Guest post by Bill Gray Professor Emeritus, Colorado State University
(AMS Fellow, Charney Award recipient, and over 50-year member)
June 2011
I am very disappointed at the downward path the AMS has been following for the last 10-15 years in its advocacy of the Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) hypothesis. The society has officially taken a position many of us AMS members do not agree with. We believe that humans are having little or no significant influence on the global climate and that the many Global Circulation Climate Model (GCMs) results and the four IPCC reports do not realistically give accurate future projections. To take this position which so many of its members do not necessarily agree with shows that the AMS is following more of a political than a scientific agenda.
The AMS Executive Director Keith Seitter and the other AMS higher-ups and the Council have not shown the scientific maturity and wisdom we would expect of our AMS leaders. I question whether they know just how far off-track the AMS has strayed since they foolishly took such a strong pro-AGW stance.
The American Meteorological Society (AMS) was founded in 1919 as an organization dedicated to advancing scientific knowledge of weather and climate. It has been a wonderful beacon for fostering new understanding of how the atmosphere and oceans function. But this strong positive image is now becoming tarnished as a result of the AMS leadership’s capitulating to the lobby of the climate modelers and to the outside environmental and political pressure groups who wish to use the current AMS position on AGW to help justify the promotion of their own special interests. The effectiveness of the AMS as an objective scientific organization is being greatly compromised.
We AMS members have allowed a small group of AMS administrators, climate modelers, and CO2 warming sympathizers to maneuver the internal workings of our society to support AGW policies irrespective of what our rank-and-file members might think. This small organized group of AGW sympathizers has indeed hijacked our society.
The AMS should be acting as a facilitator for the scientific debate on the pro and con aspects of the AGW hypothesis, not to take a side in the issue. The AMS has not held the type of open and honest scientific debates on the AGW hypothesis which they should have. Why have they dodged open discussion on such an important issue? I’ve been told that the American Economic Society does not take sides on controversial economic issues but acts primarily to help in stimulating back and forth discussion. This is what the AMS should have been doing but haven’t.
James Hansen’s predictions of global warming made before the Senate in 1988 are turning out to be very much less than he had projected. He cannot explain why there has been no significant global warming over the last 10-12 years.
Many of us AMS members believe that the modest global warming we have observed is of natural origin and due to multi-decadal and multi-century changes in the globe’s deep ocean circulation resulting from salinity variations. These changes are not associated with CO2 increases. Most of the GCM modelers have little experience in practical meteorology. They do not realize that the strongly chaotic nature of the atmosphere-ocean climate system does not allow for skillful initial value numerical climate prediction. The GCM simulations are badly flawed in at least two fundamental ways:
- Their upper tropospheric water vapor feedback loop is grossly wrong. They assume that increases in atmospheric CO2 will cause large upper-tropospheric water vapor increases which are very unrealistic. Most of their model warming follows from these invalid water vapor assumptions. Their handlings of rainfall processes are quite inadequate.
- They lack an understanding and treatment of the fundamental role of the deep ocean circulation (i.e. Meridional Overturning Circulation – MOC) and how the changing ocean circulation (driven by salinity variations) can bring about wind, rainfall, and surface temperature changes independent of radiation and greenhouse gas changes. These ocean processes are not properly incorporated in their models. They assume the physics of global warming is entirely a product of radiation changes and radiation feedback processes. They neglect variations in global evaporation which is more related to surface wind speed and ocean minus surface and air temperature differences. These are major deficiencies.
The Modelers’ Free Ride. It is surprising that GCMs have been able to get away with their unrealistic modeling efforts for so long. One explanation is that they have received strong support from Senator/Vice President Al Gore and other politicians who for over three decades have attempted to make political capital out of increasing CO2 measurements. Another reason is the many environmental and political groups (including the mainstream media) have been eager to use the GCM climate results as justification to push their own special interests that are able to fly under the global warming banner. A third explanation is that they have not been challenged by their peer climate modeling groups who apparently have seen possibilities for similar research grant support and publicity by copying Hansen and the earlier GCM modelers.
I anticipate that we are going to experience a modest naturally-driven global cooling over the next 15-20 years. This will be similar to the weak global cooling that occurred between the early-1940s and the mid-1970s. It is to be noted that CO2 amounts were also rising during this earlier cooling period which were opposite to the expected CO2-temperature association.
An expected 15-20 year cooling will occur (in my view) because of the current strong ocean Meridional Overturning Circulation (MOC) that has now been established in the last decade and a half and ought to continue for another couple of decades. I explain most of the last century and-a-half general global warming since the mid-1800s (start of the industrial revolution) to be a result of a long multi-century slowdown in the ocean’s MOC circulation. Increases of CO2 could have contributed only a small fraction (0.1-0.2oC) of the roughly ~ 0.7oC surface warming that has been observed since 1850. Natural processes have had to have been responsible for most of the observed warming over the last century and a half.
Debate. The AMS is the most relevant of our country’s scientific societies as regards to its members having the most extensive scientific and technical background in meteorology and climate. It should have been a leader in helping to adjudicate the claims of the AGW advocates and their skeptical critics. Our country’s Anglo-Saxon derived legal system is based on the idea that the best way to get to the truth is to have opposite sides of a continuous issue present their differing views in open debate before a non partisan jury. Nothing like this has happened with regards to the AGW issue. Instead of organizing meetings with free and open debates on the basic physics and the likelihood of AGW induced climate changes, the leaders of the society (with the backing of the society’s AGW enthusiasts) have chosen to fully trust the climate models and deliberately avoid open debate on this issue. I know of no AMS sponsored conference where the AGW hypothesis has been given open and free discussion. For a long time I have wanted a forum to express my skepticism of the AGW hypothesis. No such opportunities ever came within the AMS framework. Attempts at publication of my skeptic views have been difficult. One rejection stated that I was too far out of the mainstream thinking. Another that my ideas had already been discredited. A number of AGW skeptics have told me they have had similar experiences.
The climate modelers and their supporters deny the need for open debate of the AGW question on the grounds that the issue has already been settled by their model results. They have taken this view because they know that the physics within their models and the long range of their forecast periods will likely not to be able to withstand knowledgeable and impartial review. They simply will not debate the issue. As a defense against criticism they have resorted to a general denigration of those of us who do not support their AGW hypothesis. AGW skeptics are sometimes tagged (I have been) as no longer being credible scientists. Skeptics are often denounced as tools of the fossil-fuel industry. A type of McCarthyism against AGW skeptics has been in display for a number of years.
Recent AMS Awardees. Since 2000 the AMS has awarded its annual highest award (Rossby Research Medal) to the following AGW advocates or AGW sympathizers; Susan Solomon (00), V. Ramanathan (02), Peter Webster (04), Jagadish Shukla (05), Kerry Emanuel (07), Isaac Held (08) and James Hansen (09). Its second highest award (Charney Award) has gone to AGW warming advocates or sympathizers; Kevin Trenberth (00), Rich Rotunno (04), Graeme Stephens (05) Robert D. Cess (06), Allan Betts (07), Gerald North (08) and Warren Washington and Gerald Meehl (09). And the other Rossby and Charney awardees during this period are not known to be critics of the AGW warming hypothesis.
The AGW biases within the AMS policy makers is so entrenched that it would be impossible for well known and established scientists (but AGW skeptics) such as Fred Singer, Pat Michaels, Bill Cotton, Roger Pielke, Sr., Roy Spencer, John Christie, Joe D’Aleo, Bob Balling, Jr., Craig Idso, Willie Soon, etc. to ever be able to receive an AMS award – irrespective of the uniqueness or brilliance of their research.
What Working Meteorologists Say. My interaction (over the years) with a broad segment of AMS members (that I have met as a result of my seasonal hurricane forecasting and other activities) who have spent a sizable portion of their careers down in the meteorological trenches of observations and forecasting, have indicated that a majority of them do not agree that humans are the primary cause of global warming. These working meteorologists are too experienced and too sophisticated to be hoodwinked by the lobby of global climate modelers and their associated propagandists. I suggest that the AMS conduct a survey of its members who are actually working with real time weather-climate data to see how many agree that humans have been the main cause of global warming and that there was justification for the AMS’s 2009 Rossby Research Medal (highest AMS award) going to James Hansen.
Global Environmental Problems. There is no question that global population increases and growing industrialization have caused many environmental problems associated with air and water pollution, industrial contamination, unwise land use, and hundreds of other human-induced environmental irritants. But all these human-induced environmental problems will not go away by a draconian effort to reduce CO2 emissions. CO2 is not a pollutant but a fertilizer. Humankind needs fossil-fuel energy to maintain its industrial lifestyle and to expand this lifestyle in order to be able to better handle these many other non-CO2 environmental problems. There appears to be a misconception among many people that by reducing CO2 we are dealing with our most pressing environmental problem. Not so.
It must be remembered that advanced industrial societies do more for the global environment than do poor societies. By greatly reducing CO2 emissions and paying a great deal more for our then needed renewable energy we will lower our nation’s standard of living and not be able to help relieve as many of our and the globe’s many environmental, political, and social problems.
Obtaining a Balanced View on AGW. To understand what is really occurring with regards to the AGW question one must now bypass the AMS, the mainstream media, and the mainline scientific journals. They have mostly been preconditioned to accept the AGW hypothesis and, in general, frown on anyone not agreeing that AGW is, next to nuclear war, our society’s most serious long range problem.
To obtain any kind of a balanced back-and-forth discussion on AGW one has to consult the many web blogs that are both advocates and skeptics of AGW. These blogs are the only source for real open debate on the validity of the AGW hypothesis. Here is where the real science of the AGW question is taking place. Over the last few years the weight of evidence, as presented in these many blog discussions, is beginning to swing against the AGW hypothesis. As the globe fails to warm as the GCMs have predicted the American public is gradually losing its belief in the prior claims of Gore, Hansen, and the other many AGW advocates.
Prediction. The AMS is going to be judged in future years as having foolishly sacrificed its sterling scientific reputation for political and financial expediency. I am sure that hundreds of our older deceased AMS members are rolling in their graves over what has become of their and our great society.
[duplicate text removed ~ ctm]
Interesting and cogent post by Bill Gray, but why the duplication?
I think that the AMS leadership’s ears will be burning after this one…
About time they began to speak out like this,
While I respect the science of Dr. Gray, in this case I wish he had brought the same level of evidence to this position piece as he does to his science. Unfortunately this article is an opinion piece rooted in his personal perspective of the issue of AGW. As such it must necessarily stand only as an opinion among a myriad opinions which both agree and contradict. I wish the evidence had been laid out with equal vigor.
Hear! Hear! Truer words were never spoken! Professor Gray writes:
“These ocean processes are not properly incorporated in their models. They assume the physics of global warming is entirely a product of radiation changes and radiation feedback processes.”
See, Professor Gray focuses on the natural processes. He has the instincts of the scientist. By contrast, Warmista focus on their “Gaia Models” of radiation exchange and have no account of natural processes. Warmista have the obsessions of computer modelers, not the instincts of scientists, and, no, there is no synergy between the two. Computer models can assist scientists who are investigating what follows from their complicated physical hypotheses, but there is no way in heck that computer models can substitute for physical hypotheses.
It’s about the stupidest “science” I’ve ever seen.
They decide what’s normal.
They decide that it’s not normal.
They know so little about CO2 and what makes climate, they can back up and make it fit……
Then push it forward to claim it’s “unprecedented”
And when it doesn’t pan out, they still claim it………..
If this was your investment broker, you’d fire them in a heart beat
The definitive evidence, which will require the wholesale rethinking and rewriting of climate science, and should be headline news around the world:
Venus: No Greenhouse Effect
Our old rebellious, and my very close friend Vuk (vukcevic) informs me that his younger daughter has today successfully completed presentation of her MSc (Master of Science) thesis at Oxford University.
Great stuff. Mr Gray covers a lot of ground here, and raises the important issues. I suggest to him that he join forces with his fellow meteorologists and throws the corrupt out of office. Great institutions like the AMS should not be hamstrung by carefully encroached and reworded policies preventing a free vote of the membership.
The entire story is printed twice.
Working on it. Robt]
Is it me or is the essay duplicated above?
“AGW enthusiasts”…now THAT is an oxymoron of giant proportions.
I am afraid that judging has already started. Once Heidi Cullen called for banishment, to when James Hansen called for imprisonment – of any who dared debate the issue, the AMS has been tarnished as a PR outfit for BIG GREEN, and not any kind of science organization.
There is still time to make this period just a footnote or trivia question on Jeopardy, but that will take some hard choices made by honest people. Is the AMS up to the task?
Nice article. Our major institutions used to take a much more objective view of events and look at the evidence rather than take up a political stance. I have found that pre 1980 items tend to have a much higher level of objectivity than modern day papers.
This item comes from the US weather bureau from 1955 in which Giles Slocum elegantly demolishes the Co2 theories of GS Callendar
http://www.pensee-unique.eu/001_mwr-083-10-0225.pdf
tonyb
fredb says:
June 16, 2011 at 12:21 pm
I wish the evidence had been laid out with equal vigor.
I think the term is “rigor”. Vigor is not lacking at all. Calling attention to a society’s political bias does not require scientific rigor per se…and suggesting that the pot is calling the kettle black is, well, cheap. And, as you state, your opinion is carefully shrouded in the disqualifation of its just being an opinion. Nope.
These blogs are the only source for real open debate on the validity of the AGW hypothesis. Here is where the real science of the AGW question is taking place.
Some “real science” with real peer-review, “priceless”!
A wonderful overall statement of things, Dr. Gray.
I quit the ASA/CSSA for the same reason (Agronomy and Crop Science organizations). They recently published a societies position statement on AGW, of course supporting the whole notion. Who is the bureaucratic cabal purporting to be representing? Obviously they see this as a way to get more funding. It is all about money. Every time a potential budget cut comes across, the societies send out an e-mail telling us to call congress and say no. Once people get their hand in the government trough they don’t want to remove it.
Quote from Dr. Grays letter
“I anticipate that we are going to experience a modest naturally-driven global cooling over the next 15-20 years. This will be similar to the weak global cooling that occurred between the early-1940s and the mid-1970s. It is to be noted that CO2 amounts were also rising during this earlier cooling period which were opposite to the expected CO2-temperature association. ”
I would agree with his prediction, other factors being equal, but they are not. His prediction would be largely right if only the 60 year cycle were involved. However, we are also on the downside of the Jose (179 year) cycle, and we have a deep grand solar minimum. It is likely to get a lot colder than he predicts.
Bravo. Professor Gray correctly points out that all Alarmist GCM models are known to be faulty. To be reliable, the models must be able to predict not only global temperature trends, but also accurately predict the trend as a function of latitude; it is on this measure that all GCM models spectacularly fail. The reason they fail is the lack of fidelity in the ocean circulation part of the model. In fact, every major GCM uses the same flawed circulation model.
Without even knowing the details, any reasonably competent scientist would conclude that these models are unreliable simply from the observation that they have completely failed to predict the decade of the 2000s.
Dr. Gray has hit hard. Congratulations to him for speaking his mind.
It’s not just the AMS. It’s the American Chemical Society, the American Physical society, the NAS and others. If the temperature remains stable or if it cools over the next decade or two, I hope members in all these societies put pressure on their leadership to re-examine their decision making processes and make it a requirement to see input from their membership before making policy statements on things such as climate change. What might be even more helpful is that if a society chooses to make a policy statements with political ramifications, that policy statements from those with an opposing view also be included.
What a fantastic letter Professor Gray. Thank you for your integrity and courage.
Silence many times can be misconstrued for agreement . . . .That’s why I only know two German jokes . . . one of which is; it only takes one thing to get two Germans into an ‘argument’ . . . and that is; being in the same room together!
fredb says:
June 16, 2011 at 12:21 pm
“I wish the evidence had been laid out with equal vigor.”
So, you believe that the (i.e. Meridional Overturning Circulation – MOC), a natural process, is in the Warmista’s “Gaia Model?” No interesting physical processes are in the models: Not ENSO, not PDO, nothing. If you do not believe me, ask the Warmista. They will tell you.
Any thoughts if people like Gore Hanson, Suzuki, Weaver and Greenpeace, WWF etc can be held legally accountable down the road.
Would Bill Gray like to elaborate on all these people “he has talked to”, and have published in the peer-reviewed literature on climate-related topics, that actually disagree with the AMS position? As this stands, it is little more than an opinion piece full of assertions.
I would HOPE that Dr. Gray is still not supporting the charlatans, thereby strengthening their non-science!
Fredb: opinion pieces are very valuable. Bill Gray has a long and distinguished career in the subject at hand and holds a Charney award. He clearly knows what he is talking about and given his status and his reputation I would place considerable weight on his view. I would like to hear the view of other eminent meteorologists just as I like to hear from credible scientists from all sides of the argument. The fact that Bill Gray has not incorporated 50 references to peer reviewed journals is irrelevant. What matters to me is his judgement – and after interminable and inconclusive debates about the evidence, that is all that matters.
So, you believe that the (i.e. Meridional Overturning Circulation – MOC), a natural process, is in the Warmista’s “Gaia Model?” No interesting physical processes are in the models: Not ENSO, not PDO, nothing. If you do not believe me, ask the Warmista. They will tell you.
—
Over on National Review Online, I had a Warmista try to convince me that it was the models that predicted the existence of PDO and AMO. According to her, nobody had any clue that these things might exist until the GCR models told them to look.
Look, I’m agreeing with what you say, but the fact is that most people won’t get involved in the “politics” of an association. The ‘greens’ have taken over for exactly that reason. We sat around and snickered at their ideas believeing that no one would be foolish enough to believe these models. We now sit around and bemoan the direction of the groups. We stand indignant and threaten to leave the prestegious organzations.
The only way to change an organization is not by anickering, bemoaing, or leaving. It can only be achieved by ‘politics’. Get involved. Run for office at the local and national level. Only if we can active will we have a say.
I’m sorry that this sounds unprofessional, but the reality is this: Professional organzations are being taken over by the minority by default..
Ok looks like my key board is having battery problems, and I didn’t take the time to review.
“These blogs are the only source for real open debate on the validity of the AGW hypothesis.”
Yup.
You could start by actually reading the article. A pull quote from it:
Peter Webster, a Georgia Institute of Technology professor, has been part of the anonymous peer review on several of Gray’s National Science Foundation proposals. In every case he has turned down the global warming research component because he believed it was not up to standards, but recommended that Gray’s hurricane research be funded.[10]
====================================================================
and that’s the definition of peer….
..has nothing to do with science, and everything to do with agreeing with the peers
Dr. Gray, I believe it’s a lot simpler than that.
All of their science, computer models, you name it, would not mean one single thing if it wasn’t abnormal.
You touched on that.
We have allowed them to define what is normal.
We have allowed them to define where to start counting………
If you start at the MWP, temps have gone down and back to “normal”, Arctic ice has gone up.
If you start at the LIA, temps have gone up, Arctic ice has gone down.
If you start at 1980’s down, 1920’s up………………………
What’s normal and who gets the money/science depends on who can define “normal”…
Thirty years of “normal”, and 2/3’s went one way, and 1/3 went the other………….
Can they predict anything? of course not.
We know so little about CO2 and climate, they are both so malleable, people have been able to back up and make/force them to fit. Then try to forward cast them into some prediction.
Even when that forward cast is blatantly wrong, there is so little to go on they still claim “science”………
….remind me again, why is this still a subject of conversation?
I have learned a lot from reading through the AMS material from the past.
Very good stuff, and I learned what is normal/abnormal and a lot of things that have happened before, some of which have yet to happen again. The change to colder climate will bring some eye-opening phenomena.
PhilJourdan says:
June 16, 2011 at 1:35 pm
well said Phil – but as we all know, there’s none as blind as those that won’t open their eyes (and read!) LOL
PhilJourdan,
Bill Gray specifically talked about qualified climate scientists skeptical of AGW and that were affiliated with AMS, so he must be talking about another group of individuals. Aside from which Spencer, and Christ(y) are the only people there who meet even the qualifications aspect, and yet do not even deny that humans have an impact on the warming world. For all the cheerleading going on I only see assertions and arguments completely unfamiliar with the literature (such as the water vapor stuff…).
This is WUWT I guess…whatever
REPLY: This is Chris Colose, inexperienced student, http://www.aos.wisc.edu/~colose/ whatever. – Anthony
Of all orgs I’d expect the AMS to be the “purest” in terms of attacking the AGW debate with open minds.
Meteorologists, more than many other disciplines, well understand the hard knocks of computer modeling. In particular, meteorologists understand skill in simulations vs increasing the time frames of the simulations. At some point, given a sufficiently long forecast horizon, a long term weather forecast (or really, the integral of forecasts between time zero and a given future time) becomes a climate model. The true hands on experts are the best group to be evaluating the debate. Such a doctrinaire stance is horrific. This org is now effectively dead.
Sadly this phenomenon is not unique to the AMS. Many scientific groups have become political entities (e.g. the AMA, ACP, ASHP, etc). A minority of the politically correct, liberal membership seem to gravitate to the leadership positions and thereby get to define organizational policy. I’ve resigned from several for this very reason. Web sites such as this excellent one are the bane of AGW activists. They’re not afraid of anyone telling lies…they’re afraid of people telling the truth.
As the worm turms and AGW is dumped, I hope all the names of these illustrious leaders of and to the “dark side” — in all professional scientific societies — will be set down in a permanent blacklist. Those who chose to destroy science and the scientific method should be blocked from ever again working in the profession(s) they so betrayed. Speak now or forever hold your peace. The evidence against any meaningful AGW is building into a tsumani, a Tohoku-size tsunami.
Mark Wilson says:
June 16, 2011 at 1:24 pm
“Over on National Review Online, I had a Warmista try to convince me that it was the models that predicted the existence of PDO and AMO. According to her, nobody had any clue that these things might exist until the GCR models told them to look.”
Bwhaaa ha ha ha…! Ask Anthony or other meteorologists about the history of the PDO and similar phenomena then ask them just how much the modelers want to talk about them. For that matter, just review the Warmista’s statements about the frigid December in Europe. Not one of them gives any credence to claims about the AMO or similar phenomena.
Chris Colose says:
June 16, 2011 at 2:07 pm
Professor Gray writes:
“They lack an understanding and treatment of the fundamental role of the deep ocean circulation (i.e. Meridional Overturning Circulation – MOC) and how the changing ocean circulation (driven by salinity variations) can bring about wind, rainfall, and surface temperature changes independent of radiation and greenhouse gas changes. These ocean processes are not properly incorporated in their models.”
Totally and completely true. In fact, if you ask the “Gaia Modelers” about the physical processes that make up the MOC and how radiation is processed within them, they have nothing to say. No doubt, it is because that they work with the simple minded assumption that Earth is at radiation equilibrium so that they can depend on their simple minded calculation of radiation-in and radiation-out on a daily basis. Sorry, the natural world is far trickier and far more versatile than that. But you are never going to discover that if you spend your whole life in front of a computer screen.
Anthony,
You obviously know how I feel about you and your blog, and the level of scientific understanding here, so the insults are pointless. I will do my best to suspend my anger at some of the things people are spoon-fed (and that they actually eat) daily.
I made a very simple request. AMS, and virtually every other scientific organization (all of the worlds National Academies, AGU, etc) have accepted the strong role of humans in the climate system. This is the overwhelming consensus portrayed in the peer-reviewed literature and understood by thousands of publishing scientists around the world with actual qualifications, with the exception of a handful of dissenters.
Now let’s pretend that I am some casual joe walking down the street, and someone says that they talked to a bunch of angry meteorologists that think this is all unfair. For one thing, meteorologists are not trained in the technicalities of the climate system, so this casual joe is saying “so what?” But, then I ask, so who are these meteorologists, and what are their qualifications? Even if they have no qualifications, this joe might be ready to hear, provided they submitted their profound insights to be scrutinized by peer review and that it stood the test of time. Get the point yet…
REPLY: You are right, your predictable insults are pointless, so stop it and take it up with Dr. Gray rather than dissing me for publishing his essay at his request. Consensus does not equal fact, and the moment consensus replaces empirically proven facts in science, science is lost. – Anthony
Thanks for your post, Professor Gray.
Would you agree to be a candidate in the next AMS elections?
I would vote for you. I guess it is the best way of changing things
Chris,
I get your point now. People who don’t understand the technology on a first principles basis must rely on an appeal to authority argument.
I’ll just stick to understanding the technology on issues like AGW and leave the consensus argument to political issues. The consensus process elected every congress critter that makes speeches on C-SPAN.
WHAT IS MORE OBVIOUS IS THAT MR COLOSE IS A SELF OPINIONATED YOUNG PRAT
Chris Colose ,
I respectfully suggest that you keep an open mind – your degree might not be worth squat in twenty years .
fredb says: “While I respect the science of Dr. Gray, in this case I wish he had brought the same level of evidence to this position piece as he does to his science. Unfortunately this article is an opinion piece rooted in his personal perspective of the issue of AGW. As such it must necessarily stand only as an opinion among a myriad opinions which both agree and contradict. I wish the evidence had been laid out with equal vigor.”
Bloody shame you didn’t read the post, Fred.
Chris Colose says:
June 16, 2011 at 2:24 pm
I’ve heard Joe D’Aleo and others get very upset about the hijacking of the AMS and other groups. (NAS, AGU, ACS.) I’m not someone prone to believing conspiracy theories, but the similarity of the stories suggests either that or a situation where people who want to direct the organization head that way and people who keep want to keep doing science head that way and the difference is consistently showing up in policy. I don’t like either possibility, I’d like to hear others.
BTW, I followed you link and took a brief look at your http://chriscolose.wordpress.com/2010/02/18/greenhouse-effect-revisited/ which I think is quite interesting. I’ll look at it some more. I suspect one reason models and reality are diverging is that convection may be playing a bigger role in in transporting heat upward – as the radiative path is impeded, and ground level temps climb, then that enhances convection.
I need to update http://wermenh.com/climate/science.html someday – can I use some of your images (with attribution)?
Professors like Dr. Bill Grey are exactly the reason I have encouraged my kids to attend CSU instead of CU here in Colorado.
When Hanson won the Rossby Award, I dropped out of the AMS; Television Seal and all. You do not let those who are the gatekeepers of climate data have such sharp environmental and political viewpoints that could challenge if the data is true and unbiased. What would happen if the Congressional Budget Office allowed politics to influence cost estimates. We deserve to have non-political, pure scientists and statisticians to track our raw date.
john(UK)– Joe did not like to be yelled at and is now running away in tears
PWalker— Yes, I should keep an open mind, but I must also keep an open mind about people who think they have an open enough mind to overturn decades of scientific literature. I hope people here do this too, rather than just being told Venus has no greenhouse effect, even though not one planetary scientist would agree with this.
Maurice– Well, people appeal to authority all the time. This Joe takes the prescriptions the doctor gives me. It seems only to be climate science where everyone thinks they understand everything by learning it for a week.
Chris Colose,
Find a way to get the numbers of buffalo on the great plains , deer in the northeast, bear, antelop, wolfs, coyotes, skunks, badgers, raccons, beaver, on and on that were here in north and south america together with all the natives at the time before all these new ones came. Find the amount of CO2 they exhaled and prove what that caused to the earths tempature to do. Publish it here.
Does democracy not exist within the AMS and other similar organisations then ?
Here is an experiment that shows that the “greenhouse gas effect” does not exist!
Part1
I have indicated that there is an experiment that demonstrates that the “greenhouse gas effect” does not exist. This experiment plus the mathematics of several hundred Ph. D. physicists and the non existent experiments “proving the ghge” should show that the Hypotheses is a fairy-tale.
The Experiment that Failed and saved the World trillions.
By Berthold Klein P.E November 16, 2010 revision 11-19-2010
The hypotheses of the “greenhouse gas effect” is the process where a combination of IR absorbing gases including Water/vapor/liquid/solid, CO2.CH4. NO2 and others are super insulation and cause the atmosphere to be 33 degrees warmer than would be explained by the “black body “temperature.
How is this done? The hypothesis says that the IRag’s absorb the IR radiation then it is “back radiated to earth causing the earth to be warmer by the resonating of this heat energy.
This is just the tip of the iceberg of the magic caused by the “greenhouse gas effect”
as has been said the truth is in the detail therefore anyone that wants to get into more of the details,please join in. I will be adding more later.
As others have not started to define “The greenhouse gas effect” lets start with what are the “features that should be testable!” Because water/liquid, vapor,solid (H2O /lvs) is different than gases IRag’s as CO2 ,Ch4,NO2 and others -this will deal first with the none H2O ,IRags.
Critical features:
1. The IRags absorb the IR radiation and thus prevents it from escaping into space reducing the rate of atmospheric cool- it causes the air to be warmer.
2. The IRags will “back radiate” IR radiation to earth to cause increased heating of the surface.
3. The IRags will heat up by the absorption of the IR radiation thus heating the air.
4. The IRag’s have different levels of “back-forcing”. Having ask others how this is determined,( no answer yet) ,it is assumed that someone has reviewed the amount of IR that a particular molecule absorbs by a spectrophotometer analysis then comparing this to the absorption of CO2. (I have not seen any experimental data that the “back-forcing” relates to absorption).(an assumption based on The Bohr model however a time factor is needed)
5. The higher the concentration of IRags the greater the amount of “back-radiation” the higher the “global atmospheric temperature will become.(were is the experimental data )
6. The concentration of CO2 found in million year old Ice cores can be used as proof that the “ghg effect” exists. When there is no experimental data that proves that the “ghg effect”exists.
7. Where does this lead?
We all know that the “greenhouse” effect exist. Anyone that has gotten into a hot car on a sunny day.(summer or winter). Has walked into a store with south facing window , its temperature will be much higher than a car ,or window in the shade. This is caused by confined space heating- this was established in 1909 by R.W. Wood a professor of Physics and Optics at John Hopkins University from 1901 to 1955.
What experiment could be performed to “prove” that the ”greenhouse gas effect exists.
All the AGW point out it is impossible to simulate what actually happens in the atmosphere therefore they propose using computer models, the problem with “computer models” is that unless all the factors that effect the atmosphere are included into the program it is “garbage in is garbage out”. When this is tried there are no computers made that have sufficient capacity to handle all of the factors. Many of the factors are not even fully know yet. Then the big guess is what are the factors to include and which are really of minor importance and can be left out and still get usable results. To data no one has come up with the “right model”
continued
Part 2
Using the list of “critical factor” lets see if there are some way of indicating if the concept may exist.
To use the concentration of IRags in the atmosphere for testing does not work otherwise there would not be the controversy that exists today. In the field of engineering and research there is the use of “models” that are either similar in behavior or can be proportioned to a larger or smaller series of events that relate to an actual set of events.
As the amount of heating that is supposed to be is on the order of fractions of a degree per year- we need a more dramatic experiment to show that the concept actually exists. If the experiment at a much higher concentration does not demonstrate the effect then the Concept does not exist. If the concept works at high concentration then it can be tried with lower and lower concentrations until a threshold of effects is reached.
Some numbers are needed now: By definition 10,000 ppm is 1%, therefore 100 % equals 1million parts per million( 1×10+6) . The atmosphere is supposed to contain 400 ppm (round Number) therefore a concentration of 100% CO2 is 2500 time that of what is in the atmosphere. If the effect exists it should be much easier to measure and demonstrate.
Now it is claimed that CH4 is from 23 to 70 time the effect of CO2,thus using the lowers figure by using a concentration of 100 % CH4 ,the effect should be 57500 time stronger that using CO2. It is claimed that NO2 is 100 time more powerful that CO2 thus it should cause 250,000 X the effect of CO2 in the atmosphere
As CH4 is found to be about 2ppB ( 2 X 10 -9)in the atmosphere , a concentration of 100 % CH4 should give a results that is 5 X 10 + 10 times what exists in the atmosphere.
. Now if CH4 is 23 times the effect of CO2 another longer chain hydrocarbon molecule will be even more powerful thus the proposed experiment shown below was done with 100 % butane.
The experiment shown below substituted “natural gas” a mixture of 70% CH4 about 29% CO2 and the remainder is H2 and other trace gases. This is readily available for test purposed from any natural gas stove. Now 100 % CO2 is available for several sources, but one that is not too expensive is from any Paint ball supply store, another is from a supplier of Dry ice. Do not use Alka Seltzer as you have to put this in water to get the CO2 thus you have a mixture of CO2 and water and water vapor – you are not testing the effect of CO2 only. Discussion of H2O/lvs in the atmosphere will follow later.
The natural gas mixture should have a combined effect of less that 100% CH4 by a weighted average of 70% CH4+ 29% CO2or 3.500000725X10+9 times the effect of CO2 in the atmosphere. If this occurs the temperature increase must be measurable.
How does the experiment contain the high concentration of the IRags for this test? Having reviewed several experiments that contained the IRags is glass containers then they measures the increase in temperature of the gas which had increased, they claimed this increase was do to the “ghg”effect, they are absolutely wrong. The cause of the temperature increase was do to the heating of the glass by its absorbing the IR and the glass heating. ( A Master’s thesis (peer reviewed) with this information is available on request). Another failure of these tests were their including a black cardboard inside the containers, thus additional heating of the IRag’s from conduction of heat from the black cardboard. (They created a Greenhouse effect-confined space heating)
The proper way to contain the high concentration of IRags is in a thin walled material that will not absorb the IR and heat. The experiment used crystal clear Mylar balloons. They are available in various sizes, several 20 inch diameter(major diameter) were chosen. If you want you can use larger ones to contain larger numbers of IRag molecules.
continued
What puzzles me is why such “learned societies” feel able (or are even permitted by their members) to state any official position at all, either way, on a matter that is clearly far from settled: it is no more scientific than betting on a horse in a race; and in this particular race the AGW horse is looking increasingly to be running on only three legs.
It took about 40 years for ‘Piltdown Man’ to be exposed: I hope the AGW hypothesis is discredited a lot sooner because I’d like to see this insufferably arrogant “the science is settled” brigade publicly humiliated in their (and my) lifetimes.
Part 3
Now lets discuss the experiment.
1. Fill the balloons with the various IRags ,and one with dry air as a control.
2. Let the balloons reach ambient temperature. If you are going to use sunlight let it adjust outside in the shade.
3. Use an IR thermometer to check the temperatures of each balloon, use a digital thermometer that reads to 0.1 degree to check air temperature in the shade. Record data.
4. Take a large black mate board or a large black cloth or sheet and lay it on the ground in the sun. Use the IR thermometer to check the temperature as it raises in the sun. Record the data. When it appears to reach a maximum then go to step 5.
5. Suspend the balloons over the black background (about 1 foot above) and measure the temperature of the balloons initially. Record the temperature.
6. Measure the temperature of the black background in the “shadow” of each of the balloons also measure the temperature of the black background outside of the “shadows” of the balloons.
Now lets repeat the Critical factors and note the result of my test to the critical factor.
Critical features:
1. The IRags absorb the IR radiation and thus prevents it from escaping into space reducing the rate of atmospheric cool- it causes the air to be warmer. The air between the balloons and the black background did not change temperature.
2. The IRags will “back radiate” IR radiation to earth to cause increased heating of the surface. The black background did not change temperature either in the “shadow” or outside the shadow. The temperature of the black background heated to 20 t0 30 degrees above ambient before the balloons were placed over the black background. When this was done outside in bright sun light the black background heated to 130 to 140 degrees F. Similar temperature can be measured from black asphalt. When the experiment was done with the 500 watt power shop light (see below)inside the black background went from ambient of 70-72 degrees to 100 -110 degrees. Again when measuring the temperatures of the black background with the IR thermometer there was no measurable temperature difference anywhere along the surface.
3. The IRags will heat up by the absorption of the IR radiation thus heating the air. The balloons did not warn any warmer than ambient. The IRags in the balloons will not warm because that would be a violation of the Bohr Model.
4. The IRag’s have different levels of “back-forcing”. Having ask others how this is determined,( no answer yet) ,it is assumed that someone has reviewed the amount of IR that a particular molecule absorbs by a spectrophotometer analysis then comparing this to the absorption of CO2. (I have not seen any experimental data that the “back-forcing” relates to absorption).(an assumption based on The Bohr model however a time factor is needed) As there was no temperature difference under any of the balloons, there was no stronger “back-forcing” because the IRag absorbed more IR radiation.
5. The higher the concentration of IRags the greater the amount of “back-radiation” the higher the “global atmospheric temperature will become.(were is the experimental data )
6. The concentration of CO2 found in million year old Ice cores can be used as proof that the “ghg effect” exists. When there is no experimental data that proves that the “ghg effect”exists.
Specifications of the IR thermometer: model: MTPRO laser-Micro Temp; temperature range: -41degree C/F to 1040 degrees F. IR range 5 to 16 nm. Angle of view D:S =11:1
cost about $60.00. many other models available.
continued
Chris Colose,
I have read your posts. You are not qualified to assess the scientific literacy of others.
Mark
Part 4
I have thought about several refinements, but it would not change the bottom line that the “ghg effect” is a fairy-tale.
I’m sure that the AGW’s will not believe this proves that the “greenhouse gas effect does not exists , therefore I challenge them to come up with an experiment that they claim “proves the existence of the “greenhouse gas effect”.
As an alternate light source the experiment has been performed with an incandescent light. By using a 500 watt shop power light which because of the temperature of the filament approach the spectral characteristics of the Sun light ( should have more long wave IR because of a lower temperature) It was place one(1) meter away from the balloons to avoid conduction and convection heating of the balloons. As is stated above there was no difference in the final results.
Now lets talk about water( H2O/lvs):
Yes H2O/lvs has a major effect on weather conditions, where I’m at in Northern Ohio it just started to rain, if it gets any colder we will have snow or sleet. Of course tomorrow it may be sunny and clear. As is said in the Great Lakes region if you don’t like the weather wait 15 minutes and it will change. Now the “climate” has not changed for the last 300 years just as the Indians.
Any way lets look a H2O/lvs in the atmosphere : If its clear the humidity can be from near 0 % relative humidity to 100%. Now if it ‘s cloudy the “relative Humidity” can vary from 30 to 100% depending on temperatures, Now we know that the air temperature where the clouds are forming is at or below the “dew point”, now as the H2O vapor cools to form clouds there is a release of energy( Heat of condensation), if the general air temperature is low enough ( below freezing) more energy is released as ice or snow is formed. This energy has to be dissipated either as IR radiation or as lightening or probably high winds or tornado.
This is only one phase of the complex weather conditions when H2O/lvs is being evaluated another is the solar heating of clouds both day and night. During the day the warming of the top of clouds is obvious but it is also relevant that in spite of significant solar absorption the “clouds “ have not absorbed enough radiation to convert the water or solids back to vapor; there is probably a rapid turbulent exchange of energy in both directions from evaporation/ sublimation to condensing, to freezing. This is why “climatologists” can not get the correct “sign” on the “forcing” it is a constantly changing set of conditions, non are wrong and non are correct.
Now lets add the next variable- solar heating at night of the clouds. Having taken IR radiation measurements at night for the last year at many different times by solar time it is apparent that when the sun goes down below the visible horizon , the clouds are still receiving solar energy. This has been confirmed by both measurements and visible lighting (multiple colors ) of the clouds. The clouds and the atmosphere cool until about 2:00 am when there is measurable increases in cloud temperatures and air temperatures. This warming continues until daylight is visible. The degree of warming is related to the time of year and what is happening with the jet stream and arctic storms.
There are other factors that are being monitored by real astrophysics researcher that are showing that Solar flares, and different type of radiation have an effect on cloud formation,this is only a beginning of learning about our atmosphere.
There is no way in the world of Fairy-tales that CO2 can have an effect on weather or “climate”
The nice thing about this experiment is that it can be done by high school physics classes or freshmen college physics lab classes . It would teach a very important lesson in that “not all experiments have to have a “positive” end result to be meaningful.
Mann-made global warming is a hoax,because the “greenhouse gas effect” is a fairy -tale.
Chris, perhaps you could walk down the hall and ask some of your senior colleagues at U Wisc about Bill Gray’s contributions to Tropical Meteorology. If you look back over the past 5-10 years of the so-called “hurricane war” in which aspects of climate change and hurricanes have been linked, then you will see that the eventual consensus that emerged was much closer to Bill Gray’s “loud” expert opinions.
Chris Colose, great photo’s of you out enjoying the natural world on your website. I would suggest you do more of that & spend less time reading the IPCC, GISS, & realclimate websites, as they are written by political hacks whose careers depend on keeping the AGW bandwagon rolling.
Thanks to Prof Gray for a very concise, pointed article. Of course it is mostly Op-Ed as some here have asserted, but that is simply because Gray decided to trade thoroughness for brevity. The assertions he makes are well attested, both here & at other skeptical blogs. Other scientific societies have become similarly restive, re; the dust-up a few years ago at the ACS. If he should decide to publish his article in a “mainstream” publication, say the Wall Street Journal, which has been receptive to non-hysterical viewpoints, he would need to carefully document his assertions, perhaps as an on-line appendix.
The above seems pretty simple; what would be a more difficult but worthy followup would be to canvass the AMU membership and see just how big the gap is between its soi-disant leadership and its in-the-trenches membership; and if it’s as big as Dr. Gray believes, stage a rout and get a governing body that represents the working membership.
Ric, from a meteorological perspective, please pull up the ‘charts’ for today in Texas. In particular east and north central Texas (Dallas area); please note the winds and temperatures we are experiencing. Then take a look at a skew-t diagram from one of today’s soundings …
This marks about the 3rd straight week (exc for a couple of days earlier in the week) of what you will see (horizontal winds, high temps and little to no vertical convection) …
I assert the ‘heat transport’ is from more southern latitudes to northern via advection (where radiation from those ‘newly warmed’ surfaces then takes place).
.
Well done Bill Gray. There can be no more important post this year.
@chris Colose
It is interesting that you mention meteorologists not be trained in the technicalities of ‘climate science’. Perhaps you would like to elaborate just exactly whom is trained in the technicalities of ‘climate science’ – Indeed, it would be nice to see a realistic definition of what exactly is ‘climate science’! Then you might like to consider how ‘deep’ an understanding of each section of those ‘areas’ that form part of ‘climate science’ would be required?
I put it to you that there is no such thing as a trained ‘climate scientist’ – though I accept there are various multi-disciplined and multi-trained guys out there that cover a couple of the arenas where ‘climate science parts’ converge/overlap and that would make them more able to understand larger zones of the ‘subject’.
I’ll not bother to list all the possible subjects which would be required to FULLY understand ‘climate science’ but I am absolutely certain no such curriculum of study, even group of studies, exists sufficient to attain ‘enlightenment’! in the area of climate science: and nor is there any person capable of understanding ALL the necessary areas of science to such a level as to be an absolute expert in ‘climate science’! As for the term ‘climatologist’ – again, it would be interesting to read a proper scientific definition!
We have experienced members of various disciplines involved, but we have very few folk capable of bridging more than a couple of said disciplines!
Thus, it seems highly unlikely that you yourself would be able to categorically ‘assess’ the various scientific studies (ok,ok – including the politically biased bullshit produced by the IPCC!) to any signifcant level. (I myself am a geologist/geo-engineer and struggle like flip with some of the statistics methods, ‘modelling’, etc!)
I further opine that many ‘self’ or ‘media’ proclaimed climate scientists are often just jumped up guys from primary science subjects, many of whom have further ‘jumped up’ onto the AGW bandwagon – seeing an opportunity for ‘making a name for themselves’ in an area which is ill-defined yet full of grants, and PUBLICATION (peer reviewed by equally jumped up folk!) for weak scientific ideas!
And then – you, based on your obvious extensive experience and obviously infinite wisdom, feel that it is OK to accept the ‘concensus’ because you’re just so superior in your knowledge and understanding of all the subject matter?? Purleeeezzzzz…….
Thanks, Dr. Gray!
Ryan Maue,
Although I do not follow Tropical Meteorology literature in any detail, I am aware of the importance of some of his contributions. One of my peers in Madison that was really into hurricanes brought him up on occasion, and I doubt faculty in Madison would argue the point (unfortunately I’m not there now since I am going elsewhere for graduate school and am stationed in NYC @ GISS over the summer). Of course, those same colleagues in Madison would disagree with his views on climate change, and important contributions in one area does not guarantee expertise in another. As I’m sure you are well aware, fluid dynamics and meteorology are much different subjects than radiation/climate. I’m also not aware of a single faculty member in Madison that studies climate that is “skeptical” of anthropogenic climate change in the way advertised by Bill, and I’m pretty sure they are not communist conspiracy and politically-driven people, and I can assure you none of their jobs depend on climate change. I don’t doubt his contributions or intelligence, but the conspiracy-type remarks that they make offline really makes me wonder. When you have tenure or have gone Emeritus there are no consequences except for how your peers view you. I’d love to chat with you more though.
When I attended college I kept learning about more and more things I did not know the answers to. Perhaps some folks find it comforting to know all the answers in advance, but a sense of wonder suits too.
As for Bill Gray’s essay – It is clearly written and informative, containing information about the AMS as he understands it to be. It is written well enough to inform us that other members of the AMS do not agree with him. Perhaps someone else wants to explain the other side of the story and if so, fine. But all the huffiness going on is misplaced – apply your energy to a real issue. Providing clean drinking water for millions of people comes to mind.
Ric Werme– You can use images, I have some other ones in another greenhouse post I just did here (which may be of interest to others since it focuses on claims along the lines of why Venus does not have a greenhouse effect, the greenhouse effect doesn’t exist, or other flavors along this line of reasoning)
Sean says:
June 16, 2011 at 1:00 pm
It’s not just the AMS. It’s the American Chemical Society, the American Physical society, the NAS and others.
Good observation. It also extends into other avenues of life.
It seems the world is being taken over by 10% of the population that are activists with their own agendas.
Chris Colose said: “Would Bill Gray like to elaborate on all these people “he has talked to”, and have published in the peer-reviewed literature on climate-related topics, that actually disagree with the AMS position? As this stands, it is little more than an opinion piece full of assertions.”
What is the matter with you warmistas? Can you not read and understand an article before you disagree with it? It’s like a knee-jerk reaction. Dr. Gray made quite clear that there is no place for open debate, not within the AMS and absolutely not within “peer-reviewed” literature. Scientific, peer-reviewed literature in the CAGW world does not exist. If you are not a member of the believer’s club and you try to publish anything looking like dissent, you cannot get it published and he named names as well as the foolish reasons his papers were rejected. The entire article was a request for free and open debate. Neither you nor fredb paid any attention to what Dr. Gray said. That makes your response, an opinion piece full of assertions, look foolish.
I much prefer the National Weather Association’s statement on climate change over the AMS’. The NWA simply encourages the membership to become educated on the complex issues involved. I believe this is more in line with what Dr. Gray is discussing here. It’s why I am a member of the NWA and am not a member of the AMS.
This is a very direct and accute call to the leadership of the AMS. Will they respond?
I doubt it, they have too much to lose; time to set up an alternative Real AMS.
John F. Hultquist, energy is not being applied to providing clean water to people because of the AGW hysteria generated by the warmistas. How about Hansen decrying real problems, rather than inventions.
The American Meteorological Society as a scientific organization dedicated to advancing the knowledge of weather and climate is dead, it is now a green political behemoth. Rightly or wrongly they have followed the money and notoriety, the climate modelers have surely created wealth for the organization, but must now accept and be recognized as an enviro-political advocacy group.
It will take a new smaller organization to refocus on advancing scientific knowledge of weather and climate, the AMS cannot be reformed to the purpose of it’s creation.
Yes DCC, I gathered all the conspiracy stuff. Thanks.
ew-3 says:
Good observation. … It seems the world is being taken over by 10% of the population that are activists with their own agendas.
Exactly! This is why I always tell people to become involved in politics, even though most, if not all, politicians are turds. If you do not participate in the game, then those whose ideas you despise will dominate the law-making process. It’s a question of entering Hell to protect Heaven.
Latitude: “….remind me again, why is this still a subject of conversation?”
Because the political actions taken — and still being promoted — on the basis of this moronically oversimplified hypothesis are at this very moment devastating millions of acres of countryside, wilderness, and coastline, impoverishing ordinary citizens with astonishingly elevated energy bills, causing a mass exodus of manufacturing from Europe, hampering efforts to develop domestic energy production in the US and elsewhere, threatening to shut down the Australian economy, killing rare birds and bats in wholesale numbers, promising to allow the Englishman his traditional privilege of freezing to death in the dark, and everywhere sucking money from the pockets of the people and depositing it in those of politicians, activists, and their financier friends.
Other than that, no reason. Next question?
OK Let’s hear about variation in Albedo. There is very little discussion of this; it appears to be assumed to be constant. It is not http://www.bbso.njit.edu/Research/EarthShine/ … this line of research should be pursued
Craig Goodrich says:
June 16, 2011 at 4:05 pm
Other than that, no reason. Next question?
=====================================================
LOL…..agreed
and all this over less than 1/2 a degree……….
As a meteorologist and FORMER member of the AMS, I can say Dr. Gray has hit the nail on the head. The recruitment of yong scientists (myself being one of them, a few moons ago) into the Society was one of joy and honor, as the discourse of atmospheric science discussions were typically very pleasent and respectful when there was dissention on various hypothesized topics……until “Global Warming” became a prominent topic of discussion. The spirited debate/discussions just dissappeared!! The value of skeptical/critical thinking/questioning was slapped down in both a subtle and not so suble fashion.
Sadly, your corespondent, Emeritus Professor Gray omitted mentioning that the AMS position which he condemns, was in fact an endorsement of a position taken by 11 National Academies of SCience. Their statement, which was being endorsed by the AMS, called for world leaders to “acknowledge the threat of climate change, address its causes and prepare for its consequences. Their statement further notes that their iis enough scientific understanding for all nations to identify cost-effective steps “to reduce greenhouse gas emissions which cause global warming.” The Professor must have missed this connection.
Chris,
If you believe in the appeal to authority argument then I claim expertise in computer modeling of natural processes in excess of the original hockey team who drafted climate models. I have reviewed, and chuckled at their work. That is not bragging that on mysewlf, but ridiculing the amateurism of the team. I do not claim expertise in software development in comparison to others on this site.
One week of studying AGW eh? Project much? I’m 69 and have had over a dozen software patents approved while studying AGW. On this site I’m the new guy. Where does that leave you?
Much as I agree with Gray’s view of the role of the nominal leadership of the AMS in advancing agenda-driven scientific conjectures , his attribution of natural variations of climate largely to salinity-driven MOC falls into the same category. Unlike lakes in their annual cycle, the oceans do not overturn in corpore on any time scale. MOC involves only a tiny fraction of the oceanic mass , moving at snail’s pace. And it is temperature, rather than salinity—which varies only minutely beyond the marginal seas–that primarily sets the different densities of oceanic waters, the sine qua non of gravity-driven THC. Experienced dynamical oceanographers look upon MOC explanations of climate variabilty with the same skepticism that Gray and many us regard those provided by GCMs. In the present post-normal political climate, such ill-founded conjectures do, however, attract massive funding that would otherwise be unavailable to off-on-a tangent studies.
Well done Dr. Gray…
The AMS has been leaning left (in its leadership) for a long time and it’s nothing new for them to reject what they consider to be “minority” views (even though actual survey numbers show thousands more scientists are anti-AGW than pro-hoax). I suppose that money and influence are partly the reason, but the AMS has had a sliding reputation in the meteorological community for more than a decade.
Contrary to their uninformed and purely political position, the National Weather Association (a younger and smaller group or meteorologists from all backgrounds which has set the new standard for operational meteorology) has taken no such position in the matter and the NWA has always supported open debate and the scientific method…and there is always a welcome mat there for AMS members disillusioned by the laughable and increasingly embarrassing stance the AMS has taken. I suppose that changes in leadership there may make a difference, but rebuilding a reputation is very difficult, especially when the proper position in this matter was so obvious, even for PhDs. They should have simply said that “science will decide which position is the correct one”, not flawed GCMs, intentionally falsified hockey sticks and the failure of every prediction in every IPCC report. RIP once proud AMS…
Chris Colose says:
June 16, 2011 at 3:39 pm
“Although I do not follow Tropical Meteorology literature in any detail, I am aware of the importance of some of his contributions. One of my peers in Madison that was really into hurricanes brought him up on occasion, and I doubt faculty in Madison would argue the point… Of course, those same colleagues in Madison would disagree with his views on climate change, and important contributions in one area does not guarantee expertise in another.”
In your criticisms of Professor Gray’s little essay, you studiously ignore several very direct challenges he made to Warmista. In stating one of those challenges, he writes:
“They lack an understanding and treatment of the fundamental role of the deep ocean circulation (i.e. Meridional Overturning Circulation – MOC) and how the changing ocean circulation (driven by salinity variations) can bring about wind, rainfall, and surface temperature changes independent of radiation and greenhouse gas changes. These ocean processes are not properly incorporated in their models.”
Do you or any of your colleagues in Madison have expertise in the MOC? Do you have physical hypotheses which describe the phenomena that make up the MOC? If you do and they are reasonably well-confirmed then you can predict the behavior of the MOC. Dr. Gray is asking for such physical hypotheses.
If you do not have physical hypotheses that describe the MOC then what is your knowledge of it? None? Some sort of simulation that contains it and is produced by a computer model?
My guess is that everything that you know about climate science either came from computer models or is a series of temperature readings of the sort produced by Mann, Briffa, Jones, and the gang. Because that is all that climate science has produced. Climate science has not produced one reasonably well-confirmed physical hypothesis that goes beyond Arrhenius. If I am wrong, can you offer one such reasonably well-confirmed physical hypothesis?
I doubt that you or your colleagues understand Professor Gray’s challenge to you at all. I doubt that you understand what he is talking about. You are not physical scientists. You are “Gaia Modelers” and nothing else. Professor Gray has just accused you of the gravest fault that can befall a scientist, namely, that you are not physical scientists. But you will not address the matter. As such you are a typical Warmista. When a distinguished physical scientist tells you that you are not practicing physical science, you have not a clue what he is talking about or you pretend that you do not understand.
Theo,
Madison’s Atmos. science program is best known for its world-renowned remote-sensing & radiation studies ( there are better schools for pure climate) but actually if you are curious enough, Prof. Galen McKinley teaches a graduate level course in Physical Oceanography here. We also have quite a few experts in fluid dynamics, and several people who work on paleoclimate problems related to the MOC, including Zhengyu Liu. If you really want to learn, I encourage you to take some classes. I’m sure Ryan Maue can recommend similar faculty at Florida State, but there many people around the world interested in physical oceanography. Several schools even have that as there own program, like Washington. Bill Gray is welcome to think nobody understands anything, but this is really why people pay tuition and read the literature.
Professor Gray writes:
“We AMS members have allowed a small group of AMS administrators, climate modelers, and CO2 warming sympathizers to maneuver the internal workings of our society to support AGW policies irrespective of what our rank-and-file members might think. This small organized group of AGW sympathizers has indeed hijacked our society.”
The main fight between pro-AGW scientists and AGW sceptics at this time is a fight between computer modelers and physical scientists. There has been a coup by computer modelers. This is not a novel phenomenon. It has happened many times in science that a new technology has changed the practice of science, sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse. The reason that there is no debate is that the winners of this coup have the attitude that they are going to live within their “Gaia Models” and everybody else can be damned. As genuine scientists, “Gaia Modelers” must face up to the fact that they have not produced one reasonably well-confirmed physical hypothesis that pushes beyond Arrhenius our understanding of CO2 effects in the environment.
As genuine scientists, “Gaia Modelers” have a duty to recognize the limitations of their work. It is no more a basis for expensive public policy ventures to mitigate the effects of CO2 than are the recent statements from the AAS, also based on models, that we might be entering a Maunder Minimum a basis for expenditures to mitigate the effects of a coming Little Ice Age.
Chris Colose says:
June 16, 2011 at 3:04 pm
. It seems only to be climate science where everyone thinks they understand everything by learning it for a week
==============================================================================
Chris, since it’s only climate science that decides what normal is…..
Can you tell me if the planet is warming up because it’s below normal, or warming up above normal?
Whenever I talk to some Engineers who are not up to speed with the AGW alarmist point of view I show them two graphs. The 1st one shows the futile attempt back in 1988 to forecast the effects of increased CO2. Hindcasting is crap but this simulation shows Hansens claim in 1988 in 2011 is now crap as well. Climate modelers like Gavin refuse to any testable simulations.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/08/13/is-jim-hansens-global-temperature-skillful/
Secondly anyone as smart as a 5th grader can see the the very recent warming is a tiny tiny blip of noise on top some very large temperature excursions.
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/noaa_gisp2_icecore_anim3.gif
The state of climate modeling is a joke
Money talks.
The AMS needs to do what the Geological Association of Canada (GAC) has done. The membership revolted and now the AGW crowd has taken their ball and left. At this years annual conference organizers invited Ian Plimer and gave equal preference for presenters to both sides. The alarmists (with at least one exception) refused to participate.
I doubt very much that the GAC will suffer any significant internal conflict over this event. We geologists are a pragmatic lot.
As a member and fellow of the GAC I am very proud of my brothers for not being led astray by the alarmists. It also shows that there is still room for hope for the members of the AMS, AGU and other similar organization in America.
@ APACHEWHOKNOWS June 16, 2011 at 3:06 pm
EXACTLY. Well said.
Rob Dixon says:
June 16, 2011 at 3:02 pm
> When Hanson won the Rossby Award, I dropped out of the AMS; Television Seal and all…
Wow, that’s a pretty serious statement.
The Seal of Approval (now Certified Broadcast Meteorologist) is important – a number of markets pay a lot more attention to applicants with it and attract viewers by displaying it. (When I moved to New England I was surprised that none of the weather segments on the various stations mentioned the Seal. I figured that if you couldn’t qualify for the Seal you had no right to forecast weather in the northeast.)
I see they still list you (Seal 182) but note you haven’t renewed. Hmm, 182 – does that mean you’re old? 🙂 Or just that you’ve experienced an entire PDO cycle?
Thank you for standing up for your beliefs.
Can I suggest that Ferenc Miskolczi’s work should be brought up when talking of modeling? He totally demolishes the myth of water vapor increase that modelers claim occurs when carbon dioxide goes up. Not only did Miskolczi prove that the optical depth of the atmosphere in the infrared did not change for the last 61 years when carbon dioxide increased by 21.6 percent but he also showed that there was a measurable reduction in the mole percent of water vapor during the same period. His work contradicts the output from models in the most fundamental way possible by showing not only that the absorption of IR from the added CO2 did not take place but also that water vapor decreased instead of increasing. And sensitivity to doubling of CO2 in air? Exactly zero.
Chris Colose says:
June 16, 2011 at 2:24 pm
“You obviously know how I feel about you and your blog, and the level of scientific understanding here, so the insults are pointless. I will do my best to suspend my anger at some of the things people are spoon-fed (and that they actually eat) daily.”………..
===========
You infer I am “spoon fed”, because I dare to question your consensus?
Please, thrall me with your acumen, so I too may understand completely.
I’m tired of thinking for myself.
Chris Colose says:
June 16, 2011 at 3:39 pm
Ack! Is one of your goals to be the Junior Member of the Team? Say it isn’t so!
Well, perhaps you’re on your way. Give our regards (a Bronx cheer) to Gavin.
Here are a few suggestions from an old software engineer (hey, I could’ve been a scientist, it just happens I’m wired for programming computers).
1) Climatology and all the supporting stuff is way more than one person can master.
It’s one of the thing I like about the field – no matter if a scientist is great at some specialty (e.g. hurricanes), or broadly trained, there’s always some piece of the pie I could learn more about than the scientists.
2) Academics and theoretical understanding isn’t enough, ya gotta make some forecasts and get doped-slapped by Mother Nature.
A lot of people live in New England because we like variable weather. You have more extreme weather (for the most part) in the midwest, but we pack a heck of a lot more into New England. Kerry Emanuel is a good example of a theoretician who discovered that reality bites. He stepped down to a shorter pedestal, it might be safe to see him and Gray in the same room now.
3) Pay attention to the geologists.
My brother is one, he sounds a lot like Bob Carter at times, and I like Bob Carter too. I got active in this arena in 2008 when “tipping points” were all the rage. Geologists were a lot more laid back – they know that Earth has seen a lot worse than anything Hansen could imagine and hasn’t turned into Venus yet. I heard Heidi Cullen dismiss both TV mets and geologists as group with the greatest amount of skepticism. She’s still on her pedestal. Geologists also get outside a lot. In the weather. With beer.
Re: Chris @ 3:39 ” I’m also not aware of a single faculty member in Madison that studies climate that is “skeptical” of anthropogenic climate change in the way advertised by Bill”
Do you hear yourself? From inside an echo chamber like Madison???
You sound just like the editor of the “Nation” who upon learning that Nixon had won (a 49 state victory) asked “How is that possible? I don’t know a SINGLE PERSON who voted for him”
She thought she was indicting others…
Forgive my misunderstanding if I’ve done so.
I’d picked up the idea, correct me if I’m wrong, that Weatherpersons change into Climatologists once they’d been in the business for about thirty years or so!
I can understand that, I think, a newly qualified Climatologist beats an experienced weather scientist until three decades later when they converge into equality.
Wait a minute. That is so counterintuitive!
I think, but what do I know, that an experienced weather professional should be more switched on than a raw novice.
Guess that that two-week course in GCM’s that the neophytes got where it was clearly explained that ‘We don’t know what else it could have caused it’ beats the old-timers into the dust.
Now I understand. Ignorance beats Experience. Now I truly believe. Not!
Chris,
Good luck at GISS. Many of the national labs (NASA, Navy, GFDL) are excellent places to spend a summer and develop connections. I think Gray is making more of a political argument about the AMS, which has clearly moved to the left on the climate ideological spectrum. When James Hansen was awarded the Rossby medal, and then didn’t show up, the AMS really looked ideological and dogmatic.
Chris Colose says:
June 16, 2011 at 3:39 pm
” in the way advertised by Bill,”
” I’d love to chat with you more though”
=========================================================
LOL “Bill”? “chat”?
Gosh Chris, didn’t realize you were so mature for you age…………………………
I cannot agree more with Dr. Gray. I have been a member of the AMS for 35 years and forecasting for nearly 40 years. Those of us who are not climatologists, that work in the trenches with daily weather, can clearly see the warm and cool periods are cyclical. May be some day the climatologists will actually look at the 11 year sunspot cycle!
Professor Gray’s first objection – that water vapor feedbacks are grossly wrong isn’t backed up by any citations, but I did a quick Google search and my first hit was “Global Cooling After the Eruption of Mount Pinatubo: A Test of Climate Feedback by Water Vapor” by Brian J. Soden, Richard T. Wetherald,Georgiy L. Stenchikov, and Alan Robock 2002.
The GCMs were specifically tested in a real-world situation to test the accuracy of their sensitivities to lower and upper tropospheric water vapor. Their conclusion: “These results provide quantitative evidence of the reliability of water vapor feedback in current climate models, which is crucial to their use for global warming projections.”
I predicted the radical left environmentists would attack non believers in AGW 15 years ago and now it has arrived. They are not interested in science, they are only driven by ideology which has no place in science. Anyone who claims the there is no debate about AGW is a fraud and con artist. They should be relieved of their position.
Its great to see Bill Grey understands how a engine/radiator system works. Most climate scientist seem to think that the slowing down of the MOC/gulfstream causes cooling, when it clearly causes global warming. Of course at the same time the radiator gets colder if you shut off the supple of water from the engine. Of course some people think ocean circulation has little effect on climate despite the fact that the geological record show that major climate changes are associated with changes in ocean circulation driven by tectonics.
I’m amazed that more climate scientist don’t look towards the patten of atmospheric and oceanic mixing as the obvious cause of climate change.
Bill Gray’s idea that AGW relies on models is wrong. It starts with Arrhenius and Tyndall over a century ago. Arrhenius had the basic ideas right, if not the current more accurate numbers for radiation. If he wants a physics debate, it should be on why he thinks Arrhenius was wrong that increasing CO2 should have a warming effect, or whether he believes the current total greenhouse effect really is 33 C. These are the basic science ideas that such debates would start with. Most AMS members would accept these points without needing a debate, however.
Hugh Pepper says:
“Sadly, your corespondent, Emeritus Professor Gray omitted mentioning that the AMS position which he condemns, was in fact an endorsement of a position taken by 11 National Academies of SCience…”
Pepper inadvertently highlights the problem: a handful of people at the top deign to speak for thousands of rank-and-file members who, if it were put to a vote by secret ballot, would vote overwhelmingly that the effect of human emiisions is unproven, since there is no evidence of AGW! There may be a minor effect – or not. But until measurable, testable evidence of AGW is produced, it must be assumed that it is nothing more than an evidence-free hypothesis, based on models and nothing more.
And, Chris Colose…
Anthony, so glad for your witty repose to Chris’s second comment. Any idiot could have clicked on his name and been taken to the same site as you linked to.
Rattus Norvegicus said on June 16, 2011 at 7:21 pm:
Anything special happen when you clicked?
u.k.
“Thinking for yourself” is not synonymous with disagreeing with the consensus for the sake of disagreeing with it, but rather trying to objectively determine why it is the consensus.
Hugh Pepper says:
June 16, 2011 at 4:27 pm
Sadly, your corespondent, Emeritus Professor Gray omitted mentioning that the AMS position which he condemns, was in fact an endorsement of a position taken by 11 National Academies of SCience.
Where is the AMS Board’s statement that their statement itself, and any “consensus” derived internal to the board or extended therefrom, when combined with the statements of other Boards, is not part of the Scientific Method, nor part of any known scientific principle?
As to the AMS statement itself, where are the individual votes of the Board members recorded, and where are the individual votes of the rest of the members of the Society recorded for access?
Chris Colose put up an appearance in Steve McIntyre’s thread about how Lindzen & Choi’s paper was treated by PNAS. He made the same ad-hom attacks on Lindzen and on Happer whom Lindzen nominated as the reviewer. This in spite of the fact the Chris’ \knowledge, qualifications and experience not been fit enough to wipe their boots. When his arguments were factually ripped apart, he claimed that all the posters ” needed to get out of posting at Climate Audit and see the world ” and that he was too busy and has other more important things to do. That was just 2 days ago. Glad to see what are the important things he is doing. He just goes around from blog to blog and throws ad homs at any scientist who talks about asking to prove AGW.
And this from a first year undergraduate student with no qualifications or experience in anything.
Should be above, “As to the ‘consensus’ weight of the AMS statement itself….”
What a brilliant read… and Chris Colose goes out of his way to prove Dr Gray’s point.
“As a defense against criticism they have resorted to a general denigration of those of us who do not support their AGW hypothesis”.
Thanks Chris, you’ve made my day. But seriously Chris, many years ago when I was a graduate engineer I was a whiz at designing filters. Butterworth, Elliptical.. could do them all, no computers, just an HP15C calculator, a pen and some paper. If you wanted a filter designed you came and saw me. Then one day a technician came in with a copy of PSpice Filter designer. I scoffed, much in the same way that you scoff at this site. But we ran some tests. Guess what I learned, MY SKILLS WERE OBSOLETE. Chris, the faster you realise that your skills are rapidly becoming obsolete the better off your life will be. No body here wishes you ill will, we just want to see you get back on track and learn the scientific method. Spending your life trying to convince yourself that AGW is true really is a waste.
Chris C, you naively assume that integrating the dynamics over time spans makes radiation balance analysis accurate as a means of modeling climate. OK, show us your work. Let’s see your proofs.
Jim D says:
June 16, 2011 at 7:19 pm
If he wants a physics debate, it should be on why he thinks Arrhenius was wrong that increasing CO2 should have a warming effect….
No one is denying that CO2 interacts with long wave/IR. But so should and does water vapor as a stand alone ghg molecule. Therefore, so what? Water vapor should have a warming effect, but does it produce an atmospheric warming runaway, alone or with even smaller than current concentrations of CO2?
Chris Colose says:
June 16, 2011 at 7:35 pm
u.k.
“Thinking for yourself” is not synonymous with disagreeing with the consensus for the sake of disagreeing with it, but rather trying to objectively determine why it is the consensus.
============
Ok, first, science has nothing to do with consensus.
I rest my case.
Don’t these organizations (like the AMS) have more-or-less democratic procedures for deciding who gets on their boards of directors? Are there no periodic elections? Are the majority of members such sheep that they allow the ‘official’ positions to represent their own? Or do they just acquiesce and agree?
Inquiring minds want to know. . .
/Mr Lynn
Venter, you can at least get the fact that I’m a graduate student right (and yes, I actually do have a day job getting myself into climate research, so I’m tied up with things more important than blogging). A couple of years studying climate and even going through basic radiation/dynamics courses will give you a bit of perspective on the arguments. Again, that is why I paid tuition, paid for textbooks, and devoted a lot of time over several years to reading a lot of papers. A lot of this stuff isn’t tough to get, even without expertise, with just some calculus and physics background.
Given that so many people are attacking my status as a student in the field, I am wondering if anyone here aside from Ryan Maue has even taken a 101 course, has given presentations or went to conferences in atmospheric physics related topics? My impression is that everyone here wants very badly to be the rebel, the guy who “thinks for themselves” and ignores all authority. That is all good and dandy, except I am baffled as to how exactly people are going about “thinking for themselves” without some training in the field? Or is this just a matter of siding with whoever happens to be the most articulate (which I freely admit, is probably not the climate scientists)?
Chris Colose says:
June 16, 2011 at 7:35 pm
u.k.
“Thinking for yourself” is not synonymous with disagreeing with the consensus for the sake of disagreeing with it, but rather trying to objectively determine why it is the consensus.
====================
Uh huh. Yeah.
OR….[to use your words] “rather trying to objectively determine why it is the consensus…” …whether the objective determination of the consensus…is objective or determinable at all.
Let’s see your “objective determination of the consensus”…and let’s see if it has any scientific merit at all.
And no, no adjustments are to be made for any type of factors related to groupthink disorder.
Will let the raw data speak for itself.
So….let me ask you this Chris….you seem like a reasonable man….what are your parameters for determining the telelogical “reasons” for the “consensus.”?
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
Harpo says:
The scientific method is what has brought the overwhelming majority of scientists to accept AGW as true. In the 19th century Fourier recognized the earth would be much colder without an atmosphere. Tyndall described the importance of water vapor as a GHG: Remove for a single summer-night the aqueous vapour from the air… and the sun would rise upon an island held fast in the iron grip of frost. Arrhenius articulated the role of CO2 as the “control knob” regulating the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere.
These are not alarmist or leftist environmental talking points – they’re basic physics. These basic physical insights have been known for 150 years. With larger and more accurate data sets, satellite observations, and high speed computers we now have the tools to expand upon the work of these early pioneers. That’s the way science works.
I have said it before, who better to know the climate of this world than a meteorologist. To be able to understand the climate you must know about the weather and the how and why of it to include the atmosphere and oceans, jet streams and more. There are to many variables to put it all on CO2! And NO GCM and its programmer will ever be able to do it with any confidence as the models have proven over the past couple of decades to be WRONG!
Hello Chris Colose! Welcome to WUWT.
Hey, since you’re at GISS, could you ask Gavin Schmidt to once and for all properly document his AOGCM code, Model E? It’s one of the worst documented (and written) codes I’ve seen, and yet people are attempting to use it to make predictions which will negatively affect my life (though the IPCC, EPA and other autocratic bodies). I don’t even think anyone knows what differential equations it’s solving. Thanks in advance.
REPLY: He’s not at GISS, which is in NYC, he’s in Madison at UW, Home of McIdas and SEIU riots taking over the capital and all that. – Anthony
JPeden, no one is expecting a runaway greenhouse effect, unless you call 3-4 C warming by 2100 a runaway. I haven’t seen Gray address the GHG issue yet, and why he doesn’t believe it is more important than his own invented AMO theory. A debate on CO2 would be very useful for him to show where he stands exactly. He knows about radiation and clouds (at least in the 70’s he had a well known paper on it), so why aren’t we seeing his view on it? Maybe his life’s work on hurricanes has skewed his view that the oceans are more important. I don’t know how he got to where he is scientifically.
Hi Anthony,
Maybe I’m wrong, but I think Chris mentioned…
… (unfortunately I’m not there now since I am going elsewhere for graduate school and am stationed in NYC @ GISS over the summer).
So, I thought while he was there, he could relay a few messages from us to “Team”…. :^)
REPLY: Ah well, my bad, moderation que doesn’t show messages upstream and I have been offline for 4 hours. GISS it is then. – Anthony
Chris Colose says:
June 16, 2011 at 8:57 pm
“Given that so many people are attacking my status as a student in the field,…..
==================
Be very, very, very careful what you say , because everybody is watching.
I don’t get it. When I search the web for MOC or THC and global warming, there are lots of sites that discuss it in the context of global warming. I don’t believe that it’s been completely left out of the models.
savethesharks,
First, I do not recognize phrases such as “the consensus” to have much meaning; I only use it because the blogosphere somehow identifies it with agreement or disagreement on whether humans cause global warming. There are of course a wide spectrum of thoughts on the subject of climate, with experts mostly quibbling about finer details rather than these type of broad-brush questions. Part of an education in any field involves asking the right questions and learning terminology that scientists do and do not communicate in, as well as the big areas of “debate” that open pathways to new research. I think this is a big stumbling block in the “debate” rather than the relative role of physical understanding between groups. This makes it difficult to answer many questions that are legitimate rather than just argumentative.
For example, there is still legitimate debate on the magnitude and path of a freshwater pulse required to cause a Younger Dryas episode toward deglaciation– was it a re-routing event into the St. Lawrence, or a catastrophic meltwater flux into the Atlantic, or perhaps the Arctic? Experts on this topic may disagree over these aspects but still agree on basic physics of ocean circulation, that a YD event actually occurred, etc. In situations where multiple hypotheses exist, it is often possible to rule some out even without knowledge of the right answer, based on some other evidence (or physical constraints). It also happens that the community will naturally shift toward the ideas with the most explanatory and predictive ability, and where it is possible to unify different levels of theory and observation.
Chris Colose says:
“A couple of years studying climate and even going through basic radiation/dynamics courses will give you a bit of perspective on the arguments.”
I guess Chris Colose doesn’t realize that there just might be people here who have TAUGHT basic radiation/dynamics courses for a couple of years…or even more.
Chris seems to be of the opinion that he’s the exclusive commentator here with a university education in fields applicable to climate studies. Never mind those who might have experience actually teaching at a 700 level…
Given the sheer number of viewers and commentators on this website, that kind of assumption is not one I think I’d be so bold in making. I’d fear being perceived as arrogant.
Chris,
I think you underestimate your opposition. I studied Engineering Physics. We did normal engineering (4years) in two years and then spent most of 3rd and 4th year in Graduate level physics courses. I freely admit I know only enough to be dangerous but it is more than enough to shoot holes in the CAGW nonsense. One of my text books on the basics of atmospheric radiation was by Liou – I expect you still use this – I would hardly call this stuff rocket science – the basic physics of atmospheric radiation is so full of questionable assumptions that I am astonished that anyone actually takes these back of the envelope calculations seriously. Amusing and entertaining is more like it. iMHO, the actual real world is far more complex than climate modelers are willing to admit – there are huge factors like wind, convection, oceanic circulation, clouds….just to name a few ….and none of these are adressed in your simplistic back of the envelope analyses ( I read your blog). I am afraid the Professors have misled you with regard to the power of their calculations – these simplistic models do not come even remotely close to modeling any real world conditions. They have appealed to your ego with their wild claims and “mission to save the planet” – and having been young once, I know exactly how tempting and desirable it is to be able to attribute such meaning and importance to your own research work. We all start with grand plans to change the world!
I suggest you embrace the feedback you are receiving here and become humble about your chosen field of research – I promise you that you will be a better scientist if you do! The curious, skeptical and most humble scientists are usually the most successful in “real science”, although they may struggle more than others to gain funding support for their ideas.
Take a look at Jasper Kirby’s presentation to Simon Fraser University a month or so ago (on YouTube) – his approach to research is an excellent role model – notice how his work is heavily weighted towards experimental research supplemented by modelling rather than pure modelling.
Did we just nuke the wrong guy?
CC’s comments bring to mind Dr. Sowell’s words, “Intellectuals are the last people to realise their own vast sea of ignorance surrounding the small island of their knowledge. That is why they are so dangerous.”
Mr. Colose, I’d like to welcome you and thank you for popping by. Doubt if we agree on much but I’m glad you’re here. Heck most of the people here don’t agree with me much either, come to think of it.
Good luck with your studies.
The word consensus doesn’t just mean “most” but includes the idea that minority objections will be resolved. Folks are using this term to mean unanimity except for the few skeptics that don’t agree. There is no consensus. Live with it.
At his blog, the young Colose lists his interests as ” from past (“paleo”) climates, the evolution of atmospheres, to projections of 21st century climate change forced by human causes”. In other words, he’s interested in 21st century earth climate change only if humans caused it. What an exemplary young zombie in the image of James Hansen and the IPCC itself.
Chris Colose says:
June 16, 2011 at 7:35 pm
“Thinking for yourself” is not synonymous with disagreeing with the consensus for the sake of disagreeing with it, but rather trying to objectively determine why it is the consensus.
Why would anyone want to disagree with the alleged “fact” of what is both an undefined “consensus” numerically – that is, where actual numbers of individual people are not even asserted pro vs con on the issue – and otherwise simply a parroted ad nauseum word having the visible form or auditory sound of “consensus”, as is seen in various media reports and as an alleged debating point on the part of warmist supporters?
Essentially, there’s nothing meaningful in either case alleging or putting forth the word “consensus” by itself to disagree with!
On the other hand, thousands of qualified people have actually signed their names to an explicit statement as to the lack of danger which CO2 represents, including its benefit – as stated in the Oregon Petition. And hundreds of others have made explicit statements contradicting CO2 = CAGW “science”, as collected at Sen. Inhoff’s gov’t website.
So the score concerning a “consensus” of people concerning the question of whether CO2 = CAGW is currently, thousands “con” vs….what number?
Hal Lewis made the same points. How many senior members must read the riot act before the AMS executive clique is swept aside?
Many years ago, I had an EE instructor spend an afternoon teaching us the “smoke theory” of electronics. In case you don’t know what it is, it’s a tongue-in-cheek explanation of how electronics all work by captured smoke circulating through the wires and components. If you mess up and let the smoke out, the circuit or device stops working.
Even though I have developed hundreds of circuits and modules and devices over the years, and worked with both analog and digital circuits, vacuum tubes, transistors and ICs, nothing, NO OTHER principle of design has more relevance to “getting it right” than the smoke theory.
I see a strong parallel with “smoke theory” and the current obsession with AGW, except for one critical difference. Smoke theory works. The correlation between CO2 and temperature is weak. And the proven problems with what we use as temperature pretty much make it impossible to rely on any correlation that may or may not be there anyway. And the last decade has eliminated any credibility to the hypothesis of CO2 driving temperature or climate.
Jim D says:
June 16, 2011 at 9:39 pm
JPeden, no one is expecting a runaway greenhouse effect….
Well, they sure had me fooled with all of this catastrophic “tipping point” and no more glaciation stuff!
But, sure, I’d like to hear more of what you’d like to hear from Gray too, and he’s no doubt got it covered somewhere else. I don’t think he’ll deny that CO2 is a ghg which has some potential and actual effect on atmospheric temps, since he’s already allowed for this possibility above:
Increases of CO2 could have contributed only a small fraction (0.1-0.2oC) of the roughly ~ 0.7oC surface warming that has been observed since 1850. Natural processes have had to have been responsible for most of the observed warming over the last century and a half.
Chris Colose says:
June 16, 2011 at 10:12 pm
re:your last sentence…
Sorry, Chris – it just simply isn’t possible or reasonable, with our current levels of understanding, to accept the theory/hypothesis of AGW in preference to any other.
And as for ideas with the ‘most explanatory and predictive ability’ – CO2 based AGW is probably amongst the worst. Perhaps I am wrong, but to my knowledge, even today, after a couple of decades of kicking the CO2 based AGW theory around, and billions of dollars, there is still no obvious proof?
The key word here is ‘proof’ – which in the context of AGW, would mean some reasonably direct correlation that shows CO2 causes absolute temperature rises. In the world scale, with all the observations, this is simply not-demonstrated. The natural temperature variations appear to outweigh any posited anthropogenic signal by a significant margin.
It’s all very well saying ‘this model shows this’ and ‘this model shows that’ – but in the absence of any observationally verified predictability – the models are seemingly not showing jack sh*t !
Even in todays highly skilled and engineered scientific world, a scale model of say, an aeroplane, does not necessarily behave the same way as the ‘real thing’. So, if you were to imagine that the AGW prognosticators, who basically want us to ‘believe’ the AGW aeroplane will fly, without even having a decent ‘scale model’, let alone the physical calculations to show how the ‘climate model’ behaves (you know, like +ve and -ve feedback, not knowing how much of each, etc – it is kind of the equivalent of not knowing which way the round the wings go, or which way round the thrust from the engines should be !) – if you wanna be one of the ‘test flight’ passengers that’s fine – but I’ll wait for the real thing!
Minor, but if it is an error (which I think it is) worth correcting typo: “contentious” not “continuous” from the “Debate” segment of Professor Gray’s letter.
Our country’s Anglo-Saxon derived legal system is based on the idea that the best way to get to the truth is to have opposite sides of a continuous issue present their differing views in open debate before a non partisan jury.
DJ,
I would have assumed by now that this person who has taught 700 level courses and could so easily overturn the decades of scientific literature would have actually published his results and watched in glory as the community reproduced his findings to find he was right, and then won a nobel prize and was labeled as one of the great scientists of the 21st century.
Given that most of the comments so far have just been conspiracy theories, or personal insults toward me, I will assume he has not done this yet. This only leaves me to conclude that those, such as KevinUK who claim that the greenhouse-based physics underlying modern global warming is not solid, are only doing so based on unfamiliarity with the literature. Frankly, I am not interested in people’s opinions. The arrogance required to think that a handful of bloggers are right, and hundreds of world experts have been all wrong for decades, even with no will to publish the pathway to this conclusion, far extends whatever I am capable of.
I will check back for initiation of some sort of reasonable (scientific) discussion here, but since everything seems mostly arguing about the significance of “consensus” or my level of education, I will just assume no one has anything to say about the physics of climate that the worlds scientists have not already thought of.
All praise to Bill Gray. Time for others to publicly stand up and speak up for the right of free speech and open debate on climate. It is only by stifling that scientific discussion and refusing the rights of its members to have and even handed scientific debate that climate science lost its way. Even here in Australia, where an active warmista clique are government sponsored to try and keep the public from any open debate past the hackneyed “take my word for it” so called consensus, there are those at the heart and soul of the Bureau Of Meteorology (BOM) who are now openly rejecting any attempt, to take up the government line that our extreme weather events are a sign of climate change caused by Carbon dioxide, or that carbon dioxide is the evil pollutant and a toxic changer of our very much variable weather patterns they have patiently observed for more than a Century!
While our Julia triumphantly waves 2006 soundly discredited CSIRO recycled garbage (trash) put out by her climate “bought and sold gurus”, the people who know the GCM modeling is a political fantasy, just shake their heads and try and maintain a level headed weather outlook in their dealings with the bias of media in this country.
Time for the Bill Grays of Australia to also speak out.!!
Tom Fuller says:
June 16, 2011 at 10:36 pm
… Heck most of the people here don’t agree with me much either, come to think of it.
Well Tom, reading your comments on various blogs I supect I agree with much of what you say. Many would accuse taking the middle road as laziness – cowardess even – but from my experience it often stems from a rigorous exploration of ones own motives and biases and the courage to question the dictates eminating from either poles.
As Stephen Jay Gould extolled:
Nothing is more dangerous than a dogmatic worldview – nothing more constraining, more blinding to innovation, more destructive of openness to novelty.
Best wishes, ian
Tom Fuller
Nice to see you, where have you been hiding? Come on, admit it it, you’d be disappointed if most of us here agreed with you 🙂
tonyb
Dr Gray,
The people who hijacked the AMS did so with purposeful intent. Removing them will require the same sort of careful planning and execution. It will not be possible to reason with them for they are not functioning on reason. AGW worship is a Marxist cult. Like minded members must work together to build a coalition to install new leadership.
“They simply will not debate the issue”
And therein lies the rub…
You call for the author and others to publish their scientific research and ridicule them, even though their papers are being subjected to conspiratorial suppression and outright political censorship by the people you support. Meanwhile, you and your buddies ignore the “the decades of scientific literature” which refute the AGW conjecture. Then you wonder why your disrespectful comments are so strongly criticized. Would you care to lead an effort to end the unethical censorship and suppression of scientific papers critical of AGW?
Why I Am A Global Warming Skeptic.
No they don’t want to debate. Because every single time there is an open debate they lose! And Chris’ hero Gavin Schmidt got his butt handed to him and he had to go away with his tail between his legs then whine about why he lost so bad. So yes Chris you will get a good education at GISS
@ Chris Colose, throughout this thread:
It seems to me that you may have a lack of knowledge in regard to how science, scientific discovery and the scientific method works – all of it, that is, not just the climate one. To help you out, as a first step, look up what Feynman had to say on that. I hope he is an authority which even you can accept …
As for assuming that everyone who posts here or on other blogs has to be a numpty who can be disregarded because they are not climate scientists with peer-reviewed publications (where are yours, btw?) – well, I find it sad that you are already narrowing your view and thus your intellectual capability at your age. A so-called scientist who is not prepared to spend their life learning, especially from those who hold opposing views, but relies on something called ‘consensus’ is not a scientist.
Um, and how was that “qualification” arrived at? You state one thing, then when called upon it, equivocate to another. Clearly you must have the Little Orphan Annie Secret Decoder Ring that allows you – and apparently only you – to determine who is qualified and who is not. Bill Gray, not having said ring, apparently talked to many people who you later decided to disqualify.
Condemn him for not have the Secret decoder ring, not for not talking to the people.
But then you are an “oceanic” student in the middle of a continent, where pronunciations by faux experts are god’s law – whatever.
Chris Colose provides an accurate stereotype of a wet behind the ears, baselessly arrogant, immature suck-up to his GISS masters. He knows where his bread is buttered, and he ignores the scientific method and professional ethics because his blind ambition requires it.
The entire AGW edifice is based on climate alarmism, and there is exactly zero real world evidence supporting it. AGW is based entirely on computer models programmed by people who have already arrived at their conclusions, and blinkered wannabes like Colose jettison their ethics in order to be on the side of alarmist grant recipients with their snouts deep in the taxpayer trough. Science is simply a self-serving veneer, and the truth is not in them.
Reminds me of a friend who used to maintain that it was the number of people which determined the temperature of a location. See, it’s usually warmer where more people congregate. In fact, you’ll notice that when a lot of people gather in a room, they take their coats off, and the room warms up even more! Simple, really.
/Mr Lynn
The level of scientific understanding is apparently a lot higher here than at your institution since even a freshman science major knows you do not “accept” science, you question, test and prove it. You do “accept” political campaigns and promises (often broken). I dare say if you are representative of your institution, it is no wonder why “Johnny can’t read”.
Well done Dr Gray for voicing this concern.never seen a more evident example of group think than that has happpened in the AMS.
Some times it takes a brave man to pull the pin and throw, let hope it has the desired effect of waking those complicit in this sleep walking on the AGW rail, and not labeling a brave and honest scientist just another “denier”,
A flood must start with at least one raindrop Lets hope other AMS member come out and back you.
Ok, now that Chris has been bashed to death, there are a number of points I struggle with in the letter above. I’ll stick to one. “James Hansen’s predictions of global warming made before the Senate in 1988 are turning out to be very much less than he had projected. He cannot explain why there has been no significant global warming over the last 10-12 years.”
James Hansens 20+ year old model yields a climate sensitivity of +4.2C per doubling of CO2, very much at the high end of the range 2.0-4.5C (please read http://www.iac.ethz.ch/people/knuttir/papers/knutti08natgeo.pdf). This is not a crime. Nor is it an indication that all models are fundamentally flawed. I don’t know what source Professor Gray is using to claim James Hansen cannot explain “no significant global warming over the last 10-12 years”. My understanding is that the level of confidence in the trend has been around 90%, so given the relatively short run and the natural variability inherent in the climate system there is not much explaining to do.
Chris Colose says:
June 16, 2011 at 11:43 pm
“I will check back for initiation of some sort of reasonable (scientific) discussion here, but since everything seems mostly arguing about the significance of consensus or my level of education, I will just assume no one has anything to say about the physics of climate that the worlds scientists have not already thought of.”
OK. Let’s start a discussion of climate modeling, focusing on Model E since you’re at GISS. Could you please point us to some documentation which describes/defines ALL of the differential equations being solved, and discusses in detail the numerical methods (including the stability, and consistency of the formulation) and boundary/initial conditions. You can start with the Eulerian core for the atmosphere model. If you can’t find anything (and I doubt you will), that’s OK. Thanks.
Chris Colose says:
June 16, 2011 at 8:57 pm
Don’t underestimate the readership here. While I am concerned about the number of quick-on-the-trigger attacks against almost any scientific research, some of that comes with the territory. In the long run, those are the folks who stand to learn the most from WUWT.
Last November I wrote 35 years ago: The Witch of November Come Stealin in honor of the sinking of the Great Lakes ore carrier, the Edmund Fitzgerald and notes on similar storms.
Besides the weather connection, I figured that few WUWT readers outside those of us in the midwest are familiar with ore carriers and it would be nice to pass on my inconsiderable knowledge (i.e. I saw them occasionally on Lake Erie and thought they looked weird).
The comments were as good or better than my post. They included an ore boat deckhand for a couple months; someone who knew a crewman on a rescue chopper in the area then; Roy Spencer, who was at the NWS office in Sault Ste. Marie, when the report came in that the Fitzgerald had likely sunk; and someone noting how family discussions changed in tone whenever the Armistice Day topic was mentioned; and people who know a lot about the design of bulk carriers. I was very pleased – amazed – with the wide ranging and non-confrontational response, thanks in part to the mostly non-controversial subject.
WUWT has a huge readership, and only a small percentage of us comment. Assume that your comments are read by future (and current!) classmates, professors, employers, wives, landlords, bus drivers, owners of the local farmstand….
Please consider your time here as an opportunity to educate people who are interested in science but haven’t had the time to study it more. Remember your limitations. While you understand a lot more about radiative physics than I ever will, even though it’s something I need to learn more about, there’s a lot you haven’t touched on, like how to model the transition of water vapor from GHG to albedo increasing cloud. Above all, when you reply to some comment, don’t write to that person (there’s only one of him), but write to the thousands of readers here who never comment.
Thanks guys! 🙂
Chris Colose says:
June 16, 2011 at 5:18 pm
Theo,
“Madison’s Atmos. science program is best known for its world-renowned remote-sensing & radiation studies ( there are better schools for pure climate) but actually if you are curious enough, Prof. Galen McKinley teaches a graduate level course in Physical Oceanography here. We also have quite a few experts in fluid dynamics, and several people who work on paleoclimate problems related to the MOC, including Zhengyu Liu. If you really want to learn, I encourage you to take some classes.”
Well, you arrogant little child. I ask you to produce some reasonably well-confirmed physical hypothesis that goes beyond Arrhenius and supports the Warmista case on CO2 induced warming. You cannot produce any such hypothesis, so like any good Warmista you respond with an ad hominem. Is this kind of behavior what your professors taught in your classes? You are nothing but another Warmista troll; that part you have down pat.
Jim D says:
June 16, 2011 at 7:19 pm
“Bill Gray’s idea that AGW relies on models is wrong. It starts with Arrhenius and Tyndall over a century ago.”
Present one reasonably well-confirmed physical hypothesis created by Schmidt or some other Warmista that goes beyond Arrhenius. You cannot do it.
Chris Colose says:
June 16, 2011 at 8:57 pm
“Given that so many people are attacking my status as a student in the field, I am wondering if anyone here aside from Ryan Maue has even taken a 101 course, has given presentations or went to conferences in atmospheric physics related topics?”
Sir, this is a debate and you stated a position. You are expected to defend it. What you need to do is present one reasonably well-confirmed physical hypothesis that goes beyond the 19th Century work of Arrhenius. Can you do it?
I left the AMS this year after 20-some years of membership. I simply couldn’t take the drumbeat in BAMS month after month, not to mention the various policy statements.
Those who have the job flexibility to run for AMS office are more likely to be those who firmly believe in (C)AGW, so the pool of candidates tends to be skewed in distribution compared to the membership at large. Plus, like in any election, the time spent by the voters vetting candidates is somewhat inadequate (I freely admit to that early on in my membership).
The entire AGW edifice is based on climate alarmism, and there is exactly zero real world evidence supporting it.
I don’t think you do your argument any good by throwing out false statements like this. There is evidence supporting warming in the past couple decades — check out the new Temperature Normals for the USA, for example, that show that the new normal is warmer for most of the country, except the Southeast. (I think, that’s from memory), or changes in the Arctic. The ‘A’ part is questionable, I agree, but there is evidence of warming, so to say there is zero real world evidence supporting it is a stretch.
Kevin O’Neill says:
June 16, 2011 at 9:08 pm
“These are not alarmist or leftist environmental talking points – they’re basic physics. These basic physical insights have been known for 150 years. With larger and more accurate data sets, satellite observations, and high speed computers we now have the tools to expand upon the work of these early pioneers. That’s the way science works.”
This work has in it no physical hypotheses which can be used to explain feedbacks and which are reasonably well-confirmed. With no explanation of feedbacks, there is nothing connecting CO2 concentration and temperature.
You might as well be attempting to explain genetic engineering by appeal to Darwin. In case you don’t know, Darwin knew that there must be a physical mechanism of heredity but he went to his grave having not a clue about the actual physical mechanism. That’s a good analogy for climate science. Having discovered their Darwin, Warmista concluded that they had discovered their Crick and Watson.
Chris Colose says:
June 16, 2011 at 10:12 pm
savethesharks,
“Part of an education in any field involves asking the right questions and learning terminology that scientists do and do not communicate in, as well as the big areas of “debate” that open pathways to new research. I think this is a big stumbling block in the “debate” rather than the relative role of physical understanding between groups.”
So, you are retreating into the vague? Would you care to state a clear position on “the relative role of phsical understanding between groups?” You should begin with some well-confirmed physical hypothesis that explains some kind of forcing and, thereby, connects manmade CO2 to temperature. Yes, this is a trick question. Warmista have produced no such physical hypotheses.
Ammonite says:
June 17, 2011 at 5:31 am
“James Hansens 20+ year old model yields a climate sensitivity of +4.2C per doubling of CO2, very much at the high end of the range 2.0-4.5C (please read http://www.iac.ethz.ch/people/knuttir/papers/knutti08natgeo.pdf). This is not a crime. Nor is it an indication that all models are fundamentally flawed.”
It shows that Hansen was dead wrong. Why do you switch from discussing Hansen to all models?
Reneissance comes when the people are ready and their minds are open to the truth! Today the dull and stupid rule and the wise hide and bite their nails in the shadows. One day, let us hope sooner than later, the windows will open again, fresh air and the light of reason will reenter the room, and fear will change to courage. Hope it doesn’t take too long. Lead on, Doctor Gray! Take another small step for man, and a giant leap for all mankind! You appear to have a few more miles to go before you sleep.
It’s kind of sad to see another blind acceptance of what an individual is taught. I see this as THE big problem with our educational system. Instead of being taught to think, students are taught to believe exactly what they are told. The result is little advancement of science.
I’ve ask, off and on, if anyone who believes in AGW can explain the “cooling effect” of GHGs. Not once has anyone even understood what that means. They are so caught up in what they’ve been told they have no ability to think outside the box.
The educational system is badly compromised by the socialists, who scourge any teachers and parents daring to exhibit any signs of independence and capability. Fifty years ago teachers were teaching the tests as is so often done today, which emphasized rote memorization of which answers to put on a test. The publishers of the textbooks habitually made errors in their end of chapter test questions and answers. When students correctly thought out the problem and wrote down the correct answer for the question, they were often marked down on their test score when their correct answer was graded as an incorrect answer due to the textbook answer being incorrect. When a student challenged the errors in the textbook question and/or answer and succeeded in getting the scoring of the student answers corrected, the teacher or principle would in som instances retaliate against the student who challenged the teacher and the textbook by correcting the grades of the other students, but refused to correct the grade of the student who reasoned out and challenged the error. fifty years later, this is still going on, with some college professors privately confessing to the student that they are teaching them a lesson in life what to expect when challenging their authority.
The educational system has been transformed into a system of political indoctrination into socialist thinking and conditioning, in which independent thought and action is discouraged and sanctioned. This has been going on for so many generations now, few people who have not lived or studied the history of things before the socialist educational establishment held sway even recognize what is going on, or that any other form of education existed or was possible.
Meh, our boy has taken his ball and gone home…
Actually, when I was that age, I knew someone who gave me a lot of the same kind of useful, real-world advice that he just got. I often wonder how much easier and more productive my life would have been if I had only listened.
Then again, I often work with students and I swear they are programmed like little robots these days. The internet, far from the ideal of helping to educate and create more knowledgeable people, has made it incredibly simple for the ones with agendas to push them, the idealogues to push their ideology, and the dishonest to fleece the masses.
D. Patterson says:
June 17, 2011 at 7:43 am
The educational system is badly compromised …
Agree with your analysis 100%. The problem today is the teachers themselves are so indoctrinated that they don’t even know it. IMO, all T/F and multiple choice questions should be eliminated. That would be a start.
CodeTech says:
June 17, 2011 at 7:56 am
BINGO!!!!!!
Scott says:
“There is evidence supporting warming in the past couple decades… so to say there is zero real world evidence supporting it is a stretch.”
Sorry for not being clearer. There is no evidence supporting the AGW hypothesis. AGW may exist, but the basis for the hypothesis is computer models, not measurable, testable, empirical evidence connecting the mild warming cycle of the past century and a half with the rise in CO2.
Based on the lack of evidence, the rise in CO2 and the rise in temperature may be coincidental. The gradually rising temperature trend since the LIA has not accelerated even though CO2 has risen by ≈40%. That fact alone makes the AGW conjecture questionable.
We have a number of family members who have spent their lifetime careers in elementray, secondary, and collegiate education in roles ranging from teachers to superintendants of public instruction. When debating the merits of the Internet in education, they tend to be uniformly horrified with the prospect that the students may use the Internet to read and learn from unapproved sources, especially original surces such as pre-20th Century authors, which are not textbooks or aproved New Age books and articles.
A great way of sticking a stick into a hornets’ nest is to playfully suggest it would be a good idea to unconsolidate these school districts, stop the consumption of fossil fuels by ending most bussing of students, and returning to the concept of township and neighborhood schools with the Internet providing the technological means for delivering the best educational sources and methods at the least cost. It would also return the old fashioned teaching methods in which the brightest students were challenged to exercise thinking skills when they had to help teach their classmates.
The need to teach a subject is often the best means of exercising the mind and revealing shortcomings in knowledge when confronted with the need to teach another person. In the days of the one room schoolhouse, students helped to teach each other, while the teacher provided the necessary guidance. This has often been lost in present day schools where the educational establishment typically punishes deviations from a predetermined “lesson plan” which supposedly is the only approved subject matter and way for a student to learn. Teachers and students who would dare to deviate from the state approved lesson plan are punished. The end result are teachers, students, and a society which must not be allowed to deviate from the state sanctioned lesson plan for socialist engineering.
Hello together,
this is a hobby meteorologist from Germany. I want to refer to Point 1 of the above article I can fully agree with. I translated the dismissal letter from former member Hal Lewis for a German website of climate realists. That’s why I was so much touched by this one.
Ever since it came up that there should be a “hot spot” over the tropics I have one question: If really it would become warmer above the tropics, but not at the surface – wouldn’t that mean a general death of any tropical cumulus convection? I mean, if the vertical temperature gradient becomes smaller…
Is there any evidence that soemthing like this so far has been observed? I think not – is it?
Just askin’!
Best regards Chris Frey German Author
“There is evidence supporting “seasons” in the past couple of billionions!!
David Jay:
Actually, it was Pauline Kael who was supposed to have made the comment about Nixon, although I see on a Wikipedia page that this has been contested. (No mention about an editor of Nation, though.)
Although I agree with Chris Colose that conspiracy hypotheses can be far-fetched, my take on what’s going on could be considered even more paranoid. Unfortunately, I don’t think many people (among those of us who have managed to land outside the Matrix) have yet come to terms with what’s happened over the last few decades. By now there are generations of university graduates who have been ‘parameterized’ in such a way that the AGW hypothesis is highly appealing. It’s going to take a long while to dig ourselves out of this mess.
Richard M says:
June 17, 2011 at 7:05 am
“It’s kind of sad to see another blind acceptance of what an individual is taught. I see this as THE big problem with our educational system. Instead of being taught to think, students are taught to believe exactly what they are told. The result is little advancement of science.”
“I’ve ask, off and on, if anyone who believes in AGW can explain the “cooling effect” of GHGs. Not once has anyone even understood what that means. They are so caught up in what they’ve been told they have no ability to think outside the box.”
Unfortunately, this is true all the way up to defense of thesis for the Phd. In the old days, there was unbridled debate. Today, a student who disagrees with his thesis adviser is considered a mental case. It has flipped totally from the post war period, 1945 -1973. In my humble opinion, the causes of Political Correctness form the greater part of the causes for this phenomenon. Just think about it for a minute. If you are going to permit academic departments of Feminist Studies and feminists publish books in which they argue that science proves that the root of all evil is “maleness,” then you cannot really permit debate.
Chris: “This Joe takes the prescriptions the doctor gives me.”
Personally, I don’t, until I have researched the medicine for myself. I don’t simply accept the claim – I want to KNOW. That applies in my life to medicine, home and auto repair, and to science. And I hold all to the same standard.
Chris Frey says:
June 17, 2011 at 8:36 am
Oh yes, Lewis’s letter belongs referenced here. Start at http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/10/16/hal-lewis-my-resignation-from-the-american-physical-society/
Ref – D. Patterson says:
June 17, 2011 at 7:43 am
Time to close down the Public Schools and turn them all private, just no other way; thanks for nothing NEA. Tax write offs for tuition? I’ll bite.
Would you like to know what is the greatest casualty of all of this?
In my opinion, these Charlatans have created a populace that doubts science itself. Not just junk science, but, as a large group of scientists bought into and were actively promoting this particular brand of snake oil as genuine science, all science is thereby condemned in the mind of the larger population.
When the scientists cannot tell the difference between rigorous peer review and consensual group think, what is the average man to believe. At that point everything is propaganda. Who would fund research when everyone knows the money is going to be used to fund junkets and parties and the scientists will eventually prove whatever it was the believed in the first place. I think this is how the dark ages began. Once Galileo proved the church wrong, nobody knew what to believe anymore and society began to lose it’s cohesiveness. This happened just as the Little Ice Age began. Coincidence? My personal belief is that God works in ways which we cannot comprehend, but that this has all the hallmarks and irony of his type of humor. Just when we think we’ve got it all figured out and don’t need him anymore; a little dose of reality; people are small. The earth isn’t even large by most objective standards. If he wants us to learn a lesson; here it comes. In the exact opposite form of what we’ve convinced ourselves WE were responsible for.
I suggest we call this one the Eddy Minimum, after Jack Eddy. A man who was trying to lead the way on climate research before it was hijacked by the current crop of charlatans and opportunists posing as scientist. If anybody with any pull in science or academia would support that notion, I would greatly appreciate it.
I have a great deal of respect for meterologists that agree with the fact that “Mann-made global warming” does not exist. The question above asked about “climatology” here is my definitions. Again there are many “climatologist” that do not believe in the fairy-tale of Mann-made global warming but for those that do,there is one question-” Where is the creditable experimental data that “proves that the “greenhouse gas effect exists?”.
It appears that no one either understand my experiment or that its to long to follow the 4 parts. It does demonstrate that the “greenhouse gas effect” does not exist.
Definitions of the Climate Discussion
What is Climate?
Definition:A few thousand weather days end to end for a specific location.
How many climates are there in the world?
Every part of the country and the world has a unique climate -the south of France, the North slope of Alaska, the heart of Africa, the northeast Great Lakes region of the US ,the north of Italy, the south of Italy,thousands of different climates etc.
What is weather?
The atmospheric conditions where you are.
Can mankind control the weather?
We have tried for thousands of years from the Indian rainmaker, to the cloud seeders of the 1950-60. Man can not control the weather, then how the hell can man be controlling the climate. This whole B.S of MANN-made global warming is a fairy tale. The MANNipulation of temperature data is a crime against humanity and these criminals should be put in jail.
Be careful of the Pied Pipers of Gorezillaism- remember Hamlin- except it is happening to ignorant supposed adults.
Climatologists”- are temperature historians. If they chose to project into the future they have gone from historians to Flat Screen fortune tellers. “computer generated Models” “garbage in is garbage out”
Scott says:
June 17, 2011 at 6:40 am
He said there was no evidence supporting climate alarmism. Most of us agree that the planet has warmed over the last 100 years. The big disagreement is how much weight to give to CO2, the sun (both direct TSI and indirect factors such as the Svensmark effect), UHI and microsite contamination, factors yet unknown.
with some college professors privately confessing to the student that they are teaching them a lesson in life what to expect when challenging their authority.
—
Every time I’ve ever had a boss like that, I left the company at the first opportunity.
Such people do exist, unfortunately most of the exist in academia.
Bob Kutz says:
June 17, 2011 at 9:11 am
I am glad you don’t think we live in one giant “Halideck” . . . . with some “control” freak at the console!
In my opinion, these Charlatans have created a populace that doubts science itself. Not just junk science, but, as a large group of scientists bought into and were actively promoting this particular brand of snake oil as genuine science, all science is thereby condemned in the mind of the larger population.
—
I’m afraid that this kind of corruption has been going on for a long time, and it isn’t limited to climate scientists.
Need I remind anyone of Alar.
Chris:
You must realize that your recent education is equipping you for a career. Post graduation will commence your real education as experience and exposure begins the filtering and addition of real knowledge. Your own opinion of the extent of value, from this education, will change drastically over the coming decades. Your real education is about to begin.
I hope you successfully survive the transition from theory to “what is”. Remember, when your faith in peer review and consensus science is destroyed and you are in the depths of career despair… you may always come to WUWT for a little ” now, now… everything is going to be OK” therapy. GK
CodeTech says:
June 17, 2011 at 7:56 am
“Meh, our boy has taken his ball and gone home…”
Yes, and that’s too bad. I really wanted him to start researching what’s really in the climate codes, but alas…
I really can’t say though that I blame him for leaving. Based on what Dr. Judith Curry has gone through, it would appear that the penalty for even trying to create a bridge between the two sides in the climate debate is to severely compromise your career opportunities. In fact, I bet someone at GISS sat him down for a “talk” about appropriate internet interactions for a climate scientist.
A final thought – it would be interesting to know if Chris is paying for his education himself or if his education is being subsidized by the taxpayers. Not that subsidizing education is bad, but it’s pretty easy for him to say to us “go take a class in the physics of radiation” at a major university when he’s getting public money to do so and I would have to pay out-of-pocket.
BTW – I took a graduate-level class in Radiation Heat Transfer when I was pursuing my Ph.D. in the early 90s (Still have my copy of “Thermal Radiation Heat Transfer” by Siegel and Howell, and have used it occasionally in my present job).
Bob Kutz says:
June 17, 2011 at 9:11 am
The Eddy Minimum
This was discussed quite awhile ago as suggested by Leif Svalgaard, and others.
See:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/?s=%22eddy+minimum%22
Mark Wilson says:
June 17, 2011 at 9:31 am
Yes, agreed . . . . there is “junk” religion and “junk” government . . . . And all have the same thing in common . . . . they do not work! . . . . Because they seek to dominate what they have no “right” to dominate. And “they” seek to place burdens (taxes, tithes) on those that are already over burdened!
I’m not sure who this “student” is but I am sure he knows very little about noisy, chaotic data somehow being capable of revealing “trends” related to AGW CO2. This stuff I know, finding signals within chaotic noise. Done it. Published it. I studied noisy natural data. I added a controlled high-frequency artificial input signal under lab-controlled conditions, and then tried to find that signal in the natural noise by mathematically averaging out the natural noise. Found it. It’s called the high-frequency auditory brainstem response. Others have found it as well. The input signal resulted in an artificial (as in not chaotic) response that mechanistically and mathematically was exactly as predicted. It is a very robust finding. It is predictable and repeatable across subjects.
This “warming signal” is another kettle of fish entirely. Natural CO2 has been said to affect weather, since it is a greenhouse gas. So it is a natural part then of weather, not an artificial input, and weather cares not one bit how the CO2 got there or who owns which part. If that is true, you will not be able to say with confidence whether or not the signal you find is an AGW CO2 signal or a natural signal, if all you have is natural weather data to study, of which greenhouse affects are a natural component.
In general then, the consensus has failed to prove an artificial response to an artificial input, within the lab or in observations.
The concept of “hijacking” is wrong here. The AMS Council members are elected for short limited terms by the whole membership. They select a special committee to draft a statement that then has a period when it is open for membership comment. This statement has been around for more than four years with no dissent, even from Bill Gray himself, as far as I know. Statements are in effect for five years, and a new one is due in 2012, which is also going to be open for input by members. The use of the word “hijack” is bogus and misleading when confronted with the facts.
Theo Goodwin, skeptics are even denying what Arrhenius says, as he included the water vapor feedback in his estimate too. You don’t have to go beyond Arrhenius to make the argument that prevails today.
Harry Dale Huffman, I’m commenting here as well as on your blog directly.
What you have done is proved that, within experimental error, the greenhouse gas warming of Earth and Venus is equivalent. This is clear evidence that there is nothing special about CO2 in the atmosphere that would cause it to warm the atmosphere. However, that in and of itself is a misunderstanding of the greenhouse gas effect.
We would expect that since both atmospheres are primarily a single gas (N2 for Earth, CO2 for Venus) that the atmosphere would be saturated on that gas’s absorption spectrum. In fact, one would expect Earth’s greenhouse gas absorption to be greater due to the Oxygen band also being saturated. Unfortunately, this doesn’t say anything about trace gases, which the primary matter of debate.
Sorry, but the “There is no greenhouse effect” conclusion does not follow from the evidence. What you have proved is “There is no magical greenhouse effect caused by CO2 that isn’t caused by gases on Earth”. While this invalidates the “Venusification” nonsense by the alarmists as well the “terraform Venus” simulation in the classic climate model SimEarth, it does NOT present any evidence that would falsify the greenhouse gas theory. You merely proved that Venus (and therefore CO2) is not exceptional in this regard.
Please issue a correction. We need good science on our side to defeat the human-killing idioticy of the IPCC, not strawman fallacies.
CodeTech says:
June 17, 2011 at 7:56 am
“Meh, our boy has taken his ball and gone home…”
There’s been quite a ramp up recently of rabid believers commenting on many of the skeptic blogs or responding to skeptics on alarmist blogs. Mainly resulting in distraction, as in this thread.
Has anyone else noticed?
What about there being only about half as many temperature recording stations as there were 50 or so years ago? One in Arizona out in the desert is no longer in use; the one that’s recording data is on a stretch of asphalt at the U of A. Think that one’s giving higher temp data than the earlier two combined? As I understand it, the ones no longer in use were generally in rural (i.e., cooler) areas. A practical question: If it takes dozens or hundreds of engineers to write an OS or application, and even then the software likely has some bugs, how can a relatively few scientists write a program that models the whole world’s climate unto eternity and get something believable?
As I read through the dialog from and to Chris Colose several things occurred to me.
First, Chris Colose, you came here for this post with a pre-determined low opinion about the qualitiy of WUWT. You appeared to act in a condescending and consensus fawning manner that you knew (from previous visits here) would create the response you got. Chris, you have done this before at WUWT. Why did you come here? Did you really come here in an open search for knowledge and open debate or for emotional kicks?
Secondly, Chris Colose, I was thinking of you when I encountered one of Mark Lynas’ comments at Judith Curry’s site on the subject of Lynas starting to be attacked by his old Consensus/AGW friends/colleagues because of his recent critical position on blatant IPCC conflict of interest. This following quote from Lynas may give you food for thought regarding your consensus acceptance of climate science per se.
Good luck in you climate science career.
John
“Theo Goodwin, skeptics are even denying what Arrhenius says, as he included the water vapor feedback in his estimate too. You don’t have to go beyond Arrhenius to make the argument that prevails today.”
—
Regardless of how many people decided to add water vapor, there still isn’t a shred of evidence that more CO2 leads to more water vapor.
It’s not denialism to when what you are denying is untrue.
A statement of the the Scientific Method and the Scientific Computer Modeling Method:
The Scientific Method
1. Observe a phenomenon carefully.
2. Develop a hypothesis that possibly explains the phenomenon.
3. Perform a test in an attempt to disprove or invalidate the hypothesis. If the hypothesis is disproven, return to steps 1 and 2.
4. A hypothesis that stubbornly refuses to be invalidated may be correct. Continue testing.
The Scientific Computer Modeling Method
1. Observe a phenomenon carefully.
2. Develop a computer model that mimics the behavior of the phenomenon.
3. Select observations that conform to the model predictions and dismiss observations as of inadequate quality that conflict with the computer model.
4. In instances where all of the observations conflict with the model, “refine” the model with fudge factors to give a better match with pesky facts. Assert that these factors reveal fundamental processes previously unknown in association with the phenomenon. Under no circumstances willingly reveal your complete data sets, methods, or computer codes.
5. Upon achieving a model of incomprehensible complexity that still somewhat resembles the phenomenon, begin to issue to the popular media dire predictions of catastrophe that will occur as far in the future as possible, at least beyond your professional lifetime.
6. Continue to “refine” the model in order to maximize funding and the awarding of Nobel Prizes.
7. Dismiss as unqualified, ignorant, and conspiracy theorists all who offer criticisms of the model.
Repeat steps 3 through 7 indefinitely.
Chris Colose says:
June 16, 2011 at 11:43 pm
“This only leaves me to conclude that those, such as KevinUK who claim that the greenhouse-based physics underlying modern global warming is not solid, are only doing so based on unfamiliarity with the literature. ”
Well, Chris, it may take you some decades of experience to realize that physics questions are settled not by what appears in the literature, but by what appears in the real world. On the other hand, you might just languish in the ivory tower of empty ideas forever.
Roy Tucker says:
June 17, 2011 at 2:31 pm
“The Scientific Computer Modeling Method
1. Observe a phenomenon carefully.
2. Develop a computer model that mimics the behavior of the phenomenon.
3. Select observations that conform to the model predictions and dismiss observations as of inadequate quality that conflict with the computer model.
4. In instances where all of the observations conflict with the model, “refine” the model with fudge factors to give a better match with pesky facts. Assert that these factors reveal fundamental processes previously unknown in association with the phenomenon. Under no circumstances willingly reveal your complete data sets, methods, or computer codes.”
You have made a noble effort here, but I want to suggest some corrections.
3. Select some output from the model and declare that it represents some natural phenomenon, whether that be a natural process on Earth, such as La Nina, or one originating in the sun, such as various kinds of radiation.
3A. Repeat step 3 until you have covered either all natural processes that interest you or all the output sets that
strike you as fitting together.
3B. Make more runs (simulations).
3C. Rejigger the natural processes and output sets until you have something of beauty – in your exalted opinion.
3D. Continue as long as you have grant money.
4. Present selected results to the MSM and call them evidence, though they are evidence for no one but you and
have no bearing on anything but the computer model itself.
4A. Alert the MSM to the fact that your computer model (actually, selected parts of it) indicates increasing
temperatures on Earth into infinity or something of that sort.
4B. Bash your critics. If anyone should state that the facts on Earth differ from the output of your computer model
then label them deniers and shout that they do not understand computer modeling. On the latter point, you
cannot be wrong because, as a matter of fact, no one but you understands your computer model.
4C. Write Op-Ed pieces in which you bash the public as rubes who have no understanding of science. Ignore
the fact that what you say about your computer model and its output has no bearing to science except in
your imagination.
Mark Wilson says:
June 17, 2011 at 2:26 pm
“Theo Goodwin, skeptics are even denying what Arrhenius says, as he included the water vapor feedback in his estimate too. You don’t have to go beyond Arrhenius to make the argument that prevails today.”
And what, pray tell, did Arrhenius have for evidence? How did he measure water vapor feedback? What tools did he use to get readings at 0, 5, or 10 miles above the Amazon rain forest? The answer is that Arrhenius failed to create one or more physical hypotheses which could explain and predict the behavior of clouds or other kinds of water vapor in an environment of increasing CO2 concentrations. Also, do not forget that when Arrhenius was active there was only an eeny-teensy bit of manmade CO2.
John Whitman says:
June 17, 2011 at 1:59 pm
This following quote from Lynas may give you food for thought regarding your consensus acceptance of climate science per se.
Mark Lynas said: “ I think part of the problem for Greenpeace is that they (and their supporters) actually see everything they do as being good for the planet, ergo justifiable in principle. . . . Same with all the greens attacking me now – they just ‘know’ they are saving the planet, so anyone who makes a criticism is worthy of very harsh responses.”
This could be a direct quotation from Lenin or one of his minions, though he was urging others to hold this view that the end justifies the means. Everyone should read Bertolt Brecht’s “The Measures Taken.” Yes, Brecht was a communist and this is a play, but Brecht really nailed the problems with Lenin’s doctrine.
Theo Goodwin says:
This is why it often becomes impossible to discuss climate change. Theo has just denied nearly two centuries of basic physics – yet not one regular commenter on this blog attempts to correct him. Fourier is a scientific giant – but Theo dismisses his work and everyone here moves on without comment.
It’s fine to argue that sensitivities are too high or too low; that the dataset is too small to be predictive; or any of a hundred different arguments based on SCIENCE. [Snip. First and last warning. ~dbs, mod.]
I suspect that most readers of this blog know that the theory of GHG is settled science. Without GHG we’d be living on ‘snowball Earth.’ The fact that atmospheric water vapor, CO2, methane, et al create a feedback system that warms the planet is not an admission that the AGW hypothesis is true, but apparently some like Theo must think so – else why would he deny or dismiss 200 years of basic physics? And it’s an interesting question why no one here would tell him he’s full of bovine excrement. If an AGW supporter made equally ludicrous statements here, there’d be umpteen dozen posts ridiculing his/her position.
An honest debate or argument is a good way to learn – but it’s impossible to even have a good argument amidst this type of herd mentality.
Any good scientist should also be
Pamela Gray says:
June 17, 2011 at 10:13 am
I’m not sure who this “student” is but I am sure he knows very little about noisy, chaotic data somehow being capable of revealing “trends” related to AGW CO2. This stuff I know, finding signals within chaotic noise. Done it. Published it. I studied noisy natural data. I added a controlled high-frequency artificial input signal under lab-controlled conditions, and then tried to find that signal in the natural noise by mathematically averaging out the natural noise. Found it. It’s called the high-frequency auditory brainstem response. Others have found it as well. The input signal resulted in an artificial (as in not chaotic) response that mechanistically and mathematically was exactly as predicted. It is a very robust finding. It is predictable and repeatable across subjects.
This “warming signal” is another kettle of fish entirely. Natural CO2 has been said to affect weather, since it is a greenhouse gas. So it is a natural part then of weather, not an artificial input, and weather cares not one bit how the CO2 got there or who owns which part. If that is true, you will not be able to say with confidence whether or not the signal you find is an AGW CO2 signal or a natural signal, if all you have is natural weather data to study, of which greenhouse affects are a natural component.
In general then, the consensus has failed to prove an artificial response to an artificial input, within the lab or in observations.
=============================
Repeated for effect. Brilliant. I love Pamela’s style.
She is lady-like….but don’t cross her. Don’t cross her. Would you cross a lioness with her young? NO.
The indirect “I’m not sure who this student is”….is rather indirectly direct.
I love it.
Beyond that…the meat of what is being said here…is incontrovertible.
Why not give it a try, Chris C?
Bet you can’t make a noticeable nick.
Bravo Pamela. Keep it up.
Chris (M)
Norfolk, VA, USA
Theo Goodwin says: June 17, 2011 at 6:54 am
Ammonite: “James Hansens 20+ year old model yields a climate sensitivity of +4.2C per doubling of CO2…”
It shows that Hansen was dead wrong.
Hi Theo. Hansen was correct that temperature would rise, but it seems highly probable that his model has over-estimated transient climate sensitivity. So what? Others have built upon his work, as is the way of science.
Pamela Gray says:
Absolutely correct. Who could disagree with that? And since we know how the system responds to ‘natural’ CO2 and we also know that the system doesn’t discriminate between natural and ‘artificial’ CO2, then we know how the system responds to ‘artificial’ CO2.
Thanks for elucidating the point.
…and thank goodness the climate system does not respond at all to variances in CO2’s concentration. Always amazes me how some who call themselves scientists just ignore the real data that has been out there in proper papers for years… must have a thumb in the pie.
Hi Mark.
Mark Wilson says @ June 17, 2011 at 2:26 pm “Regardless of how many people decided to add water vapor, there still isn’t a shred of evidence that more CO2 leads to more water vapor. It’s not denialism to when what you are denying is untrue.”
Ouch – I thought the d-word was off limits here.
Anyway I guess it depends on how you define “shred”, but this would seem to be some evidence, no?
‘Data from the satellite-based Special Sensor Microwave Imager
(SSM/I) show that the total atmospheric moisture content over
oceans has increased by 0.41 kg/m2 per decade since 1988. Results
from current climate models indicate that water vapor increases of
this magnitude cannot be explained by climate noise alone. In a
formal detection and attribution analysis using the pooled results
from 22 different climate models, the simulated ‘‘fingerprint’’
pattern of anthropogenically caused changes in water vapor is
identifiable with high statistical confidence in the SSM/I data.
Experiments in which forcing factors are varied individually suggest
that this fingerprint ‘‘match’’ is primarily due to human caused
increases in greenhouse gases and not to solar forcing or
recovery from the eruption of Mount Pinatubo. Our findings
provide preliminary evidence of an emerging anthropogenic signal
in the moisture content of earth’s atmosphere.”
http://www.pnas.org/content/104/39/15248.full.pdf
Re Tyndall and ‘if there was no water vapour in the atmosphere the Earth would be freezing’
Deserts anyone?
AGWScience is a set of beliefs about the physical nature of the world we see around us, it is science fiction. It cannot debate real world scientists because its base premises are fantastical and not real.
AGWScience has created its science fiction world by mixing and mis-matching properties and processes and taking laws out of context from the real physical world, even though very well-known and taught and in continuing real world physical applications, and given them a twist which has created an impossible world, an Alice through the looking glass world of being able to believe any number of impossible things before breakfast. Those defending AGW memes are doing so from a distinct body of work, an entity in its own right with its own particular and distinct beliefs about the properties and workings of the world, and, these beliefs have been introduced into the education system over the last few decades to the point where even those sceptical of AGW claims from knowledge of their own science disciplines, applied and theoretical, will take ‘on trust’ an AGWScience variation when not in their field.
In AGWScience’s world, for example, the molecules of nitrogen and oxygen and carbon dioxide are given the qualities of of ideal gas, therefore there is no sound in this world and they can’t hear arguments from real physical disciplines which actually know the difference, why no real gas obeys ideal gas law. However, for example, there are ‘skeptics’ who take seriously the AGWScience fiction claim that no thermal infrared reaches the Earth’s surface and that it is instead the short wave visible reflective radiation, light, and the short wave either side which converts to heat the land and oceans of the Earth, as per the claim in the Keil/Trenberth 1997 energy budget. Thermal infrared has been taken out of the equation in the downwelling of the budget.
What Tyndall failed to take into consideration in his equation is the Water Cycle’s main role of taking heat away from the Earth. Without the Water Cycle, ‘vapour in the air’, the Earth’s temp would be 67°C. Think deserts.
The ‘freezing’ Earth, would be one without the atmosphere altogether, which is the real ‘Greenhouse’ around the planet, the fluid and voluminous and weighty gas Air without which the Earth temp would be -18°C.
The confusion created here is subtle, for an example of an attempt at deconstruction of the AGWScience presentation having to ‘adjust’ for the missing half of the Water Cycle please see my post http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/05/30/skeptic-strategy-for-talking-about-global-warming/#comment-673855. I’m quite sure the majority here could improve on it.
What I have seen in all these discussions is the failure of real science and scientists to make any impact on the core problem here, that AGWScience as a whole needs to thoroughly debunked, in its manipulations of the basics, by a co-ordinated effort from the many disciplines involved; as Lucy Skywalker has proposed re her wiki set up.
I see lot’s of folks praising Bill Gray’s article here. I don’t want to spend too much time tearing apart his whole letter but let’s look at some context here and at lease analyze one sentence in the first paragraph:
“We believe that humans are having little or no significant influence on the global climate and that the many Global Circulation Climate Model (GCMs) results and the four IPCC reports do not realistically give accurate future projections.”
1. Science is not based on belief, it’s based on math and physics and the CI.
2. The GCM’s are not accurate.
3. The GCM’s are not accurate because they are models and models can’t be accurate because they are just models, but they can be used to test observations to see if they represent reality in a meaningful manner.
4. Who cares if the models are not perfect? They are not even needed to see that AGW is occurring. All you really need is the basic physics of the greenhouse effect, the radiative forcing potential the negative albedo calcs., the amounts of GHG’s at various altitudes and to test the vertical pattern of warming along with changes in outgoing LWR to see if it fits with the physics and observations… Well fancy that, It does.
So Gray’s claim that the AMS leadership is capitulating to the lobby of the climate modelers is incorrect. Climate models are only one single line of evidence among many.
– The vertical pattern of warming fits
– The changes in the Hadley cell fits
– The increase in atmospheric. moisture fits
– The decrease in soil moisture fits
– The increase in sea surface temp fits
– The increase in atmospheric temp fits
– the increase ice mass loss fits
– the heat trapping capacity of a specified amount of increased GHG’s fits with the increase of radiative forcing and the industrial aerosols negative albedo fits
– The isotopic signature fits
– The horizontal pattern of warming fits
– the land sea temperature profile fits
– The seasonal pattern changes fit
– the latitudinal pattern changes fit
– The changes in outgoing long wave radiation fit
I could of course go on and the list is very very long, especially when you add the physical basis for paleo comparison. But the point is, we simply don’t need models to see that this particular global warming event is human caused. So Gray’s argument is false because he apparently doesn’t know the whole story, while simultaneously claiming, or inferring that he does; which is very confusing because some choose to trust him because he is a professor even though he has no scientific basis in his argument on this subject. This is referred to as argument from eminence, but it is not a scientific argument.
Does he deserve a seat at a table arguing with scientists that actually do know how these mechanisms work and the relative confidence levels in the constituent aspects of related science? Not really. It’s like letting a whiny kid get what he wants just to shut him up. That’s not science, it’s bad parenting.
It ‘seems’ the non, or less, scientific crowd view will always complain that they are being shut out of the argument, no matter how many times they repeat points without relevant substance. But in science, if they want to be heard, they need to publish a paper. And if your physics don’t stand up to the stronger, higher confidence level of science, and you can’t get published, it’s not because you are being shut out because you think other scientists are wrong, it’s because your assertions are not supported by the science. This is apparently the category that Gray falls into.
The AMS has not been infiltrated by liberals. it is drawing conclusions based on the known physics and observations. Science truly doesn’t care about my, your, or anyone else’s opinion.
Roy Tucker says:
June 17, 2011 at 2:31 pm
“The Scientific Computer Modeling Method” . . . . .
Gee Roy . . . . where I come from the is the epitome of one of the “Huckster” strategies . . .
Is that the Mark I or Mark II Huckster Model?
Theo Goodwin and others here are asserting that as the oceans warm, and they cover 70% of the earth’s surface, this has no effect on the total water vapor in the atmosphere. Does this sound correct from the physics standpoint? Should not the atmospheric boundary layer maintain water saturation near the surface that would increase water vapor amount with temperature? To say water vapor does not increase as SST does flies in the face of known physics. Arrhenius, as a physicist would, realized a hundred years ago that the relative humidity is a better approximation to what is preserved, not the water vapor amount, hence the water vapor feedback.
John P. Reisman says:
“Who cares if the models are not perfect? They are not even needed to see that AGW is occurring.”
Thanx for expressing your true beliefs, but there is misrepresentation in the first sentence. The models are crap. They can’t predict their way out of a wet paper bag. The only way they come anywhere close to hindcasting is by endless tweaking after the fact, and they all fail at forecasting. Not a single GCM predicted the flat to cooling global temperatures over the past decade+.
Your second sentence is based on belief, not on measurable, testable evidence, because there is no such evidence. The rest of your post is just as easy to debunk. Your “fits” disregard the null hypothesis, which has never been falsified, and they are simply an Argumentum ad Ignorantium: “Since we can’t think of any other explanation, then AGW must be the cause.” That is simply an evidence-free conjecture.
The fact is that despite CO2 steadily rising, global temperatures are not following as has been endlessly predicted. When you have empirical evidence of global harm from CO2 per the scientific method, wake me. Until then, the only sensible conclusion is that CO2 is harmless.
As Dwight D. Eisenhower said in his 1961 “military industrial complex” speech: “Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashon, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers. The prospect of the domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present – and is gravely to be regarded. Yet, holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become captive of a scientific technological elite.”
Jim D,
The problem with your argument is that global relative humidity is declining.
Jim D says:
June 18, 2011 at 8:49 am
To say water vapor does not increase as SST does flies in the face of known physics.
=====================================================================
Then either the physics is wrong, temperature measurements are wrong, our understanding of climate/computer models is wrong, ……………something ain’t right
Because relative humidity has been going down in direct proportion to CO2 going up………..
Smokey, you are probably aware that the column water vapor is dominated by that near the surface, which is controlled by ocean temperatures, and the total is increasing, and that is what matters for the greenhouse effect. I was answering people who seemed to think the water vapor wasn’t increasing in total. At least your figures show it is because for a 1 degree increase RH would have to drop 7% in the whole column to compensate and keep water vapor constant.
Latitude, see my reply to Smokey.
Actually in a transient CO2 increase phase, RH might drop because the land warms faster than the oceans. This is not necessarily a good thing, because it can lead to more frequent droughts and heat waves.
Smokey says: June 18, 2011 at 8:59 am
To be quite honest, I care very little for anonymous voices on the internet, but since you think certain things are crap, can you point me to one single paper, or a plethora of papers, that have survived peer review and peer response to support your tentative hypotheses presented?
Kevin, I fail to see how you proved your unspoken point (and you would have improved your post by stating your point clearly). Let me correct your post as if you did the work or are reporting on a peer-reviewed article that did the work.
Assuming the signals for natural ENSO/atmospheric neutral temperature outputs, natural ENSO/atmospheric non-neutral temperature outputs, and anthropogenic-only temperature outputs are mathematically known or hypothesized,
1. Non-chaotic artificial inputs present at the time of a selected temperature series span (IE anthropogenic CO2 only -not all of CO2 just the anthropogenic part- along with its anthropogenically increased water vapor), were determined, mechanized and mathematically calculated. A resultant anthropogenic trend was hypothesized (what the anthropogenic-only temperature output signal should look like).
2. The observed chaotic ENSO-neutral noise was removed from the observed temperature series, leaving the non-chaotic inputs in place and the resultant observed trend. This served as the data series: A neutralized data series trend with nothing but non-chaotic non-neutral drivers in place with error bands.
3. From that series the non-chaotic natural trend was separated from the man-made non-chaotic trend.
4. Finally, the a priori hypothesized anthropogenic-only trend was compared with the control (natural non-chaotic trend), and the observed anthropogenic non-chaotic trend.
What did you find Kevin?
Jim D,
You argued in effect that relative humidity is rising because of global warming. I posted a chart showing that relative humidity has been delining for decades, at all altitudes. Tap dancing won’t change the fact that your premise has been falsified.
Jim D says:
June 18, 2011 at 10:00 am
Latitude, see my reply to Smokey.
Actually in a transient CO2 increase phase, RH might drop because the land warms faster than the oceans.
===========================================================================
Might? when the land is not warming faster than the oceans either?
…got any more rabbits in that hat?
Smokey says: June 18, 2011 at 8:59 am
Okay, here’s a more detailed response to your post:
1. I avoid expressing beliefs, I express representations based on validated studies.
2. Which models are crap and prove it.
3. a single decade is too short a time to have large scale predictability due to natural variation largely based on ocean heat content overturn
4. Funny thing about observations, they are observable so your unfounded ‘belief’ that we can’t actually see evidence is a bit weird.
5. Re. null hypothesis? What are you talking about? The amount of evidence has not reached epic proportions so the only reasonably null hypothesis is can you prove current global warming on trend is not human caused.
6. As to falsifiability. The models are absolutely falsifiable. The model based perdition’s in the 60’s by Hansen, Manabe, and Washington demonstrated that the vertical pattern of warming would include stratospheric cooling and troposphere warming, therefore the models were falsifiable… only problem is they turned out to be correct.
7. Your saying I’m arguing from ignorance. Well isn’t that just a pot meet kettle moment.
John P. Reisman,
First, provide testable, falsifiable, empirical evidence showing global harm due specifically to CO2. If you can, then I will provide your citations.
I didn’t say RH would rise, just column water vapor. There is a difference.
The equilibrium response would have RH staying constant, as Arrhenius suggested. However, because the ocean has a circulation, and deep cooler water comes to the surface, its response is expected to be slower than land where no such effect exists, and we see the faster land warming from the surface observations, which is why the transient response is different from the equilibrium one. There are too many factors to know the full transient effects from simple Arrhenius-type one-dimensional calculations, because it relies on how the different ocean and land changes affect the atmospheric circulation (monsoons, etc.), but our current climate state is a transient one for sure, the degree of which is a rarity in recent climatological history.
I think this is a very pretty picture indeed! Has lots a pretty colors and very lovely patterns and balance!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Vostok_420ky_4curves_insolation.jpg
Smokey says: June 18, 2011 at 11:04 am
As is typical for those that don’t understand all the teleconnections and evidentiarry support, the most solid proof regarding AGW does not lie in a single piece of evidence but rather all the evidence when considered together.
However, there are already indications that the CO2 increase is problematic.
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/plant-decline.html
The FACE experiments during the Bush W. administration were falsifiable and some researchers tested protien counts and the indicatios were that anythign that does not fix nitrogen, such as legumes dropped proteins.
Other lines of evidence regaridn CO2 is ocean acidificaiotn which is affecting phytoplanckon.
But you’ve probably already read the studies on that, right?
John P. Reisman ,
Teleconnections, Hm-m-m? They must be like treemometers. But I suppose they’re robust teleconnections, eh?☺
You are flat wrong about the effect of CO2 on C3 and C4 plant growth. More CO2 enhances both. In fact, there is plenty of empirical evidence showing that more CO2 is beneficial:
click1 [click on + sign to embiggen page; see ‘conclusions’]
click2
click3
click4
click5
But since you made a [sadly, failed] effort to show global damage due to CO2, at least you tried. I will be out for the afternoon, but when I get back home I’ll respond to your 11:02 am post.
Nice touch Smokey . . . Click5 is great . . .
John P. Reisman says:
June 18, 2011 at 11:55 am
Other lines of evidence regaridn CO2 is ocean acidificaiotn which is affecting phytoplanckon.
========================================================================
John, I have a question about ocean acidification, and can never get a straight answer…
…perhaps you know
Marine bryozoans lay down a calcium skeleton and show up in the fossil record in the early part of the Ordovician Period, about 470 million years ago, when atmospheric CO2 levels were ~4000-5000 ppm….
…how did they do that?
Jim D says:
June 18, 2011 at 11:06 am
Great hunches. Do you have one or more rigorously formulated physical hypotheses which can be used to explain these matters? Now, that would be interesting.
John P. Reisman says:
June 18, 2011 at 11:02 am
“6. As to falsifiability. The models are absolutely falsifiable. The model based perdition’s in the 60′s by Hansen, Manabe, and Washington demonstrated that the vertical pattern of warming would include stratospheric cooling and troposphere warming, therefore the models were falsifiable… only problem is they turned out to be correct.”
Physical hypotheses are falsifiable when they are rigorously formulated. If you have physical hypotheses then you can explain and predict the phenomena in question. Models do not contain physical hypotheses because if you have the physical hypotheses then you do not need a model. Models, not being physical hypotheses, can no more predict than your shoes can.
Simulations cannot be used as evidence. Simulations produce numbers. Someone has to interpret those numbers; that is, the numbers do not interpret themselves, nor does the computer code which generates them. Real science involves real data collected from the real world and, for that reason, it does not need interpretation.
Anthony,
you say: “REPLY: This is Chris Colose, inexperienced student, http://www.aos.wisc.edu/~colose/ whatever. ”
At the same time, you allow the following to remain unmoderated:
“john(UK) says:
June 16, 2011 at 2:48 pm
WHAT IS MORE OBVIOUS IS THAT MR COLOSE IS A SELF OPINIONATED YOUNG PRAT”
And then you speak in a somewhat outraged tone of Chris’s “predictable insults”.
Hmm. I think I’ll draw my own conclusions on that! So will most casual visitors.
See you around…… John
Smokey says: June 18, 2011 at 12:30 pm
How can ‘I’ be flat wrong about plant growth? ‘I” didn’t do any of the studies. So how can ‘I’ be wrong?
1. I never said CO2 does not increase plant mass. It does.
2. The problem is not plant growth, but plants burning up and releasing all their CO2 back into the atmosphere.
I have not sadly failed anything. Or, are you denying that CO2 is absorbing in the oceans and raising the PH levels?
But actually, your question is a red herring anyway. You are distracted by plant growth from plant burning due to increased soil moisture content loss and increased drought potentials on periodic scales as well as seemingly ignoring the productivity losses form increased warming due to excess CO2 in the atmosphere, which by the way will be one of the primary cost issues regarding damage due to CO2.
Smokey says: June 18, 2011 at 12:30 pm
Oh and bigger plants do not necessarily mean more proteins, which was the indication by one particular study during the FACE experiments. Sorry, I don’t have the ref on it though, but I do remember reading it somewhere. And besides if the crops burn due to the warming, that is also a cost that we need to be thinking about.
Your grammar (note bold above) isn’t helping; learn about contractions in the language.
(Apologies if you’re not a native English speaker. Apologies to all if this seems pedantic, but “your” vs “you’re” [literally: “you are”] misuse is my biggest pet peeve.)
.
John Reisman says:
“How can ‘I’ be flat wrong about plant growth? ‘I” didn’t do any of the studies.”
But you passed off inaccurate information to support your position, which was easy to falsify. I take it you’re backing away from your position now because of that. OK, score another one for scientific skeptics.
You talk about a “red herring”, but you also say: “…if the crops burn due to the warming, that is also a cost that we need to be thinking about.” Re-framing the argument to burning crops doesn’t pass peer review here at the internet’s Best Science site. I was specifically resopnding to your assertion that more CO2 doesn’t do much for plant growth.
John R,
Re: your claim that plant proteins are not enhanced by higher CO2, these conclusions from “click1” above:
Much more info here.
_Jim says: June 18, 2011 at 3:34 pm
Jim, this is a blog, not a peer reviewed science periodical. I’m not going to double and triple check my spelling here, now, or ever. I will try however to convey points with reasonable accuracy.
I suppose you are one of those folks who has never made an error, right?
John P. Reisman says:
June 18, 2011 at 3:02 pm
2. The problem is not plant growth, but plants burning up and releasing all their CO2 back into the atmosphere.
=======================================================================
This is getting into the surreal……………….
“John, I have a question about ocean acidification, and can never get a straight answer…
…perhaps you know
Marine bryozoans lay down a calcium skeleton and show up in the fossil record in the early part of the Ordovician Period, about 470 million years ago, when atmospheric CO2 levels were ~4000-5000 ppm….
…how did they do that?”
Smokey says: June 18, 2011 at 3:45 pm
re. OK, score another one for scientific skeptics.
What precisely did I say that was inaccurate?
re. “I was specifically resopnding to your assertion that more CO2 doesn’t do much for plant growth.”
I never said that. Are you a politician? The level of spin I am experiencing reminds me of the sort of ‘reframing’ one hears form politicians… yet another pot meet kettle moment.
re. “Re-framing the argument to burning crops doesn’t pass peer review here at the internet’s Best Science site”
I didn’t reframe the argument, you asked about costs due to CO2. CO2 causes warming, fire seasons are lengthening, burning crops has a cost.
This is not the internets ‘best science site. Just because a bunch of people read stuff on a web site, does not make it the best science site.
The best science site would be the one with the best peer review and response system. You don’t have that here.
Smokey says: June 18, 2011 at 3:52 pm
What peer reviewed study did that come from?
Besides, I can tell you confidently that increased CO2 does not reduce proteins in lead. Of course that’ s be cause lead has no proteins. Context is key, not all plants are the same and not all will react the same… but what does that matter if more and more plants are reaching thermal limits that reduces crop yields… or burn form more fires?
Latitude says: June 18, 2011 at 3:55 pm
I don’t know. Have you checked google scholar?
Remember, context is key.
Smokey says: June 18, 2011 at 3:45 pm
re. “I take it you’re backing away from your position now because of that.”
Until you prove something I said was wrong, now. Again is or is not the ocean acidifying due to the increased CO2 absorption?
Plants do grow bigger with increased CO2, that is not the point I was addressing. I was only addressing a particular study I recall reading about some 5 or 6 years ago regarding proteins in some of the plants studied. Since I don’t have the details on that study, you could not possibly have falsified what I said.
Or are you some sort of mind reader that can read my thoughts, even the ones I don’t remember?
John P. Reisman says:
June 18, 2011 at 11:55 am
As is typical for those that don’t understand all the teleconnections and evidentiarry support, the most solid proof regarding AGW does not lie in a single piece of evidence but rather all the evidence when considered together..
Other lines of evidence regaridn CO2 is ocean acidificaiotn which is affecting phytoplanckon.
===========================================================================
John, you made the statement that ocean acidification is affecting phytoplankton, and that it is another piece of evidence supporting AGW……
We use the fossilized remains, the calcium skeletons, of marine bryozoans from the early part of the Ordovician Period, about 450 million years ago, when atmospheric CO2 levels were ~4000-5000 ppm….
…for paleoclimate reconstructions
If ocean acidification is another piece of evidence for AGW…..
….how is this possible?
John P. Reisman says:
June 18, 2011 at 4:15 pm”
Until you prove something I said was wrong, now. Again is or is not the ocean acidifying due to the increased CO2 absorption?
=====================================================================================
John, you made the statement that ocean acidification is affecting phytoplankton, and that it is another piece of evidence supporting AGW……
We use the fossilized remains, the calcium skeletons, of marine bryozoans from the early part of the Ordovician Period, about 450 million years ago, when atmospheric CO2 levels were ~4000-5000 ppm….
…for paleoclimate reconstructions
If ocean acidification is another piece of evidence for AGW…..
….how is this possible?
Smokey says @ June 18, 2011 at 3:45 pm “But you passed off inaccurate information to support your position”
So posting bad information or not supporting one’s assertions with valid citations would be a bad thing, then, right Smokey?
Both moderate Republican and Smokey have earned a 12 hour time out – tired of this argument.
Both of you step away from commenting on WUWT until 7AM Sunday.
– Anthony
Pamela Gray says:
Latitude asks:
Rarely and with difficulty. There have been 5 great extinction events in the past 450 million years – each of them has impacted coral reefs as much or more than any other major ecosystem. Since most Bryozoa secrete an external calcium skeleton, they fared just as poorly.
Each of these extinction events has been tied to the carbon cycle. The difference between today and the past is speed. In the past these were cumulative events where the changes took place over thousands or hundreds of thousands of years; we are seeing rates of ocean acidification today never seen in the historical record.
So yes, we find corals and Bryozoa in the fossil record – we also see large extinction events (due to ocean acidification) where they are nearly absent; sometimes for millions of years.
Two interesting papers are:
Mass extinctions and ocean acidification: biological constraints on geological dilemmas
Devonian Bryozoan Diversity, Extinctions, and Originations
RE: Billy Liar says:
June 17, 2011 at 1:05 pm
CodeTech says:
June 17, 2011 at 7:56 am
“Meh, our boy has taken his ball and gone home…”
“There’s been quite a ramp up recently of rabid believers commenting on many of the skeptic blogs or responding to skeptics on alarmist blogs. Mainly resulting in distraction, as in this thread.
Has anyone else noticed?”
I have noticed, and confess I find it a royal pain.
What annoys me most is the repetition of talking-points which have already been discussed and largely discounted. Often a link is supplied to make it look like the talking-point has some sort of authority behind it. Then, when you check the link, you see some article written by an airhead which uses the phrase “scientists say” over and over, without saying which scientists, (or when, where, what or who.)
I may love science, but I have never much liked math. Therefore it caused me pain to dig down into the details of why Mann’s “hockey stick” graph is bogus. However I gritted my teeth and did it, because I feel we all have a responsibility to become educated voters. I did it not once, but several times, because that graph is bogus for several reasons.
Considering I did all that work, I find it hugely annoying to be supplied a link, and to check out the link and see that bogus graph staring me in the face, yet again.
I find it even more annoying when the link connects me to a tearful tale about the tragic fate of polar bears. We all know the polar-bear population is increasing in most areas, but that doesn’t seem to matter to the regurgitators of talking-points.
We also know that the authority on polar bears got treated badly when he spoke out and stated the polar bear population was increasing. Bill Gray was also treated badly. However one talking-point seems to be that those who point out the bad-treatment of Skeptics are paranoid, or wing-nuts, or have failed to do the research, or are not qualified to speak because the high priests haven’t sprinkled them with the holy kool-aid.
I don’t think these people are interested in the truth. For all I know some may even be paid to muddy the waters. I have seen cases where they post over and over, hour after hour, day after day, so I doubt they have to work as hard as I do. I treasure my free time, and would rather enjoy the sunshine than argue about Mann’s graph when the argument is over.
Therefore I thank those who are patient and take the time to carefully point out the truth. As for me, I have done the work, have become an educated voter, and know where I stand.
The regurgitators of talking-points will have to walk about with their mouths full of regurgitation, as far as I’m concerned, for I haven’t the time or inclination to wash away what they have eaten.
Moderate Republican says:
June 18, 2011 at 7:03 pm
———————————–
Kevin O’Neill says:
June 18, 2011 at 9:02 pm
================================================================
I hate to be the one to tell you, but you’re both repeating the mantra….
…and you’re both wrong
Stop, think, and just use common sense………….
BTW, you both brought up examples of extinctions……..when CO2 levels fell..
Kevin, be careful how you interpret articles. Their phrase “…suggest that there is an emerging anthropogenic signal… ” cannot justifiably translate to your words “…not only has the anthropogenic signal already been detected in…”.
Of even more importance is that the list of signs given in the article can only be caused in the presence of the appropriate oceanic and atmospheric weather patterns, none of which are out of the ordinary. So you must mechanistically and mathematically show that the addition of anthropogenic CO2 has forced these ordinary weather pattern variations to work in sync to produce the signs listed, and to continue to work in sync.
It takes a tremendous amount of driving energy to force a weather pattern variation (which is usually a combination of weather pattern oceanic and atmospheric parameters) into existence, and then to keep it there, driving potential that the incredibly small CO2 ppm does not have, let alone that of the even smaller anthropogenic CO2 ppm portion.
The article you have referred to is weak in that it only uses correlation to suggest causation. In other words, wriggle matching.
Latitude says: June 18, 2011 at 5:18 pm
Yes, I did make that statement. That’s because I’ve talked with some of the scientists at scripps and elsewhere about the issue and I have read some of the material. Ocean chemistry today is done with much higher confidence than it was done 450 million years ago 😉
re. “If ocean acidification is another piece of evidence for AGW…..
….how is this possible?”
Parse your issues. Just because someone gets slapped in the face this year, may not be the same reason that same person was slapped in the face ten years ago.
You seem to have some knowledge about this though so maybe you can educate me on the Ordovician Period.
Who did the studies you are referring to?
What are the error bar potentials and confidence interval on the observations.
What are they cross correlated with.
What are the mechanisms suggested.
And what does that really have to do with what we are doing right now?
Facts, or even studies can be easily taken out of context. So please do provide more context and let me know more.
Moderate Republican says: June 18, 2011 at 7:03 pm
… just saw Moderate Republicans response: Thank you for that.
and
Kevin O’Neill says: June 18, 2011 at 9:02 pm
Thanks, very helpful
PS Moderate Republican, You might want to check out:
http://uscentrist.org/
pardon the css issues this week as the site is going through some modifications
John P. Reisman says:
June 19, 2011 at 7:36 am
===============================================================
John, it’s a very simple question…
If elevated CO2 levels create ocean acidification, and ocean acidification inhibits calcification…..
…How is it possible that we use whole intact fossilized calcium skeletons for paleoclimate reconstructions when CO2 levels were ~4000-5000 ppm?
Hint – don’t assume that the oceans run out of buffer…………..and don’t assume that it’s all about calcium
Latitude says: June 19, 2011 at 9:02 am
I asked you to help me understand the issue and so far you are proving yourself worthless in the education department.
John P. Reisman says:
June 18, 2011 at 11:55 am
Other lines of evidence regaridn CO2 is ocean acidificaiotn which is affecting phytoplanckon.
=========================================================================
John, you stated ocean acidification is affecting phytoplankton….
If there is such a thing as ocean acidification, how is it possible that we have a calcium paleo reconstruction of it?
Isn’t that acid ocean supposed to inhibit calcification?
If calcification is not inhibited, does that mean that even at ~4000-5000 ppm atmospheric CO2, ocean acidification did not happen?
Is CO2 a plant fertilizer or not?
Are phytoplankton/zooxanthellae plants or not?
What happens when you culture something and then cut off the fertilizer?
Would you expect that culture to crash?
What is the “carbon” in calcium carbonate?
Latitude says: June 19, 2011 at 10:31 am
I’m sorry, I mistakenly thought you were not ignorant, and might actually have some relevant knowledge and understanding of the issues in context.
http://scholar.google.ch/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=1,5&q=ocean+acidification
It’s very simple to understand the real problem. We humans eat food. Many crops have thermal limits that are now being impinged upon. Therefore as we continue to warm, we will have less food. It does not matter how much bigger plants ‘can’ grow. We will simply have less food, thus more inflation, which is a serious economic consideration.
Your arguments have little to nothing to do with humankind’s current reality regarding global warming, CO2 and crops reaching thermal limits, and therefore losing yield capability.
By the way, what is your full legal name, or do you prefer to be an anonymous person on the internet therefore exhibiting that you are either afraid of something, or just don’t have enough integrity to stand by your words publicly?
John, may I ask what agriculture-related education and/or experience you are drawing on?
RE: Pamela Gray June 19, 2011 at 6:57 am
Yes, it would be nice to have a computational model that could account for every molecule of CO2, CH4, H2O, etc. in the atmosphere; tracing each molecule’s path, interactions, and thermal effects. You know probably better than I do that this is *never* going to happen. Or perhaps we’re talking at cross-purposes.
The earth is warming. Why?
I’ll repeat: I’m not a climate scientist, but I’ve read dozens – if not hundreds – of papers on the subject. Still, my knowledge is only a synthesis of that reading as imperfect as that may be. My knowledge leads me to understand that:
1. The sun-earth system has to follow the laws of thermodynamics
2. Either incoming solar radiation has increased or outgoing radiation has decreased
3. Measured OLR has decreased; specifically in the spectral bands of GHGs
4. A decrease in OLR within these bands means an increase in atmospheric GHG content
5. Atmospheric GHGs come from both natural and anthropogenic sources
6. The share attributed to natural sources alone does not explain the warming
7. The combined increases in GHG do explain the warming.
This outline was first hypothesized decades ago. Within this broad outline there are many fine details – forcings, feedbacks, strange attractors, limit cycles, datasets of varying integrity and completeness – and yet the overwhelming preponderance of new evidence has reinforced belief in the hypothesis. Given the state of the science I see only a limited number of responses:
One could deny the earth is warming, then the whole discussion becomes moot.
One could prove that incoming radiation has increased – making the rest of the discussion irrelevant.
One could prove that more significant decreases in OLR have occurred in spectral bands that don’t correspond to GHGs, making GHGs insignificant.
One could prove that anthropogenic contributions to the total GHG budget are insignificant.
One could accept the AGW hypothesis and not care about the consequences, or.
One accepts the AGW hypothesis and attempts to ameliorate its causes and/or effects.
I just don’t see a comprehensive competing hypothesis. I see a lot of haggling over details, but nothing substantive on the broad strokes. I’ll ask again, where is the alternative GCM that ignores CO2 and produces results of similar or better accuracy?
John P. Reisman says:
June 19, 2011 at 11:24 am
I’m sorry, I mistakenly thought you were not ignorant
=============================================
LOL I’m ignorant, and you are so threatened you want to know who I am…..
Do you think Hematite deposits could have anything to do with it?
Maybe even desertification and Saharan/African dust?
You have heard of fertilizing the oceans with iron to sequester CO2, right?
Pamela Gray says: June 19, 2011 at 12:00 pm
Well, for one example, that of Chris Fields
http://fsi.stanford.edu/people/christopherfield/
Pamela,
From the look of this:
http://ossfoundation.us/about/john-reisman
…none.
But perhaps you knew that already 🙂
See that little blue box up there….the one with Anthony’s name on it?
I think he’s getting tired of us…….LOL
and before he gets tired of me…I’m out
Latitude,
You keep repeating this point about CO2 at 4000 to 5000 ppm, yet no ocean acidification. What are you talking about? While there is a lag between atmospheric content and transport to oceans – it’s simple chemistry that the Air-Sea Flux of CO2 will seek isotopic equilibrium. To state otherwise is to deny basic chemistry. Is there a specific paper you’re referring to?
While most responses to Professor Gray’s characterization of the AMS and its handling of the Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) Theory and his criticism of the AGW theory itself has been well received, a few note that his comments are merely his own opinions and assertions, without definitive proof to back his claims. However, it should be noted that his article is presented as a blog, which is not the ideal forum to present technical material. Most readers of the forum are more than likely not scientists. Many who are scientists are not likely to be experts in atmospheric science. .So, one should not expect to see serious and complete details backing his assertions in such a forum. Those looking form more details might examine my book on the subject:
GLOBAL WARMING: Geophysical Counterpoints to the Enhanced Greenhouse Theory
This book, published in 2010, can be found on the Dorrance Publishing Co, Inc. WEB site:
http://www.dorrancebookstore.com/glwagecotoen.html
It can also be found on Amazon.com
The book explains, using real data, not opinions or assertions, why CO2 (and other greenhouse gases) can not possibly be the primary driver of Global Warming. Thus, as a corollary, anthropogenic CO2-generating activity can not be the cause of Global Warming.
This book notes that the AGW theory is too simplistic to explain Global Warming. Indeed Global Warming is a sufficiently complex phenomenon that really no one truly knows what has been causing the secular increase in Global Temperatures that suddenly began 1906. The 1906 change in this secular increase was dramatic, occurring over just one or two years. This observation, in and of itself, is enough to cause grave doubt regarding the validity of the AGW Theory. No anthropogenic activity could have changed global temperatures that fast. Add to this the fact that simultaneously, there was an equally sudden change in Earth’s polar axis orientation. CO2 has no pondermotive force associated with it that can affect such a change. The secular trends in both Global Temperature and Polar Axis Motion have remained steady ever since the 1906 event. The 1906 San Francisco earthquake may be related, but is not likely to be the cause of the changes in temperature and orientation.
It is the secular temperature increase that is the primary cause of concern. The 60-year cycle and other decadal cycles of the oceans, atmosphere, core fluid motions, etc., that have periods less than about 150-years, are irrelevant with respect to Earth’s long-term heating or cooling, since they are periodic or quasi-periodic. Longer period phenomenon (e.g., 1000 years) may be quite important since on a short-term time scale (e.g., 200 years or so), these would be incorporated as part of the secular change. However, we have precious little data to examine in this regard.
My short, but I think informative, book, promotes the Solar-Terrestrial Theory of Global Warming. This theory emphasizes the electromagnetic interactions between the Sun and the Earth’s interior, from Earth’s surface to the core, the Joule heating effects caused by such interactions, and the effects that these interactions may have on climate, earthquakes, volcanism, tropical storms and hurricanes, among other things.
Kevin O’Neill says:
June 19, 2011 at 1:18 pm
=============================================
Kevin, buffers are even simpler chemistry…….to state otherwise is to deny basic chemistry.
A little practical experience might help you and an even simpler analogy.
It’s not unusual for households to have 2000 ppm CO2, yet people keep alkaline high pH aquariums.
Latitude,
I think I mentioned these processes in the past have occurred over thousands or tens of thousands of years. Are you proposing there is a natural buffer that is or will kick in to compensate for a rapid increase in CO2?
If you don’t have a reference for what you’re talking about I can only assume you’ve pulled something out of context.
Kevin, what processes are you talking about?
Are you trying to say that it takes thousands and 10 of thousands of years for ocean acidification?
And that all the claims of current dropping pH are bogus?
All I’m saying is just trying to use common sense, and trying to give real world examples, to show you that you can’t lower pH with any acid until you run out of buffer.
If you think the oceans can run out of carbonates, bicarbonates, etc, then prove that they can………..
Latitude says: June 19, 2011 at 12:42 pm
re. “you are so threatened you want to know who I am…..”
I’m not the slightest bit afraid of you which is why I user my real name when I post. You on the other hand don’t, so the likelihood of of you being afraid to post your real name is the issue here. Plus, I don’t think you show much integrity when you are afraid or unwilling to use your real name.
Latitude says: June 19, 2011 at 4:57 pm
re. “If you think the oceans can run out of carbonates, bicarbonates, etc, then prove that they can………..”
It’s not about running out of carbonates and bicarbonates.
Warming and Acidifying Seas
The concentration of carbon dioxide in Earth’s atmosphere now exceeds 380 ppm, which is more than 80 ppm above the maximum values of the past 740,000 years (5, 6), if not 20 million years (7). During the 20th century, increasing [CO ] has driven an increase in the global 2 atm oceans’ average temperature by 0.74°C and sea level by 17 cm, and has depleted seawater carbonate concentrations by ~30 mmol kg−1 seawater and acidity by 0.1 pH unit (8). Approximately 25% (2.2 Pg C year−1) of the CO2 emitted from all anthropogenic sources (9.1 Pg C year−1) cur- rently enters the ocean (9), where it reacts with water to produce carbonic acid. Carbonic acid dissociates to form bicarbonate ions and protons, which in turn react with carbonate ions to produce more bicarbonate ions, reducing the availability of carbonate to biological systems (Fig. 1A). De- creasing carbonate-ion concentrations reduce the rate of calcification of marine organisms such as reef-building corals, ultimately favoring erosion at ~200 mmol kg−1 seawater (7, 10).
http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTCMM/Publications/21706633/HoeghGuldbergetal2007.pdf
Hmmm… I wonder why the World Bank is interested in science?
Anonymous Latitude
Do you every look at real science papers? Or do you only get information from some persons blog that says limited scoped things about limited scoped perspectives?
Google Scholar is your friend:
http://scholar.google.ch/scholar?hl=en&q=ocean+acidification+carbonates+bicarbonates&btnG=Search&as_sdt=1%2C5&as_ylo=&as_vis=0
John M. Quinn says: June 19, 2011 at 2:09 pm
I criticize Professor Gray because he does not seem to consider all relevant factors and therefore misses critical and relevant pieces of the puzzle.
Your post displays a fundamental misunderstanding of the greenhouse effect. To put it in simple terms, if you put on more clothing, you will be able to trap more heat close to your body. If you remove more clothing, your body will radiate more heat outward.
The increase in 1906 was very likely a mix of mostly natural variation due to oceanic heat content overturn, mixed with possibly or very possibly some of the increased forcing effect. Natural variation continues today but increasingly mixed with increased anthropogenic forcing amounts.
The polar axis moves on relatively long times scales 26kyrs and 41kys respectively regarding the precession and obliquity angles and could not have played much of a role in the change in 1906.
The book promotes solar as cause agent? Solar luminance changes ‘might’ account for possibly 3 to 5% of signal, but solar flux decreased in the last 30 years. So these issues need to be parsed and forcing levels determined. The total assessment indicates that changes in solar activity simply can not explain current changes and inertias. Of course now we ‘may’ be entering a solar quiet phase, so some people are saying we may start cooling… unlikely.
The odds of going into a Maunder Minimum (MM) styled cooling event are extremely low I would say based on the basic math. Radiative forcing during the period surrounding the MM were relatively small, so when the sunspot activity dropped we lost likely around have the signal strength which is around 0.2 W/m2 in total variance (0.1 W/m2 in relative change). Since we are currently estimated around 1.66 W/m2 a quite sun will only reducing climate forcing by 0.1 W/m2 which equals 1.56 W/m2 positive forcing all in.
Unfortunately, we will continue to warm.
Billy Liar says: June 19, 2011 at 1:02 pm
re. “But perhaps you knew that already :-)”
Someone always has to take things down to the silliest level, and Billy has done just that.
So the implication by extrapolation is that I don’t have the right to say anything because I’m not an agriculture expert? Of course the post just above yours shows that I am actually relying on other people that are experts.
So you were saying…?
John, not one single person has measured a decrease in carbonate ions…that is all conjecture
….that can’t happen until the oceans run out of buffer
Explain how you can lower the pH of a base without running out of buffer.
You can’t.
If the planet had ever run out of buffer, ever, in the past, nitrification and denitrification would have stopped.
Nitrification and denitrification requires a much higher level of carbonates/buffer than calcification in order to work.
Nitrification and denitrification will stop long before calcification will stop.
That has never happened, even when CO2 levels were in the thousands.
John I find you well-versed in AGW theory, which is quite refreshing. You seem capable of going beyond the talking points. Bravo. But I must protest your reference to CO2 causing such an increase in SST. Mathematically and mechanistically, this is not possible. The sea surface warming you refer to can only have a tiny fraction related to LW radiation re-emitted by CO2. You must know that.
Aninymous Latitude says: June 20, 2011 at 5:04 am
Your argument still seems confused and without relevant context. Can you be more clear. Are you saying there have been ‘no’ measured changes in PH levels. Are you saying the extra CO2 absorption in the ocean changes nothing? Or are you just saying that those things don’t matter because buffers will handle everything and there will be no impacts, and if that is your premise which peer reviewed/responded studies support your idea?
Red herring arguments such as yours are generally worthless.You could argue that we really don’t know the affects of the whining children on global warming, therefore we cant’ say for sure we have checked every possible connection and therefore we don’t know anything…
If you are going to make an argument show me it’s relevance. What does anything you are saying have to do with current changes in ocean acidification, global warming, or climate forcing. What is your premise? What are you talking about…
Or are you just talking because you have nothing better to do and don’t mind presenting nonsensical rants on the intertubes?
John, again
You can’t lower the pH of anything until you run out of buffer.
Denitrification requires a 10 to 1 ratio of carbonates.
Denitrification will stop before calcification stops.
If denitrification stops, it will be extremely obvious.
Is there any evidence of denitrification stopping?
The anonymous Latitude says: June 20, 2011 at 5:04 am
“not one single person has measured a decrease in carbonate ions…that is all conjecture”
One well-known effect is the lowering of calcium carbonate saturation states, which impacts shell-forming marine organisms from plankton to benthic molluscs, echinoderms, and corals.
Analogous to the dramatic changes in the carbonate speciation, i.e., the measurable decrease in the concentration of carbonate ion and the increase in bicarbonate and aqueous CO2, many other so-called weak acid species that undergo acid-base reactions in seawater will undergo significant speciation shifts with decreasing pH.
http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.marine.010908.163834
OCEAN CARBONATE SYSTEM
Seawater carbonate chemistry is governed by a series of chemical reactions:
CO →←CO +H O→←H CO →←H+ +HCO− →←2H+ +CO2−. (1) 2(atmos) 2(aq) 2 2 3 3 3
Air-sea gas exchange equilibrates surface water CO2 to atmospheric levels with a timescale of approximately one year. Once dissolved in seawater, CO2 gas reacts with water to form carbonic acid (H2CO3), which can then dissociate by losing hydrogen ions to form bicarbonate (HCO3−) and carbonate (CO32−) ions. The seawater reactions are reversible and near equilibrium (Millero et al. 2002); for surface seawater with pH of ∼8.1, approximately 90% of the inorganic carbon is bicarbonate ion, 9% is carbonate ion, and only 1% is dissolved CO2. Adding CO2 to seawater in- creases aqueous CO2 , bicarbonate, and hydrogen ion concentrations; the latter lowers pH because pH = –log10[H+]. Carbonate ion concentration declines, however, because of the increasing H+ concentrations. The projected 0.3–0.4 pH drop for the 21st century is equivalent to approximately a 150% increase in H+ and 50% decrease in CO32− concentrations (Orr et al. 2005).
Over century and longer timescales, the ocean’s ability to absorb atmospheric CO2 depends on the extent of CaCO3 dissolution in the water column or sediments:
CaCO →←CO2− +Ca2+.
John Reisman,
You really need to get up to speed on the subject of ocean pH, which has been thoroughly discussed here over the past year. It is evident that you’re winging it. Cutting and pasting simple chemical reactions doesn’t fool anyone. To help you get real understanding, here are three relevant articles. Please read them and the comments:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/06/19/the-electric-oceanic-acid-test
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/01/10/ocean-acidification-chicken-of-the-sea-little-strikes-again
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/05/25/oh-noes-the-abalone-must-be-saved-so-we-can-eat-it
There are similar articles, including a follow-up by Willis to his article above. Search the archives for them. All your pH questions are answered in detail in the links above. The short version is: don’t worry, ‘acidification’ is just another false alarm. But don’t take my word for it. Educate yourself, then you will understand that ‘acidification’ is just the latest scare du jour.
John P. Reisman says:
June 19, 2011 at 10:21 pm
You will need to explain your figures in your last paragraph to me I’m afraid, and especially the sources for radiative forcing levels during the MM.
As far as I am aware, solar radiation TSI is supposed to vary by no more than 0.1% or up to 2W/m2 during an 11 year cycle.
(see http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/Glory/solar_irradiance/total_solar_irradiance.html)
Now, I remember reading somewhere that human radiative forcing is supposed to be around 0.8 W/m2 (don’t have time to look for it again, IPCC?) so I am unsure what your ‘currently 1.66 W/m2’ refers to?? and where does solar variation come down to 0.1 W/m2???
Sorry, but actually, reading your last paragraph again – I can’t make any sense out of it.
Even Nasa says that TSI equates to up to 2 W/m2!!
Please explain in greater detail your ‘math’ and reasoning!
Pamela Gray says: June 20, 2011 at 7:35 am
re. “Bravo. But I must protest your reference to CO2 causing such an increase in SST.”
I would say I am semi well versed. I know too many people that know a lot more than I do.
Without actually digging into the issue, I propose the following allegory to explain.
The ocean has not changed color, so it’s dark water absorption properties have not changed. It’s froth albedo has likely not changed either. So how can the ocean warm due to CO2?
Imagine you are walking outside on a warm day. You are wearing a tee shirt. The sun is out. Now, imagine putting on a sweater. What happens rather quickly is that the heat you were radiating out through your tee shirt is now being radiated back toward your skin because of the sweater, through your tee shirt.
You begin to feel warmer. Now, if 1/3rd of your tee shirt had holes in it. Those holes could represent the higher radiative properties of land, loosely speaking of course.
But the areas where you have layered tee shirt _ sweater, your body warms a bit more. The oceans, like your body begin to absorb that extra heat energy and your whole body begins to rise in temperature. If it is ‘too warm’ out, you may eventually experience some degree of heat stroke because you are unable to radiate enough heat away from your body.
John Reisman says:
“I would say I am semi well versed.”
Not really. If the oceans were warming due to CO2 or anything else, themal expansion would show the sea level rise. accelerating. Just the opposite is happening, indicating global cooling:
http://stevengoddard.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/paintimage2111.jpg?w=640&h=422
The anonymous Latitude says: June 20, 2011 at 7:53 am
Prove it. Show me the cites of the peer reviewed papers that show there is nothing changing in the oceans. Where are the papers? Or are you planning to continue to babble without substantiation?
The anonymous Smokey says: June 20, 2011 at 8:04 am
Unfortunately, from what I’ve seen from watts articles, and guest articles, they are typically deeply flawed due to narrowly scoped examinations. I’m not just saying this, I’ve read a few. Certainly not all as I prefer to spend my time examining peer reviewed work and relevant contexts form more scientific perspectives. This web site is pretty much on the opposite end of the spectrum from science. And no, getting a web award form non scientists that either vote or traffic a site giving it a high rating does not mean it is a scientifically sound web site and by no means validates it’s articles scientifically.
OFten facts are presented out of context to favor a particular spin or possibly even agenda? I don’t know why Anthony choose not to look at evidence in context. Maybe he is just not ‘scientific’ in his perspectives and thought processes, considerations, perspectives and certainly not in what I have read of his articles.
If you want me to look at something send me to peer reviewed articles not pages on this web site that take facts out of context on a regular basis.
In fact my advise to you is don’t study this web site for science, spend your time in peer reviewed articles in sources with good peer review reputation. You will find much better information.
You really need to get up to speed on the subject of ocean pH, which has been thoroughly discussed here over the past year. It is evident that you’re winging it. Cutting and pasting simple chemical reactions doesn’t fool anyone.
================================================================================
You can deconstruct ocean acidification using high school science, if you think about where to start.
It’s impossible for CO2, at any level, to put as much acid in the ocean as the process of ammonification, nitrification, and denitrification does.
Kev-in-Uk says: June 20, 2011 at 8:10 am
re. “As far as I am aware, solar radiation TSI is supposed to vary by no more than 0.1% or up to 2W/m2 during an 11 year cycle.”
Excellent catch Kev-in-Uk!!!
Bravo.
You caught a mistake that both I and NASA made.
I was describing total estimated changes due to Schwabe cycle variation of radiative forcing on the surface of the planet; while NASA was describing total estimated changes in radiative forcing in space, which roughly translates (2W/mw in space, processed through our atmosphere, roughly represents around 0.2 W/m2 on the surface.
Congratulations are deserved on that one.
Reisman says:
“Unfortunately, from what I’ve seen from watts articles, and guest articles, they are typically deeply flawed due to narrowly scoped examinations. I’m not just saying this, I’ve read a few.”
Coming from the alarmist echo chamber blogs, some folks are disoriented by the uncensored back and forth, open debate here at WUWT. For example, every aspect of the ocean pH argument was discussed by people on both sides of the debate. In the end, only verifiable facts were left standing and the conclusion was obvious to everyone: ocean pH is not a problem. That’s why every time the pH issue is raised, it quickly dies down again.
The open debate here easily debunks pseudo-scientific nonsense such as:
“Prove it. Show me the cites of the peer reviewed papers that show there is nothing changing in the oceans.”
Once again a card carying member of the alarmist crowd demands that scientific skeptics must prove a negative. But the scientific method doesn’t work that way. Skeptics have nothing to prove. The fact is that most peer reviewed papers are wrong. Not sometimes; most times. And it’s not easy to argue with a paper. Here, the truth is discovered much more readily. To be honest, the appeal to authority of peer reviewed papers is playing a weak hand. Make your arguments, and we’ll see if they stand on their own. So far, they haven’t.
For example, the GCMs predicted warming, and they were wrong. Ocean acidification was claimed to be a problem, and that was shown to be wrong. pH was claimed to be rising fast, and that was shown to be wrong. The sea level was claimed to be rising fast, and that was shown to be wrong. The sea level anomaly is actually declining. The ARGO buoy network shows that ocean heat content is delcining, as is the sea level.
All these facts point to one conclusion: the planet is cooling. The central argument of the climate alarmists is that CO2 is causing accelerating global warming. Now that the planet itself is falsifying their conjecture, will they accept that empirical evidence? Some will. But many will respond to the falsification of CAGW like Harold Camping. Their cognitive dissonance will not allow them to change their minds now that the facts have changed. For them, it only means that doomsday has been postponed.
The problem with ocean acidification is that the natural range of ocean pH is somewhere between 7.5-8.5.
even 7.5 is very unstable and requires that some very strict conditions are met to get there
If salt water has a hard time maintaining 7.5, in a closed lagoon, at low tide, in bright sun light, on the hottest day of summer, with a mud bed performing denitrification, and a dying rotting grass bed feeding it….
That’s the worst conditions anyone can think of, much worse than any amount of CO2 in the air……….
Yet as soon as the sun goes down, the pH rises again……………………..
John P. Reisman
It’s very simple to understand the real problem. We humans eat food. Many crops have thermal limits that are now being impinged upon. Therefore as we continue to warm, we will have less food. It does not matter how much bigger plants ‘can’ grow. We will simply have less food, thus more inflation, which is a serious economic consideration.
I’d love to know which crops you’re talking about. Based on my experience in my garden, more warmth = longer growing season = more crops. However, if it gets cooler than it is now, we will definitely experience a loss in crops. That experience matches that of farmers I’ve known.
There are many crops that still can’t be grown in certain regions of Europe where they once were grown, because the climate is too cold (grapes, for one). It would take a good amount of warming before those would even become viable in those regions. From what I can see, getting my hands dirty in the soil working with real plants in the real world (as opposed to computer models), it looks like cooling is much more to be feared. And it also seems we’re still a good bit below an ideal warmth for the best possible harvest.
the anonymous Smokey says: June 20, 2011 at 9:13 am
Sorry Smokey, unless your links come from science sites…
the anonymous Latitude says: June 20, 2011 at 9:25 am
Links to science articles, anyone, anyone, not miscellaneous blogs… anyone, anyone, bueller…, bueller…
TonyG says: June 20, 2011 at 9:38 am
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Files.View&FileStore_id=07bc4243-a48e-4481-8a5f-daf01b1f5eba
Actually, I was visiting a friend up in Norway and he told me that there are more and more wineries popping up, further and further north. It’s not a mad rush yet, but they are rather happy about the trend.
If you have ever partied in Norway or Iceland, as I have, then you would know the significance of this.
Kevin O’Neill says:
June 18, 2011 at 8:28 pm
If there is an alternative theory to AGW (merely criticizing AGW is not in itself a climate theory) then why hasn’t it produced a GCM that can produce comprehensive results with similar or better accuracy?
Bowen says Kevin: Because it is “trade” secret . . . . How can you assert that one “controls” the weather without an accurate model . . . . Long ago emperors claimed they were responsible for the Sun being darkened . . . until the prediction was wrong and the emperors killed their “Astrologist”! See Chinese History . . . .and the current “An Inconvenient Truth”!
It was a gimmick then, and a gimmick now! The “Huckster Effect”! And it will stay a secret for as long as it can be . . . . The “Fiat Effect”!!!!!
John P. Reisman says:
June 20, 2011 at 9:05 am
Ah ok – you are presumably trying to use the average solar insolation (say around 250 w/m2) and then using 0.1% of that? which would actually give you 0.25 w/m2 of possible ‘at surface’ variation? (assuming transmittance remains the same, etc).
However, isn’t that missing any and all actual atmospheric warming/cooling as a result from solar variation effects?
And I still can’t see where this ‘1.66 w/m2 currently estimating’ comes from?
I believe the IPCC use a human induced (i.e. co2) radiative forcing of 0.8 w/m2? (I don’t necessarily agree with that figure, but I’m sure it’s one they put out!)
@John
I had intended to also add that based on the conservation of energy law – it is unreasonable to pick insolation as a metric, especially you are not comparing it to an equivalent metric. i.e. is your 1.66 w/m2 supposed to be the downward radiative forcing from AGHG?
it’s simple physics – if say 1360 w/m2 of radiation energy is hitting the earth and it varies by a given amount – the basic energy budget must vary by the same amount. Unless there is some weird non-linear relationship that means more reflection at lower TSI levels or vice versa, etc, etc – the overall energy budget must vary accordingly.
As for the MM variations, I don’t have copy of this to hand, but I remember reading it last year.
http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract;jsessionid=6C7884CB275C2EB7FA84424193A5F669.tomcat1?fromPage=online&aid=7277700
the abstract says enough..?
I get concerned when solar variations and their effects on the climate are casually dismissed. It’s simply not common sense! The warmist argument that current solar variation is insufficient to explain recent warming (but on the other hand it can explain current ‘non-warming’! LOL) and then being unable to explain past warming/cooling (i.e. before the industrial revolution !) seems ridiculous. The sun is a major player, and that cannot really be swept under the carpet.
Bowen vs, O’Neill;
The alternative GCM to the AGW ones is very simple, no computers required. It’s the default naive one: tomorrow will be like today.
And it outperforms the AGW GCMs on every measure.
John Reisman says:
“…unless your links come from science sites…”
The anonymous Smokey answers the incredible Reisman: yes, they do.
John either didn’t click on them, or he is displaying incurable cognitive dissonance by ignoring verifiable facts. Reisman continues: “Links to science articles, anyone, anyone, not miscellaneous blogs…”
Check out the links in my post above, John. There are links to peer reviewed papers that flatly contradict your position.
As Albert Einstein pointed out, it would only take one fact to falsify his Theory of Relativity. Here is solid evidence that debunks your catastrophic AGW conjecture. Data from several different satellites confirms the fact that sea level rise is sharply decelerating – a sure sign of global cooling, despite the fact that harmless, beneficial CO2 continues to rise.
Finally, your claim that a slightly warmer planet is bad for agriculture is nonsense A. 0.7°C rise over a century and a half is going to lower crop production?? You know as much about farming as you do about the climate.
John, ocean (and just plain water in a bucket) surface tension precludes the very weak ability of long wave radiation to penetrate beyond a few millimeters, and most of what warming occurs because of it is evaporated almost instantaneously. Your analogy of a body warmed by long wave radiation is way off the known physical parameters of both the ocean’s surface and long wave radiation’s ability to penetrate it. Try again.
Regarding agriculture, I am not even going to start that conversation. You are lacking knowledge in so many aspects of genetic engineering and the spread of these re-engineered cash crops to marginal growing areas it would take too long of a post to speak to each one.
Regarding vineyards, this will be the year, once again, for ice wine. The spread north of these vineyards has not been the be-all, end-all of what to grow up here, even though effort was made to engineer a wine grape able to grow in colder more variable climates. Cyclically we just don’t have the consistent number of bright sun days needed for wine grapes.
Kev-in-Uk says: June 20, 2011 at 10:36 am
Thanks for the link to the Cambridge piece. I see they are suggesting a causal link to GCR’s.
I don’t know any climate scientists ignoring solar factors though. I’ve heard that raised as a meme though and must disagree. If you do find one though, I’d be happy to go talk some sense into him/her.
I was at a conference in Zürich last year and attended a talk where someone suggested a variance in solar energy may be contributing to the climate signal and I added up his numbers into the physics for our sphere and it came to, I think around 4 to 7 % of the total signal.
As will all such suggestions, I like to wait for the peer response, which, maybe I will get to hear at the Berlin conference this year?
As tot he suggested GCR link, I want to see peer response to that also. The Laschamp anomaly indicated a large scale GCR jump with no correlated temperature change, so while I do not discount possible system influences, my understanding thus far is still based on the Laschamp anomaly analysis.
As to the numbers here is what I know as of now:
The base calcs for total forcing without albedo is 3.6 W/m2
With albedo, I think AR4 had it at either 1.6 or 1.66?
But I was just at the National Academy of Science last month and someone quoted 1.66 W/m2.
I recall analyzing multiple assessments on TSI about 7 or 8 years ago and the number was 1366.4 W/m2
The below link indicates that is approximately correct
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2009/01apr_deepsolarminimum/
Variance ranges are: 0.925 0.894 0.996
Total average variance = 0.938
divide by 4 for physics on a sphere, etc. = 0.235 W/m2
So, I’m at least partially comfortable with a 0.2W/m2 guess
Pamela Gray says: June 20, 2011 at 11:18 am
re. dark water absorption of heat
publish a paper on it and I promise I will read it.
re. agriculture
I’m aware the companies are working on genetic engineering of foods,
re. vineyards
I never said it would be good wine 😉
@John
”I was at a conference in Zürich last year and attended a talk where someone suggested a variance in solar energy may be contributing to the climate signal and I added up his numbers into the physics for our sphere and it came to, I think around 4 to 7 % of the total signal. ”
query – the total signal of what? – I am guessing you mean that solar possibly accounts for 4 to 7% of the climate warming ‘signal’? (and logically of course, if we are gonna cool – only 4-7% of any cooling?)
Now, I am perhaps getting confused. If the GHG effect is accepted to increase atmospheric temps and surface temps by X degrees Centigrade and the temperature varies by Y degrees C naturally – are you saying that this Y value is only affected by 4-7% due to solar? So what causes the remainder? Presumably, the other 93-96% is due to anthropogenic or other natural effects? and these are? and the ACTUAL human element is what percent?
Logically, it doesn’t make sense to come up with such figures – when we know for a fact that natural, geologically timescale speaking, climate variability is say +/- 10C. So what the heck caused all that variability – because it surely wasn’t anthropogenic – and taking that a stage further, even if we allow for orbital variations, the actual, real McCoy energy variation is only due to incoming solar flux! (yeah, yeah, I know there are volcanoes and such like, but the PRIMARY energy budget driving variable HAS to be the sun!)
Kev-in-Uk says: June 20, 2011 at 1:42 pm
Right 4 to 7% of the total surface climate forcing
I can’t speak to the validity of the study. As I said, I usually wait to see if it holds up against other data.
The main issue with your proposed considerations are time scale and circumstance.
If you look at paleo climate since the early Cambrian, yes, close to 10C
But * C hotter is not a hospitable place to live. Of course there were no humans then.
But your main point revolves around variability and cause. Different cause agents are interplaying at different times. That’s what paleo climate is all about of course.
For example the atmospheric composition was different in different periods. SOme periods were dealing with things like long scale flood basalt eruptions dumping massive amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere. There was a different albedo at different times. different ocean currents due to continental plate positioning, so heat transfer was very different at different times.
Heck the climate system only really began to get into our current pattern span in the past 1 million years and our current 100kyr cycles in the past 400 kyrs.
So actually there are a lot of real mccoy climate agents in play. It’s too easy to over simplify the system and say it’s all the sun.
Under 30 to 40 year times scales it’s harder to place percentages on the temperature percentages natural to human, but the forcing is a bit easier to deal with. The majority of the forcing increase above Holocene thermal equilibrium is likely 90% human. I don’t know how high the confidence interval is on that at this time though. But i’d place odds on it.
Comparing the last 150 years and radiative forcing changes to 500 million years ago though is inappropriate. These are entirely different circumstances. Context is key. We should be near thermal equilibrium and we are not. SO something changes it. But the solar measurements we have do not account for the total energy increase and the attribution studies show that the most likely candidate is human induced positive forcing…
Unless of course you have another theory that can explain the change with mechanism? If you do, get it published, you will be famous, and we can all start working on other important things.
@ John
you just left yourself a bit exposed when you said this…
” We should be near thermal equilibrium and we are not”
who the feck said that? and why? and how can they prove it? What the flip is equilibrium and who decided where it was??
Nobody knows – and anybody who says otherwise is a complete charlatan – or at least doesn’t understand the scale of the system. The easiest and simplest rebuttal to such a claim is the fact that we KNOW from palaeoclimates that these were not in any such equilibrium and NEVER have been because they HAVE CHANGED – NATURALLY!
Please post up a link, by any scientist, who says what/where the climate ‘equilibrium’ actually IS (or is supposed to be)!
I respectfully suggest you are moving away from the point – and into esoteric fantasy. There is no such equilibrium, if there was, the earth wouldn’t have changed over last 4.6 billion years! The earth and it’s ecosystem are a mass chaotic or at least semi chaotic system. A positive effect here, leads to a negative effect there, and vice versa, etc, etc – it IS a naturally changing system. Of that there can be absolutely no doubt.
On the presumption that you can accept that point – the next query is how you feel that human induced climate change can be significant and moreover can be detected within such a naturally changing world?
As a great fan of Newtons 3rd Law – I fail to see how, in such a large scale system, we can have such a profound effect as a result of our CO2 (note – I did not say we are not having any effect!) because the natural system will react negatively to any positive input.
Oh good heavens John! Multiple papers and lectures have been written on aborption of light energy and heat through the sea surface tension and below! You don’t know this stuff??? There are many many internet sources to explain the most basic properties of water and light/heat energy.
In one of your posts above you included this statement: “During the 20th century, increasing [CO ] has driven an increase in the global 2 atm oceans’ average temperature by 0.74°C “.
There is absolutely no way that reabsorbed, re-immitted lw IR radiation from the anthropogenic CO2 increase can possibly have the energy to heat the oceans as your statement seems to suggest. The maths and mechanics do not compute. Please retract your error or at least your belief in that statement, from wherever you found it.
“Humankind needs fossil-fuel energy to maintain its industrial lifestyle and to expand this lifestyle in order to be able to better handle these many other non-CO2 environmental problems.
By greatly reducing CO2 emissions and paying a great deal more for our then needed renewable energy we will lower our nation’s standard of living and not be able to help relieve as many of our and the globe’s many environmental, political, and social problems. ”
Um, while I cannot make a statement about the science behind any theoretical or actual climate change due to the impact of industrialized humans (or lack of climate change), these quoted statements are a bit beyond the scope of climate science. By including this extraneous bit of opinion, it makes me wonder if there is some sort of outside bias behind this article.
There is currently no evidence that industry needs *ONLY* fossil fuels to continue. By your statements, you are assuming that industrial science cannot improve and will not find some other form of energy to harness. Yes, there would definitely be a certain amount of time before every bit of industrial machine could use the new form of power, and some may never be able to. But, to throw out any other non-fossil fuel energy source to power industry is insane. Technology is changing. There are tons of possibilities, some known, some yet to be discovered. What is known is not receiving support to make those sources more affordable. The unknown discoveries, well, lets just say I hope I stumble upon one of them and gain a relaxing lifestyle because of it.
Those quoted statements make it sound like the end-all, be-all of powering life as we know it is fossil fuel. If industry remains stuck on fossil fuel, then our industries will fail, as there is no innovation within the power/fuel sector. You also claim renewable energy will cost more. Sure, the infrastructure changes will cost a pretty penny at first, and figuring out how to store excess energy and then building however we store said items will also cost a bit. However, in the long run, having this infrastructure in place will help reduce long-term costs of energy if fossil fuel reserves start to deplete more drastically. Where is the analysis between the amount of fossil fuel being consumed each year against how much fossil fuel is created per year? Having renewable energy as an insurance policy would be comforting, as I would not want to live in a world like Mad Max presents.
Kev-in-Uk says: June 20, 2011 at 3:32 pm
You can be pretty arrogant in your assumptions I notice.
re. “who the [snip] said that? and why? and how can they prove it? What the flip is equilibrium and who decided where it was??”
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/modelforce/
re. “Nobody knows – and anybody who says otherwise is a complete charlatan – or at least doesn’t understand the scale of the system. The easiest and simplest rebuttal to such a claim is the fact that we KNOW from palaeoclimates that these were not in any such equilibrium and NEVER have been because they HAVE CHANGED – NATURALLY!”
First you need a reference point to measure against. For our purposes, since we did most of our development during the Holocene warm period, using the relative thermal equilibrium is a good idea.
The relative zero in most calcs ins the 10-8 kyr average estimated forcing.
You need to study more.
re. “I fail to see”
You are correct in this statements of yours.
re. “the natural system will react negatively to any positive input.”
great put some parameters on that, quantify it, publish it. I look forward to reading it.
The problem with your overall statements are that you are inferring that negatives will balance out positives. On what time scale you were saying we were 7-8C hotter above, right? that happened over millions of years. Why didn’t the world immediately react with negative effects and cools us down? Now your saying
re. “I did not say we are not having any effect!) because the natural system will react negatively to any positive input.”
So you are inferring/saying we can have a positive effect but the negatives will balance it out. What’s your mechanism for that.
Science sites or science cites would help.
Further material on the estimated forcing (not including all feedbacks) can be seen in a graph included in the Target Atmospheric CO2 paper
James Hansen,1,2* Makiko Sato,1,2 Pushker Kharecha,1,2 David Beerling,3 Valerie Masson-Delmotte,4 Mark Pagani,5 Maureen Raymo,6 Dana L. Royer,7 James C. Zachos8
You can see the graph they used in that paper here:
http://ossfoundation.us/the-leading-edge/projects/environment/global-warming/radiative-climate-forcing
It’s the lead image.
Pamela Gray says: June 20, 2011 at 5:41 pm
re. “Oh good heavens John! Multiple papers and lectures have been written”
Science sites and science cites would help, but as yet you have provided nothing of value.
You see, I don’t believe you are a god, so I’m not actually going to just take your word for it.
Pamela Gray says: June 20, 2011 at 6:09 pm
re. In one of your posts above you included this statement: “During the 20th century, increasing [CO ] has driven an increase in the global 2 atm oceans’ average temperature by 0.74°C “.
No, I did not say that and you obviously did not read the science paper I linked. SO you are further proving that you are not interested in learning but rather more interested in preaching from your belief pulpit.
As I said, provide science sites or science cites.
The paper that included the statement you are referring to is:
Coral Reefs Under Rapid Climate Change and Ocean Acidification 1. O. Hoegh-Guldberg1,*, 2. P. J. Mumby2, 3. A. J. Hooten3, 4. R. S. Steneck4, 5. P. Greenfield5, 6. E. Gomez6, 7. C. D. Harvell7, 8. P. F. Sale8, 9. A. J. Edwards9, 10. K. Caldeira10, 11. N. Knowlton11, 12. C. M. Eakin12, 13. R. Iglesias-Prieto13, 14. N. Muthiga14, 15. R. H. Bradbury15, 16. A. Dubi16 and 17. M. E. Hatziolos17
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/318/5857/1737.short
You also apparently love to state that I don’t know much. Let me tell you what I absolutely know. Absolutely nothing.
Maybe your proclamations are based on some sort of insecurity? Maybe you just don’t understand the scientific method?
There is absolutely nothing other than pure math that can be ‘known’ absolutely. The best we can do is use the available science, understanding and evidence and refine the parameters to find relative conclusions.
re. “There is absolutely no way that reabsorbed, re-immitted lw IR radiation from the anthropogenic CO2 increase can possibly have the energy to heat the oceans as your statement seems to suggest. The maths and mechanics do not compute. Please retract your error or at least your belief in that statement, from wherever you found it.”
Prove it. Science sites and science cites.
Now let me see if I’ve got this right, your saying/inferring that warmer air around the oceans won’t heat the oceans? At all?
I read with great interest the essay of Chris Colose directed to mathematicians
http://www.mathaware.org/mam/09/essays/Radiative_balance.pdf
Thanks for the opportunity.
This is the first text I see which unveils a little bit the math behind the models they build. I am not qualified to judge about the climate assumptions they do, but the math analysis of the resulting model is very naive.
We know now that the dynamical systems are much more complicated than what was thought earlier (and what is used). The typical behavior is chaotic, as Prof. Gray rightfully asserts (“They do not realize that the strongly chaotic nature of the atmosphere-ocean climate system does not allow for skillful initial value numerical climate prediction.”) The equilibrium points are not the only attractors, and in fact are rarely main attractors of any sufficiently complex dynamical system, not only the weather-related. The “positive feedback” mentioned in the paper means that the relatively periodic motion we have cannot be explained in terms of equilibrium points. And this makes the high-accuracy modeling utterly pointless: if the system is chaotic, numerical experiments are pointless, as they are highly sensible to coefficients (how you know that e.g. albedo is 0.3 and not 0.301? and this will completely change the numbers).
In short, the second step of (reality)\to (modeling equations)\to (description of solutions of the modeling equations) is not convincing, to say the least. The deciding phenomena are simply omitted. It is understandable, as you do what you can (the simple search for equilibrium points), but to claim that they do not have any impact simply because you cannot analyze them is a wishful thinking. Take this as a peer review from mathematician.
Pamela Gray says: June 20, 2011 at 6:09 pm
re. “There is absolutely no way that reabsorbed, re-immitted lw IR radiation from the anthropogenic CO2 increase can possibly have the energy to heat the oceans as your statement seems to suggest. The maths and mechanics do not compute. Please retract your error or at least your belief in that statement, from wherever you found it.”
Please keep in mind that when I quote someone else’s paper, I’m not saying it, the paper is.
“A large (~1023 J) multi-decadal globally averaged warming signal in the upper 300 m of the world’s oceans was reported roughly a decade ago1 and is attributed to warming associated with anthropogenic greenhouse gases2, 3. The majority of the Earth’s total energy uptake during recent decades has occurred in the upper ocean3, but the underlying uncertainties in ocean warming are unclear, limiting our ability to assess closure of sea-level budgets4, 5, 6, 7, the global radiation imbalance8 and climate models5. For example, several teams have recently produced different multi-year estimates of the annually averaged global integral of upper-ocean heat content anomalies (hereafter OHCA curves) or, equivalently, the thermosteric sea-level rise5, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16. Patterns of interannual variability, in particular, differ among methods. Here we examine several sources of uncertainty that contribute to differences among OHCA curves from 1993 to 2008, focusing on the difficulties of correcting biases in expendable bathythermograph (XBT) data. XBT data constitute the majority of the in situ measurements of upper-ocean heat content from 1967 to 2002, and we find that the uncertainty due to choice of XBT bias correction dominates among-method variability in OHCA curves during our 1993–2008 study period. Accounting for multiple sources of uncertainty, a composite of several OHCA curves using different XBT bias corrections still yields a statistically significant linear warming trend for 1993–2008 of 0.64 W m-2 (calculated for the Earth’s entire surface area), with a 90-per-cent confidence interval of 0.53–0.75 W m-2.”
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v465/n7296/full/nature09043.html?lang=en
It would be rather nice if Richard Black, as the BBC’s Environmental Correspondent,did a more professional job of un-biased reporting and discussed contentious environmental issues with experts from both sides of the argument without always quoting, parrot fashion, questionable scare mongering press releases created by groups of political lobbying AGW ‘scientists’ that support his own pre concieved AGW position. Why are you afraid to open up the argument in your reporting Mr Black, the BBC should allow all points of view to be heard?
George Lawson says: June 21, 2011 at 5:12 am
re. “It would be rather nice if Richard Black, as the BBC’s Environmental Correspondent,did a more professional job of un-biased reporting and discussed contentious environmental issues with experts from both sides of the argument ”
That would actually be inappropriate. There are no sides in science, only confidence levels.
John,
You keep going on about “Science sites” but you gave me a government report.
I really wish I had the time to delve into it – that 7% reduction in crop yield from just one day over 104 seems a bit farfetched. How could they possibly control for ALL the other variables? Are they suggesting that the temperature and rainfall were exactly the same during the entire rest of the growing period? Exactly the same nutrient content in the soil? Exactly the same amount of sunlight every day? Same viability rate for the seed?
Too much going on for only one factor – the individual temperature of a single day – to realistically have that significant of an effect. Something not all that hard to see (i.e. firsthand observation) if you actually grow crops.
BTW – I actually did take a couple minutes to look through the report that the government page cited, and I found this:
For example, the blue line frame A (the flexible model for corn), substituting a full day (24 h) at 29° C temperature with a full day at 40° C temperature results in a predicted yield decline of ≈7%, holding all else the same.
That tells me that the 7% figure is the result of the prediction of a model, not the result of actual observations, as the quote you posted appears to imply.
The following article is written in a style that most here will be able to understand. It includes references. The author is well-versed in ocean heating. There are mathematical articles that calculate sea water penetrative potential of far infrared (that part of the infrared spectrum that is re-emmitted by CO2 towards the ocean surface) and its ability to heat the ocean to a degree that it is not immediately lost to evaporation. I have not included them here but if requested, will do so.
http://www.21stcenturysciencetech.com/articles/ocean.html
John, maybe you mistake my disagreement with your position. I do not disagree that oceans can and do warm. My disagreement with you centers on the recent increase in CO2, usually ascribed to anthropogenic sources, and its ability to be the source of that warming in the oceans. It cannot be the source. Not enough heating potential.
TonyG says: June 21, 2011 at 6:55 am
No Tony, I gave you a link to the testimony from a scientist with some of the latest findings. In his testimony he pointed out that these are not models, but actual observations.
Pamela Gray says: June 21, 2011 at 7:02 am
Pamela, when I say science sites or cites I mean those that are participating in the peer review and peer response process and I am also meaning that the reputation of peer review is rather strong, with a record of strength.
Pamela Gray says: June 21, 2011 at 7:07 am
re. “Not enough heating potential.”
Really?
So what do you think is enough?
I mean at 1.66W/m2 we are loading with 845 tera watts. Let us not forget that watts are measured in seconds.
That isn’t enough?
Global warming is a Leftist lie. It is not enough to debunk and marginalize the perpetrators of this fraud. There needs to be serious consequences including steep fines and lengthy jail time so that none of them ever again try to pull such a fraudulent scam.
John P. Reisman says:
No Tony, I gave you a link to the testimony from a scientist with some of the latest findings. In his testimony he pointed out that these are not models, but actual observations.
John,
The quote you provided is someone’s testimony that references a specific paper (Schlenker and Roberts 2009) that made the determination of a 7% diminution in crop yield. The quote I provided was taken from that paper. It clearly indicates that the 7% diminution was a modeling prediction. While it may be “based on observations”, it is not an actual observation.
In fact, what you are claiming was “observed” is something that would be physically impossible to observe – unless you’re telling me that they somehow were able to control for all the other variables so that the only difference was the single day at 104 vs 84. If that is, indeed, the case, I would be quite interested in learning of the mechanism for doing so.
John, sea water is nearly opaque to the far infrared spectrum, which penetrates depths measured in mm and is also the depth at which evaporation is the rule. There is no way this tiny amount of heating, most of which does not even stick around, can be responsible for the rise in OHC. It amazes me that you continue to argue that point.
Pamela Gray – the link you posted is nonsense AGWScienceFiction production, which discounts the thermal infrared we actually feel as heat from the Sun in its ‘energy budget’. Claiming, as in your link, that it is ‘Solar’, i.e. Visible and the two shortwave either side, which heat the Earth, and that the real heat energy we feel from the Sun has no part in this.
Visible, Light, is transmitted through water which is a transparent medium for it, it is not absorbed and doesn’t create heat. Thermal infrared actually downwelling from the Sun, is what actually heats the oceans and land of our planet. Thermal infrared converts to heat in water readily, just as it does in our bodies, it is then distributed through the water by convection.
If you find the wiki page on water absorption spectrum, you’ll see the Visible is practically non-existent, all the absorption is in the infrared.
‘Transmitted’ is the term used for the particular way the shorter, tiny, shortwave Light gets through water, it is not absorbed but rejected by the molecules of water from joining in and so pass through. In the atmosphere the molecules of oxygen and nitrogen scatter these tiny waves, giving us our blue sky.
Anyway, what is nonsense is the claim that thermal infrared, Heat cf Light, does not get to the surface of the Earth.
And nonsense that it’s the Visible that heats the Earth.
While the furious debate continues here about what an increase of ~1W/m^2 in backradiation supposedly due to risisng CO2 concentrations may or may not do, the variations in local insolation well in excess of 100W/m^2 due to ever-changing cloud cover are strangely neglected. Considered on a global basis, a variation of just a few percent in the effective albedo is far more significant to surface temperatures than variations in GHG concentrations.
It may come as a surprise to those accustomed thinking in terms of simplistic “radiative balances” that OLR and surface temperature are NEGATIVELY correlated in the tropics at decadal time scales. This is a consequence of cloud cover being not only the gatekeeper for insolation, but also a powerful inhibitor of night-time radiative loss.
That some of the ardent partisans of AGW doctrine pontificating here are unaware of the complexities of the climate system is perhaps understandable. But such ignorance on the part of AMS officers is inexcusable.
LibsAreCommies says: June 21, 2011 at 10:44 am
re. “Global warming is a Leftist lie. It is not enough to debunk and marginalize the perpetrators of this fraud. There needs to be serious consequences including steep fines and lengthy jail time so that none of them ever again try to pull such a fraudulent scam.”
This is a great example of someone that does not have enough integrity to post his full legal name and yet make outrageous accusations that are not substantiated.
The person that wrote this is a liberal.
‘given or provided in a generous and openhanded way’
or
‘given, used, or occurring in generous amounts’
He has, without substantiation generously made a claim without substantiation. And then he thinks that those that actually do science, which happens to be the most conservative organized endeavor in human history, should be put in jail.
This sort of liberalism that he/she displays should be shunned.
[Snip. d-word not tolerated here. ~dbs, mod.]
Pamela Gray says: June 21, 2011 at 11:18 am
Pamela, I’m not an expert in this area. Can you give me one single cite from a reputable science source on your claim. Then I can check it out, see if it has merit, examine counter arguments, see if it survived peer response and get back to you and say base on on ??? whether you are more or less likely to be correct on the issue.
I’m beginning to get the feeling that you just don’t believe in using the scientific method and prefer your opinion.
sky says: June 21, 2011 at 7:52 pm
re. “furious debate”
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a furious debate at a scientific conference? What are you referring to? The debate in the public and media?
re. “cloud cover are strangely neglected”
Can you actually name one single working climate scientist that ignore cloud cover?
Ingoing and outgoing radiation is studied intensely and clouds are a big part of the big picture in consideration of radiation balance.
So, what makes you think science or scientists are not studying clouds?
http://missionscience.nasa.gov/ems/13_radiationbudget.html
LibsAreCommies says: June 21, 2011 at 10:44 am
re. “Global warming is a Leftist lie.”
Technically, without global warming the average temperature of Earth would be just below zero degrees fahrenheit and you would be a frozen block of flesh.
Can you prove that you are frozen solid?
Your risible comment is highlighted by the idiocy uttered by Tyndall. Without the “aqueous vapour” in the air, what, pray tell, would make the “frost”? Congealed CO2?
Pathetic.
Technically, almost entirely due to H2O. Can you prove that your brains are not frozen solid? The only thing of significance that would happen from eliminating CO2 from the air is the near sterilization of the planet, as plant life ended, along with the parasitic fauna, leaving only a few exotic extremophile bacteria.
It is literally vital that we maintain and increase the levels of CO2 in the atmosphere, forever.
Brian Hall says: June 22, 2011 at 3:48 am
re. “Technically, almost entirely due to H2O.”
Really? Can you show me one single article from a reputable science source that proves your point?
See, the problem is, that if you remove the CO2, it’s cold enough for more H20 to freeze, which also reduces the positive feedback mechanisms, which leads to an icebound state.
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/co2-temperature.html
Brian Hall says: June 22, 2011 at 3:48 am
re. “It is literally vital that we maintain and increase the levels of CO2 in the atmosphere, forever.”
Really? So, your okay with a atmosphere like that of the Permian/Triassic boundary
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2002/28jan_extinction/
Hmm… flood basalt eruptions injecting 1.5 million cubic kilometers of volcanic ejecta, massive CO2 increase, and the icing on the cake of a 6 to 12 km asteroid to flash burn the CO2 sink just for an extra boost causing a climate change temperature increase to about 7 to 8 degrees C hotter than today.
That actually sounds like your kinda climate?
Where are you going to grow your crops, in your cave?
Of course the Sun heats both land and water. I am not referring to that source of ocean heating. It is the re-emitted far infrared LW radiation (the stuff that both water vapor and CO2 re-emits) that does not penetrate but a few mm, just barely getting past the surface tension of sea water, to be dissipated back into the atmosphere through evaporation. However, the AGW tome says that it is this incredibly weak heat source that is causing the oceans to heat beyond the natural Solar source. But there is no mechanism and no maths that has shown this to be the probable cause.
Pamela Gray says: June 22, 2011 at 10:26 am
Pamela, Either you don’t have and reputable science source or citation for your assertion, or you have one and don’t want to share it. Which is it?
John Reisman,
Maybe Pamela Gray is just ignoring your constant pestering. You want citations? Here are some from the paper she linked to upthread, and which you evidently did not read:
Pam has been around here for a long time, and from where I sit she is more knowledgeable than you.
John P. Reisman says:
June 21, 2011 at 11:37 pm
“So, what makes you think science or scientists are not studying clouds?”
I never said that. What I observe is that in public debates the HIGHLY DOMINANT effect of clouds, about which climate scientists know very little beyond the cartoonish schematics that you reference, is not acknowledged by them. And you certainly show no sign of comprehending that the effects of varying CO2 concentrations are orders of magnitude less important in setting the surface temperatures than those due to cloud-induced variations in insolation.
I have no interest in pursuing any discussion with someone whose basic M.O. is dismissal of anything that he hasn’t read about in the pal-reviewed literature. That’s not how true scientists become acquainted with physical reality. Sayonara!
Reisman, the plants grew just fine with that elevated CO2 and temperature. So would crops, though we might end up with different (probably more productive) cultivars.
And, as usual, your attribution of the temperature levels to CO2 is textbook “begging the question”.
Smokey says: June 22, 2011 at 3:18 pm
re. “Maybe Pamela Gray is just ignoring your constant pestering. You want citations? Here are some from the paper she linked to upthread, and which you evidently did not read:”
and
“Pam has been around here for a long time, and from where I sit she is more knowledgeable than you.”
You’re right I did not read them all. And I’d bet neither have you. But by your sarcasm you infer you have. So, I will assume you have read them all, and that Pamela has read them all.
And since you are both more knowledgable than I and have read all those papers, please tell me which of them answers my question and backs up what pamela is saying namely her assertion:
Then, if said assertion exists in the peer reviewed literature we need to figure out if it survived peer response, and in what context does the assertion apply with regard to OHC?
I anxiously await your informed reply with the proper citation, as opposed to a laundry list of cites from which it is likely that neither you nor she has actually read all.
Can either you or Pamela name the paper that supports Pamela’s claim, from a reputable science source? That does not mean throw a cite list into a thread. I can do that too, but as you will note above, I don’t do that. I am courteous enough to send you to a single source to support each scientific point.
You see, it doesn’t matter how long Pam has been around in this blog. And it doesn’t matter if you think she is more knowledgable than I. Science does not care about my opinion. Science does not care about Pam/s opinion. And science does not care about your opinion.
the anonymous sky says: June 22, 2011 at 4:05 pm
re. “I never said that.”
regarding what I said “So, what makes you think science or scientists are not studying clouds?”
about what she said “the variations in local insolation well in excess of 100W/m^2 due to ever-changing cloud cover are strangely neglected.”
re. “What I observe is that in public debates the HIGHLY DOMINANT effect of clouds, about which climate scientists know very little beyond the cartoonish schematics that you reference, is not acknowledged by them.”
and
“And you certainly show no sign of comprehending that the effects of varying CO2 concentrations are orders of magnitude less important in setting the surface temperatures than those due to cloud-induced variations in insolation.”
Actually I fully recognize the importance of clouds and the ‘enormous effect they have on our climate. Reflected solar radiation is on the order of 700 W/m2, which is orders of magnitude larger than GHG imbalance changes. What you still fail to realize is that even something that seems small in your mind, can have a large impact on the earth climate.
Again, science does not care what you think. It only cares about evidence. Tipping the average forcing 0.1 W/m2 in the Maunder Minimum caused agricultural failures in Europe. Now we have tipped it positive 1.66 W/m2 on the mean. And you think that is a little effect. Based on the evidence of the Maunder Minimum, you are wrong. I little change can have a large impact.
re. “That’s not how true scientists become acquainted with physical reality.”
I work with true scientists a lot throughout my career. And lately I’ve had the great pleasure of working with many climate scientists. Your assertion regarding the “pal-reviewed literature” indicates strongly that you really don’t know how the scientific method works. So your pretty much talking out of your hat.
Pamela Gray says:
June 22, 2011 at 10:26 am
Of course the Sun heats both land and water. I am not referring to that source of ocean heating. It is the re-emitted far infrared LW radiation (the stuff that both water vapor and CO2 re-emits) that does not penetrate but a few mm, just barely getting past the surface tension of sea water, to be dissipated back into the atmosphere through evaporation. However, the AGW tome says that it is this incredibly weak heat source that is causing the oceans to heat beyond the natural Solar source. But there is no mechanism and no maths that has shown this to be the probable cause.
My point was this this is irrelevant. You posted a link to what you said was an article “that most here will be able to understand. The author is well-versed in ocean heating”
I’m calling it junk AGWScience, the author knows zilch about how the oceans are heated since he follows AGWScience by saying Solar heats the Earth and Thermal Infrared is what is radiated back up from the heated Earth.
Whatever you think “Solar” means, in AGWScienceFiction is doesn’t include downwelling Thermal Infrared.
“Solar” in the AGWScience energy budget is only the shortwave Visible and UV&Near Ir either side. None of these is capable of converting to heat land and oceans, as claimed in the KT97 for example.
Brian Hall says: June 22, 2011 at 9:29 pm
re. “plants grew just fine with that elevated CO2 and temperature”
and
re. “So would crops, though we might end up with different (probably more productive) cultivars”
An issue here that is rather important is the speed of change. Other than asteroid impacts, most events had prolonged ramp times of various time scales. Slower changes in relation to structure of biologic systems regulates life capacity ans survivability potentials. Slower change speed allow life to adjust, rapid changes do not. Thus more extinctions occur when change is relatively faster.
We exist in a world much different that the Permian peak where the CO2 levels were much higher of course. But at that time most life on earth ended, and for various reasons, likely all combined with various degrees of influence and impact in various time scales.
The Permian boundary is marked by a distinct phenomenon followed by millions of years of recovery. As described by Dr. Roger Smith, speaking about the End-P event in a BBC interview:
“This is the dead zone. this zone represents what it was like here after the mass extinction. We have never found anything that represents life in this zone. This is what we would call barren. There is no evidence of plant life, there are no evidence of soils, and especially there is no evidence of animals. This is completely dead.”
The Eocene optimum also had higher CO2 levels, and is also associated with an extinction event.
So basically, your notion of
“It is literally vital that we maintain and increase the levels of CO2 in the atmosphere, forever.”
probably, or is very likely, unsound. For example. Venus has very high levels of CO2 (96.5% of the atmosphere is CO2) and the surface temperature is 464ºC (867.2º F)
http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/venusfact.html
So how can you logically, reasonably or sensibly conclude that ‘increasing the levels of CO2 in the atmosphere, forever’ is a good idea?
Context is key.
Dr. G you are a jewell in the midst of scientific heresy, but sadly in these times of spin and slur; honest, smart voices are drowned by politically correst, selfish, and really dumb folks with the ink, the airwaves, and the microphones. Keep in good health and great spirits.
Jack Flobeck
John P. Reisman says:
June 21, 2011 at 11:25 pm
[Snip. d-word not tolerated here. ~dbs, mod.]
What is the d-word?
And even if I did use the d-word, why did you snip the whole post? I don’t even remember what I wrote there and therefore have no idea what a d-word is?
[Reply: Read the site Policy. ~dbs, mod.]
JPR;
So, you’re denying you used “the Holocaust slur-word”? I guess that makes you a denier of abuse of a term implying denial that evil is being committed by doubting the duplicitous drivel spouted by CAGW Believers?
Not surprised.
Brian Hall says: June 23, 2011 at 8:29 am
Okay I googled CAGW, and realized that it seems to refer to citizens against government waste. Is that what you are referring to?
And, what does that have to do with the “the Holocaust slur-word”, whatever that is?
Gawd.
“Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming”.
You can’t possibly be as gormless as you’re pretending to be.
And the “forever” was humourous hyperbole. Utterly lost on you, evidently. Burning all the known hydrocarbon reserves we know of would possibly lead to a 50% atmospheric increase, and much of it would get et by the planet’s flora PDQ.
And about your Googling, try adding the word “climate” to the search, and you’ll get more. But I assume Google is filtering in line with its preferences and policies. Which is why most of us here use other engines.
Brian H says: June 23, 2011 at 8:06 pm
re. “Burning all the known hydrocarbon reserves we know of would possibly lead to a 50% atmospheric increase”
I just checked a ppt file I had from Ralph Keeling and the data representation shows that the fossil fuel resource bases contains 4300 billion tons of C, while the atmosphere sink currently holds approximately 800 billion tons of C.
So in C, you are apparently off by 537% times in total and 219% from your estimate. Since the atmospheric lifetime of large portions of that can be in the 100’s of years, and the ‘very old’ science from the late 50’s showed that the oceans could not take up as much CO2 as originally thought, and since the warming will cause more fires keeping more of the planets flora form holding C, I think it is safe to assume you are generally incorrect.
But of course you did not provide times scales, Were you calculating this over Period, millennia, or decades?
Now, please tell me which paper out of the list of papers you provided above explains how Pamela Gray is correct in her assumption about sea water opacity in relation to global warming?
I actually took the time to read this entire blog, only one thing seems to stand out about this whole issue … NONE of these organizations are self sustaining. In order to survive financially they will vary their position accordingly, which ever way the wind blows. Before I review all the suggestions stated I will look at the finances. “Show me the money” Or in the case of our liberal system currently, “show me the debit” As long as the sun shines mankind’s arrogance will prevail. We are responsible for so little of what has occurred since the beginning of time on earth it’s difficult to measure until there is an unexpected disaster and man’s footprint is erased in just moments. I sympathise with those trying to get a straight simple answer from organizations sponsored by today’s government. It’s not going to happen as long as the fed has it’s hands in all the pie’s. Bias is difficult at best and impossible when bought and paid for.
Good luck on your quest for truth, perhaps your grandchildren will read about the corruption in their history books … ooppss, maybe not, the fed buys to books too .. oh well, don’t forget Semper fi.
Hello, lowly senior Meteorology undergrad trying to wrap my head around this debate. Even in my university’s dept the incredibly contrasting opinions over this still have left me undecided. In my envsci dept, we have the spectrum. From an IPCC panelist who has come out to completely disagree with Gray’s article, to a legendary atmospheric scientist who would be right along with him, It’s incredible how many equally great minds have such varying opinions on such an important topic. As far I am concerned, I have but one interest in the matter: I seek the truth. I don’t care about becoming wealthy or famous, I certainly do not want an eco-trendy lifestyle complete with powder-blue Prius (after all, the amount of emissions produced to make its battery cause it to be more environmentally damaging than a Land Rover Discovery. But, what environmentalist actually also knows about cars I guess. I digress.), I think Al Gore is a bloviating fool, and I certainly do NOT CARE what a bunch of geniuses in Washington think is right. What do I care about? Figuring out the truth behind climate change. Clearly, the truth is inconclusive in either direction at this point in time. I applaud Bill Gray for standing behind his findings, and not just going with what the majority hypothesizes. I was at the AMS conference talk where he first released/presented this paper, and it was great to listen to someone finally go, “Hey Guess what! I think you’re wrong, and I have valid evidence to support my claim.” I thought his hypothesis about shifts in different ocean currents and systems is fascinating, and I believe it deserves a heck of a lot more research.
Disagree with me, I don’t really care. The proof is in the research, and I’m willing to devote many years ahead of me to contribute to figuring out the truth behind this.
As for my own opinion, I think we’re certainly not helping matters with everything we’re pumping into the atmosphere, but I don’t think this *warming* is being completely caused by us. But I will not make the same mistake as so many have by fishing for data to match my opinion. I will keep an open mind and do my best to make unbiased conclusions. Isn’t that what it’s all about anyway?
And to all of you scientists out there who will read this: Know that at least part of my meteorology generation is NOT convinced in either direction at this point on this subject, and we care more about finding the truth than lining our pockets and getting on our soapboxes before congress prior to more of a majority consensus is made within the field.