Unbalanced at WUWT: Earth's Energy Budget

Note: Greig's Thread has been moved to here.

This week WUWT's Serengeti Strategy is aimed fairly and squarely at Kevin Trenberth.   (Archived here.) Anthony Watts targeted Dr Trenberth earlier this week in his recent article about ENSO and the PDO and the impact on global surface temperatures. Now he's decided to have a shot at him over the Earth's energy budget.

I don't imagine Anthony or his followers have much of a clue about how the energy budget is calculated. Anthony posted a link to the Trenberth, Fasullo and Kiehl (2009) paper on the subject, but I imagine his eyes glazed over when they got to the first paragraph.  That's if he even started to read it.  I know my mind went a bit fuzzy trying to work through and remember all the different sources of data and the corrections and adjustments that were made.

In his article, Anthony discusses the differences over time between versions of the Earth's energy budget.  He compares a poster on the NASA website with the budget in the 2007 AR4 IPCC report and Trenberth09.  The AR4 diagram was from Kiehl and Trenberth 2007.

Now I don't have any problem with comparing different energy budgets over time.  It's an interesting exercise.  What Anthony does, though, is try to make out there is something shonky going on (using the word "revisionist") and that Kevin Trenberth at best made mistakes or was deceitful.  All of which is a deliberate disinformation tactic to stir up his loony science denying fans.  And, presumably, to make any normal person who strays to WUWT by accident, doubt the science.  (No normal person would venture to WUWT on purpose if they were seeking information.)

About the differences between AR4 (2007) and Trenberth09 Anthony wrote:

Note that in Trenberth’s 2009 paper, the energy from “back radiation” (from GHG action) value went up from 324 w/square meter cited by the IPCC in 2007 to 333 w/square meter. The net effect of that is increased energy back to Earth’s surface, making it warmer.

It seems odd that would increase so much, so quickly in two years. 

Of course it's not so much that the long wave downwelling radiation increased so much in two years, it's more that in the later paper the data were revised.  Other data were revised too, like the thermal radiation leaving the surface.  What it means is that the net absorption at the surface wasn't anything like 9 W/m² difference. Anthony continues, comparing the two earlier diagrams with the NASA poster:

Even more surprising, is that now, the value has been revised even higher, to 340.3 w/square meter, while at the same time, the “Net Absorbed” value, that extra bit of energy that we get to keep from the sun on Earth, thanks to increased GHG action, has gone DOWN.

Anthony speculated:

Perhaps the recent published works on climate sensitivity, coupled with observations of “the pause” have had some affect on these numbers as well. 

I'd say he's got that backwards.  Observations would help inform estimates of climate sensitivity not the other way around. He got one thing right, though.  Scientists will undoubtedly continue to work on refining estimates of the different components of the energy budget.

The latest IPCC energy balance

For some reason, Anthony didn't refer to AR5.  The diagram there is based on a still newer paper, by Martin Wild, Doris Folini, Christoph Schär, Norman Loeb, Ellsworth G. Dutton, and Gert König-Langlo, which I'll refer to as Wild12.  That paper draws on the work of a whole heap of people, including Kevin Trenberth and his colleagues.  Here is the energy balance diagram from Wild12 as presented in the IPCC report. Click it for a larger version:

Figure 2.11: Global mean energy budget under present day climate conditions. Numbers state magnitudes of the individual energy fluxes in W/m2, adjusted within their uncertainty ranges to close the energy budgets. Numbers in parentheses attached to the energy fluxes cover the range of values in line with observational constraints. Figure adapted from Wild et al. (2013). Source: IPCC AR5 WG1 page 2-127

Here is the chart from the NASA poster for comparison. (Click to enlarge.)

Source: NASA

For the nitpicker, here are the main differences between the NASA poster and the Wild12/IPCC diagrams.  First up, the NASA poster expresses the energy fluxes to one decimal place, but has no ranges.  The IPCC chart expresses the fluxes in whole numbers but includes ranges.  As for the numbers, here is where the diagrams agree (to the nearest whole number):

• Incoming solar TOA 340 W/m². 
• Solar reflected at the top of atmosphere 100 W/m². 
• Thermal up at the surface 398 W/m². 
• Net absorbed at the surface 0.6 W/m². 

And here is where the numbers differ (rounding to whole numbers in the case of the NASA poster):

• Total thermal outgoing 240 W/m² (NASA) vs 239 W/m² (IPCC)  
• Solar absorbed by the atmosphere - 77 W/m²  (NASA) vs 79 W/m²  (IPCC)
• Solar absorbed at the surface - 163 W/m²  (NASA) vs 161 W/m²  (IPCC)
• Solar reflected at the surface - 23 W/m² (NASA) vs 24 W/m² (IPCC)
• Solar reflected by clouds and the atmosphere - 77 W/m²  (NASA) vs 76 W/m²  (IPCC)
• Thermal down at the surface - 340 W/m² (NASA) vs 342 W/m² (IPCC)
• Latent heat of evaporation - 86 W/m²  (NASA) vs 84 W/m²  (IPCC)
• Sensible heat at the surface (conduction and convection) - 18 W/m² (NASA) vs 20 W/m² (IPCC)

When the numbers are summed, the NASA poster has a 0.6 W/m². difference at the top of atmosphere and a 0.6 W/m². net absorbed at the surface.

The IPCC diagram has ranges and uses whole numbers so it sums to 1 W/m² difference at the top of atmosphere.  At the bottom of the IPCC chart it shows 0.6 W/m². net absorbed at the surface.

The energy numbers at the top of atmosphere are the same for both, allowing for rounding. The main difference between the charts is how energy is apportioned.  That is, the apportioning of the energy absorbed and reflected within in the atmosphere vs that absorbed and reflected at the surface. Yet the differences are not that great.

Settled vs Unsettled Science

Like all fake sceptics, Anthony doesn't know what is meant by "settled science". Most particularly not when it comes to climate science but I don't expect he would understand it when it comes to any branch of science.  And like all disinformers, Anthony pretends that if science changes it means that either "all the science is wrong" or the "science is a hoax" or scientists are just making stuff up.  You'd think he'd have figured out by now that the reason people do research is to refine and add to knowledge.  And there will always be new things to learn.

The "more settled science" is the energy flux at the top of atmosphere.  The satellites do a good job of monitoring this.

The "unsettled science" is how energy is apportioned within the atmosphere and between the atmosphere and the surface.  Not only is it difficult to get measurements and use them to calculate the various parts, but I would expect values would vary over time.  Not just on a minute by minute, hour by hour, season by season basis.  It will undoubtedly change as the climate changes - there may be more or less clouds in the future.  Different types of clouds may predominate in future climates. Vegetation patterns change over time.  Ice is certainly melting.  And so on.

Where do the measurements come from?

The source of data used to calculate the various components of the energy budget has changed quite a bit over the years, going by the papers.  Here is what Wild12 states:

In the present study, we do not only rely on satellite observations, but make extensive use of the information contained in radiation measurements taken from the Earth surface, to provide direct observational constraints also for the surface fluxes. Such observations become increasingly available from ground-based radiation networks. We use these observations to assess the radiation budgets as simulated in the latest modeling efforts performed within the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) for the upcoming 5th IPCC assessment report (IPCC-AR5) (Sects. 3, 4). We further combine the surface observations with these models to infer best estimates of the global mean surface radiative components (Sect. 4). 

Anthony and his deniers wouldn't like that much, combining surface observations with models to infer best estimates.  Many of them would prefer their models to come in glossy magazines or perhaps matchboxes (surprisingly, these still exist).

One of the important constraints commonly used is ocean heat content, for example.  Another thing worth noting is that CERES doesn't have a thermal channel (outgoing longwave radiation).  Wild12 states that at the top of atmosphere, "thermal daytime radiances are determined from the difference between the total and solar channel radiances".

There is a lot of detailed explanation in all the papers of just how the energy budget is put together.  It makes for heavy reading, but it's not hard to follow if you take the time and concentrate. The main difficulty I had, not being familiar with the subject, was keeping track of all the components and data sources.  There is a lot of jargon to learn, but the acronyms and terms are well explained in each of the papers.

From the scientists - the ones who work out the energy budget

In regard to working out the details of the energy budget, here are some quotes just from the three papers I've referred to here.

The first quote is from Kiehl and Trenberth (2007), to show that people have been considering this matter for some time - like almost a hundred years.  Also where the biggest hurdles lay at the time.

There is a long history of attempts to construct a global annual mean surface–atmosphere energy budget for the earth. The first such budget was provided by Dines (1917). Over the years improvements in estimating the global annual mean energy budget have resulted from satellite observations. In particular, the narrowed uncertainty in the planetary albedo and outgoing longwave radiation (e.g., Hunt et al. 1986) have greatly improved our understanding of the earth’s energy budget. Recently, global satellite-derived estimates of precipitation have also aided (through conservation of moisture) in determining the annual global mean surface latent heat flux. Despite these important improvements in our understanding, a number of key terms in the energy budget remain uncertain, in particular, the net absorbed shortwave and longwave surface fluxes.

This next one is from Trenberth, Fasullo and Kiehl (2009). I chose this particular passage because it gives a glimpse of the complexities.  There are a lot of things to account for when working out the energy budget in the detail. That's why so many different sources of data are required - including data from satellites and measurements taken at the surface. (My paras).

Weather and climate on Earth are determined by the amount and distribution of incoming radiation from the sun. For an equilibrium climate, OLR [outgoing longwave radiation] necessarily balances the incoming ASR [absorbed solar radiation], although there is a great deal of fascinating atmosphere, ocean, and land phenomena that couple the two.

Incoming radiant energy may be scattered and reflected by clouds and aerosols or absorbed in the atmosphere. The transmitted radiation is then either absorbed or reflected at the Earth’s surface. Radiant solar or shortwave energy is transformed into sensible heat, latent energy (involving different water states), potential energy, and kinetic energy before being emitted as longwave radiant energy.

Energy may be stored for some time, transported in various forms, and converted among the different types, giving rise to a rich variety of weather or turbulent phenomena in the atmosphere and ocean. Moreover, the energy balance can be upset in various ways, changing the climate and associated weather.

The final quote is from Wild12. I've left the references in deliberately to give some idea of the amount of work done over the years and the number of different people doing the work:

Despite the central role of the global energy balance in the climate system, substantial uncertainties exist in the quantification of its different components, and its representation in climate models, as pointed out in numerous studies published over the past decades (e.g., Hartmann and Short 1980; Hartmann et al. 1986; Ramanathan et al. 1989; Gutowski et al. 1991; Ohmura and Gilgen 1993; Pinker et al. 1995; Li et al. 1997; Gleckler and Weare 1997; Kiehl and Trenberth 1997; Wild et al. 1998; Gupta et al. 1999; Hatzianastassiou and Vardavas 1999; Potter and Cess 2004; Raschke and Ohmura 2005; Trenberth et al. 2009; Trager-Chatterjee et al. 2010; Ohmura 2012; Qian et al. 2012; Wild 2012; Stephens et al. 2012a, b). This becomes also evident when comparing different schematic diagrams of the global energy balance published in text books or in the peer-reviewed literature, which often vary greatly in the numbers given therein representing the magnitudes of these energy flows in terms of global means (e.g., Kiehl and Trenberth 1997; Trenberth et al. 2009; Wild et al. 1998; Raschke and Ohmura 2005; Wild 2012; Stephens et al. 2012b).

Anthony Watts thinks that all the data comes from CERES instruments.  (Willis Eschenbach at WUWT plays with CERES data a lot, and because he doesn't understand it makes all sorts of fundamental errors.)  Anthony wrote, for example (my bold italics):

Note that somehow, between 2009 and the present, it was decided (presumably based on CERES measurements) that the Net Absorbed value (which is the extra energy absorbed that would result from increased GHG’s) would go DOWN from 0.9 w/square meter to 0.6w/square meter – an decrease of one third of the 2009 value.

Actually, that figure is the same as that derived by Wild12.  If Anthony wanted to, he could read the paper and see how it was derived. With satellites, the derivation of top of atmosphere energy fluxes is getting very accurate.  It's in the atmosphere and at the surface (including, probably, within the oceans) that it's very difficult to get measurements that can give meaningful numbers at the global level.  Here is how Wild12 explains it:

Knowledge on the energy exchange between Sun, Earth and space has recently been improved through new satellite missions such as the Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Energy System (CERES, Wielicki et al. 1996) and the Solar Radiation and Climate Experiment (SORCE, Anderson and Cahalan 2005). These allow the determination of the top of atmosphere (TOA) radiative flux exchanges with unprecedented accuracy (Loeb et al. 2012).

Much less is known, however, about the energy distribution within the climate system and at the Earth surface. Unlike the fluxes at the TOA, the surface fluxes cannot be directly measured by satellites. Instead, they have to be inferred from the measurable TOA radiances using empirical or physical models to account for atmospheric attenuation and emission, which introduces additional uncertainties. Uncertainties in the components of the surface radiation budget are thus generally larger and less well quantified than at the TOA. Debated are, for example, the partitioning of solar energy absorption between the atmosphere and surface, as well as the determination of the thermal energy exchanges at the surface/atmosphere interface (e.g., Raschke and Ohmura 2005; Wild 2008, 2012; Trenberth et al. 2009; Stephens et al. 2012b).

The above highlights again just where there is "unsettled science".  Notice particularly how Wild12 refers to the thermal energy exchanges at the surface/atmosphere interface.  Also the reference to how much solar energy is absorbed in the atmosphere before it reaches the surface.

Countering the Serengeti Strategy

Now go back to Anthony Watts mockery of the work that people have been able to do.  He says of the latest changes to the energy budget that: "It seems to be a clear case of observations trumping Trenberth".

There's the Serengeti Strategy in action.  Anthony doesn't mention Kevin Trenberth's co-authors, John Fasullo or J. T. Kiehl.  He doesn't give a hint of all the other people who've worked on this subject over the years, including the team that wrote the paper featured in the IPCC AR5 report.  He doesn't mention the fact that even on the NASA poster itself there is another paper referenced, that of Loeb et al (2009), which has a whole other team.  Nor does he mention the fact that there are papers relating to the energy budget being published all the time.  Some look in depth at different components, other at the global picture all up. Here's a Google search just since 2013.

And since Anthony is just another denier who doesn't even know where the observations come from or anything else about the data, who thinks that all the data for the Earth's energy budget comes from CERES, Anthony comes across as just another nutter when he talks about "observations trumping Trenberth".

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Kiehl, J. T., and Kevin E. Trenberth. "Earth's annual global mean energy budget." Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 78, no. 2 (1997): 197-208.

Loeb, Norman G., Bruce A. Wielicki, David R. Doelling, G. Louis Smith, Dennis F. Keyes, Seiji Kato, Natividad Manalo-Smith, Takmeng Wong, 2009: Toward Optimal Closure of the Earth's Top-of-Atmosphere Radiation Budget. J. Climate, 22, 748–766. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/2008JCLI2637.1

Trenberth, Kevin E., John T. Fasullo, and Jeffrey Kiehl. "Earth's global energy budget." Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 90, no. 3 (2009): 311-323.

Wild, Martin, Doris Folini, Christoph Schär, Norman Loeb, Ellsworth G. Dutton, and Gert König-Langlo. "The global energy balance from a surface perspective." Climate Dynamics (2012): 1-28.

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From the WUWT comments

Here is a selection of comments from WUWT (archived here). The first comment is amazingly reasonable. Rob Long says, presumably referring to Anthony scoffing at the changes over time and maybe to his pointing that at the surface, the net absorption changed from 0.9 W/m² to 0.6 W/m²:

January 17, 2014 at 12:22 am
This is not surprising given the tiny fraction of the “imbalance” relative to the total incoming energy.

It would be remarkable if reliable measurements could be made to this level of accuracy given all the variables involved.

Expect to see this number changed again and again.

PetterT hopefully asks if CO2 has stopped working:

January 17, 2014 at 12:24 am
What is the uncertaity of these figures +/- ? Maybe net absorbed due to CO2 is zero?

jim asks, quite a reasonable question - he could find the answer in the papers if he was so inclined:

January 17, 2014 at 1:04 am
How accurate are those measurements?
The result is 0.2% of the measurements.
If each had a 0.1% accuracy, the error could be up to 0.7 w/m2

phillipbratby is a greenhouse effect denier of the "slayer" type and says:

January 17, 2014 at 2:10 am
Yes, and you would have thought by now that they would have realised that recycled radiation (back radiation) cannot add heat to the surface from which it originated in the first place.

Frank adds some value and says:

January 17, 2014 at 2:21 am
Anthony wrote: “Note that somehow, between 2009 and the present, it was decided (presumably based on CERES measurements) that the Net Absorbed value (which is the extra energy absorbed that would result from increased GHG’s) would go DOWN from 0.9 w/square meter to 0.6w/square meter – an decrease of one third of the 2009 value.”

Since most of net absorbed heat ends up warming the ocean (supposedly 93%), the Net Absorbed Energy is probably calculated from the amount of warming of the ocean. Increasing amount of ARGO data has allowed a more accurate calculation for Net Absorbed Energy.
Net Absorbed Energy can not be calculated from the other values shown in these diagrams because the uncertainty in these values is far too high to say whether the net is positive (warming temperature) or negative (cooling temperature). DLR and latent heat have changed by 7 and 6 W/m2 – a changes that are 10-fold the net absorbed energy.

SWR, reflected SWR, and escaping LWR are measured from space reasonably well (+/1 W/m2?).

Downward LWR is being measure at some locations, but we don’t have reliable planet-wide coverage. The value shown probably comes from re-analyses made with climate models forced to fit observations, not direct observation. Latent heat can be easily calculated from precipitation (rain and snow). We have more data on precipitation from satellites which probably accounts for the 8% increase in latent heat. There is relatively little information about the amount of energy leaving the surface via thermals. In his 2009 paper, Trenberth chose this number so that there would be a net +0.9 W/m2 imbalance at the surface. He probably did the same thing here.

Gail Combs decides what the "warmists" do and says (excerpt):

January 17, 2014 at 2:35 am
...The warmists always leave out TIME (nanoseconds) and day and night. As another commenter said they live on a flat earth with the sun always shining at 1/4 energy. They should be careful not to fall of the edge.

I've absolutely no idea what notion johnmarshall has rattling around in his noggin when he says:

January 17, 2014 at 2:41 am
Total rubbish AGAIN.
So NASA believes in a NON rotating planet, seems funny given their experience in space, and insolation at a level that would not drive the water cycle. TOTAL NON-REALITY which means a model that assumes an impossible process, the GHE, and no process to actually start that impossible process or any feedback to control it at the levels claimed.
See me after school Kevin.

timspence10 suffers from personal incredulity and says:

January 17, 2014 at 3:38 am
Maybe it’s just me but these graphics appear to made of ‘wishful thinking’, it’s nice to see their thinking sketched out in that format but the rest (the science part) leaves me with the impression that they are stabbing in the dark. Too many variables are treated as constants and also, the incoming energy is a fuzzy composite of IR, UV and visible spectrum, all of which vary and have different absorption and reflection properties. Too much averaging going on for me.

Joe Chang wants to include photosynthesis.  (He doesn't mention ocean waves or animal metabolism or bacterial growth or insects.) He says:

January 17, 2014 at 8:35 am
I am still curious as to why the energy balance diagram does not show photosynthesis? Is the net absorbed heat go to global warming or to support plant growth? If 186W/m2 of sunlight reaches the surface, say for example if 20% of the surface is involved in photosynthesis (including stuff that grows in the water/ocean) with a conversion of 3-6%, that would work out to 1-2W/m2. Does the global warming model assume no plant growth?

Michael Moon is another "slayer" and "ilker" too, he says:

January 17, 2014 at 8:48 am

“Back Radiation!”

This is a figment of the imagination. The atmosphere does not heat the Earth’s surface, as the atmosphere is cooler than the Earth’s surface virtually everywhere and always. And, more importantly, the atmosphere does not heat itself.

A Pyrgeometer is a very dangerous instrument in the hands of a “Climate Scientist.” Point it at the sky, read some Watts/M2, and conclude that the atmosphere heats the Earth’s surface because you are measuring a flux. Apparently Trenberth and his ilk are ignorant of the Second Law. How they got themselves these jobs, not knowing that, is a failure of our society.

CO2 does absorb and thermalize IR in the 15-micron band. This is not strictly speaking Heat Transfer, but an electrical effect, same way a microwave oven works. The entire atmosphere absorbs and radiates heat, as does all matter above absolute Zero.

I hope everyone on here understands all this, not just one or two of you which is what seems to be a fair assumption after reading these comments…

Which is a suitable note on which to end the comments from the WUWT Illiterati Society.

Bob Tisdale asks the wrong people the wrong question @wattsupwiththat

Preamble

I started writing this after Bob Tisdale's article at WUWT about climate models (archived here).  Since then Bob has announced he is quitting full time hypothesising about leprechauns warming the oceans and has opted for more gainful employment.  He tells us that he's not able to earn a living from rejecting climate science. He warns that we haven't seen the last of his magical musings, it's just going to be on a part-time basis from here on in.

You'll note that Anthony Watts has implied at WUWT that none of "big oil" and "big coal" and Donor's Trust think much of Bob's "oceans warm by magic" and other equally silly hypotheses. (Archived here.)  They are more strategic with their political investments and don't waste money on mickey mouse denier bloggers preaching only to the denier chorus.  Their focus would be on trying to con normal people and influencing people of influence, not two-bit denier bloggers. (Click here for Robert Brulle's paper in Climatic Change, with 120 page supplement here. And here for the related article in Nature News.)

Greenhouse effect denier Bob Tisdale has come up with seven questions that he wants policy makers to put to climate scientists (archived here).  I don't know if he wants them to ask any or all climate scientists or only those who work with complex earth system models.  He doesn't say.  His article has the title:

Questions Policymakers Should Be Asking Climate Scientists Who Receive Government Funding

I'll argue that Bob is asking the wrong questions of the wrong people.  (I'd also argue that Perennially Puzzled Bob Tisdale is not in a position to be asking questions of anyone until he makes the effort to learn some basic science himself.)

What Bob does is complain that climate models aren't any good.  By that I think he means that climate models are not perfectly aligned with observations. I say to Bob, show me a model, any model, of anything, that is.

This article is long so I've put in a page break.  If' you're on the home page, click here to read on.

Monckton emits a silent scream - and gets the IPCC report wrong (as usual)

Christopher Monckton of Brenchley, otherwise known as the potty peer (among other things) is suffering memory loss.  Well, he probably always was batty so this will not come as a surprise to anyone.

Today Anthony Watts, who doesn't care what nonsense he publishes as long as it is anti-science, put up an article by Christopher Monckton that doesn't make a lot of sense. (Archived here.)

The headline reads:

IPCC silently slashes its global warming predictions in the AR5 final draft

Aside from being very late to the party, that's very odd for a couple of reasons.  First it implies that Christopher Monckton was hoping for a "talking" book from the IPCC.  Maybe so he could listen when he's on the train or maybe because his eyesight is failing.  Could someone tell Christopher that there are software programs around that will read text aloud.  All he needs is a computer with speakers or headphones and he can hear the sounds.

Secondly, Christopher can't have read the report properly if he thinks that global warming predictions have been "slashed".  Here is how Ed Hawkins responded:

@latimeralder @wattsupwiththat (1) This is the first 'prediction' the IPCC has made. (2) Observations within range of previous projections.
— Ed Hawkins (@ed_hawkins) January 2, 2014

As Ed Hawkins explained rather clearly and well - oh, more than three months ago now (Christopher is also behind the times):

The AR5 includes, for the first time, a specific chapter and assessment on ‘near-term’ climate change, which covers the period up to 2050, but with a specific focus on the 2016-2035 period.

The near-term period is interesting because the projections can be verified rather soon and because understanding the changes over this period may be relevant for adaptation decision making. This period is also relatively insensitive to the particular emissions scenario, although aerosol emissions decline quite rapidly in all RCPs which may be slightly unrealistic. However, the near-term is made complicated because of the role of climate variability.

The IPCC has made a probabilistic assessment of how global temperatures are projected to evolve over the next 20 or so years, which is valid for all RCPs, but with a few caveats such as no future large volcanic eruptions.

To find out more about the short term estimates for global temperatures, I recommend Ed Hawkin's blog article.

Now Christopher rabbits on about "climbdowns" and "overestimates" which is nothing but wishful thinking on his part.  He persists in using monthly charts of global temperature so he can hide the signal in among the noise of weather.

It's going to get hotter

Regular readers will have seen the following charts more than once, but for those of you who are new to the subject, or those of you who've barely subsisted on a diet of denial up to now, here they are again:

It's going to get hotter if we don't do something about it.  For some unknown reason, Christopher Monckton believes that future temperatures have either stopped or will proceed at exactly the same rate as they have over some period in the past or something else.  It's never easy to work out just what the potty peer is trying to say.  At one stage he was pushing for David "funny sunny" Archibald's "ice age by 2020" prediction.

Australia has just broken multiple heat records, including 2013 being the hottest year on record.  Large parts of the country have been suffering another near record-breaking heat wave, with known hot regions recording near highs (almost 50 degrees at Moomba).  And it's not even been an El Nino year.  It's a long, long time since there has been a "coldest year on record" - probably for almost any region on Earth that has several decades of temperature records, and certainly for the world as a whole.

Many scientists have found through their research that if we don't cut emissions enough, Earth will rise by four degrees above the temperatures of the early twentieth century.  That will spell disaster for a lot of people.  Roger Bodman and David Karoly, for example, in a paper published in Nature Climate Change back in May last year found

...an increased probability of exceeding a 2 °C global–mean temperature increase by 2100 while reducing the probability of surpassing a 6 °C threshold for non-mitigation scenarios.

More recently, Steven Sherwood et al have just had a paper published in Nature about the behaviour of clouds in a warming world, and Steven discusses the implications:

"When the processes are correct in the climate models the level of climate sensitivity is far higher. Previously, estimates of the sensitivity of global temperature to a doubling of carbon dioxide ranged from 1.5°C to 5°C. This new research takes away the lower end of climate sensitivity estimates, meaning that global average temperatures will increase by 3°C to 5°C with a doubling of carbon dioxide."

The bottom line is that if we don't cut emissions of CO2 enough, the world will continue to heat up and that will pose a lot of big challenges to many people and in many fields of endeavour.  Not least of which will be fishing, agriculture, food production, infrastructure maintenance, liveability in many regions and general quality of life and its affordability.

People like poor old Christopher Monckton, who complains that the IPCC didn't provide a read-aloud version of its reports, and has forgotten that he first read the IPCC report months ago.  He was even an "expert reviewer" at one stage but I guess he's forgotten that little fact - or forgotten that he's already written ad nauseum about it.

Christopher can't read a chart

Christopher Monckton has quite a reputation for telling bald-faced lies.  For example, in only the second paragraph of his article at WUWT, Christopher writes:

Official projections of global warming have plummeted since Dr. James Hansen of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies told the U.S. Congress in June 1988 the world would warm by 1 Cº every 20 years till 2050 (Fig. 1), implying 6 Cº to 2100.

I found nowhere in Dr Hansen's testimony any prediction or projection to 2050.  Nor could I find any example of his saying or even suggesting that the world will warm by one degree every twenty years.  Christopher put up this chart saying it was from Dr Hansen's testimony:

Source: WUWT

Which is similar to the actual chart from Dr Hansen's testimony, except Monckton's chart has the temperature in degree Kelvin for some strange reason and he's shifted around the labels.

Source: Hansen's 1988 testimony

If you look at the charts above, neither of them go to 2050. Nor do either of them, under any scenario, show a rise of one degree in twenty years.  Since 1960, Scenario A, which is the most extreme, shows a rise of almost 1.6 degrees to 2019. From 2000 to 2019, scenario A and B show a rise of around 0.7-0.8 degrees and nearly 0.6 degrees respectively.

Of course that's not to say that over the coming century the global temperatures won't rise more quickly in some decades, or more slowly in other decades.  The latest estimates suggest a rise of four degrees above temperatures in the early 1900s is quite on the cards by 2100 if we don't cut emissions enough.  And it will continue to rise after that as long as we're adding CO2 to the air in greater quantities than it's removed.

Here are the longer term projections for different choices we make about how much CO2 we will throw into the air.

Source: IPCC AR5 WG1 Summary for Policy Makers

Christopher's getting on in years like me, so he may not suffer too much.  So he can go gallivanting about complaining that he isn't allowed in the House of Lords and doesn't believe that Obama is President of the USA and that he's found a cure for AIDS and other crank ideas, like global warming isn't happening.  And Anthony Watts can promote as many crazies as he wants to on his anti-science blog.  It won't change a thing.

From the WUWT comments

GlynnMhor is a dinky di fake sceptic, not bothering to check any of Christopher's "claims".  He is one of the gullible dismissives, assuming he's witnessing the biggest hoax in human history - that all the thousands of scientists in the world who study various parts of Earth systems are "lying" and says:

January 1, 2014 at 6:01 pm
I generally tend to trust those recognized to be experts in their field, when they’re talking about their field, at least.

But once these ‘experts’ have been caught out in lie after lie after lie, their credibility in my mind declines markedly.

Janice Moore says (excerpt - okay, I'm having fun with the shouty god-botherer Janice):

January 1, 2014 at 6:55 pmHear, hear, Christopher Monckton. Well done! Thank you for the truth-in-science tour de force.

Damned out of their own mouths:...

...They must think we’re a bunch of morons.

Yep, Janice. For once you hit the nail on the head!

mib8 says innocently (excerpt):

January 1, 2014 at 10:42 pm
OK, folks, here’s something I don’t get in these graphs or some of the earlier ones. If there is a non-negative “anomaly” I’ve always understood it to mean that global warming is happening. Whether it is 0.001 degree or 0.1 degree or 0.9 degree or 2 degrees, it’s still “warming”....

...So, why do all of the graphs seem to show some global warming over the last 17-18 years, when several postings have said that the data show no global warming over that period? I’m not trying to be annoying; I just don’t understand.

M Courtney is another deluded denier that has no sense of time or just how fast is this change we are causing, and impatiently asks "are we there yet?":

January 2, 2014 at 12:49 am
It is worth noting that the rise in temperatures has never been considered catastrophic or even problematic.

It is the rate of rise in temperatures that was potentially disastrous.

So when does the expected change become so slow that we can adapt easily?
Probably when the effects of warming are slower than the natural wear-and-tear on infrastructure; we will adapt at no extra cost then.

Have we hit that point?

Richard Betts decides enough is enough and says:

January 2, 2014 at 3:28 am
How can something be “quietly cut” when it was only a draft in the first place?
Monckton makes it sound like the IPCC noisily made some predictions, and then secretly changed them afterwards, but this is the exact opposite of what really happened. The Second Order Draft was, as the name suggests, a draft. The IPCC specifically says that the earlier drafts are just preliminary, not the final conclusions, and indeed it asked authors and reviewers not to circulate the drafts specifically because it didn’t want people thinking that the draft conclusions were the final ones.

The drafts will be officially published later as a matter of public record, along with the review comments and author responses, so the evolution of the report will be clear.

This is a totally manufactured criticism.

Boris Gimbarzevsky does a grand imitation of a deluded denier (will someone call Poe?) and says:

January 2, 2014 at 5:21 am
I wouldn’t put it past the IPCC to suddenly announce that it had been wrong all along and that increasing atmospheric CO2 concentrations causes global cooling. All it would take would be just changing the signs of a few variables in their models and quickly readjusting historical global temperature data to show it was warmer in the past.

Given the propensity for the majority of individuals to not remember what happened decades ago and believe what authority figures tell them, likely such a preposterous scheme would be noticed only by those who are suspicious by nature and question authority. With a mere flip of the presumed effects of CO2 on world temperature, suddenly the models would fit far better and would predict a new ice age in a century. The only question is whether people would accept the huge reductions in fossil fuel consumption which would be imperative to prevent the next ice age according to “experts”? While such a reversal of the IPCC’s position might seem far fetched, it is more plausible than Trenbeth’s “missing heat” and it appears that no theory is too implausible for this group of kleptocrats if it furthers the watermelon agenda of a deindustrialized world.

Gavin Schmidt on Advocacy and Judith Curry's "missing element"

I don't know how many people saw Gavin Schmidt give the Stephen Schneider Lecture at the AGU Falll Meeting this year.  It's worth watching - more than once.  Here it is:

What should a climate scientist advocate for? The Intersection of Expertise and Values in a Politicized World

Stephen Schneider Lecture by Dr Gavin  Schmidt, NASA at AGU Fall Meeting, December 2013

Stephen Schneider was a science communicator who understood intimately the roles of expertise and values in raising public awareness and in discussing both problems and solutions to issues of public concern. With a new generation of climate scientists stepping up to the microphone, what are the lessons to be learned from his experiences? I will discuss the ethical issues associated with being both a scientist and a human being, the importance of honesty - to oneself and to ones audience - and how this can be effective. I will also discuss how scientists can find a role for themselves in advocating what they feel strongly about and how to avoid some common pitfalls and problems. Above all, I will present a picture of how one can try to be both a public voice and a good scientist, and how these roles, in the end, reinforce one another.

What climate science disinformers advocate

Judith Curry, a climate scientist who mostly seems to advocate for global warming, has written an article about Gavin Schmidt's lecture. Despite or perhaps because of her own personal experience as an advocate, Judith writes (archived here):

I have long stated that scientists advocating for public policy can lead to distrust of scientists and their scientific findings.

Gavin Schmidt argued that scientists should be clear about their personal values when discussion climate science and the implications and when advocating courses of action. Gavin Schmidt also stated that it is irresponsible to misrepresent or hide values.

I haven't seen Judith clearly expressing her values when she advocates doing nothing to limit emissions.  One can only speculate.

In her blog article, Judith makes a statement and poses some questions, which are suggestive of her policy position and her values.  But she does not explicitly state either her policy position or her values in detail as relevant to this subject.  I'll leave it to readers to see if they can figure them out.

Judith's general approach on her blog and in various testimonies (eg to US government hearings) is to avoid or misrepresent science.  She has even gone so far as to recommend that scientists stop reporting climate science to governments by saying that "the IPCC should be put down".  She pretends that much more is "unknown" and "uncertain" than it really is.  She has argued that rather than reduce emissions we should improve weather forecasting, as if that's an either/or decision.

The rest of this article is about Judith's implied advocacy in the light of Gavin Schmidt's lecture.  It's rather long so if you are on the home page, click here to continue reading.

Climate video from the IPCC - We Have a Choice

This video is very good, particularly for explaining to non-scientists just what we are doing to our Earth (h/t Victor Venema).  It's got some great pictures in remote locations and shows scientists working in the field.

Pass it on to your friends and colleagues.

 

I notice that Anthony Watts hasn't got anything much good to say about it except he agrees it is a well-produced video (archived here).

But then again, when Thomas Stocker says:

We have a choice.

We have a choice to live in a world in which climate change is limited to less than two degrees Celsius or in a world that is warmer than four degrees Celsius.

...long ago Anthony Watts opted for a world of more than four degrees Celsius and wants everyone else to do the same.

I'm still hopeful that the world won't agree with the luddites like those at WUWT.  I'm hopeful that we will shift to a new clean energy future.

From the WUWT comments

I hesitate to spoil this article with silly nonsense from WUWT but then I think it will save some readers from making the trip.  So here are a couple to reassure you that WUWT deniers deny as much as ever. (Archived here.)

albertalad says:

November 23, 2013 at 7:56 pm
When there are snow storm as far south as Texas I doubt anyone in North America gives a crap about the IPCC and their blackmail schemes, let alone one more You Tube idiotic video amongst a world of other moronic videos on that site. That is unless the entire IPCC is twirking on the video – then it would be hilarious! I’d watch that.

albertalad may be so busy smirking about unseemly imagery that he is not aware of the fact that 84% of Texans accept that climate change is real (click to enlarge):

Bob Tisdale avoids science as much as possible.  No wonder he is perennially puzzled.  He says:

November 24, 2013 at 12:32 am
I didn’t view it. I figure if they get too many views from WUWT, they may be encouraged to produce more climate porn.

Anthony Watts spends hours denying reality at WUWT

Anthony Watts continues to tell lies at WUWT.  Remember this whopper of a lie?  Now he writes (archived here):

I guess he didn’t read the recent IPCC AR5 report that showed no connections of climate change/global warming with severe weather

Another whopper of a lie.

Anthony's writing about an upcoming 24 hours of reality by the Climate Reality Project, which will be broadcast in about five days time.

It's Anthony's constant refrain of "no connections of climate change/global warming with severe weather" that I'm writing about.  If you are curious where he gets his weird notions, I believe he bases it on Table 12.4 from the IPCC WG1 AR5 report, which discusses the likelihood or otherwise of specific events, most of which are not weather events but things like huge methane releases from permafrost melt. And the table isn't about whether or not they will happen at all, it's about the likelihood of them happening before this century is out.  Anthony reckons if these events don't happen in his lifetime then what should he care if they happen in his children's lifetime or that of their children.

As you know, Anthony Watts' capacity for brainpower is severely hampered by his world view, which is limited to about 10 paces from his front door, by my reckoning.  He's heard about tornadoes and hurricanes.  I'm not sure if he realises that a hurricane is what is known elsewhere as a typhoon or tropical cyclone.  Anthony is oblivious to the fact that severe weather includes such things as heat waves, flash floods and blizzards and can cause catastrophic wildfires.

Speaking of wildfires, his article is a slap in the face to his followers from Australia, which today experienced one of the worst bushfire days on record for NSW - and it's only the middle of spring.  Summer is another six weeks away.

Back to Anthony's claim about the IPCC AR5 report.  He's wrong of course. Here is just some of what the report states about severe weather and global warming:

• Future increase in precipitation extremes related to the monsoon is very likely in South America, Africa, East Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia and Australia.(page 14-3)
• It is also very likely that heat waves, defined as spells of days with temperature above a threshold determined from historical climatology, will occur with a higher frequency and duration, mainly as a direct consequence of the increase in seasonal mean temperatures (page 12-36)
• Several recent studies have also argued that the probability of occurrence of a Russian heat wave at least as severe as the one in 2010 increases substantially (by a factor of 5 to 10 by the midcentury) along with increasing mean temperatures and enhanced temperature variability. (page 12-36)
• Model projections show rainfall becoming more intense, in part because more moisture will be present in the atmosphere. Thus, for simulations assessed in this report, over much of the land, 1-day precipitation events that currently occur on average every 20 years could occur every 10 years or even more frequently by the end of this century. At the same time, projections also show that precipitation events overall will tend to occur less frequently. These changes produce two seemingly contradictory effects: more intense downpours, leading to more floods, yet longer dry periods between rain events, leading to more drought. (page 12-87)
• Changes in the climate are also associated with disturbances such as fires, insect damage, storms, droughts and heat waves which are already significant processes of inter-annual variability and possibly trends of regional land carbon fluxes. (page 6-37)
• Regional studies for boreal regions suggest an increase in future fire risk...Models predict spatially variable responses in fire activity, including strong increases and decreases, due to regional variations in the climate–fire relationship, and anthropogenic interference. (page 6-66)

Update: Since writing this Anthony has added some text from the IPCC report, some of which contradicts his claim of "no connection".

Oops! The world stops at midnight on 31 December 2099 according to Anthony Watts

Anthony Watts has written about the video that Wotts put up a few days ago. It's a short video by Thom Hartmann on global warming and a stark reminder of what we are risking by not cutting emissions of waste CO2.

I won't comment on the video itself.  I already did that as part of the discussion on Wotts' blog.  All I'll ask is: 

Does Anthony Watts think the world is going to stop at the stroke of midnight on 31 December 2099?

Anthony wrote this comment (archived here):

From The End is Near department comes this video documentary from lefty talk radio guy Thom Hartmann that claims we are on the verge of a “mass extinction” due to climate change. Only one problem; the IPCC says “no” to his scenario. Ooops.

But the IPCC doesn't say "no" to the scenario.  Anthony is referring in particular to the likelihood of greenhouse gases will be released from permafrost and clathrates. All the IPCC report indicates, in the table Anthony refers to, is what is expected to happen this century.  What happens after that is up to what we do in probably then next seven or eight years.  Even if we decide to cut back on burning fossil fuels, much of what won't happen this century will still happen in future centuries.  The ice will continue to melt.  Seas will continue to rise. And, yes, maybe methane will be released in such quantities that the biosphere will get such a huge shock to the system that many species will not survive.

Who is Anthony Watts kidding?  His readers didn't read the column headings either from the look of it.  Maybe, like Anthony, they think that the world or global warming will come to a standstill at the stroke of midnight on 31 December 2099.

It'd be the sun, if we could only explain it...

Stan Robertson, Ph.D, P.E, has written an article for Anthony Watts' blog WUWT (archived here).  His argument starts with these points:

1. Earth has warmed over the past century.
2. The addition of greenhouse gases probably contributed a bit.
3. The sun is likely to be at least partly responsible.
4. TSI isn't enough to explain the warming of the past 50 years.

The sun warmed indirectly?

So far so good.  It's the next bit that is giving Stan a spot of bother.  His reasoning continues (my bold italics):

The sun warmed the earth indirectly not directly and the proof is that TSI variations during the solar cycle are not sufficient to explain the variations in ocean temperature over a solar cycle.

He's done some number crunching and looked up papers by scientists and concluded:

• The average amplitude of TSI reaching the earth surface in all wavelengths would be about 0.09 watt/m2 (Sou: I think, but am not sure, that Stan means this is the amplitude of change over a solar cycle).
• Ocean surface temperatures oscillate with an amplitude of about 0.04 – 0.05°C during a solar cycle -Zhou & Tung (2010).
• For each watt/m2 of increase of TSI over a solar cycle, the ocean warms by 0.085°C - Zhou & Tung (2010).
• Producing sea surface temperature variations with an amplitude of 0.04°C requires a surface heat input of 0.33 watt/m2.
• The solar TSI variations that reach the earth’s surface are smaller than the 0.33 watt/m2 needed to account for sea surface temperature variations by a factor of 3.6.

I think that what he's trying to demonstrate is that the change in solar radiation over a solar cycle cannot account for the resulting change in ocean heat over the same cycle.  He worked out that it should require 33 watt/m2 but he could only find 0.09 watt/m2.  He probably made a mistake in his assumptions or his calculations.  He did go on a bit about going below the sea surface and  I'm not sure why he did that, but it could well be the source of his error - mixing up sea surface temperature changes with sub-surface ocean heat accumulation.  I didn't follow all that he did.  Radiative forcing is not my specialty.  If you want to see what Stan did in more detail, the archived article is here.

No, Stan, it's not the sun (and he is arguing for high climate sensitivity)

Whatever, Stan jumps to hypothesising about the cause of global warming and decides that "it's still the sun", he just has to figure out how it does it.  He concludes (my bold italics):

Although the estimated 0.33 watt/m2 that is required to explain the surface temperature variations is large compared to the amplitude of TSI variations that reach the surface, it is still only about two parts per thousand of the 160 watt/m2 of solar UV/VIS/NIR that reaches the earth surface. There are many possible ways in which the sun might modulate the surface energy flux to this extent. These include modulation of cloud cover and small spectral shifts in the energetic UV that might modulate ozone absorption or produce shifts of the effective sea surface albedo. It would seem to be a fairly direct radiative effect, rather than feedback, since it must vary in phase with the solar cycle.

In summary, my calculations based on energy conservation considerations imply that the sun modulates the ocean temperatures to a much greater extent than can be provided solely by its TSI variations. The great question that desperately needs an answer is how does it do it? It should be easily understood that solar effects would not necessarily be confined to cycles. More likely, the sun has been the driver of the large changes of temperatures of the Roman and Medieval warm period, the Little Ice Age, and the recent recovery from it without requiring large changes of its own irradiance. When we understand how the sun does this, we will have begun to understand the earthly climate.

I'm not sure what Stan means by "large changes of temperature...without requiring large changes of (solar) irradiance".  But if he's trying to argue that the recent decades of global warming were caused by the sun, he's wrong.  If he does think that only small changes in solar irradiance can have a large effect on global surface temperature then he's arguing for a high climate sensitivity, which goes against all that WUWT stands for.  His argument is also lacking in that he doesn't attempt to explain why, if it's mostly the sun, TSI would not act consistently.  For example, the world has warmed in recent decades whether TSI was increasing or not.

What is causing the earth to warm

Before getting stuck into the comments, it might pay to look at all the factors that are causing the earth to warm.  There's a nifty chart in the IPCC AR5 WG1 Technical Summary (page TS-91) showing all the components of radiative forcing from 1750 to 2011.  It's a bit small so I suggest you click the chart to enlarge it:

Source: IPCC AR5 WG1 Technical Summary

Fig TS.7: Radiative forcing of climate change during the industrial era shown by emitted components from 1750 to 2011. The horizontal bars indicate the overall uncertainty, while the vertical bars are for the individual components (vertical bar lengths proportional to the relative uncertainty, with a total length equal to the bar width for a ±50% uncertainty). Best estimates for the totals and individual components (from left to right) of the response are given in the right column. Values are RF except for the ERF of aerosol-cloud interactions (ERFaci). An additional rapid adjustment to aerosol-radiation interactions of –0.1 [–0.3 to +0.1] W m–2 is attributable primarily to black carbon (ERFari-RFari in Figure TS.6). CFCs= Chlorofluorocarbons, HCFCs= Hydrochlorofluorocarbons, HFCs=Hydrofluorocarbons, PFCs= Perfluorocarbons, NMVOC= Non-Methane Volatile Organic Compounds, BC= Black Carbon. {Figure 8.17}

From the WUWT comments

Solar scientist Leif Svalgaard has had a lot to say in the comments and, I think, has been enjoying himself.

lsvalgaard quotes Stan Robertson and says:

October 10, 2013 at 3:03 pm

The solar TSI variations that reach the earth’s surface are smaller than the 0.33 watt/m2 needed to account for sea surface temperature variations by a factor of 3.6 for this smallest estimate of sea surface temperature variability.

So, in normal science, that falsifies the assumption that solar variations are the cause.

lsvalgaard says:

October 10, 2013 at 3:23 pm
Hockey Schtick says: October 10, 2013 at 3:16 pm - For a start, here’s 50 papers describing potential solar amplification mechanisms

None of those explain how 3.6 times more heat reach the surface than the variation of what the Sun puts out…Otherwise the climate system would be a nifty energy producer: you put 10 units in and you get 36 out. I want one of those :-)

 lsvalgaard says:

October 10, 2013 at 4:01 pm
milodonharlani says: October 10, 2013 at 3:52 pm Science has historically been full of surprises & strongly-held certainties frequently overthrown by better analysis & discovery of more information.

I’m not discussing this in general [and this is all the other people trotting out their usual stuff], but let us stick to the article if this thread: it claims that 0.33 W/m2 input is required and notes that TSI only provides 3.6 times as little, or 0.09 W/m2. How can that work? what discovery awaits us that can provide 3.6 times more energy than supplied by the variation of TSI? The Sun cannot, the deep ocean might, or the calculation is wrong.

David Archibald says the heat is invisible, it's hiding, it's already there but our thermometers can't measure it:

October 10, 2013 at 4:10 pm
What if the heat is already there? Then it doesn’t have to diffuse. Cloud cover varies over the solar cycle. The oceans have an albedo of 5% so most visible light gets through and can get as far as 200 metres down.

Jim G says, it's humans running around releasing energy got from nowhere at all (not the sun), maybe jogging and doing push-ups and tossing all the released energy into the oceans (excerpt) :

October 10, 2013 at 4:13 pm
...How can the trace gas (0.039% of atmosphere) CO2 be the recognized cause of global warming while all of the energy released by human activities be ignored as a source of heat. The human race is one big UHI in some respects. More wars and a major plague would fix the problem. Just think how plants and wildlife would flourish without us pesky humans. Oh, wait. Who would plant the trees after forest fires, no fish and game department to help keep a wildlife balance, no more protection of endangered species from predation like sage grouse and raptors….never mind.

geran says the sum is bigger than the total!:

October 10, 2013 at 4:34 pm
And, once again, we cannot forget (exclude) all of the “products” supplied by our Sun. TSI is only one in the basket.

lsvalgaard says:

October 10, 2013 at 4:35 pm
Joe says: October 10, 2013 at 4:27 pm Because the measurements are at different places. TSI is measured at the top of the atmosphere, the energy “entering” the climate system is (essentially) at the bottom of it.

The article says explicitly: “Thus the average amplitude of TSI reaching the earth surface in all wavelengths would be about 0.09 watt/m2″ so is at the ‘bottom’

stuart L says:

October 10, 2013 at 4:53 pmWell how come CO2 is supposed to warm our planet, when it does not add even as much as 0.09wm/m2 to the budget

About Stan Robertson, Ph.D, P.E

Stan apparently retired in 2004 after teaching physics at Southwestern Oklahoma State University for 14 years and before he had a chance to learn about atmospheric physics. In addition to teaching at three other universities over the years, he has maintained a consulting engineering practice for 30 years.  All this makes him eminently qualified to write a blog article about climate for Anthony.  (If he'd studied and taught climate science or any related discipline, he'd never get a guernsey at WUWT.)

Where is the cooling, Ira Glickstein? It's a travesty...

Today I came across a comment on WUWT by the Village Idiot.  Village Idiot was responding to an article by Ira Glickstein looking at the differences in projections in the various IPCC reports (archived here, update here).

Village Idiot says "it's a travesty":

October 10, 2013 at 11:58 pm
As you so rightly say, Ira, all the signs and portents are there in the sun, heavens and sea. They have been for years. Now, I’m a non-expert on matters of climate, but I find it’s a travesty that we can’t account for the lack of cooling at the moment, which was prophesied by High Priest Don, and posted on the Village notice board back in 2008:

http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2008/12/agu2.png

Where is all Easterbrook’s cold hiding? I think some of its going into the extra ice in the Antarctic. Any other suggestions?

What about the cooling?

Some time ago I put together a collection of various alarmist predictions from WUWT including Denier Don's 2008 prediction. Or to go directly, you can  click here for an archived copy of the Denier Don's 2008 prediction at WUWT itself.  At the time Don wrote:

The sun’s recent behavior suggests we are likely heading for a deeper global cooling than the 1945-1977 cool period and ought to be looking ahead to cope with it.

Below is the image of Denier Don's predicted cooling.  I've highlighted his "deeper global cooling than the 1945-1977 cool period" and shown Don's prediction compared to 2012 global surface temperature.  Yes, it's messy because Don's charts are kinky and have all sorts of odd stuff (like his "warm" and "cold" and "cool" categories).  Click to enlarge:

Source: Adapted from Easterbrook (2008) at WUWT

What is causing the warming?

I looked back to see what Ira Glickstein has done in the past at WUWT.  Two and a half years ago he took a poll of WUWT readers (archived here) to see how much they thought global warming of 0.8 degrees Celsius should be apportioned to three things.  The results in degree Celsisus were as follows - all to 3 decimal places!

• human (AGW) 0.179 (0 to +0.7) - Ira = 0.100
• natural cycles 0.331 (0 to 0.55) - Ira = 0.400
• data bias 0.275 (0 to 0.65) - Ira = 0.300

It's a fairly good example of wishful thinking, particularly the emphasis many people put on data bias.

A quick search didn't lead me to any quantitative prediction Ira has made in the past in relation to global surface temperature.  However, for the record, he has today made a prediction for the temperature in 2035.  He predicts no change from the current surface temperature between now and 2035.

Comparing IPCC projections

Ira did an interesting comparison of projections from previous IPCC reports with those of the current report.  I don't think he was correct in highlighting the mean of the projections, but that's a relatively minor quibble.

Rather than show his chart, I made up one of my own into an animation, flipping through the previous and current projections and showing Ira's projection compared to the current AR5 range. As always, click the image to see the larger version.

Adapted from TFE.3, Figure 1: IPCC WG1 Technical Summary (page TS-96)

Illogical conspiracy ideation

Ira does make the common misplaced complaint:

I’m optimistic about the future! Unlike some of the Alarmists and Warmists who actually hope for a climate catastrophe to justify their decades of shrill Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming (CAGW) warnings, I’d prefer a future without such problems. Indeed, I hope that the cooling trends listed above do not result in excessive cooling which would be far more dangerous than the moderate warming we have experienced over the past century.

Attributing nefarious intent, as Ira does, is a feature of conspiracy ideation.  I'm not saying that Ira is a conspiracy theorist, but he's clearly inclined towards it by saying that "Alarmists and Warmists" actually hope for a climate catastrophe.  Why are science deniers so silly about this.  Why on earth would people who understand science be wanting to reduce carbon emissions if we were "hoping for a climate catastrophe"?  We'd be working against achieving our goal!  Logic is not a strong suit of science deniers.

---o--- Update: Ira Glickstein has taken the trouble to write a comment below, explaining that he is indeed more than merely 'inclined' towards conspiracy ideation. ---o---

And it's odd how deniers are unable to face facts.  Cooling trends? What cooling trends, Ira?

Data source: NASA

How hot do we want to get?

Before moving on to the comments, it's worth looking at the carbon budget to figure out how hot we want to get, from the IPCC AR5 Summary for Policy Makers (page SPM-35):

Source: Adapted from IPCC AR5 SPM

From the WUWT comments

So far there haven't been very many comments at WUWT (archived here, update here).  I guess most readers are still asleep.  There was a bit of to-ing and fro-ing on the matter of "projections" versus "predictions".  Then the Village Idiot chimed in with his "where is the cooling hiding" question.  

The playground monitor, richardscourtney tried to get people to behave in the manner in which richardscourtney thinks they should behave and say things that only richardscourtney approves of, writing (this time without shouting a single word):

October 11, 2013 at 1:24 am

Ira Glickstein:

Thankyou for this contribution.

It is to be hoped your presentation will evoke the serious discussion it deserves concerning the failure of past IPCC predictions and the adherence of IPCC AR5 to ECS estimates which are obviously too high.

I am sorry such discussion has been inhibited by the start of the thread being trolled by the ‘red herrings’ of Terry Oldberg and Village Idiot. Take pleasure from the knowledge that they would not have bothered to try side-tracking the thread if your point were not made well.
Oldberg knows he is spouting nonsense because it has been explained to him several times on many WUWT threads. The Idiot only ever spouts nonsense with intention of disrupting threads.

Terry Oldberg was explaining to people the difference between a projection and a prediction.  It looks as if richardscourtney has decided that when the IPCC says "projection" it really means "prediction". (The man would be impossible to communicate with if he were to substitute his own meaning to everything one were to say.)

Deniers are a very patient lot.  J.Seifert is still expecting Denier Don's cooling to come out of hiding sooner or later and says "it's just a matter of some more time" for "detailed celestial mechanics" to unveil the hidden cooling (is that a reference to God in the ++:

October 11, 2013 at 2:17 am
Point 3 is the major climate driver:

It says: “” 3) We seem to be entering a downturn in the multi-decadal cycle of warming and cooling. ……. An approximately 60-year cycle of warming and cooling seems to be superimposed on that general warming trend ……..”"

This 60 year cycle is explained by Nic. Scafetta in his recent papers. In coming years,
science will take a closer look into this cycle nd will determine its detailed celestial mechanics….

its just a matter of some more time.

As PDO and AMO enter cold phases, there is no somewhere hiding missing heat, rather
less incoming heat, due to astronomical changes in the Earth´s orbit.

Izen notes that Ira Glickstein's prediction is in conflict with paleo evidence and points to other problems with Ira's prediction, which is the bit in italics (extract, you can read the rest here):

October 11, 2013 at 2:48 am

1) IPCC ECS estimates are two or three times too high. I believe the true ECS is closer to 1°C than the 2°C to 3°C claimed by the official climate Team.

That belief is on direct contradiction with evidence from the paleoclimate. It is very difficult to make such low ECS values compatible with the glacial cycles.

2) Daytime clouds, thunderstorms and related natural phenomena have net cooling effects. The way these phenomena are modeled by the IPCC models is basically wrong. I subscribe to the Thermostat Hypothesis put forth in 2009 by Willis Eschenbach that these phenomena counteract some of the warming effects of greenhouse gasses.

As Dr Spencer has pointed out the thermostat hypothesis was proposed by many other before willis Eschenbach co opted it. Empirical observation has failed to find any supporting evidence for such negative feedbacks ever since Lindzen and the failure of the iris hypothesis.

PS I'd take my hat off to Village Idiot if I wore a hat.  She or he provides a source of well-targeted humour to alleviate the boredom of wading through mindless comments from the scientific illiterati at WUWT.