Guest post by Christopher Monckton of Brenchley
Even the name of the “Skeptical” “Science” blog is a lie. The blog is neither skeptical nor scientific. It is a malicious, paid propaganda platform for rude, infantile, untruthful, and often libelous attacks on anyone who dares to question whether global warming is a global crisis.
That poisonous blog has recently attacked 129 climate researchers, of whom I am one, for having dared to write an open letter to the U.N. Secretary-General asking him not to attribute tropical storm Sandy to global warming that has not occurred for 16 years.
The following are among the blog’s numerous falsehoods and libels:
1. On at least four occasions we are referred to as climate “denialists” – a term as unscientific as it is malevolent. We do not deny that there is a climate, or that it changes, or that the greenhouse effect exists, or that Man’s emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases enhance that effect and may cause some warming. We raise legitimate scientific questions about how much warming Man may cause, and about whether attempted mitigation can ever be cost-effective.
2. It is claimed that our “preferred route” to air our “grievances about global warming is via “opinion letters published in the mainstream media” rather than via peer review. Yet most of the signatories named by the blog as having “no climate expertise” have published papers in the reviewed literature. To take one example named by the blog, Professor Nils-Axel Mörner of the University of Stockholm has published some 550 papers, nearly all of them in the reviewed literature, and nearly all of them on sea-level rise, which he has been studying for 40 years.
3. It is claimed that our arguments are “unsubstantiated”. Yet our letter offered a great deal of substantiation, as will become evident.
4. Tom Harris of the Climate Science Coalition, one of the letter’s organizers, is described as “best known for grossly misinforming … university students about climate change in a Climate and Earth Science class he should never have been teaching”. The only sources given for this grave libel are a farrago of childish falsehoods on the “Skeptical” “Science” blog and its sole citation, an error-ridden screed circulated by the dishonestly-names “Canadian Committee for the Advancement of Scientific Skepticism”.
5. The fact that there has been no statistically-significant global warming for 16 years is described as a “myth”. Yet the least-squares linear-regression trend on the Hadley Centre/CRU dataset favoured by the IPCC indeed shows no statistically-significant warming for 16 years. The minuscule warming over the period is within the margin of uncertainty in the measurements and is, therefore, statistically indistinguishable from zero.
6. It is claimed that we were wrong to say there has been no statistically-significant global warming because the oceans have warmed. However, the standard definition of “global warming” is warming of the near-surface atmosphere. Also, measurements to date are inadequate to tell us reliably how much – if at all – the oceans have warmed in recent years.
7. It is claimed that we were wrong to say that computer models are now proven to exaggerate warming and its effects. Yet we had pointed out, correctly, that a paper by leading climate modelers, published in the NOAA’s State of the Climate report in 2008, had said that 15 years or more without global warming would indicate a discrepancy between the models’ projections and real-world observations and that, therefore, the models were proven incorrect by their creators’ own criterion.
8. It is claimed that we were wrong to state that some scientists point out that near-term natural cooling, linked to variations in solar output, is a distinct possibility. Yet some scientists have indeed pointed out what we said they had pointed out, though our use of the word “some” fairly implies there is evidence in both directions in the literature.
9. It is claimed that we used “careful wording” in saying that there is an absence of an attributable climate change signal in trends in extreme weather losses to date. Yet we were merely citing the IPCC itself on this point.
10. It is claimed that we were wrong to state that the incidence and severity of extreme weather has not increased. Though it is trivially true that temperature maxima have increased with warming, there has been no trend in land-falling Atlantic hurricanes in 150 years, and there has been a decline in severe tropical cyclones and typhoons during the satellite era.
11. It is claimed that we “falsely” accuse the U.N. Secretary General of “making unsupportable claims that human influences caused” tropical storm Sandy, and that “in reality, Ban Ki-Moon did not say climate change caused Hurricane (sic) Sandy”. Yet he had said: “Two weeks ago, Hurricane (sic) Sandy struck the eastern seaboard of the United States. A nation saw the reality of climate change. The recovery will cost tens of billions of dollars. The cost of inaction will be even higher. We must reduce our dependence on carbon emissions.” We had rightly written: “We ask that you desist from exploiting the misery of the families of those who lost their lives or properties in tropical storm Sandy by making unsupportable claims that human influences caused that storm. They did not.”
12. It is claimed that we are “a list of non-experts”. Yet half of the 129 signatories are Professors; two-thirds are PhDs, and several are Expert Reviewers for the IPCC’s forthcoming Fifth Assessment Report.
One day, the useless “Skeptical” “Science” blog may perhaps have a curiosity value to historians studying the relentless, lavishly-funded deviousness and malice of the tiny clique who briefly fooled the world by presenting themselves as a near-unanimous “consensus” (as if consensus had anything to do with science) and mercilessly bullied anyone with the courage and independence of mind to question their barmy but transiently fashionable beliefs. The blog’s falsehoods have made no serious contribution to the scientific debate that we who are genuinely skeptical and truly scientific have by our patient endurance now largely won.
As I am not a scientist I would like someone in simple terms to explain the following,
The moon in the daytime with no GHGs gets to 250f in a few hrs and at night time the temps plummit.
By comparison it seems the earth is kept cooler by GHGs in the daytime and at night time with GHGs we see a slow cooling. Maybe a bad comparison but I notice the desert with low moisture content leads to high daytime temps and at night rapid cooling to freezing- similar effect as the moon.
So greenhouse effect, is this merely the ability of the earth with GHGs to slow down cooling.
is seems to me that there is no problem in reaching high temps without GHGs – moon, or indeed lower amounts of GHGs- desert.
Excellent rebuttal. Does anyone actually read SkS any more?
I suppose it is good that someone bothers to visit that site(?) – and report back – but to be fair, I couldn’t bring myself to visit there ever again! IIRC, the dross being promoted there is quite poor (or certainly ‘was’ a couple of years ago) and one sided – but what struck me were how a large number of the comments reminded me of wailing infatuated schoolgirls fawning over their latest pop idol heartthrobs…
Bravo Christopher Monckton of Brenchley!
poor old earth trying to maintain an even keel , takes me a few minutes to get my bath water the right temp, I keep over compensating- oops darn to hot again, darn now its too cold.
Its Christmas, having some fun!!!!
richard says:
December 4, 2012 at 6:32 am
Simply put – Its a two way thing, in essence, the earths’ atmosphere both slows down the rate of heating AND slows down the rate of cooling!
that’s more like it Your Lordship…..”anyone with the courage and independence of mind to question their barmy but transiently fashionable beliefs.”
barmy – love it!! such an eclectically British descriptor.
One of the most popular themes now on television is to have mindless zombies wandering around biting/eating people. No matter how many the protagonists kill there are always more. This is the way it is with the mindless passionate trolls who with no thought or education, much less expertise in a subject, type crap on their computer and hit send. One can keep knocking them down, but they arise and type some more. Anthony, you have developed this knocking them down into an art form.
And the information that you provide as you do so is greatly admired.
@richard, there is an article on WUWT that could help answer some of your inquiry.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/01/08/the-moon-is-a-cold-mistress/
So sue. What’s hard here?
Could someone comment on who (or what organization) funds “skeptical Science”? I would like to know.
“Money is the root of all CAGW Climate Science.”
If one tries to understand Skeptical Science by using science and scientific discourse as a frame of reference, one encounters serious difficulties in trying to account for what one sees in association with that place. If one takes the view that it is a propaganda mill, then everything falls into place and all is explained. That blog uses only enough science to cloak their real intent. John Cook has no regard for his reputation whatsoever, as viewed from outside the circle of virulent Greens that he preaches to. But this is politics, Australian style.
Ouch.
Monckton has left a mark with this post.
I think what I like is his eye for absurdity. He zeros in on the complete lack of logic, factual errors, and non sequiturs such as are found in Skeptical Science.
As Mr Watts has demonstrated over the past 10 or more years, considerable uncertainty swamps any meaningful ability to assess global temperature. Those darned error bars are just too big! When one couples the uncertainties with the ability to quantify storm intensity in the 16th and 17th Centuries, the conundrum of the lack of correlation between carbon dioxide, temperature, and storms is laid bare.
Skeptical Science seems to follow the usual pattern: do not deal with the data, make personal attacks. When those supporting AGW are LESS qualified than those asking for better data, one need not wonder about the intellectual integrity of AGW. AGW has no integrity.
richard,
Put in simple terms: the surface of the moon changes wildly because the surface is dust in a high vacuum, which means it is a very good thermal insulator. Heat cannot get through either direction at all well and hence the very surface gets very hot when the sun is out (a month at a time, length of lunar day) and very cold at night (a month at a time).
Earth, Venus, Jupiter and others have in contrast a thermally bad insulator on the outside.
By comparison it seems the earth is kept cooler by GHGs in the daytime and at night time with GHGs we see a slow cooling.
==========
The surface temperature records show no increase in daytime maximum temperatures. It is the nighttime low temperatures that are increasing. When these two are averaged together, it creates the statistical illusion of warming.
However, what is actually happening is that the earth is becoming a more comfortable place to live. The days are no hotter and the nights are not as cold. The tropics are no hotter, it is the poles that are becoming warmer. In this respect the addition of GHG is acting like a thermostat to help better maintain the earth at a constant temperature.
We see this effect on Venus with its high CO2 atmosphere, where the planet is rotating so slowly that days and nights last the better part of a year. Yet on Venus there is almost no difference between daytime and nighttime temperatures. This is because CO2 “back-radiation” doesn’t just carry the energy back to the surface. It carries it sideways from the sunlit side of the planet to the nighttime side of the planet, making the night less cold.
So, to answer the National Geographic, what would happen if the earth stopped rotating; it depends on how much GHG there is in the atmosphere. Most likely there would be an increase in clouds on the sunlit side due to evaporation, and this would reflect much of the heat back to space. While on the nighttime side the increase in clouds would reduce the heat loss.
So, in this respect it could be said that without GHG, the earth would probably be much less hospitable for life than it is today.
Mmmm. Sliced and Diced Catastrophist for breakfast. — served cold after a proper roasting.
Anthony, a small suggestion: at the bottom of the Blogroll (a fitting place), you list as “Unreliable * ” the “poisonous blog” that is the subject of this feast for the eyes. Please add a point 3 to the asterisk note: “(3) numerous falsehoods” and link back to this page. I don’t want to lose the recipe.
Another fine missive, Your Lordship. May you continue to point out the fallacies sprayed about by the alarmists and enemies of science.
They’ve got a strange post up now telling how _even_ skeptics believe in the green-house effect, with Christopher 1 of 13 such examples listed.
After the list it starts “For any remaining hold-outs…”, which implies the 13 listed skeptics have previously contended there is no greenhouse-effect. The kids can’t help themselves.
It’s a good feeling knowing that Skeptical Science have stamped themselves on public record as true believers of the warming cult. Give it a decade and they’ll be lining up at the deed poll office.
(make sure that Way Back Machine is making back-ups of their site)
Of course I realize that the post was by Christopher Monckton of Brenchley. But it is Anthony who sets up this target range. And the many others who take advantage of the targets keep the action flowing. Thanks to all.
Much shorter version, the things SS gets right.
I do not like absolutes used in reference to anything scientific. That is an oxymoron. The only scientific absolutes are a few definitions, mostly from physics. You are other wise most correct about “Skeptical Science” in most if not all other references. “SS”, hum that is not an unfamiliar set of initials. I suspect the authors at “SS” believe propaganda and “the big lie” are the most appropriate way to spread their theology. They do have an inalienable right to be almost completely wrong. I for one find no offense in the term denier, if that is to mean I am am AGW atheist. It is a simple equation science = deductive reason and logic, theology = inductive reasoning and faith. I choose reason.
What is “skepical science” skeptical about? Are they skeptical that the climate changes naturally? Do they believe that the repeated ice ages and warmings are not natural cycles?
Are we to believe that Extreme Weather is the wrath of god visited on the earth for our sins? That god seeks to punish us for driving to work, heating our homes in winter, and cooling them in summer so that our children can prosper today and not be sacrificed to a future that may never come.
Are they denying that climate changes as a result of Nature, without any regard for Mann?
Why is it that it is the richest among us that are calling for the rest of us to sacrifice? What if everyone on the planet lived the lifestyle of Gore? Gore, who calls for women to have less children, while he himself has many. Gore, who calls for us to reduce, while he grows larger and larger in his mansion.
I propose we all take the “Gore Pledge”. “I pledge to consume no more than Al Gore.”
Why even bother with what SS says? Anyone who has tried honest, peer reviewed literature discussions there is banned.
The traffic count there is so low that they are a non-existent site. Don’t give them credence.
richard: In the laboratory we often use what we call a ‘constant temperature bath’ when we need to keep the temperature of some material or device from changing. It works by circulating a fluid in a container into which we immerse the device of interest. The fluid itself is heated or cooled as needed, with the need determined by a thermostat. It carries the heat (or cold) throughout the container, covering the exposed surfaces of the device.
The atmosphere works the same way, with air as the fluid, the sun as the heat source, and the night sky as the ‘cold source’. The main difference is that the planet does not have a thermostat; it evens its temperature out based on how fast it can absorb sunlight in the day and radiate heat at night.
The moon simply has no working fluid to do the job.
GHGs simply have a minor (differential) effect on how rapidly the air can absorb the sunlight. Most heat is transferred to the air by contact (conduction followed by convection) with the ground or the ocean, which are far more effective at absorbing heat from sunlight than the air is.
CO2 is only a minor factor in the heat absorbed by a minor component of the heat-absorbing system.
The committed require proof that they are overly certain, while the skeptical require only reasonable uncertainty to be uncommitted. This is the problem: a change of position requires quite different things for either side.
It’s as if warmists and skeptics were, respectively, dogs and cats: dogs regard all food-like objects to be edible until digestion proves otherwise, while cats consider mere appearance to be insufficient for any food-like object to be their supper.
Meow.
Anyone that pushes “AGW” is a nonbeliever in science, a skeptic of real fact. “Greenhouse Gas” as a concept was proved wrong in 1906 by Max Planck pg.
Everyone knows SS is a waste of bandwidth. Just ignore them, they are for the faithful only.
Quoting: We do not deny that there is a climate, or that it changes, or that the greenhouse effect exists, or that Man’s emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases enhance that effect and may cause some warming.
This is the entire problem. We have warmists who believe in global warming. We have sceptics who believe in global warming. Therefore we have a broad media consensus that GHGs cause global warming. The differing views within this consensus can never be reconciled with each other or with the laws of physics BECAUSE THEY ARE BOTH WRONG. By default the carbon crimes continue with the sceptics as guilty as the warmists.
Stay Cool!
Well done, as usual
Someone poiunted out years ago that if it’s in the name, then that’s likely the only place you’ll find it. Romantic comedies are rarely romantic or funny, the Progressives cling to tired, worn out ideas, and “Skeptical Science” doesn’t trust you to come to that conclusion yourself by reading the content.
Lord Monckton says: “To take one example named by the blog, Professor Nils-Axel Mörner of the University of Stockholm has published some 550 papers, nearly all of them in the reviewed literature, and nearly all of them on sea-level rise, which he has been studying for 40 years.”
Working on this post would take all week.
But, to the point of the second of 12 points, SkS didn’t say the signatories hadn’t “published papers in the reviewed literature” (although, Monckton, he hasn’t, right?), what SkS said was that they “air their grievances about global warming … through opinion letters published in the mainstream media.”
Um. What part of Harris’ writing an opinion letter to the secretary of the UN did he miss?
SkS point is that these “experts” should be answering the “debate” using science and peer review, the way that science experts usually do for a living.
But I think it’s remarkable that, to set the tone and trying to establish the legitimacy of his cosigners, Monckton refers to Mörner in this point. The Mörner that tilted a sea level graph on edge to make the point that sea level was not rising? That Mörner?
He could haven’t picked a better example to demonstrate SkS’s problem with his experts.
Christopher Monckton says: “12. It is claimed that we are “a list of non-experts”. Yet half of the 129 signatories are Professors; two-thirds are PhDs, and several are Expert Reviewers for the IPCC’s forthcoming Fifth Assessment Report.”
=====================================================
An “expert reviewer for the IPCC’s” is not necessarily a real expert.
According to the IPCC procedure, ANY person can register as “expert reviewer for the IPCC’s” on-line on their website and get a copy of the report to review.
“Expert reviewers” are simply volunteer reviewers, their reviews are not binding, and I guess, most of them will be thrown away without reading.
The only ‘trouble’ with SS is that so many deluded, useful idiots quote it as some type of ‘reference’ when discussing climate matters.
I tune out, mostly, when that happens; they then claim that I am discomfited by it’s perspicacity 😉
“The blog’s falsehoods have made no serious contribution to the scientific debate that we who are genuinely skeptical and truly scientific have by our patient endurance now largely won.”
How come it doesn’t feel like we won? Every time I turn on the radio I hear some distinguished professor attributing the extinction of some small critter to climate change. This is followed by a heartfelt plea for all of us to cut our CO2 emissions. When will they quit?
trafamadore says:
December 4, 2012 at 8:39 am
Being a case in point.
The case I now rest (as others will tear him a new one)
Top notch post. Thank you!
There is another possibility…
Perhaps there are two kinds of climate scientists. Those who like the challenge of explaining chaos and those who really wanted to be particle physicists but couldn’t quite do the maths, opting instead for a less demanding branch of science. Basically anyone who might accept them.
If your job requires you to understand things that are beyond your ability, you have a problem.
If you want clever people to do the work for you, you could do worse than expound a ridiculous theory and wait while they prove you wrong. When it is all sorted out, you show that your theory was the beginning of the process and share the accolades.
If you can pick up a few fat grants and the odd Nobel prize along the way, all the better.
Richard & Phil,
This posting is about the
“ . . . malicious, paid propaganda platform for rude, infantile, untruthful, and often libelous attacks on anyone who dares to question whether global warming is a global crisis.”
I did not see the Moon mentioned therein and, so I am surprised to find myself writing about it! What is measured thereon is a surface temperature, commonly called rock. Reference to Earth temperatures is usually an air temperature taken a few feet above the surface. However, explaining daily temperature changes on Earth needs to focus strongly on convection, not the so called GHGs.
Note that a “desert with low moisture content leads to high daytime temps and at night rapid cooling” is a statement that confuses several issues. Air masses that form above deserts are not devoid of moisture (unless it is a very cold desert – think Antarctica). In a subtropical region, say the USA’s southwest, where the solar input is high and water bodies few, the land heats and the water evaporates. In absolute terms, the humidity of the air is not actually low. In relative terms, it is. These things are discussed in basic earth-science texts under the headings of Air Mass source regions and their characteristics.
Ah God, Christopher, I love your very truthful bones. Had the privilege of seeing your presentation on the cost of the pointless exercise of pursuing anthropogenic CO2 reduction strategies at Keele University last year; and the honour of you replying personally to me, via email.
Facts. They hate facts. They cannot ABIDE facts. But, of course, facts and the stream of history will ultimately do for their mendacious and childlike agenda. There are already significant ‘wobbles’ in the powers-that-be over the ‘team story’, even though ‘carbon’ taxes are required to achieve their agendas. You can fool some of the people all of the time etc.
Hats off to my fellow UK-based contributors, Kev-in-the-UK and UK Sceptic – we all laugh merrily at the achingly embarrassing coverage from BBC ‘journalists’. But the time is approaching for the BBC. And – there will be blood. It is now a question of ‘when’ rather than ‘if’.
Trafamadore
I can see that you have not looked into Nis-Axil Morner’s credentials as a sea level expert, at which study he spent a lifetime. Also see his postings on his studies of the Maldives, starting in the 60’s. There are other surprises in store for you, concerning what he has to say concerning sea level studies as done by the global warmers, which see, if you have a mind to get informed. You would do well to start looking and thinking for yourself instead of parroting the phrases of the propagandists. By the way, what is the latest word on the Maldives? I can tell you. All of a sudden the sea level stopped rising when they got themselves a new president. The panic mongering drove away investors, so now the sea level there is falling. How about that! Whom do you believe? I believe Morner.
Like AGW, the only thing that will eliminate the deviously named SS, is a long and protracted cooling. I would rather live with their lies, than survive the world malstorm, that cooling would bring. Warming by comparison is a pleasant walk in the park. GK
Ferd Berple- We see this effect on Venus with its high CO2 atmosphere, where the planet is rotating so slowly that days and nights last the better part of a year. Yet on Venus there is almost no difference between daytime and nighttime temperatures. This is because CO2 “back-radiation” doesn’t just carry the energy back to the surface. It carries it sideways from the sunlit side of the planet to the nighttime side of the planet, making the night less cold.
I thought that Venus was classed as a new planet and as such the mantle had not hardened so interior heat -vast- over the whole planet was rising. I read that it is thought that the whole surface erupts, basically the earth in its earliest days, explaining the heat temps.
I can’t stop laughing at the euphemisms for “it falling apart” in this greenpeace article and I hope others appreciate it:
“We are well into the second and final week of the UN climate talks in Doha, but the outcome is still far from certain. Almost all major negotiation topics remain and we see little progress on overarching objectives. Ministers arrived this week to pick up the mantle. They must improve the negative trend.” http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/news/Blogs/makingwaves/doha-climate-talks-ministers-must-improve-neg/blog/43245/
Hide the decline? Improve the negative trend! It’s amazing the nonsense they people talk.
Global Warming most certainly does exist. Ever since man learned to make fire, as soon as temperatures didn’t suit him he would burn wood, coal, gas, or oil to warm his surroundings. Now there are over 7 billion people on the planet, each heating their domiciles, their office buildings, their shopping centers by burning wood, gas, coil, or oil, or converting electricity into heat. And all this heat escapes into the world at large. No matter how small an effect, it most certainly does contribute to the “average” temperature of the planet. No humans: no burning: no added heat.
Yet the earth doesn’t melt nor have run away heating. Why? Because the collective effect of all those people warming themselves (and therefore the world) is small in relation to the overall energy budget of the planet, and obviously the planet’s “thermostat” can handle that additional heat.
At what point do you worry? How much extra heat can be liberated by all those people before the permafrost melts and glaciers melt and sea levels rise? This is were imagination runs wild because nobody knows. For me the fact that the planet is here after 4.5 billion years with a stable climate that’s rather pleasant after surviving asteroid impacts, mass extinctions, floods, volcanism, etc. means it is far more robust than a few puny cavemen sittings around a campfire can alter.
Presumably, Monckton brings up the number of SS’s regular readers into double figures.
I wonder why?
And here is something else just off the press.
And if the lack of warming continues into next year we have another paper.
Global FAIL.
A real “Mann” would sue skeptical science for libel ;). However there is no need to do so as they foolishly shoot themselves in the foot for making absurd claims. More importantly when is the MSM going to start doing their job and expose these frauds.
philjourdan says: “Does anyone actually read SkS any more?”
—————————————
Unfortunately I’ve often seen warmists on sites like The Guardian “rebutting” an inconvenient comment by linking to SkS. No doubt some of the uninitiated will be swayed by their drivel – especially given the misleading title of the site.
5. The fact that there has been no statistically-significant global warming for 16 years is described as a “myth”.
It is worse than that! To the nearest year, there has been no warming at all for 16 years, statistical or otherwise, on several data sets.
Data sets with a o slope for at least 15 years:
1. HadCrut3: since April 1997 or 15 years, 7 months (goes to October)
2. Sea surface temperatures: since March 1997 or 15 years, 8 months (goes to October)
3. RSS: since January 1997 or 15 years, 10 months (goes to October)
See the graph below to show it all.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1997.25/trend/plot/rss/from:1997.0/trend/plot/hadsst2gl/from:1997.1/trend/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1997.25/plot/rss/from:1997.0/plot/hadsst2gl/from:1997.1
However we can go back 18 years to show no statistical warming, even on data sets not mentioned above, and no cherry picking of dates is needed either as another blogger has shown on a different blog, parts of which I will copy below. Thanks!
spvincent says:
December 2, 2012 at 9:08 pm
Taking the Hadcrut4 dataset, here are the trend values in degrees C/decade over five closely-related time periods.
1995-2012 +0.109 +/- 0.129
1996-2012 +0.107 +/- 0.129
1997-2012 +0.058 +/- 0.142
1998-2012 +0.052 +/- 0.153
1999-2012 +0.095 +/- 0.162
Let’s look at a satellite-derived dataset (UAH)
1995-2012 +0.139 +/- 0.203
1996-2012 +0.138 +/- 0.227
1997-2012 +0.106 +/- 0.252
1998-2012 +0.063 +/- 0.153
1999-2012 +0.179 +/- 0.262
Look Will, it’s called moving the debate along. You can’t defeat the propoganda from Warmists by arguing about the non-existence of the greenhouse effect. Whether right or wrong it is not how you are going to defeat the torrent of lies from Warmists. They are going to make you look silly, even if you are right.
Amongst other things, SKS is an awful site to navigate …. should one foolishly make a comment it is often quite hard to find a way back to the thread a day later …. I usually need to use the search tool…
But I think that is a deliberate feature, given their love of slicing and dicing discussions; “You are not allowed to discuss that subject any further in this discussion, take it to this more suitable thread, where no-one is thinking about it. However, we will continue to bring it up here as and when we choose.”
8. It is claimed that we were wrong to state that some scientists point out that near-term natural cooling, linked to variations in solar output, is a distinct possibility.
I would suggest that they view the hour long video:
More WUWT.TV: Interview and presentation with Dr. Sebastian Lüning
He wrote “Die Kalte Sonne” (The cold sun) with Dr. Franz Vahrenholt
“We raise legitimate scientific questions about how much warming Man may cause…”
And this is much appreciated by those of us who are deeply affected by the science and the legislation, who also have legitimate scientific questions, such as,
How much of the unadjusted warming from compliant, urban stations is attributable to the power generation and transportation of people living on a whopping 3% of the Earth’s surface? And more interesting, how much of the unadjusted warming from compliant, urban stations is attributable to the Earth’s not-yet-fully-understood responses to its space environment, variations in water vapor and cloud circulation, and its variable type G main sequence star? How much of the adjusting and averaging of data to come up with a “global temperature” is just runaway numeric and computer modeling in the natural sciences, while experts and scientists remain unable to predict accurately actual weather events in real regions?
eco-geek says, December 4, 2012 at 8:22 am: “This is the entire problem. We have warmists who believe in global warming. We have sceptics who believe in global warming. Therefore we have a broad media consensus that GHGs cause global warming. The differing views within this consensus can never be reconciled with each other or with the laws of physics BECAUSE THEY ARE BOTH WRONG. By default the carbon crimes continue with the sceptics as guilty as the warmists.”
=========================================================
I can hardly recall a thread with Christopher Monckton, where he did not convey his message about “man made global warming”.
trafamadore says:
“SkS point is that these “experts” should be answering the “debate” using science and peer review, the way that science experts usually do for a living.”
I don’t know, but this sure looks like “debate” in peer-reviewed literature:
———————————————————————
* Comment on comment by Nerem et al. (2007) on “Estimating future sea level changes from past records” by Nils-Axel Mörner (2004)
(Global and Planetary Change, Volume 62, Issues 3-4, pp. 219-220, June 2008)
– Nils-Axel Morner
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921818108000313
———————————————————————–
Still looks like Monckton – 12 : SkS – 0 to me.
I know this is not relevant to this serious topic but I thought it would bring a smile to some faces.
The Daily Telegraph had an article on the back page today under its “Nature Notes” with the heading “Climate Change wipes out great tits”
Does this mean the end of 36FF’s or pert ones or did the DT mean “Great Tits” as in the feathered variety, I did read on and fortunately it was the latter.
On a more serious note they went on to describe how the Great Tit’s food of various insects was being wiped out by AGW and it was predicted that when, not if, the average global temperature went up by 6 celsius the species would become extinct.
This article was below a weather map of the UK which was in various shades of blue, showing temperatures below, at or slightly above freezing.
Is this a new slant with AGW to use innuendo and double entendres to get the message across?
“Carry On” Global Warming!
Greg House says: According to the IPCC procedure, ANY person can register as “expert reviewer for the IPCC’s”
Can you back that up with a link to their policy you claim to be quoting?
You seem to be confusing “anyone can apply” with anyone will be accepted.
Subtle difference. 😉
Trafamadore says:
“Professor Nils-Axel Morner… The Mörner that tilted a sea level graph on edge to make the point that sea level was not rising? He couldn’t picked a better example to demonstrate SkS’s problem with his experts.”
We don’t tolerate drive-by trolls on this site. What paper are you referring to? Cite a reference. If you disagree with Morner, spell out exactly why, and provide links to your data/evidence. We’d love to have an informed scientific debate that we could all learn from. Otherwise crawl back under your rock.
philjourdan says:
December 4, 2012 at 6:38 am
“Excellent rebuttal. Does anyone actually read SkS any more?”
“Based on internet averages, skepticalscience.com is visited more frequently by males who are over 65 years old, have no children, are graduate school educated and browse this site from home.”
Alexa Traffic Rank
123,702 Global Rank
62,102 US Rank
WUWT
Alexa Traffic Rank
20,683 Global Rank
9,199 Rank in US
“Based on internet averages, wattsupwiththat.com is visited more frequently by males who are over 65 years old and browse this site from home.”
I like that children distinction. BTW, grist is visited by the childless old females with college degrees.
They and their cohorts are much like George Orwell’s “Ministry of Truth”. Pushing the Warmist propaganda is what matters, and nothing else.
Skeptical science has a large resident population of faithful being prime examples demonstrating the Dunning-Kruger effect.
Christopher Monckton says: “1. On at least four occasions we are referred to as climate “denialists” – a term as unscientific as it is malevolent. We do not deny that there is a climate, or that it changes, or that the greenhouse effect exists, or that Man’s emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases enhance that effect and may cause some warming.”
===========================================================
“We“, Christopher?
I am familiar with your message about “man made global warming” you convey on almost every occasion, but “we“? This would be a step too far, unless you have evidence that every single one from those 129 signatories supports this message of yours. Otherwise it would be not much different from lying.
Let us clarify that. Do you have evidence that every single one from those 129 signatories expressed his view that a)climate has changed, and b)that the “greenhouse effect” exists?
ferd berple says:
December 4, 2012 at 7:41 am
The surface temperature records show no increase in daytime maximum temperatures. It is the nighttime low temperatures that are increasing. When these two are averaged together, it creates the statistical illusion of warming.
I would dispute this statement.
I have been comparing central england daily temperatures maximum with minimum.
There is no sign of nightime temperatures increasing. For example in 1882 the average minimum was 48% of the maximum whereas in 2010 it was only 40%.
The Viscount writes:
Here’s my counter to the accusation of denialism. I like it because it “takes the offensive”:
==========
Most people who call contrarians “deniers” have been misled by the following invalid argument:
A. The climate has warmed rapidly since 1980
B. Man’s CO2 emissions have risen rapidly since 1980
C. CO2 is a greenhouse gas
D. 97% of scientists agree that those emissions have significantly raised the temperature
E. Sea levels have risen, and ice has melted, since 1980
F. Science projects continued warming as more CO2 is added by our emissions
H. A catastrophic sea level rise is unavoidable unless we Act Now
I. It is therefore perverse, or denialistic, to argue that there’s no real threat from CO2.
But there’s a missing premise in the argument above—a premise that we deny—namely:
G. The warming will not only increase at its current rate, but actually accelerate
Without that premise conclusions H & I don’t follow. Clearly, if there is only minimal continued warming, then the threat is not real.
Alarmist rhetoric avoids stating “G” openly. It would rather lead you to make that assumption yourself. If it mentioned “G,” you might ask, “Is that a fact?” or “How sure are you of that?” This would lead the argument into a controversial area where the reasoning is less airtight, the evidence more ambiguous, and the consensus much weaker—and therefore where disagreement can’t fairly be called denialism.
Slightly off topic, but the stars of the show are smarter than the average SS regular, at Digging in the Clay, The milliwatt circus. Gave me a laugh especially in this current deluge of climatism.
– – – – – –
Christopher Monckton,
Thank you for highlighting in an eloquent manner what many critical bloggers already understand about Cook’s SS blog. Cook’s venue is unscientific to the extent that it is advocating against scientifically skeptical independent views from being openly publicized and independently validated via vigorous open scientific dialog. With Cook’s SS blog the fallacy of arguing from authority is an inherent self-defeating weakness, but Cook and his supporters seem to think rather irrationally it is their greatest strength.
Note: I will hear today both Cook and Mann talk at the AGU mtg in San Francisco.
John
Many years ago in the wonderful city of New Delhi, I took a roll of film to a “24-hour processing” shop. When I said that I’d return for the prints the next day, the staff looked horrified and said that it would be at least three days before they were done.
I replied, “But, it says 24-hour processing.”
“Oh,” they replied, “That’s just the name of the shop.”
In the same way, “Skeptical Science” is the just name of a blog
11. It is claimed that we “falsely” accuse the U.N. Secretary General of “making unsupportable claims that human influences caused” tropical storm Sandy, and that “in reality, Ban Ki-Moon did not say climate change caused Hurricane (sic) Sandy”. Yet he had said: “Two weeks ago, Hurricane (sic) Sandy struck the eastern seaboard of the United States….”
The terminology is difficult, but Sandy was officially an extratropical storm when it made landfall, or posttropical storm if that term has a useful nuance. It was neither hurricane nor tropical storm (and I suppose no longer even a tropical cyclone, the more inclusive term). Unfortunately, the appellation “Superstorm Sandy” is as good as any, given that there is no precise definition for superstorm.
From what I recall, the IPCC requires applicants to state their qualifications. I assume that applicants without qualifications won’t be accepted.
@philjourdan says: December 4, 2012 at 6:38 am Excellent rebuttal. Does anyone actually read SkS any more?
Yes, many people at Huffington Post attempt to use SS to rebut my comments there.
Welcome to WUWT Trafamadore. May your time spent here be pleasurable and enlightening. Readers and commenters on this site contribute a huge amount of knowledge and experience across many disciplines not seen on any other science blog. Most dont tolerate fools so be sure to keep and open mind and ask questions rather than say silly uniformed comments.
SkSc is one of those typical pseudo scientific sites. Indeed its site moderation is orwellian and they share a typical warmista trait: history is changing to suit the narative.
Regarding item 12, I recall that at least two of the 129 signatories are Nobel Laureates of one of them was a physicist. Once again, CAGWers apply their craven tactic of slimming the messenger when the message is irrefutable.
“It is a malicious, paid propaganda platform for rude, infantile, untruthful, and often libelous attacks on anyone who dares to question whether global warming is a global crisis.”
Rude, infantile? So he starts an article about how the other team are being rude and infantile by being…. rude and infantile? Spectacular own goal. He then moves on to call himself a climate researcher which is one major point SKS are making, that few of the signatories are actually climate scientists. Sorry Mr Monckton, a seven year old looking at the topic can call themselves a “climate researcher” it doesn’t make them an authority.
And if they are libelous, sue them. [snip]
@ DirkH says: December 4, 2012 at 10:03 am
LOL! Yes I like the reference to children as well. Good catch.
Louis Hooffstetter says:
December 4, 2012 at 9:58 am
I don’t know if that made it into a real(tm) paper, but the best reference is a vintage Mörner interview in http://www.mitosyfraudes.org/Calen7/MornerEng.html where he says:
As for images, see his presentation to Parliament at http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200506/ldselect/ldeconaf/12/12we18.htm
If anyone has confirmation about this “correction factor,” please post it here.
I met Prof. Mörner at one of the Heartland climate conferences in Chicago, he gave one of the more dynamic talks there trying to squeeze the 30 minutes he thought he had into 20. Quite a character.
Lord Monckton Totally agree I have four higher degrees and my father was a well known atmospheric physicist (published 3 papers in Nature and was a student with Einstein in the Max Planck Institut Fur Physik in 1935-37) who told me in 1997 that AGW was a tax scam (did not even bother explaining the physics), It was so obviously absolute XXXX as far as he was concerned. I am 100% that you will be re-vindicated historically. I was a 16 year kid at the time. LOL
Actually the whole AGW scam is a bit like communism we all though when young that it might be a great idea until the Russians said it does not work! Bring Mac Donalds and now of course adamantly it is admitted by the vast majorities everywhere. Im sure Marx would be revolving in his grave.
P. Solar says, December 4, 2012 at 9:57 am : “Can you back that up with a link to their policy you claim to be quoting? You seem to be confusing “anyone can apply” with anyone will be accepted.”
======================================================
Guess, what sort of experts will be accepted…
Here is the link: http://www.ipcc-wg3.de/news/ipcc-working-group-iii-calls-experts-to-review-assessment-report :
“Expert Review of IPCC Assessment begins
The Working Group III of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) ‘Mitigation of Climate Change’ calls experts to review the latest draft of its contribution to the Fifth Assessment Report to be published in 2014. The IPCC seeks to include expert knowledge from voluntary reviewers across regions and sectors to arrive at a comprehensive assessment of climate change mitigation options. The review period extends to 14 September. Registration for access to the draft is open.[…]
All three IPCC working groups are seeking wide participation by experts in the review of the drafts, encompassing the range of scientific, technical and socio-economic views, expertise, and geographical representation.
Interested experts are invited to register at: http://www.ipcc-wg3.de/ar5review/registration/“
Also a good one: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100409114737AAud4RB
Simon. “Climate Scientists” play with models (most of them anyway) the only people who understand climate and weather are meteorologists and atmospheric physicists. I have yet to meet ONE meteorologist who believes in AGW (100% anyway). Unfortunately for you meteorologists do not see any significant changes in weather or climate events over the past 100 years. Because we only live 80-110 years at most we will not see “climate change” which occurs over 1000’s, 10000’sor even 100000’s years…
More like Septic Science…
richard says:
December 4, 2012 at 6:32 am
As I am not a scientist I would like someone in simple terms to explain the following,
The moon in the daytime with no GHGs gets to 250f in a few hrs and at night time the temps plummit.
By comparison it seems the earth is kept cooler by GHGs in the daytime and at night time with GHGs we see a slow cooling. Maybe a bad comparison but I notice the desert with low moisture content leads to high daytime temps and at night rapid cooling to freezing- similar effect as the moon.
So greenhouse effect, is this merely the ability of the earth with GHGs to slow down cooling.
Another mitigating effect is the speed of planetary rotation. The moon has a much slower rotation than the earth – 27 days plus some, compared with the Earth’s approximate 24 hours. Thus no area on this planet experiences the same degree of direct insolation as a comparable area on the Moon. Likewise, no area has the same span of time to cool. The effect is to limit diurnal swings in temperature even without GHGs in the picture. Get rid of the atmosphere and oceans entirely and we would still be on a planet with lesser temperature extremes than the Moon or Venus – both of which have very slow rotations, Venus especially. We are closer akin to Mars, whose atmosphere is much thinner than any place here and fairly ineffective as an insulator, but has a rotational rate (about 40 minutes longer than earth’s) that helps average out insolation during the diurnal cycle.
John Cook never was a successful cartoonist, and has obviously totally forgotten any science he may have accidentally learnt at Uni.
trafamadore
Ric Werme cites a comment of Nils-Axil Morner that might be what you refer to in your comment “The Morner that tilted a sea-level graph on its edge to make the point that sea level is not rising? That Morner?”
Please inform whether or not Werme gives the the instance that you refer to in your remark quoted here. Please do this as a matter of courtesy to the rest of us, so that we can have some basis for judging your remarks as to accuracy and verity. Thank you.
Robin Hewitt says:
December 4, 2012 at 8:53 am
There is another possibility…
…Perhaps there are two kinds of climate scientists. Those who like the challenge of explaining chaos and those who really wanted to be particle physicists but couldn’t quite do the maths, opting instead for a less demanding branch of science. Basically anyone who might accept them….
Oh dear, I think I should be offended! – I was actually pretty good and very keen on Physics – and indeed would help my ‘Ace’ math/physics friends how to go about solving their devious math problems – even though I could not actually do the math myself! One of said friends indeed went on to become a math ‘genius’ etc. I meanwhilst, ended up becoming a geologist and engineer, despite being able to understand most of the 70’s age physics with relative ease! I still struggle with math for some of my work related problems, but with computers these days – it’s a lot easier.
The point I wanted to make is that – in all my life, and my considerable work experience – I have always found that I am pretty good at seeing problems and solutions in a practical and pragmatic manner and give direction – but thereafter it’s best to leave it to someone else to sort out the math! I don’t consider it to be a failing that I can’t do the math – as I know that some people literally can’t see the wood for the trees, no matter how many degrees they have!
Regarding Morner’s “tilted graph”, here’s another link (see Figure 10). Basically Dr. Morner did this to show the satellite altimetry in it’s original, “uncorrected” form. Regarding the “adjustments”, an IPCC member told him “We had to do so, otherwise it would not be any trend.” Another example of “the team” fiddling with data to fit their agenda.
https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:M5B1sRvpAI0J:www.21stcenturysciencetech.com/Articles_2011/Winter-2010/Morner.pdf+&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESiXs526YaooAlxy6TcFE7mkMecuulYdg1gtmGxXP1x-x8lS8GC-_08u2MTn-SL_q4o4IhKQGtjXkfT8H7sViyr2C0TAFmDLdWXeX3O3l2M6aVpQkGEj5wknvZhKpuCX3MohQSLq&sig=AHIEtbRCG-c8UcLua6OScgr3xH6wvsd_EQ
Simon says:
December 4, 2012 at 10:44 am
“It is a malicious, paid propaganda platform for rude, infantile, untruthful, and often libelous attacks on anyone who dares to question whether global warming is a global crisis.”
Rude, infantile? So he starts an article about how the other team are being rude and infantile by being…. rude and infantile? Spectacular own goal.
Nah, he was just pointing out a fact. For instance, most trolls who come here immediately brand themselves as total idiots who know nothing about climate. It is highly likely that you number amongst them. It’s a fact.
In a debate with any of your so-called “authorities”, Mr. Monckton would win hands down. He beat your Richard Denniss without breaking a sweat: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=207lg-1GWAE
All Denniss could muster were some weak analogies and appeals to authority.
andrewmharding: “On a more serious note they went on to describe how the Great Tit’s food of various insects was being wiped out by AGW and it was predicted that when, not if, the average global temperature went up by 6 celsius the species would become extinct.”
Last year I crossed Europe on my motorbike, almost up to the border with Ukraine, beginning in mid-July. On previous trips, the usual pattern was to stop about every 100 miles, top up with fuel, have a coffee, and take the crash helmet into the loo, to clean the bugs off, and bring a wet paper towel back to the bike to wipe the bugs off the screen and headlight.
Well it was so cold on the trip, I didn’t have to clean my visor once (or screen, etc., obviously), until I dropped into Hungary, where the bug life was normal for mid-summer (at least for a few days, then the cold arrived there too, and instead of it being 40 – 45 deg C during daytime, it struggled to get to 24 deg C, and night time temperatures were just above freezing mostly – and a miserable time was had by all, as due to the cold and unrelenting wet, everybody was literally going moldy).
Unlike my previous visit, plum and pear crops were very late (as in weeks, and I managed to experience a highlight of the trip as a result – the large cherry sized Hungarian plum variety, which makes a fantastic plum liquer, as well as some particularly awesome plum cake), and wasps were notable by their absence, until I left in mid August.
On my way back, the only day that involved what I would call ‘normal’ mid-summer bug numbers, was a day round Luxembourg in particularly nice weather. It was the only place I had to stop and clean the visor.
It is cold that does the bugs in, not heat, and if the temperature went up 6 degrees, we would all be able to live on deep fried or chocolate dipped insects, let alone the vast numbers of resulting plump and overfed Great Tits..
trafamodore;
Working on this post would take all week.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
The fate of the world hangs in the balance. Can you not spare a week of your time to save the world? Give it a shot, I’m begging you. Your single critical comment of a single one of the major points has already been shot to smithereens. Surely is there is so much wrong and the fate of the world depends upon it you can muster up more than just a drive by snark?
Faced with facts that falsify his position, a fool continues to argue. A man stands up and admits his mistake. A coward runs away.
ferd berple says:
December 4, 2012 at 7:41 am
That sure removes a lot of constraints!
I pledge to
+ consume no more than Al Gore
+ be as truthful as Al Gore
+ amass no more wealth than Al Gore
+ be as faithful in my marriage as Al Gore
+ …
Genius! The simple way to reduce the stress of meeting high standards is lower the standards!
(/sarc, for the humor impaired)
when you have a carbon tax, as australia has, it is vital the MSM & CAGW propaganda tools such as SS keep ramping up with scares. our latest from the Murdoch media:
4 Dec: Herald Sun: Staff writers & AAP: Perth’s sea level on the rise three times the global average
SEA levels on the Perth (Western Australia) coastline are rising at three times the global average, the latest State of Australian Cities report shows.
In a statistic that federal Infrastructure Minister Anthony Albanese described as “disturbing” and “extraordinary”, readings since 1993 have indicated sea levels are rising by between 9mm and 10mm per year.
The global average is around three millimetres per year.
With temperatures rising and rainfall falling, environmental changes are having little effect on the numbers of people moving to Perth, with the city population growing by 2.6 per cent since 2001 – making it the fastest growing capital in the country…
FACTBOX:
Perth has the highest proportion of residents who feel that their city has a quality natural environment (79 per cent)…
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/national/perths-sea-level-on-the-rise-50-days-over-35c-in-2011/story-fndo486p-1226529899246
impossible to argue with liars — there is only one truth against thousands of lies.
Tim contact me please
thanks
[snip]
My brief experience with the-website-that-cannot-be-named, is that the owners/moderators don’t appear to think that they have any peers. A case, perhaps, of “I AM peer-review.”
It is ultra-ironic that, given the non-open environment and the censorship of scientifically skeptical views at Cook’s blog, that John Cook will co-chair an AGU session this afternoon titled: ‘Facebook, Twitter, Blogs: Science Communication Gone Social ‘The Social Media 101’ ‘.
Speakers at that session will include some well known names: Michael Mann, Michael Tobis and Zeke Hausfather.
I plan on attending the session. : )
John
PS – I just finished attending a different AGU session where both Michael Mann and Naomi Oreskes spoke on the session topic ‘Communicating Climate Science’Seeking the Best of Old and New Paradigms’.
My takeaway from Mann’s talk is that he is mainly focused on himself as a highly important part of the ‘battle’. He maintains his research is objective and it was the facts of reality that forced him to the Hockey Stick conclusions. He maintains he was unjustly ‘attacked’ solely because his findings just happen to support a very serious AGW concern and he does not think he was ‘attacked’ due to scientific problems with his scientific work products.
My takeaway from Oreskes’ talk is she thinks the actual climate science research shows a very much worse CAGW problem than what is supported by all the national science institutes, scientific societies and the IPCC; she thinks they are all too scientifically ‘conservative’.
My impression was that The AGU audience appeared at least partially sympathetic to both of them; no skepticism was openly expressed in the question session.
John
andrewmharding says:
December 4, 2012 at 9:57 am
“I know this is not relevant to this serious topic but I thought it would bring a smile to some faces.
The Daily Telegraph had an article on the back page today under its “Nature Notes” with the heading “Climate Change wipes out great tits”
Does this mean the end of 36FF’s or pert ones or did the DT mean “Great Tits” as in the feathered variety, I did read on and fortunately it was the latter.
On a more serious note they went on to describe how the Great Tit’s food of various insects was being wiped out by AGW and it was predicted that when, not if, the average global temperature went up by 6 celsius the species would become extinct…”
Great tits cope well with warming
H/T http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/warmlist.htm
anyone endeavouring to find the science to back up the Perth sea level rise claim might find the info somewhere in the following:
Australian Govt: Dept of Transport & Infrastructure: State of Australian Cities 2012
State of Australian Cities 2012 was launched by The Hon Anthony Albanese MP, Minister for Infrastructure and Transport, on 4 December 2012…
http://www.infrastructure.gov.au/infrastructure/mcu/soac/index.aspx
PDF: State of Austn Cities 2012: Perth
Sea level rise around Australia has been equal to and in some cases greater than the global average of approximately three millimetres per year. Since 1993 Perth, along with Darwin, has experienced the highest rates of sea level rise among our major coastal cities measuring nine to ten millimetres per year (tidal gauge measurements at Hillarys Western Australia), well above the global average…
http://www.infrastructure.gov.au/infrastructure/mcu/soac/files/factsheets_2012/Perth_Final_Factsheet_FA.pdf
Anthony Albanese MP: Speech at launch of State of Australian Cities 2012
Green Building Council of Australia, Melbourne
While the global average rise is three millimetres per year, Perth is experiencing a quite extraordinary annual rise of between nine and ten millimetres per year.
It is interesting to see how cities are gradually adapting to climate change through the development of green infrastructure, but the report also describes the magnitude of the task ahead.
***At least two-thirds of Australian superannuation investment fund managers have not recognised the impact climate change will have on investment portfolios…
http://anthonyalbanese.com.au/speech-at-launch-of-state-of-australian-cities-2012
***Superannuation is where much of Australians’ pension funds reside. smart people have reverted their funds to Cash Option, to keep the fund managers from wasting it on CAGW nonsense.
andrewmharding
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-20425314
It’s a virus that’s killing the Tits
“let alone the vast numbers of resulting plump and overfed Great Tits..”
what can one say !!! 🙂
Down here (Australia), the worst days for flies and other flying insects are invariably the hot ones. Again we have the fact that if there is a change in temps, it has been warming of minimums, not hot days getting hotter. So.. more warm days = many more flying insects.
You ever ridden into a flock of bogong moths? YUCK !!!!!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bogong_moth
Slightly OT but related to the larger topic of errors in mainstream climate science:
A highly useful project* would be a comprehensive yet succinct errata list of Significant climate science papers which (1) require or did require significant correction after publication, and especially (2) which members of “the team” continued to rely upon without adequate correction of the record, and/or (3) especially highlighting those for which no adequate correction has been acknowledged to date by original authors and journals.
I.e., since some authors and journals have proved so recalcitrant about updating and correcting the published scientific record, is there someone who could give this problem a scannable yet reliable overview? I’m looking for an adequate response to people who claim the “science” is always self-correcting through the old peer review process etc.
This s one kind of problem it is hard for the interested layperson to get any handle on:
http://climateaudit.org/2010/02/03/the-hockey-stick-and-milankovitch-theory/#comment-379659
* or could someone please point me to it if such a thing already exists
Greg House says:
December 4, 2012 at 10:13 am
Let us clarify that. Do you have evidence that every single one from those 129 signatories expressed his view that a)climate has changed, and b)that the “greenhouse effect” exists?
Here are some quotes in the letter that they all signed.
“Climate changes naturally all the time”
“We also ask that you acknowledge that policy actions by the U.N., or by the signatory nations to the UNFCCC, that aim to reduce CO2 emissions are unlikely to exercise any significant influence on future climate.”
To me, it sounds like all are admitting that climate changes and that there COULD BE an extremely small influence of CO2 on climate. Granted, there may be a handful that say the influence is 0. However they agreed with the thrust of the letter and signed it, even though they may have changed the wording of this latter quote had they written an individual letter.
@Bruce Cobb.. “In a debate with any of your so-called “authorities”, Mr. Monckton would win hands down”
They DARE NOT !!!
The best they can do is throw slime from a far distance. And they invariably forget to wear gloves.
Tchannon,
“Put in simple terms: the surface of the moon changes wildly because the surface is dust in a high vacuum, which means it is a very good thermal insulator. Heat cannot get through either direction at all well and hence the very surface gets very hot when the sun is out (a month at a time, length of lunar day) and very cold at night (a month at a time).”
According to my quick glance through the thread, nobody has noticed, or thought it worth correcting your error here. The sun isn’t out on the moon “a month at a time” it’s out 2 weeks at a time and then it’s dark for two weeks each month. And even when it’s out, the amount of heat impinging on a given spot will depend on on the sine or cosine (I leave determining which as an exercise for the student) of the angle the sun makes with the surface).
Greg House – you object to Christopher Monckton saying “We do not deny that there is a climate, or that it changes, or that the greenhouse effect exists, or that Man’s emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases enhance that effect and may cause some warming.”. You challenge with “Do you have evidence that every single one from those 129 signatories expressed his view that a)climate has changed, and b)that the “greenhouse effect” exists?“.
Well, leaving aside the fact that your challenge is obviously incorrect logically, just read the letter:
http://opinion.financialpost.com/2012/11/29/open-climate-letter-to-un-secretary-general-current-scientific-knowledge-does-not-substantiate-ban-ki-moon-assertions-on-weather-and-climate-say-125-scientists/
They do not deny that there is a climate, or that it changes, or that the greenhouse effect exists, or that Man’s emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases enhance that effect and may cause some warming.
excellent reply Anthony and Christopher
Skeptical Science is a laughing stock. I tied them up in knots with basic knowledge ( that I had but they did not ) about Glaciers. Before I was banned from their childish so-called blog, I was challenged to “back up” my facts with peer reviewed evidence, which I did with reference to a leading world expert and guess what they did ? thats correct, they deleted the post so as not to look stupid. Their poisonous rants seemed almost medication-driven at times. There are some real oddballs on that site.
@jonny old boy
“Their poisonous rants seemed almost medication-driven at times. There are some real oddballs on that site.”
Actually the more poisonous rants are probably from the days they forgot their medication. 🙂
Can anyone tell me what the following sets of numbers represent?
15, 0, 4, 1, 2
106, 19, 85, 73, 34
That’s the number of comments on the latest five articles on SkS and WUWT, respectively.
All I can say is that it looks like it’s been a slow day for WUWT.
Go get’em, Monck!
Show them what being skeptical and scientific is all about!
trafamadore wrote “SkS said was that they “air their grievances about global warming … through opinion letters published in the mainstream media.”
One of the memes often trotted out in support of AGW is that 97% of scientists agree with the “scientific concensus on AGW” and those arguments have a lot of sway with the general public who dont take the time to actually learn about AGW. Letters such as this one directly address the fact that the “concensus” has been misrepresented by people such as SkS who are openly driven by agenda and not science.
I’m quite certain that 97% of scientists wouldn’t agree that AGW was going to be catastrophic and many if not most would have serious concerns about the IPCCs claim that “most” of the warming was anthropogenic in nature. That kind of blunts the “97% claim” doesn’t it and the 97% claim was a rubbish tabloidesque result.
I’ve been extracting the temperature difference between how much the temp goes up today, with how much it falls tonight. The latest charts are here: http://www.science20.com/virtual_worlds/blog/updated_temperature_charts-86742
But basically as averaged across the planet, the temps falls an almost identical amount as they’ve gone up over the ~120M temperature site records in the NCDC summary of days data.
What I’ve found is that even though Co2 has gone up, night time cooling has matched day time warming.
Jonny old boy
Yours is a common misconception. You took them at face value, as a science blog. It is not a science blog but a propaganda mill in the guise of a science blog. You live and learn.
SkS is merely a RC Wannabe always ready to do ‘the Teams’ dirty work without having any Team member names attached to the act . Cook in turn shows all the scepticism of a week old dead rat when it comes to ‘the cause ‘ , but his due to be disappointed Mann and Co will always look down on him and not matter how much he tires he will never be ‘one of them’
It’s good to see that Christopher Monckton of Brenchley is still in, and batting against the likes of ‘Skeptical Science’. He is able to score off anything that they bowl at him!!
Will says:
December 4, 2012 at 8:15 am
“…
Simply repeating that there is a “greenhouse effect” will not make it so. There is not.
…”
Nor will simply repeating that there is NOT a “greenhouse effect” make that so.
No judgment on whether you are right or not but just that you are making the same type of argument.
Frank K said… “Could someone comment on who (or what organization) funds “skeptical Science”? I would like to know.”
There is no funding for Skeptical Science. Zero. Everyone who contributes does so on their own personal time and nickel.
6. It is claimed that we were wrong to say there has been no statistically-significant global warming because the oceans have warmed. However, the standard definition of “global warming” is warming of the near-surface atmosphere. Also, measurements to date are inadequate to tell us reliably how much – if at all – the oceans have warmed in recent years.
Warming of the Atlanatic Ocean by the Gulf Stream to the west of the UK, is what gives us our
wishy-washy, miserable climate; wet cool summers, wet mild winters!
Total rubbish to talk about sea temperature having little influence on climate!
It says a lot about SkS when your average Joe-citizen commenter stops posting links to the site in MSM articles comments sections.
Of course, many WITH valid qualifications are also not accepted by the IPCC.
AleaJactaEst December 4, 2012 at 6:49 am says:
I used to live in Kent in the SE of England in the village of Barming*, close to Maidstone. Anyone living their would tell you that “barmy” (meaning crazy, stupid derived) came from the presence of several mental hopsitals or insane assylums (I’ve been told 4, at various times) at Barming. This included the County Mental Hosptal which housed 700 inmates. If its not true, it jolly well should be!
* Barming is named in the Domesday Book, the survey of wealth and land holding in England and part of Wales, completed 1086. It is possible that a small, isolated, country parish/village might lead to inbreeding with the usual “village idiots”.
For “their”, read “there” (of cause!).
mpainter says: “I can see that you have not looked into Nis-Axil Morner’s credentials as a sea level expert, at which study he spent a lifetime.”
I’m sure he is a nice guy and all, he’s a global oscillation-er, it’s a pretty common ploy to explain away AGW. But I’m sure I saw his data on the web somewhere in a graph tilled at 30°.
Okay, I just googled “tilted sea level graph” and Morner’s name comes out at the top. You don’t forget things like that, pretty entertaining.
And the Maldive studies, I thought those couldn’t be repeated by Woodworth, and there were some interesting stuff regarding his data, so maybe more later….
Ric Werme says: “If anyone has confirmation about this “correction factor,” please post it here.”
This is not the one you’re looking for, but here’s one the University of Colorado is adding:
“One important change in these releases is that we are now adding a correction of 0.3 mm/year due to Glacial Isostatic Adjustment (GIA), so you may notice that the rate of sea level rise is now 0.3 mm/year higher than earlier releases. This is a correction to account for the fact that the global ocean basins are getting slightly larger over time as mantle material moves from under the oceans into previously glaciated regions on land.”
http://sealevel.colorado.edu/content/new-web-site-new-sea-level-release
Like other climastrology data adjustments, it’s provable B.S. From the abstract from Houston, J.R. and Dean, R.G., 2012. Comparisons at tide-gauge locations of glacial isostatic adjustment predictions with global positioning system measurements:
“Glacial isostatic adjustment (GIA) is routinely used to adjust sea-level trends determined from tide-gauge data to improve estimates of worldwide sea-level rise. This adjustment may be appropriate for formerly glaciated high-latitude (referred to as FGHL) areas where vertical land motions due to GIA are large compared with motions produced by other phenomena. However, since GIA is only one component of vertical motion, does adjusting for it outside FGHL areas improve sea-level rise estimates or bias them? We compare global positioning system (GPS) gauge measurements with the vertical land-motion component of GIA predictions at 147 worldwide locations that are near tide gauges and outside FGHL areas and find remarkably little correlation. We analyze the data in several ways to determine the source of the lack of correlation. We also find that the average vertical motion for the 147 locations measured by GPS is subsidence, whereas the average GIA prediction is zero.”
Tha’ts worth repeating: “the average vertical motion for the 147 locations measured by GPS is subsidence, whereas the average GIA prediction is zero.”
http://www.jcronline.org/doi/abs/10.2112/JCOASTRES-D-11-00227.1
trafamador, you failed! Provide references or be gone!
Elizabeth says, December 4, 2012 at 10:51 am: “Lord Monckton Totally agree I have four higher degrees and my father was a well known atmospheric physicist (published 3 papers in Nature and was a student with Einstein in the Max Planck Institut Fur Physik in 1935-37) who told me in 1997 that AGW was a tax scam (did not even bother explaining the physics), It was so obviously absolute XXXX as far as he was concerned. I am 100% that you will be re-vindicated historically.”
=======================================================
I thought, Christopher Monckton supported AGW concept, in his own words on this thread: “We do not deny that there is a climate, or that it changes, or that the greenhouse effect exists, or that Man’s emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases enhance that effect and may cause some warming.”
Here is an older quote: ” The world is not warming at present. It has not been warming for almost a decade and a half, though it has been warming since 1695.[…]My best estimate is that the CO2 we add to the atmosphere this century will cause around 1 C° of warming by 2100. But that is not far short of the IPCC’s own central estimate of 1.5 C°.” (http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/03/17/monckton-in-a-rift-with-union-college-earth-scientists-and-activists/)
trafamadore:
Your posts on threads of WUWT seem to be of a type. They make unsupported assertions that attempt to demean and/or mislead.
Nils-Axel Morner is probably the world’s leading expert on sea level. He is – by any standards – an outstanding scientist. Your smears of him are unsupported and despicable.
If you want to attack somebody then have a go at someone whose record warrants it such as Hansen, Mann, and Jones. They have abandoned science to become advocates of what they call their “cause”.
Richard
If what was said is libelous, are libel proceedings being started? The only way to curb the behaviour of these zealots is to punish them whenever legally possible.
Sceptical Science, Open Mind, Real Climate Scientists, Concerned Scientists…
“War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.”
“But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.”
“There are some ideas so wrong that only a very intelligent person could believe in them.”
“Myths which are believed in tend to become true.”
“We have now sunk to a depth at which restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men.”
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/g/george_orwell_5.html
Rob Honeycutt:
At December 4, 2012 at 2:02 pm you say
They should ask for their money back.
Richard
trafamadore says:
But I’m sure I saw his data on the web somewhere in a graph tilled at 30°
Okay, I just googled “tilted sea level graph” and Morner’s name comes out at the top. You don’t forget things like that, pretty entertaining.
*********
Okay I did the same. the two links that come up are from skepticalscience.com. And both links are dead. You’e a legend mate. Keep going!
This quote from Greenie Watch (Philosophers psychologize climate skeptics) sums up best SS and its worshippers:
“They clearly don’t know what they are talking about. Psychologically they are “deniers” of the facts and dependents on authority: Both are infantile disorders.”
trafamadore
What’s the truth about you? You don’t come on like a serious scientist. You don’t seem as one who takes pride in correct judgement, as a scientist ordinarily does. You spout propaganda and some stuff you make up on the spot like “global oscillation-er”.
The believers in the Hockey Stick and the always heating gas have never had credibility which was why they have tried to steer the conversation away from the fact Greenhouse Gases block 50% of the sun’s infrared and 25% of the sun’s total energy before it gets to earth.
To them this is called warming.
richard says:
December 4, 2012 at 6:32 am
As I am not a scientist I would like someone in simple terms to explain the following,
The moon in the daytime with no GHGs gets to 250f in a few hrs and at night time the temps plummit….
___________________________________
The moon has no ATMOSPHERE. Do not forget convection will move heat around. It is the main source of green house heat. You stop the movement of air. If you look at tropical forest vs desert you can also see that water will even out the temp. Also in the example below the average temperature is about 4C lower in Brazil despite the fact that Algeria is further north above the tropic of Cancer.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/07/21/some-thoughts-on-radiative-transfer-and-ghgs/#comment-1040071
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/07/21/some-thoughts-on-radiative-transfer-and-ghgs/#comment-1041066
When people reminded them in peer review that the first, initial function of Greenhouse Gases was to block incoming energy, and a large fraction of the sun’s total transport, those people were told they were fired.
@Alan Watt, Climate Denialist Level 7
December 4, 2012 at 11:56 am
Love it, I hope you don’t mind my borrowing it.
Cheers
trafamadore says:
December 4, 2012 at 2:25 pm
Trafamadore is now doing Mosh type drive by comments. Vroom vroom …… now off I go back to the safety of the chorus girls from SkS.
“trafamadore” is just making things up when he says the open letter to the UN Sec Gen is just an opinion article from me.
I describe the whole open letter project in “Behind the scenes – preparing the open letter to the U.N. Secretary General on his climate science mistakes” and answer the questions:
– Where did it come from?
– Who wrote it?
– Why are some of the best known climate skeptics not among the now 130+ endorsers?
– Why did most mainstream media not report on the letter?
There is nothing secret about all this so here are the answers to these questions:
http://www.fcpp.org/blog/behind-the-scenes-preparing-the-open-letter-to-the-u-n-secretary-general-on-his-climate-science-mistakes/
Tom Harris
International Climate Science Coalition
http://www.climatescienceinternational.org
Another eloquent, polite, informed rebuttal from Christopher Monckton. Evidence, as if it were still needed, why these ‘consensus’ scientists (and just about the entire mainstream media) lack the simple courage to face him in open debate. Bravo, sir! Long may you continue to hammer home the ‘inconvenient truths’ of the great CAGW fraud. You are a credit to the skeptical movement.
I agree with your thoughts on the site ‘Skeptical Science’. In my opinion it isn’t being run with fair reference to available data and the current state of the science, and independant ideas are not allowed. It is run as a propaganada exercise, to promote a particular view.
I blogged for some time on Skeptical Science (sic) about the idea that the increase in warming in the late 20th century could be attributed partly or mostly to a heat time lag from the increase in solar output between about 1750-1950. After all, every day the maximum daily temperature normally occurs a few hours after the solar maximum around noon (nothwithstanding clouds and other factors), and every summer the maximum seasonable average temperature occurs about 6 or so weeks after the solar maximum at the summer solstice. So obviously in nature there is a heat time lag after a maxima in incoming solar radiation, and this works on both short and longer time scales-it is an unambiguous fact and is observable. There is some referance to it in the literature on climate change-one paper by Usoskin, for example, who studied the differences between proxies for solar maxima and proxies for temperature (albeit both a little unreliable) over the last 1000 years or so, came to an average delay in maximum temperature on earth after a solar maxima of about 20 years.
However I have to say that the first thing I noticed on the ‘Skeptical Sceince’ forum to this basic idea was that most of the responses were neither rational nor reasonable, and sometimes mailicous and quite irrational. Most of the time bloggers were not even prepared to admit that the concept of a heat lag was even valid. I attributed this reluctance to trying to protect one of the cornerstones of the climate alarmist arguments, that late 20th century warming couldn’t have been caused by the sun, because solar activity had not increased during that time (and repeated by virtually every science academy around the world). (Does it increase between noon and 2pm, when temperatures continue to rise, I asked?) So unreasonable were most responses that even John Cook was prompted to write a follow up article “Heat time lag” to state that, yes, the concept of a heat lag on the scale of decades was valid, but that late 20th century warming was not attibutable to a heat time lag from solar output because this would have meant that the earth’s atmosphere would be now approaching equilibium (ie heat in equals heat coming out), which various papers including from Hansen et al., show that disequilibrium of the earth’s atmosphere was actually increasing (i.e. heat in was not being matched by heat coming out), due to increasing build-up of greenhouse gases. I checked through these papers and concluded that their conclusions were based on arbitrary greenhouse gas modelling-that one had to assume that greenhouse gases were causing warming to begin with to get their figures on the atmosphere’s equilibrium state. So I still remain convinced that the idea that late 20th century warming could be mosly attibutable to a heat time lag from solar output on the scale of centuries and decades is still valid, and worth looking into, even though solar output has now both plateau’d and more recently declined.
I blogged on other areas of science I know a little about, such as mass extinctions and the geological record (I am a geologist), which the site wants to nearly all attribute to greenhouse gases, but I generally no longer blog on the site Skeptical Science, because in my opinion it isn’t a forum which rationally debates the science.
@trafamadore
“SkS point is that these “experts” should be answering the “debate” using science and peer review, the way that science experts usually do for a living.”
But the “science experts” air their Scary Stories about global warming through propganda pieces published in the mainstream media. The sceptics need to reply there as well.
@ eco-geek says:
“Quoting: We do not deny that there is a climate, or that it changes, or that the greenhouse effect exists, or that Man’s emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases enhance that effect and may cause some warming.
This is the entire problem. We have warmists who believe in global warming. We have sceptics who believe in global warming.”
Hold on there.
The sceptics don’t deny it, but that doesn’t mean they believe it. They may not be sure either way.
(I don’t deny that the Prime Minister is a hologram, but that doesn’t mean I believe she is a hologram. I’m just not entirely sure about it. I can’t deny when I don’t know.)
“Therefore we have a broad media consensus that GHGs cause global warming. The differing views within this consensus can never be reconciled with each other or with the laws of physics BECAUSE THEY ARE BOTH WRONG.”
Are you saying that the GHGs do not have a warming effect?
SkepticalScience says : “when the sun ‘goes down’ on the moon, the temperature drops almost immediately, and plunges in several hours down to minus 110 degrees C (-166F).”
This is of course utter rubbish !
The moron that wrote this obviously does not understand that the data is presented in the form of a lunar day divided into 24 hours.
Factor in that a “lunar” hour as shown in the data is ~29.5 Earth hours and you see a completely different picture of a heated surface radiating into a vacuum and at an extraordinarily slow rate may I say !
For example, from the lunar noon to sunrise is ~ 531 Earth hours and the temperature falls from ~390 K to ~100 K – hardly “plunges in several hours down to minus 110 degrees C”.
It is actually a very slow rate of cooling – about 0.5 K per hour averaged as climate scientists love to do – especially when compared to convective cooling here on Earth.
From lunar sunset to lunar sunrise is ~ 354 Earth hours and the temperature falls from ~ 220 K to ~ 100 K – again an incredibly slow rate of cooling at about 0.34 K per hour.
Even from lunar noon to lunar sunset the temperature drops from ~ 390 K to ~ 220 K in ~170 hours – the fastest observed yet a mere 1 K per hour.
From lunar sunrise to lunar noon the temperature climbs from ~100 K to ~ 390 K in ~170 hours – almost twice the fastest cooling rate observed.
No matter how you read the data the Moon radiating its heat to the vacuum of space cools very slowly – in a 12 hour night the Earth is never going to lose much energy at the rates observed on the Moon.
It is absurd beyond belief to ignore the rate of rotation about the axis of the Earth as the most significant factor in explaining why the surface is warmer than the blackbody figure – the data from the Moon proves this conclusively !
I can put near boiling water in my freezer and have ice in ~ 8 – 10 hours at only minus 15 C and water has a higher thermal capacity than Moon regolith not to mention latent heat of freezing – proof that conduction/convection cool surfaces much faster than radiation alone – its also why they put the fan in the oven, use fans to cool engine radiators etc etc.
Why would the Earth lose “heat” to space faster than the Moon ?
In 12 hours a 1 K per hour rate of cooling doesn’t seem to be any problem at all – bring it on.
Which brings me to that other fraudulent claim seen everywhere.
Space is cold. This is claimed to support the atmosphere acts like a blanket keeping us warm analogy.
Firstly it is absurd to associate physical properties like temperature of hot or cold to something that has no substance at all – a vacuum !
I am amazed people with PhDs can make such ludicrous claims.
Space is only as “cold” as the radiation traversing a particular area – true the minimum observed is a few W/sq m but this is not any sort of constant.
It is absurd beyond belief to claim that near Earth orbit space is “cold” when it is literally “bathed” is solar radiation powerful enough to heat planetary surfaces to ~ 390 K. The only place to avoid it is in the shadow of the Earth or the Moon.
Anthony, I am not upset that you closed the “open thread”, but I am disappointed. It was just getting good.
thingadonta says:
December 4, 2012 at 4:08 pm
I agree totally with your opinion of Skeptical Science, and your ideas on Heat Time Lag.
I particularly see the temperatures of the soil surface, as measured for agricultural use, being better indicators and more relevant than air temperatures measured a metre or so above the actual surface.
With the oceans, until we understand the circulation and how the heat absorbed on the surface can be buried deep and returned to the surface again, your thoughts, which align with mine, remain valid arguments.
Alan Watt, Climate Denialist Level 7 says:
December 4, 2012 at 11:56 am
Oh I would dearly love to stencil that on the tailgate of my pickups and drive through Boston but I would need bullet proof glass and tires.
It should be surrounded by the logo on this t-shirt from this site
Okay, my reading comprehension is obviously not very good.
Can you please indicate where in the quoted item 6 does it say that sea temperatures have little influence on climate?
My reading of the item is that the standard definition of “global warming” is warming of the near-surface atmosphere. In other words, the air temperature that we experience. That certainly seems to agree with what I always understood it to be.
Now, I accept that sea temperatures impact air temperatures, and sea temperatures play a significant part in dictating air temperatures, especially in coastal areas and over water. However, even if the oceans have warmed, if air temperatures have not statistically-significantly risen, then the statement in item 6 appears to be true.
So I don’t understand your point. Can you please clarify?
Louis Hooffstetter says:
December 4, 2012 at 2:51 pm
Ric Werme says: “If anyone has confirmation about this “correction factor,” please post it here.”
Right, that’s the adjustment said to be applied before this adjustment is applied. That adjustment has the decent to be in units of length, this adjust actually units of volume, and it’s just too weird that people are taking a sea level and adding a volume to it. Dimensional analysis is a wonderful thing to learn….
I’ve always been impressed by the way climate scientists report changes in temperatures in tenths, hundredths or thousandth’s of degrees when there is no measurement of average global temperature that would give you those kinds of error resolutions. In chemistry I never would have dared to be so brave to do that much data overreach. If one is not skeptical about results that have so much measurement error giving such positive and authoritative results.
Great response to SkS.
thingadonta, it’s ironic that SkepSci regulars will list the barely 5-year-old solar slump as one of the causes of the lull in warming, completely ignoring the same ocean lag which supposedly hides stronger CO2 warming from us. The ocean lag is an exponential rise, not just a delay, but there are rises over various time scales due to warming at various ocean depths.
I don’t think there’s much that hasn’t been debated there, so just rereading some old threads is more than enough of a fix for me.
trafamadore says:
December 4, 2012 at 2:25 pm
I answered the question for you, but it looks like you missed it. It happens, I’m sure it’s easier to keep up with everything at the relative quiet at sks. Click back to http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/12/04/skeptical-science-gets-it-all-wrong-yet-again/#comment-1164178 and follow my links. (And read my comments.)
The third link that came up for me was an article where Dr. Morner discusses the “tilting” but the article is saying that the graph was titled via adjustments sometime after 2003. Prior to that, the graph was essentially flat (see figures 5 and 7 and the corresponding description in the article):
http://www.21stcenturysciencetech.com/Articles_2011/Winter-2010/Morner.pdf
The article has the following paragraph, which would agree with the original comment by trafamadore about titling, but with possible justification for doing so:
@richard:
Dig down in the lunar regolith and the temperature stabilizes. It’s more about ‘insulation’ than about ‘greenhouse gas’. So you have 15 lbs of air above a square foot and that tends to stabilize via insulation. Dig down under 15 lbs of lunar soil, it’s more stable too. No, not exactly the same. (Different specific heats and evaporation / convection profiles). Go close to space for us, and you get the thermosphere:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermosphere
can be a couple of thousand degrees in the sun… yet somehow being under that 2000 C blanket, we don’t have ‘global warming’ to such temperatures. In a greenhouse, put a 2000 C roof on it and see what happens… (Yes, I know, a silly analogy. But then again, the “greenhouse gas” is a silly analogy too… it does NOT act like a greenhouse.)
Similarly, looking at temperature swings at the surface of the moon is a silly analogy. You need to measure it under the dirt… http://www.asi.org/adb/m/03/05/average-temperatures.html
puts it about about -35 C a meter down. Not too different from our polar regions. Oh, and doesn’t have a molten rock core and lava heating the place either…
And, as Rosco pointed out, the different rotation rate gives longer periods of heating and cooling, so the depth of ‘stability’ will be at greater mass depth than if the moon had a 24 hour day. I’d hazard a guess it would be about 15 lbs /ft of soil deep….
Ok, here we go again;
Regarding the “Greenhouse Effect” of gases in the Earth’s atmosphere;
Firstly, a man made greenhouse most definitely does NOT “TRAP” heat. Solely via the restriction of convection it MERELY concentrates heat (sunshine) that mostly dissipates shortly afterwards (i.e. after sunset). This concentrated heat is slowed from flowing to the adjacent volumes outside of the greenhouse. There is no “NET ENERGY GAIN” or “EXTRA ENERGY” involved in the functioning of a greenhouse. It is quite feasible to construct a perfectly functioning greenhouse out of materials (plastic sheets) that freely transmit infrared radiation. This is done ALL the time.
Secondly, a thermal insulating material performs its primary function by slowing the speed at which heat travels through said material. This is mostly simply expressed as the distance travelled in any unit of time, or the rate of forward progress expressed in units of distance (or area) traversed in any given unit of elapsed time (milliseconds, hours, days, light years, etc.). By slowing the speed at which thermal energy travels through any given system a thermal insulator delays the inevitable point in time when more thermal energy must be supplied to “fill up” any given volume with more heat (i.e. your furnace turns ON). For a more detailed understanding of this research the concept of “Thermal Diffusivity”, this is effectively a measurement of the speed of heat flowing through any given system.
The “Greenhouse Effect” from these alleged GHG’s does NOT IN ANY WAY slow the speed at which heat travels through the SUN/ATMOSPHERE/EARTH SURFACE/ATMOSPHERE/UNIVERSE system. Yes it delays the flow of any individual packet of energy as some small portion of the energy makes a few extra trips through the system at the same incredibly high speed (i.e. the speed of light, it’s quite quick according to my references). Multiple passes through the system at high speed while causing a delay is NOT THE SAME as being SLOWED DOWN. This delay is on the order of tens of milliseconds, since the frequency of the incoming energy is on the order of 24 hours (sunset, sunrise) this delay is meaningless.
The Greenhouse effect is a HOAX………. It has been misrepresented by folks with an EARTH SAVING agenda, these poor misguided fools are so full of HUBRIS they will never admit they are totally wrong.
The “Greenhouse Effect” simply causes the gases in the atmosphere to warm up/cool down ever slightly faster that they would otherwise, on the order of a few milliseconds out of each day which contains about 86 MILLION milliseconds.
Cheers, Kevin.
We do not deny that there is a climate, or that it changes, or that the greenhouse effect exists, or that Man’s emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases enhance that effect and may cause some warming.
———–
Well I sort of agree about over interpreting the significance of Sandy.
But Chris is speaking for the other signatories and that is not his right. In fact some signatories do in fact deny the importance of CO2.
Yet most of the signatories named by the blog as having “no climate expertise” have published papers in the reviewed literature.
——–
Prove it. I want to see statistics showing how many papers each signatory has published that is related direclty to climate and which requires expert knowledge of climate.
Okay Oaky, back on. For a bit.
I found the link that I thought was Mörner; it was not, it was Monckton talking about Mörner and other global warming data on sea level changes. So Mörner is semi faultless. Mea culpa.
The tilted graph is in
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/originals/co2_jan_2011.pdf
on page 33. The Mörner ref is in the page before; I remembered it as him but was wrong.
So is it ironic to remember a link to someone I never heard of, Lord Monckton, and attribute it to someone I vaguely remember, Mörner? Of course what I really remember was the really weird graph, it is really weird, I have never seen something like that in the Science world.
And Mörner is not completely clear in my book; his 04 work in the Indian ocean has not been supported in subsequent work and I don’t know where or if he has responded to it. The data from Mörner that _is_ used by Monckton is “reinterpreted” with new strange data, and I wonder what strange bedfellows we have here. But you can draw your own conclusions. I am sure some of you will believe them both blameless because they think AGW is a crock.
That graph _is_ great. I might even put in my lecture on integrity in science. Lord Monckton, you are a treasure, I couldn’t dream up this stuff.
Lazy says:
“In fact some signatories do in fact deny the importance of CO2.”
Name them. I want to know who I agree with.
CO2 probably has an effect. But it is minor; too minuscule to even measure. Unless, that is, you have some empirical measurements…
David Ball said on December 4, 2012 at 5:18 pm:
Anthony, I am not upset that you closed the “open thread”, but I am disappointed. It was just getting good.
I’m not. Now that the (C)AGW-pushing “science” has been devastated, helped in no small part by nature itself not complying, and the “debate” is increasingly shown to be a near-naked unjustified political power and money grab, I’m surprised at the number and identities of the non-scientific complete nutters who’ve been on “my side”. That thread was thoroughly polluted and beyond redemption, I’m not shedding any tears.
I know the “other side” has its share of whackos and it should be expected we’ll have some as well. But over there a lot of the loudest and craziest are presumably the leaders and the respected authorities. Over here, not so much.
I’m in this to defend real science from pushers of hyped-up pseudo-science, not to switch to a different type of nonsense. The enemies of my enemy… Are stark raving loonies I probably wouldn’t associate with under other circumstances.
KevinK says:
December 4, 2012 at 7:39 pm
Case in point.
D Böehm says, December 4, 2012 at 9:24 pm: “CO2 probably has an effect. But it is minor; too minuscule to even measure. Unless, that is, you have some empirical measurements…”
============================================================
So, no empirical measurements are known to you, but nevertheless “CO2 probably has an effect”. Interesting.
WOW! Christopher really kick the crapper out of that AGW strawman… [snip]
The irony has not escaped me that realists are called “deniers” by the “SS.”
Sometimes, a WUWT comment thread is so enjoyable that I read through the whole thing. There are some real gems here.
Kev-in-Uk says:
December 4, 2012 at 6:40 am
I might have written your comment word for word.
Ric Werme says:
December 4, 2012 at 10:45 am
So, it was not Mörner who tilted the axis, but the IPCC, and Trafamadore has reversed the roles of the transgressor and the referee throwing the flag.
davidmhoffer says:
December 4, 2012 at 11:48 am
OMG, ROFLMAO.
thingadonta says:
December 4, 2012 at 4:08 pm
You are correct. It’s weird talking with obvious lay people who do not recognize the fundamental importance of phase delay in physical systems. The sanctimonious twits at SkS form a veritible Petri dish of Dunning-Kruger in action.
KevinK says:
December 4, 2012 at 7:39 pm
This one, not so enjoyable. KevinK, are you telling me these do not work? Such a waste, all that gold being shot up into orbit for no reason.
The pseudonymous “trafamadore” sneers at me for allegedly having tilted the University of Colorado’s sea-level graph in an improper or unscientific fashion. He says: “I found the link [to the graph]. I thought it was Mörner; it was not, it was Monckton talking about Mörner and other global warming data on sea level changes. So Mörner is semi faultless. Mea culpa.”
If “trafamadore” had bothered to read the link he mentions, he would have seen that the graph in question was indeed one of several supplied by Professor Mörner, the author of an excellent, comprehensive, and accessible paper “Sea Level Is Not Rising”, published by the Center for Democracy and Independence, London, 2011.
“Trafamadore” says: “Of course what I really remember was the really weird graph, it is really weird, I have never seen something like that in the Science world.” Quite right: the graph is weird. But the weirdness comes from the fact that the original, raw data from the Topex/Poseidon laser-altimetry sea level record from 1992-2000 shows no sea level rise at all, and the GRACE gravitational-anomaly sea-level record from 2003-2007 actually shows sea level falling: yet the Colorado graph, relied upon by the IPCC and all the usual suspects, shows sea level rising at a rate equivalent to 1 ft/century.
Professor Mörner was puzzled as to why the University of Colorado record shows sea level rising steeply. Accordingly, at a conference organized by the (skeptical) Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow in 2004, he asked a member of the Colorado sea-level team what on Earth was going on.
He was told that the data had been deliberately tampered with because otherwise no rise in sea level would have been evident.
The Professor, rightly furious at this flagrant abuse of scientific method, went back and realigned the bogus Colorado record to fit the raw data, ignoring the subjective – or, as he calls them “personal” calibrations that Colorado had deployed so as to get the result they wanted.
Therefore, it was the Colorado team that had tilted their graph – and had admitted having done so. Professor Mörner merely tilted the graph back again to match the real-world data, and to give some indication of the magnitude of the Colorado team’s self-confessed scientific dishonesty.
Interestingly, the entire eight-year Envisat sea-level satellite record, from 2004-2012, shows sea level rose at a rate equivalent to just 3 cm/century, well within the measurement uncertainty and hence statistically indistinguishable from zero. The Envisat record, which was not studied in Professor Mörner’s paper, provides striking confirmation of the conclusion of that paper, which reads as follows:
“Only rates in the order of 0.0 mm/year to maximum 0.7 mm/year seem realistic. This fits well with the values proposed for year 2100 by INQUA (2000) [chaired by Mörner] and Mörner (2004), but differs significantly from the values proposed by the IPCC (2001, 2007). If sea level is not rising fast, and is not going to rise fast, then the greatest threat imagined by the IPCC disappears. The idea of an ever-rising sea drowning tens of thousands of people and forcing hundreds of thousands or even millions of people to become sea-level refugees is simply a grave error, hereby revealed as an illusion.”
Professor Mörner ends with these words: “I hope that by this research we can free the world from the artificial crisis to which the IPCC has condemned it. There will be no extensive or disastrous global sea-level rise in the near future. That was the main threat in the IPCC’s arsenal of bugaboos, and now it is gone.”
A final demonstration that Professor Mörner is very likely to be correct is that the Marxist climate-extremist, George Monbiot, exactly like “trafamadore”, carefully ignored all of the information in the Professor’s paper, including his specific statement that he had tilted back the graph in order to demonstrate how far it departed from the raw satellite data, and wrote:
“Monckton and Morner engage in one of the most blatant distortions of evidence I’ve ever seen. They take a graph published by the University of Colorado, which shows a clear trend of global sea level rise, then they tilt it by 45 degrees until the line is flat, whereupon they announce that there’s “no trend”. For sheer, transparent chutzpah that takes some beating.”
Now that readers have seen some of the evidence from the paper itself, they will understand why the libels of the reliably inaccurate and malevolent Monbiot, and the confused ramblings of “trafamadore”, themselves constitute a “blatant distortion of the evidence”.
Any reader who would like a copy of Professor Mörner’s excellent paper, which is not available online except in an unauthorized version that distorts all of the graphs, should contact me.
KevinK says:
December 4, 2012 at 7:39 pm
To add a little more detail… The GHE is clearly not working on Earth in the manner claimed by the AGW faction. But, it is not because the fundamental theory is wrong. It is because the system is complex (much more so than an MLI blanket on a space vehicle), and the simple models are inadequate to describe the full effect in the terrestrial climate system.
The post states that:
It’s true that there is “no statistically-significant global warming,” but this statement is misleading, since it’s virtually meaningless. For noisy signals such as these, over short intervals like sixteen years, the slope is sensitive to the endpoint. The graph that was lifted from the Daily Mail used HadCRUT4. Let’s look at that data over four different time intervals, starting with the one in the Daily Mail’s graph:
In the top graph, the slope is a mere 0.0032 degees per year, which, extrapolated to the year 2112, would give a mild temperature increase of 0.32 degrees. But what happens when we play with the endpoints?
Let’s move the start point forward 20 months, from July 1997 to March 1999. Now our measly little 0.0032 degrees per year has jumped to 0.0081 degrees, an increase by a factor of 2.5! But we can do more. Let’s say, for some reason, we’re really interested in events halfway into 2010. Still starting with March, 1999, we find, in the third graph, that we have a slope of 0.16 degrees per year, or 1.6 degrees over the next century, which is double the second graph’s slope, and five times the slope shown in the first graph. Finally, if we restrict ourselves to March 1999—June, 2007, we get a slope of 0.0309, giving a more worrisome warming of 3.4 degrees over the next century!
But not to worry. The slopes on these graphs—all four of them—are completely bogus in characterizing long-term temperature trends. All of them—including the top one, identical to the one published in the Daily Mail—have slopes conveying some message, but based only on the selection of the endpoints. So, you can say that there was no statistically significant warming within the last sixteen years. But we can also say that temperatures rose at a rate of 3.4 degrees per century within the last sixteen years, because the time interval of March 1999—June 2007 is most assuredly within the last sixteen years.
In a previous post, there is, I’m afraid, some further evidence of this problem:
Werner Brozek says:
December 4, 2012 at 9:29 am
Looks impressively flat. But just move the starting points of each series forward by two years:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1999.25/trend/plot/rss/from:1999.0/trend/plot/hadsst2gl/from:1999.1/trend/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1999.25/plot/rss/from:1999.0/plot/hadsst2gl/from:1999.1
In the first case, the slopes are all around 0.0003 degrees per year or lower; in the second, they range from 0.033-0.046. Not a worrisome rate, but the fact that it changed so much by changing two years tells you that neither measurement is worth much. At this point, the actual standard deviation of the slope isn’t really the point. But looking at some standard deviations,
In the satellite data, the error bars for the series starting in 1995-2012 range from -0.064 to 0.342, and for 1996-2012, the error bars range from -0.089 to 03.65. If the error bars include slopes that would give projections, over the next century, of a temperature drop of nearly one degree, and also include a temperature rise of around 3.5 degrees, they’re not telling you that there’s no warming to worry about. They’re telling you that you just don’t have enough data.
Woodfortools.org is a wonderful resource. But on their homepage, the give this warning:
Anyone who wants to use that website owes it to themselves to read the material at both of those links, but especially the second one.
All of this is made worse by another point feature of the last 16 year interval: we actually know that the temperature curve has been flattened by two natural events. The large upward spike in 1998 was due to a record-breaking El Niño event, while the more recent end was affected by both a double-dip La Niña and an increasingly quiet sun. The effect is to boost the temperatures at the beginning of the time period and suppress them at the end. Saying, as some do, that “global warming stopped sixteen years ago” is like climbing a mountain, finding a place where the trail levels out, and declaring that there’s no more mountain to climb. If you happen to be on top, you’ll be right, but judging by mountains that I’ve climbed, doing this would set you up for a long series of disappointments.
To make any long-term sense out of this, you have to account for these known features. Rahmstorf and Foster presented a paper where they applied corrections to the temperature record for solar, volcanic, and ENSO influences, showing it to be consistent with a 30-year trend. Bob Tisdale took issue with this paper; his account is here:
Mythbusting Rahmstorf and Foster
Posted on November 28, 2012
Rahmstorf and Foster’s paper is linked in the first paragraph.
I’m not really convinced that the paper is “mythbusted,” because the discrepancies that Tisdale shows would, if corrected, only serve to raise the plots some around 1989 and 2000. The flattening out of 1998’s giant El Niño spike, along with the raising of the curve for recent years, would still stand, and the trend would probably still match the models (which didn’t include the ENSO events at their actual times, because the timing couldn’t be predicted, and didn’t include the solar and volcanic events at all, because they couldn’t be predicted at all). But the accuracy of that paper is not really my point—I’m really just trying to say that the seemingly flat temperatures over the last decade (though how flat depends on how you pick your cherries) are artificially flattened by transient natural processes, and if you don’t correct for them, you need to at least discuss these along with the temperature curve.
Now, El Niños/La Niñas come and go. The sun is another story. The last solar cycle was quiet; the current one is shaping up to be quieter still. While we can’t predict very far, a prolonged solar minimum is certainly plausible, though certainly not guaranteed. So, that “flattening” process could continue for an extended period. If the “warmists” are right about CO2, this could actually be convenient. If we suddenly need more warming, we could perhaps do something like a crash program for mountaintop removal mining of coal, and then burning the coal in place to get as much warming as possible. We don’t know which way it’s going, so we’d better think about being ready for anything.
But back to plotting and interpreting plots, and the idea that “global warming stopped 16 years ago” and similar statements: again, heed the warning given at woodfortrees.org.
There are experienced scientists on this forum, but many others as well. For the latter, especially: please be aware that such cherry-picking, and using insufficient data, need not be conscious. I think there are vastly more misleading statements made because someone stumbles on a result that pleased them, and ran with it, than because someone consciously decided to spread misinformation. Science is fun, and important. For the great issues of the day, it’s good to see so many people become interested in it. But science can be difficult, too. There’s a reason why scientists spend so much time learning to do it, under the watchful eye of an experienced mentor. And young scientists learn early on that they have to understand the tools of their trade, including statistics. They’re very powerful, but they don’t have any training wheels or seat belts. Fortunately, if you crash and burn, the worst effect is usually just a short-lived reddening of the face, and, hopefully, a lesson learned. Have at it, engage in the argument, support your point—but if you don’t know what you’re doing, it will be obvious to those who do, and your argument, with them, will fall very flat.
Oops. The graphs that I tried to include didn’t make it. They were supposed to be right after my first full paragraph (the one following the quoted paragraph). The can be found at:
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8061/8245570335_aa7cc77f64_b.jpg
The link to Bob Tisdale’s guest post also disappeared; it is
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/11/28/mythbusting-rahmstorf-and-foster/
Sorry about that.
@Bart:
I think KevinK is saying nothing about vacuum ‘filled’ insulation. He is making an assertion about air filled boxes. That convection dominates in an air (and water vapor / condensation) filled environment and so must be prevented with physical barriers. The ‘radiative’ aspect is below the noise level of evaporation/ convection / condensation. Doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist, or that it would not be dominant in an vacuum, but just that it is irrelevant to a moist air filled box, or planet…
I have a good friend that I have been debating global warming with for some time. He (who has a PHD in mathematics and computer science, is a professor at a prestigious university) sent me these links in response to some recent comments I made regarding the 16 years of no global warming.. Any responses from WUWT would be helpful:
“Here are two results from a single Google search on the subject that I performed this morning.
http://news.discovery.com/earth/no-global-warming-hasnt-stopped-121017.html
http://www.businessinsider.com/16-irrefutable-signs-that-climate-change-is-real-2012-11?op=1
Please tell me how this fits into your view of the subject.”
KevinK said “Firstly, a man made greenhouse most definitely does NOT “TRAP” heat. Solely via the restriction of convection it MERELY concentrates heat (sunshine) that mostly dissipates shortly afterwards (i.e. after sunset). This concentrated heat is slowed from flowing to the adjacent volumes outside of the greenhouse. There is no “NET ENERGY GAIN” or “EXTRA ENERGY” involved in the functioning of a greenhouse. It is quite feasible to construct a perfectly functioning greenhouse out of materials (plastic sheets) that freely transmit infrared radiation. This is done ALL the time.”
My (quite old) book on greenhouses is wrong then. It describes the restriction of convection as the main effect but also describes glass absorbing most outgoing IR and returning 1/2 of it back to objects in the GH. That effect persists after sunset with an exponential decay, not an instant drop as you imply.
“The fact that there has been no statistically-significant global warming for 16 years is described as a “myth”. Yet the least-squares linear-regression trend on the Hadley Centre/CRU dataset favoured by the IPCC indeed shows no statistically-significant warming for 16 years. The minuscule warming over the period is within the margin of uncertainty in the measurements and is, therefore, statistically indistinguishable from zero.”
I’m going to be picky here. Start at 1995. Because that is the date that Phil Jones from UEA had to start with when some clever “skeptical” journalist asked him if there had been statistically significant warming since 1995. And Phil quite rightly answered, “No”.
If asked now, he’d have to change his answer to yes, because now there has been statistically significant warming since 1995. So when 129 “skeptics” write a letter to try and influence public opinion, they move the start date, so that they can recycle the “no warming since…” line. Its misleading, and it shows a distinct lack of imagination.
Here’s a challenge. When was the last 15 year period that showed statistically significant *cooling*?
LazyTeenager:
At December 4, 2012 at 8:05 pm you misrepresent and lie when you write
Firstly, nobody cares what an anonymous internet troll like you “sort of agrees” so please don’t bother us with your worthless opinions.
Secondly, the Viscount Monckton of Brenchley has a complete “right” to explain the document which he helped to draft.
Thirdly, you have no “right” to ascribe your interpretations of signatories’ views. Signatories decided that they agreed with the document, and the document says this about “the importance of CO2”.
Richard
Moderators:
My reply to LT seems to have gone in the ‘bin’ and so does my request for you to retrieve it.
Richard
jazzyT:
At December 4, 2012 at 11:22 pm you say
The data you cite do NOT – as you assert – “tell you that neither not measurement is worth much”.
Your assertion tells everybody that you don’t have a clue about the subject on which you pontificate.
Each datum you cite shows that the indicated trend cannot be distinguished from zero at 95% confidence.
Please note that this is true for every single datum which you provide and, therefore, “the fact that it changed so much” (i.e not at all) “by changing two years tells you” that there was no discernible change at 95% confidence.
Richard
J. Philip Peterson:
At December 5, 2012 at 12:27 am you ask
Climate is changing as it always has and always will, and the link provides examples of changing climate. But the fact of climate change tells nothing about the cause(s) of climate change.
At issue is the nature and degree of effects of human activities on climate change. And the link provides no information of any kind about that issue.
Richard
Dear Mr Watts, I was wondering for the Christmas Season whether we could have a holy book of rules of Global warming.
My first would be.
The Holy scriptures of Climategate Scientists decree that under no circumstance is it allowed for a Hurricane in Hurricane season to be worse than one from the past.
Christopher, trafamadore appeared here recently at WUWT and has taken up the role of resident troll. As you’ve discovered, trafamadore’s misunderstandings are easily countered. As is often the case with trolls, trafamadore helps us to reinforce our messages.
Hello Phillip (December 5, 2012 at 12:27 am),
The fact that global temperatures have not risen over the past 16 years is just that – a fact. And no one who can read a simple graph can dispute that. This of course presents a problem for the True Believers. They must somehow get rid of this ‘putative’ fact. So both papers that you refer to present graphs which instead show that global temperatures have risen over the past century or so. No one disputes that. They point out that temperatures have also stalled in the past too, or even decreased for a few years. And no one disputes that either. Nevertheless, it is clear that over the last 16 years there has been no warming. . You don’t need to look at what happened in 1880 to see what happened over the last 16 years.
None of their models predicted that. On the contrary, James Hansen predicted that temperatures would rise between 2 to 4 degrees in the first decade of this century. Instead, temperatures have been flat. Big problem for the catastrophic runaway theory.
The second paper that you link to shows pictures of photogenic polar bears and claims that the ice is melting, glaciers are receding and that sea levels are rising. All are true, but these processes started at the end of the last ice age. This is what happens naturally in an inter-glacial period.
Tell your professor friend that in the previous interglacial period, which we call the Eemian (about 100,000 years ago, that conditions were generally warmer everywhere and that the Arctic was ice free in summer ; according to the IPCC assessment reports, which as your second link makes clear, are based on the work of 1000s of scientists around the world.
.
This is the one argument which SkS cannot and never will be able to squash, because any alternative can be proven to produce a reduction in entropy, which, as any physicist knows, is a violation of the Second Law. So consider this if you have a background in physics …
Those who continue to contend that backradiation raises surface temperature 33 degrees (or whatever) clearly assume that an atmosphere without any water vapor or GHG would have a uniform temperature without any lapse rate.
This is not possible because the adiabatic lapse rate has been clearly shown to be proportional to gravitational acceleration for any given gas. Such a temperature gradient will develop even in a closed room, though the difference in temperature would be only about 0.015 degree. My point is that it does happen and has been talked about since Loschmidt in the late 19th century.
Just because Maxwell and Boltzmann scoffed at the idea, does not mean they were right. No-one had the instruments then to prove the point one way or another.
Yes there have been attempted rebuttals on WUWT, saying a wire conductor outside a cylinder would conduct heat upwards. But in fact it would not, because, as Loschmidt said, it applies in solids, liquids and gases. So the wire would not conduct upwards because it already has exactly the same temperature gradient. Graeff established this empirically with the gas and the walls of the container having a temperature gradient. (You can easily Google these names for links.)
The point of all this is of course that the adiabatic lapse rate is not something which eventuates from convection, or even needs a hot starting point such as a surface pre-heated above the temperature of the adjoining layer of atmosphere. No, it all happens spontaneously, and it has to be that way.
Hence the normal diffusion of molecules in a gas establishes the vertical temperature gradient spontaneously, simply because entropy is not altered and potential energy interchanges equally with kinetic energy. Hence the lower regions are automatically warmer.
It follows that on any planet with an atmosphere, such as Earth, Venus, Saturn, Jupiter etc the natural lapse rate (together with the mean Solar radiation received) establishes the temperature at every level, including the lowest level adjoining the surface. So the surface automatically takes on a very similar temperature.
It only looks like the surface has established the temperature of the adjoining atmosphere, but in reality the atmosphere had to fit in with the insolation and automatic lapse rate first. Of course on Earth it gets hotter in the day, but it does not usually get colder than the atmosphere at night. So the atmosphere provides a ratchet effect and there is an interchange by radiation and conduction which keeps the temperature gap quite small.
So this keeps carbon dioxide right out of the picture, and you’re wasting time thinking about back radiation and all that, because all cooling processes will adjust to conform with the lapse rate.
J Phillip Peterson
Tell your friends that , using similar techniques , you can devise a chart shows that you grew three feet between the ages of 18 and 36. Simply plot your height at zygote then at age 36 and connect with a single slope. We say that the last global warming trend ended in 1998. Challenge your friends to present temperature data that shows warming for the last 15 years. They cannot. This lack of warming refutes their theories utterly, and any prediction of future warming is rank speculation.
trafamadore, I don’t know if you realize this yet, but you have been well and truly owned.
I don’t know exactly what the Viscount Monckton of Brenchley’s livestock brand looks like, but I imagine it must be difficult for you to sit comfortably with that brand still stinging on your backside…
J. Philip Peterson,the claim that there hasn’t been warming, or significant warming, in the global surface record over the past 16 years is correct and isn’t contradicted by your links (I believe, I just skimmed).
See here,
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1998/to:2012/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1998/to:2012/trend
Yes the linear trend is up, but the temperature ends lower than where it started, so it’s hardly significant.
People can argue about the significance of that as a separate argument (and do!). Is 16 years long enough? Maybe not, though climate scientists seem to have a moving target regarding what constitutes a significant period. As you can see the signal is quite noisy with a range of about 0.7 C in that period. That suggests perhaps a longer period is needed, perhaps 2 or 3 decades. But it also suggests that we’re quite insensitive to temperature swings. Can you recall from memory which years over the past decade where the hottest and coldest? I can’t. In the context of the debate 0.7 C is quite large.
J Phillip Peterson
Concerning the second link: no skeptic disputes that the globe has warmed this past century. We see this warming as a natural, centuries-long trend. We dispute that this warming is detrimental. We note the hyper-exaggerated alarms that the alarmist propaganda mills crank out and we trace it to the dubious science that serves as the mill grist, and we object that national policies should be founded on such panic-mongering fed by such ill-founded science. We see a science produced by would-be scientists whose judgement is fogged by ideological commitment and grant-grabbing fever. This dubious science has been refuted variously and repeatedly, but as you can see for yourself, the propaganda mills still busily grind out the panic. This propaganda effort is not an accident, but is conceived, concerted, and executed purposefully by an organized party.
Concerning the benefits of a warmer world: milder winters, which mean lower fuel bills and improved winter conditions, and a longer growing season and higher humidity levels, resulting in more food production for a growing population. This last is important for a world whose population is expected to double and redouble the next century. The stark horror facing the world is not warmth but famine. So much for the global warmers.
My dear Lord Christopher Monckton of Brenchley: You must remember, many years ago, when there were vacuum tube radios; whenever we put it off there appeared a very short intensification of the radio signal, a kind of “rogue wave”….before dying. That radio program is over!
John Brookes
We note that you claim that the globe has warmed in the last fifteen years. Interesting, because not even Phil Jones, your hero, would make such a claim. So now we have enough information to take your measure as a scientist. That you for that information.
John Brookes:
At December 5, 2012 at 2:23 am you provide a “challenge”. I write to accept it and to provide you with a counter challenge” which I anticipate you will not accept.
Your “challenge” is
I answer:
In the period from ~1940 to ~1970. A similar such period was from ~1880 to ~1910.
Both these periods were prior to significant anthropogenic CO2 emission to the atmosphere.
Now for my challenge to you.
The IPCC AR4 predicted (n.b. predicted and not projected) “committed warming” of 0.2deg.C per decade (+-20%) averaged over the first two decades after year 2000. This “committed warming” was certain to occur because of greenhouse gases already in the system.
It is now nearly 2013 and there has been discernible warming since 2000. The climate models predicted the “committed warming” was certain to occur if there were no significant changes to volcanism or solar behaviour which have not happened. This “committed warming” should now have provided at least 0.2deg.C of global warming. And for the trend of 0.2deg.C per decade (+-20%) averaged over the first two decades after year 2000 to be achieved requires a probably impossible rise over the next 7 years of ~0.8deg.C (this would be a greater rise than happened over the entire twentieth century).
So, my challenge is to ask you
Where has the “committed warming” gone if the climate models are not bunkum?
Richard
Ooops! I intended to write
It is now nearly 2013 and there has been NO discernible warming since 2000.
Sorry.
Richard
@ trafamadore says: December 4, 2012 at 2:25 pm
“Okay, I just googled “tilted sea level graph” and Morner’s name comes out at the top. You don’t forget things like that, pretty entertaining.”
LOL! It sure does! Because it is only referenced on SkS, and then pointed to there from other BLOGS. In no authoritative site does it appear. Talk about Circular logic! You were told to get a real source, not a blog. You failed.
kadaka (KD Knoebel) says:
December 4, 2012 at 9:36 pm
Pretty weak to dismiss an entire argument based on one poster who does not represent the argument well. Truth is the daughter of time, and she will tell.
“It is now nearly 2013 and there has been NO discernible warming since 2000.” – really?
Dear posters,
if you do not bother to format your comments containing quotes in such a way that the readers could clearly understand who said what, it should be no surprise, if your comments are not taken seriously.
Mother:
At December 5, 2012 at 8:06 am you ask
Yes, really. Please read the thread before posting.
For example see the above post by Werner Brozek at December 4, 2012 at 9:29 am. He explains it in words and also links to graphs which show when the trend extends back to zero for several data sets.
However, in case you want to knit-pick about “since 2000” I add a plot from 2000 which – for consistency – was also by Werner Brozek but posted on another thread
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/wti/from:2000.9/plot/wti/from:2000.9/trend
Richard
I checked the first professor, Nils-Axel Morner (Mörner, with dots on o). On web of science I can find exactly 90 publications for morner na* and with address set to Sweden (91 with morner n* and 111 by leaving sweden out). Naturally he can have other publications but I would still say that some 90 is far from 550. Also some of the papers are some conferens abstracts, which are seldom refereed to any higher degree. Some 450 papers are missing.
Mörner is famous in Sweden for his dowsing theories;-)
Here’s a link to my recent comment where I posted the results of the 2007 Mason U. study that found a much lower percentage of earth scientists in the catastrophic camp:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/12/03/on-certainty-truth-is-the-daughter-of-time/#comment-1163387
Is that really true? How often are there debates in the literature about the meaning of the findings in previous papers? It seems to me that journals shy away from that, especially when the would-be debaters represent a distinct minority in the field. Journals seem to focus on “findings” that a new, surprising, and significant. Secondarily, they occasionally run papers that challenge other findings, but usually not in a highly confrontational way.
WUWT ran a thread on a replication Dr. Loo’s survey and (IIRC) WUWTers strongly endorsed GW. Here’s the link: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/09/08/replication-of-lewandowsky-survey/
Here’s a link to the survey itself (password is REPLICATE):
http://ascottblog.wordpress.com/lewandowsky-survey-replicated/
1. But how many climatologists have expert knowledge of climate either? On Aug. 1, Gail Combs said:
2. And how much knowledge of climatology is needed to detect faulty statistics, unwarranted assumptions, non sequiturs, fudging, etc.? Not much, especially when these flaws have been brought to their attention by contrarian critics. MOST scientists who have diligently studied the literature and the critiques thereof can come to an informed and rational opinion of the warmists’ case, especially when it comes to “policy prescriptions,” which the IPCC specifically disavowed making–but which UN Secretary Bim Bam Boom IS prescribing.
I started using the “blockquote” and “/blockquote” tags (inside angle brackets) about a year ago and I love them. They can be nested. It takes a while to get the hang of them. I usually compose offline so I can more easily be sure that I’ve matched every indent with an outdent and that I haven’t left out any backslashes. It’s easier in Word, where I use the abbreviations “bq” and “bqs”, which the autocorrect feature expands for me.
Henric:
Nice try but a total fail.
Nils-Axel Morner is probably the world’s leading authority on sea level.
On the other hand, you are an internet troll trying to smear a world-renowned scientist from behind the cowardly shield of anonymity.
Go back to SkS where your slime is appreciated. It is disdained here.
Richard
Richard: Fail, me no fail? In 1995 the associateion “Vetenskap och folkbildning” (the Swedish SKEPTICS http://www.vof.se/visa-english) announced Mörner to be the “förvillare” of the year
http://www.vof.se/visa-forvillare1995. However, me no proper English, so pick your proper wording for “förvilla” from this list http://sv.bab.la/lexikon/svensk-engelsk/f%C3%B6rvilla. Choose any of them, add them to your cv and make it stand out from the crowd. Scientist he may be but world renowned only here.
jazzyT says:
December 4, 2012 at 11:22 pm
I appreciate what you are saying about starting times. However NOAA set the “goal post” at 15 years and said certain things. Earth ‘scored’ against this “goal post”. Was the goal post too high or too wide? That is not for me to say. However starting at 1999 makes the time less than 15 years. A while back, we were challenged to prove there was no global warming for 15 years. I showed there was none for 180 months and was accused of cherry picking a start time of just before 1998. Someone else picked a shorter time and was accused of not going 15 years! But getting back to 1998, yes, that was a super El Nino, but look what followed it, very strong La Ninas. So if you plot RSS from 1997 OR from 2000, you get a fairly straight line either way. See:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:1997/plot/rss/from:1997/trend/plot/rss/from:2000/trend
And any positive slope you may get from a time in 1999 is really small and not worth worrying about.
To the nearest year, there has been no warming at all for 16 years, statistical or otherwise, on several data sets. However we can go back 18 years to show no statistical warming, even on the other data sets. This has been demonstrated in posts above.
You are of course correct that short, cherry picked trends can be noisy. That is why NOAA said what it did regarding 15 years. My interpretation is that after 15 years of no temperature rise, one should stop blaming noise and accept that CO2 is just not the driver they thought it was.
John Brookes says:
December 5, 2012 at 2:23 am
If asked now, he’d have to change his answer to yes, because now there has been statistically significant warming since 1995.
I do not agree. Go to http://www.skepticalscience.com/trend.php
Then punch in 1995 for a start and 2013 for end date.
Then Hadcrut4 gives 0.097 +/- 0.113.
Hadcrut3 gives 0.073 +/- 0.123.
In both cases, the error bar is larger than the initial slope meaning Phil Jones would say there was NO statistical warming for 18 years.
Since a skeptical science site will not even back you up, please tell me how you came to your conclusion.
Henric:
I see that at December 5, 2012 at 12:05 pm you still rely on smears.
Morner is a great scientist and you have provided nothing which disputes his greatness.
You are merely an anonymous troll whose rightful place is on SkS.
Richard
JazzyT,
Let us look at a centuries-long time span. That way, all accusations of cherry-picking are rendered moot:
http://i49.tinypic.com/rc93fa.jpg
Note that recent global warming has not accelerated.
Note that the same intermittent warming steps have occurred in the past, well before CO2 began to rise.
Note that the natural global warming recovery from the LIA has remained on the same long term trend line.
What must we conclude from those facts? We must conclude that any warming due to the recent rise in CO2 is too small to measure. For all practical purposes, it is no different from zero.
Therefore, the entire AGW argument fails. AGW may exist, but if so it is too minuscule to measure, and if it cannot be measured it is nothing more than an evidence-free conjecture.
You may not like the obvious, inescapable conclusion: the rise in CO2 does not matter. But there it is. Scientific veracity does not care if you like it or not. AGW is nothing more than a conjecture. The ultimate Authority — Planet Earth — has been deconstructing the failed AGW conjecture for many years now. AGW believers are squirming around in increasing desperation, trying to rationalize the fact that global warming stopped in the 1990’s.
Most of us here think the planet is telling the truth, and the purveyors of the AGW scare are greatly exaggerating it based on evidence-free assertions, for their own self-serving reasons. What say you?
Richard: I have added valuable information about Mörners achievements + added links to original source as evidence. Being heralded by skeptics should rank high in this lie-full world. No smears. Maybe Monckton listed that achievement as one of his, 460 or so, missing papers (Yes, smears)
Henric,
Like all climate alarmists, when you cannot post verifiable facts, you make an ad hominem attack. I have not been following this conversation, but really, what do your numbers matter? Facts are what matter. You seem to be very short on facts.
Regarding sea level rise, this MSL marker, cut into the rock in 1841, shows only a tiny 2.5 cm sea level rise over more than 170 years.
Do a search of the WUWT archives and you will find lots of articles on sea level rise. Just like the AGW scare, sea level rise is another false alarm. SL rise is not accelerating. If you believe it is, then post your facts here. But I suspect that you have no facts, which explains your repeated ad hominem, fact-free comments, typical of climate alarmist true believers.
From David Ball on December 5, 2012 at 7:41 am:
Pretty weak to dismiss an entire argument based on one poster who does not represent the argument well. Truth is the daughter of time, and she will tell.
Seriously, you think it’s only one?
We know greenhouse effects are logarithmic vs concentration, CO₂’s GHE is saturated, we’re not going to see any further temperature increases from any CO₂ increases that we are expecting to see.
We’ve seen evidence for other things besides increases in GHE from CO₂ increases that accounts for the late 20th century warming, like cloud cover variation (one, two). We’ve found much evidence of several negative feedback mechanisms regulating the global temperature. Etc. And that’s without considering how the surface temperature records have been so manipulated that it’s questionable whether the 20th century yielded ANY warming.
So now that it’s obvious we have nothing to worry about with the CO₂ increases and no temperature increases from their share of the total GHE, it’s ceased being a threat, we have a bunch of would-be geniuses declaring there is no GHE, the threat never existed?
What is now basic science has shown us over time the truth of the GHE. We’ve assembled an impressive arsenal for the climate wars, and are winning on the science front. Hate to tell you this, but closing your eyes and pretending the opposition’s basic weapon never existed has never been a winning strategy. Even more so since it is now one of our weapons as well.
Greg House says:
December 4, 2012 at 10:35 pm
D Böehm says, December 4, 2012 at 9:24 pm: “CO2 probably has an effect. But it is minor; too minuscule to even measure. Unless, that is, you have some empirical measurements…”
============================================================
So, no empirical measurements are known to you, but nevertheless “CO2 probably has an effect”. Interesting.
________________________________________
There is some evidence via theoretical physics and the Atmospheric Transmission spectrum however the effect of CO2 is small especially when compared with that of water as I have shown in these two comments.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/07/21/some-thoughts-on-radiative-transfer-and-ghgs/#comment-1040071
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/07/21/some-thoughts-on-radiative-transfer-and-ghgs/#comment-1041066
Gail Combs,
Thanks for the links. Everyone has their own position on the subject of AGW. My position is that I don’t know.
Greg House wants a definitive answer. So do we all. That is why I used “probably” instead of ‘certainly’. I am open to any and all facts. While on the one hand, people who know more than I do [like Prof Richard Lindzen] take the position that a GHE exists, I take the “show me” position.
I think AGW exists, but that it is much smaller than even experts like Lindzen believe — as shown by Lindzen’s constant ratcheting down of his sensitivity estimate over the last decade or so.
Finally, as kadaka’s link shows, any further warming from increased CO2 is unlikely due to the fact that the CO2 IR window is already saturated. Every increase in CO2 is another coat of paint.
So while CO2 has a warming effect, that effect has hit its asymptotic ceiling. Otherwise, there would be at least some acceleration in global warming following the recent ≈40% rise in CO2. Not only has there been no acceleration; global warming appears to have stopped some time in the 1990’s.
Warming may resume at some time, but it is pretty clear that the cause(s) are natural, and not due to AGW. I will change my mind if verifiable cause-and-effect measurements can be produced, showing conclusively that human CO2 emissions cause global warming. But so far, no such measurements exist. The CO2 effect is saturated.
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/heating_effect_of_co2.png
kadaka (KD Knoebel) says:
December 5, 2012 at 3:43 pm
You realize you sound just like the alarmists did at the start of the whole AGW fiasco. Appeals to authority when you have no understanding of what is actually proven (not hypothesized) in the literature. If you look closely (and you should) much of what is being touted about Co2 is not based on solid evidence. Co2 FOLLOWS temperature in all known records. Who has his eyes closed?
D Böehm says:
December 5, 2012 at 4:13 pm
The temperature and Co2 divergence going on right now, should be evidence enough that the theory is wrong.
David Ball,
You seem to have missed my point: the CO2 effect mattered at 20 ppmv. It mattered a lot less at 100 ppmv. At 394 ppmv, it doesn’t matter at all. The effect is used up. Saturated. That is why, despite the 40% rise in CO2, there has been no corresponding rise in temperature.
And then, I could be wrong. All it would take is a series of measurements showing a verifiable, testable cause-and-effect relationship between a rise in CO2 and a subsequent rise in temperature.
In science you can never be proven right, you can only be proven wrong. But so far, no one has produced the empirical measurements necessary to prove that CO2 still matters. I don’t think it does. At all.
I would be interested in being proven wrong, because then I would learn something.
And you seem to have missed my point. It is being proven wrong right now.
Ask yourself what possible difference could saturation make if Co2 is a result of temperature change.
J. Philip Peterson says:
December 5, 2012 at 12:27 am
I have a good friend that I have been debating global warming with for some time…..
_____________________________
You might want to read A.J. Strata (NASA Engineer) essay on the error bars in temperature: link As a mathematician he should understand error bars around a data point.
Anthony’s paper on the US surface stations: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/07/29/press-release-2/
WUWT on Errors in Estimating Mean Temperature.Part I and II
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/08/30/errors-in-estimating-temperatures-using-the-average-of-tmax-and-tmin-analysis-of-the-uscrn-temperature-stations/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/09/12/errors-in-estimating-mean-temperature-part-ii/
These articles from Joanne Nova really illustrates the problem:
http://joannenova.com.au/2012/03/australian-temperature-records-shoddy-inaccurate-unreliable-surprise/
http://joannenova.com.au/2012/08/dont-mention-the-peer-review-new-zealands-niwa-bury-the-australian-review/
The death of the thermometers problem:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/03/08/on-the-march-of-the-thermometers/
http://diggingintheclay.wordpress.com/2010/01/21/the-station-drop-out-problem/
And then there is: these graphs:
http://jonova.s3.amazonaws.com/graphs/giss/hansen-giss-1940-1980.gif
http://jonova.s3.amazonaws.com/graphs/lappi/gisp-last-10000-new.png
http://www.greenworldtrust.org.uk/Science/Images/ice-HS/noaa_gisp2_icecore_anim_adj.gif
To put it bluntly the temperature record stinks. It has been mutilated beyond recognition and certainly can not give the precision they are claiming.
Another set of very telling graphs that can be used to determine if the temperature record agrees with other climate indicators.
The October Northern Hemisphere Snow record. This would be the month most sensitive to cooling/warming. http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/service/global/snowcover-nhland/201210.gif
The length of the Arctic Ice melt season: http://i45.tinypic.com/27yr1wy.png
The Köppen–Geiger climate classification system. The system is based on the concept that native vegetation is the best expression of climate. Thus, climate zone boundaries have been selected with vegetation distribution in mind. It combines average annual and monthly temperatures and precipitation, and the seasonality of precipitation
This is a map of the changes in boundaries in the US mid west over the last century: http://www.sturmsoft.com/climate/suckling_mitchell_2000_fig2_3.gif
And the information on weather that never makes a splash: http://iceagenow.info/
Forget sea level rise it is whether or not we can grow the crops that feed us that is the real issue. Warming means Canada and Russia can grow grains. Cooling means they can not.
Is anyone aware where the term Greenhouse Effect came from?
David Ball says, December 5, 2012 at 5:06 pm: “Is anyone aware where the term Greenhouse Effect came from?”
=========================================================
My guess is that some people in the 19th century thought that the inside of a greenhouse was warmed by IR back radiation from the glass walls or glass ceiling, because glass was opaque to IR. So they called alleged warming by the IR back radiation of certain gases in the atmosphere a “greenhouse effect” and those gases “greenhouse gases”.
Then the whole notion of “warming back radiation” was debunked in 1909 by American physics professor R.W.Wood (http://www.wmconnolley.org.uk/sci/wood_rw.1909.html).
@Henric
I’m pretty sure your English is a lot better than my Swedish, but just in case, here goes.
Jag läste länkan. Det stod att Mörner “anordnat universitetskurser om slagrutor där studenterna pådyvlas sedan länge motbevisade myter …. “
Enligt den anklagelse, är han kanske lite vrickad när det gäller slagrutor.
Ja, och sen, då?
Vad har det med havsnivå att göra? Det betyder inte att hans meningar om havsnivå är värdelös. Bara en granskning av hans forskning kunde visa det.
Att avslå hans arbete på grund av hans egenheter är bara argumentum ad hominem.
I read the link. It said that Mörner “organised university courses on dowsing in which the students had long-refuted myths foisted on them.”
From that accusation it seems he is a bit of a loony in regard to dowsing.
So what?
What does that have to do with sea level? It doesn’t mean that his work on sea level is worthless. Only an examination of his research could show that.
To reject his work because of his eccentricities is simply argumentum ad hominem.
@ Roger Knight
So maybe most sceptics do believe in Global Warming after all.
(Of course, I didn’t say they didn’t. I just pointed out to eco-geek that “not denying” is not logically equivalent to believing or affirming.)
Greg House says:
December 5, 2012 at 6:23 pm
Good guess, and I admire the courage you have to respond. Keep reading WUWT? and the answer will be posted in due course. Hint; it is more recent than your guess.
David Ball says:
December 5, 2012 at 4:46 pm
And you seem to have missed my point. It is being proven wrong right now.
_________________________________
What is being proven wrong is the idiotic statement that “CO2 is the control know of the climate”
The fact they can not get the weather forecasts correct for more than a few days and that only because they use PATTERNS shows the climate scientist are just blowing smoke.
The science is still at the discovery stage.
Could CO2 have a very very minor effect in the range D Böehm is talking about? Yes but that effect is going to be swamped out by H2O.
These three graphs say it all:
http://www.randombio.com/temperatures6.png
http://www.udel.edu/Geography/DeLiberty/Geog474/energy_wavelength.gif
http://www.globalwarmingart.com/images/7/7c/Atmospheric_Transmission.png
And you can also toss in this one:
http://www.shadowchaser.demon.co.uk/eclipse/2006/thermochron.gif
If I had to guess I would bet on H2O, tectonic plates* and the sun as seen on earth as the control knobs. CO2 is a flea in a room full of elephants.
*Configuration of continents, mountains and volcanoes
Someone wrote;
“I’m in this to defend real science from pushers of hyped-up pseudo-science, not to switch to a different type of nonsense. The enemies of my enemy… Are stark raving loonies I probably wouldn’t associate with under other circumstances.
KevinK says:
December 4, 2012 at 7:39 pm
Case in point.”
Just for your info; this particular stark raving loonie (KevinK) works in the aerospace field and has participated in the design, manufacture and successful deployment of many of the commercial Earth imaging satellites that produce the stunning images from companies like Digital Globe, etc. I have many decades of engineering experience. Including optical radiation and it’s properties and the management of heat inside satellites. The simple fact is it is very hard to keep a satellite cool because of all the heat generating electronics inside the modern ones. If a vacuum is “cold” as claimed by the climate science folks why would we have problems cooling off our satellites ? Why do they often have large radiative surfaces on the outside of them ? We don’t put them there for the looks, no racing stripes either, they weight too much.
The concept of thermal diffusivity is a well known and understood property of materials, you can buy test instruments that measure it, so that seems a good indication that is is REAL and not pseudo science. Higher performance computer systems use copper as a heatsink simply because heat travels faster through the copper than through less expensive aluminum, this is a simple fact.
Yes, a multilayer insulation blanket works in a vacuum, no doubt about it, I have specified it for products I have helped design. Here on the Earth with a gas filled atmosphere it is useless. That’s why nobody stuffs in the walls of their houses (not the same as a simple reflective barrier (aluminum foil) that can be effective in the tropics but is no longer used in northern climes because it tends to electrocute folks that accidentally connect it to the wiring in the house, ouch that hurts, but only for a little while.
Any textbook that claims that the blockage of IR transmission out of a greenhouse causes a temperature rise is WRONG, it is that simple. You can build a greenhouse out of IR transmitting plastic sheets (Mylar, a trademark) and they are just as effective as IR blocking glass greenhouses. And yes, the temperature inside drops slowly after the sun sets, not precipitously as I may have implied, but if you open all the doors and windows the free convection will cool it off pretty darn fast.
So perhaps I’m a loon, but the stuff I have worked on performs as promised, unlike climate models.
Cheers, Kevin.
Gail Combs says:
December 5, 2012 at 7:11 pm
I fully concede that I may be wrong. Anybody who is absolutely certain of anything is not being scientific or are unaware of how many “certainties” have been overturned throughout history. I dare Mosher or DavidmHoffer to have the courage to say “I may be wrong”. The empirical evidence is showing that Co2 does nothing but react to temperature. The capitulation that Co2 has “some” effect is going to do more harm to the skeptics position than good. Time will tell.
David Ball says, December 5, 2012 at 7:04 pm: […]
===========================================================
Thank you, David, and I humbly allow me to draw your attention to one particular comment of mine: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/12/04/skeptical-science-gets-it-all-wrong-yet-again/#comment-1165076 .
Whoops, I think I specified the wrong plastic in my example of a plastic greenhouse.
Mylar’s (trademark) optical transmission properties are similar to ordinary window glass.
I believe I meant to specify polyethelyne, yet another plastic available in thin flexible sheet form.
So many plastics, so little time….
Anyway if you do a little research you will find plastics sheets available in large flexible rolls for making greenhouse with. You simply stretch it over a rigid plastic or metal frame and clamp it down with inexpensive plastic clamps. It still makes a fine greenhouse by restricting convection.
Of course all of these plastics are made available by the evil “fossil” fuel companies in the first place,damn them all to hell /sarc off.
For anybody that wants to learn more; look up “thermal diffusivity”, and “multi-layer interference coatings”, both are quite real and will reveal quite a lot about the “greenhouse effect” HOAX.
Cheers, Kevin
Whoops again, I seem to have two online names here, KevinK and nothothere, please assume both entries came from me, Cheers, Kevin.
Oh, about those “old textbooks” that are always correct, I think the guys that designed Chernoybl (sp) had one of those….
@ David Ball
We don’t notice the GHE from CO₂ since it practically maxed out at levels too low to support virtually all life on Earth. CO₂ is just “along for the ride”, follows temperature, is unable to lead temperature at pre-industrial concentrations and above, etc. That’s not an issue.
Saying there can’t be a GHE because temperature isn’t following CO₂, when CO₂ is at levels where it’s incapable of yielding a significant temperature increase anyway, that’s a problem.
Just because the GHE is in the background without detectable changes, essentially hidden, doesn’t justify saying it doesn’t exist. It’s there. I don’t say there can’t be dirt under my basement supporting my house because I’ve never seen it, nor do I believe there must be pilings down to the bedrock as dirt alone won’t support it.
The capitulation that Co2 has “some” effect is going to do more harm to the skeptics position than good.
The GHE of CO₂ is there, it exists. But the expected CO₂ increases won’t yield temperature increases, the GHE is maxed out. The warmists want to cut atmospheric CO₂ to lower temperatures, but the science shows that won’t work as they’ll have to be reduced to where life on Earth is threatened with extinction to make a meaningful difference.
How does it hurt us to admit the scientific truth, and to try to get the opposition to admit what the science really says about their desired “carbon” reductions?
From KevinK on December 5, 2012 at 8:35 pm:
Oh, about those “old textbooks” that are always correct, I think the guys that designed Chernoybl (sp) had one of those….
From Greg House on December 5, 2012 at 6:23 pm:
Then the whole notion of “warming back radiation” was debunked in 1909 by American physics professor R.W.Wood
Wow, as old as 1909? Obviously can’t be correct, that’s “old textbooks” stuff.
@ J. Philip Peterson:
“Here are two results from a single Google search on the subject that I performed this morning. http://news.discovery.com/earth/no-global-warming-hasnt-stopped-121017.html
I clicked over and read it–and the answers you seek are right in the comments. There are some very thorough and thoughtful answers there.
I am most grateful to those who have kindly sprung to Professor Moerner’s defense. He is indeed the world’s most distinguished sea-level scientist, and a charming man. My late beloved father, like the Professor, was a keen and proficient dowser, consulted by the Maltese government to find three Punic tombs in a vast acreage beneath the walls of the ancient capital of Mdina (he found all three, with a fine second-century head of Seneca as a bonus).
Professor Moerner is a brilliant lecturer. At the St. Andrews University Union, Britain’s oldest debating society, he charmed the House with one of the politest, most entertaining speeches I have heard, and then demolished one of the three nebechem on the other side, who had invited him to see whether he could get a paper into the peer-reviewed literature, by apologizing that he had only written 530 such papers and undertaking that he would try harder in future.
He should neither be underestimated nor insulted by those who have never met him, never read any of his papers, and would not understand them if they did. His results may be inconvenient, but – to borrow a phrase – they are inconvenient truths.
jazzyT says:
December 4, 2012 at 11:22 pm
“in the satellite data, the error bars for the series starting in 1995-2012 range from -0.064 to 0.342, and for 1996-2012, the error bars range from -0.089 to 03.65.”
We went over this thoroughly on another thread. Both error bars are bogus, as they are based on an arbitrarily selected statistical model which does not apply to the true statistics of the ongoing process. If your statistical model does not match reality, then the results you get from applying it are useless.
E.M.Smith says:
December 4, 2012 at 11:44 pm
If that is what he means, he needs to say so explicitly. And, he needs to lead with the mechanism he believes is responsible for nulling the effect, not the denial of any effect at all. Only members of the choir listen to the sermon after the minister informs the congregation that they’re all going to hell.
John Brookes says:
December 5, 2012 at 2:23 am
See reply to jazzyT above. But, even if you insist on using shady statistics to assert that there has been statistically significant warming since 1995, you are still left with the fact that it is WAY LESS than would be consistent with the AGW conjecture of severe warming.
Thinker says:
December 5, 2012 at 4:24 am
You are missing one thing: in order to achieve an adiabatic lapse rate, you must have an energy sink at altitude. That is the role played by “greenhouse” gases, which radiate heat away so that a temperature gradient can be established.
David Ball says:
December 5, 2012 at 4:52 pm
“Ask yourself what possible difference could saturation make if Co2 is a result of temperature change.”
Which, it is.
RoHa says:
December 5, 2012 at 6:47 pm
“From that accusation it seems he is a bit of a loony in regard to dowsing.”
Maybe. Maybe not. In the US, at least, we demand to hear both sides of the case before we convict.
KevinK says:
December 5, 2012 at 7:31 pm
“Here on the Earth with a gas filled atmosphere it is useless.”
You need to specify such conditions from the start, and why you believe they are important. If all you say is “the GHE does not exist”, few will read farther to see your justification.
From KevinK on December 5, 2012 at 7:31 pm:
If a vacuum is “cold” as claimed by the climate science folks why would we have problems cooling off our satellites ? Why do they often have large radiative surfaces on the outside of them ? We don’t put them there for the looks, no racing stripes either, they weight too much.
The “temperature” of outer space is about 3K, that’s the temperature equivalent of the background microwave radiation, as we are told by physicists who have measured it, not “climate science folks”.
The primary method of cooling off satellites is radiation at thermal wavelengths, as there is insufficient atmosphere for convective cooling. The released photons at thermal wavelengths will then travel through space until they hit something. They could even hit the Sun, and warm up the Sun an infinitesimal amount.
That’s why nobody stuffs in the walls of their houses (not the same as a simple reflective barrier (aluminum foil) that can be effective in the tropics but is no longer used in northern climes because it tends to electrocute folks that accidentally connect it to the wiring in the house, ouch that hurts, but only for a little while.
Actually it’s because radiant barriers don’t work unless facing an air space (reference). So at the higher latitudes with the walls already stuffed with insulation, no benefit. Closer to the equator, they’re better than nothing, but not by much.
BTW, the most egregious examples of electrocution from aluminum foil insulation occurred in Australia, paid for by a daft government scheme, often mentioned by Andrew Bolt, which also included many house fires. So your referring to “northern climes” may be a bit confusing.
Any textbook that claims that the blockage of IR transmission out of a greenhouse causes a temperature rise is WRONG, it is that simple.
Yup.
So perhaps I’m a loon, but the stuff I have worked on performs as promised, unlike climate models.
You have shown you do understand the radiative physics, when it suits you.
If you want to argue it shouldn’t have been named the “greenhouse” effect as that’s not how greenhouses work, I agree.
But saying the effect, whatever it should have been properly named, doesn’t exist? That’s the lunacy.
One might then ask, does that not then mean that more radiating GHG would create a greater gradient, which would tend at best to leave the temperature at the surface the same, and more likely to reduce it? Maybe that is what you are trying to say. Personally, I need to spend more time researching the topic to reach a comfortable conclusion on the matter.
Thinker says:
December 5, 2012 at 4:24 am
“Those who continue to contend that backradiation raises surface temperature 33 degrees (or whatever) clearly assume that an atmosphere without any water vapor or GHG would have a uniform temperature without any lapse rate.”
Actually, I see from above you are arguing that the requirement for a heat sink is, in fact, wrong. I believe, however, that the heat equation in a spherical 3-d domain demands it – we had a rather long discussion about this on another thread some time ago. I’m a bit skeptical that your entropy argument is considering the complete system. Perhaps you could go into a bit more detail?
Bart says:
December 5, 2012 at 11:49 pm
“Maybe. Maybe not. In the US, at least, we demand to hear both sides of the case before we convict.”
Which is not to say I take dowsing seriously, though I’d be less worried about the state of mind of a person who believes in it than a person who believes, e.g., that “superstorm” Sandy is proof of global warming.
What I am saying is that the Professor may have been teaching from the stance of informing rather than advocating, and I can readily believe that his detractors would twist his words in order to damage his credibility on unrelated subjects. Maybe, the good professor just finds it a playful curiosity and a relaxing diversion from his more serious pursuits.
Friends:
As part of his complete rebuttal of the scandalous attacks on Neils-Axel Morner, at December 5, 2012 at 11:40 pm Monckton of Brenchley says:
In addition to being correct, Lord Monckton’s account of events at the debate display much modesty.
Morner and I are indebted to Monckton of Brenchley for his actions during that debate. People interested in the event can read my report of it at
http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=2938
Richard
Gail Combs says:
“CO2 is a flea in a room full of elephants.”
LOL. Now there’s an image worthy of a Josh cartoon; in the warmist world the tiny flea would be the ring master ordering the elephants around while in the real world he’s just ignored.
kadaka (KD Knoebel) says, December 5, 2012 at 11:53 pm: “If you want to argue it shouldn’t have been named the “greenhouse” effect as that’s not how greenhouses work, I agree. But saying the effect, whatever it should have been properly named, doesn’t exist? That’s the lunacy.”
=============================================================
It is absolutely not about the name.
Look, let us just name it properly to remove the confusion and then see, what the Wood’s experiment demonstrates. So, according to the IPCC, “greenhouse gases” warm the surface (or slow down cooling) by their back radiation (I know, there are some other versions of this “effect” on the internet, but politically relevant is the IPCC’s one).
OK, let us name this “effect” properly: “back radiation warming effect”. And let us forget greenhouses.
Now, what does the Wood’s experiment demonstrate? It demonstrates, that back radiation either does not warm at all or only to a negligible extent. Given the well known warmists’ assertion that back radiation of certain gases produces 33C warming effect, one should expect even more warming produced by the back radiation from glass. The result of the Wood’s experiment was however under 1C. And the temperature in the box with the glass lid was indeed realistic, we all know the temperature in a car parked in the sun in summer.
So, what we can see is that back radiation practically does not work. And how this not working effect is named is irrelevant.
Thinker says:
Here are the reasons why physicists such as myself know that your argument is incorrect:
(1) You seem to think that the actual lapse rate has to be at the adiabatic lapse rate. This is incorrect, as can be seen in the Earth’s stratosphere where the temperature is constant or even increasing with height. The adiabatic lapse rate is what a physicist would call a stability criterion. That means that the actual lapse rate can be less than the adiabatic lapse rate but if it becomes greater than the adiabatic lapse rate, then the atmosphere becomes unstable to convection and this convection drives the lapse rate back down to the adiabatic lapse rate. So, the reason for the lapse rate in the troposphere being close to the adiabatic lapse rate (or a compromise between the dry and moist adiabatic lapse rates, to be more precise) is that the troposphere is strongly heated from below (both by the Earth’s surface absorbing solar energy and by the absorption of back-radiation from greenhouse gases). If convection could not occur, this would in fact cause the lapse rate to be larger than the adiabatic lapse rate. However, such lapse rates are unstable to convection and the convection then lowers the lapse rate back down to the adiabatic lapse rate.
(2) The lapse rate alone does not determine the surface temperature. Claiming it does is akin to claiming that if I have the equation of a line y = m*x + b and I specify m then you could tell me what y is when x=0. In fact, you can’t do that because you need to know b also or, equivalently, you need to know the (x,y) coordinates for one point on that line. The role of greenhouse gases is actually to determine the height of the effective radiating level at which the Earth’s atmosphere is at a temperature of 255 K. (This height is currently about 5 km.) The temperature at the Earth’s surface then follows from extrapolating the temperature down to the surface using the typical environmental lapse rate of 6.5 C per km. [Hence, 255 K + (6.5 C per km)*(5 km) = 287.5 K.]
(3) If we increase greenhouse gas concentrations, we increase the effective radiating level (that level in the atmosphere where emitted IR radiation can successfully escape to space without being absorbed again). For example, if the effective radiating level increases to 6 km, then the temperature at the Earth’ surface would increase by about 6.5 C to ~294 K. [255 K + (6.5 C per km)*(6 km) = 294 K.]
(4) Note that there is no claim made that increasing greenhouse gas concentrations increases the lapse rate: It doesn’t because the lapse rate in the troposphere is limited by convection. To the first approximation, the lapse rate is expected to remain constant as greenhouse gases increase. To a better approximation, it is actually expected to decrease slightly because the moist adiabatic lapse rate is a decreasing function of the surface temperature. This effect is known as the “lapse rate feedback”, a negative feedback included in all of the climate models.
@Bart
You might find the answers you are looking for in the following link;
http://www.tech-know-group.com/papers/IR-absorption_updated.pdf
Starting from the environmental lapse rate and from an one-stream heat flow formulation – that means no back-radiation- it is found that the major role in the evacuation of heat from the surface is by means of convection of sensible and latent heat.
[Snip . . Attack the problem not the man. Google is your friend] . . mod
RoHa says:
But the original arguments in this thread did not demonstrate that his research is good. They just appealed to his scientific authority, i.e., here was an eminent scientist who signs this letter, so apparently this alone should carry some weight. Now, we learn that this scientist has shown atrocious scientific judgement in the past.
And, by the way, here is a piece from James Randi, the magician and debunker of pseudoscience, about Morner and his dowsing claims: http://www.randi.org/hotline/1998/0012.html
joeldshore:
At December 6, 2012 at 7:51 am you attack Morner on spurious grounds and at December 6, 2012 at 7:25 am you claim you are a “physicist”.
Morner has been honoured with awards by his peers. In the unlikely event that anybody gives you similar respect then – and only then – will people take what you say seriously.
Richard
Re David Ball and does temperature drive CO2 or CO2 drive temperature,
Lubos has run the numbers and his conclusion is that the influence of temperature on CO2 is about 10 times stronger than the effect of CO2 on temperatures.
http://motls.blogspot.de/2012/07/land-biospheres-absorption-of-co2.html
[Snip . . Attack the problem not the man. Google is your friend] . . mod
What a crock. If you hear something you don’t like, you snip it? ISTR some bloke claiming just that of skeptical science not long ago.
Google is indeed your friend… googling “debunking monckton” is very revealing.
And if you snip this, there can be no doubt where you stand.
[It reveals “debunking Monckton” as another (false) page in the propaganda of the CAGW zealotry and theist dogma. Mod]
JWR says:
December 6, 2012 at 7:42 am
Thanks. I will look it over when I have time.
@ joeldshore
“They just appealed to his scientific authority, i.e., here was an eminent scientist who signs this letter, so apparently this alone should carry some weight.”
Specifically, the appeal to his authority is based on his expertise on sea level. This expertise is backed up by his research.
Demonstrating that his judgement is cracked in regards to dowsing does not automatically imply that his expertise on sea-level is unfounded.
Perhaps I should add that I have no strong beliefs about Mörner’s expertise or about dowsing.
I do have a strong belief that the sea is pretty much where it was when I was a boy, but that’s because I’ve looked at it.
Ok, here we go again;
Somebody wrote;
“The “temperature” of outer space is about 3K, that’s the temperature equivalent of the background microwave radiation, as we are told by physicists who have measured it, not “climate science folks”.”
NO outer space is largely void of particles, temperature is a measurement of how fast a particle is vibrating,, THUS NO particles; NO temperature. The “about 3K” is the equivalent temperature if space was filled with particles, It is a background FLUX equivalent,
“But saying the effect, whatever it should have been properly named, doesn’t exist? That’s the lunacy.””
I never said the “effect” (properly named or not) doesn’t exist. I stated that the “effect” only delays the propagation of heat (or the equivalent unabsorbed free space electromagnetic radiation) through the system by causing the energy to make multiple passes through the system at the speed of light. Multiple passes equals a delay, not a reduction in the velocity.. A thermal insulator reduces the velocity of heat flow.
Thus the “effect” does not act as a thermal insulator; it has been misdiagnosed. It introduces a delay on the order of tens of milliseconds. Since the frequency of incoming energy is on the order of 24 hours (~86 million milliseconds) this delay HAS NO EFFECT on the “equilibrium temperature” (an oxymoron in itself by the way).
And thanks for the tutorial about how satellites are cooled, I’m rushing off now to redesign all the ones we have already launched that until now where working just fine (yes, we take their temperature all the time while they are up there, at multiple locations on the “BIRD”).
The lunacy is in believing that a gas (or a group of gases) that represent parts per billion of the thermal mass of the Earth (Oceans, Landmass, Atmosphere) are actually “FORCING” the other 999,999,999,999 billion parts of the thermal mass into thermal equilibrium with themselves…………
Cheers, Kevin.
richardscourtney says:
December 5, 2012 at 3:21 am
I said that the data are not worth much because the slopes change when you change the starting point, and that was not for the dataset above, but for one graphed on woodfortrees.org, linked from my first post.
Each indicated trend cannot be distinguished from zero, but, also, at a 95% confidence level, none of them can be distinguished from a slope of 2 degrees per century. Four of them cannot be distinguished from 3.5 degrees per century, and one cannot be distinguished from 4.4 degrees century. In other words, taken as a group, we might see no change at all, or we might be headed for scary change, or even straight into the maw of Al Gore’s warmest nightmare. Or it might be zero change. What is this worth to you? What do you learn from such a projection that you couldn’t have learned by, say, asking the cat?
I think you were a bit careless reading the post. When the slope changes significantly as you change starting points, you already have significant problems. The huge error bars, which themselves allow significant warming rates, or even alarmist-ing warming rates, are just icing on the cake.
JazzyT,
I note that you had no response to the facts I presented showing that global temperatures are recovering from the LIA along the same trend line, with no recent acceleration — and irregardless of whether CO2 was low or high.
That, of course, means that CO2 has at most a negligible effect, which can therefore be completely disregarded for all practical purposes. Which in turn means that catastrophic AGW is completely debunked, and that plain old AGW has been wildly overestimated. At current levels, CO2 has zero measurable effect on temperature.
Sorry about your failed conjecture. But that is how science and the scientific method operates.
As one example of the incorrect statement that Monckton has made, he claims:
However, if one goes to that report ( http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/cmb/bams-sotc/climate-assessment-2008-lo-rez.pdf , p. S-23), the actual statement in the report is:
What this means is that if the measured trend were zero for 15 years or more, then that would constitute a discrepancy at the 95% confidence level. Note that it does NOT say that if the measured trend were not different from zero with 95% confidence for 15 years or more then that would constitute a discrepancy at the 95% confidence level. If you don’t understand the difference between these two statements, you don’t understand statistics very well.
The point is that a trend that is zero for 15 years or more lies outside the 95% confidence window for what the models predict. It does not mean that a trend that is positive lies outside the 95% confidence window just because the 95% confidence window around that trend itself includes a trend of zero.
This statement by Lord Monckton is indicative of just the sort of incorrect statements that SkepticalScience is rightly noting.
[I should also note that a 95% confidence level assumes one is not purposely cherry-picking exact intervals to choose in order to get a desired result. After all, something that is excluded at a 95% confidence level still occurs 1 out of 20 times, so if I am allowed to cherry-pick through enough segments, I can find such a violation. This, however, is not relevant in the current case since Monckton’s conclusion of such a violation is incorrect and is due to a misinterpretation of the statement made in that report and a misunderstanding of statistics.]
richardscourtney says:
Specifically, what awards are you speaking of?
When discussing James Hansen, it doesn’t seem to faze you guys that he has won pretty much every award he could have won from the various professional societies of his peers. These awards include the Roger Revelle Medal from the American Geophysical Union, the Leo Szilard Award of the American Physical Society, the Award for Scientific Freedom and Responsibility from AAAS, the Carl-Gustaf Rossby Research Medal of the American Meteorological Society, as well as numerous awards at NASA, as well as being elected to the National Academy of Sciences and made a fellow of the AGU.
Do awards by peers only count for certain people and not for others?
But it’s not just a matter of whether the goalposts were hit, but what were the stakes? Looking back at last month’s post,
So, there is, on statistical grounds alone, a discrepancy at the 95% level. Does that mean that the theory of CO2 as driver for warming is false? Well, just from the statistics, the odds of this happening at random are 20 to 1. But unlikely things happen all the time. If you look only at temperature trends, then an outlier at the 95% confidence level looks very odd. But if you look at, say, 100 variables, then even if they all follow their expected behavior, 5 of them will lie outside the expected range.
So what does it mean when you see something pop up at the 95% level? Certainly, you need to take a closre look at it. If you can find a reason that it happened, then there’s no need to modify or abandon your theory yet. If you exclude other possible explanations, and your discrepancy is still there, well, it still might be random but you start watching it especially carefully. In the end, if you’re doing pure science, you might just call it “uncertain, for now, need more data.” In other areas, as in medical tests, you need to consider the importance of detecting what you’re looking for, and the costs of missing it.
But that’s all in the absence of an explanation. We have a strong El Nino in 1998, which boosts one end of the curve if you include it, and also back-to-back La Ninas in 2010 and 2011, along with a century-class solar minimum around 2008 and what seems to be a weak solar cycle now.
Off the top of one’s head, it’s hard to say what the effects of El Nino, several El Ninas, and solar variability are on the temperature. There was an attempt to correct for these things, along with volcanic emissions, to get just the CO2 signal out. That was Foster and Rahmstorf, (20110). Here’s a link to their graph:
http://bobtisdale.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/figure-8a.png
Bob Tisdale took issue with this work, and in fact, I drew the link from one of his articles on WUWT on that subject:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/01/02/tisdale-takes-on-taminos-foster-rahmstorf-2011/
and
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/01/14/tisdale-on-foster-and-rahmstorf-take-2/
For now, though, I’m not as much interested in hashing out those criticisms as I am in simply saying “to look at CO2, you have to eliminate other factors” and then giving an example of people trying to do just that.
Going back to Anthony’s article, to quote Phil Jones, from one of the Climategate emails:
So, it looks like Jones gets to be worried. But like exceeding NOAA’s 95% window, what does that mean? Jones certainly doesn’t control the weather, or the climate, nor did he ever claim to know everything about them. If I were worried about strange data, I’d do the same things noted above: investigate it as a statistical anomaly, look for other explanations, and, if none are forthcoming, view it with increasing suspicion. But there are other explanations, at least in this case. Of course, that doesn’t mean we all stop watching it, either. And keep a (properly shielded) eye on Mr. Sun as well.
To the nearest year, there has been no warming at all for 16 years, statistical or otherwise, on several data sets. However we can go back 18 years to show no statistical warming, even on the other data sets. This has been demonstrated in posts above.
But there’s also no statistically significant difference between the slopes from those datasets, and slopes of 2.0, 3.5, and even 4.4 degrees C per century. And since the data are equally consistent with significant slopes, or even one alarming one, and with zero slope, they don’t seem to have much use in telling us trends.
JazzyT says:
“Does that mean that the theory of CO2 as driver for warming is false?”
Jazzy does not understand the difference between a theory and a conjecture. CO2 as a ‘driver’ of global warming is a conjecture. It is not a “theory”. A theory makes accurate predictions, and as we know, the conjecture that CO2 drives global temperature is nothing but a falsified conjecture.
Sixteen years and counting…
JazzyT says:
December 7, 2012 at 2:03 pm
But unlikely things happen all the time.
That is very true. So since we cannot be sure whether this lack of warming is a fluke or something that will last for decades, perhaps we should avoid wasting billions on things like carbon capture until we are really sure what is going on.
joeldshore:
At December 7, 2012 at 8:12 am you ask me
“richardscourtney says:
“Morner has been honoured with awards by his peers. In the unlikely event that anybody gives you similar respect then – and only then – will people take what you say seriously.”
Specifically, what awards are you speaking of? ”
The world’s sea level researchers elected him President of the INQUA Commission and they were so resolute in re-electing him that the Commission was disbanded and reformed to oust him.
He was awarded the ‘Golden Contrite of Merits’ by Algarve University.
He …. etc.
Now, about those awards you have not gained, don’t you think you should get some before attempting to demean your betters?
Richard
Bart says:
December 5, 2012 at 11:49 pm
This was my point, although I approached it more through the combination of wide error bars (encompassing a huge range of outcomes–see my reply to richardscourtney above), and also moving endpoints.
A quick couple of searches didn’t turn up that thread–if you can give a link or a keyword that takes me to it, I’d be grateful.
Discovery 2
CLIMATE CHANGE DUE TO GASES IS IMPOSSIBLE.
The moisture conditions of the earth’s surface wet or dry, not gases, determine or control the climate/weather. Gases can’t form a green house, so Green house effect due to gases is imaginary or pseudo science. Rain cycle is related to heat and evaporation only. Thus C.C. change due to gases is impossible.
Please click on my name for details
D Böehm says:
December 5, 2012 at 2:25 pm
Interesting, but these are all from only six places, comprising Northern/alpine Europe, England, and Eastern/central North America. These are places where the Little Ice Age is most strongly established so we could expect their climates to be similar, but for the rest of the world, and global trends, it doesn’t say what has happened.
No slopes are given for trendlines, and since they are all (understandably) on different timescales, it’s impossible even to eyeball any correlations and see how well these records match one another.
I’m not sure what you’re looking for as a measurement: perhaps warming that stands out from the temperature record, as being correlated with CO2, so that no other driver could be imagined, much less found? If we had a hundred planets to play with, we could run that experiment in a decade or two: subject groups of three to five different CO2 levels, for others, turn CO2 emissions on for five years, off for five years, on again, and look for a sawtooth temperature pattern, reserve twenty planets as controls, etc. Instead, we look at one planet with a recent, artificial CO2 increase, and watch what happened.
With a sample size of one, an improving, but sparse set of measurements, and no practical way to control the input for experimental purposes, we can only look for very simple responses, or else use complicated ways to interpret the data in order to confirm the hypothesis. The latter tends to involve computer models, which can be tricky to work with. Even if they are applied properly, many people are, to put it mildly, reluctant to trust them.
But we can still look at some broad statements: First, warming due to increased CO2 was predicted in 1975:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/07/happy-35th-birthday-global-warming/
(No, I don’t automatically go to RealClimate for my information; it was just the first result that google gave me that had a decent explanation of this point.)
So, the temperature warmed, as was predicted. Still, that could have been a coincidence, and people will still ask questions based on the recent apparent plateau: http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/mean:12/from:1958
That issue needs to be addressed, but first: there’s another effect of increased CO2 that was predicted, and observed, which is the cooling of the stratosphere. You’ve probably seen it a few times, but here’s one reference:
http://www.atmosphere.mpg.de/enid/20c.html
CO2 was predicted to warm the lower troposphere, which was subsequently observed. But, CO2 was also predicted to cool the stratosphere, especially the upper stratosphere, and that was also observed. Stratospheric cooling is difficult to explain by other mechanisms besides CO2. (Even cooling from ozone depletion takes part mostly in the lower stratosphere). The combination of lower-level warming and upper-level cooling is very difficult to explain by any mechanism other than CO2 concentrations. Different mechanisms could be at work, but to have both the warming and cooling happen at the same time, along with CO2, by mechanisms that we did not observe, is unlikley enough to strongly support the CO2 mechanism as the cause of the observed warming/cooling trends.
Put these two confirmed predictions together with the very well-known physics that predicted these effects in the first place, and you’re justified in calling it a theory.
Then, the data has tossed a curve ball at the theory, as often happens: 16 years of apparently flat temps. That needs an explanation, and it has one: strong El Nino, several El Ninas, and some recent years of quiet solar output. Too early to say that the curve ball was hit out of the park, but the theory definitely did not strike out.
JazzyT says:
“Interesting, but these are all from only six places, comprising Northern/alpine Europe, England, and Eastern/central North America.”
And with that casual dismissal of six [actually eight including Russia] independent observations of empirical evidence, JazzyT hand-waves away the fact that there has been no accelerated global warming following the recent 40% rise in [harmless, beneficial] CO2. The evidence covers the greater part of the globe, but JazzyT’s mind is made up, and facts do not matter to him.
So his argument totally fails. I could provide not just six, but sixty similar temperature records, and JazzyT would give a similar mindless response.
Facts and scientific evidence do not matter to the climate alarmist crowd. Their minds are made up and closed air-tight, and cannot be changed no matter how many contrary facts are presented.
It is a fact that the long term rising temperature trend has remained along the same trend line for centuries, whether CO2 has been low or high. To reasonable people, that simple fact proves that CO2 has such a minor effect [if such an effect even exists] that it cannot even be measured. Thus, any effect from CO2 is too small to matter; the rise in CO2 makes no measurable difference in the natural recovery from the LIA. That is a reality-based fact. There are no empirical measurements showing any effect on temperature from CO2. None.
JazzyT is arguing with everyone here, because the “carbon” scare has become JazzyT’s personal religion. Science has nothing to do with his beliefs any more. Mile-thick glaciers could once again cover Chicago, and JazzyT would still be parroting the debunked AGW scare. Such is religious True Belief — the anti-science cornerstone of the climate alarmist cult.
JazzyT repeats talking points that have been repeatedly debunked, such as: “CO2 was predicted to warm the lower troposphere, which was subsequently observed.”
Flat untrue. The repeated predictions of a “tropospheric hot spot” have been debunked by thousands of empirical observations made by satellites and radiosonde balloons.
The falsifying of even one prediction falsifies a conjecture. Yet these repeatedly falsified assumptions are constantly trotted out in a futile attempt to support the failed CO2=AGW conjecture — for which there exists no verifiable scientific evidence whatever.
JazzyT has picked up far too much anti-science at alarmist blogs like RealClimatePropaganda. He needs to wake up and learn what the scientific method and the null hypothesis mean, or he will continue to spout his pseudo-scientific, fact-free alarmist nonsense.
D Böehm says:
December 8, 2012 at 9:19 pm
Berlin and Copenhagen are close enough to be well correlated, as are New York and Washington, DC. But I failed tomention that, so it looked odd.
Not in the evidence you cited.
Sixty thermometer-based temperature records, going back two centuries and more, covering the greater part of the globe? Really? Do tell. Especially about the Southern Hemisphere.
And have you, or somebody corrected that trend for changing UHI effects in growing cities? Or is it raw data?
And of course, the data for individual cities are far too noisy, and too local, to show us global trends. They have to be combined:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/globalwarming/images/temp-anom-larg.jpg
With that, you can talk about Global trends.
The lowest part of the troposphere is in contact with the surface, which has warmed. Flat true.
The repeated predictions of a “tropospheric hot spot” have been debunked by thousands of empirical observations made by satellites and radiosonde balloons.
Complex measurements, with uncorrected biases, causing them to miss a change in temperature structure expected from any warming, not just CO2. More importantly, this irrelevant to the fact that the surface warmed, along with the air in contact with it. Surface measurements are enough to show this.
Funny how you never seem to use the term “hypothesis,” much less recognize that a hypothesis may be refined in response to experiments and observations. In fact, they usually are.
And this leads to the one remaining question that is actually of interest: What would you call “verifiable scientific evidence?” What evidence would convince you that CO2 leads to anthropogenic global warming?
JazzyT,
I suggest you read Willis Eschenbach’s latest article, dated today. It destroys the conjecture that CO2 has any meaningful effect on temperature. Turns out the climate sensitivity to 2xCO2 is 0.0ºC.
D Boehm: No, it doesn’t. http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/12/10/an-interim-look-at-intermediate-sensitivity/ As Willis himself explains, he is measuring some intermediate sensitivity, not the equilibrium climate sensitivity. [Actually, he is measuring something that most scientists wouldn’t even call climate sensitivity at all for various reasons, such as the fact that climate sensitivity is by its definition a value for the entire globe and over long enough time periods for the climate system to get to “equilibrium” (really, more like a steady-state).] And, he doesn’t get the result you claim…And, in fact, he admits, “As I said, not much analysis, just some thoughts and graphics.” It is just some musings by him that even he is not ready to defend as giving any firm results on the question of the equilibrium climate sensitivity.
joelshore doesn’t like it when I do what Willis asks, and quote his own words:
“…climate sensitivity is inversely related to temperature. This is clearly true for the land.”
joelshore has a problem with “inversely related”. He’s probably furiously searching online for the meaning of “inversely” right now.
Willis also stated that the sensitivity for the oceans was about 0.1ºC. That is nothing, and averaged with the inversely related land data, it turns out that I have been right all along when I wrote that at current and projected concentrations, the effect of CO2 is effectively zero. CO2 is an extremely minor 3rd order forcing, and its negligible effect is constantly swamped by 1st and 2nd order forcings.
Finally, I note for the record once again that Planet Earth agrees with Willis — and disagrees with joelshore. Who ya gonna believe?
D Boehm says:
It is clear from looking at Willis’s graphs what he meant: Climate sensitivity goes down as temperature goes up. That does not mean TEMPERATURE goes down as temperature goes up (which really wouldn’t make sense anyway now, would it?) So, if the climate sensitivity went from 3.2 C per CO2 doubling when the temperature is 30 C to 2.8 C per CO2 doubling when the temperature is -30 C, that would satisfy what Willis clearly meant when he said that they are inversely related.
And, as I have pointed out in a comment that his not yet appeared in that thread, it is not surprising that climate sensitivity might be a decreasing function of temperature, since that is certainly the case for the climate sensitivity in the absence of feedbacks, as can be seen by differentiating the Stefan-Boltmann law.
joeldshore:
At December 10, 2012 at 11:42 am you say
True, but both are zero.
This paper explains that climate sensitivity to atmospheric CO2 concentration is a short-term effect that only lasts while the climate system adjusts.
http://economics.huji.ac.il/facultye/beenstock/Nature_Paper091209.pdf
It concludes that
Richard
richardscourtney says:
December 10, 2012 at 12:54 pm
No physics, just a statistical comparison showing that the a well-characterized signal (CO2) seems to have a different polynomial order than another signal (temperature) that is so noisy that it takes decades to tell reliably whether it’s going up or down. And they think they know the polynomial order of that? And then they draw conclusions about a physical process, with a mathematical model so abstract that it contains no physics?
Perhaps the authors will follow this up with a study of correlation between age and birthdate of themselves and their last four generations of ancestors, with really noisy data, and conclude that they themselves haven’t been born yet. But without any mention of the time paradox involved in unborn authors writing the paper, with a time discrepency beyond what relativity could explain in any reference frame. Because that would be physics.
D Böehm says:
December 10, 2012 at 10:55 am
Did. But what about the question: What would you call “verifiable scientific evidence?” What evidence would it take to convince you that CO2 leads to anthropogenic global warming?
JazzyT says:
Frankly, no evidence will convince him because his opinions are driven completely by ideology, not evidence. As an example of this, you can look at this post-election thread comment http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/11/09/a-post-election-oddity-im-noticing/#comment-1142776 where D Boehm dismissed Nate Silver’s blog as “far left” because it predicted the election the way that it actually turned out rather than the way he wants to believe it should have turned out. As I understand it, to him, some combination of Hurricane Sandy and fraud miraculously caused the election to come out the way it did (the way Nate predicted it in all 50 states and in all but one of the Senate races) when otherwise Romney would have won.
D Boehm is a poster-child for the ability of the modern conservative movement in the U.S. to exist in their own epistemological bubble that cannot be penetrated by any amount of evidence, fact, or reason. Bruce Bartlett, a conservative who is concerned about the way the movement has become completely disconnected with reality has a brave piece about it here: http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/revenge-of-the-reality-based-community/
JazzyT:
Your post at December 11, 2012 at 4:37 am says
Your answer is pure pseudoscience at its finest.
The paper is an analysis of temperature time series by experts in data analyses of time series.
Your words (which I cite) in rejection of it are precisely the same kind of ignorant stupidity which enabled the disaster of Mann’s ‘hockey stick’. He, too, made the mistake of thinking he could ignore expertise in time series analysis.
The authors of that paper have more expertise to analyse global temperature time series than all the total of self-proclaimed climatologists in the world.
Their analysis of the global temperature time series shows effects of greenhouse gases are transient. Others can find out why the effects are transient, but the analysis shows they are transient.
And, since it seems you don’t know.
Science
consists of obtaining the closest possible approximation to ‘truth’ by constantly seeking information which refutes existing understanding(s) and amending the understanding(s) in light of the information.
Pseudoscience
consists of deciding something is ‘truth’ then constantly seeking information which supports it while making excuses to ignore information which refutes it.
Richard
JazzyT,
Willis provided verifiable evidence. And it would take empirical measurements showing that AGW exists. We have empirical measurements clearly showing that ∆T causes ∆CO2. But there are no such measurements showing that ∆CO2 causes ∆T. None.
Further, there is no long term correlation between CO2 and temperature. That is not to say that AGW does not exist at all. But I agree with Willis: AGW is a very minor, 3rd order forcing that is easily swamped by 1st and 2nd order forcings. AGW simply does not matter. It is a trumped up scare that is used to instill fear in the population. That fear makes it easy to impose new taxes, and that is what the AGW scare is all about.
If not for the immense amounts of money involved, AGW would be merely a scientific curiosity. But because of the money, politics has become involved. For all practical purposes, AGW is irrelevant. But conniving people will lie incessantly about it in order to promote their personal ideology. We see it right here: joelshore is an unhappy chump because the planet is falsifying his failed catastrophic AGW conjecture. Global warming has stopped. After being wrong for sixteen years, any honest scientist would admit that there is a major failure with the catastrophic AGW conjecture.
But not joelshore, because he is not honest. See proof above: joelshore posts long comments on blogs in the middle of his workday, instead of doing the job he is paid for. Dishonesty is a hallmark of the alarmist cult. We see them doing this all the time. No wonder they cannot abide the scientific method, and admit it when they are shown to be wrong. The truth is not in them. Name one well known climate alarmist who will now admit that the AGW conjecture is wrong, or even grossly exaggerated. Good luck with that.
I also note joelshore’s usual raising of politics. That is where he is coming from, not from science. He is an extreme Leftist, a communist to the core. WUWT has people of all political persuasions who reject the failed CAGW conjecture. The question for them is not political. But it is 100% political with joelshore. CAGW is simply joelshore’s way of instigating totalitarianism. He is not an honest scientist, he is a political hack who perverts science into politics.
D Boehm says:
I think my employer is perfectly capable of deciding for themselves whether I am performing my job. If they wanted me to work standard 9-5 hours, they would be rather disappointed if I didn’t make any progress over the weekend in grading the 108 exams that I will receive on Friday. And, I would gladly put my intellectual honesty here on this site up against yours any day (in for example, not continuing to show graphs that have been scientifically critiqued and that you can’t even scientifically defend).
Well, here is a history of scientific publication and citation that suggests that other scientists do not view my work this way: http://scholar.google.com/citations?user=JXhNbi0AAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao How about yours?
joelshore says:
“I would gladly put my intellectual honesty here on this site up against yours any day (in for example, not continuing to show graphs that have been scientifically critiqued and that you can’t even scientifically defend).”
You have no intellectual honesty. None. And I can prove it.
I have posted literally thousands of different charts here, from hundreds of different sources, most of them peer reviewed. I have folders containing more than four thousand charts. Yet to this day, you have rejected all the charts I have ever posted. You have never agreed with a single chart I’ve posted, nor ever admitted that any chart I posted might be valid. You say they are all wrong.
Anyone who is intellectually honest would know that most, if not all of the charts I post are reliable, and derived from verifiable data. But you reject every one. You have no more intellectual honesty than Michael Mann or Peter Gleick. Like them, you are only an alarmist propagandist, doing what Stephen Schneider instructed you to do: lie for your cause. No intellectual honesty there, eh?