I have some work to do today that will take me away from being online, so it seemed like a good time for an open thread.
All topics within the bounds of the WUWT commenting policy are fair game. Of recent interest is Mann’s paper on Scientific American and this image (click to enlarge) with his forecast:
…and Lewandowsky’s Recursive Fury getting flushed.
“Help me, Obi Wan Mannobi, you’re our only false hope?”
🙂
I might be wrong but the Scientific American illustration looks like cooling towers sending up steam. Admittedly water vapour is a much more potent greenhouse gas than CO2, but if that is just steam I’m not sure how the images relate to the topic of the paper.
Can’t resist. On that graph, that ‘faux pause’ of Mann’s is just one of his and the warmist herd’s many faux pas. If any image should warn us not to engage with the warmist vocabulary of ‘the pause’ that is it!
I also can’t understand how, if the historical mean temperature going back to 1850 is being represented by that white line, why the x axis for pre-industrial temperatures is as low as it is. I’d like to have a hint as to how they managed to identify the global temperatures to that degree of accuracy prior to 1850. Historically, the world system of meteorological stations (with very spotty coverage) was not put into place until the 1830s, so that gives a very short timeline for the world average temperatures to have been registered as low as these climate ‘scientists’ have apparently figured.
I thought Michael Mann had lost all credibility as a climate scientist.
How come he is allowed to write an article in Scientific American?
Is it only on WUWT that he has no credibility?
2 degrees more and we’re all gonna’ fry?
Roman optimum anyone? Anyone? Eemian? Hello? Scientific American? Mann? Hello?
(What’s the emoticon for a primal scream?)
Michael Mann’s new forecast provides an opportunity to check how the previous global warming forecasts are doing versus the actual temperatures to date (as well as add one other to the list of predictions).
Basically, we have wasted billions of dollars with these models.
http://s23.postimg.org/fbw6reefv/IPCC_Warming_Forecasts_vs_Actual_Feb14.png
When are they going to admit that cutting GHG in any measurable amount is simply not going to happen? I would take them more seriously if they made an all-out push to get lots of nuclear power stations built and on-line. It time to start an I’d like it warmer movement.
Yes, the “pause”, a phenomena based on real, observed data, is “faux”; the steaming pile smeared across the page and obtained through dubious modeling, that’s all fact.
Only in climate science…
Michael D says:
March 21, 2014 at 12:13 pm
I spotted this interesting question from Ulric Lyons…..
“”THE ATMOSPHERIC GREENHOUSE EFFECT is predominately due to water vapour.
During the day time, an arid desert in the tropics where there is less atmospheric water vapour, the surface temperature is higher, and the near surface air warms more than in a humid land location in the tropics.
So what happened to the supposed radiative advantage to the surface from the greenhouse effect of the water vapour?
“”
and
“”So the atmospheric greenhouse effect from water vapour is in reality spatio-temporal heat redistribution. The night time, and high latitudes warm at the expense of daytime warming. It is not a radiative amplifier of any sort as it reduces daytime surface temperatures, and can only forward heat to the night time and high latitudes by means of its heat capacity.””
What gives?
What happened to the graph showing “increase in temperature due to increase of CO2” being a logorithmic curve?
Garbage In… GREEN Garbage Out!
So a rise of 2 C between 2036 to 2046. Hmmmm, well if that happens, we will still be one degree shy as to what the global temperature was in the Eemian interglacial, 125,000 years ago. And that was accomplished without an abundance of atmospheric CO2. I wonder how that happened, eh?
At least Mann recognizes the “recent” slow down in the rate of global warming – now that is quite the admission from “the Mann” who rewrote climate history by setting the bottom temperature of the Little Ice Age to go back thousands of years as the norm, just so the modern warming period would look like the blade on a hockey stick so that such a rise could be designated “unprecedented.”
What happened to the climategate 3.0 release? Is there a specific reason why Watts et al aren’t releasing any of the remaining emails?
His stick is drooping…..
A lot of the jargon in climatology couldn’t be more misleading if it was designed that way.
One example is “Climate Sensitivity”. Global average temperature does not equal climate.
What examples do others have?
“global warming will rise 2 degrees Celsius by 2036”
What does that even mean? Shouldn’t it read “global temperatures will rise by 2 degrees…”? And 2 degrees from what starting point?
Mann can’t even write basic English… Sci Am can’t edit their articles. This what you get when 8th graders have control.
What a marooon….
Did anyone look at that graph? Looks like what happened to the MWP also happened to the 1998 El Nino!
Late ice growth this year in the Arctic. Although ice is below historic mean values, ice growth has still not clearly reached the peak 2 or more weeks after the peak mean values.
While on the topic of the Arctic, does anybody have a reason for the positive sea temperature anomaly around Svalbard? It has been there all year.
How the worldwide campaign against nuclear power that started in the 1950s was the platform for the radical left move to use the Green movement to advance its agenda. A summary of the account written by the late John Grover in Australia. http://www.the-rathouse.com/2011/Grover-Power.html
For copies of the book and others by John Grover http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?an=John+Grover&sortby=93&sts=t
Jordan says:
March 21, 2014 at 1:21 pm
Maybe the newly discovered volcanoes in that area have been more active than usual:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/08/02/hot-times-near-svalbard-volcanic-range-discovered/
===================================================================
Are the average outputs of the climate models referred to as “composites”? If so maybe should refer to them as “compost” instead?
I used to love reading Scientific American.
The comments on Lewandowsky’s blog post at ShapingTomorrowsWorld are worth reading, especially the one where Richard Betts of the UKMO ended an argument:
http://www.shapingtomorrowsworld.org/rf1.html#3187
milodonharlani says:
March 21, 2014 at 1:30 pm
I did wonder about volcanic activity, but a couple of things leave doubt.
One thing is that the region in that WUWT article doesn’t seem to match well with the region of the highest temperature anomaly.
Another is the absence of reporting of recent events … surely there would be a lot of seismic activity showing up around Svalbard?
But still curious to hear if anybody here can shed some light on it.
I would take the “faux pause” very seriously. Dr. Mann is an expert on faux history.
Is there anyone here with financial forensics skills? I’m curious how much money Saudi’s, Russians, etc. might be using to prevent energy development.
J. Philip Peterson says:
March 21, 2014 at 12:22 pm
“I thought Michael Mann had lost all credibility as a climate scientist.
How come he is allowed to write an article in Scientific American?
Is it only on WUWT that he has no credibility?”
He has no credibility nor does Scientific American which is just another warmist rag on the level of a print version of Grist or Huffington Post.
His stick is drooping…..
Must be due to the stress of no warming for almost 18 years!!
These parameters create weather, a decidedly not-random phenomenon. Weather includes both small and large pressure systems as well as various kinds of clouds. Weather is not a random but has both short and long term fluctuations. From that non-random weather data we get climate data. Mann makes a huge mistake in setting weather to zero. He turns a climate circulation model run on expensive computers into nothing more than a child’s lego model. Static and unable to adapt to the weather. He set the parameters to spiral temperature up and up and up and then asks us to marvel and run scared at his “discovery”.
Idiot.
You can’t keep a good Mann (graph) down
Further on Arctic sea ice and the positive sea temperature anomaly around Svalbard.
What if volcanic activity is melting the ice in that region. It would raise the possibility of volcanic adjustments to the Arctic ice area curves, diluting some of the nonsense about Arctic ice depletion due to CO2-induced thermageddon.
The irony would be a delight.
What happened to the climategate 3.0 release? Is there a specific reason why Watts et al aren’t releasing any of the remaining emails?
Nothing much there, as it turns out. The hot stuff came out in the first two releases. Take solace at the havoc wrought by that which has come out.
Since this is open house, it seems the appropriate place to air (once again) one of my pet beefs; namely the insistence of some (possibly of many) that CLIMATE is the long term AVERAGE of WEATHER..
Now I have argued that climate is the long term INTEGRAL of weather; that is to say, it is the consequence of EVERYTHING that has happened up to now. Since that consists of apples AND oranges, and also Kiwi Fruit, and every other thing, under the sun, it simply is not possible to plot the weather on a graph, and simply add up the area under the graph, and get an average.
So the notion that MY summation (integral) is somehow related to the AVERAGE (of what), is simply ludicrous.
Now the “average” is a precisely defined, completely un-debatable rigorous mathematical property of “”””” ……ANY !!! …..””””” already known set of numbers. It’s NOT some wishy washy somewhat unknown quantity.
Now in scientific researches, the “already known” numbers in the data set, are often numbers measured, or otherwise acquired, perhaps at different times, and different places.
Exactly how numbers in a data set are acquired, is entirely irrelevant to the computation of the average of that data set. Once the numbers in the set are known, the statistical mathematical consequences, are completely defined, and are not uncertain in any way. Statistics is an exact mathematical discipline.
So it is often the case, that statistical analyses, are applied to information gathered at a variety of times and places, and maybe by a variety of means.
And the purveyors of these statistical analysis results, assert that they are doing “science.”.
Well NO; they are actually doing mathematics; which is all made up and fictional; albeit sometimes very useful.
If it was “science” one might presume, that one was reporting on how the actual real universe, was reacting, so all of those disparate events, that were observed at various times and places by various means.
It is surely true, that since the time of the big bang, this universe, has NEVER (not even once), acted on, or reacted to, ANY average of ANYTHING. The universe reacts in real time, according to the discovered laws of nature, to each and ever happenstance, exactly as it occurs.
There are NO DELAYS in nature. The components of the universe react instantaneously to anything and everything, that happens.
Now if that something that happens, is a new inflow of energy, to some system that absorbs it and converts it to waste heat, that heat will immediately start to disperse according to the laws of nature, and will immediately start to manifest itself in perhaps, an increase in TEMPERATURE at some place(s) in the system.
But any (apparent) delay, is simply a consequence, or the natural laws, governing the propagation of energies, and the properties of materials, that relate heat and Temperature.
The point is, that nature NEVER waits to accumulate “input”, and then reacts to the average of that input; the response to changes, is immediate, and in the order in which things happen, as they happen.
So we can say without ambiguity, that anytime the word “AVERAGE” appears in any “science” paper; that we know a priori, that THE SCIENCE IS WRONG !
Nature NEVER computes averages.; they are worthless, and accomplish vey little.
The long term average (30 year) Temperature of my kitchen stove, is in the range of 20-25 deg. C; or 68-77 deg. F.
I can poach an egg in five minutes (5 min) (in steam) on my stove if I turn it on and let it warm to above 100 deg. C for about five minutes, and then turn it off.
At its average Temperature of 20-25 deg. C, my stove will NEVER poach an egg, even if I wait that whole 30 years. Mother Nature does NOT do AVERAGES.
Now I’m not against anyone calculating an average for any set of already known numbers; even the numbers of letters on each line of this essay, as I type it on my screen.
But in no way, can I call it science; or any kind of report on whatever happened in the real universe.
That’s why I don’t like ANY of the so-called CLIMATE MODELS., or Dr. Kevin Trenberth’s Earth Radiation Budget “cartoon.”
Incidentally, I use the term “cartoon” to describe that diagram, NOT in any derogatory sense, simply as a way (one of many) to describe its nature.
I think it IS a ludicrous document, just the same; if only because of its flippant and inaccurate usage of well defined scientific terms.
It has for example component elements, relating to conduction and convection of “heat” energy in the atmosphere, as well as transport of latent “heat” energy through evaporation.
None of those processes, are in any way related to the Earth’s radiation budget, as they have nothing whatsoever to do with radiation; by which we usually (perhaps loosely) refer to “electromagnetic radiation energy”.
Next, and far more serious, is the fact that Dr. Trenberth’s “radiation” components are referred to in units of Watts per meter squared.
Now Watts, is NOT a unit of “radiation”, or electromagnetic radiation energy, it is a unit of POWER, which is a RATE of supply/ flow/ transport/ conversion/ utilization/ whatever, and Watts per meter squared is the areal density of that POWER.
Power is an instantaneous quantity; and remember Mother Nature does NOT do averages. She “uses” the energy, at exactly the rate she gets it.
In the case of the earth, that rate density is about 1362 Watts per meter squared, from the sun, and at that rate, it can turn a blacktop strip, in a tropical dry desert into a near 100 deg. C source of thermal radiant energy in the LWIR region.
At Kevin’s 342 W/m^2, no normal absorbing surface, can ever reach zero degree C, even after 30 years of absorption. Mother Nature DOES NOT do averaging.
Just ignoring the 24 hour rotation period of planet earth, in climate studies, means the science is NOT settled; it is in fact completely erroneous.
Jordan says:
March 21, 2014 at 1:56 pm
I don’t know if the submarine range from Jan Mayen to Svalbard has been more active, but of course it has gotten closer to the surface over the past century. That it was just discovered suggests it possibly has been. IIRC the volcano on JM erupted in 2008 & on Svalbard ejected ash in 2011.
H.R. says:
March 21, 2014 at 12:23 pm
2 degrees more and we’re all gonna’ fry?
Roman optimum anyone? Anyone? Eemian? Hello? Scientific American? Mann? Hello?
(What’s the emoticon for a primal scream?)
You could try >:-((O))
It is interesting to look and one of Mann’s fake graphs. It looks all “sciency” and all that, but it is just a scare story to frighten the gullible.
I mentioned to many people these last few days that the government data bases claim Central Florida had temps above normal this winter. I got back looks of unbelief from people still wearing a sweater or windbreaker during spring at the idea that this was not one of the longest, coldest fracking winters since the 70s.
They keep the records and change whatever they want at will. Until there is some non-governmental group who produces an honest data set, this war will go on until NYC is under 5km of ice.
I keep trying to promote the fact that increasing CO2 is a transfer of wealth from energy consumers to farmers and ranchers, reaching all, knowing no borders.
What is then this “Carbon Pollution”?
A sinister, evil collusion?
CO2, it is clean,
Makes it grow, makes it green,
A transfer of wealth, a solution.
http://lenbilen.com/2014/02/22/co2-the-life-giving-gas-not-carbon-pollution-a-limerick-and-explanation/
@ george e. smith
Thanks for that comment George; I really enjoyed it. We should have an open thread more often.
Mann: “S ≈ 1370 Wm-2 is the solar constant”
Actually, it’s about 1366. Only a little bit less but isn’t 3-4 Wm-2 the sort of difference bed-wetters loose sleep over?
” B = 1.5 Wm-2 yields a more conservative ECS of DT2xCO2 = 2.5 degC.”
2.5 degrees is “conservative”?! Yeah, right on Mickey.
“3.0oC, consistent with midrange estimates by the International Panel on Climate ”
Yes but you don’t take “middle of the range” from a PDF, you take the median. But you knew that already. didn’t you Mickey.
Have you managed to work out a conservative estimation of the number of Nobel prizes you won yet?
Just askin’ .
I am sorely tempted to offer Mikey Mann a bet, ala Simon vs. Ehrlich.
Of course, that would be problematic as the actual temp data would be so contorted that showing he is wrong would be just about impossible.
On the bright side, if the temp trend runs under the 2.0 ECS line for another year or two, Mann’s prediction will be toast.
I saw a fabulous comment recently by somebody who posts as “fretslider”. It referred to the stasis in global temperature as 1.1 Santers.
Great idea … in honour of somebody’s contribution, we should introduce “the Santer” to climatology, equal to a period of 17 years.
If the global warming stasis exceeds 1 Santer, we have an immediate measure that the CO2 induced thermageddon theory is in trouble.
We could do with some suggestions for other global warming related measures in honour of those who have done so much to try to make it real.
While looking around, I visited that horrible article in the Conversation “Is misinformation about the climate criminally negligent?” The number of comments now exceeds 700, but the moderator has obliterated them …. some conversation, eh?
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2010/06/revisiting-the-pinatubo-eruption-as-a-test-of-climate-sensitivity/
1 degree, that’s more “conservative” , what’s more it’s based on REAL DATA , not models.
The snow has finally melted enough to go metal detecting today in Wisconsin, I noticed that south facing hills, even very small ones with a mild slope, were completely thawed, but the top of the hills and nearby flat ground was still frozen rock-solid. So I got to wondering how much does topography contribute to warming in the spring, and when we get a lot of snow (or for that matter, glaciers, the ultimate in flat surfaces), nullifying little hills into flatness, does the flatness itself help spiral an area into years of cold and perhaps even an ice age? Or maybe a better way to put it … would a completely flat Earth be colder than a bumpy Earth?
My buddy got an indianhead penny, I got a walk. Still a nice day to be out.
A few days ago I happened to be traveling back from Athens via Paris. The great circle route took the big 767 over Iceland, Greenland, Baffin Island, Hudson Bay and across Canada to Seattle. It was a ten hour flight during the daytime. For many of those hours all that could be seen was snow and ice. Thousands and thousands of square miles of pure white with no sign of life, either plant or animal, and no sign of habitation.
How is this different from an ice age I wondered. In view of the fact that the Earth is in an ice age the only difference is one of degree. The cryo-layer that comes every winter to these northern latitudes is not as thick or as enduring as it used to be during the last glacial period, but it still covers much the same area. If we were not in an ice age I would have seen little or no ice and snow. Instead that trackless wasteland might well have been covered in vegetation…trees, grass, bushes, a variety of wildlife and human settlements here and there.
The Earth has two dominant states. One is called Icehouse Earth; the other is called Greenhouse Earth. Homo Sapiens have known only the former. Don’t be confused by the present interglacial period…the Holocene; while warmer it is part of Icehouse Earth. As I type this I am in a warm house wearing warm clothing. Without that I wouldn’t last long here in northern Idaho. Mankind has adapted to the conditions he found himself in; not through genetics, rather through technology. And so, we never give a thought to our current icey predicament. In fact, while most educated people know about the last glacial period, they assume all that ice age business is in the distant past, despite the return of ice and snow every winter. That is probably because very few are aware of Greenhouse Earth.
I think it is important to know about Greenhouse Earth because that is what we humans are best suited for. Permanent ice as we now have is a rare phenomenon in the history of the Earth, occurring only during the 20% of the time that the planet has been under an Icehouse effect. We had a beginning in warmth not cold. Why is it most people think of a warm, sunny beach for vacation rather than Greenland? We love to lay in the warm sun, not on freezing snow. We humans can sit in the shade unclothed at 80F, not moving, and be perfectly comfortable. Of course we can handle somewhat higher and lower temperatures, but that is our ideal, our thermal neutral point. Compare that with the last wild horse, Przewalski’s horse. They are comfortable at -40F if enough grass is available for feed. These are the horses cavemen where drawing.
Something else most have never heard of…the Older Peron…a period of unusually warm climate during the Holocene Epoch. It began about 7000 years ago, and lasted to about 6100 years ago. The Older Peron was a period of generally clement and balmy weather conditions that favored plant growth. Warm temperatures forced a retreat in the glaciers and ice sheets of the global cryosphere; throughout the period, global sea levels were 2.5 to 4 meters (8 to 13 feet) higher than the twentieth-century average. At least a few commentators — anthropologists, folklorists, and others — have linked the era of the Older Peron transgression and the Neolithic Subpluvial with tales of a “time of plenty”, the Golden Age or Garden of Eden, that occur in the legendary backgrounds of many cultures. It is interesting to note that this Golden Age sounds very much like conditions many climate scientists now predict with inappropriate alarm. It would be a great improvement over present conditions.
I would suggest that before we can discuss climate intelligently we need to be clear on a few points.
1. The Earth is in the Icehouse state.
2. Icehouse Earth is not normal.
3. Humans are not well suited to Icehouse Earth.
4. Greenhouse Earth is normal and to be preferred.
5. Warmer climate is good, not bad.
There is a lot hinky with the temperature record in his graph. What happened to the 1998 El Nino? Every dataset I have ever seen has 1998 as the record hottest year (only after adjusting 1934 colder) so why is 2013 shown hotter? Also, it appears the model outputs have been adjusted about 0.3 C colder in order to put them in the range of the actual dataset. So what gives? No explanation?
Well CO2 ain’t gonna stay below 405ppm, so we’re gonna have to ride it out and see. Presumably Mann’s bet his pension on being right. If not, he should be made to, like all the others doomsayers.
SteveC says: (March 21, 2014 at 12:50 pm)
“Garbage In… GREEN Garbage Out!”
Green Garbage in… RED Garbage Out!
From Mann’s Scientific America article…
“What does the short-term slowdown portend for how the world may warm in the future?
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is charged with answering such questions.”
No. The IPCC is charged with driving climate policy worldwide by mis-representing science.
The evidence goes against exaggerated future warming as expressed by Mann in his article. The zig-zag pattern until 2010 in the figure is due to fine tuning of aerosols to match models to agree with past temperatures. By a remarkable coincidence the net CMIP5 forcing then ends up being almost identical to a pure CO2 forcing 5.3ln(C/C0). As a result we can measure that TCR is about 1.6C and tthat he best estimate for ECS is ~ 2.3C see comparison here
The strange case of TCR and ECS
evanmjones says:
March 21, 2014 at 1:56 pm
“Nothing much there, as it turns out. The hot stuff came out in the first two releases. Take solace at the havoc wrought by that which has come out.”
So it should be no problem to let the rest of us have a look. Don’t expect me to believe that a handful of people have gone through 220,000. Something stinks. Legal threats perhaps? C’mon Evan. Really?
why does his graphic show the last 18 or so years as warmer than the 1998 El Nino year?
21 March: UK Daily Mail: Chris Pleasance: Conman who used James Middleton to promote his bogus rainforest protection scheme which he used to swindle ethical investors out of £1.6million is jailed
A ‘green finance’ boss who hired the brother of the Duchess of Cambridge to promote a bogus rainforest protection scheme was jailed today…
His business Forestry For Life, which netted over £400,000 by claiming to protect the Amazon rainforest, was represented by Kate Middleton’s brother James at a trade fair in London in 2010.
Ames also hired England World Cup winner Jack Charlton and sport supremo Sir Rodney Walker to promote Forestry for Life and his other firm, the Investor Club, at events.
The company director used glossy brochures including quotes from Prince Charles and Tony Blair to promote teak plantation schemes in Sri Lanka and investment in the protection of the Brazilian rainforest.
But no land was ever purchased by Ames’ two companies and not a single tree was ever planted…
Ames blew the cash on sports cars, flying first class around the world and staying in luxury villas in the Caribbean.
A jury of six men and six women at Isleworth Crown Court found Ames guilty of two counts of fraudulent trading by majority verdict.
Today, Judge Paul Dugdale sentenced the con-artist to 40 months imprisonment, saying: ‘You raised money from a number of members of the public, generally speaking those who had savings to invest…
James Middleton was photographed representing the green firm at a carbon trading exhibition in London in October 2010 – while Ames was under investigation by the Financial Services Authority…
The company would offer investors carbon credits that would be used to plant trees and offset their carbon footprint, the court heard.
But Forestry For Life was offering credits for rainforest it did not own and the firm rarely gave investors certificates or proof of purchase…
Ames, the son of David Ames, 62, the boss of Caribbean property developer Harlequin Ames, was arrested in September 2011 following a referral from the FSA to City of London Police’s specialist fraud unit…
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2586338/Conman-hired-James-Middleton-promote-bogus-rainforest-protection-scheme-used-swindle-ethical-investors-1-6m-jailed.html
Oldseadog says:
March 21, 2014 at 12:42 pm
> What happened to the graph showing “increase in temperature due to increase of CO2″ being a logorithmic curve?
If CO2 goes up exponentially, then the temperature change will be the logarithm of that, which will be a straight line.
If CO2 goes up as 280 ppm plus an exponential, then the temperature change will accelerate over time.
Don’t you just love the compulsory scary photo of cooling towers.
So in 164 years we went up ~1 degree and the likely scenario for the future is we are going to go up another degree in 22 years!!! If its cooler over the next 5 years, I presume that will put this terrible event off a couple of decades. I better eat my roughage and vitamins if I want to see this falsified, although sure its dead if the next 5 years are cool. They would have to reduce ECS even more – why bother after that.
Mann in the text with the graph throws around delta T numbers from IPCC climate model estimates, and the says, “These data therefore indicate..blah, blah, blah…)
What data? There is no data, only model outputs… with temperatures arising from many dubious assumptions.
When I was doing dissertation work, I ran some regression & correlation aging predictions on immune system recall responses to various chronic and acute virus infections. These predictions were pure speculation, not data. If I had ever tried to call that “data” I would have been severely criticized.
And the stupid MSM just slurp it up like pablum for the weak minded.
Any model that says that global mean temperature anomaly will increase an additional 1 C even if atmospheric CO2 were held at it present level is simply wrong. Surface temperature of the oceans would reach equilibrium within about 25 years max. That means we would get warming at the present rate for no longer than that. This is the simple physics of thermal lag. So much for models that can’t accommodate it.
Anyone who was on the thread concerning the new verification of the Inflation Theory of the Big Bang will enjoy this. I was reading this article on CNN, and when scrolling down to see Comments I noticed that at that moment Comments numbered 666, a little eery I thought…
http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2014/03/20/does-the-big-bang-breakthrough-offer-proof-of-god/?hpt=hp_t4
Great video by Julie Brigham-Grette’s Lake El’ gygytgyn Research: many periods when it has been much warmer in the Arctic than it is now.
22 March: Bloomberg: Ewa Krukowska: EU Russian-Gas Cut Bid Amid Ukraine Crisis Sidelines Climate
Leaders of the 28-nation EU delayed a decision on carbon-reduction targets until October at the two-day summit in Brussels.
“We are serious about reducing our energy dependency,” EU President Herman Van Rompuy told reporters today. “Europe was first built as a community for coal and steel; 64 years later and in new circumstances it’s clear we need to be moving towards an energy union.” …
The EU’s energy dependency rate is set to rise to 80 percent by 2035 from the current 60 percent, according to the International Energy Agency. Gas from Russia accounted for almost 32 percent and oil for about 35 percent of EU imports in 2010, according to EU data…
Europe’s oil and gas import bills rose to more than 400 billion euros ($552 billion) in 2012, representing about 3.1 percent of the region’s gross domestic product, according to EU data. That compares to about 180 billion euros on average in 1990-2011…
The commission proposed in January accelerating emission-reductions to 40 percent by 2030 compared with the 2020 goal of cutting greenhouse gases by 20 percent from 1990 levels.
The planned climate framework has divided governments and businesses. A group of 13 member states including the U.K. and Germany called earlier this month for a swift decision to adopt an ambitious strategy. A coalition of countries led by Poland, which in previous years vetoed EU attempts to pave the way for tighter climate countries, urged further analysis of the proposed policies on the bloc’s economy…
***Europe will reach the decision on carbon goals in stages, taking stock of the debate in June and defining the targets in October, said France’s President Francois Hollande…
EU chiefs agreed that their new emissions goal for 2030 will be in line with the long-term aim of cutting greenhouse gases by at least 80 percent by 2050, EU Climate Commissioner Connie Hedegaard said in an e-mailed statement…
The EU has for decades been at the forefront of that process, and hesitation on its part may remove a spur for the U.S. and China to act.
“The crisis in Ukraine seems to have cemented the arguments that Europe needs to have coherent energy security, industrial competitiveness and climate policies rather than rushing a climate package through,” William Pearson, director for global energy and natural resources at Eurasia Group, said by phone from Brussels today.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-03-21/eu-bid-to-cut-russian-gas-amid-ukraine-crisis-sidelines-climate.html
ignore the rhetoric – coal is still king:
14 Feb: Bloomberg: Coal Burns Brighter as Utilities Switch From Natural Gas
By Mario Parker and Naureen S. Malik
Predictions of coal’s demise in the U.S. may be greatly exaggerated.
Natural gas prices at a four-year high have utilities shifting to coal to generate 4.519 million megawatt-hours a day, the most since 2011, government data show. Within three years, coal’s share of power production could climb to 40.3 percent from about 39 percent last year, while gas’s share will probably drop to 27 percent from 27.5, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said…
The U.S. is poised to emit the most carbon dioxide in three years, undermining President Barack Obama’s efforts to reduce pollution and steer utilities away from the fossil fuel.
“The idea of coal disappearing is not an effective climate change policy,” said John Thompson, an analyst at the Boston-based Clean Air Task Force. “Coal use is growing.” …
Thompson said implementing technology that allows utilities to capture carbon is better than trying to eliminate coal because other countries are increasing use of the fuel…
Dethroning Oil
Coal is the fastest growing energy source in the world, rising 2.3 percent a year through 2018, and poised to dethrone crude oil as the largest source by 2020, the International Energy Agency said in its December Medium-Term Coal Market Report. \
That’s being driven mostly by China, “where coal is powering an industrial revolution,” Laszlo Varro, head of the agency’s gas, coal and power markets, said in a Jan. 29 presentation at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. The fuel is also experiencing a resurgence in Europe as the continent’s economic woes increase its appetite for cheap electricity, he said…
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-02-13/coal-burns-brighter-as-utilities-switch-from-natural-gas.html
J. Philip Peterson says:
March 21, 2014 at 12:22 pm
“I thought Michael Mann had lost all credibility as a climate scientist.
How come he is allowed to write an article in Scientific American?”
Birds of a feather.
SciAm lost all credibility a LOOONG time ago.
Did anyone see the Brit papers today claiming that climate scientists agree that climate change is cause by humans, end of story? Yet again !
Robert Bissett says:
March 21, 2014 at 2:20 pm
“How is this different from an ice age I wondered. ”
No different. We ARE in an ice age. We are in a pause between two glaciations.
Ice age is when there is ice at the poles.
Mann’s scary linear projection lines should start ~1945 when CO2 emissions took off.
http://www.globalwarmingart.com/images/5/56/Global_Carbon_Emission_by_Type.png
The ‘PreindustrialTemperature’ line should be the average temperature of this interglacial (so far).
Henry Galt says:
March 21, 2014 at 12:42 pm
“During the day time, an arid desert in the tropics where there is less atmospheric water vapour, the surface temperature is higher, and the near surface air warms more than in a humid land location in the tropics.So what happened to the supposed radiative advantage to the surface from the greenhouse effect of the water vapour?”
Good question. It doesn’t add up. I’ve come to the conclusion that radiative exchanges are simply not dominant.
I started giving it some serious thought last weekend, and expressed my thoughts here. Briefly, my most accessible analogy is to a car engine and its cooling system.
The radiator is a mass of metal which stands between the engine and the cooler outside air. As such, it must block radiation from the heated engine (as well as incoming air for surface convection). Based on those facts alone, one might conclude that the radiator makes the engine run hotter than it otherwise would.
But, of course, that is not nearly the whole story. Heat-carrying coolant is continually being pumped through the engine to the radiator, where the extensive area exposed to the outside allows that heat to be efficiently dissipated. The net result is, by design, cooling of the engine.
The GHGs in the atmosphere are the planet’s radiator. They take heat transferred to them, and radiate it into space. But, surface radiation is not the only means of getting the heat up to them. Evaporation and convection are two very powerful means of heat transfer, which allows heat to be channeled to the upper troposphere for efficient radiation to space, just as the automobile radiator prevents direct radiation and convection from the surface of the engine, but receives heat from the engine via pipes and hoses and radiates it away.
Mann has been getting such a butt kicking here lately that I had a bout of compassion and sent him a supply of “Preparation H for the Climate Apocalypse” to ease the pain.
Hansen WAS right after all.
http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c274/richardlinsleyhood/HansenUpdated_zpsb8693b6e.png
We ARE tiptoeing down a dotted line, it just turned out it is Scenario C that’s all 🙂
Oldseadog says:
What happened to the graph showing “increase in temperature due to increase of CO2″ being a logorithmic curve?
This is one chart, here is another.
They clearly show why there is no measurable effect from CO2 at current concentrations: almost all the warming effect from CO2 happened in the first 20 ppmv. Now, it would require a lot more CO2 to have any measurable effect.
This is an important contribution to the political debate about climate. Rod Stuart has made the following comment over at Jo Nova’s site and his FOI requests show that no Australian politician of any of the major parties have received any scientific confirmation of either AGW or CAGW.
http://joannenova.com.au/2014/03/bloggies-voting-closes-late-sunday-your-chance-to-promote-skeptical-science-blogs/#comment-1407668
It is all about power, it is all about control, it was never about the climate.
Jordan says:
March 21, 2014 at 1:46 pm
milodonharlani says:
March 21, 2014 at 1:30 pm
I did wonder about volcanic activity, but a couple of things leave doubt.
One thing is that the region in that WUWT article doesn’t seem to match well with the region of the highest temperature anomaly.
Another is the absence of reporting of recent events … surely there would be a lot of seismic activity showing up around Svalbard?
But still curious to hear if anybody here can shed some light on it
—————————————————————————————
The lack of EMIC waves perhaps or not?
Simultaneous traveling convection vortex events and Pc1 wave bursts at cusp latitudes observed in Arctic Canada and Svalbard
J. L. Posch1,*, M. J. Engebretson1, A. J. Witte1,2, D. L. Murr1,
M. R. Lessard3, M. G. Johnsen4, H. J. Singer5 M. D. Hartinger6
18 OCT 2013
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jgra.50604/abstract?deniedAccessCustomisedMessage=&userIsAuthenticated=false
…”””We have also documented unusually low EMIC wave activity during this deep solar minimum interval, and we attribute the low occurrence percentage of combined events in this study to this minimum.”””…
Multi-instrument observations from Svalbard of a traveling convection vortex, electromagnetic ion cyclotron wave burst, and proton precipitation associated with a bow shock instability
M. J. Engebretson1, T. K. Yeoman2, K. Oksavik3,4,
F. Søraas3,4, F. Sigernes5, J. I. Moen5,6,
M. G. Johnsen7, V. A. Pilipenko1,8, J. L. Posch1,
M. R. Lessard9, B. Lavraud10,11, M. D. Hartinger12,
L. B. N. Clausen6,13, T. Raita14, C. Stolle15
6 JUN 2013
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jgra.50291/abstract?deniedAccessCustomisedMessage=&userIsAuthenticated=false
Abstract
…”””[1] An isolated burst of 0.35 Hz electromagnetic ion cyclotron (EMIC) waves was observed at four sites on Svalbard from 0947 to 0954 UT 2 January 2011, roughly 1 h after local noon. This burst was associated with one of a series of ~50 nT magnetic impulses observed at the northernmost stations of the IMAGE magnetometer array. Hankasalmi SuperDARN radar data showed a west-to-east (antisunward) propagating vortical ionospheric flow in a region of high spectral width ~ 1–2° north of Svalbard, confirming that this magnetic impulse was the signature of a traveling convection vortex. Ground-based observations of the Hα line at Longyearbyen indicated proton precipitation at the same time as the EMIC wave burst, and NOAA-19, which passed over the west coast of Svalbard between 0951 and 0952, observed a clear enhancement of ring current protons at the same latitude. Electron precipitation from this same satellite indicated that the EMIC burst was located on closed field lines, but near to the polar cap boundary. We believe these are the first simultaneous observations of EMIC waves and precipitating energetic protons so near to the boundary of the dayside magnetosphere”””…
From the graphic above, Michael E Mann doth pontificate:
Ironically, the reduction in coal burning needed to lower CO2 emissions also lessens aerosols, sending temperatures across the danger line
So wait…he’s saying if we burn LESS coal it will get WARMER?
Sandi says:
March 21, 2014 at 3:28 pm
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
Very interesting video!
‘Julie Brigham-Grette presents Lake El’ gygytgyn Research’
7:10 – “One of the most astounding things about this [sediment] record is the fact that we’re seeing intervals in the Arctic back through the last few million years that are much, much warmer than anyone expected.”
10:16 – “What this shows is that through the interval stage 11 the climate was in fact 8 degrees [Celsius] warmer than present in summer.”
Good comments on modeling. Bumblebees can’t fly.
http://www.snopes.com/science/bumblebees.asp
Sandi says:
March 21, 2014 at 3:28 pm
Great video by Julie Brigham-Grette’s Lake El’ gygytgyn Research: many periods when it has been much warmer in the Arctic than it is now.
===================
Thanks for that. Climate apparently has always been changing. Who’d a thought……..
This is tempting, the prices look good. Is July the slow season in Las Vegas? Lessee, average high 104°F Lo 80°F, yep that’ll keep me indoors, though I bicycled through easten Oregon in 100°F+ temps in 2003. I don’t expect to do that again….
http://climateconference.heartland.org/ says in part:
Willis too!
Registration $129 (includes several meals) ($99 for student/senior).
George
“Now, Watts is NOT a unit of “radiation”, or electromagnetic radiation energy, it is a unit of POWER, which is a RATE of supply/ flow/ transport/ conversion/ utilization/ whatever, and Watts per meter squared is the areal density of that POWER.”
Power = energy/time. Watts/m^2 is radiative flux, the unit used in Stefan-Boltzmann law of radiation
“Power is an instantaneous quantity; and remember Mother Nature does NOT do averages. She “uses” the energy, at exactly the rate she gets it.”
Yes, but humans do averaging for computational purposes. Your car’s power is instantaneous but you can average it by this formula: fuel consumed x energy content of fuel x thermal efficiency of engine divided by operating time. That’s the average power of the car
“In the case of the earth, that rate density is about 1362 Watts per meter squared, from the sun, and at that rate, it can turn a blacktop strip, in a tropical dry desert into a near 100 deg. C source of thermal radiant energy in the LWIR region.”
1362 W/m^2 is the solar flux for earth’s cross-sectional area. Divide it by 4 to convert to earth’s surface area
“At Kevin’s 342 W/m^2, no normal absorbing surface, can ever reach zero degree C, even after 30 years of absorption. Mother Nature DOES NOT do averaging.”
Yes, this is why we have greenhouse effect. It is based on observation, the actual temperature of earth’s surface vs. theoretical calculation.
All,
This is my first response posting here, so please go easy on me.
It seems to me that the major goal of the core of the “Climate Change Movement” (CAGW) has little or nothing to do with Science (as many of the posters here have stated). The goal is money, power and control using various theories and mechanisms (including Socialism in its abstract form). Of course, there are many “useful idiots” (as Lenin would say) who go along with the Socialist (“Climate Change”) Cause for their own naïve reasons (not coincidentally the same tactics used by Lenin are now being used by the leaders of the “Climate Change” movement). Any attempts to use Science to counter the political and power objectives of this movement will be met with more political responses (not Science, because it is not about Science). Unfortunately for those of us who value data, objective reasoning and a search for the truth, we are definitely in the minority and we are definitely NOT the principal power brokers in the world!! The use of “Climate Science” as window-dressing for this political/socialist/power politics goal means that they do NOT NEED to be objective or even to convince a majority of those who are in a position to support/oppose them. The ONLY goal that is necessary for them to succeed is that they sow sufficient doubt or generate sufficient political capital to achieve their real objectives. Unfortunately, despite the overwhelming scientific evidence and even the majority of voters who are skeptical of the catastrophism preached by their adherents, the Climate Change Movement is succeeding in its objectives. Take the recent example of the change in language of the President using the phrase “Carbon Pollution” so successfully. He doesn’t have to be objective or truthful just an effective communicator (liar) to achieve his objectives. If convinces enough people that “carbon pollution” is harmful then he succeeds in his goal. Frustrating!
I fear that we will have to change tactics in order to counter their spin and propaganda or we will fail.
I very much welcome suggestions on how to counter the Spin being thrown at us every day.
I.Wylie in Seattle
Australia might be about to join the shale gas revolution.
The government of Queensland recently passed a law giving Aussies a say over mining company access to their land. This might seem incredible to Americans, but until this law, if the farmer didn’t cut a deal with the mining company within 40 days, the mining company could simply force their way in and start digging.
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/queensland-to-tighten-rules-for-mining-on-farmland-20140320-353v0.html
This might seem a dream situation for miners, but it has actually been a disaster. Any new mining technology, such as fracking, has been vigorously opposed by farmers – they would rather see the entire technology shut down, than risk dispossession of their land.
Now Australia is interested in exporting gas, the government has a new problem – if gas exports are successful, but supply of gas doesn’t rise to meet demand, the result will be a politically deeply unpopular rise in domestic gas prices. So the Aussie government has to do something to break the deadlock, and encourage development of new gas resources. Looks like at least one state has finally woken up that the only way to encourage farmers to support shale gas is to make sure they get fairly compensated.
Since we agreed to refer to trashreSceptical Science as SkS, can we at least shorten Scientific American to ScAm? 🙂
(Sorry if I’m unknowingly stealing this idea from someone else.)
Washington Post Hides Reporter’s Ties to Democratic Group, Center for American Progress, in Attacks on Koch. pic.twitter.com/Hb5uDrsVkK h/t Richard Pearcey Facebook
Conflict of interest challenges dog Post
J. Philip Peterson says:
March 21, 2014 at 12:22 pm
I thought Michael Mann had lost all credibility as a climate scientist.
How come he is allowed to write an article in Scientific American?
Is it only on WUWT that he has no credibility?
Poor deduction J.Phil…Michael Mann has lost all credibility and so has Scientific American.
I just think you’re doing a great job.
george e. smith says:
March 21, 2014 at 2:04 pm
>>>>>
Yup!
D.J. Hawkins says:
March 21, 2014 at 2:06 pm
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/03/21/open-thread-14/#comments
(What’s the emoticon for a primal scream?)
You could try >:-((O))
==========================================================
Hey, hey, hey… Looks like you’re channeling a little digital Munch there. Not sure how to get the ‘hands’ up beside the ‘head’ though.
Thanks! D.J.
.
.
.
.
When seconds matter, always remember that help is only minutes away.
Peter, Sandi
Since arctic amplification is 2.5 to 3 times the globally averaged warming, how much more warming, on the global average, would we need to surpass the MIS-11 temperature?
In addition,
Simulated mean temperature of the warmest month (MTWM) at Lake El’gygytgyn for preindustrial and modern conditions (10.3 and 12ºC, respectively) compare favorably with 20th century reanalysis products (14), but are slightly warmer than limited ground observations, which range from ~8.3-10ºC
source:
http://www.geo.umass.edu/lake_e/SOM1222135s.pdf
since her graphic shows the lower range, it can be assumed that her statement was indicating 8 degrees warmer from pre-industrial temperatures (or 4-6 degrees warmer from modern temperatures).
lenbilen 2:14pm
The last line of his poem is —
“A transfer of wealth, a solution”
This thought is the truest thing I have ever seen said about increasing atmospheric CO2 levels. Something that increases agricultural output world wide is the holy grail of agricultural science. Talk about your Green Revolution!
Increasing atmospheric CO2 levels increases the wealth of the world’s poorest. It ends starvation and misery and allows industrial development. A full belly allows people to spend time bettering other aspects of their lives. It is indeed the greatest transfer of wealth in the history of the world — and costs absolutely nothing! It really is — creating wealth out of thin air!
Many thanks to lenliben for pointing out the obvious — a difficult thing to do. We poets really are the world’s great thinkers.
Eugene WR Gallun
OK. Here’s a quick ‘model’ but based on actual regression of unadjusted measured temperature using the Central England yearly Temperature record (the longest available over 350 years from 1659 (LIA) to 2010 from three gauges in a triangle spread over central England). The yearly temperature in 1659 was 8.83 deg C – take it as the starting point. The linear regression equation over 350 years is T = 0.0025 x Year (AD) + 4.5523. Assume temperature keeps rising in the long term at the same rate.
Substitute:
2000 yields 9.55 deg C
2030 yields 9.63 deg C (9.63 – 8.83 = 0.8 deg C since 1659)
2046 yields 9.67 “ ( 9.67 – 8.83 = 0.84 deg since 1659)
2050 yields 9.68 “ (9.68 – 8.83 = 0.85 deg C since 1659)
And there is no CO2 signature evident from the record.
Mann o Mann you’re dreaming and in the Twilight Zone!
Tweeted this since Saturday 3/22/14 is World Water Day.
@rsowell: There is no water shortage on #worldwaterday, Only a lack of distribution. #NEWTAP
http://t.co/VRCcxUJs73
By the way, now there is a title for a paper.
INCREASING CO2 LEVELS — CREATING WEALTH OUT OF THIN AIR
Feel free to use it.
Eugene WR Gallun
@ aaron at 1:47 pm
“Is there anyone here with financial forensics skills? I’m curious how much money Saudi’s, Russians, etc. might be using to prevent energy development.”
Saudis used their pricing influence in the late 1970s to set world oil price just below the point where others could profitably convert coal to liquids. The price has remained essentially the same ever since, adjusted for inflation. So, in that sense, Saudis have prevented energy development.
In a much-delayed response, US EPA recently passed regulations that will encourage coal-to-gas plants with CO2 capture and storage, CCS. A commercial coal gasification plant is under construction in Mississippi, USA, the Kemper facility. The official EPA reason for the coal regulations is to prevent global warming. The end result will be coal-to-liquids plants and the end of OPEC’s domination of world energy markets.
From one of my speeches on Peak Oil, in 2011: “$32 was the price Saudi Arabia chose for oil in 1980. That was the highest price they could get without triggering the USA building our coal-to-liquids plants. However, it is a fact that today, $80 per barrel is the same as that $32 in 1980, adjusted for inflation. Saudis maintain the price by adjusting production, and bring the price down to $80 as soon as possible. This happened in 2008, most recently. If the price of oil gets much above $80, we will drill for and produce much more oil, just like we did the last time that oil price shot up.We found oil in Alaska, the North Sea, Indonesia, and other places. Therefore, we will not see a doubling of oil price ever again. The threat of converting US coal to oil is simply too real. We know how.”
Speech is here: http://sowellslawblog.blogspot.com/2011/04/speech-on-peak-oil-and-us-energy-policy.html
I’ve been waiting for Open Thread to pose this question:
How many non-alarmists aka “deniers” are non-religious or atheists?
And is there a correlation with disbelief in CAGW and disbelief in religion?
Because it always irritates me when I see the blatant stereotyping that the alarmists put forth. The stereotype of a non-alarmist is something like: religious, extreme right, anti-science, creationist, anti environmentalist, not to mention the Lewandowski inspired moon landing hoax nutter stuff.
FWIW, I am an atheist, and tend to be conservative on fiscal issues and liberal on social issues.
Just wondering how many out there are like me. And would it be worthwhile to put forth a poll to counter the stereotypes?
Having been raised to be religious I had to go through the disbelieving process first. Very similar to the process where I went from believing 100% in Al Gore circa 2006 and then slowly realizing I was being propagandized by the BBC’s (& media in general) endless scare stories circa 2008. So at long last, I am non-religious and non-alarmist. Do they go hand in hand? For me they do, both start with asking questions of the status quo and challenging one’s own beliefs.
Cheers!
george e. smith says:
March 21, 2014 at 2:04 pm
————————————
Fantastic comment. Such clarity and logic is very refreshing. You are right in that you cannot point to any thing in the universe, any datapoint and say “there is an average”. Averages just do not exist in nature.
Dr. Strangelove says:
March 21, 2014 at 5:09 pm
————————————
You have nicely proved George E Smith’s point that any use of any average is unscientific, which by your argument means that the “greenhouse effect’ is also unscientific and it is not based on any actual observational data.
Kozlowski see: Christianity and climate change: the relationship between God and green. A new survey suggests that evangelical Christians in the US are more likely to be climate sceptics.
Also The Cornwall Alliance especially An Evangelical Declaration on Global Warming
Beware noble cause corruption. See William Briggs: Global Warming Hanger-On Says Ends Justify The Means. Climate alarmists are following the principles of atheistic governments in the 20th century caused more than 100 million deaths of their own citizens.
Marcos says:
March 21, 2014 at 2:35 pm
why does his graphic show the last 18 or so years as warmer than the 1998 El Nino year?
—————————————————————-
Yes,well spotted. It’s called ‘artistic licence’. or in layman’s terms- ‘Fanciful Rubbish’ !
The graph. It looks to me that the climate sensitivity extrapolations begin at or before 2000, but it’s 2014, so you can add 14 years to the 2036, the 2046 and other “2 degree C danger thresholds” making them 2050 and 2060.
The temperature increase. No, it’s not a 2 degrees temp increase, it’s a 1.2 degree increase from the pre-industrial times since temps have already increased 0.8 C degrees since then. Do scientists say humanity will suffer serious harm with a 1.2 degree increase from present temperatures? Temps have increased about 2 degrees C since little ice age times.
The climate sensitivity. Estimates are all over the place with outliers like Hansen and Lindzen above and below the the IPCC 4.5 to 1.5 C estimate. However, there’s evidence that climate scientist estimates are converging around 2 C degrees or a little lower in the “lukewarmer” range.
From eyeballing the graph (and adding 14 years) it looks like the 2 C degree threshold happens around 2080 with 2 degree sensitivity and 2110 with 1.5 degrees sensitivity.
I would love to bet Mann or anyone else that our global temps do not increase 1.2 C degrees by 2036.
Well.
The “scientific” american propaganda sheet doesn’t show the computer models as they were 15 years ago. Like this one.
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/clip_image012_thumb1.jpg?w=494&h=417
It is hype following the old saying: “If at first you don’t succeed, try try and try and try… again”
I stopped reading the “scientific” american years ago. Popular Mechanics has more credibility.
Kozlowski says:
March 21, 2014 at 7:06 pm
———————————-
Triple like.
Fiscal conservative, social liberal.
…. not totally atheist though. Have you read “The Age of Spiritual Machines” and congeners ?
It is very odd how the models seem to be more real to Mann than reality is. (For the sake of argument, I am assuming sincerity on his part, which I acknowledge is not necessarily a correct assumption.) He would be at ease in Hollywood, I suppose, and among educators who do not distinguish between an actual, real weapon and a plastic, toy weapon. I have a hunch that a lot of the problems we have in contemporary society can be chalked up to such people.
Here’s a post on the demise of Scientific American in the 90s:
http://sandwalk.blogspot.com/2007/04/demise-of-scientific-american.html
The author has nothing to do with climate science, he is a biochemist. A commenter points out that the magazine went downmarket to occupy the space of Discover magazine.
I remember the old magazine form the time of the 1970s. It was pretty serious then.
for those looking at the Saudis – here is my very favourite article, which i’ve kept since it was published in 2001. worth reading every word. interview with the powerful & enigmatic saudi oil minister (1962-1986), Sheikh Yamani. in this excerpt he is talking about 1973 when OPEC hiked crude prices by 400 per cent:
January 2001: UKObserver: Saudi dove in the oil slick
Sheikh Yamani tells Oliver Morgan and Faisal Islam why a production cut would hurt everyone – even Opec
Special report: the petrol war
At this point he (Yamani) makes an extraordinary claim: ‘I am 100 per cent sure that the Americans were behind the increase in the price of oil. The oil companies were in in real trouble at that time, they had borrowed a lot of money and they needed a high oil price to save them.’
He says he was convinced of this by the attitude of the Shah of Iran, who in one crucial day in 1974 moved from the Saudi view, that a hike would be dangerous to Opec because it would alienate the US, to advocating higher prices.
‘King Faisal sent me to the Shah of Iran, who said: “Why are you against the increase in the price of oil? That is what they want? Ask Henry Kissinger – he is the one who wants a higher price”.’
Yamani contends that proof of his long-held belief has recently emerged in the minutes of a secret meeting on a Swedish island, where UK and US officials determined to orchestrate a 400 per cent increase in the oil price.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2001/jan/14/globalrecession.oilandpetrol
i tried to confirm this “secret meeting” on a Swedish Island for years, until i found out that the 1973 Bilderberg Meeting was held at the Grand Hotel Saltsjobaden in the Stockholm archipelago, referenced as an islet in wikipedia.
1973 Bilderberg Meeting Participant List – Saltsjobaden Conference, Sweden
Levy, Walter J. – United States
http://publicintelligence.net/1973-bilderberg-meeting-participant-list/
just looked for further confirmation & found the following, mentioning a Walter Levy, whose name i have checked on the above list, & he was there, so i’ve included it with the link:
(scroll down) The Bilderberg Group Planned to Increase Oil Prices by 400% in 1973
It’s well-known that at Bilderberg Group meetings, participants discuss (in secret) the globalist agenda and issues pertaining around the new world order. However, what is not commonly known is the fact that in 1973 the Bilderberg Group planned to increase petrol prices by up to as much as 400%.
In May 1973, with the dramatic fall of the dollar, ‘Prince Bernhard’s Bilderberg group heard an American participant, Walter Levy, outline a ‘scenario’ for an imminent 400 per cent increase in OPEC petroleum revenues. The purpose of the secret Saltsjöbaden meeting was not to prevent the expected oil price shock, but rather to plan how to manage the about-to-be-created flood of oil dollars, a process from U.S. Secretary of State Kissinger later called ‘recycling the petrodollar flows.’…
Finally, he then projected an OPEC Middle East oil revenue rise, which would translate into just over 400 per cent, the same level Kissinger was soon to demand of the Shah (See images Below)…
http://www.theglobalistreport.com/bilderberg-group-facts/
If you go directly to the SCAM page here you can read the comments. Practically all the sceptical posts have been deleted but the pro AGW responses to those deleted comments remain. A number of us with sceptical views have been banned for daring to question SCAM & the Great Mann on this & the related article. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/earth-will-cross-the-climate-danger-threshold-by-2036/
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/earth-will-cross-the-climate-danger-threshold-by-2036/
What would the increase in temperature be if the average temperature of the Medieval Warm Period was used instead of 1850?
So it should be no problem to let the rest of us have a look.
Look, I am on your side in all this. Don’t get me wrong.
But it’s not as simple as that. They can’t just snap their fingers and release it all. It would be necessary to do a massive redacting job. They’ve been read. There is nothing there of note. The well has been tapped. Anthony will tell you that; he knows. Anthony is amazingly trustworthy, especially considering what he has gone through; which I know, personally.
If you have ever been involved in anything like that you will know it it is simply against human nature to “save the best for last”. That kind of behavior is from the more farfetched spy novels and RPG games.
But be happy. It was a bases-loaded triple that put us up by a run.
“george e. smith says:
March 21, 2014 at 2:04 pm”
I too accept averages are not science, are meaningless and do not occur in nature. I wish I could express it as well as you have done.
btw just wanted to say i can’t vouch for the documents in the Bilderberg/globalistreport link, as i don’t know the website at all, & didn’t look further once i found the excerpts i posted. however, it is all very interesting, given how the ’73 oil crisis narrative has been spun over the decades.
I saw that the NFL Rules Committee was considering moving the goalposts and I wondered if they were bringing in M Mann as an expert consultant….
Kozlowski says:
March 21, 2014 at 7:06 pm
How many non-alarmists aka “deniers” are non-religious or atheists?
————————————–
I’m completely non-religious myself – to all intents and purposes atheist.
I’m also a lot more socially liberal and far less enamored of free-market capitalism than the sceptical stereotype. I pretty much resist dogma and ideology, whatever its source.
Sunstein doing a Lew? says it’s adapted from the opening chapter of Cass’s new book, published this week. “adapted” might explain the inclusion of the Malaysian Airliner & Ukraine in the article. MSM like it – Miami Herald, Japan Times, Canberra Times & more have picked it up:
19 March: MalayMailOnline: Cass R. Sunstein: Everywhere you look, there’s conspiracy afoot
Why do people accept such theories?
The first explanation points to people’s predispositions. Some of us count as “conspiracists” in the sense that we have a strong inclination to accept such theories. Not surprisingly, conspiracists tend to have a sense of personal powerlessness; they are also more likely to conspire themselves.
Here’s an excellent predictor of whether people will accept a particular conspiracy theory: Do they accept other conspiracy theories?…
Remarkably, people who accept one conspiracy theory tend to accept another conspiracy theory that is logically inconsistent with it…
Efforts to establish the truth might even be self- defeating, because they can increase suspicion and thus strengthen the very beliefs that they were meant to correct.
Such efforts are far more likely to succeed if they begin by affirming, rather than attacking, the basic values and commitments of those who are inclined to accept the theory.
Conspiracists like to say that the truth is out there. They’re right. The challenge is to persuade them to find their way toward it.
http://www.themalaymailonline.com/opinion/bloomberg/article/everywhere-you-look-theres-conspiracy-afoot-cass-r.-sunstein
(Cass R. Sunstein, the Robert Walmsley university professor at Harvard Law School, is a Bloomberg View columnist. This article is adapted from the opening chapter of his new book, “Conspiracy Theories and Other Dangerous Ideas,” which Simon & Schuster will publish today. Sunstein is a former administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs.)
Re:
HGW xx/7 says:
March 21, 2014 at 5:18 pm
Since we agreed to refer to trashreSceptical Science as SkS, can we at least shorten Scientific American to ScAm? 🙂
Excelent suggestion. Already using it 🙂
I love the blatant data manipulation Mann makes on the “Faux Pause” portion of the white line data representing “historic temps” (Manntoric temps is more appropriate).
It doesn’t even come close to matching reality:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1850/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1850/trend
Had Scientific American even taken a cursory glance at actual historic temp data, they would have spotted Mann’s obvious manipulation of data..
Is there anything approaching intellectual and scientific integrity left in the scientific publication community?….
A rhetorical question….
evanmjones says:
March 21, 2014 at 8:47 pm
I think you’re off the mark re: climategate 3.0. My understanding is that the file, with supposedly 220K emails, has been released to a few (5?) selected persons – as a security measure. The file itself is encrypted, with a key of length >1k. The key has not been released. So none of the 5 have seen the contents.
You should be able to find discussions of this on WUWT, Climate Audit, and/or the Air Vent.
rml
Yet more bleating….this is from the new American Academy of Sciences document “What We Know” –
Based on well- established evidence, about 97% of climate scientists have concluded that human-caused climate change is happening.
http://whatweknow.aaas.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/AAAS-What-We-Know.pdf
*ahem* I’d expect the gross majority of “climate” scientists to agree with the mainstream!! What about environmental engineers, astronomers, biologists (myself), physicians and others? Are we less trained/skilled than these climate scientists?
Bob Lansford says:
March 21, 2014 at 10:16 pm
Well, so much for my memory. Totally wrong. evanmjones is right.
See for instance http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/03/13/climategate-3-0-has-occurred-the-password-has-been-released/
Sigh.
rml
@jai Mitchell, Peter, Sandi
>Since arctic amplification is 2.5 to 3 times the globally averaged warming, how much more warming, on the global average, would we need to surpass the MIS-11 temperature?
Good point. If Arctic amplification is 3 times global average, suppose, then the rest of the world will warm far less than the Arctic when the mystical 2 degrees is reached.
M Mann proposes that 2 degrees of warming will precipitate a global environmental calamity, even though it frequently gets 10 degrees warmer than average on a hot day all over the world. OK, suppose he and his minions are correct for a moment. Let’s look a little deeper into the numbers this implies.
Please realize that 2 degrees of total average warming with the whole Arctic being 3 times the amount the rest of the world warms (not three times 2 degrees, the average is +2 degrees).
Then the rise in the rest of the world will necessarily be less than 2 degrees so that the average =2, correct?
This being the case, and the average is 2 degrees up, then most of the world will 2 degree overall average) or are we to believe what Mann says, the global average being 2 degrees higher will be a catastrophe? Inquiring minds want to know exactly when this thermageddon will arrive.
I think the ‘2 degrees’ is nothing more than the pure speculation that was Milton’s inner circle of Hell and Mann’s temperature hockey stick. It is just more Renaissance alchemy turning coprolite into gold.
Typo (apologies):
This being the case, and the overall average is +2 degrees, then either most of the world will be <2 degree warmer (if we believe what Mann says) and the average = +2, or, must the rest of the world be +2 degrees and the Arctic +6 degrees before a catastrophe happens? Inquiring minds want to know exactly when this thermageddon will arrive.
I think the ‘2 degrees’ is nothing more than the pure speculation that was Milton’s cold, liquid, inner circle of Hell and Mann’s temperature hockey stick. It is just more Renaissance alchemy turning coprolite into gold.
J. Philip Peterson says:
March 21, 2014 at 12:22 pm
“I thought Michael Mann had lost all credibility as a climate scientist.
How come he is allowed to write an article in Scientific American?”
Birds of a feather.
SciAm lost all credibility a LOOONG time ago.
My response: Yes! Yes!! YES!!!!!
Sad, isn’t it?
@Peter Yates Thanks very good video
If one ever had questions about Mann’s credibility, this should put them to rest. Labeling something that is real and has been measured as “faux” meaning false, is the height of untruthfulness. His own graph shows it as measured temperature. Yet he calls it false. If he had said temporary OK I could buy that. But it can’t be both measured and false. It’s obviously a pause.
Truthseeker
Nothing “unscientific” on using averages. It’s a simple mathematical procedure. FYI greenhouse effect is actually measured from downwelling LWIR. The sun does not emit LWIR.
Frank
Yes England has been warming since the Little Ice Age. The world is warming a bit faster than central England.
george e. smith says:
March 21, 2014 at 2:04 pm
First, the Trenberth and Kiehl diagram it is not a ‘Radiation Budget’, it is an ‘Energy Budget’ and it includes other forms of heat transfer besides radiation transfer.
As someone has already told you, Power is simply Energy per Second and watts per square metre specifies how much Energy one square metre receives in one second. There is nothing complicated about this, I hope.
The energy budget diagram, whilst not being exact, is still very useful. In science we try to measure things. This is how we make progress. The school of thought that says we don’t know everything and so we know nothing does not advance anything very much.
The great misunderstanding is that something receiving a heat input of 342 W/sq.m is somehow limited in the temperature it can achieve. The temperature is governed by two things, the heat input and the heat loss. If the rate of heat loss is restricted by some insulation (say a blanket or a layer of CO2) then the temperature of the object will rise. If not it will be cooler. You cannot determine an objects final temperature by its heat input alone.
As for the discussion on averages, I admit to not understanding the point you were trying to make. It seemed more semantics than substance.
IWylie says:
March 21, 2014 at 5:14 pm
Well here in the UK we can all vote for the United Kingdom Independence Party.
jai mitchell says:
March 21, 2014 at 5:59 pm
“Since arctic amplification is 2.5 to 3 times the globally averaged warming, how much more warming, on the global average, would we need to surpass the MIS-11 temperature?”
UAH Arctic
http://climatedatablog.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/uah-arctic.png
UAH Antarctic
http://climatedatablog.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/uah-antarctic.png
The data falsifies your claim that the poles are ‘warming’ faster than the rest of the planet at this point in time.
The range of the figures at the poles (in anomaly terms) is larger, but the trend is not.
MikeB says:
March 22, 2014 at 2:26 am
If the rate of heat loss is restricted by some insulation (say a blanket or a layer of CO2) then the temperature of the object will rise.
it depends where the heat source is.
Kevin,
No, it doesn’t matter where the heat source is. All that matters is that the heat source (wherever it is) is supplying heat at a given rate (i.e. 342 Joules per second in this case).
Really, it’s not hard. See….
http://scienceofdoom.com/2010/07/26/do-trenberth-and-kiehl-understand-the-first-law-of-thermodynamics/
and …
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/17/the-steel-greenhouse/
“MikeB says:
March 22, 2014 at 2:26 am”
Ignoring semantics for a moment (Not sure where you were going with that BTW), can you explain how we can measure a global average temperature?
How is global mean temperature estimated? For clarification, when we speak of global temperature we mean at the surface of the planet, where we live. i.e. not the stratosphere, not the interior of the Earth. How is it measured? See here.
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/originals/surface_temp.pdf
Re I Wylie
Agree with your thoughts….What we lack is a credible, high profile. media savvy spokesperson whose personal integrity and scientific credibilty are beyond dispute…if only Richard Feynman were still with us…I’d like to think he’d blow the scam right out the water….
“MikeB says:
March 22, 2014 at 4:09 am”
No. I said MEASURED. Estimates and averages are not measures! Please try again!
“MikeB says:
March 22, 2014 at 4:09 am”
You didn’t read the paper at the link you provide. I count the use of the word “model” 20 times.
Worm and parcel with the lay. Turn and serve the other way.
Sailors rhyme to aid remembering which way to cover and protect line from chaff and weather.
(sorry was inspired by the right hand lay and the left hand lay of the ropes in the image.
Patrick.
The paper I linked to was by Anthony Watts.
You didn’t read it either did you?
You never learn like that!!!!
MikeB says:
March 22, 2014 at 2:26 am
“As for the discussion on averages, I admit to not understanding the point you were trying to make. It seemed more semantics than substance.”
So you think that an animal in Siberia in winter can easily survive -60 deg C because the yearly average is only -10 deg C.
Because you just said the actual -60 deg C is only semantics.
Arctic sea ice still going up 2 weeks after usual top and making sea ice blog commentators who called the top on 10/3 2014 red faced. May be the year it goes back to average or a scary fall.
[Your 10/3 2014 is 10 March 2014, right? Mod]
Jordan says:
March 21, 2014 at 1:21 pm
“While on the topic of the Arctic, does anybody have a reason for the positive sea temperature anomaly around Svalbard? It has been there all year.”
This year there has been no polar vortex, just low pressure regions wandering all over the place, randomly moving pockets of cold air southward. By chance, they missed Svalbard. Next year may be different.
DirkH
I don’t think I said anything about animals in Siberia and so your sentence begin with ‘so’ is obviously a non-sequitur . For your benefit that means not logical.
If I know that the average rainfall in the England is 990 mm per year then this ‘average’ is a meaningful figure. It allows me to compare England to the Gobi desert for instance. Furthermore, if I am told that the rainfall last year was 1300 mm, then I know that 2013 was a very wet year, which it was. So averages are obviously useful and meaningful in certain contexts.
But, if anyone thinks that by forbidding the concept of ‘averages’ that greenhouse gas theory is going to collapse, think again. You’re going to have to do much better than that.
As for the Siberian tiger, and tigers everywhere, good luck to them..
Regarding the open water northeast of Svalbard this winter:
You do not need undersea volcanoes to explain it. I’ve been watching the movement of the ice all winter, as a hobby, and it has been unusual. What would be more usual is for the Transpolar Drift to bring ice across the Pole and down into Fram Strait, which tends to eventually bring ice against the northeast coast of Svalbard. Also the polar easterlies scoot ice along the ice-edge boundary in Barents Sea against the northwest and west coast of Svalbard. Although these two motions did happen this winter, they were also interrupted by shifting winds that moved ice away from Svalbard.
The most interesting motions defied the Transpolar Flow, and pushed ice towards Canada, building the amounts of ice in the Beaufort Gyre. While that does increase ice in that part of the Arctic Ocean, it robs the area around Svalbard of its usual quota of imported ice.
Most of the ice pressing towards Svalbard this winter did not come from the Transpolar Drift, but from the Barents Sea, robbing that area of ice and resulting in a lot more open water. I’m surprised Alarmists aren’t making a bigger deal about that open water, for it is at “unprecedented” levels. (IE since 1979, and ignoring historical reports from the pre-satellite era.) This shows in the cryosphere graph: http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/recent365.anom.region.6.html
The openness of Barents Sea is largely due to the weather pattern that exported cold down over North America and imported milder air up over Europe. Not only did this mean there were times there was no cold air available to form ice in Barents Sea, it also meant that when the ice did form it was exposed to strong winds that moved it out. There were several good surges of ice right by Svalbard, resulting in increases of ice in Fram Strait even as there were decreases in Barents Sea. Briefly the extents were even above normal in the Greenland Sea south of Fram Strait: http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/recent365.anom.region.5.html
This differs from the situation in 2007, when a lot of the ice that flushed south through Fram Strait came across the Pole on the Transpolar Drift, reducing the amounts of ice as far away as Bering Strait. This time the flush comes from a smaller area, largely Barents Sea.
I’ve been watching the situation for years now, and one huge misconception I originally had was that the ice up there is static. FAIL. It is amazingly mobile. The “North Pole Camera” only starts its life near the Pole. Usually it is south of Fram Strait in only six months, where the break-up of ice ends its life. The GPS from last years “North Pole Camera” wound up on the northeast coast of Iceland last January, having drifted over 1600 miles since the prior April.
While some of the ice piling up north of Canada is over five years old, most ice up by the Pole is so mobile it has a hard time seeing a second birthday.
My impression is that the ice up there is increasing on the Pacific side, and at a sort of “low tide” on the Atlantic side.
Correction to third and fourth sentences of above comment. (I got my compass points mixed up.)
“What would be more usual is for the Transpolar Drift to bring ice across the Pole and down into Fram Strait, which tends to eventually bring ice against the northwest coast of Svalbard. Also the polar easterlies scoot ice along the ice-edge boundary in Barents Sea against the northeast and east coast of Svalbard.”
“MikeB says:
March 22, 2014 at 4:37 am”
Maybe, however can you please explain how a global average is measured.
I found this to be interesting but, climate science ignorant, don’t know what to make of it…
Antarctic moss revived after 1,500-year ‘deep freeze’
To a novice like myself, it appears to suggest at least a localized warm to cold to warm climate cycle within the 1500 year period.
I started reading SciAm as a subscriber in the early 60s as a high school student (and still have most of those issues in the attic) – didn’t understand half of what I read at that time, but knew I wanted to know a lot more of what it was all about. Now, when I read SciAm (which is rarely anymore), I still don’t understand half of what I read, but for very different reasons.
J. Phill Peterson – see you’ve popped in again. Your education is lagging, you need to get on with it – you have a long way to go to catch up.
“somersetsteve says:
March 22, 2014 at 4:10 am
Re I Wylie
Agree with your thoughts….What we lack is a credible, high profile. media savvy spokesperson whose personal integrity and scientific credibilty are beyond dispute…if only Richard Feynman were still with us…I’d like to think he’d blow the scam right out the water….”
Many of those people already exist. It wouldn’t matter. The agenda, well funded, is to blow those people out of the water. What you can’t refute with facts, you steamroll with stupid. The money brokers in this fight are well schooled in this. You can still buy Manhattan for $24 worth of beads, baubles and bright shiny things.
The Royal Society recently answered readers questions on climate change. Here are the answers:
http://royalsociety.org/uploadedFiles/Royal_Society_Content/policy/projects/climate-evidence-causes/google-moderator-top-20-climate-answers.pdf
I asked #3, would be interested in your feedback on their answer.
Caleb says:
March 22, 2014 at 5:46 am
I always find this the most interesting way of looking at the Arctic Ice.
http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/hycomARC/navo/arcticictn_nowcast_anim30d.gif
It gives a living, breathing, view of the last 30 days which can often help explain why the nominal ‘totals’ differ day to day as well see exactly the sort of ice flows you are describing.
MikeB says:
March 22, 2014 at 5:36 am
“DirkH
I don’t think I said anything about animals in Siberia and so your sentence begin with ‘so’ is obviously a non-sequitur . For your benefit that means not logical.”
Well, as temperatures of -60 deg C are only a semantic point we don’t have to worry about them, n’est-ce pas?
Do you also think that heat waves are purely semantic?
So let’s agree that we have an average temperature of 14.5 deg C now; a little too cold for me but easy to handle with a little bit of clothing.
If CO2AGW comes to pass we might end up with 16.5 deg C in 2100 so we can strip off a little bit of clothing and we’re done.
Whatever temperature really occurs anywhere on the globe is clearly just semantics.
Isn’t it so, Mike?
Open thread’s I like.
Noticed multiple magnetic pole shift’s in the ice and sediment core video, hmmm.
Mr. Smith’s essay is intriguing.
Color me Agnostic.
MikeB says:
March 22, 2014 at 2:26 am
“If the rate of heat loss is restricted by some insulation (say a blanket or a layer of CO2) then the temperature of the object will rise.”
Nobody has ever used an IR-active triatomic gas as insulation. If that worked you’d fill double glazed windows with water vapor which would insulate even better than CO2. But you don’t because it doesn’t. Hint. Re-emission, Kirchhoff’s Law.
Will someone give some feedback on this prog on Fox TV I saw a link on FB
“Wow, nice lineup from my friends at The Independents. Skeptical Environmentalist Bjorn Lomborg, Bill Nye the Science Guy, Reason’s Ron Bailey, Cato’s Jerry Taylor, Dan Weiss, NYT’s John Tierney, and global warming denier extraordinaire Marc Moreno”
Last Friday 21st and repeated 7pm Sunday
http://reason.com/blog/2014/03/21/tonight-on-the-independents-environmenta#comment
show page where video should appear soon
but no extra info
http://www.foxbusiness.com/on-air/the-independents/#
RE: RichardLH says:
March 22, 2014 at 7:42 am
I agree and personally refer to that animation often. It really does give you a sense of how mobile the ice is, and how it pulses with the passage of each storm. (The other Navy maps on the “Sea Ice Page” can also be animated, and give you the same sort of feel for the flows of ice.)
What has been most interesting to watch is the slow growth of the thicker ice shown by yellow in the animation you link to. Yellow represents ice over ten feet thick, compared to ice around six feet thick by the Pole and ice only a couple feet thick around Svalbard. A couple of years ago the yellow ice had been reduced to a slender strip north of Greenland and the Canadian Archipelago, but now yellow ice forms a far fatter backwards “L” shape and is entering waters north of Bering Strait that were ice-free two summers ago, after that notable gale. It will be much harder to get those waters ice-free this summer.
(There is probably space here for off-color jokes about Alarmists and the color “yellow,” especially “yellow snow,” but I am going to demonstrate good taste by stifling my sense of humor.)
DirkH
One of the aims of double glazing is to keep the moisture out. Filling the intervening gap with water vapour is a bad idea because it condenses and mists the window. I think that’s why they don’t do that.
But you don’t think logically do you? Why didn’t you just say fill it with CO2 instead. Of course, there is no point in doing that either since the glass itself will block IR transmission as well as CO2, in fact a lot better.
But don’t give up hope. Over at Roy Spencer’s site there is a meeting of the Cotton Club. There, Doug Cotton is describing his mind experiment #123987/001 using gravito-thermal hyperbole and a version of physics that no other scientist could understand. Maybe you could help out? You could even elaborate on your theory about Siberian wildlife perhaps? Take Patrick with you.
I have started a new blog. Post 1 surveyed the actual scientific literature (not the imaginary one Pediatricians and many others believe must surely exist) and showed the literature quite clearly establishes that vaccines in the first months of life, especially containing aluminum, are damaging. Post 2 remarked on how the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies wrote a 270pp survey last year exactly on the question of safety of the vaccine series, and managed to ignore all of the dozens of papers cited in my survey while finding no other cogent papers on the subject (but discussing large numbers of papers on strawman issues, sound familiar?)
Post 4 points out that the examples of Vaccinism and Global Warmism falsify the mental model almost all of us have of how people such as Pediatricians and Climate Scientists form their opinions. It discusses instead the model of Gustav Le Bon (1895) which explains the observed data much better, including aspects such as the punishing of deniers and the religious intolerance. Le Bon’s book, The Crowd, although not widely cited today, was arguably the text that had the most influence on the shape of the 20th century since it served as a manual for, among others, Teddy Roosevelt, Adolf Hitler, Lenin and Stalin, and Mussolini.
http://whyarethingsthisway.com/
Re: Caleb says:
March 22, 2014 at 8:09 am
Here’s an alternative interpretation of the ice thickness around Svalbard, courtesy of the European Space Agency’s SMOS mission:
http://www.icdc.zmaw.de/thredds/fileServer/ftpthredds/smos_sea_ice_thickness/sea_ice_thickness_latest.gif
Broadly speaking, significantly less than “a couple [of] feet thick”
DirkH says:
March 22, 2014 at 7:48 am
Nobody has ever used an IR-active triatomic gas as insulation. If that worked you’d fill double glazed windows with water vapor which would insulate even better than CO2. But you don’t because it doesn’t. Hint. Re-emission, Kirchhoff’s Law.
My double glazing is full of water vapour. It mists up on the inside when the sun shines on it. Can’t be bothered to get it replaced.
MikeB says:
March 22, 2014 at 2:26 am
“If the rate of heat loss is restricted by some insulation (say a blanket or a layer of CO2) …”
But, who says that CO2 is necessarily an insulator? See comment above.
Patrick says:
March 22, 2014 at 6:07 am
“MikeB says:
March 22, 2014 at 4:37 am”
“Maybe, however can you please explain how a global average is measured.”
A more pertinent question is, what does the average of an intensive variable mean?
MikeB says:
March 22, 2014 at 3:35 am
Kevin,
No, it doesn’t matter where the heat source is. All that matters is that the heat source (wherever it is) is supplying heat at a given rate (i.e. 342 Joules per second in this case).
Really, it’s not hard. See….
http://scienceofdoom.com/2010/07/26/do-trenberth-and-kiehl-understand-the-first-law-of-thermodynamics/
and …
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/17/the-steel-greenhouse/
Sorry for being thick, but doesn’t all those examples assume the radiation from the source is unidirectional and not omnidirectional? Does a 30kw lamp transmit 30kw in all directions?
MikeB says:
March 22, 2014 at 8:56 am
“Filling the intervening gap with water vapour is a bad idea because it condenses and mists the window. I think that’s why they don’t do that.”
They do it because the gap, being a vacuum, does not allow heat transfer by any means but radiative, and this is generally much less than that which would be allowed by having a convective or conductive medium between the panes. The principle is used extensively, e.g., in your lowly Thermos bottle, to keep liquids cold or hot.
This is, incidentally, germane to my post above.
Kelvin Vaughan says:
March 22, 2014 at 10:31 am
“My double glazing is full of water vapour. It mists up on the inside when the sun shines on it. Can’t be bothered to get it replaced.”
Then, you are getting much greater heat loss in the winter, and heat gain in the summer, than you should. Once the seal is damaged, the thermal insulative property is greatly reduced. Over time, it would pay you to replace it.
Now for some real science. Next month this whole theory will be explored in full in Scientific American:
Bart says:
March 22, 2014 at 10:55 am
“This is, incidentally, germane to my post above.”
And, it is a really good additional analogy. The Greenhouse Effect is commonly presented as if the radiating components of the troposphere were separated from the ground by a vacuum, and the only means of heat transfer were radiative. That is, indeed, the thought experiment in Willis E.’s Steel Greenhouse MikeB referred to above.
But, that is not a faithful model of our atmosphere. Here, the lower energy radiative gases which are dubbed “greenhouse gases” are in contact with the surface through convection. The Dewar Flask model does not work in that situation. Indeed, the Dewar Flask works in the first place because radiation is such a miserly heat removal process. Remove the vaccum, and convection becomes much more powerful.
The Earth’s atmosphere is a punctured Dewar Flask. The so-called “Greenhouse Effect” is only looking at a part of the heat transfer through radiation. With convective heat transfer from the surface, the radiative transfer is overwhelmed. The effect of adding more “greenhouse” gases is not at all straightforward – it can result in heating, but is more likely to result in null or negative heating, a.k.a., cooling.
Bart says:
March 22, 2014 at 11:20 am
One last note on this – a detractor might say, but you can’t convect the heat to space. In the end, all heat loss from the Earth must be radiative, so what difference does it make?
It obliterates the Greenhouse Effect when the convection is substantial. The GHE says that the GHGs in the upper atmosphere will make the surface run hotter. But, how can they do that if the heat they back-radiate is quickly returned via convection?
And, the detractor answers, “Well, yes, but if convection is constant, then adding a GHG should heat the surface by an additional amount according to the radiation-only formula.”
Response: Who says convection is constant? I suspect, though cannot say for sure, that is what the models assume, and why they have got things wrong, as evidenced by the “pause”. But, convection of heat to the GHG layer itself will increase with increasing temperature. Given that convection is so much more powerful than radiation for heat transfer, it wouldn’t take much to completely cancel out any radiative heating from the additiona GHG.
While trying to find an old email I came across this one that was sent to me a year or so ago.
Over five thousand years ago, Moses said to the children of Israel , “Pick up your shovels, mount your asses and camels, and I will lead you to the Promised Land.”
Nearly 75 years ago, (when Welfare was introduced) Roosevelt said, “Lay down your shovels, sit on your asses, and light up a Camel, this is the Promised Land.”
Today, our elected officials have stolen your shovel, taxed your asses, raised the price of camels and mortgaged the Promised Land!
I was so depressed last night thinking about Health Care Plans, the economy, the wars, lost jobs, savings, Social Security, retirement funds, etc . . . I called a Suicide Hotline. I had to press 1 for English.
I was connected to a call center in Pakistan . I told them I was suicidal. They got excited and asked if I could drive a truck……
On the graph: “Scientists and policy makers commonly say…”
Seriously, do pure scientists give a hoot about what policy makers think or say?
You would think Mann would not undermine his lawsuit by mixing politics and science.
So now it’s scientists and policy makers, locked arms and united voice, declaring that we must hold the line below 450. A consensus of scientists wasn’t good enough. Now it’s a consensus of scientists and politicians. Like that’s going to make it more credible. Not.
Thank you, Carla.
RE: Snow White says:
March 22, 2014 at 10:12 am
Thanks for the link. The ice does look thinner than the Navy thickness map on “The Sea-Ice Page.”
It has opened up again north of Svalbard. That area has opened and shut a lot recently. I imagine the sea-ice involved is the more mobile and slushy sort.
@accordionsrule: A scientist whose salary depends on policy makers follows very closely what policy makers think or say. It is no accident that lots of posts on blogs like this one are by retired scientists.
bobbyv Good question. I found this part of the Royal Society answer pretty shameless,
“The observed change (of about 0.8 ºC) in the global decadal mean temperatures since the late 19th century is over 10 times the estimated internal variability of these averages.”
Really!
“””””…..MikeB says:
March 22, 2014 at 2:26 am
george e. smith says:
March 21, 2014 at 2:04 pm
First, the Trenberth and Kiehl diagram it is not a ‘Radiation Budget’, it is an ‘Energy Budget’ and it includes other forms of heat transfer besides radiation transfer……”””””
Well Mike it appears that you are correct, and I was wrong. Well somehow I got hold of the wrong version of the official drawing, so somebody else must have labeled it “radiation budget.”
So I would retract my objection to the other included energies, such as the heat flows, except for the fact that such “heat flows”, are entirely internal to the earth. Except for miniscule freak events like cosmic rays, solar charged particles, meteorites, and the like, “heat” energy neither arrives at,nor leaves this planet. So where is his component of heat energy, flowing in the oceans from tropics to poles. All of these internal thermal processes are energy neutral, and don’t change earth’s energy.
My fundamental objection , however still stands. Their ENERGY budget, is in fact a POWER DENSITY budget (areal density) If it was an energy budget, it would perhaps show the total energy arriving at or leaving the earth in say a typical 30 year climate significant period.
Nobody ever observed an “average” event happening; averages are computed, and are thus properties of “models. They are not real world observed measurements.
Now I don’t have a problem with anybody doing mathematical modeling calculations, on sets of data, such as Temperatures measured at different times and places, and included in some data set.
Just don’t represent, that they tell anything about what Mother Nature is doing; Your averages go quite un-noticed by Mother Nature, who deals with energy processes at the time they occur, and then is done with them.
Take a radiometer, and point it at the sun, on any ordinary clear sky day, in any normally inhabitable region of the surface, and see if you can get an incoming solar power reading anywhere near 342 W/m^2. Well try the same thing at night time; maybe you’ll get lucky.
But I do agree with you MikeB. Trenberth et al apparently do call their chart an “energy budget.
People who reprint what purport to be products of someone else, should not change them, from the original. The print, I have which describes it as a radiation budget, is clearly a fake.
If I am not mistaken, Mann’s original “hockey stick ” graph, in an earlier IPCC report, is clearly labeled as a “Northern hemisphere” (local) phenomenon, but people have dropped that, and represented his result to be global.
I keep on forgetting to state the obvious, that “energy” is measured in Joules, NOT in Watts.
It seems that MikeB and Dr Strangelove just like to squirm. I have read this entire thread, including the many discussions about other knots on this thread, being debated among others. And it is clear, that most who have commented on my post, have no problem at all understanding the difference between the instantaneous effect, of widely ranging variable phenomena, and some computed “average” of some OTHER measure related to that phenomenon.
The earth does not respond in any linear way to the local Temperature measured in some box on a post, and trying to assert that some linear average of such local events, somehow relates to whether life on earth continues or vanishes, is just wafting in the wind.
And Mike, if you or Dr Strangelove think you are somehow “educating” me to the fact that Watts is Joules per second; let me assure you that I learned that very early in my first year in high school physics class, and that incidentally was a long time before Dr Kevin Trenberth, was knee high to a grasshopper. I didn’t come down in the last shower.
If you think that averaging energy input rates (power) over time, is real, rather than a figment of a branch of mathematics, just try to convince the people of Hiroshima, that nuclear weapons really don’t do a lot of damage (on average).
bobbyv… Seems the Royal Society is using Michael Mann’s Hockey stick upon which to base their answer.
Doug Allen March 22, 2014 at 7:27 pm,
I agree, that stood out to me as well. Not to mention they only refer to temperature records. Climate Audit had a post about Mandelbrot showing flood records have no discernible cutoff frequency. I was hoping they would allow responses to the answers, but I guess the debate is settled.
So the Mann Graph continues an ever upward heating of the planet. And it’s consequences are known to him that we will all die catastrophically. Wow. So, last night I put the words Climate Denialists into the Yahoo search engine , Oh my. Alarming. The sheer number of sites and articles relating to the evil doing climate change skeptics was mind boggling. So I ventured into the Bard site Grist. Yikes! A complete list of what to say to well informed catastrophic climate change skeptics/deniers. All aranged by catagories and bullet points. My head spins, so I back out to the yahoo page of links and see another site devoted to “deniers who have seen the light and are believers” , How to work shops on how to re-educate reformed deniers. Imediately I thought, this sounds like a reverse de-programming for religious cults to me. The sheer voluum of anti-denialist web sites claiming CAGW skeptics are oil funded evil doers sent shivers up my spine. There appears to be an organized putsch to clamp down on any inconvenient investigation into the quality and voracity of catastrophic climate change models and predictions for doom. Making my mood more alarmed was a conversation with a 24 yr old co-worker who became very dismissive of my opinion that global warming has stopped dead in its tracks for 17.5 yrs and CO2 levels having continued to rise has shown the global warming models to have failed. Her responce, “It’s not global warming anymore , they call it climate change, just because it’s got really cold and snowwy doesn’t mean the climate isn’t changing due to man made GHG’s. Extreem weather WAS predicted ! ” I gave up pursueing the topic, knowing that I was challenging a sacred religious like belief system. It is a crusade to save the earth , facts that get in the way of the models be damned! Wow.
George e. – A new approach is needed. I read WUWT everyday which could give one the impression logic, reason and science is winning the day and it’s only a matter of time. This appears not to be the case. The Alarmist have struck a chord with politicians, academics and media. It’s a done deal, even with the pause. Period. Climate change is how they will sell the larger plan. Eventually temperature will show an increase and we will never hear the end of it. That light at the end of the tunnel is a freight train. Even so, I keep hoping.
There’ always something odd about members of the ruling elites calling for mass movements. See link on Drudge to Hillary Clinton (sorry can’t get it on my ipad) .
Really it’s about rowsing mobs to shut down your opponents.
Mann’s fakery seems to know no bounds. Looking at his “false hope” image I realized something was up when it showed 2013 as just as hot as 1998, but then when I looked at the actual anomaly values (supposed zeroed at 1850), I realized it was worse than we thought!
I paid a visit to woodfortrees.org and grabbed the GISTEMP global average series from 1850 to the present, put on a 12-month smoothing, then used GIMP2 to merge the images. The matchup may not be perfect, but if this isn’t outright fraud, I don’t know what is. Maybe Mark Steyn could use it somehow.
(Mods: I tried to post this before, but it seemed to fall into some WordPress purgatory, so I’m trying again.)
REPLY: Whatever you are doing trying to put in the image isn’t working, probably because you are overthinking it with tags, etc. If you have a Woodfortrees link, just paste it in direct from your browser, WordPress will auto link it.
If you have an image, it needs to be at a URL, such as tinypic or imgur. Load it to a service like that and simply put in the URL to it. – Anthony
Thanks, Anthony, I did use the html tags. I’ll try again with just the URL.
http://hilltopper.net/graphics/manns_false_image.png
What happened to the 30’s and 1998?
David Norman says:
March 21, 2014 at 4:29 pm
David,
Don’t concern yourself with poor Mikey’s sore behind. His minions will assuage it with a good butt licking.
Why do the models go back to 1850? Shouldn’t they all start at 2014?
Searching through WUWT archives, for CMIP performance I found this post from Willis E. Looks like we are on the same path here. There is a lot more going on than mere radiation exchanges, and the surface temperature sensitivity to increased CO2 is by no means guaranteed to be either non-zero or substantially positive.
The End Of Science
http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/
Daniel Greenfield AKA Sultan Knish
The reemergence of Cosmos could not have come at a better time, not because it has something to teach us about science, but because are living in Sagan’s world where real science is harder than ever to come by.
Carl Sagan was the country’s leading practitioner of the mythologization of science, transforming a
process into a philosophy, substituting political agendas for inquiry and arrogance for research. Sagan was often wrong, but it didn’t matter because his errors were scientific, rather than ideological or theological. He could be wrong as many times as he wanted, as long as he wasn’t wrong politically..
Science has been thoroughly Saganized. The vast majority of research papers are wrong, their results cannot be replicated. The researchers writing them often don’t even understand what they’re doing wrong and don’t care. Research is increasingly indistinguishable from politics. Studies are framed in ways that prove a political premise, whether it’s that the world will end without a carbon tax or that racism causes obesity. If they prove the premise, the research is useful to the progressive non-profits and politicians who always claim to have science in their corner. If it doesn’t, then it isn’t funded.
“Science” has been reduced to an absolute form of authority that is always correct. The Saganists envision science as a battle between superstition and truth, but what distinguished science from superstition was the ability to throw out wrong conclusions based on testing. Without the scientific method, science is just another philosophy where anything can be proven if you manipulate the terminology so that the target is drawn around the arrow. Add statistical games and nothing means anything.
This form of science measures itself not against the universe, but against the intellectual bubble inhabited by those who share the same worldview or those who live under their control. It’s not a bold exploration of the cosmos, but a timid repetition of cliches. The debates are as microscopic as this miniature pocket universe. Discoveries are accidental and often misinterpreted to fit within dogma. Progress is not defined not by the transcendence of what is known, but by its blinkered reaffirmation.
This isn’t science or even scientism because it has little basis in the scientific method. Like all progressive authority, it now derives its credentials from membership in an expert class and advocacy on behalf of a victim class. Global Warming research covers both quotas. On the one hand everyone ought to shut up and listen to the scientists, as long as their message conforms politically, and on the other hand everyone ought to shut up and listen to the victims of Global Warming. Connect the two and you have the basis of progressive authority.
The mythologization of science isn’t new. Its chosen hero, “The Man Who Was Right When Everyone Was Wrong”, defying ignorance and superstition with the torch of knowledge is an old archetype. But the mythologization of science has outlived the rationality that once gave this figure meaning. The Men Who Are Always Right aren’t right anymore because they use the scientific method, but because they use science as a priesthood to prove the rightness of progressive policies.
In the collective language of the progressive internet, science has become an absolute. Science proves everything. “Because Science.” “15 Ways Science Shows You’re Stupid”. “How You Can Be Smarter With Science”. But this vision of science as an absolute, a post-modern abstract oracle, is less true than it ever was. Science is a state of uncertainty. Researchers discover new things by questioning what they know. A theory is another stop on a journey, not an ideological safe harbor.
The animistic spirit of science, the technocratic muse of a secular age, is superstition wrapped in a lab coat. The worship of the expert class is no more credible for PhD’s than it is for witch doctors. It’s a sure way to convince the worshiped to swap out their old risky methods for an air of omnipotence.
Science works as a process that utilizes a set of tools. It does not innately confer superiority on anyone. A scientist who does not utilize the scientific method is as much use as a carpenter who cannot make chairs or a plumber who cannot fix toilets. A science that exists as a fixed absolute, whose premises are not to be questioned, whose data is not to be examined and whose conclusions are not to be debated, is a pile of wood or a leaky toilet. Not the conclusion of a process, but its absence.
It isn’t science that gives a thing legitimacy, but the processes of thinking and testing that do. The only authority worth mentioning is also worth questioning. That is as true of science as it is of government. An authority that answers to itself, that derives its power not from an open system, but from a closed system is a tyranny and prone to a failure-denial cycle in which each failures then covered up by greater abuses of power until the disaster can no longer be covered up.
The science of the “Science is settled” crowd isn’t an open system of skeptical inquiry, but a closed system of centralized authority funded and controlled by special interests, beholden to political agendas and intolerant of dissent. It has the same relationship to science that the various People’s Democracies had to democracy.
The science settlers have responded to the serious questions that have been raised about their unscientific advocacy has been to demand a more closed system, to hide more data, to urge newspapers to stop printing letters from anyone who questions Global Warming and to even propose the imprisonment of Warming critics.
This isn’t the confident attitude of a field that believes it has the facts on its side.It’s the authoritarian response of panicked overlords who have become too comfortable with their routine of morning show alarmist appearances and the rushing flow of grant money paid to stave off the apocalypse.
Bad science often pays better than good science. There’s more money in unveiling an invalid research study that is sure to show up in 200 newspapers tomorrow and start a anew diet crazy the day after than a methodically researched piece of work that demonstrates that staying healthy is a matter of hard work and other elements that are outside an individual’s control.
There’s more money in predicting an apocalypse that can only be stopped with trendy progressive policies than the recognition that environmental debates are complex and often come down to a tug of war between competing interests. Reality doesn’t pay. Politicized and prostituted science does.
The mythologization of science, like the cowboy movie, always had a loose relationship to reality, but still derived from it, dressing up reality, rather than entirely displacing. It has now become the idealization of a murdered ideal by the people who murdered it.
Science has become a substitute religion for secularists who imagine that they are more intelligent than religious people because they are more skeptical, when in reality the things that they are skeptical about are the ones that don’t touch on their own unexamined and unquestioned beliefs.
Like the old joke about the Communist who boasts that like the American he too can shout, “America is worthless!”, challenging someone else’s dogma is not skepticism, it’s antagonism. This attitude has leaked into the scientific community which eagerly rushed out to condemn opponents of vaccination, but has much less to say about the pervasive culture of fraud in medical research.
The Cosmos crowd have always been eager to mock televangelists predicting the end of the world, but have little to say about Sagan’s equally bogus predictions about the end of the world. They made science into a culture filled with ‘awe and wonder’ as if the universe were their own private church, while jettisoning the rational inquiry and reasoned debate.
There is nothing to cheer about the return of Cosmos. It’s not science, instead it’s more of the popularized punditry that distorts science into an absolute dogma with a cynical agenda.
Total sea ice positive again
Open Thread topic: this is damn interesting!
Re: dbstealey says:
March 23, 2014 at 6:34 pm
Now THAT is science for you. Thanks.
Ed Scott says:
March 23, 2014 at 1:49 pm
Spot on. Thanks.
Thats what I would do.