From the “yes, but satellite data is good enough when they want to scream the Arctic is melting” department comes this powerful takedown of recent claims about the satellite temperature data being inferior to surface temperature data.
I was traveling yesterday, so could not cover this live. Dr. Christy said in testimony:
‘When you look at the United States record of extreme high temperatures you do not see an upward trend at all. In fact, it’s slightly downward. That does fly in the face of climate model projections.
I’ll say.
Here is the video of his testimony:
And his written testimony is here: U.S. House Committee on Science, Space & Technology, 2 Feb 2016
Testimony of John R. Christy, University of Alabama in Huntsville.
The full video of all testimony is here:
The standard tripe in the NYT for dismissal of the satellite data presentations of reality is to use a contrived debate argument and then knock it down that the skeptics (fact checkers) are misusing the data trends with selection bias of a high El Nino year as the starting point for a trend line. Such standardized tactics need boilerplate inserts in testimony with about a half page of response to head it off. That starting point argument is the Great White Hope of advocacy groups and media groupees and also a sneaky way to get readers to ignore the satellite data. Never mind the fact that the satellites were put up there at great expense to get around the deficiencies of the surface temperature record and methods. Advocacy logic is all about fooling the masses and confusing any attempt at fact checking, satellites included.
The reality is that the climate change we have been experiencing is caused by the sun and the oceans and Mankind does not have the power to change it. Despite all the cliams, there is no real evidence that CO2 has any effect on climate. There is no such evidence in the paleoclimate record. There is evidence that warmer temperatures cause more CO2 to enter the atmosphere but there is no evidence that this additional CO2 causes any more warming. If additional greenhouse gases caused additional warming then the primary culprit would have to be H2O which depends upon the warming of just the surfaces of bodies of water and not their volume but such is not part of the AGW conjecture. In other words CO2 increases in the atmosphere as huge volumes of water increase in temperature but more H2O enters the atmopshere as just the surface of bodies of water warm. We live in a water world where the majoriety of the Earth’s surface is some form of water.
The AGW theory is that adding CO2 to the atmosphere causes an increase in its radiant thermal insulation properties causing restrictions in heat flow which in turn cause warming at the Earth’s surface and the lower atmosphere. In itself the effect is small because we are talking about small changes in the CO2 content of the atmosphere and CO2 comprises only about .04% of dry atmosphere if it were only dry but that is not the case. Actually H2O, which averages around 2%, is the primary greenhouse gas. The AGW conjecture is that the warming causes more H2O to enter the atmosphere which further increases the radiant thermal insulation properties of the atmosphere and by so doing so amplifies the effect of CO2 on climate. At first this sounds very plausible. This is where the AGW conjecture ends but that is not all what must happen if CO2 actually causes any warming at all.
Besides being a greenhouse gas, H2O is also a primary coolant in the Earth’s atmosphere transferring heat energy from the Earth;s surface to where clouds form via the heat of vaporization. More heat energy is moved by H2O via phase change then by both convection and LWIR absorption band radiation combined. More H2O means that more heat energy gets moved which provides a negative feedback to any CO2 based warming that might occur. Then there is the issue of clouds. More H2O means more clouds. Clouds not only reflect incoming solar radiation but they radiate to space much more efficiently then the clear atmosphere they replace. Clouds provide another negative feedback. Then there is the issue of the upper atmosphere which cools rather than warms. The cooling reduces the amount of H2O up there which decreases any greenhouse gas effects that CO2 might have up there. In total, H2O provides negative feedback’s which must be the case because negative feedback systems are inherently stable as has been the Earth’s climate for at least the past 500 million years, enough for life to evolve. We are here. The wet lapse rate being smaller then the dry lapse rate is further evidence of H2O’s cooling effects.
The entire so called, “greenhouse” effect that the AGW conjecture is based upon is at best very questionable. A real greenhouse does not stay warm because of the heat trapping effects of greenhouse gases. A real greenhouse stays warm because the glass reduces cooling by convection. This is a convective greenhouse effect. So too on Earth..The surface of the Earth is 33 degrees C warmer than it would be without an atmosphere because gravity limits cooling by convection. This convective greenhouse effect is observed on all planets in the solar system with thick atmospheres and it has nothing to do with the LWIR absorption properties of greenhouse gases. the convective greenhouse effect is calculated from first principals and it accounts for all 33 degrees C. There is no room for an additional radiant greenhouse effect. Our sister planet Venus with an atmosphere that is more than 90 times more massive then Earth’s and which is more than 96% CO2 shows no evidence of an additional radiant greenhouse effect. The high temperatures on the surface of Venus can all be explained by the planet’s proximity to the sun and its very dense atmosphere. The radiant greenhouse effect of the AGW conjecture has never been observed. If CO2 did affect climate then one would expect that the increase in CO2 over the past 30 years would have caused an increase in the natural lapse rate in the troposphere but that has not happened. Considering how the natural lapse rate has changed as a function of an increase in CO2, the climate sensitivity of CO2 must equal 0.0.
This is all a matter of science
It sounds like cherry-picking to me.
The USA is not the whole world. So I cannot see how this invalidates the climate models.
Gee. You might be right. Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) wasn’t a shield to keep out ballistic missiles. And it wasn’t discontinued. It was to keep out the real threat to the USA, GLOBAL WARMING!!!
(Apparently, it has succeeded.)
/sarc tags and all that.
What climate model leaves the USA out of the globe?
What do the models say if the USA surface station are left out?
What percentage of the land surface readings come from the USA?
Gunga Din.
I think Dr Christy is playing a shell game here. He talks about very hot days for the US only, and then goes on to talk about climate models for the state of Alabama.
A very narrow focus.
I cannot find any reference in his written testimony to climate models that only apply to Alabama or to the US. He does refer to climate models, but they appear to be global climate models. He then talks about middle tropospheric temperatures but does not compare them to the surface data sets.
Also his comparison between satellite and balloon measurements ends in 2005. Why 2005?
There are other data sets that do show a warming trend in the US. He does not refer to these, either.
The global climate models agree with the observed global satellite readings!?
Then why all the fuss?
Anyone with half a brain who heard this testimony by Dr. John Christy’s to the powerful Senate committee would be immediately convinced of the falsehood of CAFW. However, looking at the members of the Senate, this may be very few people.
Christy does an amazing job of explaining the substance of his work and laying out the measured argument for not allowing policy to be stampeded by alarmists. Unfortunately reason does not inform alarmists. Their primary objective is not winning a scientific debate but an ideological one and a guy like Christy has a hard time understanding how he ended up at the Mad Hatter’s tea party.
A note of optimism. It was Rep. Lamar Smiths tea party, and he is no mad hatter. This will pay political dividends, which is where the real fight is.
I hope so. I wasn’t referring to this particular hearing in my previous comment. It’s just amazing to me how people can refuse to even listen and need to shout down somebody like Chirsty (In the figurative sense just take a read over at skeptical science). It’s more like a psychological pathology than a difference of philosophy.
fossilsage:
Usually these hearings are just political theater, but they do have the effect of creating a public record, which is important. When considering how history would judge his tenure, Winston Churchill said:
Actually he did not say that exactly but it is a fair summary of:
Churchill understood the importance of getting his point of view on the public record. Dr. Christy obviously believed it was important to show up and set forth his views, which I think he has done admirably. Regardless of its effect on the Committee members, Dr. Christy’s presentation stands on its own. As Judith Curry wrote:
I concur.
Reblogged this on Climate Collections and commented:
Dr Christie’s written testimony (pdf) here:
https://science.house.gov/sites/republicans.science.house.gov/files/documents/HHRG-114-SY-WState-JChristy-20160202.pdf
Maybe Dr. Christy should be the next president’s science advisor.
One favorite argument in the Trollosphere is that the UAH data has been ADJUSTED!!!!
The fact that the adjustments are in the order of 0.05 deg/C for instrumental drift doesn’t worry a true believer.
“The fact that the adjustments are in the order of 0.05 deg/C for instrumental drift doesn’t worry a true believer”
It’s a lot more than .05. Here is Dr Spencer’s plot of the difference:
http://www.moyhu.org.s3.amazonaws.com/2016/2/v56.png
Here is my version, with the cumulative changes to GISS over ten years (set on the same 1981-2010 anomaly base) for comparison:
http://www.moyhu.org.s3.amazonaws.com/2015/12/uahadj1.png
And it wasn’t just instrumental drift. There were many issues. In fact, it’s really a matter of reviewing choices that have been made over the years, like diurnal drift, and choosing differently. Now I don’t think that is necesarily a bad thing. But it must follow that if the current choices are right, the previous choices and results were wrong, over a long time.
I should add that my plot is smoothed with a 12-month running mean, which explains why the peaks are less than in Dr Spencer’s version.
That’s a bit of a silly argument Nick. Sat datasets are roughly twice as sensitive to rate of change, as this now out of date plot shows:
http://s16.postimg.org/fhuqxbdhv/Sensitivity.png
Adjustments of similar proportions overall are therefore roughly comparable.
Thank you for your efforts Dr. Christy. But President Obama is still correct. Climate change is the seminal issue of our times. Whether we follow the domga or whether we follow the science, THAT is the question we must answer for our progeny.
Robert,
They can’t both be right. So we have a ‘community organizer’ disputing a PhD scientist who has been studying the subject for decades.
Dogma vs science.
And “climate change” is a “seminal issue” only because it’s been made into a political argument.
Whatever they mean by “climate change” is irrelevant to science, because the climate always changes; it isn’t changing any more than usual, and in fact, global warming stopped almost 20 years ago.
“a ‘community organizer’ disputing a PhD scientist”
A bizarre appeal to authority. You won’t win by counting PhDs.
Nick – “A bizarre appeal to authority. You won’t win by counting PhDs.”
Except if it is a 97% consensus.
I notice in real life that there is some penetration of the 97% meme as a punchline for snarky humor.
Maybe CAGW humor is the way to awareness.
Nick, I was doing a comparison. But thanx for trying…
Nonsense.
I can drive less than ten miles along a local road, and experience more climate change than is purported to be the cause of all of this global warming climate change ruckus, since way back in 1850.
So we know that climate changes, and every spot on earth has its own climate that isn’t necessarily the same as any other place.
I’ve been around for a significant portion of that time since 1852; and I can tell you that the climate changes more in just 24 hours than I can say I’ve experienced over all of those years. It goes up, and it goes down.
G
If it worries you, then don’t spawn any progeny.
Robert we have a divergence problem and it has come about because the Klimatariat can’t give up the ring.
January 5, 2009: email 1231190304
Phil Jones writes to Tim Johns, Chris Folland, and Doug Smith, regarding temperature
predictions:
“I hope you’re not right about the lack of warming lasting till about 2020. I’d rather hoped to see the earlier Met(eorological) Office press release with Doug’s paper that said something like—“half the years to 2014 would exceed the warmest year currently on record, 1998”!
“Still a way to go before 2014.
“I seem to be getting an email a week from skeptics saying “where’s the warming gone”? I know the warming is on the decades scale, but it would be nice to wear their smug grins away.”
“we must answer for our progeny”
Well if you are that worried about the Children and the Childrens Children, you should think about the Turmoil that is in the World at this moment rather than worry about something a hundred years hence.
Think nuclear war in 5,4,3,2,1.
“Nick, I was doing a comparison.”
Well, I see you are often disputing PhD scientists. What are your qualifications?
Re: Why corporations are on the green bandwagon.
It used to be said that a successful politician watched to see where the crowd was headed and then sprinted ahead so he could lead the parade Now, the successful politician looks to see where the crowd is headed, then sprints ahead to put up a toll booth. Support for the green bandwagon is the corporation’s toll.
+ 10 and a hand clap
Just 1 hand?
Like any good monkey I hold onto my bananas with the other hand.
Global Warming never happens in your back yard, but someplace else. In fact, everywhere else, where it cannot be disproven by life experience.
Ha,Ha, so true, have a look at all the amateur and professional weather stations on ‘Wundermap’ and have a scroll around the Globe,Where is all this Unprecedented Heat?
Plenty,Plenty,cold here, heat in big Sun,but not here,pray to Sun God for Glowbull Warming.
Ah, as the Queen said in Alice In Wonderland, “The rule is jam tomorrow and Jam yesterday, but never jam today.”
The warmistas are trying to get us to live in a looking-glass world.
OH OH besides Canada having Suzuki, Andrew Weaver we also have, Harjit Sajjan Canada’s defense minister blaming the conflicts in Africa and Syria on climate change, I kid you not.
“Sajjan went on to say that politicians had failed to see the crises that propelled the growth of militant Islam.”
“The issues of climate change, of creating grievances in many different parts of the world — not a big deal when you look at, talk about climate change in isolation. But put it into an area of Africa or Syria, which caused those — potentially those grievances when the cost of food started to go up and people started to complain.… that was that little clue.”
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/harjit-sajjan-defence-isis-comments-1.3431806?cmp=rss
Fantastic testimony. I’ve read it in full (you should, too). Autoratively but respectfully presented. With all relevant points addressed. I’m very impressed by Dr. John Christy I’m grateful to him for fighting this fight for Truth against very powerful and vicious forces.
Dr Christy has a way with words: “the IPCC and other similar Assessments do not represent for me a consensus of much more than the consensus of those selected to agree with a particular consensus.”
The document reads to me like a justifiably angry man taking extreme care with his language in the probably vain hope that his vital message will be heard. Someone who can control his language like that probably takes similar care with his measurements.
Your statement is a pure character attack.
That makes you appear to be an angry fool.
If you are over age 50, an angry, old fool.
The climate has barely changed in the past 150 years.
Nothing unusual has happened.
The cool centuries from 1300 to 1800 are gone — that’s good news.
More CO2 in the air is greening the planet — that’s good news too.
CO2 has never been the “climate controller” in 4.5 billion years of climate history, and did not suddenly start being the “controller” in 1975.
You leftists go to school, graduate, and learn next to nothing.
You knowledge of climate history appears to be near zero.
A leftist debate is usually a character attack — Alinsky style.
Like your comment.
Posts that are character attacks, with no science content, deserve to be ignored.
That’s why no one replied to your comment for four days.
I’m here just because my name is Richard, like yours, and I object to you posting a character attack making “Richard’s” look angry, and dumb … I wouldn’t care, or respond, if someone named “Mark” had posted the comment.
@Harry Twinotter: you wrote “his comparison between satellite and balloon measurements ends in 2005. Why 2005?”
This is misleading. Yes, the figure on page 3 ends in 2005. But the figure on page 2 is ALSO (amongst other things) a comparison between satellite and balloon measurements, and goes up to 2015. He also wrote at some length about surface data sets. He himself “closely examined individual stations in different regions”, for example, and has published about that. You cannot fairly expect him to say EVERYTHING in the limited time he had. He did mention that “In examining ocean temperatures I discovered that the trends of the water temperature (1m depth) do not track well with those of the air temperature just above the water (3m), even if both are measured on the same buoy over 20 years. So *which* “surface” temperatures did you want him to compare with?
As for extreme temperature days, forest fires, &c, I expect that the explanation is simply that he went with the best data he could get, rather than speculating about unavailable or nonexistent data. If you know of data of similar quality and coverage for other countries, great, tell us where to find it.
Note, by the way, that Dr Christy does not say in his testimony “no warming”. His position boils down to “the models demonstrably haven’t got WHAT happened in the past right, so we can’t trust them to tell us WHY what’s happening is happening.” And that seems beyond any reasonable dispute, really it does. (Except, oddly enough, that “The Russian model (INM-CM4) was the only model close to the observations”. I wonder whether that was luck — someone has to be least bad — or whether they were doing something right?)
“(Except, oddly enough, that “The Russian model (INM-CM4) was the only model close to the observations”. I wonder whether that was luck — someone has to be least bad — or whether they were doing something right?)”
I noticed that, too. And I believe it’s a completely different model from the ones used by IPCC and supporter institutions around the world. Russians are not sold on the AGW propaganda and maybe they really developed a realistic climate model. I should investigate.
Richard A. O’Keefe.
“This is misleading. Yes, the figure on page 3 ends in 2005. But the figure on page 2 is ALSO (amongst other things) a comparison between satellite and balloon measurements, and goes up to 2015.”
OK you are saying he does have data up to 2015. So my point still stands: Why does the comparison he shows ends in 2005?
Harry Twinotter:
In reply to Richard A. O’Keefe resaponding to your quibble by pointing out
you have churlishly replied
Clearly, his Figure 3 was providing detail pertaining to his Figure 2. It seems likely that his detail was from an archive but there may be some other reason for it not continuing after 2005.
Perhaps you can find out the real reason the detail ends in 2005 report it? That would be a great improvement on your pointless nit picking.
Richard
richardscourtney.
“quibble” “churlishly” “pointless nit picking”.
Insults. Nothing but insults. Very sad.
Thanks, Dr. Christy, for telling the truth!
Is the word Senate in the title correct, it seems as though the testimony included was before the House?
No, Christie’s page footing incorrectly used the word House.
There is only ONE pristine surface station data set in the world.
Here it is against the satellite data over that approximate region.
http://s19.postimg.org/uuy2ft3jn/Combined_USA_temperatures.png
Close but a big higgledy, as real data sets would expect to be.
On the other hand, we have a case of blatant data matching.
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/temp-and-precip/national-temperature-index/time-series?datasets%5B%5D=uscrn&datasets%5B%5D=climdiv&datasets%5B%5D=cmbushcn¶meter=anom-tavg&time_scale=p12&begyear=2005&endyear=2015&month=12
“On the other hand, we have a case of blatant data matching”
Bizarre! We’re told at WUWT that USCRN is a pristine data set. And USHCN is all sorts of wrong. Zombie stations, adjustments, aircons etc. And yet it turns out to almost exactly match the “pristine” CRN. So it mush be doing something right, no? No, “blatant data matching”.
But where? CRN isn’t adjusted. Not even secretly – they publish their data at least daily. No time to check back on what USHCN is doing with coops submitting monthly reports.
Nick Stokes is always quick to defend the terrestrial data sets. But how does he explain the fact that balloon data matches the (possibly adjusted) satellite data rather than the (definitely adjusted) terrestrial data?
Solomon Green February 4, 2016 at 5:20 am
Nick Stokes is always quick to defend the terrestrial data sets. But how does he explain the fact that balloon data matches the (possibly adjusted) satellite data rather than the (definitely adjusted) terrestrial data?
GISS actually matches the sonde data rather well, RSS on the other hand shows significant downward drift wrt sondes since about 2000.
Phil.:
You say
Please provide your evidence.
Richard
Wasn’t there some stink about Dan Esty, husband of Congresswoman Elizabeth Esty and (according to Dr. Steer) “one of the best known environmental economists in the world,” receiving $205,000 in consulting fees from Northeast Utilities before being appointed Connecticut Energy and Environmental Protection Commissioner and strongly supporting construction of transmission lines to increase Hydro-Quebec and NU revenues by 10s of $millions?
And after Mr. Esty consulted with UBS Securities and UBS upgraded NU stock a week later, wasn’t Ms. Esty forced to return campaign contributions she took from NU while her husband was tasked with regulating them?
As that for fabulous boost to Connecticut’s economy thanks to renewable energy…citation, anyone?
John has always been the best thing going for true science.
Science per sec has a long way to go, take our good planet earth 4.5 billion years old roaming around in space that is close to absolute zero, yet it is molten in the core with molten bits still coming to the surface.
Does anyone here see something wrong with that if it is only the sun warming us? Science admits 80% of the universe is missing !!! What the, the missing stuff is energy cycling and recycling, mostly in at the poles and out near the equator this warms or planet, when the sun is active less heat escapes so we warm and vice versa. The sun is controlled by position and feed back from our giant planets thus we have warm and cold periods. i.e, LIA mediaeval warm periods etc longer term variations also take in our position in the galaxy that varies the energy flow that warms us.
CO2 is a total crock as its main function is the health of our friends the plants. Cheers.
wayne Job February 4, 2016 at 1:50 am
Science per sec has a long way to go, take our good planet earth 4.5 billion years old roaming around in space that is close to absolute zero, yet it is molten in the core with molten bits still coming to the surface.
Does anyone here see something wrong with that if it is only the sun warming us?
You’re in good company, Lord Kelvin estimated the age of the Earth to be 100million years old based on the cooling of the magma. At that time no one knew about radioactivity, now we know that radioactive decay in the core is what contributes the extra heating (and therefore age).
At the very least, if the satellite data is so unreliable as to be useless in the analysis of global temperature, the people at NASA who suggested launching these platforms should be sacked. There should also be a Congressional investigation into why such a boondoggle was undertaken and which companies profited from it.
Of course that might force NASA to admit that the data is valid and that there are legitimate questions about the surface temperature vs. the troposphere.
JohnH February 4, 2016 at 5:22 am
At the very least, if the satellite data is so unreliable as to be useless in the analysis of global temperature, the people at NASA who suggested launching these platforms should be sacked. There should also be a Congressional investigation into why such a boondoggle was undertaken and which companies profited from it.
You are mistaken, the satellite sensors (MSU and later AMSU) were not intended to measure temperatures but to be used for weather forecasting. A job they have done very well for decades.
What Spencer and Christy realized was that maybe some of that spectral data could be used to calculate tropospheric temperature. They used that data and after some trial and error produced the UAH dataset, this was not the purpose for which the satellites were designed. Recently on going back and rewriting their analysis that have acknowledged that their previous TLT product was not reliable and have decided to focus on TMT from higher altitudes (includes more stratosphere however).
When compared with radio-sonde data upto the 300mb level RSS shows a downward drift since about 2000, possibly due to issues with AMSU?
The brain washed Senator is a mile wide an inch thick . What 97 % consensus ? Regurgitating
from the global warming play book instead of trying to listen is pathetic . At least it’s on tape for his relatives to watch what a dumb ass he was .
Once again, see the forest through the trees. Can someone please explain to me how CO2 can possibly cause a record daytime temperature? CO2 traps outgoing radiation between 13µ and 18µ, which is consistent with a black body of temperature -55°C and -110°C. Daytime temperatures are almost 100% due to incoming visible radiation. You can fry an egg in the direct daylight, but you can not fry an egg in the shade. Would someone please explain how CO2 causes this? If CO2 is the cause, why won’t this work in the shade?
https://youtu.be/BxI8GN9_41U
co2islife February 4, 2016 at 7:07 pm
Once again, see the forest through the trees. Can someone please explain to me how CO2 can possibly cause a record daytime temperature? CO2 traps outgoing radiation between 13µ and 18µ, which is consistent with a black body of temperature -55°C and -110°C.
Time to learn some physics, 13µ and 18µ is consistent with a temperature of 300K.
Time to learn some Physics. You can do the calculations yourself using Spectral Calc. Here is the link.
CO2 emission of 13µ and 18µ is consistent with -80°C or 185°K. You might want to know what you are talking about before making a post that a calculator can solve. Either you or the calculator is wrong, and I bet on the calculator.
http://www.spectralcalc.com/blackbody_calculator/blackbody.php