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
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.