Guest Post by Bob Tisdale
While doing some research for my upcoming book, I was rummaging through early papers on sea level data at the CU Sea Level Library. I found there the 1982 paper Global Sea Level Trend in the Past Century by Gornitz, Lebedeff and Hansen, all of NASA’s GISS. I enjoyed a brief mention of past global temperature it contained and thought you might enjoy it and another statement, too.
While presenting the typical alarmist conjecture about the possible collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheet, they made a statement that is atypical of alarmists:
A key application of the sea level trend concerns the potential destruction of the marine West Antarctic ice sheet (1). It can be argued that the ice sheet is not close to disintegration, because it survived the Altithermal ( ~ 5000 years ago) when the global mean temperature was perhaps 1 deg C warmer than today.
“Altithermal” is another term for the Holocene Climate Optimum.
Global surface temperature data produced by GISS indicate global surfaces have warmed since 1982, and, of course, the weasel-word “perhaps” means it may have been warmer or cooler during the Holocene Climate Optimum than the claimed 1 deg C. But I found it amusing that Hansen and others were noting in 1982 that global surface temperatures may have been warmer in the past…without the assistance of human emissions of CO2.
After the presented quote, Gornitz, Lebedeff and Hansen then go on to explain how the collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheet is still possible, but they hedged their bets with a plethora of weasel-words…and the following statement:
We should emphasize that we have no evidence for such a process.
Not much has changed over the past 30+ years from the alarmist wing of climate science: lots of weasel-words and lots of imaginative speculations, which are not even supported by their climate models…models of a planet that bear no relationship to Earth.
Amazingly, the whole shebang dangles on an impossibly narrow pair of metrics: “average temperature” and “ppm CO₂”. The number of possible and probable other metrics is enough, at this point, to scuttle the whole shaky hypothesis of cards.
Kurd, it’s very simple what they did. They used a diagram with on the y-axis the probability and on the x-axis the possibilities. They were plotting their results and found out that the few possibilities they were investigating had an extremely low probability. Nevertheless there was 100 %consensus on the investigation. Subsequently their conclusion was “no evidence for such a process” ,
Well I’d like to agree with you; conceptually what you’re saying should be correct. I depress myself but I’m not sure any evidence will be enough to change direction. I look at Keynesian inflation. To my knowledge, it has ultimately failed 100% of the time. Yet virtually every government now is implementing these policies to more or less extent. vs 100% failure they aren’t even asked how what they are doing is different this time. You can still get a Nobel prize. It’s undiscreditable.(I made that word up I think)
I keep thinking that when renewables bring down a grid significantly that there might be a political wakeup call. Maybe glaciers expanding into the backyard. The Keynes experience may argue otherwise (facts and physics are irrelevant to policy).
While I was looking for this quote;
Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
I discovered the real reason for the IPCC.
Scientists will eventually stop flailing around with solar power and focus their efforts on harnessing the only truly unlimited source of energy on the planet: stupidity. I predict that in the future, scientists will learn how to convert stupidity into clean fuel. Scott Adams.
I see what they are doing now to save us all.
“Ignore” the 6000 year cycle to “prove” the short term effect of global warming; euphemism for cherry picking?
Just the Milliecycles.
Indisputable evidence from frozen sea elephant body parts (much further south than today) reveal that Antarctica was for several thousand years warmer than today during the holocene – and guess what:
The Western Antarctic Ice Shield did not collapse !!!
Thus, despite constant wailing of the CAGW alarmists, just let’s enjoy our current mild & friendly climate before it gets colder again…
For the Sea Elephant evidence see e.g. here:
http://www.pnas.org/content/103/27/10213.abstract
http://journals.plos.org/plosgenetics/article?id=10.1371/journal.pgen.1000554
PS: So much for Hansen’s “perhaps”… 😉
Reblogged this on Centinel2012 and commented:
Looking back 4 or 5 thousand years there appears to be a cycle of ups and downs ranging around 1,000 to 1,100 years with a swing in temperatures of around 1.3 to 1.4 degrees C. Then there is a shorter cycle of 60 to 70 years with a swing of temperature of .3 to .4 degrees C. Lastly there is warming from CO2 which when modeld properly using a logistics curve (sensitivity value of around .7 to .9 C per doubling of CO2) will give an increase in temperature of between 1.1 and 1.2 degrees C from a base of 270 ppm We are now at 400 ppm so we have already realized about a 1/3 of that amount so CO2 can only add .75 additional degrees C even at CO2 levels well over 1000 ppm.
When these three items are properly alined, based on historic data going back 2,000 years, a model that matches NASA-GISS month values using a running 12 month average very closely can be constructed and it shows there will be a slight pause that will last until 2035 when a different alignment of the cycles will again cause temperature to go up. The model uses 1650 AD as the base year with a world temperature estimated to be around 13.5 degrees C back then. The model works because it correctly uses the three observed movements in global temperature.
Unfortunately since these movements greatly exceed human life times they can be ignored by politicians that use the hysteria that they generate to get laws that give them power over the people.
The primary determinant of global temperature is the “observed” 1,000 year cycle which started moving up in 1650 AD and will peak around 2150 AD; at that point no matter what level CO2 reaches we will see a drop of global temperatures for the next 500 years.
So why not study ice cores drilled closer and closer to the Equator until you reach those that have their regular stratification disrupted by a prior melting, to give an unconformity?
Or are people still not releasing ice core data that might show the signs of past melting from hotter climates?
Probably because there are dammed few places you can get an ice core from below 65 degrees that is older than 1000 years. Fact is glaciers flow downhill and are constantly renewed. There are also [severe] practical problems as you are usually drilling in unstable areas at altitudes from 10 to 20 thousand feet.
That said cores from locations that have been drilled clearly show past warm periods including the Holocene optimal, Roman warm period and mediaeval climate optimum. They also show the onset of the little ice age as of course do records from the time.
Lonnie Thompson does it all the time.
sarc/
Not only that, but glacial retreat keeps exposing old forests proving that glaciers had retreated quite a bit further in the past 5000-7000 years ago.
http://wermenh.com/climate/6000.html
“…proving that glaciers had retreated quite a bit further in the past 5000-7000 years ago”
Well yea, but that a different type of warming back then. This warming is definitely caused by man-made CO2.
Maybe Hansen can’t see the big picture on climate because his small mind can’t accommodate recalling events back to 1982.
A few years back I sat in on an extended presentation by Mario Capecchi, the geneticist. Dr. Capecchi was able to recount every major turn of events in his career, going back to his work in James Watson’s lab. He talked about things they saw, knew, thought they knew in route to creating the ability to turn genes on and off in lab mice. He talked, no-end, how they revised and self-corrected. It was a model of what a real scientist should be, very much in the spirit of Dr. Feynman. I wonder if Hansen is sufficiently self-aware to understand how pathetic he really is compared to a real scientist.
Yeh. Watson and his gang worked real hard to discover the helix shape of DNA.
Rosalind Franklin
http://www.answers.com/Q/Who_is_the_woman_who_along_with_Watson_and_Crick_discovered_DNA%27s_double_helix_shape
They had some great help with X-ray images from Rosalind Franklin. They merely “forgot” to give her credit.
http://www.csmonitor.com/Technology/2013/0725/Rosalind-Franklin-Was-she-robbed-of-the-credit-for-discovering-the-double-helix
http://www.livescience.com/39804-rosalind-franklin.html
Yeah, I don’t think there’s any doubt that Rosalind Franklin should have shared the Nobel Prize with Watson and Crick. The key breakthrough though was understanding the alternate tautomeric forms of the purine and pyrimidine bases in DNA, which probably took about a minute of work, reading the textbook in the bookshop (if I’m remembering “The Double Helix” correctly).
Similarly with the discovery of the polymerase chain reaction. A fleeting but sensational thought pops into a scientists head, and is developed from there.
Rosalind Franklin died tragically young before the Nobel was awarded for DNA. The rules don’t allow posthumous prizes and limit recipients to three per award. Her boss got it along with Watson and Crick.
Even Roslaling Franklin’s work pales with what Oswald Avery did to prove that DNA was the chemical foundation to genetics. Oswald spent 20 years trying to nail down what was causing genetic transfer in bacteria. More recently, it was Bruno Zimm of UCSD who demonstrate that a chromosome was a single DNA molecule.
You are right in that Rosalind didn’t get the recognition she deserved, but Oswald Avery deserved a Nobel specifically for the work he did.
Sturgis, yes thanks for reminding me. No posthumous Nobel Prizes, and isn’t it 3 maximum per award too? Erwin Chargaff was the one who really missed out as he had determined that %A = %T and %G = %C.
Thank you for reminding me of this wonderful, quiet and humble scientist. A long time ago, I had the honor to be on the same speaking agenda with him.
It’s interesting that you should note Watson, for his partner Crick is a emblematic to the current issues. Crick published a paper “Central Dogma of Molecular Biology,” for which he’s gotten years of guff over the choice of the word ‘dogma’. And for which he had to say about it:
And yet, Biology labored under that Dogma for decades. It was a consensus view held by Biologists. And it was also famously wrong, as we now know via all the little fiddly things that go on inside the cell. Despite our unquestioned proofs that the Central Dogma is flatly wrong, it still pops up all the time in discourse and understanding — even from among scientists.
Willie Sutton gave this answer when asked why he robbed banks: “Because that’s where the money is.” Science, as gained credibility by consequence of its experimentalism. Small wonder then that cons and ideologues flocked to it. “Because that’s where the credibility is.” This happens time and again to the field of Science, and we’re going through one of those pseudocyclic phases again. It will end when the discipline is debased and forced to return to some petty words of wisdom from a patent clerk:
Oh, he’s a real scientist, alright. But in this case, he is wrong.
If Hansen was a real scientist, he would admit now that his earlier work was beyond wrong. Disappearing the “boiling oceans” presentation from the Internet is not an admission of his flawed hypothesis being falsified.
Since this Karl et al missive I have become much more of a CAGW believer. The more the data is tampered with and the more the likes of Hansen conveniently ‘forget’ past statements, in order to fool the public into thinking the earth is warming out of control and to empower politicians, the more I believe there will be a Catastrophic political reaction caused by Anthropological scheming to convince the worlds population that there is runaway Global Warming.
CAGW doesnt contain the word ‘Carbon’ anywhere so ‘Anthropoligical’ has virtually endless possibilities!!
And here I was beginning to believe that “CAGW” stood for Climate Adjusted Global Warming–you know, cause and effect?
Either way, I suppose “anthropogenic” is still in play.
As I read the releases and papers that pass as ‘climate science’ these days, I cannot help but be reminded of Isaac Asimov, and a statement that he made in an editorial that I read years ago in his once-great pulp periodical “Asimov’s Science Fiction” magazine, to which I was a long-time subscriber. Please excuse my needing to paraphrase from my rapidly-shrinking memory (I was unable to find it after a bit of internet search, so bear with me).
From what I recall, it went something like this: “Good science fiction begins with a premise or idea founded in the sciences, then proceeds into speculation and storytelling with the science premise as its base”. Or something along those lines – those who have read Sci-Fi and specifically Dr. Asimov over the years may recall this editorial statement – if anyone can find the quote – please, post it!
This statement or idea that I read years ago, echoes back each time I read about the ‘climate mitigation’ efforts that are supposedly required to stop the imminent Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming or Climate Weirding or whatever it’s now called – Asimovian Science Fiction, based upon a scientific premise and then all hell breaks loose as they pose restrictions and lifestyle choice changes to forestall their fictions. If it wasn’t real, I would think I was reading a bit of Sci-Fi.
As to “Asimov’s Science Fiction” in its current iterations – I chose to stop my subscription along about 2005-2006, as the stories printed started to increasingly use the premise of CAGW and the post-Apocalyptical, CO2-drenched, and damaged-beyond-all-repair worlds that we would be seeing. So I cancelled my subscription. Can I cancel out of the proposed world where we tax CO2, as well?????
MCR
MCR, I couldn’t find your Asimov quote, but considering the volumn of his work that’s not surprising. I did find this by him, which I found interesting as it relates to today.
“Clarke’s First Law – Corollary: When, however, the lay public rallies round an idea that is denounced by distinguished but elderly scientists and supports that idea with great fervor and emotion—the distinguished but elderly scientists are then, after all, probably right.”
It seems to me that the older scientists in fields appropriate for understanding climate tend to be skeptics.
In pulling this string of thought and doing a bit more internet searching, I found this:
http://www.sccs.swarthmore.edu/users/06/powen/populaer/ScienceFiction.pdf
Getting closer…
MCR
More evidence that the “A” in AGW means “Anthropomorphic”.
Possibly Al Gore Warming.
Um, you’ve never heard of the ‘Gore Effect’? Warming never ever occurs at any location when Al Gore shows up to give a speech about it. Instead, the location experiences a sudden, unexpected, unseasonal and brutal cold snap. I know correlation does not equal causation but in the case of the ‘Gore Effect’ I’m not so sure.
Catastrophic Al Gore Warming? Good one.
Let us see blockade of the southern polar vortex.
Blockade the polar vortex weakens and causes a decrease in ice in the south.
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/S_stddev_timeseries.png
Visible growth of cosmic rays will increase anomaly.
http://www.bartol.udel.edu/~pyle/TheSpnPlot2.gif
More telling, even before Hansen got his rank at GISS – right when got his doctorate, the paper he co-authored was compared against 8 others.
Hansen’s paper was ranked highest: it predicted – even in the late 1970’s – the highest temperature rise of all 8 papers. He was the least accurate even then.
The key change in climate science appears to have been that they no longer realize that they “have no evidence for such a process.” Computer models are now accepted as evidence, rather than simply hypothesis.
That and they disappear inconvenient facts like the Climate Optimum and the pause without even blushing.
…bits are so flexible.
“bits are so flexible.
Is there any doubt that ubiquitous computer use and immediate communication has enabled vastly greater widespread misinformation, misrepresentation and incompetence? Of course, there are also positive aspects, but the old saying about lies getting halfway around the world is much more relevant today.
…with out even a ‘How do you do’ to dozens of previous peer reviewed research.
Impressively, Michael Crichton had already figured out the game, and he dismantled the idea of global warming alarm in his book State of Fear.
Michael Crichton had two principle concerns concerning science and society, which led to his criticism of global warming. First, he warned against governments capturing science as a tool to cow the population into funding and submitting to politicians’ policies. Second, he thought scientists in many fields were far too certain and trusting of their knowledge and tools, especially computerized systems.
Judging by what others have said on blogs, I was not the only one for whom his book (State of Fear) triggered a skeptical stance toward global warming alarm. It was a wake up call for some, and for others, like myself, it was an inoculation against the viral media onslaught to come.
https://rclutz.wordpress.com/2015/06/12/in-praise-of-michael-crichton/
It remains to be seen if and when anyone can pull the plug on present day state of fear.
http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/photos/uncategorized/2008/11/05/michael_crichton_wide_crop.jpg
I read that book. And then I went in and verified some of the references. While all the ones I checked were accurate, some were taken out of context. I didn’t verify many because I found some out of context. I first read this book back when I was beginning to doubt CAGW. It didn’t push me over the edge, but it did open my eyes on how corrupted science has become. climateaudit.org push me over the edge to disbelieving CAGW.
However, my take home message from that book was science funding should be blind: those who fund it shouldn’t know who they are funding and those who receive the funding shouldn’t know who is given the funding. This was explicitly stated in the prologue. I always believed Crichton used global warming to make that point, a point the true believers missed because he hit a nerve.
The effect on me was more subliminal, since I wasn’t engaged in the issue at all when I read it. The effect was to put me on alert and to suspend belief in climate scare stories., subject to verification.
Interestingly Eisenhower warned of this awhile ago just before he left office. I think for Eisenhower it was a warning, in Crichtons case not so much a warning as a description of the current state of affairs.
Agreed. Most remember Eisenhower’s reference to the “military-industrial complex”. But his speech also included this statement:
“Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific – technological elite.”
Thanks, Ron Clutz,
The scientific information contained in “State of Fear”, for me was an antidote to “An Inconvenient Truth”. Then I started my climate pages.
Crichton’s 2003 Caltech Michelin Lecture is a must read: “Aliens Cause Global Warming.” You can find it here:
http://www.wanliss.com/2011/11/aliens-cause-global-warming/
Yes, it is also included in the download links to State of Fear pdf or ebook found on my post.
Thanks, Dave.
Chrichton is always a good read.
I just finished at least my fifth reading of STATE OF FEAR, and with each reading I learn more. Truly a remarkable and indispensable book; impossible to say adequately how strong and correct it is. So sad that Crichton is gone from among us; I’m sure he would have many words of wisdom concerning the present state of affairs.
Ron,
Yes, Crichton saw through the scam a long time ago and pretty much nailed everything. While I was already a skeptic, he reinforced my skepticism at a time when there was scant reinforcement for skeptic positions.
Think how he was scorned by the media, for positions that turned out to be absolutely correct
=ditto=
“It remains to be seen if and when anyone can pull the plug on present day state of fear”
Reminds me of an FDR statement. ” the only thing we have to fear is fear itself”
Good to make that connection. FDR sought to lower the anxiety to get people to work through the problems. Today’s leaders are amplifying the fears for their own purposes.
Another example of authorities invested in keeping fears alive:
Benoît Rittaud is a mathematics lecturer at the University of Paris, and the author of “Le Mythe Climatique”. He also runs the climate sceptic blog skyfall.fr. He’s just written a book called “La Peur Exponentielle” (The Exponential Fear). Here’s an extract from the description on Amazon:
“The modern fear of the exponential is a reality at the same time widespread and little known. Constructed scientifically, although perfectly irrational, it is the source of numerous alarmist beliefs based on the fear that we are soon about to hit the limits of our planet: resource depletion, population explosion, global warming…”
Benoît was invited to discuss the book on an hour-long programme on French public radio. Then, suddenly, the programme was cancelled. Care to guess why he was silenced? (Hint: Where will the upcoming COP be hosted?)
https://geoffchambers.wordpress.com/2015/06/15/censorship-of-a-climate-sceptic/
This paper may provide several more surprising quotations. For example, near the end of the article, they state with scientific certitude:
“A sharp warming trend has been under way since the mid-1960’s (13), and the current growth of atmospheric CO2 and trace gases virtually assures that this trend will continue (19).”
Ref (13) is Hansen, Johnson, Lacis, Lebedeff, Lee, Rind, Russell in Science 1981.
Ref (19) is Lacis, Hansen, Lee, Mitchell, Lebedeff in Geophys Lett 1981.
So there is little doubt that Hansen was a supporter of this statement.
But why would a climate scientist cherry-pick a trend measurement starting right after the 1963 eruption of Mt. Agung? And how could adding 10 years to the temperature record swing the settled science from certain aerosol cooling and CO2 warming of 0.5 C/doubling (Schneider et al. Science paper in 1971 to which Hansen was a key contributor) to certain warming (Hansen et al Science paper in 1981)?
“They have found that the Earth’s average temperature rose 0.2 degrees Centigrade from the mid-1960s to 1980.”- Eleanor Randolph, in The Pittsburgh Press, August 15, 1981
There is a problem with this. As of September 2013, over the period of 1965 – 1980, HadCRUT gave 0.06C rise, GISS gave 0.12C rise and HadSST gave 0.02C DROP.
It is hard to imagine that (-0.01 to +0.08) C/decade temperature rise can be described as ‘sharp warming trend’.
Only with RCP 8.5 does IPCC predict the loss of the ice sheets and significant sea level rise – by the year 2500. Oh, did IPCC forget to mention that last bit?
The press prefers to shorten the periodicity and exaggerate the rise, following Obamascience instead.
Bob Tisdale: Are you telling us that a bunch of ‘scientists’ can get an academic paper published and peer-reviewed – and yet disqualify it with: “We should emphasize that we have no evidence for such a process”?
Sure why not.
50 years ago men were diagnosed with PTSD after their nervous system and emotions short-circuited due to the stress of experiencing the maiming, death, and inhumane brutality of the battlefield. Now, people claim to have PTSD based on getting negative tweets on twitter.
Popular culture and the media have blurry moving lines between subjective and empirical evidence. Certain sciences have followed along. It is not only climate science that ignores lack of evidence and decides to make dramatic conclusions anyways; nutrition, sociology, and economic sciences freely mix fact and fiction for dramatic effect.
Harry:
Even Karl Popper struggled with this question. A common presentation of the Scientific Method is to observe, then hypothesize. But that just means that we only hypothesize what we already know. But that’s not ‘hypothesis,’ that’s ‘knowledge.’ And if all we are doing is formally describing what is already known, then we are begged to ask: How is Science different from Engineering? Conversely, if we state that every Wild Ass Guess is a Scientific Hypothesis, then we are begged to ask: How is Science different from Philosophy?
Karl Popper was a decent fellow, but he fell down on his answer to this conundrum. Namely, that it is a Scientific Hypothesis if it can be tested, may conceptually be able to be tested someday, or if a consensus of Scientists like the hypothesis. But it doesn’t alter the answers: Science without theory is Engineering. Science without experiment is Philosophy. But by consequence of the acceptance of Popper’s work, every WAG is valid for an academic paper if, and only if, other academics like the paper.
And this is the preferred condition of things for Philosophers of all stripes; Doomsayers or Utopianists. For if we formally acknowledge that Science is just the cross-disciplinary bastard child of Philosophy and Engineering, then all self-contained credibility for Science is lost. Scientists become mere hated perfunctories applying refutations to favored ideologies and mere saints forwarding experimental recipes onto people that build things.
??? Did you type that on purpose ???
Here are some quotes from what Karl Popper actually did write in his book: “The logic of scientific discovery”.
http://strangebeautiful.com/other-texts/popper-logic-scientific-discovery.pdf
I propose that you spend some time updating yourself on what he actually did write.
It is well worth a read. The first part of the book is really enlightening on the scientific method of critical rationalism. As opposed to the scientific method of inductivism which Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change seems to endorse.
“A scientist, whether theorist or experimenter, puts forward statements, or systems of statements, and tests them step by step. In the field of the empirical sciences, more particularly, he constructs hypotheses, or systems of theories, and tests them against experience by observation and experiment.»
“The theory to be developed in the following pages stands directly opposed to all attempts to operate with the ideas of inductive logic. It might be described as the theory of the deductive method of testing, or as the view that a hypothesis can only be empirically tested—and only after it has been advanced.»
“But I shall certainly admit a system as empirical or scientific only if it is capable of being tested by experience. These considerations suggest that not the verifiability but the falsifiability of a system is to be taken as a criterion of demarcation. In other words: I shall not require of a scientific system that it shall be capable of being singled out, once and for all, in a positive sense; but I shall require that its logical form shall be such that it can be singled out, by means of empirical tests, in a negative sense: it must be possible for an empirical scientific system to be refuted by experience.»
“it is still impossible, for various reasons, that any theoretical system should ever be conclusively falsified. For it is always possible to find some way of evading falsification, for example by introducing ad hoc an auxiliary hypothesis, or by changing ad hoc a definition. It is even possible without logical inconsistency to adopt the position of simply refusing to acknowledge any falsifying experience whatsoever. Admittedly, scientists do not usually proceed in this way, but logically such procedure is possible; and this fact, it might be claimed, makes the logical value of my proposed criterion of demarcation dubious, to say the least.»
“the empirical method shall be characterized as a method that excludes precisely those ways of evading falsification which, as my imaginary critic rightly insists, are logically possible. According to my proposal, what characterizes the empirical method is its manner of exposing to falsification, in every conceivable way, the system to be tested. Its aim is not to save the lives of untenable systems but, on the contrary, to select the one which is by comparison the fittest, by exposing them all to the fiercest struggle for survival.»
“a subjective experience, or a feeling of conviction, can never justify a scientific statement, and that within science it can play no part except that of an object of an empirical (a psychological) inquiry. No matter how intense a feeling of conviction it may be, it can never justify a statement. Thus I may be utterly convinced of the truth of a statement; certain of the evidence of my perceptions; overwhelmed by the intensity of my experience: every doubt may seem to me absurd. But does this afford the slightest reason for science to accept my statement? Can any statement be justified by the fact that Karl Popper is utterly convinced of its truth? The answer is, ‘No’; and any other answer would be incompatible with the idea of scientific objectivity.”
They’re scared the sea level will keep rising. Me, I’d be scared if it stopped rising.
=============
Me I’d be scared if the climate stopped changing since that would indicate the planet earth is no longer.
The nutjobs at UNSW like Matthew England are still playing the ‘West Antarctic Ice Sheet might collapse’ card whereupon it will be doom, doom, doom and trhen go very quiet when it gets to talking about evidence. It seems to me the only evidence they have is the speculation in the paper referred to.
Nowadays it’s “appears unstoppable”.
http://www.nasa.gov/jpl/news/antarctic-ice-sheet-20140512/#.VXxTl1JXenM
Even by your standards, Brother Bob, this post is a bit of a dog’s breakfast.
Thought of rooting through Hansen’s first grade homework for some ammo?
idiot said “rooting through Hansen’s first grade homework for some ammo?”
Seems the very first sentence “While doing some research for my upcoming book, I was rummaging through early papers on…”, gave Brother Bob’s reason. You think otherwise?
First grade homework? Kind of demeaning, no?
BTW, what your take on “We should emphasize that we have no evidence for such a process.”?
JH resigned when he became an embarrassment to his own side.
Not even the most ardent CACCA advocate with a shred of scientific integrity, or even polemical plausibility, will try to maintain that Earth is one the Venus Express, as does the astronomical Dr. H.
Village idiot June 13, 2015 at 7:26 am says;
Even by your standards, Brother Bob, this post is a bit of a dog’s breakfast.
Thought of rooting through Hansen’s first grade homework for some ammo?
Idiot does not seem to understand that science must have predictive value.
No surprise, as he/she seems to have little understanding of the scientific method in general.
Village idiot is accurately named.
The dog’s breakfast is the state of climatology presently, I’m not sure why you have so little respect for Hansen’s early post-doc work, unless like too many warmists you judge the work based on the tenor of the conclusion rather than the integrity of the data, the analysis and the conclusion.
“We should emphasize that we have no evidence for such a process.”
Truer words were never spoken or written by a supporter of CAGW.
A nice historical retrospective. Hansen was publishing alarmist drivel back in 1982. This, to me, is proof that Hansen was never interested in the science at all, but has had an agenda for his entire career. I remember back in 1982, I was just finishing up grad school (analytical chemistry). We were aware of the CO2/atmospheric warming theory, but just barely. (AGW and CAGW would come later) The CO2 theory, such as it was, we put somewhere in the category between “fringe” and “lunatic fringe”. The last formal course I took was a “seminar series” type of course, where we took a look at a whole bunch of topics which deserved some attention, but did not fit in any other course in chemistry. It was in this course that we first saw the “Grey Sky” model of CO2 atmosphere absorption. Several of us were puzzled by the use of the “grey sky” model as it was apparent that it would greatly overestimate the effect of CO2 because the assumptions it made did not really hold up. One student even asked “Why do they not do the integration and solve for the exact solution, instead of this approximate model?”. It seemed that doing the integration for the exact solution just was not that hard. And that is why it was “fringe” to “lunatic fringe”. The “grey sky” model was what was incorporated into the GCMs of the day. It seems that the overestimate of the CO2 effect was a feature, not a bug. So it seems, even at it’s earliest outset, AGW was contrived bunk.
@Harry Passfield:
Scary when you look behind the curtain to see what is going on. Such rot would never have made it in the chemical literature.
Integration is harder for some of us than others. I just color in the area below the line and guesstimate the area. 😉
How about this term – Angry Al Gore Worries. Al Gore is always angry at us carbon devils. He worries that we will destroy the planet. CAGW – and the Climate Gate Hoax. I look at them, and I say, “Do they fit together?”
As recently as 1994 it was possible for a paper to reach the startling conclusion that thirteenth century China seems to have been 1 deg C warmer than 1994 China, without any resulting smears, fury or termination of funding.
Could this paper pass peer review for a major journal today?
Or would this researcher now be told to go away and only come back when their conclusion supported the agenda of tyrants and bureaucrats?
http://faculty.fgcu.edu/twimberley/EnviroPol/EnviroPhilo/WarmPeriod.pdf
of course, when you ask how long this possible ice shelf ‘collapse’ would take, they’ll grudgingly admit that it would be over many thousands of years…
Bob,
But not atypical of statements written in literature, particularly when the explicit subject is paleoclimate. One therefore wonders whether it is credible to use the term “alarmist” to describe researchers who publish such findings.
Perhaps we can look at research more recent than 1982; Wanner (2014): http://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007%2F978-94-007-5784-4_28
Holocene Climate
Abstract
Holocene climate was strongly determined by changing solar insolation (millennial scale) as well as by changing solar activity, large tropical volcanic eruptions, and the dynamics of the ocean thermohaline circulation (multi-decadal to multi-century scale).
Look ma, no “weasel words”!
With the myriads of other examples of climate studies looking at climate forcings other than CO2, I find it NOT amusing that “alarmists” are described as being fixated on the stuff to the exclusion of all else.
I think that words such as “perhaps”, “might” and “could” are appropriate expressions of uncertainty used by honest researchers doing good science — which any high school graduate who was paying attention really ought to know is iterative by necessity and starts with educated speculations. Otherwise known as hypothesis formation.
Compare that to unsupported, vague assertions of “lots of imaginative speculations, which are not even supported by their climate models”, and then read Wikipedia’s definition of weasel words: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weasel_word
A weasel word (also, anonymous authority) is an informal term for words and phrases aimed at creating an impression that a specific and/or meaningful statement has been made, when only a vague or ambiguous claim has been communicated, enabling the specific meaning to be denied if the statement is challenged.
I look forward reading lots of specific examples of climate models which do not conform to the paleo observations upon which the vast majority of our understanding of climate is actually based.
OLD DEATH TRAIN HANSEN
ALWAYS GOOD FOR A LAUGH
More holy than thou
He warns you of Venus
The only thing now
That hardens his penis
He rants at the crowds
A coot with the hypers
His mind in the clouds
A load in his diapers
He quotes from the Greens —
We work for the many
(Diversity means
The colors of money)
He quotes from the Reds —
Consensus is dictum
(Good socialist heads
Are all up one rectum)
A fascist he cries
This Goebbels of weather
The truth is in lies
The bigger the better
So just like a skunk
His sight is alarming
His science is junk —
No run-away warming
PS: James Hansen of NASA was the first
environmentalist to travel to the moon
(first among the loonies to put it more
accurately) and he has never come back.
Eugene WR Gallun
Rewrite of the PS
PS: Employed by NASA for over thirty years James Hansen
became America’s first loony environmentalist. First studying
the atmosphere of Venus, all his ideas proved wrong. He
then took those wrong ideas and applied them to the earth’s
atmosphere. Politically protected he began using his position
at NASA to illegally enrich himself.
PS: Employed by NASA for over thirty years James Hansen
used his position there to add “scientific” credence to the
global warming scam. Beginning his career studying the
atmosphere of Venus, all his ideas proved wrong. He then
took those wrong ideas and applied them to the earth’s
atmosphere. Politically protected he began using his
position at NASA to illegally enrich himself. He is most
famous for saying, “Each of us has to decide the right
balance between being effective and being honest.”
when the global mean temperature was perhaps 1 deg C warmer than today….
====
Was that before or after adjustments
Take a guess after reading what alarmists say now. Somehow a full degree of warming during the Medieval Warm period has disappeared since 1982. NewScientist now considers it to be cooler than today. Apparently, Hansen was promoting a “myth” back in 1982. Notice also how they refer to the “medieval warm period” as just the “medieval period” in this paragraph:
Latitude — good one — Eugene WR Gallun
Thanks, Bob. This was a good find.
But surely, if one writes a modeling program, and then uses its results as data for a re-run, the positive feedback will produce catastrophic results,
Ya gotta hand to Hansen; he knew a good gravy train to latch onto when he saw it.
So alarmists like Hansen have been predicting the collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheet for at least 33 years. How much longer do we allow them to cry wolf before we stop listening to them?
1948 – Scientists Wanted To Nuke Antarctica To Speed Up Melting
https://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2015/04/03/1948-scientists-wanted-to-nuke-antarctica-to-speed-up-melting/
My favorite Nuke was Hardtack Teak. The disturbance it caused in The Force led to my birth four days later.
http://spaceplasma.tumblr.com/post/65544501403/the-debris-fireball-and-aurora-created-by-the
Today obliquity is less then it was around 8000 BC , more favorable for glaciation ,as well as Precession being much more favorable for glaciation. .
During the period around the time of 8000 BC , the N.H. experienced Perihelion during the summer less favorable for glaciation in contrast to today when the N.H. experiences Aphelion during the summer.
Based solely on Milankovitch Cycles the earth is much more favorable today for glaciation as opposed to 8000 BC.
Orbit eccentricity if taken into account being more or less neutral during that time span 8000 BC- 2000 AD.
What is interesting is from the Holocene Optimum through today each warm period, those being the Minoan, Roman, Medieval, and the Modern Warm Period just recently, has tended to be cooler then the one previous to the most recent one.
This is confirmed by the data this article is showing.
I think the slow moving cycles such as Land /Ocean Arrangements, Milankovitch Cycles , to name two are in a gradual cooling trend with solar variability secondary and primary effects being superimposed upon this gradual cooling cycle. PDO,AMO,ENSO and volcanic activity being superimposed upon all of this to give a further refinement of the temperature trends, which I think might be linked to earth’s LOD, the spin rate of the earth.
Future, random events( terrestrial/extra terrestrial ) must always be taken into some consideration which would be superimposed upon the climate cycle due to all of the items I mentioned in the above.
The upshot being(the random element aside) the climate is heading to a potentially very cold period if solar variability continues to decline along with the geo-magnetic field of the earth . This next cold period has a chance to at least equal Little Ice Age conditions if not exceed them in my opinion.
Supporting article to follow.
Yes, Salvatore. Thanks for pointing this out.
Unfortunately, it seems like the only way to calm the global warming alarmists is a drop in global temperatures, which is looming.
Every way you look at it we loose.
@SDP. Earth is probably cooling because the NH is about 9 kyr after the last NH obliquity precession max. That will run for another ~2 kyr. But other orbital cycles, especially the ~100 kyr eccentricity one, are near a minimum. So Earth is not likely entering a significant glacial period.
When the NH experiences a TOA insolation min (almost now), the SH experiences a TOA insolation max. Thus, issues of energy storage and transfer via ocean currents, cloud albedo, and land surface albedo changes also play important roles in whether a glacial period is entered.
I think one has to think a little outside of the box Donb.
One other point is the SH. and N.H. are not created equally when it comes to their response to Milankovitch Cycles.
The S.H. is set up as such , that it does not really matter if summer time insolation increases or decreases because the area of land that is entrenched in snow/ice is going to remain essentially the same regardless of summer time insolation changes , in contrast to the N.H. where a difference in summer time insolation can cause a significant difference in the land area covered by snow/ice, thus effecting the albedo of the entire planet.
S.H. albedo remaining steady while N.H. albedo increasing due to favorable Milankovich Cycles.
In addition LOD have to be considered in the scheme of climate change which can be shown to be tied to geological activity and solar activity in that length of day decreases when geological activity is high /solar low which corresponds to a decrease in temperature and a more meridional atmospheric circulation the meridional atmospheric circulation being associated with lower global temperatures.
Data forthcoming next post.
http://www.fao.org/docrep/005/Y2787E/y2787e03.htm
Good info and data to back it up with on ACI/LOD.
This is from a study that contends TSI for the earth as a whole is less when the orbit is more circular.
Interesting.
I also said the earth is entering a cooling period not necessarily a glacial period.
Rather than just causing a seasonal difference, changes in eccentricity also have an effect on the total amount of solar radiation (TSI) arriving at the top of the Earth’s atmosphere (TOA) on much longer timescales. This is because during periods when eccentricity is higher, the Earth takes longer to transit the half of its orbit where it is further from the Sun than it does to transit the half of its orbit where it is closer to the sun. This is Keplers second law: the motion of the orbiting body sweeps out equal areas in equal times. So when the orbiting body is further from the Sun, the longer radius creating a bigger area per angular segment is compensated for by the fact the Earth travels along the orbital path bounding that segment more slowly than when it is closer to the Sun. The upshot of this is that TSI averaged over a year is going to be less than when the orbit is more circular.
@SDP: Yes, the NH & SH are quite different, and their different responses to cooling is probably why glacial cycles correlate with significantly decreased TOA insolation in the NH and not the SH. Thus, orbital cycles may act as initiators of glaciation, but cannot be the full explanation. This is what I was saying above.
http://iceagenow.info/2015/06/now-almost-the-coldest-in-8000-years/
Analysis to determine the cause of climate change is not complex:
1. Establish a least-biased assessment of all reported measured average global temperatures (AGT).
2. From examination of historical AGT and historical solar cycles, form the hypothesis that a relation exists between sunspot numbers and the planet warming and cooling.
3. From examination of historical AGT and other information, determine that ocean cycles contribute to AGT and the effect of ALL ocean cycles on AGT can be approximated by a saw-tooth function with period 64 years and amplitude of approximately ±1//5 K (to be determined more precisely later).
4. Apply the first law of thermodynamics (conservation of energy) to obtain an equation relating the historical measurements. Incorporate coefficients on each term in the equation to facilitate optimizing the equation to best match the calculated temperature anomalies to the measured temperature anomalies.
5. Apply the mathematics of coefficient of determination, R2, to compare the calculated temperature anomalies to historical measured temperature anomalies.
6. Adjust the coefficients in the equation alternately and repeatedly to obtain the absolute maximum R2. This results in R2 greater than 0.90 irrespective of whether the influence of CO2 is included or not and an equation which predicts a future down trend in average global temperatures.
7. After Schwartz (2007) and other considerations, rapid (year-to-year) variations in reported average temperatures contain substantial random uncertainty as to the true energy content of the planet. This uncertainty is substantially removed by taking a running average of reported measurements. A 5-year running average increases R2 to greater than 0.97 leaving less than 3% to explain all factors not explicitly considered such as volcanos, aerosols, measurement errors, noncondensing greenhouse gases (the average sunspot number is a proxy accounting for average water vapor, the sunspot number anomaly is a proxy which accounts for cloud variations), difference from assumed wave form of ocean cycles, ice change, etc.
This analysis, along with independent proof that CO2 has no effect on average global temperature (and therefore no effect on climate) is at http://agwunveiled.blogspot.com .
It’s often said that ‘correlation is not causation.’ But then, it isn’t often acknowledged that a lack of correlation is not a lack of causation. It may sound counterintuitive or even absurd. But since this is not an experimental discipline — but a purely observational one — we cannot simply find a lack of current correlation, state ‘ceteris paribus there is no correlation therefore there is no causation.’ We can state that if there is causation that we are missing, it is necessarily contingent on factors not observed. This is the same basic issue with ‘correlation is not causation.’ It may be causal, contingently causal, a spurious correlation, or co-caused by something else.
To even establish that the correlation itself is valid requires that we manipulate that hypothesized cause experimentally and watch the consequence vary with it — both up and down, left and right, forwards and backwards. But again, this is a purely observational matter in climate. And we simply have not watched CO2 vary in both directions in the modern era. And we can not control that, unless we engage in human testing by shutting down energy production. Putting aside the ethical matter of informed consent necessary for human experimentation; there is the larger ethical issue of mass death that will occur by consequence of such an experiment.
But it can be shown, by our ‘best’ understandings and not necessarily the ‘correct’ ones, that CO2 has been higher and lower. That temps have been higher and lower. That CO2 has lagged temp; and unless I’m confused, has led temp. The current notion of AGW then would seem to be a case of Special Pleading: That it’s different this time.
But it is different this time. Ignoring CO2 for the moment, anthropogenic CO2 emissions are a proxy for energy production: The conversion of energy locked in the Earth’s chemicals back into heat. And it is hardly illogical or unreasonable to assume ‘ceteris paribus’ that this means that heat generation at the surface will increase heat at the surface locally. Globally is a matter of dealing with all the fiddly bits that we have yet to characterize in any proper sense. eg. Eschenbach’s Cloud Thermostat. That is, we neither know the limits, variances, or hysteresis in the concept.
But if we were to get the vapors over this obviously reasonable thing, then we’d need to get the vapors over bio-fuels as well. An existing tree that locks away down-welling radiation in its structure will not participate in any increased temps unless we go burn it somewhere. And this will remain true regardless of any biological carbon-cycle.
But do have a care when dealing with such proofs that you aren’t afoul of the same manner of fallacy that has generated and popularized this scientific doomsday cult. (Yes, cult. No astrophysicist gets the vapors over the heat-death of the universe.)
The near perfect correlation with the up-and-down trends of calculated vs. measured average global temperature anomalies is certainly indicative but the possibly more powerful discovery is that the correlation is not significantly changed irrespective of whether the influence of CO2 is considered or not. The comparison is documented in Table 1.
As to the proof that CO2 has no effect on climate, a bit depends on what is meant by “modern era”. It appears that many do not grasp that temperature changes as a transient in response to a forcing change. Vostok and other ice core data do not show a transient response. This proves that CO2 is not a forcing. A slightly more complex assessment demonstrates that CO2 had nothing to do with the warm up since the depths of the LIA. This is corroborated by estimates of CO2 level and average global temperature over the entire Phanerozoic eon.
Proof that CO2 has no effect on temperature proves that the added CO2 from burning fossil fuels has no effect on average global temperature.
Makes me wonder if wonder if anyone has put a declining trend of CO2 into the models. Just by taking the CO2 level from 1900 until now and put them into the model in reversed order from now on and forward in time. I wonder what that test would reveal.
“lack of correlation is not a lack of causation”
I guess that would only be the case if there are influencing variables which are not properly known and included in the search for correlation – or if the functional relationship between the dependent variable and the independent variable is of another kind than what is applied when searching for correlation. Hence – lack of correlation means that you do not have a proper understanding of the functional relationship and the influencing parameters / variables. So lack of correlation does not prove that there is no causation, but it falsifies a claim about having properly understood the complex.
For 5,000 years, humans agreed that warmer global temperatures were good and colder global temperatures were bad for life on this planet. The evidence for this assumption was powerful and everywhere.
Things that contributed to plants growing bigger and faster………… a no brainer positive.
To hell with the benefits to life of this modest warming and the beneficial atmospheric fertilization from increasing CO2 to plants.
Now we have smart humans with computers and mathematical equations that represent the physics of CO2 that have set the ideal temperature of the planet as being the temperature that the planet was at 100 years ago and the ideal amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, as the amount of CO2 that was in the atmosphere 100 years ago.
Warmer=bad
CO2=pollution
Sunshine +H2O + CO2 + Minerals = O2 +Sugars(food)
is now:
Sunshine +H2O + Pollution + Minerals =O2 +Sugars(food)
Mike, as someone said on another thread recently:
“To err is human; To really f**k up you need a computer”.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/crux-of-a-core3.html
The true picture of co2 versus temp. and the global temp trend last 10,000 years or so..
Climate Science is in it’s infancy.
Now for some comparative verbal wandering.
Genetics as a science is less than 100 years old. Darwin wrote “Origin of the Species” over 150 years ago using the scientific method and observation without any knowledge of genetics. Hotly debated even today. Mendel published his research on genetics in the late 1860’s but it was rejected and rediscovered in 1900. Genes were discovered a mere 100 years ago in 1915.
“In 1962, Watson, Crick, and Wilson were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, “for their discoveries concerning the molecular structure of nucleic acids and its significance for information transfer in living material.” Chromosomes.
We have only started on figuring out our own genetic make up.
Climate Science will evolve and go down a lot more dead ends before we develop better understanding, assuming we ever do. The precautionary principle is the biggest issue as it will easily be used for useless anti-development activities that will cause more harm than good.
Sadly, it is clear we know very little for sure about how the aggregate of climate systems work. Heck, even weather forecasts are only moderately successful. They are useful, but to be used with caution. Systems get stalled, the move faster than predicted, they get deflected. I read the weather report when deciding to do outside, then I look at the radar, and then in the morning I look at the sky and make my final decision. The great thing about weather forecasts is that we know why we got them wrong. We have been doing good weather forecasts for 75 years, they were very important in picking D-Day in 1944.
Can’t do that with climate. Darwin took 30 years to write and document his ideas in “The Origin of the Species. Now there is a huge “RUSH TO PUBLISH” that results in publishing a lot of material that has not been fully reviewed. Driven by money, grants and (ego?). Sometimes I think the information discussions on this blog and the disagreements on causes are some to the best information I see. The details and mathematics are beyond my simple long forgotten engineering but the discussions in this forum, for and against are great.
This site is a great site for reviewing new information and correlation but it is likely to be many years before we (Royal We as in Humans) come close to getting all the inputs that affect climate in major ways. Some say we have them now, (ENSO, PDO, AMO, UHI, Land changes, the Sun, Clouds, Cosmic Rays, Albedo,Global Ocean Overturning, Orbital mechanics, Volcanoes, Asteroids, Comets; Radiation balances; and oh yeah that little input, CO2) but it appears to be hotly debated as to which inputs have the most influence.
Someday, someone will write some new code from scratch rather than to try to fix the error prone patchwork we now have. They will incorporate many of these features and they may get something close depending on just how chaotic the climate really is; and if they can get computers not to run off in crazy uncontrolled directions pumping out GIGO while thinking the computer is putting out good data. In the old days, we checked computer output with slide rules to ensure we at least had the order of magnitude right. (That tells you how old I am, our engineering magazine was called “Slipstick”.) We built small checkable subroutines. Someday, someone will get close, but right now, I think this site is as good as any in discussions of climate, including those who think the debate is settled. For them, I suggest they take a look in the review mirror. Climate always changes and everything adapts. Read Darwin. You don’t need a mult-trillion dollar computer to figure out that climate will always change and likely in ways we don’t currently expect. (Law of unintended consequences)
Who knew two brown eyed people could have blue eyed children. It’s just a lack of melanin. Medelian genetics don’t apply as eye colour has many genes affecting it.
Who knew that human Chimeras actually exist with multiple blood types, multiple DNA etc, :
“Humans[edit]
The Dutch sprinter Foekje Dillema was expelled from the 1950 national team after she refused a mandatory sex test in July 1950; later investigations revealed a Y-chromosome in her body cells, and the analysis showed that she probably was a 46,XX/46,XY mosaic female.[13]
In 1953 a human chimera was reported in the British Medical Journal. A woman was found to have blood containing two different blood types. Apparently this resulted from her twin brother’s cells living in her body.[14] More recently, a study found that such blood group chimerism is not rare.[15]
Another report of a human chimera was published in 1998, where a male human had some partially developed female organs due to chimerism. He had been conceived by in-vitro fertilization.[3]
In 2002, Lydia Fairchild was denied public assistance in Washington state when DNA evidence showed that she was not related to her children. A lawyer for the prosecution heard of a human chimera in New England, Karen Keegan, and suggested the possibility to the defence, who were able to show that Fairchild, too, was a chimera with two sets of DNA.[16]” Cut from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chimera_(genetics)
A tincture of time will help us figure climate out but for now, we are just at the beginning. Take everything with a grain of salt and dial back the hormones.
“Everything will be alright in the end, and if it isn’t alright, it isn’t the end.”
(Written on a cool, rainy morning in the house thinking about going out to rebuild a saddle after lunch, a great time for philosophying about climate – and pastures that were drought stressed a week ago; and green and lush today.)
Have a good day.
And who knew that Velociraptors may have been feathered? Won’t see that in Jurassic Park, but you will see it in “The Croods”. Odd. Oh, and science has been re-invigorating dormant genes in chickens and bringing back dinosaur characteristics.
http://www.wired.com/2011/09/ff_chickensaurus/
http://dinosaurs.about.com/od/typesofdinosaurs/ss/10-Facts-About-Velociraptor.htm
Many earlier papers from Hansen and his team were reasonably objective science?
Hansen et 2002 stated quite clearly that models can be made to produce a wide range of sensitivities. by changing these parameters:
http://apollo.eas.gatech.edu/yhw/publications/hansen_etal_2002.pdf
That paper also explains in detail that volcanic forcing is largely determined by assumptions about the of aerosol size distribution. It is a detailed and thorough paper that I’ve found informative.
So sensitivity is an emergent property but the value that emerges is determined to a significant degree by the speculative parameter values that are fed in. Those familiar with the models could then choose to do runs that result in higher or lower sensitivities within the same model and different models also produce different sensitivities. This was examined in some detail in Forster and Gregory 2013
The graph below: fig 3b from Marotzke & Forster 2015 shows results from their 62y trend analysis. There is a clear bifurcation into two groups at the end of the graph. This pertains to the most recent 62y periods.
This bifurcation does indeed relate to groups of high and low sensitivity models, as determined by F&G2013
https://climategrog.wordpress.com/?attachment_id=1315
Also Lacis et al 1993 calculates a much higher volcanic forcing directly from basic phyiscs and observations. Higher forcing implies lower climate sentivitity. They later reduced the volcanic forcing in an attempt to reconcile model output ( based on high sensitivity to CO2 ).
You need high volcanic sensitivity to counter high CO2 sensitivity. The values they found by proper science did not fit the this high sensitivity to CO2 that they were not prepared to reconsider.
This worked OK until around 2000 AD. Since there have been not major eruptions since Mt Pinatubo in 1991, this little game of numbers falls apart. The high sensitivity hypothesis does not fit the data.
Conclusion we must now CHANGE THE DATA. Entre Karl et al. …..
Thanks for the link to the paper:
Climate forcings in Goddard Institute for Space Studies SI2000 simulations J. Hansen et all
http://apollo.eas.gatech.edu/yhw/publications/hansen_etal_2002.pdf
I find the following section immensely telling about climate modeling:
“The bottom line is that, although there has been some narrowing of the range of climate sensitivities that emerge from realistic models [Del Genio and Wolf, 2000], models still can be made to yield a wide range of sensitivities by altering model parameterizations. We suggest that the best constraint on actual climate sensitivity is provided by pale- oclimate data that imply a sensitivity 3 ± 1°C for 2 CO2 [Hansen et al., 1984, 1993, 1997b; Hoffert and Covey, 1992]. It is satisfying that the a priori sensitivity of the SI2000 model comes out near the middle of the empirical range of 2 – 4°C for 2 CO2. However, for the sake of interpreting observed climate change and predicting future change it is appropriate to consider climate sensitivity as an uncertain parameter that may, in fact, be anywhere within that range.
[78] Therefore we include the possibility of altering the model’s climate sensitivity. We do this by adjusting an arbitrary cloud feedback as defined in the appendix of Hansen et al. [1997a]. Specifically, the cloud cover is multiplied by the factor 1 + cT, where T, computed every time step, is the deviation of the global mean surface air temperature from the long-term mean in the model control run at the same point in the seasonal cycle and c is an empirical constant. For the SI2000 second-order model we take c = 0.04 and 0.01 to obtain climate sensitivities of 2°C and 4°C for 2 CO2.”
Which also illustrates the point made by Roy Spencer in his book The great warming blunder:
“The insistence of the IPCC and the scientific “consensus” that clouds cannot cause climate variations continues to astound me. All atmospheric scientists know that clouds are controlled by a multitude of factors; my position is that causation between clouds and temperature flows in bot directions. In contrast, the IPCC´s position is that clouds can only change in response to temperature change (temperature cause clouds). But neglecting causation in the opposite direction (clouds cause temperature) can lead to large errors in our understanding of how and why the climate system changes, as well as in our diagnosis of how sensitive the climate system is to human influences.”
And no doubt that Roy Spencer is right about his claim about IPCC´s position.
I was looking for H2O, water vapor and clouds under natural forcing in Assessment Report 5, but could not find it. The only factors under natural forcing was solar irradiance, volcanic aerosols. And a conclusion; “There is very high confidence that industrial era natural forcing is a small fraction of the anthropogenic forcing except for brief periods following large volcanic eruptions.”
(The IPCC report is voluminous but it is searchable).
There are so many old statements and claims made by the team.
Their countless assertions are everywhere and well chronicled for history to mock.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=181
Hurricanes and Global Warming – Is There a Connection?
“……..It has been asserted (for example, by the NOAA National Hurricane Center) that the recent upturn in hurricane activity is due to a natural cycle, e.g. the so-called Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (“AMO”). The new results by Emanuel (Fig. 2) argue against this hypothesis being the sole explanation: the recent increase in SST (at least for September as shown in the Figure) is well outside the range of any past oscillations. Emanuel therefore concludes in his paper that “the large upswing in the last decade is unprecedented, and probably reflects the effect of global warming.” However, caution is always warranted with very new scientific results until they have been thoroughly discussed by the community and either supported or challenged by further analyses. Previous analysis of the AMO and natural oscillation modes in the Atlantic (Delworth and Mann, 2000; Kerr, 2000) suggest that the amplitude of natural SST variations averaged over the tropics is about 0.1-0.2 ºC, so a swing from the coldest to warmest phase could explain up to ~0.4 ºC warming.
What about the alternative hypothesis: the contribution of anthropogenic greenhouse gases to tropical SST warming? How strong do we expect this to be? One way to estimate this is to use climate models.”
And on and on it goes. The AGW theory has been simply irresistible for the environmentalists who have found it so useful and lucrative.
But CO2 is higher now and temperatures aren’t so he was wrong then but he’s right now…uh…perhaps, maybe? 😎
Actually, quite a bit has changed on the AGW front since 1982. While Hansen and his ilk used to hedge their wild speculations back then, the temperature rise to the 1998 peak and the discovery that (in the words of the contemporary TV philosopher Andre Agassi) “image is everything” has emboldened them to manipulate data grossly, devise ad hoc analysis methods and blithely continue to sell the alarmist AGW narrative. Total miscomprehensions, such that the “marine ice sheet” in West Antarctica has an effect upon global sea levels, don’t trouble them in the slightest.
I suppose for “flukes” like such inconvenient long-ago statements, in Europe they want to force the “Right to be Forgotten” on the rest of the world, so people can lie whatever they want today, even if they contradict themselves 20 years ago, or viceversa, and very few would nottice TODAY. No wonder that travesty is viewed as an assault on the right to public information.
What Hansen did or did not say will soon be irrelevant. Significant unequivocal scary global cooling will fundamentally change the climate wars. What we are currently observing has happened again and again and again and again and so on. The cycles of abrupt climate change in the paleo record occurred due to a physical reason, there are no magic wands. The earth’s climate change cyclically in the past in response to a massive forcing change.
High latitude regions of the planet have started to cool. The Atlantic ocean has cooled. There is observational evidence that what was inhibiting the cooling in the Pacific ocean is ending. The warming high latitude Pacific ocean warming and the current El Niño will anomalously end.
http://beta.dmi.dk/uploads/tx_dmidatastore/webservice/e/n/i/b/m/Melt_combine.png
The discovery of cyclic rapid climate change events that correlate with solar cycle changes.
‘The Ice Chronicles The Quest to Understand Global Climate’ Change by Paul Mayewski and Frank White
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2003/2003GL017115.shtml
http://www.ospo.noaa.gov/data/sst/anomaly/2015/anomnight.6.11.2015.gif
I am not sure what the article is complaining about. The global average temperature 5,000 years ago may have been 1C greater than today. Hansen is proposing a counter-argument to the West Antarctic Ice Sheet collapsing now.
Going into the future, who know? The situation may be different after a 2C global average temperature increase for example.
“Against Stupidity, The Gods Themselves and Contend In Vain” Isaac Asimov