The motivation for this cartoon comes from this essay on The Hockey Schtick, which was prompted by a post on David Stockwell’s blog Niche Modeling, which I highly recommend bookmarking.
As just pointed out by an astute and disillusioned young climate scientist, James Hansen, the high priest of the global warming religion and defender of creation has recently produced a non-peer-reviewed paper finding that the net man-made effects on climate have been greatly exaggerated by computer models. Hansen claims most climate models have underestimated the cooling effect of man-made aerosols via cloud changes, although the fine print in the paper admits they really have no idea what is causing the cloud changes and resulting cooling effect. Hmmm, possibly the cosmic ray theory of Svensmark et al? Hansen also references estimates for climate sensitivity pulled out of the air by his brainwashed grandchildren in the amusing paper (p. 3).
Earth’s Energy Imbalance and Implications
James Hansen (1), Makiko Sato (1), Pushker Kharecha (1), Karina von Schuckmann (2)
((1) NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and Columbia University Earth Institute, (2) Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)
(Submitted on 5 May 2011)
Improving observations of ocean temperature confirm that Earth is absorbing more energy from the sun than it is radiating to space as heat, even during the recent solar minimum. The inferred planetary energy imbalance, 0.59 \pm 0.15 W/m2 during the 6-year period 2005-2010, provides fundamental verification of the dominant role of the human-made greenhouse effect in driving global climate change. Observed surface temperature change and ocean heat gain constrain the net climate forcing and ocean mixing rates. We conclude that most climate models mix heat too efficiently into the deep ocean and as a result underestimate the negative forcing by human-made aerosols. Aerosol climate forcing today is inferred to be -1.6 \pm 0.3 W/m2, implying substantial aerosol indirect climate forcing via cloud changes. Continued failure to quantify the specific origins of this large [negative] forcing is untenable, as knowledge of changing aerosol effects is needed to understand future climate change. A recent decrease in ocean heat uptake was caused by a delayed rebound effect from Mount Pinatubo aerosols and a deep prolonged solar minimum. Observed sea level rise during the Argo float era can readily be accounted for by thermal expansion of the ocean and ice melt, but the ascendency of ice melt leads us to anticipate a near-term acceleration in the rate of sea level rise.
Sorry Jimbo, near-term sea level rise is decelerating
What did I tell you.
Despite this the UK Met. Office still want a bigger computer.
Why does the cartoon show Hansen in a suit and tie? I like the floppy hat and trench coat better. You know, the “I got arrested with Daryl Hannah” look.
Why do his pronouncements sound more like legalese than science?
One day they will finally discover that CO2 has nothing to do with climate. Let’s just wait 25 years.
I note he is still propounding the “delayed rebound effect from Mt Pinatubo aerosols” thing. That is a pretty contrived and dubious explanation in my opinion.
Hmmm… So the models are bollox. Ok. And why are they bollox ? Because they underestimate the negative forcing by human-made aerosols. So humans are causing Global warming, Global cooling and Global climate model confusion. Us humans really are a nasty bunch !!
Can someone please tell me what “delayed rebound effect from Mount Pinatubo aerosols” really means? Why was this effect delayed? (from 1991 to 2005?)
Sounds like rubbish to me, but I am willing to learn.
“We conclude that most climate models mix heat too efficiently into the deep ocean and as a result underestimate the negative forcing by human-made aerosols.” Let me get this straight, the models do this all by themselves, whithout any anthropogenic influence? In this world of the climate ‘scientists’, the models take on a life of their own. Can it be that the underlying ‘science’ (assumptions) that is input into the models is incorrect? By saying that the models performance is incorrect absolves the modelers of any responsibility.
Since aerosols are saving the planet from burning up, I guess we will have to leave poor Third World children die because of soot-induced respiratory diseases.
We are being set up for anthropogenic global cooling (AGC) caused by the recent increase in coal burning power plants in China and India. Western civilization will have to get rid of their coal burning power plants because China and India are to smart and will not. Back to the future boys and girls. It’s the 70’s all over again.
Keep Smiling 🙂
Jeff
The only temperature rise that Hansen is measuring comes from the steam wafting of his BS…
Hansen disappoints. – gavin.
Hansen the Coward Climate Clown: You just never know what’s he’s going to come up with next, but you can rest be assured it will be entertaining–as opposed to an enlightened erudite educator. (Visions of H the CCC in a clown suit driving around the center ring in a funny yellow car with a spray gun that shoots fake precipitation on the audience.) *laughter*
Unlike the South Asian version who love to spend their life in a high mountain cave contemplating their belly botton and the meaning of “is”, Western Guru’s wallow in hype, publicity, speaking engagements, demonstrations, lock-ups, psyentific studies on the essence and implications of CO2 in galactic weather patterns, and just love to appear on late night talk shows talking about all they’ve done since Jimma Car’teer was praysiedent. Go figure! There is more than one kind’a civilization on this here planet, ain’t there?.
Like Jeff Wiita says, I think James is just hedging his bets.
Hansen defames Lindzen in New Zealand:
http://pindanpost.com/2011/05/20/hansen-defames-with-absurd-slurs-reprinted-in-full/
Richard Treadgold answers, and Lindzen letter reprinted here in full…for passing on
Definitely suffering from catastrophic human-caused global climate models.
“Maurizio Morabito says:
May 20, 2011 at 3:59 am”
Not sure if you were being sarcastic or not however, these poor have many more threatening and worrying issues to face every day than mere soot in the air.
use more hair spray………………..
So exactly when did mother nature retire from the climate business?
The quoted text should read: “The inferred planetary energy imbalance, 0.59 +/- 0.15 W/m2…. Aerosol climate forcing today is inferred to be -1.6 +/- 0.3 W/m2…”
+/-, not \p m
But it’s still gibberish. His “planetary energy imbalance” necessarily implies runaway global warming, but his aerosol “forcing” turns that into an even more runaway global cooling. It is Hansen’s reasoning that is on a knife edge, not the climate. The truth is that the average global temperature simply hasn’t changed over the period of the last 10 years or more (as CO2 has continued to rise), and “radiative forcing” (as practiced by climate scientists anyway) has shown itself to be a worthless concept, imposing an illusory instability upon an obviously stable system.
This is a bit off topic (sorry), but you’ve just got to watch this video, exposing some of the worst eco-fascists at this week’s seminar in Stockholm. This should make the rounds worldwide:
Green Fascists Exposed at Stockholm Symposium
A question about units:
What is the meaning of: “0.59 \pm 0.15 W/m2” ?
I read W/m2 as watts per square meter. The “0.59 \pm” bit has me stumped and googling didn’t help.
John Marshall says: May 20, 2011 at 2:15 am
What did I tell you.
Despite this the UK Met. Office still want a bigger computer.
It reminds me of a story I tell about stonehenge: once there were two kings who fought each other, eventually after many battles they decided to meet to discuss a peace. They set the date as “the first full moon after mid summer”.
On the aforementioned date, one king arrived at the prescribed place only to have to wait, and wait and wait. Believing he has been deliberately stood up, the king resumed the war.
Many years later, the two kings finally met to agree peace at which point they discovered that each had turned up at the appointed place at the first full moon after the solstice, but unfortunately each king’s astrologer had determined a different day for the solstice meaning that with the full moon so close, one had determined the solstice before the full moon and the other visa versa. Meaning they had both arrived at the meeting but 28 days apart.
So, after each king sacrificed their astrologer in a very cruel way, they appointed new astrologers and said: “work out a way to tell the exact date of the mid summer solstice (actually mid winter for stone henge but it ruins the story).
After much hushed and deep conversation, the two astrologers spoke to their respective kings, drawing breath they said: “the reasons our esteemed predecessors got the date wrong, is because our computers just aren’t up to the job. We cannot guarantee you the right date with the current technology (i.e. they stalled for time)
“well make one” said the king. To which the high priests said: “phhhwww … it’ll cost you It simply isn’t possible to predict such a thing without a massive massive computer … and it may take time”
So, for the next few generations the kings struggled away to build a computer which was up to the job of telling the exact day of mid summer solstice (see end**) and each time the kings thought it was nearly complete, the priests would add some other requirement needing more and more parts.
Well, eventually the kings began to suspect something was going on and demanded on pain of death that the calculating machines should finally be finished. So the priests duly met at Stonehenge and various other sites around the kingdoms, and as required, as the summer solstice approached they looked very busy, appearing to make lots of measurement of the sun using their wonderful piece of modern computer technology. And finally, in unison all through the kingdoms on one day the priests announced that the wonder of modern technology had determined the exact date of the solstice.
And everyone was happy. The kings could agree when they were to meet, the high priests could supply the day, the people saw the marvel of the modern technology forecasting the future, and the priests would no longer fear being slowly sacrificed.
And a few weeks later, as they had done before the “solstice” and they did each and every year after, all the priests met as usual … at which point the conversation went like this: “shall we call it 365 days this year? Aye … sounds about right … that’s 344 from today!”
** It isn’t possible to tell mid summer solstice in the UK because its always cloudy when you need to take a measurement and the sun doesn’t change its position enough to measure a change on the days around the solstice – latin “sun stays still”. So, even if you had a week of clear sunsets (extremely unlikely) without modern equipment to measure the 1/30 of a radius change between days, you can’t tell the exact day of the solstice.
I note that Hansen’s energy imbalance of 0.59 W/m2 is mostly based on an error in the number he is using for the Ocean Heat Content from the Argo network.
He is using 0.42 W/m2 from the Argo network while Josh Willis (who is in charge of the data) says it is only 0.16 W/m2 (and these numbers are on the same timeline).
http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2011/02/07/where-is-the-missing-argo-upper-ocean-heat-data/
So you can drop Hansen’s 0.59 to 0.325 when the proper numbers are used.
What this really means is that Hansen et al in the Climate Scientology world just need MORE money, for BIGGER computers to run ever more complex MODELS.
Eventually, if they spend enough money they will find what they think the believe is happening.
After all, what’s a couple of $Trillion $dollars between the taxpayers and Jimbo?
As the IPCC, Hansen, and the Real Climate type group have spent the last 15 years telling the world the science is settled and trillions of dollars must be spent to remove or limit CO2 in the atmosphere it is difficult for them to admit that observation evidence indicates that are completely incorrect. Increases in atmospheric CO2 is positive for the biosphere and humans, further increases in atmospheric CO2 will not cause catastrophic warming, warming in general would be beneficial to the biosphere and humans, and lastly the planet is now about to cool.
20th Century Warming & 2000 year Paleo Climatic Record
The 20th century warming has stopped. That is not possible if the mechanism was CO2 (Hansen’s last ditch hypothesis to explain the lack of warming is a cooling mechanism the caused an increase in the amount of solar radiation reflected to space. During the warming period however there was as measured by satellites a reduction in solar radiation reflected into space which is evidenced in the regions of the oceans and planet that were warmer during that period. Hansen and company chose to ignore that inconvenient observation as it completely invalidates the extreme AGW hypothesis.
The Real Climate crowd and cohorts have altered the paleo climatic record to remove the evidence of past cyclic warming and cooling as past cyclic warming and cooling could not have been caused by atmospheric CO2 changes as there was no significant increase and decrease in CO2 levels in the last 2000 years (ignoring the last 40 years). The obvious question is what caused the past cyclic warming and cooling? As there are concurrent with the paleoclimatic record of cyclic warming and cooling and the extreme rapid cooling events cosmogenic isotope changes, the answer is changes in the solar magnetic cycle and different states of the sun.
commieBob says:
May 20, 2011 at 5:38 am
> What is the meaning of: “0.59 \pm 0.15 W/m2″ ?
As noted by another person, the \pm was supposed to turn into +/-. Or better:
0.59 ± 0.15 W/m2 to display as 0.59 ± 0.15 W/m2.
I hope I got the ampersands right.
@Patrick Davis : I cannot imagine anything more threatening than the risk of dying very young because the home’s kitchen (and only room) is always full of soot.
Soot is a known problem that is killing little children as we speak and incidentally is also endangering the fabled Himalayan glaciers. Its emissions could be greatly reduced for very little money. But since it’s not CO2 few take it seriously.
Also I have a lingering thought that some people don’t want to improve Third World health too much, lest those children become adults and make even more children…
Talking of oceans here are some gems from a press release related to a recent Nature paper published on 18 May, 2011.
Let’s hope the models have already factored this in. It looks like Hansen is slowly realising the awful truth.
This is indeed the crap they are going to pull from their behinds. Soot effects today, no soot effects yesterday. Delayed effects of Mount Pinatubo. Bollocks to that my friend. If cooling accelerates it’s going to be great fun watching the Team perform somersaults.
Anthony,
Norton (antivirus program) says that the link to David Stockwell’s blog is a known malicious website. Is the site safe??? Is the link wrong?
REPLY: it is just fine. I know him personally and I visit his website. Try a different brand of paranoiaware. My choice is AVAST – Anthony
He’s worse than we thought!
So we can now scrap the geoengineering projects. Noooooo! Too much money to be made.
Why are we paying Hansen to put out non-peer-reviewed papers?
Why are we paying him at all?
Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning of Hansen’s repositioning.
Well he’s got to protect his pension (or should that be payoff) hasn’t he?
Orignal quote Sir Winston Churchill.
I consider this a major crack in the facade of CAGW that indicates foundational issues. That Hansen would dare to say that the models overestimated warming due to cloud cover is amazing… this would have been unthinkable 2 years ago.
Actually, the joke is on us. In spite of all Hansen’s antics, he remains on the public payroll.
William says: May 20, 2011 at 5:55 am
“… Hansen’s last ditch hypothesis to explain the lack of warming is a cooling mechanism … The Real Climate crowd and cohorts have altered the paleo climatic record to remove the evidence of past cyclic warming and cooling … the obvious question is what caused
This is all so reminiscent of the end of the global cooling scare of the 1970s. They are so keen to trumpet the Wallace Broecker’s paper on global warming, but do they ever mention the contents?
Just like Hansen, Broeker’s paper was an attempt to mend a failed theory by postulating another counter force to explain why the theory had failed to predict the real climate. In short Broeker postulated global warming as an explanation for the lack of global cooling.
And perversely, the paper’s whole premise was that the camp century cycles (i.e. climate variation) must be real and therefore as there must be a cyclic and at that time cooling force which was not materialising, so there must be a hidden warming force.
So, we have gone full circle, from massive climate variation predicting cooling having to be explained away by a mystic warming force, to a mystic warming force predicted by hitherto absent climate variation having to be explained away by a mystic cooling force.
These people are worse than despicable. They just make it up as they go along!
I am starting to read Hansen’s paper (thanks very much for posting it). I’m confused. In the abstract he says that the strong offset to GHG has been aerosol-induced cooling and he mentions the “delayed rebound effect” from the Pinatubo eruption. Which was, what? Well over a decade ago? So his suggested mechanism is that the dust from volcanoes goes into the atmosphere and lingers for years and years.
But then in the paper he says this: “Global warming has been limited, as aerosol cooling partially offsets GHG warming. But aerosols remain airborne only several days, so they must be pumped into the air faster and faster to keep pace with increasing long-lived GHGs.”
Which is it? Decades? Or days?
US military goes to war with climate sceptics
Nice to know they are on our side! Though I suspect this is another Guardian banana skin.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/may/20/climate-change-climate-change-scepticism
Thanks for the explanation Ric.
If we take the incoming solar radiation at 1361 watts per square meter, and take Dr. Hansen’s inferred planetary energy imbalance at 0.6 watts per square meter, and take the ratio, we get about one part in two thousand (1/2000). I am astounded that they can measure that accurately, I sure can’t.
Has anyone seriously looked at the accuracy of the satellite energy measurements? If we have trouble measuring light in the lab with one percent accuracy, how is that they can do it from a satellite twenty times better?
“Improving observations of ocean temperature confirm that Earth is absorbing more energy from the sun than it is radiating to space as heat, even during the recent solar minimum. The inferred planetary energy imbalance, 0.59 \pm 0.15 W/m2 during the 6-year period 2005-2010, provides fundamental verification of the dominant role of the human-made greenhouse effect in driving global climate change.”
Am I missing something here, how does this in any way shape or form prove that any greenhouse effect is “human made”?
And is the following true?
“Improving observations of ocean temperature” The figures at last say what we warmists want them to say or they are derived in such a way that sceptics cannot question them
“even during the recent solar minimum” the warmists have always denied that any global warming is caused by variations in solar output.
“The inferred planetary energy imbalance” an inference is not a proof.
Like I have said many times this is not science it is bigotry
Two technical points:
1. Hansen issued a white paper about 5 years ago saying that NASA made lab mistakes when evaluating the effects of burning fossil fuels. Several years later the tests were rerun and they found that carbon particles emanating from the flue reflected enough heat to cause slight cooling overall instead of their previous conclusion of considerable warming from carbon dioxide emissions. This white paper was quickly “hidden”. I suspect that this new paper is a return to the second set of lab findings indicating cooling instead of warming.
2. I have always thought that the “missing aerosols and energy” are from evaporative cooling towers that are used in many processes such as refineries, power generation plants, gas processing plants, large air conditioning units, etc. The process plant evaporative cooling towers operate 24 hours per day year in and year out. The air that is drawn through the internal contact surfaces leave the tower as essentially 100% water saturated air, aerosols and about 2% solid water that is called drift. Most of the towers are forced or induced draft but most nuclear power plants use natural draft towers that emit 300 to 400 feet above ground level. The normal towers emit about 40 to 60 feet above ground.
JFD
I see no pivot on Hansen’s career-spanning position. This draft paper is just another effort to justify the lack of warming in recent years, without damaging the CO2 forcing and the water vapor 3x positive feedback that is settled science in Hansenville. Note that he claims the catastrophic cloud cover increase is due to anthropogenic aerosol cooling, not natural feedback or natural cyclical effects. Doing something to reduce anthropogenic aerosols (aka carbon pollution) will expose the catastrophic anthropogenic warming (due to carbon pollution) that lies beneath.
Hansen’s explanations are starting to read like the old epicycles theory of planetary, lunar and solar motion.
It is interesting that he introduces the idea that the long solar minimum has had an impact on net energy imbalance. That may have been a mistake on his part.
Hansen’s claim that Pinatubo cooling is still in the pipeline is specious drivel. As we all read in Gavin Schmidt’s recent article in Physics Today, the Pinatubo cooling event is well-understood settled science that the GCM’s have perfectly hind-casted. Gavin singled this event out to display the success of the models! 🙂
@ chris y says:
May 20, 2011 at 8:40 am
Chris, that is my thought exactly!! Considering the interesting and new cosmic ray/atmosphere interaction results coming out of Aarhus University and CERN, Hansen may have opened a door that he will soon regret opening.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/05/17/new-study-links-cosmic-rays-to-aerosolscloud-formation-via-solar-magnetic-activity-modulation/
As others have noted, Hansen’s mention of solar flux variations is hardly consistent with the warmists’ interest in keeping us all focused on the shiny thing: CO2.
Pinatubo’s aerosols = Hansen’s epicycles.
So which is it – the models are right, and it’s worse than we thought, or the models are wrong and it’s worse than we thought.
“…We conclude that most climate models mix heat too efficiently into the deep ocean and as a result underestimate the negative forcing by human-made aerosols…”
They dump all their data into a blender, and toss out any output that doen’t show CAGW. Now they say they need a cheaper blender that still leaves chunks?
It’s May and Hansen surrenders. Whoda thunk it?
Global warming has been solved! Co2 is not as bad as previously thought!
DJA says:
May 20, 2011 at 3:30 am
Can someone please tell me what “delayed rebound effect from Mount Pinatubo aerosols” really means? Why was this effect delayed? (from 1991 to 2005?)
Sounds like rubbish to me, but I am willing to learn.
———-
Well, “delayed rebound effect from Mount Pinatubo aerosols” is closely related to “back-radiation” but no one seems to know who the father is. Some say they have no father at all and are conjured up from the dust and the light by “mad climate scientists”. I do hear they are both unruly teenagers now.
/sarc
The new BUZZ word should be now: AMW:
Anthropogenic Model Warming.
It seems humans do have influence indeed – on the models.
GIGO.
Eyal Porat says:
May 20, 2011 at 1:14 pm
“The new BUZZ word should be now: AMW:
Anthropogenic Model Warming.
It seems humans do have influence indeed – on the models.
GIGO.”
Dr. Porat, I accept your theory of AMW.
The troops seem to have gone into damage control, accusing us of misrepresenting climate science and Hansen. Response planned. See http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/2722486.html
Ref – Claude Harvey says:
May 20, 2011 at 7:32 am
“Actually, the joke is on us. In spite of all Hansen’s antics, he remains on the public payroll.”
That’s true! But we legally can’t be selective of just one person, so let’s close NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies AND Columbia University Earth Institute!!!! We have to start somewhere!!!
This man is switching horses, or a horse for a jackass. He will not have the guts, after his very noisy activities took him across too many lines, to simply say gee I may have been somewhat over the top. Its telling that the alarmists weren’t wrong in any case – those pesky models did it! Never turn your back on a model! Also, even if its global cooling, its human’s fault, and its still the death trains with their cargo of aerosols hiding in evil coal. In fact really “I haven’t been wrong at all.
I recommend reading some of the comments at Unleashed http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/2722486.html
May 21, 2011 at 4:39 am
Never a truer word said. Hansen is trying to gently dig his way out of his FAILED scenarios – A, B and C. ;O) Expect more fun and hilarity over the coming few years.
“a delayed rebound effect from”
the “dead cat bounce” of climate science predictions.