IPCC Crushes Scientific Objectivity, 91-0.
By Roy W. Spencer, Ph. D.
Unquestionably, the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was formed to build the scientific case for humanity being the primary cause of global warming. Such a goal is fundamentally unscientific, as it is hostile to alternative hypotheses for the causes of climate change.
The most glaring example of this bias has been the lack of interest on the IPCC’s part in figuring out to what extent climate change is simply the result of natural, internal cycles in the climate system. In Chapter 9 of the latest (4th) IPCC report, entitled “Understanding and Attributing Climate Change”, you would think the issue of external versus internal forcing would be thoroughly addressed. But you would be wrong.
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?
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.
Thus, small changes in ocean circulation can lead to small changes in the Earth’s albedo (how much sunlight is reflected back to space), which in turn can lead to global warming or cooling. The IPCC’s view (which is never explicitly stated) that such changes in the climate system do not occur is little more than faith on their part.
The IPCC’s pundits like to claim that the published evidence for humanity causing warming greatly outweighs any published evidence against it. This appeal to majority opinion on their part is pretty selective, though. They had no trouble discarding hundreds of research papers supporting evidence for the Medieval Warm Period or the Little Ice Age when they so uncritically embraced the infamous “Hockey Stick” reconstructions of past temperature change.
Despite a wide variety of previous temperature proxies gathered from around the world (see figure below) that so clearly showed that centuries with global warming and cooling are the rule, not the exception, the Hockey Stick was mostly based upon some cherry-picked tree rings combined with the assumption that significant warming is a uniquely modern phenomenon.
As such, they rejected the prevailing “scientific consensus” in favor of a minority view that supported their desired outcome. I suspect that they do not even recognize their own hypocrisy.
As I have discussed before, the IPCC’s neglect of natural variability in the climate system ends up leading to circular reasoning on their part. They ignore the effect of natural cloud variations when trying to diagnose feedback, which then leads to overestimates of climate sensitivity. This, in turn, causes them to conclude that increasing carbon dioxide concentrations alone are sufficient to explain global warming, and so no natural forcings of climate change need be found.
But all they have done is reasoned themselves in a circle. By ignoring natural variability, they can end up claiming that natural variability does not exist. Admittedly, their position is internally consistent. But then, so is all circular reasoning.
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.
I don’t think the IPCC scientists are as opposed to this as are their self-appointed spokespersons, like Al Gore and numerous environmental writers in the media who get to over-simplify the climate issue without ever being corrected by the IPCC. Natural climate change continues to be the 800 lb gorilla in the room, and I suspect that some within the IPCC are slowly becoming aware of its existence.
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Scott A. Mandia (09:22:56)
I asked you a question about your statement, that the last thirty years warming is unprecedented in the last 2000 years, having shown that you are wrong. Why are you not answering it? I don’t want another appeal to authority I want FACTS to back up your assertion. You don’t have problem with facts in a scientific statement do you?
Your statement about conspiracy is the usual strawman nonsense bandied about by true alarmists here and at RC et al.
Very few people on here have ever alleged a widespread conspiracy amongst scientists. Why would you need to when there is a far simpler and almost certainly correct reason.
I will illustrate that reason by using the recent well observed phenomenom of vast numbers of highly educated financial specialists convincing themselves, governments and society in general that their use of clever financial instruments was the way to sustained wealth generation with no risk.
Do you think all these people were involved in a dishonest conspiracy? Of course not.
Now we can see the obvious flaws. Do you think that there weren’t significant numbers of these specialists who saw the potential problem at the time?
Why did they not speak out? A very small number did the rest kept quiet because it would not have been in their professional, financial and career interest to speak out against the ‘consensus’ or ‘authority’.
Do you think people in the scientific arena are not subject to the same human emotions?
No need to talk about conspiracy just a reliance on multiple examples in past history and the weakness of man.
Alan
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.
Don’t anybody kid yourself about the charter of the IPCC. The IPCC was not created to identify the cause of the observed warming in the late 20th century. The IPCC is a political body with the mission of selling the idea of man-made climate change through greenhouse gas emissions.
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?
Scott A. Mandia (07:38:13) :
1) Measured increases in the downward flux of LW radiation
2) Measure decreases in the top of atmosphere flux of outgoing LW radiation
“The most recent results indicate a slight trend towards more LW emission (consistent with a weakening of long wave cloud radiation forcing) but a
larger trend towards less SW reflection so as to produce a net gain of energy to
the Earth.” Translated – the overall “greenhouse effect” gets weaker as high humidity decreases but less cloud coverage is responsible for recent warming.
http://meteora.ucsd.edu/~jnorris/reprints/02_Norris%20and%20Slingo.pdf
4) Warmer overnight temps
Typical UHI feature
5) Polar amplification of temperature increase
There has been always 4x amplification of global trends in polar area, as in warming, so in cooling. It stays the same during 20th century. Greenland station with longest record:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/gistemp_station.py?id=431042500000&data_set=2&num_neighbors=1
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
“Huge increases” started after WWII and cooling continued till 1980. Not much correlation there.
8) Why the rate of warming in the past 30 years has not been observed in the past 2000 years
Even according to GISTEMP or hadCRUT, warming between 1910-1940 was steeper than 1980-2003. With SST not contaminated by UHI, warming in first half of century was twice as steep. Also individual station records show that the latter part of 20th century is nothing special:
http://blog.sme.sk/blog/560/195013/armaghcetssn.jpg
Easy one: political control of the “science” …but you knew that already.
Alan Millar (09:55:38) :
An Inquirer (10:11:21)
John Galt (10:35:00) :
Vincent (10:36:12) :
Well said all!
Scott A. Mandia (09:22:56) : .. 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, ..maybe the IPCC has it right and that is why there is little to no scientific backlash.
I presume you are a man of science? As a man of science how can you unquestioningly support the conclusions of an organisation which permits its scientists who research into Anthropogenic causes of global warming to also lead the assessment of that research.
As for there being no scientific backlash, you are wrong. As per the U. S. Senate Minority Report, over 700 prominent international scientists, including many current and former UN IPCC scientists, have now turned against the UN IPCC. This is up from the 400 scientists who were sceptical in 2007.
Reasons for scepticism in this is quoted Global temperatures failing to warm; Peer-reviewed studies predicting a continued lack of warming; a failed attempt to revive the discredited “Hockey Stick”; inconvenient developments and studies regarding rising CO2; the Sun; Clouds; Antarctica; the Arctic; Greenland’s ice; Mount Kilimanjaro; Causes of Hurricanes; Extreme Storms; Extinctions; Floods; Droughts; Ocean Acidification; Polar Bears; Extreme weather deaths; Frogs; lack of atmospheric dust; Malaria; the failure of oceans to warm and rise as predicted.
And among the wide-spread scepticism is noted: Russian scientists “rejected the very idea that carbon dioxide may be responsible for global warming”. An American Physical Society editor conceded that a “considerable presence” of scientific skeptics exists. An International team of scientists countered the UN IPCC, declaring: “Nature, Not Human Activity, Rules the Climate”. India Issued a report challenging global warming fears. International Scientists demanded the UN IPCC “be called to account and cease its deceptive practices,” and a canvass of more than 51,000 Canadian scientists revealed 68% disagree that global warming science is “settled.” A Japan Geoscience Union symposium survey in 2008 “showed 90 per cent of the participants do not believe the IPCC report.”
That presumes that there’s any such thing as “natural climate” to begin with.
Unless you define “natural climate” as “those things that we understand and can model”, but that makes the whole terminology kind of tautological, no? I mean, anything that’s not natural must be man-made, no?
Best just to stick with modeling what is, and assessing the usefulness of your models at predicting. Oh, and I’d also advise avoiding just tweaking parameters here and there to make the models work; that kind of thing is just to much cargo-cult science. The degree to which you have to twiddle the knobs to make the models fit with observed behaviors is the degree to which you don’t understand the physics.
I’ve done simulation before, and gone through the process of tweaking parameters, but when you get done tweaking, you have to connect some kind of physical process with the need for the tweaking. Otherwise, you have no idea why it was that the tweak was called for in the first place.
From the article:
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.
This is a little off topic but I wondered if anyone here knows the source of the temperature data used for the 1903-1950s section of the 90S-64S Zone GIStemp Zonal Annual mean Temperature Anomalies? as found here:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata/ZonAnn.Ts.txt
The number of stations in this zone (Antarctic) is very limited and stations in the ‘actually used’ list don’t commence reporting until the 1950s.
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/station_data/station_list.txt
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.
Tom in Florida (05:04:56) :
> In 1968 I wrote my very first program as an exercise in my first high school computer class. We were using Focal. (anyone remember that language!).
Yes! I never used it, my main exposure, IIRC, was working with someone
who wrote a PDP-10 version while we were implementing some fundamental
protocols on the ARPAnet, the predecessor to the Internet.
BTW, while the algebraic “proof” that 1 + 1 + 1 = 5 can be expressed
as a computer program, the program should fail before it reports that
conclusion. Dividing by (x – y) will fail.
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
TerryS (03:24:06) that can be used to “prove” that any number is equal to 5/3 or 3/5 of any other number by varying the value of x.
Here is another one: 3 friends have a meal at a restaurant. The waiter brings them a bill for $30, so the friends each fork out $10. But when the waiter goes to the counter the cashier discovers a mistake in the bill which has only come to $25 and gives the waiter 5 dollars to hand back to the customers.
The waiter figures that 5 dollars is difficult to divide among 3 guys and figures they would be happy to get any money back, so he hands them back a dollar each and pockets 2 dollars.
So the friends have now paid $10 – $1 = $9 each, Total $9×3 = $27
The waiter has $2 in his pocket. $27 + $2 = $29
But originally they paid $30. So where has the 1 dollar gone?
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.
Dr. Tim Ball had a series of articles in the Canada Free Press regarding the history of the IPCC and its objectives.
————————————————————-
Environmental extremism must be put in its place in the climate debate
http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/1272
‘Medieval Environmentalists’ attack CO2 in their efforts to derail civilization
http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/1489
How the world was misled about global warming and now climate change
http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/2704
How UN structures were designed to prove human CO2 was causing global warming
http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/2840
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 (05:06:25) :
that is all that is needed to explain the twentieth century warming trend. So, I don’t understand why the IPCC are so quick to dismiss “internal processes”.
Look at its name to find a possible answer. It is a government panel. That dismissal could be done for political, and power, reasons.
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.
Thank the Gods that not even Al Gore-levels of sea level rise will have much effect on my beautiful fjords!
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”.
@ur momisugly tallbloke (08:56:12) :
The models are far from perfect and will never be perfect but they are very good at many things and getting better all the time. Here is what climate models do well:
See: http://www2.sunysuffolk.edu/mandias/global_warming/climate_models_accuracy.html
1. 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.
2. Models now being used in applications by major climate modeling groups better simulate seasonally varying patterns of precipitation, mean sea level pressure and surface air temperature than the models relied on by these same groups at the time of the IPCC Third Assessment Repport (TAR).
3. Model global temperature projections made over the last two decades have also been in overall agreement with subsequent observations over that period.
4. Some AOGCMs can now simulate important aspects of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO).
5. The ability of AOGCMs to simulate extreme events, especially hot and cold spells, has improved.
6. Atmosphere-Ocean General Circulation Models are able to simulate extreme warm temperatures, cold air outbreaks and frost days reasonably well.
7. Models also reproduce other observed changes, such as the faster increase in nighttime than in daytime temperatures and the larger degree of warming in the Arctic known as polar amplification.
8. Models account for a very large fraction of the global temperature pattern: the correlation coefficient between the simulated and observed spatial patterns of annual mean temperature is typically about 0.98 for individual models. This supports the view that major processes governing surface temperature climatology are represented with a reasonable degree of fidelity by the models.
9. The models, as a group, clearly capture the differences between marine and continental environments and the larger magnitude of the annual cycle found at higher latitudes, but there is a general tendency to underestimate the annual temperature range over eastern Siberia. In general, the largest fractional errors are found over the oceans (e.g., over much of tropical South America and off the east coasts of North America and Asia). These exceptions to the overall good agreement illustrate a general characteristic of current climate models: the largest-scale features of climate are simulated more accurately than regional- and smaller-scale features.
10. Models predict the small, short-term global cooling (and subsequent recovery) which has followed major volcanic eruptions, such as that of Mt. Pinatubo in 1991
11. Simulation of extratropical cyclones has improved. Some models used for projections of tropical cyclone changes can simulate successfully the observed frequency and distribution of tropical cyclones.
12. The models capture the dominant extratropical patterns of variability including the Northern and Southern Annular Modes, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, the Pacific-North American and Cold Ocean-Warm Land Patterns.
13. With a few exceptions, the models can simulate the observed zonal mean of the annual mean outgoing LW within 10 W/m2 (an error of around 5%) The models reproduce the relative minimum in this field near the equator where the relatively high humidity and extensive cloud cover in the tropics raises the effective height (and lowers the effective temperature) at which LW radiation emanates to space.
14. The seasonal cycle of the outgoing LW radiation pattern is also reasonably well simulated by models.
15. The models capture the large-scale zonal mean precipitation differences, suggesting that they can adequately represent these features of atmospheric circulation. Moreover, there is some evidence that models have improved over the last several years in simulating the annual cycle of the precipitation patterns.
16. Models also simulate some of the major regional characteristics of the precipitation field, including the major convergence zones and the maxima over tropical rain forests, although there is a tendency to underestimate rainfall over the Amazon.
17. Confidence has also increased in the ability of GCMs to represent upper-tropospheric humidity and its variations, both free and forced. Together, upper-tropospheric observational and modeling evidence provide strong support for a combined water vapor/lapse rate feedback of around the strength found in GCMs (approximately 1 W/m2 oC-1, corresponding to around a 50% amplification of global mean warming).
@ur momisugly Alan Millar (08:52:47) : and Alan Millar (09:55:38) :
My second post was sent before your reply was sent through. Remember that this blog is moderated and there can be many posts in a queue before being posted. Comparing financial modeling to physics modeling is apples and oranges. Social sciences play a huge role in financial modeling. Just look at how dumb most investors are and how almost nobody can beat an index fund over 10-15 years. Modeling climate is pure physics – no irrational emotions as forcing mechanisms.
I definitely chose the wrong word. RATE was NOT what I was thinking but it was what I typed. I meant MAGNITUDE. The last few decades have all been warmer than the ones before and have been the warmest in 2,000 years. I choose to put my faith in Mann et al. (2008) in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America and Kaufmann et al. (2009) in Science over that of Loehle’s reconstruction published in Energy & Environment. If Loehle was serious about his work he would have published in a respected journal.
Mann et al. shows us that the last century and especially the most recent decades are indeed unprecedented in the past 2000 years. Kaufmann et al. shows a 2000 year cooling trend reversed during the 20th century, with four of the five warmest decades of our 2000-year-long reconstruction occurring between 1950 and 2000.
Regarding the climate warming in the early 1900s it is suggested that volcanism and a weak sun led to cooling just before that period and a lull in volcanic forcing and a stronger sun caused at least ½ of the warming during that time with the other half (or less) being AGW.
See:
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/publications/HCTN/HCTN_19.pdf
http://www.springerlink.com/content/r2n447034x15v087/
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2008/10/19/volcanic-lull/
@ur momisugly Vincent (09:19:26) :
See: http://www2.sunysuffolk.edu/mandias/global_warming/greenhouse_gases.html for my comments about my points #1, #2, and #3.
#4: 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.
#5: See the Kaufmann et al. paper to see why I am not just taling about a few years.
#6: I am unsure of your point here.
#7: See my reply to tallbloke. Natural cycles are not removed from models.
@ur momisugly An Inquirer (10:11:21) :
#3: Not the upper stratosphere where the greenhosue signature really stands out. Randel et al. (2009) updated the analysis of observed stratospheric temperature variability and trends on the basis of satellite, radiosonde, and lidar observations. Their research reveals that temperature changes in the lower stratosphere show cooling of ~0.5 K/decade over much of the globe for 1979–2007 while in the middle and upper stratosphere there was mean cooling of 0.5–1.5 K/decade during 1979–2005, with the greatest cooling in the upper stratosphere near 40–50 km. This data is consistent with increased greenhouse gases.
#4: Again, I have read both sides of the UHI issue and I do not see it as a major issue.
#5: See Kaufmann et al.
#6: The PDO? How does an osciallting PDO explain an upward warming trend? See:
http://www2.sunysuffolk.edu/mandias/global_warming/images/pdo_temp.gif
#7: See previous comments above. No way PDO fits the trend and no way these things can explain the anomolies today comered with the past 2000 years.
The scientific analyses I have seen suggest that observed feedback is in the opposite direction of model assumptions.
I suggest that these are a very tiny percentage of the analyses.
@ur momisugly Vincent (10:36:12) :
See: http://www.eecg.utoronto.ca/~prall/climate/climate_authors_table.html
See: http://www2.sunysuffolk.edu/mandias/global_warming/is_global_warming_hype.html
As stated above: My second post was sent before replies to my first post appeared. Remember that this blog is moderated and there can be many posts in a queue before being posted.
@ur momisugly Juraj V. (11:41:27) :
#1 and #2: See : http://www2.sunysuffolk.edu/mandias/global_warming/greenhouse_gases.html for my comments about my points #1, #2
#5: See Kaufmann et al.
#6: ½ of the greenhouse gas emissions came after the mid 1970s. Also, due to the pollution before clean air legislation, solar dimming masked the greenhoiuse warming until the 1980s.
#8: Yes, I should not have said RATE. See my earlier correction.
Sources not directly listed above are listed here:
http://www2.sunysuffolk.edu/mandias/global_warming/works_cited.html
Signing off on this thread now. Have fun.
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/
BTW:
http://www.aaas.org/news/releases/2009/media/1021climate_letter.pdf
Letter to US Senators by several science agencies.