Now that “the pause” has come of age, and has exceeded 18 years, it is time to revisit a post a made back in November 2011.
Bill Illis reminded me in comments of this spectacular failure of peer reviewed climate science:
Let’s remember several years ago when all the heavy-weights of climate science produced a paper that said the lower troposphere pause had to be at least 17 years long before a clear signal that human-made CO2 warming theories should start to be questioned.
Carl Mears was the second author on that paper along Ben Santer (lead) [and Tom Wigley, Susan Solomon, Tom Karl, Gerald Meehl, Peter Stott, Peter Thorne, Frank Wentz].
Well, that time has now been exceeded and they all have egg on their face.
http://nldr.library.ucar.edu/repository/assets/osgc/OSGC-000-000-010-476.pdf
Alhough, if you read Carl Mears article carefully, he is starting the discussion that maybe the theories need to be revised. His use of the d’word may be needed just to keep him in the club and not being shown the door by his other compatriots who accept no questioning at all.
Here’s the current lower troposphere temperature from RSS:
Here’s the reminder press release boasting of their discovery. Emphasis mine.
Separating signal and noise in climate warming
LIVERMORE, Calif. — In order to separate human-caused global warming from the “noise” of purely natural climate fluctuations, temperature records must be at least 17 years long, according to climate scientists.
To address criticism of the reliability of thermometer records of surface warming, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory scientists analyzed satellite measurements of the temperature of the lower troposphere (the region of the atmosphere from the surface to roughly five miles above) and saw a clear signal of human-induced warming of the planet.
Satellite measurements of atmospheric temperature are made with microwave radiometers, and are completely independent of surface thermometer measurements. The satellite data indicate that the lower troposphere has warmed by roughly 0.9 degrees Fahrenheit since the beginning of satellite temperature records in 1979. This increase is entirely consistent with the warming of Earth’s surface estimated from thermometer records.
Recently, a number of global warming critics have focused attention on the behavior of Earth’s temperature since 1998. They have argued that there has been little or no warming over the last 10 to 12 years, and that computer models of the climate system are not capable of simulating such short “hiatus periods” when models are run with human-caused changes in greenhouse gases.
“Looking at a single, noisy 10-year period is cherry picking, and does not provide reliable information about the presence or absence of human effects on climate,” said Benjamin Santer, a climate scientist and lead author on an article in the Nov. 17 online edition of the Journal of Geophysical Research (Atmospheres).
Many scientific studies have identified a human “fingerprint” in observations of surface and lower tropospheric temperature changes. These detection and attribution studies look at long, multi-decade observational temperature records. Shorter periods generally have small signal to noise ratios, making it difficult to identify an anthropogenic signal with high statistical confidence, Santer said.
“In fingerprinting, we analyze longer, multi-decadal temperature records, and we beat down the large year-to-year temperature variability caused by purely natural phenomena (like El Niños and La Niñas). This makes it easier to identify a slowly-emerging signal arising from gradual, human-caused changes in atmospheric levels of greenhouse gases,” Santer said.
The LLNL-led research shows that climate models can and do simulate short, 10- to 12-year “hiatus periods” with minimal warming, even when the models are run with historical increases in greenhouse gases and sulfate aerosol particles. They find that tropospheric temperature records must be at least 17 years long to discriminate between internal climate noise and the signal of human-caused changes in the chemical composition of the atmosphere.
“One individual short-term trend doesn’t tell you much about long-term climate change,” Santer said. “A single decade of observational temperature data is inadequate for identifying a slowly evolving human-caused warming signal. In both the satellite observations and in computer models, short, 10-year tropospheric temperature trends are strongly influenced by the large noise of year-to-year climate variability.”
The research team is made up of Santer and Livermore colleagues Charles Doutriaux, Peter Caldwell, Peter Gleckler, Detelina Ivanova, and Karl Taylor, and includes collaborators from Remote Sensing Systems, the National Center for Atmospheric Research, the University of Colorado, the Canadian Centre for Climate Modeling and Analysis, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the U.K. Meteorology Office Hadley Centre, and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
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Source: http://www.llnl.gov/news/newsreleases/2011/Nov/NR-11-11-03.html
The lower troposphere temperature has been flat now for 18 years on one dataset, RSS. No human effects can be seen. What say you Dr. Santer?
- Ignore your own folly?
- Say your paper was mistaken and publish a new goalpost mover paper saying that we really need 30 years?
- Or, will you simply admit that the posited warming isn’t happening?
I’m guessing you’ll go with #2.
The latest version of the HadCrut4 data set is available here.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcrut4/data/current/time_series/HadCRUT.4.3.0.0.monthly_ns_avg.txt
There have been some adjustments since I last looked at it, and the “Pause” has almost been adjusted out of existence. The furthest you can go back and still find a negative trend has advanced from March 2001 to November 2001. However, that slight slope is on shaky ground. It only needs an anomaly of 0.52 deg C for September to shorten the negative slope by 4 years, and this is somewhat less than August’s anomaly of 0.669 deg C.
A September anomaly of 0.639 or higher, and the “Pause” vanishes completely, with the most resilient month of March 2005 losing its negative trend.
Since these values are quite on the cards, you can expect lively discussion just around the corner!
A September anomaly of 0.639 or higher, and the “Pause” vanishes completely, with the most resilient month of March 2005 losing its negative trend.
Interesting! Feel free to repeat this and other things in my post that will come out in 24 hours at the latest.
OK Werner
I’ll look out for it
Regards
Richard
Richard Barraclough
“A September anomaly of 0.639 or higher, and the “Pause” vanishes completely, with the most resilient month of March 2005 losing its negative trend.”
The pause, as measured by periods of zero or negative trend, is fading in all indicators except MSU-RSS. This has been happening all year. It isn’t due to adjustment, but to warmer weather (esp SST), along with some matters of trend arithmetic. The dip in 2008, which used to weigh down the trend since 2000, is now about mid-region and has neutral effect. The 1998 peak is now so far back that it can’t pull trends negative.
I’ve documented this in a post here. You can click to show how back trends have been rising; HADCRUT is about the last to go.
…and the model predictions continue soaring off up above reality.
Nick, you disagree that the the so-called “pause” will continue indefinitely? When do you expect it to end?
“When do you expect it to end?”
Well, in terms of zero trends, quite soon, except for MSU. For a while now, UAH has had positive trend if you go back before 2008. GISS and NOAA are very close to that status. I’d give HADCRUT a bit longer than Richard B would, but some time this year.
Of course, there’s nothing really magical about zero trend. The trends will still be well down on late last century.
I see there has been a new version of HADCRUT 4 (4.3.0.0) and it has raised some recent temperatures. So that is part of the reason whyHADCRUT trends have jumped, as Richard B said. But all the indices are showing increasing values for trends to now.
I have been to the post to which Nick Stoke’s refers us. It is labelled “trends oC/century”. It appears to commence in 1995 but then it eliminates all data post some date in early 2011.
In my younger days that would have been known as cherry picking but I believe that more recently trained statisticians refer to the ploy as data dredging.
A really competent data miner can dredge two totally contrary hypotheses from the same mine.
Ever watch a race horse run both ways around a track at the same time, trying to beat himself?
==========
” but then it eliminates all data post some date in early 2011.”
It doesn’t eliminate data. It’s calculating trends. Calculating trends over a period of three years or less just gets ragged, and as a practical matter, goes off any reasonable y-scale.
And I hope we won’t be reduced to talking about a “pause” since 2011.
Reblogged this on gottadobetterthanthis and commented:
Well, the data says no global warming. So, which side the the argument is denying?
Let us not forget the immortal 2007 comment revealed in Climategate II:
Of course, the imputation of violence is simply the usual “projection” from Alarmists, since it is skeptics who are periodically threatened with violence.
Me, I’m for forgiving. But the ghosts are not amused by my irrelevant gesture, selfish as it is.
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Martian years, not Earth years. Sheesh.
It took only ten years of warming back in the 80s to bring the alarmists out of the closet. Now even 17 years is not enough. The next dropdead date, you can be sure, will be set sufficiently far into the future that all these folks aren’t worried about being around to take responsibility.
its great when you can use your own sliding times scale , that when you can claim although its not happened when you said it would it will happen in the future . Its the shame approch seen by those claiming the end of world is nigh with the return of the Lord , so you better repent and there is no better way to do that than give me all your money . Actual the more you think about it the more these charlatans sound like climate ‘scientists’
Mr. Watts: Just to set the scientific record straight, you are misinterpreting the “17 years” statement in the 2011 Santer et al. JGR paper. That statement was based on an analysis of CMIP-3 control runs, with no changes in external forcings. This is clearly stated in paragraph [30] of the 2011 Santer et al. paper:
“On timescales longer than 17 years, the average trends in RSS and UAH near‐global TLT data consistently exceed 95% of the unforced trends in the CMIP‐3 control runs (Figure 6d), clearly indicating that the observed multidecadal warming of the lower troposphere is too large to be explained by model estimates of natural internal variability”. Thus the “17 year” statement pertained only to the problem of discriminating a human-caused tropospheric warming signal relative to internally-generated variability.
As a number of recent publications have shown, the post-1998 “warming hiatus” is not solely due to internal variability. It is also partly due to the cooling effects of a succession of early 21st century volcanic eruptions, to an unusually broad and low minimum during the last solar cycle, and to the effects of other negative external forcings (see, e.g., the 2014 paper in Nature Geoscience by Gavin Schmidt and colleagues).
The fallacy in your argument, Mr. Watts, is that you have applied the “17 year” statement made in our 2011 JGR paper (a statement based solely on estimates of internal variability) to the post-1998 “warming hiatus” – a phenomenon that is due to the combined effects of internal variability and external forcing. You are misrepresenting our findings.
In our 2011 interaction at Cal State Chico, I treated you with courtesy and respect, even though you filmed my entire Rawlins lecture without my permission, while holding your videocamera several feet from my face. Although our scientific positions on the subject of anthropogenic climate change are very different, I had hoped that you would treat me with equal respect and courtesy. Your recent post shows that my hope was misplaced.
Sincerely yours,
Ben Santer
Ben Santer:
The late warming trend circa 1977-97 has been shown to be due to increased insolation via reduced cloud albedo. This is confirmed by a simultaneous rise of SST. Cooling from volcanoes is short term were there any such effect, which seems doubtful. The ineluctable conclusion is that CO2 does not have the effect attributed to it by the GCM’s.
This is the question which is incumbent upon you to address, in the name of science.
If this post makes you steam, I advise not to read the one above, with the figure of a hockey player.
Ben Santer,
As climate is nothing more or than the average of weather over an arbitrary time period,
I have to inform you that any person expecting to be treated with courtesy and respect because they claim the status of climate scientist is likely to be sorely disappointed. Claims of Nobel Prizes, scientific breakthroughs, the ability to foresee the weather any better than Nostradamus or Mother Shipton, are likely to engender no more than scorn and derision, along with comparisons to the gullibility of believers in N Rays, the caloric theory of heat, the immobility of continents, and other such impossibilities.
Purely and simply, buffoons leading buffoons. There is no warming hiatus. There is no warming of anything at all due to surrounding it with CO2. You are deluded, and I just hope you can refrain from demanding that I pay to maintain your fantasy.
If you believe you can predict anything better than I, you are foolish. If you wish to try, nominate the amount of the wager, and the conditions. You will lose.
Live well and prosper,
Mike Flynn.
Mr Santer,
Thank you for posting a response. I for one am grateful for your input.
What is missing in all of this is actual debate. There never was any debate. Ever.
It would be a great public service for there to be vigorous debates in open view of this extremely important issue. Debate will build broad consensus for action, or inaction if that is what it sums up to be. Democracy works if we allow it. It doesn’t work however when one side demonizes the other side, calling them anti-science, deniers etc, and refuses to engage with them.
I hope that you and other scientists return to the table. And ask the propagandists to refrain from poisoning the debate. The people on WUWT are as concerned with the environment as anyone. And have a broad range of ideas and views. We aren’t a monolithic block of anti-science zealots.
We might have the science wrong. Or not. But debate (and interaction in general) will get us closer to the truth. If it turns out that action was in fact needed as you claim, then you are doing the world a terrible dis-service by not engaging in debate. Every scientist should be out there as an army debating all comers. The fact that you aren’t, and the endless propaganda campaign, is why I don’t trust climate science. The actual science is beyond my understanding. I wish it weren’t. But it is. People with truth to tell do not need propaganda techniques, and they do not need to avoid debate.
I hope your comment is the first of many.
Cheers!
Ben Santer:
Thankyou for your informative post addressed to our host. I read it with interest.
It says
Sorry, but it is not at all clear in what way your “findings” are being “misrepresented”.
You assert the “statement” is
but
Frankly, that is an assertion that the models are worthless.
Climate includes effects of “volcanic eruptions”, “the last solar cycle”, and “other negative external forcings”. You are asserting that the models don’t model effects which are sufficient to completely negate the effects of your modelled effects for a period of at least 18 years.
The models ‘project’ climate with a defined precision and accuracy or they don’t. Your post says they don’t.
So, your post asserts it is not true that your “findings” are being “misrepresented” when it is pointed out that the models have failed to perform as ‘projectors’ of global climate.
After that, your post consists of irrelevant tripe about our host recording a public presentation you made in 2011. I am at a loss to understand why you made a public presentation if you did not want it to be seen and remembered: any recording would seem to be helpful to you.
Richard
PS I apologise if this post is less clear than I like to provide. I am still a bit ‘woozy’ from the anaesthetic of my recent heart treatment.
Ben Santer:
In any given year around 50-70 volcanoes erupt and at any given time there are about 20 erupting.
There are volcanoes with a Volcanic Explosivity Index (VEI) rating of 4 erupting on an annual basis (which is expected) but there is a distinct lack of any with a higher rating.
In the 1980s there was Mount St Helens (1980 VEI5) and El Chichon (1982 VEI5) and still temperatures rose.
In the 1990s the was Mount Pinatuba (1991 VEI6) Mount Hudson (1991 VEI5+) and still temperatures rose.
In the 2000s there was not one single volcano with a VEI over 4.
So what was this unusual volcanic activity? Where are the papers, by Volcanologists, discussing this increased activity?
TerryS
You make a good point when you ask Ben Santer
But there is an even worse problem with Santer’s assertion based on he models not including “external forcings”.
He says there are undefined “other negative external forcings”.
What are they?
What are their magnitudes?
How can we determine if we know them all?
The bottom line is that according to the assertions of Ben Santer in this thread the ‘projections’ of climate models are not useful indicators of climate behaviour.
Richard
The volcano excuse is an interesting one. The Mauna Loa Observatory Apparent Transmission data shows almost no trend since around 2000. Other than a small dip in 2010, there is no ‘there’ there.
On the other hand, the data shows a modest increase in transmission from 1965 to 1980. Surprisingly (ho ho!), this is the exact time period that Hansen used to proclaim his dead-certain discovery of global warming in 1981.
So, we have Hansen ignoring significant 1960’s volcanic activity to promote global warming, and Santer ignoring insignificant 2000’s volcanic activity to promote global warming.
It is also interesting that Santer now seems to think solar cycles have a consequential effect on temperatures, parroting proclamations by Hansen from several years ago. Yet 15 years ago, the solar cycle impact on temperatures was dead-certain-sciencey-settled to be inconsequential, with appropriate pilloristic admonishments befalling the heretics.
Alarmist climate scientists are the grifters that keep on giving.
Does Ben Santer regret wandering down a dark alley in Madrid, so last century?
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Gavin Schmidts paper is nothing but a re-tweak of weightings for models. Despite much unsubstantiated tweaks to parameters, it still didn’t get down all the way to observations. Therefore, you cannot use that paper as an excuse for the failure, although I’m sure your colleagues will come up with another excuse soon enough.
Models are oversensitive to CO2 sir. Even during the time your paper was published, the same was easily concluded. You talk of respect, instead, how about discussing the science!
Yes, Dr. Santer, the question is whether you are up to the mark. Unless you and the others can assimilate the data to your thinking your science will never improve but only become more and more dubious.
LOOOOOOOOOOOOL volcanos! Yeah, we’ve never seen so many volcanoes before! This is an unprecedented era of volcanoes – it’s worse than we thought…
Don’t suppose all these volcanoes could be doing anything else? Warming the Antarctic peninsula? Melting the ice shelf from below? Warming the Arctic? Oh no, those are the canaries in the coal mine of gerbil worming, which isn’t appearing anywhere else for a generation. Just ask Dr Turkey.
One other question – if it’s cooling because of all the volcanoes, does that mean the extreme weather caused by the warming is also imaginary?
“…several feet from my face.” Since you are a “climate scientist” that range would be from “camera jammed in you chest” to “two feet past exit door.”
“It is also partly due to the cooling effects of a succession of early 21st century volcanic eruptions”
If this is true, why doesn’t show up at all in the Mauna Loa transmittance which has been completly flat at 0.93 ever since Pinatubo?
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/grad/mloapt.html
It is hard to see how volcanoes could have any strong effect on climate without affecting atmosheric transmittance.
I wonder how many of you replying to Dr. Santer have read the entire paper and really understand it.
Ben Santer says that the External Forcings (volcanoes, low solar activity and “others”) and Natural Internal Variability (which is not explained in his posting and was previously dismissed by himself and climate science) …
… completely offset the 0.4C of warming that should have been expected in UAH and RSS over the last 18 years.
Otherwise, it was a polite response with lots of other misdirection statements which can be ignored.
Volcanoes are no different in the last 18 years than any other period in Earth history which did not have a stratospheric eruption (they are normally about 30 years apart). So the climate models should consider this period as completely “normal” and it should have been accounted for and actually “built-in”. The climate models should have actually built in the “normal” of this period. So, inaccurate excuse.
Low solar activity? Low solar activity does not explain that last 4 years of no warming. We are at the top of the solar cycle right now and TSI is 0.4 W/m2 “higher” than is “normal” right now. It is supposed to be very slightly warmer right now due to solar activity, not cooler. So, inaccurate excuse.
So, NOW, we have 18 years of Natural Internal Variability offsetting all of the warming that was supposed to occur.
Which is exactly the “test” his paper set-up and the test period has now been exceeded. The theory must be questioned by Mr. Santer since it has failed his own test.
“a phenomenon that is due to the combined effects of internal variability and external forcing”
You state that with certainty when in reality we know you don’t know that. That’s a complete pie-in-the-sky guess. Yet you state it with such certainty.
You also say a few things about volcanoes. Why not leprechauns and unicorns? Clearly you are refusing to account for your paper.
C’mon. This is ridiculous. Anyone can read the highlighted sentence from the abstract (I would have also highlighted the preceding sentence). It’s very clear what is being said. And here you are, attempting to obfuscate.
+1 The denial is strong with this one.
I am so disappointed, he didn’t bully or threaten anyone at all! What is this world coming to when a reputable bully like Ben doesn’t live up to our expectations! We need a dark alley or somehting…
Mr. Santer: I echo others who appreciate your commenting here and do hope you address science here.
However:
At what point where natural variability overwhelms CO2 forcing will this fact be accepted by you?
From your research history and your statements you apparently believe that beyond demonstration of error, you require significant proof that CO2 is a minor gas in Earth’s biosphere.
There haven’t been any significant eruptions which actually makes the last decade unusual.
There isn’t overwhelming pollution except regionally in several third world countries.
Weather balloons have not recorded nor identified higher levels of blocking or reflecting materials in the upper atmosphere.
At what point is CAGW falsified?
For all scientific measurements and purposes, CAGW was falsified over twelve years ago when temperatures refused to follow CO2 levels; i.e. unless there is a CAGW Santa Claus somewhere who is late delivering the hotspot.
Since the Mauna Loa transmittance data is flat-line over the period that Dr. Santer claim of “is also partly due to the cooling effects of a succession of early 21st century volcanic eruptions” is analogous to
Levitus et al. where the climate models have been tuned to create a change in transmittance that doesn’t’ exist in the data. Just as Levitus used models that were tuned to create winds that did not exist in the real data.
What a world we live in where models are used to create fake data to support other models.
Dr. Santer: if “…timescales longer than 17 years…” did not originate from the observed hiatus of 17 years, what coincidental so-called “forcing” then brought them forth? That hiatus itself (now 18 years old) is easy to understand if you are familiar with the Miskolczi greenhouse theory (MGT). You should take a week off to study his math. You also cite ‘…a number of recent publications…’ which you do not name as showing that the “warming hiatus” is partly due to the “…cooling effects of a succession of early twentieth century volcanic eruptions…” You should know from reading scientific literature in your own field that there is no such thing as volcanic cooling. In case you missed it, proof of that is found in my book “What Warming?” on pages 17 to 21. What happens is that so-called “volcanic cooling” incidents are all La Nina cooling periods, misidentified by poorly trained climate workers who do not understand that the entire global temperature scale is a succession of El Nino peaks alternating with La Nina valleys, known collectively as the ENSO oscillation. They are not in phase with occurrences of volcanoes and any volcanic eruption may coincide with any phase of ENSO according to chance. If, for example, the eruption coincides with an El Nino peak this will be followed by a La Nina valley which is then quickly appropriated for its volcanic cooling. This is Pinatubo for you. On the other hand, if an eruption coincides with a La Nina valley it will be followed by an El Nino peak and volcanologists are scratching their heads about what happened to that cooling they expected. That is what happened with El Chichon. Model makers, example, still cannot believe there was no El Chichon cooling and have written code into CMIP5 for it. There are also intermediate cases. Krakatao, recognized for its world-wide fireworks, has a very weak “cooling” because it erupted when the nearest El Nino was almost over. And Katmai-Novarupta, claimed to be the strongest in the twentieth century, has no associated cooling at all because it erupted near the beginning of a growing El Nino peak. That applies of course to plate boundary volcanism, not to super volcanoes like Yellowstone, Siberian traps etc that no one has experience with. You will no doubt be able to identify numerous other examples once the scales have fallen from your eyes. As to your complaints about no respect, sorry about it, try not to push spurious theories into someone’s face.
I knew Santer was reading this.
He’s not the only one, either.
They’ll all have their heads down right now, hard at work on their new funding applications.
Sample title: “Re-appraisal of earlier hypotheses/simulations/predictions/forecasts/bets to find a plausible explanation for non-existent global warming.” Amount sought: $300.000 over 3 years. (That should pay the school fees and mortgage.)
Reminds me of a song by Mel Brooks: “It’s Good to be the King”. He’s dressed like Louis XIV but talks like a Bronx hustler, enjoying the high life he knows he doesn’t deserve. In the final line he sneers, “Hey, it was good while it lasted.” As Old Ranga says, it pays the school fees and the mortgage. And the cars. And the flights. And… *squeals in delight*… Paris is going to be SO SO good!!!
Has anyone pointed out that the Santer et al 2011 conclusion is predicated on both RSS and UAH and not on RSS alone? It’s right there in the paper’s method.
Whereas the RSS signal is flat over the past 18 years, UAH has warmed at a rate of +0.10C/dec. The average of RSS and UAH over the past 18 years shows warming at a rate of +0.05C/dec.
Therefore we can add a fourth option:
4. Point out that your result was based on data from more than one MSU producer and that while one was flat the other showed continued warming over the projected period.
The good new is Santer ever loses his career in ‘science’ he could a very nice career out of the tables of Vegas for how lese could you explain the luck that these negative external forcings perfectly balances out the warming he claimed would happen due to CO2 .
The models are garbage Mr. Santer. They predict nothing and are proof of nothing. I hope you have put away enough $$$ for retirement or that you are one looking into pursuing a different career path.
L’il Gaia Peep met Gadzillion the model in a dark alley and said ‘Oh what big anomalies you have’. Oops, maybe Red-Riding Ben has lost his wolves in the Hood.
================
My father posted this on the other Santer thread, and I think it is important to repost it here;
Tim Ball October 4, 2014 at 9:55 am
The first action that exposed the modus operandi of the IPCC occurred with Santer’s actions in the 1995 second Report. He exploited a very limited editorial policy to dramatically alter the findings of Working Group I of the IPCC in the Summary. It is likely he did this with guidance from those controlling the output, because he was a very recent graduate and appointee to the IPCC. An action in itself that was questionable.
Benjamin Santer was a Climatic research Unit CRU graduate. Tom Wigley supervised his PhD titled, “Regional Validation of General Circulation Models” that used three top computer models to recreate North Atlantic conditions, where data was best. They created massive pressure systems that don’t exist in reality and failed to create known semipermanent systems. In other words he knew from the start the models don’t work, but this didn’t prevent him touting their effectiveness, especially after appointment as lead-author of Chapter 8 of the 1995 IPCC Report titled “Detection of Climate Change and Attribution of Causes” Santer determined to prove humans were a factor by altering the meaning of what was agreed by the others at the draft meeting in Madrid. Wigley moved to Colorado where he continued to fund and direct his disciples. Witness Wigley’s brief appearance in the 1990 documentary, The Greenhouse Conspiracy and the need to look after his graduate students.
Here are the comments agreed on by the committee as a whole followed by Santer’s replacements.
1. “None of the studies cited above has shown clear evidence that we can attribute the observed [climate] changes to the specific cause of increases in greenhouse gases.”
2. “While some of the pattern-base discussed here have claimed detection of a significant climate change, no study to date has positively attributed all or part of climate change observed to man-made causes.”
3. “Any claims of positive detection and attribution of significant climate change are likely to remain controversial until uncertainties in the total natural variability of the climate system are reduced.”
4. “While none of these studies has specifically considered the attribution issue, they often draw some attribution conclusions, for which there is little justification.”
Santer’s replacements
1. “There is evidence of an emerging pattern of climate response to forcing by greenhouse gases and sulfate aerosols … from the geographical, seasonal and vertical patterns of temperature change … These results point toward a human influence on global climate.”
2. “The body of statistical evidence in chapter 8, when examined in the context of our physical understanding of the climate system, now points to a discernible human influence on the global climate.”
As Avery and Singer noted in 2006, “Santer single-handedly reversed the ‘climate science’ of the whole IPCC report and with it the global warming political process! The ‘discernible human influence’ supposedly revealed by the IPCC has been cited thousands of times since in media around the world, and has been the ‘stopper’ in millions of debates among nonscientists.”
The model situation has deteriorated since Santer’s first efforts because they reduced the number of weather stations used and adjusted the early temperature record to change the gradient to create the outcome to support their thesis. Santer, like all the others, will never be held accountable and so he continues to believe he did nothing wrong, even though he admitted he made the changes.
Yep, climate science has stalled at the level of the 1995 PG1 understanding, pre Santer revisions. Oh, boy, have we been false-footed, and Ben Santer was the one with the sucker punch in the dark alley of narrative science.
Now there are floodlights, screaming sirens and blue and red probing strobes. The Miranda rights emblazoned on the sides of the vehicles are extraneous, for the miscreant’s confession is already in the record.
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Thank you for posting that – it really says it all.
And they call the skeptics “anti-science”.
Ben Santer and others interested in the ‘Santer limit’:
I draw your attention to this WUWT article and thread from November 2013 which discussed the political – n.b. not scientific – nature of the ‘Santer limit’.
Richard
The Santer clause .
But as Marx said, “Don’t be silly. There ain’t no Santer clause”.
(Apologies to the late, lamented Chico.)
It would seem that being a ‘climate scientist’ is perhaps the most bizarre of scientific professions. After all, you would think that after 18 years of no provable anthropogenic warming these cats would declare victory and move on. But, no. They keep moving the goal posts, some saying there has been no warming, some saying everything has paused and observing only natural variations, and others issuing dire warnings of a certain coming catastrophe. A catastrophe that some say should have already happened.
But, the never answered question is: To what end?
Anthropogenic CO2 needs to be decreased. To What End? Is anthropogenic CO2 is some way different from naturally occurring CO2? Is the physics different? Seems to me that CO2, in any form, is a good thing for plant growth. And, if increasing CO2 levels do increase temps this would be a good thing. Civilizations and societies thrive when temps are … warmer.
And, if we ‘get there’ will we know when we arrive? What CO2 levels are acceptable to your average warmer-mystic? Can your computer models answer that? Seems that if you have modeled the bad aspects of CO2 increasing you can rework your models, with little additional effort, to tell us what happens at decreasing CO2 levels. And if no climate scientist has addressed, in detail, the end game…. damn your souls to hell. You warmer-mystics are just screwing around and that is going to cost lives. Or should I say more lives. From people freezing in England to people dying in Africa from burning dry cow crap for heating and cooking fuels…. you people need to answer for your crimes. In my book, this is nothing more than malicious and reckless disregard for human life.
To What End?
Seems to me that all you are doing is recommending that the village be burned to the ground to save it.
So, could some warmer-mystic tell me… what are the technologies that can control atmospheric CO2 levels to within … what, maybe 0.01%? 0.1%? 10%? Gotta adjust the anthropogenic CO2 levels to compensate for the unknowable variations of natural CO2. Do you recommend we just turn off all the world’s motors? Shove a cork in an oxen’s rear and start plowing with animals again? Watch the life spans drop faster than the global temps.
Can your models predict when, where and level of volcanic eruptions? Or even how many will erupt at any one time? How solar radiance changes over mufti-decades? NO! Your models can’t even model clouds properly. Jet contrails and cosmic rays aside. You might just as well use an Ouija board for this ‘science.’
‘Mother Nature’ has provided all the evidence that ‘climate science’ is nothing but a bogus scam to obtain funding. And more political control of countries and peoples. CO2 has increased. Where are the increasing frequency of hurricanes, tornadoes, etc.? Where is the increasing destruction of these storms? Where is the increasing intensity of these storms? All predicted by ‘models’ and refuted by ‘Mother Nature.’ Mother Nature is right, and the pro-AGW warmer-mystics are wrong.
What I do see is Solyndra. Silly electric death-trap-cars that generate more CO2 during manufacturing than can possible be mitigated by their use. Same with wind-farms. What I see is power plants being shut down. Electricity rates ‘necessarily sky-rocketing.’ Most probably followed by more people living in misery and dying sooner. Factor that into your models? I doubt it.
It is all enough to make a sane person kick the neighbors dog our of frustration.
To what end? Until that question is addressed in detail there should never be another AGW warmer-mystic paper published. And, no more funding for this ‘science.’ No more degrees granted for climate science.
To the warmer-mystics I say this: Burn your own damned village down. Leave the rest of us alone.
Man of La Mancha;
With all of this undeniable evidence accumulating, when will the leading heads of state turn the tide and have the fortitude to focus on the real concerns and struggles we face today? Mr Obama continues in his starring role as Don Quixote, tilting at the windmill of climate change, as if it is something he and his court of wizards could control or change via Government policy.
We are all facing a world of political upheaval, due in no small part to the inaction of the current administration. While radicialism in North Africa and the Middle East has been allowed to fester into a global threat, a dedicated and misguided group has focussed the future of humanity on a false and unobtainable goal, controlling the climate of the planet.
It’s time for a new breed of leadership, with vision, fortitude, and commitment to honest policy for the betterment of mankind, not pandering to those few charlatans who seek self reward, ignoring the truths and possiblities we should be facing.
The worldwide media needs to stand up as well. We all face important issues, and expending wasted human energy on fool’s errands such as climate change detract from the true possibilites of the human experience.
It is time for change. Not climate change, but to focus on reality, and to have a vision for a prosperous and peaceful future.
Ken.
Santer’s paper and conclusions are and were valid, for a perfectly spherical climate in a vacuum.
“Mr. Watts: Just to set the scientific record straight, you are misinterpreting the “17 years” statement in the 2011 Santer et al. JGR paper. That statement was based on an analysis of CMIP-3 control runs, with no changes in external forcings. This is clearly stated in paragraph [30] of the 2011 Santer et al. paper:
“On timescales longer than 17 years, the average trends in RSS and UAH near‐global TLT data consistently exceed 95% of the unforced trends in the CMIP‐3 control runs (Figure 6d), clearly indicating that the observed multidecadal warming of the lower troposphere is too large to be explained by model estimates of natural internal variability”. Thus the “17 year” statement pertained only to the problem of discriminating a human-caused tropospheric warming signal relative to internally-generated variability.”
Just so folks understand what Santer is saying.
Control runs are where you run the climatemodel for many man years with No changes
External forcing. The traces wobble around. This wobbling is diagnosed as the “internal variablity” of the models and climate.
The problem is this variability may be too low. In other words, there is NO WAY to test
whether the variability is correct. the only way to test it is to find a set of observations
where real world external forcing doesnt change.
If that assumption is wrong, then the assumed noise is wrong.
Of course Santer gets to make this assumption.. However, he might want to revisit it
Steven Mosher
You write
Just so folks understand what you are saying and why it is untrue
The facts are
1.
The climate models are used to ‘project’ future climate behaviour.
2.
The models ‘projected’ that lack of global warming for a period of 18 years would not happen.
3.
A period of 18 years with lack of global warming did happen.
4.
This difference between the models’ ‘projection’ and reality demonstrates that the models lack ability to reliably and/or usefully ‘project’ future climate.
5.
You claim Santer says in this thread that increasing possible “internal variability” of the models would increase the range of possible futures ‘projected’ by the models so they would include the possibility of 18 years with no global temperature.
6.
Your claim of what Santer says in this thread is not true but if it were true then it would be a claim that Santer is arguing to alter the models in a manner which would not affect their demonstrated inability to reliably and/or usefully ‘project’ future climate.
7.
What Santer actually did say is quoted and explained in my post in this thread here.
Richard
Sounds about right: 20 years of climate sciene “stardom” + 18 years of “pause” = the parabola of several hundred climate science careers on the wane.
Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.
Bill Parsons and mobihci
Actually, they have been manipulating outcomes for more than 30 years now.
Richard
scf ….why did you delete your post? I thought it was right on.
Ooops….brain fart. Carry on.
richardscourtney October 4, 2014 at 10:46 pm
The Mauna Loa data is here.
It shows that during each year the atmospheric CO2 varies by more than an order of magnitude greater than the annual human emission of CO2.
It certainly does not, the ML CO2 value varies by about 5ppm in the link you cited, an ‘order of magnitude’ would be a factor of 10 greater. The annual increase is about 2ppm from that same source and as you point out below that is about ‘half of the human emission’ which implies that the emission is ~4ppm. So the data you cite shows that during each year the atmospheric CO2 varies by about the same amount as the annual human emission of CO2.
The annual increase is the residual of the seasonal variation. And the annual increase is equivalent to about half of the human emission but they don’t correlate: in some years the rise is almost nothing and in other years the rise is similar to the total human emission.
Not according to the data you cite: http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/#mlo_growth
Phil.
Pick whatever nits you want and think you have had a victory.
I will not be party to your side-tracking the thread, especially not after Ben Santer has joined it.
Richard
‘Nits’? Pointing out your falsehoods is hardly a nit! Also if responding to your post is ‘side-tracking the thread’, then you had already side-tracked it.
Careful Phil, when you point out RCourtney’s errors, he will start calling you names
Phil. and beckleybud@gmail.com
It is good to see you engaging with each other so it is easy to scroll past your posts. Please continue, and do everybody a favour by constraining yourselves to only posting mutual support of your delusions and nothing else.
Richard
The one thing that is common amongst all recognised professions is that (a) all such professions have codes of ethics to which members must adhere, and (b) such professions all have processes that enable them to take disciplinary action against members, when justified or necessary.
The saddest thing about climate scientists is that they are not members of a professional body, they do not abide by a code of ethics, and they are never subjected to any form of disciplinary action by any body.
This is why the field of climate science is in such a state of turmoil and has been brought into disrepute… that some scientists can make authoritative claims without responsibility and without accountability.
This is why ‘prima donnas’ like Santer, Trenberth, Mann & Co can peddle bull to their hearts content, and when found out, they can simply get off by saying, “We were wrong… so what?” without any thought about the adverse implications of their flawed work used in reports such as IPCC reports that get adopted by governments to frame climate policies that cost taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars.
Wouldn’t we all like to be like these guys… it’s like sitting around the roulette table gambling without worrying about whether we win or lose, and funding our fetish with tax payers’ funds.
richardscourtney October 5, 2014 at 1:36 am
TerryS
You make a good point when you ask Ben Santer
In the 2000s there was not one single volcano with a VEI over 4.
So what was this unusual volcanic activity? Where are the papers, by Volcanologists, discussing this increased activity?
But there is an even worse problem with Santer’s assertion based on he models not including “external forcings”.
He says there are undefined “other negative external forcings”.
What are they?
What are their magnitudes?
How can we determine if we know them all?
The influence of El Niño/southern oscillation, volcanic eruptions (IPCC 2007), and solar variations has been shown to be responsible for the apparent ‘pause’. Without those influences the temperature anomaly has been steadily increasing through 2010.
http://ej.iop.org/images/1748-9326/6/4/044022/Full/erl408263f4_online.jpg
http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/6/4/044022/fulltext/
1. According to the paper AGW is about 1.67 C/Century. Not alarming by any means.
2. It shows that the influence of El Niño/southern oscillation, volcanic eruptions, and solar variations can cancel or maybe even overwhelm AGW.
3. Why is the pause “apparent” and why is pause in inverted commas? Dont you believe the data? Or your lying eyes?
The results indicate that the growth in pCO2 is still causing an underlying increase in temperature, and as Santer says effects such as ENSO, volcanos and solar variation are presently masking this increase. A change in ENSO etc would cause this underlying trend to be revealed (or even accentuated).
They aren’t “results”. They are poor projections based on faulty modeling. The pig headed approach by modelers is the models are correct and if the projections don’t fall in line then the variables/data are incorrect. ENSO, volcanoes, ice melt, etc. are always correct and the only noise is in the model. So far there’s been 100% proof I’m right for the past 20 years.
Phil.
You write
Well, yes. But that is merely your favourite of the 52 different excuses for the ‘pause’.
More importantly, as I said to Ben Santer in response to his post in this thread
And that is the only issue under discussion which matters.
Richard
@Phil. writes:
“The influence of El Niño/southern oscillation, volcanic eruptions (IPCC 2007), and solar variations has been shown to be responsible for the apparent ‘pause’. Without those influences the temperature anomaly has been steadily increasing through 2010.”
That confuses me. Perhaps you could clarify a bit?
What specific part/section/page of IPCC 2007 are you citing to demonstrate that any influence has been “shown” to be responsible for a pause that goes through 2014? Exactly how does this “show”
anything and what is “shown”?
And given that there are those “influences”, has the temperature anomaly really been increasing through 2010 except in some model that wants to ignore real world data (as well as the last four years through 2014)?
Exactly what is an “apparent ‘pause'”? Is it real or not? If not, then why are so many people trying to “show” influences that are responsible for it?
IPCC 2007 Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change ed S Solomon, D Qin, M Manning, Z Chen, M Marquis, K B Averyt, M Tignor and H L Miller (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press)
pp 188
The influence of increasing CO2 continues to cause an increase in the underlying temperature anomaly so there is no ‘pause’, it is an ‘apparent’ pause because it is presently the result of the CO2 signal being masked by the other effects.
Phil…..October 6, 2014 at 7:50 pm
“The influence of increasing CO2 continues to cause an increase in the underlying temperature anomaly so there is no ‘pause’, it is an ‘apparent’ pause because it is presently the result of the CO2 signal being masked by the other effects.”
“Underlying temperature anomaly” is total BS and you know it. You are trying to prove that “underlying temperature anomaly” and instead you assume it. You can’t keep ignoring the elephant in the room.
@Phil. “The results indicate that the growth in pCO2 is still causing an underlying increase in temperature”.
The “results”/ don’t show any such thing. There is only one “result” which can be considered and that is the global mean temperature. That “result” shows that temperatures gave not increased in over 18 years. An analysis and hypothesis in a paper is not a “result” it is just a conclusion based on that particular analysis, which may not have taken all factors into account, which maybe flawed in its reasoning and conclusions.
“A change in ENSO etc would cause this underlying trend to be revealed (or even accentuated).”
That is your conclusion not the papers and based on what? Wishful thinking? Tarot reading? A “change” would/? Did you mean might? Could a “change’ possibly cause the “underlying trend” to be decreased rather than “accentuated” O oracle of Delphi?
The result of the analysis shows that the underlying temperature increase due to increasing CO2 is currently being masked. The underlying trend is continuing as previously, how it shows up depends on the extent of the masking.
The conclusion of the paper does agree with what I posted:
“This analysis confirms the strong influence of known factors on short-term variations in global temperature, including ENSO, volcanic aerosols and to a lesser degree solar variation. It also emphasizes that LT temperature is affected by these factors much more strongly than surface temperature.
Perhaps most important, it enables us to remove an estimate of their influence, thereby isolating the global warming signal. The resultant adjusted data show clearly, both visually and when subjected to statistical analysis, that the rate of global warming due to other factors (most likely these are exclusively anthropogenic) has been remarkably steady during the 32 years from 1979 through 2010. There is no indication of any slowdown or acceleration of global warming, beyond the variability induced by these known natural factors. Because the effects of volcanic eruptions and of ENSO are very short-term and that of solar variability very small (figure 7), none of these factors can be expected to exert a significant influence on the continuation of global warming over the coming decades.”
Phil:
you show a fabricated temperature trend to bolster your argument. You apparently are unaware that fabrications are generally condemned in science. You also repeat the canard about volcanic eruptions contributing to the present 18 year flat trend. You are looking for suckers and lame brains and you will not find any here. Take your science to SKS.
The science shows that ENSO and volcanic eruptions show a contribution to the short term variation of the global temperature and that currently they are cancelling the positive contribution of CO2. You can read the paper and tell us what’s wrong with it. Multiple regression analysis is used in many field, the results are not ‘fabrications’ as you put it.
“Multiple regression” is the word. Your fabrications (the fake temperature trend) and your propagation of canards (volcanic aerosols have suppressed the AGW signal these past 18 years) is the sort of dubious science that has set climate science back. The field has indeed regressed.
Phil. that fake paper by Tamino and Rhamstorf did not include the AMO, started in 1976 just as the AMO was cycling up, used an incorrect model of TSI which produced an upside-down coefficient in the regression that they just changed to positive etc. etc.
It is inaccurate and should not be used anyone.
The lower troposphere pause had to be at least 17 years long before a clear signal that human-made CO2 warming theories should start to be questioned?
Maybe Santer et al are pausing for thought?