Reposted from Dr. Roger Pielke Sr’s Climate Science
Climate Progress has a weblog by Joesph Romm titled “Breaking: NOAA puts out “El Niño Watch,” so record temperatures are coming and this will be the hottest decade on record“.
This is an interesting and very bold forecast of record temperatures by Joe Romm, and, if this does occurs, it would substantially support his claims on the dominance of human-caused global warming. Only time will tell, of course, if this warming will occur.
However, unfortunately, he still does not understand that i) the appropriate metric to monitor global warming involves heat in Joules, most which occurs in the oceans (e.g. see), and ii) that the accumulation Joules in the upper ocean has not occurred since 2003 (e.g. see and see). Even Jim Hansen agrees that the ocean is the dominant reservoir for heat accumulation (e. g. see).
In Joe Romm’s weblog, there is the text
“As a side note: Roger Pielke, Sr.’s “analysis” of how there supposedly hasn’t been measurable ocean warming from 2004 to 2008 is uber-lame. In the middle of a strong 50-year warming trend, any clever (but cynical) analyst can connect an El Niño-driven warm year to a La Niña-driven cool year a few years later to make it look like warming has stopped. In fact, the latest analysis shows “that ocean heat content has indeed been increasing in recent decades, just like the models said it should.”
This text shows a failure to understand the physics of global warming and cooling. There are peer reviewed analyses that document that upper ocean warming has halted since 2003 (e.g. see and see). Even the last few years of the Levitus et al 2009 paper shows this lack of wamring (see).
Joe Romm, since he disagrees with this, should present other observational analyses of the continued accumulation of heat content in Joules since 2003. He should also focus on this time period since the Argo network was established, as it is this data network which is providing us more accurate assessments of the heat content in the upper ocean than is found in the earlier data.
If he continues to use the global average surface temperature trends as the metric for global warming, he will convince us that he does not recognize i) that surface temperature, by itself, is not a meaasure of heat (e.g. see), and ii) that there are major remaining uncertainties and biases with the surface temperature data set (e.g. see, see and see).
He writes
“In the middle of a strong 50-year warming trend, any clever (but cynical) analyst can connect an El Niño-driven warm year to a La Niña-driven cool year a few years later to make it look like warming has stopped.”
He ignores that since 2003, global warming (the accumulation of Joules) has stopped. An objective scientist [as opposed to a “clever (but cynical) analyst”] would report this scientific observation.
He would find more appreciation and respect for his viewpoints if he properly presented the actual observational finding, and discussed its implications as to where we are with respect to the accumulation of Joules over time. I have proposed such an approach in my weblogs
A Litmus Test For Global Warming – A Much Overdue Requirement
‘A very bold forecast’ from someone who ‘shows a failure to understand the physics of global warming and cooling’. I just love Pielke Pere; he is so droll.
===============================================
The indicators for the ENSO keep switching back and forth right now so it is really hard to tell if an El Nino will develop.
The Trade Winds are mostly neutral.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/daily_ao_index/zw/zw.obs.gif
Atmospheric Angular Momentum is mostly neutral.
http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/map/images/reanalysis/aam_total/gltotaam.sig.90day.gif
The Southern Oscillation Index is switching back and forth between indicating La Nina and then indicating El Nino.
http://www.longpaddock.qld.gov.au/SeasonalClimateOutlook/SouthernOscillationIndex/30DaySOIValues/
Equatorial Upper Ocean Temperature Anomalies are pointing to an El Nino but the anomalies are not particularly strong.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/ocean/anim/wkxzteq_anm.gif
It looks like we will have to wait until late summer to see if a definitive trend has set in. The majority of ENSO events start to develop in late spring, accelerate thoughout the summer and then peak around December.
And a Super El Nino would only be able to increase global temperatures by about 0.25C from where they are now so it would take other natural climate variables to push temps to any kind of record.
I would disagree that there is anything bold about a ‘prediction’ that the current decade (2000-2010) will be the “hottest decade on record” (that is, since about 1900). This is already almost certain. But it means little without considering the rate of warming, which has never been high enough to match the disaster scenarios, and which has unquestionably declined to an insignificant rate during this decade, just at a time when the models say it should be accelerating.
Whoa – seems like mounting warfare. Climate Progress’ new post:
WattsUpWithThat labels people who advocate putting a price on global warming pollution as “criminal,” the same as “murdering people”
June 6th, 2009
[Perhaps CP readers with strong stomachs can go through the comments section on Watts’ blog and identify other things that he agrees with.]
Let me state this for the record:
Full-time global warming disinformers, like Swift boat smearer Marc Morano and Anthony Watts, have dedicated their lives to promoting disinformation and delay whose inevitable outcome — if a large fraction of people continue to be suckered by them — is unspeakable misery and/or violence to billions of people. Even so, Climate Progress has never advocated or threatened violence against them. Climate Progress does not tolerate any such threats in its comments. I don’t even tolerate comments that can be misinterpreted as threatening violence, when in fact they only predicted it.
That said, Watts through his website is shouting “no fire” on a burning planet. That is perhaps the most immoral thing any human being can do. Indeed, his website and writing goes beyond that. He, like Morano, is actually shouting “The firemen are liars and are trying to hurt you.” Shame on him. Rational people have every right to be very angry with such disinformers.
The anti-science conservatives are on the rampage.
Or maybe, Romm feels threatened with science that might be better than his own.
REPLY: Hey, he’s angry and puts that anger into angry words, what can I say? There’s not much to do except watch the show, though I will tighten up my moderation policy to ensure we don’t get the same kind of angry rhetoric here. – Anthony
Now that Romm is giving considerable credence to natural variations that can not only reverse warming achieved by an el nino, but can halt the storage of heat into the ocean for a few years running, perhaps he should explain how much of the recent warming he currently attributes to AGW. The IPCC’s 90% confidence that “most” of the recent was due to AGW is not very specific. The media and policy makes seem to be assuming that “most” is nearly all, not just 51%. “Nearly all” is obviously wrong, 51% may still be defensible. It may not have been a coincidence that solar activity was unusually high in the latter half of the 20th century or that the PDO was in a warm phase, or that the pattern of aerosol forcing had signficantly changed.
Romm says “Human-caused global warming is so strong, however, that as NASA explained, it took a serious La Niña, plus unusually sustained low levels of solar irradiance, to make 2008 as cool as it was.”
Perhaps he would have been more objective to say
“Human-caused global warming is so weak, however, that it took frequent El Ninos to make the last 2 decades look as if AGW is the cause.
“Recent El Niños have occurred in 1986-1987, 1991-1992, 1993, 1994, 1997-1998, 2002-2003, 2004-2005 and 2006-2007.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Ni%C3%B1o
Lucy Skywalker (17:28:28) :
“Whoa – seems like mounting warfare. Climate Progress’ new post:”
This is excellent – let Mr. Romm foam and rant for all the world to see…when someone is making a fool of themselves, just get out of their way…
[snip]
REPLY: This comment wasn’t appropriate. I realize you are angry, but please don’t make more work for the moderators and I. Mr. Romm is entitled to his opinion, let’s make sure he has every opportunity to say it. – Anthony
Perhaps Joe should stop being a hypocrite and stop encouraging people to use more energy (via the computers and the web) which must surely exacerbate AGW, if it exists. Joe’s hot air is surely heating up his personal Stevenson Screen.
Well this being the hottest decade in the satellite record will be true unless we have some huge crash in temps. over the rest of this year, the 1990’s had years like the 1999 La Nina and then there was Mt. Pinatubo, though mammoth heatwaves is something that may or may not happen, we’re having our first true heatwave of the summer with a temp. of 96 tomorrow and then cooling back down again to perhaps a day or two in the upper 70’s
Joe Romm sez:
Romm has it exactly backwards. Falsely shouting “FIRE!!” in a crowded theater is a universally recognized crime. Since the planet is cooling, not warming, Romm’s increasingly frantic alarmism is the result of his being on the losing side of the global warming argument.
The fact that Romm is ratcheting up his alarmism indicates desperation: the planet isn’t doing what Joe wants it to.
Yo, Joe: click We’re right where we were 30 years ago.
‘Burning planet.’ Ri-i-i-i-ght.
OT (sorry) but the red line on this graph seems to have moved again. Did I miss an earlier explanation. It now shows that for a period of weeks this year Arctic ice was above the 30 year average. I didn’t think that was allowed.
http://arctic-roos.org/observations/satellite-data/sea-ice/observation_images/ssmi1_ice_area.png
Mr Watts.. My father once told me that in a debate “The more angry you make a person with the truth, the more certain that truth is, for their anger is fed not by ignorance, but shame, for they know it as the truth as well.”
I have never seen that statement proved more true, than in the childish rant of that AGW devotee.
My compliments.
REPLY: Thanks for the kind words. – Anthony
Bill Illis (17:24:06): That in-depth comment was great.
Okay, I lost it. Darn that short fuse of mine. I guess If I don’t want to suffer fools I should do a better job of ignoring foolishness…
Romm. Let him rant. Let him rave. He is showing forth his achilles heel in this debate.
Cool heads (and scientific ones) like all of you great minds on here…need to stay above the fray and talk about the real business at hand: the science…and the truth.
The great thing about both (Science and Truth) is that they exist and do what they want to do, irrespective of our opinions, emotions, or political agenda.
So….just ignore the rants and raves. Don’t stoop to his level. Don’t give him the time of day.
Attempting to debate someone who exudes such raw vitriol and invective, is casting your pearls before….
And thanks Anthony, for a great, fair site devoted to the dissemination of scientific truth.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
Reading this debate, I feel more strongly than ever that this is the time to stick our necks out and stick up for what we believe.
Thank you, Anthony, for this forum.
Yo, Joe: click We’re right where we were 30 years ago.
Slow down a bit. We are right about at the average of the last 30 years. Still a bit of cooling to go before we are at 1979 levels.
evanmjones,
Sorry, you’re right. I guess 29 years ago would have been more accurate.
Interesting discussions. It seems there is some drama and emotional tension on climate progress. I think we are dealing with the edge of science since he is angry that his Power points of forcasts are not being accepted and verified facts. I will study the people. It seems like we had astrologers and sorcerors predict castastrophe before and use violence and anger on people that rejected their powers. I just glanced at some threads and this board seems more interested in weather and Romm is much more interested in formation of control of energy and using force and intimidation for the agenda.
Just a few comments read like there is a vengeful tone behind carbon control and taxation. People need to feel pain if they don’t accept the values and pinch till it hurts on consumption.
My worldview is this a beautiful planet created for us to enjoy. The AGW extremeists seem to feel like their existance is a violation and they have to walk on eggshells and in stoic fashin not light the barbeque and do a road trip. As I study the Extremists, I see They operate like life insurance salesmen.
We call it backing the ambulance to the door. If you don’t buy, you die.
Rational minds see the tactic. Can Joe show some people that died like in the alarmist sci fi movies? When you fly over Kansas and see the Flint Hills being burned to rejuvenate pastures in the spring, the hysteria must be unbearable for an alarmist. Panic attacks and seizures.
I can’t post this on climate progress but i see a problem when we have people that haven’t lived on the farm and worked in industry, it is easy for a career beaureaucrat to think they have all the answers for others. Since Adam, man has survived without Central Gestapo Planning and now we can’t? It seems the government is doing a terrible job of running the government. There may be a need for change and in my observation, they are here to mess it up in the name of trying to make it better.
“Uber-lame” ???? And people take this guy seriously?
REPLY: Fewer people do, every day.
http://lh4.ggpht.com/_0oNRupXJ4-A/SirPXJclLuI/AAAAAAAAAzM/SA_uodaDzBc/%5BUNSET%5D.png?imgmax=800
– Anthony
Actually guys, the anomalies are zeroed at the 1979-1997 average I believe (anyone correct me?) so averaging over the whole record and we’d be below average (I think). I’ll check my math (maybe) and get back to you on that (maybe).
“There may be a need for change…”
Yeah, that’s what we need, more change.
Thank You Anthony and Dr. Roger Pielke Sr.
This is worth a trip to the tip jar.
I wonder whether the disagreement between Dr Pielke and Mr Romm is no more than a reflection that they are both seeking to measure the immeasurable.
You science chaps get very excited about ocean surface temperatures. You start from the position that heat is all about energy and energy is tiny little things that wobble about. The more they wobble and/or the more wobbly things there are lurking about the place, the more energy exists. That energy can be experienced as heat but it can also do things other than produce heat. For example, when I drive my car the engine uses energy to produce both heat and motion, the balance between the amount of energy used to produce each of the two during each second, minute and hour of travel depends on a vast range of factors.
It might or might not be possible to make a reasonably accurate measurement of the energy capacity of the oceans. Frankly I doubt that it is possible to measure it in any meaningful way because there’s just too much water. But even if a relevant measurement can be taken we have no way of knowing what will happen to all that stored energy. This is illustrated by the very fact that we have little Spanish boys and little Spanish girls and can observe (but not accurately predict) when we are subjected to frogs and snails and puppy-dogs’ tails and when are subjected to sugar and spice and all things nice.
That the oceans store vast amounts of wobbly things is obvious, that the amount of wobbly things they store varies through time due to a whole range of factors is obvious, that the rate of wobble varies through time due to a whole range of factors is obvious. That we don’t know what will happen with the wobbly things and when it will happen is even more obvious.
You might or might not be able to measure watery wobbliness, but as sure as parsnips is parsnips you can’t say what that wobbliness will turn into.
It seems there is some drama and emotional tension on climate progress. I think we are dealing with the edge of science since he is angry that his Power points of forcasts are not being accepted and verified facts. I will study the people.
Well, the people who are predicting AGW are pretty much the same folks who predicted every catastrophe-that-never-happened since the mid-1960s. (That’s why I have been looking at AGW with a jaundiced eye ever since it was adduced. And, so far, the actual facts speak for themselves.)
My worldview is this a beautiful planet created for us to enjoy.
I’ll go so far as to say that we made it that way — particularly over the last century.
““Uber-lame” ???? And people take this guy seriously?
REPLY: Fewer people do, every day.”
“In 2008, TIME magazine named Climate Progress one of the “Top 15 Green Websites,” writing that “Romm occupies the intersection of climate science, economics and policy…. On his blog and in his most recent book, Hell and High Water, you can find some of the most cogent, memorable, and deployable ARGUMENTS for immediate and overwhelming action to confront global warming.” ”
I think Joe realizes that he is losing that argument for immediate and overwhelming action, and that realization has created his increased stridency. He doesn’t realize that his desperation will be communicated to his followers and they will abandon ship.
I’m glad we have such a level-headed team here.
Thanks,
Mike
Lucy, please! Desperate people, make desperate statements.
By my limited observation, he realizes he can not logically, scientifically or factually contribute positively to any discussion or subject at hand, nor has he been able to garner the exceptionally high level of thought/ideas, experience/talent (not to mention, common sense) to HIS blog as contributes to WUWT everyday, on every subject.
He “deals” with it by inference of superiority over Dr. Watts by “negative labeling”, within HIS mind as well as externally. The perfect example is his use of the nonexistent word – “disinformers” in a number of places including the statement- “Rational people have every right to be very angry with such disinformers.”
While every human, rational or irrational, has the right to “be” what ever way, emotionally, they want to be, an angry person is logically not rational. It is irrational therefore, and illogical, to suggest a rational person can or should be angry. For therapy I would suggest – “Banana Wind”, song seven, over and over and over…. And for us to ignore him.
REPLY: Actually, it is not “Dr.” just plain old “Mr.” Watts, but thanks for thinking of me highly. – Anthony
Lucy Skywalker (17:28:28) :
It’s called trolling. Web sites like Climate Progress and the like have a finite audience. There is only a limited amount of people who are driven by hate and they tend to buzz around the few hate driven blogs the exist.
Their posters have nothing new to say and repeat endlessly the usual insults, threats and accusations to those who are blessed with inquiring minds. WUWT is a place where those who are of a mind, can test their own ideas, bring forward things they feel may be of interest to others and have their critical minds tested by the many contributors who expand our horizons.
Faced with this, the hate blogs can only hope to boost their flagging web statistics by leaching hits from the more successful boards that provide a valuable service to others.
What better target than one of the best science blogs on the net. It’s when you think about it a back handed compliment to all who make this a fun place to hang out but most of all a tribute to Anthony Watts.
At first I thought it sufficient to keep to science and that way convince others that AGW was poor science. I have after several years come to the conclusion that this approach will succeed.
The opponent in the debate has never used science as anything other than window dressing. The AGW argument rest entirely on the Precautionary Principle. The only strategy that can succeed against that is to show the cost of implementing it.
All actions have risks, including acting on the Precautionary Principle.
That first paragraph should read “this approach will not succeed”.
This is my biggest gripe with the entire thing: How can two groups of people look at the exact same set of data, and come to competely opposite conclusions? WUWT says cooling since 1998; The other side says warmest decade ever.
I suppose that IS possible (non-factual data…just for assumption): Let’s say the 90s had avg temps of 80F, but 1998 was 100F. It could cool 1F every year since 1998, to 90F. There ya go…cooling since 1998, but the avg is about 95F!
I guess from there, it’s all about glass half full, or just power and control.
DJKP (19:17:58) :
“Uber-lame” ???? And people take this guy seriously?
REPLY: Fewer people do, every day.
http://lh4.ggpht.com/_0oNRupXJ4-A/SirPXJclLuI/AAAAAAAAAzM/SA_uodaDzBc/%5BUNSET%5D.png?imgmax=800
– Anthony
What is the y-scale on this graph?
why the obsession with what Joe Romm thinks?
fatbigot,
“I wonder whether the disagreement between Dr Pielke and Mr Romm is no more than a reflection that they are both seeking to measure the immeasurable”
That is pretty defeatist. The reason Dr. Pielke and Dr. Hansen’s emphasis on the ocean is so appealling is that any energy imbalance must show up there, since it is nearly all the heat capacity of the climate system. If there is a positivie energy imbalance over time it must show up in sea level rise due to thermal expansion of the oceans. There are some complications, growth or shrinkage of the mass of the ice and snow covers, the impact of salinity, contiental rebound, etc. But there is much less handwaving and argument that over how to define a global average temperature. Let the oceans do the integration. If we don’t want to wait for years to measure the average energy being stored into the oceans, then currently we must focus on the mixing layer and make estimates based on the temperatures measured by the buoy system.
James Hansen estimated that the energy imbalance, was about 0.85w/m^2 in the year 1998, and that represented an unrealized climate commitment to another 0.6 degreeC higher temperature committed or “in the pipeline”. If the results showing no recent energy storage into the oceans are correct, then whatever is happening is as large or larger than that unrealized climate commitment was, because it made the commitment disappear at least temporarily.
Increasing Warmist Willie stridency, more outlandish predictions, and accelerating ad hominem attacks have been predictable since temperatures started dropping and polar ice started increasing. That said, it’s my opinion that Mr. Romm really believes what he preaches, is a kind person at heart, and would be fun to live next door to if you only talked about baseball or soccer. (I wouldn’t bring up ice hockey, though.) Joe merely marches to the beat of a different kazoo player.
Thanks Anthony and moderators for your great website. The information found here provides a rational scientific view on the issue of AGW and somewhat balances the extremist views in MSM and from commenators and experts like David Karoly and Tim Flannery. While the warministas still have the upper hand I think the tide is beginning to turn.
Anthony — IMHO Joe Romm has earned the right to be totally ignored. He’s not worth your time and concern, nor mine, nor Dr. Roger Pielke Sr.’s. Let him stew in his own juices. We all have bigger fish to fry.
@Lucy Skywalker (17:28:28) :
You can actually tolerate wading through their stuff? Golly, you’ve got more stamina than I do…
REPLY: Hey, he’s angry and puts that anger into angry words, what can I say? There’s not much to do except watch the show,
And one might add “except watch the snow” as well… Despite all the errors in the data, it is going to be very hard to convince people they are warmer when they are under snow…
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2009/05/23/south-hemisphere-record-early-snow/
Also, FWIW, I found a site that has a wonderfully simple example of how to keep track of your False Precision. Wish I had written something this easy to follow:
http://mathforum.org/library/drmath/view/58335.html
especially his examples of filling in the non-data spaces with “X” then doing the calculations. Makes it blindingly obvious why NOAA data recorded in whole degrees F can have no greater precision nor accuracy than whole degrees F (and why any calculation done with this is similarly limited to whole degrees F and why all the anomalies in 0.xy are completely meaningless…
@don’t tarp me bro (19:16:55) :
Nice posting. BTW, I’ve got a case of giggles from the pseudonym… I’m thinking of the merit of “don’t Cap me bro” with all the double entendres …
Actually all you have to do is keep taking the PP to its (il)logical conclusion for any number of things:
An asteroid could strike the planet at any time and destroy all life. We should immediately spend quadrillions for an asteroid defense system. AGW is only a maybe. An asteroid strike is inevitable.
Your neighbor might be a pedophile. He should be imprisoned because he said “hi” to your kids one day.
One could go on, and on, and on…
Re the increasingly shrill noises from the Joe Romm crowd.
It is very funny (for me) to watch the name-calling and insults; clearly they have run out of ammunition based on facts, and logic.
Clearly, CO2 increasing or decreasing has very little, if anything, to do with global atmospheric temperature. CO2 and water vapor thermal absorption, and then re-radiation of heat, holds a crucial place in the design of fossil-fuel-fired furnaces. This is well-known in my field, chemical engineering. But a fired furnace is an enclosed structure, not the outer skin of a sphere, open to the cold depths of space. The temperatures involved are also somewhat different. It is just a bit hotter in the fired furnace (approximately 3000 degrees F). The gas composition is also far richer in CO2 and water vapor than the atmosphere.
Reference for those who want to dig through some rather heavy technical reading:
Handbook of Chemical Engineering, Perry and Chilton Editors, 5th Edition (copyright 1973) pages 10-56 through 10-60.
Whatever is bringing the Earth out of the last ice age, and caused the fluctuations that created the alternating warming periods and colder periods (little ice age, etc), it is definitely not CO2. No amount of screaming, threats, taunting, or name-calling will change that fundamental fact.
At some point, the Joe Romms of the world will have to admit this. Or not.
E.M.Smith (20:57:59) :
Makes it blindingly obvious why NOAA data recorded in whole degrees F can have no greater precision nor accuracy than whole degrees F (and why any calculation done with this is similarly limited to whole degrees F and why all the anomalies in 0.xy are completely meaningless…
So you would also say that SIDC’s monthly sunspot number to one decimal place [May was 2.9] is completely meaningless because sunspot numbers each day is a whole number, or the mean of any other quantity that is recorded in whole numbers only [cosmic ray count, F10.7 radio flux, geomagnetic activity, to mention a few from my own field]? No, of course, you wouldn’t, because you would know that a mean has greater precision than each of the numbers going into it [as long as the individual numbers are correct to their stated precision, in your case to plus/minus half a degree F].
From CP —> “…I don’t even tolerate comments that can be misinterpreted as threatening violence, when in fact they only predicted it.”
Well, considering the outcome of other predictions that came from that site, I think Anthony should feel quite safe! 🙂
Leif Svalgaard (20:32:05) :
None that makes sense that I can see. Perhaps it’s because he made a prediction driven by emotion and not scientific observation.
I could do that and probably sometimes do. So who the hell is Joe Romm?
Well, I did it, I can’t believe it but I did it. I ventured over to Romm’s site again (ClimateProgress) and I read through a lot of the blog entries. What a complete joke that site is. Do they EVER talk about science over there? Do they ever discuss solar activity, ocean circulation, air circulation, ice, etc…? I surely didn’t see anything like that. Nothing but attacks here, attacks there, wild accusations that CO2 is going to blow up the universe, various dogma garbage like that, without a shred of science or observation discussed. Just laughable. Makes me wonder of the mindset of those drawn to the site. Another interesting anomaly…
I should add: Thank you Anthony and everyone here for running such an open and honest forum! This is so rare!
I find it fascinating how all of the calls to silence people/websites is coming from the alarmists. I also noticed that sites like WUWT and Climate Audit provide links to alarmist websites but not vice-versa. Coincidence?
REPLY: Fewer people do, every day.
http://lh4.ggpht.com/_0oNRupXJ4-A/SirPXJclLuI/AAAAAAAAAzM/SA_uodaDzBc/%5BUNSET%5D.png?imgmax=800
Love this. My totally unfounded analysis is that Joe must attack someone every other day and watch the hits accumulate and than fall back to zero. Then he attacks again. And again the hits go up, the hits go down. Then Joe attacks again. How many WUWT readers have taken a look in the past two days?
Yesterday was the first time I have ever heard of this dude although someone mentioned he was Soros’ bull dog. I don’t intend to add to his hit total. Sorry, Joe.
Hmmm….
WUWT and reasoned discourse — or — CP and a hissy fit.
Some choice — think I’ll stick around here for a few years — hissy fits are so messy and unbecoming.
Leif Svalgaard (20:32:05) :
why the obsession with what Joe Romm thinks?
He is the defacto spokesman for the administration on AGW matters.
Other than that, I’m with you.
REPLY: Actually, it is not “Dr.” just plain old “Mr.” Watts, but thanks for thinking of me highly. – Anthony
Folks earn an academic “Dr.” for doing a variety of things including significant research on timely issues, writing about it, documenting it, and defending it in front of groups of their peers. It is also important to show how the research fits into the broader subject matter to which it is a contribution. The initial presentation is usually attended to and judged by at least three folks that have already been admitted to this status.
I wonder how many Ph. Ds and related terminal degree holders have now read, commented on, and accepted your contribution to this field? A few more than three I think.
I prefer to call people by the name their mother gave them but “Dr.” Watts is okay too. You have earned as much.
The AGW promoters are starting to lose it.
I don’t go there … don’t even want to give that site the traffic !
Romm is a sad, angry man.
…and that is just what I gather from his blog posts.
He will undoubtedly grow more so as his preconceptions crumble around him.
After visiting our friends at CP, I think it is not a place where actually learning about stuff happening happens very much.
Okay, I went to the Romm site for the very first (and only) time a few minutes ago. Now maybe I understand a little better. It is a completely vicious and slanderous thing. Our esteemed host Mr Watts is the main target of a flood of ad hominim rants from Romm and commenters alike.
That might get under anybody’s skin, especially of the target of the vile aspersions.
However, I don’t alter my previous advice. Ignore it, Anthony, as difficult as that might be. Rise above it. Romm is nothing. WUWT is first class. Maintain your grace and equanimity.
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating…
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it …
–Rudyard Kipling
REPLY: One of my favorite authors, thanks – Anthony
My bold prediction is that 2009 and will be one of the top 10 warmest years of the past decade, and that the past decade will be the warmest of the 21st Century to date.
Adding to Bill Illis’ comments (17:24:06) on observing the vital signs of a developing El Nino.
I find these TAO/Triton cross-sectional images fascinating. These are the 1997 El Nino images…………..
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/2009vs1997.JPG
You really need to compare recent cross-sectional images with 1997.
It is an equatorial display, cooler at the South American end (100^) due to the northward movement of the Humboldt current, in turn, fed by the Antarctic circumpolar current.
Why all the anger?
I think the realization, that politicians with an agenda have hijacked the debate and through legislation are trying to fundamentally change our country into something unrecognizable
and far removed from the principles of our founders, is starting to weigh heavily upon them.
It’s not whether GW is anthropogenic or natural, it’s the fact that they are assisting in a fundamental loss of liberties’ which we were granted by the thousands who gave their lives to give them to us. The allure of the limelight is the drug that a complicit media dispenses, but the high tech highly intelligent junkies are starting to realize when Draconian changes are implemented and our prosperity is crushed, the politicians will be pointing at them as the reason.
They told us the planet was in peril, they told us we had to act now. You think their angry, wait until people’s energy bills triple, and “smart meters” shut down or brownout homes. Then you’ll see angry, and guess to whom it will be directed. They have and are continuing to put themselves in a no-win scenario.
Who is Joe Romm? Is he so important and famous that we need to spend time debating with him?
I just took a small survey in one of my Geology classes yesterday. Most of them knew who Gore and Hansen were, but no one that I asked knew about Romm. As far as I know, there’s nothing exceptionally notable about him – he wrote some books that weren’t too popular, he used to work for the Department of Energy more than a decade ago, and his blog got mentioned once or twice in a magazine. It’s more fame than what the average guy gets, but he doesn’t get anywhere near the media coverage of someone like Gore.
Bill Illis (17:24:06) :
That’s what I see, Bill, stuck weather patterns, whether El Nino or La Nina, the thing isn’t going anywhere.
I also don’t see anything to make the stuck weather patterns get unstuck.
I don’t see the planet as being on fire.
Quite to the contrary, I see the planet cooling off.
Skeptics are not the ones who have the soapbox, the political winds at their back, and the agenda. We do not run the catastrophic media blitz either. So, if they are wrong, they needn’t be angry at anyone but themselves.
This would not be the first time an agenda has fallen on it’s collective face.
Just because the populace is getting sick & tired of the impending broiling & drowning while the suffer increasing cold is not the skeptics fault.
It’s the Sun, stupid. That’s what the common man will be hollering come next winter when the white stuff hits the wind.
We don’t control the weather, they don’t control the weather.
Mike (23:07:02) :
“Who is Joe Romm? Is he so important and famous that we need to spend time debating with him?”
Romm is a small part of a big picture, politically and philosophically speaking.
Seems he is a member of the “Center for American Progress”, the “Action Fund” being the “political arm” of the CAP, that supports climateprogress.
Part of a large chain of institutions and very rich and influential people, they call themselves “progressives”. Most of what I have read of their malarkay I would call hilarious if it weren’t so dangerous. Many people do respond to “the world’s going to end unless you do as we say” and if unopposed, will believe it.
I couldn’t help but to visit Climate Progress to check out the comments on all of the anger over there. Gads! What a venomous and irrationally angry lot. It was an interesting exercise reading their vitriolic comments. And they wonder why the general public has largely tuned out their clamor?
Okay, I admit by going to read the comments at Climate Progress, I gave their peg counter a hit. But sometimes you have to peer into the darkness to appreciate how bright the lights of scientific inquiry burn at WUWT. Thanks Anthony for such an excellent site.
Leif Svalgaard (20:32:05) :
why the obsession with what Joe Romm thinks?
=================================
I use him as a proxy for the state of the AGW movement in the USA, he has gone from Hero of the Green Movement to the current uhm … incarnation? in a very short period of time.
As I have posted here before, the best thing is to keep stating our case calmly and with respect and the fanatical will always marginalize themselves.
When the fringe get legitimized they can never stay there in the mainstream because they are so used to being the “oppressed” and held down by the system that when they get some traction on the freeway of progress and then spin a little in the court of public opinion they run for the tried and true.
They also cannot help fighting each other eventually as their single issue suppoters will not abandon their causes in the name of some greater good, so they start being at odds over policy and money..everytime.
So when things start getting rough they play the victim card! You know the Rap…
We are being undermined by some secret cabal pouring money into disinformation campaigns and is controlled be faceless political groups and monolithic corporations oppressing all those around them in mindless pursuit of money, so they lash out at the imaginary boogeymen who are impeding their progress and in doing so show that they are still the fringe group they always were.
I posted over at JR’s place, and neglected to post links to evidence of low climate sensitivity (as both Lindzen and Spencer have demonstrated)… Once I provided the evidence, the posts magically remained in moderation while about 30 others have passed. This post should speak for itself:
dhogaza Says: It’s good of you to say this, Even better, tell those who claim this blog “deletes all dissent” are full of it. Go visit RealClimate, post, and after say the same to those who claim RealClimate deletes all dissenting voices.
And, after that, ask if those who lie about supposed censorship here or elsewhere, are any more believable when it comes to science.
(and my response) Interesting… I’m criticized for not providing a link to evidence (understandable), then when I provide it, it won’t get posted. Is that not censorship? What are you afraid of, the truth? BTW, I am using my real name…
Well, 6 hours and dozens of echo chamber posts later, my evidence of low climate sensitivity and negative feedback will not post. Not a particularly surprising result, I had the same experience a while back posting peer reviewed science that was unappealing to the party line. We’ll see if dhogaza will live up to his commitment, or if the correct terminology is “deletes most dissent”.
Joe Romm, if your site doesn’t censor dissenting comments, where did mine go?
REPLY:I discovered from others who have tried and failed that he employs a link filter. The way to get around it is not to put the http:// at the beginning. You may still get zapped by human moderation, but at least the automatic link filter won’t nab you. Of course it is no longre a link when you remove the http:// but some people might make the effort to cut/paste it in their browser.
I don’t think dhogaza is a moderator. Just a pre-approved poster which a rant-on, he’s also not a climate scientist or meteorologist, simply a wildlife photographer who dabbles in SQL programming also. – Anthony
Climate Heretic (00:02:14) :
“We are being undermined by some secret cabal pouring money into disinformation campaigns and is controlled be faceless political groups and monolithic corporations oppressing all those around them…”
Not so secret…
“Citing the significant number of its staff and former staff that have been appointed to positions in the Obama Administration, Time magazine recently declared that there is “no group in Washington with more influence at this moment in history.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_for_American_Progress
“The Democracy Alliance is a donors collaborative established by a group of liberal political activists, labor unions and donors in the United States.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Alliance
Romm: “Breaking: NOAA puts out “El Niño Watch,” so record temperatures are coming and this will be the hottest decade on record“.
So what?
Imagine that the global surface temperature stays flat for the rest of the 21st century then nobody would consider that alarming or catastrophic but it would falsify the AGW hypothesis, yet it would be the hottest century on record.
REPLY: Actually, it is not “Dr.” just plain old “Mr.” Watts, but thanks for thinking of me highly. – Anthony
Once AGW is no longer in vogue Anthony will be rewarded with a well deserved: Doctorate Honoris Causa
The following quotes seem relevant in view of the spat with Climate Progress.
They are excerpts from my personal compendium of quotes that could be related to the field of climate science;
“I know that most men, including those at ease with problems of the greatest complexity, can seldom accept even the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions which they delighted in explaining to colleagues, which they have proudly taught to others, and which they have woven, thread by thread, into the fabric of their lives L Tolstoy”
Albert Einstein said “If we knew what we were doing, it wouldn’t be called
research.”
Nietzsche wrote: ” The most perfidious way of harming a cause consists of defending it deliberately with faulty arguments.”
“Men are apt to mistake the strength of their feeling for the strength of their argument. The heated mind resents the chill touch and relentless scrutiny of logic.” William E. Gladstone”
Max Planck said: “A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.”
‘I want my commenters to be uncivil. There is no virtue in politeness when confronted with ignorance, dishonesty, and delusion. I want them to charge in to the heart of the issue and shred the frauds, without hesitation and without faltering over manners. These demands for a false front of civility are one of the strategies used by charlatans who want to mask their lack of substance — oh, yes, it would be so goddamned rude to point out that a huckster is lying to you. I am quite happy that we have a culture of being rude to frauds here. – Professor PZ Myers, University of Minnesota Morris’
Professor Myers and some others in the field obviously believe in;
“Splendide mendax
Glorious myths are those used for a good cause, i.e., splendide mendax (splendidly or gloriously false)”
Tonyb
Anthony says: The way to get around it is not to put the http:// at the beginning. . As far as I can tell, that’s not the culprit. Other posters are getting through with http:// links, and mine that have no links are still in moderation. My posts were polite, but offered evidence that undermine the magnitude of sensitivity (I quoted Lindzen’s recent presentation) and defeat the reason for any alarmism. I’ll give it another 24 hours for good measure. Facts are often difficult for some to accept, it takes an open mind and strong scientific foundation to discuss and openly explore evidence contrary to your beliefs… We’ll see what Joe’s foundation is made of.
Since the observed data indicate the absence of global warming “fires” – the real firemen are those arriving on scene and reporting to the public that it’s a false alarm. That fire brigade is now seven or eight hundred scientists and millions of healthy skeptics strong. And growing.
And yes, it is illegal to yell “fire” on a busy planet.
Romm: “Breaking: NOAA puts out “El Niño Watch,” so record temperatures are coming and this will be the hottest decade on record“.
Remember those orange homeland security lights that they kept sticking up on the news? This whole media blitz reminds me of that. After awhile, it becomes the butt of everyone’s jokes.
Just like those lights, nothing ever happened.
It’s always some warning of impending fire & brimstone disaster that’s off in the distance.
Or it’s a place that “scientists” have examined that nobody can get to so as to have a look-see.
The rising ocean story is a real drag, man.
The weather is raining on the AGW Parade.
60 years, eh? 1949, the year follwoing my town got 6 feet of snow in January.
Keith Minto: You wrote, “I find these TAO/Triton cross-sectional images fascinating.”
Then you should enjoy the animation of the ECMWF equatorial cross sections. There is an animation of the 2007/08 La Nina produced by Carl Wolk of “Climate Change by Erl Happ and Carl Wolk” here:
http://climatechange1.wordpress.com/2009/02/03/the-evolution-of-la-nina/
And after seeing Carl’s video, I put together two posts that included animations of the ECMWF equatorial cross sections for the three significant El Ninos of 1982/83, 1986/87/88, and 1997/98.
Part 1
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2009/02/cross-sectional-views-of-three.html
Part 2
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2009/02/cross-sectional-views-of-three_28.html
Romm is a sad, angry man
No. AGW is his avenue to power and control. It doesn’t matter if he believes it or not. Typical authoritarian.
I took a look at climate progress. Yuck! What a pleasure WUWT is in comparison. Thanks!
What the climate hysterics overlook is that they have already lost. China and India have made it absolutely clear that the only metric they will sign up for is CO2 emissions per capita. So China can increase emissions over 4 times and India over 3 times before they have to do anything. It will be politically impossible to counter this ‘fairness’ principle and there is no chance China or India will change their development policies. The western warmers are just banging their heads against the wall.
Upheaval Dome, Canyonlands NP, Utah…
NASA scientists are 100% certain that it’s an impact crater.
A group of geologists from the Texas Bureau of Economic Geology and the University of Texas conclusively demonstrated that it’s the erosional remnant of a collapsed salt dome.
The all-mighty Wikipedia says that the impact crater theory is the scientific consensus.
It’s very easy for two (or more) honest and competent groups of scientists to draw totally different conclusions from the same set of data.
Usually the group on the wrong side of an obviously imminent paradigm shift is the group that starts acting like Climate Progress.
Mr. Watts & crew: Thanks for the sanity and collegiality of Watts Up With That?
The problem is that alarmists have shown that they can connect an La Niña-driven cool year to a El Niño-driven warm year a few years later to make it look like warming has accelerated. — John M Reynolds
rbateman (23:24:13) :
Bill Illis (17:24:06) :
That’s what I see, Bill, stuck weather patterns
The progression in historical ONI looks like 2006 giving warmeners hope.
How about we add a new metric to our arsenal of climate change tools. I propose a graph where the Y axis is a count of the number of ad hominem attacks by the warmists against climate skeptics over time. I bet we would find an inverse relationship between the number of attacks and mean global temps. Just a thought.
Q – How much energy does it take to stop all activity on Climate Progress ?
A – 1 Watt !
Congratulations Anthony !
I’m not sure about who is being prevented from posting over there but I am sure that people are being prevented from posting here as it was discussed at climate progress. Perhaps there are good reasons for people being banned but I would argue that not using their real name on posts isn’t one. I make no judgement on the banning but I will comment that the more points of view presented the more interesting the conversation.
Tonyb (00:52:01):
Anthony has been dismissed on Romm’s blog as a “former television weatherman”. You quote Albert Einstein. Surely you know that Einstein was a “former clerk”?!
@ TonyB (00:52:01) :
‘I want my commenters to be uncivil. There is no virtue in politeness when confronted with ignorance, dishonesty, and delusion. I want them to charge in to the heart of the issue and shred the frauds, without hesitation and without faltering over manners. These demands for a false front of civility are one of the strategies used by charlatans who want to mask their lack of substance — oh, yes, it would be so goddamned rude to point out that a huckster is lying to you. I am quite happy that we have a culture of being rude to frauds here. – Professor PZ Myers, University of Minnesota Morris’
The PZ Meyers quote is intresting since that is the one he wrote on his blog during the election for the “Best science blog” award, and he was talking about this site, calling for your readers to be rude to frauds?
This is also something i learned in the past years, people who should know better let their emotions often get the upper hand when the subject is AGW. It says more about them then the people they regard as being frauds and liars.
There is a saying in the Netherlands, “You catch more flies with honey than you do with vinnegar”.
But then a corpse would catch even more flies (O_o)
TonyB (00:52:01) :
Delightful compendium.
I am more pessimistic on the future of AGW policies, they have acquired too much momentum, the law of inertia still holds and unless a deus ex machina appears in the form of frozen Thames and New York harbor we will have to live through the economic hara kiri planned for western societies.
There is something called crowd psychology and it has little to do with proofs of theorems and data fitting or not fitting. I have lived through something similar with a group from a university catching the fancy of the media and crowds that they can predict earthquakes. To anybody trained in science, with a knowledge of errors and statistics it is evident that the “predictions” are useless. It is not possible to convince the crowds nor most of the media. Over these 30 years every now and then, we get a prophecy, and whenever an earthquake happens, it has been prophesied. We will probably manage to convince most of the scientists that AGW is withcraft, but unless the proponents, who have a lot to lose , are silenced, once the imaginations of the crowds is caught will be getting their way.
this is the relevant quote:
Max Planck said: “A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.”
MISTER Watts, I wasn’t sure but as John Hultquist so eloquently put it, you deserve it. What you have been able to accomplish with this and your surface station website, in such a short period of time, is not only amazing but also inspiring.
I, as one of those that was there at the beginnings of “cyber space” (1977), am thrilled at what folks like yourself have wrought hereby and I’m amazed by the almost instant world-wide contribution your site garners, not to mention the high degree of intelligence, wisdom, knowledge and mutual respect evidenced by said contributors. I sit in humble wonder of most and particularly you. So you’ll always be “Doc” to me. ☺
With that said, supported by the wisdom of 68 years of dealings in the real world and I’m sure the approval of all (well, 90%) within WUWT view, I do hereby bequeath upon you, the official title of – “Doc Watts”. May you wear it proudly and use it wisely.
“that surface temperature, by itself, is not a meaasure of heat ”
I have found that few people understand the difference between temperature and heat. They are NOT the same….
“And yes, it is illegal to yell “fire” on a busy planet.”
Quote of the Week
BUT!!! It is a scientific FACT that the computer models predict disaster!!!
Wonder why all these clever computer modelers do not turn to something more profitable with all their talents? If I were a computer modeler, I think that I would try to create a computer model to predict the outcome of horse races. In fact, I tried that while I was in college. Teamed up with a few math majors, gleamed information from the Daily Racing form, developed spread sheets and mathematical formulas to discribe a horse’s performance. Ran statistical analysis to determine the best bet for payout allowance. We thought that we were real clever, real scientific like, after all we were using math and computers.
Didn’t work out for us though. We had a good time at the track, drank cold beer and lost our money. So much for our computer model. Lesson Learned: Don’t bet big on computer models.
Anyhow, does this blog block comments as frequently as Climate Progress? I should hope that the insights of believers should be as welcome here as those of us who disagree with the concensus. My comment was lost in moderation.
I stopped by at CP and read a few posts. Heard a lot of name calling, insults and a few outright untruths. I learned nothing about climate, AGW or science.
This blog by comparison is mild mannered (usually), informative, often humourous and explores the science behind what will become known as the debate of the age.
What is interesting to note is the cool headed approach exhibited by Mr Watts et al while over at CP Romm burns.
Bob Tisdale and others who might be interested, there is a monthly ocean temperature cross-section animation that goes back to 1979 produced by the CPC. I’m assuming it is a reanalysis product.
It takes quite awhile to run through and sometimes it is difficult to see what is going on, but this animation shows that the equatorial Pacific almost overturns over a few years with the surface moving east-west and, at 150 metres to 200 metres depth, it recirculates west-east and surfaces at about 120W. [Not really, really clear but it seems to.]
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/GODAS/mnth_gif/xz/movie.temp.0n.mon.gif
All of the individual monthly gif images (as well as 8 South and zonal current gifs and animations) are here.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/GODAS/mnth_gif/xz/
… if one wants to look at the 1997-98 El Nino Pacific cross-section for example.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/GODAS/mnth_gif/xz/mnth.anom.xz.temp.0n.1997.10.gif
… versus today’s.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/GODAS/mnth_gif/xz/mnth.anom.xz.temp.0n.2009.05.gif
BTW, it is my opinion that acting arrogant, rude and being happy about it will wear thin quickly on Climate Progress. I suspect the readership will dwindle there if that is their new M.O.
AlanG (03:23:18) :
“What the climate hysterics overlook is that they have already lost. China and India have made it absolutely clear that the only metric they will sign up for is CO2 emissions per capita. So China can increase emissions over 4 times and India over 3 times before they have to do anything. It will be politically impossible to counter this ‘fairness’ principle and there is no chance China or India will change their development policies. The western warmers are just banging their heads against the wall.”
This has been true for some time. You would think AGW supporters would understand something this obvious. Yet, they continue to clamor for meaningless reductions in fossil fuel usage. IMO, this says quite a bit about the true goals for AGW supporters.
Statement of the morning-Joe can stew in his own Juices…
Leif Svalgaard (20:32:05) :
“why the obsession with what Joe Romm thinks?”
Statement of the morning-Joe can stew in his own Juices…
sorry about the mis-quote..
Ozzie John (04:34:10) :
Q – How much energy does it take to stop all activity on Climate Progress ?
A – 1 Watt !
Watts = Joules/Second = Power
Joules = Energy
Master Resource has plenty to say regarding Romm .
Mt Watts – do I understand from your reply to Michael D Smith (00:14:34) : that Mr Romm has a list of proscribed web sites, links to which automatically result in deletion of a post?
If that is true, then I have to ask why are they trying to suppress information. This is the sort of thing one expects from totalitarian regimes which inevitably have something to fear from the information suppressed,
I, like many others on this thread, held my nose and dipped into that site – apart from the total lack of informed comment, I was interested by the view which seemed to be expressed by many contributors, that you personally were responsible for the comments appearing on WUWT. I was also amused that AGW sceptics were referred to as Climate Deniers – as far as I am aware, no-one denies there is a climate!
REPLY: There is a link filter, but I don’t think it is list based, it filters all links I believe. Even some of the friends of CP have trouble putting up links. – Anthony
I just found an excellent article on last week’s Climate Conference at American Thinker (can’t provide a link – sorry) . It is well worth a read . The author speaks highly of WUWT .
The epic ‘Stan Palmer’ thread, Autumn of ’07 at Pharyngula, is a wonderful example of PZ’s posters being rude. I only commented toward, not at, the end, and was civil throughout, but eventually was banned by PZ hisself. While I commented, though, the abuse was pretty constant and nearly always ignorant. One commenter agreed to look at Stevie Mac’s Divergence Problem. The rest were astoundingly stupidheaded for a blog that apparently does real science now and then. Maybe I shouldn’t have defended Intelligent Design as an instructive exercise in Theory of Knowledge and a wonderful irony about faith in scientific knowledge. That’s an issue they are unseemingly sensitive about.
======================================
Leif, there have been many times in human history, unfortunately, when the cries of emotional pseudo-experts have prodded the populace to action in unreasonable amounts. Sadly too. Undeclared wars, enslavement, torture, economic distress, and loss of life have resulted from such majority call to questionable action.
Why does alarmism exist anyway? The human species tends to cluster in groups around deeply held and emotionally charged shared thoughts and beliefs, whether or not those beliefs are informed with scientifically derived observations and facts. This is why, in my opinion, that a Republic form for government is one of the few forms capable of minimizing this. While it is not failproof, it is one of the best weapons we have against misinformed decisions forced on the populace.
We vigorously debate against the Romms of this world who seek to develop an influential fast-track majority opinion based on ill-developed theory, so that more reasonable, thoughtful decisions can be made. Maybe too, it is because we have been led down the primrose path of alarmism once or twice before without calling for more debate. And lived to regret it.
An emotional belief should never become the sole basis for inaction or action. To do so discredits the noble pursuit of observed phenomena, the proper construction of the null hypothesis, and the necessary fertile ground of theory and paradigm development and shift. Alarmism wants to bypass that slow path, to our collective detriment.
Finally, failure to raise the level of debate when debate is clearly needed in the face of misinformed alarmism, labels us complicit.
It’s not what Romm says that disturbs me but what he represents.
But temperatures this decade are already warmer than the last one, the one that contained 1998.
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/info/warming/
/// The 1990s were the warmest complete decade in the series. The warmest year of the entire series has been 1998, with a temperature of 0.546°C above the 1961-90 mean. Thirteen of the fourteen warmest years in the series have now occurred in the past fourteen years (1995-2008). The only year in the last fourteen not among the warmest fourteen is 1996 (replaced in the warm list by 1990). The period 2001-2008 (0.43°C above 1961-90 mean) is 0.19°C warmer than the 1991-2000 decade (0.24°C above 1961-90 mean). ///
Pielke’s text shows a failure to understand the facts of global warming.
Pamela Gray (08:57:51) :
“Leif, there have been many times in human history, unfortunately, when the cries of emotional pseudo-experts have prodded the populace to action in unreasonable amounts.”
Pamela Gray, I have less confidence in the emotion vs reason agrument than in a hard-headed look at power and access/control of affluence and the means of production.
There is a huge slush-fund of gazillions of $s floating around the AGW group (the academy, the bureaucracy, wealthy liberals, financial bigwigs, and corporations that believe they will be in on the take) to further their hopes/plans that cap-and-trade will continue them in their slush-fund lives for “generations”, or at least for themselves and their children.
Most “conservatives” in the U.S. are now on the outside of power because they permitted fraud in the election of their last president, they vastly increased the power of the executive, tried to legislate behavior, and did little or nothing about the necessary concerns of the little “d” democratic millions who where suffering lack of affordable basic health care, decent pay for a day’s honest work, and decent education for their children. There was no attempt to begin a solution to the reality that jobs and benefits that make life livable (health, life insurance, education sometimes, and retirement) can no longer be conflated if we are to be competitive in this world. Any national solutions that are sensible were/are called “socialism”.
Now that that the political tables are turned, fraud in elections in a supposed democracy has escalated exponentially, executive power has increased wildly, health care and education continue to suffer, authoritarian unions are taking over democratic unions, and we have people in power who have never once in their lives helped the little “d” democratic millions. Elite control is what we are left with — and those who argue AGW/ Climate Sensitivity are among those elites. And both so-called conservatives and pseudo-liberals are to blame. This is not simply a nightmare of liberabs gone wacko. I see no liberals in the current group in power.
What is the solution? Science is science and the truth is the truth no matter which side you are on. Neither vinegar nor honey apply. Straightforward, respectful arguments — even if the opposing side finds them rude — not devious bending of the truth or personal attacks will further science, technology, productivity, and creativity. The purpose is to solve the current problems and to help people live well — “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”.
I find these qualities on WUWT. Thanks, Anthony Watts.
Dennis Ward
Pielke’s text shows a failure to understand the facts of global warming.
Or perhaps your failure to understand that Pielke is talking about ocean heat content rather than the surface temperatures which lag several years behind it.
The amount of heat in Joules is the issue, not the temperature in Celcius or Fahrenheit.
From an engineering or systems point of view, total energy in a system is more fundamental than the temperature of any particular point or collection of points.
Interesting interview with Prof. Freeman Dyson, who has forgotten more science than Joe Romm will ever learn.
Or there is also the possibility that the scientists arguing for and the scientists arguing against catastrophic global warming occuring are virtually all honest, intelligent people that hold differing points of view and aren’t the money grubbing opportunists of grant money or oil money. Just a thought.
I have been a daily reader of climate progress for almost two years. Everything I know about climate science, I learned at Joe Romm’s blog. It is the only blog where I regularly comment.
To get a feel for the climateprogress blog, this is written in its style:
Anti-environmentalist character assassin Joe Romm adds Greenpeace to his list of despicable enablers of global warming doom. The former Enron cheerleader wallows in hyper partisan loathing. His propaganda pushing website puts politics before all else. Actually solving the problem he claims will kill us all is less far less important to him than gaining political power for his George Soros and corrupt banking interest funded friends and allies.
CP has from its beginning built readership by vituperative attack on any available target. Romm loves to feud. He will slam you, then he’ll ban you. When reading or trying to communicate with Romm, understand that he’s a lot like Rush Limbaugh in that like on Limbaugh’s radio show, the purpose of the content on CP is to make Joe Romm look good.
When WUWT was first slammed at CP, I wrote in that, given his life history, Anthony has done more to reduce CO2 than most of his critics. Actions mean nothing, it was said. Watts’ words of disagreement alone are destroying the future. There is no point in arguing science at CP. Romm is really only interested the politics and the policy. His exaggeration of the science is so ridiculous at times. He actually tried to claim the Catlin Project was the authoritative arctic sea ice data source.
This question is O/T but generally relevant, I think, to the concerns of those who post here.
What is being taught ot kids these days, K-12, about meteorology? When I was in 7th grade, back in the Medieval Warm Period, we had an entire sequence of lessons in science class about weather and climate. We studied the layers of the atmosphere, the traditional categories of clouds, and different types of storms. We learned how to read a simple weather map, and constructed a primitive barometer with colored water instead of mercury.
This was at a time, the late ’50’s, when hurricanes tended to barrel up along the mid-Atlantic and New England coastlines, so weather was often a local newsmaker. I believe I was in second year French class in Sept of 1960, studying the pluperfect subjunctive, while Hurricane Donna was blowing by.
I always loved meteorology because it didn’t stink, like chemistry often did, did not waterboard me with math, as was the case with physics, and was best studied outside, looking up at the sky, which I have always loved to do anyway.
What do kids learn about the basics of meteorology today? I have a sinking feeling that they watch An Inconvenient Truth and put on plays in which the prettiest girl in the class plays Gaia, and the fattest boy, sporting a twirlable paste-on moustache, plays a rapacious evil capitalist.
Anthony, would it be possible to open a thread in which the subject of the teaching of meteorology in elementary and secondar schools might be discussed? I suspect that you have yourself been a guest lecturer at schools.
Jeremy (07:51:05) :
Ozzie John (04:34:10) :
Q – How much energy does it take to stop all activity on Climate Progress ?
A – 1 Watt !
Watts = Joules/Second = Power
Joules = Energy
Q How many climate activists does it take to change a light bulb?
A They’re not going to. They’re going to crush your spare light bulbs and make you buy their eco friendly mercury vapour filled ones instead.
Dennis Ward (09:44:26) : said
“But temperatures this decade are already warmer than the last one, the one that contained 1998.
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/info/warming/ ”
Of course there are various data sets-all of which start with tiny numbers of stations back in 1850 (Hadley) or 1880 (Giss) from which temperatures are constructed from the ever changing numbers of stations in ever changing locations. The item you linked to mentions;
“This time series is being compiled jointly by the Climatic Research Unit and the UK Met. Office Hadley Centre. The record is being continually up-dated and improved (see Brohan et al., 2006). This paper includes a new and more thorough assessment of errors, recognizing that these differ on annual and decadal timescales.”
So even temperatures back as far as 1850 are still ptentially being altered and improved. It would be unfair to suggest these are mostly in one direction.
The question of what exactly is being measured and where, is dealt with by James Hansen .
“Q. What do I do if I need absolute SATs, not anomalies ?
A. In 99.9% of the cases you’ll find that anomalies are exactly what you need, not absolute temperatures. In the remaining cases, you have to pick one of the available climatologies and add the anomalies (with respect to the proper base period) to it. For the global mean, the most trusted models produce a value of roughly 14 Celsius, i.e. 57.2 F, but it may easily be anywhere between 56 and 58 F and regionally, let alone locally, the situation is even worse.”
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/abs_temp.html
So surface temperatures are a rather variable feast in which the global mean average is said to be inaccurate to within 2 Degrees F -rather larger than the amount of increase since 1880 being put forward as needing immediate action.
This is without adding in the greater than expected increases due to UHI
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6256520.ece
or taking into account Mr Watt’s work on incorrect siting.
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/surfacestationsreport_spring09.pdf
In reality the global mean temperature could be almost anything you want, should you believe such a concept has any merit in the first place.
Tonyb
Climate Depot is completely absorbed by Romm and now misses out on the real relevant issues. I think it’s a pitty and something that will never happen at WUWT.
this truly is one of the most civilized blogs on the world wide web.
What struck me about Joe Romm’s post was the glee that he seemed to be displaying at the thought of rising temperatures. It occurred to me that it might be an idea to ask Joe, the following question.
Dear Joe:
Supposing, somehow, that whatever triggered the last Little Ice Age (or big Ice Age if you are a true believer in the Hockey Stick) was to strike again tomorrow and the global that will be caused by CO2 will be counteracted so that the temperature of the planet remained stable, would you be happy? Specifically, would you be happy that we would not have to spend all those Trillions on CO2 reduction and could instead , for instance, provide cheap, reliable, fossil fuel based electricity to the two billion people who do not currently have it?
Yours
Shane
PS, I considered posting this there, but as others have commented, the bile put me off
Of course that should be
… was to strike again tomorrow and the global warming that will be caused by CO2…
S
“I want my commenters to be uncivil. There is no virtue in politeness when confronted with ignorance, dishonesty, and delusion. I want them to charge in to the heart of the issue and shred the frauds, without hesitation and without faltering over manners.”
Within reason I like this thinking of one P.Z. Myers. I’ll have to check him out some day.
Chris Schoneveld wrote (in part): “Imagine that the global surface temperature stays flat for the rest of the 21st century then nobody would consider that alarming or catastrophic but it would falsify the AGW hypothesis, yet it would be the hottest century on record.”
If that happens, anybody who survives until the year 2100 (2101 for purists) should own up to the fact that global warming had stopped in 2009.
Until then, of course, your hypothesis is mere speculation. If AGW is to be falsified, it will not be done by speculating on what may happen decades in the future.
Bill Illis: Thanks for the GODAS links. I’ve illustrated the direction of flow I believe you discussed. Refer to the following:
http://i39.tinypic.com/2rd91m8.jpg
I’ve seen that west to east flow along the thermocline in an animation I created of ECMWF equatorial temperature anomaly cross-sections. Never posted it, though. But I noticed something I’ve never seen before in the GODAS one you linked. There also appears to be flow visible at lower levels.
http://i39.tinypic.com/5vro0k.jpg
Take a look at the GODAS gif animation you linked and see if you pick it up also. I may be imagining it. The eyes play tricks. I tried to confirm it by downloading the GODAS gif to Windows Movie Maker, (I was going to speed it up. That helps at times.), but unlike any other gif I’ve loaded, that one locked up the program big time. So bad I had to pull the power.
Thanks for those links, Bob (Bob Tisdale, 01:59:55).
The link to Carl Wonk’s work included…….” The origin of this cold water is not the Humboldt Current pumping exceptionally cold water periodically from the Southern Ocean for the current follows too close to the coast. Instead, it is likely that the transfer of warm water back-and-forth between the East and West Pacific noted by Bob Tisdale here is responsible for the cold jolts.”
The cold spot formed at about 110^.I have seen patterns where the Humboldt current although coast hugging, follows the geography of western South America,seems to exit coastal contact at Lima and curls upward and eastward. It may be running out of steam at 110^but could it be part of the cold spot origin?
On the subject of other sites losing it:
Wikipedia won’t let you even post any type of counter AGW material anymore. As soon as you post, they remove to archives for some foolish reason. It is so biased that one of the more agressive “editors” wrote me and said – why do even waste your time, you know we aren’t going to allow any debate !
Wow !!!
REPLY: Do it again, document it, screencap it, and I’ll post it here. Embarrassment and exposure is often the only tool that works. – Anthony
Bob, here is a Tao/Triton Temperature and Dynamic height 3D of the equatorial region that needs to be watched.Very impressive computing power.
Your videos were very instructive,especially with the pause button.
http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/tao/vis/explorer/t-dyn-med.html
[sorry a bit to close to ad hom]
Our esteemed host Mr Watts is the main target of a flood of ad hominim rants from Romm and commenters alike.
That might get under anybody’s skin, especially of the target of the vile aspersions.
But consider how awful it would be if he were being complimented by that crowd.
China and India have made it absolutely clear that the only metric they will sign up for is CO2 emissions per capita.
Priceless. And who can argue that ain’t fair? (Go on, I dare ya!)
Anyhow, does this blog block comments as frequently as Climate Progress?
I haven’t blocked one in ages. I rarely even snip. Fortunately, thanks to the generally high tone around here, it’s rarely necessary.
(I will never snip anything directed at myself, no matter how objectionable.)
Chris Winter (15:44:12) :
If AGW is to be falsified, it will not be done by speculating on what may happen decades in the future.
What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, no? The predictions of AGW are for what will happen decades in the future!!
Let us be clear. There is no if. As far as scientific falsification is required, the IPCC Ceneral Circulation Models outputs have been clearly and definitively falsified.
1) temperatures are in stasis and might possibly roll down the incline
2) The tropospheric predictions do not pan out, there is no extra heating of the tropical troposphere
3)The relative humidities do not follow the model expectations
4) the oceans are not heating but also are in stasis, to say the least.
While, CO2 is merrly rising and having no effect on the cold PDO.
This is the CO2 that would reverse an ice age according to Hansen.
The PDO is in a cool phase, the albedo is rising, and everything is falsifying the predictions of the GCMs.
And I have not touched upon the behavior of the sun, since Leif has convinced me that at the moment there is no solid scientific explanation of any observed correlations. If the speculative model of cosmic ray influence pans out, that is another strike out.
So what do we have? We have a crowd psychology that is being driven to hysterical levels by wrong and disproved data by people who should know better as they are PhD scientists. The hysteria aimed at is such that it is convincing politicians in these hard economic times to commit what is practivally hara kiri of the western economies. Unfortunately hysteria has a momentum of its own and cannot be stopped by scientific falsification arguments.
Lucy Skywalker (17:28:28) :
Whoa – seems like mounting warfare. Climate Progress’ new post:
WattsUpWithThat labels people who advocate putting a price on global warming pollution as “criminal,” the same as “murdering people”
June 6th, 2009
Joe Romm:
Climate Progress has never advocated or threatened violence against them. Climate Progress does not tolerate any such threats in its comments.
I notice Joe Romm has post edited one of my reply’s on CP. Here is the deleted part:
Gail:
“When is the liar Anthony Watts going to crawl out of his lair and apologize for the false claim that there were comments endorsing violence at CP?
Waiting…waiting…waiting”
I know revisionism is a trait of warmists, but this was only yesterday!
“these science haters exist for only one purpose…
They should be dealt with accordingly…. and will be.”
If this isn’t comment proposing/endorsing violence, why did Joe Romm feel the need to remove it after it was commented on?
And were you not the person who brought the spectre of capital punishment for non-conformists to the debate? You were careful not to openly endorse it, but your intention in raising the issue was clear. Killing people for their beliefs…. Think about it.
Dr. Watson – fictional Dr.
Dr. Watts’ Sun – reality.
BTW Sgts in the military hate getting unwarranted promotions. Never call one Sir. And if you do it by mistake – apologize.
(I will never snip anything directed at myself, no matter how objectionable.)
That is asking for trouble. Unless you call in a second opinion. 😉
Just been over to CP to do a bit of catching up. What a surreal experience.
Looking at the two most heavily commented posts. Who exactly is “dhogaza”? In the first post, of 172 comments 54 are from “dhogaza”. The second has 383 of which “dhogaza” is responsible for 91.
The frequency is also a little bizarre :
June 5th, 2009 at 2:22 pm dhogaza Says:
June 5th, 2009 at 2:25 pm dhogaza Says:
June 5th, 2009 at 2:27 pm dhogaza Says:
June 5th, 2009 at 2:28 pm dhogaza Says:
June 5th, 2009 at 2:30 pm dhogaza Says:
June 5th, 2009 at 2:32 pm dhogaza Says:
June 5th, 2009 at 2:38 pm dhogaza Says:
June 5th, 2009 at 2:39 pm dhogaza Says:
June 5th, 2009 at 2:42 pm dhogaza Says:
June 5th, 2009 at 2:47 pm dhogaza Says:
June 5th, 2009 at 2:52 pm dhogaza Says:
June 5th, 2009 at 2:53 pm dhogaza Says:
June 5th, 2009 at 2:55 pm dhogaza Says:
So I believe I may have found the source of any problems regarding posts – “dhogaza” clogging up the junk filters.
I rename him “Tommy Gun Dhogaza”. On duty manning the trenches in the dead of night spraying anything that moves with a hail of bullets. Hitting his own men and Swiss citizens as often as not.
Like I say a surreal experience. Think I will stay here with the “Anti Science”.
It was only 2 years ago with the publication of the 2007 IPCC SPM that stated that natural oscillations in the atmosphere and oceans are secondary to the concentrations of GHGs. My how that seems eons ago. Now, everyone is waiting on pins and needles to see how strong and how long the next El Nino event will be.
Despite all the rhetoric of record temperatures, which decade is the warmest, etc… satellite sounding data from UAH and RSS have shown remarkably little change since 1979. We are about the same place we were in 1979, give or take one hundreth a degree C or so.
Following 60 year trends, we are entering a period that will be dominated by La Ninas. El Ninos will occur, but thier life span and intensity will be short and weak.
anna v. 20:23:00
You really encapsulate the problem in a nutshell. I think with the help of a cooling globe, which might just as well not have happened, that ongoing scientific arguments and data will quell the hysteria. At the very least, that is my hope. But much damage has already been done, though the future possible damages by this horrific policy error do entail damaged entrails of the whole world’s economies. What magnificent healing, to prevent the suicide, that might require is difficult for me to imagine.
========================================
Re: ‘Doctor’ Watts
The title ‘Dr.’ as referring to the bearer of a higher degree only came into common usage in the late 19th/early 20th centuries, when science became more a paying career rather than a hobby for the wealthy. Before that it was only in common usage by physicians. Surgeons pointedly call themselves ‘Mr.’ so as to distance themselves from the quack ‘Doctors’.
OR: perhaps more appropriately for AGW, from the Cambridge Online Dictionary:
doctor
verb [T]
to change (something) in order to deceive people
eg. ‘He claimed the photo had been doctored.’
As a working scientist for more than 20 years (without a PhD) I may be a little biased.
And not all El Ninos are equal -at least regionally. Following the 1976 El Nino (And Great Pacific Climate Shift), North America had 2 consecutuve very cold Autumns and Winters. Granted, the 1977 Summer was a scorcher for the Eastern Third of the US (Son of Sam Summer); it was followed by the infamous 1977-78 Winter that saw record cold and snow. The Blizzard of ’78 was a record for many cities. Both the 76-77 Winter and the 77-78 Winter were the coldest of the decade for North America.
Bill Illis and Bob Tisdale. Very interesting posts. Thanks. It does look as though ENSO is somewhat ” stuck”. fm
mkurbo (18:28:11) :
Wikipedia won’t let you even post any type of counter AGW material anymore. As soon as you post, they remove to archives for some foolish reason. It is so biased that one of the more agressive “editors” wrote me and said – why do even waste your time, you know we aren’t going to allow any debate ! Wow !!!
Which gives rise to the question, why give any credence to an information tool steeped in censorship? If it were a truly “open” information tool, it would not indulge in data bowdlerization. Rather, this is a propagandist tool that defeats its credibility with cognitive dissonance. More accurately, “wikopinionia.”
Bill and Bob,
Thanks to both of you for leading us to cross-sectional animations. I’d bet what has me and others confused about ENSO behavior the last 6-9 months lies therein.
Lucy Skywalker (17:28:28) :
Whoa – seems like mounting warfare. Climate Progress’ new post:
Reply by Anthony:
REPLY: Hey, he’s angry and puts that anger into angry words, what can I say? There’s not much to do except watch the show, though I will tighten up my moderation policy to ensure we don’t get the same kind of angry rhetoric here. – Anthony
To which I respond, perhaps pushing the envelope:
Grrrrrrrrrr!!!
Burger King knows more about the climate than Joe Romm: click
As the dust settles from the recent discussions at Romm’s blog, he now settles back into his former mediocrity. No wonder he thinks that insults and veiled threats are the way to go… that’s the only way he can get his “hits” up, temporarily…
Back to sanity,
Mike
I find it interesting that so much “official science” confuses cause and effect. For climate, CO2 is thought to be the cause and temperature the effect. In the medical field, Cholesterol is thought to be the cause and inflammatory processes the effect. In all cases significant money flows are generated by trying to control the effects, with the beneficiaries essentially controlling the political process to lock in their cash flow. The mainstream media no longer investigates but promotes the elitist’s agenda. Thank you Anthony for providing a forum for truth.
First post here.
I have also posted on Joe Romms blog. Also on other AGW blogs.
I think I have found a simple litmus test to find out if these people are truly worried about AGW, or if it is just a front for an increase in elitist control. Or a front for increased use of natural gas.
Just ask them about their opinion about nuclear power.
If they are against it, like Joe Romm, then their alarmist stance cannot be real, only a front.
Because, if AGW and the predicted consequences were true, then the rather insignificant risks posed by nuclear power should be acceptable.
It is after all, the largest CO2-free energy producer.
Anna V, You miss my point. Let me state it as a general rule: It is absurd to claim that a prediction of a future happening is wrong because the predicted event has not happened yet.
Climate Heretic (00:02:14) :
“We are being undermined by some secret cabal pouring money into disinformation campaigns and is controlled be faceless political groups and monolithic corporations oppressing all those around them…”
Continuing my earlier response:
“Groups such as the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), MoveOn, and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) are part of a growing coalition of social welfare, labor, religious, and healthcare organizations joining forces with the traditional environmental lobby.”
Read the rest at http://www.worldwatch.org/node/6146
Just ask Nostradamus, right? Eventually something will come along that resembles the “prediction”.