This is just nuts, sorry, I just don’t have any other words for it.
Computer modeling and simulations are not hard data nor empirical proof, especially when trying to hindcast the upper atmosphere temperature back to 1860, well before radiosonde data exists. They can’t even calibrate the output against real-world upper air data for the majority of the time series. But, illogically, these authors claim that their method is sound. And, the timing is suspect. Look at the laundry list of names on the publication too. The fingerprint graphic seen on the second graph is downright corny, as if maybe the public just wouldn’t “get it” unless they put an actual human fingerprint on their graph. It’s like they threw this together as an insurance policy in case the IPCC AR5 report wasn’t convincing enough. -Anthony
(Phys.org) —A team of climatologists with members from the U.S., Australia, Canada and Norway is claiming in a paper they’ve had published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, that they have found proof that global warming is being caused by human influences. They are basing their claims on computer simulations they’ve run and data obtained from three decades’ worth of satellite observations.
Most of the world’s scientists agree that our planet is experiencing global warming. Most also generally support the theory that the cause of global warming is due to an increase in greenhouse gasses, primarily carbon dioxide. And while many also support the notion that the increase in greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere is likely due to human emissions, few are willing to go on record claiming that global warming is due directly to human activities. The researchers in this new effort are one such group and they claim they have proof.
Satellites, as most everyone knows, have been hovering over or circling our planet for over half a century. Over that time period they have grown progressively more sophisticated, measuring virtually every conceivable aspect of the planet below—from gas levels in the atmosphere to temperature readings on an averaged global scale, to the impact of natural events such as volcanic eruptions. It’s this data the researchers used in their attempt to root out the true source of global warming.
The research team conducted a two stage study. The first involved creating computer models that simulated climate evolution over the past several decades under three different scenarios: a world without human influence, a world with only human influence and a world without human emissions or naturally occurring incidents such as volcanic eruptions. The second stage involved gathering data from satellites and comparing it with what the team had found in creating their simulations. They say patterns emerged that prove that human influence is the cause behind global warming. One example they cite is data that shows that the troposphere (the part of the atmosphere closest to us) has seen a steady rise in temperature over the past several decades, even as the layer just above it, the stratosphere, has cooled slightly.
But what has the team really convinced that humans are the true source behind global warming, is that they were unable to produce the type of warming we’ve seen with just natural events—it’s only when human emissions are added to models that such a trend can be realistically simulated. That, they say, proves that human practices over the past several decades are responsible for global warming.
Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2013-09-satellite-global-humans.html#jCp
h/t to Dr. Leif Svalgaard
The paper:
Human and natural influences on the changing thermal structure of the atmosphere, PNAS, Published online before print September 16, 2013, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1305332110
Benjamin D. Santer, Jeffrey F. Painter, Céline Bonfils, Carl A. Mears, Susan Solomon, Tom M. L. Wigley, Peter J. Gleckler, Gavin A. Schmidt, Charles Doutriaux, Nathan P. Gillett, Karl E. Taylor, Peter W. Thorne, and Frank J. Wentz
Significance
Observational satellite data and the model-predicted response to human influence have a common latitude/altitude pattern of atmospheric temperature change. The key features of this pattern are global-scale tropospheric warming and stratospheric cooling over the 34-y satellite temperature record. We show that current climate models are highly unlikely to produce this distinctive signal pattern by internal variability alone, or in response to naturally forced changes in solar output and volcanic aerosol loadings. We detect a “human influence” signal in all cases, even if we test against natural variability estimates with much larger fluctuations in solar and volcanic influences than those observed since 1979. These results highlight the very unusual nature of observed changes in atmospheric temperature.
Abstract
Since the late 1970s, satellite-based instruments have monitored global changes in atmospheric temperature. These measurements reveal multidecadal tropospheric warming and stratospheric cooling, punctuated by short-term volcanic signals of reverse sign. Similar long- and short-term temperature signals occur in model simulations driven by human-caused changes in atmospheric composition and natural variations in volcanic aerosols. Most previous comparisons of modeled and observed atmospheric temperature changes have used results from individual models and individual observational records. In contrast, we rely on a large multimodel archive and multiple observational datasets. We show that a human-caused latitude/altitude pattern of atmospheric temperature change can be identified with high statistical confidence in satellite data. Results are robust to current uncertainties in models and observations. Virtually all previous research in this area has attempted to discriminate an anthropogenic signal from internal variability. Here, we present evidence that a human-caused signal can also be identified relative to the larger “total” natural variability arising from sources internal to the climate system, solar irradiance changes, and volcanic forcing. Consistent signal identification occurs because both internal and total natural variability (as simulated by state-of-the-art models) cannot produce sustained global-scale tropospheric warming and stratospheric cooling. Our results provide clear evidence for a discernible human influence on the thermal structure of the atmosphere.
Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2013-09-satellite-global-humans.html#jCp
Ben Santer, Gavin Schmidt, Susan Solomon, Tom Wigley, etc. They do have form when it comes to papers confusing simulation with fact.
SadButMadLad says:
September 18, 2013 at 12:34 am
@Man Bearpig at 12:21 am: But you can’t vote a zero!
—-
Yes, it uses well known field of mathematics aka AGW_BS which means results of 97% of respondents score >0 then it is consensus approved
I am about to publish a paper on simulating the growth of slugs since 1860 and can prove that Global Warming is caunsed by aliens.
To be published in the next issue of the Journal of Lysenko Science
The vast majority of models used by the IPCC have failed to simulate the observed surface temperature standstill for over the last 16 years. Here is one of the paper’s authors, Santer, bemoaning the failure of models. It came out last year. You have to wonder why Santer now believes his former concerns have now been addressed and fixed. If you fail post 1979 then why do you think you can be more successful since 1860?
Seems quite basic to me. If a model is built with the mechanism that increasing one parameter will result in an increased temperature, and you then increase that parameter, the result is a foregone conclusion.
It would be great to have satellite data back to 1860, since it would shed much light on the human influence on the climate. And here the climate research community seems to suffer from a compulsive thinking disorder. The thought that if data are missing, it simply must be possible to model them. And the inability to handle the thought that some data are beyond recovery.
If you can’t get the recent past right what the heck makes you think you’re better going back over 100 years?
http://landshape.org/enm/santer-climate-models-are-exaggerating-warming-we-dont-know-why/
http://judithcurry.com/2013/08/28/overestimated-global-warming-over-the-past-20-years/
The head posting says: “But what has the team really convinced that humans are the true source behind global warming, is that they were unable to produce the type of warming we’ve seen with just natural events—it’s only when human emissions are added to models that such a trend can be realistically simulated. That, they say, proves that human practices over the past several decades are responsible for global warming.”
This is an egregious instance of the argumentum ad ignorantiam, the fallacy of argument from ignorance. “We can’t think of any other reason why the world is warming, so it must be Man.” That is really all this pathetic paper says.
Send all the authors back to elementary school to learn the elements of Classical logic. A Classicist, taking one look at their feeble argument, would know a priori that it was an invalid argument. The conclusion, therefore, may or may not be true, and the paper adds no light to enable us to decide one way or the other. This is intellectual feeble-nindedness of the worst kind.
It is only within the last 50 years that thermometers have become accurate to within ±50°C, so what was the allowable accuracy for thermometers 100 years ago? And, how can we verify the accuracy of those thermometers, now?
It is known and accepted that many of the monitoring sites have been re-located, and the readings of many have been discarded. As the re-locations seemed to have been to lower altitudes and latitudes, with the discarded sites from higher altitudes and latitudes, and many of the presently accepted sites having become “urbanised”, when did this process stop? My suspicions are that this might have effectively been around 1997.
Would it be possible to base a study on such hypotheses? If so, who wants to join me, and where could we get the funding?
I see Gavin A. Schmidt as one of the authors. He told us to expect warmer northern hemisphere winters! Now they tell us to expect colder NH winters. Next they’ll tell us that co2 caused average NH winters and it’s our fault. Grrrrrrrrr.
Simulated Satellite data…
seriously !!!
ROFLMAO !!!
they really have lost their marbles, haven’t they ! 🙂
According to my computer simulation. I won WWII in a spitfire. does it need the /sarc
So this is just – we can’t explain the change so it must be human induced.
Nylo says:
September 18, 2013 at 1:14 am
As can be seen in the graphic of the lower stratosphere temperature anomaly, the stratosphere cooling has nothing to do with CO2. The cooling has happened in just two steps: one after Chichón eruption and one after Pinatubo eruption
Exactly! I’ve pointed this out on several occasions here. Though I wonder when the lower stratosphere will finally start rebounding to the the level before Pinatubo?
Also: If the longer term effect (after the initial stratospheric warming) of a large volcanic eruption is a cooler stratosphere, what if that also means a warmer troposphere?
I ratherlike the results of an imagined steampunk satellite. Perhaps they built a difference engine to run the analysis.
John Bochan says:
September 18, 2013 at 12:46 am
“Well the IPCC AR5 Second Order Draft does mention the problem as the “limitations of satellite sensors” when used in climate modelling. “An alternative approach is to use is to calculate observation-equivalents from models using radiative transfer calculations to ‘simulate’ what the satellite would provide if the satellite system were ‘observing’ the model”.
La-la-land! A virtual earth with a virtual climate observed by virtual satellites sending back virtual data, because real satellite data doesn’t agree with virtual thermometers.”
==================================================
Yesterday upon the stair
I met a man who wasn’t there.
He wasn’t there again today.
Oh how I wish he’d go away.
Hughes Mearns
——- Now I get it. The team has managed to replicate Mearns’ results.
They are making it plain for all to see that their models are an international joke. Wigley prides himself on being the first to use ‘multi-model averages’. No-one has ever explained why the average of 10 wrong models is better than any individual wrong model.
Damn! Just seen my truly dreadful typo!
While thermometers are accurate to within 50°C, the accepted error margin is within 0.5°C. Oh, with a foolish mistake like that, I wonder if I am on the wrong side or the argument…
That is quite possibly the stupidest paper I’ve ever seen published in what claims to be a science journal, and I’m a big fan of ig-Nobel prize research. ig-Nobel prize winning research might be silly, but at least it obeys scientific methods and procedures. But this? At least ESP researchers actually tried to measure the effects of psychic powers in real experiments, instead of a running ensemble computer simulations to prove that people would be guessing correctly more often than predicted by chance – in the experiments that they didn’t conduct.
I thought measuring temperature to a fractional degree with a treemometer was insane, but these people don’t even bother using a tree, or an ice core, or a lichen, or a clam, or a coral. It is data produced solely from their fevered imaginations, and somehow it got published it in a science journal.
I hear the same complaints from my buddies at the golf course. I usually win and they keep wanting to see my computer scoring model. Imagine…
Seeing Santer and Gav in the authors list reminded me — History / Historic personages come back first time as tragedy and second time as farce.
Santer, Solomon, Wigley and Schmidt. All that’s missing is Mann then you have a complete set. Stupid is as stupid does.
So can we recreate the satellite record during the Eemian now?
The surprising thing is not that they produced this rubbish, that’s kind of to be expected from this list but that someone actually agreed to publish it.
The Viscount has the right of it (at 2:02am).
Think of a number. Take away the number you first thought of. What you have is zero.