Dutch advice to IPCC: limiting the scope to human induced climate change is undesirable
Governments around the world have been asked by IPCC to think about the future of the IPCC. The Netherlands now sent their submission to the IPCC and made it available on the website of KNMI.
I would say Holland is fairly critical about how IPCC is operating right now. This part struck me as most interesting:Ā
The IPCC needs to adjust its principles. We believe that limiting the scope of the IPCC to human inducedĀ climate change is undesirable, especially because natural climate change is a crucial part ofĀ the total understanding of the climate system, including human-induced climate change. TheĀ Netherlands is also of the opinion that the word ācomprehensiveā may have to be deleted, becauseĀ producing comprehensive assessments becomes virtually impossible with the ever expanding body ofĀ knowledge and IPCC may be more relevant by producing more special reports on topics that are newĀ and controversial.
I agree with both points. The (almost) obsession of IPCC with greenhouse forcing has greatly limited progress in climate science in my opinion, so I am glad my government now raises this point. And in my (Dutch) book De Staat van het Klimaat I concluded that IPCC in AR4 had not succeeded to come up with a ācomprehensiveā report. I also agree IPCC should pay much more attention to controversial topics. The treatment of controversial topics in AR4 and also AR5 was and is unsatisfactory for two reasons: there is not enough space reserved to go into the necessary details and the author teams are almost always biased in favor of the consensus view and therefore not giving enough credit to minority views.
The Netherlands also want to make an end to the huge volumes IPCC is producing and replace it by shorter web based (special) reports:
More here:
http://www.staatvanhetklimaat.nl/2013/07/05/dutch-advise-to-ipcc-limiting-the-scope-to-human-induced-climate-change-is-undesirable/
I also agree IPCC should pay much more attention to controversial topics.
Such as to the role of CO2?
So Leif in your view what is the role of CO2?
Undesirable? Given the “pause” in rising temperatures it’s completely untenable.
Leif Svalgaard says: “Such as to the role of CO2?”
There might be a few other controversial topics…but maybe not as controversial as the role of CO2.
Since the role of CO2 is a controversial issue [perhaps you disagree?], Marcel Crock urges IPCC to pay more attention to it. So in the opinion of Crock, IPCC is not paying enough attention to CO2, that is all.
…. How about the neglected but highly significant role of Chaos? Perhaps a special report in which chaos takes the blame for the failure of all models to predict anything beyond the best 3 day weather forecast?
Bob Tisdale says:
July 5, 2013 at 10:42 am
There might be a few other controversial topicsā¦but maybe not as controversial as the role of CO2.
So Crock urges the IPCC to pay more attention to CO2.
Maybe he means other than CO2. Or means they should spend more time on topics less understood so this field can make some progress.
I agree that the “IPCC should pay much more attention to controversial topics” such as the bloody 16 year temperature standstill while CO2 has been climbing. They should also pay attention to the controversial topic of the failure of the vast majority of the climate models to predict / project this. Finally, they should concentrate on the controversial topic of their disbandment with dishonour and shame.
@svalgaard do you usually troll by asking leading questions?
@Leif Svalgaard, You could have made that Good point just a little clearer, š
How about the adverse economic impact of the unnecessary promotion of renewable energy on the common folks? Cost vs. benefit? Or maybe the validation of the theory of “abnormal climate warming” and why it’s CO2? sans computer models.
Plan B. Eliminate the IPCC.
Can you trust the IPCC and those close up to it? You decide.
Dr. Phil Jones – CRU and recipient of BP and Shell funding.
Dr. Rendrand Pachauri – teller of fairy tales and former oil executive & advisor to oil extractors.
Michael E. Mann, recipient of the Nobel Prize and tree ring researcher who discovered that some trees respond to precipitation. And the list goes on……………..
You got to love it when climate change advocates replace common sense with being cute. You can see the end coming because the CO2 crows are just not that interested in the truth, they’re interested in winning in the media. But slowly the hot air is escaping the balloon they have constructed and is growing limper by the day.
crows = crowd
The Mob should probably also adjust their principles. Perhaps they could start by not whacking people quite so much.
Dr. Phil Jones IPCC author and inside man.
I have total and utter confidence in the Inter-governmental Panel on Cack Change.
Steven Devijver says:
July 5, 2013 at 10:59 am
@svalgaard do you usually troll by asking leading questions?
I point out that the only reasonable reading of Crock’s piece is that Crock does not consider the role of CO2 as controversial. And that he urges IPCC to pay more attention to things that are controversial, such as the role of the not-controversial CO2 factors. Perhaps you disagree.
Leif Svalgaard says:
Such as to the role of CO2?
Given the ongoing – possibly accelerating – increase since the commencement of the”hiatus”, and taking into account also the reduction in atmospheric water vapour over approximately the same period, in all probability seriously over-rated.
Steven Devijver says:
July 5, 2013 at 10:59 am
such as the role of controversial factors that are not CO2. Perhaps you disagree.
catweazle666 says:
July 5, 2013 at 11:29 am
in all probability seriously over-rated.
Crock implies that the role of CO2 is not controversial in his opinion, so following in that respect the IPCC party line.
Including natural climate change in the IPCCs scope would be counter productive. It would spell the end of the IPCC. Climate change must be seen as human caused only, otherwise there is no issue.
klem says:
July 5, 2013 at 11:34 am
Climate change must be seen as human caused only, otherwise there is no issue.
Crock implies that the role of CO2 is not controversial.
Typo in subheadline, “Dutch advise…” should read , “Dutch advice…”
[Fixed, thx. ~mod.]
henry@leif
Hereās an interesting press release:
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2012/22mar_saber/
Know that the CO2 is causing cooling from the top (12 hours per day) as proven to from numerous papers, and warming from the bottom (24/7).
And nobody has provided either you or me with a balance sheet.
Yet you continue to “believe” that the net effect of more CO2 is that of warming, rather than cooling….?
……..
Your faith in this (since you do not believe in God) is interesting to me…….
IMO the role of CO2 is not highly controversial, although room for debate still remains. What is controversial are the assumptions made about feedback effects in deriving the so-called climate sensitivity of a doubling of CO2.
The derived direct effect of CO2 increases (about one K at ~600 ppmv) cannot by themselves produce the desired catastrophic predictions or projections.
To be clear, I should have said one K warmer, but probably understood.
HenryP says:
July 5, 2013 at 11:40 am
Yet you continue to ābelieveā that the net effect of more CO2 is that of warming, rather than coolingā¦.?
The issue is not about ‘if’ but about ‘how much’ or, perhaps, ‘how little’?
I would like to ask a question; why are CO2 molecules in the atmosphere immune from conductive heating? After all they are being battered by other molecules some billions of times per second. This tends to equalise the local gas temperature which at normal atmospheric temperature should keep the CO2 too warm to be able to absorb any passing 15 micron photons. Yet it seems the CO2 molecule can absorb every 15 micron photon from the surface and ignore the 15 micron photons emitted from all around by other CO2 molecules. A remarkably selective gas molecule to say the least.
why?….that’s not why they were created at all….
“The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was established by the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in 1988 to assess the scientific, technical and socio-economic information relevant for the understanding of human induced climate change, its potential impacts and options for mitigation and adaptation.”
henry@leif
ignoring the NO, in the quoted paper, let us assume all is CO2 up there, @ 0.05% in total
and we had 95% back radiated to space and 5% absorbed heat:
and that is a ratio 19:1
Now let us make it 0.06% CO2 due to human emission in the future
that will increase the ratio to 19 x 0.06/0.05 = 22.8 : 1.
in which case we have 95.8% being back radiated to space and 4.2% absorbed heat.
That would be a net cooling effect caused by the increase in CO2
(remember we were only talking here about the thermosphere)\
so, on top, we have (more) cooling….by more CO2
do you agree?
The Dutch are way behind the times . The IPCC changed their definition of climate change and their mission – on paper- in the 2011SREX reort . In practice however nothing actually changed,Here’s a quote from a post on my blog http://climatesense-norpag.blogspot.com from Nov 2011
“you are still making the same gross scientific error of judgement or deliberate misrepresentation that was made by IPCC Summaries for Policy Makers previous to this latest one ( thru AR4) This was the assumption that they or you knew or know what the natural variability was/is.. You cannot possibly say that the ā āeight year SST global cooling trendā is well within expected random variation ā if you dont know what the expected range of random variation is.To say nothing of the fact that to say a variation is random also implies that you donāt know what the cause is and canāt be bothered to find out.In AR4 for example the Summary for Policymakers is inconsistent with the AR4 WG1 Science section. You should note that the Summary was published before the WG1 report and the editors of the Summary , incredibly ,asked the authors of the Science report to make their reports conform to the Summary rather than the other way around. When this was not done the Science section was simply ignored.. I give one egregious example ā there are many others.Most of the predicted disasters are based on climate models.Even the Modelers themselves say that they do not make predictions . The models produce projections or scenarios which are no more accurate than the assumptions,algorithms and data , often of poor quality,which were put into them. In reality they are no more than expensive drafting tools to produce power point slides to illustrate the ideas and prejudices of their creators. The IPCC science section AR4 WG1 section 8.6.4 deals with the reliability of the climate models .This IPCC science section on models itself concludes:
āMoreover it is not yet clear which tests are critical for constraining the future projections,consequently a set of model metrics that might be used to narrow the range of plausible climate change feedbacks and climate sensitivity has yet to be developedā
What could be clearer. The IPCC AR4 science section itself says that we donāt even know what metrics to put into the models to test their reliability.- i.e. we donāt know what future temperatures will be and we canāt yet calculate the climate sensitivity to anthropogenic CO2.This also begs a further question of what mere assumptions went into the āplausibleā models to be tested anyway. Nevertheless this statement was ignored by the editors who produced the Summary. Here predictions of disaster were illegitimately given āwith high confidence.ā in complete contradiction to several sections of the WG1 science section where uncertainties and error bars were discussed.”
The importance of the new report (SREX) is that finally the IPCC recognises that the uncertainties of climate prediction are much greater than they previously acknowledged. They are now in the embarassing position of having to acknowledge that the whole UN CO2 scare is built on very uncertain foundations and they somehow need to as quietly as possible change their position.The first thing they do is to change the definition of climate change (Global Warming no longer seems a convenient term to use) They say :
āseveral of the definitions used in this Special Report differ inbreadth or focus from those used in the AR4 and other IPCC reports.]
Climate Change: A change in the state of the climate that can be identified (e.g., by using statistical tests) by changes in the mean and/or the variability of its properties and that persists for an extended period, typically decades or longer. Climate change may be due to naturalinternal processes or external forcings, or to persistent anthropogenic changes in the composition of the atmosphere or in land use.2[INSERT FOOTNOTE 2: This definition differs from that in the United Nations FrameworkConvention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), where climate change is defined as: āa change of climate which is attributed directly or indirectly to human activity that alters the composition of the global atmosphere and which is in addition to natural climate variability observed overcomparable time periods.ā The UNFCCC thus makes a distinction between climate change attributable to human activities altering the atmospheric composition, and climate variability attributable to natural causes.]
In other words where previously climate change meant change due to human activity now it means change due to human and natural causes . As previously quoted in the original post they now say that they canāt distinguish these causes for the next 30 years.The rest of their predictions re extreme events are simply trivial and tautologous speculation ā they simply say that if warming continues, certain extreme events are more likely to occur. If they donāt know what is happening in the next 30 years they certainly donāt know what will happen in th next hundred. “
@svalgaard with role do you mean climate sensitivity?
http://www.knmi.nl/research/ipcc/FUTURE/Submission_by_The_Netherlands_on_the_future_of_the_IPCC_laatste.pdf
“The IPCC should reconsider the regionalisation of the assessments […] regionalisation significantly increases the volume of the assessment, makes it more difficult to read and causes an almost unmanageable writing process. It becomes more vulnerable to uncertainty, inconsistency and the existence of potential errors. Consequently, regionalisation puts more pressure on the contributors. It also complicates the synthesis of the assessment.”
unacceptable, evasive self-contradiction
HenryP says:
July 5, 2013 at 11:54 am
(remember we were only talking here about the thermosphere)
http://www.ann-geophys.net/29/1779/2011/angeo-29-1779-2011.pdf
“We have argued that the trends in thermospheric temperature seen are too large to be caused by the CO2 changes seen and that the large day-tonight difference in trend does not point to a greenhouse gas at all. The correspondence in breakpoint year and the essential disappearance of the trend at night both have interpretation in terms of O3 as the causative agent”
Your ‘calculation’ is incomprehensible.
Steven Devijver says:
July 5, 2013 at 12:01 pm
@svalgaard with role do you mean climate sensitivity?
According to Crock what the IPCC says is not controversial, so check out the IPCC to get a non-controversial definition and calculation.
Break it down. For example, Hansen treats the empirical evidence for 3 degrees of warming for a doubling of CO2 as historical fact. He also seems to think the forcing is linear for temperatures near current global temperature. He also seems to think there is no significant regional variability in the nature of the forcing. IMHO, there are huge issues here. So a comprehensive report on the empirical evidence for GHG forcing would be of interest to me.
henry@leif
perhaps you did not understand this from the quoted paper:
For the three day period, March 8th through 10th, the thermosphere absorbed 26 billion kWh of energy. Infrared radiation from CO2 and NO, the two most efficient coolants in the thermosphere, re-radiated 95% of that total back into space….
try and understand my calculation from this statement?
The Dutch had their president of the National Academy of Sciences, a quantum field theory physicist, as head of the IPCC review committee which found all these problems.
The big difference is that Holland LOOKED.
IPCC is depending on people and countries NOT LOOKING….
@svalgaard nothing the IPCC says is controversial?
HenryP says:
July 5, 2013 at 12:17 pm
perhaps you did not understand this from the quoted paper…
so, on top, we have (more) coolingā¦.by more CO2
Perhaps you didn’t even read paper I quoted http://www.ann-geophys.net/29/1779/2011/angeo-29-1779-2011.pdf :
“the cause of the long-term cooling of the thermosphere has been a decrease in heating [due to O3] rather than an increase in cooling [due to CO2].”
So it is not clear what dubious conclusion you want to draw.
Steven Devijver says:
July 5, 2013 at 12:22 pm
@svalgaard nothing the IPCC says is controversial?
According to Crock [to stay on topic] what IPCC says is not controversial, and Crock urges the IPCC to pay more attention to controversial issues.
adrian_oc says:
July 5, 2013 at 12:21 pm
The big difference is that Holland LOOKED.
And did not find that the role of CO2 is controversial [according to Crock].
lsvalgaard says:
so following in that respect the IPCC party line.
—-
The IPCC has a party line?
@svalgaard is it difficult to channel Crock? I can think of a few controversial things said by the IPCC, for one that Western Europe would see less colder-than-average winters.
The role of CO2 isn’t controversial. The interactions between CO2 and photons are well-understood. Our host (and most contributing authors) vehemently reject the Dragon-Slayers. I suspect most (and you?) even accept a no-feedbacks climate sensitivity of around 1 degC, though many may be unwilling to risk the wrath that such explicit statements may cause among those who claim climate change as a hoax.
Almost everything else in climate science IS controversial, particularly feedbacks and the ability of models to accurately quantify them. AR4 WG I never discussed the ability of climate models to reproduce recent current climate and project future climate change. The chapter on Evaluation of Climate Models is mostly concerned with comparisons between models. The final chapter on Attribution and Projection assumes that the IPCC’s collection of national models (which even they called “an ensemble of opportunity”) represents the full range of current and future climate change that is consistent with our understanding of the chemistry and physic of the atmosphere and ocean.
Controversies arise mostly from politicization of climate science which is intended to promote legislation restricting emissions of CO2: hockey sticks which eliminate the MWP and make current temperatures “unprecedented”, attribution statements which claim that warming in the last half-century must be mostly due to humans while earlier similar rates of warming can only be explained by natural variation, attributing every new weather disaster to the already-changed climate of our planet, understating uncertainty, overestimating damage and ignoring benefits, etc.
Mr Bliss says:
July 5, 2013 at 12:32 pm
The IPCC has a party line?
You disagree?
Steven Devijver says:
July 5, 2013 at 12:35 pm
is it difficult to channel Crock?
We are discussing Crock’s post. He urges the IPCC to pay more attention to controversial issues. Perhaps you should alert the IPCC to issues you think are controversial and ask them to heed Crock’s advice.
Leif put out a little test for you all there. He wishes he could issue better grades. š
leif quotes paper
These results suggest, ļ¬rst, that the greenhouse cooling of the thermosphere may well not be detectable with current data sets and, second, that the long-term cooling that is clearly
seen may be due largely to O3 depletion.
henry@leif
you have to be kidding me
whilst I can probably agree with the first statement,
the 2nd is clearly completely wrong: O3 has been increasing
whilst temps. have been falling
http://blogs.24.com/henryp/2012/10/02/best-sine-wave-fit-for-the-drop-in-global-maximum-temperatures/#comment-352
@Leif
From the point of view of the IPCC, anything else but the role of CO2 is controversial, and they should look at these ‘controversial’ issues. That’s what is meant by Marcel and you know it. Why try so obvious to hijack this post. Do you fear the role of the sun will finally be studied and, heaven forbid, mentioned by the IPCC? It’s quite unscientific what you do today. Not what I would expect from you.
“IPCC may be more relevant by producing more special reports on topics that are new and controversial.”
I take that as a statement of fact that the IPCC has been and will be incapable of producing anything other than that which is “new and controversial” and we all know it. Since it would be too difficult to disband it, it would be marked as a rogue entity whose remarks should be ignored.
The IPCC should look at What Went Wrong in Spain, with the Fisker (and others), with under-performing windmills, etc.
The argument of the IPCC was always that current warming cannot be explained without assuming radiative imbalance caused by anthropogenic CO2.
As it hasn’t warmed for 17 years, the warming now looks very much like earlier warming coming out of the LIA, pre 1950 when anthropogenic CO2 was not a factor.
In other words, the entire basis for the founding statement of the IPCC has fallen away.
The IPCC should therefore not be reformed but simply be dissolved and defunded.
lsvalgaard says:
The IPCC has a party line?
You disagree?
——–
Tell us what you believe the party line is ….
It’s a pity the KNMI didn’t take the opportunity to be a tad more specific and list a few of the more ‘controversial’ subjects. Presumably the role of the sun, EUV, clouds might have been suggested.
An opportunity lost ?
HenryP says:
July 5, 2013 at 12:56 pm
you have to be kidding me
Take it up with the authors of the paper. They say:
“O3 can act as a greenhouse gas just as CO2 can, but its decrease in density after 1979 (presumably due to an increase in man-made halocarbon emissions into the atmosphere) would lead to less radiative cooling, not more, and during daytime its radiative heating effect would far outweigh any cooling effect”
Scarface says:
July 5, 2013 at 12:56 pm
Why try so obvious to hijack this post.
Just pointing out that according to Crock the role of CO2 is not controversial. Apparently many commenters disagree with Crock’s post. It is they who hijack the post.
the role of the sun will finally be studied and, heaven forbid, mentioned by the IPCC?
It was studied, mentioned, and rejected by the IPCC. Granted that they did not study all the dubious claims ever made, but concentrated on the one they thought had the most adherents.
Mr Bliss says:
July 5, 2013 at 1:11 pm
Tell us what you believe the party line is ā¦.
Study the IPCC volumes and ye shall find. But, tell us if you think there is no ‘part line’.
party line
In the absence of the Royal Dutch Meteorological Institute offering any specific suggestions, may I offer one instead. The self disbandment of the IPCC or the replacement of godfather (Pachuari) with Judith Curry.
lsvalgaard says:
Study the IPCC volumes and ye shall find.
—
Why would studying the IPCC volumes tell me what you believe the party line is?
Are you suggesting that the IPCC tells you what to believe?
Mr Bliss says:
July 5, 2013 at 1:27 pm
Why would studying the IPCC volumes tell me what you believe the party line is?
Are you suggesting that the IPCC tells you what to believe?
It will tell you what their party line is. Believing that is our problem, not mine. Or, perhaps you will claim that there is no party line. That again is your problem, not mine.
Of course the IPCC has a party line. It can be summarized as this:
The climate models are right, because there is a scientific consensus that warming is human-induced by CO2.
The physical and real world is wrong, because it does not support the scientific consensus. People who do not support the consensus are heretics.
It is permissible and even admirable to manipulate, hide and even torture scientific data from the real world, use dubious statistics, use selection bias, and presents results in a misleading manner, as long as it is in favour of the scientific consensus.
Exactly, important points in the post. Limiting the climate-study to human influence, ignoring the natural variability is one of the major failures of the IPCC.
the attached pdf is worth a read:
” The unfortunate mistakes in the Fourth Assessment, and the delayed response to these, unveiled serious vulnerabilities in the organisation, the process of producing reports, the perceived integrity of the people involved and the communication.”
The problem however is that the way how this work was done until now has indeed to my understanding limited the progress of climate science.
The big number of low quality models with projections outside of real data do not add to the climate understanding, they only repeat again and again that essential parts are missing, but obviously nobody listens.
Therefore I am not convinced it is worth to try to reform IPCC at all. It is after all not a scientific organisation but a very costly gatherer of data with very limited success in the quality of data gathering.
Potentially there are much better ways to spend the money – for instance feed hungry people – and simply scrap the IPCC and make the $$ savings.
This my 2 cents.
lsvalgaard says:
It will tell you what their party line is.
—–
But it was you who brought up the concept of an IPCC party line, not me. It shouldn’t be a problem for you to indicate what that line is.
And then you say:
perhaps you will claim that there is no party line. That again is your problem, not mine.
—
You make an asssumption without evidence, then tell me I have a problem š
As for your problem – that seems to be giving a straight answer to my straight question – here it is again:
Tell us what you believe the party line is …….?
@lsvalgaard in several posts
Leif, you imply that Crok says carbon dioxide should not be studied further but I can’t find your basis for that claim. Perhaps this is your basis: Crok says, “The (almost) obsession of IPCC with greenhouse forcing has greatly limited progress in climate science in my opinion”.
The IPCC role is defined as studying “human induced” global warming. Humans, 1) emit carbon dioxide by burning fossil fuels and making cement etc, 2) cut down trees/undergrowth that convert carbon dioxide to carbon and oxygen, 3) pump ground water from no or slow-to-recharge aquifers to irrigate food and fodder crops and 4) emit a few other minor chemicals. IPCC ignore additional water vapor added to the atmosphere and almost ignore ground cover effects. That essentially leaves only carbon dioxide as the primary greenhouse gas to cause forcing.
I have examined a very large amount of climate science data and find only natural cycles as causes of observed global warming in 1980 – 1996. Based on available data, the impact of carbon dioxide on that period of observed warming is small, if any. Certainly in the past 16 years, the impact of carbon dioxide emissions has had no or very limited impact on the global temperature. Having lived in Holland and worked with really good Dutch technical folks in Holland and around the world, I think that Crok’s point is that IPCC should forget about carbon dioxide being the root cause of global warming and do much more work on natural cycles as the root cause of the observed global warming.
Personally, I don’t think that natural cycles are controversial but the Mann’s and Hansen’s of the world might. To get a better focus on reality, IPCC should add geologists to their mix of technical professionals.
Mr Bliss says:
July 5, 2013 at 1:48 pm
You make an asssumption without evidence, then tell me I have a problem
scf has no such problem [I concur with him, perhaps you do not]:
scf says:
July 5, 2013 at 1:37 pm
Of course the IPCC has a party line. It can be summarized as this:
[see his comment]
@svalgaard your statement that the IPCC does not say anything controversial is followed by a confirmation that the IPCC indeed said some controversial things.
lsvalgaard says:
Of course the IPCC has a party line. It can be summarized as this:
[see his comment]
—
That wasn’t too difficult to say, was it?
Well, it wasn’t too difficult for SCF to say, just a shame you needed someone else to say it for you…
Steven Devijver says:
July 5, 2013 at 1:55 pm
@svalgaard your statement that the IPCC does not say anything controversial is followed by a confirmation that the IPCC indeed said some controversial things.
Perhaps you should this thread again. Crock say that IPCC should pay more attention to things that are controversial [this does not mean that they don’t mention some things that are, just not enough attention]; instead IPCC concentrates on CO2 [and they can hardly pay any more attention to that than they already do] and Crock recognizes that and seems not to contradict that what IPCC pay attention to is not controversial, i.e. that the role of CO2 is not controversial.
Mr Bliss says:
July 5, 2013 at 2:00 pm
Well, it wasnāt too difficult for SCF to say, just a shame you needed someone else to say it for youā¦
the shame is on you for not knowing that there was a party line in the first place, but now that you have been told, perhaps it is time to stop whining based on former ignorance.
lsvalgaard says:
the shame is on you for not knowing that there was a party line in the first place
—
An assumption without evidence – don’t let it become a habit
Mr Bliss says:
July 5, 2013 at 2:11 pm
“the shame is on you for not knowing that there was a party line in the first place”
An assumption without evidence
The evidence is there for all to see:
Mr Bliss says: July 5, 2013 at 12:32 pm
The IPCC has a party line?
You were perhaps a bit economical with the truth, “donāt let it become a habit”
Here are some your ways out
1) You ‘misspoke’
2) You forgot a \sarc tag
3) You try to yank my chain
4) you can, undoubtedly, come up with more invalid excuses [I’m waiting with bated breath…]
The natural variability is not time concurrent in various location around the globe; it is often grossly reduced by the āglobalā temperature averaging.
Historic regional data (such as the CET) give far clearer picture.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/CET-NV.htm
The bottom line is simple, no AGW no IPCC and they know that full well
These turkeys are not about to vote for Christmas.
They said “and”: “IPCC may be more relevant by producing more special reports on topics that are new and controversial.” I could not tell you what topics in climate science are new and controversial, but I’m pretty sure CO2 as the causal agent for climate change is not one.
“The IPCC needs to adjust its principles. We believe that limiting the scope of the IPCC to human induced climate change is undesirable, especially because natural climate change is a crucial part of the total understanding of the climate system, including human-induced climate change. “
I disagree with the entire premise. The UN is a political body. It was not conceived to partake in scientific research, whether summarizing, advocating, or whatnot. The UN should never have been co-opted to this process, although this is hardly the first time the UN has been co-opted by those yearning and thirsting for power.
The IPCC was conceived to translate scientific results to political power across the world. This is a recipe not to advance science, but to retard it. Science and politics don’t mix. That is why universities have always existed at an arm’s length from governments, why tenure exists, and so on. We have seen how science has become tortured and politicized by the IPCC, and we need not generalize this, instead, we should put the IPCC in its grave.
Co2 being a greenhouse gas is not controversial (despite men fighting dragons). Co2 positive feedback quantification is utterly and absolutely controversial. Look at the 16 years temperature standstill while co2 shot up. Look at the missing (predicted) hotspot and you will realise the absolute controversy. Look at the Warmer NH winters we were promised and was it warm in your country these past few winters? Co2 positive feedback quantification is what the controversy is about. HOW MUCH????
I agree with Scarface. Leif is trolling, Marcel Crok’s meaning was clear (study factors other than CO2), and one day Leif’s worst fears will be realised when someone else works out the link between sun and climate. OK, that’s maybe a bit too harsh, but how far off the mark am I really?
BTW, I disagree with Marcel Crok, in that I don’t think the IPCC should look at factors other than CO2 – I think the IPCC has shown itself to be so wilfully biased that the only credible way forward is to scrap it. No other field of science has an IPCC, and climate science shouldn’t have one either.
Mike Jonas says:
July 5, 2013 at 3:08 pm
I agree with Scarface. Leif is trolling, Marcel Crokās meaning was clear (study factors other than CO2)
Of course, because the role of CO2 is not controversial, which is the take-home lesson.
and one day Leifās worst fears will be realised when someone else works out the link between sun and climate.
Not at all. I have myself published several papers on this. E.g.
Solar magnetic sector structure: Relation to circulation of the earth’s atmosphere
John M Wilcox, Philip H Scherrer, Leif Svalgaard, Walter Orr Roberts, Roger H Olson
Publication date 1973/4/13, Science, Volume 180, issue 4082, Pages 185-186 (cited by 121 other papers and still cited today). And have had high interest in this field for decades. Unfortunately, there has been no progress worth writing home about, and the field is as barren as it ever was [going back to 1651]. P.S. Walt Roberts was the founder of NCAR [National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO].
My great hope is that the effort will pan out, as that would greatly increase funding and relevance of solar physics. But, alas, I see nothing on the horizon to promise that. All the same tired, old arguments and dubious correlations are still trotted out.
how far off the mark am I really?
As far as one can get.
lsvalgaard says:
The evidence is there for all to see:
Mr Bliss says: July 5, 2013 at 12:32 pm
The IPCC has a party line?
—-
Thats evidence that I wanted your interpretation of the IPCC party line – since you brought it up.
Unfortunately you had to wait for SCF to come up with a definition for you
A committee of scientists selected by 194 countries to push a political agenda is not going to resolve the climate change anomalies.
The IPCC will be forced to try to explain global cooling before that unwieldy group is abandoned.
There will be a high level independent scientific group formed to try to understand and predict the implications of global cooling.
There is now observed cooling at both poles and a massive increase in snow fall on the Antarctic ice sheet. Step change observations require a step change forcing change. The current solar change is causing the observed change in planetary climate.
http://www.cato.org/blog/long-awaited-snowfall-increase-antarctica-now-underway
A paper to soon appear in Geophysical Research Letters gives us another enticing look at recent snowfall changes in Antarctica. In āSnowfall driven mass change on the East Antarctic ice sheet,ā Carmen Boening and colleagues from NASAās Jet Propulsion Laboratory report that extreme precipitation (snowfall) events in recent years (beginning in 2009) have led to a dramatic gain in the ice mass in the coastal portions of East Antarctica amounting to about 350 Gt in total (Figure 1)
The following is a partial list of anomalies that require an answer.
1. There has been 16 years without warming. That is not possible based on the general circulation models. There is no observed warming in the tropical troposphere as predicted by the GW theory and by the general circulation models. That also is not possible if the general circulation models are correct. When the paleo record is examined in detail there are multiple periods when greenhouse gases increase and decrease and there is no change in temperature. There is no explanation for periods when greenhouse gas changes do not correlate with planetary temperature. That is not possible based on the general circulation models and the known natural climate forcing mechanism. Based on the observations either the greenhouse gas mechanism saturates (one or more fundamental assumptions concerning atmospheric processes are incorrect) or there are strange smart forces that when necessary inhibit the greenhouse mechanism and/or cause warming and cooling when required explain the paleoclimatic record.
2. During the current interglacial there has been nine (9) periods of warming and cooling all of which correlate with solar magnetic cycle changes. The regions of the planet that warmed during the nine (9) climate cycles are the same regions of the planet that have warmed in the last 70 years. Solar activity has the highest in 8000 years in the last 70 years. The solar magnetic cycle has abruptly slowed down. The sun is entering a Maunder minimum. Based on what has happened before the planet will start to cool and there will be increased precipitation and cloud cover 40 to 65 degree North and South. There has been an observed increase in precipitation and cooling, with the cooling and increased precipitation in the same regions as observed in the Little Ice Age.
Greenland ice temperature, last 11,000 years determined from ice core analysis, Richard Alleyās paper. http://www.climate4you.com/images/GISP2%20TemperatureSince10700%20BP%20with%20CO2%20from%20EPICA%20DomeC.gif
http://www.solen.info/solar/images/comparison_recent_cycles.png
http://cc.oulu.fi/~usoskin/personal/nature02995.pdf
Unusual activity of the Sun during recent decades compared to the previous 11,000 years
http://cio.eldoc.ub.rug.nl/FILES/root/1999/QuatSciRevvGeel/1999QuatSciRevvGeel.pdf
“The role of solar forcing upon climate change”
https://ams.confex.com/ams/pdfpapers/74103.pdf
The Sun-Climate Connection by John A. Eddy, National Solar Observatory
http://www.utdallas.edu/physics/pdf/Atmos_060302.pdf
3. It has been discovered that there are geomagnetic field changes (abrupt changes to the geomagnetic field orientation 10 to 15 degree and geomagnetic excursions) that correlate with super sets of solar magnetic cycle changes. We are current at the end of a solar magnetic cycle super set. In the 1990ās the North geomagnetic pole location drift velocity abruptly increase from 10 to 15 km per year to 55 km year correlating with a sudden change to the solar magnetic cycle starting the end of a super cycle.
A geomagnetic anomaly (it appears the South Atlantic field anomaly is either a reversal or an attempted reversal, the field strength in this location is 30% less than the main field) was discovered in the South Atlantic region in 1958. The South Atlantic anomaly has increased in extent from 55 million sq km in 1958 to 75 million sq km in 2011.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364682611002896
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2010EO510001/pdf
What Caused Recent Acceleration of the North Magnetic Pole Drift?
Abrupt climate changes correlate with geomagnetic excursions. Svensmarkās mechanism explains both the cooling and warming due to abrupt increases and decreases to intensity geomagnetic field. The geomagnetic field intensity increases by a factor of 3 to 4 during the interglacial periods. Geomagnetic excursions correlate with the start and end of the interglacial periods.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364682611002896
http://sciences.blogs.liberation.fr/home/files/Courtillot07EPSL.pdf
Are there connections between the Earth’s magnetic field and climate? Vincent Courtillot, Yves Gallet, Jean-Louis Le MouĆ«l, FrĆ©dĆ©ric Fluteau, AgnĆØs Genevey
http://geosci.uchicago.edu/~rtp1/BardPapers/responseCourtillotEPSL07.pdf
Response to Comment on āAre there connections between Earthās magnetic field and climate?, Earth Planet. Sci. Lett., 253, 328ā339, 2007ā by Bard, E., and Delaygue, M., Earth Planet. Sci. Lett., in press, 2007
Mr Bliss says:
July 5, 2013 at 3:27 pm
That’s evidence that I wanted your interpretation of the IPCC party line
That is evidence that you doubted there was a party line. And I think just about everybody here agrees that there is [with the possible exception of you] and what it is. SCF nicely summarized the line, do I have to do everything? A good rule for you to follow: ‘when in a hole, stop digging’.
There are many areas of science that are important to our current civilization, economies, technologies, and future, but climate is the ONLY area that needs a UN-based oversight department? Why? It’s simple. The IPCC is a propaganda machine and, dressed up as a “scientific body,” it can propagate propaganda to suit its purposes and agenda. It is a political body that was never meant to be scientific, just to appear scientific.
The IPCC should be dissolved.
https://www.ipcc.ch/scoping_meeting_ar5/doc7.pdf
The above appears to be the response of the IPCC to the national recommendations. It would seem the IPCC considers much of what the Netherlands said to be in the ‘outlier’ category.
William Astley says:
July 5, 2013 at 3:38 pm
The current solar change is causing the observed change in planetary climate.
there is no evidence for that, just your supposition. The solar energy output is now the highest it has ever been since the start of reliable [and well-calibrated] measurements in 2003.
During the current interglacial there has been nine (9) periods of warming and cooling all of which correlate with solar magnetic cycle changes.
No, that is not generally accepted.
Solar activity has the highest in 8000 years in the last 70 years.
As we have discussed many times, this is incorrect.
It has been discovered that there are geomagnetic field changes (abrupt changes to the geomagnetic field orientation 10 to 15 degree and geomagnetic excursions) that correlate with super sets of solar magnetic cycle changes.
No such discovery has been made.
Geomagnetic excursions correlate with the start and end of the interglacial periods.
These are caused by totally unrelated processes and no such correlation has been established
in press, 2007
speaks for itself.
oops that was the 4th assessment review
I don’t believe that anything more than the following simple observations are necessary to relegate CO2 to insignificance in climate change:
1. There were three periods of temperatures higher than today, while CO2 was much less than today, within the historical record: Hittite-Minoan-Mycenean, 1800-1400 BC, Roman Climate Optimum, 100B -300AD, and Medieval Warm Period, 900-1300AD. The abundantly and solidly documented anecdotal evidence of these periods cannot be erased by a model whose “proxy” temperatures correlate less to actual temps than random numbers do (he hockey stick, as demonstrated by Steve McIntyre).
2. The existing, actual, unfudged temperature data shows conclusively that the highest temps in the last 100 years occurred during the 1930s, when there was 40% less CO2 in the atmosphere than today. The regression line from 1933 to 2013 definitely slopes quite steeply DOWNWARD, for an 80-year period – not just 17 or 15 or whatever the alarmists claim.
3. Temps were flat from 1997 to 2002 and have declined since then, all alarmist lies to the contrary notwithstanding, while CO2 went up another 15 percent.
4. Greenhouse operators consistently maintain CO2 at 1,000-1,500 parts per million in their buildings (to obtain higher yields) and there is no runaway heating there; in fact, the added CO2 barely affects the temps in those buildings..
5. All the alarmists are of extreme left political persuasions, and while this may sound like ad hominem, keep in mind that people with these beliefs do not hesitate to lie concerning anything that appears to justify their political agendas, and to deny (if in fact they will even acknowledge) anything that refutes their arguments. It’s not ad hominem when you have proof otherwise, i.e., documented observation, that someone is a habitual liar.
From what I can see, lsvalgaard made the first comment in an overly terse manner, which appears to have given everyone the wrong idea.
The IPCC does not consider the role of CO2 to be controversial. It appears to them to be an obvious fact, and not worth disputing in any way. The IPCC was formed to collect all supporting documents for their position and marginalize anything else.
My personal opinion is that the sun influences climate in several ways, but we still have not identified to what extent and in what manner all of these influences happen.
There is no single answer to climate influences. None. It’s obvious that CO2 does not drive climate, but it may have some influence… then again, CO2 levels may also be an artifact of climate, not a driver.
It is as wrong to state with certainty that the Sun is the only driver as it is to state with certainty that CO2 is.
As I have said before, if climate research money had been spent on identifying the causes for the cycles we know exist then we might have a better idea by now what is going on. As it is, we are ALL still groping in the dark. As soon as someone can provide a credible and scientifically valid reason for the LIA and MWP we will be on our way to understanding climate.
Remember, this all started when scientists first realized that there had been Ice Ages.
In reply to:
lsvalgaard says:
July 5, 2013 at 4:17 pm
William Astley says:
July 5, 2013 at 3:38 pm
The current solar change is causing the observed change in planetary climate.
Leif: there is no evidence for that, just your supposition. The solar energy output is now the highest it has ever been since the start of reliable [and well-calibrated] measurements in 2003.
William: You should by now understand that solar magnetic cycle changes modulate planetary climate, rather than ātotal solar irradianceā TSI. The planet becomes warmer or colder due to less or more sunlight reflected off to space.
Do you claim there has been no change to the sun?
Or do you claim there has been no sudden and abrupt climate change?
The planet has suddenly started to cool. There has been record cold winters in Europe and the start of cold wet summers in both North America and in Europe.
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2013/0705/Year-after-drought-wettest-Midwest-spring-in-40-years-delays-crop-planting
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/news/releases/archive/2013/cold-spring
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/cold-german-winter-refuses-to-warm-up-for-easter-a-891468.html
Complaining about the weather has reached epidemic proportions in northern Germany this “spring.” And with good reason. With Easter just around the corner, meteorologists are telling us this could end up being the coldest March in Berlin and its surroundings since records began in the 1880s.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-22835154
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age
…Little Ice Age (LIA) was a period of cooling that occurred after the Medieval Warm Period (Medieval Climate Optimum).[1] While it was not a true ice age, the term was introduced into the scientific literature by FranƧois E. Matthes in 1939.[2] It has been conventionally defined as a period extending from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries,[3][4][5] or alternatively, from about 1350 to about 1850
Crop practices throughout Europe had to be altered to adapt to the shortened, less reliable growing season, and there were many years of dearth and famine (such as the Great Famine of 1315ā1317, although this may have been before the LIA proper).[25] According to Elizabeth Ewan and Janay Nugent, “Famines in France 1693ā94, Norway 1695ā96 and Sweden 1696ā97 claimed roughly 10% of the population of each country. In Estonia and Finland in 1696ā97, losses have been estimated at a fifth and a third of the national populations, respectively.”[26] Viticulture disappeared from some northern regions. Violent storms caused serious flooding and loss of life. Some of these resulted in permanent loss of large areas of land from the Danish, German and Dutch coasts.[24]
The extent of mountain glaciers had been mapped by the late nineteenth century. In both the north and the south temperate zones, snowlines (the boundaries separating zones of net accumulation from those of net ablation) were about 100 m lower than they were in 1975.[27] In Glacier National Park, the last episode of glacier advance came in the late 18th and early nineteenth centuries.[28] In Chesapeake Bay, Maryland, large temperature excursions were possibly related to changes in the strength of North Atlantic thermohaline circulation.[29]
In Ethiopia and Mauritania, permanent snow was reported on mountain peaks at levels where it does not occur today.[30] Timbuktu, an important city on the trans-Saharan caravan route, was flooded at least 13 times by the Niger River; there are no records of similar flooding before or since.[30] In China, warm-weather crops, such as oranges, were abandoned in Jiangxi Province, where they had been grown for centuries.[30] Also, two periods of most frequent typhoon strikes in Guangdong coincide with two of the coldest and driest periods in northern and central China (AD 1660-1680, 1850ā1880).[31] In North America, the early European settlers reported exceptionally severe winters. For example, in 1607-1608, ice persisted on Lake Superior until June.[24] The journal of Pierre de Troyes, Chevalier de Troyes, who led an expedition to James Bay in 1686, recorded that James Bay was still littered with so much floating ice that he could hide behind it in his canoe on July 1.[32]
During the current interglacial there has been nine (9) periods of warming and cooling all of which correlate with solar magnetic cycle changes.
No, that is not generally accepted.
William: You need more help from a warmist friend. The problem is how Greenland ice sheet temperature has changed. Do you deny the Little Ice Age occurred? How about the Medieval warm period? Do you deny there has been an abrupt and unexplained change to the planetary climate in the last 3 years?
Solar activity has the highest in 8000 years in the last 70 years.
Lief: As we have discussed many times, this is incorrect.
William: Sorry. You are incorrect. Global cooling due to the recent solar magnetic cycle change will bring the climate wars to an end.
There has been a sudden and abrupt change to the sun. The planet has started to cool. It appears observations are on the side of those how assert the majority of the warming in the last 70 years has caused by solar magnetic cycle changes.
Do you deny there has been a sudden and abrupt change to the solar magnetic cycle? The following is a comparison of solar magnetic cycle 21, 22, and 23. There appears to be a reduction in the solar magnetic cycle of a factor of 3.
http://www.solen.info/solar/images/comparison_recent_cycles.png
http://cc.oulu.fi/~usoskin/personal/nature02995.pdf
Unusual activity of the Sun during recent decades compared to the previous 11,000 years
http://cio.eldoc.ub.rug.nl/FILES/root/1999/QuatSciRevvGeel/1999QuatSciRevvGeel.pdf
“The role of solar forcing upon climate change”
https://ams.confex.com/ams/pdfpapers/74103.pdf
The Sun-Climate Connection by John A. Eddy, National Solar Observatory
http://www.utdallas.edu/physics/pdf/Atmos_060302.pdf
It has been discovered that there are geomagnetic field changes (abrupt changes to the geomagnetic field orientation 10 to 15 degree and geomagnetic excursions) that correlate with super sets of solar magnetic cycle changes.
Leif: No such discovery has been made.
William: You are not interested in this subject and have no idea how the sun causes what is observed.
Geomagnetic excursions correlate with the start and end of the interglacial periods.
These are caused by totally unrelated processes and no such correlation has been established in press, 2007speaks for itself.
William: The paper in question was published. See the response to criticism of the paper.
Life is not easy being a sceptic of CAGW, AGW, Climate Disruption, Climate Change, Weird Weather, Crazy Weather, I have never known weather like this, My Grandma Got Heat Stroke, etc.Worst of all, weather is NOW the climate (5 years ago it wasn’t – see Monbiot et. a..). What caused the following harmless changes in climate of the benign Holocene.?
Holocene climate extremes
Wiki is almost always top in Google for global warming ‘general’ searches. I just searched for ‘AGW theory’ and I got “Global warming controversy “. What??? Controversy? But I was told this is not controversial. The fact that there are some people on this thread discussing carbon dioxide and global warming says it all. You don’t need to be a rocket scientist. THIS IS A CONTROVERSY NO MATTER HOW SMART YOU THINK YOU ARE. You are here? No? Are you discussing controversy??? No??? Let’s take time out.
The IPCC was formed with the express mission to find the link between CO2 and Global Warming.
Bad science starts with assuming the answer at the start and then seeking to prove it. It’s a perversion of the Scientific Method which takes exactly the opposite approach.
John Holdren’s appointment was pushed by Margaret Thatcher as part of her effort to defeat the National Union of (Coal) Miners in the UK. The NUM brought down the previous Conservative government led by Ted Heath in 1974. It was all about settling scores.
She didn’t need to do that as she suckered the NUM into a disastrous national strike, their union leader Arthur Scargill fell for it hook line and sinker, the miners were Lions lead by Donkeys.
The IPCC is in trouble.
All the model temperature trends are already submitted.
And they are very far off the current temperatures.
What are they going to do? Ignore the models. Screw around with the charts so that noone can see how far off the theory and the models are. Explain that natural variability is a bigger factor than the IPCC assumed previously. Lie.
They have no choice except to eat Crow now.
The so called “greenhouse effect” based on the work John Tyndall in 1859, Svante Arrhenius in 1869, and others before and since and is well regarded theory, meaning it is not controversial. Modeled positive and negative feed backs are controversial. The computer models are hypotheses, and the past 15 years of data appear to be falsifying the high “climate sensitivity” models. Stay tuned.
Over 95% of the climate models have failed in their recent temperature projections . This is the elephant in the room and one of the causes of the CONTROVERSY. Co2 was the alleged main culprit. Arrive at your own conclusions. I am getting tar and feather ready.
“The IPCC needs to adjust its principles.”
Can I conclude that IPCC has no principles?
Sorry John Hadley not John Holdren
Nonsense. Agents 99 and 86 took Control of Chaos long ago.
In a hole with nothing but a shovel……..
..sounds like an engineering problem ?
William Astley says:
July 5, 2013 at 5:17 pm
William: You should by now understand that solar magnetic cycle changes modulate planetary climate, rather than ātotal solar irradianceā TSI.
TSI and the solar magnetic cycle are closely coupled: variations in the magnetic field is the cause of variations of TSI and cosmic rays and just about everything solar.
The planet becomes warmer or colder due to less or more sunlight reflected off to space.
The question is why the cloudiness varies.
The planet has suddenly started to cool.
Sitting in 110 degree F in California one is reminded that weather is not climate.
Your ranting quotes from cherry-picked ‘papers’ are not impressive, just serve to muddle your mind.
Do you deny the Little Ice Age occurred? How about the Medieval warm period?
they only roughly match solar excursions and can be explained as coincidences.
Do you deny there has been an abrupt and unexplained change to the planetary climate in the last 3 years?
Yes, as 3 years is not ‘climate’.
Solar activity has the highest in 8000 years in the last 70 years.
Leif: As we have discussed many times, this is incorrect.
William: Sorry. You are incorrect.
We just concluded a major workshop on this subject. Conclusion: solar activity had not hit unusual highs.
Do you deny there has been a sudden and abrupt change to the solar magnetic cycle? The following is a comparison of solar magnetic cycle 21, 22, and 23. There appears to be a reduction in the solar magnetic cycle of a factor of 3.
Happens all the time [although the factor of 3 is wrong,, should be more like just reduction of 33%], From cycle 19 to 20: almost a factor of 2; from cycle 4 to cycle 5: almost a factor of 3, etc.
Leif: No such discovery has been made.
William: You are not interested in this subject and have no idea how the sun causes what is observed.
I have studied this subject for 40 years and it is indeed true that nobody knows if [and certainly not how] the Sun causes what is observed.
William: The paper in question was published. See the response to criticism of the paper.
A lot of junk is published; you have a knack of finding such.
@ u.k. (us)
Ah presumed fellow ex-Pat you are no doubt referring to the First Law of Holes.
“When in a Hole stop digging”.
As an example of lack of knowledge concerning the First Law is currently in being perfectly executed by the present US Administration.
Pablo an ex Pat says:
July 5, 2013 at 7:46 pm
“Ah presumed fellow ex-Pat ….
========
Nope, dug in like a tick š
I’m not leaving either : )
Adjust its principles?
How can an organization, demonstrably devoid of any principles, adjust them?
@John robertson –
Amen to that.
Latitude says:
July 5, 2013 at 11:47 am
why?ā¦.thatās not why they were created at allā¦.
āThe Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was established by the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in 1988 to assess the scientific, technical and socio-economic information relevant for the understanding of human induced climate change, its potential impacts and options for mitigation and adaptation.ā
Humans do induce climate change with a number of other interventions:
creation of dams
draining large regions
watering large regions, particularly for rice production
changing river deltas
burning forests
reforesting
building roads and cities
changing shorelines
……
there is a lot of scope in possible studies to keep climatologists busy as bees. It is just that money was given preferentially to incriminate CO2, i.e. energy use, with the result of higher energy prices, starving third world by turning food to gas, subsidizing useless and expensive technologies etc. etc. If I were not a firm believer that when lemming like stupidity can explain a situation conspiracies are not necessary , I would say there was a conspiracy to increase energy prices, where maybe even fossil fuel producers take part. They like scarcity.
I disagree with KNMI. We don’t need IPCC to pay attention to any other things. Science will learn about natural variability in the usual way, without the need of any Intergovernmental Panel made by politicians to tell what politicians have to do in a suposedly scientifically justified way. What IPPC has to do is disappear and never ever return.
KNMI thinks the IPCC does not examine natural climate variability, like solar, volcanos, clouds, GCRs, ocean/atmosphere oscillating and quasi-periodic systems, the ice ages caused by orbital variation with concurrent ice-sheet albedo changes? Their whole paleoclimate section is about natural climate change. They compared natural forcings with anthroopgenic in order to estimate the anthropogenic impact. Which IPCC document did KNMI read?
“What IPPC has to do is disappear and never ever return.” [Nylo]
YES!
Speaking of return, I was just thinking about you the other day, Nylo, and wondering where you’ve been. Yes, I remember you (smile)! I was hoping all was well in your world. Glad to “hear” your robust, forthright, enthusiastic, voice again. You CARE and it shows.
lsvalgaard says:
Geez Leif … this is splitting hairs, grasping at straws, building straw men, assuming, and trolling … all at once! Most uncharacteristic.
You have decided Crock “…implies that, he agrees with, the IPCC assessment that,.. CO2 induced warming is not controversial”.
Firstly – at the most basic level, – no-one can argue that CO2 absorbs certain wavelengths and that more CO2 molecules being present in the atmosphere will result in more energy being retained by those extra molecules.
But, that is when the controversy just begins … convection effect?, conduction effects? distribution in the atmosphere? increased radiation to space?
Then we go further into controversy: water vapor feed back effects? out gassing from warmer oceans? cloud effects? etc etc and on it goes, right through to the issues about wheter we are really warming and if so how much of that warming is really anthropogenic …. No doubt there are some controversies related to all that or it would all be tied up and finished and we’d not be having this discussion.
However – back to your interpretation of the implication: the Crock statement could be taken in many ways:
….IPCC should concentrate on more controversial issues …
Crock could have meant any or several of the following:
….IPCC should concentrate on (the) more controversial issues …
….IPCC should concentrate on more (of the) controversial issues …
….IPCC should concentrate on more controversial issues (than the simple fact that CO2 can cause some warming and we can model it as it proves nothing really…)
….IPCC should concentrate on more controversial issues … (“..because I’m not silly enough to take the whole CO2 issue shemozzle on head on so I’ll just skirt around that and give it token acceptance because my bigger picture message is the IPCC is doing an appalling job of assessing and communicating the science so bringing about change is the issue I will concentrate on..”)
Me? I’m going with the last one, it is pretty clear to me that is exactly what he meant, and although I have to assume his implied meaning, I’m really doing no more or less than Leif is, so my assumption is equally valid.
Leif, I have seen a lot of people wrongly labeled trolls for simply having a different opinion, but to me, this sort of argument based on hair splitting and assumption, complete with your one line ‘smart’ replies, is a classic example of trolling.
Many people think trolling is something to do with short ugly guys living under bridges, but no, it is a method of fishing where you bait a hook and trail it behind a moving boat, waiting for a fish who is dumb enough to bite … then you hook him and quickly throw some more lines in just in case he has company.
markx says:
July 5, 2013 at 11:07 pm
Iām really doing no more or less than Leif is, so my assumption is equally valid.
Implying that my assumption is valid too. Where does that leave the troll label?
I would have preferred [for the sake of integrity] that Crock did not try – as you say – to ‘skirt around that and give it token acceptance’, but some have a lower bar than I, it seems.
markx says:
July 5, 2013 at 11:07 pm
Iām really doing no more or less than Leif is, so my assumption is equally valid.
To follow up, I fault Crock for not trying to demand IPCC to address head-on the one thing that they think is not controversial [namely CO2 dominating global warming]. As long at that paradigm is allowed to stand, what does it matter that a few bones are thrown to people peddling minor controversial issues? Apparently, you disagree, as is your right, of course. But you overstep your rights when you label me as a troll.
Jimbo says:
July 5, 2013 at 5:35 pm
Holocene climate extremes
Thanks for a great deal of information and great links there Jimbo.
One only has to see that lot to realize how little evidence there is to justify talk of the “unprecedented events” of recent times.
What IPCC should pay more attention to is the water cycle.
1 water vapor is the predominant GHG in the atmosphere
2 its distribution is not uniform, but highly variable
2.1 on multiple spatio-temporal scales, with fractal-like features
2.2 therefore, its average IR optical depth is not determined by its average concentration
3 it has an unlimited supply from a large enough reservoir (oceans)
4 water plays a dual role, beyond being the most important GHG
4.1 short wave albedo is also regulated by the water cycle
4.2 clouds, ice & snow are white in SW, black in IR
5 in reproducible non equilibrium stationary systems the MEP principle holds
5.1 in a reproducible system macrostate A either always evolves to B or never
5.2 in case of radiative coupling the highest entropy production rate is given by a black body
5.3 earth is not black (on the other hand, the sun comes pretty close to a black body)
5.4 therefore the climate system is not reproducible (chaotic on all scales)
6 we do not have any theory of a non-reproducible non-equilibrium quasi-stationary system
6.1 therefore the science is not settled
7 the colder it is, the more variable is the climate
7.1 temperature fluctuations are highest in the polar winter
7.2 climate swings were more pronounced & abrupt during ice ages
7.3 average atmospheric concentration of water is low in cold states
7.4 therefore a more intense water cycle regulates more efficiently
8 fitting complex computational models to a single run of a unique physical instance is not science
8.1 “climate experiment” is an oxymoron
8.2 therefore, GCMs are crap
8.3 one should pursue a general theory of non-reproducible non-equilibrium quasi-stationary systems
8.4 which is experimentally verifiable on some members of that wide class
8.5 as soon as we have such a theory, it is applicable to climate (but not sooner)
9 the climate system seems to be regulated
9.1 therefore a variational principle, more general than MEP, is lurking in the background
9.2 its applicability may require a vast number of coupled internal degrees of freedom
9.3 which the climate system does have
10 this hypothetical variational principle is (as yet) utterly unknown
10.1 why don’t we start doing science, really?
10.2 why do we let the IPCC submerge into the worst kind of pseudoscience?
10.3 are we lame?
Doug Allen says:
July 5, 2013 at 6:21 pm
The so called āgreenhouse effectā based on the work John Tyndall in 1859, Svante Arrhenius in 1869(sic), and others before and since and is well regarded theory, meaning it is not controversial. Modeled positive and negative feed backs are controversial. The computer models are hypotheses, and the past 15 years of data appear to be falsifying the high āclimate sensitivityā models. Stay tuned.
Have you read the 1896 paper of Arrhenius? I have.
He claims that he based his ideas on Fourier (1824), but if you read that paper, you find that Fourier says the exact opposite of what Arrhenius claims that he said (there is a good translation of F1824 made for the Royal Society in 1837). The are many errors in the 1896 paper, so Arrhenius published a revised paper in 1906, which argues his case from the Aether hypothesis, nearly 2 decades after Michelson-Morley.
His next project was the electrical stimulation of the brains of school children to improve their academic performance. His write up claims great success.
And this is well respected? And what has respect to do with science anyway?
Nullius in verba!
Sorry, but I can’t attach pdf’s.
Relevant to Natural Variability:
CET daily maximum is catching up with the long term average:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/CET-Dmax.htm
currently only -1.1C (May -2.3C) from earlier in the year when it was averaging about -3C on the 20 year (1990-2010) average.
This follows the existing 350 year long behaviour in the CETās movements:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/MidSummer-MidWinter.htm
Ergo: nothing new, all seen before.
.
lsvalgaard says:
July 5, 2013 at 4:17 pm
[In answer to William Astley, July 5, 2013 at 3:38 pm – The current solar change is causing the observed change in planetary climate]
there is no evidence for that, just your supposition. The solar energy output is now the highest it has ever been since the start of reliable [and well-calibrated] measurements in 2003.
Leif, I am genuinely struggling to understand the relevance of this. In another remark you (quite rightly in my view) dismissed changes to “climate” over a 3 years period as being weather, presumably because a 3 year perturbation means nothing in climatic terms. Here however, you seem to be implying that something that has happened in the last 10 years can tell us anything of interest concerning a body which is approximately 4.5 billion years old.
Of course, you include the phrase ‘reliable [and well-calibratged]’ in your response which could imply that there are less reliable records going back for much longer, although I would have thought that even records going back as far as the invention of the telescope mean little in the context of the 4.5 billion year age of the sun.
If I have misunderstood either your response or the science, please accept my aplogies. I would very much appreciate an elucidation on this point.
… or even well-calibrated … š
Interglacial periods end abruptly, not gradually. There is currently no explanation for cyclic abrupt climate change. It is a fact that abrupt climate change correlates with super cycle changes to the sun and geomagnetic excursions. Science is the name for the logical process of identifying and solving scientific puzzles not pushing green party agendas.
The mantra is global warming as global warming is being used to push a green partyās irrational political agenda. Western countries have spent trillions of dollars on engineering and economic failures and there has been no significant reduction in carbon dioxide emissions in the countries where the green project funds has been spent and CO2 emissions on a world basis have increased.
http://www.cato.org/blog/long-awaited-snowfall-increase-antarctica-now-underway
A paper to soon appear in Geophysical Research Letters gives us another enticing look at recent snowfall changes in Antarctica. In āSnowfall driven mass change on the East Antarctic ice sheet,ā Carmen Boening and colleagues from NASAās Jet Propulsion Laboratory report that extreme precipitation (snowfall) events in recent years (beginning in 2009) have led to a dramatic gain in the ice mass in the coastal portions of East Antarctica amounting to about 350 Gt in total (Figure 1)
http://news.yahoo.com/energy-storage-rare-metals-next-ice-age-173700272.html
Next ice age.
The Laureates exchanged a few glances. Michel spoke first. He pointed out that some research has hinted that the next ice age on Earth may occur in the not-so-distant future. “So Berlin may be covered with ice and we won’t even be able to think about this because we’ll be under ice,” he said, with a half-smile. “How long will it last?” Schrock asked his colleague. “About 80 to 90,000 years, maybe,” Michel answered. “Oh, good, problem solved,” said Schrock.
In reply to:
lsvalgaard says:
July 5, 2013 at 7:43 pm
William Astley says:
July 5, 2013 at 5:17 pm
William: Do you deny there has been a sudden and abrupt change to the solar magnetic cycle? The following is a comparison of solar magnetic cycle 21, 22, and 23. There appears to be a reduction in the solar magnetic cycle of a factor of 3.
Leif: Happens all the time [although the factor of 3 is wrong,, should be more like just reduction of 33%], From cycle 19 to 20: almost a factor of 2; from cycle 4 to cycle 5: almost a factor of 3, etc.
William:
The solar super cycle change occurs periodically with a periodicity of 1350 years. It does not happen all the time. There is cooling when Maunder minimums occur. We are heading towards a Maunder minimum. Do Maunder minimums happen all the time? Your comments are irrational.
Solar cycle 21 was the 21st solar cycle since 1755, when recording of solar sunspot activity began.[1][2] The solar cycle lasted 10.3 years, beginning in June 1976 and ending in September 1986. The maximum smoothed sunspot number (monthly number of sunspots averaged over a twelve-month period) observed during the solar cycle was 164.5
Solar cycle 24 smoothed sun spot number 66.9
164.5/66.9 = 2.5
Greenland ice temperature, last 11,000 years determined from ice core analysis, Richard Alleyās paper.
http://www.climate4you.com/images/GISP2%20TemperatureSince10700%20BP%20with%20CO2%20from%20EPICA%20DomeC.gif
ABRUPT CHANGE IN EARTHāS CLIMATE SYSTEM
Abrupt shifts between warm and cold states punctuate the interval between 20 to 75 ka) in the Greenland
isotope record, with shifts of 5ā15C occurring in decades or less (Figure 1). These alternations were identified in some of the earliest ice core isotopic studies [e.g., (22)] and were replicated and more precisely dated by subsequent work (23). Further analysis of diverse records has distinguished two types of millennial events (13). Dansgaard/Oeschger (D/O) events are alternations between warm (interstadial) and cold (stadial) states that recur approximately every 1500 years, although this rhythm is variable. Heinrich events are intervals of extreme cold contemporaneous with intervals of ice-rafted detritus in the northern North Atlantic (24ā26); these recur irregularly on the order of ca. 10,000 years apart and are typically followed by the warmest D/O interstadials. …. …Both Heinrich and D/O events exhibit clear global impacts. These patterns have been summarized in several studies [e.g., (26, 34)]. Although the pattern of influence appears to differ between these types of anomaly, a clear interpretation of these differences, particularly in terms of distinguishing physical mechanisms, has not been developed. As Hemming (26) notes, different global patterns of impact may simply reflect proxy-specific or site-specific limitations such as sensitivity and response time. In general, however, a cold North Atlantic corresponds with a colder, drier Europe, weaker Asian summer monsoon, saltier northwestern tropical Pacific, drier northern South America, colder/wetter western North America, cooler eastern subtropical Pacific, and warmer South Atlantic and Antarctic. Table 1 summarizes the main impacts of a cold North Atlantic (stadial) on key regions and systems.
Mr Green Genes says:
July 6, 2013 at 1:36 am
Here however, you seem to be implying that something that has happened in the last 10 years can tell us anything of interest concerning a body which is approximately 4.5 billion years old.
Observations of the sun today tells us a lot about the Sun regardless of how old it is: its mass, its size, its temperature, composition, rotation, etc, etc.
although I would have thought that even records going back as far as the invention of the telescope mean little in the context of the 4.5 billion year age of the sun.
Cosmic ray activity as recorded in ice caps and tree rings tells of what the Sun have been doing the past ~10,000 years. And those are very relevant for finding out what is happening today. Some records from 4.5 billion years ago would probably not be very useful now.
William Astley says:
July 6, 2013 at 1:56 am
William: Do you deny there has been a sudden and abrupt change to the solar magnetic cycle? The following is a comparison of solar magnetic cycle 21, 22, and 23. There appears to be a reduction in the solar magnetic cycle of a factor of 3.
Leif: Happens all the time [although the factor of 3 is wrong,, should be more like just reduction of 33%], From cycle 19 to 20: almost a factor of 2; from cycle 4 to cycle 5: almost a factor of 3, etc.
You were talking about cycle 23 as being the last one.
The solar super cycle change occurs periodically with a periodicity of 1350 years.
No it doesn’t, as I have shown you many times.
Solar cycle 24 smoothed sun spot number 66.9
164.5/66.9 = 2.5
You were talking about cycle 23 above.
It would help the discussion if you did not pollute the blog by regurgitating the same old papers every time. By now, we all know your collection of cherry-picked supporting ‘evidence’
lsvalgaard says:
July 6, 2013 at 2:21 am
Thanks for your answers. May I press you a little further on your first point concerning current observations telling us a lot about the sun?
I understand the point in your reply to me concerning mass, size, temperature etc. The specific point in the original post was, if I understood it correctly, about solar energy output. Are you saying that it’s possible to deduce historic solar energy output (or if not the actual level, trends in the level) from current observations?
Thank you for your patience: as a humble former railway engineer, I know a fair amount about running railways; about solar physics, not so much (if anything). I am here to learn.
Mr Green Genes says:
July 6, 2013 at 2:34 am
I understand the point in your reply to me concerning mass, size, temperature etc. The specific point in the original post was, if I understood it correctly, about solar energy output. Are you saying that itās possible to deduce historic solar energy output (or if not the actual level, trends in the level) from current observations?
It is indeed possible, naturally with increasing error bars as we go back in time. The process works like this: modern measurements show that the energy output is very constant. We understand enough about the Sun that we can calculate the energy input billions of years ago and follow how it has changed over the eons [it has increased about 30%]. On top of that very slowly varying base output the magnetic field at the surface generates tiny changes in the energy input of the order of a small fraction of a percent. From the radioactive nuclides generated by cosmic rays when hitting the atmosphere [and stored in ice cores and tree rings] we can deduce the magnetic field of the Sun going back ~10,000 years. From the sunspots we can also get the magnetic field going back 400 years. And finally, the solar magnetic field causes ‘wiggles’ in the Earth’s magnetic field from which we can deduce the solar field going back about 180 years back. The various reconstructions [at least the most recent incarnations] agree rather well giving us some level of confidence that they are largely correct. Just today a recent paper by me was published that describe some of this http://www.leif.org/research/swsc130003p.pdf there you can learn more.
HenryP says:
July 5, 2013 at 11:40 am
Know that the CO2 is causing cooling from the top (12 hours per day) as proven to from numerous papers, and warming from the bottom (24/7).
____________________
Additional warming at the bottom and/or cooling at the top (by CO2 IR radiation) accelerates the speed of convection. Assuming that the average altitude of H2O molecules in the atmosphere remains unchanged, faster convection requires through conservation of mass that H2O is removed from the atmosphere. This would provide a physical mechanism for increased CO2 driving H2O out of the atmosphere as following from Miskolczi’s findings and as observed. The average altitude of H2O molecules will largely be determined by condensation altitude/temperature of water vapor. The question is how does the vertical temperature profile of the atmosphere change by increased CO2 and with that, how does the condensation altitude change.
Comment incomplete. Evaporation from surface is also assumed to remain constant as in Miskolczi’s theory.
lsvalgaard says:
July 6, 2013 at 2:50 am
Thank you very much for that paper. I’m somewhat amazed that I understood its general thrust. I put that down mainly to the clarity with which it was written, rather than some hitherto undiscovered intelligence on my part!
henry@frans franken
we were talking about the top of the atmosphere.
there is no water there
only NO and CO2, as apparent from the quoted paper.
the ozone is below that, and the increasing ozone (and others, like the peroxides and nitrous oxides) is the cause of the current cooling trend.
markx says
Many people think trolling is something to do with short ugly guys living under bridges, but no, it is a method of fishing where you bait a hook and trail it behind a moving boat, waiting for a fish who is dumb enough to bite ā¦ then you hook him and quickly throw some more lines in just in case he has company.
I think you figured him out right!~
I am largely finished with my investigations, because for me there is nothing more to prove.
We have been cooling naturally for about 11 years now, see here
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1987/to:2014/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:2002/to:2014/trend/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1987/to:2014/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:2002/to:2014/trend/plot/rss/from:1987/to:2013/plot/rss/from:2002/to:2013/trend/plot/hadsst2gl/from:1987/to:2014/plot/hadsst2gl/from:2002/to:2014/trend/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1987/to:2002/trend/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1987/to:2002/trend/plot/hadsst2gl/from:1987/to:2002/trend/plot/rss/from:1987/to:2002/trend
and my projections are that this trend will continue. As vukcevik also figured out: the future is cool.
Here is my final report.
http://blogs.24.com/henryp/2013/04/29/the-climate-is-changing/
you should read it and try to understand, because we must all realize what is coming.
Danger from global cooling is documented and provable.
milodonharlani on July 5, 2013 at 11:42 am
What he said. The role of CO2 is uncontriversial – producing a trivial logarithmic trend warming, easily swamped for nearly 20 years by noise, while making plants grow much quicker.
It’s obvious that we can only understand the human factor’s impact on the climate if we understand all the natural factors.
Perhaps the IPCC is afraid that once people learn that the climate is warming naturally that talking about allowing a “maximum temperature increase of 2 degrees centigrade” makes no sense. If we returned to a non-industrial lifestyle, and almost completely eliminated our own impact on the climate, we would still be left with natural warming.
Or, it may be the IPCC understands how “science” works. If scientists did nothing but study how us gingers are responsible for all bad things in the world, eventually you will have a body of scientific knowledge establishing that as a scientific fact. You would have scientific papers stacked on scientific papers, all pointing to the same general finding to a greater or a lesser degree.
“We believe that limiting the scope of the IPCC to human induced climate change is undesirable, especially because natural climate change is a crucial part of the total understanding of the climate system,”
Very well said, especially as natural variation is the only thing that one can be completely certain of. And understanding what forces natural variation is the obvious path towards effective predictions.
Henry@ulric
You figured it out right. Follow the natural curves…
@lsvalgaard
Crok wrote:
“I agree with both points. The (almost) obsession of IPCC with greenhouse forcing has greatly limited progress in climate science in my opinion, so I am glad my government now raises this point. And in my (Dutch) book De Staat van het Klimaat I concluded that IPCC in AR4 had not succeeded to come up with a ācomprehensiveā report. I also agree IPCC should pay much more attention to controversial topics. The treatment of controversial topics in AR4 and also AR5 was and is unsatisfactory for two reasons: there is not enough space reserved to go into the necessary details and the author teams are almost always biased in favor of the consensus view and therefore not giving enough credit to minority views.”
Obviously Crok considers the IPCC treatment of CO2 to be controversial, as do I. After reading all your cryptic comments, I am left wondering what you think. Simply, the huge recent increase in atmospheric CO2 does not explain global temperature fluctuations of the past decade, the past century, the past ten centuries, or the past 200,000 years. That it can’t explain what it claims to explain is the essence of controversial. Anything else is word play.
lsvalgaard says:
July 5, 2013 at 3:23 pm
Of course, because the role of CO2 is not controversial, which is the take-home lesson.
Well, not true Leif. The role of CO2 is controversial too, the equivalence of CO2 doubling with a xxx radiative forcing does not come from “pure science” but it is a lot of assumption in that number. Claes Johnson has some interesting posts on the subject too:
http://claesjohnson.blogspot.se/2013/02/the-hockey-stick-of-olr-spectrum.html
Very important to note in my view, is that the xxx radiative forcing increase does not describe the physical process how CO2 increase behaves in the atmosphere.
The process is more complex with influence at different levels in the column of air.
As it was shown recently: “The hallowed forcing due to a doubling of CO2 was 3.7Wm^-2 is being lowered to 3.44Wm-2.”
http://joannenova.com.au/2013/05/major-30-reduction-in-modelers-estimates-of-climate-sensitivity-skeptics-were-right/
We know that climate models which use this number still misrepresent the reality:
http://joannenova.com.au/2013/06/even-with-the-best-models-warmest-decades-most-co2-models-are-proven-failures/
which is a hint to who wants to hear that there might be still bigger correction to do to the numbers.
So what drives the climate is the real question? And the answer may be multifold.
Scarface says:
July 5, 2013 at 12:56 pm
@Leif Why try so obvious to hijack this post.
I agree, from the very post nr 1 Leif was trolling in this thread.
The 1st post by Leif : Such as to the role of CO2? was intended to channel the debate to CO2’s role and not to the subject of the innitial post.
Michael B. Combs says:
July 6, 2013 at 9:20 am
Obviously Crok considers the IPCC treatment of CO2 to be controversial
Then Crock is urging IPCC to pay more attention to CO2.
Lars P. says:
July 6, 2013 at 9:21 am
Of course, because the role of CO2 is not controversial, which is the take-home lesson.
Well, not true Leif. The role of CO2 is controversial too
Not in the view of IPCC which was the point
Scarface says:
July 5, 2013 at 12:56 pm
The 1st post by Leif : Such as to the role of CO2? was intended to channel the debate to CO2ā²s role and not to the subject of the initial post.
No, it was to seek clarification as to whether the role of CO2 was controversial. Crock urged IPCC to pay more attention to controversial issues. In my book CO2 is controversial and I was wondering why Crock would say what he did. The only explanation that made sense to me was that CO2 was not included among the controversial issues [hence was not controversial] and that IPCC should therefore not pay more attention to CO2, but rather to issues not involving CO2. All very pertinent to the subject of the initial post.
Lars, you are debating yourself and losing. Word play achieves nothing.
Hi Leif and others,
Ok I am late at this party, sorry about that. I have to admit I am a bit disappointed by Leif’s tone and also that he is unable (or unwilling?) to spell my name correctly although many other people did.
I am surprised there is so much discussion about this post. I also think Leif is seeking far too much in that one sentence – “I also agree IPCC should pay much more attention to controversial topics.” But nevertheless here is some explanation from my part: of course for me this includes “the role of CO2”. I was talking about the obsession of the IPCC with greenhouse gases. So all the other controversial topics are related to the overall major controversy – namely how big is the role of CO2?.
What I just meant to say is that next to the 60 million dollar question about how large the role of greenhouse gases is, you have many of these related battles (hockey stick, UHI, tropical hotspot, melting of the Arctic, reliability of models and what about solar reconstruction going back to 1700 etc.) In all these controversies the IPCC favors the one that makes the warming as large as possible (downplaying problems with T’s and/or UHI), that the warming is unprecedented (hockey stick), tells us the models are fine etc. and all this together gives the impression that “based on several lines of evidence we conclude the warming is unequivocal and due to greenhouse gases”.
So paying attention to the “smaller” controversial topics is important and IPCC should do it in a balanced way.
Marcel
Marcel Crok says:
July 6, 2013 at 1:03 pm
Hi Leif and others, Ok I am late at this party, sorry about that. I have to admit I am a bit disappointed by Leifās tone and also that he is unable (or unwilling?) to spell my name correctly although many other people did.
My own name is misspelled by many as well, so that is just something one takes in strides. Good to see you [finally] cleared up what was troubling me. One disadvantage of being a scientist is that one might catch the occupational disease of reading things too literally or closely [as scientific papers are often written with very careful wording]
What I just meant to say is …
The remedy is, of course, to just say what you meant. Good to finally get to that point.
So paying attention to the āsmallerā controversial topics is important and IPCC should do it in a balanced way.
A problem with that is that there a gazillions of “smaller” controversies and I don’t see any way of selecting which ones to pay attention to that will not upset someone. IPCC in the draft of AR5 did comment [and reject] the cosmic ray-climate controversy. How many more would you think the IPCC should pay attention to [and reject – as they by definition, considering their agenda]? Perhaps you could make a list of recommended controversies for the IPCC to consider? And post it here.
The problem as I see matters is that one cannot begin to evaluate the role of CO2 until 3 matters are properly ascertained. These are:
1. The accurate determination of ocean temperatures at all relevant depths. In order to do this, one needs a relatively lengthy data set (which unffortunately ARGO is not). It is necessary to revisit the splicing on of ARGO to older records, and to ascertain whether ARGO contains any inherent bias (being free floating, the buoys drift with currents and currents are temperature and density dependent)
2. The accurate determination of land based temperatures, and not simply Tmax and Tmin but rather hourly coupled with hourly humidity so that energy and not simply temperature profiel can be determined. This will require a proper re-evaluation of UHI, station siting issues and station drop outs.
3. A full and complete understanding of natural variation, precisely what forcings it consists of and the upper and lower bounds of each and every forcing encompassed within natural variation.
The third issue is at the crux of the debate. One cannot begin to ascertain what if any climate sensitivity there may be to CO2 until one can seperate the signal of CO2 from the noise of natural variation. At the moment, it is clear that we cannot presently identify the CO2 signal in any of our data sets. This may be because of short comings in the various data sets, or it may be that the COs sensitivity signal is weak compared to nartural variation so presently we do not possess the resolution to dedect it. Of course, it could be that given other feedbacks which may be negative if properly understood, CO2 in effect has no significant role to play in governing temperature change and all the observed changes are merely multi decadel natural variation.
One concern that I have is that allegedly we cannot see the UHI signal in our thermometer data sets. This is of concern, since we know that UHI is a real phenomena. Every day, cities are 3 to 8 degrees warmer than rural areas. If we cannot dedect a know warming effect of this magnitude in our thermometer data sets, what hope is there of finding a far smaller warming effect of CO2 (if indeed, CO2 carries with it any warming effect). The fact that we cannot find the trace signal of UHI suggests to me serious shortcomings in the resolution and sensitivity of the thermomemeter data sets.
Finally, there needs to be a proper acceptance of the margins of errors and uncertainties in all the data sets. There needs to be a proper investigation into errors and uncertainties so these can be properly ascertained.
The upshot is that it is nearly a return to square one. Climate science is an infant science and it has got off to a very poor start, trying to run before it can even crawl.
With regards to the influence of the sun on global warming, Leif has never understood the difference between the “evidence of absence” and the “absence of evidence”. The difference should be clear to any scientist. Clearly, the sun influences our climate, and just because Leif or anyone else cannot prove how, doesn’t mean it isn’t happening.
richard verney says:
July 6, 2013 at 2:29 pm
——————————-
One step that IMO would help climate science grow up is to set up about 50,000 proper surface meteorological monitoring stations, or about one per 10,000 square kilometers of land & sea, so that we don’t have to rely solely on satellites & balloons to infer lower tropospheric (& various oceanic depths) temperature & other data. The miserable, meaningless monitoring “system” we have now is worse than worthless. In a century, we’d have a pretty good, possibly meaningful climatic data base.
FranƧois GM says:
July 6, 2013 at 6:31 pm
Clearly, the sun influences our climate…and it is happening
Nobody is disputing that. The question is ‘how much’ and the evidence points to the answer ‘not much’. If it were a lot, we would not have this discussion or even this website.
richard verney says:
July 6, 2013 at 2:29 pm
Thanks. A very well summed up post, Richard. And the concluding line below especially:
Climate science is an infant science and it has got off to a very poor start, trying to run before it can even crawl.
Marcel Crok says
What I just meant to say is that next to the 60 million dollar question about how large the role of greenhouse gases is,
henry says
Thanks for coming to the party anyway. I appreciate this coming from the Dutch, since I am originally also Dutch. The short reply to your 60 million question is:…..
none, or only very small. In fact not measurable in – or distinguished from – the natural signal.
Namely, the proposed mechanism implies that more GHG would cause a delay in radiation being able to escape from earth, which then causes a delay in cooling, from earth to space, resulting in a warming effect.
It followed naturally, that if more carbon dioxide (CO2) or more water (H2O) or more other GHGās were to be blamed for extra warming we should see minimum temperatures (minima) rising faster, pushing up the average temperature (means) on earth.
I subsequently took a sample of 47 weather stations, analysed all daily data, and determined the ratio of the speed in the increase of the maximum temperature (maxima), means and minima. Here you can see the results.
http://blogs.24.com/henryp/2013/02/21/henrys-pool-tables-on-global-warmingcooling/
You will find that if we take the speed of warming over the longest period (i.e. from 1973/1974) for which we have very reliable records, we find the results of the speed of warming, maxima : means: minima
0.036 : 0.014 : 0.006 in degrees C/annum.
That is ca. 6:2:1. So it was maxima pushing up minima and means and not the other way around. Anyone can duplicate this experiment and check this trend in their own backyard or at the weather station nearest to you.
Since 2002 it has been cooling,
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1987/to:2014/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:2002/to:2014/trend/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1987/to:2014/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:2002/to:2014/trend/plot/rss/from:1987/to:2013/plot/rss/from:2002/to:2013/trend/plot/hadsst2gl/from:1987/to:2014/plot/hadsst2gl/from:2002/to:2014/trend/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1987/to:2002/trend/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1987/to:2002/trend/plot/hadsst2gl/from:1987/to:2002/trend/plot/rss/from:1987/to:2002/trend
and my further findings are that this trend will not stop, until ca. 2040….
More about what you should know about global cooling, here,
http://blogs.24.com/henryp/2013/04/29/the-climate-is-changing/
Great, Marcel is being told by somebody else about what Marcel meant in his post. And 80% of this thread has been wasted by that somebody else.
CO2/AGW is taken as given by the IPCC. Acknowledging that there is controversy, and using some actual wide-ranging (challenging & skeptical) research to verify/falsify/delimit it would be a revolution – complete with bombs and bullets – for the IPCC.
Edit: Marcel, “advise” is the verb in English; “advice” is the noun you want.
Venter says:
July 7, 2013 at 5:41 am
Great, Marcel is being told by somebody else about what Marcel meant in his post. And 80% of this thread has been wasted by that somebody else.
When Marcel writes something different from what he means this happens.
Crok says:
“I would say Holland is fairly critical about how IPCC is operating right now. ….. The IPCC needs to adjust its principles. We believe that limiting the scope of the IPCC to human induced climate change is undesirable, especially because natural climate change is a crucial part of the total understanding of …. human-induced climate change…..”
What is critical about that? They want it to continue and expand its scope as well. I agree that something needs to be done about the IPCC but giving it a new mission is not it. In my opinion they are so corrupt that they should be abolished. Consider: the amount of carbon dioxide in the air is highest ever and yet there is no warming. And there has been none for 16 years as even Pachauri of the IPCC has reluctantly admitted. They put all their their eggs in one basket when they asserted that greenhouse effect of atmospheric carbon dioxide will warm the world. It does not do that. The same thing happened in the eighties and nineties. From 1979 to 1997 there was no warming according to satellite observations. But ground-based temperature curves were showing a steady warming called ālate twentieth century warming.ā That was obviously phony and in my book (What Warming?) I demanded an investigation. There was no investigation but after two years the late twentieth century warming I had referred to was quietly withdrawn. The databases involved were GISTEMP, HadCRUT, and NCDC. It was done secretly and no one was told about it. I regard this concerted action to be tantamount to an admission that they all knew the warming was phony. But while that warming was on the record it was used as proof of the existence of man-made warming. That amounts to scientific fraud that the insiders were well aware of. All papers that did this should be withdrawn. Now that this phony warming no longer exists the newly revised temperature curves should be introduced to AR5 graphs that still show the late twentieth century warming. They still use it, even extrapolate it in their fly swatter bundle. If we start a new temperature curve from the beginning of the satellite era in 1979 the first 18 years are a no-warming period. That is longer than the present no-warming period of the twenty-first century. a new temperature curve from 1979 up that begins with 18 years of no-warming. Put these two together and you are left with only a small window between them. That is just wide enough to accommodate the super El Nino of 1998 and its step warming. The latter raised the entire right side of the graph by a third of a degree Celsius and then stopped. It was not even visible unless you actually read my book because the phony warming covered it up. It is this step warming and not any greenhouse effect which is responsible for the unusual warmth of the twenty-first century. Hansen and other warmists, including the WMO, keep pointing out that nine out of then or twelve out of fourteen warmest years all happened after 2000. Small wonder because they all sit on top of the warm platform created by this step warming. It started immediately after the super El Nino of 1998 and was over by 2001. No way can this be called a greenhouse warming as all those worthies counting warm years try to claim. The entirety of the satellite curve looks very much like a single no-warming period, interrupted only by the super El Nino of 1998 and its step warming. The bottom line is that there has not been any greenhouse warming whatsoever since 1979, which means for the last 34 years. In view of this,what are the chances that there was greenhouse warming earlier than that? Zero in my opinion. All those computer predictions of future warming based on the existence of the greenhouse effect are thereby invalidated. And that means no global warming, period. This absence of greenhouse warming does not rest only on empirical observations but follows also from the saturated greenhouse theory of Ferenc Miskolczi. Using NOAA database of weather balloon observations that goes back to 1948 he studied the absorption of infrared radiation by the atmosphere over time. He found that absorption was constant for 61 years while the amount of carbon dioxide in air increased by 21.6 degrees. This means that the addition of this substantial amount of CO2 to the atmosphere had no effect whatsoever on the absorption of IR by the atmosphere. And no absorption means no greenhouse effect, case closed. To summarize: anthropogenic greenhouse warming does not exist, no matter how you slice it. To obtain closure, we must
CLOSE DOWN THE IPCC!
Someone says
” When Marcel writes something different from what he means this happens.”
When you can’t even learn to spell people’s names right it’s a bit rich to complain about about the clarity of their writing. Look in the mirror first.
And when pointed out that you spelt his name wrong, instead of just saying sorry and moving along you chose to justify it saying others spell your name wrong and so it’s no problem. That speaks volumes about your attitude and honesty [ or lack of it ][.
Why are so many people so scared of CO2, while
1/ Without it, there would be no life on earth;
2/ All the owners of hot-houses/glass-houses always increase the heat to obtain high levels of CO2 to obtain rich crops of trees/plants and flowers;
3/ While the current CO2 level has jut reached a paltry 400 p.p.m., all submariners live and work under conditons of 8,000 p.p.m. without any detrimental effect to their health
and
4/ Complex life on earth started some 600 million year ago, when after more than 200 [volcanoes] simultaneously erupted and caused the earth to change from an ice-covered globe to a very warm one with CO2 rising to 7,000 p.m.m. People in the Tropics can grow 3 crops per year to feed everybody, while regions like Alaska, Siberia or Greenland have a hard strugge to grow just 1 adequate crop?.
Thus why all this obsession with CO2?
I’m a bit late to this party, but lief makes me laugh. The author includes “not giving enough credit to minority views.”, so Lief must be implying that consideration of CO2 is a minority view. š š š
MikeP says:
July 8, 2013 at 8:39 am
Iām a bit late to this party, but lief makes me laugh. The author includes ānot giving enough credit to minority views.ā, so Lief must be implying that consideration of CO2 is a minority view.
Among skeptics ascribing a dominant role to CO2 does seem to be a ‘minority view’, don’t you think?
Something for Venter to appreciate:
When you canāt even learn to spell peopleās names right itās a bit rich to complain about about the clarity of their writing.
Now, ‘lief’ is the Dutch language means ‘dear’ or lovable’ or even ‘good-natured’ so I don’t mind the misspelling.
I specifically mentioned about you spelling Marcel’s name wrongly and not correcting it. So it’s a bit rich to talk about the clarity of his posting. A lot of us understood what he said well enough.
Venter says:
July 8, 2013 at 9:45 am
A lot of us understood what he said well enough.
Well, I didn’t. And Marcel concurs that he could have been more precise.
And my criticism still stands:
“So paying attention to the āsmallerā controversial topics is important and IPCC should do it in a balanced way. A problem with that is that there a gazillions of āsmallerā controversies and I donāt see any way of selecting which ones to pay attention to that will not upset someone. IPCC in the draft of AR5 did comment [and reject] the cosmic ray-climate controversy. How many more would you think the IPCC should pay attention to [and reject – as they by definition must, considering their agenda]? Perhaps you could make a list of recommended controversies for the IPCC to consider? And post it here.”
Perhaps you could make such a list and show us?
Apologies for the misspelling Leif, just shows I should check before typing. In English, Leif is generally pronounced Leef in my experience, and I without thinking turned the sound into letters.
Out of curiousity, what is the correct pronunciation? Swedish seems to be Layf and Norwegian Life. If I get the correct sound in my head then I won’t be likely to repeat the misspelling.
MikeP says:
July 8, 2013 at 11:41 am
Apologies for the misspelling Leif
As I explained to ‘Venter’ [whomever he is] such misspellings are common and shouldn’t upset anybody.
Out of curiousity, what is the correct pronunciation?
Since I’m of Danish roots it would Laif, where the ‘ai’ is pronounced as ‘ei’ in ‘either’ by English speaking people [and in New England] and as the ‘i’ in Life and Light.
Marcel concurs that he could have been more precise because he’s a gentleman and understands that not everybody gets what he meant and people whose first language is not english could have problems. However you made a song and dance out of it and literally hijacked this thread over that, lecturing like a schoolmaster who expects strict obedience from his kids.
And when the boot is on the other foot with respect to your misspelling his name, you did not hav the courtesy to say a simple sorry, especially when you spelt his name as ” crock ” instead of Crok. You go to lengths explaining your name to all and sundry and did not have the courtesy to check what crock means.
So when you make a mistake you ” such mistakes are common and should not be taken seriously “. However if you perceive someone’s post is not clear to you, it becomes a huge issue for you.
That is hypocritic. But yes, true to form for you.
Venter says:
July 8, 2013 at 9:49 pm
check what crock means
crock: An earthenware pot or jar.
Venter says:
July 8, 2013 at 9:49 pm
Marcel concurs that he could have been more precise because heās a gentleman and understands that not everybody gets what he meant and people whose first language is not english could have problems.
‘english’ should be English, and Crok’s first language is Dutch, which could indeed be a problem. Furthermore, as Marcel concedes, he did not say what he meant or meant what he said, so some clarification [finally] was indeed welcome, but you need to wash your mouth out with soap.
It’s ironic about you talking about others needing to wash mouths with soap, considering the way you have been posting here. Physician, heal thyself. And Crock has many meanings, if you’d cared to do your homework
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/crock
I don’t see you conceding your mistake with his name and you only keep finding excuses to justify.
Venter says:
July 9, 2013 at 1:21 am
And Crock has many meanings, if youād cared to do your homework
Those other meanings are slang, not to be used by gentlemen, and it is fitting that you should think of those.
I donāt see you conceding your mistake with his name and you only keep finding excuses to justify.
No justification is needed for simple mistakes.
Leif, thank you for the information. Maybe someday I’ll be lucky enough to meet you in person and try it out š
When a gentleman makes a blooper about spelling somebody’s name and is pointed out the the person whose name was mis-spelt, he says sorry and gets along with it. He doesn’t make a lot of excuses to justify his error. So don’t confuse yourself with a genlteman.
Typo, last world should be ” gentleman ” in my previous post.
Venter says:
July 9, 2013 at 9:52 pm
He doesnāt make a lot of excuses to justify his error.
I make no excuses whatsoever, just say that mistakes happen. As they clearly were unintentional, no apology is required and none is offered. Now, you could apologize for wasting bandwidth on this.