionable.
The drop in temperature from 1940 to 1970 was claimed to have been caused by “global dimming” caused by aerosols made by human activity. This was stated as dominating the AGW effects at that time. This was supposed to have been overcome by activity initiated by the clean air act. In fact, the “global dimming” continued into the mid 1990’s and then only reduced slightly before increasing more (probably due to China and other countries increased activity). If the global dimming was not significantly reduced, why did the temperature increase from 1970 to just past 2000?
A consequence of global dimming is reduced pan-evaporation level. This also implies that ocean evaporation is decreased, since the main cause of ocean evaporation is Solar insolation, not air temperature. The decreased evaporation contradicts claim 2.
Claim 3 has been contradicted by a combination of satellite and air born sensor measurements. While the average lower Troposphere average temperature has risen along with near ground air temperature, and in some cases is slightly warmer, nevertheless the models predicted that the lower Troposphere would be significantly warmer than near ground at the lower latitudes, especially in the tropics. This has not occurred! The following is a statement from:
Synthesis and Assessment Product 1.1
Report by the U.S. Climate Change Science Program
and the Subcommittee on Global Change Research
April 2006
“While these data are consistent with the results from climate models at the global scale, discrepancies in the tropics remain to be resolved”.
Claim 4 implies that the higher latitudes should heat up more than lower latitudes. This is supposed to be especially important for melting of glaciers and permafrost. In fact, the higher latitudes have warmed, but at a rate close to the rest of the world. In fact, Antarctica has overall cooled in the last 50 years except for the small tail that sticks out. See:
http://ff.org/centers/csspp/library/co2weekly/20061013/20061013_02.html
Greenland and the arctic region are presently no warmer than they were in the late 1930’s, and are presently cooling! See:
The overall effect of Antarctic and Greenland are now resulting in net gain (or at least near zero change) of ice, not loss. While some small areas have recently lost and are some are still losing some ice, this is mostly sea ice and thus do not contribute to sea level rise. Glaciers in other locations such as Alaska have lost a significant amount of ice in the last 150 years, but much of the loss is from glaciers that formed or increased during the little ice age, or from local variations, not global. Most of this little ice age ice is gone and some glaciers are actually starting to increase as the temperature is presently dropping. For more discussions on the sea level issue look at the following two sites:
http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=dnc49xz_19cm8×67fj&hl=en
This indicates that claim 5 is clearly wrong. While sea level will rise a small amount, and has so since the start of the Holocene period, the rise is now only 10 to 15 cm per century, and is not significantly related to the recent recovery from the little ice age, including the present period of warming.
The claims in 6 are particularly interesting. Figure 2 below shows the Global Brightness Temperature Anomaly (0C) in the lower Troposphere and lower Stratosphere made from space.
a) Channel TLT is the lower Troposphere from ground to about 5 km
b) Channel TLS is the lower Stratosphere from about 12 to 25 km
Figure 2. Global satellite data from RSS/MSU and AMSU data. Monthly time series of brightness temperature anomaly for channels TLT, and TLS. Data from: http://www.ssmi.com/msu/msu_data_description.html
The anomaly time series is dominated by ENSO events and slow troposphere warming for Channel TLT (Lower Troposphere). The three primary El Niños during the past 20 years are clearly evident as peaks in the time series occurring during 1982-83, 1987-88, and 1997-98, with the 1997-98 being the largest. It also appears there is an aditional one at 2007. Channel TLS (Lower Stratosphere) is dominated by stratospheric cooling, punctuated by dramatic warming events caused by the eruptions of El Chichon (1982) and Mt Pinatubo (1991). In these, and other volcanic eruption cases, the increased absorption and reflectivity of the dust and aerosols at high altitudes lowered the surface Solar insolation, but since they absorbed more energy, they increased the high altitude temperature. After the large spikes dropped back down, the new levels were lower and nearly flat between large volcanic eruptions. It is also likely that the reflection or absorption due to particulates also dropped, so the surface Solar insolation went back up. It appears that a secondary effect of the volcanic eruptions is present that is unknown in nature (but not CO2)! One possible explanation is a modest but long-term drop in Ozone. It is also clear that the linear fit to the data shown is meaningless. In fact the level drop events seem additive if they overlap soon enough for at least the two cases shown. That is, after El Chicon dropped the level, then Pinatubo occurred and dropped the level even more. Two months after Pinatubo, another strong volcano, Cerro Hudson, also erupted, possibly amplifying the effect. It appears that the recovery time from whatever causes the very slow changing level shift has a recovery time constant of at least several decades.
The computational models that show that the increasing CO2 and CH4 cause most of the present global warming all require that the temperature of the Stratosphere drops while the lower atmosphere and ground heat up. It appears from the above figures that the volcanic activity clearly caused the temperature to spike up in the Stratosphere, and that these spikes were immediately followed by a drop to a new nearly constant level in the temperature. It is clear from the Mauna Loa CO2 data (http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/) that the input of CO2 (or CH4) from the volcanoes, did not significantly increase the background level of this gas, and thus, this cannot be the cause of the drop in the Stratosphere temperature. The ramp up of atmospheric CO2 also cannot explain the step down then level changes in high altitude temperature. Since the surface temperature rise is supposed to be related to the Stratosphere temperature drop, and since a significant surface rise above the 1940 temperature level did not occur until the early 1980’s, it may be that the combination of the two (or more) volcanoes, along with Solar variability and variations in ocean currents (i.e., PDO) may explain the major causes of recent surface temperature rises to about 2002. In fact, the average Earth temperature stopped rising after 2002, and has been dropping for the last few years!
The final question that arises is what prediction has the AGW made that has been demonstrated, and that strongly supports the theory. It appears that there is NO real supporting evidence and much disagreeing evidence for the AGW theory as proposed. That is not to say there is no effect from Human activity. Clearly human pollution (not greenhouse gases) is a problem. There is also almost surely some contribution to the present temperature from the increase in CO2 and CH4, but it seems to be small and not a driver of future climate. Any reasonable scientific analysis must conclude the basic theory wrong!!
Without any comment:
http://www.iceagenow.com/Record_Lows_2009.htm
1. Its really too early to tell if the projections of temp increases are off.
2. There is considerable data indicating increasing humidity.
3. The data on this is a mess, it is difficult to tell what is happening.
4. This clearly has happened, except for the southern polar vortex.
5. Obvious large and long term melting up north, not in south due to polar vortex.
6. Lower stratosphere temps have dropped.
I can be skeptical, but this post is weak.
Somewhat OT:
A commenter in another thread had indicated a broad potential range of global CO2 output numbers. These seemed too large a spread, so I checked on the EIA website, and they do indeed have a nice spreadsheet of CO2 emissions by country:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/environment.html
Here’s what is shows:
In the ten years to 2006, here are the best and worst in per capita growth of CO2 emissions:
The Top Seven Best, with greatest fall in CO2 emissions, virtually all of them a ‘Ten Best Places to Live Country:”
1. Afghanistan
2. Congo (Kinshasa)
3. Guam
4. Eritrea
5. Gabon
6. Kyrgyzstan
7. Zimbabwe
Among the worst offenders (of 212 total countries and territories):
174. Maldives
175. Mauritius
183. Seychelles
And just about every other island paradise ranks around here on the list.
Among the developed countries:
12. Denmark (hands down, the best developed country, and coming in only one spot below Nigeria!)
19. Sweden
45. Germany
46. UK
49. Switzerland
51. USA
64. Belgium
65. France
85. Finland
86. Netherlands
88. Norway
92. Canada
Three conclusions suggest themselves:
1. Decreasing per capita CO2 emissions is generally associated with poverty, economic distress and war
2. Increasing economic activity and prosperity is associated with increased CO2 emissions, and low-lying islands are not exception–indeed, they prove the rule.
3. The 1997 Kyoto Treaty appears to have had little effect on growth in per capita CO2 emissions over the following decade. The US, not a signatory, improved about as much as Germany or the UK, and much more than any of Belgium, France, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Norway, Finland or Ireland, among others.
Excellent!!
Sounds like a good overview of modeling!
This post is riven with physical and mathematical misunderstandings.
“However if we look at the temperature change from 1940 through 2008, the net increase is only 0.30C”
If you pick the highest temperature measured in a cooler period, and the lowest temperature in a warmer period, the gap may not be large. This is known as ‘cherry picking’. Calculating a trend using all the data shows a net rise of 0.55°C..
“Now the average rise for that period is only 0.040C per decade”
0.08°C, when you treat the data properly.
“If the time period from 1850 through 2008 is used as a base, the net increase is just under 0.70C and the average rise is also 0.040C per decade!”
If you use all the data instead of cherry picking, you see in fact that the 1850-2008 trend was shallower than the 1940-2008 trend, which was shallower than the 1975-2008 trend. The clear conclusion is that temperatures are rising, at a rate that’s increasing.
“It is also true that the present trend is down”
It is not true. There is no statistically significant downward trend.
“and expected to continue downward for several more years before reversing again”
Earlier you claimed that “Any effect that depends on numerous factors, some of which are nonlinear in effect, is nearly impossible to use to make long-range predictions”, and yet here you are making long-range projections. What is the basis for those projections?
“The shape of the trend down in the Stratosphere should be close to a mirror reflection of the near surface trend up.”
Nonsense.
There is much more wrong here. This is a deeply flawed un-scientific essay, which offers no insights. Who is Leonard Weinstein anyway? Is he a climate scientist?
B Buckner (05:43:25) :
“2. There is considerable data indicating increasing humidity.”
What data are you citing that shows there is increasing humidity?
Other than a recent paper by Dessler (which didn’t show what people think it showed), all of the humidity data is that Specific Humidity seems to be nearly constant (with very, very small trends at different atmospheric levels) and Relative Humidity is declining at all atmospheric levels.
Global warming theory/formula is based on Specific Humidity rising with temperature and Relative Humidity remaining constant. This is not happening.
No B. Buckner, this post is not weak…. After twenty years and billions of dollars spent on AGW research…. The Hypothesis is weak.
…. Beyond weak actually.
Once again: AIR cannot hold warm as compared with water. The “volumetric heat capacity” of air is 3,227 times less than water, so there is no such a thing as an atmosphere CO2 heat sink. CO2 it is the 3.85 PER THOUSAND part of air. (provided CO2 data taken at the Mauna Loa VOLCANO is true).
IT IS THE SUN not CO2 or whatever those scientists of the “NEW AGE ERA” could say, deeply inspired by GG or any WS.
…Niels Bohr reported his discovery that the absorption of specific wavelengths of light didn’t cause gas atoms/molecules to become hotter. Instead, the absorption of specific wavelengths of light caused the electrons in an atom/molecule to move to a higher energy state. After absorption of light of a specific wavelength an atom couldn’t absorb additional radiation of that wavelength without first emitting light of that wavelength. (Philosophical Magazine Series 6, Volume 26 July 1913, p. 1-25) Unlike the glass which reflects IR back where it comes from, CO2 molecules emit IR up and sideways as well as down. In the time interval between absorbing and reemitting radiation, CO2 molecules allow IR to pass them by. Glass continuously reflects IR.
http://www.giurfa.com/gh_experiments.pdf
THEY, in order to “eliminate” as the main driver of temperatures, when in 1989 TSI (Total solar irradiance) made a jump up of 0.86 watts per quare meter, they inmediately “adjusted it” with the consequence that, from then on TSI does not follow SSN as before.
Nicola Scafetta´s paper:
http://yosemite.epa.gov/ee/epa/wkshp.nsf/vwpsw/84E74F1E59E2D3FE852574F100669688/$file/scafetta-epa-2009.pdf
Also, Nasif Nahle:
http://biocab.org/Amplitude_Solar_Irradiance.html
Shouldn’t it read, “…and IS [strike out ‘not’] significantly related to the recent recovery from the little ice age, including the present period of warming.”
One more comment, the author should not use exclamation marks in a scientific article. Technical writing is at its best when using an emotional-neutral voice.
B Buckner, in this blog, refutations must come with citations. Else you are armchair quarterbacking.
OT: Not considered in the models: Strange green smoke produced by GWrs researchers contaminating computers and/or positive feedback from white aerosols inhaled by the same researchers et al. 🙂
ERRATA: Where “CO2 it is the 3.85 PER THOUSAND part of air” it must be read:
CO2 it is the 3.85 PER TEN THOUSAND part of air
Moving off topic, but staying on subject: Ex-BBC science man slams corp: ‘Evangelical, shallow and sparse’, says “Nonstop Thermageddon coverage risks ridicule”.
Interesting post. It would be easier to take this seriously if you left out all the exclamation marks, though.
Good report!
My daughter (14) will make a (skeptic) presentation on global warming on Tuesday in her geography class taught by a politically correct teacher using a politically correct textbook. Basically she’ll be saying that everything the teacher and textbook have said is nothing but bullsh–.
I think sparks are going to fly.
Steven Kopits wrote :
“In the ten years to 2006, here are the best and worst in per capita growth of CO2 emissions:”
All these numbers can be hugely deceptive unless they’re put into the context that human contribution to CO2 emmissions only constitutes 3.4% of the total emissions. 96.6% of the CO2 emissions occurs naturally.
http://liberty.pacificresearch.org/docLib/20070202_2006_Carbon_seq.pdf
[rant] Ok, if we are to advance meaningful discussion on AGW and any other area of science, scientists and science writers had better get their heads around what an hypothesis is, and why its different from a theory. The general public have no idea, and its a big part of the problem of the communication of science. Dr. Weinstein is a guilty as any slapdash science writer and it diminishes his presentation substantially. This is not to centre out Dr. Weinstein particularly; modern science is rife with language failures.
A scientific theory is a collective explanation of defined phenomena for which all presently observable and testable facts concur and substantiate.
An hypothesis is a belief in the explanation of phenomenon based on some observable or testable facts. Its the continued retesting of the facts that eventually will elevate an hypothesis to the status of a theory, or not.
In the first four paragraphs of Dr. Weinstein’s presentation, everyoccurrence of the word “theory” should be replaced with the word “hypothesis”. There is no “theory of AGW”; there are many hypotheses of AGW.
Further, a theory does not “predict”. You hypothesize a consequence from the premise of a theory to test an otherwise unknown phenomenon. Equally, climate models are not theories, they are nothing more than mathematical hypotheses. As such, none of these hypotheses have the gravitas of a theory, and therefore has no more weight that that of a considered opinion.
Some may argue that this is an exercise in semantics, but it is not. It is an exercise in the rigour and precision of language, something every scientist must respect, and something every science writer must understand and be extraordinarily diligent about. In this era of mass unreflected communication, precision of language has never been more crucial. If there is to be “settled” science, a theory is the closest we get to it. We should continue to know (and get to know) that when we hear the word “hypothesis” (and we should hear it a lot), there is a somewhat supportable belief that still requires much further affirmable study. [/rant]
Ron de Haan (05:39:08) : “Without any comment:
http://www.iceagenow.com/Record_Lows_2009.htm”
Well, I’ll comment. The “previous year” column in the cited data is apparently garbage. Maybe someone can ‘splain it to me.
Buckner-
1. The model projections are already in the very low confidence range. They haven’t been fully disproved yet, but they are in the very outer range of probability. When will we start seeing accelerating warming as predicted?
2. Show me. I haven’t seen it.
3. Heh, of course the “data is a mess”. It always is when it doesn’t meet expectations, isn’t it?
4. No, it hasn’t. The Arctic warmed more than most of the globe over the past 20 years or so, but it also cooled more than most of the globe from the 1940s to 1970s. Overall Arctic trends from the early 1900s to today are very similar to global temperature trends.
5. Isn’t it supposed to be GLOBAL warming?
6. Did you not read the article? Yes, stratospheric temperatures have dropped, but only in step changes associated with volcanic eruptions. Hardly a mirror image of lower tropospheric temps.
jorgekafkazar (09:40:08) :
It would help if you explained why it’s apparently garbage. It looks to me as though it’s the year of the previous record.
I.e.:
Record: New low temperature
Previous record: The lowest temperature recorded on the date in previous years.
Previous year: The year the previous record was set.
Period of record: How long people have been tracking the weather in years.
If that’s right, then the claim “Several of these records are more than 100 years old” is bogus and suggests the blogger thinks the “Period of Record” is how long the record low has stood for.
I’d take that site more seriously if they included record highs too.
From the post
It is also true that the present trend is down and expected to continue downward for several more years before reversing again.
Expected by who?
I visit this website daily and look forward to its postings, but can someone define who Steven Goddard is ? ..is he a writer, scientist, fellow researcher ??? Thanks – just curious…
Mk
Right, there is no global warming. This is why April 2009 has reached an “unlikely anomaly” (once in 50 years) in 2005, 2007 and 2009 in my home country. Today, we were 8 centigrades above average. Tomorrow, the max temp is predicted to be 12 centigrades above average for May. We’re actually having rightnow at night what should be the maximum temperature during the day. In May, the lowest max temperature this year was 3 degrees above the 150-year average.
Last time we had such a warm weather was… well, last year. And the year before that. We’re again heading for a once-in-50 or once-in-100 years anomaly.
Another weather is not climate story?
Jared (10:12:00)
As you point out, the AGW hypothesis is about global temperatures. Although the Arctic warmed somewhat, the Antarctic has cooled more, and for longer: click
So the beach I visited 50 years ago has the ocean rising 2.46″ +/- 2.46″ today. Marvelous.
The only thing that is drowned is the sea level rise in the noise of tides.
B Buckner (05:43:25) :
1. Its really too early to tell if the projections of temp increases are off.
2. There is considerable data indicating increasing humidity.
3. The data on this is a mess, it is difficult to tell what is happening.
4. This clearly has happened, except for the southern polar vortex.
5. Obvious large and long term melting up north, not in south due to polar vortex.
6. Lower stratosphere temps have dropped.
I can be skeptical, but this post is weak.
1. Yes, it is too early to tell; I would not be amazed if temperatures in two years are warmer than today – but that would not mean that the models are necessarily correct. Non-CO2 models have done a better job of forecasting climate; maybe they will continue to do so, maybe not. But it is way too early to implement trillion dollar decisions on models that have yet to shown to be reliable. (And reliability is not determined by backfitting – given enough variables, any model can be backfitted.)
2. Although I have seen some studies suggesting increased humidity, I have also seen other studies concluding otherwise. Definitely not settled science, and way too early to implement trillion dollar decisions.
3. Many Global Warming Pessimists are now backing away from the position that the lower Troposphere would be significantly warmer than near ground at the tropics.
4. I trust that you see the humor in your statement which is saying that “it clearly has happened half of the time.” Moreover, the Artic has warmed only relatively recently. Over a greater amount of time — say sixty or seventy years – much of the Artic is no warmer now.
5. There is a good chance that the recent Arctic melt in the last 30 years has not been driven by global warming. NASA studies suggest a significant role of soot from Chinese industrialization. Also, human introduction of brush can play a role by decreasing albedo. Moreover the PDO and AMO cycles bear much responsibility. A key point is that by focusing on CO2, we might be missing something more significant that should be addressed. (Also it should be noted we have several indications of low levels of Arctic ice before it rebuilt in the cooler mid-1900s.)
6. Yes, lower stratosphere temps have dropped since 1979, but for about 15 years there has been virtually no drop. 15 years is not long enough to establish a trend in climate, but one could look at satellite data and point out that temperature increases incurred only during a 15 year period.
Beyond these six points, I do have interest in two other AGW fingerprints: (1) night temperatures will have more increase than day time temperatures. However, that is also a fingerprint of UHI. Do we know whether the night time temperatures over the ocean have had a similar pattern as urban sites? (2) The land will heat faster than ocean. I am not sure of the AGW rationale for that conclusion, but I have seen it stated, especially when I observe that according to the satellite record the ocean are no warmer now than they were in 1980, but land temperatures are higher.
@ Gary Turner (08:33:26)
Dammit i was going to post that, that will be another one that is hard to swallow for some of the “Reg” readers 🙂
Using bad science isn’t making your claim any easier to swallow.
OT but it looks like the satellite used by nsidc is on its way to a movie-esk death.
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/daily.html
Something is rotten in Denmark. This satellite is on its way to peaceful slumber. I thought they had switched to another data source?
This brings up the issue of satellite derived temps versus land based recordings. If you want accuracy, a satellite is only as good as its machinery on board and it isn’t like you can park it in my boyfriend’s welding shop in Lostine to get it fixed when something goes tits up. If this global warming thing were REALLY the main concern of folks like Gore (and not the cash cow he hopes it will be), he would have invested his advertising dollars into upgrading land-based monitors instead of movies for little kids.
OSU professor and researcher Jane Lubchenco after launching her nonexistent link between ocean dead zones and AGW became the new head of NOAA. Even though her own research group cautioned that they were unable to establish the extent of the link, if any, to global warming.
Now Lubchenco wants to establish a National Climate Service.
Dr. Lubchenco “believes climate models are now sufficiently “robust” to help scientists start to do the same with climate, to help businesses, elected officials and regulators make good decisions on issues like where to put buildings or roads or wind farms.”
She said. “You want to know what wind patterns will be for the next hundred years — and they undoubtedly won’t be the same. So there are huge opportunities to provide services to the country.”
Absolutely amazing. A new National Climate Service will soon be telling us where to put roads, buildings and wind farms 100 years out?
What? Trust me there will be wind over there some day?
Will the models tell us it won’t be windy where windmills are now? Laughable.
Give me a break. There is no such ability in the climate models at all. None. Jane made that up.
Just like the dead zone link.
Roy Spencer in a 2 part (18 minutes total) video showing there is a negative feedback mechanism in the Tropics not a positive :
part 1
part 2
Yes I too have watching NSIDC satellite data but can’t yet be sure if we are looking at another failure or merely a blip due to smoothing.
It is not so far off yet that you could say it is failing: we can only wait and see.
Kindest Regards
Something that absolutely bugs me to distraction is drawing a straight line trend through the Channel TLS is the lower Stratosphere from about 12 to 25 km chart and saying this indicates stratospheric cooling.
IMO this is absolutely ridiculous.
This region of the stratosphere has obviously been very much affected by the two volcanoes Chichon and Pinatubo. The time between Chichon and Pinatubo the trend is up 0.18 Deg C/Dec and from Pinatubo to now down 0.024 Deg C per decade ie essentially flat as An Inquirer (12:00:05) points out . I don’t think it is convincing to use this data as indicative of stratospheric cooling.
If I am a way off base here, someone enlighten me.
OT, but seems important :
John H 55 (12:44:49) :
Jane Lubchenco, the new head of the NOAA, is “…both a top flight scientist and skilled policy-maker,” “(recipient of) the 8th Heinz Award in the Environment (2002), (the same award James Hansen has won)” who “…expects it to play a role in developing a green economy.”
http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2009/20090319_lubchenco.html
http://www.oregonlive.com/environment/index.ssf/2009/03/osus_lubchenco_confirmed_as_he.html
What else but this could be expected in a political appointee?
Increased or decreased (specific or relative) humidity need not correlate at all with increased or decreased temperature, or even with increased or decreased evaporation rate.
If the mean residence time of moisture in the atmosphere changes, mean cloud cover changes, or wetted surface area (read, for example, via irrigation) changes, the “expected” relationship between humidity, evaporation, and temperature won’t hold.
If pan evaporation (read: land-based, ground level) is down, it really does not permit one to conclude that ocean evaporation is down; it might even suggest that humidity is up…
And, if aerosols are up, then condensation rates should be more robust, resulting in more precipitation, lower humidity, and more variable cloud cover…
My goodness, life is complex. So when someone argues that ALL facts point to the non-existence of AGW, even though I find it emotionally appealing, I doubt the scientific detachment.
This article made me think. So, I went to http://www.wunderground.com and pulled up the weather history for eastern North Carolina where I live. What I found was uncanny. For every year since 1983 (that is when I stopped) to last year, the average temperature was between 59 degrees F and 63 degrees F. Most of the years were 60 degrees, about the same number were 59 and 61 with one year 63 in the late 80’s.
There are always anomalies, but every year even with the anomalies the average temperature here has been very consistent. One of those years had a high of 106, yet the average still fell within that range. Another had a low of 8, yet the average still fell within that range. If global warming is so real, why is the average yearly temperature staying about the same year-in and year-out? Should it not have gotten warmer on average? See for yourself, go to wundergound.com and plug in WRDU and set the temperature range for 1 year.
This is what I fail to understand: why do we have such short memories?
As far as the article, I stopped taking it seriously when exclamation marks were used.
Paul Coppin (09:15:09) :
Thank you for that: Another one of my pet peeves.
Dr. Weinstein does however state what consequences should arise from the hypothesis. A step in the right direction.
I would like to see a list of the assumptions that the AGW hypothesis (es) depends on.
And there is also the failing prediction from Al Gore that North Pole is ‘could’ be gone in 5 years. North Pole ice has been in a growing trend since 2007. It is trending in the wrong direction for Al Gore. Here’s the latest graphs :
JAXA
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/en/home/seaice_extent.htm
DMi
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/icecover.uk.php
Said it before, will say it again. Variables. Known variables. Unknown variables. Known variables with unknown cycles. Many of all of these. How do you build a model that is more than a semi-educated guess?
srchuck (13:17:33) :
I doubt your doubts.
RW (06:17:00) :
“… Who is Leonard Weinstein anyway? Is he a climate scientist?”
The scientific method I understand involves testing hypotheses against critical observations. If they fail these tests they are falsified. To a climate scientist it seems that selecting these critical observations is “cherry picking”. But it seems that it is not cherry picking to refer selectively to observations that appear to confirm hypotheses. So the scientific method known to climate science appears to be radically different from the conventional method.
So, no, I don’t think he is a climate scientist.
Paul Coppin (09:15:09) – Agreed
John H 55 (12:44:49) – does anyone know of any studies on (potential) impact of largescale windfarms on the environment through modified wind patterns?
It seems that some commentors here don’t understand why observation is important. Richard Feynman sums it up simply in this—and it’s only 1 minute long :
Pamela: actually, other sources indicate a now rapidly decaying Artcic sea ice. We’re quite far fom the 79-2000 average. The Greenland sea ice in particular is very fragmented and should be collapsing completely within the next weeks. This is also confirmed by JAXA, ROOS.
RW (06:17:00) :
“If you use all the data instead of cherry picking, you see in fact that the 1850-2008 trend was shallower than the 1940-2008 trend, which was shallower than the 1975-2008 trend. The clear conclusion is that temperatures are rising, at a rate that’s increasing.”
Whom are you trying to fool with that one?
And there is still the work of Ferenc Miskolczi which has been left open to the scientific community to be disproved. It still hasn’t been. There is a thread of discussion on it here in WUWT :
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/06/26/debate-thread-miskolczi-semi-transparent-atmosphere-model/
Summary of it in this video :
“Christian Bultmann (13:56:17) : Whom are you trying to fool with that one?”
Unfortunately many people are fooled because they don’t make the effort to search for themselves. That is the only reason things like manmade global warming have life.
Flanagan:
“Another weather is not climate story?”
A spell of very warm weather is normally caused by a stationary high-pressure system. Until such time as you can show how that is caused by CO2, it’s just weather.
Googling provided among others:
Dr. Leonard Weinstein worked 45 years at the NASA Langley Research Center, finishing his career there as a Senior Research Scientist. Dr. Weinstein is presently a Senior Research Fellow at the National Institute of Aerospace. He is now a critic of the anthropogenic theory of global warming
“…models used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) are incoherent and invalid from a scientific point of view”
~~Antonio Zichichi
http://www.ccsem.infn.it/em/zichichi/short_bio.html
If the time period from 1850 through 2008 is used as a base, the net increase is just under 0.70C and the average rise is also 0.040C per decade! It is clear that choosing a short selected period of rising temperature gives a misleading result. It is also true that the present trend is down and expected to continue downward for several more years before reversing again. This certainly makes claim 1 questionable.
sorry, but such “analysis” is simply horrible.
“Future generations will wonder in bemused amazement that the early 21st century’s developed world went into hysterical panic over a globally averaged temperature increase of a few tenths of a degree,and, on the basis of gross exaggerations of highly uncertain computer projections combined into implausible chains of inference, proceeded to contemplate a roll-back of the industrial age”
~~Richard Lindzen
-atmospheric physicist
-MIT
-Alfred P. Sloan Endowed Chair Professor of Meteorology
Pierre Gosselin (09:04:02) :
Good report!
My daughter (14) will make a (skeptic) presentation on global warming on Tuesday in her geography class taught by a politically correct teacher using a politically correct textbook. Basically she’ll be saying that everything the teacher and textbook have said is nothing but bullsh–.
I think sparks are going to fly.’
Pierre,
I wish your daughter all the best with her presentation.
But guard her position from avery angle because this meanwhile politicized subject could back fire.
I have similar experience
“Here I am opposing the holy brotherhood of climate model experts and the crowd of deluded citizens who believe the numbers predicted by the computer models. Of course, they say, I have no degree in meteorology and I am therefore not qualified to speak. But I have studied the climate models and I know what they can do. The models solve the equations of fluid dynamics, and they do a very good job of describing the fluid motions of the atmosphere and the oceans. They do a very poor job of describing the clouds, the dust, the chemistry and the biology of fields and farms and forests. They do not begin to describe the real world that we live in. The real world is muddy and messy and full of things that we do not yet understand. It is much easier for a scientist to sit in an air-conditioned building and run computer models, than to put on winter clothes and measure what is really happening outside in the swamps and the clouds. That is why the climate model experts end up believing their own models.”
~~Freeman Dyson
http://www.edge.org/documents/archive/edge219.html#dysonf
Leonard Weinstein received a B.Sc. in Physics in 1962 from Florida State University. He started work at NASA Langley Research Center in June 1962. While at Langley, Leonard obtained his Master and Doctor of Science degrees in Engineering from the George Washington University. He continued to work at NASA Langley until June 2007, ending as a Senior Research Scientist. Dr. Weinstein has had a career that is recognized for innovation. He has over 90 publications, including 11 patents. He has received numerous awards, commendations, and recognition’s for innovative experimental research, including an Exceptional Engineering Achievement Medal, an IR-100 award, the 1999 American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Engineer of the year, the James Crowder Award, and over 40 other awards and recognitions for innovative experimental research. Dr. Weinstein is presently a Senior Research Fellow at the National Institute of Aerospace.
OT: but here we go once again….. Take your pick which one is correct?
this one:
http://arctic-roos.org/observations/satellite-data/sea-ice/ice-area-and-extent-in-arctic
this one
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/seaice/extent/AMSRE_Sea_Ice_Extent.png
or this one?
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/icecover.uk.php
Pierre Gosselin (09:04:02)
I don’t have your courage. My son had to write a paper based on some nonsense references. My advice was to just keep his head down and give them what they want.
I even helped him write the introduction. I was surprisingly good at it.
“Sincerity — once you can fake that, you’ve got it made.”
Should the photon recycling hypothesis be correct, then it should be relatively easy to test.
The rate at which the temperature falls during the onset of the polar night/winter should have been slowed during the past 40 years. We have the data for the temperature at the south pole, if the rate of cooling is significantly slower in 2000-2008, compared with 1960-68, then CO2 recycling may be a heating mechanism. If not, its not.
Sorry, I don’t know what happened but my latest posting was not finished.
Pierre Gosselin,
Just to keep a long story short, the AGW topic is highly politisized
You will not be present in the class room when your daughter makes her presentation.
Any opposition to the view of the teacher at your daughter’s school could back fire and ruin her next school years.
It only takes a single frustrated teacher to take care of that.
I tell all my nephews and nices that there is more to the stuff they have to learn today. Anti Green views simply are not accepted today and a struggle about it could jeopardize their progress.
Just keep this in mind.
To settle this subject you have to sit down with the teacher and tell him what you think about the stuff he is teaching.
It is your right (and obligation) as a parent to confront the school when they are teaching your kids bogus and simi science.
But don’t use your kids to settle the dispute.
QOTW material
The Top Seven Best, with greatest fall in CO2 emissions, virtually all of them a ‘Ten Best Places to Live Country:”
1. Afghanistan
2. Congo (Kinshasa)
3. Guam
4. Eritrea
5. Gabon
6. Kyrgyzstan
7. Zimbabwe
Flanagan (11:13:43) :said
“Right, there is no global warming. This is why April 2009 has reached an “unlikely anomaly” (once in 50 years) in 2005, 2007 and 2009 in my home country. Today, we were 8 centigrades above average. Tomorrow, the max temp is predicted to be 12 centigrades above average for May. We’re actually having rightnow at night what should be the maximum temperature during the day. In May, the lowest max temperature this year was 3 degrees above the 150-year average.”
I assume you are British Flanagan? If so the decadal mean average for May during the 2000’s is running well below what it was in 1670’s, 1710’s, 1800’s, 1910’s,
April is positively chilly in the 2000’s compared to 1730’s 1760’s 1860’s and positively Arctic compared to1940’s
As for being 12 degrees above average-first I would say that is how averages are worked out isn’t it-some years are warmer than others and secondly you must live in a city, because we are certainly not seeing temperatures this high in our rural neck of the UK woods. As for night temperatures It is 7 degrees C right now (11pm Sun) Thats pretty cool for this time of the year and will no doubt drop another couple of degrees.
Tonyb
Re: Paul Coppin (09:15:09) :[rant]
Very much agree with you Paul but (my pickyness) you seem to confuse It’s & Its – and apostrophe use seems to be a weaknes of many.
I’ve got the NH sea ice extent at 444,000 sq. km below the 1979 to 2008 average on May 23rd. It was as close as 150,000 at one time.
http://img29.imageshack.us/img29/5978/dailyseimay23.png
Just Want Truth… (13:38:33) :
Ok that was awesome, I think that should be played at the start of every science based testimony where opposing views are given before any Governmental Body anywhere in the world. Some politicians heads would explode when all the preconception erupted out.
Also someone send it to Chris Matthews of MSNBC who says scienctific method all the time but has no understanding of what it is.
No surprises why this will never appear in a science journal. The author can’t even get the basic physics right –
“2. The increasing temperature will cause increased water evaporation, which is the cause for the positive feedback needed to reach the high temperatures.”
Wrong…The water vapour feedback has nothing to do with increased evaporation – it’s due to the exponential increase in water holding capacity of air with warming. Try googling Clausius Clapeyron.
Perhaps Leonard might go aware and do some reading and learn some basic climate science.
Flanagan (13:44:54) :
Pamela: actually, other sources indicate a now rapidly decaying Artcic sea ice. We’re quite far fom the 79-2000 average. The Greenland sea ice in particular is very fragmented and should be collapsing completely within the next weeks. This is also confirmed by JAXA, ROOS
Please show me the links that show rapidly decaying Arctic ice,” as well as a complete collapse of the Greenland ice sheet.
I viist Jaxa’s site everday, and nothing graphically indicates anything unusual. As to your Greenland statement….wow.
To paraphrase historian Daniel J. Boorstin, the real obstacle to progress is not ignorance, but the reassuring illusion of knowledge. This observation helps explain the emergence of the idea of Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW). To most of the media, half the public, and a shrinking number of scientists who ought to know better, the lure of AGW lies in its comforting premise that a pitilessly changing planet can be made stable by environmental virtuousness.
Thus a system as complex and poorly understood as global climate is rendered less fearsome simply by declaring that it’s all mankind’s fault. We broke it, therefore we can fix it. The hubris is breathtaking, but typical. Doomsday “projections” by self-fulfilling computer models lend a patina of science to an hypothesis that, in fact, flunks every test of the scientific method. Those who point out its divergence from observed data and the lack of empirical basis are dismissed as “deniers”—heretics in the pay of Big Oil.
As always, politicians pandering to the climate of opinion (sorry) seize on the “crisis” to tax and dispense trillions to the climate-industrial complex (Big Wind). Nothing, least of all CO2 levels, changes, but don’t we all feel good?
Pundit P.J. O’Rourke once quipped, “Some people will do anything to save the planet—except take a science course.” But for those folks, AGW isn’t about science. It’s about belief—globally warm and fuzzy belief.
“” Pamela Gray (08:00:38) :
B Buckner, in this blog, refutations must come with citations. Else you are armchair quarterbacking.””
Else they’re a trolling.
” Mark_0454 (14:31:36) : “Sincerity — once you can fake that, you’ve got it made.””
Would this maxim be attributable to Al Gore?
RW (06:17:00) :
“If you use all the data instead of cherry picking, you see in fact that the 1850-2008 trend was shallower than the 1940-2008 trend, which was shallower than the 1975-2008 trend.”
Which was shallower than the 1910-1940 trend.
PS: (Or such is my recollection.)
“There are some of us who remain so humbled by the task of measuring and understanding the extraordinarily complex climate system that we are skeptical of our ability to know what it is doing and why. As we build climate data sets from scratch and look into the guts of the climate system, however, we don’t find the alarmist theory matching observations.”
~~John Christy
-Director, Earth System Science Center at the University of Alabama (UAH)
-participant IPCC, co-recipient 2007 Nobel Peace Prize
“” jlc (14:50:48) :
QOTW material
The Top Seven Best, with greatest fall in CO2 emissions, virtually all of them a ‘Ten Best Places to Live Country:””
It is funny!
There are some that would like to get America added to both lists :
———————————————————-
Unfortunately Waxman-Markey passed 33-22.
This link is from the official government site :
http://energycommerce.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1630:energy-and-commerce-committee-passes-comprehensive-clean-energy-legislation&catid=122:media-advisories&Itemid=55
The Greenland sea ice in particular is very fragmented and should be collapsing completely within the next weeks.
But not Greenland itself. That Ice Mass is landlocked. Oh, they showed a hole where melting water was pouring down. They didn’t show millions of holes.
It’s up to AGW to prove it’s claims. Finding a beach where the tundra is melting, a lone hole on Greenland Ice Cap, sea ice that breaks up yearly is far from proving thier case. Only thing they have proved is that they are capable of finding needles in a haystack.
The original AGW’er was found frozen in the Alps, caught in a sudden blast of climate change, and thusly preserved.
Just Want Truth… (17:00:43) :
typo
33-22
should be
33-25
Pierre Gosselin
“My daughter (14) will make a (skeptic) presentation on global warming on Tuesday in her geography class ….”
Many teachers try to use controversial issues to raise student interest. If they get a lively discussion they may be more pleased than hostile. Here’s hoping….
Of course there is another angle. Many years ago I heard Dr. Cyrus Gordon give a series of lectures in Pasadena on an obscure religious topic. (Well, OK, it was about the Graf-Wellhausen documentary hypothesis, and the conventional wisdom didn’t fare too well.) During one session, which I unfortunatly missed, he was asked what he told his children when they went to Sabbath School and were taught the G-W view. His answer, as I heard about it, was something like this: “I tell them to listen respectfully and make sure they understand, because it is important to know what is current, as well as what is true.”
John the Teacher
FYI.
“Global Warming Professor boasts he could ‘slaughter skeptical scientists in public debate!’
Climate Depot ^ | May 25, 2009 | Marc Morano
By Marc Morano – Climate Depot [Update: Former Colorado State Climatologist Dr. Roger Pielke Sr. accepts the global warming debate challenge. See: Pielke Sr. ‘I would be glad to debate Dr. Schneider…he represents a ‘narrow perspective on climate science’ – May 25, 2009 ]
Professor Stephen Schneider of Stanford University, a prominent proponent of man-made global warming fears has publicly challenged scientists skeptical of warming fears to debate. (Schneider’s public website with bio and contact info is here. ) Schneider was interviewed by Thomas Fuller of the San Francisco Examiner on May 24, 2009.
Examiner Excerpt: Question: More specifically, the principal skeptic websites (Watt’s Up With That, Climate Skeptic, Climate Audit and Climate Science) that I look at regularly seem to think they are winning the day. They think data is coming in that questions the established paradigm.
Schneider: They have been thinking that as long as I have observed them and they have very few mainstream climate scientists who publish original research in climate refereed journals with them–a petroleum geologist’s opinion on climate science is a as good as a climate scientists opinion on oil reserves. So petitions sent to hundreds of thousands of earth scientists are frauds. If these guys think they are “winning” why don’t they try to take on face to face real climatologists at real meetings–not fake ideology shows like Heartland Institute–but with those with real knowledge–because they’d be slaughtered in public debate by Trenberth, Santer, Hansen, Oppenheimer, Allen, Mitchell, even little ol’ me. It’s easy to blog, easy to write op-eds in the Wall Street Journal.
[…]
Question: How would you characterize the state of play regarding scientific discussion regarding anthropogenic contributions to global warming? What is happening in science today that bears on the debate?
Schneider: Not much change over the past few decades, except nature is cooperating with theory as formerly theoretical projections like heat waves and ice melt is now observed–at faster rates than predicted. All in IPCC and NAS reports. Why ice is melting faster than the models suggest is still not known, but certainly not encouraging!”
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2257530/posts
“The drop in temperature from 1940 to 1970 was claimed to have been caused by “global dimming” caused by aerosols…”
The Total Solar Irradiance (TSI) graph shows a post-1940 dip, corresponding to the dip in temperature.
“…higher latitudes should heat up more than lower latitudes.”
This is true in the Arctic, which is warming faster than anywhere else.
This would not be expected to happen in Antarctica. In the southern hemisphere, more of the sun’s heat goes directly into the ocean. There isn’t as much land area, over which the heat could build up.
And, there’s the other stuff that keeps East Antarctica cold: altitude, Westerlies, ozone hole, etc.
Steve Hempell (13:21:44) :
‘Paul Coppin (09:15:09) :
Thank you for that: Another one of my pet peeves.
Dr. Weinstein does however state what consequences should arise from the hypothesis. A step in the right direction.
I would like to see a list of the assumptions that the AGW hypothesis (es) depends on.’
The biggest assumption.
“If there were no climate feedbacks, the response of Earth’s mean temperature to a forcing of 4 W/m2 (the forcing for a doubled atmospheric CO2) would be an increase of about 1.2 °C (about 2.2 °F). However, the total climate change is affected not only by the immediate direct forcing, but also by climate “feedbacks” that come into play in response to the forcing.”
The central value of 3 °C is an amplification by a factor of 2.5 over the direct effect of 1.2 °C (2.2 °F).”
Committee on the Science of Climate Change
National Research Council
John H 55 (12:44:49) – does anyone know of any studies on (potential) impact of largescale windfarms on the environment through modified wind patterns?
Here are a few sites for you to peruse:
http://www.livescience.com/environment/041109_wind_mills.html
http://www.windaction.org/news/5888
http://www.atmos.uiuc.edu/~sbroy/publ/jgr2004.pdf
Why ice is melting in one place and freezing in 2 others is called a change in status.
The models only predict what is fed into them. Apparently only the select hot data chosen. Then it’s off to the global scans to find a smoking needle in a haystack. Gotta be one.
Richard Feynman was a truly brilliant man. It really is a shame he’s not around to offer his thoughts about CAGW.
“RW (06:17:00) :
“If you use all the data instead of cherry picking, you see in fact that the 1850-2008 trend was shallower than the 1940-2008 trend, which was shallower than the 1975-2008 trend.”
Here’s my theory of the cause of the steepening after 1975: the UHI effect, which has tapered off in recent years (relative to the rate of increase prior to 2000) and the warming effect of oceanic oscillations, which is beginning to turn to a cool phase.
OK, so who is going to take on Schneider? Can we set up a public debate on some mainstream TV channel? I would pay good money to see that.
John H 55 (12:44:49) – does anyone know of any studies on (potential) impact of largescale windfarms on the environment through modified wind patterns?
If you build it, the wind will move someplace else.
“I assume you are British Flanagan? If so the decadal mean average for May during the 2000’s is running well below what it was in 1670’s, 1710’s, 1800’s, 1910’s,”
Tony B, you must expect people to check these things. It’s easy enough with CET. Here are the figures for average May temperatures during the decades you mention:
1670s: 11.05°C
1710s: 10.90
1800s: 11.97
1910s: 12.01
2000s: 12.19
“April is positively chilly in the 2000’s compared to 1730’s 1760’s 1860’s and positively Arctic compared to1940’s”
Here’s the actual data:
1730s: 8.66
1760s: 8.37
1860s: 8.71
1940s: 9.26
2000s: 8.93
You can choose your own opinion. You can’t choose your own facts.
Roger Knights: you are wrong about 1910-1940. The trend during that period was ~+0.15°C/decade. From 1975-2008 it was ~+0.18°C/decade. Always better to check instead of relying on recollection. Your theory about warming since 1975 fails to account for the greatest warming being seen at high northern latitudes. It also fails to account for the stratospheric cooling.
RW (06:17:00) : “Who is Leonard Weinstein anyway? Is he a climate scientist?”
Same question about Al Gore.
Flanagan (13:44:54) : “Pamela: actually, other sources indicate a now rapidly decaying Artcic sea ice. We’re quite far fom the 79-2000 average.”
Unless you can show why the infamous 1979-2000 average has any real significance it remains simply a cherry picked period to prove a point.
So the AGW true believers tune out a guy who uses exclamaiton points.
But they believe a guy who claims the world is coming to an end and that anyone who disagrees with him should be tried and silenced.
Okey-dokey.
RW (06:17:00) : “Who is Leonard Weinstein anyway? Is he a climate scientist?”
Courtesy of janama:
The real question is: who is RW? Is he a climate scientist?
I may be off base here but what is the basis of Schneider’s statement
“a petroleum geologist’s opinion on climate science is a as good as a climate scientists opinion on oil reserves.”
Four websites are mentioned: None of them to my knowledge is written by a “petroleum geologist”. Does he mean Steve McIntyre? As far as I know he has a degree in Mathematics and worked in mining. Anthony is a meteorologist, Warren Mayer has a degree in aeronautical engineering and Pielke is a climate scientist.
Is my suspicion correct and Schneider is desperate to smear any skeptic with the dreaded oil smear even if it is false? If so, these people are beyond contempt.
old construction worker (17:45:52) :
I’d be interested in ALL the assumptions.
Anthony, this may be sufficiently on-topic, but I want to bring this to your attention.
” A new study from MIT (why are new studies being conducted, if the “Science” is “settled”?), (smart guys up there at MIT, no doubt) shows 5.2 degrees C warming by 2100, compared to their earlier projection of 2.4 degrees C. The reasons cited for the new and improved forecast are, first, the influence of volcanoes on the cooling in the latter half of the 20th century, second, improved accounting for GDP growth, and third, “carbon-nitrogen interaction in the terrestrial ecosystem.” Next, and this makes the fourth adjustment, the MIT studiers introduce a caveat, a wiggler, if you will. Apparently, the ocean surface temperature is not cooperating, so its influence is now accounted for. This is an indication that the science is settled? I am not so impressed, if the “settled science” now requires adjustment for four additional aspects.” – RES
Abstract of the MIT study is found here:
http://ams.allenpress.com/perlserv/?request=get-abstract&doi=10.1175/2009JCLI2863.1&ct=1&SESSID=f4b7bbdb288603f22339c29c9cfbca5d
janama (14:27:49) :
“Leonard Weinstein received a B.Sc. in Physics in 1962 from Florida State University. He started work at NASA Langley Research Center in June 1962. While at Langley, Leonard obtained his Master and Doctor of Science degrees in Engineering from the George Washington University. He continued to work at NASA Langley until June 2007, ending as a Senior Research Scientist. Dr. Weinstein has had a career that is recognized for innovation. He has over 90 publications, including 11 patents. He has received numerous awards, commendations, and recognition’s for innovative experimental research, including an Exceptional Engineering Achievement Medal, an IR-100 award, the 1999 American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Engineer of the year, the James Crowder Award, and over 40 other awards and recognitions for innovative experimental research. Dr. Weinstein is presently a Senior Research Fellow at the National Institute of Aerospace.”
And don’t forget West Side Story, On the Town and all his years with the New York Philharmonic. I’m amazed he had time to do all those scientific things as well.
RW (06:17:00):
Calculating a trend using all the data shows a net rise of 0.55°C.
Which is quite normal during for the Holocene Period.
Is he a climate scientist?
Science is not dogmatic. If a layperson expresses his/her observations on a phenomenon, system or process (the term system includes processes) and his/her observations are in agreement with scientific theories, what he has said is scientifically approved because it adhere to the theories of coherence and correspondence. On the other hand, geologists have to understand climate, so climatology is included in their academic curriculum and geologists are certified in climatology also.
Typo: “Which is quite normal during for the Holocene Period.” It should have said “Which is quite normal for>/b> the Holocene Period. Sorry and thanks for your comprehension. 🙂
Well, here is my take (these are numbered but are not meant to match to the posting points):
1.So far the data is, at best, inconclusive in regards to AGW. Personally, I don’t believe in AGW myself, but I am open to being corrected by solid data verifiable by those who don’t hold to AGW.
2.The character of many who do believe in AGW is questionable at best, and that does affect data quality as well as results regardless of how you want to look at it. We all know the leaders, if not the rank and file, have an agenda that is ultimately against both freedom and humanity itself.
3. Point two also affects the ‘believability factor’ he speaks of in that posting.
4. Even IF the data eventually verifies global warming, because the source of it is definitely not ‘greenhouse gases,’ there is very little we can do about it ourselves. There may be GW, but it aint AGW. Even were the cause GHGs, I doubt there is much we could do about that simply because we cannot control nature no matter how much we try. In all of nature, I am betting (thought I cannot state with scientific certainty) that there is more CO2 and CH4 that can be released in processes completely outside our control than there is in what we can control. I believe that. If that is indeed the case, then whatever we do is useless as well in that scenario. Nature can swamp our signal any time it feels like it.
Regarding the exclamation points in this article and your comments I am reminded of the remark a young female instructor had when I suggested she use Also Leopold’s “A Sand County Almanac” as reading material for one of her classes. “I’d never assign that,” she said, “his writing is sexist.” That was an inappropriate response for a fascinating series of environmental essays by a man born in 1887. Each of us has some odd ways of writing and it is an editor’s job to fashion a text to the norms of the publication. Having been reading your comments now for several months I try to read past the mistakes: it’s for its, whether for weather, to for too, due to for because, and so on. I made a comment about word choice in Basil and Anthony’s recent post because they claim they may submit it for publication – I would not have bothered with it otherwise. If something is funny or ironic or a cross-cultural issue then I think it is fine to point it out. But will I not read someone’s comment because they spell Leif’s name as Lief. I don’t think so!
I just noticed I used Also rather than Aldo. The two letters are side-by-side on my keyboard. You need not point this out to me. Thanks.
Regarding the quoting of the Telegraph article: “Rise of sea levels is ‘the greatest lie ever told'”, you might also want to check and see if the Nils-Axel Mörner of that article is the same as the one in http://www.randi.org/hotline/1998/0012.html.
Science should be about skeptical inquiry, and it needs to be applied to both side of the argument.
Am I the only one who wonders what planet Flanagan lives on? I’d like to get there. We are freezing on this planet. I hope he is right because one more year of “warming” like these last two and his world will be needed to replace the crop losses of the American midwest.
Roger Sowell
Another computer run from MIT, GIGO how embarassing.
So now they are predicting .06C warming per year.
Vocanoes a problem? Predict zero.
Oceans not co-operating (not rising)? Ignore them with a wiggle.
Why be inconvenienced and embarassed when you can project an inferno by trapping 100% of the TSI.
That ought to scare the pants off of them.
Who needs proof. Just keep writing new versions of Planet a la Flameau.
Schneider would get slaughtered in a debate by many skeptics, as he has been in the past. One of the leading proponents of global cooling in the 70’s he is proud to be a panic monger and has stated on film that it is ok to lie to get your point across.
This was an interesting article, so was the comments that followed.
To an extent, Global Warming debunked or not, it brings to light the incoherence in the so called facts. And this debate will go on until someone can get these climate scientists, accurate facts, and until the scientists find the perfect model of this worlds climate. Seems a long time away from what I read here.
Nevertheless, proof of Global Warming or not, we still need to get into a sustainable and green lifestyle.
CO2 emissions in cities are still unhealthy we need a cleaner alternative to fossil fuel. A sustainable model has its perks with or without global warming and we need to head in that direction.
Global warming, has however, even if it is a hoax, warmed the people of the globe to lead a greener life. So lets just do our part in what we can for NOW. Till the cleaver ones figure things out for sure.
I just hope our governments are not coerced into some drastic climate control methods, due to ill advice. They are very capable of it, Iraq war an example.
Thanks for an enlightening article.
No debate over global warming with Professor Stephen Schneider should proceed without first having had the audience see this video clip of him (complete with his nervous nostril to cheek twitch), just in interests of full disclosure you understand :
See the 7:15 to 8:50 minute of this video
vivekchandran (22:55:16) :
The truth is we need, as Monckton has so well put it, to have the courage to do nothing.
Well, if AGW is disproved then we can always start worrying about the next ice age instead. The important bit is the ‘worrying’ of course.
In the 1970s the consensus was that the world was cooling which made sense at the time as the world had been cooling since the 1940s. The AGWers try to dismiss the old message, saying it didn’t happen, but I’m old enough to remember that global cooling was the consensus back then.
The following link is to a TV series episode that was hosted by Leonard Nimoy (Spock) In Search Of… The Coming Ice Age (Part 1 of 3) from that era. It’s a fine example of the power of TV imagery. Swap cooling for warming and it comes across as a training manual for the warmers. There is some nice cheery picking of weather events too – even the National Guard couldn’t keep up with the mounting snow…
““…higher latitudes should heat up more than lower latitudes.”
This is true in the Arctic, which is warming faster than anywhere else.
This would not be expected to happen in Antarctica. In the southern hemisphere, more of the sun’s heat goes directly into the ocean. There isn’t as much land area, over which the heat could build up.
And, there’s the other stuff that keeps East Antarctica cold: altitude, Westerlies, ozone hole, etc.” Francis (17:38:41).
You did mention the ocean but the circumpolar current that constantly circulates around the Antarctic is quite unique in managing the continent’s isolation .
The bottom line in all this from a political point of view is that evidently the “Science is settled”…clearly it is not.
The preceding comment by Vivekchandran is welcomed but to say that C02 levels are still too high in cities shows how people have been led down the garden path.
If the AGW theory is incorrect than it does not matter what CO2 levels are in cities…..what we should actually be caring about are the toxic fumes that can cause serious health issues and they can be from all sorts of noxious substances.
CO2 is a life giver and an important gas….it is not a poison.
The trouble with the general public is their perception on what CO2 does for us.
However we do need to be “Green” …for instance changing to Hydrogen based vehicle engines would be a very good idea.
The technology already exists and Honda are introducing a car called the “Clarity” which got the thumbs up from BBC’s Top Gear.
However why no commitment on this form of technology by President Obama last week?
This is just a small part of our “skeptical” attitude…..the reaction of the ruling elite and the AGW community to any form of overcoming percieved issues is slapped down, suggesting that the underlying agenda of the AGW’s is not to solve problems and let us get on with our lives but to control us.
I for one do not have the scientific knowledge to argue for or against todays main posting but I do know that temps have been dropping and that the ice has been returning in the Arctic.
I am also aware that the Aqua satellite did not find the required information it was looking for when launched in 2002 and with a clampdown on any sort of debate in the media I have to conclude that the gist of what todays post is saying must be true.
Challenging AGW does not mean we don’t belive in recycling or inventing cleaner technologies, we just want the truth.
“Flanagan (11:13:43) :
Right, there is no global warming. This is why April 2009 has reached an “unlikely anomaly” (once in 50 years) in 2005, 2007 and 2009 in my home country. ”
I do not understand how April 2009 can reach an unlikely anomaly in 2005. But you could at least name your home country. You are not ashamed of it, are you?
There’s a lot of Flanagan bashing. Please stop.
Without such points of view such as his, it would be very confusing to understand the mind of some of the AGW followers. In the coming years, if AGW keeps stalling or even global cooling gears up, we will need him to follow the “confirmation bias” of AGW true believers/activists.
As the artic recovers, it will be just the Greenland (Green! – as in trees seen from the coast), as global anomaly temps starts to approach 0.00 net warming in the nest decade it will be local/topic warming, etc,etc
PS: Flanagan, I’m in Lisbon Porgugal, We’ve been wearing sweaters here up until today. I’m 40 year’s old now, and I don’t remember ever seen people wearing sweaters up until May (for sure not in the last 30 years). It’s weather I suppose, but it’s been a very cold weather.
CO2 emissions in cities are still unhealthy
Nonsense. There are no health risks from CO2 levels that result or will result from burning fossil fuels.
There are health risks from many other products of burning fossil fuels such as,
Nitrogen compounds
Sulphates
Soot/particulates
Uranium and other radioactive isotopes
Calling CO2 ‘pollution’ is nonsense peddled to the ignorant.
The quote above about people willing to do anything to save the environment, except learn some basic science is something you should think about.
Nice summation.
Ron de Haan, Juan and others.
Thanks for the very helpful advice.
Isn’t it sad that it has come to this point? It’s now a risk to challenge Green Dogma? Teachers have license to bully kids into believing rubbish.
You’re right, in a way I am using my daughter to get the message out. She actually didn’t give two hoots about the issue before starting on this. But I offered to pay half of her flight ticket to the States this summer, and for a teenager that was too much to resist. I warned her she may be entering a lion’s den.
But I’ve prepared her quite well I think. No matter how it turns out, it will be a good lesson for her on the aspects of scientific debate and intolerant politics.
She told me the teacher (whom I don’t know) appears to be a full-blown AGW believer, but he has agreed to allow her to show the skeptic view. I’m sure he is really underestimating what’s coming his way.
It could very well be my daughter will take a big hit from academia here (in Germany). My wife, who is German and went through the system, has warned me explicitly that the sh- might hit the fan – and could actually jeopardise my daughter achieving her A-levels.
I gave my daughter the instruction not to mock the AGW theory, to stay respectful, and to simply show why there is major skepticism.
If the teacher goes too far, then we’ll intervene and iron it out later like grown adults do. I’m just hoping this presentation makes the teacher and students think more about the issue.
We’ve added the WattsUp website to the references, and so Anthony may be getting an additional small crowd of German readers. Who knows.
Alan G
Thanls for the Ice Age link – I remeber seeing this when I was a teenager.
The imagery is compelling, but at least the facts are accurate.
Compare it to AIT!
Nimoy states “…that Arctic temp. dropped 2° over the last 30 years.”
Now wouldn’t that mean we are about where we were in the 1940s?
I’m gonna search this Gifford Miller alarmist – probabaly paid by Big Oil.
An IPCC reviewer jumps ship
http://www.nzcpr.com/guest147.htm
Hey there,
I’m from Belgium, not UK. I only wanted to point out the high frequency of very unlikely positive anomalies (less than once in 50 years) we had these 10 last years. I’m referring more to a statistical argument than to a 1-day stuff.
About the sea ice, take a look at the greenland sea ice (especially the east part)
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/NEWIMAGES/arctic.seaice.color.000.png
take a look at 2007 or 2008 for comparison:
http://igloo.atmos.uiuc.edu/cgi-bin/test/print.sh?fm=05&fd=24&fy=2007&sm=05&sd=24&sy=2008
the sea ice concentration there was then almost 80-90 percent.
“Swap cooling for warming and it comes across as a training manual for the warmers. ”
I agree. What struck me was the use of words like “could” and “might.”
Also, “if this trend continues . . . .”
And the “unprecedented” argument, e.g. “This is the first time X has happened in Y years.”
That said, I do think there is cause for concern over a new ice age. There is no need for a fancy model, you just look at world’s track record.
Alan G,
In Part 3 they interview – guess who?
Steven Schneider!!
Welcome back to science, Mr de Lange.
FatBigot (21:17:20) :
“And don’t forget West Side Story, On the Town and all his years with the New York Philharmonic…”
That made me LOL!
The AGW hypothesis has little more scientific basis than Creation Science…It’s so bad, it’s not even wrong.
Expected by anyone who has looked at the pattern of temperature trends since the end of the Little Ice Age.
By simply looking at the HadCRUT3 global temperature anomaly curve you can see…
Since 2005, HadCRUT3 shows 0.2 C to 0.3 C of cooling. The satellite data show 0.4 C of cooling over the same period…The satellite data also show less warming than the surface data from 1970-2005 (~ 0.4 C).
The average warming/cooling phase lasts 31 years. The average amplitude is +0.14 C. The average warming phase has been +0.4 C. The average cooling (not counting the current cooling phase) was -0.25 C. If you count the current cooling phase it’s -.03 C. Amazingly, these ~30-year half-cycles seem to match the phases of the PDO fairly well (see Don Easterbrook’s “Solar Influence on Recurring Global, Decadal, Climate Cycles Recorded by Glacial Fluctuations, Ice Cores, Sea Surface Temperatures, and Historic Measurements Over the Past Millennium” on this website).
Considering the fact that 1850 was still kind of in the tail-end of the Little Ice Age, 0.5 C to 0.7 C of total global warming from 1850-2008 isn’t very significant…Particularly if the surface station data are overestimating the warming.
It’s almost June…Here in Dallas, Texas, this has been the first weekend we’ve been able to comfortably use our swimming pool. I believe it has only cracked 90F a couple of times this spring…And we’re still having nightly lows in the 60’s…And it’s almost June!
Your observations and my observations are of weather…Not climate.
When I was in the process of getting my BS in Earth Science (Geology concentration) toward the end of the last Cold Chicken Little (1976-1980), I took courses in Marine Science, Astronomy, Meteorology, Physical Geography, Zoology, Chemistry, Physics as well as lots of Geology classes. I go to work every day in a “paleoclimatology lab” – I explore for oil and gas in the Gulf of Mexico…Most of the Cenezoic sedimentary rocks of the Gulf were laid down in glacial-interglacial sequences (high stand/low stand).
Sedimentary geologists are paleoclimatologists and paleogeographers. The members of the world’s largest organization of sedimentary geologists (the AAPG) have a fairly good understanding of paleoclimatology…And the vast majority of those of us with an intellectual interest in the climate change debate know for a fact that the Earth’s climate has not been doing anything unusual over the last 150 years.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/05/24/disproving-the-anthropogenic-global-warming-agw-problem/
flanagan wrote:
“I’m from Belgium, not UK. I only wanted to point out the high frequency of very unlikely positive anomalies (less than once in 50 years).”
—————————————————
your statistics appears to be based on random temperatures.
if, however, we are just around the end of a multi decade upwards trend or even passed a multi decade top, then these maxima are just what statistics would expect. nothing to worry about. trends are multi decadal and tops and bottoms come and go.
and on top of that, we have the uncorrected increasing UHI.
Cherry-picking the observations that contradict a hypothesis or theory is exactly the way that theories are tested and validated.
By just visually looking at the HadCRUT3 data it should be “intuitively obvious to the casual observer” that the temperature anomaly has oscillated with a wave length of about 60 years and an average amplitude of about 0.34 C since 1850. Three full warming legs with a total warming of ~1.2 C and two full cooling legs with total cooling of ~-0.5 C…A net warming of ~+0.7 C. Since 2005, HadCRUT3 clearly shows ~-0.2 C to -0-0.3 C of cooling…The satellite data show ~-0.4 C over the same period.
If you download the HadCRUT3 data (CO2 Science has a nice interface) and plot the temperature anomaly from 1908-1942 and 1978-2006…Linear trend-lines for both periods have almost identical slopes.
As far as the Stratosphere goes…”Greenhouse” warming of the Troposphere would by definition result in simultaneous Stratospheric cooling. This is something that has never been clearly demonstrated in the satellite observations.
Pierre Gosselin (03:26:16) :
Ron de Haan, Juan and others.
Thanks for the very helpful advice.
Isn’t it sad that it has come to this point? It’s now a risk to challenge Green Dogma? Teachers have license to bully kids into believing rubbish.
Good on you. I wish your daughter all the best. Let us all know how she gets on.
Pierre Gosselin – Wow I didn’t realize that was THE Stephen Schneider when I watched it. Typical 70’s scruffy hair.
I just loved the disclaimer right at the start- This series presents information based in part on theory and conjecture. The producers purpose is to suggest some possible explanations but not necessarily the only ones to the mysteries we will examine. You could say that about anything ever written about climate.
OT but…
I was at University from 85 to 89. The oil price crashed in 85/86. The end of the gravy train.
Global warming was born in about 87/88…
Flanagan, your argument using comparative photography demonstrates a lack of understanding about Arctic currents, jet stream, surface wind, and temperature induced fresh water and sea ice melt factors. These variables make it statistically impossible to identify which year the photos were taken in. Why? Because like your fingerprints, no two years are exactly alike in the ice melt pattern being demonstrated. Your argument is cherry picking at its worst and lacks both validity and reliability, the two defining characteristics of good, or in this case, bad, scientific thought.
vivekchandran (22:55:16) :
‘CO2 emissions in cities are still unhealthy…………..’
Please explain why you feel CO2 emission in cities is unhealthly.
Or are you referring to all emissions as CO2?
Max (15:58:07) :
Max. An excellent comment!
(AGW proponents: Please note the exclamation mark.)
Flanagan, on the Arctic sea ice issue, please peruse the information at this link:
http://iabp.apl.washington.edu/research_seaiceageextent.html
Flanagan (04:54:04) : “ . . . high frequency of very unlikely positive anomalies…”
Seems to me the only thing you are saying here is that the comparisons being made are not valid. If one person were to win several large sums of money at a casino in a short time there would be a lot of inquisitive people looking into it. Because new continental highs are not being set and because almost all places have been warmer than now in the past and because the Arctic Ocean has in the past had much less ice than today and because neither the ice on Greenland nor Antarctica is melting and because sea level is not rising faster than it has in the past and because the lower troposphere is not warming and – I was going to make a point here but I have to go feed my methane producing horses.
“Flanagan (11:13:43) :
Right, there is no global warming. This is why April 2009 has reached an “unlikely anomaly” (once in 50 years) in 2005, 2007 and 2009 in my home country.”
April 2009 was warm in Belgium, average 12,5°C (normal: 9°C).
But January 2009 was cold, average 0,7°C (normal 2,6°C).
No climate-change there, just WX.
Slightly OT but I have had a reply from Prof. Dr. Andrzej Zelazniewicz,
President, The Committee of Geological Sciences of the Polish Academy of Sciences.
I contacted the Academy to try to discover the original document referred to by the Washington Examiner in late April. The professor has sent me a link to an English translation of their original statement regarding their attitude to Global warming:
http://www.kngeol.pan.pl/images/stories/pliki/pdf/Com._Geol._Sci._PAS_Climate_change.pdf
He makes the following additional points: “In general, it would be good to reach as many political decision makers as possible. Please note however that there are more than 90 scientific committees in PAS, which means that not necessarily everybody in PAS shares our position.”
Francis (17:38:41) :
This is true in the Arctic, which is warming faster than anywhere else.
I’ve been looking for those arctic weather stations with no luck. Any help would be appreciated.
Dave Middleton (07:08:04) :
As far as the Stratosphere goes…”Greenhouse” warming of the Troposphere would by definition result in simultaneous Stratospheric cooling. This is something that has never been clearly demonstrated in the satellite observations.
Cooling of the upper stratosphere and mesosphere as expected from the increase in GHGs has been observed, check out the following for a start:
http://www.agu.org/journals/rg/rg0304/2002RG000121/index.html
I discovered an interesting bit of 19th century history:
The quote, “Unexampled frost prevails throughout the northern United States the night of June 4, 1859.” comes from “Harper’s Encyclopaedia of United States History” by Woodrow Wilson (and others). A more particular quote: “hopes … were blasted by the June frost of 1859. In the early morning of June 5, the mercury went down to 32 : the frost killed the wheat, corn, potatoes, vegetables, and fruit of a considerable portion of New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indina, and Illinois.” from “History of the US from the Compromise of 1850” by James Ford Rhodes.
In our concern about the global warming trend are we turning a blind eye to a possibility of a June frost in the corn belt? My question for the climatologists is: statistically, what kind of frost was the frost of 1859? Was it a two hundred year frost; a five hundred year frost; maybe just a hundred year frost? My question for the agronomists and agricultural economists is: what would be the repercussions of such a frost be in 2009? Where I live in the north half of the corn belt things in 1859 were pretty primitive: railroads had only just come in, most people lived on farms, people had their grain ground at grist mills, your tractor was a team of horses or oxen, fertilizer had nothing to do with nitrate but was a word coined to politely refer to manure, and the world population was about a fifth of what it is now. Today things are different and not only our cities but the world counts on our grain production. Those who wring their hands about how hoggish we SUV driving Americans are, please also remember we American also have in our care one of the world’s few “breadbaskets.” Since we export more than half of the world’s total exported rough grains, I think it’s fair to say that the world counts on America’s breadbasket being full at all times. It would be irresponsible to concern ourselves with a slightly warming world if rare June frosts are as much a part of our climate as greenhouse warming.
@ Philip B.
OK. Just relax about the “CO2 being pollution” in my previous comment. Yes its wrong. What I meant was that the air quality in the City is degraded. Everybody knows there are plenty of other pollutants being emitted along with CO2.
My point was that whatever is causing all that CO2 is also causing a ton of other gasses that in return pollute our air. So eventually, Global Warming or not, the steps taken would almost be the same. Getting cleaner energy, minus fossil fuels.
Unless of course, you’d like to venture into global climate control methods, like dumping Iron in the sea or block the sun. Which honestly, none of us are too keen to see happen.
Dave Middleton (06:22:46):
When I was in the process of getting my BS in Earth Science (Geology concentration) toward the end of the last Cold Chicken Little (1976-1980), I took courses in Marine Science, Astronomy, Meteorology, Physical Geography, Zoology, Chemistry, Physics as well as lots of Geology classes. I go to work every day in a “paleoclimatology lab” – I explore for oil and gas in the Gulf of Mexico…Most of the Cenezoic sedimentary rocks of the Gulf were laid down in glacial-interglacial sequences (high stand/low stand).
I know, I know, Dave… So I did it, I mean, I also took courses in meteorology, geology, edafology, mineralogy, climatology, paleobiology, physics, etc., because biology cannot be disconected from these disciplines and these are very important for my work.
Sedimentary geologists are paleoclimatologists and paleogeographers. The members of the world’s largest organization of sedimentary geologists (the AAPG) have a fairly good understanding of paleoclimatology…And the vast majority of those of us with an intellectual interest in the climate change debate know for a fact that the Earth’s climate has not been doing anything unusual over the last 150 years.
I absolutely agree. The projected natural fluctuations of temperature for the current geological period are into a range of -3 °C to 3 °C (total of 6 °C), so a change of 0.55 °C is into the natural expected fluctuations.
Pete (18:07:25) – re: large wind farm effects. Thanks – sort of thing I was after.
RBateman – “it’ll move if you build it” 🙂
And good luck to Pierre’s daughter – suggest you brief her on how to side step ad homs!
slowtofollow (12:08:49):
Pete (18:07:25) – re: large wind farm effects. Thanks – sort of thing I was after.
RBateman – “it’ll move if you build it” 🙂
And good luck to Pierre’s daughter – suggest you brief her on how to side step ad homs!
Uh! Oh! Would you be so kind as to brief me also on how to avoid ad hominem attacks and not getting anger before ad homs? 🙂
From: vivekchandran (22:55:16) :
This was an interesting article, so was the comments that followed.
To an extent, Global Warming debunked or not, it brings to light the incoherence in the so called facts. And this debate will go on until someone can get these climate scientists, accurate facts, and until the scientists find the perfect model of this worlds climate. Seems a long time away from what I read here.
Nevertheless, proof of Global Warming or not, we still need to get into a sustainable and green lifestyle.
CO2 emissions in cities are still unhealthy we need a cleaner alternative to fossil fuel. A sustainable model has its perks with or without global warming and we need to head in that direction.
Global warming, has however, even if it is a hoax, warmed the people of the globe to lead a greener life. So lets just do our part in what we can for NOW. Till the cleaver ones figure things out for sure.
I just hope our governments are not coerced into some drastic climate control methods, due to ill advice. They are very capable of it, Iraq war an example.
—
Political bias rears it head again I see: Note that the AGW extremism – or as you point out, the “drastic climate control methods” ARE here NOW, as we speak, in the disastrous Obama fuel demands – that will kill some 3800 ADDITIONAL people per year due to accidents.
Further, his “clever people” who are demanding the energy cap-and-tax plans will cause millions of job losses – for nothing, will cause artificial price increases in every product to artificial energy price increases in transporation, food, fuel, and material in everything we consume.
Again – for nothing. For no good produced.
They will reduce – or eliminate/destroy – economic growth worldwide which (is intended to!) destroy more of the (free world’s) world’s economic power -> more deaths, more power in the hands of those in China and India who do NOT follow Obama’s policies.
The “clever ones” have decided – deliberately – to destroy America’s economy through their propagandic programs of a “greener life.” For their political power. Their hypocrisy. Their religious “guilt” about America’s success.
Thank you for the link to the AGU abstract…One of these days I’m going to have to break down and join the AGU.
From the abstract of “REVIEW OF MESOSPHERIC TEMPERATURE TRENDS”…
I wrote that no stratospheric cooling relative to the tropospheric warming had been documented…Greenhouse warming would remove exactly the same amount of heat from the upper atmosphere as it added to the lower atmosphere. There are lots of models, studies and some real data that demonstrate some cooling of the Stratosphere during various time periods over the instrumental data record. But no one has clearly demonstrated that stratospheric “mirror image” of the Troposphere. I do understand that it’s not going to literally be a “mirror image;” but it ought to be clearly and easily demonstrable in actual, real (not modeled) data.
The only facet of anthropogenic global warming that can’t be falsified to some degree is the fact that CO2 is a greenhouse gas. Einstein supposedly once said, “No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong.” AGW proponents have reversed Einstein’s burden of proof equation.
Rw
Two tips, don’t try and reply to someone (Flanagan) at 11pm on a Sunday and thereby not read across the columns properly, and secondly do not rush outside to check the temperature and consequently forget to include the most important part of the response 🙂
I had not posted the May 2000’s figures as we had not reached the end of the time period-the figure was of the 1990’s to 2000 which was 11.73, so below two of the decades quoted.
So your figures for the Aprils of the 2000’s will be around 0.2C warmer than the 1910’s and a simlar amount to the 1800’s . So a rise in temperature from the LIA of .01 c per decade.
As regards May, the 2000’s will be some .35C cooler than the 1940’s and some .33 warmer than the 1730’s. This represents a rise of .01 per decade from the depths of the LIA, but a fall in the values of 60 years ago.
Which brings us to the main point I had intended to make last night if I hadn’t of interrupted myself by looking at the outside thermometer. (Our weather station is resting, having devoured too many batteries)
The main point I wanted to make was that many of the months have changed their traditional character, something that seems to have been going on ever since man first became farmers and started complaining that the weather was never like it used to be. On a more scientific basis winters have become distinctly milder-not surprising as much of CET covers the LIA. although our three warmest winters are all prior to 1the 900’s
There is very little difference on an annual or decadil basis of the summers-plenty of warm summers back to 1660, plenty now. The mean average is depressed by the exceptionally cold winters but the mean average is still within a narrow band of mostly between 9 and 10c.
It is very difficult to se any evidence of catastrophic and rapid warming, indeed the very weak recovery from the depths of the LIA is rather concerning and lays open the question-are we to all intents and purposes still in the LIA?
All the best
TonyB
vivekchandran (12:05:40) :
You would agree that fossil fuels are not destroying the earth?
vivekchandran (12:05:40) :
You would also agree that mankind as always been active in reducing pollution? And that there is no reason to think he will stop being active?
@Nasif Nahle (12:07:57) :
Nasif…I have been debated climate change in 4-5 Internet forums for the last 5 years or so. Most of those forums allow the members to include personal profiles…In every instance, I clearly put the fact that I an an oil industry geophysicist in my profile.
It never fails that at some point in every one of those climate change debates, someone will type something like this, “I see by your profile that you are an oil industry scientist. So nothing you have to say on this subject can be believed.”
The funny thing is that almost all of the “science” that I rely on in these debates comes from my college education at a very obscure state university in New England back in the 1970’s. Back then I knew that the “imminent ice age scare” was baloney just as well as I know that the current global warming scare is baloney.
The only difference between now and the late ’70’s ice age scare is the political reaction to the Chicken Littling.
Steve Hempell (13:21:44) :
I would like to see a list of the assumptions that the AGW hypothesis (es) depends on.
Unproven assumptions:
Carbon dioxide is increasing at an unprecedented rate.
Global temperature is increasing at an unprecedented rate.
Buffer zone between the atmosphere and the oceans producing 50-200 year cycle time for CO2.
I don’t want to hog the show. I’ll let others add more.
The exclamation marks may not be usual but don’t really matter. It’s a very good summation in any case.
“vivekchandran (12:05:40) : Getting cleaner energy, minus fossil fuels. ”
This is always the argument. And it sounds so nice.
But this argument is cruel to the elderly and poor because until you can find a cheaper source of energy the poor and those on fixed incomes—and those feeling the pinch of recession for that matter—can’t afford the alternates.
If you really do care about people then you yourself should be pushing for more drilling in Alaska and anywhere else the we can find oil to make life better for everyone.
Does that argument sound good?
@Just Want Truth… (13:21:43) :
If it was all about “people” and finding cost effective ways to reduce CO2 emissions…The focus would be on replacing coal and oil with natural gas to the fullest extent possible.
The technology and infrastructure already exist…The cost per unit of energy is far less expensive than wind and solar…And gas burns far cleaner than oil and far, far, far cleaner than coal.
If the burning of fossil fuels was actually altering the climate and if the bureaucrats & liberal politicians were actually interested in a solution, that is the path they would choose to follow. But, they aren’t interested in solutions; they need to perpetuate crises so that they can amass power and control.
Fortunately, apart from general circulation models that consistently fail to accurately predict climate change, there is no evidence to support AGW…So my solution would be “all of the above.” Promote “green energy” technology; promote cleaner coal technology; promote nuclear…And “drill baby, drill”…”drill here, drill now” and produce as much oil and natural gas as we possibly can.
The technological innovations the ultimately move us away from a “carbon economy” will get here a lot faster in an expanding economy fueled my more and cheaper energy…Not in an environment of less and more expensive energy.
“”Pierre Gosselin (05:22:28) :
Alan G,
In Part 3 they interview – guess who?
Steven Schneider!!””
It is him! Watch from 5:30 to 6:33 of video :
vivekchandran (12:05:40),
This thread questions the CO2=AGW hypothesis. Although the other emissions you mention are worth discussing in the proper forum, the question here is: what empirical evidence is there that the CO2=AGW hypothesis is valid?
Just want truth: I loudly disagree with your statement, or question rather, “You would also agree that mankind as always been active in reducing pollution? And that there is no reason to think he will stop being active?” I think humanity knows now bottom line in polluting the Earth, not intently, but simply as a non-considered consequence of their collective activity.
That said, it is shameful that thinking environmentalists have jumped on the bandwagon of targeting an essential trace gas as being a pollutant and needing control. It will now and in the future prevent reasonable and necessary pollution control efforts due to its unsustainable, and eventually debunked, CO2 causes AGW theory.
Pamela Gray (14:01:10) :
I still think humans have tried to reduce pollution. There are cases where management in some factories have disposed of toxins in an illegal ways. But that’s not what I’m talking about. That is always wrong. Humankind does make the effort to reduce pollution.
I think what I’m driving at is that pollution is not destroying the earth. It does do damage to the local area where it is produced—mainly to the people living in that area—I know because of how the brown tint in the air here in the San Francisco Area on hot summer days makes me feel. But just drive a few miles away and there is clean air. By far most of the world is completely unaffected by the pollution of big cities.
But I don’t have any reason to believe that humankind will take leave of its senses and stop reducing pollution. I think it is unfair to treat people as if they don’t care about how clean the air is. I am sure most people, including those who run factories, do.
That’s all I’m saying Pamela.
“vivekchandran (12:05:40) : What I meant was that the air quality in the City is degraded.”
This is a problem for big cities, not the entire world.
IMO I don’t mind a small tax to help reduce pollution in big cities. But you have to stop trying to make people believe there is a serious problem for all mankind. It is a very small problem. You can even drive far enough away from a big city so that you can still see it in the distance and there won’t be pollution where you are standing. If all the billions that have already been put in to Manmade Global Warming had been put in to solving this local pollution problem it would be satisfactorily resolved.
I think you have to reaccess what you think the pollution of big cities is doing to the world.
“vivekchandran (12:05:40) : What I meant was that the air quality in the City is degraded.”
Picture it this way : no city can be seen from space. That’s how small they are in comparison to the world. Now imagine how much pollution those cities make in comparison to the entire world.
Dave Middleton (13:13:40) :
@Nasif Nahle (12:07:57) :
Nasif…I have been debated climate change in 4-5 Internet forums for the last 5 years or so. Most of those forums allow the members to include personal profiles…In every instance, I clearly put the fact that I an an oil industry geophysicist in my profile.
And debating climate change has been a hard task, I suppose. I say this because your and my fundaments rely on strict scientific assessments. One gets surprised when some posters manipulate theories and laws, and knowledge in general, as if they were malleable at their wish. You and I were taught that observational and experimental data were intrinsic to the theory of truth. Now those people think that models are reality and reality is an illusion. That’s why they are busy on trying to erase all preceding periods of warming, icehouses, high concentrations of CO2, etc. They are offering a static-unwavering Earth, a Sun that doesn’t warm the Earth, an Earth that is an “almost”-closed system, a toxic carbon dioxide, a toxic water, etc.
It never fails that at some point in every one of those climate change debates, someone will type something like this, “I see by your profile that you are an oil industry scientist. So nothing you have to say on this subject can be believed.”
Yes, it’s common to bump on those ad hominem attacks which obey to a complete ignorance on what factual sciences are and what is the scope of a scientist of any discipline. For example, I know about the preponderant role of oceans on driving climate on Earth for its thermal capacities; if someone says that oceans have nothing to do with climate, my responsibility as a scientist will be to show him/her on what his/her error consists or, at least, to let others know why his/her interpretation of a given process or phenomenon is wrong, or how he/she has misinterpreted data. Instead accepting his/her mistake, they resort to dogmatism, ad hominem attacks, etc.
The funny thing is that almost all of the “science” that I rely on in these debates comes from my college education at a very obscure state university in New England back in the 1970’s. Back then I knew that the “imminent ice age scare” was baloney just as well as I know that the current global warming scare is baloney.
At those times, I knew also that catastrophes due to imminent ice age were nonsense. However, I must to accept that I was deceived through many years by another catastrophist idea on a scorching climate change. Nevertheless, when I put myself on meticulously assessing the AGW idea, making use of what I have been taught during my career, I found it is also gibberish.
The only difference between now and the late ’70’s ice age scare is the political reaction to the Chicken Littling.
Hah! You’re right. Someone said, I don’t remember who did it, “follow the money”…
The CO2 theory is just a theory. Mindgame. Don`t believe a theory is reality. The CO2 theory is like a hardcore religion. With its own priests.
Good article, except for the title:
Disproving The Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) Problem
The AGW promoters and the media constantly beats everyone over the head with this kind of message: that AGW must be disproved. We might as well try to prove that the entire universe didn’t pop into existence ten seconds ago in its current form.
The right way to respond would be:
Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) Hypothesis Falsified Once Again
Skeptics have nothing to prove. It is the promoters of the AGW hypothesis who must make a convincing case. They have failed time after time, but the debate is kept alive because they turn the scientific method on its head by demanding that everyone else must prove that their pet hypothesis is false.
vivekchandran (12:05:40) :
@ Philip B.
OK. Just relax about the “CO2 being pollution” in my previous comment. Yes its wrong. What I meant was that the air quality in the City is degraded. Everybody knows there are plenty of [u][i][b]other[/b][/i][/u] pollutants being emitted along with CO2.
You still seem to be classifying CO2 as a pollutant.
Like others here, I am a geologist, (BS ’73 CWRU, MS ’77 Ga. Tech.). It seems like a lot of us hang out here for some straight talk on climate science. This is only my third post in over a year of lurking here.
I currently work characterizing highly radioactive waste and stabilized waste forms at the Hanford Reservation in Eastern Washington State. But I have also studied climate change throughout geologic time, and have published on the archaeologic impacts of Holocene sea level change.
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/114052257/abstract
I have been a “Climate Crisis Denier” for a decade. What we are witnessing is, IMO, a demonstration of hubris and ignorance.
I commend the Global Warming Petition Project to any scientists of like mind:
http://www.petitionproject.org/
I hope to submit a response to the EPA proposed endangerment rule
http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/endangerment.html
before the June 23rd deadline. I think I’ll take the tack that supression of atmospheric CO2 violates the Endangered Species Act, because of the threat to endangered plants and animals.
Keep up the good work Anthony and you WUWT posters!
Lindsay H.(03:47:48)
Thanks for that link to the thoughtful comments by Dr Willem de Lange. He is certainly well qualified to comment on oceanography. I recommend this site (it is not long) for a well written, clear description of his involvement in the IPCC process and his understanding if the oceans role in all of this. A quote…….
“The inconvenient truth that is generally ignored, is that the atmosphere is not capable of warming the oceans to any significant degree – 99.9 percent of ocean heat is derived from sunlight at wavelengths less than 3 microns. The balance is mostly from heat leaking from the interior of the Earth. ”
Now heat leaking from the the interior of the earth is not a factor,however small,that I have heard mentioned before.
I commend the article.
Thank you, Dr Weinstein, for an excellently-presented, persuasive and easily understandable essay.
The way you ticked off and discounted the counter-arguments to your findings was superb.
For some reason, I kept getting the image of ‘Columbo’ and ‘Quincy’ in my mind, jumbled up with Mr Climate Audit himself.
Maybe, one day, forensic-climatology may become a core Earth-Science. If so, your despatch of the irrelevant, exposure of the misleading and promotion of the important will become required reading.
I hope that your passion for the subject, demonstrated by the use of exclamations, is also heritable!!!!!
Dave Middleton:
“By just visually looking at the HadCRUT3 data it should be “intuitively obvious to the casual observer” that the temperature anomaly has oscillated with a wave length of about 60 years and an average amplitude of about 0.34 C since 1850.”
I find that statement bizarre. By just visually looking at the HadCRUT3 data, I can see nothing that remotely resembles your claims about it.
“If you download the HadCRUT3 data (CO2 Science has a nice interface) and plot the temperature anomaly from 1908-1942 and 1978-2006…Linear trend-lines for both periods have almost identical slopes.”
And?
“As far as the Stratosphere goes…”Greenhouse” warming of the Troposphere would by definition result in simultaneous Stratospheric cooling. This is something that has never been clearly demonstrated in the satellite observations.”
What is not clear about this?
Tony B:
“I had not posted the May 2000’s figures as we had not reached the end of the time period-the figure was of the 1990’s to 2000 which was 11.73, so below two of the decades quoted.”
Let me remind you what you said: “the decadal mean average for May during the 2000’s is running well below what it was in 1670’s, 1710’s, 1800’s, 1910’s,“. Even if you actually meant to say ‘May during the 1990s’, the data still directly and inescapably contradicts you.
“So your figures for the Aprils of the 2000’s will be around 0.2C warmer than the 1910’s and a simlar amount to the 1800’s . So a rise in temperature from the LIA of .01 c per decade.”
It would be silly to calculate a ‘trend’ from temperatures in one single month, from just three decades. Much more sensible is taking all the data from all months and all decades. The trend since 1800, doing it that way, is +0.04°C/decade.
“As regards May, the 2000’s will be some .35C cooler than the 1940’s and some .33 warmer than the 1730’s. This represents a rise of .01 per decade from the depths of the LIA, but a fall in the values of 60 years ago.”
Again, that’s not the way trends are calculated, and really has very little relevance. The overall trend, using all the data from all the months and years, is +0.04°C/decade since 1800.
“winters have become distinctly milder-not surprising as much of CET covers the LIA. although our three warmest winters are all prior to 1the 900’s”
Firstly, you appear to be saying that warming has caused warming. Second, once again you appear to be inventing things. Here are the seasonal CET measurements in order. 1989 comes third. 1989 is not ‘prior to the 1900s’.
“There is very little difference on an annual or decadil basis of the summers-plenty of warm summers back to 1660, plenty now. The mean average is depressed by the exceptionally cold winters but the mean average is still within a narrow band of mostly between 9 and 10c.”
There are 350 summers in the CET record. Let’s look at the top 35. I’ll tell you the percentage of the years in each century which appear in that top 35. 1600s: 5%. 1700s: 11%. 1800s: 9%. 1900s: 12%. 2000s: 22%. Comparing that last number to the ones before it, does anything strike you?
“It is very difficult to se any evidence of catastrophic and rapid warming”
It’s rather easy to see evidence of rapid warming. To decide whether that is catastrophic, you’d need to come up with some clear and objective definition of catastrophe.
“indeed the very weak recovery from the depths of the LIA is rather concerning”
Again, to meaningfully assess this statement, you need to define your terms. What do you mean by ‘very weak’? What do you mean by ‘concerning’?
“and lays open the question-are we to all intents and purposes still in the LIA?”
Define ‘LIA’.
I find it disturbing, Tony B, how frequently you are making simple factual claims that are trivially shown to be untrue. I also find it irritating that you make many, many statements which are not meaningful because they contain undefined vague statements. I would urge you to try to avoid these two tendencies.
Dave Middleton (07:08:04)
“…and plot the temperature anomaly from 1908-1942 and 1978-2006…Linear trend-lines for both periods have almost identical shapes.”
A look at a graph of Total Solar Irradiance (TSI) and temperature (against time) would suggest that the above results may be coincidental.
Temperature increases with TSI over the first period. Then they both roughly level off.
But in 1978 the TSI goes into a decline. While the temperature continues to increase.
AGW begins in 1978. Computer models can hindcast the climate up until then using natural causes. After that, the CO2 effect must be added.
I’m not a geologist. But I did take enough of those courses that I could have gotten a degree in it.
And I don’t remember anything that I learned in those classrooms that would set me against recognizing something new. In fact, I learned all those reasons to expect continental drift, long before it was “found”.
As I see it, in the absence of a natural causes explanation for the post 1978 temperature increase; some consideration should be given to what’s left standing: CO2 AGW.
Gilbert (10:51:32)
GISS assumes that the Arctic Ocean’s temperature is that of the nearest shore station.
If you object to that approximation, you can use HadCRUT, which simply omits the Arctic Ocean entirely.
Nasif Nahle
“Uh! Oh! Would you be so kind as to brief me also on how to avoid ad hominem attacks and not getting anger before ad homs? :)”
My late father would recommend the example of the Missouri farmer who was kicked by his mule. He considered the source and went on with his work….l
Francis (16:53:44)
Sorry, Francis, that conclusion isn’t remotely logical.
You’ve made an argumentum ad ignorantiam: the fallacy of assuming something is true simply because it hasn’t been proven false.
You’re saying that global warming is occurring due to CO2 simply because because nobody has demonstrated conclusively that it is not. You could just as “logically” argue that the decline in pirates is the reason the planet has warmed a few tenths of a degree: click
When you find some solid, real world evidence demonstrating that CO2 is causing the planet to heat up, post it here. You’ll be the first ever to prove CO2=AGW, and you’ll get bragging rights.
You know Smokey that graph really should be updated since the number of pirates has been seriously on the increase for the last decade and also temperatures have been dropping.
jeez,
Notice that the chart ends at 17 pirates total. And they just killed four of those a couple of weeks ago. At this rate, we’d better keep our long johns handy.
I would ask what is the difference between using an exclamation mark when you exclaim something, and using a question mark when you ask a question? Neither is good form in a formal paper, but these are less formal blogs for discussion. I do agree with Paul Coppin that the issue is not about a theory, but a bunch of hypotheses and computer models with the common name Anthropogenic Global Warming. However, the common use of the term on the blogs has been theory, so I tried to stay in character. Sloppy use of terms is bad, but if all users are aware of the difference, it becomes a kind if local lingo. If a formal paper were being prepared, I would be much more careful (I hope). This is also true of the back and forth on disproving vs. falsification of points. I will try to do better in the future. I do want to make two corrections to my writeup. The first relates to my use of lower Troposphere. This should be upper Troposphere. My bad. The second refers to my use of evaporation. It should be atmospheric vapor content. However at the site
http://www.greenworldtrust.org.uk/Science/Curious.htm (Skeptical AGW scientist)
the section on atmospheric vapor content connects to a site that states the absolute vapor content has been flat to dropping during the run up of temperature and CO2. This kills positive feedback.
Smokey (16:53:44)
I feel a little handicapped discussing the natural causes explanations for this post 1978 temperature increase. What are theyj? What’s still in play? I don’t see’em mentioned any more.
Sunspot effects? Cosmic rays? Any other cycles? Still recovering from the Little Ice Age?
I’ve mentioned before that another greenhouse gas; also acting on water vapor, would best fit some of the characteristics (cooling stratosphere,
warming Arctic).
There has been a lot of money and attention spent on climate science in recent decades. It just seems unlikely that the real explanation could remain a total mystery.
So, I guess I’m asking……..are there any natural causes explanations still in play?
Or, is the situation reduced to arguing for the mystery?
Francis (16:53:44)
‘AGW begins in 1978. Computer models can hindcast the climate up until then using natural causes. After that, the CO2 effect must be added…………..As I see it, in the absence of a natural causes explanation for the post 1978 temperature increase; some consideration should be given to what’s left standing: CO2 AGW.
Wow. How did computer models missed a natural caused cooling trend that started serveral years ago as CO2 continued to increase? Have you found the “heat in the pipeline” in our cooling oceans or the “hot spot” in the troposphere? And, where are those “heat trapping clouds”?
Please let me know when GE starts selling CO2 climate control sustem for my home.
So, I guess I’m asking……..are there any natural causes explanations still in play?
Well there’s PDO, SO, IPO, NAO, AO, and AAO
All of that flips from cold to warm (on schedule), and it adds up. That’s a lot of Os.
Then in 2007, the PDO goes back to cold, and we have a killer La Nina (just like the last time PDO went cold). Others to follow. Expect a mild cooling for some time to come. (Leaving out the Silent Sun.)
That’s not geology, of course, but one must give oceanography its due.
You can’t do the Sherlock Holmes exclusion thingie for climate. You can’t exclude “all other possibilities” because there are too many of them and there are probably as many unknown factors ans known factors.
BTW. I want to emphasize that this is a liberal blog. That is to say, all points of view are tolerated here, we encourage coolheaded examination of all points of view and we discourage argumentum ad hominem. (Well, better make that “19th-century liberal”.)
Francis: “A look at a graph of Total Solar Irradiance (TSI) and temperature (against time) would suggest that the above results may be coincidental.
Temperature increases with TSI over the first period. Then they both roughly level off.
But in 1978 the TSI goes into a decline. While the temperature continues to increase.”
I would strongly recommend you have a look at the papers published (2005 and afterwards) by Scafetta & West and by Nir Shaviv. I would also recommend that you read the rebuttal of the Scafetta work by Lockwood & Froelich and the two (separate) rebuttals to the Lockwood & Froelich work by Nir Shaviv and by Svensmark.
The Scafetta & West paper makes the very important point that just considering the radiative forcing effect of TSI ignores
“…the feedback mechanisms and alternative solar effects on
climate (for example, UV energy changes are involved in
production and loss of ozone, variations in the solar wind
affect the size and intensity of the heliosphere and modulate
the cosmic rays that may affect formation of clouds affect-
ing Earth’s albedo)…”. I will come back to this point.
Both the S&W paper and Shaviv’s work show correlation of TSI with temperature over varying timescales, something which cannot be done with CO2). The Shaviv work also shows the statistically significant inclusion of cosmic ray intensity as a controlling variable, albeit not fully independent of TSI.
The Lockwood & Froelich rebuttal puts forward the argument that recent TSI variation cannot explain the recent rapid increase in temperature (your argument, I believe). The rebuttals explain why it is still possible to explain much of the variation by solar and solar-related activity.
Your argument appears to be that if there are no other obvious natural causes for the temperature rise in the 80’s and 90’s, then we should be suspicious that it may be CO2. I don’t have the same philosophical objections that Smokey has to this reasoning. It seems like Sherlock Holmes – type reasoning. I merely point out that there still exist other possible natural causes which have not yet been eliminated. As Soon said in a bad paraphrase: “It’s the sun, stupid.”
It seems to me that all supporters of AGW are compelled by their own logic to believe that the only contribution of the sun is by direct radiative forcing (TSI). If they were to accept any amplification factor of TSI on climate sensitivity, then they would have to accept a diminished climate sensitivity to CO2 in the relatively short-term match of models to history. This leads to a paradox, and one which I would certainly have included if I had attempted to write Dr Weinstein’s paper, namely that the climate sensitivity attributed to Sol is not sufficient to explain temperature variation before we humans started to destroy the planet with CO2.
My thanks to the original author for a thought-provoking article and thanks for Westside Story.
Flanagan-
You can’t compare previous CT ice images with current ones. They are using a totally different imaging program now.
So…As CO2 climbed from ~285ppm to 335ppm, there was no CO2 driven greenhouse warming…But the next 45ppm CO2 caused all of the warming from 1978 to ~2005…Then the next 5-10ppm didn’t prevent the cooling since 2005…And none of the CO2 from 385ppm to ~5000ppm influenced global temperatures from ~600 million years ago until 1978? I hope you can understand why most geologists are puzzled by this.
The models can “hindcast” only the past changes that they were parameterized to calculate.
Actually those intervals are quite obvious on your graph. They’re even more obvious on the Hadley CRU presentation of their own data (with my annotations)…
http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k247/dhm1353/HadCRUT3_Segments.jpg
And…If you bothered to do that, you’d see the pattern that you have thus far failed to see.
That graphic is very clear and it doesn’t show the correlative stratospheric cooling that should have accompanied greenhouse warming of the Troposphere…A linear trend-line does not turn a non-linear function into a linear one.
The stratospheric temperature was flat prior to the El Chicon cooling, flat between El Chicon and Pinatubo, and flat after Pinatubo.
Greenhouse warming of the troposphere wouldn’t have have resulted in pulses of cooling being transferred to the Stratosphere from the Troposphere every ten years or so. The shape of the stratospheric cooling curve should approximate the inverse of the tropospheric warming curve from 1978-2005…It’s not even close.
Francis (16:53:44) :
A look at a graph of Total Solar Irradiance (TSI) and temperature (against time) would suggest that the above results may be coincidental.
Temperature increases with TSI over the first period. Then they both roughly level off.
Correlation between TSI and global warming exists and it is never zero. It’s not coincidental that all the energy incoming to the Earth is emitted by the Sun. Is it coincidental that a star provides energy to a colder system?
But in 1978 the TSI goes into a decline. While the temperature continues to increase.
Have your hear about negative correlations?
AGW begins in 1978. Computer models can hindcast the climate up until then using natural causes. After that, the CO2 effect must be added.
Warmhouses have ocurred since Earth is Earth; most of them by far higher than the current warming.
How much of CO2 effect must be added? I’d like you to explain what’s the absorptivity, emissivity, total emittance, specific heat, partial pressure, specific volume and heat capacity of the CO2. If you can include a mathematical procedure which demonstrates what you are assuring, it would be great.
I’m not a geologist. But I did take enough of those courses that I could have gotten a degree in it.
Then you should remember from your courses that during the warmhouse of the Cretaceous Period an icehouse (chicken little, as it’s named by Dave Middleton) occurred when the concentration of CO2 was almost the same than nowadays.
And I don’t remember anything that I learned in those classrooms that would set me against recognizing something new. In fact, I learned all those reasons to expect continental drift, long before it was “found”.
Nobody in this site is proposing not to accept something new… What we propose is to not accept pseudoscience or posmodernist pseudoscience.
As I see it, in the absence of a natural causes explanation for the post 1978 temperature increase; some consideration should be given to what’s left standing: CO2 AGW.
There is a colossal natural cause to explain the increase post 1978… The energy incoming from the Sun which is stored by the oceans, the ground and the subsurface materials of ground. Those systems store more energy than the amount of energy stored by the whole atmosphere.
By the way, take a look to these experimental data for heat capacity:
ρC of CO2 is 0.601 J/m^3 K
ρC of air is 1200 J/m^3 K
ρC of H2O is 4.19 x 10^6 J/m^3 K, and
ρC of dry clay soil is 1.78 x 10^6 J/m^3 K
Do you still think the CO2 is a scientific explanation for the last global warming?
Then you should remember from your courses that during the warmhouse of the Cretaceous Period an icehouse (chicken little, as it’s named by Dave Middleton) occurred when the concentration of CO2 was almost the same than nowadays.
IIRC, there was a big rise in CO2 at the same time there was a big drop in temperatures. (I remember commenting on it to my bronto buddies.) And at the time, CO2 concentration was several times that of today.
Well,
my absolute lack of knowledge about Arctic currents blabla where I kind of predicted a rapidly decaying Greenland sea ice is just confirmed now. Please take a look at the JAXA sea ice graph
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/seaice/extent/AMSRE_Sea_Ice_Extent.png
the sea ice extent is now back to the 2008 level, quite far from the average. And this is mainly due to the Greenland sea ice as can be seen here for example
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/recent365.anom.region.5.html
At this rate, one might maybe circulate around Greenland at the end of the summer
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/NEWIMAGES/arctic.seaice.color.000.png
For the record, I am an oil industry geologist too.
I always point out – to the AGW side – that I would have made a lot more money than I have over the years had I chosen a career in “climate science”.
Dave Middleton:
“By just visually looking at the HadCRUT3 data it should be “intuitively obvious to the casual observer” that the temperature anomaly has oscillated with a wave length of about 60 years and an average amplitude of about 0.34 C since 1850.”
The effect of PDO on US continental temperatures is even more evident if I recall correctly.
Dave Middleton’s comment reminded me of some undone homework. There is an excellent ab initio correlation of global MST against TSI and GCR. It occurred to me some time ago that it would be a good idea to carry out a statistical test as follows:
*Correlate MST against TSI and GCR (with a fitted time lag variable on TSI)
*Now include a sine function of time with parameters of amplitude and periodicity to be fitted. [This function is intended to be a coarse reflection of the effect of the ocean oscillations, particularly ENSO and PDO.]
*Test the significance of the inclusion of the sinusoidal term.
* Assuming that it is significant, test the error function for stationarity in time.
If the error function shows a significant trend of increasing positive bias in the late period, then this would offer some support for there being an additional (warming) control on temperature, which could include CO2.
If the error function shows no such significant trend, then it would powerfully debunk the argument about there being no explanation for late 20th century warming other than CO2.
Of course, I never got round to actually doing the work. Has anybody else tried to do this?
lweinstein (18:04:58) :
I would ask what is the difference between using an exclamation mark when you exclaim something, and using a question mark when you ask a question? Neither is good form in a formal paper, but these are less formal blogs for discussion. I do agree with Paul Coppin that the issue is not about a theory, but a bunch of hypotheses and computer models with the common name Anthropogenic Global Warming. However, the common use of the term on the blogs has been theory, so I tried to stay in character. Sloppy use of terms is bad, but if all users are aware of the difference, it becomes a kind if local lingo. …[snip]
This is, I believe, a common misconception about blogs. Technical blogs are rapidly replacing the “letters” sections of formal journals as the place where a public airing of a journal article or topic takes place. The very nature of blogs also provides a means for the lay populace to look inside both the science and the process of the science. In the past this has been generally closed to common scrutiny. In particular, science writers have access to information and opinion they had to previous dig out or interview for.
More than ever, it is important that scientists and science writers convey their material in as precise a language as they can muster. The jargon of science assumes a common learned understanding amongst professionals about the meaning of characteristic phrases and concepts.
The general public often has a more general (mis)understanding or interpretation about words and phrases that have a specific meaning in science. “Theory” and “hypothesis” are two particularly important jargon terms in the conveying of information to the public. “Theory”, especially, is not at all understood by the lay public (and “hypothesis” is largely unknown). Had scientists been more rigorous about the correct use of the terms in the context of AGW, it may not have become the “settled science” it has become. It’s time, even in popular science writing, to bring the level of comprehension up to the level necessary for a proper understanding of science, not to bury the science in the mud of common language.
RW
Please read the start of my email before jumping in. I was being self deprecating about me -not you. My third hot tip-aimed at me- is not to use an Asus 7inch screen in which to try to read across columns of figures. My fourth hot tip is for you to read other peoples posts before rubbishing them.
We were talking about April and May, so not unreasonably I gave figures for those months and gave ‘trends’ in that limited context for those months, so there is really no point in complaining that the figures are irrelevant-they are relevant for the point we were discussing, but not if you then want to go off at a tangent.
If you want to use data from all the months we are getting into quite a different discussion-interesting in itself- but different to the topic that Flanagan introduced, namely April and May. Using my figures in an attempt to prove something I wasn’t arguing is rather fruitless.
Also, please check your facts before saying that 1989 was one of the three warmest winters. try 1833 as number three. A far as I am aware 1833 is before the 1900’s.
I said there were plenty of hot summers back then as there are now. You missed the caveat in your eagerness to try to prove your point and that is these occured even during the LIA. I surely don’t need to define the LIA to you do I RW? It would be astonishing if the LIA was as warm as the 2000’s.
As you seem to want to take my comments out of context and apply them into a wider discussion of temperatures we can leave aside the obvious fact that individual months have behaved in differnt ways since the LIA (and no doubt before). Temperatures have marginally increased overall since the LIA -which is hardly surprising.
If you want to argue that they are rising catastropically in an unprecedented manner I look forward to your graph and your citations.
I also hope you will then put it into context by looking at a broader sweep of human history back to the Holocenes, which would include a number of other warming periods as great as or greater than todays.
best wishes
Tonyb
And what makes you think the impact on human populations, even in North American where human numbers were very low and nomadic, was benign?
Here’s one abstract:
Sounds fairly disruptive to me.
There’s evidence for a two-meter rise in sea levels on the eastern seaboard during the mid-Holocene:
You may think this would have no affect. Professionals think it would be an expensive proposition to mitigate …
I am a mathematician, not a climatologist.
Long ago I learned the difference between interpolation and extrapolation.
Interpolation is the use of two data points to infer the observed behavior in the interval between them.
Extrapolation is the use of two or more data points to infer behavior beyond the interval.
Examples abound. Take a simple spring. Springs obey Hooke’s Law: the force is proportional to the amount of stretching or compressing. This is good so far as it goes, but eventually the law (and the spring) fail.
See Mark Twain, and his observations about the length of the Mississippi.
Just a little extrapolation proved that within a few thousand years St Louis will be a suburb of New Orleans!
Or Throop’s Law: any theory constructed in the absence of data is useless.
Just Want Truth… (13:14:33) :
Jane Lubchenco is a marine ecologist. One who makes up things about climate.
Unqualified and a liar.
The perfect appointee for NOAA.
Expect only the worst from NOAA during her tenure.
It will be political, manipulative and agenda driven without integity.
Paul Coppin (03:17:07):
“Theory”, especially, is not at all understood by the lay public (and “hypothesis” is largely unknown). Had scientists been more rigorous about the correct use of the terms in the context of AGW, it may not have become the “settled science” it has become. It’s time, even in popular science writing, to bring the level of comprehension up to the level necessary for a proper understanding of science, not to bury the science in the mud of common language.
I agree with this statement, which doesn’t mean that I agree or disagree with the remainder of your post.
Hypothesis is the term used for a provisional solution to a problem that has arisen from observation of nature. A hypothesis can be false of true; however, it must be in concordance with the observed phenomena. Hypotheses must to be submitted to verification (falseability) through the known methodology; experimentation and/or sustained observation of the phenomenon (repeatability) if experimentation is not possible, for instance.
Theory, on the other hand, is a hypothesis which has been proven to be true through sustained observation and/or experimentation, at least over one space. Theories are subject to change through observation of similar phenomena. There could be theories which have been proven false through time. Sometimes, the subjects of those disproved theories have changed over time; sometimes the methodology which had lead us to accept them as true was flawed, biased or simply wrongly conducted.
Finally, an assertion which has not been cropped up from careful observation of natural events and/or experimentation is guess. A guess is comparable to idea. It’s the first step of pseudoscientific methodology, while observation is the first step of systematic methodology.
AGW idea, for example, is not new. It surged some 3500 years ago, into Uruk culture. After that, it was brought to Judeo-Christian culture some 2000 years ago (Revelation or Apocalypses), although the main cause of warming was not the CO2, but the sins of humans. The latent idea was there, waiting for somebody adapted it to the modern knowledge by replacing the sinful cause by a technical or quasi-scientific cause, but always with human beings as the main propitiators behind the roast. Once an idea has been constructed, its perpetrators look for evidence which gives support to their guess and limits or dismiss any observations against their idea transforming it into an irrefutable hypothesis. Science works exactly on the opposite.
And what makes you think the impact on human populations, even in North American where human numbers were very low and nomadic, was benign?
Well, that’s the point, isn’t it? Sparse, nomadic, non-technological cultures were far more prone to severe disruption by small environmental changes than man in his modern context. Nowadays, if there’s a drought in a given area in the US, no one starves as a result. Maybe a slight increase in food prices (or not).
@Pierre Gosselin (09:04:02)
I admire your son’s courage. Teachers are no better than anyone else in that they will find ways to retaliate with those who disagree with them or challenge their authority.
Is AGW a theory or hypothesis? Try and start that thread on RC and see what you’ll get! Mostly you’ll get a lot of angry responses saying ‘neither, it’s a fact’!
Regardless, AGW (through greenhouse gases) still testable and falsifiable. Dr. Weinstein has outlined 6 predictions that can be tested. The data shows that AGW fails the tests and is invalid.
The survival or earth is not a weather report…
This was an important topic and would have been relevant information in 1935. In 2009, we need to focus on damage control from ignoring all warnings since then.
I know we live in a world where a weather report can win you a noble prize… But our gluttonous misuse of finite resources (fossil fuels, bio resources and water) is and always has been the problem.
Data, theories, politics leave so much room for interpretation and misleading errors… making us question everything and divert efforts from resolving the real problems with tangible and obtainable goals.
Regardless of our chicken egg debate over ‘warming’… the more we punish this planet and its people, the more we will suffer and the harder it will become to reverse what we have done.
In the big picture:
Air and water pollution are the contributing factors to the premature death of 1/3 the worlds population.
Over 90% of the ocean is contaminated with chemicals that hold 95% of all life on earth.
Only 5% of the worlds waters is drinkable and 1,000’s of miles away from 85% of the worlds population.
And those 85% live in arid nations with only 5% of the worlds resources and nutrients to sustain them.
When they have depleted their land of the oil, ores and essential minerals… we have to be there to offer salvation, hope and solutions.
Under the BEST scenario this is a 50 year timeline that I am not looking forward to living through if we stay on our current path.
We must end this ‘worrying about the weather’ and focus, together on a cure for our planet and its people.
Peak Oil, Water, Gas, Coal and Uranium… Peak prosperity?
Trust me, we are sweating the small stuff. Ironically if we focus on fixing the ‘big ticket’ items we inadvertently fix the secondary problems (CO2, fossil fuels, globalwarming), but it does not work the other way around.
I thoroughly enjoy reading this blog and greatly appreciate all the contributor efforts and I am only posting these ‘absolutes’ for readers to understand that our efforts are about more than just ‘debating the weather’.
Thanks,
Christopher Haase
juan (17:11:59):
Nasif Nahle
“Uh! Oh! Would you be so kind as to brief me also on how to avoid ad hominem attacks and not getting anger before ad homs? :)”
My late father would recommend the example of the Missouri farmer who was kicked by his mule. He considered the source and went on with his work….l
Wise advice that of your late dad… Next time I’ll look who the mule was… Heh! 🙂
Dhogaza 6 10 39
Thank you for your post but you seem to be arguing with me rather than against me, as seemed to be your intention.
I have posted here many times on history whereby man has suffered extreme heat. Extreme cold. Droughts, and every condition in between.
I have posted the climate references of the Byzantine empire who have commented on Ice bergs hitting the walls of Constantinople and discussed the irrigation systems they set up as fertile land turned to desert in extreme drought. Both Al Gore (Earth in the balance 1992) and Dr Iain Stewart (BBC Climate wars 2008) have agreed we have been this way before. Their slant on the argument being that we need to be aware of the past if we are causing climate to change. Else we end up in the same boat.
The list of civilisations overwhelmed by excessive heat or cold is impressive (although generally we do better in warmth than cold).
The following link describes some of these
http://www.truthout.org/article/the-climate-man-the-curse-akkad
“ Weiss first published his theory, in the journal Science, in August, 1993. Since then, the list of cultures whose demise has been linked to climate change has continued to grow. They include the Classic Mayan civilization, which collapsed at the height of its development, around 800 A.D.; the Tiwanaku civilization, which thrived near Lake Titicaca, in the Andes, for more than a millennium, then disintegrated around 1100 A.D.; and the Old Kingdom of Egypt, which collapsed around the same time as the Akkadian empire. (In an account eerily reminiscent of “The Curse of Akkad,” the Egyptian sage Ipuwer described the anguish of the period: “Lo, the desert claims the land. Towns are ravaged. . . . Food is lacking. . . . Ladies suffer like maidservants. Lo, those who were entombed are cast on high grounds.”) “
One of the most famous civilisations who disappeared into the dust was Akkad –referred to above. This is the curse.
For the first time since cities were built and founded,
The great agricultural tracts produced no grain,
The inundated tracts produced no fish,
The irrigated orchards produced neither syrup nor wine,
The gathered clouds did not rain, the masgurum did not grow.
At that time, one shekel’s worth of oil was only one-half quart,
One shekel’s worth of grain was only one-half quart. . . .
These sold at such prices in the markets of all the cities!
He who slept on the roof, died on the roof,
He who slept in the house, had no burial,
People were flailing at themselves from hunger.
It is said that the collapse of great civilisatiions- and that even the greatest kings are mortal- inspired Shelley;
OZYMANDIAS
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter’d visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp’d on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock’d them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.[1]
Now the point of this preamble is that throughout our history civilisations come and go through various forms of climate change, and this is the normal state- not the exception. I asked RW to look at the greater scheme of things when suggesting he might like to put our present age into a wider historic context. In this respect we need to ask ourselves what is normal and what is extreme?
Clearly such events as the MWP, Roman warm periods and the various other events extreme enough to cause the demise of civilisations- whether through heat or cold- are extreme cases. That the extremes of the MWP that brought the Vikings to prominence then caused their demise when their sea lanes iced up in the LIA is an irony not lost on us. So where do we sit at present in all this?
We are barely above the warmer periods of the LIA, but somewhat below the warmer bits of the MWP. So is this modern era normal, or are we in transition to another climate state that is outside of the normal variables? Is that transition state to warmth or cold-we are hovering in between.
Forgive the long preamble but it is so I can make several points in context.
The first is that clearly our current climate state is not ‘unprecedented’ and it does not help the discussion when this over used word is so often trotted out.
Secondly, as co2 is said to have been at a constant concentration of 280 before we increased it, how have these extremes existed without co2 as the powerful climate driver it is said to be? (We have previously had discussions on orbits and precessions etc to try to explain past extremes).
That such extremes could happen would seem to suggest co2 is at best a weak driver and that consequently it can not cause the future chaos predicted. The logarithmic nature of co2 would seem to suggest that increasing co2 markedly could cause a small temperature increase (well within natural variability) which I have never attempted to disagree with as that would seem to follow the laws of physics as we currently understand them.
However to get to the extreme increases suggested we have come to rely on computer models (which the IPCC say are unreliable) and the need to subscribe to all sorts of unobserved and extravagant ‘feedbacks.’
Personally, I think it would greatly assist an intelligent discussion if everyone agreed that we have been this way before and nothing is currently unprecedented. Then the warmists can put their case as to why they believe it’s different this time round, and how co2 is a more powerful climate driver than past evidence would seem to suggest.
We can then concentrate on the science rather than the history lessons and discuss the real effect of co2 as a greenhouse gas and attempt to justify the extraordinary impact of the claimed feedbacks that greatly multiply the logarithmic increase of temperature we would reasonably expect to see.
Instead we are at a stage where we have scientists refusing to release information, models that are being used as proof when they are nothing of the sort, a weak understanding of the effect of clouds which consist of the most abundant greenhouse gas on the Earth, set against the highly politicised background of the IPCC where various reviewers disagree vehemently with things written under their name.
Tonyb
Christoper
I do not disagree with much of what you wrote. Do you read Bjorn Lomberg? He believes-like me- that we have many very urgent things to worry about and they can be solved more readily if we didnt place so much emphasis on something that is as yet unproven to be as catastrophic as the things we currently know need fixing.
We also need to recognise that we are making things worse than they need to be and somewhere somehow the world needs to be educated to reduce its population.
Tonyb
I just spent my lunch hour working with the UAH MSU temperature data…Comparing the Stratosphere to the Troposphere.
While linear trends over the entire satellite record do indicated a tropospheric warming and stratospheric cooling trend; a more detailed review shows that the Troposphere and Stratosphere have rarely behaved in a manner consistent with greenhouse warming. The apparent linear trends from 1979-2009 are largely the result of three major climate disruptions. The first two most affected the Stratosphere: The eruptions of the El Chichón (1982) and Mt. Pinatubo (1991) volcanoes. The third most affected the Troposphere: The 1997-1998 El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO). The volcanic eruptions caused short term cooling in the Troposphere and very significant short-term warming events in the Stratosphere.
Prior to El Chichón (Dec. 1978 – Jan. 1982), the Troposphere warmed while the Stratosphere cooled…This is the only time period of the UAH MSU data that showed a “greenhouse signature.
During the El Chichón disruption (Jan. 1982 – June 1984), the Troposphere and Stratosphere had linear cooling trends.
Between El Chichón and Pinatubo (June 1984 – June 1990) the Troposphere and Stratosphere had linear cooling trends.
During and just after the Pinatubo disruption (June 1990- June 1944), the Troposphere and Stratosphere had linear cooling trends.
In the run-up to the major ENSO event (June 1994 – June 1997), the Troposphere and Stratosphere had linear cooling trends.
During the 1997-1998 ENSO (June 1997 – June 1999), the Troposphere actually had a linear cooling trend; while the Stratosphere had a slight warming trend.
Between the end of the ENSO and the onset of oceanic cooling in 2003 (June 1999 – Dec. 2003), the Troposphere and Stratosphere both had warming trends.
Since the onset of oceanic cooling (Jan. 2003 – Apr. 2009), the Troposphere and Stratosphere have had cooling trends…With almost identical slopes.
It’ll take me a while to convert these graphs to Jpeg’s and upload them to Photobucket…I’ll post links after I upload those images.
Over the ~30-year satellite record, the Stratosphere has rarely cooled as the Troposphere warmed. I can only find that essential “greenhouse signature” in about 10% of the data.
I’m sure there must be a Ptolemaic explanation for this discrepancy.
Here are the links to the JPEG’s of the Excel graphs…
http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k247/dhm1353/00_DEC_1978_APR_2009.jpg
http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k247/dhm1353/01_DEC_1978_JAN_1982.jpg
http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k247/dhm1353/02_JAN_1982_JUN_1984.jpg
http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k247/dhm1353/03_JUN_1984_JUN_1990.jpg
http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k247/dhm1353/04_JUN_1990_JUN_1994.jpg
http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k247/dhm1353/05_JUN_1994_JUN_1997.jpg
http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k247/dhm1353/06_JUN_1997_JUN_1999.jpg
http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k247/dhm1353/07_JUN_1999_DEC_2003.jpg
http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k247/dhm1353/08_JAN_2003_APR_2009.jpg
It’s fairly obvious that the strong Stratosphere-warming volcanic events early in the record (1982 and 1991) and the strong Troposphere-warming event later in the record (1997-1998 ENSO) create an “illusion” of a long-term greenhouse signature…Despite the fact that a clear greenhouse signature only exists in the first three years of the satellite record.
The Spam filter may have just intercepted the JPEG links.
Scepticism is a hugely important characteristic, deployed correctly it forms a crucial part of the scientific method.
Dr Weinstein’s second hyperlink is to a document hosted by ‘ff.org’, AKA the Frontiers of Freedom’ foundation. His third takes us to http://www.worldclimatereport.com and a document with the banner headline ‘World Climate Report’.
Odd then, that over at the Air Vent is the assertion …
I don’t have any idea who the Frontier Foundation and World Climate Report are
Anybody else ‘sceptical’ about the Doctor’s powers of investigation?
“Please read the start of my email before jumping in. I was being self deprecating about me -not you.”
Yes, that was quite clear.
“We were talking about April and May, so not unreasonably I gave figures for those months and gave ‘trends’ in that limited context for those months, so there is really no point in complaining that the figures are irrelevant-they are relevant for the point we were discussing, but not if you then want to go off at a tangent.”
You made a number of factually incorrect claims about April and May, and then made statements about trends that could not be made based on the data you were referring to.
“Also, please check your facts before saying that 1989 was one of the three warmest winters. try 1833 as number three. A far as I am aware 1833 is before the 1900’s.”
I already gave the link to the actual data. You provide no links to back your claims. The warmest three winters in the CET record are 1869, 1834, and 1989. 1833 is in fact 160th. I don’t know what you hope to achieve by yet again making statements that are trivially shown to be false but I find it pretty irritating, I have to say.
“I said there were plenty of hot summers back then as there are now”
And I showed you, with reference to the actual data, that hot summers have in fact been markedly more frequent in recent years.
“I surely don’t need to define the LIA to you do I RW?”
You have so far proved unable to. What exactly does the term mean to you?
“Temperatures have marginally increased overall since the LIA -which is hardly surprising.”
Once again, terms such as ‘marginally’ are meaningless unless you define what you mean. Why would it be hardly surprising?
“If you want to argue that they are rising catastropically in an unprecedented manner I look forward to your graph and your citations.”
Definitions yet again, Tony. Please learn that meaningful discussion is impossible without them. At the moment you seem to have no inkling that this is the case. What do you mean by ‘catastrophically’? What do you mean by ‘unprecedented’?
Dave Middleton: you say “the temperature anomaly has oscillated with a wave length of about 60 years and an average amplitude of about 0.34 C since 1850…Actually those intervals are quite obvious on your graph. They’re even more obvious on the Hadley CRU presentation of their own data (with my annotations)…”
Let’s look up a definition of ‘oscillation’, shall we?
“Oscillation is the repetitive variation, typically in time, of some measure about a central value”
By definition, there is no oscillation in HadCRUT data. Your graph shows very clearly that there is no central value, that each successive ‘peak’ is higher than the last, and each successive ‘trough’ is higher than the last, and the only way you can make the data look like an oscillation is to remove a secular upward trend.
“The stratospheric temperature was flat prior to the El Chicon cooling, flat between El Chicon and Pinatubo, and flat after Pinatubo.”
I downloaded the stratospheric data from here. I fitted linear trends to the data using this. In all three periods I found a negative trend in stratospheric temperatures. Would you please specify what data you used?
“The shape of the stratospheric cooling curve should approximate the inverse of the tropospheric warming curve from 1978-2005…It’s not even close.”
I don’t know why you think this, but it’s not true. Simply, stratospheric temperatures would be expected to fall, while tropospheric temperatures would be expected to rise, in the event of an increase in greenhouse gas concentrations. Exactly this is observed. Neither is expected to ‘approximate the inverse’ of the other. Tropospheric temperatures are much more variable than stratospheric temperatures.
Flanagan, the jet stream shows wind blowing sea ice near Greenland southward. Wind will do that. It is blowing sea ice into warmer waters and more Sun exposure where it naturally melts.
I have monitored the jet stream steadily over the past 4 years. This wind is pretty mild compared to other years at this time of year. I don’t expect any record melt. I highly recommend that you pair your sea ice graph with jet stream data, temp graphs, Arctic current conditions, and Arctic SST to help you understand melt patterns every time you view the sea ice extent/area/concentration graphs. The graphs alone do not speak at all to the melt drivers. I think I have said this before about you doing your homework. Did you follow my advice? Do you need more links to this data?
http://squall.sfsu.edu/gif/jetstream_norhem_00.gif
The “blabla” thing was very juvenile.
I have a simple request. Actually two.
When referring to this or that year’s (or this decade or that decade, or this century or that century) temperature, please also indicate what the oceans and jet streams were doing. Temperature statistics and data, as seen in many of the above posts, care not one iota for drivers. Such data is meaningless without the necessary background. IMO, simply posting numbers from a graph of global temperature is a simplistic view unworthy of a science blog, regardless of which side of the fence you stand on.
I have the same opinion of posts relating to some bygone “…cene” age. Please indicate where the plates were at the time (as in longitude and latitude) as well as your opinion of oceanic and jet stream circulation possibilities. Simply saying the CO2 was such and such, and temperature was such and such, leaves the impression that one is not as well versed in Earth’s history as one needs to be when talking temperature.
I can’t help it. I’m a teacher. I expect an essay discussion to have a bit more background to it.
old construction worker (18:52:25)
I’m asking about the competition, at the moment. Given some objections to CO2 AGW…is there a natural causes explanation for the post 1978 temperature increase…to replace it?
There are no proofs in science. Science is a contest of competing ideas. Let the ideas be defended. Or, let the mystery be argued. But, this should be a two-way street.
evanmjones (19:03:31)
I’m a great admirer of Sherlock Holmes…but that’s not my…intention. I didn’t mean to exclude “all other possibilities.” I’m just asking what they are.
I think of El Ninos and La Ninas as isolated events, that return to zero. So now do I have to read about oscillations?
Paul (19:20:29)
I have a lot of respect for Svensmark’s cosmic ray theory. That graph I saw that so well matched the temperature graph…until it ultimately diverged (was that in the 70’s?). And this is to me, a History of Science tragedy: that he’d explained how things worked, after they’d changed.
Anyway, that’s my prejudice…based on limited reading…with some of it on RealClimate. But, I’ll look into it further. This is what I asked for.
[Christopher Haase]
You will agree with me (and no doubt many on my side of the AGW debate) that there are far too many people on the planet already? And far too many of them are trying to live in parts of the world that are basically unfit for human habitation.
What was the last count? 6 or 7 BILLION!!! I think Old Mother Gaia would be more comfortable with about maybe half that number…
Dave Middleton (19:34:05)
You’re right about my not having considered CO2 concentrations. Obviously it could usefully be plotted above the other two graphs.
Were I stubborn, I could taked my argument back to 1965 (320ppm), since TSI is relatively less than temperature.
But 1945 is only about 306ppm. I’m just working backwards, to avoid the muddled air pollution interval. Yet 306ppm is only 10% more than background 280ppm.
This seat of the pants “analysis” isn’t changing my views….
Geologically, my comfort zone starts when South America butts up against North America…producing a continental layout like we have today.
But I really haven’t looked into any of the old stuff. I’ve got to buy a geological atlas, and maybe a chemistry book. Any further criticisms of your profession will have to wait till then.
RW (16:02:32) :
“ I already gave the link to the actual data. You provide no links to back your claims. The warmest three winters in the CET record are 1869, 1834, and 1989. 1833 is in fact 160th. I don’t know what you hope to achieve by yet again making statements that are trivially shown to be false but I find it pretty irritating, I have to say.”
Did it not occur to you that we are talking about the same winter? 1833/4? The winter of 1834 is December then the first two months of 1835 ie 1834/5
Tonyb
My daughter’s class presentation
Yesterday my daughter (14) made her skeptic-presentation on climate change in her geography class, and I am pleased to say the result was surprising in very positive way. First, her teacher turned out not to be the big AGW believer we originally suspected, and he welcomed the new information and counter view. My daughter says the info she presented appeared to be new to him, and that he and the class of 30 genuinely seemed fascinated by her charts and graphs. Her teacher also appreciated and complimented her for providing the links that accompanied each chart.
Secondly, the class, who had been bored by the previous presentations, which only reiterated AGW dogma, were captivated by the never-seen-before data. A lengthy Q&A session ensued. When it was all done and over with, the teacher was intent on looking deeper into the matter via the links provided. I asked my daughter if any of her classmates had challenged her. She answered: “No…they all pretty much agreed with me”.
Goes to show, people really are interested in the truth.
Jimmy Haigh (20:11:12) :
You will agree with me….
far too many people on the planet already?
And far too many of them are trying to live in parts of the world that are basically unfit for human habitation.
I do not have to agree or disagree with you. It is a inarguable fact that we are consuming our planets resources at twice the rate they replenish (6x rate in U.S.)
And the comments I made concur with the gross imbalance of population density in those arid locations with nearly 5 Billion…
It is why we have to work so hard to shift the our current mindset.
For decades we have spent trillions measuring, tracking, analyzing and reporting the problems ‘associated’ with global warming and climate change.
These are also inarguable facts:
The planet’s climate changes
The planet will get warmer and cooler
Regardless of what we do to it, it will survive as well as some form of life on it.
Will we? We irreversibly pollute our surrounding resources, ourselves and earth’s species everyday degrading and manipulating DNA/genomes.
I am not sweating the things we can change, but the ones we can not unchange.
Listening to and reading all of it is like being in a car stuffed with 20 people going a 100mph through a full school playground heading for a cliff with no brakes and one at the wheel. While everyone in the car is debating ‘what air freshener’ is best to stop the car???
And yes, I am in the trunk hoping we will just run out of gas.
Thanks for the point Mr. Haigh
Three complete up half-cycles and two complete down half-cycles would provide a secular upward trend…Particularly since the average amplitude of the up half-cycles is slightly higher than that of the down half cycles.
1850-1875 ~+0.2 C…25 years of warming.
1875-1908 ~-0.3 C…33 years of cooling.
1908-1942 ~+0.5 C…34 years of warming.
1942-1978 ~-0.2 C…36 years of cooling.
1978-2005 ~+0.5 C…27 years of warming.
The amplitude of the first half-cycle of cooling (1875-1908) is greater than the first half-cycle of warming (1850-1875)…So the first full cycle was negative. The second full cycle of warming and cooling (1908-1978) was positive. Volcanic activity (or lack thereof) certainly could have modulated the amplitudes.
We are just a few years into the second half-cycle of just the third full cycle in the HadCRUT3 record.
According to the satellite data, the amplitude of this cooling half-cycle is already very close to the total warming from 1978-2005.
Seismic wavelets oscillate. The peaks and troughs of seismic reflection data are always asymmetric. If you drew a linear trend-line through a seismic wavelet you would obtain a linear trend in an oscillating function.
I looked at the curve you linked to. Subsequently I downloaded the UAH data and provided the segmented comparison in these posts…
Dave Middleton (12:49:04) :
[…]
Prior to El Chichón (Dec. 1978 – Jan. 1982), the Troposphere warmed while the Stratosphere cooled…This is the only time period of the UAH MSU data that showed a “greenhouse signature.
During the El Chichón disruption (Jan. 1982 – June 1984), the Troposphere and Stratosphere had linear cooling trends.
Between El Chichón and Pinatubo (June 1984 – June 1990) the Troposphere and Stratosphere had linear cooling trends.
During and just after the Pinatubo disruption (June 1990- June 1944), the Troposphere and Stratosphere had linear cooling trends.
In the run-up to the major ENSO event (June 1994 – June 1997), the Troposphere and Stratosphere had linear cooling trends.
During the 1997-1998 ENSO (June 1997 – June 1999), the Troposphere actually had a linear cooling trend; while the Stratosphere had a slight warming trend.
Between the end of the ENSO and the onset of oceanic cooling in 2003 (June 1999 – Dec. 2003), the Troposphere and Stratosphere both had warming trends.
[…]
Dave Middleton (14:10:04) :
Here are the links to the JPEG’s of the Excel graphs…
[JPEG links are in 14:10:04 post…I don’t want to upset the Spam filter by re-posting them]
It’s fairly obvious that the strong Stratosphere-warming volcanic events early in the record (1982 and 1991) and the strong Troposphere-warming event later in the record (1997-1998 ENSO) create an “illusion” of a long-term greenhouse signature…Despite the fact that a clear greenhouse signature only exists in the first three years of the satellite record.
Well then…Maybe you can cite some period other than 1979-1982 when the Stratosphere was cooling while the Troposphere was warming. From 1983-2009 the Stratosphere and Troposphere curves are always behaving inconsistently with greenhouse warming.
Greenhouse warming, by definition, requires a redistribution of heat from the upper atmosphere to the lower atmosphere.
The secular down-trend of the Stratosphere temperatures is almost entirely caused by the two volcanic warming events in 1982 and 1991. And most of the secular uptrend in the Troposphere is the result of the 1997-1998 ENSO.
Also Mr. Haigh,
Your comment: ‘I would have made a lot more money than I have over the years had I chosen a career in “climate science”… Classic ;-)’
Most oil geologist I know do pretty ‘well’ no pun intended.
I would also note that ‘global warming’ and ‘climate change’ were covered in both my classes in th 80’s and my fathers in the 60’s… a documented science since the 30’s.
My dad and I would always laugh on how funny the debates were about arguing the results and never a thought on stopping the ‘root cause’.
Three decades later, it is not so funny.
Several years ago my father passed after watching three generations debate on causes.
He did not,
he literally changed the environment, by preventing and removing millions of tons (if not billions) of toxic material from entering our air, water and land. Proving that people and our planet are our greatest resources and we should treat them as such.
I hope that after my son or daughter receive their PE/PHD we have something better to talk about than the weather.
Thanks again Mr. Haigh,
“Pierre Gosselin (03:24:31) :
My daughter’s class presentation'”
Excellent!
Tony B – how about you just simply admit you made a factual error? You claimed that the three warmest winters in the CET record were all before 1900. That claim was wrong. Simple as that. Whether you then went on to talk about 1833 or 1834 is completely irrelevant.
Three complete up half-cycles and two complete down half-cycles would provide a secular upward trend…Particularly since the average amplitude of the up half-cycles is slightly higher than that of the down half cycles.
1850-1875 ~+0.2 C…25 years of warming.
1875-1908 ~-0.3 C…33 years of cooling.
1908-1942 ~+0.5 C…34 years of warming.
1942-1978 ~-0.2 C…36 years of cooling.
1978-2005 ~+0.5 C…27 years of warming.
The amplitude of the first half-cycle of cooling (1875-1908) is greater than the first half-cycle of warming (1850-1875)…So the first full cycle was negative. The second full cycle of warming and cooling (1908-1978) was positive. Volcanic activity (or lack thereof) certainly could have modulated the amplitudes.
We are just a few years into the second half-cycle of just the third full cycle in the HadCRUT3 record.
According to the satellite data, the amplitude of this cooling half-cycle is already very close to the total warming from 1978-2005.
Seismic wavelets oscillate. The peaks and troughs of seismic reflection data are always asymmetric. If you drew a linear trend-line through a seismic wavelet you would obtain a linear trend in an oscillating function.
Additionally…The apparent secular trend of the 20th Century could be a function of a lower frequency climate cycle that “carries” the ~60-year “Chicken Little” Cycle. It could be a function of the 1,470-year cycle or some as yet unidentified century-scale cycle.
As far as the “central value” about which the climate oscillates goes…It depends upon the scale of the cycle being discussed.
Ultimately the “central value” is somewhere around 17 C. The lowest frequency cycle yet identified is the Hothouse/Icehouse cycle. It has an amplitude of ~10 C and wavelength of about 130 million years. Throughout most of the Phanerozoic Eon the Earth has been in “hothouse” mode with a surprisingly constant average temperature of ~22 C. Four times during the Phanerozoic, the Earth has dropped into “icehouse” mode…Late Ordovician, Pennsylvanian-Lower Permian, Upper-Jurassic-Lower Cretaceous and Tertiary-Quaternary. Three of the “icehouse” episodes dropped the Earth’s average temperature to ~12-14 C. The Mesozoic ice age only dropped the average temperature to ~17 C.
Within the current “icehouse” the Earth has periodically experienced episodes of continental glaciation…Commonly called ice ages. In the Pleistocene, these “ice ages” have had a wavelength of ~130,000 years and an amplitude of ~5 C. Within that glacial-interglacial cycle there is a ~1,470 year cycle with an amplitude of ~1-2 C ( Dansgaard-Oeschger, Heinrich & Bond events). The Medieval Warm Period/Little Ice Age represent one full cycle of the 1,470-year cycle. We are currently about 150 years into the ~750-year warming phase of that 1,470-year cycle.
I refer to the ~60-year cycle as the “Chicken Little”* Cycle. Some scientists and the media have “Chicken Littled” as the peaks and trough of this cycle has come and gone…
* I have to give credit to Robert G. Williscroft and his book, The Chicken Little Agenda as my inspiration in giving the 60-year cycle the nickname, “The Chicken Little Cycle”.
I have written a short article on the science of AGW (global warming). I think it is fair and factual. A copy of it is at
http://www.burgy.50megs.com/climate.htm
Burgy
In many cases, those types of data aren’t really available in any sort of a continuous record.
Prior to the instrumental records (last ~150 years) almost everything has to be derived from proxies. Things like the Jet Stream and oceanic circulation patterns can only be inferred prior to the time at which we began observing them and recording their fluctuations. The advent of satellite data (last ~30 years) has allowed for a far more detailed analysis of weather and climate patterns.
Well…Irrespective of where the plates have been; Earth’s “hothouse” climate phases have always had an average global temperature of about 22 C…Apart from a couple of very brief periods (the Permian-Triassic boundary is one example). Three of the four “icehouse” phases have seen temperatures drop to ~12 C on average. The U. Jurassic-L. Cretaceous ice age being the exception with a ~17 C average temperature.
In Geological Perspectives of Global Climate Change Lee C. Gerhard and William E. Harrison authored a very good essay on the possible relationship between plate tectonics and climate (Distribution of Oceans and Continents: A Geological Constraint on Global Climate Variability). Nir Shaviv also has an interesting theory that the hothouse/icehouse cycle could be driven by the cosmic radiation flux as our solar system travels into and out of the spiral arms of the Milky Way. No one really knows what drives that ~130 million year cycle…But it is very clear in the geological record that atmospheric CO2 concentrations do not correlate to that cycle.
As far as the “enes” go…I think the Pleistocene is relatively “apples & apples” with modern times…Particularly the Upper Pleistocene (back to ~600,000 years ago). The plates haven’t moved a whole lot since then and general oceanic circulation patterns are probably also very similar.
The farther back one goes, the dicier it gets. The Pliocene wasn’t a whole lot different than today…But there were some significant differences…(i.e. the Isthmus of Panama formed in the Pliocene and the Himalayas and Tibetan Plateau experienced a great deal of growth from the Miocene to Pliocene). However, the Pliocene is generally considered to have been very similar to modern times as it pertains to climate modeling…
The Pliocene just doesn’t seem to have had enough CO2 to support the Mid-Pliocene Warm Period.
Basically, CO2-driven greenhouse warming should have occurred throughout geologic history if the IPCC and AGW crowd are correct. There just isn’t much in the way of evidence to support CO2-driven global warming at any point from 600 million years ago up until 1978. And there really isn’t any evidence of CO2-driven global warming since 1982.
It’s always good to keep people “on their toes.”
John Burgeson 08 48 01
It says much for the tolerance of this site that we can read the link you posted.
If I went over to RC how long would this following comment last? It is a part of a review by expert IPCC reviewer Richard Courtney about chapters from the last IPCC AR4 report. There are other peer reviewers saying similar things. Sorry the graphs cited here won’t come out in this format,
“Yes, I had seen it. ( a document I had sent) And they do think that the climate has to agree with their models.
For example, my review of the second Draft of IPCC AR 4included this:
*********************
Page 2-47 Chapter 2 Section 2.6.3 Line 46
Delete the phrase, “and a physical model” because it is a falsehood.
Evidence says what it says, and construction of a physical model is irrelevant to that in any real science.
The authors of this draft Report seem to have an extreme prejudice in favour of models (some parts of the Report seem to assert that climate obeys what the models say; e.g. Page 2-47 Chapter 2 Section 2.6.3 Lines 33 and 34), and this phrase that needs deletion is an example of the prejudice.
Evidence is the result of empirical observation of reality.
Hypotheses are ideas based on the evidence.
Theories are hypotheses that have repeatedly been tested by comparison with evidence and have withstood all the tests.
Models are representations of the hypotheses and theories.
Outputs of the models can be used as evidence only when the output data is demonstrated to accurately represent reality. If a model output disagrees with the available evidence then this indicates fault in the model, and this indication remains true until the evidence is shown to be wrong.
This draft Report repeatedly demonstrates that its authors do not understand these matters. So, I provide the following analogy to help them. If they can comprehend the analogy then they may achieve graduate standard in their science practice.
A scientist discovers a new species.
1. He/she names it (e.g. he/she calls it a gazelle) and describes it (e.g. a gazelle has a leg in each corner).
2. He/she observes that gazelles leap. (n.b. the muscles, ligaments etc. that enable gazelles to leap are not known, do not need to be discovered, and do not need to be modelled to observe that gazelles leap. The observation is evidence.)
3. Gazelles are observed to always leap when a predator is near. (This observation is also evidence.)
4. From (3) it can be deduced that gazelles leap in response to the presence of a predator.
5. n.b. The gazelle’s internal body structure and central nervous system do not need to be studied, known or modelled for the conclusion in (4) that “gazelles leap when a predator is near” to be valid. Indeed, study of a gazelle’s internal body structure and central nervous system may never reveal that, and such a model may take decades to construct following achievement of the conclusion from the evidence.
(Having read all 11 chapters of the draft Report, I had intended to provide review comments on them all. However, I became so angry at the need to point out the above elementary principles that I abandoned the review at this point: the draft should be withdrawn and replaced by another that displays an adequate level of scientific competence).
*************
All my review comments of both drafts of the AR4 were ignored. This is surprising because I sent a cover note with my comments on the First Draft that said:
***********
Expert Peer Review Comments of
the first draft of the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report
provided by Richard S Courtney
General Comment on the draft Report.
My submitted review comments are of Chapters 1 and 2 and they are offered for use, but their best purpose is that they demonstrate the nature of the contents of the draft Report. I had intended to peer review the entire document but I have not bothered to complete that because the draft is of such poor quality that my major review comment is:
The draft report should be withdrawn and a report of at least acceptable scientific quality should be presented in its place.
My review comments include suggested corrections to
• a blatant lie,
• selective use of published data,
• use of discredited data,
• failure to state (important) limitations of stated information,
• presentation of not-evidenced assertions as information,
• ignoring of all pertinent data that disproves the assertions,
• use of illogical arguments,
• failure to mention the most important aerosol (it provides positive forcing greater than methane),
• failure to understand the difference between reality and virtual reality,
• arrogant assertion that climate modellers are “the scientific community”,
• claims of “strong correlation” where none exists,
• suggestion that correlation shows causality,
• claim that peer review proves the scientific worth of information,
• claim that replication is not essential to scientific worth of information,
• misleading statements,
• ignorance of the ‘greenhouse effect’ and its components,
• and other errors.
Perhaps the clearest illustration of the nature of the draft Report is my comment on a Figure title. My comment says;
Page 1-45 Chapter 1 Figure 1.3 Title
Replace the title with,
“Figure 1.3. The Keeling curve showing the rise of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration measured at Mauna Loa, Hawaii”
because the draft title is untrue, polemical assertion (the report may intend to be a sales brochure for one very limited scientific opinion but there is no need to be this blatant about it).
Richard S Courtney (exp.)
*********************
But they not only mislead with their models and ignore review comments, they also choose to bypass peer review when they want to completely misrepresent data. Perhaps the following is the clearest example of this.
A key – and blatantly misleading – statement in the Summary for Policymakers (SPM) of AR4 says; “The linear warming trend over the last 50 years is nearly twice that for the last 100 years”.
But this statement was not in the drafts provided for peer review. It was inserted into the final draft of the report and that final draft was only submitted to government representatives for comment. The Chinese Government suggested that it should be deleted and pointed out that “These two linear rates should not compare with each other because the time scales are not the same”. But this valid comment was ignored.
It is not surprising that this key statement was not submitted for peer review because it is extremely misleading. It is justified by a statistical trick that the following paragraphs explain.
This is the graph the IPCC submitted to peer reviewers for comment.
GRAPH
It is important to note that the above version of the graph contains only one trend line and it was submitted for peer review. But another version of the graph was published in the AR4.
The IPCC published the following version of the above graph in the final version of the AR4. It is one of the key graphs from the AR4 report: it is Figure 1 from FAQ 3.1, and is on page 253 of the WG1 section (i.e. the section by the IPCC’s purportedly scientific working group). I repeat, that the following version – the published version – was not submitted for peer review.
The published graph shows the slope over the last 25 years is significantly greater than that of the last 50 years, which in turn is greater than the slope over 100 years. This is said to show that global warming is accelerating. It is important to note that this grossly misleading calculation is in chapter 3 of WG1 and also in the SPM that states, “The linear warming trend over the last 50 years is nearly twice that for the last 100 years”. Thus, policymakers who only look at the numbers (and don’t think about the different timescales) will be misled into thinking that global warming is accelerating.
Of course, the IPCC could have started near the left hand end of the graph and thus obtained the opposite conclusion! In case this is not obvious, I provide the following graph that does it together with an explanation of the presentation of the data.
GRAPH
In the above graph, the blue line is the HADCRUT3 data. The green line is the 40-year trend from 1905, with a slope of 1.46 degrees per century. The red line is the 100-year trend, with a slope of 0.72. The trend in the early part of the 20th century is twice that of the whole century.”
Tonyb
“”” RW (16:38:12) :
Dave Middleton: you say “the temperature anomaly has oscillated with a wave length of about 60 years and an average amplitude of about 0.34 C since 1850…Actually those intervals are quite obvious on your graph. They’re even more obvious on the Hadley CRU presentation of their own data (with my annotations)…”
Let’s look up a definition of ‘oscillation’, shall we?
“Oscillation is the repetitive variation, typically in time, of some measure about a central value” “””
Well the nice thing about WUWT is that I can learn something new every day.
Thank you for that definitive definition of “oscillation” RW; oops I see I failed to gather up your citation of the peer reviewed source for that definition.
But I’ll take your word for it.
See all this time I have labored under the misaprehension that the long Mauna Loa record of atmospheric CO2 showed an annual oscillation cycle, whose origins are somewhat known and somewhat unknown given that the pattern is not world wide.
But you have disabused me of that notion; ML CO2 data does NOT oscillate, so any talk of an annual cycle and its causes is pure nonsense.
Based on your assertians; rather stridently to Dave Middleton that HADcrut anomalie data does not oscillate; then we can safely assume that the data shows a constant linear (up) trend and all the fluctuations about that trend line are not data at all, but simply noise in the experimental data collection system.
So gien that there is this constant trend; we should be safe in extrapolating that to 2100 AD to get the treu expected mean global temperature anomaly for that time in the future.
I see too that the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, and ENSO are also misnomers since no oscillation as defined in your post occurs there either.
No wonder we have all been making wrong assumptions, we have been believing all these people who talk about oscillations as if they are actual real phenomena.
What surprises me more than anything, is that we have all these thermally coupled physical systems; with built in feedbacks, and not a one of them is actually oscillating.
Having spent many engineering hours of my life trying to design feedback temperature controller systems for things like precision quartyz crystals to control their mechanical oscillations to very close tolerances; I can attest to the great difficulty when unavoidable thermal energy transport delays are included in the controller feedback paths.
It is almost an axiom that thermal feedback systems always oscillate; well nearly always; and excepting climate thermal feedback systems which we now know thanks to you, never oscillate.
George
I see I made a fox pass up above and RW did cite a reference to his definition of oscillation; no less an authority than Wikipedia; the People’s Encyclopedia.
Well that is very comforting, and reinforces my conjecture that there aren’t any oscillations in the climate data, despite the repeated attempts to assign that term to several data records.
Still not sure why my cut and paste didn’t pick up the linkage.
George
Nasif Nahle
From (21:18:44): ” There is a colossal natural cause to explain the (temperature) increase post 1978…The energy incoming from the sun which is stored by the oceans: the ground and the subsurface material of ground. Those systems store more energy than the amount of energy stored by the whole atmosphere. ”
The Total Solar Irradiance (TSI) was declining, after 1978. So, the oceans were receiving LESS heat directly, from the uv rays of the sun.
The oceans were receiving MORE heat from the atmosphere. And the atmosphere was receiving additional heat from: CO2 AGW, or (a)……., or (b)……. or(c)……. or, ‘its a mystery’.
I presume you’re not suggesting that 30 years of TSI-deficit heat was hiding in the ocean in 1977…out of the reach of our thermometers.
Obviously, instead of the ocean expanding as it warmed, the ocean would then be contracting as it cooled. And, sea levels would be falling.
Dave Middleton (08:54:08)
Without that geological atlas, and chemistry book; all I can do is ask a question.
I’m not asking about geological periods that have reached a carbon-cycle steady-state situation. But about transitional periods (like ours) in which the added CO2 source is not a part of the regular carbon cycle.
i.e…..1. post industrial revolution mankind
………2. a volcanic eruption burning a coal seam
(someone proposed this once…)
The point is…a CO2 source for which the ecological system has no built-in remedies…
Unlike a worldwide forest fire. Which would leave lots of land available for new growth.
Are there any others?
“Basically, CO2-driven greenhouse warming should have occurred throughout geologic history…There just isn’t much in the way of evidence to support CO2 driven global warming…”
Might it be that geological history hasn’t encountered many such deus ex machina CO2 sources…for which it has no counter measures?
“And the atmosphere was receiving additional heat from: CO2 AGW, or (a)……., or (b)……. or(c)……. or, ‘its a mystery’.”
Well…It wasn’t CO2-driven AGW because at almost no point of time from 1979-2003 did the Stratosphere cool while the Troposphere was warming.
So…Alternative “A” might be albedo and clouds…
Alternative “B” might be the PDO…
Or it could be option “C”…Something mysterious…Maybe something that has never happened since the dawn of the Phanerozoic Eon…Increasing atmospheric CO2 concentrations led to an enhanced greenhouse effect…Miraculously warming the planet! Who could have guessed that 350ppm to 375ppm was the exact amount of CO2 required for such a thing to happen. Any less CO2 and it’s the Sun…Any more CO2 and it’s the Sun. Amazingly the enhanced greenhouse effect of 1978-2003 had no concurrent stratospheric cooling.
To Philip Jones,
I initially misunderstood the comment on the Air Vent site on the two links you quoted. The original comment on that post was so obnoxious, that I did not take much time to read it carefully. When I later reread what was said (after what I thought was an apology), I understood the comment and replied, including giving some requested information. Looking for “got ya” points rather than finding information is not conducive to finding the truth. I am not familiar with either site other than that I ran across them while surfing, and used some material in them as links. There are many other links with similar conclusions, so I picked them as typical. If you have a problem with that, that is your problem.
Dave Middleton (18:50:57)
(a)…..was also mentioned by Paul (19:20:29) 25-05-2009
For my homage to Svensmark, see above: Francis (20:00:41) 26-05-2009
Both papapers were presented at the 2004 Western Pacific Geophysics Meeting. That was a long time ago.
Sometime afterwards, Svensmark went to CERN in Switzerland, to (somehow) prove his theory. And I haven’ heard of him, or his results, since. Other than that, to his credit, he’s still working on it.
I have been generous with my advice to skeptics, in how they could overthrow CO2AGW. It involved finding something that acted on water vapor…and formed clouds. So, it would be something that acted like cosmic rays.
I will look for something recent on cosmic rays.
(b)……was also mentioned by evanmjones (19:03:31) 25-05=2009
Thanks for the references on oscillations.
@Francis…
My apologies if my tone in the previous post seemed a bit sarcastic.
I realize that Ferdninad has some well-founded opinions on why plant stomatal data may not provide a good view of CO2 levels above the boundary layer…But prior to the U. Pleistocene ice core data, SI and carbon isotope ratios are the primary tools for estimating CO2 levels in paleo-atmospheres…
Atmospheric CO2 levels have risen and fallen sharply in reaction to temperature changes before.
On Svensmark…His SKY experiment demonstrated the cosmic ray – cloud connection. The CLOUD experiment to test the theory under a wide range of conditions is still on CERN’s docket IIRC…scheduled for 2011.
Steve Schnieder is hilarious in the “In Search of” episode linked above. He uses Ice Age Scare Tactics to rail against nationalism like a good Internationale Socialist.
He is more of a political activist than scientist.
At least he is not selling carbon indulgences… is he?
Dave Middleton:
“Three complete up half-cycles and two complete down half-cycles would provide a secular upward trend…Particularly since the average amplitude of the up half-cycles is slightly higher than that of the down half cycles.
You seem to be trying very hard not to see what the data is telling you. If each successive peak is higher than the last, and each successive trough is higher than the last, then there is a secular upward trend. It’s absolutely obvious to anyone with basic observational capabilities that an oscillation alone is an extremely poor description of the HadCRUT data since 1850.
Earlier you claimed that “The stratospheric temperature was flat prior to the El Chicon cooling, flat between El Chicon and Pinatubo, and flat after Pinatubo“. I asked you what data and what method you used to calculate these claimed trends, because linear fits to UAH data in the periods concerned gives a negative trend in all three periods. You didn’t answer. Instead, you made some more claims about a number of very short periods, which suggests to me that you don’t realise that over periods of a few years, internal variation obscures long term trends. Would you now specify what dataset you used, and how you derived the trends?
“Well then…Maybe you can cite some period other than 1979-1982 when the Stratosphere was cooling while the Troposphere was warming. From 1983-2009 the Stratosphere and Troposphere curves are always behaving inconsistently with greenhouse warming.”
Incorrect. As I said, in each of the three periods, the stratosphere was cooling. The stratosphere is now about a degree cooler than it was at the start of the satellite record, while the troposphere is about 0.5°C warmer. This is the expected behaviour, in response to rising greenhouse gas concentrations.
“Greenhouse warming, by definition, requires a redistribution of heat from the upper atmosphere to the lower atmosphere.”
Quite wrong.
If it makes you feel better…Every time I use the word “oscillation,” just pretend I used the word “fluctuation.”
Here’s HadCRUT3 & UAH vs. CO2…
CO2vs. Temp
And the same temperature data vs. the length of the Schwabe Cycle…
Schwabe Length vs. Temp
Pretty clearly an oscillating function.
I downloaded the UAH data set from NCDC/NOAA’s …website . I segmented the entire data set in such a way that the massive volcanic warming of the Stratosphere in 1982 and 1991 and the massive ENSO warming of the Troposphere in 1998 did not provide the false impression of stratospheric cooling along with tropospheric warming…Dec 1978 – Apr 2009
Prior to El Chichón (Dec. 1978 – Jan. 1982), the Troposphere warmed while the Stratosphere cooled…This is the only time period of the UAH MSU data that showed a “greenhouse signature…Dec 1978 – Jan 1982
During the El Chichón disruption (Jan. 1982 – June 1984), the Troposphere and Stratosphere had linear cooling trends… Jan 1982 – Jun 1984
Between El Chichón and Pinatubo (June 1984 – June 1990) the Troposphere and Stratosphere had linear cooling trends… Jun 1984 – Jun 1990
During and just after the Pinatubo disruption (June 1990- June 1994), the Troposphere and Stratosphere had linear cooling trends… Jun 1990 – June 1994
In the run-up to the major ENSO event (June 1994 – June 1997), the Troposphere and Stratosphere had linear cooling trends… Jun 1994 – June 1997
During the 1997-1998 ENSO (June 1997 – June 1999), the Troposphere actually had a linear cooling trend; while the Stratosphere had a slight warming trend… June 1997 – June 1999
Between the end of the ENSO and the onset of oceanic cooling in 2003 (June 1999 – Dec. 2003), the Troposphere and Stratosphere both had warming trends… June 1999 – Dec 2003
Since 2003, the Stratosphere and Troposphere have had cooling trends… Jan 2003 – Apr 2009
The only time interval in which the Stratosphere was cooling while the Troposphere was warming was Dec 1978 – Jan 1982.
Since I made those graphs I have also done some work with moving averages…And they show a similar picture. The Stratosphere rarely cooled while the Troposphere was warming.
That’s how the greenhouse effect works. It doesn’t cause more energy to come into Earth’s atmosphere. It retains energy (heat) in the lower atmosphere…Resulting in a redistribution of heat from the upper atmosphere to the lower atmosphere.
Major volcanic eruptions tend to cause an inverse greenhouse effect. That’s why El Chichón and Pinatubo resulted in very significant warming of the Stratosphere concurrent with cooling of the Troposphere. Heat was effectively redistributed from the lower atmosphere to the upper atmosphere.
Neither phenomenon brings more solar heating into the system; they redistribute heat within the system…The system being Earth’s atmosphere.
I think the Spam filter just grabbed my post due to Photobucket links.
I managed to reverse the links for these two segments…
During the El Chichón disruption (Jan. 1982 – June 1984), the Troposphere and Stratosphere had linear cooling trends… Jan 1982 – Jun 1984…Links to June 1984 – June 1990.
Between El Chichón and Pinatubo (June 1984 – June 1990) the Troposphere and Stratosphere had linear cooling trend…Links to Jan. 1982 – June 1984.
RE: Pierre Gosselin (03:24:31) :
“Yesterday my daughter (14) made her skeptic-presentation on climate change in her geography class, and I am pleased to say the result was surprising in very positive way.”
Good show!
Dave Middleton: you can call whatever you’re seeing a fluctuation if you like. There is still a secular upward trend, and it’s rather weird to pretend that there isn’t.
The greenhouse effect does not simply redistribute heat. Heat that would otherwise escape into space is retained in the atmosphere. This is pretty basic stuff, and I’m surprised you don’t know it.
As for your graphs, well, in any period of just a few years, internal variation dominates and long term trends are not apparent. I said that before, you made no comment so I presume you were unaware of that as well. Notwithstanding that they are over periods too short to be meaningful, your graphs stop and start at very strange places. Pinatubo erupted in June 1991, not June 1990. El Chichón erupted in March 1982, not January 1982. The effects of these eruptions on stratospheric temperatures were over by January 1984 and June 1993, not June 1984 and June 1994. Why did you pick the dates you did?
RW (19:02:09) :
For the hypothetical equilibrium earth system, the greenhouse effect does not “retain” anything. The TOA flux out still has to match the TOA flux in. If the earth is actively warming, then yes there may be a small imbalance.
I think by practically anyone’s reckoning, we’re barely on the edge of having more than a “few” years of any consistent type of climate measurement (bristlecones notwithstanding).
oms: try a little thought experiment. Imagine a planet with no atmosphere. It’s in radiative equilibrium. Flux in = flux out. Now imagine an atmosphere made of CO2 appears. Leave it a bit, until it reaches radiative equilibrium.
You would find that the surface would warm, and that it would now radiate more energy than it directly receives from the Sun. Clearly, heat is being retained that would otherwise be lost into space. Nothing has been redistributed, because there was nowhere for it to be redistributed from.
RW: thanks for the little thought experiment. After thinking about it, it still seems to me that all the downward flux is still accounted for by upward flux, at both the surface and at the TOA level (whatever you define that to be), so I guess we have somewhat different ideas of what “retention” (or maybe “equilibrium”) means .
On second thought, I can understand the your usage. If you have a dam at equilibrium, you think of the reservoir behind it as being “retained” so okay your point is fine.
Dave Middleton’s original statement, “Greenhouse warming, by definition, requires a redistribution of heat from the upper atmosphere to the lower atmosphere,” doesn’t seem 100% correct (in that I don’t believe it to be quite definitional) but it doesn’t seem to be as wrong as you are making it out to be either.
It is a simplification. But heat redistribution is the effective result. If Earth’s atmosphere lacked greenhouse gases…The lower atmosphere would be colder and the upper atmosphere would be warmer.
There’s an apparent secular positive trend in three peaks and two troughs of any symmetrical oscillating function. There is also an apparent secular trend in any asymmetrical oscillating function. A complex oscillating function will also appear to have secular trends due to the underlying lower frequency function.
However, there is no “secular” relationship between CO2 and temperature. If there was, this chart would look a lot different than it does…Phanerozoic CO2 vs. Temp.
As far as the Stratosphere goes, it is a “step” function; see Ramaswamy et. al. (2006)…
Ramaswamy was able to replicate the step function with a combination of natural and anthropogenic effects. The bulk of the anthropogenic cooling was the result of ozone depletion (Isn’t stratospheric cooling the primary evidence for stratospheric ozone depletion?). However, if he removed the volcanic effects, the model predicted a steady decline in stratospheric temperatures; which was inconsistent with the observed temperature trends.
The result of the greenhouse effect is a redistribution of energy (heat). CO2 is generally “transparent” to incoming high frequency (UV) solar radiation and “opaque” to certain bandwidths of low frequency (IR) radiation. After the solar radiation heats the Earth’s surface, some of this energy is radiated back into the atmosphere. Certain bandwidths of the radiated IR are “absorbed” or “retained” by C2. This “warms” the lower atmosphere. The greenhouse effect results in the lower atmosphere effectively retaining a higher percentage of the outgoing IR. Since heat is retained in the lower atmosphere, less Earth-radiated IR reaches the upper atmosphere…leading to cooling of the upper atmosphere.
Hence the ultimate effect is a redistribution of heat within the atmosphere.
Since almost all of the stratospheric cooling over the satellite record is due to volcanic events and stratospheric ozone depletion…There’s little (if any) stratospheric cooling left over to account for much enhancement of tropospheric greenhouse warming over the past 30 years.
I picked the dates to fully isolate the effects of the volcanic events and the 1997-1998 ENSO.
As far as your comment about “internal variation”….I’m certain that advocates of the Ptolemaic solar system invoked “internal variation” and natural variability quite often in dismissing criticisms of the epicycles hypothesis to explain away retrograde motion.
The Earth’s climate did not behave in a manner consistent with CO2-driven global warming from the dawn of the Cambrian until 1978…And since 1998 it has not behaved in a manner consistent with CO2-driven global warming. And since the Stratosphere did not concurrently cool with the warming of the Troposphere, it really didn’t behave a manner consistent with CO2-driven global warming from 1979-1998 either.
“If Earth’s atmosphere lacked greenhouse gases…The lower atmosphere would be colder and the upper atmosphere would be warmer.”
No. Both would be colder, in that case. Think about it. What would be heating the upper atmosphere?
“There’s an apparent secular positive trend in three peaks and two troughs of any symmetrical oscillating function.”
Nope.
“However, there is no “secular” relationship between CO2 and temperature.”
That is an absurd claim.
“If there was, this chart would look a lot different than it does…Phanerozoic CO2 vs. Temp.”
Presumably you were unaware that geological and solar processes dominate over the longest timescales.
“However, if he removed the volcanic effects, the model predicted a steady decline in stratospheric temperatures; which was inconsistent with the observed temperature trends.”
Yes, if you remove events which actually occurred, it’s hardly a surprise that you can’t replicate what actually occurred.
“Since almost all of the stratospheric cooling over the satellite record is due to volcanic events and stratospheric ozone depletion…There’s little (if any) stratospheric cooling left over to account for much enhancement of tropospheric greenhouse warming over the past 30 years.”
Try reading the Ramaswamy paper again. Here’s a small bit, which you already directly quoted but don’t seem to have noticed: “the overall lower stratospheric temperature decline is driven primarily by the depletion of ozone, and to a lesser extent by the increase in well-mixed greenhouse gases.”
“I picked the dates to fully isolate the effects of the volcanic events and the 1997-1998 ENSO.”
Temperatures are not influenced by volcanoes until after the eruption. You chose periods that ended three months and one year before the two major eruptions. Why?
“As far as your comment about “internal variation”….I’m certain that advocates of the Ptolemaic solar system invoked “internal variation” and natural variability quite often in dismissing criticisms of the epicycles hypothesis to explain away retrograde motion.”
‘Internal variation’ in a climate context is also known as ‘weather’. Are you denying that weather exists?
“The Earth’s climate did not behave in a manner consistent with CO2-driven global warming from the dawn of the Cambrian until 1978”
At no time in the Earth’s history has CO2 not absorbed infrared radiation. At no time in the Earth’s history has its radiative balance been independent of the CO2 concentration.
“…And since 1998 it has not behaved in a manner consistent with CO2-driven global warming.”
The average temperature in the 2000s is almost 0.2°C higher than the average temperature in the 1990s.
“And since the Stratosphere did not concurrently cool with the warming of the Troposphere, it really didn’t behave a manner consistent with CO2-driven global warming from 1979-1998 either.”
The stratosphere did concurrently cool. Try reading the Ramaswamy paper again.
So an increase in greenhouse gases cools the Stratosphere and a decrease in greenhouse gases cools the Stratosphere?
How is stratospheric cooling evidence of tropospheric greenhouse warming if the Stratosphere cools in response to any change in GHG’s?
You got me there. I was doing the “math” in by head. It’s an apparent negative secular trend. The point was that a symmetrical oscillating function can impart an apparent secular trend where there is no true secular trend.
It may sound absurd to you; but there is no secular relationship between CO2 and temperature. Pleistocene ice core data suggest that there was a cyclical relationship…However, if the ice core CO2 data are correct, that relationship has changed… LINK …If the relationship was truly secular, it would be quite a bit hotter today than it was ~130,000 years ago during the Sangamon interglacial. But the Sangamon was considerably warmer than it is now (several degrees C) and sea level was 5-8 meters higher…Yet CO2 was at most ~300ppm (if the ice core data are correct).
If the postulated feed back mechanisms are negated, CO2’s greenhouse effect is logarithmic and not linear. So any secular relationship would vanish with increasing CO2 concentrations.
That’s mind boggling. I must’ve wasted the last 30+ years of my life as a geophysicist…All this time I thought geological process dominated over short periods of time…(slaps own forehead).
So…Let’s make sure I understand. The secular relationship between CO2 and temperature is only operative over intermediate periods of time…Is that correct?
The cooling from 1942-1978 and from 2003 to the present are such short periods of time that “internal variation” and natural variability overwhelm the greenhouse effect of increasing CO2. And the Phanerozoic lack of correlation is due to “geological and solar processes” overwhelming the anti-greenhouse effect of decreasing CO2. So…I guess that this interglacial lacks the same cyclical relationship between CO2 and temperature because ““geological and solar processes” suddenly changed during the Holocene transgression? Or is it just “internal variation” and natural variability?
That steady decrease should be apparent in the observed data before, between and after the two volcanic events. It is not.
I noticed the words “primarily” and “lesser.” That’s why I quoted that particular passage.
Ozone depletion (if it is really occurring) cools the Stratosphere because the ozone-depleted upper atmosphere absorbs less incoming UV radiation than an ozone-enriched upper atmosphere would absorb. Well mixed greenhouse gasses would add to that cooling by retaining more outgoing IR radiation in the lower atmosphere.
Ozone depletion-driven stratospheric cooling wouldn’t have to be concurrent with tropospheric warming. GHG-driven tropospheric warming would have to be complemented by a concurrent stratospheric cooling.
I picked them to put the “bumps” in the middle of the segments that included the bumps. I could pick the segments in almost any configuration and the curves almost never approach one-another when the Stratosphere curve is placed above the Troposphere curve.
Ideally it should look something like a Neutron-Density curve on a well log through a gas bearing sandstone. The two curves should approach one another, if not cross over, during periods in which there is an enhancement of greenhouse warming of the lower atmosphere.
You got me again…I am a weather denialist. It’s all climate; there’s no such thing as weather.
That explains the lack of correlation between CO2 and temperature quite well.
And?
When did the climate start paying attention to the human-derived numerical values of decades?
According to the UAH Lower Troposphere global temperature anomalies, the Earth warmed 0.96 C from Dec. 1978 to Apr. 1998 and then cooled -0.67 C from Apr. 1998 to Apr. 2009.
That works out to a warming rate of 0.62 C per decade from Dec. 1979 to Apr. 1998 and a cooling rate of -0.73 per decade from Apr. 1998 to the present.
Let me guess…Dec. 1978 to Apr. 1998 is significant and Apr. 1998 to Apr. 2009 is “internal variation”…Right?
I ‘ve got a copy of it right in front of me.
The Stratosphere cooled in the immediate aftermath of the major volcanic events. Before, between and after those events stratospheric temperatures remained relatively flat, irrespective of what the Troposphere was doing…”Observations reveal that the substantial cooling of the global lower stratosphere over 1979–2003 occurred in two pronounced steplike transitions. These arose in the aftermath of two major volcanic eruptions, with each cooling transition being followed by a period of relatively steady temperatures.”
“So an increase in greenhouse gases cools the Stratosphere and a decrease in greenhouse gases cools the Stratosphere?”
Why should there be one fixed linear relation between CO2 concentrations and stratospheric temperatures that applies for all possible values of CO2? I invite you again to think about the case of no greenhouse gases. You said that the stratosphere would be warmer in that case than it is today. What would be heating it?
You said “There’s an apparent secular positive trend in three peaks and two troughs of any symmetrical oscillating function”, but then later “It’s an apparent negative secular trend. The point was that a symmetrical oscillating function can impart an apparent secular trend where there is no true secular trend.” Given
that you claimed that hadcrut temperature data could be represented by an oscillating function, and that there were three peaks and two troughs, how do you reconcile the observed upward trend with the mathematically inevitable downward trend that would actually be derived for an oscillating function over 2.5 oscillations containing three peaks and two troughs?
“…there is no secular relationship between CO2 and temperature”
Now this is simply denialism. If this were true, there would be no greenhouse effect.
“If the postulated feed back mechanisms are negated, CO2’s greenhouse effect is
logarithmic and not linear. So any secular relationship would vanish with increasing CO2 concentrations.”
Non sequitur. Logarithmic relationships don’t ever vanish.
“So…Let’s make sure I understand. The secular relationship between CO2 and temperature is only operative over intermediate periods of time…Is that correct?”
I’m very surprised that you seem to be struggling with very simple concepts. There is, of course, always and inevitably a relationship between the concentration of a greenhouse gas and global temperatures. If you expect as a result of that to see a 100% correlation between the two variables over any and all timescales, then your science intuition is woeful. So, let me make sure I understand: do you think there should be a 100% correlation between CO2 concentrations and temperatures over all timescales?
“That steady decrease should be apparent in the observed data before, between and after the two volcanic events. It is not.”
I already told you that in all three periods not affected by volcanoes, the tren in stratospheric temperatures was negative. You only got a different result by wrongly excluding data that was not affected by the eruptions, such as the entire year before Pinatubo erupted.
“You got me again…I am a weather denialist. It’s all climate; there’s no such thing as weather.”
OK…
“When did the climate start paying attention to the human-derived numerical values of decades?”
That’s a rather hilariously odd comment. Are you saying that no natural phenomenon can be measured using human-invented units? How do you propose to measure climate trends? Tell me the units you want to use and I’ll tell you the answer,
and we can pretend decades don’t exist if you like. It won’t change the underlying physics.
“According to the UAH Lower Troposphere global temperature anomalies, the Earth
warmed 0.96 C from Dec. 1978 to Apr. 1998 and then cooled -0.67 C from Apr. 1998 to Apr. 2009. That works out to a warming rate of 0.62 C per decade from Dec.
1979 to Apr. 1998 and a cooling rate of -0.73 per decade from Apr. 1998 to the present.”
Drawing a line between two points is not how trends are calculated.
“Let me guess…Dec. 1978 to Apr. 1998 is significant and Apr. 1998 to Apr. 2009 is “internal variation”…Right?”
If you want to find out the answer to this you need first of all to calculate the trends properly, using all the data, and then to choose an appropriate statistical model for the noise pattern in the data to calculate the error on the trend. If the error is larger than the trend for a given period, then the trend is not significant.
Then, why does an increase of “well mixed greenhouse gases” cool the Stratosphere and an absence of “well mixed greenhouse gases” also cool the Stratosphere.
I also said that asymmetric oscillating functions can have apparent, but insignificant, linear secular trends and that an underlying lower frequency/higher amplitude oscillating function can also impart an apparent secular trend.
No. It just means that the greenhouse effect would not significantly vary with variations in the atmospheric concentration of CO2.
It’s not a no sequitor; it’s an effective approximation. Logarithmic functions don’t vanish in exactly the same way asymptotic functions never reach infinity.
If there was a secular or linear relationship between CO2 and temperature there would be a long-term correlation between CO2 and temperature. There is no such correlation at the Phanerozoic scale. The Pleistocene cyclical relationship went bust somewhere around 1939 (if the ice core CO2 are correct). The correlation between CO2 and ~0.5 C of warming from 1908-1942 is different from the _0.5 C of warming from 1978-2003. And CO2 concentrations increased faster during the
~0.2 C of cooling from 1942-1978 than they increased during the 1908-1942 warming…And CO2 concentrations have increased at the same rate (if not faster) during the ~0.4 C of cooling since 2003 than they did during the 1978-2003 warming.
No. The trend was not negative between El Chicon and Pinatubo; nor is it negative since Pinatubo. It was slightly negative before El Chicon. The Stratosphere warmed slightly from Jan. 1995 to Jan 2002…As did the Troposphere. Since Jan. 2002, both the Stratosphere and the Troposphere have linear cooling trends. Essentially, the Stratosphere warmed during both volcanic events and the cooled rapidly in a “steplike” transition; assuming a generally neutral trend after the passing of each volcanic event.
From Ramaswamy et. al.: ”Observations reveal that the substantial cooling of the global lower stratosphere over 1979–2003 occurred in two pronounced steplike transitions. These arose in the aftermath of two major volcanic eruptions, with each cooling transition being followed by a period of relatively steady temperatures.”
To the climate “decades” are “pretend.” The underlying physics doesn’t cause climate variations to fit into human decades.
So…April 2009 was warmer than April 1998? I would have guessed that +0.76 was a larger number than +0.09.
Drawing a linear trend-line through a non-linear function is also another way to not properly calculate a trend. A 6th order polynomial fit of the UAH LT data yields an “S” shaped curve that starts just below 0 in Dec 1978 and finishes just above 0 in Apr. 2009. It looks a lot like an oscillation. And it starts and ends very close to phase shifts in the PDO.
A linear trend through the UAH LT data has an R^2 of 0.2792…The sixth order polynomial has an R^2 of 0.3513.
It’s been a while since I took statistics…Isn’t R^2 a measure of how well a trend fits a function?
Use all of the data? If I use all of the data, “geological and solar” processes overwhelm variations in CO2. If I don’t use enough data, “internal variation” and natural variability overwhelm the variations in CO2.
So…I have to use just the right bits of data that fit the AGW narrative? Sounds like cherry-picking to me.
You seem to be struggling with a number of basic misconceptions:
1. You are denying that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, which is absurd; that has been known for 150 years.
2. You don’t seem to understand a logarithmic relationship. If y ∝ log(x), then doubling x always results in the same increase in y. Always. This relationship never ‘vanishes’ and it has nothing in common with asymptotic functions.
3. When you say “If there was a secular or linear relationship between CO2 and temperature there would be a long-term correlation between CO2 and temperature. There is no such correlation at the Phanerozoic scale”, you would only be right if CO2 was the only thing changing. How could you be unaware that over those timescales, that is a disastrously wrong assumption?
4. You don’t understand how to calculate trends. Drawing a line joining two arbitrary points in the data is not a valid method. Using a 6th order polynomial is absurd over-fitting. Presumably you are unaware that if you were to do a 12th order polynomial, you’d get an even better fit – and even less meaningful.
I would be amazed if you really genuinely couldn’t understand these four points. You seem to be affecting a sort of pseudo-ignorance, for reasons I can’t begin to imagine.
By the way, I’ve asked you twice and you haven’t answered: if there were no greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, what would be heating the upper atmosphere to make it warmer than it is today?
No. I have never denied that CO2 is a greenhouse gas. I have clearly stated on numerous occasions that the only facet of the AGW hypothesis that is correct, is the assertion that CO2 is a greenhouse gas.
However the greenhouse effect of CO2 is a logarithmic function of diminishing returns. Hence, there is no secular relationship between CO2 and temperature.
Most of the greenhouse effect comes from water vapor…A little bit of CO2 is enough to yield a disproportionately large percentage of CO2’s entire greenhouse warming potential. Each additional unit of CO2 yields less greenhouse warming than the unit preceding it.
If “x” was CO2 and “y” was delta (temp) in the equation y=ln(x)…
+0 CO2 -> +0 T
+1 CO2 -> +2 T
+2 CO2 -> +3 T
+8 CO2 -> +4 T
Of course the formula is not so simple as T=ln(CO2).
I should have said that an asymptotically increasing function never reaches infinity in the same way that a logarithmic function never vanishes.
Because irrespective of plate tectonics and all of the other massive changes apart from CO2…Earth’s hothouse phases had a remarkably consistent average temperature of about 22 C…And three of the four icehouse phases pretty well settled in with ~12 C average temperatures.
The continents moved all over the place…building and tearing down mountain ranges several times over…CO2 more or less declined in a generally secular manner…Yet the temperatures generally oscillated from 12 C to 22 C.
The icehouse vs. hothouse phases may have been dictated by plate tectonics or astrophysical phenomena…But CO2 appears to have played no role in that cycle.
No. I understand that quite well. But I also know how to recognize non-linear “nested” cycles. Like the First Order Relative Changes of Sea Level and the Second Order Relative Changes of Sea Level on this chart.
A third or sixth order polynomial would fit the First Order quite well. A twelfth order polynomial might just fit the Second Order quite well. A linear trend-line would be meaningless on either.
I’m amazed that I’ve put up with your insults for so long…Maybe my temper works on geological time.
You are just not sufficiently familiar enough with geology and geophysics to be able to look at climate change from the same perspective that I do. I fail to see why that elicits such obnoxiousness on your part. Oh well… C’est la vie.
Because the Sun would still be warming the Earth. A heat source will still warm air that is devoid of greenhouse gases.
The amount of incoming UV radiation would be exactly the same as it is now. The same amount would reach the Earth’s surface and warm it. The Earth would radiate back the same amount of IR radiation. Since less of the IR would be warming the lower atmosphere, more of it would be available to warm the upper atmosphere on its way back into space.
From Understanding the Earth by Geoff Brown (a geology text book)…
“Stratospheric aerosols alter the global radiation budget mainly by absorbing and backscattering incoming solar radiation, and they also absorb some outgoing infrared radiation.” Aerosols have a double-warming effect on the upper atmosphere. Incoming UV and outgoing IR both warm stratospheric aerosols.
In the absence of a greenhouse effect…The same amount of incoming UV would warm the Stratosphere and more outgoing IR would warm the Stratosphere.
Am I certain that this would result in a warmer Stratosphere? No. Too many variables to consider.
Now, perhaps you will return the favor an explain how an increase of “well mixed greenhouse gases” cool the Stratosphere and an absence of “well mixed greenhouse gases” also cool the Stratosphere.
Dave Middleton,
You are right, of course. But you’re feeding a troll. The only reason his snarky attitude isn’t insufferable is because his beliefs are so easy to deconstruct. But on general principles, it’s best not to feed trolls.
You are correct…And I hope I am not diminishing the collegiality of WUWT…But he (or she) keeps hanging curveballs…Swinging away is just so irresistible…;)
“I have never denied that CO2 is a greenhouse gas.”
You said “the greenhouse effect would not significantly vary with variations in the atmospheric concentration of CO2“. If CO2 is a greenhouse gas, that would be impossible.
“However the greenhouse effect of CO2 is a logarithmic function of diminishing returns. Hence, there is no secular relationship between CO2 and temperature.”
That’s interesting. You’re saying that there’s a logarithmic relationship, therefore there’s no relationship. Let me give you the corrected version of what you said: the greenhouse effect of CO2 is a logarithmic function. Hence, there is a relationship between CO2 and temperature.
“I should have said that an asymptotically increasing function never reaches infinity in the same way that a logarithmic function never vanishes.”
If you’d said that, you’d still be wrong. y=1/x is an asymptotic function. as
x tends to infinity, y tends to a fixed value – in this case, zero. y=log(x) is
not an asymptotic function. As x tends to infinity, y also tends to infinity,
and not a fixed value.
“irrespective of plate tectonics and all of the other massive changes apart from CO2, Earth’s hothouse phases had a remarkably consistent a
verage temperature of about 22 C. And three of the four icehouse phases pretty well settled in with ~12 C average temperatures.”
Ah, I see the problem. Just how accurate do you believe that 22C figure is? Do you know how it was estimated? Do you know what other estimates are available? If not, why not? If so, why do you prefer this one?
“The icehouse vs. hothouse phases may have been dictated by plate tectonics or astrophysical phenomena. But CO2 appears to have played no role in that cycle.”
The Sun was fainter when it was younger, and liquid water could not have existed on Earth without a much greater greenhouse effect than exists today. This is a simple fact but one which you appear to be entirely unaware of.
“A third or sixth order polynomial would fit the First Order quite well. A twelfth order polynomial might just fit the Second Order quite well. A linear trend-line would be meaningless on either.”
If you think you can meaningfully fit a 12th-order polynomial to any physical phenomenon, I’m afraid you’re horribly mistaken.
“You are just not sufficiently familiar enough with geology and geophysics to be able to look at climate change from the same perspective that I do. I fail to see why that elicits such obnoxiousness on your part. Oh well, C’est la vie”
You’re not sufficiently familiar with basic physics or statistics to come to any
sensible conclusion about climate change, as we can see from the litany of basic misconceptions that appear throughout your posts.
That’s because the relationship is one of “diminishing returns”…A logarithmic relationship. Each additional unit of CO2 yields less greenhouse warming than the prior unit. So there is no linear or secular relationship.
If CO2 provides 25% of Earth’s greenhouse warming (~30 C)…285ppm of CO2 was yielding 7.5C of warming. A doubling of that CO2 level to 580ppm could not raise the Earth’s temperature by more than 1.5 C to 2.0 C (without positive feedback mechanisms).
0 to 285ppm -> 7.5 C
285 to 570ppm -> 1.75 C
Remarkably similar to Delta-T = ln(CO2). The first 285ppm yields four times as much warming as the next 285ppm. If you extrapolate this relationship to 4000ppm, you’ll understand why CO2 and temperature had no secular relationship throughout the Phanerozoic Eon (the last ~600 million years).
Now…Since the Earth has been cooling while CO2 has climbed from 375 to 385ppm and since the Earth was warmer in the Sangamon Interglacial with only about 315ppm CO2…In fact the Earth was warmed in each of the last four interglacials with less CO2 (if the ice cores are right – a big IF)…It should be apparent that there are no significant positive feedback mechanisms operating. In fact, the feedback mechanisms pretty well have to be negative.
In an asymptotically increasing function delta-y increases exponentially with linear increases in delta-x. In a logarithmic function (like y=ln(x)) delta-y decreases exponentially with linear increases in delta-x.
Hence a logarithmic function vanishes in exactly the same way that an asymptotically increasing function never reaches infinity.
Think Douglas Adams…”The Vogon Constructor Ship hung in the sky exactly like a rock doesn’t.”
It’s as accurate as an estimate can be for something that happened so long ago and has been averaged over such a long time period. Past temperatures are largely reconstructed from oxygen isotope ratios and from paleoclimatological/paleogeographical reconstructions.
One “alternative” reconstruction that I am aware of is Royer (2004). He used a pH modifier to force the temperature data to “fit” the CO2 levels. I believe that the pH modifier was based on CO2 levels. Nir Shaviv and Jan Veizer concluded that…
This model of the Phanerozoic climate has been the standard since at least the 1970s… LINK. It’s what I was taught way back in the Upper Pleistocene.
Could this paradigm one day be shifted? Sure it could. But force-fitting the stable isotope temperature data to the CO2 levels using a CO2-derived pH flux adjustment, is not really very valid.
Maybe so…But you are talking about the pre-Phanerozoic. Very little is known about the pre-Phanerozoic atmosphere. The general consensus is that the Earth’s atmosphere evolved through three main phases.
The Earth’s first atmosphere formed during the Hadean Period and is thought to have been mostly water vapor and CO2, with lesser amounts hydrogen-sulfur compounds, methane, CO and other gases. The Hadean gets its name from Hades…A generally warm place. Much of the Earth’s surface was molten during the Hadean. Molten rocks are kind of hot; even under a faint sun.
From 3.8 to 3.4 billion years ago a second atmosphere formed during the Achaean Period…
“The atmosphere was very different from what we breathe today; at that time, it was likely a reducing atmosphere of methane, ammonia, and other gases which would be toxic to most life on our planet today. Also during this time, the Earth’s crust cooled enough that rocks and continental plates began to form.”
Some studies have suggested that the Achaean was more dominated by CO2 than CH4. I suppose that’s possible. Even with a logarithmically declining greenhouse effect, CO2 could yield an awful lot of atmospheric warming with concentrations measured in 100’s of thousands of ppm…
ln(30) = 3.4, ln(90) = 4.5, ln(180) = 5.2, ln(285) = 5.7, ln(570) = 6.3, ln(4,000) = 8.2, ln(800,000) = 13.6
So, an 80% CO2 atmosphere should be significantly warmer than any atmosphere with less than 0.001% CO2. But variations in CO2 in the 100’s of ppm will not yeld much variation in temperature.
The Earth’s current atmosphere was generally in place about 600 million years ago. Trace gases have varied over the last 600 million years; but the Nitrogen-Oxygen atmosphere that The Phanerozoic Eon, it the geological time period in which life as we know it came to be. Phanerozoic means “visible life”. It was during this period that eukaryotic life literally exploded into evolution.
It is during the Phanerozoic Eon that CO2 and temperature demonstrate no secular relationship because the very minor greenhouse-effect differences between 185ppm and 4,000ppm CO2 are totally obliterated by geological, solar and weather processes.
Then don’t ever become a seismic data processor or a sequence stratigrapher…because the name of both of those games is cyclical resolution of physical phenomena.
As long as the sample rate of your data is at least twice the highest frequency you are trying to resolve, you can obtain meaningful cyclical resolution without aliasing. The maximum resolvable frequency based on sample rate is known as the Nyquist Frequency.
Polynomial trend-line functions are analogous to seismic wavelets. The higher the polynomial – the higher the frequency – the higher the resolution. A densely sampled data set, like the UAH monthly temperature anomaly series can return meaningful cyclical information with polynomial trend-line functions.
Achaean should be Archaean…Never trust spell checkers!
Dave Middleton (08:19:24) :
In seismology, wavelet transforms have a clear physical analogy to wave packets. Does high order polynomial fitting have a similar interpretation?
Isn’t the point of polynomial fitting for these temp series actually interpolation and data reduction (opposite to the point about Nyquist)? If so, it makes more sense to present “trends” produced from a low-order polynomial fit.
Sort of…
In seismic reflection profiling, the thinnest bed that can be resolved is determined by frequency and seismic velocity. “Over-fitting” the frequency content in wavelet processing is desirable so long as the frequency is below Nyquist and the signal-to-noise ratio can be managed.
If I simply had the raw data that went into this Relative Changes of Sea Level chart, a third or sixth order polynomial might give me the First Order curve; whereas a higher polynomial might give me the Second Order curve. A linear trend-line wouldn’t reveal anything about the cyclical nature of past sea level changes…In the same manner that linear trend-lines through the obviously non-linear temperature data do not reveal anything about modern cyclical changes.
Yes. You are correct. In this graph of UAH Lower Trop. Temp’s The 12-month moving average captures the high frequency cycles and the 6th order polynomial captures the low frequency cycle…In a similar fashion as the second and first order sea level changes mentioned above.
I’m essentially using the sixth order polynomial as a low frequency filter to image the low frequency cycle. Ideally, I should take the data into the frequency domain and apply various filters. But, that would be turning a hobby into a job.
Dave Middleton: you have a woefully inadequate understanding of some very basic maths and physics. It’s clear that you simply do not understand what ‘logarithmic’ means. A logarithmic relationship never ‘disappears’ or ‘diminishes’. If y=log(x), then any doubling of x leads to exactly the same increase in y. See that? Any doubling leads to exactly the same increase in y. With some very, very simple maths, you can work out that the difference between 4,000ppm and 185ppm is in fact not minor but a factor of 4.5. Your failure to understand logarithms renders much of what you say otiose.
You also appear not to understand that many factors affect climate. You appear to think that unless there is a 100% correlation between CO2 and temperatures, then CO2 does not affect climate. I guess I’ll have to spell the reductio ad absurdum out to you – in your beloved phanerozoic graph, there is only a weak correlation between temperature and any variable you care to consider. Your premise would lead to the conclusion that nothing affects the climate. The conclusion is absurd; that’s because the premise is absurd.
You keep on using the word ‘secular’ in ways that don’t make sense. Secular in this context simply means non-cyclic.
You don’t seem to understand that the Sun has been increasing in luminosity throughout its main sequence evolution, and thus its output changed significantly over the period covered by your favourite graph.
You don’t seem to understand just how approximate the temperature line is on that graph of yours. You clearly haven’t read the literature widely enough to know that much more realistic reconstructions exist.
Please do explain what physical basis there is in a 12th order polynomial fit. I look forward to that very much.
I don’t think you’re incapable of understanding these things, because most 16-year olds could grasp them quite easily. Your lack of knowledge is, I think, self-inflicted. You clearly want to believe that CO2 is not a greenhouse gas. Unfortunately, to maintain that belief, you have to pretend not to understand simple physics and maths. Well, it’s your choice, I suppose.
And my choice is to stop feeding the local troll.