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.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
I can answer Lord Monckton’s question easily – the answer is “no”.
The best explanation is the global warming is coming from an increase in down-welling infrared radiation.
The ARGO warming rate of 0.023 degrees per decade may well be significant (it IS a lot of heat energy), it is hard to say from only 11 years of data that excludes the poles. The heating averaged over 1900 metres of water does not really tell you much about the sea surface temperature – it is the sea surface that couples with the air above it.
And what evidence does harrytwinotter offer that the surface air and ocean surface combined are warming at least five times faster than either the upper ocean or the lower troposphere?
Changing the subject m’lord?
Lord Monckton.
Why are you trying to compare the surface air temperature and sea surface temperature with the upper ocean and the lower troposphere?
It might be possible to do this, if someone works out how to do the conversion.
So my answer to your question is still “no”.
harrytwinotter says, June 6, 2015 at 5:53 pm:
“The best explanation is the global warming is coming from an increase in down-welling infrared radiation.”
Yeah, I know. In theory. Well, the theory doesn’t hold up. The data from the real world shows why:
Do you see much of an increase in positive DWLWIR input to the global surface in this plot?
Here’s how the global surface has managed to shed its heat via radiation since 2000:
Its ability to cool by radiation has apparently STRENGTHENED over the past 15 years by ~1.5 W/m^2. (Remember, the more negative, the greater the loss rate.)
How does all this make the surface/ocean system retain more energy from radiation?
It should’ve cooled, Harry. Not warmed. If radiation were all there is …
The subject of the head posting, as harrytwinotter would know if he had read it, is the assertion in Karl et al. 2015, that the surface is warming at five times the rate of the upper ocean, and infinitely faster than the lower troposphere. I take it that he has no evidence to support Karl et al.’s ridiculous assertion.
And I am grateful to Kristian for providing evidence from CERES that makes rather a mess not only of the official theory but also of harrytwinotter’s theory.
Too bad. If Karl were right, we would have a limitless supply of energy.
Do you see much of an increase in positive DWLWIR input to the global surface in this plot?
In that period there’s been ~7% increase in CO2 and with forcing depending on log(CO2) so you wouldn’t expect to see much of an increase.
Its ability to cool by radiation has apparently STRENGTHENED over the past 15 years by ~1.5 W/m^2. (Remember, the more negative, the greater the loss rate.)
So the surface has warmed up?
Phil. says, June 7, 2015 at 7:47 pm:
“In that period there’s been ~7% increase in CO2 and with forcing depending on log(CO2) so you wouldn’t expect to see much of an increase.”
Actually, it went up by 8.4%. To make matters worse, both global tropospheric WV (SSM/I) and cloud cover (MODIS)/total cloud water content (SSM/I) went up significantly as well over that same period (2000-2014/15).
So it isn’t really about not expecting to see “much of an increase” in DWLWIR. It’s about not seeing an increase at all. It’s about rather seeing a decrease in global DWLWIR to the surface, in spite of flat tropospheric temps and rising total tropospheric concentration of pretty much all IR-active substances present in our atmosphere.
Don’t you find this even a little bit curious, Phil.?
“So the surface has warmed up?”
The ‘net LW’ from the surface is not what determines whether the surface has warmed or not, Phil. That’s UWLWIR. The ‘net LW’ is the radiant heat. The surface’s radiant heat loss. DWLWIR minus UWLWIR.
But yes, UWLWIR has indeed increased too, mostly during the last couple of years, with the surface temps. Before that, pretty much flat.
The point here is, from these data it is easy to tell that, if the surface has indeed warmed, it is NOT from an increase in DWLWIR, since this has instead been reduced over the period in question.
So the ‘net LW’ from the surface (its radiant heat loss) has increased as the combined result of a decrease in atmospheric DWLWIR and a concurrent increase in surface UWLWIR.
Funny, right?
Kristian,
link to the source of the CERES data? I need to see a description of their data to understand what those graphs mean.
Kristian,
your second graph appears to show evidence for global warming – the net longwave flux is decreasing because the net upward longwave flux is increasing due to the global average temperature increasing.
I admit I do not understand the data exactly – the CERES website says the value are computed not observations. To compute them they must use a model of some sort. But thanks for bringing the data to my attention, it is interesting.
Kristian,
You are only showing half of the radiation – you show the longwave but you leave out the shortwave.
The negative values do not mean what you say they do. You are charting the anomalies, not the actual values so a “negative” value just means value is below the average baseline.
harrytwinotter,
“link to the source of the CERES data? I need to see a description of their data to understand what those graphs mean.”
Happy to oblige.
Data: http://ceres-tool.larc.nasa.gov/ord-tool/jsp/EBAFSFCSelection.jsp
Description: http://ceres.larc.nasa.gov/documents/DQ_summaries/CERES_EBAF-Surface_Ed2.8_DQS.pdf
See also: https://www.arm.gov/publications/proceedings/conf11/extended_abs/rutan_da.pdf
“your second graph appears to show evidence for global warming – the net longwave flux is decreasing because the net upward longwave flux is increasing due to the global average temperature increasing.”
The net LW is not decreasing. It is increasing. When the surface loses heat via radiation more efficiently than before, that means its net LW is growing more negative. A ‘loss’ is by definition a negative value in any budget. The larger the loss, the more negative its value becomes.
As I explained to Phil. above: The ‘net LW’ from the surface is not what determines whether the surface has warmed or not. That’s the UWLWIR. The ‘net LW’ is the radiant heat. The radiant heat loss of the surface. DWLWIR minus UWLWIR.
But yes, UWLWIR has indeed increased too, mostly during the last couple of years, with the surface temps. Before that, pretty much flat.
The point here is, from these data it is easy to deduce the fact that, if the surface has indeed warmed, it is NOT from an increase in DWLWIR, since this has instead gone down over the period in question. DWLWIR is meant to be a positive input to the surface, so if this slopes down the scale, it actually does mean its growing smaller, less intense.
To conclude: The ‘net LW’ from the surface (its radiant heat loss) has increased in strength as the combined result of a decrease in atmospheric DWLWIR and a concurrent increase in surface UWLWIR.
“I admit I do not understand the data exactly – the CERES website says the value are computed not observations. To compute them they must use a model of some sort.”
Of course. A model is always used. Did you really think satellites in space are able to directly measure DWLWIR from the atmosphere to the surface?
The point, if you read the links I provided above, is that the radiation estimates are made based on other measurements of relevant atmospheric variables, such as cloud cover, type and thickness, and air column humidity and temperature profiles. These data are then processed by the model in question, a straightforward model working on the very principle that you used when you proclaimed earlier: “The best explanation is the global warming is coming from an increase in down-welling infrared radiation.”
The idea is that atmospheric DWLWIR is determined simply from tropospheric temperature and humidity profiles plus clouds (and CO2 concentration, of course). So if you believe that all of these (or at least, the net effect of them) have gone up over some period, then you would also believe DWLWIR to have increased. The CERES model does not stray from the regular ‘modern climate science’ way of seeing these things.
So the funny thing about these data, then, is that global DWLWIR to the surface hasn’t gone up. It has gone slightly down instead. In spite of flat tropospheric temps and a substantial increase in total tropospheric content of both WV, clouds and CO2 (2000-2014/15).
The question is: How can this be? The model does what it’s been told to do, based on its data inputs. Global DWLWIR definitely should’ve gone up. Theoretically.
But it hasn’t. It’s gone down.
What’s the controlling factor here? Why isn’t Mother Nature doing what theory expects from her?
The controlling factor are the clouds. Even though, on a global average, clouds cover a larger fraction of Earth’s surface today than in 2000 (MODIS), and more total water is held within them (SSM/I), their global distribution, both vertically and zonally/regionally has changed in such a manner that the expected radiative effects from their average increase (both LW and SW effects) are more than offset. As you can see from the global data, it’s not just that the DWLWIR doesn’t increase. It actually decreases.
Where is CO2 in all this? Nowhere to be found, I fear. These things operate on a completely different scale, totally ignorant of and indifferent to what CO2 might come up with. It’s like a fly on the back of an elephant. The fly might imagine to himself that he controls the elephant and is able to direct it where to go. The elephant, on the other hand, has a mind of its own, ploughing through the woods, completely oblivious to the tiny creature on its back.
“You are only showing half of the radiation – you show the longwave but you leave out the shortwave.”
Yes. And? The SW is the input, the LW the output. Cause and effect. I prefer to separate the two. The rGHE is supposed to limit the LW, not the SW, the “enhanced rGHE” (AGW) is supposed to reduce the LW, not the SW. In other words, the LW should be our natural focus.
“The negative values do not mean what you say they do. You are charting the anomalies, not the actual values so a “negative” value just means value is below the average baseline.”
I’ve given you the link to the data. Go check for yourself. Have a look at the absolute values. Net LW from the global surface increased from -52.5 W/m^2 in 2000 to -54 W/m^2 in 2014. That’s a strengthening (not a weakening) in heat loss efficiency by radiation for the global surface of 1.5 W/m^2 in ~15 years. The direct opposite of what the rGHE-postulated atmospheric mechanism for ‘extra’ surface warming prognosticates.
Kristian,
Your response too long and confusing for me to respond to. Perhaps you need to write an article.
CERES is not actually measuring downwelling longwave radiation at the ground, it is estimating it by making some assumptions about other factors. Good enough to work out what is going on at different parts of the globe, but not good enough data for the average global warming effects I was talking about.
I think CERES strength is estimating the net flux (LW and SW) at the TOA. The doco says this is a nominal altitude of 20km.
Considering the CERES data only goes back to 2000, and the radiation inbalance due to the greenhouse gas increase (or whatever) at the TOA is estimated at 0.6 W/m2 +/- 0.4 W/m2, it would take luck to find any sort of trend in that noise.
So I am calling the CERES data ambiguous.
“Your response too long and confusing for me to respond to. Perhaps you need to write an article.”
*Shaking head in disbelief.*
“CERES is not actually measuring downwelling longwave radiation at the ground, it is estimating it by making some assumptions about other factors. Good enough to work out what is going on at different parts of the globe, but not good enough data for the average global warming effects I was talking about.”
In fact, such estimates work better when they’re averaged globally than for each separate region. Why would you think otherwise? The assumptions made (by the model used) are the same that you make when you claim that DWLWIR is increasing globally and that this causes GW, Harry. So why are you and the entire ‘Climate Mainstream’ allowed to, but not the people at CERES?
“I think CERES strength is estimating the net flux (LW and SW) at the TOA. The doco says this is a nominal altitude of 20km.”
This we agree on. That doesn’t make their surface data inherently useless, wrong and/or biased. Those data are very thoroughly derived from real measurements of several relevant variables in the Earth systems.
“Considering the CERES data only goes back to 2000, and the radiation inbalance due to the greenhouse gas increase (or whatever) at the TOA is estimated at 0.6 W/m2 +/- 0.4 W/m2, it would take luck to find any sort of trend in that noise.
So I am calling the CERES data ambiguous.”
We don’t have comprehensive global radiation data similar to what I’ve drawn your attention to here from any other source or from earlier times than 2000. It’s not just the best we’ve got available. It’s all we’ve got, Harry. It’s not necessarily the final truth revealed, no one’s claiming that. But it’s what we’ve got for now. Why not show some interest?
– – – – – –
Harry,
Your gratuitous dismissal of the only real global data we have from the Earth system of climatologically important radiative parameters like these seems to fit into a well-known behaviour pattern, quite symptomatic of any warmist havng his deeply ingrained faith in the AGW dogma somehow challenged by real-world information.
It’s called “dissonance reduction”:
“In psychology, cognitive dissonance is the mental stress or discomfort experienced by an individual who holds two or more contradictory beliefs, ideas, or values at the same time, or is confronted by new information that conflicts with existing beliefs, ideas, or values.”
“Cognitive dissonance theory is founded on the assumption that individuals seek consistency between their expectations and their reality. Because of this, people engage in a process called dissonance reduction to bring their cognitions and actions in line with one another. This creation of uniformity allows for a lessening of psychological tension and distress. According to Festinger, dissonance reduction can be achieved in four ways. In an example case where a person has adopted the attitude that they will no longer eat high fat food, but eats a high-fat doughnut, the four methods of reduction are:
1. Change behavior or cognition (“I will not eat any more of this doughnut”)
2. Justify behavior or cognition by changing the conflicting cognition (“I’m allowed to cheat every once in a while”)
3. Justify behavior or cognition by adding new cognitions (“I’ll spend 30 extra minutes at the gym to work this off”)
4. Ignore or deny any information that conflicts with existing beliefs (“This doughnut is not high in fat”)”
Guess which method you’re employing.
Basically, if you dismiss these data offhand, you also dismiss the theory on which your rather cocksure proclamation earlier that GW is most likely the result of increasing global DWLWIR to the surface rests.
You have NO data to back up your claim. You just assert it and assume it to be correct. I present you with actual data, from NASA CERES, mind you, that clearly indicates you’re dead wrong, that the opposite of what you assume is going on is actually occurring. What do you do? You dismiss it, try to explain it away as being not useful (ambiguous of all things! if anything, it’s most assuredly not ambiguous, it shows exactly what it shows), and – I guess – go back to believing (and proclaiming) your original claim to be the truth, still without any kind of empirical backup, of course.
Ah, life as a warmist must be so simple … Claim something, anything, as long as it’s rooted in dogma. Then lalalalalala. Move on. Same claim repeated, same place or somewhere else. Another round of lalalalalala. Moving on. And so on and so forth …
Kristian,
Those are some interesting and informative comments. It would be very good if the alarmist contingent here would read and comprehend them, especially the last one. But they won’t. They will completely disregard it, or they will come up with weak, cherry-picked factoids as if those would support their belief. But factoids only support their confirmation bias.
Unfortunately, the alarmist cult has made their decision: “carbon”, Ba-a-ad… CO2 emissions: Ba-a-ad… 2º Global warming: Ba-a-ad…
Windmills: Gooo-ood… More polar bears: Gooo-oo-d… Moonbeam’s Bullet Train: Gooo-oo-d… & etc.
No cost/benefit analysis is necessary. No cost/benefit analysis is even tolerated. No cost/benefit analysis! Never! People might debate. They might decide that the cost is far too high. People might think! Can’t have that.
To expand on your last comment, I give you Dr. Leon Festinger, who explains the actions of the climate alarmist cult:
A man with a conviction is a hard man to change. Tell him you disagree and he turns away. Show him facts or figures and he questions your sources. Appeal to logic and he fails to see your point.
We have all experienced the futility of trying to change a strong conviction, especially if the convinced person has some investment in his belief. We are familiar with the variety of ingenious defenses with which people protect their convictions, managing to keep them unscathed through the most devastating attacks.
But man’s resourcefulness goes beyond simply protecting a belief. Suppose an individual believes something with his whole heart; suppose further that he has a commitment to this belief, that he has taken irrevocable actions because of it; finally, suppose that he is presented with evidence, unequivocal and undeniable evidence, that his belief is wrong. What will happen?
The individual will frequently emerge, not only unshaken, but even more convinced of the truth of his beliefs than ever before. Indeed, he may even show a new fervor about convincing and converting other people to his view.
That explains the ‘Seekers’ that Dr. Festinger studied, and more recently, Harold Camping’s followers, and Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Climate Alarmists. Human nature is strange indeed. The more contrary facts that skeptics produce, the more the alarmist cultists dig in their heels. Data that falsifies their belief doesn’t make them think. It makes their belief stronger!
That’s what we’re dealing with. The more the facts are against them, the more they Believe. For scientific skeptics of the “dangerous man-made global warming” hoax, it’s a tough row to hoe.
Reblogged this on Climatism and commented:
Excellent read.
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.”
Spot-on Lord Monckton! And the data is not being taken seriously by the likes of global warming activist agencies; NOAA, NCDC … and NASA who are butchering and torturing aka ‘homogenising’ data to fit the ‘global warming’ narrative.
Meanwhile unadjusted, un-homogenised raw satellite data (RSS, UAH), that criss-cross every inch of the globe 24/7, show NO WARMING in over 18 years, and slight cooling this century…
Who really are the real (data) ‘deniers’ ? ….
In case he missed the question, and isn’t just ignoring it, I’ll ask it again:
Monckton, what would it take to change your mind? What would falsify your proposition?
takebackthegreen says:
…what would it take to change your mind? What would falsify your proposition?
That is the exact question I have been asking for the last couple of years. But I never get an answer. Really, it’s the alarmist crowd that ignores the question.
So let me ask it again, this time directly to ‘takebackthegreen’:
What would it take for you to admit that your original ‘dangerous man-made global warming’ conjecture was wrong?
Would a full twenty years of no global warming convince you? (It’s been 18 ½ years already.)
Would a complete recovery of Arctic ice, to its 30-year average convince you?
Would it even convince you if the planet entered another ‘Snowball Earth’ phase of rapid global cooling?
I suspect that nothing could convince you. See my comment to Kristian above. Even entering a new Ice Age would probably trigger Dr. Festinger’s reaction:
The individual will frequently emerge, not only unshaken, but even more convinced of the truth of his beliefs than ever before. Indeed, he may even show a new fervor about convincing and converting other people to his view.
Otherwise… what, exactly, would convince you that your original premise was wrong?
dbstealey:
The question I’M more interested in: Where did you get the impression that I’m a believer in CAGW? I absolutely 100% do not believe any portion of the CAGW position. If you came to that impression because of Monckton’s replies to my comments, then welcome to my nightmare…
You’d have to read from the beginning to see how clearly I stated that Karl’s data-jitsu is inexcusable, and has been correctly and thoroughly discredited elsewhere. Apparently, my sin was to say that I think Monckton’s idea that Karl’s adjustments violate the second law of thermodynamics is most likely false. I then mused that it would be a great example of how scientific progress is supposed to occur, if the post were marked “disproven” or some such and left up, because being wrong is part of the process, and not a negative thing.
Well… Monckton’s reaction was… unhinged? Wagnerian? Beyond rational understanding? You tell me.
——————————
So I can’t really answer your question, since it doesn’t apply. Interestingly, a few times in this thread, and elsewhere on WUWT, the issue of people changing a fundamental opinion/belief has been raised. I am very interested in that topic because I went through the “revelation” a couple years ago, changing from a lackadaisical vague CAGW believer to a more informed, and therefore more focused “skeptic.” As briefly as possible: I have the (delusional?) idea that a smart psychologist could pick out details from my “conversion” and the experience of others who’ve done it, and find some useful rhetorical tactic or strategy that might be used to spark the switch in others. Because my experience is that very few people change quickly or easily, especially on their own. (Not saying I’m special, just outlying data.)
Anyway, thanks for the civility of your question and comment.
And since you engaged in a thoughtful way, dbstealey: If you accept my (pretty obvious) premise that one can disagree with Monckton’s proposition about why Karl’s paper is wrong, and STILL THINK THE PAPER IS WRONG (which I do), what do you think would falsify Monckton’s idea?
There are several astute replies in this thread that I think convincingly show Monckton’s error in reasoning. And then there’s Monckton’s utterly bizarre and embarrassing tirades… I’d given up on this proposition ever being “settled.” (HA!)
tbtg,
You asked my opinion on this:
…Monckton’s reaction was… unhinged? Wagnerian? Beyond rational understanding?…
I don’t agree with those characterizations. Christopher Monckton is very rational, and I think I understand him. No one is perfect, but he is very knowledgeable, and he presents a good case for the skeptics’ side.
But I was wrong in my characterization of you. Sometimes I’m too quick with my trigger finger. My apologies. After reading your posts, I really don’t see very much that I disagree with. I’m sorry that I put you in the class of people who buy into the CAGW narrative. I was wrong.
Wow. Thank you. Apology accepted. Considering the confusing nature of comment threads here and everywhere, I figured it was not intentional. Which makes it even classier of you to take the time to check back through the trail and acknowledge it.
I won’t belabor the Monckton issue, other than to say that on this comment thread I acknowledged the general points you made about his contribution to the skeptical side. I don’t know how closely you read the comment exchange, but it was so bizarrely personal and emotional and unscientific I thought it was a joke at first. But if that behavior meets the prevailing standards here, I just have to recalibrate my expectations. And be more aware of who is and isn’t capable of civil discourse before I put my two cents in a comment.
Thanks again.
Asked and answered. The top 2.9 or 12.5 or 100 m of the ocean has not warmed. That accounts for 71% of the measurements of surface temperature. Karl’s data show that it is the ocean temperatures he has tampered with most, so the 29% of measurements on land are not the cause of the surface warming. The lower troposphere is not warming either. And besides, Karl himself has admitted that the upper ocean and the surface air must have about the same temperature.
So, before you demand a third time that the head posting be retracted, where is the heat for the putative but unmeasured surface warming coming from? It is not coming from the air above. It is not coming from the ocean below. It is not coming from the Sun, or the top few meters of the ocean would be warming, and the Argo data show that they are not. It is not coming from CO2, or the lower troposphere would be warming, and the satellite data show it is not. It is not coming from an increase in downwelling radiation, because the CERES data shows no increase. It is not coming from volcanism below, for the top few meters of the ocean are not warming.
So answer the question that is staring you in the face in the head posting, and has been staring you in the face all along. Where is the heat coming from?
And, since the surface comprises the lower few meters of the lower troposphere, which are not warming, and the upper few meters of the ocean, which are not warming, how is the meeting of the two fluid media holding the heat? What is the barrier that allows this magic stratum to retain a heat that the actual measurements of these two media do not show? For we know that the Sun warms the upper ocean during the day compared with the strata below, but that in the night the heat goes from that layer, some to the air above and some to the ocean deep. Why, then, does this magic layer that loses heat in a night somehow retain enough of it in a decade to show a rate of warming that is not actually measured?
And why, if Mr Karl is right that the two fluid media should have about the same temperature, is it not also right that the air a little above the surface stratum and the ocean a little below it should also have about the same temperature? If they must, then what barrier is there that prevents the strata either side of the surface stratum from warming at about the same rate as Mr Karl – on no evidence – imagines the surface stratum is warming?
Finally, contrive a thermodynamic scenario consistent with the real-world lower-troposphere and ocean measurements that allows Mr Karl’s imagined surface warming when neither the air surface measurements nor the ocean surface measurements show anything like the warming rate he imagines.
1) Again, you did not answer the questions.
You restated portions of your proposition, then asked a long series of questions, then issued a command. Questions aren’t answers. (Odd sentence to have to write…) And I don’t work for you.
This is a fundamental issue that must be addressed. You know what it means if your proposition isn’t falsifiable. Not to forget that it can also just be wrong for any of the reasons others have given, a couple of the best being ones you’ve ignored.
2) I have “demanded” that the post be retracted ZERO times. Do you value truthfulness? Accuracy? I’m new to this excellent blog. Is there some reason that people don’t call you on this kind of thing?
The proposition that the surface cannot warm if the top of the ocean and the bottom of the lower troposphere are not warming may be falsified by answering my questions. Earlier comments by takebackthegreen make it clear that it had not realized the upper few meters of the ocean are not warming. One suspects that its error arose from the assumption that the upper few meters are warming, when they are not. The point being made in the head posting is a simple one. The questions I have asked are simple ones. Takebackthegreen is of course entitled not to answer them, for I have long learned not to expect answers to the unanswerable, and I shall take its whine to the effect that it does not work for me as an admission that it is quite unable to answer.
I am delighted that “takebackthegreen”, faced with the evidence that the upper few meters of the ocean are not in fact warming, has retracted its its twice-stated demand/recommendation/whine that the post be retracted.
“The proposition… may be falsified by answering my questions.” Got it. You don’t understand the concept of falsifiability. How is that possible?
Maybe a fictional conversation will help:
F: “Hello, U. I propose that the Earth orbits the Sun.”
U: “Interesting idea, F. What would falsify that proposition?”
F: “What does the Earth orbit, if not the Sun? Contrive a scenario where the Earth doesn’t orbit the Sun.”
U: “Those questions don’t answer the question I asked, F. A proper answer might take this form: ‘If the Earth were observed orbiting Jupiter, the hypothesis that the Earth orbits the Sun would be proved false.’ So again, what would falsify your proposition?”
F: “Answering my questions would falsify my proposition.”
U: “My head hurts.”
———————————————–
As for takebackthegreen, it repeats what it said earlier: It took less than a minute to find what it considers to be flawed thinking. Your idea shares a fatal conceptual problem with CAGW. You consider a vast, complex and chaotic system, and hubristically imagine you’ve figured it out well enough to treat like a small collection of variables that can be shoehorned into simple equations.
CO2 isn’t the Earth’s thermostat. And I don’t believe the laws of thermodynamics can be properly used to broadly assess an entire system we only vaguely comprehend. Further, it isn’t the responsibility of critics to answer their own objections.
If you care to search for them above, I put a +1 under two comments that persuasively argue against your idea from the perspectives of people more educated about the subject than myself.
———————————————–
Regarding the irrelevant portions of your reply:
Do you know what the word “demand” means? You’ve misused it twice now. Also, when you overuse a word such as “whine” it loses its effectiveness. May I help you insult me by suggesting you consult a thesaurus? “Recommendation” is close enough; although it was a single instance, not two or any other number; and was part of a rhetorical construct you clearly don’t understand.
If I write “The paper should be withdrawn. Better yet, it should be marked as falsified” it is meant to acknowledge a progression of thought from initial bad idea to more useful suggestion. “Better yet” implies one is rejecting what came before in favor of what comes after. Do you follow?
I apologize for assuming that my phrasing would be understandable to an average english-speaking reader. If that assumption was responsible for your nasty mood, I hope my explanation provides relief.
takebackthegreen is, as I suspected, unable to answer the question in the head posting about where the heat to warm the magic surface layer can possibly have come from. Wriggling and whining won’t help. Nor will appealing to the authority of others who have also made the unwise mistake of assuming that the surface layer of the ocean is warming when it isn’t.
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.
Since this event wasn’t referenced I originally thought it was this one:
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/05/09/moncktons-testimony-to-congres/
I quickly realized it was not as I watched monckton squirm as he got schooled during the hearing.
Most embarrassing is his complete misrepresentation of Pinker’s paper, he repeated his earlier mistake despite having being corrected by Pinker herself in the interim ( he at least got her gender right but not her name), not only that he mistakenly applied a ‘correction’ for ERBE data for orbital decay. Unfortunately for monckton the data presented by Pinker was not from ERBE but from ISCCP so the ‘correction’ is inappropriate. He also he did what he frequently does here, that is give insufficient citations in this case to data purporting to come from Lindzen.
It appears that the meeting he is referring to was in fact in 2010.
However he appears to have made the same errors regarding Pinker in that meeting, perhaps that’s why he was asked “How do you expect to be taken seriously?”. Of course like monckton’s other editorializing we only have his word that any of it took place.
And we all know how little his wörds are worth. [wörds is Niedersächish, as we all know].
And yet the lower troposphere does not warm, and the ocean surface does not warm.
They have most certainly warmed the past 100 years. But wörds are cheap. And BTW, you cannot store ‘heat’ [which is not a state variable], so you have a problem with vocabulary too, although many people also not versed in thermodynamics carry that misconception.
Mr Svalgaard, who continues to have difficulty with the most elementary scientific concepts, has not perhaps appreciated that 2000-2014 was the period to which Mr Karl’s error related, not “the past 100 years”. And I have not discussed “storing” heat: I have asked – and Mr Svalgaard is certainly not competent to answer – where the heat came from to cause Mr Karl’s alleged warming of the surface, given that over the relevant period neither the lower troposphere nor the upper ocean has warmed.
If the surface were to warm at so very great a relative rate, where is the heat coming from, and where does it go? Or why does it not go? Why does it stay, for a decade, despite the mixing caused by, say, tropical afternoon convection?
You most definitely imply that the heat sits [stays] somewhere, so you are being mendacious again. But I guess that you have to be to save a little face after the thorough debunking of your article by several people here. But, then we don’t expect anything less, do we?
Chris and Lief,
Actually, there has not been much warming over the past 100 years, and very little to essentially none for the past 80 years, since the toasty 1930s. I refer to the real world, not the cooked to a crisp books of HadCRU, GISS and NOAA.
Much of the warming since the end of the LIA occurred during intervals in the period 1850 to 1914, ie more than 100 years ago.
Not sure Sturgis Hooper is right about temperature. The HadCRUT4 record shows a cooling of about an eighth of a degree Celsius from Jan 1850 to Dec 1914. Within that period, there was warming from 1860-1880, probably coincident with the positive phase of the PDO (we weren’t watching for it, so we don’t know for sure). There was warming from 1910-1945, broadly coincident with the warming phase of the PDO, and from 1976-2001 (PDO again).
However, the terrestrial records have been much tampered with: Mr Hooper is right about that. And no small fraction of the 0.8-degree warming over the past 100 years came from almost 0.3 degrees of tampered temperature increase, plus another 0.2 degrees in uncorrected-for urban heat island effect (McKitrick & Michaels, 2007), plus at least another 0.2 degrees in natural warming. Not a lot of room for CO2-driven warming once all these factors are allowed for.
Thanks to the satellites, which have made it harder to move the terrestrial-temperature goalposts undetected, we know that the lower troposphere and the upper ocean did not warm at all during the 11 years 2004-2014. So the lowest 3 m of the lower troposphere and the uppermost 3 m of the upper ocean, taken together – a.k.a. “the surface” – cannot have warmed over that period either.
Mr Svalgaard, who too often allows spite to interfere with thought, has wilfully misunderstood the passage by me that he cites above. The point I was making was that the heat could not stay in the surface stratum (assuming it was there in the first place). It had to go somewhere. Mr Svalgaard knows perfectly well that since the lower troposphere is not warming and the top 3 m of the ocean (or 12.5 m, or 100 m) is not warming, there is no way the surface could have warmed at a significant rate for more than a decade. He knows perfectly well that there is nothing wrong with the head posting.
Since heat is not a state variable it cannot be stored and therefore not ‘stay’ anywhere. I do not agree with Karl’s assessment, but only point out that your treatment of it is muddled and lettered with misunderstood concepts that are ‘not even wrong’. This has been shown repeatedly in this thread, so take it as a man and slink away.
I had meant to link to this video of monckton’s presentation:
http://www.c-span.org/video/?293366-1/foundation-climate-science
His usual arrogance clearly rubbed rep. Inslee the wrong way and earned him a reprimand.
Mr Svalgaard merely repeats his earlier error.
And Rep. Inslee behaved as I am told he usually behaves.
Lamentably, the windmill-hugging Inslee is now governor of Washington State.
The senator gave Mr Monckton a well-deserved dressing down.
Well he certainly asked for it.
So much easier for the trolls to descend to personalities than to face the scientific fact that Mr Karl has had a go at breaching the laws of thermodynamics.
What a joke, monckton as usual peppers his original post with ad hominem attacks and personal remarks and many unverifiable editorial remarks. All geared to show him as the star of the show, he doesn’t like his egregious errors in his testimony being pointed out, in fact he pretends that they didn’t happen. He refers to the rebuttal of his testimony as “a rather testy reply”, here it is:
http://www.noaa.gov/images/climate_cooling_testimony111909.pdf
Nothing ‘testy’ about it at all, just points out monckton’s numerous errors, such as this one:
“The Monckton-Lindzen figure is clearly in error, an error which has been corrected in the scientific peer reviewed literature by the scientists who produced the ERBS Nonscanner data.”
Perhaps he should address his errors rather than make snide remarks such as “He shifted from one well-padded butt-cheek to the other”, he would be outraged if someone made such snide remarks about his appearance.
I don’t take Lord Monckton seriously. I know what is he is up to.
It is clear that Monckton seeks speaking fees from any place that advocates anti-AGW thinking.
None of the whining of the usual trolls alters the fact that Mr Karl has not the least understanding of thermodynamics, or he would not have tried to maintain that an impossible warming of the Earth’s surface has taken place during a period when neither the lower troposphere nor the upper few meters of the ocean was warming at all.
Chris, I’m sure that Mr. Karl’s understanding of thermodynamics is about the same as your understanding of HIV infection and any possible therapy for it.
Lord Monckton,
When you factor in the effect of clearer skies since the 1980s, thanks to emission controls in the developed world, there is essentially no room left over for warming from CO2. IMO it’s likely that net feedbacks from the small GHE of increased CO2 are negative, so that no measurable effect would be expected to result from the gain of 120 ppm to 400 up from 280.
You could well be right, but HadCRU and its twisted sisters have so altered the past, a la their ideological kin in the late, unlamented CPSU, that its “data” cannot be relied upon. Just as the gatekeepers try to heat up the present, they have cooled the past, a trick made easier because the satellites weren’t watching then.
Thermometer record highs in Colorado, Utah and Oregon were set in the 1880s and ’90s and Alaska, California, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine in the 1910s. Even more state highs date from the 1920s and ’30s. NOAA is trying to get rid of the old highs, however.
I look to proxy data, as for instance the retreat of glaciers, as more reliable indicators of temperature in the recent past.
The highest recorded temperatures in Canada date from the 1930s and ’40s, but also from the decades 1900 to 1930. Only the last two of the top 50 date from 1960 and 1961.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_extreme_temperatures_in_Canada#Highest_temperatures_ever_recorded_in_Canada
So IMO it’s safe to say that whatever might actually be the case globally, weather was more extreme and hotter during the Dust Bowl than today.
In North America and Hawaii.
I have some sympathy for what Sturgis Hooper says. The tampering with the GISS record, in particular, to suppress the higher temperatures of the 1920s and 1930s in the United States does not seem justifiable. The sad truth is that, if the director of a leading climate agency can maintain that the Earth’s surface has been warming over the past 15 years when neither the lower troposphere nor the upper ocean have been warming, and if even here a number of commenters are taken in, the tamperers and fiddlers will continue to get away with their tampering and fiddling.
IMO HadCRU is just as bad as GISS, even adding a few wrinkles of its own. Both are worse than worthless.
The less dishonest among the Carbonari will admit that North America was warmer c. 1917-46 than 1977 to 2006, and that 1947-76 was cooler than the preceding warm interval, despite higher CO2.
Pause stands at 18 years and 6 months? My son is about to leave school following his A-levels. He is one of the oldest in his school, at 18 years 8 months. Got me thinking. From September, assuming the “Pause” continues, not a single pupil at the school, indeed ANY school in the UK (apart from possible re-takers?) will have experienced a statistically significant rise in the Earth’s temperature. Should make geography/environmental science lessons interesting.
Correction: they won’t have experienced any rise in the Earth’s temperature: not even an insignificant rise.
Tom Karl; what is the temperature according to Obama’s throat probe?