On the futility of climate models: 'simplistic nonsense'

Guest essay by Leo Smith – elevated from a comment left on WUWT on January 6, 2015 at 2:11 am (h/t to dbs)

As an engineer, my first experience of a computer model taught me nearly all I needed to know about models.

I was tasked with designing a high voltage video amplifier to drive a military heads up display featuring a CRT.

Some people suggested I make use of the acoustic coupler to input my design and optimise it with one of the circuit modelling programs they had devised. The results were encouraging, so I built it. The circuit itself was a dismal failure.

Investigation revealed the reason instantly: the model parametrised parasitic capacitance into a simple single value: the reality of semiconductors is that the capacitance varies with applied voltage – an effect made use of in every radio today as the ‘varicap diode’. for small signals this is an acceptable compromise. Over large voltage swings the effect is massively non linear. The model was simply inadequate.

Most of engineering is to design things so that small unpredictable effects are swamped by large predictable ones. Any stable design has to work like that. If it doesn’t, it ain’t stable. Or reproducible.

That leads to a direct piece of engineering wisdom: If a system is not dominated by a few major feedback factors, it ain’t stable. And if it has a regions of stability then perturbing it outside those regions will result in gross instability, and the system will be short lived.

Climate has been in real terms amazingly stable. For millions of years. It has maintained an average of about 282 degrees absolute +- about 5 degrees since forever.

So called ‘Climate science’ relies on net positive feedback to create alarmist views – and that positive feedback is nothing to do with CO2 allegedly: on the contrary it is a temperature change amplifier pure and simple.

If such a feedback existed, any driver of temperature, from a minor change in the suns output, to a volcanic eruption must inevitably trigger massive temperature changes. But it simply never has. Or we wouldn’t be here to spout such nonsense.

With all simple known factors taken care of the basic IPCC style equation boils down to:

∆T = λ.k.log( ∆CO2)

where lambda (λ) is the climate sensitivity that expresses the presupposed propensity of any warming directly attributable to CO2 (k.log(CO2)) radiative forcing and its resultant direct temperature change to be amplified by some unexplained and unknown feedback factor, which is adjusted to match such late 20th century warming as was reasonably certain.

Everyone argues over the value of lambda. No one is arguing over the actual shape of the equation itself.

And that is the sleight of hand of the IPCC…arguments about climate sensitivity are pure misdirection away from the actuality of what is going on.

Consider an alternative:

∆T = k.log( ∆CO2) + f(∆x)

In terms of matching late 20th century warming, this is equally as good, and relies merely on introducing another unknown to replace the unknown lambda, this time not as a multiplier of CO2 driven change, but as a completely independent variable.

Philosophically both have one unknown. There is little to choose between them.

Scientifically both the rise and the pause together fit the second model far better.

Worse, consider some possible mechanisms for what X might be….

∆T = k.log( ∆CO2) + f(∆T).

Let’s say that f(∆T) is in fact a function whose current value depends on non linear and time delayed values of past temperature. So it does indeed represent temperature feedback to create new temperatures!

This is quite close to the IPCC model, but with one important proviso. The overall long term feedback MUST be negative, otherwise temperatures would be massively unstable over geological timescales.

BUT we know that short term fluctuatons of quite significant values – ice ages and warm periods – are also in evidence.

Can long term negative feedback create shorter term instability? Hell yes! If you have enough terms and some time delay, it’s a piece of piss.

The climate has all the elements needed. temperature, and water. Water vapour (greenhouse gas: acts to increase temperatures) clouds (reduce daytime temps, increase night time temps) and ice (massive albedo modifiers: act to reduce temperatures) are functions of sea and air temperature, and sea and air temperature are a function via albedo and greenhouse modifiers, of water vapour concentrations. Better yet, latent heat of ice/water represents massive amounts of energy needed to effect a phase transition at a single temperature. Lots of lovely non-linearity there. Plus huge delays of decadal or multidecadal length in terms of ocean current circulations and melting/freezing of ice sheets and permafrost.

Not to mention continental drift, which adds further water cycle variables into the mix.

Or glaciation that causes falling sea levels, thus exposing more land to lower the albedo where the earth is NOT frozen, and glaciation that strips water vapour out of the air reducing cloud albedo in non glaciated areas.

It’s a massive non linear hugely time delayed negative feedback system. And that’s just water and ice. Before we toss in volcanic action, meteor strikes, continental drift. solar variability, and Milankovitch cycles…

The miracle of AGW is that all this has been simply tossed aside, or considered some kind of constant, or a multiplier of the only driver in town, CO2.

When all you know is linear systems analysis everything looks like a linear system perturbed by an external driver.

When the only driver you have come up with is CO2, everything looks like CO2.

Engineers who have done control system theory are not so arrogant. And can recognise in the irregular sawtooth of ice age temperature record a system that looks remarkably like a nasty multiple (negative) feed back time delayed relaxation oscillator.

Oscillators don’t need external inputs to change, they do that entirely within the feedback that comprises them. Just one electron of thermal noise will start them off.

What examination of the temperature record shows is that glaciation is slow. It takes many many thousands of years as the ice increases before the lowest temperatures are reached, but that positive going temperatures are much faster – we are only 10,000 years out of the last one.

The point finally is this: To an engineer, climate science as the IPCC have it is simplistic nonsense. There are far far better models available, to explain climate change based on the complexity of water interactions with temperature. Unfortunately they are far too complex even for the biggest of computers to be much use in simulating climate. And have no political value anyway, since they will essentially say ‘Climate changes irrespective of human activity, over 100 thousand year major cycles, and within that its simply unpredictable noise due to many factors none of which we have any control over’

UPDATE: An additional and clarifying comment has been posted by Leo Smith on January 6, 2015 at 6:32 pm

Look, this post was elevated (without me being aware…) from a blog comment typed in in a hurry. I accept the formula isn’t quite what I meant, but you get the general idea OK?

If I had known it was going to become a post I’d have taken a lot more care over it.

Not used k where it might confuse,. Spotted that delta log is not the same as log delta..

But the main points stand:

(i) The IPCC ‘formula’ fits the data less well than other equally simple formulae with just as many unknowns.

(ii) The IPCC formula is a linear differential equation.

(iii) There is no reason to doubt that large parts of the radiative/convective thermal cycle/balance of climate are non linear.

(iv) There are good historical reasons to suppose that the overall feedback of the climate system is negative, not positive as the IPCC assumes.

(v) given the number of feedback paths and the lags associated with them, there is more than enough scope in the climate for self generated chaotic quasi-periodic fluctuations to be generated even without any external inputs beyond a steady sun.

(vi) Given the likely shape of the overall real climate equation, there is no hope of anything like a realistic forecast ever being obtained with the current generation of computer systems and mathematical techniques. Chaos style equations are amongst the hardest and most intractable problems we have, and indeed there may well be no final answer to climate change beyond a butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil and tipping the climate into a new ice age, or a warm period, depending 😉

(vii) A point I didn’t make: a chaotic system is never ‘in balance’, and even its average value has little meaning, because its simply a mathematical oddity – a single point on a range where the system never rests – it merely represents a point between the upper and lower bounds; Worse, is system with multiple attractors, it may not even be anywhere near where the systems orbits fr any length of time.

In short my current thinking says :

– there is no such thing as a normal climate, nor does it have a balance that man has disturbed , or could disturb. Its constantly changing and may go anywhere from ice age to seriously warm over extremely long periods of time. It does this all by itself. There need be no external drivers to move it from one attractor to another or cause it to orbit any given attractor. That climate changes is unarguable, that anything beyond climate itself is causing it, is deeply doubtful. That CO2 has a major effect is, on the data, as absurd as claiming that CO2 has no effect at all.

What we are looking at here is very clever misdirection cooked up for economic and political motives: It suited many peoples books to paint CO2 emissions as a scary pollutant, and a chance temporary correlation of rising temperatures and CO2 was combined in a linear way that any third rate scientist could understand to present a plausible formula for scary AGW. I have pointed out that other interpretations of the data make a non scary scenario, and indeed, post the Pause,. actually fit the data better.

Occam’s razor has nothing to say in defence of either.

Poppers falsifiability is no help because the one model – the IPCC – has been falsified. The other can make no predictions beyond ‘change happens all by itself in ways we cannot hope to predict’. So that cannot be falsified. If you want to test Newton’s laws the last experiment you would use is throwing an egg at a spike to predict where the bits of eggshell are going to land….

Net result is climate science isn’t worth spending a plugged nickel on, and we should spend the money on being reasonably ready for moderate climate change in either direction. Some years ago my business partner – ten years my junior wanted to get key man insurance in case I died or fell under a bus. ‘How much for how much’ ‘well you are a smoker, and old, so its a lot’ It was enough in fact to wipe out the annual profits, and the business, twice over. Curiously he is now dead from prostate cancer, and I have survived testicular cancer, and with luck, a blocked coronary artery. Sometimes you just take te risk because insuring against it costs more … if we had been really serious about climate change we would be 100% nuclear by now. It was proven safe technology and dollar for dollar has ten times the carbon reduction impact than renewables. But of course carbon reduction was not the actual game plan. Political control of energy was. Its so much easier and cheaper to bribe governments than compete in a free market…

IF – and this is something that should be demonstrable – the dominant feedback terms in the real climate equations are non linear, and multiple and subject to time delay, THEN we have a complex chaotic system that will be in constant more or less unpredictable flux.

And we are pissing in the wind trying to model it with simple linear differential equations and parametrised nonsense.

The whole sleight of hand of the AGW movement has been to convince scientists who do NOT understand non linear control theory, that they didn’t NEED to understand it to model climate, and that any fluctuations MUST be ’caused’ by an externality, and to pick on the most politically and commercially convenient one – CO2 – that resonated with a vastly anti-science and non-commercial sentiment left over from the Cold War ideological battles . AGW is AgitProp, not science. AGW flatters all the worst people into thinking they are more important than they are. To a man every ground roots green movement has taken a government coin, as have the universities, and they are all dancing to the piper who is paid by the unholy aggregation of commercial interest, political power broking and political marketing.

They bought them all. They couldn’t however buy the climate. Mother Nature is not a whore.

Whether AGW is a deliberate fraud, an honest mistake, or mere sloppy ignorant science is moot. At any given level it is one or the other or any combination.

What it really is, is an emotional narrative, geared to flatter the stupid and pander to their bigotry, in order to make them allies in a process that if they knew its intentions, they would utterly oppose,.

Enormous damage to the environment is justified by environmentalists because the Greater Cause says that windmills and solar panels will Save the Planet. Even when its possible to demonstrate that they have almost no effect on emissions at all, and it is deeply doubtful if those emissions are in any way significant anyway.

Green is utterly anti-nuclear. Yet which- even on their own claims – is less harmful, a few hundred tonnes of long lived radionuclides encased in glass and dumped a mile underground, or a billion tonnes of CO2?

Apparently the radiation which hasn’t injured or killed a single person at Fukushima, is far far more dangerous than the CO2, because Germany would rather burn stinking lignite having utterly polluted its rivers in strip mining it, than allow a nuclear power plant to operate inside its borders .

Years ago Roy Harper sang

“You can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make him drink

You can lead a man to slaughter, but you’ll never make him think”

I had a discussion with a gloomy friend today. We agreed the world is a mess because people don’t think, they follow leaders, trends, emotional narratives, received wisdom.. Never once do they step back and ask, ‘what really is going on here?’. Another acquaintance doing management training in the financial arena chalked up on the whiteboard “Anyone who presages a statement with the words ‘I think’ and then proceeds to regurgitate someone else’s opinions, analysis or received wisdom, will fail this course and be summarily ejected’

And finally Anthony, I am not sure I wanted that post to become an article. I dont want to be someone else’s received wisdom. I want the buggers to start thinking for themselves.

If that means studying control theory systems analysis and chaos mathematics then do it. And form your own opinions.

“Don’t follow leaders, watch your parking meters”

I say people don’t think. Prove me wrong. Don’t believe what I say, do your own analysis. Stop trusting and start thinking.

I’ll leave you with a final chilling thought. Consider the following statement:

“100% of all media ‘news’ and 90% of what is called ‘science’ and an alarming amount of blog material is not what is the case, or even what people think is the case, but what people for reasons of their own, want you to think is the case”

Finally, if I ever get around to finishing it, for those who ask ‘how can it be possible that so many people are caught up in what you claim to be a grand conspiracy or something of that nature?’ I am on the business of writing a philosophical, psychological and social explanation. It entitled ‘convenient lies’ And it shows that bigotry prejudice stupidity and venality are in fact useful techniques for species survival most of the time.

Of course the interesting facet is the ‘Black Swan’ times, when it’s the most dangerous thing in the world.

Following the herd is safer than straying off alone. Unless the herd is approaching the cliff edge and the leaders are more concerned with who is following them than where they are going…

AGW is one of the great dangers facing mankind, not because its true, but because it is widely believed, and demonstrably false.

My analysis of convenient lies shows that they are most dangerous in times of deep social and economic change in society, when the old orthodoxies are simply no good.

I feel more scared these days than at any time in the cold war. Then one felt that no one would be stupid enough to start world war three. Today, I no longer have that conviction. Two generations of social engineering aimed at removing all risk and all need to actually think from society has led to a generation which is stupid enough and smug enough and feels safe enough to utterly destroy western civilisation simply because they take it totally for granted. To them the promotion of the AGW meme is a success story in terms of political and commercial marketing. The fact that where they are taking us over a cliff edge into a new dark age, is something they simply haven’t considered at all.

They have socially engineered risk and dissent out of society. For profit. Leaving behind a population that cannot think for itself, and has no need to. Its told to blindly follow the rules.

Control system theory says that that, unlike the climate, is a deeply unstable situation.

Wake up, smell the coffee. AGW is simply another element in a tendency towards political control of everything, and the subjugation of the individual into the mass of society at large. No decision is to be taken by the individual, all is to be taken by centralised bureaucratic structures – such as the IPCC. The question is, is that a functional and effective way to structure society?

My contention is that its deeply dangerous. It introduces massive and laggy overall centralised feedback, Worse, it introduces a single point of failure. If central government breaks down or falters, people simply do not know what to do any more. No one has the skill or practice in making localised decisions anymore.

The point is to see AGW and the whole greenspin machine as just an aspect of a particular stage in political and societal evolution, and understand it in those terms. Prior to the age of the telegraph and instantaneous communications, government had to be devolved – the lag was too great to pass the decisions back to central authority. Today we think we can, but there is another lag – bureaucratic lag. As well as bureaucratic incompetence.

System theory applied to political systems, gives a really scary prediction. We are on the point of almost total collapse, and we do not have the localised systems in place to replace centralised structures that are utterly dysfunctional. Sooner or later an externality is going to come along that will overwhelm the ability of centralized bureaucracy to deal with it, and it will fail. And nothing else will succeed, because people can no longer think for themselves.

Because they were lazy and let other people do the thinking for them. And paid them huge sums to do it, and accepted the results unquestioningly.

Happy new year

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Nick Stokes

January 6, 2015 10:40 am

“With all simple known factors taken care of the basic IPCC style equation boils down to:
∆T = λ.k.log( ∆CO2)”
Where do you get this from? Who actually says it? What do they say? Link?

Anthony Watts

Admin

Reply to Nick Stokes

January 6, 2015 10:45 am

Try not to be dense Nick, or dominate the thread with your “racehorse Stokes” nonsense. Once again, being first to comment within a couple of minutes of the posting, it further entrenches my view that you are paid to post comments at climate blogs.
Given his track record, commenters are encouraged to ignore Mr. Stokes and concentrate on useful discussion.

LeeHarvey

Reply to Anthony Watts

January 6, 2015 10:49 am

Too late.

Matthew R Marler

Reply to Anthony Watts

January 6, 2015 12:58 pm

The author wrote: ∆T = λ.k.log( ∆CO2)
That’s a mistake. It should be the log of the CO2 ratio, or ∆.log( CO2). The rest of the post is reasonable.

george e. smith

Reply to Anthony Watts

January 6, 2015 2:25 pm

My only comment to the guest author, is a cautionary one. Given the specific subject matter, your use of (k) as a scale factor is unfortunate. It should be avoided like the plague here unless you DO mean “Boltzmann’s Constant.” Don’t worry, I like using k as a factor too; but I refrain from doing so.
And in the same vein, perhaps the Greek Lambda should be reserved for wavelength; again to avoid misconstrusion.
You might edit this and try to avoid particularly thermodynamic looking labels. Tough I know; (h) is that pesky planck’s constant. (j is safe since it is only used as a unit (J) and not a parameter.
Well you get the idea.
G

michael hart

Reply to Anthony Watts

January 6, 2015 8:36 pm

Unfortunately, Wikipedia already has a page for the Stokes Shift.

Steven Mosher

Reply to Anthony Watts

January 6, 2015 11:07 pm

“where lambda (λ) is the climate sensitivity that expresses the presupposed propensity of any warming directly attributable to CO2 (k.log(CO2)) radiative forcing and its resultant direct temperature change to be amplified by some unexplained and unknown feedback factor, which is adjusted to match such late 20th century warming as was reasonably certain.”
This is wrong.

mpainter

Reply to Anthony Watts

January 7, 2015 12:39 am

A little infilling and homogenization would set it all right, don’t ya imagine?
Toss out what you don’t like and go with the rest. Simple.

Frank

Reply to Anthony Watts

January 7, 2015 12:55 pm

Anthony: Unfortunately, Nick only found one of the problems with this post. The worst problem is that Joe Smith has forgotten the most important feedback in climate: Planck Feedback. Planck Feedback is negative. Since climate scientists don’t incorporate positive feedbacks (water vapor, for example) that are bigger than Planck Feedback, Joe’s fears of a runaway greenhouse effect or an unstable climate are groundless (and IMO not suitable for publication at a serious scientific blog).
Planck Feedback can be understood by asking what should happen to outgoing radiation after the Earth has warmed 1.2 degK – the no-feedbacks climate sensitivity. In the absence of other feedbacks, the total outgoing radiation (OLR plus reflected SWR) should rise by 3.7 W/m2. However, increasing absolute humidity (water vapor feedback) might reduce the rise in OLR+rSWR to say 1.85 W/m2. In that case, the earth would have to warm 2.4 degK to increase total outgoing radiation by 3.7 W/m2 (to compensate for doubling CO2). Then climate sensitivity would be 2.4 degK. If rising humidity and decreasing cloud cover reduced total outgoing radiation to 1.2 W/m2, climate sensitivity would be 3.6 degK. If feedbacks prevented any increase in OLR+rSWR from reaching space, then you’d have a runaway greenhouse effect. If dramatically increasing cloud cover after warming resulted in a 7.4 W/m2 rise in OLR+rSWR, climate sensitivity would be 0.6 degK. Feedbacks that decrease OLR+rSWR are considered to be positive because they increase warming. However, these positive feedbacks are subtracted from the negative Planck feedback.
Joe Smith’s post is fundamentally flawed because he focuses on small positive feedbacks and has forgotten about the fundamental big negative feedback – Planck feedback – that keeps temperature on our planet under control.

John the Cube

Reply to Anthony Watts

January 7, 2015 1:29 pm

Frank,
Try reading it again. You didn’t even get the author’s name right!
Cheers
Cube

Robert Wykoff

Reply to Nick Stokes

January 6, 2015 11:05 am

Nick, everybody talks about climate sensitivity. They talk about X degrees per doubling of CO2 all the time. The above equation states that exactly.

Nick Stokes

Reply to Robert Wykoff

January 6, 2015 11:36 am

Yes, it’s a definition of sensitivity to CO2. It’s not a claim that that is a sole cause of temperature change.
The definition is, btw, mis-stated. It should be
∆T = λ.k.∆(log( CO2))
You could define a rule
∆Income = λ ∆Overtime
where λ is the overtime pay rate. It doesn’t mean your only income comes from overtime. It just quantifies how your income will increase if you do more overtime.
Willis has a good rule here. Quote my words.

mpainter

Reply to Robert Wykoff

January 6, 2015 11:52 am

Nick, yours is the same as Leo Smith’s.
You are a slippery sort of fellow, Nick.

Legend

Reply to Robert Wykoff

January 6, 2015 11:58 am

yea, but if there’s a negative feedback then that equation of income and overtime is incorrect. imagine now that you spend more time on overtime, you cannot spend it on other things. in fact, your happiness is marginally decreasing in hours spent on overtime, so eventually this “negative feedback” means that your utility, or income, does not run away to infinity based on hours of overtime worked.

David Socrates

Reply to Robert Wykoff

January 6, 2015 11:59 am

Mpainter
…
No the two equations are different and they are not the same.
..
∆(log( CO2) is not equal to log( ∆CO2)
The log of a sum (difference) is not equal to the sum (difference) of the logs

basicstats

Reply to Robert Wykoff

January 6, 2015 12:15 pm

The correction by Nick Stokes really needs to be highlighted. Otherwise one could be logging a negative number (unlikely at present I know). That’s a definite mathematical no-no.

Bill Illis

Reply to Robert Wykoff

January 6, 2015 12:59 pm

The actual global warming formula Nick according to the IPCC, Hansen, whoever is derived below:
TempC Anom = 3/ln(2)*ln(CO2 ppm/280 ppm)*C
TempC = 4.328*ln(CO2ppm/280ppm)*C
TempC = 4.328*ln(CO2ppm)*C – 4.328ln(280ppm)*C
TempC= 4.328*ln(CO2)C-24.38*C
or alternatively derived with the same resulting formula:
TempC Anom = TempResponse per Forcing * Forcing
TempC Anom = 0.75C/W/m2 * 5.35*ln(CO2/280)*W/m2
TempC Anom = 4,328C*ln(CO2/280)
TempC Anom = 4.328C*ln(CO2) – 24.38C
You can plug any CO2 ppm number you want into that formula and it will produce the 3.C per doubling of CO2 theory temperature expected.

Crispin in Waterloo but really in Beijing

Reply to Robert Wykoff

January 6, 2015 2:28 pm

Re Bill Illis
Nick the modeller gets another spanking.
Nick: You are exploiting a weakness to misdirect. Well played but not strictly honest.
Bill: Thanks.
Leo S: It would have been good to provide a link to the formula and it wouldn’t hurt to add one now. I have no problem with reading a living document updated on the need for additional explanations based on sound comment or misdirection from vested interests. Your explanation is sound and undermines the world of Modellers. Expect push back.
I am particularly struck by the way you have parsed the models into those that have primary, dominant, known feedbacks vs the others. The most common explanation we hear about chaotic systems is about a butterfly flap causing a hurricane, which means all climate is totally unpredictable. You have provided a much sounder explanation as to why it is unpredictable with current knowledge at human-meaningful time scales.

Janice Moore

Reply to Robert Wykoff

January 6, 2015 4:11 pm

lol, okay, Nick Stokes…

“Where do you get this from? Who actually says it? What do they say?”

Nick Stokes (today at 10:40am)
…………..
“Yes, it’s a definition of sensitivity to CO2. *** The definition is, btw, mis-stated. It should be ∆T = λ.k.∆(log( CO2)).” Nick Stokes (today at 11:36am)
Where did you get that from? Who told you that? Some leprechaun?
Bwah, ha, ha, ha, ha, haaa!
THANK YOU, MR. STOKES. You are SO much fun!!
#(:))

richardscourtney

Reply to Robert Wykoff

January 6, 2015 10:19 pm

Nick Stokes
In reply to Robert Wykoff having written
Nick, everybody talks about climate sensitivity. They talk about X degrees per doubling of CO2 all the time. The above equation states that exactly
you have wrtitten

Yes, it’s a definition of sensitivity to CO2. It’s not a claim that that is a sole cause of temperature change.

NO and NO.
It is a definition of sensitivity to CO2 EQUIVALENCE
and
it states the resulting alteration to radiative forcing expressed as a change to global temperature which is claimed (e.g. by IPCC) to be the ONLY significant variable affecting radiative forcing since 1950.
If you insist on picking nits then please choose nits which exist.
And – as per your request – I have quoted your error verbatim.
Richard

Janice Moore

Reply to Nick Stokes

January 6, 2015 11:05 am

Better yet, Nick Stokes, you prove the equation is NOT correct.
Mr. Smith, an engineer of fine credentials, has made a reasonable assertion.
The burden of proving him wrong is on YOU.

hifast

Reply to Janice Moore

January 6, 2015 11:38 am

Jimbo

Reply to Janice Moore

January 6, 2015 11:44 am

Here are the climate models at work. They are utter garbage and Nick Stokes is a climate modeller by the way.

Abstract
The Key Role of Heavy Precipitation Events in Climate Model Disagreements of Future Annual Precipitation Changes in California
Climate model simulations disagree on whether future precipitation will increase or decrease over California, which has impeded efforts to anticipate and adapt to human-induced climate change……..Between these conflicting tendencies, 12 projections show drier annual conditions by the 2060s and 13 show wetter. These results are obtained from 16 global general circulation models downscaled with different combinations of dynamical methods…
http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-12-00766.1

I’m not done yet. Here is one of our favorite warmists.

Abstract – 1994
Naomi Oreskes et al
Verification, validation, and confirmation of numerical models in the earth sciences
Verification and validation of numerical models of natural systems is impossible. This is because natural systems are never closed and because model results are always non-unique. Models can be confirmed by the demonstration of agreement between observation and prediction, but confirmation is inherently partial. Complete confirmation is logically precluded by the fallacy of affirming the consequent and by incomplete access to natural phenomena. Models can only be evaluated in relative terms, and their predictive value is always open to question. The primary value of models is heuristic…….
In some cases, the predictions generated by these models are considered as a basis for public policy decisions: Global circulation models are being used to predict the behavior of the Earth’s climate in response to increased CO2 concentrations;…….
Finally, we must admit that a model may confirm our biases and support incorrect intuitions. Therefore, models are most useful when they are used to challenge existing formulations, rather than to validate or verify them. Any scientist who is asked to use a model to verify or validate a predetermined result should be suspicious.
http://acmg.seas.harvard.edu/students/Oreskes_1994.pdf

Nick Stokes

Reply to Janice Moore

January 6, 2015 11:55 am

“Nick Stokes is a climate modeller by the way”
I’ve never been a climate modeller. Computational Fluid Dynamics in a mining/industrial setting was my activity.

Jimbo

Reply to Janice Moore

January 6, 2015 12:36 pm

What do you do now Nick? Have you ever worked with climate models?

Konrad.

Reply to Janice Moore

January 6, 2015 2:27 pm

Nick Stokes
January 6, 2015 at 11:55 am
”I’ve never been a climate modeller. Computational Fluid Dynamics in a mining/industrial setting was my activity.”
Well Nick, that just makes you seem far more disingenuous. If your are versed in CFD you would know exactly why climate models are all utter garbage. They cannot do CFD in the vertical dimension. The whole point is to model energy flow to and from the surface, and the models can’t do it. They rely on parametrisations for the primary energy transports away from the surface, convection and evaporation. They show warming because they are programmed to show warming.
Radiative subsidence is a critical component of tropospheric convective circulation. Tropospheric convective circulation would stall and the atmosphere would heat were it not for radiative gases. What do the useless models you defend do? They hold the speed of tropospheric convective circulation constant for increasing radiative gas concentrations so they can fraudulently show near surface warming.
Here’s some basic CFD for you –
http://i60.tinypic.com/dfj314.jpg
Which model best represents an atmosphere with radiative cooling at altitude, and which represents just heating and cooling an atmosphere at the surface? Which is running hotter?

Nick Stokes

Reply to Janice Moore

January 6, 2015 3:03 pm

GCMs do CFD perfectly well in the vertical direction (as do NWPs). They implement the momentum equation. It happens that you can generally ignore vertical acceleration (winds blow generally horizontally, or at least in line with topography), and also the vertical component of viscous stress. What’s left is hydrostatic balance. Some vertical transport due to sub-grid stuff needs to be modelled.

Woz

Reply to Janice Moore

January 6, 2015 3:19 pm

Love you Janice Moore!!

Janice Moore

Reply to Janice Moore

January 6, 2015 4:20 pm

WOZ!

Thank you for taking the time to write that. (blush) No one EVER says things to me like that ….. anymore. Even though I have no idea who you are, you made my day!

Konrad.

Reply to Janice Moore

January 6, 2015 4:42 pm

Nick Stokes
January 6, 2015 at 3:03 pm
”GCMs do CFD perfectly well in the vertical direction (as do NWPs).”
Garbage Nick, and you know it. You can’t fool anyone with that. Any claim that the GCMs have sufficient vertical resolution (100m cubes), let alone the hardware having the computational power to come close to correctly modelling tropospheric convective circulation is an outright lie. Simple 2D mathematical parametrisations are being used for vertical mass and energy transport between just two or three horizontal layers.
”It happens that you can generally ignore vertical acceleration (winds blow generally horizontally, or at least in line with topography), and also the vertical component of viscous stress.”
Tripe, vertical circulation cannot be ignored or parametrised. No radiative subsidence and tropospheric convective circulation would stall. Add radiative gases and in will increase as will the speed of non-radiative energy transport away from the surface. Your precious climate models ignore radiative subsidence and try to invoke “immaculate convection” so they can show increasing radiative gases causing near surface warming.
PS. I note you avoided any attempt at answering the simple questions about the CFD model shown above –
“Which model best represents an atmosphere with radiative cooling at altitude, and which represents just heating and cooling an atmosphere at the surface? Which is running hotter?”
Buk, Buk Bukcaaaw!

Leo Smith

Reply to Janice Moore

January 6, 2015 6:32 pm

Look this post was elevated (without me being aware…) from a blog comment typed in in a hurry. I accept the formula isn’t quite what I meant, but you get the general idea OK?
If I had known it was going to become a post I’d have taken a lot more care over it.
Not used k where it might confuse,. Spotted that delta log is not the same as log delta..
But the main points stand:
(i) The IPCC ‘formula’ fits the data less well than other equally simple formulae with just as many unknowns.
(ii) The IPCC formula is a linear differential equation.
(iii) There is no reason to doubt that large parts of the radiative/convective thermal cycle/balance of climate are non linear.
(iv) There are good historical reasons to suppose that the overall feedback of the climate system is negative, not positive as the IPCC assumes.
(v) given the number of feedback paths and the lags associated with them, there is more than enough scope in the climate for self generated chaotic quasi-periodic fluctuations to be generated even without any external inputs beyond a steady sun.
(vi) Given the likely shape of the overall real climate equation, there is no hope of anything like a realistic forecast ever being obtained with the current generation of computer systems and mathematical techniques. Chaos style equations are amongst the hardest and most intractable problems we have, and indeed there may well be no final answer to climate change beyond a butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil and tipping the climate into a new ice age, or a warm period, depending 😉
(vii) A point I didn’t make: a chaotic system is never ‘in balance’, and even its average value has little meaning, because its simply a mathematical oddity – a single point on a range where the system never rests – it merely represents a point between the upper and lower bounds; Worse, is system with multiple attractors, it may not even be anywhere near where the systems orbits fr any length of time.
In short my current thinking says :
– there is no such thing as a normal climate, nor does it have a balance that man has disturbed , or could disturb. Its constantly changing and may go anywhere from ice age to seriously warm over extremely long periods of time. It does this all by itself. There need be no external drivers to move it from one attractor to another or cause it to orbit any given attractor. That climate changes is unarguable, that anything beyond climate itself is causing it, is deeply doubtful. That CO2 has a major effect is, on the data, as absurd as claiming that CO2 has no effect at all.
What we are looking at here is very clever misdirection cooked up for economic and political motives: It suited many peoples books to paint CO2 emissions as a scary pollutant, and a chance temporary correlation of rising temperatures and CO2 was combined in a linear way that any third rate scientist could understand to present a plausible formula for scary AGW. I have pointed out that other interpretations of the data make a non scary scenario, and indeed, post the Pause,. actually fit the data better.
Occam’s razor has nothing to say in defence of either.
Poppers falsifiability is no help because the one model – the IPCC – has been falsified. The other can make no predictions beyond ‘change happens all by itself in ways we cannot hope to predict’. So that cannot be falsified. If you want to test Newton’s laws the last experiment you would use is throwing an egg at a spike to predict where the bits of eggshell are going to land….
Net result is climate science isn’t worth spending a plugged nickel on, and we should spend the money on being reasonably ready for moderate climate change in either direction. Some years ago my business partner – ten years my junior wanted to get key man insurance in case I died or fell under a bus. ‘How much for how much’ ‘well you are a smoker, and old, so its a lot’ It was enough in fact to wipe out the annual profits, and the business, twice over. Curiously he is now dead from prostate cancer, and I have survived testicular cancer, and with luck, a blocked coronary artery. Sometimes you just take te risk because insuring against it costs more … if we had been really serious about climate change we would be 100% nuclear by now. It was proven safe technology and dollar for dollar has ten times the carbon reduction impact than renewables. But of course carbon reduction was not the actual game plan. Political control of energy was. Its so much easier and cheaper to bribe governments than compete in a free market…
.
IF – and this is something that should be demonstrable – the dominant feedback terms in the real climate equations are non linear, and multiple and subject to time delay, THEN we have a complex chaotic system that will be in constant more or less unpredictable flux.
And we are pissing in the wind trying to model it with simple linear differential equations and parametrised nonsense.
The whole sleight of hand of the AGW movement has been to convince scientists who do NOT understand non linear control theory, that they didn’t NEED to understand it to model climate, and that any fluctuations MUST be ’caused’ by an externality, and to pick on the most politically and commercially convenient one – CO2 – that resonated with a vastly anti-science and non-commercial sentiment left over from the Cold War ideological battles . AGW is AgitProp, not science. AGW flatters all the worst people into thinking they are more important than they are. To a man every ground roots green movement has taken a government coin, as have the universities, and they are all dancing to the piper who is paid by the unholy aggregation of commercial interest, political power broking and political marketing.
They bought them all. They couldn’t however buy the climate. Mother Nature is not a whore.
Whether AGW is a deliberate fraud, an honest mistake, or mere sloppy ignorant science is moot. At any given level it is one or the other or any combination.
What it really is, is an emotional narrative, geared to flatter the stupid and pander to their bigotry, in order to make them allies in a process that if they knew its intentions, they would utterly oppose,.
Enormous damage to the environment is justified by environmentalists because the Greater Cause says that windmills and solar panels will Save the Planet. Even when its possible to demonstrate that they have almost no effect on emissions at all, and it is deeply doubtful if those emissions are in any way significant anyway.
Green is utterly anti-nuclear. Yet which- even on their own claims – is less harmful, a few hundred tonnes of long lived radionuclides encased in glass and dumped a mile underground, or a billion tonnes of CO2?
Apparently the radiation which hasn’t injured or killed a single person at Fukushima, is far far more dangerous than the CO2, because Germany would rather burn stinking lignite having utterly polluted its rivers in strip mining it, than allow a nuclear power plant to operate inside its borders .
Years ago Roy Harper sang
“You can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make him drink
You can lead a man to slaughter, but you’ll never make him think”

I had a discussion with a gloomy friend today. We agreed the world is a mess because people don’t think, they follow leaders, trends, emotional narratives, received wisdom.. Never once do they step back and ask, ‘what really is going on here?’. Another acquaintance doing management training in the financial arena chalked up on the whiteboard “Anyone who presages a statement with the words ‘I think’ and then proceeds to regurgitate someone else’s opinions, analysis or received wisdom, will fail this course and be summarily ejected’
And finally Anthony, I am not sure I wanted that post to become an article. I dont want to be someone else’s received wisdom. I want the buggers to start thinking for themselves.
If that means studying control theory systems analysis and chaos mathematics then do it. And form your own opinions.
“Don’t follow leaders, watch your parking meters”

I say people don’t think. Prove me wrong. Don’t believe what I say, do your own analysis. Stop trusting and start thinking.
I’ll leave you with a final chilling thought. Consider the following statement:
“100% of all media ‘news’ and 90% of what is called ‘science’ and an alarming amount of blog material is not what is the case, or even what people think is the case, but what people for reasons of their own, want you to think is the case”
Finally, if I ever get around to finishing it, for those who ask ‘how can it be possible that so many people are caught up in what you claim to be a grand conspiracy or something of that nature?’ I am on the business of writing a philosophical, psychological and social explanation. It entitled ‘convenient lies’ And it shows that bigotry prejudice stupidity and venality are in fact useful techniques for species survival most of the time.
Of course the interesting facet is the ‘Black Swan’ times, when it’s the most dangerous thing in the world.
Following the herd is safer than straying off alone. Unless the herd is approaching the cliff edge and the leaders are more concerned with who is following them than where they are going…
AGW is one of the great dangers facing mankind, not because its true, but because it is widely believed, and demonstrably false.
My analysis of convenient lies shows that they are most dangerous in times of deep social and economic change in society, when the old orthodoxies are simply no good.
I feel more scared these days than at any time in the cold war. Then one felt that no one would be stupid enough to start world war three. Today, I no longer have that conviction. Two generations of social engineering aimed at removing all risk and all need to actually think from society has led to a generation which is stupid enough and smug enough and feels safe enough to utterly destroy western civilisation simply because they take it totally for granted. To them the promotion of the AGW meme is a success story in terms of political and commercial marketing. The fact that where they are taking us over a cliff edge into a new dark age, is something they simply haven’t considered at all.
They have socially engineered risk and dissent out of society. For profit. Leaving behind a population that cannot think for itself, and has no need to. Its told to blindly follow the rules.
Control system theory says that that, unlike the climate, is a deeply unstable situation.
Wake up, smell the coffee. AGW is simply another element in a tendency towards political control of everything, and the subjugation of the individual into the mass of society at large. No decision is to be taken by the individual, all is to be taken by centralised bureaucratic structures – such as the IPCC. The question is, is that a functional and effective way to structure society?
My contention is that its deeply dangerous. It introduces massive and laggy overall centralised feedback, Worse, it introduces a single point of failure. If central government breaks down or falters, people simply do not know what to do any more. No one has the skill or practice in making localised decisions anymore.
The point is to see AGW and the whole greenspin machine as just an aspect of a particular stage in political and societal evolution, and understand it in those terms. Prior to the age of the telegraph and instantaneous communications, government had to be devolved – the lag was too great to pass the decisions back to central authority. Today we think we can, but there is another lag – bureaucratic lag. As well as bureaucratic incompetence.
System theory applied to political systems, gives a really scary prediction. We are on the point of almost total collapse, and we do not have the localised systems in place to replace centralised structures that are utterly dysfunctional. Sooner or later an externality is going to come along that will overwhelm the ability of centralized bureaucracy to deal with it, and it will fail. And nothing else will succeed, because people can no longer think for themselves.
Because they were lazy and let other people do the thinking for them. And paid them huge sums to do it, and accepted the results unquestioningly.
Happy new year

Nick Stokes

Reply to Janice Moore

January 6, 2015 8:02 pm

Konrad,
“Any claim that the GCMs have sufficient vertical resolution (100m cubes), let alone the hardware having the computational power to come close to correctly modelling tropospheric convective circulation is an outright lie. Simple 2D mathematical parametrisations are being used for vertical mass and energy transport between just two or three horizontal layers.”
Complete nonsense. Here is a GFDL poster. 32 vertical layers. Typically the surface layer is less than 100 m high.
” I note you avoided any attempt at answering the simple questions about the CFD model shown above”
I have no idea what those inscrutable pictures represent.

wayne Job

Reply to Janice Moore

January 6, 2015 8:43 pm

Mr Stokes, you say your qualifications are in fluid dynamics. This puzzles me that you seem to believe in this modelled global warming. The reason it puzzles me is that most of the equations for fluid flow were never able to be used as they gave chaotic results. The puzzle of these equations was solved with chaos maths.
That said our climate is controlled by all those fluid dynamic equations including the chaos ones that can not use.
Thus any one who even thinks he can make a realistic equation for our climate is whistling dixie, thus the climate modellers and their predictions are all in fairy La La land.
From and old engineer who oft found it was better to suck it and see, rather than predict and be made a fool.

David A

Reply to Janice Moore

January 6, 2015 11:13 pm

Curious how Nick through critical minutiae avoids the main thrust of the post, which in my view is simply this…”So called ‘Climate science’ relies on net positive feedback to create alarmist views – and that positive feedback is nothing to do with CO2 allegedly: on the contrary it is a temperature change amplifier pure and simple.”
===================================================
The supposed feedbacks, failing to materialize in the observations, but certainly present in the models, are a.f.a.i.k., primarily or wholly based on positive feedback to ANY increase in GAT. For instance in a typical irrational justification of the failure of the tropospheric hotspot to manifest, CAGW proponents stated that the hot spot should be there for ANY warming. (How this supported, or got the incorrect CAGW prediction off the hook for being wrong, escaped my mental capacity)
The fact that the earth has not therefore repeatedly and often run up to the predicted catastrophic GAT, is quiet remarkable; almost as remarkable as Nicks ability to distract a thread.

Konrad

Reply to Janice Moore

January 6, 2015 11:58 pm

Ooh! 32 layers! No Nick, still nowhere near what is needed. Average layer depth in that model is over 1Km. And vertical mixing? Yep, paramitized as always. You fail at flappy hooves.
Oh and those inscrutable pictures? Who was supposed be the expert in CFD hmmm? Those are just simple 2D CFD models of insulated gas collumns in a gravity field. The first has gas heated at the base and cooled at the top. The second heating and cooling only at the base. Which best represents our atmosphere and which an atmosphere without radiative cooling at altitude? Which is running hotter?
Easy answer isn’t it Nicky? AGW is a physical impossibility and 97% of climastrologists are assclowns.

Samuel C Cogar

Reply to Janice Moore

January 7, 2015 7:26 am

@ Leo Smith on January 6, 2015 at 6:32 pm
I am really glad your blog post was published as a seeded article hereon WUWT because I really enjoyed reading it and “Yes”, I did get more than “the general idea” of what you were intent on conveying to the readers of said.
And no, it wouldn’t have mattered iffen you had taken more care in writing it because the naysayers would then have found fault with your use of “pronouns and prepositions“.
Anyway, Leo Smith, your above posted commentary was far, far more enjoyable reading than your blog post …. and was “right on the money” in its entirety …. and the part I liked and agreed with the most was, to wit:

I feel more scared these days than at any time in the cold war. Then one felt that no one would be stupid enough to start world war three. Today, I no longer have that conviction. Two generations of social engineering aimed at removing all risk and all need to actually think from society has led to a generation which is stupid enough and smug enough and feels safe enough to utterly destroy western civilisation simply because they take it totally for granted. To them the promotion of the AGW meme is a success story in terms of political and commercial marketing. The fact that where they are taking us over a cliff edge into a new dark age, is something they simply haven’t considered at all.
They have socially engineered risk and dissent out of society. For profit. Leaving behind a population that cannot think for itself, and has no need to. Its told to blindly follow the rules.
System theory applied to political systems, gives a really scary prediction. We are on the point of almost total collapse, and we do not have the localised systems in place to replace centralised structures that are utterly dysfunctional. Sooner or later an externality is going to come along that will overwhelm the ability of centralized bureaucracy to deal with it, and it will fail. And nothing else will succeed, because people can no longer think for themselves

.
I fear that the educational “pendulum” has done swung “too far off center to the left” to ever swing back ….. and thus there will be “Hell to pay” when the collapse begins in earnest.
T’will be like a big flock of chickens when a fox gets inside the chicken coop.Mass hysteria and everyone for themselves.
Thank you for the commentary, ….. Sam C

etudiant

Reply to Nick Stokes

January 6, 2015 11:12 am

This equation simply states changes in temperature are a function of changes in CO2.
I thought that was what you were saying all along. Was I mistaken?

David A

Reply to etudiant

January 7, 2015 8:10 am

My understanding is that the feedbacks which amplify increasing CO2 are all based on the increase in GAT.
Nick S asserts that the models do not only consider CO2. This is a straw man no one stated. .

Gary Hladik

Reply to Nick Stokes

January 6, 2015 11:13 am

Didn’t Willis have a couple of articles on WUWT showing that the so-called “average temperature of the Earth” calculated by some GCMs is closely approximated by a linear function of the “forcing” inputs?
Note that Steve McIntyre has shown that a simple log(forcing) model outperforms most GCMs:
http://climateaudit.org/2013/07/26/guy-callendar-vs-the-gcms/

Monckton of Brenchley

Reply to Nick Stokes

January 6, 2015 11:51 am

Mr Stokes may care to read chapter 6.1 of the IPCC’s Third Assessment Report (2001), where he will find quite a clear description of the climate-sensitivity method used in climate models. That method, at its simplest, is well represented by the equation in the head posting to which Mr Stokes takes baseless exception. The models’ approach to climate sensitivity is indeed simplistic: and, as a forthcoming paper in a leading science journal will make clear, it is also erroneous.
Even as the totalitarian political approach to science espoused by Mr Stokes becomes the regrettable norm in academe and in the corridors of impotence, true science is moving on and laughing at those who adhere to the old simplicities. On the evidence, there will not be much more in the way of manmade global warming, and it will certainly not prove catastrophic, regardless of the decisions taken in Paris this December by the world-government wannabes of the UN.

RockyRoad

Reply to Monckton of Brenchley

January 6, 2015 2:37 pm

So Mr. Stokes takes umbrage with the exact same group he supports. How odd. Yet since he’s a full-time lurker like Anthony suggests, he’s either fixated on this blog or is paid by those he unwittingly skewers. Again, how odd. No wonder Anthony suggests he should be completely ignored.

Andres Valencia

Reply to Monckton of Brenchley

January 6, 2015 6:05 pm

Thanks, Christopher, Lord Monckton.
Well said.

Phil.

Reply to Monckton of Brenchley

January 6, 2015 7:25 pm

As usual you are wrong, Nick was quite right to criticize such an elementary error. You’re also wrong re the TAR, they explicitly give ∆F = αln(C/C0).

beng1

Reply to Nick Stokes

January 6, 2015 11:54 am

Stop acting dumb, Nick.

Stephen Ricahrds

Reply to beng1

January 6, 2015 11:59 am

Who says he is acting? Evidence shows othewise

Tom Trevor

Reply to beng1

January 7, 2015 9:27 am

I don’t think it is acting.

clivebest

Reply to Nick Stokes

January 6, 2015 1:00 pm

CMIP5 models are complex coupled parameterizations of responses to CO2 forcing. Those parameterizations are best guesses to H2O feedback, cloud feedbacks, lapse rate feedbacks, aerosols and ice albedo feedbacks etc. Those guesses are tuned so as to match historic temperature data.
So don’t kid me Nick this is simple !

Nick Stokes

Reply to clivebest

January 6, 2015 1:22 pm

It’s Leo Smith claiming that someone says it is simple (no source). I’m not claiming that.

clivebest

Reply to clivebest

January 6, 2015 2:07 pm

I think he is saying climate responses are complex and likely non-linear. Yet despite everything the overall feedback on earth with liquid oceans must be stabilizing – whatever nature in the past or mankind now throws at it.
The log CO2 forcing formula derives from Mehr et al.
I also kind of ‘derived’ it here: http://clivebest.com/blog/?p=4697

Robert B

Reply to Nick Stokes

January 6, 2015 1:11 pm

“With all simple known factors taken care of the basic IPCC style equation boils down to:
∆T = λ.k.log( ∆CO2)”
Where do you get this from? Who actually says it? What do they say? Link?

He actual says that it “boils down to”. Its his interpretation rather than a quote and while ∆T = λ.k.∆log( CO2) would have been a better description of what it boils down to, it doesn’t take away from the point that he was trying to make. He goes on “∆T = k.log( ∆CO2) + f(∆T)…This is quite close to the IPCC model, but with one important proviso.” I read it as he is pointing out that there is a lot of subjectivity in how to model the second term and that there is a sub-conscious (maybe conscious) tendency to to have it come out as a positive feedback instead of negative.

Leo Smith

Reply to Robert B

January 6, 2015 6:35 pm

Thank you., Yes, that was a bloggers twitch,. Your explanation is correct from my POV, and the equation was not as I intended it to be, which yours is.

Robert B

Reply to Robert B

January 7, 2015 12:00 am

Thank you Leo, but I didn’t spot it. I read Nicks reply below.

dEEBEE

Reply to Nick Stokes

January 6, 2015 2:21 pm

Nick as usual you are stuck on stupid. The author asserts that IPCC assertions “boils down” to the equation he states. I hope the high density you demonstrate is feigned, otherwise believing that you are Slipery, I would have to replace that with Stupid

george e. smith

Reply to Nick Stokes

January 6, 2015 2:33 pm

“””””…..
mpainter
January 6, 2015 at 11:52 am
Nick, yours is the same as Leo Smith’s.
You are a slippery sort of fellow, Nick……”””””
Not really. Leo should have put log(CO2,1 /CO2,2), instead of delta CO2 (ratio, not difference)
But then maybe Nick’s is wrong too, as delta log (CO2) might be construed as zero.
I have to wing it without a savvy editor.to write correct maths.

Nick Stokes

Reply to george e. smith

January 6, 2015 4:41 pm

log(CO2,1 /CO2,2) = log(CO2,1) – log(CO2,2) = ∆(log(CO2))

Jeff Alberts

Reply to george e. smith

January 6, 2015 7:28 pm

What you’ve got there is a log cabin.

Pat Frank

Reply to Nick Stokes

January 6, 2015 3:30 pm

First demonstrated in 2006 here, Nick.

brians356

Reply to Nick Stokes

January 6, 2015 4:35 pm

Nick Stokes the fire -> flames … again.
“Occupation?”
“Gadfly, M’lord.”

John Francis

Reply to Nick Stokes

January 6, 2015 5:13 pm

From one engineer to another, I say well done. You have hit the nail on the head, regardless of people who are miStoken. All my electronic engineer friends are skeptics, for exacty
the reasons you stated. In fact, many of them, including me, agree with the slayers that the effect if CO2 on surface air temperatures is zero. And that fits the data!

philincalifornia

Reply to John Francis

January 6, 2015 10:38 pm

I don’t think there’s any doubt that the slayers have the right bottom line, i.e. zero, but there’s still work to be done on why it’s zero, or essentially zero.

Boulder Skeptic

Reply to John Francis

January 9, 2015 11:37 pm

Mr Leo Smith, I’ve been thinking about this AGW topic and studying this for a decade now. Especially with regards to your update, your words mirror many of the things i’ve been expressing to friends and colleagues.
I have experience in my professional career in aerospace with design and analysis of non-linear control systems and when it is appropriate to simplify modeling of such systems to be linear. I couldn’t agree more that the climate of Earth is one big non-linear control system. I believe we have too little knowledge at this point as to what all the forcings and feedbacks of this system are to be able to effectively model it as a simple linear, CO2-driven control system. I do not know anyone who has in-depth knowledge of non-linear control systems that believes in CAGW.
Most climate scientists seem to have little to no knowledge of even basic control systems theory and physics to be in their chosen field. Seems to me to be that we’ve either educated these people beyond their IQs or that there were too many participation awards in their childhoods to know just how incompetent they are at being scientists. Too many people suited for art and acting erroneously steered by a failing educational system into high-paying-taxpayer-funded climate scientist gigs (to get membership, just repeat after me: CO2 is evil…).
Bruce

immi_the_dalek

Reply to Nick Stokes

January 6, 2015 5:21 pm

Nick Stokes’s question is not as daft as you all seem to think. Leo Smith has posted a nice simple equation which is more or less that used by the IPCC. However what should have been asked is how is this equation used. I very much doubt it is used inside any models to do calculations – the climate models are far more complex than that – but just to check – do any models really use that equation? Also, is the climate sensitivity an input to the models? Because if it is not then arguing about the form of that equation is a red herring.

Leo Smith

Reply to immi_the_dalek

January 6, 2015 8:18 pm

I’ll try and answer that, because its a good question.
First of all inside the IPCC nothing happens. The IPCCS terms of reference are not to run any models, but to examine the models of other people and to assess the impact of human derived cliamte change, not ever to question its actual existence.
I repeat,. the IPCC starts from a position of total acceptance that human generated cliamte change is real and is happening and is almost completely dominated by CO2, its job is not to question that at all, its to see what this means to te world. And advise governments.
It is a massive assumptive close The IPCC is what to do about ‘proven’ climate change, not what climate change is happening.Or why.
As far as teh other models go, what I believe to be the case is roughly this.
The models consist in the solution (integration) of that differential equation, over a world sized grid, and attempting to account for other factors like cloud cover and water vapour content, by parametrising them into a large grid.
This gives localised solutions to the general differential equation. e.g just as dy/dx=2x is a simple differential equation that can be expanded into a parabola which has a y value for every x value, so a generalised climate equation can be expanded to give a three dimensional solution in terms of spatial and temporal co ordinates for temperature.
The models are therefore trying to predict the future temperature of every point on the earth, using that basic equations as the governing principle,. That equation deosnt tell you about absolute temperatures of course, only about how they are changed by ‘additional CO2’ so they need to start with existing temperatures and run the model forwards and backwards to establish a reasonable constant. And they are not quite so stupid as to pretend that there are not issue of geography and things like mountains and oceans and so on that are gouing to be in the mix as well, so for example if the model shows an overall tropics to pole movement of warm air, they can put in Coriolis to determine heat transfer between grid cells, and if there is a mountain range, stick in adiabatic cooling and so on.
My point is not that integrating the differential equations is simple, it isn’t. Nor that they have left pout everything that we all know is important. They haven’t. BUT the big big issue is two fold. First of all, is the flow between cells of the grid laminar flow, or is it nasty and turbulent – because that screws up the boundary transfers and makes a mockery of any attempt to predict it – you can only map a turbulent flow by going to a cell size below the major turbulence. Secondly, what justification do they have for the feedback they need to apply to map the actual radiative equation for CO2 onto observed climate change? This is an enormous fudge factor., What they are saying boils down to a need to introduce positive temperature feedback to make the models come anywhere near late 20th century warming if the changes then are solely due to the impact of CO2.
The logic goes like this
After having accounted for all the simple things that affect climate, we assume that climate should be stable and is represented by a smooth linear differential equation – which the radiative aspect surely is, then mutatis mutandis, if the temperature starts rising, something external to the system as it is understood must be causing it. So we look for some externality that is more or less correlated with late 20th century warming and decide that CO2 is a plausible candidate. The physics of CO2 are well understood, so we apply them to the warming, but are puzzled that by itself the CO2 equations dont give anything like the rate of rise that is in fact being experienced.
It is at this point that I already have three major criticisms. Firstly IIRC about half of the heat loss from the earth’s surface is not due to direct surface radiation to space, such as CO2 intercedes in, but is in fact convection and conduction by colder air and water vapour whose radiative heat loss has been accomplished high in the atmosphere well beyond most of the CO2, and whose presence in the atmosphere as cloud, can radically affect the albedo and indeed heat loss and gain at lower altitudes. Its a massive elephant in the climate room, this water vapour. Its localised, its non linear and its effect can be warning or cooling depending on exactly what is going on. This massive non linear and very turbulent system of heat transfer is if not totally ignored, at least reduced to constant correction terms in the grid data. This is simply not good enough. What we have is what we are pretty damned sure is at least 50% of the surface loss being modelled very badly indeed. So the model is inherently not good enough at that level. Secondly, there is absolutely no justification for saying that just because you thought it was all a lineår equation, because that’s the easier sums to do – even for a billion dollar super computer – and therefore there must be an externality forcing climate to create warming, does not make it so. And that is the crucial point. The whole AGW argument is based on this chain of logic. Whatever the climate equations is, it’s some form of linear differential equation and therefore if climate changes some external forcing is happening to make it do that thing. And the only thing we can find that is external and correlates is CO2, ergo we will fudge the ‘feedback’ to make the basic physics fit the observed warming. And that’s what they did. And Lo, it was deeply scary.
The possibility that it was something other than CO2, or worse, that the overall equation was non linear, in which case you dont need an externality at all, was simply brushed aside, ostensibly because even if they were totally wrong the chance that they might be right was so scary that it was fully justified in behaving as though they were right down to complete suppression of all dissent.
So the answer to your question is that yes, the actual modelling is way more complex than that one equation BUT that that one equations is assumed to be the only externality that ’causes’ climate change in an other wise smooth and stable climate system that can be represented buy a simple set of radiative equations.
What they have in essence is a very complex climate model based on iterative integration of various differential equations, to which is added a forcing term representing CO2 input, multiplied by some arbitrary constant to make the answer fit the data, or sometimes, they make the data fit the answer. whatever.
The Pause of course has made it impossible to find a constant that fits all the data. either it fits late 20th century or it fits 21st century, never both. The correlations between CO2 and temp rise has simply broken down beyond repair, although they are trying hard by adding more complexity to the models. Its time for a Kuhnian paradigm shift. And the answer is there and its been screamed by so many people other than myself – my only skill perhaps is in making the argument accessible to people who are not well versed in the mathematics of system analysis (not that I am these days, but I remember the general principles) – and that is that once you posit a non linear set of differential equations as governing at least some heat loss from the earth’s surface, the need for an externality to ‘explain’ climate change falls away. The climate system then becomes one whose nature is necessarily constant change regardless of any externality. And whose predictability has become approximately zero with the mathematical and computing tools we currently have at our disposal.
You can scrap the positive feedback in AGW, at which point your climate sensitivity to CO2 is almost zero, especially if there is inherent negative feedback instead. And the answer to the question of ‘how come it got warmer in the 20th century then ? what caused it? ‘ becomes “It managed to do it all by itself actually. Nothing caused it. Or it caused its itself,. Whatever”. And the next question ‘ok smarty pants what’s it going to do in 20 years time’ becomes ‘I really couldn’t say,. and I would be foolish to predict it, because although my model is not inconsistent with the data, all it tells me is that predicting a future cliamte trajectory is not possible with current tools. End of.’ And that is I think the essence of the climatologists claim that a model that is deeply flawed and nothing to do with reality, but does make predictions, is better than one that is much closer to reality, but doesn’t make any predictions, comes from. I will leave you to judge what better means in this context. Better to get funding with?
At which point the scary thing about AGW is not that its right, but that its wrong, and huge sums of money have been squandered and millions of lives impacted by senseless activity ostensibly designed to remedy a situation that never in fact existed. But was politically and commercially convenient to act ‘as if’ existed.
One of my hobbies is desperately trying to understand quantum physics and reading Penrose and the like and trying to remember what very little of tensor calculus I understood back in the day. But one thing I did understand, is that buried in the massive equations and impressive verbiage, what the mathematicians are trying to do is come up with some sort of equations that at least has the right SHAPE to explain quantum interactions. They are nowhere near ones that will make useful predictions at the sorts of levels Penrose is working at. But they may have found some that with work, might one day, hence 10 dimensional string theory etc etc. 10 dimensions are needed to give enough terms to fit all the observed data if strings are your bag, so to speak.
Climate seems to me to be similar. The simplistic linear differential equations don’t in the end fit, and we know a class of equations that could fit*, but to adopt them takes us away from any possibility of predictability. That’s the end of climate science as a political and social force, if we do.
*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navier%E2%80%93Stokes_equations Maths porn alert!
These are the equations that govern fluid flow. Unlike the basic radiative equations these are fiendishly complex beasts, and only very approximate solutions to specialised cases can be computed. IF surface heat loss is as much governed by fluid dynamics – conduction and convection – as by radiation, then these are the beasts that are involved. Of course all final heat loss from the earth is radiative, but it makes a big difference where that radiation occurs,. If its direct ground radiation to the night sky, then greenhouse gases in the atmosphere make a big difference, If however the heat rises and gets blown away to somewhere else and the radiation occurs higher in the atmosphere and perhaps in a darker place, then greenhouse gases have far less effect on it. Maybe.

Mi Cro

Reply to Leo Smith

January 7, 2015 7:04 am

Leo Smith commented

If its direct ground radiation to the night sky, then greenhouse gases in the atmosphere make a big difference

While it is likely measurable, it does not make a big difference, at dusk in clear lower humidity air you can see a 5-10F/hour cooling rate through all of that Co2. What happens is this rapidly cools the ground, as the air above the ground cools, rel humidity climbs, once it gets up around 80% or so the cooling rate drops to a degree or two per hour. Once again Co2’s effects are over ridden by waters.
Now imagine with an increase of co2 that initial cooling rate slows some, all it does is change how long it takes for the humidity to rise, so it is a self regulating cooling system. This IMO is why increased Co2 hasn’t caused any warming (which if you look at surface data there’s been very little of, modeled GAT is not representative of what is actually happening on the surface)

Nick Stokes

Reply to immi_the_dalek

January 6, 2015 8:54 pm

Completely muddled. And still of course no actual links to what the IPCC says, or anything else much outside the rant.
I’ll start with the last first:
“The simplistic linear differential equations don’t in the end fit, and we know a class of equations that could fit*, but to adopt them takes us away from any possibility of predictability.
…
These are the equations that govern fluid flow”
I thought this post was based on great ignorance of GCMs. They solve those Navier-Stokes equations.
“a generalised climate equation can be expanded to give a three dimensional solution in terms of spatial and temporal co ordinates for temperature”
Nothing like that. They solve the Navier-Stokes equations for fluid flow. That is the core. Heat, moisture etc are convected along, and with heat, also transferred by radiation. They include a radiative model.
“That equation deosnt tell you about absolute temperatures of course, only about how they are changed by ‘additional CO2′ “
Nonsense. They work in absolute temperatures. How else could a radiative model function? And they only tell you about additional CO2 if that is varied as a forcing. CO2 is just one of the active gases/aerosols that enter into the radiative model.
And there is no way they use the simple linear equation you have invoked. There is no place for it anyway. That equation is simply a definition of climate sensitivity as a partial derivative of T wrt log(CO2), used for interpreting model output, among other things.
“First of all, is the flow between cells of the grid laminar flow, or is it nasty and turbulent – because that screws up the boundary transfers and makes a mockery of any attempt to predict it”
Like almost all engineering CFD, they use turbulence modelling. There is no problem between cells. There is a well-known issue near the surface (as in all CFD), but there is general modelling needed there for air/sea heat and gas exchange etc.

Will Nelson

Reply to immi_the_dalek

January 6, 2015 9:13 pm

Leo a book perhaps. Reading your last comment by half-way I realized my mental reading voice was a high-pitched fast forward chipmunk squeal. If you do/have write/written I’d be interested. Thanks.

jimmi_the_dalek

Reply to immi_the_dalek

January 6, 2015 9:32 pm

Yes, I thought that was the case.
Though it is tempting to read that equation from left to right and confused that the temperature change is calculated from the sensitivity, it is in fact the other way round. The temperature change is calculated from the models, which involve a lot of physics, some of which is well known like the radiative portion, and some of which is more dubious, and then the results are used to calculate the sensitivity. In other words the sensitivity is part of the output , and that equation is not used how you think it is.

bones

Reply to immi_the_dalek

January 7, 2015 11:34 am

Leo, if you think that Penrose and the modern physics gurus are worth studying, you need to reed Jim Baggott’s “Farewell to Reality” before investing much time. He makes the same devastating case against theories that are inherently incapable of predicting anything real that you have made against climate models here.

Mike M.

Reply to immi_the_dalek

January 7, 2015 2:25 pm

Nick Stokes is right. He actually seems to know something about climate models, whereas Leo Smith does not. The basic differential equation on which models is based is the Navier-Stokes equation, it is non-linear. In the lower troposphere, vertical heat transfer is mostly convective, it only becomes dominated by radiation higher up, especially in the stratosphere. Because of that, and the fact that the atmosphere is optically thick at most IR wavelengths, IR absorption near the surface has little effect, unless it is in one of the atmospheric IR windows. The greenhouse effect is mostly something that happens in the upper troposphere. Climate sensitivity is not input into the models it is output from the models. The models all agree that the climate is stable in the sense that the net feedback is negative. The models all agree that the climate system is very much a chaotic system.
There is a lot wrong with trying to use the models to predict future climate. But Lea Smith is wrong about almost everything that is wrong.
If you want to criticize something, you should learn something about it. Unfortunately, that is a bitch with climate science. My biggest single complaint about the field is the lack of introductory articles or texts that are not hugely oversimplified. If someone knows of any, I’d like to get the references.

Latitude

Reply to Nick Stokes

January 6, 2015 6:03 pm

simply unpredictable noise ….
That’s all folks

Leo Smith

Reply to Latitude

January 6, 2015 8:22 pm

well that’s a very crude way of expressing the..basic thesis, yes 🙂
Its not quite random, though, more chaotic. Pseudo periodic is perhaps a better term . And that’s sad for the Fourier analysts, who will find that instead of a flat or broad spectrum across all frequencies (noise) there is actually some evidence of peaks in the spectrum, but they will not be well defined nor will they be especially meaningful.

Rud Istvan

Reply to Latitude

January 6, 2015 9:26 pm

Pseudoperiodicy is a natural feature of all nonlinear dynamic ‘chaos’. Period doubling, bifurcations, and all that stuff. Just oscillations between various Lorentz ‘strange attractors’.
Translating to the Bard, much sound and fury, but signifying (almost) nothing.

ohflow

Reply to Nick Stokes

January 6, 2015 11:29 pm

Looking at the poopstorm Nicks comment brought forth, maybe there would be a way to stop other people from replying other than the OP/Anthony/Contributors to the site. Even though the question was aggressive in tone, I was much curious about Leos answer to the question. The twenty some posts that just attack Nicks person before I could get to Leos answer, felt entirely unnecessary for me to read. I am not saying the site should be molded for my viewing pleasure, I am saying that all this borderline “troll” replies are making any kind of discussion between OPs article and questions from readers extremely muddy.
Ps sorry for the bad english, thanks for the site, Anthony.

davideisenstadt

Reply to Nick Stokes

January 6, 2015 11:54 pm

Nick when one can get a near perfect emulation of the performances of CGMs regarding temperature with a single independent variable model, with a lag, this claim is not unreasonable.

johnmarshall

Reply to Nick Stokes

January 7, 2015 3:11 am

That formula depends on the effect that CO2 is supposed to have. A ”fact” yet to be validated by empirical data.

Terry Oldberg

Reply to Nick Stokes

January 12, 2015 9:27 pm

Dr. Marler (Jan. 6 at 12:58 pm) is correct. Also, “∆T” is the change in the global temperature at equilibrium and NOT the change in the global temperature. As the change in the global temperature at equilibrium is not observable, whether the relation from the change in the logarithm of the CO2 concentration to the change in the global temperature at equilibrium is a linear functional relation as alleged by the IPCC is non-falsifiable thus unscientific. That it is a linear functional relation is, however, the basis for the claim that our climate can be controlled. This claim is illogical and unscientific.

fmims

January 6, 2015 10:41 am

Excellent. I’ve long advocated that molecular biologists would better understand what they study if they would be required to take a few engineering classes during college. The same holds for climate modelers.

BioBob

Reply to fmims

January 6, 2015 11:52 am

That would require molecular biologists to learn scientific rigor & math [&, random sampling and such]. You know that mostly isn’t going to happen or they would already be engineering students. /sarc

Paul Coppin

Reply to BioBob

January 6, 2015 2:23 pm

…and biology… /sarc/sarc

Jameel Ahmad Khan

January 6, 2015 10:44 am

Great piece that resonates with my own experience. As an engineer and with plenty of experience in modelling, I couldn’t agree more.

David L. Hagen

Reply to Jameel Ahmad Khan

January 6, 2015 5:30 pm

Chemical Engineer Pierre Latour on climate control
Leo Smith’s foundational statement is clarified by chemical engineering control specialist Dr. Pierre R. Latour in a Letter to the Editor, Hydrocarbon Processing, January 2009:

“Mr. Temple’s (the writer of the other letter to editor),counter-claim against my comment about measurable, observable, controllable, stable and robust characteristics of the dynamic, multivariable nonlinear atmospheric temperature control system under design by Kyoto Protocols misunderstands my meaning. These mathematical concepts are part of the foundation of control systems engineering. . .They provide exact necessary and sufficient conditions for these characteristics for all linear systems and some nonlinear systems. I employed some of these for the Apollo command and lunar modules roll-pitch-yaw digital autopilots and lunar rendezvous trajectory designs. . . President John F. Kennedy charged competent control engineers rather than lawyers to design national control systems. All competent refinery control system engineers and thermostat closers should assure themselves these criteria are met before embarking on designing, implementing and closing feedback control systems. . . .
“The tenuous link between CO2 greenhouse effects and the Earth’s temperature indicates humanity has no effective manipulated variable to control temperature; the steady-state gain dT/dCO2 is almost zero. If so, the system is uncontrollable. Kyoto will fail no matter what the political consensus may be.”

Furthermore,

Earth’s temperature is a chemical process system. Review of control system engineering of Earth’s thermostat with anthropogenic CO2 in 1997 proved it will never work because it is an unmeasurable, unobservable and uncontrollable system. CO2 does not affect temperature; temperature affects CO2. There are no greenhouse gases in physics. CO2 is not a pollutant; it is green plant food. Global warming stabilized since 1998

Pierre Latour Engineering Earth’s thermostat with CO2?, Hydrocarbon Processing Feb. 2010.
(emphasis added)

Robert of Ottawa

January 6, 2015 10:44 am

Likewise an electronic engineer and I agree that if there were positive feedback in the climate, then the Earth would be burnt to a crisp already. It isn’t.

Eustace Cranch

Reply to Robert of Ottawa

January 6, 2015 11:33 am

Also an EE. I think your statement is a bit too simplistic. Of course there are positive feedbacks in the climate. But they are dominated by negative feedbacks.
Almost every electrical circuit has one or more positive feedbacks (poles) at some frequencies and conditions. But if the negative feedbacks predominate, the circuit is stable.

Richard Petschauer

Reply to Eustace Cranch

January 6, 2015 11:52 am

I am also an EE. If the net feedback is positive and equal to or more than 1, thermal runaway results.
If the negative feedback factor is more than one and there is enough delay in the system, oscillation can result.

Eustace Cranch

Reply to Eustace Cranch

January 6, 2015 12:09 pm

For Richard P.:
Agree. And when you have multiple plus and minus feedbacks, you get chaotic oscillation. It may look stable at times, and then do something unpredictable. Hmm… almost like Earth’s climate!
But there seem to be hard limits on how far climate can swing. At least for the past couple billion years.

Bart

Reply to Eustace Cranch

January 6, 2015 12:44 pm

See comment below.

Robert of Ottawa

Reply to Eustace Cranch

January 6, 2015 2:33 pm

Agreed, I was thinking in short-hand.

george e. smith

Reply to Eustace Cranch

January 6, 2015 2:38 pm

“””””…..
Richard Petschauer
January 6, 2015 at 11:52 am
I am also an EE. If the net feedback is positive and equal to or more than 1, thermal runaway results……”””””
Why thermal runaway, the system may just latch up, and that could be a low dissipation condition.
PS I’m NOT an EE

Don K

Reply to Eustace Cranch

January 7, 2015 12:02 am

> Richard Petschauer
January 6, 2015 at 11:52 am
> If the negative feedback factor is more than one and there is enough delay in the system, oscillation can result.
That could be happening y’know. There is some evidence for 30 year(AMO), 60(PDO) year and longer climate cycles, but no clear notions of what might be causing them — if indeed they aren’t just artifacts imposed on random climate noise by human desire for order.
> Eustace Cranch
> But there seem to be hard limits on how far climate can swing. At least for the past couple billion years.
Generally, yes.
Quibble: One of the more extreme climate excursions seems to have occurred less than a billion years ago just before multicellular life forms started to appear http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowball_Earth

Peter Miller

Reply to Robert of Ottawa

January 6, 2015 2:25 pm

Robert
As a typical geologist in the private sector, I can tell you that your statement is self-evident. Feedback has to be negative, otherwise life on our planet would have ceased almost before it begun. Do not trust the views of government or NGO geologists on ‘climate change’ as they have to sing from the official alarmist hymn sheet, or there are employment consequences – regrettably, the same applies to almost all scientists in government or NGO employment.
Unfortunately, those in the employ of the Green Blob, like Nick Stokes, can never admit to the simple truth that feedback has to be negative, something which totally shreds CAGW theory.

tmlutas

Reply to Peter Miller

January 6, 2015 3:14 pm

Has to have been negative is a better formulation. It is at least theoretically possible that anthropogenic activity has created a positive feedback that now predominates. Of course nobody’s actually proven that and are unlikely to prove that anytime soon. To do so, we’d need to know a lot more about the current negative feedbacks and how large they are that we seem to do at present.

chris riley

Reply to Peter Miller

January 6, 2015 8:17 pm

“Feedback has to be negative, otherwise life on our planet would have ceased almost before it begun.”
It is ironic that it may become necessary for the climate alarmists to choose between accepting the Biblical 6,000 year old earth, and abandoning the nonsensical crusade that has given their lives meaning.

David L. Hagen

Reply to Peter Miller

January 7, 2015 11:24 am

tmlutas
RE: “It is at least theoretically possible that anthropogenic activity has created a positive feedback that now predominates.”
It is NOT even theoretically possible. The negative T^4 black body outward cooling radiation will dominate all anthropogenic CO2.
Natural variations still dominate. e.g. The Roman and Medieval warming periods were warmer than today.

MattN

January 6, 2015 10:44 am

As an engineer, I agree with this.

Philip

January 6, 2015 10:45 am

Nicely put!

Aphan

January 6, 2015 10:47 am

“Finally we must admit that a model may confirm our biases and support incorrect intuitions. Therefore, models are most useful when they are used to challenge existing formulations, rather than to validate or verify them. Any scientist who is asked to use a model to verify or validate a predetermined result should be suspicious.”
http://www.likbez.com/AV/CS/Pre01-oreskes.pdf
Someone just posted that quote and link over at William Briggs’s blog! It’s the concluding statement in a 1994 paper whose lead author was none other than Naomi Oreskes!! Amazing!

James Harlock

Reply to Aphan

January 6, 2015 2:33 pm

Then, she fell asleep next to a pod…

Slywolfe

January 6, 2015 10:52 am

Well promoted post
(another engineer here)

mpainter

January 6, 2015 10:53 am

Thanks Leo Smith. Its good to have this input from an engineer who knows modeling.
It is the professional world of engineers who are dedicated to achieving fidelity in models, and the standards are much higher there than in the so-called climate sciences.

mpainter

Reply to mpainter

January 6, 2015 11:11 am

In fact, the only standard adhered to by the hard-core AGW types is “if it supports AGW, buy it”
Models all the way down and little else.

BioBob

Reply to mpainter

January 6, 2015 11:56 am

You left directed empirical data “massaging & adjustment”, cheating, and incompetence.
Required reading for those that haven’t yet: http://www.anenglishmanscastle.com/HARRY_READ_ME.txt

mpainter

Reply to mpainter

January 6, 2015 4:00 pm

There are a number of things that I left out. For example, I did not mention their incestuous relationships with their family members.

Bubba Cow

January 6, 2015 10:54 am

Excellent and from the comments, I found this especially useful (don’t recall who recommend but h/t):
http://www.sciencebits.com/NothingNewUnderTheSun-I
By Nir Shaviv, Sun, 2010-06-27 14:52

lokenbr

January 6, 2015 10:57 am

Yep, another engineer here who has played with a computer model or two.

cnxtim

January 6, 2015 10:58 am

Bravo!
In the 80’s we had a contract to build a system for one of the States Waste Management Authorities. It combined physical units, stress gauges and signal devices communicating using RF data collection and feedback. We did build a model to test our real world scenarios. But despite my firm being primarily composed of computer engineers, we never dreamed of using a computer model. for simulation.
Rather we chose to build a smaller static hydraulic version of the proposed vehicle mounted unit. Chatting this over recently amongst my crew they all agreed trying to simulate all the parameters and nuances with a computer model would have been out of the question.
As for trying to simulate something as complex as the Earth’s climate, this would be, as has been proven time and time again over the last two decades, beyond ludicrous..

Samuel C Cogar

Reply to cnxtim

January 7, 2015 8:48 am

As an ole dinosaur computer designer and programmer of complex system software I hafta agree 100%.
Any attempt to create a “computer modeling program” to simulate something as complex as the Earth’s climate, ….. (or even local weather for 10 days in advance) ……. which has dozens of randomly generated “input” variables that may or may not have a direct effect at modifying each other depending upon their intensity and time of “input” ….. goes way, way beyond ludicrous.

David Socrates

Reply to Samuel C Cogar

January 7, 2015 8:58 am

If you are that old, then like me, you must remember in the days before satellite pictures and computer weather models, the best forecasts would go out only 3 days. (around the late 1960’s)…
…
Today the 5-day forecasts are quite accurate, and the 10-day is about as accurate as the old 3-day from the 1960’s

rcs

January 6, 2015 10:58 am

As a biomedical engineer and modeller, I think you are dead right.
The IPCC argument seems to be that additional water vapour in the atmosphere, due to increased CO2 temperature rise, will change the feedback from negative to positive and will create run away warming. Given that Earth has had higher CO2 levels and temperatures in the past without catastrophic temperature rises negates this argument as you point out.

Crispin in Waterloo but really in Beijing

Reply to rcs

January 6, 2015 2:50 pm

rcs : Further to your point is the claim that without CO2 there would be no water vapour in the atmosphere! The implication lies in the claim that water vapour is ‘only a feedback’, something defended with vigour ten years ago.
It would mean that sublimation would cease without CO2 present. Wow. As soon as it is admitted that water vapour is not ‘only a feedback’ the whole ‘amplification’ argument totters because it is based on it. As the water cycle strips CO2 from the atmosphere continuously it is what is in the Big Sink ocean than drives atmospheric CO2, not the reverse.

David C.

January 6, 2015 11:00 am

Nick,
Try this from Skeptical Science. It’s a slight variation on the formula explained above; the differences are beyond my limited math skills to comprehend, but they appear to be saying almost exactly the same thing.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/empirical-evidence-for-co2-enhanced-greenhouse-effect-advanced.htm

Nick Stokes

Reply to David C.

January 6, 2015 11:16 am

What is being confused here is a definition of the sensitivity to CO2 forcing, and an assertion that that is the total law governing temperature. That’s why I asked for sources. Your SkS link makes an appropriate caveat:
“Of course this is just the temperature change we expect to observe from the CO2 radiative forcing. Humans cause numerous other radiative forcings, both positive (e.g. other greenhouse gases) and negative (e.g. sulfate aerosols which block sunlight).”

Slywolfe

Reply to Nick Stokes

January 6, 2015 11:20 am

So, maybe CO2 is not a (the) problem?

David C.

Reply to Nick Stokes

January 6, 2015 11:36 am

In fairness, I think there’s less of a distinction here than you’re claiming. First, Mr. Smith doesn’t claim the formula is the “total law governing temperature.” In context, he seems to me to be talking about CO2 sensitivity; exactly comparable to the SkS formula. Second, the practical distinction is nearly non-existent. The IPCC has stated, again and again, that anthropogenic forcings (positive and negative) constitute nearly all of the temperature variation we’ve seen.
I tend to agree with the IPCC more than any other players in the climate discussion, and I understand you do as well. I can’t seem to understand your point here though. If Mr. Smith is indeed discussing CO2 sensitivity (I think he is), what is wrong with his characterization?

Nick Stokes

Reply to Nick Stokes

January 6, 2015 11:50 am

“First, Mr. Smith doesn’t claim the formula is the “total law governing temperature.”
Well, he goes on to say
“Consider an alternative:
∆T = k.log( ∆CO2) + f(∆x)”
But as SkS notes, there is no exclusiveness. ∆T is expected to respond to the sum of many influences. That is why model forcings include volcanoes, solar variations etc.
T also don’t respond immediately. That is why even the CO2 sensitivity equation has variants for ECS, TCR etc.

RockyRoad

Reply to Nick Stokes

January 6, 2015 2:43 pm

But Nick, it doesn’t matter if those climate models include all the other factors if they fixate on CO2, which they obviously do. So lying about it doesn’t justify your baseless conclusions.

dEEBEE

Reply to Nick Stokes

January 6, 2015 2:54 pm

Yet Nick they get it sorely wrong. Gues your list and theirs needs some reality. As the knobs and dials already in there do not predict reality.

Bob Boder

Reply to Nick Stokes

January 8, 2015 9:21 am

Nick as always you make a lot of comments, tell us from all your vast knowledge what is going to happen based on your understand of the climate and what the models say. Leo is willing to say that nothing is going to happen that unbalances the system because of the rise in CO2 and deminstrates the reason why. You tell us what is going to happen that way we have something to test your assertion against.
You will of course duck this request as you ALWAYS do. You are really good at saying what other people don’t know please let us hear what you do know!

Al McEachran

January 6, 2015 11:02 am

If one is looking for an inherently stable system with a negative feedback system they need not look any further than water vapor in our atmosphere. Given that there is an unlimited supply of water any increase in heat energy to the system leads to increasing concentrations of water vapor, which leads to ever increasing heat retention. Classic positive feedback and an unstable system. It does not happen of course because of condensation, cloud formation, reflected solar radiation – a negative feedback system.
Water vapor swamps the impact of CO2, otherwise our beautiful planet would not be able to sustain life as we know it. Water vapor does not care what the mechanism for heat retention is, it provides the negative feedback whatever the source.

Gary Meyers

Reply to Al McEachran

January 6, 2015 12:46 pm

Occam’s razor

Rud Istvan

Reply to Al McEachran

January 6, 2015 1:07 pm

Yes. See below for details, and inherent resulting GCM difficulties.

george e. smith

Reply to Al McEachran

January 6, 2015 2:48 pm

Well actually, that is not true.
Increased water vapor, whether clouds or not, leads to LESS solar energy reaching the surface (mostly water) where it is converted to heat and retained.
So more water vapor leads to less heat retention, and immediate negative feedback. Ozone also intercepts a significant portion of the incoming solar radiant energy also, leading to surface cooling, and CO2 does also but to a lesser degree.
The ocean evaporation / cloud formation / precipitation, is in total control of the earth’s surface temperature, via strong negative feedback.
Too cool, more precipitation, less clouds and vapor, more surface radiant energy, more warming.
Too warm, more ocean evaporation, more vapor and clouds, less surface radiant energy, less warming.

eyesonu

Reply to george e. smith

January 6, 2015 5:59 pm

That sounds like an emergent thermostatic phenomenon. Now it seems that I have read that before.

TimTheToolMan

Reply to george e. smith

January 6, 2015 6:47 pm

george e smith writes “Too warm, more ocean evaporation, more vapor and clouds, less surface radiant energy, less warming.”
Whether the warming has come from increased DLR from water vapour or from CO2 makes no difference in this scenario. The negative feedback still exists. AGW enthusiasts would have us believe that increased evaporation resulting in increased clouds results in net positive warming.
This is climate scientists’ intuition. Engineers’ intuition says otherwise. Desler’s paper (as well as Spencer and others) have fruitlessly tryed to work that out by looking at far too small a data set.

Leo Smith

Reply to george e. smith

January 6, 2015 8:43 pm

The problem is that high cloud at night retains heat by acting to reflect IR back to the surface, Low cloud by day reduces heat input to the surface by reflecting radiation back to space before it gets here. So the net effect of water in the air can be plus or minus. Also consider the higher latitudes where nights can be long and days short,. Winter cloudiness= warmer. The reverse is true in summer.
Deserts have high temperatures by day – the highest in the world – but they are cold at night, In fact the places with the highest average temperatures are more likely to be humid equatorial regions…
I don’t have an answer here. I am trying to point out that it simply ain’t that simple,
It gets worse when you start shuffling continental plates about. Lacking tectonic movement, we would have a world of little land or no land and shallow seas. the albedo of the sea is higher than land so that implies a much colder planet all round. I think that plates all at the poles is the snowball earth scenario? I cant remember. Anyone mapped the fluid dynamics if the molten sub crustal part of the earth? If sea levels did rise a couple of meters, how much land would we lose, and how much higher would the albedo be? Net cooling anyway
No answers just a huge number of known unknowns and things that climate science doesn’t necessarily model well, that leads only to the conclusions that this science ain’t settled, its massively complex and only a fool with a huge amount of vanity (and probably a beard*) would claim other wise.
* http://vps.templar.co.uk/Cartoons%20and%20Politics/Beards.png
A collection of irritating egotists not a few of whom are on the AGW bandwagon. No prizes for identifying them.

TimTheToolMan

Reply to george e. smith

January 6, 2015 11:03 pm

george e smith writes “I don’t have an answer here. I am trying to point out that it simply ain’t that simple”
That’s precisely why you cant look at individual effects and intuit which will predominate. You need to look at the problem from another perspective and that is by considering entropy.
Whatever happens, the earth with adjust its climatic processes to maximise its entropy. Its the law. So it takes the forcing that the increased CO2 will impart and then there are two options. Either the feedbacks will enhance the effect (ie decrease entropy IMO by making the surface even warmer) or it will increase entropy by working to transport that energy up to where it can be radiated away.
Looking at individual effects and trying to understand what they will each do and how they will interact is a fool’s errand IMO.

TimTheToolMan

Reply to george e. smith

January 6, 2015 11:04 pm

Oh… Leo wrote that, not George.

old construction worker

Reply to george e. smith

January 7, 2015 5:22 am

Leo Smith
“Deserts have high temperatures by day – the highest in the world – but they are cold at night,”
May I add: With the same amount of CO2 in the atmosphere
As I have said before: We live in a “swamp cooler” atmosphere.

Samuel C Cogar

Reply to george e. smith

January 7, 2015 10:07 am

Clouds, fog and mists are all forms of atmospheric water (H2O) vapor which have collected into larger “droplets” of water and are visible to the naked eye, …. and are the same as humidity which can not be seen with the naked eye. And that is because of the density of the larger “droplets” of water and the fact that any source of visible light (or IR radiation) that strikes them will be absorbed more readily and/or reflected away from them more easily.
But now the effects of clouds, fogs and mists relative to incoming solar energy and re-emitted energy from the earth’s surface ….. are quite different (extremely more pronounced) than the effects of humidity. Again, this is because of their density (mass).
Clouds, fogs and mists act as a unidirectional buffer to both the incoming solar energy and the re-radiated IR energy from the earth’s surface. And the best way to explain this is by examples.
Night time cloud cover or fog will prevent near surface air temperatures from cooling off as fast because they per say buffer the re-radiated energy from the earth’s surface.
Day time cloud cover or morning fog will prevent near surface air temperatures from warming up as fast because they per say buffer the incoming solar energy.
And this conundrum is what confuses the ell out of scientists who are trying to calculate “average surface air temperatures” ….. and which wrecks havoc with their Climate Modeling Programs ….. because it is such an important but indeterminate variable. ……. And thus, because they can not accurately calculate their affect, …… they completely ignore and omit said from any of their calculations …… and attempt to CTA by blaming everything on atmospheric CO2.
Now in the past few years they have attempted to measure the amount of cloud “cover” and estimate its effect on surface temperatures. But as far as I know, no one has ever attempted to measure the amount of fog and mist “coverage” and/or ever attempted to estimate their effect on surface temperatures.
Fogs, fogs, fogs and mists form everywhere, ….. everywhere, …… when the near-surface air temperature and the humidity (H20 vapor) are in the correct proportions.
And iffen the truth be known, the yearly total fog and mist “coverage” is probably 2X+ times what the yearly total cloud cover is.

DonM

Reply to Al McEachran

January 6, 2015 5:00 pm

Yes,
and anyone knowing anything about fluid dynamics (computational or otherwise) should easily recognize the similarities, and know that the negative feedbacks will quickly drive any bump in the system back toward the “middle”.
I have always thought of “converging system” rather than negative feedbacks. If the earth was a diverging system, then statistically, the climate would have “diverged” to another (scary) state of equilibrium before now. A small amount of CO2 increase (yes, it is relatively small) will not and can not cause a divergence to a differing operational state.
[The “doubling” or the amount of “change” relative to what has been defined as the beginning point is relatively meaningless … that is why the models are crap. Talking about a percent increase just confuses things … what is the overall carrying capacity?]
It always takes a heck of a lot of additional input to kick a natural system to another state. Based on historic numbers, this current little addition of CO2 is not a significant input to the system.

Joel O'Bryan

Reply to Al McEachran

January 6, 2015 8:19 pm

The oceans are more important than the atmosphere. If the oceans didn’t have their extreme volume (relative to the water that Venus and Mars apparently received during the heavy bombardment period), i.e. if they were shallow without cold deep water and slow overturning, the behavior of Earth’s climate would have led to a freeze-over Ice World (even snowball earth would be too nice). The shallow oceans would have frozen to the sea floor. Earth would have gone more like Mars, due to the low output of the sun in it’s first 2 billion years, with no escape due to a lack of atmospheric water vapor to hold heat as the sun warmed.

Alan Robertson

January 6, 2015 11:03 am

It all boils down to planetary connection to an astable NE555 circuit, of which we haven’t yet discovered the whereabouts, but predictably will, just before divulgence of the answer, “42”.
Other than that, Lorenz ’63 applies.

nielszoo

Reply to Alan Robertson

January 6, 2015 1:41 pm

It should be “green” so you should sub’ an ICM7555 low power.

Alan Robertson

Reply to nielszoo

January 6, 2015 6:15 pm

Shocking! How about subbing a flux capacitor…

Gavin

Reply to nielszoo

January 7, 2015 5:23 am

I’m reliably informed that ‘green’ EU WEEE regulations make it illegal to substitute ANY electronic component in an approved design 🙂

Steve in Seattle

Reply to Alan Robertson

January 7, 2015 1:06 am

God, I had forgotten all about 555’s … so funny …

David in Texas

January 6, 2015 11:06 am

My (inadequate) understanding is the GCM builders don’t contented that the climate has positive feedback in the engineering sense of the term. By positive feedback, they mean less negative feedback than radiation of black body temperature change would imply. They start by saying something like if all other things are equal, a doubling of CO2 would increase temperatures by about 1.1 deg. centigrade. This already has the negative feedback built in it due to increased radiation. Therefore, any increase in temperature due to doubling of CO2 greater than 1.1 deg. is defined as positive (even though it might be negative feedback in the engineer since of the term).
However, it would seem that as climate sensitive to a doubling of CO2 starts to get to be large (3 deg. and more) at some point you have to be talking about positive feedback in the engineer sense of the term.
Where is that point? Comments anyone?

daved46

Reply to David in Texas

January 6, 2015 11:22 am

I think the difference is that there are a number of effects, some additive and some multiplicitive which determine what the total feedback is. Some of them are positive and some negative. In the long run the negative ones must dominate or we wouldn’t be here. Therefore we shouldn’t have a single sensitivity constant.
BTW, to respond to Nick’s initial question “where do you get this from?” the answer is that Leo is converting a concept into mathematical language. Is Nick able to do the same or not? IMO, if you don’t understand the concept behind an equation, you can’t understand the equation at all. You may be able to use it, but you don’t understand it.

Bart

Reply to David in Texas

January 6, 2015 12:20 pm

See below.

Rud Istvan

Reply to David in Texas

January 6, 2015 2:24 pm

Dave in T, the difficulty is in the usage of the term feedback. In climatemodel speak, it is a change in a forcing (a forcing first derivative, so to speak) in response to CO2. Say clouds cool. That is a negative forcing. Now assume that clouds weaken with increased CO2. That would be a positive climate model feedback even though the overall cloud effect is still a negative damper on the climate system, just a bit less so. (BTW, the example posits the IPCC AR5 view of clouds, which is (a) mostly belief driven and (b) likely wrong. See essay Cloudy Clouds in Blowing Smoke.
.
In the systems engineering sense, however, clouds are still a negative damper on the overall system, and factor as a net negative into either the lamda version Leo cites, or the 1/(1-f) version Lindzen prefers, of the simple basic climate CO2 sensitivity equations. You can find about ten pages of equation explanations and footnotes in the Climate chapter of The Arts of Truth, vetted by Prof. Curry and partly guest posted on her blog back in 2012.

Bart

Reply to Rud Istvan

January 6, 2015 3:05 pm

“That would be a positive climate model feedback even though the overall cloud effect is still a negative damper on the climate system, just a bit less so.”
If clouds weakened with increased CO2 that would be a positive feedback, full stop. The sign of a dynamic feedback depends on the incremental change in forcing in response to an incremental change in the input. In your example, the lingering cooling effect of the clouds is merely a happenstance of initial conditions, or of overall stability. If the system were truly unstable, the cooling effect would quickly disappear, as all cloud cover was stripped away.
To stabilize a positive feedback, you must have a more powerful stabilizing negative feedback. This, however, is not always feasible. See below.

Samuel C Cogar

Reply to David in Texas

January 8, 2015 3:52 am

@ David in Texas: January 6, 2015 at 11:06 am

However, it would seem that as climate sensitive to a doubling of CO2 starts to get to be large (3 deg. and more)

You could triple the CO2 and it wouldn’t cause a measurable increase in near-surface air temperature.
The atmospheric H2O vapor (humidity) is always a lot greater than the CO2 and it has more than twice the Specific Heat Capacity as the CO2.
Iffen 20,000 ppm of H2O vapor (humidity) won’t burn the socks off your feet ….. then 800 ppm of CO2 won’t even warm up your big toe.

mwh

January 6, 2015 11:09 am

‘a nasty multiple (negative) feed back time delayed relaxation oscillator’.
You’ve just gotta love that!! If I understood it I would use it – up until relaxation oscillator I was with it all the way

Harry Passfield

Reply to mwh

January 6, 2015 11:45 am

mwh: I’ve used this line a few times in blogs, but for the first time I think I’ve found someone – Leo – who would understand that, as tongue-twisting as it is it is only ~90% accurate. And it would take someone like Leo to spot the illogicality of it – especially as it takes me back to hear someone talking about ‘varicaps’ and ‘interstage capacitance’ (steady now!). Other than that, the tongue-twisting phrase is not gobbledygook: It’s Parasitic oscillations due to interstage feedback in the Eccles-Jordan monostable double-diode flip-flop.
In my early life, training as an electronics engineer, we were urged to know what was going on in that circuit. (It was an impossibility, btw).

Leo Smith

Reply to mwh

January 6, 2015 8:46 pm

wiki is your friend
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relaxation_oscillator

mwh

Reply to Leo Smith

January 7, 2015 3:00 am

Thank you Leo. Wiki sometimes puts things very well. I will now spend a day putting that into context. You complain to Anthony that this shouldnt have been put out as a post and that you like people to think for themselves. I beg to differ, posts like yours may be imperfect but look at the discussion it has provoked. Leo – dont be so sensitive this is a blogsite you cant expect fair treatment all the time. Great job I reckon and thanks for posting – I finally am turning my rusty mathematical brain to ‘the’ equation, so you have certainly achieved making me think for myself!!

Bubba Cow

Reply to Leo Smith

January 7, 2015 6:34 am

Leo – I agree with mwh and I thank you for your contribution. I’m glad it was elevated to a post – look at all the response. This is much more useful to me than arguing with my neighbors about my letters to the editor.
I am further thankful for your provision of a shape of the equations, which even I can consider. And your recognition that this is no longer about maths and sciences (although I trust we will continue on here).
I agree with “No one has the skill or practice in making localised decisions anymore.” and woefully add – no one wants to.

Schrodinger's Cat

January 6, 2015 11:10 am

I totally agree. Stable systems are dominated by negative feedbacks. Our water based planet would have roasted long before now if positive water vapour feedback was dominant. It is clearly not. I can never understand why climate experts fail to grasp this.

Dr Norman Page

Reply to Schrodinger's Cat

January 6, 2015 11:57 am

They do know about it – but simply ignore it when making their models – See section 1.3.2 and Fig 2 of my post at
http://climatesense-norpag.blogspot.com/2014/07/climate-forecasting-methods-and-cooling.html
“1.3.2
The IPCC climate models are further incorrectly structured because they are based on three irrational and false assumptions. First, that CO2 is the main climate driver. Second, that in calculating climate sensitivity, the GHE due to water vapour should be added to that of CO2 as a positive feed back effect. Third, that the GHE of water vapour is always positive. As to the last point, the feedbacks cannot be always positive otherwise we wouldn’t be here to talk about it. For example, an important negative feed back related to Tropical Cyclones has recently been investigated by Trenberth, see:
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/outreach/proceedings/cdw31_proceedings/S6_05_Kevin_Trenberth_NCAR.ppt
.Fig 2 link
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ZBGetxdt0Xw/U8QyoqRJsWI/AAAAAAAAASM/ewt1U0mXdfA/s1600/TrenPPT.png

Dr Norman Page

January 6, 2015 11:12 am

All the bottom up numerical climate models are useless both because they are inherently incomputable and also because we simply do not understand well enough the physics involved in the various processes and we cannot initialize the various parameters with a grid that is of small enough size and sufficiently precise. Thise simple truths have been obvious ab initio . Yet most of the discussion on this thread continues to discuss things like ECS. radiation balance, etc as though they have some meaning.
In practice the modelers have known for some time that their models have no skill in forecasting, and they have indeed said so in the WG1 reports. The IPCC AR4 WG1 science section actually acknowledges this fact. Section IPCC AR4 WG1 8.6 deals with forcings, feedbacks and climate sensitivity. The conclusions are in section 8.6.4 which deals with the reliability of the projections. It concludes:
“Moreover it is not yet clear which tests are critical for constraining the future projections, consequently a set of model metrics that might be used to narrow the range of plausible climate change feedbacks and climate sensitivity has yet to be developed”
What could be clearer. The IPCC in 2007 said itself that we don’t even know what metrics to put into the models to test their reliability (i.e., we don’t know what future temperatures will be and we can’t calculate the climate sensitivity to CO2). This also begs a further question of what erroneous assumptions (e.g., that CO2 is the main climate driver) went into the “plausible” models to be tested any way.
Things have not improved much by the time of the AR5 WG1 report which says in FAQ 9.1
“Although future climate projections cannot be directly evaluated, climate models are based, to a large extent, on verifiable physical principles and are able to reproduce many important aspects of past response to external forcing.”
The successive uncertainty estimates in the successive “Summary for Policymakers” take no account of the structural uncertainties in the models and almost the entire the range of model outputs probably lays outside the range of the real world future climate variability. By the time of the AR5 report this is obviously the case
The IPCC has now even given up on estimating CS – the AR5 SPM says ( hidden away in a footnote)
“No best estimate for equilibrium climate sensitivity can now be given because of a lack of agreement on
values across assessed lines of evidence and studies”
but paradoxically they still claim that we can dial up a desired temperature by controlling CO2 levels .This is cognitive dissonance so extreme as to be crazy.
The key factor in making CO2 emission control policy and the basis for the WG2 and 3 sections of AR5 is the climate sensitivity to CO2. By AR5 – WG1 the IPCC itself is saying: (Section 9.7.3.3)
“The assessed literature suggests that the range of climate sensitivities and transient responses covered by CMIP3/5 cannot be narrowed significantly by constraining the models with observations of the mean climate and variability, consistent with the difficulty of constraining the cloud feedbacks from observations ”
In plain English, this means that the IPCC contributors have no idea what the climate sensitivity is. Therefore, there is no credible basis for the WG 2 and 3 reports, and the Government policy makers have no empirical scientific basis for the entire UNFCCC process and their economically destructive climate and energy policies.
We need to stop wasting time going around in circles discussing model based approaches to forecasting and base our forecasts and discussions on the natural cycles so obvious in the temperature data.
Looking at the Millennial cycle it seems very likely that we are just past a peak in the millennial cycle and can look forward to a 600 year generally cooling trend towards another LIA at about 2600.
Furthermore the climate discussion needs to move on from discussing a pause to discussing this cooling trend because in fact we have had 11 years of cooling already see
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:1980.1/plot/rss/from:1980.1/to:2003.6/trend/plot/rss/from:2003.6/trend
see my post
http://climatesense-norpag.blo…
for details and cooling forecasts. This shows that the late 20th century rise is simply the rise to the peak of the millennial cycle which peaked in the RSS series at 2003.6 give or take a couple of weeks no doubt.
This corresponds to the peak in the solar activity driver seen at about 1991 in Fig 14 of the linked post. There is about a 12 year lag between the driver peak and the RSS peak. The lag will vary according to the climate metric used and the region under consideration.
Realists might wish to celebrate every anniversary of peak heat which I calculate as 4th July 2003 at about 4pm.( or maybe 3pm!!!!!)

Dr Norman Page

Reply to Dr Norman Page

January 6, 2015 11:16 am

The second link should be
http://climatesense-norpag.blogspot.com/2014/07/climate-forecasting-methods-and-cooling.html

Bubba Cow

Reply to Dr Norman Page

January 6, 2015 12:15 pm

To separate a science model from a political one:
The political model is ∆T = k.log( ∆CO2) ‘cuz that’ll get us down the road we want, but we’ve got to baffle brains so let’s add + f(∆x) and we’ll give out bundles of money to model that holy grail, which they won’t find as Nature has hidden it but they’ll be well occupied in obfuscation, so we’ll have to do it all over again in Paris by which time we’ll have our redistribution Phase I in place for those poor souls in Vermont where it’ll be -20F tomorrow night with no sun shining nor wind blowing.
It can’t be ∆T = k( ∆anything else) because any other plan such as ∆T = k(∆solar, ocean, earth, cosmic) doesn’t enable us to take over the world’s energy game or provoke the people who we need to help get us to the party plus nothing we can do about those, but about deadly CO2, the sky’s the limit.
There is no remaining political interest whatsoever in ∆T = k.log( ∆CO2)+ f(∆x), just ∆$.

Leo Smith

Reply to Bubba Cow

January 6, 2015 8:51 pm

Sadly I can only agree.
After many years accepting AGW the investigation into the political and commercial relationships to it set off alarm bells in what passes for my brain these days.
It may not have been designed as a political and economic tool, but it sure was massaged into one very early on.
It was and remains a most convenient lie for far too many people. And a meal ticket.

Quinn the Eskimo

Reply to Dr Norman Page

January 6, 2015 12:18 pm

Excellent defenestration of the IPCC, Leo Smith and Dr. Page.
And let us note that the IPCC’s confession they are unable to come up with a best estimate of ECS comes after 30+ years of modeling effort and many billions spent on computer modeling according to the orthodox paradigm. Apart from what you have said, their theory and all of their models require and predict an upper tropical tropospheric hotspot that 60 years of balloon data and 35 years of satellite data conclusively show is not there. Modeling is a dead end because the theoretical premises are obviously wrong and the paradigm being modeled is obviously wrong.

mwh

Reply to Dr Norman Page

January 6, 2015 12:26 pm

‘but paradoxically they still claim that we can dial up a desired temperature by controlling CO2 levels .This is cognitive dissonance so extreme as to be crazy.’
A large dose of realigning themselves to a new income stream whilst hanging on to the old one, methinks. So probably finacially necessary rather than plum crazy

wacojoe

January 6, 2015 11:12 am

Engineers have the unhappy task of actually making models they use work by testing results against actuality.

Wayne Delbeke

Reply to wacojoe

January 6, 2015 5:22 pm

Yes we do, but even models we use every day can get unstable if we are not careful with parameters. Reality is a great leveller.

Jos in Winnipeg

January 6, 2015 11:25 am

Great post Leo Smith. The fact that we haven’t yet been fried to a crisp, via involvement of water vapour and positive feedback effects acting on temperature perturbations, clearly indicates that there are overarching net negative feedbacks operating in the system. The remarkable stability of temperature of the global climate system over geological time scales attests to that.

Salvatore Del Prete

January 6, 2015 11:30 am

http://www.bing.com/search?q=indroduction+.Piocene+climate+processes+and+problems&src=IE-TopResult&FORM=IETR02&conversationid=
Until the past known climate changes can be explained which they can’t no model is going to have any clue on the future climate.
The Pliocene warm period 3 to 4 million years ago is such a great example of our lack of knowledge when it comes to the climate. Why was it so much warmer then (some 3.0C warmer) in contrast to today when CO2 concentrations were only slightly higher then today at around 425ppm? What were the reasons for the climate to go from the warm Pliocene to the cold Pleistocene?
Until climate models can simulate this ,they have no business in being used to predict future climatic conditions going forward based on CO2 increases.
Anthony a possible topic for future discussion could be why did the climate change from the warm Pliocene to the glaciated Pleistocene. Reason being how can a future forecast be made when even in hindsight no explanations or model simulations can be produced to explain why the climate did what it did in any comprehensive adequate fashion.

Badgerbod

January 6, 2015 11:36 am

Brilliantly readable. What I have learnt in 30 years of commerce is that in the end, the guys who have to make the stuff the salesmen sell perform some near miracles to satisfy the salesman’s portrait of the product. But if it cannot be engineered, it cannot be engineered and salesmen should always qualify the product with the engineer before they make their pitch. Problem in this context, is the salesmen continue to try and sell when the product clearly doesn’t work and would have been well advised to check with the engineers before they started

Philip Peake

January 6, 2015 11:37 am

Any electrical/electronic engineer learns early that positive feedback leads to melt-down (sometimes, literally). The only place it has is in an oscillator, and even then it needs to have some negative feedback applied to limit the positive feedback if you are interested in signal purity.
I find it totally incomprehensible that anyone with half a brain could believe that the earth has unconstrained positive feedbacks, and that it has survived this long without locking up into a frozen ball of ice or a glowing desert.
The feedbacks are (obviously, IMHO) negative.
But, of course, if that is true, CAGW doesn’t have a leg to stand on.

Philip Peake

Reply to Philip Peake

January 6, 2015 11:45 am

Actually, I will modify this to mention another use of positive feedback, one which is probably only familiar to older readers – the regenerative receiver.
These were common at one point, and worked by having a tuned circuit to select the signal (like a crystal set), followed by an rf amplifier which had a positive feedback circuit. As you increased the positive feedback, the gain increased enormously, as did the selectivity of the receiver.
Using these receivers was an art. You had to tweak the feedback to amplify the signal for good reception, but not too far, otherwise you rapidly had nothing but a loud squeal, and the receiver turned into a transmitter, annoying neighbors trying to listen for many miles around.
Anyone that has used one of these will understand just how touchy anything with positive feedback is.
If you ever find yourself on a planet with positive feedbacks in its climate system, by advice is to get off it as soon as possible!

Leonard Lane

Reply to Philip Peake

January 6, 2015 4:38 pm

Thank you Philip.

George Kralovec

Reply to Philip Peake

January 6, 2015 6:41 pm

Built several of these as a kid. The super regenerative version was even more impressive in it’s performance. You could get the gain of a five tube radio with one tube. The drawback was that it oscillated in the process and transmitted a strong wideband white noise signal centered at the frequency you were receiving, while you were receiving. It was OK to use in the higher ham bands (6 meters and above), but not neighbor friendly if used in the FM broadcast or TV bands.

Leo Smith

Reply to Philip Peake

January 6, 2015 9:18 pm

My first one was a super- regenerative receiver. Designed to be in constant crashing broad band oscillation, and only to step into line when it detected a signal. Almost any signal which was its main drawback. It was for model aeroplanes. In order to ensure I was not subject to ‘adjacent transmitters’ I built a thoroughly illegal 5W transmitter. I could fly with the ‘superhets’ and control any other super regen in the air. And did on more than one occasion when they flew out of range of their commercial 50mW transmitters ‘but are you on my frequency’ ‘I can assure you, it doesn’t matter’.
The receivers were also capable of chattering gaily to ‘Voice of America’ which was a MHz away or so.
The transmitter proved massively able to completely (temporarily) destroy any TV within 20 meters too.
A fact I passed on years later to a friend who had a neighbour given to playing loud music at 3 a.m. A simple time generators and a blagged ex police band transmitter deliberately detuned was enough to almost destroy his loudspeakers. The message eventually got through..
Who says engineers dont have fun…actually in neighbours my best ever was being kept awake by a nice but noisy bunch of grunts fresh back from the first gulf war…in a fit of frustration I leapt out of bed, without bothering to put on a single thing, and grabbing a very loud firework planted it under their window, lit it, and leapt back to hear the results of a an air burst directly overhead – the language was extremely colourful and I think I heard at least one person ‘taking cover’,
That did shut them up. We got quite friendly afterwards. They never asked and I never told..
BTW strictly speaking an oscillator does not have positive feedback., It has delayed negative feedback. It then oscillates at a frequency where the delay is equal to n half cycles of the output waveform.
And that is the point about time delays and negative feedback,. It makes things oscillate. so given something like the gulf stream which takes what – several years to do the round trip, you will get an oscillation of about twice the delay period in length.
I dont know how long it takes to thaw a continental ice sheet, but there’s a lovely big delay as well.
the earth is full of large objects with lots of thermal mass, and not a few of which exhibit extremely non linear responses to temperature. Ice will slowly warm as the temperature rises but lag behind a huge amount, until it starts to melt, and there the temperature will stay until its essentially all melted. There is a huge barrier to get an ice sheet from 0C to 1C and a huge delay. BUT once it starts if its over land, the permafrost will vanish rapidly. As the land absorbs far more sunlight. That could explain the rapid end of ice ages, but I still dont understand why they start. the relaxation oscillator model implies a bistable state with a bit of differential delay. Why does cooling happen more slowly than warming? I dont know.

Phil.

Reply to Philip Peake

January 7, 2015 1:00 pm

BTW strictly speaking an oscillator does not have positive feedback., It has delayed negative feedback. It then oscillates at a frequency where the delay is equal to n half cycles of the output waveform.
If you build a Wien bridge oscillator it has both a negative feedback loop and a positive feedback loop with delay, giving a net gain of one (to guarantee it works, slightly more than 1.0 is good). Oscillates nicely with sufficient overall gain but with a gain of 0.99 nothing.

Harry Passfield

Reply to Philip Peake

January 6, 2015 11:50 am

Philip: +10

asybot

Reply to Harry Passfield

January 6, 2015 3:47 pm

Thanks Philip, I was trying to put in to words that exact same thing. As a young tinkerer with chrystal radios, my parents did get the occasional complaint about excessive noise from some where around our house And to Mr. Smith thanks for the post to me it was very understandable and cleared up a lot of fuzzy things, thanks again.

Hank McCard

Reply to Philip Peake

January 6, 2015 2:22 pm

It’s rather interesting that most electrical/electronic engineers learned about positive and negative feedback loops long before hearing about climate models … Many of the above-listed comments by EE’s indicate how negative feedback was a design option to restrain uncontrollable positive feed back in non-linear circuits.

Chris in Australia

Reply to Philip Peake

January 6, 2015 2:31 pm

I worked for forty years as a process control engineer in the oil industry (Big Oil).
Some positive feedback is used in some control loops but is modulated by time delayed, over-whelming negative feedbacks.
Overall, the whole plant, e.g. oil refinery, is kept stable by negative feedbacks.
If this is not the case and positive feedbacks get control, you will soon find that your oil refinery has disappeared off the map. And usually, along with a bunch of workers.

dEEBEE

Reply to Philip Peake

January 6, 2015 2:59 pm

Th feedback cannot be negative, otherwise there will be no tipping point scare

Robert W Turner

January 6, 2015 11:39 am

This argument is what drove me to the skeptic side in the first place and it’s one we know with almost no doubt to be true. There has been possibly several occasions where the Earth’s climate system has not been stable, i.e. Permo-Triassic extinction, but for the most part it is a remarkably stable. Calling the climate instable over the past 200 years is akin to saying a slate top pool table top is uneven because you looked at it under an SEM.

Rud Istvan

Reply to Robert W Turner

January 6, 2015 2:29 pm

+10. That is why Mann’s hockey stick that disappeared MWP and LIA is so important to warmunists, and will be part of their Lysenko equivalent end.

bones

Reply to Rud Istvan

January 7, 2015 11:53 am

+11

Kermit

January 6, 2015 11:39 am

Good article. I come from another angle. I have spent more than two decades using computer models to anticipate commodity market price changes. These are also, as the IPCC calls climate, coupled, non-linear chaotic systems. Recently I got into a discussion over at ARS Technica, where I made the point that what was being done was a clear case of curve-fitting a computer model to (poor quality) historical data. I did not receive a good welcome when I pointed out that climate modeling was very similar to what Richard Feynman wrote about and called Cargo Cult Science. In fact, what is being done in the modeling to determine sensitivity factors appears exactly like what Feynman talks about with an example of Millikan measuring the charge on an electron. I referred to Euan Mearns’ blog. I won’t repeat everything here, but if anyone is interested, this is the last page of the ARS Technica comments:
http://arstechnica.com/science/2014/12/emit-some-co2-its-warming-influence-should-peak-in-about-a-decade/?comments=1&start=160

dEEBEE

Reply to Kermit

January 6, 2015 3:14 pm

Aging done the same for about the same number of years, IMO, the climate models are worse than the $3,000 commodity trading systems commonly available with parameters or rules tightly fitted to the past.

Alx

Reply to Kermit

January 6, 2015 7:40 pm

Cargo Cult behavior has been a significant issue in all software development. I may have the details wrong, but the gist is during WWII natives on an island were trained to wave flags to guide incoming planes delivering supplies. The supplies were shared with the appreciative natives. When the war was over the allies and their planes left, but the natives still went out to the runways waving the landing flags expecting the planes to deliver useful supplies as they had in the past. The moral of the story for developers is before you can program a system you have to understand how the system works. Sounds obvious but your would be surprised how much programming can go on with little understanding of what the hell is going on.
The natives obviously did not understand the relationship between the delivery of supplies and their flag waving. In the same way climate modelers are programming away while having little understanding of the system (climate) they are modeling. A pretty excellent example of Cargo Cult Science.

Todd

January 6, 2015 11:40 am

I am just trying to figure this out. The equation:
∆T = λ.k.log( ∆CO2)
must have some valid region of operation, right?
Clearly, going from one molecule of CO2 int the atmosphere to two molecules does not produce the same result as going from 250 ppm to 500 ppm.
Also, isn’t the form of this equation wrong?
Going from 250 ppm to 300 ppm (delta of 50 ppm) cannot have the same effect as going from 1100 ppm to 1150 ppm, right? What am I missing?

Nick Stokes

Reply to Todd

January 6, 2015 11:59 am

Indeed so. As I noted above, it should be
∆T = λ.k.∆(log( CO2))

Curious George

Reply to Nick Stokes

January 6, 2015 1:10 pm

Nick, do you agree that if we remove all CO2, the hell will freeze over?

Tom Trevor

Reply to Nick Stokes

January 7, 2015 9:32 am

So Nick why do we have quote you, but you don’t quote others?

Patrick Collins

Reply to Todd

January 6, 2015 2:23 pm

I’m sure someone will correct me if necessary… The CO2 doubling constant is valid if the initial and final CO2 levels are sufficient to absorb and re-radiate all of the earth emitted energy in the CO2 sensitive band. Going from 1 to 2 total atmospheric CO2 molecules would invalidate the formula, out of band.

January 6, 2015 11:51 am

Todd, the log function takes care of the delta.
Inside the log() can only be a pure number- no units. So a ratio of the CO2. If it goes from 100 to 200 OR from 200 to 4000ppm, both doublings, then the ratio is 200/100=2 or 400/200=2. the same.
In your example 300/250 does not equal 1150/1100, even though the change is 50ppm.
This is from the logarithmic form of Beers law. The ratio of intensities is the transmission, but Beer’s law is based on absorbance which is log of the transmittance.

Owen in GA

Reply to J

January 6, 2015 12:19 pm

What you are stating isn’t really $\Delta\left(CO_2\right)$ but more like $\frac{CO_{2_f}-CO_{2_i}}{CO_{2_i}}$

Phil.

Reply to J

January 7, 2015 1:06 pm

It’s not from Beer’s law, it’s due to spectral broadening, for weak absorbers it’s linear, moderate absorbers it’s log and strong absorbers it’s square root.

Rob

January 6, 2015 11:53 am

Well explained article in terms even a geologist could understand. I would however, exchange ‘continental drift’ with the term plate tectonics.

Stephen Skinner

Reply to Rob

January 6, 2015 12:07 pm

Why?

LeeHarvey

Reply to Stephen Skinner

January 6, 2015 12:52 pm

Makes the continents seem like vagrants, otherwise.

Rob

Reply to Stephen Skinner

January 7, 2015 3:56 pm

@Stephen
Plate Tectonics is the modern term, continents don’t drift, they are components of the lithospheric plates that are driven by Earth’s mantle convection. Leo is spot on to point out that processes associated with plate tectonics have far greater impact to overall ‘climate’ than a singular minor atmospheric compound. Plate tectonics showed how scientists (geologists, physicists, biologists, and oceanographers) pieced together fundamental data, ideas, and many wrong directions (to help identify the right direction) to provide and predict meaningful discovery (and to continue to modify those ideas, without jerry rigging outcomes), something that CO2 driven climate change and climate science in general (in its current format) just can’t seem to do.

Leo Smith

Reply to Rob

January 6, 2015 9:24 pm

showing my age. ‘continental drift’ was in my day the hottest and most controversial thing in geography class.
IT became plate tectonics about that time. In fact reviewing the wiki entry shows that actually plate tectonics was the mechanism that finally explained why contnents did in fact drift.

PiperPaul

January 6, 2015 11:55 am

I rate this post +0.0103 on the Inverse Tiljander Scale.

parochial old windbag

January 6, 2015 11:56 am

I’ve just been thirty years into the future and taken a look around. The weather is fine. It was the least of our problems. The biggest obstacle we faced in those three decades was the suffocating self-righteousness of the scientific classes. Fortunately, eventually, we abandoned science when we realised it was nothing but window dressing for the same smug certainties that have always tripped up humankind. I’m right. You’re wrong. You don’t know the basic physics. Why I oughta…..

Yawrate

January 6, 2015 11:59 am

From a control systems engineer, nicely done! Thank you Leo.

David S

January 6, 2015 12:00 pm

The futility of climate models is as futile as arguing against AGW alarmists. Whilst we may win every individual argument . AGW propaganda and indoctrination is winning the war. If actual climate results as have occurred over the last 18 years can’t swing the debate in our favour then the discrediting of climate formulations aren’t going to do it either. Unfortunately the population of decision makers who spend our money on this climate nonsense are not listening and only selectively hear arguments that further their own interests. Any logical discussion is ignored.
If people don’t understand that validation of models can only be proven correct by showing them working in the real world then showing them that their models are wrong isn’t going to do it. Ironically the AGW movement spends most of its time trying to change facts to fit its models. There is no acceptance that their models could be ( and in fact clearly are) wrong. When all the headlines say is that 2014 was a record year ( although it wasn’t ), they should be saying that 2014 was another year of climate model failures.
No amount of disproving of models is going to stop the determination of the AGW alarmists to push their agenda.

Rud Istvan

Reply to David S

January 6, 2015 1:20 pm

You have a vote. Use it. You have a voice. Use it in places like op eds and letters to your representatives. When Naomi Oreskes babbles in the NYT about loosening evidentiary standards, you may be sure reality (pause, polar ice, sea level, polar bears, busted Energiewende in Germany, …) is finally catching up to warmunist propaganda. It is just that there is a ways to go yet given all the vested reputational and financial interests in CAGW. Rome was not built in a day. CAGW won’t be unbuilt in a day, either.

Jim Francisco

Reply to David S

January 6, 2015 3:53 pm

I think you make a very good point David S. I have been trying to figure out how this horror story can be stopped. Arguing the science is not working. Maybe some kind of amnesty period for the lead CAGW people. A guaranteed job of equal pay. I know we would like to see them punished for the harm they have caused but just as punishing Germany after WW1 did not turn out well they should be offered a way out before they cause any more harm.

Chris Wright

Reply to David S

January 7, 2015 6:15 am

Sadly, the only thing that may bring this immoral nonsense to an end is sustained global cooling….
Or would it? My guess is that the vast majority of people don’t actually know there has been no warming in this century. Simply by trumpeting every new short-term record, which has zero scientific significance, people will assume that the records must have been caused by continued global warming.
Having said that, after sustained global cooling, there will probably be no more warm records, depending on how much the records are ‘adjusted’. But I’m sure these people will find ways of deceiving everyone with the enthusiastic help of the BBC, the Guardian and all the others. Apart from anything else, many jobs depend on the continued climate change scare.
Chris

Stephen Skinner

January 6, 2015 12:03 pm

The trouble is listening to engineers went out of fashion around the early 80s and around the same time science had to start proving itself economically. How has that turned out? Although, I think in the UK we stopped listening to engineers a while before.
Thank you for this Leo. The key line for me was:
“The miracle of AGW is that all this (previous paragraphs) has been simply tossed aside, or considered some kind of constant, or a multiplier of the only driver in town, CO2.”

masInt branch 4 C3I in is

January 6, 2015 12:04 pm

Two thumbs up for the article.
I would revise ‘Continental Drift’ to Plate Tectonics (mantle recycling of carbon, hydrogen, sulfur and silica compounds (with a load of heavy elements) on long time scales and aerosols on short time scales and mountains like the himalayas et al that add steering to the near-surface wind fields — Greenland among other things has elevations in excess of 3 km at Summit [high, dry and dang cold]).

Bart

January 6, 2015 12:04 pm

Eustace Cranch @ January 6, 2015 at 11:33 am
David in Texas @ January 6, 2015 at 11:06 am
You fellows make the point that is generally used to explain all this away – you can have internal positive feedbacks if the system is dominated by negative feedback to stabilize it. The positive feedback then simply results in magnification.
However, it cannot simply be taken for granted that it would. For example, suppose we have a perturbed system of the form
dT/dt = -alpha*T + beta*C
and suppose C is a function of temperature and external forcing, C = gamma*T + f. Then,
dT/dt = -(alpha-beta*gamma)*T + beta*f
The system is stable if alpha – beta*gamma is greater than zero. The alpha term tends to be very large, because it is related to T^4 radiation (alpha is proportional to To^3 where To is the temperature state about which the equations are linearized), so the system would almost certainly be stable.
Now, however, suppose that C obeys a differential equation of the form
dC/dt = gamma*T + f
This system with the dT/dt equation above is always unstable – the solutions of the characteristic equation are at -alpha/2 +/- sqrt((alpha/2)^2 + beta*gamma), and one of the roots is always positive.
Climate models generally assume the CO2 response for C as in the first case. In actual fact, CO2 evolves according to the second case.
Even with the massive negative feedback of SB radiation, this system would be unstable. Result: it is not possible to have significant sensitivity of temperature to CO2 in the present climate state.

Bart

Reply to Bart

January 6, 2015 12:07 pm

I should have specified that alpha, beta, and gamma are all positive constant values based on the linearization of the dynamic model.

David Socrates

Reply to Bart

January 6, 2015 12:17 pm

Bart, Hocker made the same mistake that McLean (2009) made in his ENSO paper.
1) Correlation is not causation
2) Taking the derivative removes the long term trend(s)
PS….why are you now using a running mean of 24 instead of the 12 in previous incarnations of your “graph?”

Bart

Reply to David Socrates

January 6, 2015 12:21 pm

Not going to let you pollute this thread with your inanities. Go away.

David Socrates

Reply to David Socrates

January 6, 2015 12:23 pm

Look at how the “derivative” removes the long term trend of the data
..
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/esrl-co2/from:1959/derivative/plot/esrl-co2/from:1959/offset:-330

Ferdinand Engelbeen

Reply to David Socrates

January 7, 2015 11:15 am

Bart as proven to you plenty of times, the year by year variability is caused by (tropical) vegetation (proven by the reverse CO2 and δ13C variations), which reacts on temperature (and drought) changes (Pinatubo, El Niño). Higher temperatures give more temporarily CO2 release, until the “fuel” (vegetation debris of previous years) is gone or the temperature/drought is reversing.
The longer term (> 3 years) increase of CO2 is proven not from vegetation, as (global) vegetation is a net sink for CO2 since ~1990.
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/temp_dco2_d13C_mlo.jpg
Two different processes, short and long term, which have nothing to do with each other. That means that you can’t deduce from the short term variability that the long term increase in C is temperature dependent…

David Socrates

Reply to David Socrates

January 7, 2015 11:29 am

Bart hasn’t “proven” anything.
…
If he claims “causation” he’s committing the same error(s) that McLean and Hockey made.
..
1) Correlation is not causation.
2) The derivative removes the long term trend.

Bart

Reply to David Socrates

January 7, 2015 12:10 pm

No, Ferdinand, you are wrong. As explained many times, there is no evidence of the phase distortion which would be necessary for your assertions to hold any water.

Ferdinand Engelbeen

Reply to David Socrates

January 7, 2015 3:43 pm

Bart, there is no phase distortion if one CO2 producing/removing process is temperature dependent and the other CO2 producing process is not temperature dependent (as is the case for human emissions).
Neither if two independent processes are both temperature dependent: the seasonal variability and the 2-3 years disturbances both depend on temperature, but the disturbances have no influence on the phase lag of CO2 after temperature over the seasons, which is opposite to the reaction of CO2 on temperature for the disturbances.
You still think that one process is responsible both for short term and long term CO2 changes caused by temperature…

Bart

Reply to David Socrates

January 7, 2015 5:00 pm

No. Wrong. The slope in temperature has to cause the slope in the rate of change of CO2 unless it is taken out. Taking it out would require a high pass filtering operation which takes out the trend, while leaving very low frequency components untouched. That dynamic necessarily would leave a marked phase distortion right in the middle of the observation band.
It isn’t there. The slope in temperature therefore necessarily is causing the slope in CO2 concentration. Human emissions also have a slope in the rate of change. There is little room for them which is not already explained by the temperature relationship. Ergo, human emissions cannot be having a significant impact.
This is all quite ordinary behavior for a negative feedback system. There really is no doubt about it.

Bart

Reply to David Socrates

January 7, 2015 5:16 pm

What you do not seem to get, Ferdinand, is that your idealized “short term” process can only be short term if it does not react to the slope in temperature, i.e., if it has a high pass response. That response would necessarily distort the phase. It doesn’t. Therefore, your conceptualization of what is driving the short and long term is wrong.

David Socrates

Reply to David Socrates

January 9, 2015 6:21 pm

PS Mr. Bart
…
Just a suggestion for you in future analysis of data.
…
If you take the 12 or 24 month mean of one variable in your chart (i.e. CO2)…make sure you also take the 12/24 month mean of the temperature in the same chart. Because if you do not do that, you are making the mistake of comparing apples to oranges.
Your chart will then look like this.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/esrl-co2/from:1959/mean:24/derivative/plot/hadcrut4sh/from:1959/mean:24/scale:0.22/offset:0.10
Good luck fixing that chart to “prove” something

Robert B

Reply to Bart

January 6, 2015 3:45 pm

A bit of hand waving might be more effective. LS wrote “If such a feedback existed, any driver of temperature, from a minor change in the suns output, to a volcanic eruption must inevitably trigger massive temperature changes.” More importantly, if the models require volcanic eruptions and variable out put of air-borne aerosols from human activity to produce periods of pauses, how come the correlation is so good?
http://www.woodfortrees.org/graph/esrl-co2/from:1959/mean:24/derivative/plot/hadcrut4sh/from:1959/scale:0.22/offset:0.10

Ferdinand Engelbeen

Reply to Robert B

January 7, 2015 11:29 am

Robert, you are looking at the small year-by-year variability around the trend, which is (near) entirely caused by temperature changes. The variability is +/- 1 ppmv around the trend.
The trend itself is (near) entirely caused by human emissions, as these show an incredible high correlation with the increase in the atmosphere of 95 ppmv with 170 ppmv of human emissions since 1900:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/acc_co2_1900_cur.jpg
In this case I am pretty sure that human emissions cause the increase, as the reverse cause-and-effect would be rather impossible.
Further, it would be very difficult for any natural cause to have the same effect in exact ratio and timing as human emissions…

Bart

Reply to Robert B

January 7, 2015 12:12 pm

This plot has almost zero information in it beyond an increase in both emissions and atmospheric concentration. It has no probative value for the debate.

Bart

Reply to Robert B

January 7, 2015 12:44 pm

Here is a similar plot versus the temperature integral.
http://i1136.photobucket.com/albums/n488/Bartemis/tempco2_zps55644e9e.jpg

Ferdinand Engelbeen

Reply to Robert B

January 7, 2015 3:59 pm

Except that plotting the integral of temperature has no physical meaning: if you have a fixed temperature offset, that doesn’t produce a continuous stream of CO2 in the atmosphere without a reaction of the increased CO2 pressure in the atmosphere on CO2 influx and outflux in the oceans (and vegetation):
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/upwelling_temp.jpg
The difference between the temperature increase and the CO2 increase is quite clear:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/temp_co2.jpg
A temperature change of near halve the scale has hardly an effect on CO2 levels, but double that would give the 100 ppmv increase over 112 years…
Further, the 1960-1975 period shows a decrease in temperature, 1975-2000 an increase, 2000-current is flat, while CO2 simply follows human emissions, not temperature:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/temp_co2_acc_1960_cur.jpg

Bart

Reply to Robert B

January 7, 2015 4:53 pm

“…the integral of temperature has no physical meaning…”
Yes, it does. If the ocean surface is being progressively driven higher in CO2 concentration, that produces outgassing which progressively drives atmospheric concentration higher, and the rate of outgassing is temperature modulated.
You keep trying to impose what you want the dynamic to be instead of coming to terms with what the data indicate it is. The rate of change of CO2 in the atmosphere is unequivocally related affinely to global temperature anomaly. There is no doubt about it.

Bart

Reply to Robert B

January 7, 2015 4:54 pm

To clarify, Ii the ocean surface is being progressively driven higher in CO2 concentration due to upwelling of CO2 enriched waters, then the rest follows.

David Socrates

Reply to Robert B

January 7, 2015 5:02 pm

“There is no doubt about it.”
..
Yes there is a lot of doubt about it.
Namely that human emissions of CO2 are the cause, not “T”

Bart

Reply to Robert B

January 7, 2015 5:03 pm

Any process which influences CO2 concentration with relatively steady, temperature modulated, rate would beget an essentially affine relationship between CO2 concentration and the integral of temperature. There is nothing unphysical about it.

David Socrates

Reply to Robert B

January 7, 2015 5:05 pm

Bart, the oceans are a sink for CO2 not a curse with respect to atmospheric concentrations of CO2

David Socrates

Reply to Robert B

January 7, 2015 5:06 pm

Typo….”source” not “curse”

dbstealey

Reply to Robert B

January 7, 2015 5:57 pm

Socks says:
Yes there is a lot of doubt about it.
Namely that human emissions of CO2 are the cause, not “T”
I’ll agree with the first part if you replace “a lot” with “little”. It’s no big deal, just a matter of degree.
The second part of your comment is what’s called a non sequitur. It’s just an assertion, baseless in this case, which doesn’t follow.

David Socrates

Reply to Robert B

January 7, 2015 6:08 pm

Dbstealey
…
I can’t replace “a lot” with “a little” because the 40% increase of CO2 from 280 ppmv to 400 ppmv is due to humans, and not due to “T”
If you think that “T” is the cause, I suggest you look at the ice core record.
…
Back 175,000 years ago, when “T” was higher than it is today, yet CO2 never exceeded 300 ppmv

dbstealey

Reply to Robert B

January 7, 2015 6:47 pm

Socks says:
when “T” was higher than it is today, yet CO2 never exceeded 300 ppmv
Most folks would say, “Of course, global temps go up despite CO2, not because of it!” Duh…

David Socrates

Reply to Robert B

January 7, 2015 6:53 pm

Whazzzamatta Mr. Dbstealey…..do you have a problem facing the fact that 175,000 years ago, CO2 was not at 400 ppmv?

David Socrates

Reply to Robert B

January 7, 2015 7:03 pm

In other words, why didn’t CO2 follow T?

dbstealey

Reply to Robert B

January 7, 2015 7:41 pm

Socks, get a grip on reality.
The entire claim of you and your alarmist pals is that a rise in CO2 [“carbon”] will lead to runaway global warming. At least that’s the basic scare — but as each piece of it is debunked in turn, it constantly morphs into a slightly new narrative.
So, you folks have a problem. Because as you have been forced to admit by the real world, global T can rise fast without any added CO2.
Welp. There goes your whole conjecture, along with your scare.
As you see, I don’t have a problem. But you do: credibility.

David Socrates

Reply to Robert B

January 7, 2015 7:44 pm

Dbstealey, your deflection doesn’t work
…
Why is it that 175,000 years ago, when it was warmer than it is today, did CO2 not exceed 300 ppmv?

Ferdinand Engelbeen

Reply to Robert B

January 8, 2015 1:07 am

Bart, there is no phase distortion because the CO2 reactions on temperature are from different processes with largely different phases:
1. seasonal:
– 5 ppmv/°C
– CO2 down with temperature
– CO2 and δ13C opposite to each other
– cause: extra-tropical vegetation
2. short term (2-3 years):
– 4-5 ppmv/°C
– CO2 up with temperature
– CO2 and δ13C opposite to each other
– cause: tropical vegetation
3. (very) long term:
– 8 ppmv/°C
– CO2 up with temperature
– CO2 and δ13C parallel each other
– cause: deep oceans
4. past 160 years:
– +110 ppmv
– temperature independent
– CO2 and δ13C opposite to each other
– cause: human emissions
The short term processes don’t react on the long term changes, because these have “phases” far beyond any influence on the short term phases: thousands of years for the deep oceans to at least 680 years for human emissions, which are not temperature dependent. If you combine a short term variation with a very long term increase, there is no distortion at all, even not after integration:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/matlab_sin_t_co2_slope.jpg

Ferdinand Engelbeen

Reply to Robert B

January 8, 2015 3:16 am

Bart :
Yes, it does. If the ocean surface is being progressively driven higher in CO2 concentration, that produces outgassing which progressively drives atmospheric concentration higher, and the rate of outgassing is temperature modulated.
Come on Bart, that needs an incredible coincidence of timing and quantities compared to human emissions: upwelling (and temperature) increasing in ratio with human emissions since 1850, which is contradicted by about all observations:
– Oceans are net sinks for CO2 as all observations of DIC (total carbon) and recently pH show.
– Oceans have a positive δ13C rate. Both the atmosphere and the ocean surface show a sharp drop in δ13C, in ratio to human emissions. If the deep oceans should give extra upwelling, the δ13C should go up in the atmosphere, not down.
– More upwelling also means more uptake, as the mass balance for natural circulation is more sink than source. But there is not the slightest indication for an increased throughput of CO2 through the atmosphere, to the contrary.
– Temperature has its ups and downs, but CO2 simply follows human emissions, not temperature.

Bart

Reply to Robert B

January 8, 2015 9:53 am

I you truly understood how feedback systems work, you would know that it is not only not unlikely, but quite ordinary. And, no, your demonstration is not applicable. You have temperature driving the rate of change of CO2. That temperature has a trend in it, as well as shorter term variation. The response must be to all components, unless the trend is somehow filtered out. That filtering process would leave signs of phase distortion. There is none. Hence, the trend in temperatures is causing the trend in the rate of change of CO2. Emissions also have a trend in their rate of input. There is no significant room left over for them.
There is no way around it, and all your handwaving assertions cannot change it. There is no doubt about it. A temperature modulated process is the driver of atmospheric CO2. Human inputs have little effect.

Ferdinand Engelbeen

Reply to Robert B

January 8, 2015 12:53 pm

Bart:
I you truly understood how feedback systems work
Bart I may have forgotten most of the theoretical background, but after 34 years of practical work with chemical processes, including a few run-away reactions, I think that I know what a feedback process is.
What you don’t see is that the temperature driving CO2 has a very limited influence on CO2 levels over all historical times and there is hardly any feedback from CO2 on temperature.
That means that nature has managed to keep an equilibrium between temperature and CO2 levels of ~8 ppmv/K over at least the past 800,000 years with sufficient fast (order of decades) negative feedbacks
You have temperature driving the rate of change of CO2.
That is what you think, but temperature levels drive CO2 levels over all times with a lag, except for the past 160 years, and the rate of change of temperature drives the rate of change of CO2. Temperature doesn’t drive the rate of change of CO2 as there is no lag between T and dCO2/dt in the short term variability, that is an artifact from taking the derivative of only one of the two variables. The lag is between dT/dt and dCO2/dt.
The slope of dT/dt is near zero and not responsible for the slope in dCO2/dt, but the slope of dCO2/dt(emissions) is twice the slope of dCO2/dt(atmosphere)…
Further, you reject all observations which demonstrate that your theory can’t be true: vegetation is a proven sink for CO2, based on the oxygen balance. The oceans are a proven sink of CO2, based on the mass balance, millions of DIC and pCO2 (and recently pH) measurements and the too high δ13C level, which excludes the oceans as important source both for an increase in throughput and an increase in the atmosphere. And there is not the slightest sign of an increased release of CO2 from any other source, known or unknown…
As human emissions fit all observations and your theory doesn’t fit any observation, I think that there is more than sufficient proof that your theory isn’t right…

David Socrates

Reply to Robert B

January 8, 2015 1:07 pm

Ferdinnand.
…
No amount of physical real world evidence that you can provide will persuade Bart to renounce his “theory”. The reason is clear. Bart is using the definition of causation as his linchpin. Bart’s logic goes like this. T causes CO2 under all conditions. Since T is a cause, and CO2 is the effect, therefore CO2 cannot cause warming, hence AGW is false.
So, no matter how much evidence you have that CO2 levels today are independent of T, Bart cannot accept the evidence, as it destroys his logical construct.

Bart

Reply to Robert B

January 8, 2015 4:41 pm

“What you don’t see is that the temperature driving CO2 has a very limited influence on CO2 levels over all historical times…”
Nobody sees that. They infer it from preconceptions, and dubious proxy measurements which superficially seem consistent with it. But, consistency is not proof, the proxies are not verifiable, and the preconceptions are not unique.
In the end, though, it does not matter whether they are right or wrong. We do not need to know the manner in which temperatures affected CO2 in the long ago past to know what the relationship is in the modern era. It is evident that, since at least 1958, the rate of change of CO2 is modulated by temperatures.
“…and there is hardly any feedback from CO2 on temperature.”
I mostly agree with that. If there is any positive feedback, it is squelched by other negative feedbacks. If it were not, the system would be unstable.
“That is what you think, but temperature levels drive CO2 levels over all times with a lag, except for the past 160 years…”
To be specific, a 90 degree phase lag, since at least 1958. And, that requires an integral relationship.
“…and the rate of change of temperature drives the rate of change of CO2. “
No. It is quite clear from the plots. There is absolutely no wiggle room. The empirical relationship is
dCO2/dt = k*(T – T0)
Temperature is driving the rate of change of CO2 in the atmosphere, and has been since at least 1958.
“Temperature doesn’t drive the rate of change of CO2 as there is no lag between T and dCO2/dt in the short term variability…”
Which means there is a 90 deg phase lag between T and CO2, which means there is an integral relationship. It isn’t arguable. It’s staring you right in the face.
“The lag is between dT/dt and dCO2/dt.”
Or, between T and CO2. It is a 90 degree phase lag. That indicates that there is an integral relationship.
“The slope of dT/dt is near zero…”
The relationship is
dCO2/dt = k*(T – T0)
The slope in T is responsible for the slope in dCO2/dt. The rate of emissions also has a slope. There is little to no room for it.
“Further, you reject all observations which demonstrate that your theory can’t be true”
No, I reject that there is a unique explanation for those observations. There is a unique explanation for the integral relationship we see. The unique relationship wins over those subject to other explanations.
“As human emissions fit all observations …”
Human emissions do not fit with the rate of change. They do not explain the variability, and their long term trend is already taken up by the temperature relationship.
Moreover, human emissions are accelerating. Atmospheric concentration is at a steady rate. They are therefore incompatible as cause and effect.

dbstealey

Reply to Robert B

January 8, 2015 6:26 pm

Why is it that 175,000 years ago, when it was warmer than it is today, did CO2 not exceed 300 ppmv?
You don’t even understand how thoeroughly that deconstructs your belief system.
Do you?

David Socrates

Reply to Robert B

January 8, 2015 6:31 pm

“You don’t even understand how that deconstructs your belief system”
…
Try explaining how it does.

Ferdinand Engelbeen

Reply to Robert B

January 9, 2015 6:08 am

Bart:
Nobody sees that. They infer it from preconceptions, and dubious proxy measurements which superficially seem consistent with it.
As said, you don’t like any data which contradicts your theory, thus the data must be wrong…
at least 1958, the rate of change of CO2 is modulated by temperatures.
Modulated, yes, driving the trend, no. There is not the slightest indication that there is any increase in any natural source of CO2, causing an overall increase in throughput (as the net effect still is more sink than source) and causing an increase of CO2 in the atmosphere…
To be specific, a 90 degree phase lag, since at least 1958. And, that requires an integral relationship.
Look again at your plot: there is zero lag between T and dCO2/dt. That is not an integral relationship, but that is the base for your formula:
dCO2/dt = k*(T – T0)
But the formula doesn’t include the negative feedback caused by the increased CO2 pressure in the atmosphere:
dCO2/dt = k*(T1 – T0) – k2*(P – P1)
Where P is the actual pCO2(atm) and P1 is the atmospheric CO2 pressure in equilibrium with the oceans for the average ocean temperature T1. That gives that the increase in the atmosphere is limited after any temperature increase and/or any deep ocean upwelling increase:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/upwelling_incr_temp.jpg
The plot shows the effect of a 10% increase in CO2 upwelling (either concentration or deep ocean flux) at the tropics, followed by an 1 K increase in sea surface temperature.
The latter effect is probably overblown, as I used 17 ppmv/K, while in the literature one can find 4 to 17 ppmv/K and the long term average as seen in ice cores is 8 ppmv/K.
For the current P-P1 difference (~110 μatm), the net sink rate is ~2.15 ppmv/year. That gives an e-fold decay rate of the excess CO2 in the atmosphere of slightly over 50 years or a half life time of ~40 years. Fast enough to follow ice ages, but not fast enough to suppress the short term changes caused by temperature changes.

Bart

Reply to Robert B

January 9, 2015 9:43 am

Ferdinand Engelbeen @ January 9, 2015 at 6:08 am
“There is not the slightest indication that there is any increase in any natural source of CO2, causing an overall increase in throughput…”
Name an anthropogenic source of any size which is modulated by temperature. Anthropogenic input does not depend on temperature. That is why the emissions and atmospheric concentration are currently diverging. Anthropogenic emissions are accelerating. Atmospheric CO2 concentration is not, and at the same time that temperatures have plateaued. That is no coincidence.
“Look again at your plot: there is zero lag between T and dCO2/dt. That is not an integral relationship…”
That is a self-contradition right in one sentence. If
dCO2/dt = k*(T – T0)
then
CO2 = CO2(0) + integral(k*(T-T0))
It’s an identity relationship.
“But the formula doesn’t include the negative feedback caused by the increased CO2 pressure in the atmosphere:
dCO2/dt = k*(T1 – T0) – k2*(P – P1)”
Such a term, if it were significant in the era 1958-present, would cause massive and readily observable phase distortion. There is none, and you are clutching at straws.

Phil.

Reply to Robert B

January 9, 2015 9:58 am

Bart January 9, 2015 at 9:43 am
Ferdinand Engelbeen @ January 9, 2015 at 6:08 am
“There is not the slightest indication that there is any increase in any natural source of CO2, causing an overall increase in throughput…”
Name an anthropogenic source of any size which is modulated by temperature.
A natural sink of CO2 (the ocean) is modulated by temperature via Henry’s law which causes the modulation in the CO2, the overall growth in CO2 (the ~linear component) is due to anthropogenic source which is growing about 4ppm/year.

David Socrates

Reply to Robert B

January 9, 2015 10:07 am

This is why Bart makes me laugh.
…
Mr Calculus claims that I don’t know what a “derivative” is.
…
Then Mr. Calculus says, “It’s an identity relationship.”
…
Too bad Mr Calculus forgot about that wonderful thing called the “Constant of Integration”…..which if he wasn’t asleep in class at the time, insures that the operations of derivative and integration are not “identity” relationships.
…
Thanks for the humor Mr. Calculus

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