UPDATE: see some reactions to this announcement here
From the GWPF
This refers to the CLOUD experiment at CERN.
I’ll have more on this as it develops (updated twice since the original report now), but for the short term, it appears that a non-visible light irradiance effect on Earth’s cloud seeds has been confirmed. The way it is posited to work is that the effect of cosmic rays (modulated by the sun’s magnetic variations which either allow more or deflect more cosmic rays) creates cloud condensation nuclei in the Earth’s atmosphere. With more condensation nuclei, more clouds form and vice-versa. Clouds have significant effects on TSI at the surface.
Even the IPCC has admitted this in their latest (2007) report:
“Cloud feedbacks are the primary source of inter-model differences in equilibrium climate sensitivity, with low cloud being the largest contributor”.
Update: From the Nature article, Kirkby is a bit more muted in his assessment than the GWPF:
Early results seem to indicate that cosmic rays do cause a change. The high-energy protons seemed to enhance the production of nanometre-sized particles from the gaseous atmosphere by more than a factor of ten. But, Kirkby adds, those particles are far too small to serve as seeds for clouds. “At the moment, it actually says nothing about a possible cosmic-ray effect on clouds and climate, but it’s a very important first step,” he says.
Update: Bizarrely, New Scientist headlines with: Cloud-making: Another human effect on the climate
================================================================
CERN Experiment Confirms Cosmic Rays Influence Climate Change.
by Nigel Calder
Long-anticipated results of the CLOUD experiment at CERN in Geneva appear in tomorrow’s issue of the journal Nature (25 August). The Director General of CERN stirred controversy last month, by saying that the CLOUD team’s report should be politically correct about climate change (see my 17 July post below). The implication was that they should on no account endorse the Danish heresy – Henrik Svensmark’s hypothesis that most of the global warming of the 20th Century can be explained by the reduction in cosmic rays due to livelier solar activity, resulting in less low cloud cover and warmer surface temperatures.
Willy-nilly the results speak for themselves, and it’s no wonder the Director General was fretful.
Jasper Kirkby of CERN and his 62 co-authors, from 17 institutes in Europe and the USA, announce big effects of pions from an accelerator, which simulate the cosmic rays and ionize the air in the experimental chamber. The pions strongly promote the formation of clusters of sulphuric acid and water molecules – aerosols of the kind that may grow into cloud condensation nuclei on which cloud droplets form. What’s more, there’s a very important clarification of the chemistry involved.
A breach of etiquette
My interest in CLOUD goes back nearly 14 years, to a lecture I gave at CERN about Svensmark’s discovery of the link between cosmic rays and cloudiness. It piqued Kirkby’s curiosity, and both Svensmark and I were among those who helped him to prepare his proposal for CLOUD.
By an unpleasant irony, the only Svensmark contribution acknowledged in theNature report is the 1997 paper (Svensmark and Friis-Christensen) on which I based my CERN lecture. There’s no mention of the successful experiments in ion chemistry and molecular cluster formation by the Danish team in Copenhagen, Boulby and latterly in Aarhus where they beat CLOUD to the first results obtained using a particle beam (instead of gamma rays and natural cosmic rays) to ionize the air in the experimental chamber – see http://calderup.wordpress.com/2011/05/17/accelerator-results-on-cloud-nucleation-2/
What will historians of science make of this breach of scientific etiquette? That Kirkby was cross because Svensmark, losing patience with the long delay in getting approval and funding for CLOUD, took matters into his own hands? Or because Svensmark’s candour about cosmic rays casting doubt on catastrophic man-made global warming frightened the national funding agencies? Or was Kirkby simply doing his best (despite the results) to obey his Director General by slighting all things Danish?
Personal rivalries aside, the important question is what the new CLOUD paper means for the Svensmark hypothesis. Pick your way through the cautious prose and you’ll find this:
“Ion-induced nucleation [cosmic ray action] will manifest itself as a steady production of new particles [molecular clusters] that is difficult to isolate in atmospheric observations because of other sources of variability but is nevertheless taking place and could be quite large when averaged globally over the troposphere [the lower atmosphere].”
It’s so transparently favourable to what the Danes have said all along that I’m surprised the warmists’ house magazine Nature is able to publish it, even omitting the telltale graph shown at the start of this post. Added to the already favourable Danish experimental findings, the more detailed CERN result is excellent. Thanks a million, Jasper.
Enlightening chemistry
And in friendlier times we’d be sharing champagne for a fine discovery with CLOUD, that traces of ammonia can increase the production of the sulphuric clusters a thousandfold. It’s highlighted in the report’s title: “Role of sulphuric acid, ammonia and galactic cosmic rays in atmospheric aerosol nucleation” and it was made possible by the more elaborate chemical analysis in the big-team set-up in Geneva. In essence, the ammonia helps to stabilize the molecular clusters.
Although not saying it openly, the CLOUD team implies a put-down for the Danes with this result, repeatedly declaring that without ammonia there’d be little cluster production at low altitudes. But although the Aarhus experimenters did indeed assume the simpler reaction (H2SO4 + H2O), differing results in successive experimental runs made them suspect that varying amounts of trace impurities were present in the air cylinders used to fill their chamber. Now it looks as if a key impurity may have been ammonia. But some members of the CLOUD consortium also favoured (H2SO4 + H2O) and early runs in Geneva used no intentional ammonia. So they’ve little reason to scoff.
In any case, whether the basic chemistry is (H2SO4 + H2O) or (H2SO4 + H2O + NH3) is an academic rather than a practical point. There are always traces of ammonia in the real air, and according to the CLOUD report you need only one molecule in 30 billion. If that helps to oil Svensmark’s climatic motor, it’s good to know, but it calls for no apologies and alters the climatic implications not a jot.
The experiment’s logo. The acronym “Cosmics Leaving Outdoor Droplets” always implied strong interest in Svensmark’s hypothesis. And the roles of the Galaxy and the Sun are acknowledged.Technically, CLOUD is a welcome advance on the Danish experiments. Not only is the chemistry wider ranging but molecular clusters as small as 1.7 nanometres in diameter are detectable, compared with 4 nm in Denmark. And the set-up enables the scientists to study the ion chemistry at lower temperatures, corresponding to increasing altitudes in the atmosphere. Cluster production soars as the temperature goes down, until “almost every negative ion gives rise to a new particle” [i.e. molecular cluster]. The lowest temperature reported in the paper is -25 oC. That corresponds to an altitude of 6000 metres, so unless you wish to visualize a rain of cloud-seeding aerosols from on high, it’s not very relevant to Svensmark’s interest in the lowest 3000 metres.
How the warmists built their dam
Shifting from my insider’s perspective on the CLOUD experiment, to see it on the broader canvas of the politicized climate science of the early 21st Century, the chief reaction becomes a weary sigh of relief. Although they never said so, the High Priests of the Inconvenient Truth – in such temples as NASA-GISS, Penn State and the University of East Anglia – always knew that Svensmark’s cosmic ray hypothesis was the principal threat to their sketchy and poorly modelled notions of self-amplifying action of greenhouse gases.
In telling how the obviously large influences of the Sun in previous centuries and millennia could be explained, and in applying the same mechanism to the 20th warming, Svensmark put the alarmist predictions at risk – and with them the billions of dollars flowing from anxious governments into the global warming enterprise.
For the dam that was meant to ward off a growing stream of discoveries coming from the spring in Copenhagen, the foundation was laid on the day after the Danes first announced the link between cosmic rays and clouds at a space conference in Birmingham, England, in 1996. “Scientifically extremely naïve and irresponsible,”Bert Bolin declared, as Chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
As several journalists misbehaved by reporting the story from Birmingham, the top priority was to tame the media. The first courses of masonry ensured that anything that Svensmark and his colleagues might say would be ignored or, failing that, be promptly rubbished by a warmist scientist. Posh papers like The Times of London and the New York Times, and posh TV channels like the BBC’s, readily fell into line. Enthusiastically warmist magazines like New Scientist and Scientific Americanneeded no coaching.
Similarly the journals Nature and Science, which in my youth prided themselves on reports that challenged prevailing paradigms, gladly provided cement for higher masonry, to hold the wicked hypothesis in check at the scientific level. Starve Svensmark of funding. Reject his scientific papers but give free rein to anyone who criticizes him. Trivialize the findings in the Holy Writ of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. None of this is paranoia on my part, but a matter of close personal observation since 1996.
“It’s the Sun, stupid!” The story isn’t really about a bunch of naughty Danish physicists. They are just spokesmen for the most luminous agent of climate change. As the Sun was what the warmists really wanted to tame with their dam, they couldn’t do it. And coming to the Danes’ aid, by briefly blasting away many cosmic rays with great puffs of gas, the Sun enabled the team to trace in detail the consequent reduction in cloud seeding and liquid water in clouds. See my posthttp://calderup.wordpress.com/2010/05/03/do-clouds-disappear/ By the way, that research also disposes of a morsel of doubt in the new CLOUD paper, about whether the small specks made by cosmic rays really grow sufficiently to seed cloud droplets.
As knowledge accumulated behind their dam and threatened to overtop it, the warmists had one last course to lay. Paradoxically it was CLOUD. Long delays with this experiment to explore the microchemical mechanism of the Svensmark effect became the chief excuse for deferring any re-evaluation of the Sun’s role in climate change. When the microchemical mechanism was revealed prematurely by the SKY experiment in Copenhagen and published in 2006, the warmists said, “No particle accelerator? That won’t do! Wait for CLOUD.” When the experiment in Aarhus confirmed the mechanism using a particle accelerator they said, “Oh that’s just the Danes again! Wait for CLOUD.”
Well they’ve waited and their dam has failed them.
Hall of Shame
Retracing those 14 years, what if physics had functioned as it is supposed to do? What if CLOUD, quickly approved and funded, had verified the Svensmark effect with all the authority of CERN, in the early 2000s. What if the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change had done a responsible job, acknowledging the role of the Sun and curtailing the prophecies of catastrophic warming?
For a start there would have no surprise about the “travesty” that global warming has stopped since the mid-1990s, with the Sun becoming sulky. Vast sums might have been saved on misdirected research and technology, and on climate change fests and wheezes of every kind. The world’s poor and their fragile living environment could have had far more useful help than precautions against warming.
And there would have been less time for so many eminent folk from science, politics, industry, finance, the media and the arts to be taken in by man-made climate catastrophe. (In London, for example, from the Royal Society to the National Theatre.) Sadly for them, in the past ten years they’ve crowded with their warmist badges into a Hall of Shame, like bankers before the crash.
As I reported on May 14th, 2011 in Update on the CERN CLOUD experiment:
From Physics World Head in a CLOUD:
In this special video report for physicsworld.com CLOUD project leader Jasper Kirkby explains what his team is trying to achieve with its experiment. “We’re trying to understand what the connection is between a cosmic ray going through the atmosphere and the creation of so-called aerosol seeds – the seed for a cloud droplet or an ice particle,” Kirkby explains.
The CLOUD experiment recreates these cloud-forming processes by directing the beamline at CERN’s proton synchrotron into a stainless-steel chamber containing very pure air and selected trace gases.
One of the aims of the experiment is to discover details of cloud formation that could feed back into climate models. “Everybody agrees that clouds have a huge effect on the climate. But the understanding of how big that effect is is really very poorly known,” says Kirkby.
Here’s the video, click image below to launch it.
=====================================================
More coverage: Big hat tip to WUWT reader “Andrew20”
Cosmic rays get ahead in CLOUD
http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/News/2011/August/24081102.asp
Cloud formation may be linked to cosmic rays
http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110824/full/news.2011.504.html
Cloud formation study casts a shadow over certain climate models
======================================================
Update: From Nigel Calder’s blog
A graph they’d prefer you not to notice. Tucked away near the end of online supplementary material, and omitted from the printed CLOUD paper in Nature, it clearly shows how cosmic rays promote the formation of clusters of molecules (“particles”) that in the real atmosphere can grow and seed clouds. In an early-morning experimental run at CERN, starting at 03.45, ultraviolet light began making sulphuric acid molecules in the chamber, while a strong electric field cleansed the air of ions. It also tended to remove molecular clusters made in the neutral environment (n) but some of these accumulated at a low rate. As soon as the electric field was switched off at 04.33, natural cosmic rays (gcr) raining down through the roof of the experimental hall in Geneva helped to build clusters at a higher rate. How do we know they were contributing? Because when, at 04.58, CLOUD simulated stronger cosmic rays with a beam of charged pion particles (ch) from the accelerator, the rate of cluster production became faster still. The various colours are for clusters of different diameters (in nanometres) as recorded by various instruments. The largest (black) took longer to grow than the smallest (blue). This is Fig. S2c from supplementary online material for J. Kirkby et al., Nature, 476, 429-433, © Nature 2011
Mark Wilson says:
August 26, 2011 at 3:14 pm
As to your comments about reducing the size of the boxes. Every time you have the size of the boxes, the amount of computing power needed goes up by the cube. Make the boxes half the size, your computer needs to be 8 times more powerfull. Make the boxes 1/4th, computer power required goes up by 64 times.
Computing power doubles every 18 months, so in 180 months [15 years] computing power goes up 1024 times. Exponential growth wins over polynomial growth. Put a million computers to work, if need be.
Richard S Courtney says:
August 26, 2011 at 12:45 pm
I almost wet myself.
The Sun has increased its direct radiative forcing of the Earth by between 20% and 30% since the Earth has obtained an oxygen-rich atmosphere.
If radiative forcing directly affects warming then the oceans would have boiled to steam long ago.
The climate system is bi-stable. It has had similar temperatures in glacial and interglacial periods despite very different amounts of radiative forcing. And that is why the Earth has sustained life forms to the present day.
____
Your own examples prove you wrong…(except the “I almost wet myself” comment, as that is a personal matter)
Why was the earth warmer in the past when the sun’s output was lower by 30% Could it be the radiative forcing of GH gases, which were much higher then? Suggest you read:
http://www.pnas.org/content/105/5/1425.full
But you probably won’t.
@HenryP see: http://environmentalresearchweb.org/cws/article/news/40059
The natural aerosols (isoprene, dimethylsulfide, etc) produced by plants and microscopic ocean organisms will have to be factored in also. Think of the ‘smoke’ in the Great Smokey Mountains, or that occurred in the Los Angeles area long before we had a city there…
Leif Svalgaard says:
August 26, 2011 at 3:02 pm
“Models are fabulous analytic tools. They have no synthetic capability whatsoever; that is, they are worthless for prediction.”
Yet, models are used everyday for just that.
Yes, and I explained above, the people who are using the models for prediction are arguing in a circle. Kirkby’s work proves that predictions from models about cloud behavior are circular arguments.
Leif Svalgaard says:
Frank K. says:
August 26, 2011 at 10:36 am
That’s why I challenge the modelers to write down ALL of the relevant equations that their codes are using, including the numerical approximations (GISS still hasn’t done this for Model E).
“As far as I know, the code is published for all to see.”
OK Leif – since the code is there for you see, please use the code listing to write down all of the differential equations, boundary conditions, and auxiliary relations that are being solved. Please … take your time … and let us know when you’re done.
(And after Leif is done with that, he can write down and describe in detail the numerical algorithms that are used to solve those equations).
Leif Svalgaard says:
August 26, 2011 at 3:42 pm
the job is difficult. Steady progress might get us there. All the talk about ‘the models do what the programmers put in there without knowing what they are doing’ is just nonsense….
Computing power doubles every 18 months, so in 180 months [15 years] computing power goes up 1024 times. Exponential growth wins over polynomial growth. Put a million computers to work, if need be.
So it’s a sales pitch:
“Send more money! smaller gridcells will get us to the promised land.”
Not with a built-in positive cloud feedback they won’t.
Somehow, I doubt people will want to pay another 80-90 billion dollarsfor another 15 years of the same shenanigans. They will want independent auditors to scrutinise the current product, and an end to the secrecy and prevarication before they cough up that sort of cash.
Mind you, once it becomes clear that the climate is wimbling cooler for 30 years or more, I think they’ll feel a bit cheated.
@R. Gates says: August 26, 2011 at 2:54 pm
All the fuss is about an unproven hypothesis that is nowhere close to becoming a theory. The problem, of course, is that the very base terminology has been grossly dumbed down in the general public and as we clearly see here, as a result is commonly misused and greatly misunderstood. The problem isn’t helped when scientists themselves, myself included, pop in and out of common usege vs. the real scientific terminology and the weighty meaning carried with it. That some people like R. Gates goes around pontificating on exactly how global warming works and has time travelled and done all the necessary research to prove things such as CO2 is the thermostat of warming throughout all history, yet doesn’t know the difference between a theory and hypothesis enough to recognize what Smokey is getting at just shows what a sad state of affairs our educational system is in along with the general state of scientific knowledge in the general public. Meanwhile there are grad students in ‘climate science’ no less, such as Chris Colese, who also seems to have missed or ignored some of the basic tenets of science – and practicing scientists out there who think that ‘post normal science’ is not only acceptable, but a good thing which they practice personally, teach, and promote – when in reality it is utterly anathema to the very idea of science.
Fair use copy from: http://wilstar.com/theories.htm
The Scientific Meaning of the Terms
Lay people often misinterpret the language used by scientists. And for that reason, they sometimes draw the wrong conclusions as to what the scientific terms mean.
Three such terms that are often used interchangeably are “scientific law,” “hypothesis,” and “theory.”
In layman’s terms, if something is said to be “just a theory,” it usually means that it is a mere guess, or is unproved. It might even lack credibility. But in scientific terms, a theory implies that something has been proven and is generally accepted as being true.
Here is what each of these terms means to a scientist:
Scientific Law: This is a statement of fact meant to describe, in concise terms, an action or set of actions. It is generally accepted to be true and universal, and can sometimes be expressed in terms of a single mathematical equation. Scientific laws are similar to mathematical postulates. They don’t really need any complex external proofs; they are accepted at face value based upon the fact that they have always been observed to be true.
Specifically, scientific laws must be simple, true, universal, and absolute. They represent the cornerstone of scientific discovery, because if a law ever did not apply, then all science based upon that law would collapse.
Some scientific laws, or laws of nature, include the law of gravity, Newton’s laws of motion, the laws of thermodynamics, Boyle’s law of gases, the law of conservation of mass and energy, and Hook’s law of elasticity.
Hypothesis: This is an educated guess based upon observation. It is a rational explanation of a single event or phenomenon based upon what is observed, but which has not been proved. Most hypotheses can be supported or refuted by experimentation or continued observation.
Theory: A theory is what one or more hypotheses become once they have been verified and accepted to be true. A theory is an explanation of a set of related observations or events based upon proven hypotheses and verified multiple times by detached groups of researchers. Unfortunately, even some scientists often use the term “theory” in a more colloquial sense, when they really mean to say “hypothesis.” That makes its true meaning in science even more confusing to the general public.
In general, both a scientific theory and a scientific law are accepted to be true by the scientific community as a whole. Both are used to make predictions of events. Both are used to advance technology.
In fact, some laws, such as the law of gravity, can also be theories when taken more generally. The law of gravity is expressed as a single mathematical expression and is presumed to be true all over the universe and all through time. Without such an assumption, we can do no science based on gravity’s effects. But from the law, we derived the theory of gravity which describes how gravity works, what causes it, and how it behaves. We also use that to develop another theory, Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity, in which gravity plays a crucial role. The basic law is intact, but the theory expands it to include various and complex situations involving space and time.
The biggest difference between a law and a theory is that a theory is much more complex and dynamic. A law describes a single action, whereas a theory explains an entire group of related phenomena. And, whereas a law is a postulate that forms the foundation of the scientific method, a theory is the end result of that same process.
A simple analogy can be made using a slingshot and an automobile.
A scientific law is like a slingshot. A slingshot has but one moving part–the rubber band. If you put a rock in it and draw it back, the rock will fly out at a predictable speed, depending upon the distance the band is drawn back.
An automobile has many moving parts, all working in unison to perform the chore of transporting someone from one point to another point. An automobile is a complex piece of machinery. Sometimes, improvements are made to one or more component parts. A new set of spark plugs that are composed of a better alloy that can withstand heat better, for example, might replace the existing set. But the function of the automobile as a whole remains unchanged.
A theory is like the automobile. Components of it can be changed or improved upon, without changing the overall truth of the theory as a whole.
Some scientific theories include the theory of evolution, the theory of relativity, the atomic theory, and the quantum theory. All of these theories are well documented and proved beyond reasonable doubt. Yet scientists continue to tinker with the component hypotheses of each theory in an attempt to make them more elegant and concise, or to make them more all-encompassing. Theories can be tweaked, but they are seldom, if ever, entirely replaced.
A theory is developed only through the scientific method, meaning it is the final result of a series of rigorous processes. Note that theories do not become laws. Scientific laws must exist prior to the start of using the scientific method because, as stated earlier, laws are the foundation for all science. Here is an oversimplified example of the development of a scientific theory:
Development of a Simple Theory by the Scientific Method:
* Start with an observation that evokes a question: Broth spoils when I leave it out for a couple of days. Why?
* Using logic and previous knowledge, state a possible answer, called a Hypothesis: Tiny organisms floating in the air must fall into the broth and start reproducing.
* Perform an expierment or Test: After boiling some broth, I divide it into two containers, one covered and one not covered. I place them on the table for two days and see if one spoils. Only the uncovered broth spoiled.
* Then publish your findings in a peer-reviewed journal. Publication: “Only broth that is exposed to the air after two days tended to spoil. The covered specimen did not.”
* Other scientists read about your experiment and try to duplicate it. Verification: Every scientist who tries your experiment comes up with the same results. So they try other methods to make sure your experiment was measuring what it was supposed to. Again, they get the same results every time.
* In time, and if experiments continue to support your hypothesis, it becomes a Theory: Microorganisms from the air cause broth to spoil.
Useful Prediction: If I leave food items open to the air, they will spoil. If I want to keep them from spoiling, I will keep them covered.
Note, however, that although the prediction is useful, the theory does not absolutely prove that the next open container of broth will spoil. Thus it is said to be falsifiable. If anyone ever left a cup of broth open for days and it did not spoil, the theory would have to be tweaked or thrown out.
Real scientific theories must be falsifiable. They must be capable of being modified based on new evidence. So-called “theories” based on religion, such as creationism or intelligent design are, therefore, not scientific theories. They are not falsifiable, they don’t depend on new evidence, and they do not follow the scientific method.
I use the analysis from finite element analysis (FEA) models regularly in my work, and a I respect the ability they have – within their limits – to predict the theoretical outcome of simplified problems in perfect (simulated) models of a simplified reality very well.
But …
A valid FEA 9accurate to the real world!) requires the following:
Analysis “equations” that are uniform and representative at all boundary position all of the relevant boundary conditions. That is, the exact boundary changes (the first order and second order differential equations) at every boundary must be complete and exact and correct in ALL relevant conditions under ALL relevant changes to EVERY relevant extent required by the problem solution. It doesn’t matter whether the modeler (the programmer, in the words of earlier writers) “thinks” he has included all relevant condition of equations or changes, but it only matters whether he/she HAS included every relevant change and every relevant condition before the FEA analysis begins. This “knowledge” of conditions and changes being “exchanged” between every border must be correct;y exchanged between cells across every border between cells correctly; and it must be available for criticism and comparison with reality in every degree.
For example, if cell 1,1,1 has a relative humidity and temperature and pressure and wind and radiation of x,y,z, aa,bb; then does that “information” of energy difference get correctly exchanged with a cell north and east and higher in attitude with it during every analysis phase of the problem? Or do they only exchange with east, south, north and west (at the same altitude?) ? Do they only exchange “information” with those above and below them?
Second, does this “exchange” of information actually reflect what is going on the 1 km x 1 km x 1km “cells” of the real world?
Does EVERY cell have the “correct land or sea basis for its “bottom”?
Does every cell rotate through space correctly, spinning and changing radiation levels as there solar year changes correctly and exactly? (That is , does the “top” of every cell reflect the real world? Or some idealized theoretical “Average” world?)
Further, those qualified and trusted FEA models have carefully crafted cells of uniform volume, side walls, and position to re-create their models of the real world in every dimension as close as possible: cell grids are uniform. Cell heights are as uniform as possible through the thickness of the (uniform) material, and are exactly stopped at material boundaries – where property characteristics change abruptly.
Therefore, I challenge every proponent of their vaunted global circulation models to show the real cell sizes in every dimension at every latitude. What are the actual altitude thicknesses in every cell? What are the land and sea values at every cell at model startup? ARE there land and sea values at evry cell – and if so, how are they approximated as teh real world land and sea values change?
Can a CGM proponent “show me” the cells that correspond to Greenland? Sahara? Saudi peninsula? Australia? The Arctic Ocean? Europe? The Alps? The Rockies? The Andes? The Himalayan mountains? Gobi Desert? If not, how can yo pretend these represent the real world? Can you “assume” that you have modeled the real world 100 years, much less 1000 years from now, if you cannot show “snow” on the Gobi and on Antarctica in the right season of the year to the right level?
What cell properties and land (bottom) and “top” properties change as you go north/south in latitude? Do the cell sizes change? If not, how are property characteristics changed as cell boundaries change as you go towards the poles?
If the cell sizes change geometrically as you further north/south, prove that the differential equations change so the proper and proportional changes in mass and energy change at every cell boundary at every altitude.
How are information “quantities” and their second order differentials changed across cell boundaries – and prove it! – as you change the areas of cell walls as you go further north, further south, further “up” in altitude?
Rational Debate,
Thanks for that very concise explanation. There is a similar one here.
Words matter. By using incorrect and clearly inappropriate terms, the alarmist crowd ends up with very muddled thinking. Wrongly referring to the AGW conjecture / hypothesis as a “theory” ignores the well documented fact that the AGW hypothesis has been unable to make accurate, replicable and testable predictions.
There is no testable physical evidence showing that CO2 is the cause of the current [very mild] warming cycle. There is only correlation, which may – or may not – turn out to physically connect CO2 rises with subsequent warming. At this point there is no testable evidence showing such a connection, therefore the AGW hypothesis cannot be a scientific theory.
Volker from the report by a University that I found on the special features section of ‘The Great Global Warming Swindle’ regarding studying the fluctuation in fish numbers over some years.
Cosmic rays are subatomic particles generated by either the Big Bang or a Super Nova.
Possibly subatomic particles is a better description. But their impact is moderated or lessened during solar activity. You are right, too, well explained.
@-Theo Goodwin
The descriptions of the Scientific Method that have been concocted by philosophers and sociologists over the last century have usually proved a Procrustian bed which fails to capture the full complexity of how science actually advances.
You quote Kepler’s Laws of planetary motion as an example. But they started of as simplifying assumptions made at least in part to make the math easier. It was only when Gravity provided a physical justification that they were elevated to ‘Laws’ like the equal area rule.
Of course they are still simplifying assumptions, in the real world the solar system is a multi-body problem with bi-directional non-linear interactions. This makes it deterministically chaotic with inherent unpredictability.
Luckily for Kepler and NASA the timescale of our interest in planetary orbits lies within ‘usefully predictable’ window of the simplifying assumptions.
Kirkby made the simplifying assumption that aerosol nucleation would occur with H2O H2SO4 NH3 in Air.
He got a negative result, with negligible effect from ionizing radiation at low altitude conditions.
It will be interesting to see whether the formation of aerosol nuclei are amplified by ionizing radiation when the organic volatiles like DMS and terpines are added to the mix…
If you want to find fault with the scientific method in climate research on the AGW theory then compare it with similar research that was successful rather than the passing paradigm of the socio-philosophers. The development of our understanding of the dangers of trace amounts of CFCs and Sox/Nox are the examples of the scientific method functioning successfully in a similar field. What happened in those cases may not fit into the Logical positivists/Popperian/Pragmaticism conception of scientific methodology, but are how science really functions.
@- Smokey
“AGW is an evidence-free hypothesis that cannot make accurate, testable predictions. A theory has at least one nontrivial validating datum. AGW has none.”
AGW theory claims anthropogenic CO2 is increasing global temperature. Because of the physical process invoked by the theory the warming would be predicted to be of greater magnitude at night, at high latitudes and confined to the lower troposphere with cooling of the stratosphere.
The measured warming, and its pattern of distribution, the measured changes in the magnitude and spectra of the TOA emissions and the surface back radiation and the measured changes in CO2 levels fingerprinted by the isotope ration to human sources are the ‘validating datum’ in your terminology.
The AGW theory is comparable in many ways with the ozone depletion theory by CFCs.
Or are you disputing the status of THAT as a successful scientific theory which made predictions which measurement confirmed ?
Leif Svalgaard says:
August 26, 2011 at 3:02 pm
anna v says:
August 26, 2011 at 12:51 pm
“The intellectual dishonesty in your link comes from using the model validated on 20 days for climate projections because “how could such expensive computer outputs be wrong?”
I don’t know anybody who actually thinks so [with the exception of some commenters here]. That the models are no good is not because the modellers are morons or dishonest, but because the job is difficult. Steady progress might get us there. All the talk about ‘the models do what the programmers put in there without knowing what they are doing’ is just nonsense. That people make policy based on faith in the models is their fault, not the modellers. A people have the politicians they deserve.
I agree that the job is difficult and I cannot see how people with a phd can be morons. This leaves the scientific ethics question open. There are many many people who doubt the ethics of people like Hansen and Gavin et al. Actually any physicist who has tried to get to the bottom of the data/model-output comparison comes out swinging.
I also agree that computer models are a great tool, the greatest invention after the slide rule.
I agree that people have the politicians they deserve, but the fact is that most “scientists” in climatology have enthusiastically followed the leaders of the global warming mantra, mainly to get published and get grants, it is true, but they offered a “consensus” for the politicians and profiteers to be based on.
From the introduction in your link:
as examples of what gains may be obtained in both
numerical weather prediction (NWP) and climate simulation
by investing in higher resolution global simulations.
We have performed a series of 20‐day NWP simulations at
3.5‐ to 28‐km globally, as well as 7‐month seasonal climate
simulations at 14‐km. We will examine the impact of
improved resolution on mid‐latitude cyclogenesis, tropical
convection, tropical cyclone structure, and the seasonal
tropical climate.
(bold mine)
If you cannot see that in the publication a successful comparisons within 7 months and in specific regions, weather model output is being pushed subtly as climate ( i.e. a jump of 30 years), what can I say .
Rational Debate says:
August 26, 2011 at 5:35 pm
RACookPE1978 says:
August 26, 2011 at 5:49 pm
Hear! Hear! …and hats off to both of you.
izen, et al ad nauseum
AGW
theoryhypothesis.Rational Debate says:
August 26, 2011 at 3:40 pm
Leif, dividing your chart that I already looked at into two parts doesn’t address my question/point.
Then I don’t know what your point is/was. Solar activity in the 18th and 19th centuries was as high as in the 20th, yet the temperatures were significantly lower. The temperature response to a step change in TSI is investigated here http://www.leif.org/EOS/2011GL048623.pdf of course it takes a thousand years or more to change the temperature of the deep ocean, but note that half of the total temperature change takes place in the first 15 years: figure 2.
anna v says:
August 26, 2011 at 8:47 pm
This leaves the scientific ethics question open. There are many many people who doubt the ethics of people like Hansen and Gavin et al.
Not ALL modelers are like Hansen et al.
R. Gates says:
August 26, 2011 at 4:21 pm
Richard S Courtney says:
August 26, 2011 at 12:45 pm
Why was the earth warmer in the past when the sun’s output was lower by 30% Could it be the radiative forcing of GH gases, which were much higher then? Suggest you read:
http://www.pnas.org/content/105/5/1425.full
But you probably won’t.
Well I did. It says a lot about your “logic” – replying to an issue about the “dim sun” solar radiative increase over billions of years with an article concerning the last 20,000 years. Master of the non-sequitur as always.
The article is edited by Susan Solomon, a politician and AGW activist but not really a scientist. The abstract also contains this ass-backward inverted logic:
“In contrast, past greenhouse gas radiative forcing, causing climate to change, is well known from ice cores.”
Actually ladies, what is well known from ice cores is that they show CO2 levels rising consistently several centuries AFTER temperature rises, proving that CO2 change is the effect, not the cause of temperature change.
Are you Susan Solomon BTW?
This CLOUD experiment in the lab, showing cloud seeding in a controlled study of atmospheric chemistry, is reminiscent of the famous study by Miller and Urey in the 1950s where ammonia, methane and other gasses were incubated in a simulated primordial atmosphere, and creation of biological molecules such as amino acids was interpreted as pointing to how life could have originated.
The political and societal reaction to both these studies is instructive. Both are demonstrations only of chemical processes in a highly controlled environment, and not in themselves conclusive proof of either abiogenesis or cosmic ray climate forcing. However the political and media reaction to both was diametrically opposite.
Urey and Miller’s experiment became scientific orthodoxy almost overnight, since it served a political and cultural need to attack Christianity (as if all Christians were 6-day creationists). All biology text books dutifully trotted out Miller and Urey’s work as established fact about the origin of life.
Now however an equivalent piece of work – in fact a stronger and better controlled demonstration of GCR related atmospheric chemistry, has curiously not been welcomed so enthusiastically. Since it undermines the political dogma of AGW, there is this wide-ranging attempt to discredit it. The dishonesty, duplicity and cynicism of the mandarins of the media and scientific-political establishment is clearly in evidence.
I read Gavin’s response to this story and found it to be one of the more reasonable responses I’ve read yet. No fanboy stuff, rather cold and linear. I tend to believe this story is unfinished, but favors the skeptic more than the whacked out, bat turd crazy Gavinesque alarmist view, but I’m also trying to project a softer, more conciliatory tone into the debate.
izen says:
August 26, 2011 at 8:46 pm
@-Theo Goodwin
“If you want to find fault with the scientific method in climate research on the AGW theory then compare it with similar research that was successful rather than the passing paradigm of the socio-philosophers.”
There is no need to look outside climate science. The work of Svensmark and the work of Kirkby are entirely in accordance with scientific method. They have no trouble with it, so why should others?
The train wreck that is CAGW occurred because gullible politicians and media people believed that computer models can substitute for physical hypotheses. As I have explained here today, that is not possible. Scientific method teaches this fact. If our citizenry became conversant with scientific method there would be no train wrecks of the CAGW sort.
Leif Svalgaard says:
August 26, 2011 at 3:33 pm
Theo Goodwin says:
August 25, 2011 at 8:18 pm
you have no understanding of scientific method whatsoever.
I gave you an example of the scientific method in action. You have no comments on that?
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2011/2011GL048616.shtml with article here
http://www.leif.org/research/Semiannual-Comment.pdf
Theo Goodwin says:
August 26, 2011 at 2:34 pm
The basic terminology of scientific method
“You have demonstrated that you can cut and paste, but have not shown that you understand or have any experience with what you pasted. How often do you apply the ‘scientific method’?”
You are committing libel against me. I wrote every word in that post while sitting here at this computer today. Leif, I can explain scientific method. I can explain its use. I can explain the importance of its use. You have nothing to say on any of these matters. When you say that you understand scientific method, you are bluffing.
Leif Svalgaard says:
August 26, 2011 at 3:33 pm
“Kirkby follows the scientific method religiously. He designed his experiment in a controlled environment so that he could investigate the interactions among water vapor, sulphuric acid, ammonia, cosmic rays, and nothing else. To his surprise, he learned that those four ingredients are not sufficient to create low flying clouds in Earth’s atmosphere.
So, following the scientific method, he has now disproved the hypothesis, as you admit: “4. Confirmation: the event of discovering that a prediction correctly describes observable fact and, for that reason, has been found to be true” which in his case he did not find, thus disproving the hypothesis.”
Scientific method does not guarantee that you will find your hypothesis confirmed. It guarantees that your hypothesis will be tested against the real world. Kirkby was surprised by disconfirming evidence but realized that the discovery of his false prediction was more valuable than his original hypothesis. So, he is off on a new hypothesis. That is how scientists should proceed.
Leif Svalgaard says:
August 26, 2011 at 3:33 pm
“You prescribe what they are supposed to find [just like the IPCC] or describe what you wish them to find. You call that the ‘scientific method’?”
Gaia modelers have no physical hypotheses about cloud formation. Kirkby just demonstrated that. Because they have no physical hypotheses then they should Stand Down on the question of global warming until they have a reasonably well confirmed set of physical hypotheses.
This paper supports what the IPCC has said about cosmic rays and cloud formation. Another piece of work supporting the IPCC.
Leif Svalgaard and R.Gates are certainly in denial. They seem to have no clue of the scientific method. AGW theory and computer models are not reality, not proven and in fact are massive failures when tested against empirical evidence. No amount of waffling can obscure the truth.