Guest essay by Andy May
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In January, 2014 the American Physical Society (APS) held a one day workshop on climate change and invited six climatologists to participate. A full transcript of the workshop can be found here. The six speakers are all very eminent climate scientists. The discussion was limited to the physical basis of climate change and atmospheric physics was the predominant topic. Three of the speakers lean to the alarmist view. That is they think we are headed toward a climate catastrophe due to man-made Carbon Dioxide. These are Dr. Held, Dr. Collins, and Dr. Santer. The other three lean to the skeptical view and do not think we are headed to a climate catastrophe caused by man-made Carbon Dioxide. These are Dr. Curry, Dr. Lindzen and Dr. Christy.
Short biographies of each of the speakers can be seen here. Someone new to the climate change debate would have a hard time telling the alarmists from the skeptics from this transcript. They were all very professional and they stuck to the science as their host, Dr. Koonin, requested. Climate science and the debate about it are much more complex than the media, the politicians and public know. This workshop drills down to the root of the disagreements and reading it reveals the considerable uncertainty in estimates of both climate sensitivity to CO2 and the effect of natural long term climate cycles.
The media think of catastrophic anthropogenic climate change or global warming (CAGW) in very simplistic black and white terms. According to the media and many politicians esteemed scientists all agree we are headed to a world ending catastrophe due to man-made CO2 and everyone who is skeptical of this conjecture is a knuckle-dragging troglodyte, aka a “denier.” This is in spite of a recent poll that shows CAGW skeptics are better informed on climate science than the climate alarmists.
I will try and summarize the important points discussed in the meeting. Dr. Koonin, the host of the event, has published his own summary in the WSJ. Professor Judith Curry has also written about the meeting here. Another view by Tony Thomas can be seen here and commentary published in Physics Today can be seen here. The Climate Workshop Framing Document was created by the committee after thoroughly reading the AR5 Physical Science Basis Report. It contains the questions that guided the presenters and the discussion. I will only deal with a few of the questions in this summary. In my discussion of the transcript below all page references are to the transcript itself. I use both the transcript page references and hyperlinks to keep this summary complete but brief.
No unsubstantiated appeals to authority were allowed by Dr. Koonin. Not a single participant mentioned “the 97% consensus!” Uncertainty and the quantification of uncertainty, particularly of climate forcings, was the topic of the day.
All six were in the room, together with the APS committee on climate change, and all could ask questions. The Q&A sessions were particularly educational. The transcript of the meeting is 573 pages long which led to 19 typewritten pages of notes. This is a summary of my notes.
To the best of my knowledge the APS has not issued a new climate change statement, but that doesn’t matter much. This workshop and the transcript are really what we needed. Yet another uninformed political statement by a scientific society, like those from the AAAS or the American Chemical Society or the original statement (now being reviewed) by the APS simply parroting the IPCC is pointless. This transcript is as good at explaining the issues as anything I’ve seen. To quote Professor Curry: “This is a remarkable document… it provides in my opinion what is the most accurate portrayal of the scientific debates surrounding climate change.”
The six invited climate scientists were sent a framing document that contained a list of questions about AR5 (the Fifth IPCC Report- Physical Basis).
The hiatus in warming since 1998 or “the stasis”
From the framing document :
While the Global Mean Surface Temperature (GMST) rose strongly from 1980-98, it has shown no significant rise for the past 15 years…[The climate does not track the projections published in the 4th IPCC report, so the framing document asks …]
To what would you attribute the stasis?
How long must the stasis persist before there…[is] a problem with the models?
Dr. Collins thinks the stasis (or hiatus) is due to volcanic aerosols although he admits their effects on climate are not well understood.
Dr. Curry does not think that volcanic and man-made aerosols can fully explain the hiatus. She also believes that natural climatic cycles have “juiced” the warming in the last half of the 20th Century. A natural cooling cycle started late in the 20th Century that is counteracting the warming effect of man-made CO2. She presents a proposed natural climate cycle, a “stadium wave,” that predicts a natural cooling period over the next twenty years or so. Thus, she believes that the hiatus suggests natural forces (or “forcings”) are powerful enough to counteract man-made forcings.
Dr. Santer also thinks that volcanic aerosols are an important factor in the hiatus, but probably only up to 25%. He acknowledges that natural long term cycles (mainly the AMO and the PDO) may contribute significantly, but these are poorly understood and not in the models. Some of the models do attempt to capture the shorter term ENSO cycle, or parts of it. ENSO is clearly not the cause of the hiatus.
Dr. Lindzen and Dr. Christy do not directly address this question, but Dr. Held is somewhat neutral on it. He says that the warming in the second half of the 20th Century is forced, but he does not know if the forcing is anthropogenic or natural (page 409). Long term climate cycles that are not in the models could be a cause.
A final thought from Dr. Collins (page 92): “…if the hiatus is still going on as of the sixth IPCC report, that report is going to have a large burden on its shoulders walking in the door, because recent literature has shown that the chances of having a hiatus of 20 years are vanishingly small.” There seemed to be general agreement at the workshop that if the hiatus lasts 20 years (until 2018), the IPCC and a potential AR6 are in real trouble.
Climate Sensitivity
From the framing document (VI.2)
The estimated equilibrium climate sensitivity to CO2 has remained between 1.5 and 4.5 in the IPCC reports since 1979, except for AR4 where it was given as 2-5.5.
What gives rise to the large uncertainties (factor of three!) in this fundamental parameter of the climate system?
How is the IPCC’s expression of increasing confidence in the detection/attribution/projection of anthropogenic influences consistent with this persistent uncertainty?
Wouldn’t detection of an anthropogenic signal necessarily improve estimates of the response to anthropogenic perturbations?
Sensitivity was defined by Dr. Lindzen and Dr. Collins in this way (page 277):
In the equation:
ΔT0 is the initial temperature at equilibrium and f is the net dimensionless feedback from external forces, for example CO2 concentration, clouds, volcanic aerosols, etc. “f” ranges from zero to 1, if it is one ΔT is infinite and a plot of “f” (on the x axis) versus ΔT looks like the figure below from Lindzen and Choi (their figure 11).
When ”f” is past a certain point it really takes off. This is what the alarmist contingent of climate scientists are worried about. So, what is the net external forcing on our climate system, how large or small is it likely to become? The point of Dr. Lindzen’s talk is that we do not know and cannot accurately measure it at this time. But, he can see in his data that the anthropogenic contribution is very small. He also notes that the IPCC estimate of the man-made effect is about 2 Watts/m2 in AR5 and that is much smaller than the Milankovitch effect of 100 Watts/m2 at 65 degrees north, see Edvardsson, et al. The Milankovitch effect causes the glacial periods. The alarmists disagree that it is small, but they cannot measure it either as noted in Trenberth and Fasullo, 2013 and by Dr. Collins and others in this workshop.
Dr. Lindzen focuses on climate sensitivity in his presentation. He relies heavily on Lindzen and Choi (2011), Spencer and Braswell, 2011, and (oddly) Trenberth and Fasullo, 2013. All of these papers try to use satellite measurements of radiation escaping from the Earth to detect how much solar radiation is being absorbed. The amount of solar radiation entering the Earth’s atmosphere is known fairly accurately and if we see less being emitted into space over time this suggests that increasing levels of Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere may actually be changing the amount of heat being absorbed by the Earth and its atmosphere as the computer models suggest. Perhaps this is a way to obtain an observational measure of climate sensitivity.
However, while all of the studies suggest that the amount of extra heat being retained is much less than predicted by the models, none of the studies were able to compute climate sensitivity as hoped. Dr. Lindzen’s study found an unambiguous negative longwave feedback in the climate system and a slight positive, but less clear, shortwave feedback. The longwave negative feedback is probably due to water vapor and clouds.
Trenberth and Fasullo also failed to detect a signal in the satellite data, but if there were a signal in the data, it was small. An interesting thing about Trenberth and Fasullo is that they spend the whole paper showing how natural forces and cycles are contributing to the warming from 1976 to 1998 and the hiatus since 1998 and then conclude “… the veracity of decadal variability in models is an issue. “
So, until the last paragraph they are reasonable in their analysis. Then, apparently frightened that someone might think their data suggests that natural forces may be equally to blame for recent warming or worse more than the impact of man, they add this bit of obeisance to their climate change priesthood:
“The analysis in this article does not suggest that global warming has disappeared; on the contrary, it is very much alive but being manifested in somewhat different ways than a simple increase in global mean surface temperature. “
Not the first climate alarmist paper I’ve read where the conclusions are at odds with the data and analysis presented in the body of the paper.
Anthopogenic influence
From the framing document
…global radiative balance, with the total downward flux on the Earth’s surface estimated as 503 ± 7 W/m2 [while the] total anthropogenic direct perturbation of this balance to be some 2.3 ± 1 W/ m2 , less than 0.5% of the downward flux.
Many different processes and phenomena will be relevant and each needs to be “gotten right” with high precision if the response to anthropogenic perturbations is to be attributed correctly and quantified accurately. Moreover, there are expected feedbacks (water vapor-temperature, ice-albedo, …) that would amplify the perturbative response. How can one understand the IPCC’s expressed confidence in identifying and projecting the effects of such small anthropogenic perturbations in view of such difficult circumstances?
Why did ‘confidence’ regarding the assertion that human influences dominate the climate system, increase in AR5 when (a) so many of the climate processes are poorly known and modeled, and (b) the global temperature failed to warm as expected?
Dr. Lindzen and others have noted how small the IPCC computed anthropogenic contribution to heat absorption is, roughly 2 Watts/m2. So, the committee reasonably asks how can we be sure it dominates climate change?
Dr. Collins is confident that the warming from 1950 to 1998 is man-made. He admits that there are long term climate cycles that are not taken into account in the models, but he believes their variability is accounted for with multiple model runs using different initial conditions. Dr. Curry calls this simply ignoring the longer term cycles, basically the AMO and the PDO. Dr. Collins acknowledges that there is no “first principles” evidence that the warming in the last half of the last century is man-made, this conclusion is based solely on comparisons between climate models.
Dr. Collins and Dr. Santer present “a dipole” or warming troposphere and cooling stratosphere as evidence that man-made warming is occurring. I find this unconvincing and so did most of the attendees at the workshop. I think it can be safely ignored as speculation from dodgy computer model runs. See Dr. John Christy’s figure on page 352 (reproduced below), the computer climate model’s vertical profile does not match observations. In the latter half of the twentieth century, one important external force is anthropogenic; I don’t think anyone disagrees with this. But, what was the total internal forcing? Have we modeled that accurately?
Dr. Santer believes that man’s influence on the climate is there, he can see a signal, but he does not know how big it is. Except for the estimate of the forcing due to volcanism, he has not tried to estimate the size of any other external forcings, including man’s. Unlike Dr. Curry or Dr. Christy, he believes the influence of volcanic aerosols is significant, but not the only cause of the hiatus. The forcing he computes for volcanic aerosols is about 0.2 to 0.3 Watts/m2, a very small number.
While Dr. Santer does no scaling to observations, the IPCC report does scale their short term projections to match observations, then it removes these negative scaling factors (the scaled mean temperature is reduced by 25%) for the longer term projections to the year 2100. This artificially inflates the estimated temperature in 2100 by 25% or more. Dr. Koonin asks why should we tune the model to current observations and throw away the tuning for the longer term projections (page 259-260)?
It seems that most of the group agreed that if the IPCC uses scaling factors in their short term projections, they should use them in their long term projections. Dr. Collins does not agree. He thinks that if the corrections are needed for aerosols and mankind cleans the air by reducing pollution, then the corrections should be removed. This does not make a lot of sense to me, since Dr. Santer and the others believe most of the aerosols are due to volcanism, not pollution. Dr. Santer notes that while a lot of thought has gone into determining parameter uncertainty, little work has been done on the uncertainty in the model forcings. He believes much more work on forcings is needed (page 274). There was general agreement on this point.
In answer to the question of “Why has IPCC confidence of man’s domination of climate increased?” Dr. Christy says that the answer must come from the Convening Lead Authors of the IPCC AR5 (page 332) because “I am baffled.” He then adds “The only way to tell how much is human versus natural is through model simulations.” Dr. Christy also points out that annual mean surface temperature (AMST) is a poor metric to use. The average temperature of the entire troposphere is more important, especially the troposphere in the tropics. The models do an exceptionally poor job of matching the tropospheric temperatures and the vertical temperature profile, suggesting they are fundamentally flawed. He presents some very interesting temperature profiles that I have not seen elsewhere between pages 335 and 352 of the transcript. The one on page 352 is a real shocker. See below:
The vertical axis is in pressure units but goes from the surface of the Earth at the bottom up to the stratosphere. And, you can see that the models all overestimate the rate of temperature increase significantly. Dr. Christy wanted this sort of illustration to be in the IPCC report, but it was not put in.
Dr. Held is a physicist by training but works mostly on computer climate models. Dr. Held is convinced that the warming we have seen over the last 50 to 100 years is forced rather than internal. This does not speak to man-made CO2 forcing or the sensitivity factor, but regardless of the source, he thinks it is mostly forced. His point is that because the world ocean is gaining heat, there has to be external forcing (page 409).
Dr. Held tries to back away from the IPCC statement that confidence has increased, from AR4 at 90% and AR5 at 95%, that man’s influence caused more than half of global warming since 1951.H He does not believe that (page 418). The statements he is referring to are in Chapter 10 of AR5 and he thinks the media and the executive summary of Chapter 10 are misinterpreting Chapter 10. He sounds embarrassed by the “tizzy” over this. The discussion is interesting, so I quote part here (page 422):
DR. HELD: I don’t focus that much on 90 versus 95 percent. To me, I don’t get into a tizzy about that sort of thing.
DR. KOONIN: Nobody should, but the media do.
DR. HELD: Yes, they do. Just, I don’t.
I am reminded of the conclusions in Trenberth and Fasullo, 2013. Here the executive summary and the press release of Chapter 10 do not agree with what one of the contributing authors says they wrote and in Trenberth the conclusions do not match the body of the paper. There is a pattern here.
In any case, Dr. Held, one of the chapter authors, backs away from both the executive summary and the press release and sounds kind of embarrassed.
Sea Ice
From the framing document
The long-term decline of [sea ice] in the Arctic and the slight secular increase in the Antarctic are evident. To what extent do you believe the recent Arctic decline to be unusual, given that Section 5.5.2 of the AR5 WG1 report states: “There is medium confidence that the current ice loss and increasing SSTs [sea surface temperatures] in the Arctic are anomalous at least in the context of the last two millennia.”?
Please comment on the ability of the models to reproduce the Arctic trend, but not the Antarctic trend.
Dr. Held discusses the difference between Arctic temperatures and sea ice (receding) and Antarctic temperatures and sea ice (advancing). He believes that the Arctic and Antarctic are very different and will not behave the same. But, none of the models show Antarctic ice advancing, which is what is happening. He claims that the sea ice thickness is very thin and that it is mostly wind-blown ice. Unfortunately observations do not support this assertion.
Dr. Curry discussed other potential influences from the Sun besides TSI (total solar irradiance). There are a lot of them, but none are understood very well. Another poorly understood affect that was discussed a lot was how and how quickly heat is transferred vertically in the oceans (page 134). It seems to move more quickly than the models predict, heat transfer from the oceans to the atmosphere and back was also discussed a lot. The idea of “hidden” heat in the deep oceans that will somehow come back to haunt us is pretty silly (page 136). If the heat is well mixed in the oceans all it does raise the ocean temperature a few one-hundredths of a degree. The long and short of it, is that the internal climate drivers are very poorly understood. I do not think any of the climatologists at this meeting believe that that the climate models can represent the true natural forces over a 20 year period. This alone makes the claim that they have computed the magnitude of the true anthropogenic effect somewhat absurd.
Sea ice was discussed. While sea ice is retreating in the Arctic, it is growing in the Antarctic, see the figure below.
The Discussion
After all of the presentations there was a panel discussion. They got on the topic of scientific societies making public statements about issues, like climate change. How far should the APS go in a statement? Dr. Curry feels strongly that the societies should not be making statements on public policy beyond their particular expertise. She is not comfortable that the APS has enough expertise to comment on climate change. The previous statement that this meeting is reviewing was strongly supportive of a major worldwide effort to mitigate climate change. Was it wise to make that statement?
Dr. Collins would like the APS to make a statement on the obvious things like CO2 is increasing, CO2 affects atmospheric temperature and so on. Dr. Lindzen points out that the media and the public would take all of this as ominous, when it may not be. The statement might be correct, but how it is perceived may not be correct. Dr. Lindzen, Dr. Christy and Dr. Koonin all agreed that given a choice of trying to mitigate man-made climate change or adapting to it, adaptation is better (page 531).
The major theme of the day was the uncertainty in the forcings according to Dr. Koonin. They are larger than he imagined at first. I think everyone agreed with that conclusion.
I was struck by the level of agreement on several key issues. First there is considerable uncertainty in the forcings, both natural and man-made. This means that the cause or causes of warming in the second half of the 20th Century are not known with any precision. Saying that man is responsible for more than 50% of the warming is not useful or defensible. We simply do not know, there is no observational evidence and the models are not accurate enough to tell us.
There was general agreement that the IPCC press releases and summaries are not an accurate reflection of the body of the IPCC documents, this reflects badly on the IPCC. There was general agreement that the models do not characterize the Antarctic or AMST well. Most of the group also thought that the models do not characterize the troposphere temperature or the vertical temperature profile in the troposphere very well. I don’t think Dr. Collins or Dr. Santer agreed with this, but Dr. Christy’s evidence was persuasive. So there was a consensus at the meeting on some important issues, but not the consensus the media promulgates. All in all, this transcript is a treasure. It is long, but well worth the read.
“To the best of my knowledge the APS has not issued a new climate change statement, but that doesn’t matter much. ”
Great post, but disagree heartily with the above statement. This is a political issue every bit as much as a science issue, and if a professional organization with the heft of the APS were to come out with a statement that to some degree embraces skepticism, or even simply concedes significant uncertainty, it will be a very big deal. Imvho, it would be a wound to the consensus proclaiming alarmists that may overtime, prove fatal.
I agree heartily with pokerguy.
Really great read – thanks for the good summary.
And I agree heartily with AndyZ!
While the APS still retains some fine scientists as its members, as an organization it is corrupt and, until it is severely reformed, it is doing a disservice to humanity every day it continues to exist.
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In memory of a true scientist and a real treasure,
Harold Warren Lewis
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2e/HaroldLewis1980.jpg
October 1, 1923 – May 26, 2011
Hal Lewis’ Letter Resigning His Membership in APS
{See WUWT post: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/07/09/obituary-hal-lewis/ }
Dear Curt:
When I first joined the American Physical Society sixty-seven years ago it was much smaller, much gentler, and as yet uncorrupted by the money flood (a threat against which Dwight Eisenhower warned a half-century ago). Indeed, the choice of physics as a profession was then a guarantor of a life of poverty and abstinence—it was World War II that changed all that. The prospect of worldly gain drove few physicists. As recently as thirty-five years ago, when I chaired the first APS study of a contentious social/scientific issue, The Reactor Safety Study, though there were zealots aplenty on the outside there was no hint of inordinate pressure on us as physicists. We were therefore able to produce what I believe was and is an honest appraisal of the situation at that time. We were further enabled by the presence of an oversight committee consisting of Pief Panofsky, Vicki Weisskopf, and Hans Bethe, all towering physicists beyond reproach. I was proud of what we did in a charged atmosphere. In the end the oversight committee, in its report to the APS President, noted the complete independence in which we did the job, and predicted that the report would be attacked from both sides. What greater tribute could there be?
How different it is now. The giants no longer walk the earth, and the money flood has become the raison d’être of much physics research, the vital sustenance of much more, and it provides the support for untold numbers of professional jobs. For reasons that will soon become clear my former pride at being an APS Fellow all these years has been turned into shame, and I am forced, with no pleasure at all, to offer you my resignation from the Society.
It is of course, the global warming scam, with the (literally) trillions of dollars driving it, that has corrupted so many scientists, and has carried APS before it like a rogue wave. It is the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen in my long life as a physicist. Anyone who has the faintest doubt that this is so should force himself to read the ClimateGate documents, which lay it bare. (Montford’s book organizes the facts very well.) I don’t believe that any real physicist, nay scientist, can read that stuff without revulsion. I would almost make that revulsion a definition of the word scientist.
So what has the APS, as an organization, done in the face of this challenge? It has accepted the corruption as the norm, and gone along with it.
For example:
1. About a year ago a few of us sent an e-mail on the subject to a fraction of the membership. APS ignored the issues, but the then President immediately launched a hostile investigation of where we got the e-mail addresses. In its better days, APS used to encourage discussion of important issues, and indeed the Constitution cites that as its principal purpose. No more. Everything that has been done in the last year has been designed to silence debate.
2. The appallingly tendentious APS statement on Climate Change was apparently written in a hurry by a few people over lunch, and is certainly not representative of the talents of APS members as I have long known them. So a few of us petitioned the Council to reconsider it. One of the outstanding marks of (in)distinction in the Statement was the poison word incontrovertible, which describes few items in physics, certainly not this one. In response APS appointed a secret committee that never met, never troubled to speak to any skeptics, yet endorsed the Statement in its entirety. (They did admit that the tone was a bit strong, but amazingly kept the poison word incontrovertible to describe the evidence, a position supported by no one.) In the end, the Council kept the original statement, word for word, but approved a far longer “explanatory” screed, admitting that there were uncertainties, but brushing them aside to give blanket approval to the original. The original Statement, which still stands as the APS position, also contains what I consider pompous and asinine advice to all world governments, as if the APS were master of the universe. It is not, and I am embarrassed that our leaders seem to think it is. This is not fun and games, these are serious matters involving vast fractions of our national substance, and the reputation of the Society as a scientific society is at stake.
3. In the interim the ClimateGate scandal broke into the news, and the machinations of the principal alarmists were revealed to the world. It was a fraud on a scale I have never seen, and I lack the words to describe its enormity. Effect on the APS position: none. None at all. This is not science; other forces are at work.
4. So a few of us tried to bring science into the act (that is, after all, the alleged and historic purpose of APS), and collected the necessary 200+ signatures to bring to the Council a proposal for a Topical Group on Climate Science, thinking that open discussion of the scientific issues, in the best tradition of physics, would be beneficial to all, and also a contribution to the nation. I might note that it was not easy to collect the signatures, since you denied us the use of the APS membership list. We conformed in every way with the requirements of the APS Constitution, and described in great detail what we had in mind—simply to bring the subject into the open.
5. To our amazement, Constitution be damned, you declined to accept our petition, but instead used your own control of the mailing list to run a poll on the members’ interest in a TG on Climate and the Environment. You did ask the members if they would sign a petition to form a TG on your yet-to-be-defined subject, but provided no petition, and got lots of affirmative responses. (If you had asked about sex you would have gotten more expressions of interest.) There was of course no such petition or proposal, and you have now dropped the Environment part, so the whole matter is moot. (Any lawyer will tell you that you cannot collect signatures on a vague petition, and then fill in whatever you like.) The entire purpose of this exercise was to avoid your constitutional responsibility to take our petition to the Council.
6. As of now you have formed still another secret and stacked committee to organize your own TG, simply ignoring our lawful petition.
APS management has gamed the problem from the beginning, to suppress serious conversation about the merits of the climate change claims. Do you wonder that I have lost confidence in the organization?
I do feel the need to add one note, and this is conjecture, since it is always risky to discuss other people’s motives. This scheming at APS HQ is so bizarre that there cannot be a simple explanation for it. Some have held that the physicists of today are not as smart as they used to be, but I don’t think that is an issue. I think it is the money, exactly what Eisenhower warned about a half-century ago. There are indeed trillions of dollars involved, to say nothing of the fame and glory (and frequent trips to exotic islands) that go with being a member of the club. Your own Physics Department (of which you are chairman) would lose millions a year if the global warming bubble burst. When Penn State absolved Mike Mann of wrongdoing, and the University of East Anglia did the same for Phil Jones, they cannot have been unaware of the financial penalty for doing otherwise. As the old saying goes, you don’t have to be a weatherman to know which way the wind is blowing. Since I am no philosopher, I’m not going to explore at just which point enlightened self-interest crosses the line into corruption, but a careful reading of the ClimateGate releases makes it clear that this is not an academic question.
I want no part of it, so please accept my resignation. APS no longer represents me, but I hope we are still friends.
Hal
Harold Lewis is Emeritus Professor of Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara, former Chairman; Former member Defense Science Board, chmn of Technology panel; Chairman DSB study on Nuclear Winter; Former member Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards; Former member, President’s Nuclear Safety Oversight Committee; Chairman APS study on Nuclear Reactor Safety
Chairman Risk Assessment Review Group; Co-founder and former Chairman of JASON; Former member USAF Scientific Advisory Board; Served in US Navy in WW II; books: Technological Risk (about, surprise, technological risk) and Why Flip a Coin (about decision making)
{bolding mine}
Janice, thanks for posting the Harold Lewis letter. I don’t think I ever saw the whole letter…
Brilliant, breathtaking, read it and weep.
Thank you for that Janice, I also hadn’t seen the whole of it. Hal Lewis was truly a remarkable man.
That letter should be a post in itself, perhaps brought forward on a regular basis, to shame those who should be shamed, which is the lot of them – every crooked scientist, administrator, politician, journalist and greenie activist – every last one of them who content themselves selling out humanity for a moment of fame and/or a wallet full of cash.
I am so grateful for the decent amongst us, those who will not be bought. They may be fewer in number, but every one of them shines oh so brightly. Strength to all of you.
You’re welcome A. D. (and you, J. P.).
An-thony did post Dr. Lew1s’ letter in 2010 (3 years before my time — I found it via James Delingpole) on this thread (671 comments tells you something…):
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/10/16/hal-lewis-my-resignation-from-the-american-physical-society/
A.D., I hope your writing is bringing you much satisfaction (if not the remuneration you’d like — tough to get published!). Your style is appealing. You write well. Just a question of where “preparation meets opportunity” (a.k.a. “luck”). Praying that God makes that opportunity happen!
Thank you very much, Janice. I’m currently doing it alone – book 3 of the series underway. My efforts will either eventually take off into a wider market or be appreciated (as now) just by the few. Either way, I’ve followed my heart and never have to suffer an “If only I’d tried” moment. 🙂 BTW, my sci-fi has not a Greenie or catastrophe in sight! Probably why I like to live there.
I swear, if somebody had come up with a plot that matches the huge *sc am* going down with mad scientists, corruption and such a concerted effort to rule the world, it would not be believable! (Now that I think of it, it isn’t believable even in true life). I am really looking forward to the end chapter on this amazing era we are living in.
Oh, and thanks for the link. 🙂
Good — for — you, A. D.!! That is great to hear. What a great attitude you have, too. You made your best effort. Following your heart is the highest calling (if it does not involve immorality, I mean!). You are a true writer (smile) — you just enjoy writing. Period.
And, you are most welcome.
#(:))
Thank you so much for posting this here.
Andy
You are so very welcome! Thank YOU for sharing with us all that painstakingly hard work you have put in. It is obvious you spent many an hour on this project. It shows.
Janice
The lament of an honest man…. for a world strangled by progressive corruption.
Wow. Incredible letter.
For me this letter provides hope since it is a potent reminder there are scientists of integrity who understand the damage done to science by the likes of Mike Mann, Phil Jones, and others in tandem with short-sighted executive leadership.
It is a inspiring that when Hal saw the need to reverse the damage being done and to act, he did so even though it meant acting alone.
Very informative! Thank you.
“The analysis in this article does not suggest that global warming has disappeared; on the contrary, it is very much alive but being manifested in somewhat different ways than a simple increase in global mean surface temperature. “ Does this mean temperature is not a measurement of global warming?
“The analysis in this article does not suggest that global warming has disappeared; on the contrary, it is very much alive but being manifested in somewhat different ways than a simple increase in global mean surface temperature”.
======================================
Please allow me to explain:
’The analysis in this article does not suggest that a simple increase in global mean surface temperature has disappeared; on the contrary, it is very much alive but being manifested in somewhat different ways than a simple increase in global mean surface temperature’.
The missing global warming can be found in the political heat.
Thanks, Andy. Nice summary. But…in the text, you promised illustrations, but then did not include them.
Cheers.
There were none in the submission.
Some kind of formatting error caused the images to get dumped, I’ve recovered 3 of them, Andy will have to provided the remainder. Note added at top of document.
Got them all fixed now.
Sorry Bob, this was my fault. I did not know that Word had not put the illustrations in the file. I could see them fine due to pointers to files on my hard drive, but they were not actually in the file. I will have to research this in the Word help. Anyway, Anthony fixed it.
Thanks, Andy and Anthony.
Cheers
“The only way to tell how much is human versus natural is through model simulations.”
Reminder of this very educational review of computer models:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/02/24/are-climate-modelers-scientists/
Thanks for an excellent summary.
Well, at last. Good start. May the debates begin – again.
What affects the climate internally and isn’t a forcing?
Is this just a statement of the “climate changes randomly and is not stable or a stable cycle”.
Or does it mean something else?
I think he suspects a solar component, not necessisarily TSI. The strong solar cycles with a poorly understood/constrained (nonlinear) component? What else is external positive forcing?
This was hard to figure out while reading the document. But, Dr. Held is a computer modeler and to him “internal” is what is in his model. “External” is outside the model, so AMO and PDO count as external. Seems odd, I know, but that was his perspective. In addition, solar variations, both unknown and known are counted as external.
OK,
So he’s saying his model doesn’t work.
Well, he’s right.
Best post I’ve ever read here.
Allow me to summarize: we have absolutely no idea what the hell is going on.
It all reminds me of Plato’s Alle-Gore of the Cave … of the Blind.
CAGW doesn’t even rise to the level of shadow-boxing.
Max
Your summary +many centillions.
For those who missed Max’s masterly minimisation: –
“Allow me to summarize: we have absolutely no idea what the hell is going on.”
Auto.
Indeed, Auto. Repeated and with emphasis!
Max Photon
🙂
Yes, this statement from the article:
“Saying that man is responsible for more than 50% of the warming is not useful or defensible. We simply do not know, there is no observational evidence and the models are not accurate enough to tell us.”
is more polite than “we don’t know what the hell is going on”, but essentially means the same, doesn’t it?
JohnWho,
Thanks for that quote. It gets right to the heart of the entire MMGW debate.
After many decades of searching, and investigation by thousands of highly educated scientists using the very latest technology, we still do not have even one measurement quantifying AGW.
Does it ever occur to those thousands of scientists that, just maybe, AGW is too small to find? That it is swamped by background noise, and because it is so infinitesimal, AGW can be completely disregarded?
Or is it too easy to sell their souls for job security?…
Indeed Max. And when we look at the CET temperature rate of increase at 0.25 Deg C per Century over about 350 years what is all the fuss about ?! I’m with Lindzen – Adapt.
Dr. Bill Collins
So, we build climate models. We assume when we construct those models that the net energy balance of the planet was identically zero or effectively zero at the start of industrialization.
Neoglacial changes in ice positions, outwash and lake extents are reconstructed for c. 5500—200 cal. yr ago, and portrayed as a set of three landscapes at 1600—1000, 500—300 and 300—200 cal. yr ago.
http://hol.sagepub.com/content/19/3/381.short
Glacier Bay was first surveyed in detail in 1794 by a team from the H.M.S. Discovery, captained by George Vancouver. At the time the survey produced showed a mere indentation in the shoreline. That massive glacier was more than 4,000 feet thick in places, up to 20 miles wide, and extended more than 100 miles to the St. Elias mountain range.
http://www.glacierbay.org/geography.html
That is one watershed valley, in one region during the LIA and all that ice was storing a lot of what I call ‘negative energy’ (mass at a temperature below average). How can they ASSUME net zero?
The CET has been heavily fiddled with to make the recent past warmer.
Max, would it be fair to summarize;” We have absolutely no idea what the hell is going on, but our models throughout the atmosphere, top to bottom, all plot way to warm!”
I keep repeating this theme, because they do have an idea. The models failures inform them that the climate sensitivity to CO2 is far less then was presumed.
===========================================
Thank goodness for the articulate skeptics in attendance. It sounds like they won the day, and would likely win any day they were allowed to participate.
Your points are well taken 🙂
Dr. Collins thinks the stasis (or hiatus) is due to volcanic aerosols
So he will have no issues with showing how these have increased , therefore why has he not done it ?
Dr. Collins would like the APS to make a statement on the obvious things like CO2 is increasing, CO2 affects atmospheric temperature and so on.
has he ever actually the expression correlation does not equal causation ?
Dr. Santer acknowledges that natural long term cycles (mainly the AMO and the PDO) may contribute significantly, but these are poorly understood and not in the models.
So the models fail to be predictive because they cannot take into account important factors , and yet these same models are what support his ‘settled science ‘ amazing they seem to have squared the circle.
Dr. Collins and Dr. Santer present “a dipole” or warming troposphere and cooling stratosphere as evidence that man-made warming is occurring. I find this unconvincing and so did most of the attendees at the workshop. I think it can be safely ignored as speculation from dodgy computer model runs.
true the same models he claims fail to take into account important elements and yet he still consider valid , as above
Dr. Lindzen and Dr. Christy do not directly address this question,
Sounds like ironically they are in ‘denial ‘ to me
Dr. Santer believes that man’s influence on the climate is there, he can see a signal, but he does not know how big it is.
Some people ‘believe’ in god , the tooth fairy and Santa too, but that does not make them exist .
Now an interesting question that could have asked would have been ” if tomorrow we could prove that AGW does not exist would that have negative or positive effect on your career and the funding you get? “.
If that I been asked my ‘models’ predict they all would have ‘not directly address this question ‘
In short it looked like the annual convention of the ‘waffle makers of the USA’ , if without the syrup, where the unsurprising results was a recommendation that people should eat more waffles . But at least they are some of them are now saying in public what they where saying in private for all those years when they where claiming ‘settled science’ .
Sadly it far to late for the area . It has well earned its reputation for poor pratice, bad behaviour and willingness to take the money and run and never mind the facts. I can only hope those who are most to blame are in their careers long enough to see their work held up has a joke and how not to pratice ‘science’ to future students and the public.
I guess forgetting about climate modeling until more is known about the climate isn’t an option.
Since failure is what is known about the climate models,
junking them (as you rightly imply) is the ONLY rational option.
See Bob Tisdale’s e book: Climate Models Fail for excellent substantiation of the IPCC’s models’ “Failure {to Be} an Option.”
The have forgotten Ed Lorenz’s prerequisite that one should only attempt tractable problems. They tried to shoot the moon.
“Dr. Collins and Dr. Santer present “a dipole” or warming troposphere and cooling stratosphere as evidence that man-made warming is occurring”
After reading up on the missing hot”spot” I found that it isn’t a SPOT, but an increase in lapse rate from 6.5 K /kilometer to some higher rate. In effect Dr Collins and Dr Santer are assuming that the “missing hotspot” is no longer missing.
Wow. Just Wow.
I like this in the Framing document:
Where is the evidence for Dr Collins’ and Santer’s volcanic aerosols? Seems a weakly supported assertion to me.
Dr Held said, “…that the warming in the second half of the 20th Century is forced, but he does not know if the forcing is anthropogenic or natural (page 409). ”
Is he thinking enhanced solar forcing (beyond a simple TSI) in the 2nd half 20th century?? I suspect he worries that because D-O events are not dynamically understood, what we have from 1850-2010 may not be much different, since we do not know the duration of the current warm period if it is a D-O event. And his remark that “Long term climate cycles” may not be in the models could be something chaotically non-periodic to preclude prediction (like attempting ENSO forecasting on a shorter time scale).
Thanks for the summary.
Read Koonin’s WSJ letter, too.
Among the issues not covered however is the validity of the supposed surface temperature “record”. HadCRU, GISS, BEST and all other government-backed, baked to a crisp such “records” are worse than worthless packs of lies.
Even the satellite series have issues, but in any case only go back to 1979.
Since a reliable GASTA series is an impossible dream, how about separate land and sea “surface” series, with the latter obviously less reliable than the former? Put Steve McIntyre in charge to make sure the statistics are up to snuff, with minimal infilling, ghost stations, etc, and use only the best site data, with any and all adjustments made openly, without secret, unjustified al-gore-ithms that make UHIs hotter, always warm recent times and cool the past and heat the oceans to bring them into line with the cooked books for land stations.
Oh, goody, a ‘debate’.
The massive mighty Wurlitzer pounds out daily messages that we are doomed to die in horrific heat and floods and other things that typify Southern California, and the only way we can be saved from LA’s climate is to stop eating meat, using electricity, and to move into Tiny Houses (called ‘hovels for peasants’) and pay a huge tax on an invisible gas plants need to consume to stay alive.
This whole thing is without ‘debate’. It requires police action, some sort of court of law where real evidence is shown and the emails by the criminal climatologists won’t be buried but exposed as frauds. We need to have a massive condemnation of all global warmists because we face a very real hideous peril: the oncoming Ice Age that will last, like all the previous ones, at least 100,000 years which is ten times longer than the entire history of all human society, that is, the birth of agriculture.
This belief in super warm weather on the verge of the end of this Interglacial is wishful thinking. The last thing we will see in 2,000 years is warming. We will be lucky if any ‘global warming gases’ prevent it from being far below zero in much of North America.
This is precisely why the alarmists never want to debate with the realists. The answer to all the above questions…We don’t know the answer but lets destroy the economy, put people into fuel poverty, starve the third world of investment for modern power stations, burn food as fuel, transport vast quantities of wood across oceans to burn in power stations, put up bat killers and bird cookers everywhere all based on the knowledge that we don’t have about a problem that may or may not exist with our solutions that won’t make any difference anyway.
+100
“The answer to all the above questions…We don’t know the answer but lets
destroy the economy, put people into fuel poverty, starve the third world of investment for modern power stations, burn food as fuel, transport vast quantities of wood across oceans to burn in power stations, put up bat killers and bird cookers everywhere all based on the knowledge that we don’t have about a problem that may or may not exist with our solutions that won’t make any difference anywayimpose authoritarian green socialism over the world’s major economies, and harvest the wealth to control the populations “for their benefit” because we know what’s best for everyone else.There fixed it. Not that yours was that bad, it just too long and not the real goal they Progressives with climate alarmism.
Excellent, Joel … you have just described Agenda21 😉
?w=640
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2015/03/12/agenda-21/
Perhaps they should have resolved the ‘The science is settled’ mantra first as it is obvious from this posting that it is not.
Love this one:
Let that one up the “squirm factor” with the EPA cargo cult scientists and White House Witch Doctor-Pseudoscientist John Holdren.
… no ‘first principles’ evidence …
Nice cite, Joel.
The Christopher Essex lecture video linked on this WUWT thread would be a great place for anyone questioning that statement to learn why it is true:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/02/20/believing-in-six-impossible-things-before-breakfast-and-climate-models/
See Dr. Essex’ lecture, e.g., at
{25:17} Re: Solving the Closure Problem. {i.e., the “basic physics” equations have not even been SOLVED yet, e.g., the flow of fluids equation “Navier-Stokes Equations” — we still can’t even figure out what the flow of water in a PIPE would be if there were any turbulence}
I am really wondering… why my comment (invisible for now} above today at 3:48pm is in moderation. How to avoid moderation? It also happened with my post about Hal Lew1s (just in case!) above… .
The Hal Lew1s post is there – again thanks for posting…(was there was another Hal Lew1s post?)
Thanks, J. Peterson, I saw that it was out of moderation. Just want to prevent going into moderation again. It may be my writing (with no spaces): “W U W T.”
I’ll test that below this and see!
Does writing “WUWT” trigger moderation?
Nope. WUWT was not the cause. Shrug.
Test: Essex
Nope
Test: essex navier stokes
[Use the Test thread (see first (or Home) Page) for all testing. .mod]
lol, Clipe — thank you. #(:))
Lewis?
Nope. 🙂
LOL — Clipe! That little testing series by us was a GREAT metaphor for the climate simulation software writers’ attempts to finger CO2!
lololololololololololololololololololololo
.0005?
Nope.
.0004?
Nope
.9999?
Nope.
#(:))
lol, if ONLY a mod would come along and tell the IPCC code writers to just knock it off…
#(:)) lolololololo
Okay, dad. I hear you.
A ‘science’ with out ‘principles’ – perfect.
…post normal.
How you deal with AGW proponents is to present as much data as possible showing them how their absurd theory does not even support the data but actually runs counter to it. Once that step is taken you then present them with theories that conform to the data (like i have done below)rather then having the data conform to the your theory.
Below is the data. I would challenge each and everyone of them to reconcile their AGW theory with that data.
http://www.c3headlines.com/are-todays-temperatures-unusual/
The data presented by the historical climatic record shows if one superimposes all of the items that I mention below they will fit in with the historical climatic temperature record.
.
What fits the global temperature trend data the best since the Holocene Optimum- Present is what I suggest below.
My thoughts on what drives the climate conform to what the data shows(present/past), unlike AGW theory which totally ignores the data both present and past.
AGW theory wants the data to conform to what it suggest, not the other way around.
The data shows since the Holocene Optimum from around 8000BC , through the present day Modern Warm Period( which ended in 1998) the temperature trend throughout this time in the Holocene, has been in a slow gradual down trend,, punctuated with periods of warmth. Each successive warm period being a little less warm then the one proceeding it.
My reasoning for the data showing this gradual cooling trend during the Holocene ,is Milankovitch Cycles, (in addition to Land /Ocean Arrangements ,Land Mean Elevation, Mean Temperature Gradient (pole to equator),Initial State of The Climate(how far from glacial /inter-glacial threshold the climate is and or ice Dynamic) were highly favorable for warming 10000 years ago or 8000 BC, and have since been in a cooling cycle. Superimposed on this gradual cooling cycle has been solar variability which has worked sometimes in concert and sometimes in opposition to the overall gradual cooling trend , Milankovitch Cycles have been promoting.
To further refine and account for the historical climatic trend the phase of the PDO,AMO and ENSO, along with Volcanic Activity has to be superimposed upon the above.
Then again this is only data which AGW enthusiast ignore if it does not fit into their scheme of things.
They’ll say that data causes climate change.
@SDP
I fully agree. And I further add that in about a thousand years, the northern hemisphere will reach the low point of the current ~21 kyr obliquity precession for Earth and begin to slightly warm again. We are nearing the bottom of the current ~100,000 year orbital cycle. This means the next few ~21 kyr cycles will be more modest than the recent cycles. So, no anticipated deep glaciation periods and no very strong hemisphere heating from orbital effects.
“their absurd theory” – just call it “their theory”, no need to sink to insults, that’s their modus operandi…
If we’re going to get all Felix Unger about it, let’s at least be more accurate: “their conjecture.”
The AGWers have no true “theory.”
thank you Andy, nice work!
Joe
The approach I use, forces them to put up or shut up. That is how this has to be approached.
Further the answer to the climate puzzle is not going to come from the likes of a workshop such as was presented on this web-site but more likely from skeptical web-sites(like this one and others) who allow everyone to present their views.
The person I have the highest regard for in that workshop is Judith Curry. She has the correct approach.
Excellent summary. I also enjoyed two other parts very much. The discussion on the percentage that can be attribute to humans and could therefore be part of the APS statement was great. Dr. Curry said I believe, “I wouldn’t be comfortable with any more than 50%.” Zing! Also the tension between Dr. Santer and Dr. Christy was palpable. Evidently Dr. Santer still holds a grudge against Dr. Christy for a statement he made in his congressional testimony several years ago where he said, referring to his famous graph with the spaghetti lines of model projections versus satellite and radiosonde measurements, that the models are just too sensitive to CO2 and that’s why their output is 2-3x greater than REAL WORLD measurements. Dr. Christy is still upset that AR4 or AR5 expressed medium confidence in the satellite measurements of temperature. It is his baby after all and the results have been independently validated against radiosondes at 96 locations as he stated. The models are self-validating, which of course is an oxymoron. Not to undersell the three expert witnesses on the warmist side of the discussion, but it appears to this layman that the expert panel could be said to consist of 3 modelers vs. 3 independent giants in their field who hold true to the scientific method. I think this is one small step… I can’t wait to read what sort of politically correct mumbo jumbo official statement comes out of all this.
Agreed, there was clear tension between Dr. Santer and Dr.Christy. But, I was delighted that, overall, everyone behaved themselves. I regained some of my lost pride in being a scientist. Full disclosure, I am a petrophysicist and I write computer models, but I model rocks, not climate.
Since whatever warming may have occurred from the 1940s to perhaps 2000s is no different from what has naturally occurred since at least the depths of the Little Ice Age in the 1650s to 1710s, indeed much less dramatic than the early 18th century warming, there is zero evidence in support of any percentage human component, except maybe locally from UHIs.
@Catherine – Dr. Christy makes a point in one of his presentations available on youtube that irrigation in the Central Valley of California has caused the nighttime temps. to increase while the daytime temps in the valley and the adjacent foothills have a near zero trend over the last +/- century. My point being that this is clearly another human component, though many would argue that warmer nighttime Tmins are not a negative. It also illustrates another problem with basing this whole scare on an average day/night/global temp. anomaly.
Travis:
I don’t dispute that a variety of human activities other than increasing CO2 may well have local effects on temperatures, but not IMO enough to show up in any realistic GASTA. Humans also engage in activities which have the effect of cooling at least locally.
Thus science cannot even say whether the sign of any net human effect is positive or negative, warming or cooling. But in any case, the effect is most likely to be negligible at most.
Dr. Collins thinks the stasis (or hiatus) is due to volcanic aerosols
The above is a great example of the absurd mentality. If one would view the data( the volcanic aerosol thickness chart), one would see the absurdity but then again as I have pointed out AGW enthusiast do not believe in data.
The data by the way shows since Mt Pinatubo (1992) the volcanic aerosol thickness chart for the last several years has been near all time lows.
joelobryan on March 12, 2015 at 3:10 pm
I think our joint point (gotta patent that one) is that the scientists are now irrelevent to the argument. Much the same as the man who used to walk in front of the first motor cars with a red flag and the man with the bucket charged with picking up the horsesh*t after the hackney carriages went down Belgravia.
Now we have a bunch of scientists talking horsesh*t and waving red flags over the future but life has moved on. It is a political question now. Who rules the world? The communists or the capitalists. Haven’t we been along this road before?
I am copy writing
Climate Dis-Harmonization
Un-Settling Science
The Volcans made me do it
I want my feedback back
The trees ate my pollutant
I am going deep were its warm
Ivor Ward — powerful analogy.
I disagree Ivor. That the APA sponsored this is pleasantly surprising. This meeting will be talked about in scientific circles all around the world. The skeptics, face to face with the CAGW proponents, dominated in logic and science. This will reverberate in academic circles. Even having such a meeting was a slap in the face to the Obama administration with-hunt against skeptics.
Would have been better if it also had at least one scientist who doesn’t agree at all with the concept of Greenhouse gasses.
Agreed. “Would have been a debate … .”
“Would have been better if it also had at least one scientist who doesn’t agree at all with the concept of Greenhouse gasses.”
Since the vast majority of scientists on both sides of the CAGW debate agree with the “concept” of so-called “greenhouse gasses”, the only effect of including such a “scientist” would be to undermine the credibility of the workshop…if you could even persuade the actual participants to associate with such a crackpot.
Who did you have in mind?
Mr. Hadlik,
I gave wwf the benefit of the doubt and defined “the concept of Greenhouse gases” to mean: the speculation that CO2 emissions drive climate shifts in the non-laboratory setting called “earth.”
I hope wwf comes back with a more precise definition.
Thanks, Mr. Hadlik, for the needed (by me, at least) reminder to be much more precise and careful in my writing. Now, if I can just remember to do that… .
Janice
Janice Moore, feel free to refer to me as “Gary”.
Thank you, Gary, I will!
#(:))
You could start here: http://greenhouse.geologist-1011.net/
Michael Wassil, thanks for the reference. I skimmed the article and quickly found three red flags:
(1) Casey seems to think that R W Wood’s less-than-rigorous 1909 experiment debunked the so-called “greenhouse effect” (SCGE); in fact it only called into question the role of infrared “backradiation” in an actual greenhouse, not the atmosphere. See WUWT for more details:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/02/06/the-r-w-wood-experiment/
(2) He apparently believes the SCGE violates the First Law of Thermodynamics (which it doesn’t), e.g. when he writes: “Thus, radiation heating the surface is re-emitted to heat the atmosphere and then re-emitted by the atmosphere back to accumulate yet more heat at the earth’s surface. Physicists such as Gerlich & Tscheuschner (2007 and 2009) are quick to point out that this is a perpetuum mobile of the second kind – a type of mechanism that creates energy from nothing.” As I recall, this was a common misconception expressed in comments to Willis Eschenbach’s first “Steel Greenhouse” article:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/17/the-steel-greenhouse/
(3) Casey writes, “If carbon dioxide produced the backradiation claimed by Arrhenius, thermal conductivity measurements of carbon dioxide would be so suppressed by the backradiation of heat conducted into this material, that the correspondingly steep temperature gradient would yield a negative thermal conductivity of carbon dioxide.” In fact so-called “backradiation” from atmospheric CO2 can be measured at the earth’s surface, yet CO2’s thermal conductivity is perfectly measurable.
Although there are good reasons to doubt both the “C” and “A” in CAGW (catastrophic anthropogenic global warming), the “concept” of SCGEs isn’t one of them. I don’t think adding this guy to the APS workshop would do much for its credibility.
Willis’s article is quite entertaining. Star Trek’s ‘Dyson Sphere’ on a small scale. However, the earth and it’s atmosphere are in thermal contact, thus Fourier’s Law applies. Whatever radiative transfer occurs between components in thermal contact is already accounted for. Any radiative transfer is just shuffling heat from one component to another. Adding it again to the total as ‘backradiation’ is, indeed, creating free heat.
I don’t think Casey is arguing that there is no ‘backradiation’, he’s arguing that it’s already accounted for in the system. SCGE adds it a second time. That would certainly cause the models to run hot.
Also, I have serious doubts that a theory based on radiative heat transfer via the aether is going to get us very far.
Thanks for the reply, Michael.
Fourier’s Law applies only to conduction, whereas heat transfer in the atmosphere occurs by conduction, convection, and radiation. So-called “backradiation” creates no energy, it’s just another form of energy transfer. Again, some commenters in the “Steel Greenhouse” thread seemed to think that Willis created energy from nothing, and would not be dissuaded.
Casey also seems to be saying that CO2 “backradiation” would somehow prevent accurate thermal conductivity measurements in the laboratory, which it doesn’t.
I’m not sure what your point is about “radiative heat transfer via the aether”. Since radiative heat transfer unquestionably occurs in the atmosphere, and is in fact the only way the earth loses heat to space, it should certainly be considered, right?
Fouriers Law applies to components in thermal contact with each other. The individual components can exchange heat with one another by multiple mechanisms, which in sum are referred to as ‘conductive’. Regardless of transfer of heat between individual components of the system, the total can only change by changing input to the system. The surface of the earth and its atmosphere are in thermal contact and heat exchange between the various components occurs by various mechanisms, but the total heat remains the same. It can only change by changing input to the system, not by shuffling heat between the various components.
Greenhouse gas theory claims that If I warm my hands in front of the radiator in the morning, my hands get warm and then increase the temperature of the room by ‘backradiation’. Do you think that actually happens? If it does, then I have created heat energy from nothing, Willis not withstanding.
Arrhenius based his theory on radiative heat transfer in the aether. Michelson and Morley had already debunked the aether in 1887. Have you actually read Casey’s article yet?
Hi, Michael.
Again, Fourier’s Law applies only to heat transfer by conduction. If the earth’s atmosphere were static and 100% transparent or 100% opaque, no problemo. In the real atmosphere, however, we get phenomena like temperature inversions which Fourier’s Law alone can’t explain.
Hands warmed by a radiator (or your own body heat) do indeed radiate (or “backradiate”) to their surroundings. What exactly do you think happens when this radiation reaches these other bodies, assuming near-blackbody properties? Is the energy absorbed (thus “heating” them), or is it somehow rejected?
One of the clearest treatments I’ve seen of so-called “backradiation” is Dr. Roy Spencer’s “Yes, Virginia” thought experiment:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2010/07/yes-virginia-cooler-objects-can-make-warmer-objects-even-warmer-still/
Note the similarity to the “Steel Greenhouse”. Whether you think of the second plate as “warming” the first, or instead regard it as radiatively “insulating” the first, is up to you. In any case, it’s based on real world examples such as the vacuum furnace with radiation shield and the high efficiency incandescent bulb, both of which were referenced by “chris y” in the Steel Greenhouse thread. Note that the so-called “slayers” [this term will probably get my comment moderated] confidently debunk Dr. Spencer’s thought experiment, yet strangely have not done the actual experiment. That may explain why no “slayers” were invited to the APS workshop. 🙂
Your reference to the “aether” is both curious and irrelevant. In the real world, heat is still transferred by radiation whether “aether” exists or not. (How do you think heat gets from the sun to the earth?) Are you claiming that modern climate science depends on the existence of “aether”, and if so, how?
Sorry Gary, but you still seem to be missing the point and I’m quite willing to admit that it might be my inability to express it clearly to you. Let try again.
Refer to my hand-warming experiment, which you seem to have misunderstood. When I warm my hands at the radiator, my hands absorb heat and if I place them near my cold feet I can feel the heat radiating from my newly warmed hands to my still cold feet. When I do this, however, I am NOT adding any heat to the room which both myself and the radiator occupy. Greenhouse gas theory says the heat from my hands warming my feet is additional heat added to the room. This is patently absurd. In the closed system of the room, I am merely moving heat from place to place: from the heater to my hands to my feet. I am not adding any heat to the room.
The earth system (surface, oceans and atmosphere) can not gain heat if a small portion of the heat generated by LWIR is absorbed by some component of the atmosphere and ‘backradiated’ to the surface. I do not deny that happens, only that whatever that heat may be, it is already within the system and is just being shuffled from one place to another. It does not and, like my warm hand and cold feet, can not ADD to the total heat of the system. It is this erroneous addition of heat that I contend is one of the problems with GHG theory and probably one of the reasons the models run hot.
Like Dr Spencer (recent WUWT article, which I can’t locate right now, but fairly recent) I also wonder why virtually all the adjustments made to the temperature history ALWAYS result in increasing the warming trend, but never reducing it. I also wonder why the ‘sensitivity’ factor continues to decrease as models diverge ever more widely from reality. Another few years of non-warming and the sensitivity will be indistinguishable from zero. I also wonder why in the geologic history of the earth there is no example of CO2 changes leading temperature changes, not one, in 650 million years. Surely, if greenhouse gases played a driving role, even a small one, we would find lots of evidence of causation rather than nothing but follow-the-leader.
To paraphrase Richard Feyman: if the theory can’t match the facts, the theory is wrong. Arrhenius’ GHG theory was dismissed as nonsense for nearly 50 years on theoretical, mathematical and experimental grounds. It is being falsified by observation now. The real world does not work like the model world based on Arrhenius’ theory. Continually applying new lipstick is not going to salvage this pig.
Cheers.
Thanks for the clarification, Michael.
“Greenhouse gas theory says the heat from my hands warming my feet is additional heat added to the room.”
No, it doesn’t say that. This may be the source of confusion. What both sides of the CAGW debate actually say is: “Yes, you are just redistributing the same energy, but if your hands intercepted radiated heat that would otherwise have left the room, your hands have made the room warmer than it otherwise would be.” In effect, you have slowed the cooling of the room, thus raising its temperature higher than it would otherwise be. Conceptually this is no different than insulating your house. Your furnace still adds the same heat, but the house is warmer because it cools more slowly, i.e. same heat input + slower cooling => higher temperature.
The house is an example of conductive insulation. The so-called “greenhouse effect” (SCGE) is an example of radiative insulation. Some of the earth’s radiated heat that would otherwise escape irretrievably to space is intercepted en route and ends up back in the system. The SCGE has, in effect, slowed the cooling of the earth. The heat input from the sun remains the same, but by slowing the cooling process the SCGE has warmed the earth (without creating any heat from nothing).
Radiative insulation isn’t just for the SCGE, it also has practical applications, two of which “chris y” mentioned in the “Steel Greenhouse” thread. Check out this energy efficient halogen lamp:
http://www.gelighting.com/LightingWeb/emea/resources/environmental-center/energy-efficient-halogens.jsp
Quoting, “In standard incandescent and halogen lamps approximately 76% of the input energy is lost as heat radiation, whilst only 8% is converted to useful light (the rest is lost in the area of the filament). The Halogen-IRTM thin film (invented by GE), consisting of multiple layers of very durable, thin, interference films, reflects much of the heat back onto the lamp filament, while allowing the visible light to pass through. This increases the filament temperature, which allows it to give off more visible light for the same input power.” (emphasis added)
This is a product you can actually buy.
Michael, you write, “The earth system (surface, oceans and atmosphere) can not gain heat if a small portion of the heat generated by LWIR is absorbed by some component of the atmosphere and ‘backradiated’ to the surface. I do not deny that happens, only that whatever that heat may be, it is already within the system and is just being shuffled from one place to another.”
Exactly! Note that one of the places that heat is “shuffled” to is outer space. The SCGE reduces the “shuffling” to outer space, leaving more heat to be “shuffled” within the system. Same heat input + slower cooling => higher temperature. This isn’t rocket science.
“Like Dr Spencer (recent WUWT article, which I can’t locate right now, but fairly recent) I also wonder why virtually all the adjustments made to the temperature history ALWAYS result in increasing the warming trend, but never reducing it.”
I, too, find that very suspicious, but the so-called “average temperature of the earth” is a whole ‘nother can o’ worms. 🙂
LOL. First, no one, including me, argues that having an atmosphere is a problem! Of course, the atmosphere slows the cooling of the earth. It moderates both heating and cooling; and a good thing it does. So we are both agreed about that, at least.
We are still not agreed on the heat within the system, however. If my hand blocks a certain amount of heat trying to exit the room, I have only slowed the cooling. I’m not going to argue about ‘what might have been’ if my hand had been somewhere else instead. The GHG theory doesn’t just say I slowed the cooling, it says I increased the heat. You say I’m misinterpreting that. OK, I’ll check it out. If I’m wrong, thank you for pointing that out.
Outer space is NOT one of the places the internal heat of the system gets shuffled to and from. Outer space is removal of heat from the system: the final output, if it gets there it’s gone. In a system at equilibrium input must equal output. In the case of earth, the solar energy is the input and radiation to space the output. The earth has been at or near thermal equilibrium for at least all of geologic history within a range of +/-12°C during all that time.
GHG concentrations have been higher, and for most of geologic history, MUCH higher than now without upsetting thermal equilibrium. That single fact argues very strongly against GHG theory. There is no evidence whatever that the real world works like GHG theory says it does. Therefore, GHG theory is wrong.
Maybe I’m misunderstanding, but these appear to confirm my contention that GHG theory claims an increase not merely the blocking of a cooling effect:
http://glossary.ametsoc.org/wiki/Greenhouse_effect
http://www.wmo.int/pages/themes/climate/understanding_climate.php
… In the atmosphere , not all radiation emitted by the Earth surface reaches the outer space. Part of it is reflected back to the Earth surface by the atmosphere (greenhouse effect ) leading to a global average temperature of about 14°C well above –19°C which would have been felt without this effect…
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.ca/2010/07/paper-change-in-concentration-of-any.html
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.250.755
Again, I recommend you actually read Casey’s article and check out his references.
Gary, I think you’ll find the following pertinent and of interest. And also anyone who happens to be lurking.
The experiment (technical with all the math):
http://www.principia-scientific.org/publications/Absence_Measureable_Greenhouse_Effect.pdf
The layman’s discussion and summary:
http://climateofsophistry.com/2013/12/04/a-tale-of-two-versions/
Michael, still reading, I see. 🙂
“If my hand blocks a certain amount of heat trying to exit the room, I have only slowed the cooling.”
Exactly. And even with a merely constant input of heat, that’s all you have to do to increase the temperature of the system.
“The GHG theory doesn’t just say I slowed the cooling, it says I increased the heat.”
Again, that’s not what it says. It says that some heat that would otherwise be lost to space is directed back to the surface. The net effect is slower cooling and a higher temp at equilibrium. No increase in heat input to the system, just a reduction in output until equilibrium is reached.
“Outer space is NOT one of the places the internal heat of the system gets shuffled to and from.”
But as you point out, that is where the internal heat ends up. Reduce the flow of internal heat to outer space, direct some of that escaping internal heat back into the system, and you tell me what happens to the earth’s temperature.
“GHG concentrations have been higher, and for most of geologic history, MUCH higher than now without upsetting thermal equilibrium. That single fact argues very strongly against GHG theory.”
No, it argues that the earth’s climate system is very complicated. It argues for negative feedbacks. It argues that we don’t have all the answers. It argues that CAGW is unlikely. It says nothing about the reality of the so-called “greenhouse effect.”
“There is no evidence whatever that the real world works like GHG theory says it does.”
Scientists on both sides of the CAGW dispute have provided such evidence until they’re blue in the face. You apparently don’t dispute the existence of so-called “backradiation” and I don’t think you dispute that it comes from so-called “greenhouse gasses” in the atmosphere (water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, ozone, etc.). I can only conclude that you think this radiation has no effect. Yet the very existence of this radiation indicates that radiative cooling of the earth has been slowed, and how can that not affect the earth’s temperature?
“Maybe I’m misunderstanding, but these appear to confirm my contention that GHG theory claims an increase not merely the blocking of a cooling effect…”
Yes, you’re misunderstanding. The first quote says explicitly that the downward component of the “reemitted” radiation originally came from the surface. No claim of new heat, merely redirection of the same old energy. The downward component isn’t radiated to outer space, therefore radiative cooling has been reduced.
The second quote says pretty much the same thing. No new energy, just redirection of part of the old to the surface, not outer space. Less radiation to outer space, less cooling. Again, not rocket science.
You also cite Gerlich and Tscheuschner’s papers. I freely admit that I can’t follow their math, but I can follow at least one response to it:
http://scienceofdoom.com/2010/04/05/on-the-miseducation-of-the-uninformed-by-gerlich-and-scheuschner-2009/
I will also note that they go against every textbook on atmospheric science and are disbelieved by both sides of the CAGW dispute. That doesn’t make them wrong, but it means they need extraordinary evidence to get their view accepted. So far it’s lacking.
“Again, I recommend you actually read Casey’s article and check out his references.”
I did. You simply can’t explain the atmosphere with conduction alone, especially since air is such a poor conductor that we use it as insulation e.g. trapped in fiberglass, foam, goose down, etc. And, as I pointed out earlier, he seems to question the reality of so-called “backradiation” from CO2, which you (I think) don’t.
I’m going to leave this with a couple things for you. First this:
https://johnosullivan.wordpress.com/2012/10/22/industry-radiation-experts-call-it-greenhouse-gas-theory-debunked/
and:
https://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2012/07/07/a-proof-that-greenhouse-gas-driven-global-warming-theory-is-incorrect/
Then this. I tried to post a direct link to both the article and experiment, but this guy is blocked on WUWT. I can understand why so; he has a severe attitude problem dealing with people, and especially dealing with Anthony. Too bad, really because his physics is correct. Anyway, go to this link:
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.ca/2010/06/greenhouse-theory-disproven-in-1909.html
Scroll down to this comment: December 4, 2013 at 8:17 PM
The link to the relevant article is in this comment. The link to the actual experiment is in the article on the guy’s website.
And by the way, I have done a lot of web searching since my last post (not much sleep last night!) and I have discovered that, yes, GHG theory says the ‘backradiation’ ADDS to the incoming solar radiation; and yes, GHG theory says ‘backradiation’ blocks outgoing heat. So, they want it both ways. I just come back to my primary assertion: GHG theory is wrong. It is wrong in its details and wrong in its thermodynamic fundamentals.
I agree, Michael, it’s probably time to put this discussion on the shelf. It has been enlightening, though.
With regard to your first reference, John O’Sullivan is a well-known S—–r [Hi, mods!] who claims that an object can’t radiantly transfer energy to a warmer object. Not just net energy, mind you, but any energy. This claim is disproven by such real world objects as vacuum furnace radiation shields and the high efficiency incandescent bulb I referenced earlier, but these guys are impervious to facts. Anthony also disproved their claims with his “mirror” experiment,
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/05/27/new-wuwt-tv-segment-slaying-the-slayers-with-watts/
which according to the S—–rs should have melted his face. 🙂
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/07/19/friday-funny-reflections-on-the-greenhouse-effect/
Note that O’Sullivan quotes a sales web page which reads in part,
“Infrared energy travels at the speed of light without heating the air it passes through, the amount of infrared radiation absorbed by carbon dioxide, water vapor and other particles in the air typically is negligible.”
Not zero, mind you, but “negligible”, as in non-zero. Since IR heaters are typically used at ranges of a few feet, this is hardly a surprise, is it? Note also that these heaters typically become red hot. Unless you think the surface of the earth is also red hot, their emission spectra are very different from the earth’s, no? Unfortunately, no numbers are given in his reference, which makes it of dubious scientific value, doesn’t it?
That an IR absorber is also an IR emitter is also old news. Indeed, the so-called “greenhouse effect” (SCGE) depends on this very property! What exactly is O’Sullivan’s point?
Like Casey, he also claims conduction is the process that dominates the atmosphere, which, as I’ve pointed out above, is just wrong.
In your second reference, check the comments under Steve Goddard’s article, where he writes in reply to Willis,
“I didn’t say that the greenhouse effect doesn’t do anything. The first few tens of ppm of greenhouse gases are indeed important.”
Uh-oh, not exactly a ringing endorsement of your position, is it?
The third reference is to the R W Wood experiment, which I covered above. Note that the experiment has been repeated at least twice
http://boole.stanford.edu/WoodExpt/
http://www.biocab.org/Experiment_on_Greenhouses__Effect.pdf
with mixed results.
You assert that further explanations of the SCGE confirm your suspicion that it’s bunk. Unfortunately, without links or quotes, I can’t comment. Note, however, that you previously misinterpreted two perfectly good explanations for which you did (fortunately) provide quotes. Judging by those two and the misinterpretations in your latest comment, I suspect that your problem with the SCGE is at least partly due to, well, misinterpretation.
In other words, don’t expect Casey or O’Sullivan to be invited to APS workshops in the near future. 🙂
There are NO scientists who don’t agree with the concept of greenhouse gases.
That is the preserve of pseudo-scientists, astrologists and crackpots.
See
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/01/24/refutation-of-stable-thermal-equilibrium-lapse-rates/
If there were NO greenhouse effect, the lapse rate would automatically be zero. I admit I was a little slow in figuring this out, and Professor Brown straightened me out.
Andy,
Thank you for this offering. More of this should be done where differing views are presented, discussed, evaluated, and ………….oh wait…………….seems this has been done somewhere.
Seriously, the work is appreciated and having this all together in one place is a great resource. Where’s the MSM coverage?
It’s about time the physicist got their act together and started acting like real Physicist. It is also about time someone got a few real scientists from both sides of the issue to meet and honestly discussed it without falling back on unfounded belief systems or the necessity of riding the gravy train
I am quite impressed with the results and thankful we now have an honest base to work from, excluding all of the political spin. Maybe over the next few decades we can get back to honest data collection, data analysis with valid statistics and finally figure out whether we have a real problem or not. Then, if and only if there is a real problem, determine whether adaption is necessary and/or how to adapt, and drop this ignorant belief that man is capable of understanding the earth’s climate system to the point of being able to control it without drastic unintended consequences.
The debate seems to be moving from CAWG vs Luke Warmers to Luke Warmers vs It Just Aint So ers
Excellent post. It will be interesting to see where this leads. Somewhere sane, I hope. The end game is advancing, if it’s not already here. The CAGW crowd (some at least) will have to start taking SOME rational stands, even if it’s only with dodging or defence in mind for later on.
It’s not about a “consensus” among climatologists (with little understanding of physics) because it’s about the thermodynamics of a planet. That’s physics.
The models start from the wrong assumption that a planet’s troposphere would be isothermal in the absence of any molecules that absorb anything in the range of frequencies emitted by the Sun. It would not be and it would be colder at higher levels and probably liquefy and rain to the surface.
In other words, those like James Hansen (with little understanding of radiation, let alone thermodynamics) had absolutely no understanding that the Second Law is all about entropy increasing as unbalanced energy potentials dissipate.
So of course the models are totally wrong.
In fact water vapor causes surface temperatures to be lower – as proved in a study of 30 years of real world data in the paper linked from our group’s website which I suggest you read if you have any interest in finding out what really happens in planetary tropospheres, crusts, mantles and cores.
It’s not about a “consensus” among climatologists (with little understanding of physics) because it’s about the thermodynamics of a planet. That’s physics.
The models start from the wrong assumption that a planet’s troposphere would be isothermal in the absence of any molecules that absorb anything in the range of frequencies emitted by the Sun. It would not be and it would be colder at higher levels and probably liquefy and rain to the surface.
It’s not about a “consensus” among climatologists (with little understanding of physics) because it’s about the thermodynamics of a planet. That’s physics.
The models start from the wrong assumption that a planet’s troposphere would be isothermal in the absence of any molecules that absorb anything in the range of frequencies emitted by the Sun. It would not be and it would be colder at higher levels and probably liquefy and rain to the surface.
In other words, those like James Hansen (with little understanding of radiation, let alone thermodynamics) had absolutely no understanding that the Second Law is all about entropy increasing as unbalanced energy potentials dissipate.
So of course the models are totally wrong.
When it comes to the oceans taking up the extra energy; does back radiation heat the ocean? Or would there have to be an increase in direct sunlight or can the atmosphere transfer heat to the ocean??
@Alf
Most solid and liquid bodies absorb essentially all IR (e.g., back radiation). This is because the chemical bonding (or hydrogen bonding as in H2O) permit the energy in a photon to be “shared” among many possible quantum and/or kinetic possibilities. This is why energy spectra of gases (e.g., the Sun) are line spectra, whereas those of solids are largely continuous.
That is not an answer to how much, (or what percentage of LWIR energy is used up in evaporation, verses an equal amount of disparate SW radiation penetrating the ocean up to 800′?
The warming potential of two given = flux in input energy, is dependent on the residence time of the energy. The residence time of the energy is determined by the w/l of the energy, and the material encountered.
Thanks much. Great report!
Yay, way to kick the can down the road, and move the goalposts. But, I guess that’s the best you can get when you mix climate liars with climate realists and try to come up with some sort of consensus.
Well, “real trouble” as opposed to the current “serious trouble”.
I guess to physicists, real trouble is worse than serious trouble?
Dunno.
A final thought from Dr. Collins (page 92): “…if the hiatus is still going on as of the sixth IPCC report, that report is going to have a large burden on its shoulders walking in the door, because recent literature has shown that the chances of having a hiatus of 20 years are vanishingly small.” There seemed to be general agreement at the workshop that if the hiatus lasts 20 years (until 2018), the IPCC and a potential AR6 are in real trouble.
I think that might the money quote, given that Collins is identified as an “alarmist.” My understanding is that there’s little change of an El Nino big enough to break the “hiatus” any time within the next five or more [years], given the PDO. And by the way, I thought we were in the 19th “hiatus” year, so why are we waiting until 2018? No snark, please. I’m genuinely curious.
Jake J
You ask
The short answer is that there is no agreement on a definition of Global Average Surface Temperature Anomaly (GASTA) and, therefore, each team which produces compilations of GASTA uses its own definition (and changes it almost every month).
GASTA has not risen (or fallen) at a linear rate discernibly different from zero at 95% confidence for several years according to all its different compilations. The data compiled by Ross McKitrick (of RSS) provides these values he has computed for the length of the period to present when global warming was not discernibly different from zero at 95% confidence for each data set.
SATELLITE INDICATIONS
UAH: No discernible warming since July 1996: i.e. for 16 years.
RSS: No discernible warming since December 1992: i.e. for 26 years.
SURFACE INDICATIONS
HadCRUT4.3:No discernible warming since May 1997: i.e. for 19 years
Hadsst3:No discernible warming since May 1995: i.e. for 21 years
GISS: No discernible warming since June 2000: i.e. for more than 14 years.
Clearly, there has been no discernible global warming at 95% confidence for at least the most recent 14 years with only the GISS determination indicating less than 16 years and RSS indicating for the most recent 26 years. Whether or not people are “waiting until 2018” depends on which of the determinations of GASTA they choose to accept.
“You pays your money and you takes your choice”.
(For clarity I add that I think the concept of GASTA is an error because temperature is an intrinsic property so cannot have a valid average: but I am a scientist and not a ‘climate scientist’.)
I hope that helps.
Richard
Thanks Richard. Very useful detail.
To President Obama – please make a tweet about this article. Thanks.
Here’s his tweet:
@WUWT – lol
I still don’t get it that no one addresses that the increase in positive AO&NAO from increased forcing of the climate is totally incompatible with Arctic warming.
You are correct but it is compatible with overall Northern Hemispheric warming. The more expansive the polar vortex is (-AO) the cooler the N.H. will be overall. Cold air will not be locked up neat the pole.
locked up near the pole.
“You are correct but it is compatible with overall Northern Hemispheric warming.”
In fact increased positive AO/NAO cools the AMO and increases precipitation in continental interiors causing them to cool. Several west coast land regions dry and warm up, like the southwest U.S., west Europe, the Sahel etc.
The effects of the oceanic negative feedbacks on surface temperatures are larger than the forcings. Without seeing that, feedbacks get falsely attributed to forcings.
Sounds like a really great conference.
The “thoughtful” and “sensible” pro-warming scientists in attendance would have to more circumspect about their theory given this report of the meeting.
A final thought from Dr. Collins (page 92): “…if the hiatus is still going on as of the sixth IPCC report, that report is going to have a large burden on its shoulders walking in the door, because recent literature has shown that the chances of having a hiatus of 20 years are vanishingly small.”
Given that Ben (17 years) Santer was in the room, one wonders what the look on his face was at that point.
So, 10 years morphed into 15 which Santer turned into 17 and now he (Santer) joins a new consensus of 20 years. And Santer watched this unfold with a straight face?
Reading this paragraph made me sit up too. So after 18 years they can go on holding a belief, at 20 it vanishes. You’re kidding me? These people claim they are scientists? No way are they scientists, this attitude is about rats preparing to jump ship but have not got the guts to tell us properly. Given the unknowns in the modelling there cannot be any material difference between 18 and 20 years ( am neither a statistician or scientist, but that is obvious to me); they are in trouble now! Waiting another 2 years whilst Dr Soon is being pilloried and industries and countries are being ripped to sheds on the back of wrong science, and saying nothing because we will not really know for another 2 years? These people should stand up now or forever hang their heads in shame.
I think they’re trying to give Obama every opportunity to rescue them in the remaining 2 years of his dictatorship, hence 20 years for catastrophic failure of the theory.
My bad … “hypothesis” not “theory”.
Then it will be 25; then 30. Then whenever and if ever the climate warms again before the final days of the Holocene, it will be: “See! We told you so!”
If the plateau (actually cooling, but with the decline hidden by adjustment tricks) should persist for 25 to 30 years, the ocean oscillation hypothesis will be confirmed.
They will still say: “See! We told you so!”
The big names of CAGW are in this so deep they can never ‘walk it back’. Can you imagine any one of them saying, “Sorry, I was wrong”? They’ll continue to deny reality to the last breath even if it’s through icicles hanging from their nostrils.
Its normal for ‘climate science’ to keep extending their deadlines after the failure of their claims to reflect reality , in two years time it will go up again .
Has long has the cash flows in and there are jobs to be hand , snake oils salesmen will keep selling snake oil.
Having a certified word-for-word transcript was wonderful. Lots of useful nuance that you would normally not have from a meeting like this. But, there were times I would have loved to be a fly on the wall! That moment was one of them.
“Dr. Curry calls this simply ignoring the longer term cycles, basically the AMO and the PDO. Dr. Collins acknowledges that there is no “first principles” evidence that the warming in the last half of the last century is man-made, this conclusion is based solely on comparisons between climate models.”
How sadly this cogently points out the deficiency of using statistical modeling to do science. To completely ignore the oceans is being very unrealistic. Unfortunate, to say the least.
“Dr. Santer believes that man’s influence on the climate is there, he can see a signal, but he does not know how big it is. ”
———-
If he doesn’t know how big the signal is, then he can’t see a signal.
Touche!
Excellent post. Thank you.
Nice post and the AGW shills aren’t clogging up the comments. 🙂
Seems appropriate to post this:
““We, the undersigned, having assessed the relevant scientific evidence, do not find convincing support for the hypothesis that human emissions of carbon dioxide are causing, or will in the foreseeable future cause, dangerous global warming.”
From: the International Climate Science Coalition
since it almost reads like the general consensus of the APS meeting, does it not?
Andy,
Thank you very much!
This is an excellent summary of an important discussion…. and most enlightening.
Mac
You are welcome
“Held is somewhat neutral on it. He says that the warming in the second half of the 20th Century is forced, but he does not know if the forcing is anthropogenic or natural (page 409). Long term climate cycles that are not in the models could be a cause.”
Somebody posted in previous comments this plot of the difference in the GISS global temperature anomalies as calculated in 2005 and again in 2014. I haven’t confirmed the results but older plots of global temperatures from the IPCC are consistent with it.
http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=qoeesn&s=8#.VQJXxY7vg7x
Its not just that the extra underlying warming increases what could be attributed CO2, the lower adjustments around 1920 look like an intentional effort to adjust the data so that it looked less cyclical.
If NASA is prepared to do this, then there is a good chance that the world cooled rather than just paused since 2000.
One hopes that Gavin will be well grilled on those “adjustments” by Congressional committees.
Dr. Held, Dr. Collins, and Dr. Santer…
…are now getting furious emails from colleagues lambasting them for appearing in the same forum with ‘deniers.’
Wasn’t everyone on ‘the team’ barred from debate?
Wasn’t this an issue that really did not have ‘two sides’ ??
Andy May
Thankyou for your clear summarising report of the event and your link to the transcript of the event.
Both are well worth reading, and your report not only provides an interesting introduction to the transcript but is an accurate summation for those lacking time to read the link.
Again, thankyou for your very fine report of the event.
Richard
You are very welcome! I enjoyed the project.
Great summary Anthony. There does appear to be uncertainty and doubt creeping in. I like the move of the goalposts to 20 years and hope they do not move them again.
Interesting this conference is similar to what Hal Lewis was asking for when he retired in 2011 from the APS. In the letter from Hal Janice Moore’s posted, Hal asked for Topical Group on Climate Science to openly discuss the scientific issues. Four years later and here it is, a rational scientific discussion, with no appeals to authority, speculation being obfuscated with evidence, and hypothesis passing for theory.
Very much appreciate Andy Mays summary, and look forward to following up on the links he has provided.
The long and short of it, the certainty presented to the public is without merit and even though there is still reluctance to do so, let the walking back to solid ground begin.
🙂
If these clowns are the best climate science has to offer, we’re all doomed. The data confirming C02 causes climate change doesn’t exist because C02 doesn’t change the climate. Until climate scientists admit that, anything they say is a bunch of BS.
IPCC AR5 TS.6 pretty much said the same things as the APS workshop. IPCC AR6 is going to be all like SNL’s Rosana Rosana Dana, “Well, never mind!”
My objection to the popular GHE analogy is that only the radiative half is considered. Walk in to a greenhouse and there are two noticeable properties: 1) it’s warm, 2) it’s humid. Without the latent heat of water vapor moving absorbing/releasing heat through evaporation and condensation the greenhouse would be an arid, hot during the day, cold at night, unstable wasteland. It’s the water vapor cycle that modulates and moderates the global climate. CO2 is as significant as a bee fart in hurricane.
I see two issues with the equation describing climate sensitivity to forcing factors. The less serious is the fact that ΔTo should not contain a Δ because it is a fixed value and not a change. The more serious is in the expression 1-f. First, I assume that the 1 comprises both internal variability and external forcings. The problem lies in the fact that a linear increase in the value of f produces an exponential increase in the value of ΔT. This ascribes a disproportionately increasing effect to external forcings the greater their contribution, resulting in an underestimation of their effect if they represent less than half of the total and an overestimation of their effect if they represent more than half. As the plot indicates, if the external forcings constitute 100% of the contribution, the temperature increase becomes infinite, an obvious absurdity, but one that could generate significant alarm in the trusting public if reputable climate scientists stand behind it.
It’s like a gang of wolves inviting some sheep to “discuss” the “science” behind sheep-eating, and how, perhaps sheep-eating might not need to be quite as frequent as once thought, but is still extremely important, because science.
“Dr. Collins acknowledges that there is no “first principles” evidence that the warming in the last half of the last century is man-made, this conclusion is based solely on comparisons between climate models.”
Which is to say that there is no actual, physical evidence of any kind, as required by the scientific method. GIGO models designed to show what the designers’ paymasters want them to show cannot produce “evidence”.
Besides which, Dr. Collins IMO misuses the term “first principles”. In physics and other sciences, theoretical work is said to be from first principles, or ab initio, if it starts directly at the level of established science and does not make assumptions such as empirical model and fitting parameters. What he should have said was that there is no objective, observational, empirical or physical evidence of man-made global warming.
Funny how “aerosols” became the go-to excuse-du-jour for the Climate Liars. I would have guessed Heidi- de-Heat. Maybe they just pick one out of a hat.
Dr. Collins does not believe in data, therefore one can not have a rational conversation with him on this topic.
I should say none of the AGW enthusiast believe in the data.
Here is the data ,now you need to reconcile your theory with the data. Good Luck.
http://www.c3headlines.com/are-todays-temperatures-unusual/
Does the author really mean January 2014, i.e. 14 months ago? If so, that seems a long time to wait for the write-up. No-one else seems to have raised this.
Rich, March 2015
Rich,
Yep. It was 2014. APS started their review of their statement of Climate change a while back, and their site indicates a “revised” (we don’t know content) statement was put out to membership late 2014. No word yet on acceptance or modification if any.
The 573 pages were a real slog, plus I had to run down dozens of references without a proper bibliography. I only did it because I thought Professor Curry’s summary was too brief and Dr. Koonin’s was too detached from the drama and the interchange. The other summaries I read were by non-scientists who obviously had not read all of the transcript or understood what they had read. Once I decided to do it, it took two months from beginning to end, part-time of course. I have a full time job, not quite retired yet.
Andy,
I’m only at page 250 something on a first read and walked away several times to process. The more I read, the more I admire this offering and your work.
More climate work should be done this way, IMO, with scientists face to face and learning from each other. There is some tension, and video would have been a bonus to watch faces and body language.
While it is easy to sympathize with understandable frustration, there is an advantage here that is worth pursuing.
In that equation , delta T = delta To/(1-f)
In the REAL world, most of the time, that delta f must be a very large NEGATIVE number. See
http://clivebest.com/blog/?p=3659
Thank you! I missed that when it was posted. It fits in very well with what Dr. Lindzen said at the workshop and even Trenberth and Fasullo. Perhaps Mr. Best was right and a few years ahead of everyone else. I will remember this. Interesting if he is proven right.
The “Stadium Wave” coined by Judith is very reminiscent of Bob Tisdale’s work on the ladder affect of El Nino’s. In that affect the layered warm pools during calm El Nino’s migrate around the world and warm things up.
https://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2015/03/11/february-2015-sea-surface-temperature-sst-anomaly-update/
His ENSO splice with SST clearly demonstrates this.
And by the way, excellent article. This is what reporting should look like. The opposite examples would be just about all the news channels on TV.
Regarding plant food, I know that if my grandma planted sucker carp in corn hills, the had a bumper crop. If she overseeded with fall peas or beans and then just plowed them back in come Spring time she had a bumper crop. If she moved chicken poop from the coop to the garden, she had giant pumpkins. It makes sense to me that if there is extra CO2 in the air, along with extra warmth, it will be taken up by a greening of the Earth. At least it did in Grandma’s garden.
You don’t have to rely on its “making sense”. The drawdown in CO2 over rapidly growing vegetation has been directly measured on scales from individual plants to test plots to vast commercial forests and agricultural fields to the Northern Hemisphere:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2003GB002044/pdf
From the above post, I quote:
“Dr. Collins is confident that the warming from 1950 to 1998 is man-made. He admits that there are long term climate cycles that are not taken into account in the models, but he believes their variability is accounted for with multiple model runs using different initial conditions. Dr. Curry calls this simply ignoring the longer term cycles, basically the AMO and the PDO. Dr. Collins acknowledges that there is no “first principles” evidence that the warming in the last half of the last century is man-made, this conclusion is based solely on comparisons between climate models.”
Dr. Collins is wrong about the average of the runs. All you need is one natural run that mimics observations. A random walk that then teleconnects with subsequent walks is all you need to explain natural variations in short and long term time scales. The average of the runs is EXACTLY the wrong way to mimic weather pattern variations.
I agree with you, but I doubt Dr. Collins would perform that experiment. I think I can safely predict that a random walk model would simply prove that the climate models are missing large natural components.
“but he does not know if the forcing is anthropogenic or natural (page 409). Long term climate cycles that are not in the models could be a cause.”
Wow… that’s a hell of an admission to make in public.
Enter Bob’s spliced El Nino/SST graph. Brilliant work and one that I predict will become a common component of models. If there ever is going to be a major paradigm shift to this awful half century of climate science, that graph displays its central evidence.
Thank you Andy for your hard work.
There seems to be a retreat from the heights of global warming catastrophism by the three warmists present. Did 18 years of “the Pause” finally hurt “the Cause”?
I doubt that two more years of “the Pause” should be considered significant. We already know enough today to conclude that the warmists were wrong – in fact, we knew this 12 years ago when we wrote in 2002:
“Climate science does not support the theory of catastrophic human-made global warming – the alleged warming crisis does not exist.”
http://www.apega.ca/members/publications/peggs/WEB11_02/kyoto_pt.htm
In my opinion, the serious question is whether the warmist stance was innocent incompetence or deliberate fraud. The ClimateGate emails suggest much of the latter.
I have not read all the material so the following question may have already been covered.
The mainstream debate between warmists and skeptics has centered on the magnitude of climate sensitivity to CO2 (ECS). Warmists say ECS is high, greater that 3 or 4 C, while skeptics say ECS is 1C or less. This mainstream debate rages on, notwithstanding that both sides of this debate apparently assume that the future is causing the past.
http://icecap.us/index.php/go/joes-blog/carbon_dioxide_in_not_the_primary_cause_of_global_warming_the_future_can_no/
Did any of the six scientists discuss the observation that atmospheric CO2 lags temperature at all measure time scales? If so, who did and where is it in the transcript?
Regards to all, Allan
No. They did not get into paleoclimatology at all as it was a group of atmospheric physicists.
Thank you Andy. – saves me a lot of reading.
In response to your reply, the lag of CO2 after temperature is evident in the modern data record and the paleo record.
.In the modern data record, the rate of change dCO2/dt varies ~contemporaneously with temperature and CO2 lags temperature by about 9 months.
For verification, please see my 2008 paper at
http://icecap.us/index.php/go/joes-blog/carbon_dioxide_in_not_the_primary_cause_of_global_warming_the_future_can_no/
CO2 also lags temperature by about 800 years in the ice core record on a longer time scale.
Therefore, CO2 lags temperature at all measured time scales.
The evidence indicates that on Earth atmospheric CO2 does not significantly drive temperature; rather temperature (among other factors) drives atmospheric CO2.
In summary, we don’t even know for certain what drives what, and it is surprising to me that so many senior academics avoid discussing this critically important question.
The warmists have dismissed this lag as a “feedback effect”, which I suggest is a Cargo Cult argument (i.e. We KNOW that CO2 drives temperature; therefore it MUST BE a feedback effect)
Best, Allan. 🙂
___________________________
Background Information
Atmospheric CO2 has been increasing since prior to 1940, and yet global temperature declined from ~1940 to ~1975, increased to ~2000, and has since been flat – hence there is no apparent sensitivity of temperature to CO2.
My January 2008 hypo is gaining traction with the recent work of several researchers. We don’t always agree on the fine details, but there is clear agreement in the primary hypothesis.
Here is Murry Salby’s address to the Sydney Institute in 2011:
Here is Salby’s address in Hamburg 2013:
See also this January 2013 paper from Norwegian researchers:
The Phase Relation between Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide and Global Temperature
Global and Planetary Change
Volume 100, January 2013, Pages 51–69
by Ole Humluma, Kjell Stordahlc, Jan-Erik Solheimd
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921818112001658
Highlights
– Changes in global atmospheric CO2 are lagging 11–12 months behind changes in global sea surface temperature.
– Changes in global atmospheric CO2 are lagging 9.5–10 months behind changes in global air surface temperature.
– Changes in global atmospheric CO2 are lagging about 9 months behind changes in global lower troposphere temperature.
– Changes in ocean temperatures explain a substantial part of the observed changes in atmospheric CO2 since January 1980.
– Changes in atmospheric CO2 are not tracking changes in human emissions.
A paper by a group from three Dutch universities published in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics that they have found that only about 3.75% [15 ppm] of the CO2 in the lower atmosphere is man-made from the burning of fossil fuels, and thus, the vast remainder of the 400 ppm atmospheric CO2 is from land-use changes and natural sources such as ocean outgassing and plant respiration.
http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/14/7273/2014/acp-14-7273-2014.html
*****************
Christy did get into a bit of paleo – read the section starting at page 362. (that’s paelo, isn’t it?)
Btw, the full text of the transcript is well worth reading IMHO.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/02/25/roger-pielke-jr-being-investigated-by-representative-grijalva-for-presenting-inconvenient-data/#comment-1869769
[Excerpt]
A few observations:
1. CO2 is the basis for all carbon-based life on Earth – and Earth’s atmosphere and oceans are clearly CO2-deficient.
2. Based on the evidence, Earth’s climate is insensitive to increased atmospheric CO2 – there is no global warming crisis.
3. Temperature, among other factors, drives atmospheric CO2 much more than CO2 drives temperature. Atmospheric CO2 LAGS temperature at all measured time scales.
4. Cheap, abundant, reliable energy is the lifeblood of modern society.
5. Green energy schemes (scams) are responsible for driving up energy costs and increasing winter mortality rates.
_________________________________
I suggest that all of the above statements are true, to a high degree of confidence.
All of the above statements are utter blasphemy to warmist fanatics.
It is truly remarkable how the warmists could get it so wrong.
_________________________________
“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the universe.”
– Albert Einstein
I have nothing of substance to contribute except to suggest that instead of CAGW, Catastrophic Antrhopogenic Global Warming, the acronym be changed to CACA, Catastrophic Anthropogenic Climate Alarmism. Because it really stinks.
@Andy May,
Thank you for providing the framing document. I read the entire 573-page transcript when someone here linked to it over a year ago, but I didn’t know about the framing document; I didn’t see Judith Curry’s post on it. (To Allan MacRae, the transcript is quick-reading; it’s in courtroom style; IIRC, around 25 lines per page.)
A little tiny eensy quibble. You wrote above: The estimated equilibrium climate sensitivity to CO2 has remained between 1.5 and 4.5 in the IPCC reports since 1979. Confused me because it was in italics and therefore thought it was a quote. Factually, should read: “IPCC reports since 1990, and the Charney Report of 1979.” Or “…remained between 1.5 and 4.5 in the reports since 1979.”
Thanks for your post above.
BTW, Andy May, I’m not a scientist, so I could whizz through it faster than someone trained in the science because there were equations I had to ignore or I was stalled. I found that transcript fascinating.