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
Monckton of Brenchley says:
September 18, 2013 at 2:02 am
Sir, I would respectfully suggest elementary school would likely be too far above their level of understanding!!
This paper is total bull—t. but your comments are as bad. Claiming that the recent warming, from the LIA, is due to GHG’s is as bad. The THEORY of GHE is just that a theory which does not stand up to serious criticism. Climate is solar driven not by some trace gas in the atmosphere which if it could warm the planet by 33C would be radiating in the far ultra violet, no trace of this can be found at the surface.
Get real.
The sad thing about all of this is that people are paying to be misled by this anti-scientific garbage.
Would you buy a second hand car from this lot, well sorry we have no choice?
Just been reading about two cases where people were clearly convicted for crimes they did not do.
In one a nurse was convicted because the police couldn’t think of any reason why there would be high levels of insulin … therefore they reasoned the nurse must have given it to the patient.
It turns out that patients regularly suffer from the condition and even within the same hospital at the same time several other patients (who had never met the nurse) suffered from the condition which was considered so unlikely it had to be human. This evidence was ignored by the police.
As long as one is writing fiction, why not construct satellite models back to 1492?
Just to make sure my meaning is clear … just because the academics are not able to think of any natural cause that would have caused the climate variation – like the police couldn’t imagine a natural reason for high insulin – is in no way proof that it was not natural climate variation just as there was an entirely natural explanation for the death for which someone was convicted.
That’s insane. Total garbage. Let me get my Civil War Musket-Smile!
Why did they start at 1860?
Surely it would have made more sense to model satellite data back to the beginning of the MWP to see if it actually did exist and whether it was warmer then than now.
I think they might be trying to hide something.
This is good news (for skeptics). This now shows that they are truly in LALALA land. I think even the ordinary lay person will even laugh at this one they are truly desperate. The Journal that published this s### should lose a lot of subscribers LOL.
within +/= 1°C, surely? I know the thermometers were imperfect in my childhood, but a range of almost 100°F either way just isn’t reasonable. Scalding and quick-freezing are easily distinguished.
edit: +/- 50° C
edit edit:+/- 1°C
Let us not discount the data from those nineteenth century satellites. They were masterpieces of Victorian engineering, handcrafted from solid cast iron, varnished walnut and polished brass. Brunel himself designed some of them.
Such stupidity, the mind boggles. That collection of authors should never work again anywhere at anything and whenever they appear in public, people should point at them and snigger.
A computer simulation gives the desired outcome, so the simulation must be correct? It’s warmed since the end of the LIA, so the warming must be caused by humans. All CO2 increases are caused by humans? It must mean that the solubility of CO2 in water is independent of temperature.
Was any of this work on government time using government resources?
Monckton of Brenchley says:
September 18, 2013 at 2:02 am
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.
Well, since their model can’t even account for the recent and sustained pause in warming, why not extend the inaccuracy and uselessness over longer time spans? I will note that their model fails to include the effect of the decreasing number of pirates, a variable long hypothesized to account for global warming. Using global rum shipments from 1860 to 1880 as a proxy for the number of active pirates in the Caribbean, and using a corrected equation for the drift of the 57.95 Ghz microwave receiver on the MSU on the Army of the Potomac’s remote monitoring satellites, I find that 0.243 degree C of their “observed” lower tropospheric temperature anomaly is an artifact of their non-measurement process. Also, though they didn’t publish this particular result, while they were subjecting the CMIP-5 model to a variety of tortures, it confessed to being part of the plot to assassinate Abraham Lincoln.
I guess the authors were just frustrated because they couldn’t fiddle with the satellite temperature record. So they found a way to fiddle it.
Sherlock Holmes:
So, it’s Arthur Conan Doyle that is responsible. The entire climate “science” brigade seems to think they have eliminated all which is impossible, and that only CO2 remains.
In medicine we call this approach “diagnosis by exclusion”. This mean that when your doctor doesn’t understand what’s is going on, he will ask for a lot of useless (and expensive) tests and, when they all turn out negative he says: ah ah….. it must be only disease left off the list and that can not be detected by any test.
Would you trust such a statement when the matter is your future health status ?
The statement “they were unable to produce the type of warming we’ve seen with just natural events” reveals this entire exercise to be yet another argumentum ad ignorantiam, whiich they seem to have in abundance.
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.
What about the 97% concensus? /sarc
When will the public notice Santer punching science in the nose?
There is no other scientific field where simply making s#!t up like this is acceptable. None. If you did things like this at a drug company you would kill a whole bunch of people.
I don’t think we have a complete satellite record of total outgoing radiation. Just a patchy (not every point over the earth is observed 24/7) averaged estimate based on orbiting microwave sensors as proxies for temperatures at different depths throughout the atmosphere.
There seem to be no long term projects for satellites at suitably far distances from earth monitoring the total outgoing radiation across the spectrum (both dark and light sides of our planet simultaneously, 24/7/365). Lagrangian points Earth-Moon L1 and L3 spring to mind as suitable orbital locations. A third satellite at L2 could use the Moon as a radiation emission control body for some wavelengths, if the satellite at L1 had both moonward and earthward sensors. We would at least have the data to create an accurate energy budget then.
Is this too costly to do? The satellites could perform other observations and functions like communications from these locations to make them a little cheaper in operation.
They got the results they wanted. Just one more case of GIGO – garbage in, gospel out.
Dollars to doughnuts they can’t model the current 17-year warming stoppage, though, using their same model.