Guest essay by David Archibald
A couple of years ago the question was asked “When will it start cooling?” Of course solar denialists misconstrued this innocent enquiry. There is no doubt – we all know that lower solar irradiance will result in lower temperatures on this planet. It is a question of when. Solar activity is much lower than it was at a similar stage of the last solar cycle but Earthly temperatures have remained stubbornly flat. Nobody is happy with this situation. All 50 of the IPCC climate models have now been invalidated and my own model is looking iffy.
Friss-Christenson and Lassen theory, as per Solheim et al’s prediction, has the planet having a temperature decrease of 0.9°C on average over Solar Cycle 24 relative to Solar Cycle 23. The more years that pass without the temperature falling, the greater the fall required over the remaining years of the cycle for this prediction to be validated.
The question may very well have been answered. David Evans has developed a climate model based on a number of inputs including total solar irradiance (TSI), carbon dioxide, nuclear testing and other factors. His notch-filter model is optimised on an eleven year lag between Earthly temperature and climate. The hindcast match is as good as you could expect from a climate model given the vagaries of ENSO, lunar effects and the rest of it, which gives us a lot of confidence in what it is predicting. What it is predicting is that temperature should be falling from just about now given that TSI fell from 2003. From the latest of a series of posts on Jo Nova’s blog:
The model has temperature falling out of bed to about 2020 and then going sideways in response to the peak in Solar Cycle 24. What happens after that? David Evans will release his model of 20 megs in Excel in the near future. I have been using a beta version. The only forecast of Solar Cycle 25 activity is Livingstone and Penn’s estimate of a peak amplitude of seven in sunspot number. The last time that sort of activity level happened was in the Maunder Minimum. So if we plug in TSI levels from the Maunder Minimum, as per the Lean reconstuction, this is what we get:
This graph shows the CET record in blue with the hindcast of the notch-filter model using modern TSI data in red with a projection to 2040. The projected temperature decline of about 2.0°C is within the historic range of the CET record. Climate variability will see spikes up and down from that level. The spikes down will be killers. The biggest spike you see on that record, in 1740, killed 20% of the population of Ireland, 100 years before the more famous potato famine.
I consider that David Evans’ notch-filter model is a big advance in climate science. Validation is coming very soon. Then stock up on tinned lard with 9,020 calories per kg. A pallet load could be a life-saver.
David Archibald, a Visiting Fellow at the Institute of World Politics in Washington, D.C., is the author of Twilight of Abundance: Why Life in the 21st Century Will Be Nasty, Brutish, and Short (Regnery, 2014).
UPDATE:
For fairness and to promote a fuller understating, here are some replies from Joanne Nova
kadaka (KD Knoebel) says:
July 1, 2014 at 10:50 pm
Currently posted revision, changes bolded:
“Data sources: Lean 2000, SIDC sunspots, PMOD, ACRIM. Composite TSI for Sep 2013 to Dec 2015 assumed as average TSI value from Sep 2012 to Aug 2013, to extend smoothed curve (dotted line).
Temperature sources: Christiansen & Ljungqvist 2012, Moberg 2005, CET, HadCrut4, NCDC, GISTEMP, UAH, RSS.
Global average surface air temperature.”
So the data gap is filled in and the data extrapolated out to Dec 2015 using approximately the highest value over the last 11 years and yet the smoothed curve continues to fall.
One wonders how the ‘smoothing’ is being calculated since previous drops in TSI don’t show such large drops in the smoothed values, the previous two cycles show very small changes (both positive and negative). Most likely it is due to the end padding as described above, but just extrapolating out to the end of 2015 doesn’t seem sufficient.
Steve McI criticised Mann for padding the Gaspe proxy but that had far less effect than this.
Mr O’Neill officiously and dangerously intervenes to say I have told a “lie”. If he would be kind enough to let me have his name and address, my lawyers will write to him. In all relevant jurisdictions, there is seldom a defense against a direct allegation that the victim of the libel has lied. If Mr O’Neill does not supply his name and address, the relevant court orders requiring the information to be provided will be sought, and the costs he will eventually be obliged to pay will increase.
Mr O’Neill, in an unwise attempt to provide a basis for his accusation that I lied, very carefully quotes out of context a statement by me that “the graphs” did not purport to be the IPCC’s graphs and were not labeled as such. The graphs to which, in context, I was at that point referring were two schematics that appeared without my foreknowledge in the Sunday Telegraph. They did not purport to be the IPCC’s graphs and were not labeled as such, as anyone who looks at them can see.
In my reference materials that were separately available to interested readers, I reproduced the IPCC’s 1990 graph and identified it as being from the IPCC, though I dated it incorrectly in error. As far as my inexpert eye can tell, the graph in my reference materials is in all material respects identical to that which appears in the IPCC’s 1990 report. If there are any differences, I suspect they are inconsequential.
Phil. says:
July 2, 2014 at 6:47 am
So the data gap is filled in and the data extrapolated out to Dec 2015 …
Uh-oh. Beware! Mr Monckton will sue you for libel…
lsvalgaard says:
July 2, 2014 at 6:53 am
Phil. says:
July 2, 2014 at 6:47 am
So the data gap is filled in and the data extrapolated out to Dec 2015 …
Uh-oh. Beware! Mr Monckton will sue you for libel…
Thanks for the warning Leif but I think I’m OK because Monckton says that the truth is now a defense.
Phil. says:
July 2, 2014 at 7:24 am
So the data gap is filled in and the data extrapolated out to Dec 2015 …
“Uh-oh. Beware! Mr Monckton will sue you for libel…”
Thanks for the warning Leif but I think I’m OK because Monckton says that the truth is now a defense.
So, we could have him admit that Evans fabricated data in order to fill the gap and to extrapolate..
Someone please alert Anthony that Tamino or someone like him has taken over this blog and is allowing school boys to destroy its reputation.
From Monckton of Brenchley on July 2, 2014 at 6:52 am:
Since O’Neill’s verified email address and also ISP info will lead to his real name and address, and that info is available to the blog owner, it seems Monckton just threatened legal action against Anthony Watts to force him to hand over someone’s identifying information.
WUWT is Anthony’s home on the internet, and it certainly appears one guest has just ordered another guest to give him their personal info or they will force the host to cough it up!
For clarity, I should point out that the shadow of a hockey stick superimposed on one of the two graphs reproduced by the Sunday Telegraph, the ones I was alleged to have “faked”, was labeled with the words “IPCC hockey stick”. It was clear from the context, therefore, that the graph was not an original IPCC graph, but was a schematic representation of it.
“Phil.” has twisted what I said, as usual. I had not said that truth was “now” a defense against a libel claim. I had said that truth has always been a defense against a libel claim. However, I have put the facts in front of a lawyer experienced as an arbiter of international scientific disputes. He considers there is no truth in the allegations that Dr Evans had fabricated data or dishonestly used incorrect data, and he was visibly outraged when I showed him the allegation that Dr Evans had been “almost fraudulent”, or, in the words of some of the other defamers here, just plain “fraudulent”.
Certain commenters here have attempted to pin Dr Evans down to one dataset that they seek to find fault with, when in fact he uses many; to pin him down to one smoothing period, when in fact he uses many; and to the alleged fabrication of data when the context makes it entirely plain that fabrication, in the sense of making up data with intent to deceive, was not present. Those who continue along these lines would be well advised to desist. It is one thing to have a legitimate scientific disagreement: it is quite another to persist in alleging dishonesty where, in the expert opinion of the lawyer who has examined the matter on my behalf, it is entirely plain that no dishonesty was present. I have only conveyed this advice here for the purpose of ensuring that those who continue to allege dishonesty or fraud on Dr Evans’ part are doing so in the face of a careful examination of what both sides have written by an expert in the determination of scientific disputes of this kind.
Monckton of Brenchley says:
July 2, 2014 at 8:44 am
Those who continue along these lines would be well advised to desist.
Or else?
lsvalgaard says:
July 2, 2014 at 7:29 am
Phil. says:
July 2, 2014 at 7:24 am
So the data gap is filled in and the data extrapolated out to Dec 2015 …
“Uh-oh. Beware! Mr Monckton will sue you for libel…”
Thanks for the warning Leif but I think I’m OK because Monckton says that the truth is now a defense.
“So, we could have him admit that Evans fabricated data in order to fill the gap and to extrapolate..”
It’s not in his style to admit errors.
Friends:
Phil. says at July 2, 2014 at 8:51 am
The irony of that is so extreme it is beyond possibility of mockery.
Surely, you guys must be able to see you have ‘jumped the shark’ when the troll who posts as Phil. has joined in.
Please desist.
Richard
Monckton of Brenchley says:
July 2, 2014 at 8:44 am
I have only conveyed this advice here for the purpose of ensuring that those who continue to allege dishonesty or fraud on Dr Evans’ part are doing so in the face of a careful examination of what both sides have written by an expert in the determination of scientific disputes of this kind.
You are sounding increasingly desperate. Now relying on paid advice from an unnamed somebody who clearly has no idea what he is talking about.
dp says:
Someone please alert Anthony that Tamino or someone like him has taken over this blog and is allowing school boys to destroy its reputation.
True dat. But don’t be concerned, they have no credible facts to support their runaway global warming beliefs. They only believe they do.
========================
Cream Bourbon says:
Dragging in crticisms ofMichael Mann graphs?
Dragging in crticisms of
Michael Mann’sLord Monckton’s graph?There. FIFY.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++
Phil. says:
It’s not in his style to admit errors.
One of the most perfect examples of psychological projection EVAH. ☺☺☺
I am, my good Lord, thus kindly reminded:
SCENE V. A public road.
PETRUCHIO
Come on, i’ God’s name; once more toward our father’s.
Good Lord, how bright and goodly shines the moon!
KATHARINA
The moon! the sun: it is not moonlight now.
PETRUCHIO
I say it is the moon that shines so bright.
KATHARINA
I know it is the sun that shines so bright.
PETRUCHIO
Now, by my mother’s son, and that’s myself,
It shall be moon, or star, or what I list,
Or ere I journey to your father’s house.
Go on, and fetch our horses back again.
Evermore cross’d and cross’d; nothing but cross’d!
HORTENSIO
Say as he says, or we shall never go.
KATHARINA
Forward, I pray, since we have come so far,
And be it moon, or sun, or what you please:
An if you please to call it a rush-candle,
Henceforth I vow it shall be so for me.
PETRUCHIO
I say it is the moon.
KATHARINA
I know it is the moon.
PETRUCHIO
Nay, then you lie: it is the blessed sun.
KATHARINA
Then, God be bless’d, it is the blessed sun:
But sun it is not, when you say it is not;
And the moon changes even as your mind.
What you will have it named, even that it is;
And so it shall be so for Katharina.
The shorter version. Elizabeth’s subtlety is magnificent.
Just here I nearly lost my breakfast:
So sayeth the resident climate bully:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/06/28/a-cool-question-answered/#comment-1674525
Projecting much?
This is getting rediculous/
there is no science? everything is off topic?
I think it is time for Anthony to just close this and tell everyone to go home.
Agnostic says:
July 2, 2014 at 1:14 am
Thanks, Agnostic. Read what I wrote. I didn’t ask you about “over-reacting”. Over-reacting is what you accuse me of. I asked about your opinion of his legal threats, a question I note that you haven’t answered.
I didn’t put a single word in your mouth, Agnostic, that’s nonsense. Read what I wrote. I simply asked you the question of whether Monckton’s legal threats were “reasonable”. A simple yes or no would suffice.
My apologies, my lack of clarity bites again. I meant that he has gathered less-than-inquisitive folks like your self, and that they have defended his model. Note that the “who” in my sentence refers to “less-inquisitive-folks”, although it is not as clear as I’d like.
Call me what you like, name-calling doesn’t affect me. I’ve been called much worse.
Agnostic, what David has done is ask for our opinion of his scientific work. He has asked people to give their scientific comments and objections to his work, for post after post, a total of ten posts to date. Then when we have commented he has told everyone who disagreed with him that they were wrong … and of course, because he hasn’t revealed his data or code, he holds all the cards. He just says oh, no, you’re wrong, and he remains, in Lord Moncktons lovely description, “sure in the knowledge that no one will be able to falsify what he refuses to make available.”
Now, actually that lovely description was of Michael Mann … and it is very depressing to me that it describes perfectly what David Evans has done for the last ten posts. He has invited all comers to criticize his work, and he has “defeated” them all. There are lots of folks at his site who have already seen him “defeating” everyone who has objected to his ideas, and who are already robustly defending Evan’s work, without having seen one single test of the model.
Now, I’m sorry, but gathering adherents to defend your work by hiding it, then inviting comments on it, and refusing to reveal it, that is not science in any form.
Back in Post II, I begged David, not asked him but begged him to reveal his work then and there.
He refused. I asked him again. He refused again.
What part of “he has refused to reveal his data and code” seems unclear to you. That is a description of reality.
If it is not all good to go, why ask for comments on it? And if you ask for comments on it, as he has done for no less than ten posts now … how the hell can we comment without seeing his work?
I reveal and post my data and code when I post my studies. Yes, my studies may require “further corrections, revisions, updates, bug fixes”. That’s happened to me more than once.
Steve McIntyre reveals and posts his data and code when he posts his studies. Yes, his studies may require “further corrections, revisions, updates, bug fixes”. That’s happened to him more than once.
Steven Mosher reveals and posts his data and code when he posts his studies. Yes, his studies may require “further corrections, revisions, updates, bug fixes”. That’s happened to him more than once.
We do that because science demands transparency. It is normal scientific practice.
So regarding all of your boo-hoo about the poor man is not able to reveal his work because it may contain errors? Let me remind you what Phil Jones famously said to Warwick Hughes when Warwick asked Phil for his data:
Your excuse is straight out of the Phil Jones playbook. I don’t give a rat’s aspidistra whether it requires “further corrections”. If he wants to invite comments on it for ten, count’em, ten posts now, he can’t use the excuse that there may be “something wrong with it”.
Perhaps you would do it that way, and therefore you assume I would. I don’t do things that way. There are a number of folks out there whose actions I speak out against, but whose science is good. Even if you can’t maintain the distinction, I have no problem keeping the two separate.
In fact, we have the opposite problem. I’ve made few comments about Evans’ work, BECAUSE HE REFUSED MY DIRECT REQUEST TO LET ME SEE IT. But his adherents have already declared that it’s the best model since Elle McPherson, that it is a work of great insight, go over to his website and you’ll find enough adulation of his unseen work to last you for weeks. So perhaps you might direct your objections to them … and to the continued hiding of the code and data that lets them continue to claim that it’s a wondrous model.
This is the kind of thing that happens when a man hides his work. You are already denigrating my unwritten future comments on a hidden model that David refuses to let me see … and you advise me to wait and see the model before I say anything at all about David’s actions???
Physician … heal thyself. How about YOU wait until you see my analysis before you decide it is not going to be “good and unbiased”?
Regards,
w.
Monckton of Brenchley says:
July 2, 2014 at 2:02 am
Since the remarks which you find defamatory were comments in response to a blog post, I would hope that the blog would not be in the same legal position as the National Review in the Mann-Steyn case, so not also subject to a law suit.
It’s ok for some but not for others:
Monckton of Brenchley says: July 2, 2014 at 2:02 am
The legal position is now clearer. A grave libel has been committed – not, as I had thought, by only one person here, but by several. It has been persisted in after warnings to desist. The libel is based on a failure to pay close attention to what has already been revealed of Dr Evans’ work, and on a failure to wait for the imminent full disclosure before making serious criminal allegations, which have already begun to be repeated by others.
—————
Then compare this to the attacks on Mann and the response to his defamation action in this blog.
This seems a bit off to me!
or
Is Anthony going to start blogging about Monkton’s actions?
Monckton of Brenchley says:
July 2, 2014 at 2:02 am
Oh, dear heavens, Christopher, you have lost the plot entirely. Now you are not only discussing legal action against Leif, you have expanded it to include “several people” who you say have made “serious criminal allegations?
I thought that you couldn’t sink any lower than to threaten Leif with a libel action. Now, you’ve expanded the claim, but you haven’t even had the balls to name names. Instead, you are making accusations of criminal libel against un-named people … do you not see the irony in that?
Of course, since I’m the one who has made the same claims as Leif, I have no choice but to assume that I’m very probably on your legal hit list … but taking a page from David Evans’ playbook, you’re keeping your hit list secret …
Christopher, I’m done with this subject. No matter what your lawyers tell you, neither Leif nor I nor anyone has made “serious criminal allegations” about David’s work, that’s a pathetic joke. Your lawyers must be laughing all the way to the bank. Surely you must know that asking your lawyers if you should sue someone is like asking your barber if you need a haircut … are you really in mystery about what your barber will say?
I give up. You do what you want, Christopher. Go ahead, advise David Evans to instigate legal action against me. See if you can get triple damages against me. I’m sick of your legal threats, and your claim that the courts are the best place to decide scientific questions.
If you want to advise David to use the courts to impoverish me, to garnish my pittance of retirement savings and take away my house and the little that I have in this world to pay David Evans triple damages, GO AHEAD. I’m sick of the threats.
I have asked you, as a friend, to cease your legal threats agains Leif.
Instead, you have expanded your threats to encompass others, presumably including me, although you haven’t had the balls to say who you are referring to.
Really?
Do you truly not understand what horrendous damage you are doing to your reputation? Do you truly not understand that you are damaging David and Jo’s reputations? Do you truly not understand the damage you are doing to the skeptic side of the argument?
The part I truly don’t understand is what you think you will gain by your threats. Suppose you do convince David to sue Leif and I … do you think that will advance the cause of science? Do you think that will make the alarmists unhappy? Do you think people will congratulate you for driving me into poverty? Really?
The only people who will cheer such an action will be you and your lawyers. Everyone else loses in such a fight. Suppose David Evans prevails in his suit, and I’m thrown out of my home to pay him the threatened “triple damages” and left impoverished … is that a “giant step for mankind”?
Look, Christopher, you are advising David that he should try to take my hard-earned money because you got your feelings bruised … I don’t see any good result coming out of that for anyone but the lawyers.
But heck, if that’s what you want to advise David to do, hele on … I suspect, however, from my limited encounters with David and Jo, that they will thank you for your concern and decline your invitation.
And why they haven’t told you to shut up about them possibly suing Leif and I is a mystery to me … Jo and David, he’s dragging you down with him. Up to you, but in your shoes I’d slip him a quiet word that you’re not interested in legal action. Otherwise, you are already getting tarred with the same brush … and I doubt greatly if you want that.
Anyhow, Christopher, I leave you to your course of action, do what you want. I’ve done my best as your friend to try to stop you from harming yourself and others … and for my thanks I’ve been indirectly threatened with legal action. Since the old saying has it that “A threat of legal action is as good as a wink to a blind horse”, I’ll take that as an indication that your friends’ concern for your well-being is of no interest to you.
Sadly,
w.
In response to “Milodonharlani”, the blog that carries libels is technically capable of being sued, just as a newspaper is. However, I have been free to put the other side of the case and, in those circumstances, no action against the blog would be likely to succeed: nor, in those circumstances (nor in any foreseeable circumstances, for our kind host has been remarkably kind and generous to me) would I dream of suing the blog.
One of the many features of this case that struck the lawyer was the persistence of the perpetrators of the libels when they had been warned off. The courts, he said, would start by taking particular umbrage at any allegation of criminality or dishonesty made against a scientist, whose reputation for honesty is part of his stock-in-trade. But they would be very angry indeed – and that anger would be reflected in the damages – on seeing the sullen determination of the perpetrators, even after it would have become blindingly obvious to the reasonable man that they had no basis for alleging dishonesty, to continue to allege it.
It may have come as something of a surprise to some here that the law applies just as much to widely-circulated blogs as it does to widely-circulated newspapers. But it does. If Dr Evans were minded to pursue this to court, and if he could spare the time from his research to do so, there is only one circumstance – a certain sensitivity in this affair which I came across on analyzing what the perpetrators had said about Dr Evans – in which a judge or jury might not award very substantial damages. And it is precisely to give the principal perpetrator the advantage of that circumstance, in the interest of justice, that I shall be writing to his university once the dust has settled.
From Monckton of Brenchley on July 2, 2014 at 4:33 am:
Oh please, the swings are so great it’s pretty easy to get a total in the target range over a decade.
HadCRUT4 global obtained from WFT, 1900 to 2014.33 (latest data), monthly values, subtracting the end of a 10-year span from the start (ex. 1909.92 anomaly from 1900 anomaly), I found 229 spans with a temperature drop <= -0.1°C, out of 1252 total spans.
Thus Dr. Evans' lower figure is already being hit 18.3% of time since 1900. The lower range end is within natural variability.
For the high end, when the drop is <= -0.5°C, that has occurred 9 out of 1252 spans, thus 0.7% of the time.
Thus the low end is within natural variability, with nearly a one in five chance of it just happening. Thus Dr. Evans' model hitting the low end won't prove anything.
For a 95% confidence interval, only a one in twenty chance the prediction will just happen, you’d need 62 or less occurrences for those 1252 spans. My spreadsheet says that’d be a lower bound of at least -0.293°C, to only three decimal places just like the temperature data. Using the precision you used, using monthly values without further smoothing, the lower bound would have to currently be at least -0.3°C to be taken seriously.
Lord Monckton
Surely it is not up to you or your legal advisors to decide if a libel has been committed but to the court. I happen to agree with Willis on this one. Your position is looking like a busted flush.
dp says:
July 2, 2014 at 9:45 am
Thanks, dp, but I fear that you trying to equate my words with Lord Monckton’s threats of legal action just makes it clear that you don’t know what “bully” means.
Read the comment of mine that you linked, and point out the “bullying” that I’m subjecting Lord Monckton to. If you think I can “bully” someone over the internet merely with my words, and with no threats of any kind, then I invite you to bully me into changing my actions using just your words and no threats of any kind.
Sorry, dp, but your accusation makes no sense. To “bully” someone means to force them to do or not do something based on a threat. Without a threat, there is no bullying. Try out “Give me your lunch money or I swear I’ll be nice to you” … doesn’t work, does it?
I have made no threats of any kind. Therefore, I’m not bullying anyone.
Lord Monckton has threatened legal action, of course in a deniable manner, and is already using his money and his lawyers to advance the threat.
That’s bullying, dp … study up on the difference.
w.