Brought to You by SEPP (www.SEPP.org) The Science and Environmental Policy Project
THIS WEEK: By Ken Haapala, President, Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP)
What Happens Now? Roy Spencer reported that the early calculations for atmospheric global temperature report from the Earth System Science Center at the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) show that 2016 was slightly warmer than the prior hot year of 1998 by a statically insignificant 0.02ºC. The earlier part of the year was warmer, but temperatures dropped in the latter part of the year. Spencer produces a table ranking the 38 years by the anomaly from the average: 2016 is now 1, 1998 is 2, 2010 is 3, 2015 is 4 and 2002 is 5. The top 2 years are about 0. 5ºC from the anomaly, and the departure from the anomaly lessens significantly after that. According to Paul Homewood, the UAH calculations were independently confirmed by data from Remote Sensing Systems (RSS).
The central issue is not that 2016 was slighter “hotter” than 1998, but what will happen in 2017 and beyond. Both 1998 and 2016 were strong El Niño years (Pacific Ocean warming). After the spike in 1998, the El Niño was followed by a brief La Niña cooling, but then temperatures rebounded to about 0.2ºC above the 38-year mean. Will temperatures return to the 1998 to 2015 plateau or be above or below it? Unfortunately, despite spending over $45 Billion on “climate science” since 1993, the US does not have the capability of predicting significant weather events such as El Niños and La Niñas. See links under Measurement Issues – Atmosphere
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Quote of the Week. With four parameters, I can fit an elephant, and with five I can make him wiggle his trunk. — Attributed to von Neumann by Enrico Fermi.
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Number of the Week: Plus or minus 0.1ºC
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TWTW: Over the next few weeks, the coverage of TWTW will be limited. Shortly before the election, Ken Haapala was asked to volunteer for a non-paid, temporary position on a Trump transition landing team. He responded as he would have for any major national candidate – Yes. The activities are taking considerable time. Further, he will avoid writing in TWTW about policy or political issues. Responses to correspondence will be limited. Thank you.
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The Gradient: In a March conference by the CO2 Coalition, Meteorologist Richard Lindzen gave a presentation emphasizing that the central issue for weather and for climate change is not global average temperature. The central issue is the gradient between the temperatures in the tropics and at the poles. Lindzen states that major historic climate changes “were characterized by large changes in the temperature difference between the tropics and the poles, with very little change at the equator.”
Lindzen uses the concept of a pipeline to illustrate his explanation. If a force applied to a liquid in a pipeline is increased, the flow increases because the pressure in the pipeline increases compared to the pressure at the end of the pipeline. The gradient in the pressure determines the flow.
Another simple illustration can be found by comparing the flow of a non-tidal stream on the coastal plain at an elevation at 20 feet with the flow of a stream in a beaver meadow at 6,000 feet. The speed of the flow of water is not determined by the elevation of the stream, but by the gradient of the stream.
Lindzen writes: “Misunderstanding the nature of past climate change, has, for example, led paleo-climatologists to exaggerate grossly climate sensitivity. As we have seen, past climate change was primarily characterized by changes in the equator-to-pole temperature difference, accompanied by only small changes in equatorial temperature.” Lindzen also states that the concept of “polar amplification” of global warming/climate change is absurd.
Lindzen’s comments are consistent with the findings of climate pioneer H.H. Lamb, who observed that the Little Ice Age was marked by fierce storms in Europe and, comparably, the warm periods were benign.
If the globe is experiencing a greenhouse gas warming, then the gradient between the tropics and the poles should be declining and gradient between the surface and the warming atmosphere should be declining. If occurring, these reductions in gradient should lead to a reduction in the severity of storms, not an increase as claimed by many.
Formerly, UAH published useful colored maps showing the global temperature change over the entire dataset, from which one could visualize changes in gradient. But the administration’s cuts in its funding of UAH are having an effect. See links under Challenging the Orthodoxy.
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Climate Variability Selection: For some years, researchers at the Smithsonian Institution have explored the development of the human species in the Rift Valley of East Africa. With its many subspecies, the family could be called the human bush, rather than the human tree.
Researcher Rick Potts, director of the Smithsonian Institution’s Human Origins Program, has developed the hypothesis that climate variability selection may explain the increase in brain size of humanoids over the past several million years. Drilling cores and other archeological records show significant periods of strong rainfall and droughts as well as variation in temperatures over the last million years. Such changes in climate, and available foods, may favor adaptive organisms over highly specialized ones.
The data presented show ever increasing climate variability along with a general cooling. The trend in increased climate variability corresponds with an increase in brain case volume. It will be interesting to see how this research develops. See links under Changing Climate.
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Data Fiddling: A new paper, built on an earlier one by Tom Karl, attempted to do away with the so-called Temperature Pause or Hiatus by reanalyzing sea surface data, then claiming that earlier estimates of temperature trends by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) had large cooling biases. Thus, according to the paper, actual warming trends are greater than what was reported by the IPCC.
As David Whitehouse states: “Any estimate of temperature trends that have their endpoint on the uptick of the El Nino curve will give a misleadingly high trend. A new paper falls into this trap, claiming the global temperature hiatus never existed.”
“One has to be very careful about estimating temperature trends as they depend strongly on start and end years and changes of a year or two in them can produce very different results. One also has to be aware of the structure in the temperature data of the past 20-years or so as it is dominated not by long-term warming but by natural inter-annual events that are much stronger. There is the very strong 1998 El Nino that elevates temperatures, the much cooler La Nina years of 1999 and 2000, the El Ninos of 2010 and 2015 as well as smaller El Ninos and La Nina effects.
“The temperature trends of the oceans estimated by the paper fall into this trap. Technically the trends calculated are accurate for the start and end points used, but they are unwise start and end points which are, to use a frequently misunderstood term, cherry-picked.”
Perhaps unknowingly, these papers challenge the assertions of the IPCC claims of certainty.
The entire process is reminiscent of what von Neumann said in the quote of the week. If there is insufficient calibration among datasets, one can draw an elephant.
The 2008 NIPCC report discussed the calibration problem of going from instruments on ship engine water intakes significantly below the surface to ocean buoys on the surface. The NIPCC report suggested that because of the thermocline in the oceans, the shift would give an overestimate of any warming trend. The latest papers suggest that going from instruments below the surface to instruments at the surface results in an underestimate of any warming trend. Have the authors ever gone scuba diving in the ocean and felt the change in temperature with depth? See links under Challenging the Orthodoxy – NIPCC and Challenging the Orthodoxy.
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Life Finds a Way: Craig Idso’s web site, CO2 Science, posted an interesting new study on so-called ocean acidification. Analyzing fossilized shells for the most diverse and abundant reef-building coral, the researchers discovered that the corals maintained their skeletal structures for 40 million years. The period covers extensive periods warmer than today, ice ages, and wide variety of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) conditions. As the site states:
“The take home message of the Stolarski et al. paper is that the skeletal formation process of Acropora is, as they state, ‘strongly biologically controlled,’ uninhibited by changes in temperature or seawater chemistry, including seawater pH/ocean acidification conditions that are predicted to occur over the course of the next century and beyond.”
Many other such links can be found at CO2 science under the headings “Ocean Acidification” and “Ocean Acidification and Warming” http://www.co2science.org/subject/o/subject_o.php
See links under Challenging the Orthodoxy and Review of Recent Scientific Articles by CO2 Science.
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Microbes and Oil: Oceanus, the magazine from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, not to be confused with John Holgren’s group, has an interesting article on what happened to the oil from Deepwater Horizon, the BP Oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. As TWTW reported at the time, the actual damage to major wildlife was greatly exaggerated, and the naturally occurring microbes were having a feast. The question addressed in the article was whether chemical dispersants helped the microbes in their feast.
The general conclusion is that by preventing the oil from clumping together, keeping the oil in smaller droplets, the dispersants assisted the microbes at the banquet. Of course, many in the environmental industry will be outraged by such findings. See link under Oil Spills, Gas Leaks & Consequences
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Judith Curry’s Resignation: Judith Curry has resigned her tenured position as professor at Georgia Tech to devote time to her growing company in weather prediction. For several years, she has been a strong voice for reason in an ever-increasingly politicized world. We hope she continues with her web site, Climate Etc., giving a forum for many questioning the political and climate establishment. See links under Seeking a Common Ground.
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Number of the Week: Plus or minus 0.1ºC (0.2ºF). On his web site, Roy Spencer stated: “We estimate that 2016 would have had to be 0.10 C warmer than 1998 to be significantly different at the 95% confidence level.” If the same calculations apply for a cooling, this would be an error range of plus or minus 0.1ºC. It would be interesting to see a realistic error range calculation of global surface temperature measurements.
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NEWS YOU CAN USE:
Challenging the Orthodoxy — NIPCC
Nature, Not Human Activity, Rules the Climate
S. Fred Singer, Editor, NIPCC, 2008
http://www.sepp.org/publications/nipcc_final.pdf
Overcoming Chaotic Behavior of Climate Models
By S. Fred Singer, SEPP, July 2010
http://www.sepp.org/science_papers/Chaotic_Behavior_July_2011_Final.doc
Climate Change Reconsidered II: Physical Science
Idso, Carter, and Singer, Lead Authors/Editors, 2013
https://www.heartland.org/media-library/pdfs/CCR-II/CCR-II-Full.pdf
Summary: http://www.nipccreport.org/reports/ccr2a/pdf/Summary-for-Policymakers.pdf
Climate Change Reconsidered II: Biological Impacts
Idso, Idso, Carter, and Singer, Lead Authors/Editors, 2014
http://www.nipccreport.org/reports/ccr2b/pdf/Full-Report.pdf
Summary: https://www.heartland.org/media-library/pdfs/CCR-IIb/Summary-for-Policymakers.pdf
Why Scientists Disagree About Global Warming
The NIPCC Report on the Scientific Consensus
By Craig D. Idso, Robert M. Carter, and S. Fred Singer, NIPCC, Nov 23, 2015
http://climatechangereconsidered.org/
Download with no charge
https://www.heartland.org/policy-documents/why-scientists-disagree-about-global-warming
Challenging the Orthodoxy
The Climate Surprise: Why CO2 is good for the Earth
By William Happer, et al. The CO2 Coalition, July 2016
http://co2coalition.org/2016/07/29/the-climate-surprise-why-co2-is-good-for-the-earth/
Videos and pdf
“Global warming: The science in three nutshells” by Richard S. Lindzen, p17
Acropora Coral Fossils Show Evidence of Immunity to Predicted Future Levels of Ocean Acidification and Warming
Stolarski, J., Bosellini, F.R., Wallace, C.C., Gothmann, A.M., Mazur, M., Domart-Coulon, I., Gutner-Hoch, E., Neuser, R.D., Levy, O., Shemesh, A. and Meibom, A. 2016. A unique coral biomineralization pattern has resisted 40 million years of major ocean chemistry change. Scientific Reports 6: 27579, DOI: 10.1038/srep27579. Jan 6, 2017
http://www.co2science.org/articles/V20/jan/a3.php
The constancy of change and the new catastrophism: a personal reflection on crisis-driven science
By Nick Eyles and Andrew D. Miall, Speaking of Geoscience, 2014 [H/t GWPF]
Publisher Disclaimer: This post is a guest reflection piece and is not intended to represent the Society’s official position on climate change.
“In so many areas, we simply don’t know enough of how our planet functions.”
Death Of Global Temperature ‘Pause’ Greatly Exaggerated
By David Whitehouse, GWPF, Jan 5, 2017
http://www.thegwpf.com/death-of-temperature-pause-greatly-exaggerated/
Link to new paper: Assessing recent warming using instrumentally homogeneous sea surface temperature records
By Hausfather, et al, Science Advances, Jan 4, 2017
http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/3/1/e1601207
Link to earlier paper: Possible artifacts of data biases in the recent global surface warming hiatus
By Karl, et al, Science, Jun 26, 2015
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/348/6242/1469
From the abstract of the paper: “Here, we present an updated global surface temperature analysis that reveals that global trends are higher than those reported by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, especially in recent decades…”
John Christy on “the Big Picture”
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, Jan 3, 2017
http://joannenova.com.au/2017/01/john-christy-on-the-big-picture/
A video
Questioning the Orthodoxy
Despite new study, global warming pause ‘still going strong’
A new study that only looked at ocean temperatures is being trumpeted as disproving the global warming pause–it doesn’t.
By Thomas Richard, Blasting News, Jan 5, 2016
Lindzen, me: U.S. climate science needs to shrink by 80-90 percent
By Lubos Motl, The Reference Frame, Jan 1, 2017
http://motls.blogspot.com/2017/01/lindzen-me-us-climate-science-needs-to.html#more
1000 Skeptical Peer-Reviewed Climate Papers “Should Put UN IPCC To Shame,” Says Harvard Astrophysicist!
By P Gosselin, No Tricks Zone, Jan 3, 2017
Book Review: “Polar Bear Facts and Myths – A Science Summary for All Ages” by Susan Crockford
Book Review by Kip Hansen, WUWT, Dec 24, 2016
Global Warming Skepticism is Part of the Final Phase of the American Revolution
Guest Opinion: Dr. Tim Ball, WUWT, Dec 23, 2016
Questioning assumptions
By Martin Livermore, The Scientific Alliance, Jan 6, 2017
http://scientific-alliance.org/node/1031
“Private industry is not always wrong and idealistic environmentalists are not always right.”
[SEPP Comment: And the reverse is true as well.]
After US Election
Climate change scepticism could take over govt websites under Trump
A reworking of language on climate change on a Wisconsin govt site could foretell things to come
By Andrew Revkin, Business Standard, Jan 5, 2017 [H/t GWPF]
Seeking a Common Ground
JC in transition
By Judith Curry, Climate Etc. Jan 3, 2017
https://judithcurry.com/2017/01/03/jc-in-transition/#more-22651
Judith Curry retires, citing ‘craziness’ of climate science
By Scott Waldman, E&E News, Jan 4, 2016
http://www.eenews.net/stories/1060047798
Data shows that using science in an argument just makes people more partisan
By Dan Kopf, Quartz, Dec 23, 2016 [H/t Clyde Spencer]
[SEPP Comment: Use the reasoning, not the word “science”?]
Review of Recent Scientific Articles by CO2 Science
The Curses of Heat Strokes and How They Might Best Be Avoided
Wang, Y., Bobb, J.F., Papi, B., Wang, Y., Kosheleva, A, Di, Q., Schwartz, J.D. and Dominici, F. 2016. Heat stroke admissions during heat waves in 1,916 U.S. counties for the period from 1999 to 2010 and their effect modifiers. Environmental Health 15:83. Jan 4, 2017
http://www.co2science.org/articles/V20/jan/a1.php
Parts of Asia Were Warmer During the Holocene Than They Are Now
Aizen, E.M., Aizen, V.B., Takeuchi, N., Mayewski, P.A., Grigholm, B., Joswiak, D.R., Nikitin, S.A., Fujita, K., Nakawo, M., Zapf, A. and Schwikowski, M. 2016. Abrupt and moderate climate changes in the mid-latitudes of Asia during the Holocene. Journal of Glaciology 62: 411-439. Dec 30, 2016
http://www.co2science.org/articles/V19/dec/a18.php
“Of most interest to the current population of the Earth, however, was the finding of the eleven researchers that ‘periods warmer than modern periods occurred for ~6.5 ka, including during the Holocene Climate Optimum and Medieval Warm Period.’ More specifically, they write that ‘recent temperatures ([ReWP] 1993-2003) are, on average, 0.5°C lower than air temperatures estimated during the MWP and Holocene Climate Optimum’”
Models v. Observations
Two Recent Scientific Studies Show Climate Models A Long Way From Being Up To Par Important Success: Clouds as a Climate Amplifier of Atlantic Ocean Cycles Confirmed
By Dr. Sebastian Lüning and Prof. Fritz Vahrenholt (German text translated/edited by P Gosselin), No Tricks Zone, Jan 4, 2017
Link to paper: New observational evidence for a positive cloud feedback that amplifies the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation
By Bellomo, et al. Geophysical Research Letters, Sep 17, 2016
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2016GL069961/abstract?campaign=wolacceptedarticle
Model Issues
How the Developed World Wastes $1.5 Trillion PER YEAR on the Basis of Useless Models
By Alan Carlin, Carlin Economics and Science, Jan 5, 2017
http://www.carlineconomics.com/archives/3298
Measurement Issues — Surface
Uncertainties in sea surface temperatures
By Judith Curry, Climate Etc. Jan 4, 2017
https://judithcurry.com/2017/01/04/focus-on-sea-surface-temperatures/#more-22687
Measurement Issues — Atmosphere
Global Satellites: 2016 not Statistically Warmer than 1998
Strong December Cooling Leads to 2016 Being Statistically Indistinguishable from 1998
By Roy Spencer, His Blog, Jan 3, 2017
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2017/01/global-satellites-2016-not-statistically-warmer-than-1998/
RSS Confirm 2016 Is Tied With 1998 As Warmest Year
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Jan 5, 2017
Measurement Issues — Oceans
Mother-of-Pearl Holds the Key to Historical Ocean Temperatures
Studying this iridescent material in mollusk shells may give scientist a more accurate way to track historical ocean temps
By Kavya Balaraman, ClimateWire, Scientific American, Dec 22, 2016 [H/t Clyde Spencer]
Measurement Issues – Missing Heat
Mystery of Ocean Heat Deepens as Climate Changes
Better measurements deepen the mystery of global warming heat stored in the oceans
By Gayathri Vaidanathan, Climatewire, Scientific American, Oct 7, 2014
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/mystery-of-ocean-heat-deepens-as-climate-changes/
[SEPP Comment: A 2014 article on seeking the “missing heat” which may have never existed.]
Changing Weather
“Hottest Year Evah” Update
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Jan 1, 2016
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2017/01/01/hottest-year-evah-update/
Changing Climate
Climate and human evolution
By Michon Scott, Smithsonian Institution, NOAA, Nov 9, 2016
https://www.climate.gov/news-features/climate-and/climate-and-human-evolution
Link to paper: Alternating high and low climate variability: The context of natural selection and speciation in Plio-Pleistocene hominin evolution
By Richard Potts and J. Tyler Faith, Journal of Human Evolution, Oct 2015
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0047248415001827
Changing Seas
North Atlantic Cooling Has Plunged Below 1950s (And 1800s) Levels – And Scientists Project More Cooling
By Kenneth Richard, No Tricks Zone, Jan 5, 2017
Warming by [less] Upwelling of Cold Ocean Water
Guest essay by Wim Röst, WUWT, Dec 26, 2016
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/12/26/warming-by-less-upwelling-of-cold-ocean-water/
Changing Earth
There’s a jet stream in our core
By Staff Writers, Paris, (ESA) Dec 29, 2016
http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Theres_a_jet_stream_in_our_core_999.html
Link to paper: An accelerating high-latitude jet in Earth’s core
By Livermore, Hollerbach, and Finlay, Nature Geo Science, Dec 19, 2016
Questioning European Green
Friends of the Earth Promises: We Will Never Again Spread Misleading Anti-Fracking Scares
By Ben Webster, The Times, Via GWPF, Jan 4, 2017
UK Taxpayers Face £1 Billion Bill Over Green Subsidy Scandal
By Sean O’Neill and Sean O’Driscoll, The Times, Via GWPF, Jan 3, 2016
http://www.thegwpf.com/uk-taxpayers-face-1-billion-bill-over-green-subsidy-scandal/
Subsidies and Mandates Forever
Wife, Family & Solar Farm To Support–Please Give Generously
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Jan 4, 2017
Oil and Natural Gas – the Future or the Past?
Exxon’s 2040 Outlook: Fossil Fuels Aren’t Going Anywhere
By Oil & Gas 360, Oil Price.com, Dec 30, 2016 [H/t GWPF]
Link to report: 2017 Outlook for Energy: A View to 2040.
By Staff Writers, ExxonMobil, 2017
http://corporate.exxonmobil.com/en/energy/energy-outlook
Return of King Coal?
Kemper Travesty is No Way to Save Coal Mining Jobs
By Donn Dears, Power For USA, Jan 3, 2017
https://dddusmma.wordpress.com/2017/01/03/kemper-travesty-is-no-way-to-save-coal-mining-jobs/
“Ultra-supercritical coal-fired power plants meet all EPA requirements except for the amount of CO2 they emit. They are 40% more efficient than traditional coal-fired power plants.”
Oil Spills, Gas Leaks & Consequences
What Happened to Deepwater Horizon Oil?
Did dispersants help microbes break down oil?
By Chris Reddy, David L. Valentine, Oceanus, Dec 23, 2016
http://www.whoi.edu/oceanus/feature/what-happened-to-deepwater-horizon-oil
“From a scientist’s point of view, the Gulf of Mexico is a vast beaker and the Deepwater Horizon disaster represented the forbidden experiment that we would never purposely conduct but which we nevertheless take advantage of to learn lessons that we can apply to future oil spills.”
Nuclear Energy and Fears
The Final Nail?
By Donn Dears, Power For USA, Jan 6, 2017
https://dddusmma.wordpress.com/2017/01/06/the-final-nail/
Alternative, Green (“Clean”) Solar and Wind
Solar Power Is Always A Decade Away From Being Cheaper Than Coal
By Michael Bastasch, Daily Caller, Jan 4, 2017
http://dailycaller.com/2017/01/04/solar-power-is-always-a-decade-away-from-being-cheaper-than-coal/
[SEPP Comment: The article uses past predictions only. It does not address the critical question: What is the real cost of making solar generation reliable?]
Environmental Industry
2016’s biggest loser: Big Green
Voters turned thumbs down on the climate change lobby and rightly so
By Stephen Moore, Washington Time, Jan 1, 2016
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/jan/1/big-green-biggest-loser-of-2016/
Exclusive: OECD opens investigation into WWF in world first
By Staff Writers, Survival, Jan 5, 2017 [H/t GWPF]
http://www.survivalinternational.org/news/11538
[SEPP Comment: An anti-green story that may or may not be supported by facts. Until the story is fully revealed, it may be like unsupported claims by alarmists – accusation is not proof.]
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BELOW THE BOTTOM LINE:
Iceland’s Volcanic Heat–The Next White Elephant
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Jan 5, 2017
Temperature soaring!
By Staff Writers, Climate Change Predictions.org, Jan 7, 2017
http://climatechangepredictions.org/uncategorized/7627
“Few scientists now dispute that today’s soaring levels of carbon dioxide and other gases in the atmosphere will cause global temperature averages to rise by as much as nine degrees Fahrenheit sometime after the year 2000.” Carl Sagan, The Vindicator, Dec. 12, 1985
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ARTICLES: This week, there are no articles cited.
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With four parameters, I can fit an elephant, and with five I can make him wiggle his trunk.
~ Attributed to von Neumann by Enrico Fermi.
Ah yes, extra parameters — the stretchy sweat pants of flabby theories.
Thanks much, and congratulations, Mr. Haapala.
Another straw in the wind wrt Trump’s climate policy.
Here is a sure sign of global warming. A spot in North Africa at 26 degrees F. ..https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/surface/level/overlay=temp/orthographic=20.30,23.51,819/loc=18.945,22.210
Regarding a warming world getting a lesser temperature gradient between the equator and the poles, and a lesser temperature gradient between the surface and the atmosphere: The first is true, the second largely not true. The surface is warming faster than the troposphere, and the stratosphere is cooling. Greenhouse gases cool the top of the troposphere and the stratosphere. Increasing greenhouse gases make these levels of the atmosphere cooler. However, I expect most extratropical windstorms to get less windy because horizontal temperature gradient is the main source of energy for those.
The lack of any discussion of the decrease in variance , both equator-polar and diurnal , as opposed to change in mean is one of the “red flags” that diverted me into this debacle .
This explanation ignores the process by which adding CO2 causes the atmospheric emission height (the average altitude where an emitted photon is more likely to escape to space than to be absorbed by another molecule) to increase. Thereby, CO2 final emission is pushed into colder atmosphere regions and slows. The atmosphere and surface must warm to compensate.
“Unfortunately, despite spending over $45 Billion on climate science since 1993, the US does not have the capability of predicting significant weather events such as El Niños and La Ninas.”
– What exactly did the US get for all that money (~$2 Billion per year)?
– I wonder if NASA had spent $45 Billion on the Apollo program back in the ’60’s, when the NASA name really meant something worldwide, and wasn’t able to predict whether the Saturn V rocket would blow up or not?
– Are there some who wouldn’t mind spending another $45 Billion on climate science? Just kidding, although I would hope, and I’m not even American, that the US taxpayers get that money directed somewhere useful by President Trump. Of course if that happens expect a cacophony from those who believe they have a right to a lifetime job in climate science (or what passes for it these days) at taxpayers’ expense AND from their elitist supporters in Hollywood and the MSM.
Most of that $45 billion was not spent on climate science but on climate change mitigation, for example wind and solar power plants.
Re: Number of the Week: Plus or minus 0.1ºC (0.2ºF). … It would be interesting to see a realistic error range calculation of global surface temperature measurements.
The HADCRUT4 data set contains 95% confidence intervals. For 2016 annual data for the northern and southern hemispheres, the confidence interval around the temperature anomaly is 0.704 to 0.878, which makes it 0.174 C wide.
Randy,
The matter goes far deeper than that. You need to understand the error measurement/estimation procedure in great detail. For some who are wrong, the procedure seems to be a simple stats treatment of the repeatability of measurements under some form of constancy. That hardly scratches the surface. Done properly, there has to be extensive detailed comparison of the quantitative effects of just about every perturbing effect that can be imagined, in other words, a huge amount of work.
If this work is omitted, we are heading for a repeat of the debacle when ARGO floats were introduced. They were considered to find the results of earlier float designs to be in error and of almost no use. SST measurement is very difficult because so many parameters are unconstrained or difficult to constrain. The potential for non-cancelling bias is abundant. Like, what happens when an algal bloom grows and goes over a week or two? And so on into the night.
Geoff.
Ryan Maue image(Weatherbell) proves that the temperature spike June/October was entirely due to the tropical el Nino and had nothing to do with humans. from June to October the tropical temperature rises above the global temperature. however after el Nino ends in October they both move exactly together.
http://scientificqa.blogspot.co.uk
Re:Changing Earth
There’s a jet stream in our core
The biggest driver for Earths changing climate a weather patterns is the result of the energy exchange between the Earth’s 6000C interior and ionosphere .
“Time Variations
The geomagnetic field changes on time scales from milliseconds to millions of years. Shorter time scales mostly arise from currents in the ionosphere (ionospheric dynamo region) and magnetosphere, and some changes can be traced to geomagnetic storms or daily variations in currents. Changes over time scales of a year or more mostly reflect changes in Earth’s interior, particularly the iron-rich core. Frequently, Earth’s magnetosphere is hit by solar flares causing geomagnetic storms, provoking displays of aurorae. At present, the overall geomagnetic field is becoming weaker; the present strong deterioration corresponds to a 10 to 15 percent decline over the last 150 years and has accelerated in the past several years. Geomagnetic intensity has declined almost continuously from a maximum 35 percent above the modern value achieved approximately 2,000 years ago. Earth’s magnetic North Pole is drifting from northern Canada toward Siberia with a presently accelerating rate—10 km per year at the beginning of the 20th century, up to 40 km per year in 2003, and since then has only accelerated.”
Source: Boundless. “Geomagnetism.” Boundless Physics Boundless, 26 May. 2016. Retrieved 09 Jan. 2017 from https://www.boundless.com/physics/textbooks/boundless-physics-textbook/magnetism-21/magnetism-and-magnetic-fields-155/geomagnetism-550-11196/
In spite of so many scientific works-made on the basis of models, assumptions, measurement, and who knows what else, to date there is no real evidence of who caused climate change on our planet. Each of these articles carries little hint of the real causes, but it is only one dot in relation to the overall picture of these causes.
Once again I have to, again, draw the attention of everyone involved in this research, that almost all new way to deceive “knowing” the truth, using models and mathematics. Almost no one uses logic and consciousness, which are associated with the “warehouse” of all causes and knowledge of the true causes of any phenomenon.
If using logic and natural law, then it must reject the assertion that climate change and global warming resulting from human factors.
Climate changes are the consequences of interaction between the planet and the sun. But how ? That you should explore !!
Here, my help: change the magnetic fields of the planets and their variations caused by changes in temperature and planets themselves and their wrappers. Again, I should know how and why. If anyone is interested, we can bring about discussion.
If this does not happen, it means that everyone staying in positions for which no truth can get more money than the truth. Why? Therefore, the truth is one and few believed in it. There is much more money on combinatorics unknown quantities, as used by “experts” who have given today and wrote several million “evidence, valued at approximately $ 45 billion in the last 20 years (around 2 billion). Only set, and I submit that millions of not stating the truth, because you will lose profits if the truth wins
Posing a question to the denizens of WUWT: In a recent post on realclimatescience, CO2 experiments from about 1900 were described https://realclimatescience.com/2016/12/understanding-climate-attribution/. That got me to thinking: surely there have been relatively recent actual laboratory experiments on the effects of CO2 radiative forcing that demonstrate, or not, the effect of CO2 on an atmosphere. Does anyone know of such experiments? Thanks in advance.
Lab experiments cannot duplicate the actual atmosphere in scale or processes.
One has to be very careful about estimating temperature trends as they depend strongly on start and end years and changes of a year or two in them can produce very different results.
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in statistics, a trend that changes based on the endpoints is not a trend.
My thoughts for the Trump Transition Team:
The ONLY hope to model long term climate AT PRESENT is to adopt a methodology similar to how we predict earth’s tides.
Both the tides and climate are chaotic. They cannot be reliably predicted from first principles. Yet we reliably predict the tides for decades into the future, using technology called “Astrology”.
Thousands of years ago humans learned to predict the seasons, long before they had any clue what caused the seasons. Yet modern science claims that we cannot predict climate without knowing what causes climate. This is nonsense.
You only need to know the cause to predict climate from first principles. Which we know to be a waste of time, because IPCC 1 established that climate was chaotic and COULD NOT BE PREDICTED. This is why the IPCC says climate models are PROJECTIONS.
To predict climate we need the following:
1. Throw away all attempts to model climate from first principles.
2. Recognize that climate is cyclical – it follows patterns.
3. Create a long term record of climate, going back 1+ million years at least.
4. Look at local events we can predict in the physical universe
5. Look for correlations between climate cycles and the local events we can predict
6. Use these correlations to predict future climate based on local events we can predict.
This is how we learned to predict the tides. Unless we get a breakthrough in mathematics, ocean tidal prediction is the only working example we have of how to predict climate.
“TWTW: Over the next few weeks, the coverage of TWTW will be limited. Shortly before the election, Ken Haapala was asked to volunteer for a non-paid, temporary position on a Trump transition landing team. He responded as he would have for any major national candidate – Yes.”
THANK YOU, Ken! And for what it’s worth, please know that your weekly, insightful posts shared here will be missed.
Godspeed in your endeavors.