By Christopher Monckton of Brenchley
Central to Professor Lovejoy’s paper attempting to determine climate sensitivity from recent temperature trends is the notion that in any 125-year period uninfluenced by anthropogenic forcings there is only a 10% probability of a global temperature trend greater than +0.25 K or less than –0.25 K.
Like most of the hypotheses that underpin climate panic, this one is calculatedly untestable. The oldest of the global temperature datasets – HadCRUt4 – starts only in 1850, so that the end of the earliest 125-year period possible in that dataset is 1974, well into the post-1950 period of potential anthropogenic influence.
However, the oldest regional instrumental dataset, the Central England Temperature Record, dates back to 1659. It may give us some pointers.
The CET record has its drawbacks. It is regional rather than global, and its earliest temperature data have a resolution no better than 0.5-1.0 K. However, its area of coverage is on the right latitude. Also, over the past 120 years, representing two full cycles of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, its trend is within 0.01 K of the trend on the mean of the GISS, HadCRUT4 and NCDC global terrestrial datasets. It is not entirely without value.
I took trends on 166 successive 125-year periods from 1659-1784 to 1824-1949. Of these, 57, or 34%, exhibited absolute trends greater than |0.25| K (Table 1).
Table 1. Least-squares linear-regression trends (K) on the monthly mean regional surface temperature anomalies from the Central England Temperature dataset for 166 successive 125-year periods from 1659-1784 to 1824-1949. Of these periods, 57 (or 34%) show absolute temperature trends greater than |0.25| K.
Most of the 125-year periods exhibiting a substantial absolute trend occur at the beginning or the end of the interval tested. The trends in the earlier periods capture the recovery from the Little Ice Age, which independent historical records show was rapid. In the later periods the trends capture the rapid warming from 1910-1945.
Subject to the cautions about the data that I have mentioned, the finding that more than a third of all 125-year periods terminating before the anthropogenic influence on global climate began in 1950 suggests the possibility that 125-year periods showing substantial temperature change may be at least thrice as frequent as Professor Lovejoy had assumed.
Taken with the many other defects in the Professor’s recent paper – notably his assumption that the temperature datasets on which he relied had very small error intervals when in fact they have large error intervals that increase the further back one goes – his assumption that rapid temperature change is rare casts more than a little doubt on his contention that one can determine climate sensitivity from the recent temperature record.
How, then, can we determine how much of the 20th-century warming was natural? The answer, like it or not, is that we can’t. But let us assume, ad argumentum and per impossibile, that the temperature datasets are accurate. Then one way to check the IPCC’s story-line is to study its values of the climate-sensitivity parameter over various periods (Table 2).
Table 2. IPCC’s values for the climate-sensitivity parameter
Broadly speaking, the value of the climate-sensitivity parameter is independent of the cause of the direct warming that triggers the feedbacks that change its value. Whatever the cause of the warming, little error arises by assuming the feedbacks in response to it will be about the same as they would be in response to forcings of equal magnitude from any other cause.
The IPCC says there has been 2.3 W m–2 of anthropogenic forcing since 1750, and little natural forcing. In that event, the climate-sensitivity parameter is simply the 0.9 K warming since 1750 divided by 2.3 W m–2, or 0.4 K W–1 m2. Since most of the forcing since 1750 has occurred in the past century, that value is in the right ballpark, roughly equal to the centennial sensitivity parameter shown in Table 2.
Next, we break the calculation down. Before 1950, according to the IPCC, the total anthropogenic forcing was 0.6 W m–2. Warming from 1750-1949 was 0.45 K. So the pre-1950 climate sensitivity parameter was 0.75 K W–1 m2, somewhat on the high side, suggesting that some of the pre-1950 warming was natural.
How much of it was natural? Dividing 0.45 K of pre-1950 warming by the 200-year sensitivity parameter 0.5 K W–1 m2 gives 0.9 W m–2. If IPCC (2013) is correct in saying 0.6 W m–2 was anthropogenic, then 0.3 W m–2 was natural.
From 1950 to 2011, there was 1.7 W m–2 of anthropogenic forcing, according to the IPCC. The linear temperature trend on the data from 1950-2011 is 0.7 K. Divide that by 1.7 W m–2 to give a plausible 0.4 K W–1 m2, again equivalent to the IPCC’s centennial sensitivity parameter, but this time under the assumption that none of the global warming since 1950 was natural.
This story-line, as far as it goes, seems plausible. But the plausibility is entirely specious. It was achieved by the simplest of methods. Since 1990, the IPCC has all but halved the anthropogenic radiative forcing to make it appear that its dead theory is still alive.
In 1990, the IPCC predicted that the anthropogenic forcing from greenhouse gases since 1765 would amount to 4 W m–2 on business as usual by 2014 (Fig. 1).
Figure 1. Projected anthropogenic greenhouse-gas forcings, 1990-2100 (IPCC, 1990).
However, with only 0.9 K global warming since the industrial revolution began, the implicit climate-sensitivity parameter would have been 0.9 / 4 = 0.23 K W–1 m2, or well below even the instantaneous value. That is only half the 0.4-0.5 K W–1 m2 that one would expect if the IPCC’s implicit centennial and bicentennial values for the parameter (Table 2) are correct.
In 1990 the IPCC still had moments of honesty. It admitted that the magnitude and even the sign of the forcing from anthropogenic particulate aerosol emissions (soot to you and me) was unknown.
Gradually, however, the IPCC found it expedient to offset not just some but all of the CO2 radiative forcing with a putative negative forcing from particulate aerosols. Only by this device could it continue to maintain that its very high centennial, bicentennial, and equilibrium values for the climate-sensitivity parameter were plausible.
Fig. 2 shows the extent of the tampering. The positive forcing from CO2 emissions and the negative forcing from anthropogenic aerosols are visibly near-identical.
Figure 2. Positive forcings (left panel) and negative forcings 1950-2008 (Murphy et al., 2009).
As if that were not bad enough, the curve of global warming in the instrumental era exhibits 60-year cycles, following the ~30-year cooling and ~30-year warming phases of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (Fig. 3). This oscillation appears to have a far greater influence on global temperature, at least in the short to medium term, than any anthropogenic forcing.
The “settled science” of the IPCC cannot yet explain what causes the ~60-year cycles of the PDO, but their influence on global temperature is plainly visible in Fig. 3.
Figure 3. Monthly global mean surface temperature anomalies and trend, January 1890 to February 2014, as the mean of the GISS, HadCRUT4 and NCDC global mean surface temperature anomalies, with sub-trends during the negative or cooling (green) and positive or warming (red) phases of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation. Phase dates are provided by the Joint Institute for the Study of the Atmosphere and Ocean at the University of Washington: http://jisao.washington.edu/pdo/. Anthropogenic radiative forcings are apportionments of the 2.3 W m–2 anthropogenic forcing from 1750-2011, based on IPCC (2013, Fig. SPM.5).
Startlingly, there have only been three periods of global warming in the instrumental record since 1659. They were the 40 years 1694-1733, before the industrial revolution had even begun, with a warming trend of +1.7 K as solar activity picked up after the Maunder Minimum; the 22 years 1925-1946, with a warming trend of +0.3 K, in phase with the PDO; and the 24 years 1977-2000, with a warming trend of +0.6 K, also in phase with the PDO.
Table 3. Periods of cooling (blue), warming (red), and no trend (green) since 1659. Subject to uncertainties in the Central England Temperature Record, there may have been more warming in the 91 years preceding 1750 than in the three and a half centuries thereafter.
There was a single period of cooling, –0.6 K, in the 35 years 1659-1693 during the Maunder Minimum. The 191 years 1734-1924, industrial revolution or no industrial revolution, showed no trend; nor was there any trend during the negative or cooling phases of the PDO in the 30 years 1947-1976 or in the 13 years since 2001.
Table 3 summarizes the position. All of the 2 K global warming since 1750 could be simply a slow and intermittent recovery of global temperatures following the Little Ice Age.
There is a discrepancy between the near-linear projected increase in anthropogenic radiative forcing (Fig. 1) and the three distinct periods of global warming since 1659, the greatest of which preceded the industrial revolution and was almost twice the total warming since 1750.
No satisfactory mechanism has been definitively demonstrated that explains why the PDO operates in phases, still less why all of the global warming since 1750 should have shown itself only during the PDO’s positive or warming phases.
A proper understanding of climate sensitivity depends heavily upon the magnitude of the anthropogenic radiative forcing, but since 1990 the IPCC has almost halved that magnitude, from 4 to 2.3 W m–2.
To determine climate sensitivity from temperature change, one would need to know the temperature change to a sufficient precision. However, just as the radiative forcing has been tampered with to fit the theory, so the temperature records have been tampered with to fit the theory.
Since just about every adjustment in global temperature over time has had the effect of making 20th-century warming seem steeper than it was, however superficially plausible the explanations for the adjustments may be, all may not be well.
In any event, since the published early-20th-century error interval is of the same order of magnitude as the entire global warming from all causes since 1750, it is self-evident that attempting to derive climate sensitivity from the global temperature trends is self-defeating. It cannot be done.
The bottom line is that the pattern of global warming, clustered in three distinct periods the first and greatest of which preceded any possible anthropogenic influence, fits more closely with stochastic natural variability than with the slow, inexorable increase in anthropogenic forcing predicted by the IPCC.
The IPCC has not only slashed its near-term temperature projections (which are probably still excessive: it is quite possible that we shall see no global warming for another 20 years): it has also cut its estimate of net business-as-usual anthropogenic radiative forcing by almost half. Inch by inch, hissing and spitting, it retreats and hopes in vain that no one will notice, while continuing to yell, “The sky is falling! The sky is falling!”.
A happy Easter to one and all.
There is to much UHI in and policy based adjustments of the data to be able to make any scientific sense of it?
Liars change their story to fit the evidence that is presented. Eventually they have to contradict themselves and paint themselves into corners. Unless seekers after truth such as the the good lord focus attention on them they will continue to get away with it.
Their supporters don’t ask any of these questions and assume that those who do must be insane deniers. Eventually the truth will out.
Happy Easter Lord Monckton!
I cannot help thinking that it is crazy to even try to pretend that a single number can be used to model the climate. There are so many inter-dependent parameters governing the climate that any single parameter, (no matter how sacred and holy), can never really be separated out and measured. The IPCC seem to think that if they can just get the magic number for sensitivity then the whole climate will be able to be modeled as y=mx+c.
The lack of an exact sensitivity guess (which they are happy to adjust and fake as needed) is the least of the problems with modelling the climate. The hundred other parameters and chaotic mechanisms should at least be worth a mention … if only they all had their own cheer leaders as CO2 does…
A global trend is the combined effect of a large number of regional trends. It will always be less variable than the trends of which it is composed. Averages are. It is not at all surprising that CET trend is more variable than the global average.
“I cannot help thinking that it is crazy to even try to pretend that a single number can be used to model the climate. ”
That is not the point of the sensitivity parameter.
Cloud forcing is being ignored by the IPCC.
There was a 5% decrease in a 13 year period from 1990 to 2003 amounting to a 0.9w/m2 increase in shortwave forcing. Each % cloud change results a temp change of about 0.06deg C.
Overall cloud forcing was responsible for 75% of the warming in the satellite period which has been falsely attributed to CO2.
You can also determine the climate sensitivity from this, 0.9W/m2 causes 0.3deg warming,
Very close to neutral.
Check out Ole Humlums climate4you.com page under climate and clouds.
If they cannot reconcile the fact that we are essentially in a co2 famine, and that much higher co2 levels than now are more ‘normal’ for earth, then they are living in delusion in fantasy land. This entire co2 panic is insanely silly.
https://www.google.com/search?q=%22co2+famine%22&complete=0&num=99
The Climate Inquisition, whose members include Prof Lovejoy, are determined to stamp out the self-evident fact of natural climate cycles.
Take away the highly manipulated temperature statistics of the pre-satellite era and today’s inaccurate and biased computer models and then the latest cycle of global warming can be seen to be mostly natural.
The IPCC owes its existence to being able to produce scary tales for the political establishment, but worse is the fact that these scary tales were initially dreamed up by.environmental activist organisations with the practices and ethics of a pseudo-Christian cult.
PV = nRT
“sensitivity” (the ‘n’ above, no ha ha) is a non-sensical word in this context.
The Earth’s atmosphere and even the atmosphere of Venus (Hansen’s sponge cake that almost cost him his phony baloney federal government career at GISS, but NASA Goddard kept him there to occupy the office and warm the seat, but after a while he started having delusions and phantasms of his supreme magnificence if that is what you can call it) have no “sensitivity.”
“Climate” is a non-sensical word from the mouths of “Geographers” i.e. well-heeled well-to-do with nothing to do but cause trouble in this context and has no merit and no value regarding Physics and no value nor merit as a measurable physical variable.
“Climate” is a phantasmagoria of the deranged human psyche and does not and cannot exist outside the deranged human brain.
“Climate” is where psychopaths live, and “Climate Change” is their battle ground in the sky.
Get over it !
Ha ha
And we still have people like Nick Stokes prattling on about averages derived from datasets that we know to have been altered.
Oracle says at 7:52 pm
If they cannot reconcile the fact that we are essentially in a co2 famine, and that much higher co2 levels than now are more ‘normal’ for earth, then they are living in delusion in fantasy land. This entire co2 panic is insanely silly.
https://www.google.com/search?q=%22co2+famine%22&complete=0&num=99
—————————————————————————————
Oracle, I agree that we have been real low on CO2, and if it had gotten much lower, then plants would have kicked the bucket, and thus we as well. But the problem when I click your Google Search link, and get the results, is the 2nd link in big words says “Exxon paid scientist says the earth in CO2 famine.” The thing is that I have heard that the oil industry has been supporting the leftist scare mongers, and we just have to figure out a way to nullify their bs “oils supported scientist” line. Just because if I were somebody else, an independent thinker that is undecided on climate change, and the first thing I saw with the google results is “Exxon paid scientist” I could unfortunately dismiss within seconds the whole idea that we are in CO2 famine, even though we are.
Steven Mosher,
You have an opinion that local temperature flux is non extant, are you working with temperatures on a global scale?
Steven Mosher,
Are you providing anyone anywhere on this planet with local temperature forecasts?
Steven Mosher,
Are you providing anyone anywhere on this planet anything useful?
Time is not on the side of the IPCC, the Climate Change Alarmists, or those who want carbon tax schemes to provide monies for other green initiatives.
At this point in time, it is obvious that the Global Warming paradigm is failing… badly. The Believers, not to encourage a debate, vainly declare, “The debate is over.” That is a clear indication that they cannot defend what they want, and need to move on to mindless “action.”.
But the hope for carbon tax windfall that was once envisioned for redistribution is a difficult dream to part with by the greens. Tho’ mightily they struggle to maintain the myth, like the great Ozymandias (of Percy Bysshe Shelley), it too will crumble with time. The end of the Kingdom of Anthropogenic CO2 Global Warming paradigm is near. The reality (data) is not a thing made of or controlled by man. But the models and myths that spring forth are surely as dead as King Oz.
A new paper arrives at an ECS of 1.99 °C: Loehle, C. (2014). A minimal model for estimating climate sensitivity. Ecological Modelling, 276, 80-84.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304380014000404
Steven Mosher says:
April 19, 2014 at 7:48 pm
Well, I can emulate the output of the models extremely well using nothing but that parameter plus a time constant … which strongly supports Lord Moncktons claim that (according to the models) a single parameter can indeed be used to model the climate, whether or not that is the “point” of the sensitivity parameter.
However, you are nobody’s fool, and your science-fu is strong. So, since you say that it not the point, then please enlighten us—what IS the point of the sensitivity parameter?
Thanks,
w.
Very concrete data. Solid job. Regards.
“No satisfactory mechanism has been definitively demonstrated that explains why the PDO operates in phases,”
I’ve got an idea about this.
Ocean currents and deep circulation from ocean depths to near surface occurs over the order of decades. My hypothesis is that ocean currents near surface might be only ‘near the surface’, to be warmed or cooled by the prevailing solar output of the time, for say about 30 years. So any significant change in solar output would change the temperature of a large chunk of the ocean for that 30 years, before being replaced by deeper ocean water of a different temperature, warmed or cooled by previous solar cycles. The idea is the transfer of heat in the oceans occurs in cycles related to changes in solar output, together with the time it takes to complete one complete oceanic current circuit (for the PDO about 60 years).
This oceanic conveyor cycle, operating within changing solar activity, would be dragged up or down by any longer term trend of solar activity, and in fact would produce both a lag in the temperature with respect to solar output, but also the cycle amplitudes might also become magnified by being dragged up or down by any longer term changes in solar output. In other words, the strong positive PDO of the late 20th century might have occurred as a result of the longer term increase in solar output since ~1700, dragging the 30 year cycle upwards and then continuing with its own momentum to continue well past the peak of solar activity in the mid to late 20th century. (Kind of like a bathtub backwash getting stronger as long as you force the water in the same direction each time). The 30 year oscillations might be expected to continue, but decline in amplitude over the next century. In this model, the amplitude of each cycle is partly a result of longer term changes in solar activity (either up or down) but the period is a function of oceanic circulation over a period of roughly 60 years.
(It is in some ways similar to convection currents in the mantle and upper crust which drive plate tectonics, but in this case the currents are within the ocean. Because there are very few examples in the familiar world similar to the plate tectonic model, it took a long time for someone to come up with a convective mantle-derived circulation model which drives plate that float on top of these currents (even Einstein had a small go at it but couldn’t think of it- we know he certainly rejected the idea of moving continents), it might take a long time to figure out the PDO as well).
Just some ideas anyway.
Incidentally I think that Lovejoy first assumes that natural variation is minor in the past (from the hockeystick data), then sets out to prove the assumption using the same hockeystick results; he is simply self-confirming what he has already cherry picked to fit that way.
Why in North America will be chilly spring? Polar vortex at 17 km.
http://earth.nullschool.net/#2014/04/23/0300Z/wind/isobaric/70hPa/orthographic=-117.89,62.68,482
They have mostly used xx billions of USD so far to get “action”, climate treaty, über national global government and policies that in effect will give us international socialism. The Norwegian Labour Party admits this in their last election “program”.
who the F is ren? and why does ren post such off-thread nonsense?
There is an underlying and undeclared assumption in all this modelling game: that there is nothing causing a secular centennial scale upward trend. Hence, any upward trend must be attibutable to on of the inputs or the modelled reactions to the inputs.
Based on that set of assumptions it is a forgone conclusion that the only input that rises on a centennial scale will get found to be the “cause” of long term warming.
All the rest is a red scarf decoy.
Lacis et al 1992 estimated volcanic forcing to be about 30 W/m2 * optical density. This was later reduced to make model output better fit the temperature record
Why? Because if you don’t , you have to conclude that there are strong feedbacks that cancel the real volcanic effect ( and by implication the CO2 forcing ) which leaves a centennial rise that is not accouted for and the models don’t work.
Instead of correcting the models , they decided to correct the data and reduces the factor to 21 W/m2 in Hansen et al 2002. The declared reason for doing this was to reconcile model output with the temperature record.
The trouble with this value is that the tropical TOA net flux anomaly changes _before_ the change in atmpspheric optical density which is supposed to be causing it.
http://climategrog.wordpress.com/?attachment_id=925
It can be seen that the flux anomaly returns to zero barely a year after the eruption, when the AOD was still at 50% of its peak value. What the Hansen 2002 value is effectively trying to do is to fit the AOD estimed forcing DIRECTLY to the response, without any lags and near neutral feedbacks.
Note that I say “effectively” , this is not the way they are going about it, but just arbitrarily fiddling with scaling factors until the residual deviations of the model output is minimised is really the same a doing a non-lagged multi-variate regression.
It perfectly clear , from this graph alone that there is an active climate response to Mt Pinatubo that cancels the AOD within a year. Once that response is recognised, the physically based Lacis et al value is not problematic. Indeed the work I’m doing suggests there central value of 30 may be somewhat low.
“their central value of 30 may be somewhat low.”
It is also interesting in that graph , that once the flux anomaly goes positive around 1992.6 it stays +ve until the 1998 El Nino. After the initial hit of the first 12 months, the volcano provokes a climate counter-reaction of about 1W/m2 that is still present and the end of the data.
Now if you ignore the actual shape of the response and draw a straight line through 15y of data you could pretend that was CO2 “counter the cooling effects of volcanoes”.
The IPCC’s concept of ‘Forcing’ is unscientific, based on the fallacy that the atmospheric Thermal Radiation Field, expressed in W/m^2, is a real energy flux. Far too many imagine it’s a heat flow, when that is completely to misinterpret radiative physics.
Net radiative heat flux to the surface is the negative of the difference of surface and atmospheric TRFs, the net energy in the electromagnetic domain emitted from the surface..
As the atmospheric TRF (aka ‘Forcing’, ‘back radiation’) increases, that energy flux decreases. Surface temperature rises because less net IR means more convection and evapo-transpiration is needed to ensure constant total energy flux to atmosphere and space.
Only when we slay the two dragons of this fundamental mistake in IR physics and the consequential tripling of real GHE can Climate Alchemy become Climate Science…….:o)
Umm, why did he select 125 years?
I am just a simple lad who had his last physics lesson in 1945. Looking at figure 3 I notice that in the period covered during which CO2 has been increasing 78 of the years temperature was falling and 46 of the years it was rising. Is CO2 a cooling gas? Or am I just a cherry picker?
Last year I wrote an article ‘noticeable climate change’ which took my extended CET record to 1538 and looked at annual, decadal and 50 year changes.
http://judithcurry.com/2013/06/26/noticeable-climate-change/
Noticeable climate change is the norm, especially in the annual and decadal record.. I am currently researching the period 1200 to 1400AD and this transitional period between the MWP and LIA (it oscillates between warm and cold) shows some extraordinary temperature changes and notable periods of extreme weather.
tonyb
“I cannot help thinking that it is crazy to even try to pretend that a single number can be used to model the climate. ”
That is not the point of the sensitivity parameter. There is no point to the sensitivity parameter, There is certainly no scientific point to the sensitivity parameter. There is no point to the sensitivity parameter other than propaganda.
Typo at figure 3: it says (period) 1922-1956, where it should be 1922-1947.
Could you please fix it? I´d like to save that graph
An investigation of climate sensitivities can look at a broader range of timeframes, while being not as heavily based on a combination of data from too-local sources and from too-untrustworthy sources:
“The 11-year solar cycle (averaged over the past 300 years).
Warming over the 20th century
Warming since the last glacial maximum (i.e, 20,000 years ago)
Cooling from the Eocene to the present epoch
Cooling from the mid-Cretaceous
Comparison between the Phanerozoic temperature variations (over the past 550 Million years) to different the CO2 reconstructions
Comparison between the Phanerozoic temperature variations and the cosmic ray flux reaching the Earth”
And the result is http://www.sciencebits.com/OnClimateSensitivity
Regarding this:
“All of the 2 K global warming since 1750 could be simply a slow and intermittent recovery of global temperatures following the Little Ice Age.”
There are important features within the climate record since then. Why a “downtrend of temperature since 1938 [which] has come nearly halfway back to the chill of the Little Ice Age 300 years ago,” as remarked on and plotted by a 1976 National Geographic issue during the global cooling scare? Why is there is quite a large spike of glacial advance in the very early 19th century (and the PDO doesn’t come close to explaining it as can be seen when Andes glacial history is plotted)? Those plus much more are illustrated and explainable in the context of the plots in my usual http://tinyurl.com/nbnh7hq
As Usoskin noted in a study of Ti-44 from space meteorites (produced by cosmic ray bombardment and originating far above Earth weather), “there was indeed an increase in solar activity over the last 100 years” ( http://www.space.com/2942-sun-activity-increased-century-study-confirms.html ).
Heber Rizzo says:
April 20, 2014 at 2:03 am
Typo at figure 3: it says (period) 1922-1956, where it should be 1922-1947.
Could you please fix it? I´d like to save that graph
====
Well spotted. A quick cut and paste with Gimp fixes it 😉
http://i59.tinypic.com/i5anmh.png
Thanks, Greg. Saved
The IPCC, in their wisdom, do not look for any natural variations in climate. All variations, as far as they are concerned, are human caused.
I do not know what planet they live on but it is NOT earth.
What is the PDO? When was it discovered? It was discovered after the setting up of the IPCC. If the oceans can eat global warming why can’t they burp it out? Buuuurrrp.
DR. ROY SPENCER – 2008
“Global Warming as a Natural Response to Cloud Changes Associated with the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO)”
…….The main arguments for global warming being manmade go something like this: “What else COULD it be? After all, we know that increasing carbon dioxide concentrations are sufficient to explain recent warming, so what’s the point of looking for any other cause?”
But for those who have followed my writings and publications in the last 18 months (e.g. Spencer et al., 2007; Spencer, 2008), you know that we are finding satellite evidence that the climate system is much less sensitive to greenhouse gas emissions than the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2007) climate models suggest that it is. And if that is true, then mankind’s CO2 emissions are not strong enough to have caused the global warming we’ve seen over the last 100 years…….
http://www.drroyspencer.com/research-articles/global-warming-as-a-natural-response/
Once again we have an article based on the questionable surface data. When is someone going to produce a “pure” dataset. Yes, there are reasons for adjustments, however, it is quite likely that over time the various errors cancel. I would love for someone to produce a simple, raw dataset that could be used in discussions. I have no idea where to find the data, and maybe that is the problem, but I can dream.
HadCET in 1659 does provide us with a nice example to reflect on in terms of what is natural variability in an era with NO GHG forcing and what about temperature change.
The Industrial Revolution did not start in 1765 and CO2 did not start increasing until afterward (and it was only 278 ppm in 1765 – roughly the same number it was for the previous 4000 years).
How does the annual temps in HadCET from 1659 to 1765 (107 years) compare to HadCET from 1907 to 2013 (same 107 years).
http://s10.postimg.org/rts9530qx/Had_CET_1659_vs_2013_Annual.png
I see the same type of variability. I see temps in 2013 being no different than temps in any period from 1659 to 1765.
[There may be a large response to a volcano in Japan in 1739 which is much larger than the imprint of any other volcano (including Tambora) in the HadCET record – noted as the great Irish frosts].
For those who like high resolution data, here is the monthly temp comparison.
http://s4.postimg.org/4d50ji259/Had_CET_1659_vs_2013_Monthly.png
A point being, there is no change in the extent of extremes. Monthly temps can vary by +4.0C/-6.0C and that has not changed at all in the two periods.
Pretty hard to pick out a global warming signal when there is no real difference between 2.5 W/m2 of GHG forcing and 0.0 W/m2 of GHG forcing.
@Eric Simpson
Yes, alarmists will dismiss Dr. Happer as being in the pay of Big Oil. Then they will turn around and appeal to those same companies as supporting man-made global warming Here’s an appeal for indoctrinating school children in Wyoming:
Editorial board: Join energy industries and admit climate change exists
http://trib.com/opinion/editorial/editorial-board-join-energy-industries-and-admit-climate-change-exists/article_ca4a1bd6-e7d4-5dde-acad-140c21c8067e.html
A better source about the biosphere’s need for CO2 is here:
“Atmospheric CO2 concentration is just barely above the life-sustaining levels of 150 ppm. For life to have real buffer against mass extinction, CO2 needs to be closer to 1000 ppm.”
http://www.nzcpr.com/more-united-nations-carbon-regulations-on-the-way/
Note Heber Rizzo, the range in Figure 3 is 1922-1946 and not 1922-1947.
Warren
Richard M says:
April 20, 2014 at 5:53 am
“I would love for someone to produce a simple, raw dataset that could be used in discussions.”
And here is where Steven Mosher and his BEST collaborators could do the world a real service. To go with their gridded, homogenized, adjusted BEST data set they could produce an even more valuable WORST data set, ungridded, unadjusted, unhomogenized, a simple monthly average of the available data. Later would come, intermediate sets with the increasing “betterments”, the most desirable of which would be simple geographic gridding of the WORST data. It would be interesting to see which data sets were most in demand.
Goldie says:
April 20, 2014 at 1:14 am
Good question. He published stuff I think a year ago about his ideas about the difference between weather, macroweather, and climate. At least I think those are what he called them. There was a discussion about it at Judith Curry’s, Willis had some interesting comments. I’d link except I gotta run and do the Easter thing. But anyway, I think the 125 is important to his arguments because of this. Somehow. I’ve been looking at Dr. Lovejoy’s arguments in my miniscule spare time and I don’t claim expertise or even familiarity, but I think this has something to do with it anyway.
Can we deduce climate sensitivity from temperature?
What we can do, melord, is what you and others (Including the IPCC) have already done:
Take HadCRUt4 back to 1950 and look at the slope from that point. Now, yes, the work by Anthony et al. (of which I’m a co-author, and let’s don’t leave out the surfacestations volunteers) demonstrates how seriously poor microsite — significantly — exaggerates trends, a factor quite unaccounted for. And yes, how and why homogenization essentially eliminates the low-trend “outliers” (i.e., the well sited stations). And, yes, extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof — and that, we got.
But we can stipulate that the HadCRut4’s 0.7C rise since 1950, for purposes of argument, is correct. And we can the stipulate that 100% of that warming is anthropogenic and furthermore that anthropogenic warming is 100% due to CO2 increase (either of which which not even the IPCC claims). But let’s stipulate it. That gives us a high-end bound for CO2 forcing.
1950 is a proper starting point because it begins right at the point from when CO2 became a significant factor and (very important) neatly encapsulates both positive and negative PDO.
As you and others have indicated, that is a warming of 1.1C per century (after a 30% increase in CO2, which effect, as is not controversial, has a continually diminishing effect).
Unless there are unknown, unaccounted for factors (quien sabe?), this leaves us, pretty much, with the mild warming of Arrhenius (1906). We’ll leave solar effect (unknown) aside for our current purposes.
That is the upper bound of what is currently on record. And after Anthony et al. are through, we’ll likely knock that down by at least, as Cracko put it to Captain Kirk, “A thoid. Skimmed right off the top.”
Having established an upper bound, we do not have all the answers (melord knows). Yet it appears to me we have certainly established a basis for policymaking (i.e., NOT) — at least until next Tuesday when the next (as yet unknown) factor crops up, at which point, we shall reassess.
One recalls Reagan’s comment regarding negotiations with the Soviets: “Don’t just do something. Stand there!”
they could produce an even more valuable WORST data set, ungridded, unadjusted, unhomogenized, a simple monthly average of the available data.
Even that will show more warming than has actually occurred: TOBS-bias will spuriously knock the Tmean trend numbers down, yes, as will equipment conversion by a bit. But failure to account for microsite spuriously increases those numbers by almost twice that amount.
It is the well sited, unmoved stations without TOBS bias (raw, plus a bump up for MMTS conversion) that will give us the correct result, to the extent of our current knowledge.
That result will be considerably lower than even the WORST of it.
You want the simple answer? then it is NO!
The alarmist will not even go to actual chemical/gas make up of the entire global atmosphere with percentages of each gas or chemical. WHY? could it be they do not know?
Monckton of Brenchley: “Also, over the past 120 years, representing two full cycles of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, its trend is within 0.01 K of the trend on the mean of the GISS, HadCRUT4 and NCDC global terrestrial datasets. It is not entirely without value.”
I agree that Lovejoy et al. is execrable. And I agree that in the present context the Central England Temperature Index “is not entirely without value.” But some months ago when I went through an exercise similar to Lord M.’s above, for a similar reason, I found the difference between the 125-year trend of CET and that of (I believe it was) HadCrut3 to be nearly 0.2 K/century for the period that ended in August of 2009: the CET trend was nearly half again as high as the HadCrut3 trend for that period.
So, unless my math is faulty (always a possibility), it seems to me that the above excerpt gives the impression that CET is a better proxy for global trends than it really is. No doubt it’s better than what Lovejoy used, and I still find its variations instructive, but not to the extent that readers might have inferred from that excerpt. .
I am a hard science guy – manufactured chemicals and semiconductors. I have a question for all you researchers – it appears that temperature records are being used from many sources what are the inaccuracies of the measurement equipment used in all the decades and centuries?
A very small delta factor can disrupt the entire theory can it not.
.07% is small number my electronic test gear was +- 99% accurate now if I tested enough times would that number become more or less valid?
what are the inaccuracies of the measurement equipment used in all the decades and centuries?
CRS, the traditional common unit of measure, in and of itself produces considerably higher trends than MMTS. MMTS has been determined to be the more accurate of the two. There’s also a step-change upon conversion, which obviously affects trend. We account for this in our study, and also examine MMTS and CRS in isolation.
The only interesting period concerning any potential influence on global temperatures of our CO2 emissions is the one starting in the mid 1970s. There is no point looking for any signals of such influence earlier than that, seeing that even the IPCC concurs that there would be no such signals before about 1950, and there was no global warming between 1950 and 1977:
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1950/to:1977
In other words, all that really needs explanation here is the global temperature rise between 1976/77 and 2001/02.
This period has been the focus of Bob Tisdale for the last 5 years or so. And he has shown pretty clearly through the available observational data from the real earth system that there is no need at all to look outside the processes behind the natural warming of the global oceans to explain the modern global warming period.
Between 1970 and 2014, global temperatures have shifted up permanently relative to the NINO3.4 SSTa on only three abrupt occasions, in 1978/79, in 1988 and in 1998:
http://i1172.photobucket.com/albums/r565/Keyell/GWexplained_zps566ab681.png
During the remaining 40+ years? Nothing, except two major volcanic eruptions and some noise here and there globally.
Tisdale has thoroughly shown how the two latest upward shifts (in 1988 and 1998) originated in the western Pacific, that is, well outside the NINO3.4 region, but still most definitely inside the greater ENSO region.
The first shift comes at the heels of the Great Pacific Climate Shift of 1976/77, when the East Pacific outside the tropical regions all of a sudden experienced a major relative warming, as a result of the preceding downward shift in the SO index, that is, the abrupt and significant fall in the pressure gradient across the tropical Pacific basin.
Kristian says:
April 20, 2014 at 12:20 pm (Edit)
The only interesting period concerning any potential influence on global temperatures of our CO2 emissions is the one starting in the mid 1970s. There is no point looking for any signals of such influence earlier than that, seeing that even the IPCC concurs that there would be no such signals before about 1950, and there was no global warming between 1950 and 1977:
You are missing an essential point. 1950 – 1977 was a negative PDO period. But instead of sharp cooling, it was flatline-to-mild. That’s because mild CO2 forcing was counteracting most of the cooling. But from 1977 – 2007, there was a positive PDO and only around half that warming at most could have been from any CO2 forcing.
Add it all up and you get a warming of 0.11C (adjusted data) per decade since 1950. Not all of that is anthropogenic (though I suppose half or more is), and not all anthropogenic warming is CO2-induced (think Arctic soot).
Anthropogenic CO2 increase has been relatively constant from 1950 on. And that’s right when it really took off.
So 1950 is the perfect start date from that perspective: one full cycle (plus and minus) of PDO. (Except for the metadata record issues like TOBS and moves, etc., which get spottier the further back you go.)
That’s the top-down approach. NOT including microsite . . .
One has to bear in mind the Three Principles of Global Warming:
1.) Size Matters.
2.) So does the Motion of the Ocean.
3.) (Regarding data “adjustment”) If ya shake it more than three times, yer playin’ with it.
Joe
Cet has an allowance for UHI made by the Met Office from 1976. Hadcrut3 doesn’t. That could be the difference.
tonyb
evanmjones says, April 20, 2014 at 12:55 pm:
“You are missing an essential point. 1950 – 1977 was a negative PDO period. But instead of sharp cooling, it was flatline-to-mild.”
Evan,
You speak as someone that has not taken the time to even try to understand how the oceans directly influence (drive) the global climate on multidecadal time scales. The mighty and very natural processes at work, the gigantic amounts of energy being administered.
1950-77 being a (mostly) negative PDO period doesn’t mean global temperatures would necessarily have to experience ‘sharp cooling’, or any progressive cooling at all. On what do you base this belief? They stayed relatively cold compared to the periods before and after, until the Pacific climate regime flipped around in 1976/77 (with the PDO).
Comparing global with NINO3.4 SSTa from 1950 to 1977, you will see that the former made a sudden upward shift in 1957 relative to the latter (same did PDO) and then a distinct downward relative shift, just as abrupt, in 1964. Outside of those two shifts, global temperatures 1950-77 still simply seem to follow the NINO3.4 SST. After 1988/89, PDO is no longer the leading SST pattern of the North Pacific. Other patterns such as the ‘Victoria pattern’ seem to have superseded it. The same situation might have existed also before 1924/25. PDO does not correlate with the marked global warming between 1911 and 1925, nor with the global cooling prior to this. PDO’s direct correlation to global temperatures seems to be restricted to the period 1924/25 – 1988.
Your appeal to a CO2 forcing signal is wishful thinking at best. There is no (NO!) room at all for any CO2 forcing signal anywhere. Claiming otherwise is pure pseudoscientific nonsense. It’s all perfectly natural. Ocean cycles. PDV -> ENSO -> AMO.
You speak as someone that has not taken the time to even try to understand how the oceans directly influence (drive) the global climate on multidecadal time scales. The mighty and very natural processes at work, the gigantic amounts of energy being administered.
Possibly. But the details are so complex that bottom-to-top models won’t feed the bulldog.
What we can sort of do is isolate the warming (regardless of attribution), itself. If that, in itself, is not a threat, then we have cracked the most important issue. So what the warming trend is over the last negative+positive PDO tells us a lot.
To posit that CO2 has no effect means either that the science that tells us that the first 100 ppm warms us over 20C is wrong or that we are fully saturated. Anything else indicates CO2 has a small, diminishing effect.
If I’m not mistaken, melord more or less tends in this direction himself.
Other patterns such as the ‘Victoria pattern’ seem to have superseded it.
Is that the NPO?
Thanks, Christopher, Lord Monckton, and Happy Easter for all!
Good article, wise conclusion:
“The bottom line is that the pattern of global warming, clustered in three distinct periods the first and greatest of which preceded any possible anthropogenic influence, fits more closely with stochastic natural variability than with the slow, inexorable increase in anthropogenic forcing predicted by the IPCC.”
evanmjones says, April 20, 2014 at 4:10 pm:
“What we can sort of do is isolate the warming (regardless of attribution), itself. If that, in itself, is not a threat, then we have cracked the most important issue. So what the warming trend is over the last negative+positive PDO tells us a lot.”
The point is, Evan, then you can only look at the period where PDO correlates with global temperatures, that is, from 1925 to 1988:
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/jisao-pdo/from:1925/to:1988/scale:0.15/offset:-0.1/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1925/to:1988
Seems here that the only instance of ‘anthropogenic warming’ (meaning, ‘global warming’ outside of the PDO signal) occurred abruptly around 1940-42. Hmm.
“To posit that CO2 has no effect means either that the science that tells us that the first 100 ppm warms us over 20C is wrong or that we are fully saturated.”
First one. Wrong. Atmospheric CO2 does not and cannot warm us. And all available observational data from the real world point to just that conclusion. There is no trace, no hint anywhere of any CO2-related warming signal (+CO2 >> +T) in the global records of the earth system. It’s all natural. Sun + ocean.
And still the claim remains: ‘It has got to have a warming effect! Even when we don’t see it, it must be there, hidden somewhere!’
evanmjones says, April 20, 2014 at 4:18 pm:
“Is that the NPO?”
No, it is like the PDO, only a different North Pacific SST pattern.
https://www.pices.int/publications/pices_press/volume12/Jan04/pp_16_17_PDO.pdf
http://www.beringclimate.noaa.gov/essays_bond2.html
http://www.acoustics.washington.edu/fis437/resources/Week%208/Overland%202008.pdf
What is certain is that the PDO is not the whole story. PDO is but one of several large-scale climatic pattern/regime modes in the Pacific, all coming together in and encompassed by the overarching, basinwide PDV (Pacific Decadal Variability). Whatever controls this, controls earth’s climate.
tonyb:
Thanks for the response. However, I probably was not as clear as I should have been.
What I intended to point out is that, although the the numbers I got for 125-year CET and HadCrut trends ending in 2009 differ quite a bit, those ending now don’t; the 125- year trends of CET have been falling, while those of HadCrut have been rising. So. although I imagine that CET is a better indicator of the types of trend changes the global average likely exhibits than Mann-type reconstructions are, the “0.01 K” trend difference Lord M. reports suggests a greater similarity than (if my numbers are right) really exists.
Mr Born seems to specialize in picking nits. Is this a new and more subtle form of trolling?
Least-squares linear-regression trend on the mean of the GISS, HadCRUT4 and NCDC monthly global mean surface temperature anomaly datasets, January 1894-December 2013, 0.89 K. Least-squares linear-regression trend on the Central England temperature record, January 1894-December 2013, 0.90 K. Period: 120 years, or 2 full cycles of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation. Difference: 0.01 K, exactly as the head posting says.
The CET is not fully instrumental in early years, and in some of the information comes from observations not in England.
Manley, G. 1974: Central England Temperatures: monthly means 1659 to 1973. Quart J Roy Meteorolol Soc, 100, 389-405. http://www.rmets.org/sites/default/files/qj74manley.pdf
Parker, D. E., T. P. Legg, and C. K. Folland, 1992: A new daily Central England Temperature Series, 1772-1991. Int J Climatol, 12, 317-342
http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadcet/Parker_etalIJOC1992_dailyCET.pdf
Eli read them. From Parker, et al.
“Manley1953) published a time series of monthly mean temperatures representative of central England for 1698-1952, followed (Manley 1974) by an extended and revised series for 1659-1973. Up to 1814 his data are based mainly on overlapping sequences of observations from a variety of carefully chosen and documented locations. Up to 1722, available instrumental records fail to overlap and Manley needs to use non-instrumental series for Utrecht compiled by Labrijn (1945), in order to mate the monthly central England temperature (CET) series complete. Between 1723 and the 1760s there are no gaps in the composite instrumental record, but the observations generally were taken in unheated rooms rather than with a truly outdoor exposure….”
Of those early outdoor readings some were not shaded and you get the problem of direct solar heating of the thermometers, which also has to be corrected for.
While the Manley reconstruction is only continuous from 1722 on, the information upon which it relies from 1723-28 has further difficulties, essentially absolute values were not reliable, and the series was constructed by taking the difference between measurements made by those thermometers and ones thought to be more reliable after 1727, and then repeatedly differenced to get values before 1727.
Of course, a significant number of the pre-1700 measurements were estimates with non-instrumental information mixed in and even after 1700 metadata was used to correct the records. Before 1670 Manley only provides monthly values accurate to a degree Celcius and between then and 1700, accurate only to 0.5 C.
While construction of the CET by Manley was a triumph, it is a slender reed to base one’s hopes on.
First one. Wrong. Atmospheric CO2 does not and cannot warm us.
Ah. Now if that is wrong (i.e., the large effect of the first few ppm), then all bets are off. But I was unaware that was even controversial. I have to conk out, but I want to know more about that, one way or the other. I’ll also want to ask a few others.
What is certain is that the PDO is not the whole story. PDO is but one of several large-scale climatic pattern/regime modes in the Pacific, all coming together in and encompassed by the overarching, basinwide PDV (Pacific Decadal Variability). Whatever controls this, controls earth’s climate.
That much I know. Worldwide, you’ve got PDO, SO, NAO, AMO, AO, AAO, the oceanic/atmospheric Big Six. Couple more, such as the NPO, and IPO (both Pacific) and minor players. The multi-years. But it was always my impression that PDO was the driver and the others were followers. Look how they each one unfolded, starting in 1977.
Monckton of Brenchley says:
April 20, 2014 at 6:30 pm
“Least-squares linear-regression trend on the mean of the GISS, HadCRUT4 and NCDC monthly global mean surface temperature anomaly datasets, January 1894-December 2013, 0.89 K. Least-squares linear-regression trend on the Central England temperature record, January 1894-December 2013, 0.90 K. Period: 120 years, or 2 full cycles of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation. Difference: 0.01 K, exactly as the head posting says.”
That trend existing in the CET is utterly dependent on the data added to it over recent years, which means it is supremely dependent upon how much one trusts the modern Met Office to be unbiased.
For instance, in a CET publication of 1974, showing data up to 1973, Central England temperatures in immediately preceding years were cooler than during one of the high points in the 1830s.
Adding colored highlighting lines onto the 1974 version of CET history demonstrates the preceding:
http://img120.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=51003_actualCET_122_71lo.jpg
The top plot is in Fahrenheit, like 0.90 K would be 1.62 degrees Fahrenheit.
(The good aspect of the 1974 version of CET history is it was relatively trustworthy by being before there would be motivation to bias it, before the CAGW movement, before the political era).
Temperature histories and trends within them vary by locality, by region, and whether before or after rewriting, like some additional illustrations added towards the lower part of the prior link’s image highlight.
So, regarding this:
“Difference: 0.01 K, exactly as the head posting says.”
When the versions of temperature history from Hansen’s GISS and HADCRUT of CRU have so much equality in trend to that reported for a particular locality and latitude (Central England Temperature according to the Met Office), either such is one heck of a coincidence, or rather it is by deliberate intent rather than true natural accident.
Rather than being in favor of the modern version of the CET record, the very observation that their trends were so (unnaturally) close was what made huge extra red flags go off to me, as natural data tends to be messier and not so convenient. And so it sparked the above investigation.
60 year cycle (strong-weak) is also seen in studies of the polar vortex in the north.
The results of this study showed that the evolution of the stratospheric polar vortex plays an important part in the mechanism of solar-climatic links. The vortex strength reveals a roughly 60-year periodicity influencing the large-scale atmospheric circulation and the sign of SA/GCR effects on the development of baric systems at middle and high latitudes.
http://geo.phys.spbu.ru/materials_of_a_conference_2012/STP2012/Veretenenko_%20et_all_Geocosmos2012proceedings.pdf
EDIT:
Two clarifications to my recent post:
1) The second to last paragraph could best have the word global to highlight what it is talking about, as in:
When the versions of global temperature history from Hansen’s GISS and HADCRUT of CRU have so much equality in trend [within 0.01K over that time period] to that reported for a particular locality and latitude (Central England Temperature according to the Met Office), either such is one heck of a coincidence, or rather it is by deliberate intent rather than true natural accident.
2) At the start of the post, the remarks on whether a 0.9 K / 1.2 century trend really exists are not meant to imply, however, that there has been no warming since 1894, rather to dispute the numerical figure. As seen in the plot of the 1974 publication of CET in the prior post, the mid 1890s were unusually cold in Central England temperature (even compared to the decade before or after). A trendline from 1894 to modern times would have some warming even in data from trustworthy sources. However, the quantitative magnitude being 0.9 K (1.6 degrees F) / 1.2 centuries would be a different matter.
————-
A good site for seeing rewritten versions of temperature history, versus a multitude of non-rewritten ones, is the following:
http://hidethedecline.eu/
(There is one time when they make the mistake of showing a solar-temperature plot from the CAGW movement, pointing out the fallacy in its rewritten temperature data and yet overlooking what is wrong with the solar TSI depiction in it as well, but they show real temperature history from a number of different countries and locations as well as sometimes NH, SH, and global averages).
It is good of the Rabbett to have hopped along here from attending his arduous Easter chores but I fear he is spreading disinformation on CET.
Here is my article on reconstructing CET from its ‘instrumental’ end point of 1659 to 1538 which contains a long section on the reconstruction of CET by Manley.
http://judithcurry.com/2011/12/01/the-long-slow-thaw/
At the end of last year I also took the opportunity of meeting with David Parker at the Met Office who compiled the 1772 version. This tends to used the most as it is a daily record as opposed to Manley’s monthly record to 1659. However Parkers record does miss out on the astonishing recovery from the LIA from 1700 which until the harsh winter of 1740 contained a decade whose temperature were only exceeded (marginally) by the 1990’s. This period caused Phil Jones to re-evaluate his thoughts on Natural variability which he conceded was greater than he had hitherto believed.
.
CET has been scrutinised and re-evaluated numerous times by some of the best minds in the business. It is a good representation of the time but -as with all records of this type by no means perfect. We would do well to remember Lambs comment (who scrutinised the CET record closely and whose notes can be found in the CRU archives) that ‘we can understand the tendency but not the precision.’
Eli has of course dwelt a death blow to virtually all aspects of climate science with his protestations that CET ‘borrowed’ from (climatically similar) Utrecht. It is known as ‘interpolation’ although in this case there are many overlapping records to make it a viable thing to do if we don’t believe it can be accurate to a tenth of a degree.
Modern climate science depends on interpolation data sets as varied as land temperatures, sea surface temperatures and ice cores, In essence If the information required to construct a continuous record does not exist it is ‘borrowed.’ As an example historic sea surface temperatures are compiled from readings taken from gridded squares around the world. If data is missing in one square it can be borrowed from another many hundreds of miles away. Only one reading in a square for the year? No problem, others can be ‘borrowed’ from a place hundreds of miles away and ‘infilled.’
Sometimes this can be viable but the historic record in particular can be very sparse and interpolating and infilling is problematic. Personally I would not take any account of ‘global’ SST records prior to around 1960. Land temperatures are a mish mash with some areas better than others (always assuming the data was correct in the first place) People like Mosh are attempting to make them more accurate by finding additional data..
So Eli’s protestations about Utrecht seem misplaced bearing in mind that the data he routinely uses in other climate related fields often might not exist but has been created.
tonyb.
Regarding http://hidethedecline.eu/ , I just checked something:
It isn’t linked in WUWT’s lengthy list of websites, despite being more than notable enough (being the top site on the internet for seeing temperature data prior to it being rewritten). After looking manually, I even saved the WUWT front page and did a search in a html editor to be sure.
Monckton of Brenchley: “Difference: 0.01 K, exactly as the head posting says.”
But surely the “0.01 K” excerpt’s purpose was to impress upon the reader how good the CET is as an indication of the global average’s behavior, and in making that judgment the reader would find it helpful to know how the two quantities compare not only not only at one point but also over time.
Monckton of Brenchley: “Mr Born seems to specialize in picking nits. Is this a new and more subtle form of trolling?”
Perhaps Lord M. could consider the possibility that some commenters’ motivations are not to impede his message but rather to get him not to compromise it himself. In this particular case I was attempting yet again to get Lord M. to exhibit more of an element that Richard Feynman identified as distinguishing real science from cargo-cult science: “It’s a kind of scientific integrity, a principle of scientific thought that corresponds to a kind of utter honesty–a kind of leaning over backwards.”
Dr. Feynman continued: “For example, if you’re doing an experiment, you should report everything that you think might make it invalid–not only what you think is right about it: other causes that could possibly explain your results; and things you thought of that you’ve eliminated by some other experiment, and how they worked–to make sure the other fellow can tell they have been eliminated.”
Although citation of isolated facts that support one’s case can work in the short run for some of the audience, much of the audience ultimately becomes less trusting of a advocate who tends to marshal in isolation facts that although true are less compelling in context; people don’t like feeling they’ve been misled. Conversely, the advocate’s influence increases as he is seen consistently to practice Dr. Feynman’s “leaning over backwards.”
It will be advantageous all around if Lord M. is seen more as helping his helping his audience find truth and less as attempting to make debating points. To urge him in that direction was the purpose of my comment.
evanmjones says, April 20, 2014 at 11:38 pm:
“Ah. Now if that is wrong (i.e., the large effect of the first few ppm), then all bets are off. But I was unaware that was even controversial.”
Like I said, everyone just KNOWS that it has got to have a warming effect on the global earth system at large. But HOW do they know this? When it’s not seen anywhere? It is based on purely theoretical concepts.
The point is, this is how real science works: You have an idea about how the real world works, a mechanism that you feel must have an effect on something out there. You base this idea on your interpretation of some physical relationships. Maybe you’ve even made a few lab experiments.
But, no matter how sound you feel your physics are or how solid your lab experiments are, you can’t start out with the assumption that you’re right.
You will have to go out into the real world and see if you can observe what you’re hypothesizing, your mechanism having the effect on the earth system that you claim. Before you do that, before you’ve established empirically the causal relationship PROPOSED MECHANISM >> EFFECT, all you have is a claim. And if you insist that your claim is true and real EVEN without/before you’re able to observe this relationship in nature, you are performing pseudoscience, not real science.
The idea that so-called ‘GHGs’ in the atmosphere somehow warms the surface of the earth is a claim that has no empirical backing from the real earth system. It’s all a theoretical/mathematical construct.
And yet, people just assume the claim is correct. And interpret any warming they observe as evidence that the proposed mechanism works. This is called CIRCULAR REASONING. The whole GHE/AGW hypothesis is a circular argument and nothing more: “We believe that more CO2 in the atmosphere warms the surface of the earth. We observe warming and we observe rising atmospheric CO2. Hence, the rising CO2 must have caused the rising temperatures. And our hypothesis is correct.”
And that’s it. That’s all they’ve got. And models, of course. Pseudoscience.
But where is the observational evidence from the real earth system that the proposed mechanism causes the observed effect? +CO2 >> +T. Where? When was that causal relationship empirically established as true in nature, in the surface/atmosphere system? What data?
Don’t believe what PEOPLE tell you, Evan. Believe what the DATA tells you (and don’t tell you). ‘Nullius in verba.’ Always.
evanmjones says, April 20, 2014 at 11:44 pm:
“But it was always my impression that PDO was the driver and the others were followers. Look how they each one unfolded, starting in 1977.”
Sorry, then your impression was always mistaken. PDO is the driver of nothing. It is not a natural phenomenon. It is an index of a particular North Pacific SST pattern. PDO is driven. By real natural modes, like the AO, ENSO and NPO.
Why doesn’t PDO correlate with the evolution in global temperatures before 1925 and after 1988? Read the links I gave you. There is more also. Much more.
Mr Born is indeed indulging in a subtle form of trolling. We have two full PDO cycles available to ass in the instrumental record. The CET trend tracks the global trend quite well over the 120-year period I mentioned. And we have independent historical confirmation of the Little Ice Age cooling and the post-Maunder Minimum recovery of temperatures, at least in the United Kingdom and in the United States. At the time of the Maunder Minimum, the cold weather was known to all and was duly recorded by the CET thermometers, but the keepers of the thermometers did not know that there were exceptionally few sunspots. The sunspot record was quietly kept at the Royal Observatory, and the exceptional period of 70 years with few or no sunspots betwen 1645 and 1715 was only made public when a bureaucrat at the observatory came upon the data in the 19th century. The Central England temperature record, however, had shown the exceptionally cold period, and the exceptionally rapid recovery of regional temperatures thereafter.
For the purpose for which the head posting was used, therefore, the Central England Temperature record was not altogether unsuitable. And proper caveats were explicitly mentioned in the head posting. So if Mr Born wants to join other nit-picker trolls like Mr Oldberg, he is of course free to do so, but he is not likely to impress.
Kristian repeats the tired old notion that there is no such thing as the greenhouse effect. There is, and it has been established both by experiment and by theory. The fundamental equation of radiative transfer, determined experimentally by Stefan and demonstrated theoretically by his pupil Boltzmann, is not up for repeal.
The correct approach, therefore, is to accept that which has been theoretically demonstrated unless one can produce clear empirical and theoretical evidence that what has been demonstrated was falsely demonstrated.
It is, however, also correct to say that because of the many complexities of the climate system it is far from a simple matter to determine how much warming our enrichment of the atmosphere will cause. The IPCC has all but halved its estimates both of radiative forcing and of global warming since its first assessment report in 1990. But we do no service to the cause of truth if, on no evidence, we pretend there is no greenhouse effect. There is. Get over it.
Tonyb…..nice riposte and after all it is Easter! though I think you just meant to look for the Easter Bunny? not skewer him! as tempting as it ever is with E-lie Rabbit.
Tip to E-lie if you don’t know what you’re talking about..best not to enter a discussion, especially with a person who’s done the footwork that Tonyb has at MetO archive!
You made yourself look a bigger fool than normal..quite an achievement even for you?
Kristian says:
April 21, 2014 at 4:31 am
“The idea that so-called ‘GHGs’ in the atmosphere somehow warms the surface of the earth is a claim that has no empirical backing from the real earth system. It’s all a theoretical/mathematical construct.”
———————–
Monckton of Brenchley says:
April 21, 2014 at 5:35 am
“Kristian repeats the tired old notion that there is no such thing as the greenhouse effect. There is, and it has been established both by experiment and by theory. The fundamental equation of radiative transfer, determined experimentally by Stefan and demonstrated theoretically by his pupil Boltzmann, is not up for repeal.”
————————-
Kristian made mention of ‘GHGs’ (greenhouse gasses) …. whereas Monckton of Brenchley made mention of a “greenhouse effect”.
So what is my problem? My problem is that so many learned, educated individuals use “verbiage” that best suits their argument ….. but the “verbiage” they use only explicitly defines their argument like +-50% of the time.
So, what are the three (3) primary “greenhouse gases” (even though technically there are no such things)?
They are: Water vapor (H2O), Carbon dioxide (CO2) and Methane (CH4).
Now, in their above statements, was either Kristian or Monckton referring to the “warming” or “greenhouse effect” generated by all three (3) of those “greenhouse gases”?
My opinion Kristian was not, whereas Monckton was.
Thus, it is also my opinion that Kristian’s statement is in error because it is a measurable fact that atmospheric H2O vapor will cause an increase (warming) in temperature of the near-surface air as well as the surface.
Also, Monckton’s statement is in error because it can not be measurably proven that the current atmospheric ppm quantities of CO2 and/or CH4 are causing or have caused an increase (warming) in temperature of the near-surface air or of the surface.
Learned, educated people blame all increases in/of surface temperatures on “greenhouse gasses” one time …… and then blame them on CO2 the next time. They blame all increases in/of surface temperatures on “global warming” one time …… and on “CO2 causing anthropogenic global warming” the next time. (How’s come no blame is evere attributed to Interglacial global warming?)
It appears as though …… “they want their cake and eat it too”.
But it seems they never ever blame any increases in/of surface temperatures on the most potent and abundant of all the “greenhouse gasses”, ….. H2O vapor.
Only the “weather people” (meteorologists) respect the “warming effect” of atmospheric H2O vapor. And they are not afraid to tell you about it in their reporting.
Anyone that is touting that 400 ppm of CO2 is causing a “warming” of the atmosphere …… while averting their eyes and their mind to 15,000 ppm to 40,000 ppm of atmospheric H2O vapor (humidity) only serves to prove how overpowering their CAGW religious beliefs or their vested interests are.
Cheers
Samuel C Cogar says, April 21, 2014 at 11:56 am:
“Kristian made mention of ‘GHGs’ (greenhouse gasses) …. whereas Monckton of Brenchley made mention of a “greenhouse effect”.”
Yes, ‘GHGs’ in the atmosphere couldn’t possibly make earth’s surface warmer when present than when not. In purely radiative terms our atmosphere most definitely cools the surface underneath. First, the atmospheric presence of the so-called ‘GHGs’ deprives the surface on a daily basis of 45% of the potential heat input from the sun (as compared to the surface of the moon). Then, it helps making the convective circulation more efficient, thus facilitating the heat transport from surface to tropopause. The ‘GHGs’ do so by tending to warm at lower levels and cool at higher levels, meaning, by their radiative properties they work towards steepening the environmental lapse rate, strengthening convection which works towards bringing it back down.
The ‘GHGs’ don’t enable the atmosphere to warm. It would’ve with or without them, through OTHER heat transfer mechanisms than the radiative one. They do, however, enable it to adequately cool to space, for there are no other mechanisms available for that than radiation.
Even so, there is clearly an ‘atmospheric warming effect’ on the surface. Having an atmosphere on top of a solar-heated surface will naturally make that surface significantly warmer than if the atmosphere weren’t there. It simply insulates the surface by making it harder for energy to escape back out fast enough to keep up with the incoming than in a non-atmo situation (the vacuum of space) AT THE SAME TEMPERATURE LEVEL, thus forcing the temperature to rise. Energy accumulates as long as INCOMING > OUTGOING and the surface warms. The surface does not get its temperature from instantaneous energy fluxes. It gets it from its accumulated internal energy level at balance IN/OUT. It is able to store energy. Unlike a black body. It is a real thing. A real-world object. Not a theoretical concept. And in real-world objects it’s the storage of energy before balance IN/OUT that warms it and sets the final ‘equilibrium temperature’, not the absolute size of instantaneous radiative fluxes.
The atmosphere insulates the surface. And it does so convectively. The delay in surface energy escape is in the movement of air from surface to tropopause, not in the propagation of EM waves. If the surface of the earth could only rid itself of energy through radiation, then -41C would be mean temperature high enough to balance the incoming solar flux (165 W/m^2). Not so with conduction/convection/evaporation. As soon as you put an atmosphere (air) on top of the solar-heated surface (and there’s water), these mechanisms automatically come into play. And they need a mean surface temperature MUCH higher than -41C to run efficiently, for the surface to be able to rid itself of energy as fast (efficiently) as it absorbs the incoming solar.
“Thus, it is also my opinion that Kristian’s statement is in error because it is a measurable fact that atmospheric H2O vapor will cause an increase (warming) in temperature of the near-surface air as well as the surface.”
Er, no. Lots of H2O in the atmosphere tends to cool the average temperature of the surface underneath it. The annual mean temp of moist places in say the tropics is several degrees lower than for places in dry (desert) areas at equal altitudes. The net radiative effect of H2O in the atmosphere on the surface is clearly cooling. That doesn’t mean that atmospheric H2O doesn’t also slow surface cooling at night. That is, it never WARMS the surface below, meaning raising its temperature in absolute terms. It makes it LESS COOL than what it would’ve been at a certain point in time after sunset in dry conditions.
The point, however, is that this effect is not a radiative one. Well, first the water vapour absorbs outgoing surface IR, which is a radiative property. But the reason why the surface cools so slowly at night under moist conditions is not because of this absorption. The absorption mostly occurred during the day. It cools so slowly because the moist atmosphere cools so slowly compared to a dry atmosphere. Why? Because water vapour has a large heat capacity. Also, with a lot of moisture in the air, when the temperature drops, condensation often takes place. This process releases latent heat into the atmosphere which slows its cooling rate even more.
Seriously, this is not the ‘greenhouse effect’, folks.
“How, then, can we determine how much of the 20th-century warming was natural? The answer, like it or not, is that we can’t.”
Showing any association between discrete low/high solar plasma velocity periods (or Ap index proxy) and oceanic phases such as ENSO and AMO could go a long way. More straightforward is to recognise that the positive AMO phase since 1995 by default is natural, because it is dependent on increasingly negative NAO/AO conditions, and sensibly no IPCC climate models predict any increase in negative NAO/AO conditions with increased GHG forcing. The increased poleward heat transport of the AMO since 1995 has raised global mean surface temperature around 0.2°C.
Mr Cogar is muddled and his intervention is inept and unhelpful. “Kristian” was and is trying to deny that there is such a thing as the greenhouse effect (which is the effect of greenhouse gases in tending – all other things being equal – to raise global temperature). The moderators are tolerantly allowing Kristian to get away with this derailment of the topic, though this particular form of diversionary trolling is normally and rightly banned.
And my statement that there is a greenhouse effect is not “in error”, as Mr Cogar imagines. The greenhouse effect, whether he or “Kristian” like it or not, is well established both empirically and theoretically and they must produce proper scientific arguments – but preferably not here, where the whole issue is wildly off topic – if they wish to overthrow it.
Both Mr Cogar and “Kristian” use the intellectually dishonest technique of pretending that because it is difficult to quantify the amount of global warming we may cause, and difficult to establish definitively that any of the warming that stopped in the late 1990s was anthropogenic, there is no greenhouse effect. “Kristian”, who becomes more confused with each intervention, conflates radiative and non-radiative transports and appears incapable of understanding that the presence of non-radiative transports does not disprove the existence of radiative transports.
Perhaps the moderators, who will see this comment if I include the word “moderators”, will be able in future to exclude off-topic discussions of whether there is a greenhouse effect, which is nothing to do with the head posting.
Moncton’s Figure 3 shows cool/flat temps from 1890-1924, warming 1925-1946, cool/flat 1947-1976, warming 1978-2000. I have seen many graphs showing cooling 1880-1910, warming 1911-1940, cooling 1941-1975, warming 1976-1998.
Why is there such a timing difference between Figure 3 warm-cool periods and other graphs perporting to show the same warm-cool periods?
Actually it looks to me, like he’s bringing up something James Hansen’s own fellow employees stated repeatedly: James Hansen’s version of “Infrared Global Warming” violates the atmosphere’s well known obedience to laws other than the one you claim you think, governs the temperature profile of the atmosphere.
James Hansen has been proven to be a serial falsehood injector into atmospheric science, and he is the man who led the charge to analyze the atmosphere according to specific gas concentration.
The atmosphere’s thermal profile isn’t determined by specific gas concentration, it’s determined by the Ideal Gas Law.
Monckton of Brenchley says:
April 21, 2014 at 4:02 pm
Mr Cogar is muddled and his intervention is inept and unhelpful. “Kristian” was and is trying to deny that there is such a thing as the greenhouse effect (which is the effect of greenhouse gases in tending – all other things being equal – to raise global temperature). The moderators are tolerantly allowing Kristian to get away with this derailment of the topic, though this particular form of diversionary trolling is normally and rightly banned.
Ah, I see Lord M. has lived down to my expectations by yet again reacting ungraciously to my attempts at throwing him a line when he’s ventured beyond his depth: “Mr Born is indeed indulging in a subtle form of trolling.”
However that may be, I’ll finish here with a comment for anyone who remains bemused by his following head-post passage: “Also, over the past 120 years, representing two full cycles of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, its trend is within 0.01 K of the trend on the mean of the GISS, HadCRUT4 and NCDC global terrestrial datasets,” on which he elaborated thus in a subsequent comment: “The CET trend tracks the global trend quite well over the 120-year period I mentioned. ”
Yes, the CET trend for the 120-year period that’s ending now does by happenstance nearly equal the global-index trend for the same period. But this is atypical; for all of the global index’s 120-year periods ending before last year, the CET index was significantly higher, being as much as 75% higher than the global trend; the difference was more than 0.25 K/century, i.e., 25 times the difference Lord M. touts. An analogy would be the sine and cosine functions, which are exactly equal at pi/4 and 5 pi/4 but in fact are completely orthogonal.
No, CET is not completely orthogonal to the global indexes, but the reason the indexes’ 120-year trends are close now is that the CET trend is falling steeply from its peak in 2007, whereas the global trend was still rising at least into last year (when I collected the data). So Lord M.’s excerpt requires rather a loose meaning for “tracks the global trend quite well.”
Probably an argument can nonetheless be made for the proposition that the CET index is relevant to the question before the house, but Lord M.’s relying on the indexes’ trends’ crossing each other is not it, and the poor logic throws suspicion on the rest of the post.
Joe Born
Here are the Met office CET figures.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcet/
Last year I met with David Parker who created this 1772 base at the Met office.
Denizens of the UK would be dismayed if they thought that the 1990’s was really as good as it has ever got in our long history. There is an allowance for UHI in the figures but I suspect it is not enough. I also learnt that the three stations used to create CET in the last decade or so prior to the sharp cooling trend-were realised to be in warmer locations than was realistic.
I would therefore suggest that whilst CET is generally a very useful record due to the amount of scrutiny it gets, that in years to come the peak CET temperature will be revised downwards. The current stations are perhaps a little cool. Who Knows? A nudge down of the data during the 1990’s and a nudge up over the last decade is probably going to be more indicative of the real world and will reinforce CET’s correlation with the global record.
tonyb
@Eric Simpson
We can’t save everyone from gullibility. Critical thinking is severely lacking in way too many.
Historical evidence shows us that we are still in a co2 famine which could eventually end almost all life on earth, if the co2 famine isn’t reversed.
Our co2 is helping to save the earth, not killing it.
The darwin awards await those who blindly believe IPCC politicized pseudo‑science.
Kristian says:
April 21, 2014 at 12:50 pm
“Yes, ‘GHGs’ in the atmosphere couldn’t possibly make earth’s surface warmer when present than when not. In purely radiative terms our atmosphere most definitely cools the surface underneath.”
—————
“Yup”, and in purely conductive terms our atmosphere most definitely warms the surface underneath.
=============
“Not so with conduction/convection/evaporation. As soon as you put an atmosphere (air) on top of the solar-heated surface (and there’s water), these mechanisms automatically come into play. ”
————-
The mechanisms of conduction and convection automatically come into play whether or not there is H2O vapor in the air.
=============
“Er, no. Lots of H2O in the atmosphere tends to cool the average temperature of the surface underneath it.”
——————
Er, “DUH”, …. where does the thermal energy go when H2O vapor condenses on the surface?
===============
“The annual mean temp of moist places in say the tropics is several degrees lower than for places in dry (desert) areas at equal altitudes”
——————
Sure nuff, but only during daytime …..and because the jungle foliage absorbs thermal energy for photosynthesis, reflects thermal energy and the foliage is transpiring tons of H2O vapor into the air, thus convecting the thermal energy high into the atmosphere.
================
“The net radiative effect of H2O in the atmosphere on the surface is clearly cooling.”
—————–
“DUH”, the surface is going to radiate IR regardless of what’s in the atmosphere. And if the H2O in the atmosphere is warmer than the surface then the net radiative effect of H2O in the atmosphere on the surface is clearly warming.
===========
“It [H2O vapor] makes it LESS COOL than what it would’ve been at a certain point in time after sunset in dry conditions.”
If dry conditions, then there is minimal H2O vapor in the air and thus it make the surface LESS WARM because less IR is being radiated back to the surface from the atmosphere …. and thus the reason it cools so quickly after sunset in desert areas.
=============
“But the reason why the surface cools so slowly at night under moist conditions is ———— because the moist atmosphere cools so slowly compared to a dry atmosphere.”
———–
“DUH”, it’s because a moist atmosphere is radiating IR back to the surface. A dry atmosphere doesn’t radiate much IR back to the surface. Same as above, ….. and thus the reason it cools so quickly after sunset in desert areas.
Samuel C Cogar says, April 22, 2014 at 8:06 am:
“The mechanisms of conduction and convection automatically come into play whether or not there is H2O vapor in the air.”
Samuel, I included the “and there’s water” term so that I could include ‘evaporation’.
“Er, “DUH”, …. where does the thermal energy go when H2O vapor condenses on the surface?”
What on earth has this got to do with anything?! We’re talking about the NET effect of H2O in the atmosphere above a surface. There are certainly both warming and cooling contributions, but the NET effect is clearly cooling.
““The annual mean temp of moist places in say the tropics is several degrees lower than for places in dry (desert) areas at equal altitudes”
——————
Sure nuff, but only during daytime (…)”
Like I said, Samuel. The cooling effect during daytime, then, proves to be much stronger on average than the warming effect during the night. Resulting in an ‘annual average’ significantly cooler WITH a large content of atmospheric water than WITHOUT.
Again, I’m talking about the NET effect. Where is the point in only focusing on the (smaller) warming effects and say: “Haha! There’s the GHE! It’s warming!” when the TOTAL effect of having these gases in the atmosphere is cooling? The proposed ‘atmospheric radiative GHE’ is supposed to warm the surface, Samuel. Meaning in absolute terms, in total, at ‘equilibrium’, not as the smaller ‘half’ of a NET cooling effect.
“(…) if the H2O in the atmosphere is warmer than the surface then the net radiative effect of H2O in the atmosphere on the surface is clearly warming.”
But the H2O in the atmosphere ISN’T warmer than the surface, Samuel.
“If dry conditions, then there is minimal H2O vapor in the air and thus it make the surface LESS WARM because less IR is being radiated back to the surface from the atmosphere …. and thus the reason it cools so quickly after sunset in desert areas.”
No, the surface cools to the atmosphere. If the atmosphere then cools more slowly (to space), then the surface will naturally cool more slowly to the atmosphere. It’s all a matter of temp gradients. As described by both the conductive/convective and radiative heat transfer equations.
“(…) it’s because a moist atmosphere is radiating IR back to the surface.”
No, it’s because a moist atmosphere has a much higher heat capacity than a dry one, thus cools more slowly. AND because latent heat is (often) released into the air upon condensation when temperatures drop at night.
This is pretty trivial, Samuel. Everyone outside ‘Climate Science’ knows and understands this.
Monckton of Brenchley says:
April 21, 2014 at 4:02 pm
“Mr Cogar is muddled and his intervention is inept and unhelpful.
Mr Cogar …… use(s) the intellectually dishonest technique of pretending that ….”
——————–
“And, spite of pride, in erring reason’s spite,
One truth is clear, whatever is, is right.”
Alexander Pope
Mr. Cogar is neither muddled, inept nor intellectually dishonest. And he detests “junk science” in any way, shape or form.
@ Kristian says:
April 22, 2014 at 9:05 am
——————-
Your one-track mind and circular reasoning makes for a good combination.
Cheers
tonyb: Thanks again for the pointer.
I actually did know where to get the data, but I haven’t updated it on my disk, because right now other matters would prevent me from doing much with it.
In any event, it’s good to know a source for information about the published numbers’ provenance.
Christopher Monckton of Brenchley, good post.
About this: Both Mr Cogar and “Kristian” use the intellectually dishonest technique of pretending that because it is difficult to quantify the amount of global warming we may cause, and difficult to establish definitively that any of the warming that stopped in the late 1990s was anthropogenic, there is no greenhouse effect. “Kristian”, who becomes more confused with each intervention, conflates radiative and non-radiative transports and appears incapable of understanding that the presence of non-radiative transports does not disprove the existence of radiative transports.
I followed you up through “muddled”, about which I agree with you. Their comments are muddled. I also agree with you that Kristian got more “confused” by the post. However, the “intellectually dishonest” is a step too far. If they are “confused”, how can it be inferred that they are “intellectually dishonest”? And the “technique” itself can not be “intellectually dishonest”, only the people who employ the technique. It seems to me that you wrote a gratuitous insult that was distracting and baseless.
“one man’s nit is another man’s disease-carrying vector.” It is best to eradicate them while they are few.
Samuel C Cogar says, April 22, 2014 at 9:34 am:
“Your one-track mind and circular reasoning makes for a good combination.”
My one-track mind and circular reasoning?! Hahaha! Best one today!
Matthew R Marler says, April 22, 2014 at 12:03 pm:
“Their comments are muddled. I also agree with you that Kristian got more “confused” by the post.”
Sorry. Wishful thinking. Not confused at all 🙂
But I see there’s is no more point sticking around. Strange how this happens every time. No argumentation at all. Just resorting to ad hominem, calls for off-hand banning and assertive repetition of dogmatic creed.
Mr Born continues sullenly to pick nits. The appropriate caveats about the regionality and lack of resolution in the CETR dataset were incorporated into the head posting, and the discrepancies he points out between the CETR and the mean of the three global terrestrial datasets over the past two cycles of the PDO are well within the measurement uncertainties. He should stop whining.
“Kristian” has still failed to grasp the point that the question whether or not he thinks there is a greenhouse effect is off topic. It has nothing to do with the subject of the head posting. And if he is incapable of reading any elementary textbook on Planck blackbody radiation, the fundamental equation of radiative transfer, the experiments of Tyndall (and many others since), the analysis of the resonance modes of the CO2 and other greenhouse gas molecules at the quantum level, the alteration over time in the spectral lines of outgoing long-wave radiation at the characteristic absorption wavelengths of CO2 and other greenhouse gases, the recent reanalysis of the lunar spectra, etc., etc., etc., than he is scarcely going to pay the slightest attention to anyone here who points to all these matters and more as part of the overwhelming body of scientific evidence that there is a greenhouse effect.
Mr Marler picks nits by saying I cannot at one and the same time accuse “Kristian” of intellectual dishonesty and of confusion. “Kristian” is intellectually dishonest, as many “Slayers” are, in leaving readers with the impression that the difficulty in quantifying the effect of greenhouse-gas enrichment on global temperature is equivalent to a demonstration that there is no greenhouse effect. And “Kristian” is confused in a quite separate matter, in that he appears to believe that the presence of non-radiative transports demonstrates the absence of radiative transports. There are thus two distinct logical arguments, the first leading to the conclusion that on one matter “Kristian” is intellectually dishonest, and the second leading to the conclusion that on a separate matter he is confused. I refer Mr Marler to Lemmon or Hodges on logic, where he will be able to read about the dangers of considering distinct arguments as though they were elements in the same argument.
Mr Cogar has descended to mere yah-boo.
Is temperature resolution the same as sensitivity? as in instrumental temperature sites, for example..
I’ve always wondered why there are many surface stations near sources of UHI on hills and near airports etc… are there as many surface stations near sources that have a cooling influence, such as valleys streams, rivers and flood plains?
How does all the various different climatic zones, as they are separated geographically relate to each-other through ‘temperature’?
Temperature-wise, is it similar to measuring the temperatures of an open fridge in Australia and an open oven in the UK over a period of time and averaging the difference to get a global anomaly? and then, monitoring the change of this anomaly and implying a hypothetical forcing? (the so-called ‘sensitivity’) what is the logical (inference) relationship between the hypothetical kitchen appliances in two very different locations that gives weight to any argument for or against the reason which this anomaly would be sensitive to an equal influential forcing?
And don’t get me started on timescale! 🙂
Monckton of Brenchley: Mr Marler picks nits by saying I cannot at one and the same time accuse “Kristian” of intellectual dishonesty and of confusion. … I refer Mr Marler to Lemmon or Hodges on logic, where he will be able to read about the dangers of considering distinct arguments as though they were elements in the same argument.
You didn’t quote me exactly; you you misrepresented my question as a statement.
You ended the paragraph with an allusion to something I did not write.
Always a pleasure to read your works.
It would be most helpful if Mr Marler were to read an elementary textbook on logic before proceeding further. His latest hair-splitting nit-pick is to the effect that I had misquoted him by treating a question by him as though it were a statement.
Here is his argument, set forth as three premisses and a conclusion:
Premise 1. Monckton is one who calls “Kristian” confused.
Premise 2. Monckton is one who calls “Kristian’s” technique intellectually dishonest.
Premise 3. If “Kristian” is confused, how can his technique be called “intellectually dishonest”?
Conclusion: Monckton’s calling “Kristian” intellectually dishonest is “a step too far”.
In logic, a question which, as here, is answered in the conclusion of an argument is what is known in the textbooks as a “rhetorical question” – i.e., a question that, from the context, is plainly intended to be taken as a declarative statement. If Mr Marler had not provided the context by answering his own question with the conclusion that I had gone too far in calling “Kristian” intellectually dishonest, he could have gotten away with pretending that his rhetorical question was genuine. As it is, nice try, but no.
Mr Marler attempts to reinforce the above conclusion by the following additional nit-pick:
“And the ‘technique’ itself can not be ‘intellectually dishonest’, only the people who employ the technique. It seems to me that you wrote a gratuitous insult that was distracting and baseless.
Once again, I do what every logician is trained to do: I break down Mr Marler’s argument into premisses (there must always be at least one in any argument) and conclusion (there must always be exactly one in any argument):
Premiss 1. Monckton is one who says Kristian deployed an “intellectually dishonest technique”.
Premiss 2. A person is one who may be described as intellectually dishonest.
Premiss 3. A technique is a thing that may not be described as intellectually dishonest.
Conclusion: Monckton wrote a gratuitous, distracting, baseless insult.
Setting aside the startling non-sequitur, in logic it is the polite convention to assign to an invalid argument descriptors that ought indeed to be applied to the perpetrator of the invalid argument. One softens the blow by blaming the argument, not the man. If Mr Marler will do just a little reading before galloping into print on a discipline of which he self-evidently knows little, he will find in the textbooks of logic frequent assertions to “fallacious arguments”, for instance, or, more simply, “fallacies”, rather than “fallacious arguers”, just as I talked of an “intellectually dishonest technique” rather than an “intellectually dishonest user of a technique”.
“Sparks” raises some interesting questions.
He wonders whether temperature resolution is the same as sensitivity. Here I should apologize for the determinedly arcane terms used by the theologians of the New Religion. In their lexicon, the “sensitivity” of temperature to greenhouse-gas enrichment of the atmosphere is the amount of global warming that is predicted to occur in response to a given change in the concentration of greenhouse gases. The “resolution” of a temperature record is what mathematicians would call its “precision”: namely, to how many places of decimals is the record presented?
During the first few years of the Central England record, the monthly data are presented to a “precision” or “resolution” of the nearest whole Celsius degree. For a few further decades, the data are presented to the nearest half-degree, and thereafter to the nearest tenth of a degree.
Next, “Sparks” wonders, rightly, why there are so many surface temperature stations near heat-sources, and asks whether there are as many stations near cooling sources such as valleys, burns, and rivers. That is a very good question, which Anthony’s excellent U.S. surface stations project has brilliantly highlighted. As a result of his myth-busting work, officialdom has been humiliated into moving or shutting some – though by no means all – of the defectively sited stations.
In the U.S. there is now a “Climate Reference Network” of a few dozen ideally-sited stations, but one hears very little of it because, over the entire period of its operation, it shows rather less warming in the U.S. than the contaminated official record, though some say it shows the same warming. One day I shall inspect the data to determine who is right.
“Sparks” goes on to ask yet another right question. He says: “How does all the various different climatic zones, as they are separated geographically relate to each-other through ‘temperature’?”
Here, he may like to read the excellent book “Taken by Storm”, by Ross McKitrick and Christopher Essex, which discusses among other things the question whether the notion of a single global mean surface temperature is useful and concludes – rightly, in my view – that it is not.
I use that defective notion simply because the Forces of Darkness use it. And, as regular readers here will have noticed, the most powerful method of demonstrating to the perpetrator of a fallacious argument the fact that his argument is fallacious is to argue as far as possible on his own terms.
Finally, albeit glancingly, “Sparks” puts his unerring finger on yet another fascinating question – that of timescale. For instance, one often hears increasingly desperate assertions from the usual suspects that “global warming is continuing”. All such statement are meaningless, scientifically speaking, because they do not specify a timescale (or, for that matter, a temperature dataset).
For instance, there has been no global warming for 17 years 8 months, according to the RSS satellite temperature dataset. However, if one goes back further than that, an uptrend (though a rather small one) can be detected. But if one goes back, say, to the Middle Ages, the global climate is probably still cooling in comparison. And if one goes back 6000-10,000 years it is very likely that the climate is cooling. However, since 11,400 years ago there has been a warming trend, though all of the warming happened in the first 1000 years and there has been a cooling trend since.
Full marks to “Sparks”.
Monckton of Brenchley says, April 22, 2014 at 4:55 pm:
“Kristian” has still failed to grasp the point that the question whether or not he thinks there is a greenhouse effect is off topic. It has nothing to do with the subject of the head posting.”
I have grasped it, “Monckton of Brenchley”. If you follow the trail upthread to see how it started off, this particular offshoot topic (something which occurs in ALL comment threads ALL the time, “Monckton of Brenchley”, get over it and yourself!) originated from a reply to this statement by commenter “evanmjones” (April 20, 2014 at 4:10 pm): “To posit that CO2 has no effect means either that the science that tells us that the first 100 ppm warms us over 20C is wrong or that we are fully saturated. Anything else indicates CO2 has a small, diminishing effect.”
I had by then NOT stated anything to the effect that ‘CO2 has no effect’. What I had stated, was that such an effect, if it exists, has yet to be observed in the earth system.
My first comment on this thread was the one at 12:20 pm, April 20th, which began like this: “The only interesting period concerning any potential influence on global temperatures of our CO2 emissions is the one starting in the mid 1970s.”
In that comment and in the succeeding ones I pointed to the fact that there are no traces, no hints of any observational evidence from the real world that an increase in atmospheric CO2 has caused a rise in T_mean. What I said specifically was this, directed at “evanmjones” (April 20, 2014 at 1:43 pm): “Your appeal to a CO2 forcing signal is wishful thinking at best. There is no (NO!) room at all for any CO2 forcing signal anywhere. Claiming otherwise is pure pseudoscientific nonsense. It’s all perfectly natural. Ocean cycles. PDV -> ENSO -> AMO.”
I based this on the available data from the real world. The null hypothesis stands.
To this, commenter “evanmjones” essentially responded in the usual warmist way, by simply reiterating the creed of the CO2 warming dogma: ‘But is HAS TO have a warming effect. So even if we can’t see it, we KNOW it does, we KNOW it’s there, we KNOW the hypothesis is right.’
No, we do NOT know that the hypothesis is correct if we can’t see the effect of the proposed mechanism out there in the real world. That’s how science should work. Appealing to your specific interpretation of the theory behind your claim won’t do. Nature trumps blackboard. Every time. If you can’t observe your ‘mechanism > effect’ relationship anywhere, then it’s back to the drawing board. Then you’ve most likely forgotten about something, something you didn’t consider. Nature may surprise you. That’s what makes science fun.
So, I started out pointing to the observable/provable holes in the AGW argument. Commenter “evanmjones” was the one who thereby pulled the hypothesis of the ‘atmospheric radiative GHE’ in from the side to use as a shield: ‘AGW must be real because the GHE is real.’
“And if he is incapable of reading any elementary textbook on Planck blackbody radiation, the fundamental equation of radiative transfer [and so forth …]”
I am capable of reading and learning about it, “Monckton of Brenchley”. And I have. That’s not the point. The atmosphere simply doesn’t warm the surface of the earth through radiation. No textbook concentrating solely on ‘atmospheric radiation’ will ever give you the answer on how the surface of the earth got its temperature. That doesn’t mean that ‘radiative theory’ is wrong. Suggesting that that’s my claim is a straw man argument. It’s the application, the interpretation and the extrapolation of the basic physics that’s flawed.
The proposed ‘radiative GHE’ mechanism would work in a closed glass box. It’s easy to perform experiments showing this. The warming in such a case, though, would always stem from a reduction in temperature gradients away from the heated surface. You let the lid warm and hence reduce the temp difference down to the bottom surface. AND, you trap air. This is called “confined space heating”.
An open atmosphere with no immovable, warming lid, however, can do nothing to warm the surface by reducing the temp gradient through the air column away from it. Radiative physics won’t help you. The temp gradient is maintained by other mechanisms. Energy transports between the surface and the tropopause are not ruled by radiation. They are ruled by convection. (Earth’s IR radiation is a RESULT OF temperature, not a CAUSE OF temperature.) And as long as this is the case, the atmosphere can only make the surface warmer in three ways. It can get heavier (doesn’t happen too often), it can reduce cloud cover, letting more solar in, especially over certain key regions of the world, like the tropical oceans, and it can reduce wind shear across the ocean surface, again preferably over certain key parts of the global ocean, like the tropical ones. Normally, the two latter ways work in close collaboration with the surface itself.
The ‘radiative GHE’ works in the lab. It doesn’t work out there in the free atmosphere. There is no ‘atmospheric radiative GHE’ warming the global surface.
“(…) anyone here who points to all these matters and more as part of the overwhelming body of scientific evidence that there is a greenhouse effect.”
Anyone pointing to ‘all these matters and more’ as ‘scientific evidence that there is a greenhouse effect’ is, I’m sorry, confused on the matter. Radiation isn’t it.
Kristian says, April 23, 2014 at 6:37 am:
“(Earth’s IR radiation is a RESULT OF temperature, not a CAUSE OF temperature.)”
Sorry, not entirely correct. It’s a cause of temperature going DOWN the potential gradient of course, from hot to cold, like IR from the surface helps warm the atmosphere.
It doesn’t work the other way though. It is NOT a cause of an already higher temperature to become even higher. In the case of the surface/atmosphere system, it would then have to somehow reduce the temp difference between the atmosphere and the surface, like both the conductive/convective and the radiative heat transfer equations dictate. Which it can’t.
Maybe tis true that ….“Mr Cogar has descended to mere yah-boo.”, …… whatever “ya-boo” is, ….. but at least he is not spinning his wheels and wasting his time trying to disprove “junk science” claims of CAGW via use of “junk science” proofs.
Mr. Cogar is scientifically “simple” minded and thus prefers using “simple” actual, factual science based evidence and proofs to disprove the “junk science” claims of CAGW, such as those that follows, to wit:
1. mathematics disproves claims of CAGW
2. the Keeling Curve disproves claims of CAGW
3. the geologic/fossil record disproves claims of CAGW
4. the highly questionable 100+ years of temperature records disproves claims of CAGW
5. the “fuzzy” math calculations of Average Temperature Increases disproves claims of CAGW
6. inferring that Interglacial “warming” abruptly stopped in 1880 disproves claims of CAGW
7. intentional ignoring the effects of atmospheric H2O vapor on surface temperatures disproves claims of CAGW
8. intentional ignoring the effects of “heat island” infrastructure on surface temperatures disproves claims of CAGW
9. data from various fossil plant stomata studies disproves claims of CAGW
10. the highly questionable CO2 ppm glacial ice core proxies disproves claims of CAGW
11. claiming fossil fuels is source of increasing atmospheric C12 disproves claims of CAGW
12. the extremely quick increases/decreases in desert temperatures disproves claims of CAGW
13. the absolute lack of any direct association or correlation between Average Global Temperature increases, world population increases and/or atmospheric CO2 increases disproves claims of CAGW
14. the impossibility for anyone to measure the warming effect of the lesser quantity of gas (CO2) in a mixture of two different gases when the quantity of the greater volume of gas (H2O vapor) is constantly changing from hour to hour and/or day to day disproves claims of CAGW
15. claiming that atmospheric H2O vapor is the “forcing” backfeeder of thermal (IR) energy to the atmospheric CO2 which is the “backfeeding” forcer of increases in surface temperatures is silly and asinine
16. claiming that 400 ppm of CO2 is directly causing greater “warming” of the near-surface atmosphere than does 20,000 ppm of H2O vapor is silly and asinine
17. using “reverse” mathematical calculations to determine the yearly emissions of CO2 by human activities disproves claims of CAGW
18. claiming that the bi-yearly “wintertime” increase of 6 to 8 ppm in atmospheric CO2 is the result of the rotting and/or decaying of biomass in the Northern Hemisphere is silly, asinine and idiotic … (cause it’s in direct violation of my Refrigerator/Freezer Law that governs biomass decomposition by bacteria, fungi, yeasts, molds and mildews)
Cheers
Monckton of Brenchley says:
April 23, 2014 at 12:35 am
“Sparks” raises some interesting questions.”
I have more, how much time do you have?
Thanks Chris, It’s been good craic as always! 🙂
Very interesting. 🙂