The following post is officially Anthony approved.
Quoting me:
I know I can be brusque. I can also be funny. I can even be kind. Who knows what the wheel will bring on the next spin?
\pontification
Two days ago I received this story tip:
WUWT Tip submission
Lack of sunspots to bring record cold, warns NASA scientist November 12, 2018 by Robert “It could happen in a matter of months,” says Martin Mlynczak of NASA’s Langley Research Center. ________________ “The sun is entering one of the deepest Solar Minima of the Space Age,” wrote Dr Tony Phillips just six weeks ago, on 27 Sep 2018. https://www.iceagenow.info/lack-of-sunspots-to-bring-record-cold-warns-nasa-scientist/
Yesterday I received this one:
WUWT Tip submission
NASA Scientists: Lack Of Sunspots To Bring Record Cold https://www.technocracy.news/nasa-scientists-lack-of-sunspots-to-bring-record-cold/?fbclid=IwAR3GFqIvnTlNW0IINWAArB8jTYTKn7bSTSM7TtM5LiXNZT1AtdzilxR9NYo
These story tips set off my incongruency radar.
Here are excerpts from the iceagenow.info story
“It could happen in a matter of months,” says Martin Mlynczak of NASA’s Langley Research Center.
and
Record cold in a matter of months
“If current trends continue, it could soon set a Space Age record for cold,” says Mlynczak. “We’re not there quite yet, but it could happen in a matter of months.”
This story gave me pause. Who is this NASA scientist saying these heretical things? So I looked up the original article from which the above two derived their stories and quotes.
https://spaceweatherarchive.com/2018/09/27/the-chill-of-solar-minimum/
Here are quotes from the article that provide context.
“We see a cooling trend,” says Martin Mlynczak of NASA’s Langley Research Center. “High above Earth’s surface, near the edge of space, our atmosphere is losing heat energy. If current trends continue, it could soon set a Space Age record for cold.”
And
“The thermosphere always cools off during Solar Minimum. It’s one of the most important ways the solar cycle affects our planet,” explains Mlynczak, who is the associate principal investigator for SABER.
Mlynczak was speaking of the thermosphere on the edge of space, not the surface climate where people live. His statements in context are not remotely controversial. It is accepted by most mainstream astronomers, atmospheric scientists, climate modelers, climatologists, solar scientists, atmospheric chemists, and just about every field of mainstream climate science that:
The thermosphere always cools off during Solar Minimum (sic).
I view this little episode as illustrative of much of the state of the anti-climate alarmism movement.
My current assignment in charge of this blog is open-ended, unlike the specific length of my previous assignments. I have no idea if I’ll be here five weeks or five years. I intend to try and enhance real skepticism, in context arguments, and real scientific discussions on this blog.
I long for the romantic days when the Godfather of Climate Science skepticism, Steve McIntyre, was active at Climate Audit and there were brilliant discussions, biting comedy, as well as heated arguments, and not just the same echo chamber talking points we so often see today. Yeah, I’m old and I miss 2008 and the days of baby ice for you insiders. Even though some may remember that, did you know I was “jeez”? Those were also the exciting days of Anthony’s making huge waves with his Surface Station project.
Ponder this, Rud Istvan is Iionized here, and Steve Mosher is vilified. Many, if not most of you don’t know that it was Mosher’s prominent “Free the Code” movement that influenced NASA to open up its model code and greatly move toward transparency. A bunch of you recently learned he outed Gleick’s forgery. I understand Mosher is snarky and often behaves like a prick, but most here don’t realize it is because long ago he became fed up with the lack of skepticism and quality arguments I noted in the beginning of this essay.
If you were to sum up the primary scientific disagreement between Istvan and Mosher, it is that both have thoroughly examined the historical temperature record and one believes it is fit for the purpose of analyzing climate and other doesn’t . They can have rational, intelligent, scientific discussions over this disagreement and still stay friendly. Obviously differing policy choices logically flow from this disagreement.
But a core level it all comes down to a legitimate disagreement on the interpretation of data.
There are massive amounts of good here at this blog. I want to nurture that good and make it grow. But the echo-chamber aspects are not helpful to convincing others, or to being taken seriously by the currently unconvinced. I want this blog to be a force for education and to grow in influence and that requires upping our game, and maybe even some growing pains.
\end pontification
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Regardless of the cynical skeptical misunderstanding posted – the early snowfall poses an interesting lesson. It is the 22-year anniversary of the earliest snow in DC. 14 inches near Buffalo, 5 cm in Toronto. Maybe the 22-year lapse is coincidental but it is also the full solar cycle of magnetic polarity and the solar magnetic cycle now is very weak. The thermosphere is approaching the low T of the previous solar minimum and Tony Phillips has added it to the Space weather site. The thermosphere is not a cause but a symptom of the solar control of climate. As the minimum occurs the thermosphere cools and shrinks and satellites must be moved or they may sink and burn. The lower atmosphere also shrinks and the jet streams meander creating the polar vortex and extreme weather.
According to the Danish Technical Institute, the weak solar magnetics at the solar minimum, incoming cosmic radiation seeds the clouds and the clouds are fundamental to climate change as water vapour is the most effective GHG.
The Danish theory is stronger than a hypothesis because of experimental support and the lack of support for the CO2 model. What am I missing here? CO2 probably has nothing to do with climate change.
Lower atmosphere? The troposphere shrinks too? The jet streams that affect weather are in the tropopause where air pressure is 200 mb. The air pressure in thermosphere is less than 0.1 mb. How can gas at 0.1 mb compress a gas at 200 mb?
“incoming cosmic radiation seeds the clouds and the clouds are fundamental to climate change as water vapour is the most effective GHG.”
In Svensmark’s theory, clouds cause cooling by increasing Earth’s albedo not by reducing water vapor. It works in cloud chambers and the physics is sound but the atmosphere is more complicated. It should work but we need evidence that it does.
The solar cycle compliments the cloud experiments. Albedo is one factor but likely not the only one.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/cpga49bbnn7q062/It%27s%20not%20the%20heat….pdf?dl=0
Water vapor causes warming not cooling. The relative humidity inside clouds is 100% because water vapor will not condense until the air is saturated. So clouds have greenhouse warming effect due to water vapor but their cooling effect due to reflection of solar radiation is greater.
Evaporation and precipitation are part of the water cycle. All things equal, warm climates have more evaporation and precipitation. So rainfall is an effect not a cause of temperature changes.
The thermosphere is not a cause but a symptom of the solar control of climate.
Yes sir.
The Danish theory is stronger than a hypothesis because of experimental support and the lack of support for the CO2 model. What am I missing here?
It’s a poor theory, as Inverted Oulu cosmic rays have next to zero correlation with ISCCP clouds:
CO2 probably has nothing to do with climate change.
True, CO2 is a response to the climate:
It’s not going to show with crosscorrelation lags; the reaction in the Danish cloud chamber experiments (Svensmark, et al …) is nearly instantaneous. Sorry, the papers are on another computer.
It’s not going to show with crosscorrelation lag
At zero lag, ie, instantaneously, the cross-correlation perfectly shows a very insignificant 0.0097 correlation, so I don’t care one whit about the Danish chamber experiment any more than I do the CO2 in a bottle experiments.
I use the real world to conduct my hypothesis tests, not a chamber or a bottle.
Sulfate clusters in a cloud chamber are real experimental support. Crosscorrelation is a process that needs further work.
Dr. Manns the data shows you have it backwards.
Real-world cloud data and other climate data are superior to lab experiments. That data shows it’s a fact that clouds nor climate are driven by cosmic rays.
You are holding on to a hypothesis falsified by real-world data, like the CO2 people.
What needs further work is your pov.
I think the tension is reducible to two irreconcilable paradigms: a science co-opted by the methodologies of post-modern relativism, and a science constrained by scientific method. There will never be agreement between those who view science as a means of discerning immutable truth, and those who view science as a means of achieving results for the purpose of preserving privilege. One IS right and serves the interests of humanity, and the other IS destructive and serves the interests of a privileged guild. To take the stance that it’s all simply a matter of interpretation is to succumb to the post-modern framing that truth is relative. You always lose when you let someone frame the argument fraudulently.
I am skeptical of appreciating the skepticism of North American science cohort. We must remember that it was a stubborn mindset which delayed American research into continental drift for most of the 20th century. It also ruined some pretty good researchers who were ahead of the curve. I might remind solar skeptics that American science has no monopoly on intelligent life. The quibbling on WUWT is clearly useless and supports my hypothesis. Scientific advance is punctuated equilibrium because of it. We are in some sort of dark age as a consequence. If you have nothing material to add, don’t comment, just think.
Please read Karl Popper’s elegant philosophy book, “The Logic of Scientific Discovery” and then consider your words carefully because ‘fortune favors the prepared mind’. The Paradis fire has occurred during a solar minimum on the lee side of the jet stream. Many notable wildfires in North America appear to be set up during solar minima.
I’m well aware of the problem’s of proof and disproof; I’m only commenting on one of several working hypotheses in my computer and consciousness, and the minute I start to believe my own hypothesis, I know I’m a dead duck as a scientist.
Many notable wildfires in North America appear to be set up during solar minima.
The solar minimum wildfires set-up is primarily due to growing droughts caused by low TSI low tropical evaporation and subsequent high summer UV index over the SW and midwest US.
I might remind solar skeptics that American science has no monopoly on intelligent life. The quibbling on WUWT is clearly useless and supports my hypothesis.
Sounds like Macron whining for respect. Quibbling usefully sharpens the contrast between ideas.
Scientific advancement has already occurred here at WUWT on the solar-climate front, and the quibbling over it that you call useless helped sharpen the right arguments for that advancement.
Scientific advance is punctuated equilibrium because of it. We are in some sort of dark age as a consequence.
We’ve been in a dark age because too many have believed climate science fiction over empiricism, and too many are under the sway of cult of personality authority figures expousing that science fiction and propaganda.
I partly agree.
The wildfires are usually in the lee of the stalled Jetstream meander and the floods are in the cold front as it stalls. You have seen part of the story I would never have known. We are all blind men holding a piece of the elephant.
Respectfully whining…
Interesting to frame the echo chamber as lionizing Rud and vilifying Mosh. Havn’t noticed Rud treated with kid gloves here. Mosh has a bad habit of treating even substantive objections as echo chamber fare. I look forward to his long post.
Consider it a sloppy generality. I know them both personally.
“I intend to try and enhance real skepticism, in context arguments, and real scientific discussions on this blog.”
and-
“But a core level it all comes down to a legitimate disagreement on the interpretation of data.”
Noble sentiments but not when I’m bombarded daily for years by the most outrageous claims by so called scientists that produced this sort of drivel and even that list wouldn’t do it justice as you couldn’t keep up with it all-
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/globalwarming2.html
A lot of it driven by MSM illiterates and political flunkies but the silence of any so called climatologists to all that was deafening and if none of them called it out then they also served with the silence of lambs. How on earth can you possibly call WUWT an echo chamber when faced with all that junk science over the years and the criminal debasement of the scientific method? It was never about the science for these half baked idealogues and their lunar prescriptions that will be the only thing that brings them undone in the longer term.
All was politics and still is and there’s no escaping that now for any of them hitching their shooting star and tenure to it all. There’s no half way house anymore and you’re either with us or you’re with them because that’s the way they wanted their deniers but now for their prescriptions with the odd reminder of why we don’t believe their pseudo science. I’ll keep my ear out for any real investigative climate science that isn’t pushing a barrow but that’s very thin on the ground. You can’t live in the past Charles.
I think CTM is dead-on here, giving credit where credit is due. Mosh is brash, but he has a good mind and is worth reading. In that vein, I am seaking comments on my Levin tape, where I am tryint to run a middle ground between a Levin I suspect would like me to go into the “there is no such thing camp” and the Hansens of the world:
Comment?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dt3478xExZM
Pat M.
Pat Michaels, Steven Mosher has nothing worthwhile to say about climate science.
And CTM is wrong about this: “But a core level it all comes down to a legitimate disagreement on the interpretation of data.”
It is not a legitimate disagreement about interpretation of data. It’s a disagreement between people who know how to interpret data, and those who do not.
Climate modelers do not know how to interpret data.
After *considerable* experience with their lack of training in data analysis, I know that they are not competent to evaluate their own models.
Climate models have no predictive value at all. It’s now easy to show that. But the field does not brook falsifications and obstinately carries on with their false narrative.
Pat Frank “Pat Michaels, Steven Mosher has nothing worthwhile to say about climate science. ”
You learn lot from the absence of data as well as the presence of data.
Mosher has done some extremely good things and is quite up to speed on all things climate.
He differs in having evolved from a Luke warmer/?skeptic to a believer that we have to take action now to prevent/moderate future damage.
This has led him to consciously or uncosciously interpret his data in a way that fits global warming. It may be having to work with the people he does but I feel he is too principled for that.
Takes all sorts of beliefs to make a world. You can have people with lots of knowledge take opposite positions but they stick to their core beliefs.
His belief springs from an unwavering attachment to CO2 GHG forcing and an inability to see that other factors obviously mitigate against the temperature rise such as proposed by Spencer.
One can always see the forcings that work for your ideas but are quite blind to the forcings against, and that is equally true for skeptics, but we cannot see it either.
He has a lot of worthwhile things to say about climate science, challenge his position.
angech, Steve Mosher wrote a book about climategate with Thomas Fuller. He also outed Peter Gleick as the composer of the Heartland fraud memo. Steve has also apparently mastered R and has written some code for BEST. All very wonderful things.
However, Steve has no training in science at all and knows neither climate science or measurement evaluation.
He has nothing worthwhile to say about climate science, unless one elevates subjective opinion to objective value. I don’t. You shouldn’t either.
Pat,
Mosher and Fuller’s book got me started after I read about Climategate in the WSJ. I have never commented on any of his pointless drive-bys – it’s like they’re from his evil twin; but feel a debt to him and Fuller.
I’m an engineer of some 40+ years practicing with no interest whatsoever in climate or earth science, but have followed this blog and others since about 2010 and remain interested in this very weird animal climate change. A game of fractions of a degree temperature divided by a planet. And somehow, this vanishingly tiny delta; practically immeasurable, with no practical empirical effect on anything whatsoever, is a hot political topic of concern driving legislation across the world. Fascinating.
And as for our friend Mosher, yes, he is mercifully ignorant of error analysis / measurement evaluation in a game of tiny fractions of a degree temperature. To me, the entire field of Climate Science is pure junk science due to the lack of attention to detail of measurement and measurement error. The so-called heating is possibly within the error band of our measurement capability. Really. Absolutely nothing may be happening. If this was a real problem, we’d fix the measurement part. The Surface Stations Project was simply awesome. Incidentally, I’ve designed temperature sensors. They’re tough to get right. Offset. Hysteresis. Drift. Calibration. It’s real work making a transducer that is honestly right.
As far as the “science” here; it’s interesting to read this blog – it’s still one of my favorites. It’s not an echo chamber. The conversation has shifted though, because the climate hasn’t, and it was supposed to. It’s 2018; practically nothing climate-wise is out of the ordinary. Yawn.
And this topic has been made political – by the advocates not the skeptics.
gregole, I completely agree with your take. The entire AGW field is a scientific crock.
I’ve published on error in the air temperature record. I hope you might like the papers, both open access.
1) a representative global systematic error: http://meteo.lcd.lu/globalwarming/Frank/uncertainty_in%20global_average_temperature_2010.pdf (869.8 KB pdf)
2) a false but unrecognized error imposed on the record by the poor methodology in the field:
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1260/0958-305X.22.4.407 (1 MB pdf)
3) Here’s a look at the entire field, models, paleo-T and global T. Not open access, sorry.
https://journals-sagepub-com.stanford.idm.oclc.org/doi/abstract/10.1260/0958-305X.26.3.391
“However, Steve has no training in science at all and knows neither climate science or measurement evaluation.”
weirdly you know nothing about the training I went through from 1985 to 1993
you know nothing out my publications in that period either.
Meh.
more fact free assertions from Pat Frank
Whatever training you went through, Steve, there’s no evidence that any of it was scientific, given the science-free content of your posts that are purportedly about science.
Publications … I searched Web of Science for Mosher, Steven, between 1984-2018, when you should have finished your training and published whatever it was you say you’ve published.
Five papers turned up, none of which have anything to do with science. All of them are by Steven W. Mosher, whose address is at the Population Research Institute in Washington DC, and who isn’t you.
Google Scholar turned up a Steven Mosher who’s published on the biomass of copepods and clams. But he’s at the University of Washington and is not you, either.
What have you published in science, Steve?
Google Scholar also turned up some patents by SM Mosher, who likely is you, given your CV at Berkeley Earth.
They include 1993 US5272652A “An expanded field of view visual display concept [for] air-to-air combat…” and US Patent 8,762,843, 2014 “modifying media content playback based on limited input…”
I didn’t search further, but acknowledge you have several patents. They appear to be software-related.
So congratulations on career successes in a technical field.
Your academic accomplishments, while very wonderful, do not mention any training in science or any publications. Your CV says you have, “BA’s with honors in both English Literature and Philosophy” from Northwestern University. Admirable, but no science.
So lay it out for us, Steve. Show everyone I’m wrong about your apparent lack of training in science and lack of measurement experience. Justify that “Meh.” Or have it for dinner.
(You have attacked Mosher long enough, lets it go since you are too deep into the education fallacy, damaging your credibility in the process. Go look up Milton Humason, or Clyde Tombaugh then try disregarding their early contributions despite their having NO science degree.) MOD
Frank, do you have the same problem with Eschenbach that you have with Mosher?
pat.
you assert i have no training.
proving a negative should be fun.
go.
of course if you found evidence you would alter your claim.
we disagree.
you versus me and the rest of science. ho hum
Pat,
Thanks for the kind reply and thanks for the links to the papers you’ve authored. They look interesting and when I rest up a bit and get a little time, I’m studying them in detail. This is why I keep coming back to WUWT.
CTM, my comments follow from Pat Michaels and angech. It’s not about Steve Mosher’s training. It’s about the lack of science in his comments that reflects a lack of training. I’ve acknowledged his accomplishments. None in evidence are in science.
Steve Mosher has made personal attacks repeatedly on many threads, e.g., the above accusation of dishonesty: “of course if you found evidence you would alter your claim.” and including lying about me (see April 3, 2012 at 10:44 am).
He lied here (November 17, 2018 at 4:07 pm) as well. I have never, ever, denigrated Willis. Nor have I equated Steve and Willis.
I have criticized Steve’s posts and questioned his training, but have never made personal attacks on him. I’ve challenged him to produce evidence of my doing so and he has never produced a single instance.
Steve wrote that I didn’t know of his training or publications, so I researched them. Doing so is not a personal attack or engaging an education fallacy.
Were Steve’s comments about science to be knowledgeable, his training would not be an issue. Hence your references to Milton Humason and Clyde Tombaugh are not relevant.
My criticism of Steve does not involve an education fallacy but rather a content absence.
Steve has been obstreperous in his criticisms of me, none valid many insulting.
I have nothing but high respect for Willis Eschenbach. He has contributed mightily to this board and has produced many extremely insightful and technically challenging studies with significant, perhaps unique, scientific content. Most of them looked publishable to me. The difference with Steve Mosher’s production here could not be greater.
gregole, thanks for your interest. It’s very appreciated. 🙂
pat,
your approach is to vouch for yourself and denegrate others like me and willis who do science without formal degrees.
you sound like the guys who claim believe me i am climate scientist.
Mann like behavior.
My approach is to do the work and publish the results for everyone to see, Steve.
I’ve authored several posts here at WUWT, all open to public scrutiny and criticism, and have engaged my critics in the comments sections.
I’ve published peer-reviewed papers on error analysis in climate science, listed in my reply to gregole at November 16, 2018 at 10:56 pm.
They also include the 2016 Conference paper from the 48th WFS International Seminars on Nuclear War and Planetary Emergencies in Erice, available at World Scientific Publishing, which is a more extended look at the impact of systematic error and instrumental resolution on the global air temperature record.
I have never asked for belief. Anyone who likes can read my published work and decide for themselves the merits of my work.
The work you do at BEST ignores the limits of instrumental resolution and neglects systematic measurement error. When did that sort of thing become science?
I have never, ever denigrated Willis. Anyone can ask Willis and decide for themselves the relative truth content of our declarations.
Hello and thank for standing up in public for climate skepticism. We really don’t have enough people doing that, and you certainly exude competence and authority, but so do a lot of nice people with whom I disagree. I want to offer you constructive feedback, as you requested.
I made it to 2:42, and had to stop.
You mentioned the 1976 thermosphere temperature drop prediction as an indicator of the soundness of greenhouse gas theory. This is wrong. It was a solar minimum year, and the thermosphere was cold then for the same reason it is now from low solar activity. So the prediction was based on the wrong attribution. I see this happen so often, the attribution owed to solar activity going to GHG theory.
The attribution for the great 2014-16 ENSO goes to solar activity:
ENSO development, long-term ocean warming/cooling, and the “pause” all depend on the amount of incoming solar energy over time wrt the solar warming threshold, the ‘solar anomaly’ zero point I empirically determined in 2014 of 120sfu F10.7cm, 94 v2 SSN, and 1361.25W/m^2 SORCE TSI, as shown in the solar collage images.
You mentioned ‘about half’ the 0.9 temperature rise since 1880 was from GHGs.
Here’s where the rubber hits the road:
GHGs caused none of the temperature rise. Further, the IPCC started out in 1880 at the bottom of low solar energy, and they completely ignore the magnitude of the modern solar maximum and the warming from it. The first 3 solar cycles #12-14 after 1880 were low cycles that brought down the temperature.
***
That was for less than a minute of your speaking. If you are interested, I’m willing to watch the rest and give you further feedback. Be careful what you ask for 😉
I see no reason to try to run the middle ground. CO2 is a climate response not a driver.
Bob Weber, you put your finger on a central mistake made by all the AGW aficionados. They invariably take CO2 radiation physics as a greenhouse theory.
That’s what Pat Michaels does in the video, when he discusses thermosphere temperature drop.
The CO2 radiatively decays in the thermosphere. It decays by collision in the troposphere. The collisional decay puts extra kinetic energy into the atmosphere.
The AGW crowd immediately jumps to more kinetic energy = more air temperature = greenhouse heating. Pace Pat Michaels.
But the terrestrial climate has a number of fast response channels. Convection, evaporation, cloud formation, precipitation, all can remove that extra kinetic energy without any perceptible change in atmospheric sensible heat. Fritz Moller pointed that out in 1963, and the field has studiously ignored his point ever since.
Richard Lindzen has made the same point and he’s been vilified for it. Lindzen has also pointed out that the atmosphere can gain heat without any necessary change in total energy flow at all. He’s been vilified for that, too.
The whole AGW thing is a pseudo-scientific charade, led mostly by people who don’t even know they’re acting.
Bob and Pat,
Dr. Michaels said stratospheric cooling not the thermosphere. It’s a prediction of GHG radiative transfer. Weather phenomena and greenhouse effect occur mostly in the troposphere. The thermosphere is already in space where the ISS is orbiting.
Thank you. I stand corrected and my apologies for that quick oversight. However…
Simultaneous evidence of 1976, 2008/9, and 2018 solar minimum whole earth cooling, from the ocean, the surface, and atmosphere through the stratosphere and thermosphere indicate the cumulative solar cooling effect is pervasive at all levels.
So the principle in my original point also applies to the stratosphere, therefore I make the same conclusion as before that the attribution to GHGs for stratospheric cooling in 1976 is still owed to solar activity.
It’s still a mistake to attribute warming or cooling to GHGs, which are passive and don’t store energy as GHG theory says. The ocean depths and land surface are the store for incoming solar energy. The sun’s activity and varying energy state provide either enough energy for warming, or not, over time.
The prediction of heat leaving, or the stratosphere cooling as caused by GHG radiative transfer is missing the point as to where the heat comes from, what is in control. It was a lucky prediction based on the wrong reason, mis-attribution.
The solar minimum atmosphere cools and shrinks because the sun has provided less energy, not because of something GHGs do.
Thanks, Dr. S, you’re right. Pat Michaels said stratosphere, not thermosphere.
You’re also right that the cooling a prediction from radiative transfer. Thank-you for that. You’re entirely accurate.
Pat Michaels said the cooling is a prediction of greenhouse theory, which it is not.
A complete theory of the climate will explain the physics of the warming of the atmosphere. It will include radiative physics. But radiative physics is not that theory.
There is presently no physical theory that predicts the radiative transfer of energy from vibrationally excited CO2 will produce sensible heating of the atmosphere.
Bob, looking at the UAH chart, there are several temperature drops (“cooling”) 1985, 1989, 1993, 2000, 2008, 2012, 2018. Do you attribute them to solar cycles?

“It’s still a mistake to attribute warming or cooling to GHGs, which are passive and don’t store energy as GHG theory says.”
GHG theory doesn’t say GHG store energy. It says IR is absorbed and emitted by GHG.
“The prediction of heat leaving, or the stratosphere cooling as caused by GHG radiative transfer is missing the point as to where the heat comes from”
Atmospheric physicists know where the heat comes from but that is not their point. Engineers know the heat in car’s engine does not come from the radiator. But if the radiator malfunctions, the car’s engine will overheat.
Pat, yes the greenhouse theory is not a complete theory of climate. IMO it is more a mathematical problem than a lack of complete physical theory. If it is the latter, then we have to discover new laws of physics to explain the climate. If it is the former, even if we know all the laws of physics relevant to climate, we still cannot make long-term predictions accurately because of chaos.
The Navier-Stokes equations have been known for almost 200 years. We still don’t have general analytical solutions. We know the physics. It’s a mathematical problem. I think climate science faces the same problem.
Dr. S, agreed again. I don’t think new physics is necessary, so much as doing the detailed studies to find out how the climate subsystems couple and how the energy flux is distributed.
For example, the PDO, AMO, IOO, MJO, ENSO, etc., are all coupled oscillators. They swap energy. The basic physics is well-understood, but I don’t think anyone knows their coupling constants or how and whether the couplings change over time. Figuring it out is a huge empirical problem. Deriving the coupled equations is another.
I believe a healthy climate science would be doing that sort of work. Richard Lindzen’s sort of critical-observation/theory-construction research program.
As it is, climate modelers do video-game science, pretending they learn something new about climate every time they run their tuned-parameter models over some new ground.
“one believes it is fit for the purpose of analyzing climate and other doesn’t .”
I guess those of us who think its a dog’s breakfast are loonies.
Apart from getting hemispheres mixed up, a seasonal signal suddenly appearing in NH SST after 2000, SH following closely NH SST when there is hardly any data, except for the period in the middle of the century which once prompted a global cooling scare but now is a mid-century pause, and in the past 2 decades. The years that needed adjusting to get rid of inconvenient features are the most dubious.
I honestly don’t get why this whole sorry episode is not being swept under the carpet because the data is dodgier than a late night kebab.
“The thermosphere always cools off during Solar Minimum. It’s one of the most important ways the solar cycle affects our planet,”
I doubt that is strictly true. One can see the drop in solar wind temperature through 2009 that resulted in a large shrinking of the thermosphere. But through the mid 1970’s and mid 1980’s it remained hotter, and the lows in the solar wind were around sunspot maxima at 1969 and 1979-80. Mid latitude land temperature anomalies are associated with these changes in solar wind temperature. The solar storming and strong thermospheric heating from the second week of March 2012 which NASA publicised, was accompanied by very warm land temperature anomalies in many regions.

Ulric, is the solar wind plasma temperature the sole measure for the thermosphere?
It’s one of three energy inputs besides solar XUV radiation and planetary waves, says the thermosphere wiki:
To find the true relative proportion of the XUV influence vs the solar wind influence would seem to be a matter of separating out daytime and nighttime data and going from there. Maybe someone did.
Mid latitude land temperature anomalies are associated with these changes in solar wind temperature.
I found no papers for this claim among the top 4o search links. Joule heating from solar storms is an ongoing but irregular influence, and so far if there is any evidence of that heat making its way to the surface, I haven’t seen it.
I remember that meltdown in March 2012. At the time I didn’t know anything about this, but in early 2012 TSI had spiked above the warming threshold I developed in 2014/15, driving tropical evaporation, leading to a clash of the just-tropically-evaporated warm water vapor laden clouds heading north with the cold air in place from TSI having suddenly plummeted from the center-disk passage of a large sunspot area, a confragration that produced several feet of unwanted snow.
That was a very good example of the effect of solar influences being layered in time.
The large TSI upward recovery back up to the warming threshold level from that sunspot TSI downspike is what I think drove temperature anomalies upwards in the second week of March.
The March 2012 thermosphere heating was primarily from the CME:
https://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2012/22mar_saber
The observed magnetic field is highly asymmetrical.


Lines of inclination are highly elliptical, with the North Magnetic Pole situated near one end of the ellipse.
The strength of the magnetic field is no longer a maximum at the North Magnetic Pole. In fact, there are now two maxima, one over central Canada, the other over Siberia.
Magnetic meridians do not converge radially on the North Magnetic Pole.
http://www.geomag.nrcan.gc.ca/images/field/fnor.gif
The polar vortex in the lower stratosphere takes exactly the pattern of the magnetic field in the north. This always happens in long periods of very low solar activity.
Global warmists can lie, exaggerate, modify fata, misappropriate organizations, politicians, and judicial system while enjoying lavish financing and creating global religion-like hoax at our expense. We must remain honest, unflinching boyscouts, making no attempt to deceive our all-powerful, ruthless opponents. Untenable position, dear moderator.
Much as I support CtM’s desire to elevate the scientific level, I see little prospect here at WUWT, where posts and commentary are often dominated by amateurs, wannabes, and intemperate political crusaders. While the popularity of WUWT is based, no doubt, upon it being a censor-free forum for the scientific layman, this does not necessarily produce the most enlightening content. It sometimes seems to be the blog of choice for ad hominem-laced displays of ignorance.
The serious study of climate requires multi-disciplinary scientific knowledge, much of which is in its infancy. To be sure, there are serious unknowns and many grave issues with widely-trumpeted claims made by narrow specialists. Nevertheless, attracting more posts by well-rounded scientists whose main concern is the elucidation of the workings of climate, rather than narcissistic posturing, would be a salutary first step towards a worthy goal.
Pontifex = der Brückenbauer
so pontification is building bridges.
Why can’t the anglo-saxon use plain words.
It is an allusion to acting as if one were the Pope, also called the pontiff.