Old, but untold. Trenberth treated us to a trick in his Halloween interview with Bill Sweet by changing the sign on his own most famous quote. As Trenberth now tells it:
One cherry-picked message saying we can’t account for current global warming and that this is a travesty went viral and got more than 100,000 hits online.
The email in question actually bemoaned how Trenberth couldn’t account for the LACK of global warming:
The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t.
Global warming… LACK of global warming. Hey, what’s the difference?
This is Trenberth’s answer to having his doubts exposed by the ClimateGate leak: just cover them back up. Pretend that the revealing email said the opposite of what it actually said and PROBLEM SOLVED. The guy’s a genius. No wonder he rose to the esteemed lead author position.
Of course he’s not fooling anyone who knows what he actually said. Add that lack of warming does have to do with the state of global warming, and most knowledgeable people will grant Trenberth the benefit of the doubt, but should they? Ignorant people will be fooled, and Trenberth has a habit of misleading the ignorant.
Here is Trenberth in a follow-up interview with Sweet (after Sweet was apparently inundated with comments and email calling Trenberth a liar and castigating Sweet for playing softball—yay WUWT):
Sweet: Can you say something about the widespread belief that solar activity somehow accounts for the temperature changes we’ve seen in recent decades?
Trenberth: That’s easily disproven. It’s nonsense. Since 1979 we’ve had spacecraft measuring total solar irradiance, and there’s been no change—if anything the sun has cooled slightly. There’s nothing in the record that indicates that the sun is responsible for any of the warming in this period.
Trenberth knows full well that “solar activity” refers primarily to solar-magnetic activity, which varies by an order of magnitude over the solar cycle, while total solar irradiance is almost invariant over the solar cycle (which is why it is called the solar constant). Does he really think he can disprove the theory that 20th century warming was caused by solar activity without looking at anything but the least active solar variable?
Again, the knowledgeable will not be fooled, but it is perfectly clear that Trenberth’s intent in this instance is to deceive the ignorant. He is also providing us with an example of what he was talking about in his original IEEE interview when he said:
Scientists almost always have to address problems in their data, exercising judgment about what might be defective and best disregarded.
That pesky data about solar-magnetic activity and earthly temperatures being highly correlated? (“The long term trends in solar data and in northern hemisphere temperatures have a correlation coefficient of about 0.7 – .8 at a 94% – 98% confidence level.”) “Best disregarded.”
And it is easily done. Just change out “solar activity” for the least active solar quantity and, voilà. As easy as replacing “lack of global warming” with “global warming.”
As J.R. Ewing put it, “once you give up integrity, the rest is easy.”
Any other “lumpies”? (Santa must have had anti-CO2 alarmists in mind when he chose coal for the bad. Like crosses for vampires.)
The above comments confirm that in the minds of AGW proponents and also in the minds of some single issue enthusiasts like Bob Tisdale (ENSO) and Leif Svalgaard (Solar) the sun cannot have caused the warming climate observed during the late 20th century either directly or indirectly.
A point made by me many times and by others in the above comments is that if the sun is at a historically high level of activity then of course warming will continue to a new equilibrium even if in the meantime there is a small downward trend in solar activity. That will take time, about 50 years as it happens involving all the high cycles 17 to 23 (with a slight pause for cycle 20 which was a little lower) and modulated by ocean cycles throughout.
On that basis all protestations of a so called divergence between climate and solar activity levels are utter nonsense.
My most popular article dealt with that very point long ago and I have no reason to revise it:
http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=1396&linkbox=true&position=1
“The Death Blow To Anthropogenic Global Warming”.
Of course at some point sun and climate need to be seen to come back into line and the recent large and sudden decline in solar activity levels is a godsend in that respect albeit very dangerous for many if it continues.
I think we can safely say that the recent period of rising ocean heat content and associated tropospheric warmth whilst a new equilibrium was being sought has just come to an end with this years last gasp for AGW as tropospheric temperatures rose almost as high as in 1998.
More meridional jets with more regional variability has been common in the past and has always been associated with a cooler world. Think LIA, Dark Ages. mid 20th century cooling period.
AGW theory clearly stated that a warmer world would have more zonal and poleward jets. Never a mention of increased meridionality with associated regional cooling until now.
We saw 30 years of warming with increasingly zonal jets whilst Arctic ice declined. If the current AGW pronouncement about warming causing cooling had any substance we would have seen steadily increasing meridionality for the 30 years up to 2007. We didn’t.
On this occasion increased meridionality has come upon us rather suddenly (although I’ve been aware of the trend for 10 years now) whilst the troposphere has still been benefitting from residual ocean warmth so until the ongoing La Nina kicks in we won’t get the full global extent of it.
All we are now getting from the AGW crowd is panic driven thrashing about and backtracking whilst they await total collapse of their belief system once a couple of years of dominant La Nina (enhanced by reduced solar shortwave into the oceans from increased albedo) hits tropospheric temperatures.
A Merry Christmas to all doom mongers.
@Onion says:
December 25, 2010 at 3:57 am
“I do though find it hard to reconcile why so many experts would think CO2 is a greenhouse gas if it was clear that it should have a cooling effect.”
And so many think that volcanoes cause cooling, despite the lack of evidence after the the majority of large events. And so transfixed on the after effects, that the temperature rises beforehand causing the volcanoes, has been entirely overlooked.
Popularity of a postulation, does not guarantee that it is correct.
Onion says:
December 25, 2010 at 3:57 am
In our natural atmospheric environment, radiation, conduction, convection and specific heat capacity are absolutely inseparable without artificial means.
That is where specific heat capacity fits in. It is a part of reality which effects all physical substances.
So again, where are your or any other so called “expert’s” experiments supporting your belief in AGW?
Statements like that can only be made by a non-scientist.
A scientist is a practitioner of science.
Science is the art of objectively seeking the truth, even when that truth flies in the face of the most deeply-held beliefs of the practitioner.
Cassandra King says:
December 24, 2010 at 10:30 pm
“[…]
A theory that is being shown to be false time after time and a scientific community using ever more fantastical excuses as to why the theory is still valid, […]”
What “theory?”
As your comment (sorry to cut so much out) demonstrates, AGW is more like an apologia than a theory. When mama nature throws a monkey wrench into the gears of CAGW, we get, “yeah, but…” from the believers. AGW causes everything and and I wouldn’t be surprised to find that AGW can turn water into wine. (Wait… different religion… never mind.)
The “yeah, buts…” seemed to start around the time someone noticed the ice core data showed that the rise in CO2 lagged the rise in temperatures by 800-1000 years. The “yeah, buts…” seem to be increasing in frequency. If you ignore the fact that models fit the observations after the fact, well then AGW is a fine “theory.”
Joel Shore says:
“If you want to claim that the temperature trend since the mid-1970s correlates well with the solar variation then you will have to actually prove it graphically. Hint, this is the sort of curve you will be trying to correlate to: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.A2.lrg.gif and, no, it doesn’t show a decade of level or falling temperatures. It shows a general upward trends with lots of short term variability, just like climate models forced with steadily-increasing greenhouse gases show.”
What it also shows is that then1998 peak anomaly was surpassed in 2005 and equalled in 2008. Not something I had noted from other temperature records!
Stephen Wilde wrote, “A point made by me many times and by others in the above comments is that if the sun is at a historically high level of activity then of course warming will continue to a new equilibrium even if in the meantime there is a small downward trend in solar activity. That will take time, about 50 years as it happens involving all the high cycles 17 to 23 (with a slight pause for cycle 20 which was a little lower) and modulated by ocean cycles throughout.”
Please document all of your claims with data, comparison graphs, etc., before you write, “The above comments confirm that in the minds of AGW proponents and also in the minds of some single issue enthusiasts like Bob Tisdale (ENSO) and Leif Svalgaard (Solar) the sun cannot have caused the warming climate observed during the late 20th century either directly or indirectly.”
Because if you are not aware, I do document the role of Downward Shortwave Radiation on the ENSO process–a fact you seem to have overlooked.
And you have obviously missed the point of my comments on this thread, and that was that Alec Rawls should not have cited a paper that contradicts his post, and, secondarily, he should not reply to comments with statements that are contradicted by data.
And Merry Christmas to you, too, Stephen.
Trenberth, Jones, Mann, Hansen, Schmidt, et al, of the anthropogenic global warming religious cult should read carefully the writings of Theodor Landscheidt. In the 1980’s he predicted the beginning of the next Grand Solar Minimum (ie: Little Ice Age type cooling) in 1990, bottoming out in 2030 and ending in 2070. And here we are careening down the slope.
Piers Corbin using his Solar Lunar Action Technique has way-out-predicted the Met Office and other august meteorological organizations with very long range weather forecasts with 85% or better accuracy.
How long will it take to recognize the true science of planetary mechanics of Landscheidt and Corbyn and dismiss the groundless agw nonsense of TJMHS et al?
Merry Christmas to all.
ge0050 says:
December 24, 2010 at 11:31 pm
“Roughly 92.8% (1,041.6 million short tons) of total U.S. coal consumption (1,121.7 million short tons) was used for electricity production at 22 major coal-fired power plants in 2008, the last year for which complete figures are available.”
A major coal fired plant burns 3-4 million tons of coal per year. 22 of them would only be 60-80 million tons/year. The US has 315 GW of coal fired generating capacity.
In addition no one in the US would consider coal at $100/ton cheap. Coal goes for $12/ton in Wyoming. Those folks in localities where the delivered price of coal is approaching $100/ton have already placed their orders for nuclear power plants.
‘Trenberth: That’s easily disproven. It’s nonsense. Since 1979 we’ve had spacecraft measuring total solar irradiance, and there’s been no change—if anything the sun has cooled slightly. ‘
Kind of ironic that the readings from them spacecraft works as references when it suits the hippies, otherwise it’s usually the mechanical apparatus’ that are wrong and the model that is right.
But, still, what matter if the sun has cooled, it’s not the heat, per se, from the sun that heats the earth, but all sorts of various kinds of radiations and particles and that magnetic love hate relationship going on. And should one also account for the specific effects that is affected by relation of distance in time and space between two and more interacting bodies?
Of course one could also infer that they’re always blowing smoke when they reference the sun since they have just started the research of finding out how the sun affects earth’s climate.
Stephen Wilde:
“The above comments confirm that in the minds of AGW proponents and also in the minds of some single issue enthusiasts like Bob Tisdale (ENSO) and Leif Svalgaard (Solar) the sun cannot have caused the warming climate observed during the late 20th century either directly or indirectly.
A point made by me many times and by others in the above comments is that if the sun is at a historically high level of activity then of course warming will continue to a new equilibrium even if in the meantime there is a small downward trend in solar activity. That will take time, about 50 years as it happens involving all the high cycles 17 to 23 (with a slight pause for cycle 20 which was a little lower) and modulated by ocean cycles throughout.”
If there is a long 50 year lag between solar cause and temperature response then why did the longterm correlation analysis cited in the article above find good correlation between temperature and solar output without applying any lag factor? Surely the lag should apply to pre-1970s temperatures not just starting to appear in the 1970s onwards.
Re Will
December 25, 2010 at 5:13 am
What sort of experiment are you suggesting? Describe the setup, maybe I can help.
I found this yesterday:
Maybe there is something in Piers Corbyn’s forecasts. 😉
Pamela,
the problem is that many PhD types and 99.5% of the climate scientists are arrogant, bearded quasi-intellectuals.
Merry Christmas everyone on WUWT. Enjoy your break Anthony.
Will says:
“In our natural atmospheric environment, radiation, conduction, convection and specific heat capacity are absolutely inseparable without artificial means.”
What the heck does that even mean? They are entirely separable, for example you can have a non-convective enviroment that is cooling by radiation, leading to radiation fog. What caused the surface to cool? It was radiation. What causes the air above the ground to cool to saturation? Conduction. Viola, I have separated convection, conduction and radiation in a natural atmospheric enviroment.
Meanwhile, your argument that CO2 cools the atmosphere because it has a low heat capacity falls over because when an IR photon is absorbed by CO2 the energy only remains with that CO2 molecule until is hits another molecule or until the CO2 spontaneously re-emits the energy. Turns out that as the mean free path in the atmosphere is on the order of 100nm, the CO2 will usually collide with another molecule before it re-emits. This has the effect of warming up the air.
However, the relaxation time of CO2 (time between absorption and re-emission of a photon) is pretty short, like it can happen hundreds of times a second or more, so the Co2 can’t store the energy it absorbs anyway. It can only get stored in the AIR, since most molecules in the air don’t spontaneously emit photons.
So CO2 absorbs energy, then usually transfers energy to an O2 or N2 molecule. Specific heat capacity is pretty much irrelevant.
Onion says:
December 25, 2010 at 7:53 am
Re Will
December 25, 2010 at 5:13 am
What sort of experiment are you suggesting? Describe the setup, maybe I can help.
Really?
Simply demonstrate experimentally, how by doubling CO2 in a particular body of 99% O2 and N2 will increase its temperature by 1.5 – 4 ºC.
Shouldn’t be too difficult.
Though after 150 years of “greenhouse effect” brainwashing one does start to wonder why you AGW fraudsters have yet to produce such an experiment.
Still I’m sure a capable individual such as yourself will make short work of such a trifling task.
I await your definitive proof of the “greenhouse effect” and AGW with pensive, trembling anticipation.
Pamela Gray says:
December 24, 2010 at 5:48 pm
(Hold on to your hat!)
“I haven’t been convinced either by any of the proposed mechanisms for solar influence in weather pattern variation change.”
(And Waite !! There’s more)
“The null hypothesis still stands, meaning that the theory of a constant sun is still king no matter what part is being measured.”
The Fact that our Sun is a healthy variable star, Meaning It has cycles of variable activity, This alone should be enough to convince you.
A “theory of a constant sun” is fantasy, every astronomer and astrophysicist on the planet knows this.
I have noticed that some meteorologists, climatologist dont understand this basic “Astronomical Fact”. In over 20 years of studying astronomy, I’ve never heard of this “theory of a constant sun” who made this nonsense up?
I propose to all CAGW proponents to take up a basic Astronomy class and realise for your self just how stupid you sound.
(In case you missed it)
Trenberth him self has said that the sun is a variable star, but worded differently with in a blatant and obvious lie!
(First he sets up the Lie “there’s been no change”)
“…spacecraft measuring total solar irradiance, and there’s been no change”
(Then he contradicts his own lie while confirming that the sun is a variable star by saying “..if anything the sun has cooled slightly”)
“..if anything the sun has cooled slightly. There’s nothing in the record that indicates that the sun is responsible for any of the warming in this period.”
(He then continues to reinforce his lie by adding his own questionable opinion to it by saying)
“..There’s nothing in the record that indicates that the sun is responsible for any of the warming in this period.”
No global warming:
YouTube – Climate Change – Is CO2 the cause? – Pt 1 of 4
YouTube – Climate change – Is CO2 the cause? – Pt 2 of 4
YouTube – Climate Change – Is CO2 the cause? – pt 3 of 4
YouTube – Climate Change – Is CO2 the cause?- pt 4 of 4
It is strange to see so many people here, who often seem skeptical of claims of warming in the pipeline, all-of-sudden embracing significant lags between the increase in solar luminance and the resulting temperature trend. Furthermore, as Onion notes, such large lags don’t seem consistent with what correlation is claimed in the past in the papers cited. Furthermore, the lags that climate scientists talk about are just that it takes the system a while to reach a new equilibrium; they are not literally that the system doesn’t respond for a while and then, all of a sudden, the temperature shoots up! Has the known negative feedback due to the Stefan-Boltzmann Equation suddenly become irrelevant where solar effects are concerned?!?
Frankly, this thread seems like a Christmas gift of confirmation to those of us who have long argued that most climate “skeptics” are anything but skeptical; they simply are refusing to believe the wealth of scientific evidence that points to something that they are ideologically-opposed to because of the potential policy implications and willing to believe anything that supports their ideological predispositions, no matter how flimsy! (Although kudos to BobTisdale for not doing this!)
Stephen Wilde wrote, “My most popular article dealt with that very point long ago and I have no reason to revise it:
http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=1396&linkbox=true&position=1”
Are you aware that Lean no longer supports the dataset you used in that post, Stephen? It would suggest then that there is reason to revise your post, unless you want to continue to mislead your readers.
Re Will
December 25, 2010 at 8:44 am:
“Simply demonstrate experimentally, how by doubling CO2 in a particular body of 99% O2 and N2 will increase its temperature by 1.5 – 4 ºC.
Shouldn’t be too difficult.”
Should it not? What steps would you go through to set up this experiment then?
Personally I can only thing you’d need a second Earth to do the experiment you are thinking of (although I am having to guess what you are thinking).
Stu N says:
December 25, 2010 at 8:26 am
Semantics and waffle.
Most of what you have said here simply reiterates what I have already said, yet you present and conclude as if it was some kind of counter.
Very tired technique if you don’t mind me saying.
If you have any real world experimental evidence to present, lets see it. Otherwise its just more words. Fallacious argument with the intent to deceive, sophistry.
I want to see and experiment in which a doubling of CO2 will warm a body of 79% N2 and 20% O2 by 1.5 – 4 ºC.
Show me that please.
Will,
Far be it from me to defend the ‘fraudsters’ but can you be more specific about how you expect this experiment to be set up?
Is it as simple as having a balloon filled with air to the same relative proportions of different molecules as the atmosphere, doubling CO2 and seeing if it warms up? After all, that’s a body of 99% O2 and N2 as per your prescribed method.
If you think it will behave anything like planet Earth you’re barmy. Hint: not every object will warm up by 1.5-4.0C if you double the amount of CO2 that surrounds it (or, in your parlance, is in it).
So I repeat: how do you anticipate this experiment would be set up?
I guess I’m surprised that the Team has not published a rebuttal to Trenberth’s “missing energy” papers of the last year.
That seems to be their standard M.O. Every sceptical or questioning paper is immediately followed up by a rushed-to-press paper that disputes it (with flimsy data manipulation mostly). This is done so they can ignore the sceptical or questioning paper in the “science” and in the IPCC for example. Trenberth is a member of the Team but somebody must be working on a rebuttal.
Trenberth’s recent papers really say that global warming theory has to be wrong (or at least, has missed something in the climate that is very important).
Trenberth needs to say where the missing energy is or he should quit giving interviews stating that the theory is sound based on dozens of line of evidence (even though half of that evidence is missing apparently).
I don’t think the energy is missing. It is just gone. It has escaped from the atmosphere and is somewhere within 50 light years of Earth, travelling at the speed of light with a emission spectrum of 255K. I’m sure some climate model could simulate that it will turn-around and come back to the Earth with an even greater feedback factor and we will get warming of 20C like Richard Alley just said (having his own Greg Craven breakdown moment apparently). Lots of cognitive dissonance is keeping these guys awake at night apparently.