Guest post by James Padgett
Many of you are aware that the concept of continental drift, proposed by Alfred Wegener, was widely ridiculed by his contemporaries. This reaction was in spite of the very clear visual evidence that the continents could be fit together like a giant puzzle.
I think this is where we are in climate science today. There is an obvious answer that many experts cannot see even though a young child would understand when presented with the evidence.
Our current crop of experts cannot see simple solutions. Their science is esoteric and alchemical. It is so complex, so easy to misunderstand, that, like the ancient Greek mystery religions, there is a public dogma and then there are the internal mysteries only the initiated are given access to.
And then there are the heretics who challenge their declared truths.
That isn’t to say that many climatologists aren’t smart. On the contrary, they can be very smart, but that doesn’t preclude them from being very wrong on both collective and individual levels.
One of the most brilliant men alive in the last century, John von Neumann, believed that by the 1960’s our knowledge of atmospheric fluid dynamics would be so great, and our computer simulations so precise, that we’d be able to control the weather by making small changes to the system.
It is true that the climate models used today do a very good job with fluid dynamics, but despite that understanding we can neither predict nor control the weather (and the climate) to the degree he imagined.
An incredible genius, he made a mistake. He didn’t understand the fundamental chaos that made his vision impossible.
In regard to the climate, I hope my simple vision is closer to reality than the excuse-filled spaghetti hypothesis that currently brandishes the self-given title of “settled science.”
My proposal, that climate is primarily driven by solar and oceanic influences, is probably believed by more than a few skeptics, but hopefully I can make a compelling case for it that both small children and climate scientists can understand. To that end I’ll take a quick look at the temperature record from 1900 until the present. I will explain the case for the oceanic/solar model and articulate the excuses given by the anthropogenic camp for the decades that inconveniently do not line up with the hypothesis of carbon dioxide being the primary driver of climate change.
1900-1944:
This period is largely warming. What could possibly be the cause of that?
The sun seems to be the obvious answer. It is so obvious in fact that even most mainstream climatologists admit its influence in these years. Some also say there is an anthropogenic effect in there, somewhere, and they could be right, but it certainly isn’t obvious.
And while the Atlantic is in its cool phase over the earlier part of this period, the largest ocean, the Pacific, is warm,especially in the last couple decades, but when it turns into its cool phase….
1945-1976:
We get 30 years of cooling in the surface station record.
According to proponents of the anthropogenic model, the unprecedented increase in carbon dioxide following World War II was not only masked, but overpowered by sulfate emissions. That is an interesting excuse, but this cooling period exactly matches the cool phase of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO).
So much so that when it goes into its warm phase in…
1977-1998:
We get 20 more years of warming:
which is kicked up a notch towards the end as the Atlantic goes into its warm phase:
That leaves us with the final period from…
1999-Present:
After the super El Nino of 1998 temperatures have largely flat-lined and perhaps even dropped slightly. Both the Atlantic and Pacific are in their warm phases and the sun remains at the “high” levels following the recovery from the Little Ice Age, but the Pacific seems to be wobbling cooler and cooler as it shifts back into its cool phase.
True we are the “warmest decade on record,” but we are also the only decade on record with both oceans in their warm phases in a time of relatively high solar activity. The only comparable time would be during and around the 1930’s and early 1940’s, around the time of the Dust Bowl, and the sun wasn’t as active back then – and that’s assuming the records are an accurate reflection of global temperatures back then.
So how do climate scientists explain this lack of warming for over a decade? Ah, well they blame the sulfates again – a classic excuse, while others say that the heat has teleported deep into the oceans. I say teleported because there is no record of the journey of that missing heat into those unmeasured depths from the well-measured depths it would normally have had to travel through in order to get to that abyss.
Of course, others say this time period is simply not statistically significant, but the only period of heating we can’t directly trace to the sun, the time from 1977-1998, a mere twenty year period, is certainly statistically significant in some minds.
To that I only have one question for them:
Are you smarter than a 5th grader?
Cheers,
James Padgett
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I wonder how ‘statistically insignificant’ those 10 years would be to the AGW camp if they showed an increased WARMING?
G. Karst says:
November 5, 2011 at 1:16 pm
Curiousgeorge says:
November 5, 2011 at 12:34 pm
I see no reason why determinism and non-determinism should be mutually exclusive
Are you saying – that which has been determined is constantly being modified by that which has not been determined? The holographic projection of the big bang would apparently account for the determined source. However, what do you attribute the non-determined source to? The only thing that occurs to me is the introduction of intelligence, hence purpose, implying choice.
I admit – It all makes my head swim. GK
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I have no answer to your question. We are dealing with the “Unknown unknowns” with this. There is, of course, a faith based response. But, I won’t jump into that particular swimming hole. 😉
So what does a pleasant walk in the park signify?? GK
Volker Doormann says:
November 5, 2011 at 1:09 pm
Why do the imperfect reconstructed global temperature frequency spectra correlate with solar tide functions from real planets and its positions?
Except that what you plot is not the sum of the tidal effects of the planets.
R. Gates says: November 5, 2011 at 1:32 pm
… wining the minds of the public… it … isn’t rational arguments… but circus acts and emotional appeals.
haha, you said it!
Beyond the chuckle, I’m only in limited agreement – because, although people want a circus too, there is something people reach for that is higher, that makes us happy and proud to be alive, something like truth and integrity. IMHO, WUWT is a standing witness to this.
“Why is 20 years statistically significant when 10 years is not?”
“R. Gates says:
November 5, 2011 at 5:58 am
But, as a general rule, greater than 17 years is the minimum to see the anthropogenic signal”
I am confused now. Look at the following with the 95% confidence ranges.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcrut3/diagnostics/global/nh+sh/
Hold a ruler from the BOTTOM of the 95% confidence range for the year 2011 to the TOP of the 95% confidence range for the years 1989, 1990, 1991 and 1992. I come to the conclusion that warming IS significant for the years 1989 and 1992, but NOT significant for the years 1990 and 1991. So my question to R. Gates or the author of this piece is: Are we seeing an anthropogenic signal or not?
Leif Svalgaard says:
November 5, 2011 at 2:15 pm
Volker Doormann says:
November 5, 2011 at 1:09 pm
“Why do the imperfect reconstructed global temperature frequency spectra correlate with solar tide functions from real planets and its positions?”
Except that what you plot is not the sum of the tidal effects of the planets.
Science is not to argue what NOT is. Science is to argue what IS.
My plot shows a blue curve what IS the sum of solar tidal geometric functions of six planets and it correlates with well known global temperature functions.
That is a fact.
EOD
V.
It’s 15 years of no warming according to RSS data (1997-2011). If 2012 is cold, it will be 18 years (1995-2012) of insignificang warming for RSS data.
G. Karst says:
November 5, 2011 at 2:03 pm
R. Gates says:
November 5, 2011 at 1:32 pm
i.e. my house being washed away might be a great point of leverage to paying more in taxes to build up flood defenses.
So what does a pleasant walk in the park signify?? GK
____
Or libraries, museums, performing arts complexes, and so on for that matter. The further you move up from the basics (i.e. defense, roads, water, police and fire, etc.) to the niceties like parks, libraries, museums, the more you need to appeal to the rational side and the harder the “sell” to the taxpayer. And what you’ll find is the average socio-economic class of any given community will dictate what form of “sell” works best. Emotional appeal works best at the lower end, rational appeal works best at the higher. Thus, it is, for example, harder to get a working class community to vote for a museum, then an upper class. No judgements here as to which is better, but simple observation.
R. Gates says: “…This is muddled thinking at it’s worst….”
That is muddled punctuation at its worst.
“Many of you are aware that the concept of continental drift, proposed by Alfred Wegener, was widely ridiculed by his contemporaries. This reaction was in spite of the very clear visual evidence that the continents could be fit together like a giant puzzle.”
The problem is that he wasn’t the only one who worked in that field. In fact, most experts in the field who did work in it were for an expansional Earth. They were initially in favour of pangea where most of the theory’s development came from but there were too many issues with it. So they had to leave it behind (and where the expansionist Earth theory took over). When these scientists died, the remaining scientists that had always been opposed to any kind of continental drift decided to ignore the problems of the past as if they did not exist. So today’s continental drift threory is actually based on a theory that was left behind for being inadequate (but note that continental drift was never the issue at that point). For example problems, subduction is impossible in most cases where it would be required. Take Antarctica. No subduction possible because it creates a circle where sea surface would move toward a single point. Same thing around Africa. Same problem almost everywhere you look. Also, there needs to be an EXACT balance of new surface and destroyed surface (in fact, every 1 million years, the area of MORE than Africa would need to be created and destroyed and is only increasing, just think about it… Africa is 30million sq km. Every 1 million years, 35 million sq km will have to be created and destroyed. Next 1 million years, it will be 37.6 million sq km). With so many areas of the world that cannot upport subdiction, the theory becomes untenable. This was known well before we knew the age of the seafloor because it’s the oldest and most debunked theory around in this field even without knowing the seafloor age.
Also, much like AGW, it wasn’t that the pieces fit together that was the problem or the notion of continental drift. The problem was if it explained the other issues. Sound familiar? It should.
People really need to read up on the history of these theories. There were always three groups. The first group was for continental drift. The second was in support of this and pangea. The third did not support continental drift at all. The second group was the group that did the most work. They quickly found out that Pangea was an untenable proposition. So they came up with the expanding Earth theory. This used to be the accepted theory. When this group of scientist died out, group #3 took over. This is where they ridiculed group #1. Then they got the seafloor age. Since they used to ridicule group #1, they couldn’t very well agree with them. Also, they were adamantly opposed to group #2 for years. So they revived the Pangea theory for no other reason than they were opposed to everything else. And they could do this because the other two groups were long gone. With subduction, they claimed to have an explanation for the movement of the seafloor. Expanding Earth did not have a theory on how new matter is created or the expansion process. What we have today is essentially a situation where one would pretend gravity does not exist because there is no acceptable explanation for it.
Sound like AGW to you? It should. AGW Scientists are sure of themselves because they can’t explain it without blaming man. So I wouldn’t use plate tectonics as any kind of analogy. You’re actually supporting the opposite point of view.
Ultimately, we ALL have to show our homework, ……..
malagaview says:
November 5, 2011 at 3:08 am
Why is 20 years statistically significant when 10 years is not?
More importantly: Is (Tmax + Tmin) / 2 meaningful or statistically valid?
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2011/11/4/australian-temperatures.html
__________________________
Beat me to it.
After several years hanging around this site, I would say the sun, earth’s orbit/orientation, water (aka, oceans, clouds, water vapor snow….) with the odd volcano and meterorite thrown in and possibly Vukcevic’s Geo magnetic changes have a lot more effect on climate/temperature than a trace gas like CO2.
But CO2 has one characteristic the rest do not. You can TAX CO2 and makes lots of money off “indulgences” (CO2 credits) It can also be used to “punish” capitalism.
joel says:
November 5, 2011 at 7:07 am
From the viewpoint of a physician.
Statistics is the science of how numbers behave. Not many people really care about or understand statistics…..
The worst thing that ever happened was the “statistics packages” for computers that allows people to plug numbers into a program without knowing any of the underlying math/statistics dos and don’ts. It is about like handing the keys to you ten year old and telling him to go drive your car just because most cars are now automatics.
Gail Combs says:
November 5, 2011 at 3:45 pm
“After several years hanging around this site, I would say the sun, earth’s orbit/orientation, water (aka, oceans, clouds, water vapor snow….) with the odd volcano and meterorite thrown in and possibly Vukcevic’s Geo magnetic changes have a lot more effect on climate/temperature than a trace gas like CO2.”
___
Perhaps, in addition to this site, you should hang around other sites as well, and read up a bit more on the trace gas CO2. Maybe begin here:
http://scienceofdoom.com/2009/11/28/co2-an-insignificant-trace-gas-part-one/
And don’t stop until you’ve read all 8 parts.
Dave Springer says:
November 5, 2011 at 9:17 am
James, James, James…
Correlation is not causation.
The classic cautionary tale is to plot shoe size against income. Very high positive correlation – the bigger the shoe the larger the income…..
_____________________________
Bad example, at least “Classically” that is historically. I can name two factors that influence both shoes size and income… Make that three.
The first is age. A baby normally does not have a high income.
Second, women have smaller feet than men and women even in the same job earn less. A sex change would net me a higher salary than earning a masters degree(ACS salary survey several years ago)
Last, before 1900 shoe size would depend on getting enough to eat to grow to your full potential and that would depend on your parents income which would influence your education and future earning potential.
The reason we have a “theory” of how CO2 effects temperature is because a trillion dollars was thrown at the problem with the objective of coming up with an “explanation” Other information was cause for papers not to be published up to and including firing.
Reminds me of all the debates on how many angels can dance on the head of a pin…
R Gates
Furthermore, we’d have to know what the global temperatures would be like during the same period if you reduced the CO2 levels to 280 ppm or so. Interestingly, we can do that via the climate models, and we get something that looks a lot like the Dalton Minimum.
Please review your participation on this thread, as it is nonsensical.
You begin in response to those that question the model-based claim of AGW. They question that this could be happening here on earth, based on actual measurements of that earth. In response, you offer a paper which claims that it is not possible to detect modeled anthropogenic trends in modeled earths over periods of 17 imaginary years or less. Good to know about model earths, but what about the real one?
With this last post, your estimation of the models’ power grows infinitely. Even though you agree that the models cannot determine with any certainty what the modeled earths (let alone the actual one) are actually doing right now, even given the actual level of CO2, you nevertheless claim that those same models can permit us to know what the actual earth would be doing over the very same period with an imaginary CO2 level. LOL.
The danger in video games is that, although the vast majority of children can readily discern fantasy from reality, some unfortunately cannot.
Bernard J:
‘The fact remains that the sun’s output, and changes to such, are accounted for in climatological analyses’
OK I’ll say it again slowly. The sun’s effect on our climate is not yet fully understood. Try googling CERN CLOUD and see what you get. At CERN they certainly don’t know all the effects the sun has on our climate. In fact they are starting to understand just how little they know about solar effects on cloud formation. If they don’t know then it is impossible to model it and therefore cannot be ‘accounted’ for in any model. You say the the sun’s output is accounted for. I say it cannot be. A strawman argument that ain’t!
JJ says:
“With this last post, your estimation of the models’ power grows infinitely. Even though you agree that the models cannot determine with any certainty what the modeled earths (let alone the actual one) are actually doing right now, even given the actual level of CO2, you nevertheless claim that those same models can permit us to know what the actual earth would be doing over the very same period with an imaginary CO2 level.”
______
The power of models is their ability to indicate dynamical trends and relationships. (i.e. more CO2=less Arctic sea ice, etc.). The concept of what a model earth would be doing “now” or the real earth would be doing “now” is meaningless, as that is not what their intent is. Your misrepresentation of my comments perhaps indicates that you don’t really understand what models are for and aren’t for. In regards to what a Maunder or Dalton Minimum like solar event might do a model earth with both current levels and lower levels (as they were several centuries ago) is plug these into the model and see what trends and dynamics develops. Of course, the models don’t currently include all the effects that a quiet sun has on the climate (as they are either not fully know or not fully quantified). But of course, some skeptics want to insinuate that the models don’t include any solar effects, which is flatly wrong.
Arguing who’s right and who’s wrong about the climate is NEVER going to prove anything,unfortunately.(i do like a good argument sometimes,lol)
The media love arguments about this stuff.
INSTEAD
How about starting a campaign(starting with yourself,obviously) of having every peer reviewed journal that publishes climate predictions/projections DEMAND that EVERY author starts their predictions/projections with the words….
“I think”
R. Gates says:
November 5, 2011 at 4:30 pm
Perhaps, in addition to this site, you should hang around other sites as well, and read up a bit more on the trace gas CO2. Maybe begin here:
http://scienceofdoom.com/2009/11/28/co2-an-insignificant-trace-gas-part-one/
And don’t stop until you’ve read all 8 parts.
________________________________________
Water beats the crap out of CO2. There is a lot more of it (water) in the atmosphere and there are more and wider absorption bands. On top of that the first increments of CO2 have a heck of a lot more effect (exponential) That is just the water in the atmosphere.
On top of the water in the atmosphere you have 70% of the earth covered in H2O, a gigantic heat sink. And then there is changes in albedo caused by changes in clouds and snow cover.
Then there is the analysis of Jonathan Lowe (A Gust of Hot Air) – http://gustofhotair.blogspot.com/
Lowe does and analysis of thre hour time intervals over a 24 hour period and SHOWS
(Tmax + Tmin) / 2 is not statistically valid or useful. In other words Climate scientists have been chasing their tails for thirty years.
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2011/11/4/australian-temperatures.html
I think that real live OBSERVED data shot the CO2 theory as the prome climate driver full of holes.
I’d like to thank NetDr for providing this link above- http://people.iarc.uaf.edu/~sakasofu/pdf/two_natural_components_recent_climate_change.pdf
Though no climate scientist, I have thought and argued for several years that the longer term trend from the LIA must be subtracted from the recent trend (since WWII) in order to infer the anthropogenic footprint, if any. That is exactly the thesis of this peer reviewed paper by an arctic and climate scientist, Syun-Ichi Akasofu. The paper, IMO, is a must read. I sure would Like Anthony to feature this paper on WUWT, perhaps ask its author if he can update any of the graphs and also take part in a discussion of it. It would be very educational to have warmist critics, the author, and the rest of us wrestle with the thesis presented.
Doug Allen,
Dr Akasofu’s work has been featured on WUWT a number of times:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/?s=akasofu
He makes an extremely strong case thhat the warming from the LIA is natural.
Now they finally admit that temps are decreasing, or at least ‘pausing’.
Next they need to admit ditto for sea-level.
But their worst nightmare would be for CO2 to decline as well.
Can we ask in advance if that would make the Warmistas disband?
Already it turns out that the highest CO2 concentrations
are over the tropical forests, not here!
That could means that a cooling world
might lower its CO2 in spite of our combustion prodigies.
Truly we live in interesting times.
bob paglee November 5, 2011 at 1:27 pm The Sun is at the root of all warming
I have heard money is. Well, for Evil anyway. But I’ve also heard Global Warming is Evil at RC and Eli’s and Grant’s web sites and other places. Therefore, if money is the root of all Evil then it follows the root of Global Warming must also be money.