People send me stuff.
The IPCC has announced (via a “leak” campaign only to selected media outlets, such as Reuters, NYT, WaPo) that they are now 95% certain. From Reuters:
Drafts seen by Reuters of the study by the U.N. panel of experts, due to be published next month, say it is at least 95 percent likely that human activities – chiefly the burning of fossil fuels – are the main cause of warming since the 1950s.
I’m glad they pinned down “…since the 1950s”, that’s important.
According to this MotherJones report:
According to Jonathan Lynn, who is head of communications at the IPCC, the organization expects that leaks will occur because report drafts wind up in so many different hands. Lynn cautions that “there’s no question that the final report will not be the same as the drafts.”
I’ve been in touch with IPCC secretariat Mr. Jonathan Lynn, and while he’s glad to point out issues on WUWT, neither he nor any of the media outlets that have the “leaked” report are willing to provide WUWT with a copy. No matter, we’ll simply go with what we know.
Here is the statement again, emphasis mine:
Drafts seen by Reuters of the study by the U.N. panel of experts, due to be published next month, say it is at least 95 percent likely that human activities – chiefly the burning of fossil fuels – are the main cause of warming since the 1950s.
OK, so here’s the 64 thousand dollar questions for IPCC cheerleaders:
- Which side is which time period?
- What caused the warming before CO2 became an issue to be essentially identical to the period when it is claimed to be the main driver?
- How is the IPCC 95% certain one side is caused by man and the other is not?
h/t to Burt Rutan, but I believe the original comparison concept was by Warren Meyer.
BTW, the answer should be obvious which is which due to the telltale 1997-1998 El Niño signature in one graph.
Jose_X:
At August 23, 2013 at 11:40 am
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/08/20/when-somebody-hits-you-with-that-new-ipcc-is-95-certain-talking-point-show-them-this/#comment-1398367
You write
I DID “define that” in my post you have quoted. It is at at August 23, 2013 at 9:07 am
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/08/20/when-somebody-hits-you-with-that-new-ipcc-is-95-certain-talking-point-show-them-this/#comment-1398231
My explanation said
Can you read that?
If so then try to also read my answer to Barry at August 23, 2013 at 3:55 pm
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/08/20/when-somebody-hits-you-with-that-new-ipcc-is-95-certain-talking-point-show-them-this/#comment-1398547
And I do not need a competing theory to the hypothesis of AGW. My duty as a scientist is to falsify that hypothesis. If I do that then it alters the value of other hypotheses concerning causes of climate change; e.g. Svensmark Hypothesis, ocean thermal redistribution, etc..
Richard
Is that a typo (asking the question genuinely)? It is well-known that CO2 changes follow temperature changes during the quaternary ice ages – the famous lag that many people point out here. You appear to be arguing that CO2 fluctuations cause temperature changes – which is correct – but seems at odds with your general thrust.
[True. Typo. Mod]
MT,
The argument is that CO2 warming is rejected, and in support the notion of unknown unknowns is invoked. It’s a bit like intelligent designers saying that we have not observed a mechanism for evolution, which leaves the door open to supernatural forces having created all species in their current, unchanging form.
I do not think that anyone here is proposing witches or G*d or some other supernatural force is responsible for changing the climate, but the argumentation for rejecting CO2 is similar. Intelligent designers look for any uncertainty or gaps in knowledge and elevate it in order to reinforce their point. “You can’t prove it is NOT (x, y or z), so (x, y and z) remain possible.”
Panel a) shows the amount of solar forcing over the previous century. You can see the enhanced tropospheric warming in that panel quite clearly. The reason it is not as pronounced as the CO2 panel is that the forcing is much weaker. But the enhanced heating is there.
I’m afraid you have been misinformed by popular misinterpretations. You can also see the opposite effect (enhanced cooling of the tropical troposphere) in panel e), which shows overall cooling from aerosols.
The most marked spatial difference between the panels is the pattern of stratospheric cooling with tropospheric warming.associated with GHG changes. None of the other panels has this pattern (whether warming or cooling). The cooling of the stratosphere is unique to GHG warming, not from other sources. That is the signature of GHG warming, for which there is plenty of reference in the literature. There is none that posits enhanced tropical tropospheric warming is a unique signature of GHG warming.
It’s a furfy, Richard.
(images at source)
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/12/tropical-troposphere-trends/
The two panels for solar and GHG heating in the graphs there show what happens when the amount of forcing is roughly equivalent. The hotspot appears in both, and also in the solar panel in the IPCC graphs. The tropospheric enhancement is not as pronounced for non-GHG forcings in the IPCC charts, because they were estimated to have been small or cooling over the period 1890 to 1999. But you can see the enhanced changes in the tropoical troposphere for forcings that were non-negligible.
barry:
Are you a real person or just some computer program?
I ask because I fail to understand how a person could write a post as stupid as your most recent reply to me. It is at August 23, 2013 at 6:13 pm
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/08/20/when-somebody-hits-you-with-that-new-ipcc-is-95-certain-talking-point-show-them-this/#comment-1398547
It purports to be a reply to my having again written to correct more of your untrue, illogical and anti-scientific nonsense which – that time – was at August 23, 2013 at 3:55 pm
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/08/20/when-somebody-hits-you-with-that-new-ipcc-is-95-certain-talking-point-show-them-this/#comment-1398547
I concluded that post saying
You have ignored that and your reply consists solely of yet more untrue, illogical and anti-scientific nonsense.
To recap how we got to your most recent outpouring of idiocy.
1.
Barry, you claimed the Hot Spot is caused by any warming and you stated a wrong mechanism for it.
2.
I pointed out that you were wrong and if you were right then the absence of the Hot Spot indicates there has been no warming from any cause (including AGW).
3.
I explained to you that the Hot Spot is a factor of 2X to 3X greater rate of warming at ~10 km altitude than at the surface in the tropics and that it is an effect of the putative WVF.
4. I gave you the IPCC explanation of the Hot Spot – both text and illustration (Figure 9.1) – and to enable you to see that text and Figure I provided this link
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/08/20/when-somebody-hits-you-with-that-new-ipcc-is-95-certain-talking-point-show-them-this/#comment-1398547
Barry, the Hot Spot is the big red blob in Figure 9.1(c): it is ONLY for “well mixed greenhouse gases”.
Don’t take my word for this, look for you self.
5,
I explained that the Hot Spot is missing.
Warming in the tropics has NOT happened at altitude at more than double the rate of surface warming.
Measurements using weather balloons since 1958 and measurements using satellites both show there has bee no such enhanced warming at altitude.
All that was clear information for you, Barry. It helped you out by explaining the absence of the HOT Spot is not an indication of no global warming (which you had mistakenly claimed). It told you what the Hot Spot is and what it – and its absence – indicates. And it provided a link for you to check the matter for yourself.
But your reply shows you did not read it, understand it, or check it.
Instead, your reply cites untrue and misleading irrelevance from a propaganda blog; i.e. RC.
And you could have discerned the propaganda was wrong had you thought about it before copying it to here.
You say of Figure 9.1
Don’t be an idiot! YOU DON’T NEED A MICROSCOPE TO SEE AN ELEPHANT.
There is no Hot Spot in (a) but there is in (c). The Hot Spot is the big red blob.
The Hot Spot is enhanced warming at between two and three times the rate of surface warming. As I told you it is an effect of the putative WVF which must occur if AGW is to be sufficiently large to be discernible.
And you follow that nonsense with a statement which is completely daft, saying
No, Barry, I have NOT been “misinformed by popular misinterpretations”:
the IPCC’s account IS THE TRUE EXPLANATION .
And I know Figure 9.1(e) does not show the Hot Spot:
I keep telling you that only Figure 9.1(c) for “well mixed greenhouse gases” shows the Hot Spot.
But your post continues digging its hole deeper into a midden saying
The Hot Spot is necessary for AGW to be sufficiently large to be discernible and it occurs in the troposphere. It does NOT occur in the stratosphere.
So, Barry, you have got everything wrong about the Hot Spot.
You have made completely wrong statements of its effect, its cause, its nature, and its location in the atmosphere.
And you obtained your complete misunderstanding from propaganda blogs when you could have read what the IPCC actually says.
Then, having got everything wrong, you say to me
NO! The IPCC AR4 is not a rumour (I wish it were).
Quotations from RC are less than rumour: they are untrue propaganda.
Stop spouting nonsense. Read the information I have taken the trouble to give you and think about it. Unless, of course, you can’t because you are a computer program.
Richard
Barry:
In my above post at August 24, 2013 at 1:45 am
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/08/20/when-somebody-hits-you-with-that-new-ipcc-is-95-certain-talking-point-show-them-this/#comment-1398803
I copied a wrong link to the IPCC Chapter 9.1.
I intended at Point 4 to again link to IPCC AR4 WG1 Chapter 9.2
This is the correct link
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch9s9-2-2.html
Sorry, for this mistake which derived from my annoyance and frustration at needing to iterate the matter.
Richard
barry says (August 23, 2013 at 5:52 pm):
‘The argument is that CO2 warming is rejected, and in support the notion of unknown unknowns is invoked.’
I don’t know whose argument you are referring to there Barry, but it isn’t mine. My argument is simply that because the IPCC does not have a complete knowledge of all the factors that may affect the global mean temperature it cannot logically attribute modern global warming to the one that it prefers (ie. anthropogenic CO2) arbitrarily. To do so is not just unscientific; it is also irrational!
‘It’s a bit like intelligent designers saying that we have not observed a mechanism for evolution, which leaves the door open to supernatural forces having created all species in their current, unchanging form.’
One does not have to be a believer in intelligent design in order to say truthfully that a mechanism for evolution has not been observed. That is simply an empirical fact. I agree that it leaves the door open for supernatural forces being responsible for the creation of all current species, but it also leaves the door open for many other possibilities as well, including biological evolution. I think real science rejects the hypothesis of intelligent design as it is presently formulated for basically the same reason that it rejects the hypothesis of (anthropogenic) CO2 causation of modern global warming, ie. Occam’s Razor. The hypothesis of a supernatural intelligent designer requires the existence of an extra causal principle that the hypothesis of evolution does not. Similarly, the aCO2 hypothesis of global warming requires the existence of an extra causal principle – human carbon emissions – that the hypothesis of natural causation does not.
But it is important to note, perhaps, that Occam’s Razor applies only where the empirical information that is available to us at the time is insufficient to decide the case. Hence real science plumps for evolution in preference to intelligent design on the basis of Occam’s Razor’s requirement for theoretical simplicity, but if new empirical information of a supernatural intelligent designer’s existence was to come to light science would be duty-bound to abandon the theory of evolution in favour of the theory of supernatural intelligent design. Similarly, real science has also rejected the aCO2 hypothesis of modern global warming in favour of the natural causes explanation up to now because of Occam’s Razor’s demand for theoretical simplicity. But if new empirical information should come to light that showed human CO2 emissions to be the true cause beyond reasonable doubt, then science would be duty-bound to reject the natural causes hypothesis in favour of the aCO2 one.
To summarise, my argument is that you cannot prove aCO2 has caused modern global warming merely by a process of elimination as the IPCC has been claiming to be able to do up to now, but instead some decisive new empirical information in favour of the aCO2 hypothesis would be required before it could displace the default “Null” hypothesis of natural causation in real science.
“You can’t prove it is NOT (x, y or z), so (x, y and z) remain possible.”
I’m afraid that is perfectly true. And if you groan at the thought of what it implies for theoretical climate science, just consider what it implies for theoretical physics! Perhaps the physical world of our daily waking experience really is a holographic simulation inside some super-being’s supercomputer somewhere. Modern physics cannot disprove that possibility any more than it can disprove the existence of God.
Richard,
the IPCC does not describe the cause of the hotspot. It does not refer to it at all. If you look at the solar panel a), it is pretty clear that warming at the surface produces an enhanced warming in the tropical troposphere. It is not as pronounced as the panels for GHGs, simply because the forcing is weaker. But unless one is colour blind, the enhanced warming is difinitely there.
Did you examine the two graphs at my link, where roughly equal amounts of forcing for solar and CO2 are side by side, and the hotspot enhanced warming in the tropical troposphere is equally pronounced? These are results from ModelE, the same model used for the graphs in the IPCC charts, but this time giving solar and CO2 equivalent forcing values.
But perhap you would give more credence to a WUWT post on the subject.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/07/16/about-that-missing-hot-spot/
The enhanced warming in the hotspot is not a result of increased GHGs. It is a result of the change in moist adibiatic lapse rate when the surface warms.
Richard, can you explain why the physics that makes the enhanced tropical tropospheric warming a unique property of GHG warming? What’s the mechanism? The mechanism described in the literature has nothing to do with GHGs, (other than discussing GHG as a dominant forcing).
Other comments from well-known, qualified scientist skeptics.
Judith Curry:
Richard Lindzen:
And from other scientists quaified on the matter;
Carl Mears:
Isaac Held:
Chris Colose:
MT,
That is incorrect. HITRAN is the database that supplies radiative transfer models. It has many applications, not just for atmospheric studies. The data is spectral analysis (via spectroscopy) of the absorptive properties of gases at any wavelengths. The values given are based on the gas in a vaccum, not air. Some of the work is done by observation, most derived by mathematics.
From their site:
http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/hitran/
http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/hitran/FAQ.html
HITRAN began life in the 60s when the US airforce wanted detailed information about infrared properties of various gases in the atmosphere in order to detect aircraft. It is analogous to the human genome project. They currently have assessed absorption properties for 7 million spectral lines. This database is one of the empirical components applied for modeling the atmosphere.
barry says (August 24, 2013 at 9:18 am):
“That is incorrect. HITRAN is the database that supplies radiative transfer models. It has many applications, not just for atmospheric studies. The data is spectral analysis (via spectroscopy) of the absorptive properties of gases at any wavelengths. The values given are based on the gas in a vaccum, not air. Some of the work is done by observation, most derived by mathematics.”
Thanks for correcting my understanding of HITRAN. I’m sure it’s a very useful tool to scientists and technologists of diverse kinds. I was, of course, thinking of MODTRAN when I described HITRAN as a “radiative transfer model”.
However, the point that I made then still applies. My point is that HITRAN is still a computer program and you cannot take an observation of the real climate system by consulting a computer, no matter how good you think the program that you are running on it happens to be. If you do that you are observing a computer’s output, not the climate system. Conflating the two produces confusion and I don’t think anyone wants that in real science. Do they?
MT,
My calculator will do sums for me, quotients and multiplication. All these are abstract but they can be used successfully to do my tax. Computer programs make it possible for us to converse. HITRAN is not a even a ‘program’ or a simulation. It is a databse of emprical measurements (either observed or derived by mathematics). Analoigsing with my tax, a databse like HITRAN would inventory my income and outgoings.
Someone above claimed that global climate models – that AGW – has no emprical basis. They do. It does. That does not mean that GCMs accurately model climate. These are two different propositions. All models need some empirical measurements to start off with. This is one emipirical comopnent of climate models.
Your argument against abstracing phenomena would reject the entire field of physics. I don’t think you would make that argument. I think you are conflating two differtent arguments.
Barry,
I understand what an empirical database is and I am not denying that HITRAN contains empirical components. What I am saying is that a model simulation based on HITRAN is not an empirical observation of the actual climate system itself and it is therefore confusing to present it as being such. That is one argument, not a conflation of two. It is not an argument against abstracting phenomena either: it is an argument against misrepresenting what one is doing as being “empirical” when it is really a work of theory-based computer calculation instead.
barry:
At August 24, 2013 at 7:50 am
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/08/20/when-somebody-hits-you-with-that-new-ipcc-is-95-certain-talking-point-show-them-this/#comment-1398987
you ask me
NO! I did not!
I repeatedly link you to the IPCC AR4 information
and
you want me to look at a climate porn propaganda site which misrepresents the IPCC AR4 information.
Stop being a clown!
You claimed
and I pointed out that if that lie were true then the absence of “Enhanced tropical tropospheric warming” indicates there has NO GLOBAL WARMING.
After I have pointed that out to you then you still try to promote the climate porn site which so misled you! Are you being payed to conduct such promotion?
And I will not double that site’s ‘hits’ for the day by my visiting it (at least I won’t until they remove their automatic censorship of any comment I post there).
I am now certain that either you are a brainwashed idiot or a computer program. Whichever of those you are, you are not worth wasting any more time on you and your nonsense.
Richard
Richard,
also in my posts was quotes from climate scientists, including skeptic scientists Judith Curry and Richard Lindzen, explaining that the hotspot is a consequence of changes in the moist adibiatic lapse rate from warming at the surface by any cause, and specifically not caused by GHG increases. I also linked to a post from this very site explaining that the enhanced warming of the troposphere is a result of surface warming from any cause.
If you disagree with the WUWT post, with Judith Curry, Richard Lindzen and the other scientists I cited, could you please explain what mechanism is responsible for the effect that can only be achieved by greenhouse warming? What are the physics?
barry:
I see you are still trolling in attempt to get support for your paymasters.
However, I am replying to your post at August 24, 2013 at 5:40 pm
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/08/20/when-somebody-hits-you-with-that-new-ipcc-is-95-certain-talking-point-show-them-this/#comment-1399389
because it is clearly a troll comment intended to pretend that you have been talking sense.
My failure to reply may imply to onlookers that your nonsense may contain some truth although your posts are complete bollocks.
You ask me
I DO NOT “DISAGREE” WITH CURRY, LINDZEN AND THE OTHERS WHOM YOU QUOTED OUT OF CONTEXT.
The lapse rate is the change in temperature with altitude in the troposphere (i.e. it gets colder as you go up).
Any warming will increase the temperature where the warming is mostly applied and the warmth will spread from there. Hence, as those you quote say, any input of warming will alter the lapse rate: THIS IS BECAUSE OF THE DEFINITIONS OF THE DRY AND MOIST ADIABATIC LAPSE RATES.
But the pattern of warming in the atmosphere will differ for different source of the warming.
This is what the IPCC models show and is – as I keep telling you – as shown Figure 9.1 in the IPCC AR4: see
ttp://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch9s9-2-2.html
ONLY “well mixed greenhouse gases” show the Hot Spot which is warming at altitude of between 2 and 3 times the warming at the surface.
The tropospheric Hot Spot occurs in the troposphere – not the stratosphere as you claimed – and that is why it is called the tropospheric Hot Spot.
But you assert that any change to the lapse rate is the Hot Spot; it is not.
Indeed, you wen t so far as to say of the IPCC Figure;
But you manage the Orwellian doublethink of also asserting
So, Barry, which is it;
the opposite of the Hot Spot is caused by aerosols ?
or
the Hot Spot is caused by any source?
In fact, as I have repeatedly told you, the Hot Spot is a result of the water vapour feedback (WVF).
The warming from “well mixed greenhouse gases” warms the atmosphere first. That is why the Hot Spot is at altitude in the troposphere: the warming starts there and spreads from there. But the warming from CO2 alone is very small. Indeed, the “basic physics” you mistakenly assert as being empirical evidence for AGW says the warming from CO2 is very small.
The small warming from CO2 warms the atmosphere which – in turn – warms the surface. This surface warming has two effects; the surface temperature rises and evapouration of water is increased. The air near the surface is now warmed by the surface, and is ‘moist’ with the extra evapourated moisture. So that air carries the moisture up adiabatically (i.e. warm air rises).
The additional moisture at altitude increases the warming at altitude because water vapour is by far the most powerful greenhouse gas (GHG) being 3 to 4 times more powerful a GHG than CO2.
Hence, the Hot Spot occurs; i.e. in the tropics the rate of warming at ~10km altitude is between 2 and 3 times greater than at the surface.
The IPCC says that according to climate behaviour emulated by the climate models ONLY “well mixed greenhouse gases” cause the Hot Spot.
And this makes sense because ONLY the effect of the most powerful GHG (i.e. water vapour) can cause the Hot Spot. The water vapour feedback (WVF) is the ‘feedback’ of the radiative effect of water vapour that multiplies the radiative effect of CO2, and only “well mixed greenhouse gases” have that radiative effect at altitude.
The Hot Spot is missing.
According to the IPCC models this indicates that AGW cannot be large because the WVF is too small for it to generate the Hot Spot.
The Hot Spot is missing.
Your claim that the Hot Spot is caused by “any source” is a claim that there has been no warming from any source.
The Hot Spot is missing.
If the IPCC models are right or if you are right, there has been no discernible AGW.
Richard
Richard, we are agreed that the cause of the hotspot is a consequence of changes in the moist adibiatic lapse rate from warming at the surface. We aslo agree that different sources of warming will not have the same pattern of atmospheric warming/cooling. You appear to be saying that an enhanced hotspot is a unique signature of greenhouse warming.
You said:
The IPCC graph you cite is modeling for various sources of temperature change from 1890 to 1990. The magnitude for each of them is different, hence the magnitude of enhancement in the hotspot area will be different – but should be about twice the effect at the surface. Let’s look more closely at the panels:
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch9s9-2-2.html
a) Solar
Surface warming is 0.0 – 0.2 C/century
Hotspot warming is 0.2 – 0.4 C/century
The hotspot has warmed twice as much as the surface. Agreed?
d) Ozone
Surface warming is 0.0 – 0.2 C/century
Hotspot warming is 0.1 – 0.3 C/century (the effect is very localised in the centre and to the right of the hotspot)
e) Aerosol
Surface cooling is 0.0 – 0.4 C/century
Hotspot cooling is 0.4 – 0.6 C/century
The values are colour coded in 0.2C increments, which make it difficult to get absolute values, but for each of the modeled forcings that cause temperature changes in the tropics at the surface (volcanoes being the exception – there is virtually no change in surface temps over the long term), there is an enhanced change in the temperature in the hotspot region aloft The reason this signal is more apparent in the well-mixed GHG panel is that the temperature change at the surface is larger and more persistent than the others.
As I said before, there is controversy over whether or not the hotspot is apparent in observed data.
If it turned out that there was no enhancement of warming in the tropical troposphere, this would indicate a flaw in understanding of heat transport in the atmosphere. It wouldn’t suggest that there has been no global warming over the last century or so (we have better records for that). And it wouldn’t indicate that greenhouse gases do not warm the planet. Spencer, Lindzen and Christy (along with Pielke Sr and Jr and Anthony Watts) agree that a doubling of CO2 should cause some warming at the surface.
And, as Spencer, Christy, Lindzen and others have published in the literature, the data is not certain, and they express caution about leaping to conclusions without more study. That seems like sound advice to me.
barry says (August 25, 2013 at 5:12 am):
“As I said before, there is controversy over whether or not the hotspot is apparent in observed data.”
Indeed. And there is considerable doubt as to its real existence accordingly.
Still, there always was, wasn’t there? Right from the start in the 1990s when Sir John Houghton’s IPCC Working Group 1 was dangling it before the eyes of scientifically naive politicians as startling, undeniable evidence of man-made global warming that they had better do something about pronto. And now that it has done its psychological job of misshaping their perceptions of reality to the extent that they committed the countries that they represented to the global political, social, economic, technological and cultural revolution which the IPCC was formed to instigate and oversee, the IPCC is disowning it and washing its hands of it while laughing all the way to the next global climate convention in Malibu or wherever.
The IPCC’s “climate science” really stinks. You do know that, don’t you?
I think the science is imperfect and that concern amongst the research communies is genuine. I don’t buy into conspiracy theories.
Richard Lindzen expects the hotspot to be a real feature of moist adibiatic convection, and blames the data for us not having observed it. This is the general opinion of expert researchers. A minority of these doubt its existence. A good number think that the models may exaggerate the moist adibiatic lapse rate change. Roy Spencer posits that no hotspot would mean a lower climate sensitivity.
Depending where you go in the public blogosphere, there is considerable doubt (outright disbelief) of its existence and sometimes selected papers are cited accordingly, while commentators wishing to urge that there is no signficant discrepancy with models highlight studies that indicate the hotspot is there. Most non-expert commentators pick a side, and a number of experts seem to do so as well (on both sides). I am skeptical of absolutist positions.
There have been hundreds of papers on tropospheric temperatures. Below is a short list of some of them.
http://agwobserver.wordpress.com/2009/12/24/papers-on-tropospheric-temperatures/
http://agwobserver.wordpress.com/2009/09/06/papers-on-tropical-troposphere-hotspot/
(most of the papers in the second link have been moved to the first)
barry:
Having run a gamut of misrepresentation, your post at August 25, 2013 at 9:06 pm enters the delusional where you say
If a warming rate of more than double the warming at the surface cannot be observed then the data is so unreliable that it is not possible to determine if there has been any warming.
And if there has been no warming then there is nothing to discuss.
Your obfuscations, misrepresentations and propaganda have become so silly that I shall ignore any more of your silly posts.
Richard
barry says (August 25, 2013 at 9:06 pm):
“I think the science is imperfect and that concern amongst the research communies is genuine. I don’t buy into conspiracy theories.”
Thank you for summarising your position.
My position concurs with yours in holding the IPCC’s “climate science” to be imperfect, but since one could say that about anything at all in this world it’s not a very meaningful statement, is it? I also think that concern among the research communities is genuine, but since you haven’t said which specific research communities you are referring to and what you see them as being genuinely concerned about, I cannot tell whether we agree about that or not.
I also don’t buy into conspiracy theories – unless there is clear and substantial evidence to support them, as there appears to be in the case of the IPCC. However, I am not concerned with any conspiracy theories here. The IPCC is essentially a political organization (even its name gives that away, after all) and it has always been open, and even outspoken, in declaring its political motivations and intentions. So I don’t think there’s anything theoretical about the IPCC having been created to fulfil a political purpose and that its scientific functions are subordinate to that; it’s a matter of empirical fact and historical record.
Likewise, my saying ‘The IPCC’s “climate science” really stinks’ is also a matter of empirical fact and not of theory for me. As someone who is long familiar with the practice of the conventional scientific method I find the unconventional methods of the IPCC’s “climate science” to be so evidently, so obviously and so crudely false and disingenuous as to be offensive on sight. They stink of political corruption, doublespeak and innuendo. If you cannot smell these things too then I think something could be amiss with your ethical senses, because what the IPCC is doing strikes me as being scientifically unethical. What it is doing is not even real science, let alone the “gold standard” science that it pretends to be doing. I think the affair of the Hot Spot demonstrates this rather luridly.
The Hot Spot has become an iconic symbol that has been a very effective tool for communicating the IPCC’s message of dangerous man-made global warming, rather like the Hockey-Stick graph in that respect. Of course the IPCC has only ever claimed that the Hot Spot was the product of model simulations and has never actually said that the Hot Spot exists in reality, so its hands are ostensibly clean. But ever since the meeting of IPCC Working Group 1 in 1995 when Ben Santer introduced it, there has never been any empirical confirmation of its existence outside the modellers’ imaginations and inside the real world. Just a year later Santer was reporting on “uncertainties” that remained in the model. (See Santer et al 1996 http://140.208.31.101/bibliography/related_files/bds9601.pdf .) 1995 was eighteen years ago. How could that glaring disparity between model simulation and observed reality go unaddressed by the IPCC for eighteen years while the Hot Spot just went on growing bigger, redder and more threatening in the minds of the scientific illiterati who have done what the leading supporters of the IPCC have advised them to do and taken the word of the “expert” IPCC “climate scientists” on trust? The IPCC’s apparently total indifference to the public confusion that this purely fictitious icon of man-made global warming was being used to generate in people’s minds provides us with an objective index of the IPCC’s true level of “concern” for accurate and truthful public science communication. There is no real science underlying the Hot Spot at all: it is just computerised make-believe and the IPCC must have known this all along if it ever had a grain of true science in it.
But of course we should not really expect the IPCC to have a grain of true science in it because it is a fundamentally political organization with a fundamentally political agenda to fulfil. It does not exist to do science; it exists to do politics. And in doing its politics by pretending to do science it is doing neither honestly and is corrupting both. This is seriously detrimental to human civilization in my view and it reminds me of the myth of the fall of the Tower of Babel.
R. C. Green: