Guest essay by Jim Steele,
Director emeritus Sierra Nevada Field Campus, San Francisco State University and author of Landscapes & Cycles: An Environmentalist’s Journey to Climate Skepticism
In part one, I wrote “In the simplest of terms, every study that has attributed the recent warming of the 1980s and 90s to rising CO2 has been based on the difference between their models’ reconstruction of “natural climate change” with their models’ output of “natural climate change plus CO2.” However the persistent failure of their models to reproduce how “natural climate changed before,” means any attribution of warming due to CO2 is at best unreliable and at worse a graphic fairy tale.”
Like failed modeling results illustrated in Part 1, scientists at the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit published Attribution Of Polar Warming To Human Influence1. Again their models failed to account for the heat during Arctic’s earlier natural warming (black line), a warming climate scientists called “the most spectacular event of the century”. Their “natural models” grossly underestimated the 40s peak warming by ~0.8° C (blue line) and when CO2 and sulfates were added the warming event was cooled further (red line). So how much do we trust models’ attribution when they get climate change half wrong?
Over millennial time spans, researchers reported similar failures reconstructing the Medieval Warm Period writing, “Inter-model differences and model/reconstruction comparisons suggest that simulations of the Medieval Climate Anomaly either fail to reproduce the mechanisms of climate response to changes in external forcing, or that anomalies during this period are largely influenced by internal variability.“2 Modeling also fails at smaller regional levels with superior data coverage, such as California. As Dr. Phillip Duffy, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, wrote “Neither the nature of climate trends in California nor their causes are well understood.”3
Sidestepping such failures, alarmists note models can generate random unforced warming events about every 150 years and that last a decade or so. And so they suggest early Arctic warming was a random event caused by “internal variability” that can’t be modeled. But there was less than a 13% chance that random warming happened in the 30s, and that random warming could have equally contributed to the 80s and 90s, meaning CO2 contributed little. And that arguments does not alter the fact that CO2-driven climate models fail to reproduce natural climate change of the past.
Alarmist believe CO2 is the “control knob” of climate change and Dr. James Hansen, who studied climate on lifeless planets devoid of oceans, proselytizes that belief. On other planets the “radiative balance” is the critical climate variable. But that narrow focus has biased Hansen and his disciples who have underestimated the power of ocean oscillations. Fortunately here on earth, there is a growing awareness that natural ocean oscillations persist for many decades and control how heat is stored, redistributed and ventilated. Those oscillations increasingly appear to be the most powerful “climate control knobs” and many advocates of CO2 warming now blame the cool phases of these ocean oscillations for “masking” or “hiding” hypothesized heat. But natural ocean oscillations have also raised temperatures, and regards to understanding both 20th century warming events in the Arctic, ocean oscillations offer the superior explanation.
From latitudes 40° North or South to the poles, the earth increasingly ventilates more heat than it absorbs. Climate change at those higher latitudes is dominated by variations in the transport of surplus tropical heat. Scientists estimate “Without these heat transports the atmosphere would have an equator-pole surface air temperature difference of 100° C, which is more than twice the present value of 40°C.”4 Equally important, surplus equatorial heat is generated by the sun, with a very small and dubious contribution from CO2. As reported by the IPCC in the Physical Science Basis, “In the humid equatorial regions, where there is so much water vapour in the air that the greenhouse effect is very large, adding a small additional amount of CO2 or water vapour has only a small direct impact on downward infrared radiation. However, in the cold, dry polar regions, the effect of a small increase in CO2 or water vapour is much greater.”
However both 20th century Arctic warming events are associated with greater volumes of warm water intruding into the Arctic driven by the warm phases of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation and the Arctic/North Atlantic Oscillation. And as would be expected, the poleward range of southerly marine organisms has ebbed and flowed accordingly.
In a 2013 peer-reviewed paper,5 scientists examined the migration of marine organisms into the Arctic reporting, “The fauna of the southern North Sea exhibits clear changes. Particularly conspicuous is the increase of Mediterranean fish species and the occurrence of sardine eggs and larvae. There is no doubt, that these observations are associated with the climate change which has been shown to occur since several decades, and which, over the last years, has had important consequences for fisheries: decrease of catches, northwards shift of fishing grounds, adaptation to fisheries for different species. …particularly interesting questions are: will climate change continue and, also, shifts and changes of fish stocks, how long will this last, and which are the consequences, if this trend reverses?”
Sounds familiar, but the above quote was written by Aurich in 1953. Like the earlier warming event and migrations, the most recent northward advance of small fish such as sardines, anchovies and herring correlate very well with the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation and the current distribution of fish from southerly waters is “almost identical to that described by Aurich for 1951.”5 After the earlier warm event those fish retreated and were absent from the North Sea surveys during the 1970s and 90s. So the next few decades should provide the evidence needed to settle much of the climate debate. If natural cycles are indeed the climate control knob, the next 2 decades should witness a cool phase of the AMO and the retreat of southerly marine organisms. And the current scientific consensus that the upper 300 meters of the oceans have been cooling since 2003 bodes well for natural cycles prediction.13
To support dubious climate model attributions, the scientific literature has been increasingly spammed with papers creating the second greatest climate myth: migrating organisms are evidence of CO2 driven warming. However their arguments fail to account for the myriad of confounding factors affecting the biosphere. The same biological evidence used to instill CO2 fear, is also consistent with interpretations attributing landscape changes and/or natural climate cycles that modulate heat transport to the poles. If marine organisms migrated similarly pre-1950s when CO2 was an insignificant player, then the most parsimonious explanation is identical migrations today are driven by the same natural forces.
Good science demands we examine how climate changed naturally in the past, not to uncritically dismiss the possibility of CO2–caused warming, but to understand to what degree present climate change is driven by historical cycles. Only by thoroughly examining climate history can we estimate natural contributions and evaluate earth’s sensitivity to rising CO2. This is most critical because climate history is now repeating itself.
However those eager to blame rising CO2 have downplayed natural oscillations. Alarmists recently published Global Imprint Of Climate Change On Marine Life,” which press releases hyped in the media. Alarmist websites like ClimateProgress ranted, “The research is more confirmation that “global change is real and has been real for a long time. It’s not something in the distant future. It is well underway.”
The truth is natural cycles are well underway, as they always have been. And that dynamic is being hijacked.
The “Global Imprint” analyses suffered from the same shortcomings uncovered in inflated claims that 97% of the scientists agree about climate change. The authors similarly surveyed on-line abstracts from which they extracted only papers suggesting ecological changes were driven by climate change. Their filter effectively removed all analyses examining other confounding factors. Furthermore most of the papers in their compilation only studied responses during the warm phases of natural ocean cycles beginning in the 70s, after most marine organisms had retreated south. Thus their meta-analyses totally obscured the cyclic warming and cooling that accompanied those migrations during the 20th century. From their carefully filtered database, they claimed, “81–83% of all observations for distribution, phenology, community composition, abundance, demography and calcification across taxa and ocean basins were consistent with the expected impacts of climate change.”8
But like the “97% consensus” methodology, their 83% disguised the fact that the vast majority of species were non-responders. Of the 857 species examined, only 279 (or 33%) changed distribution. Sixty-seven percent had no response and therefore “were not included because failure to detect a change in distribution may have several causes, including barriers to dispersal, poor sampling resolution or the dominance of alternative drivers of change.” Changes in distribution also has several caused but again their data selection guaranteed a statistical bias. If all the 857 species were accounted for, a mere 27% behaved in a manner “consistent” with CO2 theory. More importantly most of those species were also behaving in a manner consistent with natural cycles.
It was not surprising to see the IPCC’s Camille Parmesan co-authored this paper. As I have documented before Parmesan has “inaccurately” blamed CO2 warming for extinctions due to lost habitat from urban sprawl, hijacked conservation success to argue poleward movement of butterflies was caused by climate change, and blamed CO2 and extreme weather for a population extinction caused by logging while neighboring natural populations thrived. Now she again hijacks marine migrations caused by natural climate oscillations as “proof” of global warming. And both the “Global Imprint” lead author and Parmesan co-authored a paper contradicting scientific consensus, arguing “Species’ extinctions have already been linked to recent climate change; the golden toad is iconic.”15
In contrast to the fearful “science via press release,” the peer-reviewed literature is filled with evidence that supports a more parsimonious natural cycles explanation. In 1997 fishery biologists (not climate scientists) discovered the climate changing Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) after realizing that every 20 to 30 years salmon abundance shifted between Alaska and Oregon. When the PDO entered it positive phase around 1976, biologists observed northward migrations of plankton, fish and bottom dwelling organisms. Likewise temperatures increased. Climate scientists also reported “when the PDO value changed from dominantly negative to dominantly positive values, a sudden temperature increase across Alaska was observed.”6 After the 1997 El Nino, the PDO began to trend back to its negative cool phase. Sea surface temperature anomalies reverted “to that seen throughout the North Pacific before 1976.”14 Bering Sea ice began to increase reaching record extent in 2012 and Alaska became one of the most rapidly cooling locations on earth as the average for Alaskan weather stations experienced a extraordinary temperature drop of 1.3° C for the decade.6
As eastern Pacific temperature trends from Alaska to the Southern California Bight reversed, species of fish that had once moved northward are now retreating southward. Researchers in the Southern California Bight reported that above all other environmental factors, the changes in fish abundance has correlated best with the PDO regime shifts.7 Such evidence prompted Monterrey Bay Aquariums chief scientist to warn that “These large-scale, naturally occurring variations must be taken into account when considering human-induced climate change and the management of ocean living resources.”8 After all it was the shifting PDO that disrupted Monterrey’s fishing industry as described by John Steinbeck in Cannery Row.
In the Atlantic, poleward intrusions of warm water driven by natural cycles have similarly altered sea ice and the distribution of marine organisms. Satellite pictures (below) clearly show that the recent loss of winter Arctic ice has occurred along the pathway by which warmer waters enter the Barents Sea, deep inside the Arctic Circle, while simultaneously air temperatures far to the south remain cold enough to maintain a frozen Hudson Bay. Before those warm water intrusions facilitated the loss of sea ice, air temperatures in the 80s and 90s reported a slight cooling trend contradicting CO2 theory.12
Much of the warming in the Arctic in the 20s and 40s, as well as in recent decades was likely due to increased ventilation of ocean heat after sea ice was reduced by intruding warm water and the altered atmospheric circulation. A comparison of Danish Sea ice records from August 1937 with satellite pictures from August 2013, illustrate very similar losses of Arctic ice. As would be expected, a slightly greater proportion of thicker sea ice formed during the Little Ice Age would likely remain during the first warming event compared to recent decades. The slightly warmer Arctic temperatures of the recent decade can be attributed to a greater loss of thicker multiyear ice that is ventilating more ocean heat. But past performance never guarantees the future. Scientific opinions and predictions must be validated by experimentation or future observations. If indeed natural cycles are the real climate control knobs, the next 15 to 20 years will settled the debate. While alarmists predict total loss of ice by 2030 (and earlier predictions have already failed), believers in the power of natural cycles expect Arctic sea ice to rebound by 2030. Until then the science is far from settled. And claims that the science is settled just one more of the great climate myths. (Part 3 will look at the chimeras created by averaging and meta-analyses)
Literature Cited
Gillett et al (2008), Attribution Of Polar Warming To Human Influence. Nature Geoscience Vol 1
www.nature.com/naturegeoscience
González-Rouco et al (2011), Medieval Climate Anomaly To Little Ice Age Transition As Simulated
By Current Climate Models. PAGES news, Vol 19.
Duffy, P.B., et al., (2006), Interpreting Recent Temperature Trends in California. Eos, Vol. 88.
Liu, Z., and M. Alexander (2007), Atmospheric Bridge, Oceanic Tunnel, And Global Climatic
Teleconnections, Rev. Geophys., Vol. 45, RG2005, doi:10.1029/2005RG000172.
Alheit et al (2013), Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) Modulates Dynamics Of Small Pelagic
Fishes And Ecosystem Regime Shifts In The Eastern North And Central Atlantic. Journal of Marine Systems, vol. 133.
Wendler,G., et al. (2012) The First Decade of the New Century: A Cooling Trend for Most of Alaska. The Open Atmospheric Science Journal, 2012, 6, 111-116
Jarvis, E. , et al., (2004), Comparison of Recreational Fish Catch Trends to Environment‑species Relationships and Fishery‑independent Data in the Southern California Bight, 1980-2000. Recreational Fish Catch Trends, CalCOFI Rep., Vol. 45.
Poloczanska et al (2013), Global Imprint Of Climate Change On Marine LIfe. Nature Climate Change Vol. 3.
Chavez et al.(2003) From Anchovies to Sardines and Back: Multidecadal Change in the Pacific Ocean. Science, vol. 299.
Bengtsson, L., et al., (2004) The Early Twentieth-Century Warming in the Arctic—A Possible Mechanism. Journal of Climate, vol. 445-458.
Rigor, I.G., J.M. Wallace, and R.L. Colony (2002), Response of Sea Ice to the Arctic Oscillation, J. Climate, v. 15, no. 18, pp. 2648 – 2668.
Kahl, J., et al., (1993) Absence of evidence for greenhouse warming over the Arctic Ocean in the past 40 years. Nature, vol. 361, p. 335‑337, doi:10.1038/361335a0
Xue,Y., et al., (2012) A Comparative Analysis of Upper-Ocean Heat Content Variability from an Ensemble of Operational Ocean Reanalyses. Journal of Climate, vol 25, 6905-6929.
Peterson, W., and Schwing, F., (2003) A new climate regime in northeast pacific ecosystems. Geophysical Research Letters, vol. 30, doi:10.1029/2003GL017528.
Parmesan, C., et al. (2011) Overstretching attribution. Nature Climate Change, vol. 1, April 2011
But that narrow focus has biased Hansen and his disciples who have underestimated the power of ocean oscillations.
Bingo.
Of course, Hansen was making his projections before the PDO was described by science (i.e., 1996). So he ascribed the natural PDO warming to CO2 alone. Take it from 1950 when CO2 became significant and we see 1.1C/century warming. That’s over one complete PDO cycle (so that balances). So we see CO2 forcing according to Arrhenius — without net positive feedback.
And that’s assuming the sensors are accurate, and 4 out of 5 of them ain’t.
Another nail in the coffin of CAGW – thanks…
Outstanding summation of the Arctic issues. A joy to read . We can learn so much more about global warming by simply going back a little longer than just the last 30 years or so. When warmists show everything is unprecedented, they will have a convert. So far they haven’t come close.
It’s CO2…
It’s the Sun…
It’s the Oceans…
It’s all and none of these. Just because the redistribution of heat from ocean currents is consistent with polar temperature observations does not mean it is the sole or even dominant cause.
Climate is complex.
evanmjones says: “Of course, Hansen was making his projections before the PDO was described by science (i.e., 1996). So he ascribed the natural PDO warming to CO2 alone.”
The PDO represents the spatial pattern of the sea surface temperature anomalies in the North Pacific, not the sea surface temperature anomalies. There is no mechanism through which the PDO can alter temperatures globally. Please refer to:
http://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2014/04/20/the-201415-el-nino-part-5-the-relationship-between-the-pdo-and-enso/
Regards
What a clear illustration of the extent to which science has been blinded by the UN and Governments funded CO2 mantra. I wonder if scientists who have entered the fields of ‘climate change’ in the last 10 – 20 years are actually still capable of critical appreciation of true science and the extent to which you must look to explore all possible causes and explanations.
CO2 and ‘global warming’ is not about climate it is about deeply infiltrated and, typically, well-concealed marxist politics. It is all about creating ‘obedience’ to a doctrine by fabricating a climate of fear about climate.
Many ‘free-market’ politicians have been seduced by the power it gives them to raise taxes – while marxists use it to gain power and control over people’s lives. The ‘green’ organisations have gained unparallelled power and influence since embedding themselves within politics – to the extent that in europe they are funded by the EU to advise them on policy!
The UN wants to use it to create an unelected global government. The Third World leaders see it as a gravy train – but either don’t appreciate or ignore the perils of ‘benefit dependency’ (vividly understood and illustrated in the UK where now some families are in their 3rd generation of not working).
In a very real sense democracy is under severe threat; science no less so given the huge number of scientists have been subverted by the financial imperatives of the CO2 bandwagon; funded by politicians hungry for ever-increasing power and taxes.
At least some world leaders (Australia and Canada) are now beginning to expose this sham for what it is – the sooner that others follow the sooner this wanton, highly politicised destruction of western economies will be brought to an end – and the sooner science may return to actually being that.
But there was no natural variation before C02 started its rise.Temperatures were flat. We know this from Mickey’s hokey schtick. So there’s nothing to explain.
Thanks for this post Jim, I much admire your work on the role of natural cycles. As an ecologist re-examining my own prior acceptance of ‘global warming’ , knowledge of natural cycles was the first thing I looked at – and I realised how little was known about ocean oscillations. However, it was immediately obvious that several key cycles had peaked together in the global warming period (1980-2000)….the PDO/AMO/AO/NAO and ENSO, and that on top of an ill-defined long-term cycle of 800-1200 years. Yet, the modellers insisted that natural temperatures would have been flat since 1950!!! I was outraged by the level of stupidity shown by modellers such as Hansen and his descendents. I was impossible to communicate to my scientific friends, especially in academia, the sheer level of stupidity – because it was so truly unbelievably naive.
I did get some insight much later on a visit to a NOAA lab, talking with specialists in ocean heat transfer (like you, I realised that here would lie the key to the natural dynamic) – when I asked about how they represented cycles, the reply was ‘we don’t believe in cycles’!!! More accurately – natural cycles are not exact enough to be called cycles (from a physicist’s perspective, brought up on Herz, this is understandable)….but then they don’t seek mechansims – instead, seeking such kind of mathematical formula to encompass the range of natural variability (hence losing all predictive power). Thus, the current flat-line is simply an outlier – it is random with no natural driver!
The vast majority of published climate papers on biodiversity responses simply accept the modellers ‘understanding ‘ of the biosphere, without realising (or caring) what they do. I have been looking at bird distributions in Europe and various attempts to predict the response to warming (by calculating ‘climate space’ for each species). Firstly, there are always winners and losers…but whatever the balance (it is usually about equal – with a high proportion of neutrals, the conclusions still talk up the ‘threat’ of climate change. Secondly, any recent trend is assumed to be caused by the recent climate changes (about 1 degree between 1975-2005 in Central Europe), which are themselves regarded as unique and caused by greenhouse gases.
I have been trying with my limited spare time (and not a drop of oily money) to check the trend over the last ten years – certainly, unquantified information from the field, shows either a reversal or standstill in such factors as early breeding. Data for the central European spruce forests, recently devastated by bark beetle, shows a flat-line in T over the past decade. Of course, outbreaks of bark beetle, as in the USA, were seen in the past warm cycles – co-incident with strong wind damage. I would love to get a clearer sense of how the ocean cycles affect the European flora and fauna – but of course, data is hard to come by. My favourite graph is from Solanki, showing reconstructed solar (magnetic) activity through the Holocene – the 8000BP peak: pelicans nesting in Somerset; 5000BP peak: settlement of the Scottish Highlands; 2000BP peak: vineyards on the Scottish border; 1000BP peak: white stork nested in Edinburgh; recent warm peak: Little Bittern and Great White Egret nesting in Somerset. Sadly, there were few bird-recorders active in the Little Ice Age!
I am compiling a list of all European bird species that are increasing (over the past three decades) and all that are decreasing, as well as neutrals, with material on potential causes – and will post this when available, and in comparison with modeled expectations of loss and gains.
A side issue is that those promoting the climate crisis are doing so for money. Paul Ruben, investment banker and former Treasury Secretary, has decided that we must have an American carbon tax to save the world. Because he thinks there is a 1% chance that Florida could be hit by bad storms in the next 100 years.
So he thinks a tax designed to reduce CO2 can control the weather. Not new infrastructure, not upgrading the infrastructure we have. Instead an area famous for stormy weather can only be saved by more money to the government.
Under real science the hypothesis would have been discarded long ago since it was falsified. But then the grant money moved in and it became a project of proving a conclusion. So the data was fudged to prolong the myth. It cannot last forever. But it can last a lifetime – and that is all they are looking for at this point.
And the current scientific consensus that the upper 300 meters of the oceans have been cooling since 2003
I think measurements are more important than consensus.
” However the persistent failure of their models to reproduce how “natural climate changed before,” means any attribution of warming due to CO2 is at best unreliable and at worse a graphic fairy tale.”
I agree with that observation completely. I would further add that we do not even have an accurate temperature time series to work with to make comparisons. As has been recently pointed out, the entire temperature history changes constantly. This just complicates trying to find out what variability is natural and what is not.
M Courtney says:
June 27, 2014 at 12:48 am
The sun is the constant, not the variable. The ocean’s are the variable (and therefore most responsible for climate change). CO2 is not the control knob. As a green house gas a little added CO2 offers no real change to a green house gas filled atmosphere. I’m surprised it has taken so long to study the oceans. Monitoring ocean temperature seems much more important than atmosphere temperature for longer than annual temperature variation. In my mind anyway…
Nice post Jim.
Excellent Post
I have a much better understanding of the impact of Ocean Oscillations.
Bob Tisdale says “There is no mechanism through which the PDO can alter temperatures globally”
Driven by El Nino events the change in the pattern of sea surface temperatures alters pressure systems and thus circulation patterns. The PDO like the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation great swathes of regional climates and thus global climate.
@Peter Taylor “I am compiling a list of all European bird species that are increasing (over the past three decades) and all that are decreasing, as well as neutrals, with material on potential causes – and will post this when available, and in comparison with modeled expectations of loss and gains.”
I look forward to seeing your list.
CD Thomas’s papers got some hype about shifting bird populations.due to climate change but his methodology ignored confounding factors and inter-annual variations. Yet he gets headlines for claiming over 30% of the species are committed to extinction.
In the Sierra Nevada, due to changes in snowpack we birds move up and down slope changing abundance from year to year.Trends can change sign depending starting and end dates.
So, in short, if one cannot explain the historical climate, then one cannot presume to PREDICT the future climate. And that is because the many, many variables that can influence the climate ( this assumes that ALL the significant variables are known), and the manner in which they interact are simply not well understood.
I have always been puzzled by many of the articles on WUWT that utilize “advanced” statistical methods to tease out correlations in present or relatively recent climate trends , despite the clear FACTS that the HISTORICAL climate has been beyond the capability of anyone to explain !!
What caused the ice ages? What caused them ALL to end in “global warming? What caused the very many periods of warm periods to end and “turn into” ice ages?” How is it that CO2 levels during some previous ice ages were far higher than today?” Etc. etc. etc
If simple questions cannot be answered, then it is very plain that the “fix” is in. It will eventually be demonstrated that the AGW hypothesis is the biggest scientific hoax in the history of the world . Too bad the perpetrators of this hoax cannot be prosecuted for fraud.
JohnTyler:
One should be careful in using the word “predict” in making a climatological argument. In the climatological literature, “predict” is a polysemic term, that is, it has more than one meaning. It follows by logical rule that when this term is used in making an argument, a conclusion may not properly be drawn from this argument. To draw such a conclusion is an example of an “equivocation fallacy.” Further information on this topic is available at http://wmbriggs.com/blog/?p=7923 .
The notion that each change in the global temperature can be meaningfully separated into natural and CO2-forced components is a mistaken and scientifically disastrous doctrine of global warming climatology. The thinking is that the natural component is a kind of “noise” while the CO2-forced component is an a kind of “signal” (the so-called “anthropogenic signal.”)
Signal and noise are, however, ideas borrowed from telecommunications engineering. In a telecommunications system, information flows from the present to the future; thus, this information can be carried by a wave travelling at subluminal speed. On the other hand, in a control system, information flows from the future to the present; thus it can be carried only by a wave travelling at a superluminal speed but a superluminal is impossible under the theory of relativity.
The notions of “signal” and “noise” do not apply to a control system but control of the climate is what is being attempted by the makers of governmental policy on CO2 emissions. Rather than focusing their efforts on the impossible task of detecting a nonexistent anthropogenic signal, climatological researchers need to focus their efforts upon moving as much information from the future to the present as possible. This, however, they have failed to do.
Terry Oldberg:
In your post at June 27, 2014 at 7:21 am you say
Riiiiggghht. So, according to you, the thermostat in my living room contains a time machine and is an impossible device according to relativistic theory.
Terry, I can tell you that the thermostat in my living room does work and empiricism trumps theory.
Richard
richardscourtney:
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to clarity.
The prohibition on superluminal speed is for mass-bearing particles. Relativity theory imposes no prohibition on superluminal speeds in massless particles.
Over the past 50 years, the theoretical physicist Ronald Christensen (and colleagues of his that include me) have built a number of statistically validated optimal decoders of messages from the future for application in controlling systems. The success of these decoders demonstrates the feasibility of moving information from the future to the present. On the other hand, there is no record of success in attempts at moving material particles from the future to the present; modern global warming climatology assumes this kind of movement.
The notions of “signal” and “noise” do not apply to a control system
Of course they do. Unless you are thinking of a natural system where it is all signal.
Terry Oldberg:
In your post at June 27, 2014 at 7:35 am you yet again make the untrue assertion
You have asserted that falsehood many times and been corrected on it repeatedly.
The IPCC AR5 Glossary provides clear and unambiguous definitions of climate prediction and climate projection at http://www.climatechange2013.org/images/report/WG1AR5_AnnexIII_FINAL.pdf
These are they
Climate prediction A climate prediction or climate forecast is the
result of an attempt to produce (starting from a particular state of the
climate system) an estimate of the actual evolution of the climate in
the future, for example, at seasonal, interannual or decadal time scales.
Because the future evolution of the climate system may be highly sensitive
to initial conditions, such predictions are usually probabilistic in nature. See
also Climate projection, Climate scenario, Model initialization and Predictability.
Climate projection
A climate projection is the simulated response of
the climate system to a scenario of future emission or concentration of
greenhouse gases and aerosols, generally derived using climate models.
Climate projections are distinguished from climate predictions by their
dependence on the emission/concentration/radiative forcing scenario
used, which is in turn based on assumptions concerning, for example,
future socioeconomic and technological developments that may or may
not be realized. See also Climate scenario.
I do not know why you persist in asserting your falsehood.
Richard
Thanks to Mssrs. Steele and Tyler.
Richard,
Claiming these definitions are unambiguous does not make it so. Please describe how you make a climate prediction that does not involve dependence upon “the emission/concentration/radiative forcing scenario used.” The distinction looks like nonsense to me.
Matt Skaggs:
Thankyou for your post at June 27, 2014 at 8:43 am which says
There is a difference between a process being unambiguosly defined and being possible of production. In the case in question, the defined predictions and projections are each possible at least hypothetically.
The IPCC says it makes “probabilistic” predictions starting from a particular state of the climate system”.
This is fundamentally different from its “projections” which are based on estimates of future atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations.
It should be noted that to date all their predictions and all their projections have been wrong. But that does not stop their predictions and projections from having been made.
Richard
Terry Oldberg:
At June 27, 2014 at 8:46 am you say
I will believe that you have “statistically validated optimal decoders of messages from the future” when you correctly inform me of next week’s lottery numbers. My winnings will be all the “statistical validation” I need.
Your “clarification” does not convert the nonsense of your original post into sense. I repeat what I first said in response to it
Richard
richardscourtney:
I did not claim that the thermostat in your living room contains a time machine. Thus, the conclusion of your argument is based upon a false premise.
Very nice post. A new hypothesis for global warming is being revealed at http://joannenova.com.au. The latest installment is at URL: “http://joannenova.com.au/2014/06/big-news-viii-new-solar-model-predicts-imminent-global-cooling/. I assume that I am preaching to the choir; however, if you have not checked this site out please do.
Terry Oldberg:
I know that entering the rabbit hole is a mistake but I am going to do it again.
In your post at June 27, 2014 at 7:21 am you said
And I replied
You have now said at June 27, 2014 at 9:27 am
That only makes sense if my thermostat is not a “control system”. So, what do you think it is?
And, importantly, your post at June 27, 2014 at 9:27 am contains the statement which says my thermostat is not a “control system” but forgets to provide the requested information concerning next week’s lottery numbers. I could use the money.
Richard
Terry Oldberg;
Over the past 50 years, the theoretical physicist Ronald Christensen (and colleagues of his that include me) have built a number of statistically validated optimal decoders of messages from the future for application in controlling systems. The success of these decoders demonstrates the feasibility of moving information from the future to the present.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Sure you have. Here is my prediction for the future based entirely on events of the past. Continue to promote this absolute drivel and you will suffer the same fate as proponents of the iron sun and other complete kooks.
(The sooner the better I might add)
davidmhoffer
Your argument is based upon the ad hominem argument thus being logically invalida.
davidmhoffer.
I note that you’ve responded with another ad hominem argument. As you are unwilling or unable to present a logically valid argument, no logically valid purpose would be served in prolonging this conversation.
Here we go again – another construct with a basic starting point that tries to deny CO2 causes warming.
Other factors ? Yes of course. It a very complex system.
However Jim Steele, getting back to CO2, if it is of so little consequence, tell us what happens if you reduce the concentration in the atmosphere. Presumably little changes ?
BTW, are we going to have a posting on the May NOAA data ?
“The combined average temperature over global land and ocean surfaces for May 2014 was record highest for this month, at 0.74°C (1.33°F) above the 20th century average of 14.8°C (58.6°F).”
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/2014/5
Then when the temperature standstill came along they played up natural oscillations! Wow!
Hansen made his congress speech in 1988.
The IPCC was set up in 1988.
Steven Hare coined the term “Pacific Decadal Oscillation” (PDO) in 1996.
At this time the activists were pushing hard. Maurice Strong et al pushed the co2 genie to the max.
davidmhoffer:
Look back and see that circle of light. It is where you entered the rabbit hole. Go back and get our now or Oldberg will trap you in his version of the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party. It has happened to me in the past.
Richard
richardscourtney
The process that you characterize as “the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party” is what most of us call “logic.”
James Abbott:
Your post at June 27, 2014 at 10:16 am yet again demonstrates your inability to read. It starts saying
No, James. I suggest that you ask Mummy to read the article to you and to explain it because it does not say what you claim you think it does.
Richard
For those interested in the previous Arctic Warm Period here are a few abstracts and the IPCC.
And here are a few reports and articles.
richardscourtney
You claim that “…your post at June 27, 2014 at 9:27 am contains the statement which says my thermostat is not a ‘control system'” What I actually say is “I did not claim that the thermostat in your living room contains a time machine. Thus, the conclusion of your argument is based upon a false premise.” What I actually say is inconsistent with your characterization of it.
Your attempt at refutation seems to be of the form of a strawman argument. You attribute to me the claim that your thermostat contains a time machine and refute this claim by the observation that the existence of a time machine violates relativity theory. However, this attempt fails for at no point have I claimed that your thermostat contains a time machine.
richardscourtney says:
June 27, 2014 at 10:28 am
davidmhoffer:
Look back and see that circle of light. It is where you entered the rabbit hole. Go back and get our now or Oldberg will trap you in his version of the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party. It has happened to me in the past.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Nah. I’ve said my two cents. He’s already complaining that it is an ad hominem argument and thus illogical. He’s entirely predictable, and without any knowledge of the future on my part to do it. And I’ve made my prediction which is that he will either fall silent, or promote his drivel to the point that he gets banned.
Note to Oldeberg: That’s not an ad hominem attack, it is a prediction!
The appearance of global change can be the mathematical result of summing regional changes. The changes exist, but they are not “global” in the sense that something comes in to change all the regions but some more than others.
The Earth is a gigantic heat redistribution engine. If it weren’t, at perigee (Jan), the closest position to the sun, we would be hugely hotter than at apogee (July), the furthest from the sun, and the Southern Hemisphere would be the hotter place: our 3% orbital eccentricity results in a 6.8% difference in SI, which at TOA would be a 22.8 W/m2 power difference (av whole Earth, 24 hour day). In fact, the Northern Hemisphere is about 2C warmer on average than the Southern, due to different land-ice-water ratios (and their different heat capacities, thermal properties etc.).
The assumption of global temperatures meaning something in the 30 year-time frame is that there is an efficient and continuous heat redistribution system in operation that smooths out any variation in heat content and location within a 15 year period. If that is not true, then at times the atmosphere will warm or cool because SI energy is more dominant in that part of the world than the other. If as Trenberth as heat can unexpectedly bypass the atmosphere and land and ice and go deep, it can come out of the deep unexpectedly. Another assumption that has no empirical evidence – otherwise Trenberth could not pull this alleged rabbit out of his hat as an “explanation” for The Pause.
@ James Abbott
Why do you misconstrue what is written. I have never denied that CO2 is a greenhouse gas or that its levels have risen. I do question the degree of climate sensitivity to CO2, and I adamantly assert and document that we have not witnessed any catastrophic ecological disruptions caused that can be attributed to rising.To be good stewards of the environment we must understand its complexities but as shown above alarmists try attribute everything to CO2.
I wrote, “Good science demands we examine how climate changed naturally in the past, not to uncritically dismiss the possibility of CO2–caused warming, but to understand to what degree present climate change is driven by historical cycles. Only by thoroughly examining climate history can we estimate natural contributions and evaluate earth’s sensitivity to rising CO2. This is most critical because climate history is now repeating itself.”
I have presented an explanation for Arctic warm events and poleward migrations that the best CO2 models have failed to simulate.
If you are truly trying to advance the science, perhaps you can provide us with a better explanation as to why models fail to recreate the early Arctic warming, as well as underestimated the recent loss of Arctic Ice while overestimating the loss of Antarctic ice which continues to grow. The effects of natural cycles and warm water intrusions parsimoniously explains all those CO2-driven model failures as discussed in Why Antarctic Sea Ice Is the Better Climate Change Indicator
http://landscapesandcycles.net/antarctic-sea-ice–climate-change-indicator.html
Terry Oldberg:
Read your illogical twaddle at June 27, 2014 at 10:47 am and try to work out for yourself how many self-contradictions it contains.
I have no intention of replying to any more of your ravings.
Richard
More about earlier poleward migrations
Drinkwater, K. (2006) The regime shift of the 1920s and 1930s in the North Atlantic. Progress in Oceanography vol. 68, p.134–151.
During the 1920s and 1930s, there was a dramatic warming of the northern North Atlantic Ocean. Warmer-than normal sea temperatures, reduced sea ice conditions and enhanced Atlantic inflow in northern regions continued through to the 1950s and 1960s, with the timing of the decline to colder temperatures varying with location. Ecosystem changes associated with the warm period included a general northward movement of fish. Boreal species of fish such as cod, haddock and herring expanded farther north while colder-water species such as capelin and polar cod retreated northward. The maximum recorded movement involved cod, which spread approximately 1200 km northward along West Greenland. Migration patterns of ‘‘warmer water’’ species also changed with earlier arrivals and later departures. New spawning sites were observed farther north for several species or stocks while for others the relative contribution from northern spawning sites increased. Some southern species of fish that were unknown in northern areas prior to the warming event became occasional, and in some cases, frequent visitors. Higher recruitment and growth led to increased biomass of important commercial species such as cod and herring in many regions of the northern North Atlantic. Benthos associated with Atlantic waters spread northward off Western Svalbard and eastward into the eastern Barents Sea. Based on increased phytoplankton and zooplankton production in several areas, it is argued that bottom-up processes were the primary cause of these changes. The warming in the 1920s and 1930s is considered to constitute the most significant regime shift experienced in the North Atlantic in the 20th century.
jim Steele
I think you need to re-read your own words.
You said
“any attribution of warming due to CO2 is at best unreliable and at worse a graphic fairy tale”
That’s pretty one sided I would suggest.
The process that you characterize as “the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party” is what most of us call “logic.”
Richard, I do believe that Terry has nicely summed up his problem!
@ James Abbott You cut my sentence in half to twist your point, smear tactics reminiscent of Slandering Sou. My argument is that we can not use model attribution studies to blame CO2 if those models fail to reproduce natural climate change. By most published accounts climate scientists consider the warming events from the 20s to 40s as natural and CO2 was insignificant.
So read the whole sentence.”However the persistent failure of their models to reproduce how “natural climate changed before,” means any attribution of warming due to CO2 is at best unreliable and at worse a graphic fairy tale.”
Do you deny the models failures??
I still await your constructive criticisms that provide a better scientific explanation from which a more informative debate could ensue.
I remember something from a few years back concerning IPCC’s Dr. Mojib Latif. Indeed the next 15 years should settle the debate.
Here is Latif again in quotes. He later challenged the Daily Mail’s interpretation of what he meant.
He did say previously….
What I want to know is this – why is he concerned about asking “nasty questions”? He and the delegates should be jumping with joy. But as you know this is not what it’s all about.
jim Steele
The point still stands. You clearly state, derived from your view on the models, that
“any attribution of warming due to CO2 is at best unreliable and at worse a graphic fairy tale.”
That is a completely unscientific and unbalanced statement and when such appears in a paper it tends to undermine everything else in it.
You go on to ask
“I still await your constructive criticisms that provide a better scientific explanation from which a more informative debate could ensue.”
A few points on that:
Given the complexity of the system it is often difficult to explain local or regional changes and that gets even harder looking further back as obviously the records tend to become more fragmented and less reliable. Even now we are seeing record high ice area in the satellite record around Antarctica. That is a regional observation which on the face of it shouts “cooling” but cannot be extrapolated globally – Arctic sea ice is running well below average and NOAA has just reported a record warm global ocean temperature for May. So looking back at the stated Arctic warming in the decades before WW2 is not going to tell us a lot about global temperature.
Globally, the changes observed prior to the mid C20th, and those “observed” using proxies back for one or two millennia, can be accommodated within natural variation forcing but the post-1960s warming is outside the range seen in that period.
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/GlobalWarming/page3.php
The warming seen in the last half century or so is also consistent with that which would be expected by the rising concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere. Natural forcing operating on a global scale may have contributed part of the warming, but cannot account for it all.
There is a lot yet to learn about our climate system so your statement of absolutes is not credible. Its as daft as saying that ALL recently observed climate change and extreme weather is down to CO2 induced warming. Clearly its not.
The trick is to try and draw out the underlying trend from the natural variations. The super El Nino of 1998 so much used and abused to try and show that warming stopped then is nevertheless a key reference point. We are currently close to record warm land/ocean globally yet with still broadly ENSO-neutral conditions and a fairly quiet Sun.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/enso_advisory/ensodisc.html
” So the next few decades should provide the evidence needed to settle much of the climate debate. If natural cycles are indeed the climate control knob, the next 2 decades should witness a cool phase of the AMO”
I would say that the AMO will see a continued warm phase, because we can expect more negative North Atlantic/Arctic Oscillation conditions with weaker solar activity, and it is under negative the NAO/AO phase that poleward ocean transport is increased. The AMO should be inverse to the solar cycles, like through previous warm AMO phases:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/esrl-amo/every:13/normalise/plot/sidc-ssn/from:1850/scale:0.5/normalise
During the dominantly positive period of NAO/AO preceding 1995, UAH shows the Arctic ocean cooling: http://snag.gy/mfOI7.jpg
No IPPC models predict any increase of negative NAO/AO states with increases in GHG forcing, and most predict increasingly positive NAO/AO conditions with increases in GHG forcing:
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch10s10-3-5-6.html
Arctic amplification doesn’t exist, the polar opposite does.
James Abbott says:
June 27, 2014 at 12:44 pm
“Arctic sea ice is running well below average…”
No.It’s not “well below”, and we’ve only got about 20 years of good records.
“…and NOAA has just reported a record warm global ocean temperature for May.”
Again, a measurement which has only been available with any reasonable quality for a short time (about a decade since ARGO came on line) and the temperature change is quite small, on the order of hundredths of a degree.
“…but the post-1960s warming is outside the range seen in that period.”
No, it isn’t. It’s an almost precise duplication of the pattern which existed well before CO2 concentration could have had any effect. Proxy records are of dubious quality, they cannot capture sharp movements, and the error bars are huge.
“The warming seen in the last half century or so is also consistent with that which would be expected by the rising concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere.”
The current 18 year-and-running halt in temperatures is inconsistent with the hypothesis that atmospheric CO2 is a dominant control knob.
“We are currently close to record warm land/ocean globally yet with still broadly ENSO-neutral conditions and a fairly quiet Sun.”
The time constants are long, and it takes time. But, the current trend is down.
James Abbott:
re your post at June 27, 2014 at 12:44 pm.
Global warming stopped more than 17 years ago. Face that reality. Accept that reality. Embrace that reality. It is reality.
If you can manage to do that then you will have started your deprogramming.
Richard
Bart – looks like you will find a way round any data set to try and prove a pre-determined position.
richardscourtney – reality is that the current pause has lasted 12 years, not 17 and good scientific principles say that assuming there will be no further warming after such a relatively short time is untenable.
As to your “deprogramming” jibe, as I have posted before it is only in the last decade or so that the polarised skeptic/warmist debate has become so entrenched and on a quasi religious basis. There was no such nonsense back in the late 1970s/early 1980s when we studied atmospheric physics at university.
James Abbott says “your statement of absolutes is not credible”
Exactly what absolutes are you conjuring? I offered an explanation to why CO2 models have failed to simulate earlier Arctic warm events. Instead of discussing the validity of the evidence you try to create “absolute” strawman to attack.
You suggest “We are currently close to record warm land/ocean globally yet with still broadly ENSO-neutral conditions and a fairly quiet Sun.”
Maybe so, ..
… but it is a leap of faith to simply attribute those changes to CO2? Given the oceans store ancient heat and then ventilate it decades later, given lost polar sea ice due to changes in subfreezing winds allow more ventilation of ancient heat, given the homogenization of temperature data has increased raw temperatures by about 0.3 degrees this century, given the effect of growing waste heat from growing populations and given the urban heat effects and drying of the landscapes that lower heat capacity,
what is your “trick” to draw out the underlying trend? What is your “trick” to explaining the model failures? I am all ears.
Ulric says, “I would say that the AMO will see a continued warm phase, because we can expect more negative North Atlantic/Arctic Oscillation conditions with weaker solar activity, and it is under negative the NAO/AO phase that poleward ocean transport is increased.”
I would argue you are largely correct but not sure if we agree on the mechanisms.
During the positive North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) a stronger sub-tropical gyre transports more heat northward but intrusion into the Arctic is hindered by a stronger and larger sub-polar gyre. The stronger winds of the positive NAO cool the transported tropical waters and deliver warmer winters to much of Europe.
Then as the NAO weakens into its negative phase, less heat is pumped from the tropics and as the winds decline much less heat is delivered to Europe. With less winds to cool the ocean, the North Atlantic still gets warmer but European winters get colder.
More importantly for the Arctic, as the NAO weakens the sub-polar gyre contracts, which allows a lager volume of warmer water to enter the Barents Sea. Increased warm water intrusions and the reduction of local sea ice creates a positive feedback. A warmer Barents’ sea surface lowers the regional atmospheric pressure and draws winds from the southwest that continues to push more warm air and more warm water into the Barents Sea.
everything good about j. gould, j. steele has it.
always worth reading.
The PDO represents the spatial pattern of the sea surface temperature anomalies in the North Pacific, not the sea surface temperature anomalies. There is no mechanism through which the PDO can alter temperatures globally.
Surely the temperatures from 1950 to 1976 are flat (negative PDO) and sharply rising to post-2000 (positive PDO) and now have gone flat again since the PDO “real flip” to negative in 2007. All with CO2 rising more or less constantly.
It It seems to me that larger El Ninos and smaller La Ninas is going to increase average global temps and vice versa. With a up/down PDO relationship but with a constant, modest upward nudge in trend due to raw (non-net feedback) CO2. So flat temps during negative PDO and double-warming during positive PDO. That correlates quite well.
Is the mechanism different? Bearing in mind that the PDO drags along the other cycles (AMO, NAO, etc.) in train? (Look at the timeline of the negative to positive oscillation flips from the 1976 positive PDO flip. They all follow on, gingo positive one by one. All six. Now the negative train of flips begins . . . )
James Abbott:
re your post at June 27, 2014 at 2:00 pm.
No, as I have explained to you before, global warming stopped at least 17 years ago.
I made no “jibe”. I explained that if you could manage to accept the reality that global warming has stopped the your deprogramming would have started.
Your assertion that the “polarisation” “is only in the last decade” is part of your failure to perceive reality through your belief: I was supporting the science against the scare in the 1990s.
Richard
jim Steele
You say
“Exactly what absolutes are you conjuring?”
So for the third time, this is what you stated:
“any attribution of warming due to CO2 is at best unreliable and at worse a graphic fairy tale.”
That is an absolute – it says ANY attribution with respect to CO2 – and then puts it in a range from unreliable to fairy tale !
Then you go off on the usual “try anything but CO2” ramble to explain the observed warming – and possible record warmth in the near future given the current baseline temperatures whilst being in an ENSO neutral state.
How is it a “leap of faith” to accept the likely important role of GHGs when the majority of peer reviewed science agrees that the most likely cause of the recent warming is the increasing concentration in the atmosphere of GHGs ?
The faith is on the other side. It is the faith of those who are resolute in their avoidance of any acceptance that GHGs have caused warming. As I asked before, that position then requires explanation as to what would happen if GHG concentrations in the atmosphere were reduced. If the answer is also no/little change then that takes us back a century or more in science.
jim Steele says:
June 27, 2014 at 2:24 pm
“Then as the NAO weakens into its negative phase, less heat is pumped from the tropics and as the winds decline much less heat is delivered to Europe. With less winds to cool the ocean, the North Atlantic still gets warmer but European winters get colder.”
I would say that poleward ocean heat transport is increased during negative NAO, because the atmospheric circulation moves south, where the water it can shift polewards, is warmer. You can even see it at monthly scale on “UAH NoPol ocean”, warm pulses during negative NAO periods:
http://www.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/t2lt/uahncdc_lt_5.6.txt
So here we go again. Arctic warming keeps coming up a mystery with various explanations that are all off the mark. Here is one:
‘…scientists at the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit published Attribution Of Polar Warming To Human Influence1. Again their models failed to account for the heat during Arctic’s earlier natural warming (black line), a warming climate scientists called “the most spectacular event of the century”. ‘
These so-called “climate scientists” get zero for their homework. NOAA Arctic Report Card for 2010, as updated in October 2010, shows straight warming from 1900 to 1940, cooling from 1940 to 1970, and warming again after 1970 till the present. Start of the warming in 1900 was sudden and followed a 2000 year period of slow, linear cooling. There was no increase of atmospheric carbon dioxide in 1900 and this rules out greenhouse warming as its cause. By a method of elimination, the only possible, sudden cause of the 1900 warming had to be a reorganization of the North Atlantic current system at the turn of the century that started to carry warm Gulf Stream water into the Arctic Ocean. I published all this in 2011 [E&E 22(8):1069-1083] but climate scientists have been either lazy or stupid or both to not pick it up. It is not a matter of opposition or not agreeing with it, it is simply a matter of ignorance. These guys have homework to do and I want to see the results of this homework in the future work they submit that involves the Arctic.
James Abbott;
There was no such nonsense back in the late 1970s/early 1980s when we studied atmospheric physics at university.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Bang on! Back then we understood that CO2’s effects were logarithmic, that Stefan-Boltzmann defined a relationship between energy flux in w/m2 with temperature in degrees K raised to the 4th power, and that feed backs were unlikely to be anything more than slightly positive and quite possibly negative. Back then we understood that the net effect would be negligible, and inconsequential in comparison to the cost of mitigation schemes. Back then we were given to understand that a warmer world would result in less severe weather, not more. Thank you for reminding me of the nonsense free version of the physics which is just as valid today as it was then, we just never get to discuss it because the nonsense drowns it out.
Excellent point James! Excellent!
@James Abbott
I see you are upset that I called CO2 attribution “unreliable”, but to label the term “unreliable” as a term of “absolutism” seems a tad exaggerated at best. I agree CO2 warming is a reasonable hypothesis. But any one can make a hypothesis. The trick of science is that a hypothesis is rigorously tested and that means providing alternative explanations. But you make alternative explanations sound nefarious and dishonest.
Unlike other disciplines, climate change takes 50 to 100 years to be tested. To date I have yet to see a valid attribution study that adequately explains the past. To argue that CO2 causes warming and then argue that models driven by the belief in CO2 warming provide evidence of CO2 warming is naive circular reasoning.
So instead of bantering about “absolutism”, please just cite the study that convinced you that recent Arctic warming was indeed due to rising CO2. Then we can discuss the merits of that study
Also explain how CO2 warming is consistent with the radiosonde and dropsonde data over ice-covered waters that showed a cooling of the Arctic atmosphere in the 80s and 90s as I referenced in the studies by Kahl.
Assuming you agree with me and the consensus that the Arctic warmed naturally in 20s and 40s, then what percentage of the Arctic warming can you attribute to CO2 versus that natural warming? And why?
And please explain why some alarmists drone on about “unprecedented rates of Arctic warming”, even though the scientific evidence from peer-reviewed science suggests otherwise. For example Dr. Petr Chylek of Los Alamos National Laboratory wrote “we find no direct evidence to support the claims that the Greenland ice sheet is melting due to increased temperature caused by increased atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide. The rate of warming from 1995 to 2005 was in fact lower than the warming that occurred from 1920 to 1930.” Citing non-scientific surveys aimed a creating a “consensus” does not negate the minority view of those that have done the research
Finally you criticize my arguments as “going off on anything but CO2”, and indeed in some respects that would appear to be the case. But you seem unaware of the scientific process. I am indeed offering other scientific explanations for the failure of CO2 predictions. Therefore I am not going to be discussing how the CO2 hypothesis that you embrace to dearly, might be right. The advocates have done the fore decades. It appears as if you want me to repeat their failed arguments.
The trick is to discuss all the various lines of evidence, not attack the messenger. We learn from our mistakes and the mistakes of others.
gnomish says: “everything good about j. gould, j. steele has it. always worth reading.”
If I am to assume you mean Stephen Jay Gould, I am highly flattered. Thanks much.
Excellent point James! Excellent!
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>.
I almost forgot James. Back in the 70’s and 80’s there was a lot of work going on understanding the effects of various variables on plant growth. Back then we understood that there were a huge number of factors governing tree growth, and that trying to use them as a proxy for temperature was total and complete bunk.
Excellent points James! Excellent!
@ Peter Taylor “My favourite graph is from Solanki, showing reconstructed solar (magnetic) activity through the Holocene – the 8000BP peak: pelicans nesting in Somerset; 5000BP peak: settlement of the Scottish Highlands; 2000BP peak: vineyards on the Scottish border; 1000BP peak: white stork nested in Edinburgh; recent warm peak: Little Bittern and Great White Egret nesting in Somerset. Sadly, there were few bird-recorders active in the Little Ice Age!”
But there were quite a few butterfly recorders and their observations suggest many butterfly were further north at the end of the 19th century than what current distributions report. Read The History of the Speckled Wood Butterfly (Pararge aegeria) in Scotland, with a Discussion
of the Recent Changes of Range of Other British ButterflieAuthor(s): J. A. Downes
Source: Journal of Animal Ecology, Vol. 17, No. 2 (Nov., 1948), pp. 131-138
davidmhoffer – I don’t know which papers you read at the time but the ones I saw were looking at a 2C rise in global mean temperature based on a doubling of pre-industrial concentrations of CO2.
Am also interested in where you get the warmer world = less severe weather theory. Warmer world = higher sea temperatures and higher rates of evaporation = more intense rains in temperate regions (floods) and probably more intense hurricanes and cyclones.
jim Steele
I certainly did not dismiss other drivers in the way you suggest. I am saying they are ALL valid. It was you who dismissed CO2. Fact is that CO2, solar variability, cyclical change, volcanoes, ENSO, etc are all forcing factors. The difficult bit is working out the relative input of each. But when you do that, the most probable explanation for the warming for the last half century or so is CO2 as the major – not the only – but the major factor. It just also so happens to fit the physics of CO2 as a GHG.
You say reliance on CO2 is “naive”. How then do you explain the huge swings in global mean temperature during the last 3 million years or so of glaciations and interglacials ? Are you saying CO2 had no role ?
You go back to trying to extrapolate from regional temperatures to global – as I stated at the start, that’s not helpful. If it was warmer pre-WW2 in the Arctic that cannot disprove global warming now just as the current record for date (for the satellite era) ice area around Antarctica does not.
I do agree with you though about time periods. It is naive to say that because temperature has been pretty much flat for 12 years that global warming has stopped. There have been periods of falling temperatures even in the post 1960s warming and there likely will be again – its the long term trend that is important.
@James Abbott
I am confused. Which one of my questions have you responded to??
You answer reminds me of the “so-called” presidential debates. You don’t address the points directed to you but with a quick sidestep, use your moment to push an unrelated point. I am starting to believe you never will address those inconvenient truths. But I appreciate the cognitive dissonance you must be experiencing.
The direct effect is estimated at about 1 degree calculated against the effective black body temperature of earth which is -18 C. Via SB Law, the same energy flux increase translates, at an average surface temperature of +15C, to about 2/3 of one degree. That was they physics then, and if you dive deep into the IPCC reports, it hasn’t changed. These numbers are hardly frightening no matter how you spin them. The IPCC began claiming high rates of positive feed backs from increased water vapour holding capacity. The claims were not supported by the physics, and indeed, observations since then have borne out the fact that the claims were over estimates. The most recent literature quite clearly shows a sensitivity of 1.5 degrees per doubling at the HIGH end. Then when we consider the logarithmic effects of CO2 (which are ALSO recognized by the IPCC) we arrive at an increase of 1.5 degrees on the high side, for, starting from where we are now, another 400 ppm which will take, at present rates of consumption…. 150 to 200 years. But, to get to 3 degrees, or two doublings (the logarithmic effect mentioned in my previous comment) it would require (again starting from where we are now) 600 HUNDRED years at current rates of consumption. 3 degrees over 600 years (and that is the HIGH end of the estimate) is miniscule.
Well I suggest you read IPCC AR5 in which they admit (Ch 11 I think) that severe weather is expected to decrease for AT LEAST the next 90 years. The physics on this is pretty simple. Severe weather is driven, not by total energy in the system, but by differentials in temperature and pressure. By analogy, hooking up two fully charges car batteries in parallel accomplishes zero current. Three in parallel accomplishes…zero current. Note that 3 batteries contain a lot more energy than do two, yet nothing happens because there’s no voltage differential. For the earth system, cold regions are expected to warm more than warm regions, reducing the temperature differential between them (SB Law). You also have to consider the ideal gas law PV=nRT which results in pressure differentials being reduced. So, despite there being more energy pushed into the system by various means, the temperature and pressure differentials between tropics, temperate and arctic zones, between summer and winter seasons, and even between daily and nightly highs and lows, all get reduced and hence the severe weather driven by these things also gets reduced. In fact, the last 3 decades of satellite data for hurricanes shows quite conclusively that as temps have warmed, hurricanes have declines in both frequency and intensity.
But you studied physics in the 70’s and 80’s so I guess you knew all that.
James Abbott says:
June 27, 2014 at 11:10 am
That’s pretty one sided I would suggest.
Unless it is true. The truth is kinda one sided.
nice clear article….that should get um pooping at the EPA….
I think David just handed James his rear on a platter…
…can someone check that for me? Anthony?
REPLY: Not just a platter, a silver one, with a doilie – Anthony
LOL………
To who ever fixed my formatting flub… thanks!
As for the silver platter, I was really just trying to point out the physics. Probably could have left off the sarcastic one liner at the end (but that would be breaking several decades of bad habits in that regard). But bottom line is we need guys like James Abbott to stick around, else we’re just an echo chamber.
James Abbott – WUWT has a wealth of data available, including an extreme weather page. I would urge you have a look and decide for yourself if severe weather is increasing with temperature rise of the last few decades:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/reference-pages/climatic-phenomena-pages/extreme-weather-page/
i did mean stephen j. gould who has a pedestal in my pantheon, mr steele.
skillful use of fine cognitive tools and very neat dissection of ideas is a joy to behold.
it’s the best part of human nature and more is better.
please, never let yourself become surrounded by sycophants. they form a layer of insulation from reality. stay shiny.
James Abbott says:
June 27, 2014 at 2:00 pm
“… looks like you will find a way round any data set to try and prove a pre-determined position.”
Looks like you are conceding that your interpretation of the evidence is not unique or compelling.
jim Steele:
At June 27, 2014 at 4:19 pm you write
I considered warning you that would happen when you started to interact with Abbott. His contribution to each thread he has entered consists solely of distorting and/or misrepresenting the words of others, and stating unreferenced falsehoods while evading each and every point put to him. But I did not warn you about Abbott because I was involved in ensuring that ‘newbies’ understood the nature of Oldberg’s contributions.
I am now glad that I did not warn you about Abbott because that may have hindered davidmhoffer’s superb demolition of him. Abbott deserved a ‘spanking’ and he got it. Laugh? I fell off my chair.
Richard
Ulric says, “I would say that poleward ocean heat transport is increased during negative NAO, because the atmospheric circulation moves south, where the water it can shift polewards, is warmer. You can even see it at monthly scale on “UAH NoPol ocean”, warm pulses during negative NAO periods: http://www.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/t2lt/uahncdc_lt_5.6.txt
Thanks for the data link, but the data would support both our arguments and ultimately we are saying similar things. But I think we need to see the poleward heat transport in 2 phases. Positive NAO, subtropical gyre spins up and more tropical heat is pushed into the midlatitudes until it is inhibited by the stronger subpolar gyre.
The negative NAO causes the two gyres to spin down and contract, and the smaller subpolar gyre allows warm water stored in the mid-latitidues to enter the Arctic. However because the subtropical gyres spins down, the volume of tropical heat transported to the midlatitude declines, and we enter a cold period. First European winters become colder, then the Arctic. That was the scenario from the 20s to 70s, and repeated beginning in the 80s. If the cycle is repeated, 2020 should begin the return of Arctic ice.
“the theoretical physicist Ronald Christensen (and colleagues of his that include me) have built a number of statistically validated optimal decoders of messages from the future for application in controlling systems.”
——————-
I wasa wundering, ….. what frequency should I “tune” my tin-foil hat to …… so that I can hear those “messages from the future”?
Samuel CF Cogar:
A tin hat doesn’t do it. To receive a message from the future, one needs a pattern recognizer.
In our daily lives we use pattern recognizers often for the purpose of receiving messages from the future. Example: we look up in the sky, observe that it is cloudy and predict the probability of rain in the next 24 hours. In a sequence of 24 hour long independent events, one receives a message such as: rain in the next 24, no rain in the next 24 hours, no rain in the next 24 hours, …. Note that each element of this message (rain in the next 24 hours or no rain in the next 24 hours) lies in the future.
In the use of a pattern recognizer in telecommunications engineering, the use of an error correcting code makes it possible to send more information than is received with the result that the transmitted message may be received without error. In the use of a pattern recognizer in control systems engineering, there is not an error correcting code and thus the message is received with errors. By building an information theoretically optimal pattern recognizer, one can minimize but not eliminate the propensity for making these errors.
@jim Steele
Thank you kindly for your reply Jim, and as you are the first person that I have been able to have an informed and rational discussion about the temperature differential between the Frigid and Temperate zones, I highly appreciate the exchange. I am though completely unfamiliar with the nature of the gyres and their effects on ocean transport, so I will study the matter so I can appreciate your ideas better.
Where you said: “The stronger winds of the positive NAO cool the transported tropical waters and deliver warmer winters to much of Europe.”
I would say that SST’s and AMO phase will effect the final winter temperature, but that a warm winter can occur in either AMO phase:
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/actualmonthly/16/Tmean/UK.gif
and is dependent ultimately upon the NAO being negative in that specific season:
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/pna/nao.timeseries.gif
The vital point though is that increased forcing, whether solar or GHG, results in increasingly positive NAO conditions, and reduced warm ocean transport into the Arctic. Meaning that it takes a decline in a forcing for an increase in negative NAO (and a warming of the Arctic) to occur, and there is only one forcing that can decline:
http://snag.gy/YztLh.jpg
“and is dependent ultimately upon the NAO being *positive* in that specific season:”
This chart from Bob Tisdale on Northern North Atlantic Ocean Heat Content Anomalies is very interesting:
http://bobtisdale.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/4-northern-no-atl.png
Ulric, “I am though completely unfamiliar with the nature of the gyres and their effects on ocean transport, so I will study the matter so I can appreciate your ideas better”
Off the top of my head I would recommend a few papers on the gyre to start. Send me your email to landscapesandcycles [ at ] earthlink.net and I can send you pdf’s . There are a few others but they slip my mind right now.
Lozier, M.S., Stewart, N.M., 2008. On the temporally varying northward penetration
of Mediterranean Overflow Water and eastward penetration of Labrador Water.
Journal of Physical Oceanography 38, 2097–2103
Hatun (2005) Influence of the Atlantic Subpolar Gyre on the
Thermohaline Circulation. SCIENCE VOL 309 16 SEPTEMBER
REVERDIN (2009) North Atlantic Subpolar Gyre Surface Variability (1895–2009), JOURNAL OF CLIMATE VOLUME 23
G.
Hatun (2009) Large bio-geographical shifts in the north-eastern Atlantic Ocean:
From the subpolar gyre, via plankton, to blue whiting and pilot whales
Progress in Oceanography 80 (2009) 149–162
Terry Oldberg:
At June 28, 2014 at 9:48 am you say
I am astonished that your tin-foil hat doesn’t do it when your “pattern recognizer” does.
I still await you telling me next week’s lottery numbers. When you successfully tell them to me then I will agree that your “pattern recognizer” works.
Richard
PS Have you considered using your “pattern recognizer” as a perpetuum mobile.
richardscourtney:
If your lottery had the property of being “fair” then it would not be possible to construct a pattern recognizer for there would not be patterns to be discovered; as there would not be patterns, it would not be possible to obtain information about the numbers that would result from the following week’s draw. If, on the other hand, your lottery had the property of being unfair, it is conceivable that patterns could be discovered through the conduct of a scientific study and thus that information could be provided to the user of a pattern recognizer about the numbers that would result from the following week’s draw.
Games of chance are designed to be “fair” making it is quite likely that a given state-lottery will not support pattern discovery. The bibliography at http://www.entropylimited.com/pubs.htm cites studies which, in the past, have resulted in discovery of patterns which, by maximizing the mutual information provide the user of the associated pattern recognizer with the maximum possible information..
Regarding pattern recognizers and perpetuum mobiles, a competently built pattern recognizer is not an example of a perpetuum mobile or portion of one. A perpetuum mobile is a machine that violates the second law of thermodynamics. The second law is a specialization of the principle of entropy maximization. A competently built pattern recognizer satisfies this principle.
richardscourtney says:
June 28, 2014 at 10:59 am
I think Terry is playing a prank on you fellows. I think he means to receive information from the future by expansion on a functional basis. E.g., if you know the derivatives of an analytic function to infinite degree, then you know the values of that function for all points in the future by the Taylor series expansion. Or, a Fourier expansion, or any other expansion on a functional basis satisfying conditions such that you can resolve the components along each basis function. Satisfying those conditions and getting that resolution is where the difficulty arises.
Bart:
I’m not playing a prank. That you think I am may result from a lack of familiarity with information theory or with the numerous successful applications of it in the construction of optimal decoders of messages from the future over a period of nearly half a century. Citations to the associated studies are available in the bibliography at http://www.entropylimited.com/pubs.htm.
Whatever you want to call it, Terry, a forecast is not a message from the future. People who can construct functioning closed timelike loops ought generally have better things to do than hang out on message boards like this one.
Bart:
You are correct in stating that a forecast is not a message from the future. It is a sequence of the outcomes of events that has the properties of a message from the future when these outcomes lie in the future. Of course, we could call this sequence something else. However, as it is mathematically precise and traditional, “message” fills the requirement for a term referencing this sequence.
Terry Odberg says “That you think I am may result from a lack of familiarity with information theory or with the numerous successful applications of it in the construction of optimal decoders of messages from the future over a period of nearly half a century”
Terry why are you spamming this thread with futuristic nonsense that is not related at all to the topic? Are trying to misdirect more meaningful discussion?
Bart and jim Steele:
I challenge you to find any WUWT thread where Oldberg has done other than try to deflect the thread from its subject and onto ridiculous nonsense. He is a very persistent troll, and nothing more.
Richard
@jim Steele
June 28, 2014 at 10:44 am
Many thanks Jim. To me the process seems like an amplified negative feedback, providing a potent overshoot in terms of the temperature impact globally. The increased transport of warm water polewards in the North Hemisphere from 1995 is the larger part of the total rise in global mean surface temperature since then, probably around 0.2°C out of a total of +0.3°C.
What this also means is that the temperatures proxies for the Arctic extrapolated from the Greenland ice cores through the Holocene, are the inverse for those for the temperate zone. A particularly good example is the warmest spike in Greenland temp’s from 1350-1150 BC. This was undoubtedly one of the most difficult cold periods for human populations in the temperate zone in history, and caused widespread collapse of many civilisations, including the Minoans that it is mistakenly named after.
Jim Steele:
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to establish the pertinence of my response to the content of your article. Here’s the pertinence.
In the article you state that “Only by thoroughly examining climate history can we estimate natural contributions and evaluate earth’s sensitivity to rising CO2.” In my response I dispute one’s ability to separate a change in the global temperature into natural and anthropogenic components wherein the anthropegenic component is a kind of “signal” and the natural component is kind of “noise.” In climatological theory, the strength of this “signal” is sensitive to the atmospheric concentration of CO2. In order for it to support control of the climate, however, this “signal” would have to travel at a speed that exceeds the speed of light but such a speed violates the theory of relativity.
An anthropogenic signal cannot and does not exist unless that well tested theory of relativity is wrong. One of the consequences is that the climate sensitivity does not exist as a scientifically meaningful concept. The climate sensitivity is, however, the tool by which climatologists represent that the climate may be controlled.
Terry Oldberg;
You are correct in stating that a forecast is not a message from the future. It is a sequence of the outcomes of events that has the properties of a message from the future when these outcomes lie in the future. Of course, we could call this sequence something else. However, as it is mathematically precise and traditional, “message” fills the requirement for a term referencing this sequence.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
What total and utter bull. You’ve done nothing more than create new definitions of words and arranged them in a clever order to make your claim sound reasonable and scientific. It is neither.
davidmhoffer:
In logic, to refute an argument one must cite the principle of logic or science that is violated by it. To assert that my argument is “total and complete bull” is not to cite the principle or science that is violated by this argument. Thus, your attempt at refutation of my argument is illogical.
Can you cite the principle of logic or science that is violated by my argument? If so, what is this principle?
Terry Oldberg;
Can you cite the principle of logic or science that is violated by my argument? If so, what is this principle?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I can’t refute principles of logic or science in your argument since they do not exist. Your argument is nothing but marketing spin. Since it is not science or logic at all, but marketing spin, it is entirely accurate to label it for what it is. Complete and utter bull.
davidmhoffer:
You failed to answer my question. I gather, therefore, that you are unable to cite a principle of logic or of science that is violated by my argument. You claim to have refuted my argument without having actually refuting it.
Terry Oldberg says:
June 28, 2014 at 8:58 pm
“””””””””””””””””””””””””””
I expect Terry, that you think yourself rather clever and that you have prevailed in this discussion. My observation is that even the common troll has value in this forum. By providing scientific claims that can be refuted by logic, fact, and reason, the readership becomes better informed. You sir, do not even rise to the level of a troll. You claim to gaze at storm clouds on the horizon, and deduce from them a message from the future. This is just playing at words dressed up as science. There is no message from the future. The message is from the past, for the past tells us that in this particular circumstance, we should expect a storm in the future. You have taken logic and science, turned them upside down, and defined them in such a way as to support your claim.
No matter how you twist the words Terry, they are at end of day, neither science nor logic. Just a bullsh*t claim built on twisted words. A marketing hack at best.
Terry, you can make a positive contribution to this debate if you cease this endless caterwauling over definitions and twisted claims that are, to quote the bard, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. You can be better than that Terry.
davidmhoffer:
Demonstrating the illogic of your counter-argument, you have yet again failed to identify the principle of reasoning or science that is violated by my argument. Replacing this identification, you have yet again resorted to emotional arguments e.g. I am a “troll” and mine is “Just a bullsh*t claim built on twisted words.”
If you know logic then you know that the words that are used in making an argument are nothing more nor less than references to the meanings of these words. Thus, for example, the word “message” can be replaced by the made-up word xYYz without changing the logic of the argument so long as “message” and “xYYz” have identical messages.
I cannot argue anymore with you Terry. You make a bold claim, and when challenged, draw upon definitions that are meaningless to the science community in general, and only support your position by re-defining what receiving a message from the future actually means. If this is the best you can do in terms of building your credibility and influence in this forum, than I pity you. When youère ready to discuss real facts, science and reason without the acompanying work games, but all means. Until the, you are at the only level below that of a troll. Just a doddering old fool with nothing to say of any value to anyone and a compete distraction from the actual science and fact begin discussed.
Good night Terry. Don not fasten the tin foil hat too tightly, it gives the same results tightened s little or a lot.
Samuel C Cogar
In reasoned debate, one either refutes the argument of one’s opponent if there is something wrong with it or accepts it if there is nothing wrong. Refutation is accomplished by citing the fact, principle of logic or natural law that is violated by it. One does not characterize the argument of one’s opponent in disparaging terms like “weaselworded trash,” and “FUBAR” because in addition to being rude such a characterization is irrelevant and distracting. As they are irrelevant, disparaging remarks in one’s own argument are a sign of weakness and not of strength in this argument. Slipping them into one’s own argument presents the danger that one or more members of the audience for the debate may be led to a false conclusion. A false conclusion may lead to deaths, bankruptcies or other tragedies thus disparaging characterizations are unethical.
With the exception of minor quibbles, I find nothing in your second paragraph with which to disagree. It does sound as though you missed an idea that I wished to impart to you. This is that while a telecommunications system may fruitfully employ an error correcting code, a control system may not do so. A result from the impossibility of an error correcting code is for messages from the future to be received with errors. One of the possibilities is for the received message to be randomly related to the transmitted message. In this case, the mutual information is nil and the system uncontrollable. A mutual information of nil is a characteristic of a lottery that is “fair,” accounting for one’s inability to provide Mr. Courtney with the numbers that will be drawn in next week’s lottery.
Regarding your second paragraph, you seem to suggest that notwithstanding the impossibility of employing an error correcting code information may be moved from the future to the present without a loss of information. There is usually a loss though. It is a consequence of the necessity for training the decoder on a sample of a smaller size that of the underlying population. Suppose, for example, that you have observed three swans and found that all of them are white. Can you draw from these data the conclusion that all swans are white? You cannot, for information that would be needed for a deductive conclusion about the colors of the out of sample swans is missing. The missing information is of the colors of the unobserved swans.
Problems such as this one have led workers at the intersection of science and information theory to impose a logical principle on pattern discovery. This principle is entropy maximization under constraints expressing the available information. It is the imposition of this principle that results in a correct accounting for the missing information by the pattern recognizer.
Regarding your fourth paragraph, I can’t tell you how to design an error correcting code for any sort of control system for such a code is not a possibility.
Finally, a forty-nine year old technology supports the construction of information theoretically optimal pattern recognizers that transport information about about the outcomes of events from the future to the present. Were you, Mr. Courtney and Mr. Hoffer to consult the published peer-reviewed literature on this technology, I believe you would find answers to all of your questions. The apparently complete ignorance of this literature on the part of the three of you has led to waste of time, energy and space in Mr. Watts’s blog. Why not pause this thread while the three of you bone up on the topic which you have chosen to debate?
Terry Oldberg says:
June 28, 2014 at 9:48 am
“In the use of a pattern recognizer in telecommunications engineering, the use of an error correcting code makes it possible to send more information than is received with the result that the transmitted message may be received without error.
In the use of a pattern recognizer in control systems engineering, there is not an error correcting code and thus the message is received with errors. By building an information theoretically optimal pattern recognizer, one can minimize but not eliminate the propensity for making these errors.”
——————
Terry Oldberg,
Don’t be talking weazelworded “trash” like that to me.
First of all, the use of an “error correcting code” doesn’t mean you may/might receive the “info” without error …. because receiving it without error is possible without an imbedded “correction code”. The use of an “error correcting code” simply means that if the received “info” is in error …. then it can potentially be “corrected” after it has been received. And you have to have a “means” of detecting a potential “error” before you have a “need” to correct it. The info/data can’t correct itself. That is, …. unless you have already invented some form of “smart data”.
And your 2nd paragraph is utterly FUBAR. In your 1st sentence you claim that because “something” is not there then you are gonna get errors. And in the 2nd sentence you claim that if you put that “something” in there then you are still gonna get errors.
Terry O, how ya gonna design an “error correcting code” for a voltage sensitive “recognition” control system?
Cheers, …. Sam C, …. an old logical designer dinosaur.
davidmhoffer:
At June 28, 2014 at 9:29 pm you say to Terry Oldberg
I regret the need to inform you that you are mistaken: Terry Oldberg is incapable of being other than that.
He has been trolling WUWT threads with his disruptive drivel for years.
There is only one needed action whenever Oldberg enters a thread to spout his nonsense. A refutation of his nonsense is needed to inform ‘newbies’. And after the refutation then ‘don’t feed the troll’.
Oldberg entered this thread at June 27, 2014 at 7:21 am with a meaningless piece of gobbledygook about control systems obtaining information from the future. I ridiculed it at June 27, 2014 at 7:38 am.
And Oldberg immediately followed his first post with a post at June 27, 2014 at 7:35 am which repeats his claim – which has been refuted many time – that climatologists do not make clearly defined predictions and projections. That is easily refuted and I linked, cited and quoted the IPCC definitions at June 27, 2014 at 7:57 am.
I had hoped that my replies to Oldberg would have informed ‘newbies’ so Oldberg’s contributions could be ignored after that. Unfortunately, credibility was given to Oldberg by Matt Skaggs when – at June 27, 2014 at 8:43 am – he queried my answer about the IPCC definitions so I replied to that at June 27, 2014 at 9:00 am.
After that Oldberg was in his preferred element of thread destruction by use of fantastic flights of illogic, and my attempts to stop it (e.g. at June 27, 2014 at 10:28 am) failed. The result is plain for all to see.
Richard
Terry Oldberg:
At June 29, 2014 at 9:56 am you ask
I answer that we know all we need to know about you, and we have completed debating you, so you will be wasting your time if you continue with your insane narcissism.
Richard
richardscourtney:
You characterization of me as an insane narcissist is revealing of a debating style in which you characterize your opponent or his argument in disparaging terms thus producing ârefutationsâ that are devoid of intellectual content. Does the existence of an anthropogenic signal violate relativity theory? Through the logically and ethically illegitimate tactic of flooding the thread in which this issue was being discussed with disparaging text youâve tried to win a battle in which you were out of ammunition. Shame on you!
Terry Oldberg says:
June 29, 2014 at 9:56 am
“It does sound as though you missed an idea that I wished to impart to you. This is that while a telecommunications system may fruitfully employ an error correcting code, a control system may not do so.”
—————–
YADA, ….. YADA, ….. YADA, ….. don’t be trying to impress me with your blatant ignorance …. or your Flying Spaghetti Monster imagination and “blue sky” dreams. So, take your “idea” and … shove it.
Then after you “shoved it”, ….. then educate yourself on a few realities in life. One of them being an “example” of a …… “hard-wired” error correcting code for a control system.
And you demand that I provide cited refutation that negates your silly arsed claims, … then so be it.
Here is a url “link” to said cited fact(s) and/or “principle of logic” that you requested, to wit: http://www.freepatentsonline.com/3449735.pdf
So, … Terry O, … you read it in its entirety … and figure it out for yourself.
And don’t ask me to explain the “details” of it to YOU …. because I probably done forgot how it worked.
Cheers, Sam C