Dr. Judith Curry writes:
As the IPCC struggles with its inconvenient truth – the pause and the growing discrepancy between models and observations – the obvious question is: why is the IPCC just starting to grapple with this issue now, essentially two minutes before midnite of the release of the AR5?
…
My blog post on the Fyfe et al. paper triggered an email from Pat Michaels, who sent me a paper that he submitted in 2010 to Geophysical Research Letters, that did essentially the same analysis as Fyfe et al., albeit with the CMIP3 models.
…
Assessing the consistency between short-term global temperature trends in observations and climate model projects
Patrick J. Michaels, Paul C. Knappenberger, John R. Christy, Chad S. Herman, Lucia M. Liljegren, James D. Annan
Abstract. Assessing the consistency between short-term global temperature trends in observations and climate model projections is a challenging problem. While climate models capture many processes governing short-term climate fluctuations, they are not expected to simulate the specific timing of these somewhat random phenomena—the occurrence of which may impact the realized trend. Therefore, to assess model performance, we develop distributions of projected temperature trends from a collection of climate models running the IPCC A1B emissions scenario. We evaluate where observed trends of length 5 to 15 years fall within the distribution of model trends of the same length. We find that current trends lie near the lower limits of the model distributions, with cumulative probability-of-occurrence values typically between 5% and 20%, and probabilities below 5% not uncommon. Our results indicate cause for concern regarding the consistency between climate model projections and observed climate behavior under conditions of increasing anthropogenic greenhouse-gas emissions.
The authors have graciously agreed for me to provide links to their manuscript: [manuscriptMichaels_etal_2010 ] and [supplementary material Michaels_etal_GRL10_SuppMat].
Drum roll . . . the paper was rejected. I read the paper (read it yourself), and I couldn’t see why it was rejected, particularly since it seems to be a pretty straightforward analysis that has been corroborated in subsequent published papers.
The rejection of this paper raised my watchdog hackles, and I asked to see the reviews. I suspected gatekeeping by the editor and bias against the skeptical authors by the editor and reviewers.
Read more: Peer review: the skeptic filter
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James Evans says: @ur momisugly September 20, 2013 at 10:24 am
Witches were “hanged”, I think you’ll find.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Witches were killed by a variety of methods. link
The Salem MA Witch Trials are of interest because of the connection to the climate.
If it was thought that the public would not turn against them, ‘True Believers’ would love to treat deniers like witches. There have been a few trial balloons floated.
…University of Graz music professor calls for skeptic death sentences
The 1010global org/ nasty, vicious Video [that] explodes skeptical kids in bloodbath
Never make the mistake of thinking we are now too ‘Civilized’ for these types of ‘Witch-hunts’ Dr. Rummel’s studies leading to his books on DEMOCIDE: DEATH BY GOVERNMENT show we are just as vicious as ever with just a thin coating of civilization.
albertalad says:
September 20, 2013 at 10:03 am
“Leaked documents seen by the Associated Press, yesterday revealed deep concerns among politicians about a lack of global warming over the past few years.”
The pressure exerted by politicians from various nationalities to suppress an honest discussion of the 17 year long hiatus in global warming while CO2 continues to accumulate further illustrates the UN IPCC AR5 report is a political marketing tool, not a scientific report. Anyone who acquiesced to such political pressure is a tool as well.
MtK
albertalad says… fair enough.
I’m just wary of suspending my scepticism about AGW news when it comes to the otherwise politicised news from the Daily Mail (or Fox News).
milodonharlani,
“I wonder how many instances of burning for witchcraft it would take to convince you that this means of execution was the norm for most countries most of the time in the late Middle Ages & Early Modern periods?”
I don’t know for sure, but your not going to get there using wikipedia as a source.
milodonharlani,
I don’t care what they called her trial. The executed her for heresy because that’s all they managed to produce evidence of.
Even today, the government frequently gets convictions on different charges than what are initially brought.
M Courtney says:
September 20, 2013 at 11:55 am
Here’s the report from the AP, a bona fide Leftwing source:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2013/09/20/climate_report_struggles_with_temperature_quirks_120017.html
MattS says:
September 20, 2013 at 12:01 pm
If it doesn’t matter to you that Joan’s enemies considered her a witch & wanted her burnt alive for that offense, OK with me.
But the incontrovertible fact remains that tens of thousands of people were burnt to death for witchcraft in Europe, c. 1300 to 1800, probably more than by any other means of execution. America was unusual in hanging them to death.
MattS says:
September 20, 2013 at 11:57 am
I’m not using Wiki as a source, just a conduit.
How about clicking on every name linked burned person in the list, then noting at the bottom of each entry the actual sources? If you’re really interested in the topic, I can suggest some good books & academic papers.
MattS says: @ur momisugly September 20, 2013 at 12:01 pm
…Even today, the government frequently gets convictions on different charges than what are initially brought.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Al Capone and tax evasion….
One of the reasons for the tens of thousands of pages of regulations in the USA with no right to a jury trial is that it allows ‘punishment ‘ of political enemies. link
————————————-
What did they do to climate witches? Burnt or hung I don’t think they cared afterwards. 🙁
Gail Combs says:
September 20, 2013 at 12:17 pm
Inconvenient people were often accused of witchcraft, too, as an excuse to get rid of them or steal their property. The Fulda witch trials resulted from the local Prince Bishop Balthasar von Dernbach’s efforts to re-Catholicize his bishopric during the Counter-Reformation. About 250 innocent people were executed wrongly, mostly by burning.
Jimbo says:
September 20, 2013 at 12:23 pm
Clearly climate witches should be hanged, then rapidly buried to sequester their carbon. Burning not only frees the victims’ carbon but creates excess black carbon & carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere.
Ditto books.
What’s in the pay-walled editorial by Curry @ur momisugly Australian? http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/consensus-distorts-the-climate-picture/story-e6frg6zo-1226724019428
That statement is not quite true; while your first ‘level’ in contesting a ‘charge’ or citation is before an ALJ (Administrative Law Judge) your final appeal (and a trial) will before a normal judge and jury.
.
From Blazing Saddles — Bart returns unexpectedly after being sentenced to death:
Charlie: They said you was hung.
Bart: And they was right.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071230/quotes
Dr. Curry is getting some grief from the nutters, but strangely, none of the sane Warmists are joining in. And the nutters are being overwhelmed with knowledge and logic.
Its one of the way AGW fanatics can their is no science that rejects ‘the cause ‘ is by having such gatekeepers that turn down such paper while pushing through any old rubbish if it supports ‘the cause ‘
In the long term such approaches are bad for science in general and its really very sad that the scientific establishments as kept its mouth shut or even supported these approaches. A feature we may all end up paying the price for .
Does anyone really now believe the Climate Inquisition does not exist?
This is just one more instance of its acolytes in action, except here the pal reviews of holy alarmist articles are replaced by pravda-style reviews using nit-picking irrelevancies or inaccuracies.
Kinda like the Tom Delay prosecution where Ronnie Earle ‘shopped’ his charges before a number of different grand juries before finally getting a bite?
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/359032/delays-vindication-texass-shame-editors
.
As discussed previously, the IPCC are in a difficult position, made more of a dilema for them, by the fact that AR5, and its worth, will not be judged in 2013, when published, but rather in 2015 when the next climate conference takes place. This presents a dilema since no one knows what the temperatures will do over the course of the next couple of years.
If there is a positve ENSO event between now and 2015, then it is likely that temperatures will rise (if only short lived) and this would enable the IPCC to claim that the ‘hiatus’/’pause’ is over and that warming has recommenced. They will be able to argue that Santer’s 17 year period was never exceeded. So if you are a gambling man, there is a chance that things could pan out in your favour and, in this scenario, the IPCC would not be so embarrassed by the divergence between model projections and reality.
Of course, there may be no resumption of warming (as the Met Office predicts). In which case, by 2015, the 15 or so years without statistically significant warming will have become 17 or so years (on some data sets more than 20 years).
Of course, it is possible that between now and 2015, global temperatures will fall. If that is the case then things will look very bad as the divergence increases and the length of no statistically significant warming lengthens. In this sceario, there could even be a negative anomaly trend as from 2000, and quite likely as from 1998.
Added to all of this is that it is probable that there will be more papers published suggesting a lowering of climate sensitivity. This is almost inevitable if the ‘hiatus’/’pause’ continues.
So what does the IPCC do? Does it acknowledgge the ‘hiatus’/’pause’ and give it some significance, in effect acknowledging that past reports had exaggerated the warming (and thereby climate sensitivity)? or does it gamble hoping for a resumption of warming (most likely fueled by an ENSO event). If only IPCC and their models were better able to predict ENSO, it probably would be able to consider the odds and act accordingly.
Now added to this dilema is that the IPCC is an inter-governmental body dancing to the tune of its pupet masters, the politicians. Reading between the lines (from the Daily Mail report referred to above), it appears that many governments wanted the IPCC to not address the ‘hiatus’/’pause’, to cover it up and for it to not affect its reasoning and summary (no doubt for their own political purposes tax schemes etc). However, more recently some other governments want the ‘hiatus’/’pause to be specifically addressed and explained. That has of course caused extreme difficulties for the IPCC and no doubt this explains why this issue is only being addressed at this late stage, just days before publication.
I think that it is reasonably safe to conclude that had it not been for a few governments wanting the ‘hiatus’/’pause’ to be specifically and patently addressed, the IPCC would have substantially ignored it and carried on with business as usual.
_Jim says:
September 20, 2013 at 12:37 pm
At least DeLay wasn’t beheaded, strangled, drowned, burned or hanged, so he survived to be vindicated.
_Jim says: @ur momisugly September 20, 2013 at 12:30 pm
That statement is not quite true; while your first ‘level’ in contesting a ‘charge’ or citation is before an ALJ (Administrative Law Judge) your final appeal (and a trial) will before a normal judge and jury.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Sorry _Jim, I thought that too but the Supreme Court does not agree.
(That is why I provided the link)
With 12 million spent on legal fees (never mind the other factors like the stress on a marriage, ‘quality of life’, etc.)? I’d say he was … a simple ‘ducking’ wouldn’t take near a decade or cost 12 MM …
(Are you otherwise approving of such practices? Either one …)
.
The ‘applicability’ is in narrow cases; you would like to assert it is applicable to all cases and it is not, particularly when the evidence or nature of same is in contention.
But, you read it the way you want to, as you always do anyway.
.
“Joan of Arc is not a counter example to my claim. Yes she was burned at the stake, but it was for being a heretic, not for being a witch.”
Well, let’s be clear, she was burned for humiliating the English in battle. They couldn’t beat her in open combat, so the only way they could get rid of her was to pay the Burgundians to dishonorably capture her and then pay an even bigger amount so they could put her out of commission permanently themselves. (The Burgundians didn’t like her, but even they wouldn’t dare to harm her). It was a disgrace under the laws of England, the laws of France, the laws of War, and the Laws of the Church, even by the low medieval standards of the day.
There was actually *no* evidence, even under medieval standards, of witchcraft or heresy presented at her trial. Her trial was a dirty, shameful, business, which is why twenty-five years after her execution, an inquisitorial court authorized by Pope Callixtus III examined the trial, pronounced her innocent, and declared her a martyr.
Her intellect was much greater than that of her accuser’s; at one point they asked her a question which, under the accepted theology of the day was a verbal minefield, designed to force the accused to give a heretical answer, since either a “yes” or a “no” was damning. Joan effortlessly made mincemeat of the question, and of the questioner: “Asked if she knew she was in God’s grace, she answered: ‘If I am not, may God put me there; and if I am, may God so keep me.'”
They never found anything more damning than that to condemn her, and yet condemn her they did. Then, as now, Hatred knows no bounds.
[Reply: Absolutely correct. Joan d’Arc apparently had second sight, which enabled her to destroy her opponents in battle. This is a matter of historical record. She stood far above her adversaries, who were a collection of louts; much like the purveyors of the CAGW narrative in modern day political global warming shenanigans. But history has a way of sifting the truth from the lies… ~mod.]