By Dr. Vincent Gray
1. Roy Spencer and Murry Salby
The greatest difficulty facing the promoters of the theory that human emissions of carbon dioxide cause dangerous global warming is the inconvenient truth that it is impossible to measure the average temperature of the earth’s surface by any known technology. Without this information it is not possible to claim global warming.
In order to make this claim the “Mean Global Surface Temperature Anomaly Record” (MGSTAR) was fabricated from temperature measurements made at meteorological weather stations.
It did not matter that
· There is no standardized method for making these observations,
· They are unrepresentative of the earth’s surface, and worse the further back you go.
· Their locations are mainly close to cities,
· Only maximum and minimum temperatures are measured,,
· The number and location of stations changes daily
Despite these disabilities, which would have killed the idea in the days when genuine scientists controlled the scientific journals, the public have been persuaded that this dubious procedure is a genuine guide to global temperature change. They even seem to accept that a change in it over a century of a few decimals of a degree is cause for alarm
John Christy and Roy Spencer in 1979 at the University of Huntsville, Alabama established an alternative procedure for plotting global temperature anomalies in the lower troposphere by using the changes in the microwave spectrum of oxygen recorded by satellites on Microwave Sounder Units (MSUs). This overcame several of the disadvantages of the MGSTAR method.
It is almost truly global , not confined to cities. Although it misses the Arctic, this is also true of the MGSTAR. There have been some problems of calibration and reliability but they are far less than the problems of the MSGTAR record. They are therefore more reliable.
From the beginning the two records have disagreed with one another. This created such panic that the supporters of the IPCC set up an alternative facility to monitor the results at Remote Sensing Systems under the aegis of NASA and in the capable hands of Frank Wentz, an IPCC supporter. It was confidently believed that the “errors” of Christy and Spencer would soon be removed. To their profound disappointment this has not happened, The RSS version of the Lower Troposphere global temperature anomaly record is essentially the same as that still provided by the University of Huntsville. It is also almost the same as the measurements made by radiosonde balloons over the same period
The MSU record has now been going for 34 years. Spencer has recently published a comparison between temperature predictions made by a large number of IPCC climate models and their projected future and the temperature record as shown by the MSUs and the balloons.
at http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/CMIP5-73-models-vs-obs-20N-20S-MT-5-yr-means1.png
It is surely obvious that all the models are wrong and that their projections are nonsensical.
I might also add that the central line is also meaningless.
2. MURRY SALBY
Murry Salby is Professor of Climate Science at McQuarrie Univerity where he has an impressive research programme to be seen at
http://envsci.mq.edu.au/staff/ms/research.html
He has published a book “Physics of the Atmosphere and Climate”.
He has recently expounded his views on the climate in two Youtube presentations. I have found that it was necessary to see both of them several times before I got a clear idea of what he is claiming. The first one, at
was a presentation at the Sydney Institute on 2nd August 2011.
He begins by showing the paleo record based on ice cores and shows that there is a close correlation between carbon dioxide and temperature, with temperature coming first. The same applies to methane.
He then attaches it to the more recent CO2 record and plots the Carbon13 figures, which declined over the whole period. Since plant material prefers C12 this means that the additional CO2 comes from plant material. The IPCC claims that the additional plant material must come from combustion of fossil fuels, so this is their “Smoking Gun” that the increase in CO2 is caused by human-derived emissions.
But the extra plant-derived CO2 could be natural. Salby sets out to show that this is true. He shows a satellite map of natural sources of CO2 which come more from the tropics than from temperate regions (but only 6% more)
He then provides data and graphs which show that the additional CO2 results from what happens during a temperature fluctuation, using the satellite (MSU) temperature record since 1978. He shows that the CO2 which is released by a temperature increase is always greater than the CO2 absorbed when the temperature falls, providing a net increase in the atmosphere
The CO2 increase is from natural sources. It is not related to temperature, but to the behaviour of temperature fluctuations.
The second Youtube presentation at
took place at Hamburg 18th April 2013.
It starts with an attempt to clear up the discrepancy of the first presentation, where , carbon dioxide was related to temperature for the ice core proxies and where carbon dioxide was related to a difference between emissions and absorption during a temperature fluctuation for the recent measurements.
He does this by questioning the reliability of the ice core measurements, something that my late friend Zbigniew Jaborowski questioned in 1997.
He points out that the snow that traps air from the atmosphere and then solidifies irons out the fluctuations in temperature which are the real source of CO2 increase, and that some diffusion of the gases must happen when they are buried. By a rather elaborate set of mathematical calculations he restores the fluctuation effect from the ice cores and shows that it is compatible with his other calculations from recent measurements
He then extends his calculations of CO2 from temperature fluctuations by using the instrumental record. When he allows for its low reliability as you go back in the record (only 8% of the earth in 1860) he derives an impressive agreement between carbon dioxide increases and the calculated natural additions derived from temperature fluctuations over his entire range.
He shows that for the MSU record, carbon dioxide is completely unrelated to temperature,
We already know from the first part of this newsletter that climate models based on the assumption that carbon dioxide increases influence global temperature are fundamentally wrong so it does not matter much whether it comes from human-related emissions or from natural sources.
I vociferously object to science by Youtube. In the old days any new theory from a recognised academic would be welcomed by the journals, but nowadays any disagreement with the IPCC orthodoxy would have difficulty finding a place in a scientific journal.
All the same, this material from Salby needs to be properly documented before it could be considered seriously
Cheers
Vincent Gray
Wellington, New Zealand
I too understand variable control. In brainwave research (back in the old days before MRI’s) we used surface electrodes on skin. For deep brain activity we had to abrade the skin to increase conductivity. But before we did any of that, I had to check the impedance of each and every electrode I used. Any differences would result in meaningless data. Why? Brainwaves are noisy and I was looking for an evoked signal at the brainstem level. If one of the electrodes was or began to show a difference I had to go through new ones to find one that matched the impedance of the current set. And then after I had collected data from someone’s brain, I had to check the impedance again.
So here we are spending $billions$ of OUR money, the PEOPLES’S money, on mitigation factors based on “electrodes” that have not been checked, calibrated, or even removed because they stank! If I was looking for a brain tumor along the auditory pathway, do you think my patient would want me to use anything like the surface temperature devices? Yet we are by majority vote, willing to have our pockets picked of ALL our hard-earned dollars based on just such a device.
As I have said before this is the elephant in the room. Climate sciences continuing inability to cross calibrate the main sources of Global temperature data to arrive at a commonly agreed figure (and its trend if any).
I have proposed that they should be forced into agreement by aligning them over the entire 34 year overlap period by adjusting their scale and offset. The same as you would do with any other instrument that was supposed to be reporting the same source object. The same as would be done with (other?) proxy records.
I propose the brute force method to start with.
Proposal
Forced Cross Calibration of Global temperature data series
It should be possible to force the various Global temperature data sources into alignment simply by adjusting their offsets and scales to determine a best fit over their whole overlap period, 1979 to today. They are supposed to be reporting the same thing after all, average global temperature as measured/estimated by them over that whole period of time. Using the corrective parameters derived from the above step, we can then back project/cross calibrate the thermometer data to create a satellite referenced temperature data series backwards in time, beyond the overlap period and out to the end of the thermometer record. An overlap period of 34 years for the records so far should be sufficient for reasonable accuracy in the parameter choices.
Methodology
Align OLS trends in the sources by using offset and scale factors (currently by trial and error). Using OLS trends over the whole period to determine parameter choice allows for the likely best fit, given the relatively short overlap time period. Also OLS trends have no implicit reference points so are ‘floating’ in this regard thus making them more amenable to cross calibration of this type.
Processing Steps
1. http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/best/plot/hadcrut4gl/plot/uah/plot/rss
2. http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1979/trend/plot/rss/trend/plot/uah/trend/plot/best/from:1979/trend
3. http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/offset:-0.16/scale:0.86/trend/from:1979/plot/rss/trend/plot/uah/offset:0.1/trend/plot/best/from:1979/offset:-0.4/scale:0.5/trend
4. http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/best/offset:-0.4/scale:0.5/plot/hadcrut4gl/offset:-0.16/scale:0.86/plot/rss/plot/uah/offset:0.1
This throws a wholy different light on a ‘more likely to be right’ view of historic temperature I believe.
This is not really correct. Salby shows that carbon dioxide can be predicted extremely nicely from the temperature record: it’s linearly related to the integral over time of the temperature anomaly.
Psychologists have also been climbing on to the warmist bandwaggon in the UK. And you know about badwaggons: they have lots of momentum, but bad steering, they are unstoppable and have no brakes. Sheer uninformed stupidity.
dave says:
June 22, 2013 at 5:45 am
Latitude says:
June 22, 2013 at 5:24 am
“Because the claim of dangerous global warming was repeated over and over, by so many public figures in the major media, for so many years.
The same could be said for why did so many Americans believe Iraq had a link to 9/11: because the claim was repeated so many times in the months leading up to the invasion.”
We must have watched different news channels. It was all about WMD’s. The justification was provided under UN Resolutions requiring inspections that were stopped by Saddam Hussein, who had demonstrated use of WMD’s on the Kurds. As for the Global Warming stuff, concur completely.
AndyG55 says:
June 22, 2013 at 12:40 am
Sorry, but I beg to differ. The central line has significant meaning, because it show just how BADLY the models, in general, perform compared to reality.
=============
agreed. the significance of the ensemble mean demonstrates how poor a job the models do of describing reality. the consistent high projection of the models in relation to observation demonstrates the model are biased warm.
You mention C12 and C13 trapped in ice core samples. Is it possible to “tag” atmospheric Carbon to determine it’s origin?
“””””…..sophocles says:
June 22, 2013 at 2:29 am
Patrick says:
June 21, 2013 at 11:35 pm
……………
According to NIWA (NZ Herald June 22nd, 2013) this storm was
NOT as strong as the storm in 1968 which sank the inter-island
ferry TEV Wahine.
…………………………
………………………….
(Wahine. pronounced Waa-HEEN-ee)…………..”””””
No way !!
It’s an ordinary probably originally Hawaiian, Polynesian word. In most, if not all Polynesian languages, EVERY syllable ends in a vowel. At least in Maori, the vowel sounds are virtually identical to Spanish.
So Wahine (woman) is more likely to be : Waa-hee-nay
Seems like Hawaiians sometimes sound (w) like (v) so you hear Haa-vy-ee quite often, but I’ve never ever heard a real Hawaiian say the word; only hauli / pakeha / gringos / whatever.
Don’t know the history of that, but as far as I know, there is NO v sound in Maori, either as in :
Vanadium or love .
Although I consider myself a climate skeptic, I don’t agree with a lot in this article. Especially the first 8 paragraphs are IMO completely wrong. At least initial concerns about relation between climate and CO2 concentrations were right and it was right that they were brought to attention and under study. Methods devised at the beginning definitely were not wrong and they were the best what was available at the moment. What went wrong was that it became a new kind of worldwide religion instead of being object of objective and meticulous scientific study.
Another thing I would like to point out is continuing misenterpretation of Spencer and Christy’s graph. First of all – it is nothing new. Read the fine print: it compares middle troposphere temperature in tropics. What’s the thing climate models predict there is the well known hotspot and this is just not happening, or at least at way smaller scale than models are forecasting. The lack of hotspot formation is discussed for several years already and Spencer’s graph shows just that and nothing more. It is not an ultimate proof that models are wrong. It is one of many and we will probably still need more because there are still many parameters in which models are not that significantly different from reality.
Regarding Dr. Salby, I have great respect to his work. I have seen both videos and what I see as the greatest conclusion from them is that they provide very good evidence that CO2 is not driving temperatures but temperatures are driving CO2 concentrations. What is however NOT his conclusion is that “The CO2 increase is from natural sources.”. He does not prove anything like that. He does not even open that question and does not even try to show what CO2 concentrations would be doing if there would be no human emissions. But the conclusion from his talk applying elementary math is that in that case, temperature would be now rising despite CO2 concentrations dropping.
This is what we are up
against!
CCN Australia’s Climate Summit: Phil Bradley (ParraCAN)
I have tried to send Dr Murry Salby an email using the email address murry.salby@mq.edu.au as supplied by the Macquarie University web site but it gets bounced with an address unknown message. I contacted the university and they tell me he no longer works there but have never sent me a current email address. Can anyone help me?
Dr Lurtz…… because they are claiming that they found 30% of a fraction of a degree…..
“about 30% of the warming has occurred below 700 m, contributing significantly to an acceleration of the warming trend.”
“””””…..Mike jarosz says:
June 22, 2013 at 6:58 am
dave says:
June 22, 2013 at 5:45 am
Latitude says:
June 22, 2013 at 5:24 am
“Because the claim of dangerous global warming was repeated over and over, by so many public figures in the major media, for so many years.
The same could be said for why did so many Americans believe Iraq had a link to 9/11: because the claim was repeated so many times in the months leading up to the invasion.”
We must have watched different news channels. It was all about WMD’s. The justification was provided under UN Resolutions requiring inspections that were stopped by Saddam Hussein, who had demonstrated use of WMD’s on the Kurds. As for the Global Warming stuff, concur completely……””””””
You couldn’t possibly be referring to the chemical WMD that was trucked into Syria, while the UN hummed and hahed; and that Assad has recently been using on his people; could you. I seem to recall that SH even bragged about his WMD capabilities.
Then there was that poor sap Joe Wilson; hubbie of Valerie Plame, top secret master spy clerk; who was sent to Niger to investigate rumors of attempts by SH to get yellowcake from Niger; or maybe it was a deal to try and sell some to SH, that he (SH) thought was a CIA scam. Poor Joe, diplomat extraordinaire, couldn’t even get the name of a good French restaurant in Niger. They made sure he never got to talk to anybody, who actually knew anything.
Well my memory fades Quick(ly), but my copy of the 911 official enquiry, has a whole chapter about the origins from splinter groups, that became the founders of El Qaida in Irag
Well these stories like global warming too, do seem to have legs, and take on a life of their own.
I have 2 comments here. One is on the UAH index supposedly missing the Arctic, and the 2nd is on increase of atmospheric CO2 supposedly being caused by nature in response to temperature.
As for latitudes covered by the UAH lower troposphere index: It covers from 85 degrees south to 85 degrees north.
http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/t2lt/uahncdc.lt
BTW, in the history of the UAH index, it shows .14 degree/decade of warming trend, at least 75% of even that of the GISS index.
As for source of the increase of atmospheric CO2: Although there is a large flux of CO2 among the atmosphere, hydrosphere and biosphere, the hydrosphere and biosphere are *net removing* CO2 from the atmosphere despite warmer global temperatures. The carbon budget:
http://www.tyndall.ac.uk/global-carbon-budget-2010
I see honest debate as more a matter of what and how much effect the CO2 increase is causing and will cause.
The second Salby lecture is the better one, IMO.
When I read around the IPCC view of the carbon cycle, and specifically the role of the isotope data, it reminds me of the joke:
Q. What goes “Clip”?
A. A horse with one leg.
Latitude says:
June 22, 2013 at 5:54 am
“this looks scary, right?”
If you add on the recent warming to the end (Your graph stops about 100 years ago), it probably will be scary.
Seb says: it probably will be scary.
======================
are you putting me on…
…add a fraction of a degree to this
http://www.foresight.org/nanodot/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/histo4.png
Make that “monograph.”
While I respect much of what Prof. Salby says, he is quite wrong about the origin of the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere.
Since plant material prefers C12 this means that the additional CO2 comes from plant material.
That is right, but there are two main differences between fossil and recent plant materials: the fossil plant materials are completely depleted of 14C, as much too old, and how much recent plant material is burned or formed can be calculated from the oxygen use and fossil fuel use.
The 14C level declined in lockstep with fossil fuel use, so that since about 1870 the tables for carbon dating needed to be corrected. Until 1950, when the atomic bomb tests disturbed the 14C record completely.
The oxygen use shows a small deficit, if one calculates its use from fossil fuel burning efficiency. Thus the whole biosphere (land and seaplants, animals, insects and microbes) is a net sink for CO2 of currently some 1 GtC/year. Not a source. Thus the current increase of CO2 is NOT from recent plant material.
About the ice core CO2, sorry, but let the late Jaworowski rest in peace, together with his ideas about ice cores. Ice core CO2 measurements are reliable, as long as the necessary measures are taken, which was not always the case in Jaworowski’s time. But since then the technique did get better, but Jaworowski’s ideas didn’t change. Even if much of his objections were answered by Etheridge e.a., already in 1996, with three drillings at Law Dome, two of them with a resolution of less than a decade and an overlap of ~20 years with direct measurements at the South Pole.
So on the point of the origin of the extra CO2, Prof. Salby is completely wrong. About the influence of CO2 on temperature, we do agree to a large extent…
BTW, as I am travelling in beautiful Greece, looking for the roots of most of our Western Civilisation, with very limited Internet access and not the normal access to my documentation, it will take more time to respond…
No warming and yet the Arctic ice is melting rapidly. Please explain.
I am also mystified why this site has not blasted the 97% for their complete failure to predict this rapid ice melt.
Remember: In 2007, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) figured we wouldn’t see ice-free summers in the Arctic until the end of the century or so – like 2100. Subsequently some scientists looked at newer data and predicted it would come several decades sooner, like 2070.
Now, plots on this site for minimum Arctic ice extent show that a value of 0 in 2015 appears reasonable – in line with PIOMAS ice volume plots clearly extrapolating to 0 in 2015, plus/minus one year.
I would love to see a post on these two subjects.
It would seem to me that a simple empirical test could be set up to replicate Ice Field layering under differing CO2 concentrations. All that is needed is
A large freezer kept at -30 with a reasonably high relative humidity to prevent sublimation.
A 10 x 10 foot square form that is 10 feet tall
A pressure inducer that can fully but slowly compress the 10 x 10 form to create the Firn layering
Snow
CO2 control source
Slowly compress layers of snow at varying levels of ambient CO2 until your stack reaches the top of the form. Core the ice and compare the CO2 at the varying layers and compare the findings to the ambient levels at the time the layer was created. If they differ from the source levels, then the difference could be used to determine the amount of Bleed Through of CO2 from earlier layers to later layers and help to clarify the quality of the CO2 layering in the Paleo Ice Core data
Yes, indeed, GREAT post. This needs to be repeated over and over until it sinks in for the general public, as well as the rent seekers and politicos.
Bryan A says:
June 22, 2013 at 8:54 am
It would seem to me that a simple empirical test could be set up to replicate Ice Field layering under differing CO2 concentrations.
No need to do that test: nature did it already. The migration of CO2 in firn (not completely closed ice) was measured at Law Dome, top down for each layer. That shows that at 72 meter depth the composition of the CO2 is about 7 years older than in the atmosphere. There is an overlap of about 20 years between the fully closed bubbles in the ice core below 80 meters and direct measurements of the atmosphere at the South Pole, all within the 1.2 ppmv (one sigma) of the ice core measurements.
Migration over time was calculated from the Siple Dome ice core, where remelt layers were found. That shows a migration which broadens the resolution of the ice core from 20 to 22 years at medium depth and from 20 to 40 years for full depth (some 70 kyears old). No such broadening is seen in the 420 and 800 kyears, far colder, ice cores of Vostok and Dome C…
Can anyone tell me how much dishonest scientific activities is there ?
Ferdinand Engelbeen says:
June 22, 2013 at 8:36 am
BTW, as I am travelling in beautiful Greece, looking for the roots of most of our Western Civilisation …
You’re more likely to find the roots of the future failure of the EU.