Update: See below - I've added a video for Werner Brozek, as I promised in the comments, to help him learn the difference between science and policy and maybe pick up some critical thinking tips.
...204 months is equal to 17 years. In the “Separating signal and noise in atmospheric temperature changes: The importance of timescale” Benjamin Santer et al. stated that:
“Our results show that temperature records of at least 17 years in length are required for identifying human effects on global-mean tropospheric temperature.”
I am sure that I will be corrected if I am wrong, but in plain English, my interpretation of this statement is as follows:
“There is a lot of noise in the climate system and it is quite possible that the noise can mask the effects of man-made carbon dioxide for a period of time. However if the slope is zero for 17 years, then we cannot blame noise any more but we have to face the facts that we humans do not affect the climate to any great extent.”
Is that reasonably accurate interpretation?
No, it's not a reasonably accurate interpretation
What do you think? Is that a reasonably accurate interpretation? It would appear to the disinterested reader that Werner has re-interpreted what was written. In particular he has:
- ignored the two words "at least"
- committed a logical fallacy.
To my mind the first oversight is sufficient to show that Werner is wrong. Still, I'll present his logical fallacy, which is related to his ignoring the two important words. It is as follows:
- Santer stated that "to identify human effects at least 17 years of data is required"
- Werner turned this around and basically said "to identify human effects at most 17 years of data is required", which is wrong.
I've written about this before here when Christoper Monckton tried it on. If you want to know what Santer et al meant, the best way to find out is to go to the paper itself. In the text you will read how the longer the time period the more the signal emerges from the noise. They show that multi-decadal records are needed (at least 17 years). For example, as follows:
- Our estimated signal-to-noise (S/N) ratios for global-scale TLT changes were less than 1.0 on the 10-year timescale (Figure 6c). On the 32-year timescale, however, S/N exceeded 3.9 in all three observational TLT data sets. The latter result shows that natural internal variability, as simulated by current climate models, is a highly unlikely explanation for the observed lower tropospheric warming over the satellite era (Figure 6d). Comparisons between simulated and observed low-frequency TLT variability suggest that our estimates of S/N ratios on 5–20 year timescales are conservative (Figures 9 and 10). The strong timescale dependence of S/N ratios arises primarily because of the large decrease in noise amplitude as the period used for trend fitting increases (Figure 6b).
- The clear message from our signal-to-noise analysis is that multi-decadal records are required for identifying human effects on tropospheric temperature. Minimal warming over a single decade does not disprove the existence of a slowly-evolving anthropogenic warming signal.
Compare 17 years with 34 years of RSS data
The animation below probably says it all. I've plotted RSS data of the lower troposphere (70S to 82.5N) because that's what Werner Brozek used. The only difference is that Werner plotted monthly data from 1 November 1996 to 31 October 2013 (monthly data is noisier), whereas I've plotted annual data. The chart shows:
- the first 17 years of the RSS record, 1979 to 1996
- the second (most recent) 17 years, 1996 to 2013 - minus what hasn't happened yet this year and
- the entire 34 year period, 1979 to 2013 (with the current year to date).
 |
| Data Source: RSS |
- 1979 to 1996 has a steeper slope than the most recent 17 year period (0.07°C/decade), but R2 = 0.0893
- 1996 to 2013 is the least steep slope (0.02°C/decade) and R2 = 0.0108
- 1979 to 2013 has the steepest slope of all (0.12°C/decade) and R2 = 0.4701
For comparison, here is GISTemp global surface temperature anomaly with the trend line plotted from 1971 to 2012:
 |
| Data Source: NASA |
I have a feeling that Werner Brozek won't be celebrating for too many more months (click the climate models tab here).
Here's a sample (I nearly forgot! - How could I?) - archived here.
ConfusedPhoton says:
JimH says he's prepared to wait a bit longer:
oppti says - (you'll enjoy this comment!):
Alan the Brit says:
highflight56433 says:
Richard Milne on critical thinking - separating climate science and politics / opinion / policy.
From the WUWT comments
Here's a sample (I nearly forgot! - How could I?) - archived here.
ConfusedPhoton says:
November 4, 2013 at 6:55 am
The goal posts will be moved soon and we will see that we need 25-30 years of non warming.
It is a bit like the timing of the end of the world madmen, everytime we reach it some excuse is used and a new date is given.
Do not make the mistake that Climate ” Science” has anything to do with real science!
JimH says he's prepared to wait a bit longer:
November 4, 2013 at 7:02 am
Personally I’m waiting (hopefully) for the 20 year mark. Because then the 1980-2000 (roughly speaking) rise will be no longer than the 2000-2020 level/cooling period. I don’t think AGW will survive that. We’re nearly three quarters of the way there, as the years tick by the warmists will be getting more and more worried. I think post 2015 the cracks will really begin to show as more rats leave the sinking ship.
oppti says - (you'll enjoy this comment!):
November 4, 2013 at 7:15 am
Ric Werme 7:00
Ok so what is the RSS reading for the period 1944-1978?
Climate has long time periodicity, something CO2 has not changed completely!
Alan the Brit says:
November 4, 2013 at 7:39 am
As people have already noted, the goalpost shifting will soon begin, with warmists ready with a veritable bank of excuses as to why the Earth hasn’t warmed or indeed started to cool!!!! Under no circumstances could they be wrong!
highflight56433 says:
November 4, 2013 at 8:09 am
My contention has been that if we dilute the atmosphere’s water vapor with CO2, it will have a cooling effect. There is more correlation to this per the inter-glacial periods.
Also, temperature readings at airports are for the purposes of aircraft performance, not climate monitoring. My contention (lots of contentions) is not to use any airport weather station data. They are heat islands.
Another contention is the sun drives our climate followed by “other stuff.”
Addendum
Richard Milne on critical thinking - separating climate science and politics / opinion / policy.
i
"My contention has been that if we dilute the atmosphere’s water vapor with CO2, it will have a cooling effect."
ReplyDeleteWinner!!
ha ha - I knew that comment would be a hit!
DeleteJaded as I am, that one caught my attention. When you think you know what's out there you find there's an even further out there to wonder at.
Delete17yrs is 17yrs... and if the minimum was set at 17yrs, then the minimum has been reached. Comparing 17yrs to 34yrs, as you have done, is comical as 34yrs has no relevance to the minimum data required. Trying to distract people from the fact that RSS data shows no statistically significant warming over the last 17yrs doesn't change this fact.
ReplyDeleteAre you the same Anonymous who demonstrated the same difficulties in comprehending Santer11 on my other article?
DeleteIf so, since the optometrist didn't help, maybe this will.
What I'd like to hear is a completion of the argument that 17 years puts the kibosh on warming.
ReplyDeleteHow?
The parsimonious interpretation is to acknowledge the effect of the big heat sink, the ocean, and its wavering connection with the atmosphere. Conversely, the wildly speculative explanation is to imagine that something's fundamentally wrong with the radiation effects at play. The latter is a bold claim and needs a lot of solidly persuasive effort poured into it before it can fly. Don't hold your breath waiting to be persuaded.
Exactly, even if the temperature stays at this level for a long time, we would still need an explanation for why it is higher now than in 1900. Greenhouse gasses, anyone?
DeleteIf the temperature keeps on growing so slowly much longer, it would be a problem for the way natural variability is modelled in global climate models. Looking at how much the models differ in their natural variability, it sure makes the impression that this topic is understudied and that there is work to do.
But for AGW? Just a slow down in atmospheric temperatures is no problem. (As I recently wrote, the deviation from model projections is minute, 2% of 2%.) Especially as the warming of the complete climate system is continuing.
We can take out some (probably much) of the natural variation by ranking 2013 amongst other ENSO-neutral years. It looks set to come out pretty high.
ReplyDeleteWhat it shows is how bogus GISS is if nothing else.
ReplyDeleteIf you plot GISS with the 1980 -2010 baseline what do you think it looks like?
And if you plot it without the horrendous adjustements, do you also know what it looks like?
In 3 years it will be 2 decades with RSS, currently its 11 years with GISS, so will be 14 years after another 2 year La Nina.
The only forcing I can see if Hansen forcing temps pre 1979 downwards to create a false baseline.
I can show everyone what it comes in at using current baseline if you like?
If you plot GISS with the 1980 -2010 baseline what do you think it looks like?
DeleteWell, I've already provided a link to the data. Why not plot it yourself and see? Here is the link again.
But since you ask so nicely, if you plotted GISTemp with a 1980 to 2010 baseline it would look exactly the same except it would shift up the y axis some. Here is GISTemp with a 1981 to 2010 baseline.
Here is an animation showing GISTemp with a lot of different baselines.
It would also look pretty much like UAH, even though one is surface and one is well above the surface. Here is GISTemp with UAH and HadCRUT4 all with the same 1981 to 2010 baseline.
And here is UAH and RSS. Who is right? Roy Spencer and John Christy with UAH or Remote Sensing Systems? Or are they both right and measuring slightly different things?
In case there's someone else having trouble with baselines and anomalies, I wrote a short primer some time back.
Very good, now one without the adjustments if you have it.
ReplyDeleteAnd take out El Chichon and Pinatubo, you should have those too..
Its over 22 years with those 2 removed on RSS, whilst C02 has risen by a huge percentage.
Tornadoes are lowest on record, and the Atlantic is the quietest its been for 5 decades.
And Antarctica, well that's just out of control, despite underwater volcano it continues to break all sorts of records for Sea ice extent.
Anonymous, I'm not asking you to leave, but really, your comments so far indicate that you would feel a bit more at home on one of these websites.
DeleteFor the non-conspiracy theorists, Victor Venema has a good article on homogenisation of the temperature record - particularly adjusting for time of observation, which is important in the USA.
I realise it's pointless trying to make sense of nonsense, but I wonder if Anonymous is aware that volcanic eruptions cool the planet for a bit, till the aerosols clear? Earth would be warmer still if they hadn't erupted.
DeleteAbsolutely correct. You nailed it perfectly, take out El Chichon and Pinatubo and you have a much less warming trend.
DeleteThere are people on various blogs showing this.
My point is that GISS is heavily adjusted, RSS isn't and it indeed shows no warming whilst C02 has increased massively.
ha ha - people on various blogs! Is that where you get most of your "science" from? Try the IPCC reports. They give a very good overview of where the actual science is at. It beats blog "science".
DeleteI'd be tempted to call Poe except I have a feeling you're being serious. You think the world would have warmed more slowly without volcanic eruptions. That doesn't make sense. Volcanoes slowed the warming. They have a cooling effect in the short term.
As for adjustments, you couldn't be more wrong if you think that RSS isn't adjusted. The calculations involve lots of adjustments to allow for all sorts of things. Not only that but the temperature isn't measured directly like the land surface temperature.
I also think it's inconsistent of you to want to fiddle with the data to disappear the cooling from volcanoes, when you seem to have such a strong objection to necessary adjustments to allow the calculation of the global surface temperature anomaly.
Still waiting for your comment on Roy Spencer and John Christy's UAH satellite record. Is that no longer flavour of the month with fake skeptics?
That was about 'underwater volcanoes'. Nobody can see them, therefore they are huge and have a big warming effect globally (not locally, because globally the ice age has begun and so Antarctic sea ice grows).
DeleteTypical how cults attract so many fruitcakes. I saw Bob Smirkin' Carter smirkingly enjoying that kind of audience and feel like needing a bath all the time since.
Skeptical Science has an excellent post about the reliability of the temperature series.
ReplyDeleteIf this interpretation is correct, then an ice age of 1000 years would not falsify Santer's statement.
ReplyDeleteRichard Courtney said: It is a political statement because “at least 17 years” could be any length of time longer than 17 years. It is not a scientific statement because it is not falsifiable. Werner Brozek
It's a scientific statement, not a political one. It would be falsified if AGW became evident in less than 17 years. Courtney misrepresents "at least" as meaning "at most", for his own polemical purposes (or because he's really dumb, I suppose, but I'll be charitable and go with the former).
DeleteOn a separate note, if AGW didn't manifest in 30 years we could rest easy that it won't. It has, of course, which is why we're still talking about it.
I think Anonymous is missing the point of the Santer11 paper. The research was looking at the signal to noise ratios in temperature records. The longer the time period, the greater the S/N ratio. After 32 years the S/N ratio was quite high enough to detect the signal. Ten years or less and the signal gets lost in the noise. 17 years was considered the minimum length of time to extract the signal from the noise. (1000 years is certainly long enough to detect signals from among the noise.)
DeleteWhat's telling is that Anonymous, if it's the same one as above, has to reject all the sea level rise, all the ocean heat accumulation, all the melting ice, all the surface temperature records and all but one of the satellite records - and even then wants to fiddle with that one remaining record and ignore the multidecadal rise in temperature it shows. What will science deniers say after the next jump in surface temperature? Will they all still deny or will their numbers shrink even more?
I don't know how Richard Courtney or Werner Brozek reads the paper as a political statement. That they think so says a lot about them and nothing about the science itself.
Richard Courtney rejects the science on pseudo-religious grounds. He's part of the Cornwall Alliance. His god will clean up any environmental mess that people make (but, as Victor Venema pointed out recently, his god won't clean up economic messes).
We have been coming out of the Little Ice Age since 1750 without CO2 being a real factor until 1945. What proof is there that any changes are due to man, whether it be temperature increases, or sea level rises or anything else? Werner Brozek
DeleteWe have been coming out of the Little Ice Age since 1750
DeleteSeriously? You're a Little Ice Age bouncer?
If you mean that climate is still "bouncing back" after the Little Ice Age, then you'd have to explain why that is happening. Any warming and cooling of the climate has to have a cause. It's not sufficient to say the climate is a bouncing ball. Just as a ball bounces because of forces acting on it, climate changes when there is a force acting on it. Now far and away the biggest force that's causing the earth to heat up is the massive injection of carbon dioxide into the air from burning fossil fuels, land clearing and other activities.
What proof is there that any changes are due to man, whether it be temperature increases, or sea level rises or anything else?
Do you not accept the physics of the greenhouse effect? That's been well-accepted for decades after being first postulated and demonstrated way back in the 1800s. How much other proof do you need? Try wading through this report. It contains more than enough evidence.
BTW - I was getting mixed up with the Anons. I've just noticed that some comments are from Werner Brozek.
DeleteI'm sorry, Werner, for not recognising that it was you who made some of the comments. I mistook your name at the end of the comments as being tied to a quote instead of realising it was you signing off your comments.
"A Little Ice Age bouncer", love it.
DeleteYeah, what could've caused a kick like this, 22.000 years if not of course magic?
I agree that all warming has a cause. I also agree CO2 is greenhouse gas. However I believe that perhaps 0.2 of the 0.8 degrees increase since 1750 is due to CO2. Solar effects and the 60 cycle due to ocean currents are much stronger drivers. See the following for the 60 year cycle over the last 130 years: http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/akasofu_ipcc.jpg
ReplyDeleteWerner Brozek (P.S. I did it under anon since I did not know what URL they were expecting of me.)
Aah, an Akasofu fan. He is just arguing that climate is a bouncing ball but doesn't provide any rational explanation for what caused it to bounce.
DeleteLike I said. There has to be a driving force. Just claiming the climate "bounces from being cold to hot" is neither sufficient nor correct.
I think it would be fair to say that you "believe" it because that's what you want to believe and you've found someone who you think "believes" it too. That's not scepticism, that's wishful thinking.
If the warming were from a "60 year cycle" then what happened to the cycle? It's way past 60 years so the earth should be well and truly back to the climate of the 1950s. And the 1950s should have had the climate of the 1890s. Instead the world continues to heat up.
If it were "the sun", then the earth should have stopped warming when TSI stopped rising - some decades back. But it didn't. In fact it should be getting cold again now. But it's not.
Bang goes Akasofu's supposed "theory", which isn't a theory at all anyway. It's just a very long article, mostly based on the "bouncing ball" idea. It doesn't hold up to any scrutiny.
Please see my earlier article at:
ReplyDeletehttp://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/06/09/are-we-in-a-pause-or-a-decline-now-includes-at-least-april-data/
For data sets with no warming over the last 16 or more years, the graph can be split into a rise of the first half and a drop over the last 8 years or so. Why this is following this pattern is one question. But it certainly seems to be the case. Note that there is a slight warming with a 60 year sine wave superimposed on it. That is why we are a bit warmer than 1950.
Werner Brozek
Werner, as per previous discussions with you I have to point out that you are continuing to focus on periods of time too short for statistical significance, in other words making a great deal of noise about, well, noise. Not actual trends.
DeleteWhat you are engaging is is cherry-picking to fit your preconceptions, as you clearly stated here:
"If the right points are picked both before and after the huge El Nino of 1998, the slope line can be perfectly flat either way. That is because La Ninas around 1998 balance things out."
As to the asserted "60 year cycle" - if you actually look at and account for forcings (and don't make the errors such as linearly detrending the AMO in the presence of non-linear forcing changes) you see that there is no such cycle present.
KR
Even more appalling - as of that post in June 2013 you are _still_ using HadCRUT3 data, which was superceded more than a year earlier by HadCRUT4 with more global coverage and corrections for known mid-century SST issues.
DeleteIn other words, using an outdated data set - one that (not incidentally) better supports your expectations. That's confirmation bias writ large, and it's cherry-picking; using a subset of the data (as HadCRUT4 includes more of the globe) while ignoring data that might contradict your position.
You are not supporting your arguments.
KR
Note that there is a slight warming with a 60 year sine wave superimposed on it. That is why we are a bit warmer than 1950.
DeleteWerner Brozek
A slight warming?
A bit warmer?
Since when was the huge rise of half a degree C global average surface temperature - in only 60 years - considered merely "a slight warming"? Not in geological history! By any standard that is a phenomenally rapid rise.
There is a large force dominating any natural internal variation, and it isn't a change in radiation from the sun. It is greenhouse gases.
"I have to point out that you are continuing to focus on periods of time too short for statistical significance”
ReplyDelete“Even more appalling - as of that post in June 2013 you are _still_ using HadCRUT3 data”
To answer the above two points, you may want to take that up with NOAA who said: ”The simulations rule out (at the 95% level) zero trends for intervals of 15 yr or more, suggesting that an observed absence of warming of this duration is needed to create a discrepancy with the expected present-day warming rate.”
So ignoring Hadcrut3, the times from which UAH, RSS, Hadcrut4, Hadsst3 and GISS show no warming at the 95% mark are respectively: November 1995, December 1992, August 1996, May 1993 and August 1997. All are 16 years or more. This was taken from Nick Stokes' program found at: http://moyhu.blogspot.com.au/p/temperature-trend-viewer.html?Xxdat=[0,1,4,48,92]
Werner Brozek
Concerning NOAAs statement about 15 years: they were talking about ENSO-adjusted temperatures. You have to subtract the effects of ENSO before you compute the trends.
DeleteThat specific NOAA report is discussing models and temps without ENSO variations, and states:
Delete"ENSO-adjusted warming in the three surface temperature datasets over the last 2-25 yr continually lies within the 90% range of all similar-length ENSO-adjusted temperature changes in these simulations."
You, on the other hand, are making a bogus comparison between ENSO-adjusted models and unadjusted temperature records. That is a completely inappropriate comparison.
If you look at data that is actually comparable, ENSO-adjusted temperatures vs. ENSO-adjusted/averaged models, as in Rahmstorf et al 2012, you see that the models have indeed reproduced observed temperature changes.
The entire 'skeptic' objection based on that NOAA report is a false argument based on an apples/oranges comparison. It's rather tiresome...
KR
And Lars beats me to it while I'm typing :)
DeleteKR
Werner - "...show no warming..." is an erroneous statement. All of the temperature records except RSS show non-statistically significant warming trends over the last 16 years, and for any of the records where you look at enough data to separate between a warming trend and a null hypothesis of no warming - it's warming.
DeleteAs I've said before - for any of the instrumental series, over any time span ending in the present:
* There is no period where warming is invalidated, against a null hypothesis of no warming. None.
* Against a null hypothesis of the long term warming trend, there is no period where a "no warming" hypothesis is validated. None.
* Over any period with enough data to show statistical significance, that data shows a statistically significant warming trend. Always.
You continue to make noise about noise.
KR
My apologies, I will have to correct my previous post.
DeleteHadCRUT4 trend from 1975 (ARMA(1,1) noise model): 0.168 ±0.036 °C/decade (2σ)
HadCRUT4 trend from Werner's cherry-picked 1997.6: 0.032 ±0.123 °C/decade (2σ)
This rejects the 38-year trend with statistical significance. However, it is still warming, the trend uncertainty is very large (-0.091 to 0.155 C/decade), and if you look at that cherry-picked period in context you find that the majority of that period is above the long term trend, that temps have not trended as far below the long term as the 1998 El Nino pushed it above. Beware of short term trends out of context!
In short, the ENSO variation over that period is larger than the auto-correlation uncertainty. If, as Werner points to in his NOAA reference, you account for ENSO variations, it is clear that the global warming trend has not been invalidated by recent data.
KR
Werner, it's good practice at HotWhopper to cite sources. Do you know where your quote comes from and when it was written? I did a quick Google search and discovered it's a favourite in the deniosphere. I'm not sure how many people who quoted it knew its origin or context. I'd say you don't given you attribute it to "NOAA who said". In fact it was a group of researchers from the Met Office Hadley Centre, back in BAMS State of the Climate 2008 (Aug 2009) who "said":
DeleteWe can place this apparent lack of warming in the context of natural climate fluctuations other than ENSO using twenty-first century simulations with the HadCM3 climate model (Gordon et al. 2000), which is typical of those used in the recent IPCC report (AR4; Solomon et al. 2007). Ensembles with different modifications to the physical parameters of the model (within known uncertainties) (Collins et al. 2006) are performed for several of the IPCC SRES emissions scenarios (Solomon et al. 2007). Ten of these simulations have a steady long-term rate of warming between 0.15° and 0.25ºC decade–1, close to the expected rate of 0.2ºC decade–1. ENSO-adjusted warming in the three surface temperature datasets over the last 2–25 yr continually lies within the 90% range of all similar-length ENSO-adjusted temperature changes in these simulations (Fig. 2.8b). Near-zero and even negative trends are common for intervals of a decade or less in the simulations, due to the model’s internal climate variability. The simulations rule out (at the 95% level) zero trends for intervals of 15 yr or more, suggesting that an observed absence of warming of this duration is needed to create a discrepancy with the expected present-day warming rate.
The 10 model simulations (a total of 700 years of simulation) possess 17 nonoverlapping decades with trends in ENSO-adjusted global mean temperature within the uncertainty range of the observed 1999–2008 trend (−0.05° to 0.05°C decade–1).
What I think would be interesting, given your interest in monthly charts, would be for you to predict the surface temperature trend to, say, 2020. What do you predict will happen over the coming seven years?
Do you predict no change? A rise and if so how much? A drop and if so how much? And whatever your prediction, explain why.
And I have another question for you. In the current IPCC report (pp TS-26 to TS-29), scientists have provided various hypotheses for surface temperature changes over the past 15 years. Do you accept these explanations and if not, what is your explanation?
Sou: “Now far and away the biggest force that's causing the earth to heat up is the massive injection of carbon dioxide into the air from burning fossil fuels, land clearing and other activities.“
ReplyDeleteKR: “If you look at data that is actually comparable, ENSO-adjusted temperatures vs. ENSO-adjusted/averaged models, as in Rahmstorf et al 2012, you see that the models have indeed reproduced observed temperature changes.”
Depending on the data set, the earth has not been warming for between 9 and 17 years. Since both satellite data sets still have 1998 as the hottest year, after 15 years, it seems as if ENSO is a much stronger force than CO2. And it is ENSO that drives the 60 cycle, certainly not CO2. And it was an El Nino that caused the huge spike in 1998, not CO2 over the previous 60 years or more. And with the sun being more quiet than over the last 100 years, the next several years are not expected to show any new records. Even the Met office seems to concede this.
I'd agree that CO2 is not cyclic. It's still exponential.
DeleteHowever if, as you seem to be arguing, there is a dominant 60 year cycle and CO2 does practically nothing, what is your explanation for the fact that earth today isn't the same temperature as it was in 1953 and 1893?
It's almost one degree hotter than in 1893, which is a huge rise by any measure compared to the trend over previous thousands of years. If the main force was acting as a 60 year cycle there would be zero anomaly from 1893.
Actually the effect of CO2 is not exponential but logarithmic so that each additional CO2 molecule has less effect than the preceding ones. Another way of saying logarithmic is the law of diminishing returns. One way to illustrate this is to assume you are cold and you want to put blankets on top of you to keep you warm. The first blanket will do a lot of good and the second one will also be a great help, but once you have 19 blankets on top of you, the 20th one will have little additional affect. And that is where we are with CO2. The first 100 ppm has a large effect, but now that we are at 400 ppm, there is no point in spending huge amounts of money on carbon capture and the like to reduce the CO2 in the air.
ReplyDeleteAs to what is causing the 60 year cycle, my guess is the sun has a lot to do with it. Just because the total solar energy does not vary much from year to year does not mean that things like changes in ultraviolet output may not have huge influences in ways we do not completely understand.
As you may know, ice ages were caused by the sun due to Milankovitch cycles. The science is by no means settled on climate. See:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/11/06/cosmic-rays-and-climate-to-be-or-not-to-be/
Werner Brozek
Do you teach your grandma to suck eggs too? :D
DeleteThe effect of CO2 on surface temperature is logarithmic, but the rise in atmospheric CO2 is exponential.
"my guess is..."
You might be happy to "guess". Scientists do research and collect evidence. Your "guess" is not supported by any evidence. (I can easily imagine the reaction at WUWT if Michael Mann or Gavin Schmidt were to say "my guess is" instead of providing ample evidence to support their actual findings, as they do! )
"We do not understand" - is that the Royal "we"? Scientists understand a lot more than you do.
Milankovitch cycles are caused not by a change in incoming radiation from the sun, but by by changes in where the radiation falls on earth because of changes in its "orbit, tilt and wobble". That's not a factor now. In any case, that happens over centuries to millenia, not over a few years or decades.
Have you ever wondered how such a tiny change in the orientation of earth to the sun can cause a glacial or interglacial? While it starts with a change in albedo, the bigger temperature change is because of feedback from falling or rising CO2 as it is absorbed or emitted by the ocean from just a small change in global temperature.
Now we are not only adding huge amounts of CO2 to the air, we're adding so much that the oceans are still absorbing more CO2 than they are giving up, even though they are getting warmer too.
Admit it, Werner. You are out of your depth with "guessing" and "we don't understand". What I read from your posts is that you haven't bothered to find out. You haven't bothered to investigate the actual science of climate - warts and all. You don't want there to be a greenhouse effect so you've settled on shonky papers and shonky websites to support your "want". And decided to "guess" the rest. That's all.
Oh - and that "cosmic rays" article discussed at WUWT found (once more and unsurprisingly) that it's not cosmic rays that have caused the huge increase in global surface temperature, not that it is!
Delete(Despite the 2009 youtube video that Anthony Watts posted.)
In particular note that "there has been no trend in the GCR". Which is what climate scientists have been saying all along - see the IPCC reports for same.
PS A classic sign of someone wanting it to be "anything but CO2" is flip flopping from one wrong idea to another - from "it's the sun" to "it's ENSO" to "it's cycles" to "it's cosmic rays" - none of which stand up to any scrutiny to explain the long term rise in temperature over the past several decades.
CO2 forcing is (within the concentrations now seen, and for quite a large range +/-) logarithmic with concentration. CO2 is increasing faster than exponentially over the Industrial Age, meaning that CO2 forcing is increasing faster than linearly, accelerating.
DeleteReferring to logarithmic CO2 forcing as a saving factor only demonstrates that you have not done the math.
I find myself in agreement with Sou - the jumping from hypothesis to hypothesis you evince here shows that you do not have a scientific objection (one based on some cause-effect relationship), or you would have a consistent argument. Rather, you appear to have an ideological objection that sends you searching for support.
KR
Cugel
ReplyDelete“It would be falsified if AGW became evident in less than 17 years.”
This seems to be totally at odds with NOAA's statement about the 15 years assuming there are no El Ninos or La Ninas.
KR: “This rejects the 38-year trend with statistical significance.”
The reason I focused on 15 and 17 was because of statements by NOAA and Santer. If everything went along smoothly and suddenly the 1998 El Nino popped up out of the blue, and then things continued as they were, you would have a point. I know you do not agree with me that the La Ninas on either side of 1998 cancel out the effects of the super El Nino.
Sou: “Werner, it's good practice at HotWhopper to cite sources.” The exact quote from pg 23 is:
”The simulations rule out (at the 95% level) zero trends for intervals of 15 yr or more, suggesting that an observed absence of warming of this duration is needed to create a discrepancy with the expected present-day warming rate.”
http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/cmb/bams-sotc/climate-assessment-2008-lo-rez.pdf
“What do you predict will happen over the coming seven years?
Do you predict no change? A rise and if so how much? A drop and if so how much? And whatever your prediction, explain why.”
Due to the quiet sun, I predict that RSS and UAH will not rank higher than third on either set until 2020. And if it does, it would only be due to a very strong El Nino and not due to CO2.
“And I have another question for you. In the current IPCC report (pp TS-26 to TS-29), scientists have provided various hypotheses for surface temperature changes over the past 15 years.”
Any explanation other than the fact that CO2 is just not as big a driver as claimed is just looking for excuses to not abandon their theory. While CO2 does have some effect, there are negative feedbacks due to extra clouds that they have not factored in satisfactorily.
Werner Brozek
It isn't "at odds" at all. Firstly, I wasn't referring to temperatures adjusted for ENSO. Secondly, if you want to take the Met Office (not NOAA) statement as falsifying the 17-year minimum for AGW to manifest then you're at odds with it not being falsifiable (which is what I was responding to).
Delete(BTW you can leave URL blank, as I do.)
This comment got stuck in the spam folder for some unknown reason. Most of it has already been addressed above.
DeleteWerner, I don't understand your statement "will not rank higher than third on either set". Can you elaborate?
I'd argue that the reason you focus on misinterpreting those two single sentences (out of context) from Santer11 and the Met Office researchers is that you cannot accept that CO2 causes the earth to warm and that most of the warming of the past several decades is because of all the greenhouse gases we've added to the air. You've not given any sign that you'll consider the science as a whole though.
Now you've added to your list of protest at CO2 - "it's the sun", no it's not, "it's cosmic rays", no it's not "it's 60 year cycles", no it's not "it's ENSO" - and now you're arguing - no it's not "it's clouds".
About all that's left for you to add are "it's underwater volcanoes" and "it's the kitchen sink" :)
Have you ever stepped back to look at the big picture? How can CO2 not be a "big driver" given the massive rise in temperature from early last century? The increase in TSI only partially explains the rise in the first half of last century. It certainly doesn't explain all of it and TSI explains none of the rise since the middle of last century - and that's been huge.
Fake sceptics aren't called "ostriches" for nothing. You've shown by coming here that you don't quite fit the mold of the "8% Dismissives" (who don't venture beyond their own group). But you haven't shown any sign that you are willing to test your multitude of guesses against the data itself. If you did you'd see they just don't stack up.
I can tell you've a lot invested in your "beliefs" and "guesses". You've a history and reputation to maintain at WUWT for starters. I'm aware that's a big deal (and I mean that seriously). So it's probably too much to expect you to spend a few months checking your notions against real world data. However if you did do that, you'd be able to argue your whatever from facts and evidence, instead of from "guesses" and "I don't understand".
Think about it. Why, out of all the "sceptics" in the world, hasn't any one of them managed to "prove" that CO2 isn't causing global warming. I know deniers come up with all sorts of paranoid conspiracy theories about not being able to publish or all the governments in the world finally found something to agree on and are in on the "hoax". However that's just not credible. And the evidence shows otherwise. Even Wondering Willis and Anthony have been published. So that's not it.
Where are these extra clouds you speak of? They don't show up on satellite photos. Whether they would be a negative or positive feedback is unclear, and would depend on the type of cloud - high-level clouds have a warming effect, there's no doubt about that.
DeleteLinzen and pretty much the whole happy denier crowd have been predicting a negative cloud feedback which would save us from AGW; originally Linzen claimed it would prevent any climate change at all. Ever.
Even if there were "clouds" or it was "ENSO" or "the kitchen sink" - the question fake sceptics can't or won't answer is why would they be different now from the way they've behaved in the past?
DeleteHave the clouds or ENSO or the kitchen sink of last few decades suddenly disobeyed the laws of physics and decided to make Earth get awfully hot?
Why are we heading for hotter than ever since well before Homo sapiens was a twinkle in the eye of the cosmos?
The only thing that's changed so dramatically that could affect climate to the extent its changed, is the composition of the atmosphere. And there is a simple physical explanation for why greenhouse gases affect earth the way they do.
There is no physical explanation for why ENSO would suddenly behave differently all by itself. Or why clouds would behave differently with no provocation. Or why there would be a sudden and undetected huge rise in underwater volcanic activity.
I have a hard time understanding why some people won't recognise that simple fact.
I just got banned at WUWT because I suggested that meteorology should test one of its main assumptions. Here is a link that explains it better to anybody interested in the science denialism in meteorology:
Deletehttp://disq.us/8r6hxz
ENSO has come up repeatedly in this discussion, in large part due to Werner claiming the NOAA publication (incorrectly) as a counterargument.
ReplyDeleteThe simplest way to investigate whether ENSO is just a variation on top of AGW is to look at and categorize the data, as John Nielson-Gammon does. If you look at each of El Nino, La Nina, and ENSO-neutral years as categories:
"...the past decade fits nicely with the long-term upward trend of 0.16 C/decade shown by all three time series."
That seems clear to me. The "16/17 year" crowd is simply cherry-picking short-term ENSO variations in an attempt to deny the long term warming from AGW.
KR
There are many things that affect temperature, and not just CO2. I have listed several but there are hundreds. Granted, not all are equally important. To get a taste of other things that can affect climate, see:
ReplyDeletehttp://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/02/19/crowdsourced-climate-complexity-compiling-the-wuwt-potential-climatic-variables-reference-page/
As for the claim that “Since when was the huge rise of half a degree C global average surface temperature - in only 60 years - considered merely "a slight warming"?” Consider that huge if you wish, but I certainly do not. But a bigger question is what caused it. There are three periods over the last 150 years where there were huge jumps, and the first two had little to do with CO2. So why should we believe the last jump from 1975 to 1998 is due to CO2, especially since things have been pretty flat since then as even the IPCC had to admit. I am referring to quotes by Phil Jones
A - Do you agree that according to the global temperature record used by the IPCC, the rates of global warming from 1860-1880, 1910-1940 and 1975-1998 were identical?
So, in answer to the question, the warming rates for all 4 periods are similar and not statistically significantly different from each other.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8511670.stm
I am criticized for saying “My guess is”. There is a lot of evidence that the sun caused the Little Ice Age so we cannot rule out present conditions being caused by the sun. I have news for you. We do not have all answers by a long shot in climate. And neither does your side. If they say a doubling of CO2 can cause a temperature rise of between 1.5 and 4.5, they really have not narrowed it down at all from 20 years ago and billions of dollars in research and huge increases in computing power.
“Do you teach your grandma to suck eggs too? :D”
Exactly what is that supposed to mean? I happen to be a grandfather who has taught chemistry and/or physics for over 40 years.
“Admit it, Werner. You are out of your depth with "guessing" and "we don't understand". What I read from your posts is that you haven't bothered to find out.”
I have done way more research than you think and with my engineering degree, I understood way more than you think I do. But that does not mean I have all the answers. No one does. And if you think you do, then you are deluding yourself. I am not flip flopping from one wrong idea to the next. Climate is affected by many things. We just do not know to what extent it is ENSO versus the sun for example.
As for the increase in CO2 in the atmosphere, it is almost linear since 1995, and since the forcing effect is logarithmic, the net effect is a slow down in forcing since 1995.
As far as not ranking higher than third, I mean it will not be in first or second place. If it does rank first or second without the help of an El Nino by 2020, I would have to seriously re-evaluate my position. Right now, at the end of September, it ranks 6th on UAH and 8th on RSS. And in both UAH and RSS, first and second are fairly close with the years 1998 and 2010, but there is a huge gap between 2nd and 3rd place.
“Why are we heading for hotter than ever since well before Homo sapiens was a twinkle in the eye of the cosmos?“
The earth was warmer a thousand years ago than now and without extra CO2, despite what some people would have you believe. See:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/10/31/new-paper-shows-medieval-warm-period-was-global-in-scope/
Yeah, right. You in your armchair know more about climate science that all the world's top experts. As if!
DeleteWhat a load of bollocks - to coin a phrase. The earth is hotter today than 1,000 years ago. It's as hot or already maybe even hotter than it was in the Holocene Optimum, several thousand years ago.
Werner, you show no interest in exploring the actual science - it's all "guesswork" based on your own unwillingness to consider the evidence and the scientific explanations. And your ideology is blaring.
An engineer - it figures :(
(Apologies to educated engineers.)
Why are you here? Your foolishness stands out like a sore thumb on a site like this. At least at WUWT you can continue to make up stuff and protest real science in the comfort of denialism, without fear of contradiction and without being confronted with evidence.
Got as far as 'Consider that huge if you wish, but I certainly do not.'
DeleteDunning-Krugerite blowhard argues from incredulity. Woop-de-bloody-doo! Next.
A DuKE worthy of the title :)
DeleteWerner - "As for the increase in CO2 in the atmosphere, it is almost linear since 1995, and since the forcing effect is logarithmic, the net effect is a slow down in forcing since 1995." _Completely false assertion_. Do the math.
DeleteHere's the CO2 data, as yearly averages. Copy/paste that into your favorite spreadsheet, calculate a ln(CO2) column, and plot the results. Results: ln(CO2) has an upward curvature (positive 2nd derivative), meaning that CO2 is still increasing faster than exponentially over that period, that CO2 forcing is increasing faster than linearly, accelerating.
Mind you, over 18 years that is a small forcing increase relative to short term variations such as ENSO, the solar cycle, etc. - which is why cherry-picking short term (not statistically significant) time periods can be used to show erroneous trends from the noise. But that CO2 forcing over the long haul keeps increasing, whereas variations do not. Eyeballing with confirmation bias and Argument by Assertion are no substitute for actually checking the numbers. Again, do the math.
'Skeptics' keep harping on short term data, crying "Look at the hare!". They keep ignoring the tortoise...
KR
"You in your armchair know more about climate science that all the world's top experts. As if!”
ReplyDeleteSo are you suggesting that if all the missing heat is hiding in the deep ocean that it will somehow come out at one point and bite us? Basic thermodynamics says that even if the deep ocean went from 3.0 C to 3.1 C, there is no way it will cool to 3.0 C and warm the air by 100 C. We do not have measurements to show whether the deep ocean got warmer or not, but if it did, then what is the problem? It is a virtually infinite heat sink in terms of what us humans can possibly do.
“Your foolishness stands out like a sore thumb on a site like this.”
Do you consider my comment above foolishness? If so, I see no point in continuing my discussion with you.
KR “Completely false assertion“ I used WFT and I talked about concentration and not the log since WFT does not plot that. Note the straight line from 1995:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/esrl-co2/from:1958/plot/esrl-co2/from:1995/trend/plot/none
Werner Brozek
Basic math - the log of an exponential function is linear, the log of a linear function has a decreasing slope, and ln(CO2) has an increasing slope.
DeleteHence CO2 is increasing faster than exponentially, accelerating with statistical significance. Read the link I provided you earlier in the thread - where this is discussed. You clearly have not.
Your assertion of less than linear CO2 forcing growth is demonstrably, numerically, false.
KR
Werner - This discussion points to my major objection to what you (and justthefacts, for that matter) like to post.
DeleteThe data and the math contradict your assertions.
That holds for CO2 forcing increases, for statistical significance in the temperature records, to as Sou noted claims of "it's the sun" to "it's ENSO" to "it's cycles" to "it's cosmic rays". When you run the math, when you look at what are and are not meaningful changes and cause/effect relationships, your assertions just do not hold up. On and on you've repeated your claims, your highlighting of trends too short to be distinguishable from noise, all with the stated or implied message of "it's not us". Unfortunately, you are wrong, we are causing global warming over and above natural variations. That's the inescapable conclusion any realistic analysis leads to.
I can see why you find your conclusions appealing, perhaps simply due to unfamiliarity with statistical analysis - but they are just not supported by the data.
KR
Do you consider my comment above foolishness? If so, I see no point in continuing my discussion with you.
DeleteYes I do. For two reasons. Firstly - the world's top experts aren't expecting the heat to suddenly come out of the deep ocean. So that shows you don't read science. But also because of this part: "then what is the problem? It is a virtually infinite heat sink in terms of what us humans can possibly do." - which is emblematic of all your comments. You ignore reality and look to anything to distract from the fact that we are doing harm to ourselves and life on earth. Sure the heat won't suddenly pop back out of the ocean. Neither does that mean that the surface will suddenly stop warming. How much warmer do you think the surface can take before it starts to get really uncomfortable for people and animals and plants? How much more heat can the top layer of ocean take before it starts to get really uncomfortable for marine life? The problem of rising sea levels is a legacy we are giving to our young children and to future generations. Have you no sense of responsibility?
I still don't know what you hope to achieve by regaling HW with every denier meme you can think of. If you were the critical thinker, engineering type you claim to be then you'd have seen through Akasofu's rubbish right from the outset. That you cling to stuff like that shows that you don't have a scientific mind. (Which is probably why you chose engineering not science.) You can do the sums no doubt but you can't see what the sums mean or don't mean. That sort of insight escapes you. You don't think to query, to ask why he wrote that. Maybe you don't even know what questions to ask.
Now whether it's your wishful thinking clouding your judgment or a lack of ability I don't know. Only you know that. But the fact that you go full circle and haven't even admitted the possibility you were wrong in your misinterpretation of Santer - which is what the article was about, says heaps.
I don't think you are not capable of reading science. I do think you've got a huge barrier to overcome before you can start, which you've brought to this discussion. You'd have to shift your mindset and that's a big ask.
I've no idea why you "continue with this discussion". It's not to bring anything to HotWhopper that we haven't read on fake sceptic websites a zillion times already. And it's not so that you yourself will learn anything new about science. You've not demonstrated any interest in that.
So I'll ask again. Why are you here?
That should read "Sure the heat won't suddenly pop back out of the deep ocean". With emphasis on "suddenly" and "deep".
DeleteThe reason Australia has just had it's hottest 12+ months ever on record is to a large part because of the hotter seas.
“Unfortunately, you are wrong, we are causing global warming over and above natural variations. That's the inescapable conclusion any realistic analysis leads to.”
ReplyDeleteThe climate models have done very poorly over the last 15 years. Furthermore, the last 15 years cannot be viewed in isolation. They have an excellent fit to akasofu over the last 130 years. Perhaps we need to agree to wait until 2020 to see if his trend still holds. But in the meantime, I do not want my money wasted on carbon capture as my province intends on doing.
(P.S. I guess we will just not agree on CO2 forcing since 1995.)
Werner Brozek
Before you earn the right to criticise public policy relating to science, IMO you need to understand the science itself.
DeletePersonally, I think carbon capture is a waste of effort and a last ditch resort. But I can't see that you are in a position to legitimately urge your policy makers one way or another. And that's because you aren't willing to look at the problem they are dealing with.
The people who have taken on the huge task of trying to figure out the best ways to mitigate would be quite within their rights to turn around to you and say "what would you know? You don't even accept the problem? How can you preach to us about which are the best solutions?"
Go and figure out what the problem is and then you might be able to contribute to discussions about how to address it. You might even be able to help. Which is a lot more than you're doing at the moment.
Werner - "P.S. I guess we will just not agree on CO2 forcing since 1995."
DeleteMath and basic physics are _not_ matters of opinion. The math says you are simply wrong. Appeal to opinions will not change reality, because reality is not a debate. Your failure to understand that, to see your error in the math, says a huge amount about your arguments - that they are not rooted in reality, that you let your opinions override fact.
KR
"They have an excellent fit to akasofu over the last 130 years."
DeleteAnybody can plot a "fit". Even Wondering Willis can come up with an equation to "fit" and he oscillates between "barking mad" and almost getting the science.
Curve "fits" aren't enough.
It's the scientific explanations of what is happening that matters. That's where the Akasofu's, Scafetta's and Wondering Willis E's fail.
Climate models have only diverged a bit since about 2005, which is hardly 15 years. Don't go getting ahead of yourself. They don't claim to be exact on short time scales. We can't afford to stop trying to mitigate until 2020. The temperature will go up and then after the next hot jump when temperatures plateau again for a few years, there'll be more Werner's and Watts' saying "it's not warming" to contend with. And then the temperature will jump again just like it's been doing for the last several decades. And the Werner's will say "it's the sun" or "it's natural" or there'll be another Bob Tisdale saying "it's leaping ENSOs". And on it goes, while the rest of the world will be battling rising seas, failed crops etc.
Sou: “Firstly - the world's top experts aren't expecting the heat to suddenly come out of the deep ocean. So that shows you don't read science.”
ReplyDeleteSee:
http://app1.kuhf.org/articles/npr1377297066-The-Consensus-View-Kevin-Trenberths-Take-On-Climate-Change.html
“Trenberth says since then, the ocean has mostly been back in one of its soaking-up modes.
"They probably can't go on much for much longer than maybe 20 years, and what happens at the end of these hiatus periods, is suddenly there's a big jump [in temperature] up to a whole new level and you never go back to that previous level again," he says.”
My question to you is: By what mechanism does this occur? It violates every rule of thermodynamics that heat goes from a colder body to a warmer one. And the surface of the ocean has not gotten warmer lately. Hadsst3 is flat for almost 13 years. And this addresses your other question: “How much more heat can the top layer of ocean take before it starts to get really uncomfortable for marine life?” It is not heating up now.
“haven't even admitted the possibility you were wrong in your misinterpretation of Santer”
Here is one of the comments in the thread which no one challenged:
Brian says:
November 4, 2013 at 7:34 am
“Is that reasonably accurate interpretation?”
Werner,
Yes. Although Santer doesn’t say it directly, Figures 4 and 6 make clear what he means. In an ensemble of model runs, over a period of 17 years, only 2.5% of models have a negative trend. As seen in Figure 6a, over 14 years only 5% of model runs have a negative trend. And as seen in Figure 4b, over 20 years only about 0.5% of model runs have a negative trend. Since the 95% confidence interval determines statistical significance, one can say that a non-positive trend over 17 years or longer would imply that the models are wrong. They must either have the wrong trend or they must have a too-low variability. If scientists are being honest, they must acknowledge and confront this discrepancy, though they can try to save the CAGW claims by arguing that the variability, not the trend, is what’s wrong.
“Climate models have only diverged a bit since about 2005, which is hardly 15 years. Don't go getting ahead of yourself.”
You may want to tell that to the IPCC. Here is what they say:
“The rate of warming over the past 15 years (1998-2012; 0.05 deg. C/decade) is smaller than the trend since 1951 (1951-2012; 0.12 deg. C/decade)”
Do you want me to prove to you that no model has a warming of only 0.5 C/century?
Werner Brozek
The mechanism is the greenhouse effect. There are links in this thread if you need it explained more. The heat doesn't need to come up from the deep ocean, it can come from the surface and top layers of the ocean as well as from the land surface. There is less heat escaping - I'm not sure why that has 'escaped' your attention. Earth is accumulating more heat every day than it is radiating to space :( That's because of the greenhouse effect.
DeleteSometimes the ocean absorbs more of it, sometimes the air and land surface absorbs more heat.
You'll note the Kevin Trenberth didn't say that the heat would come from the deep ocean, although that will happen eventually as part of the cycle of the ocean currents (about 1000 years). He said that when a hiatus in surface temp stops, the surface temp jumps to a whole new level and doesn't go back to the old one. We won't see a global surface temp of the 1950s again for prob thousands of years, unless there's a few supervolcanic eruptions all in a row or similar.
“So I'll ask again. Why are you here?”
ReplyDeleteI saw that HW said that I confused “at least” with “at most”. So I came to defend myself. NOAA made a certain statement with regards to 15 years with some conditions. For me, the only valid interpretation of Santer's statement was that he extended NOAA's time from 15 years to 17 years. But if the interpretation of HW is correct, that it takes at least 17 years to identify human effects, then NOAA's condition can not possibly be met. At least that is how I see it.
However Richard Courtney took the position of HW and concluded it was a political statement and not a scientific statement since as he says:
“It is a political statement because “at least 17 years” could be any length of time longer than 17 years. It is not a scientific statement because it is not falsifiable.”
Werner Brozek
Well, it wasn't just the HW interpretation, it was the Santer paper itself that had "at least". So yes, you misinterpreted that as being "at most". Read the paper to get the context. It's not rocket science. An engineer should be able to understand it. The paper also talks about "multi-decadal", which in plain language means more than one decade.
DeleteRichardscourtney is a religious nutter. I wouldn't take anything he says seriously without double checking elsewhere. And if you can't tell the difference between a scientific statement and a political statement then I take back everything I suggested re your possible capacity to learn any climate science.
There was a good video distinguishing the two. When I get back home tomorrow I'll dig it out and post it here. If a research paper is too much to cope with, then maybe a youtube video will be more your level?
(If any HW reader knows which one I'm talking about, maybe they'll dig it out for me. CC?)
"An engineer should be able to understand it.”
ReplyDeleteJust tell me this: If Santer is correct, then are the demands by NOAA with respect to 15 years even theoretically possible?
“Richardscourtney is a religious nutter.” Is that all you know or think about him? Can you match his achievements? See:
http://heartland.org/richard-courtney
“He is an expert peer reviewer for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and in November 1997 chaired the Plenary Session of the Climate Conference in Bonn. In June 2000 he was one of 15 scientists invited from around the world to give a briefing on climate change at the US Congress in Washington DC, and he then chaired one of the three briefing sessions.”
First of all, Werner, you've given no sign that you've read or understood either the Santer paper or the Met Hadley Centre paper in BAMS. (You've been told numerous times who authored the paper that you keep referring to as "NOAA"). Secondly, the 2009 BAMS paper is a different study. It doesn't make any demands. The words you choose gives away where you are coming from.
DeleteThirdly, you would be very wrong if you thought your misinterpretation of a single sentence, plucked out of context from two separate papers, would be sufficient to overturn decades of climate research and earth system studies. Both papers aim to show that you need some time to reliably detect human influence on climate change from the global surface temperature record or the record of lower troposphere temperature. The BAMS paper, again as has been pointed out to you, was detecting a signal after removing ENSO, so it's not directly comparable to the Santer et al paper.
You are tilting at windmills.
I get it that you want to "falsify" climate science. As KR pointed out some time ago. You can falsify Santer by showing that in every case, all the time, less than 17 years is ample to detect human influence on climate. But in many cases it's not. Therefore it's best to consider at least 17 years, preferably longer.
You could be an expert reviewer for the IPCC. So could Anthony Watts' dog Kenji. Heck, even the potty peer Christopher Monckton signed himself up to be an expert reviewer for the IPCC. And he knows zilch about climate science.
But whatever richardscourtney has done with his life, whether he stayed a TO in a lab all his working life or whether he flew to the moon and back counts for nought against his allegiance to the Cornwall Alliance. The Cornwall Alliance doesn't accept climate science and expects God to clean up any mess we make in the environment. They are nutters. They don't even have a theologically accepted religious approach.
The "climate conference" in Bonn was just a denier fest. I very much doubt he ever gave any briefing to the US Congress in Washington. The best he could have done was talk to a committee but I doubt he did that either. Someone else might know. Heartland Institute is not a reliable source of info.
richardscourtney is a religious nutter, well suited to Hearlland. You only need to read a few of his shouty rants to realise he knows somewhere between precious little and nothing at all about climate science.
BTW what's really funny is you defending richardscourtney claiming a scientific finding is political, then backing it up by linking to the Heartland Institute!
DeleteSo, Werner tells us Richard Courtney chaired a plenary session of "the Climate Change Conference" in Bonn, November 1997.
DeleteNow, which "the" climate change conference in Bonn was there in November 1997?
Well, it turns out this was a meeting of the European Academy for Environmental Affairs, a rather fringe organization, together with SEPP, Singer's little one-man project.
Interestingly, there was something that could be called "The" Climate Change Conference in Bonn a month earlier: a UNFCCC meeting.
That 2000 invitation to give a briefing was an invitation from SEPP (gee, again) to act in behalf of the ESEF, another fringe organization, and not an invitation by congress to talk to congress.
Heartland: for all your subtle and less subtle misrepresentations of the facts.
Marco
One of the more common 'skeptic'/denial tactics is to return to a long disproven argument as if it had never been discussed. In this case, the NOAA article - which, incidentally, made no demands (strawman argument from Werner) - that discussed models and trends without ENSO variations, making Werner's comparison to observations _with_ ENSO wholly invalid.
DeleteAs to Richard S. Courtney? I know he's a past spokesman for coal associations, associated with multiple right-wing business-funded think tanks, is now an editor of E&E, a journal that has stated aims of pushing contrarian articles regardless of merit, and that he holds no advanced degrees (see DeSmogBlog and others, info available via Google). And he is involved with a the religiously motivated anti-science group, the Cornwall Alliance.
He has also in conversations with me flatly denied correlation of temperature anomalies over time and space>, and the possibility of even measuring the same. He boasts of having made that claim to the English Parliment - not something I would highlight.
Nutter.
KR
Correction - Courtney holds degrees for BA, Open (undergrad), DipPhil, Cambridge (Philosophy degree, not a Doctorate), and Diploma (Bath), and is a Methodist preacher.
DeleteHe has, as far as I can see, no formal training in science or any numeric field. He has certainly never evinced such expertise on any posting I have seen.
KR
“You can falsify Santer by showing that in every case, all the time, less than 17 years is ample to detect human influence on climate.”
ReplyDeleteI know of only one recent case where the warming over less than 17 years was significant and that was when Phil Jones said the warming was statistically significant during the 16 years from 1995 to 2010 inclusive. So I guess Santer is right. The conclusion that I draw from this is that the human influence is extremely small if it takes so long to detect it. Then there is the question:
If significant warming has taken place, such as from the period 1995 to 2010 as stated above, how can you be sure it is due to humans and not due to an El Nino? I would be very surprised if a record is set on RSS or UAH by 2020 without an El Nino.
“You could be an expert reviewer for the IPCC. So could Anthony Watts' dog Kenji.”
Well I guess we agree here that the latest IPCC report is worthless.
Marco, just because SEPP is a little project, that does not mean they know nothing about climate. Singer and the NIPCC know more about climate than the IPCC. Even Sou seems to have very little respect for the IPCC as noted above.
Werner Brozek
Werner, you misrepresent quite clearly what Sou says. The fact that just about anyone can become Expert Reviewer for the IPCC reports (it's not quite true anymore) does not imply that the IPCC report is worthless.
DeleteYour statement about Singer and the NIPCC tells me that your opinions and analyses can be safely disregarded. Someone who does not note the misrepresentations and errors of Singer and the NIPCC is truly blind.
But for those who do know facts from fiction, here a few examples of how the NIPCC works:
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2013/10/19/the-icp-report/
http://quantpalaeo.wordpress.com/2013/09/20/on-the-nipcc-the-sun-moths-and-flames/
http://quantpalaeo.wordpress.com/2013/09/20/bad-paper-bingo-with-the-nipcc-carbon-cycle/
(especially the reference to Essenhigh is funny, considering how easy it was debunked)
http://quantpalaeo.wordpress.com/2013/09/23/nipccs-lake-greenland-is-brim-full-of-fail/
Perhaps most telling of how the NIPCC works:
http://hot-topic.co.nz/heartlands-big-book-of-lies-about-climate-change-cuts-no-ice-thanks-to-don-easterbrook/
showing how the NIPCC publishes a graph that is known to be wrong, where Easterbook has been informed many, many times already how it is wrong, but where Easterbrook continues to use the same faulty graph.
And finally quite comprehensive:
http://gpwayne.wordpress.com/2013/10/28/heartlands-nipcc-report-in-us-schools-notes-for-educators/
What SEPP and Singer know best is the *political* climate: say what certain vested interests would like to hear, create doubt and do the tobacco obfuscation all over again.
Marco
Well I guess we agree here that the latest IPCC report is worthless.
DeleteNo, the fact that the IPCC is very open to people commenting on the drafts does not make it worthless. I'm surprised that Werner would think so. Most fake sceptics complain that science is a closed shop (which of course it isn't) and talk of "pal review" etc. But anyone can be an expert reviewer for the IPCC drafts. It's a very open process in that way.
Marco, just because SEPP is a little project, that does not mean they know nothing about climate. Singer and the NIPCC know more about climate than the IPCC.
Now unlike the IPCC the Heartland Institute publication is a closed shop. It's authors are paid to write their rejection of climate science. None of its drafts invite reviews from scientists in general or the general public. Of course, those are not the only differences between the two. The Not the IPCC Report is full of crap like "CO2 is plant food". In fact the executive summary reads as if the authors went to SkepticalScience.com and copied out all the old denier myths.
Even Sou seems to have very little respect for the IPCC as noted above.
KR just pointed out one of the common denier tactics. This is another one that I've come across many times. Making up stuff and trying to be clever. It often occurs, as here, after all other denier tactics have been exhausted. I see it as a plaintive cry for attention, in the hope that the subject of the lie will charge in and denounce it. Then the cycle begins again. (Explain this, explain that - all the while the fake sceptic puts his fingers in his ears so he doesn't hear the explanation.)
HW readers know that I have a lot of respect for all the scientists who volunteer their time and effort over many years to research and write up the science so that we, the public, can get a comprehensive view of the state of play.
I have no respect for fake sceptics and disinformers. Werner, for example, is just a fake sceptic. If he had any respect for coming to face up to people who understand science on HW, he's lost it by his behaviour on this board. I don't class him as a disinformer as he doesn't have the wit to know he's wrong.
People like Fred Singer and Bob Carter are professional paid disinformers. That's how they supplement their pension. And they know that what they write is disinformation. They not only don't have my respect. I have nothing but contempt for them.
(I don't hold Werner in contempt. I don't really care one way or another about ordinary run of the mill science deniers as such. They might otherwise be quite nice people muddling through life like the rest of us.)
The conclusion that I draw from this is that the human influence is extremely small if it takes so long to detect it.
DeleteWerner, that comment shows your profound ignorance about climate and particularly paleoclimatology. The changes are faster than ever before and on track to warm ten times faster than at any time in the past 65 million years
If significant warming has taken place, such as from the period 1995 to 2010 as stated above, how can you be sure it is due to humans and not due to an El Nino? I would be very surprised if a record is set on RSS or UAH by 2020 without an El Nino.
ENSO has a distinct impact in specific areas of the ocean, so it can be identified and filtered out. Here is an older paper I found for you (Enfield and Mestas-Nunez 2000) that describes a method for doing so.
Being an "expert reviewer" simply means you have registered online for the opportunity to submit comments on the drafts. You don't have to even submit comments but, if you do, the lead and contributing authors don't have to take your comments seriously.
ReplyDeleteIt's really quite simple: go through the IPCC AR5 WG1, pick one of their perceived errors, and demonstrate scientifically that they got it wrong. So far you're not doing very well.
PL
PL - I expect what you mean is that comments don't have to be incorporated if they aren't considered to have merit. All comments are recorded and published with the IPCC authors' responses. I don't think it matters who makes the comment. If a valid suggestion is made then it would normally be acted upon.
DeleteOf course I doubt that someone like Monckton would make too many comments that would be worth anything.
For example, here are comments and the responses for AR4 SPM. Here are links to all the comments for AR4.
Yes, my point was simply that, just because almost anyone can sign up to be an expert reviewer, it doesn't mean that the final document has been corrupted by foolish comments. Which was Werner's implication.
DeletePL
Yes, PL, and I thought it was a bit odd of him to quote that if he (or Kenji) were an expert reviewer then that would mean the IPCC is "worthless", while at the same time he was trying to argue that what he says has merit.
DeletePerhaps the message is getting through after all :)
I've now added the video I promised earlier - for Werner and anyone else who finds it difficult to distinguish science from policy or politics. It's at the bottom of the article above.
ReplyDeleteThere is way too much here to respond to without spending weeks on it. But I just want to say this. You are talking about my lack of reading and/or reading comprehension. Yet in the article:
ReplyDeletehttp://blog.hotwhopper.com/2013/09/heartland-institutes-nipcc-science.html
False claim: “Earth has not warmed significantly for the past 16 years”
Your response:
“Secondly, global warming has not stopped. The first decade this century was the hottest on record, hotter than any decade in the twentieth century.”
There is huge difference between “warming” and “being warm” that I have seen repeatedly. They are not the same! Suppose I were a 30 year old man and that I had my height measured on my birthday every year for 30 years. And suppose I grew until my 20th birthday and then stopped growing. My average height for the years 20 to 30 would be higher than any previous decade. But that does not mean that I continued to grow from ages 20 to 30.
And as for significant warming over 16 years, here are the latest stats from Nick Stokes site from my September report.
Section 2
For this analysis, data was retrieved from http://moyhu.blogspot.com.au/p/temperature-trend-viewer.html?Xxdat=[0,1,4,48,92]. This analysis indicates for how long there has not been statistically significant warming according to Nick's criteria. Data go to their latest update for each set. In every case, note that the lower error bar is negative so a slope of 0 cannot be ruled out from the month indicated.
On several different data sets, there has been no statistically significant warming for between 16 and 20 years.
The details for several sets are below.
For UAH: Since November 1995: CI from -0.001 to 2.501
For RSS: Since December 1992: CI from -0.005 to 1.968
For Hadcrut4: Since April 1996: CI from -0.025 to 1.463
For Hadsst3: Since May 1993: CI from -0.002 to 1.768
For GISS: Since May 1997: CI from -0.017 to 1.305
Werner Brozek
Sheesh - How good am I at sussing out denier behaviour!
DeleteJust as I prophesied when I wrote: Then the cycle begins again.
Werner, you've gone right back to the beginning, which was your article at WUWT, which was I wrote about in the first place!
Give it a rest. Go read an IPCC report or something. Your science denial is showing and it's tedious. Your selective quotes out of context are tedious too, and not even a cheap trick.
.....suppose I grew until my 20th birthday and then stopped growing.
That's a good example of a silly denier-style protest. You made a false analogy with your "stopped growing" when you turn 20 and, true to your past form, in your comment you selectively quoted me out of context.
Neither earth as a whole, nor the surface temperature stopped going up in 2000. The years 2005 and 2010 were the two hottest years on record going by the two main surface temperature records - GISTemp and HadCRUT4. In any case, the full quote was:
"It's not warming" - yes, it is!
False claim: Earth has not warmed significantly for the past 16 years despite an 8% increase in atmospheric CO2, which represents 34% of all extra CO2 added to the atmosphere since the start of the industrial revolution.
Why it is false: Firstly the argument is a repeat of part of the one above. The first decade this century was the hottest on record, hotter than any decade in the twentieth century. In addition to surface temperatures, now even the deep ocean is warming up. This is very significant!
You are really stretching and ignoring everything you don't want to see. Check out the following:
What's that about 16 years? Since 1996, you say?
No, We Are NOT in a Climate “Pause”
Paleoclimatology shows that when CO2 increases in the atmosphere the earth system heats up in response.
ReplyDeleteThis is backwards. See:
http://motls.blogspot.com/2006/07/carbon-dioxide-and-temperatures-ice.html
It makes the point that hundreds of thousands of years ago, CO2 lagged temperature by 800 years.
“Yes, PL, and I thought it was a bit odd of him to quote that if he (or Kenji) were an expert reviewer then that would mean the IPCC is "worthless", while at the same time he was trying to argue that what he says has merit.
Perhaps the message is getting through after all :)”
Good catch! :-)
P.S. If the IPCC has such high standards, how did the Himalayan glacier snafu get through last time? Now we all make mistakes, but for Pachauri to claim it was “voodoo science” to point out the mistake just does not inspire confidence in the IPCC.
“Of course I doubt that someone like Monckton would make too many comments that would be worth anything.”
Do you think that Al Gore knows more science than Monckton? See:
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/monckton/goreerrors.html
OMG, Werner - now you're even denying the greenhouse effect. (Lubos Motl isn't a climate scientist, he got stuck in string theory so he's taken up climate science denial as a hobby, among other things.)
DeleteSee my comment above:
Milankovitch cycles are caused not by a change in incoming radiation from the sun, but by by changes in where the radiation falls on earth because of changes in its "orbit, tilt and wobble". That's not a factor now. In any case, that happens over centuries to millenia, not over a few years or decades.
Have you ever wondered how such a tiny change in the orientation of earth to the sun can cause a glacial or interglacial? While it starts with a change in albedo, the bigger temperature change is because of feedback from falling or rising CO2 as it is absorbed or emitted by the ocean from just a small change in global temperature.
I don't follow what Al Gore knows or doesn't know and I don't know why you bring him into this thread. It's a classic red herring tactic of deniers so I suppose that's sufficient to explain it. Anyway, as long as Gore quotes the science he's on the right track. I do know that Monckton is a serial science disinformer and have often written about his antics. I had a quick glance at the silly protest article in your link (why do you always link to denier websites and never to the actual science?) - and it's more than that - it's the usual sort of fake protest by Monckton. This is not the time or the place to go through it bit by bit and tear it apart. If you want to learn about climate science read the science, not gumpff from professional science disinformers.
Werner is hilarious. Gish galloping along, never admitting to a falsehood. He prefers to change the subject and try spaghetti tactics (through it at the wall and see what sticks). The problem here is that this is not WUWT so you can't just deny science and get applause. You actually have to defend your arguments with evidence.
DeleteLet's go back to your "pause" bs. Do you admit or not that the oceans have warmed significantly during the last 15 years? Do you admit or not that the surface is on a warming trend even with your cherry picked dates? (don't show the error bars, show the trend with the error bars :) ).
Lastly, and pay attention - if there is no greenhouse effect from CO2, then why doesn't the global temperature anomaly drop to zero? When there is an increase in solar forcing, temperature goes up. Once that is over, temperature goes back down. Milankovich cycles occur over 1000s of years to tens of 1000s of years so can not explain a rise of 0.8C. Therefore, since the sun has been decreasing in its forcing, why hasn't the anomaly dropped to zero? Even WUWT's own Svalgaard will tell you it's CO2.
“First from Monckton himself writing about global warming - from less than a month ago, saying that the surface temperature has not risen for 18 years”
ReplyDeleteI will take responsibility for that. I used to take my statistical significances from SkS and they showed no statistically significant warming for between 18 and 23 years on a number of data sets and Monckton quoted me. Nick Stokes gives a smaller range of 16 to 20 years for no statistically significant warming.
“Anyway, as long as Gore quotes the science he's on the right track.”
That is just the point! I am very surprised you do not follow a global prize winner who is one of the biggest pushers of global warming, yet you can say all kinds of negative things about people who deny catastrophic global warming such as “Richardscourtney is a religious nutter.” But I want to make this clear: Monckton and I and many others such as Watts do not deny the greenhouse effect. We just do not think it is enough to be catastrophic for mankind now or in a hundred years from now.
As for Al Gore, see: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7037671.stm
“Mr Justice Burton said he had no complaint about Gore's central thesis that climate change was happening and was being driven by emissions from humans. However, the judge said nine statements in the film were not supported by mainstream scientific consensus..”
Why do you suppose Gore refuses to debate Monckton?
“Werner, you've gone right back to the beginning, which was your article at WUWT, which was I wrote about in the first place!”
I actually had two articles published 16 hours apart. The “at least” and “at most” is from the second article. The above CI stats are from the first article with September numbers.
“Go read an IPCC report or something.”
Why? It is hopelessly biased! See what Robert Watson has to say at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Watson_%28scientist%29#cite_note-WebsterPagnamenta2010-6
In 2010, he warned the IPCC against overstatement:[8]
"The mistakes all appear to have gone in the direction of making it seem like climate change is more serious by overstating the impact. That is worrying. The IPCC needs to look at this trend in the errors and ask why it happened."
As for the (November) 1996, that is only according to RSS. Other data sets have other years with no warming as I make very clear in my own reports. GISS for example has no warming since September 2001, or for 12 years.
“Do you admit or not that the oceans have warmed significantly during the last 15 years?”
We do not have adequate data for the deep ocean for 15 years. As for the surface, the slope is zero for about 13 years for Hadsst3.
“Do you admit or not that the surface is on a warming trend even with your cherry picked dates? (don't show the error bars, show the trend with the error bars :) ).”
You lost me here. I use Nick's program to show error bars for example: For RSS: Since December 1992: CI from -0.005 to 1.968.
Or am I missing your point?
I show two sets of numbers, no warming in section 1 and no statistically significant warming in section 2.
“Lastly, and pay attention - if there is no greenhouse effect from CO2, then why doesn't the global temperature anomaly drop to zero?”
There is a certain group (the slayers?) that totally deny any greenhouse effect. But Watts and most others DO NOT deny some greenhouse effect. However we totally disagree with the high end of the possible projections. And we believe the very slight warming that may occur due to our actions will never be harmful.
Werner Brozek
In other words:
DeleteWerner Brozek dismisses and rejects climate science for no reason at all. He cites denier Anthony Watts and birther Christopher Monckton and extremist political lobby groups like the Heartland Institute as his sources of disinformation.
And he castigates me for not slavishly following everything that Al Gore says. (I don't keep up with what every science communicator writes on the subject and I'm not a US citizen. Maybe if I was I'd follow what a former Vice President of the USA is saying. I am aware that he keeps himself well informed about climate science and is not a science denier like the people Werner looks up to.)
At least Werner is consistent in his inconsistent denial - claiming on the one hand that CO2 hasn't warmed the earth in the past but saying maybe it's warming it just a little bit now. Trying hard to appear credible because he's the equivalent of "just a little bit pregnant". Hanging his hat on a slowing (not stopping) of surface temperatures and those in the lower troposphere, despite the fact that it's happened before only to rise again, and despite the fact that the earth system as a whole is still getting hotter.
Just another climate science denier who doesn't know if he's coming or going. 'Nuff said.
This thread will be a reference as a half-decent example of a Gish Gallop and circular argumentation by a science denier. I'm adding it to the Popular Posts page as such.
Werner,
DeleteCiting back your own comment: "Mr Justice Burton said he had no complaint about Gore's central thesis that climate change was happening and was being driven by emissions from humans." Yes, there are technical errors in Inconvenient Truth, but the central thesis is correct.
"See what Robert Watson has to say". A true skeptic would check what Watson really said. His full statement is at:
http://e360.yale.edu/feature/the_ipcc_needs_to_change_but_the_science_remains_sound/2245/
He is talking about three errors in the 3000 pages of AR4: Himalayan Glacier retreat (explained and corrected), amount of the Netherlands below sea level (a problem with definitions, and impacts on North African agriculture. None of these are in WG1, the explanation of the science of global warming. What these errors suggest is that Monckton, Watts et al., (and you?) didn't take advantage of Expert Reviewer status to point out flaws in the AR4 drafts.
Watson goes on the say: "But to suggest that the hacked e-mails or the identified inaccuracies in the IPCC’s Working Group II report undermine the broad evidence that the Earth’s climate is changing due to human activities — or that any talk of carbon emissions cuts should be suspended — is simply untenable."
Act like a skeptic. Read his full statement. Ask why your own sources didn't want you to read it all.
PL
Werner has now also decided to repeat the lies about Pachauri's "voodoo science" comment. The latter was solely related to a report from an Indian scientist in which melting glaciers was claimed not to be to increasing temperatures - without even attempting to link the melting to any temperature records. Just pictures and disparate data!
ReplyDeleteIt was *not* related to the WGII error hidden in a byline.
Of course, Werner also willfully ignores the deep ocean warming, as it does not fit his "earth not warming" mantra.
Marco
Werner, at least be consistent with your delusions. Also, stop avoiding points. Let's go:
ReplyDelete“Do you admit or not that the oceans have warmed significantly during the last 15 years?”
You wrote: "We do not have adequate data for the deep ocean for 15 years." Key word here is "adequate" LOL. . I think you mean ARGO being around since 2003, but that ignores all the measurements made before then. While ARGO is better, the prior data is more than "adequate" to show warming. Here's the data from NOAA: http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/heat_content55-07.png
http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/heat_content2000m.png
If you want to learn and look, all you'll see is ARGO confirming the consistent increase in energy, with even you can't deny. But let's not stop there...
Do you deny that sea level has been rising and even accelerating its rise? If you understand the conservation of energy, then that is consistent with the data above in that part of the increase in sea level rise is coming from thermal expansion of water. Here's the sea level rise:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5e/Trends_in_global_average_absolute_sea_level%2C_1870-2008_%28US_EPA%29.png
Here's the thermal component of that rise in energy:
http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/sl_therm_55-07.png
http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/sl_therm_2000m.png
“Do you admit or not that the surface is on a warming trend even with your cherry picked dates? (don't show the error bars, show the trend with the error bars :) ).”
You said "You lost me here." - yes, I did. What is the slope? Define your error bars.
“Lastly, and pay attention - if there is no greenhouse effect from CO2, then why doesn't the global temperature anomaly drop to zero?”
HAHA - this one you Gish Galloped and it's the big one. Again, why doesn't the global temperature anomaly drop to zero? Don't tell me you accept the GHE, but then kind of don't. I don't care. This is about understanding equilibrium temperatures and the conservation of energy...why doesn't the global temperature anomaly drop to zero? Hint- it can't be the sun because we've been receiving declining solar energy for decades. Extra hint - it can't be Milankovich cycles because the timescales are off by orders of magnitude.
I will have to research what Bob Tisdale has to say about the ocean heat, etc. I wish you would make your comments on my posts. (Another post is due when all October data is in.) This way, if I do not have all answers at my fingertips, there is bound to be someone who does. For now, I just want to say this. You are talking about a huge amount of Joules, but when that gets converted to degrees C, it turns out to be extremely small. Please let me know if you respect what Bob Tisdale says. Because if not, I will not waste my time.
ReplyDelete“You said "You lost me here." - yes, I did. What is the slope? Define your error bars.” See the following in my September article:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:1996.8/plot/rss/from:1996.8/trend/plot/rss/from:1996.8/trend/detrend:0.216/plot/rss/from:1996.8/trend/detrend:-0.216/plot/rss/from:1996.8/trend/detrend:0.345/plot/rss/from:1996.8/trend/detrend:-0.345
In a later comment, I added this:
It is from 1996.83 that the slope is 0, so that explains the flat line. According to Nick's program, the error bars from November 1996 for RSS are “CI from -1.274 to 1.264”. This is per century, so it would be from -0.01274 to +0.01264 per year. So over a period of 16.92 years, the error bar goes to about +/- 16.9 x 0.01274 = 0.215. So I plotted the straight line from November 1996 and then detrended it +0.215 one time and -0.215 the next time. Then I did something similar with the SkS numbers except the numbers there were 0.345 instead of 0.215.
“Don't tell me you accept the GHE, but then kind of don't.”
Climate trends are affected by hundreds of things, and CO2 is just one of them. No one can give the exact percentage that is affected by CO2 alone. It is certainly NOT 100%. I do not know the exact percentage, but 20% to 30% could be in the ball park in my opinion, but I do not know for sure. The climate models are too high because the effect of CO2 was overestimated.
Werner Brozek
"Please let me know if you respect what Bob Tisdale says."
DeleteNo. Multiple unforced errors. or perhaps another example here demonstrating the failure of his models. He's not a reliable resource.
"Define your error bars.” See the following...
You are again making noise about nothing but noise.
Plenty of single point baseline issues, but more simply note that all of your short trends are statistically insignificant. And (the point you may have missed somewhere along the line) statistical significance is a one-sided test. The fact that in short time periods with variations a trend is not identifiable does not mean you have proven that there is no trend!!! For that you have to run a test for zero trend with a different null hypothesis, that of warming.
The trend errors over the time period include longer term warming, hence you have failed to find any statistical significance for "zero trend". And if you look at enough data to separate a warming trend from a zero trend - the trend is warming.
"No one can give the exact percentage that is affected by CO2 alone. It is certainly NOT 100%." - _False_.
Multiple attribution studies have found that the anthropogenic contribution to warming is 100% or greater, with natural forcings likely being negative contributors.
Either point to literature that succeeds in rebutting those eight different studies, or accept them as accurate - or be in denial.
KR
Climate trends are affected by hundreds of things, and CO2 is just one of them. No one can give the exact percentage that is affected by CO2 alone. It is certainly NOT 100%. I do not know the exact percentage, but 20% to 30% could be in the ball park in my opinion, but I do not know for sure. The climate models are too high because the effect of CO2 was overestimated.
DeleteHundreds of things eh? How many hundreds. What are the things.
Don't know for sure? He means he wouldn't have a clue.
Wouldn't have a clue but know for certain?
Great example of denialist garbage handwaving from Werner. Pure bullshit.
Regarding ocean warming, see Bob Tisdale at:
ReplyDeletehttp://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/07/04/rough-estimate-of-the-annual-changes-in-ocean-temperatures-from-700-to-2000-meters-based-on-nodc-data/
The final sentence is:
“Ocean heat content for the depths of 0-2000 meters is not a dataset in which one should have any confidence. It appears that it was introduced solely so that global warming enthusiasts could claim global warming continues.”
Also, Figure 5 shows an annual warming rate of 0.003 C/decade for the 1955 to 2002 period from 700 to 2000 m. I have no problem assuming this is true, but my reaction is “So what? It will never affect us since the air will be hotter for an extremely long time and heat flows from hot to cold.”
Werner Brozek
What's the purpose of regurgitating Bob's uninformative dribbling? So he thinks this is worth saying?
Delete"It appears that it was introduced solely so that global warming enthusiasts could claim global warming continues"
That statement has no value, other than to remind one that Bob can find nothing to say, and is happy to smear... "It appears"--Bob opines. He has no idea,and has made no attempt to find out. Pfft.
Your second cite is another example of 'Pfft.' Bob's personal incredulity is hardly of outward interest. It is merely revealing of Bob's ignorance. Does he understand how much energy that observation involves? Is climate science obsessing on that small piece of data? No.
Werner, you're avoiding, avoiding, avoiding. At this point I'm pretty sure that it's purposeful, is it not? Also, think for yourself man! "I will have to research what Bob Tisdale has to say about the ocean heat" - really??? Be a true skeptic and think for yourself. Who is Bob anyway? Some high priest? You really must watch the video that Sou put on this page - go find the data and be a true skeptic. A better comment would have been - "I will check the evidence you presented. I will also be skeptical of any biases I or other friends may have so that I can learn."
ReplyDeleteSo to the evidence. I will repeat it until you acknowledge your acceptance or denial of the data showing that the oceans have been warming the last 15 years:
Here's the data from NOAA: http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/heat_content55-07.png
http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/heat_content2000m.png
Do you deny that sea level has been rising and even accelerating its rise? If you understand the conservation of energy, then that is consistent with the data above in that part of the increase in sea level rise is coming from thermal expansion of water. Here's the sea level rise:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5e/Trends_in_global_average_absolute_sea_level%2C_1870-2008_%28US_EPA%29.png
Here's the thermal component of that rise:
http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/sl_therm_55-07.png
http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/sl_therm_2000m.png
You said, "See the following in my September article:" OK, now I see your errors. That was debunked above and you know it. Please respond to KR first and this comment won't do, "ENSO is a much stronger force than CO2." That comment simply shows you don't understand ocean heat and the law of conservation of energy. ENSO isn't stronger or weaker than CO2, it just transports the heat energy in the ocean around. ENSO can't be a source of energy - so what is? Think CO2 warming. What I just told you may help you answer the questions below that you're avoiding.
Now, for the fun part. You did another Gish Gallop (you really need to watch the video put by Sou above). I said "I don't care" about your opinions because we already have data. Answer the question I asked and you may learn something. I will keep repeating until you stop avoiding:
This is about understanding equilibrium temperatures and the conservation of energy...why doesn't the global temperature anomaly drop to zero? Hint- it can't be the sun because we've been receiving declining solar energy for decades. Extra hint - it can't be Milankovich cycles because the timescales are off by orders of magnitude.
O.K. I will accept your challenge. There is a saying that there is no need to reinvent the wheel. However I will accept your challenge for part of what you are saying and see where that leads us for now.
ReplyDeletePlease let me know where I have made an error. I will use the following and assume it is true.
http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/heat_content2000m.png
According to this diagram, the total heat increase is about 25 x 10^22 J over about 55 years.
The total mass of the ocean above 2000 m is 48% of the total mass of the ocean.
The total mass of the ocean is 1.37 x 10^21 kg.
The specific heat capacity of ocean water is 4000 J/kgK.
Applying H = mct, I get a change in t of
25 x 10^22 J/(0.48 x 1.37 x 10^21 kg x 4000 J/kgK) = 0.1 K. Is that correct? If so, it would take over 100 years for the top 2000 m to go up by 0.2 C. Is that supposed to be a problem for us?
Werner Brozek
HAHA! I'm not even sure what you're responding to! I asked you a few things...anyway, I'll run with it because I think (hope) you're starting to learn. First off, your calculation is not far off, the big thing you need to understand is that there's a gradient so the temperature change closer to the surface is much higher than below. Also, the temperature increases are greater in some areas of the earth then others, so 0.2 is low again. Second, it's the energy that's important not the change in temperature. I hope you now realize that your original post on WUWT was completely off in that the earth is still absorbing an additional ~10^22 joules per year in energy from AGW regardless if it is going into the ocean or having a major increase in surface temperature. The energy is stuck here below the CO2 in the atmosphere. Also, more energy is being continuously added and will be until CO2 levels go down. All you need are ENSO events (such as a strong El Nino) to take the energy from the ocean to the surface again and temperatures will rise quickly on the surface. Increasing the surface temperature is a lot easier than increasing the temperature of a large, fluid ocean so the increase will not just be 0.2 degrees. I think you now realize this point.
DeleteI'll call that progress if you now accept that global warming has happened over the last 15 years, although it was small on land and more significant in the ocean. Then, we're just down to "is that supposed to be a problem"? I'm happy to move on to that if you've gone from denying to accepting scientific data.
Also, my challenge at the end was related to my points above. I asked why doesn't the global temperature anomaly drop to zero? Do you now know the answer?
Linear extrapolations are for science deniers at WUWT, not for climate science (or HW).
DeleteIs ocean heating supposed to pose problems? Yes. And the problems will be many and complicated.
Movement of Marine Life Follows Speed and Direction of Climate Change
Climate Change Will Upset Vital Ocean Chemical Cycles, Research Shows
Fishery Collapse Near Venezuela Linked to Climate Change
And it's not just warmer oceans affecting fisheries and atmosphere, it's also ocean acidification.
Early victims of ocean acidification could go extinct this century or here.
Really, Werner. Like we've all been saying - go and look at the big picture. Give idiots like Perennially Puzzled Bob Tisdale a rest and go and read an IPCC report. Even just the summary for Policy Makers and the Technical Summary and maybe you will begin to grasp what we are doing to the earth system.
“HAHA! I'm not even sure what you're responding to!”
ReplyDeleteI was responding to:
“So to the evidence. I will repeat it until you acknowledge your acceptance or denial of the data showing that the oceans have been warming the last 15 years:
Here's the data from NOAA: http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/heat_content55-07.png
http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/heat_content2000m.png”
And just for discussion sake, I said I would assume the second graph is accurate and using those numbers with those HUGE amounts of Joules to prove it means a temperature change over a hundred years that is virtually meaningless.
“Second, it's the energy that's important not the change in temperature.“
I do not agree with that. If that same energy went into the air over the last 55 years, the air would have gone up about 500 times as much as 0.1 C or by about 50 C. But for all intents and purposes, the ocean is an infinite heat sink and it will make sure the air temperature cannot possibly get too far above the ocean surface temperature. That is just basic thermodynamics.
“I hope you now realize that your original post on WUWT was completely off in that the earth is still absorbing an additional ~10^22 joules per year”
We were told that a 2 degree C rise in air temperature would be dangerous. (I do not agree.) However the way I see it, the ocean, with its huge heat capacity, will prevent that from happening, so there is nothing to worry about.
“I'll call that progress if you now accept that global warming has happened over the last 15 years, although it was small on land and more significant in the ocean.”
O.K. I will accept that. However as long as the ocean acts as a huge buffer, I see nothing to worry about. And a 1998 El Nino every 15 years where the air temperature may go up by 0.3 C would not be catastrophic.
“I asked why doesn't the global temperature anomaly drop to zero? Do you now know the answer?”
Climate goes in cycles of various lengths such as the 60 year cycle (Akasofu) and 1000 year cycles such as was manifested by the MWP and LIA. (If you do not accept the evidence that there was a global MWP and LIA, then there is nothing further to discuss.) So it will drop to zero after we enter the next LIA. As to why the LIA happened, we know the sunspots were extremely rare for a long time during that period. And the sun is very quiet these days as well. See:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/05/04/natgeo-sun-oddly-quiet-hints-at-next-little-ice-age/
The next five years should be very interesting climate wise.
"SouNovember 10, 2013 at 2:06 PM
Linear extrapolations are for science deniers at WUWT, not for climate science (or HW).”
I completely agree that linear extrapolations are not for climate science! The reason I use lines is because the options on WFT is limited. In my article at:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/06/09/are-we-in-a-pause-or-a-decline-now-includes-at-least-april-data/
I used Akasofu and the response was very positive. All data sets seem to show cycles. And now we seem to be in a down cycle.
(P.S. In engineering, I studied no biology so I will leave your biology related comments for others. It is not that they are not important, but I am not qualified in that area. But feel free to comment on WUWT if that topic comes up.)
Werner Brozek
The fear factor of the conservative brain in action:
Deleteso there is nothing to worry about...
would not be catastrophic...
With a tinge of "an ice age cometh"
All data sets seem to show cycles. And now we seem to be in a down cycle.
But feel free to comment on WUWT if that topic comes up
Thanks, Werner. However WUWT blog owner Anthony Watts added a new unwritten censorship policy to prevent me from commenting at WUWT. He decided that he doesn't accept comments from people he regards as "clueless female eco-nuts".
From what I've been able to calculate, Anthony allows a maximum of around three people who understand science on WUWT at any one time. Any more and his idiocy is highlighted too much so he bans the extras.
Good that you now agree that global warming has been happening the last 15 years, just more so in the oceans. That's huge progress.
DeleteThis is wrong, though: "If that same energy went into the air over the last 55 years, the air would have gone up about 500 times as much as 0.1 C or by about 50 C. But for all intents and purposes, the ocean is an infinite heat sink and it will make sure the air temperature cannot possibly get too far above the ocean surface temperature. " The ocean is not an infinite heat sink and this is the point about ENSO - we are due for a major El Nino a la 1998 whereby energy from the ocean will make its way to the surface. Then the surface temperatures will rise significantly and quickly after which your old friends at WUWT (hopefully you're starting to realize that they've been disinforming you) will sing a different tune. You see they only talk about the recent slow increase in surface temps because the ocean heat growth damns their story. My original question about why doesn't the global temp anomaly disappear is focused on exactly the question they completely avoid - why doesn't the temperature drop if there's no CO2 warming? You see if there was no man-made CO2 warming, then the anomaly would disappear rather quickly just as it has done after recent solar-induced warmings in history. Unfortunately, the solar radiation has been declining for the last 30 years so this is not solar. The proof is obvious. There's no cycle Werner this time. The energy just keeps accumulating and so the temperatures keep going up.
Ok, then you took a turn for the worse in your post with "“I asked why doesn't the global temperature anomaly drop to zero? Do you now know the answer?” Climate goes in cycles of various lengths such as the 60 year cycle (Akasofu) and 1000 year cycles such as was manifested by the MWP and LIA." Wrong! As I stated above - no 60 year cycle can explain the fast rise in temperature over the last 150 years. Also, you're completely ignoring what you just agreed to. 10^22 joules/year just doesn't get hidden under the rug. Simple law of conservation of energy shows that the energy will stay and collect further so long as there's an energy imbalance of 10^22 joules per year. Your ocean calculation should have taught you that it's not a cycle. Quote data not some silly WUWT post...those links don't work out here in the real world.
Are you almost out of denial? Will you now go and read some real science like the IPCC?
I won't hold my breath. The IPCC reports are too much for Werner to handle. He almost looks as if he's ready to take one tentative step forward but each time he changes his mind and instead takes three steps back.
DeleteWerner still hasn't acknowledge that if it were his 60 year "cycles", the surface temperature anomaly today would be the same as it was in 1953 and 1893 (and of course it was hotter in 1953 than in 1893 anyway).
Humans won't see surface temperatures like those again for thousands of years unless there's an asteroid strike or a few super-volcanic eruptions or a massive nuclear war.
Looks like Werner accepts that the Earth is out of net energy balance, by enough to explain the rising heat content of the oceans; progress. But now he's drifted into "there must be cycles that explain this; it can't be anthropogenic GHGs."
DeleteNow he should read Feulner and Rahmstorf (2010) " On the effect of a new grand minimum of solar activity on the future climate on Earth":
http://www.pik-potsdam.de/~stefan/Publications/Journals/feulner_rahmstorf_2010.pdf
“Thanks, Werner. However WUWT blog owner Anthony Watts added a new unwritten censorship policy to prevent me from commenting at WUWT.”
ReplyDeleteMy experience from comments by moderators is that you can repeatedly make wrong science comments and not be banned, but it is usually how you say things that causes problems. For example, the following would never make it past the moderators:
"SouNovember 7, 2013 at 11:10 AM
Do you teach your grandma to suck eggs too? :D”
“The ocean is not an infinite heat sink”
The average temperature of the deep ocean is about 3 C. And we assume a gain of 0.1 C every 50 years, it would take 1000 years for the temperature to go up 2 C. Now of course if the forcing is exponential it would take less time, but we will be out of hydrocarbons and probably using nuclear fusion long before then. Just think of how much technology has changed over the last 100 years.
“The energy just keeps accumulating and so the temperatures keep going up.”
Over the last 100 months, GISS and Hadcrut4 show a negative trend. See http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/last:100/trend/plot/gistemp/last:100/trend
Will it continue that way for the next 100 months? No one knows.
“Simple law of conservation of energy shows that the energy will stay and collect further so long as there's an energy imbalance of 10^22 joules per year.”
And if all of this energy warms the deep ocean from 3 C to the average air temperature of 15 C, how long will it take?
“Your ocean calculation should have taught you that it's not a cycle.”
It is air temperatures that go in cycles so far, not ocean temperatures.
“there must be cycles that explain this”
The fact that temperatures seem to go in 60 year cycles is as apparent that over the course of a year, temperatures can go from -30 C to +30 C and back to -30 C where I live. Of course merely stating this observation does not explain why it happens.
From:
http://www.pik-potsdam.de/~stefan/Publications/Journals/feulner_rahmstorf_2010.pdf
“a new Maunder‐type solar activity minimum cannot offset the global warming caused by human greenhouse gas emissions.”
The last 15 years seemed to take the IPCC by surprise with the low increase in temperature.
As well the IPCC summary says: “Equilibrium climate sensitivity** is likely in the range 1.5 deg. C to 4.5 deg. C …”
To this a commentator said
“Indeed, the climate sensitivity of atmospheric CO2 is now as uncertain as it was in 1979 when a National Academy of Sciences report first established the same range of 1.5 to 4.5 deg. C (Charney et al., 1979). In other words, no refinement has been made in 34 years in determining how much warming is likely to result from a doubling of atmospheric CO2.“
Needless to say, the present knowledge of climate science combined with the last 17 years RSS does not make me panic about my grand children's future. But I will keep an open mind and could change it in 5 years from now. How about you?
Werner Brozek
Just a quick comment. Werner, Your experience from mods would be completely different from that of someone who accepted science. Anthony banned me directly because he didn't like my tweets. They showed up his double standards and his nasty streak (his nastiness towards Bill McKibben, when Bill was very gracious towards Anthony - if you followed the link).
DeleteAlthough from my first comments at WUWT ages ago when I was polite and courteous, I got nasty flames by WUWTers partic Smokey - who was at the time sockpuppeting - he was also a mod (DBS).
David Boehm Stealey's tactic was to flame the science types as Smokey. That was a dogwhistle to other WUWT-ers to pile on and join in with more flames. Then when the science type finally had enough of being attacked by all and sundry and reacted to the nasty comments, David/Smokey would ban or censor them wearing his mod hat (DBS).
It was a simple but quite effective system that worked well for Anthony until someone exposed Smokey as DBS.
The comment you quoted is mild as anything by WUWT standards. Of course if the writer accepts science then anything they say is unacceptable at WUWT.
If you reject science you can say pretty much anything at WUWT. If you accept science you are treated as and often called a troll no matter how polite you may be.
I don't know what the rest of your post is about. It reads as if you've trawled the web to justify something or the other. Is there a point you are trying to make?
I hope you do take some time to try to come to grips with climate science. The IPCC summaries are a good place to start. Or just pick a segment of the main report you are interested in, read that and then check out the references they provide and use Google scholar to look up the latest findings. It's a fascinating journey once you get started.
It is air temperatures that go in cycles so far, not ocean temperatures.
DeleteI wonder how that's supposed to work? And which bit of the air it's supposed to be. The lower troposphere perhaps? The upper troposphere? Air above the tropics? Air above the poles? Air above central England :)
Werner, you've had a relapse and, as Sou said, you seemed to have posted a whole bunch of stuff to try to prove something. It's not exactly coherent. The one thing I got is that you're back to denying that warming has occurred during the last 15 years. Let me remind you of our conversation earlier:
Delete"“I'll call that progress if you now accept that global warming has happened over the last 15 years, although it was small on land and more significant in the ocean.”
O.K. I will accept that. "
It's very simple, CO2 is causing an energy imbalance of ~10^22 joules per year. Sometimes that shows up more in the oceans (as in recent years) and sometimes it shows up more on land (as it has done since the mid-70s). Ocean currents eventually bring that heat from the ocean to the surface.
The rest of your post seemed like random nonsense, sorry, especially the part about air temperature cycles. Just for kicks - what's the mechanism for that? Do the air molecules somehow remember their old temperature and return? Why aren't we at the same global temperatures as in 1953? Why haven't the temperatures declined for decades? When was the last cold year record? As I've been asking and you have not been able to correctly answer - why hasn't the global temperature anomaly gone to zero? It just makes no sense.
It's simply a fact that the energy being kept in by CO2 just accumulates. That's ~10^22 per year, every year. Worse part is that the imbalance is getting worse because there's more CO2 in the atmosphere. It's simply the law of conservation of energy - no hocus pocus as in your "cycles" theory. Even when Judith Curry tried to find cycles recently, she "detrended" the data to remove the positive growth in energy and temperatures. She had to, even she'd admit to that.
As far as not panicking - that's your prerogative, but don't deny basic science because it's just silly. You don't look smart or strong by coming here to "defend yourself," especially if you deny data presented directly to you. You achieve those attributes by admitting mistakes and learning even if that means you discover that WUWT has been misinforming or even outright lying to you.
You can't deny that sea levels have been rising and even accelerating that rise. I hope your grandchildren don't live in Florida.
In my comments on WUWT, I try to stay away from personal comments such as describing someone a “religious nutter” nor do I wish to make comments about other people making what I consider to be inappropriate comments about anyone else. Nor am I interested in going through a bunch of blog posts to see who is right and who is wrong in a particular dispute. We all make mistakes and we all may not always express ourselves perfectly. Then some comments may be intended as sarcasm but it was not indicated as such and problems arise.
ReplyDeleteNow as for your science comments that were rejected, there are some topics that Anthony will not entertain. And out of over a thousand comments that I made the only one that was clipped was on barycenters. Now I know the “slayers” do not believe in the greenhouse effect at all. They also do not get much traction since Anthony does believe that CO2 is a greenhouse gas that causes SOME warming, but nothing alarming. The people who believe in barycenters or the “slayers” may also feel Anthony is denying science. So you may feel strongly about a different topic that you regard as scientific truth but that Anthony does not like. But these things are his call and I respect that.
As for what I was getting at, in a nutshell it is this:
The climate models are running way too high at present and there is too much uncertainty in the climate sensitivity for me to take the IPCC seriously at this time. But I will keep an open mind if things change.
Werner Brozek
I'm not talking about name calling. I'm talking about ordinary comments about climate science.
DeleteI'm not surprised you don't notice many comments at WUWT from people who accept climate science. They are few and far between. Those commenting get banned very quickly, if their comments even see the light of day in the first place.
In addition, there are lots of people who've said they got sick of their reasonable comments getting trashed by other commenters and they didn't bother going back. They quit before they got banned.
Just look at what happens to Nick Stokes when he comments at WUWT. He doesn't name call but he sure gets lots of flames when he makes a comment.
Why do you think it is that while 97% plus scientists accept climate science, 97% plus of WUWT-ers reject it? Or while 70% plus of the normal population accepts AGW almost all WUWT-ers reject it.
WUWT is a microcosm of science denial and conspiracy ideation. It attracts deniers and conspiracy theorists and repels (or bans) normal people. It's a comfortable home for the weird and wacky.
WUWT's own online survey shows it is 97% plus science deniers.
Anthony used to maintain a list of people (IP addresses maybe too) that would not get posted but would go into a moderation queue. He probably still does. That way he got to choose which posts went up and which were binned.
I have to laugh when I read WUWT-ers say that WUWT doesn't censor comments. When things get rough, then cut - is Anthony's motto.
"...Anthony does believe that CO2 is a greenhouse gas that causes SOME warming, but nothing alarming."
DeleteBelieve, believe, believe.
See, here's the thing... I believe inequality of the sexes, and the right to freedom as long as that freedom does not impinge on anyone else's (human or otherwise) in space or time. I believe in education for all, and I believe that without it (and likely in spite of it) human stupidity probably knows no bounds.
I don't "believe" in climate change or global warming. I do, however, accept the veracity of the best physical and climatological science and empirical evidence from my colleagues in those disciplines, and I accept the veracity of the science and the empirical evidence that I and my colleagues in ecology have produced.
When it comes to issues of fact rather than of opinion I don't rely on belief, except in the belief that objective and properly trained understanding trumps belief.
What you or Anthony Watts or any other denier of science believes is not worth even a square of toilet paper - the latter at least has some practical use.
As to your claim that "climate models are running way too high at present and there is too much uncertainty in the climate sensitivity" - well, that is just a reflection of your lack of real understanding of the science.
You condemn the worth of your beliefs by your own words, even as you believe your words and opinion to have any credibility (c.f Dunning-Kruger effect).
Bernard J.
“And which bit of the air it's supposed to be.”
ReplyDeleteSorry! I was talking about Hadcrut4 from 1850.
“The one thing I got is that you're back to denying that warming has occurred during the last 15 years.”
I accepted that warming occurred in the ocean over the last 15 years, but not on what RSS measured over the last 17 years. And I agree that other data sets show an extremely small amount of warming over 15 years in the air, by which I mean what Hadcrut4 measures. But Hadcrut4 measured way less than the average models projected.
“Just for kicks - what's the mechanism for that?”
Variations in solar output drive ENSO. I know you do not agree, but that is my answer for now.
“why hasn't the global temperature anomaly gone to zero?”
There is a lot of thermal inertia in the oceans and changes do not happen quickly. I predict it will happen within 10 years as the weak solar cycle continues. Be patient.
“That's ~10^22 per year, every year.”
I expect this number to get less as this solar cycle continues.
“Even when Judith Curry tried to find cycles recently, she "detrended" the data to remove the positive growth in energy and temperatures. She had to, even she'd admit to that.”
Is not her stadium wave article all about cycles?
http://judithcurry.com/2013/10/10/the-stadium-wave/#more-13302
“I hope your grandchildren don't live in Florida.”
We are in cold Canada. And if I had an extra thousand dollars that I had to spend either on carbon capture or more insulation for my house, I know what I would do.
Variations in solar output drive ENSO. I know you do not agree, but that is my answer for now.
DeleteAs usual, Werner, you ignore the science. I call it laziness. Pumping for an overly simplistic and very silly response. "It's the sun" is the denier's answer to everything, when they aren't claiming that "it's not happening" or "climate always changes" :(
The three phases of ENSO
More about ENSO including what drives it
In yet another sign of arm-waving and grabbing for support without actually understanding it - Wyatt and Curry's "stadium wave" paper starts with and uses linearly detrended data.
DeleteForcing changes over the last century are not linear - see the mid-century flattening in temps for evidence, or better yet look at the forcing records such as those used in the GISS model. As with various poorly based AMO papers, inappropriate linearly detrending the results of a rising and roughly sinusoidal forcing leaves behind a sinusoidal residual - which is not a cycle, but rather the result of incorrect data treatment.
All that and more - Werner, you are continuing your approach of throwing everything and anything at the wall in the hopes that something might stick, a Gish Gallop. You try to avoid admitting error, changing the subject to yet another excuse when pinned to the wall.
The only thing you are demonstrating with such tactics is that you have no actual support for your objections to AGW. That's a shame - when I first ran across your postings on various blogs I thought you might be truly interested in what the data might tell us. Since then, however, it has become more and more clear that you are tied to your confirmation bias (re)interpreting everything to fit your preconceptions.
At this point I do not consider further discussion with you to be worthwhile.
KR
Werner - re your air temperature "cycles" you wrote: Sorry! I was talking about Hadcrut4 from 1850.
ReplyDeleteHadCRUT is a measure of the surface temperature anomaly - land and sea surface. It's not air temperature. Satellites monitor air temperature at different heights as reported by UAH and RSS, but those records only go back to 1979 - falling short of your "60 years".
UAH and GISTemp are very closely aligned as you know, or you wouldn't be focusing on the single data series that stands out for being (slightly) different- RSS. Even with your RSS, you have to chop off most of the RSS data and only look at the most recent few years to try to wangle the answer you want.
You studiously avoid looking at *climate* change and *global* warming for whatever reason known only to yourself. You avoid the myriad changes in the oceans (not just heat content) and ignore every time series of temperature data, except for a very short period of a single data set, which you think gives you the "answer" you are looking for.
The global land and sea surface temperature anomaly as indicated by both HadCRUT and GISTemp demonstrate that much more than mere "cycles" are at work. Check the GISTemp chart in the article again. HadCRUT is similar. So is Berkeley Earth System's charts and they used completely different methods to determine the changes in global surface temperature.
If it was just your "60 year cycles", then the surface temperature now would be that of 1953, which in turn would have been that of 1893. Temperature are a lot different to that.
Instead it's much hotter now, despite the recent drop in incoming solar radiation and all the smog in Asia.
That's because of all the extra greenhouse gases we've tossed into the atmosphere from burning fossil fuels and clearing land and so forth.
Knowledgeable people have done the sums. You might not like the answer but it's head in the sand behaviour to deny it.
which was the year in which the warming stopped again?
ReplyDeleteGISS anomalies
1990 39
1991 38
1992 19
1993 21
1994 29
1995 43
1996 33
1997 46
1998 61 ************
1999 40
2000 40
2001 53
2002 61
2003 60
2004 52
2005 66
2006 60
2007 63
2008 49
2009 60
2010 67
2011 56
2012 58
2013 ?
So in your opinion, I totally misinterpreted Santer yet almost no climate models predicted that RSS would show no warming for 17 years.
ReplyDelete“As to your claim that "climate models are running way too high at present and there is too much uncertainty in the climate sensitivity" - well, that is just a reflection of your lack of real understanding of the science.”
I have an engineering degree so I know how science is supposed to work. You make a prediction and then see if the results match what you predict. If the results are way off, you need to find out why and change things. In climate science, it is obvious they were counting on large positive feedbacks via water vapour that did not materialize. That is why Hadcrut4 shows no warming for almost 13 years.
“except for a very short period of a single data set”
The article that was published 16 hours before the RSS article covered 6 data sets.
john byattNovember 11, 2013 at 4:23 PM
which was the year in which the warming stopped again?
For GISS, the slope is 0 since September, 2001. slope = -7.55786e-05 per year
See: http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/from:2001.66/plot/gistemp/from:2001.66/trend
“At this point I do not consider further discussion with you to be worthwhile.”
KR
SouNovember 11, 2013 at 5:14 PM
“It's a comfortable home for the weird and wacky.”
I see that it is time for me to leave. So long!
Werner Brozek
"which was the year in which the warming stopped again?
DeleteWerner Brozek: For GISS, the slope is 0 since September, 2001. slope = -7.55786e-05 per year"
----
How fascinating that you report the trend to 6 significant figures with no error bars. Competent scientific analyses quantify uncertainty, which was precisely the point of Santer et al. The SkS trend calculator can examine the GISTEMP trends and uncertainties for equal time spans before and after 2001:
1989-2001: 0.178 ±0.234 °C/decade
2001-2013: 0.019 ±0.181 °C/decade
The error bars overlap, showing that there hasn't been a statistically significant change in the surface warming rate.
FWIW, to demonstrate how things have not really changed consider splitting things in the following manner at SKS (GISTEMP, 12 month)
Delete1981-2001 0.158 +/- 0.107 C/decade
1986-2006 0.206 +/- 0.102
1991-2011 0.201 +/- 0.101
This clearly demonstrates that their has been no significant change in the underlying trend... You can play around but as long as your fitted interval is 15-20 yrs you can show the trend is quite robust...
Werner,
ReplyDeleteYou have lots of outstanding questions at this site: care to answer them before you go? Just a subset:
1) Did Mr Justice Burton find that the thesis of Gore's "Inconvenient Truth" was incorrect?
2) Did you look at the full essay by Robert Watson? If so, did you ask your original sources why they misrepresented his words?
3) "Variations in solar output drive ENSO. I know you do not agree, but that is my answer for now." How does the "variations in solar output drive ENSO" actually work?
4) Have you shared your acceptance that the Earth's energy budget is out of balance enough to warm the oceans by order 10^22 joules per year with Watts, Monckton etc? What did they say?
5) What is the evidence that solar variability alone can explain the LIA and the modern warming?
6) "It is air temperatures that go in cycles so far, not ocean temperatures." What is the origin of 60-year cycles in air temp?
7) {re CO2 contribution to temperature change} "I do not know the exact percentage, but 20% to 30% could be in the ball park in my opinion, but I do not know for sure." What are the time scales over which you expect that to be true, and what is your scientific basis for that statement?
PL
Well, looks like Werner ran home, tail between legs, cognitive dissonance out in full view. Sad, actually, as I also thought he was trying to learn.
ReplyDeleteOn the one hand, he said he accepted that there has been warming in the oceans. He knows it's on the order of ^10^22 joules per year. It shows no sign of stopping. Yet he says in response to my question, "“why hasn't the global temperature anomaly gone to zero?”
There is a lot of thermal inertia in the oceans and changes do not happen quickly. I predict it will happen within 10 years as the weak solar cycle continues. Be patient."
Now, I am a patient person, but I have my limits :) If the energy is going up by 10^22 joules a year, how the heck is the global temperature anomaly supposed to go down. Temperature simply can't go down according to the the law of conservation of energy if there's an energy imbalance in the positive direction (of the order of 10^22 joules per year)!
Then this one:
“Just for kicks - what's the mechanism for that?”
Variations in solar output drive ENSO. I know you do not agree, but that is my answer for now.
What? You just make stuff up and say "I know you do not agree"?!? Werner clearly shows the difference between a fake skeptic and true skeptic. A true skeptic questions their own biases before questioning those of others.
And finally:
"“Even when Judith Curry tried to find cycles recently, she "detrended" the data to remove the positive growth in energy and temperatures. She had to, even she'd admit to that.”
Is not her stadium wave article all about cycles?"
It is based on cycles Werner - DETRENDED cycles. Jeez Loueez. I had to yell that time.
KR is right. Werner is no true skeptic and does not want to learn. He believes in fake cycles that can make anomalies go to zero if we're just "patient" yet doesn't question why it hasn't happened yet. And can hold that thought in his brain while also simultaneously accepting the increase in ocean energy by ~10^22 joules per year over the last 15 years. Sad.
This might be a bit off topic, but just when I had Werner where I wanted him Anthony Watt stepped in and refused to publish my last post. I appealed to Anthony along the lines that this is the coupe de grace of my argument. But he went into denier mode. Here is that last message. Note link at bottom if you want see the post on WUWT that this this FB post is in responding to:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.facebook.com/jim.mcginn1/posts/10205160797642100?pnref=story
It certainly is weird to see someone like you come here and apparently complain about WUWT...
DeleteWell, if you want to go there, it doesn't seem weird at all that somebody like you responded to my comment in a manner that is completely political and non-substantive.
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