I’m traveling today, and my ability to connect to the Internet will be hit and miss. Therefore, I’ve decided to run an open thread along with this question: What Could We do Better?
This applies to WUWT, it’s readers, moderators and guest contributors. Constructive criticisms and feedback are welcome, but for my blog spawn and detractors, your feedback is welcome too, but please leave your rants, vitriol, and hate mail at the front door.
For contributors with posting privileges, feel free to publish today if the mood strikes you.
Anything we can do, you can do better.
If not for that, each would have their own letter.
But maybe this thread will bear fruit.
I like everything about the variety of topics presented and the way they are presented, from the eloquent to the sophomoric, even the vacuous presentations devoid of anything other than hot air.
I still hate the nested comment design, but less so than when it first changed over.
I keep telling myself that one of these days, I will write a post about what research says about what climate might have been like at the peak of past interstadials and whether or not this present one compares well with previous ones, or if it is catastrophic or could become catastrophic before the cold stadial cometh, regardless of where the source of warmth comes from. Maybe when life slows down.
I have never seen this on a blog [any I have read anyway], but I would really appreciate a “grade” which would represent readability/sensibility/worthability by someone at the “top” of this comment foodchain whom I “trust” as a worth skeptic. Anthony would certainly qualify! As a reader who is technical, but not in a climate sense, and who doesn’t spend every waking hour here, I am not familiar with the “local experts” [well, I do know about Dr Svalgaard and Willis and a ….few…. others], and would really appreciate a forewarning by Anthony or his designated rep before I take off into the deep end of some of these posts. I am finding after all these years it is just too much to digest in the blogosphere. I would expect Anthony to grade worthy “dissents” as well, which he seems to do! There is no more valuable site on the Internet on climate “science.” The grade could be in the responder name line, following, like [GRADE: B- by Anthony] or [GRADE: D by Anthony, “worthy…sometimes troll”]. I am sure there will be flame wars about this, but Anthony is the man at the top of the foodchain I trust. He has earned it. There could be multiple grades as well, such as [GRADE:A by Anthony, C by Svalgaard, etc] REALLY need a quick summary of this stuff!
Since the entire trillion dollar per year “Climate Change” industry is balancing itself upon the theory that co2 causes warming, shouldn’t this part of the climate debate be more strongly zeroed in on?
EM, my view is that it has been, in many ways. But there are lots of moving parts. CO2 is a GHG. Experimental fact. It does not saturate because more raises the ERL in the troposphere. Its direct impact is logarithmic. 200-400ppm has same direct impact as 400-800, both 1.1-1.2C. The easy part.
But how much it will actually warm is uncertain because of feedbacks. The two biggest are changes in water vapor and clouds.
The most important water vapor is the upper troposphere, not the surface. It is specific humidity that counts. At those altitudes, specific humidity is impacted by convective processes like tropical thunderstorms that have to be parameterized beause GCMs inherently lack sufficient resolution (by 6-7 orders of magnitude) to numerically simulate. Parameterization raised the attribution problem beetween natural and anthropogenic.
Clouds are complicated because their altitude, entrained precipitation, and optical depth all matter. Even the IPCC admits in both AR4 and AR5 that climate models don’t do clouds well. Same computational constraints, except more like 10-12 orders of magnitude.
You see how murky the issues get in ‘covering’ your ‘simple’ issue.
ristvan, I’m aware of these complicating factors — shouldn’t this murkiness be more zeroed in on?
I guess this is as good a place as any to ask a question.
I used to work for several railroads in the past, and I know that every U.S. railroad (Don’t know about foreign railroads, but probably the same) recorded the temperature and sky conditions, four times a day, from every little station up and down each rail line, from the time those railroads were first established in the 1800’s. The Station Agents would report the weather conditions to the Train Dispatcher’s Office, where the Dispatcher would write all this down on the trainsheets.
I have always wondered if any of this temperature data was ever used in any way, by climate scientists. It would seem to be a really good source, although you would be hardpressed to find this data today. I suppose some railroad historical society might have archived the trainsheets. These records would be about as accurate as anything available.
I not sure if anyone outside the railroad industry even knows these data were available.
No data but a very interesting article from NOAA
http://www.nws.noaa.gov/pa/history/signal.php
Listed below are a selection of the weather forecasting tools.
A red sun has water in his eye.
When the walls are more than unusually damp, rain is expected.
Hark! I hear the asses bray, We shall have some rain today.
The further the sight, the nearer the rain.
Clear moon, Frost soon.
When deer are in gray coat in October, expect a severe winter.
Much noise made by rats and mice indicates rain.
Anvil-shaped clouds are very likely to be followed by a gale of wind.
If rain falls during an east wind, it will continue a full day.
A light yellow sky at sunset presages wind. A pale yellow sky at sunset presages rain.
Thanks for that link, Vukcevic. I found this interesting:
“Thomas Jefferson bought his first thermometer while writing the Declaration of Independence, and purchased his first barometer a few days following the signing of the document. Incidentally, he noted that the high temperature in Philadelphia, PA on July 4, 1776 was 76 degrees. Jefferson made regular observations at Monticello from 1772-78, and participated in taking the first known simultaneous weather observations in America. George Washington also took regular observations; the last weather entry in his diary was made the day before he died.”
I would like to see more on the scientific method and how the warmists seem to be completely ignorant of it. The first time any warmist tells me that man-made global warming has been proven. I simply ask them how that can be since the scientific method works by disproof. When I show them the UC Berkeley web-site on the scientific method that clearly explains this they all go wella wella but but on me.
The recent emphasis on the lack of replication in science is a very welcome development as well.
Yeah, Jon, this scientific method thing seems to have gotten lost on a lot of people. There’s a lady named janice who posts (wonderful) comments here who claims to be a “non scientist” (which in reality of course she is). She keeps on bringing up the scientific method though which, in my mind, qualifies her as being more scientific than many a scientist. I used to post comments at dr spencer’s blog, but now that he’s closed up his comment page, i come here. One thing that i want to do now that i am here is focus more on that one point. That being that agw has never been proven. We don’t really how much recent warming there would be without human emissions. Temps could have been cooler than they are. On the other hand they could be the same (or even warmer). We simply do not know. People forget, this is all theory. And a theory remains but a theory in the absence of verifiable PROOF…
There is no “proof” outside mathematics.
Whatever the scientific method is, scientists work doing science. They publish their methods and results and other scientists study and assess it. If it passes judgement the findings are more-or-less accepted. Until shown to be wrong. Or others may verify it. If it stands the test of time and there is a widespread consensus it becomes reality for rational people.
There is no proof of evolution. Where do you stand on that?
@ur momisugly Dennis Horne
April 24, 2016 at 12:31 pm
=========================================================
Nature will prove or disprove a theory regardless of any consensus.
Evolution remains unproven as does creationism…
(so don’t buy into either one…)
(even though creationism is a better theory)…
Dennis Horne April 24, 2016 at 12:31 pm
“[Scientists] publish their methods and results”
Well, no, sometimes we have to fight tooth and nail to get their method because they don’t want us to see how shonky their work is; or our side has to do a major deconstruction to uncover it.
“.. and other scientists study and assess it.”
Other pseudo-scientists with the same mental bent toward a predetermined conclusion give it a casual reading to ensure it complies with their consensus.
“If it passes judgement the findings are more-or-less accepted.”
If it passes pal-review the findings are accepted by the mutual affirmation society.
“Until shown to be wrong.”
And just who do you suppose is going to do that; and when?
“Until” will be too late; Trillion$ are being wasted now, for purely imaginary reasons.
Where have you been Dennis? Have you not heard of Yamal, where a single treemometer can be used to determine the global temperatures of the past? Or are you not aware how reasonable it is to invert a database to make it correlate with an already contrived curve on a graph? Such things are done by the people you call “scientists.” You need to lift your game mate; if you can’t fool even me, how do you hope to fare with the smarter people on this site?
Slacko, excellent points. Horne is fooling only himself, no one else here.
As Prof Feynman said, “YOU are the easiest person to fool.” That’s what Horne is doing, fooling himself. I think he actually believes what he writes here, incredible as that seems.
You might also add the Jetpack plugin, and make use of some of its wonderful offerings, such as Photon.
goldminor: Nature will prove or disprove a theory regardless of any consensus.
Indeed. The proof of the pudding is in the eating. The pudding is in the ‘oven’.
Science advances one funeral at a time (Planck). I wish all the antis a long life and time to reflect.
I like that when articles are posted, there is a link to the original research paper that was the basis for the WUWT article. Even IF the paper is not open access, most often there is an abstract shown and sometimes graphics that are embedded, are also shown. I like to be able to go back to the source
What about possibly WUWT directed crown funding support ? Say, for media Ads, or court challenges. A dedicated, one stop link, to see all current funding’s, and results of previous efforts.
that’s crowd funding, sorry .
Most boards or comment blogs have a certaiin amount of time the post can be edited or added to. Something like an hour might be nice to go back, finish or edit a post or add a reference link to it.
not sure if its possible on this software?
http://newscenter.lbl.gov/2015/02/25/co2-greenhouse-effect-increase/
Scientists have observed an increase in carbon dioxide’s greenhouse effect at the Earth’s surface for the first time. The researchers, led by scientists from the US Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), measured atmospheric carbon dioxide’s increasing capacity to absorb thermal radiation emitted from the Earth’s surface over an eleven-year period at two locations in North America. They attributed this upward trend to rising CO2 levels from fossil fuel emissions.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/nature14240/metrics/blogs
Observational determination of surface radiative forcing by CO2 from 2000 to 2010
You missed my point entirely… The carbon dioxide growth rate has been tracking with temperature for over half a century. While CO2 is still rising, the growth rate has remained steady as have temperatures (until the last few years). Thus china and india can burn all the coal that they wish without fear of adding to the rate of growth of CO2 in the atmosphere…
afonzarelli. Rate of growth is not the issue, the amount of CO2 is rising. It’s gone from 280 to 400ppm since industrialisation. That’s a 40% increase, well accounted for by burning fossil fuels. Earth has retained more energy as predicted by the greenhouse effect.
We need to get the amount of CO2 down and coal produces more CO2 per unit of heat than say natural gas.
A 40% rise in harmless, beneficial CO2 did not cause the endlessly predicted rise in global temperature. In fact, global T paused altogether for almost 20 years.
Therefore, your conjecture has been falsified. As Einstein and Feynman said, all it takes is for your ‘theory’ to be contradicted by obervations once, and your ‘theory’ is debunked.
Feynman said, “It’s wrong. That’s all there is to it.”
Whatever you’re promoting here, it isn’t science.
There are as many uses for excess CO2 in man’s natural eco-system, as there are for petroleum by products.
Yes, dennis, the rate of growth IS the issue… Let’s say the growth rate stalls at 2ppm per year (as a result of no temperature increase). China and India can keep increasingly burning coal and CO2 would continue to rise at just 2ppm per year. They would not be adding anything to the growth rate of atmospheric CO2. Any agw proponent should view this as very welcome news…
afonzarelli. If we stop emitting CO2 now with CO2 at 400ppm Earth will continue to retain more energy than it did with CO2 at 280ppm. In reality the CO2 level will rise, and there will be further warming.
That is accepted by scientists and governments, which want to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 – 2C by reducing emissions of CO2.
dbstealey. CO2 has increased 40% from 280 to 400ppm and Earth is retaining more energy; manifest by increased global mean temperature and other phenomenon including loss of ice.
This was predicted a hundred years or more ago and reported by scientists working for an oil company.
Your appeals to Einstein and Feynman to cover your inability to comprehend the science, which is clear and incontrovertible, is tedious. I’m quite certain it would be clear to both physicists as it is to every informed scientist and scientific institution and society on the planet.
Horne,
CO2 went up, big time.
Temperatures did not follow.
Your conjecture is debunked. QED
D. Horne says:
Your appeals to Einstein and Feynman to cover your inability to comprehend the science…
Says the science illiterate.
There was no ‘appeal’, I merely pointed out that I am on the same page with Feynman and Einstein,. We understand the Scientific Method. You don’t.
If your “theory” (AKA: your hypothesis, or your conjecture) is contradicted by empirical observations, your “theory” is wrong.
So your CO2=cAGW “theory” is wrong. “That’s all there is to it.” QED
Dennis Horne,
Your arguments would carry more weight if you could quote an academic paper or reliable empirical facts to support every wild statement you are making.
Cheers
Roger
http://www.rogerfromnewzealand.wordpress.com
I would like to see a place where I can put suggestions or questions. Like a forum maybe.
..Top of page..” Submit Story” and ” Tips and Notes” ….
Thanks
I think ‘Tips and Notes’ is the container I was looking for.
The RSS link doesn’t seem to work (at least for me) – perhaps you could fix it
Stefan-Boltzmann Law can be given by:
P = ε σ A T4
Where
σ= Stefan-Boltzmann Constant = 5.67 × 10−8 W/m2 K4
ε = Emissivity, no units
A = Surface Area, m2
T = Temperature, K
P is the Radiation Energy, W/m2.
………………C……….…K………….K^4…………ε….…….W/m^2
Surface………15……….288……6.88E+09…..0.95………370.6
LT CO2………-40……….233…..2.95E+09…0.000092…..0.0
From what I can tell the “back radiation” from CO2 essentially does not exist.
I know there are several S-B & other experts willing and able to chime with critiques.
dbstealey. The prediction was CO2 causes Earth to retain more energy. It has. More CO2 = More Energy.
Do try to grasp the fact it takes a huge amount of energy to heat a large mass such that there is a measurable increase in temperature.
You’ve been told many times Earth has warmed about 1C, most of that in the last 50 years, and your hiatus is not statistically significant. Even your gang’s “most reliable record” satellites show warming. So your claim is wrong.
Temperatures have soared in the Arctic which is losing massive amounts of ice. The Antarctic is also warming and losing ice, although gaining sea ice short term for complex reasons.
All this despite half our CO2 emissions dissolving in the oceans, acidifying them.
So why don’t you stop your nonsense, that the hypothesis has failed. All that has fallen over is your straw man — that it hasn’t been catastrophic (yet). Show me where (for example) the Royal Society, US National Academy of Sciences, American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Physical Society, American Chemical Society, American Meteorological Society or Uncle Tom Cobley released statements saying it was.
Is Al Gore your straw man? He’s no scientist. Is he?
D. Horne,
Wrong again. Nicholas Schroeder explained why right above your comment.
The endless predictions by the alarmist crowd were, among other scary predictions, that runaway global warming and climate catastrophe would be caused by rising CO2.
That has not happened. The alarmist crowd was flat wrong. ALL of their alarming predictions were wrong. No exceptions. Polar bears are proliferating. Oceans are not “acidifying”. Sea level rise is not accelerating. Polar ice has not disappeared. Nothing unusual or unprecedented is happening, therefore you are 100.0% wrong.
You’re getting slaughtered in this thread, Horne, and the basic reason is simple: Planet Earth is not doing what was endlessly predicted. As (harmless, beneficial) CO2 contiues to rise, global tempertures are not rising along with it; there was no global warming at all, as the warming paused for almost twenty years.
Once again it should be pointed out: no one in the climate alarmist crowd is a scientific skeptic. There is zero skepticism, only your belief. The only honest scientists are skeptics, first and foremost.
That eliminates all climate alarmists. If they were honest skeptics, they would have admitted long ago that their CO2=measurable global warming conjecture is wrong — deconstructed by the only real Authority: Planet Earth.
The prediction by scientists was more energy in the system. There is more energy. There is more warming. Ice is being lost. The sea level is rising. There is more flooding.
Your catastrophe is a straw man.
The failed hypothesis is only in your head.
Like the conspiracy you need to explain it.
The Trenberth paper I cite in my postings above and elsewhere shows cooling in figure 10. 7 of the 8 studies posted on the graphic show more energy leaving the ToA than entering, i.e. cooling. BTW the paper was to study what they know/knew about the hydrologic cycle. Just like IPCC TS.6 they concluded, “Not much, not enough, send more money.”
Here it is.
Atmospheric Moisture Transports from Ocean to Land and Global Energy Flows
in Reanalyses
KEVIN E. TRENBERTH, JOHN T. FASULLO, AND JESSICA MACKARO
National Center for Atmospheric Research,* Boulder, Colorado
(Manuscript received 26 October 2010, in final form 7 April 2011)
Kevin Trenberth wrote:
The null hypothesis should now be reversed, thereby placing the burden of proof on showing that there is no human influence.
He was so desperate to support his “heat hiding in the deep oceans” that he was willing to turn the Scientific Method on its head, in effect trying to force skeptics to prove a negative.
And now we have an escapee from the ‘Slayers’ club, trying to explain away the fact that rising CO2 has not caused global warming; the effects are merely coincidental, as any rational reader can see.
Horne’s “more energy in the system” is nothing more than the ‘Slayer’ claims of radiative balance. Empirical observations contradict that claim, therefore it is falsified. And skeptics have no obligation to explain why; just the fact that real world obsevations contradict the “energy in the system” argument is enough to falsify it.
The planet is always right. Wherever there is a contradiction between a “theory” and observations, it is the “theory” that is falsified — not the observation.
Dennis IS amusing, isn’t he?
Yes, amusing because he (Horne) always deflects from the central points:
The alarmist crowd was flat wrong. ALL of their alarming predictions were wrong. No exceptions.
And:
Wherever there is a contradiction between a “theory” and observation, it is the “theory” that is falsified — not the observation.
The alarmist “theory” (actually, only a conjecture) that the rise in CO2 will cause runaway global warming and climate catastrophe began to waver a dozen or more years ago, when they began to call global warming “climate change”.
The only empirical corellation between CO2 and global temperature (T) shows that changes in CO2 follow changes in T. There is plenty of real world evidence showing that relationship.
But there is no verifiable evidence showing that rising CO2 causes a subsequent rise in temperature. That appears to be entirely coincidental.
There are numerous cause-and-effect charts showing that ∆CO2 is caused by ∆T:
That relationship appears across much longer time frames, too:
(Click in charts to embiggen. Note the author’s “NOTE” in the chart.)
But there are NO (non-overlay) charts showing that ∆T is caused by ∆CO2.
Draw your own conclusions…
haha, ok so increasing CO2 is caused by increasing temperature? Oh man oh man. You do realize that the guys running this website readily confirm that CO2 causes temperature to increase (but not by a significant amount).
So your ideas are not even supported on this website. What does that tell you DB? I’m genuinely curious.
Benben
IPCC models say that CO2 adds about 2 W/m^2 of RF to the atmosphere. All things being constant, which they aren’t, then theoretically that added RF should raise the temp 1.5C/century or whatever the model says. That’s what RCP’s 2.6, 4.5, 6.0 & 8.5 are all about. However, as I have noted in other postings and in Trenberth’s figure 10, 2 W/m^2 is lost in the magnitudes, uncertainties, and ebbs and flows of the atmospheric power flux balance. IOW natural variability wipes out anthropogenic miniscule contributions.
Watt is a power unit, energy over time. 3.412 Btu/h or 3.6 kJ/h. English hours w/Btu & metric or SI hours w/ kJ.
Here you go benben; the vertical axis shows ppm per month (so you have to multiply by 12 to get the yearly growth rate):
http://www.woodfortrees.org/graph/plot/esrl-co2/from:1958/mean:24/derivative/plot/hadcrut4sh/from:1958/scale:0.27/offset:0.095
benben says:
haha, ok so increasing CO2 is caused by increasing temperature? Oh man oh man….
If you didn’t come across as an idiot before, your last comment has confirmed that status.
And “haha”, you didn’t even look at the charts I posted, did you? As usual you misrepresented what I wrote. If you had quoted me verbatim, you wouldn’t appear so juvenile with your strawman arguments.
First, I have never said that AGW doesn’t exist. That destroys your stupid strawman.
Next, I’ve repeatedly challenged you and others to produce charts like I posted here, but which show that ∆CO2 is the cause of subsequent ∆T.
But you can’t produce any such charts, can you? You can’t produce a single verifiable chart showing that CO2 subsequently affects temperature. None. Oh man oh man…
Finally, Nicholas Schroeder is right when he points out that natural variability wipes out anthropogenic miniscule contributions.
AGW is simply too minuscule to measure — which is what I’ve always said, and I have never said anything else.
I don’t know which of you is less scientifically illiterate, you or Horne. It’s probably a tie. Neither of you has the least bit of skepticism. You’re both True Believers who can’t produce any verifiable, testable, empirical measurements that quantify what you claim. All you have is your endless assertions; your beliefs. But no verifiable, measurable science.
I post plenty of empirical evidence; charts based on real world data and observations. But all you puppies have are your beliefs.
Tell us: how are your beliefs any different from a religion? No wonder scientific skeptics of your beliefs are demolishing your lame arguments.
Pamela Gray April 24, 2016 at 7:09 am
..I still hate the nested comment design, but less so than when it first changed over…
============================================
I agree, takes more time to get through the comments when you have to back track.
Takes some of us, a long time just to get through and digest some of the topics. Not to mention, the suggested links and then get back and comment or ask questions…
The concept that doesn’t register is consilience.
The evidence points to more CO2 causing more energy; global warming and climate change.
Oh well, never mind. The science is settled. The political path stretches before us.
This is just bear-baiting. A sideshow.
“The evidence points to…”
That’s a whole lot different than saying it has been proven…