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
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”?!
@ur momisugly 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 .