Quick post, I’m in between sessions here in Washington DC.
Dr. Richard Lindzen just gave a keynote talk on climate sensitivity and the state of climate science. Here is the powerpoint below:
Powerpoint link, “hot off the press” so to speak, minutes old.
More later
For some insight on the NGO capture of the process check this link:
The Greenpeace Institute for Climate Change at Potsdam:
http://forum.junkscience.com/index.php?topic=288.0
Humour is a great weapon.
Take the fight to the enemy – with humour.
Click on one of above ads for the cop15 climate-fest in Denmark (dk) – then join up and comment on their blog. Comments go up right away and are only lightly moderated.
Or follow this link to their blog:
http://en.cop15.dk/news/view%20news?newsid=1397
I have a habit of checking temperature outlooks at wxmaps.org. There is a almost constant cool anomaly over central south america:
http://wxmaps.org/pix/temp8.html
Its been like that (more or less) for as long as I´ve checked out the site. Whats up with that? Just a stupid question from a total nobody.
Comments?
I agree entirely. I have written to Mitt Romney (who to my knowledge has never endorsed the AGW mythology), expressing the hope that he might want to take the lead in opposition to the rush to ‘climate change’ legislation in the USA. But I have not even received an acknowledgment from his staff. So I guess it is up to us little folk. Anyone here have experience organizing political groups? I have none, but would be willing to participate.
/Mr Lynn
nofreewind:
I just walked in the house from the Heartland Conference today where I heard the guys speak! And I walk into the Earth 2100, WOW!
M. Simon:
I watched bits and pieces of that while my mate channel surfed. What a crock.
I managed to sit through the entire thing. The saying “know thine enemy” comes to mind. The entire purpose was to frighten, as people who are fearful are more easily manipulated. It had just about everything the AGWers have been screaming about, in epic proportions, (with the strange exception of wildfires), including floods, drought, famine, disease, species extinction/migration, and eventually massive migrations, civil unrest and breakdown of law and order, and massive die-offs of human populations on the order of some two thirds. All because of “evil” coal and oil. Laughably, whenever they showed coal plants, they made it look as though thick, black smoke was pouring out of the smokestacks.
They then showed a possible scenario where we “come to our senses” in time, and switch over to wind and solar energy, and live happily ever after.
This is what we’re up against. It isn’t science but rather, pure emotionalism disguised as science.
Alan the Brit (01:48:44) :
Interesting comment about Solar angular momentum & the fact that this phenomenon will take billions of years to take effect. It’s similar to the observations that the Moon, which keeps us on our angular tilt, is moving away from the Earth at a rate of 50mm per year, (no one has said whether this could be a cyclical motion – excuse the pun) ….
Not cyclic – the Earth’s tidal bulge is accelerating the moon and hence lifting it to ever higher orbits. Perversely, the higher orbit means the moon has more potential energy and it gets it from kinetic energy, and the net result is that the moon is slowing down.
Ultimately the Earth and Moon will phase lock with each seeing the same face until the sun expands into a red dwarf and destroys both.
I guess the Sun is doing the same thing to the planets, but the geometries involved may make it a much slower process and the planets have effects on each other helping mask and confuse the situation.
I don’t have problems with removing time from the equations, this is a common approach. I have problems with slide 14. In the equations, we have the quantities delta-Q, delta-T, F, G0. Then delta-flux is thrown in. There are 3 possible quantities with the units of W/m2, the input, the feedback, and the input plus the feedback that is multiplied by G0. So what exactly is delta-flux, and how does it relate to these other quantities?
Feedback systems usually have the feedback subtracted from the input, rather than added. This is purely convention. G0 * F is conventionally termed the “loop gain”, not the “feedback factor”. The term “feedback factor” suggests the F term.
Also why have F and f. Having two different quantities with the same phonetic symbol makes it hard to follow. Because of the inadequate exposition, or perhaps my own ignorance, I am stuck at slide 14.
Anyone who might have missed Prof. Lindzen’s recent paper on the problems with the climate peer-review process should take a few minutes to read it: click
I think we have to get away from the notion that the overly smoothed or even linear trend line is somehow showing a different forcing than the noisy data. In some signals, that IS the case. For example, when providing the ear a steady pulsing signal designed to excite the auditory brainstem pathway into a steady pulsing response, one can “see” it by mathematically removing all the other electrical EEG (and presumably random) pulses in the brain that are picked up by the electrodes on the skin. We deliberately make the system pulse and then look for that pulse by removing random responses. If the input pulse matches the output pulse we know that the response is due to the input into an otherwise random brain response.
The weather noise and the trend are not like that at all. At least not yet. The noise creates the statistical and artificial trend curves and lines, and will continue to be the case until all the variables are known and mathematically duplicated. For example, the assumed CO2 input cannot currently be found in the output. There is no match. So either our assumption is wrong about the the amount of CO2 input, its effect, or the way in which the noise is being canceled out. One reason why we can’t find it is that maybe the weather noise is not random.
There is a steady supply of quietly working, highly qualified scientists who are working on these non-random, natural, Earth-bound variables and drivers. I wish we were putting their work here and discussing it.
Interesting slides. I have read this argument somewhere else. Is there a paper behind this? I’d like to know what potential issues or errors there might be in the ERBE data set.
Taking Richard’s presentation at face value (accepting that ERBE data is accurate and does not suffer from any drift), the measurement evidence from satellite suggests that the feedback factor in our atmosphere is negative.
I am glad to hear this. Negative feedback adds stability in a system and intuitively a reasonable person might surmise that this is by far the most likely behavior for a somewhat stable natural system: after all, if the feedback factor was positive and close to 1 then surely the entire atmosphere would have boiled off already (easily plausible given a billion years or so). Surely the negative feedback factor might explain why our planet is so beautifully in equilibrium (sure there is an ice age here or there but this is benign compared to other planetary atmosphere examples in our solar system)
>> Ric Werme (05:31:26) :
. . . and the net result is that the moon is slowing down. <<
I think you mean that the Earth’s rotation is slowing down. The basic principle is that angular momentum is conserved, so due to tidal friction on the Earth, the momentum of the Earth’s rotation is transferred to the momentum of the Moon’s revolution.
>> Ultimately the Earth and Moon will phase lock with each seeing the same face . . . . <<
This will only be true if the Moon remains within the Earth’s sphere-of-influence (SOI). However, I’ve not compared the actual calculated numbers, so you’re probably right.
>> . . . until the sun expands into a red dwarf and destroys both. <<
Red dwarf stars are low mass, main sequence stars usually in the “M” spectral class range. (The Sun is main sequence, yellow dwarf star in the “G’ spectral class range—specifically G2.) You probably mean “red giant.” Stars, like the Sun, eventually leave the main sequence and enter the red giant phase when they start to fuse helium—also called the helium sequence.
Jim
Re Mike D.’s post (00:02:57) on the need for political organization to combat the Alarmist onslaught, maybe we should think about marketing to the youth, as the Alarmists do, and as Obama did during the election, even to kids 12 and under (get your parents to vote for Obama!), well-described by a 17-year-old:
http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_12501963
Perhaps the focus should be on CO2. “They want to take away our CO2!” “They’re coming for your CO2!” “Our plants need CO2! Don’t let the politicians take it away!” I.e., terms kids 12 and under can understand.
Other ideas welcome.
/Mr Lynn
Lucy Skywalker (00:54:09) :
I now think that we cannot understand the mechanisms whereby the SSB works without a paradigm shift into hyperdimensional physics (Zero Point Field stuff). But that’s TWO paradigm shifts away from WUWT
Guess we’ll have to stick with Svensmark for now Lucy 😉
Smokey (06:27:49) :
Anyone who might have missed Prof. Lindzen’s recent paper on the problems with the climate peer-review process should take a few minutes to read it:
Thanks for this link. That paper really helps with understanding the problem with these scientists that are caught up in the Money, power grab going on with AGW.
Just got to love the puppy picture. All it is short of is a photoshopped little frown and some flames in the background. Are there any depths that the MSM won’t explore to sell a story?
“”” tallbloke (08:18:08) :
Lucy Skywalker (00:54:09) :
I now think that we cannot understand the mechanisms whereby the SSB works without a paradigm shift into hyperdimensional physics (Zero Point Field stuff). But that’s TWO paradigm shifts away from WUWT
Guess we’ll have to stick with Svensmark for now Lucy 😉 “””
I think Lucy spends too much time listening to Art Bell’s Dreamland program; along with Richard C Hoagland. I’d like a dollar for each time someone mentions hyperdimensional physics or zero point energy, or string theory.
How the hell can a “string” be fundamental; or anything else that has shape or vibrations or any other properties that dictate that it must also be structured of something even more fundamental.
And people actually get paid to come up with this rubbish.
“”” peter_ga (06:04:46) :
I don’t have problems with removing time from the equations, this is a common approach. I have problems with slide 14. In the equations, we have the quantities delta-Q, delta-T, F, G0. Then delta-flux is thrown in. There are 3 possible quantities with the units of W/m2, the input, the feedback, and the input plus the feedback that is multiplied by G0. So what exactly is delta-flux, and how does it relate to these other quantities?
Feedback systems usually have the feedback subtracted from the input, rather than added. This is purely convention. G0 * F is conventionally termed the “loop gain”, not the “feedback factor”. The term “feedback factor” suggests the F term. “””
Well how do you determine whether a feedback system is stable or unstable, if you remove time from the equations.
A needle standing gravitationally vertical on its point, is “Static”, but it isn’t “stable”, because any perturbation from that position; no matter how small (within quantum limits), will cause it to tip over. It may take forever to tip over, but it will tip over, and you can only determien what happens by leaving time in the equations.
As for subtracting the feedback from the input rather than adding; that is simply a sign convention. If the feedback always subtracts from the input, the feedback must always be negative, so positive feedback could never occur if the feedback always subtracts form the input; and you can’t determine that without involving time.
And in ordinary feedback systems, it is generally assumed that the feedback link is unidirectional. Nobody spends much time thinking about the feedback network conducting in the reverse direction.
Translated to the climate/weather scenario, that problem results in the absurd claims that cloud feedback can be positive; because when you have high clouds (at night), the clouds “trap” outgoing infrared radiation so it warms up the surface.
When the sun goes down; the temperature always falls with time; provided that new air masses don’t move in from some other location that is hotter.
It never warms up at night it cools; clouds or no clouds, and those clouds are there (if they are) BECAUSE it is balmy and warm and humid. And the balmier and warmer it is, the higher the moist air has to rise before those clouds form, when the dew point is reached.
And when it is cold and low humidity, you don’t have massive amounts of moisture being carried into the atmosphere, so you don’t get clouds formed.
When the atmosphere is devoid of water vapor, and it is cold, the CO2 is still fully functional, and intact; yet it fails miserably to do its greenhouse gas thing and warm the surface up by absorbing surface emitted IR radiation. And it fails to instigate water vapor positive feedback even when there is available surface water all over the place.
Clouds never produce warming; they are there because of the warming and the moisture.
What passes for feedback in climate circles is largely an inability to solve simple problems. That is often a consequence of multiple choice examinations in what passes for learning institutions these days.
Anyone can make a one out of five guess, and fill in a dot with a #2 pencil. You actually have to learn something and remember it, to be able to solve a problem without being given the answer. Lazy teachers breed lazy pupils, and the whole of society suffers as a result.
George
Nick Yates (20:24:44)
Meanwhile, it looks like our pets are doomed as well!
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/5429593/Climate-change-could-kill-your-pet-warns-the-RSPCA.html
I think I have an anti-CO2 proposal that even the most skeptical here can get behind. I suggest that what the world really needs is a global moratorium on Global Warming/ Climate Change conferences, especially those funded on the public nickel. The amount of energy wasted jetting various UN bureaucrats, Gore sycophants, and other celebutards off to Bali and other exotic locales to discuss better ways to teach the rest of us how to wipe our a**es in the most environmentally friendly fashion would certainly offset the carbon output of any number of small countries. If we can’t get them to cease entirely, we should at least demand that all future conferences be held in Detroit, so that they can witness first hand the kind of Utopia you end up with by following the all knowing economic dictates of leftist politicians. All catering to be provided by White Castle.
Here’s the disproof you have asked for:
http://www.mises.org/story/2795
Here’s some more real Thermodynamics/Physics:
1. Heat always rises.
2. Heat transfer from different surfaces or spacial areas i.e. from clouds to earth, requires a temperatures difference, whether or not the transfer is radiative and depends on the 4th power of the temperatures or simple transfer by conduction or convection requiring a temperature difference.
Clouds (solid phase vapor) can ‘reflect’ heat. Gases, like CO2, cannot.
3. Since the atmosphere, where this ‘heat’ is austensibly trapped, or stored, by CO2, is colder than the earth’s near surface/surface temperature, the transfer of the heat must always be from the warmer to the colder, not the reverse.
If this is ignored, it is a violation of the 2nd law of Thermodynamics. it is called a perpetual motion machine. that is what the climatologists have created by ignoring this principle. You CANNOT transfer heat from a colder to a warmer area without mechanical work, as in a refrigerator.
4. The relative stability of the global temperature is dependent upon gravity and the weight of the atmosphere. It is no accident that our near surface average global temperature remains about 15 deg. C. and that the rate of decrease of the temperature with altitude can be calculated accurately, as can atmospheric pressure. In stable (adiabatic) atmospheric conditions this data can be calculated using the Pv^k =Const and Tv^k-1=Const Thermodynamic laws.
Climate models are nothing more than heuristic games. You can get any result you wish simply by changing a few parameters until you get the answers you want.
To truly provide real models would require Fourier 2nd order differential equations not solvable with either todays or with any future computers. There are just too many variables.
To illustrate my point about the future we face if we follow the plans Obama and the Congress are trying to foist on us, using Detroit as an operative example please check the following:
http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2009/04/average-home-price-in-detroit-falls-to.html
If you live in Detroit you can buy yourself a new Toyota Prius or for about the same money pick yourself up a couple of houses.
Mr. Lynn, first we need a name. How about Climate Realists of America? Or, just to be inclusive, The International Society of Climate Realists (TISCR, pronounced tsk-er)?
Great idea Mike. I like TISCR! And thanks for the info Dave Wendt and George E. Smith. Been looking for just those points to add to my explanations to the less informed.
And to Ric Werme (18:06:17) and PeterS (15:37:16) : and anyone else still on this thread –
Very good points Ric, but slight disagreement –
The CP/M OS was developed by Gary Kildall, of Microcomputer Applications Associates, (later Digital Research of Santa Cruz, CA) in 1974 for Intel 8080-based systems that were around during the mid-70s. So 35 years ago? However there were numerous other significant operating systems (for micro/small) computers around at that time, most were named DOS (Disk Operating System) something or other and most proprietary to the company/machine they were sold with. Of course many of the machines didn’t use an OS as there wasn’t a “system” to control – it was 1 processor, doing 1 function, at 1 time – at least at the micro level.
In the mini and mainframe arena there were many OSs of significance, as you pointed out Ric, well before that, yes in the DEC line but also IBM, Honeywell, Univac, RCA, etc. Was CP/M a derivative of the PDP OS? Mmm, probably was much as much as PDP OS was of IBMs mainframe OS. All systems need one but…. And one of the best wasn’t even “software” it was a hardwired “OS” in the System 10 from Friden/Singer. BTW, CP/M stands for: Control Program/Monitor or Control Program for Microcomputer or Control Program/Microprocessor – depending on who you ask of us that were around at that time. Early on Gary (rest his soul) called it the first one – not that any one was asking.
That said, neither operating systems nor real memory (or delay-line, tape, drum, disk, etc.) memory capacities or types (or hardware of any type) have ever been the drivers of the computer/electronics industry or usage thereof. That distinction belongs 80% to “applications software” (including the controlling System Design Analysis) and 20% to the “programming languages” (my figures based on 50 years of experience) that the applications are derived from. All the hardware, firmware, drivers, operating systems, networks, etc. put together from the beginning of digital time are not worth a bucket of spit compared to applications software. I, and I doubt anyone else can, can not think of one case where the app. S/W has been “enhanced” by anything down the OSI model. To be sure, technology at the H/W – OS levels has given system analysts/programmers greater freedom/opportunity to deliver “results” to the human end of the model. But the quality of those results are 100% a derivative of the app S/W!
And back on topic, take for example the application software of the Global Atmospheric Model sub-class, Gamcephalus. These have been around since the 1950s and now total around 2 dozen. The results produce from their beginnings are, shall we say – legendary? But no need to go in to that here because the point is the “hardware” (and associated OSs) over that period of time that these have been run on, while expanding in power (the capacity to do the same digital function in a shorter period of time) have done absolutely nothing to enhance the “applications”.
And while the S/W continues to expand, as a result, the analysis of the system (The Real Global Environment) and the data available about it (TRGE) continues to be so woefully lacking that I (if I were CFO of the world, being King is a lazy mans job) would burn the paper these system designs are drawn-up on before allowing them to be converted into software! None of us will be above the grass at the point in time when our offspring are actually capable of predicting what will happen the next day, week, month, year climatically. And that has NOTHING to do with the power of the available computers.
Opps, forgot – SEMPER GIGO!!
Milwaukee Bob,
I have the honor of having designed the I/O board for the World’s First BBS and that is more or less how I remember it. XMODEM by Ward and Randy (or was it just one of them – I could look it up) was a real breakthrough in terms of passing information between hackers (a white hat term back in the day). Any way that is more or less how I remember it.
So I guess you could say I had more to do with the Internet than Al Gore. And how about the FIDO Net days? I used to stay up until 3 or 4 AM waiting for the BBSes to update so I could get the latest gossip/conversation/programs. I was a Blue Wave guy back when those wars were important.
And just to keep slightly on topic.
I posted on this subject at Who Ya Gonna Believe? with graphs from here and the Olive Tree and acknowledgments all around including Lindzen.
George,
“Well how do you determine whether a feedback system is stable or unstable, if you remove time from the equations.”
Stability analysis involves recasting the equations to the frequency domain so time is factored out in effect. If I know my system is stable at all frequencies, then I know it is stable for all time. Ignoring time is the same as analyzing the system at a frequency of zero. Another way of looking at it is to “open the loop” and analyze that system. If the loop gain at any frequency has a magnitude greater than unity when its phase shift is 180 degrees, then the system is unstable. This rule is completely different if the loop feedback sign is positive rather than negative, and trying to invert it hurts my brain. This is how they developed radar controlled anti-aircraft guns in WW2 thereby winning that conflict.
Looking at the OT problem, consider the “feedback factor” which is the negative of the loop gain. To put time in, analyze this factor at all frequencies. If at any frequency, it has a phase shift of zero (rather than 180) and a magnitude of unity or greater, then it is unstable.
So ignoring time is OK, but inverting the feedback sign is not, even if Hansen has done it already. He probably did it to confuse everyone.