Reactions are coming in worldwide worldwide to figure 1.4 of the IPCC AR4 draft report. and the revelation that climate sensitivity is lower by aerosol analysis than the IPCC officially projects. Hotheads are blowing gaskets because the hot air just went out of their cause. William Connolley (with an e) gets the “blown head gasket award” for this round, see below.
First some op-eds:
Washington Times: EDITORIAL: Chilling climate-change news
New leak shows predictions of planetary warming have been overstated.
Forbes: Climatologist Dr. Pat Michaels: The UN’s Global Warming Forecasts Are Performing Very, Very Badly
Investors Business Daily: Climate Change Draft Undermines U.N.’s Claims
PowerLine: Climate Alarmism: The Beginning of the End?
Climate scientist Richard Betts thanks Nic Lewis for “constructive contribution” to climate sensitivity debate. http://t.co/TU02i5rf
http://twitter.com/mattwridley/status/281706335320555521
Media Matters: WSJ’s Climate “Dynamite” Is A Dud (citing the duds dudes at “Skeptical Science”)
The Telegraph, Delingpole: Global Warming? Not a snowball’s chance in hell
Tom Nelson points out this fun exchange between Matt Ridley and William Connolley (with an e) via James Delingpole:
Twitter / JamesDelingpole: Climate troll and banned …
Climate troll and banned Wikipedia tinkerer William Connolley bursts a sphincter at Worstall’s place http://timworstall.com/2012/12/19/is-climate-change-really-a-damp-squib/ …
[Connolley comment] Anyone saying “trust me, I’m an IPCC expert reviewer” is a cretin. *Anyone* can be an “expert reviewer” just by asking to see the draft. It doesn’t mean the IPCC have vetted you in any way.
Is climate change really a damp squib?
[Matt Ridley’s sane, measured response] …I have since gradually come to the view that the extra feedback necessary to make CO2 warming dangerous is increasingly implausible, though still possible, and that the measures we are taking to cut carbon emissions are doing and will do more harm especially to poor people than warming itself. I may be wrong in this, but it’s not unreasonable to debate this possibility — and nor is it outside the scientific consensus, by the way.
I bring to the subject the same technique that I bring to all the topics I cover as a journalist. (Only on climate (and religion) am I told that my credentials disallow me from even having a view.) I read both sides of the question, I challenge assumptions and I listen to arguments. In this case reputable climate scientists like Judith Curry and Richard Betts agree that Nic Lewis has made a good case and deserves to be considered and debated. Would that Dr Connolley would show the same open-mindedness.
Over at Tamino’s place, Tamino is his usual self, calling other people and their conclusions “fake” while oblivious to his own use of a fake name.
Next, Tamino will call Nature itself “fake” for not cooperating at the correct pace. He seems to conveniently forget all the adjustments (all upwards) that been applied to the surface temperature record this past decade. No matter, as long as the adjustments fit his conclusion. /sarc
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It sure sounds like the ”greenhouse gas” hypothesis has run hard aground.
Let’s see. maybe the scientific method (propose a hypothesis, collect data, disprove the hypothesis (Thanks to Anthony and others)) might actually work.
So just for fun let’s try another hypothesis (from an alleged “lunatic”); the fact that certain gases in the atmosphere absorb and then reemit IR energy back towards the surface just delays the flow of energy through the system by causing packets of energy to make multiple passes through the system. Multiple passes at the speed of light do not equate to energy passing through the system at a slower velocity (The “speed of heat”). Try this thought experiment, I drive at 60 MPH from my home to my office, then I turn around and go home and do it again. Or I drive once to the office and home again at 30 MPH, think I might hold up a few other drivers in the second example? Thus the “greenhouse gases” do not slow the velocity of the thermal energy; they simply delay the moment when the heat exits the Earth’s atmosphere. If this delay is minuscule (i.e. tens of milliseconds versus approximately 86 million milliseconds in each day), then no “higher equilibrium” temperature results.
Even “lunatics” can suggest hypotheses….
Cheers, Kevin.
Legatus says:
December 20, 2012 at 5:45 pm
Actually, the temperature is dropping
John West says:
December 20, 2012 at 6:26 pm
The satellite record doesn’t show cooling yet
There is an interesting twist here. RSS shows no warming for the past 16 years. However we are told the northern arctic has undergone much warming lately, so if the global temperatures show a slope of 0, then what must have happened in the rest of the world?
The satellite record doesn’t show cooling yet?
Where is the global warming??
Philip Bradley December 20, 2012 at 7:18 pm
mpainter says:
December 20, 2012 at 5:46 pm
Air does not determine SST.
Then explain to me why water surfaces freeze when the air temperature falls below zero?
======================================
What a surprising question. Water can’t freeze from the bottom up. Do you not know ice floats?
Now I have a question for you:
Why do you maintain a vacant website with no reference to a Philip Bradley?
Philip Bradley says:
December 20, 2012 at 7:18 pm
mpainter says:
December 20, 2012 at 5:46 pm
Air does not determine SST.
Then explain to me why water surfaces freeze when the air temperature falls below zero?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
One could as easily ask why air temperature falls below zero when water surfaces freeze.
One could also point out that water releases energy when it changes from liquid phase to solid phase (ice) without changing temperature. Where does the energy go? If some of it goes into the air, that would mean that water freezing causes the air to warm, would it not?
You are vastly over simplifying the physics, and drawing wrong conclusions as a result. The mass of the oceans is in the range of 1400 times that of the atmosphere. Atmosphere temps can vary within certain limits, but at day’s end the atmosphere is like a tiny child being dragged through the mall by one hand by a large adult. The child can kick and thrash about, but general direction is determined by the large adult.
davidmhoffer says:
December 20, 2012 at 6:20 pm
No…. it got colder because it was radiating more energy to space than it was receiving from all sources combined. The air above it also got colder for the exact same reason.
Evaporation is the primary means of heat loss from the ocean surface and evaporation increases as the temperature differential between ocean surface and air increases.
You see this over the Gulf Stream where warm water is transported northward under colder air and latent heat fluxes (amount of evaporation) are highest.
http://icoads.noaa.gov/marcdat2/P_Mike_McCulloch.pdf
Philip Bradley;
Evaporation is the primary means of heat loss from the ocean surface and evaporation increases as the temperature differential between ocean surface and air increases.
>>>>>>>>>>>>
Sure. But you have again over simplified. The ocean gains energy from the same system you just described. You can’t examine 1/4 of a cycle and decide that’s the only part that matters, you have to consider the system as a whole. As a whole, the system cools when it radiates more energy than it receives, and warms when it receives more than it radiates. This is what determines temperature of the system as a whole. The processes you describe move a lot of energy around inside the system, and they can make cool parts warmer and warmer parts cooler, but they don’t determine the temperature over all.
And the ocean still has 1400 times the mass of the atmosphere which makes the prospect of the atmosphere controlling ocean temps ludicrous.
“The last thing government officials want to hear is that the planet isn’t actually warming.” Washington Times.
I find this a most disturbing thing to say. Have we really become such an eschatological death cult that we only rejoice bad news? There is something alarmingly sick to the core here.
the desperation is tangible.
on each of the sites reporting this, there is at least one climate catastrophist gatekeeper barking manically, full time.
some appear to be chemically impaired as well.
they may present a threat to themselves or others – seriously.
i recall another jonestown… this smells like that.
EternalOptimist says:
December 20, 2012 at 1:22 pm
“I hope I dont frighten anybody. I dont mean to
but just imagine if the planet had warmed naturally by 2c in the last 15 years
not only would we be fighting a lost cause, we would probably be in jail or some other institution, and the likes of mann, lew and connolley would be crowing over our demise.
and that is why we have to take science out of the hands of these awful people”
If that rise had happened we would all deserve the punishment. We would have been proven to have no grip on reality, no claim on sanity and thus would have endangered the world.
But 2C in the last 15 years is so extraordinary that we were right to say the alarmists were just that, alarmist. 2C in a century is improbable but at least natural factors could not then be ruled out.
These “awful people” may well have believed they were right. They should not be punished for that or labelled “awful people”.
More importantly, the scientific process should be robust enough that it automatically ignores failed hypotheses and the intellectually slow-footed who slough to them.
It is the scientific process, as practised in the universities and research centres, that needs to be addressed.
I have left this comment at Bishop Hill (slightly edited for here).
The fury my article has unleashed is remarkable to behold. However, very little of it addresses the argument itself. Most commentators are content to stick to the Lysenko line rather than discuss the science I raised: ie, I should not have been allowed to say what I said.
A few have complained that I confuse water wapour and clouds, to which I respond that the atmosphere (and the IPCC) does the same — ie any increase in water vapour may cause a change in cloud density or extent which may or may not negate any warming effect from water vapour or indeed negate any increase in water vapour itself by causing rain.
One complaint, that my wording implies that water vapour may not be a greenhouse gas at all, is half fair. It’s not what I think but you could read it into one sentence of the piece as a result of editing. that’s a pity.
However, on the main points I made:
– that new estimates of aerosol cooling are low
– that new estimates of Ocean heat uptake are low
– that therefore observational estimates of climate sensitivity may prove low
– that observational estimates are now good enough that they should be preferred over models
– that dangerous warming depends on water vapour feedback not CO2 alone
– that warming below 2C is net beneficial
on these, nobody has said anything to dent Nic’s argument.
Carnival hucksters have always held a fascination with the public, which is why Mr. McKibben’s carnival act, traveling from college to college trolling for the incurious and ideologically-minded, is so popular. Al Gore has had his little, fake college of climate. Even in light of the impending, slow motion collapse of the tabloid climatism train tunnel, with some colleges still turning out enlightened acolytes by the droves, I am cautious to avoid premature celebration of the tunnel’s collapse that appears to be filling in from the many smaller rock slides.
McKibben’s dog-n-pony show recently stopped by a university nearby, but he was only able to dredge up a dozen or so unsuspecting, energetic victims. I suppose the strategy is to find the young ones, since most older folks are now wiser or at least very suspicious for being fooled before, although on the site I spend time at debunking climate astrology there is no shortage of older, but not wiser true believers. They cling to their climate bottles like you wouldn’t believe! There’s just no prying that bottle from their hands, but I’ve noticed more and more that there are many who don’t appreciate being fooled or scammed and are now viewing the climate issues and AGW in a new light. Let the real science find out the answers and pop more than a few haughty balloons and hope the pseudo science gets tossed off the train along the way. Interest in climate catastrophe is waning, as most apocalyptic fads need to run their course as reality eventually supersedes.
taxed says: December 20, 2012 at 8:01 pm
This cold winter in Russia was set in motion back in the summer when a very weak jet stream allowed early seasonal cooling to set in.
They are talking -17-18°C in Moscow at 55°N. I live at almost 40°N, and yesterday it was -17°, but that was °F which works out to be -27°C. Upon realizing that, Moscow didn’t seem all that cold.
mpainter says:December 20, 2012 at 8:42 pm
—Philip Bradley December 20, 2012 at 7:18 pm
—mpainter says:
—December 20, 2012 at 5:46 pm
—Air does not determine SST.
—Then explain to me why water surfaces freeze when the air temperature falls below zero?
======================================
What a surprising question. Water can’t freeze from the bottom up. Do you not know ice floats?
I realize you both are probably referencing the ocean’s, but I have an empirical observation that appears to discern the dichotomy of the last two sentences in italics. I live on a creek, temperatures here go to -25°F. The creek runs year-round but shows little to no ice above 20°F, and I would bet the actual temperature of the water is well below freezing (I will check it today post-sunrise, air temp. is now -8°F). When the air goes below 0°F, the creek starts freezing from the bottom up, that is the ground up. I assume this is because the ground has gotten exceptionally cold. The water exposed to the air is freely flowing at subzero temps, but at the ground level freezes. I would guess loss of motion due to friction with the ground allows crystals to form and they grow upon themselves, now causing eddies and a snowballing of the freezing.
Baa Humbug says:
December 20, 2012 at 8:48 am
The GHE hypothesis says the atmosphere isn’t heated by direct insolation (shortwave), only upwelling longwave from the surface heats the atmosphere which in turn heats the surface some more….
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
That is interesting because real world observation shows it is completely bogus. link
Note the air temperature in the desert fell faster than the sand temperature over the time span of the total eclipse following the amount of sun that was obscured.
Anthony, thanks for the link to Tamino’s discussion. I wouldn’t have bothered to read it otherwise and would have missed the following quote. Tamino writes:
“Although all three trend lines slope upward, their slopes aren’t statistically significant. But that doesn’t mean they’re not upward. It just means that there’s not enough data in 16 years to tell for sure, statistically speaking, which way they’re going. That always happens — always — when the time span is short.”
That’s going to come back to haunt him—numerous times.
This was the least informative discussion I have ever seen on WUWT. I’m sorry I wasted my time. Why argue with stupid statements?
A Crooks says:
It gets worse. Warming should be viewed as good news yet it isn’t and cooling should be viewed as bad news yet if we don’t get some cooling it’ll be bad. Ah, the end of an interglacial!
@ur momisugly Gail Combs, D Böehm, & Legatus
You all make excellent points that highlight the utter ridiculousness that this “debate” has centered around the most meaningless single metric of “global average temperature”.
Thanks for the reminder.
The trouble is that Nic Lewis doesn’t seem to be calculating equilibrium climate sensitivity as it is commonly understood, but *effective* climate sensitivity (related but not directly comparable). This point was made in the comments of one of Bishop Hill’s posts (second page), and Nic Lewis seems to agree in principle:
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2012/12/19/why-doesnt-the-ar5-sods-climate-sensitivity-range-reflect-it.html
However, Lewis (I believe incorrectly) still argues that his *effective* climate sensitivity is still equivalent to equilibrium sensitivity. I discussed it here:
http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2012/12/20/people-if-you-want-to-argue-with-stoats-first-read-enough-to-be-a-weasel-parrots-neednt-apply/#comment-24143
WRT my post at 4:32am. I have always assumed that water in motion could be quite a bit, 10-20°F?, colder than freezing. I have to reconsider after measuring the water temp in my creek. Still without sun and 8°F air temperature, up from -9°F overnight, the flowing water measured 31.3°F. We are talking about a cross section of water of 3-4 sq ft over 6-7 feet width with a max depth of 12-14″. I still find it interesting that the more minimally frozen earth freezes the creek better from below than the air does at -9° to -17°F as we’ve had the past two mornings. There is a good foot of moderately packed snow to the water’s edge to insulate the ground.
Steve Keohane
Back in August its was the weakness of the jet stream over Russia that give a hint that northern asia could be in for a other cold winter. For the jet had become so weak it almost broke down and what little there was of it was tending to flow north/south rather the west to east. So l knew this sort of pattern would let the cold and snow bed in early over the asia landmase. Due to the calm settled weak a weak jet brings. Also there would be nothing to stop the cold around the pole to come pushing down across asia, which a strong east to west jet would help to stop from happening. The asia snow cover extent set in early this year.
Sorry should have been “weather” not “weak”
Does anyone have a real time link to view the jet streams?
Have to confess that I haven’t followed the voyages of Connoll(e)y for some time. Ferk me … are his ‘defender of the faith’ activities now taking their toll? The Tim Worstall thread was well worth a visit. Connoll(e)y is very obviously at the ‘anger stage’ of loss.
You seem surprised. Pretty much ‘par for the course’ I would suggest. Question anything from ‘climate sensitivity to CO2’ through to the more ridiculous elements of the ‘sustainability’ mantra and you will get the same reaction. Don’t take offence … here at WUWT you get a special award for stirring up that nest of Vipers.
However .. the previous 16 year period (1982-1998) was well more than enough to trigger a multi-hundred billion dollar road to nowhere. Got to love the logic.
Wow, that ConnollEy is a real a$$ ! He goes on and on about people making spelling mistakes, etc. and yet practically every one of his posts has one grammatical error or another.