Readers may remember this Josh classic:
In a December 16th Podcast with “Forecast A podcast about climate science and climate scientists” run by Michael White, Nature’s editor for climate science, Dr. Gavin Schmidt makes a stunning admission while demonstrating his own lack of self awareness when it comes to climate debate. White writes:
We talked extensively about science-government interactions, and some of Gavin’s many Kafkaesque experiences. In the end, attempts at government muzzling and micromanagement of science communication comes across as impractical, appalling, and … a bit comical.
But it’s not all bad. The complete government failure to engage in any sort of response and discussion of climate-related science fiction like The Day After Tomorrow led Gavin to participate in the RealClimate blog.
Here, courtesy of Tom Nelson, is what is surprising, throwing tree rings under the bus. It’s actually closer to 59:00 when he says this.
Yes, he’s right. Mann’s questionable work pretty much amounts to nothing, as we’ve been saying for years. A political tool is all it ever was, one that no longer has much clout.
Gavin thinks it is “quite likely” that seas will rise 1 meter or more by 2100 at about 31:20
Then there’s Schmidt’s statement: “I do try and advocate for a higher level of conversation”. Dr. Schmidt seems to forget that when given the opportunity he advocates for, he took the cowardly approach and refused to be on-set with Dr. Roy Spencer.
So much for high level discourse.
You can listen to the podcast below:
..Is Gavin stepping away from the ” Dark Side ” ?? LOL
Well they hope to burn people at a pole that ask questions and critique about policy based climate science and the political established UNFCCC?
“Scientists” would probably try to distance themself from that?
Well they hope to burn at a pole people that ask questions and critique about policy based climate science and the political established UNFCCC.
An even more interesting question…is this what caused Mann and boys to make a video throwing NASA’s satellite data under the bus in January? I sense a disturbance in the Farce!
..ROTFLMAO !!
Sharp conjecture! Hmmmm indeed!!!!
Huh? This is the same thing Michael Mann himself has said all along. Heck, he said it in his initial hockey stick paper where he (falsely)claimed his resuls would be unaffected if you didn’t use any tree ring data.
Actually that is true, when his data is replaced by noise his analysis still produces hockey sticks.
I like to think of them more like huckster sticks–to this day.
Hockey sticks bonfire night ?
I sense a new book, “Hockey Sticks Bonfire of the Vanities”
Gavin Schmidt is demonstrably a douchebag. Just read his twitter feed to get an idea of his, “higher level of conversation.”
Can’t. Washing my eyes with that much bleach afterwards would cause blindness.
You can almost hear the faint sound of a bugler calling the retreat.
I don’t think you understand then.
I agree with James. It sounds more like a kazoo and the Benny Hill theme song…
Aphan,
CMAO (chuckling my a$$ off).
Making someone smile is the best part of every day. 🙂
CMAO, just chuckled, it is a new, beautiful and a spot on acronym, can we use it? And is it protected already?
When the bubble bursts, the stampede to the exit towards a retro-establishment of scientific integrity becomes indecent. As usual, a few dim scape goats have to be sacrificed. Of course, everyone knew the science was rubbish all along.
Are you listening Mickey?
Pointman
..Mouse ?
Hint, purveyor of a one ring circus rather than the full tree …
Pointman
..Oh, MIKEY !!
Your take away is that this is part of a “stampede to the exit towards a retro-establishment of scientific integrity”?
The more politic terms is “repositioning” away from the excesses of past years. Unfortunately for them in these particular times, the internet has a memory. http://tinyurl.com/jjwtcsz
Pointman
Me thinks they’re starting to cover their arses. To paraphrase a quote from Shakespeare’s The Tempest:
@Joe, not much changes, does it?
Pointman
Gavin’s point is… put the tree ring argument aside as it is a minor issue in the bigger picture. He is not exiting, stampeding, or running away from anything. He is just saying the controversy around it is a distraction to the overall argument so set it aside a focus on the more recent evidence. Hope that’s clear now.
James-“Gavin’s point is… put the tree ring argument aside as it is a minor issue in the bigger picture. He is not exiting, stampeding, or running away from anything. He is just saying the controversy around it is a distraction to the overall argument so set it aside a focus on the more recent evidence. Hope that’s clear now.”
And OUR point is that without existing tree ring chronologies, the only other empirical proxies you have for past temperatures that was in existence then, and that still exists today, are ice and sediment cores. Only proxies that date from the past up to “recent times” can prove anything may or may not be “different”. And both of those demonstrate many episodes of abrupt and rapid warming and cooling in the ancient as well as not so ancient past. (read the endless studies done on them and the Abrupt Climate Change-Inevitable surprises report published by the National Academies Press here- http://www.nap.edu/catalog/10136/abrupt-climate-change-inevitable-surprises
Models and corrupt data and estimates and guesses are not “evidence”. There is no more “recent evidence” to focus on! What the “empirical evidence” taken from proxies DOES demonstrate is that nothing that is currently happening on planet Earth is unusual, abnormal, or unprecedented. And without anything being unusual, abnormal, or unprecedented-the entire AGW debate is stupid, futile, and a complete waste of time and money. The actual, real, factual “biggest picture possible” is that Earth’s climate changes, all the time, and the only thing unusual about the climate of the past 150 years is how CALM, and quiet, and steady it has been!
Mann’s tree ring produced hockey stick was THE SYMBOL that graced the beginning of the AGW movement 20 years ago! It was on the cover of the IPCC reports, it was the batsignal that roused the sleeping green activists. It was supposed to be PROOF that warming since the industrial age was happening and obviously caused by humans. A distraction? It was the Call To ACTION!!! It inspired Mann to write a book called the Climate Wars that he STILL tours and speaks about today! And now, 20 years later, even those who used to celebrate Mann’s work have reached the point where they brush it off as flawed and idiotic. It doesn’t matter what they try to put forward NOW….if the foundation of “the cause” was wrong, inaccurate, and flawed and even THEY admit that it was, then the public will never trust another thing they say regarding that cause.
THAT is “our” point. Gavin saying it out loud and clearly is just one more cannonball fired into the deck of his own sinking ship. We’re celebrating and laughing and discussing the cannoball….what Gavin “meant” when he fired it is irrelevant really.
Aphan writes “And OUR point is…”
Our point? For whom do you speak?
Sorry. James was speaking for Gavin, so that clearly means that I can speak for others too. Right? 🙂
Like you assuming that political BIAS (not politics….read your own original words which were the ones you were taken to task one…not what you changed them to later) is relevant to everyone on the planet when they talk about science, when you have zero evidence to back that up with.
Javier said- “but when talking about science, their political bias is irrelevant,”
And you replied- “Politcial bias is always relevant, for it selects which science you choose to talk and how much certainty you wish to convey.”
Bias is a cognitive function, and the magical ability to read people’s minds does not exist, but you spoke as if you were an authority on the political biases of all mankind. If you want to keep things rational, I’d be happy to. But we’d have to start over on this one.
Aphan wrote “the magical ability to read people’s minds does not exist”
Maybe; but fortunately it is seldom necessary. You and I both operate, judge and respond based on observed behavior. What’s going on in your mind is not usually important; what is important is what you do.
What you are doing is inserting yourself into a discussion of whether, or how much, politics influences science but your contribution was to question my rationality.
The simple answer is 42.
The Hockey stick is just like one of those Ewoks which just won’t die.
Pointman
I’m a skeptic myself so not here to debate evidence. I just hate to get on this blog and see the groupthink mentality in the comments. This victory you saw in Gavin’s comments was a ghost, a mirage.
James wrote “I just hate to get on this blog and see the groupthink mentality in the comments.”
Yep; so shake it up a bit 😉 Judo argumentation; push when pull is expected and vice versa. Agree with whatever is agreeable when everyone else isn’t. Make people think for ten seconds (or more) before posting.
Just a question, what does that statement mean in the context of all the law suits? ( I am not a lawyer but to me that could really harm the “Mann”.
Post hock clarity? Marvellous . . .
Why wasn’t Gavin ‘clear’ about this in 1998?
It’s lucky Michael Mann resisted release all his Hockey Stick methodology.
Gavin Schmidt would just “want to find something wrong with it”.
Tree ring data is valuable and has been valuable for decades. It tells us about growing conditions during the growing season at the location. It also tells us other important things like the relative amounts of certain isotopes at the time, like 14C. If a technique is abused that is not the technique’s fault.
Yes, thank you J, it’s an important log of data.
.. Javier, you are nuts..You cannot know the temperature of the past from growth rings in a tree ! There are way too many other variables to be considered !
I believe tree rings are influenced by temperature, water, CO2 level, size, age among many other things. I find it hard to imagine that this multivariable system has been reliably and accurately quantified.
What you can imagine or not is irrelevant. Dendrology is a discipline that requires learning. You can look at an X-ray and get nothing out of it, while an expert doctor gets a lot of information. Tree rings are complemented by many other proxies like palynological records, sediments, isotopes, and so on, that together give a coherent view on climatic conditions. The great advantage of tree rings is that they allow a very accurate dating of changes in conditions down to the exact year they took place.
Most people don’t care because they are in this just to participate in a political debate, but when talking about science, their political bias is irrelevant, as are their opinions about things they know almost nothing.
“but when talking about science, their political bias is irrelevant,”
Politcial bias is always relevant, for it selects which science you choose to talk and how much certainty you wish to convey.
Maybe you can show me a dataset than with correlation between temperature and three ring with or density or whatever. And maybe you can show me that the uncertainty in determination of temperature from a tree ring data set has been quantified in accordance with international standards.
“Dendrology is a discipline that requires learning.”
So are astrology, palm-reading and phrenology.
Michael 2, you said:”Politcial bias is always relevant, for it selects which science you choose to talk and how much certainty you wish to convey.” This implies that you view science only as another tool in support of activism. As an engineer, now retired, I have always had an overriding interest in both pure and applied science, not only for its possible application in my work but also just for science’s sake. I don’t think I could enjoy it if I only viewed it with a political perspective.
Joe responded to Michael 2-who said-”Politcial bias is always relevant, for it selects which science you choose to talk and how much certainty you wish to convey.”
Joe-“This implies that you view science only as another tool in support of activism. As an engineer, now retired, I have always had an overriding interest in both pure and applied science, not only for its possible application in my work but also just for science’s sake. I don’t think I could enjoy it if I only viewed it with a political perspective.”
I agree with you Joe. The problem is that science and politics are two very separate things. By spelling, by definition, and in most people’s minds. When I think or talk about “science”, I’m talking about the study of the natural world, and what we know about it. When I talk about politics, I’m talking about laws, social rights, and politicians. In my head, they are two totally separate things. Always.
That SOME scientists have crawled into bed with SOME politicians only makes me view them both more negatively. Scientists should be producing unbiased, fact based scientific studies, using approved scientific methods and reporting the results of their work clearly with all caveats and uncertainties. Politicians should be reading and learning what those reports say, and then taking the results back to their constituents for examination and feedback on them.
But of course, NO ONE, on either side, seriously thinks even for a moment that those things are actually happening in the manner I described. And as they are not, all issues upon which scientists and politicians interact are corrupted and viewed with suspicion and resistance. Scientists should not be vocalizing professional opinions about the laws, regulations, and behaviors that human society SHOULD or should not be engaging in, that is not their job, nor the calling of science. And politicians should not be vocalizing professional opinions about science or scientists, as that is not their job or the calling of politics.
When I, a member of the public, read, think, or talk about politics, my political biases are evident. I know what they are, and what they are not, and I even try to temper my own biases in politics, just like I do in everything else for the sake of logic. When I read, think, or talk about science, I try not to employ ANY biases-in particular irrelevant ones like my political biases, or my religious ones, or any other personal biases that are irrelevant to the field of science. It makes no logical sense to me to incorporate my thoughts or emotions from one entirely different, unrelated topic into how I think and relate to another, so it makes no sense to me when people like Michael make statements like the one you responded to. All it does is make me question Michael’s ability to be truly rational, logical or informed correctly about anything.
Aphan writes “Scientists should be producing unbiased, fact based scientific studies, using approved scientific methods and reporting the results of their work clearly with all caveats and uncertainties.”
Someone has to pay for that! The purest engineer of all is already tainted by employment; and if by some miracle the engineer is not tainted, first of all the public isn’t going to know or believe it, and second, he won’t likely be employed for long.
“All it does is make me question Michael’s ability to be truly rational, logical or informed correctly about anything.”
A computer is rational. You, me and every other human not so much.
Bring on your small challenge. Let’s see how rational you are 😉
Joe Crawford wrote “This implies that you view science only as another tool in support of activism.”
A pox on all of your (those that don’t read) houses!
I have said nothing about “only” or “always”. I said politics is relevant for that is what pays your salary directly or indirectly. Some things may seem less political; but be sure that even a bridge is political — the budget process of deciding where to put it, who gets the contract; politics is everywhere.
Now there’s big politics, global, national; right down to little office politics in whose cubicle is closest to the section leader or boss.
“As an engineer, now retired, I have always had an overriding interest in both pure and applied science, not only for its possible application in my work but also just for science’s sake. I don’t think I could enjoy it if I only viewed it with a political perspective.”
Who said anything about “only”? Tell me who was your employer and it will take ten seconds (*) on Google to find the political relevance. It might not have mattered to you (and frequently doesn’t concern engineers, sometimes to their disadvantage), but it very likely mattered to the job.
* More or less.
Hey Javier! I have to agree with you that tree rings are a very useful source of information for science. But having said that, I remain VERY sceptical that one can reliably pick out annual temperature variations from all the other growth factors. As has been pointed out, temperature is only one of a very wide range of things that will either increase or decrease ring growth — and in fact, temperature is probably less important than rainfall amount and timing, access to sunlight, disease, fertilization (or lack of it) by animals, forest fires, etc., etc.
Tree rings — good for all sorts of science, yes. Good for thermometers? Not so much.
Science or Fiction:
If you want to learn, you should study, buy books, enroll in courses and learn to distinguish science from fiction. But probably you don’t want to learn.
I lost interest:
http://www.geog.ucsb.edu/~williams/geog167lab/treeringresearchlab.pdf
Michael 2: “Politcial bias is always relevant, for it selects which science you choose to talk and how much certainty you wish to convey.”
That’s “Post-Normal Science” such as climate “science” and sundry other variants of pseudo-intellectual bolloxology.
Old-style science such as thermodynamics and quantum physics has nothing to do with politics at all.
catweazle666 “Old-style science such as thermodynamics and quantum physics has nothing to do with politics at all.”
Your mileage varies 😉
Michael 2-
“Someone has to pay for that! The purest engineer of all is already tainted by employment; and if by some miracle the engineer is not tainted, first of all the public isn’t going to know or believe it, and second, he won’t likely be employed for long”
You must have missed the part where I said:
“But of course, NO ONE, on either side, seriously thinks even for a moment that those things are actually happening in the manner I described. And as they are not, all issues upon which scientists and politicians interact are corrupted and viewed with suspicion and resistance.”
You-“A computer is rational. You, me and every other human not so much.”
Computers are not rational. They are programmed. And they can only be as logical as the humans who design their programming.
“There is nothing in the computer’s physical processed per se that makes the computer reasonable, or explains whatever rational causation might occur in computers. Actual computers do not reason autonomously. They go through a sequence of events that are fashioned to express and amplify our rational states. In them, we simply mimic physical symbolization of our own reasoning, and amplify our reasoning, by relying on the computer’s processing of those symbols. ” (Cognition Through Understanding, Tyler Burge)
The degree to which you and I and every other human is rational, could only be determined through testing. So it would illogical to assume (or presume) to know how “irrational” everyone else is, or is not, without it. 🙂
Aphan, stealthily moving the goal posts, writes: “Computers are not rational. They are programmed. And they can only be as logical as the humans who design their programming.”
All functional computers are entirely and only logical (Boolean logic). Perhaps you use the word to mean something else.
“There is nothing in the computer’s physical processed per se that makes the computer reasonable”
No argument there. I haven’t claimed a computer is reasonable, only logical. Reasoning, as I use the word, is closely related to optimization, and that requires a goal. A computer has no goal; but a computer program probably does have a goal. Reasoning is a method of weighing choices to achieving a goal. If only one path exists no reasoning is required. If no goal exists, reasoning serves no purpose.
Therefore, a computer is logical but not by itself reasoning or reasonable; but a computer program can reason its way to a goal and depends upon the inherent logic of the computer for correct operation. It is so with humans; if you are not logical your reasoning is going to be fallacious; hence the name “fallacies” for failures of (rhetorical) logic.
“Actual computers do not reason autonomously.”
Niether, I think, do humans. Every thought you have exists for a reason, and you did not create that reason, since if you did, babies would grow up (but probably not) waiting to have their very first thought!. You have triggers and drives. Everything you do is in response to stimulation.
“They go through a sequence of events that are fashioned to express and amplify our rational states.”
I’ve never thought of it that way and I have a doubt I am capable of understanding the sentence.
I want my computer to basically do only three things — word processing, digital photography editing and storage, and communications. Sometimes a bit of math. If that is amplifying my rational state, well good, I think.
“In them, we simply mimic physical symbolization of our own reasoning”
Good heavens! Is that straight out of SciGen?
“The degree to which you and I and every other human is rational, could only be determined through testing. So it would illogical to assume (or presume) to know how irrational everyone else is, or is not, without it. :)”
And yet you had no difficulty judging me irrational without testing. But it is a good guess and I thank you for it. I doubt any normal human being is perfectly rational. In fact, to be “human” is to be somewhat predictably irrational, to have feelings of love, hate, affection, friendship, loyalty, duty, honor (and so on).
Michael 2,
For someone who called a “pox” upon people who don’t read, and who is calling out someone for moving goalposts, you certainly have a hard time remembering exactly WHAT YOU SAY, and responding to what you actually said instead of acting like you used words you did not use in the first place.
“No argument there. I haven’t claimed a computer is reasonable, only logical. ”
No, mike, you actually stated- “A computer is rational. You, me and every other human not so much.”
(I tend to use quotation marks to actually highlight exactly what was said….you know…the standard way)
If you do not understand the nuances between reason, logic, and rationality, that it not my problem.
“All functional computers are entirely and only logical (Boolean logic). Perhaps you use the word to mean something else.”
YOU were comparing humans to computers right? Which form of “logic” (or rationality in your exact words) do you think a reader would assume you were talking about? Boolean or human logic? Or more accurately, Boolean rationality, or human rationality?
Apparently you do not understand that if you don’t use words that actually mean what you are trying to say, then people are most likely going to misinterpret what you actually do say, as meaning something else.
But have a nice one.
Aphan “No, mike, you actually stated- A computer is rational. You, me and every other human not so much.”
Well, what of it? You accused me of being not rational. True enough; how do you differ? Only a computer can be perfectly rational. Obviously (or not) it would have to be programmed to be rational.
That is the problem with robots as explained by Will Smith in “I, Robot”. They are perfectly rational; all decisions are executed with a specific goal in mind, every choice is weighted.
The failure of rationality exists in the goal and in the weights. Different goals or weighting parameters will produce a decision matrix that differs from mine. Each is rational if you actually follow any sort of decision process.
If you just do what you want and don’t do what you don’t want that’s called irrational but deep inside it is still probably rational; the goals (security, food, sex) and weights are not known to your conscious mind but they still exist.
‘argumentum ad verecundiam’ coupled with a morass of incorrect information.
‘argumentum ad verecundiam’
Strawman misdirection.
An X-ray is only a picture. The doctor, loosely referenced, has studied human anatomy extensively and applies their anatomical knowledge to what the picture shows.
Change the species and the doctor’s ability to understand anything beyond the most obvious picture elements is reduced to that of any layman.
Meanwhile the ‘doctors’ drilling holes in trees have not studied every species that they happily bore a tiny hole into, for very long.
Nor are bore holes equal to the scope that an x-ray displays; e.g. a small slice from a tree is not equivalent to a complete picture. Problems spotted in x-rays are backed by multiple anatomical verifications. Problems in tree ring coring’s are backed by zilch. As was pointed out by experts prior to the hockey stick, beyond water, food and light, tree rings divinations are assumptions.
Ooooh! Complemented, such a scientific term. “Would sir like fries and vinegar with his chips?”.
Again, beyond water, food and light; climatic conditions are not coherently displayed. Even then, separating a ring piece’s benefit to food from light and/or water is difficult to impossible.
Then the final great leap in logic, or is that illogic, to burnish the wondrous tree ring pieces into supernatural omniscient sources of knowledge.
Funny thing. I spent some time working in a natural history museum. One of the displays was a cross section of two trees, of the same age, that grew 20 feet from each other. One of the trees was more than twice the diameter the other.
Greg F says “two trees, of the same age, that grew 20 feet from each other. One of the trees was more than twice the diameter the other.”
And doubtless its rings twice thicker.
They clearly show that now trees are growing faster than 100 years ago.
..Yes, that is about all they can tell you !
Javier
An objective solution to your claim is to have:
(1) documented & repeatable process for selecting trees (and rings) – includes determining how many sets of rings needed world-wide to track “global climate”
(2) documented & repeatable process for translating rings into temp data – includes determining period of time technique is valid
(3) documented & meaningful comparison of ring data to a couple hundred years of temp history – includes calculation of credible error bars
Given the earth has 400,000,000,000 – 3,000,000,000,000 trees (http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-34134366), you can’t pick a couple trees and claim they work for all-time & everywhere.
Got any studies like that?
Yes or no, Chip. Have fun finding out yourself.
Just because you think that is the way it should be, doesn’t make it so. Tree rings have been providing valuable information to scientists for many decades before you (or Michael Mann) came demanding they are turned into global climate thermometers.
For example L.G. Thompson et al., 2001, analyzing abrupt climate changes noticed the amount of evidence indicating a very cold period at around 5.2 Kyr BP. The period can be dated more precisely by the known 3195 BC event displayed in the narrowest tree rings of the entire series in oaks from Ireland and Lancashire, according to M.G.L. Baillie & D.M. Brown, 2002.
And the entire 14C series was measured in tree rings, allowing for the discovery of the Hallstatt cycle of solar activity.
Chip, you and others perhaps should reread what Javier wrote. He has not said that tree rings are a temperature record, but that they can provide valuable information.
These are two very different things.
I sort of interpreted it like the models thing….”All models are wrong, but some are useful.” Trees aren’t exactly accurate on many things, but we can learn a lot from them. 🙂
Yes, Javier. Tree ring data is an archive, the value lies in the eyes of the beholder.
Every live creates change, every difference presents information.What more can we ask.
Regards – Hans
Tell us all Javier, what is the secret in selecting the one tree out of the 34 you cut down that represents the one true temperature record.
Schmidt clearly doesnt understand compound growth. It is physically impossible for sea level to rise at an acceleration of 3.7%.
Schmidt knows, but is counting on most observers not understanding.
Wait, you mean that the oceans won’t be at 4.27 times their current height in 40 years?
Wait, was that the rate of sea level rise, or the rate of acceleration of rise?
…Never mind, that won’t happen either.
If I had some ham, I’d make a ham and cheese sandwich, if I had some cheese.
If I had some reliable tree ring data, I’d make some accurate climate models, if I had some reliable proxy data.
“The Day After Tomorrow” had me worried, but only a bit, for an hour or so. I know enough science to know it is impossible for air to suck enough heat from water to freeze the ocean solid a hundred feet thick in mere minutes (See “Ice Road Truckers” for some sense of how long it takes to freeze the surface of lakes at -40 degrees). I had a doubt about cold stratospheric air still being cold when compressed to sea level pressures and did some calculations on the adiabatic lapse rate and decided it would become a nice room temperature if you actually did what the movie portrays.
I had a doubt about tornadoes in Los Angeles.
I had a doubt that the ocean could possibly cool noticeably in mere minutes.
The giant wave invading New York was quite interesting. No mention of where all that water came from or why it chose to invade New York City. Probably just a storm surge.
Only, it needed a huge earthquake and a tall building fire, falling nukes from space and alien invaders to make it realistic…
… And maybe a volcano
Where’s Godzilla when you need him?
At one point in the movie, Ian Holmes’ character states that the whole super-freezing stratospheric air thing goes against the laws of physics. Then the screen writer just continues on with the whole discredited notion. It’s as if he just shrugged and said “Why let the laws of physics get in the way of a good story.” Kinda like climate science as practiced these days. 😉
OK, SmartGuy, now disprove Sharknadoes and Stoneados. Bet you can’t!
PiperPaul,
Pirhannaconda!!
I kid you not-the following are actual movie titles-
Avalanche Sharks (2015)
Ice Quake (2010)
Beasterday (2014 about a giant blood thirsty easter bunny)
Crockzilla (2013)
Zombiecrock (2016)
CO2 (2015)
Age of Ice (2015)
We live in a disturbed world. 🙂
You missed the great 1978 classic “Attack of the Killer Tomatoes”.
“… about cold stratospheric air still being cold when compressed to sea level pressures …”
Good work on your part.
This is the phenomena that creates the dry subtropical high pressure regions. The descending air over water will often be warmer than the marine layer, rainfall becomes impossible, the air is calm, and evaporating water will make the air hazy. Over land, deserts form.
A summary is here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediterranean_climate#Characteristics
Hey! The wave came out of the models. ‘Nuff said
Some years ago I put a question about LA tornadoes to my college weather class, and most answered “no way” or “only in the movies”. Very few got the correct answer:
8. A dozen tornadoes strike Los Angeles 1983
More quiz questions about wacky & impossible weather that only nature can make are at:
http://tomnelson.blogspot.com/2008/10/more-information-from-dr-richard-keen.html
But you’re spot on about the stratosphere & lapse rates, etc.
“I had a doubt about cold stratospheric air still being cold when compressed to sea level pressures and did some calculations on the adiabatic lapse rate and decided it would become a nice room temperature”
I think it would be a good bit hotter than room temperature.
I don’t know offhand what the actual, pressure of the air in question is likely to be, but just taking the example from Wikipedia for a compression ratio of 10:1 the final temperature is 751°C.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adiabatic_process
catweazle666 “I don’t know offhand what the actual, pressure of the air in question is likely to be, but just taking the example from Wikipedia for a compression ratio of 10:1 the final temperature is 751°C.”
I used a simple linear relationship of 3 degrees F per thousand feet and ended up with 70 F at sea level which is pretty much exactly what it is. At some elevation that relationship starts to fail but it worked well enough for this purpose.
I concur with your estimate of ten-to-one compression from about 50,000 feet to sea level and the resulting temperature rise ought to be linear with compression (and based on Kelvins). The resulting temperature rise would tend to resist any further downward movement of no-longer-cold air.
For reasons that are not yet clear to me it appears that compressing air doesn’t simply produce a temperature rise corresponding to the compression ratio. Instead of PV=nRT
dT = T1 * [(P2/P1)^0.286 – 1]/eff
http://www.eng-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=23930
Air appears to be a diatomic gas and doesn’t follow the ideal gas law. Some discussion here:
https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/temperature-of-compressed-air.341969/
@Michael 2…
Ooohh, you were so close! The Dry Adiabatic Lapse Rate is 9.8 °C/km (5.38 °F per 1,000 ft) (3.0 °C/1,000 ft). Your “3 degrees F per thousand feet” should have been “3 degrees C per thousand feet” but you were on the right track. But that also means your heating calculation would be even warmer than expected…which is how the atmosphere works.
Josh’s cartoons of Mann always make me chuckle. Well done.
Had to look again – Tethered Goat – ROFL.
Current sea level is increasing at about 3.3mm/yr.
http://sealevel.colorado.edu/
With 85 years remaining until 2100, that would mean that Sea Level would need to increase 11.75mm/yr, or at a rate 3.6x what is increasing at today. Does that seem plausible? No
Indeed, these people won’t let facts interfere with their deeply held beliefs. What’s amazing to me is how relatively constant our climate is within a narrow range over huge periods of time.
And that number has been tweaked up with GIS…
Sea level rise??? BS ( Bad Science )
Could it be possible to measure in mm??? or cm??? just a faint possibility in METERS??? Flying around the world on average 3 times for the past 10 years I am looking out the window all I “sea” is water,
water, water every where, tides, moon, storms, weather, volcanic activity, earthquakes, and wait, two thirds of the surface of the planet is covered in water ??? The BILLIONS of tons of water it would take to increase the ocean surface area 3mm was left overnight by a passing flying saucer!
As I understand it, it is difficult to measure a global sea level, but Nils-Axel Mörner wrote in his 2009 letter to the president of the Maldives, that sea level was unlikely to exceed 2.0mm/year over the period from 2009 to 2100. In the bottom part of the page:
http://klimabedrag.dk/article/full/118
you can see Nils-Axel’s letter.
Schmidt is wrong about the tree rings, so this cynical post is rather pointless. If you are trying to determine whether a system is being perturbed, you absolutely need to understand how the system operated before the perturbation occurred. It is truly amazing how few folks on either side of the climate debate continue to fail to understand this simple concept.
There’s only one side that’s getting gobs of taxpayer money, however…
1.The post isn’t about Schmidt being wrong about tree rings. That’s why the title is about Schmidt throwing tree rings under the bus. It’s about how “alarmists” seem to be turning on each other.
2. We do not know enough TODAY about how Earth’s systems operate together to even remotely claim that system is being perturbed as opposed to acting completely naturally. Understanding how the system operates should come FIRST, then we can determine whether or not something perturbing it.
3.How few? Did you mean to say how many? Because a few folks on either side failing to understand, or continuing to fail, to understand a simple concept wouldn’t be very amazing at all.
Schmidt has made exactly the same argument since the very beginning of the tree ring controversy. Absolutely no news, here.
I think I shall never see,
a Mann as intelligent as a tree.
Poems are made by fools like me,
but only Mann can parse a tree.
(With apologies to Joyce Kilmer). I assume that when Mann cut down these poor defenseless trees to get rings, he used the remains as biomass and planted a new tree for everyone he tested. President and Founder, Humans Against Tree Torture (HATT).
They usually just take a core, if the tree is currently living.
I guess I should have included a sarc
Mann has posed with full slices of his trees. He may be a murderer, he may just be a corpse harvested…either way, he’s still icky.
> I guess I should have included a sarc
Probably, but you could have been accurate and sarcastic at the same time.
Djozar — Got to like it! — Eugene WR Gallun
Thank you, thank you
As we know, Mann didn’t do any tree sampling – just got the records from people who later said he was abusing them. Also, it was obvious he got the ring slices from someone else in that smirky office picture of his. No way those hands were accustomed to logging 🙂
“I do try and advocate for a higher level of conversation”!….Is this the same guy who threatened to punch people out??LOL!
And insinuated that Texans were bigots who couldn’t relate to him.
The Elevated Conversation Caucus needs a different poster boy.
That was Tom Wigley.
And Ben “17 years” Santer.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/11/17/ben-santers-17-year-itch/
This is just dead wood making an argument, they just keep lumbering us with a poorly buttressed once around the mulberry bush, of barking up the wrong tree of their pseudo-scientific leaf-litter, when they could branch out into less sappy areas. Why they don’t twig to this has me stumped. They want everyone to bough down to them, well they can get rooted!
BTW, it’s April Fool’s Day chumps … and you just got had … lol
What a difference a mere 24 hours can make.
Odd….see that date next to your post…? I could swear it reads March 31, 2016.
Aphan March 31, 2016 at 10:26 am
That’s a date and time stamp of the SERVER … derp.
It’s 2:50 PM on the AFTERNOON of the 1st of April 2016 here, now look at the posted date and time by the SERVER … doh,
Me knot worry
I wonder if Mann was the only one that heard the tree falling in the forest.
To be fair, Gavin only said he was “an advocate” for a higher level of conversation, not a practitioner of a higher level of conversation! This dovetails nicely with the Green Blobbers being an advocate for using less while personally doing nothing of the sort.
The total lack of self awareness with these people would be funny if it wasn’t so tragic.
You can’t engage an argument unless you understand it.
“Yes, he’s right. Mann’s questionable work pretty much amounts to nothing, as we’ve been saying for years. A political tool is all it ever was, one that no longer has much clout.”
That is not what Gavin is arguing.
Here is what Gavin is arguing.
1. Nobody ever made a DECISION based on tree rings. That does not mean: Mann’s work amounts
to nothing.
2. He argues “Throw away tree rings and nothing changes” This second argument is more subtle.
But you need to understand it.
The easiest way to understand point #2 is to understand the concept of
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consilience
In short. Throw away all tree rings. Throw away all temperature records. You STILL have enough
evidence to make the case for policy. Heck in 1896 when we knew that increased C02 would warm the planet we had enough evidence for a policy maker to make a decision.
The HS is really unnecessary and not needed to make a policy case. But it’s not therefore, “a political tool”. It’s a tool, yes. It’s a tool to distract skeptics from the real issues. It’s really funny to watch
skeptics attack a part of the argument that doesnt really matter.
When gavin says “tree rings dont matter” what he means is that you can reach the same conclusion WITHOUT that evidence. So ask yourself, why would you attack evidence that we think is tangential to the case in chief. It’s rather akin to pointing out spelling mistakes in a comment or post.
I agree Mosh. Now that all the raw data has been manipulated / tortured and adjusted ( past made colder. present made warmer ), Mikey’s tree ring fantasy is no longer needed !!
Steven Mosher wrote:
“When gavin says “tree rings dont matter” what he means is that you can reach the same conclusion WITHOUT that evidence.”
That is a correct interpretation of what he meant, and you are both wrong. The statement is only true if you have conclusive proof that the homeostatic properties of the climate are overwhelmed by a monotonic rise in CO2, and that the rise in CO2 will in all cases lead to a rise in global temperature. Based upon the current state of knowledge about the climate, it is a wildly preposterous claim.
..Mosh always makes ” wildly preposterous claims “, it’s all he’s got left !! LOL
Mosher has just gone silly (something that has unfortunately become increasingly common with him) when he claims that tree rings are just a tool to distract skeptics from the real issues. That’s quite a conspiracy theory – our old friend Lewandowsky could get material for a bunch of new papers just from Mosh. It’s also stupid. Even if we stipulate that tree rings are not necessary for policy conclusions (highly debatable because historic climate reconstructions are an important tool for determining climate sensitivity – Gavin has said so much himself), tree rings are not a distraction for skeptics but for “mainstream” climate scientists. For skeptics, tree rings are a fun topic to impugn Mann, climate chronologies and by association all of climate science. How many times have you heard a version of the following: if climate scientists won’t acknowledge the faults in short-centered PCA or the use of upside down (!) sediment series, how can we trust anything else they do? This is a great stick for skeptics to question the credibility of the whole area.
Mainstream climate scientists are clearly frustrated with having to continually defend the chronologies in general and tree rings in specific. There is a reason why they are crying uncle and and pleading to change the topic, saying hey, this really doesn’t matter.
Mosher likes to believe that the skeptics are losing the debate. On the contrary, from a practical review of the landscape they are winning handily, at least in the US. Climate has been almost a non-issue in the presidential election. Notwithstanding all the hype over the Paris Agreement, there have been almost no real implications for the US and no legally binding obligations. A future president can nullify its (already minimal) impact with a stroke of a pen. Surveys of the electorate and of business leaders show climate change as well down their list of priorities. This is despite the temperature records currently showing record highs. If Mosh were not so blinkered, he may want to reconsider his now oh-so-predictable knee-jerk responses. He has become a silly man.
Mosher;
“You STILL have enough evidence to make the case for policy.”
Specifically what policy do you have in mind?
“You can’t engage an argument unless you understand it.”
The Sokal Affair shows that the only understanding that is needed is that of human nature. Likewise for SciGen.
“You STILL have enough evidence to make the case for policy.”
You do if you wish to make policy. My interest in this affair is that policy preceded science.
It helps if the proxies support a policy decision you’ve already made. Those that don’t go away. How many proxies exist? 150 or so? Many. Most don’t make the cut thanks to PCA (principle components analysis).
It may even be more or less true; every word spoken by every warmist on the planet. What then? How many of Earth’s 7 billion people are going to give up their light, heat and food without a fight? I don’t know but those that seem to be willing to give up modern living seem concentrated in the UK and its former colonies.
Mosh,
“Throw away tree rings, and temperature records and you still have enough evidence for a policy maker to make a decision”???
WHAT EVIDENCE IS THAT? (Yes, I shouted that!)
Without proxies and temperature records, there is nothing at all that indicates the world is warmer now, or will be in the future, than it has ever been! Even WITH them both, it cannot be proven that human emissions are causing ANY of the warming. The best they can say with confidence is that it’s highly likely!
In 1896 ALL we had was evidence that CO2 absorbs specific infrared radiation bands when you trapped air that was highly concentrated with CO2 in a glass container! Period. Everything beyond that fact was speculation. It still is. Today, there is absolutely NOTHING that PROVES (not suggests, implies, extrapolates to, might result in) that a 0.04% concentration of CO2 in an open system where wind, gravitational spin and orbital and tilt cycles, 12 hours with sunlight and 12 hours without, variable clouds, oceans, volcanos, AMOs, plate tectonics, marine volcanic activity are just barely understood, has ANY measurable effect on Earth’s climate!
Maybe you think people should write policies on things they cannot prove. My experience is that sane people think differently.
“WHAT EVIDENCE IS THAT? (Yes, I shouted that!)
1. Simple physics. understood before Al gore
Without proxies and temperature records, there is nothing at all that indicates the world is warmer now, or will be in the future, than it has ever been! Even WITH them both, it cannot be proven that human emissions are causing ANY of the warming. The best they can say with confidence is that it’s highly likely!
1. you dont need to know anything about the temperature to set a policy.
2. You only need to know that more c02 will warm the planet.
3. If you want to Optimize policy , then more detail helps. But you can set policy without having
all the details. For example. We can decide to build a wall without knowing all the materials
required.
In 1896 ALL we had was evidence that CO2 absorbs specific infrared radiation bands when you trapped air that was highly concentrated with CO2 in a glass container! Period. Everything beyond that fact was speculation. It still is.
1. No, we had a good estimate that doubling c02 would raise temps by about 5C
That’s enough detail to set a policy.
Today, there is absolutely NOTHING that PROVES (not suggests, implies, extrapolates to, might result in) that a 0.04% concentration of CO2 in an open system where wind, gravitational spin and orbital and tilt cycles, 12 hours with sunlight and 12 hours without, variable clouds, oceans, volcanos, AMOs, plate tectonics, marine volcanic activity are just barely understood, has ANY measurable effect on Earth’s climate!
1. There is no proof in science
2. We have no proof that lowering taxes is good, yet some evidence suggests it will. So we
support lower taxes.
3. We dont need proof to set policy. We set policy all the time without proof.
Maybe you think people should write policies on things they cannot prove. My experience is that sane people think differently.
1. Of course we should set policy without proof.
2. Proof happens exclusively in math, logic and geometry. I have no proof that lowering taxes
is universally good for all times, places and and situations. Yet I think lower taxes is generally
a good idea. I have no proof that decreasing regulations will always proviide a net benefit to
folks, but I suggest we all are happy with a majority of the evidence supporting this idea.
I have no proof, that a drinking age of 21 is a good idea, but again the balance of evidence
supports this.
The funny thing is none of you ask what policy I thought was supported.
“The funny thing is none of you ask what policy I thought was supported.”
The number of things I have not today asked is large. I appreciate your nuanced replies.
Steven Mosher: “1. No, we had a good estimate that doubling c02 would raise temps by about 5C”
A “good estimate?
No we didn’t.
Stop making stuff up.
Mosher- “The funny thing is none of you ask what policy I thought was supported.”
Thomas at 10:28 am-
Mosher;
“You STILL have enough evidence to make the case for policy.”
Specifically what policy do you have in mind?**
“Simple physics” ? That is your evidence? Because the physics of this planet and every nuance of it’s interacting systems was understood before Al Gore? That makes no sense. If we understood the physics so well that we called them simple, then why was all the research, studies, experiments, and ongoing scientific discovery etc for the past 20 years done at all???
Evidence is evidence. Physics help you discover, experiment with, and understand the evidence. But “simple physics” isn’t evidence of anything.
And I’ll adopt your own logic and say “I have no proof that CO2 is a beneficial and necessary part of life or that it has any effect upon the actual temperatures of Earth, but it just so happens that as it has increased human life has prospered on every level, and the overwhelming balance of evidence supports that, so I say we don’t set any policies regarding it.”
And you just said, that there is no proof in science. So you can’t prove with science that we need to either.
“In 1896 ALL we had was evidence that CO2 absorbs specific infrared radiation bands when you trapped air that was highly concentrated with CO2 in a glass container! Period. Everything beyond that fact was speculation. It still is.
1. No, we had a good estimate that doubling c02 would raise temps by about 5C
That’s enough detail to set a policy.”
Eh ????? We’ve had a half-doubling of CO2 – where’s the 2.5C – even including the scientific fr@ud of Trofim Karl et al. ?? Are you still adding in the moronic phony water vapor feedback ??
…. and just to remind you – for it to be anthropogenic, it has to be effects above the 280 ppm pre-industrial levels. Where’s that in the Arrhenius “simple physics” paper ??? We’ve moved on from 1896 mate.
catweazel666-
I always wonder why people like Mosher don’t accept/discuss Arrhenius’s 1906 recanting and revised estimate of the effect of a doubling of CO2 being 1.2°C directly and 2.1°C with the water vapor feedback effect included. I mean….scientific knowledge advances right? And even Arrhenius was willing to admit that he’d overestimated the impact of CO2 by 250+%!!!
Aphan: “I always wonder why people like Mosher don’t accept/discuss…”
As Upton Sinclair remarked, “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”
Steven Mosher March 31, 2016 at 9:00 am
Heck in 1896 when we knew that increased C02 would warm the planet we had enough evidence for a policy maker to make a decision.
Well then we also knew there were canals on Mars. “Enough evidence for a policy maker to make a decision.”
Well enough for a writer (H.G. Wells) to write a popular book. Good radio broadcast too.
http://scienceblogs.com/universe/2012/09/28/the-canals-of-mars/
michael
“… is that you (they) can reach the same conclusion WITHOUT (any significant) evidence.” BETTER.
or
“…is that you (they) can reach the same conclusion WITH (contrary) evidence.” BEST
The “conclusions” were reached a long time ago, based on politics (policy), the quest for notoriety (and then funds), and the 1896 CO2 theory that you referenced. Everything else is primarily window dressing. So yes, it doesn’t matter what data you (or they) keep or throw out; the “conclusions” will remain the same.
“he took the cowardly approach and refused to be on-set with Dr. Roy Spencer.
So much for high level discourse.”
You don’t understand…”high level discourse” means discourse with anyone who disagrees with him.
By the warmist definition, a conversation or debate with a “climate denier” would be “low level discourse” which is beneath them.
Tree-ring proxy reconstructions have not been completely useless.
They have allowed a significant number of alarmists to expose themselves as gullible morons who would defend the transparently indefensible – proving that such a defense served their personal obsessions.
So, thanks to Michael Mann, we here, and future historians will have had an opportunity to look into the machinations of the minds of those who seek to bend science to fit with their ideologies.
Hurrah, for tree-ring proxies. And a big thanks to Mike Mann.
How is that Mann’s tree rings research amounts to nothing?! He is tenured, distinguished professor, teaching students in the institution that charges ~$52,000/year tuition. He is set for life with >$150,000/9months salary. He is evaluating research proposals, reviewing submitted articles. He will retire when he wants retaining “Professor Emeritus” status. Hi will amount multimillion dollar income just from PennState. And on and on and on…. This is fantastic career and great achievement! Yes, it comes from useless and questionable research… So, what is the system that allows people like that to prosper and dominate? And, what is the system when such a case is the norm and not an exception (here I submit that majority of academia is like that)?
Spot on Walt, well said. The tree rings matter a great deal. Wasn’t it these tree rings that were used as a lynch pin in the great hockey stick graph that spawned much of the ridiculous “Carbon pollution” policy’s we have today. All of these failed hypotheses need to be revisited and publicly declared valid or invalid.
Thanks to Gavin for publicly confirming that Mann’s tree hypothesis is invalid. No lets try and reverse all of the damaging policy that followed this failure.
The hockey stick was useful when they wanted to sell the Kyoto Treaty. Now that the updated hockey sticks no longer look like hockey sticks, they are not as interested to use them.
If this is Gavin’s position, then why did they kick Jim Bouldin off of RealClimate’s list of contributors last year?
Looking at Jim’s blog, the only difference I see is over the use of treerings.
Treemometers were ever only good for one thing – the hockey schtick. It was good while it lasted. But for them to now claim, “Oh, we never really needed it” is laughable.
A better version
Gavin Schmidt — I Got The Data In Me
(most sorry Kiki Dee)
I got no troubles at NASA
I’m a rocket nothing can stop
Survival’s always the first law
And I’m in with those at the top
I heat up
I cool down
A site I don’t like I discard it
The high and the mighty can frown
So say what they want they reward it
Man is the measure
Of all things that be
Post Normal Science
Needs my compliance
And I got the data in me
I work in the mists and the fogs
by methods that none can review
To hide like a fox from the dogs
The premise of all that I do
The thermometers all want skilling
If their readings are not alarming
As the early ones all need chilling
So the later ones all need warming
Man is the measure
Of all things that be
Protagoras said
What to Nietzsche led
And I got the data in me
The truth’s a consensus of thought
We agree to agree about
A joy for so long we have sought
Our minds ever free of all doubt
We are born uncertain of heart
And live in fear of things unknown
Consensus is truly the start
Of our souls becoming our own
Man is the measure
Of all things that be
To Socialist drums
The Superman comes!
And I got the data in me
I heat up
I cool down
A site I don’t like I discard it
The high and the mighty can frown
So say what they want they reward it
Eugene WR Gallun
Applause! 9+
Third stanza change
Man is the measure
Of all things that be
Post Normal Science
Newspeak compliance
And I got the data in me
An even better third stanza change
Man is the measure
Of all things that be
In perfect compliance
Is Post Normal Science
And I got the data in me
So Mann throws Karl under a bus and Schmidt throws man under a bus.
When the food runs out rats start to eat each other
*Throws Mann under a bus, oh mannn! 😀
Given the audits over the past number of years surely even Schmidt cannot deny, if even only to himself, that the proxy reconstruction had more holes in it than a square km block of Emmental cheese, and knew of it’s sordid process that it evolved in.
But then again, Gav is pretty arrogant, and it would not be unlike him to let his disdain for others’ research slip out now and then, he pished on everyone who’s done a reconstruction with tree rings, not just Mann.
He also pished on former greats of science, might have some sort of superiority complex.
Yes, indeed. To wake up once and discover that you have metamorphosed into a cockroach may be regarded as a misfortune. To do it several times looks like carelessness.
Re: Funny Friday
Three days ago I posted a link to a short sketch by two well known British comedians as a parody on my ‘conversations’ with Dr. S’s.
As the faith would have it, one of them (the dimwit) died today, I hope for sake of my family it isn’t some kind of a bad omen.
Ronny C was among the best, and as a tribute to his talent I hope you would spare couple of minutes and have a good laugh. You can find it here:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/03/26/but-is-it-true-the-research-of-aaron-wildavsky-twenty-years-later/#comment-2176353
Ronnie Corbett was great. I met him a couple of times many years ago. A lovely and very talented man.
RIP Ronnie.
Let’s see .. George Washington cut down an 18th century cherry tree.
What would be different Gavin asks?
http://www.realclimate.org/images/N-Scan.jpg
VS
http://www.drroyspencer.com/library/pics/2000-years-of-global-temperature.jpg
For those of you with 20:2,000 vision, I assure you that there is a big difference in the two temperature reconstructions.
Or is Gavin suggesting that even the hockey stick reconstruction is erroneous given the data it is based on? That may be a correct assertion.
Would you like to give us the attributions for those graphs?
Toneb
Click.On.Them.
So, how do they compare ?
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/SvS.gif
It strikes me that they are trying to step away from their weak claims, a bit like when they tried saying that global warming had nothing to do with temperature (sorry, I don’t have the link right to hand). I think it’s a case of “This is all so important, facts don’t mater. Forget about the tree rings, they don’t matter.”
The way I see it, Gavin’s not stepping away from anything except maybe association.
Typo – “mater” = “matter”. Apologies.
I wonder when Mann is going to sue Gavin for defamation ala Mark Steyn.
Tree rings are very useful for telling us how old it is. We can even overlap the rings of long-dead trees to get the dates, right to the year, for buried log houses in swamps and such like. Very useful.
Lest we forget, here is Gavin not engaging in a higher level of conversation:
Gavin believes the climate models, and if the tree rings are controversial, noisy, or shady, they can be tossed. He is equally ready to toss the satellite data. Interesting that he misses the fact that something is needed to test his beloved models outside of the calibration period. Something, oh, like tree ring data.
Gavin is a mathematician, to balance his global warming models equations he only needs couple of fudge factors.
The new line is a profound surrender and a lie: The hockey stick was wrong but harmless.
Let me count the harms, and the cures.
===================