Guest essay by Eric Worrall
h/t Marc Morano – From the “anyone can hit a barn with a scattergun department”; Climate Scientists Andrew Dessler and Daniel Cohan are so confident in their models, they claim there are no plausible mechanisms other than CO2 to explain the modern warming period (as opposed to all the previous natural warming periods).
We’re scientists. We know the climate’s changing. And we know why.
Andrew Dessler, Daniel Cohan
Oct. 22, 2018 Updated: Oct. 22, 2018 3:05 p.m.At this point, just about everyone recognizes that the climate is changing. Even Donald Trump says, “I think something’s happening.” Now, the question being debated is why the climate is changing.
Though there may be a public debate, there’s no debate among scientists like us — decades of research have demonstrated that human activities, primarily the emission of carbon dioxide from the combustion of fossil fuels, are driving the climate change we are experiencing.
To understand why we are so confident, it’s useful to think about climate change as a whodunit. Climate does not change by itself, so scientists are detectives trying to solve the mystery of what has been warming the Earth for the past century.
…
There is an entire list of suspects that scientists have looked at, and they have not identified a single viable one. With one exception — greenhouse gases.
…
The timing of warming, beginning just after the industrial revolution, and the magnitude of the warming, match our theories almost exactly. The figure below shows that the rapid warming of last few decades was accurately predicted in 1975. Such predictions are the gold standard of science — if you can make a non-obvious prediction about some physical system, then it means that you understand something fundamental about it. This prediction shows that we really understand the warming of the climate system.
…
What is the source of all that confidence?
In my opinion, this confidence comes from the fact climate scientists have never faced any real possibility of being proven wrong; not because they are right, but because the bulk of what they do cannot be falsified by any remotely plausible physical observations.
No matter what the physical observation, someone, somewhere has created a model which can be dusted off and fitted to observations. Even an abrupt plunge in global temperatures to near ice age conditions would not invalidate modern climate theory, because the possibility of a future temporary return to ice age conditions is covered by a climate model.
” Even an abrupt plunge in global temperatures to near ice age conditions would not invalidate modern climate theory, because the possibility of a future temporary return to ice age conditions is covered by a climate model. ”
Oh boy…that takes the wind out of my sails. I always thought that a long term cooling trend would be the falsification of the global warming hypothesis, or rather the climate change ‘industry’ now. They got every base covered, from soup to nuts. And by a model no less, that they have tuned up like a fiddle.
Problem is, that when there is not much observable warming or change happening over longer time frames, as we are now finding out with previous predictions having come and went, we will find that that mainstream people power will say enough of this nonsense, especially when they are being asked to not only pay a carbon tax for all this madness, but to pay for the people who have organized this industry against modernism and are giving them a massive bill to pay for that provides nothing in exchange except empty platitudes. That is when everything will shift, with the media changing sides first when it no longer finds favour and sells copy, and politicians are no longer voted in to represent these academic falsehoods. Then the academics will be sent packing and the jig will be up, but not until a critical mass is reached. And that will happen when the hype doesn’t fit the facts. Collectively, people are not stupid forever.
And, Earthling2, we must all remember that officially the role of the IPCC is to ‘assess on a comprehensive, objective, open and transparent basis the scientific, technical and socio-economic information relevant to understanding the scientific basis of risk of human-induced climate change, its potential impacts and options for adaptation and mitigation.’
Therefore the IPCC can and does always IGNORE all theories, data, facts, research and opinions regarding all natural, cyclical or external non-human caused factors that may, may and do affect our climate, whether the effects are smaller or larger than those ‘induced’ by humans. And this exemption was clearly intentional rather than accidental. Ergo: We were set up from day 1.
Making this much worse is that the IPCC maneuvered itself to become the arbiter of what and what is not climate science by what they published in their reports. By keeping the conflict of interest that formed their ‘consensus’ hidden from scrutiny for so long, it makes it hard for many to believe that the hallowed ‘consensus’ can be as wrong as it is.
Dessler:
Yes, that is part of the problem.
Wow. What part of the climate system being a “non-linear, chaotic system” does this so-called scientist not understand?
I’m going to bookmark that as reason to disregard anything this idiot says in the future.
Surely that statement is just false? We have pop pretty good records of previous warm periods across much of recorded history – Minoan, Roman, Medieval – and those periods correspond to similar societal changes that further prove their existence. We have long term changes that caused droughts in North and Central America.
These seemed to have largely happened “by themselves”. Of course there is always a reason: a chaotic system may need only a small reason to change significantly. But in their terminology, they just happened.
All the climatologists who say “It’s just basic physics” (often physicists) are similar idiots, ignoring not only chaos theory, but clouds and atmospheric convection forces.
Absolutely. Climate does change by itself, in the sense that there does not have to be any significant change in the list of “forcings”. To argue otherwise is just semantics, and they know it.
I had copied “Climate does not change by itself” to make exactly that point.
The guy knows so little about the climate that he doesn’t even know that he knows so little about the climate.
Chaotic systems can change state without a knowable associated factor driving the change. And that’s using the definition of chaotic systems that was derived from observing the climate.
It does make one wonder how he got into climatology without studying the climate. Was he misquoted or is he truly unqualified?
Yep, “scientists like us” i.e., those that are 100% confident and refuse toi accept contrary evidence. In other words: not scientists at all.
What is truly astonishing to me is that they can say with a straight face that humans are the only possible driver of climate change and ignore the fact, among thousands of other facts, that the place from which I am writing this email was buried under 3000 to 5000 metres of ice about 20,000 years ago. Apparently they are still looking for the 20,000 year old fossil-fueled power plants that caused THAT ice to melt.
Wooly Mammoths could not be reached for comment.
Climate does not change by itself
Of course not. We are living in the adjustocene. Adjust the climate, adjust the models, adjust the data….. its a fabulous time. Can you imagine if I get in charge what I could adjust… People will be living to be 150 years old… no accidents, no wars, no plastic in the oceans, no sewers.. won’t need them. I have a model for that. I can make up entirely new fields of science, apply to society, and force you to pay for it….
Note too that the IPCC in its latest report seems to have expanded its mission to –
strengthening the global response to the threat of climate
change, sustainable development, and efforts to eradicate poverty
Was that last bit really what they were all about from the get-go, using the first bit as window-dressing?
That’s true, not forever. Average life expectancy being around 83.
From the article:
“No matter what the physical observation, someone, somewhere has created a model which can be dusted off and fitted to observations. Even an abrupt plunge in global temperatures to near ice age conditions would not invalidate modern climate theory, because the possibility of a future temporary return to ice age conditions is covered by a climate model.”
Stop! This statement is highly illogical – the IPCC’s catastrophic global warming (CAGW) hypothesis states that atmospheric temperature on Earth is primarily driven by humanmade increases in atmospheric CO2, caused by the accelerating combustion of fossil fuels. It further assumes that natural causes are much less significant drivers of global temperatures than CO2.
The CAGW hypo has already been falsified, by:
1. By the ~32-year global cooling period from ~1945 to ~1977, even as fossil fuel combustion and atmospheric CO2 strongly increased;
2. By “The Pause”, when temperature did not significantly increase for about two decades, despite increasing atmospheric CO2 concentrations;
3. By the absence of runaway global warming over geologic time, despite much higher CO2 concentrations that at present;
4. A hypothetical doubling of CO2 from the so-called “pre-industrial” level of VERY approx. 280ppm to 560ppm would cause AT MOST about 1C of global warming (Christy and McNider 2017, Lewis and Curry 2018) , such that any humanmade warming would NOT be dangerous, but would be net-beneficial for humanity and the environment.
5. The only conclusive evidence is that Increasing atmospheric CO2 is hugely beneficial for the environment and humanity, due to greatly increasing plant and crop yields.
In conclusion, there is no credible evidence of dangerous humanmade global warming driven by increasing atmospheric CO2, and ample evidence to the contrary.
But let’s return to the above statement “Even an abrupt plunge in global temperatures to near ice age conditions would not invalidate modern climate theory…” This is false – if CO2 continues to increase, as it probably will, and global temperatures cool, as they probably soon will, this DISPROVES the CAGW hypo – just as the global cooling from ~1945 to ~1977 (and the subsequent ~20-year Pause) already did. Sure, the warmists modelers will concoct some false narrative to fudge their models, just as they did before (the last time they used false, fabricated aerosol data to force-cool their models, but only fools would believe that).
Any modeler can drive any model in whatever direction he chooses, but the IPCC’s climate models prove nothing, except that the models are corrupted. The models all run too hot because they all use climate sensitivities to atmospheric CO2 that are several times too high (typically about 4C/(doubling of CO2) versus a maximum possible (upper limit) of 1C/(doubling).
The writer of the subject sentence is probably correct, in that the climate modelers can fudge their models to say anything they want – but only fools will believe them.
I submit, unfortunately, there are millions and millions of fools that will believe them.
These guys just slay me. No real scientist is EVER that confident of anything .. the entire nature of real science is constant, persistent skepticism, the search for anything that would prove the current theory incorrect, to support a new theory, and so forth.
And these confident guys never, ever answer the question of why processes that have been proven to exist and cause climate to change “on its own”, have been ongoing for thousands, tens of thousands, millions, and even billions of years, all without any help at all from humans. They never address that question.
Of course the climate is changing – it never has not changed, at least on geologic time scales, even on historical timescales long predating current CO2 generating human actions.
The real scientific question that must be addressed is what are the relative contributions of each of the so-called “forcing mechanisms” that cause climate to change as it is changing today? Nobody has ever built a model that takes into account everything that we already know today, let along that takes into account what we know that we don’t know, and let alone even more that which we don’t yet know that we don’t know.
Only ignoramuses claim to know everything.
“” Even an abrupt plunge in global temperatures to near ice age conditions would not invalidate modern climate theory, because the possibility of a future temporary return to ice age conditions is covered by a climate model. ””
This^
Seriously, here in Toronto last year, we had a greater-than-average spring run off, which lead to (localized) flooding, but because Toronto is the centre of the (Canadian anyway) universe, which means media exposure, which means The Apocalypse is Upon US!!!…a climate model was rolled out which said: this is the new normal, of course climate change means more moisture, more precipitation, more floods. Science, you deniers!
This is just a few years after we had, you guessed it, a smaller-than-average spring run off, which led to lower lake levels, which led to speculation that we would have to spend MILLIONS AND MILLIONS of dollars to dredge the channels. The sporting boat industry demanded bailouts.
A climate model was rolled out which said: this is the new normal, of course climate change means LESS moisture, less precipitation, LOWER (permanent) water levels. Science, you deniers!
At least nobody but the MSM listens to economists and sports books. Ok, bad gamblers listen to the later but still…
Then there’s the other 53% of scientists not like them…
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/10/23/president-trump-thinks-scientists-are-split-on-climate-change-hes-right-dana-nuccitelli-is-wrong/
You have to admire the quality of their propaganda, don’t ya! Amateurs they are not.
What COOLED the Earth so dramatically for 2000 years leading to the Little Ice Age?
Why is a SLIGHT but highly beneficial warming out of an anomalously COLD period any sort of surprise and “not natural”!
Or do they think the “climate” should have remained in the LIA for ever?
Is there any of that slight warming that can empirically and scientifically linked to atmospheric CO2?
All they seem to have is the ignorant argument, “it isn’t anything else”. NOT science.
Has warming from atmospheric CO2 ever been measured or empirically observed anywhere on the planet?
You don’t need to go that far back in time…
Scientists like them don’t remember 1975.
You are not a scientist unless you practice the scientific method.
Consensus “climate scientists” don’t, so they aren’t.
The source of their confidence is incompetence.
Dunning-Kruger effect.
“Climate does not change by itself…” therefore we confident smarter-than-average scientists will explain to you how it changes–to our smug and cynical satisfaction. (And you should keep paying us money to keep explaining, over and over, till it soaks into your thick skulls.)
“Climate does not change by itself”
Seriously?
Real scientists don’t know what changes, nor when, nor how.
But “climate scientists like us” [ Dessler & Cohan] know everything.
Right!
Good grief.
Chaos theory says climate can and does change by itself.
History says climate can, and does, change by itself.
+ 100
Yes, something is required, some form of energy input or output. The Thermaggedonists say it’s CO2, others say solar activity affecting cloud cover, others say the oceans are chucking out stored heat.
Or a change in the flow of energy, e.g., a higher albedo redirects the flow of energy back into space. Anything that results in the energy from the sun, or that which is stored in the oceans going anywhere other than the atmosphere.
Seriously not. https://compphys.go.ro/chaos/
Very helpful is Chaos, Spontaneous Climatic Variations and Detection of the Greenhouse Effect by Lorenz, one of the founders of the Chaos Theory. It can be found following one of the links. Also I embedded in the post a lecture about a ‘toy climate’ which is quite interesting and easy to follow.
Just because you can’t think of anything else that causes the change doesn’t mean there isn’t anything else. You just have to think harder.
probably acquiring an open mind would help
My paper is in submission. There is another…..and I have put a simple physical cause and numbers on it, using simple deterministic physics, no models were abused in its creation. ;-), COming soon if I getpast PALS review. Otherwise it will be a book. Either way it will come here as soon as published publicaly, if the Watts filter allows this particular reality.
Still can’t explain warming 1910-1945.
Nor the 1860 to 1880 warming.
And, what about the 1940 to early 1970s cooling, which has now through endless adjustments been almost eradicated, but even with these adjustments there was no warming for about 35 years notwithstanding rising levels of CO2.
The Alarmists claim the 1910 to 1940 warming is different than the warming today. They claim more heat has been added to the atmosphere today than in the 1910 to 1940 period because of additional CO2 in the atmosphere. They use their bogus, bastardized global temperature chart to bolster this view, which smooths out the ups and downs of past climate and makes the temperature profile looking like a smoothly climbing curve since the middle of the last century. A Big Lie. And their *only* “evidence”.
But that’s not true if you go by the Hansen 1999 U.S. temperature chart (which is more representative of the global climate than the global surface temperature charts), and the UAH satellite temperature chart. They show that the warming from 1910 to 1940 is equal to subseqent warming periods from 1980 to the present.
Hansen 1999 shows 1934 as being 0.5C warmer than 1998 and the UAH chart shows 1998 being 0.1C cooler than 2016 (the so-called “Hottest Year Evah!”) which makes 1934 0.4C warmer than 2016.
So it warmed from 1910 to 1040 at the same magnitude as the warming from 1980 to the present, with the current warming never reaching the high of the 1930’s, which means CO2 is not required for *any* of the current warming. CO2 may have added some warmth but not enough to push the temperatures higher than they were in the 1930’s. No net heat increase required.
Below is the Hansen 1999 chart (too bad one has to click on the link rather than it being displayed in the post. Really inconvenient).
As you can see, beginning around 1910 the tempeatures started warming and warmed up to a high point in the middle 1930’s, then the temperatures cooled from the 1940’s to about 1980, and cooled down to about the same level as was experienced in 1910, and then about 1980 the temperatures started warming again and continued up to the present day, and the warmest recent year, 2016, never exceeded the high temperatue point of the 1930’s.
According to Hansen 1999, no new warmth has been added to the Earth’s atmosphere, or at least not enough to push us into uncharted territory above the 1930’s high point. And we are currently 1.2C cooler than the highs in the 1930’s.
Here is a comparison between the Hansen 1999 US temperature chart and a bogus, bastardized surface temperature chart.
Notice how the bastardized global surface temperature chart erases the warmth of the 1930’s and makes the temperature chart look like a long, steady climb higher, in conjunction with the steady climb in CO2 levels in the atmosphere. The Alarmists created a corrolation out of whole cloth.
Does anyone believe that the US temperature profile and the global temperaure profile would look so different in reality? This only happens in a computer.
Happily, there are unmodified temperature charts from around the world who show the same temperature profile as the Hansen 1999 chart, i.e., that the 1930’s were as warm or warmer than subsequent years. So the Hansen 1999 chart profile has numerous charts confirming the Hansen 1999 temperature profile.
NO unmodified charts from anywhere in the world resemble the bogus, bastardized surface temperature chart profiles the Alarmists have created.
If you look at a bogus, bastardized global surface temperature chart and believe it, you should be alarmed. It looks scary. It was meant to look scary.
But if you look at the Hansen1999/UAH temperature profile, you see that today’s weather is just business as usual. It has happened before, and it’s not any more extreme than in the past, in fact, it may be less extreme now and the temperatures are actually cooler than in the recent past.
Of course, business as usual doesn’t fit in with the narrative of CAGW being real and a crisis, so the Climategate conspirators decided they have to manipulate the temperature record to give them something to hang their scary hat on. And so they did and chaos ensued.
But, they couldn’t erase all the temperature records from around the world and they definitely couldn’t manipulate the US temperature record because there are so many local records available that trying to turn the US chart into a Hockey Stick would have been impossible, so they did the next best thing and left the US temperature record alone and then claimed that it was different from the rest of the world.
Any so called scientist making such claims shows that they wouldn’t make a scientist’s arse hole.
That chart is 5yrs old; isn’t there a more up to date one, if not why not ???
This is the chart from UAH John Christy’s testimony to Congress March 2017, the 2015-16 El Nino peak has now passed with the trend returning to below the Russian model (dotted) line:
Thanks Chris,
that’s better but still ~ 18 mths behind the times.
RSS vs ensemble of RCP scenarios…
http://www.remss.com/research/climate/
In any other field of science, their “small discrepancy” is a falsified hypothesis. The predictive mode is after 2005, includes the recent El Nino and >95% of the models were wrong.
HadCRUT4 vs RCP4.5, a strong mitigation scenario…
David Middleton
Re your bottom chart, the dotted red line does indeed show the projected tend in HadCRUT4 since 1976 (currently +0.18 C per decade). This would result in +2.0 C above the 1970-2000 base some time in the late 2090s. It would cross the pre-industrial anomaly base, often given as 1850-1900 in HadCRUT4, some time around the late 2040s. In what way does this falsify the model range?
That is, we would hit +2.0 C above the 1850-1900 base in the late 2040s.
You mean by 2040 or later we will have recovered from the LIA and may have matched the medieval warming period, oh the agony and horrors.
DWR54
David
“In any other field of science, their “small discrepancy” is a falsified hypothesis. The predictive mode is after 2005, includes the recent El Nino and >95% of the models were wrong.”
You
” In what way does this falsify the model range”
In what way does it prove them? The variation is so small as to approach meaninglessness, weigh that against all of the benefits of greater levels of CO2 and there is no issue to discuss.
If i create a model that says essentially nothing is happening that is outside of normal variation and then ascribe all kinds of horrible results from that variation I or anyone would be laughed out of the room.
Tell me why the LIA happened and then we can talk about 1 to 2 degrees of warming. My guess is you can’t.
Not saying it ‘proves’ anything. Just saying that the extended trend in HadCRUT4 since 1976 is projected to remain well within the model range and pretty close to the RCP4.5 multi-model mean. How does that invalidate the models?
So you’re saying that you agree that without actually doing anything we are in the lower band of model predictions even without doing any of the mitigation that those models require to achieve those results and somehow that doesn’t invalidate the models?
It’s always funny how when warmist are trying to say the models are working fine they trot out RCP 4.5, but whenever they actually make prediction or do a study about the future warming affect its alway RCP 8.5 based. You can’t have it both ways friend either there is a problem or there isn’t.
DWR54
How come you didn’t touch the LIA question?
Re RCP 4.5 – this was the RCP chosen by the initial poster, not me. It’s his chart, not mine. Re the LIA – completely irrelevant to the point here, which is that the current rate of warming in HadCRUT4 is well inside the RCP4.5 projections.
Incidentally, HadCRUT4 is not the only metric used by the IPCC to judge model performance. It is the coolest of the 3 data sets they use. Even in RCP 8.5 observations for them all remain inside the model range: http://blogs.reading.ac.uk/climate-lab-book/files/2014/01/fig-nearterm_all_UPDATE_2018.png
RCP4.5 is a strong mitigation scenario. HadCRUT4 is currently bouncing around the bottom of the 95% band.
Even if the linear trend since the 1976 Pacific Climate Shift continued, HadCRUT4 would hit the Pmean of RCP4.5, a strong mitigation scenario.
And Hadcrut4 itself is highly “adjusted” once-was-data.
Speficially “adjusted” to try to help the models.
Reality is closer to UAH which shows very little warming from 1980-1997 , no warming from 2001-2015 and the peak of the 2016 El Nino only about 0.1C above the 1998 peak and much of the 2001-2015 period below the peak of 1987.
Reality would look more like this.
This is how UAH v6.0 looks, shifted to the same baseline…
1980 was the end of the El Nino, that is the year that should align.
You have lifted UAH up further than it should be.
Look at HadCrut for 1980.. no major step.
I didn’t “lift” or “align” anything. I adjusted UAH to the same baseline as the model ensenble. Each time series has a different baseline period. The only mathematically sound way compare them is to adjust them to the same baseline.
Also… The model plot is just RCP4.5, not a range of RCP scenarios like most ensemble models.
A) That not one model is correct.
B) An ensemble of models is hogwash. That is equivalent ot claiming you won the lottery because you once bought that number on a ticket.
C) By your own claims, climate model programmers refusing to accept the failure of over a hundred model runs is somehow corrected by averaging the models.
D) That the alleged warming anomaly is within the error ranges that climate alarmists refuse to recognize. Just the adjustments alone is admission that the error range is significant.
Have yet to see science eliminating extent and duration of low cloud cover as a mechanism for small changes in near surface temperatures.
Have yet to read why the temperature fell for 30 years after WWII.
Have yet to see a normal validation of a climate model.
Have yet to see proper quality control for the historic thermometer record.
Have yet to see proper error analysis applied to the majority of climate papers to date.
Have yet to see proof of the tropical troposphere hot spot being hot.
Have yet to read why remote Macquarie Island reports no temperature change for the past 50 years.
Have yet to see why Antarctica shows trivial temperature change over the years since IGY 1957.
Come on Dessler, hard scientists like me like to follow the scientific method. What do you do, Sir?
Geoff
Geoff Sherrington
Frankly, who cares about the science? The fact is the earth is around the coldest it has ever been in it’s history before descending into an ice age and it has close to the lowest concentration of atmospheric CO2 it has ever had. Only a fool would wish lower concentrations of CO2 on humanity were it the control knob of the earth’s temperature because it would likely send the planet spiralling into said ice age.
And yes, of course the science is vital, but not to the alarmists who have yet to reliably demonstrate by empirical means that CO2 causes the planet to warm. How can there be a credible claim that CO2 causes AGW when it’s not observable?
“The timing of warming, beginning just after the industrial revolution, and the magnitude of the warming, match our theories almost exactly …’.
That’s the spiel for public consumption, the authors are credentialed academics, they can’t possibly be applying such an infantile logical fallacy such as ‘cum hoc ergo propter hoc’ (with this, therefore because of this) in their research.
“… the rapid warming of last few decades was accurately predicted in 1975 …”.
They must know that according to the record (such as it is) the global surface temperature rose at the same rate 1910 – 1945 without the help of human CO2 emissions:
The problem is not so much the so called climate scientist , we can always laugh at them. The problem is that people in positions of power, the’politician’s , choose to believe it
Then we have to suffer the results of such nonsense.
MJE
Oh, oh… This is when we all should panic!
It’s the equivalent of the Kavanaugh hearings—truth does not matter, only belief and obedience.
So they know ALL the elements of the climate and the only variable is greenhouse gases!
Even James Hansen in ‘Storms of my Grandchildren’ admits in reference to one aspect of the climate that ‘We don’t know what we don’t know….’
As John Horgan has so presciently noted in ‘The End of Science’ there may be areas of science which will never be uncovered and are simply unknowable.
An obvious example is what he calls ‘The Answer’ meaning why are we here rather than there being eternal nothingness.
What existed before the Big Bang? What lies beyond the outer edge of our expanding universe?
–Climate Scientists Andrew Dessler and Daniel Cohan are so confident in their models, they claim there are no plausible mechanisms other than CO2 to explain the modern warming period (as opposed to all the previous natural warming periods).–
We were in a colder period called Little Ice Age and we have warming since that time. We had fairly constant sea level rise since this time of about 7″ per century.
It was said about 50 years ago that Earth average temperature was about 15 C and today it’s about 15 C.
We measure temperature centuries ago using proxies, and proxies are not accurate as measuring Earth global temperature by satellite measurement or by weather stations temperature reading scattered around the world.
It seems unlikely if you were few centuries in future, one notice much change in global temperature between 1950 and 2018. Proxy measurement might indicate more warming occurred before 1950 AD.
As far most humans, most live in urban areas, and one has warming effect of Urban heat island- that should easily show up with proxy measurements of urban areas.
“According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, daytime temperatures in urban areas are on average 1-6° F higher than in rural areas, while nighttime temperatures can be as much as 22° F higher as the heat is gradually released from buildings and pavement.”
So “as much as” 6 + 22 = 28 is average temperature day temperature of 14 F [7.7 C]. But say a couple/few degrees in terms yearly increase of some urban areas.
So after 1950 AD one could see significant increase in temperature due larger and more “modern” urban centers, should show up using proxies.
But in terms of natural environment little change as occurred- there still the frozen stumps, killed thousands of years ago, when global temperatures decreased. And treelines in general, they haven’t changed much.
About 150 years ago, glaciers in temperate zones started to retreat and about 50 year later had retreated quite a bit- and they are still retreating.
gbaikie
When one is relying on data down to 1/10th of a degree C from historical recorded data which included:
Cabin boys chucking buckets over the side of ships, to no definable depth, to take SST’s over well plied trade routes that didn’t (largely) include the Southern Ocean, and:
Tea boys sent out in the snow and rain to take measurements from Stevenson screens which were only ever designed to facilitate local weather predictions, and:
Proxies like tree rings which can’t possibly be expected to illustrate dates and temperatures to within large round number ranges, it just boggles the mind that alarmist scientists have any faith whatsoever in their claims.
Nor do I believe for a nanosecond that global atmospheric CO2 monitoring was taking place on the planet between the start if the industrial revolution and up to the late 20th Century. Not that I believe even ice core records can determine atmospheric CO2 concentrations to any fine degree.
The whole concept is preposterous.
–The whole concept is preposterous.–
It rather silly when the warming or cooling of glacial and interglacial periods was thought to be caused different levels of CO2 in atmosphere.
We know this isn’t true.
Glacial and interglacial periods are dependent on the average temperature of the ocean. Ocean temperature in our icebox climate varying from about 1 to 5 C. And currently the entire ocean average temperature is about 3.5 C.
So if oceans are 1 to 2 C, Earth would be in a glacial period and if 4 to 5 C Earth is in an interglacial period.
One could guess that “something” stops oceans from cooling below 1 C and “something” stop ocean from warming more than 5 C.
And that “something” is related to relationship of ocean and land- where land is related the ocean. Depth of ocean effecting ocean circulation, and etc.
If our ocean warm from about 3.5 C to about 4 C, there will be significant amount of thermal expansion of the ocean- sea level will rise about 1 meter, but since end of Little Ice Age, thermal expansion has been about 2 to 3″ [10+ cm]- or it’s thought that a fraction of the 7″ rise in sea level per century is due to ocean thermal expansion.
A ocean with average temperature of 4 C will significantly effect global temperatures, as would ocean of 3 C.
But as far end of world stuff, during our last interglacial period, Eemian, ocean temperature was about 5 C and about 5 meter higher higher than present sea levels. And obviously the ice caps didn’t fall into the ocean, but global temperature were much higher.
Wiki:
“The warmest peak of the Eemian was around 125,000 years ago, when forests reached as far north as North Cape, Norway (which is now tundra) well above the Arctic Circle ….
Finland.
At the peak of the Eemian, the Northern Hemisphere winters were generally warmer and wetter than now, though some areas were actually slightly cooler than today. The hippopotamus was distributed as far north as the rivers Rhine and Thames”
Higher average temperature doesn’t mean it’s hotter, what it means is regions near polar regions have higher average temperature and generally means less desert regions- grassland become forests, deserts become grassland- it’s a more wetter or more tropical world. Which happens when the entire ocean is warmer.
Or if entire ocean is warmer the surface temperature of ocean in mid latitudes can and do, get warmer.
Or our current average ocean surface temperature is about 17 C- and is about 26 C in tropics and averages about 11 outside of tropics.
Or if ocean surface average temperature outside of tropics increases to say 14 C, it makes a wetter and more uniform temperature in temperate and polar regions or the world.
But it would require centuries to warm the 3.5 ocean to 4 C, and thousands of years to become 5 C and there is no indication or evidence that it will happen.
The only evidence is that we are recovering from the Little Ice Age- which may or may not continue.
“It rather silly when the warming or cooling of glacial and interglacial periods was thought to be caused different levels of CO2 in atmosphere.
We know this isn’t true.”
Actually it’s what you say there that isn’t true.
Glacial/interglacials are driven by the Earth’s orbital eccentricity (see Milankovitch cycles).
That is changes in insolation over northern latitudes that can amount to +/-100 W/m^2 at 65 deg N.
That drives melt/build-up of snow/ice field.
The albedo change follows as a feedback (greater/lesser absorbed SW).
Then lastly increasing/decreasing atmos CO2 content due warming/cooling oceans (with help from vegetation) causing reduced/increased LWIR to space.
–Anthony Banton October 25, 2018 at 12:06 pm
“It rather silly when the warming or cooling of glacial and interglacial periods was thought to be caused different levels of CO2 in atmosphere.
We know this isn’t true.”
Actually it’s what you say there that isn’t true.
Glacial/interglacials are driven by the Earth’s orbital eccentricity (see Milankovitch cycles)….–
Right, driven or caused by Milankovitch cycles- and not driven or caused by CO2.
We are in an icebox climate. Which is caused by land masses and their relationship to ocean. Ie the location of Antarctic land mass is one factor related to this.
And with our current configuration or topography of Earth- geological aspects, the Milankovitch cycles cause glacial and interglacial periods.
An icebox climate is defined by a cold ocean and polar ice caps. Our cold ocean for over million years has had the temperature range of 1 to 5 C.
In more distant past [tens of millions of years or more] earth was not in a icebox climate- no ice caps and much warmer ocean.
The other extreme Earth global climate is hothouse climate, no polar sea ice, no large polar ice caps/sheets, and ocean warmer than 10 C. During a hothouse global climate, Milankovitch cycles still affect global temperature, but do not cause glacial periods.
The Milankovitch cycles cause ocean to warm and cool and is related to ocean circulation.
Currently ocean surface temperature is 17 C and land surface air temperature is 10 C and tropical ocean heats the rest of the world.
Ocean warms land. Land doesn’t warm the ocean- land is global cooling effect.
“…there’s no debate among scientists like us.” That’s the problem. I guess they also don’t listen to scientists who are not like “us” either, so there’s no danger if inconvenient evidence creeping in and spoiling the picture.
Who called you guys scientists? Not yet anyway.
Low temps and Snowfall in New Mexico, Texas and southern Tennessee forecast for next week
https://www.windy.com/-Temperature-temp?temp,2018-11-03-06,36.421,-93.823,5
https://www.windy.com/-New-snow-snowAccu?snowAccu,2018-11-02-06,46.920,-104.941,4
Europe freezes up next too, down to North Africa and into Northern Iran and Iraq, from about Saturday forwards:
https://www.windy.com/-Temperature-temp?temp,2018-11-03-06,51.014,6.416,4
https://www.windy.com/-New-snow-snowAccu?snowAccu,2018-11-02-06,50.848,1.670,4,m:eDTagg0
Even Japan, China and Korea set to get good snow from mid next week:
https://www.windy.com/-Temperature-temp?temp,2018-11-02-00,39.572,118.257,5
https://www.windy.com/-New-snow-snowAccu?snowAccu,2018-11-02-06,46.256,112.061,4
Seem a bit early?
I think that the problem is that climate scientists are not prepared to do any of the necessary experimental work on their claims. It would not be at all difficult to design an experiment on a reasonable scale to actually measure the effect of CO2 in the atmosphere with a level of accuracy which would invalidate all the claims, or prove them correct. Is this carried out? Of course not, in one fell swoop it could remove the money tree forever, and that is a risk they will not take.
Lets look a bit further, at the alleged greenhouse effect itself. Did you know that the operation of a real greenhouse is not as described in a physics book? Supposedly the radiation entering the greenhouse heats the soil and plants to a low temperature whose IR radiation back through the glass is blocked due to its very long wavelength. There is a little of this effect but it is small. The largest effect is the trapping of air inside the greenhouse, which prevents heat loss by convection currents in the air. This may be observed in two ways:
Polythene greenhouses are at least as effective as glass ones, although the IR transmission characteristics are entirely different.
Ventilation of the greenhouse to prevent excessive air temperatures is critical to proper plant growth.
Now to CO2. The thermodynamic effects on CO2 are entirely reversible, and 450ppm of CO2 does not stop the convective currents carrying heat up the atmosphere. Remember that absorption is exactly mirrored by emissivity, and is not directional, so unless the CO2 molecule is somehow doing some magic, energy in will exactly match energy out, which has no overall effect. If it were not this way the CO2 would continuously heat up in the atmosphere, an effect easily measured, but not found. Note that the glass or plastic in a greenhouse does not get hot to provide internal heat, it simply acts as a barrier to convection. Someone is about to say that at absorption frequencies CO2 (or anything else) does absorb energy, true, but it is emitted at the same frequency, as an emission peak too. CO2 in the atmosphere has been given magical properties to make a case which is false from the ground up! A computer model is never useful unless it is an exact analogue of real processes, and the climate ones are as far from that as it is possible to be, remember weather forecasts; they work for a few days and become very inaccurate over a few weeks because the processes are not fully understood, many of the parameters are chaotic in nature and adding a few free arbitrary ones does not improve forecasting. Why is it that the climate people think they can be accurate about anything years into the future? Simply because they program the computer model to match past data (or not if it doesn’t suit their requirements), and claim this describes the future with a high level of accuracy. This is not the case unless they understand everything fully, which they don’t, but it doesn’t stop them writing about their “wonderful” modeled results!
Has anyone measured the heating effect of CO2 inside greenhouses. Take two identical greenhouses, side-by-side, add CO2 to 1000ppm (normal practice) in one and ambient CO2 in the other, and monitor the temperature differences over time? No plants! Can’t say I’ve ever seen such experiments, but they must have been done.
A quick search did not reveal any experiments like the one you suggest. It is a great idea to conduct an experiment in an actual greenhouse with ambient air and air with CO2 at 1000 ppm with steady humidity and see if there is a difference. My bet is that there would be no difference whatsoever.
The great unwashed have been brainwashed to believe that CO2 acts like the glass in a greenhouse and “traps” the heat. The climate scientists nor the MSM never say that CO2 really acts like an insulator and only slows heat loss, just the same as water vapor. That would hurt their theory because most people know you can’t insulate your house and only run the furnace or air conditioner once and have the temperature stay that way forever. They realize it only slows the heat loss.
As to feedback, CO2 back radiation no doubt generates some additional water vapor, but guess what, so does existing water vapor. Since CO2 is such a small percentage guess which one creates more additional water vapor?
David Stone
Perhaps you could set out the mechanism for such an experiment, since you believe it to be not at all difficult.
Thanks.
Fact is, this experiment was carried out from 1997-2011 and documented in Gero/Turner 2011. They found no evidence of an increasing greenhouse effect.
They argue it was only in one location so it can be ignored. The real question is why wasn’t it then carried out in a dozen locations (or more) around the world.
Richard:
I note that that paper says …..
“The AERI data record demonstrates that the downwelling infrared radiance is decreasing over this 14-yr period in the winter, summer, and autumn seasons but it is increasing in the spring; these trends are statistically significant and are PRIMARILY DUE TO THE LONG TERM CHANGE IN THE CLOUDINESS ABOVE THE SITE.”
(my caps)
IOW: it is not a clear sky study, screened against observation (radiosonde data) for atmospheric WV.
However this study did just that (carried at at the same site and also at one in alaska over the same 10 year period…..
http://dacemirror.sci-hub.tw/journal-article/fc60c6b744eec087535473bf5252d17b/feldman2015.pdf
“To determine the contribution of CO2 to surface forcing, we removed the signal associated with the other radiatively active constituents. To do this, we performed a radiative-transfer calculation using LBLRTM with observed temperature and water-vapour profiles from radiosondes (with water vapour scaled by microwave radiometer column water retrievals) and with a fixed CO2 concentration set to 370 ppm (the CO2 atmospheric concentration at the beginning of the analysis period) for cloud-free conditions when the AERI instrument produced calibrated spectra. We differenced these calculations against the actual AERI spectral mea- surements to produce a time-series of residual spectra between 2000 and the end of 2010. Since the fixed CO2 concentration is the primary difference between the inputs to each calculation and the actual time-varying atmospheric states, the residual spectra contains the signal of changing CO2. We integrated the spectra over fre- quency (wavenumber) and converted radiance to flux, based on the quadrature calculations described above, to produce a forcing value at each time step.”
“Here we present observationally based evidence of clear-sky CO2 surface radiative forcing that is directly attributable to the increase, between 2000 and 2010, of 22 parts per million atmospheric CO2. The time series of this forcing at the two locations—the Southern Great Plains and the North Slope of Alaska—are derived from Atmospheric Emitted Radiance Interferometer spectra3 together with ancillary measurements and thoroughly corroborated radiative transfer calculations4. The time series both show statistically significant trends of 0.2 W m−2 per decade (with respective uncertainties of ±0.06 W m−2 per decade and ±0.07 W m−2 per decade) and have seasonal ranges of 0.1–0.2 W m−2. This is approximately ten per cent of the trend in downwelling longwave radiation5,6,7. These results confirm theoretical predictions of the atmospheric greenhouse effect due to anthropogenic emissions, and provide empirical evidence of how rising CO2 levels, mediated by temporal variations due to photosynthesis and respiration, are affecting the surface energy balance.”
A synopsis can be seen here ….
https://phys.org/news/2015-02-carbon-dioxide-greenhouse-effect.html
What was observed? From 2000-2011, a ~20 ppmv increase in atmospheric CO2 correlated with a 0.2 W/m2 increase in radiative forcing at the Earth’s surface.
Total insolation at the Earth’s surface ranges from 40 to 340 W/m2 per year.
Assuming a linear relationship of .01 W/m2 per 1 ppmv CO2… A doubling of pre-industrial atmospheric CO2 from 280 to 560 ppmv will increase radiative forcing by 2.8 W/m2. This is about 2/3 of the IPCC’s estimate.
The total warming from 1850-2011 has been about 0.7°C. Over the same period, CO2 increased by about 120 ppmv (~1.2 W/m2).
0.7°C ÷ 1.2 W/m2 = 0.6°C/Wm-2
0.7°C ÷ 120 ppmv CO2 = 0.006°C/ppmv CO2
This means that a doubling of pre-industrial atmospheric CO2 can lead to a maximum warming of 1.68°C… less than half of the so-called consensus estimate.
Since my “back of the envelope” calculations assumed a linear, rather than logarithmic, relationship and that all of the warming since 1850 was GHG-driven, the actual climate sensitivity is probably less than half of my estimate… ~0.8°C per doubling of pre-industrial atmospheric CO2.
This essentially means that the human impact on climate change is insignificant.
The DWR54 comment seems to deny that the paper looked at clear sky and find the very same lack of increase in the greenhouse effect.
“The measured infrared spectra, numbering more than 800 000, were classified as clear-sky, thin cloud, and thick cloud scenes using a neural network method.”
Sorry, they didn’t find any increased IR under clear skies either. Your attempted deflection is nonsense.
And the the real story is not that the Feldman study did see an increase in the radiation from CO2. It is the lack of OVERALL increase even as the CO2 radiation increased. Some other frequency ended up going down as CO2 increased. A natural negative feedback appears to be at work.
The chinese can already do it ask them nicely as it is probably classified 🙂
If you don’t understand the chinese have multiple satellites in space that can fire entangled photons from space to earth. Using a technique pioneered by A*star research you can actually monitor any band you want
https://research.a-star.edu.sg/research/7592/ghostly-measurements.
There are several new variations already in newly published papers but all the real testing can only be done by China.
The chinese must already have a fairly good mapping of all the transmission channels (AKA frequencies) and we know that from what they have already done. Last year they released the first entagled uplink results which is extremely difficult
https://phys.org/news/2017-07-physicists-transmit-earth-to-space-quantum-entanglement.html
So the most accurate answer is probably already known and it will continue be being worked on just not from within the field of climate science.
I would like to ask one of these climatologists who know everything about how the climate works about the climate mechanisms surrounding an ice age, and specifically the formation of ice sheets a mile thick.
The water has to come from the ocean. If it’s gradually getting cooler, just what causes the oceans to vaporize? Doesn’t the vaporization process require a lot of heat? Why don’t the oceans simply freeze in place, with the polar caps extending from the poles towards the equator? What brings the water onto the land? And why does it not simply fall as snow?
There’s a lot that nobody understands.
A clear example of the Dunning–Kruger effect.
It’s worse than we thought, it appears that 97% of their group suffers from D-K…a whole new scale for D-K phenomena.
“Climate does not change by itself, so scientists are detectives trying to solve the mystery of what has been warming the Earth for the past century.”
Climate change denial of the first order. The detectives are only looking for one type of fingerprint, it’s patently a fit up job. If Santer and Mann shaved off their goatees they wouldn’t even look like detectives.
“The figure below shows that the rapid warming of last few decades was accurately predicted in 1975. Such predictions are the gold standard of science — if you can make a non-obvious prediction about some physical system, then it means that you understand something fundamental about it. This prediction shows that we really understand the warming of the climate system.”
Noting the denial of the AMO means that you understand something fundamentalist about this.
I’ve read the Broecker paper a couple of times now here: https://blogs.ei.columbia.edu//files/2009/10/broeckerglobalwarming75.pdf The predictions in the Houston Chronicle article are directly out of Broeckers Table 1.
If I am reading his table correctly, it is showing the temperature increase caused by the increased CO2 – ie only the CO2 component, not the natural variation. His table does not show the cooling from the 1940’s peak to the 1970’s that he describes in the text as a being a natural cooling cycle overcoming the CO2 increase over that period that is due finish in a few decades.
Never mind a “whodunnit”. Watching “Climate Science” is like the Hindenburg all over again. Oh, the innanity.
From the article: “There is an entire list of suspects that scientists have looked at, and they have not identified a single viable one. With one exception — greenhouse gases.
Editor’s correction: “There is an entire list of suspects that scientists have looked at, and they have not identified a single viable one. With one exception — BIG DOLLAR PAYOFFS from whacko environmental groups, pro-faux-green govts, and pro-faux-green NGO’s.”
I’m not confident of the understanding or intentions of anyone who leads their article with that image as if it speaks for itself.
The answer to your question.
What is the source of all that confidence?
They are paid large amounts (of other peoples money) to be right so they cannot be wrong simples!
Also if anyone points out the flaws in their science there are always the attack dogs in the media to defend them.
James Bull
Andrew Dessler is a parody of a scientist at this point. History wont remember that clown
I’ll add my post to an earlier one.
The chart provides an outstanding visual criticism of the “forecasting” models.
It needs to be updated.
TKS–somebody.
Isn’t Dessler the one who predicted a permanent Texas drought based on climate models? How did that work out? Has he now totally forgotten how wrong he was? How wrong his models have been over and over again?
Are CO2 levels correlated with global temperatures? A tale of two graphs:
http://amoleintheground.blogspot.com/2018/10/thoughts-on-climate-change-part-8-tale.html
Their reasoning is infantile…not scientific.
“Climate does not change by itself, so scientists are detectives trying to solve the mystery of what has been warming the Earth for the past century”
Lindzen’s description of the climate system-“Two turbulent fluids on an unevenly heated rotating sphere with varied surface texture” do not require any outside forcing to be constantly out of equilibrium.
Just a common sense analysis of Dessler’s statement finds it false. To state that it must be CO2 because we cant find anything else is a statement of incompetence not scientific proof.
+100
Fellow Denizens:
The correct explanation of climate change is that it is simply a response to the amount of dimming Sulfur Dioxide aerosols in the atmosphere, of either volcanic or anthropogenic origin.
This premise has been tested and validated multiple times via large volcanic eruptions: Injection of SO2 aerosols into the atmosphere causes temporary cooling, and when they settle out, cleansing the air, warming to pre-eruption levels, or even higher, occurs.
All La Ninas are caused by increased levels of SO2 aerosols in the atmosphere, and all El Ninos are caused by reduced amounts of SO2 aerosols.
This should be the end of the discussion!
For supportive information, I have a post at the pre-print site https://OSF.io/bycj4/
Hogwash.
Prove your assertions!
Atheok:
Read the referencec
ATheoK:
“Prove your assertions”
Hopefully, by now you have read the reference that I provided.
However, the fact that the premise has been tested and validated multiple times is proof in itself that my assertions are correct”
I get
Internal Server Error
The server encountered an internal error and was unable to complete your request. Either the server is overloaded or there is an error in the application.
for your link
BillP:
??When I click on the link, it takes me directly to the pre-print site.
Have you tried again?
BillP:
I revisited your comment of Oct. 26, and see that the fault is mine:
No problem from my computer, with AOL, but the reference for other providers should probably be:
https://www.Osf.io/bycj4j/
BillP:
Sorry, got it wrong again:
It is https://www.OSF.io/bycj4/
“Climate does not change by itself …”
I suppose the sun doesn’t rise by itself either?
Their entire world is delusion, with hubris borne from egotist narcissism. When faced with failure, they refuse to accept their fault in committing errors or using baseless assumptions.
Their confidence comes from never having been held responsible for their parts in the climate scam.
Base their salaries entirely upon accurate predictions matching specifics. Dock their earnings for all missed predictions.
The best result is their eternal embarrassment for their articles, research and constant disaster bleating. May their names be held infamous forever ranking with piltdown and Madoff.
Mankind created climate change during the industrial revolution when CO2 emissions started. They imagined the LIA, MWP, the Roman warming period not to mention getting into and out of Ice ages.
Trust me, I’m a climate scientist.
Psychics, mediums and witch doctors all KNOW they are right, too.
the poster child of “contradiction in itself” –
___________________________________________________
We’re scientists. We know the climate’s changing. And we know why.
Though there may be a public debate, there’s no debate among scientists like us —
___________________________________________________
by Andrew Dessler, Daniel Cohan:
that rare scientist specimen that never debates.
___________________________________________________
Earth’s climate changed drastically and dramatically for 4.55 billion years without any assistance from humans.
It has varied from a planet covered by an ocean of molten rock to water ice, and everything in between.
The CACA hypothesis was born falsified. CO2 took off after 1945, but Earth cooled to such an extent until the PDO flip of 1976-77 that scientists in the ’70s worried about the coming next ice age.
“Such predictions are the gold standard of science — if you can make a non-obvious prediction about some physical system, then it means that you understand something fundamental about it.”
Let’s try some golden standard prediction:
no one but a handful followers of
Andrew Dessler, Daniel Cohan will ever remember their names.
Johann Wundersamer:
With respect to “Gold Standards”, my post of October 25 regarding SO2 aerosols meets that standard, having been tested and validated multiple times, with respect to both volcanic and anthropogenic SO2 aerosol emissions.
But it seems that only a very few are capable of understanding the concept and its ramifications.
The graph is obvious fake. CIMP5 are prediction starting in 2005. They’re actually impossible to be different from observations before that date.
Simply observations on the graph are from different places (heights) then predictions.
Of course they can. Not saying that they are not fake, but they can be different from observations, even if tuned to match the observations at that time.
Don’t forget we’re living in Adjustocene. The values matched in 2005 were adjusted afterwards, now there are other values, different than the ones they tuned the models to 🙂