Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
[see Updates at the end of this post]
Science is what we use to explain anomalies, to elucidate mysteries, to shed light on unexplained occurrences. For example, once we understand how the earth rotates, there is no great need for a scientific explanation of the sun rising in the morning. If one day the sun were to rise in the afternoon, however, that is an anomaly which would definitely require a scientific explanation. But there is no need to explain the normal everyday occurrences. We don’t need a new understanding if there is nothing new to understand.
Hundreds of thousands of hours of work, and billions of dollars, have been expended trying to explain the recent variations in the climate, particularly the global temperature. But in the rush to find an explanation, a very important question has been left unasked:
Just exactly what unusual, unexpected temperature anomaly are we trying to explain?
The claim is made over and over that humans are having an effect on the climate. But where is the evidence that there is anything that even needs explanation? Where is the abnormal phenomenon? What is it that we are trying to make sense of, what is the unusual occurrence that requires a novel scientific explanation?
There are not a lot of long-term temperature records that can help us in this regard. The longest one is the Central England Temperature record (CET). Although there are problems with the CET (see Sources below), including recent changes in the stations used to calculate it that have slightly inflated the modern temperatures, it is a good starting point for an investigation of whether there is anything happening that is abnormal. Here is that record:
Figure 1. The Central England Temperature Record. Blue line is the monthly temperature in Celsius. Red line is the average temperature. Jagged black line is the 25-year trailing trend, in degrees per century.
Now, where in that record is there anything which is even slightly abnormal? Where is the anomaly that the entire huge edifice of the AGW hypothesis is designed to elucidate? The longest sustained rise is from about 1680 to 1740. That time period also has the steepest rise. The modern period, on the other hand, is barely above the long-term trend despite urban warming. There is nothing unusual about the modern period in any way.
OK, so there’s nothing to explain in the CET. How about another long record?
One of the world’s best single station long-term records is that of the Armagh Observatory in Ireland. It has been maintained with only a couple minor location changes for over 200 years. Figure 2 shows the Armagh record.
Figure 2. Temperature record for Armagh University. Various colored lines as in Figure 1.
We find the same thing in this record as in the CET. The fastest rise was a long, long time ago. The modern rise is once again insignificant. Where in all of this is anything that requires billions of dollars to explain?
Finally, what about the global record? Here, you don’t have to take my word for it. A much chastened Phil Jones (the disgraced former Director of the CRU of email fame), in an interview with the BBC on Friday, February 12, 2010, answered a BBC question as follows:
Do you agree that according to the global temperature record used by the IPCC, the rates of global warming from 1860-1880, 1910-1940 and 1975-1998 were identical?
An initial point to make is that in the responses to these questions I’ve assumed that when you talk about the global temperature record, you mean the record that combines the estimates from land regions with those from the marine regions of the world. CRU produces the land component, with the Met Office Hadley Centre producing the marine component.
Temperature data for the period 1860-1880 are more uncertain, because of sparser coverage, than for later periods in the 20th Century. The 1860-1880 period is also only 21 years in length. As for the two periods 1910-40 and 1975-1998 the warming rates are not statistically significantly different (see numbers below).
I have also included the trend over the period 1975 to 2009, which has a very similar trend to the period 1975-1998.
So, in answer to the question, the warming rates for all 4 periods are similar and not statistically significantly different from each other.
So in fact, according to Phil Jones (who strongly believes in the AGW hypothesis) there is nothing unusual about the recent warming either. It is not statistically different from two earlier modern periods of warming. Since these warming periods were before the modern rise in CO2, greenhouse gases cannot have been responsible for those rises.
So my question remains unanswered … where is the anomaly? Where is the unusual occurrence that we are spending billions of dollars trying to explain?
The answer is, there is no unusual warming. There is no anomaly. There is nothing strange or out of the ordinary about the recent warming. It is in no way distinguishable from earlier periods of warming, periods that we know were not due to rising CO2. There is nothing in the record that is in any way different from the centuries-long natural fluctuations in the global climate.
In other words, we have spent billions of dollars and wasted years of work chasing a chimera, a will-of-the-wisp. This is why none of the CO2 explanations have held water … simply because there is nothing unusual to explain.
SOURCES:
CET:
http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadcet/data/download.html
ARMAGH:
ADJUSTMENTS TO THE CET:
http://www.anenglishmanscastle.com/archives/004482.html
JONES BBC INTERVIEW:http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8511670.stm
Jones also makes the interesting argument in the interview that the reason he believes that recent warming is anthropogenic (human-caused) is because climate models can’t replicate it … in other words, he has absolutely no evidence at all, he just has the undeniable fact that our current crop of climate models can’t model the climate. Seems to me like that’s a problem with the models rather than a problem with the climate, but hey, what do I know, I was born yesterday …
[UPDATE 1] Further evidence that nothing abnormal is happening is given by the individual US state record high temperatures. Here are the number of US state record high temperatures per decade, from the US National Climate Data Center (NCDC):
Figure 3. US state high temperature records, by decade. In the period 1930-1940, twenty of the fifty US states had their highest recorded temperature.
As you can see, the recent decades have not had record-beating high temperatures, nor are they unusual or abnormal in any way. Nearly half of the high temperature records were set back in the 1930-1940 decade.
[UPDATE 2] Here is another look at the lack of any abnormalities in climate data. I will add more as they come up. This is data on snow extext, from the Rutgers University Global Snow Lab:
Figure 4. Snow cover variation, Northern Hemisphere. Transparent blue line shows the month-by-month cover, and the red line is the average snow cover.
So, nothing to see here. There is no evidence that the climate has gone off course. There is no evidence of the claimed reduction in snow cover which is supposed to provide a positive feedback to warming. In fact, the surprising thing is how little the snow cover has changed over the last forty years.
[UPDATE 3] We often hear about the vanishing polar sea ice. Usually, however, people only look at half of the picture, Arctic sea ice. Although you wouldn’t know it from the scare stories, we do have a South Pole. Here is the record of global sea ice, 1979-2006
Figure 5. Global ice area variation. Blue line shows the month-by-month area, and the red line is the average area. DATA SOURCE
This illustrates the non-intuitive nature of climate. As the global temperature was climbing from 1985 until 1998, global sea ice was increasing. Since then it has decreased, and currently is where we were at the start of the satellite record. Variation in the average is ±2%. Nothing unusual here.
[UPDATE 4] Another oft-mentioned item is tropical cyclones. Here is the record of Accumulated Cyclone Energy, for both the Globe and and Northern Hemisphere, from Ryan Maue .
Figure 6. Accumulated Cyclone Energy. Upper line is global, lower line is Northern Hemisphere. Area between lines is Southern Hemisphere
As you can see, there is nothing out of the ordinary in the accumulated cyclone energy either. It goes up … it comes down. Nature is like that.
[UPDATE 5] Arctic temperatures are often cited as being anomalous. Here’s the record for Alaska;
Figure 7. Alaska Temperature Average from First Order Observing Stations. DATA SOURCE .
The Alaskan temperature is regulated by the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO). The PDO shifted from the cool phase to the warm phase around 1976 [typo corrected, was incorrectly listed as 1986], and has recently switched back to the cool phase. As you can see, other than the step changes due to the PDO, there is little variation in the Alaska temperatures.
[UPDATE 6] There has been much discussion of the effect of rising temperatures on rainfall. Here is the CRU TS3 global precipitation record:
Figure 8. Global Precipitation, from CRU TS3 1° grid. DATA SOURCE
As in all of the records above, there is nothing at all anomalous in the recent rainfall record. The average varies by about ± 2%. There is no trend in the data.
[UPDATE 7] People keep claiming that hurricanes (called “cyclones” in the Southern Hemisphere) have been rising. They claim that damage from hurricanes in the US have been going up. Here is data on hurricane damage:
Figure 9. Normalized US Hurricane losses, in 2009 dollars. SOURCE
The figure above shows normalized US hurricane losses for 1900 to 2009. It shows an estimate of what hurricane damages would be if each hurricane season took place in 2009. The dark line shows the linear best fit from Excel. Obviously, there is no trend. This makes sense as there has also been no trend in U.S. landfall frequencies or intensities over this period (in fact, depending on start date there is evidence for a slight but statistically significant decline, source in PDF).
In terms of global tropical cyclone frequency, it was concluded that there was no significant change in global tropical storm or hurricane numbers from 1970 to 2004, nor any significant change in hurricane numbers for any individual basin over that period, except for the Atlantic (discussed above). Landfall in various regions of East Asia26 during the past 60 years, and those in the Philippines during the past century, also do not show significant trends.
[UPDATE 8] You’d think, from all of the shouting about the greenhouse radiation, that we would have seen some change in it over the last few decades. Here is NOAA data on average outgoing (from the earth to space) longwave (greenhouse) radiation (OLR).
Figure 10. Global Outgoing Longwave Radiation. NOAA Interpolated OLR
Change in the average OLR over the period of record is less than ± 1%, and change since 1980 is only ± 0.5%. The current average value is the same as in 1976.
[UPDATE 9] OK, how about droughts? After all, droughts are supposed to be one of the terrible things that accompany warming, and the earth has warmed over the last century. Here’s the Palmer Drought Severity Index for that time span, 1901-2002:
Figure 11. Palmer Dourght Severity Index. CRU self-calibrating PDSI Once again, despite going up some and down some, we’ve ended up just where we started.
[UPDATE 10] More on the Arctic. From Polyakov et al ., we have this:
Figure 12. Arctic Temperature Anomaly . DATA SOURCE
The study used temperature stations from all around the shore of the Arctic Ocean, plus buoys and ice stations. It covered the area north of the Arctic Circle, that is to say the entire Arctic.
This matches an analysis I did last year of the Nordic countries. Here is a result from that study.
Figure 13. Nordic Land Temperature Anomaly. Original caption says “I used the NORDKLIM dataset available here . I removed the one marine record from “Ship M”. To avoid infilling where there are missing records, I took the “first difference” of all available records for each year and averaged them. Then I used a running sum to calculate the average anomaly. I did not remove cities or adjust for the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect.”
Note that, as we would expect, the temperature of the Nordic Countries is similar to that of the Arctic as a whole. This adds confidence to the results. I show the trends for the same intervals as in Fig. 12.
Again, there is nothing out of the ordinary here. The recent Arctic warming is often held up as evidence for human influence on the climate. The data shows the Arctic warming from 1902-1938 was longer and stronger than the recent warming. There is nothing for CO2 to explain.
Figure 14. Changes in storms in Lund and Stockholm, Sweden. Increasing values shows increasing storms.
About this graph, the authors say:
(1) There is no significant overall long-term trend common to all indices in cyclone activity in the North Atlantic and European region since the Dalton minimum.
(2) The marked positive trend beginning around 1960 ended in the mid-1990s and has since then reversed. This positive trend was more an effect of a 20th century minimum in cyclone activity around 1960, rather than extraordinary high values in 1990s. Both the 1960s minimum and the 1990s maximum were within the long-term variability.
(3) Because the period between the 1960s minima and the 1990s maxima spans a substantial part of the period covered by most reanalysis datasets, any analysis relying solely on such data is likely to find trends in cyclone activity and related measures.
Can’t be much clearer than that. There’s no change in North Atlantic storminess.
[UPDATE 12] More on rainfall, this time extreme rainfall and floods. I took the data from Trend detection in river flow series: 1. Annual maximum flow, and used it to compare record river flows by decade. Here are those results:
Figure 15. Maximum River Flow Index for US, European, and Australian rivers.
The math on this one was more complex than the record state temperatures. The river records are of different lengths, and they don’t span the same time periods. Of course, this affects the odds of getting a record in a given year.
For example, if a river record is say only ten years long, the random chance of any year being the maximum is one in ten. For the longest record in the dataset above, it is one in 176. In addition, the number of river records available in any year varies. To adjust for these differences, I took the odds of the record not being set in that particular year for each stream. This is (1 – 1/record length). I multiplied together all of those (1-1/len) odds for all the records available in that year to give me an overall odds of that year not being a record.
Finally, I took the average of those overall odds for the decade, and multiplied it by the actual count of records in that year. This gave me the maximum river flow index shown above. If there were lots of short records in a given decade, we’d be more likely to get a record by chance, so the record count in that decade is accordingly reduced. On the other hand, if there were only a few long records in that decade, there’s not much chance of a record being set randomly in that decade, so the count would be reduced less.
As you can see, there is no sign of a recent increase in the adjusted number of records. Or as the authors of the study say:
The analysis of annual maximum flows does not support the hypothesis of ubiquitous growth of high flows. Although 27 cases of strong, statistically significant increase were identified by the Mann-Kendall test, there are 31 decreases as well, and most (137) time series do not show any significant changes (at the 10% level).
Once again, we see no sign of the changes in climate predicted by the UN IPCC. What were the changes they predicted?
Figure 16. Observed and Projected Changes from the UN IPCC Third Assessment Report.
As you can see above, there is no increase in extreme drought, precipitation, extreme high temperatures, or cyclone events.
[UPDATE 13] Oh, yeah, a pet peeve of mine. You know how they always say “Yeah, but nine out of the last ten years have been among the ten warmest years of the record”, as though that proved that the last ten years was an unusual, anomalous time?
The trouble with this argument is that in a time of rising temperatures, that is often true. The temperature is rising, so where would you expect the warmest years to be?
How often is it true? Thanks for asking, here’s the data from the GISS temperature record .
Figure 16. Number of “Top Ten” years in the GISS global temperature record up to that point that occurred in the ten years previous to a given year.
So yes, nine of the last ten years were in the top ten years in the record … but that was true three times in the 1940’s. So once again, there is nothing unusual about the recent warming.
[Edited to Add] I got to thinking about the IPCC WG1 report, which is the science report. People always claim that it contains nothing but science, and none of it has been overthrown. So I pulled up the Summary for Policymakers. Under the second section, called “Direct Observations of Climate Change”, the very first item says (emphasis mine):
Eleven of the last twelve years (1995–2006) rank among the 12 warmest years in the instrumental record of global surface temperature9 (since 1850). The updated 100-year linear trend (1906 to 2005) of 0.74°C [0.56°C to 0.92°C] is therefore larger than the corresponding trend for 1901 to 2000 given in the TAR of 0.6°C [0.4°C to 0.8°C].
Since the claim was slightly different than the one I analyzed above, I went back and looked at the top twelve. Here they are:
Figure 17. Number of “Top Twelve” years in the GISS global temperature record up to that point that occurred in the twelve years previous to a given year.
Once again, nothing unusual … yes, the earth has been warming, but not in any unusual or anomalous way.
Next, there is no “therefore” in the comparison of the trends. The mere fact that a number of the warmest years were in the last 12 does not guarantee an increase in the trend. If the post 2000 trend continued to increase regularly and very slightly, there would always be 12 of the warmest years in the last 12 … but the 100 year trend would steadily decrease.
[UPDATE 14] The predicted acceleration of sea level rise is one of the favorites of those who want to scare people about CO2. Since 1992, sea level has been measured by satellite. Here is the record of sea level rise over that period:
Figure 18. TOPEX satellite sea level data. The satellite measures the sea level rise using radar. DATA SOURCE
As you can see, rather than accelerating, sea level rise has been slowing down for the past few years. Another inconvenient truth …
[UPDATE 15] Extreme weather events are a perennial favorite among the forecast ills from purported climate change. I found good data on the maximum three day rainfall totals for eight areas on the US Pacific Coast. The areas are Western Washington, Northwest Oregon, Southwest Oregon, Northwest California, North Central California, West Central California, Southwest California, and Southern California. For each record, I ranked the results, and averaged them across the 8 records. This gave me a ranking index showing which years had the most extreme events over the entire region. Fig. 19 shows the results, with larger numbers showing higher ranked years (those with more extreme rainfall events).
Figure 19. Extreme rainfall events, averaged over eight US Pacific Coast climate zones DATA SOURCE
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anna v. 6:55:56. Please see what David Goldman, AKA Spengler, has revealed about an email from Greece. Please tell me you’ll be alright.
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Brilliant work, Mr. Eschenbach. It is exactly what must be understood by all in the climate debate today. It is heartening to see that a chastened Phil Jones now admits that the science is not settled, that the Hockey Stick has been overthrown. Jones might be the crack in the wall that lets some light into the Alarmists’ fortress.
The two temp records from Ireland and England do show little temperature increases, as calculated by degrees per century.
Phil Jones wasn’t asked a question about temperature increases in degrees per century, based upon the worldwide record. Jones was asked and answered a different question about whether worldwide temperatures increased at similar rates in several different decadal time frames.
The rate of temperature increase can be statistically no different from each other for these decadal trends, while also having a worldwide temperature record increase at a greater amount per century than the two island records (Ireland and England). I would expect that sites strongly affected by ocean temps would warm more slowly than sites not so affected.
So if Jones had been asked about worldwide warming per century, I think his answer would have been a higher number than for the two island records. That would likely have been a legitimate answer, based upon the existing records, as interpreted by UAE, NASA, HADCRU, UK met office, etc.
The comeback to that would have been: yes, but have those records been adequately corrected for heat island effects, station movement, etc.?
So that is the question for science — what is the worldwide temperature trend when we have adequate coverage, have appropriate correction for heat island and local effects, and don’t use temperature records from several hundred miles away as a proxy for a missing station.
http://pub41.bravenet.com/forum/static/show.php?usernum=3444295554&frmid=18&msgid=854577&cmd=show
Jim Masterson tried a post here but posted at Numberwatch instead.
Seems he has been tracking the Death valley temperature data.
What is interesting is that he detects the Hand of Hansen post 2003.
How many strategies do these “climate scientists” have?
1) manipulate the data wih steo function corrections
2) misrepresent the data; definition of Rural vs Urban, and with proxies, mix in instrument data where the proxy data doesn’t confomr to the theory (but real instrument data or value added?)
3) selectively exclude surface temperature stations where, presumably, the manipulation would be too obviously unjustified e.g. high latitude and high altitude.
4)…? what other tricks do they have?
How do they keep it all straight?
“Henry chance (06:59:39) :
Any and all rain in the southwest from Texas to LA are now the anomaly
Joe Romm and NOAA say drought is now permanent.
http://climateprogress.org/2009/01/26/noaa-climate-change-irreversible-1000-years-drought-dust-bowls/
”
From the linked press release:
“The authors relied on measurements as well as many different models to support the understanding of their results.”
“Relied on” is funny, neurolinguistic programming speak: implies reliability where there is only fantasy. Kudos to Solomon, seems to be a great fairy tale inventor. I can make a model tell any story i like as well but unfortunately i’m not a ruthless cheat with government grants to back me up. NOAA is a sick joke.
From Richard Telford (06:36:37):
2) The decline in atmospheric O2 tracks the rise in CO2. This is expected only if the CO2 derives from combustion.
3) The oceans are undersaturated and are absorbing CO2 rather than releasing it.
I’m an engineer, not a chemist, but I I have some trouble with these statements.
With respect to 2), I’d like to see data or some other evidence that atmospheric O2 is declining. This doesn’t make any sense to be, as increasing atmospheric CO2 creates a more favorable environment for plant life, which in turn generates more O2. Also, the percentage of CO2 in the atmosphere is insignificant compared to the percentage of O2 so I don’t know how you could detect a “combustion signature” in atmospheric O2 anyway.
I’m really having trouble wrapping my mind around 3). The oceans may not be saturated, but they are more than likely in equilibrium (maybe I’m getting equilibrium and saturation confused). Chemistry class was a long time ago, but I remember that the solubility of gasses in liquids increases as the liquid temperature decreases. So, warmer oceans mean lower solubility. Wouldn’t the sea water give up some of the dissolved CO2 to adjust to the new equilibrium point? Looking at it another way, since the oceans aren’t saturated (i.e. capable of dissolving more CO2 at their current temperature than what is already there), why wouldn’t the atmospheric CO2 decline towards zero until saturation is reached? Obviously it doesn’t…the CO2 content simply adjusts to the new equilibrium point.
Statement 1) smells funny to me, also, but I don’t have the background to evaluate it thoroughly. I’d have to question what is so unique about the C12/C13 ratio from anthropogenic sources vs. natural sources.
DirkH (05:19:20) :
“With that kind of money you could develop fusion power”
I do mean fusion. Wind power is a crock and the best way for us to get solar power would probably be a space-based solution of transmitting power from as near as possible to the Sun to receivers on Earth. I don’t think anyone has put any worthwhile research into that because wireless power transmission is still in its infancy.
“Carbon markets are artificial and only good for all kinds of crookery.”
If you read what I wrote I specifically implied that carbon trading should be between very rich and very poor individuals as a one-to-one transaction with no market for anyone else to take advantage of. Carbon trading wouldn’t exist for anyone else. There should be no emission trading schemes for companies either. It achieves nothing and the consumer loses out.
Hi Willis
Great article (again)
I collect many of the historic temperature records here and have analysed some of them under the ‘articles’ section.
http://climatereason.com/LittleIceAgeThermometers/
I hope to add another 6 or so in the next week. If anyone can point me to pre 1850 records please let me know.
Like Willis I can see nothing at all out of the ordinary. Temperatures rose to the peak of the MWP, dropped sharply during the initial period of the LIA and have recovered ever since, but with numerous peaks and troughs.
The decade around 1730 appears remarkably similar to the last decade if contemporary observations and written records of that period are looked at in conjunction with the instrumental records.
Temperarures have risen slightly since the depths of the LIttle Ice Age. Who knew?
Thank our lucky stars we are living in a relatively benign period of climate-we don’t know what is around the corner.
tonyb
Orson writes:
“In the US, “Bill Nye the science guy” was heard to proclaim on MSNBC that of course recent epic snow storms blanketing the 120 millions in the Northeast are because of global warming! Why? Because added energy (from ACO2) HAS to go somewhere~”
Of course the energy *does* go somewhere. That somewhere is hot air coming from certain mouths.
One way to try and resurrect the CO2-warming hypothesis is to throw the ice core CO2 records partly under the bus. By assuming actual CO2 measurements from the 1800’s are accurate (rather than being ignored), the ice core CO2 proxy record can be adjusted to conform. Then, with the assumption that the ice core CO2 /measured CO2 correlation is maintained further back in time, and with additional adjustments, the CO2 variation in the past can be remade to support the CO2-warming hypothesis. I expect to see this line of reasoning start to show up in the next few years.
In the run-up to Copenhagen, prior to Climategate, we saw the “Three Legged Stool” of anthropogenic global climate change exposed for those capable of seeing it without any assistance from the bootleggers, the baptists or the media.
Leg 1: Zero carbon emissions (”350″, Gavin Schmidt)
Leg 2: Zero animal husbandry (Ban Ki Moon)
Leg 3: Population Controls (John Holdren, Cass Sunstein)
Seat: World Government (EU President, early Copenhagen draft)
The stool above would arguably have been the most expensive piece of truly ugly furniture in the history of the world, had it been assembled.
Perhaps we should all thank Phil Jones, Kevin Trenberth, Kieth Briffa, Tom Wigley, Mike Mann and the rest of the “Team” for their valuable assistance in preventing its assembly. We are truly blessed!
Spector
It looks like they are trying to say ‘OK we can’t prove that the danger of anthropogenic catastrophic climate change is real, but in view of the dire series of catastrophes we have been taught to fear, we must insist, in an abundance of caution, that everyone do all we think necessary to prevent them and save the world unless you can prove beyond any irrational doubt that this is not the case.>
I think you just summed it up. In primitive tribes, when the volcano erupted, the shaman said the spirits were angry and must be appeased. Throw in a virgin. Every year that the volcano didn’t erupt was now proof that throwing in a virgin prevented eruptions. If the volcano DID erupt again, that was proof that they weren’t throwing in ENOUGH virgins, so go get more. The shaman wasn’t interested in determining the link, if any, between virgins and eruptions. He was interested in fitting the data to his theory so he could maintain his position as shaman.
Mr Eschenbach,
Thanks for your clear simple straightforward demonstration that the current warming in not unprecedented. It would be helpful if you could also show how the Met Office adjusted the historical record to produce the graph that rw (5:21:15) refers to, http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadcet/ that appears to show unprecedented warming.
I have been on Tim’s Website Deltoid and engaged those found there with some irrefutable facts..
I got called a Moron, Stupid, Idiot, Denier, a buffoon, a denier of Science and on and on..
I was summarily dismissed as a kook. I tried to debate those found there and was told I would not understand the Science..
I am an ENVIRONMENTALIST.. My DEGREES are in Environmental Sciences.. I have been in this field for 20 years and am considered one of the experts in the field of Environmental Compliance. I am one of few who hold International Certifications and have taught for years on the subject. I work Superfund sites.. I assist Industry and Educational facilities clean up and stop polluting the Environment.. Some of the worst polluters are “Scientists”. I work every day with these types trying to get them to stop pouring Lab Compounds down the drain.
I challenged them..
What do you do? Talk.. Theorize.. Talk some more…
All I got was abuse.. You see they can’t handle descent. These types want to shut you up and shut you down..
I did make one mistake I linked one source from WUWT and I was immediately jumped upon by everyone. They obviously do not much like those found here.
The issue I have with them (Deltoid and believers) is simple.. They feel they are above it all. They’re Scientist after all. They know more and are better therefore to decide what is best for the rest of us. The fundamental flaw with that thinking is GIGO.. Garbage In Garbage Out. If their fundamental basis for understanding AGW is flawed then their output would therefore be flawed as well. Their undeniable belief that others cannot understand the Science and are therefore deemed sub-human is what does in fact amaze me.
Ref – A C Osborn (04:09:51) :
“Thank you for such a simple clear description of this NON PROBLEM they have wasted billions of dollars on, which they are trying to use to Tax the developed countries for more Billions (or maybe Trillions) of dollars.”
_____________________
We are no longer talking about Chicken Little & Co. (Jones et al), they’ve done their damage. They (and their silent colleagues) started the hysteria and now realize they were wrong, stupid, slightly mistaken, ahead of their time, etc., etc.. The barnyard panic is, however, still very much ongoing. The geese, ducks, pigs, cows, horses, sheep, goats, peacocks, hens, chicks, donkeys and jackasses, and whatnot, are all in such a frightful tizzy; why they’re still going more crazy by the minute. They are much too excited to see that something’s changed.
When you’re in the middle of a stampede, it’s a little hard to see what’s happening more than 5 feet ahead of you.
Sometimes, only sometimes, “providence” lends a hand and the –so to speak– weather changes, if only briefly. Perhaps the Winter of ’09-’10 can dampen and chill the insanity down to a moderate roar. Perhaps Big Al and Company will realize they need to find another planet to sell their Snake Oil Elixir on. Perhaps the gods of Olympus, our present day “Doctors of Science & Philosophy” can find the courage to tell the barnyard critters what is and ain’t known about the weather (in 25 words or less).
Perhaps our famous “Free Press” will learn to love truth again and try to sell papers and airtime the old fashioned way –honestly. Perhaps? Call me a dreamer.
Climategate prof admits he coked the books:
bbcworld http://bit.ly/bTirvj
kim:
“rw @ur momisugly 5:21. Sure the years at the end of a rising trend will be the hottest. Your point?”
My point is made perfectly well by your simple statement of the fact. Did you in fact read the post? Did you see the big bold question “Just exactly what unusual, unexpected temperature anomaly are we trying to explain?”? Do you wish to understand why there should be the current ongoing change in the Earth’s climate that you yourself talk about?
“And Phil Jones has just admitted rates of temperature rise significantly similar to the ‘75-’98 rise three other times in the last century and a half. Where is the anthropogenic signature?”
An anthropogenic signature cannot be found merely in the gradient of a slope. Try reading the latest IPCC report to learn more. There’s a chapter on attributing climate change.
Vincent – if you looked really closely, you might have seen this:
“the red line is a 21 point binomial filter, which is equivalent to a 10 year running mean”
This is the BEST answer to the complications on both sides. No formulas needed, no counter-formulas needed. Just look at a few truly solid data points, without adjustment, and show that nothing special is happening now.
“The ghost of big jim cooley”
“A running 10-year average is much more indicative, but the Met Office won’t use it for the obvious reason that it shows cooling since 2008.”
Have a look at this page. What is the red line on the graph?
Eyeballing the graph Figure 15.1(B),/b> from your link shows CO2 at around 300 ppm in 1910 and 310 ppm in 1940, so the statement does not require revision, and is certainly not “very bizarre”.
An excellect post. Wasted billions on the lying likes of Phil Jones, Michael Mann, James Hansen, and their ilk with their host institutions. Heads must roll.
However, don’t throw out the baby…you know. There has been global warming since the LIA and we still do not know why. Why is a very important question — modern Milankovich? Landsheidt? Others? Those scientists who have had to work their you know whats off ouside of significant funding sources and outside of “establishment institutions” may be coming up with some intriguing answers, or at least with new questions. Let’s keep the excitement of the public for “global warming” as an important research — especially in the face of “global cooling” — and let the scientific processes and method be returned to the open and “free market”.
This search is important. People, citizens of developed countries, most students — at least those in the American school system, preschool thru college — have been misled. But their excitement about “knowing” more about our beloved Earth is not misplaced enthusiasm. It can be turned toward “good”.
I’ll try that last paragraph again:
Eyeballing the graph Figure 15.1(B) from your link shows CO2 at around 300 ppm in 1910 and 310 ppm in 1940, so the statement does not require revision, and is certainly not “very bizarre”.
Thank you, Willis.
You’ve again shown that scientific questions can be asked and explained in such a way that non-scientists can understand what the point is.
You’ve shown again to the ordinary guy or guyette that graphs aren’t scary but explanatory.
I wish I could remember who it was who said that a scientist, who cannot explain his work or hypothesis in such a way that the proverbial man on the Clapham omnibus can understand, has no place in the scientific community.
Science is not a religion, with some high priests and lower acolytes, to which the rest of us have to bow our knees when they pontificate from on high in a language no one else is supposed to understand, never mind question.
Since science explores the world we live in, it stands to reason that science must be able to explain the findings to all of us, who, after all, also live in this world.
Thanks, Willis – you’re one of those who reaffirm in their writings some fundamental things I was taught as a science student, quite a while ago.
“Richard Telford (06:36:37) :
2) The decline in atmospheric O2 tracks the rise in CO2. This is expected only if the CO2 derives from combustion”
So a change in CO2 from 0.0284% to 0.0387% would drop Oxygen by 0.02%. Now, although nominally 20.95%, atmospheric O2 varies much more that CO2 does, during the day and night cycle and during the Winter/Summer cycle.
It is IMPOSSIBLE to measure a change in O2 levels over the last 50 years. Oxygen sensing technology is not good enough to measure O2 to three decimal places now. Medic’s and biochemists still crave an accurate, stable, device to measure O2 levels in gas or liquid. The fact is we cannot. Typically, oxygen levels are calibrated using H2O2 and catalase (or a Pt/Mn catalyst) as we have an extinction coefficient for H2O2.
Your statement is bollocks. No one can, or has, made measurements of atmospheric O2 to 0.005% over the last decade, never mind the 1960. The fact that O2 dissolves in water, about 250 uM at 15 degrees, also buggers up measurement as the level of water vapor is variable.
We cannot even transfer gasses or liquids between vessels with that precision. Using modern HPLC/FPLC valves we have a dead space in the order of 2 nl’s.
The Teflon used in the same valves (and that sit on the end of plungers of syringes) have a oxygen concentration of between 1 and 2 mM, the EXACT solubility is dependent on water vapor pressure. You can get other materials with lower O2 solubility, but there is always the O2/H2O competition for the void-space in the plastic matrix. There is no known material, that can be used as a plunger or valve housing, that does not have this property.
Transferring gases or liquids, with defined levels of O2 is essentially impossible. The mass action ratio of atmospheric oxygen is against you. All your materials are O2 saturated and can only be scrubbed chemically. O2 free gasses, that you buy, are not O2 free. You must used an inline scrubber to get rid of all the stuff in the line.
Many of us, who work with oxygen utilizing enzymes, have tried. The only way to measure O2, with precision, is to used myoglobin, sperm whale myoglobin or leg-haemoglobin and optical spectroscopy. You make deoxy-Mb (which is very, very hard) and add a know volume of O2 XuM, then observe the spectral change. I will get the O2 concentration +/- 2.5%, as I have done this before, you will get +/- 1000%.
An excellent and lucid post. Thank you.
PS: BTW I liked http://c3headlines.typepad.com/.a/6a010536b58035970c0120a7c87805970b-pi way of showing the overall picture.