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.
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.
@ur momisugly 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. 🙂