…but fails to address climate science flaws and failures
Guest essay by Larry Hamlin
The L A Times interviewed California Governor Brown about the states climate campaign with the results presented in an April 15, 2017 article entitled “I’m not giving up hope” which revealed his frustrations, concerns and views about lack of support among other states regarding California’s climate change program.
The Times presented a series of questions to Governor Brown addressing key topics regarding California’s efforts to address global climate issues at a state level. He readily acknowledged that other states are not buying his climate alarmist hype and moving in California’s direction and expressed frustration about this outcome.
When asked about greater support for his climate change program outside the U.S. he attributed this to Republicans “belief” that global warming is a hoax, irrelevant or not a problem but failed to address the significant and well documented climate science flaws and failures which are clearly undermining the scientific legitimacy of climate alarmist positions and claims.
When asked what could change peoples minds about climate change he said more “science” and recited the usual litany of climate alarmist claims about “heat”, more “storms”, “the sea level rise” and “Arctic melting”.
Governor Brown’s claim that higher temperatures are being caused by man made CO2 emissions is far from certain as addressed by climate scientist Dr. Judith Curry who documented flaws and failures of climate models claiming that man made CO2 emissions are driving global temperatures. Her study found that:
“The climate model simulation results for the 21st century reported by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) do not include key elements of climate variability, and hence are not useful as projections for how the 21st century will actually evolve.”
She further concludes that current climate models:
“are not fit for the purpose of attributing the causes of 20th century warming or for predicting global or regional climate change timescales of decades to centuries, with any high level of confidence.”
“are not fit for the purpose of justifying political policies to fundamentally alter world social, economic and energy systems.”
Governor Brown’s claim that more storms are being caused by man made CO2 emissions is unsupported by climate data as documented by Dr. Roger Pielke, Jr. in testimony provided before the House Committee on Science on March 29, 2017. In his testimony Dr. Pielke concluded:
Governor Brown’s claims of increasing rates of sea level rise are unsupported by NOAA tide gauge data with measurements through 2015 which show no sea level rise acceleration occurring at coastal locations around the U.S. or elsewhere as documented at NOAA’s website.
Measurements of NOAA tide gauge coastal sea level rise at California locations demonstrates that the rate of coastal rise remains steady and consistent over the last 100 or more years at rates which vary by location between 3 to 8 inches per century.
Governor Brown’s claims that Arctic melting is caused by man made CO2 emissions is exaggerated with measured Arctic temperature data showing cyclical patterns of increasing and decreasing temperatures over the last 100 years and the most recent studies of the behavior of Arctic ice melt concluding that up to 50% of ice melt since 1979 is due to natural climate variation.
It is not a question of “belief” that is significantly undermining support for climate alarmist claims as Governor Brown suggests but instead the results of legitimate scientific inquiry which are exposing the flaws, failures and shortcomings of climate alarmist claims.
TRUMP and PRUITT get the SCIENCE RIGHT – NATURAL CYCLES DRIVE CLIMATE CHANGE.
Climate is controlled by natural cycles. Earth is just past the 2004+/- peak of a millennial cycle and the current cooling trend will likely continue until the next Little Ice Age minimum at about 2650.See the Energy and Environment paper at http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0958305X16686488
and an earlier accessible blog version at http://climatesense-norpag.blogspot.com/2017/02/the-coming-cooling-usefully-accurate_17.html
Here is the abstract for convenience :
“ABSTRACT
This paper argues that the methods used by the establishment climate science community are not fit for purpose and that a new forecasting paradigm should be adopted. Earth’s climate is the result of resonances and beats between various quasi-cyclic processes of varying wavelengths. It is not possible to forecast the future unless we have a good understanding of where the earth is in time in relation to the current phases of those different interacting natural quasi periodicities. Evidence is presented specifying the timing and amplitude of the natural 60+/- year and, more importantly, 1,000 year periodicities (observed emergent behaviors) that are so obvious in the temperature record. Data related to the solar climate driver is discussed and the solar cycle 22 low in the neutron count (high solar activity) in 1991 is identified as a solar activity millennial peak and correlated with the millennial peak -inversion point – in the RSS temperature trend in about 2004. The cyclic trends are projected forward and predict a probable general temperature decline in the coming decades and centuries. Estimates of the timing and amplitude of the coming cooling are made. If the real climate outcomes follow a trend which approaches the near term forecasts of this working hypothesis, the divergence between the IPCC forecasts and those projected by this paper will be so large by 2021 as to make the current, supposedly actionable, level of confidence in the IPCC forecasts
What if anything controls Earth’s climate system is indeterminate pending identification of the statistical population underlying the associated model.. This statistical population is the source of the information about the outcomes of events that is provided by this model to a would-be regulator of this system. Absent identification of this population regulation of this system is impossible..
Does that mean there’s a consensus against Governor Brown?
You bet! Moonbeam is probably the worst thing ever to happen to California. He makes any drought look like a Sunday school picnic. Brown defines “man made disaster.”
+1, Very true!
Let’s not forget Jerry Brown’s earlier association with Jim Jones of the People’s Temple and Jonestown massacre infamy.
So accusing Gov. Brown of “Drinking the Kool-Aid” is almost apropos.
“you can’t force republicans to deal with climate change”
……..says it all
But they will continue to force independents and Republicans to deal with (their) contrived climate change scheme.
Maybe all the Arctic is is not melting as claimed by Moonbeam, it could be moving South along with the snowbirds.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-39632047?ocid=socialflow_facebook&ns_mchannel=social&ns_campaign=bbcnews&ns_source=facebook
For a liberal, the fact that most of the world disagrees with them is always explained away by claiming a conspiracy of the rich and powerful.
Even when the liberal is rich and powerful.
With the crazy ant mentality in charge, California cities no longer have to buy one-way bus tickets to send people out of state. Now they leave at their own expense.
self deporting
I’m surprised he didn’t break out into the old climate hymn; “Onward, Climate Soldiers”.
Fake news, propaganda, and cognitive dissonance govern California.
Brown’s belief that the economy of California has benefitted by tacking climate change proves one of two things. Either he is a fool in the useful idiot mold, or he is a liar. You simply can’t help your economy by increasing the costs of energy.
.
Jerry Brown personifies Napoleon’s observation that in politics stupidity is no handicap.
Brown lives in the land of make-believe.
It’s appropriate that Hollywood is in California.
Exactly.
Brown is every other States best salesman . The drought myth is now over and the earth doesn’t have a fever despite claims by Hollywood and failed politicians .
Does Brown ever address real problems ? For all its greatness California loves their politicians close minded and ignorant .
Real problems are hard, they can be measured.
Imaginary problems on the other hand are easy to solve.
You have to give the AGW Grifters grudging credit. They have been running this ‘long con’ for more than 30 years now and it has paid off quite handsomely for them. The gullible sheep are still being herded with scary stories…… and they’re still bleating to be fleeced even more.
That’s because they appeal to the young, who haven’t seen it before, and to the bleeding hearts, who are an easy sell.
Joe’s right, we’ve allowed them to indoctrinate our kids into an anti-science believe system from kindergarten. A couple of years ago one of the neighbor kids was over on e weekend helping with yard work and he started telling me about Global Warming. I listened politely and when he got around to explaining how much hotter it was I mentioned I’d been living in the same house for 40 years and the weather was the same today as it had been then, he looked incredulous then tried to tell me I was wrong about that. Ths coming from a 14 year old.
It’s tragic what we’ve let these people do to our children.
Apparently Gov. Brown is swayed by the hype and the reported scientific consensus. But the reality is that scientists never registered and voted on the AGW conjecture. So there is no consensus. Such a consensus would not mean anything anyway because science is not a democracy. The laws of science are not some sort of legislation. The theories of science are not validated through a voting process.
Climate change is real and has been going on for eons, long before Mankind started to burn fossil fuels. Global warming and sea level rise has been going on for some 20K years, long before Mankind started to make use of fossil fuels. The previous interglacial period, the Eemian was warmer than this one with more ice cap melting and higher sea levels and Man’s use of fossil fuels had nothing to do with since it happened more than 115 K years ago. Based on modeling studies one can conclude that the climate change we are experiencing today is caused by the sun and the oceans over which mankind has no control.
The AGW conjecture sounds plausable at first but upon closer examination it is severely flawed. In part, to generate evidence to support the AGW conjecture the IPCC supported the development of a plethora of climate models. The large number of different models is evidence that a lot of guess work has been involved. If there were no guess work then only one model would have been supported. The plethora of models have generated a wide range of predictions for today’s global temperatures but they all have one thing in common. They have all been wrong. They have all prediicted global warming that never happened. If they are evidence of anything it is that the AGW conjecture is flawed. The climate simulations actually beg the question because it is hard coded in that more CO2 in the atmosphere causes warming so that is what the simulation results show. Because they beg the question such sumulations are totally useless. If the IPCC actually learned something from the simulations they would have by now reduced the number of different models under consideration but that has not happened. Others have generated models that show that climate is correlated to solar and ocean effects and not to CO2.
There is no real evidence in the paleoclimate record that CO2 has any effect on climate. Warmer temperatures cause more CO2 to enter the atmosphere because warmer water holds less CO2 then cooler water but there is no real evidence that the additinal CO2 adds to warming. It is all just speculation.
The AGW conjecture depends upon the existance of a radiant greenhouse effect provided by gases with LWIR absorption bands. A real greenhouse does not stay warm because of the heat trapping action of so called greenhouse gases. A real greenhouse stays warm because the glass limits cooling by convection. It is a convective greenhouse effect..So to on Earth. As derived from first principals, the atmophere keeps the Earth’s surface on average 33 degrees C warmer than it would other wise be because gravity limits cooling by convection. It is a convective greenhouse effect and it accounts for all 33 degrees C that has been observed. Additional warming caused by an additional radiant greenhouse effect has not been observed on Earth or on any planet in the solar system with a thick atmosphere. The radiant greenhouse effect is fiction as is the AGW conjecture.
Kyoji Kimoto, reporting in an artiicle entitled “Basic Global Working Hypothesis is Wrong” has found that the original calculation of the Planck climate sensivity of CO2 is too great by more than a factor of 20 because original calculations forgot to take into consideration that a doubling of CO2 wiill cause a small but very signiificant decrease in the dry lapse rate in the troposphere which is a cooling effect. So instead of a Planck Climate sensivity of 1.2 degrees C, CO2 provides a Plankc climate sensivity of less than .06 degrees C which is rather trivial.
If CO2 really affected climate than the increase in CO2 over the last 30 years should have caused at least a measureable increase in the dry lapse rate in the troposphere but such has not happened.
In their first report the IPCC published a wide range of possible values as to the climate sensivity of CO2. In their last report the IPCC published the exact same values. So after more than two decades of effort the IPCC has found nothing the would narrow their range of guesses one iota. The IPCC deliberately ignore’s all logic indicating that the climate sensivity of CO2 is really less than their published range for fear of losing their funding. Supporting the AGW conjecture has been a matter of politics and not science. Belief in the AGW conjecture is really anti science.
There are many good reasons to be conserving on the use of fossil fules but climate change is not one of them. The state of California is already wasting billions of dollars on a medium high speed rail line that very few will ride between Bakersfield and Fresno. The state cannot afford to waste money on climate change. The state would be better off spending the money on water storage facilities and desalination plants as protection from the effects of future droughts.
I’m thinking about trolling Mike Mann’s facebook page. Dear Mr. Mann, thank you for the important work you do educating us about climate change. I have a question: I own a house on Malibu beach, it’s now worth 4x what I paid for it. I could sell it tomorrow for 16 million dollars. We all know that my property will be under water soon, when should I sell? -sincerly, Albert
But watch out for Green house flippers telling misdirection lies.
Albert, this article suggests you should sell right now….
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-04-19/the-nightmare-scenario-for-florida-s-coastal-homeowners
Griff:
Albert’s property is in California but Bloomberg’s article is set Florida.
Also, the article references NOAA “predictions” but regarding Earth’s climate NOAA makes only “projections.”
Both carbon and poverty have a social cost. If a carbon tax is the solution to the social cost of carbon, then why isn’t a poverty tax a solution to the social cost of poverty?
If we can solve carbon pollution by a carbon tax, then shouldn’t we solve the problem of homelessness by taxing the poor?
Obviously Oroville Dam is an example of Man-Maid Climate Change, and had nothing to do with Governors Brown on design, construction and maintenance.
At the very least, Jerry was fooled by the permadrought (man-maid) and didn’t waste too much money on keeping Oroville fixed up for a full tub, or even basic breaks and leaks. Neither did dad Pat waste money on unimportant things like adequate steel, concrete and drainage, digging to good rock, or superior engineers….
Isn’t a man-maid called a butler?
Climate change forced by a peculiar obsession to carbon dioxide. Catastrophic? Perhaps. For the Prophets and Profits of CAGW.
For some light relief, here is P.J.O’Rourke from” All the Trouble in the World” (1994), in the Chapter, ” Ecology, We’re All going to Die”-
“Environmentalists do not like all this contradiction and complexity and wish it away when they can.
Al Gore will brook no argument about the greenhouse effect. In ‘Earth in the Balance’ ( the forerunner to An Inconvenient Truth) he says, ” The theory of global warming will not be disproved.” A 1992 Gallup poll of four hundred meteorologists and geophysicists found that 60% thought global temperatures had risen in the last century, but only 19% attributed this to man-made causes.Greenpeace itself surveyed 400 Greenpeace-picked scientists, and just 13% deemed runaway global warming probable.
This does not deter Al. Says he,’Scientists concluded -almost unanimously – that global warming is real and the time to act is now.’ ”
I always wondered when Mr. Gore first said , ” The debate is over, The science is settled.” It was 1992 when the science was settled against him.
A few posts ago we had a long discussion about the temperature data sets and the Law of Large Numbers (LLN). The AGW proponents argued that the millions of data points taken throughout the year and around the world created a good set of multiple measurements of the Earth’s temperature, and therefore it was justifiable to use the LLN to improve the accuracy and get those three-decimal-point statements of the mean temperatures and anomalies.
But that’s not what’s really happening. The LLN is applicable when one takes multiple measurements of the same thing at the same time. If one had a thousand thermometers of known accuracy and precision, and took a thousand measurements of the temperature of the room at some given moment, one would indeed be justified in using the LLN to reduce the error in the mean.
Instead, what’s happening is a large-scale sampling of the Earth’s temperature by all those stations. It’s as though 5000 people all over the Earth were given a board to measure. At a given time, they measured its length one time and recorded the measurement. Later they were given a board of a different length, and measured it once at a given time. Repeat this process once an hour, with different boards each time, for an entire year. One will end up with a database of millions of board lengths, with time and date of each duly noted.
One could then analyze this database and come up with a mean board length, and even apply the LLN to the data and claim that one knew the mean board length to three decimal points. But that would be wrong, because it was a different board measured each time, not the same board over and over. The measurements can’t converge on the true value, because there is no true value. The boards were always changing. You have no way to know if the error was normally distributed.
This is not to say that one can’t generate a mean board length, obviously. However, it’s going to have its standard deviation as its uncertainty, and not the standard deviation divided by the square root of the number of measurements. That is a huge difference.
Let’s say I use Excel to generate a thousand numbers with one decimal point. I use the function 25+(RANDBETWEEN(-1,1)*RAND()) to generate 850 temperatures clustered around 25.0 C, and then use 10-(RANDBETWEEN(-1,1)*RAND()) to generate 150 temperatures clustered around 10C. Obviously, I’ve skewed the values so there is no normal distribution, just as though we were using GHCN stations mostly in temperate zones of the Earth, with very little representation of the higher or lower latitudes.
My “measurements” are to tenths of a degree. My standard deviation works out to +/- 5.77 C. If I pretend the LLN applies, I can get the error down to +/- 0.18 C. Am I justified in using the LLN? Of course not; these are just random numbers representing temperatures skewed to the upper end of the range. There is no true value upon which my measurements converge. Each measurement was completely independent of the others, unlike measuring a single board where each measurement is dependent on the length of that board, and the measurements will cluster around it.
It’s difficult to imagine how anyone with even a basic knowledge of statistics could make this sort of conceptual error — however, it does give one a plausible-looking high-precision number that one can pretend actually means something. Even when it doesn’t.
James, you are too modest. Imagine you have a thermometer with a reading of 31.1 degrees C. You know the temperature to a tenth of a degree. You look at the thermometer ten times, compute an average, now you have a temperature 31.10 with a precision of a hundredth of a degree. You look 100 times, you can get a temperature to one thousandth of a degree. There is nothing better than a climate statistics.
James that’s a great explanation, last time I used it was with tables instead of boards but it was the same idea. No one understood it.
And that’s how this all works. Few people are interested in understanding basic statistics or measurement theory. Most can’t understand a Z score so when they look at “temperature anomalies” they come up blank.
The snake oil salesmen like Gore understand that and capitalize on it.
In regards to your measuring a board example.
If the person taking the reading is always the same person, you have to account for the possibility that the same person keeps making the same methodological mistake every time. That further complicates the desire to prove that the errors are random.
“He readily acknowledged that other states are not buying his climate alarmist hype…”
“All the world is queer save thee and me, and even thou art a little queer.”
― Robert Owen
California eyes unusual power source: its gridlocked roads.
All those cars on California’s famously gridlocked highways could be doing more than just using energy – they could be producing it. The California Energy Commission is investing $2 million to study whether piezoelectric crystals can be used to produce electricity from the mechanical energy created by vehicles driving on roads.
https://phys.org/news/2016-09-california-eyes-unusual-power-source.html
There is a nice summary at
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2016/08/highway-robbery-vibrating-freakin-roadways-to-generate-electricity/
This comes from an Governor Brown’s Energy Commission which mandates that an energy storage capacity must be measured in megawatts.
“…electricity from the mechanical energy created by vehicles driving on roads.”
But they’re gridlocked!
There are no free lunches. The extra flexing of the road to power the piezoelectric cells would result in cars spending more energy to get from A to B.
At the UN Climate Committee Report meeting at the Royal Society on 2/3 Oct 2013 it was explicitly reported by presenters
that the CO2 models could not explain the wild behavior of the jet stream. At which point Piers Corbyn pointed out it was a
direct consequence of changing solar activity (and lunar modulation) and generally predictable – so obviously nothing to do
with CO2. ‘Sudden’ winter warming of parts of the stratosphere are known to precede extra wild behavior of the Jet stream
and this winter Piers Corbyn specifically predicted such from solar activity and what happened since is weather and climate
history unfolding – nothing to do with CO2.
http://www.weatheraction.com/docs/WANews14No06.pdf
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/stratosphere/strat-trop/gif_files/time_pres_TEMP_MEAN_ALL_NH_2013.gif
Did the governor of California prepare the boats?
http://pics.tinypic.pl/i/00893/5kkztf2fpcam.png