Real Climate Permits The Continued Presentation Of Misinformation
Over at Real Climate, quite a few of the comments that they post continue to incorrectly interpret the observed behavior of the global average upper ocean heat content changes and sea level rise over the last 5 years (see the misinformation in the comments on the Real Climate weblog More bubkes).
The authors of Real Climate, unfortunately, are permitting this erroneous information (and personal insults) to be posted without their comments and correction. Apparently, the balance provided by Gavin Schmidt that I reported on in my weblog Gavin Schmidt’s Interview On Media Hype On Climate Science Issues was just a fluke.
In this weblog, I will correct two of the major errors made in a number of the comments on the Real Climate website.
One of the commentators on Real Climate list three papers that purportedly refute the finding of no recent upper ocean warming and that the sea level rise has flattened since 2006 . These papers are
Levitus S. et al. (2009) Global ocean heat content 1955–2008 in light of recently revealed instrumentation problems Geophys. Res. Lett. 36, L07608
Cazenave A. et al. (2009) Sea level budget over 2003-2008: A reevaluation from GRACE space gravimetry, satellite altimetry and Argo Glob. Planet. Change 65, 83-88
Leuliette E.W. and Miller L. (2009) Closing the sea level rise budget with altimetry, Argo, and GRACE Geophys Res. Lett. 36, art # L0406
I have already weblogged on two of these papers:
This paper includes the text
“From the results presented in this study, we see that confronting independent estimates of ocean and land contributions to sea level with altimetry results leads to a rather coherent picture for recent years variations. This can be summarized as follows: since 2003, sea level has continued to rise but with a rate (of 2.5 +/-0.4 mm/yr) somewhat reduced compared to the 1993-2003 decade (3.1+/-0.4 mm/yr). “
“The steric sea level estimated from the difference between altimetric (total) sea level and ocean mass displays increase over 2003-2006 and decrease since 2006. On average over the 5 year period (2003-2008), the steric contribution has been small (on the order of 0.3+/-0.15 mm/yr), confirming recent Argo results (this study and Willis et al., 2008).”
This paper supports both conclusions in my recent weblogs (see and see) that the sea level rise has flattened and that the upper ocean heat content changes have been essentially flat since 2004.
On the Levitus et al paper, I weblogged on this in
Even a causal view of the Levitus et al figure, which is reproduced in my weblog, shows that upper ocean heat content has been flat in their data for the last 4 years. The large rise just before than is suspicious (as I am told by colleagues working of this subject), and, moreover, is not consistent with the sea surface temperature trends for this time period (see the GISS data on the ocean surface temperature trends at http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2008/Fig2b.gif). Thus even the group that Gavin Schmidt works for (GISS) presents data with no sharp spike that is at all consistent with the Levitus et al analysis and, moreover, the GISS analysis shows that the global average sea surface temperature has been essentially flat since 2002!
All of these analyses are consistent with no significant heating in the upper ocean and a flattening of sea level rise, and even more clearly, that these climate metrics are not “progressing faster than was expected a few years ago”.
Real Climate has it backwards; these climate metrics are changing less than was expected a few years ago!
The Leuliette et al paper states
“An analysis of the steric and ocean mass components of sea level shows that the sea level rise budget for the period January 2004 to December 2007 can be closed…….we find that the sum of steric sea level and the ocean mass component has a trend of 1.5 ± 1.0 mm/a over the period.”
This finding is not flat, but it is not still does not support the claim by Real Climate that this climate metric “is progressing faster than was expected a few years ago”. In fact, this rate of sea level rise is even less than reported in Cazenave et al 2009!
Here is what I propose to Real Climate in an attempt to move to a constructive dialog. I request that they answer these questions:
1. Using the upper ocean heat data from 2004 to the present, what is the Real Climate best estimate of the accumulation of heat in Joules?
2. Using that value of heat accumulation, what is the diagnosed global average radiative imbalance over the time period? How does this compare with Jim Hansen’s value of an imbalance of 0.85 W/m2 for the end of the 1990s?
These are well defined scientific questions. If Real Climate provides clear answers to them, we have moved forward to a more constructive scientific debate. I will keep you posted.
<!– –>« Gavin Schmidt’s Interview On Media Hype On Climate Science Issues
juan (14:57:21) :
I don’t think so, but he would have been a natural fit as the Joker. 8^)
RE: smallz79(Brandon Sheffield) (07:18:19) :
The place is the Aral Sea, in what used to be Soviet Russia and is now Kazakstan. The Russians dammed up the river in many places, and used the water to grow cotton. Cotton is a water-intensive crop. The amount of water taken from the Syrdarya(sp?) and Amu Darya Rivers has caused the level of the shallow sea to drop some 40 feet since 1950. Some of the “seacoast” villages of the 1950s are now tens of miles from water, and most of the aquatic life formerly abundant enough in the sea to support a varied fishing industry has disappeared. Much of this has been caused by chemical contamination as well as lack of habitat.
The Aral Sea incident is indeed a human-caused “climate change”, as well as bringing devastating change to habitat and human livelihood.
Let’s face it. Gavin is a good politician. He could say the correct words to meet the expectation of his audience. After all climate change today is more of politics than science. Hansen is almost 100 per cent advocate than a scientist. The most vocal advocates following Hansen and Gavin does not even understand what is the peer review process, yet they are they ones trying to impress the public they are 100 per cent correct by waving peer reviewed journals. The state of public policy is what is commonly known by policy professionals as “moral panic” and very few politicians could ignore the impact of “moral panic” in their decision making. Even if the policy wll cost a trillion dollar, it is not their mony but they failed to resond to the “moral panic” it is their career, power, and the peeks of office that goes out. If things goes wrong within their watch and the moral panic subsides, a good politician could always find ways to switch their stand. After all they could always claim they are not scientists and they were mislead by people who claim they are experts.
RE: smallz79. Get a map of the world and try to find the reservoirs while keeping your eye on all that ocean. The amount of land area taken up by all the reservoirs just might be on the same scale as the amount of human generated CO2 in the atmosphere. This is not to say that large reservoirs have no effects on local climate. That REUK website is in the business of trying to make money off the AGW scare.
What RobinL said.
And Pierre, could you please send your daughter out on tour?
When I first got into the “AGW” debate, there were several blogs I would visit: RC, Rabbit Run, and Open Mind (along with CA and WUWT, of course).
Over time, the list got shorter and shorter – primarily because comments were never posted, not answered (or answered rudely), or the fact that the people who wrote the blogs never seemed to admit who they were or how their “speciality” tied in to climate science.
But what turned me off on most of the other “climate” blogs were several things:
1. If CA or WUWT talked about a Team paper, the silence was deafening from the other blogs (errors in team papers are never mentioned, and not allowed to be discussed in comments).
2. Those papers that are dissected in great detail were those that went against the consensus.
3. The cadre of regulars who “troll” the board, offering nothing to the discussions other than ad-homs and personal attacks. And at least once in each comment string, was the usual CA and WUWT put-down.
4. Not friendly. Ask what is, to you, a serious question, and it’s like you set off a bomb. “We’re not going to do your homework for you”, “Read the papers”, or a reciting of “The List” (all the observations that “prove” their point).
5. Total lack of “openness”. Just look at their sites. CA and WUWT have links to their sites, and they won’t link back. It’s the whole “he who must not be named” process.
All of this made me wonder what the CA and WUWT sites were all about. I mean, if everybody talks bad about you, you must be doing something right…
OT, but I was wondering if anybody has compiled a massive study of the effects on the environment by building Water Dams?
I doubt dams per se have much effect on the environment and climate. However, most dam water is used for irrigation. And irrigation is easily the largest scale environmental change of the last 50 to 100 years. In excess of 600 million acres are irrigated.
In many and perhaps most places, the majority of irrigated water is lost thru evaporation. Which means it becomes the most potent greenhouse gas.
I’m not aware of anyone having quantified the greenhouse effect from irrigation, but where I live in Western Australia, the days when we have clear skies and near ground humidity are easily our hottest days (and nights). Even a small increase in humidity affects temperatures.
Douglas DC: Your ref to Luther and Galileo
Your brevitas has perhaps been too much of a challenge to posters who have questioned you. I find the post relevant to the current situation and indeed enlightening. This blog grows apace as a civilization, wherein philosophy and science are mutually informative. Science must needs provide the immutable answers to the current debate about the climate, but philosophy must provide the explanation to the masses. Your references to Luther and Galileo lead inexorably to Phythagoras and the Ionians. Nothing is new under the sun.
juan (14:57:21) :
So whatever happened to Baghdad Bob?
Had a facelift and changed his name to Robert Gibbs.
Max (12:26:09) :
I’m afraid you’ve put Luther in the wrong camp. He would have been right at home on RC.
Since Luther bet his life standing on his principles, he’d be less at home on RC than Galileo, who caved.
.
Don S. (19:53:14) :
Douglas DC: Your references to Luther and Galileo lead inexorably to Phythagoras and the Ionians.
Who’s Phythagoras?
Mike– Standing on principle is an admirable characteristic, but somewhat less so when you’re wrong, as Luther was about Copernicus.
My point was, his reliance on “sacred Scripture” and Ptolemaic orthodoxy has a familiar ring to those who’ve encountered AGW true believers. Of course, Luther lived before the establishment of modern, scientific method. What’s their excuse?
Neither will I condemn Galileo, for having the good sense to save his own life. He knew the cat was out of the bag, and that even the Vatican astronomers quietly agreed with him and had to keep their mouths shut too. Don’t want to lose your funding– or your head.
It’s amazing isn’t it? The science may have advanced, but politics is the same old s–t.
very good, the important thing is the photo, even a simple person like me understands that that proves GW is a hoax and I can now email the evidence to all my friends
The stories of Galileo and Luther just show that human nature is so often just not that simple (which is why it can take so long to unravel the “real” truth about Climate Science). The version I’ve heard is that Galileo
stood up tomocked the Pope, and after earlier (moderate) friendship and acceptance, the Pope had had enough. Luther stood by his principles at great personal risk and cost – and helped a lot of people. So he was no better as a scientist than the “consensus” of his time! or at least, he had enough other things to worry about.A contemporary parallel for me is CSICOP and those Skeptics. I’ve found stuff they and Randi have done that is contemptible (like much of RC) IMO. But I don’t therefore automatically disagree with CSICOP members posting on Climate Skepticism here.
As to Pythagoras, who today is aware that he was an initiate into the Egyptian and Babylonian mysteries, and ran a whole mystery school concerned with sacred number (among many other things) at Crotona?
Mike McMillan (22:41:06) :
………..
“Since Luther bet his life standing on his principles, he’d be less at home on RC than Galileo, who caved.”
But Giordano Bruno didn’t and look what happened to him.
You better watchit, pal!
does the army uniform mean that global warming is a hoax?
@ur momisugly TonyB (13:01:22) : re Harlech castle
“In the medieval period, Harlech castle and town (area 18) were built on a rocky promontory above the sea. Over the next centuries, the area below the town, over which Bendigeidfran looked out) silted up and was classed as marsh waste. ”
“It comprises a major cuspate foreland in which the alignment of a sand beach and dunes at an acute angle to former cliffs has encouraged extensive sedimentation.”
http://www.heneb.co.uk/ardudwycharacter/ardudwy/ardudwy32.html
“Deteriorating environmental conditions and human interference during mid- to late-Flandrian times resulted in the gradual decline of forests in the uplands and the development of open grassland and heathland communities characteristic of Snowdonia today.”
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/119542955/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0
Maybe what happened at Harlech has more to do with growth in population, conversion of forest to fields, and erosion in the drainage of the Afon Gamlan than with sea level changes. The ancient port of Rome, Ostia Antica, founded about 400 BC, silted in and was abandoned by about 500 AD because of population and land use changes in the Tiber drainage increasing erosion and sediment transport, which eventually buried(and preserved for archaelogists!) much of the city. “Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it”- George Santayana.
Brian Dodge,
What’s your point? That silting changes the sea level?
Sorry, but the erstwhile and esteemed John Daly clearly demonstrated that the sea level hasn’t changed in over a hundred years: click
@ur momisugly Smokey
TonyB attributed the distance from Harlech castle to the current shoreline to sea level fall –
“This links leads to a 1913 book on Harlech castle-one such building which is now high and dry-nothing to do with stasis or deposition, but that sea levels are lower now than when it was built 1000 years ago. ”
I’m suggesting that siltation is why Harlech castle is now “high and dry”, NOT a fall in seal level.
woops – SEA level, not SEAL level. &;>)
Brian Dodge
If you read my earlier post you will see I specifically made reference to the fact that siltation was NOT a factor. There have been many papers published on it and numerous ‘digs’ one of which I participated in. It is sea level fall that has caused the difference-which is not to say for a moment thatr there has not been any siltation.
Tonyb
“Philip_B (19:48:05) :
OT, but I was wondering if anybody has compiled a massive study of the effects on the environment by building Water Dams?”
I did hear about one study (no link, unfortunately) that mentioned the deltas of the rivers are receeding because lack of dirt washing down the rivers. Most of the dirt is being caught behind the dams (reducing their capacities).
The mouth of the Mississippi was one example. Here, the wetlands are receeding, and very little new dirt coming down river to fill it back in.
Add to that the levee system around some sections (to keep river in banks) also prevents new dirt from washing in.
Cleaner water is making it’s way down-stream…