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!!
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.)
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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.