Spencer: IPCC Crushes Scientific Objectivity

“You imagine that we live in an age of reason… and the global warming alarm is dressed up as science but it’s not science. It’s propaganda.”
–Paul Reiter,
Pasteur Institute, Paris, France
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Atlanta, Georgia, USA

The mechanisms for the large time-scale changes plotted in the final graph of the entry by Bill Ellis “Searching the PaleoClimate Record for Estimated Correlations: Temperature, CO2 and Sea Level” published on this blog on 10/16/09 remain to this date unfathomable as far as I can tell. Find those answers first so the fine detail might make more sense.

The IPCC itself is being demonised more than necessary. The summary (lead author Pachauri (I think)) explicitly says that it is “very likely” that greenhouse gases influence the climate. Very likely is carefully defined as greater or equal to 90 percent probable. As an earlier commenter said, it is the self appointed spokespeople, not the IPCC, who are using words like “certain”.
Proponents of immediate action on CO2 should be asked what they will do if the agreed 10 percent chance that CO2 is innocent turns out to be true. Do Cap and Trade Bills include some form of repayment if CO2 is found to be innocent?

“…The blackest billingsgate, the most ungentlemanly insolence, the most yahooish brutality is patiently endured, countenanced, propagated, and applauded. But touch a solemn truth in collision with a dogma of a sect, though capable of the clearest proof, and you will soon find you have disturbed a nest, and the hornets will swarm about your legs and hands, and fly into your face and eyes.”
~John Adams

One can argue that the IPCC science strategy itself is set up so as to lead inexorably to this kind mischief. The IPCC set out to show that, since we can’t do experiments on the climate over reasonable time frames, we must approach the problem by testing the hypothesis that natural effects cannot account for observed climate change. Once that is done, we are left with, “It must be greenhouse gases, especially CO2.” This does two things:
1. It lets them off the hook on the scientific method, which requires prediction and the opportunity for falsification.
2. It generates a huge confirmation bias, which leads in turn to the kind of things Roy observes.
Once the determination that natural effects are too small, despite the superficiality of that ‘determination,’ infalliblity sets in. Isn’t it amazing that a field in which results depend so critically on subtleties in data gathering and choices; in data processing methods; and on assumptions and parameter choices in models, not a single piece of science has ever been acknowledged to be wrong.
The hockey stick is a good example. No objective person can accept the validity of this work which is draped in statistical errors and choices that shout confirmation bias. Yet it continues to be treated and defended in ever more shrill and ever less technical ways.
Or the refusal to simply acknowledge that models did not predict the last decade or so of temperature flat line. Instead we get bogus statistical arguments and more recently an explanation in terms of — guess what — natural cycles. But those cycles did not contribute to warming when they were in their warm phase. And just you wait, in a few decades it will really get warmer. And this time we mean it.
Someday we will look back on the period as the time that science went off the rails. Hopefully somehow we will get back on track.

Most of the people out there are indifferent on the subject of man-made global warming. A very small minority of us geeks, scientists, big business, and political types obsess about it. Maybe 12% of the population. We’re doing a good job waking the sheeple up. The sheeple could go either way on the subject, but now the people are going our way because we got the message out. Power is a funny thing. When you really don’t have the people on your side, the thing they worked their whole lives to achieve, can collapse in a very short period of time. Watch them panic.

“Admittedly, we really do not understand internal sources of climate change. Weather AND climate involves chaotic processes, most of which we may never understand, let alone predict. While chaos in weather is exhibited on time scales of days to weeks, chaotic changes in the ocean circulation could have time scales as long as hundreds of years, and we know that cloud formation – providing the Earth’s natural sun shade – is strongly influenced by the ocean.”
How refreshing to see a scientist admit that we still know little about how our multi-connected, dynamic chaotic Earth system works.
We also only have a primitive understanding of the effects of the solar system on our climate, and beyond that virtually no knowledge of galactic effects.
All these elements are part of one huge chaotic system and at the moment mankind does not have the intellect to even start to understand it or make meaningful predictions about the future.
It’s time the IPCC and the politicians understood this too.

No, BCC is right. That was a silly and useless example of bias, using the term “internal forcings” in a search. Really, it’s like Dr. Spencer didn’t even read the IPCC report. Which is a ridiculous notion, I know … but it’s also ridiculous to ignore the actual terms the IPCC uses.
Hell, just search for the term “internal” (115 hits) vs. “external” (144 hits). Frankly, I don’t even think “forcing” would be the proper word to describe an endogenous effect. And the authors do distinguish between natural external forcings and man-made ones, so even the term “external” doesn’t capture the impression Dr. Spencer creates; i.e., “external” forcings are all man-made.
Anyway, I completely agree with Dr. Spencer’s general argument. All the chicken littles out there drive me nuts with their thoroughly bad science and spurious attacks.
And others have mentioned the tendency – either by “spokesmen” or in the IPCC “summary for policy makers” – to overstate the actual report. What this work actually says is “Greenhouse gas forcing has *very likely* caused most of the observed global warming over the last 50 years.” Translation: there’s a 90% chance that 51% or more of the warming in the last 50 years (so, about 1/3 of a degree C) was caused by man. That’s not a very strong statement, actually. But you’d never know how weak it was when all these wankers go on about “It’s worse than we thought!” and “We’re all gonna die!”
Anyway, my point is: don’t use careless examples, such as the bogus search term “internal forcings.” This just undermines the argument being made. It gives the warmists something to latch onto, and allows them to ignore the bigger issues.
We’re the ones with the good science and sound logic, remember? We can’t afford to give the bastards an inch.

You’ll find that this is a feature of many parts of society right now, not just ‘global warming’.
For many years now, ALL mainstream politicians in the UK have maintained a policy of laxity with regard to EU movement of peoples. This is fine if things remain in balance, but cause hardship, stress and strains if not. With the opening up of the EU to Eastern Europe, balance has not been present.
This has effects on local services, be that affordable housing, schools, antenatal care etc etc. It has been indisputable fact that heads buried in the sand would accurately describe the politicians’ response to that.
Now we have an odious bunch of toerags who call themselves the ‘British National Party’ gaining popularity as they believe in ‘repatriating foreigners’. Racist little shits would describe them pretty accurately, but they have been winning some local government officer seats and, horror of horrors, two seats to the European Parliament.
Ah: so now the politicos see THEIR gravy train threatened. So we have the army generals reeling off a round of automatic political vitriol, to which the BNP minded them to consider their role in Iraq and what happened to Nazi soldiers who followed orders in WWII. Very unpleasant.
We have the Labour Party saying the BNP is ‘unconstitutional’ as it won’t allow blacks to join, so they can’t go on television having crossed the threshold of voting popularity which the BBC uses as its test of ‘national appeal’. The BNP response is to say that they are going to change the constitution, no doubt in the expectation of large numbers of Jamaicans signing up immediately. Ho hum…..
What ordinary voters would prefer of course is for the politicians to develop an adult approach to immigration. Nothing to do with skin colour or language. More to do with ‘available places to live’.
Sounds just like what sentient folks think about ‘climate change’. By all means recycle goods, by all means diversify energy supplies, by all means introduce energy efficient construction practices.
But for gawd’s sake, do shut up about this claptrap on carbon dioxide, human footprints and carbon trading. It’s all nonsense.
And the fact that the ecowarriors have targeted youth does make a comparison with the Nazis apposite.
Because the way to change opinion for good is to brainwash the young.

http://www.windows.ucar.edu/earth/climate/images/ipcc_global_temp_1906_2005.gif
If the bottom blue line shows their idea about natural effects, IPCC authors have no clue:
1) they somehow admit that 1910-1940 warming might be caused by the Sun; but the strongest 19th cycle peaked in 1960, so natural trend should not peak in 1950, but in 1960
2) even PDO/AMO have been defined in early 2000s, it somehow did not find the way into IPCC 2007 climatic models, obsessed with radiative forcing and aerosols
3) IPCC models need just two ingredients – CO2 causing the temperature to rise exponentially, and aerosols ad-hoc input, explaining the inconvenient drop of global temperatures between 1950-1980. But there is no reasonable explanation of recent cooling – no volcanos, no aerosols. As some climate scientist from MetOffice told recently “we have no explanation for recent cooling”. [snip] climate scientist? Sad to say, but today, amateurs have often better grasp of reality than those fossils at governmental institutions.

It would help, for the less scientific among us, to have a bit more information on some of the graphs that are presented. Roy Spencer’s article is right on the money and clearly this IS and 800 lb gorilla and needs to be given a run out of its cage. The graph of 2000 years of temperature anomalies is accredited to work by Loehle (2007) and mentions 18 previous proxies. Can we know what these proxies are? Are they ice core, tree rings, sediments etc? I am also still a bit hazy about the proxies used in the infamous Hockey Stick. A simple statement for laymen might help. Thanks to McIntyre we know a lot more about the Yamal tree rings, but what other proxies were used to creat the hockey stick? Are they adding new proxies as time goes by? Or are they just recalibrating their computer models to produce spagetti? Forgive my ignorance, but when arguing with AGW enthusiasts on the basis of their poor record of openness and transparency on core data we have to make sure that we have all the counter arguments and data sorted.

We start with:
x = 1
y = x
z = y
Multiply x = y by x:
x2 = xy
Subtract y2
x2 – y2 = xy – y2
Simplify:
(x + y)(x – y) = y(x – y)
x + y = y
Since y = x
2x = y
And since y = z
2x = z
Therefore:
x + y + z = x + 2x + 2x
x + y + z = 1 + 2 + 2 = 5
But, x = 1 and y = x and z = y
Therefore:
1 + 1 + 1 = 5
Reply: Very cute. I won’t call out the sort of obvious trick. ~ ctm

Here is a link to a new statement from KVA (the Swedish Royal Science Academy):
http://www.kva.se/Documents/Vetenskap_samhallet/Miljo_klimat/Yttranden/uttalande_klimat_090922.pdf
In a way, it says exactly the same things as Dr Spencer (and many of us) do, that many natural factors (clouds, sun, ocean streams) and anthropogenic ones (aerosols…) have not been accounted for correctly.
However their conclusion is in part what one would expect from an academy like this in times like these, that we should move to mitigate…
On the other hand, they do call for more work in the area of climatology, satellite tech., paleoclimatology, because the understanding of the system is still low.
I think that their recommendations are mostly sound and logical. 🙂

With respect to Dr Spencer, he doesn’t zero in on the real problem.
Which is,
Temperature measurements over the 20th century and specifically the use of minimum and maximum temperatures collected at highly non-random locations, together with even worse ocean temperature measurements, are given an entirely spurious precision as a measure of the Earth’s climate, and then fed into climate models which extrapolate this data out into the future resulting in an entirely spurious precision to future temperature predictions.
The truth is we don’t know how much the atmosphere warmed over the 20th century, nor have we any way of finding out. And this ignores the fact atmospheric temperatures are a poor measure of how much the climate has warmed. Not least because we know that the amount of heat lost to space by the Earth’s climate is a direct function of atmospheric temperatures.
And for those of you who think I am talking through my hat, why do the paleo temperature reconstructions from diverse sources almost all show cooling starting around 50 or so years ago? The so called Divergence Problem.

continuing, my laptop threw me on the submit 🙂
365+65-19=411
10 +21= 40
So the mention is 1 to 10 between presumed guilty and presumed innocent :).

Philip_B (03:48:37)
Well said, that man.
I would add that a lot of the predictions make use of proxies for temperatures, and divergence problem notwithstanding, their provenance is suspect to say the least.

“However their conclusion is in part what one would expect from an academy like this in times like these, that we should move to mitigate…” Patrick
Precisely. Nearly everyone seems to think that it is “prudent” to restrict carbon emissions. However, it is almost certainly not economically prudent or it would already have happened. The Great Depression was a major cause of World War II which killed 50 – 80 million and caused huge environmental damage.
Most scientists are economic ninnies is my experience. Science is simple compared to economics, IMO. But that makes sound economics very simple: Liberty plus enforcement of basic laws against fraud and theft.

The UK government is also lacking scientific objectivity in their recent ad campaign. However:
“A £6m government ad warning about climate change is to be investigated by watchdogs over claims it is misleading and too “scary” for children.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/8317998.stm

That IPCC story is an old one. Why not to apply some “external forcing” to its very existence. Why not some of the most important UN states stop it?. Do all countries agree with its crazy conclusions?

The IPCC report itself isn’t bad, it’s the politics that follow. For example here are some relevant quotes from IPCC fourth assessment report section 8.6.3, half the models show positive feedbacks and half negative, basically they have no clue:
“Modelling assumptions controlling the cloud water phase (liquid, ice or mixed) are known to be critical for the prediction of climate sensitivity. However, the evaluation of these assumptions is just beginning”
“Although the errors in the simulation of the different cloud types may eventually compensate and lead to a prediction of the mean CRF in agreement with observations, they cast doubts on the reliability of the model cloud feedbacks”- We may luck out and be right, let’d keep our fingers crossed!!!!!!
“Boundary-layer clouds have a strong impact on the net radiation budget and cover a large fraction of the global ocean… understanding of the physical processes that control the response of boundary-layer clouds and their radiative properties to a change in climate remains very limited.”

Thank you Dr Spencer for your clear and understandable research.
Isn’t the IPCC supposed to collect real science and not give opinions? The IPCC are obviously obsessed with the right outcome, you would be too if you stood to try and get trillions on the guilt trip.
Have you seen what ransom they want to give you back your sanity? It’s the biggest Scam WOW!!! ever.

There are 83 mentions of the term, “internal variability.”
GScholar does throw up nearly 800 papers that mention, or have in the title, “Internal forcing,” it seems this term is used in the literature, so it’s interesting the IPCC chooses not to use it. I guess this implies that the forcing is one-way, i.e. there’s natural variability, but the only forcing going on is human.

thanks interesting article

I would agree that we are dealing with semantics, much like we do over cycles versus oscillations, and what exactly “storing heat” means or even if the term is legit. That series of heat-related posts regarding terminology and semantics by various members of the audience here drove me nuts. It so reminded me of my kids in the back seat saying, “did not”, “did too”, till I wanted to smack ’em upside the head. So for those of you still desiring to argue with Dr. Spencer over single words, I will repeat what my cranky teenage daughter once said to me, “Get to the dang point!”

Re: Smokey (06:47:31) :
RR Kampen (06:11:31) :
“Smokey, when will you learn that I do not care who is the messenger, only about the message?”
But it was you who cited the BBC as your authority.
No, I did not. In fact I cited no authority. Check my post a couple up, it reads:
RR Kampen (05:45:30) :
Gene Nemetz (22:48:59) :
BCC (22:25:37) :
BCC,
I get the impression from people like you that you just want to tear down the reputation of people like Roy Spencer. Or, at the very least create doubts about them.
I think BCC just showed Spencer has tore down his reputation once again. Don’t shoot the messenger.

That ‘BCC’ was no typo (for a change 🙂 ).

Richard Hill (22:48:42) :
I don’t see the IPCC making any effort to distance themselves from people like Al Gore. Do you?
If I did I could believe you.

If the UN/ IPCC really is concerned about natural variations then why isn’t the world aware of it? There may be a statement in the report that says they are but publicly they don’t say that.
It is the Inter–GOVERNMENTAL Panel on Climate Change. Politicians don’t do most of what they say. Only what they actually do is what defines who they are.

anna v (04:13:43) :
So the mention is 1 to 10 between presumed guilty and presumed innocent :).
Nice way to put it anna. 🙂

The IPCC is “totally obsessed’ with external forcing because they find evidence for it.

Sorry, folks, but the only external “forcings” are the sun and various other radiators (stars, solar radiation reflecting off of other planets, etc). CO2 is not an external forcing, it’s a modification of an existing feedback loop.
I really wish climatologists would take some controls courses. It’d save a lot of gibberish.
But to the point of this comment, I completely agree that the only external forcing, which comes in the form of inbound radiation, is something we have evidence for.

Dr. Spencer is definitely on my short list of those that I like to call “The Loyal Opposition.” Those that are skeptical (but not denialist) and also publish what they preach.
I look forward to his paper that shows how natural mechanisms such as clouds or ocean circulation variability can explain:
1) Measured increases in the downward flux of LW radiation
2) Measure decreases in the top of atmosphere flux of outgoing LW radiation
3) Tropospheric warming coupled with stratospheric cooling (and no, ozone does not explain that)
4) Warmer overnight temps
5) Polar amplification of temperature increase
6) How the huge increases in CO2 and other GHGs since the 1970s is not causing much of the warming and is just a strange coincidence that these levels have not appeared in hundreds of thousands or perhaps millions of years
7) Consensus of climate models has accurately hindcasted only when considering AGW
8) Why the rate of warming in the past 30 years has not been observed in the past 2000 years
etc., etc., etc.
See the problem is that to refute AGW as the primary cause of the modern day warming, one will need to knock down quite a few walls. I hope Dr. Spencer can do this but I am highly doubtful.

Bill Illis (06:08:10) :
Again Bill, you makes things easy to understand.

Pamela Gray (06:55:10) :
I would agree that we are dealing with semantics
In comments on the internet we are. But world, in general, is completely unaware of our war on words.
The world sees the UN, Al Gore, Hollywood, etc, blaming humankind for global warming and desiring to punish us with some pretty painful punishments for it.
I hope this got “to the dang point”. 😉

Gene Nemetz (07:39:54) :
RR Kampen (05:45:30) :
I think you haven’t been paying attention. Is it intentional?
Think? Please know or know not. I read Dr. Spencer’s post and found BCC’s remark quite adequately adressing this part: The IPCC is totally obsessed with external forcing, that is, energy imbalances imposed upon the climate system that are NOT the result of the natural, internal workings of the system. For instance, a search through Chapter 9 for the phrase “external forcing” yields a total of 91 uses of that term. A search for the phrase “internal forcing” yields…(wait for it)…zero uses. Can we really believe that the IPCC has ruled out natural sources of global warming when such a glaring blind spot exists?.
Reading Chapter 9 I found a lot, and I mean a LOT, of references to pre-industrial or ‘natural’ climate.
Obviously the IPCC-report would focus on external forcings because they are the forcings that are a-changing.
Things like EN/SO, PDA et cetera belong to the ‘natural climate’ then and now. Or even: they are the natural climate. So they are also incorporated as well as is possible in climate models.
Anthropogenic forcing is an independent factor adding to this ‘natural climate’. It is a subject of great interest. It apparently is the dominant forcing to recent climate change, which means no climate model can do without it to explain recent climate change.
Looking for certain phrases in a document will not change the truth value of this assertion. It will do nothing but generate chitchat.

RR Kampen,
“Things like EN/SO, PDA et cetera belong to the ‘natural climate’ then and now. Or even: they are the natural climate. So they are also incorporated as well as is possible in climate models.”
I notice you mention “as well as possible.”
That is the issue. The IPCC spend MOST of their time attributing to Anthropogenic and little time studying the Natural.
If you read ClimateAudit or a couple other blogs regularly, you know that the PaleClimatology work supported by the IPCC is distorted, to say the least, in support of the current Climate being UNPRECENDENTED in history. Other work ignored by the IPCC shows it isn’t.
Virtually no work on understanding the range of Natural Variability. Enormous time, effort, and money spent on Anthropogenic.
What should we take away from these facts????

So I take it the Big truck is hydrogen powered….? lol jk Def think we should take care of the planet better tho.

RR Kampen (08:05:44
“forcing is an independent factor adding to this ‘natural climate’. It is a subject of great interest. It apparently is the dominant forcing to recent climate change, which means no climate model can do without it to explain recent climate change”
Scott A. Mandia (07:38:13)
“8) Why the rate of warming in the past 30 years has not been observed in the past 2000 years”
It is amazing how people can make these sweeping statements without a shred of evidence. It just shows how their thinking has been so constrained by their reliance on ‘consensus’ or ‘authority’. They cannot see the obvious right under their eyes.
The following shows a thirty year period in the 20th century where temperatures rose at the same rate as the last thirty years and this without any significant CO2 forcing.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1910/to:1940/trend/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1910/to:1940
So what drove that temperature change rate in that period (get prepared for some serious hand waving) and was that unprecedented in the last 2000 years as well?
Alan

Oh dear, I think Scott A. Mandia has been nodding off at the back of the class if he thinks that the rate of warming in the last 30 years has not been observed in the last 2000 years. I’ll spell it out for him – M.E.D.I.E.V.A.L W.A.R.M P.E.R.I.O.D. Or maybe he is a MWP – denier…

Folks, the IPCC Fourth Assessment Reports have been out for over two years. If these reports were NOT the consensus of climate science where is the huge backlash from all of these scientists that had their work ignored and have been wronged?
Before spouting unsupported conspiracy nonsense, please take a moment to think about this: maybe the IPCC has it right and that is why there is little to no scientific backlash.

Rhys Jaggar says:
What ordinary voters would prefer of course is for the politicians to develop an adult approach to immigration. Nothing to do with skin colour or language. More to do with ‘available places to live’.
Sounds just like what sentient folks think about ‘climate change’. By all means recycle goods, by all means diversify energy supplies, by all means introduce energy efficient construction practices.
But for gawd’s sake, do shut up about this claptrap on carbon dioxide, human footprints and carbon trading. It’s all nonsense.
And the fact that the ecowarriors have targeted youth does make a comparison with the Nazis apposite.
Because the way to change opinion for good is to brainwash the young.
Very well put! And may I add that the situation is worsened by the absolute bias (in favour of ‘…the consensus…’ by the BBC.
I do not say this lightly, I have documentary evidence, under cover of a letter from Director General Mark Thopson, to prove it

I hope this link isn’t too off topic.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8317998.stm
Get ’em while they’re young!

Scott A. Mandia (07:38:13) :
Scott,
“A little learning is a dangerous thing.” Alexander Pope
I am not going to go through all of the “walls” you listed, but there are six quick cogent points that can be made by those who follow the AGW science, and the other two can be addressed in another post.
3) The stratosphere has not cooled in 15 years. Granted, I do not want to stake the future on a 15 year trend, but look at the period for which satellite data is available. Does GMT consistently warm for more than 15 years? The cooling of the stratosphere occurred in step functions around major volcanic eruptions.
4) Warmer overnight temperatures are consistent with UHI and land use changes. Are ocean-based temperatures warmer overnight?
5) Polar amplification of temperature increase. The Arctic is very much subject to impact of ocean oscillations; the Antarctic is more isolated. Antarctica temperatures have not increased over the last 50 or so years. If you focus on weather stations that do not have local siting issues, the Arctic temperatures are no higher than the 1940s.
6) Warming of in last 30 years coincident with increased GMT. The warming since the 1970s has been coincident with positive phases of the PDO and AMO. As these positive phases have weakened, the temperature increases have ceased even as CO2 emissions have continued to rise.
7) You are somewhat incorrect in claiming that “climate models [have] accurately hindcasted only when considering AGW.” Actually, they have hindcasted accurately only when they insert convenient and controversial values for aerosols. By themselves, GHGs have been a poor predictor of GMT, but you could use any consistently rising variable with aerosol dummy variables and get an accurate hindcast. If one leaves out dummy variables, the best fit comes from PDO & AMO, not GHG.
8) Again, your claim that the “rate of warming in the past 30 years has not been observed in the past 2000 years” is unreliable. The rate of increase was matched, even exceeded, in the early 20th century. Going back earlier in time, we do not even begin to have reliable estimates of GMT (which is a concept fraught with pitfalls, but we will skip that for now). I would ask you to consider when in history have we had coincident phases of AMO and PDO. We had them in your time frame of focus and thus expect warmer temperatures, but when else have we had such a coincidence?
And do not be misled that most skeptics deny the science of what is called greenhouse gas. The greenhouse effect is real and accepted. The issues foci is on the feedback loops and whether the impact of CO2 will swamp other climatic influences. The scientific analyses I have seen suggest that observed feedback is in the opposite direction of model assumptions.

Scott, after having everyone of his walls demolished, now launches into an “appeal to authority.” Why has there not been a backlash from scientists opposed to the IPCC position, he wants to know.
Where have you been living, Scott? Off the top of my head I can list Lindzen, Christy, Spencer, Pielke sr., Ball, Eschenbach, Willis, Douglass, Cazanave, Harper who have either criticized or written papers citing conclusions different to the IPCC position. Then we have the 700 US scientists who signed the petition before congress, 60 German physicists who wrote an open latter to the German Chancellor. . . I could go on, but it’s getting a little tedious.
Oh yeah, on the IPCC side there were 52 scientists cited in chapter 9 but 60 reviewers dissented. How much more backlash do you need?

Vincent (05:06:25) :
… So, I don’t understand why the IPCC are so quick to dismiss “internal processes”.

Easy one: political control of the “science” …but you knew that already.

From the article:

Admittedly, we really do not understand internal sources of climate change. Weather AND climate involves chaotic processes, most of which we may never understand, let alone predict. While chaos in weather is exhibited on time scales of days to weeks, chaotic changes in the ocean circulation could have time scales as long as hundreds of years, and we know that cloud formation – providing the Earth’s natural sun shade – is strongly influenced by the ocean.

If I understand the above statement correctly, I would suggest that “time scales as long as hundreds of years” is probably an understatement as undersea geological topographic changes could and would have effects over millennial scales and much longer.
Great article; very …um pungent.

Rhys Jaggar (01:30:12) :
You’ll find that this is a feature of many parts of society right now, not just ‘global warming’.
For many years now, ALL mainstream politicians in the UK have maintained a policy of laxity with regard to EU movement of peoples. This is fine if things remain in balance, but cause hardship, stress and strains if not. With the opening up of the EU to Eastern Europe, balance has not been present.
This has effects on local services, be that affordable housing, schools, antenatal care etc etc. It has been indisputable fact that heads buried in the sand would accurately describe the politicians’ response to that.
Now we have an odious bunch of toerags who call themselves the ‘British National Party’ gaining popularity as they believe in ‘repatriating foreigners’. Racist little [snip] would describe them pretty accurately, but they have been winning some local government officer seats and, horror of horrors, two seats to the European Parliament.
Just your opinion mate, every government form we brits have to fill in requests you state your nationality, ENGLISH is not an option, Hindu I believe is.

Richard
Can I add to your list The Committee of Geological Sciences of the Polish Academy of Sciences, courtesy of Prof. Dr. Andrzej Zelazniewicz – President, The Committee of Geological Sciences PAS:
Attitude of the Committee of Geological Sciences of the Polish Academy of Sciences
to the question of impending of global warming
Global climate change, and the more frequent occurrence of extreme weather-related phenomena has caused public anxiety over global warming that has been widely expressed.
Many international initiatives as regards remedial measures have been proposed by
politicians, by the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), active since 1988, as well as by ecological organizations.
Engaging in this important worldwide debate, the Committee of Geological Sciences of the Polish Academy of Sciences urges attention to 10 principal aspects of the problem. Awareness of these is essential, if reasonable and responsible decisions are to be arrived at.
1. Global climate has been determined by mutual interactions of the Earth’s surface
and the atmosphere, and primarily by periodically changing solar radiation. Climate is affected by Earth’s annual motion around the sun and modified by thermohaline ocean circulation and air circulation. The location of mountain ranges and over geological time scales – by their uplift and erosion as well as by the movement of the continents.
2. Geological investigations prove beyond any doubt that permanent change has
been inherent in Earth’s climate since the very beginning. A change has occurred as
mutually interacting cycles of varying duration, from several hundred thousands to a few years. Longer climatic cycles were affected by extra-terrestrial astronomic factors and by changes of the Earth’s orbit, while shorter ones are influenced by regional and local factors. Not all of the climate-influencing phenomena and reasons for climate change have yet been recognized.
3. The Earth’s climate has predominantly been warmer than at present. However,
there have been some significant coolings that resulted in the development of extensive glaciations, in some of which ice sheets even reached the tropics. Therefore, any reliable forecasts of climate change, before discussion of prevention or neutralization, should takeinto account evidence from the geological past when, obviously, neither humans nor industry affected the Earth.
4. Since 12 thousand years ago, the Earth is once again in the phase of cyclical
warming and now approaches its peak intensity. Just in the Quaternary that is over the past 2.5 million years, warm and cool periods interchanged many times, the phenomenon which has already been well recognized.
5. The present warming coincides with elevated contents of greenhouse gases in the
atmosphere. Among these, water vapour predominates accompanied with much smaller quantities of carbon dioxide, methane, nitrogen oxides and ozone. This is nothing unusual, because the geological past has seen high levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, occasionally even several times higher than at present, before humans appeared on the Earth.
6. During the last 400 thousand years – still without anthropogenic greenhouse
influence – the content of carbon dioxide in the air, as indicated by ice cores from Antarctica, was repeatedly 4 times at similar or even slightly higher level than at present. Around the termination of the last glaciation, mean global temperature changed substantially several times over several hundred years, even by up to 10°C(!!) in the northern hemisphere. Thus, this change was undoubtedly much more severe than the present warming.
7. In the past millenium, after warm medieval ages, by the end of the 13th century, a cold period started and lasted up the middle of the 19th century, then gave pace to another warm period in which we are living now. The phenomena observed today, specifically a temporary rise of global temperature, just reflect a natural rhythm of climate change. Warming of the oceans reduces their capacity to absorb carbon dioxide whereas a smaller area occupied by permafrost intensifies decomposition of organic matter in soil and therefore, stimulates increased emission of greenhouse gases. Volcanic activity on Earth, concentrated along margins of the lithospheric plates, mostly hidden in the oceans, supplies permanently (but not alike) the atmosphere with carbon dioxide. In the terrestrial system this gas is translocated from the atmosphere to the biosphere and lithosphere by photosynthesis, then combined in living organisms or in carbonate shells of marine organisms and after their death, stored in huge limestone beds at sea/ocean bottom and in organic matter on land.
8. Instrumental monitoring of climate parameters has been carried out for only slightly more than 200 years and exclusively on some parts of the continents that constitute a small part of the Earth. Several older measurement stations once set up in suburbs now appear, due to progressive urbanization, in the town centres which results among others in increased values of the measured temperatures. Profound examination of the oceans was initiated 40 years ago. Reliable climatic models must not be based on such a short measurement data base. Therefore, considerable restraint is desirable if ascribing exclusive or predominant responsibility to man for increased emission of greenhouse gases. The reality of such arbitrary statement on human influence has not been demonstrated.
9. It is certain that increased content of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is
connected partly with human activity. Therefore, all steps that restrain this emission and agree with principles of sustainable development should be taken, starting from a cease of extensive deforestation, especially in tropical areas. Various adapting measures that can mitigate effects of the recent trend of climate warming should be implemented by political decision makers.
10. Research experience in the Earth sciences suggests that simple explanation of
natural phenomena, based on partial observations only and without consideration of
numerous factors important for individual processes in a geosystem, leads generally to unreasonable simplification and misleading conclusions. Such opinions, embellished with political correctness, could be presumably inspired by lobbying circles that are interested in selling the particularly expensive so-called ecological energetic techniques and in storing (sequestration) of carbon dioxide in post-exploitation caverns, of natural gas included. However, such an approach is far from a reality. Undertaking of radical and extremely expensive economic activities that aim to delimit emission of selected greenhouse gases
only when no complete analysis of the present climate change is available, can bring
completely unexpected results.
The Committee of Geological Sciences of the Polish Academy of Sciences considers it
necessary to propose interdisciplinary studies, based on comprehensive monitoring and modeling of the climate, including also factors other than the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere only. It would certainly give an opportunity to approach a better recognition of the driving forces of the climate on Earth.
Wrocław–Warsaw, 12 February 2009

It didn’t go anywhere. They amount in the cash register that came from them is $25; they paid $27 in total, and the other $2 is in the waiter’s pocket, as you said.

Slartibartfast:
I heard the bellboy story when I was but a young lad. About 1965 or so. Is there nothing new under the sun?
BTW: Congrats on the award for your fiords!

Vincent (09:19:26) :
Scott A Mandia,
You erect the same old warmists strawmen that have been dealt with and dismissed so many times before:
That’s why they keep putting them back up. They want them visble. You shouldn’t think they would leave them torn down, laying on the ground. I have learned they they don’t care about the data that shows they are wrong. They put those strawmen back up to cover up the data that shows they are wrong.
Get used to them working endlessly to put them back up after they are torn down. It’s what they live to do. It is what they will always, and only, do.
They don’t think like you. You would probably leave bad data, half-truths, and flat out fabrications, in a filthy ditch where they belong. But the alarmiss MUST put their hands in that dirty ditch to get the pieces of that strawman out, brush the filth off as best as they can, and erect that rotten strawman again.
Ah, but an earth that is turning cooler all the time will be their end. When nature destroys that strawman there will be nothing left for them.

Bill Ellis
“The natural climate variability provided by just a few ocean cycles, the ENSO, the AMO and the southern Atlantic can provide as much as +/- 0.7C natural variability to the climate.
Most of the time, the cycles are not synch’ed up with each other so you don’t reach the extremes that are possible. But they were mostly synch’ed up in the mid-1910s (low phase), early 1940s (high phase), mid-1970s (low phase) and 1998 (high phase)”.
And
“There are many more climate papers looking at this natural variability now (probably provoked by the temperature drop provided by the 2007-08 La Nina which showed that the models were far off-track now)”.
Peter Taylor in his new book, “Chill”, A Reassessment of Global Warming Theory, Clairview Books, 2009, concludes that that the main driver of recent global warming has been an unprecedented combination of natural events
From the back cover. “Chill is a critical survey of the subject by a committed environmentalist & scientist. Based on extensive research, it reveals a disturbing collusion of interests responsible for creating a distorted understanding of changes in global climate. Scientific institutions, basing their work on flawed simulations & models, have gained influence and funding. In return they have allowed themselves to be directed by the needs of politicians and lobbyists for simple answers, slogans & targets. The resulting policy- a 60% reduction of greenhouse-gas emissions by 2050- would have a huge, almost unimaginable, impact upon landscape, community & biodiversity.
On the basis of his studies of satellite data, cloud cover, ocean & solar cycles, Peter Taylor concludes that that the main driver of recent global warming has been an unprecedented combination of natural events. His investigations indicate that the current threat facing humanity is a period of cooling, as the cycle turns, comparable in severity to the Little Ice age of 1400-1700 AD. The risks of such cooling are potentially much greater than global warming and on a more immediate time scale, with the possibility of failing harvests leaving hundreds of millions vulnerable to famine”.
Inside jacket. From W. Jackson Davis, Professor Emeritus, University of California, and author of the first draft of the Kyoto protocol.
“Do you believe the earth is warming? Think again, says Peter Taylor, a committed environmental analyst with the unusual gift of following scientific evidence ruthlessly wherever it may lead. Taylor has done groundbreaking work on issues ranging from ocean pollution and biodiversity through renewable energy. Now he turns his relentless searchlight on climate change. His work has the ring of passion and the clarity of intellectual honesty. We can be certain his conclusions are the product of a fearless, unbiased, and intelligent intellectual journey by a remarkable mind, all the marks of genuine science. Taylor challenges us to look beyond our biases to whatever conclusions the evidence may justify. Believers in global warming such as my-self may not find comfit here, but hey will without question find a clear challenge to examine all the evidence objectively. At the very least, Taylor raises issues and questions that must be addressed conclusively before global warming can be genuinely regarded as “truth”, inconvenient or otherwise. This book is a must read for everyone on all sides of the climate change issue”.

Spencer is also a proponent of “intelligent design”, and believes it should be taught as science in schools.
So, if he can be wrong on ID, he certainly can be wrong on AGW.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/
http://mediamatters.org/research/200605190003
http://theevolutioncrisis.org.uk/testimony2.php
http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/roy-spencer-on-intelligent-design/

Scott A. Mandia (18:03:14) :
Clone,
save your breath

BTW the quoted “swept these data observations under the carpet” is mine, not Peter’s.

Spam filter grabbed my last post 😉
DaveE.
[Rescued. ~ dbstealey, mod.]

Back2Bat (05:19:54) :
“However their conclusion is in part what one would expect from an academy like this in times like these, that we should move to mitigate…” Patrick
Precisely. Nearly everyone seems to think that it is “prudent” to restrict carbon emissions. However, it is almost certainly not economically prudent or it would already have happened. The Great Depression was a major cause of World War II which killed 50 – 80 million and caused huge environmental damage.
Most scientists are economic ninnies is my experience. Science is simple compared to economics, IMO. But that makes sound economics very simple: Liberty plus enforcement of basic laws against fraud and theft
I like how you think, Back2Bat. Except on a grand scheme of things….science is is not simple. It is equally as complex as economics.
And one other correction: Good scientists are not “ninnies” in any way shape or form.
But I GET your point…and like how you think.
CHRIS
Norfolk, VA, USA
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA

“Our re-submitted paper to the Journal of Geophysical Research entitled “On the Diagnosis of Radiative Feedback in the Presence of Unknown Radiative Forcing” will hopefully lead to a little more diversity being permitted in the global warming debate.”
Good luck getting this past the peer review nazi’s.

Nice comment, tallbloke.
Here’s a good example about computer modelling, in Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s “The Black Swan,” about balls hitting each other on a billiard ball table, used to explain why prediction (and modelling) is so complicated:
“If you know a set of basic parameters concerning the ball at rest, can computer the resistance of the table (quite elementary), and can gauge the strength of the impact, then it is rather easy to predict what would happen at the first hit. The second impact becomes more complicated, but possible; and more precision is called for. The problem is that to correctly computer the ninth impact, you need to take account the gravitational pull of someone standing next to the table (modestly, Berry’s computations use a weight of less than 150 pounds). And to compute the fifty-sixth impact, every single elementary particle in the universe needs to be present in your assumptions! An electron at the edge of the universe, separated from us by 10 billion light-years, must figure in the calculations, since it exerts a meaningful effect on the outcome.” (p. 178)
…How many variables and impacts are there in climate modelling?
It comes from this work apparently: http://www.phy.bris.ac.uk/people/berry_mv/the_papers/Berry076.pdf

Scott A Mandia:
“I have already discussed why UHI is not a factor and I never said anything in my posts about catastrophic global warming. I guess it depends upon what one thinks is catastrophic.”
Actually, what I said was UHI, poor siting and boundary layer flow disturbance, not UHI alone as you imply. These are NOT different words for the same thing – they are different although related phenomena that aren’t even dealt with.
#5: See the Kaufmann et al. paper to see why I am not just taling about a few years.
The Kaufmann paper. Wasn’t that another one of those proxy studies that attempts to get rid of the MWP? Is that the same Kaufmann who won’t release his raw data and methods? Hmm. Not sure if I’m convinced on that one.
#7. Your link on climate models is broken so I am unable to view it. However, when you write “There is considerable confidence that Atmosphere-Ocean General Circulation Models (AOGCMs) provide credible quantitative estimates of future climate change, particularly at continental and larger scales” I have to ask “confidence by whom?”
Many credible scientists include Pielke sr. and Spencer have pointed out the logical fallacies upon which these models are based, yet you still choose to believe in them.
Based on everything you have written so far, I can only conclude therefore that you have not come here looking for truth but to prosletyze.

Scott Mandia (18:03:14) Oct 21
So you dazzle us with 17 things that apparently the AOGCMs predict accurately.
Fine.
It would be nice if you could provide us with a detailed forecast of the next 10 years, in writing as a pdf, open access, including for each continent and region, temperature anomalies, general precipitation, ocean surface temperatures, and Arctic and Antarctic extents.
If this is not forthcoming, it will be obvious to everyone why.

tallbloke (04:28:33)
“In a chaotic non-linear system such as climate, ..”
Important point. The chaotic non-linear / non-equilibrium pattern formation aspect of climate is sometimes presented as if it was a side-salad or peripheral issue to climate. But it is the main course. It needs to become the dominant paradigm for real progress in understanding to be made. For the damage done by the AGW movement to begin to be undone.
For example: the question of negative or positive climate feedback. Feedbacks are at the centre of the debates about climate dynamics and so-called “forcings”. A chaotic nonlinear paradigm results in predicted outcomes (yes some of us still believe science should make testable predictions) that are diametrically, 180 degrees, opposed to the predictions of a linear reductionistic-mechanistic paradigm.
Richard Lindzen has examined clearly the issue of positive and negative feedbacks [1]. This is both in the “global” context of ERBE satellite measured fluxes at various wavelengths, and in the context of more local phenomena such as the Atlantic and Pacific oceanic oscillations. He correctly separates the two. While the linear reductionist-mechanistic (LRM) paradigm might apply to global radiative fluxes, more localised smaller scale
phenomena are most likely to be better understood in a chaotic non-linear (CN) paradigm.
What am I talking about? What is the difference between these paradigms?
Negative feedbacks, in the LRM paradigm, basically oppose any force causing a change with a force reversing the change, so that status quo returns. Anti AGW scientists and commentators like negative feedbacks since they can be expected to oppose AGW.
Positive feedbacks on the other hand result in runaway self-reinforcing change, and are thus popular with the AGW proponents. In fact the basis of the AGW position is arguing how a small CO2 forcing can initiate positive feedbacks with the help of water vapour and other factors.
In a nutshell: negative feedbacks return the system to status quo, while positive feedback drives sustained unidirectional change. This is the LRM paradigm.
The CN paradigm is quite different. Here, negative feedback is given another name: friction. Friction is when a forced change sets in motion processes which act to oppose the change. And in non-linear, non-equilibrium dynamic systems, friction has one major outcome: it stimulates the emergence of pattern formation. A system becomes fruitful with rich emergent patterns when it is far from equilibrium and in the bifurcating non-linear regime
and friction is present in the system.
The literature is replete with experimental studies substantiating this thoroughly well-established theory. (“friction + pattern + formation + non-linear” in Google scholar just yielded 15500 hits). Examples of such systems include:
The classic Belousov-Zhabotinsky reaction,
Rayleigh-Benaud convection,
Catalysed CO oxidation on a Pt surface,
Coastline formation by sea currents on sand,
The formation of pattern in mammalian trabecular bone,
And many more. So while negative feedback causes a simple return to status quo (whatever that is) in the LMR paradigm, negative feedback or friction causes the emergence of pattern and structure in the CN paradigm.
What about positive feedback?
Positive feedback kills emergent pattern. Feedbacks have to be suppressed in order for rich and complex patterns to emerge. The Pt-catalysed oxidation of CO, studied by Matthias Bertram and others shows this clearly [2]. The system generates rich and complex geometric spatial patterns, but these collapse into a set of uniform sinusoidal oscillations when the gas pressures are adjusted to increase feedback in the system. Another, biomedical study
shows that in the biochemical regulation of bone turnover, inactivation of the gene for OPG which acts against osteoblast-osteoclast coupling (feedback by yet another name) results in a debilitating genetic bone disorder where complex trabecular bone pattern collapses into an abnormal and pathological series of parallel plates [3].
So while in the LRM paradigm positive feedback is what produces unidirectional sustained change, in the CN paradigm, it reduces complex and pattern-rich structure into simple periodic structure. So it actually opposes sustained change.
Oscillations by the way are the norm for a planetary ocean and atmosphere system such as ours which is under continuous periodic forcing from the Milankovitch, solar and other cycles, and which in response – as a dynamically chaotic / non-linear system – generates intrinsic oscillations of its own. The type of feedbacks in the system determine the nature of the oscillations. Negative feedbacks (friction or damping) result in complex pattern with for instance log-log power law scales of magnitude. Positive feedback, by contrast, reduces oscillation to a simple wave.
That’s what I mean about the outcomes of feedback being opposite according to the LGM and CN paradigms respectively. According to the CN paradigm, the AGW camp needs therefore to be arguing for negative, not positive feedback.
If you want to see a nice video of emergent pattern in a non-equilibrium system under periodic forcing, please go to:
http://chaos.ph.utexas.edu/research/vibrated_cornstarch.htm
and click on the link for “see a movie”.
Note that by emergent structure in the climate context one can include things like ice ages, El Nino and La Nina ocean current events, Pacific and Atlantic and other oceanic oscillations, the MWP, the LIA, the CWP, and others. Richard Lindzen points out [1] that negative feedbacks are generally underestimated, since systems will try to return to equilibrium via negative feedbacks. Basic thermodynamics dictates that applied forces induce opposing forces.
Thus complexity and rich emergent pattern can be expected as the order of the day.
[1] Richard S. Lindzen and Yong-Sang Choi, Geophysical Research Letters, July 14, 2009.
[2] Bertram M et al. Pattern formation on the edge of chaos: Experiments with CO oxidation on a Pt(110) surface under global delayed feedback. Phys. Rev. E 67(3) 036208 (2003)
[3] Salmon PL. Loss of Chaotic Trabecular Structure in OPG-Deficient Juvenile Pagets Disease Patients Indicates a Chaogenic Role for OPG in Nonlinear Pattern Formation of Trabecular Bone. J. Bone Miner. Res., 2004; 19 (5): 695-702.

Scott A. Mandia (18:03:14) :
Scott, I believe that you are to be commended for your patience and moderate tone that you display in your postings. You used an exhaustive game plan to answer a good # of postings, and that is admirable. Nevertheless, you probably will not be surprised to hear that you did not persuade me. In fact sometimes, you seemed to be unresponsive to the issues and other times you seemed to be unaware of modeling and regression traps. I would like you to know that at one time I was a sincere and active believer in the AGW crisis, but my position changed when I dug deeper into the issues and understood the shortcomings of the eight arguments you posted (and others). To be sure this posting is not giving you anything concrete to base a critical response; if there was an purpose to do so — if I believed that you would sincerely consider the objectgions — I would do so. But I am extremely short on time, and it seems prudent to move on. I have listened to you twice (actually more, considering your multiple postings), and I believe that you have listened to me once. So it seems that we will continue to disagree.

It’s nice that climate models can predict decreased temperature during the winter months.
Hopefully they can also predict a lowering of temperature during the hours of night, as well. The fact that they can (hopefully) perform these simple tasks is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for considering them valid.

Phlogiston: Interesting food-for-thought and a cool video! One can have lots of fun with a mixture of cornstarch and water…I used to use it in a talk I gave as an illustration of the interesting behavior of non-Newtonian fluids (specifically, the visco-elasticity).
I am struggling to decide how much of what you say I agree with and how much I remain skeptical of. Using your suggested google search words, I found this paper http://chaos.utexas.edu/manuscripts/1119561600.pdf that talks about the role of friction…and they did argue that it plays an important role in determining the pattern formation, although they do still get pattern-formation without it (although just the stripes rather than the two-dimensional patterns). Admittedly, the inelastic effects that they talk about could be another form of dissipation, so maybe you mean “dissipation” more generally? But, of course you will need some dissipation if you are driving the system in order for that system to come to some sort of steady-state.
However, I tend to think that the important feature of pattern formation is still some sort of positive feedback that is producing an instability, because it seems hard to get a pattern without some sort of instability (i.e., a perturbation has to be able to grow to a certain point rather than shrink). Of course, once you have a linear instability, you will eventually have nonlinear terms pull it back again and they are clearly important in determining the pattern that ultimately forms, its characteristic dimensions, and so forth.
I also struggle in relating this back to the climate system. You say, “basic thermodynamics dictates that applied forces induce opposing forces” and this is true…but that opposing force in the case of radiative forcings is provided by the Stefan-Boltzmann (S-B) Equation, which basically says that as the Earth heats up in response to an applied radiative forcing (such as that due to increased greenhouse gases), the amount that it radiates increases such that the net radiative forcing is reduced (and this will eventually drive it back to radiative balance).
However, this does not mean that the net feedbacks can’t be positive when those net feedbacks are defined as they often are in climate science as really meaning “the net feedbacks other than that provided by the S-B Equation”.
In particular, there are really 3 possible regimes for the feedbacks in the climate system:
(1) Net feedbacks other than S-B are negative, which leads to a temperature rise that is less than that which would be predicted from the S-B Equation due to the radiative forcing of the CO2 alone. This is the regime that Lindzen and perhaps Spencer believe the climate system is in. [Although Spencer’s post here http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/10/04/spencer-on-finding-a-new-climate-sensitivity-marker/ suggesting that the equilibrium sensitivity is actually 1.6 to 2.0 C would actually imply it falls into (2).]
(2) Net feedbacks other than S-B are positive but smaller in magnitude than the negative feedback due to the S-B Equation. In this case, the total net feedback including the S-B Equation is still negative and the system is still stable but the temperature rise is greater than the rise that is predicted by the S-B Equation due to the radiative forcing of the CO2 alone. This is the regime that the IPCC and most of the climate science community believe the climate system is in.
(3) Net feedbacks other than S-B are positive and larger in magnitude than the negative feedback due to the S-B Equation. In this case, the total net feedback really is positive and the system is linearly unstable. This is the situation that is believed to have occurred on Venus; it is also the regime that Jim Hansen recently implied that he believes the climate system could be pushed into if we really went to town in burning our fossil fuel resources, although I have not seen him spell out any of the details on this. (Of course, even if the system is linearly unstable, the temperature doesn’t just increase forever as eventually the nonlinear terms will come in and stabilize it.)
I don’t think that you can “a priori” argue on general principles that case (1) should pertain instead of case (2). [In fact, even case (3) can occur, although admittedly the system doesn’t stay in this state for long because it will run off to a new part of phase space where it is no longer linearly unstable.]
People with a systems analysis or control theory background seem to get quite agitated by the idea of “net positive feedbacks” but I think that the confusion here is that they don’t realize that most of the time that people in climate science use this language, they are really talking about case (2), which a systems analysis / control theory person would still refer to as being a net negative feedback. If they stuck more rigorously to the usage of these terms in the systems analysis / control theory fields, they would count the S-B Equation as part of the feedback…and, indeed, that is how it is done for example in “Global Physical Climatology” by Dennis Hartmann (see http://books.google.com/books?id=Zi1coMyhlHoC&pg=PA231&lpg=PA231#v=onepage&q=&f=false ). But, this is just a difference in terminology, not a disagreement about the basic physics of the system.

Joel Shore
Thanks for looking at this and bringing some physical rigour to bear on the question – I wont be able to address the physics points adequately being a mere biologist. I’ll just make a few comments.
The term “dissipation” that you introduce is the one I forgot to include originally – negative feedback can be analagous to the terms friction, damping or dissipation as used in non-equilibrium pattern formation and dynamic chaos studies.
In the first paper from the Texas chaos group that you cite, the 2 dimensional stripes dont really qualify as complex non-linearly generated pattern, at least not as Matthias Bertram would describe it in his study of the CO oxidation on Pt crystals (the process that happens in a car’s catalytic converter). He described the transition from complex patterns to parallel stripes as the loss of complexity and pattern and the imposition of uniformity. I guess that regular waves represent uniformity in an oscillating system. We have to look at the oscillations themselves and see if they are complex/nonlinear or simple. Again I’m not sure if I’ using the correct terms here.
I should emphasise that i dont think anyone is suggesting that chaos / non-linear pattern formation achieves a violation of the physical laws of themodynamics such as the Stefan-Boltzmann laws or conservation of energy. These laws of course apply to the system as a whole. Dynamic chaos affects the fine structure and dynamics of the system. My guess (it is little more than that) is that features such as the ENSO and other periodic localised oscillations might be emergent patterns from a non-linear / non-equilibrium system.
I cited in an earlier post the book “Deep Simplicity” by John Gribben – a good introduction to these pattern formation processes for the non-specialist. He emphasised the term “non-equilibrium”, that as a system is pushed further and further from equlilbrium is at a certain point tips into a regime on the border of chaos where complex and rich patterns arise spontaneously. This region is described by physicists as a “bifurcating” region where possible states branch and multiply and thus the system cannot be predicted along a single deterministic path.
In the context of atmosphere and ocean, it seems reasonable that there can never be equilibrium or even anything close to it. You have huge thermal gradient between the heated water in the tropics receiving the maximum solar heating, and the atmosphere also, and this energy imbalance between the tropics and poles must be redressed by oceanic currents and winds. (A world at equilibrium would be one of stagnant seas and no wind.)
Some of the resulting “complexity” comes from straighforward physical effects such as the Coriolis force. However there is some periodic forcing from natural cycles such as Milankovich cycles, possibly solar cycles, plus changes in atmosphere composition such as CO2 and resultant changes in heat budget, and in general oscillations of global termperature from whatever cause. So you have the ingredients of being far from equilibrium, periodic forcing, and the various forms of damping and dissipation from the fluid behaviour or the water and air. All lead to the expectation of non-equilibium pattern dynamics – at least that is the proposition.
There is a big danger here for those – such as myself – suggesting non-linear pattern formation as having a major role in climate and oceanic systems. Some on this site, myself included, have held forth on the subject of science needing to be testable and falsifiable – according to the writings of Carl Popper and others. But if one ascribes quasi-chaotic pattern formation as having a major role, how do you prove this or falsify it? One cant control the whole system experimentally as Bertram could with his CO oxidation system, or with a Belousov-Zhabotinsky type chemical sytem, or even corn starch in a bowl. So one is left with computer modelling – either of the whole system if one is very ambitious, or perhaps of a limited part of it. It would be interesting to see if a non-equilibrium pattern formation simulation could reproduce something similar to the ice age-interglacial flipping or the oceanic oscillations such as ENSO.

Thanks for the reply.
I am, at least to some degree, a controls engineer, so my pet peeves are a bit more peevish in this respect than average, I’d guess.
To me, the straightforward way of looking at things is something like this:
-The sun warms the earth and its atmosphere.
-The earth radiates back to space.
-The atmosphere absorbs some of this radiation because of molecular absorption (CO2, H2O vapor both absorb heavily in the IR).
-The resulting entrapment of surplus energy heats up the atmosphere, elevating the “greybody radiation” curve.
-Equilibrium.
There are a few things that I don’t understand, though. For instance, CO2 and H20 don’t entrap ALL of outgoing energy in their absorption bands, because the mean free path to the next photon interaction with one of those molecules is relatively long (because of the relatively low concentration of CO2 and H20 vapor), and eventually an N2 or O2 or other molecule will simply radiate photons of those wavelengths to space. Given that the atmosphere is 99+% N2 and O2, and about 0.25% H20 and CO2, the CO2 is going to simply slow down reradiation to space, and not present retention per se. That’s my guess, anyway. CO2 and H2O aren’t simply going to refrain from colliding with N2 and O2 molecules, once they’ve picked up some extra energy.
As for the danger of Earth becoming more Venus-like, well, our atmospheres (in terms of composition and pressure) and insolation levels are so different that comparison is meaningless. Even if every oxygen molecule in the atmosphere were to acquire a carbon atom (wildly improbable, and not envisioned by even the more catastrophic global-warming predictions), the mass of our atmosphere would increase 28%, which is a bit shy of the 9200% that it would take to make it anything at all like that of Venus.
Not your argument, possibly, but it’s what we see in the press rather frequently.

Slartibartfast:

There are a few things that I don’t understand, though. For instance, CO2 and H20 don’t entrap ALL of outgoing energy in their absorption bands, because the mean free path to the next photon interaction with one of those molecules is relatively long (because of the relatively low concentration of CO2 and H20 vapor), and eventually an N2 or O2 or other molecule will simply radiate photons of those wavelengths to space. Given that the atmosphere is 99+% N2 and O2, and about 0.25% H20 and CO2, the CO2 is going to simply slow down reradiation to space, and not present retention per se. That’s my guess, anyway. CO2 and H2O aren’t simply going to refrain from colliding with N2 and O2 molecules, once they’ve picked up some extra energy.

There is an aspect that you are missing here and it involves the fact that the greenhouse effect is actually subtler than the simple explanations of the greenhouse gases absorbing infrared radiation and re-radiating some of it back to Earth. At the end of the day, what turns out to be most important in determining the radiative balance is how much radiation gets emitted back to space. And, the way that greenhouse gases change that is that as you increase their amounts, the average level in the troposphere from which the radiation escapes into space rises. (You can imagine that a plot showing the number of IR “photons” that escape vs the level in the atmosphere will have a peak at some level because for IR emission low in the atmosphere, there is a large probability that the photon will be re-absorbed before it escapes into space and for IR emission very high in the atmosphere the radiative emission is lower because the temperature is colder. In between, there is a “sweet spot”, although obviously it is not that all photons that escape to space come from this level but just that the distribution has a maximum value at this level.) When the average level from which the emission into space occurs rises, that means the emission is occurring at a level at which the atmosphere is colder and hence, by the Stefan-Boltzmann Law, the power emitted is lower (because it is proportional to T^4).
See here for a historical discussion of how the understanding of this evolved during the mid-20th century: http://www.aip.org/history/climate/simple.htm#L_0623
You are right that the process is complicated because you have to consider the details of the spectra of emission and absorption and so forth. So, there is really no substitute to doing detailed atmospheric radiative transfer calculations to determine what the actual numerical value for the radiative forcing due to a given change in CO2 levels is. However, I don’t think that there is any serious disagreement in the scientific community in regards to what this value is (to within about 10-15% precision), as even “skeptic” scientists like Roy Spencer and Richard Lindzen don’t dispute this value, but instead dispute how the various atmospheric feedbacks then translate this into a certain temperature rise.

As for the danger of Earth becoming more Venus-like, well, our atmospheres (in terms of composition and pressure) and insolation levels are so different that comparison is meaningless.

Well, I won’t argue with your basic point that Earth and Venus are quite different. However, that doesn’t mean that we can’t learn anything from looking at what happened on Venus. And, it is also important to remember that we are observing Venus’s atmosphere after a runaway greenhouse effect occurred. I don’t know how much is known about the likely makeup of its atmosphere before this occurred.
But yes, Venus and Earth are quite different and most climate scientists seem to believe that a runaway effect on the Earth is not in-the-cards (at least for the sun at around its current luminosity). Jim Hansen does seem to believe that a runaway would be possible if we really aggressively use most of our fossil fuels but I haven’t seen him spell out his thinking in the scientific literature. (It seems to vaguely involve a notion that what has prevented this from ever occurring in the past were negative feedbacks in the carbon cycle due to geophysical processes [e.g., the drawing down of CO2 levels by chemical reactions that incorporate it into rocks] that occur on timescales that are too long to save us on the much shorter timescale over which we are releasing these stores of carbon back into the atmosphere.)

MattyS: All that I am saying is that the composition and density of the atmosphere on Venus is likely very different now than before the runaway greenhouse effect occurred. By the way, this Wikipedia article on the runaway greenhouse effect is good as a general reference and particularly for discussing the relevant differences between Venus and Earth: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runaway_greenhouse_effect

OK so I get the picture…
On Venus we know very clearly the climate history – an earlier Edenic period existed of apple trees and dwarfs and elves, but they lit too many fires so greenhouse warming somehow became runaway in their oddly linear world, and the planet got toasted as punishment for the sin of industry.
We know all this of course from all the spacecraft and astronauts that have landed on Venus, all the cores that have been taken and all those hardy bristlecone pines somehow still surviving to provide rings.
Our own planet earth of course is a different matter – here the history of climate is lost in the mists of time an unavailable to inform the present. The mediaeval warm period, the little ice age, the Roman and Holocene warm periods, Younger Dryas, ice ages, are all now abstract myths which it is blasphemous to mention or even think about. Instead we extrapolate climate confidently backwards from a handful of borehole estimations with exponentials tending to a straight line.
Yeah right!

Who says, and can prove, that there was ever a runaway on Venus? The CO2 burden there is quite possibly of ancient origin. The cloud cover on Venus is highly reflective sulphuric acid droplets, IIRC, so the mechanisms are hardly those of a simplistic CO2 greenhouse.
In any case, since the IR bands CO2 absorbs are such a small fraction of the total thermal radiative EM range, I just don’t see how it could possibly even be the “forcing driver” on Venus (much less Earth).

Since the absorption spectrum of CO2 is in one tiny tail of the total EM / IR band, I harbor fundamental doubt about the capacity of that gas to drive up temperature.
My prediction is that mature science will conclude that Venus’ temperature is the result of geophysical factors and convection effects, not radiative “trapping”, as per the GH hypothesis.
The first crucial question that needs answering, IMO, is: where did all the CO2 on Venus come from? Its atmosphere is about 100X as dense as Earth’s and CO2 here is 1/3,000 of the atmosphere, so the relative CO2 concentration on Venus is 100×3,000=300,000X that of Earth. That is a whole different scenario than any relevant to our situation.

thanks interesting article 🙂

Well, I’ve been referred to a paper by two German physicists that mathematically dismantles not only CO2 warming, but the entire greenhouse hypothesis. It’s written in math and Gerglish, but is readily understandable in all important respects.
http://arxiv.org/pdf/0707.1161v4
Falsification Of The Atmospheric CO2 Greenhouse Effects Within The Frame Of Physics
Version 4.0 (January 6, 2009)
Sample excerpt:

In case of partial differential equations more than the equations themselves the boundary conditions determine the solutions. There are so many different transfer phenomena, radiative transfer, heat transfer, momentum transfer, mass transfer, energy transfer, etc. and many types of interfaces, static or moving, between solids,
uids, gases, plasmas, etc. for which there does not exist an applicable theory, such that one even cannot write down the boundary conditions [176, 177].
In the “approximated” discretized equations artifcial unphysical boundary conditions are introduced, in order to prevent running the system into unphysical states. Such a “calculation”, which yields an arbitrary result, is no calculation in the sense of physics, and hence, in the sense of science. There is no reason to believe that global climatologists do not know these fundamental scientifc facts. Nevertheless, in their summaries for policymakers, global climatologists claim that they can compute the influence of carbon dioxide on the climates [of planets].
CO2 is irrelevant. There is no greenhouse warming.