An article from Apple news notes:
OSLO – Evidence for man-made global warming has reached a “gold standard” level of certainty, adding pressure for cuts in greenhouse gases to limit rising temperatures, scientists said on Monday.
“Humanity cannot afford to ignore such clear signals,” the U.S.-led team wrote in the journal Nature Climate Change of satellite measurements of rising temperatures over the past 40 years.
They said confidence that human activities were raising the heat at the Earth’s surface had reached a “five-sigma” level, a statistical gauge meaning there is only a one-in-a-million chance that the signal would appear if there was no warming.
Five F@##%^ sigma dude!
Of course it’s from good ol’ Back Alley Ben Santer, :
Benjamin Santer, lead author of Monday’s study at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, said he hoped the findings would win over skeptics and spur action.
“The narrative out there that scientists don’t know the cause of climate change is wrong,” he told Reuters. “We do.”
Not to be outdone in the shouting of hyperbole, we have Peter Stott:
Peter Stott of the British Met Office, who was among the scientists drawing that conclusion and was not involved in Monday’s study, said he would favor raising the probability one notch to “virtually certain”, or 99-100 percent.
Here is the verbatum conclusion from the article at Nature Climate Change
Because of this confluence in scientific understanding, we can now answer the following question: when did a human-caused tropospheric warming signal first emerge from the background noise of natural climate variability? We addressed this question by applying a fingerprint method related to Hasselmann’s approach (see Supplementary Information 1). An anthropogenic fingerprint of tropospheric warming is identifiable with high statistical confidence in all currently available satellite datasets (Fig. 1). In two out of three datasets, fingerprint detection at a 5σ threshold — the gold standard for discoveries in particle physics — occurs no later than 2005, only 27 years after the 1979 start of the satellite measurements. Humanity cannot afford to ignore such clear signals.
Here is the nature article for those that have access: https://disq.us/url?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nature.com%2Farticles%2Fs41558-019-0424-x%3A5FG3ZiZzwC5uRnvVU5P9F2jgWn8&cuid=1359516 which I do not
It seems their analysis depends on this method https://disq.us/url?url=https%3A%2F%2Flink.springer.com%2Farticle%2F10.1007%2Fs003820050185%3ATKba35KXXdhBfho9zTu2EMmQ7z4&cuid=1359516 , by K. Hasselmann
where in the abstract:
“A statistically significant climate change signal is regarded as consistent with a given forcing mechanism if the statistical confidence level exceeds a given critical value, but is attributed to that forcing only if all other candidate climate change mechanisms (from a finite set of proposed mechanisms) are rejected at that confidence level. ”
I would be willing to bet that they have fudged in their analysis the second part of the statement :
>but is attributed to that forcing only if all other candidate climate change mechanisms (from a finite set of proposed mechanisms) are rejected at that confidence level. ”
They claim the particle physics gold standard, but particle physics does not depend of sleight of hand, all variables and their errors are clear and checkable.
Here is the blurb:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-019-0424-x
So what is the new evidence? If you don’t have more actual new evidence, what do they have?
Nobody doubts that the temperature rises, and skeptics agree that CO2 is a greenhouse gas. What we are skeptical about is the anthropogenic contribution, and whether the feedback method used by climate modellers to give to the 0.5% contribution to greenhouse gases ( H2O is the highest one at 75%) the dominant role in the rise in temperature. Roughly, the programs assume that “more CO2, more H2O released in the atmosphere in a strong feedback cycle”. This has not been proven by observations, rather the opposite as far as I remember.
There is nothing new, just reanalysis of the already known data.
As far as I can see from the limited access I have, they are reanalysing the satellite temperature data for each year, using a program that accepts several inputs to the ratio of ” signal/noise “, and they triumphantly come to the conclusion that from the several inputs contributing to a rise in temperature, (rom solar cycle to albido …?) they can give 5 sigma statistical error that the anthropogenic dominates. In the abstract they do not mention which are the other mechanisms, the errors etc, and also that they have adhered to the method’s proposal that the rejected cotributions are also rejected at 5 sigma.
They only have the one figure that is available in the links above, and the extra information freely provided discusses this one figure: https://static-content.springer.com/esm/art%3A10.1038%2Fs41558-019-0424-x/MediaObjects/41558_2019_424_MOESM1_ESM.pdf
Models all the way down, as in turtles all the way down.
Anna V, nice to see you back.. 🙂
Gosh, so human produced CO2 has fingerprints! Who’d have thunk it, another amazing property of the gas that keeps giving. A case for Sherlock Gnomes methinks.
“Fingerprint detection” in 2 out of 3 since at least 2005? Seems to be a distinct setback for them if you analyze it. Some undefined influence 67% of the time only very recently. Gold standard BS indeed!
How many scientists does it take to change a planet’s climate?
Judging from a paper published online on June 19, 2017 – “Causes of differences in model and satellite tropospheric warming rates” – by Benjamin Santer, Matthew England, Michael Mann and others – at least sixteen, being the number of authors.
This Santer et al. paper is revealing, both in content and timing. It tries to explain (in six pages) the divergence between actual global temperatures and those projected by climate models during the past two decades. A stunning admission, one confirming what sceptics had been suggesting for years: the models were not infallible.
The divergence arose, the paper concluded, because one could not predict correctly the magnitude of certain so-called natural forcings, including solar intensity, volcanic activity and internal variability. As for model “sensitivity” to atmospheric carbon dioxide, it apparently was correct.
“We conclude that model overestimation of tropospheric warming in the early twenty-first century is partly due to systematic deficiencies in some of the post-2000 external forcings used in the model simulations.”
It was a cheeky, fallacious argument. For if model projections (aka “predictions”) could be explained away on this occasion by evoking “systematic deficiencies”, nebulous phenomena such as “internal variability”, or the poor quality of real-world data, presumably they could be explained away in future by the gatekeepers of climate-truth and their masters. In other words, the hypotheses hard-wired into the models were unfalsifiable.
Heads we win, tails you lose is hardly Gold Standard.
See: https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/doomed-planet/2017/12/climate-elfs-cheer-santer-pause/
Exactly.
If you do an internet search trying to find the original paper on which this story is based, then, no matter which website you arrive at, you will find the exact same wording of the story, with no clear reference to the paper being reported on. Clearly, this story is a marketing ploy, because everywhere it appears, it is the same, … using the exact same press-release wording pushed out there by whomever is trying to advertise it.
What small fragment of the original article that is out there is just a tease for the pay walled full text, of course, making access as difficult as possible for anyone who wants to scrutinize the basis of the claims.
This is cheap, sensationalized, marketing and rehashing of the same old data and arguments in a different cover. Nothing new here …. AT ALL.
TACTICAL NOTE: When your old arguments seem to be loosing ground, just repeat them in different words in new locations. Do a retrospective of the history, and make new claims about the strength of the history (never mind that it’s history of a myth) reinforcing the strength of the claims in that history.
I’m not paying to read it, because I’m not buying it.
I don’t know why folks get all upset about warming. Warm is good, cold is bad. We’ve had our 12,000 years of nice weather and the next ice age is on the way – just not next year. If CO2 could cause warming we should dig up every scrap of coal we can get our hands on and burn it. Unfortunately I don’t think it would have enough of an effect to stop the ice sheets from burying New York.
I’ll wait for the platinum album.
Where is the empirical data behind this claim? All I have found is assertions and models!
Yes, we apparently find assertions, references to models, and aggrandizing the history of the same reports that have been picked apart critically before.
… same old cake with new icing. It might look good on the plate, but it tastes like __________________ [fill in the blank].
Blimey, it was only back in 2013 that the MET declared- “Global warming stopped 16 years ago”
Pure gold (24 karats) is actually 99.9% gold. 5 σ is app. 1 – (1/3500000) = 99,9999714286%.
All other idiocies aside, even the title is wrong.
There’s Gold in them thar Standards… Just because the chocolate melted out of your fake nobel medals does not mean your failed models and fiddled data are any more credible Dumb Dumbs.
“Tamino, 5 sigma, and frame-dragging
Grant Tamino Foster and other AGW fundamentalists can’t swallow a bitter pill – that hard sciences still exist: see my previous text, Defending statistical methods.”
https://motls.blogspot.com/2010/03/tamino-5-sigma-and-frame-dragging.html
I had a recent discussion on Quora with a Matthew McCarthy, PhD Oceanography. Who made the claim that “scientists like myself have, of course, checked every other possible source and found none that explain the observations.”
So I asked him to quantify all Climate Forcing’s and explain why the models can’t make skillful predictions.
“It always surprises me how fixated deniers are on models and stats while simultaneously demonstrating a poor understanding of their roles in climate science. There’s a common saying in science: “All models are wrong, but some are useful.” We really don’t rely much on models because modeling a system as complex as the global climate can only be reasonably interpreted in broad terms, like trajectories, which have been validated with existing data.
Further, you appear fixated on statistically rejecting a null hypothesis, but don’t understand causation vs correlation. Robust statistical analyses would find a strong enough correlation between rising temperatures and the number of electric vehicles sold to reject a null, but there is no causation between the two. CO2 is the mechanism, and has been known to be since the 19th century. And it explains 90–120% of the variability in current climate change.”
Funny because other’s have claimed that the data is not as “useful” as the models. “All models are wrong, but some are useful.” “All Data is Wrong, Some is Useful”. I’m confused. Who gets to decide what WRONG models and data are “useful”? And how about the saying in science that “Correlation does not prove Causation”?
He stopped responding… He’s a busy guy I assume.
As others have pointed out, if the models and data are wrong and need error bars, how can they claim a 5 sigma result when the admitted errors are many times larger than their claimed data resolution?
In my CNC hobby if you want accuracy of .001″ you need equipment and measuring tools that measure to .0001″, which my magnetic linear scales do. How can they do this? They have a resolution of .00001″ Which exceeds the runout of the spindle or the accuracy of the drive screws.
cLIEmate UNscientists use the opposite method. They claim .001 C degree accuracy from equipment that has a .1 degree resolution. By using fuzzy black box statistics, hand waving and magician level misdirection…
So does this mean they have substantially narrowed the estimate of unknown portion of ECS, which was last reported to be from 0.4 to 3.4 deg. C per doubling of CO2? If they haven’t they can put that 5 sigma, gold standard certificate beside the fountain of youth certificate.
The gold standard they are referring to is clearly a reference to “ fools “ gold. It just ain’t what it seems.
They said confidence that human activities were raising the heat at the Earth’s surface had reached a “five-sigma” level…”
I don’t believe there are many people HERE who disagree with that particular statement. After all, we are emitting CO2, and CO2 will lead to some amount of warming.
Now all they have to do is show why the AMOUNT of warming we will experience will be harmful. Then they have to show that there are actions we can take where the expected costs outweigh the expected benefits.
But so far, what they claim to have proved is not even relevant. What difference does it make if global warming is caused by mankind or not? IF it will lead to catastrophe, and IF we can something productive about it that meets the cost/benefit criteria, then we should take action whether we are the proximate cause of the warming or not. Likewise, if we can’t do anything about it, it doesn’t really matter if it’s dangerous or not, or whether we’re the proximate cause.
The noise you just heard was Icarus crashing after he found out that 5 sigma was too close to the Sun.
Your honor, we have irrefutable proof that this man has caused devastating global warming.
What is the evidence? Your honor, it is a man’s fingerprint.
Then table the evidence.
The polar bear ate it your honor.
That is utter BS. Humans are 100% percent responsible fro Global Warming®. They invented it in the first place!
“The CAGW Defense Team STRENUOUSLY objects to the skeptics with 5 sigma confidence.”(Attorney Demi Moore, A Few Good Men, LLC)
So what. Of course humans are influencing the climate. That’s not the issue. The issue is will our influence be catastrophic? That is a matter of intense debate in the climate science community, and sorry folks, computer climate models will never provide robust empirical evidence. Not only is it impossible to determine how much the climate is being influenced by both natural and anthropogenic forces, within the anthropogenic influences it is impossible to determine how much is due to the burning of fossil fuels, the urban heat island effect, how much from agricultural practices etc. So far I suspect the effect has been net beneficial.
Influencing, meaning variation of system variables, that makes sense. UHI is a good exemple. But a “climate change” that doesn’t make.
virtually certain = not sure
There is a house of lunatics
called Climatastrophism.
And its been the ruin of scientists
who justify sophism.
Oh mothers warn your children
don’t listen to that crew
who say you have no future
if you exhale CO2.
Sung to the tune of “House of the Rising Sun.”
A 5 sigma gold standard certainty for a spurious correlation?
Please see
https://tambonthongchai.com/2018/09/08/climate-change-theory-vs-data/
With special reference to paragraphs 7,8,9.
If there’s a “gold standard”, five-sigma, one-in-million-chance-of-AGW-being-wrong, I’ve died and gone to hell.
How does this level of confidence reconcile global atmospheric temperatures declining over the last two years at a statistically significant drop of almost 0.3 C (UAH and HadCRUT4 datasets) despite those two years having the highest measured levels of atmospheric CO2?
How does this level of confidence reconcile that there was a global temperature cooling trend from 1940 to 1975, and a pause (i.e., zero slope) in global warming from 2000 to at least 2015, despite a smoothly accelerating curve in atmospheric CO2 concentration from 1910 to present?
Facts matter. Assertions not necessarily so.