Answers to comments from the original essay on WUWT, here.
By Christopher Monckton of Brenchley
I make no apology for returning to the topic of the striking error of physics unearthed by my team of professors, doctors and practitioners of climatology, control theory and statistics. Our discovery the climatology forgot the Sun is shining brings the global-warming scare to an unlamented end. My last article discussing our result attracted more than 800 comments. Here, I propose to answer some of the more frequently-occurring comments, which will be in bold face. Replies are in regular face.
In a temperature feedback loop, the input signal is surface reference temperature 
before feedback acts. The output signal is equilibrium temperature E after feedback has acted. The feedback factor f (= 1 – R / E) is the ratio of the feedback response fE (= E – R) to E. Then E = R + fE = R(1 – f)–1. By definition, E = RA, where A, the system-gain factor or transfer function, is equal to (1 – f)–1 and to E / R.
But your result is too complex. Please state it in simpler terms.
Erroneously, IPCC (2013, p. 1450) defines temperature feedback as responding only to changes in reference temperature. However, feedback also responds to the entire reference temperature. Climatology thus omits the sunshine from its sums and loses the opportunity to find, directly and reliably, the Holy Grail of climate-sensitivity studies – the system-gain factor.
Lacis+ (2010) imagined that in 1850 feedback response accounted for 75% of the equilibrium warming of ~44 K driven by the pre-industrial non-condensing greenhouse gases, implying a feedback factor 0.75, a system-gain factor 4 and an equilibrium sensitivity 4.2 K. i.e., 4 times reference sensitivity 1.04 K (Andrews 2012). Lacis misattributed to the non-condensing greenhouse gases the large feedback response to the emission temperature from the Sun.
In reality, absolute emission temperature in 1850 with no non-condensing greenhouse gases would have been 243.3 K and the warming from those gases 11.5 K, giving a reference temperature of 254.8 K before feedback. The HadCRUT4 equilibrium temperature after feedback was 287.55 K Thus, the system-gain factor, the ratio of equilibrium to reference temperature, was 287.55 / 254.8, or 1.13.
By 2011, if all warming since 1850 was anthropogenic, reference temperature had risen by 0.68 K to 255.48 K. Equilibrium temperature had risen by the sum of the 0.75 K observed warming (HadCRUT4) and 0.27 K to allow for delay in the emergence of manmade warming: thus, 287.55 + 1.02 = 288.57 K.
Climatology would thus calculate the system-gain factor as 1.02 / 0.68, or 1.5. Yet the models’ current mid-range estimate of 3.4 K warming per CO2 doubling implies an impossible 3.25.
In reality, the system-gain factor was 288.57 / 255.48, or 1.13, much as in 1850. It barely changed over the 161 years 1850-2011 because the 254.8 K reference temperature in 1850 was 375 times the manmade reference sensitivity of 0.68 K from 1850-2011. Sun big, man small: nonlinearities in feedback response are not an issue.
Given 1.04 K reference warming from doubled CO2, equilibrium warming from doubled CO2 is 1.04 x 1.13, or 1.17 K, not the 3.4 [2.1, 4.7] K imagined in the CMIP5 models (Andrews, op. cit.). And that, in just 350 words, is the end of the climate scare. There will be too little warming to cause harm.
The feedback-loop diagram simplifies to this black-box block diagram
But your result is too simple. Bringing 122 years of climatology to an end in 350 words? It can’t be as simple as that. Really it can’t. It has to be complicated. Models take account of a dozen individual feedbacks and the interactions between them. IPCC (2013) mentions “feedback” more than 1000 times. Feedback accounts for 85% of the uncertainty in equilibrium sensitivity (Vial et al. 2013). You can’t just jump straight to the answer without even mentioning, let alone quantifying, even one individual feedback. Look, in climatology we just don’t do simple.
Inanimate feedback processes cannot “know” that they must not respond to the very large emission temperature but only to the comparatively small subsequent perturbations. Once it is accepted that feedback responds to the entire input signal, it becomes possible to derive the system-gain factor reliably and immediately. It is simply the ratio of equilibrium to reference temperature at any chosen time. Equilibrium sensitivity to doubled CO2 (after feedback has acted) is simply the product of the system-gain factor and the reference sensitivity to doubled CO2 (before feedback has acted). And that’s that. To find the system-gain factor, one does not need the value of any individual feedback. We can treat the transfer function between reference and equilibrium temperatures simply as a black box.
But each of the five Assessment Reports of the IPCC is thousands of pages long. You can’t just get the answer that has eluded the world’s experts in a few paragraphs.
To quote a former occupier of the office of President of the United States, “Yes We Can.” The “experts” had borrowed feedback math from control theory without understanding it. James Hansen of NASA first explicitly perpetrated the error of forgetting the sunshine in a lamentable paper of 1984. Michael Schlesinger perpetuated it in a confused paper of 1985. Thereafter, everyone in official climatology copied the mistake without checking it. Correcting the error makes it easy to constrain the system-gain factor and hence equilibrium sensitivity.
But climate sensitivity in models is what it is. The science is settled.
All honest experts in control theory will agree that feedback processes in dynamical systems respond to the entire input signal and not just to some arbitrary fraction of that signal. The math is the same for all feedback-moderated dynamical systems – electronic op-amp circuits, process-control systems, climate. Build a test rig. All you need is an input signal, a feedback loop and an output signal. Set the input signal and the feedback factor to any value you like. Now measure the output signal. The circuit doesn’t respond only to some fraction of the input signal. It responds to all of it. We checked by building our own test rig and then getting a government lab to build one for us and to measure the output under a variety of conditions.
Feedback amplifier test circuit built and operated for us by a government lab
But the circuits you built are too simple. Any undergraduate could have built them. You didn’t need to go to a government lab.
We knew official climatology and its devotees would kick and scream and whinge and throw all their toys out of the stroller when they learned of our result. Trillions are at stake. So we checked what did not really need to be checked. Feedback theory has been around for 100 years. To borrow a phrase, it’s settled science. But we checked anyway. Oh, and we went right back to basics and proved the long-established feedback system-gain equation by two distinct methods.
But you didn’t need to prove the equation by two methods. All you needed to do was to prove it by linear algebra.
Yes, indeed. The proof by linear algebra is very simple. Since the feedback factor is the ratio of the feedback response in Kelvin to equilibrium temperature, the feedback response is the product of the feedback factor and equilibrium temperature. Then equilibrium temperature is the sum of reference temperature and the feedback response. With a little elementary algebraic manipulation, it follows that equilibrium temperature is the product of reference temperature and the reciprocal of (1 minus the feedback factor). That reciprocal is, by definition, the system-gain factor.
But we also obtained the system-gain factor as the sum of an infinite series of powers of the feedback factor. Under the convergence condition that the absolute value of the feedback factor is less than 1, the system-gain factor is the sum of the infinite series of powers of the feedback factor, which is the reciprocal of (1 minus the feedback factor), as before. We are guilty of double-checking. Get over it.
Convergence upon the truth
But the equation you use is not derived from any known physical theory.
Yes, it is. See the above answer. But all you really need to know about feedback is that the system-gain factor is the ratio of equilibrium temperature (before feedback) to reference temperature (after feedback). For 1850 and for 2011, we know both temperatures to quite a small margin of error. So we know the system-gain factor, and from that we can derive equilibrium sensitivity to doubled CO2.
But climatology’s version of the system-gain equation is derived from the energy-balance equation via a Taylor-series expansion. It can’t be wrong.
It isn’t wrong. It’s just not useful, because there is much more uncertainty in the delta temperatures than in the well constrained absolute temperatures we use. Neither the energy-balance equation nor the leading-order term in the Taylor-series expansion reliably gives the system-gain factor. It is only when you remember the Sun is shining that you can find the value of that factor directly and reliably.
Climatology in the dark
But if you’re saying climatology isn’t wrong, why are you saying it’s wrong?
Climatology’s system-gain equation, using reference and equilibrium temperature changes rather than absolute temperatures, is a correct equation as far as it goes. It is the difference between two instances of the absolute-value equation. But climatology erroneously limits its definition of feedback as responding only to changes, effectively subtracting out the sunshine. Feedback also responds to the absolute input signal, making it easy to find the system-gain factor and thus equilibrium sensitivity.
But you’re starting your calculation from zero Kelvin. You’re literally Switching On The Sun.
No. We have looked out of the window and noticed that the Sun is already Switched On and shining (well, not in Scotland, obviously, but everywhere else). Our calculation starts not with zero Kelvin but with the reference temperature of 254.8 K in 1850. The feedback processes in the climate respond to that temperature and not to any other or lesser temperature. They neither know nor care whether or to what extent they may have existed at any other temperature. They neither know nor care how they might have responded to some other temperature. They respond as they are, and they respond only to the temperature they find. We know the magnitude of the response they engender, for we can measure the equilibrium temperature, calculate the reference temperature and deduct the latter from the former.
But the Earth exhibits bistability. It can have two different temperatures for the same forcing.
Given the variability of the climate, Earth can have several temperatures for a single forcing. But not in the short industrial era. The system-gain factors for 1850 and 2011 are close to identical, indicating that at present there is insufficient inherent instability to disturb our result.
The scrambled account of feedback math in Hansen (1984)
But the feedback system-gain equation is not appropriate for climate sensitivity studies.
Interesting how the true-believers abandon their “settled science” when it suits them. The system-gain equation is mentioned in Hansen (1984), Schlesinger (1985), Bony (2006), IPCC (2007, p. 631 fn.), Bates (2007, 2016), Roe (2009), Monckton of Brenchley (2015ab), etc., etc., etc. If feedback math were not applicable to the climate, there would be no excuse for trying to pretend that equilibrium sensitivity to doubled CO2 is anything like 2.1-4.7 K, still less the values up to 10 K in some extremist papers. As it is, all such values are nonsense anyway, as we have formally proven.
But Wikipedia shows the following feedback-loop block diagram, which proves that feedback only responds to changes, or “disturbances”, in the input signal and not to the whole signal –
A feedback loop diagram from the world’s chief source of fake news
Our professor of control theory trumps the CreepyMedia diagram with the following diagram. And behold, the reference or input signal is at left; the perturbations (in pink) descend from above to their respective summative nodes; and the feedback block (here labeled the “output transducer”) acts on all of these inputs, specifically including the reference signal –
Mainstream block diagram for a control feedback loop
But the models don’t use the system-gain equation. They don’t even use the concept of feedback.
No, they don’t (not these days, at any rate, though until recently their outputs were fed into the system-gain equation to derive equilibrium sensitivity). However, we took some care to calibrate the models’ predicted [2.1, 4.7] K interval of Charney sensitivities using the system-gain equation, which produced exactly the same interval based on the excessive feedback factors derivable from Vial+ 2013. The system-gain equation is, therefore, directly relevant.
The models try valiantly to simulate the multitudinous microphysical processes, many of them at sub-grid scale, that give rise to feedback, as well as the complex interactions between them. But that is a highly uncertain and error-prone method – and even more prone to abuse by artful tweaking than the temperature records themselves: see e.g. Steffen+ (2018) for a deplorable recent example. Besides, no feedback can be quantified or distinguished from other feedbacks or even from the forcings that triggered it by any measurement or observation. The uncertainties are just too many and too large.
Our far simpler and more reliable black-box method proves that the models have, unsurprisingly, failed in their impossible task. By correcting climatology’s error of definition, we have cut the Gordian knot and found the correct equilibrium sensitivity directly and with very little uncertainty.
But you talk of reference and equilibrium temperature when radiative fluxes drive the climate.
Well, they’re called “temperature feedbacks”, denominated in Watts per square meter per Kelvin of the temperature that induced them. They are diagnosed from the models and summed. The feedback sum is multiplied by the Planck sensitivity parameter in Kelvin per Watt per square meter to give the feedback factor. Because the feedback factor is unitless, it makes no difference whether the loop calculation is done in flux densities or temperatures. Besides, our method requires no knowledge of individual feedbacks at all. We find the reference and equilibrium temperatures, whereupon the ratio of equilibrium to reference temperature is the feedback system-gain factor. Anyway, if you want to be pedantic it’s radiative flux densities in Watts per square meter, not fluxes in Watts, that are relevant.
Ten handsome unpersons
But you’re not a scientist.
My co-authors include Professors of climatology, applied control theory and statistics. We also have an expert on the global electricity industry, a doctor of science from MIT, an environmental consultant, an award-winning solar astrophysicist, a nuclear engineer and two control engineers, to say nothing of our pre-submission reviewers, two of whom are the world’s most famous physicists.
But there’s a consensus of expert opinion. All those general-circulation model ensembles and scientific societies and intergovernmental agencies and governments just can’t be wrong.
Yes They Can. In suchlike bodies, totalitarianism prevails (though not for much longer). For them, the Party Line is all, and mightily profitable it is – at taxpayers’ and energy-users’ expense. But the trouble with adherence to the Party Line is that it is a narcotic substitute for independent, rational, scientific thought. The Party Line replace the heady peril of mental exploration and the mounting excitement of the first glimmer of a discovery with a dull, passive, cringing, acquiescent uniformity.
Worse, since the totalitarians who have captured academe ruthlessly enforce the Party Line, they deter terrorized scientists from asking the very questions it is the purpose of scientists to ask. It is no accident that most of my distinguished co-authors now live and move and have their being furth of the dismal scientific establishment of today: for if we were prisoners of that grim, cheerless, regimented, unthinking, inflexible, totalitarian mindset we should not have been free to think the thinkworthy. For these malevolent entities, and the paid or unpaid trolls who mindlessly support them in comments here regardless of the objective truth, punish everyone who dares to think what is to them the utterly unthinkable and then to utter the utterly unutterable. Several of my co-authors have suffered at their hands. Nevertheless, we remain unbowed.
But no one agrees with you.
Here is one of many supportive emails we have had. I get ten supportive emails for every whinger –
“Hi and congratulations on what I believe may have the potential to put the final nail in the coffin of the anthropogenic global warming hysteria. The work of you and your team is very promising and I cannot wait to see how alarmists will go about to attack this. Bring out the popcorn, as we say. The application of feedback theory in this case is simple, physics-wise elegant, mathematically beautiful, and understandable to a wider audience. I am especially excited about how the equation grasps the whole feedback problem without having to deal with all the impossible little details of trying to distinguish which gas does what and without relying on hopelessly complex computer models. And that is why I think it will stick. I will be following this eagerly in the coming months and years and I am considering going to Porto [on 7-8 September: portoconference2018.org: b there or b2] to catch all the latest from others as well, even though your work is the current crown jewel of the anthropogenic global warming debate so far.”
But global temperature is rising as originally predicted.
No, it isn’t –
Our prediction is close to reality: official climatology’s predictions are far out
But you have averaged the two global-temperature datasets that show the least global warming.
Yes, we have. The other three longest-standing datasets – RSS, NOAA and GISS – have all been tampered with to such an extent that they are no longer reliable. They are a waste of taxpayers’ money. We consider the UAH and HadCRUT4 datasets to be less unreliable. IPCC uses the HadCRUT dataset as its normative record. Our result explains why the pause of 18 years 9 months in global warming occurred. Because the underlying anthropogenic warming rate is so small, when natural processes act to reduce warming it is possible for long periods without warming to occur. NOAA’s State of the Climate report in 2008 admitted that if there were no warming for 15 years or more the discrepancy between the models and reality would be significant. It is indeed significant, and now we know why it occurs.
But …
But me no buts. Here’s the end of the global warming scam in a single slide –
The tumult and the shouting dies: The captains and the kings depart …
Lo, all their pomp of yesterday Is one with Nineveh and Tyre
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Lord Monckton.
I refer to our various exchanges regarding whether the climate/planetary system was in equilibrium in 1850, such that the temperature was in equilibrium as at 1850.
Let us be candid. With due respect only a fool or someone who is patently not objective would refuse to accept that the system was not in equilibrium as at 1850 and the temperature was not in equilibrium as at 1850. I do not consider that you are a fool, nor do I consider that you are usually not objective. So what lies behind your present position? I suspect that it is that you are conflicted by the fact that your paper is currently under peer review, and this makes it impossible for you to acknowledge any counter position, however reasonable, for fear that the peer reviewers may see that you acknowledge problems/weaknesses in your position. We are unable to have an open, honest and genuine debate on this issue because your paper is currently under peer review. I make some further observations:
First, you state that you accept standard climatology unless you can prove something to be false. Well standard climatology is based upon the average of weather over a 30 year period and departure from the average of 30 years worth of data. You disregard standard climatology by not considering the 30 year trend between 1850 and 1880 which shows a statistically significant warming trend. Presumably, this position is rejected by you, since it undermines the contention that the temperature as at 1850 was in equilibrium.
Second, and this is a variation of the point above, it is on record that there is a statistically significant warming episode during this period. You are no doubt familiar with the BBC/Phil Jones interview in which Phil Jones notes and accepts this very point.
Here are the trends and significance for each period:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8511670.stm
Third, by seeking to argue that the temperature was in equilibrium for the 80 years between 1850 to 1930, you are essentially decimating the statistically significant warming in not only the first of the warming episodes, but also the second warming episode. This is extremely unsatisfactory, since one of the most important points that skeptics possess is that there has been 3 notable warming episodes of approximately the same rate (ie., about 1.6 deg C per century) and 2 of these 3 warming episodes were not caused by CO2, and there is no statistical significant distinction between the latter warming episode, that warmist claim was the result of manmade CO2, and the two earlier warming episodes, that the IPCC accept was not caused by CO2. If CO2 is a significant forcing one would at least expect to see that the third warming episode had a notably higher decadal rate of warming, yet it does not
Fourth, your 80 year assessment is clearly a cherry pick, no doubt selected to bolster the argument that the temperature in 1850 was in equilibrium. HADCRUT 3 shows statistically significant warming for 2.5 years, between 1850 to 1852.5, for 30 years from 1850 to 1880, cooling for 60 years from 1850 to 1910, neutral for 80 years through to 1930, warming for 90 years through to 1940. Whether you desire to show a warming, neutral, or cooling trend is just an artefact of the period considered. Where a trend is particularly dependent upon dates selected, it is indicative of a cherry pick. There is no significant increase in CO2 between 1930 and 1940, so no good reason not to use up to 1940, but deliberately, you do not wish to use the 90 year period because of the warming trend. I point out that to consider whether something is in equilibrium you need to consider the start conditions, and the immediate starting behaviour, and that is why I suggest looking at the first couple of years, or at any rate the first 30 year period, which is the period climatology looks at. When one looks at the immediate behaviour, it is clear that the system was not in equilibrium and hence the statistically significant change in temperatures.
Fifth, if you consider it necessary to assess matters over an 80 year period, why have you ever commented on the pause? Shouldn’t you have gone back 80 years and considered the position from say 2015 back to 1935, to assess the trend over that period? In which case, there would have been no pause. The pause is material since a trend over a period as short as 10 years, or 15 years, or 17 years (or whatever period Santer says to be significant) can be significant. In your paper, should you not have started in 1850 and then gone forward to ascertain what is the length of period before there is a statistically significant trend either warming or cooling, thereby showing that temperature was in equilibrium for x months?
Sixth, you are doing what warmist often do and which is frequently criticised, ie., simply plotting a straight line linear fit to data that is highly variable, and one which obviously shows something other than a straight line linear trend.
The silly thing is that this point does not undermine the fundamental point you make about the sun shining, but rather it illustrates the difficulty of making any theoretical calculation with specific details. Climate Sensitivity cannot be answered theoretically, and can only be answered by empirical observation of the real world by the collection of good quality and precise observational data coupled with a proper understanding of natural variability.
Finally, I am not preaching to anyone. I am simply setting out what ought to be basic and unquestionable facts, based upon the data (HADCRUT 3), but limited by the poor quality of that data composition. I realise that you will not be willing to accept the obvious facts and their implications, since you are conflicted (by the peer review process) and thereby unwilling to be honest and objective. A pity.
It is no good trying to explain anything to Mr Verney. Whether he likes it or not, the reviewers made not the slightest objection to our treating the temperature in 1850 as an equilibrium temperature, for the good and sufficient reason that there was no trend in that temperature for 80 years.
At that time, again whether he likes it or not, the anthropogenic influence was minimal.
Furthermore, within quite a wide margin, it does not much matter what the temperature was in 1850. It might fall anywhere within the published 2-sigma variance of +- 0.35 K without significantly affecting the calculation. The reviewers understood and accepted this, even if Mr Verney does not. Recall that we are dealing with experts, not amateurs, and our professor of statistics is an expert, not an amateur.
I do not always accept what the experts say, but on this occasion I do so, because the tolerances are wide and the ultimate result is not affected. Mr Verney is entitled to his untutored opinion, but in this respect we do not find that opinion meritorious.
Given that it is generally thought that the planet had not fully recovered from the LIA until the late 19th Century, and some papers put this recovery as late as the early 20th Century, it is a novel concept to consider the planet/climate system to be in equilibrium in 1850, ie., at a time when the recovery was not yet complete.
Perhaps Lord Monckton would kindly provide us with the benefit of his professional expertise. I am sure that I am not the only one who would be most grateful to receive his wisdom and schooling, explaining
1. precisely what were the forcings that took the planet out of the LIA; and
2. what were the value of those forcings; and
3. at what date did those forcings come to an end; and
4. what evidence there is supporting that the forcings came to an end at the date proferred by Lord Monckton; and
5 why if those forcings had come to an end as at January 1850, did the planet continue to warm for the next 30 years through to 1880?
You are not half kidding when you suggest that your paper will rock the boat, since it seeks to
1. attenuate the recovery from the LIA
2. remove the statistically significant warming through to 1880 which even Phil Jones (former head of CRU) accepts.
3. remove the statistically significant warming between 1910 -1940, which even Phil Jones (former head of CRU) accepts.
4. suggests that a system that is in equilibrium can change temperature without there being any change in forcings.
PS. I am well aware that the starting temperature makes little different and I made that comment a long time ago either on this post, or on your previous post.
Fortunately, all of the complications enumerated by Mr Verney are entirely irrelevant to our analysis, for we are concerned with whether the temperature in 1850 was at equilibrium and, though Mr Verney does not like this fact, the least-squares linear-regression trend on the HadCRUT4 monthly global mean surface temperature anomaly data from 1850-1930, a period of eight decades, was as near zero as makes no difference. On the HadCRUT3 data, the trend was zero for six decades. Both of these periods are of sufficient length to establish that the temperature in 1850 was an equilibrium temperature, as the reviewers accepted without the slightest difficulty.
If the planet was still recovering from the Little Ice Age in 1850 (though the continuance of that recovery beyond 1850 did not manifest itself in the temperature record for at least another six to eight decades), the difference between the equilibrium sensitivity measured in 1850 and the equilibrium sensitivity implicit in a continuing recovery from the Little Ice Age but not explicit in the temperature record after 1850 would simply not have been enough to make a significant difference to equilibrium sensitivity. Our result is thus proof against nit-picking of the sort in which Mr Verney and others who pretend to be skeptical specialize, because the influence of the Sun together with that of the pre-industrial non-condensing greenhouse gases is so very much greater than the comparatively minuscule perturbation of about 0.7 K that we have brought about since 1850.
Monckton of Brenchley said:
and
and
Christopher, it appears you truly do not understand how your ad hominems affect the reader. When I see you leading off a comment with an ad hominem attack such as those above, my first thought is NOT “Gosh, that Monckton guy is smart” or “My goodness, the Lord can see right through these folks”.
No, indeed. When I see that, my first thought is, when a man is throwing mud as you are, it is a sure sign he’s out of real ammunition.
I am not “being obtuse”, that’s a damn lie. I don’t play that game. And for you to accuse me of that means very clearly that you are uncertain and ill at ease with your scientific claims.
STOP THE DAMN MUDSLINGING, it makes you look like a six-year-old with his hand caught in the cookie jar. Whether you are right or wrong, it makes me want to point and laugh at you. When you start by accusing me of something that I know to be a crock of shit, do you think that makes your subsequent claims more credible?
Finally, you throw the word “lie” around without QUOTING WHAT YOU THINK IS THE LIE. This is a scurrilous way to attack someone, one entirely unworthy of a gentleman. There is no way for an honest man to defend himself against your slimy insinuation because you haven’t said what the lie is. For shame, this is abominable behavior for a Lord of the realm.
Stick with the science, OK? You are actively destroying your own reputation with your loose tongue and your ugly unsupported (and at least in my case untrue) accusations, and it is extremely painful to watch it happening. And if you accuse a man of lying, have the balls to quote his exact words that you think are a lie.
Lord Monckton, Christopher, you are a far better man than this, and I implore you to act like it.
Your friend always,
w.
(I see that passions are getting a little high, I agree that slinging some mud around is not a good idea, however the Viscount Monckton has also been very appreciative of the many questions posed to him, complimenting them for it, his Obtuse claim statements are really mild not worth getting so worked up over. This is a good thread to ask questions in, let us proceed in maintaining reasonable civility in the replies into the future) MOD
Pot calls kettle black. Here is what one of our gallant moderators said of an earlier posting by Mr Eschenbach:
(Snipped out the unnecessary section as it was getting too personal, promoting more angry replies) MOD
Mr Eschenbach accuses me of “ad-hominem” attacks on an anonymous troll. But we do not know who the troll is, so I can call it whatever I like. I deplore the custom of posting criticisms of a named opponent by anonymous trolls, and I give them very short shrift. Get over it.
I have had several of these threads read by independent observers. Unlike Mr Eschenbach, they have commended me for the patience with which I have put up with insult after insult and sermon after sermon, and they have been fascinated by the intellectual vapidity of many of the hostile comments that my postings attract.
This is no beauty contest. Those who don’t like the heat should get off the catwalk.
As to my describing Mr Eschenbach as “uncharacteristically obtuse”, if he writes to me privately I shall explain what I mean. He has made an embarrassingly large and embarrassingly elementary error of algebra that I should rather not advertise here.
(You have good points to make, but still attacking anonymous people doesn’t help your cause, he is a real person (I know where he lives) with 639 approved comments, you can decide to ignore him or reply to him, that freedom is yours) MOD
“ I deplore the custom of posting criticisms of a named opponent by anonymous trolls”
Assuming that is directed at me, I would agree that it’s unfair to use a pseudonym to attack a real person. That is why I try to keep my comments ad argumentum, despite what I suspect are deliberate attempts to derail the argument onto meaningless name calling.
As I’ve said before I don’t mind you making personal attacks on me, that is one of the advantages of hiding behind a pseudonym – you are attack a mask not the real me.
But I have to ask, what advantage would there be in knowing my real name and address? I’ve never claimed to be anybody special, I’m not a scientist, I don’t have any special qualifications. My arguments, good or bad, stand for themselves.
Bellman, sniveling behind its cowardly cloak of trembling anonymity, can get away with lying, and can do so with inpunity because it is too cowardly to admit who it is. It lied about IPCC’s original medium-term predictions of global warming in 1990, shown plainly on our graph, and then, when it was caught out in its lie, it tried to slide out from under its lie by citing reports of the IPCC other than the report of 1990 whose predictions it knew I had used. When I pointed out its attempted but unsuccessful evasion, it said, lamely, that I had mentioned IPCC’s subsequent predictions in an entirely different context. Yes, I had, but only to point out that IPCC had approximately halved its medium-term predictions in its subsequent reports when events had demonstrated its original predictions to have been hugely exaggerated, but that it had not commensurately – or at all – reduced its longer-term predictions.
And that is just one instance of the childish and dishonest game that Bellman plays. It can no longer get away with outright insults from behind its curtain of cowardly anonymity, for that is now against site policy, so it makes up lies and then, when caught out in them, wriggles and wriggles in the hope of confusing readers into imagining that its misconduct has gone unnoticed. Fortunately, it has been caught out and few, except itself and its climate-Communist paymasters, are taken in. It has no substantive or constructive criticism to offer. But its misconduct is an excellent advertisement for the intellectual bankruptcy of the climate Communism that it is no doubt so handsomely paid to espouse. It is contemptible, and it is irrelevant, but it is useful, for others reading these threads are realising that it is one of those who have no interest in the objective truth and that, therefore, its presence here is effectively an admission on the part of climate Communism that we are in substance right.
(You should stop making belittling attacks on the person, who can post anonymously as Bellman which is allowed here, since it degrades the debate) MOD
Thanks at least for explaining what you mean by lies, though you realise I would have said just the same thing if I was using my real name.
No it didn’t. I plainly stated on each occasion which particular IPCC report I was quoting.
We are referring here to your post Introducing the Global Warming Speedometer, from May 2016. I referenced it, partly to ensure you couldn’t disagree with the figures, and also to enquire why you thought is useful to accept the 1995 and 2001 estimates at the time, but now think only the 1990 report is acceptable.
You say that the purpose of your speedometer post was “only to point out that IPCC had approximately halved its medium-term predictions in its subsequent reports”, but you don’t make any such claim in the original post. There you say “The new global warming speedometer shows in a single telling graph just how badly the model-based predictions made by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have over-predicted global warming.”. You treat all three reports equally and insist that all are wildly inaccurate.
Conspiracy theories are fun. By your logic could I be being paid by those who agree with you to make “climate Communists” look bad?
Bellman continues to wriggle evasively from behind its cloak of furtive anonymity: but the simple fact remains that our temperature graph starts in 1990 and the IPCC predictions on the graph are, therefore, from the First ASSessment Report in 1990. Predictions from subsequent ASSessment reports are, therefore, irrelevant, except to the extent that IPCC has itself been compelled to recognize the error in its original medium-term business-as-usual predictions by halving them in subsequent reports: and yet, in an inconsistency that Bellman seems to find entirely acceptable, it has failed to alter its longer-term predictions.
Bellman continues to be dishonest about IPCC’s original predictions. Since it asks for more details of its lies, here are just some of them:
1. It said IPCC’s business-as-usual prediction for the 21st century was not 4 K but 3 K. Yet the business-as-usual graph of 21st-century warming plainly shows 4 K warming.
2. It said IPCC never predicted 3.3 K mid-term warming.
3. Then it said it was not interested in IPCC’s predictions.
There are numerous other mendacities of this sort all the way through Bellman’s comments here, which appear calculated to be disruptive rather than constructive.
I’ve answered those three points above, but I’ll repeat my response here:
The 4K warming is the warming since pre-industrial times, not the warming over the 21st century.
You can assert they did predict it ad infinitum, it doesn’t make it true. I’ve tried to explain why I think you are wrong. You have ignored what I say and just repeat your claim. The facts are that the IPCC FAR do state a figure of 3.3K / century up to 2030. They do not state there will be 1.35°C warming between 1990 and 2030. They did predict, as a crude estimate, 1°C warming up to 2025. Their graph does not show short term warming at a rate of 3.3°C / century.
If I’m wrong then Lord Monckton only has to point to the passage stating that and I’ll withdraw my assertion, but up to now all he has down is make some suppositions based on unrelated parts of the IPCC report to derive his own figure.
If I said I wasn’t interested in IPCC’s predictions it was in the context of thinking them irrelevant in confirming your predictions. Of course I’m interested in IPCC predictions, I just think their crude predictions from 28 years ago are less interesting than their current predictions.
Bellman continues to be disingenuous at best. It now pretends it is not interested in IPCC’s original predictions: yet at the outset of this thread it was very interested in them indeed, because it was hoping to show a discrepancy between IPCC’s predictions and my reporting of them. Having failed to demonstrate that, it lost interest and took refuge in referring to IPCC’s later predictions, which, however, were irrelevant to the graph we had displayed, which was from 1990.
It now at last concedes, despite repeated earlier flat-out denials, that the First ASSessment Report does state a figure of 3.3 K/century up to 2030. or, to be more accurate, it predicts 1.8 K from pre-industrial to 2030, from which one must deduct the 0.45 K warming that had already occurred by 1990, giving 1.35 K over 40 years, which – like it or not – is at least 3.3 K/century.
It tries to assert that IPCC’s prediction of warming since pre-industrial times was 4 K. Well, it was 4.2 K, of which 0.45 K had already occurred by 1990, giving 3.8 K from 1990-2100. Or does it want to quibble to the effect that IPCC’s graph shows a greater rate of warming than 0.45 K to 1990? If so, why has it not pounced on IPCC for its inconsistency in reporting more warming to 1990 than had actually occurred according to the very dataset upon which it chiefly relied at the time?
It will by now be evident to all that Bellman is operating a double standard, manufacturing apparent inconsistencies in the head posting by the most painfully artificial means, while ignoring the mote in its own Bible’s eye, and carefully looking the other way in the face of IPCC’s many self-evident errors and inconsistencies.
The longer Bellman continues futilely to quibble, the more it advertises the mendacity and inconsistency and absurdity of the extremist, climate-Communist cause that it so passionately but misguidedly espouses. And if it denies that it is a Communist, then it should cease to behave like one.
Sorry, my bad. There’s an obvious missing word in my above answer, and too late to edit it. Where I said “The facts are that the IPCC FAR do state a figure of 3.3K / century up to 2030.” you will have to imagine the word “not” between the words “do” and “state”.
The Lord Chancellor would be proud.
Unless you accept that the IPCC are assuming there has been 1.0 K warming since pre-industrial times in which case they are only predicting 0.8°C by 2020. So which figure did the IPCC intend? The one they implied two pages earlier or the one Monckton quotes without quoting a source?
If Monckton is right about this then I have to ask why did the IPCC go to such lengths to hide their true predictions? Why not simply state that they expected there to be 1.35°C warming by 2030, rather than state 1°C by 2025? I thought the IPCC were meant to be exaggerating the warming, but now they seem to be down playing it.
And now you try to extend this argument to their long term prediction. You asked me to look at the graph. Look at where 1990 is on the graph. Is it close to 0.45°C, or close to 1°C?
Finally. Yes that’s exactly what I’ve been saying for the past few months. Not just the graph but the words of the IPCC show they are saying 1990 was 1°C warmer than pre-industrial times.
The report came out 28 years ago. It’s a bit late to be pouncing on it, especially when there have since then been 4 much more detailed reports.
The 1 degree figure, I assume, comes from their models, when they state how much more warming they expect they use their models up to 1990 as a reference point. The models may be exaggerating the warming up to then, but it’s irrelevant to the rate of future warming as far as the 1990 starting point. If they had insisted on being consistent with the estimated warming from data they could have easily lowered the scale throughout by 0.55°C, but it would make no difference to the expected warming from 1990.
As far as the instrument records are concerned they make clear there’s a lot of uncertainty especially back in the 19th century. I assume the source for your 0.45°C is page 1999 of the report. This states that
“The record suggests a global (combined land and ocean) average of 0.45±0.15°C since the late nineteenth century, with an estimated small (less than 0.05°C) exaggeration due to urbanisation in the land component.”
Note, that this is talking about the rise since the late nineteenth century, not the pre-industrial era. The graph suggests there had been around, I’d estimate, 0.2 – 0.25°C by the end of the 19th century over their pre-industrial base. Then there’s the 0.15°C error margin in their figure. Taking this as a whole the instruments suggest there could have been as much as 0.9° – 0.95°C warming since pre-industrial times.
I’m a free person, I can argue against anything I like. I can’t say I’ve read every word of every IPCC report, scouring them for possible mistakes. I assume that lots of more knowledgeable people will be doing that. But I’m not sure why you think I hold the IPCC as a bible – this whole argument is that I don’t think the first IPCC is reliable.
I’m not sure I’m the best person to answer questions about the finer points of IPCC models, but I don’t see an inconsistency in constraining the short term predictions to take account of observed data, and this making little or no difference to long term predictions. There will always be short term variations that models cannot predict. The assumption is that in the long term these variations will have little effect on temperatures by the end of the 21st century. In contrast knowing what has happened in the previous 20 years, to use the 2001 report as an example will obviously influence where temperatures are likely to be over the next 15 years.
Now you would be quite right to say that this makes it more difficult to test their predictions – it’s obviously easier to predict what will happen over a 35 year period when you already know the first 10 years – but then you’re making your short term predictions in 2018. Moreover, the IPCC are making a prediction for 2025, you are claiming success for your prediction only going up to 2011.
We won’t know until 2025 how good any of the IPCC’s predictions are (and really not until 2035 assuming we need a 20 year average). You on the over hand are claiming verification for your model based upon the temperature in 2011.
Bellman continues to misunderstand both IPCC’s documents and our result. IPCC had predicted that the medium-term rate of warming over the 35 years 1990-2025 would be equivalent to 2.8 K/century, and that the medium-term warming over the 40 years 1990-2030 would be equivalent to 3.3 K/century. The actual centennial-equivalent warming rate since 1990 is only 1.28 K/century, according to UAH, or 1.72 K/century according to HadCRUT4, for even the three remaining standard datasets, all of them very greatly altered since they originally reported their data, in a manner calculated to make the true rate of global warming seem greater than it is, do not come anywhere close to IPCC’s fanciful original predictions. IPCC has consequently halved its medium-term predictions, but has culpably failed to make a commensurate reduction, or any reduction, in its longer-term predictions.
That is exactly the kind of inconsistency that Bellman would pounce upon if it were perpetrated by climate skeptics: but just look how willing it is, from behind its sniveling cloak of furtive anonymity, to make large excuses for IPCC’s glaring inconsistency. Shame on it!
Always worth being skeptical about these things. Here’s my attempt to match the 1.72°C / century warming since 1990, a rise of about 0.5°C, against the first IPCC graph.
Bellman nicely shows the absurdity of IPCC’s forecast. For a start, the 1990 starting-point of his red line is 1 K above the pre-industrial level, when HadCRUT4 shows only 0.45 K. Correct for that error in IPCC’s graph, and IPCC’s prediction is for a near-straight-line warming of around 3.8 K to 2100, against the HadCRUT4 warming rate of 1.72 K.
Interestingly enough, according to the graph the best estimate is that 2025 would be 0.8°C warmer than 1990, and 2030 would be 1°C warmer than 1990.
This is the opposite of what’s stated on pages xxii and xxiv.
Aha! Bellman has begun to examine the many inconsistencies in IPCC’s predictions. The inconsistencies he points out above arise from IPCC’s attempt in the graph to pretend that there had already been 1 K warming since 1850, when in fact it knew there had only been 0.45 K.
I’ve been saying it’s inconsistent all along, you keep ignoring it and try to calculate an exact trend based on the inconsistencies.
They did not know there had only been 0.45 K, they said the data suggested it with very big error margins.
They said the 0.45 was from 1900 not 1850.
They modeled the 1°C rise from 1765 not 1850.
It’s irrelevant to the post 1990 predictions.
Bellman is still far too indulgent of IPCC’s real inconsistencies, and too inventive in suggesting inconsistencies on my part. Of course IPCC knew in 1990 that there had been 0.45 K global warming since 1850: the HadCRUT dataset that shows precisely that value is the dataset that IPCC recognizes as the normative dataset – just as well, for it is the only dataset to reach back that far.
it should be evident to Bellman that practically no temperature increase i shown in IPCC’s graph from 1765 to 1850. We use 1850 as the starting point because that is when HadCRUT4 began. Before that, except in central England, there was no way of deducing what the temperature had been.
Monckton of Brenchley
Seriously? You, the man who lectures us on various logical errors under their Latin names, are going with a “tu quoque” logical error?
Christopher, I am doing my best to keep you from further damaging your reputation. You are, of course, free to attack me for doing so … it just seems suicidal for your brand. But hey, the choice, of course, is yours.
Actually, I accused you of calling a man a liar without saying what he is lying about. Not a good look on you …
Best regards,
w.
Don’t preach with dirty hands.
(Willis and Monckton, both of you have made your statements, now it is time to drop it and go on) MOD
Amen to that!
I am most grateful to those who manage the comments here. However, I hope I am entitled to register my concern at the practice of permitting commenters to be anonymous. I understand the reasons for it, but it acts as a discouragement to rational discourse and is a gift to the totalitarians whose earnest wish is to stifle debate .
And, for the sake of clarification, I have no “cause”. Instead, I have an enquiring mind, and totalitarians have never liked that. As to whether my calling out those who are habitually mendacious is somehow harmful to me, that is not the feedback I get from those who are following the intellectually bankrupt contributions by certain furtively pseudonymous contributors.
No doubt the identities of these contributors are known to our host: but they are not known to anyone else. That is the point. From behind their cloak of anonymity, they can and do interfere with discussions here and elsewhere.
Willis said:
“Lord Monckton, Christopher, you are a far better man than this, and I implore you to act like it.”
😀
Yeah, sure. Good luck with that.
The Moderator said:
The furtively pseudonymous coward known as “Moderator” or “MOD” is obviously being deliberately obtuse regarding the effect of Lord Monckton’s comments …
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Doesn’t seem quite so mild when it is aimed at you, does it, MOD?
And yes, like you, I’m trying to maintain reasonable civility.
w.
You missed this one I wrote to the Viscount just above your comment: (You have good points to make, but still attacking anonymous people doesn’t help your cause, he is a real person (I know where he lives) with 639 approved comments, you can decide to ignore him or reply to him, that freedom is yours) MOD
(Any more bickering over this from anyone will get snipped, lets get back on the TOPIC!) MOD
Ulrich Lyons represents a body of opinion that believe that all changes in climate are directly caused by external astrophysical forcing. Even changes in the sun are not intrinsic but forced by gravitational forcing by the planets. A core of this belief system is an utter refusal or inability to accept that a system might undergo dynamic variations and oscillations from intrinsic processes, such as well-understood nonlinear-chaotic oscillation.
The reason why I discussed the Cepheid variable stars is because this is a pure and incontrovertible example of internal oscillation driven by feedbacks. The Cepheids oscillate regularly for millions of years. There is no possibility whatsoever that this oscillation can be externally forced.
But, like a 6 day creationist unmoved by the sight of a dinosaur fossil or a u-shaped valley carved by glaciers in an alpine range, Ulrich’s pristine faith was untroubled. Predictably he dived in arguing in a strange way that feedback can’t actually cause internally driven oscillation. Before our eyes, he erased from his consciousness the painful fact of Cepheid variable star unforced oscillation.
Ulrich, I admire your deep knowledge on astronomy and a wide range of topics. But I ask you directly, if you’re still with us – exactly how do Cepheid stars oscillate in luminosity? Is it an intrinsic oscillation or is it externally forced?
The point I am making is a wider one. Many scientists believe earth’s climate to be passive. That it is incapable of internally generated variation. Any change observed in climate can therefore only be generated by external forcing. Whether one believes this forcing to be from a trace gas like CO2 or from solar or gravitational forcing is a secondary detail. The main characteristic of this body of belief is absolute belief in the total passivity of climate. The main divide in climate science is not between AGW and non-AGW skepticism, or CO2 or not CO2; but the division between those who hold a climate system such as earth’s to be passive or active.
Clime is active, not passive. It can change all by itself, with or without external forcing. At the heart of Monckton’s assertion that feedbacks operate on mere temperature rather than on departure of temperature from an equilibrium, is the paradigm question of whether climate is a simple linear system with an equilibrium or if it is a nonlinear-chaotic system that has some attractors but is never at equilibrium, and one in which feedbacks operate at all locations in the system’s multidimensional phase space.
I’ll throw the question open to all those who refuse to believe that a climate system can change from internal dynamics.
How do Cepheid variable stars oscillate in luminosity?
“Even changes in the sun are not intrinsic but forced by gravitational forcing by the planets.”
My findings rule in fact out gravitational mechanisms.
“A core of this belief system is an utter refusal or inability to accept that a system might undergo dynamic variations and oscillations from intrinsic processes, such as well-understood nonlinear-chaotic oscillation.”
Nonlinear-chaotic oscillation is actually code for:
‘We don’t have a friggin clue what drives the AMO but we have a deep belief that it’s internal variability’
If you want to cut me down come prepared with something sharp and not a banana.
Edit correction: My findings in fact rule out gravitational mechanisms
If even it’s shown that Monckton et al are correct, the goalposts will be moved, in a similar fashion to all Socialist Regimes: “It hasn’t been done right yet. We will get it right, this time.” I can see the future: “OK, OK, Monckton et al did a great thing, but NOW we’ve got it! [This other human thing] causes global [destruction]” (i.e., it will probably move from warming to something else.)
Bruckner8 is correct that a mortal blow to climate Communism will not stop the totalitarian Left from jumping on to a different horse in their relentless campaign to destroy freedom. But we shall shoot that horse too, and in the end they will be brought to heel. Never give up.
I got to thinking about the Lacis study. Here’s what they claim happened in their model when they removed the non-precipitating GHGs:
1. Water vapor in the air (total precipitable water, or “TPW”) dropped precipitously to 10% of current values.
2. Cloud cover went from the current value of 58% to about 75%.
This seems totally reversed to me. How could there be a 90% reduction in the amount of water in the air, and at the same time an increase in cloud cover? That makes no sense. Here in the real world, there is a close relationship between TPW and clouds … but in Modelworld, it seems all bets are off.
One more reason to not trust computer models, I guess …
Best to all,
w.
I repeat that we used Lacis+ (2010) as a starting point and then varied the emission temperature in the absence of greenhouse gases by 5% up and 5% down. The variance makes little difference to equilibrium sensitivity, which remains low. But the difficulty in trying to convey such arguments to Mr Eschenbach is that he does not seem to believe that there is such a thing as equilibrium sensitivity in the first place. In that belief he may or may not be correct: but official climatology thinks there is such a thing as equilibrium sensitivity: and all we have done is to demonstrate, using official climatology’s methods and data, corrected only where we can formally demonstrate that they are incorrect, that equilibrium sensitivity as they understand it must be low, not high.
According to Lacis et al. the increase in cloud cover is due to an increase in low altitude clouds.
“In going towards colder climate, there is a tendency for the low cloud cover to increase, as might be expected from the Clausius–Clapeyron temperature response. This cloud cooling effect is amplified by the Clausius–Clapeyron constrained decrease in atmospheric water vapour, and by the strengthening of the snow/ice albedo feedback, especially when global climate is heading towards snowball Earth conditions. The effect of increased low clouds going towards a colder climate causes reflected solar radiation to increase, while reflection by the middle and high clouds tends to decrease. But, in approaching snowball Earth climate conditions, the rapid increase in snow/ice cover overwhelms the cloud contribution to the planetary albedo.”
That’s a helpful comment: it answers a concern by Willis Eschenbach about the amount of cloud imagined by Lacis+ 2010.
Lord Moncktons method consists of the following:
1. Use a crappy computer climate model (GISS Model E) to calculate, not a historical climate, but something never seen—the temperature of the earth in 1850 if somehow we could magically remove the CO2 and other “non-condensing” greenhouse gases.
2. Compare that to our very imperfect knowledge of what the actual temperature was in 1850.
3. Divide the larger by the smaller and use that to calculate the “feedback factor”.
Here is his description of the calculation:
Here are the issues that I see with this process.
1. We have no clue as to the uncertainty of the GISS Model E results. Remember that the computer models have proven to be unable to predict a present-day known real-world situation into the near future (decades). How much worse will the Model E be at guessing at a century-and-a-half-ago, imaginary, non-real-world situation? It MIGHT be within ten degrees of the real answer … or it might not, and because it is an imaginary number, there’s no way to determine if it is anywhere near the real answer.
2. HadCRUT claims that the overall uncertainty (95%CI) of their 1850 temperature estimate is ± 0.4 degrees C. I find this figure totally ridiculous. There were far, far too few thermometers in 1850 to give us that small an uncertainty.
Now me, I would never base a calculation on a climate model output. They are far too uncertain, and every model gives a different answer.
And I would absolutely not use some computer programmer’s fantasy about what the 1850 temperature would be without the non-condensing GHGs. That’s nothing but half-baked guesses and lots of unsupported assumptions combined with a host of tuned parameters … it could easily be off by ten degrees and we’d never know it.
Finally, to increase the accuracy of the instrumental temperature record (or any record) by one decimal point, we need one hundred times as much data. To calculate the averages, they’re aggregating the thermometer records into 5°x5° gridboxes. In 1850, there were only about 100 5°x5° gridboxes with thermometers in them (about 3% of the surface) … and they are claiming an uncertainty of ± 0.4°C.
IF they were correct, this would mean that with 1/100th of the data, we could determine the global average temperature to ± 4°C … and that would be with one thermometer in one gridbox …
In short, in addition to the other problems with Lord M’s method, I would say that the uncertainties in the underlying numbers are large enough to render his method … well … less than useful …
My best to all, including of course Lord Monckton,
w.
254.833K is just the theoretical black-body value of 278.6K, minus the 0.3 albedo, it doesn’t include any greenhouse gases.
Mr Lyons has not, perhaps, understood the basis for our calculation. Lacis+ (2010), after running a general-circulation model, found that the albedo that would obtain in the absence of the non-condensing greenhouse gases, but retaining the water vapor in the atmosphere, would be 0.418 compared with today’s 0.3. At today’s insolation, it is simple to calculate – using the fundamental equation of radiative transfer – that the emission temperature without non-condensing greenhouse gases would be 243.25 K. To this one must add between 8.5 and 13.5 K of warming from the non-condensing greenhouse gases: mid-range estimate 11.55 K. From these considerations, the reference temperature of 254.8 K in 1850 follows.
Or we could do things Mr Lyons’ way. We could take the emission temperature as 255 K and add the 11.55 K warming from the non-condensing greenhouse gases to that. The result, of course, would demonstrate our case for low equilibrium sensitivity a fortiori. That was what we originally did, for sound reasons, not the least of which is that the system-gain factor applicable during the melting of the vast ice-sheets of the temperate zones is excessive compared with today, but the reviewers did not like it, so we did it their way. It did not make all that much difference to equilibrium sensitivity.
So you are attributing the whole difference between 255K and 288K to water vapour?
In response to Mr Lyons, we have made it repeatedly clear that our method requires no knowledge of the value or behavior of any individual temperature feedback. As long as we can obtain the values of reference and equilibrium sensitivity at the same time and to a precision of 10-20 K, we are able to derive a reasonable estimate of the system-gain factor, which by definition takes account of all feedback processes operating in the climate. If we are able to obtain two such pairs of values, one at the beginning and one at the end of the industrial era, we are able to ascertain the extent to which the system-gain factor varies over time.
That said, IPCC considers that all temperature feedbacks except what it imagines to be the very large positive feedback from water vapor self-cancel. It is, however, manifestly incorrect in imagining that the water vapor feedback is very strongly positive: for the model-predicted tropical mid-troposphere hot spot, without which the water vapor feedback cannot be anything like as strong as IPCC says it is, does not exist in just about all datasets, and the attempts of certain climate-Communist scientists to make it appear that it does exist are as feeble as they are dishonest.
Just a “reminder” : the temperature of any gray , ie: flat spectrum , body , no matter how light or dark , comes to that same “black body” temperature .
That is why it is the important value for any orbit relative to which the effect of color , ie: non-flat spectrum , can be calculated .
Mr Eschenbach’s review of our approach fails to start where we do, by noting that official climatology erroneously defines “temperature feedback” as responding only to changes in the input signal or reference temperature, when it also responds to the absolute input signal.
Now, either Mr Eschenbach accepts that we are correct about this key error of definition or he does not. If he does not accept it, then our argument fails and there is nothing more to be said.
If, however, Mr Eschenbach accepts that official climatology’s definition is indeed erroneously restrictive, then he will need to take account of that error, as we have done, and he will also need to take account of my previous answers to him.
Mr Eschenbach’s central point seems to be that the general-circulation model in Lacis+ (2010) may be incorrect by as much as 10 K either way in its estimate of the albedo that would obtain in the absence of the non-condensing greenhouse gases, from which we have derived the emission temperature that would obtain at that higher albedo.
However, in my immediately preceding answer I had explicitly stated that we had allowed for a 5% variance either side of Lacis’ implicit emission temperature of 243.25 K – i.e., a variance of 12 K up or down on the mid-range estimate. Once it is accepted that one should use the absolute-value system-gain equation, even quite large variances in the reference temperature (before feedback has acted) and the equilibrium temperature (after feedback has acted) make very little difference to equilibrium sensitivity.
Indeed, we even conducted an experiment in which the albedo was set to 0.66, the highest value that would obtain for an iceball Earth (Pierrehumbert 2011). Charney sensitivity by our method would still not reach 1.5 K. That, of course, is a reductio ad absurdum: it is entirely inappropriate to imagine that the system-gain factor applicable to the transformation of the Earth from an iceball to today’s comfortable and almost ice-free planet is still applicable today.
Of course, any value higher than 243.25 K for the emission temperature would imply a system-gain factor even less than that which we have taken as our mid-range estimate, making our case for low sensitivity a fortiori.
Similar considerations apply to Mr Eschenbach’s strictures against the HadCRUT4 database. He finds the published error bars for 1850 unacceptably narrow. He may or may not be right: but, even if the error bars were considerably wider, the net effect on the calculation of the system-gain factor would be rather small.
I suspect that Mr Eschenbach’s difficulty in accepting our argument lies in no small degree in the fact that he does not consider feedbacks operate at all in the climate, which his interesting experiments have demonstrated to be remarkably near-thermostatic.
But here’s the problem. If he wished to convince official climatology of the error of its ways using his approach, he would have to convince it of at least the following points:
1. That the climate is near-perfectly thermostatic.
2. That temperature feedbacks barely operate, if at all. (Of course, our result demonstrates why this is so, but let that pass).
3. That the computer models, in some unspecified way, cannot be relied upon.
4. That the temperature record and its error bars cannot be relied upon.
5. That there is no such thing as equilibrium sensitivity.
6. That official climatology’s expression of equilibrium sensitivity as the product of two variables – a sensitivity parameter and a radiative forcing – is incorrect.
Our approach, by contrast, requires official climatology to accept only one fact that it currently denies: namely, that it has erroneously restricted its definition of “temperature feedback”. Once that is accepted, all else follows. And it must be accepted: for it is very easy to demonstrate formally; the underlying math was developed almost a century ago; and, in this important respect, official climatology is at odds with mainstream science – and science that is readily and formally proven, as well as readily verifiable and verified by experiment.
I guess that another reason why Mr Eschenbach is having difficulty with our result is that it requires no detailed knowledge of the vast and complex datasets that he handles with such facility, elegance and perception. The list of independent variables for our entire calculation is very small. All we need to know is the reference and equilibrium temperatures for 1850 and the reference and equilibrium sensitivities for 1850-2011. And from these we are able to obtain the Holy Grail of sensitivity studies – the system-gain factor – from which we are able to constrain equilibrium sensitivities quite reliably.
It may also be that Mr Eschenbach is unfamiliar with the advantages of accepting ad argumentum everything in official climatology except what we can demonstrate to be false. Because we accept so much, we do not have to struggle to persuade official climatology of numerous points such as those on Mr Eschenbach’s list of disagreements with officialdom. Therefore, the scope for official climatology to impugn our result is very much restricted. In the end, the usual suspects will be compelled, willy-nilly, to address head on our finding that they have defined temperature feedback in an erroneously restrictive fashion.
Though the reviewers have not hitherto accepted that we are right about the error of definition, in the end we are reasonably confident that they will have to do so. Therefore, there are only two ways of impugning our result:
They will have to try to state that the values of the few independent variables on which our calculation relies are so far from what they themselves have hitherto asserted them to be that our conclusion becomes materially incorrect, or they will have to say that we are very close to a “tipping-point” that will fling the Earth into a new, high-feedback regime. Good luck to them with that.
So, you mean to say, Mr Eschenbach wants the answer, and you are attempting to provide an answer.
I tend to think CO2 might cause some warming [increasing global average temperature- not causing it to be hotter {like Venus is hot}] and I tend to think it probably lower then 1 C per doubling of CO2.
Though what is discussed here is limiting the possibility of higher the end of the guess.
But it does seem to apply to warming of CO2 over a short time period- if you regard 100 years as a short time period- and in terms of global temperature and global climate 100 years is a short time period.
But also when I imagine a doubling of Co2 should cause less than 1 C, I am also thinking in terms of 100 years or less, because effects over say 1000 years is not very practical- or not useful related to public policy.
[In regards should waste trillions of public monies and support a global tyrannical government, when they are more important things to worry about.]
I should mention what I think the answer is.
Earth average temperature and global climate has to do with the ocean rather than the atmosphere.
We in icebox climate, this due to having cold oceans.
And icebox climate is cold oceans and having polar ice caps.
And hothouse climate is warm oceans and no polar ice caps.
And neither icebox or hothouse climate is having ocean warmer than 5 C to about 10 C. Our icebox climate ocean temperature has been in the range of 1 to 5 C and currently our ocean is about 3.5 C.
What determine global average temperature is the ocean surface temperature, the average global surface temperature is currently about 17 C.
And global land average surface air temperature is about 10 C, gives a total average global average temperature of about 15 C.
Having a cold ocean limits the average ocean surface temperature, and average ocean surface temperature controls the average land temperatures.
And average tropical ocean surface temperature is about 26 C and is 40% of entire ocean surface. And tropical ocean is Earth’s heat engine- the warm tropical waters are preventing the rest of the world from getting much cooler. or is warming it.
So what controls tropical ocean temperature is part of the answer- and clouds are related to it, and is a focus of Mr Eschenbach.
Mr Baikie raises some interesting points. For the sake of argument, we have accepted the models’ present finding that the equilibrium warming to be expected from a doubling of CO2 concentration will be about 1.04 K, and that would be reached about 150 years from now.
Our paper concentrates on the contribution of temperature feedback as an amplifier of the original, direct warming caused by greenhouse gases such as CO2. Official climatology thinks feedback is very strongly net-positive, but we have determined, after correction of its error in defining temperature feedback, that it is only weakly net-positive, so that feedback can in effect be ignored in climate sensitivity studies.
We have concentrated only on what we can prove. There are many, many theories about climate. We offer no theory of our own: we simply prove a large error made by official climatology. After correcting the error, there will be too little global warming to matter.
venus’ not hotter as can be justified by its (closer than earth) distance to sun
Mercury is also very hot, if that helps you a little ?
Venus’s surface temperature , about 225% its orbital gray body temperature of ~ 327.6 ( an energy density ~ 25 x what the Sun supplies to its orbit ) cannot be explained by any spectral phenomenon .
What causes hot air temperature at rocky Venus surface is the clouds. The clouds are thick and are 30 to 70 km above the rocky surface.
In the pseudo science, the clouds of acid droplets are called a “greenhouse gas”. As droplets of H20 in Earth atmosphere are considered to be greenhouse gas.
Wiki:
“Venusian clouds are thick and are composed mainly (75-96%) of sulfuric acid droplets. These clouds obscure the surface of Venus from optical imaging, and reflect about 75% of the sunlight that falls on them.”
So 75% percent of sunlight gets to the elevation level of the clouds which quite high above the rocky Venus surface.
And at noon where sunlight is at zenith on rocky surface, you have weak and diffused sunlight- which would not warm anything. It is very different than Earth’s rocky surface, but in terms of warming of daylight it’s similar an overcast day on Earth- which may have warm air temperature, but sunlight is not directly warming the surface under the clouds.
And on rocky surface when the sun is not near zenith, one get less diffuse sunlight. Or most of rocky surface is dim or dark in terms illumination from the sun. And if when up say 50 km elevation, one could have bright sunlight- near morning or late afternoon and/or in higher latitudes where sun is never near zenith. Or on sunlit side of planet most of rocky surface has dim or very dim or non-existent sunlight and at higher elevation this is not the case.
So the clouds of Venus make Venus hot at the rocky surface and at 50 Km elevation the air is fairly warm by Earth standards- one live in sky cities of Venus- with modest amount of air conditioning.
Or we measure our air temperature at 1 atm of pressure, and at 1 atm of pressure on Venus [around 50 km elevation] the air is warm but sunlight is twice as intense at Venus distance, and not very warm if allowing for the stronger sunlight.
And if earth had huge and impossible hole which was 50 km deep and had Venus air pressure at bottom of hole- it would have hot air.
We had a modestly small hole on Earth, which when Mediterranean sea dried up [called Messinian salinity crisis-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messinian_salinity_crisis
And air temperature was regarded as being hellishly hot at that very low elevation.
Due average air temperature being modestly warm in regions that surrounded the dried up sea which were at higher elevation as compared to dried up sea floor.
It’s the energy of gravity acting on mass , not spectrum which creates the gradient .
Viscount Monckton the above masterpiece deserves to be posted as a separate essay!
Would you consider submitting it to Anthony (with a few additional killer observations)?
Is Warren referring to my long reply to Mr Eschenbach a little way upthread? If so, I shall see whether it can be polished and made into a head posting. Many thanks for this constructive suggestion.
Yes indeed and TTTT is epic!
Many thanks Viscount Monckton . . .
1850 . . .
https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/j.1477-8696.2000.tb04039.x
https://www.booty.org.uk/booty.weather/climate/1850_1899.htm
Warren has helpfully provided a link to a source that demonstrates that, notwithstanding the uncertainties in ascertaining the temperature in 1850, quite a lot is known about temperatures in that year.
Just one more reason why we should not hesitate to rely upon the HadCRUT4 dataset, which is the dataset regarded by IPCC itself as normative.
Old but good layman’s overview of 1850 in context (pg. 17 to 19) . . .
http://jonova.s3.amazonaws.com/corruption/climate-corruption.pdf
I understand Lord Moncton’s method, which is to assume that the standard explanation is correct, and see where that leads. The standard explanation is that everything averages out, and the changes in temperature are a linear function of the forcing. Mathematically this is expressed as:
∆T = lambda ∆F
where T is temperature, F is forcing, and lambda is a constant called the “climate sensitivity”. Lord Monckton’s claim is that the climate sensitivity is smaller than is claimed by mainstream climate scientists.
Now, Ramanathan proposed a way to measure the so-called “greenhouse effect”. This is to measure the amount of upwelling radiation absorbed by the atmosphere, as a percentage of the amount emitted by the surface beneath.
Fortunately, the CERES satellite datasets allow us to do exactly that. However, when we do it, we find a curious thing. The amount that is absorbed, that is to say the greenhouse effect or the total radiative feedback, is NOT a constant as is assumed by mainstream climate scientists. Instead, as I have been arguing for years, it is a function of inter alia of the temperature. Here is a scatterplot of surface temperature versus the percentage of upwelling radiation that is returned to the surface.
I’m sure you can see the problem. The amount of radiative energy fed back to the surface is NOT a constant as mainstream climate science claims. Instead, it is some function of at least the temperature, and very likely other variables as well (cloud cover comes to mind).
And as a result, Lord Monckton’s method of assuming that the standard explanation is correct … well, it fails miserably because the standard explanation is NOT correct. The feedback is NOT a constant, so arguing that it is a different constant, as Lord M. is doing, goes nowhere …
Regards to all,
w.
Your battle is a trench too far.
Monckton is advancing the cause and climatology will never be the same.
You’re one of the smartest so why don’t you offer to help?
Warren
Warren, I am doing the only thing I know how to do, which is to fight for good science. Christopher is a very smart and good man. However, in this case he’s buying the standard line that temperature is a linear function of forcing. All he’s doing is arguing for a smaller constant for the climate sensitivity. He’s actually advancing the alarmist cause, not advancing the science …
Best regards,
w.
He’s “buying the standard line” out of expediency. One battle at a time wins the war.
“He’s actually advancing the alarmist cause”. Well many here believe he’s degrading their cause and forcing them into a corner from which they’ll be forced to exit fighting and then we shall see.
But fair enough Willis you (more than most) are entitled to have such a lofty immutable stance (meant sincerely).
I am most grateful to Warren for his support, and I repeat to Mr Eschenbach that neither I nor even official climatology assume that either reference or equilibrium temperature is a linear function of forcing.
And I repeat to my dear friend LMOB that the climate model output global temperature is a linear function of the forcing, as I have demonstrated (see below). So yes, according to official climatology, temperature is indeed a linear function of forcing.
Best to all,
w.
Model Charged with Excessive Use of Forcing 2010-12-19
The GISS Model E is the workhorse of NASA’s climate models. I got interested in the GISSE hindcasts of the 20th century due to an interesting posting by Lucia over at the Blackboard. She built a simple model (which she calls “Lumpy”) which does a pretty good job of emulating…
Zero Point Three times the Forcing 2011-01-17
Now that my blood pressure has returned to normal after responding to Dr. Trenberth, I returned to thinking about my earlier somewhat unsatisfying attempt to make a very simple emulation of the GISS Model E (herinafter GISSE) climate model. I described that attempt here, please see that post for the…
Life is Like a Black Box of Chocolates 2011-05-14
In my earlier post about climate models, “Zero Point Three Times The Forcing“, a commenter provided the breakthrough that allowed the analysis of the GISSE climate model as a black box. In a “black box” type of analysis, we know nothing but what goes into the box and what comes…
I decline to be lured into defending the climate models. As I have carefully explained, taking the specific instance of the Planck sensitivity parameter lambda-zero, it is demonstrable that that parameter, and therefore the overall climate-sensitivity parameter lambda, is not linear.
I have, however, demonstrated a posteriori, rather than assuming a priori, that the system-gain factors for 1850 and for 2011 are very close to identical, indicating that under anything like modern conditions such nonlinearities as exist among individual feedbacks are insufficient to engender a significantly nonlinear response.
If Mr Eschenbach disagrees with my method of establishing that in the industrial era there is little actual nonlinearity in the impact of feedbacks, let him address my method rather than tediously repeating that he imagines climatology regards feedback as linear when a very substantial body of literature establishes that it does not.
Mr Eschenbach has made an elementary error of algebra in assuming that in an equation of form a = bc the variable b must be constant. It may or may not be.
Monckton of Brenchley
Say what? Neither I nor anyone has asked you to “defend the climate models”. Your claim was that “climate orthodoxy” doesn’t think that the sensitivity is a constant. I have demonstrated that indeed they do, as shown by the linear nature of the climate models. You appear to be doing your best to ignore that.
Absolutely not. I am merely saying that IN THIS CASE, the climate sensitivity is treated by mainstream climate science as a constant. Why do you think that people give individual values for it? One person says that it’s 3°C per doubling, another says it is half of that … but no one (but me and a few heretics) says it varies with the temperature.
Regards to all,
w.
Mr Eschenbach again makes the elementary error of assuming that a conclusion derived a posteriori is really an assumption adopted a priori. The derivation of the apparently linear response to forcings in the models may or may not be correct: but it is not in any way dependent on the assumption of linearity a priori, for it can be and has been repeatedly shown that official climatology makes no, repeat no, repeat no such assumption. The nearest it comes is to conclude – not to assume, but to conclude, just as we have not assumed but concluded – that the climate-sensitivity parameter is “typically near-invariant”.
Therefore, mainstream science does not “treat” climate sensitivity as constant: it concludes – rightly, if our calculations are correct – that it is near-invariant, but wrongly that it is large.
Mr Eschenbach is ignoring the substantial body of literature on the nonlinearity of the water-vapor feedback, to name but one, and he is ignoring the worked example by which I demonstrated that the Planck sensitivity parameter, a component in the overall climate-sensitivity parameter, is not, repeat not, repeat not constant with temperature and that, therefore, the overall climate-sensitivity parameter is not, repeat not, repeat not constant.
Lord Monckton says:
Since you have not claimed that I have made that “error” before, I can hardly be making it “again”, can I?
I said that mainstream climatologists say that climate sensitivity is a constant. I said nothing about a priori or a posteriori, not one word. I said that when they put their assumptions into a computer model, it comes out linear. I suppose you could claim that is a coincidence. I say it is an inescapable outcome of their underlying assumptions.
Say what? After all of your Latin and all of your complaints about my saying that mainstream scientists say climate sensitivity is a constant (which they do), you now claim they say it is “near invariant”? Dear heavens, is it really that hard for you to admit someone else is right?
Not only that, but you put it in quotes as though you were actually quoting somebody … so how about you tell us just who you are quoting here?
Regards to all,
w.
“Near-invariant”: IPCC (2001) ch. 6.1, p. 354 col. 1 and again col. 2.
Variance of the Planck sensitivity parameter with temperature: Schlesinger 1985.
Proof that Mr Eschenbach said that climatology “assumed” a priori what it did not assume:
“I think that the fundamental assertion of modern climate science is wrong. This is the idea that ∆T = lambda ∆F, where T is temperature, F is forcing, and lambda is assumed to be a constant called ‘climate sensitivity’.”
Proof that Mr Eschenbach said that I assumed a priori what I did not assume:
“Your work is all about how you think the climate sensitivity IS a constant.”
Climatology deduces a posteriori that the climate sensitivity parameter is near-invariant and large. I deduce a posteriori that the climate sensitivity parameter is near-invariant but small. I have proven that it is near-invariant in the industrial era. With respect, that is not the same as “thinking” or “assuming” that it is “constant”.
Christopher, I don’t give a rat’s okole whether the conclusion was a prior or a posteriori. The point is that both you and they claim that climate sensitivity is “near-invariant”, where the actual CERES data says that the percentage of upwelling radiation that is fed back to the surface is a function of temperature.
I have also demonstrated that temperature controls not just how much sun makes it to the surface, but also how much total radiation makes it to the surface. See my posts “Where the Temperature Rules the Sun” and Where The Temperature Rules The Total Surface Absorption.
Finally, I have shown that the climate RESPONDS to changing surface temperature. It is not the static system that you and others facilely assume. Following the Constructal Law, and see here as well (a Law of nature which for some reason everyone wants to ignore in the world of climate) it changes, evolves, and restructures …
And in that real-world arena, the idea that the climate responds in a “near-invariant” way to forcing is a sick joke …
w.
Mr Eschenbach, in his indifference to the difference between aprioristic and deductive reasoning, is not adopting a scientific approach.
He says he has shown that the climate responds to changing surface temperature. So it does, and that response is known as the feedback response. We have demonstrated that the feedback response is a great deal smaller than official climatology had imagined.
I hope, though, that he now accepts that neither official climatology nor I consider that the climate-sensitivity parameter is a constant.
I have already commented on the inapplicability to our argument of the graph now repeated by Mr Eschenbach. Briefly, the graph covers a temperature interval of 100 K, whereas the reference anthropogenic warming from 1850-2011 was less than 0.7 K.
It is precisely because the warming from the Sun and the pre-industrial non-condensing greenhouse gases is some 375 times greater than the tiny anthropogenic warming that the feedback regime of today is not greatly different from the feedback regime of 1850,, and such differences as do exist are trivial in comparison to the fact, omitted in official climatology’s calculations, that the Sun is shining.
Monckton of Brenchley
Mr. Monckton, in his insistence that it makes one damn bit of difference whether the claim of “near-invariance” is aprioristic or deductive, is not adopting a scientific approach.
Christoper, it makes absolutely NO difference how you or anyone got to that conclusion of “near-invariance”. The issue is that you and they both got to that conclusion, and it is wrong.
No, I said that THE AMOUNT OF FEEDBACK RESPONDS TO CHANGING SURFACE TEMPERATURE … which means the feedback response is NOT “near-invariant”. Instead, it is a function of temperature, which is a very, very, very different thing than being “near-invariant”.
I accept that you have called it “near-invariant”, meaning “basically constant”, in a vain attempt to avoid admitting that you were wrong.
w.
Mr Eschenbach has not only misunderstood our method: he seems to have misunderstood official climatology’s method as well. Over and over again in this thread, he has erroneously asserted not only that I treat the system-gain factor as constant but also that official climatology does so.
In his latest comment, he asserts that the climate-sensitivity parameter lambda in climatology’s version of the equation for equilibrium sensitivity is a constant. He also asserts that I have asserted that it is a constant. But I have asserted no such thing: I have demonstrated that, in the industrial era, it is near-invariant. In this at least, I am at one with official climatology: for, as ch. 6.1 of IPCC (2001) makes clear, lambda is not constant but “typically near-invariant” in the industrial era.
Two of the shortcomings in the standard notation for equations have made themselves manifest in this thread. The first is that equations do not indicate the direction of causality. In systems theory, electronic network analysis addresses this defect by adding arrows to its block diagrams, to indicate what happens first and what happens next. Several commenters here have been led astray by not following the arrows carefully.
The second shortcoming – and Mr Eschenbach has fallen victim to it – is that equations do not automatically specify which of their terms are constants and which are variables. The term lambda in climatology’s equilibrium-sensitivity equation is not a constant. It is a variable that he has mistaken for a constant and has then accused me of mistaking for a constant.
As for our own method, we go to some lengths to determine the extent to which the value of lambda has changed during the industrial era. We do this by deriving the reference and equilibrium temperatures in 1850 and the reference and equilibrium sensitivities from 1850-2011, whereupon the reference and equilibrium temperature in 2011 follow. And we discover a posteriori, rather than assuming a priori, that the system-gain factor is indeed near-invariant in the industrial era, but that its value is very considerably below that which official climatology imagines.
Two considerations in the philosophy of science arise. The first is that apriorism has no place in science. To assume a priori the truth of what one is seeking to demonstrate a posteriori would be to perpetrate the ancient and execrable logical fallacy of petitio principii. Anyone trained in formal logic knows better than to do that.
We do not, repeat not, repeat not assume a priori that the system gain factor is constant. We do, repeat do, repeat do deduce a posteriori that, under the conditions prevalent in the industrial era, it is near-invariant. One cannot legitimately, therefore, impugn our result on the manifestly false basis that we had assumed the truth of its near-invariance from the outset. We didn’t: we proved it. It’s as simple as that.
The second consideration is that in certain circumstances one may legitimately assume a priori some of the propositions from which an a-posteriori deduction will be made. In Socratic elenchus, for instance – and that is the powerful but (to its opponents) notoriously irritating technique we are using here – it is usual to adopt a priori (sed solum ad argumentum) as many of the opponent’s propositions as possible. There are two reasons for this.
First, the scope for sidetracking our argument into futile inconsequentialities is greatly reduced, as several commenters here have found to their cost. Secondly, the opponent – in this case official climatology and its numerous paid or unpaid champions here – is compelled either to concentrate on the sole proposition in official climatology that we can demonstrate to be wholly false, or to appear pettily vexatious and off the point.
A third consideration in the philosophy of science arises. Where we accept the propositions of official climatology ad argumentum – i.e., solely for the sake of argument – we neither endorse nor condemn those propositions. We merely invite our opponents to note that those propositions are their propositions, wherefore any attempt by them to accuse us of having adopted propositions that are in fact their own at once reveals – to them no less than to us – the illogicality of their own position.
It is precisely this feature of Socratic elenchus that renders it at once one of the most powerful forms of logical argument and the most annoying. For there is nothing more irritating than to be confronted, in the starkest possible way, with the illogicalities and inconsistencies of one’s own reasoning. Everyone who is on the wrong end of a successful elenchus hates what has been done to him. That is why it is a method to be used sparingly, and only where no other method will do.
There have been many discussions among our co-authors about what would happen when we began to reveal our result. We have all known from the outset that we should end up with very few friends. The hatred and bile directed at us by the climate Communists will, of course, be redoubled in its intensity as they realize the mortal threat that our result poses to their Party Line. For totalitarians are not rational.
Just today, I received an agonized series of emails from a learned doctor of science who had attended a conference of skeptical scientists and researchers that I had played a small part in organizing in London two years ago. The learned doctor, who had trained under some of the leading climate-Communist scientists but had concluded that they were wrong and had made an excellent presentation at the conference explaining why, has had every source of funding closed off, has been run out of academe altogether after two decades of diligent research, and now has no job, no income and no hope.
The learned doctor’s comment was that the savagery of numerous eminent climate “scientists” on learning that there was an open-minded and true scientist in their midst had been entirely unexpected, profoundly shocking and deeply humiliating. We shall win no friends, then, among the hate-filled, intolerant forces of darkness that have already moved against three of my co-authors, one of whom has lost his academic position and two of whom very nearly did so.
My co-authors and I know also that on the skeptical side of the debate we shall win very few friends. For the truth is that our result, properly understood, is very simple, and all too many on the skeptical side believe that there is some sort of virtue in complexity, even where it is altogether unnecessary.
What, for instance, is the point of publishing – as Mr Eschenbach does – a diagram showing that the feedback response varies with temperature across an interval of 100 K when the entire industrial-era anthropogenic warming is only 1 K? Naturally, some parts of the world are 100 K cooler than others: but our method does not, repeat not, repeat not require any knowledge whatsoever of the behavior of any individual temperature feedback under any ambient conditions. We need only know the reference temperature before feedback and the equilibrium temperature after feedback at any given moment, and we only need to know them to within 10 or 20 K.
For the system-gain factor is by definition as well as by demonstration first by linear algebra and secondly as the sum of a convergent infinite series the ratio of equilibrium temperature to reference temperature at any given time. This hideous simplicity comes as profoundly shocking to those who, like Mr Eschenbach, have commendably devoted themselves to the very closest scrutiny of the minutiae of a multitude of enormous, complex, uncertain datasets. No such scrutiny is necessary or helpful to our method, for as soon as one reintroduces the sunshine into the calculation all lesser phenomena become largely irrelevant and no great precision is needed in deriving reference and equilibrium temperatures and, from them, equilibrium sensitivity.
Mr Eschenbach, in assuming that official climatology regards the climate-sensitivity parameter as constant, is making a false assumption – and one that we have been meticulous in avoiding. To take just one example of a component in the climate-sensitivity parameter, the Planck or zero-feedback sensitivity parameter is the first derivative of the fundamental equation of radiative transfer expressed in terms of both temperature and emission-surface flux density. That derivative is simply the ratio of surface temperature to four times the emission-surface flux density. Now, the emission-surface flux density is dependent upon only two quantities – insolation and albedo. Even if one were to assume that not only insolation but albedo is constant, as the surface temperature rises the value of the Planck parameter increases. It is not a constant; and, therefore, the climate-sensitivity parameter of which it is a component is not constant either. But – here’s the point – over sufficiently small changes in temperature, such as that which has obtained in the industrial era, the Planck parameter is very nearly constant.
I hope that this background both in physics and in the philosophy of science will be of assistance to Mr Eschenbach.
Christopher, Willis is a lot smarter than you.
PS Christopher, Willis is the kind of guy that if he found a cure for HIV, he would have released it for the benefit of the world unlike you who would not.
Mr Mermelstein is quite right that Mr Eschenbach is a lot smarter than I am. However, on the subject-matter of our paper there is a statable case that Mr Eschenbach has not yet fully understood what we have done. For one thing, he has stated, incorrectly, that both we and official climatology have assumed a priori that the climate-sensitivity parameter is constant, when it is a matter of unarguable fact that we have not done so.
Mr Memelstein is wrong, however, to suggest that I must publish what he calls “a cure for HIV”. I do not claim a cure for HIV: I assert that our research, which continues, has shown some promising indications. Whether Mr Memelstein likes it or not, there are laws about claiming cures before the most rigorous, prospective, randomized, double-blind clinical trials have been carried out. That is a process that will take decades. It will not happen in my lifetime. I happen to think that a lot of lives could be saved if the law were not as stringent as it is, but then I remember Thalidomide and continue to be cautious. Like it or not, medical research is a slow, meticulous process: but at least I have the satisfaction of knowing that those who have tried our medication have found a very great improvement in their condition. Has Mr Mermelstein ever done anything so useful? From the malicious tone of his comments, I beg leave to suspect not. He should be thoroughly ashamed of himself for exploiting those who are sick for Communist political purposes.
Remy Mermelstein
Who is smarter is never the question. For example, a while back I had to write a whole post called “Wrong Again” after I made a foolish mistake in calculations … and a couple years later I had to write one called “Wrong Again, Again”, for the same reason …
The question is, whose ideas are right … and that is most definitely not a function of cranial horsepower …
w.
OK Willis, then how about this……. You understand reality better then Christopher, and you are able to convey your insight of reality better than Christopher, and you do not belittle your adversaries as he does. You see Willis, unlike you, Christopher has his head stuck up his rectum.
I discern no scientific point in Mr Mermelstein’s contribution.
Wow, this thread’s still going.
Well, I have to agree that what Lord Monckton has done is indeed simple. In fact, it’s much simpler than he makes it out to be. If he boiled it down to its essentials, people would see how preposterously protean his positions on the issue have been. But he doesn’t. He covers it with a lot of extraneous irrelevance, vagueness, and ambiguity.
A couple or so years ago he was saying that the “Bode” equation was a “rogue” equation inaptly appropriated by climatology from electronics. Feedback factors exceeding unity had a physical meaning in electronics, he said, but in climate they were nonphysical. He told us we were wrong to contradict him on this; an eminent engineer backed him up.
Then a Damascene conversion. But, like many converts, he went overboard. Now that equation applies not just to electronics but to climate and indeed all dynamical systems where there’s feedback, and not just to their small-signal relationships but to their large-signal behavior, too. And now feedback factors exceeding unity aren’t nonphysical anymore. He now says they imply climate cooling. (No, really. He said that.)
This year’s theory just boils down to extrapolation, but even that he can’t keep straight. First it was that “climatology” was extrapolating from data points that were incorrect, taking with- and without-feedback temperatures to be equal at the “emission temperature” when they really aren’t.
Later he put out some equations that he said corrected things, but if you analyze them you see that what they really do is guarantee a “tipping point.”
And now he’s made a video in which he shows climatology as extrapolating from data he agrees (at least for the sake of argument) is correct, but he says that rather than projecting through known points close to the unknown like everyone else you should use the absolute-zero origin as one of the points you project through. Who extrapolates like that? (And he flubs the math in doing it.) Furthermore, his numerical example of applying the “startling error of physics” didn’t come anywhere near to the high ECS values he says the “startling error” is responsible for: he undercut his own argument.
But, again, he so wraps it all in gratuitous Latin, ambiguous terminology, mathematical circumlocution, and erudite-sounding jargon that almost no one can detect the contradictions.
Be specific or be silent.
Just for the sake of any remaining lurkers not familiar with Lord Monckton’s antics, I’ll point out that he’s being disingenuous.
He knows very well, for example, that at wmbriggs.com/public/Monckton.et.al.pdf he labeled greater-than-unity values of the “feedback factor” on which he’s perseverated for several years now “unphysical.”
He also knows very well that at http://www.climatedepot.com/2015/01/25/monckton-fires-back-point-by-point-rebuttal-at-warmist-critics-of-new-peer-reviewed-study-shoddy-rent-a-quote-scientists/ he referred to the equation that uses it a “rogue equation”
And he probably also is confident that Anthony Watts would spike any proposed head post of mine laying out in detail the math and logic errors in his video or in the half dozen or so head posts he’s run on the subject for Lord Monckton. (Anyway, those posts are such a target-rich environment that pointing their errors out would itself probably take half a dozen posts.)
I should also mention that, although I agreed that the essence of what he has done is simple, Steve McIntyre was probably more accurate when he used “over-simplistic.”
The Born Liar has no recognizable scientific argument to make. His petty and spiteful tone is enough to warn anyone off.
Unfortunatly (for them as well) those otherwise well educated scientists who must instead follow truth, have no idea of the viciousness about to be unloaded on them, simply because they , like their now irrational colleagues, mocked Philosophy, Socrates and Plato especially. Aristotle rules the hallowed halls, otherwise known as the poisoner. Socrates was condemned to death for enabling young citizens to use exactly that elenctic method .
Phaedo should be required reading for any PhD.
Thank you for pointing out that subtle math poison – the blurring of a priori/posteriori , removing cause, with algebra. To think that Lord Bertrand Russell attempted to reduce all physica and math to logic, defies reason. Even after Goedel demolished such insanity, using exactly the elenctic method, their very own tools, against Russel and Hilbert, academia still imposes logic, for example the peer review. It was a Senate peer review that condemned Socrates.
Monckton of Brenchley said:
Dear heavens, now the good Lord is attacking me even when answering someone else …
Christopher, clearly you do not understand the damage that your endless and unpleasant string of ad hominem attacks are doing to your reputation. STOP THIS NONSENSE! Stick to the science, there’s a good fellow. You will not win a scientific debate by insulting your opponent, that’s a sure sign of weakness. People are starting to point at you and laugh, and I doubt if that is your intended response … but when you start out each and every “scientific” comment with a personal attack against whomever you are answering, that’s what happens.
Please do not take this as an attack on you. It is an attempt made in sincere friendship to try to stem your self-destructive behavior. Talk science, argue science, discuss science, and cut all this crap about people’s claimed wrongdoings and shortcomings out entirely.
w.
The moderators have called Mr Eschenbach out for his intemperance, so he is in no position to sermonize about temperance.
It is Mr Eschenbach who is disappointing observers of this thread. For he stated, repeatedly and falsely, that both I and official climatology had assumed the climate-sensitivity parameter to be a constant, when I had repeatedly, and accurately, demonstrated that not only my team but also official climatology had not assumed that parameter to be constant a priori: we had demonstrated it a posteriori to be near-invariant in the industrial era.
Mr Eschenbach is, of course, free to examine our reasons for deducing that conclusion, and to find them defective if he can discover anything wrong; but it is unreasonable for him to continue to state that we have assumed what we have not assumed, particularly after having been confronted with the evidence that we had assumed no such thing.
Perhaps Mr Eschenbach would now be kind enough to retract his preposterous allegation that we had assumed a priori what we had in fact demonstrated (albeit to a limited extent) a posteriori.