By Christopher Monckton of Brenchley
Tom Karl’s paper (Karl et al. 2015) purporting to abolish the global-warming pause, recently published in Science, may be partly my fault. I first ran across the National Climatic Data Center’s (NCDC) accident-prone director in a Congressional hearing room in about 2009, when I was the witness for the Republicans, Karl for the Democrats.
I showed the energy and environment committee a graph showing the mean of the temperature anomalies from the three terrestrial and two satellite datasets. The graph showed that in the first eight years of the 21st century the Earth had cooled:
Representative Joe Barton of Texas, the formidable Republican ranking member of the House climate committee, feigned astonishment. He rounded on Karl and said: “You and other officials have made repeated appearances before this committee in recent months, telling us over and over again about “global warming”. Not one of you has ever told us that there has been global cooling throughout the past seven or eight years. Why not? Or is Lord Monckton lying to us?”
Tom Karl, who was sitting next to me, looked as though he wished the “warming” Earth would swallow him up. He shifted from one well-padded butt-cheek to the other. He harrumphed, “Er, ah, well, that is, we wouldn’t have quite – oof – um – done the calculations that way, aaahh… We wouldn’t have averaged the anomalies from – umf – multiple datasets with different fields of coverage, err – aaagh…”
Karl was Saved by the Bell (perhaps he saw himself in the role of Screech to my Zack Morris in the hit 90s teen TV series). A division was called and proceedings were suspended while Hon. Members shuffled out to vote.
While the committee members were doing their democratic duty, Tom Karl rounded on me and hissed, “How do you expect to be taken seriously?”
“I don’t,” I said. “I expect the data to be taken seriously.”
Karl also took issue with my having told the committee there had been no particular trend in landfalling U.S. hurricanes over the past 100 years. He was carrying a vast artist’s portfolio of charts about with him. He flipped it open and said, “You’re wrong.”
“No,” I said, “I’m right.”
He pointed to the graph. I was indeed wrong. Karl’s graph showed no trend in landfalling hurricanes not only for 100 years but for 150 years. His face fell, then brightened again: “Ah,” he said, “but just look at how tropical storms have increased in the past 30 years!”
“You know perfectly well,” I replied, “that that apparent increase is merely an artifact of the satellite coverage that began 30 years ago. Before then, you knew if a hurricane had hit you, but you would probably not be able to detect every tropical storm.”
The committee members murmured back into the hearing room and took their seats. Joe Barton snapped, “Both of you had better write to this committee informing it of how you reached your mutually incompatible conclusions about whether there has been cooling over the past seven or eight years.”
I was quick off the mark, sending the committee a letter that week pointing out that each of the datasets individually showed the cooling. I had particular pleasure in pointing out that Karl’s own NCDC dataset showed it:
Karl sent a rather testy reply to the committee saying that the mere data were not relevant. Eight years was too short a period to draw any conclusion, yada yada. What he could not quite bring himself to admit was that he had been wrong in suggesting there had been no global cooling from 2001-2008. His own dataset showed it.
Now, perhaps still smarting over his trouncing at the hands of a mere layman trumping predictions with data, Karl has done his best to abolish outright the Pause of 18 years 6 months that makes a standing mockery of the wildly exaggerated predictions of the error-prone models unjustifiably but profitably favored by the politico-scientific establishment of which he is a member.
Skeptical scientists including Bob Tisdale, Judith Curry, Ross McKitrick Dick Lindzen and our kind host, have all weighed in with commendable speed to point out how much is wrong with Karl’s overt data tampering.
There is one glorious point they have not mentioned. Karl’s paper appears to repeal the laws of thermodynamics.
Suppose, ad argumentum, that he is right. In that event, in the past 15 years global warming at the Earth’s surface has continued at the not particularly alarming rate of 0.116 K per decade. In 1990 the IPCC’s central business-as-usual prediction for the medium term was equivalent to 0.28 K per decade, so, on any view, Karl’s paper is an admission that the models have been exaggerating by well over double.
But let us look at what happened either side of the surface over the same period.
Beneath the surface heaves the vasty deep. The least ill-resolved source of data about the temperature of the top 1900 m of the ocean is the network of some 3600 automated ARGO bathythermograph buoys.
Unlike the assorted ship’s buckets and engine intake sensors and promenade-deck thermometers that preceded them, the bathythermographs were specifically designed to provide a consistent, calibrated, competent ocean temperature dataset.
They have their problems, not the least of which is that there are so few of them. Each buoy takes only 3 measurements a month in 200,000 cubic kilometres of ocean – a volume 200 miles square and a mile and a quarter deep. The bias uncertainty is of course less than it was in the bad old days of buckets and such, but the coverage uncertainty remains formidable.
Another problem is that ARGO only began producing proper data in 2004, and there seems to have been no update to its marine atlas since the end of 2014.
Nevertheless, ARGO is the least bad we have. And what the buoys show is that the rate of global ocean warming in those 11 full years of data is equivalent to less than a fortieth of a degree per decade – 0.023 degrees per decade, to be more precise:
The lower troposphere extends about as far above the surface as the ARGO-measured upper ocean extends below it. Its temperature is measured by the satellites from which the RSS and UAH datasets come. They have a highish bias uncertainty, but a low coverage uncertainty. Following the recent revision of the UAH dataset, they now tell much the same story. Here is the RSS graph for the 11 years 2004-2014:
These considerations raise an important question, which – once it has been raised – is obvious. But, as Dr Lyne, my wise tutor in Classics at Cambridge, used to remind us: “Do not be frightened to state the obvious. It is surprising how often the obvious goes unnoticed until someone points it out.”
Here is the obvious question. Where is Karl’s surface warming coming from?
It is not coming from above, for in the lower troposphere there was no warming over the 11-year period 2004-2014 (or, for that matter, over the 15-year period 2000-2014).
Four-fifths of it is not coming from below, for Karl’s paper says that from 2000-2014, the 15-year period that includes the 11 years for which we have ARGO data, the surface warming rate was equivalent to 0.116 degrees per decade – more or less exactly five times the measured ocean warming rate.
Not much is coming from the land, for Karl’s paper makes few adjustments to the rate of warming of the air above the land, which in any event accounts for only 29% of the Earth’s surface.
Where is the missing heat coming from? Spukhäfte Fernwirkung, perhaps? Have Mr Karl, and the peerless peer-reviewers of Science who ought surely to have spotted this huge error, inadvertently repealed the laws of thermodynamics? I think we should be told. For if I am right this is the simplest, clearest, most complete refutation of Karl’s paper.
The only data that matters is radiosonde data and satellite data. Al
As I have said AGW enthusiast will either ignore the data , say the data is wrong or manipulated it if it does not conform to their absurd theory.
If the claim is that the surface temperature of earth is increasing, then I don’t see how satellite data is the only data that matters. My understanding of CO2 GHE warming is that more of the sun’s energy is staying in the lower atmosphere longer, which causes higher surface temperatures. The oceans of course are going to heat up slower and is where a lot of the heat is “hiding”. I see nothing wrong with an argument that a 1 degree rise in surface air temperature would show up as 0.1 degree or less rise in ocean temperatures. The upper atmosphere (satellite data) may show a lower temperature increase or stay flat because the energy is staying at the surface and less is reaching space. I don’t see how any of this goes against the Laws of Thermodynamics.
If there is the same energy coming is, and less going out due to spring traps, cages, and CO2, then the temperature must necessarily increase. That increase will show in the blackbody curve and be analyzable via Wien’s Displacement Law.
We could, if we like, posit that it’s regional rather than global in nature. Put aside that this would refute the idea of a global climate change in preference of regional climate change. But the regions of interest here are respectively 1/4 and 3/4 of the Earth’s surface. If this is the case, then it is still easily teased out by satellite measurement. That is, the new findings cannot disagree with the satellite data, but the satellite data may be improperly averaged.
The only alternate notions require some manner of claiming that heat is playing peekaboo with Stefan-Boltzmann. And that the heating has occurred despite that it hasn’t. Which gives us two logical options. We can either pursue the antiquated notion that such a contradiction disproves the premises. Or the less antiquated notion that the premises may not only stand, but that every other possible notion is proven thereby. In which case the propositions that ‘Global Warming is false,’ ‘This paper is accounting fraud,’ and ‘Obama is our first bacterial colony to hold the office of president,’ are all undeniably true and proven.
I leave to your taste which path you wish to follow for the conclusions.
Jquip – “then the temperature must necessarily increase” Sorry Jquip, this is simply not true. Not all energy is measured as temperature. There are all sorts of other energies. For example, when water changes to ice or water vapor, there is a large energy change but not necessarily a temperature change. The earth is not a perfect “black body” nor is it in equilibrium. I simple do not see how any of your comments are relevant.
Dan, you’re engaging in the fallacy of composition. That is, since we can speak of phase change and temperature with respect to water, that necessarily this includes the entirety of the earth and all the molecules it is composed of without exception. If you are stating that your argument is correct, then it is necessarily impossible that absorbing radiation will increase the temperature of anything. While you’re formulating your rebuttal, I’ll go take a nice, hot shower.
And yes, of course, the Earth is neither a perfect Black Body nor is it in equilibrium. But then I did not claim either of these things. So we are here dealing immediately with Straw Mean. Expressly I referred to states of disequilibrium, so that claim is a novelty of your own production. And of course I did not state a ‘perfect’ Black Body, nor do I think it is hardly necessary to be at pains to note that the Earth — a real and existant object — is not made of unobtanium used in gedankens about Thermodynamics. Certainly, if we’re to state that this is necessary, I mind you that I only speak to Humans and you have not taken the pains to state that you are not a Unicorn.
But it remains that the black body curve peaks are used with with grey bodies all the time. And indeed, this is a feature of every spectral based measure of temperature. For which, I apologize if I have taken up the common understanding of science on this point and as has been used with wild success for well over a century. But having taken it upon yourself to refute this notion you have taken it upon yourself to engage in pedagogy: To make the argument for why we cannot use these notions as engineers have so long done.
With bated breath I await such a useful argument to the field of science.
Jquip June 5, 2015 at 10:55 am says
“(SNIP) In which case the propositions that ‘Global Warming is false,’ ‘This paper is accounting fraud,’ and ‘Obama is our first bacterial colony to hold the office of president,’ are all undeniably true and proven.”
With a population of over 300 Billion, you may be onto something regarding Pres. BO’s make-up
OOPS Make that 300 Trillion
Around 6 lbs. for a 200 lb. person but, Cell for Cell, about 90% of all cells contained in the Human Body are non human
Jquip, “then it is necessarily impossible that absorbing radiation will increase the temperature of anything”. Now you are the one stating a straw man. I said that not ALL absorbing radiation necessarily shows up as temperature increase and that there are cases when radiation is absorbed and there is no temperature change. You cannot simply measure the difference in the blackbody curve of a changing grey body and determine temperature change accurately, especially at a particular place within the grey body such as the air temperature at the surface of the earth. The earth is a constantly changing grey body. You seem to be saying that you can analyze “the blackbody curve” of the earth and tell the surface air temperature of the earth within tenths of a degree. And you seem to be implying that it is more accurate than actual earth thermometers. I disagree. The discussion is about the surface air temperature in case you forgot. It is not about the theoretical temperature of all the molecules of the entire earth.
LOL another comedian.
If you are stating that ‘some’ radiation necessarily shows up as a temperature increase then the global average will have gone up. For your objection to carry water it is necessary that there are conditions in which there is NO absorbing radiation that shows up as a temperature increase. And I grant you, that if you intended to state that there are conditions — here on this blue marble — in which every quantity and kind of radiation increase causes, for some period of time, no increased radiation and no increased temperature change? Then indeed, I have misrepresented your position. Simply confirm that this is what you intended, and I shall grant you the demonstration of my error and correct the point.
Otherwise, it is the position you presented.
The discussion as I see it is about global warming. And certainly if you did not accept this to be the case you would not have said ‘surface air temperature’ but ‘surface air temperature’ in Topeka. And if we are talking about such global conditions we are necessarily talking about all manner of samping. And this is a quandry. For you could be stating that more measurements are less accurate that less measurements. But this is so absurd that I wouldn’t dare accuse you of holding to such nonsense. The other is that you are, in fact, stating that as a point of global temperature trends that there are none.
That, in fact, there is nothing at all wrong with the idea that increasing radiation does not lead to increased temperature. And that if did lead to increased temperature, the increasing temperature would cause a decreasing atmospheric temperature just so finely defined as to erase all and only just that increase in radiation that makes it appear as if it is warming. And that even if this is nonsense, we couldn’t detect global temperature trends from space because you personally disagree with Wien’s Displacement Law for unstated reasons.
No, I’m an in error after all. It is vastly less absurd to understand your position as that of stating that more measurement is less accurate than less measurement.
Jquip: I am glad you agree with me. I am glad you admit you are in error. More does not equal better. More can be better, but not always – even when measuring or modelling.
Even within satellite records trends are not the same. Check out the RSS satellite data website:
“Globally averaged temperature anomaly time series for the Lower Tropospheric Temperature (TLT). The plot shows the WARMING of the troposphere over the last 3 decades which has been attributed to human-caused global warming.”
“Globally averaged temperature anomaly time series for the Lower Tropospheric Stratosphere (TLS). The plot shows the COOLING of the lower stratosphere over the past 3 decades. This cooling is caused by a combination of ozone depletion and the increase of greenhouse gases.”
How is this possible? Don’t all the layers of the atmosphere have to move in tandem? Does it go against the Laws of Thermodynamics? Is the earth warming or cooling? This article about “repealed the Laws of Thermodynamics” is just bad logic. The first post about only looking at satellite records is just bad logic.
The bottom line is that no one knows with very much accuracy what the climate was like in the past or what it will be in the future. No one knows the total effect that humans are having on the climate.
If more measurement is less accurate — by your argument — then it behooves you to give an example relevant to what we are discussing as to how this can be. Otherwise this is just content-free nonsense.
Your example here is just a trivial sophistry. That regional measurments by lattitude, longitude, and elevation can vary differently from one another is neither interesting nor novel; it is expected. That different regions can have different trends is also not interesting or novel; it is expected. And none of these conditions by themselves say anything about the global temperature trends.
Sure, you can say that. I can say that. Anyone can say that. But if it is bad logic, then it is on the onus of anyone that claims it to demonstrate it. There’s no free pass for just asserting ‘I hatez it, I hatez the dirty Baggins’ and then calling that good. But then, your original post did not do that. Specifically, it didn’t even address the point that Monckton made: That the trends used as input by Karl do not add up to the trends used as output by Karl. If you wish the focus to be on Mockton’s logic, then that’s the part you need to rebut.
I can only assume that you mean my first post, for I do not recall Monckton having stated such. But then, of course, I did not state such either. It might assist you to go back and review both.
If Karl’s paper is valid and sound then we don’t know with very much accuracy what the climate is like now. And if we accept your argument that more measurement is less accuracy in this sphere, then you’re putting forth that we know less now — by consequence of better measurements — then we did a century ago. I suggest that’s not bad logic, it’s Not Even Wrong.
“Where is the missing heat coming from?” From determined Antroproghenic minds?
Years ago I pointed out that it made no sense to me that CO2 at 400 ppm and still increasing could suddenly stop warming the atmosphere and yet lower levels of CO2 between 1970-1998 were claimed to have warmed the atmosphere by the green house effect. What was happening? For 18 years CO2, a greenhouse gas, was not warming up the greenhouse, the atmosphere. Then the party line became that the oceans were sucking up all the heat and that is why atmospheric warming stopped. It seemed to cute that for 18 years suddenly the oceans sucked up just enough heat to keep global atmospheric temperature stable, on a flat line or even dropping slightly as Lord Monckton states. This was based on spotty ocean temperature measurement before Argus launched buoys. After all temperatures randomly made by ships on shipping lanes by slinging a metal or canvas bucked over the side hardly seemed a way to sample 70% of the area of the earth that consists of oceans, let alone these were all surface measurements which are affected by wind and storms that stir up the oceans and mix the warmer surface water with colder deeper water.
Isn’t it clear surface warming is different that atmospheric warming by CO2 or other greenhouse gases?
Greenhouse gases absorb sunlight at certain specral wave length and radiate the heat back into the atmosphere. Surface warming is caused by absorbton of the sun’s radiaation or its reflection back into the atmosphere. ice covered oceans reflect more sunlight than open water that absorbs more radiation and heats up accordingly.
Why should surface measurents even be used? Just because our weather stations are enclosed in a box on the surface of land? If surface measurements of temperature are being used as an indicator of anthropogenic CO2 atmospheric warming, then how can we not be concerned about where the thermometer is placed ? Place a thermometer 6 inches above an asphalt pavement and you may get 180 degrees. SImilarly the thermometer above green grass will be different than above a patch of bare ry clay or on a sand white beach. The type of soil and vegetation around the surface thermometer will change the thermometer’s reading.
I realize satellite data has some problems but as Lord Monckton says they have less variability from limited sites beng samples. There is no fudging, adjusting of data for thermometer location, filling in missing observations in unpopulated parts of the earth with assumed values, and other concerns about locations of heat sinks, the paint used on the weather station thermometer box,etc.
Anyone like to comment to clarify this? i would be deeply appreciative.
And this excerpt is the key to the entire debacle called AGW and the doctrines well funded warmist disciples;
” How do you expect me to be taken seriously?”
“I don’t,” I said. “I expect the data to be taken seriously.”
I agree, excellent line.
“Where is the missing heat coming from?”
UHI must be worse than we thought.
Isn’t this an admission that ARGO doesn’t work, has never worked and they wasted billions of dollars on it?
The reason for the adjustment is to justify spending more money on a system they just ‘scientifically proved’ doesn’t work!
I think that the “idea” of Argo floats is kinda neat, but the implementation is woefully lacking. As someone here once pointed out, the resolution of the Argo system is akin to making 1 measurement per year at a random time in a volume of ocean equivalent to Lake Superior. The fact that the Climate Fearosphere tries to make a big deal out of such measurements should tell anyone capable of independent thought, all they need to know about the veracity of the CAGW proponents.
“…capable of independent thought…”
There’s the catch, right there.
Not sure that ‘doesn’t work’ is an accurate description. In a different time, without the Politics, Argo would have been a good idea.
Sadly, with those in control being hardcore ‘adjusters’, I can’t take the Argo network ‘adjustments’ any more seriously than GISS ‘adjustments’.
Very sad IMHO that I now consider an apparently worthwhile expense like Argo to be just another COP meal ticket to every ‘all expenses paid’ vacation these wankers can think up.
I don’t think that activist scientists have thought this (Karl et adjustments (hide the straight line)) nonsense through terribly well regarding its implications for the longer term . Fool me once … Fool me twice and your Argo (and other) funding gets pulled…
Destroying science one ‘paper’ (ticket to Paris) at a time. A sad end to the automatic funding of ‘science’ in our time. Is that a tear or just another ‘scientists’ finger in my eye!
Not disagreeing just I do not comprehend the value of a measuring system that takes measurements by random location and time. Or more specifically how can random measurements be used to develop trends..
I agree. I saw how GISS “adjusted” their 1998 graph by lowering temperatures before 1970 or so and then when released again in 2009 the GISS curve showed 1998 the warmest year on record and not 1934 which was warmer than 1998 in the 1998 graph.Who was in charge at GISS during this time interval? Was it Dr. James Hansen? Wasn’t he involved in climategate and the hacked email messages from East Anglia Climate center? What is known about his integrity? Has the GISS data been independent audited after “adjustments” to determine ow the adjustments where made, why and by what magnitude?
I wonder how long it will be before we get an admission that after all, ARGO doesn’t provide data with sufficient detail and accuracy to allow us to conclude what the trend has been within the now widened error bars, but that it must be so that the Ocean ate their homework. Jo Nova has given them an escape route by pointing up this earlier paper:
http://joannenova.com.au/2015/06/study-shows-argo-ocean-robots-uncertainty-was-up-to-100-times-larger-than-advertised/
Whether it is Monckton or Mann, for others to decide, this debate must be about facts, NOT personalties.
However, at the trial before a jury of their peers, all intransigent liars must be exposed and prosecuted.
The current administration has a disregard for law anyway, in the words of our former Secretary of State: “what difference does it make” if one more Federal employee disregards laws
Messing Heat.
===========
And again, Lord Monckton, thank you, thank you, thank you …
L of M..the only classics major who is admired for his misleading of the research of hundreds of PhD Climate Scientists who, in 10s of thousands of research oapers, conclude AGW. What does that say about the standards of his admirers?
Nothing about his admirers, but everything about you.
Um…OK, so…..what? Seriously? I can’t even. I would have LMofB over for dinner. My wife says I’m a decent person, so does my Mother. So, if thinking well of LMofB is the wrong thing to be doing…I have to shift a bunch of stuff around. I have to send out a pile of emails and change a bunch of things internally. Thanks for the heads up
warrenlb
You are one of the Borg desperately afraid of having an individual thought — a part of the Climate Collective.
Hmmmm….. might be a poem in that.
Eugene WR Gallun
do you have a problem with the data L of M provides?
what a woefully sad appeal to authority Warren!
What does “conclude AGW” mean in Warrenlb’s post? And since when did the fallacies of head-count (argumentum ad populum) and of appeal to authority or reputation (argumentum ad verecundiam) become part of the scientific method?
Science is done by checking. Has Warrenlb checked how many scientists support Karl’s dopey paper? He’ll get quite a surprise.
Ed Z,
Exactly.
All of warrenlb’s comments are either ad hominem attacks like that, or filled with his endless appeal to authority logical fallacies. He’s lost the science argument so decisively that those are the only arguments he has left.
@sly
Not an ‘appeal to authority’ but an appeal to experts in Science rather than amateurs. L of M is not a Scientist. The attitude of your post seems to be “we’re all amateurs, so let’s listen to another amateur and ridicule the experts”. Or, ‘ my child needs brain surgery, so I’m taking her to a barber, or maybe do it myself, since brain surgeons are all corrupt and incompetent, around the world”
warrenlb says:
Not an ‘appeal to authority’ but an appeal to experts in Science…&blah, blah, etc.
Wrong. The ultimate Authority is Planet Earth. When there is a glaring discrepancy between the pronouncements of self-appointed ‘authorities’ and real world observations, one of them has to be wrong.
warrenlb is saying that Planet Earth is wrong; that observations and evidence are wrong, and that his ‘authorities’ are right. As usual, warrenlb has it upside down and backward.
The ‘authorities’ that warrenlb refers to are six member boards that presume to speak for thousands of dues-paying members. Those boards have been corrupted. Strong evidence: they all say the same thing. None say “Wait and see,” or “What is the cost/benefit analysis?” There is no deviation in their propaganda message: “Dangerous man-made globhal warming is an urgent problem!” Anyone with common sense knows that among dozens of different organizations, they will not all have exactly the same message. And many of those organizations have little to do with the question of “dangerous man-made global warming”. But they chime in, too.
Conclusion: some or all of those 6 board members in each organization were bought and paid for in some way. Their votes were obtained. None of them allow a fair vote of their memebrship on the question, and none of them allow members to contact each other through membership lists, which are kept highly confidential. It seems obvious to the most casual observer that this is a planned strategy. With $billions at stake annually, there is plenty of money to grease the wheels.
warrenlb is naive and credulous. He might even believe his “authority” nonsense. But folks who give it some rational thought know that where there’s smoke there’s fire. It is no mere coincidence, or accident, that every professional board has endorsed the exact same message. Not one board has taken the position of the OISM Petition, which was co-signed by more than 30,000 American scientists and engineers including more than 9,000 PhD’s, stating that CO2 is harmless, and beneficial to the biosphere. Based on the opinions of rank-and-file scientists and engineers, warrenlb’s appeal to those self-serving ‘authorities’ is just too much BS to accept.
warrenlb, I think it says that they don’t want to delegate their understanding of the matter to PhD’s and Climate Scientists that have a vested interest (i.e. funding, fame etc.) in propagating a theory that is easily proven either totally wrong or vastly overstated. Your continued ‘not a scientist’ diatribe doesn’t make the data any less true. What’s your degree in, anyway?
appealing to experts *is* an ‘appeal to authority’. rather than appealing to authority, why don’t you take a crack at the scienctific arguments the good Lord M of B is making because you see, in science it doesn’t matter who is making the arguement, what matters is the science and data behind what they are saying. As no less a scientist than Albert Einstein said it only takes 1 person who is correct to prove any science’s theory wrong.
It’s worth noting that there’s a modern fad to recase an Appeal to Authority to an Appeal to a False Authority. That it is not the mechanism that is fallacious itself, but only which authority is utilized. You’ll find this a common strain of argumentation these days. eg. The disregard to science that is not published in a peer reviewed journal. Such that, since the science wasn’t put forward by an authority that uses authorities to vet the soundness of the paper, that the science was produced by a false authority. But that all papers published via the approved authorities is authoritative even if unsound, invalid, or a string of random letters.
Hey warren,
People were wondering about your conspicuous absence on another thread…
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/06/04/senator-whitehouse-use-the-rico-law-against-climate-deniers/#comment-1953581
One of my favorite Feynman quotes seems apropos: “Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts”. Virtually every advance in science has come about because someone was convinced some expert was wrong.
What does your snide comment say about you?
Warren, you are hot for Appeals to Authority (or “experts” as you put it). Here are some quotes from the very eminent Authority: Richard Feynman.
– Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts.
– Science alone of all the subjects contains within itself the lesson of the danger of belief in the infallibility of the greatest teachers of the preceding generation.
– We are not to tell nature what she’s gotta be. … She’s always got better imagination than we have.
– Each piece, or part, of the whole of nature is always merely an approximation to the complete truth, or the complete truth so far as we know it. In fact, everything we know is only some kind of approximation, because we know that we do not know all the laws as yet. Therefore, things must be learned only to be unlearned again or, more likely, to be corrected. … The test of all knowledge is experiment. Experiment is the sole judge of scientific “truth”.
– Since then I never pay attention to anything by “experts”. I calculate everything myself.
– Doubting the great Descartes … was a reaction I learned from my father: Have no respect whatsoever for authority; forget who said it and instead look what he starts with, where he ends up, and ask yourself, “Is it reasonable?”
– Looking back at the worst times, it always seems that they were times in which there were people who believed with absolute faith and absolute dogmatism in something. And they were so serious in this matter that they insisted that the rest of the world agree with them. And then they would do things that were directly inconsistent with their own beliefs in order to maintain that what they said was true.
– I believe in limited government. I believe that government should be limited in many ways, and what I am going to emphasize is only an intellectual thing. I don’t want to talk about everything at the same time. Let’s take a small piece, an intellectual thing. No government has the right to decide on the truth of scientific principles, nor to prescribe in any way the character of the questions investigated.
– We absolutely must leave room for doubt or there is no progress and no learning. There is no learning without having to pose a question. And a question requires doubt. People search for certainty. But there is no certainty. People are terrified — how can you live and not know? It is not odd at all. You only think you know, as a matter of fact.
Finally,
Richard Feynman became so exasperated [at the National Academy of Sciences] that he resigned his membership, saying that he saw no point in belonging to an organization that spent most of its time deciding who to let in.
Gregory Benford, “A Scientist’s Notebook: Scientist Heroes” in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction (April 1996)
zip it
@warenlb
Your data, please. Since we are living in the coolest warm period of the past 10,000 years – when compared to Holocene Climatic Optimum, Minoan, Roman, and Medieval warm periods, as shown by Greenland ice core and a North Atlantic sediment core studies- and current warming is a natural rebound from the coldest period of the past 10,000 years – the Little Ice Age – what does its about he standards of the 10s of thousands of PhD Climate Professors? Many found reasons for the “pause”, and now many will have to lose those reasons, as “they” realize the pause never happened – and also find they must lose the satellite and radiosonde observations. Perhaps, warrenlb, you need to start admiring the data more than the professors, as we WUWT readers do.
Oh Great Warren of Pound, please produce evidence of these “10s of thousands of research oapers” that conclude AGW! Even Cooking with Lew et al 2013 wasn’t bold enough to declare such a thing….and their data proved fewer than 100 out of 12,000 could even be called close to concluding AGW.
And how exactly did L of M “mislead the research of hundreds of PhD Climate Scientists”? Did he “seep” into their labs? Did they all take classes from him?
You keep using words that don’t mean what you think they mean.
That is one of the funniest exagerations and deliberate mistatements I have ever seen. Congratulations, sir. And I suggest you never try to debate even the lowliest of us here, never mind Monckton — you’ll be eaten alive by facts and logic.
Warren,
Please show us the “research papers” which “conclude” AGW. Thanks.
Warrenlb.
Clinging desperately to a belief that has been thoroughly discredited by lord Monckton, who, clearly you despise because he he does what he does so well. Your argument on the other hand is … what exactly? Try leave your personal dislike out of it and deal specifically with the content of the post.
Eamon.
“Not an ‘appeal to authority’ but an appeal to experts in Science…”
Sophistry at its finest.
You have totally missed the point again warrenlb. The Karl paper flys in the face of all those “climate scientists” who have admitted there is a pause/hiatus. For example the IPCC and all those who have come up with 70 excuses for the pause/hiatus. Nevertheless the Karl paper is fatally flawed trash specifically designed for the Paris gab fest.
…research oapers, …”
Surely you meant “research whoppers,” did you not?
Appeals to authority is not how to win an argument, If it were the case there would be no need for debate, arguments, or even research. Why do additional research when an authority has already settled it.
Appeals to authority can viably be used in making an argument only if the premise based on the authority is reasonable in representing the conclusions of the authority and their expertise. The claim that figures of authority have concluded AGW is about the stupidest appeal to authority I have seen to date. Which makes me wonder if you are only acting this stupid to get people riled up. In other words an empty-headed attention seeking troll.
However, if you have an argument then make it, or else save yourself some keyboard strokes reducing your CO2 footprint on the planet by using less energy thereby expelling less CO2. The Earth thanks you for your service in advance.
warrenlb
You say
Many have pointed out that you are presenting a logical fallacy, but repeated examples demonstrate that you are incapable of understanding your error.
As a method to help you understand how wrong you are, I will accept that your error is correct.
I take your authority of “hundreds of PhD Climate Scientists” and trump it with the authority of the most recent “scientific” Report of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
Box 9.2 on page 769 of Chapter 9 of IPCC the AR5 Working Group 1 (i.e. the most recent IPCC so-called science report) is here and says
GMST trend is global mean surface temperature trend.
A “hiatus” is a stop.
And this from the IPCC that is tasked to provide information supportive of the AGW hypothesis.
So, according to your argument, the admirers of Lord Monckton are supporting what the IPCC says and the IPCC is a greater authority than your unstated “hundreds of PhD Climate Scientists”.
Richard
I’ve a mixture of pity and admiration for Josh Willis; he may be one of the most conflicted men in climate science. His wonderful machine is not showing what the narrative expects, nay, demands.
For Tom Karl? Well, I remember when Antnee went to tea.
==========
Why should the heat come from either the troposphere or the deep ocean? AFAIK, most of the warming entering the ocean comes from the sun directly. So this could happen just by reducing the cloudiness. It’s not like I support the paper, it is bullshit, but claiming that it breaks thermodynamics laws? C’mon…
If it was cloudiness, why hasn’t that showed up in the surface and rawinsond data?
I’m not saying that it is cloudiness. It is bad data, or to put it better, bad data adjustments. But it COULD have been cloudiness. You don’t need to violate any thermodinamics law to have the ocean’s surface heat faster than either the troposphere or the deep ocean. If troposphere, deep ocean and ocean surface were all the components of the system, then yes. But there is another important component called sun, playing some significant role.
Let us suppose that the ocean surface were warming at 0.116 K/decade, as Nylo imagines. In that event, the lower troposphere would warm at the same rate, for the ocean is denser than the air and the surface or mixed stratum is intimately connected with the lower troposphere by tropical afternoon convection in the tropics. But the lower troposphere is not warming, as it would have to do (by the laws of thermodynamics) if the surface layer were warming.
Furthermore, if the Sun were warming the upper ocean at a rapid rate, then CO2 would not be the causative agent.
However, as it happens the upper layer of the ocean is not warming at anything like 0.116 K/decade.
Yeah. The paper is suspect for statistical reasons, but there’s no thermodynamic problem. Let’s back away from this limb.
Let’s not back away until we’ve done our homework. The fluid media that are said to be warming – the ocean surface and the air immediately above it – are not in fact warming at the rate posited by Mr Karl. The measurements from above and from below confirm this. It is as simple as that.
Yes absolutely. No trouble with thermodynamics, on the contrary. Trouble is with bad data and their biased manipulation
MoB, what nylo is saying is that this is first a radiation problem, and second a convection problem. This argument works in favor of a lower climate sensitivity when you look at the entire atmospheric system (e.g convective thunder clouds bypassing the greenhouse effect), but it also means that the thermal energy is originating in the top ocean layer, which is absorbing shortwave IR. That layer is where the IR turns to molecular motion. That layer gets warmed directly from the sun. The heat does not have to get to it by conduction/convection. Then it has to get away from there through conduction, convention, and a small amount of radiation.
As I said, this cuts both ways; this is also why the ‘greenhouse’ has holes.
The matter is simple. Mr Karl’s assumption that the locus of all points at which the lower troposphere meets the upper ocean can warm at a rate greater than either transparently offends against the laws as much of thermodynamics as of logic.
To me, the point that Monckton of Brenchley (June 5, 2015 at 3:34 pm) is sound, and it confirms that the Karl et al. 2015 paper is simply inappropriate data adjustment and nothing more than that.
The two fundamental data sets (the slices of bread) show no warming. Of course, ARGO has its own issues (lack of spatial coverage, short duration, immediatedely adjusted to get rid of the buoys that showed the greatest cooling, no assessment of potential bias from the free floating nature of the buoys that get carried along on currents that are themselves temperature dependent etc), and whilst this is the best of a bad bunch, the truth is that we do not know very much about ocean temperatures over the course of this century still less as from the 1970s.
It would appear that backradiation cannot effectively heat the oceans since very little energy penetrates more than a few MICRONS. If the oceans are warming it would appear that this is due to Solar and the most likely candidate for that is changes in cloudiness allowing more solar insolation to reach the surface, and possible aided by a reduction in airborne particulate matter since the 60s. However, the data sets (as Bob frequently posts in details) shows very little (if any) ocean warming and many ocean basins are cooling not warming.
from a relevant 2011 WUWT post, one of the comments
Being no expert, it seems to me the question is what happens at night over the ocean? if there is more CO2 in the air, the ocean surface will cool slightly slower … but that would warm the air too.
which puts me sort of half-agreeing. if the heat is retained by the surface of the ocean, then half would also have be retained in the air, and would end up in the RSS data over the oceans.
I think we have data on cloud cover, and the trends thereof during the stated time period.
If you want to make a point about decreasing cloud cover, why not provide some information showing that there has been such a decrease, of the magnitude necessary to produce rapid warming of the sea surface?
Very interesting piece, Lord Monckton. Congratulations. And don’t take offense, but this is the shortest piece I have ever seen you write, and you made your point clearly as well. Thank you for the time and energy you put into trying to save our civilization.
Some of my recent pieces have been long ones, because I have been answering people – Varley of the Met Office, Obama at the Coastguard commencement, a Greenpeace blog posting – who had indulged in Gish-gallops of falsehood after falsehood. It was necessary to answer all the falsehoods, so as to show just how little scientific credibility any of the three actually possesses.
The present piece makes a single point that is, in my submission, devastating. The very thin surface layer that Mr Karl says is warming at five times the rate of the upper layer of the ocean is composed partly of ocean water and partly of lower-troposphere air. Since neither of these two fluid media are warming at anything like the rate claimed for the surface, the surface is not warming at that claimed rate either.
They hear voices, don’t they? They climb the foothill and there is a burning bush or a burning old tire and a voice tells them their Carbon is poisoning the planet. When you have heard this voice all is certain and data must be adjusted…
So, my simple mind wants to order the point as follows – Karl maintains a warming trend at the surface of the earth that could not be – because satellites measuring the atmosphere show a lower warming trend, and the Argo buoys measure a lower warming trend in the oceans to 1900 meters. Since thermal energy always flow from an area of higher heat to an area of lower heat, and everything tends towards a state of thermal equilibrium – it is physically impossible for such an area of higher heat to exist at the surface because the atmosphere, and therefore the surface, are heated by the oceans. Something cannot be heated by another thing that is colder than it
Is this correct everyone?
Tomdesabla has summed it up nicely. Th surface is a sandwich filling a few feet thick with a mile and a half of lower troposphere above it and a mile and a quarter of upper ocean below it.
Yet Karl would have us believe that the thin filling is warming faster than the bread. Oops.
The food in my tupperware is surrounded by plastic, and when I put it in the microwave, it will indeed heat faster than its surroundings. From where in the tupperware could the heat be comming from, if the tupperware is colder? Meeec… wrong question. Heat doesn’t come from the tupperware. Comes from further away, through an energy flux that goes through the tupperware without heating it. Hey! That looks a lot like what the solar radiation does when it reaches the Earth’s surface without heating the atmosphere in the middle, doesn’t it? Something to do with electromagnetic energy’s frequency band absorptions of different materials.
Amazing how the true-believers try to evade the main point. The surface layer of air where the temperature readings are taken is composed not of Tupperware but of air (just like the lower troposphere above it) and water (just like the upper ocean below it). There is no plausible mechanism by which CO2 could be causing that thin surface sandwich-filling to warm when the air above and the ocean below are not also warming.
I often need mitts to take my stuff out of the microwave, but then I’m not pulsing for 30 seconds.
Perhaps I mis-remember, but I believe that the “0” measurement by the ARGO floats is actually taken at 5m below the sea surface. IIRC, Karl ’15 is calculating temperatures right at the surface. I don’t know what the extinction coefficient for incident solar radiation in the open sea is, but perhaps this is a potential source of disconnect regarding the temperature records.
D.J. Hawkins June 5, 2015 at 9:51 am
It would surprise me if the “0” reading taken by ARGO is at 5 metres. Ship’s data when taken by inlet manufold water temperature is taken at depth. Ship’s data is not surface temperature data but is the temperature drawn typically at about 4 to 10 metres depth.
At night time, there is little difference between the ocean temperature between 5mm and 5m, but in daytime there is a significant difference even from 1mm downwards. In all cases the very top of the ocean is cooler than the 1mm layer.See for example:
http://disc.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/oceans/additional/science-focus/modis/MODIS_and_AIRS_SST_comp_fig2.i.jpg
In the plot (a) is the temperature profile at night, and (b) the temperature profile for the daylight hours.
Lord Monckton wrote:
It is not the first time I am misunderstood as a warmist, but I had never been called a true believer before 😀
It is you sir who evades the point because I have never said nor implied that CO2 did it, we are just discussing whether it is thermodynamically possible to have the upper layer of the ocean warming faster than the troposphere or the deep ocean. And it is possible, no law broken. But if you want to change topic and talk now about causes, first, I think that the apparent warming in this paper is the result of bad adjustments and not real, and second, if it was real, it would more likely have been produced by changes in albedo and more solar energy entering the ocean than by CO2. The only thing I am arguing against is whether you would need to break thermodynamics laws or not to get the “result” that the authors of this shitty paper get. Which, I believe, was the center point of your guest post, at least judging it by the title. So I don’t really understand why you say that I am evading the main point. The main point is exactly what I am discussing.
Karl’s paper is bad; but not for the reason given in this post. Solar radiation could easily heat the ocean surface to a greater or lesser degree than the air above it. One needn’t be a scientist to understand that.
This post should be withdrawn, or, better yet, marked by its author as disproved, to serve as an example to Alarmists (and everyone, for that matter) that those who adhere to scientific principles have no qualms about accepting facts and admitting error.
It is very difficult to explain elementary scientific concepts to those who are unwilling to take a rational approach.
Mr Karl’s thesis is that the rate of change of temperature over time at the Earth’s surface is greater than the rate of change of temperature over time directly above and directly below the surface, and that this rate of change at the surface is driven by Man’s sins of emission.
What he proposes offends against the laws of thermodynamics.
By time he does not mean a day. He means a decade and more.
Mr Verney shows that the ocean has different temperatures at different depths at different times of day. So what? The air above behaves in much the same way.
The question raised in the head posting remains: whence comes the heat to warm the upper few meters of the ocean and the lower few meters of the lower troposphere over as long as 11 years at a rate far in excess of the rate at which the upper ocean and the lower troposphere are warming?
Nylo has had to admit the alleged surface warming cannot be caused by CO2. It cannot be caused by the Sun, because the near-full solar cycle over the 11 years was not exceptionally active.
Like it or not, the laws of thermodynamics do not permit the heat to come from nowhere.
What, the, is the anthropogenic source that causes Karl’s surface warming? And why does that surface warming, over as long as a decade, not communicate itself detectably to either the lower troposphere or the upper ocean?
Karl’s extra heat not only has to come from somewhere: it has to go somewhere. Since the two fluid media of which the surface is composed are the upper ocean and the lower troposphere, what is the nature of the barrier that prevents the imagined higher rate of surface warming from communicating itself to either the upper ocean or the lower troposphere?
Recall that the two fluid media are well intermingled, not least by tropical afternoon convection. How, then, does this thermodynamic barrier operate to prevent heat transfer from the faster-warming surface stratum to the strata above and below it?
Fortunately (for Karl), he never studied law.
A few years back the ARGO data showed global oceans to be cooling so I presume this is the adjusted data you are using. Josh Willis is now adjusting the ARGO temperature data because he says; the TOA radiation shows energy coming in as greater than that going out therefore it must be going into the ocean. (ignores the systemic error that is present) then he says the satellite sea level analysis shows sea level rising faster than can be accounted for by global ice melt which must be due to thermal expansion so therefore the ARGO buoy temperatures must be wrong and on that basis he has adjusted them from a cooling trend to a warming trend.
Ignoring of course the GIA adjustments, which are used in several sea level metrics, are based on computer modelling that requires major assumptions. That the satellite sea level is itself an adjusted metric. That the measurement of ice melt is also based on highly questionable assumptions.
So we take one of the seven basic measurements of science, one that we can do with considerable accuracy, ie temperature, and adjust it on the basis of other derived metrics that involve many assumptions unsupported by actual data. Great stuff. see http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/OceanCooling/page1.php
Love to see someone better skilled than I take the ARGO adjustments apart.
I think this is a very good argument. Even I can understand this. Would appear that Karl is a good writer of fiction.
Thanks for this article, Peter Foster. I just read all 12 pages (pdf) of it. Amazing: Adjusting the data to conform to the models because he was getting flak from others around him. My question is how did he know some of the ARGO buoys were running cool? Did he physically go there? Did he use data on the movement and temp of currents?
And you have to read 3/4 through the article (which is only revealed if you scroll to the bottom and wait for the rest to appear) to read Levitus’ cogent point, which should have followed the lede.
But Dr. Willis put that possibility to rest, didn’t he. He changed the data.
Good to see this.
I have pointed this out many many times over the years. Indeed, in a comment I posted above (made before I saw yours) I pointed out this adjustment.
ARGO is the best of a bad bunch, but one needs to approach it with a certain amount of caution.
Did the Greens or Nature Do It? Global Brightening by Clean Air Acts or lower Clouds?
Rethinking solar resource assessments in the context of global dimming and brightening
This may explain part of the ocean warming seen by Argo.
Karl’s ‘clown car’ of a paper is real knee slapper.
Here is more evidence of NOAA’s ‘cooking the books’ for a fist-full of dollars.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2015/06/05/top-weather-service-official-creates-consulting-job-then-takes-it-himself-with-43200-raise-watchdog-says/
Perhaps from sub-oceanic volcanoes? According to the inconvenient truth apostle the Earth’s center is extremely hot. http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2009/11/18/al-gore-earths-interior-extremely-hot-several-million-degrees
That was merely a misunderstanding, JK. What Al Gore meant was that his earthy interior was millions of degrees.
Today’s usually pro-alarmist BBC radio series “Science in Action” did report remarkably cautiously about the claims of Karl et al. :
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02sbqd3
Maybe, thanks to the critical analysis of the paper here in wuwt, they realized how fishy the data adjustments of Karl et al. are.
I think a quick email to the BBC every time they trifle with logic or data helps move things towards making them adhere to some sort of impartiality . Like the ABC in Australia it seems difficult for governments of whatever stripe to make them conform with their charters. But constantly reminding them they are making fools of themselves will have an effect when in time the truth of the matter becomes plain. I listened to the broadcast and for the first time in a long time on this publication they took a bob each way.
The good Lord, (Monkton took a delicious swipe at them recently about the licence fee. They need constant reminders that they are making idiots of themselves
Thanks once more to Lord Monckton for his able, precise and joyously entertaining use of language in setting out a part of the counter-argument. Add this to very competent and comprehensive comments from Messrs McKittrick here at WUWT, Pat Michaels, and Judith Curry elsewhere, and I profess myself convinced that this paper is a destructive spoiler designed from the outset to provide the demanded conclusions.
Although a definite sceptic of CAGW I have been very reluctant to believe that so many decent folk in science could have been seduced and corrupted by this one idea, and I invariably try to give them the benefit of the doubt, at first at least. Maybe there is no central co-ordination of the conspiracy, but the pull of the common cause is enough to rope-in so many, and the polarisation of the debate means that many bridges have been burnt. Very sad for science, and for the world.
Follow the money.
I doubt the above graph for 2001-2008 was exactly what was shown in a congressional hearing room in 2009. The graph as shown here says that one of the datasets that it is a combination of is UAHv6, which was first noted as being in existence earlier this year. Another is HadCRUT4, which I think came into existence later than 2009.
The actual graph, which is not to hand because I am traveling, used the data available at the time and would, therefore, have shown rather more cooling than the present graph, based on data nearly all of which have been adjusted to make the rate of recent warming seem steeper. Either way, the point is made: the graph showed cooling; Karl tried to mimble around the point; Joe Barton called him out; and I wrote showing that even NCDC’s own dataset demonstrated cooling.
It’s quite permissible to abolish the Laws of Thermodynamics if you have already abandoned the scientific method. You now nothing either way.
Which it is quite clear that Karl has done and now knows.
He must be worried about his job if the paper gets retracted.
But they THINK they can walk on water!
They better wait till the lake freezes.
Small puddles have been known to freeze on clear nights where the air temperature says above freezing. In fact, in India, they used to make ice that way:
“In India before the invention of artificial refrigeration technology, ice making by nocturnal cooling was common. The apparatus consisted of a shallow ceramic tray with a thin layer of water, placed outdoors with a clear exposure to the night sky. The bottom and sides were insulated with a thick layer of hay. On a clear night the water would lose heat by radiation upwards. Provided the air was calm and not too far above freezing, heat gain from the surrounding air by convection would be low enough to allow the water to freeze by dawn.[1]”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiative_cooling
Repealing the laws of thermodynamics could happen if observations were found that contradicted the law. I don’t believe actual observations of that sort exist at present, but it is possible. Of course any theory that proposes to replace the laws of thermodynamics must explain the phenomena that the laws currently explain at least as well or they are also trash.
After all, general relativity repealed the law of gravity; both describe daily observed occurrences equally well to our ability to measure, but the law of gravity fails when attempting to describe the motion of a body in a large gravity well like the Mercury/Sun system. Of course I have not seen any conundrums like the Mercury orbit problem in the thermodynamics field
This is in reply to Harold (no hyperlink button above). It seems to me (without doing the math) that what Wikipedia claims to explain (your cite) — the formation of ice when air temperatures are above freezing) may be do to evaporative cooling — not radiative.
If the world’s oceans are warming at the rate of 0.23C/century isn’t that cause for some concern? After all that represents an enormous amount of heat energy that is being absorbed. Is the heating evenly disbursed or is it concentrated in certain areas? Am I missing something? I have trouble accepting that the CO2 increase is showing up in the oceans alone, but if the data is correct then something is happening and the heat is coming from somewhere…
The weight of the atmosphere is 5.15 X 10 to the 18th kilo, whereas the oceans weigh in at 1.4 X 10 to the 24th kilograms or about 2.2 X 10 to the 7th difference – large numbers, but if the oceans are heating at 0.23C/century doesn’t that represent an rather large influx of heat?
Why are the oceans alone heating up? Where is this heat coming from? Is it uniform around the globe or concentrated in areas such as deep ocean thermal vents?
I’m sure that I am making some sort of mistake here in my figuring, but I haven’t the time to explore it further for now…just tossing it out in the hopes that someone can easily tell me where I went wrong!
You went wrong in assuming the oceans in their vastness were heating with any confidence. I’ll refer you to the coverage issue ARGO has to deal with. Its like sticking a thermometer into a hole in your sock once every few months, registering that measurement and then extrapolating the mean core temp of your friends heart per annum.
Precisely because the oceans have so vast a heat capacity, they will not warm very fast. If they are warming at all, they are doing so very slowly. However, since the atmosphere above them is not warming, the likelihood is that the oceans are not warming either.
Cannot…stop…chuckling!
I believe you forgot the extra zero. Isn’t that .023 rather than .23?
Argo shows the ocean warming at .023 K/decade; .23 K/century.
Most likely it is tied to the PDO. Note the decreasing trend just prior to the PDO flip in 2005-2007. The PDO is closely related to ENSO (Bob Tisdale claims it is an after effect I believe). Since ocean heat is recharged during La Nina events one should expect an increasing heat content if there are more La Nina events over time. By the same token the heat that was driving increased global temperature during the +PDO (1975-2006) came out of the oceans during the more prevalent El Nino events which is why the ocean heat was decreasing in the first couple of years.
The data prior to 2003 is so sparse and so adjusted it is basically worthless.
John Robertson: The numbers you show do appear to be impressive and enormous compared to the heat quantities we as humans are normally exposed to everyday. This creates a certain amount of awe and dread that some people are more than willing to exploit to their own ends. Think of the first people trying to get a grips on how big the sun really was when they first started measuring it. They probably all assumed that it was no bigger than a large tree or mountain. One Greek philosopher opined that the sun could be as big as Peloponnesus, (a peninsula in Greece) resulting in derision by his peers for suggesting something so big. Part of the beauty of science is putting away our pre-conceptions and letting nature do the talking.
Assuming that the measurement itself is correct, no, it is not an alarming amount of heat. In 100 years, the temperature rise would still be barely measurable on a thermometer. Think of what will be different 100 years from now. The face of the Earth will be completely different. Microscopic warming in the oceans will be the least of our concerns.
A very large percentage of the ocean is very cold. Near freezing. Even in the tropical latitudes, the deep water is very cold.
There may even be large amounts of supercooled water in the polar regions and deep ocean.
Given that supercooled water is given to sudden freezing, I would prefer to see warming oceans than cooling oceans.
But that is just me.
What with my concern that a sudden and sharp cooling of the Earth would likely cause starvation on a scale that the world has never seen. And my guess is, should food start running out and starving people by the millions, they would not die quietly and it would/will be very bad.
For everyone.
Besides for all of that…I love to swim. Except in cold water. Then it sucks (the heat out of my body).
Regarding “The lower troposphere extends about as far above the surface as the ARGO-measured upper ocean extends below it.”: You said the ARGO floats measure the ocean down to 1900 meters. The RSS TLT weighting curve is shown in http://images.remss.com/msu/msu_time_series.html, and indicates that altitudes from the surface to 5 km up are heavily considered. The TLT weighting curve seems to give some significant weighting to altitudes up to 8 or 9 km up.
Check the nearest atmospheric density chart. It’s the lowest mile and a half that is of the greatest significance.
The 500 millibar level, where the pressure is usually slightly under half the sea level pressure and the density is usually slightly over half the sea level density, averages a little over 5.5 km above sea level. The RSS weighting curve gives about half its peak weighting that far up, and peak weighting about 2 km up, where the density is about 80% of sea level density. A slight majority of the mass of the lower troposphere, as weighted by the RSS TLT weighting curve, seems to be more than 2 km above sea level.
While out driving yesterday, I had NPR tuned in on the car radio.
My head almost exploded when I listened to the NPR story on ARGO, and listened to Ternbreth(sp?) explain that they discovered that the BOUYS were reporting incorrect data, based on a comparison between bouy data and PASSING SHIPS. The ships, you see, always seem to report a higher temp nearby than the bouy does, so obviously, the bouy data …wait for it…MUST BE ADJUSTED UPWARDS.
At this point I really have to pull over to the side of the road.
He goes on to explain that after making this much-needed correction, not only has there been NO pause, but it is, in fact, warming EVEN FASTER than previously thought.
The NPR “reporter” never once asked “Why do you assume the ship’s measurements are the ones that are correct?”
The whole thing was once again presented as “settled science”.
An independent study found the ARGO data to be 0.5C too warm.
http://joannenova.com.au/2015/06/study-shows-argo-ocean-robots-uncertainty-was-up-to-100-times-larger-than-advertised/
“One of the problems with this study was the newness of the ARGO array at the time, which had 2,000 buoys in 2005, and didn’t reach the full complement of 3,000 until 2007. So the sampled error will be smaller now than it was then.”
…
Got more recent data?
j jackson says:
Got more recent data?
Sure, up to 2013. We see that in most depths, oceans are cooling:
http://tumetuestumefaisdubien1.sweb.cz/ARGO-sea-temperature-max-max.PNG
Here is a map from 0 – 2,000 meters:
Again, we see ocean temp is flat to cooling.
Does it make a difference if you adjust ship data downwards?
Just asking.
Well, do an experiment with some dummy data. You will find that it has no effect on the trend if you increase all buoys 0.12 C going forward or decrease all ships 0.12 C going backwards. In fact, folks here often criticize NOAA for cooling the past with adjustments, as their usual practice with land records is to assume that current readings are correct and adjust everything backwards to remove breakpoints and other localized inhomogeneities.
Yes, it does make a difference. The pause Karl partly erased by adjusting buoy data upward begins to reappear if you adjust ship data downward. Can’t have that.
Seriously?
That happens to be exactly what the Karl paper does. They turn decent if rough data into dummy data by adding numbers derived from a less trustworthy source.
Climate science where the supposed scientists change data to match their bias.
In any other discipline, people who modify historical data get fired. Data is no longer data when it is fudged!
And yes, I worked in Finance where people who changed historical data looked at prison terms. Adjustments for every datum must be recorded separately with detailed documentation for why there are adjustments for that datum.
Also in Climate science there is absolute apathy for error calculations and error bars.
± 1.7°C makes 0.12°C well within error. That is before truly identifying error ranges for every instance of temperature measurement. Averaging thousands of temperature recording instances does not reduce error!
Note: I tried using the <sup> and </sup> coding. apologies if it didn’t work.
Zeke, if I understand correctly what others have said, they adjusted the bouy data upwards, and then weighted the bouy data more than the ship data. If so, it’s not a matter of just adding to one or subtracting to the other. If you adjust the ships data downward, but still weight the bouys data more, it will make a difference.
“Yes, it does make a difference. The pause Karl partly erased by adjusting buoy data upward begins to reappear if you adjust ship data downward. Can’t have that.”
It doesn’t make a difference.
You have a scale. you weigh yourself every morning. every morning
you weigh 200 lbs.
you buy a second scale. It measures 202. for the next 3months you measure with both scales. One says 200 the other says 202.
Now I ask you: Please estimate your change in weight over the last year
Your data looks like this
Scale1 : 200,200,200, 200,200,200,200,200,200,NA,NA,NA,
Scale 2 NA NA NA NA NA NA ,202,202,202,202,202,202,
Do you
1. Average the two?
2. Adjust 200 to 202
3. Adjust 202 to 200.
Note that option 1 gives the wrong answer
note that the trend doesnt care whether you use #2 or #3
Mosh your analogy is fatally flawed. You are taking two measurements of the exact same thing using the exact same methodology in your analogy, the only thing changed is the static calibration of the scale. In the ocean, the methodologies are different and the water being testing is not exactly the same (taken from different depths and different times and different places) in otherwords all the variables are different not just one as in your analogy. It’s apples and oranges and you should know better than that.
Mosher says:
“It doesn’t make a difference.
You have a scale. you weigh yourself every morning. every morning
you weigh 200 lbs.
you buy a second scale. It measures 202”
A more apt analogy would be:
You weigh yourself using 4 different scales every day
None of your scales are particularly accurate
None of them give the same result as any of the other scales
Sometimes you weigh yourself on an even floor – sometimes on an uneven floor
Sometimes you weigh yourself in your boxers (sorry if you are eating folks)
Sometimes you weigh yourself in your outdoor gear
Sometimes you have a rucksack on your back
Sometimes you only put one foot on some of the scales
Sometimes you lean against the sink to get a lower reading
Sometimes you cant be bothered using some of the 4 scales so you fill in the gaps
Then you buy a state-of-the-art set of accurate scales and you weigh yourself under consistent conditions
Do you now:
a) Acknowledge how useless the old readings are and ditch them
b) Adjust the accurate readings to be “consistent” with the old innacurate readings and write a scientific paper that shows how your weight has gone up since you bought the new scales
So, Zeke, what you are saying is “What difference does it make if…?”
Now, where have I heard that before?
Oh, I know…must have been some hack politician.
Because, to some people, it is what is true that really matters. People like, oh… I don’t know…scientists!
Hell, even hack scientists are not usually given to publicly stating that “It don’t matter” regarding the particular subject of scientific inquiry that they have spent a lifetime engaging in.
Seems a rather peculiar an argument to make…even if it were true.
My wife heard the same NPR interview and was flabbergasted by the unscientific babble.
The money line from Trenberth was at the end of the aricle: And the warming trend may be accelerating even more. The calendar year 2014 was the warmest on record, and Trenberth says the past 12 months – mid-year to mid-year — have been even warmer than that.
Once again, it’s even worse than we thought.
Why and how do these asshats keep getting airtime?
Hi jimmaine. Just a clarification. The NPR broadcast you heard yesterday did mention buoys,
http://www.npr.org/2015/06/04/411998275/scientists-cast-doubt-on-an-apparent-hiatus-in-global-warming
…but they are not ARGO floats. The buoys used for sea surface temperature measurements are called drifters. See:
http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/phod/dac/index.php
Cheers.
Trenberth? You mean the-missing-heat-is-in-the-deep- oceans-it’s- a- travesty Trenberth?
That Trenberth?
Yes…that very one.
Dbstealey
…
This year is 2015
…
Your graphs data ends in 2012
..
Got recent data?
J. Jackson,
You complained because that data ended in 2007. You said, ‘Got more recent data?’
So I posted data up to 2013. That’s the most recent I ARGO data. Maybe it can be extended to 2014, I don’t know. In any case, you lost that argument.
But like any alarmist with no facts or evidence, you simply moved the goal posts again:
‘Got recent data’?
Go away, you’re just being a pest.
You can get more recent data here: http://www.argodatamgt.org/Access-to-data/Argo-data-selection
….
Note the “start” and “end” dates for data is today.
Mr Jackson may like to try downloading the Argo data himself. I can get no data beyond the end of 2014.
“Paris is a coming,
And so are the lies,
No warming pause,
Now there’s a surprise!
The weather recorded
Doesn’t fit with the plan;
Adjust temperature records,
Keep blaming man….
Read more: http://rhymeafterrhyme.net/no-warming-pause-now-theres-a-surprise/
I love Paris for the cocktails.
I love Paris, go to shows.
I love Paris, son et lumiere dressed up models,
So ever froth seeks fame.
================
As always Monckton informative and entertaining. Most interesting the exchange in the hallowed halls of congress.
He shifted from one well-padded butt-cheek to the other.
You shouldn’t be so hard on Comrade Karl. He’s been losing a lot of weight. The problem was in the data. He used two different scales. Although neither showed any decreasing trend, a simple adjustment of the data to weight one scale (that showed a lower weight) higher than the other scale over time has now shown a decreasing trend. In a couple of years he should look fit as a fiddle.
or he could have put the left foot on one scale, the right foot on the other scale and averaged the readings he observed in the result of each scale, thus achieving incredible shrinkage
Good one Rhee, reminds me of the saying “if you put one hand in a bucket of ice and the other in a bucket of boiling water, on the average you’ll be quite comfortable” 🙂
Thanks, Christopher. Once again, it looked like you had fun writing this.
Cheers.
Spukhafte, not spukhäfte.
Not in Niedersachsen
You need to put a smiley face if you want to be funny 😉
Perhaps you mean Niedersächsen… 🙂
Let us go with what Einstein said.
Mr Svalgaard misses the elephant in the room, as usual.
But, apparently not the Monkey.
I really enjoy your writing, Viscount, but I’m from Lower Saxony and these days we speak High German, so it’s “spukhafte”; I do not know of old Lower Saxon dialects that write it as “spukhäfte” – but, there was no Lower Saxony before 1945 anyway as it is an artificial construct; formed from the lands of Hannover and Braunschweig and some more. That being said, in past centuries orthography was not in any way regulated so before say 1870 you find all kinds of variants. So maybe Leibniz, who lived in Hannover, wrote it that way, but I wouldn’t take that as normative.
…even though, for a quote, it’s of course just fine to use it the way you did…
Some of Lord M’s thermodynamic arguments here are rather weak. The sea surface could warm if less heat gets lost to the deep ocean via mixing (e.g. if wind speeds drop), and you’d have to deal with energy rather than temperature, so I’d say there is no obvious inconsistency between the surface and deep ocean data.
The air temperatures are much more of a problem for Karl, since air heat comes mainly from the surface, a warming surface must cause a warming (and more humid) atmosphere.
The matter is quite simple. If neither the ocean immediately below the thin surface layer nor the lower troposphere above the thin surface layer is warming at even a fifth of the rate claimed for the surface layer, then elementary thermodynamics requires an explanation of where the heat is coming from and why it is not affecting either the surface layer of the ocean or the lower troposphere. No such explanation consistent with known climatic phenomena is likely to comply with the laws of thermodynamics.
You can’t compare temperature rates of things with different heat capacities. A tiny temperature change of the deep ocean involves much more heat than a “large” temperature change of the sea surface.
Water vapour changes would be worth looking at, to see if there has been a significant change in the last 15 years.
Specific heat capacity has nothing to do with it. It is only temperature differences that matter. Suppose you had a ham sandwich where the top layer of bread was at 15 C and the ham was at 15 C and the bottom layer of bread was at 15 C. But then, the bottom layer of bread was replaced with a whole ocean at 16 C. It does not matter if the whole ocean had 1000 times the specific heat capacity of the top layer of bread, the ham should not warm to more than 16 C.
The lower 1900 meters of ocean is a heat sink that takes a lot of time to catch up with surface warming. The lower troposphere, as measured by the satellites used by UAH and RSS, have a slight majority of the air mass being sampled (even with factoring for density) above 2 km above sea level. A radiosonde trend posted by Dr. Roy Spencer, Figure 7 in indicates the surface-adjacent part of the lower troposphere having a lower warming trend than the lower troposphere as a whole. I attribute this to surface albedo feedback in high northern latitudes, not only to sea ice, but also to reduction of springtime (more-sun-irradiated) snow cover which mostly exists in the northern hemisphere. Snow-covered land often has low lapse rate in the lowest kilometer or two above it, and removal of the snow tends to increase the lapse rate in the lower half of the lower troposphere there. There has been a trend of decrease of northern hemisphere snow coverage facing the sun due to NH snow coverage decreasing in springtime.
I noticed a typo that I did: I incorrectly said that the surface-adjacent lower troposphere has had a lesser warming trend than the lower troposphere as a whole, with attribution to a graphic by Dr. Roy Spencer. What I intended to say is that the surface-adjacent lower troposphere has had a greater warming trend than the lower troposphere as a whole, according to the Spencer graphic.
Over the short-term, it’s possible. Over longer timespans, however, Brenchley is undoubtedly correct.
Eventually their lies founder on some kind of inconsistency. As they go on in this manner, they run the danger of being found in contempt of Congress.
The Argo floats operate down to ~1,900m below surface, which is less than half the average depth of all oceans, the deepest point being ~10,900m below surface. Are there any Argo floats in the Arctic Ocean?
Drawing conclusions from incomplete data is unscientific; widely disseminating such ill-conceived conclusions is fraudulent, at best.
If that’s true then purporting to predict the climate 100 years hence based on unvalidated computer models must be a capital crime.
It certainly should be a crime. If you said you had a computer model which could predict the future stockmarket, horse racing results, football games, etc. most sensible people would laugh at you and the gullible would complain bitterly after they lost, and have you chucked into prison. In climate science, you get rewarded with billions in government grants. Go figure!
And where is the past SIX MONTHS of OCO 2 data? After only one report spanning two ( or one and a half?) months in 2014, there has not been another report from this supposedly highly accurate, state of the art CO2 satellite. WHY? Is NASA inept and it doesn’t work? Does the data coming back prove something they don’t want anyone to see before they “adjust” it? Where is the data?
I’ve been wondering the exact same thing. I thought the next release was supposed to be in April.
June 19 or so:
http://disc.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/OCO-2/data-holdings
So, according to the link, NASA is inept and the d#$@ thing hasn’t worked since the first report came out that proved CO2 is not a well mixed gas? How odd!
A full year of observations before November in Paris. If we’re good, I mean if the gases are good, we’ll know about it. Otherwise, hmmmm.
=========
Well, it’s nice that the riddle is finally solved. That missing heat Trenberth’s been looking for, and that they tried to tickle out of the deep ocean, has finally, finally been found. It’s in Tom Karl’s brain.
I got hold of the paper in question at the University today, and, though I dread spending my time on these mind-numbing description of data torture, I have now read the darned thing and here are a few of my thoughts. I apologize in advance if I am just repeating what others have said in earlier threads–I have been avoiding this issue in favor of other pursuits.
I am suspect of the statistics of the temperature measurements in the first place. I have some experience with making precision temperature measurements and calibration and it is darned difficult to make measurements to a precision of 0.05C. Most people will greatly over-estimate precision and thus greatly under-estimate uncertainty. Moreover, almost no one does a reasonable effort at quantifying sources of bias and the magnitude of bias.One of my perennial complaints about the statistics derived from these exercises is that the calculations themselves are predicated upon identically distributed and independent measurements, but no one ever demonstrates that these requirements hold true. In general I think the error bars meant to illustrate uncertainty in these data sets do no such thing. Nevertheless, let’s assume that the box plots from figure 1 accurately represent the statistics of these measurements. What do we note?
First, the “new” and improved measurements and adjustments during the period identified as “hiatus”, shown by the little square and its 90% confidence interval (CI), still include the 0.0 value, just as the original data did (the little circle and its CI). This is true for the global total data, the oceanic data, and the land data. The way that the authors express the changes the new adjustment wrought make the results seem spectacular, but the actual illustrations of data, considering the CI, do not.
Second, we are treated once again to adjustments that just happen to go in the direction needed to get observations to agree with theoretical expectations. They don’t actually meet theoretical expectations of course, but who knows what new adjustments these fellows will think of next. It is more than a little suspicious to have adjustments so accommodating. Some time ago I analyzed USHCN adjustments, many designed by Karl and his co-workers and found they overwhelmingly increase warming and warming rates, and I swear some of the adjustments are made out of order and will have the effect of biasing data in the direction needed. Thus, the closer I look at the adjustment process the less confidence I have that it reduces bias and makes uncertainty smaller than it behaves the other way around.
Third, I am not much impressed by classical inferential statistics and the associated “p” values and confidence intervals. It leads to fallacious argumentation at times. I think we could come up with likelihood arguments and measures that would do a far better job of describing the evidentiary value of this data and its adjustments, and would not be subject to the logical fallacies I worry lurk in this exercise.
+1
What is horribly hard to watch is the way the media pick this crap up. You know from the first time you read it you will hear it parroted as gospel on NPR within the week. They need to just cut to the chase and come up with an “Emperor of All known Climate Science” position in the gov’t.
Wanted: “Grand Czar Climate Science and Settled Science Grand Puba”
Must be able to roll eyes expressively when actual climate data is presented.
Must look like Einstein and wear robe and mortar board at all times. Owl on shoulder a plus.
Send application to NOAA. Salary commensurate with ability to BS public.
Well not so much in the Weekend Australian newspaper this Saturday June 6 2015. The article is by Graham Lloyd on page 18 Inquirer section. The headline:
“There could be a cool change ahead, but let’s pretend the pause in warming isn’t real.”
The article quotes various scientists. Notably David Whitehouse of the Global Warming Policy Foundation: He ends with “ the authors have produced adjustments that are at odds with all other surface temperature datasets, as well as those compiled via satellite” “They do not include any data from the Argo array that is the world’s best coherent dataset on oceanic temperatures.”
Tim Osborn professor of climate science at the University of East Anglia says he would caution against dismissing the slowdown in surface warming. “ There are other datasets that still support a slowdown over recent period of time ….and patterns of cooling in large parts of the Pacific Ocean…”
John Christy-University of Alabama: “Its impossible, as a scientist, to look at this graph [graph presented to the US House of Representatives committee on natural resources] and not rage at the destruction of science that is being wreaked by the inability of climatologists to look us in the eye and say perhaps the three most important words in life: we were wrong”.
Of course our dear friend Mr Matthew England from the Australian Research Council’s Centre of Excellence [that word again] for Climate System Science has waded in with “There is nothing new in this paper and nothing surprises me”. “ The bottom line is that multiple datasets and multiple lines of evidence have shown that global warming hasn’t stalled at all”. How many backflips is this character capable of executing?
You know, fortunately, I learned how to read a thermometer correctly in a grade school. Since then it is growing increasingly obvious to me that many so-called “scientists” have either flunked that lesson, and need a refresher course, or, worse yet, given away their temperature data responsibility to others who have purposely mislead them.
Let’s please not take up dragon slayer arguments! The temperature of a gas is a measure of translational motion only and is a woefully incomplete measure of internal energy of a gas (w/ GHG’s).
The Second Law Rules
—Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington, The Nature of the Physical World (1927) p74
The Second Law: An Introduction to Classical and Statistical Thermodynamics Henry Bent Oxford University Press, 1965
Thanks for the perspective, among other things. Part of me thinks this paper just might get quietly retracted, probably some time after Paris.
Temperature ¬= Heat
… for starters… Plus the EMR discussions above… And more… Trust me, thermodynamics is quite safe, Monckton of Brenchley’s ravings notwithstanding…
What a howler of a post! Complete scientifically-illiterate nonsense.
Monckton sneaks a Sky Dragon guest post past a credulous Watts.
Bravo. Slow clap, clap, clap.
To understand the relationship between ocean temperature and ocean heat content, read Willis Eschenbach’s characteristically excellent posts on the subject.
The head posting depends for its force solely Om comparing the slow or non-existent warming rates of the lower troposphere and the upper ocean with the many times larger surface warming rate posited by Tom Karl. It is Mr Karl who does not understand thermodynamics.
And what has any of this to do with the mad notions of those who do not recognise the existence of the greenhouse effect when it has been measured?
Which article.
if it was his article on radiating the oceans, then I consider that to be amongst the worst he has posted. He uses circular reasoning to support his argument; he uses the gross energy flow and then argues that the oceans must be receiving and being warmed by DWLWIR since if that is taken away from one side of the equation, the oceans would freeze. If he were to use the net energy flow, the oceans are in energy balance and would not freeze because gross DWLWIR forms no part of the equation.
He arges that land and oceans are the same, notwithstanding that the oceans are very different since they are free to evaporate. He completely fails to address the problems that arise if the oceans are absorbing DWLWIR and that that energy is sensible energy having the capacity to perform real work in the environment in which it finds itself.
The problem is that some 60% of DWLWIR is abssorbed in about 3 MICRONS, and if the K & T energy budget cartoon is correct, DWLWIR is almost double the energy of Solar. This presents a fundamental problem since 60% of DWLWIR possess about the same energy as Solar and yet it is absorbed in a volume of just 3 MICRONS depth whereas Solar is absorbed over a volume extending over many metres, ie., million times greater.
It is fortunate for us that Solar is absorbed over a substantial volume, some penetrates to about 100 metres but the bulk is absorbed in the top few metres. This allows the oceans to absorb this energy and gently warm. If the absorption characteristics of Solar was the same as LWIR, the oceans would have boiled off (from the top down) long agao and would be in the atmosphere.
However, the bulk of DWLWIR is all concentrated in just a few MICRONS, and unless that energy can be sequestered to depth (thereby being diluted by volume) at a rate faster than the rate that that energy would drive evaporation, all that DWLWIR can do is power evaporation.
I have not yet seen anyone put forward a mechanism by which DWLWIR can be sequester to depth at speed.
Ocean over turning apperas to be a diurnal phenomena and is a slow mechanical process.
Mixing by way of wind and waves is a slow mechanical process, and what about weather conditions of say BF3 and less when there is little in the way of wind and waves? These conditions are encountered much of the time since the average wind conditions over the oceans has been assessed as being just over BF4, so it follows that conditions of say BF2 must be commonplace.
It cannot be by conduction since the very surface (top few MICRONS) is cooler than the bulk ocean say frm 1mm and below such that the energy flux is upward and conduction cannot work/swim against the direction of energy flux (in a comment above, I have posted a plot of the ocean temperature profile).
In the parper on radiating the oceans, none of these issues are explored. The position of DWLWIR over land and oceans is fundamentally different since the oceans are a selective surface largely opaque to LWIR and in any event they are free to evaporate if energised, and of course do evaporate 9this is why the very surface is at a lower temperature than the bulk of 1mm and below).
I do not know what DWLWIR does, but certainly there are fundamental issues raised when considering the inter action with the oceans,
@ richard verney
A most excellent and cogent response to the silliness of the post in question.
I think they would argue that the warming doesn’t have to come from below or above, since it could be carried by radiation that passed through the latter and did not reach the former.
Of course this behavior contradicts all their models but they seem not to care about that.
But then the layers above and below should subsequently heat up through simple convection.
Not necessarily, if the temperature is higher because the lapse rate has changed. Consider some volume, now erect a greenhouse around it. It gets hotter, but with the new equilibrium the areas above and below it may actually get colder.
Again, this is not consistent with the models.
They’ve never allowed physics to get in their way in the past so why start now? The paper is so bad that even Rick Grimes is in a tizzy.
A comparison of solar heating of the oceans and troposphere must consider total energy, not the thermodynamics property of temperature. The oceans have a much greater mass and heat capacity, which must be considered.
The ineluctable consequence of the ocean heat capacity’s being 2-3 orders of magnitude greater than that of the lower troposphere is that the latter must be the same temperature as the former. And so, within the measurement, coverage and bias uncertainties, it is. And that is precisely why Karl’s warming rate is a thermodynamic impossibility.
I read this bit…
Have Mr Karl, and the peerless peer-reviewers of Science who ought surely to have spotted this huge error, inadvertently repealed the laws of thermodynamics?
….and after a bit of looking found this which he might find helpful.
James Bull
I must try harder when putting in links to other things!!!!
James Bull
One point of clarification if you could please LMoB. “If the heat isn’t coming from above or below, where is it coming from” is a valid question. Would there be any possible “lag time” that could keep the laws of thermodynamics happy?
Thanks
No, a lag would not help. The surface comprises the meeting point of the upper ocean and the lower troposphere. It’s temperature cannot be very substantially higher than either,and certainly not for a decade and more.
Thanks. I wasn’t sure about transit time for heat from when it leaves the ocean and how long it would take to make it to the lower troposphere so I thought I’d ask.
http://poleshift.ning.com/profiles/blogs/proof-of-the-earth-wobble?id=3863141%3ABlogPost%3A835572&page=4#comments
Great post Lord Monckton of Brenchley!
Some additional points to consider:
Willis Eschenbach did a quick review of the “Argo And Ocean Heat Content” back in 2014 and a follow up review this past January 2015, “Learning From The Argonauts”.
Willis observed;
Willis also compares the Argo data against the CERES data.
A simple summation is that only a certain part and depth of the oceans is warming; the rest of the oceans are cooling.
Anthony also has a post about ocean heat from October 2014, <a href=http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/10/06/the-heat-went-to-the-oceans-excuse-and-trenberths-missing-heat-is-awol-deep-ocean-has-not-warmed-since-2005/"The “heat went to the oceans” excuse and Trenberth’s missing heat is AWOL – deep ocean has not warmed since 2005"
Another missed closure… my bad.
“Anthony also has a post about ocean heat from October 2014, “The “heat went to the oceans” excuse and Trenberth’s missing heat is AWOL – deep ocean has not warmed since 2005”
Lord Monckton – you are very adept at poking holes in the Global Warming/Climate Change articles.
Here is another line of attack for you – confidence limits. In order to apply confidence limits you need a statistical distribution. In order to do, this you need to make certain assumptions, which in these case do not apply for a variety of reasons.I could go into detail.
However, there is a simpler line of attack. When they revise their data, look and see what the confidence limits were claimed to be in the original data. Every time they revise the data, the new data is outside these confidence limits. So their methodology is flawed.
And the moment I do all that I lose nine-tents of the audience. The beauty of the method in the head posting is that only a fool can’t understand it and only a knave won’t.
Knave, huh?
Doesn’t that represent a promotion for those climate rogues?
They have been adjusting the historical temperature records to values outside of their own error bars for years.
Tony Heller has all the dirt on this particular brand of shenanigan.
Thanks, Christopher, Lord Monckton.
Very good demonstration, unless thermodynamics has been repealed and we didn’t know about that.
The ‘missing heat’ is ‘hidden’ in the engine rooms of ships and polluting the temperature readings of engine cooling water intakes.
According to Wikipedia:-
“The first automated technique for determining SST was accomplished by measuring the temperature of water in the intake port of large ships, which was underway by 1963. These observations have a warm bias of around 0.6 °C (1 °F) due to the heat of the engine room.”
It is likely this bias has changed over time as there have been massive changes in ships since that time generally in the size of many tankers, bulk carriers and container vessels which means a longer passage through the engine room from the sea intake at the hull shell as well as being deeper below the surface. In addition there has been a trend from engine intake sensors to those fitted at ships side/sea intake generating another progressive bias. How do you actually quantify that? Is there a bias in that trend between vessels in warmer vs cooler waters? Is that reflected in the data?
In the case of the bulk carriers and tankers the depth of the sea intake from the surface may vary by 5 to 10 metres depending on whether they are loaded or in a light / ballasted condition. Is there a bias in where such data is gathered? Is that reflected in the data?
Since we are chasing tenths of a degree per decade or less I fail to see how this was a robust data set for the purposes now being put to by the CAGW mob. To then leverage that data for the ‘adjustment’ of other data is just plain nuts.
Mob science it seems to me, i.e. in the same sense as ‘mob rule’.
PS
There is a very informative paper by J. B. R. Matthews of
School of Earth and Ocean Sciences, University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, Canada
‘Comparing historical and modern methods of sea surface
temperature measurement – Part 1: Review of methods,
field comparisons and dataset adjustments’
Working your way through the minutae of the accuracy issues, ranging from parallax reading errors to bias due to heating from the engine room is seems to me that this data is so corrupted that it should only be published with the implicit wide error bands. Use it as a ‘benchmark’ in any way to ‘adjust’ other data is quite lunatic IMO.
I have often commented on ship’s data since I have reviewed many hundreds of thousands, if not millions of entries in ship’s logs.
I would not give the time of day to data set out in these logs.
One point that the climate scientis have failed to play sufficient regard that water tmeperature when assessed by recording water intake manifold temperature is assessing the temperature of water drwan at depth, not surface temperature.
Depending upon the design, configuration and trim of the vessel, the water may be drawn between some 3m to 20m depth, but typically 5 to 10metres. This water is significantly cooler than surface temperatures!
It is correct that the engine room is a hot environment, but the water is not stored in the engine room for any lengthy. It is being pumped and at a rate depending upon the speed and requirements of the engine. Becauase of this, there is little time for the cooling water to be heated up by the warmth of the engine room.
But even if the water is being heated up by some marginal extent because of the heat of the engine room, such heating is not sufficient to off-set the fact that the ship is drawing water from depth which water is cooler than surface temperatures.
IF CORRECTION is reuired, it is that ship’s data is UNDER RECORDING (not over recording temperatures) because it is sampling water drawn at a depth of typically 5 to 10 metres below the surface and water at this depth is significantly cooler (especially during the day time) than surface temperature.
Of course you are right that the design of ship’s has altered over the years, but perhaps more material than that is the fact that the laden trim of a vessel also alters as the voyage progresses; sometimes the vessel may be in ballast, sometime partially laden, sometimes fully laden, the amounts of consumables and stores changes, the manner in which a vessel is trimmed to the stern may be altered. All of this means that the depth at which water is drawn to be sampled, is constantly changing and evolving. One is never comparing like with like.
If the data is coming from commercial vessels there are commercial reasons why the data may not be correctly recorded. There are good reasons why the ship may wish to claim that the sea temperature is lower than it truly is (if the vessel is carrying a cargo that needs to be heated), or if there are engine problems, it may wish to record that the sea temperature is warmer than really is because this may conceal and explain engine over heating problems. Or perhaps because of bottom fouling which is usually exacerbated in warm tropical waters. I would not wish to base hard science on data comingfrom commercial vessels
The upshot is that prior to ARGo there is no data on ocean temperature worth its salt (and as has been noted above, there are issues with ARGO data).
Am I missing something? How can you use seawater temperature to determine the temperature of the air above it? It’s like inserting a thermometer into the ground or placing it in a cave.
One of the starting points for thermodynamics is just defining properties. Two masses in direct contact will have the same temperature, or will reach thermal equilibrium with each other if energy is added or removed.
One mass has one temperature and one amount of thermal energy.
For example. The atmosphere at the surface to one meter height with area of one square meter has a volume of one cubic meter. That volume contains about 1.2 kilograms of gas. The kinetic thermal energy in that mass is known. In this case the absolute amount does not matter, only the change from initial conditions.
At say 273 kelvin (zero celsius) it takes about 1 kilojoule of energy to increase the temperature of one cubic meter of air by one degree.
The one cubic meter of ocean below that atmosphere contains 800 times the mass of the cubic meter of air above. The seawater also has a specific heat capacity 4 times the air above. That means it would take 3200 kilojoules (800×4) of thermal energy to increase the seawater by one degree.
For the two cubic meters at the surface, the amount of energy needed would be 3201 kilojoules.
I think you miss my point. The air two meters above the surface of the sea (Stevenson Screen Level) will have a much warmer temperature than the sea water a meter or two below. If you have ever gone swimming in an ocean or beach, you would realize this.
Mr Nelson is not including the time factor. At night or in winter, for instance, the water may well be warmer than the air. Over a decade or more, however,nether absolute temperatures and trends should be the same. Even Karl has admitted this.
Ad DB Stealwy has shown upthread, the upper 3 m of the oceans has not warmed. The lower troposphere has not warmed either. So how can the surface have warmed? It can’t.
The air temperature above oceans (away from land masses), at least in modest wind conditions, is very similar to the ocean temperature. This is because it it the ocean that heats the air (primarily by conduction and convection), and of course, the ocean has (in relative terms) almost limitless heat capacity with which to heat the air above it.
If one is in the tropical ocean, the air temperature at night does not drop much, since it is constantly being reheated by the vast storage reservoir below which does not cool quickly (given the volume and heat capacity) even though the sun has set.
When I refer to ocean temperature, I am talking about surface temperature.
Historically the mean SST has been warmer then the land measurements only. The oceans are a 3 D SW absorbent surface, with far greater heat capacity.
For so long as the liars, thieves, and morons have you looking at, and pontificating on, graphs that purportedly depict a temperature history of any element of the natural history to something that amounts to a small fraction of a degree C – and you take it as information/data worth discussion – you are part of the problem.
Stop.
Doing.
That.
No one has ever measured a non-isothermic [non isolated and stabilized] fluid to that granularit.
No one ever will.
Presenting data in this format [small fractions of a single degree] for a fluid in a natural state is bullshit.
Bullshit.
You would fail a high school physics lab assignment if you claimed the ability to accomplish a temperature measurement task to that granularity even if using a brand new $100k freshly calibrated temperature probe and data gathering rig dipped into a beaker of water.
Its anti-science.
Why are you anti-science?
Do you hate children?
Spukhäfte Fernwirkung, perhaps?
If you seek to dazzle us with you vast knowledge, at least spell it right: Spukhafte
* your
Tee hee!
Mr Svalgaard unerringly misses the elephant in the room, as usual.
And he appears unfamiliar with the Niedersachsen dialect.
What matters is what Einstein said. And being from Ulm in Baden-Württemberg he would not have used the dialect you claim to be so expert in, so you just fall flat.
Mr Svalgaard still misses the elephant in the room.
Too busy picking nits.
Not very adult.
The elephant is irrelevant when it comes to demonstrating your silly and childish reference to a dialect that Einstein didn’t even use. So, as I said, I did not miss the Monkey.
Mr Svalgaard, as usual, is unwilling to discuss the main point, and is unwilling to debate at all in a civilised or adult fashion. The surface cannot be warming as Karl says it is, unless a closely similar rate of warming were also toe observed immediately above and below the surface.
This is not a debate. I am just pointing out that your credibility suffers by wrong reference. Intended to impress, perhaps, but falling short. And ‘spukhäfte’ is not even niedersächsisch.
Leaving Elephants and Monkeys for others to decide but
“Spuckhäfte” is definitively not the dialect of Niedersachsen…
““Spuckhäfte” is definitively not the dialect of Niedersachsen…”
Well, “Spuck” is “spit” (imperative), “Spuk” is “spook”.
I looked around but I don’t find any historic sources using “spukhäfte” so; maybe it’s just one Heavy Metal Umlaut too much…
(and yes, it is not known to me as a Lower Saxon. The only dialects we had before they mostly died out were variants of Platt and those are a different thing entirely.)
More to the point since Einstein wrote the phrase in a letter to Max Born in 1947 and the letter is archived we know that he didn’t use the umlaut!
[blockquote] lsvalgaard
June 6, 2015 at 6:54 am
This is not a debate. I am just pointing out that your credibility suffers by wrong reference[/blockquote]
And your credibility suffers when you attack everything except the topic at hand. If you have a problem with the topic of Lord M of B’s article then that is what you should be addressing, not irrelevant nits.
Others have adequately pointed out that Mr M’s article is junk and that it should be withdrawn. My comment goes to the misguided and fumbled attempt to impress and not being man enough to admit it. Being dishonest in small things is often a harbinger of dishonesty in large things.
I believe the elephant got bored, and has now left the room.
It seems the Monkey is still here…
Still picking nits too.
The nits show the dishonesty of the esteemed lort. But, it seems they are acceptable in this echo chamber.
lsvalgaard
June 6, 2015 at 7:16 am
“Others have adequately pointed out that Mr M’s article is junk and that it should be withdrawn. My comment goes to the misguided and fumbled attempt to impress and not being man enough to admit it. Being dishonest in small things is often a harbinger of dishonesty in large things.”
Leif, it is too bad that you don’t explain how the surface layer of the oceans can persistenly maintain a higher warming trend than the layers above and below it. I found no likely explanation in the other comments, to which you defer, as well.
It is obvious that the surface layer can have a different temperature than layers above and below, but what Karl posits is that this difference is growing. I will refer to this as the Karl Phenomenon.
But this has never been conjectured by the CO2AGW originators. And nobody gives a possible mechanism for this GROWTH in temperature difference. I guess we all have to accept “The CO2 dunn it” as catch all. Ah, that wouldn’t be scientific enough. “The backradiation dunn it”. Now that’s better.
So, when the best numerical expression of the CO2AGW theory are the climate models, and said climate models have NEVER shown the Karl Phenomenon, then, has Karl “discovered” an entirely novel mechanism? CO2 Orgone energy.
It is too bad that you don’t explain how the surface layer of the oceans can persistently maintain a higher warming trend than the layers above and below it.
That is a question of what the data actually shows, and that is not clear. I guess with time we’ll get to know,but people don’t like to wait, so will jump on their favorite bandwagon as they see fit in support of whatever agenda they are pushing. It is difficult to argue with agenda-driven people of either persuasions.
(please excuse the caps because I’m not sure how to bold)
To state what should be obvious:
DISAGREEING WITH THIS POST DOES NOT MEAN YOU ACCEPT KARL’S NONSENSE.
There are more than two choices here. Really.
lsvalgaard
June 6, 2015 at 8:32 am
“That is a question of what the data actually shows, and that is not clear.”
So no plausible mechanism is proposed to explain the Karl Phenomenon. Thanks.
Wouldn’t matter how many there were. You still can’t average all of them together and come up with a meaningful result.
“Beneath the surface heaves the vasty deep.”
From which Karl can summon spirits of Global Warming.
Well, so can I, and so can any man, but will they come when we do call upon them?
Somewhere I read an account of a well the Russians dug on land around 35,000 feet, when they had to stop because of the heat. Do deep wells in the sea have the same effect as those on land?
Thank you Lord Monckton. Well done!
Karl reminds me of Darth Vader…
I am altering the data
Pray that I do not alter it any further.
@ Steven Mosher June 5, 2015 at 3:27 pm
You say two “scales” but you don’t say anything about their accuracy, the quality, the precision, etc. Scale != Scale.
Therefore more averaging is appropriate, IMHO. They are both independent measurements which have to be taken as such. How that relates to decision-making, is another issue, e.g. does the +2 lb “measurement” by the second scale warrante an emergency new weight-loss regime?
Ooops. Should have been “Therefore more averaging is inappropriate, IMHO”.
Averaging gets you the wrong answer. The accuracy, the quality, the precision do not matter. Read the example again and try to understand why.
A case could be made for rms’s averaging argument.
In Mosher’s example, he steps from scale A to scale B and back again. Therefore, it is reasonable to infer that Mosher’s true weight (temperature) has not actually changed, and that there is instead a calibration difference between the scales.
For the ocean temperature data the case is not nearly so clear. We will always be comparing data taken at different times, and places, using different methodologies. For that situation it is much harder to exclude the possibility that the temperatures (weights) being measured actually ARE truly different.
That being so, Karl’s claim that observed differences are due to calibration errors becomes a good deal more dubious, and a case can be made that since all the data is crappy anyway, a simple average may be the least bad choice.
Right or wrong, and it certainly is wrong, Karl has achieved his objective. He made headlines in our newspapers and further cemented in the minds of a gullible public and media that “we’re gonna fry!!!”
Mission accomplished!
“promenade deck thermometers” love that line 🙂
Karl’s paper is bad; but not for the reason given in this post. Solar radiation could easily heat the ocean surface to a greater or lesser degree than the air above it. One doesn’t even need to be a scientist to understand that.
Container in a microwave. Skin in air on a sunny day. Roof in air on a sunny day. Many other examples. We should not give in to the temptation to overcomplicate and twist good sense in an attempt to have every one of our arguments be right…
This post should be withdrawn, or, better yet, marked by its author as disproved, to serve as an example to Alarmists (and everyone, for that matter) that those who adhere to scientific principles have no qualms about accepting facts and admitting error.
Take back the green is repeating a comment made earlier – a troll technique.
The Earth’s surface is where the lower troposphere and the upper ocean meet. None of the examples in tbtg’s comment ate analogous to that.
The surface cannot warm over as long as a decade at a rate at least five times faster than the air and water of which it is composed.
The heat has to come from somewhere and it has to go somewhere. Otherwise the laws of thermodynamics are breached.
Monckton: You use the exact same tactics that are rightfully denounced when used by Alarmists. Attack the messenger. “Troll techniques?” Uncalled for and unbecoming. Elsewhere I’ve expressed admiration for your efforts against CAGW nonsense. To clarify, and for what it’s worth, my admiration is directly proportional to the thinness of your skin.
Perhaps if you did what we rightfully encourage alarmists to do (step back, take a breath, and keep an open mind), you would see that if many people make the same argument, perhaps you should freshly consider it. Why attack those who are on your “side” but who disagree with you? Must we really be a circular firing squad?
As to the reasoning in your post, maybe an overview will help you understand the problem. Like the Alarmists, you are considering a vast and chaotic portion of a vast and chaotic system, and falsely assuming it can be 1) understood beyond a rudimentary level and 2) be treated as a simple lab experiment with two or three discrete variables that will plug into known equations and behave accordingly. Those assumptions are false.
You’ve asserted several times that the layers MUST be in sync because a system wants to find equilibrium, and that heat must come from somewhere and it can’t be the sun.
Well, you are artificially (just like Karl) eliminating or ignoring variables. (How much time would it take for this particular system to reach equilibrium if it were isolated? Unknowable. If there are thousands of other influences on this system, how much less knowable is this single question?) Like Alarmists everywhere, you also casually dismiss the Sun, THE source of heat for our little corner of the universe. Active or not, it would require more than a statement from your lordship to eliminate it as a source.
And remember, all of this is done in order to argue against a paper that has already been convincingly shown to be false, and which attempts to support a delusion (GAGW).
Of course CO2 doesn’t cause the effect Karl’s paper discusses. The effect may or may not even exist. But it is over-reaching to declare in a few paragraphs that it is IMPOSSIBLE for the effect to exist because you understand the totality of the system and can confidently assert that the effect would violate the laws of thermodynamics.
I have nothing more to add to this thread, but I’m sure I’ll continue to learn from the discussion. It would feel more like a classroom and less like a bar fight if you (again, I feel like I’m talking to an alarmist here…) take a step back, discuss with civility, don’t attack those who disagree, keep in mind that you can be mistaken, keep pride and passion out of it.
Regards!
How long would it take to reach near-equilibrium?
Well, a massive tropical storm crosses the Atlantic in two+ weeks, leaving clearly “visible” heat trails across the surface where the oceans are measureably cold – compared to the nearby (no hurricane) regions. Then, 5 days after the hurricane has crossed, the surface is back to normal for that region and that time of year.
So, to reach near-equilibrium? Very short time.
Compare to the AMO and PDO. Both are 60 year cycles, un-regulated (uncontrolled) by man. Both cycles exhibit behavior that “exceeds” equilibrium BOTH WAYS: The ocean region gets “too hot”, releases “too much heat,” crosses the nominal temperature and wind conditions, BUT KEEPS COOLING at an ever-decreasing rate as the temperature decreases, then cools off “too much”. In the next 30 year heating interval, the heat losses are exceeded by the heat gains, and temperature/pressure/humidity go back up again – from a “too cold” condition, through equilibrium, and back up towards the future “too hot” conditions.
So the time to return THROUGH normal – by observation – is about 30 years.
See, the earth’s systems never stop “at zero”.
They are NEVER “in balance” but are ALWAYS either heating up (too little cooling) or cooling too much (too little heating.) Because BOTH the heating forcings and the cooling forcings never “stop.” They just are not ever in synch with each other. And never will be.