Guest opinion: Dr. Tim Ball
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) claim with 95 percent certainty that they completed a 5000-piece puzzle using only eleven pieces. The pieces are shown in the Radiative Forcing diagram (Figure 1) from AR5. By their assessment, they have high confidence in only five of these pieces. Those ratings are questionable and self-serving. For example, they list CO2 as very high when their prediction of its function is undermined by the lack of temperature increase for the last 20 years.
Figure 1
One of the strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPP) against me emerged from an article with the central theme that the IPCC set climate research back 30 years. This was inevitable given the definition of climate change in Article 1 of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The definition, as they planned, predetermined the results.
“a change of climate which is attributed directly or indirectly to human activity that alters the composition of the global atmosphere and which is in addition to natural climate variability observed over considerable time periods.”
By the time of the IPCC Assessment Report 4 (AR4) in 2007, they inserted a broader definition.
“Climate change in IPCC usage refers to any change in climate over time, whether due to natural variability or as a result of human activity.”
It appeared as a footnote in the Summary for Policymakers (SPM) of AR4. Apparently the purpose is to let them say if challenged, that they changed the definition. The problem is they didn’t and couldn’t because the Reports are cumulative. This action requires starting over.
The definition directed world attention and research focus to CO2 and temperature exactly as those controlling the political agenda of anthropogenic global warming (AGW) planned. The trouble is this enhanced already existing biases and inadequacies. The main element overlooked, ignored, or misapplied is water. It is not surprising considering the lack of proxy data and modern instrumental measures of water in all its forms.
One serious misdirection involved the use of tree rings as a proxy for temperature in the infamous ‘hockey stick’ graph in the 2001 IPCC Report. The sad part is tree rings offer a valuable proxy source that crosses the boundary between the secular (instrumental) record with the historic record of approximately 6000 years. Gradually people are producing long-term precipitation records from tree rings. A 2014 paper, “A 3,500-year tree ring record of annual precipitation on the northeastern Tibetan Plateau” is identified as
“the production and climatic interpretation of a tree-ring width chronology that is currently the longest, absolutely dated series produced for the northeastern Tibetan Plateau and one of the longest in the world.”
It concludes,
Precipitation in this region during the last 50 years has been historically high—likely higher than for any equivalent length period in at least 3,500 years, even when considering the chronology and interpretational uncertainty. Notable dry periods occurred in the 4th century BCE and in the second half of the 15th century CE.
Cross referencing these with other proxy records such as paleosols can provide a valuable history from which to determine changing climate mechanisms. Figure 2 shows the location of sand dunes in the Carberry desert or Brandon Sand Hills of southwest Manitoba.
Figure 2
Figures 3a, b, and c show three distinct paleosols exposed in a cross section of one dune.
Figure 3 a
The paleosols are visible at the top of the dune.
Note the microclimate with trees on the north slope where evaporation is less than on the south slope, leaving sufficient moisture for trees. (Author’s photos).
3 b: This is the deepest most well-developed soil profile.
3 c: The current top soil and two distinct lower paleosols related to wetter periods.
The authors conclude,
Most notable paleosol development occurred around 2300 to 2000, 1400 to 1000, and 600 to 500 cal yr BP with eolian activity occurring before and after each of these periods. Episodes of eolian activity may correspond to periods of regional drought, whereas paleosols mark periods of increased moisture availability and stabilization by vegetation.
These records indicate how much more climate information precipitation data yields and are essential to understanding climate change.
Glaciation is another area where the temperature has overridden the role of precipitation in the life cycle. A glacier forms when some snow survives the summer melt for several years. It is assumed that a temperature decline is required. However, it is possible that the snow amount increases allowing some to survive the summer. Once the snow survives, the albedo changes increasing the chance for survival without a temperature change. As the snow layers accumulate and the ice becomes plastic, the ice begins to flow. Balance develops between the accumulation and the ablation zone (Figure 4).
Figure 4
The glacier advances all the time internally as long as the ice is plastic (ductile). The snout of the glacier on the right side of the diagram advances or retreats: sometimes because of temperatures, but also if the snowfall in the Zone of Accumulation increases or decreases.
One of the interesting features of the end of the Pleistocene ice sheet was the rate at which melt occurred. Ablation was rapid as the change in sea level chart indicates (Figure 5). Meltwater Phase 1A occurred between 14,700 and 13,500 years ago. There is no doubt that the overall cause of melting was a temperature increase, but the rapid sea level rise is more likely due to a significant increase in rainfall. If you put a block of ice in the sink, it melts slowly. Run water over it and the melt rate increases significantly. Also, rotten ice on the surface has a lower albedo than snow or pure ice.
There are other issues like the amount of CO2 absorbed in the atmosphere by water droplets and raindrops. We don’t know how much because actual measures of the amount of water in the atmosphere and how it varies over time are not available.
Figure 5
Is it possible that variation in the amount of water in the atmosphere and the CO2 it absorbs is equal to the amount humans add?
In a recent article, I examined the issue of aerosols and their role in atmospheric physics. All aerosols eventually fall out of the sky as a function of their size and weight. Gravity is the largest force removing aerosols from the atmosphere. However, two major mechanisms involve water. Aerosols are a nucleus around which water vapor condenses, and rain washes them out. Take a look at a surface after raindrops evaporate and see the residue. All these factors involve water that changes the transmissivity of the atmosphere. How much do they affect global climate mechanisms during wetter periods?
The IPCC deliberately limited the variables. They claim the 5000 – piece puzzle is effectively finished when science hasn’t identified the four corner pieces or most of the edge pieces. The number and complexity of those omitted are vast, and most of them exceed the IPCC claims for the role of human produced CO2. Despite this, they draw almost definitive conclusions that are the justification for devastating climate and energy policies. Their actions are beyond pseudoscience. The definition of which is,
“A collection of beliefs or practices mistakenly regarded as being based on scientific method.”
The key word is “mistakenly”. There is nothing mistaken in the deliberate, premeditated actions of the IPCC. Besides, if they were mistaken, then they are grossly incompetent.
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It has never been about climate..It is purely about power and control for the liberal elite !
Thats right. UNEP, UNFCCC and IPCC is the new “Holy” left, some would call them cultural Marxism. It’s the translation from economic to cultural focus and domination. They hope to get their revolution by dominating our culture, science and media.
It’s the “Dominionism” of the Loony Left. They want to destroy humanity to “save the planet”.
It is misleading and a mistake to call them “liberal.” From Jo Nova, 1 May 2016: *Liberals? For foreigners, “liberal” in Australia still means something like a real liberal — a free-market, small-government player. In the US progressives stole the term and the silly Republicans let them misuse it.”
I agree, Tom . . illiberal is actually a more accurate term. It’s like bank robbers dressing as nuns, not nuns gone criminal.
…knocked that one out of the park
…or a straight hit six right over the bowler’s head
I know where are the bases in Baseball but…
Where are the crickets in Cricket?
The crickets are what you hear instead of fans. A bit less entertaining than watching the grass grow
“The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) claim with 95 percent certainty that they completed a 5000-piece puzzle using only eleven pieces.”
And the more amazing thing is that, as with the CMIP5 models, they admit they don’t use all of the pieces!
true, but “all the pieces” have one common denominator that fits. $ signs.
And they fit the Holy left narrative
And using economic motivation, capitalism, is a part of their Plan.
AGW is comprised of three words-anthropogenic global warming. There is a tendency to forget the anthropogenic, and focus on global warming. As the links between CO2 levels and warming are dubious, the humnan-caused portion of what warming there is goes away. George Orwell was right, politicians (claiming to scientists, but politicians nevertheless) use language in strange ways.
Not to mention the fourth word, catastrophic. The only reason, so we were told, that such immediate and urgent action was needed was because the consequences would be catastrophic.
They seem to have dropped the c word when no catastrophes happened.
So now it seems we must take expensive action or else the world might get a little bit warmer!!
Guess I’d better run to the hills.
Yes, first they dropped the ‘catastrophic’ word; then the ‘anthropogenic’ word was sidelined, then in desperation ‘global warming’ morphed into the banal and unfalsifiable ‘climate change’. Variations such as ‘climate disruption’, ‘extreme weather’ etc are trotted out for special occasions.
“Somebody’s going to steal your wallet! Quick, give it to me for safekeeping!”
Tim,
Best article in a long time. I love the puzzle piece analogy.
contrivance in climate science has spread like a cancer to every aspect of it.
for example, in wg1 ar5, they state the uncertainties in the flows that constitute the carbon budget and then ignore them in the carbon budget computations, here is what happens if you take their budget and add into it their own stated uncertainties.
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2654191
the other grossly insincere contrivance is the use of correlations between cumulative values to establish causal relationships – for example cumulative changes in atmospheric CO2 is correlated with cumulative emissions and surface temperature (=cumulative warming) is correlated with cumulative emissions. yet, it is easily shown that correlations between cumulative values are spurious because cumulative values of even random numbers tend to be correlated under the same conditions in which these correlations are presented.
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2725743
climate science is not an objective search for truth given the data but a well organized attempt to establish the truth of AGW regardless of the data.
@chaamjamal: I don’t often follow up your links. I must do so more often. In the paper at the first link, I read “Given its level of uncertainty, the carbon budget of the IPCC AR5 is unable to discriminate between a world with fossil fuel emissions and one without fossil fuel emissions.”
I haven’t checked the numbers, but sources are given, and the numbers are handled sensibly. I’m in shock. This is DAMNING. It means, quite simply, that the Mauna Loa observations (which are fairly direct measurements) tell us that atmospheric CO2 concentration is increasing, but there simply is no empirical basis for asserting that it’s all due to us. And THAT means that there’s no empirical basis for asserting that, for example, shutting down my country’s one and only coal-fired power station will have any material effect on climate. (The Green party sent me e-mail urging me to tell my power company to roll over and play dead. The message I sent was just the opposite.)
Richard A. O’Keefe,
Sorry, but Chaamjamal’s source is quite unreliable…
Of course, if you have a lot of carbon cycles each with its own error bars, the combination of all these individual flows has huge error bars.
What the author forgets is that you don’t need to known any individual CO2 flux in or out, as you know how much humans have emitted and the resulting increase in the atmosphere. Both errors are a lot smaller than the combined errors of the individual carbon cycles, which are only rough estimates.
CO2 emissions are based on fossil fuel sales (taxes!) and burning efficiency and CO2 measurements are very accurate (+/- 0.2 ppmv). That makes that after 2-3 years the increase in the atmosphere is by far outside the natural variability, including the error bars…
Chaamjamal,
As already several times said to you, the author of the second link didn’t prove anything. While accumulation of two variables in general may give a spurious correlation, that doesn’t prove that any such correlation must be spurious. Simply add two independent variables together: one with a straight trend and no variability and another with a pure sinusoidal and no trend. The residual mix is a sinusoidal with a trend.
According to the article, the correlation with the first variable is spurious as if you detrend the slopes the correlation ceases, while in reality 100% of the trend is caused by the first variable and 100% of the variability by the second and by detrending you simply remove the correlation with the first variable and only the correlation with the “noise” around the trend remains…
Of course one need additional observations to be sure that a correlation is also causation. In this case all observations support that humans are the cause of the CO2 increase, due to their use of fossil fuels:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/co2_origin.html
About the first link by the same author, that doesn’t count either: One doesn’t depend on any individual CO2 flux to know how much CO2 is absorbed or released by nature after a full cycle. All you need to know is the uncertainty of human emissions inventories and of the CO2 measurements in the atmosphere.
The first error bar is +/- 1 GtC/year, the second is +/- 0.4 GtC/year or a total error of +/- 1.5 GtC/year on 9 GtC/year human emissions and 4.5 +/- 3 GtC/year increase. The latter variability is the measured year by year variability, not the error. Thus human emissions hardy exceed natural variability and error bars within one year but certainly exceed them within several years…
Thanks again Dr.ball, your a giant amongst real scientist instead of the bought and sold wannabe scientist who would sell their souls for a piece of the tainted grant money..
And where is H2O listed in that first chart Figure 1.)??
Do we humans emit enough H2O into the atmosphere to make a discernable difference?
I think we emit more molecules of H2O than CO2 from combustion of hydrocarbons. Am I right?
Apparently coal use in Asia is leading to increased aerosol emissions causing cooling and reducing rainfall in South Asia..
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/full/10.1175/JCLI-D-15-0555.1
And it gets worse……..”Conversely, Asian aerosol emissions may remotely affect regions in other parts of the world. For example, Menon et al. (2002) stated, “The BC absorption in China and India causes a significant warming (>0.5 K) in the Sahara Desert region and in west and central Canada”
However these chaps looked at aerosol research and came up with a very large….. “don’t know what is going on”..to paraphrase a little..
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/store/10.1029/2011RG000369/asset/rog1732.pdf;jsessionid=CFAABA65C5B6BE3FDC1A57B439782DF6.f02t01?v=1&t=inphszos&s=97422582fc801bbba1801c9b03b9d0fb53730062
“The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) claim with 95 percent certainty that they completed a 5000-piece puzzle using only eleven pieces.”
That is one of the best lines I have ever read. That’s going on my wall. 🙂
Regarding “For example, they list CO2 as very high when their prediction of its function is undermined by the lack of temperature increase for the last 20 years”: Despite AMO, PDO and solar activity having a downward trend during the past 20 years (or the past two ~11-year solar cycles), global temperature increased slightly even according to the UAH V.6 and RSS V.3.4 versions of satellite-measured lower troposphere temperature.
Furthermore, Dr. Roy Spencer in his blog has gone along with the IPCC figure for direct effect of CO2 being 3.7 W/m^2 per doubling of CO2. He argues that the natural feedbacks are less-positive/more-negative than considered most probable by IPCC, and that natural climate variability has been getting short shrift in recent years of money being available for studying manmade climate change and its effects.
Neither the AMO of the PDO have been downward for twenty years.
also, let us see what happens after the currently manifesting La Nina and if the AMO actually continues its current cooling trend, (it is still near the top, and IF the PDO goes negative.
Look at the AMO chart. Note that the cooling did not peak at the maximum of the negative AMO, but lagged several years behind the 1978-79 global cooling max of .4 degrees. Clearly there has not been a downward AMO for anything like 30 years. The PDO went positive again several years back, and is only now showing signs of reversing. One would expect major lags in solar cycle flux from years to a decade or longer.
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“The key word is “mistakenly”. There is nothing mistaken in the deliberate, premeditated actions of the IPCC. Besides, if they were mistaken, then they are grossly incompetent.”
*
This is very much the point. This is why we should not allow this doom-mongering and this false science to quietly disappear once all the money is gone. It’s too big, it has cost too much and without a doubt they will be back again in a generation or two with a new version and after more money. This HAS to be dealt with, and I’m not talking any slap on the wrist either. This is deliberate and on a massive scale. It is a crime of huge proportions and should be treated as such. Worse, their “solutions” have been – and are – the biggest threat to civilization we have ever faced.
“The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) claim with 95 percent certainty that they completed a 5000-piece puzzle using only eleven pieces.”
Even worse, the eleven pieces were part of a different puzzle!
Another great essay Dr. Ball. Thanks.
“A collection of beliefs or practices mistakenly regarded as being based on scientific method.”
It’s the “consumer” of the “science” who make the mistake it’s science.
Or it’s dress up as science and it’s mistakenly regarded to be science.
So if selling weigh loss pills, and have the salesmen wear lab coats so the consumer could
imagine it is scientific.
Or if some garbage is written in Nature magazine, and it can mistakenly regarded as
based on scientific method.
Expert opinion by famous scientists- generally a clue, it’s pseudoscience.
Bill Nye does science show- therefore he is suppose to be scientist??
Pseudo science is stealing the “brand” of science.
It’s the war hero, who has never seen war.
Can these frauds be so deluded as to imagine they doing something which using a scientific
method? {what’s that? Or that’s old school, we make the truth]
Yes, I suppose in climate science this is possible- as there is a massive amount
delusion and money involved.
Not beyond pseudoscience- it’s just plain old pseudoscience in massive quantities.
Anybody know where I can obtain a lab coat? I know Hollywood has lots of them but I don’t think they are for sale
Wasn’t Obama passing them out at one of his “press conferences” at one time … he might still have some.
Some Port Moody students are making a film about B.C.s glaciers.
https://twitter.com/Protonice/status/727069487820742656
Dr. Ball,
Some remarks on:
There are other issues like the amount of CO2 absorbed in the atmosphere by water droplets and raindrops.
Simply negligible: fresh water absorbs very little CO2 at 0.0004 bar in the atmosphere. From:
http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/gases-solubility-water-d_1148.html
the solubility of CO2 at 0°C and 1 bar pressure is 3.3 g/kg water. For 0.0004 bar (400 ppmv) that is 1.32 mg/kg.
1 liter or kg of rainwater is formed from minimum 400 m3 of air, if all water content condenses, which never is the case. 400 m3 of air contains around 400 g CO2, thus its CO2 content is reduced with ~5 ppmv. Hardly a difference. Moreover, most air movements that remove a lot of water as vapor from the oceans also remove above average CO2 from the same warm(er) ocean surface… Additionally, that part of the carbon cycle is as fast as the water cycle; a matter of days before that CO2 and water returns to the surface (70% ocean…).
The only more permanent removal of CO2 by rainwater is from the chemical attack on (mainly) carbonate rock on land, which makes bicarbonates which largely remain in solution. Even that process needs millions of years to dig out the beautiful caves all around the world…
It was the similar chart in the Third Assessment Report that turned me from a tentative believer into a skeptic. It just made no sense that they could claim high confidence in the conclusion with middling-to-low confidence in several of the inputs. And I didn’t even realize that they were leaving out that many “pieces of the puzzle”.
Two thoughts: not everything that is important can be measured and not everything that can be measured is important enough to be controlled.
Second: isn’t TSI more like 1350 W/m not 1750. We see that the variance is .1 % but isn’t that 1.3 watts, in the same range as the supposed forcing?
My few minutes of research has led me to believe that 1750 is the year 1750, some kind of pre-industrial time reference.
“The snout of the glacier on the right side of the diagram advances or retreats: sometimes because of temperatures, but also if the snowfall in the Zone of Accumulation increases or decreases.”
I have thought that was the case for years (40 – 50), in fact it was probably taught to me in school or I read it in the 50’s and 60’s. However, have only heard “Its because it is warmer/colder” with no mention of more/less snow fall since this myth started.
From http://www.antarcticglaciers.org/glaciers-and-climate/mapping-worlds-glaciers/
Number of glaciers — From the RGI, we can learn that there are 198,000 glaciers in the World. However, this is a slightly arbitrary quantity, as it depends on the quality of the digital elevation model used, mapping resolution, and the minimum-area threshold used. Most analysts use a minimum area threshold of 0.1 km2; they will not map anything smaller than this due to difficulties in distinguishing between glaciers and snowpacks. If these small glacierets are including, the number of glaciers in the World could be up to 400,000, but they would still only account for 1.4% of the World’s glacierised area.
Together, these glaciers cover 726,000 km2. The region with the most ice is the Antarctic and Subantarctic, with 132,900 km2, closely followed by Arctic Canada North (104,900 km2). At the other end of the scale, New Zealand has only 1160 km2 of ice. In total, 44% of the World’s glacierised area is in the Arctic regions, and 18% is in the Antarctic and Subantarctic. Glaciers cover 0.5% of the Earth’s land surface13.”
——————————————————-
It appears all of the “glaciers are melting” is pure hype, fear mongering, etc .
Why do we only hear about a few of these glaciers?
Is the sum total increasing or decreasing?
How many of these have been surveyed and quantized? – [My research says less than 1/3 of the total mass]
Since snowfall is “weather” is it not to be expected that some years glaciers in areas will grow and in other areas will shrink? Further, once they have shrunk it would it not take time to grow back again?
Take heart : You can fool all people some of the time; you can fool some people all of the time – but you cannot fool all people all of the time.
The problem is that those people being fooled make up most of the voters.
The “problem” is very smart A-holes, I say, not average folks deceived by them.
Everyone go see the Climate Hustle movie tonight .
Even I, who hasn’t gone to the movies in many years, is going.
I’ll be wearing my tin foil hat.
http://www.climatehustlemovie.com/
1750 – – Those were the good old days.
The climate was perfect.
So say the silly warmunists.
The IPCC 95% number is pulled out of a hat (or from about two feet lower) and has no meaning at all.
If the number was 97%, that would have meaning, as 97% is a MAGIC NUMBER in climate change land.
95% is an arbitrary number, with no scientific meaning, summarizing the personal opinions of biased climate activists, and scientists who often have their government jobs ONLY because they say they believe in a coming global warming catastrophe.
I predict the level of confidence will be 105% in the next IPCC assessment — during the vote some scientists will try to move the prior 95% higher by voting twice (considered okay in climate change land), and the result will be 105% confidence.
If 5% (4.76%) of the scientists change their minds, the 105% confidence level will decline to 100%, which is even better than 97%.
I am 105% confident climate change cult members are people pushing a socialist big government agenda … and left-wing politicians use scientists on government payrolls as props to support their desire for more power over the private sector.
Competent science is irrelevant to the climate cult, and always has been.
The environment is irrelevant too — that’s why the climate cult overlooks gross pollution in China and other parts of Asia, in favor of demonizing airborne plant food, and demanding that governments do something.
Free climate change blog for non-scientists.
No ads.
No money for me.
A public service.
http://www.elOnionBloggle.Blogspot.com
Ahh. No. That’s what they want you to think—and fight over—because you don’t understand how federal accounting works in a monetarily sovereign country like the USA, assuming you’re American. (But even if you’re not, it works the same in other monetarily sovereign countries like Great Britain, Japan, Australia, and Canada.) I keep trying to educate people here about how it works, but many still think we’re functioning under a gold-standard world, or think we should, and still entertain an 1898-grade fear of socialism.
It’s the transnational corporations and their ’multi-trillion investor alliance’ who are running this show but you can’t see that unless you understand how money works on a macroeconomic—not microeconomic, big diff—level. Don’t believe me? Just look at the participants in the financial arm of the UNFCCC.
This crew didn’t succeed in Copenhagen in 2009, but that didn’t stop them from setting up the legal arm in the interim in anticipation of Paris, 2015: TPP, TTIP, TISA. The latter is the truly draconian democracy killer. Passage of these three so-called trade agreements will assure unfettered access to global resources that they want to control and profit from. And if they succeed, there ain’t nuthin’ you can do about it. (Thanks you, putz Obama.)
Most importantly, it will assure that this crew can get
(1) unlimited government funds protecting their investments from sovereign participating governments (USA, GB, Japan, Canada, Australia); all fiat, so no skin off the issuer’s back to hand them over to block CO2.
(2) the public behind them because they’ve already brainwashed the young through fear à la Lenin. “Give me four years to teach the children and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted.” Done.
(3) the world’s thanks for eliminating, or trying to eliminate, a coming catastrophic scourge. Oh! Aren’t we saviors!
The most brilliant piece is that the third-world country elites are happy to go along with this because they will get their USD bribes to comply. The poor in the rich countries will be subsidizing the rich in the poor countries because the rich country leaders have abandoned them.
And all this crew has to do is to get you to believe—and fight among ourselves—that this is some socialist plot. Then they have you. You’ll fold like a cheap suit. Looks like you already have.
Study the money. (And stay away from any Univ. of Chicago PhD in economics.)
The truth and nothing but the truth!
I have yet to see the equations of “forcing” I can implement in terms of the various spectra and their surface and atmospheric mapping , and the spectrum of the Sun . Surely the physics must be expressible in a single page .
Since 2014, Nye has divided his time between the Encino neighborhood of Los Angeles and the Chelsea district of Manhattan.
I bet he flies to and fro, greens go by air.