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.
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.”
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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.”
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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