Do winds control the climate or does the ocean control the wind? Kininmonth on England 2014.

William Kininmonth essentially says that it’s possible that the trade winds have changed the climate, but asks why the winds themselves changed. Kininmonth explains that the ocean is much larger and holds much more heat than the atmosphere, and that the ocean drives the winds rather than the other way around. He points out again (as he did before here so eloquently in more detail) that what the paper describes is what we’ve known for a long time about the ENSO patterns and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO): when an El Nino Strikes, trade winds fall, ocean surface doesn’t turn over as much, the ocean surface is warmer, and the air stays hot above. When La Nina’s occur, trade winds speed up, the ocean stirs, and the cold deep water takes the heat out of the surface of the ocean and the air above.

His points are:

  • “Natural variability” is hardly a credible, useful scientific explanation.
  • The IPCC said natural variability was small, so if it is larger now, then it was also larger during the rest of the 20th Century? This reduces the effect CO2 had earlier (and the effect it will have in future).

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Guest post by William Kininmonth

Chief of Australia‘s National Climate Centre at the Bureau of Meteorology from 1986 to 1998.

Winds of change?

An international research team has published an explanation for the recent stasis in global temperature rise but leaves essential questions unanswered. Variation of Pacific Trade Wind speeds may well be linked to changing global temperature, as argued.  Why then did the wind strength vary? The given explanation of ‘natural variations’ is neither scientific nor convincing.

If, as claimed, natural variation has dominated the warming effect of increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration over recent decades then surely natural variation has also been important in determining the 20th century temperature rise. The science of climate change and the role of carbon dioxide are far from settled.

Trade Winds over the Pacific

I have read the England et. al. paper and made some independent checks using data available from the US NOAA National Centre for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) since 1948 (from the international reanalysis project). The basic data in the paper checks out:

The Pacific Trade Winds have increased then decreased over recent decades. (Note easterly trade winds have a negative sign and hence increasing negative is a strengthening trade wind – surface stress is approximately a function of the square of the wind speed and is amplified with increasing wind speed.

The sea surface temperatures of the eastern equatorial Pacific have slightly warmed then cooled although there is significant year-to-year variability that tends to mask the evolution.

England et. al. noted that data prior to the satellite era (about 1979) should be treated with caution but nevertheless the essential form of the records fits with their description, especially post-1979.

ENSO patterns, El Nino and La Nina

The explanation given by England et. al.  for the link between trade wind strength and SST over the eastern equatorial Pacific is an extension of the classical interpretation of El Nino: Trade Winds slacken, upwelling over the eastern Pacific ceases, and SST over the eastern Pacific rises. The warmer waters of the eastern Pacific locally exchange heat and latent energy with the overlying atmosphere to modify atmospheric circulations generally, with global impact on weather systems and temperature of the lower atmosphere. We see this from a comparison of the UAH lower troposphere satellite temperature anomalies for the tropics and globe.

The tropics warms during El Nino years, and cools during La Ninas.

Note that with the major El Nino events of 1982/83, 1987/88 and 1997/98 there is significant warming over the tropics and the globe with that of the tropics exceeding the global value (That is, the additional heat imparted to the tropics is distributed globally).  Similarly for the cold excursions of the La Nina events there is cooling over the tropics that is translated globally.

The Ocean drives the Air

The issue with the England et. al. paper is the claim that the strengthening of the Trade Winds is the cause for the cooling over the eastern Pacific. The inter-annual ENSO (El Nino/Southern Oscillation) events have their origins in the ocean circulations and the effect of these changes is transmitted to the atmospheric circulation; it is the atmosphere that responds to the ocean and not vice versa.

The cold water of the ocean interior is maintained by: 1) sinking cold saline water under growing winter sea ice in polar regions to form Bottom Water; and 2) Ekman turning associated with the high latitude westerly winds that forces cold surface water under the warmer tropical waters to form Intermediate Water. Both these processes result in gently rising water under the tropical thermocline. As the water mixes upward across the thermocline it takes heat out of the tropical surface layer at a rate of about 20-25 W/m2, a significant fraction of the solar radiation absorbed over the tropical surface. It would be surprising if the overturning circulations to form Bottom and Intermediate Water were at a constant rate, given the complexity of ocean circulations. Changes in ocean overturning circulation of about 5% on multi-decadal timescales could easily explain the slowly changing surface temperatures that have been observed, and hence the changes in the Trade Wind strength.

The question is, does the changing atmospheric circulation regulate the ocean circulation on multi-decadal timescales as proposed by England et. al.? Or is it more plausible that changing ocean overturning on multi-decadal timescales regulate the atmospheric circulation to produce the observed oscillations (such as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation – PDO)? Given that the heat content of the atmosphere is equivalent to that of the top 4 metres of the ocean and the mass of the atmosphere is equivalent to the top 10 metres of the ocean it is unlikely that the atmosphere tail wags the ocean dog!

What “internal variability” gives, it can take away

The IPCC metaphorically painted itself into a corner when, in its 2001 3rd assessment, it claimed that based on computer models the climate system had only limited internal variability (ocean-atmosphere interactions producing decadal and longer oscillations, including of global temperature). If there is little internal variability then the reproduction of 20th century using computer models with only carbon dioxide and known natural forcings is a seemingly plausible explanation for the warming trend of the 20th century; it also provides an estimate of the sensitivity of global temperature to carbon dioxide forcing. In contrast, if there is significant internal variability on all timescales from the inter-annual ENSO to multi-decadal (and possibly centennial) then the influence of carbon dioxide is much less than the models show – the reproduction of 20th century temperature is as much judicial curve fitting and is a misleading explanation of what was driving climate and global temperatures during the 20th century.

Without acknowledging same, England et. al. are implicitly drawing on internal variability to explain the recent temperature pause – varying Trade Wind strength is claimed as the driver but no explanation is given as to what is causing the Trade Wind variation. Inadvertently they are opening the possibility of an important role for internal variability as a basis for global temperature variations. This is at odds with the IPCC claim of limited internal variability and further suggests that much of the global warming of the 20th century was not due to increasing carbon dioxide but due to internal variability. It follows that the sensitivity of global temperature and climate to increasing carbon dioxide concentrations is much less than IPCC claims based on computer models.

The England et. al. paper underscores that the science of climate change is far from settled.

UPDATE: I’ve posted my thoughts on this paper here: http://joannenova.com.au/2014/02/global-wind-excuse-monkey-modeling-shows-global-warming-theory-is-still-not-wrong/

 

REFERENCE

England, M.H., S McGregor, P. Spence, G.A. Meehl, A Timmermann, W. Cai, A.S. Gupta, M.J. McPhaden, A. Purich and A. Santosos, 2014. Recent intensification of wind-driven circulation in the Pacific and the ongoing warming hiatus. Nature Climate Change (online: 9 February 2014) DOI: 10.1038/nclimate2106

8.9 out of 10 based on 77 ratings

232 comments to Do winds control the climate or does the ocean control the wind? Kininmonth on England 2014.

  • #
    Maverick

    Snookered!

    200

    • #
      Popeye

      Snooker, clutching at straws, Dreamtime, wishful thinking, wishing & hoping, hyping, bald faced lying, refusing to debate, authoritarian, BS, etc etc etc.

      They’ve tried it ALL and STILL they try to patch it up around the edges so it will seemingly float.

      The TRUTH always wins out in the end – only a matter of time!!

      Cheers,

      240

      • #
        Jon

        It took the Western civilization about 1500 years to free us from religious control over ideas and speech(enlightenment).
        I wonder how long it will take to have another enlightenment from today’s ideological control over ideas and speech?

        20

    • #
      Safetyguy66

      Kind of, but in true style when interviewed on ABC yesterday England was quite happy to suggest AGW is also causing the increase in the trade winds. Its 2 bob each way and a fiver on the rest of the field basically.

      40

    • #
      Jimbo

      Double snookered?

      “Seven years ago, we were told the opposite of what the new Matthew England paper says: slower (not faster) trade winds caused ‘the pause’”
      http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/02/10/seven-years-ago-we-were-told-the-opposite-of-what-the-new-matthew-england-paper-says-slower-not-faster-trade-winds-caused-the-pause/

      60

      • #
        Bob Malloy

        “Seven years ago, we were told the opposite of what the new Matthew England paper says: slower (not faster) trade winds caused ‘the pause’”

        They say before you start telling lies, you need to have a good memory. The trouble with these guys is all they are looking for is excuses for the deviations between the models and observations. Either their memories are poor when it comes to excuses already offered by others or they don’t even take notice of what others have said. Incompetence which ever way you look at it.

        60

        • #
          Owen Morgan

          You’re absolutely right. This is how England was quoted in the UK Daily Telegraph (in a typically scepticism-lite puff):

          “‘We want the community to have confidence in the climate models,’ Professor England said.”

          I don’t know why he didn’t just say, “We’re desperately scrabbling around for any excuse to explain why our climate models can’t even predict what has already happened.” (Actually, I do know why he didn’t say that, but my version would have had the merit of actually being true.)

          30

    • #
      Jon

      Wind is mainly driven by temperature differences. That’s why we have more wind in the autumn and winter and less wind in spring and summer.
      In principle global warming should give us less wind.

      10

  • #
    Winston

    The question is, does the changing atmospheric circulation regulate the ocean circulation on multi-decadal timescales as proposed by England et. al.? Or is it more plausible that changing ocean overturning on multi-decadal timescales regulate the atmospheric circulation to produce the observed oscillations (such as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation – PDO)? Given that the heat content of the atmosphere is equivalent to that of the top 4 metres of the ocean and the mass of the atmosphere is equivalent to the top 10 metres of the ocean it is unlikely that the atmosphere tail wags the ocean dog!

    Inverting cause and effect has been the issue with CAGW from the get go. Never has so much been made from so little. The atmospheric flea cannot lift the oceanic elephant. Heat transfer is from the oceans to the atmosphere. The rest is just pissing into the wind.

    462

    • #
      john robertson

      I believe we have reached the entertainment stage of Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global warming.
      The more these desperate minions flail about, attempting to justify the cult, the more people are laughing.
      I wonder if these experts have thought of the next phase, when we stop laughing?

      Nice rebuttal of Professor England’s handwaving, this is the thing that first struck me after watching that propaganda film of AL Gore’s,
      It is a world dominated by water, the energy difference between heating water, or heating air is stark.

      120

      • #
        Winston

        John,

        What we “deniers” refuse to understand, and the source of Professor England’s frustration no doubt, is that when we piss into the wind, back-radiated LWIR heats the urine so that when it comes back to hit us in the face, it has been significantly warmed by the “Greenhouse effect” of rising atmospheric CO2.

        I’ve seen many a nasty scald from such a failure to comprehend the settled science of CAGW. Don’t say he didn’t warn you.

        110

        • #
          john robertson

          Winston, I believe you have found the source of the wilfull blindness of “Team Catastrophe”.
          Who would have suspected, in the beginning, that they were collectively too stupid to go with the wind.
          Too many years of getting their own back has blinded them, completely.

          30

      • #
        Rereke Whakaaro

        The sun follows a decennial cycle (well actually 11 years, but close enough). The Pacific also follows a decennial cycle (near enough).

        So to quote the man who is the past future Vice President of the USA: “Does anybody see a pattern here? What if they lined up? (or words to that effect)

        20

      • #
        ROM

        From what I am starting to see and I may well be wrong, there is a small but influential and rapidly growing group turning up on the blogs who are getting beyond the laughing at the climate scientists imbecilic posturings to a point where there is increasing levels of open anger and outright contempt now starting to appear directed against climate science and climate scientists.

        Isolated in their incestuous and lavish publicly funded ivory towers, climate scientists think they are immune to any public back lashes due to their exulted status as scientists.

        They couldn’t be more wrong as they instead have set themselves up to be in the bulls eye when public wrath and anger at being fooled and conned for so long and the realisation amongst the public becomes more widespread that their wealth has been stripped from them and the deliberate pauperisation of millions have been deliberately brought upon society by the total arrogance of the climate science cabal in their lavishly furnished ivory towers, directly attributable to the climate alarmist scientists cabal claiming that they knew and could predict with great certainty from their models, the future of the global climate for a century or more into the future and could accurately predict from their models and with great certainty, the coming climate catastrophe which could only be countered if the politicals followed their precise instructions and forcibly imposed the alarmist climate scientist’s creed and agenda onto the public at large.

        The climate scientists have failed and failed totally in every sphere of their science and in their open and arrogantly blatant attempts to impose their personal ideology and beliefs upon society at large.

        A small but quickly growing percentage of the better informed public are finally starting to angrily demand blood and revenge for what has been done to them as a society and as individuals, all at the sole behest of those same climate alarmist scientists.

        70

        • #
          john robertson

          ROM I have been there since December 2009, when I spent 3 week glued to the computer reading the CRU emails.
          Before that I was merely dismissive of govt experts.
          Not just scientists are going to take a hit.
          CAGW is a creation of bureaucrats, conceived by, orchestrated by and protected from investigation till recently by.
          To form a UN body, governments must provide the bureaucrats, Canada provided some real doozies.
          The further I have followed the links, the more enraged I have become.
          I now define my governments, at all levels, as kleptocracies, as all 3 levels have zero compunction about lying to their taxpayers, to further their causes.
          We have government agency upon agency all set up to protect the public treasury from waves of mass hysteria.
          Policy rules exist for this very purpose.
          Yet our watchdogs sold us down the river.
          They broke every rule of government policy making.
          And do their very best to obstruct a fresh look at the disaster, as Tony Abbott is finding.
          So Politicians will deny responsibility, policy advisors will blame the scientists, as public rage grows(instep will revelation of the massive destruction of public wealth) first the scientists will be thrown to the mob, then a few policy wonks and really dumb politicians.
          CAGW is an intelligence test.
          Our public offices are infested with fools and thieves.
          The precautionary principle will come to haunt those first users of it.
          As either they are fools or deliberately set out to destroy our civilization.Take PCP and apply to exposed do-gooder.
          Damn.PCP?? who knew, so all these users of the precautionary principle are users of PCP… small wonder their behaviour has been so vile.

          60

        • #
          Rereke Whakaaro

          The problem, ROM, is that when the bottom falls out of the barrel, the whole of science will end up on the floor, and not just the climate bits. Carbon dioxide is a molecule, and therefore part of Chemistry. Heat transfer mechanisms are part of Physics. Tree rings are to do with Botany. And so we go on.

          So when “Climate Science” is finally brought into total disrepute, the public will not see it in its isolation, but will connect it the the rest of science, and so take the rest of science with in, including Climatology and Meteorology and Computer Science (which is actually at the root of it all).

          20

          • #
            ROM

            Rereke W
            Maybe one science at least will still come out of it relatively unscathed and that is Agricultural Science.
            But I don’t give many other science disciplines much chance of avoiding what I am starting to believe will be a quite long running backlash gaining in severity as the scientists involved in the great global warming scam are seen to be blame shifting and doing any thing needed to avoid any responsibility even to throwing their own compatriots under the bus to save their own scientific and personal necks.

            We know that most of them have no morals and no ethics and no shame for what they have created and done to millions of earth’s inhabitants including tens of thousands of avoidable deaths from hypothermia across Europe in particular due to the unaffordability of energy, all at the behest of those same alarmist climate scientists.

            And that is the one science that is critically important to all of humanity for it holds the keys to the feeding of the anticipated 9 billions of humanity on this planet by 2040.
            Only health science as distinct from medical science plus the engineering professions of water and sewerage engineering are as important as Agriculture to mankind’s future.

            Agriculture research is fortunate in that it generally has it’s own research establishments, a lot of which are located out in the country sides so they are not of the same arrogant dismissive of the lower strata, ivory tower psychology as the university’s academia but are firmly rooted [ Hmm! was that a pun? ] in reality brought on by a tough, harsh, unforgiving and non discretionary task master called Nature which knocks anybody associated with agriculture right back into their place if they try to take on Nature in any but a proven way.

            Furthermore the scientists who inhabit these Ag research institutions are often from a rural background and are somewhat more in tune with the real world and the real people outside of ivory tower academia than the over paid and mostly fairly useless out of touch with the real world academic inhabitants of those same ivory towers.

            10

  • #
    crakar24

    What is this the seventh……..no the eighth? attempt to explain the pause and as each attempt crashes and burns the next attempt is even more tenuous and less likely to be based on science, if this trend continues i predict at some point they will claim aliens are warming the planet with ray guns.

    461

    • #
      Dave

      Amazing garbage,

      So this is the evil CO2 driving winds into forcing the heat into the oceans, and allowing a decrease in other windy events like cyclones, hurricanes and typhoons etc. Amazing the man made CO2 content of our atmosphere suddenly has turned into a wind control GAIA organism.

      Craka24, I reckon this is the 20th or so attempt to explain this absolute dirty lie about why their models have dismally failed.

      Wind Change, Global Warming, Climate Change, they’ve lost the plot. England makes Flannery and Turney look sane?

      I agree the next one will be aliens also. Pharqing Idiots.

      322

    • #
      Speedy

      Crakar

      I’m afraid you can’t call them “Aliens” any more. As per Bob Brown’s directive, they are “Non-Earthians”.

      And yes, they are out there. With ray guns. Trust him.

      Cheers

      Speedy

      220

    • #
      dlb

      No, they would never say the “pause” is caused by aliens, that is not very scientific at all.

      I’m waiting for the weather balloons or Chinese lanterns excuse.

      90

    • #
      Peter

      Well you can imagine my surprise at this world shaking revelation,I can now reveal where the heat actually is and nobody could have guessed it. This group of sceptics really screwed the myth of CAGW.
      Spread the word and listen occasionally.

      http://touch.dailymotion.com/video/x4hqiz_canned-heat-a-change-is-gonna-come_music

      English Aborigine

      30

    • #
      PeterS

      There was a sci fi movie (The Arrival) in 1996 that depicted such a scenario where aliens were warming the planet by blasting huge amounts of emissions into the atmosphere from bases hidden all over the world. Perhaps that movie was a subliminal message for many of those who believe in AGW. Perhaps that would explain why so many stupidly have fallen for the global warming alarmist crap.

      70

    • #
      King Geo

      Crakar24 says “I predict at some point they will claim aliens are warming the planet with ray guns.” Actually this is as plausible an explanation as rising CO2 in the atmosphere.

      10

    • #
      Greg S

      Oops finger pause on iPad screen while scrolling caused the Red Cross. Apologies it was not intended.

      00

    • #
      crakar24

      Ah i was wondering where my little red thumbed stalker had got to, its good to know where ever i go i know you are there, shielding yourself from scrutiny by hiding in my shadow.

      Cheers MLRTS

      11

  • #
    Backslider

    England yet is another warmist who is desperately seeking to maintain the alarmist agenda. In doing so however he has, as others before him (hello Trenberth, Hansen et al), simply thrown up unsubstantiated speculation as to what is happening. This is not science. This nonsense cannot be given the dignity of being regarded as a scientific hypothesis.

    As Kininmonth so clearly shows it flies directly in the face of what we do know about climate and even the holy decrees of the IPCC.

    Such is their desperation.

    We want science, not the opinions of idiots in ivory towers. Real science.

    350

  • #
    Konrad

    Climate propagandist Prof England claims –

    “Unfortunately, however, when the hiatus ends, global warming looks set to be rapid.”
    and –

    “We should be very clear: the current hiatus offers no comfort – we are just seeing another pause in warming before the next inevitable rise in global temperatures.”

    the simple message for Prof England is this –

    “Fortunately, when the hoax ends, the inevitable public floggings look set to be vicious.”

    “You should be very clear: this latest tripe offers no comfort – we are just seeing another frantic excuse before the inevitable rise in global rage.”

    However, in his desperate attempts to find a “sciencey” sounding excuse for the utter failure of the AGW hypothesis, Prof England has got just one thing right – the atmosphere cools the oceans.

    – Only SW from the sun heats the oceans, DWLWIR has no effect.

    – The net effect of the atmosphere over the oceans is cooling of the oceans.

    – The net effect of radiative gases in the atmosphere is cooling of the atmosphere.

    In the end nothing Prof England and his fellow political activists do to try to engineer a “soft landing” for the global warming hoax is going to work. The role radiative gases play in cooling our atmosphere is double the work they do in heating it.

    The global warming hypothesis essentially claims that the atmosphere warms the oceans and that adding radiative gases to the atmosphere will reduce the atmospheres radiative cooling ability. No amount of “sciencey” sounding excuses is ever going to hide the inanity of the foundation claims of this hoax or save any of the fellow travellers.

    There is only one thing for it now, vicious and sustained public floggings for all involved.

    You know it makes sense

    320

    • #
      Shane

      There is only one thing for it now, vicious and sustained public floggings for all involved.

      I respectfully disagree. Floggings won’t achieve anything. The only thing for it, in my view, is repayment of every last cent scammed out of the general public. Any company or individual that profited should repay that money in full, with no provision to hide behind bankruptcy or other provisions. Take the money, profits, assets, superannuation, even the shirt off their back. Put it where it will do some good, starting with compulsory science education in schools.

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      • #
        PeterS

        I agree. Make them pay for the billions wasted. That includes all the scientists who participated in this fraud. In fact the scientists are especially to blame, not the likes of Al Gore and politicians. Scientists should know better because of their training and education. They have denigrated science no end leading to a loss of trust by the public, and so at least those scientists who played a leading role in the scam must be punished accordingly.

        130

      • #
        Konrad

        Shane,
        I am of course be more than slightly facetious in suggesting public floggings. However vicious and sustained public shaming is required. All the fellow travellers must be driven from public life. The appropriate term here is “collective Chinese punishment.” This is not so much about punishing the guilty as setting an example for others who will try similar crimes in the future.

        While the lives lost, both human and wildlife, because of the inanity of the Professional Left cannot be forgotten, the money is gone. You will never see it back. However, driving every last one of the AGW fellow travellers from public life should be an absolute priority. By making an example of these liars we set an example for future generations. If we just “move on”, they will try again. Next up is the UN “fresh water crisis”. Do we need to go through all this again? We cannot recover the billions lost, but we can prevent billions more being lost on future pseudo science.

        The lame stream media will do all they can to defend themselves and their fellow travellers in the AGW hoax. Fortunately the lame stream media are no longer the gatekeepers of opinion and record. This is the age of the Internet. Sceptics hold the record of the names of the guilty and their foul crimes. The public are now the gatekeepers of opinion. Every activist, journalist, pseudo scientist and politician who ever sought to promote or profit from this inane hoax must be hounded from public life.

        The global warming hoax has been the most crazed assault on science, reason, freedom and democracy in history. We do not need a repeat. Sceptics owe it to future generations to be “unchristian” in empowering the general public with the names of the guilty and the record of their crimes. Forgive and forget? Not this time. The Professional Left went way, way too far. It is no longer enough for the hoax to end, there must be a “carbon price”. The money is gone, so the price must be social and political destruction for all the fellow travellers. The outer darkness. Wailing and gnashing of teeth. The full farrago.

        Konrad, I assumed the /sarc tag, but many miss it. Best to mark it, so no one misreads… – Jo

        30

    • #
      Steve

      Bring on the Nuremberg-style trials for this lot.

      I recall what happened to Collaborators after WWII…..

      10

    • #
      Andrew Griffiths

      I don’t know about public floggings,what about bringing back the stocks and providing buckets of overripe tomatoes for the people to throw at the individuals so confined.

      30

  • #
    King Geo

    Trade Winds have stopped Global Warming? Well well England et al from the University of NSW – that is very interesting. So are you suggesting these strong trade winds are overwhelming the rise in CO2 emissions of ~ 10% in the past 15 years and causing the pause in GW? I think the only wind here of any consequence is that emanating from the rear end of Prof England and his co-authors. And remember that a colleague of Prof England at the University of NSW is none other than Prof Chris Turney of the S.S. Junket which was trapped in a mass of sea ice off Antarctica a few months back. Oh dear – so much of our hard earned tax payers money wasted by the likes of Prof England and Prof Turney.

    350

    • #
      Speedy

      King Geo

      Taking the argument further, does that not mean that if humanity is to control the earth’s climate, we must control the Trade Winds?

      May I suggest an enormous array of wind farms BLOWING against the Trade Winds at the appropriate time? Argue if you will – but Prof. England’s logic is inescapable.

      Cheers,

      Speedy

      190

      • #
        bullocky

        -“…enormous array of wind farms BLOWING against the Trade Winds..”


        How about an enormous array of warmist blow-hards?

        Mann, Lewandowsky, Nuccitelli, Abrahams, Cook, Karoly, England, Lambert, Ward, Trenberth, Foster………….

        150

    • #
      Darkstar

      So are you suggesting these strong trade winds are overwhelming the rise in CO2 emissions of ~ 10% in the past 15 years and causing the pause in GW?

      I take issue with that.

      Yes, it is a 10% rise above zero (from roughly 360ppm to roughly 400ppm), but it is 40% above their* claimed “ideal/normal” (which is about 300ppm)

      So from 1996-Today we have a 40% increase over their ‘normal’ for CO2… and zero warming.

      That is the way I believe it should be phrased. It puts it into better perspective, imo

      .
      *the IPCC’s claimed ‘normal’ at least, which should not be confused with the actual planets ‘normal’ as it probably lies somewhere around the 1,500-2,000ppm range based off data going back millions of years. It that bigger picture, a sub 500ppm would represent only about 15% of the known time; with an overall fluctuation range of about 300ppm up to 7,500ppm seen. So yes, the IPCCs claimed ‘normal’ is pretty much the lowest point seen in history.

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      • #
        Philip Shehan

        No. The CO2 level prior to the industrial revolution, taken as beginning in 1760 was 280 ppm. It is now 400 ppm. Thats a 42% increase in 250 years, not 15.

        The IPCC does not declare any CO2 concentration as “normal”. The IPCC does say that continuing to increase CO2 concentration from pre-industrial levels by burning fossil fuels will continue to increase global warming.

        The rise in temperature follows the rise in CO2 concentration by about three decades:

        http://tinyurl.com/aj2us99

        http://www.skepticalscience.com/pics/AMTI.png

        Giving the theoretical linear dependence of temperature with log CO2 concentration with a linear correlation coefficient R = 0.91

        http://oi46.tinypic.com/29faz45.jpg

        Temperature increase has kept pace with the rate of CO2 concentration since satellite data began being collected:

        http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/uah/from:1978/mean:12/plot/esrl-co2/from:1979/normalise/scale:0.5/offset:0.02/plot/uah/from:1979/trend

        032

        • #
          Shane

          Temperature increase has also kept pace with a global reduction in pirates since around the start of the industrial age.

          http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikaandersen/2012/03/23/true-fact-the-lack-of-pirates-is-causing-global-warming/

          I can probably come up with a computer model proving it. I could probably also come up with a model showing that any warming is the result of little aliens in invisible space ships shooting us with global warming ray guns.

          Correlation does not equal causation. Nor do computer models equal either data or proof.

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          • #
            Gee Aye

            I wish the the FSM movement never made that pirate graph. Did you know pirate numbers are increasing?

            21

            • #
              john robertson

              Yes, but don’t tell anyone.
              This is climatology.

              20

            • #
              Shane

              Yes I did, and I think there’s no coincidence that as pirate numbers are again on the rise, global temperatures have flattened out. We’ve obviously hit a sweet spot in the relationship between the two.

              I hereby propose that the UN give me some millions of dollars so that I can accurately survey the global pirate numbers and create a computer model showing how many pirates we need to maintain for a consistent temperature. We obviously need to temporarily increase numbers so that temperatures will decline to the point the IPCC accepts as a global norm, then we can reduce numbers of pirates to maintain a constant global average temperature.

              We could also rename the IPCC the International Pirate Counting Commission… a far more worthwhile use of their time…

              (and if the FSM movement cares, I think it would be just to have a laugh)

              30

              • #
                The Griss

                A parrot might say something at this stage. And be one-eyed about it, with no leg to stand on.

                We have a couple of parrots like that, who hang about the place, droppings and all.

                00

            • #
              The Griss

              FSM is more based in reality than CO2 base CAGW ever was.

              (I’m assuming you mean ‘Flying Spaghetti Monster’)

              00

          • #
            crakar24

            I have found another correlation, the last time the Adelaide crows won a flag was in 1998

            30

        • #
          Manfred

          Very briefly….
          “It will be seen that there is no correlation whatsoever between carbon dioxide concentration and the temperature at the earth’s surface.”
          Prof. Vincent Gray.

          and:
          http://judithcurry.com/2013/08/29/what-is-internal-variability/

          Attribution studies which claim that 20th century warming has no alternative explanation other than manmade greenhouse forcing are only credible in a hypothetical positive feedback world. In other words, there is no alternative explanation in these studies because they have only considered positive feedback mechanisms. Ruling out Internal variability as a driver of change inevitability means negative feedbacks are also ruled out, and vice versa.

          Evidence of a negative feedback is found in climate records which exhibit characteristic of system memory, such as an accumulation of periodic energy:

          and:
          http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.co.nz/2013/06/climate-scientist-dr-murry-salby.html

          and:

          As a consequence temperature sensitivity does not seem a constant over longer periods, and this parameter should be handled like a hot potato. As many authors have speculated, the atmosphere is too complicated to be content with proportionalities i.e. linear relationships!

          http://meteolcd.wordpress.com/2013/06/25/the-salby-hamburg-conference-is-co2-the-integral-of-temperature/

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          • #
            Philip Shehan

            “It will be seen that there is no correlation whatsoever between carbon dioxide concentration and the temperature at the earth’s surface.”
            Prof. Vincent Gray.

            Then what is this?

            http://oi46.tinypic.com/29faz45.jpg

            07

            • #
              crakar24

              Phil,

              I cant see your pic (maybe you could gve a bit more detail) but i can see the one from Winston and i must say even without seeing your pic the graph at wuwt does appear to suggest there is no correlation, maybe on a smaller timescale there maybe a loose correlation but even so you will need to rebut this in a more robust way otherwise you will appear as impotent as the rest of the warmbots that frequent here.

              Cheers

              70

              • #
                crakar24

                Phil,

                I just looked at your pic……………..are you f……………..g serious? stop wasting my time.

                51

              • #
                Philip Shehan

                Crakar and Heywood. Unfortunately the graph is small but it is readable, including the dtabases which are averaged to produce the temperature data. If you cannot read it I suggest an eye test.

                It is calculated from and is entirely consistent with temperature and CO2 data covering that period. You can observe the temperature spikes at 1880, 1940 and 1998 and other features in that graph which are evident in the temp time plot here:

                http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/mean:12

                (Note that the early years are squashed together compared to later years in the log plot.)

                The graph going back 4.6 billion years shows no correlation between CO2 and temperature (and I have to chuckle at those who dispute temperature data going back a century unquestionably accepting data going back 4.6 billion years).

                The factors responsible for the large scale temperature variations going back that far are to do with changes in luminosity of the sun since its birth,large scale variations in orbit and axis tilt etc.

                These factors are effectively constant in the period since the beginning of the industrial revolution so do not mask the correlation between CO2 concentration and temperature evident in the log plot graph.

                The temperature record for the last 160 years period does however have contributions due to short term variations – 11 year solar cycles, volcanoes, ENSO ets, but these tend to average out over multiple decades leaving the underlying rise due to CO2 observable.

                For those who trust in temperature data from skeptics Christy and Spencer, here:

                http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/uah/from:1958/mean:12/plot/esrl-co2/from:1979/normalise/scale:0.5/offset:0.02/plot/uah/from:1979/trend

                07

              • #

                Philip, given that we know higher temp causes higher CO2, and you’ve graphed a monotonically rising line over a short period, there is no cause and effect demonstrated. That graph is exactly what Henry’s law would predict.

                Periods such as the 15,000 years after temps peaked 120k year ago in Vostok show that temp leads, and CO2 is minor or irrelevant. CO2 stayed level while temp fell something like 8 degrees.

                40

              • #
                Philip Shehan

                Ms Nova; Yes in the geological records there are many examples of temperature changes causing changes in CO2 concentration primarily because temperatures alter plant growth which alters CO2 concentration. The temperature rises are usual due to large scale changes in solar input, orbital and axis tilt cahnges etc.

                However that does not preclude the opposite from happening due to the direct and well established direct causal relationship between CO2 concentration and temperature.

                These two processs often operate in a positive feedback loop.

                A rise in temperature causes a rise in CO2 causes a rise in temperature…

                or

                A rise in CO2 causes a rise in temperature causes a rise in CO2…

                14

              • #
                Graeme No.3

                Philip Shehan:

                Can you give me a link to physical measurements or calculations on IR absorption by CO2?
                Specifically measurement of the effect of various wavelengths absorbed.

                NOTE: not calculations of feedback rate as these vary from zero (unlikely) to 6℃ (equally unlikely).

                Thank you

                30

            • #
              Heywood

              “Then what is this?”

              An unattributed and poorly labelled graph made with data tortured to ensure correlation?

              Do I win a prize?

              Looks similar to the last couple of millimeters of this graph, which is from a peer reviewed and published paper.

              60

            • #
              The Griss

              “Then what is this?”

              Junk !

              30

            • #
              bullocky

              Report this

              20

              #6.2.1.2.4

              Philip Shehan
              February 12, 2014 at 4:05 pm
              ” ……
              However that does not preclude the opposite from happening due to the direct and well established direct causal relationship between CO2 concentration and temperature.

              These two processs often operate in a positive feedback loop.

              A rise in temperature causes a rise in CO2 causes a rise in temperature…

              or

              A rise in CO2 causes a rise in temperature causes a rise in CO2″


              A footnote acknowledging the apparent and continuing breakdown of this relationship over the most recent 17 years (approx.) would be less disingenuous.

              00

              • #
                bullocky

                20

                #6.2.1.2.4

                Philip Shehan
                February 12, 2014 at 4:05 pm
                ” ……
                However that does not preclude the opposite from happening due to the direct and well established direct causal relationship between CO2 concentration and temperature.”

                ‘Causal relationship’ is a bit misleading. ‘Contributing relationship’ would better reflect provability.

                00

          • #
            Philip Shehan

            PS Manfred. I have noted more than once that linear regressions are a blunt instrument when dealing with (particularly temperature) data. There is no a priori reason to expect temperature to be linear with time over very long timescales when long term factors which produce glacial and interglacial periods are operating, nor for short term periods when 11 year solar cycles, volcanic eruptions, ENSO etc have a relatively large effect. With noisy data and linear fits are the default option. For longer periods, non linear functions better describe data:

            http://www1.picturepush.com/photo/a/11901124/img/Anonymous/hadsst2-with-3rd-order-polynomial-fit.jpeg

            But the dependence of temperature on atmospheric CO2 concentration is theoretically expected to be logarithmic, so that a straight line is expected for such a plot, which is born out by the empiriical data since 1850.

            08

            • #
              AndyG55

              AGAIN you use a data set SPECIFICALLY ADJUSTED to created the trend.

              You are a lying PO* !

              71

            • #
              The Griss

              Oh, I notice they hadn’t got rid of the 1940’s peak completely by that stage.

              Couple more “adjustments” and you have V4 !

              And you probably think a 3rd order polynomial is highly relevant in temperature data, too.

              Do you seriously post this stuff, or is this satire ?

              30

              • #
                crakar24

                Let me ask a question regarding polynomials, where i work we use polynomials and here is an example.

                Lets say i wish to see what the aircraft roll is in degrees, the values that i get off the aircraft will be in two’s compliment which is meaningless so i want to convert it to +/- 90 degress so i will do the following polynomial calculations (we call these engineering unit conversions)

                Coefficient 0 will be an offset value usually zero for ac parameters but will have a value for strain gauges etc
                Coeff 1 is the first multiplication lets say i convert the 2’s comp to radians or semicircles etc
                Coeff 2 is the second multiplication lets say i convert the radians etc to degrees
                Coeff 3 is the third multiple the value should be plus or minus 180 (2’s comp) however i might want it in 0 to 360 etc

                Now when you guys talk about “3rd order poly fits” is the process similar, identical or something else?

                10

              • #
                The Griss

                A basic polynomial uses positive integer powers of a single variable.

                A third order polynomial has its highest term as a cubic term. eg 3x^3 + 4x^2 – 6x + 1 is a third order polynomial.

                A polynomial function could use more than one variable, but the indices are always positive integers

                So a 3rd order polynomial fit just juggles the coefficients on the different powers of the variable.. easy done in MS Excel,

                but totally meaningless in climate statistics.

                10

              • #
                The Griss

                I don’t know enough about aeronautics to say that its different, but it doesn’t look like you are using powers of a single variable unless there is some sort of thing that relates it.

                So I would say that aeronautics probably co-opted the mathematical word in this case.

                I would stand corrected by someone who knows.

                10

              • #
                crakar24

                Ah i see we use -ve and +ve values down to 15 decimal places in some cases (9.3224E-10 for example)and no we dont use them as you have described each coefficient is independent of each other and does not increase in orders of magnitude, thats how we convert the raw data. The values on the aircraft are structured like that for example a 32 bit word will range from say PI (MSB) to PI/2^31 (LSB) as in 0,1,2,4,8 binary structure if it is a 2’s comp or signed integer the MSB is the sign bit.

                Thanks for the clarification…….actually if it is not too much to ask can you explain in more detail how the polynomials are applied to the raw data to produce the graph above.

                Cheers

                30

              • #
                Philip Shehan

                Griss has correctly answered the question on polynomials.

                He is also correct that there is no reason to think that there is any theoretical meaning behind using a 3rd order polynomial to fit the temperature curve. That is not why it is used.

                It is simply used to show that the temperature data is accelerating in an upward curve and not rising linearly. Compare visually with this linear fit:

                http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/plot/hadcrut4gl/trend

                You could do this yourself by simply by drawing freehand with a pencil through the noise. (I remember seeing a paper once that concluded that people can thus match a curve as well as a computer can using a mathematical algorithm.)

                The advantage of fitting the data with a mathematical function is that how well the data is fit to a curve can be quantified by the correlation coefficient r2. This takes the distance of each data point on the plot from the fit line and squares it (thus giveing each point a positive value so points above and below the line do not cancel out. The total is normalised and subtracted from 1. Thus a perfect fit gives an r2 value of 1. The poorer the quality of the fit the lower the r2 value. A value of 0 means that there is simply a random distribution of points, there is no corelation between the quantities whatsoever.

                Here is another curve function fit to the temperature data. Unfortunately the actual function is not given, but the r2 value is.

                http://www.skepticalscience.com/pics/AMTI.png

                Crakar: To say the number 9.3224E-10 has 15 decimal places misleading. There are 4 decimal places shown. In science we talk of significant figures. The number above is written to 5 significant figures. That is the total number of digits before and after the decimal point. A zero value imediately before the point is not counted.

                The number of significant figures is a measure of how precisely the quantity is known.

                Thus writing 9.3224E-10 is a claim of greater precision than 9.3E-10

                Talking about significant figures rather than decimal places avoids confusion about the claimed degree of precision. For example, if I say that the rate of warming for temperature data is 0.143 C per decade I am giving a result to 3 decimal places and 3 significant figures. (In scientific notation 1.43 E-1 C per decade)

                If however I express the result as 0.0143 C per year I am using 4 decimal places but still only 3 significant figures as in scientific notation it is written as 1.43 E-2 C per year

                Similarly 1.43 C per century is 2 decimal places but still 3 significant figures.

                So the number of decimal places which are shown can be somewhat arbitrary but the number of significant figures is constant.

                06

            • #
              AndyG55

              “temperature on atmospheric CO2 concentration is theoretically expected to be logarithmic”

              Actually, it has been shown by engineers using thermal transfer, that the absorption is approximately logarithmic below 280ppm then levels off.

              (I’ve posted the link a few times, I’m not posting it again.)

              So any forcing above 280ppm is ZERO !!

              Odd that that is the approximate lowest value that atmospheric CO2 seems to down to, and ALSO the value below which plant life starts to struggle…. isn’t it.

              Now do some thinking. !

              20

              • #
                AndyG55

                “So any forcing above 280ppm is ZERO !!”

                Badly stated. !

                Any additional forcing above 280ppm, if there is any in the first place, IS ZERO !

                20

              • #
                Philip Shehan

                Andy, the logarithmic dependence of temperature on log CO2 is basic physics. And I have put this link up before but will do so again in case you have not seen it.

                http://knowledgedrift.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/log1-co2.jpg

                If you are not willing to supply the link I cannot do any further thinking on the matter.

                05

              • #
                AndyG55

                I have supplied the link several times before. I am not going to bother hunting it down again, especially not for you.

                But you in your usual arrogance and wanton ignorance probably just ignored it.

                The Log relationship of atmospheric CO2 is a theory and holds true up to around 280ppm.

                The actual relationship is derived from REAL MEASURMENTS by guys working with actual energy absorption measurements.

                Many physical relationships have threshold or yield limits.

                Again, maybe your memory and knowledge of physics and materials is very shallow at best.

                20

            • #
              bullocky


              Philip Shehan:
              “……so that a straight line is expected for such a plot, which is born out by the empiriical data since 1850.”

              Perhaps you should have pointed out that the line is flat and straight since around 1997 – nearly two decades.

              10

        • #
          kneel

          Ah, averages – the typical refuge of the ignorant.
          While they provide some information, averages discard much of the really interesting bits. For climate usage, a mean of Tmax and Tmin is nearly useless, for several reasons, but mainly because

          * either could be present for 1 min of the day, with hourly data revealing that the median temperature is significantly different;

          * radiant energy scales by the 4th power of temperature.

          Together, these two factoids show the folly of the Tmin/Tmax mean usage.

          Oh, and if you think averages tell all you need to know, I have a couple of wires here you can hold in each hand – I guaeeantee the average voltage between them is zero.

          90

        • #
          The Griss

          And Philip slips back into PP mode.

          40

        • #
          Scott

          Quick question for you Philip

          Was the CO2 concentration ever higher than 280ppm prior to the industrial revolution?

          130

        • #
          bullocky


          Philip Shehan;
          ‘The rise in temperature follows the rise in CO2 concentration by about three decades’

          ie,… there were zero CO2 emissions from about 1967 – 1984

          Skepticalscience?

          140

          • #
            ROM

            Actually fossil plant stomata according to the paleo biologists say that pre industrial atmospheric CO2 was around the 310 PPM to 320 PPM not the 280 ppm so beloved of the warmists.
            There were actually a lot of carefully done experiments in the late 1800’s that show a very wide range of atmospheric CO2 levels ranging from less than 280 ppm which was in the lowest range of measurements up to 350 ppm. Much like the increased but still very wide range of highly variable CO2 from 370 ppm up to 450 ppm that can be found across the different regions of the planet today depending on the season, the time of day, the temperature, the winds, the altitudes and etc when CO2 levels are measured, all of which factors lead to considerable variations in the atmospheric trace gas CO2 because of it’s very low concentration in the atmosphere.
            An agricultural researcher I know who was on an agricultural advisory role in north central China some 15 or so years back measured CO2 concentrations in a totally rural region some 400 kms west of Bejing at some 420 ppm when global concentrations of CO2 were supposedly around the 380 ppm or less.

            Expelled human breath generally has CO2 levels of around 40,000 ppm [ forty thousand ] from the burning of carbohydrates in the energy creation process that drives the functioning of all life, including human life on this planet.
            Note the absolutely essential “carbon” component there in “carbohydrates”

            The 280 ppm quoted as the pre-industrial CO2 levels were a very convenient and low starting concentration of CO2 used to enhance the fear factor of the increase in CO2 and it’s supposed and totally unproven and unseen consequences for the global climate.

            As the science increasingly admits that the climate sensitivity of CO2, the supposed increase in temperatures from a doubling of pre-industrial CO2 levels , is being recognised as much less than the originally claimed 3 or more degrees and is in fact now being touted even by IPCC scientists as probably well below 2 degrees and perhaps as low as 1.3 degrees from where the effects of CO2 become indistinguishable from background noise. And so increasing CO2 levels will have a minimal and beneficial effect on the global climate through a slight warming and demonstrated highly beneficial end result of increased concentrations of CO2 on plant growth, we should be looking at promoting an increase in globally CO2 levels to ensure that the world’s plant breeders and farmers will be able to feed the increasing global population.

            Any western water melon warmist alarmist who decries some possible slight and beneficial warming of the planet due to increasing CO2 against the prospects of increasing food production from increased atmospheric CO2 in preventing the prospects of tens and possibly hundreds of millions going hungry or much worse facing starvation should look in a mirror.
            They will if they have any honesty at all, just see a caricature of an ignorant, totally selfish, arrogant, empty vessel caricature of a human being devoid of compassion, intellect and humanity looking back at them from that mirror.

            110

            • #
              The Griss

              “Expelled human breath generally has CO2 levels of around 40,000 ppm”

              Which is why plants respond so well to a close up and person chat.

              just don’t eat too much garlic before talking to onions.. it makes them nervous.

              90

            • #
              Philip Shehan

              ROM. When Muana Loa began collecting data the CO2 level was about 315 ppm.

              http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/esrl-co2

              Muana Loa and other atmospheric measurement stations such as on the west coast of Tasmania and at the south pole agree on CO2 levels. They are sited well away from centres of industrialisation. Muana Loa is of course in the pacific and the Tasmanian station measures atmosphere that has travelled thousands of miles across the ocean with the “roaring 40’s”. The atmosphere is well mixed.

              Calibration of ice core data which measures concentrations in air trapped in layers of polar ice calibrated with these measurements gives the baseline figure of 280 ppm.

              I am not discussing the beneficial or otherwise effects of CO2, just what effect CO2 is having on temperature. And note that on the basis of this data, a first order calculation of the sensitivity factor is, as you suggest, at the low end of the IPCC scale, 2 C. (See below)

              07

              • #
                bullocky

                Philip Shehan:
                ‘I am not discussing the beneficial or otherwise effects of CO2, just what effect CO2 is having on temperature.’


                Negligible over the most recent 17 years or so.

                21

              • #
                PhilJourdan

                Mauna Loa does not collect data. It only erupts occasionally.

                20

          • #
            Mark D.

            Excellent point. I’d really like to know why he posted 42% over 250years then dropped back to 30 years for the next point.

            50

            • #
              Philip Shehan

              Mark. I posted a graph showing the correlation between CO2 and temperature going back to 1850. Although the industrial revolution is given as beginning in 1760 in England, it was another century before industrialisation globally had reached the point where rises in CO2 were detectable in the ice core record.

              Darkstar made an error concerning data since 1996, in line with the oft heard claim that ‘It hasn’t warmed since 199X but CO2 levels have risen…’

              So I presented a graph covering the last few decades which shows this to be incorrect. I have previously presented similar graphs of data since Muana Loa data began being collected in 1958.

              Interestingly the calculated values for temperature rise with doubling of CO2 for these sets of data agree with the figure for 1850: 2.04 ± 0.07 °C

              1958: 2.01 ± 0.38 °C

              !979: 1.80 ± 0.91 °C

              As usual, the uncertainty increases as the temperature data sets become shorter.

              08

              • #
                bullocky


                “As usual, the uncertainty increases as the temperature data sets become shorter”


                Unless Pacific Trade Winds are involved, of course.

                40

              • #
                Philip Shehan

                Actually bullocky, I have not had access to the full paper but any data showing increasing ocean temperatures caused by (or causing) increases in trade winds (surely the point is not which is the cause and which is the effect but whether ocean temperatres are rising thus accounting for any “missing” heat) would need to pass the statistical significance test.

                010

              • #
                crakar24

                Phil,

                And if we looked at the statistical significance test it would fail yes?

                Maybe i am just being pedantic here but i think it is important to get the cause and effect correct. Look at it this way what is causing the trade winds to change? is it the heat in the atmosphere or the heat in the oceans or is it something else?

                Once we figure that out then we can then try and understand if it is dumping heat into the ocean or not.

                Still as you say either way the heat is still missing.

                40

              • #
                bullocky

                Phil Shehan
                “So I presented a graph covering the last few decades which shows this to be incorrect. I have previously presented similar graphs of data since Muana Loa data began being collected in 1958.

                Interestingly the calculated values for temperature rise with doubling of CO2 for these sets of data agree with the figure for 1850: 2.04 ± 0.07 °C

                1958: 2.01 ± 0.38 °C

                !979: 1.80 ± 0.91 °C

                As usual, the uncertainty increases as the temperature data sets become shorter”


                Certainly, the 250 year period of global warming from years 1600 to 1850 wont have many reference points suited to your purpose.

                30

              • #
                Philip Shehan

                crakar24. Yes. Just as with surface temperature data. But like I said I have not seen the data let alone any statistical analysis thereof.

                I don’t mean to imply the cause and effect relationship is unimportant, but it is not as far as accounting for “missing” heat. (I am referring to Trenberth’s attempt to add up all the heat repositories on earth which fell short of the difference between radiation in and radiation out. But he did not have access to deep ocean data.)

                04

              • #
                crakar24

                Phil,

                I think that is the point, if there is no evidence the oceans have warmed at all then why are we chasing a mechanism that explains why the oceans are absorbing the missing heat.

                If the oceans are warming only slightly then maybe a majority of the missing does not exist.

                I think it would be prudent to actually find the missing heat first and then try and come up with a nw theory as to how it got there, currently we are saying the heat is missing in the ocean depths where we cant measure it but we dont need to measure it to prove it exists we just need to find the mechanism as to how it got there.

                This is not science Phil and i am sure you would agree.

                50

              • #
                Philip Shehan

                bullocky,

                “Certainly, the 250 year period of global warming from years 1600 to 1850 wont have many reference points suited to your purpose.”

                If you have reliable global temperature data and CO2 concentration data for the period 1600 to 1850 I would indeed be interested to see it.

                04

              • #
                Mark D.

                If you have reliable global temperature data and CO2 concentration data for the period 1600 to 1850 I would indeed be interested to see it.

                I’ll try to not make this sound snarky:

                If you don’t have such information, how can you have high confidence in supposed anomalies today?

                10

          • #
            Philip Shehan

            bullocky, The fact that this piece of logical and mathematical nonsense attracts (thus far) 12 likes speaks volumes about the quantitative reasoning abilitiy of so many “skeptics” here.

            19

            • #
              bullocky


              Address the issues, dispense with the ad hom.

              61

              • #
                The Griss

                “quantitative reasoning abilitiy ”

                Not something you should get into, apparently.

                A couple of maths subjects at uni does not make you a guru. It makes you a layman.

                Did you learn anything except how to do a basic linear regression ?

                20

            • #
              Philip Shehan

              Me dispense with the ad hom?

              I can’t address the issue here as it makes absolutely no sense to me whatsoever. (Apart from the usual ad hom directed at Skeptical Science)

              Explain what you mean by it and I will have a shot.

              Philip Shehan;
              ‘The rise in temperature follows the rise in CO2 concentration by about three decades’

              ie,… there were zero CO2 emissions from about 1967 – 1984

              Skepticalscience?

              09

              • #
                bullocky


                ‘bullocky, The fact that this piece of logical and mathematical nonsense attracts (thus far) 12 likes…’


                You’re being coy.

                30

            • #
              bullocky

              Phil Shehan:
              “If you have reliable global temperature data and CO2 concentration data for the period 1600 to 1850 I would indeed be interested to see it.”

              Phil Jones:
              Why should I show you my data? You’ll only try to find something wrong with it!

              50

        • #
          AndyG55

          The other day, I said your academic intelligence was not reflected in most of your posts.

          This is a prime example of an indicative IQ of about half what your qualifications might suggest.

          42

        • #
          Streetcred

          Gotta agree with Andy … Shehan … providing a link to an SS article is your downfall, man.

          Per NOAA, Climate Impact of Cumulative CO2 Emissions Since 1880 Approaching Nil

          The observed shrinking of CO2’s influence on global warming does not bode well for the future longevity of the AGW hypothesis. Per the well known and documented CO2 physics, this outcome should not be a surprise. It’s just another case of ‘those stubborn facts’ in science.

          120

          • #
            AndyG55

            Griss used “PP” (whatever that meant)

            I’m going to call Philip’s post “PPP” (Parroted Propganda Prattle)

            To save time I may actually respond to his post’s of this type by just posting “PPPPP —- again!”

            Another sad case of NBS.

            11

          • #
            Philip Shehan

            Streetcred:

            No.

            The Author of the piece gets basic facts wrong. Firstly:

            “To simplify, the CO2-centric AGW hypothesis, and climate models, assume that every additional emission molecule of atmospheric CO2 will accelerate the global warming, to the point of no return. Thus, each new tonne (metric) of CO2 will boost the acceleration via a theoretical positive feedback amplification.”

            AGW theory and models assume the exact opposite.

            Temperature depends on the log of CO2 concentration. That is, every additional tonne of CO2 has a decreasing effect on temperature.

            http://knowledgedrift.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/log1-co2.jpg

            That is why the climate sensitivity factor is expressed as the amount of temperature rise with a doubling of CO2 concentration (a logarithmic relationship including any amplification factor) and the graph of temperature vs log CO2 is a straight line as predicted by AGW theory and models.

            http://oi46.tinypic.com/29faz45.jpg

            Which brings me to the second point. The author’s graph and accompanying discussion looks at the year by year data and assumes, contrary to what AGW theory, models and anyone who knows anything about the subject knows, that temperature is dependent on CO2 concentration alone. The varying, multifactorial nature of climate forcings, of which CO2 is just one, gives rise to the short term “noise” in the temperature data.

            This noise is also apparent in the plot of temp vs log CO2 shown above.

            It is only by looking at multidecadal data that the effect of CO2 concentration (the linear regression fit) can be distinguished from the short term noise.

            06

            • #
              The Griss

              “It is only by looking at multidecadal”

              Isn’t it such a pity that the multi-decadal data has been so completely corrupted by the leaders of the CAGW cult, so as to be totally meaningless and un-representative of any past temperature reality.

              But then, they had to do that to sell the story.

              20

              • #
                crakar24

                No this is not correct, if i was to say “looky over here, no rise in temps for 17 whatever years means AGW is cooked” then you would rightfully so accuse me of cherry picking.

                What i/we are actually saying is “looky over here, no rise in temps for 17 whatever years whilst over 30% of all mans emissions have occured means AGW is cooked”

                The problem is Phil the likes of Hansen/the team/IPCC acolytes all pointed to a 20 year stretch (1978 to 1998 approx) to declare AGw as a rolled gold theory. Why even Al Gore demonstrated to the world in his movie that as co2 goes up so does temp. He and the IPCC explained clearly in no uncertain terms that co2 drives temps and before you go dissing big Al and the IPCC remember they were given a nobel prize for their work.

                So the end result was a 20 year period were it was proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that co2 drove the temps was used to change the political landscape on energy policy, international treaties and taxation. But now Phil we have near on 17 years (the very next 17 years i might add) of the exact opposite.

                Due to the painting of ones self into corners through past statements the IPCC et al have no wriggle room…….it cant be the sun……..it must be co2, any back down from here destroys credibility, destroys the theory so the only option left is to plough on into the face of adversity and hope like hell it starts to get hotter.

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              • #
                Philip Shehan

                Griss, so if the multidecadal temperature record is so utterly corrupted, how come the UAH satellite data (associated with skeptics Christy and Spencer) gives the same slope for temperature vs log CO2 as the data from 1850 and 1958?

                07

              • #
                crakar24

                I dont understand Phil, how can we use sat data to produce t v log co2 data before the sat data even existed? Not trying to be provocative just askin’

                20

              • #
                Philip Shehan

                crakar, Actually I was discussing how Streetcred’s link gets the dependence of temp on CO2 wrong.

                What I say about the “no rise for 17 years” claim is that it shows a smaller rate of rise, not no rise, but the large error margins mean it is not statistically significant with regards to indicating a warming or cooling trend and is statistically in agreement with the statistically significant warming trend from 1979.

                The difference in the trend values for 17 16 and 18 years shows the dependece on picking the extreme el nino data for 1997/98 (which is a “noise” peak as far as temp-CO2 concentration is concerned) as the starting point.

                The fact that including or excluding a single year makes such a large difference in the slope of the linear regression is another manifestation of picking short term noisy data sets.

                UAH data past 17 years (from 1997):

                Trend: 0.094 ±0.206 °C/decade (2σ)

                If you look at the 18 years since 1996:

                Trend: 0.120 ±0.188 °C/decade (2σ)

                or the 15 years since 1999:

                Trend: 0.146 ±0.212 °C/decade (2σ)

                Looking at the statistically significant rise in temperature since 1979

                Trend: 0.138 ±0.070 °C/decade (2σ)

                The correlation between temperature rise and CO2 concentration is maintained:

                http://tinyurl.com/mlcpyo3

                05

              • #
                Philip Shehan

                crakar, I was not restricting temperature data to satellite data. My point is that pre satellite data gives the same dependence of temp vs CO2 concentration which stronly suggests (asssuming you are not accusing Christy and Spencer of corrupting their data) that the pre satellite data is NOT corrupted.

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              • #
                Mark D.

                Philip, that is at least three times you’ve mentioned Christy and Spencer.

                Now with that somehow in your mind having some propaganda value, how do you explain their continued skepticism? If the correlation between co2 and temperature is so obvious why would two ostensibly smart researchers (you use them as a reference) continue to be skeptical?

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              • #
                bullocky


                Philip Shehan:
                “…..the same dependence of temp vs CO2 concentration which stronly suggests ….”

                Correlation, perhaps. Any ‘dependence’ is indeterminate.

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              • #
                Philip Shehan

                Mark,

                I mention Christy and Spencer’s UAH temperature data so as to avoid the complaints of those who claim the temperature data sets are corrupted.

                These people have not linked any evidence to back this claim, and all the temperature data sets are in agreement, but I can’t be bothered arguing the toss so its easier to just use UAH data and see if they want to accuse Christy and Spencer of corrupting data.

                Accepting a data source that agrees with other source does not mean I must share the opinions of Christy or Spencer on all aspects of climate change.

                06

            • #
              bullocky


              Philip Shehan:
              ‘AGW theory and models assume the exact opposite.’

              Probably why they’ve failed so poorly to predict the lack of warming.

              40

            • #
              bullocky

              Philip Shehan:
              “That is why the climate sensitivity factor is expressed as the amount of temperature rise with a doubling of CO2 concentration (a logarithmic relationship including any amplification factor).”

              With negligible warming over the most recent 17 years(approx.), together with a significant increase in CO2 levels, perhaps co-mingled atmospheric C02 is nearing the limit of its effective ‘greenhouse’ capacity?
              Are we witnessing a ‘climatic modification’ of atmospheric components?

              20

              • #
                bullocky

                “Are we witnessing a ‘climatic modification’ of atmospheric components?”

                Unmodelled and hitherto unforseen.

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              bullocky

              Report this

              110
              #6.2.1.8.1

              AndyG55
              February 11, 2014 at 12:11 pm · Reply

              Griss used “PP” (whatever that meant)

              I’m going to call Philip’s post “PPP” (Parroted Propganda Prattle)

              To save time I may actually respond to his post’s of this type by just posting “PPPPP —- again!”

              Another sad case of NBS.


              Have you had trouble with Jehova’s Witnesses before? Most non JWs have a set routine for dismissing them when they come calling.

              00

        • #
          AndyG55

          You really are plumbing the depths of propganda misinformation and junk this time, aren’t you.

          1. You link to that stupid graph from SkS, which uses the FAKED temperature record. We know its faked, because the emails between Tom Wigley, Jones, et al clearly show their intent to ‘disappear’ the inconvenient peak around 1939-40. This peak can be shown to be maybe just slightly below the peak of the 1998 Elnino, making a total nonsense of that puerile SkS graph. I have posted graphs of the actual NOAA sea temperatures which also show this 19040 peak to be a fact.

          2. Your WFT graph fitting a linear trend to what is very obviously two basically flat trends separated by an El Nino jump shows that you are a linear trend monkey with basically zero understanding of any aspect of climate science.
          You know its junk.. so why keep doing it. Been talking to the parrot again ?

          Your continuance to refuse to actually learn anything about reality makes me serious doubt your mental accuity.

          And your continued posting of parroted propganda junk seriously calls your personal integrity deeply into question.

          40

          • #
            Philip Shehan

            Andy, just when I thought we were getting on so well.

            See my comments above on the alleged corruption of data.

            If Wigley et al intended to disappear the peak around 1940, they did not do a very good job, and it appears on all other temperature data sets covering that period.

            http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/mean:12

            The 1940 peak is observable as the noise spike at temp anomoly approx -0.1 C in the temp vs log CO2 plot. (The logarithmic presentation means that the early years are squashed together compared to later years):

            http://oi46.tinypic.com/29faz45.jpg

            See my earlier comments on the use and limitations of linear fits. You can indeed do fits around the 1998 el nino peak, and yes one is relatively flat but the result gives little comfort to the recent pause crowd:

            http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/uah/plot/uah/trend/from/plot/uah/from:1999/trend/plot/uah/to:1998/trend

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            • #
              AndyG55

              They have MASSIVELY adjusted the 1940’s peak.

              Here is a Hansen graph BEFORE they started cooling the past.

              Note that the 1940’s in the US was well above the 1998 peak.

              To say they have not succeeded in adjusting is again a MONUMENTAL LIE, exactly as we all come to expect from you nowadays.

              You do not have an honest bone left in your body.

              Your second link to WFT trees again shows that you are purely a linear trend propaganda monkey with ZERO UNDERSTANDING of how ElNino works.

              You are proving more and more to be a crass fool, not interested in the science, but only in pushing your puerile propganda message.

              40

              • #
                Philip Shehan

                Andy , could you supply the background information on your linked graph. It seems to be from around 2000, so why did Hansen wait this long to corrupt the data?

                Why does the Gisstemp data match the data from other data bases, and post 1979 the satellite sources? Did thay all conspire together to make sure their allegedly fraudulent reconstructions match?

                http://tinyurl.com/lpfj3cd

                With regard to the WFT graph, it was in response to this comment of yours:

                2. Your WFT graph fitting a linear trend to what is very obviously two basically flat trends separated by an El Nino jump shows that you are a linear trend monkey with basically zero understanding of any aspect of climate science.

                Your comment is not about how el nino works, it is a comment about flat temperature trends for the whole satellite period, and for those sections either side of the el nino jump.

                So I presented the data as nominated by you. I can understand that you are upset that the results give no comfort to the “no recent warming” claims, but that’s the data and I’m afraid you will just have to live with it.

                http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/uah/plot/uah/trend/from/plot/uah/from:1999/trend/plot/uah/to:1998/trend

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              • #
                Philip Shehan

                Sorry Andy, left the UAH data out of the graph:

                http://tinyurl.com/l5ojm6b

                03

              • #
                Philip Shehan

                Andy, Well I just noticed one source of the discrepency between the data on your link and the global land sea data.

                The link is for US (presumably land)data only. Would still like further details though.

                05

        • #
          bullocky

          Philip Shehan:
          “No. The CO2 level prior to the industrial revolution, taken as beginning in 1760 was 280 ppm. It is now 400 ppm”


          And yet there’s been no statistically significant warming over the last approx. 17 years!

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          • #
            Philip Shehan

            bullocky, Please pay attention.

            There has been no statistically significant anything for the last 17 years. Or 18 years. Or 15 years. The last of which shows the same regression line as for the last 35 years (which is statistically significant).

            The data sets for 18 years or less are to short to give a definitive answer as to whether temperatures are rising falling or if there is a pause. Picking short time periods is setting the data up to fail the statistical significance test.

            UAH data past 17 years (from 1997):

            Trend: 0.094 ±0.206 °C/decade (2σ)

            18 years since 1996:

            Trend: 0.120 ±0.188 °C/decade (2σ)

            15 years since 1999:

            Trend: 0.146 ±0.212 °C/decade (2σ)

            35 years since 1979

            Trend: 0.138 ±0.070 °C/decade (2σ)

            There is no evidence that temperature rise has not kept pace with the increase in CO2 concentration.

            http://tinyurl.com/mlcpyo3

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            • #
              Mark D.

              There is little, nay NO evidence that that the minimal rise you list is from any other than natural, non-co2 and non-anthropogenic causes.

              Give me error bars or give me death……..

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            • #
              The Griss

              You haven’t learnt a single d*** thing , have you.

              Get your brain out of neutral parroting mode, fool !!

              10

            • #
              AndyG55

              You’ve noticed that too have you, Griss.

              Same old parroted junk. !!

              Philip.. just because you are retired, doesn’t mean you have to switch off your brain….. Infact you should try to keep it active !.

              10

              • #
                AndyG55

                Actually.. just noticed, you have learnt something.. you are now using 2dp instead of 3..

                Small steps, small steps.

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              • #
                AndyG55

                pps..

                I notice you are still using UAH since the ElNino jump. that’s called cherry picking

                Well I have news for you, dopey.. the only reason that UAH is the only one that shows a positive trend this century is because it didn’t register as large a jump at the 1998 ElNino.

                All the other data sets have NEGATIVE trends this century.

                Live with it, and buys some new blankets. !

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              • #
                AndyG55

                And your stupid use of 1999 shows you have no idea how the ElNino works.

                You will not see me picking the peak at 1998 to do any childish linear calcs. That would be DUMB !!!

                But you choose 1999.. DOH !!!!!

                But I’m not going to explain it to you…. you will need to OPEN your mind and do some of your own research (not SkS, that propganda, not science) if you really want to figure it out.. but I really don’t think that do want to.

                10

            • #
              bullocky

              Phil Shehan:
              -”
              There has been no statistically significant anything for the last 17 years.”

              Deal with it!

              00

            • #
              bullocky

              Philip Shehan:

              ” Picking short time periods is setting the data up to fail the statistical significance test”

              Since when did the statistical significance test override the temperatures?

              00

              • #
                Philip Shehan

                Oh, and statistical significance is NOT in the eye of the beholder. It has a PRECISE MATHEMATICAL MEANING.

                It means that (for Fisherian statistical significance at the 2σ level which is most commonly used) there is a 95% probability that the actual temperature trend is within the error margins.

                Statistical significance does not “overide the temperatures”. The measured temperatures are the data from which the trend, INCLUDING the error margins (error bars if you prefer, are calculated. The quoted trend line is only the midpoint of the possible 95% probability range.

                Thus (once more)

                The calculated trend lines for the last 15 years and the last 35 years are essentially the same:

                Trend: 0.146 °C/decade

                Trend: 0.138 °C/decade

                But they are only the midpoints of the possible real temperature trend range.

                Only the 35 year trend shows statistically significant warming because there is a 95% probability that the actual temperature trend is entirely in the warming range; 0.068 to 0.208 °C/decade

                The 15 year “error bars” cover such a large range that the actual trend may be a warming or cooling trend; -0.066 to 0.358 °C/decade.

                It is quite wrong to claim the data shows a warming trend.

                It is quite wrong to claim the data shows a cooling trend.

                It is quite wrong to claim the data shows a “pause”.

                Because none of these claims comes within a bull’s roar of being statistically significant.

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              • #
                bullocky

                Philip Shehan:
                “No data set this century shows a statistically significant trend as far as warming ot cooling is concerned.”

                and

                “The calculated trend lines for the last 15 years and the last 35 years are essentially the same:”

                ie…..No warming for 35 years.


                John Cook will spank your bottom, with or without statistical significance!

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              • #
                bullocky

                Philip Shehan;
                “Oh, and statistical significance is NOT in the eye of the beholder. It has a PRECISE MATHEMATICAL MEANING.”

                Is nothing sacred, any more?

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            • #
              bullocky

              Philip Shehan

              February 13, 2014 at 3:49 pm · Re

              “….
              Trend: 0.094 ±0.206 °C/decade (2σ)

              18 years since 1996:

              Trend: 0.120 ±0.188 °C/decade (2σ)

              15 years since 1999:

              Trend: 0.146 ±0.212 °C/decade (2σ)

              35 years since 1979

              Trend: 0.138 ±0.070 °C/decade (2σ)”

              -I would draw readers’ attention to the bottom two lines relative to the previous five.
              Can anyone see a similarity to Skepticalscience?

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            • #
              bullocky

              Philip Shehan

              February 13, 2014 at 3:49 pm

              “·The data sets for 18 years or less are to short to give a definitive answer as to whether temperatures are rising falling or if there is a pause.”


              ‘Unless Pacific Trade Winds are involved, of course.’

              -Readers will note: you’re in the circle, Philip, and you can’t get out.

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              • #
                Philip Shehan

                bullocky, I am not refering to any hypotheses regarding whether or not trade winds affetc recent temperature trends, simply the mathematical fact that recent trend do not give any reasonable stistically significant indication of what is actually happening to the tempertature as with short time periods, the signal to noise ratio is too low.

                eg the 17 year trend is

                Trend: 0.094 ±0.206 °C/decade (2σ)

                meaning that the temperature trend within the meaning of statistical significance is between a cooling trend of 0.112 and a warming trend of 0.300 °C/decade.

                I am not going in circles, although I am having to repaet the point about statistical significance because you keep failing to grasp it.

                And as for “the bottom two lines relative to the previous five.”:

                35 years since 1979

                Trend: 0.138 ±0.070 °C/decade (2σ)

                I have no idea what this mathematical fact has to do with skeptical science.

                This simply indicates that the 35 year trend does show a statistically significant warming trend of between 0.068 and 0.208 °C/decade.

                As for Andy’s comment that UAH is the only data set is the only one to show a positive trend “this century”, every one of those data sets will show even greater error margins than the UAH data for 97,98,99…

                No data set this century shows a statistically significant trend as far as warming ot cooling is concerned.

                01

              • #
                bullocky

                Pilip Shehan

                “meaning that the temperature trend within the meaning of statistical significance is between a cooling trend of 0.112 and a warming trend of 0.300 °C/decade.”

                Error bars?

                ‘Statistical significance’ is like ‘beauty’: it’s in the eye of the beholder.

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              • #
                bullocky


                Philip Shehan:
                “I am not going in circles, although I am having to repaet the point about statistical significance because you keep failing to grasp it.”

                See above post.

                00

              • #
                bullocky


                Philip Shehan:
                No data set this century shows a statistically significant trend as far as warming ot cooling is concerned.

                Back to 1997 (approx.) – but you’re beginning to grasp the point.

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              • #
                bullocky


                -Philip Shehan:……”I have no idea what this mathematical fact has to do with skeptical science.”


                You’re point of distinction is worth noting.

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              • #
                Philip Shehan

                bullocky, the error in the data, eg

                Trend: 0.138 ±0.070 °C/decade (2σ)

                means precisely that the error bars are ±0.070 °C/decade either side of the trend line.

                00

              • #
                bullocky

                Philip Shehan;

                February 15, 2014 at 2:39 pm

                “bullocky, the error in the data, eg

                Trend: 0.138 ±0.070 °C/decade (2σ)

                means precisely that the error bars are ±0.070 °C/decade either side of the trend line.”

                ‘The precision is in the error’

                You don’t explain yourself very well, do you, Philip?

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  • #
    turnedoutnice

    These people are desperate so will clutch at any straw within clutching distance.

    The latest, related claim by Julia Slingo is that Indonesian variability, clearly related to the Pacific heat transfer processes, has caused the jet stream amplification of Depressions moving across the North Atlantic to Europe.

    All this is, of course, intended to defray any possibility that solar changes are the major driver of climate, relegating CO2-AGW to near zero, which is what is really the case.

    The Climate Alchemists sold their souls a long time ago to the demagogues like Gore and Gillard. In the UK, it l;ooks lioke cameron is itching to become a climate demagogue like his idols but his attention span is rather short now.

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  • #
    Ben Wouters

    Given that the heat content of the atmosphere is equivalent to that of the top 4 metres of the ocean and the mass of the atmosphere is equivalent to the top 10 metres of the ocean it is unlikely that the atmosphere tail wags the ocean dog!

    Makes perfect sense. Only question to answer is: how did the (deep) oceans get so hot (> 270K)
    Seeing that the sun is barely able to get the average surface temperature of our moon to 197K, the sun isn’t the answer. (besides, last time I checked warm surface water doesn’t sink into cold, dense deep ocean water) Maybe the fact that earth is a planet consisting of molten stone, with a core of molten metal has something to do with this?

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    • #
      Konrad

      “Only question to answer is: how did the (deep) oceans get so hot (> 270K)
      Seeing that the sun is barely able to get the average surface temperature of our moon to 197K, the sun isn’t the answer.”

      Ben,
      actually the sun is the answer. Or rather the sun and the oceans. As you should be aware, the SB (Stefan-Boltzmann) equation prediction for lunar surface temperatures do not conform exactly with actual measured temperatures. This is because of the moderating effect of the thermal conductivity of the lunar regolith.

      The situation with earth’s oceans is far different. You must never do as the climate pseudo scientists did and apply SB equations to either transparent substances or moving fluids in a gravity field. Oceans are heated at depth by SW solar radiation. They are cooled at the surface by evaporation, conduction and radiation (in descending order of importance). However what must also be calculated is the slow speed of non-radiative energy transports in returning energy from depth back to the surface.

      The ocean is not being heated by a constant ¼ power (240 w/m2) solar SW source as climate pseudo scientists calculate. It is being heated at depth by intermittent pulses of solar SW peaking at over 1000 w/m2. Climate pseudo scientists gross errors leads them to conclude that if the atmosphere did not exist above the oceans (and the were prevented from boiling into the vacuum of space) then they would have an average temperature of -18C. This figure is so far out it is ludicrous. The real figure should be +80C if not higher. The sun heats the oceans, the atmosphere cools the oceans and radiative gases cool the atmosphere.

      This simple experiment (not yet built) can demonstrate just how hot our oceans could get if all atmospheric features except pressure are eliminated. No conductive or evaporative cooling and no downwelling LWIR. Simply heating by SW and cooling by LWIR –
      http://i42.tinypic.com/315nbdl.jpg
      While simple, it is prohibitively expensive.

      However there are simpler verification experiments you can run that won’t blow your budget, but may blow warmist minds.

      This “solar pond” experiment shows how hot water exposed to SW, cooled by outgoing LWIR and restricted from evaporative or conductive cooling can get –
      http://i40.tinypic.com/27xhuzr.jpg
      (caution – experiment temperatures can exceed 80C)

      Or you can try the “dry” experiment “Shredded Lukewarm turkey in Boltzmannic vinegar”
      Get two 100 x 100 x 10mm blocks of acrylic. Paint one black on the top surface, and the second black on the base. Spray both blocks with several layers of clear-coat on their top surfaces to ensure equal reflectivity and IR emissivity. Attach thermocouples to upper and lower surfaces. Insulate the blocks on the sides and base. Enclose each in a small LDPE greenhouse to minimise conductive losses. Now expose to strong solar SW. 3 hours should result in a 17C differential between the blocks. The block with the black base runs hotter. SB equations do not give the correct answer. (caution – experiment temperatures can exceed 115C)

      Here I go further and place the blocks under intermittent halogen light sources with air cooled IR shields between the blocks and the halogen lights. –
      http://i61.tinypic.com/2z562y1.jpg
      While the lights are less powerful than the sun, this set up demonstrates that when the SW heating is intermittent, the block with the black base can achieve not just a higher average temperature, but a higher surface temperature as well. The experiment also works if clear water filled blocks are used, one with a black top surface and one with a black base.

      In their snivelling idiocy, climate pseudo scientists have applied SB equations to transparent oceans and moving fluids in a gravity field. This is junk science at its absolute worst.

      The sun heats the oceans, the atmosphere cools the oceans and radiative gases cool our atmosphere. The net effect of radiative gases in our atmosphere is cooling at all concentrations above 0.0ppm. Climate pseudo scientists are not just a little bit wrong, it’s not a case of “less warming than we thought”. The reality is that radiative gases do not cause warming at all, they are our planet’s primary cooling mechanism.

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      • #
        Ben Wouters

        As you should be aware, the SB (Stefan-Boltzmann) equation prediction for lunar surface temperatures do not conform exactly with actual measured temperatures. This is because of the moderating effect of the thermal conductivity of the lunar regolith.

        @ Konrad
        Quite an understatement 😉 The effective temperature for the moon is ~270K versus 255K for our earth (albedo .11 vs .30) Actual average temperature for the moon is ~197K. The effect of the 4th power in SB in action. See this article for further details.
        So the 255K for earth is way too high. It can only be reached by spreading the incoming solar evenly around the globe, and that is not happening as you noted.
        So by solar warming only earth would NOT have liquid oceans. Only ice, with perhaps a melt pool around the equator following the suns zenith position, that would quickly freeze over approaching sunset.

        01

  • #
    handjive

    The 97% Settled science Of Global Warming, Key Words, Prof England:
    if
    “The trade winds, if they persist for longer, they will tend to keep global temperatures relatively flat compared to where they would be if the winds abate.”

    could
    Well, part of that increase is due to natural variability, but it’s only half due to natural variability.
    The other half could be due to global warming itself.

    when
    “And it’s important to point out this is a cycle we expect to reverse, and when they do reverse, when the winds go back to their normal levels, we’d expect global warming to kick in and start to rise.”
    .
    And the evidence of this happening before whilst carbon(sic) @400ppm?
    And, if there is no evidence this has happened before, why?

    The scientific method: Richard Feynman

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    • #
      handjive

      And if I am expected to have 100% confidence in that ‘science’ and transform the way I live, the amount of energy I use, and hand all my money over for re-distribution, you, Prof England, have another thing coming.

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  • #

    Quick answer to the title question of the post: The trade winds and the surface temperature gradient (east to west) of the tropical Pacific are coupled. For support of William Kininmonth’s post, recall the ENSO basics:
    http://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2014/01/10/an-illustrated-introduction-to-the-basic-processes-that-drive-el-nino-and-la-nina-events/

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    Debbie

    Soooooo. . .basically they have given themselves another 6 years (2020 or thereabouts) because the wind is hiding the warming from AGW?
    These people are good at excuses 🙂 🙂

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    • #
      bobl

      Just like my kids. I think of them whenever I hear the word but… come from a climate scientist. The word but… usually precedes an untruth.

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  • #
    Sean

    It seems that the climate establishment is finally discovering natural variability caused by ENSO and the PDO / AMO cycles. Isn’t that what many skeptics have been saying for years? There may be a lot of bluster about warming coming back with a vengeance in a decade or so but at least they seem to be getting on the right track.

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  • #

    […] the paper in his WattsUpWithThat post here, Jo Nova has a guest post by William Kininmonth here, and Dana Nuccitelli added the warmist spin on the paper for SkepticalScience here.  The following […]

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  • #

    Also, I just published a quick post about England et al. (2014) to further highlight the flaws in the paper:
    http://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2014/02/10/quick-comments-on-england-et-al-2014/

    Cheers

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  • #
    bobl

    Good to hear from you Will, thanks for your help in the past.
    I would like to emphasise that energetically what England proposes is probably not possible. If all that extra energy is manifesting as wind, circulation and waves, or ocean warming, or ice melt, or evaporation and rainfall or increased photosynthesis then it is not manifesting as atmospheric heat. There is no mechanism that an ocean cooled by increased turnover, and increased heat exchange with the depths, can suddenly warm any more than it has in the past as the winds die down.

    “Unfortunately, however, when the hiatus ends, global warming looks set to be rapid.”

    I call Bull, effectively the temperature of the ocean/atmosphere must be “reset” by the cooling and will have to build up again from the end point of the cooling, there’s no “Thermal memory” here.

    Remembering that the supposed imbalance is around 0.6W per meter square (plus or minus 17) Where is the extra energy coming from to drive such effects? Is the energy embedded in those winds waves and currents greater than the driving energy – the christmas light per square meter worth of Hansen’s energy imbalance. Unless England can prove that the energy in the effects is less than the driving force then he might well be describing a perpetual motion machine.

    Also once the energy is gone from the ocean surface, it’s gone. This idea fron trained scientists that ocean heat will all by itself reconcentrate at the surface and leap into an atmosphere that is for the most part warmer than the ocean is scientific fancy. An ocean that is on average 0.001 degrees warmer will at best impart 0.001 degrees to the atmosphere. If the heat’s gone into the ocean then it’s goodbye global warming. Heat’s not hiding in the deep ocean, if it’s there then it’s gone for good, it’s not going to sit there for centuries without dissipating and jump out and go boo.

    Several years ago I read a paper not unlike this that said the global rainfall would increase 20 % due to global warming, but taking into acount the latent heat of evaporation and potential energy of raising it 3km Hansens 0.6W can at best only cause 2% extra evaporation and rainfall, any more and the energy extracted in the water cycle would be greater than Hansens 0.6W per square meter and therefore would cool the climate. Noone in this debate seems to justify the energy requirements of the effects they predict.

    In the end this is clutching at straws, on so many levels – not the least of which is energy conservation.

    Personally I think there is a very basic mistake being made, all this fuss is about an imbalance between energy in Vs energy out, they don’t balance and that implies accumulation, but it’s not true, energy in from the sun does not have to equal radiant energy out, it has to equal total energy out in all forms. Some of the energy is transformed, to chemical, entropy, kinetic, phase changes, sound, electromagnetic and other forms which are dissipated in other ways. There’s 32 kW per square meter of surface in the average ocean wavefront, how much of that is caused wind driven by thermals. Frankly, I am surprised the imbalance is so small, losses have to be greater than 0.6% surely.

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    Tim

    Hey guys, we’ve stuck our neck out on this “CO2 is directly warming the deep oceans” stuff, so go prove it to the scientific community.

    Why? It’s the agenda, stupid.

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    ROM

    I would suggest that far too much importance is placed on the Pacific’s ENSO.
    It certainly affects the world wide weather but it’s effects are more spread more global than local and are on a relatively long time frame.

    A better example that should be researched and which could be researched far faster than the not particularly regular 7 year cycle of the major ENSO phases on which comes first, the windy chicken or the bad egg that floats on the Pacific is the fairly regular and quasi annual Indian Ocean Dipole system.

    The IOD phase certainly has a huge annual influence, an influence which arguably has a much greater local effect on far more people not only here in western and southern and south eastern Australia but also has massive influences and is critical to the Indian Ocean’s South West Monsoon from which the Monsoon rains after passing through the Indo Pakistan region with it’s over 1.5 billion population then by the torquing of the SW monsoon around the eastern end of the high and massive Tibetan plateau extends into large parts of southern China as well as far north as Japan.

    In all some 2.5 billions or about one third of humanity around the Indian Ocean littoral as well as into southern China and the western parts of SE Asia depend on that Indian Ocean origin South West Monsoon to provide immense rainfall over the Indo Pakistan region as it come up against the Himalayan plateau, is forced to rise and so drops colossal amounts of water on to the entire region thus ensuring the harvests that will provide enough food to feed that population for another year.
    As an example of the amount of rainfall that can precipitate from the Monsoon
    Average annual rainfall,
    the wettest place is Mawsynram, Meghalaya, India, with 11,873 mm (467 in) of rain per annum.

    Meghalaya means ‘land of the clouds’. Most of the rain occurs during the monsoon season, between June and September.

    The second rainiest place is Cherrapunji, also in Meghalaya, with an average annual rainfall of 11,430 mm (450 in) per year, which can actually suffer drought outside the monsoon season.

    Cherrapunji, India 26,461 mm (1,042 inches) the HIGHEST IN ONE YEAR

    HIGHEST IN ONE CALENDAR MONTH
    Cherrapunji, India 9,300 mm (366 inches)

    As seems to be so usual these days, the self centred, incapable of looking beyond their own computer screens or beyond their own back doors and the flesh pots of academic life, those western climate scientists seem to think that only the northern and central Pacific and the North Atlantic and the Arctic are the centres of all of the global weather generating systems and the centre of the forces that shape and are continuing to shape the global climate,

    The immense South Pacific, Southern and Antarctic Oceans and the Indian and South Atlantic oceans along with the immense continent of Antarctica , a continental land mass 1.8 times as large as Australia, are almost ignored and dismissed in their possibly critical role in the shaping the global; weather systems and our global climate.

    That is probably close to one half of the Earth’s total ocean areas that are being ignored as potential weather and climate generating ocean and wind systems by the narrow visioned western north american and european based climate researchers.

    As the realisation starts to filter through to even the dumbest climate researcher that the more they thought they knew about the global climate and weather systems and drivers, the less they actually did know then the research will finally start to get back on track to where climate and weather research should have been concentrated 20 or 30 years ago instead of haring off like rabidly mad wildebeest into the climate boonies intent on running down the mirage and chimera of a catastrophically warming climate for which they never ever had any proof nor have been ever able to find any proof despite destroying a trillion dollars worth of global wealth in their totally useless , impotent and fruitless pursuit of a computer generated mirage and lie.

    But they are after all just academic climate scientists and we now know, based entirely on their past performances or lack of to expect little in the way of sensible rational thinking that have been the hall mark of the great scientists of the past..

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    Joe V.

    Finding any & every plausible explanation to explain the pause.
    Or clutching a straws.

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    I haven’t noticed that the trade winds that blow across my place 60% of the time have got any stronger, and generally the temperatures have been lower than normal. I was wondering where these mischievous winds were occurring. The answer is in Bob’ “quick comments” above. They are somewhere out in the area where there are little real data. So we’ve had sneaky CO2, then awol warming wiggling into the ocean undetected, now it’s wayward winds whipping up where no one is able to keep an eye on them. Wondering what else is going to jump out and say boo. This stuff is getting like Call of Cthulhu.

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    All this discussion is interesting but the original proposition was that the industrial revolution was increasing the CO2 because it was going up and this alone would produce rapid, even runaway global warming. (which by definition could not have happened before)

    I have always held that the first proposition is patently untrue because of the rapid absorption of all man made CO2 into the oceans with a half life of 13 years. This is known simple science from atom bomb tests. The second is now utterly disproven by the lack of warming. A pause? It will be interesting to see if temperatures now go down. If they do CO2 will go down too. Now that will be interesting. By that time the profiteers of doom will have retired on their winnings, their mortgages paid off and their children through school. What’s next? The Rapture anybody? Who would like to buy a few billion $$ of carbon credits? Anyone?

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    PhilJourdan

    The “pause” is probably the greatest asset to the science of climate. It has caused the alarmists to start looking at other factors, which seemed to be lacking in their zeal to rush to a conclusion that was not supported by evidence, just hope. And so we have another possible cause for the pause. Given the lack of history on all these causes, the truth is we do not know if the run up of the warming was atypical of these factors, or typical. But at least they are looking at more than just CO2 being an influence in temperature now. Well, at least some of them.

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    The vast majority of the energy in the atmosphere gets into it via the surface. Direct heating of the atmosphere is very limited as most gases are transparent to the bulk of inbound radiation, but most radiation that strikes the surface; especially that of the oceans, is absorbed and transformed into heat.

    That should not be a difficult concept to grasp.

    Winds are formed by a number of factors; but they are notably enhanced by the temperature difference across the surface of the Earth; induced at the surface by the daily cycle of night and day.

    While the ocean hold vast quantities of heat, the temperature of most of the oceans is quite cold; below the thermocline at around 4⁰C; so they cannot transfer much heat into the air even through “overturning”; except in circumpolar currents in the South and seasonally; cross-polar currents in the North.

    The precise behaviour of ocean currents isn’t known at all well. They do vary, fluctuate/migrate a little. Where they “pop up” determines where they tend to warm the air and drive the winds. When they pop up is hard to tell. Best hope so far is the use of Argo and expansion thereof, so that we can get a “map” of where the potential energy is stored. The triggering of a change to a different, quasi-stable circulation may well be solar/insolation; modulated by a number of factors, terrestial and extra-terrestial.

    Before Antarctica and Australia parted their ways, both had lush, tropical/temperate climates. It’s the circumpolar circulation that has probably facilitated global cooling in the past 90 million years or so.

    What would we do if volcanic eruptions across Drake’s Passage closed or significantly constricted that circumpolar circulation? Should we try to “undo” the change to try to “preserve climate” at any cost, or look forward to the month-long sunsets on the balmy shores of McMurdo Sound?

    Unlike the phantom menace of CO2, volcanic eruptions could change ocean circulations in the space of weeks. Weather patterns will change very quickly once “the fridge has been turned off”, not just in Australia. So better make up your mind if you are for or against climate change. Where are the “climate modellers”?

    Please excuse the tangent.

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      Ben Wouters

      Before Antarctica and Australia parted their ways, both had lush, tropical/temperate climates. It’s the circumpolar circulation that has probably facilitated global cooling in the past 90 million years or so.

      The reason for the lush tropical climate at that time is the eruption of at least 140 million km^3 magma between ~125 and ~84 mya. That is enough magma to cover the USA + Canada under a layer some 7 km. thick. The magma warmed the deep oceans ~13K above the then existing temperatures.

      When the eruptions ended, the deep oceans started to cool down.
      They have lost ~18K in the last 84 million years.
      And our climaclowns are worrying about a temperature rise of a few hundreds of a degree for the deep oceans, go figure.

      In anybody is interested in the mechanism that explains the slow warming and cooling of the deep oceans, I do have an explanation.

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      bobl

      It’s also important to note, that the atmosphere has little thermal inertia, ( look at the wild swings of even 40 degrees that can occur in deserts between night and day). The only times that the ocean can warm the atmosphere is when the atmosphere is colder than the ocean, that’s when it’s cold out. So any oceanic warming of the atmosphere is going to occur just when and where it’s cold, and won’t last for long. On a 45 degree day, the ocean cools the atmosphere, create a bigger difference between atmosphere and ocean through global warming (or anything else) and the ocean, cools it more, and warms it less since now the ocean is less often warmer than the atmosphere and the driving thermal gradient is greater, a classic negative feedback. Even so, any warming by the ocean is exactly where and when you need it, IE when it’s cold above.

      All this fussing about ocean heat annoys me so much, ocean warming is good for the planet.

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        There’s a matter of scale and proportion; as well as the ocean’s surface temperature limit. It’s not possible to have a 45⁰C heat above the ocean’s surface.

        As I mentioned previously, the sun cannot substantially heat the air as most of the air is transparent to the bulk of insolation; yet when the sunlight hits the surface, much of it; especially the ocean surface; absorbs a broad band of radiation. And much of it in the top few millimetres of surface. Evaporation limits surface temperature; removing heat from the surface while converting a small volume of liquid water into a large, buoyant volume of gas about, producing a convective motion that further increases the rate of evaporation and heat removal, lowering water temperature.

        The natural convection occurs only when the buoyant forces exceed the gravitational and viscous forces within the air (Gr.Pr ~1000), so there’s a minimum surface temperature required over an ideal surface before such convection is initiated. Approaching that “instability”, there are e.g. perturbations of air motion that can produce a localised natural convection large enough to grow into a large “updraught”. Air from the sides will move towards that updraught to displace the air at the site. The motion is sustained while there is still enough heat at the site for continued evaporation under the induced convection.

        Land surface doesn’t have the same temperature-limiting mechanism. But deserts do have “dry cyclones” and dry heat columns due to similar factors. They’re not as sustainable as those over water because the evaporation of the water’s surface acts as a positive feedback on the buoyant forces; and a negative feedback on the evaporative mechanism as it removes heat. If the land cyclone isn’t moving across the surface quickly, it’ll run out of “puff” because the surface cools quickly and has a high thermal resistance, so any stored heat gets to the surface too slowly to sustain convective forces.

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          bobl

          Yes, I probably should have made that point, also, if the atmosphere above ocean gets much more than 30 degrees, there is a fast non linear response, in that the vapour pressure increases the dew point temperature causing cloud and storminess. This non linear response limits incoming insolation leading to energy saturation in the system, it can get no warmer because the storm is limiting the incoming energy and increasing emission.

          I was though trying to make a different point. That for the ocean to add heat to the atmosphere, the ocean has to be hotter than the atmosphere, and this generally only happens when it’s cold. Going into the extra detail just would have confounded my point.

          Oceans don’t warm, they moderate, they reduce the max, and increase the mins. They work against the temperature, warming cold temperatures and cooling hot ones, with or without global warming. The hotter it tries to get, the more the ocean cools, ultimately leading to a storm as described above. In anyone’s book, that’s gotta be a good thing.

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            You don’t need a cloud to “close the iris” to limit the temperature.

            It should be easy enough to demonstrate using some bright “sun” lamps, a deep, wide pool of water and a rubber duck. The duck to hold the thermometer in the shade but slightly above the surface of the water.

            All well insulated.

            For those who think that warm air can substantially heat water, there’s the experiment of trying to heat a bath full of cold water using a hairdryer, blowing air over the surface of the water.

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        Vic G Gallus

        Energy can be transformed to latent heat in the evaporated water. Heat will not go directly from cold to hot, but some energy can be transferred to the upper atmosphere.

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          bobl

          Yes, but that energy is not transfered to the atmosphere from the water vapour until the temperature is lowered to the dew point, again, the atmosphere must be colder than the water. The temperature at altitude must be relatively cold for that exchange to happen, if it is not then the water will not condense.

          Ultimately though when the atmosphere is cold enough and the water does condense then the energy is released and is emitted to space, the results in evaporative cooling of the lower atmosphere, yet another negative feedback and both mechanisms can only warm cold air and serve to cool hot air.

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  • #

    First of all, thanks ROM for your input. Since this site is down younder people obviously are not much aware of what is happening far up north.

    The #1 IPCC data provider the hadley Centre has just come out with a new climate forecast for the next half a decade at:
    http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/media/pdf/1/8/decadal_forecast_2014-2018_jan2014.pdf noting espcially figure 1 and the spagetti graph for the last 5 years.

    An while you are at it reading British views, check also:
    http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/news/recent-pause-in-warming
    http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/media/pdf/q/0/Paper2_recent_pause_in_global_warming.PDF and
    http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/media/pdf/3/r/Paper3_Implications_for_projections.pdf

    All interesting attempts to explain the dilemma of global warming.

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    RoyFOMR

    The entire edifice of MMGW was built upon ONE piece of Scientific Argument:
    It is caused by rising levels of CO2 (due to fossil fuel usage) BECAUSE no other mechanism can be found!

    Thanks to recent studies by legions of talented Scientists we have now found those missing mechanisms.
    Recently, Richard Lindzen told us, at a UK parliamentary enquiry, that the price for solving a scientific problem was to defund any associated projects!
    Can we have our money back now?

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      The Griss

      Unfortunately we need to keep some money flowing, so that they can be forced to remove all those useless wind turbine that are littering the environment

      In America they are just left to rust in their thousands. Yuck.

      Because they are “green” industries, no-one seems to have responsibility to clean up after themselves in the wind industry, and probably not in the solar industry either.

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    Ian Wilson

    Of course I agree with Bill Kininmonth’s basic criticism of England et al. If these authors invoke natural variability to explain global cooling then it must also have a commensurate role in global warming, as well.

    One point, on which I would disagree with Bill is that the ENSO phenomenon is undergoing random natural variations. As every one knows, I believe that lunar oceanic and atmospheric tides play an important role in the timing and relative frequency of El Nino/La Nina events. The lunar tides do this through their influence upon:

    a) the amount of convective overturning of cool deep ocean water in the Pacific Basin
    b) the reinforcement of the semi-permanent high pressure cells found in the Southern Sub-tropical high pressure ridge e.g. the Tasman Sea blocking high.
    c) the amount of latitudinal oscillation in the mid-latitude jet stream that affects the location and efficiency of energy transport between the tropics and
    the polar regions. This energy transfer is primarily achieved through atmospheric winds and to a lesser extent oceans currents.

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    Roy Hogue

    The given explanation of ‘natural variations’ is neither scientific nor convincing.

    Say what? Given the utter lack of any other convincing science to explain why climate (and for that matter the weather) changes, I find that a most curious statement. Mr. Kininmonth may wish for more knowledge — as do the rest of us. But it is natural until someone can show convincing evidence of human causation.

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    Jaymez

    The next peer reviewed paper I am expecting to explain the ‘pause’ in global warming is that the sun isn’t as hot as it used to be. But just as soon as it gets warmer, CO2 will start having a really bad effect again. The paper will have graphs showing that when the sun is hot, the planet warms, and when it is less hot it warms less. The IPCC will consider it revolutionary! 🙂

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    Jaymez

    The Climate Consensus – Scientists agree, there are 97 reasons for the pause in Global Warming!

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      PeterS

      There may be 97 reasons now but I suspect it will increase as time goes on until some fraudster who is a scientist comes out with the ultimate solution – there are an infinite number of reasons. Why not? After all, there are numerous stupid Multiverse theories to explain the origin of our Universe that’s taken seriously by some scientists, who are nothing more than quacks.

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    Yonniestone

    This entire CAGW claim reminds me of playing ball games as a child where one kid would always want to change the rules to try and ensure they won.
    What they never realized is why no one wanted to play with them and their actions would forever make them a loser, it always comes down to how much of a conscience someone has.

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    Bruce

    Comment of Lindzen before a recent parliamentary committee:

    “When you were at university were the people studying meteorology or oceanography the brightest?” he asked. Maths and physics seemed to attract the most intellectually able, Lindzen observed.

    Yeo saw an opportunity and leaped into the attack again. Was Lindzen suggesting, he fumed, that people involved in climate science with backgrounds in (say) oceanography were somehow intellectually inferior?

    “Oh yeah,” responded Lindzen. “The brightest went into physics and maths. Now that has ceased. The brightest might go into business … Your statement although it makes people a little queasy – ‘my field is not as strong as your field’ – is obviously true.”

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      bobl

      If you look at it it is demonstrably true. To do science, Math or Engineering you needed Maths A, B and two of Chemistry, Physics or Biology. Weaker students who were too lazy to do the hard mathematics and science, did Arts or Business.

      Things have changed a little since then, the attempts to portray all degrees as being equal have driven even more students away from technical subjects toward Soft options, one would think, good, some talent in other spaces, while this may be true, for lack of education it won’t be numerate talent! This national laziness of Gen Y and the millenials will cripple our national competitiveness for decades. To fix this we MUST restore to the Engineering and sciences the prominent place in our education system they used to occupy. This won’t please the leftist hordes of Arts degree holders that dominate the MSM and government, but if we want to succeed as a nation it’s exactly what has to happen.

      No sign of that anywhere though, out of 200 odd members, we have but one science graduate, and no science ministry – what a tragedy.

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        AndyG55

        So, so true. Engineering is basically applied maths to physical concepts.

        The number of students we are getting coming in with a pretty basic level of maths is making things quite difficult. Constantly having to pause and backtrack on maths that the students really should be able to do easily.

        It makes grasping the concepts difficult for them when they can’t apply them mathematically.

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    Ed

    So what exactly is the difference between what England is claiming, and an El Nino? How did all this warm [West] Pacific water avoid being brought to the surface by the El Ninos of the last two decades?

    [Ed, there is a moderator that uses ED. To avoid confusion, would you please modify your screen name? Thank you in advance.] ED

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    handjive

    May 2006
    The study was led by Gabriel Vecchi of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research and is detailed in the May 4 issue of the journal Nature.

    Global Warming Weakens Trade Winds
    Humans to blame

    (via comments @WUWT)

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      The Griss

      chuckle.. so AGW makes Trade winds stronger but weaker.. is that right ?

      Like having no snow anymore, unless there is some.

      Or less rain in floods that don’t fill dams because there is no run-off.

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        Streetcred

        Those are the ‘strong-weak’ Trade winds as opposed to the ‘weak-strong’ Trade winds. These are both a consequence of global warming (TM) | climate change (TM) | climate weirding (TM) | whatever weather-religious belief is in vogue.

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    Safetyguy66

    Thanks Jo and William that was an excellent explanation, even I understood it.

    But also it goes back to a post I made yesterday about the fallibility of the models. This is clearly a well understood and long established theory/phenomena, so to not have accounted for it in the models is just more evidence of the intrinsic pointlessness of staring at models and believing you are seeing the climate.

    When someone can accurately replicate the stock market and create a working predictive model for stocks, I will start believing its possible to do the same with climate. Right now as an avid computer gamer who plays games with budgets in the tens and hundreds of millions, that fail to accurately simulate basic AI related to things like driving and shooting, I just fail to see how you could even think it was possible to accurately simulate the climate. Its just another part of the whole pipe dream.

    “When you believe in things you don’t understand then suffer, superstition aint the way”
    Stevie Wonder

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    pat

    ???

    11 Feb: Sydney Morning Herald: Peter Hannam: Pacific weather watch gets urgent funds as El Nino prospects grow
    The leading US weather forecasting agency says the drop in data flowing from monitoring buoys is hampering its ability to detect changes in the Pacific, as conditions favouring a damaging El Nino cycle take shape…
    The importance of the equatorial Pacific to global climate was unscored this week with new research led by Matthew England of the University of New South Wales showing east-west trade winds over the region had strengthened…
    A report published on Monday in the US journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences said there’s a 75 per cent chance the El Nino weather pattern will occur in late 2014.
    The research by Josef Ludescher and Armin Bunde from Germany’s Justus-Liebig University used a 12-month model that successfully predicted the absence of El Nino in the past two years.
    The US Climate Prediction Centre said last week there is an increasing chance of an El Nino later this year.
    Andrew Watkins, manager of climate predictions services at the Bureau of Meteorology, said an El Nino event was possible but no certainty. While there are signs of warming in the central Pacific, forecasters will have a clearer view by autumn, he said…
    http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/pacific-weather-watch-gets-urgent-funds-as-el-nino-prospects-grow-20140210-32cno.html

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      ianl8888

      As commented in the previous thread, AGW advocates are hanging out for an El Nino event so they can say: “We told you so !”

      During a La Nina event (globally cooler), the claim is that Nino/Nina oscillations just “cancel each other out over roughly decadal periods”, so if we remove ENSO effects, the residual is down to atmospheric CO2 increases from us sinners

      But during an El Nino event (globally warmer), the full propaganda panoply of “We’re all gonna fry” is given in-your-face headlines. The ENSO oscillations are ignored

      The circularity of this argument was entertaining at first but has become simply tedious now

      Is that all they’ve got ? 🙂

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        AndyG55

        If you have a look at the temperature patterns at ElNino events you will see a peak followed by a trough then the temperture settles down again maybe to a different temperature, which then cools slowly through the following LaNina period

        A rough read from RSS shows that the 1998 ElNino caused a jump of about 0.3C in the atmospheric temperature.

        Now have a look at the 2010 ElNino. There was NO JUMP in general atmospheric temperature once things settled back down.

        ElNinos do add a peak during the actual event, but they don’t always affect the general trend of the temperature series.

        That general trend is currently slightly downwards. http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/plot/rss/from:2001.1/plot/rss/from:2001.1/trend

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    mem

    Hi Jo, Can you or William Kininmonth contact the so-called independent Science Media Centres starting with the one in Oz and request that they include William Kininmonth’s response to the Prof England paper.The expert responses they are currently running are laughable.Read here link
    PS love your work.

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    ROM

    One of the fables of modern times totally applicable to all of climate science.

    It’s turtles all the way down
    There are many versions of the “turtle” story. Here is one of the best known:

    “William James, father of American psychology, tells of meeting an old lady who told him the Earth rested on the back of a huge turtle. “But, my dear lady”, Professor James asked, as politely as possible, “what holds up the turtle?”
    “Ah”, she said, “that’s easy. He is standing on the back of another turtle.”
    “Oh, I see”, said Professor James, still being polite. “But would you be so good as to tell me what holds up the second turtle?”
    “It’s no use, Professor”, said the old lady, realizing he was trying to lead her into a logical trap. “It’s turtles-turtles-turtles, all the way!”
    ______________________

    Now just replace “turtles” with “climate models” and you have the complete explanation for the typical climate scientist’s psychological profile and their levels of intellect rigor as we are witnessing in England’s above claims.

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    handjive

    Why the Pliocene was so hot

    New research has found that the release of forest emissions and smoke from wildfires had a far greater impact on global warming than carbon dioxide 3 million years ago.

    Dynamic atmospheric chemistry played an important role in the warm climates of the Pliocene period.
    These findings help to explain why the Pliocene was 2-3C warmer than the pre-industrial era despite having carbon dioxide levels approximately the same as today.

    The results also showed that increase in global vegetation was the dominant driver behind the increase in emissions, and, consequently, the changing climate.
    It’s an important study to help understand climate change throughout the Earth’s history.

    Read more at Yale University

    Note: The modeling calculations were performed on Yale University’s omega supercomputer, a 704-node cluster capable of processing more than 52 trillion calculations per second.

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    pat

    as i am not fit to answer your question, apologies for the usual O/T comments!

    EU should hold off setting 2030 climate targets -Korolec
    Feb 10 (Reuters) – The European Union should delay setting 2030 climate change targets to next year when other countries are due to their pledges, which could enable the bloc to align with them, Poland’s secretary of state for climate policy said…
    https://www.pointcarbon.com/news/reutersnews/1.4032412

    U.N. carbon offsets awards poised to hit 3.5-year low in Feb
    LONDON, Feb 10 (Reuters) – Demand for carbon credits from project developers under the U.N.’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) fell to a 3-1/2-year low in of 6 million in February, U.N. data showed Monday…
    https://www.pointcarbon.com/news/reutersnews/1.4031333

    7 Feb: Trust.Org: Reuters: Stian Reklev: Tribal group threatens NZ govt with NZ$600 mln claim over carbon scheme
    A New Zealand tribal group says it will file a NZ$600 million ($493 million) claim against the government for value lost on their forests unless policymakers move to shore up prices in the nation’s emissions trading scheme (ETS).
    The Iwi Leadership Group, which represents over 60 Maori tribes, told Prime Minister John Key this week that the Maori have been disproportionately impacted by the 80 percent drop in permit prices over the last three years.
    The move by the tribes adds to pressure on the government to make changes to the scheme, which an increasing amount of critics say is not working.
    The Maori hold around 30 percent of the market’s permits based on carbon stored in their forests…
    NZUs that traded at NZ$20 each in 2011 are now changing hands at NZ$3.25.
    “Around NZ$600 million has been wiped away,” Chris Karamea Insley, the group’s spokesman, told Reuters. “When we signed the (ETS) treaty we assumed the value of the permits would hold.”…
    Last November the tribal leadership group proposed a floor price of NZ$15 for NZUs, a move they said would restore the value of forests, create thousands of jobs and draw hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign investment.
    The government dismissed that proposal, and as it gears up for a tight election race later this year, few observers expect it to make big changes to the emissions scheme…
    Power generators, industrials and the transport sector are meeting their carbon targets using Eastern European credits changing hands at around 30 NZ cents, leaving little or no need for the domestic NZUs.
    Government data released last October showed deforestation is on the rise and emissions are on track to grow 50 percent from current levels by 2040
    http://www.trust.org/item/20140210095842-8btc5/?source=hptop

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    pat

    10 Feb: UK Daily Mail: Ellie Zolfagharifard: Global warming hasn’t stopped, the heat’s just HIDING deep within the Pacific Ocean, claim scientists
    Commenting on the study, Richard Allan, professor of climate science at Britain’s University of Reading, said: ‘These changes are temporarily masking the effects of man-made global warming.’…
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2556008/Global-warming-hasn-t-stopped-heats-just-HIDING-deep-Pacific-Ocean-claim-scientists.html

    10 Feb: BBC: Paul Hudson Blog: UK flooding put in context
    The level of coverage in the media of the resulting flooding across the UK has been virtually unprecedented in the last few weeks…
    COMMENT by Albanaich:
    Perhaps more interesting is the unprecedented snowfall in the Scottish Highlands. . . . which has barely been reported.
    The amount of snow it such that it may form a permanent snow cap this year, so while the rain drowns Southern England Scotland goes into glacier formation.
    Thats the top of the buried Ski lift…
    http://ski.visitscotland.com/conditions/nevis/
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/paulhudson/posts/UK-flooding-put-in-context

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    pat

    10 Feb: USA Today: Wendy Koch: Study: White and green roofs fight global warming
    Painting roofs white or covering them with plants could help fight global warming, but they don’t offer the same bang for the buck everywhere, says a study Monday of six U.S. “megapolitan” regions…
    “Each can completely offset the warming due to urban expansion and can even offset the warming due to greenhouse gas emissions,” says lead author Matei Georgescu, a sustainability scientist at Arizona State University…
    The study, co-authored by three scientists at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, used climate models to look at the potential benefits of cool and green roofs in metropolitan areas that are sprawling into “megapolitan” regions…
    His study, funded by the National Science Foundation, was published in the prestigious Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal.
    “The study is a step in the right direction and is consistent with other studies that suggest that cool roofs can offset localized urban heat island impacts,” says Mark Jacobson, an environmental engineering professor at Stanford University…
    http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/02/10/white-green-roofs-global-warming/5341261/

    1:27 VIDEO (Animated): 10 Feb: NBC: Global Warming Heads to the Supreme Court
    The Supreme Court is hearing a case that tests whether the EPA can regulate greenhouse gases in power plants
    http://www.nbcnews.com/video/nbcnews.com/54336967/

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    pat

    10 Feb: Time: Charlotte Alter: Hollande and Obama Push For Global Climate Change Pact
    Newly single Hollande will visit the White House on his own
    President Obama and French President Francois Hollande called for a binding global agreement to address carbon emissions Monday, and urged the rest of the world to get on board ahead of a 2015 climate conference in Paris.
    In a co-written op-ed published jointly in The Washington Post and Le Monde, the two heads of state pledged to reduce carbon emissions and “expand the clean energy partnerships that create jobs and move us toward low-carbon growth,” with specific focus on helping developing countries embrace low-carbon energy as well…
    The op-ed, which also highlighted economic and military alliances between the U.S. and France, was published as Hollande begins a state visit to the U.S. on Monday, the first official state visit by a French president since 1996, the BBC reports…
    http://world.time.com/2014/02/10/hollande-and-obama-push-for-global-climate-change-pact/

    Washington Post Op-Ed: Obama and Hollande: France and the U.S. enjoy a renewed alliance
    By Barack Obama and François Hollande,
    Barack Obama is president of the United States. François Hollande is president of the French Republic.
    (FINALE) The challenges of our time cannot be wished away. The opportunities of our interconnected world will not simply fall into our laps. The future we seek, as always, must be earned. For more than two centuries, our two peoples have stood together for our mutual freedom. Now we are meeting our responsibilities not just to each other — but to a world that is more secure because our enduring alliance is being made new again.
    http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/obama-and-hollande-france-and-the-us-enjoy-a-renewed-alliance/2014/02/09/039ffd34-91af-11e3-b46a-5a3d0d2130da_story.html

    10 Feb: BBC: Hollande and Obama make joint call for climate accord
    France’s robust military response to threats in Mali and the Central African Republic, its tough stance on Iran’s nuclear programme and Mr Hollande’s willingness to join the US in air strikes on Syria, have vaulted France to a leading position among Washington’s traditional allies…
    He will hope the first full state visit afforded to a French president since 1996 will bolster his dismal poll ratings, says the BBC’s Christian Fraser.
    Mr Hollande’s approval ratings are stuck at barely 20% and doubts persist over his ability to kick-start the French economy…
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-26117455

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    pat

    11 Feb: Andrew Bolt Blog: Matthew England’s strange excuse for only now admitting to the warming Pause
    Reader Nick has since asked England to explain this change of mind since he attacked sceptic Nick Minchin on (ABC’s) Q&A just two years ago…England has now given a bizarre reply:
    “In terms of my comments on Q&A, I stand by them. The key thing is that back then, the observations had not departed from the model projection range. In the past year or two, 2012 average and also 2013, that’s no longer the case. Hence why we did this study. I hope you find the paper interesting, and sorry again for the delays in sending it.”…
    http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/matthew_englands_strange_excuse_for_only_now_admitting_to_the_warming_pause/

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    Peter Pond

    What do trade winds and CAGW theory have in common? “Round and round and round they go; where they stop no-one knows.”

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    Vic G Gallus

    According to England, my cooler works by the fan blowing the heat in the water at the inlet down the pipe back into the mains. Surely a stronger trade wind would mean a cooler ocean and more energy in the upper troposphere, or is my cooler just a placebo effect?

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      Truthseeker

      I am confused, is global warming making the trade winds stronger or weaker?

      If stronger winds are a problem, why don’t we put in a huge battery of wind turbines flosting on the ocean to take energy out of the trade winds. It is a perfect solution, billions can be spent by politicians to use the companies that they own or have investments in to build something that cannot work and will require a massive amount of ongoing maintenance (perpetual pocket lining).

      What’s not to like?

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        Safetyguy66

        The answer to your question depends on which of England’s papers you read and when. But he is always certain, hes just not sure what about.

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    Bob Malloy

    O/T. Tony from Oz may want to comment on this.

    Mark Diesendorf, from the University of NSW, another passenger on the renewable energy gravy train getting free publicity from the fauxfacts press for his new book

    Mark Diesendorf, from the University of NSW, is a name well known to anyone in Australia with a serious interest in renewable energy.

    He has a new book out called Sustainable Energy Solutions for Climate Change (UNSW Press, 352 pages, RRP$54.99). The publisher says the book ‘‘is a call to action on climate change, filled with clear and detailed information on the strategies we need to adopt to ensure a sustainable future for the planet’’.

    Diesendorf and his team are responsible for one of three reports that I am aware of that conclude it is both technically feasible and affordable for Australia to transition to 100per cent renewable energy with current technology.

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    Vic G Gallus

    A comment from Mark D in that Kininmonth article 4 years ago

    The Warmists have always said “the effects of Co2 are well understood”. When you put this ocean information in front of them I’m certain they will either eschew it’s impact on temperature, or develop complicated formulae to “hide the effects”.

    If we just keep saying “at our present level of ignorance” before bragging about how well we understand………

    Almost prophetic.

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      Mark D.

      Vic, thanks for adding “almost”. I don’t need the addition of “prophet” to my resume or C.V.. It scares people. Although, on a grave marker

      Here lies Mark D.: “almost prophetic”

      has a certain appeal. 🙂

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    Say, this is probably just a case of my being a little mischievous.

    You know how, umm, applicants from Universities mainly would, umm, enhance their grant application with the addition of the wording which included the words climate change, climate science etc, and under a green leaning Government, that grant application was virtually assured.

    How about this then.

    Move forwards to a present day grant application which, as always, to ensure the grant is approved, contains those same or similar phrases.

    The reply from the Minister might go something like this.

    Why do you still need this money? I thought you guys said that the umm, science was settled!

    Tony.

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    GregM

    Oceans do not control winds. Basic mechanism driving winds are Earth rotation (coriolis forces) and equator-pole pressure gradient.
    Ocean currents are driven by Earth rotation and winds. Currents cannot drive winds since wind speed is an order of magnitude greater than that of the currents. ENSO and other mostly seasonally dependent air pressure anomalies (weather) do affect winds and currents. But they are mechanisms of secondary order superimposed on the basic mechanism. Saying that oceans drive winds is misleading and basically wrong.

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    GregM

    According to established atmospheric physics, when the planet is relatively warm, the equator-pole pressure gradient should decrease. So warming should make trade winds decrease, not increase.
    Cooling -> strengthening winds, more and worse storms, more bad weather.
    Warming -> weakening winds, less storms, less bad weather.
    Read more at Prof Ole Humlums site
    http://climate4you.com/
    Go to Climate+History and scroll down.

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    bullocky

    6.2.1.6.7

    Philip Shehan
    February 11, 2014 at 8:39 pm

    ‘bullocky,

    “Certainly, the 250 year period of global warming from years 1600 to 1850 wont have many reference points suited to your purpose.”

    If you have reliable global temperature data and CO2 concentration data for the period 1600 to 1850 I would indeed be interested to see it.’


    You’ll just have to cherry-pick what’s available, Phil.

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    […] scientific inquiry. She enjoys the challenge and provides an important forum for voices like expert William Kininmonth, who explains how Pacific trade winds affect climate, something you likely won’t see in your […]

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    Richard M

    No No NO NO!!!

    It’s not wind …………….. it’s

    Wait for it….

    …….volcanoes.

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