Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
[UPDATE: When reading the comments, you’ll notice a number of nasty untrue personal attacks made on me by three commenters with the screen names “Lady Gaiagaia”, “Gloria Swansong”, and “Sturgishooper”. One of them makes an attack, another jumps in to agree, the third one says the first two are right … that kind of thing. Here’s the funny part … alert work by a moderator has revealed that all three are nothing but sock-puppets for some unknown scumball with an axe to grind. I see this as a testament to the desperation of the person involved, that they are willing to try these despicable ploys in a vain effort to discredit real science. Anyhow, keep that in mind when going through the comments.]
While I was involved in an interesting interchange with David Douglass here, I stumbled across an interesting discovery. Before I get to that, though, I have to give high marks to David and his co-author, Robert Knox, for showing up on WUWT to defend their paper. Most authors don’t have the albondigas to do that, so I definitely tip my hat to them, much appreciated.
The subject of the interchange was the area in the Pacific Ocean called the “Nino3.4 Region”, which goes from 5°N to 5°S and from 170°W to 120°W. It started with a look at the sea surface temperature (SST) in the area. When the Nino3.4 region is running hot, it means that there is an El Nino in progress. Here is that graph:
Figure 1. Sea surface temperature (SST) in the Nino 3.4 region of the Pacific Ocean, decomposed into seasonal and residual components. Top panel shows the observations. Middle panel shows the seasonal component of the observations, that is to say, the average monthly changes in the data. Bottom panel shows the “residuals”, which is what’s left after we subtract the seasonal component from the observations. DATA SOURCE
In the bottom pane of Figure 1, we can see the various El Nino events over the period as clear peaks in the data, including the large El Ninos in 1983 and 1998.
In the process of the discussion I looked at something I’d never examined, which is how much solar radiation the surface actually receives in the Nino3.4 region. This is measured as what is left of the downwelling solar radiation after cloud reflections and atmospheric absorption, minus the amount that is reflected from the surface of the ocean. So we’re measuring how much solar energy is actually absorbed by the ocean surface. The data is from the CERES radiation-measuring satellite.
Figure 2. Absorbed solar energy in the Nino 3.4 region of the Pacific Ocean, decomposed into seasonal and residual components. Top panel shows the observations. Middle panel shows the seasonal component of the observations, that is to say, the average monthly changes in the data. Bottom panel shows the “residuals”, which is what’s left after we subtract the seasonal component from the observations. DATA SOURCE
I looked at that and said “Wow!” and ran to compare the two. Why? Because I realized I could see the 2003, 2007, and 2010 El Ninos in the absorbed solar data, and it was moving opposite to the surface temperature … which would be very strong observational support for my hypothesis that the tropical ocean temperature regulates the incoming sunlight. It does so inter alia via the following processes:
Warmer Ocean ==> Earlier-forming and More Daily Clouds ==> More Solar Reflection and Absorption ==> Less Available Solar Energy
and
Cooler Ocean ==> Later-Forming and Fewer Daily Clouds ==> Less Solar Reflection and Absorption ==> More Available Solar Energy
Obviously, this is a self-regulating system. When it is running cool it lets in more energy, and when it is running hot it lets in less energy. This is the heart of the system of emergent climate phenomena that has kept the planet from either frying or freezing into a snowball for millions of years.
In order to compare the two datasets, SST and absorbed solar, I used what is called a “cross-correlation” analysis. This calculates the correlation (a measure of similarity) between the two at a variety of lags. Let me first say what I hoped to find.
First, I hoped to find that there was a strong negative correlation between absorbed energy and sea surface temperature (SST). This would mean that as SST rises, absorbed solar energy goes down, and vice versa. Note that this is the opposite of what we’d expect—normally, as the absorbed solar energy increases the temperature increases.
Next, I hoped to find that there was a very short lag between the temperature and the downwelling solar. Normally, when the sun heats the ocean there’s about a 2-month plus lag between peak insolation and peak temperature, because of the thermal mass of the ocean. But if the temperature is controlling the clouds as my hypothesis states, the lag should be much shorter, one month or less.
Finally, I hoped to find that the cross-correlation analysis would be convincingly shaped, which means a clear peak at zero or short lags, and falling away quickly on both sides of the peak.
With that said, here are the results of the cross-correlation analysis:
Figure 3. Cross-correlation analysis, absorbed solar energy and sea surface temperature in the Nino3.4 region. The climatology (monthly averages Jan-Dec) has been removed from both datasets.Positive lag indicates absorbed solar lagging the change in temperature.
I could not have been happier when I saw that result. It is crystal-clear evidence that the sea surface temperature is regulating the incoming sunlight as my hypothesis states.
Of course, I couldn’t leave it at that, I had to look to see how widespread this phenomenon might be. One can use the CERES satellite data for this, but there is a challenge. CERES has no surface temperature dataset … but it does have a surface upwelling radiation dataset, which can be converted using the Stefan-Boltzmann to temperature. How accurate is this CERES estimate of the SST? Very accurate everywhere I’ve tested it … but this gave me another chance to test it. Here is the NOAA sea surface temperature in the Nino3.4 region compared to the CERES estimate of the SST for the same region …
Figure 4. The CERES satellite dataset estimated sea surface temperature in the Nino3.4 region (red) compared to the NOAA SST for the same region.
Dang … well done, CERES scientists.
Greatly encouraged by that, I took a look at the relationship between temperature and absorbed solar radiation worldwide. Figure 5 shows that result:
Figure 5. The correlation of surface temperature and the solar radiation absorbed by the surface. The mid-Pacific red rectangle shows the Nino3.4 region. DATA SOURCE
As you can see, over much of the surface of the planet, the absorbed solar energy is positively correlated with temperature, just as we’d expect.
But in the area of the inter-tropical convergence zone north and south of the equator, what’s sometimes called the deep wet topics, the reverse is true. There, the emergent climate phenomena of cumulus clouds, thunderstorms, and squall lines act to regulate the incoming sunlight. And as it turns out, the Nino3.4 zone is not even the area of the strongest negative correlation. The strongest is centered on the equator and the international date line at 180° West (or 180° East).
Finally, let me call attention to the size of the restorative force. During the 2010 El Nino, the absorbed solar in the region dropped by about 40W/m2. This gives us an idea of the strength of this part of the temperature regulation system.
Not much else I can say except that this is very strong support for my hypothesis that the climate is not a simple function of the forcing, but instead is regulated such that it varies only a very small amount (e.g. ± 0.3°C over the entire 20th century).
Regards to all on a lovely late summer’s day,
w.
My Usual Request: If you disagree with someone, please have the courtesy to quote the exact words that you disagree with. That way we can all understand both who you are addressing and exactly what it is that you object to.
Further Reading: Since the original publication in Energy and Environment of my hypothesis that emergent phenomena constrain the global surface temperature to a very narrow range, I’ve written the following posts on the subject:
The Thermostat Hypothesis 2009-06-14
Abstract: The Thermostat Hypothesis is that tropical clouds and thunderstorms actively regulate the temperature of the earth. This keeps the earth at an equilibrium temperature. …
Plankton Cause Hurricanes! Urgent Action Required! 2010-08-15
When people say that we understand the unbelievably complex climate system well enough to project scenarios out a hundred years, I point out that new things are being discovered every week. The latest scientific finding is that plankton cause hurricanes. I know it sounds like a headline in The Onion,…
Which way to the feedback? 2010-12-11
There is an interesting new study by Lauer et al. entitled “The Impact of Global Warming on Marine Boundary Layer Clouds over the Eastern Pacific—A Regional Model Study” [hereinafter Lauer10]. Anthony Watts has discussed some early issues with the paper here. The Lauer10 study has been controversial because it found that…
The Details Are In The Devil 2010-12-13
I love thought experiments. They allow us to understand complex systems that don’t fit into the laboratory. They have been an invaluable tool in the scientific inventory for centuries. Here’s my thought experiment for today. Imagine a room. In a room dirt collects, as you might imagine. In my household…
Further Evidence for my Thunderstorm Thermostat Hypothesis 2011-06-07
For some time now I’ve been wondering what kind of new evidence I could come up with to add support to my Thunderstorm Thermostat hypothesis (q.v.). This is the idea that cumulus clouds and thunderstorms combine to cap the rise of tropical temperatures. In particular, thunderstorms are able to drive…
It’s Not About Feedback 2011-08-14
The current climate paradigm believed by most scientists in the field can be likened to the movement of balls on a pool table. Figure 1. Pool balls on a level table. Response is directly proportional to applied force (double the force, double the distance). There are no “preferred” positions—every position…
A Demonstration of Negative Climate Sensitivity 2012-06-19
Well, after my brief digression to some other topics, I’ve finally been able to get back to the reason that I got the CERES albedo and radiation data in the first place. This was to look at the relationship between the top of atmosphere (TOA) radiation imbalance and the surface…
The Tao of El Nino 2013-01-28
I was wandering through the graphics section of the TAO buoy data this evening. I noted that they have an outstanding animation of the most recent sixty months of tropical sea temperatures and surface heights. Go to their graphics page, click on “Animation”. Then click on “Animate”. When the new…
Here there be Dragons 2013-02-04
I was reflecting tonight about emergent phenomena, and how one thing about emergent phenomena is their unpredictability. I’m in the process of writing up a post on emergent phenomena in climate, so they’ve been on my mind. I got to thinking about something I saw thirty-five years ago, a vision…
Emergent Climate Phenomena 2013-02-07
In a recent post, I described how the El Nino/La Nina alteration operates as a giant pump. Whenever the Pacific Ocean gets too warm across its surface, the Nino/Nina pump kicks in and removes the warm water from the Pacific, pumping it first west and thence poleward. I also wrote…
Slow Drift in Thermoregulated Emergent Systems 2013-02-08
In my last post, “Emergent Climate Phenomena“, I gave a different paradigm for the climate. The current paradigm is that climate is a system in which temperature slavishly follows the changes in inputs. Under my paradigm, on the other hand, natural thermoregulatory systems constrain the temperature to vary within a…
Air Conditioning Nairobi, Refrigerating The Planet 2013-03-11
I’ve mentioned before that a thunderstorm functions as a natural refrigeration system. I’d like to explain in a bit more detail what I mean by that. However, let me start by explaining my credentials as regards my knowledge of refrigeration. The simplest explanation of my refrigeration credentials is that I…
Dehumidifying the Tropics 2013-04-21
I once had the good fortune to fly over an amazing spectacle, where I saw all of the various stages of emergent phenomena involving thunderstorms. It happened on a flight over the Coral Sea from the Solomon Islands, which are near the Equator, south to Brisbane. Brisbane is at 27°…
Decadal Oscillations Of The Pacific Kind 2013-06-08
The recent post here on WUWT about the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) has a lot of folks claiming that the PDO is useful for predicting the future of the climate … I don’t think so myself, and this post is about why I don’t think the PDO predicts the climate…
Stalking the Rogue Hotspot 2013-08-21
[I’m making this excellent essay a top sticky post for a day or two, I urge sharing it far and wide. New stories will appear below this one. – Anthony] Dr. Kevin Trenberth is a mainstream climate scientist, best known for inadvertently telling the world the truth about the parlous…
The Magnificent Climate Heat Engine 2013-12-21
I’ve been reflecting over the last few days about how the climate system of the earth functions as a giant natural heat engine. A “heat engine”, whether natural or man-made, is a mechanism that converts heat into mechanical energy of some kind. In the case of the climate system, the…
The Thermostatic Throttle 2013-12-28
I have theorized that the reflective nature of the tropical clouds, in particular those of the inter-tropical convergence zone (ITCZ) just above the equator, functions as the “throttle” on the global climate engine. We’re all familiar with what a throttle does, because the gas pedal on your car controls the…
On The Stability and Symmetry Of The Climate System 2014-01-06
The CERES data has its problems, because the three datasets (incoming solar, outgoing longwave, and reflected shortwave) don’t add up to anything near zero. So the keepers of the keys adjusted them to an artificial imbalance of +0.85 W/m2 (warming). Despite that lack of accuracy, however, the CERES data is…
Dust In My Eyes 2014-02-13
I was thinking about “dust devils”, the little whirlwinds of dust that you see on a hot day, and they reminded me that we get dulled by familiarity with the wonders of our planet. Suppose, for example, you that “back in the olden days” your family lived for generations in…
The Power Stroke 2014-02-27
I got to thinking about the well-known correlation of El Ninos and global temperature. I knew that the Pacific temperatures lead the global temperatures, and the tropics lead the Pacific, but I’d never looked at the actual physical distribution of the correlation. So I went to the CERES dataset, and…
Arctic Albedo Variations 2014-12-17
Anthony has just posted the results from a “Press Session” at the AGU conference. In it the authors make two claims of interest. The first is that there has been a five percent decrease in the summer Arctic albedo since the year 2000: A decline in the region’s albedo –…
Albedic Meanderings 2015-06-03
I’ve been considering the nature of the relationship between the albedo and temperature. I have hypothesized elsewhere that variations in tropical cloud albedo are one of the main mechanisms that maintain the global surface temperature within a fairly narrow range (e.g. within ± 0.3°C during the entire 20th Century). To…
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Dear Anthony, there are a few (way-too-) frequent (anonymous) posters in the comments here who are insulting and add no value to the discussion. I suggest they be placed on moderation as per blog policy. Nobody should be allowed to make such insults anonymously.
Well, I was offline for about 16 hours, I needed a recharge. The fake posters/sockpuppets have been dealt with.
I do love how this works. I post some interesting science. I’m immediately subjected to a host of personal attacks from anonymous internet popups who are self-styled experts. They’re all on about how they’re so brilliant and I’m incompetent and foolish and not worth listening to and generally a jerk and a fool and ignorant … but you notice one thing?
None of these good people can find a single fault with my science. Not only that, but none of them are adding anything to the scientific discussion. It’s just endless ankle-biting about my credentials and abilities, as if that made any difference. It’s simple.
Either my claims are valid or they are not. Nothing else matters. Not my age. Not my race. Not my sex. Not my education. Not my abilities. Not my tone or my style. The only valid scientific question is whether my claims are valid or not. Period.
And if you think my claims are not valid, the only way to establish that is to attack my claims. Not me. My claims.
And since these charming folks are either unwilling or incapable of demonstrating any problems with my science, they yammer on endlessly in personal attack mode, whining about things like where I put my quotation marks … really? That’s your idea of scientific discourse? Endless meaningless personal attacks, no science of any kind, and you want to dispute quotation marks and whether I worked as a masseur? I did. And I also worked as the CFO of a company with $40 million in annual sales … so what?
Do you truly think any of that is relevant in the slightest to whether my scientific claims are valid or not?
Really?
For shame …
w.
You have no “science”. You have usually but not always ineptly done statistical “analysis”.
“Lady”, thank you for the demonstration of exactly what I just finished saying … people like you who are unable to find even one fault or flaw in my actual work instead start slinging mud and declaiming loudly that I’m not ept.
My eptness is not the question. My ideas and claims are either valid or they are not. Even if you could prove that I was not ept in the slightest, it would make no difference to the validity of my ideas.
Well done, that was a marvelous demonstration of meaningless malice in action.
w.
“Lady” Gaiagaia September 26, 2015 at 11:29 pm
I do not claim superiority over Dr. Roy, and I never have. That is merely your sick fantasy. As I said before and you apparently didn’t understand, he was a scientific hero of mine then, and he is a scientific hero of mine to this day. And no, I don’t feel superior to my heroes … do you?
I do think that in this one instance, Dr. Roy misunderstood the issues regarding Ramanathan’s hypothesis and how it differs from mine. And he certainly missed my acknowledgement of Dr. Ramanathan when he incorrectly claimed I hadn’t acknowledged Ramanathan.
But that’s just how things work, nobody’s perfect, and it absolutely doesn’t make me “superior” to him.
And again, this is all just a diversion. You still haven’t found one single problem with my analysis … so you attack me instead.
You’ve got personal problems, “Lady” …
w.
Moderator:
Do we really have to wade through these types of comments from people who dont even have the courage or decency to post under their real names?
Like a tag team of transvestite midget wresters “Lady Gaiagaia” and “Gloria Swansong” pollute threads with their unreasoning ad hominem attacks.
[Reply: You are correct. This is getting out of hand. More such ad hominem attacks will be deleted. Please just cocomment on the science, not on the individuals. Thanks. ~mod.]
The Climate Inquisition takes many forms, it likes to be anonymous, abusive and denigrating. It never does anything useful or objective, as has been clearly shown here. The Climate Inquisition thrives in an atmosphere of fear and ignorance, while trying to silence all those who question its rationale.
The point is that our climate has to have some kind of self-regulating system, which has allowed hundreds of millions of years of evolution to occur to eventually achieve us. In some ways, it is like the stock market, where occasional short lived extremes occur, which are usually quickly corrected.
The comments here of ‘Lady Gaigaia’ and ‘Gloria Swansong’ are tedious, dull and uninformative; I do not know if they are part of the official Climate Inquisition, but they certainly act like it.
Willis – they really dont matter do they – My scant knowledge in this field is from my farming qualifications and my brief flirt with military flying and the Royal Navy. My reading and knowledge are greatly enhanced by your writing. Having been at sea for 8 years I can see exactly how the formation of clouds fascinates you – me too.
Please dont rise to the bait, perhaps ignoring the blathering of idiots will eventually have them go back to the intense navel gazing they are so good at!
Well said!
I see this a lot on Facebook,where they spend so much time with their funding canard,while they say little or nothing to what the person talks about,whether it is Dr. Spenser,Dr. Ball and many others. I point this out over and over in thread after thread,to show they have no cogent counterpoint to offer.
Willis: “None of these good people can find a single fault with my science”
That is correct. Nothing at all. And no one has shown up with prior art. I came back to the topic and re-read everything coming down the page. Very interesting. I agree with the guess above that it is Hot Whopper who can’t resist showing off, has nothing to contribute and resents people who make her look the fool.
The crafted ‘skeptic’ arguments were obvious from the start. The structure of the presentations (from the three fake names) is similar, the bone tossing and the personal invective that had no point: Hot Whopper traits again. Unmasked by an algorithm. Isn’t the internet wonderful?
The Figure 5 map seems to me to show a thermostat mechanism that is specific to the tropical oceans. And I think this thermostat is not so much a regulator of absolute temperature of the tropical oceans, but the temperature differential between the tropical oceans and something else, such as a level or levels of the tropical atmosphere. If the output of the sun should have a major change, I think the whole world including the tropical oceans will have a temperature change in the same direction, although the tropical oceans may change less. Increase of clouds caused by warming of a particular location seems to me to mean that the trigger is warmth in comparison to someplace else.
Thanks, Donald. Assuming that the generally accepted theories of solar evolution are correct, we’ve already tested this question. Calculations show that the sun is about 5% more luminous now than it was half a billion years ago during the Cambrian Explosion of life.
This means that at that time, instead of 340 W/m2 TOA average TSI, it was only about 324 W/m2. This is a change of +16 W/m2 over the period.
IF the generally accepted climate sensitivity of 3°C for a doubling of CO2 is correct, then the earth should have warmed by 0.8°C per watt times 16 watts = 12.8°C over that period. This would imply that the temperature in the Cambrian would have been about two or three degrees C …
But we have no evidence of any such twelve degree warming over that period. We have no evidence that the Cambrian was anywhere near that cold. If anything, the earlier times were somewhat warmer, despite the cooler sun.
This argues strongly that the change in temperature is NOT a linear function of the change in forcing. I hold that this is because the temperature is regulated by the emergent phenomena.
w.
Everything is “emergent” until proven otherwise, i.e., when it is shown not to be irreducible.
I think the 3 degrees C per 2xCO2 is higher than reality in today’s situation and most times when the world is warmer than it is now, although it may have been realistic at times in the past back when CO2 was a feedback for climate change initiated by something else. Some of the feedbacks seem to vary significantly with temperature. I seem to think 1.25, maybe as high as 1.45 degrees C per 2xCO2 is about right nowadays, and it would decrease as the world gets warmer. The surface albedo feedback would decrease with the decrease of variability of reflection of sunlight by ice and snow as the variable portion decreases in area and retreats towards the poles. I expect the lapse rate feedback to increase its negativity as the world gets warmer. I think the cloud albedo feedback is slightly positive, but less so than expected by IPCC. And the water vapor feedback has to be less than if relative humidity is constant in order for the cloud albedo feedback to be positive.
When the world was a few degrees C cooler than it is today, the net feedback was more positive than it is now, and the ice age glaciations had times of unstable climate. When CO2 was thousands of PPMV, global temperature seems to have been largely capped at 22-23 degrees C.
Willis, if you haven’t yet, I would recommend looking up Geocarb III. That is regarded as the gold standard for estimating free CO2 over the Phanerozoic. There is no work showing any correlation that I have seen of planetary temperature across that span (ca. 600 My) and the planet would have been much warmer despite lower insolation if CO2 were any kind of serious factor in climate except as a fertilizing agent. However, estimated planetary temperatures with the exception of one brief spike as I recall, are consistent – they drop, but never rise above about 25 C (e.g. http://www.scotese.com/Default.htm). The lower limit looks to be about 10 C, which is mighty cool for a good piece of the planet. The geological evidence seems to support your concept of a governor system that limits the range of what is called “global climate.”
Clarification of the lapse rate feedback changing with temperature: I meant to say it becomes stronger (more negative) when surface albedo decreases (surface is warmed, increasing lapse rate), and when greenhouse gases increase (they warm the surface and cool the tropopause). The reverse happens when surface albedo increases or GHGs decrease.
Donald,
I suspect that the “thermostat” mechanism is a regulator (limiter) of absolute temperature as opposed to temperature differential. My reasoning is that the vapor pressure of water follows an approximate exponential around “room temperature”, roughly doubling for every 20F (11C) increase in temperature. Since water vapor is slightly less than 2/3rds the density of air, there will be a point where water vapor will be the dominant driver of convection and this crossover point is when the dew point approaches 30C. For what it is worth, I did a bit of back of the envelope calc’s with steam tables after reading one of Willis’s earlier posts.
For dry areas, temperature differentials would make more sense.
One of the most common complaints about the global circulation models is their inability to do fine scale modeling of clouds. Willis’s observations further support those complaints.
Dewpoint of tropical air at the surface in tropical cyclones seems to usually be around 24 degrees C in my experience, or typically around 4 degrees C cooler than the water surface. (IIRC conditions in hurricanes bearing down on USA while over water warm enough to sustain them – not many of them lately.) Vigorous convection seems to bring down enough dry air for dewpoint to be a few degrees C cooler than the water surface.
Meanwhile, suppose maritime air with dewpoint of 30 C (and temperature at least a few degrees C higher) is the main feed for a full-blown tropical maritime thunderstorm. For the sake of argument, suppose the temperature of the air is maximum a few or several meters above the surface at 33 C. And the air up from there has temperature and dewpoint corresponding to uplifting of air whose temperature was 33 C and whose dewpoint was 30 C when it was 10 meters above the surface. This results in a cloud base around 375 meters above the surface, with temperature and dewpoint equal to each other at about 29.5 C. And going up from there, the temperature and dewpoint cool at the wet adiabatic lapse rate, which will be significantly lower than the average It seems to me that the wet adiabatic lapse rate from such temperature and dewpoint and pressure of 1000 mb is about 4.75 degrees C per kilometer, and increasing slightly and gradually as the air goes up from there. At 2 km above the cloud base, 2375 meters above the surface, the temperature and dewpoint would be equal to each other and 20 C or slightly less. The wet adiabatic lapse rate is increasing slightly with altitude, and the dewpoint and temperature would be 0 C not much higher than 6 km above sea level, and the pressure would be very close to 500 mb. And this is only about 1/3 of the way to the tropical tropopause. So I think any special effect of dewpoint of 30 degrees C is only going to go a little way.
Gloria Swansong September 26, 2015 at 11:27 pm
Gloria, I’m not sure what you think this all means. I’ve been working with Dan Hughes, looking into the question of distinguishing random and chaotic datasets. Dan has been on vacation, so the project (among many that I’m involved in at any moment) is on the back burner right now. You don’t like it? So sue me.
I told Dino I would do in on my own time, not his. I tell you the same thing. I don’t dance to your tune, I dance to my own.
So … what’s your point? That Dino wants me to talk about something, and I am unwilling to do so because I have a post partly written on the subject and still have more research to do?
Sorry, but that’s how it is. So what?
And again I say, you are either incapable or unwilling to discuss anything about absorbed solar energy in the Nino3.4 region, and you are clearly unable to find a single error in my analysis above … so just like “Lady” Googoo, you sink to personal attacks.
Boooring …
w.
PS—As a teaser, i just grabbed the first couple of paragraphs of my post on random vs. chaotic … gonna have to wait for the rest, though …
A chaotic system is deterministic, while a random system is probabilistic. It may be impossible without a priori knowledge of the system to separate the two, e.g., are the results from a pseudo random number generator or are the results based upon the decay of Cesium 137 atoms?
The Lyapunov exponent may be used to distinguish random from chaotic behaviors. See What is the Difference Between Random and Chaotic Sequences.
Of course, whether the system is random or chaotic can be the result of a mirage. A system may only appear to be chaotic or random until the details of the system are uncovered.
Mistakenly replaced a multiply operator with an addition operator and ended up with a three dimensional equation having six global minimums rather than one. The equation appeared chaotic, with wildly fluctuating exponents and strange manifolds, but of course it was really only continuous. Once the data set was auto-rotated, it was easily solved. Much more useful for testing than what I originally had in mind. Named it mirage.cpp.
Willis,
Gloria Swansong, Lady Gaiagaia, and Sturgishooper are all the same person.
This is prohibited sock puppet behavior, in addition to his/her idiocy and personal vendetta. Thanks to the person upstream who noted identical language. I hadn’t thought to check IP addresses as I’m not very active these days.
Normal recourse is to delete every single comment of his/her’s on the thread, but that may look weird with all the back and forth. I leave it to you to decide what we should do. You can discuss with Anthony if you wish. I will email him a link to this comment.
All subsequent comments of his/hers will be deleted on this thread going forward.
thank you Charles…I had noted the similarities in the two “women’s” comments, as well as the temporal proximity of “their” posts.
Charles, that’s absolutely hilarious. They are so desperate to attack me they pretend to be three people who all agree with each other … pathetic.
Not only that, but Dinostratus just lost his three best friends! It’s a glorious morning, the sun is shining, life is good. Can’t thank you enough.
Let me say in addition that the work of the moderators, which goes on 24/7 with unpaid volunteer moderators from all around the globe, is one of the unseen things that keeps this website great. My thanks to all of you for your unceasing efforts, and to you in particular, Charles, for all that you have done.
w.
Willis, congrats. You’ve spawned sock puppet triplets.
Anthony, I’m surprised that WordPress doesn’t have a filter that prevents one person with multiple names, from one IP address, from talking to him- or herself.
CTM, great catch.
Many thanks CTM! An otherwise interesting thread was being hijacked by a foul-mouthed child. Thanks for enforcing a little civility.
If you Google “”Sturgis Hooper you will mostly find Ellen Sturgis Hooper, 19th century female poet.
Obviously, a person with no life. Pathetic, and also sent to the bit bucket – permanently from now on.
Anthony, I suggest when this type thing happens, write it up into a short article to post on the site. It’s great fodder for a story highlighting how far some people will go in attempting to trash someone’s credibility.
…..whatever the reason I don’t think its good to say “a person with no life” or you’ve got personal problems as Willis did among other things – particularly if you are taking the moral high ground.
I would suggest keeping these diatribes and perhaps flagging this thread as a reference exemplar of the extraordinary masquerade of misdirection, corruption, and intellectual dishonesty to which some of the “opposition” are willing to foist on this site, its contributors, and readers.
Thank you Charles for looking more closely at this individual.
I don’t mind somebody criticising Willis, he can look after himself as well as any.
What the sock puppet has been doing though is ruining (for me) potentially interesting threads. What happens is that I start skipping entire sections where the puppet appears and potentially missing actual interesting and relevant comments.
With Ga-Ga (idem) poisoning the thread I simply skip dozens of potentially interesting comments. Defeating, for me, the the whole point of Willis creating a post.
Just to clarify a little, I don’t much care for “salvatore” either but would never call for him to be banned. He’s a different league of annoying. (I’m thinking ‘Iron Sun’ man (can’t remember his screen name)). He doesn’t have me skipping 2/3rds of the comments (just his comments).
I have to agree 3 x 2 – I was banned from a climate website for daring to question the ‘settled’ science. I hope the ‘three in one’ calms down re-enters his single entity and comes back with comment rather than spitefulness as at the end of the day there is some good comment in amongst the invective and I am sure the mods have better things to do (keep up the good work)
The greens used Frankenstein science and Willis is the perfect reply. You can’t blind him with science, show him computer models and he drags you back to the raw data with his own explanation which always fits the facts. He is entertaining and readable, he doesn’t care who you are and nobody out ranks him. Sometimes his attacks may seem excessive, but like Margaret Thatcher sinking the General Belgrano while it was outside her Falklands exclusion zone, never forget, they started it.
Seems to me as I recall, that PM Margaret Thatcher, already had a licence in her pocket, from no greater authority, than the United Nations itself, long before she found it necessary to enforce that matter militarily.
The Argentine submarine, was also outside the Falkland Islands zone; but it was bloody cheeky of them to boldly charge into a sovereign British port on the very morning of ANZAC day. (April 25th) So they got what they deserved.
Robin Hewett and George E. Smith,
Correct me if my memory isn’t what it used to be. But the Belgrano was actually well outside of Britian’s Total Exclusion Zone [TEZ] of 200 miles around the Falklands. But word came from Whitehall to sink her anyway. So she was torpedoed. Sank in a few minutes with hudreds of Argentine sailors lost.
How do I recall that, after so many years?
I remember it because of the really memorable headline (I can’t recall the UK newspaper that printed it): BRITANNIA WAIVES THE RULES!
A very clever play on the marching tune, “Britannia Rules The Waves”.
BTW, another useless factoid: the capitan of the Belgrano was Capitan Bonzo. This incident occurred when Reagan was President…
as I was in the Navy at the time I think you are being economical with what happened. If you are at war with some one and they sail in to an exclusion zone then they absolutely will be attacked however that doesnt mean that if you are outside the exclusion zone but threatening the military units being deployed then in international waters you will still be attacked. By your understanding had the Belgrano sailed up the English channel and in an international shipping lane (well outside the exclusion zone) we couldnt do anything about it until they actually started shelling Portsmouth or Plymouth – dont be daft.
The Belgrano was quite deliberately trying to split the Bristish Task Force and after the invasion of the Falklands by Argentina disputed or not, was a legitimate target. Britain didnt waive any rules they did what they had to do to save British lives. What was the Belgrano doing there if there was no intent. We most definitely do not rule the waves nor do we think so – even then have you any idea how tiny our Navy was compared to the USA, Russia and China for instance. We dont rule anymore but we still protect our own and I am proud to live in a country with that does.
I am sorry to be off topic but it needed a correction.
mwh,
It may surprise you, but I’m not arguing with anything you wrote. The only quibble wasn’t with you, it was that the Belgrano was outside the TEZ. That’s the reason for the clever newspaper headline at the time.
You say:
We most definitely do not rule the waves nor do we think so
But at one time, you surely did. Remember Trafalgar, Nelson, and the Spanish Armada? Thus, the marching song. ‘Ruling the waves’ is something to be proud of, not something to defend.
You should be proud of your history. Too many Americans are critical of our own country because they’re ignorant of history. Everything has to be seen through a lens of political correctness, and if it doesn’t fit the P.C. narrative, it is to be attacked.
Personally, I was proud of what the UK did in protecting its territory and citizens, and I was proud of both Margaret Thatcher and “Bonzo” Reagan — who was a better President than the current ‘community organizer — doubled and squared. With exponents.
(I should add that the Argentine soldiers, sailors and airmen were used as pawns by the Argentine generals, who were promoting the confiscation of the “Malvinas” in order to distract from their disastrous domestic policies back home. I recall their air force pilots making a very good accounting of themselves with their French Exocet missiles, breaking through air defenses at great personal risk to sink or disable British ships. They were much more brave than the generals who sent them pretty much unprepared into battle.)
Thanks for that dbs much relieved my patriotism coming to the fore I’m afraid hence the non sequiters in the response! But you obviously got my drift. I too felt very sorry for the professional and conscript personnel on the Argentinian side – cannon fodder and political distraction. I seem to remember a few years later the captain of the attacking submarine committed suicide because of the loss of life he initiated with his boats attack.
The equatorial band in the Nino 3 region shows a positive correlation.
Willis –
I’m relatively new to your work but I applaud your attitude and discipline. You don’t always need to be 100% right to make a big contribution, and I’m very disappointed that an interesting discussion should have been hijacked by a lot of personal attacks that have absolutely no place here. Let this stand or fall upon the merits of your post, and that alone.
—
For many years I’ve discounted the CAGW meme on the grounds that there MUST be feedbacks to control runaway warming, and the establishment case seems to me to concede this, by its evocation of a water vapour multiplier for basic CO2 warming, needed to take AGW into the ‘catastrophic’ zone. Has always seemed to me that if this was the case, then water vapour ought to potentiate its own greenhouse effect, with or without CO2. I’ve never been able to rely on a mechanism, however, and therefore I appreciate your investigations in this area immensely. Many others have postulated cloud effects – which we know to be enormous but whose net effect is disputed -and there may be plenty of prior work, but I do thank you for the way you have set out.
—
The logical next step to saying that tropical clouds are the feedback controller, however, is to infer that they control ANY warming, including the original CO2 warming. So it is possible that Climate Sensitivity to CO2 doubling is not just small, but somewhere around zero. What is your view of this?
Of course, we do have to consider the fact that CO2 is distributed much more evenly, in latitude and in altitude, than water vapour, and that means we’d have to consider effects well outside the tropics. So we might need to explore what the models say about it.. Do you have comments on this?
mothcatcher
September 27, 2015 at 3:06 am
Hello mothcatcher.
I am replying to you simply because your comment seems to be a well enough reasonable argument on the issue, even when I personally may disagree with some of your conclusions and approaches to the Willis hypothesis.
Let me tell you first that I truly do appreciate any Willis’s Posts and articles I have read at WUWT, as I have learned too in any of such occasions, or at least so I think.
Second, I hope Willis does read my reply to you and hopefully understands that any critique I may have towards his hypothesis is simply in the direction of allowing me to have more chances in furthering my knowledge and that in no any way means to offend or upset.
From my point of view his hypothesis clearly goes in the direction of debunking the Solar forcing as of any significance in climate change…..that is how and why so many here are upset about it and getting to the point of provoking and offending Willis,,,,,,,,,,always provided that I have clearly understood Willis hypothesis,,,,,,, an if statement here.
But one thing, (maybe because I do not understand well the overall connection in this hypothesis), is that when there is a tendency and a kind of harmony of self regulating in the mechanism described in the hypothesis still in the overall outcome that mechanism propagates a positive feedback, or an accumulation of energy, warming, with a possibility of a runway warming in nature, towards “frying”,……the opposite of what it actually claims in the first place .
According to the mechanism described the TOA energy imbalance will be always tending to be positive, especially if considered in the long term.
While it may be considered in a very short term as efficient enough in self regulating, in the long term that is not the case.
In the long term, moving between less and more available energy does not necessary mean cooling, but may very well be considered as moving towards a runaway warming……..
The very thing, the very problem that Albedo, the Sun and the Mil.Cycles face when TOA energy imbalance considered to go in a positive imbalance. None of the above including also the Willis mechanism described in this hypothesis can turn TOA imbalance from positive to negative.
TOA imbalance going positive for any reason needs that at some point TOA energy imbalance should turn negative, otherwise in only matter of time the climate goes towards a runway warming with no any prospect of a glacial period to ever happen again.
With only a CS ~0.7C, after 4 interglacial optimums there is no chance of any glacial periods after that, according to the scientific projections and assessment of climate and climate change.
But even with a hypothetical CS=0C, as you suggest, still the mechanism described by Willis here will lead to an ever accumulation of energy in the system and towards a runaway warming at some point.
Now when it comes to the question of the models, one thing clear is that RF, CO2 concentration variation has an impact and changes TOA energy imbalance, either for positive or negative.
No any thing else in GCMs as far as I can tell can cause a negative TOA energy imbalance, that is why Albedo, the Sun and Mil. Cycles get a 0% as forcing in climate and climate change.
This hypothesis of Willis has a lot of value and merit. It shows how robust and balanced the natural systems can be and are generally, and how such systems can self regulate and balance out in the prospect of energy circulation and energy budget, especially in short term.
And that helps a lot, I think, in the better understanding and knowledge about climate, but the only think I disagree is with the conclusion about the forcing that such a mechanism as described can have in climate and climate change.
For once it depends in the SST variation,,,,,,, and the SST for the tropics is quasi constant with no any significant change in the climate term, medium to long term. The tropics are the climate power house so to speak.
If this mechanism works as described than the only thing sure is that we should abandon the stubborn approach that the Sun is and must have a considerable forcing in climate and climate change.
Because the conclusion is simple, either the Sun or this natural internal mechanism could be working as described, not both.
Looking forward for any correction towards my understanding in this particular point.
cheers
Lady Gaiagaia aka Sturgishooper aka Gloria Swansong is a climate skeptic and an amateur student of philosophy from Arizona, probably Phoenix. She pretends to be female to extract feminine sympathy, but writes, fights and brags like a man. He-she may well be active in academia, which is why he-she hides behind multiple avatars.
He-she is also quite shy and inadequate, one of life’s losers, which is why he-she has to over compensate by needless aggression when hiding behind his-her avatar. If met in real life, he-she would be the cowering shadow at the back of the room, unable to interact socially or converse in person. A sad figure of fun, seething with resentment.
R
Absolutely. It was increasingly obvious that the posters were a multi-personality disorder individual who should see a doctor.
I have noted that this 3-in-1 personality, who claims to be a scientific academic repeatedly misuses the words “affect” and “effect”. When I see this, I am inclined to immediately disregard any further comments on science from that poster. As these words are two of the most commonly used words in scientific discourse and publications, anyone who doesn’t know the difference is of questionable scientific competence.
Then color me even less than a one-hit wonder. I have spent more cogitation energy on those two words than any other two words in the &%#*)^ dictionary. I wait hoping that our fluid, supple, and every changing English language will come up with replacements before I am too old to type. Which is coming on fast.
Seems like one is a verb and the other is a noun. But what do I know, I think my last English grammar lesson was at about age 10. After that education in “English” was just reading literature; and literally 100% of that ” literature ” was fiction.
But then, Americans don’t discriminate between ” license ” (verb) and ” licence ” (noun).
In America, ” I’ll be with you momentarily ” means, ” I will be with you IN a moment. ”
Elsewhere it means ” I will be with you FOR a moment. ”
Why not say ” soon ” instead of momentarily (in America) ??
g
Count me in then. A dictionary tells there is a difference between to effect and to affect. It is just that I mix cause and effect, because instead of saying ‘new policies have effected major changes in government’ I’d say ‘new policies have caused major changes in government’.
I find this whole thing embarrassing. But I’ve learned you can’t learn the use of these words by language users, because many of them will make the mistake and just lead you wrong.
In South Africa, they would say “I’ll be with you just now” – very confusing for those UK-educated English speakers who think “just now” refers to the recent past – not the near future.
If “just now” is perceived as being not soon enough, then a measure of urgency can be implied by saying “now now”
“Here is the NOAA sea surface temperature in the Nino3.4 region compared to the CERES estimate of the SST for the same region …”
Wait I thought NOAA were fraudulantly altering data…
That really is a sad comment. This is the year of Paris; it was blatantly obvious there was going to be yet another set of GISS temperature manipulations to cool the past and warm the present.
And, of course, that is exactly what happened – Obama needed the ‘proof’ for his legacy and GISS was there to do its duty. Even the great Mann might have been embarrassed to use such obvious opportunism.
Apparently not in that one small region of ocean; maybe since it is so important for other analyses (e.g. El Nino/La nina); that says nothing of the broader global dataset they present however. I’d love to see the CERES dataset be used to map out the global temperatures, and see how that compares to the other datasets. Probably not very easy though, and highly computationally intensive with all those radiation to temp conversions.
How about you start by distinguishing between Willis and some anonymous ‘handle’ that you remotely recollect from some unspecified thread on some unspecified site some unspecified time ago.
Seriously, this “‘sceptics’ say…” makes you sound no different than some idiot child in mom’s basement.
Who is this mythical ‘sceptic’ that believes xyz? Point them out to us all.
Sometimes you have something interesting and valid to contribute and sometimes you babble on about some mythical ‘sceptic’ that nobody recognises. Please tell me that somebody has been hi-jacking your account on every other weekday.
” It’s just endless ankle-biting about my credentials and abilities, as if that made any difference. It’s simple.
Either my claims are valid or they are not. Nothing else matters. Not my age. Not my race. Not my sex. Not my education. Not my abilities. Not my tone or my style. The only valid scientific question is whether my claims are valid or not. Period.”
agreed 100%
So…i suppose the use of multiple sock puppet identities to endlessly trash Willis’ work irritates you as well?
Was there anything of merit included in the barrage of comments that one sock puppetteer dumped on this thread?
You probably know that the father of modern analysis of variance who published under the pseudonym “Student” was a brew master for guiness?
a true amateur…
Callender was a steam engineer. (on the other hand, so was Patchuri, so theres that)
And there are countless examples of foolishness published in “peer reviewed” journal;s from the likes of peaople who hold PhDs like Oreskes, or Lewandowsky…
Even guys who majored in English, and had a career in marketing, can make substantial contributions, not the least of which can be helping a ton of people learn R.
Thats not too shabby of an accomplishment; I remind myself of this whenever your “pissyness” gets annoying.
If I haven’t thanked you recently, let me thank you again now…
Your website, although now not updated for some time, was quite helpful; you were generous in mind and spirit to put that much effort into it.
Thanks Mosh.
And then there was a Swiss patent clerk ……..
Sure Mosh, you would say that. We’ve seen your pic!
jk
ironic
“davideisenstadt September 27, 2015 at 1:33 am
Well, I taught statistics to undergrads for years, and while Willis may not have a degree in statistics, his analyses typically are more advanced than that of someone with a Ba in Psych.”
But true…a Ba in Psych typically requires but two classes in statistics, descriptive statistics and a cursory class in analysis of variance…techniques that Willis “uses” like fourier transforms, and the like, typically aren’t covered by people getting BAs.
Of course,If you had taught statistics, you would know this…in fact if you got a degree in a social science you would know this, in fact Mosh, if you were anything other than an English major, you would know this.
Its really not any kind of secret.
You have, however, mastered equivocation, which, I suppose is appropriate for a student of english….
Willis – Thanks for a very interesting article complete with data and logic (and therefore falsifiable). Thanks for responding factually and coolly to your fact-free three-named critic. Two queries :
(1) Your observations are I think of the tropics only. Obviously that is likely to have effect globally, but are you able to establish the global connection? [in a later comment, you say ” … what I’ll call the thunderstorm thermostat hypothesis for short. This is my hypothesis that the global temperature is closely regulated to a narrow range … “].
(2) You show a stunning correlation between CERES and SST. Is it possible that the CERES data is used in the calculation of SST? IOW that the correlation is to be expected?
TIA.
Mike Jonas September 27, 2015 at 3:57 am
Mike, thanks for the interesting questions. I discuss this in the papers linked at the end of the head post.
Regarding the globe, first, I’ve seen the same effect (timing of cumulus and thunderstorms regulating temperature) in places as far apart as Montana and London. Second, a number of the emergent temperature regulating phenomena (dust devils, tornadoes, El Nino pump, PDO) operate far from the equator. Third, the tropics is where the majority of the energy enters the system. So when you control the energy entering at the tropics, you are controlling the total energy entering the system.
It seems doubtful, because there are two separate systems and two separate organizations involved in calculating the ocean temperatures in that area. However, there could indeed be some overlap in the underlying data sources. My tests of the CERES data in other areas on land also have been surprisingly accurate, and that is comparing CERES to yet another surface dataset.
What I’ve come away with is increased respect for the scientists involved in all of the data gathering and analysis … well, most of them at least.
w.
Willis – Thanks. Now, re the global cloud effect, is there any possibility that you could develop your theory into a peer-reviewed paper showing that cloud feedback is negative? One of the most important flaws in the CAGW case is that the “cloud feedback” guesswork has the wrong sign. [And of course “peer-reviewed”, no matter how suspect, in their world trumps observation and logic.].
I and others (see other comments) think that the extraordinary reaction to your post indicates that you have hit an important weak spot. Now you can drive home the advantage if you can add “peer-reviewed”, ie. get around the gate-keepers.
@ur momisugly Willis Eschenbach
Your observation of the data you presented seems reasonable to me.
Of course I am slightly biased to agree with your observational results of the data simply because your data appears to also provide strong observational support for my hypothesis that the tropical and/or Southern Hemisphere ocean temperatures play a major role in regulating both the quantity and the bi-yearly cycling (ingassing/outgassing) of atmospheric CO2, as per the following data implies, to wit:
—-– mth – CO2 ppm — ytd increse
1997 _ 5 _ 366.69 …. +1.53
1998 _ 5 _ 369.49 …. +2.80 El Niño
1999 _ 4 _ 370.96 …. +1.47
2000 _ 4 _ 371.82 …. +0.86
2001 _ 5 _ 373.82 …. +2.00
2002 _ 5 _ 375.65 …. +1.83
2003 _ 5 _ 378.50 …. +2.85
2004 _ 5 _ 380.63 …. +2.13
2005 _ 5 _ 382.47 …. +1.84
2006 _ 5 _ 384.98 …. +2.51
2007 _ 5 _ 386.58 …. +1.60
2008 _ 5 _ 388.50 …. +1.92
2009 _ 5 _ 390.19 …. +1.65
2010 _ 5 _ 393.04 …. +2.85
2011 _ 5 _ 394.21 …. +1.17
2012 _ 5 _ 396.78 …. +2.58
2013 _ 5 _ 399.76 …. +2.98
Data excerpted from: ftp://aftp.cmdl.noaa.gov/products/trends/co2/co2_mm_mlo.txt
The formation of clouds is also the mechanism which allows the ENSO to temporarily warm or cool other parts of the planet.
Willis has shown the large increase in convection storms over the Nino 4 region and the International Dateline area during an El Niño reduces the amount of solar radiation reaching the surface,…
… But the large increase in tropical convection clouds also reduce the outgoing long wave radiation from all that warm water. The clouds actually hold the heat in.
It takes time for the cloud systems to build up in terms of strength and it takes time for the atmosphere to slowly warm up as less OLR is getting out and then it takes even more time for the prevailing weather systems shift that extra warmth north, south and west. This is why there is a lag with respect to the ENSO and its impact of the world’s weather.
So there is reduced solar radiation but there is also reduced OLR and these numbers are essentially the biggest variability of any area on the planet. It can be +/- 50 watts/m2 which makes the ENSO the biggest weather phenomenon on the planet.
Bill, from what I understand this is a daily effect – during the day clouds build and reflect sunlight as the heat of the day dies off so do the clouds and therefore there is little reflective effect at night. Over warmer water th e length of time that cloud forms in to rainclouds is extended, increasing albedo but not significantly inceasing reflection of long wave radiation.
mwh, the cloud formation is not daily when it comes to the ENSO-impacted regions. These clouds are almost continuous over a 24 hour period. Obviously, there is some build-up and decay throughout the day but it is more general than daily.
This is the last 30 days OLR anomaly map from the NOAA. The International Dateline area and the Intertropical Convergence Zones are the most important for the ENSO. International Dateline area is -35 W/m2 and it has been close to this high of a negative value for the past 6 months. Yes, since March, 2015.
Notice Indonesia and Australia which are now high positive OLR values as the clouds and rain do not reach this region anymore during an El Nino. This is also a feature of an El Nino.
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/map/images/olr/olr.anom.30day.gif
I stand corrected – thank you Bill
My head was referring back to Willis’s post earlier in the year where I thought he was alluding to daily fluctuations changing enough to make a marked difference. The evidence above I assumed is the smoothed data over a month. To my mind this shows very clearly the reduced OLR in the regions 4 right through 3 but doesnt explain the mechanics of the increase even if increased cloud is the reason for it.
I liked the tropical storm formation becoming longer during the day, it sort of made a lot of sense to me. Hey ho perhaps its back to the drawing board for me then
“… But the large increase in tropical convection clouds also reduce the outgoing long wave radiation from all that warm water. The clouds actually hold the heat in.“. It may look symmetrical (a cloud blocks incoming and outgoing equally), but there is an asymmetry : the incoming solar has a substantial SW component, whereas when the clouds hold in the heat they do it with IR only. Do SW and IR heat the ocean equally efficiently?
Willis, I see the old maxim here being applied to you — “No good deed goes unpunished”.
The covergence zone receives more energy from solar absorbed outside the zone and transported into the zone as latent heat than from solar absorbed inside the covergence zone.
If you click the bottom right hand icon on the page your image was displayed it will give you a link which you can copy which will work in your post:
Darn! it doesn’t work!
Thanks. To get some W/m2 into it, this is quite good, http://oceanworld.tamu.edu/resources/oceanography-book/heatbudgets.htm
Just click on the image and copy the address of the resulting page:
Thanks, Billy. Just to be clear, that’s the output of a reanalysis climate model … doesn’t make it wrong, but it doesn’t make it right either. Just a note of caution.
w.
I enjoy watching Willis thrash about in a cabbage patch that has been carefully tended for decades by trained cabbage professionals. Occasionally, he hauls out a watermelon and says, “Look what I found! A watermelon in the cabbage patch!”. Some of the professionals respond, “Oh, we found that years ago. If you’d bothered to read our reports, you’d know that.” Then you read those reports and find reference to “a giant cabbage”….but it isn’t a giant cabbage…it’s a watermelon!
Yes! Best analysis of the debate here today!
That’s what I’m getting out of the naysayer posts too–but you have stated the case with an exquisite analogy LOL!
brilliant analogy.
This interesting post has been thoroughly sullied and reduced to a juvenile level. Professional pride and conceit have spoiled interest. As far as “sock puppetry” goes, my only question is: WHY?? What reward is expected from such tactics to self justify using cheats. I hope some explanation will be proffered other than rampaging egotism. Some serious self examination is required, by more than a few. Another reason to discourage anonymous comment, especially when they consist of purely ad hominem. One should use their real names for the privilege of insulting or attacking other persons.
Sad, as these are intelligent and thoughtful people, whose ideas and comments I very much want to read – Including the ill-advised sock puppets. Just be honest in commenting and everything else can be forgiven. /rant off. GK
I have done the back and forth dance with the apparent owner of the sock puppets. I find it much like cleaning out the horse barn. Smelly. Dirty. Tedious. But must be done.
And tomorrow you start all over again
Now that we are back to our regularly scheduled programming, here is the best damn set of powerpoints I have ever seen that provides a great fat-free, reduced sodium (aka sans solar and CO2 debates) menu of educational opportunities on the background physics necessary to engage in intelligent conversation. Delightful in every way and well worth taking time to digest it.
http://users.clas.ufl.edu/prwaylen/Kojo/rey95166_ch06_180-211.pdf
Here at this fine website in the past we have had the discussion about the North and South Poles switching from warm phase to cold phase with each taking a roughly 25-30 year cycle to do this. The entire premise for ‘global warming’ is that CO2 alone causes this to stop and everything to heat up forever and ever which is impossible since even with a thousand times more CO2 this never happened.
This hijacking of basic science and the history of our planet is purely for power and financial gain and fears that the peasants of the planet (you and me and all of us) are going to consume the previous oils and coals and etc. the very rich want to hog for themselves.
That IS an interesting and comprehensive page. I look forward to reading and digesting it over the next few days. Harvest demands may make that a little difficult but will give me something to think about during long tractor communion induced Zen. Thank-you GK
As a once and future Buddhist, I greatly enjoyed your description of “tractor communion induced Zen”.
w.
Nothing better than to field harrow. Love it love it. And the harrow also does a great job of snagging errant barbed wire and wood planks so that I could have a field free of debris.
Spike harrow or spring harrow? …
w.
Old chain harrow. Came in sections. You can drag two connected to make a long one, or side by side to make a wide one.
Pamela, that is an outstanding book chapter you linked to. Lots more for me to learn there, many thanks.
w.
Very good, thanks.
“6.
Air moves horizontally across the ocean surface to replace the unstable rising equatorial air, bringing water
vapor evaporated from the subtropical regions, where evaporation exceeds precipitation. Once in the tropics, the air rises, condenses, and releases latent heat, which was derived from the subtropics. The tropics therefore accumulate excess energy, to be released in this restricted area of rising air and instability. The ocean warms, forming a warm pool.”
Agreed. Thanks for posting this reference. Who is(are) the author(s), are the other chapters available, and what is the title of the book?
The professor:
http://geog.ufl.edu/people/faculty/waylen/
Don’t know the author of the material. Maybe him?
I emailed the professor thanking him for such a great set of powerpoints. It would be of great value to discover that he is the author of the book/powerpoint he is using. A book well worth the price I would think.
Thank you for your response and for your efforts in reaching out to the author. I agree, again, and look forward to seeing more.
Both books.
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Exploring+Physical+Geography&rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3AExploring+Physical+Geography
I emailed Dr. Waylen and received a gracious response the next day. Please credit the following for the powerpoints:
Introductory Physical Geography text, “Exploring Physical Geography”, by Reynolds, Rohli, Johnson, Waylen and Francek (2014).
He also recommended the sister book: “Exploring Geology”. So I am off to search for these books because they sound like a must have for my nerdy library.
The book these powerpoints come from is published by McGraw Hill. Please use them for your personal instruction only. I am going to buy the book. From its description at Amazon, these are not the only pages worth reading about physical geography. I love having this kind of work in my library, which is already filled with textbooks on many different subjects. Great reads. This one is written in a unique style that asks questions of the reader. Way cool.
Sadly, the Florida article has been taken off the server. Is thereany other way to access this information?
Yes. Look up the thread a bit for my link to two books (expensive paperbacks but I think worth the price). You will find the powerpoint pages in “Exploring Physical Geography”:
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Exploring+Physical+Geography&rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3AExploring+Physical+Geography
While the author I have conversed with, Dr. Waylen, leans towards anthropogenic drivers, I have found him to be a gracious and humble published researcher apparently at ease with those that lean towards natural drivers (he has collaborated with both sides). Who knows, he may show up here to take a look at our musings, fights, and insights.
Pamela:
Thanks for the very positive feedback on the figures. They were first drafts for a text several of us prepared for McGraw-Hill. Once you stumbled upon them, I had to remove the, but if anyone wants to learn more try tracking down a copy of “Exploring Physical Geography” by Reynolds, Rohli, Johnson, Waylen and Francek. The first 7 chapters will be of particular interest to readers of this blog. Pamela got to see some of the figures used in chapter 6 on Atmosphere-Ocean interactions.
I am getting a copy for our school district (it’s a small district) so that teachers will have a solid background in order to teach required science standards in the area of weather and climate as well as other areas of geography that are in the standards.
Gloria Swansong
Lady Gaiagaia
Sturgishooper
Willis
What is happening here is much more pernicious than that. All three of the above posters are bona-fide skeptical posters. Sturgishooper for example regularly posts will knowledgeable geological-palaeontological information which soundly refutes anti-science CAGW propaganda which, like 6day creationism, rejects geology.
No – what has happened here is a very sophisticated hack, quite likely with US government assistance. The names of these genuine skeptical posters have been hijacked by extreme ecofasc1sts, smearing the names of those posters in the process.
“Gloria Swansong”
“Lady Gaiagaia”
“Sturgishooper”
Tell your fuehrer John Holdren to go fist himself.
Disgusting reply. Should be removed.
Probably, but both Willis and I have replied to it. The best way to combat these things is to show everyone else how ridiculous such comments are.
I’m sorry, Phlogiston, I fear I find the idea that the government has hijacked the identities of three otherwise wonderful posters to be hilarious. If someone has hijacked Sturgishooper’s online identity, why hasn’t he just gone to the local Starbucks, logged on, and disclaimed and disowned the comments?
Plus which, I doubt greatly that my posts are considered that important by the Department of Injustice … I mean, I flatter myself that I’m making a difference in this small arena of climate change, but I know it’s not worth loosing a secret black-hat hacker disinformation program on my sorry corpus delecti …
A much more logical explanation is that the sick individual behind the sock puppets is an actual climate skeptic, but for their own reasons they feel the need to attack me. Hey, I might have dissed them in the past and this is their idea of revenge, I don’t know.
In any case, I invite whoever the sock puppeteer is to stand up, declare your identity, and start posting under your own real name. Here’s the thing. If you declare your identity, you’re done with the deception, done with the lies, done with having to guard your tongue, done with the fear of being discovered.
And if you post under your own name, you’ll automatically move up a step in the world of commenters, because you’ll have to stand behind your own words. One of your sock puppets pulled up a discussion I had with Dinostratus a while back. I have to stand behind what I said then, and so I explained just why I said what I said. Dinostratus, on the other hand, can walk away from his online persona any time … so he never needs to take responsibility for his words. Having to stand behind my words is very strong encouragement to keep them as true and defensible as I can.
Finally, if you post under your name, you get to claim ownership of your own ideas.
All of that in part is why I pay attention to folks like Steven Mosher and Joel Shore. Like myself, they have to stand behind their words … and as a result, I give their words more weight. (The other part is that both are smart men who think about their words … well, except for mosh’s intermittent cryptic drive-by postings that drive me nuts, but I digress …
That’s the good news, Mr. Sock Puppeteer. You can get out of the hole you’ve dug for yourself. Yeah, folks will say bad things about you if you stand up and declare your identity … but nowhere near as bad as they’re saying now …
The bad news for you is that if you don’t stand up and declare yourself, you have to live with your sick deception for the rest of your life. My advice to you in that case is to grow a beard … because looking yourself in the eye in the mirror to shave every day will become an intolerable ordeal. So I truly hope you make a clean breast of it, if not here then to your priest, your pastor, your rabbi, your significant someone, or somewhere … and that you then abjure the practice and post under your own name.
Because I wouldn’t wish that kind of beard on my worst enemy.
w.
willis:
the answer is simple: if one isn comfortable putting one’s name on a comment, it shouldn’t be posted.that all.
Names…thats all.
Really?
Sturgis Hopper?
Gloria Swansong?
some idiot who chooses “lady gaiagaia” as its nom de net?
No, its simple.
put your name on it.
those people are lower that whale excsretia at low tide.
Sturgis Hooper is a “chair” in the Geology Department at Harvard that was endowed by one Samuel Hooper, and thus there have been a number of “Sturgis Hooper professors of Geology” in the Hooper School of Mining at Harvard.
For the record, based on the internal data and logs I have access to, the claim by “phlogiston” is not just untrue, but wildly and irrationally so.
If their accounts have been hacked, they can reach out to Anthony and try to set the record straight. I do think that Willis, in the update at the top of his posting, misconstrues the motivation of who[(m)ever is behind these attacks on Willis when he alludes to “climate alarmists.” Without going back to find it, at some point in one of these posts I got the distinct impression that the beef with Willis is over not giving the sun credit for dominating climate, or some such. So yes, may “skeptic,” but one who is so ideological on the other side that they would resort to such inappropriate conduct and behavior. We do not need their kind.
Thanks, blcjr, you are right. That was a bridge too far on my part, my bad. I’ll change the update … ok, done.
w.
Willis, Anthony
Apologies, a tad OTT.
Your replies however are an interesting example of the phenomenon of “antisocial punishment”
http://www.nature.com/ncomms/journal/v2/n8/pdf/ncomms1442.pdf
All makes sense now that you have explained it to me. Can you post a diagram?
Seriously doubt it, Phlogiston. You underestimate the apparent fanatical devotion to the “It’s the sun, stupid, and nothing else” meme. You see others afflicted with it here.
Willis,
You wrote: “It is crystal-clear evidence that the sea surface temperature is regulating the incoming sunlight as my hypothesis states.”
It is certainly evidence of a connection. But I think that is well known. The E-W gradient in sea surface temperature drives the Walker circulation, which in turn enhances the E-W T gradient in a positive feedback loop. The regions of rising and descending air create regions of cloudiness and clear air. I think this happens to some extent in all the tropical ocean basins, but only in the Pacific is there a large enough fetch to get a really strong effect.
So it seems to me that your correlation with temperature might really be a correlation with temperature gradient. If that is the case, then a uniform increase in temperature might produce a very different effect, even opposite, than would be expected from the correlation that you present. Or to put it a different way, the response of one piece of a complex system does not reliably tell you about the response of the system as a whole.
Willis you need to make a climate prediction for the next 10 years and the why behind it. Maybe if you are correct you will get the popularity you seek.
Until then every topic you talk about is just your opinion and the ones that agree with you embrace it and the ones that do not, think you do not know what you are talking about.
So why don’t you make a prediction like I have done and let the chips fall where they fall?
Salvatore Del Prete September 27, 2015 at 10:21 am Edit
No, I don’t need to make a ten year prediction. I hold that we don’t understand the climate any better than we understand the weather, that all “climate” predictions are just long-range weather predictions, and that nobody has ever demonstrated any skill in long-range weather predictions.
In other words, I hold that anyone who claims that they can tell us what the average global temperature will be in the year 2025 may not be deluding me, but they are certainly deluding themselves. I have no wish to join that crowd.
As to seeking popularity … if you truly think that is my motive, then you truly have no clue who I am.
w.
Willis I put myself on the line by backing up what I say, with why/how the climate will change.
“all “climate” predictions are just long-range weather predictions, and that nobody has ever demonstrated any skill in long-range weather predictions”
Well actually LRF skill has been demonstrated, and climate predictions cannot hope to, and do not intend to predict weather variability, which is exactly why they will fail at predicting climate.
Willis – Mark Twain said it well:
“I was gratified to be able to answer promptly, and I did. I said I didn’t know.”
– Life on the Mississippi
Willis, Pamela, and Leif are not interested in correlations that work, only in simple correlations that fail in order to satisfy their need for “emergent” phenomena.
In the mean time, I’m betting that Solomon et al. in their 2010 paper, Anomalously low solar extreme-ultraviolet irradiance and thermospheric density during solar minimum, draws the correct conclusion:
jonesingforozone September 27, 2015 at 6:49 pm
Is there some part of “quote the exact words that you disagree with” that is too hard for you to understand? Or are you being deliberately obtuse?
I have looked extensively for “correlations that work”. I have not found them. You are insinuating that you have correlations that work … but of course, like all the rest of the blowhards, you haven’t provided a link to the study and a link to the data so that we can decide if you’re just blowing smoke or not.
Come back when you have a link to the actual study and another link to the actual data you are going on about. I’m not interested unless you can provide both links, because without the data there’s no way to tell if the study is valid.
And if you disagree with something, quote it. Your bogus generalizations just make you look ignorant, and I doubt if that is true.
w.
I read that paper. It is no surprise to anyone that extreme ultraviolet radiation affects thermosphere temperature. And solar variation is by far the greater driver of that temperature variation than is CO2. Your cited paper, with its rockets, satellites, models, filters and error bars, does not tell us anything definitively new. My next question to you jonesingforozone, is this: The variation in EUV driven thermosphere temperature affects whether or not I put a coat on how?
Now that answer would be worth…critiquing. It will undoubtedly include a very, very, very large amplification device. Do you have one?
The EUV sensors suffer from degradation [space is a harsh environment] and that is the reason for Solomon’s misguided conclusion.
Thanks Leif. Somewhere in the back of my mind I remember that orbital degradation was an issue but am fuzzy about the circumstances. I need to respond with a better memory. Your comment reminds me again, it matters that I stay current on the literature so that I don’t not make such mistakes. While the direction of my comment ends in the same spot as yours, the reason to place no confidence in the paper I read was different. And accuracy matters.
This is a great opportunity to caution all sides of this debate. Picking and choosing what one (and me) prefers to have in their literature search is wrought with bias. And the tendency to do so is nearly subconsciously driven, as well as more often than not, blatantly obvious and one-sided.
My Dear Mr. Eschenbach,
Can you tell me why you prefer to use sunspot data when the quote from the paper cited above shows that they are anomalous?
That is precisely the proxy I had in mind when I discussed using asymptotic proxies as a reason for correlation failure here.
Everything is “emergent” until proven otherwise, i.e., when it is shown not to be irreducible.
jonesingforozone September 27, 2015 at 11:01 pm
Sure … as soon as you QUOTE WHAT I SAID ABOUT SUNSPOT DATA. I’m fed up with these vague questions and accusations. I have not said a single word about sunspots in this entire thread. As a result, your question makes absolutely no sense. If you are either too dumb or too arrogant to comply with a simple polite request that you quote the exact words you object to, please take your comments somewheres else.
Again, meaningless without context. I have no idea what “That” means at the start of your sentence. I also have no clue what you said about “asymptotic proxies”, whatever they are when they are at home, and no interest in searching for said proxies or for your comments.
That’s as foolish as saying “everything is a cow until proven otherwise” … it appears that you do not understand the concept of “emergent phenomena”.
Please do your homework before declaring that others are wrong, it just makes you look foolish.
w.
Mike M
Or to put it a different way, the response of one piece of a complex system does not reliably tell you about the response of the system as a whole.
Ever heard of fractals?
+1
A physical model missing just one component can cause the model to be unworkable. Does the model have all the necessary variables? Is the structure of the model correct? Are the proxies asymptotic?
At the other extreme, to many variables combined with too little data will cause to model to succeed in retrospect, yet have zero predictive power.
An honest researcher with a reasonable statistics background will account for the opportunity cost in degree(s) of freedom whenever the model is changed before publication of the findings.
Or, the researcher can choose to “tune” a model to provide better correlation of past performance at the expense of predicative power going forward. See Pseudo-Mathematics and Financial Charlatanism: The Effects of Backtest Overfitting on Out-of-Sample Performance.
Leaves and snow flakes are prime examples of the economy and beauty of self-replicating structures.
Willis has challenged Dr. Spencer before and Dr. Spencer had to say in so may words that Willis was pretending to be a climate scientist.
This is a cowardly uncited attack. Quote Dr. Roy’s exact words and my exact response to what he said, you slimy little man, before accusing me of “pretending to be a climate scientist”.
Dr. Roy said nothing of the sort, you despicable creep. Go crawl back under your rock. You are as sleazy as the sock puppeteer with this continued attack. You can’t attack my science directly so you try to attack my reputation with hand-waving baseles accusations?
You are one sick puppy … please confine yourself to the science.
w.
I’m finding it interesting that these trolls have come out in force to attack Willis, he must be scaring the pants off them (male or female, who is to know who they actually are?).
Yes , Willis , you are held to a standard of explaining and citing virtually everything climactic it may touch on in order to support the science in this post, when an entire IPCC has never done so.
Roy’s comment came across to me as a friendly caution about the science still not being settled and not an attack on Willis’s work. Two people can disagree and still maintain mutual respect.
Your correct Willis as usual.
Willis what you need to do with all of your vast knowledge and always being correct is tell all of us why/how the climate will change going forward.
You are the expert and appointed authority from volcanic influences, to solar influences to CO2 to your thermostat theory.
So put all your vast correct knowledge to use and give us a climate forecast.
Salvatore Del Prete September 27, 2015 at 12:48 pm
Salvatore, you just made a nasty, underhanded, untrue accusation about me, and pretended that Dr. Roy had said it.
Until you either back up your accusation or retract it, you’ll get nothing from me but well-deserved scorn. That kind of evidence-free third-hand, ‘blame someone else’ accusation is the action of a unprincipled scumbag.
Clear enough for you? PUT UP OR SHUT UP! Back up your slimy accusation or retract it. I’m tired of your insults.
w.
PS—I answered your question about predicting future climate immediately above … do try to keep up with the discussion, dear boy, you look so foolish asking a question again when it’s already been answered …
Signore Del Prete, have you ever heard the expression: “people who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones”? Your own ideas/predictions, which you relentless promote here, haven’t gained much traction. Willis hasn’t been making predictions (unlike you,) but how far in future would you like to see a prediction? Since Edward Lorenz work in chaos math showed clearly in the 60’s that accurate long term weather/climate predictions can not be made with chaotic Earth weather inputs/unknown forcings, any long term prediction falls under the heading of “Best Guess”. How is it that you do not know that?
Alan Robertson writes:
“Since Edward Lorenz work in chaos math showed clearly in the 60’s that accurate long term weather/climate predictions can not be made with chaotic Earth weather inputs/unknown forcings,”
Lorenz merely assumed that it is chaotic. Kepler on the other hand was on the right path 420 years ago, and made his fame from long range weather forecasts based on the heliocentric planetary ordering of solar activity. Internal variability of weather and climate is as illusory as the internal theories for the sunspot cycle and solar variability.
ulriclyons
September 27, 2015 at 6:16 pm
“Lorenz merely assumed that it is chaotic. Kepler on the other hand was on the right path 420 years ago, and made his fame from long range weather forecasts based on the heliocentric planetary ordering of solar activity. Internal variability of weather and climate is as illusory as the internal theories for the sunspot cycle and solar variability.”
———————–
Oh. Planetary influences are the climate control knob. Astrology, of sorts.
Or are you alluding to planetary tidal forces as climate influence? Or did I miss your point?
Lorenz said that unless all inputs to a system are precisely known, then accurate predictions about future behavior cannot be made beyond short time periods.
“Or are you alluding to planetary tidal forces as climate influence? Or did I miss your point?”
There is no point in trying to frame the argument before asking.
ulriclyons
September 28, 2015 at 1:58 am
“There is no point in trying to frame the argument before asking.”
————————–
I’ll not take that bait and will thus avoid driving this interesting thread further into the weeds.
Under the understanding that Willis has NEVER said he is a climate scientist…Salvatore, you are…what?