Part I: How the central estimate of global warming was exaggerated
By Christopher Monckton of Brenchley
In this new series, I propose to explore the sequence of errors, large and small, through which the climatological establishment has – until now – gotten away with greatly exaggerating climate sensitivity.
The errors have an unholy, cumulative effect, conspiring to bring about an exaggeration that is grievous.
The focus in this series will be on describing each error clearly, so that the commenters who have so vigorously had their say on my earlier descriptions of the current method of determining climate sensitivity can examine them and say whether they think the climatological establishment has come to the right conclusion.
I shall do my best to make it clear when I am describing the official position and when I am describing a proposed alternative view.
By all means criticize me if you think I am wrong about the errors I have identified, or if you think my description of the official position is wrong. But do not hold my feet to the fire for the official position itself: address your criticisms of it to the IPCC secretariat. I am here not to argue for the official position, but rather to raise certain very specific questions about it.
And please read these head posting carefully before you rush to comment. In my last posting, for instance, a commenter wrote that only at a late stage in the follow-up conversation had I introduced the notion that the emission temperature formed part of the basis for determining the reference sensitivity parameter λ0 (see Fig. 2 for an illustration of how the official equation uses this parameter). In fact, the emission temperature had been explicitly determined in the head posting. There is a lot of detail in these postings. Read them carefully.
I shall not be considering the vexed question whether any or all of the errors the climatological establishment have insouciantly perpetrated and then sullenly perpetuated are deliberate, nor the related question of the extent to which certain leading members of that establishment know about the errors but find it socially convenient, politically expedient and, above all, financially profitable to look the other way. I shall merely report the errors as I find them, and invite your comments.
This is Part I of the series. In this first article, I shall describe a rather small error that arises from a consideration that will eventually be seen to have a very large influence on official exaggerations of predicted global warming. You may not think, at this stage, that it is really an error at all. Be patient. As this series unfolds, the full horror of what the climatological establishment has done will be exposed, step by ineluctable step.
Here and throughout the series, temperatures on the absolute or Kelvin scale will be given and anomalies stated in Celsius degrees will be presented as anomalies in Kelvin. Also, for simplicity, the IPCC’s Assessment Reports of 1990, 1995, 2001, 2007 and 2013 will be labeled AR1-5. The series will concern itself chiefly with equilibrium sensitivity.
Let us begin at the beginning. Almost 40 years ago, Charney (1979, p.2), in a report for the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, concluded: “We estimate the most probable global warming for a doubling of CO2 to be near 3 [K], with a probable error of ± 1.5 [K].”
AR1 (p. xxv) concluded that “the models[’] results do not justify altering the previously accepted range of 1.5 to 4.5 [K]”, but added that, “Although scientists are reluctant to give a single best estimate in this range, … a value of climate sensitivity of 2.5 [K] has been chosen as the best estimate.”
AR2 (p. 34) and AR5 (p. 16) concurred, though AR5 declined to provide a central estimate.
Later in this series I shall address the remarkable fact that, after almost 40 years and tens of billions in taxpayers’ dollars, the climatological establishment has been unable (or unwilling) to narrow the interval of official global-warming predictions. So broad is the interval of those predictions that the “settled science” of how much global warming our sins of emission may cause is no more “settled” now than it was in 1979.
For now, however, let us focus on central estimates of climate sensitivity. Since there is now broad agreement among official circles that the radiative forcing in response to a CO2 doubling is 3.7 Watts per square meter (an agreement that we shall in due course find unjustifiable, but that is not for today, so we shall accept it for now ad argumentum), the major reason for the large differences between models’ global-warming predictions is the great variation in estimates of temperature feedbacks – the additional forcing that are thought to arise as a result of the direct warming of the atmosphere caused by the original forcing and are expressed in Watts per square meter of the reference warming that triggered them.
Fig. 1 shows that indeed it is differences in feedbacks that are the cause of the broad interval of “settled-science” climate sensitivities. For climate sensitivities on 3.0 [1.5, 4.5] K imply unitless temperature-feedback factors f on 0.60 [0.23, 0.73] – an interval that is egregiously inconsistent with the remarkable near-thermostasis of the climate evidenced by the ice-cores over the past 810,000 years (see e.g. Jouzel et al., 2007).
The central feature of Fig. 1, for present purposes, is that the climate-sensitivity response ΔT to various values for the feedback factor f is very far from linear. This non-linearity will crop up again and again as this series unfolds, for the modelers, as will be seen in due course, understand it poorly.
Anyone who has ever built an operational-amplifier circuit intended to operate stably will know that a designed-in maximum feedback factor of not more than 0.1 (or 0.01 if possible) is desirable to ensure that anomalies in componentry, assembly, operation and ambient conditions do not induce unwanted runaway responses. The climate is remarkably stable: global temperatures have varied by little more than 3.3 K either side of the period mean for 810,000 years.
Given this near-perfect thermostasis, it is improbable a priori, and will later in this series be demonstrated to be impossible a posteriori, that true feedback values can fall anywhere in the zone marked “unstable” on the graph. The shaded zone, equivalent to an interval [1.5, 4.5] K for final or equilibrium climate sensitivity ΔT, is thus squarely in forbidden territory. But more of that another day.
Fig. 1 The response curve of equilibrium post-feedback climate sensitivity ΔT for feedback factors f on [–0.5, +2.0], showing the singularity at f = 1.0 and the design maximum at f = 0.1 generally adopted by process engineers for electronic circuits intended to perform stably. The shaded region covers the interval 0.60 [0.23, 0.73] of feedback factors f for AR5’s climate sensitivity ΔT on [1.5, 4.5] K, with the central estimate 3.0 K given in Charney (1979).
Back to today, when I am approaching the first little error toe-in-the-water [in passing, you will be delighted to know that the charming Latin adverb for “toe-in-the-water” is pedetemptim].
At present, official climatology tends to take the inter-model mean climate sensitivity as the central estimate of ΔT. However, as Fig. 1 shows, this approach implies a central estimate for the feedback factor f that is a great deal closer to the upper than to the lower bound of the interval of feedback factors f; and it is f that chiefly determines final sensitivity ΔT.
The correct approach, therefore, is to determine the inter-model mean feedback factor f and then to plug that value into the official climate-sensitivity equation (1), illuminated in Fig. 2, to determine the central estimate of final or equilibrium sensitivity.
In the current understanding, the pre-feedback or reference sensitivity determined from the left-hand or feedback part of (1), encompassed by the pale green brace, is 1.16 K. This, too, will turn out to be an exaggeration, but we shall deal with that in future articles.
Fig. 2 Illumination of the official climate-sensitivity equation (1)
From that value and from the predicted upper and lower bounds [1.5, 4.5] K of final or equilibrium climate sensitivity ΔT, it is a simple matter to rearrange the official equation to determine via (2) the feedback factors f corresponding with those bounds:
Thus, for ΔT on [1.5, 4.5] K, the feedback factor f falls on [0.23, 0.73]. The multi-model mean value of f will generally be close to the mean of the upper and lower bounds: thus, the central estimate of f will be about 0.48, from which (1) can be used to approximate the proper central estimate of climate sensitivity corresponding to the interval [1.5, 4.5] K, as (3) shows:
Charney’s central estimate ΔT = 3.0 K is more than one-third greater than this. The central estimate ΔT = 2.5 K in AR1, AR2 came closer to the true central estimate, but is still overstated by 12.5%, or one-eighth. As we say in Scotland, mony a mickle mak’s a muckle, and this apparently insignificant exaggeration is the beginning of the sequence of excesses that compound into a very large exaggeration indeed.
What of the vaunted ensembles of expensive models with which the climatological establishment has attempted to overcome the Lorenz constraint (Lorenz, 1963) on the reliable long-term prediction of future climate states that arises from the extreme sensitivity of the evolutionary path of objects such as the climate to very small variations in the initial conditions (AR3, §14.2.2.2)?
For the CMIP3 and CMIP5 model ensembles, the feedback sums c = Σici, expressed in Watts per square meter per Kelvin, are illustrated graphically in AR5, fig. 9.43a, of which an enhanced detail is shown at Fig. 3.
Fig. 3 Feedback sums c = Σici for CMIP5/AR5 and CMIP3/AR4
The published CMIP3 climate sensitivities are 3.3 [2.1, 4.4] K (AR5, p. 820, §9.7.3, for the bounds; AR5, p. 83, box TFE.6, for the central estimate). As Fig. 3 shows, the interval of feedback sums c in the CMIP3 ensemble was 1.93 [1.53, 2.35] W m–2 K–1. The product of the reference sensitivity parameter λ0 = 0.312 K W–1 m2, determined as shown in Fig. 2, and these values of c is the interval 0.60 [0.48, 0.73] of feedback factors f. Then the final-gain factor G = (1 – f)–1, the ratio of final sensitivity ΔT to the reference sensitivity ΔT0, falls on 2.51 [1.91, 3.74], whereupon equilibrium post-feedback climate sensitivity ΔT = ΔT0 G obtained using (1) accordingly falls on 2.9 [2.2, 4.3] K. The bounds are near-coextensive with those of the published CMIP3 equilibrium-sensitivity interval (assuming just a 3% variance in ΔT0 they would be exact), but the published central estimate is shown to have been overstated by about one-eighth.
For the CMIP5 model ensemble for AR5, a similar analysis may be performed. The published CMIP5 equilibrium-sensitivity interval is 3.2 [2.1, 4.7] K (AR5, p. 83, box TFE.6). The interval of feedback sums c was 1.53 [1.00, 2.25] W m–2 K–1. The product of the reference sensitivity parameter λ0 and these values gives the interval 0.48 [0.31, 0.70] of feedback factors f. Then the final-gain factor G = (1 – f)–1 falls on 1.91 [1.45, 3.35]. Vial et al. (2013, fig. 5a), the official paper analysing the CMIP5 models’ output for AR5, somewhat arbitrarily raises reference or pre-feedback sensitivity ΔT0 from 1.16 to 1.42 K on the ground that some of the tropospheric changes caused by the CO2 forcing do not affect sea surface temperatures and should thus be counted as part of the reference sensitivity. On this basis, equilibrium post-feedback climate sensitivity ΔT = ΔT0 G obtained using (1) falls on 2.7 [2.1, 4.7] K. As with the CMIP3 models for AR3, the bounds determined from (1) are coextensive with the published CMIP5 equilibrium-sensitivity bounds, but the analysis shows the published central estimate to have been overstated by 18.5%.
Table 1 summarizes the overstatements of the central estimates of climate sensitivity:
| Table 1
Exaggerated central climate-sensitivity estimates |
||||
| Official source | Interval of ΔT | Erroneous | Corrected | Exaggeration |
| Charney (1979) | [1.5, 4.5] K | 3.0 K | 2.2 K | +35% |
| AR1, AR2 | [1.5, 4.5] K | 2.5 K | 2.2 K | +12.5% |
| CMIP3 for AR4 | [2.1, 4.4] K | 3.3 K | 2.9 K | +12.5% |
| CMIP5 for AR5 | [2.1, 4.7] K | 3.2 K | 2.7 K | +18.5% |
| AR5 | [1.5, 4.5] K | None | 2.2 K | n.a. |
The official central estimates are exaggerated because the modelers have failed to take proper account of the exaggerated non-linearity of the temperature responses to linearly-increasing feedback sums. They have allowed that non-linearity to drag the central climate-sensitivity estimates erroneously upward by 12.5-35%.
Ø Next: How reference climate sensitivity ΔT0 was exaggerated
References
Charney J (1979) Carbon Dioxide and Climate: A Scientific Assessment: Report of an Ad-Hoc Study Group on Carbon Dioxide and Climate, Climate Research Board, Assembly of Mathematical and Physical Sciences, National Research Council, Nat. Acad. Sci., Washington DC, July, pp. 22
IPCC (1990-2013) Assessment Reports AR1-5 are available from www.ipcc.ch
Lorenz EN (1963) Deterministic nonperiodic flow, J. Atmos. Sci. 20: 130-141.
Vial J, Dufresne J, Bony S (2013) On the interpretation of inter-model spread in CMIP5 climate sensitivity estimates, Clim Dyn 41: 3339, doi:10.1007/s00382-013-1725-9
Christopher.
Further to our last peer-review paper on ice ages, we are in the process of devising a new paper on the topic of future ice ages. And there is a need to explore the effects (or probably non-effects) of modern CO2 contribution for the future glaciations. If you care to be involved, we would be delighted to receive a contribution.
Sincerely,
Ralph Ellis
ralf dot ellis at me dot com.
An interesting idea. Since the mean atmospheric residence time of CO2 is about 40 years according to Dick Lindzen, sub specie aeternitatis our intervention will make little difference either way.
The carbon biogeochemical cycle element of the AGW/IPCC meme has a similar scientific status to the radiation physics slash climate sensitivity element. Careful scrutiny yields better understanding of the IPCC failure to simulate reality.
Adding CO2 to the current atmosphere has negligible effect on the measured radiative energy balance of Earth. Burning fossil fuels adds about 3 percent to the global biogeochemical carbon cycle, and that 3 percent does not accumulate in the atmosphere any more than the remaining 97 percent. Of all the CO2 that existed in the atmosphere in 1976, only 1/16 remains. That’s based on the direct observation of 14CO2 tracer behaviour after the 1963 atmospheric test ban treaty.
The short atmospheric lifetime of CO2 indicated by 14C tracers is the atmospheric lifetime of an individual CO2 molecule. When the ocean absorbs CO2 while in equilibrium, it also releases an equal amount of CO2. A disturbance of atmospheric CO2 from equilibrium takes a more time to settle than the atmospheric lifetime of CO2 molecules. Willis Eschenbach came up with a time constant (tau) of a pulse of CO2 of 59 years corresponding to a half-life of 41 years (similar to Lindzen’s 40 years mentioned above), and explains the difference from the time constant tau of an individual CO2 molecule according to bomb tests (8.6 years), in https://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/04/19/the-secret-life-of-half-life/
Thus only ~1/128 of the CO2 humans added in 1947 remains, ~1/64 of that from 1956 and exactly 1/32 of that from 1973. So, what’s to worry?
It won’t take hundreds of years for the effects (whatever those might be, but so far positive) of fossil fuel burning after WWII to fade into history. Especially if the world like the US switches from coal and oil to gas to meet our fossil fuel needs.
Lord Monckton, I fear you have misspoken. Forty years is the “e-folding” time, the time it takes for a pulse of CO2 injected into the atmosphere to decay to 1/e of its initial value.
The mean atmospheric residence time of a given CO2 molecule, on the other hand, is much shorter. The e-folding time for that is only about fourteen years or so (or a half-life of about ten years).
w.
Dear Willis Eschenbach,
Why are you now saying the “e-folding” time, the time it takes for a pulse of CO2 injected into the atmosphere to decay to 1/e of its initial value is 40 years, when you said 59 years in https://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/04/19/the-secret-life-of-half-life/ ? This amount of time is the time constant tau.
Mr Eschenbach may be right about Dick Lindzen’s estimate being an e-folding time rather than a mean atmospheric residence time, but I understood the latter from him. He was certainly critical of IPCC’s then 50-200-year mean residence time, and told me it was 40 years. We had quite a long discussion about it in Bogota some years ago.
He explained that, though the literature from Revelle and Suess onwards assigned a 7-year mean residence time to an individual CO2 molecule, multiple exchanges between the atmosphere and other -spheres lengthened the true residence time to about 40 years.
Either way, the point does not form part of the argument in the present series.
The oceans will absorb it.
I’m always amazed at the use of ΔF.λ0 – (1 – λ0.c)-1 instead of something more like λ0(ΔF) – (1 – λ0(c))-1
Are we to actually believe that this type of transfer function is really a 1st order equation ?
Even worse, it implies that this has a ‘finite impulse response’ function when paper after paper, especially on the alarmist side of things, push the idea that this is really an ‘infinite impulse response’ function in order to get that “tipping point” that they love to harp about.
Good science covered by the BBC!
(Sorry to to post it here off-topic, but T&N keeps crashing on me.)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-37210085 – re. mapping the surface impact of the Italian earthquake.
It appears the greatest source of ‘positive feedback’ in climatology arises from the concatenation of errors.
At the risk of turning a climatological post into even more of a linguistic commentary than there already is, Gabro wrote: “Shades of Castilian v. Latin American “Spanish”. In Iberia, the court took to lisping so that Carlos V wouldn’t feel bad, which affectation spread to the middle classes, at least.” Myth. The so-called “lisped” sound (an interdental fricative, similar to the initial sound in English “thick”) has nothing to do with anyone’s lisp. This sound is always spelled in Spanish with a ‘c’ (before ‘e’ and ‘i’) or with a ‘z’ (elsewhere). In many cases this can be traced back to Latin words spelled with a ‘c’. (Not that Latin had that exact sound, but the Latin sound turned into this interdental fricative over the millenia.) Crucially, the words spelled with ‘s’ in Spanish are in these same dialect pronounce like the ‘s’ in English “sick”, and come from Latin words with the letter ‘s’. If this had been a result of someone’s lisp, all three letters–‘c’, ‘z’ and also ‘s’–would now be pronounced as interdental fricatives.
A similar change happened to Latin ‘g’, now pronounced something like the ‘ch’ in Scottish “loch” or German “Bach”, in the same place–before ‘i’ and ‘e’. But since that doesn’t result in a lisped sound, no one blames that change on the King of Spain.
The letters ‘c’ (before ‘e’ and ‘i’) and ‘z’ are pronounced like the ‘s’ in “sick” in other dialects. This is what linguists call a phoneme merger; originally distinct sounds came to be pronounced in these dialects as a single sound.
All you have to do to check calculations claiming to be regarding atmospheric temperature for gas density. If you don’t see the compression warming of the atmosphere included, it’s faked ‘GhE’ physics and mathematical fraud.
It’s been known adding CO2 to Standard Atmospheric mix doesn’t change the temperature of the mix since the law for solving temperature in atmospheric/gas chemistry was written.
Calculations for a mostly pure CO2 mix make that mix have lower temperature not higher, as well.
At every turn the fakes who claim to be discussing atmospheric/gas chemistry but aren’t, are stymied in trying to have their fake pseudo – science viewed AS – science.
All that gibberish about feedbacks is as useless as having one of it’s ‘practitioners’ – mathematical, as well as physics frauds – predict something with it.
It’s worthless. When you can’t predict you are proven to be in error and the followers of this gutter fraud are repeatedly stymied by THAT as WELL.
Statistics frauds,
ARE the Anthropogenic Warming movement.
Nothing they say can be trusted to be anything but shortly: wrong.
End of story which is why the scientists are all so far from this ‘science’ that what you see here, is the finest their movement can dredge up to represent them.
Take anyone who ever claimed ”the basic science” of this preposterous fraud was possibly real and show them a thermometer. They’ll drizzle their lunch down their trousers leg in fear.
REAL science draws scientists.
GhE garbage draws frauds fakes and thugs who like that kind of atmosphere.
Loving the post – and the title, bearing out my own opinion of the whole thing years ago – https://diggingintheclay.wordpress.com/2009/11/12/the-hockey-stick-a-flawed-icon/ (Origin: The elevation of the hockey stick and the whole global warming thing to iconic status makes it a giant with feet of clay – poorly founded and ready to crumble. Time to do some digging…) …even if I do not have quite the erudition or the staying power of Lord Monckton.
VJ, staying power is not the same as being right. My simple sound system example far above,, plus much more erudite engineering comments simce, say probably CoB is staying but still wrong. Now he says we are anticipating what has not yet been said. When what has been said is wrong (fig 1) does not bode well for what will follow.
There is nothing wrong with Fig. 1. You will find something similar in Schlesinger (1985), and in just about any presentation by Dick Lindzen. No small part of the value of this series will be in providing a basic education in elementary climatological physics to those unfamiliar with the origins and modalities of the climate sensitivity equation.
“There is nothing wrong with Fig. 1. You will find something similar in Schlesinger (1985), and in just about any presentation by Dick Lindzen.”
But here we read:
‘as an IPCC lead author did when I showed Fig. 1 of the head posting during a presentation to lead authors at the University of Tasmania some years ago. He looked at the graph, thought for a moment and said, “Have you published this?” I said No. “But you must,” he said. “This changes everything.”’
It is not clear what point Mr Stokes is making when he cites the IPCC lead author who asked whether I had published the analysis behind the graph that is here at Fig. 1.
Like it or not, there is nothing wrong with Fig. 1, and the IPCC lead author was intrigued by the argument I had presented in showing it.
Mr Istvan persists, vexatiously, in attacking me for an argument about temperature feedbacks that I have not yet made. That is anti-scientific and indicative of prejudice. Wait and see, and your comments here will be less lofty and bossy, and you may even learn something.
Hi Christopher,
Congrats on starting this series, which will be well followed instalment by instalment, like successive events of Olympians medaling.
The following comments are not meant to be a diversion. They do bear upon the types of calculations you are addressing. You are seeking possible errors, so am I.
My apologies for not knowing the answers to these. Can readers please help?
The concentration of CO2 in the air column decreases in terms of the number of CO2 molecules per cubic metre.
Consequently, the ability of a cubic metre of air to emit a number of watts per square metre also lessens with altitude. Power, not energy is at play.
In the terminology above,
1. Considering a cubic metre near the tropopause, does the square metre part refer to the area of the earth surface impacted at ‘zero’ height above sea level, or to a sq m high up in the sky?
2. At what stage in the creation of the fundamental formulae is this power dilution-with-altitude effect captured?
3. At what height above sea level does the CO2 concentration become so small that it can be considered for approximate calculation to converge on zero power emitted?
4. Apart from a dilute gas not being able to emit as much power, the photon emissions from a dilute gas mixture are also more easily able to escape to space, so the potential exists for this factor to be considered, as it probably is. But where?
I can’t help feeling that there are some potential errors if units of measurement of this dilution are not used with care. As you know, ppm by volume can be rather different to ppm by weight or by molecular count proportion. Standard gas laws, Avogadro constant and all that are well known, but are they used correctly in modelling?
Thanks in advance Geoff.
Thanks, Geoff. While the effect you speak of does exist, it is so small that it is typically ignored. Here are the numbers.
The radius of the earth is on the order of 6,380 kilometers. As for the troposphere, call it a 12 km global average. So the sides of the 1 square metre increase in length by (6392 / 6380 – 1) * 100 = .0002%. That’s two ten-thousandths of one percent … you can see why, although your “dilution” is real, it’s never considered in first-order calculations.
w.
Willis, I would have thought that the primary diluiton is due to pressure not area changes. The pressure at the tropopause is about 200hPa. That means a lot less gas molecules.
But to answer Geoff, absorption falls in a similar way to emission and mean free path increases with height. This kind of thing is not captured by the trivial model presented here where a single scalar number for each feedback is used as a ‘parameter’ to represent the sum of everything.
It should be remembered that these CS values are quantities derived from studying the BEHAVIOUR of complex models by fitting a trivial mathematical model to them, they are not part of how the models are programmed.
I just tried (6392 / 6380 – 1) * 100 on a calculator: Far from .0002%, more like .2% – still fairly small.
My bad, Donald, you are right, it is 0.2% … however, the point remains. It’s small enough to ignore in all but the most precise and detailed calculations.
w.
Greg is wrong. The Party Line is that feedbacks and, therefore, climate sensitivity are not represented in the models at all. But they are, in the very construction of the models.
Besides, the simple official sensitivity equation has been demonstrated faithfully and with remarkable precision to reproduce the CMIP3 and CMIP5 models’ output using the officially-determined inputs.
And furthermore, when this series is complete, it will be clear to all that the models’ published output must be wrong. It will then be for the modellers to reconcile their output with reality.
Here we go again, Christopher, complaining about the dickering with climate sensitivity values that mean nothing. They have no influence on climate one way or another and exist only in the make-believe world of politics. I thought I made this point clear in my previous comment but it does not seem to stick. Climate sensitivity has no scientific meaning and makes non-sensical predictions that mean nothing. It serves only political purposes of those who are pushing for the existence of a climate Armageddon. As I pointed out, it is necessarily zero at all times when a hiatus exists. I even pointed out that this included the twenty-first century until the year 2012 as well as the eighties and nineties from 1979 to to 1997. The temperature does not change during a hiatus but atmospheric carbon dioxide does. This is against the requirements of the Arrhenius greenhouse theory that is still used by the IPCCC. Arrhenius predicts that atmospheric carbon dioxide and global temperature must always change together because we are dealing with a cause and effect relationship. That cause and effect relationship is the greenhouse effect of carbon dioxide. It did not happen which makes this a false prediction. With that, Arrhenius at once disqualifies itself from the climate prediction business, including such things as global warming by the anthropogenic greenhouse effect. And now that your attention is on that, compare the Keeling curve with the global temperature curve. Is there any section of the global warming curve that can be said to be controlled by values of the Keeling curve, the supposed source of CO2 for anthropogenic global warming? I simply don’t see any and have to conclude that observed warming, such as it is, cannot possibly be greenhouse warming. These are the facts about climate in the real world. With your access to publication you should be throwing these facts into the face of the global warming establishment instead of whining about climate sensitivity. Most likely they have been expecting this and are wondering what took you so long.
AA, declaiming that ECS has no physical meaning is a losing argument. Flat earth and all that. Conceptually it must be true, and some value exists. The issue i, what can we infer about that value?
Ristvan if there was something intelligent believers in CO2 sensitivity could add, they’d point to it in classical atmospheric physics, and mathematics.
There’s not. The law for calculating temperature specifically forbids temperature changing due to a change in CO2.
Any so-called ‘mathematics’ claiming it exists aren’t going to be real gas/atmospheric chemistry.
The very people who invented then drummed all the scientists out of atmospheric pseudo science, proclaim proudly that ”this ain’t reg’lur math, ya’ll, this is climate math!
But it’s all fake See ristvan * * *all those of us not practicing and preaching fake math* * *
are still able to predict what is going to be happening * * * just fine * * *
Those of you who BELIEVED in the fake math are the ones who are reputationally and competency challenged.
You’ve NEVER been right. Not when Hansen was running his Venus scams in the late ’60s and ’70s,
not when Hansen and Hockey Stick were lying to the Congress,
not ever.
Those of us who tell you and your church that you’re practicing pseudo science tell you repeatedly – how you FEEL and what you THINK are IRRELEVANT politically:
if you were not wrong,
you could predict.
You can’t.
Just like all of you believe in a GhE on Venus: you can’t predict. We check with Standard gas equations and it’s not there, you’re wrong.
You believe in a GhE on Earth: yet the most CASUAL reference to the * * *Standard Equations that establish global atmospheric composition, density and temperature prove – they calculate the temperature of Earth right on the money. And your claimed 30+ degrees warming is F R A U D U L E N T.
If your pseudo scientific quackery weren’t wrong you could predict with it.
The real scientific world uses equations to establish the Standard Atmosphere
with it’s internationally referenced reliability – both in the physical engineering using the Standard Atmosphere and equations that derive it’s characteristics,
and the legal system that relies on the Standard Atmospheric calculations to govern everything from ovens and kilns and motors to air conditioners and furnaces, to welding to space travel.
* * *WE ALL AGREE THESE ARE THE WORKING ATMOSPHERIC MATHEMATICS* * *
except the * * *humiliated believers in CO2/GhG/GhE climate sensitivity.
Your church alone holding science back for at least 25 years, has spread the falsehood there is a GHE on Venus. There is none.
It has spread the falsehood there is a GHE on Earth. There is none. *Standard school equations prove it.*
Fraud is the hallmark of the CO2/GHG falsehod field.
Incompetency to the point it’s believers almost FOUNDED the concept of scientific censorship because they can’t even tolerate students coming to their websites.
The CO2/GHE people are the ones who teach the world that the atmosphere warms the planet. The atmosphere is a thermally conductive colder, additional mass coupled or appended to the earth’s own, warmer mass.
Everywhere we who are real scientists look we see you believers in GHG climate mediation teaching purest scientific falsehood as truth.
The CO2 religion is actually the one that USES a ”flat earth” model. That is just another element of how the entire CO2/GHG mediation concept is: the people who use it must
(a) project their own perpetually idiotic tenets and techniques onto real science
(b)continually lie about there even being any CO2/GHG ‘effect’ in gas mathematics and chemistry
(c)censor and issue declaratory ”belief” statements – explaining why they drive the entire scientific world away from them, when the real scientific world shows up asking questions
about the apparent fraudulence not just of specific scientific aspects or of individual peoples’ behaviors, but the fundamental premise: GHG warming
The entire CO2/GHG temperature mediation/warm atmosphere movement is filled with the throwaways no other scientific field would tolerate two weeks much less two generations.
In real science being wrong EVER – is a legal liability that can break an entire movement.
In CO2/flat earth/fake gas chemistry mathematics being wrong is what the believers deal with
every
single moment
they’re awake.
It’s a movement of fraud started by frauds, perpetuated by government employees whose bosses were caught perpetrating those several, even many, frauds.
Which is why there aren’t respectable scientists anywhere near this field.
It’s atrocious and it’s due to non scientist blogger types treating chemistry like it’s a school yard popularity argument and driving all the real scientifically competent professionals away from quashing the fraud.
You might or might not believe in it but it’s evident many people do so I wanted to remind you, if you believe in it, and everyone else who’s watching,
why the real scientific fields spit at mention of the world ‘climatologist.’
It’s equivalent to ”fake physics and mathematics fraud.”
i consider there to be a significant misunderstanding.
Whilst there may be good theoretical reasons to consider that there would be climate sensitivity to CO2, the reality is that this is not a theoretical issue but a practical one.
How does planet Earth respond to changes in CO2. This can only be answered by observation and the obtaining of good quality data. Without us knowing absolutely everything there is to know about the system and fully understanding such system, it cannot be answered by theoretical calculation. the fact is that we do not know and understand absolutely everything there is to know, and it unlikely that we will ever do so, well not within the next 100 years.
Many people use a caveat such as “all other matters remaining constant/equal”. However we know as fact that all other matters do not remain constant so that caveat is not useful since it does nothing to assist our understanding of how things pan out in Earth’s atmosphere and climate.
To give just a few examples of matters that do not remain constant when we burn fossil fuels and add CO2 to the atmosphere:
(i) we replace Oxygen with CO2 and CO.
(ii) other than burning pure carbon, we produce water vapour (and water in its various forms is material in this water world on which we live).
(iii) we produce aerosol emissions.
(iv) CO2 is plant food resulting in a greening of the biosphere. this changes albedo. it also changes (at least locally) the water cycle. If large areas are involved consider the greening of the Sahel, this could have more than just a local impact.
(v) there is oceanic take up of the CO2 again impacting upon oceanic life and albedo.
Since we know as fact that all other matters do not remain equal, one cannot approach the matter from a theoretical standpoint. The question of climate sensitivity can only be answered by observation. That is the only way we will know what effect changes in CO2 have on Earth’s climate and whether CO2 drives temperature.
The observational data that we have is riddled with uncertainty but no one can detect a signal to CO2 above the noise and this is why the IPCC does not seek to show a plot of CO2 driving temperature signal from the various data sets.
I do not know whether CO2 drives temperature, but there is no sound scientific observational data that it does, and the data (which is poor and not fit for purpose) if anything suggests that CO2 does not drive temperature in our system but is a response to temperature change.
We will know a lot more in the course of the next 5 years should the ‘pause’ reappear.
Mr Verney is incorrect in assuming that a theoretical approach cannot be taken. Official sources make various claims, based on various theoretical arguments. If those arguments are found to be materially and serially in error, then the claims of high climate sensitivity made by official sources must fall.
Mr Arrak ius out of his depth here.
Well, Richard argues about the theoretical approach to the correct answer and you argue about the theoretical approach to disprove an incorrect answer.
I admire the understanding of both of you. What is all this ‘mis’?
============
I have read the comment made by his L0rdship and stand by my comment.
Unless one knows absolutely everything and understands absolutely everything, any application of theory is doomed to error. Depending upon the missing knowledge and missing understanding that error may be significant or trivial. Perhaps his L0rdship might like to cite examples where one obtains the correct answer whilst not knowing everything about the system under review and not understanding the various compent parts of that system, how they work and how they inter-act etc.
This is why, of course, even in the early days of school math, pupils are required to show their workings not merely the answer. If one does not know and understand everything about the subject matter of inquiry, it is only by chance that one may come up with the correct answer.
The climate system on planet Earth is so complex, with so many uncertainties and unknowns, that the question as to how it responds to the increase in CO2 during the late Holocene can only be answered by observation. In fact some would argue that due to its chaotic behavoir, the problem is unsolvable from a theoretical standpoint.
Man makes a fundamental error if he considers that it can be answered merely upon a theoretical approach to the issue. indeed, in some way, the very wide range given for Climate Sensitivity (which some would argue is zero or close thereto, and others would argue is over 5 degC) illustrates the point. There is simply too little understanding and too many unknowns to be able to apply a theoretical approach and expect the right answer.
As I understand this series of articles, his L0rdship is examining the IPCC position/science and then arguing where that approach is in error. From that perspective one can look at how the IPCC have assessed Climate Sensitivity and what, if any, errors there may be in there approach. Since the IPCC approach Climate Sensitivity on a theoretical basis one can point out errors, if any, in their theoretical approach to the subject.
However, I stand by my more fundamental point, that this is simply an issue (presently) incapable of determination from a theoretical standpoint. It is an error to take such an approach to its determination.determination
Monckton of Brenchley
August 27, 2016 at 2:06 pm
One of the main reasons for the absence of “Bode plots” is that this is not a Bode plot. The point Nick Stokes was trying to make. Does not bode well for the rest of the series relying on them.
Bode plots are frequency characteristics and have frequency ( typicaly log scaled ) on the abscissa.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bode_plot
I did not say “Bode plots”. I said “Bode diagrams”. Greg continues, pompously, tendentiously and with an unbecomingly mean streak, to criticise my argument about feedbacks for this series – an argument that I have not yet presented. That is foolish.
Nick Stokes
August 28, 2016 at 2:20 am
On reflection you are correct. If all CS values derived from different models are placed in numerical order and the middle of the list is chosen ( ie the median value ) this will have a one to one relationship with a value on either scale.
So to make the criticism valid CoB needs to provide direct references to how the central values are being chosen. If it is the arithmetic mean of all CS values, it will lead to an erroneously high “central estimation”. If it is median will largely take account of the skewed distribution caused by the non linear mapping.
This is probably something which has changed since the early work 40y ago where it was just a mean of two ballpark upper and lower limits.
Nic Lewis works with median and the other studies I’ve see him cite from IPCC authors also do that. There may be others who do not.
So to substantiate the criticism CoB needs to provide quotations and refs.
See fig. 3 of the head posting, where the inter-model mean feedback sums as well as the individual models’ estimates are graphically – and quite clearly – illustrated and sourced.
Leo Smith:
In this trivial representation it is not. In the GCMs they do use T^4. This is probably the main reason why CS is found not to be constant in models but curves down slightly as warming increases.
This was discussed in some detail by PaulK on Lucia’s Blackboard some years back and is recognised in the literature as being a property of models. Sorry, I don’t have a link to hand but PaulK’s article should not be hard to find at Lucia’s if anyone wants to follow it up. He provided links to papers.
When arguing huge uncertainties like 1.5; 3.0; 4.5 , the non linearity can be left to one side.
Greg is right that the official climate-sensitivity equation is a trivial representation, but seems unaware that in that equation the fourth-power relationship is represented in the determination of lambda-zero.
And, as will be seen, the non-linearity that the models fail to take into account in determining the central estimates of climate sensitivity is not something that can be airily dismissed. It is part of the pattern of errors that lead to a substantial overstatement of climate sensitivity.
One hopes that the common response to ‘ your not a climate scientist’ becomes ‘your not a control engineer’!
how about your not able to spell ;?
..The simple fact that CO2 in the atmosphere has been at least 15X higher (then today’s level of 400 PPM) in the past, while, at the same time, the Earth’s temperature was in a global Ice Age, shows that CO2 has nothing to do with Glo.Bull Warming……” It’s the Sun Stupid”….
Also, without prejudice or preview, it is possible to be wrong in detail and right in general.
=============
It is also possible to be right in detail and right in general. But the numerous commenters here who have presumed to lecture me, often in the most high-handed style, about an argument that I have not yet even presented are wrong in detail and wrong in general. They will have to wait until the parts of this series on feedbacks are presented, at which point, no doubt, some of them will continue to shriek like small children even if every word I write is correct. But I shall simply discount all comments from those who have persistently acted in bad faith by criticizing – some of them over and over again – the argument on feedbacks that has not yet been presented here.
They have sneered – for that is what these creatures do best – to the effect that my suggestion that process engineers often design electronic circuits with small or no positive feedback so as to avoid inadvertent instability has no bearing on the climate.
Yet it does have a bearing on the climate. For several process engineers to whom I have spoken have raised the same question that I have raised: how can it be that the climate has behaved with such near-perfectly thermostatic stability for the best part of a million years if feedback factors are anything like as great as IPCC and other official sources imagine?
The know-it-alls would do well to reflect that the best science is done by those who have the courage to ask often naive-souinding questions – “I wonder why it did that?”, “I wonder how that result can be possible?”, while the sneerers are so secure in their presumed knowledge that they never question anything and, therefore, never make any useful contribution to science.
It is not wrong to ask questions in science. It is wrong to say, as so many sneerers here have said, that one should not even ask questions. And I shall pay no attention to these insignificant wretches. I shall continue to ask questions. I shall not always reach the right answers. But at least, unlike them, I shall have tried.
We know as fact that:
(i) It was warmer during the Holocene Optimum.
(ii) It was warmer, at least in the Northern hemisphere which is a large tract of our planet, during the Roman Warm Period. We know that Hannibal crossed the Alps (circa 200BC) with elephants but could not make such a journey today. We know that vines were grown with success at the boarder with Scotland, but could not be done so today.
(iii) It was warmer, at least in the Northern hemisphere which is a large tract of our planet, during the Viking Warm Period/Medieval Warm Period. We know where the Vikings settled and that they farmed the land with success notwithstanding primitive tools and reduced crop variety (not genetically engineered hardy varieties) at their disposal, but this could not be done so today.
(iv) We know from the Greenland ice cores that it was significantly warmer in the past, and there is every reason to envisage that these cores are representative of condition in Northern Europe.
(v) It has warmed since the LIA.
Even if all of these are only NH events (and we lack data on the SH to form a proper position with respect to the SH), Climate is actually a local matter not a global one and that is why the planet is divided into Climate Zones as per Koppen (or equivalent) and no one has adequately explained how a well mixed gas such as CO2 (it being relatively well mixed at medium to high altitude, but poorly mixed at low altitude) can warm one hemisphere but not the other.
If the IPCC are correct that CO2 levels have remained constant during the Holocene, none of these events can be explained by CO2, nor an application of a theoretical approach to Climate Sensitivity to CO2.
Further, global warming is anything but global. Different tracts of the globe are warming at different rates some may not be warming at all such as Antarctica, perhaps even very slightly cooling such as the USA, some warming extremely modestly eg the equatorial/tropical tract, whilst others are undergoing more noticeable warming. This pattern of behavoir cannot be answered by applying some theoretical approach to Climate Sensitivity. The Climate is not responding to change uniformly.
Above, I made the point that there is no significant change in the rate of warming trend between 3 periods of warming (1860-1880, 1910-1940, and 1975-1998). A theoretical approach to the assessment of Climate Sensitivity cannot explain that. Nor the post 1940 cooling, or the recent. ‘pause’
When the present El Nino/La Nina cycle completes probably in 2017, the ‘pause’ may once again reappear, and if so, it will be more than 20 years in duration. It is quite conceivable that by 2019, there will be 40 years of satellite data showing no (or almost no significant warming) as from inception in 1979 through to 1996 (up to the run up to the 1997/8 Super El Nino) and then once again no statistically significant warming post that event, ie between 1998 and 2019. It is quite conceivable that the satellite data will show simply responses to El Ninos (short term blips) and volcanoes (short term falls) and the only significant warming event will be co-incident upon the Super El Nino of 1997/8.
Now I do not know whether that will or will not be the event, but it is not without prospect. Anyone who claims that a theoretical approach can be taken to the assessment to Climate Sensitivity, unless their assessment is close to zero, needs to carefully reflect upon that.
richard verney August 30, 2016 at 1:33 am
We know as fact that:
You are overstating some of these ‘facts’
(ii) It was warmer, at least in the Northern hemisphere which is a large tract of our planet, during the Roman Warm Period. We know that Hannibal crossed the Alps (circa 200BC) with elephants but could not make such a journey today. We know that vines were grown with success at the boarder with Scotland, but could not be done so today.
As far as I am aware there is no reliable evidence of vineyards north of Leeds, certainly not near Scotland. There are several commercial vineyards in Yorkshire to the north of Leeds today.
On what evidence do base your assertion that Hannibal could not make the crossing ‘today’?
(iv) We know from the Greenland ice cores that it was significantly warmer in the past, and there is every reason to envisage that these cores are representative of condition in Northern Europe.
These data are frequently misrepresented on here, the most recent dating from over 150 years ago.
There is archaeological evidence that vines were planted close to Hadrian’s Wall by Roman soldiers, and, until the global warming storyline was invented, the commonsense view was taken that the grapes were then harvestable because the weather was warmer than it has been until the past few decades. When the global warming storyline began to be peddled, the account of the vines planted close to Hadrian’s Wall was amended, so that now we are told the soldiers planted the vines to remind them of home, even though the weather was too cold for them to harvest any grapse.
At present, thanks to the warmer weather that began early in the 20th century, there are some 500 vineyards in Britain, of which (if my information is up to date) the most northerly is at Accomb, within a few miles of Hadrian’s Wall.
From this circumstance, most sensible people would draw the conclusion that warmer weather is better than colder, and that it is good news that the climate in these islands is now as kindly as it was in Roman times.
Monckton of Brenchley September 1, 2016 at 3:57 am
There is archaeological evidence that vines were planted close to Hadrian’s Wall by Roman soldiers,
Can you substantiate that statement since I have not seen any such evidence? There is, however, plenty of evidence of the importation of wine from Gaul and Italy to Vindolanda but I’ve only seen unsupported claims from Plimer and yourself regarding grapes being grown near Hadrian’s wall.
At present, thanks to the warmer weather that began early in the 20th century, there are some 500 vineyards in Britain, of which (if my information is up to date) the most northerly is at Accomb, within a few miles of Hadrian’s Wall.
The wrong Acomb (sic.), that is the one in Northumbria, the one with the vineyard is in Yorkshire near York. The most northerly commercial vineyard in England is at Ryedale, north of Leeds.
Mr Verney errs in assuming that a theoretical approach to climate sensitivity cannot be taken. Official sources make various claims, based on various theoretical arguments. If those arguments are found to be materially and serially in error, then the claims of high climate sensitivity made by those official sources must fall, for the theoretical arguments for high sensitivity can be – and, in this series, are being – shown to be in error.
We may beg to differ, although the point I make ought not to be contentious. Indeed, I am rather surprised that you so forcefully join issue with it.
Over the years, you have made the point (i) that we do not know and understand all that there is to know and understand about the workings of Climate (often having pointed to unknowns, and then there are the unknowns that we do not even know that we do not know about) (ii) that we do not know all the feedbacks, (iii) we do not know the magnitude of all the feedbacks (iv) heck, we do not even know the sign (whether positive or negative) of some of the feedbacks.
That being the case, presently given the above lacuna in our knowledge and understanding (something to which you have alluded to in previous articles posted on this site and speeches made by you), it follows that we are not in a position to correctly assess Climate Sensitivity on a theoretical basis. If some element of the climate is chaotic, that throws a further spanner in the works.
I do not doubt for one moment that you will present a cogent and convincing case that the
The observational data (with all its shortcomings) shows that to be the case. Indeed, this observational data (with all its short comings) makes it very difficult to cogently argue for a modest sensitivity (by which I mean about 1.7 to 2degC). the observational data (with all its shortcomings) suggests that Climate Sensitivity cannot realistically exceed 1.7degC, and I would suggest that that figure is way way to high (but the data sets are not fit for purpose in that they do not permit or withstand serious scientific scrutiny such that we are merely groping in the dark).
richard verney: “heck, we do not even know the sign (whether positive or negative) of some of the feedbacks.”
As if that wasn’t bad enough, the sign of some feedbacks changes twice twice in 24 hours. In fact, some may – probably do – change annually too. Others…
Perhaps I should give an example of one of the problems that goes to illustrate my point.
Prior to the 2015/16 strong EL Nino, when the ‘pause’ was causing concern, one explanation proffered for the lack of warming was that the warming was going into the mid/deep ocean. It was in effect not heating the atmosphere and was by passing the top ocean layer. I make no comment upon whether that was a crackpot explanation, but it was advanced as a serious explanation by many well known scientists on the warmist front.
Now then if at a certain level of CO2, the Climatic response to CO2 in the Earth system is that it warms the atmosphere, but at higher levels the Climatic response is that it no longer heats the atmosphere but instead miraculously goes to heat the mid to deep ocean (by passing the surface on its way to the depths) where either the energy is diluted and dissipated by volume, alternatively will not re-emerge for perhaps a 1000 years, then Climate Sensitivity is materially changed at around this flip point and the theoretical calculation will not pick this up.
It is obvious and ought not to be contentious that how the planet responds to changing concentrations to CO2 can only be answered by observation. It is a dynamic and complex system and only observation will reveal the nuance of this.
It ought to be obvious that telling the world it must wait and see what influence CO2 is having or will have on global temperature is not an answer that governments are likely to accept, now that they have been worn down by relentless propaganda from komsomol.edu and from lavishly-funded profiteering pressure groups.
It ought to be equally obvious that, if there are downright errors in the manner of determining climate sensitivity, and if those errors are sufficient to indicate that corrections to the official methodology make the supposed problem a rather small one, and if despite the work of some of the propagandists here it becomes impossible to conceal the fact that downright errors have been made, that is perhaps the one possible way to persuade governments that they have been misled.
i have at no time suggested that
We should however be honest with ourselves and accept and acknowledge our limitations. One of the problems with this science is that there is a failure to accept and acknowledge our limitations, and the limitations with the quality of the data that impinges upon our ability to understand matters and to reasonably assess what is happening, or may in the future happen. In fact the very opposite takes place, the science (driven to a large part by the political masters) are over egging certainty and claiming the science to be settled when just considering that there are more than 100 climate models each one projecting a different outcome, and the wide range given for Climate Sensitivity establishes anything but certainty and the science settled and that the science is riddled with a lack of knowledge and understanding.
All I am saying is that we should be honest about our ability to shed light on Climate Sensitivity and make it clear that unfortunately given our present state of knowledge and understanding this is not an issue that can be accurately and properly assessed by taking a theoretical approach to matters, It brings in mind the unascribed quote.
For sure, it is apt to point out errors being made in a theoretical assessment to Climate Sensitivity, and applaud you in your efforts in demonstrating that
That is a worthy and useful cause indeed, and one that should be revealed not only on these pages but to the wider population in general.
When this edifice falls, and it surely will, and in the UK we have already had the Blair dodgy dossier on WMD, the Cameron/Osbourne dodgy project fear, the IPCC reports and in particular the Summary for Policy Makers will be seen to be another example of the political class and ruling elite producing a dodgy dossier in which evidence is fabricated/overblown and uncertainty concealed, and presenting a misleading impression of the evidence and the state of expert knowledge, to further a cause for their own ends to the prejudice of the people.
When this edifice falls there will be a re-examination of its core fundamentals, and one will be left a gasp that sentient beings could have accepted many of these fundamentals as correct. Once of these will be Climate Sensitivity and the claims that this could be large, when even a cursory review of the observational data of past climate (notwithstanding the limitations of this data given that it is riddled with errors and uncertainty) strongly suggests that Climate Sensitivity, if there is such a thing in the real world in which we live, must be low.
Keep up the good work.
Forgive me if this point has been made earlier… The general point about the instability of positive-feedback systems that are subjected to relatively large forcings is well taken, but any mention of process engineering (e.g., prudent limits on feedbacks in circuit design) is a silly non-sequitur! As the article implies, engineers (generally) seek to limit expected feedback so as to allow for the possibility of unexpected ones that would magnify the effective overall feedback. Characterizing an existing system, on the other hand, is a matter of determining this overall feedback (both it form and its coefficients, hence its overall response/”shape”). Depending on the relative size of a forcing/”stress,” any positive feedback (f > 0) can become unstable (“explode” or “spiral out of control”) — the process engineer’s f <= .1, therefore, has no place in the diagram. The question is not whether the climate system is "prudently designed," rather, what the shape of its feedback curve is, and whether the simple, linear shape presumed by climate alarmists ("warm-mongers") is correct, or even plausible, given the multiplicity of component factors and (as you point out) the evident stability of the climate under known stresses.
(My moribund but informative climate page is at http://johngorno.tripod.com/dontpanic/)
Mr Fashena, like so many others, presumes to issue a lecture on the treatment of temperature feedbacks in this series before I have presented the argument about it. It ought to be obvious to anyone familiar with the norms of scientific discussion that it is not possible to know whether or not the process engineers’ working limit on feedback factors in circuits intended to operate stably is a relevant consideration affecting the argument about feedbacks until that argument has actually been made.
I detect in these often loftily or sneeringly expressed attacks on an argument that has not yet been presented a rising desperation on the part of those who wish to maintain that the official high-sensitivity case is unanswerable. Those who have presumed to preach on the alleged inapplicability of the process engineers’ limit in discussions about feedbacks will perhaps have to eat their words once the presentation of the argument on feedbacks – which has not yet been begun – is complete.
Wait and see before issuing any further lectures.
I was merely suggesting an improvement in removing what appears to be a needless vulnerability in your presentation, not questioning your argument. Your prior articles mentioned this f <= .1 business and it seems to me that the sooner it's pruned, the better for your case. If the gist of your response is, "Ahh, keep reading this series and you'll see that process design is relevant!" then that would have been a quicker, and rather less haughtily hostile, response. I look forward to seeing whether you can make a convincing case that this point is applicable.
As for "issuing a lecture," I was merely being thorough, not lofty or pedantic. This is the comment section, a place for discussion, not your personal lecture hall, where worshipful students wordlessly await your next pronouncement. If you don't want to hear the chatter in it, don't hang around here! You're doing (generally) good work, but it's you who have just issued a lofty lecture to me.
Mr Fashena should not whine when he is justly called out as loftily having sneered that my mention of the process engineers’ design limit of order 0.1 on feedback factors in circuits intended to operate stably was “silly”.
When a distinguished former process engineer with many degrees first told me of this rule of thumb, for he saw its relevance as Me Fashena did not. When I learned the elementary mathematics of feedback analysis, I grew still more concerned that there seemed to be much that was wrong with the feedback analysis used by climatologists, who were treating the climate, mathematically speaking, as far more sensitive to feedback than the near-thermostatic temperature record of the past 800,000 years suggested.
I discussed the temperature feedback problem with the editor of a leading academic journal two years ago and, last year, published a paper highlighting the difficulty. I did not at that time have an answer to the problem, but the reviewers agreed that it was a problem that should be flagged for attention, and one of them was even kind enough to add a contribution to the argument.
As a result of that paper, another electronics engineer contacted me and pointed out a minor error in the official method of determining temperature feedbacks.
I examined the question afresh in the light of the fact that mainstream climate science and mainstream science were at odds, and recently discovered a large error in rhe climatological establishment’s methodology – an error inbuilt into the models.
I went back through the key papers and found some early instances in which the error had been perpetrated. I sweated through the circuit diagrams to find out how much difference the large error made to final climate sensitivity.
And that is how this series came to be.
Unlike Mr Fashena and certain other commenters here, I do not do science by reciting with glazed eyes some half-understood pietism from a textbook. I begin, as all true men of science begin, by noting the existence of an apparent anomaly and wondering why the anomaly exists.
Science begins with the words “I wonder … “‘, not with the words “I believe …”.
I’m merely offering friendly advice. Your logic is sound but the labeling on the climate feedback diagram is flawed and weakens your argument.
Mr Fashena was not offering friendly advice: he was trolling by calling my mention of the process engineers’ design limit “silly” when, in the absence of the argument about feedbacks to which the point relates, he was and is in no position to know whether it is “silly” or not. Since I have not yet deployed the feedback argument, it should by now be obvious to Mr Fashena that he cannot and does not know whether it “weakens the argument”.
True science is done precisely by thinking about anomalies such as this and trying to find an explanation, and not by making and then tediously repeating – the unfailing mark of the troll – the naive assumption that the anomaly is “silly” and should, therefore, have been ignored and omitted.
As for the contemptible Mr Hutchins, whose sour, petulant tone marks him out as another troll, he will find all the references to each document material to the feedback portion of the argument in the parts of this series that concern themselves with official climatology’s errors in relation to temperature feedbacks. Until then, his rebarbatively repetitious whining impresses none but himself,
The argument that is being presented here is very detailed. That is why it is being presented slowly. And that is why one or two elements in the argument are briefly mentioned or illustrated a little in advance. If the trolls can’t bear to wait, that is too bad.
Mr Fashena ought to know when to stop digging. He does not know what my argument about feedbacks will be. He makes various straw-man assumptions about it and then attacks the straw-man assumptions he has made.
He will have to wait and see what my argument actually is. But if he or anyone else would like to go on demonstrating troll-like behavior here by continuing to attack an argument that I have not yet made, they will be demonstrating two things: first, that they are prejudiced, for no rational and dispassionate being would attack an argument before having heard it; and secondly, that they are perpetrating the ancient logical fallacy of the argumentum ad ignorationem elenchi – the most fundamental of all fallacies, the fallacy of fallacies, by which they presume to introduce matter extraneous to the validity of their interlocutor’s argument and then to attempt to base their own argument on that extraneous matter.
With such people, no rational discussion can be had, for they have adopted their positions a priori and are unwilling either to listen or to exercise the faculty of reason.
Okay. We will start with “I wonder”. I wonder why Monckton can’t give a proper citation.
“a distinguished former process engineer with many degrees first told me of this rule of thumb” (design limit of order 0.1) WHO?
“the editor of a leading academic journal” WHO?
“another electronics engineer contacted me” WHO?
“I went back through the key papers?” WHICH ONES?
Okay – I remember – we are supposed to WAIT till he brings up feedback. Oh – but he DID, about a bogus 0.1 limit on positive feedback (and does again repeatedly), supposedly (presumptively) speaking for a community: “Anyone who has ever built an operational-amplifier circuit”.
Another hallmark of a good scientist is, perhaps, the ability to say: “I was wrong”.
Mr Hutchins, not being any sort of a scientist, will no doubt refuse in his characteristically graceless fashion to apologise once he has read the full argument on feedbacks and has realised beyond doubt that, as usual, he was wrong. But by then it will be too late. The science of high climate sensitivity will have been exposed as irremediably and irredeemably erroneous, and those of the trolls here who are paid to disrupt the world’s most popular climate-related website will be out of a job.
Monckton’s poor terminology/labelling suggests that *no* system with a feedback value above .1 can be “stable” (which is itself a poor usage), which, insofar as one can give it meaning, is incorrect (as I assume he knows). Strictly speaking, only feedback values f >= 1 are unstable: lesser values differ only in their *relative* stability…
I have no problem with this arbitrary .1 rule of thumb for the prudent *design* of electrical circuits, but it has no context in the *analysis* of a *natural* system, where there is only an actual feedback value, not a theoretical one that needs extra padding to prevent overloads. Clearly, Monckton intends to demonstrate that no climate sensitivity greater than that corresponding to f = .1 is consistent with the climate record, but that occurrence of .1 can not (and should not) be associated with any design guideline, or any other arbitrary cultural artifact, however prudent.
Mr Fashena ought to know when to stop digging. He does not know what my argument about feedbacks will be. He makes various straw-man assumptions about it and then attacks the straw-man assumptions he has himself made. As my professor of logic used to say, “Any fool can do that, but only a fool does it.”
Let him look up the fallacy of “argumentum ad ignorationem elenchi”.
Monckton of Brenchley said in part September 1, 2016 at 7:58 pm:
”. . . As for the contemptible Mr Hutchins . . .”
At last, I have earned a proper Moncktonian invective!
and September 1, 2016 at 8:04 pm he also said in part:
“ …beyond doubt that, as usual, he was wrong. . . .”
What’s this “as usual” bit? TWO times in the past few years he and I have interacted. The first time I pointed out some error of his and he thanked me (good that). The second time was when I was disputing his pal David Evan’s “Non-causal notch”. David, a real engineer and stand-up guy, finally admitted I was right, and thanked me. Beyond that – what? Complete strangers I believe.
Monckton also said:
“The science of high climate sensitivity will have been exposed as irremediably and irredeemably erroneous, and those of the trolls here who are paid to disrupt the world’s most popular climate-related website will be out of a job.”
This is truly a foolish and uncalled-for thing to say, and I expect an apology. Yes – I am out of a job. Retired after teaching at a top-10 engineering school (including a lot on op-amps) for 35 years. Monckton said “Anyone who has ever built an operational-amplifier circuit…” and followed that with erroneous statements about a bogus design limit of 0.1. I even showed circuits with corroborating experimental data (Nick posted above). Then he dodges and evades. As for getting paid to disrupt WUWT (what a lame comment), to the contrary, I recently (May 2016) made a substantial financial contribution ($1000) to WUWT.
As for “The science of high climate sensitivity” being debunked, I agree with Monckton. I think it has already been debunked by Nature herself. If it is definitively disproven in the scientific arena it is unlikely it will be by some irritating person who doesn’t even listen to his friends, and alienates them each in turn.
Mr Hutchins has been wrong on a dozen occasions in this thread, in that he pretends not to be aware of any limit on the designed feedback factors in a circuit intended to perform stably, even though he had at one point been compelled to admit that such a limit did in fact exist under certain relevant circumstances and that it was even lower than I had indicated.
He has been wrong in attempting to imply that no such limit is relevant, for its relevance will only be demonstrated when I reach the detailed consideration of feedbacks. No true scientist would thus repeatedly attempt to criticise an argument that has not been made. At that point it will become apparent that feedbacks do not, in practice, subsist in the climate on the interval that is shown in Fig. 1 as unstable.
And, whether he likes it or not, I was indeed told of the process engineers’ limit by a process engineer with several degrees in the subject. He is in no position to say that that process engineer is wrong, since he had been constrained to admit earlier that he did not even know what a process engineer was.
He should understand that merely because it is possible to design circuits with feedbacks in the range I had marked as unstable the validity of my process engineer’s point about very strict limits on the design of circuits intended to remain stable in the face of uncertainties as to componentry and ambient operating conditions is not compromised.
That eminent engineer, like the IPCC lead author during a talk I gave three years ago at the University of Tasmania, took one look at the curve shown in Fig. 1 and realised in an instant that with feedback factors in that region in the highly variable operating conditions of the climate the near-perfect thermostasis of the past 800,000 years would have been most unlikely, to say the least.
It is these experts’ reactions, less incurious than those of Mr Hutchins, that led me to dig deeper and to find what I have found. Mr Hutchins is of course entitled to be supinely incurious when faced with Fig. 1. There is no compulsion on any man to exhibit that alert and informed curiosity without which science makes no progress. But my curiosity was aroused, I investigated, and I descovered some serious errors, which will be presented in due course, and I might not have found those errors had it not been for the shock on the faces of the process engineer and the IPCC lead author. Mr Hutchins has his view. They have theirs. I found theirs more instructive than his, and the are certainly more expert than he.
The time to criticise me for declaring the official errors about feedbacks to be errors will be when I have described them, and not before then. Mr Hutchins, like others here who display none of the curiosity visible on the faces of the process engineer and the IPCC lead author, will no doubt be sharpening his knives.
I am glad that Mr Hutchins is not paid to be wrong and that his persistence in criticizing an argument that has not been made is attibutable to some other unscientific reason.
” Mr Hutchins is of course entitled to be supinely incurious when faced with Fig. 1″
This is absurd. Fig 1 is simply a hyperbola as I sketched with pencil for school exams, a graphic representation of the ancient feedback equation, which has been around as long as feedback has been discussed, and of which Eq (1) here is a derivative. It is in fact (without the ridiculous annotations) Fig 4 in his excellent notes that he posted above:
http://www.moyhu.org.s3.amazonaws.com/2016/08/hyperb.png
You may also notice that those are Electronotes 219. Bernie Hutchins began publishing the series nearly fifty years ago, in the pioneering days of development of the Moog synthesiser. He has both practical and teaching knowledge of feedback and electronic circuits.
More here on Bernie’s Electronotes.
Mr Stokes is off the point, as usual. The “Fig. 4” he reproduces from Mr Hutchins’ musings of half a century ago does not appear to present any indications of where official climatology’s currently-imagined interval of temperature feedbacks falls on the graph. That was the point of my Fig. 1, as Mr Stokes knows perfectly well. Mr Hutchins, Mr Stokes and all manner of other paid or unpaid trolling bossyboots have presumed to lecture me about my argument on the official overstatement of temperature feedbacks before my argument on that subject has even been presented. That is not just unscientific behavior: it is anti-scientific behavior.
Mr Stokes, whom I have not yet seen ever to question any aspect of the Party Line on climate, is by political instinct incurious once he has been told what the Party Line is. Mr Hutchins, who in Mr Stokes’ opinion possesses expertise in the matter of feedbacks because he once knew a person who invented an electronic “wah-wah-wah” sound, seems likewise constitutionally incurious. But it is not the incurious slaves to the Party Line reciting textbook mantras who advance the boundaries of science: they are the forgettable and forgotten drones.
It is the likes of the IPCC lead author and the holder of four doctorates in process engineering who, taking one look at my Fig. 1, saw at once what Mr Stokes and Mr Hutchins, and a good few other preachers or indulgers of the Party Line here, will never see in a million years. They saw an anomaly. They were not concerned that the anomaly was inconsistent with the Party Line and must therefore be wrong. They were concerned that it was an anomaly, raising the question – legitimate in science though not in the Party – that the Party line might, horribile dictu, be wrong.
As it will out, the Party Line that Mr Stokes has so uncritically defended for so long is materially in error. And he will have to wait till I am ready to present the argument on feedbacks that he and others have foolishly attempted to attack aprioristically before they have even seen it. Even a child realizes that to attack someone for an argument he has not yet presented is – well – childish.
Monckton of Brenchley said September 2, 2016 at 1:58 AM in part (his first paragraph):
“Mr Hutchins has been wrong on a dozen occasions in this thread, in that he pretends not to be aware of any limit on the designed feedback factors in a circuit intended to perform stably, even though he had at one point been compelled to admit that such a limit did in fact exist under certain relevant circumstances and that it was even lower than I had indicated. . . . .”
It is obvious from this that Monckton does NOT even understand the difference between an operational amplifier and a finite-gain amplifier (usually REALIZED using an op-amp with negative feedback) subjected to a gain of 1/(1-f) from positive feedback f. No wonder he is so confused. He hasn’t even tried.
I am ONLY talking about EE stuff – not climate. (I have said nothing about climate, except to agree that Monckton is likely right about models being overly sensitive.) If Monckton wants to talk about only climate, go for it. But he presumes to talk about circuitry, and about this, he seems basically clueless.
Monckton also said: “. . . will only be demonstrated when I reach the detailed consideration of feedbacks. . . . ”
Detailed! When he does get there, let’s hope he has learned, personally, something ABOUT feedback.
And he never gets around to telling us who this “imaginary friend” (in the sense of childhood esteem bolstering); prominent with multiple degrees (3 PhD’s, then several degrees, now 4 PhD’s?) is. Of course we can’t evaluate this person’s opinion until Monckton tells us who it is.
Mr Hutchins is finally reduced to stuttering about the semantics of what is and is not covered by the phrase “operational amplifier”, just as he previously stuttered about the semantics of process engineering. Let him wait until I deal with the temperature feedback question, and reserve his petty sniping till then.
” prominent with multiple degrees”
David Evans?
Nick –
I very much doubt it is David. David is quite brilliant and would have instantly understood the issues (that still evade Monckton), and tried to explain. Possibly he did, so I wonder if he could have earned his own invective title in consequence. As I see it, you are the “Quibbling“ Mr. Stokes and I am the “Contemptible” Mr. Hutchins, and we earned these titles honestly! These would be much better if he achieved alliteration. Perhaps you get stuttering and I get horrific? I wonder if Monckton ever repeats. (Actually I thought “stuttering” was not PC – but I guess if a British Lord uses it (twice), so can the common folks?)
Now Monckton is supposing we circuit types are semantically confused about operational amplifiers. I bet he wouldn’t know an op-amp if he sat on one. Ever done that?
Bernie
Messrs. Hitchens and Stokes continue to display a petulant mean-spiritedness that is unbecoming, and they continue to presume to lecture me about the feedback portion of my argument – a portion that is yet to come. That is anti-scientific.
Bernie,
“Ever done that?”
They do generate a “wah-wah-wah” sound.
I guess we are classed as the old contemptibles.
Hitchens?
Wow. I am flattered to have had my name misspelled as that of the most brilliant British writer/orator of the last 50 years.
One of the themes in this contribution is that global change may be over-estimated. There is a reference to only low percentage change in the historic record. One of the ways I argue against warmists is to point out that in mid latitudes, the estimated change in temperature from glacial to interglacial periods in 10 degrees C.
http://www.eolss.net/Eolss-sampleAllChapter.aspx
In tropical areas the change may be less – around 5 degrees C. However there are a range of estimates higher than 5 for tropical and sub-tropical zones (Anderson, D., Goudie, A., Parker, A. 2013. Global environments through the Quaternary – exploring environmental change; Bell, M. and Walker, M.J.C, 2005, Late Quaternary Environmental Change: Physical and Human Perspectives, (2nd edition).
Pearson/Prentice Hall.). Also these books (and references therein) show that in certain areas of Europe Asia and North America, the change may have been 15 degrees C from glacial to interglacial.
We can contrast that with estimates of transient climate response and equilibrium climate sensitivity to CO2. Around the year 2000, estimates were around 3 – 5 degrees C, whereas latest estimates are down around 1,4 – 1.7 degrees C. https://judithcurry.com/2013/09/25/nic-lewis-vs-the-uk-met-office/
https://climateaudit.org/2015/04/09/pitfalls-in-climate-sensitivity-estimation-part-1/
So if temperature change from glacial to interglacial periods ranges from 5 degrees at the tropics to 10 and even 15 degrees C in temperate and continental areas, whereas estimates of ECS and TRC are reducing to around 1.5 degrees C, surely natural variability, as best we know at present, is almost an order of magnitude greater than CO2 sensitivity.
So the idea that climate chnage is naturally at a low percentage change seems to me to be a less useful argument than pointing out that natural variability is proven to be greater than latest estimates of climate sensitivity to CO2 by an order of magnitude.
ps change for chnage is 3rd last line.
pps, always enjoy Lord Monckton and WUWT
And to clarify further, the references above suggest that natural variability over the last 810,000 years from glacial to interglacial period has been greater than 3.3 degrees K. However, they are for certain areas rather than global averages. The range of figures given (5 – 15 degrees C) suggest a global average change of greater than 3.3 degres K
In due course the cryostratigraphic evidence for the 3.3 K variability of global mean surface temperatures either side of the 810,000-year period mean will be presented.
Keith,
I agree that the LGM must have been more than 3.3 degrees C colder than now, but this study found that global average temperature possible, near the bottom of a range around 4 degrees C (+/- 0.8).
http://www.clim-past.net/9/367/2013/cp-9-367-2013.pdf
From Climate of the Past, 13 February 2013:
A new global reconstruction of temperature changes
at the Last Glacial Maximum
J. D. Annan and J. C. Hargreaves
Research Institute for Global Change, Yokohama, Japan
Abstract.
Some recent compilations of proxy data both on land and ocean (MARGO Project Members, 2009; Bartlein et al., 2011; Shakun et al., 2012), have provided a new opportunity for an improved assessment of the overall climatic
state of the Last Glacial Maximum. In this paper, we combine these proxy data with the ensemble of structurally diverse state of the art climate models which participated in the PMIP2 project (Braconnot et al., 2007) to generate a spatially
complete reconstruction of surface air (and sea surface) temperatures. We test a variety of approaches, and show that multiple linear regression performs well for this application. Our reconstruction is significantly different to and more accurate than previous approaches and we obtain an estimated global mean cooling of 4.0±0.8 C (95% CI).
Polar Zones: 8.24% of Earth’s surface
Temperate Zones: 51.98%
Tropics: 39.78%
Assuming about the same distribution during the LGM (despite small differences in axial tilt), then a global average of 3.3 degrees C cooler might imply some distribution like this: two degrees C cooler in the Tropics, four degrees in the Temperate Zones and six degrees in the Polar Zones.
Note well that the cryostratigraphic record shows variances of 3.3 K either side of the 801,000-year period mean, not 3.3 K in all.
Monckton of Brenchley
September 2, 2016 at 3:16 pm
Point well taken. Most of the past 801 millennia have been colder than the past eleven millennia.
Mr. Monckton, please indulge me with an answer to resolve my confusion: does Figure 1 aim to diagram the temperature feedback of a *model* of the Earth’s climate system, or does it instead aim to diagram the Earth’s *actual*, physical, temperature feedback behavior, or to do both at once? This is not a snare: I am trying to help you perfect your phrasing, which will be critical in the later article where you discuss the diagram in detail.
In answer to Mr Fashena, the curve at Fig. 1 plots equilibrium climate sensitivity in Kelvin against the unitless feedback factor f. Since the language to describe feedbacks, feedback factors, open-loop gain factors, closed-loop gain factors, mu and beta transmission characteristics etc. is bewilderingly non-standard even within electronics and is still more eccentric in climatology, I shall be less concerned with the notatio, as Gauss used to put it, than with the notio.
I shall be defining various variables by reference to the feedback mathematics in a standard text on feedback analysis in electronic systems – a textbook to which the climatologists who introduced the errors that I shall expose frequently refer (though IPCC, interestingly, does not). All will be very clearly explained, with diagrams and labels and equations. The error is a lulu, but it appears to have no effect until one realizes the importance of the rectangular hyperbolic response function shown in Fig. 1. All will be revealed.
As a preface, I want to declare that I am deeply skeptical of “climate change” and its supposed science… my previous question (which you didn’t actually answer) was preliminary to this one: are you sure that the establishment’s net thermal feedback sensitivity value is calculated using a detailed feedback model? It’s my understanding that it is a result of directly correlating (calculated) heat-retention from emissions to (allegedly) measured global warming: if so, it is a constraint on the models, and no model can constrain it.