Fallout from Our Paper: The Empire Strikes Back

I’m not sure if this is a repost from Dr. Spencer’s site, but:
“…ancient events which we have virtually do data on…”
is probably supposed to be:
“…ancient events which we have virtually no data on…”
Dessler’s comment struck me much in the same manner. Isn’t tweaking a model the purpose of modeling? And wasn’t there just a paper published tweaking the aerosols in the model and then claiming the aerosols caused the post-98 slowdown?

I recommend we collect all silly retorts by the “usual suspects” and use them against their future works

Dissed by that bunch of bozos should be proudly worn as a badge of honor!
Thank you, Dr. Spencer, et al

“He’s taken an incorrect model, he’s tweaked it to match observations, but the conclusions you get from that are not correct…”

Sounds like Bellarmine talking about Galileo.

Kevin Trenberth should be glad somebody has finally discovered where the missing heat went.

One of the most important laws in climatology is the reciprocal relationship between the time lag for Gavin’s riposte and the seriousness of the blow to the team. The nearly instant and vociferous attack here indicates that a) the team are very worried, and b) the team had possession of the paper prior to publication
By the way – inviting the team to ‘become a little more creative’ is probably not wise. These are the people who think nothing of deleting incriminating emails, faking their graphs, and redefining peer review and the scientific method.
You’d think that if the science was so settled their bile would be a little more contained, wouldn’t you?

Wait a minute…….
I thought the science was settled
/snarc
Keep going after them Dr. Roy, you’re my hero

Dr. Spencer, the greater the indignation, the closer you must be to the truth.
“Usual suspects”, is right, ‘tweaking models’ – who patented that ‘technique’?
And then we could start on the T record and get into tree ring proxy data sets……………couldn’t we KEN?
May I suggest lads, that you put your own house in order, not that there is much of value therein.

Maurice Garoutte says:
July 30, 2011 at 9:08 am
I must have missed the part about the study being funded by big oil, or maybe something has changed.
===============================================================
Nope, nothing has changed, ……. “He is an author for the über-conservative Heartland Institute (as is James Taylor, the author of the Forbes article), which receives substantial funding from — can you guess? — ExxonMobil. He is also affiliated with two other think tanks funded by ExxonMobil.”
Of course, Heartland doesn’t receive funding from Exxon, but we shouldn’t let little facts like that get in the way of a good smear attempt. Why bother with the truth when lies can further an agenda?
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/07/29/no-new-data-does-not-blow-a-gaping-hole-in-global-warming-alarmism/

The other side are shaped by group-think. That’s why “scientific consensus” has traction. It’s done for political reasons, since AGW has a political basis. For one thing, it’s funded by government to justify the regulations they want to impose on us.
Consequently, since there are more of them, they can get away with holding skeptics to a higher standard. There is power in the group. Group thinkers are afraid of unrestrained individuals. Power in the hands of persons disconnected from a group association are considered dangerous to members of herds. Those working supposedly for the good of the group are protected, even after making serious errors, because they meant well.
Herds form as a means of protection from a perceived threat. Freedom is traded for a sense of safety. I don’t think anyone is surprised by the reaction to the paper. I’m afraid the only way to break the hold of the herd masters is to demonstrate that the real threat is AGW itself. We get it. Unfortunately, we lack a strong majority who realize the cost of AGW policies in lost jobs, lower standard of living, higher prices, invasion of privacy, wasted tax revenue, growing police state, etc.

What group did the original peer review of the paper? If the answer is there was none, then you can consider the comments by these other others as the post-publication peer review.
In reading their comments it does seem as though Dr. Spencer’s analysis would lead to the notion of clouds forcing the ENSO cycle whereas quite the opposite is the case as clouds are a result of a release of heat from the oceans. This also goes to the widespread belief by some that La Nina “cooling” means less energy in the system, when in fact the suppression of cloud formation during La Nina episodes is a time when more net heat is being absorbed by the ocean.

Steven Mosher asserts three possibilities:

1. data processing errors? How do you prove its not that
2. errors in the data? see what science gavin does that relies on the same data.
3. Errors in the models: need to get specific here.

Numbers 1 and 2 are moot points, Steven, and aren’t that critical to the outcome (or let the modelers expose the data processing errors and/or errors in the data since they’re making these fantastic allegations).
Simply jump to step 3, get the model code, adjust the forcing factors downward until the results fit the empirical data, and report the differences in the factors. The results will show they’ve been too aggressive in their warming assumptions (which isn’t surprising because who would pay for a model that’s not a news headliner, right?). End of argument.

As Tallbloke says: The end is in sight..; and as the chinese philosopher said: “Wait in your front door and you´ll see the corpses of your enemies passing by”

Trenberth from RC!
“To help interpret the results, Spencer uses a simple model. But the simple model used by Spencer is too simple (Einstein says that things should be made as simple as possible but not simpler): well this has gone way beyond being too simple (see for instance this post by Barry Bickmore). The model has no realistic ocean, no El Niño, and no hydrological cycle, and it was tuned to give the result it gave. Most of what goes on in the real world of significance that causes the relationship in the paper is ENSO. We have already rebutted Lindzen’s work on exactly this point. The clouds respond to ENSO, not the other way round [see: Trenberth, K. E., J. T. Fasullo, C. O’Dell, and T. Wong, 2010: Relationships between tropical sea surface temperatures and top-of-atmosphere radiation. Geophys. Res. Lett., 37, L03702, doi:10.1029/2009GL042314.] During ENSO there is a major uptake of heat by the ocean during the La Niña phase and the heat is moved around and stored in the ocean in the tropical western Pacific, setting the stage for the next El Niño, as which point it is redistributed across the tropical Pacific. The ocean cools as the atmosphere responds with characteristic El Niño weather patterns forced from the region that influence weather patterns world wide. Ocean dynamics play a major role in moving heat around, and atmosphere-ocean interaction is a key to the ENSO cycle. None of those processes are included in the Spencer model. ”
Isnt that just fantastic!! Trenberth havent understood that the buty with Spencers observations dont need that as the data is everything included. Hes arguing to fix something that isnt there and defelitely nott broken.
The final comment is:
“The bottom line is that there is NO merit whatsoever in this paper. It turns out that Spencer and Braswell have an almost perfect title for their paper: “the misdiagnosis of surface temperature feedbacks from variations in the Earth’s Radiant Energy Balance” (leaving out the “On”).”
When a layman like my self realize that his is talking BS and tries to avoid the actual discrepancy between models and observations by laying smooke screens

You can’t harvest the crop before it has ripened, unless you like sour grapes and bad wine.
The unsrupulous, however, will try to sell you a green crop as the real thing.

I’ve seen Roy Spencer and Keving Trenberth testify before congress together, and I must say, that Trenberth has this tendency to make these huge absurd judgements based on absolutely no evidence. Trenberth is the guy who long ago stated that CO2 forcing + feedback was always going to be strong enough to overcome natural variation. So here we are, with thirteen years of no warming and Trenberth is still searching for his missing heat. It’s like a guy searching for his wife in his house long after his wife has left him.

Smokey says:
July 30, 2011 at 10:18 am
Mike says:
“How many journals did Spencer submit the paper to before he found one that would take it?”
Good question. Because as Mike should know, the Climategate emails exposed the plain fact that there exists a conspiracy between climate journals and climate charlatans like Mann, Jones, etc., to sabotage any skeptical scientist who submits a paper that deviates from the alarmist narrative.
===============================================================
And, as Dr. Spencer alludes, “Why didn’t I get the chance to deep-six Spencer’s paper, just like I’ve done with his other papers?”…. the Kev is part of the gate-keeping team.
Now, why and how the Gav and the Kev think they’re qualified to comment on a study by Dr. Spencer, essentially interpreting satellite data, is beyond me. If I thought the data was flawed, I go to an expert and ask…… perhaps Dr. Christy or someone at RSS. Tweedle Dee and tweedle dum?….. not so much.

Mike says:
“How many journals did Spencer submit the paper to before he found one that would take it?”
Then Smokey says:
“The conspiracy is exposed…”
____
Peer review is now a conspiracy? The Spencer and Braswell paper is now getting the review is should have had before being published.

@Roy:
Everything you say depends on that CERES satellite working the way you think it should. How does it perform the measurements? Does it look at total irradience on a panel and the deconvolve to determine radiance from a point on the earth, or, does it look down at the earth in blocks and then reassemble the angular distributiion of radiance? Or something else? There are so many devils in that detail that you shouldn’t blindly accept the data. So, can you comment on why this satellite is measuring what you need to determine the radiation budget?

Roy:

(Which I think is true…we just did not actually ‘prove’ it.)

Almost no single paper in science is a “proof” of anything. Each one stands as evidence of what it argues. The total body of evidence from multiple papers comprises the proof.
The “consensus,” i.e., the bulk of peer-reviewed papers does, in fact*, argue against Dr. Spencer’s side of things. The “*” is there because with the Trenberth-ian efforts to control what makes it through the peer-review process, we may not ever know what the true balance is between one side’s arguments and the other. In emails exchanged a few years ago with Dr. George Taylor, who was then the Oregon State Climatologist, George talked about how the older climatologists – who were much less convinced by the consensus – had realized that it was a madhouse (my word, not his) and that to argue against CAGW was to invite serious funding problems, and a large number of them were simply lying low.
Well, Dr. Spencer has not lain low, thank goodness. The discussion over at SlashDot on his paper is almost entirely picking on nits, as far as I can see, with the bulk saying either that he hasn’t “proven” anything (see above), or that some sentence in his paper argues against himself, or that it doesn’t trump anything – besides the ones that point out that, after all, this is Dr. Roy Spencer, and this is UAH, so what else can we expect out of him? (Many there seem to also confuse climate warming itself with anthropogenic warming; they can’t understand that it might be warming for reasons other than human activity (or human activity other than CO2), so they see any warming as proof that mankind is evil – intentionally so – and will, some day, stalk and kill Bambi’s mother, so that our grandkids won’t have Bambi anymore like we did.)
The first real point, as I see it, comes from Einstein, in his point that it only takes ONE real, solid, uncompromising fact to disprove a theory and that consensus means nothing in the face of that fact.
The second real point is that as long as there can be found holes in the CAGW theory – as long as there are any tangible facts arguing the other way – the science cannot not be settled.
I give Dr. Spencer a lot of credit for sticking to his scientific guns and being an adult among a bunch of immature fellow scientists who have gone off half-cocked in a wrong direction because of what they WANT to be true. I would define “immature scientists” as ones who want something to be true, so they garner facts to fit their desired conclusion, rather than let the facts point them to an objective conclusion. It is a lot like being infatuated with someone and only being able to see her/his good points; reality will educate them eventually – but in the meantime the adults in the room have to put up with all the gushing and cow eyes. And no matter what the adults say, the immature ones will defend their POV assiduously. Though he is well outnumbered, he keeps pointing out the errors of their ways.
Science is not about jumping to conclusions and then corralling facts to suit that conclusion. If conclusions do arise, they can only be tentative at first, and then science’s job is to derive enough tests that can falsify them. If correct, the conclusion will pass. In a complex field such as climatology, one such test is not enough to prove or disprove the entirety – but it does swing the pendulum one way or another. This paper swings the pendulum a little bit away from the CAGW conclusion, and the immature scientists “on the other side” aren’t happy about it. Big deal. The adult scientists on the other side and in the middle should be able to judge what it does to the overall state of things.

Here missing heat, here missing heat, heat, heat, wherever you are.
I have lots more delicious grant $billions, fresh from a bankrupt government’s printing presses…
Please, please, come out and rescue our scam, it’s almost too late!

I have a post up at Climate Etc. on the Spencer and Braswell paper
http://judithcurry.com/2011/07/30/spencer-braswells-new-paper/

Nice hijack attempt R Gates. The results of Spencer’s study are about how much energy is being released to space versus how much energy the computer models calculate is being released to space. It has nothing to do with what drives what, and the study isn’t a model, it is just measurements compared to models. The models are wrong, or the measurements are.
Sad is it not that the world is inhabited by legions of those (like you) who would rather believe that the sky is falling than to admit that the bump on Chicken Little’s head is from an acorn. Confronted with the fact that there are no cracks in the sky, nor pieces missing from it, they point to the bump on Chicken Little’s head and come up with the most convoluted of theories as to why it could not possibly have been an acorn, or any of a thousand other causes, it must have been a piece of the sky. They even have computer models showing exactly how the sky is falling apart.
Sadder still is what their obvious belief system dictates to them. They rejoice in every bit of evidence showing that the world is coming to an end, and with grim determination, discredit every shred of evidence that it is not. It is bad enough that they believe their models to the point that they ignore actual measurements showing the models to be wrong. But the worst part is that they WANT the sky to be falling. Not because it would prove their models right, but because they can’t believe in a world where humanity has a bright future and doesn’t bring disaster down on themselves.

Steve Garcia asked
“I’ve searched high and low and can’t find out where the scientists say the heat energy for El Niño comes from. I know, Trenberth has much better access to sources than I do. I would have this question: What paper explains the mechanisms of HOW the La Niña “uptakes” and “stores” the heat? I’d like to see exactly what assumptions are behind this assertion. I have a hypothesis in the back of my head that I’d like to falsify and get rid of, if it is worthless.”
In my opinion the heat energy for El Nino accumulates because the ITCZ is always north of the equator (due to the current global landmass distribution) which creates an imbalance of solar shortwave inout either side of the equator.
Periodically the imbalance becomes large enough to provoke an El Nino event as the system tries to move back towards thermal equilibrium either side of the equator.
In theory the release of ocean energy during an El nino should reduce ocean heat content for a net cooling of the entire system. However during the late 20th century ocean heat content rose despite the run of powerful El Ninos. Now, with more La Ninas the ocean heat content should in theory be recharging but it is not.
The reason is that El Nino actually increases the width of the subtropical high pressure cells pushing the jets poleward and allowing MORE sunlight into the oceans.
However that is not always enough to offset the energy release. Another factor is required to achieve that.
That other factor is the level of solar activity. When the sun is active the polar vortex becomes more positive pulling the jets poleward which supplements the effect of the EL NIno allowing even more sunlight into the oceans. So it was during the late 20th century. Strong El Ninos combined with an active sun allowed the surface pressure distribution to change enough to allow sufficient shortwave into the oceans such that ocean heat content rose despite the strong El Ninos.
That is the only scenario whereby all the observations can be made to work in a coherent fashion.

The presumption that a lack of clouds mean that the ocean is heating is deeply flawed. For any given radiative heating there will be a wind speed that evaporates the heat away as it arrives. So the tropical cu-nim seen from space is a much smaller area than the area of ocean it cools.
Strong trade winds will cool the ocean even under a cloudless noon.

“Finally Gavin Schmidt claims that it’s the paleoclimate record that tells us how sensitive the climate system is, not the current satellite data…..”
I would ask him, in a Jack Nicholson voice: “Now, are these the questions I was really called here to answer? Tree rings and sediments? Please tell me that you have something more, Gavin. The whole CAGW world is on trial for their life. Please tell me their scientist hasn’t pinned their hopes to a tree ring.” 🙂
Best,
J.

Doug in Seattle says:
July 30, 2011 at 10:38 am
The ball is back on Dr. Spencer’s side of the net after Trenberth, et al give a weak return. Now its time for the spike. Perhaps Kirby or Svensmark will take the honors.
Dr. Spencer may be preparing to deliver the spike. His July 15 blog entry announcing that his paper had been accepted for publication closes with this statement: “And this is not over…I am now writing up what I consider to be our most convincing evidence yet that the climate system is relatively insensitive.”
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2011/07/our-refutation-of-dessler-2010-is-accepted-for-publication/

Sandy Rham says:
July 30, 2011 at 11:51 am
“The presumption that a lack of clouds mean that the ocean is heating is deeply flawed. For any given radiative heating there will be a wind speed that evaporates the heat away as it arrives. So the tropical cu-nim seen from space is a much smaller area than the area of ocean it cools.
Strong trade winds will cool the ocean even under a cloudless noon.”
Locally and/or regionally yes but globally no.
The extra uplift in the tropics enhances the downward flow in the subtropics for an overall expansion of the tropics as a whole with more sunshine and more energy into the global oceans.
A similar reply for Pamela. Due to a La Nina reducing the energy supply to the air the air cools and can hold less water in vapour form so whatever happens regionally or locally the global effect is more clouds and the tropics contract.
This is what the cloudiness data says:
http://bbso.njit.edu/Research/EarthShine/literature/Palle_etal_2006_EOS.pdf
See fig 1 . Until 2000 positive PDO with lots of strong El Ninos) cloudiness was decreasing. Since then (negative PDO just getting under way) it has been increasing.

Dr Spencer, heard you on Coast to Coast. Sounded Good!!

Brian says (July 30, 2011 at 12:05 pm): “Even George Bush, Romney and John McCain are in agreement that Climate Change is an issue that must be addressed…It’s time to accept reality Smokey. Even those that you think would deny the issue are now accepting it.”
BWAHAHAHAHA!
OMG, I can’t believe he actually cited politicians as experts on “reality”!
Wait, wait, I can do even better: “Ahem, I believe in CAGW because…
(wait for it)
I saw it on ‘JERSEY SHORE’!!!” HAHAHA!
Stop, stop, you’re killing me! 🙂

R. Gates: “The Spencer and Braswell paper is now getting the review is should have had before being published.”
Do you think that Mann’s upside down Tiljander data had the review it should have had before being published?

“Brian says:
July 30, 2011 at 12:05 pm
Smokey,
Even George Bush, Romney and John McCain are in agreement that Climate Change is an issue that must be addressed.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/04/15/george-bush-global-warmin_n_96871.html
http://articles.boston.com/2011-06-04/news/29685848_1_global-warming-climate-change-greenhouse-gases
http://www.boston.com/news/politics/politicalintelligence/2008/01/mccain_vows_to.html
It’s time to accept reality Smokey. Even those that you think would deny the issue are now accepting it.”
Brian,
This is how what you wrote reads to an educated person:
“A, B and C agree that X is true,
Therefore, X MUST be true.”
And,
Most people believe that X is true,
Therefore, X MUST be true.
Now really…..
Best,
J.

Brian says:
July 30, 2011 at 12:05 pm
“Even George Bush, Romney and John McCain are in agreement that Climate Change is an issue that must be addressed.”
Aha, the Authority argument. So lame !!!

“Besides, is Andy implying the IPCC models he is so fond of DON’T have THEIR results tweaked to match the observations? “.
No, the observations are tweaked to match the models.

Dear Dr. Spencer
The entire edifice of AGW is built upon the proposition that as CO2 increases, the absorption lines in the infrared spectrum broaden. Does the instrument on Aqua have the spectral resolution necessary to detect this line broadening? Back in the 1990’s we worked at MSFC with Dr. Christensen on filters for our small satellite that would measure the absorption coefficients at the knee of the curves (3db point) of several absorption features in the atmosphere. The bandpass of the filters that we used were about 5 nanometers, pretty darn good at the time. They were supposed to be at the same wavelength as some of the filters on Aqua.
I have recently become aware of new tunable LCD filters with 0.1 nanometer bandpasses. With that kind of resolution we should be able to easily measure the line broadening from CO2, CH4, NO2 and H2O in both the visible and near IR spectrum. Is there anything on the table for a spacecraft mission to implement this type of imager?
It would, through observation, settle the issue of the effect of these absorbers once and for all.

Dr. Spencer (or someone else):
In your paper, the actual satellite data shows a crossover in slope (negative to positive) in the lag region (negative x axis), while the models predict a crossover in the lead region (positive x axis). What is the significance of this difference between model and actual? In layman’s terms, if you please.

Spencer’s paper merely shows that temperatures respond to changes in Radiative Flux/Forcing much less and much faster than expected in the models and in the theory.
It takes 3.3 W/m2 of forcing to change temperatures by 1.0C. By contrast, doubled CO2 is only supposed to result in 3.7 W/m2 of forcing so anyone should be able to do the math there.
Empirical evidence about how the Realclimate works …
… (as opposed to how the RealClimate website works which is theory and climate model first – empirical observation is to be ignored and/or changed whenever it does not conform to the theory (which is often since almost none of it does). They all knew beforehad what this data showed – they ignored it and/or turned it into a pretzel so it would be incomprehensible .
——-
Technically, during an El Nino in the tropical Pacific, cloud cover increases by a huge amount and outgoing long-wave radiation falls considerably (up to -50 watts/m2). So, the Sun is not warming the ocean, but the ocean is warming the atmosphere. Its the opposite during a La Nina, cloud cover goes to near Zero, Outgoing longwave rises dramatically and the atmosphere cools off.

SunspotGate: Warmist Kevin Trenberth admits in an email that sunspots are an external forcing of our climate system; Romm publishes this admission, then deletes it
http://tomnelson.blogspot.com/2011/07/sunspotgate-warmist-kevin-trenberth.html

James Sexton says:
July 30, 2011 at 10:02 am
[Of course, Heartland doesn’t receive funding from Exxon,..]
And the Climate research Unit of the University of East Angela has received funding from Shell Oil and British Petroleum for over 25 years.
Bottom of this page from the UEA web site:
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/about/history/
The Climate Research Unit also receives funding from:
Food to Ethanol: Tate and Lyle, Broom’s Barn Sugar Beet Research Centre
Nuclear Power: KFA Germany, UK Nirex Ltd., Nuclear Installations Inspectorate
Insurance: Norwich Union, Reinsurance Underwriters and Syndicates
Political Action: World Wildlife Fund for Nature, Greenpeace International
Natural Gas: Sultanate of Oman
Batteries: National Power Corporation
So nothing has changed in the profitable world of global warming.
The Corporations are getting the Alarming Climate Science results from the Climate Scientologists that they have bought and paid for; and the results that they all need (see above) to ensure the demand for the products that they supply (see above).

Shaun Dunne,
I read both articles. Neither are much of a refutation. The first article obsesses with the “simple model”. The author clearly doesn’t understand what he is talking about. The “simple model” is an attempt to investigate **WHY** the “official” models are wrong, without drawing any definite conclusions (Dr. Spencer stresses this over and over in his article). The hippo in the bathtub, the fact that the “official” models underpredict radiant cooling is ignored.
The second article can be summed up by this: “We know that the models are very reliable, that is why we have such wide error bars.” Pay attention to graph 3, which is a summation of “all” of the models. Note that in the lead time, the slope of actual data is more than DOUBLE that of what the model predicts. Yep, it is inside the confidence bars, but so what? The models are pretty much useless with such large errors.

RayG says:
July 30, 2011 at 1:36 pm
“Judith C. has started a thread on the Spencer and Braswell 2011 at Climate Etc http://judithcurry.com/2011/07/30/spencer-braswells-new-paper/
I hope that the authors will browse through the comments there and respond where appropriate.
Thank you for your continuing efforts.”
____________________________________________________________________
I’ve read both the paper and Dr C.’s comments , but not the subsequent member posts in her blog. The paper is a relatively easy read, good communicative language, short, the math is not too complex.
That said, I don’t understand why Dr. Curry doubly reiterates that: “However, if there is no solution to measuring feedback, I would say that SB are concluding too much from their analysis about feedback, sensitivity, and the performance of models.”
From what I read, and how I interpreted the graphs in Figure 3 of the paper, there seems to be a large discrepancy between the observed Radiative Flux/Temperature Regression Anomalies and the ones modeled. I think I understand that feedback cannot be accurately measured through observation because all the measured radiation is Net in just one bucket? But, I don’t believe that is the point. The point (I think) is that the smaller RF in the models has to be countered by more heat retention and therefore rising planetary temperatures. And this seems contrary to satellite (and terrestrial) observations, invalidating the models.
Maybe someone more educated than me can offer me some more insights into these issues. I’m just a lay person :).
Best,
J.

How can Gavin Schmidt say that the palaeoclimate record exhibits sensitivity without honestly factoring-in all potential external forcings and complexities of modal variation of the major synoptic systems like ENSO-NAO. Does this circular reasoning pass as science???

Chris Jarrett says:
July 30, 2011 at 10:20 am
Roy, your ‘publication’ is a joke. The journal is an internet, on-line journal where authors provide the reviewers to the editor and then pay to have it “published”. It’s a publication venue for articles that won’t get accepted in real journals.
WOW! That sure disproved everything he said in it, everything. Boy that was good, no need to do hard math or anything like that, just attack the publication. WOW! It must be wrong now. WOW!

Seems Trenberth is missing more than the heat he can’t find and whines about.
This drive by means he is now missing credibility, integrity and honesty.

“Finally Gavin Schmidt claims that it’s the paleoclimate record that tells us how sensitive the climate system is, not the current satellite data. ”
Is that the same Gavin Schmidt who claims global warming started in 1980?

davidmhoffer says:
“Nice hijack attempt R Gates. The results of Spencer’s study are about how much energy is being released to space versus how much energy the computer models calculate is being released to space. It has nothing to do with what drives what, and the study isn’t a model, it is just measurements compared to models. The models are wrong, or the measurements are.
“Sad is it not that the world is inhabited by legions of those (like you) who would rather believe that the sky is falling than to admit that the bump on Chicken Little’s head is from an acorn. Confronted with the fact that there are no cracks in the sky, nor pieces missing from it, they point to the bump on Chicken Little’s head and come up with the most convoluted of theories as to why it could not possibly have been an acorn, or any of a thousand other causes, it must have been a piece of the sky. They even have computer models showing exactly how the sky is falling apart.
“Sadder still is what their obvious belief system dictates to them. They rejoice in every bit of evidence showing that the world is coming to an end, and with grim determination, discredit every shred of evidence that it is not. It is bad enough that they believe their models to the point that they ignore actual measurements showing the models to be wrong. But the worst part is that they WANT the sky to be falling. Not because it would prove their models right, but because they can’t believe in a world where humanity has a bright future and doesn’t bring disaster down on themselves.”
This is exactly true. My neighbor last night, discussing the day’s polar bear news, insisted that whether or not some people made things up, she knew for a fact that polar bears were dying from AGW because she had studied the issue, being a frequent viewer of the Nat Geo channel.
When I said to her, “You believe this because you WANT to believe it,” she responded, “Yes, I DO want to believe it.” And then told me that I didn’t believe it because I DIDN’T want to believe it. How true in both cases, though I, at least, have years of exposure to the conflicting evidence that she does not. Who in his (or her) right might would WANT to believe the world is ending? Someone hoping to take credit for stopping it? Someone who loves wallowing in negativity and misery? Or both? I think many alarmists may be more than just gullible or dishonest: They may be mentally ill.

Thanks Dr Spencer, keep on chipping away, you lead the way, and we are one step closer to the day when climate science is restored to credibility and open to new research, new ideas, new discoveries. The team hid behind corrupted peer review, lax media scrutiny,”their” science, may they reap the weeds they sowed, with much wailing and gnashing of teeth. the wheel is turning!

R. de Haan says:
July 30, 2011 at 2:24 pm
reading back from your link I see KT has written the following
‘The part not so well known is the pollution (aerosol), but that is
small. Nearly all of the variations in water vapor and clouds, except for those
affected by aerosol, are a response to the weather and climate variations; they
are NOT a forcing’
re the first sentence – how can one dismiss something as simply ‘small’?
re the second – water vapor and clouds are not a forcing, but when affected by aerosols they are? – am off to visit confused.com……..
answers on a postcard to
‘WTF does it all Mean’
IPCC
Switzerland

As I read through this thread, paying attention to the negative comments in general, R Gates and Brian in particular, I notice that the criticism can be boiled down to a few devastating tactics:
o change the subject to something unrelated
o point out that even some big name politicians think agw is real
o complain that the journal isn’t reputable
o complain that there doesn’t appear to be any peer review process
o claim that only comments by people with PhD’s matter
o claim that the paleo record is of more importance than actual, current, real, directly measured temperatures
o complain that the results can’t be reproduced because ( roflmao ) the description isn’t detailed enough to replicate results.
I couldn’t help but notice that there hasn’t been one criticism, not a single comment, not even a vague one, saying that the results are invalid and giving a reason why. Not one single explanation of anything in the paper that would point to factors not considered, math that was wrongly done, data that had errors in it, data that was excluded and should not have been, data that was included and should not have been, data that was compared to models that were measuring something else and so shouldn’t have been compared…..
Nothing. Nada. Not one solitary criticism of anything about the SCIENCE presented.
The models claim to be able to predict how much heat escapes the earth under various conditions, and based on 11 years of data measuring how much heat escapes from the earth…they got it wrong.
Clearly George Bush’s opinions on WMD, “the war is over”, and AGW all trump the facts? That’s the best you guys can come up with? Wow.

Bob Tisdale says:
July 30, 2011 at 9:19 am
A note to Trenberth and Fasullo : That’s as far as I read. Your post began with nonsensical name calling, so I assumed the rest was nonsense.
I hate to add an AOL-style comment, but … me too.

Mike says:
July 30, 2011 at 9:49 am
How many journals did Spencer submit the paper to before he found one that would take it?

Appeal to authority much?
It doesn’t matter how many were too PC, paid off, intimidated, or brainwashed to take it.

R. Gates says: July 30, 2011 at 2:23 pm…..
By group, I didn’t mean to imply a team working in unison, but rather, more than one person. I simply and honestly wanted to know who reviewed the paper. …..
Just as many here would like to know who reviewed many warmist papers. It is my understanding that authors of papers are not normally told who the reviewers are. So how can anyone expect to get an answer to that question?
Even if we were to find out who the reviewers are would that change the conclusions of the paper?

To James D!
“It boils down to that”
Yes I agree and i have read all the comments. They are trying to lay out smokes screens. But the beauty of the paper is that its includes all radiation and that’s the central message. To claim that the ten year period is too short is defenitly someting to prove for the team. But they have the advantage to publish any rubbish they like.

The comments made so far, that claim this study is wrong, generally lack serious substance. But let’s see if we can’t dissect the catechism from on high that the team gives us.
Trenberth says “these apparet negative feedback is really just ENSO, which is not radiatively forced because we already know it isn’t”
In point of fact, Roy’s paper was a response to this very idea, put forward in a paper by Dessler, that one can in fact diagnose the feedbacks from the data because the variations are “due to ENSO” and “ENSO is not radiatively forced because we already know it isn’t.” The point of Roy’s work was that in point of fact there are variations in clouds causing temperature changes in the data, this is pretty clear from the data. Author a paper, get criticized by another paper, rebut the criticism, the criticizers fail to understand and repeat the criticism. I think Lindzen has noted this is a common pattern in climate science.
Gavin basically says “well,this could be any number of things” but puts his money on the data being wrong, or a statistical fluke. There is little to be done about such vacuous criticism, doubters will wiggle themselves within your error bars endlessly, the only thing one can do is gather more data, and narrow the uncertainty. As always, if you doubt the radiation measurements, you are obliged to cite a reason why the measurements are untrustworthy, and plausibly hypothesize why this uncerainty skews in your direction only, not the other way at all. You can always say, well the uncertianty is large enough that my crackpot theory out on the tails of the probability distributioncould still be correct-there is a non-zero probability that I will wake up on the moon tomorrow. It’s negligible but nonzero. So how likely is it, then, that the “truth” is as far from the current mean of the data as Gavin surely believes? It’s fine to say Roy didn’t quantify this. It is not logical to give greater weight to someone crying that the truth is pretty distant from the mean than to someone saying it’s pretty close.

Bill, thanks for your comment about ENSO cloud response. It confirmed my understanding of equitorial tropical cloud response to La Nina/El Nino events. La Nina warms the ocean, El Nino cools it. How this equatorial response is then reflected in extra-tropic cloud conditions is another topic of interest and one that Steven seems to be speaking to. Example: The cold tropical cloudless La Nina seems to have resulted in a very wet cloudy summer for us in Oregon with temperatures in the bottom half of the normal range, not in the top half. That is not unusual. La Nina events have historically resulted in such summers where I live.

Don’t worry Dr Spencer, the emperor is not wearing any clothes. Just point and laugh at His Haughtiness. I read your paper first, and this post afterwords. Andy’s comments are hilarious. Trenberth’s comments are side-splittingly funny. Too bad these bozos don’t realize they’re the laughingstock of the world now.

William says:
July 30, 2011 at 4:52 pmThe fact that the planet has not cooled indicates something is happening to suppress the Svensmark mechanism. (i.e. GCR is high something must be removing the ions that are created.) ))
Not so fast young fella. Give it time. A lot of very cold records are being set that you are not factoring into a blanket statement.
http://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/ Bob does not hide the decline. Overall we are cooling, except for GISStimates.
regards

R. Gates says:
July 30, 2011 at 10:07 am
“What group did the original peer review of the paper? If the answer is there was none, then you can consider the comments by these other others as the post-publication peer review.
In reading their comments it does seem as though Dr. Spencer’s analysis would lead to the notion of clouds forcing the ENSO cycle whereas quite the opposite is the case as clouds are a result of a release of heat from the oceans. This also goes to the widespread belief by some that La Nina “cooling” means less energy in the system, when in fact the suppression of cloud formation during La Nina episodes is a time when more net heat is being absorbed by the ocean.”
Are you sure the clouds in a La Nina episode are not just shifted? The eastern seaboard of Australia and most of the eastern half of the continent seem to have had their cloudiest period for ~30 years. The ocean temperatures have been well above the daily max on many occasions which would help to explain the cloud. OK, local weather— for half a continent.

Brian [July 30, 2011 at 12:05 pm] says:
“Even George Bush, Romney and John McCain are in agreement that Climate Change is an issue that must be addressed.”

LOL! RINO Republicrats. The breaking news would be if the any of the three of them were skeptics!
Previous commenters mentioned your Appeal to Authority. I have a different take on it …
George Bush :: Appeal to Inferiority
Mitt Romney :: Appeal to Sorority
John McCain :: Appeal to Seniority

So, just to make sure I’m clear on this:
Empirical data does not match the output from the models. Thus the empirical data must be wrong.
Hmmm… Seems a lot of the pro-AGW crowd got things backwards! I’d say a review of the Scientific Method 101 is in order…

It would perhaps be a propos to remind some that the purpose of “peer-review” is not to confirm or deny the science in the paper, but to assure the publisher and the editor that publication of the article will not diminish the standing, profitability, cachet and promotability of the journal, not the science…
With regard to the authority of a PhD, it would perhaps be a propos to remind some that it is a point in time report, and, like a shiny new car, it begins to depreciate the moment it comes off the lot. In the end, it provides no better service going forward than the lowly rebuilt old clunker salvaged from the wreckers yard, cobbled together from bits and pieces found along the way. There may be, in fact, more value in the journey of the latter.

What impresses me most about all of this is the recent “flurry” of studies attempting to explain why the planet is not warming as fast as was expected. This includes increasing stratospheric aerosols and Asian pollution. http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2011/20110721_particles.html The very fact that we are debating something that wasn’t supposed to be happening in the first place is progress all by itself!

Roy W. Spencer, Ph. “I view my job a little like a legislator, supported by the taxpayer, to protect the interests of the taxpayer and to minimize the role of government.”
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2011/07/fundanomics-the-free-market-simplified/
Holy cow – imagine how people would respond here if a mainstream scientist said something like this.
Talk about bringing a bias into the mix here…

Jose Suro says:
July 30, 2011 at 2:44 pm
“I think I understand that feedback cannot be accurately measured through observation because all the measured radiation is Net in just one bucket?”
Right, And it cannot be otherwise for the Warmista because their models are radiation models only. In other words, the only natural processes that they model are processes of radiation. There arises the problem. Feedback is not a property of radiation. Feedback is a property of natural processes such as cloud formation. Warmista cannot deal with feedback for the simple reason that their models have nothing representing natural processes such as cloud behavior. In their models, phenomena such as La Nina are “emergent properties” of radiation.

Julian Braggins says:
July 30, 2011 at 9:30 pm
“Are you sure the clouds in a La Nina episode are not just shifted? The eastern seaboard of Australia and most of the eastern half of the continent seem to have had their cloudiest period for ~30 years. The ocean temperatures have been well above the daily max on many occasions which would help to explain the cloud. OK, local weather— for half a continent.”
____
You are correct in that warmer waters pile up of the eastern half of Australia during La Nina episodes & colder PDO cycles (hence the reason for the tremendous floods this past winter). But in addition to the location of cloudiness, El Nino/La Nina cycles are not equal in their NET contribution of heat and types and locations of cloudiness. More net heat globally is transferred from ocean to atmosphere during El Nino and this can be seen quite easily in global temperature data. One can very easily think of the charging and discharging of a battery as a good example of the NET effect of the ENSO cycle, where the battery charges during La Nina, and discharges during El Nino. Now there have been studies showing a relationship between solar cycles and ENSO, such as this:
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/2010JCLI3232.1?journalCode=clim
And I’ve long suspected this is the case, and, if such studies are correct, then one might expect that during a round of La Nina’s occurring during a very quiet sun period, that the ocean battery of heat would not be recharging to quite the same level, so that during the following El Ninos, not quite as much heat will be released to the atmosphere.

Matt Rogers says:
July 31, 2011 at 6:42 am
What impresses me most about all of this is the recent “flurry” of studies attempting to explain why the planet is not warming as fast as was expected. This includes increasing stratospheric aerosols and Asian pollution. http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2011/20110721_particles.html The very fact that we are debating something that wasn’t supposed to be happening in the first place is progress all by itself!
_____
Matt, you completely misunderstand what global climate models include, and have always included since first being developed. You also fail to see how the degree of confidence is high that there ought to have been more warming during the 2000-2009 period based on climate models. To search for reasons why something doesn’t happen when you think it should have, or happens when you think it should not is how you validate and refine your models.
The whole issue really is that we don’t have a “control” earth where we can leave things untouched and then alter only one variable at a time on our separate “test” earth, to see what altering just that one variable will do. The next best thing we have is our global climate models which can serve as our “control” and “test” earth. The models showed we should have warmed more than we did in the 2000-2009 period, based on the contributions to the energy balance of the planet by the additional CO2 from humans. Since the models were wrong, then they obviously missed one or more factors. It is only logical for scientists to begin looking at what those factors might have been and once identified, to plug them into the global climate models and see if they can come close to duplicating what actually occurred. When you plug in the additional aerosols from increased volcanic activity, human sources (mainly China), a quiet sun, and several La Nina’s, etc. the climate models start to come close to duplicating what the actual temperatures were.
A parallel experiment would be to ask what would have happened to the climate during the 2000-2009 period if you returned CO2 to pre-industrial levels of around 280 ppm. How much additional cooling might have occurred from the factors mentioned above?

RC is a good barometer for how the climate community feel about such papers. Today, they have this posted:

The paper has been published in a journal called Remote sensing which is a fine journal for geographers, but it does not deal with atmospheric and climate science, and it is evident that this paper did not get an adequate peer review. It should not have been published.

Predictable.

Another blog picking up Dr. Spencer’s work.
Climate Change May Be Less Severe Than Predicted
Posted on: Sunday, 31 July 2011, 06:10 CDT
A University of Alabama climatologist is claiming that temperature-monitoring satellites have revealed “a huge discrepancy” between global warming predictions and the actual levels of heat contained within the atmosphere.
http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/2087781/climate_change_may_be_less_severe_than_predicted/index.html?source=r_science

noaaprogrammer says:
July 30, 2011 at 10:17 pm
“Don’t you remember that the temperature of the Earth’s interior is at millions and millions of degrees?! Quite a heat sink!”
Ah, but that is impossible. If the interior is millions of degrees, and the surface is at, say 293 K, then the suface cannot heat the interior.
Sorry, could’nt help it. Shouldn’t be chipping away on a fellow sceptic !

It APPEARS Trenberth IS ALWAYS CONDESCENDING WHEN IT COME TO ANOTHER POINT OF VIEW HE STRIKES ME AS A GUY THAT HAS AN AGENDA TO PROTECT.

David Falkner [July 31, 2011 at 1:48 pm] says:
“Really? Bush, McCain, and Romney aren’t conservative enough?”

Hell no.

“Sounds like bad news for the GOP.”

Yep.

“A more appropriate response would be to point out the fact that you don’t have to be a Republican to be a skeptic, either.”

Well naturally! But you do have to admit that the Democratic-Socialist party attracts alarmists the same way a dung pile attracts flies.
Admittedly, Bush, McCain, Romney are not identical triplets. Two of the three pay lip service to the Second Amendment, but none of them give a crap about the Ninth and Tenth, which are the chief limiting agents preventing the Federal government from turning Feral. So no, they are not ‘conservative’ enough (your word), especially at this juncture where the FedGov must either be cut to the bone to its Constitutional definition or it will completely devour the country.
I’m not vaguely interested in the word ‘conservative’ and even less enthusiastic about the GOP Republicrats or Democratic Socialist ‘parties’. It was only 16 years ago when conservative and Liberal completely swapped meanings. In 1995, the incoming young turks were the liberals trying to radically change the FedGov, Contract With America, balance the budget and devolve power from DC to the states, while the establishment liberals became the conservative defenders of the status quo, fighting every change. So the adjectives are truly meaningless unless one is a party hack.
All three of them, Bush, McCain, and Romney are establishment types. If you need proof you are not paying attention.

Shanghai Dan says “Wait a minute. I thought the drumbeat was that solar input was basically irrelevant, and that aerosols are a non-problem as well. ”
That sure looks like a straw man argument Dan – climate science isn’t saying that solar forcing and aerosols are irrelevant.

Bystander,
The Union of Concerned Scientists, often held up as a huge part of the “consensus” of AGW, states the following:
Global warming is primarily caused by emissions of too much carbon dioxide (CO2) and other heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere when we burn fossil fuels to generate electricity, drive our cars, and power our lives. These heat-trapping gases spread worldwide and remain in the atmosphere for decades to centuries. Thus, as we continue to emit these gases, their atmospheric concentrations build up over time. In contrast, atmospheric aerosol particles are largely localized near their sources, and do not linger in the atmosphere for long so that, even if we continue to emit them at current rates, their atmospheric concentrations will not build up markedly over time.
Sure sounds to me that it’s not aerosols that are causing the issue, as they supposedly also cause heating.
As far as the sun, we’re told outright that the “scientific consensus is that solar variations do not play a major role in determining present-day observed climate change”. It’s not the change in solar output that is creating the heating.
But somehow, the change is that now aerosols and solar output are causing cooling – while most of the consensus up until now has been that they either have small, localized effects towards HEATING or simply do not change much one way or another. Most interesting!
I think I’ll go with R. Gates’ earlier conclusion that the models are not validated and not reliable…

I wish almost anybody but Spencer had done this study. Fairly or not, his reputation as a shill for Big Oil is firmly in place, and nothing he does/says will be taken serioulsy by the warmists. So it comes as no surprise Realclimate is trashing him, his study, and the studys peer reviewers.