Guest post by Patrick Michaels
When the battle is being lost, there is a tendency to try to raise a level of distraction to shift the attention away from the desperate situation at hand. Such is the noise being raised concerning my presentation of the results from a recent series of scientific findings and observations—that lend further support to notion of modest climate change. The apocalyptics and the gloom-and-doom crowd are losing both the science battle and the policy war.
Dana Nuccitelli (aka dana1981) over at the website Skeptical Science has recently written a screed purporting that I delete “inconvenient” data in order to make my points. In fact, what I have done is to highlight the major findings of the studies I have commented on—findings that have indeed strengthened the case that global warming in this century will be in the lower end of the range of projections issued by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Mr. Nuccitelli starts by digging up the dead horse of my 1998 testimony to Congress and my presentation of the global temperature projections made ten years earlier (in 1988) by NASA’s Jim Hansen. In my testimony before the Committee on Small Business of the U.S. House of Representatives in July 1998 (available here) I elected to focus on a comparison between the observed temperatures and those projected to have occurred under Hansen’s (in his words) “business-as-usual” (BAU) scenario. Remember, this was in 1998. There was no worldwide treaty reducing carbon dioxide emissions (indeed, there isn’t one now). The only change to BAU that took place in the 1988 to 1998 time period was the Montreal Protocol limiting the emissions of CFCs. Reductions in production began only in 1994 and the radiative effect of the Protocol by 1998 was infinitesimal. To me, BAU means BAU. One of the main points that I was making in my 1998 testimony was that observations indicated that the global temperature were rising much less than Hansen had forecast under BAU, which is what happened. That was true then, and it remains true today, as the amount of warming he overforecast in 1988 is painfully obvious.
Mr. Nuccitelli then criticizes my handling of the results of a pair of new scientific studies examining the earth’s climate sensitivity by Schmittner et al. (2011) and Gillett et al. (2012). Each of these research teams reported rather lowish estimates of the climate sensitivity. As in any scientific study, there is a lot of discussion concerning data and methods and results in these papers and caveats and uncertainties. In my summary of them, I focused on the major results much as the authors did in the papers’ abstracts. In both case I wrote positively about the findings. Not having obtained the actual raw data from the authors themselves to enable me to create charts directly illustrating the paper’s main points (a task that is commonly not altogether straightforward, timely, or even successful; see the Climategate emails for examples of the myriad of potential difficulties encountered in such an effort), I did the next best thing, which was to adapt the published figures to simplify and highlight the major results (and focus my accompanying text on the main findings).
For example, from Schmittner et al., I removed from one of the original figures some data pertaining to individual components (land and ocean) because the paper was about global temperature and I am concerned about global sensitivity. I showed the global results (and noted in the caption of the Figure I presented that it had been “adapted from Schmittner et al., 2011″). The finding that I showed was the same one which the authors focused on in their abstract which I reproduce here in full:
Assessing impacts of future anthropogenic carbon emissions is currently impeded by uncertainties in our knowledge of equilibrium climate sensitivity to atmospheric carbon dioxide doubling. Previous studies suggest 3 K as best estimate, 2–4.5 K as the 66% probability range, and non-zero probabilities for much higher values, the latter implying a small but significant chance of high-impact climate changes that would be difficult to avoid. Here, combining extensive sea and land surface temperature reconstructions from the Last Glacial Maximum with climate model simulations, we estimate a lower median (2.3 K) and reduced uncertainty (1.7–2.6 K 66% probability). Assuming paleoclimatic constraints apply to the future as predicted by our model, these results imply lower probability of imminent extreme climatic change than previously thought.
And the same is true for my encapsulation of the work of Gillett and colleagues. In this case, I simplified one of the original figures by removing some results that were derived using a shorter and incomplete (1851-2010 vs. 1901-2000) temperature record while retaining the same record that was preferred by the authors (and again noted in the caption to the Figure that I presented that it had been “adapted from Gillett et al., 2012″ and additionally added that “the original figure included additional data not relevant to this discussion”).
That one of the primary scientific advances of the paper was the result derived using the more complete temperature time series is demonstrated by the paper’s title “Improved constraints on 21st-century warming derived using 160 years of temperature observations.” Note the words “improved” and “160 years of temperature data” (the full record).
I invite you to compare the “before” and “after” images from these two papers as detailed by Dana Nuccitelli with the descriptions made in summary by the paper’s original authors and you’ll see that I was being true to their work. Further, read through my articles (here and here) spotlighting their results and you’ll see that I was also quite supportive of their findings.
Mr. Nuccitelli, as a contributor to Skeptical Science—a website dedicated to trying to bolster the alarmist claims of human-caused climate change—realizes that it is in his best interest to try to obliterate evidence which paints a less than alarming picture of our climate future. Anyone who both produces and synthesizes such findings will be his target. That’s just the way the game is played by alarmists like Dana and the ever-obnoxious Joe Romm (who probably has done more damage to his cause with his over-the-top vitriol than he can possibly imagine).
If evidence continues to accrue that the earth’s climate is not changing in a manner sufficient to inspire enough fear in the general populace to demand life-altering energy limitations, attacks will continue by those, to use Mr. Nuccitelli phrase “who simply don’t want to accept the scientific reality.”
To keep up with the latest scientific findings concerning climate change highlighting the modest nature of the expected changes—findings that which are unlikely to be highlighted in the general media—I invite you to drop in from time to time here at World Climate Report , my “Climate of Fear” column at Forbes, my “Current Wisdom” feature at Cato, or any of the other sites, such as Watts Up With That? or Junk Science, that occasionally highlight my writings.
And, as always, if you ever don’t believe what I have to say, or want to investigate the issue in more detail, I include a list of references of the papers that I am discussing. So, as Casey Stengel used to say, ‘you could look it up.’
References:
Gillett, N.P., et al., 2012. Improved constraints on 21st-century warming derived using 160 years of temperature observations. Geophysical Research Letters, 39, L01704, doi:10.1029/2011GL050226.
Schmittner, A., et al., 2011. Climate sensitivity estimated from temperature reconstructions of the Last Glacial Maximum, Science, 334, 1385-1388
DOI: 10.1126/science.1203513
UPDATE: Shub Niggurath shows even more integrity issues at Skeptical Science.
Actually Thoughtful says:
“…at what temperature will you give up the myth that the world is cooling, or holding steady, or whatever you are pushing and switch to the next fallback in the endless skeptic battle – no PROOF that it is CO2 (this is the next line after giving up, as hopeless, that you can convince people there is no warming when we all have access to the data).”
I think you are misrepresenting what Lars wrote. His linked chart showed no rural warming or cooling. Depending on the time frame, that is a valid argument. But with a longer time frame, it is clear that the planet has been warming since the LIA. The problem with your belief system is that the warming has followed the same trend line since the LIA – since well before CO2 began it’s current rise.
Regarding your “PROOF” that CO2 is causing global warming, proof is non-existent. AGW is a conjecture. To be raised to the status of a hypothesis requires that AGW must be testable. As I have patiently explained to you, AGW is not empirically testable [I happen to accept that CO2 results in some mild warming, but it is so minor that it can be disregarded for all practical purposes]. But that does not mean that AGW is any more than a conjecture.
Smokey – My fingers were notably faster than my brain. I didn’t mean to misrepresent Lars. It appears Lars is making the case for no warming (based on the graphs he chose to link). To which I respond, how much warming will move you off that position?
As for your bizarre claim that physics has somehow failed us – I note that gravity it still holding my butt in the chair as I type this – so we are OK in the main. As for your particular issue – you might want to investigate Arhennius (1896) (not a typo – well over 100 years of established science). Indeed, to those who are aware of the physics of greenhouse gases it is very well known that the earth would be dramatically colder in the absence of greenhouse gases.
Also – you seem trapped in the typical skeptic dead end of obsessing over tiny minutia and ignoring the big picture. Check out a post or two at SkS on the subject of multiple lines of evidence – that is the core problem with the skeptic position – they have to overturn so much of everyday science in order for their fantasy version of reality to prevail. Thus the focus on minutia in the hopes people will be derailed from reality by the occasional contra-trend bit of evidence.
I am rooting for you at some level, as AGW kind of sucks – but I am too much of a realist to put much stock in you guys on the fringe of science.
Let me give you an example (of why your outside-of-science efforts are relatively pointless) – I happened upon a meeting today at my city hall (decent sized town in the southwest) – they were talking about committing the City to responding to the 27 issues they had identified based on their analysis of climate trends between now and 2100 – their scenario was 5-8F more warming – and a 5% drop in precipitation (which I think is hopelessly optimistic on the precipitation front).
My City -in a bright red state – is planning for the reality of a warmer world! They are not sitting around examining their navel and appealing to hail-mary theories like Cosmic rays or the invisible 60 year cycle or CO2 is saturated or any of the other psuedo-science that populates this site – they have a fiduciary duty to WE THE PEOPLE to anticipate and respond to climate reality -and they are.
I have to say -my optimism for the peoples of this planet was greatly enhanced today.
I am quite certain that this is happening all over the country, in states red and blue – people are forced to act because it is too important not to – even as there is this supposed huge debate (which, as you know, is about 80% trumped up by sites like this and the main stream media (aka FOX) which thrive on the “controversy”.
So – to bring this back around – my question for Lars is – where in the 8F rise will you drop the “world is not warming” bit and fall back to something even more inscrutable (in the vain hope that you can baffle with BS?) If you (Smokey) too believe the world is not warming, or man is not to blame – then the same question applies. I haven’t found your comments particularly helpful or constructive, but I am ever optimistic.
Actually thoughtful,
Your city leaders sound like fools. There is zero evidence that the planet is going to warm by 8°C, and even mentioning such an outlandish number borders on the lunacy of Algore.
I’m busy on something more important, so maybe I’ll deconstruct your rant tomorrow. That will be easy. In the mean time, Pseudo-Skeptical Pseudo-Science probably won’t tell you this, but Arrhenius recanted his 1896 paper in a new 1906 paper. You could look it up.
Smokey – are you a different avatar of PhilJordan? You too seem to have misread what I wrote (on purpose or not is unclear).
The letter C vs the letter F is fairly important when discussing global warming – one indicates nearly double (or half, depending on perspective) of the other. Read carefully – you might learn something.
My point is that City councils are doing this all over the country – you and the WUWT crazy crew should get on it and EXPOSE this radical/socialist/marxist prudent planning. Go out there and SHOW America what crazy really looks like. I don’t think the whole temperature recording stations sited on top of restaurant grills really showed what you can do – by all means go back to the well!
I know all about Arrhenius and the supposed 1906 revision – none-the-less his work stands. You should endeavor to really understand that – one of the the skeptics downfall is a complete misunderstanding of the scientific method – and the Arrhenius CO2 work is as good a case study as any.
Good luck with you project. As for fools -a mirror might be your shortest path to fool identification.
Funny you mention Al Gore – I have never seen a skeptic who invoked ALGORE ever be worth the time (there seems to be some sort of short circuit when a person with a lose relationship with science ponders that even a politician understands the science better than they do – not really sure what the reason is – but it has happened time and time again.)- will you prove or disprove that rule? Given your alphabet soup gaffe (and posts upthread), you will probably prove the ALGORE rule true yet again, but I remain ever optimistic.
“Actually Thoughtful says:
January 20, 2012 at 8:17 pm
They are not sitting around examining ……or the invisible 60 year cycle”
You challenged me to something on the other thread and I responded at 11:51 AM on that thread. Yet at 8:17 PM you challenge Smokey and mention the 60 year cycle that I talked about earlier but I have not seen you at that post.
(P.S. Smokey, it was up to 8 F not 8 C, but your point was still valid that 8 F (or 4.4 C) is still considered extremely unlikely. 🙂
So I will repeat my earlier post and point out the 60 year cycle is NOT invisible!
“Actually Thoughtful says:
January 19, 2012 at 11:19 pm
Werner Brozek – why is 10 years too long to ignore? Why have you cherry picked your dates so carefully?
Climate is defined as 30 years.”
I believe that both 10 years and 30 years are not correct. The real value should be 60 years since there seems to be a 60 year cycle as the following shows:
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/akasofu_ipcc.jpg
Let me apply an analogy. Let us suppose that the day is warmest at 12 noon just for discussion sake. What the 30 year period does is take the trend from 2 A.M to 2 P.M. and says we are warming rapidly. What really should be considered is what happened from 2 A.M one day to 2 A.M the next day. So the 10 years of flatness in this analogy is from 10 A.M to 2 P.M. The way I see it is that in the big picture, the last 10 years of flatness merely confirms the 60 year cycle is still working and that we are now headed into a cooling mode. Under this scenario, we do not have to wait another 10 years to see 30 years of no temperature change, but we only need to wait 10 years. Using the clock analogy, when an hour passes to 3 P.M., you have to back to 9 A.M to get a straight line again. This is more or less what happened to RSS and HadCrut3 over the last month of cooling.
Then there is the other matter of us coming out of the LIA so there is a slight upward slope. How much of this slope is due to CO2 is a matter of debate, but I am convinced it is not enough to be the least bit concerned about.
Out of curiosity, it appeared that in the year 2010/11, a non trivial, one trillion dollars was invested in clean energy technology in just one year.
In Asia, both the wealthy Chinese and the South Koreans invested additional funds to double their previous peak production levels of silicon solar cells by December 2011, in order to meet projected sales demands for 2012/13, to the crowd of growing cynics and pragmatists. Perhaps, do these evil cynics and pragmatists, see something in climate change, we prefer not to see?
In September 2011, GE invested heavily in the Brazilian EBX solar cell facility to double it’s existing production level as well. GE, which is by way, one of North America’s largest producer of electric wind turbines, also owns and operates a thin film film solar cell production facility in Colorado. At the Colorado plant, plans are underway to double it’s existing level of production of solar cells, in order to meet current sales orders expected in 2012/13!
Sadly, it would seem, cashed up GE, along with wealthy US and overseas investors and the major players merchant bankers such as Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch/Bank of America, after seeing how the clean energy industry has grown since the humble primitive beginnings in 1977, are clearly not listening to the message Pat Michaels is telling us.
Qui beneficia.
Actually Thoughtful says:
January 20, 2012 at 7:11 pm
“Lars P – so tell us when, given the cold PDO and the whole collection of fictions you live by – we will return to the temperature of the early 1980s (GISS – not playing the satellite game and of course HadCrut is verboten to any skeptic as climategate exists (I must note the only hoax is that emails are somehow cooling the earth – but I promise not to respond on climategate) – I have to point it out only to keep you honest – no fair claiming the Hadcrut data is cooked, then using it to support your obviously false claims).
And at what temperature will you give up the myth that the world is cooling, or holding steady, or whatever you are pushing and switch to the next fallback in the endless skeptic battle – no PROOF that it is CO2 (this is the next line after giving up, as hopeless, that you can convince people there is no warming when we all have access to the data). Then you can graduate to there is no such thing as man-made CO@ur momisugly and then you can tell us it is only 3% and on and on and on.”
I answered to your points per point. You do not answer to my points but raise new ones.
“Given the cold PDO” – since when is the PDO cold? When was it warm? What was the temperature increase by the warm PDO? Where was this taken into account?
Will really like to see your answer to this, but have no expectations.
“claiming the Hadcrut data is cooked” When did I made such claim? Where I have a problem with the “keepers of the temperature” I told it clearly: When their own data is not consistent with their own previous historic data. This raise a big question mark to the integrity of the data. If historical values change, the red light of “data fudging very probably” blinks. If the older relative positions to each other change it means either the older releases were totally garbage or the newer ones are. As the data is issued by the same people and there is no message telling “oh we did it wrong, there was a big error we corrected, see here is the error, we issue a new series with the correction, please see and double check”, if I see no such message no such correction just gradually fudging the data which magically comes closer to “the message” and “the cause” then I do not trust them at all and remove it from my references.
Even if I would see the previous message this would mean I would give them less credit as they already had a lousy control, maybe others are doing better job, but nevertheless keep an eye on their work, maybe they improve.
“GISS not playing the satellite game” – well this is indeed very interesting. The space exploration agency which is dedicated to space exploration does not use satellite data? Not even to double check and confirm the measured values? What for are they space agency? What for do they use money dedicated for space exploration? These are question that the persons who give the money should ask themselves and get answers.
“the whole collection of fictions you live by”
Which fictions? You have not addressed one point from what I said to show it is a fiction but suddenly call a whole collection? Show them to me. You may have other views on how science can and should be done. Ok, those are your views, I keep mine but then we agree to disagree. As the recent scandals showed in other domains such fudging of the data happen and are very dangerous causing much harm and waste and even human life lost so we must be very careful how we set our standards.
And again you keep pushing your faith but in 20 posts so far mentioned nothing about the science you support just some vague 3°C warming per doubling CO2. This is no faith discussion or should not be.
“I must note the only hoax is that emails are somehow cooling the earth – but I promise not to respond on climategate”
Which one are you addressing here? You do not understand what climategate shown? Then for “hiding the decline” please see it is clearly explained by Richard Verney above:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/01/17/a-response-to-skeptical-sciences-patrick-michaels-serial-deleter-of-inconvenient-data/#comment-869272
“It was the KNOWN UNRELIABILITY of the paleo record which the ‘scientists’ were trying to hide when they were seeking to ‘coceal’ the divergence problem and splice on the instrument record for the period post 1960 without showing the paleo reconstruction for the later period. ”
For the rest, you may want to read the discussions archived with an open mind.
“I have to point it out only to keep you honest ”
I don’t need you to keep me honest.
I look for it myself, would expect for you to do the same for yourself. I am not perfect, I might make errors and have to correct them. You have pointed to no evidence of my being dishonest to allow you that preposterous sentence. Others pointed to the need to keep you honest, so be honest to us and yourself:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/01/17/a-response-to-skeptical-sciences-patrick-michaels-serial-deleter-of-inconvenient-data/#comment-869341
“And at what temperature will you give up the myth that the world is cooling, or holding steady, or whatever you are pushing and switch to the next fallback in the endless skeptic battle ”
The world has changed and will change, we and also you have to learn and live with it there is no “steady state”. Yes we influence the environment and yes the environment influences us. We are living with that.
There has been warming since the little ice age. There has been CO2 increase since the 1950’s. We see that.
There has been no dramatic change and no imperious need to address that. The seas are not increasing at dramatic rates and the warming was very mild and could be explained by natural variations. The mild warming since the LIA was beneficial.
So we need to keep that under observation and address the most urgent issues that we have but this is a different story.
Actually Thoughtful:
Knuttie and Hegerl (2008) is behind a paywall. Do you have a reference to said paper in the open?
From their abstract tho:
“The quest to determine climate sensitivity has now been going on for decades, with disturbingly little progress in narrowing the large uncertainty range.”
I don’t know if their paper had any verifiable proof that would reduce the uncertainty range concerning sensativity.
If it does, which verified model showed a more definitive sensativity value?
Werner Brozek says:
“P.S. Smokey, it was up to 8 F not 8 C…”
My apologies for the mistake, Werner. As I indicated, I was in a hurry, and used the Centigrade convention that everyone uses. Only someone trying to make the number bigger and more alarming, Like A.T., would use °F.
You also commented: “Then there is the other matter of us coming out of the LIA so there is a slight upward slope. How much of this slope is due to CO2 is a matter of debate, but I am convinced it is not enough to be the least bit concerned about.”
I have not been able to find the ‘slight upward slope’ you referred to in any charts with a correct y-axis. The green trend line in this chart actually shows that the warming trend is gradually slowing. Your Akasofu link shows a steady upward trend line from the LIA, but it does not show any accelerated rise in temperature, therefore the ≈40% increase in CO2 does not appear to have had any measurable effect. Please correct me if I’m wrong.
• • •
Actually Thoughtful says:
“Go out there and SHOW America what crazy really looks like.”
No need for that, your comments are sufficient. And city councils that waste their taxpayers’ time and money by impotently tilting at windmills should instead be taking action filling pot holes in their city streets, and maintaining other infrastructure. Let us know when your city has no more pot holes in your streets. And wake me when you stop using products produced and created with fossil fuels, and when you stop driving, and when you stop heating your home, and when you stop using anything made of plastic, and when you stop buying food grown with manufactured fertilizer, etc., etc.
Finally, Arrhenius recanted his very high sensitivity estimate of 1896, and replaced it in his 1906 paper with ≈1.6°C, IIRC. That estimate is still too high, as current temperatures show. But even if it were accurate, that minor warming would be nothing to worry about. In fact, it would be welcome, because warmth is good; cold kills. There is nothing wrong with global warming, which is a net benefit to the biosphere [as is more CO2].
Run along now back to Pseudo-Skeptical Pseudo-Science, you need some new talking points.
• • •
Lars,
“Actually Thoughtful” is mendaciously trying to paint you into a corner, by dishonestly commenting as though you are denying that the planet is warming. In fact, it was Michael Mann who preposterously claimed that the temperature did not change until the Industrial Revolution, when it shot up. Mann’s claims have since been completely debunked, but his lemming-like followers still believe that the current warming is unusual. It is not, it is simply a continuation of the natural warming trend since the LIA.
Smokey:
The current warming is anything but unusual:
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1910/to:1945/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1975/to:2011/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1910/to:1945/trend:1.0/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1975/to:2011/trend:1.0
Note that both series are 35 years in duration. (I know…I know..17 years is the new time frame….but neglecting that)…..
Note that the RATE of warming in both periods is virtually identical.
However, we all know that the level of atmospheric co2 has risen during our current leg of warming.
With that said….why were the two rates of warming virtually identical?
A question yet to be answered.
I understand that Arrhenius originally estimated that doubling CO2 would lead to a temperature rise of 5–6 °C, but subsequently, in 1906 he revised this figure to a reduced value of 1.6C, and by including the effects of water vapour, 2.1C
So 100 years ago, in the early 20th century the estimated effects of doubling CO2 ranged from 1.6C-2.1C at the lower end, to 5-6C at the upper end.
A very recent publication “Anthropogenic and natural warming inferred from changes in earth’s energy balance”, Huber & Knutti, (Nature Geoscience Letters, 4 December 2011) states “the resulting distribution of climate sensitivity (1.7-6.5C), 5-95%, mean 3.6C) is also consistent with independent evidence derived from paeloclimatic archives.”
This particular publication derives its results from a CMIP3 Climate Model. It is stated in the text “The model results for 1950-2004 are shown in Fig 2c,d, and compare very well with recent observational estimates, partly as a result of calibrating the model to the observed total ocean and surface warming.” ….. “The near constant ocean temperature over the past five years are not simulated by the model and its causes remain unclear”.
One can interpret this two ways. First, Arrhenius, working entirely alone, showed remarkable foresight in identifying the range of uncertainty.
Alternatively, after 100 years, and 70-80 billion dollars spent, the range of uncertainty is exactly the same as that defined 100 years ago, while the explanation for the last 5 years constant ocean temperature remains unclear.
And so the science is settled. Makes you think ! And undoubtedly leads to long threads of debate.
Smokey says:
January 21, 2012 at 8:29 am
“Lars,
“Actually Thoughtful” is mendaciously trying to paint you into a corner, by dishonestly commenting as though you are denying that the planet is warming. In fact, it was Michael Mann who preposterously claimed that the temperature did not change until the Industrial Revolution, when it shot up. Mann’s claims have since been completely debunked, but his lemming-like followers still believe that the current warming is unusual. It is not, it is simply a continuation of the natural warming trend since the LIA.”
Thanks Smokey, you are right.
Camburn,
Even PhilJones admits the current warming trend has repeatedly occurred:
http://jonova.s3.amazonaws.com/graphs/hadley/Hadley-global-temps-1850-2010-web.jpg
Werner Brozek – I don’t buy the 60 year cycle, but I am glad we are now in the 2nd half of that mythical cycle, as when the warming continues (I believe GISS lists 2011 as 9th hottest on record) – those you using this bit of fiction as a crutch for your unwillingness to take simple action to end man made global warming will stumble badly as your crutch dissolves from the observable evidence (like all previous skeptic arguments have (those that were susceptible to reality in the first place).
BTW – 5F is 2.8C – well within the range of likely outcomes for my region. As is 8C. Remember this is global warming writ small – our City is acting locally due to global events. Yours is too – if not there will be some sad pandas in your neck of the woods (ooh I just love mixing metaphors!)
PS – sorry for getting your last name wrong on the other thread.
Werner Brozek: “How much of this slope is due to CO2 is a matter of debate, but I am convinced it is not enough to be the least bit concerned about.”
Are you intellectually honest enough to admit that regardless of your opinion, there is precious little science that supports your opinion?
As an opinion I am very willing to support you in having it. it is when you represent your opinions as what the science shows (when we all know it is not) that things get problematic. But if it is merely your opinion – we have no disagreement.
Smokey:
It is quite easy to see the cyclical nature of the temperature metrics. There does seem to appear an approx 60 year (+-10) cycle.
The last research of value concerning the sun’s output was presented by Dr. Svelgaard a few months ago. According to his research, the TSI has remained realtively constant for 100’s of years. He did not address the intensity of various light waves within the TSI, as that is an area that needs much more scientific investigation. It does seem that the UV spectrum varies considerably.
I have no doubt that the additional co2 that has been emitted increases temperature. I think your graph shows this very well. When looking at it, one can easily see that the increase in c02 in the past 50 years has resulted in approx .3C of warming. This is a broad statement, ignoring deforestation, ch4 etc etc.
OH wait, co2 may not be responsable for the whole of the 0.3C….dog gone it anyways. Just when I thought I had it all figured out…………oh well.
Back to the drawing board.
Actually Thoughtful says to Werner Brozak:
“Are you intellectually honest enough to admit that regardless of your opinion…”
Everything A.T. says is only an opinion. If it were not for psychological projection [imputing your own faults onto others], he wouldn’t have much to say.
Actually Thoughtful’s “8°C” [which has now mysteriously morphed from “8°F”] is risible lunacy. There is zero empirical evidence supporting that fantastic notion. To seriously claim that there is credible scientific support for believing that the planet will heat up by 8°C is nonsense. The most credible Authority – the planet itself – is falsifying his alarmist scare story [that same chart would have to be a lot higher in the x-axis if temperatures were to rise by a truly preposterous 8°C].
What A.T. is blustering and arm-waving about is nothing but the planet’s natural emergence from the LIA. Of course current temperatures are higher than past temperatures! The planet is naturally warming from the LIA. A.T.’s conjecture that CO2 has any measurable effect is missing one thing: verifiable measurements. Without testable, real world measurements, there is no way of knowing how much – or even if – CO2 affects temeperature. But based on the lack of correlation between temperature and CO2, the answer is: there is not much effect from CO2, if any.
Heystoopidone says:
January 21, 2012 at 12:35 am
Heystoopidone, is this what you mean by “investment”?
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/jan/20/stearns-destruction-solyndra-equipment-bonus-plan/
Smokey @10:23
Remember, correlation is not causeation.
OH wait….the correlation doesn’t even match as a causeation.
Dog GONE it….
OH well, back to the drawing board……again!
(MMMMM>…but is the last 40 years of co2 the new fangled version? I might have read somewhere that this new co2 will be in the atmosphere for 200 years instead of the previous 7-10 years the old co2 stayed in the atmosphere)
Lars – you, like me, may not believe everything that is posted on WUWT – but my PDO line come from this post -http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/01/19/global-temps-in-a-crash-as-agw-proponents-crash-the-economy/
I don’t think there is very much scientific evidence the PDO is going to save us. The scientific evidence says the world is warming AND man is to blame. You can see this visually by looking at the red and blue graph 1/3 of the way down the page at this link:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/Pacific-Decadal-Oscillation.htm
Lars asks: ““claiming the Hadcrut data is cooked” When did I made such claim?”
Lars then in the next sentence! makes EXACTLY that claim (and it goes on for the entire paragraph, but I am keeping it simple (Cue PhilJordon to declare me a liar again for telling the truth…)
Where I have a problem with the “keepers of the temperature” I told it clearly: When their own data is not consistent with their own previous historic data. This raise a big question mark to the integrity of the data.”
Lars – I don’t remember what you posted -I sometimes respond to the gestalt of a poster. But here above, upon your request, I have indeed directly responded – so the following, while possibly valid upthread (I haven’t done an extensive review of what you said, indeed of what I said in response to you – there are 95 invocations of “actually thoughtful” (er 96 now) on this page – two words not often used right next to each other except as my screen name):
““the whole collection of fictions you live by”
Which fictions? You have not addressed one point from what I said to show it is a fiction but suddenly call a whole collection?”
So – if you are unhappy with a certain thing I have said, please be specific, and I will respond to the specifics.
<>
On your honesty claim
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/01/17/a-response-to-skeptical-sciences-patrick-michaels-serial-deleter-of-inconvenient-data/#comment-869341
This is hilarious!! PhilJourdan making an unsupported claim about me “lying” becomes the truth for you! I have challenged PhilJourdan THREE times to explain where this mythical lie is. I gave him a face-saving out it my last attempt – that his silence would be accepted as admission that there was no lie – to date he has accepted that out.
YOU however, have just greatly devalued your efforts in persuading me that you are anything but a true believer. Do me a favor – stick to the science – and not the hysterical *and unfounded* claims of PhilJourdan.
Actually thoughtful: ““And at what temperature will you give up the myth that the world is cooling, or holding steady, or whatever you are pushing and switch to the next fallback in the endless skeptic battle ””
Lars {AVOIDING THE QUESTION and ENGAGING IN EXCESSIVE HAND WAVING!}
The world has changed and will change, we and also you have to learn and live with it there is no “steady state”. Yes we influence the environment and yes the environment influences us. We are living with that.
There has been warming since the little ice age. There has been CO2 increase since the 1950′s. We see that.
There has been no dramatic change and no imperious need to address that. The seas are not increasing at dramatic rates and the warming was very mild and could be explained by natural variations. The mild warming since the LIA was beneficial.”
You accused me of not answering your questions. Pot: Kettle.
Please step up your responses and include some science – this junior high “PhilJourdan said you were a LIAR” level stuff is really lame. You appear to not be a serious poster.
So we need to keep that under observation and address the most urgent issues that we have but this is a different story.”
Camburn – if you have the intellectual desire to learn (but perhaps are not familiar with how to acquire information the information age) – three relatively simple ways to get the Knutti and Hegerl paper
1. Go to SkS and drill down to the actual paper (this should be your goto response -afterall they always link to the real science). Indeed – this link http://www.skepticalscience.com/climate-sensitivity-advanced.htm
yields this link – which gets you to the ACTUAL paper(http://www.iac.ethz.ch/people/knuttir/papers/knutti08natgeo.pdf) -which you claim was pay-walled. As I said SkS is useful because their work is a balanced presentation of the science – and they provide links to the actual science so you can verify that and or learn more
2. Paywall simply means you must pay to access the material. If you want to learn badly enough – pay. These guys gave up 8-12 years of their lives AND paid to get their educations (and of course, chose a lower lifetime income by staying in academia and not industry
3. Inter-library loan – don’t forget about your local library – the magic of knowledge is available through this very, very socialistic institution!
PS – be sure to catch Huber and Knutti (2011):http://thingsbreak.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/anthropogenic-and-natural-warming-inferred-from-changes-in-earths-energy-balance.pdf
Finally Camburn – why are you so dependent on me? The knowledge – hard earned – has been obtained by others, you must simply understand their work and then you have the knowledge. At this point one can only assume you don’t want to learn – more fun, perhaps, to constantly whine that you can’t FIND the science. I have listed and linked a few papers to start your journey. Where you go from here is your choice.
Smokey – you ask to be corrected for your error – with pleasure:
“Your Akasofu link shows a steady upward trend line from the LIA, but it does not show any accelerated rise in temperature, therefore the ≈40% increase in CO2 does not appear to have had any measurable effect. Please correct me if I’m wrong.”
http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-cooling-january-2007-to-january-2008.htm
You are welcome.
But be warned – if you value internal consistency this may cause you problems. It superimposes the cherry picked “no warming” bits that are the bread and butter of sites like this upon the actual, unadulterated instrumentation record – you may see things that challenge your world view. I encourage you to view and understand the final, animated, graphic – if you dare.
Actually thoughtful:” I have never seen a skeptic who invoked ALGORE ever be worth the time (there seems to be some sort of short circuit when a person with a losoe relationship with science ponders that even a politician understands the science better than they do – not really sure what the reason is – but it has happened time and time again.)”
Let’s call that my hypothesis
Smokey:”And wake me when you stop using products produced and created with fossil fuels, and when you stop driving, and when you stop heating your home, and when you stop using anything made of plastic, and when you stop buying food grown with manufactured fertilizer, etc., etc.”
Smokey providing verification of my hypothesis.
Thanks Smokey! you are helping my little hypothesis grow up into a genuine theory! At this rate it is well on its way to becoming a natural law!
Hypothesis A supposition or proposed explanation made on the basis of limited evidence as a starting point for further investigation.
A proposition made as a basis for reasoning, without any assumption of its truth.
Theory: a coherent group of tested general propositions, commonly regarded as correct, that can be used as principles of explanation and prediction for a class of phenomena
Camburn: “With that said….why were the two rates of warming virtually identical?
A question yet to be answered.”
Hmmm. Why don’t you look at solar activity for the two periods in question. DANGER you might learn something.
To be clear, because you and others don’t often track well – the question has been asked and answered countless times. In fact it has earned “Myth” status over at SkS – even though you have been banned for refusing to interact with the science – you can still read and learn at that site.
Malcolm S – well said. Although I think you are playing up the ocean bit. It is not surprising that we, as a land based species, are not as confident of ocean temperatures at depth as we are of land based.
It would be interesting to read the Knutti/Huber ocean bit in full context.